#I should see this as a challenge and make progress on my fic before it releases but we live in capitalism lol

[mikelokison]

So Paramount just drops the season 3 trailer in October and expects me to survive until February? Okay

#you can't just throw LORE at me months in advance what am I supposed to do?? #Paramount I have done nothing to survive this kind of treatment #I probably have to wait even longer because I don't have Paramount uhh 💀 #my existence is suffering #I should see this as a challenge and make progress on my fic before it releases but we live in capitalism lol #star trek #star trek picard #picard season 3 #lore soong

[petite-phthora]

Please don't shake the cat

[DP x DC fic]

[Love at first... murder? - part 13]

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Part 1

Ao3

---

Private chat nicknames:

RedHood = Jason

Danny = Danny

---

Private chat

RedHood: *picture*

RedHood: this yours???

---

Seeing the picture of Ellie clamped onto Red Hood’s arm Danny lets out a sigh while rubbing his forehead. He takes a few seconds to look at the picture while deciding on how to reply.

---

Private chat

Danny: you don’t happen to be in Mexico right now by any chance, do you?

RedHood: No.

RedHood: I was out patrolling when I was suddenly bitten by her.

RedHood: Thought it might have been a criminal or stray cat or something like that at first.

RedHood: I was not expecting a feral teenager, but I can’t say this is the first time it’s happened.

Danny: damn, she was supposed to be in Mexico 😕😥

Danny: I guess this is what she was trying to tell me with that cryptic message she sent me huh

Danny: and the stray cat analogy isn’t too far off to be perfectly honest 🤔

RedHood: So you know her?

RedHood: Can you help me get her off? I’ve tried prying but she’s got some sick ass jaw strength.

RedHood: Which would have been pretty cool any other time, but it’s currently not really working in my favor.

Danny: I’m so sorry about her 😓 😓

Danny: we’ve been trying to teach her to ask for consent first

Danny: but it’s still a work in progress 😅

Danny: of course I'll help you get her off!! 😊🙃

RedHood: Great! You’re at your apartment, right?

RedHood: I’ll be there in two shakes.

Danny: please don’t shake the cat 😰

Danny: she’ll get grumpy and might latch on even tighter

Danny: I’ll come to you instead 🙃

Danny: you said you were patrolling, so crime alley, right? 🤔🤔

RedHood: Well, yes, but I doubt you’ll be able to get up where I am right now.

RedHood: Let me at least come down to the ground first and I’ll tell you how to get here.

RedHood: Danny?

---

Jason looks down at his unread messages with a slight frown. He puts his phone away and looks back at the teenager on his arm.

He gives his arm a small shake, causing her to growl at him which immediately makes him stop.

Right… No shaking the cat.

Jason lets out a weary sigh before looking down over the edge of the building to the ground below. He’s trying to think of the best way to get down with only one functional arm when a voice breaks him out of his reverie.

“Hey, Hood. I’m here!”

He turns around, slightly alarmed that there’s a second person who managed to sneak up on him tonight.

Damn, he’s getting rusty

Though from anyone whom he had been expecting to see, he had not been expecting to see the guy he messaged a minute ago standing behind him on the roof.

“How did you get here so quickly? And for that matter, how did you even get up here?” Jason asks confused.

“Oh, I flew” is Danny’s casual response, which gives Jason more questions than have been answered. But before he can decide whether he should bother asking for clarification Danny already moves on to the next topic.

“Anyway, let’s see what we can do about this,” he says, approaching Jason’s arm and the girl that’s hanging off of it.

“Good luck,” Jason says, holding out his arm a little better and watching bemused as Danny and the teen have a stare-down.

“Ellie, what did we say about biting others?”

The teen, Ellie, narrows her eyes and growls at him. Danny just crosses his arms and gives her an unimpressed stare.

“Nah-ah, you have to let him go. We ask before we bite someone. It’s called consent. Don’t make me get Jazz to give you another lecture”

It’s clear to Jason that Danny’s attempt at talking to her isn’t working when the teen proceeds to glance at Jason calculatingly before giving Danny a challenging look and biting down harder.

Apparently, it’s clear to Danny as well, as the next thing he does is let out a put-upon sigh before declaring “Well, I gave you a chance. Guess we’ll have to do this the hard way”

Danny then grabs a hold of her and tries pulling her off of him.

What is his life? Jason thinks as he’s standing there while Danny tries to physically pull the teenage girl, who decided his arm looked like a nice snack, off of him.

Though luckily for him, it seems to work as not a few seconds later Danny has pulled her off of his arm and is now holding the teenage girl with a bloody mouth up by her armpits.

Danny sets her down with a sigh but before he can speak up, the teen crosses her arms and levels Jason with a sharp look that makes him straighten up.

“Thou winneth this round, Red-Helmed Knight of the Night. Though thou should be prepareth, as the upcoming trials will be even more toilsome” Ellie declares while pointing at him, uncaring of the blood on her face.

“And I,” She points a finger back at herself for emphasis, ”Sir Ellie of the Infinite Realms, will—” she gets cut off when a fly enters her mouth.

Danny moves to help her but she holds up a hand to stop him, using her other hand to thump on her chest a few times.

She spits the dislodged fly out onto the floor and glares at it.

“Curse you! Foiling my monologuing once again!” she yells after the fly as it flies off.

Right…

Jason turns to Danny.

“So is she your sister?” he asks curiously. And totally not trying to fish for more information about Danny and his family.

Instead of Danny answering the question though, Ellie cuts him off.

“I’m his love child with the mayor of our town.”

Danny gives her a disgusted look.

“Ellie—”

She looks back at Danny with a shit-eating grin on her face.

Yeah, definitely siblings.

“I love my dads!” she says proudly, her eyes still on Danny.

Danny gives her a deadpan look in response before it changes to a more mischievous one.

“Oh, I’m sure Vlad would love to hear all about how you reclaimed him as a father figure—”

“Oh Ancients, no. Don’t even joke about that” She fake gags at him before turning back to Jason.

“Can I change my answer? I’m his bodyguard” She says, pointing her thumb at Danny.

That makes both Danny and Jason raise an eyebrow at her, though Jason’s can’t be seen through the helmet. They speak up at the same time.

“A bodyguard, huh?”

“No, you’re not, that’s Frighty”

Danny’s statement makes Jason pause and turn to look at him.

He’s got a bodyguard?

Ellie shakes her head happily.

“Nope! I took over the position. My knightly title isn’t just for show, y’know? I earned it fair and square!”

“When did this even happen? And why was I not told?” Danny asks, bewilderment covering his face.

Jason stays silent as he tries to make sense of the conversation.

“About…” Ellie takes a moment to think about it “3 months ago? I think it was when you were dealing with some time chores. And I thought it’d be a nice surprise, so… Surprise!” she exclaims, doing some jazz hands at the end of the sentence.

“What did you even do?”

“I snuck up on him and threw a Fenton Wii remote at his head which knocked him out cold. It counted as a win so I earned the position by right of conquest and gained my knighthood” She says with a shrug.

“Huh… think that would’ve worked for Pariah Dark as well? Would’ve made things so much easier…”

Ellie gives another careless shrug as Danny lets out a small reminiscent sigh. Meanwhile, Jason stands awkwardly to the side.

“Well, either way, I’m proud of you. Do you have a video?”

“Tucker filmed it for me, yeah”

“Nice”

They high-five with grins on their faces. At this point, Jason lets out a small cough which has the Fenton siblings turn around startled and proceed to then give him identical sheepish smiles.

They really look like they could be twins…

“Ah, sorry Red Hood. And again, I’m sorry for Ellie.” Danny says, rubbing the back of his neck with a small blush on his face.

“I’ll take her back home. And uhh… see you next time?”

Jason gives him a smile from under his helmet.

“Sure, if you’re still up for that next date?” Jason trails off with some hope.

His words make Danny’s blush darken.

“Ah uh, yeah! Yeah, of course! The next date! Uhmm, I’ll text you! Or you can text me. That’s fine too!”

Next to him, Ellie rolls her eyes and makes some fake gagging motions. She then grabs Danny by his arm and starts dragging him away.

“Come on, Loverboy. You can and your paramour can flirt later. When I’m not there… and after he’s passed my trials” she says, muttering the latter part low enough that Jason can’t hear. But, judging by the way Danny’s head snaps back to her and how his brows furrow, he did hear.

Just as Jason goes to reply, giving them a thank you and a goodbye of his own, perhaps even an offering to help them get down from the roof, he picks up on movement behind him.

Quickly turning around has him regretting not leaving the rooftop earlier, as he watches the Bats (and birds) land.

Fuck.

---

Taglist:

@i-always-say-yea   @uraniumwizard    @why-must-i-be-like-this   @griffinthing @i23432i @imsotiredfanficlovertm

#dp x dc #dp x dc fic #dpxdc #dcxdp #dc x dp #dp x dc crossover #dead on main #dead on main ship #jason realising danny has fangs + pointy ears + has a way to fly + is pretty cold: :0 vampire! #at this rate jason's gonna think he's the bella swan in this story #gonna be living out his main character in a supernatural ya romance novel dreams #the supernatural part for this 'dream' is new but ehh he doesn't mind #big thansk to sami_the_simple on ao3 for the please don't shake the cat line lol #they said something like that in a comment and i loved it #anyway hopefully i'll be able to update some more soon #but in the meantime i hope you enjoy this chapter :)

[jonesyjonesyjonesy]

Wildflowers (pt. xxii.i)

a john paul jones x fem!oc fic (in progress)

summary: Julia Morgan knew nannying for three girls who had recently lost their mother would come with many challenges. But she never thought their father, the enigmatic musician John Paul Jones, would be causing her the most trouble. And while Julia is not in the business of saving broken men, her tenderness might be meant for more than little girls and wildflowers.

table of contents │ previous chapter

masterlist│ko-fi

notes: drug use, dubcon, attempted sa, violence, blood, nsfw

a/n: it seems unfair on such a beautiful day as this when i have witnessed joh in the flesh to bring you such an angsty chapter, but...here we are. the story, the fluff as we have known it, is about to take a turn. yet another two parter. please be careful with this one.

pt. xxii.i, jack-go-to-bed-at-noon

“'Damn. Julia. Right. Julia. Maureen is…' He laughed. 'She’s dead.'"

“The veins in your eyes. They look like…lightning.”

I pursed my lips.

“Did you know that?” he asked eagerly.

This wasn’t going well. “Lift your arms, John.”

The sheer curiosity in his expression turned into a smirk that would have been playful in a different moment, but for now made my stomach lunge to expel itself through my mouth. “Are you trying to get into my trousers?”

“I’m trying…to get you ready for bed. You need to rest,” I said as calmly as I could though my blood had been absolutely roiling for the past half hour.

John lifted a hand, unsteady like he was under anesthesia. He gripped the collar of my dressing gown and tried to pull me down toward him, but his strength was buffeted by whatever was in his system and his hand plummeted to the mattress. “You really ought to buy a lady dinner first, Maureen.”

I should explain from the beginning, shouldn’t I?

It started with one of John’s nightly phone calls, the ones I’d been surviving off of once again after he returned to Headley Grange after my birthday. Weeks had passed and the girls and me were…surviving would be the best way to put it.

This night’s phone call, this bloody fucking night’s phone call, was out of the ordinary because it was made from a telephone booth.

“I don’t have long,” John said, no, slurred into the receiver.

“You’re drunk,” I remarked with a giggle. Not the first time I’d dealt with him intoxicated or under the influence of some substance on a phone call. Speaking with him in such a state didn’t sit well in my gut, but clouded by the haze of what I thought to be love, I was willing to overlook it.

“Not drunk. Tipsy,” he replied with an obvious smile on his lips.

I had been awaiting his call on the sofa, nodding off several times before the phone finally rang. I was admittedly grateful the call would be short. “And I’m exhausted.”

“Oh, darling,” he cooed. “Of course you are. You should sleep.”

“I was waiting for your call.”

“Did I keep you awake?”

I let out a laugh, shaking low in my chest. “Yes, you dolt. Now say sweet things to make up for it.”

“Ah…let’s see…”

The seconds ticked by.

I lifted myself onto my elbows. “Have you forgotten all the things you like about me?”

“No, no, not at all. I’m trying to decide how to say what I want to say.”

I stared across the room without seeing, heart pounding at the back of my tongue.

“You’ll say I’m being…I don’t know.”

“Say it, John, just say it.”

There was a thunk on the line. John leaning up against the wall of the phone booth or accidentally knocking the phone against the holder. I wondered if he was really so drunk he was swaying back and forth.

“We should tell them, shouldn’t we? They should know.”

I furrowed my brow. “Your bandmates? What on Earth do they have to do with anything?”

“No, no, no, MmmJulia.”

I sat all the way up, my adrenaline pumping, completely erasing my previous desire for sleep.

“When I get home, I’m going to tell the girls. ‘Bout you and me.”

I sucked in my cheeks to hold in a squeal of delight. I wasn’t sure it was warranted. Had to remain coolheaded. Reasonable. “You’re drunk.”

“So?”

“So, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I know what –” He hiccupped. “I know what I’m saying.”

“Mhm. Well, call me in the morning and tell me if you remember, alright?”

“Julia.”

I shut my eyes and pursed my lips. Damn him for the way he said my name like that with such need it made me forget myself.

John breathed harshly into the phone. “I’ll remember.”

I swallowed. “Just because you’ll remember doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.”

“You don’t want me to tell them?” His question was equally taunting and disappointed.

“I didn’t say that, I just don’t know if they’re…” The girls would never be ready. It would never be the right time. Regardless of their affection for me, I was explicitly in their eyes that I was Julia. The nanny. I would not fill the role of “mum”. But stepping into the spot next to John would change that. To tell them that we’ve been pulling the wool over their eyes, doing the things their mother did with their father, hiding behind a moniker.

Children are always smarter than we give them credit for.

I could already imagine the betrayal they’d feel.

“They’re ready,” John said firmly. “They’re – I’m ready.”

But I wasn’t going to argue with that.

“Running out of time, got to go.”

“Be careful.”

“Am. Always. Sleep.”

He hung up without another word. And though my heart throbbed excitedly at the idea that maybe our transformative relationship would transform even further, I couldn’t shake the emptiness I felt looking at the phone in my hand.

Being with John, really with him, would mean taking on all parts of his life. He’d have to take on mine too, but not in the same way. Not when mine was so small in comparison. Not when I had packed away my life to fit into his because it was my job. My duty.

As his employee.

As a woman.

I let my mind rove the place I had never let it go before.

To be with John. That would mean an eventual marriage, wouldn’t it? And an eventual marriage would mean a commitment to caring for his children. Having more, should he be agreeable to it. I would go from nanny to mother.

Ostensibly, nothing should change.

But it would.

Because I had not yet seen the hard parts of a musician’s life. Over those few weeks, John was only a phone call away. If something was wrong, he could make the drive back whatever time of day.

How would I survive with him across the ocean?

How would I survive knowing the kind of man he became when the woman he loved was out of reach?

I spiraled so fast for so long that exhaustion returned quickly. I buried myself in bed, trying to push away all of my questions. I could save those for the light of day. For a sober John.

At least that’s what I thought. What I hoped.

