#need that tongue to [redacted][gun shots]

[mcmuppet]

oh. OH.

#that's my MAN #holy lord #i have so much to say and not enough brain power to collect my thoughts #goddamn i love him #wowee #he is SO FINE #need that tongue to [redacted][gun shots] #lando norris #mclaren #f1

[wall-maria-fritz]

Calm the Fuck Down, Itadori

Yuuji Itadori x Jennifer Lawrence

Summary: Where Yuuji manages to drag Megumi and Nobara to a Tokyo Comic Con.

A/N: I took this way too seriously, jeezus.

“Calm the fuck down, Itadori”

Megumi wanted to shoot himself in the foot.

He absolutely loathed conventions.

Especially when you got a bunch of idiots with a complete disregard for deodorant and personal space simping around in costumes as if they aren’t fully grown men.

Idiots like Itadori, who was currently wasting his life savings on X-Men stickers.

“Yeah,” Nobara piped in, already side-eyeing a man in a green cape with white and blue wings, and funny looking swords that look like box cutters—he was asking her if he could take a picture with her Petra Ral look.

Who the fuck is Petra Ral anyway? Nobara is SURE she looks way cuter though.

“How are you still so gaga over X-Men anyway?” she continues, with a flip of her ginger hair. “You’re literally a sorcerer, Yuuji. You fight curses in real life.”

Almost like whiplash, Yuuji turns on Nobara with an intensity she’s only seen in battle.

“Never. Disrespect X-Men.”

Yuuji was wide eyed; one hand pointing at Nobara, another clutching a handful of stickers and keychains (when did he buy those?) with a very blue woman on them.

Is she… naked? Nobara wonders, but is immediately interrupted by Yuuji’s incoming sermon.

“X-Men is a poignant commentary on society, Kugisaki. It is a masterpiece that only people with taste can appreciate, with characters so well written—“

But Yuuji’s fanboying gospel was cut short when a smattering of whoops and applause erupted from onstage, as a man dressed as… Thanos in a thong—Thongos, he called himself. Ok.—officially started the day’s most awaited event, and that was to meet X-Men’s Hollywood actors, in the flesh!

It was then that Megumi verbalized what everyone was thinking at this point.

“I didn’t know Itadori knew what ‘poignant’ meant”

Yuuji Itadori raced towards the front of the crowd like it was an orgasm out of reach, tightly clutching onto the barricade (also like he was clutching his [redacted]).

He didn’t know when and how his friends managed to catch up to him, but when X-Men’s glittering line up of beautiful people came out on stage, both Nobara and Megumi looked to each other in complete understanding beside him-- of course Itadori was here to simp for Jennifer Lawrence.

And of course he’d spend every yen to his name just to catch a glimpse of this woman in nothing but a skin-tight blue spandex that left no curve nor valley to the imagination.

“I LOVE YOU JENNIFER LAWRENCE”

Yuuji proceeded to fucking shriek in broken English.

“I EAT AMERICAN FOOD FOR YOU”

Megumi and Nobara both took a step from Yuuji.

‘Nope! The weird guy? They don’t know him.’

To their horror, they watch a grinning mouth appear at Yuuji’s cheek, already salivating.

“Gotta give it to ya, punk. That IS one fine ass,”

Sukuna’s mouth let its long tongue lick around his lips.

“I hope you got us some backstage passes, kid”

Megumi and Nobara shivered.

But clearly, Itadori and Sukuna weren’t the only ones going absolutely bananas for the X-Men, it might have very well been the entire building cheering for the cast.

It was until a bald guy in a wheelchair signaled for the audience to quiet down, did the sea of sweaty geeks calm down.

After a few introductions, and further hyping, the mic was finally passed to Jennifer Lawrence, whose character was apparently named Mystique.

Like a child showing off to his parents, Yuuji looks at Megumi and Nobara, pointing at Jennifer Lawrence as if saying, “Look! It’s her! That’s her! It’s actually her!”

Yuuji then proceeds to kiss three fingers raised up like he was doing a Boy Scout’s pledge, and raised those three fingers in there air, whistling three drawn out notes.

The idiot was giving her the Hunger Games salute, Jesus fucking Christ.

“Ehehe. Yeah, show her which fingers you’re gonna fuck her with,” Sukuna chuckles.

Which Yuuji responds to by forcibly jockeying Sukuna’s mouth off his cheek, shutting the curse up;

Yuuji Itadori drinks enough Respect Women Juice to give the Sahara a year of rain, alright.

Soon, everyone was giving Jennifer the salute.

Jennifer waves away the salutes, and stage-whispers into the mic with that raspy and sexy, according to Yuuji, voice of hers, and says, “Psst! Wrong fandom guys!”

The crowd laughs, as Jennifer awkwardly prattles about how she’s contract-bound to only talk about X-Men today, and that she really needs her job, ok?

And to be honest? Megumi and Nobara are starting to like her! I mean, who wouldn’t? Jennifer’s such a sweet, and down-to-earth girl. They’re glad that if there was anyone Yuuji was going to simp for, it’s Jennifer Lawrence.

“It’s such an honor to meet you, Tokyo!” Jennifer greets charmingly. “I was so excited to meet you guys, I didn’t even need to take a shot before I got here!” Jennifer shrugs with an exaggerated look on her face.

The crowd ate it all up.

“In fact, I was SO excited that I pumped myself up with enough anime references to say,” and in that magical moment, Jennifer Lawrence send finger guns down Yuuji’s way and winks--

“That’s one HECK of a JJK cosplay, man!”

And oh my Lord, it was like Yuuji died and went to heaven.

Even Sukuna was speechless.

But if Yuuji had to guess, Sukuna might have even been proud of him if only wasn’t you know, a jackass.

Megumi and Nobara couldn’t really remember what happened for the rest of the segment, because they might as well have leashed Yuuji with the way he was going crazy for Jennifer, hollering to her that he got her lasagna and Cheetos in his backpack in more broken English.

In the end, the two are left to rein Yuuji in as he eagerly waits for Jennifer out the backstage entrance, fully armed with an X-Men comic book and that lasagna he promised.

Yuuji was practically vibrating in excitement.

“Yuuji, it’s been two hours. Let’s go back to campus,” Nobara groaned, moaning to Megumi how Gojo better pay for their babysitting hours.

“She's almost out, you guys--!” Yuuji cries back, as the stage doors finally open to reveal Jennifer Lawrence in a much more sensible outfit of dress pants and a smart, low-neckline blouse.

“Eyes up, Itadori,” Megumi mumbles at Yuuji, who was already getting slack jawed at the sight of Jennifer’s cleavage.

Yuuji swallows the massive lump in his throat, and snaps his eyes back up to Jennifer’s hooded ones.

“Oh hey! You’re that JJK guy!” Jennifer greets good-naturedly. She was smiling radiantly at Yuuji and his friends, first shaking Nobara and Megumi’s hands as she laughed, “Damn, you even dressed up as the main character’s friends! You’re all like Hermione, Ron, and Harry Potter except… well, your characters won’t actually die, eep”

“Do we tell her?” Nobara nudges Megumi.

“Don’t you dare.” Megumi hisses back.

The dark-haired sorcerer then turns to Jennifer with a polite smile, and says in perfect English,

“Ooh, we’ll try not to spoil it for you, Jennifer.”

Nobara snaps her head to Megumi.

“Since when did you speak White???”

“Shut the fuck up, Nobara,” Megumi grits out.

Jennifer winked at Megumi, giving him an ‘I-get-you’ look and finally turned to sign Yuuji's comic book, only for him to freeze.

They both blinked at each other for a moment. One almost as awkward as the other.

Jennifer Lawrence though, god bless her, took this all in stride.

“No worries, dude, I freeze up, too,” she says while pretending to freeze up in jest. “Do you want me to sign your comic book?”

And if Yuuji wasn’t absolutely head over heels in love with Jennifer before, he certainly was now.

“I-- I…” Yuuji stammered.

Megumi and Nobara looked worriedly to their friend, there was no way in hell they were gonna let Yuuji fuck up now. Not after a whole afternoon of body odor and overpriced tentacle art, no way.

“Calm the fuck down, Itadori and give her the comic,” Megumi whispers to Yuuji.

And in a snap, Yuuji Itadori was bowing as low as possible, arms out with his offerings, exclaiming to the highest simping power-- “I BROUGHT YOU YOUR FAVORITE JENNIFER!”

Jennifer’s face lit up at the sight of the lasagna, “Oh wow! You got me food! Thanks for remembering!”

She takes the lasagna gratefully, and quickly signs the comic, “What’s your name?”

“Errr… Y-Yuuji.”

Jennifer returns the comic book to Yuuji, now signed--

‘Thank You for the Lasagna, Yuuji! You know me soooo well!

Stay Sweet <3

-J Law.’

And as if each and every one of Yuuji’s dreams came true, Jennifer leaned forward and gave Yuuji a quick peck on the cheek.

Yuuji couldn’t even react, because in a whirlwind, Nobara was taking a picture of Yuuji and Jennifer, a coral kiss mark on Yuuji’s wide-eyed face.

~

“Calm the fuck down, Itadori,” Megumi groaned for probably the hundredth time now.

But Yuuji didn’t care.

Jennifer Lawrence just kissed him.

He’s pretty sure he can be a little manic with disbelief.

