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themonkeycabal · 3 years

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WandaVision Episode 9 Spoilers

I can't believe we're already at the finale.

This has been better than I expected, though I didn't have any particular expectations one way or the other. I had hoped it would be bonkers, and it's had its moments, but I didn't expect it to be breaking my heart. I'm glad Wanda (and Elizabeth Olsen) got this moment to shine. It was very well done, and it's been nice to have fun with a Marvel property again. It's been a little while.

My wishlist for this episode is simply that somebody, anybody punch Acting Director Dick square in the face. And also that Jimmy Woo arrests him. A lot.

Other than that, I don't know what to expect, or how they wrap this up in 30 minutes.

Previously on: Wanda finally earned the name Scarlet Witch after Agatha made her relive the worst moments of her life. Harsh, Agatha. Vision uttered a line that launched a thousand gif sets. And Hayward revealed his genius masterplan which is a reactivated Vision, devoid of color and powered by the energy bleeding from Wanda's hex. I'm sure that will go swimmingly for him.

Let's see how this all ends.

Agatha still has magical tethers around Billy and Tommy's necks, which obviously Wanda doesn't like. Agatha gives the boys a tug, knocking them back, and Wanda lets loose, walloping Agatha. The boys are now free, but Wanda tells them to go to their room. They object, she insists, Tommy grabs Billy and they zoom off. Wanda hits Agatha again with a hex, but Agatha sort of collects it into a little glowy ball in her hand. Oops.

"I take power from the undeserving. It's kinda my thing."

Wanda notices her hand turning gray and gnarly — the look of somebody about to be magically mummified. Agatha hits her with a hex and taunts her some more.

"You're clearly in over your little, red head, so why don't you surrender your magic to someone who knows what to do with it?" Agatha, you're pushing your luck. "I'll let you keep this pathetic corner of the world all to yourself. What do you say?"

Wanda says she will throw a car right at your face, Agatha. I laughed. Didn't see that coming, did you? Knocked Agatha right out of her boots.

As Wanda is investigating, Director Dick's white Vision floats down behind her. He's creepy looking.

Wanda walks over to him, staring at him. "Is it really you?"

He puts his hands on her face, all gentle like, but it's a lie. He starts to squeeze. "And I was told you were powerful."

Gross, AD Dick. I hope you get stepped on by Ant-Man when he's being Giant-Man.

Sitcom World Vision (hereafter just plain old Vision) makes a timely reappearance, and takes out Not!Vision. He wants to know where the boys are, Wanda assures him they're safe, and she apologizes for everything and that she should have told him what was happening, "the moment I realized what I'd done". Poor Wanda. He tells her it's alright. She says she can fix it. Not!Vision climbs out of the burning remains of a camper.

Agatha reappears to note the awkwardness of the situation. She asks Wanda who she's going to choose, the ex or the boyfriend. What happens when Wanda hits you with more power than you can contain, Agatha?

Wanda tells Vision "this is our home." He agrees, "then let's fight for it." I hope for the best for you two crazy kids! Marvel has a dicey record on happy endings, though. Sorry!

Vision takes off towards Not!Vision again. Agatha flies off, too, and Wanda follows.

Across the street Monica is pounding on a window, calling for Wanda. Fietro, lounging with a guitar in his … stoner den?, tells her nobody can hear her. Can we talk about how Monica's SWORD uniform looks like ST:Next Gen unis? I can't stop seeing it and it's distracting. Anyway, she tries to escape, but, Fietro is still all fast and stuff, so she's thwarted.

In the sky, Vision and Not!Vision battle. Not!Vision says Wanda must be neutralized and Vision must be destroyed. Hmm. Not!Vision tries to rip out the stone in Vision's forehead but Vision goes intangible. More fighting with intangibleness. It's pretty cool.

Outside Westview, AD Dick is feeling cocky as he watches both Visions on tracking monitors. I loathe him so much. Jimmy Woo is brought in handcuffed by a pair of SWORD goons. I'm sorry, who the f is SWORD? Like, they have arrest powers now? Dick says "hey, it's my favorite member of the Bureau." New wishlist: everybody gets to take turns punching AD Dick in the face.

Dick asks his minion to reconfirm mission objectives while Jimmy listens carefully, mentally noting each and every violation of federal law and the Sokovia Accords.

The minion says she can't get through to not!Vision, his system is overloaded. A cellphone rings on a desk nearby and Jimmy eyes it, then tells Hayward that he'll never be able to cover up these shenanigans.

While Dick is busy boasting and the SWORD goons are doing everything but paying attention to their prisoner (in my head all the SWORD goons applied to SHIELD but Maria Hill laughed at each and every one of their applications and then called Pepper to laugh some more and then texted choice bits to May tagging them "RE: LOL"), Jimmy eases over and grabs the phone.

"Wanda canceled her show,” Dick says with the sort of confidence only an enormous prick can muster, “so there's no footage proving there was ever more than one Vision."

Jimmy points out that that is dumb, because there is other footage, from SWORD HQ and stuff, and probably evidence of tampering. He casually sits on a table, shaking his head, like he's just so disappointed (i'm hoping he's somehow managed to use the phone to record the monolog-ing) .

Dick is still too far up his own ass to notice Jimmy being sneaky. "No one's going to care once I've eliminated Wanda Maximoff. They'll believe that the Vision that emerges from the Westview rubble is the one she illegally tried to bring back to life."

