#in another the alarm panel decided to been for several hours straight with no way to stop it for undetermined reasons

[pigeontheoneandonly]

Flotsam

Also on AO3.

For the first few hours, the sound of her breath, loud in her ears, and the slow slithery shiver of adrenaline draining from her body proved sufficient companions to distract her from hopelessness.  Several hundred meters away, the wreckage of Normandy’s riven fuselage began to cool.

Shepard revolved slowly in the void.  There was absolutely nothing to stop her.  She suspected it would get old fast, but for now she had bigger problems. She tapped away at her omni-tool and projected a display of biometric indicators onto the inside of her helmet’s visor.  Her suit wasn’t compromised or she’d be long dead already.  Some percussive trauma from the explosion, and a hell of a welt where she hit the bulkhead on her way out.  Her head and shoulders ached something fierce.

Nothing life-threatening.  She moved down her list of priorities.  Water reservoir: meager, but full.  Food: none. (Technically, a bag of dried fruit in her pouch, but it might as well be on the planet below for all the good it did her now.)  Carbon air filters: new, with seven full days of use remaining.  

After weeks of moping about no action, scanning geth in the Terminus, Kaidan finally convinced her to tend her gear.  Yesterday. It took a few long breaths to suppress the could-have-been panic, so tangible that her blood pressure spiked. The old gunked-up filters wouldn’t have lasted seven hours, let alone seven days.

She could only hope her shouting at him had returned the favor, that he’d boarded an escape shuttle and saved his life.  The shuttles had streaked across Alchera’s thin sky while she sat here turning like a spit roast, hair floating in her helmet and getting in her eyes, trailing plasma until they vanished into specks, and then into nothing.  

The spinning really was growing tired with nothing in reach to arrest it.  Her gun would’ve been very useful about now, a slow and dirty method to propel herself.  Shepard supposed she should count herself lucky it wasn’t faster, some dizzying speed meant to leave her unconscious.

A bubble of laughter escaped her mouth.  Then another. It grew into a chuckle and then a full-grown hysterical cackle.  Lucky. That was funny.  She’d never heard anything funnier in her life.

Enough of that. Third priorities.  Comms.  Shepard began scanning all the frequencies, standard and emergency both, and winced as Normandy’s beacon screeched into her ear.  It cleared the ship before the explosion.  She closed her eyes; that was one worry down.  However, no amount of fiddling would persuade her transmitter to work.  She was on her own.

No remedy but to wait.  The Alliance would respond, because there was no other option, and Shepard refused to accept defeat.  She shut her eyes and folded her arms over her chest, intending sleep.  Then spread them wide again as it only served to speed up that infernal spin.

* * *

By the second day, the silence bothered her as much as spinning without cessation.  That, and the dark.  When they were on the far side of Alchera and its bulk blocked Amada’s light, Shepard couldn’t see a hand before her face.  She fought the urge to activate her headlamps.  No pressing need for illumination existed, and it would only run down her batteries, which were much better spent on other trivialities like air circulation.  

She sang, for a time, in the dark.  Never had much of a voice.  Never cared for music, if it came to that.  But it was the only company she had.  

* * *

Debris glittered in the twilight.  They were headed into another night, all of them together, these slowly whirling fragments of her ship, all moving at slightly different velocities.  Her only entertainment these long hours was watching them dance and collide and drift away again.  

Her proximity alert began to sound.

Shepard was famed for her reflexes.  Those instincts, that hair-trigger reaction time, had kept her alive through a decade of military service and every scrape that came before.  They made her the pride of the navy, the first human spectre. Chosen by a turian of all people. She chuckled to herself.  Her mother hadn’t believed it, at the time.  

The alert continued to beep insistently.

That was important, wasn’t it?  Had to be. When one second blurred into hours like this with no sign of passing, urgency ceased to exist, and thought became a fog.  Like breathing through molasses.

Proximity alarm flashed on her HUD.  

Proximity alarm. Proximity alarm!

Her eyes flew wide.  She jerked instinctively, trying to look behind her, and that motion only added another axis to her tumble.  But it did bring the offending object into few.  A composite panel with a ceramic-slathered titanium skin, a portion of the upper section of the ship, stenciled part and serial numbers winking in the sunset. It traveled sedately in a straight path with no notable additional motion.

Directly towards her, in fact.  

She flailed uselessly.  Unsurprisingly, the bit of space junk did not care.

At the last second she braced herself, her forearms flying in front of her fragile visor and taking the brunt of the impact.  All the air went out of her as her teeth clacked together. If it slowed even a fraction, she couldn’t tell.  She thought her right arm might be broken.  A blinking message on her HUD confirmed it.

Shepard took a heavy breath, and then another.  No hiss of air accompanied the hiss of pain in her limb.  No spiderweb cracks splayed across her vision, threatening to shatter.  She got hold of herself.

The panel continued to push her along like a plow.  They were in no immediate risk of further collision.  And—

The spinning…

Oh sweet, merciful fate, the spinning had stopped.

And, to her delight after tentative experimentation, she could move.  Really move, with purpose put her body someplace else, by pulling herself along the much heavier piece of her ship.  

Curling her good arm around its rough edge, clinging to her driftwood like a child, she fell into her first restful sleep.

* * *

Her mouth was parched.  No better than half-awake, she sucked instinctively at the tube in her helmet.  She got down two whole mouthfuls before she realized and spat out the tube in a panic.  Frantically, she cued up her monitor, and her face fell into her boots.  Less than a quarter remained.  

It was hunger, she decided.  Over the past day she’d become increasingly lightheaded.  The ache in her gut had passed, but that was hardly reassuring.  

Normandy’s emergency beacon continued to blare.  One had joined it from the ground, a counterpoint lasting approximately an hour out of each orbit.  So some of her crew had survived.  At least when she died here, that wouldn’t weigh on her conscience.

Shepard did not dare allow herself to wonder if Kaidan was among them.  Down that path lay madness.  Or at least a decent nervous breakdown.

Her head rested against the panel.  It made for a comfortable enough bed in microgravity.  Something solid to ground her.  It had gotten colder, too.  Vacuum turned her suit into a thermos but a little heat seeped, regardless; had to, or her suit would cook her alive.  Kaidan liked to read.  Always had his nose in his datapad, every minute of downtime aboard ship, at least when he wasn’t tinkering with his omni-tool.  Shepard smiled fondly.  What was that one he kept poking her to try?

Ah, yes. Her smile broadened.  A Fire Upon the Deep.  Also, loosely, about a shipwreck.  It felt appropriate.

Hope grew thinner by the moment, not as a matter of faith, but of pragmatism.  She might as well burn the power.  A command to her omni-tool projected the first page onto her helmet visor.  

Her eyebrows rose with every chapter.  Shepard enjoyed a good genre novel as much as the next person, but this was ridiculous. Sometimes she couldn’t believe his affection for this sort of thing.  He really was such a nerd.

* * *

It had gotten very cold, now.  Frost crowded the edges of her visor, growing with every expelled breath and robbing her of what little moisture remained in her mouth.  The pain in her stomach had returned.

A few bars of a song mumbled between her chattering teeth.  Some asari pop hit.  Tali had been singing it for days, getting it all stuck in their heads on loop.  It had driven Shepard to distraction.  She’d give anything for it to distract her now. Dying slowly wasn’t exactly in the marine handbook.  More than once, her good hand had wandered to her helmet seal, and contemplated just being done with it.  

But marines didn’t give up.  Shepard didn’t give up.  Even if it was the sanest thing she could possibly do.

Her thoughts had become near-solid sludge.  Her oxygen saturation was declining, as her filters were increasingly expended. Doubtless at some point she’d be insensible enough from carbon dioxide poisoning to actually do it.  She didn’t find it comforting, nor the right kind of distracting.

Or maybe she’d fall asleep first, slowly drift away into nothingness from lack of oxygen. That seemed… preferable.  

It wasn’t like she hadn’t considered her options.  Her raft failed to carry her in reach of anything.  They continued to make their slow way towards the fuselage, the largest part of the wreck, but she doubted they would reach it before her luck ran out.   She could jump, though she’d have to kick off and leave the raft, a small sacrifice for the greater shelter of her ruined ship. If she hit her target.  And they were far enough away, this panel and her, that odds were she’d miss the fuselage entirely.

Shepard tried to remember the next line of the song.  Something about crests backlit by twin suns…

Her comm blinked.

She blinked back, utterly confused.  The emergency beacons had been filtered out days ago.  But she activated the audio.

“—ormandy, Normandy, Normandy, this is SSV Cairo.  Respond, over.”

Shepard responded without thinking.  “Cairo, this is Normandy Actual, over.”

A long pause. “Normandy, Normandy, Normandy, this is SSV Cairo.  Respond, over.”

Her transmitter. For a moment, she forgot.

She slumped in her suit as the message continued to repeat, searching the void for survivors. She raised herself up on the raft to peer over the lip.  Now that she was looking for it, she could just make out the Cairo’s running lights through the frost, multicolored specks far too orderly to be stars.  Maybe fifty or a hundred kilometers off the port bow, in as much as that applied to a wreck.  It might as well be light years.

No rescue was coming for her.  They had no reason to believe anyone still located at the wreck was alive.  

The line crackled. “Cairo, this is Normandy. You don’t know how glad we are to hear from you.”

Her eyes flew wide.  Kaidan. That was Kaidan.  She clutched the side of her helmet as if it could bring his voice any nearer.  Kaidan was alive.  He was speaking to her now.

Well, not her. But she could hear him, and that was enough.

The Cairo asked for details.  Kaidan delivered stark facts without any consideration for how they hit her in waves of misery and elation.  Twenty-one of her crew were dead.  But twenty-three had lived— twenty-four if she bothered to add in herself.  They made it to the surface.

His voice caught when he explained he was the highest-ranking officer left alive.  Shepard rested her fore-helmet against smooth curve of her raft and shut her eyes, resisting the urge to bang her head.  I’m here.  I’m right here.  Damn it.

He sent their location, and the Cairo responded by scrambling shuttles.  They moved towards her; she guessed from the strength of the transmission that the wreckage and herself with it hung directly over the survivor’s camp.  

Every marine was issued a mirror as part of the standard kit, for signaling.  Shepard slipped hers out of its pouch and angled it as best she could, trying to flash it into the video ports of the Kodiaks, without success.  They dropped down to Alchera without a twitch of deviation from their course.

There would be one more chance when they came back up.  She began to peer around the debris field, more awake than she’d been in days. Maybe she would live through this after all.

* * *

Shepard hung cantilevered off the Normandy panel.  It had been her lifeboat, but if she stayed with it now, she’d drown.  It should be massive enough to allow her a good kick. This idea had been considered and dismissed several times due to the high margins of error created by distance. But between the raft’s stately forward progress and her slim window of opportunity, its time had arrived.

Farewell, friend.  She planted both boots and shoved hard.  

It gave, ever so slightly, but sent her sailing towards the ruined fuselage, and at great enough velocity that she reached it after only five or ten minutes.  Her aim was good.  She’d worried about missing the target, for all of a few seconds, which was longer than she usually spent contemplating the risks or the odds once she acted.  Her extended stay in this lonely wasteland was getting to her.

Catching herself on a twisted beam, once part of Normandy’s backbone, she carefully lowered her feet until the magnets in her soles caught.  A giddy smile crossed her face.  Part one— success.

She wandered the ruins at a crawling pace.  Discovering the intact pack of air filtration cartridges in what remained of the ship’s armory nearly caused a breakdown.  Nowhere left was or could be pressurized.  And even if she somehow managed to stretch her one working arm far enough to open her suit while equipped, it would only vent her air.  It felt like drowning in a fish tank; safety right before her eyes, and Shepard unable to reach through the glass.

The medical supplies presented similar challenges.  Her suit material had enough self-healing to withstand a hypodermic prick or two, and it was a moot point anyway, since it relied on elasticity to provide mechanical counterpressure.  Vacuum and cold, however, made a ruin of Chakwas’ stores.  A crystallized vial of morphine mocked her from her palm.  She clenched her fist around it and made a concerted effort to pack away the pain of her fracture, back where it belonged.

Shepard needed a comm.  

No power remained aboard the ship.  But power wasn’t her biggest problem.  And eventually, she found what she was looking for.

The body turned over easily, if a bit awkward to manhandle.  Shepard stared at her for a good long time.  Longer, really than she could afford.  Her name was Caroline Grenado.  She’d been the off-duty co-pilot at the time of the attack, asleep in the hot bunks when the alarm began to sound.  Judging by her kit and the fact that her body survived the explosion, she did everything right; got in her suit, ran for the shuttles.  The massive storm of fire engulfing Deck 2 caused fluid lines in the hull to explode.  One had almost hit Shepard herself as she made for the stairs.  

Shepard removed her helmet with unusual gentleness.  Blood clotted in her hair where her head had hit the inside of the helmet, confirming her suspicion about Grenado’s cause of death.  Just bad rotten luck.  

Angry, she turned away and squatted upside-down on the deck, peering into the helmet. Alliance wired all their personnel with internal comms.  Those short-range devices in turn hooked into mid-range comms like those found in the helmets.  But the helmet could also transmit just fine on its own.  Fail safes upon fail safes was practically a spaceflight motto.

If her comm’s allegiance could be changed, it was beyond Shepard’s technical skills.  So she did the only thing she could.  She began tapping the mic.  

Her own receiver confirmed the transmission.  Harsh as shit on the ears, but every screech of white noise brought her closer to living another day.  Morse code was not her strong suit, but hell, even kids knew how to send S.O.S.

* * *

Her wrist ached like her hand was on the verge of falling off.  The distress signal staggered out, disjointed, trailing off. The shuttles had come and gone without slowing down.

It couldn’t end like this.  The Alliance actually came to save them.  She’d survived the explosion, somehow.  She made it back to the ship and damn it, she found a way to communicate.  She knew she had the correct channel.  What was wrong?

In the distance, the Cairo’s lights shone, sparks of mocking hope.  In a fit of frustration and a naked thread of fear, Shepard threw the helmet across the broken room.  It sailed on unerringly and bounced off the burnt mass of the opposite bulkhead.  Shepard made not even a token attempt to grab it as it ricocheted past her and off into the abyss.  

Her head slumped forward until it was buried in her hands, palms covered her visor, fingertips digging into the tough plastic like they were trying to pierce it through. It couldn’t end like this.  Not alone, frozen fast in the dark, fading away, breathing bad air.

It couldn’t.

She hadn’t cried. She didn’t, as a general rule, not to save face but because Shepard counted herself among nature’s stoics.  The impulse rarely visited her.  But now she took a great heaving breath through her nose, feeling her throat grow thick and hot.  

If she ever gave it half a thought, and she really hadn’t, dwelling in the shadow of her own mortality for her entire career should’ve inured her to this moment, an inoculation against existential dread.  And in truth, she’d never been scared to die.  And she wasn’t scared now.  This… this anxiety, this dismay, it concerned something else.  

Death brought her no terror.  She’d been happy.  Just for a moment.  

Her eyes squeezed shut.  A drop of water slithered down her face and entered the corner of her mouth, a burst of salt.  

At least Kaidan lived.

The attempt to self-soothe backfired.  The dam burst.  She hugged her knees up to her chest, rocking back and forth with only her mag boots to hold her down.  Goddammit.   Life never cared about what she deserved, but did it have to be this fucking unfair?  Did this have to happen now?

The only sound in the universe was her sniffling and swallowed sobs.  Somewhere behind them, a dim, chiding awareness that she could not afford to waste this water, and a louder voice answering that she couldn’t be paid to give a shit.   Her one chance at survival hadn’t panned out.  It was over.

Then a bit of light trickled between her knees.  It took her a second to understand.  She raised her head in utter disbelief.  

A Kodiak, slowly nosing through the debris field. Following her signal.  

Shepard rose, slowly, shaking with dehydration and mild CO2 poisoning.  Tentatively, she waved her arms as the shuttle turned fully towards her.  

* * *

Fifteen minutes for the Kodiak to reach her and maneuver into a “catch” position felt like fifty years.  But eventually, the hatch lifted out and slid to the side.  Behind it, faceless people, Cairo crew behind a mass effect field, gestured her to jump.

Even secure in the knowledge that if she missed, they’d circle back and get her, Shepard had no desire to spend another second exposed in space.  She positioned herself carefully, disengaged her mag boots, and pushed off, floating as fast as she dared towards safety and life.

As her outstretched hand crossed the field, the nearest crew member grabbed her sore wrist and hauled her in.  The sudden reappearance of gravity felt like an anvil dropping on her.  She sagged, tugged off her helmet and threw it to the floor, filled her lungs with good clean oxygen in gulping breaths.  Then Shepard was yanked upright as someone threw their arms around her and pulled her tight.

Her broken arm twisted.  Shepard screamed, that jolt of white-hot pain so unexpected she couldn’t brace herself against the reaction.

Her assailant let go, fast, and stepped back.  She saw his face. Kaidan.  Kaidan!

He seemed to be suffering the same tongue-tying hesitant joy, as if speaking a single word would reveal the trick.  

Words were overrated.  She put her good arm around his neck and hugged him close.  His arms folded around her, more gently this time, and whispered into her ear.  “I knew you were alive.  I knew that signal had to be you.”

She pressed her face into his cheek, and let that be enough.

#mass effect #femshep #shenko #fshenko #fanfiction #still not totally happy with this but i'm ready to move on

[myimaginesandrp]

Can you do a sequel to the prompt 1 thing you wrote ? I loved it so much

Thank you so much for reading my work ^•^ I hope you like this :)

Part one: While Kylo is interrogating you (a resistance member) he discovers you’re force sensitive.

Summary: After being held captive by The First Order, Snoke has requested to see you so you can be destroyed.

Kylo Ren x Reader

You were awake; you had been awake for hours but you kept your eyes closed. No one bothered you that way. You had been in that room too long. How long had it been? Days? A week? It seemed like an eternity. Where were you anyway? There was no way the first order kept their prisoners this long. That’s probably why you were still in the interrogation room, and not in a cell. The muffled sound of voices under mechanical masks gathered your attention away from your thoughts. You were getting used to your routine at least; in fact, you yearned for the times you could get out of the horrible contraption they had you restrained in. These people weren’t here to feed you though, it was only a shift change. You didn’t bother to open your eyes, they always made themselves known with their bad energy. They tried to carry themselves so seriously, but they were so full of fear and so tense, it was contagious. Why did you need two stormtroopers to guard you anyway? You shifted in your stretcher to hear their conversation. Any bit of information could help. All this time isolated really had you thinking. Even if you didn’t make it out of here, you had to transmit a signal to the resistance. Your time locked up had to help somehow, any intel you gathered could be the difference. 

 “Why hasn’t the prisoner been executed yet?” you overheard the storm troopers say. Well that caught your attention. You’d been wondering the very same thing since you got here. The one on the left looked around before speaking. So paranoid.

 “I heard the prisoner is one of those people, like Commander Ren” He turned around to look at you. Once he decided you weren’t awake he continued. “You know, the kind that can move things with their mind and stop your breathing from within.“ 

“There’s still people like that left?  Why hasn’t the prisoner been taken to Star killer base?” The other questioned.

“Commanders orders. He wants the prisoner on the finalizer by tomorrow.”

Their conversation was cut short when another pair approached. Those people like Kylo Ren? There were more like him? No, they’d been wiped out a long time ago. That’s what the stories said. Those stupid stories kids would listen to before bed. What a load of crap that was. And you were one of them? You wanted to laugh. In fact you couldn’t hold back a snort from escaping you. They tensed up at the sound, fingers gripping on their blasters. Right. You were supposed to be unconscious. 

They didn’t speak after that. You tried to relax into the stretcher, your wrists were bleeding again from the tugging. You thought you’d learned your lesson by now, but you didn’t worry; someone would stop by soon, and take care of it. You were never left entirely alone.

The storm troopers weren’t the only ones visiting you these days. You were privileged with visits from the commander himself. Now and again he’d waltz in and ask you this or the other about things he obviously knew the answer to already. He’d tilt his head under the mask and just stare. Well you thought he did. You never knew if he was actually looking at you or just thinking of what to do with you. The exchanges left you drained, but at least he never tried to pry into your mind again. 

You felt him before the doors even hissed open. The sounds of the storm troopers scattering off gave him away long before that too. You kept your eyes closed, you weren’t in the mood to humor him today. You were hungry. 

“I know you’re awake” You felt his gloved hand brush against the trickle of blood running down your hand. You opened your eyes with a frown. His tone was very different today.

“I just saw your file again.” he began “You’ve been a real piece of work haven’t you? Rogue pilot, spice runner turned medic.”

“Don’t forget my devilishly good looks and ability to evade my enemies at every turn” you interrupted. He raised a hand and you felt pressure on your neck. It didn’t work too well, now that you knew how to stop him from hurting you that way. 