“Yuuji, I swear to god, if you don’t stop, I’m deleting the photo from my phone.”

Nobara was done.

“NO--”

~

In the end, Yuuji may not have anything to eat for the next two weeks, but it was totally worth it.

He managed to convince Megumi to lend him some money.

#jujutsu kaisen #itadori yuuji #yuuji itadori x reader #yuuji itadori x jennifer lawrence #yuuji itadori x y/n #yuuji itadori x you #jjk yuuji itadori #yuuji itadori jjk #yuji itadori x reader #yuji itadori #yuji itadori x you #yuji itadori x y/n #yuuji itadori x oc #yuji itadori x oc #yuji itadori x jennifer lawrence #jennifer lawrence #x-men #petra ral is nobaara #nobara kugisaki #megumi jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen yuuji #yuuji jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen yuuji itadori #yuuji itadori jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu sorcerer #comicon #hunger games

[fearlessandchaotic]

long ! drabble about Hana and how she met Elijah.

Hana’s alarm went off, pulling her out from her deep slumber. She blindly reached for her phone ringing on her bedside table and pushed the device on the floor by accident. She groaned and sat in her bed, hair a tangly mess as she sighed. 

Another boring day awaited her. 

She leaned over the edge, grabbing her phone and turned the alarm off before letting herself fall back onto her mattress. 

She rubbed the sleepiness from her eyes, then let her arm fall lazily beside her. She stared at her ceiling for a long time, asking herself if she really needed her job. 

Unfortunately, she did. 

“Alright, you lazy ass, get up!” She muttered to herself. She swung her legs over the edge of her bed and stood up. She stretched her limbs as she made her way for the bathroom.

After her shower and putting some clothes on, Hana quickly made herself a cup of coffee she put into a travel mug. She hurried out of her apartment as she took too long in the shower and was now running late. 

Hana ignored the Captain angry’s stare as she entered the bullpen, plopping herself down on her chair. She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to find the courage to get through that day. She could already hear Gavin in the breakroom, babbling about his recent one night stand, the chatters of officers around her annoyed her and Fowler breathing down her neck. 

The day went on without a bump. She took a nap in the breakroom on the third floor an hour after clocking in, procrastinated her reports, got herself too much coffee and felt her whole body - even her soul - trembling as the caffeine made its effect on her. 

It was almost time to go home, and Hana slowly gathered her stuff. Another wasted day at the precinct. Another boring day to add to her life. Her cell phone buzzed on her desk, and she grabbed the device, looking at the incoming text. 

from [ redacted ] ; got a nice contract. pays well.

She smirked and answered back right away.

from Hana ; how much?

She waited for the answer, and her eyes widened at the amount. She finished packing her stuff, grabbed her car keys and left the precinct in a hurry. 

Three quick knocks, then two slower. That’s what it took for the door to open on a buff guy with a deep nasty scar on his cheek. She nodded at the thug, pursing her lips slightly as she slipped herself into the warehouse. The man who opened the door for her followed her close, and Hana averted her gaze to the floor as she made a beeline for a backroom. She rather not look at all the guns and red ice that could be stocked on the tables around the room. 

Two men stood in front of the door she was planning to go through, both shot her a glare. The guy to the right raised a slight eyebrow, the sound of a small groan rumbling in his throat. “State your business.” His tone was sharp, cold. The kind of tone that could send a shiver down your spine, make your skin crawl… But it did nothing to Hana.

“Got called here.” She replied quickly. “He texted me.” A quick glance was exchanged between the two bodyguards before one nodded at the other. The one on the left took a step forward and Hana sighed, lifting her arms, allowing him to pat her down for any weapon she might have. He started to pat her legs, working from her ankles up to her knee, then her thigh. His hands got higher and Hana growled. “I dare you to touch me higher.” 

The hands left her body and the goon opened the door for her. Hana shot him one last glance before entering what was the office of her informant - we will refer him like that. 

Behind a massive black oak desk sat a guy, ebony hair combed back, holding in place with so much hair gel Hana was sure she could see her reflection on his hair. The door closed behind her, leaving her alone with her informant. The man’s piercing eyes lifted up from whatever he was looking at on his desk and a smirk curled the corner of his lips at the sight of Hana.

“My dear!” He leaned back in his seat, elbow on the armrests as his fingers intertwined together. “I’m so glad to see you. It’s been a while. How have you been?” The husky tone didn’t go unnoticed by Hana. Unphased, she stepped until she was standing close to the desk, hands dug deep in her jacket pocket. 

“I don’t have all night. What is it?” The man chuckled.

“Always so eager.” His tongue wetted his bottom lip. Without breaking eye contact with the detective, he grabbed a file on his desk and slide it over to Hana, still that mischievous grin plastered on his face. “This will be interesting. I’ve heard you could use some money?” He tilted his head slightly, perfectly shaped eyebrows raising. Hana narrowed her eyes, keeping her mouth shut as she took the file and skimmed through it. 

A laugh escaped her mouth as she stumbled upon the picture of her contract. “You must be fucking kidding me!” She snarls, throwing the papers back on the table. The content scattered from the yellowish envelope onto the desk, and the informant frowned. 

She leaned forward, her hands supporting her weight as she hovered the desk. “I drove all the way to the other side of the fucking town just to be laughed at?” She scoffed. It was now the man’s turn to leaned over his desk. He stood up, his seat behind him scrapping the dirty concrete of the ground as it got pushed back. He leaned forward, meeting Hana’s stare. Silence fell between the two as they both waited for the other to coward away, but they held each other’s stare as if their lives depended on it. 

He clicked his tongue, a sight leaving him. “Hana, my dear.” Now he was smiling. “You proved yourself to be really… competent… and prolific.” He hummed a laugh. Of course, he was referring to the stacks of money he was receiving from her accomplishing his contracts. She wasn’t a hitman. She was simply cornering people until one of the informant’s goon got on-site to execute the target. She had no blood on her hands - or did she?

“Have you seen the price?” He asked as she straightened himself, adjusting his wrinkle-free suit. Hana hummed, then took the file back and it’s content that spilled on the desk.

“Ok, what’s the catch here?” She asked, shaking her head. 

The informant shrugged. “You’re the best. You never disappointed me. And I think you deserve that money. Will you do it?”

Hana sighed as her eyes fell once again to the bounty set on the target’s head. “How long do I have?”

He lifted his chin slightly higher, smiling. “As long as you need, baby doll.” He smirked. Hana groaned at the name, then closed the file. After a pause, she finally nodded and sighed in defeat.

“Fine.” Is all she said as she turned on her heels and exited the informant’s office. The man sat back in his seat, a victorious smile on his lips as she watched her go, mesmerized by her. 

Hana quickly made her way back outside of the warehouse, walking a few blocks before she finally got to where she had parked her car. She had made sure no one had followed her and that she stayed in the dead angle of all cameras that could be on the façade of buildings and stores. She climbed behind the wheel and opened the file again, looking at it once more before she closed it and threw it on the passenger seat. 

𝙲 𝙻 𝙰 𝚂 𝚂 𝙸 𝙵 𝙸 𝙴 𝙳  𝙸 𝙽 𝙵 𝙾 𝚁 𝙼 𝙰 𝚃 𝙸 𝙾 𝙽 𝚃𝙾 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙰𝚃𝚃𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 𝙾𝙵 [ 𝚁𝙴𝙳𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙴𝙳 ]

𝚃𝙰𝚁𝙶𝙴𝚃: 𝙴𝙻𝙸𝙹𝙰𝙷 𝙺𝙰𝙼𝚂𝙺𝙸

𝚁𝙴𝚀𝚄𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝙰𝚁𝙶𝙴𝚃 𝚂𝚃𝙰𝚃𝚄𝚂: 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝙳

𝙱𝙾𝚄𝙽𝚃𝚈: $𝟸,𝟶𝟶𝟶,𝟶𝟶𝟶.𝟶𝟶

#( drabbles ) #( registering evidence ; headcanons ) #(( ive been thinking about it for a while now and wanted to post it #.024 &nbsp; › &nbsp; verse two &nbsp;. &nbsp;she persisted

[fordarkisthesuede]

The Tolls Of Justice - Chapter 3

*throws confetti* IT’S DOOOONNNNEEEEEE! (I barely beat my deadline, huzzah!!!)

Sorry for the long, long wait. I apparently needed to recharge my internal batteries... But here we go!

{Previous} {Next}

Important Spoiler Tags:  drug mention, prostitution & stripping mentions, gun mention, violent thoughts, therapy sessions

Read on AO3 or continue below:

[Chapter 3:  Ink Trails]

John was finding it difficult to concentrate on what he was supposed to be doing.

He couldn’t help it. He’d made the mistake of looking at recent Gotham news, hoping for something new in the murder case every newspaper and station seemed to be going on about, but he’d scrolled too far down his news feed.

You Won’t Believe What This Arkham Orderly’s Seen -  Bruce Wayne and ‘Joker’ not ‘just friends’!

Dr. Leland had warned him that people would speculate about his relationships with others. Especially Bruce, given Bruce’s social standings and John’s lack thereof. Bruce himself had said his team of lawyers were well-equipped to stop this sort of gossip from spreading; he’d proved it the last time one of the tabloids had printed such a thing, getting it redacted with an apology from the paper itself.