Instead, I woke up to a crunching sound outside. Brittle and hard against my eardrums. I leapt out of bed and hurried to the windows overlooking the driveway, peering through the curtains.

There was a dark blue car I’d never seen parked askew in the driveway, illuminated by the yellow lamplight. In its wake, one of the stone planters was left shattered across the ground, dirt in the tire tracks, flowers smashed up.

I held my breath and watched as the driver got out of the car. Feral haired and bearded.

Richard Cole.

An arm shot out from the passenger window and a bellowing voice cried out, “Ya thick fuckin’ wanker!”

A voice I'd recognize anywhere. The voice of Peter Grant.

Richard growled something in return before slamming his car door and tripping toward the front door.

I leapt into action, afraid that in whatever state he was in it would wake the girls, grabbing my robe and sprinting down the backstairs, past the studio, and into the foyer.

The banging began just seconds before I reached the door. Bang, bang –

“One moment!” I hissed as loud as I could, pulling my robe on to at least be somewhat decent. I threw open the door. “What the hell are you doing here?” I say, tying a defiant knot in my robe sash.

Richard, whose first impression had not been terribly pleasant back in Montreux, had a marked look of fear in his eyes. Rather than being tense at the corners, they were loose and…wide. “John, he’s –he made us come here.”

A jab of unease in my chest. “John.”

“Yes, yes, he’s –”

I pushed past Richard and descended the front steps, paying no mind to my bare feet, set on the backdoor of the car.

Peter emerged just in time to intercept me. “Julia, wait, I need to warn you –”

There was an inconsolable sob from the back of the car, one I had not heard since that night on the kitchen floor when John broke the glass and the world shifted on its axis. “What’s wrong? What happened?” I asked, trying to get past him as my insides did everything to lurch me into the car to get to John as fast as possible.

Peter grabbed my bicep. “Listen to me. It’s all just a bad reaction.”

“Please, please, please –” John begged.

His pain was my pain. All of my nerves trembled, desperation rippling through my muscles. I pulled against Peter. Need to get to him. Need to –

John went on and on. “I need to see her, I need –”

“Let me go,” I snapped at Peter.

John shrieked. I’d never heard a sound like that from a grown man.

But it wasn’t wordless.

It was –

“Maureen!”

My entire body went rigid. I stopped fighting Peter’s strength.

“Julia…” Peter said in a soft tone.

I finally looked up at the giant. I was surprised Peter was capable of such gentleness.

“He does not know what he says,” Peter went on, words clipped and precise.

“He misses her,” I said in a vacant tone.

Peter shook his head. “No, no. He thinks she’s here.”

The crying continued. The begging for her. “What did you do to him?” I asked, trying to buy myself time before I had to face the wailing mess.

“No one did anything –” Richard began to argue.

“Cole, fuck off,” Peter pulled out his Mr. Hyde impression before shifting back to Dr. Jekyll. “You know what it’s like? The drinking and then the pills and –”

I ripped my arm from his touch. “I do not know what it’s like.” Not even my torrid past could have prepared me for this.

Peter huffed, holding his last thread of patience for me. “It’s a bad trip. That’s all. He’s confused.”

“If it’s just a bad trip why did you –”

He grimaced. “He’s been going on like this for hours now. We can’t get him to stop. And we thought seeing you would bring him back. Remind him of the…the reality.”

I looked between Peter and Richard. Their expressions told me everything. They knew. Not only in a Montreux, “Let’s get John laid,” way.

They knew everything. 

Gathering my courage, I pulled away from Peter and Richard, grabbed the car door handle, and pulled it open.

John was splayed out in the seat, head resting in the lap of a man I’d never seen before whose exhaustion with the situation was split with a smile of relief at the sight of me. However, John didn't seem to notice me as he convulsed with full body sobs.

“John?” I said, interrupting the weeping.

It took considerable effort for John to lift himself and look at me. His face was streaked with tears, hair a wreck, and his eyes black as night with the kind of high that takes you low. “Oh. Julia.”

Is that disappointment?

A smile crossed his face. “Juuuulia." He slapped his palm to his forehead, a bubbly guffaw tripping out of his mouth. “It’s Julia, of course it is.”

“We told you we’d take you home,” the man says meekly, voice tinged with an Irish accent.

“Yes, but I didn’t – I forgot –” John wiped his hand down his face and collapsed back into the arms of the small Irishman. His expression looked like it was melting. “Not Maureen. Julia.”

My stomach twisted. I leaned down onto the seat and held out my hand. “John, why don’t we head inside?”

John reached out for my hand, fingers stumbling to interlock with mine.

I pulled while the man pushed until John was sat on the edge of the seat, the soles of his shoes landing against the gravel as if for the first time. He curled forward, his head making him top heavy. I braced his shoulders. “John –”

While his body lacked strength everywhere else, his arms looped around me, right under my backside, his face buried into my belly. He inhaled deeply and then, on the exhale, said again, “Julia.”

If we weren’t being watched, I would have reciprocated the intimacy. Instead, I tucked my hands under his arms and started to lift. “Can you –” I grunted. “Stand?”

“Of course, I can stand,” he mumbled, rising to his feet, dragging his face up the length of my body until I forced him away.

“There you go,” I said with an attempted smile, my hands on his shoulders. “Let’s go upstairs and get you ready for bed, hm?”

He nodded hardily. “Oh yes. Yes, yes –“ He spun on his heel and took a step forward. Immediately, his legs gave out, crumpling beneath him like paper.

“Easy, there,” Peter said, catching John by the upper arm before he fell to the ground.

In Peter’s grip, John looked like a toddler being dragged out of a store for throwing a tantrum. I couldn’t help my revulsion. “Let’s get him inside," Peter ordered, almost nonplussed.

Richard grabbed John from the other side and began to drag him into the house.

I padded behind them, trying to get their attention. “You have to be quiet, the girls are –‘”

“Uh huh.”

“Take him up the backstairs. To my room,” I said, no longer afraid of my lack of propriety.

John’s head bobbed backward.

“Jesus Christ, for a little guy he’s dense, isn’t he?” Richard strained as they dragged John to the door.

“For fuck’s sake.” Peter ripped John from Richard’s grip, a doll rather than a person, and threw him over his shoulder. “Lead me, Cole.”

“Please, just not the main bedroom,” I squeaked, trying to snake past them to lead them where I wanted them to go.

John turned his head against Peter’s back toward me, eyes gleaming. “Juuuuulia.”

I stopped in my tracks and contemplated running in the other direction. That was not John. Not the John I knew. This was his doppelganger. It must have been. Otherwise, this was an alternate personality, one I wasn’t supposed to see.

A part of him I had been blissfully ignorant to.

I watched them go inside, remaining planted in one spot, wishing I could go home.

But home was here.

“Mandrax.”

I turned to find the little Irishman at my elbow. He was rearranging his black locks, palming it flat on his head.

“At least some of it was Mandrax,” he said, dropping his hands at his sides and smiling sympathetically. “Pills. Mix them with alcohol and lord knows what else…”

We both stared through the open door, watching Peter and Richard struggling up the stairs.

“He’ll be fine in the morning,” he offered.

“Yes, but will I?” I said, attempting a joke.

His eyebrows lifted. “That is a question, isn’t it?”

I exhaled through my nose, something like a laugh, but pathetic.

“I’m BP. The boys call me Beep.”

I tried to smile. In better circumstances, I would ask for the rest of his story. But tonight I wasn’t allotted that privilege. “I’m Julia.”

“Mm. Yes, well aware.”

I wondered how aware. Was he aware in passing? By accident? Had John tripped into another realm of consciousness and waxed poetic about me? “Sorry you got roped into this.”

He shrugged. “Happens with them.”

“Fuck’s sake, Cole!” Peter boomed from inside.

My body lurched back into action, into the house and up the main staircase. “You need to be quiet!” I scolded in the loudest whisper I could muster.

Peter turned, halfway in the door of the master, causing John’s head to knock into the doorframe. John whimpered.

“Oh, fucking hell," Richard hissed.

I followed Peter and Richard into the master bedroom and monitored John as he was laid out across the bed. I didn’t even care at that point they hadn’t followed instructions. I just wanted them gone.

“There you go, mate. You’re home now, alright? Nothing to cry over. Julia's right 'ere. She'll take care of you, alright?" Peter said, dusting his hands together. “Julia, hope you don’t mind if we bunk up.”

“Here?!” This was sheer lunacy.

Richard snorted, “No, in the stables. Where else?”

“We can’t make that drive again, not after all this. We’ll be out of your hair in the morning and we’ll take ‘im with us,” Peter explained, jerking his thumb at John.

I glanced at John who seemed nearly catatonic with his eyes trained on the ceiling and his hands bunched up on his chest. He’d be fine for a few moments, I reasoned. “Fine. Follow me.”

I led Richard, Peter, and BP, who lingered in the doorway like a phantom, down the hall to the guest rooms, the doors directly across from the girls’. “I swear to god, if you make any noise at all, I’ll have you drawn and quartered tonight.”

"I'd believe her," Beep muttered.

“Promise, all we need is a place to lay our heads, love,” Peter said, giving me a squeeze on the shoulder.

I threw my hands up in the air. “Just don’t wake the girls and we won’t have a problem.”

I started back down the hallway, leaving them to squabble and figure out who would share a room since there were only two to speak of. Before I slipped into the master, I glared over my shoulder and hushed them once more with narrowed, deathly eyes.

In an instant, the three men disappeared into the guest rooms.

With that settled, I could deal with John.

The room was silent except for his breathing.

It was the first time I got a good look at the room. Everything was spotlessly clean, not a hair out of place. Just a thin coating of dust across the room. And a glass on one of the night stands with a dried up ring of dust in the bottom. The water had completely evaporated.

A chill went through me, imagining who might have put the glass there with the intention to return to it at a later date.

Whether it was Maureen or John didn’t change the tragedy of the object.

John began to hum and swing his legs. He flung one hand through the air. It landed on his belt buckle. “Get these off,” he muttered in discomfort. His hand flopped like a dying fish, unable to grip and twist the leather the way he needed to be able to free himself.

“I’ll help.”

And that’s how we got into the conversation of the veins in my eyes being lightning bolts and the attempt at me getting his shirt up over his head and the flirtations and the…

 “You really ought to buy a lady dinner first, Maureen.”

I ignored him though I strained not to cry. I removed his belt, but didn’t dare touch the closure on his trousers. His arms were slack enough that I was able to pull his jumper up his neck, then work it over his head. When he reemerged, he puffed hair away from his mouth, giggling. “Randy,” he said, unable to form a sentence around it.

“I’m not randy, John,” I say with firmness.

“You’re removing my clothes, M –”

“Julia,” I interrupted. “I’m Julia. Not Maureen.”

John’s lazy eyes crimped open, clarity forming somewhere in the back of his mind. “Damn. Julia. Right. Julia. Maureen is…” He laughed. “She’s dead.”

I wanted to get away from him as fast as possible, but I couldn’t just leave him half dressed in the master. In hindsight, I should have. I tried to tune out his repetition of the word, “Dead,” as if it was a beat to a song rather than a horrible truth as I pulled his undershirt up halfway, revealing his pale navel.

John’s hand slid around my wrist. “Jewwwwwwwwwel.”

I suppressed a smile for the nickname. Auntie Gin’s nickname. “Take it off the rest of the way if you can,” I muttered, then went to root through the dresser for a nightshirt or something to cover him up.

Measured breaths. Clenched muscles. Only a few more moments. He’ll be out soon.

John made sounds of struggle behind me. I didn’t turn despite wanting to help. There was the soft sound of fabric falling to the ground followed by a grunt of relief. “I feel funny.”

“Of course you do. That’s why you need to get some sleep,” I say, grabbing a very wrinkled nightshirt from the drawer.

John was no longer squirming; he looked tossed across the bed like a ragdoll. Breath thick and deep. The only thing that made it clear he was still alive.

I returned to him with the shirt. One more step to victory. John seemed unaffected, staring off at something. A hallucination or a waking sleep. I took this as my opportunity to remove his pants. It took a bit of effort to wiggle them out from beneath his body without his help but not much. My heart plummeted to see his bare legs, the slight of skin where his briefs shrouded his crotch. Because for the first time in a long time, I didn’t want him. The feeling of desire…all drained out of me.

Of course, it’s more than natural not to want someone at all times.

But since Montreux, before then even, all I had done was want. And I had had.

What emptiness would arise if desire was not there to fill it?

I didn’t want to think about it.

“Just the shirt and then you can rest, John, alright?” I said softly.

He cooperated as much as he could. Sitting up took all his might, but once upright, I was able to shimmy the shirt over his head, down his torso. It was long enough to hit midthigh, swallowing up his small frame. And his smallness made me even sadder.

“There you are,” I said. “Ready for bed.”

John started to lean forward. If I dared step away, he would teeter off the edge of the bed and come crashing to the floor. I remained before him, let his forehead clunk against my clavicle.

“You didn’t just pass out, did you?” I asked. My pulse quickened. I grabbed his arms to shake him. “John, you’re awake still aren’t you?”

“Yesssss,” he slurred into my chest. “I’m…” he sighed. “Awake.”

His lips traced my skin with each word, like a baby drooling against my breast and…it endeared me to him. I wish it hadn’t.

I tentatively scraped my fingers through his hair to the back of his scalp and dropped a kiss to the crown of his head. He didn't need my ire. Not right now. In the morning, I'd want him to remember the way I cared for him? Not the anger or disdain.

“Mmm…”

“Julia,” I said firmly. “I’m Julia.”

“MmmmJuuuuuuulia…” John self-corrected.

“Yes, that’s right.”

John’s mouth opened wider, a messy kiss against my skin, spit trailing over my clavicle.

“John…” I admonished. But I did not draw away.

A mistake.

I let him kiss the spot over and over. Juvenile. Inexperienced. Like a barrister’s son in a closet.

Something about it…so nostalgic.

I could have a brief moment of longing. Of realizing how good it was to hold him when I expected another week before he'd be home. Of remembering what he said to me earlier that night on the phone. If I was going to be his and vice versa in not only our eyes but those of the girls…I could do this. I was sure I could do this.

Only a brief moment, though.

Because in one singular moment in time, that delight was eclipsed by pain. Sharp pain, potentially skin splitting.

He bit me.

Teeth sunk into skin, viscous and full of claim.

John fucking bit me.

I yelped out, tried to jerk away, not caring if he tore the flesh off my body. Would be better to lose skin than be cannibalized by a lover.

John wrapped his around me, splayed his hands against my back, overcome by a sudden strength, and pulled me toward him.

“John, let go of me,” I cried out, pushing on his shoulders.

His mouth finally released the patch of skin he’d suckled. He growled. Something. Words I didn’t know, could not hear, did not care about.

I just wanted him to let go.

Something was coursing through him that reversed all the lethargy, something that propelled his strength to a level I’d never known and didn’t know he was capable of. Before I could squirm out of his grasp, John pulled me off my feet and rolled himself over me so we were clumsily pressed together on the bed.

He dragged his mouth across my chest to another open plot of skin.

With an open palm, I pressed his forehead away from me.

He laughed, muttered a garble of my name.

My whole body was hotter than hell as I tried to wriggle myself out from under him, inching further and further onto the bed. But somehow, John’s body had transformed into a lead curtain over me, pinning me to the bed, one of my hands unceremoniously scrunched behind my back.