Wait, bringing him back to life is illegal? You're full of shit, Dick. And also, an extremely terrible person, who will destroy a whole town for … something? A Vision weapon? Who are you fighting, Dick? BTW, I award him no sympathy points for surviving in the post-Snap world. So if he's been scarred by that or whatever, I don't care. Trauma doesn't excuse murdery megalomania. As has been said before: Cool motive, still murder. I hope Vision intangibles him into a lamp post that gets peed on every day by a parade of small dogs.

"They'll thank me for recovering such a valuable asset. You could be part of that victory, Jimmy. If only you had a little more … vision" says the smug prick who is asking for it. And by it I mean something both terrible and humiliating to happen to him asap.

Jimmy fake laughs back. "That's a good one, Hayward. Okay, I'm convinced. The trouble is my friends at Quantico will probably have something to say about your plan. When they arrive. Inside the hour." heh.

Oh, poor Dick doesn't like being mocked back. He tells his brain-dead goons to remove Jimmy. The goons throw Jimmy into a … stack of hay? In a fenced in cage thing? As you have on your pop-up military facility. Where he sets to work removing his handcuffs with a clip he also stole, because Jimmy Woo is cool like that. Close Up Magic! See the things you can learn from criminals. "Flourish" lol.

He calls his friends at Quantico. "I was hoping you could get here … inside the hour?"

Back in Westview. Wanda is looking for Agatha while the town goes about its business. Weirdo delivery guy drives by "Don't shoot. I'm just the messenger. ha ha."

Then she gets hit in the back by a purple hex. Ouch. She has hit the pavement hard kind of a lot in this episode already. That hurts, my dudes, I know this from personal falling down experience. Wanda's hand, by the way, is still looking ashy and not very healthy.

Agatha taunts her from a rooftop. "Did you know there's an entire chapter devoted to you in the Darkhold." How could she know that, Agatha? Also, boo the Darkhold. That bit of nastiness led to the Framework, and I'm still a little scarred by that myself. "That's the book of the damned," says the witch standing in front of a billboard for "Squeaky Shine" lol.

Agatha produces the Darkhold and recites from it, "The Scarlet Witch is not born, she is forged. She has no coven, nor need for incantation." Wanda insists she isn't a witch, nobody taught her magic.

Agatha continues, "Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme" Steven Strange will like that. Not much. He's so twitchy about things like that. "It's your destiny to destroy the world." Always with the destinies. FREE WILL FOREVAH!

Wanda insists she's not the Scarlet Witch thingy. Agatha says "oh really?" and uses her mojo on Emma Caulfield. Hi Emma Caulfield! She seems to be 'awake' and introduces herself to Wanda (who knew her as Dottie) "My name is Sarah. I have a daughter, she's 8, maybe she could be friends with your boys. If you like that storyline. Or the school bully, even. Really anything, if you could just let her out of her room. If I could just hold her." Wow, ouch.

Speaking of free will or the lack of, Wanda accuses Agatha of doing this, but Agatha says "She's your meat puppet. I just cut her strings." Poor Wanda. And now Agatha wakes up the whole town, who all head towards Wanda.

And we cut to Fietro's den of manchildness. Monica asks what that place is, but come on Monica, it's clearly a den of manchildness. Fietro is making himself a smoothie and explaining the purpose of a mancave — chillaxing.

Monica ignores him and rifles through his bills and whatnot. She finds a headshot of Fietro with the name "Ralph Bohner" underneath. Because, people just keep their headshots lying around willynilly. Wait, are we saying Ralph is an actor? Lol.

Fietro meanwhile is planning for a Steven Segal marathon — my dad and I watched all of those movies and for the life of me I could not tell you why. We didn't *like* them. I mean, mostly we laughed, but still. Why?

Anyway, Monica is trying to solve the mystery of Fietro. It's not Agatha's house (obviously) it's Fietro's (Ralph). He's an ass and asks if she wants to fight some more, so she flips him over her shoulder and pins him down, trying to figure out how Agatha is controlling him. With her new glowy eyes, she notices the bead necklace he's wearing sparkles in a magically way. She rips it off and Fietro becomes Ralph.

Elsewhere the Visions are still battling in the sky and the boys are watching from their bedroom. They lose sight of dad, but Billy gets a vision of mom in trouble in the town square. He and Tommy run off.

The townsfolk are confused and scared. Wanda tells them they're all going to be fine. "When you let us sleep, we have your nightmares." Ouch. Wanda insists she kept them safe. Wanda, sweetie, you're very far in over your head.

"You feel, you feel at peace," she tells them, kind of hoping that works. It doesn’t. "We feel your pain." "Your grief is poisoning us." "Please let us go." This is an awful thing to do to Wanda, Marvel!

It escalates with all those voices begging her to free them and she screams, grabbing her head, and when she does that, red light appears around the throats of the townies, silencing them, choking them. Wanda realizes and puts her glowy hands up "stop, stop, I'm sorry", releasing them all.

"If you won't let us go, let us die." Wanda promises to let them go. Agatha wonders what's stopping her from actually doing it.

"Heroes don't torture people." Agatha's a very sink-or-swim kind of teacher.

That does the trick and Wanda throws her arms back and yells to the sky, releasing her power up at the hex surrounding the town. "Go, all of you. Now, go." The people run and the town flickers through the eras and the barrier starts to fall.

Outside, Director Dick tells his morons "this is it, we're going in!"

The Visions keep on battling, but as the barrier falls, Vision starts to falter himself. I was afraid of that.