But that was before they actually had a relationship.

Bruce was careful. He’d never said anything or done anything romantic while John was locked away, with the exception of his first post-Scarecrow visit, when the power and cameras were turned off for those few minutes. And last Saturday, of course, but did it really count when they were so far from Arkham’s nosey orderlies and any prying eyes? The article clearly stressed Arkham orderly.

But John had been good. He’d kept the real them a secret, even from his Arkham doctors. Even from his current doctors. Sure, he’d occasionally give a slightly suggestive comment when he and Bruce had the rare chance to be completely alone, but no one could have possibly overheard them. As much as he wanted to shout it from the rooftops, John understood that any question about potential tampering with his recovery process could land him right back into another involuntary stay at Arkham.

And he’d die sooner than face that.

Unable to stop himself, he ignored the pair of shorts still waiting for a proper hem and skimmed through the thing, keeping in mind that Bruce would no doubt bring the hammer down on the Gotham Moonrise regardless of the details.

Anonymous Arkham orderly claims to have inside knowledge regarding the relationship between John Doe, alias ‘Joker’, and Bruce Wayne, blah blah blah... “Reports to have seen Bruce pay off themselves and other orderlies in exchange for uninterrupted time in John’s cell on multiple occasions”?

“Hah, I wish,” John muttered to himself, closing the article as his anxiety starting to ebb away. A lot of money must have exchanged hands to be bold enough to make that claim on paper. Bruce’s team of  three-piece suits were probably already on their way to the Gotham Moonrise’s editorial department with a nice large lawsuit.

He skimmed through further. There was an old close-circuit-camera picture in the middle, taken in the nicer of Arkham’s two visitor rooms - John and Bruce were sitting together at the table, watching something on Bruce’s phone. Bruce had been showing him one of the old Gray Ghost serials up on UBox upon learning that John had only ever seen bits and pieces of the nearly thirty-year-old cartoon reboot from bloggr posts. John didn’t see how that qualified as them ‘getting cozy’, as the caption put it, considering they had to stay a minimum of a foot apart at all times inside there.

He breathed out slowly, like he was supposed to, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to fidget. He pulled up his favorite picture of Bruce. He was walking down the steps of the courthouse after his first hearing regarding last year’s mess, looking determined and impossibly handsome in what John knew to be his second-favorite suit, the black with dark gray pinstripes. There was nothing about the angle or lighting that was wrong:  it was perfect, like him. “It’s nothing, John,” he told himself in his best imitation of Bruce’s smooth, deep tone, “They won’t throw you back in on idle gossip.”

“You’re right,” he answered in a whisper. He kissed the tip of his index finger and tapped it over Bruce’s face. “I’m worrying over nothing,” he said firmly. The more he said it, the more he believed it.

The feed above that article had some of the usual fair regarding celebrity socialites cheating on their significant others and some minor political scandal, but then - boom, third article down:  Missing man’s body found near East Docks.

John wasn’t sure how to feel. He was excited there was something new, but he couldn’t help but think he shouldn’t be happy over a stranger’s death. The thought might as well have Dr. Leland’s voice attached, telling him to think of how it would feel to lose someone he cared about, and apply that. The stranger might have been a criminal, but he could’ve been someone else’s Bruce Wayne.

But John didn’t cause this one. It was a force beyond his control. He didn’t have to feel bad about it. Hell, it might have been justified. Maybe Muddy Nye had done far worse things than distribute toxic garbage to the masses through organized crime.

The scar on his palm peeked out over the edge of his phone.

...or maybe Muddy was someone’s John Doe.

John opened the article, finding a video on top. That would be much faster than reading.

He recognized the newscaster - Faith Ackart, who had covered his recent court proceedings with barely a smidge more kindness than Jonathan Crane’s. A real go-getter in the journalistic field with apparently very little fashion sense; her top was so bright it made the blush on her cheeks look severe.

“You think your morning’s bad, be thankful you aren’t Lou Monger - a task that should’ve taken two minutes turned into nearly two hours after Lou went to take out the trash and found a body in his business’ dumpster.”

The camera cut, showing the police tape draped across an alley and a dumpster underneath a fire escape in the background, where the aforementioned man stood in front of it with the microphone almost shoved in his face.

That was the exact alleyway he was yesterday morning. The same dumpster with the dent on top, the same fire escape, the same graffitti in the background… He could practically smell the rotting fish carcasses.

“I just open the lid, ready to throw on more crap, and this guy’s just layin’ there, dead as a doornail,” Lou explained, looking angrily flummoxed, “I got a business to run and now I gotta leave my customer’s hangin’ for two hours during prime-time! I open the lid, guy’s got a new hole in his head - what else do you gotta know?”

The camera cut back to Faith, standing across the street from the police line. The body had already been removed.  

“What Lou didn’t know was that the body was that of Muddy Nye, who police believe to be connected to the van explosion by the East Docks on Tuesday morning - where an anonymous witness says they spotted Batman nearby only minutes before. G.C.P.D. decline to comment on whether or not the group killed in the explosion are connected to those found aboard the Chandis, and on the supposed Batman sighting.”

John drummed his fingers against the table surface. A wannabe-mobster shot in the head, a la execution style…

And suddenly, like a trigger pulled in his head, he realized that both he and Tiffany had used the fire escape. She might have used the dumpster. There had been no rain the night before to wash any of their trace evidence away, and the cops were likely going to comb over the alley for anything useful.

That was bad. Real bad. Especially if Tiffany had caused that dent in the top of the lid. Especially-especially since he’d been walking around when he technically shouldn’t have been.

Tiff please tell me you didn’t use the dumpster as leverage yesterday!! He texted, unable to stop his leg from bouncing anxiously.

For what?

The fire escape??? Muddy’s dead

He’s LITERALLY sleeping with the fishes in that dumpster

I touched the fire escape and our prints are gonna be all over the ladder!!!!!

Hang on

How could John hang onto anything? They would have known he left work, and they’d question his boss, who would no doubt lie and say he snuck out to cover his own ass, they’d question him, and they’d suspect John heavily for no other reason than his past history and they’d throw him back in.

He could feel his heart racing. He didn’t want to go back to Arkham. How many exclamation points after that did he have to use to drive that point home?

Okay so 1 I didn’t use the dumpster, I jumped like a normal person, and 2 chill out. Traffic cam got conveniently jammed around 2am so they definitely planned to dump it. They’ll just check the dumpster

John breathed deep, trying to relax. She had a point. Why check the fire escape if the killer dumped the body like a pro?

3 sleeping with the fishes?? That is a terrible pun wtf

But it’s not wrong!! He texted, This has classic mob hit all over it.

“Actually…” It did, didn’t it? He could practically see the plan in his head:  kidnap to get information, shoot in the head to stop any squealing, drop off at a planned dumping ground a good distance away…with fish, no less. They didn’t go to the harbor where the message would be crystal-clear, despite the large stretch of it not occupied by cops... Yet with a million dumpsters in the city to choose from, and they went to a dumpster with fish?

It was as if…

“It is a joke,” he muttered to himself, believing it more firmly as the words left his growing grin. It was a terrible, tongue-in-cheek sort of gag.

The whole thing was something he couldn’t help but laugh at, escalating from titters to a low cackle.

He tried to stifle it with his hand; the manager was rather keen on a quiet workplace, and he knew ‘random laughing’ had a more negative connotation when he was the one doing it.

The back-room door swung open on queue, and Mr. Prinya stuck his head in. “John, keep it down,” he whispered in a rush, “I’ve got a customer.”

“S-sorry,” John managed, swirling in his chair as he slyly slid his phone underneath the pile of orders, “I just remembered a funny meme.”

The older man frowned like a stern parent. “You’re not on your phone at work, are you?”

“Me? Never. You know, idle hands and all that,” he lied, holding up both hands and wiggling his fingers to show he was empty-handed. “If they’re here for the shorts, tell them to wait - thread got stuck again.”

Mr. Prinya eyed him, his suspicion waning into something like concern. “You need it unstuck?”

“Nah, I’ll get it.”

“Okay...just keep it down.”

“Yes, sir,” John affirmed with a little salute.

The second the manager was gone, John put his phone on silent and slid it back into his pocket. He didn’t really like straight-up lying to people he didn’t dislike, but he tried to think of it like lying to the Arkham staff - if  it meant he and his secrets were safe, then it was acceptable.

The door didn’t quite close - it had a habit of not sticking without being given a little slam. He could hear the annoyingly digital door chime and the last customer’s cheery goodbye through the crack in the door. And then another not a moment later, as tinny and loud as ever.

“Ah, good morn-” There was a brief pause. “Good morning, Mr. Nito,” Mr. Prinya said, his accent becoming a little thicker on the ‘i’s and ‘o’s.

“My vest ready?” A somewhat gruff voice replied.  

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but John was more of a hyena person anyway. He had no problem taking a peek to satisfy the itch to know.

Mr. Prinya’s small shoulders were clearly tense. The customer looked the rough type, with shaved eyebrows, barbell brow-piercings, and a nose ring. He seemed to have a tan, but the facial features and complete lack of any other underlying accent indicated that he was probably only a little less white than John.

“Yes…” Mr. Prinya sorted through the rack. He was at least a head shorter than ‘Mr. Nito’; what would that make him, five-eleven? Or six? “Here it is.”