I could not move. 

And he had all the control.

“John, don’t,” I said through a tense whisper. I could scream. I could shout. But I wondered who would come running first. The men. Or the girls.

I couldn’t risk it being the latter. 

John’s hands slid down my thighs, moving up the fabric until he cupped my bottom and squeezed. Hard. Until it pinched.

I again tried to squirm away. “You’re hurting me!”

“Randy…” he drawled, lifting his head and smiling stupidly.

John launched himself forward, toward my mouth, his hardened erection grinding into my belly, painful from the poor angle.

His teeth gnashed into my lips. I tasted metal in my mouth, blood drawn from a split lip.

I had only a moment to think.

One of us would be the villain in the morning. And I couldn’t bear for it to be John.

I forced my hand onto his chin, cupping it as hard as I could, then pressed him back away from me, enough that he couldn’t snag another kiss.

Our eyes met for a split second and I nearly lost my bravado.

I couldn’t live with myself if I did, though. That’s what I decided in that moment.

I released his chin, wound my open palm back, and slapped him hard in the side of his face, my palm connecting with his cheek and part of his upper lip, and my fingers clipping his nose.

He howled in pain, retreating back onto his knees.

I was released from the vise of his body and yet I felt as though I was moving through molasses as I dragged myself back across the bed to the opposite edge.

John’s hand covered his face, the wince still settled over his eyes.

I waited. A moment. Another. Praying he would find reality again.

Finally, he withdrew his hand to reveal a streak of cherry red blood pouring from his nose and down his chin. Quite literally dripping. Already a few dots blotted the fabric of the bedspread.

I didn’t know I had that kind of strength in me.

John was at a loss for words. Nonplussed, of course, by the mess. But his eyes were filled with that same distress he met me with when he was laid up in the back of the car, jerking back and forth, full of new tears. “I…” he started.

“I told you to stop,” I said icily. “I told you not to.”

He looked down at the bedspread spattered in his blood. It was a lot of blood, enough to give me cause to worry. Except I couldn’t.

Not with terror gripping my body.

What do you do when the man you know shows you the monster you didn’t think existed in him?

John folded his lips together, blood smearing through the creases. “Mm. Mmm.”

I would not, could not sit here and be called his wife’s name. Not after he nearly had the gall to take from me.

I tore up from the bed without another word. The floor traveled beneath my feet, something in control of my body I had never known before, until I had my hand on the cool door knob. It settled my temperature just enough to come back to reality.

“No, no, no,” John was moaning. Movement. Footsteps. “Don’t go. Don’t go.”

I threw open the door and turned to slam it behind me, getting one last glimpse of John to my horror.

His blue eyes were alert to the point I thought they might fall right out of his head. His hair mussed. His face…bloodied. And the fresh nightshirt looked like a smock he’d worn to butcher a pig.

And he was coming toward me.

I did not wait.

I shut it with all my might and held tight to the knob. It jerked and jittered in my hand, scraping my skin. But I didn’t care. The animal was to stay inside the cage. That was my only goal.

John put up a good fight, clawing at the door, desperate to pull it open. On more than one occasion, he managed to pull hard enough to get an inch or two of space for his fingers to slip through. If he could just wrench the door open, he could pull me back inside.

I leaned back, all my weight going into keeping the door shut, and tucked my head between my biceps, praying he’d give up.

Over my heart pounding in my ears came his sounds. “Please, please, please let me out. Please don’t leave me alone.”

A despondent cry shuddered through the door, so loud it vibrated the door knob. A thud against the wood. No doubt the weight of his body giving up. Giving in. The inching slide of his form to the floor. The repetition of the word “please” until it was shrouded by tearful sobs.

I fell to my knees in front of the door, my hand still on the door knob in case I needed to tame the beast again.

John was only an inch away. Weeping.

Not for me.

Not even because of me.

It was all for her.

All the same, I leant my head against the door and listened to him weep, held vigil. I didn’t have vespers for the mass, but I remained there all the same though I could still feel his fingers dimpling my thighs though I’d said “don’t”.

“What did I do wrong? What did I do? Why did you leave?”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated over and over to every question until eventually not a single question was left.

All that remained was soft, hollow breathing on the other side of the door.

"Go to bed, John," I said hoarsely, trying to smile so my voice sounded soothing. "It will all be better in the morning. Alright?"

There was no answer.

"John?"

Nothing. I thanked the lord he was probably asleep.

I dropped my hand from the door knob. My muscles and bones ached from keeping the position for so long.

“Julia.”

I jumped at the sound of the small voice. I turned to find Tamara in the hallway outside her door, her ruddy hair all askew.

“What’s wrong? Why are you up?”

She rolled her hands in the front of her nightgown. “What’s going on?”

I forced a smile. “Nothi—”

Something thumped against the door to the bedroom. Someone. A final rallying cry.

I grabbed the door knob again just to be sure.

“Who’s in there?” Tamara asked, her eyes widening with fear.

“No one,” I said without thinking. “Don’t…worry, alright?”

Children know more than you give them credit for. They are also children. And sometimes, though it hurts, the children must be lied to.

“Go back to bed,” I said. “Everything is fine.”

Though the hallway was dim, I could see her eyebrows knit together. Her eyes flicked from me to the door and back again. Then, she nodded and did as she was told, disappearing into the other room in an instant.

I sat with my back to the door and closed my eyes. It had started with a drunken promise. One that might break my heart, yes, but a break so minor compared to this.

Lifting a hand to my chest, I carefully slid my fingers along the inflamed bite mark.

The depressions made by his teeth remained.

tag list: @jimmys-zeppelin, @kari-12-10, @grxtsch, @ritacaroline, @kyunisixx, @salixfragilis, @jimmypages, @dollyvandal, @cassiana-on-dark-side, @faisonsunreve, @sastrugie, @seventieswhore, @mayspringcome, @barrettavenue, @foreverandadaydarling, @glimmerofsanity, @montereypopgroupie, @lzep, @jimmysdragonsuit13, @n0quart3r, @larsgoingtomars, @paginate54, @leveeisbreaking, @callmethehunter (let me know if you’d like to be added 💋)

#thank you em for the feedback that was so good i could cry #john paul jones #led zeppelin #wildflowers #john paul jones x oc #wf #jjj

[sirowsky-stories]

Collision

Description: A bad evening turns into a horrendous night when an accident threatens to rob Pero of the one friend he really has. But not everything is as it seems, and over the course of just one day, his life is turned upside down.

Warnings: Pero Tovar x OFC, no reader insert, Pero's pov, car-crash, hospital scenes, accidental pregnancy, cursing, angst, reference to smut, friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, secret identity, AU fic. Rating: Mature/Explicit 18+ONLY Word Count: 6400 Series Masterlist

Author's Note: I can't leave this man alone. I have no idea what this might turn into, it was just an idea for the Pedrostories 1k Celebration and I ran with it. So let me know if you want to read more about these guys. And thank you to the wonderful people behind @pedrostories ! You do amazing things for this fandom <3

-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-

   He doesn’t hate her. That’s as much as he can be sure of when it starts. She’s interesting, different from most other women he’s met, especially in how she never asks him for anything. She shows up when she needs him physically, just like he does with her, and that’s as far as it goes.    And in that sense, she’s perfect. She takes what she needs and allows him to do the same, and it works. They work.

   Until the day it all goes to Shitville.

   “Please, just listen to me!” she yells, trying to be heard over his endless growling and spitting, but he is as far from a listening mood as he’s ever been.

   “Get the fuck out of my house!” he yells back, unable to even be around her in that moment.

   He actually tries to walk away from her even though he’s in his own home. But she doesn’t let him, following him through the hall towards his bedroom, where he stops before crossing the threshold, whirling towards her to try and get rid of her.

   “I’m not doing this, Niki!”

   “No, you already did!” she fires back. “It’s not like I can make a fucking baby on my own!”

   “And why should I believe that its mine? Hm?” he challenges, and sees her eyes shift from anger to something colder.

   He’s about to cross a line and he knows it. He knows that she doesn’t give herself to anyone else, she’s not trusting enough for that. It had taken two years before she’d even let Tovar anywhere near her body.    But he doesn’t want this. Just the thought scares him worse than anything ever has. Badly enough that he can’t even have a conversation about it.

   “We’re not together, you could’ve been with a hundred guys for all I know!” he presses, fully aware that he’s way out of line, but too riled up to stop himself.

   Niki, meanwhile, is too stunned to speak. She just stands there, staring up at him in disbelief, no doubt trying to understand why he’s being so cruel when this isn’t her fault.

   “Get the fuck out,” he repeats, low and menacing, making her shiver and step back.

   She’s always known that he has a bad side, she’s seen it more times than most people around him. But she’s never seen it aimed at her before.    The one reason why she had eventually decided to trust him with her pleasure, is precisely that he’s always allowed her to see those parts of him. That he’s honest, even about the things he finds ugly in himself. And that’s why she also believes him now.

   He can see the moment in which that trust crumbles to pieces. Five years of progress, undone by something that is still, no matter how much he wants to deny it, not her fault.    She grants him his wish, and leaves without another word, while tears break the dam of her lower eyelids, spilling down her cheeks in softly sparkling streams. And he wants to wipe them away, to wipe this whole fucking mess away, but he can’t.

-=¤=-

   The ringing wakes him in the small hours of the night, tearing him out of a hazy dream filled with strange lights and ominous shadows, no doubt brought on by the bottle of whisky he’d all but gulped down in his efforts to silence the guilt and allow him to rest.    It’s an unknown number. He never answers unknown numbers, so he mutes the call and tries to go back to sleep.

   But it rings again. And again.

   “I’m trying to sleep, stop fucking calling!” he snarls instead of a greeting, when he finally answers to try and shut the caller up so he can get some sleep.

   “Sir, I’m calling from the County Hospital, I need to know if I’m speaking with Pero Tovar?” the male voice on the other end replies, and he sobers up slightly.

   Why would anyone from a hospital be calling him? The last time he’d gotten hurt had been over a year ago, and there wouldn’t be any follow up to that this long after. Especially not in the middle of the night.

   “Yes, this is him,” he says, considerably less confrontational.

   “Mr. Tovar, my name is Frank and I’m a registered nurse at the County ER. We have a patient here named Nikita Morse and yours is the only name listed as her emergency contact in the ICE information on her phone,” the man answers, and something cold and terrible shoots through Pero’s blood over the two seconds that it takes for him to absorb what he’s heard.

   “Is… Is she-…” he tries, needing to know if she’s alive, but he can’t get the word out. “What happened?” he asks instead.

   “A car accident. As I understand it, Ms. Morse wasn’t responsible, but I’m afraid that it was a severe impact, sir,” the nurse explains, and when Pero still doesn’t reply, he continues. “You should know that she’s alive, but her condition is critical.    You might wanna get down here, sir.”

   “Right…” he answers in a daze, and then hangs up the phone.

   He has never once imagined that she might get hurt. It hasn’t crossed his mind, because he’s never thought of her like that. Like someone he should care about in that way or to that extent. He’s never thought that he does.    Niki is a friend, sure, but a fuck-friend more than anything else. She isn’t someone that he hangs out with socially in the classic sense.

   They don’t have dinners or go to the movies or pubs or anywhere together. They meet up, have sex, and then part ways. Usually without even talking much and never staying the night. It’s simple and that’s why it works. Because there aren’t any feelings involved.    Or so he thought.

   He sits up on the side of the bed, holding his own head for a minute to try and stop the throbbing in his temples. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the alcohol or the shock, he just knows that it fucking hurts and he wants it to stop.    He doesn’t want to care. Caring is so complicated.    But she’s hurt, once again to no fault of her own, and he can’t just leave her there alone.

   She doesn’t have anyone, and neither does he. She doesn’t know how to trust people, and he doesn’t want to. They’re both each other’s exception. That’s why they work.

   He gets dressed and splashes cold water on his face. Not to sober up, the call took care of that, but to make sure that this isn’t a dream. He wishes that it was, so he’s disappointed when the water doesn’t jolt him awake.    Even with the keys rattling in his hand, he almost forgets to lock the door. The drive passes in a blur while his thoughts erratically jump between memories and imagined scenarios, his fears creating haunting images before his eyes.

   Parking is free outside the emergency room, but he wouldn’t have remembered to feed a meter regardless.    He gives his name at the front desk and is shown to a smaller waiting room further into the building, reserved for friends and family of patients in intensive care. It’s empty when he walks in. No other patients are as bad as Niki tonight.

   It takes thirty minutes before the door opens and a woman enters, closing it behind her.

   “Mr. Tovar?” she asks, and he nods, feeling his throat go dry at the blank expression on her face. “My name is Penelope Jackson and I’m one of the doctors who worked on Ms. Morse when she was first brought in.”

   The room is small enough that it only fits eight chairs. Three along the far wall, two on each side and one beside the door. He’s sitting on the first seat along the left-hand side wall, and she takes a seat in the single chair by the door, putting her at a ninety-degree angle to him.

   “I’m gonna be frank with you, sir. The accident was bad, and her injuries are severe. She’s already been in surgery for three hours,” she begins, and he feels himself restlessly looking for something to busy his hands with. “But she’s fighting. The surgeon who’s working on her right now says that she’s remarkably stabile, considering her injuries, so she clearly wants to live, and that’s half the battle.”

   He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even know what he’s feeling or thinking, let alone how to express any of it.

   “I’m sorry that it took us so long to call you. She had no ID on her when she arrived, and it took the police a while to find her purse and phone. They got thrown out of the car by the force of the impact.”

   An image of contorted metal and a broken body in a driver’s seat unbiddenly flashes before his eyes, and he closes them against the disturbing picture.

   “May I ask how you know her, Mr. Tovar?” Penelope inquires softly, but he doesn’t know how to respond.

   The memories of how they met replace the disturbing image in his mind. The in-house mechanic who had come to fix his forklift when it had broken down in the middle of his shift at the warehouse. The way their short conversation hadn’t felt uncomfortable even once. The rare smile that her careful attempt at a joke had put on his lips.    She’d told him later that she’d never felt so instantly secure around another person before that day.

   “We work together,” he finally says, rubbing his face against his palms to try and scrub the mental pictures from his view.

   Happy memories don’t seem to fit into this scenario.    Doctor Jackson doesn’t look surprised to hear that his relationship with her patient isn’t closer than that. Obviously, it is, but he can’t find the words to talk about that with a stranger. However tolerant she might be, he doesn’t want this woman to judge them, and anyway, their relationship, however unusual or strange, is their own business.

   “Do you know if she has any allergies or pre-existing medical conditions?” the doctor asks then, and he answers without looking up at her.

   “Isn’t that in her records?”

   “She doesn’t have any,” Penelope replies, and he snaps his head up to meet her eyes.

   “What are you talking about? She broke her collarbone eight years ago. She fell off a horse and broke her left arm and four ribs down her left side a year after that.    Of course, she has records, those things didn’t heal of their own.”

   “We did notice those scars, among others, but her treatment must’ve been at a private medical facility, because we can’t find any records of her anywhere in the country.”