“If I recall correctly” He dropped his hand and the pressure faded. “You weren’t successful at every turn” 

“Yeah but I’m still alive” you countered “Can’t say the same for about two thousand of your men in the Ileenium system… Did you ever find your missing droid?” You didn’t know where all this stupid boldness was coming from. Maybe the sleep deprivation and overall exhaustion was finally wearing you down. Either way, your words seemed to sting. 

“The dorid is no longer a concern” He tried to pass it off as indifference, but you knew General Organa had gotten a hold of it. It was the only thing the stormtroopers talked about.

 “I have brought you good news” His change in tone made you uneasy. Something told you these weren’t gonna be good news for you. “It seems that your insolence has finally paid off. The supreme leader has requested to see you.” You cursed under your breath. He was gonna take you to Snoke himself. The thought made a shiver run down your spine.

“You’d be thrilled to know, he’s the last person you’ll ever see” You couldn’t see his face, but you knew that smug bastard had a grin plastered on his face. 

“What an honor” you managed to choke out as he turned to leave.

“I’’l be back once you’re cleaned off” he called out behind him as he left, leaving your mind racing. He was right, if you were taken to see Snoke you were done for. 

Okay breathe, just breathe. Nothing to worry, you just had to leave before he came back. How? You looked around the room nervously. A thought flashed through your mind. Didn’t the storm troopers say you were like Ren? He was always moving things around with his mind, maybe you actually could too… How does this work? You looked down at your restraints, if you could just pull at them somehow. Maybe if I just… You reached out to them with your mind, trying to pull. Instead one of the tiles in the ground shot right up into the ceiling before bouncing off the walls, shattering one of the light panels. You gasped through the sparks beside you. Welp that’s not it. But it did something. You laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it, you were actually pulling tiles off the floor with your mind.

After several attempts you managed to lift a tile gently and cut through your restraints. Well , looks like those Storm Troopers weren’t lying after all.

“The prisoner is free from the restraints!” The loud noise from one of the guards made you jump, causing the piece of tile to fly straight at him. You cursed under your breath and approached him slowly as he laid there knocked out cold from the force of the tile. At least he left the door open for you. 

“Halt!” the other one said as he ran into the room. You lifted your arm just as he shot a at you with his blaster. The rush you felt was chilling. As you focused on the shot, it moved back and blasted straight through the storm trooper. Crap crap crap. You killed him too. You shook the thought away and wiped the sweat off your forehead. Focus, you need to focus. Taking a deep breath you dragged one of the guards and began to remove his armor.

“Thanks for the ticket out” You mumbled as you picked up his blaster. The suit was a little big, but you could move around comfortably. With one look back at the interrogation room, you tightened your grip on the blaster and began making your way through the corridors.

The ship was larger than you’d expected. In fact you’d been walking for almost an hour and now all the corridors were dark and nearly deserted. There had to be some way to send out a transmission. If only you knew where you were.

“I feel it again” The voice was a distant echo in the darkness. You froze immediately, trying to figure where it was coming from. Your eyes shifted until a small glow of light took you down a different corridor.

“The pull to the light” the voice continued. You rounded a corner and your heart nearly jumped out off your chest. There was the commander himself talking to…a mask? He was out of his mind wasn’t he? You thought back to what you saw in the interrogation room. What he looked like under that mask. Such a young boy, so scared, so sad, and so angry. Nothing much had changed now, except he had a lot more power. You wondered what he looked like now. Doesn’t matter you shook your head and when you looked back he was gone. A hum behind you made you jump. Your movement caused the glowing red sword to barely miss your shoulder. You tumbled to the floor trying to regain your footing as he swung at you. Did he know it was you?

“Prying in your commanders quarters?!” He growled. “It will be the last thing you see” You ducked your head as he swung. This time he got a hit on your helmet. It flung away from your head revealing you to him. He froze in disbelief for a moment. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, loud alarms began to ring thru the halls. Bright lights flared and he lifted his elbow to shield his eyes. You took that second to stand and run off away from him. By the time he looked back your way, you had vanished.

PRISONER 24601 HAS ESCAPED. ALL AVAILABLE UNITS COMMENCE SEARCH IMMEDIATELY.

The alarms rang loudly in your ears as you stumbled though the corridors.

“Come on, give me something” you mumbled in frustration. You ran towards a large opening ahead. Probably not the best idea. You slid to a halt and cursed at the sight in front of you. Dozens of Stormtroopers marched around in a huge room full of docked TIE fighters. Within seconds you had their full attention. You jumped and ran across the platforms, nearly avoiding their blaster shots. Lucky for you, the suit you had on could take a hit or two. You climbed in and out of corridors until you reached the opening of a TIE fighter.

“Open open” you spoke through your teeth as you pushed at the door. The sound of matching feet were getting closer and when you dared to look behind you, a dark figure stood in front of you. Panic swelled in your chest. They couldn’t get you again, you’d be done for. Okay think THINK! You focused all your mind into the door, pushing up until by some miracle it hissed open. One swing was all you saw before the red glow of Kylo’s saber disappeared behind the door. You couldn’t get into the cockpit fast enough, your heart was about to fly out of your chest, you were sure of it. The whole viewport was light up with the heat of blaster shots from below.

“Come on!” You grunted and your head was flung back against the seat as the ship lifted from the ground.

“Well that could’ve gone worse” you chuckled as you prepared to enter hyperspace. You took one last look behind you and there, standing near the view port was a dark figure slashing away at the metal near the entrance of the docking port with his light saber. What a nut job he was. Now you finally relaxed into your seat and sighed with relief as the stars around you blurred into straight lines, leaving behind that horrible place. Still, you couldn’t shake the feeling that it wouldn’t be the last time you crossed paths with Commander Ren. 

Part 3

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Thanks for reading! :) Requests are always open

#ben solo x reader #ben solo x y/n #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren x y/n #ben solo imagine #star wars imagine #starwars fanfic #ben solo x female reader #kylo ren x female reader #ben solo #kylo ren #kylo ren x neutral reader #ben solo x neutral reader

[aelaer]

The Blood in My Veins (a serial)

Okay, so I will sometimes let prompts that interest me just sit for a bit and see if they remain in my head or not and yeah, Prompt #608 from @ironstrangeprompts (which I can't tag for some reason) wouldn't go away and I blame absolutely everyone who told me to do it for distracting me from the long multi-chapters I'm desperately trying to write this year. But in return you get Part One of a tumblr serial with absolutely no idea as to where it's going and no update schedule in mind. :P But it's supposed to get to the reveal in the prompt eventually. Promise. Speculation highly encouraged as that helps plot bunnies very much.

Prompt: Kidnapped to play doctor for a still unseen other prisoner; Stephen realizes there is only one person on the planet who would have palladium in their blood.

This is unbetaed; apologies for any errors.

Part 1 - How We Began

Stephen's thoughts were sluggish and his memory spotty as he began to wake up. Worse, he had a headache that was boring into his temples and made the idea of opening his eyes, never mind moving, sound like an absolutely terrible one.

Sound began to filter through the fog. Eventually he was able to distinguish some words within it.

"...waking up…"

"...pulse is still slow…"

"...considering what he was given…"

He recognized none of the voices. Through sheer stubbornness alone, Stephen ignored his pounding head and forced his heavy eyelids open, only to immediately close them again against the sharp brightness of the fluorescent lighting above him. He could not help but groan.

"Right, the lights," someone—female—said, and he felt a cloth placed over his eyes. "I'm afraid I can't do anything about the lights, but you'll adjust to them soon enough. I have some water for you when you're ready, too."

Some part of Stephen's brain registered that she had an English accent. The rest of the functioning part of his mind focused on speaking. "Who…" And that was all he could manage at the moment.

"My name's Doctor Summer Weston," she answered.

A doctor? Was he injured? He wet his lips and tried for more than one word. "My... injuries?" What had he been doing to get injured? How bad was it? How much morphine was running through his system?

He felt Doctor Weston's fingers on his radial pulse. (Why was she doing that? Where was the EKG?) "No injuries; your current headache and sensitivity to light are an after effect of the drug in your system. I think you're at the tail end of your symptoms, though."

That… made no sense in a number of ways. Stephen forced his eyes open once more, and the cloth over his eyes made the endeavor manageable this time. "What happened?"

He heard her exhale softly. "What is the last thing you remember?"

Stephen had to pause to think about it, which was both incredibly unusual and rather annoying. He frowned to himself as he concentrated. Was he at the hospital? No, he was off. He was… "Grocery shopping. I was at the store. I think I paid." Yes, he remembered paying. He had decided to walk the three blocks to and from the store and was heading back to his apartment. Beyond that point, his memory became fuzzy.

Doctor Weston didn't say anything about his answer and instead just said, "You need water. Do you think you can handle the light? If not, we can keep the towel on and I can help you up."

He didn't respond, but moved his arm up and pulled the cloth away from his eyes, squinting at the ugly rectangle panels above him. The other doctor helped him up into a sitting position and gave him a bottle of water, but Stephen was too busy staring at his surroundings. While he was on a medical bed, in front of him was a large room that could only be described as a biochemical lab. It had state-of-the-art equipment, much of it looking brand new, and working there was another man and two women all in lab coats. Against nearby walls away from the machinery were several other medical beds.

"Drink," Doctor Weston encouraged, and his parched throat more than anything had Stephen doing so.

"Where am I?" he asked, squinting at Doctor Summer Weston. She appeared somewhere between thirty and forty and currently wore her long brown hair in a messy bun. She was pale and looked tired, with dark bags under her grey eyes and thin lips bent downturned. She wasn't wearing any makeup, either, which was a look he knew on his female patients before surgery but usually not on female doctors (and a couple of non-women doctors, too).

"I don't know," she answered. "None of us do." 

Stephen's confusion (and alarm, though he wouldn't admit that yet) grew. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

She gave him a rueful smile. "There's really no easy way to break this: you've been kidnapped, just like the rest of us."

He stared at her in disbelief, half-wondering if he heard her right. His head was still pounding with his heartbeat and that made his hearing less clear, after all. "What?" was what he managed.

"Yeah." The lackluster smile returned. "So, are you an orthopedic surgeon or a neurosurgeon?"

"Neurosurgeon," he automatically answered, then stared at her. "How did you know?"

"The X-rays," was Doctor Weston's inexplicable answer. "I'll show you in a bit," she said as Stephen went to retort. "We should get introductions out of the way. Drink more water."

Stephen frowned at her, but his head was still complaining and for that reason alone he drank instead of demanding further answers that moment. At least the light was becoming more bearable.

In the meantime, Doctor Weston called to the others, "He's fully awake now. Take a break for introductions and water."

One of the women, who was in her mid-forties, he guessed, with thick straight black hair pulled back, and a rich coppery brown skin that appeared in tight and worried lines across her face, shifted in discomfort. She adjusted her narrow-rimmed glasses then looked over to the wall, and Stephen followed her gaze to see a camera in the corner. "How long have we been working?" she asked; she also had an English accent.

"About five hours," Doctor Weston said after looking at her watch. "You should be okay for a few minutes."

"I think so. I have to wait for the centrifuge to finish, anyway," said the third woman, and the tallest of the three women (though maybe it was her natural curly hair giving her extra height). Her white lab coat contrasted sharply against her rich umber skin under the bright fluorescent lights, and just like the others, she looked stressed and tired. She appeared somewhere about his age and was definitely American, with the slightest hint of a southern twang in her voice.

The final one in the room, a balding man with salt-and-pepper hair and perhaps in his mid-forties or early fifties, stepped forward from his work station first. His complexion was a flushed pink and he wore thick lenses, but they did nothing to hide his bright green irises. "How are you feeling?" He spoke with a heavy German accent.

Stephen grimaced. "I've been better," he answered as he was surrounded by the four of them.

"We know what it feels like," the African-American woman replied. "I'm Doctor Jada Ferguson. Hematologist, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston."

"Doctor Meera Mahajan," said the other unnamed woman. "Pathologist with a specialty in cytopathology, from St Bartholomew's Hospital in London."

"I'm from London, too," Doctor Weston added. "Though from St Thomas' Hospital. Cardiothoracic surgeon."

"And I'm Doctor Steffen Baar," said the man. "I work as a pharmaceutical chemist for Bayer in Wuppertal, in western Germany."

Stephen wrapped his mind around this new information as they introduced themselves and started trying to connect the pieces of this (terrifying) puzzle together. After they finished speaking, he cleared his throat and said, "Doctor Stephen Strange. Neurosurgeon, Metro-General, New York."

Doctor Ferguson made an affirmative noise. "I read your latest publication not that long ago. It was fascinating."

"I've read yours as well," Stephen said, then looked at the others. "I've read publication papers from all of you within the last three years." And there was a reason he remembered their names; they were all brilliant studies and clearly experts in their specialties. Why the fucking hell were they all here?

His face must have reflected his thoughts, because Doctor Mahajan said, "Whoever brought us here wants us to work." She glanced over her shoulder, then added, "Which is apparent." She then opened her mouth, paused, then shut it.

Stephen frowned. "Work on what, exactly?"

Doctor Weston also looked over towards the camera, then said, "Our job is to keep an unknown patient alive. And you've been drafted."

Tagging @walkin-in-the-cosmos (though it’s not tagging right) and @queenofalotofdifferentworlds as requested in the original prompt post.

Full disclosure: In terms of writing I concentrate more on plot and worldbuilding and not really the development of romance. Whenever this serial ends, it'll likely end on an ambiguous, open ending to interpret the relationship's route to the reader's pleasure (what we once labeled "gen or pre-slash" stories, not sure if that's used anymore). It'll definitely not explore anything remotely sexual beyond your usual PG-13 innuendo (if that). So if that's not what you're looking for in this prompt fill you can ignore the rest of the series :)

But if the serial does interest you and you want to be tagged in the next post, I'm starting the clean slate with this first one. Just leave a comment expressing interest in being notified/tagged for the serial, though I'm afraid I have no planned update schedule.

#stephen strange #tony stark #avengers fanfiction #doctor strange fanfic #doctor strange #my fanfiction #fanfic #my writing #prompt fill

[scaredandbored]

the one with the sonic showers

for @julie-yard , (sorry it’s so ooc but it’s got DaForge in!)

word count (excluding the compulsory grouching i do in the brackets next because i ran out of space in the tags whoops) : 2233

(also this is my first ever piece of writing using solely other people’s characters so i apologise in advance lol)

(constructive criticism welcome just please be nice i cry really easily)

(hey so data is literally an android and geordie is CHEIF FRICKIN ENGINEER and i am Bad At Physics. so there are large gaps in dialogue which i would LOVE to do some more research on (not sarcasm i really would but i would get sucked into it and never actually write lol) but i’m more of a chemistry/biology Basic Bitch™️ so even though i’m supposed to know enough about sound waves to write that dialogue i don’t trust myself enough to do it)

(also, i’m a First Aid Responder, not a doctor, damnit! so all medical talk in this is me reading three (3) articles on chronic tension headaches and then seeming myself fit to write about it)

(sorry in advance, here you go!)

The alarm he had set for twenty minutes before the beginning of his shift made Geordie feel as though he was being hit repeatedly by a phaser. Wincing, he groped for his VISOR, slamming his other hand on the button that would stop the infernal shrieking. Logically, Geordie knew the noise was just barely above a soft trill, but as he rummaged around his drawer for his acetaminophen hypo, he was considering having a word with the senior medical staff about limiting the volume of the ships alarms in the interest of the crew’s wellbeing.

As usual, the hypo did very little for the inescapable pressure on his skull, and the activation of his visor did nothing but restore him to the state he was before the hypo. Grimacing, he dragged himself over to the replicator in the far corner of his room, toeing off the black regulation bottoms he’d slept in and tossing them into the laundry shoot as he walked by. “Coffee, black, sixty degrees Celsius.”. Hoping against hope the caffeine would keep the dull pain from spiking until he could administer her perscription later in the day. He rolled his head between sips of the slightly too bitter beverage, with the intention of loosening up in order to stave off neck and shoulder tension later in the day. “Computer, set a reminder to schedule a meeting with Dr.Crusher for me, will you?” The computer’s answering trill was, again, much too loud for his liking, so he gave a second order for all automated auditory responses to decrease intensity by 50%.

Sliding off his VISOR, Geordie decided to pick out his uniform and dress using muscle memory, the idea of putting his VISOR back on before absolutely necessary was enough to make his stomach turn, violently. “OK, so don’t put it back on, Geordie, it’s not rocket science.” he sighed to himself as he tugged the zip up, catching his thumb in his collar. Adequately annoyed at himself and already aching to take another shot of his hypo, Geordie lamented the fact he hadn’t decided to shower, the warm water would’ve done some good towards the inevitable spasms his upper back and neck would undoubtedly engage in later that evening. Sitting down, he pressed the heels of his almost-cool hands against his temples, rubbing around the terminals for his VISOR, where the ache was the worst. As he considered requesting sick leave and how to tell Riker he’d be missing poker tonight without raising suspicion, his communicator went off, the obnoxious trill sending a jolt of nausea through him as Barclay’s voice rang around his room.

“Barclay to Commander LaForge.”

Geordie winced and sighed before tapping his badge. “LaForge here.”

While Reg was relaying his message, Geordie reluctantly picked up his VISOR and clicked it into place. “There’s been several complaints shipwide about sonic shower malfunctions, the captain has asked us to assemble a team and look into it as soon as possible, sir.”

“Acknowledged. I’ll be in Engineering as soon as I can. Until then, Reg, you get a few ensigns and run a few tests on the basic functions in the malfunctioning units on the lower half of the affected decks. I want the results updated in real time so I can check them against the ones I’ll run. LaForge out.” Geordie considered popping into Sickbay on his way to see if he could get a muscle relaxer to avoid any serious cramping of his neck muscles, but the acetaminophen seemed to be kicking in, and he’d hoped this meant the worst was over.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

After numerous hours of running several different sonic showers at increasingly higher frequencies, Geordie felt as though his head was going to burst. He’d missed the hour he was supposed to re-administer his painkiller by a good thirty minutes, and the ensign he had taken with him to the upper decks had noticed his smile was less a smile and more a pained grimace. When she’d suggested he let her run a few tests while he updated the logs, Geordie had politely declined with a small laugh and an even smaller smile. When she repeated the question ten minutes later, he complied without a word.

Lunchtime arrived what felt like years later, when Geordie finally caved and turned himself into sickbay.

“Hey, Alyssa, can I talk to you for a second?” Geordie held out his hand in a sort of rushed, half-thought out greeting that immediately told Alyssa what it was Geordie wanted to talk to her about.

“Geordie, maybe you should sit the rest of your shift out.” Was all she said in the way of sympathy as she administered several of his usual hypos. This was why Geordie came to her before any other nurse on the Enterprise. Her sympathy was just enough to get her job done and she kept her pity to herself for the most part.

“Well, you know what they say!” Geordie jumped to his feet, rubbing his hands together briefly before giving one sharp clap to test the rapidly receding pressure in his head. “No peace for the wicked. I’ll see you around, Alyssa, thanks for the help.”

As Geordie moved out from behind the thin curtain Alyssa had pulled for privacy, he found himself looking straight up at his best friend, and his heart skipped a beat. “Data!” He grinned.

“Geordie.” Data’s head nodded in acknowledgement. Geordie admired the halo his VISOR caused around Data’s head. “I fail to see the relevance between your chosen turn of phrase and Nurse Ogawa’s reccomendation. I also object to the comparison you have drawn between yourself and the afformentioned ‘wicked’.”

“Data, it was a joke.” Geordie smiled again, the combination of the slightly stronger meds and his closest friend reducing the pain to a tolerable level. The fact his crush on Data was all-consuming only meant he had something to distract himself from what pain remained. “And Alyssa was just being nice, you know how I’d love to take an evening off to fool around on the holodeck.” Geordie immediately regretted his choice of words, but Data remained oblivious, his concerned head tilt still in place.

“Nurse Ogawa is not known for the benevolent prescription of unnecessary sick leave, Geordie.” He opened his mouth as if to suggest something, before closing it again and taking a step forward, placing his hand on Geordie’s shoulder. Now, it was Geordie’s chest that was under considerable pressure. “Do not hesitate to contact me if necessary. I must return to duty.”

Geordie chuckled in order to hide his disappointment at the loss of Data’s hand on his shoulder, shaking his head fondly. “No problem, Data. I’ll do that.”

Geordie was nearly out the door of Sickbay when Data called after him. “I shall see you at poker tonight, Geordie.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but Geordie knew Data well enough to know he was hoping to prompt a response. “I dunno, buddy. I’m kinda tired, if I’m being honest. I’ll let you know later, ok?”

Data blinked once, then twice, then nodded, his head adjusting itself into a neuteral position. “That is satisfactory.”

This time, Geordie laughed, the pain in his shoulders creeping up on him slowly once again, despite Data’s adorable half-attempt at a wave as the doors slid shut behind him. “Computer, what time is it?”