“I hope you know I ain’t leavin’ ‘til I know it’s safe.”

There was little doubt it wasn’t drugs; probably coke or heroin, given how much was carefully distributed in the fabric. Or it could’ve been something new hitting the streets.

John thought back to Vicki Vale and her little drug-ring; he’d gotten used to passing information along to Bruce, hadn’t he? His first instinct was to tell him. The handsome billionaire might not be directly involved this time, but it was certainly something he’d be interested in...and probably thank him for.

John could barely see the lumps in the cloth as Mr. Prinya brought to the counter. It looked like an old police-grade bullet proof vest - it wasn’t as big as the SWAT ones he’d seen on TV, or the one he’d worn last year.

He had a good angle. Bruce’s tech had that fancy facial-recognition software on it. It’d be easy to find him through that - or just by combing over his tattoos. One could be one for a recognizable gang.

Flash off, zoom in, and...snap!

The vest was laid carefully on the table. “Of course it’s safe,” Mr. Prinya assured.

Mr. Nito - if that was his real name - snorted.  “For all I know you could’ve done shoddy seams on purpose.”

“Of course-” Mr. Prinya stopped himself short.

The tattooed man glared at him. “Of course what? You got somethin’ to say?”

The rudeness of him was one thing, but the way the guy touched his belt, like he was going for a gun, really rubbed John the wrong way. He could see the handle of a blocky pistol under the guy’s unseasonable zippered jacket. He didn’t have to pull it out - open-faced threats of death like that just made John think of the bridge incident, and that memory was one that still made his blood boil.

“No,” Mr. Prinya responded with a slight hitch. “Of course you may look.”

Tamper you instincts, they would say. He tucked his phone away and clutched his hands. Clench, release, clench...

Calm down. (Hard to do that when he knew all too well what it felt like to be on either sides of a gun barrel. There was too much power behind them.)

Think of your future, Dr. Leland had advised months and months ago.

...Bruce...wouldn’t want him to go out there. If the guy talked, people might know where he worked. His private life was meant to be private until he was officially released.

But Bruce would surely have taken a bullet for him. And he wouldn’t have let that...that scumbag just walk around acting like he could just do whatever the hell he wanted.

He mentally crossed ‘hiding’ off his list of options. He certainly wouldn’t go in there and just punch the guy - there’d be too much collateral damage.

John would play it cool. Confident. Things were different - he was different. He could do that. Be that.

(He’d save the gory imagery of the guy clutching the bleeding stumps of his fingers for a mental replay later.)

So he clutched the door-handle and made a show of entering, swinging the door wide - not too wide - with a random piece of clothing tucked under his arm. “Hey, boss-man-” He cut himself off as appropriate, pretending to just see the ‘customer’ behind the counter. The man’s eyes flashed to him, hard at first, and then widening with recognition. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know we had company!” He flashed a grin Mr. Nito’s way.

He looked less horrified than John would have wanted. Not the ‘oh my God, it’s that crazy guy from the news last year’ that John expected. More like John was someone he knew, and he just didn’t expect to see him there. Or really, more of a ‘you look weird, and I’m suddenly not sure of what dimension I’m in’ sort of stare.

Mr. Prinya, on the other hand, looked almost disbelievingly surprised to see him. “D-did you need something, John?” He asked, his accent just as thick as before.

“That darn machine is still stuck,” he lied, “My butterfingers can’t untangle the threads as easily as you.” He wiggled his free set of fingers to show how noodley they were. It wasn’t completely untrue, which sold the bit better - he usually got so frustrated when the knots wouldn’t untie that he’d end up cutting them out nine times out of ten.

Mr. Nito’ had tugged his jacket back over his pistol. He was still staring at John. Thinking about how much of a risk it was to deal with the Arkham loon. He’d fought Batman and lived. He could be armed. Even if he wasn’t, he was fast, and who knew if he cared about collateral damage?

John stared right back, feigning curiosity. “Is there something on my face?” He asked as innocently as possible while imagining the guy’s hands being slammed on the counter and stuck there with the whole tomato of pins.

He wouldn’t be able to reach for his gun if his hands were pinned. The thought was so funny it almost made him laugh; he could feel his grin widen.

Mr. Nito looked away and gathered the vest under his arm as quickly as possible, looking like he was trying to hold a toddler on his hip. “If this falls apart on me, it’ll be your fault,” he emphasized at Mr. Prinya, glaring with less machismo than before, “Hope you’ll remember that,” he huffed.

He turned and left, leaving John to titter under his breath at how the tough-guy act had dissolved into an immature little bark. The obnoxious doorbell went off and the man disappeared into the city with a disgruntled scowl.

Mr. Prinya watched him go, only relaxing when the man was out of sight. He muttered something incomprehensible in a relieved breath.

“Yeesh, what a weirdo... Whelp, I’ll be in back if you need me!” John spun on his heel, two steps into his return to his lonely work when Mr. Prinya spoke.

“John,” Mr. Prinya said in a similar sort of tone to the one Bruce used when he wanted John to stop and think for a moment, “You shouldn’t…” He paused, thinking further, seeming to soften with every passing moment. John waited for him to finish. “Thank you.”

“It was nothing,” John said honestly. It wasn’t as if he’d actually done anything outside of show his infamous face. He decided to gamble and ask the big question rather than let the chance slip away. “Who was that guy, anyway?”

Mr. Prinya eyed him. He had that sort of gentle-letdown look Dr. Leland used to get when she would tell him ‘no’.  “Don’t get mixed up in this. You have your own life to worry about.”

It was the second time that was said to him in two days...

Maybe fate was trying to drill that into his head.

...or maybe it was just coincidence.

“I swear you guys say that as if you’re not part of my life,” he said with a short chortle, making sure to close the door behind him.

The back room felt much cooler than before, and for a moment he felt like he was back in Bruce’s cave, sitting at that ridiculously oversized supercomputer to dig up dirt wherever he thought a useful little worm of information might be. Only this room was smaller and crowded with sewing supplies instead of fancy tech and stalactites, and there were no bats or handsome best friend around for company.

Still, he couldn’t shake the sense of intrigue that came with the idea. He pulled up the picture he’d taken of ‘Mr. Nito’.

He zoomed in on the tattoos. A dragon tail peeked out of the jacket’s sleeve - it was such a standard thing to get that he figured there wasn’t much to go on with that one.

A large embossed star sat between his neck and shoulder. He’d seen celebrity chefs with the same sort of tat’. Nothing special.

Knuckle tattoos - because of course he’d have those - spelled out ‘PAIN’ on his left hand. He didn’t doubt there was a matching one of some kind on his right. Talk about basic.

There was something peeking out above the v-neck:  the top of a face that looked like it was split in half, with the expressions like the sock and buskin masks in theatre, cast in black and red. Or at least that’s what John assumed they were, given the eyebrow and eye shapes...

That one was definitely more unique. Worth looking into.

He heard the door chime again, but Mr. Prinya didn’t sound so nervous when he greeted them this time. There was no need to go back out or throw the sewing machine at someone. (At least...not yet.)

John had to get back to work. He’d have to sort through a lot of social media garbage to find something like it, but he had a lot of free time on his hands...

                                                    *~*~*~*~*

John had been through far too many FriendBook pages. And Chirp pages. And bloggr posts. And he’d posted and searched through the more disturbing internet forums. All in moments snatched where he could at work and travel and in the very few spots in St. Dympha he could get away with using a contraband phone in to look up gang symbols in the tri-state area and beyond.

And nothing. Not a single thing depicting either the symbol the bodies made on the Chandis or the tattoo on ‘Mr. Nito’.

He was tempted to just ask Bruce (or even Tiffany) and shove the picture he’d taken of ‘Mr. Nito’ in their fancy Batcomputer to analyze, but...they were both definitely-probably busy. After all, they were working on the mysterious-gang-war case, and Bruce was probably dealing with the stupid tabloid article from that morning on top of that, and those were more important than his little investigation.

(Besides, he really liked that expression Bruce got when John had figured something out; surprise and pride and intrigue all rolled into one. He’d gladly comb over a hundred more pages of junk to see that face when he inevitably surprised him with.)

And now he was stuck in group. Unable to do anything but sit and mull over what he was missing, and think about Bruce’s mess of a mystery. He’d looked as far back as the nineteen-twenties for criminally-linked logos that looked even remotely like what either of them should be, but found none. It had to be new, and small enough to fly under the radar…

John had a mental catalog of all the gangs that were and ever had been in the city. Black Mask was much more recent, seizing the opportunistic hole that Falcone had left in his wake and picking up business fronts and those ridiculous protection rackets, and adding in the standard drug trade. He was sure he was an out-of-towner who noticed the lack of a big organized crime unit… Or at least someone who operated outside of the city to get power before moving in on the big fish.

He’d crossed off a lot of the old mafias already, mostly due to them being dead and gone. Falcone’s leftovers weren’t smart enough or loyal enough to organize themselves into some sort of revenge plot; they were the type to follow the new guy. Maroni’s crew tended to be more hot-headed and not take orders from new people, but there were only so many left, and they had their own little territories carved out on the map that Black Mask hadn’t bothered trying to take.

The small-time gangs (seventeen of them at the last count) scattered around the place didn’t really have enough to pull of a stunt like that of the Chandis. They were more the types to make deals with the big time crooks and go down in a blaze of glory if something went wrong.