   No… that makes no sense. To his knowledge, Niki isn’t and never has been anywhere near wealthy enough to afford private care. But the doctor has no reason to lie about it.    There’s no way for him to figure this out right here and now, though, so he refocuses on her question. Although, he only knows of one medical issue that’s relevant to the current situation.

   “Did you notice that she’s pregnant?” he asks quietly, as if just saying it out loud might make it more real somehow.

   It feels like it does.

   “Yes. A woman of fertile age being brought in without records or next of kin, we’re gonna try and learn as much as we can about before we send her down to surgery. Pregnancy is one of the first things we check in that situation.    She’s about six weeks along. Is the child yours?”

   He can’t say it out loud, so he merely nods again. But he knows that it’s true. No matter what he’d said to her last night, he damned well knows.

   “For the time being, the fetus is alive, but I’m sorry to say that there are no guarantees. If she makes it through this, the healing is gonna take time and a lot of energy, and her body might not be able to do both,” the doctor says, and she sounds genuinely sad now.

   Pero doesn’t know how he feels about this. He can’t tell if he’s sad or angry or worried. It’s just too much.    He wants Niki to survive. But beyond that…

   “We’ll let you know as soon as anything changes, okay?” Jackson offers, and again, he nods, unable to do anything but exist for the time being.

   Unfortunately, as she steps out, the police walk in, and he instantly wants to tell them to fuck off so that he can have one god damned minute to try and think.    His brain is a beehive, and the queen isn’t letting him think for himself. It’s just loud and incomprehensible and he wants to scream, if only to drown it out for a single second.    Instead, he sighs deeply and runs both palms over the sides of his neck, before leaning back and letting his hands come to rest in his lap.

   “Mr. Tovar?” the younger male officer asks while he and his partner, a middle-aged woman, take a seat opposite him.

   “Yeah.”

   “I’m detective Burns and this is my partner, detective Winson. We’ve been assigned to Ms. Morse’s case, and we’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s alright?”

   What a stupid question. What is he supposed to say? No?    But they’re waiting for an answer, so the question apparently wasn’t just for show.

   “Okay.”

   “How long have you known her?” the man starts, taking out a notepad in the meantime.

   “A little over five years. She’s a truck-mechanic at the warehouse where I work.”

   “Do you know if she has any family?”

   “She hasn’t mentioned anyone.”

   “What about friends?”

   “So far as I know, just me,” Pero shrugs, but both the detectives seem to find that answer interesting.

   “You’ve known her for five years, but you have no idea what other people might be in her life at all?” the woman chips in, and he drops his gaze to the floor.

   “We’re not… close. Not like that,” he admits, for the first time feeling ashamed of the fact that he really doesn’t know the one person in his life that he calls a friend.

   “Like what, then?” the man presses, and Tovar nervously scratches at his own palms.

   “We don’t talk much, we just… hook up.”

   He doesn’t want to see their judgement, but he glances up anyway, to make sure that they understand what he’s saying. Unexpectedly, he’s met by indifference from them both, which actually sets him at ease.

   “I see. So, you wouldn’t have noticed any suspicious activities around her?” detective Burns asks, thereby shifting Pero’s entire perspective on the events which have put him in this room tonight.

   “Suspicious activities?” he asks, wanting to know if they’re referring to Niki doing something questionable, or someone else acting dubiously towards her.

   “Any faces that kept popping up around her, cars that seemed to show up wherever she did… that kind of stuff.”

   “You think someone was following her?” he wonders, and the thought makes him feel sick.

   But it also makes him think back on what the nurse on the phone had said.

   “Wait… the accident wasn’t her fault, right? Did someone hit her on purpose, is that what this is about? Is someone trying to kill Niki?” he demands, feeling anger begin to take hold of his senses.

   Anger is less crippling than care and much easier than pain, so he clings to it, hoping that it’ll give him a place to put all the shit that he doesn’t know what to do with. And more than that, if there really is a human being who is responsible for this, that gives him someone to blame. Someone to hurt.    But the policemen remain guarded.

   “That’s what we’re trying to figure out, sir,” detective Winson takes over. “Do you know anything about her past? Her hometown, school, sports or social activities that she took part in? Her interests or hobbies?”

   “No. All I know is that she likes horses and dogs. And Chinese food.”

   And me. He doesn’t say it, but he feels certain that Niki likes him.    He doesn’t know how much she cares about him, maybe not at all, but he thinks so. He thinks that that’s why she sticks to their unspoken arrangement without fail. Because he’s all she’s got, which means that he’s probably the only one she really cares about. Enough to make sure that she’ll never lose him.

   How horrible it must’ve been, then. To come to his house with the news of the baby, knowing that it would likely tear everything apart.    Sitting there with the police, and his only friend on an operating table somewhere beneath his feet, he suddenly wonders what would’ve happened if he hadn’t thrown her out. If he’d had the courage to talk to her.

   Would she have been safe right now?

   “Alright, I’m gonna level with you here, Mr. Tovar, because you seem like the kinda guy that might go off and do something stupid with the wrong sort of idea in your head,” Winson continues, bringing him back to the moment.

   He doesn’t like her tone, though. There’s something unsettling about it. He can’t tell what exactly, but it feels like this woman might be a problem waiting to happen.    He hopes that he’s imagining it.

   “Obviously, we haven’t had time to really investigate much yet, but the first step of any case is to learn more about the people involved. And since the other driver fled the scene, Ms. Morse is the only person that we have available to us, so that’s where we’ve focused our efforts so far.    However, our initial look at her has already created quite a few question marks,” she explains, and the unsettling feeling in his gut intensifies.

   “About what?” he asks, finding himself getting almost desperate to learn more about Niki, the one thing he has never wanted before today.

   “Well, for starters, her personal file indicates that she’s attended public school in New York, with stellar grades and commendations from her teachers, before being accepted to MIT, where she studied mechanical engineering and graduated with honors.    Quite a good start to life, wouldn’t you say?”

   “Sure,” he shrugs, because while he knows that MIT is considered a prestigious school, academia has never interested or impressed him.

   “Most people would agree. So, why then did she completely disappear after that?” the detective wonders, clearly not expecting him to have an answer as she carries on. “From the day she graduated, more than fifteen years ago, right up until she was hired by her current employer nearly six years ago, there’s no record of her at all.    She’d never leased an apartment or bought a house, never had a membership card to anything, never bought a car, never traveled abroad because she’d never had a passport made.    Then, six years ago, she pops back up here. She buys a car, rents an apartment and gets hired by your employer, all in the same day.”

   Shit. Those are all pretty good examples of “suspicious activities”.

   “Okay… What does that mean?” he asks, playing dumb, because he’s already got a few guesses of his own.

   But he wants to know as much about where their heads are at as he can, and in which direction that they might be about to take this investigation.

   “We don’t know yet. It’s been five hours since the crash and all we do know at this point, is that your friend’s past has a big hole in it. Which also means that we can’t be certain about anything concerning the accident.”

   “So, what? You think that she could’ve done this to herself?”

   “No, another car obviously hit her. But since this was a hit-and-run, we don’t know what happened or why.    And until I know what’s going on with Ms. Morse, I’m not ruling anything out.”

-=¤=-

   It takes another two hours of surgery before she’s taken off the table and brought to the ICU, where he’s allowed to see her for a few minutes.    She looks… wrong. Her eyelids are too heavy, her body too limp. The color of her skin is off. He’s never seen her sleeping, but it looks more like she’s already dead rather than asleep.    He’s been informed that her spleen, stomach and left lung has suffered damage, and that they’ve had to repair a tear in the wall of her heart. It all sounds so bad.

   Her right arm is in a cast and there’s a thick bandage on her right thigh, where a large gash has been torn through the skin by either metal or plastic broken off from the center console of the car. Her face is covered in both smaller and larger cuts, some of whom have needed stiches, others that are just taped or glued.    She has a concussion, but miraculously, her brain hasn’t swelled. Not yet anyway.    They say that she shouldn’t be alive, but she is.

   He doesn’t know what to say as he stands there beside her while nurses make sure that she’s properly connected to all the machines around her and that the pillows which support her injured arm and leg, won’t cause her any discomfort.    She’s all he has, and yet he can’t find the words to tell her that. To ask her to keep fighting just so that he doesn’t have to lose her.

   So much of her is broken and cut up that he doesn’t dare to touch her either, afraid that he might hurt her even with something as simple as a brush of his fingertips.    He just stands there, staring at her as if he could wake her up by sheer willpower.

   “Her left hand is undamaged,” one of the nurses says, in a voice which is so genuinely warm and caring that it almost makes him cry.

   He’s not even sure why. Perhaps just from the knowledge that truly kind people still exist. Or maybe it’s just plain and simple gratitude.    But he doesn’t cry, nor does he take Niki’s left hand. He turns and then walks out of the ICU and out of the hospital, back to his car.    Once behind the wheel, he just sits there for a minute, breathing hard against the internal distress which plagues him.

   He doesn’t know how to handle this.    He shouldn’t leave. But he does.

   The accident took place somewhere on her route home from visiting him, so he traces it, looking for the scene, not even sure why he wants to see it.    He couldn’t have missed it if he’d tried. The rescue vehicles have left, but the police are still there, and the entire scene is cordoned off while the CSI team works.    It looks like a bomb went off.

   There’s debris everywhere. And not just shattered glass and pieces of the body of the car. Engine parts, entire sections of the exhaust system, things from the boot of her SUV have been thrown as much as a hundred feet from the actual point of impact.    The car itself is unrecognizable, standing against a broken lamppost on the wrong side of the road. They’d had to cut the roof off to get to her, but the entire frame of the car is curved in the middle, where the other vehicle ran straight into it.

   The side airbags saved her life, but if the point of contact between the two cars had been just one foot further towards the front of Niki’s car, her body would’ve taken the entire force of the impact. She could never have survived that. Which had undoubtedly been the intent.    Now that he sees it, Pero is convinced that this crash happened on purpose. There’s no redlight, which means no cameras, and the speed limit of the road wouldn’t have enabled a crash this severe.

   He can see how it had happened. Niki is a responsible driver; she obeys the law and is always focused on the task of driving. She had right of way and even if she hadn’t slowed, she would still have checked both directions as she came into the intersection.    The other car would’ve had to be coming at her so fast in between the buildings to the left, that even if she had seen it, she wouldn’t have had time to swerve or even react.

   But why would someone want a simple mechanic dead?

   Clearly, Pero doesn’t know her, he’s never made much effort to, so it’s possible that those nine years in which no one seems to know where she was or what she was doing, she could’ve lived a different life. Perhaps one which made her some enemies.    He doesn’t know her, but now he needs to. He needs to understand this. Because whatever happens next, the events of this night have changed things.

   He doesn’t have any other friends, but he knows some people. People who can help him dig up some information. So, he leaves the crash-site and heads across town.    It’s not even 5 am yet, but the man he needs to see is already up, he’s sure of it. The guy rarely sleeps more than four hours a night, courtesy of PTSD from his time in Afghanistan.    And sure enough, the door opens just seconds after he knocks, and a pair of wide awake, crisp blue eyes seek him out.

   “Tovar… Long time no see.”

   “Hey, Will,” he nods, just as the man takes in the state of him.

   “The fuck happened to you?”

   “Shit. Shit happened,” he deadpans, and then sighs heavily and rubs his forehead for a moment. “I need you to help me find something.”

   The man deliberates for a few beats, hearing that. There’s water under the bridge between them, lots of it, but he knows Pero well enough to know that he only ever asks for help when something is seriously wrong.

   “Yeah, alright,” he finally decides, letting go of the door and turning to head back into his house, knowing that his guest will follow.

   They walk into the kitchen where his host prepares coffee for them both, before they take a seat at the table.    Will might be a war veteran, but he’s better off than most. After his service, he started up a private company which he can manage from home, and which keeps him in good financial order. The house isn’t particularly fancy, but if one looks around, there are items in there which seem too pricy for someone like him to afford.

   Such as a top brand coffee maker. The type that can use those little capsules for each cup, or grind beans to the drinker’s preference.    Further into the house, there’s a computer system which would make NASA envious, where he does all of his work, primarily consisting of background checks, which anyone can hire him to do, entirely legally.    But his skillset is much more extensive than that.

   “So, who am I looking at?” he asks once they’re settled.

   “Her name is Nikita Morse. She works at OffSup too, but she’s a mechanic,” Pero explains, hoping that there won’t be too many follow-up questions.

   “And why am I looking at her?”

   “Because I think someone’s trying to kill her, and it seems to have something to with a nine-year period when the police can’t find any records of her.”

   “Okay. But why am I looking at her?” Will repeats, obviously referring to why his guest has taken an interest in this person at all.

   He doesn’t want to talk to anyone about Niki, and least of all someone who might ridicule him for it, but the man won’t help him unless he answers his questions.

   “She’s a friend,” is all he says, hoping it’ll be enough.

   “You don’t have friends.”

   “She’s the exception.”

   William thinks on that for a moment, studying his guest closely over the rim of his coffee cup while he takes another sip.    He knows that Tovar deliberately avoids making friends with people, and he knows why. So, he has every reason not to believe him.

   “You fucking her?” the man asks, and he damned near throws his coffee at him.

   He doesn’t need to know that. He’s only asking as a way to gauge his guest’s honesty on the subject, which might determine whether or not he agrees to look into it.

   “Yes,” Pero begrudgingly admits through tight jaws, daring the man to try and pry any further, but he wisely decides not to.

   “So, what’s happened to bring you to my door?”

   “There was an accident and now the police are looking into her life, and I got the feeling that they want to find something incriminating about her.    But that might just be how my fucked-up brain interpreted a strained situation… I don’t know,” he offers, hoping that by being a bit more open, Will might feel somewhat more cooperative.

   “You think they’re looking for a scapegoat? For an accident?”

   “It wasn’t an accident. Like I said, there’s stuff in her past that doesn’t add up and I need to know what the hell it is before the cops find out, or I’ll have no chance to protect her.”

   “You actually care about this woman?” his host asks, but with contempt more than incredulity, which makes Pero decide that the conversation is over.

   “Please, just look into it,” he says, before standing and heading for the door, leaving his empty cup on the table.

   On his way back to his house for a shower and some breakfast, and more coffee so that he’ll be able to think rather than just stay awake, it occurs to him that she might not be safe at the hospital either.    Whoever it was that had hit her car, they must’ve left thinking or at least hoping that she’d died, so once they learn that she’s still alive, there’s every chance that they might try to silence her again.

   The thought worries him. But so long as she’s in the ICU she should be safe. There’s too much staff there all the time for any unfamiliar face to slip past. The nurses all know each other and the entire support-staff by name, they have eyes on the patients constantly and because of the very limited timeframes in which loved ones are allowed to visit, they keep track of everyone who comes and goes.

   But his hair is still wet when he returns to the ward, with a thermos mug in his hand since he’d opted to eat in the car on the way instead and has yet to finish the giant espresso that he’d made for himself.    He registers with the nurse at the front desk of the ICU. The nametag on his chest says “Frank”.

   “Sorry about before,” Pero apologizes, to which the nurse looks puzzled, so he adds: “I screamed at you on the phone.”

   “Oh, that’s alright. Most people dislike being called in the middle of the night. But thank you,” Frank replies with practiced ease, no doubt used to verbal abuse on the job. “Nikita’s doing better, so if you like, you can stay with her for a bit.”