The shrill chime that preceded the response didn’t particularly hurt his head, but Geordie could feel his shoulders tensing even further, and he knew beyond doubt there was no way he would make it to cards that evening.

That evening found Geordie still in one of those awful, shrieking showers. He’d been technically off-duty for an hour now, and desperately needed to take off his VISOR for ten minutes, but Barclay had taken one look at Gerodie’s drawn face and refused to leave him alone in the bathroom they were checking out. “Hey Reg, do me a favour?” Geordie needed to get him out of the room so he could slip off his VISOR and massage his temples. That, or he needed to stop working with the shower on; the high frequencies were really not helping his situation.

“Sir?” Barclay’s hands had stuttered to a sudden stop the minute his commanding officer had spoken.

“Could you run and grab a coffee? The Gamma Shift doesn’t start for another five minutes, we can take a break from this instantaneous reporting.” Geordie didn’t take his head out from the panelling they had removed half an hour ago, afraid Reg would see the pained twist he could feel in his lips and call Dr.Crusher. He knew he could handle it, it wasn’t the worst pain he’d ever had from his VISOR, and he’d managed to subtly administer another hypo when he’d gone to grab them both a water around twenty minutes ago.

“Yessir.” Was Barclay’s anxious reply, and there was a prolonged silence between his response and the sound of the doors opening and shutting. They’d had to shut down all replicator and environmental control activity while they worked, which meant Geordie had five minutes to give his head a well-deserved break. Clicking the VISOR out of its terminals and heaving a sigh of relief, Geordie felt his head swim. Taking a few steadying breaths, he fumbled blindly at the sonic shower’s controls, silently cursing himself for not having shut it off before removing the VISOR. Only succeeding in shifting the tuning to an impossibly more painful frequency, Geordie sat down on the floor of the shower, back pressed against the back wall, head falling back against the cool slate. He rubbed at his eyes. “Goddamn.” His sigh made his head swim once more, and his subsequent calming breaths only served to worsen the sensation. The constant drone pressed down on his head so much the pain from that morning seemed as intimidating as... Geordie couldnt think properly; he could only conjure up an image of Data as he worked at his desk in his quarters, resolutely ignoring Spot on his stack of PADDs, aside from his gentle, regular strokes. The image made him smile, which caused his tensed muscles in his neck and shoulders to spasm, violently. Again, the deep breathing Deanna had helped him with when he’d first arrived on the ship did nothing but worsen the sensation.

Geordie dragged his shaking hand down his face, which came away damp with what Geordie briefly considered to be sweat, before everything went black.

There was a hand on either side of his face, a comforting pressure being applied by what felt like a pair of thumbs around the terminals on his temples. “Do not be alarmed, Geordie.”

Data was whispering, Geordie noted, and his tender head thanked the android for it. “Data? What happened?”

The thumbs stopped rubbing briefly, but resumed without hesitation when Geordie accidentally, slightly whimpered at the loss. “You passed out while completing your tests on the malfunctioning sonic showers. Dr.Crusher administered a variety of medications which she noted in your medical log, if you would like for me to read them to you?”

Despite his hushed tones, Geordie’s head really wasn’t going to put up with any noise for very much longer. “No, no talking, please, Data.” he managed to get out, curling up a little, before starting, which caused his shoulders to spasm lightly. “Wait, my VISOR-” Data’s hands shifted to the problematic muscles immediately, massaging firmly.

“I have your VISOR on the arm of your couch to my left. However, given the negative effect it has had on your condition throughout the day, Dr.Crusher has requested you refrain from replacing it this evening.” There was a pause as a mildly confused but very tired and complacent Geordie allowed himself to be gently manoeuvred into a reclined position, his head in Data’s lap while the second officer returned his hands to Geordie’s head. “I am here to assist you in every way possible, and I have downloaded various massage techniques frequently used on those who suffer from long-term, extreme tension headaches.”

“Why?” Geordie mumbled, slowly drifting off despite the pressure slowly returning with a vengeance behind his eyes.

Another pause, the hands stilled. Geordie frowned and they started to move again, but the silence continued. Just as Geordie was about to fall asleep, Data spoke. “You are my friend.”

“Huh?”

“I am helping you because you are my friend, Geordie.”

Geordie smiled softly, shaking his head. “I know that Data.”

Another pause, much more brief, and the hands did not stop their gentle rubbing on his delicate head. “What was the purpose of your inquiry, Geordie?”

And Geordie, as much as he wanted Data to know, he couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t say he wanted Data to be there because he liked the domesticity of this situation, to be there not only to massage his knotted muscles and play nurse, but to hold his hand, to kiss his forehead, to... “No purpose, Data.” He sighed softly, settling further into his best friend. “None at all.”

His breathing had lengthened, he was almost fully asleep but not quite there yet, when he felt cool lips press against one of the terminals, then the skin right beside it.

“Hmmm, Data?”

A pause. “Yes, Geordie?”

A mumble, the beginnings of a snore.

Slightly more urgently, “Geordie?”

“Said, I l’ve ya,,,”

Several minutes of soft snores and gentle massages later, an almost unintelligible: “I believe... I am in love with you also.”

fin

i was going to put in a bit about Data finding Geordie because he hadn’t gotten back to him about the poker but then i felt like it took from the kind of,,, geordie pov vibe i had going idk

hope you enjoyed!

sorry for all the inevitable typos i did this on my ipad and i didnt proof read because i’m kinda using this one shot prompt thing as a warm up to writing as opposed to actually writing fic? idk if that makes sense but i enjoyed writing it and i hope you enjoy reading it!

#the number of ‘research’ TANGENTS i went off on #im here to formally apologise to anyone with actual medical training #a bitch is only a FAR #the only medicinal treatment i know is aspirin for heart attacks whoops #i also have zero personal experience with chronic pain #and only mild migranes and shit #the only issues i have with my eyes all involve the vision going shitty #which obviously is no help here #so im apologising to people with chronic pain and who actually suffer from chronic tension headaches and stuff for my inaccuracies as well #i had fun though! #thanks for the request! #geordie la forge #fanfic #daforge #star trek #star trek tng #data soong #ok so confession #as much as i ADORE geordie and data and daforge #ive actually never read a fanfic for tng #because im afraid of spoilers #also im a whimp who wont read fanfic until ive consumed all the content lol #so as out of character as this COULD be #it doesnt even have the fandom’s characterisation/influences #im really sorry if this isnt what you were looking for #also i focused more on chronic pain than his blindness #i hope thats ok #wow this is a lot of tags #and none of them are relevant #bored writing

[sustraiii]

TEAM ZRCN ARC 2 - CHAPTER 10

It’s been days since the attack by Candy and Wisteria. With Neela missing, Cordovan injured, and Xanthos and Zelde struggling to deal with things in the wake of the event, will things ever get back to the way they were?

XANTHOS

Briiinnnngggggg!

The sound of the alarm clock echoed around the room. Where it usually might have jolted him awake, the young man had already been awake for some time. It was hard to waste hours sleeping the day away when his mind was preoccupied with other things. 

Quickly hitting the snooze button, Xanthos rolled out of bed, threw on some casual clothes and made his way into the kitchen. Without the presence of his teammates, Leyla’s house was suddenly very quiet - too quiet. So much so that Xanthos was even beginning to miss the arguing between Leyla and Helia.

Speaking of the two women already appeared to have left that morning. With Leyla, it made sense, after the attack she had been heading into town early to help with repairs and maintenance, much like himself, but Helia had mostly remained at the house in the days following, feeling a little guilty over what had happened. Xanthos couldn’t really fault her for feeling that way, but it wasn’t like any of them knew what was going to come as the night drew to a close.

In the kitchen, Xanthos saw a note attached to one of the countertops. It had been written by Leyla and offered some information as to where everyone was.

‘Gone to help out in the village. Helia getting supplies and was planning to help out with Robyn at the inn. Zelde left for the clinic at 8. There are some breakfast frittatas in the fridge if you’re hungry. Or just make your own. See you later for dinner. - L’

Not feeling like cooking something himself, Xanthos would retrieve a portion of the mentioned frittatas and warmed them up. With nobody else in the house to talk to, he wasted no time in finishing his breakfast, before freshening up and heading out. It looked to be a pleasant enough day; devoid of sunshine, but with a sky too dappled with blue and grey to hint at rain or another storm; a light breeze served to take any stuffiness away that remained in the air.

On the walk to the village, Xanthos saw signs of the attack wherever he looked. Closer to Leyla’s house the damage was barely noticeable, but the further you got to the centre of the village, the more the damage became apparent. Many of the buildings showed visible damage that included cracked or shattered windows, broken shutters, and outdoor furniture that had been strewn everywhere in the panic. For an island that was pretty quiet most of the time, the attack had understandably shaken up quite a few of the villagers. The first three days, many of the villagers had remained in their homes, too scared to venture out, leaving only those who defended the island to deal with the aftermath. So Xanthos was quite pleased to see more people out and about today.

He found Leyla in the centre of the village, helping with repairs to a fruit stand. With her was a middle-aged woman and retired huntress named Lucina, and Linus, who had remained on the island with the rest of his crew after they were. They might have been long gone by now, had the attack not kept them around for even longer.

Upon noticing Xanthos approach, Leyla waved him over, which Linus and Lucine took as their cue to leave. “Morning,” She greeted. She didn’t wait for a response, before turning back to her work.

“No ‘good morning’?” Xanthos asked, coming up the side of her to inspect her work.

Leyla made a small snort. “It hasn’t been a good morning so far. We were supposed to be making the repairs to Robyn’s inn today, but of course, Errol decided he wants to be difficult today and hasn’t been forthcoming in gathering together the supplies we needed.” She complained, hitting a nail into a wood panel with some force. “How Lucina can stand to be married to that oaf of a man is beyond me.”

“I mean I don’t even know who Errol is, but I agree that must be super annoying,” Xanthos said, giving her a faint smile in an effort to cheer her up. “Sorry Zelde ditched you. I really thought she might have helped out today, given that Atlas is finally coming to move Cordovan to a hospital back there.”

“It’s alright,” Leyla shrugged. “Your teammate was severely injured, it’s understandable she’d be more focused on him.”

“We have four people on our team though,” Xanthos pointed out, surprised at the bitterness in his voice. “I’d swear it’s almost like she’s forgotten Neela exists.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case,” Leyla murmured, setting the hammer she was wielding down, and turning to give him her full attention. “I mean she came with to speak with Juni on Tuesday to see if anyone had seen that red-haired woman around. What was her name again - Pepper Corn?” The older woman made another shrug. “No offence, but that doesn't sound like someone who’s forgotten or doesn’t care about their other teammate.”

“But she hasn’t done anything with that information!” Xanthos fired back. “He confirmed he’d seen Candy up by some northern fishing spot, but instead Zelde’s going around playing nursemaid! Meanwhile, those people could be out there hurting Neela, and we haven’t even made any progress to find her!”

He hadn’t intended on having a little outburst there and then, and it was clear that Leyla hadn’t been expecting it either, as she looked rather taken aback. A moment passed before she rather awkwardly placed a hand on his shoulder. “Hey bud, you okay?”

“Sorry for that,” Xanthos was quick to apologise. “I probably came across like a really terrible person there.” He wouldn’t have blamed her if she did think that, even Xanthos thought he had come across a bit harsh. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for Cordovan’s wellbeing, because he did; you would be hard-pressed not to care after seeing one of your closest friends lying so still on the ground, surrounded by an ever-growing pool of his own blood. It was just Zelde’s apparent lack of motivation to tackle the issue with Neela that frustrated him. That and when Xanthos had offered to sit with her in the clinic she had gotten all huffy, insisting that they both didn’t need to be there. That had hurt. In a time when their team was being split apart, he didn’t like being pushed further away.

“You just went through an extremely stressful situation,” Leyla pointed out. “You are allowed to vent you know.”

“I know...it’s just...,” Xanthos trailed off, struggling to find the words to convey how he was feeling. “It just felt weird blurting that all out to you.”

“Please stop apologising,” Leyla insisted, more of a serious note to her voice now. She gripped him by both shoulders and bought him down a little closer to her own height. “You are allowed to vent, do you hear me? You’re allowed to be upset, you’re allowed to cry, and you’re allowed to be frustrated.” She eased her grip on him a little. “Look, have you actually talked to Zelde about this?”

Xanthos smiled nervously. “How would you feel if I said no?”

Leyla groaned. “Idiot.”

“Rude.”

The older woman finally relinquished her grasp on him, allowing him to stand straight again. “Then talk to her!” She insisted. “Be honest with her! Let her know how you’re feeling, and how she’s making you feel. Who knows, you might discover she’s feeling in a similar way to you.”

“I’ll try,” He vowed, giving Leyla an affirming nod. “It’s just hard, you know? I haven’t exactly had the time these past few days due to helping out around the village and what with Zelde spending most of her time at the clinic.”

“Then make time! It’s not hard to just pull her aside for one moment and let her know how you’re feeling!” Leyla said with a shake of her head. “Don’t be like…”

Leyla suddenly stopped herself from speaking after that, a flush of colour rushing to her cheeks in embarrassment. 

“Like what?” Xanthos asked.

“Like us,” Leyla responded, making a vague gesture at herself, before throwing her arms out in a wild gesture. “Like me and Helia. Like our team. We weren’t honest with each other, and look what happened. It tore us apart and we all ended up hating each other for it.”

Embarrassed by this continued admission, Leyla turned around sharply and quickly began hammering away absently at the planks of wood. Acting oblivious to the fact she wasn’t even striking any nails. Xanthos watched her for a moment, before loudly coughing to get her attention, and passing her some nails.

“These might help,” He said with a wink.

“I know what I’m doing, I’m not stupid,” Leyla chided, rolling her eyes as she spoke, A moment passed before she hurriedly picked up the nails he had given her, and gave him a wide smile, the most genuine he had ever seen from her. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Xanthos said. He would hold another panel in place for her to nail down. “Gotta make sure the villagers have something decent to come back to. If I just left you to it, I’m pretty sure it’d look even worse than before.”

She shook her head. “Ass.”

“Bigger ass,” Xanthos quipped.

And they both broke out in a fit of laughter. It was the first time in days Xanthos had heard genuine laughter, and the sound was like music to his ears.

#team ZRCN #team zrcn fic #Xanthos Ravindra #leyla noire #wow that's the least amount of character tags i've ever had to put on a post wtf

[liveoutimagination]

Sweet Escape I - Bob Morley Imagine

requested: no word count: ~2290 warnings: swearing pairing: none yet, later female!reader x bob morley summary: y/n works at nycc as a volunteer and while she’s not new to it, she’s still extremely nervous because this year, she actually gets a chance to meet and talk to her favorite actor - bob morley. A/N: so this is my first imagine since about two years so my english and writing might be a little rusty. anyway - this is definitely a slow one. gotta set some base for the next parts. also don’t mind the mistakes/failed grammar/misspellings/whatever. it’s way to late already and i wanted to throw this out right now.

feedback is most welcome! also, feel free to hmu if you want to be added to the tag-list for the next part

It was my 5th year working as a volunteer at new york comic con, yet I had never been this nervous. Over the past years, I had been working at different conventions and therefore got in contact with several celebrities, why one might think I eventually got used to being eye to eye with people like Jensen Ackles, Grant Gustin or Robert Downey Jr. - yet that was nothing but wishful thinking, considering this very moment.

During my second year, I got my first chance to work at both – the panels and the backstage/vip area. And I loved it! It was that moment I realized this was the kind of thing I wanted to do for a living. Unfortunately being a volunteer didn't pay off very well. Well, it didn't pay off anything at all – besides free access to the current con of course. But I was certain it was the best opportunity to gain experience before trying my luck in other areas.

So, again, one should think I got used to all of this over the years, but this time was different. As the schedules were sent out, my heart skipped a beat and as if he knew it, my comic con-best friend called only seconds after we received the mail.

“(Y/N), you okay?”,  Dan asked as soon as I picked up.

“This has to be a joke...”, I mumbled both – in shock and excitement.

We met during my first year, while he had been there the third time. After sharing our first shift we were basically inseparable. Dan and I clicked instantly – sharing the same interests and liking the same shows. During the following years, we always met a few days in advance, spending some time together before we would be stressed out as hell and sleep-deprived from the upcoming days working and running around. That's why I wasn't even surprised he called this quickly once we got the news.

“Nah, don't think it is.”, he chuckled, while I got up, unable to steady neither my pace nor my heartbeat.

“Dan, I'm dying. I'm literally dying right now. This can't be real!”, I exclaimed still running around like some hyperactive 5-year-old.

“Looks quite real to me. Calm down, (Y/N). Isn't that what you've wanted ever since the pilot aired?”, his voice was way too steady at this moment and it almost drove me crazy.

This was the only difference between the two of us. While I was head over heels over the actors of my favorite character, Dan just enjoyed some good storytelling. And that's exactly why I freaked out the moment I read I would be in charge of the vip and panel area during the whole con, which also included the one the cast of The 100 would be there. Not only was it a huge responsibility, no, but I would also meet the actors I had adored for years now.

“No... I mean, yes! Of course! But I can't do this. I'm going to fuck everything up!”

“Language!”

“Shut up, Captain E-Rated! This is some serious shit! How am I gonna keep my cool and be professional when I see Marie. And Richard. And Lindsey!”

Yes, I was definitely freaking out – more than I should.

“What, you're not going to mention your all-time sweetheart?”, Dan teased me, making me blush right away and I was glad he couldn’t see my face right now. I knew he was right and so did he. Yes, the thought of seeing Bob Morley in person was the actual reason for keeping me on my toes. Not that I'd admit it, though.

“Fuck off, asshat! You're so not helpful, it's like I'm talking to Isaac.”, I responded as I fell on my bed.

“Just tell me what to do...”, I muttered, face pressed into one of the pillows.

Laughter from the other side of the phone.

“How about you take a few deep breaths and then you're going to be as charming and quick-witted as always?”

“I hate you...”

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Within a matter of seconds, I threw my pillow downwards next to my bed.

“Die...”, I grumbled, slowly coming to my senses.

It was still dark outside when the alarm went off and I didn't know who to blame for the most annoying start of the day ever – myself for wanting to get up hours before we had to leave or Dan's alarm, which was the most nerve-wracking thing I ever heard.

“Good morning, too...”, a male voice muttered not sounding any less tired.

For the past days, Dan stayed over at my place and actually managed to get my constant and quite spontaneous fan-girl-outbursts under control. While the first day at comic con went by smoothly, reality hit me again once we got back home last night. Even though it was late already, we stayed up way longer than we should have and only got a few hours of sleep. Mainly my fault but what should a girl do? Yet, no matter how grateful I was only a few hours ago as I finally calmed down again, now we had to take the bitter pill. Pulling my blanket over my head, I turned around, letting out a long, exhausted sigh.

“How 'bout we call in sick today?”, I asked – half joking, half serious.

“Nah, we're gonna make it somehow... and you don't wanna miss the party, do ya?”

I hated to admit it, but he was right. If I'd skip work today, but would show up at the party, I had been working at nycc for the longest time. It was probably the most exciting part of the con. Everyone – volunteers, organization, exhibitors and actors – they all came together for a few drinks, amazing food and some nice music. And there was not a chance I would miss out on that.

The next moment my blanket disappeared and I heard Dan walking towards the door.

“Don't. You. Dare. To ...”

Before I could even finish my sentence, the room turned bright – too bright. Shielding my eyes, I somehow managed to sit up.

“Bastard.”

“Jon or Ramsay?”

“Joffrey.”

“Ouch, that hurts.”

“You're welcome.”

“So, how about I make us some coffee and you take a shower? You reek.”, he suggested, well-aware that coffee was the only thing powerful enough to actually get me on my feet, literally speaking.

“I said Joff, not Ramsay.”, I responded, my words followed by a yawn. “But fine. Zombie awakener style?”

“Always. Now move your lazy ass before I have to kick it.”

Waving in his direction I signalized him to go ahead. I always wondered how Dan could be so energetic, even in the morning after a day like yesterday. Maybe he was a morning person but me? Not so much. After staying put a few more seconds, eventually, I got up, dragging myself toward carefully picked outfit placed on a chair. Even though we all had to wear the same shirts, it didn't mean I couldn't up my game at least a little. Even if it would be a first. Usually, I just wore some comfy sweats and sneakers, but today my favorite pair of jeans, a cute long-sleeve, which I would wear underneath the staff-shirt, and my not so cheap Converse would do. Still comfortable but not as Netflix and chill as my usual attire. I even managed to decide on what to wear tonight yesterday, so the most irritating part was already done.

After taking a quick shower I prepared my skin for another not so common part – putting on makeup. But before I would even think about painting on my face like an empty canvas, I had to get my own personal drug.