The Morons roll in with their big trucks and big guns because … reasons. I have a very low opinion of SWORD. Maria Rambeau's agency deserves better than this shitshow.

Vision falls and it looks like bits of him are chipping off. He hits the ground hard, he gets up, but he's glitching, too, falling apart as Wanda takes down her spell. He reaches for her. The boys appear now, too, screaming for mom, but they seem to be flickering as well, flying apart in pixelly pieces. Poor Wanda.

Agatha says "Now do you see? You tied your family to this twisted world and now one can't exist without the other." This is terrible. "Save Westview or save your family." TERRIBLE.

Wanda pulls the hex into herself again, recreating the barrier. The kids and Vision recover and run to her. Outside, as the hex closes, Jimmy Woo is, yet again, left to stare at the barrier, cut off from the fun inside. Poor guy, lol. But, his FBI buddies are arriving, so at least he won't get lonely.

Agatha throws a hex at Wanda and Wanda throws up a shield to protect her family. Which Agatha starts to draw towards herself like the magic vampire she is. Greedy Agatha. Wanda's arms are all gray. And SWORD rolls into town square, because that's what this confrontation needed — these dipshits.

Anyway, the Family stands ready to face Director Dick and his morons, in a quality recreation of the Incredibles family pose. "Listen boys, your mother and I never really prepared you for this," dad says. Because your boys are like three days old, Vision, it's okay. "But you were born for it," Wanda assures them very fiercely. Get 'em, sister!

As they square off, Vision's like "oh crap, it's the other me, back in a mo'" and flies off to tackle Not!Vision who's trying to sneak up behind them.

They destroy the town library and Vision wants to know why Not!Vision gotta be like that. "My programming directive is to destroy the Vision."

Ha ha, says Vision, a loophole. "But, I'm not the true Vision, only a conditional Vision."

Hmmm, says Not!Vision, and they stop fighting, "I request elaboration". Hey, Vision, move into Not!Vision's body and you can be true Vision again! Problem solved, my work here is done.

Back to the street where we find Dick and his Morons and Agatha who is not making this situation at all better. The morons point their guns at Agatha who magics them up off the ground like thirty feet in the air, "Same story, different century. There will always be torches and pitchforks for ladies like us, Wanda." I'm not going to say you're wrong, Agatha, and God knows these SWORD morons are morons, but you're also a pain in the ass. So …

Anyway, then Agatha drops them and Wanda reaches out to catch them. But once caught, she does let them drop the last five or six feet. They'll be fine, but also they deserved it, so I laughed.

"Boys, handle the military. Mommy will be right back." They're my new favorite family.

Wanda flies up to tangle with Agatha and Agatha is super ready except … Wanda throws a curveball and disappears. Suck it Agatha.

Down on the ground the SWORD morons continue to cover themselves in glory and point their guns at CHILDREN. I don't care if they're powered children, you know what I'd like, I'd like if one of the morons would just be like "um, but … they're kids and how about no? I'm going to get Jimmy Woo! He'll know what to do. Don't try and stop me!" That doesn't happen.

Billy freezes the soldiers in place and Tommy super speeds by and steals their guns and hats. AD Dick, being the absolutely loathsome, vile, lower-than-a-maggot, piece of shit that he is, gets out of his humvee and shoots at the CHILDREN.

Monica, who has just arrived to the party, runs and throws herself between Dick and the boys, taking the bullets meant for them. Her new powers render her sort of … I don't even know. Not quite intangible, but she kind of looks like a ballistics gel dummy and the bullets go through her but they slow down a lot as they pass and then just sort of fall on the ground. Dick, crossing the line into pure evil, fires again, the bullet misses Monica and heads towards Billy, who just raises his hand and stops it with his power then he grins at Monica.

"Nice tricks," she tells him.

"I like yours, too," he says.

Dick tries to fire AGAIN! But he's out of bullets. He only had four? Or maybe his gun jammed. Anyway, like the brave man he is, he runs to the humvee, gets in, reverses at speed, stops and looks like he's going to put it in gear and drive at them because the dude is unhinged. But! Lo! It's Darcy and the funnel cake truck, that is apparently built like a tank, though come to think of it, it probably was an armored vehicle in the real world.

Anyway, she t-bones Dick's vehicle, thwarting his evility for the moment. "Have fun in prison." Lol

Back to the Visions. They're having a philosophical debate. "You are familiar with the thought experiment "The Ship of Theseus" in the field of identity metaphysics," Vision prompts Not!Vision.

"Naturally." And Not!Vision helpfully spells it out for us. "The ship of Theseus is in a museum. Over time its planks of wood rot and are replaced with new planks. When no original planks remain, is it still the ship of Theseus?"

Vision presses his advantage, "Secondly. If those removed planks are restored and reassembled, free of the rot, is that the ship of Theseus?"

To sum up, neither is the true Vision, both are the true Vision.

"But I do not have the mind stone," says not!Vision.

"And I do not have one single ounce of original material," replies Vision. "Perhaps the rot is the memories. The wear and tear are the voyages. The wood touched by Theseus himself."

Not!Vision says he doesn't have the memories, though, but Vision insists he does, the data is still there, hidden. Not!Vision says nah, Vision must be the true Vision because he believes himself to be. But, Vision says that's not true anymore, he plays the reverse card, "upon meeting you, I have been disabused of that notion." This is the most philosophy nerd game of 'not it' ever.