   He’s surprised to hear that. It’s only been a couple of hours since she came out of surgery, after all. But it’s good news. And he’s in dire need of good news.

   “Thanks,” he says and then walks over to the third slot where her specialized bed is parked in the middle of an array of machinery, and a blue sheet is all that separates her from the other slots.

   There are four in total, but only one of the others is in use for the time being. Which means that the ward is pretty quiet that morning. The staff is working on computers, writing in charts and quietly talking amongst themselves.    As he sits there, watching Niki fight for every breath, he listens closely to everything around him, trying to learn the noise of the hospital so that he’ll know if something changes.

   But soon enough, looking at her takes hold of his entire focus. She’s so fragile. Breathing on her own but otherwise motionless, in that way that only dead things are motionless. Stationary. Static.    It makes him want to shake her. To provoke some form of a reaction, even just a flutter of her eyelids. But he knows that he can’t.

   He closes his eyes against the uncanny stillness, preferring even the darkness to the visible evidence of her torment. But it isn’t darkness that meets him when the image before him falls away. Instead, the memory of their first time together pops up in his mind.    She had asked him if she could come over for a drink that night, but he’d known as soon as she’d spoken what she’d really meant by that. The words might have concealed her true motives, but her face and body had not.

   She’d walked into his house that evening with a hunger in her eyes. He’d offered her a beer and after just one swig, she’d stepped closer to him, eyeing his lips and licking her own.    The kiss had been chaste. Brief and tentative, like a person about to take a bath, putting their fingers in the water first, to check the temperature. But they’d both wanted more, and they’d both asked for it, with everything except words.

   Her hands had been demanding on his hips, craving friction, and he’d given it to her. She’d been so brave that night, letting him explore her skin, learn her desires and soft spots, her cravings and pleasures. And in turn, he’d shown her his.    In just a couple of hours, they’d learned more about each other than they had in the two years leading up to it.

   He has never failed to make her come. She looks so beautiful when she climaxes that he would never settle for less than getting to see it at least once each time.    She never fails to make him feel complete. More than just satisfied, he feels proud and grateful when she reaches for him. When she tells him how much she loves what he does to her, even when he does his damnedest to tease and frustrate her.    Even when he’s in a mood and needs to take before he can give.

   Those are the only times that he feels ashamed. The only times he worries that she might not let him touch her again. He’s rough when he gets like that, but he never wants to hurt her, or make her scream.    He’s never told her that, but she still knows it. She knows what he feels better than he does himself, but she never tries to teach him how to better understand himself. If that was something he wanted, she assumes that he’d ask for it.

   He opens his eyes again, leaving behind the soft shimmer of the sweat on her skin after she’d come undone for him that first time, within his mind’s eye where nothing can ever destroy it.    He returns to the ICU. Her skin is too dry here, in the air-condition.

   “Good morning, Mr. Tovar,” a familiar voice says to his right, and he looks up to find Doctor Jackson coming to a stop beside him. “I see you’ve been through a shower. Or did you just stick your head in the sprinklers outside?”

   His hair is still not dry. He runs a hand through it to try and get some more air into it.

   “Went home for a bit,” he answers, and she hums in agreement.

   “Good. Don’t forget to take care of yourself too. But anyway, I just wanted to let you know that my shift is over now, and that Doctor Leo will be replacing me for the dayshift. He’ll be coming by in a while to check on her.”

   “How is she?” he asks, hoping to hear that the doc can read something out of all those monitors that he can’t, and that Niki is still improving.

   “You know, throughout all of this, her heart has never faltered,” Penelope says, and there’s admiration in her voice. “Even when she was first brought in, broken and shocked and having lost so much blood, her heart drummed steady and firm.    That’s what convinces me that she’s gonna make it. The machines tell me that her vital signs are good, but I don’t trust them even half as much as a person’s heart.”

   She squeezes his shoulder gently, and then leaves, but her words stay with him. He likes those words. They give him peace of mind.

   A little while later, a nurse he hasn’t met before, another dayshift replacement, approaches him and tells him that he has to leave for a while. He doesn’t protest. But he doesn’t step any further away than that he can still see everyone who walks into her slot.    Doctors and nurses walk in and out, the sheet is pulled back and forth in between procedures and cleaning routines for her wounds, new IV bags are placed. Everything is fine.

   Until he walks in.    Pero knows the moment he sees him, stepping into the ward and stopping to survey the area, that he doesn’t belong. He’s too calm. Practiced sort of calm.    The ICU is a place of distress, either internal or external, but both are visible in all the people who wander around in there, save for the staff.

   This man isn’t here to meet a loved one, he’s here to work. But if he was part of the staff, he wouldn’t need to orient himself in the environment. He wouldn’t stop just inside the door, he’d go to his colleagues, or find the locker rooms and get changed.    Tovar watches him as he locates Niki, stares at her as though she was little more than a sheet of paper, and then turns around and leaves.

   She’s not safe here anymore. But how the fuck is he supposed to get her out of here in her state? Where does one even hide an intensive care patient?

-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-

Part 2

Thank you for reading, and remember: I have no taglist anymore. Follow @sirowsky-stories and turn on notifications for updates on my writing :)

#pedrostories1k #pero tovar fanfiction #pero tovar x original female character #pero tovar x ofc #modern!au #the great wall fanfiction #the great wall au #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fanfiction #sirowsky stories

[toomanyplotbunnies-sendhelp]

Hello and welcome to Day 5 of "Let's Explore My Plot Bunnies"

Do you know that moment when you hear an opening from a childhood TV show that you were obsessed with before and your brain is like, "But what if you combine this with this and make it into a fanfic idea?". Cause this is how my brain came up with a Mo Dao Zu Shi Pokemon AU. (The Diamond and Pearl Openings are still my jam to this day)

The AU is not fully detailed in my head (yet), but I came up with two versions for it, so I will just write down some details I already have for both versions:

Ver.1

Edit: As of February 6th, this has a title : "Some roads are not meant to be traveled alone"

Wei Wuxian is a new Pokemon Trainer that just started his journey with his partner Vulpix (Kantonian)

Lan Wangji is a more seasoned Pokemon Trainer (he has been on a journey for at least 2 years) and has an Alolan Vulpix as a partner.

The two meet in Kalos, more specifically in Lumiouse City. WWX wanted to see if he could start challenging the Gyms right away, and his Vulpix got a bit too excited and ran off and got lost.

Lan Wangji is in Lumiouse City for a vacation rather than to start a new journey. His Vulpix is the one that finds WWX's Vulpix. Seeing that the Kantonian Vulpix is very young, LWJ feels anger towards the trainer who let the young fox unattended.

When WWX finds them, LWJ is ready to berate him for being irresponsible, but WWX's "Please never run off again like that Vulpix. I was so scared." stops him in his tracks.

WWX turns to thank LWJ for finding his Vulpix and apologizes for the troubles. LWJ, instead of just accepting the apology, tells WWX he shouldn't be so careless, especially when his Vulpix is so young. (LWJ is kicking himself for saying that) WWX takes offense because he wasn't being careless, nor was he abusive towards his partner.

And so their first meeting is kind of a disaster. That, however, doesn't stop them from constantly meeting around Lumiouse for the next week and then the universe (aka me) decides they should journey around Kalos together. (We all know how the relationship will progress)

Ver.2:

Edit: As of February 6th, this fic has a title:

"Life is a journey you must walk to behold"

In this version, WWX is from Hoenn (Hoenn has a lot of water = Lotus Pier). He and Jiang Cheng have been journeying through other regions (started in Hoenn, went to Kanto and Unova) but this year they want to have an individual journey for themselves.

Jiang Cheng wants to go to Johto, while WWX is going to Sinnoh.

I am on my "Give Jiang Cheng a Shinx" Agenda because just imagine him having a Shinx that is as much of a trouble maker as WWX. (Jiang Cheng's sanity is in danger)

WWX has an Absol as his partner. (The similarities between Absol's lore and WWX's personality make me believe that this is a good pair.) Also, Absol is definitely the one that is more serious and responsible between the two.

Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen are from Johto and their family is well known for being Coordinators.

Lan Wangji has an Eevee that evolved into Glaceon as a partner and has participated in a lot of Pokemon Contests in Johto and Kanto.

Lan Xichen has a Lapras as a partner and is not as interested in Pokemon Contests. He does, however, like to nurse Pokemon back to health and thinks about becoming a Pokemon Doctor.

LWJ wants to go and journey around Sinnoh and learn more about Pokemon Battles (the Lan family doesn't like how trainers that challenge Gyms push their Pokemon so hard, and they are more against Pokemon Battles. In their words, "Contests are a more refined art. Pokemon Battles are barbaric and violent.") LWJ doesn't want to jump to conclusions on that topic, while LXC believes both can be just as good, but it depends if the Trainer is a good person or not.

LWJ, once in Sinnoh, wants to experience a Gym Challenge for himself, so he decides to go to Oreburgh City and challenge Roark, the Gym Leader.

He ends up watching a battle between Roark and WWX instead and falls at first sight for WWX and for his passion for Pokemon Battles. WWX is also very kind to his pokemon, so inner LWJ aproves even more of his choice in love interests.

WWX and LWJ end up traveling through Sinnoh together. (Team Galactic is the main villain that they seem to find/fight against all throughout the journey too)

On the other hand, LXC meets Jiang Cheng and decide to travel together through Jotho, with LXC using this journey to further his knowledge as a Pokemon Doctor and to learn more about Jiang Cheng, who, although says harsh things all the time, is a kind person.

LXC and Jiang Chen end up dealing with Team Rocket during their journey.

There you have it.

This is about everything that I have about this AU. Honestly, I think this one will probably continue to grow in the back of my mind for a while longer before I come up with a title for it and, possibly, even scenes (be it Battles or Contest Performances).

So, what do you think? Good? Bad? Let me know!

I might post some more things later today, but for the moment, I am gonna wish you guys a good morning/day/night.

Till next time,

- TooManyPlotBunnies-Send Help

#fanfic ideas #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #wei ying #lan wangji #lan zhan #lan xichen #jiang cheng #pokemon au #wangxian #pokemon trainer wwx #absol is probably the best pokemon partner for wwx; i will die on this hill #did you know Absol and Glaceon can breed? cause I didn’t till today #pokemon contest #pokemon trainer #pokemon coordinator #pokemon doctor #someone save me from my own brain rot

[subbe93]

Day 1: Forced rest

A/N: Wohoo, I made it! At least I got one entry ready for ShinRanWeek2023! It had been a hectic and challenging semester because there had been so many new things for me besides studying, but the summer holiday is almost here, and to be honest, I really need it. I started to write this fic last week, and oh boy, how much I have missed writing fics. And I have missed you guys so much! I hope you have been well ❤

But yeah, what can I say... This is based on something I experience some weeks ago, though I didn't have anyone to tell me to rest, but then I thought that maybe I should write about this and make a cute entry for ShinRan week :3 I also want to remind you guys to rest when you feel like it! I know it can be sometimes hard to do nothing when there is so much to do, but remember that after a good rest, you have enough energy to do things ❤

But yeah, enough of this, I hope you enjoy this! (And I'm still so bad with naming my fics so don't worry, nothing had changed xD)

Forced rest

She wasn’t the one who gave up easily. She had always worked hard and done her best. And even though it had sometimes felt like there is so much to do and not enough time to rest a little bit, she had encouraged herself with the thought that it would be over soon. Those busy times always were over sooner or later, and she knew that after that, she had time to rest and take a little bit easy before the next rush period.

But now, as much as she tried to encourage herself, remember the price she would get as soon as she would be done, she felt like she had met her limits. It was unusual and hard to accept, but somehow she needed to face the truth. Even though she felt like she had slept well, she felt awfully tired. She tried to make little goals and do even a little bit of some of her schoolwork - because even though it would be a little bit, it would be progression. But whatever schoolwork or textbook she looked at or tried to read, her eyes felt tired. It felt like there was a huge wall in front of her that kept her from reading and that made her feel desperate. She wasn’t even sure how long she had just sat on the living room couch, staring at that open book in her hands, but she was aware that she hadn’t read at all, not even a word. The only reason why she still sat there, trying to push herself to read, was the fact that the day after tomorrow she would have an exam. She also tried to cheer herself, reminding herself that after she would have read, she would deserve to go on a date, but…

She just… couldn’t. She just couldn’t do it. And only the thought made her want to cry.

She just wanted to shut the book and go back to bed. God, she wanted so badly just go to bed, under her blanket and just be there, cry a little bit. Just forget studying even for a moment, and… and…

But she couldn’t do that! If she would, she would lose time to prepare for exams and continue her school works. And it wouldn’t take too long if she would do them now! If she would just start, she would be done much sooner than if she would leave it for tomorrow with all the other things she had planned to do…

“Hey…”

It made Ran startle a little bit. Fast she raised her head to look at Shinichi, who stood behind her, touching her shoulder. How she hadn’t realized his presence at all? It wasn’t like Shinichi sneaked around the house, but then again, he wasn’t the loudest one either.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing”, she answered automatically and smiled. She saw how he just stared at her for a moment before he let go of her and went around the couch. She followed how he came closer to her before sitting beside her. Those blue eyes turned to her, looking serious and yet gentle.

“I know I can be stupid and blind and what else”, he said, making Ran let out a little laugh. “But this time I can see clearly that something bothers you. Even that smile of yours can’t fool me.”

Keeping that smile on her lips, Ran turned her head, looking down at her book that was resting on her lap. She just saw letters and words that tried to tell her something about the research on Japan’s social welfare and what those results mean, but nothing more. She didn’t know what was examined, she didn’t know the outcomes, she didn’t know if the results were good or bad, and she didn’t know what could be done to make anything better.

She had never felt so powerless. So hopeless.

How did Shinichi do it? They had started their studies at the same time, and he studied criminology, which - in Ran’s opinion - felt much more gibberish than studying social work. At least social and health services were something they faced commonly and got some kind of idea of it already when criminology was something that hid so much more than people could think of. She thought that studying criminology would take much more time and work, but as much as she had observed Shinichi, he seemed always to be okay. If he was tired, it was because he had stayed awake too late, not because he would have studied that much. And he still solved crimes from time to time, which was taken from his free time, but he still got enough time to study and do well in school, with exams.

But maybe it shouldn’t have been a big surprise. Shinichi had always been smart and good with everything he had done. He had been interested in crimes and cases as long as Ran could remember, he had always paid attention and probably learned many things long ago. And if he hadn’t known something, he had always been interested to find out. There were no questions without answers if it came to Shinichi.

Maybe he knew so much more about criminology than Ran had thought. And maybe it was the reason why studying seemed to be so easy for him.

Of course, she was happy about that and so proud of him! Why wouldn’t she? But the thing was, she envied him a little bit. He made studying look so easy.

“Hey, Ran…”

Again she got out of her thoughts, but instead of looking at Shinichi, she turned to look at how his hand touched hers that kept still that book open. His fingers touches hers, and even though the touch wasn’t anything big, it soothed her a little bit.

Actually, she felt like that little touch just made her want to surrender, let it all go and just cry, hide in his arms and just be there, feel calm and safe, forgot the school and everything else.

But she couldn’t do that.

“You are tired.” 