The rest of the morning passed rather uneventful – We both got dressed, I decided to keep my make up simple for the day and while Dan prepared everything for later when we got back home, I refilled our to-go cups.

Until midday, it felt like any other day. I ran some errands, briefly switched positions with some newcomers and the guys and girls working alongside with me finally got used to the hectic work. Thanks to everything on my schedule I didn't get any chance to ponder over what was to come in the second half of the day.

But once I met Dan for lunch, it struck me like lightning all over again.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!”, I exclaimed, checking my appearance in my smartphone's front camera.

It was obvious I hadn't just been sitting around doing nothing during the last hours.

Fortunately Dan already got used to these outbursts during the past few days, which was probably why he only let out an almost bored yawn.

“You're gonna make it someh    ”

Stopping mid-sentence, he suddenly unbent, his eyes averted from and looking past me.

“The fuck is it now?”, I asked. Not even annoyed, but nervous as hell.

“(Y/N)... promise me you won't freak out if you turn around.”

“Why would I   Oh! My! God!”

Turning the direction he was looking, my eyes set on Bobby – and not only him. No, the whole cast of The 100 sat only a few tables away from us, having lunch themselves.

Even after some seconds passed, I was still staring. Trying to clear my throat, I blinked a few times.

“I... I probably should stop staring like some crazy fan...”, I mumbled.

“Seems like a good    Nope, too late.”

I knew exactly what he was talking about, as Richard rose his glance, looking our direction. He must have said something to his co-stars because slowly they all turned towards us.

“Fuck...”, I said under my breath, pretty sure I ruined everything.

That’s until suddenly something came up my mind. Something that would either be my downfall or lifeline. A bright smile appeared on my lips as I turned back to Dan before getting up.

“(Y/N), what are you doing?”, he questioned, a skeptical expression on his face.

“Saving my ass or digging my grave.”

Taking a deep breath, I headed straight for their table, making sure my badge was in sight.

Professional. Be Professional. Come on, (Y/N), you can do it!

My smile turned bright and cheerful, the moment I arrived next to them.

“Hey! Sorry about the staring just now. I was trying to figure out whether now would be a good time to hit you up for a sec.”

My voice was firm, almost getting my hopes up, I could survive this without showing my inner fan-girl screaming loudly. That's until – out of all people – Bobby replied.

“Seems like you've made up your mind a little too quick.”, he said, leading me to make a face for a moment.

“Oh...”, was the only sound leaving my throat, as I stood there dumbfounded.

“I'm kidding. What's up?”

His expression softened and he gave me his breathtaking smile, which never failed to make my knees go weak.

Dammit! Get yourself together!

Coughing slightly, I briefly shook my head – lips pressed together in half a smile, half annoyance.

“Yeah, right... So, I... I just wanted to introduce myself quickly before you guys go backstage. I'm (Y/N) and I'll be your girl Friday in a few. Figured it wouldn't hurt if you knew my face beforehand.”, I finished, giving them a warm smile.

For a brief moment, everybody nodded, returning my smile, before Eliza playfully punched Bob.

“Guess you better hadn't said that before.”, she addressed him, grinning.

“Yeah, you really shouldn't hoax the one bringing you drinks and food.”, Marie joined in, laughing.

“Was nice knowing you, man.”, Richard added, not any less amused.

Their behavior was infectious, why I couldn't help but join in and therefore spoke before even giving a thought to it.

“Good thing I like my victims to see my face at least one time before they bite the dust.”

“My, my looks like we've got a feisty one.”, Lindsey laughed before the others joined her.

“You feeling alright buddy?”

Eliza placed her hand on Bobby's shoulder, who obviously had given up, shaking his head in silent laughter as it seemed.

“Absolutely. It's great to see you're all totally fine with me being poisoned.”, he said, both – playfully and devastated – at once.

Still chuckling a little, I clapped my hand.

“Alright. I guess I'll let you enjoy your last moments alive and I'll see you guys later.”

As much as I enjoyed the little chat, I knew I had to finish lunch before getting back to work in a few. Not to mention that I didn't want to take up their time any longer. Even though they didn't seem to mind my presence. Within seconds most of them said their goodbyes – though it wouldn't be for long – and I turned around, ready to walk away.

“See you, (Y/N)! And try not to kill me before the panel.” Bob spoke, making my heart skip a beat as I heard my name from his lips.

“Yeah, we'll see about that.”, I responded teasingly, one last glance over my shoulder, giving him a lopsided grin.

Heading back to Dan, I gave him a thumbs up, smiling stupidly happy and – what's more important – incredibly proud of how well everything went. It felt like this was exactly what I needed so I wouldn't freak out later again with no one to calm my nerves around.

#bob morley imagine #the 100 cast imagine #the 100 imagine #bob morley x reader #my stuff

[canaryatlaw]

OKAY. It’s Sunday night, I’m on the plane back to Chicago from Clexacon in Las Vegas. What a weekend man. I had such an amazing time with friends I already knew and ones I just met for the first time. However, much of how the con was run was an absolute shit show. I must’ve said a hundred times that being that they’d done this for like 3 years already, they should know better than to do the stupid kind of shit they were doing, and yet there we were. So that led to some crappy situations, but I still had a great time do to the awesome people around me. I can’t say I’d go again though, because it was just a very poorly run event and I’m (obviously) not afraid to call them out on it in public, because it’s clearly needed when they’re prioritizing getting every last dollar out of everyone rather than the safety/wellbeing of the guests and the experience of the congoers (and the sanity of their volunteers, for that matter. But I should start from the beginning.

I left off Thursday night right before trying to fall asleep. I say trying because sadly it did not come easy, I think I fell asleep finally some time around 4, which put me at like 3-4 hours of sleep for the night, which made me feel a lot more exhausted through all of the very long day I had. I think I woke up at 7:30 am on Friday, that sounds right. Threw the last of things together and got an Uber, picked up Jess and was on our way to the airport. Got through everything okay, for one reason or another they let us go through just the metal detector instead of the full scan machine thing which was nice because the whole machine is a giant pain. We got to our gate and waited, and got somewhat delayed but eventually got in the air. Landed about 1 pm Las Vegas time, so 3 pm for us, so it already felt like it’s been forever and we wanted to get there as soon as we could. We ended up taking a taxi to the place instead of dealing with their airport’s Uber procedures, whatever those were. It was a pretty short drive, so we got there and walked into the casino part, and proceeded to get very lost until we saw someone that looked like they would be going (take that to mean whatever you’d like) and begged them to help us which they readily did thankfully lol.

So with some help we got to the actual part the con was taking place at, and found our friends who were in line for the Avalance panel that was at 3 pm. They were fairly close to the front for the regular admissions at least, so we got fairly good seats. I was going to live tweet but since getting off the plane my signal had been very poor (apparently Verizon doesn’t get good reception in Nevada) and not only did the place not have WiFi, but some people were saying they actively dampened the cell phone signal to “keep people focused on gambling” or something like that which is wild, really, all of this leading to the conclusion that my battery was gonna die a lot quicker than normal and I couldn’t afford to live tweet. Clexacon is also really good about putting their whole panel’s online though (one thing to their credit at least) so I didn’t feel too bad about it. The panel was great though, Jes and Caity together are always fucking hilarious and they were honestly so bad at paying attention and staying on topic it was really funny. They definitely like, hinted heavily at several things upcoming in the rest of the season, I won’t get into it because I know some people don’t like spoilers so I’ll leave it there and say if you want to know more go watch the panel. It was really great though, and as was suspected, Katrina Law crashed it and it was hilarious.

After the panel we rushed over to Jes’ table as soon as we could, which took a minute because instead of the normal con set up where each celebrity has their own table, they were switching off tables in shifts more or less (a dumb mistake which led to issues when they needed the table for the next guest but still had a mile long line, one of many things they totally should’ve known better than to do). So we had to wait a minute and then get in line and wait for her to head over, which wasn’t too long. Jess got a photo signed because she had a nice new one and it let us talk to her lol. She was doing selfies but that wasn’t quite established yet, since the con had put out a whole statement saying there would be no selfies (and then the guests were like yeah right we’re gonna do them anyway, bless). So we talked to her for a few minutes about some spoilery stuff we had gotten told about and then moved on since she had quite a line already.

After that we walked around the merch hall for a few minutes before heading over to the photo ops, and oh what a chaotic mess that was! After a while we managed to get in the right place with the right people and then had to wait a while longer lol. But for that night we had a duo op with Caity and Jes with Season, Jayne, Jess and I, with a pose inspired by the breakfast club (I’ll post my crappy quality picture of the print out since they don’t have the digital downloads yet and don’t know when they will after this) which involved me lying on the floor lol so that was amusing, got to say hi to Jes and told Caity I’d see her tomorrow.

Once we were done with that we waited for a bit for other people that had different ops since they were all clumped together (singles for any of the three including Katrina, duos with any of them, or trios with all three) and then once we were all done we left to go to the Taco Bell, the infamous Vegas Taco Bell that you can get married in and was famously featured in Jess’ social media au that I didn’t read 😂 but it had become quite a big deal, so we walked for about 15 minutes till we got there. They were blasting music inside at like a way too loud volume, so after ordering and getting our food we ended up sitting at their little outside portion, where we could still hear the music but it wasn’t quite so bad, lol. So that was certainly an experience.

When we walked back to the con place we met up with some friends who had brought along some games and such for a game night, and we ended up playing games with them for several hours, which was very fun. We played one called The Resistance which is kind of like Mafia and whenever we play any game like that I will ALWAYS end up being the “spy” as it was in this case, and it happened both rounds we played 😂 it’s just more fun that way. We played a few different fun ones. It was getting late though and I was like high key tired, and since we weren’t actually staying at the hotel there because it was very expensive (though the rooms were very nice) so after a while Jess, Melissa, and I ubered back to the holiday inn where Melissa had gotten a room and was letting us crash with her lol. Our Uber that night was a red hummer, so that was wild. I was like getting deliriously tired at that point but I knew if I didn’t wash my hair it would look like shit in photo ops the next day so I forced myself to wash it quickly and then go to bed right afterwards.

I set my alarm for 8 or 8:30, I’m not sure which, but I got up and got ready for the day, grabbing a quick breakfast at the hotel before heading over to the con. The Nyssara panel was first thing that day but since we knew it was gonna be online anyway we decided to skip it in favor of Jes’ line on a hope that most people would be at the panel instead (there were actually a good number of people there, but I’m sure there would’ve been a lot more without the panel). So we waited a bit for her to show up and she started signing, then we had to wait a few minutes while she went and crashed the Nyssara panel of course in payback for Katrina crashing the Avalance one the day before, which we fully expected to occur lol. Then she came back and we got to her pretty quickly. I had her sign the op of her and Caity that we got the night before.

Once that was done we headed to the photo ops since they were shortly afterwards, also a shit show but no surprise at that point. I just had a Jes op, and I decided since I was wearing my Captain Marvel tank top I got from hot topic a few weeks ago I decided we should do the pose with our arms extended since that was their kinda thing, and it came out really well, I was happy with it. Once everyone was done with photo ops, which took a while longer, we went to the autograph/merch hall and decided to hit up Caity’s line while we could, I had her sign her side of the duo op from the night before and got some selfies, it’s always great to talk to her, Sara’s always gonna be my favorite character and a big part of why I love the fandom as much as I do so I always love getting to interact with Caity, and she seems like she remembers me pretty consistently at this point so that’s always nice.

Once we all got through Caity’s line Jes’ was still really long so we decided to go to the Black Lightning/ThunderGrace panel with Nafessa and Chantal, who were both super awesome and the panel was great. They were so much fun to get to talk to and it was good to hear the writers were playing the long game with their relationship since at the beginning of season 2 it looked like that might not be the case. Towards the end of the panel we were informed that Jes’ line had been capped, which was very weird because she was supposed to be signing till 5 and it was only like 3:45 at that point which is WAY too early to cap a line. So after the panel we headed straight over there to figure out what was going on. One of the other stupid things the con was doing was overpromising things to their VIPs and basically just letting them through over the regular admissions at a rate that was impractical and frankly just didn’t make sense. So there was a VIP line that was very long and looked like it might be being added to, and a shorter regular admission line. We basically decided to be stubborn though and see if we could play it out on the hope that if they tried to end it before we got there Jes would see us and want to talk to us basically, which I’m not sure how successful we would’ve been and did not at all know if it would work or not. But basically we planted ourselves at the end of the regular admission line on the premise that we were talking to our friend who had managed to get added to the line, and then as things evolved basically more people started getting in behind us which the volunteers were not happy about (I want to make it clear though, I’m not at all blaming the volunteers for the shittier parts of this weekend, that blame lies solely with the con and the decisions they made, including not training their volunteers for all the situations they should’ve been trained on, but the volunteers were just doing their job and I would never fault them for that) which was understandable but we were gonna try.

We eventually more or less got added to the line but there was zero guarantee we were actually going to get to see her.

At some point around 5 Jes wanted to stay through the line so she had to get moved to a different table since they were still doing their shitty system with the tables, and then had to lead the whole line over behind her, which we think they basically just put the entire VIP line in front of the regular admission people, even those who had arrived clearly after us, so we ended up waiting quite a while there with seeming little to no movement. After we had been waiting a little while they Black Lightning girls had come to the tables nearby and Nafessa didn’t have a line, so I ducked out quickly (with plenty of friends to save my spot ofc) to her table because I’ve wanted to meet her for a while now but never had the chance, and thankfully she was doing selfies so I got to talk to her for a bit and then take some selfies with her, she was really really great and I basically cried talking to her about how much I love the show and the character of Anissa so much and just how iconic it was to see the image of her standing there in her superhero outfits and having the bullets just fucking bouncing off of her after so many LGBT female characters were killed off often for very shitty reasons, I’m like tearing up just thinking about it now lol so I was really glad I got to meet her.

Once I finished there I ducked back into Jes’ line, which had finally seemed to move some so we were a little closer, but still had to wait a bit longer. Jes was a total champ because she absolutely did not have to stay for everyone there, but she chose to do so despite being super tired and worn out herself, so she gets major credit here. We got to see her finally though after going through way too much shit to get there lol, I got my op from earlier that day signed, but had to forego a selfie because I was out of cash lol. Oh well. It was sad because the only con coming up she has scheduled is the love fanfest which is in Barcelona this summer (and in case you were wondering flights to Barcelona for those dates are sitting solidly around $800) and we’re ofc not planning on attending that so having to say goodbye without knowing when we’d see her next was kinda sad (and of course we’ll be bugging HVFF like crazy to fucking invite her to their cons, ugh) but I was still really glad we got to see her.

When we finally finished there god we were all so wiped and hungry since it was almost 7 pm at this point and we hadn’t really eaten since breakfast, so we ended up taking an Uber to the closest In-N-Out which was of course a must whenever we’re somewhere there is one (usually California but in this case Vegas). It wasn’t terribly crowded so we were able to get a table and food fairly quickly, god their strawberry shake was so fucking good and their burgers and fries were great too. We stayed there for a while and just talked and had a good time before deciding to walk back since we now had food in our stomachs, lol (we were originally going to walk there but my stomach was already like mmmMNOPE and walking for 20 minutes would’ve been high key bad). Once we got back to the con place we met up with the game friends again and played for the rest of the night. We started with a game called joking hazards which is like cards against humanity but based on cyanide and happiness comics which I read religiously for years and you basically had to build the funniest comic strip and my entries had everyone cackling basically the whole time even if I didn’t win the round, it was just all really hilarious and fun. We moved on to some other games which were fun, around 10 or so Jess had to head to the airport because she had been planning on going to Star Wars Celebration Sunday (plans which got thwarted by unexpected snow in Chicago) so she was flying out that night and arriving at like 6 am Sunday morning. We kept playing till like 1 or so at which point everyone was just really tired so Melissa and I headed back to our hotel. I washed my hair again quickly and got ready for bed. One thing we messed up on was forgetting to bring any makeup remover wipes or otherwise makeup remover, and there’s only so much you can get off in the shower, so when I get home tonight I need to like, douse my face in makeup remover and get off all the damn mascara that I couldn’t get off for three fucking days. We headed to bed though, Melissa’s flight was early Sunday morning so we said our goodbyes and went to bed.

I was set to wake up to my alarm at 10 to an empty hotel room which did in fact occur, but it took a little longer for me to actually get out of bed because I was very tired lol, I don’t think I actually fell back asleep but I rested my eyes a bit more until like 10:26 at which point I convinced myself to get out of bed. I got ready and officially checked out of the hotel room (which just involved telling the front desk the room number and that we were checked out) and headed over to the con place, messaging a few various friends I had made since arriving since my original friends were now gone, lol. I met up with them shortly afterwards in the merch hall where we wandered around for a bit and I did buy some stuff, mostly small art stuff and a few buttons, before we headed to the short film festival that was taking place from 12 to 2. I grabbed a sandwich quickly from the little cafe they had and headed in. The films ranged between comedies and dramas of different subjects, they were all really good and several made me cry, one had me like on the verge of sobs at the end lol so yeah they were very good I’d say. Once those were finished they had a little talk with some of the film creators and actors that were there which was fun.

Once that event was done I headed back to the merch hall with one of my friends to find a few things, and once we were satisfied there we ended up walking out across the street to the New York, New York casino which had a shake shack, where I got a burger and a root beer float which was very good. So we ate and talked and had a nice time. We walked back to the con area after, my friend went to a pitch session and I went back to the merch hall for a final round before finding another friend and sticking with them for a bit, one of the tables had been doing a raffle so we waited for the results of that which was entertaining, then talked to a few vendors we knew, and ended up going back to my friend’s hotel room for a little bit. My flight was supposed to leave at 7:25 so I was planning on leaving the con for the airport around 5, but I had gotten an email from southwest saying it had been delayed half an hour, so I ended up staying until around 5:30 before saying my final goodbyes and getting an Uber to the airport.

The Uber ride was quick, check in was very easy and I breezed through security, again only having to do the metal detector, so I made it to the gate shortly after 6 and then had plenty of time lol. So I just sat and listened to podcasts and went on my phone while having it plugged into one of the outlets they had under the seats for about an hour or so until I got up and grabbed some Burger King for dinner, then returning and eating that while we started the boarding process, the flight before us ended up getting in a little late so I think our ultimate take off time ended up being like 8:10 or so. We’re supposed to get in a bit before 2 am Chicago time, which should be fairly soon since my phone is currently reading 11:25 pm Vegas time, which would be 1:25 am Chicago time. Of course I packed super light since I was carrying my backpack around all day for two of the days I was there, so I just have the shorts I wore today which was great for the 80 degree Vegas weather, but being that it FUCKING SNOWED in Chicago today I’m guessing they’re gonna be a bit less than adequate. Since I flew Southwest we’re getting into the airport that’s further from me, but the roads will at least be clear and you can just take the expressway up so it doesn’t take too much longer than the one that’s closer to me (which is always just a pain in the ass because it’s O’Hare but it’s where pretty much everyone flies out of except Southwest). So now I’m here, sitting on the plane and typing this. As things stand right now, Jess had gotten off of work tomorrow for Star Wars Celebration which she wasn’t sure she was gonna do on Monday but since today didn’t end up working out she’s gonna go, I was able to get a single day Monday ticket to go with her so we’re gonna get brunch at 10 and then head down to that con, lol, probably stay mostly in their merch hall and maybe meet up with some people, before going home to watch the Legends episode of course. And yeah, that should be fun. I’m running low on battery so I’m gonna stop typing for now, I’ll probably write a final few sentences once I’m home or almost home and about to go to sleep.

Okay, flight landed at 1:49 am, it’s now 3:08 am and I’m lying on my bed about to go to sleep. Goodnight peeps. Hope you had a good weekend too.

#daily journal #April 2019 #Clexacon #Jess tag

[nancypullen]

Let’s Talk About Monday

Okay, 2020 is getting on my last nerve.  Yesterday we had to purchase a new stove.  Ours was just three years old.  We’d purchased a Whirlpool stove as part of an appliance package when we updated the kitchen in 2017.  The stove I had prior to that was installed when we built this house in 1999.  It was still going strong, looked great, and I should have kept it.  Anywhooo...