Vision continues to try to get at Not!Vision's memories. "As a carbon-based synthazoid, your memory storage is not so easily wiped. May I?" Not!Vision allows Vision to touch the glowy bit where the memory stone used to be, and Not!Vision is flooded with Vision's memories. Not!Vision's eyes go … normal, I guess you'd say, no longer robot-like and glowy.

"I am Vision" he says and flies off. It was a lot to take in, I guess. He needs a little me-time.

I guess we're going to have to go back to calling Vision Sitcom!Vision, anyway, he goes outside and the boys run over to him and there's hugging and stuff.

Agatha stalks them from the rooftop, but it seems she might have forgotten Wanda for a second, because Wanda appears behind her and does that thing she does where she makes you see your worst fear. Enjoy that, Agatha!

Agatha sees herself bound to the stake in the woods again. Her coven dead. Wanda is there in the vision, too. "You see the difference between you and me, is that you did this on purpose."

The coven rise from the dead and shuffle to her while Agatha begs for it to stop. But, then Agatha gets control of herself, I guess, and the undead mummy witches start saying Wanda's name and pointing at her. You're just no fun at all, Agatha.

Now the coven ties Wanda to the stake. "You can't win, Wanda. Power isn't your problem; it's knowledge." That is, actually, very true. Wanda's Scarlet Witch headpiece appears on her all magical-like, marking her as the Scarlet Witch of myth, I suppose.

"Give me your power, and I will correct the flaws in your original spell. And you and your family and the people of Westview can all live together in peace."

If Agatha is so smart, why doesn't she just take Wanda's power, hmm?

"And no one will ever have to feel this pain again. Not even you," Agatha tries cajoling, but that was the wrong tack to take. Wanda gives her the head tilt of imminent ass-kicking, and her powers explode outward, flinging way the weird creepy coven of zombie mummies. Then Wanda knocks them both back into Westview.

She starts hammering Agatha with her powers. "Take it, I don't want it." Vision tries to fly up to help her, but she blocks him with a spell.

Witch fight in the clouds. Every time Wanda misses Agatha, her hexes hit the shield. Outside Jimmy Woo looks on, concerned.

"There's more," Agatha says, "I want it all." Wanda's looking a little mummified, but she's still flinging hexes left and right while Agatha cackles evilly. Eventually Wanda runs out of steam and just sort of hovers there.

"About our deal. Once case, a spell can never be changed." You're terrible, Agatha. Very cruel. "This world will always be broken. Just. Like. You." Low, Agatha. Lower than dirt

Agatha gathers herself and tries to hit out at Wanda with all that yummy power but it just fizzles. Nothing happens. Oh noes, Agatha, what's wrong?

Wanda starts looking like her normal self again and behind her glows a giant rune. Oh, dear, Agatha, you taught Wanda something. When she was missing Agatha and hitting the shield all those times, she was actually casting runes. LOL to you.

The sky is angry and red and stormy. Monica, Vision, and the boys look on.

"In a given space," Wanda says, "only the witch who cast them [runes] can use her magic. Thanks for the lesson, but, I don't need you to tell me who I am."

The Scarlet Witch headpiece reappears and now Agatha has her a fright. I like you Agatha, you're rotten in fun way, but you took it too far, sister. Wanda takes her power back with prejudice and she is transformed into the Scarlet Witch. Updated version of the classic costume. Nice, I like it.

"Oh god," Agatha gasps, "You don't know what you've done." Wanda drops her on the ground more gently than she deserved.

Agatha asks if Wanda's going to lock her up somewhere. And Wanda says, yeah, here in lovely Westview. "I'll give you the role you chose; the nosy neighbor."

"You have no idea what you've unleashed. You're gonna need me." "If I do, I know where to find you." lol

And Wanda turns Agatha back into Agnes. "Hiya, hon. Say, that some kind of getup you're wearing. Did I leave the oven on, or is that just you, hot stuff."

Wanda says goodbye and walks over to her family, kissing her boys.

Vision says their dream home has turned into a fixer-upper. "I know you'll set everything right. Just not for us."

"No," Wanda agrees because Marvel likes to hurt us all. "Not for us."

Monica kind of bounces on her toes, trying to get Wanda's attention, but probably also not entirely wanting Wanda's attention. Wanda gives her a hesitant nod as she and Vision leave with the boys.

The field around town starts to shrink, the circus turns back into the SWORD base.

They get home and tuck the boys into bed.

"Big day today," Vision says. "Your mother and I … are very proud of you both."

"Very proud," Wanda agrees. "You know, a family is forever. We could never truly leave each other, even if we tried. You know that right?"

They kiss their boys goodnight. Outside the window, the field flickers and fails. "Boys, thanks for choosing me to be your mom."

The town of Westview returns to its sad old self, street by street. Wanda turns out the lights in their home.

But, Vision turns one back on. "Oh, I read somewhere, that it's bad luck to say goodbye in the dark." "No, you didn't." You guys are killing me.

Why did this have to be so good and sad?

And finally the collapsing field reaches their street, they watch it coming.

"Wanda, I know we can't stay like this, but before I go, I feel I must know, what am I?"

She touches his face. "You, Vision, are the piece of the mind stone that lives in me. You are a body of wires and blood and bone that I created. You are my sadness and my hope, but mostly you're my love." Stupid show, my screen went blurry there for a second.

Vision cries a bit, they both are a little astonished by the tear.