So unless it was someone new… But why? That was the real question. It felt too personal to be random. Maybe whoever was running Black Mask had crossed paths with someone who had the patience to wait for revenge. Someone deadly. Trained, if the knife-throwing was anything to go by. Maybe it wasn’t a gang, but one person. A serial killer bent on revenge. Maybe B.M. killed someone they cared about, or took something from them.

Maybe B.M. had lit a circus on fire or something. He added it to his little list of things to look up later.

He hated admitting it, but Tiffany had been right in her little insinuation - there was little he could do about this particular thing while he was on the inside...

“John? How about you?”

Of course Dr. Ludgate would call him out while was sitting there thinking. She had a knack for picking on the quiet ones. She looked it, too, with her severely-sharp haircut and the general attitude that she commanded the room. He wondered if she used to be a teacher or something. (She certainly had the style of those fussy teachers he’d seen on T.V. over the years. Awful floral patterns were her apparently her favorite thing in the world.)

Of course they’d call him out when he was sitting there thinking. He hadn’t been paying attention for quite a while.

Complete honestly wasn’t even an option here. He’d hate to just say he was just daydreaming or not listening…

“Ah, well, I was just thinking, doc’...”

The doctor was giving him the ‘ah, yes, go on’ look he was used to. It seemed a lot of the group was paying attention to him… Well, who was he to disappoint an audience?

“I still have those moments where things feel like some kind of alternate reality. Like I’m in one of those weird ‘what-if’ comics and I’ve got only so many pages left until I find myself still in…” That cozy little slice of hell, he wanted to say. But that was ‘inappropriate’ and ‘disturbing’. Not exactly the picture he wanted to paint for himself in front of a healthcare professional. “Well, Arkham.”

Mickey, sitting across from him in their little circle, was watching him like he was actually paying attention. He had a tendency to stare at his lap a lot in group. Or into space.

“But...the past couple of weeks have helped prove that I’m not there anymore.” ...kinda. He thought carefully. “Like it’s not just the scenery that’s different, you know?”

Some thoughtful looks at that. Nice.

He wasn’t going to add on anything too sugary, like his hope for others feeling the same. No, no, that wasn’t his style. He leaned back in his chair, unable to hold back the little grin. “Though this place could take some pointers from it. Exposed brick is much more chic than all this eggshell.”

A couple of titters and amused little smirks in the group. Much better.

Dr. Ludgate just nodded her head. “It’s good to know you’re feeling more comfortable, John. I think everyone here has days where they don’t feel like they’re really at a better point in their lives.”

John leaned back a little further in his chair. She didn’t seem to completely understand, but that was okay. She got the end message, at least, and that was what mattered. He didn’t really care if anyone else got it or not.

When no one else spoke up after a few beats - clearly no one wanted to delve further into that conversation link - Dr. Ludgate pretended to look at her watch. “I think that’s about all we have time for today.” She made sure to look at the group as a whole. “You’ve all made wonderful progress.”

A phrase he’d heard a thousand times, and it still hadn’t lost it’s funny side. He at least managed to swallow the urge to giggle at it.

John strolled out of the room, going straight back to thinking. There wasn’t much he could do with Bruce’s stuff. Back to thinking about the mysterious Mr. Nito as he made his way back to his room. The perfect thinking place.

He hadn’t seen anything resembling the weird theatre masks in his tattoo search, either. It was apparently rather unique. Maybe he had to do some more forum digging for that one…?

“Hey, John,” Devi Hanson waved to him from a little further down the hall clad in pink cheetah-print pants, and he saw a flash of intensely-bright neon green in her hand.

Nail polish. It was ridiculously bright, and he was seized with the urge to have it. “Where did you get that color?” He asked enthusiastically, already making a bee-line for her.

“Outside, where else?” She joked. “What, you wanna use it?”

He could steal it from her, but she was one of the few people who actively enjoyed his company. “How many ways can I say yes? Absolutely, sure, oui, si, ja...”

She gave a light laugh. “Alright, but you have to do my right hand for me.”

“Deal!”

He followed her into the recreation room. It was ten times cozier than Arkham’s; only one orderly to oversee things, much comfier sofas, a cable package with actually decent things on half the time, several board games that weren’t just checkers or some variant of it, and people that weren’t prone to sudden bouts of violence. (Well, mostly. He’d seen a very heated game of Dungeons, Dragons, and Dice.)

They sat at one of the corner tables, away from the crowd watching that boring ‘“nerdy” comedy John didn’t understand the appeal of.

“So, how’s the sewing gig goin’?” Devi asked casually as she started to paint her left hand with practiced strokes.

“About as well as it can go,” he answered. He wasn’t going to mention anything about what transpired earlier. “How’s the laundry shift?”

“Hot and borin’,” she answered back. “They say a job’s a job, but it actually makes stripping seem good again. At least there was fun music and a lot more money in it.”

“Huh, I didn’t know you did that.”

“Eh, it was a lifetime ago. It’s how I got into my nasty little habit.” Devi was rather quick at painting, apparently, already going on her third nail. “I’d rather go back to bein’ a stylist again, actually. I could style and dye hair like nobody's business.” She shot a look at his hair. “Wouldn’t need to do yours, though. You’re color sure stays...”

“It’s au natural.”

Her eyebrows raised. “Really? Man, you’re lucky! I’d kill for a color like that.”

“Maybe I did,” he said slyly, half joking to himself. For all he knew it was true. “We’ll never know!”

She gave him a funny look. Sort of curious and amused. “You don’t remember anything before the last decade, right?”

“Correct-a-mundo.”

“So why do you look like you’re always thinkin’ really hard about somethin’ lately?” Devi started blowing on her nails to dry them.

It was always tempting to tell people to mind their own business, but Devi had half her arms covered in very well-done tattoos. He could use some insight... “‘Cause I’m thinking hard about things.” John started to paint his own left hand, deciding on odd fingers instead of all of them. “In today’s case, though… It’s tats.”

“So nothin’ to do with the studmuffin that keeps visitin’ you?” Devi was shaking her hand and blowing on it alternatively.

Either she was blowing smoke, or...she saw the tabloid article. “That? It’s...just a rumor,” he shrugged off, finding it difficult to say. He’d mostly just avoided the topic altogether, or else rolled his eyes when people brought it up. He hadn’t had one of those stupid tabloid opinion pieces since last year, when it was very easy to say it wasn’t true because it wasn’t.

“Didn’t say anythin’ about rumors.” She admired her nails, looking for imperfections.

John narrowed his eyes. Did she think he was stupid? “You didn’t have to. You probably saw that stupid article on the news rack while you were out, and that’s why you lured me here. To ask about it.”

“Not even close!” Devi answered with a little frown, “I actually like your company; you’re funny and you’re the only one in this joint who appreciates my taste in color,” she said, gesturing to her whole yellow-and-pink outfit, “And I asked because half the time I see you, the guy’s almost attached to your hip. What’s this about an article?”

Oh. Whoops. “Sorry,” John muttered, feeling bad at jumping to conclusions, “it’s this whole stupid tabloid thing… It’s bad enough they gossip about Bruce, but to just...speculate about our relationship like that! It’s enough to...” He breathed in through his nostrils. “It really pisses me off.” It was too close to home, too paranoia-inducing...too much that put Bruce on edge, and thus John on edge.

Devi gave a sort of half-nod, half-shrug. “That’s what they do. Don’t give ‘em the satisfaction.” He knew she was right, but it didn’t help that she didn’t know everything about the situation. She couldn’t possibly know how messy it made him feel. “Anyway, why were you thinkin’ ‘bout tattoos? Jealous of mine?” She leaned her right arm on the table to show off the prowling leopard and scatter of flowers trailing down from her shoulder. She had someone’s name tattooed under a cross on her opposing forearm, and a necklace of constellations on her collarbone.

Flattery was the best way to go the majority of the time. “Yours are pretty,” he offered, watching her sit up a little proudly, “but I’m just puzzling over one I’ve seen,” he said cryptically, finished on his thumbnail. “I’ve never seen one like it before.”

“You got a picture?” She asked, putting her left hand in front of him so he’d get the hint.

John eyed the guard in the corner. He waited until he’d turned just enough away to slide his phone out of his pocket and pull up the gallery, zooming in on Mr. Nito’s tattoo. “If anyone asks, it’s yours,” he muttered, nodding to the phone as he started painting her other hand.

“Not allowed one yet, huh?” Devi pulled it across the able and looked. “Hm… That’s new to me.” She zoomed out, much to John’s discomfort. “Him, on the other hand, I’ve seen.”

“You have?” John could not keep the excitement out of his voice. “When? Where?”

“Here,” she shrugged. “Hang on a sec - hey, Mick’,” she called out, leaning to get a view of the only ‘Mick’ it could be in the facility, “Can you come here for a sec’?”

John did not want to involve him. They weren’t on...well, any real terms. It was hard to tell if Mickey liked him...or anything at all, in fact. Mickey was too abrasive to know if he would be loyal to anything or anyone.

Mickey, unfortunately, did in fact come when called, though. Maybe he had a soft spot for Devi, or women in general. “Yeah?”

“You remember this guy? I remember seein’ him, but I don’t remember his name.”