And somehow, that one, simple statement made that wall between her and studying to broke. She felt how tears started to slide down her cheeks, and before she realized to do anything, the first one dropped on the open page.

Great. Now she was ruining the library’s property.

She felt how Shinichi took off his hand, making her feel a little bit lonely and lost before she felt his arm on her shoulders, pulling her closer to him. She leaned on him, closing her eyes and hiding her face on his neck. “Hey, no need to cry”, Ran heard him say, and when she felt the book moving away from her hands, she let it go. She knew that she should keep thigh hold on it, but… “It’s okay, you know…”

“How is it okay?” Ran asked with a broken voice and slowly wrapped her arms around him. “Deadlines are coming and a day after tomorrow is an exam, and I still have so much to do…”

“And when you rested last time?”

Ran shut her mouth. She tried to remember a day when she hadn’t done anything to study. “Well, at the weekend”, she answered finally.

“No”, Shinichi said, making Ran get away from him enough to look at him. “I mean when you have time to be just yourself? Doing nothing?”

Ran frowned. “I told you, at the weekend…”

Shinichi sighed. “You met Sonoko and your mother on the weekend, you know.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t do any school work…”

“Doing them or not, seeing and being with others takes energy too”, he said, making Ran only frown even more. “So it doesn’t count.”

Ran just stared at those confident eyes. God, she hated how he was right. She hadn’t had much time to see Sonoko or her family because of school, so when she got a chance, she had agree to see Sonoko on Saturday and on Sunday to spend time with her mother and later to see how her father was doing. She had thought that meeting them would be her time to rest and do something fun, but she couldn’t lie, on Monday she had been so tired. She had felt like she hadn’t rested at all. The weekend had just taken her energy, not giving any, even though she have had a nice time with them.

He was right. Maybe it couldn’t count as free time and rest. But if that’s the case…

She couldn’t give him any answer.

“Let’s go back to bed, okay?”

Ran raised her eyes to look how Shinichi stood up and turned to her. He looked at her gently while offering his hand.

“Back to bed?” Ran repeated. “But…”

“No buts”, Shinichi interrupted her. “You’re going to rest today and do nothing.” He looked away for a moment, like thinking. “Well, maybe I can let you watch some movies or series if you want”, he continued before his blue eyes came back to her again. “But no studying, no housework, no texting or calling friends or family, and no date.”

She felt like something heavy dropped on her heart and sink it somewhere deep down. “What?!” Ran almost screamed and felt so disappointed when she stood up. “No date? But you reserved the table from…”

“I decline it”, Shinichi said like it wasn’t a big thing. “We can go any other day.”

Ran stared at Shinichi for a moment hoping to change his mind, but it was worthless. His expression didn’t change. He had made up his mind. Ran let her eyes drop to the floor, feeling so disappointed. Actually, she felt like a child who hadn’t got a toy from the shop. God, she had really, really waited for that date with Shinichi. She had waited so badly to get dressed in her new dress and just go outside, to enjoy the good food and lovely company, just do something nice together and forget everything else…

Like she wanted to stay at home, on the bed, doing… nothing.

She felt how Shinichi stepped closer, putting his hands on her hips and pulling her gently closer, giving her a chance to stop him. “You really need to rest, Ran”, he said eventually, pressing a kiss on her forehead. “You always do something, but sometimes you need to stop and just take time for yourself.”

Ran lowered her head. She eyed the book on the coffee table. As much as she wanted to take that offer, but… “But I still need to study, you know”, she said and she realized how weak she sounded. “I have an exam…”

“But you are able to read more if you rest well occasionally”, Shinichi said. “Besides, I believe that you do fine without reading.”

Ran rolled her eyes. “Oh, so you want me to fail?” she asked and glanced at him annoyed.

“No”, he answered. “But you are smarter than you give yourself credit for.”

She doubted that. But then again, maybe he had a point. Just now, she would just waste her time just staring at that book, being unable to read anything. She wouldn’t get anywhere and she wouldn’t be any wiser in the evening. She knew she should rest, and after good rest, she would feel better and would be able to read more.

But just being on the bed, doing nothing…

But then again, who said she should stay in bed alone? If she wouldn’t get her date, she would take her date with her to bed to rest with her.

Like Shinichi would stay in bed with her if she would ask him. That was the same for both of them: they weren’t good at staying in bed doing nothing if demanded. It needs to be decided by themselves, and if Shinichi had other plans…

Well, maybe she knew how to make him stay.

“Well, maybe you’re right”, she admitted finally with a sigh and looked at Shinichi. She showed her a hopeful smile. “And after I feel rested enough, I can continue…”

“No”, Shinichi stopped her. “No, you rest today.”

“But…”

“I said already, no buts”, he interrupted determined. “You are going to stay in bed the whole day.”

Ran rolled her eyes. “Come on, I can’t do that…”

“Yes, you can”, Shinichi said. “I make sure of it.”

Ran smiled. “How?”

Shinichi looked at her confidently. “I roll the blanket around you.”

Ran shook her head. “I can always flee, you know.”

Before she knew it, he wrapped his arms tightly around her, making her body press against him, leaving no room to move. “Then I have to keep you on that bed.”

Ran grinned like a winner. It had gone just as she had wanted. “You can’t keep me there a whole day”, she challenged, knowing that he would never want to lose to her…

“Watch me”, he answered, and she felt a kiss on her hair. “I keep you there the whole day if I have to.”

As she wanted. If she had to stay in bed, she would make sure that he would stay with her.

But then she remembered one more problem…

“But if we don’t go to eat, then what are we eating?” she asked. “We don’t have anything ready.”

“Don’t worry about that”, Shinichi answered. “I handle it.”

She smiled mischievously even though he couldn’t see it. “Oh, are you going to cook?”

“You can say that”, he answered, making Ran giggle. Then he let go of her, and before she was prepared for it, he bowed a little to put his arm back on her knees and raised her on his arms. Even though it wasn’t the first time he did that, it was always a surprise, taking her off her guard. This time she didn’t let out a shriek, but her heart still skipped a beat while she wrapped her arms around his neck, making sure she wouldn’t fall…

“And you can wish whatever you want to eat”, he continued and turned, starting to walk towards the hallway. “I can make it happen.”

“Wow, big things are promised”, she said as she started to relax a little bit. She still was a little bit worried about those stairs, but he seemed to be sure to carry her to the second floor. “And who tells what I’m going to do when you leave to get that food…”

“It isn’t that long trip from the bed to the door”, he answered. “You don’t have time to flee, or if you do, I’m going to catch you again.”

Ran rolled her eyes, but still smiled and let herself lean on him. She closed her eyes and somehow felt already a little bit relaxed in his arms.

Well, maybe spending a day on the bed with him wouldn’t be that bad.

#ShinRanWeek2023 #ShinRan #Day 1: School/University #Shinichi Kudo #Ran Mouri #Detective Conan #Fanfiction

[snowandwolves]

Tis your neighborhood lengthy ask anon - happy Friday! it's been a weird week, I had a nightmare and it threw me for a loop and off course - it also made me wish i had someone to make me cold hot chocolate. (i was rereading that chapter and there's a line "She could cry. She could laugh. She could run." and she does all three, doesn't she? but also: she stays 😭)

just three questions for you this time - you keep answering, so i'll keep asking! but as always, pick and choose what you feel like answering (i will say that ava getting arrested for streaking feels canon for every universe lololol ALSO worms are weird as heck ack)

In relation to the story, when did Lucia leave? like a year before it starts? months?

Was there any one scene or chapter that gave you a hard time?

You posted chapters almost exactly a month apart - did you plan that? if yes, how did you stay on track?

If you were to have art done for either the lighthouse au or sixth to the ninth, what would be your top 3 scenes?

also holy shit how is it february? what the actual hecking fuck. wishing you goodness and delicious food served at the perfect temperature!

i was responding to an ask before this one and happened to type “february��� for it, and i had the same reaction you did. how??? did we get here??? rip my concept of time. also! of course, i’d keep answering??? this is genuinely so much fun for me and also reminds me that there’s more to life than trying to survive capitalism LMAO also, also literally projecting you the warmest, most comforting vibes i have for that nightmare you had 🥺 i’m sorry you had one, and i hope you’ve been having better dreams since! on to the questions!

1. you know, i tried to make a timeline for this to keep track, but HAHAHAHAHA I HAVE NO CONCEPT OF TIME. so let’s say like a year before lighthouse au. i’d imagine it should be enough time for bea to figure out how to live in the aftermath of her but also still carry the hurt lucia caused. oh no, that hurt me to write akdnskd moving on.

2. oh, there were so many. i had the hardest time starting the storm chapter because i’d been building it up literally and mentally 💀 so the brain went overdrive until i finally was like,,, fuck it 😂 also ava’s thoughts after she asked for space! character progression is hard. but i think where i struggled the most with this fic is handling both a main plot (getting them together) and the subplots (ava and bea’s respective character growths). i loved the challenge but it also hurt my brain 😂 i had to put the whole thing in an overly detailed database to keep track of everything 😂

3. god, no. i genuinely have no idea how i managed an update every month 😂 but i think the notion thing and have it all broken down there plus my mess of notes with all the fragments definitely helped. this fic literally taught me the magic of outlining.

4. fuck, lengthy ask anon. i would bawl and make a twitter purely to yell at y’all about any art related to my fics 😂 lighthouse au: i’d pass away if i ever see bea grounding ava during the storm, also them not making it to the bedroom, and also—for some reason—ava taking bea’s photo the first time. sixth to the ninth: i’d cry over ava’s return (the one where camila was there watching bea weep), bea in lilith’s wings, aaand bathroom scene (will break my goddamn heart but yep).

lengthy ask anon, i wish i knew how we managed to get to february but i’m glad we did 🥹 as always, thank you for this, and i deeply hope you’ve been having the best days 💙

#ask

[fullscoreshenanigans]

(from here)

@questiontocertaintyofreality @whywoulditho ooo lemme do a little promo post to put in the REN tag because the fic makes me happy

Fair warning that as of writing this post, the fic is currently unfinished. I know some people are hesitant to start fics in light of that, but even if a fic remains unfinished my general perspective is to proceed forward and appreciate what an author did share of their work and play around with the little plot bunnies that spring forth in my head.

With that said, some snippets and ramblings (spoilers, natch):

I've said this numerous times before how I'll give more leeway to individual short comics with the hyperbole being used to quickly and clearly deliver a punchline with a limited amount of time and space (like in the chapter 91 "Hayflick Effect" → "Hey! Flick!" bonus comic), but I hate when Emma is stripped of all her nuance to facilitate familiar shipping formulas. I understand how this snowballs from innocuous offhand jokes in the fandom, but it's unfortunate when these things overtake popular perception of her. She's emotionally intelligent and cunning (we see this early on when she's brazen enough to muse what Conny's up during her confrontation with Isabella in the hallway, all while keeping up the most cheerful front), so I always enjoy reading fic that keeps that balance in mind.

Beautiful, a simply beautiful exchange of greetings.

The preestablished Noremma is absolutely delightful. Another thing thing I've mentioned before is my dislike of Norman being extremely uncharacteristically nebbish or aggressively confident and suave when pursuing relationships that' works in tandem's usually packaged with Emma becoming bizarrely demure. Again, I understand the appeal of stock scenarios, but it's not something I enjoy reading for them. I adore when they reach this level of knowing, playful banter with an underlying thrum of challenge, bred of familiarity at which boundaries can be teasingly skirted and which are low blows and off-limits, and founded on them being equals (after both of them, to different degrees, placed each other on pedestals).

I generally have two default outlines for how I see REN getting together: all together at once, or NE getting together first before roping Ray into the relationship. Here it's clearly the latter, though with a bit of a twist in that NE isn't as intimately familiar with Ray stemming from a shared childhood, but there is an awareness of him being out there. There's also the layer of longing that I personally vibe with for him and incorporate into my interpretation of the ship that can be summed up as "Ray is first to know, last to go, and Emma is last to know, first to go." (Because when there’s something she wants and believes it’s correct to do so, she just goes for it. There might be some delay in trying to find the correct timing, but the progress on it dramatically picks up when she realizes, "wait, why aren’t we together? We should fix that." lfjldj adore that respectful tenacity and ambition.)

With Ray, there's a denial born from years of steeling away his heart so he would have the mental fortitude to see off multiple children on their shipment days and a bone-deep belief that after everything he's done, he doesn't deserve such love. He is committed to the vow he makes to Emma in chapter 38 about living on to protect their family, and multiple times he's at the center of discussions what's the best path forward to secure the safety of his friends and family. He can be in the spotlight for that, but when it comes to advocating for his own wants, he falters; accepts that internal strife born of self-loathing as penance for everything he's done to reach this point, prostrates himself to the idea that Emma and Norman are beyond him when it comes to matters of the heart, and attempts to twist and contort to himself he's content to live the remainder of his days with this secret if it means they'll be happy together. (I'll also do a quick shoutout to @salsae's vowsverse for the ultimate breaking down of this wall; simply spectacular culmination of all the build-up over the years.) But all this is underlined by a desperate clinging to the hope that a future with them is possible, a hope that he would never dare put to words but still subconsciously lingers as he tries to extinguish it.

Tying that long tangent back around to this AU, again, Ray doesn't know the two as intimately as he does in canon, but there's a spark of hope at the thought of a different future for himself that he wrestles with, griping over the ludicrousness at the pair's goal and fighting them tooth and nail with each step of their approach, yet he's still the one to initiate their game and can't help but want to meet them to see if there's a foundation where his hope can bloom.

Finally, I am going to McFuckin' Lose It™ if the reveal that Ray is the son of the kingdom's enemy happens in the middle of Norman holding court (either with Emma and Norman knowing beforehand or it being a surprise for them, too; both have delicious potential.)

#i don't believe the author is on here and idk if they have an ig or twt to link to but wherever you are‚ liege‚ thank you #said this on the original post but god i have such a backlog of fics to properly comment on; 's terrible #just so much good food out there yk #REN brainrot is strong today lads #Norrayemma #Noremray #Emma x Norman x Ray #FSS Chatter #TPN Fanfic #TPN AU #𝐴𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑟𝑜𝑤 𝐹𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑠 #Goldfish_Writes #Long Post #Read More #the only downside that readily comes to mind with this fic is the use of the g-word for Romani that's come up once

[laneynoir]

Last minute desicions will be the death of me. But here, have a crappy fic I wrote really quickly.

No really, First off, I apologize for the quality, I just decided to do this challenge earlier today 😅 second, it's not a major plot point or anything but Legolas is transmasc in this so.

Legolas x reader, no specific pronouns :)

Safety Net | Swooning | “How many fingers am I holding up?”

In. Out. In. Out. Out.Out. You shake as you try to draw another breath, lungs empty you wrench your mouth open and force a gasp of air. Half regestering the knock at the door, you lift your head from your knees, resting it agaist the wall, if indeed you could be so generous as to call the movement resulting in an obvious thump 'resting'.

The knock sounds again, this time more urgent. Rubbing at your eyes and gathering the discarded shoes, you call out, "One moment please!" The chipper tone giving naught away, or so you hope.

All hope of this is thrown aside when a familiar voice calls back. "It's me, Legolas, open the door. Please."

Not half a minute passes, though it still feels far to long, yet not long enough, before your knees pop as you scoot yourself up the wall, and slide the lock away.