A few days ago I was roasting a chicken, it had been in the oven for about an hour when I went into the kitchen to unload the dishwasher.  As I opened the dishwasher there was a whiff of something electrical, or maybe melting plastic.  I stuck my head inside the dishwasher and sniffed around.  I called Mickey in to sniff.  He agreed that I was smelling something electrical but we couldn’t find the source.  He said it could be the oven which I dismissed because it had been on for over an hour.  I would have smelled it earlier, right?  The smell faded and we remained puzzled.  I was sure we were going to wake up in a burning house that night.  Fast forward a couple of days and several uses of the oven later and we’d become complacent.  Maybe we’d both imagined it, maybe it was actually from outside somewhere, maybe I’d accidentally put something in the dishwasher that shouldn’t have gone in...we knew there was no evidence of any of that but it helped us sleep at night.  Mickey had checked breakers and connections here and there and found nothing alarming.  On Saturday evening the mister was grilling chicken and I turned the oven on to roast some broccoli.  The odor came back and came back STRONG.  It was definitely the oven.  Long story even longer we pulled the oven out and examined the back.  Mickey showed me different wires and then pulled one that is supposedly quite important and showed me that it was fried, melted, completely kaput.  Then, because he is a man, he looked at me and said, “Well, at least the cook top still works.”  No, just no.  He researched the repair and as it turns out replacing a big panel with all of the guts would cost nearly as much as a new oven.  Even though ours was just three years old, it was no longer under any sort of warranty.  Of course.  I was so ticked off. For Sunday dinner I warmed up grilled chicken in the microwave and threw it on top of salad. Monday morning we started the hunt for a new stove.  You’d think that would be pretty easy, I’m not getting a Viking range or anything costing a bazillion dollars.  My stove gets a lot of use, I like a mid-range workhorse that’s easy on the eyes.  So I get a price in mind, I know what features I need, and I start there.  BUT...and this is a big but...it has to match the other appliances and that’s not easy to do with stainless.  Every brand has its own stainless - some are icy and have a sort of blue undertone.  Some are warmer and have a hint of gold sheen. There are super shiny finishes and brushed finishes.   Because he knew that a mismatch would bother me every day, Mickey removed the long handle from the front of the dead stove so that I could walk around and hold it up to every stove we looked at.  We started at Lowe’s - they’re close, usually deliver quickly, and since we have an account we can get 5% off and then just pay in full when the bill comes.  Hey, every little bit helps.  I’ll wrap this up  by saying that after a full morning of comparison shopping we ended up back at Lowe’s and made a purchase.  We didn’t get the same brand, so I’m breaking up the appliance family in our kitchen, but I’m kind of mad at Whirlpool right now anyway.  The new stove will be delivered on Thursday “sometime between 8am and 8pm” - I’m guessing ours will be end of the day since that’s how they usually load their trucks, furthest delivery up front and then work their way back toward the store. We’ll be eating a lot of warmed up grilled chicken for the next few days, though right now I have a pork tenderloin in the crock pot to make pulled pork sandwiches later.  It’s a shame I’m so handy in the kitchen, we could be getting takeout every night. So, the stove story was over by noon.  I fed the mister soup and sandwich for lunch and then went to run errands.  I had a couple of curbside pickups and some library holds that had arrived.  I drove to Lebanon and then back to Mt. Juliet, where my last stops would be the library and then Kroger.  As I drove west on I-40  I noticed rain clouds moving in and remembered the forecast for “isolated showers”.  No biggie.  I stopped at the library, picked up my books, then headed south on Mt. Juliet Road toward Kroger and home.  As I pulled into Kroger the sky was as dark as night. Ominous.  I’ve been doing only trunk pick ups at Kroger but had decided to mask up and run in to pick up the few things I needed. As soon as I entered the store the sky opened up and the wind started howling and things got dicey.  The store only had a few shoppers inside so I decided I’d take my time and try to wait out the storm.  That didn’t work.  After paying for my items I waited just inside the doors, again thinking the storm would surely blow through quickly and fizzle out.  Nope. The rain was coming down so hard that the two story buildings across the street weren’t visible.  The wind had the flag out front flying straight out.  So I waited. And waited.  Eventually I decided to make a run for the car, and at least be ready to roll when it was over.  Stupid mistake.  Turns out that you can not properly hold an umbrella while running with a cart and then unloading said cart.

I was absolutely soaked. Ugh.  So I sat the car in my wet pants and waited. When the storm finally finished its tantrum I headed home.  It was one scary drive.  To get to our house one has to drive down Central Pike, a hilly, two lane road with a mixture of new subdivisions and cow pastures.  In several spots there was water rushing across the road like a raging river.  Every public service announcement about the dangers of flooded roads was blaring in my head. TURN AROUND, DON’T DROWN!  Okay, I knew none of it was deep enough to drown me, but the force looked like it could push me off the road.  In one particular spot I was weighing the odds...no drop off on the right side, just a few trees, worst case scenario it pushed me up against the trees.  Maybe I was being overly dramatic, I just didn’t want to do something stupid like risk my life to get frozen food home before it melted.  It’s a well-used road, so I pulled into the entrance to a subdivision and decided to wait for another car to come along and see how they fared.  The first vehicle was a great big truck, so I figured he didn’t count.  The next car was comparable to mine and they paused for a moment, brake lights on...then went for it and came out fine.  I did the same and lived to tell the tale.  Turning into our neighborhood was eye-opening.  Drainage culverts were spewing what looked like white water rapids, in a newer section in a low lying area streets weren’t visible, it was all underwater. Yikes!  My phone started pinging with flash flood warnings as I pulled into our driveway. Looks like my timing was fortunate. Whew!  The storm raged for hours, with more lightning flashes than I’ve seen in ages.  We must have been right in the sweet spot. So it was a MONDAY, a big, fat, hairy Monday.  I’m quite happy to see this Tuesday because it means the house didn’t burn down from a faulty oven and I wasn’t swept away by flood waters.  It’s raining again but I’m snug inside the house and the crock pot is making dinner. We may be able to sell our house as waterfront property soon, so that could be a positive. I guess when complaining about how all my days are the same and wishing for something new I should have been more specific.  I was thinking along the lines of a sudden windfall of cash or getting miniature donkeys - something fun.   As blog posts go, this one is incredibly boring. But as pandemic life goes, it was at least different for a day.  We plan to take advantage of the drive-thru testing being done by the health department so that we can go see our grandbaby.  The fact that I’m looking forward to the novelty of having a stick shoved up my nose should probably tell you why the oven and storm felt blog-worthy. Looks like it’s time to make some of my own fun.  I started working on a couple of cards, but I’m uninspired.  I guess the 4th of July isn’t really an occasion for sending cards. 

The rain has stopped so I think I’ll go walk the gardens and see if any plants have drowned.  My mammoth tomato plants looks like it’s leaning. Oh dear.  Too much water can make the tomatoes split, I’d hate that since they’re all so perfectly formed and bright green right now.  I hope that your Tuesday is a delightful one, that any news you receive is good and that any surprises are sweet ones.  If they’re not, then here’s looking at Wednesday!  Stay safe, stay well, be kind to yourself, and wear a dang mask. XOXO- Nancy

[deathbyignis]

Drautos x Reader pt 3

You awaken to the sound of the alarm system to your home arming, the secondary panel being next to your bedroom door. The room is dark, and you can make out the faint street lights invading your bedroom from below. Your mind didn't register at first, but you finally surmised that it was early--very early. You turned to the clock, 3:17 am. You lay there for a moment trying to shake the cobwebs from your brain. Where was he going at this hour, you ask yourself. The Kingsglaive had the day off, save for a dinner event with King Regis tonight. Crownsguard too for that matter, so it isn't like he has a meeting with Cor or Clarus. You finally decide to get up, go pee, then move your tired body downstairs. The kitchen still smells of coffee, the remnants of a microwaveable breakfast sandwich sit on the counter. At your feet is a little dog begging for the crumbs. Your body has been through the ringer these past two days and as you stretch, you felt it screaming for relief. Ungodly amounts of PT, 10 battles vs. your fellow Glaives, and a few rough romps with Titus...you decide to clean up his mess later and head to your couch. You turn the tv on to the local news, as you often did (not like you are planning actually watch anything anyway), and curl up in your favorite fuzzy blanket with Titan snugly tucked underneath and lose consciousness immediately. When you wake again, you assess by the position of the sun coming through your windows that it is around 10am. You feel nauseous, and stay still for several minutes. You can't remember the last time you slept like that and you are grateful for the chance to rest your body. You sit up slowly and Titan runs straight for the door. Poor kid must have been holding it for some while now. "I know, imma gonna get dressed and we'll go ok" you say to him as you dart upstairs to put some clothes on. A simple athleisure outfit will have to do as anything else would be over-doing for this simple task. You grab your phone, a bottle of water and you are out the door. The park is off-limits now, so you take Titan the opposite direction. The first patch of grass you see, he does his business and begins his ritual of sniffing every other dog that has been in the area for the past month. You take the opportunity to check your phone. 23 messages. Someone was on a bender last night, you think. Crowe: What are you wearing to dinner tomorrow? I don't have shit! Can I borrow something? Nyx: Man, you really fucked him up! Nice work glaive! Titus: I'm sorry please come home. Pelna: This overnight guard shift is bullshit! Titus: where did you go? Come home. Crowe: I remember you wearing a really sexy nude colored dress to a ball last year, maybe that? Still have it? Nyx: I think he actually believes you are Yojimbo! 😂 Libertus: (to group) need...whiskey. Crowe: if you don't want to loan me the dress, you can say. Nyx (to group) I got Scotch, but no whiskey. Libertus: (to group) is that what I asked for hero? Pelna: (to group) I don't have either because I'm in hell! Tredd: (to group) I got both but keeping it all for myself. Libertus: (to group) greedy ginger bastard Pelna: (to group) LOL Crowe: (to group) Shut the fuck up! Some of us are trying to sleep! Nyx: (to group) where is y/n Tredd: (to group) silence your phone Libertus: (to group) probably giving the king a bj with her purdy Tenebrae mouth. Crowe: it still vibrates Tredd: you must really love this then Nyx: Ohhhhhh No you didn't Crowe: fuck you Tredd stop or I'll put your balls in a magic vice next training. Titus: didn't want to wake my angel. I love you. You're pissing yourself with laughter at the insanity of your friends, and are irritated at Titus for not telling you where he went or when he would be back. You assess that his text was to sent to curtail your annoyance. You start firing off the texts. To Crowe: of course you can wear it, though the chest area may be a little tight on you! 😘 To Nyx: thanks friend, it always feels good to do good work! To KG group: you guys are nuts! I ❤️u! Except Lib...we'll talk tonight. Titus: where are you baby? Crowe calls immediately and the two of you set up a time to meet at her place so you can get ready together. She initially wants to meet at your place so she can browse your closet for options, but you make a couple of excuses and agree to bring the options to her. You scoop up Titan and head back inside. 10:47 You have just over five hours before meeting Crowe. She lives in the same area of Insomnia as Nyx and Lib, which is close to the Citadel. It will take you 30 minutes to get there, so you have to leave your place in 4 1/2 hours. You decide to hit up your closet, since you haven't even contemplated your evening attire. It was custom for the men to wear their Kingsglaive uniforms to official engagements, but a woman in hers is just ghastly. You had a large selection of gowns and cocktail dresses from your life in Tenebrae, and a few that Titus had bought you. You first pulled the dress that Crowe had specifically requested, then inspected the remaining. You pulled two black dresses that you thought would fit Crowe perfectly and a burnt orange one that you thought she would love. 11:24. You check your phone. No response from Titus. You send him another message: I'm meeting Crowe at her place at 4:00 to get ready. Will you be home by then? You throw your phone on the bed with a sigh, and feel your body temperature rising. You turn back to your closet, and pull out two cocktail dresses. One red, one midnight blue. You decide that six dresses is enough options for two women and zip them up in a garment bag. You proceed to pull the matching shoes and stuff them in a duffle bag with your makeup and assorted nail polishes. 12:37 You send another message: Baby are you ok? I'm starting to worry. Titus ignoring your texts was par for the course when you knew he was at work. He kept his personal phone on silent while inside the Citadel for obvious reasons. He couldn't exactly have his phone chiming if he was in a meeting with Clarus or Cor or holy shit, The King. Today, however, you were 90% sure that he wasn't at the Citadel which was the annoying part. You decide to take a shower and do your hair so you can focus on taming Crowe's thick mop when you got to her place. 1:09 You emerge from the shower and check your phone. Nothing. You contemplated texting his work phone but thought better of it, remembering the argument that ensued last time. 2:22 You finally finish straightening and styling your hair in the most elaborate braided scheme you have ever conjured. The style allows your length to fall beyond your shoulders, while the braids keep it away from your face. It looks damn good and you are pretty damn proud of yourself. Your phone didn't make a sound the entire time you were fighting with your hair. Now you are pissed. You stare at your phone, refusing to pick it up or send another text to Titus. You look around the bedroom and your closet catches your gaze. You don't know where he has been all day, but you are certain he will make it to dinner tonight, and a plan to make him suffer unfolds in your brain. You open the closet door and pull an asymmetrical burgundy-wine colored dress out. You last wore it to the aforementioned graduation party, the night you fucked Gladiolus Amicitia. He didn't know that small detail, but Titus forbade you from wearing it again, as in his words, "every man there got an instant erection" when they saw you that night--including himself. This thing has "sinner" written all over it. Plunging neckline and back, the highest point of the skirt about three inches from your slit. Perfect. You are happy that you had the smarts to hang the matching panties and backless push-up bra with the dress. 2:49 You text Crowe that you are on your way and scoop up the bags and your purse and bolt for the door. You are concerned about him, but seeing as though this is not his first disappearing act, you find yourself leaning more and more towards angry and you don't want to chance meeting him in the garage. 3:22 You arrive at Crowe's and haul everything up three fights of stairs. She must have heard you stomping, because she opens the door just as you put your hand up to knock. You walk into the small apartment, and see Nyx and Lib sitting on the couch in their KG unis, minus their jackets. You drop everything in a pile and launch yourself onto Libertus. "My Tenebrae mouth"? you yell as you punch him in the shoulder with everything you have. Maneuvering yourself to suffocate him into the couch cushions, you take position on top of him and growl "My Tenebrae mouth"? "What does that even mean Libertus"? "Sorry, I'm so sorry" Libertus begs for you to release him. To Nyx's delight you punch him in the same spot again, praying to The Six that he has a horrific bruise by dinner time. "Enough, children" comes Crowe's annoyed voice. You slap Libertus lightly on his cheek as you jump off of him, eliciting a giggle from his BFF. Crowe helps you pick everything up and the two of you disappear into her bedroom. When you both emerge, Libertus and Nyx look stunned. The times they get to see you like this are few and far between. Jaws dropping, eyes popping, you are confident that your choices of the burgundy and burnt orange dresses were on point. The boys are speechless. Crowe breaks the silence "Alright enough gawking, lets go get this over with" she says with pure disdain. She is a stunning beauty, but never appreciates people pointing it out. You take one last look at your phone and throw it onto Crowe's couch upon exit. 6:54 Your crew arrives at the Citadel 30 minutes early. You are led to the Royal Banquet Room and it is already 70% full. You scan the room like a sniper looking for your target. No Titus. No Cor. "Hey guys, can I take your picture" a sweet kid asks, startling you. "Sure" Nyx replies as the four of you get close. ::flash:: "Thanks, love the lighting in here"! "You guys Glaives"? He asks darting his eyes between Lib and Nyx. "Yes, all four of us" you retort with clear annoyance causing the kid to blush. "Right, sorry, of course" he replies shyly. "What's your name", Crowe asks the kid. "Oh, uh sorry, yeah, um, I'm Prompto". "Nice to meet you Prompto, so where's the bar"? He points in the general direction of the bar, mesmerized by Crowe's tits squished in a dress made for your much less ample frame. You chuckle at his awkwardness and walk away with your friends. On your way to get your liquid courage to face Cor, you exchange pleasantries with various dignitaries, Crownsguard members, and Glaives. Every one of them, except the few women, would fail the eye color test if challenged. The four of you each covertly take a shot, order your drink of choice, bring them to the massive marble table in the center of the room, and take your seats. You sit in the middle of the table, boys on one side, girls on the other, directly facing each other. Crowe on your left, Nyx directly across from you. You know from experience this is the best strategy to avoid awkward conversations with the King or Clarus, or being the one to have to wake the prince. A small delicate bell rings and the crowd converges upon the table. Everyone takes a seat and you wink at Nyx for being the genius of your seating arrangement. It is 7:28 and the King is about to enter, but still no sign of Titus or Cor. The table is abuzz with various chatter when a bellowing voice announces his Majesty's entrance. In unison, 70 people push their chairs back and stand in deafening silence. Titus and Cor enter first, followed by the King. You feel like an idiot for not even contemplating that they would enter with King Regis, since this dinner is in the honor of the Crownsguard and Kingsglaive. You can't take your eyes off him. He is dressed in his all-black uniform with silver accents, the one you immediately want to peel off of him every time you see it. Touché, darling, touché. You decide the best strategy for tonight is to shoot him darts as an unmistakable silent communication that you are not happy with him. Cor is the yin to Titus' yang. He is in his simple Crownsguard fatigues and you feel tears begin to form when he scans the table and locks eyes on you. There is no smile from him, no encouragement, just a deadpan stare into your soul. Your head immediately drops. The King takes his place at the head of the table and gives a short speech about Titus, Cor, and their respective corps. He touts them as great leaders and heaps praise upon each of them. He speaks of an undisputed truth among the Kingsglaive and Crownsguard alike; each soldier in each division would happily give their life for either of these men, because the soldiers know that Titus and Cor would do the same for any of them. You feel proud to be able to say he is your love, if only to yourself. You shed more than few tears, and are grateful that you aren't the only one to do so. The King finishes and room erupts in applause. Titus and Cor, both equally uncomfortable with public praise, tell everyone to sit. The table continues to stand and applaud, as the King does. After several moments, Clarus places his hand on the King's shoulder and tells him to sit, garnering laughter and another round of applause for Clarus. As you prepare to take your seat, you make eye contact with Titus, but he quickly looks away. The meal is seven courses and by the fourth course, people are getting antsy. You don't sit for this long unless you are in a transport being toted to this battle or back to the Citadel following one. At least in the transports you can stand and stretch. "My ass is starting to hurt" Crowe whispers into your ear. You turn her direction, give her a grin and a knowing nod. You glance past her to see the people at the other end of the table, and see Gladiolus staring at you grinning from ear to ear. You ignore him and quickly turn around again to the King's side of the table. You immediately regret your choice of attire. You continue to make small talk between courses with your neighbors, while stealing glances every now and again at Titus and Cor but your eyes never connect. The final course arrives and everyone huffs the fancy sorbet down in an attempt to get out of there faster. Finally the King stands, wishes everyone well, and informs everyone that he is "too old to keep up with you kids, so I will leave them to you", grinning at Titus and Cor. The two leaders look at each other in feigned horror eliciting a soft chuckle from their audience. The entire table stands once again, and The King makes his exit. Cor announces that since everyone has tomorrow off, Titus and himself have arranged for an after party on the Citadel rooftop veranda. The room erupts in cheers once more, and the group begins to file out of the room with many filing up a massive fight of stairs. Along the way, you try to make amends with Luche and ask how he is. "Fine, good, yeah" he responds, clearly embarrassed by your question. The crowd stops, waiting for the door to be opened. You look around you and see the Prince directly behind you, his face nearly in your ass. The photographer kid is next to him, and that bastard Gladio directly behind him. There is a fourth guy in their group, a tall blonde who seems to be the one keeping all of them in line. You can hear him whispering to Prince Noctis, telling him to back off your ass. You are grateful. You wonder to yourself if this is the group you would be placed with if you do indeed move to the Crownsguard. Your entire body shakes at the thought, and you feel queasy. You quickly turn back and see Nyx and Lib shooting darts at Gladio. You love how protective these guys are of yourself and Crowe, and you give them an appreciative grin. The staircase is slowly becoming a sweltering sauna when finally the door opens. 40, maybe 50 dinner guests converge onto the rooftop seeking cool air. You see no sign of the two men you wish most to avoid, so you take in the scenery. The rooftop is lit up tonight. The massive fish tank with Leviathan's mini-me glows brightly alongside various orbs, cascading water lamps, and the glow of The Crystal. You surmise that there are about 15 tables throughout the veranda and the four of you choose one in what you hope will be a quiet corner. Nyx volunteers to fetch the group's drinks and races off. Lib announces that he has to "take a leak" and disappears somewhere on the other side of the rooftop, leaving you and Crowe alone. "You ok girl", she asks "you've been uncharacteristically tight-lipped tonight". Apparently you weren't doing as good of a job hiding your angst as you thought. "Fine, yeah" you respond staring at the silk tablecloth. "Your lying" she retorts, lifting your chin, forcing you to look at her. "What's going on with you"? "Nothing, really, I am fine" you state with a false smile. She's stares deep into your soul for several moments and the tears begin to well up in your eyes. Crowe grabs you by the hand and leads you towards the rooftop railing for privacy. "Talk to me" she pleads. "I can't Crowe, please stop asking" your gaze is at your feet, and you almost wish this floor had rocks. "Is it a guy, it's always a fucking guy" she states in a disdainful tone. You remain silent as she stares you up and down. "It is" she sighs. "Why didn't you tell me you were fucking someone"? "It's moved way past the fucking stage Crowe". The tears begin to flow and you turn your gaze to the city lights of Insomnia. "I love him". Right on cue, his presence is announced. The soldiers he commands greet him with whistles and hollers but you don't turn around. Crowe announces that she'll be right back and returns moments later with your drinks and some napkins. You chug your gin fizz in one go and a wide-eyed Crowe hands you hers. You pause the debauchery long enough to dry your face. You chance a glance in his direction and he is seated at a table with Tredd, Luche, and Axis, just staring at you. You think he believes that you may be spilling your guts to Crowe now. You quickly turn your back to him and chug Crowe's drink. "Altius, may I have a word with y/n". You freeze. Your stomach sinks and your heart begins to race as if it is trying to push its way out of your chest and make a run for it. The moment you have been dreading all night is here. Cor. "Of course" Crowe stutters. You can hear the click of her shoes as she walks away. Cor stands close to you, but turned the opposite direction, possibly looking at Titus. "This isn't the time or place for a heart to heart, so I'm going to keep this short and simple" he says in a steady tone. Turning his gaze in an attempt to make eye contact with you, "There will always be a place for you in the Crownsguard, should you wish it". There is a long pause. "Thank you" you respond, your voice cracking. "Will you be at your session tomorrow"? You turn to face him, "of course". "Good, we can talk more then" he says turning to walk towards the Crownsguard group. After several minutes you go to your table and let them know you are heading to the ladies room. Crowe follows. You can feel multiple sets of eyes watching you--including Titus--when really what you desire most is to disappear into the landscape. You reach the restroom, lock yourself in a stall, and do your business. When you come out to wash your hands, you look into the mirror. You are definitely feeling the effects of the two gin fizzes. "Pretty good for someone who was crying just 20 minutes ago" Crowe says with a cheerful tone. You smile at her "Thanks, it's my Tenebrae mouth, it drowns out all other imperfections". You both laugh and head back out. As you re-enter the party, you can see things are starting to get out of control. Axis has decided that he wants to challenge Lib at arm wrestling, Luche and Tredd are having an extremely loud argument over who the strongest Astral is, and Pelna is challenging Nyx to a warping contest where they must warp from the roof of the Citadel, to an adjacent one, and back again. You roll your eyes and sit next to Pelna when you see that Gladio and his boy band have overtaken your table. You look at Titus. He has removed his armor and is sitting there in a tight long-sleeve shirt that shows off his built physique. He feels you looking at him and taps his hand three times on the table which has become his secret code for FOLL-OW-ME. You give him a one minute lead, then scan the rooftop. Everyone else is busy with someone else so you walk briskly in the direction he walked. You enter the hall where the bathrooms are, and see an open door that you would swear was closed before. You enter timidly, not knowing if this is where he disappeared to. Suddenly the door closes and there is an arm at your waist turning your whole body around in a single movement and pushing your back against the wall. Titus places his left leg between yours and wraps your head into the powerful grip of his hands and descends upon your lips. His sweet tongue swipes your lips, begging for entrance. You are so weak, you think to yourself and open your mouth fully to reciprocate. You haven't seen or talked to him since last night, and your body needs him. You bring your hands to rest softly on his pecs while grinding your sex against his thigh. You blissfully drown in the movement of your mouths clashing together. He breaks away and breathlessly places his forehead on yours and stares deeply into your eyes. You pull your courage from somewhere within the depths of your body. "Where were you today" you say in an accusatory tone. The look he gives you is one of pure guilt. He gently kisses your swollen lips and lets go. "I was busy" he says taking a few steps back, his tone matter-of-fact. "Busy"? you retort. "Too busy to send a simple text letting me know that you're ok"? "I've told you SO MANY times y/n not to ask me about my business" he says, beginning to raise his voice. "Yes, you have, but you keep disappearing on me Titus, what am I supposed to think"? "It doesn't matter what you think" he shoots back, anger beginning to rise. "Oh, so yesterday you love me, today I don't matter" you say quietly, as you can hear people in the hallway. "I didn't say that...why do you twist my words"? "You just said that what I think doesn't matter to you, yes or no"? "That's not what I meant, you know that" "Do I"? "You are gone and out of communication for...12...17 hours today". "Two weeks ago it was 22, time before that, 19". You get up and into his face as much as you can to a man of 6'4". "Riddle me this Titus, if I disappeared consistently like that, and came home and told you that you were completely out of line to ask me about it, what exactly would you think"! He turns towards you in a rage that you have never seen from him. His hand goes flat against your abdomen and he forces your body to slam back against the wall behind you. With a low growl, he pounds his fist next to your head, cracking the drywall, his nose touching yours. "You have no idea what I am dealing with or what I am trying to do" his face red and beginning to sweat. "Be grateful that you get to live in your little world of Anaks and goblins because I assure you that there are far worst daemons in this world". Seeing your tears, and feeling the fear he has placed into your quivering body, he pauses and takes two steps back. "And they're coming"