"I have been a voice with no body, a body but not human. And now, a memory, made real. Who knows what I might be next." Aww, Vision, I love you.

Here comes the field.

"We have said goodbye before, so it stands to reason—" "We'll say hello again." STUPID SHOW why do you have to make me feel things?

The field collapses and everything is stripped back into nothing. "So long, darling." And Wanda stands in the empty lot, in the foundations of the home that never was.

She walks away again. Poor Wanda. And back into town. The people look at her, they don't seem happy. I don't know why she chose to do that, she does have a car. Ah, she's going to talk to Monica.

"They'll never know what you sacrificed for them," Monica says. "It wouldn't change how they see me," Wanda tells her. "And you? You don't … you don't hate me?" "Given the chance, and given your power, I'd bring my mom back. You know I would." "I'm sorry, for all the pain I caused."

Wanda promises to figure out her power and then files off. The End.

Heartbreaking. Good, but heartbreaking.

Mid-credits scene. Jimmy Woo is large and in charge. He's setting up the incident response in town, ordering folks around (in his good natured way).

Jimmy spots his friend. "Monica!" "Authority looks good on you, Jimmy." "Where's Darcy?" "Something about ‘debriefs are for the weak’?" lol "But we can thank her for that."

And down the street AD Dick is being arrested. Nobody punched him in the face. I'm sad. Darcy came closest, I guess. What with hitting him with the very large truck. It will have to do.

Monica is summoned to the theater by another agent. Hmm nobody there. The agent follows. "I was sent by an old friend of your mother's." And the agent is a Skrull. "He heard you'd been grounded. He'd like to meet with you."

"Where?"

The Skrull points up.

What was Fury's Skrull buddy's name? I don't recall. I didn't actually like the Captain Marvel movie. I felt like they told it backwards, and also they should have just cast a younger actor to play young Nick Fury. That bugged me. And I wanted more of Annette Benning’s character. Anyway … I guess we know where we’ll see Monica again.

Well, that was fun. Like I said, I'm not sure what I expected from this series, just that it be some degree of fun, I guess. But it was much better than whatever I had half-envisaged. AND SADDER, MARVEL.

Thank goodness for the multi-verse. I'm sure we'll see some version of the boys again. And also Not!Vision, who is probably also Vision at this point, knocking around the world, trying to find himself. Talk about identity crisis. I feel you, brother. Stay safe, get plenty of whatever passes for rest for you!

See you guys in a couple of weeks for Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I WANT NO TEARS FROM THAT ONE! Unless it's tears of laughter.

ETA: FOR THE SECOND POST CREDITS SCENE THAT I MISSED. Stupid Marvel hiding things from me. Thank you, @beelzebufo

Mountains, a mountain lake, a place I’d like to be right now. Wanda sits on the porch of her lonely little cabin. The tea kettle whistles and she goes inside. There’s a rattling and whispering from the other room, where the astral projection(?) of the Scarlet Witch reads the Darkhold and her children call for her. I don’t know, Wanda, seems dicey, that’s not a very nice book.

FOR REAL THE END THIS TIME

#wandavision #wandavision spoilers #wandavision liveblog #long post

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flying-nightwing · 4 years

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Pink and Totalitarianism Always Go Hand in Hand

Here’s the promised crack fic. Disclaimer, this is terrible in every and any form, because it is meant to be that way. If you want quality, structure, a story that makes sense, this ain’t it chief. This is certified Crack. If you finish this and all you can say is something along the lines of “what the fuck”, my work here is done. (Besides, this isn’t edited to add to the overall crack vibe)

Enjoy and good luck, because it get worse and worse as it goes

Masterlist in bio // pinned post

Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader

Word count: 4626

Warnings: Mention of drugs, light non-graphic violence, language

Summary: You’re stuck in a world that does not make sense, alone and surrounded by secret police and spies that will report you to the government. One early morning, Jason appears in your living room. His arrival gives you an opportunity to get the hell out of there for good.

You had taken a habit of sleeping lightly.

You, who had once cherished your sleep like it was the rarest gem in the world. Yet, you found out you had still severely underappreciated its importance in your life, something you realized only when it was gone. You missed it like an old friend who was gone to war and died on the front, leaving words forever unsaid. What would you do for just one more night in your bed, with your own pillows and that drool stain that just wouldn’t leave anymore, sleeping like a log until the late morning. Or just a nap, that even would be enough. But you were far from home now, and you didn’t have a lot of hope you’d ever come back.

When you heard a loud thump in the living room, your eyes flew open and your muscles tensed. Pushing off the pink comforter and pulling on the equally pink robe that was draped over the wooden chair, you carefully made your way down the corridor and toward the sound. A man dressed in black and red, with a red helmet complementing his strange outfit was standing there, looking around like he was trying to understand what was going on. You plastered a smile on your face.

“Hiya there” The corner of your mouth hurt from the strain of smiling so wide. “Can I help you?”

“Uh?” He looked up, and even through his helmet you could assume his eyes were wide with confusion. They wouldn’t get you this time, you’d make sure of it. He didn’t fool anyone. “Where am I?”

“Silly!” You laughed, waving your hand in a small dismissive gesture. “We’re in Happy Town, obviously!”

“Uh?” He repeated, already visibly exhausted. That one agent lasted longer than the last, you had to give him that. His confusion was credible and well played down to the last detail. “Listen, lady, I’m sorry I crashed your house but I need you to point me toward Metropolis”

“Metropolis? I haven’t heard of a city of that name” You didn’t drop the smile. The goddamn smile. “Although, you are quite illegal sir, black and red are prohibited colors”

“... What?”