Mickey breathed out, crossing his arms over his plain t-shirt and looking...not very different from his usual gruff expression. His thick dark brows were furrowed together. “I just knew him as Ian.”

“Yeah, that was it… He didn’t stay too long, did he?”

Mickey snorted, smirking a little. “A week.”

John resumed painting, not realizing he’d stopped. “Who was he?”

“A patient,” Mickey replied. He was staring holes down at John. “We shared the same doctor. Why?”

John was getting annoyed, and he was getting tired of being polite. “That’s my business.”

Mickey decided to just sit next to Devi, still staring at him. “You trying to stop a racket?”

John ignored that and started on Devi’s pinkie finger.

“The hotel’s got one, too,” he continued quietly. That caught John’s interest.

Devi gave a slight chortle. “Every bus’ in the docks has one. Stupid to try and get us to be so law-abiding when they put us down there.”

Yes, now John was doubly-interested.

“What kind is it?” John asked Mickey, looking up from his handiwork.

“Drugs and prostitution,” he answered as Devi made a disgusted face, “Yours?”

John decided to be honest as he started on his own right hand. He rather liked the look of his left. “Pretty sure my boss is a drug mule. I don’t think it’s by choice.”

Devi winced harder. “Ugh. I got lucky, mine’s just a secret loan racket in the basement.”

Mickey was watching him. “Are you trying to stop them?”

It was...almost hopeful. Like he actually wanted that. A tough guy like Mickey, who could have easily been in a gang himself, wanted the crime in his life stopped. How...oddly refreshing.

“I don’t like being potentially thrown under the bus for other people’s decisions,” John chose to say, discarding the joke that he still had Batman’s number on speed-dial. “It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

Mickey nodded sagely. “You don’t want to go back,” he stated. “I get it.”

“Until you’ve been in Arkham, Mickey, you really don’t.” He hoped it didn’t sound as rude as he thought. “You guys know the name of your employer’s racket group?”

“Some guy named Boata,” Devi answered, blowing on her newly painted fingers.

Mickey looked up at the ceiling very briefly. “Last I heard, it was something like ‘Volto’.”

Interesting. A chain of small gangs working in such a small area? That only meant one thing:  they were sections of a bigger gang. Especially with such European-sounding names...

The leftovers, perhaps. Or maybe they wanted just to sound like the leftovers. Cast the suspicion of the Bat off.

One thing was for sure. He had to find Ian’s full name. A last known address wouldn’t hurt, either.

And that meant he’d have to break into an office.

Notes:   I’m very happy with the first section, but less satisfied with how the second half turned out, and it bent me out of shape for a week to think of how it would end... But I reminded myself that I’m setting up for what’s coming in what should be Chapter 5, and...oh boy, I know that is gonna knock some socks off. (Including mine, haha!) So it’s worth the struggle, but I hope I kept everyone’s attention. :)

So, fun facts! I had to look up what the theatre masks were called, and “sock and buskin” are literally names for the masks, taken from the “sock of comedy and boot of tragedy” characters could wear on stage. (I’ve...never heard of such a thing before now, but I like it.) And my reference to “a whole tomato of pins” is an allusion to the common tomato-shaped pin-cushion. I’ve grown up with one in the house and rarely see any in sewing stores that aren’t shaped like that, so I thought it was a sort of funny thing to add.

It’s really too bad I can’t just make a whole game for this, because I think John would have some interesting mental-mapping in animation. You’d get to see him connect the strings together like Batman does on his tech, and imagine some things like Bats’ 3D-projecting. Plus he talks to himself, both aloud (like Bruce) and in his head, so the player would actually hear that sometimes, and some of his little vocal memories from other people. (If my alternate-universe self is doing this...man, I hope she’s having fun with it.)

And of course, thank you for all the love so far!! Every time I get a note I go like this:  (♡´౪`♡) *✧ ✰ ｡* I’ll see you in two weeks, when we rejoin Bruce! 

#ttoj #bttts s4 #telltale batjokes #the boy!!! is here!!! #John Doe #Tiffany Fox #look at all these OC's #Fordarkisthesuede writes #writing John making new friends is hard hahahaha #drug mention #canon-typical violence #prositution mention #stripping mention #gun mention #please tell me if i missed any tags #the tolls of justice

[eri-223]

Destiny: Covenant Between the Idle Dead

Cayde and Zavala both have a nagging sense that when Andal introduced them wasn’t the first time they met. Yuletide fic for @gethporno. On AO3 here.

1. Scraps

Zavala was raised on a beach. Grains of sand flecking his hands and salt so thick in the air he might as well be drinking the water, and the little silver Ghost beside him, telling him to attend to the eternal war.

Ikora almost died beside him once. A rocket took the boulder next to her with a glancing blow, and then the follow-up turned into a firestorm. Zavala wrenched his Sparrow to the side and held the spot, expecting her to idle dead there until his own Light could bleed back enough into Ikora’s for her Ghost to raise her. The mingling told him that she was alive. Furious, dirt spattering her arms, she vaulted back onto her Sparrow and drew a sphere of Void energy in the air. The rocket did not fire again, and thereafter he remembered the burning cryogenic-cold of her Void Light.

The first time he met Cayde-6 he thought the strangeness in the Light came because Zavala was mourning Andal. Duty to the Tower, duty to the institution of the Vanguard, duty to the title Osiris had held before him — Commander Zavala kept these things in mind while he looked at the Exo and tried to figure out where they had met before. Had Andal brought him around before? It was hard to find a Hunter Vanguard, so having two with similar sensibilities was not only understandable but expected. Was Zavala tired, needing hot tea and warm quilts, searching for something to which the Light was answering you have met Cayde-6 before? The sense of recognition did not fade. Instead it became manageable. It waited like a word unremembered, forever on the tip of his tongue.

2. Code Strings

The simulation becomes clearer every time. It is not a memory: Cayde-6 is certain of this because it does not flow through the same channels, does not generate the same code. Recall feels linear: one after one after one, cause and effect (such as they are for Guardians, such as they are for the contested Earth). The Deep Stone Crypt feels disjointed, non-chronological, eternal. Zavala’s Light feels this way, also.

Cayde-6 does not know whether the tower is his own memory, or his ancestor’s memory, or someone else’s entirely. Maybe it is a memory of only his body, wired into his brain at the spine but not originating with him at all. It is a tower that is not the Tower. He kills neophytes and civilians there, the ramen chef with the flowers in her hair, the Frames in their neat lines. He never kills either of his fellow Vanguard, not after he takes the Dare and does the ritual. He does not know why.

He wants to rattle Zavala. Cayde-6 thinks he understands Ikora Rey, although he does not entirely: she indulges his jokes, smiles with full lips and bright eyes. Zavala just looks at him, and Cayde’s mind turns over and over trying to figure out why. It’s distracting, like an itch — an alert without pain. Cayde feels like he has experienced this before, that somewhere in his buried memories is the way to get Zavala to smile at him.

3. Official Records

DATE: REDACTED

KEYWORDS: Fallen; Eliksni; Vanguard; Commander Zavala; Ikora Rey; Cayde-6; Ace of Spades; Scene-Stealer

There are battles that feel older than others. Timeless, if dreams feel timeless. Medieval, in the sense of iron and blood. The Fallen had brought a tank up to the Wall, in one of the opportunistic pushes big enough for the Vanguard themselves to attend to the forever siege. Ikora had a sword dragging behind her, a sliver of folded titanium she called a Scene-Stealer.

“Give me room,” she said, and Cayde popped the Golden Gun and fired down into the swarming ranks.

One, two, three shots and then the tracers found him and he danced back. Rock crumbled. Cayde found himself falling, metal screaming against metal, the acute discomfort of chips ripped from his body through his fieldweave. He tumbled to the feet of the tank with the gun still ablaze. Fine opportunity — he fired upward.

Zavala landed next to him, fighting like an Exo in a dream — no weapons in hand at all, just a shield wall and then his hands dragging Elksni around behind it. Zavala used the wreckage of the Wall like a crucible, pressing squirming arms against its stones until the Eliksni cried out and Zavala went for the eyes, ignoring shots fired against his plating —

Cayde rolled to his feet, ducked behind the Titan wall while the last golden sparks dripped to his feet. Out of sight, Ikora’s Light sparked and crackled like a live wire to his left, held in reserve for now.

The tank stepped forward. Then the hands that had broken Fallen arms were dragging Cayde back, out of the mud beneath the tank’s creaking feet.

“Let’s go,” Cayde thought he heard Zavala say, his breathing loud in the comm.

Cayde wriggled to his feet, patted Zavala’s shoulder blade as the tank reared against the City Wall. They stood like that while Ikora saw her opening — felt her see it, felt her mind like the intricate gears and golden ribs of the Speaker’s astrolabe. Ikora flew on a whirlwind of Void Light and stabbed the tank in the back of the neck with her Scene-Stealer. She leaned back and dragged, kicking her feet for a moment against the downward momentum of her own stab, and pulled the sword across as smoke and fire began to bleed out of the head of the tank. It collapsed beneath her.

Afterward, the Guardians on the Wall took care of the Fallen’s main spearhead. The bugs scattered back from around the corpse of the tank. The soles of Ikora’s boots had melted into the cut across the neck, and she stumbled as she walked out of the tank, fixing the sword to her belt. Black goo trailed from her boots.