When Legolas' face comes into view, it already wears the expression of worry. Grief imeadiatly joins when he sees you propped heavily against the wall, chest visibly shaking, and struggling to control yourself. You make an attempt to walk toward him, to reasure that you're ok amd he need mot worry, but you've hardly pushed away from the wall when. Your vision begins to swim and strange dots seem to begin floating around you. You knock back against the wall and slump again to the floor.

He whispers your name, dropping to his knees beside you. "May I touch you?" At your jerking nod he places his hands over yours, stilling the scratching movement from causing more harm to your arms.

He draws you to your feet, and into an embrace. Taking his cloak away from his shoulders and warping it around you, Legolas leads you through the doorway and down the hall.

A soldier -not one of the Rohiram, more of a gatekeeper really- stops your progress by moving in front of the door. "Dreadfully sorry Lady," He says to Legolas. "You two need to move along. These chambers are for the visitors of the King only."

"It is entirely regrettable for you then," Legolas voice as cold as you've heard it, and that coupled with the obviously unfeminenity of it, has the guard's eyes going wide. "That we are both visitors of King Theoden."

"Well- I cant really just take your word-"

"Legolas Thranduillion, of Greenwood. I should like to pass by you peacefully, but you are testing my patience."

Whatever may have been the man's response, you would not know. As Aragorn opens the door, quickly glances at each person, doubling back to you at your pale expression. "Y/n?" He turns to the guard. "Can I ask what's wrong, sir?"

Suddenly respectful he shifts on his feet nervously. "I was just explaining that only the King's guests are allowed past."

"And you have other elves stashed away? I should certainly like to meet them, however if you would kindly let the prince past I would much appreciate it." Aragorn is altogether to amused, and the Guard has gone bright red.

Apparently deciding not to further embarrass himself, the man waves you and Legolas past, looking not a little afraid of the threatening glance your elf spares him.

By the time the darkness of the inner room swallows you, your breathing has steadied slightly, and you are content to ball up in Legolas embrace.

"Is there more that I can do, Meleth?"

You shale your head quickly, and ball fists into his tunic. "No there's just... So much. Everywhere. Nothing seems to stop and breath a moment. It all so fast, and I cannot breath. It seems that we are surrounded by death, and yet here there is feasting, children, children have died, yet we are still so loud. Would it be so awful if we just had but a moment of silence?"

His arms tighten around you and he begins softly singing in his mother tongue, you stay this way until again the horns are rung, ams again you must go to battle.

#whumptober 2023 #swooning #fic #my fic #lotr #legolas/reader #legolas x you #legolas/you #short fic #and i mean SHORT #panic attak #its very brief but #self harm #self harm mention

[fantastic-nonsense]

If you’re comfortable sharing, I’d love to hear more about your thoughts/ideas about religion/the afterlife, and how that’s influencing your Batman religion fic!

the tl;dr is that I'm a cradle Episcopalian whose mother is an Episcopal priest and that's deeply influenced my view on both the afterlife and religion in general. Personally? My view on the afterlife is...probably closest to the "heaven and hell aren't any kind of physical place or specific experience, it's eternal communion/separation from God's grace and your loved ones" interpretation.

Generally, I think that organized religion should be a way for people to come together under a general agreement of doctrine and behavior, discuss/argue about any deep difficult questions they have about the universe together, and experience the divine as a collective. I'm happy with the Episcopal Church and I've never felt a reason to deeply question my commitment to their particular understanding of the Christian tradition; I like the beliefs, rituals, and practice I grew up with and even though I've explored other denominations and other religions altogether, I've always landed right back where I started. They're a progressive denomination that, as a collective body, is genuinely committed to living out what I see as God's mission for humanity: caring for the world as it has been given to us and loving and helping our neighbors as ourselves. So I stay here.

As far as those beliefs affect the 'Bruce Wayne Religion Discourse Fic' (as I've lovingly termed it):

DC has decided on multiple occasions that Bruce is an atheist, to which I say: that's dumb DC, you have multiple pantheons running around and one of his best friends was literally the Goddess of Truth for a bit. The Abrahamic god canonically exists in-universe and the Spectre is his wrath embodied. The afterlife is a place people can physically go to and come back from (otherwise resurrection couldn't happen). This is the hill I die on when it comes to comics and it's that absolutely no character who lives in that universe should be an atheist (I've talked a little bit about this before here in regards to Tim Drake). They can be a non-worshipper, and frankly that's a completely understandable place to be in the DCU, but being a non-believer makes them look unbelievably dumb and illogical.

Anyway: Bruce is canonically Jewish due to the Accidental Jewish Retcon, which happened when DC created Kate Kane, an explicitly Jewish character, in 2005 and then made her Bruce's maternal cousin. This makes Martha Wayne (and thus Bruce) ethnically Jewish. However, it is ALSO canonically true that Thomas and Martha were buried as Christians, and the Waynes have been heavily coded as Episcopalian for decades. And yet he's supposedly atheist despite growing up in two religious institutions that have long-standing and exceptionally forgiving traditions around questioning/challenging divine authority, exploring doubt, and doing deep dives into theological doctrine.

So we're in an interesting place where Bruce canonically grew up in an interfaith household until his parents were murdered and also explicitly explored the tenets of multiple religions and spiritual practices during his training years abroad. And yet no writer wants to touch it! We get oblique references to his Jewish heritage occasionally, but other than that we largely do not see religion happen in Batman stories unless the central character is Helena Bertinelli/Huntress (a devout Catholic) or Jean-Paul Valley/Azrael (a cult survivor who basically acts devoutly Catholic). So I went 'well okay, I'll do it.' So the fic is focused on Bruce’s childhood growing up in an interfaith household and his incredibly complicated relationship with organized religion as he grows up, becomes Batman, and starts acquiring kids.

While I have not written anything except a tentative outline for it, I think my own beliefs are probably affecting how I approach the fic even conceptually, as I'm both Episcoplian (influencing how I'll approach that part of Bruce's exploration) and more than happy to explore my personal headcanon that Bruce ends up with a frankenstein set of beliefs that mix-and-match Episcopalian Christianity, Reform Judaism, Buddhism, and a few other things. It would be difficult not to, given all that he's seen, done, and experienced. Bruce is a very skeptical person who deeply believes 'seeing is believing', and I'll be trying my best to balance Bruce's canonical approach to such matters with how the DCU has portrayed religion and how the varying religions deal with massive soul-searching questions IRL.

......also I simply think that if Ollie Queen ever tells him that he met Jason in heaven/the afterlife while he was dead, Bruce would go home and cry for an hour, and I kind of want to write that scene.

#long post #personal #about me #bruce wayne #the bruce wayne religion discourse fic #my writing #bruce wayne meta

[therunawaykind]

Therunawayupdates!

Right everyone, Hello people! This is a long post so buckle up!

You all know or at least have heard the basic idea when it comes to this little project/initiative within the server which was kinda inspired by what missmonsters used to do on her discord server as well as just Jo…just a constant inspiration.  As of right now, this is a project initiative thing that is starting up/being held on my Discord Server and hopefully maybe sometime in the future it'll be posted/work somehow through Tumblr

This is a fun initiative for writers both experienced and inexperienced to take part in! We all know writing can be very fucking tedious at times…so why not add prompts into that mix? That always has the chance of being quite ridiculous and crazy! That’s all part of the fun, right?

As of right now the plan going forward is there will be prompt drops a few times a month there isn’t a set schedule for this initiative like it is all subject to change and adapt if people feel like they’re getting too many prompts or maybe even possibly not enough prompts! In addition to that the only time there should some sort of schedule is if someone or multiple people who is participating want to start a prompt challenge with one person or a group of people it is in those circumstances there is a deadline aka a schedule. 

Now I imagine the prompts on some occasions are probably gonna be wild, crazy, ridiculous and whatever else you can possibly think of. With that it is in my head that maybe once a month at least at some stage throughout this lil project there will be prompts…ideas?....inspirations? Given out…picked? For people taking part in this and what I mean by that is I do like the idea of fics being inspired by movies, books, TV Shows literally any medium you can think of. I do think it would just be a really fun and cool experience for people and seeing the progress of it all. 

One thing I do wanna make clear is there is no one set person running this thing, I didn’t wanna risk the chance of ruining the fun and spontaneity of this lil project by just assigning one person to be in charge. Unless there is like a big announcement or like as I mentioned before the assigning of prompts for fics such as a movie, TV shows, books etc, it is all between the group of people taking part which I’m hoping will be a nicer experience and rules won’t be needed. Though if it is needed I feel like you all know by now you can contact me or one of the mods and we’ll get whatever it is under control. 

I think that’s everything…..besides well okay the tumblr blog @runawayswrite that is going to be used for reblogging the fics that were created and written using the prompts discussed in that channel. The tags that will more than likely be used for that blog/submissions will probably be #RunawaysWrite and #RunawayPrompts. Now I’m also including #RunawayPrompts because I’m thinking depending on how the prompts go I will also post them to Tumblr for the vast amount of writers on this hellsite, just for an added thing for fun even if it was just random followers adding a silly lil thing to this whole initiative that I thought would be nice and fun especially if they didn’t have Discord or straight up didn’t wanna join. 

This post is just letting people and other writers know on the off chance that they do wanna join the discord and participate or just participate through Tumblr at some stage even if that is at a later date. If people do wanna join my discord do just send me a message!

#therunawayupdates #therunawaytalks #therunawaythoughts #RunawaysWrite #RunawayPrompts #the runaways #therunaways #therunawaykindupdates

[idealisticrealism]

TCL 3x03 thoughts

Many thoughts and spoilers, as usual.

The Main things:

Given the timeframe with Fi’s journey back (and needing her in time for the Child Protective Services meeting), it can’t have been more than a day or two since the last episode.

The reappearance of Adan’s name in the credits was very confusing until Russo produced the video. I’m pretty used to the body double use now (managed to not even cry at the sight of my boy, which I'll take as progress) so my main thoughts about the vid were that it looks just like a scene from a fic idea I had last week that did make me cry, and also that if the footage is from a police body cam, I’m guessing that cop is dead/unconscious and slumped against their own vehicle given the angle and the fact they’re not moving…

Calling it right now, ‘Jeremy the handyman’ is undercover FBI. Russo is smart enough and determined enough not to put all her eggs in the Nadia basket, so I think that this is her other plan to take Thony (and through her, Arman) down. And as she later tells Nadia: nothing is ever as it seems. So I'm convinced the racist attack on the Cleaning Ladies office was fabricated by the FBI to allow ‘Jeremy’ to be introduced into Thony’s life in a way that would lead her to trust him quickly and allow him into her circle, especially with his kindness and all his sentiments about the shittiness of xenophobia and how ‘this is her home, no matter what anyone says’. I’m actually genuinely pissed about it tbh, bc Thony deserves that kindness and support for real, instead of having her isolation and fear and vulnerability preyed upon by people who want to throw her behind bars just because she didn’t play by the rules of their flawed and biased system…

Sigh honestly though, Thony is too stubborn and short-sighted for her own good. Like yes she saved Soledad’s life by ignoring Dante’s orders, but in doing so she risked her own life as well as Fi and Chris’ lives, and also jeopardised her relationship with both Ramona and the CPS worker who is responsible for deciding if Luca should be taken from her or not. At least she’s written consistently in that she always tries to do the ‘right thing’ and save the person in front of her, but that means she often overlooks the potential consequences of taking that action and the overall balance of good vs bad that would come out of it. Like I’m guessing she’s one of those people who absolutely hates the Trolley Problem lol

Well now we know how Paolo’s money comes into play… funny that if he’d never given Chris the money, Chris wouldn’t have been able to give it to Camila and her mum, which means they wouldn’t have come on the crossing, so he would have never had to fight the guy to defend Camila, and wouldn’t have ended up getting stranded in the desert…. Again, this show really is great at demonstrating those ‘well-intentioned actions leading to bad outcomes’ moments 

This ep is really trying to give Jorge a bit more depth, from him being all cute about Violeta’s soccer practice (showing he’s an involved dad who is also laid back and knows how to have fun, not one of those intense/pushy ones), and how his warnings to Thony have become less like threats and more like well-meaning advice. He’s willingly acting as Thony’s chauffeur rather than sending an underling to do it, and he’s also letting her debate with him on a more even level than before, where previously he just shut her down immediately. He even actually seems to listen to her about not hurting Nadia and the idea of letting Ramona meet Nadia instead (given what we see in the trailer). The scene where he finds her with the van is likely meant to look like he is hiding something, but I think he is genuinely looking for Arman and actually didn’t know that this was the van that took him, and he just doesn’t trust her enough yet to be open with her about it.  I also think he respects that she cares enough about Arman to stand up to him, to challenge him about his possible involvement– if I’m right and he truly is trying to bring Arman home safe, her persistent loyalty to Arman even in the face of danger to herself would be a big point in her favour. 

Okay what the hell is the little glass jar Thony finds, though?? Something of Arman’s? Something that they can get a bad guy’s fingerprints off of to give them a lead? A sedative medication that indicates he was drugged and taken somewhere, rather than killed and dumped?? I need answerssss

Poor Nadia is suffering through feelings of betrayal on all sides here lol. I don’t blame her at all for going to Russo and trying to save herself and Arman through a deal, but I’m so relieved that Russo’s obsession with punishing Arman has made that alliance an impossibility. Now all we need is for Nadia to cool down a little, and realise that despite everything, there’s only one person she can truly turn to… (and yes, I’ve written a fic about it lol)

“You ever notice that everyone around him turns up dead?” lollll look at this show being all self-aware about its tendency to just kill off its problems haha. But still, Russo’s got it all wrong; Arman’s not the common denominator here. He may have been the one pulling the trigger a few times, but he was almost never the one actually setting the events in motion. Instead, it’s Thony. Despite being someone who tries at all times to save lives, Thony is like an unintentional angel of death for those she encounters, and sadly Arman is going to be the next to fall.    

Other stuff:

It was interesting to see how clever the cartel is with all the different types of vehicles they use to transport people in order to avoid suspicion, I wonder how realistic that is?

I love that the show has continued its tradition of having cleaners/household staff regularly appearing in the background, highlighting the fact that even if they’re often overlooked, they’re there

The date on the bodycam is messing with my timeframe for the show based on the only other previous reference to dates that we’ve gotten, and though I know they probably just picked a random date, I don’t like it haha

That was very cool imagery with Ramona’s tea, of something shrivelled and dull being put into an intense environment and blossoming into something amazing… hmmm, wonder what they’re trying to say about Thony there haha

Fi totally ships Chris and Camila lol. I love the bond that formed between the two families (Fi protecting them in the store by putting on the Southern Belle act was awesome), and I hope Camila and her mum continue to be in the show, like maybe Fi and Thony could hire the mum as one of their cleaners and help both of them settle into life as an immigrant in the US. 

Also, the ICE raid was hard to watch, but bless the ladies in the store who helped them to hide! True allies!