“I’m afraid you’ll need to change” You explained. “Luckily for you, I have spares in the bedroom. Come along”

“Wait, prohibited?” He repeated, and you nodded eagerly. A test, it’s always a test. “What colors aren’t prohibited then?”

“Well, pink, you silly goose!”

He stared at you for the longest time. “What the fuck”

You froze. Actual agents were not allowed to swear, under any circumstances. They were physically not able to, even. “What did you say?”

“I said what the fuck”

You let your smile drop and sighed in relief. “Oh thank fuck”

“Hey, stay with me” He waved a hand in your face. “What the fuck is going on? Where am I?”

“Okay, we don’t have a lot of time, but basically” You paused, looking around to make sure all of your curtains were closed. You found a way to disable your microphones, but you had only to sunrise before they turned back on again. It was less suspicious that way, when you could attribute the lack of sound to you sleeping. Besides, you couldn’t risk you saying incriminating things in your sleep. “We are in a side dimension called Happy Town, but things are sketchy here. I don’t know what they are hiding, but if you don’t stick to their gimmick to the letter, you’re going to reeducation camps and stuff. This is some serious brainwashing, and I’m talking worse than Scientology”

“Fuck” He swore, taking off his helmet. “How did I get here?”

“Some portal, I dropped in the same place you did” You spoke quickly, in a hushed tone. “I haven’t found a way out, obviously, but if you came from Earth too, I’m betting there’s something I missed”

“This is insane”

“You tell me” You scoffed. “And you haven’t even seen how bonkers this place really is yet”

“Do I really have to wear pink?” He flinched, and your eyes widened.

“Yes, you do!” You replied. “They will have you under scrutinization as soon as you step out of this house. If you want to survive, you must follow the rules to the letter. They don’t fuck around, I tell ya. When I first appeared, all the neighbors moved away and were immediately replaced by other creepier neighbors. I swear they’re spies. They’re all spies!”

“Wait, how long have you been there?”

“I don’t know, years?” You guessed. Could have been any measure of time really, you couldn’t know for sure. “I have no idea how I got through their brainwashing sessions. Either I outsmarted them, or they have no idea what they’re doing. It’s better not to take any chance, though”

“This is fucked up” He sighed and sat on the couch. “Besides wearing pink, what do I have to do?”

“Oh boy, sit tight” You began pacing in front of him. You didn’t know him, but he was your best chance at getting the hell out of here. Your bed now seemed a little bit closer now, even though you knew you’d never sleep the same. “It’s not just the clothing that’s pink, it’s any fabric, by the way, because happy people like pink”

It was like he was now aware that every couch, chair, carpet, curtain in your house was actually pink.

“You gotta smile, always. You gotta look like chuck-e-cheese on crack” You continued, pacing in front of him. “Talking of which, never, EVER eat pie. I don’t know what’s in it, but it messes with your brain. Always find an excuse or distraction to avoid eating it”

“I’m not--”

“Never allude to the microphones you might find, act like you’ve never seen them and have no idea they’re there” You added. “Also, tomorrow we’ll have to get you registered if we don’t want the secret police to storm the house. You’ll have to follow my lead or we’re both dead, got it?”

“Yeah but--”

“Don’t say anything incriminating during the day” You interrupted him again. “I tweaked the microphones so they’re scrambled from midnight to sunrise. But that’s it. Also, always assume anyone you talk to is a spy or a snitch. It’s the Stasi all over again here, you can’t trust anyone who you don’t hear swear, which is nobody”

“Wai wait” He stopped you as you opened your mouth to continue on. “Why?”

“Because the people from here cannot swear, happy people don’t swear, they smile and giggle” You felt your eye twitch as you recited the lines you were fed over and over again. “The people engineered here are not able to, only those they kidnapped from Earth. Bad news is, beside that, they are virtually non-differentiable from each other. And they all wear those stupid pink clothes, only the regular police wears a darked shade of magenta. Other than that, all the same”

Confusion and horror was evident on his face. He sat there, processing it all as your eyes fell on the clock. You had about ten minutes until the first rays of sun showed up and reactivated the mics. “There’s no way back?” He finally asked.

“Not that I know of yet” You wrapped your hands around yourself. “You know, I have been begging for help out of this hell hole. You might be the key. Anyway, we gotta change you into something non offensive before they find out you’re here”

You dragged him in the bedroom, leaving him at the threshold while you rummaged through the dresser. All those clothes had been there too when you popped in the house, as if they had known exactly what they were doing by bringing you here. However, it wasn’t clear whether or not they had planned for their new citizen to be you. Ad judging by the arsenal of weapons on the new guy, ir reinforced your theory that the actual selection was still experimental. You weren’t exactly the shut up and obey type, and you doubted he was either.

“What’s your name?” You asked as you pulled a pink cardigan out of a drawer. It occured to you that you might have to know what to call him. Polite people knew the name of their housemate. You grabbed a yet again pink pair of slacks and pushed the clothes in his hands.

“Uh, Jason” He replied, surprised at the sudden income of pink fabric. You threw him the socks, suspenders, bow tie, belt and dress shirt that was, you guessed it, the exact same color as the rest. He was covered in pink clothes like a coat hanger.