Zavala reached out to help her up.

“We did it,” Ikora murmured, quietly enough that Cayde moved closer to hear. Zavala waved him into arms’ length. Cayde bristled at first, realized a moment later that it was in expectation of a rejection that was not coming. Zavala was usually so untouchable, body and mind — but now they had struggled and won, and Cayde sank against Zavala in a shrugging embrace that Ikora took up on the other side. She tugged them into the wreckage and they sat there against the smoking skin of the walker, watching the smoke rise, hearing the civilians cheer.

Zavala, sure of the duty of the Vanguard and the eyes of the civilians on the Wall, stood first.

4. Unofficial Records

They both have a nagging sense that the day Andal introduced them isn’t the first time they met.

Or at least, Cayde-6 supposes they both have it. It might be normal Vanguard Light-muddling, a side effect they don’t write about in manuals.

Cayde-6 reads people. He has to, in order to know how to call bluffs and push buttons and escape parties too boring or dangerous to endure. But Commander Zavala smiles with silvery lips and long canines, and you cannot just ask a man of such principle and gravitas whether it’s significant that you know and do not know him, that you actually never saw him in that particular dream ever and isn’t that strange? Isn’t he someone you know? Or does this nagging mean something else, that the three Vanguard are all shadow-selves to one another, reflections? Were they reflections before Cayde took the Dare? Was he always partially here around this table with these people? The idea is disgustingly noble, disgustingly boringly fated. It makes him want to run. But that nagging is something that keeps him rooted. He feels like he knew Zavala when they were both first raised, how ever far down the muddled memories that was. He has to remind himself that he is not certain Zavala feels the same way.

The question dogs him, but he doesn’t feel right asking. That would be needy. Cayde is not above asking assistance from a friendly Guardian or passing ranger but the Vanguard have jobs and Cayde respects their time. There is always a fight, now Oryx and now Ghaul — and besides, asking would make him look uncertain. If a person needs kindness Cayde will provide it, but his own curiosity is no kindness. He will not burden Zavala with this — not quite yet.

--

His chance comes weeks later. In the hangar Zavala is examining a new weapon from Fenchurch’s wanderings, an automatic day-ruiner as big as one of those Cabal cannons. Zavala says something about the strange abilities of the thing, a sense of foresight that guarantees the bullets hate physics. Cayde isn’t paying much attention. The gun looks good in the hand, sure, but — “…like déjà vu. Insistent cryptomnesia, inflicted. Made useful.”

“What now?” Cayde is leaning on a crate in his usual hangar hang-out, one leg stretched out behind him. Zavala is standing a few meters away from him, so Cayde makes sure his turn looks lazy.

“Just examining this.” Zavala’s expression is calm, controlled. It’s weighty like the Wall. Cayde wishes he could see what it would look like for Zavala to emote. (Although there was enough of that after Mare Imbrium, wasn’t there, enough ragged looks like piles of rubble.) There are techs around, but right now their presence doesn’t matter. Cayde can’t see anything except Zavala and his need to ask this question, to receive this answer.

“Do you ever get the sense that you’ve met me before? Like, you know, as if we were both experiencing déjà vu at the same time but like all at the same time and just with you and I, specifically. Is that normal Vanguard behavior because if not I thought that it might be useful for you to know, you know, in case it was the sign of some crypto … mania.”

Zavala sets the gun down. It thunks.  “Cayde, I don’t expect that you knew this already, but some Awoken and some Guardians feel that all the time.”

“What?”

Zavala rolls his shoulders for a moment before walking toward Cayde, circling around toward the hangar techs as he speaks. “Not all Awoken do, and not with all other people. Some people think that it’s because we have the memory of our original remaking in us, the thing that changed the first Awoken from human into us.” He’s meeting Cayde’s eyes as he goes, and it isn’t condescending so much as very intense. Zavala could make Cayde into a crater if he stood here long enough, that stare says, but he chooses not to. He chooses to stand here and defend, like that Wall, and that’s as close to a Fireteam as Cayde has ever had.

“But it doesn’t happen with everyone,” Zavala continues. “Usually with people who have a shared destiny, or a deep bond.”

“So which are we?” Cayde is made bold and shy together by the directness of the answer.

“Probably both,” Zavala says. He just stands there with his hands on his hips and lives with that, with a bond from which he does not want to escape into the pine forest, and Cayde sighs.

“So is this normal?”

“Not normal. But I’m honored to have it,” Zavala says.

Cayde sighs again. Considers and discards saying “I Light-memory-bond you too, buddy,” or something, but it feels too small. The bond has been there after all, self-evident, pressing in on them. Cayde had looked into a kind of eternity, not like the Crypt, but a definition of non-memory, and was struck silent with the depth and strangeness of the respect idling in the Light. Cayde sighs and idles, and Zavala reaches out a hand in a glove of his own making, and Cayde shakes it.

#Destiny 2 #writings #Cayde-6 #Commander Zavala #Ikora Rey

[catachan-jungle-fighter]

Titles for different groups/individual: Mad Wolves

The Old Wolf (John Geist)

The Wall (Pacifist Mad Wolves who wear modified power armor and carry heavy shields, have survived shelling by mortars and artillery)

The Grave Guardians (Plague Doctor looking warriors, they stand guard over the hidden graveyards of the fallen Mad Wolves)

The Grave Walkers (Blanks that John has brought into the fold, their main piece of equipment being a Gasmask they wear that is covered in bones)

The Burning Hearts (Former Sisters of battle given new purpose by the Mad Wolves, they are armed with flamers and have access to call in incendiary bombardment)

The Ashen Wolves (The main combat assassins of the Wolves, they are fond of quick and painless kills for their targets, tending to drive their blades into the person's heart from behind as they snap their neck.)

The Old Wolf's Pack (the last three surviving members of the original Sixth section, they stand beside John in all things, though alongside John they will act as a Commando team from time to time.)

The Butchers (Mad Wolves who have become addicted to the Wolves Teeth, a combat drug that is issued for emergency situations, these men and women are equipped with bomb collars that keep the drug flowing through their system, only let out of their cages when the Wolves need Psyop's.)

Iron Cage's Bulwark (Three Ogryn that protect Iron, armed with Shields and arm mounted grenade launchers.)

Toxic's Caustic Cannon Crew (Toxic's pet project that allows him to send his creations arcing over protected area and to spread through enemy lines, the crew all wearing variants of his suit and mask due to the possibility of a shell or canister busting during the firing process.)

Farsight's Snipers (a cadre of snipers who follow Farsight's every command, they are extremely skilled in camouflage, commonly deploying alongside the Scouts of the Wolves to set up a position a few weeks ahead of time)

Nox's Trappers (the men and women who have taken charge of the trapping of the area around the base, they are able to squeeze more traps into a area due to Nox's teachings, the Swamp Rat girl knowing of the small patches of land available to the people of her clan that they learned how to trap to the maximum they could.)

The Accountants (in charge of the finances of the Entire Mad Wolves, these men and women are terrifying to everyone of the Wolves, even managing to scare John Geist.)

The Earthshaper's ( Telekinetic Psyker's who 'shape' the earth by ripping mounds of dirt out of the ground and stone, they wear heavy ceremonial armor that is heavily padded inside due to the fact after they help make a barricade they commonly pass out.)

The Mistwalker's ( Psyker's who John is wary of due to them being from the Blackened Claw clan, these mysterious individuals are famed among the Wandering Clans for being 'monsters who can fade away into mist' which we now know is a type of warp associated travel, though it is unknown how they can do this.)

The Silence (Former Krieger's)

The Hidden (John's more unknown Assassin's, these are the fellows who deal with people who need to disappear before they find something they shouldn't. If seen, commonly wearing a theater mask of a weeping woman.)

Dying Wolves (Wolves who were wounded heavily, they allow only the bare minimum of medical attention, they feel they are responsible for the loss of their comrades and so are armed with a bomb vest and the cheapest equipment and are dropped behind enemy lines.)

The Repentant (former Hive Gangers who cut out their tongues, the Repentant are trying to earn forgiveness for the crimes they committed in their past, fighting harder and far more dangerously then others, it isn't uncommon to find a Repentant bleeding to death far behind enemy lines after a fight, the individual having pushed that far on their own.)

The Chem Wolves (Chem Dogs from Savlar, directed by Foreman)

Ice Wolves of Valhalla (Valhallan First Born, Directed by Grampa)

Lost Cadian's (The Cadian Members of the Wolves, brought together under John's orders after they fell into a collective depression, the Lost Cadian's are some of the deadliest members of their combat groups, but they are also living treasures of a dead world so it isn't common to see another Wolf take a shot for them.)

Daemoneater's (REDACTED, but you can tell what they do by the name)

Grave Diggers (non-combat troops, they are responsible for burials, the recovery of dog tags, and the filling in of the Mad Wolves Ledger of the Lost.)

Soul Hunters ( Unknown purpose to every section except for the 4th.)

Noble Breakers (Artillery crews who are fond of knocking down upper hive houses with artillery barrages)

Bert's Bombadiers (Artillery Crews who work for the Squat)

Jailbreaker's ( The men and women responsible for the consistent Jail Breaks for the Wolves, led by a Krieger nicknamed 'Hans', they tunnel into Arbite Precinct's and extract the Wolves.)