#kingsglaive #titus drautos #ffxv #gladiolus amicitia #noctis lucis caelum #prompto argentum #crowe altius #cor leonis #nyx ulric #libertus ostium #regis lucis caelum

[awildtrashcan]

So here’s what I have so far for chapter 1 of the AU. I actually wrote this back in February so there’s probably some stuff in here that I might need to change later on(and possibly some errors regarding the locations of some buildings in Meridian City), but here’s what you get for now.

Space. The endless void that holds everything in the universe. So vast that if you and your best friend were separated you would probably never find each other. Staring at the emptiness interrupted by the occasional star or planet usually made the more emotionally sensitive reflect on their feelings in the isolation.

Such as now.

The (Half-built)Nefarious Space Station lay dormant within a sector out of the range of any radar from neighboring planets. The only activity within the station was the bustle of a lone robot, following a schedule of cleaning and construction. He looked through the windows surrounding the walls of the room as he finished folding another pair of socks, picking up the basket of laundry. After walking down one of the many empty hallways for a few minutes, he began humming to himself, attempting to fill the unnerving silence with white noise.

In all honesty, Lawrence had found this to be a welcome change over having his audio receptors constantly assaulted by his employer’s voice, but after a week, he actually started to miss the orders barked loudly enough to be heard from the other end of the station.

Two weeks later, and he felt like something was wrong.

Three weeks later, and he knew that something was wrong.

Four weeks, and he found himself staring straight into the crack separating the two doors leading to Nefarious’s office and living quarters. Lawrence chuckled to himself, amused by the fact that he was actually considering asking what was troubling the doctor. Previous attempts had rarely gone any farther than Nefarious denying everything that was going on, that “No, Lawrence, I don’t need counseling.” Looking back, the doctor was actually right in that regard, as the anger management sessions, yoga, and spirit walks only resulted in the Great Clock debacle, and that certainly turned out splendid.

He was kicked out of that train of thought after hearing a dull klunk followed by a noise that could only be described as utter despair. Yes, something was definitely wrong. Lawrence scolded himself for letting this go on for so long. Nefarious tested the boundaries of his patience half the time he spoke, but he wasn’t going to let the doctor waste away on his watch.

Letting out a sigh of resignation, he steeled himself for whatever lay beyond the door as he rapped the metal surface three times.

In space, no one could hear you scream. Especially if you were screaming into a pillow.

He wasn’t even sure why he was screaming. It definitely wasn’t because he was thinking about the space rat, his toaster-for-a-best-friend, and that annoying, infuriating, green-clad buffoon. Because he hated them.

Yes, hated them enough that he would think about how he stole their ship and abandoned them right after somehow traveling hundreds of miles with them without shoving anyone off a nearby cliff and even—the thought made him cringe at the irony—saving the universe.

Of course he would never admit to simply lying there being sentimental. He was a megalomaniac overlord! Feelings were nonexistent for him! Squishies trembled at the mention of his name! He was Dr. Nefarious, the most wanted criminal in the galaxy!

Emphasis on was.

Nefarious let out a frustrated sigh for the hundredth time in what had to be a span of ten minutes, burying his face into the pillow. The past week had become a routine: get up, try to get some evil schemes planned out, fail at doing just that, regret his entire life for a few hours, and fall back asleep. The process was mentally exhausting, and he knew that it definitely wasn’t helping in getting rid of the one (actually several) thought that lodged itself into his mind after ditching his nemeses on that infested planet, but he was at a total loss at what else to do.

Well, diabolical plans won’t think themselves, Nefarious thought as he dragged a hand down his face, getting up from the bed to once again continue the cycle of self-loathing.

Only to promptly bang his jaw against the floor after his legs got tangled in the sheets and gravity decided to add on to the heaping pile of misery that was his life.  The rest of his body slid off the bed as he let out a pained groan, wondering where exactly his life went wrong. An honest question, as there were too many incidents to narrow it down to just one.

Nefarious contemplated remaining there as he couldn’t muster enough energy to bother moving. It wasn’t like he needed to sit in his chair to conjure up a plan, although it definitely helped get the creative juices flowing. And hey, maybe he wouldn’t end up finding It- oh, come on, now you haven’t even seen It and you’re thinking of It again, you freaking mor—

He jumped when he heard several knocks at the door, grateful that he was already on the ground instead of falling again. Peeling himself off the floor, he stumbled as he walked towards the noise, wondering what Lawrence wanted to bother him with this time.

Opening the door, he held up a hand to shield his optics from the way-too-bright lights that filtered behind the other robot. Squinting, he leveled his gaze onto Lawrence before settling into a glare. Nefarious noticed Lawrence stiffen slightly as his optics widened past his usual half-lidded look.

“Sir, are you feeling alright?” Lawrence asked as he regained his usual stance, “you haven’t called for me in… quite a while.”

Nefarious’s eyes widened, surprised at the sudden concern his butler was showing, and noted the slight pause in his words. He glared again, responding, “What do you mean, Lawrence? It’s barely been a week since I asked you for coffee that one time, you know I don’t like being interrupted while I’m working on bigger projects.” Because that was exactly what he had been doing. Nothing involving emotional turmoil. Nope. “Besides, didn’t you ask for a lighter workload before? There, now you have it. Now beat it, I’ve got a blaster to work on.”

Nefarious reached for the panel to shut the doors before Lawrence quickly stepped into the room, the motion sensors preventing the doors from closing. The butler’s more hurried pace and shocked expression caused alarms to ring in the back of his head. Had something happened in the short amount of time he was inside?

Lawrence raised a hand in cautious concern, opening his mouth before closing it again, looking like he was searching for the right words to explain what was going on.

Instead, he decided to reply with, “Sir, it’s been a month.”

Nefarious would have laughed if he didn’t know that Lawrence never told jokes. “A… month—Lawrence, it’s only been a week, a week and a half at most!” He may have lost track of time for that brief stretch of time, but he wasn’t that far gone that he would subconsciously lock himself in his room for days on end. He decided to bring up his internal clock to prove a point as he continued, “What are you even talking abo—“

17:32

November 18, 5362

Well, crap.

“…Oh…” Nefarious didn’t bother to finish his retort as he looked to the other side of the room in acknowledgement, his posture deflating along with his irritation as it was replaced with disturbed realization.

A month. An entire month spent thinking about the events on Magnus. He still couldn’t figure out why leaving those three idiots behind had been so difficult. He should have been overjoyed as soon as Lawrence showed up with a one way ticket to get away from them, but the more he thought about it, the more the more he—well, he had no idea what he was feeling! And that photo—

“Sir?” Nefarious was interrupted from his internal rant when he noticed Lawrence shuffling through the cluttered desk. His hands sifted through the scattered papers until resting upon a particular object. “Would this have to do with what’s troubling you?” He held It up to face Nefarious, whose optics widened when he processed what he was holding.

“LAWRENCE! Give that back!” Nefarious ran towards his butler in an attempt to grab It, but every time he circled the table, Lawrence was somehow able to sidestep just out of reach.

Lawrence wasn’t even breaking a sweat in avoiding the numerous swipes directed at him as he asked, “Sir, I noticed that you seemed to be particularly attached to this photo. When you were staring at it on the ship you had the same look on your face as when you watched the season 7 finale of Lance and Janice.” He dodged another swing. “I’m not certified in this area, but perhaps I could assist you in sorting out what’s on your mind?”

Nefarious glared hard enough in an attempt to bring It to him through sheer thought alone, “I told you Lawrence, I don’t need your help! I’m fine! Or at least I was, until you came in here!” He reached out to grab It but his claw only caught empty air. “Oh, come on! My arms are longer! How are you—“ The doctor cut himself off after crashing to the floor yet again when trying to vault over the table, his hands catching nothing once more.

Nefarious dejectedly rolled to face the ceiling, turning his head to glare at Lawrence. His butler walked towards him with a sigh. A moment of silence passed before he spoke once more, “Is it about Magnus?”

The doctor only replied with a groan, closing his eyes and letting his head drop to the floor. Maybe if he stopped talking Lawrence would leave him alone.

Unfortunately, Lawrence continued, “Or, to be more specific, is it about leaving the others behind?” Nefarious froze.

“No! Of course not! Why would I be thinking about them in any way other than how to enact their very demise?!” The doctor spat denial after denial as he got to his feet, baffled that Lawrence would think otherwise. “I feel nothing but loathing every time I see their stupid faces!” Because loathing meant thinking about them in a non-murderous way for a month, apparently.

Lawrence stared back for a short moment before replying, “Hm, if that is what you believe, sir, are there any other issues you would like to discuss?” He brought out a holopad and began scrolling through pages that Nefarious couldn’t distinguish from his position. “If it would make you feel better, why don’t you take a break from your… ‘work’ and take your mind off of what’s bothering you?”

Well, anything that prevented him from feeling whatever it was he was feeling had to be better than this. He grunted in reply, getting up to prepare for whatever Lawrence had in mind.

Lawrence hummed as he scrolled through various news listings before answering, “A trip to Meridian City, perhaps? There’s a showing of the latest Secret Agent Clank film tonight if you would like to see it, or we could see the Lance and Janice stage play instead. And there appears to be a ceremony today…” He paused and stopped scrolling on a particular page, reading out the article before resuming as he continued his suggestions. “Oh my, there seems to be a sale in the central market. Thirty percent off all kitchen appliances. We can finally replace the microwave after that experiment with the radioactive leftovers.”

“Lawrence, I don’t need you reminding me of my past failures right now, you’re not helping,” Nefarious chided, taking the time to search through his desk. “Now, where did I put the…”

“Keys, sir?” The doctor turned to see Lawrence standing near the doorway and dangling the aforementioned item in front of him.

“Got it!” Nefarious shouted as he snatched them from the butler’s grip, “Come on, Lawrence, get a move on. We don’t have all night!”

Lawrence shook his head as he followed behind him. “Sir, might I suggest wearing some sort of disguise before going out? I imagine it would be difficult remaining inconspicuous when most remember you by the size of your head.”

“I guess you’re right. Those nitwits in the city would be able to recognize my genius if I just happened to pass by,” Nefarious considered as he put a hand to his chin in thought. “Well, Lawrence, any ideas on what to wear?”

Lawrence smiled, turning down another corridor. “I believe I do, sir. It will only take me a moment…”

#ratchet and clank #dr nefarious #there's probably some spelling and grammar errors but i'm tired and i've still got some other work to do #idk how i feel about this it's been so long #my posts

[donewithjeon]

Downfall [15]

Characters: Jungkook x Reader

Word Count: 7,908

Genre: Assassin AU

Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26

Two hits in one night—now it’s starting to look like a party.

The first stop at the dance studio did nothing but confirm your team’s suspicions that there’s something meaningful to be found with these map points. Although you’re not sure what exactly the enemy is trying to accomplish, you can still deduce that the information is critical enough to be kept a secret at such high stakes. Why else would the man have decided that it was better to take himself out than to let himself be taken by your team?

A bullet to the head was definitely the easy way out, especially compared to the other options awaiting your captive if you had been able to bring him in.

Alas, without an extra body stowed in the back of the van, you must move on to find a different lead. Thankfully, your thoughts of the previous location slip further from your mind with the growing distance the vehicle puts behind it. It’s a bit of a drive from the dance studio, an hour and a half to be exact, but it’s a good idea to separate yourself from the scene, especially when it goes up in flames like it did. Plus, Namjoon chose this next place because it seemed “promising” during his initial GPS scan of the marks on the map—you just hope that he’s right.

The night is still young when you pass the road signs welcoming you into Gimpo, and by the time Jimin pulls up a block away from the destination, it’s almost midnight.

The target this time is a warehouse; it stands in the form of a fairly large and nondescript building. The exterior is plain and well-maintained with stripes and blocks of vibrant green accenting random parts of the windowed walls. The interior lights are shut off and the only illumination is coming from the lamps distributed meagerly across the side lots. The parking area is completely empty at this hour, and even the security post at the vehicle entrance gate is pitch-black and uninhabited. The absence of the latter seems negotiable with the presence of a fence surrounding the entire grounds—it’s painted the same unsightly green as the sections of the building—but it’s merely a barrier intended to keep the cars and trucks out at night. You and your team will be able to scale it with just a little effort.

The immediate region is just as quiet as the location prior to this one, but you hold off any and all judgments until you get a chance to check indoors, since you know how the situation turned out last time.

Silence is not always a good thing, much like the calm before the storm.

After jumping the fence and taking some time to scout the perimeter for any alternate entrances, you guys find a shabby door to serve as your way in next to one of the many shipment garage panels in the back. Jimin is able to pick the lock and get it open without too much of a fuss; the rusted metal panel can hardly be called a door, but the lack of an alarm implementation is only advantageous for you. Things would have gone a lot quicker if Taehyung didn’t breathe down Jimin’s neck as he worked, purposely irritating him with remarks like “your technique’s all wrong” and “are you sure you don’t need your reading glasses?”, all with his sing-song voice that’s bound to get him in trouble one day—if it hasn’t already.

Nevertheless, you and your team make your way inside without any premature casualties or bruised feelings.

The first thing you see when you enter is darkness. It takes a while for your eyes to adjust as you carefully glide across coated concrete floor, but when they finally do, you still don’t see much. All the lights are off on the ground floor, but the glow of the exit signs and the gleams of moonlight seeping in through the lengthy windows provide you with the visibility you need. There’s an elevator on the opposite side of the room, and the giant double doors lead you to assume that it’s predominantly used to carry cargo and supplies between the multiple levels. Other than that standalone feature, several tall, industrial shelves are positioned before you in rows that look to continue in all directions.

Wordlessly, your team fans out, and you continue on your path by following the western wall to the front of the warehouse. Your arms are held out beside you, almost tilted back a bit as you keep your hands steady for the prospect of a quick draw. You’re wary of any noises that aren’t the footsteps of you or your teammates, but so far, there seems to be nothing out of the ordinary.

You take the time to skim over the contents of the metal shelves that are stacked higher than you can even hope to reach. The items are cylindrical, almost resembling logs wrapped in sheets of plastic, and are clustered in tight groupings on top of one another. After closer inspection, you realize that they are rolls of some sort of mass-produced fabric, bringing you to your educated guess that this is a textile warehouse.

It’s not exactly the most dangerous or thrilling facility you have broken into, but at least there are some things to sift through with the optimism that this long trip out of the city wasn’t for nothing.

All of a sudden, you hear a whirring noise as you near the center of the row you’re standing in. The sound is constant and familiar, and as you keep stepping forward, it only grows in volume.

“I hear something,” you immediately report into your earpiece, just in case it’s worth investigating.

“Well, what is it?” you hear Jimin’s voice answer back.

You see a small hallway branching off of the large area your team is currently scattered across, and when you draw nearer towards the separate zone, you lean your back against the wall before peering over the corner. It appears to be a dead end with the hallway concluding only a short distance from the mouth, but your eyes lock onto the adjacent wall observable from your position.

There’s a dull and dented metal door slightly recessed into the wall, and glancing up at the LED panel above it that changes from a bright red 5 to a 4 before your eyes, you’re positive that it’s the source of the noise.

“Someone’s coming down the passenger elevator,” you say, diverting your attention to press the back of your head onto the wall behind you. The other side of the comms goes silent, and rightfully so—they are all probably at a standstill, waiting for a signal from you to either stay put or make a move.

If the container is at all comparative to the size of the door, it only seems to be big enough to hold a couple people at once. You weigh your options for a surprise attack, but you would have to count on the fact that whoever is coming down here is doing it unknowingly, if the first floor is even the destination.

Before you can come to a decision, you hear footsteps closing in at a fast pace, and you turn your head to the end of the row closest to you just in time to see Jungkook’s figure pop out from his respective aisle. He flashes you a quick smile, which you respond by creasing your eyebrows in confusion, and your gaze follows him as he paces the few steps it takes to go down the hall before stopping in front of the elevator.

“I’ll handle it,” he speaks with confidence to the whole team, but it seems primarily directed at you. You feel the urge to roll your eyes or bite back with how you’re perfectly capable of handling it yourself, but you refrain for the sake of not reverting back to your teenage years. Besides, with Jungkook, you know that his actions are merely due to his undying need to jump into the front lines rather than the reason having anything to do with you or your skills.