The emotional song playing at the end as Fi and Chris are left behind is called 'Sister, Take My Hand' which just feels fitting for this show

Anyway, really looking forward to the Nadia & Ramona meeting next week. My wild dream of a badass coalition of mob women (Thony, Fi, Nadia, Ramona) running Vegas may just happen yet…

#The Cleaning Lady #TCL recaps #TCL spoilers #The Cleaning Lady spoilers

[piratesfromspace]

The Email (Daredevil/You)

Matt "Daredevil" Murdock x Reader

Rated: Mature

You're working too much. Your boyfriend Matt Murdock thinks you need a distraction.

This was written as a gift to my precious @gipsydangerzone 💕

CW: hurt/comfort, established relationship, Reader is a she, Matt is a little tease

MASTERLIST // Frank Castle Fic // Frank Castle smut

gif by @spookycora

“He can’t be serious… fuck. I can’t believe it, the audacity of this man!” You talk to yourself as you scroll past yet another email from your asshole of a colleague. “If he wants to play this game, he’s gonna get it.” You crack your fingers and start typing “As per.. my… last… email… please… enlighten me… as what… you… mean by…”.

Matt can hear it from the other side of the street, your upset voice very distinct through the incessant noise of the neighborhood. He focuses his senses on you and as he comes closer to your apartment, all he can hear is your heart beating way too fast for it to be healthy, your blood souring with each of your too shallow breaths. It’s definitely too late for you to be still working, the moon already high in the dark sky. 

With a few tricks of his own, he’s up on your fire escape and silently opens your window to land in your living room. His mask is dropped on the couch, and he pats down the corridor to your office. Here you are, angrily typing away at your computer. Stress and anxiety radiating from you in a way that almost overwhelms his too sensitive senses. He knows you’re a fighter in more ways than one and really he commends you for it, because he had a taste of what type of hell the corporate world can be, and he understands. 

At least his tasks are more simple and direct, he gets to punch the bad guys, while you have to rely on witty words and carefully crafted excel sheets demonstrating your points. The thought of paying a quick visit to the faulty colleague crosses his mind but he’s not sure you’ll approve - and moreover he can’t beat the shit out of a guy just because of a workplace dispute, that would not be very catholic of him. He shakes his head realizing you’re making him lose his usually very strong ethics code, it scares him how far he finds himself ready to go for you. He could almost hear that damned Frank Castle chuckling at him for it.

He pushes the idea away and leans in the doorway, senses focused on your figure. “It’s late, you know? Maybe you should stop for tonight.” His deep voice has you jump out of your seat and swirl back to face him, adrenaline already pumping in your system. “Fuck, Matt, what did I say about coming in without even knocking??” you’re angry, but at least he has succeeded in getting you to step back from your screen. “I could literally hear your anxiety from across the street, so I thought you could use a… distraction.” he goes on, lips curling into a light grin. “Now is not the time. I’m being very serious, Matthew Murdock.” You used his full name, it must be bad. “I need to finish that email.” you comment dryly before turning back to your task.

It only takes him a second to beat you to it and steal your laptop right from under your fingers. “What the fuck, Matt?? Give it back!” you try and jump to catch his arm, but he’s way taller than you. “Or what?” he taunts. “I’m sure this email can wait. And if they fire you for not responding in the middle of the night , trust me, I’ll be more than happy to see them in court.” he adds more softly. He knows he’s dancing on the edge here, because you would have all the rights to tell him to back off from your own business. 

“Matt… give me my computer back.” you ask again. You seem pissed. He’s not worried though, he knows that’s your kind of foreplay. “Come and get it if you want it.” he smiles, and you can’t repress from smirking and rolling your eyes at his not-so-subtle innuendo. It seems he’s finally making progress. “Matt…” you warn, this time with something different lying underneath the anger, something warm and challenging. You have to admit that he looks good in his full suit - save for the cowl - hair mussed, a slight scratch high on his cheek, another splitting his lips, only emphasizing how handsome he looks when he’s a little rugged. You can’t let his good looks distract you though.

You run at him and he easily dodges your attempt, letting the precious computer gently drop on the big fluffy pillows near the window, before he charges at you in turn. He sweeps you from your feet before you can avoid him, and you let out a surprised squeal at his sudden display of strength. Your heart is still beating fast in his ears, although this time it’s not because of the stress from work. He carries you bridal style to your room, and humors you as you pretend-swat his shoulder and protest with more and more giggly “Let me down Matt”. He likes it so much when you can’t hide your amusement with his shenanigans despite how collected you appear most of the time.

“Let me take care of you, you’re so tense” he coos, and really you can’t be mad at him for long. He lets you down on the bed, and just hovers over you, waiting for you to say what you need or if you’re too tired to do anything other than sleep. Yet you just stare at him for a beat, unconsciously syncing your breathing with his own, deep and slow, your body relaxing against the soft covers, until you let out a playful “Matt, you’re right, I think I need a distraction.” “What kind? I’m very good at reciting Criminal Laws.” “Matt!!” you swat his chest again. “Ok, ok, I get it” he yields with a smile. “I swear you’re gonna…” you can’t finish your sentence, his lips finally finding yours in a searing kiss. The email can definitely wait.

#matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x you #daredevil x reader #matt murdock #matt murdock fanfic #she hulk fanfic

[kitkatt0430]

2, 8, 9, and 15 for the New Year's ask game!

2. Will you participate in any fandom exchanges or fic challenges, etc? 

I like participating in fandom events - prompt weeks, bingos, etc. I'll probably do a belated Flufftober for last years prompts soon, since I only filled... two of them? And hopefully next Flufftober I won't immediately feel my energy for writing snuff out on me.

Sadly it seems that some of the events I used to participate in have gone away. Hartmonfest being the most recent and the one I'm most sad about. I considered volunteering to take over running that one, but I didn't feel like I had the energy to really focus on it the way an event needs. Maybe if I'm feeling less worn out later this year I might reach out to see if I could revive it on a trial basis. I kinda feel a bit like I'd need to brush up on my photo manip skills though (gotta make a fun header for an event, right?) and... I haven't really done much in that area since high school with, like, the 2006 version of Photoshop in my graphic design class. So this might wind up being something I push off until next year.

8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you’ve never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?

Usually it's not so much about being brave enough but having enough inspiration. That said, I've had a longer look at the body swap trope with Cisco and Hartley in mind for a while and who knows, maybe this'll be the year I finally start making progress on that idea. It'll be a more serious take than the fic I've already done with it - Cisco struggling to deal with Hartley's hearing while Hartley learns Cisco visions hurt a lot more than Cisco's been letting on - and it'll be something of a mutual annoyances to friends to lovers type deal.

9. Short term goals… what do you hope to complete this week or in January?

The Flufftober prompts. And maybe the Rose/Jack/Doctor week prompts I didn't finish last year. Try and get back into my writing headspace before I start tackling some of my older series again.

15. Do you foresee any personal or professional obstacles this year, that would keep you from creating fanworks? 

So the wasp problem isn't 100% over yet, but it's hopefully going to continue to be in decline. That was a big stressor for me last year - I think more than I realized at the time. If they do come back in bigger numbers, that'll probably stress me out again and slow my creative side down again.

The home reno I had going on last year was another source of stress and while I will be doing part two of that this year, it'll be much smaller in scale - mainly painting and replacing some heavily painted-over wood paneling with drywall, as the paneling as seen better days. No flooring replacements or turning reach-in closets into walk-in closets. So it shouldn't take nearly so long or be nearly so stressful.

I'm especially looking forward to painting the fireplace. It's brick, but kind of a dirty looking off white with a few splotches here and there where it got stained a kinda... puke green tbh. A dark gray paint with a new wood mantle will make it really nice, I think. It'll go well with the light gray I've used everywhere and I'm thinking a navy color for an accent wall. Or possibly two walls. Still in the early stages of decision making.

I'm aiming for spring for the reno, which should give me plenty of time yet to prepare. But I'd expect that to interfere with my writing time since I'll have to pack those rooms up beforehand and unpack them later. Also going to get some of the furniture (definitely the couch and a rug I've had ten-ish years) professionally cleaned. They've both been through a lot and could use a deep cleaning.

#thanks for asking #kitkatt0430 answers #new years ask game

[onekisstotakewithme]

2023 Fic Masterlist

Happy New Year! It was my first full year of writing "The West Wing" fanfic and I loved every minute of it. Aaron Sorkin's work has me by the throat... so behold: the fic round-up for the year.

Works in Progress (WIPs)

An Idea, Whose Time has Come (3/20 chapters posted) - "Could always run for President." It’s been twenty years since CJ Cregg joined Jed Bartlet’s campaign, and with another election looming, Danny makes a suggestion: CJ should run for President. So she does. And on the campaign trail, along with a new staff, a hostile incumbent, and a familiar rival candidate, CJ also has to grapple with the legacy and impact of her twenty years in public service – good, bad, and ugly – while preparing for the most important election of her career. CJ/Danny, presidential campaign shenanigans. also side Josh/Donna, Will/Kate, lots of original characters. Some smut. 14k so far. (A present for my dear friend miabicicletta 💜)

CJ/Danny

None of Us are More Than Caretakers (12 chapters) - “The president’s dead.” Three weeks before Inauguration, things appear to be running smoothly. Transition is going (mostly) well, Kazakhstan is (mostly) stable, and CJ is (mostly) happy with how things are going with Danny. Everything is taken care of. And then former president Gerald Ford dies. Set between "The Last Hurrah" and "Institutional Memory". 66k.

Off the Record (22 chapters) - “And this… thing… would be…?” “Off the record.” (Or, one missing scene per episode). Season 1 missing scenes. 31k.

A Night to Watch - “So how does it feel, watching yourself become unemployed in real time?” Tag to Election Day Parts I & II. 6k.

Fallout - It’s only been a few hours, but already the dinner with Danny feels like it was an entire lifetime ago. Tag to "Duck and Cover." 3.1k.

our secret moments (in a crowded room) - Secret Dating. Tag to "Drought Conditions". Written for the twwpress Wheel of Destiny 500 word Drabble Challenge. 500 words.

The Fall - “What do you want, Danny?” “Saw you on C-SPAN this morning, Sundance. Wanted to see how you were handling the rise to power.” “You mean you wanted to see if the fall killed me.” Tag to "Liftoff." Butch & Sundance Part II. 2.6k

You're Gonna Die Bloody (and All You Can Do is Choose Where) - The hearings will turn over every rock in her life, every email, every phone call – and of course they’ll see Danny’s name – but she can’t drag him down any further. Tag to "The Ticket", "The Mommy Problem", "Mr. Frost"/"Here Today". Butch & Sundance Part III. 2.7k

Fight or Give - Glory days are over. Nothing left but the ending – nothing left but the fall. Tag to "Internal Displacement", "Requiem", "Institutional Memory". Butch & Sundance Part IV. 2k.

The Goal for Which We Long - And then she notices the note left in the middle of her desk. Not a note, really, but one of the dignitary bingo cards she’d passed out – the one she’d given Josh by the looks of it – with the middle row filled in. She wonders why Josh would leave it there, before noticing the handwriting along the top. Tag to "The Wedding". 5k.

Other/Gen

The Day on Which They Shall Give Their Votes - Election Day, 1998. As the votes come in, the staff of Bartlet for America waits with one question in mind: Who will be the next President? Pre-Canon. Gen. 3.3k.

When it Rains, it Pours - Or, what happens in the motel after they get out of the rain? Well, wet clothing mostly. Josh/Donna. Tag to "20 Hours in America" Parts I and II. Written for the "Woulda Coulda Shoulda: a Fest to Get Josh and Donna Together" challenge. 2.6k.

Two for the Road - “It was a tough race.” “They’re all tough races.” Or, doing the same thing multiple time and expecting different results (1992-2018). CJ & Toby friendship fic. Gen. 5.3k.

#the west wing #tww #cj x danny #josh x donna #cj cregg #danny concannon #and the whole cast and crew. #PLUS one more that i will be sharing tomorrow... written for an anonymous holiday exchange ;)

[mykinkyyandere]

any tips for people who want to start writing?

Wow, thank you for asking my opinion. I'm definitely not a knowledgeable writer and I write purely for hobby purposes. I don't want to give wrong advice because I'm also trying to improve myself but I can give you some personal advice. I don't know how right or wrong they are.

Reading is important as you know. After you start writing, there is a possibility that you will take a break from reading and see yourself as inadequate. You may start to constantly compare yourself to writers you once read and feel like a failure. Or you may fear that if you read them, your own ideas will be affected, that you will accidentally cheat. Keep reading, this is a very wrong thought. The more you read, the richer and better you will be. Don't stop reading. These are very normal stuations. To get rid of these bad thoughts, keep in mind that your writings are unique and yours is very successful among many successful ones. Your fiction and your way of writing is unique to you. You're giving the world a brand new and unique fiction, and you're an essential resource for readers. It'll be very difficult for you to write if your motivation drops, so I wanted to warn you.

Writing is important. Omg sherlock, but challenging yourself is different, believe me. Give yourself 30m or 1h and say "start and finish something". You know you have limited time and your brain is flying around. I use this to get rid of the writer's block. If you need to publish a fiction, say "You have 3 hours, quick!" and let your mind go. Of course, you don't have to finish it in 3 hours, and a good job takes effort and lots of time. Patience is the key. Just putting the brain on alert works, in my opinion.

Try to write your daydreams, don't try to create a fic from scratch. Better write a script that already exists for now. When you start, you'll probably say "I can't write, my dream is so perfect and detailed. How am I supposed to put it down?" and welcome "That's it, I'm not a good writer".

Don't think as a whole, think as part to part. You probably have too much to tell in small details in your daydreams. Putting them down will probably seem impossible at first. I told you that reading is very important, the more you read, the easier it'll be to write important descriptions that are difficult for you. Write and read. You may write badly the first time, but you can't improve without writing.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that a good and flowing story is connected. Every character, every conversation, and every situation should fuel the story. No unnecessary talk, character and detail. Like when talking to someone, don't just chit chat, make them give some important opinions/info that you didn't think/know. Or something else. Even if you wrote 7 paragraph, if you feel like they're actually unnecessary, don't hesitate to delete. Don't worry, you'll write better. And not too much dialogue. Dialogues are great, but I believe you can write nice details that support them, push yourself. I've been writing on Tumblr for over a year and I see my progress. When I look at my old works, I can see my mistakes. What I'm writing right now isn't perfect, but I think it's better than before.

Don't rush anything.

Rushing is the real problem. You want to write and finish quickly and you don't give your story the time it needs. Let's say you cut your dream into 10 parts. Note on your phone, i think detailed notes are good. Stay on each part patiently. Of course, avoid unnecessary details. Make sure you serve the story to keep it fluent. You know these classic Wattpad stories, right? I also wrote those fics years ago so 💀 Waking up with the alarm and making extremely boring and unnecessary convo with mom and bff, going to the bad boy's school... You always skip so many parts in these kind of stories.

And please don't try to be perfect. I'm going crazy when I write but don't be like me. You may feel like something's missing, you may think it's disconnected, but in fact, when an outside eye reads it, they don't see the flaws you see.

Write because you want, not because you have to. This is your hobby and you want to have a good time. Know how to say no, you don't owe anyone anything. Don't be afraid to draw your boundaries.

If you notice that I didn't do what I suggested, I'm sorry. Like I said, I'm an amateur writer. But I believe I'm better now. I hope my advice is helpful and I hope there is nothing I missed or forgot. There are very useful videos, I recommend you to watch.

#kinkyyan casual