“(Y/N)”

“Hey, I’m not wearing that” He objected as he took a better look at the clothes. His face turned to disdain as he shook his head like he had drank bad milk. “Nope, no way”

“If you don’t wear pink, they’ll kill you” You said through your teeth.

“No, I’m not talking about the pink” He said, his expression unchanging. He pulled the cardigan and held it up. “This. This won’t do at all. I’m not wearing a fucking cardigan”

You stared at him, wide eyed. You didn’t have the time to deal with that, sunrise was a few minutes away!

“You will wear that cardigan or so help me” You said in a low, yet threatening voice. He recoiled. “Suck. It. Up.”

Wordlessly, he headed for the bathroom on the other side of the bedroom. He changed in two minutes, coming back awkwardly with his pile of dark clothes. You picked them from him and walked to that spot just beside your bed, and kneeled. You unscrewed the floor board, which was already loose, and you deposited the bundle, weapons and all, next to a very, very dusty blue jeans and burgundy coat. You hurried to replace everything like it hadn’t been touched and stood up again to face an all pink, visibly uncomfortable Jason. He was tying his bow, a displeased frown on his face. It made you wonder what was his life before. He changed rather quickly, and didn’t seem confused by the way bow ties worked.

“What now?”

“We gel your hair”

“No” His eyes widened. The wake up siren sounded outside, and like a reflex learned through violent lessons, your face pulled into a pained smile. You still made a zipping motion over your mouth, pointing to the bathroom. With a silent sigh, he complied.

---

His smile looked unnatural.

But again, so did yours probably. So did everyone’s. Smiling that much wasn’t natural for anyone or anything but perhaps a hyena. Or a clown. You walked arms in arms with him, waving at people sending you curious glances, their smiles unwavering. The government was already aware of this presence, either because they zapped him there or because they heard your made up meeting conversation through the microphones.

“Okay, I see what you meant by everyone is a spy” He muttered through his teeth, making sure his lips weren’t moving. He was holding to his grin like it was a lifeline. And it was.

“Right?” You replied in the same manner. “So don’t slip”

“I won’t”

“Well hello there!”

You jumped in surprise at the Mayor appearing in front of you, seemingly out of nowhere. You put your free hand on your heart and laughed. “Hi there, you startled me good!”

He laughed. Jason laughed. It all seemed forced.

“I see we have an addition in Happy Town!” The mayor pointed to Jason, nodding in approval at his attire. “Where did you come from?”

His first test.

“I… Came from Earth!” He replied with enthusiasm. “Although I have to say, I looooove this place. It’s so… Happy!”

Well played, Jason. Well played.

“I am so glad to hear you say that” He placed a “friendly” pat on his shoulder, but he seemed satisfied. “What is your name, lad?”

“Dick Grayson, sir”

You swallowed back your confusion at his words, but also at the hint of genuine smile that crossed his expression. Keep smiling.

“Well Mr. Grayson, welcome to Happy Town!” They shook hands. “I see Miss (Y/N) is already taking care of you, integrating you nicely in our community”

His gaze shifted to you as a silent warning behind those cold, smiling eyes. You had your fair history of problems with them, but they had every reason to think it was over now. Still, the warning lingered. But those pink assholes wouldn’t catch you this time.

“I’ll make sure he becomes one of us in no time!” You assured, giving a light nod to Jason.

“No doubt you’ll make an amazing couple” He tipped his pink hat and you noticed Jason held back a cough of surprise. “The daily play of the anthem is about to start, I must return to city hall. I’ll see you around!”

He waved. You waved. Jason waved. He walked away with a skip in his step like the happy jerk he was.

“Couple?” He said, coming back to your public mode of communicating.

“Sorry, I should have warned you” You sighed internally.

“Sorry?”

“Yeah!” You wanted to burst out so bad. “What about it, Dick Grayson?”

“I wasn’t about to give them my real name” He defended, watching around for people noticing your hushed conversation. But everybody was preparing for the anthem, their attention directed to the morning messages man on the giant screens.

“So you gave that poor guy’s instead?”

“Poor? Nah. Relax, he can take care of himself” What you were sure was a chuckle escaped his lips. “Besides, he’s not even--”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please rise for our national anthem”

You elbowed Jason and stood up straight, the sun hitting the side of your face. He mimicked your posture. The music started, and you could see faltering in the corner of your eye.

“Is this--”

“Yes”

“What the fuck”

“I know”

“Whyyyyyyy”

“Stay with me” You urged silently. You really didn’t know how or why Happy Town’s anthem came to be ‘Yeah!’ by Usher feat Lil Jon and Ludacris, but even if you did, now was not the ideal time or place to get into that kind of discussion. You suspected it had something to do with the exclamation mark after the ‘yeah’. But you could be wrong. You still didn’t understand the bigger picture however, since the lyrics clearly contained the word ‘not’ followed directly by ‘happy’ in the first verse, which made ‘not happy’. It was against the party line.

“Okay, we stage a coup tonight” He decided as the song ended. “I don’t think I can do this another day”

----

Midnight came slowly.

After a day of mingling and presenting Jason as Dick Grayson and your future husband like the Mayor had most probably hinted at during your morning encounter, of slyly getting out of eating pie and avoiding the police, you were glad to finally breathe.

“UUUUGH” Jason whined, plopping on the couch. “I can never look at the color pink the same way ever again. I’m sick of it, sick of it!”