Agents Of The Old Wolf (Spies, Cutthroats, ship captains, and more... if John needs something done that can't go through offical channels he utilizes these individuals)

Ghouls (The intelligence arm of the Mad Wolves, the Ghouls are too numerous to count and are scattered across thousands of worlds where they take up falsified identities, becoming just another face in the crowd to the point where, several times, a Ghoul was promoted to a high up PDF position around the time of a Rebellion or other such incident, which allowed for the Wolves to gain entrance easily.)

The Forgotten (The Beggar's, the whores, the broken bodies that came home from the Guard, the thieves and pickpockets, anyone who never had a chance in life are recruited by the Wolves and are given a purpose again. Commonly issued makeshift weapons they can carry openly, like a cane flechette gun or a bundle of shivs.)

The Old Men (Elderly Wolves who don't know when to quit.)

Emperor's Guard (The men and women in charge of carrying and protecting any Idol of the Emperor they find in their missions, or sketching the artwork they find of him)

Battle Preachers (kind of obvious, they are the priests of the Mad Wolves)

Bark's Gunners (Heavy Weapons users lead by a former member of a Feral World tribe nicknamed 'Bark'.)

Raider's Rowdy Boys (the Armored division)

---

Sane Wolves (all non-Mad Wolves members of the Mad Wolves, those who are in training or are currently traveling disguised as civilians or gathered together in hunting 'packs')

[theexperiment-hq-blog]

Conner Kent / Superboy, played by Basil

OOC Info

Name: Basil

Age: 20

Pronouns: they/them

Triggers: [redacted]

IC Info

Muse Name and Alias: Conner Kent/Kon El

What is your primary canon(s) for this character? 90s Comics

Approximate Age: 23, but looks barely 18

OTPs, BroTPs, NoTPs: all of the ships do it go

Give us a bulletpoint outline for what your character’s history might look like:

Conner was made in Cadmus labs by Lex Luthor using his own and Superman's DNA. He was initially to be a replacement for a 'dead' superman, which ended up being a complete failure given his lack of actual kryptonian abilities as well as not responding to mind control and being broken out early and escaping.

Conner is mixed and on the darker end of the spectrum, which is why he draws so much attention compared to friends like Bart who are on the same wavelength of obnoxious. On top of it, he's very out about being bisexual, which is a huge problem for most people since the last thing you need is someone who looks like a perpetual party boy kissing other boys on TV broadcasts. It's why some people can't stand him, even if Superman's initial stance on him didn't affect them. It's a race and queer thing, and he knows it is, but is very unapologetic about who he is.

Conner is closer than Lex than he is Clark for a variety of reasons; Clark initially rejected Conner, which forced him to go to Lex instead for practically everything from parental comfort to getting a piercing gun that would make it's way through his skin. He does easily find himself at odds with Lex given they both have different goals, but when it comes down to it, he knows he can count on Lex to have his back. He did initially get closer with Clark once he realized Conner wasn't completely terrible, but if he had to pick, Conner would still side with Lex in terms of the preferred parent.

He doesn't have superman's powers at all, but rather tactile telekinesis, which allows him to manipulate anything he touches, including himself. That's what gives him the ability to 'fly' and have 'super strength'. He is technically half kryptonian, meaning kryptonite weakens him, but he's 'normal' aside from that compared to other kryptonians.

Interview (Must be answered in character, third person, including both narrative and dialogue. Answer these as if you’re responding to a roleplay reply. Feel free to write as much as you like, but make sure there’s at least a good paragraph for each.)

What would it take for you to switch sides? (hero to villain; villain to hero; neutral to either)

"Well... Honestly?" Conner asked quietly, slouching back in his chair as if he was overly comfortable rather than off put at the question. "It's kind of something I quietly fight with all of the time." He admitted softly. "Heroes and villains are kind of this concept of right versus wrong, and if a lot of people think doing the right thing is wrong, then I guess I'm a bad guy." He quietly laced his gloved hands over his torso, as if preparing to settle in for a long nap. "Like with all of the current stuff going down on earth... Like Kaepernick for example-" He started, sitting up and holding his hands out to explain as if the answer was right in front of him. "The football guy who takes a knee over standing for the anthem? There are people who literally send this guy DEATH threats because of what he's doing. People think he's in the wrong- that he's a bad guy all for KNEELING because people are being KILLED. So again..." He shrugged quietly, as if it were obvious, yet terribly painful. "It's all perspective, so... it doesn't really matter- to some people we're ALREADY the bad guys. I'M already a bad guy..." He corrected softly, slouching forward on his knees and lacing his hands together, eyes locked on the floor. "As long as I'm doing what I want, it doesn't really matter... does it?" He asked, quietly looking up with a grin on his face, yet nothing about his expression said he thought this was funny- everything about it said this topic hurt.

How would you describe yourself? How would your friends describe you? How would the public describe you?

"Describe myself?" He asked with a laugh. "Dude, I’m a FULL TIME superhero and ‘Superboy’ is TRADEMARKED- Like there is an honest to god TM there, I'm a walking billboard for myself! Like I have friggin merchandise and shit, my guy. I don't HAVE to describe myself, Google me." He said with a hearty laugh as if this was genuinely funny to him. "My friends would probably say I'm a big meme, but it's whatever. If the worst they think I am is funny then I lucked out given genetics." He joked as if proving the point, giving a wide, brilliant smile. "The public's opinion can be swayed depending on the media they consume. I'm sure to some people I'm this really obnoxious punk kid who needs to get shot in the head," He made a gun motion and put it to the side of his head, sticking his pierced tongue out. "And I'm sure to others I'm a roll model- which is wild considering, but also at the same time like... I could be seriously worse." He leaned back with a wide grin, having fun with that question in particular, more than willing to show off his narcissism.

If you could gain any superpower/swap your superpower for another, what would it be and why?

"Oh man- actual Supes' powers, hands down." He quickly answered. "Like I'm basically a knock off man, everyone knows that. So like having legit xray vision that aren't in my shades or like heat ray vision or frost breath? A total package- the powers, I'm already the whole 9." He snickered, showing off his perfect teeth with a wide grin. "Sooo, this is where I make a plus one joke if you're free sometime." He added, winking at the interviewer.

What is a secret you have never told someone?

He paused, considering this. "...I mean a secret is generally something you try not to tell people, but... I mean considering, I guess now is a good a time as any to bring it up. Even people with super powers aren't like... invincible and unaffected. At the end of the day, we have to go home and deal with what happens, good or bad... and there's a lot of bad shit in there, you know?" He grumbled softly, shaking his head and resting his elbows on his knees. "Like you don't see the stuff we do- know people are being hurt and that you can help but for some reason couldn't and just... walk away from that unscathed. It messes you up. It's why good people go ape shit- they just can't do it anymore. You get PTSD and depression and like... I should probably be on meds or whatever, but..." He leaned back in his chair. "...Sometimes there are just days where I can't do sunshine and good times acts. Sometimes I gotta sit there for a week in the same shirt and not do my hair and live in a blanket cocoon while beating playing GTA seven times with some weird movie on in the back. I'm not always okay... and I guess the first step to handling that is to talk about it. I'm used to making a big scene, so... may as well let other people know that even superheroes need help some time, right?" He offered, giving an almost apologetic smile as if it was his fault he wasn't okay.

If there was one choice in your past you could change, what would it be?

He paused to think, reliving a few moments. "...I duuno. There's a lot of shit I probably shouldn't have done or changed." He admitted with a laugh. "Is this just one fuck up or can I fix a few? Because some part of me always regrets the firecracker incident." He said with a soundless snicker as he covered his hand with his mouth. "Uh... I'm not... gonna say what it is, but even though it's funny now it put my stupid ass in the hospital for a little bit because I'll basically let Tim talk me into anything because he's my favorite kind of cute." He couldn't help but snicker the entire time he was talking, occasionally pausing to wheeze at the memory. "Ohhh, man... I cannot believe I'm still such a hot mess, I'd probably still do that now if I got trashed enough because it's so funny. So I guess never mind on that? I dunno man there's serious shit I can think of too but like... Jeezus christ I can't even think now." He dissolved into laughter again, covering his face with his hand while he couldn't stop himself from laughing so hard.

If you had one day where you could do anything you want, free of consequences, what would you do?

Conner paused, thinking quietly about all of the good he could do. How he could handle the root issues of wars. How he could have Tim help him hack into obnoxiously rich people's bank accounts to solve socioeconomic issues- literally fix things like world hunger with that alone. How he could hurl some people into the sun- kiss girls and guys and anything in between without them getting upset for some reason or another. How he could take a damn day off without feeling guilty about it- maybe catch up on playing some NES games he hadn't touched in a while. So many ideas came to mind at the concept of it being 'consequence free'. But no. He could do something much more devastating. Something that would state the little terror that was always nagging at him to shove someone off of a roof or punch someone into a yard or steal a dog just because it was cute. A wide grin grew on his face that said he was very much Lex as he was Clark. "...I'd give Lex Luthor a wedgie so hard he's underwear would rip and then would leave him hanging from some really public place where everyone could see him." He couldn't help but laugh half way though his sentence, the idea fucking hysterical to him.

Extras

https://uppers-and-90s-bullshit.tumblr.com/

#accepted