“Be my guest,” you grumble curtly, eyeing the LED panel just as the number changes into a 1. A hollow ding resonates through the air, but Jungkook doesn’t move from his spot right in front of the elevator. He obviously is abandoning all discretion this time around and replacing it with borderline arrogance as he stands there, casually waiting for the door to open.

“Don’t get too carried away.”

Namjoon’s reminder enters into your ear just as the metal panel slides open. A man appears at the opening, most likely about to step out into the hall, but with one look at the stranger in front of him, his entire body tenses as if he’s a deer in headlights. You’re able to register an astonished yelp before you see Jungkook leap forward into the elevator. Both of them disappear past your range of view, and you hear a leaden thud followed by a series of strangled noises trying to escape from someone’s throat.

You decide to get a better look at the concealed scuffle, but as you leave your initial spot to move closer, you witness the metal door slide shut once again, completely blocking your sight and muffling the sounds. Jogging up in front of the dusty panel, you watch the brightly-lit number to see if it changes, but it stays right where it is.

In fact, another resounding ding causes you to tear your eyes away from the light to look straight ahead. The door opens up again to reveal Jungkook standing right up against it, facing you with his doe-like orbs.

“All clear,” he says with a content grin. Your eyes lock with his for a moment before they dart over to the far corner of the metal container. The incapacitated man is sitting on the floor, leaning against the reflective surface of the walls with his limbs sprawled out in front of him. He’s wearing a gray uniform of some sort, and judging by the badge embroidered onto his shirt, he just seems to be a simple security guard working the graveyard shift—nothing that could possibly elicit any more than minimum wage.

“Seven floors,” Jungkook speaks up, gaining your attention once more. You see his eyes dart down the side of the elevator imperceptible by you where the buttons for the levels are surely located. Without warning, he takes a large stride forward and off of the platform, barely giving you enough time to step back and allow him enough space to stand as the door closes behind him. “Shall we work our way up?” He lifts his arm up towards the main area, his open palm facing upward in a polite gesture that seems ironic when compared to how he utilized that hand only a minute ago.

With the way Jungkook painlessly took out the security guard, your team still has a decent possibility of remaining inconspicuous to any other possible lookouts on the upper levels. You don’t want to ruin that by taking the elevator unless you need to; the chances of it becoming a metal death trap are very high when confined in an enclosure like that in unfamiliar territory.

“Stairs over here,” Namjoon directs his deep voice into the comms. “Northeast corner.”

“Got it,” you respond back. Without missing a beat, you head to where the rest of the team are probably already making their way up to the second floor. You can hear the soles of Jungkook’s boots landing on the hard concrete as he ambles behind you before catching up and matching your pace beside you. From the corner of your eye, you can tell that he still has a tiny grin on his lips, making you wonder if he’s actually that pleased about taking care of the security guard.

It’s a different smile from the one you witnessed as he rained bullets upon the enemies in the dance studio, but it’s one you’re well-acquainted with nonetheless. You brush off the curiosity before you can find yourself pondering over the subject again, already feeling like you hit the quota of how many thoughts you’re supposed to have about your teammate for the night. You have learned not to be perturbed by his more childish smiles and strangely good moods during missions, specifically during downtime such as this—you don’t bother to ask him about the reason, because the answer always remains the same.

“We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

You’re at the fourth floor at this point, trying to stifle a yawn as you walk down the moonlit aisles of the industrial racks. It’s been a long day, and you didn’t necessarily get as much sleep you were hoping last night. Still, you are trying your best to stay alert of your surroundings, but it’s proving difficult to do so when nothing around you is changing.

Contrary to your mindset just a few hours ago, this is one of the more pitiful parties you have attended.

The rest of the boys have split up to scout the other levels, most of them being above you except for Namjoon who is on the third floor, examining the surveillance machines and security equipment you guys came across in one of the few rooms. He’s the most qualified to handle the technical side of things out of the bunch, so you and the others leave him to his duties while tending to your own. It has been an unfruitful search so far, but the eerie stillness of the towering shelves of supplies almost makes you feel like something’s going to jump out of the shadows.

Nothing of that sort has happened yet, but you’re starting to wish that it would.

The textile warehouse is as normal as can be, filled with rows upon rows of piled fabric rolls either huddled in their own miniature mountains or tucked away inside the frames of smaller shelves so snugly that they look like they’re suffocating. One thing your team was able to uncover from the examination thus far is the name of the company this building belongs to. Since there were no obnoxiously bold letters on the side of the building letting you know, it took a bit of rummaging through the offices on the third floor to find out.

Cheil Industries—unfortunately, the name rings no bells for you or your teammates. The obliviousness is to be expected since the more well-known brand names are only tacked on after the articles of clothing or home furnishings are manufactured with the materials.

At least the name gives you something to relay to Jin later on when you inevitably have to do a mission report.

You turn another corner, about to do a U-turn into the next aisle over, but you stop in your tracks when you hear Taehyung’s voice through your earpiece.

“Guys, I found something. Sixth floor.”

That’s all you really need to turn on your heel and start making your way to the stairwell.

“What is it?” you hear Jimin ask sharply.

“You’re going to want to see this for yourself,” is the reply back. Elusive and intriguing—exactly the type of answer to shut Jimin up and make you quicken your pace up the steps.

After effortlessly climbing several flights of stairs—it’s an acquired skill of yours now, verified by your sweat-free brow—you push open the door to the sixth floor, receiving an elongated squeak from the hinges. It seems as though you’re the third to arrive, but you’re right on the heels of Jimin and Jungkook. You trail behind them as they make a beeline to the back of the center row where Taehyung is leaning against the frame of one of the tall, metal shelves.

This particular floor is dissimilar to yours, because in lieu of the tubes of cloth being amassed in their exposed state, the textiles are stored in boxes and crates stacked upon the spacious racks—at least, they’re supposed to be textiles.

“Feast your eyes,” Taehyung exclaims dramatically, moving his arms in a grand fashion to bring your attention to one of the boxes sitting on the lower shelf with the top popped open. Stepping up behind the other boys who are drawing closer to take a look, you peer inside the particular box and see the mounds of colorful fabric messily bunched aside to reveal clusters of black and silver objects.

Guns.

“Holy shit,” you hear Jungkook exclaim under his breath, obviously not having expected to find a needle in a haystack like this.

“Are all the other boxes like this?” You turn to look down the row you are standing at the end of. There are only a handful of other crates lining both sides of the aisle with the lids haphazardly closed back up after being fiddled with, no doubt Taehyung’s doing.

“I’m not sure. This is the first one I found so far.”

“What’s in the box?” Namjoon’s voice interrupts your thoughts, reminding you that he’s still making his way up the stairs.

“Firearms,” you reply, sidestepping past Jungkook to go up to the adjacent container. “Hidden underneath the fabric.”

Unsheathing your knife, you cut through the bindings of the second box with a swift motion. You reach into the contents after you get it open and feel around the layered cloth to push it away from the middle. Sure enough, your fingers come in contact with a cold, solid material, and when you pull it out to examine it in the scarce lighting, you can tell that the handgun is identical to the ones in the first case.

“How did you know which boxes to check?” You pose the question to Taehyung, impressed by his diligence and decision to dig deeper even after breaching the surface. His shoulders perk up as he presents you with a nonchalant shrug.

“Lucky guess.”

You purse your lips before replacing the gun back where you found it. You’re not sure what kind of answer you were hoping for, but he gave you the one you were most expecting. Looking at Taehyung standing there on his own two feet, the only remnants of what happened today wrapped within the bandages on his right hand, you’re having a hard time disputing his immensely good fortune.

That’s why he’s your ace.

It doesn’t take Namjoon long at all to catch up with the rest of the team, providing news that the surveillance footage for the premises is taken care of. After spreading out to crack open a few more crates, you guys come to realize that there are more of these special kinds sprinkled throughout the room.

“This place is an arsenal.” You glance up at the voice from the box you’re currently delving through—there’s nothing of interest but plain textiles in this one—and you see your brother walking up to you with a pensive expression. “We can’t possibly confiscate everything in here.”

He’s definitely right. You don’t even know where all of the goods are located, and there is no way you’re going to spend the remainder of the night playing hide-and-seek with these covert boxes. Destroying everything is also out of the question without the proper provisions and supervision, and moreover, it won’t generate a desirable outcome. Everything in here is valuable evidence, and it helps that the evidence has high usability from the looks of it, too.

“What do you suggest we do?” You turn to face Namjoon, knowing that he has a plan already laid out in his mind—he just needs to get it out for everyone else to hear.

“First, we should take one of the pieces back to headquarters so we can have Hoseok analyze it.”

You hear a shifting sound behind you, and when you look over your shoulder, you see Taehyung stretching his arm into one of the previously-opened boxes before pulling out a black revolver that seems considerably smaller than it actually is when held in his large grasp; it’s a commendable choice on his part to take a portable item not too bulky in size. You watch him twist his body towards you and Namjoon as he puts the gun in the back of his waistband for safekeeping.

“Done!” he announces buoyantly, flashing his empty palms for a good measure in a way that suspiciously resembles jazz hands after performing a disappearing act.

It’s a surprise that Taehyung doesn’t have the entire contents of that box shoved down his pants by now—he’s not really the best at taking only what is necessary. You wonder how he even manages to carry so many things at once without it ever weighing him down, but then you remember that he emptied out his pockets on the drive over here, leaving the dead receptionist’s handgun and any other trinkets he may have picked up in the van.

“What about the rest?”

The voice makes you turn your attention forward, and you see Jungkook walking up to stop next to Namjoon. Jimin follows right behind him to be the last one to join this impromptu meeting.

“We leave it—set it on fire and let the clean-up crew take care of it.”

“Are you sure?” You frown at the plan that seems so unsatisfactory at a first listen, not really convinced yet that this is the only way.

“There wasn’t any dynamite in these boxes, right?”

“Not that we know of.” Subsequent to the search through the relevant crates dispersed between the multiple rows, the theme for this secret base only seems to be guns, guns, and more guns—nothing that will cause harm when set ablaze.

“Then we should be fine,” Namjoon answers, sharing the same thoughts as you. He isn’t wrong about that; the most that would happen is that the bullets may cook off, but that’s a likelihood exclusive to ammunition, something that none of you saw occupying any of the weapons’ magazines or cylinders—but that’s not what you’re worried about.

“This is a textile warehouse, remember?” you explain, not that anyone needs a reminder of the dizzying amount of fabric stored in this place. “The whole building is going to burn up.”

“That just means less for the police to sift through,” Taehyung says with a cheery tone before volunteering to go fetch the accelerant from the van to get this plan started.

Namjoon seems to have noticed your prolonged grimace, because he goes on to precisely explain his strategy and why it is the most opportune one. You guys will be limiting the spread of the fire to a certain area of this floor, opting for the side of the building with extensive windows that are facing the apartment buildings in the distance. With the position of the flames, someone will be able to see them almost as soon as they are lit, and they will most likely notify the authorities in order to dispatch the first responders for structural fires.

From there, your team will have to leave the rest of the mission in the hands of the officers; once they find the weapons, coupled with the fire, the evidence will give them several motives to find out who the owner of the warehouse is. It will only be a matter of time until the organization is slipped that precious bit of information.

Then you will be given a new target.

You spend some time listening to Namjoon present his points far too meticulously than you would have liked, and after a while, you resort to just nodding in agreement at whatever else he has to say, hoping that your compliance will get him to stop talking.

Letting the law enforcement take over from here almost makes it feel like you’re personally leaving the job unfinished, but you sedate the reluctance that’s still left within you. The clock is ticking and your options have run out, so it’s best to come to terms with the fact that this is the smartest and only choice available at the moment. Fortunately, this tactic will be most effective in chasing your potential lead out of hiding and cornering the person into an easy capture, but this advantage will only work if you get to the target before the cops do.

“This is fun,” Taehyung proclaims once he returns from the trip to the van with a gas can at hand. You swear that there’s a skip in his step as he walks past you to hand the item over to Jungkook. “It’s like we’re playing the good guys.”

“We’re burning down a weapons facility,” you retort, clearly not understanding what the imperceptible goodwill of the imminent destruction could possibly be.

“I know!” Taehyung’s chipper demeanor doesn’t change in the slightest, even as you raise your eyebrow at him. “I feel like Captain America.”

You hear Jungkook scoff over to the side where he is in the middle of distributing the accelerant in the designated area, and you repress the urge to do the same. You’re barely able to register that it’s a reference to the first movie of the franchise, having only seen it to placate Taehyung’s urgings to “keep up with the times”. You’re amazed not only by his tendency to seemingly never run out of energy, but you have no idea how he finds the time to melt his brain with movies and TV shows alike.

“We better stop the presses.” Namjoon tries to interject the superhero talk, making the suggestion more to himself than anyone else as he pulls out his phone to undoubtedly check the time. “We should let them know that there’s going to be some breaking news.”

Although Kim Daily is just a guise for the organization, it is still a fully operational news company. It prospers due to the uncanny ability to be the earliest to arrive at almost every major scene and the knack for always leaving with the best first-hand information.

Who better to report about an incident than the ones who cause it?

“I can’t wait for that to come out,” Jungkook says as he walks up to everyone else, the gas can swinging in his hand looking lighter than before. “‘Captain America suspected of arson at textile warehouse in Gimpo’. Now that’s a headline.”

“Eh, not the most bizarre one I’ve seen,” Jimin inserts with an unimpressed shrug. Before he can start listing off all the strange and probably inappropriate articles he has come across, Namjoon interrupts the lovely group discussion again.

“If we’re all ready.” Understanding his roundabout way of saying “shut up and let’s go”, you take it as your cue to do exactly that, leaving the Captain behind to ignite the flames. The rest of you scurry down the stairwell and out of the building to file into the vehicle you arrived here in.

Taehyung shows up a few minutes later, and when Jungkook opens the car door for him to enter, he practically climbs over the younger boy to get to the very back, successfully grabbing the top of his head to keep steady. He only manages to spill onto his seat after a helpful shove in the rear from a complaining Jungkook.

By the time you guys settle into your seats, you can hear the distinguishable sound of sirens humming in the distance. Someone was already able to see the fire, but you’re not shocked in the slightest. The embers came alive even before Taehyung flung himself into the van, and they are working fast to spread on the sixth floor, emitting a bright, orange glow through the sporadic windows that makes it resemble sparkling Christmas lights.

In the darkness of this industrial area, it really is a sight to behold.

As Jimin drives away from the scene, you watch the light show start to diminish with each passing second until it completely fades away, the spectacle now obstructed by other buildings and foliage. Turning your attention back into the van, you listen as Namjoon starts talking about the next move.

Thankfully, he proposes turning in for the night.

The events that occurred so far will most likely send the authorities into high alert. This means that police of all sorts will be on the lookout or even hunting for clues in the neighboring areas, and that’s not a preferable condition to go cause more mayhem. Even Mr. Shin doesn’t have all the power in the world, which in turn makes sense that not all members of the law enforcement are under his thumb. He has just enough influence to ensure that you are all safe from them, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a chance you can get caught if you decide to be reckless.

Three hits in one night is a little much, even for you guys. Two is usually the limit, because by the time it gets to the third, it becomes a motif. That’s when you get too predictable, and the last thing the organization wants is excessive attention on all the wrong things.

So, with the missions more or less cleared for now, it only leaves you with one more thing to do: report.

It takes more or less an hour to drive to your destination, most of which was spent staring aimlessly out of your window. Before you exit the van, you take the time to remind Taehyung about passing the confiscated revolvers to Hoseok so that he can work on identifying the weapons. He just gives you a thumbs up from the backseat before waving his hand to send you on your way. You hop out of the vehicle, and the door closes behind you before the car goes speeding off again, leaving you alone on the streets of Gangnam—specifically, Nonhyeon.

The reason for dropping you off like this is quite simple: you’re the only one fit for this job.

Even if that’s not true, you’re going to keep telling yourself that so you don’t feel annoyed by your blatant desertion. The others are on their way back to headquarters or possibly even their apartments, but you’re here because Namjoon bestowed this responsibility on your shoulders since even your early days of joining the team.

There was no rock-paper-scissors like with the younger boys—just orders.

Wasting no time, you begin down the polished and paved path, keeping up your pace for a couple minutes until the back of the bustling building comes into view. You don’t need to see the front to know what it is—you’ve set your eyes upon the angular, illuminated letters and the distinct, geometric emblem above the entrance many times in the past.

Club Octagon.

You frequent this place for the sole purpose of meeting with your supervisor in order to personally convey your report to him and receive any necessary instructions for the following morning. He is currently fulfilling his own duties at the moment by being in that hellhole, so you can’t possibly complain about having to go in there too—at least, not in front of him.

From what you can remember, Namjoon has never set foot in this club, not counting the times he visited outside of the hours of operation. Somehow, he has made you into a messenger to and from this world of disorienting music and mind-numbingly expensive booze. You can’t blame him for choosing you as the only one in the team he can trust to go in and out without any complications, but you don’t know why he’s so adamant about refusing to go himself. He always makes the same excuse of having other matters to attend to, but if you have to guess, you would say that it’s just another characteristic of his uptight and starchy personality.

Although you have to admit, the club is not for the faint of heart.

Absently waving at the bouncer guarding the unpopulated entry, you watch him open the door for you with a grin that barely makes it past looking like a grimace. You could already hear the thumping bass from a block away, but now that you’re in the belly of the beast, it’s the only thing you can feel. As you carefully climb down the stairs into the basement where the club is actually located, you can’t help but feel glad that the violently flashing lights are less inclined to reach this part of the venue.

The only saving grace of coming to this place is, without a doubt, the backdoor. It’s a relief that you don’t ever need to experience what it’s like up front. This club is awfully exclusive, only doing business Thursday through Saturday, so even though it’s not technically the weekend yet, the nature of this establishment makes it so that the peak hours are basically every hour that this place is up and running. Seeing how it’s nearing three in the morning, the day having switched from Thursday to Friday when the clock struck midnight, the crowd inside doesn’t seem to be exhibiting any signs of leaving soon.

Several years back, the organization was kind enough to assign this nightclub to someone they were sure would run it well: Jin. He was granted ownership of this establishment not too long after he was promoted to the team’s supervising officer. It takes a substantial amount of trust from the higher-ups for something like this to happen, especially when there are many older and wiser members of the organization Jin potentially beat out for the position.

It’s a lot of responsibility to put on anyone’s plate, but you know that there’s an additional crucial and deciding factor that was the icing on the cake of their decision.

It’s not complicated—Jin is extremely handsome. Anyone with eyes knows that, and there’s no way in hell that he doesn’t know it, too.

Word soon got around about the ridiculously attractive owner of the hot new club in Gangnam. This worked wonders to draw more females to the venue, particularly ones who were fresh-faced and attractive themselves, and in turn, this rise led to more party-ready males with fat wallets to become regulars as well.

Thus, business increased tenfold.

Jin usually stays within the confines of his private room, but he knows how to find the right moments to take a stroll around the VIP areas. He’s phenomenal at feeling the crowd and socializing with exuding confidence, and these occasional sightings of his strikingly good looks are just enough to keep the buzz alive.

Although this extra influx of money is nothing to brush off so simply, it is not the true purpose for owning a business like this. Behind the scenes of this tremendously successful club and lounge is a safe haven where clients can come in to place their offers and requests. Jin, along with some other supervisors who use the club more intermittently, meets with these patrons throughout the night and negotiates the terms of even the most staggering and unspeakable jobs.

It’s very rare that a deal goes sour and even more so when it’s Jin sitting at the other end of the table—he tends to get what he wants, all while letting the other party pay the price.

You turn right at the bottom of the stairs and let your legs carry you to the other side of the club. The floor is a glossy concrete, much like the one you walked upon at the warehouse earlier, but it’s noticeably better quality, living up to the Gangnam name. You’re on the third and topmost level, but the railed pathway only follows along the outer walls, leaving the center wide open so that you can see the dance floor at the bottom. You decide to ignore the pandemonium going on below for now and focus on the burly man standing at the end of the hallway. The moment he lays his eyes on you, he gives you a knowing nod before stepping aside to let you pass into the hall tucked away in the corner of the club.

That head tip only means one thing: Jin is not speaking to any visitors right now. You’re glad you don’t have to wait tonight—sometimes, you’re stuck here for hours on end, hoping that Jin finishes up whatever meeting he’s in before you call it quits and walk downstairs to the VIP bar. You rap your knuckles twice on the very first door to your left, the sound completely inaudible under the blaring beats of song playing, before twisting the handle and pushing it open to let yourself in.

The second you close the door behind you with a solid snap, the pounding music seizes to exist, leaving only dull drone in the background of the sounds too loud for even the soundproofing to suppress.

The private room is not as outstanding in size as his office back in headquarters, but it’s adequate enough for Jin and his obligations. There is a dark red leather couch hugging the back wall that stretches lengthwise to hook around and onto the wall immediately to your left. In front of it is a long, rectangular table with a shiny black finish, the corners of the slab cut off so that the shape has eight sides instead of four; other than upholding a flat silver object you assume is a laptop, the surface is bare. On the far end of the table is another leather seat similar to the sectional sofa, except this one is only made for one person.

Jin is sitting in his spot on the single seater, his impeccable posture accentuated by the crisp business suit fitted on his body. The black blazer is on this time instead of draped over the nearest chair, but the button is unclasped to allow him to sit comfortably. His eyes are darting over the numerous TV screens installed on the back wall; they show live CCTV footage of everything from the hallway just outside of this door to the back entryway you just came from. Even from his own isolated room, Jin is able to keep track of everything and everyone, and you don’t expect any less.

This is his place, after all.

“Just you again?” Jin speaks up, averting his attention from the screens to greet you, letting a smile form on his face so that his words don’t seem hostile. You’re sure that he knows the answer to that question, but you decide to humor him anyway.

“As always.” You slide onto the couch so that you’re on the opposite end of the table from him, extending your arms out in front of you to rest them on the cold surface. You wait for a typical sigh to escape his lips, but all he does is keep his smile going strong as he reaches in front of him to open the laptop.

“With the others, I just assume no news is good news.”

“A wise choice,” you say, cracking a smile back at him.

Without resorting to any more small talk, you dive into explaining the events that occurred tonight, mapping out every single detail to the best of your ability. You tell him everything he needs to know: the final body count at the first location including the suicidal receptionist, the discovery of the weapons buried deep within the Cheil Industries warehouse, the two pieces of evidence your team was able to retrieve from both sites, and the confirmation of the fires you ultimately set to them.

After keeping up with your monologue and typing all of the relevant data into the device in front of him, he promptly carries on by devising the next portion of the plan. He tells you that the best thing to do now is to wait for the authorities to do their part, further establishing the conclusion you and your team already came up with. You guys need to wait for the information on your lead to trickle in before you can embark on any searches and seizures of your own accord. The main person of interest is the mysterious owner of the warehouse, but considering the messy situation you left behind, eluding the police—more importantly, the organization—won’t work for long.

“I’m going to have a word with the chief to get everything sorted out.” Jin closes the laptop again so that it claps shut before he clutches his hands together on top of the sleek cover. “I’ll send out a message once I have more info to give, but just know that you should all be ready to go back to business first thing in the morning.”

You can’t help let a wry grin appear on your lips at the fact that it’s morning right now, but you nod responsively to the order. “I’ll let everyone know.”

“Good. That’s all for now.”

Jin concludes the two-person meeting, but you are planted in your spot. You contemplate leaving right away so that you can try your hand at getting a decent amount of rest, but something in the back of your mind prevents you from doing so. He is aware of this too, and he patiently keeps his eyes on you, waiting for the inevitable words to come out of your mouth.

“What did the wanted man even do?”

The question hangs in the air for a moment before your supervisor’s answer floats out almost automatically. “It’s nothing you need to worry about. As long as we follow protocol, he won’t be a problem anymore.”

It’s highly unusual for the organization to have qualms with anyone enough to put out a warrant, especially just for one man, unless compensated by your loyal customers to do so. All business is handled objectively, meaning that the only enemies you really have are the enemies of your clients.

It’s almost never anything personal, but you have a feeling this is exactly that.

“We’re being sent on this wild goose chase about a guy we barely have any details about. I think I deserve to know something so that I’m not just going in blind.”

Jin is silent, but his gaze never leaves yours—in fact, it’s like you can almost feel his burning through yours and hitting the back of your skull, but you stay resolute. A few seconds go by in this stalemate, although you’re certain that if this is a staring contest, you’re going to lose miserably.

At least you won’t go down without a fight.

Much to your relief, there is no need for that. The missing breath of air you were waiting for before exhales from Jin’s lungs as he leans back into his chair resignedly.

“The guy’s a murderer,” he explains, starting off strong. “He wiped out an entire team in one go by blowing up the mission site that turned out to be a hoax. Everyone thinks that he’s a key player in a bigger strategy to take our organization down, so this case is very high on our priority list.”

You listen attentively as things seem to fall into place. It makes sense why your team was sent to Wolmido at the slightest hint of trouble; the false wanted man fessed up about some shipments coming into the dock, and now that you have the right context clues, you can deduce that the items he was talking about were bombs.

In a situation like this, every precaution has to be taken—no warnings can be ignored.

“Don’t think too much about it.” Jin pulls you from your thoughts as he stands up from his seat, smoothing out his white shirt before clasping one of the buttons on the blazer. “It’ll keep you up at night.”

He says that as if you don’t have enough to worry about. You get up from your own spot to stretch your limbs, knowing that what he gave you is probably the best you’re going to get out of him. Jin saunters over to the exit before wrapping his fingers around the silver handle. He pauses to give you a stern look that you can only assume is reminding you that any and all conversations that happened here will not be making it past this door.

“Get some rest,” he repeats his ever-nagging sentence. You wish you could say the same to him, but you know that there’s still a few hours left until the club closes. He probably won’t get any sleep tonight, but that leaves you to wonder when he even has the time to do so.

You’ll leave that question for another time.

Jin opens the door for you, successfully breaking the floodgates and letting in all the noise that now hits your eardrums with twice the force. Throwing your hand up to wave so long to your supervisor, you proceed into the hallway and retrace your steps to make your way out of this place.

As you tread down the platform in the direction you came from, you let your eyes wander over the metal railing. Immediately, your sight is barraged with flashing lights and lasers; the beams unpredictably shoot out in different directions, setting a blazing path of vivid colors into every corner of the club. The intensity is almost on par with the dancing embers you created and witnessed not too long ago.

It’s a different kind of light show, but arguably equally as destructive.

With each flash of light, you can see the wisps of vapor rising from both the fog machine and the collective cigarettes being consumed within the sea of intoxicated people. The smoke is not as thick and opaque as the kind that was released from the burning buildings, but it saturates the stuffy atmosphere in a way that leaves no room for uncontaminated air.

Again, both seem equally as destructive.

You rip your gaze away from the scene once you reach the stairs that will lead you out of this underworld. It seriously feels like a different realm down here compared to the utter stillness and obscurity you faced for the majority of the missions, even with the few parallels you are able to draw. Briskly jogging up the steps, your sensory overload begins to dissipate little by little until you finally make it out of the madness with a push of the backdoor.

Your ears feel a bit murky and you can still see blossoms of light appearing before your eyes, painting the dim streets in front of you with the afterimages of the luminescent club lights. You try to blink them away, but they grow stronger each time, almost as if you are only fanning the flames.

While the images you saw inside Octagon linger in your vision, the images of the structural fires you pulled up for comparison swim in your mind, and along with it, a conjuring of the devastating event that you were finally lucky enough to have Jin disclose to you.

You still have no clue who the wanted man is or what he wants, other than for you all to die, but after the discussion with Jin, you know one thing is for certain—he won’t be a problem as long as everyone does their job.

He too shall burn.

#i'm spending so much time building this world up #hopefully it's worth the effort <3 #downfall #bts scenarios #jungkook scenarios #jungkook x reader #jungkook #bts #bts scenario #jungkook scenario #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic

[avidbeader]

Voltron fanfic: “Scattered” Chapter 11

Season 2 AU. No ships, K+ to T rating. Begin at the beginning here.

After grabbing a pair of sentry heads that looked whole and tossing them into the cabin of her speeder, Pidge tried to shift the first fallen drone. But even though it was much smaller than the fighters used by the warships, it was still much bigger than she was and quite heavy. There was no way she would be able to bring it back to the village on her own, even with her anti-grav platform.

“Fine. When the others get here we’ll load you into a spare cargo space. Then I can start taking you apart. In the meantime…” She brought up her gauntlet and powered up the scanner. Starting at one wingtip of the drone, she began carefully scanning every inch of the thing to create a schematic.

As she worked, she let her thoughts drift back to her family. She had the last known location of her father and brother. They had been together, were hopefully still alive. She began talking to herself.

“Maybe I can convince Allura and the others to go there first. We’ll want to take them back to Earth after all, and if we go to the slave camp first we don’t have to backtrack. One less wormhole for her to make.”

She was two-thirds of the way through the scan when a thunderous boom rolled through the air. She looked up instantly, scanning for storm clouds, although the noise had been more self-contained than the thunder she knew. It was more like a sonic boom. And then she saw the silhouette rise over the far horizon.

Pidge ran for her speeder and threw herself into it. After a split second of debate she headed for the nearest set of rocky hills. Perhaps she could find a cave to hide in and wait the ship out. Maybe they didn’t know where she was yet.

Regrettably, confirmation came in the form of a purple energy bolt, striking the ground to her right and tossing the speeder twenty yards to the left from the shockwave. She lurched and banged her head on the windscreen.

Yeah, not forgetting my helmet again…

<> <> <> <> <>

It had taken hours, hours he didn’t have to spare, but Darzi had his new accomplice. He had carefully sounded out the people who showed disappointment or anger on his behalf after his imminent departure was announced. A captain who shared his views on the danger of alien threats had a cousin among the medtechs. The captain convinced him to help Darzi, then altered the schedule of people monitoring Kogane to put him there alone at 0330.

Darzi was still angry at himself for misjudging Perkins. Just because the man was slow in movement and speech didn’t mean he was slow in thinking. And the problem with trusting a stand-up guy like Perkins was that his loyalty could shift if he decided the other side was more moral. But Perkins was gone already and no one else could bear witness to what had happened. Darzi reminded himself not repeat that mistake, not to let Kogane provoke him.

Darzi stepped inside and nodded at the medtech, Blackwell, who was already making preparations. The monitors for Kogane’s vitals were set up with the alarms on them turned off. A saline drip was in place and ready to accept the drugs.

“All right. He’s due for another round of sedatives in less than three hours. This is your best chance for countering the sedative with enough time to administer the amotrazephine once he’s awake again and get a few questions in before we have to clear out.”

“Understood. Start with the adrenaline.”

The medtech stuck a syringe into the Y-set and began slowly adding adrenaline into the liquid. Darzi watched Kogane’s face like a hawk, but there was no change yet. The rhythm of the monitors for heart rate, respiration, and brain activity did not shift.

Blackwell was watching the monitors, continuing to empty the syringe of adrenaline very slowly. When the syringe was empty, the medtech pulled it free. “That’s the first dose. Starting the second dose. Given the previous evidence of his high tolerance for any drug, we will pause after the second dose to allow time for it to take effect. While we wait I will administer the first dose of amotrazephine.”

“Understood.”

Blackwell took the same care as before, adding the adrenaline very slowly and watching the monitors. The second dose was almost gone when both men noticed a quickening in the low beeps.

“It’s working!”

The medtech finished the second dose and picked up a larger syringe. “Yes, all his vitals are showing signs of the stimulant. Starting the amotrazephine now.”

<> <> <> <> <>

Pidge had the speeder’s throttle wide open, going as fast as she could toward the cover of the hills. She registered that a whine began to sound just before the shot went off and used that to dodge as randomly as she could, given her momentum. Two more blasts missed, with her being able to ride out the shockwaves, before her luck ran out.

She was almost to her goal when the next blast came too close and clipped the speeder. The automatic ejection system vaulted her into midair and she frantically tried to control her trajectory with her jet pack before gravity took over. Yet another strike missed and the shock wave sent her spinning through the air, rattling her already painful head. She screamed as she tried to right herself, hearing that telltale whine again.

The noise was eclipsed by a sudden roar and the blasts seemed to pause. Pidge focused, as she was hurtling toward the ridge of the rocky hills too fast, and yanked out her bayard. She shot the blade into the ground as an anchor and fired her jetpack in bursts to counter the centrifugal force before it could slam her into the ground. She landed sideways and rolled several yards before she could stop. She pushed up to her knees, her stomach ready to pull a Hunk, and she looked back.

The Green Lion was flying on its own. It appeared to have rammed the Galra ship hard enough to bend the ion cannon. Now it dove straight for her and instinctively Pidge scrambled to her feet and used her jet pack once more to jump high enough into the air to land in its open mouth.

She raced to the cockpit and threw herself in the pilot’s seat. “All right, let’s get this ship away from the Arusians!” They took off for the south, past the old location of the castle.

<> <> <> <> <>

The Castle exited the wormhole and Allura held it in place until the Metrean transports were all through.

Coran activated his scanners to look for the Green Lion. They began flashing red and an alarm sounded. “Quiznak! Galra warship, headed south from our location!”

“Paladins! To your Lions! We need that ship destroyed immediately!”

Hunk left his position escorting the Metreans and shot in the direction indicated. Shiro and Lance ran for their doors and dove in, following seconds later.

Shiro spotted the ship as they flew over a mountain ridge. “Visual! One Galra warship…and the Green Lion! Jawblades out! Let’s take it down!”

He went right and Lance went left, scoring the hull of the ship on both sides and leaving fireballs in their wake. Hunk activated his super-armor and surged up from beneath, head-butting the ship so its own blasts went harmlessly into the air. The Green Lion dove from above and fired its lasers into the bridge area.

Shiro arced the Black Lion around for another pass. “Pidge, can you hear us?”

There was a burst of static, then Pidge’s voice came in. “—ight, forgot. The Lions have comm panels, too!”

“All right, everyone! One more attack, all lasers on full power. Pidge same target you just used. Lance, propulsion in the rear. Hunk, aim for the hull below the cannon. I’ll come in from below. Everyone in position?” At the chorus of ‘ayes’, he shouted, “Fire!”

The Galra ship cracked apart in flames.

<> <> <> <> <>

They’re trying again.

Keith could feel his awareness returning, though he didn’t bother to open his eyes. Two voices mumbled as if discussing something, then one of them, a new voice, rose and addressed him.

“Cadet Kogane, please tell us about the events of six weeks ago when you and several others disappeared in a ship that looked like a blue lion.”

“You wouldn’t listen to Shiro.” You never listen.

“Where did the lion take you?”

“Home.” The Blue Lion brought us to her home.

Another voice interrupted. “I was right! He is an alien! Ask about the knife!”

“Where did you get the knife you carry?”

“Parents.” It was in a box of things. The only things I got from them.

The second voice crowed. “See?”

“Get control of yourself. He’s not really giving us enough information to determine that.”

“But the amotrazephine—”

“Is not foolproof. He’s practically answering in monosyllables. We need details.”

“Then give him more!”

“Two doses sent him into a near-catatonic state last time. You’ll lose every chance if I do.”

“Perkins said he was controlling that! If we give him more, then maybe he’ll be too out of it to retreat like that.”

There was a long pause, enough to make Keith wonder if Darzi was about to lose yet another ally.

“A quarter-dose. I’m not willing to go farther than that.”

“Fine!”

Damn.

<> <> <> <> <>

As the ship touched down on level ground near its original location, Allura began issuing orders. “Hunk, lead the Metrean transports on a scouting run and see if there is a location they think will be suitable. Lance, bring your Lion in and go to the passenger halls and find the Holts. Shiro, check on Pidge. Coran, keep up constant scans in case more Galra show up. I’m going to the Arusian village to let them know what’s going on.”

Like the cogs in a well-oiled machine, they all sprang to do their part

<> <> <> <> <>

Lance raced down the hallways, answering questions from the former slaves on the fly. “We’re good for now! Galra ship is destroyed! We’ve landed, we just need to coordinate with the Arusians and find a good place for you all! Hang tight!”

He skidded to a stop in front of the door to the Holts’ quarters. It slid open to reveal Matt ready to leave and the doctor pulling on a jacket.

“What’s the word?” Matt looked at Lance with the mild squint he had developed in a year without glasses or contact lenses.

“We’ve landed on Arus. There was an issue with a Galra warship, but it’s been taken care of.”

Dr. Holt looked alarmed. “Is Katie all right?”

“I think so. Shiro? Have you got Pidge yet?”

“Almost. She’s heading back now.”

“I’m here, I’m here! Sorry! I promise not to forget my helmet again until I have the wrist communicators ready!”

“What wrist communicators?” Lance asked, baffled, and the Holts looked just as baffled since they had no way to hear the entire conversation.

“Yeah, so we can stay in touch even when we’re out of uniform.”

“Okay, that is a good idea. Meet me in your hangar?”

“What, now?” I need to go back to the village. I left my helmet and all my projects and—Shiro! I think I found where Dad and Matt are! We can—”

“Pidge,” Shiro interrupted. “Trust me. Take your Lion to the hangar first.”

“Why…okay, I’m coming.”

Lance’s grin threatened to split his face. He grabbed each of the Holts by an arm. “This way! Let’s go!”

<> <> <> <> <>

Pidge set Green down in the hangar and scrubbed one hand through her hair. She felt filthy after her desperate race from the Galra. She was definitely going to have a very, very long bath. She smothered an ‘ow’ when her fingers found the place where she had hit her head. Time in a cryo-pod was on the agenda as well.

But first she would see what the heck Lance thought was so important, then corner Shiro and Allura about rescuing her family before making the trip to Earth. Her arguments were logical and practical, but she knew Allura was frantic about Keith. And that was also a logical reaction, given that they had had absolutely no signal from him. But Keith couldn’t get into too much trouble on Earth, could he?

Lance and a couple of humanoids entered the bay doors on the other side of the hangar. Pidge wondered idly who they were as she left the cockpit and followed the ramp down to exit her Lion. People he had picked up on his adventure, perhaps. He had found a work camp of some sort and saved the workers from the Galra…

Wait.

It can’t be.

She jumped the rest of the way down the ramp and out into the hangar.

“Katie!”

She didn’t realize she had started running until she slammed into her father, flinging her arms around him. A second pair of arms enveloped them both. She heard a voice crying over and over, “It’s you! It’s really you!” Belatedly she realized it was her own voice.

“It’s us, all right!” That was Matt.

“Kiddo, we are so glad to see you!” Dr. Holt pressed his cheek to her temple and Pidge blinked. She was so much taller now than when they had left for Kerberos! Fighting a sudden wave of dizziness, she pulled back enough to get a good look at them. She noticed Lance hanging back and swiping his eyes in a suspicious manner.

“I can’t believe it! I just found records of where you were taken, I was about to beg Allura to go get you before we went back to Earth! But you’re here!” She jumped into her father’s arms again and hugged him with all her might.

“My turn, runt!” Matt tugged at her and the siblings embraced. Matt then pushed her to arm’s length and looked her over. “I think I like you better with long hair. You look too much like me, now.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “It was the only way to get access to the Garrison after Iverson banned me. And it worked – they never recognized me there!”

Her father chuckled and laid a hand on her head. Pidge pulled back and hissed as pain flared. “Kiddo? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing important. Banged my head during the fight. That’ll teach me to leave my helmet behind.”

“Whoa, you’re injured?” Lance interrupted. “We need to tell Allura and get you into a cryo-pod!”

Pidge started to shake her head, realized that would be a huge mistake, and replied, “No, I need to talk to them first about going to the coordinates I found…” She trailed off as her brain caught up with the changed situation. Her family was already here. They could leave straight for Earth at any time.

Her senses were starting to get fuzzy. Pidge clinically assessed the probability of a concussion as her legs started to give out.

Lance darted forward and caught her before she could fall. “Yep, definitely a cryo-pod for you!” He scooped her up and headed for the hangar doors. “This way!”

<> <> <> <> <>

He could feel a difference now. His thoughts felt less under his control and his link to Red seemed more tenuous than before. Red!

I am here.

Don’t let me go!

Never, my Paladin. Stay with me.

“His brain function is a bit slower, but his heart rate is increasing. I don’t like it.”

“Ask quickly, then!”

“What is the Voltron?”

Keith tried to stay silent, but the notion that Voltron was a thing had to be denied. “Not the Voltron.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not an it. A team.” The best team I could ever be a part of.

“What team? Who else is on this team?”

“Answer us! Who else? McClain? Garrett? Gunderson? What happened to them?”

“Defenders…” Defenders of the Universe.

“A bunch of second-rate cadets, a compromised pilot, and a punk like you? How could you defend anything?” He felt a hand on his face, gripping his chin, and remembered the last time this man had laid hands on him. Panic sent his heart rate skyrocketing.

At that Red’s presence surged forward, stronger than ever before. She snarled in his defense. Paladin! Let me in!

Keith opened his mind to her.

<> <> <> <> <>

Blackwell forcibly yanked Darzi’s arm, breaking his grip on Kogane, and looked nervously at the monitors. “His brain function is quickening. I don’t understand how that could be.”

“Then add more amotrazephine! The others thought it was slowing things too much but that’s not the case!”

The medtech swallowed and put another syringe in place, ready to add the drug in tiny steps.

The youth opened his eyes.

His glowing, golden eyes.

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#scattered by avidbeader #voltron #voltron legendary defender #voltron fanfic #fanfic: voltron