“Get it together!” You snapped. “We need to plan our coup. We’ve got one shot for it, and if it fails we’re toast. I need my bed, Jason. MY BED”

“Alright, what do you have in mind?” He asked, taking a deep breath. “You know this place more than I do”

“I say tomorrow night, we quietly follow the police after their curfew patrol round” You began, biting the skin around your nails. “How good is your stealth?”

He looked at you blankly for a good ten seconds before he let out a small, ironic snort. “Above average, I’d say”

It was like he wanted you to ask why he’d think that, but you were too busy thinking about your plan. “Good, good” You nodded. “There must be some headquarters somewhere. All we have to do is get there, threaten them at gunpoint--Your guns are functional yes?”

“Obviously”

“--So they’ll zap us back to Earth. And if not, we shoot the mayor and take control of this hell”

“That escalated quickly,” He stated. “But what the hell, sure, I’m on board. Let’s go”

“Tomorrow the sun sets at 8:07. We’ll need to be changed and ready to go by then”

“Wait, tomorrow?” He sprung up in his seat, eyes wide. “No, no. I can’t take one more day of pink cardigans and pleasant conversations with spies!”

“DEAL WITH IT” You gestured wildly before calming down almost instantly. You didn’t need the neighbors to hear and report a fight. “Patrol is already over for today. Be smart about this”

“Fine” He sighed aggressively. “But if this flops, I’m taking everyone down with me. There won’t be an after tomorrow, I can fucking tell you”

“Yeah I won’t stop you”

“Good”

“Good.”

You stayed there in silence, unmoving for a moment. This was it. The moment you’ve been waiting for. Your liberation. Your bed was less than 24 hours a day if things went as planned, which you hoped it would.

“I’ll… Sleep on the couch” He mumbled after a while, moving to lay down. YOur eyes widened.

“You can’t” You objected, knowing the government would find a way to find out the scam you were running through that detail.

“Why not?”

“If the secret police comes for a surprise inspection and your side of the bed is cold, we’re kaputt” You explained. “We’re supposed to be at the very least fiancés, remember?”

“God fucking dammit” He swore, looking up at the sky like it would help him. Ha, you already tried that and it didn’t work.

---

The next day, as you prepared the decaf pot of coffee because happy people didn’t need caffeine to be happy, a knock sounded on your door. Jason was taking a shower in the bathroom, so you went and opened the door. Like you had predicted, two men in dark magenta stood at your doorstep with dangerous looking smiles.

“Good morning ma’am” One greeted with a tip of his hat. “This is a surprise inspection, warranted by the new arrivant in your household, name Dick Grayson and title husband to be. May we come in?”

Your smile widened as you stepped aside, like you actually had a choice in the matter.

“Of course!” You exclaimed. “Coffee, officers?”

“We’ll have to politely decline, thank you” The other smiled as they came in and observed the clean state of the house. All houses were required to be neat and clean at all times. They looked around for something out of place, slowly but surely directing themselves to the bedroom at the end of the hall. You followed them a few paces away, ready to answer their question if they had some. It wasn’t your first surprise check.

They finally reached the room, from where they could hear the shower running. Their gazes caught the neatly folded pink pile on the bed, then they surrounded it. They started to feel under the comforter and drapes, on the pillows, everywhere they could spot the presence or absence of another person. You called it, oh you so called it.

The shower stopped, and both officers shared a look. “Alright, everything is in order ma’am. Have a good breakfast and a good day!”

You escorted them to the door, threw them a thank you on the way and silently sighed once the door closed behind them. You returned to your coffee, and not long after, Jason emerged from the hallway all dressed in pink.

“Ooh, who were the gentlemen here?” He inquired cheerily, but you knew what it meant.

“Some nice officers came to see if we were doing fine here!” You replied with equal cheer.

“Shucks, I missed them” He snapped his fingers, chuckling. “Next time perhaps”

“Of course!” The pep in your voice did not match your eye roll. Thank god there were no cameras.

You finished breakfast and went to town once again, like you did everyday. You felt like everyone was staring at you even more than usual. Like they all knew what you planned for that night. You might have been slightly paranoid, but Jason’s calm demeanor was helping. He was good at that, like he had practiced for all of his life to deceive people.

The mayor bothered you again after the daily play of the anthem, a song you were sure would elicit a violent reaction from you once you would be back in the real world. Then, you repeated the same daily routine you had had forever. Smile, avoid the pie, smile, talk with the neighbors-spies, smile, think about how life is amazing, smile.

Smile smile smile smile smile smile.

Eurgh.

That night, the pleasant conversations contained codes to trump the microphones. Jason pretended to dance while you unscrewed the loose floorboard and carefully placed his clothes and weapons on the bed. You picked your old clothes, quietly dusting them off. They smelled weird but you were excited to wear something other than pepto bismol dyed fabric. Making sure the curtains were drawn, you proceeded to change. Jason looked ecstatic to finally be rid of his cardigan, while you took a moment to appreciate your black t-shirt and burgundy coat. While he had his red helmet, he handed you a domino mask from his pocket. You had no idea why he had that, but you took it anyway. It looked cool and rebel. You sneaked through the back door, avoiding the spots of light by either lamps outside your house and street posts. You watched the patrol casually making sure everyone was inside, keeping a good distance in between you and them at every time. They weren’t talking, but whistling some creepy tunes. You had to make a small hike through a hill when they entered a gated tunnel, but you ended up in front of a giant factory where workers dressed in grey buzzed around with crates. YOu gasped.

“Illegal” You muttered.

“What?”

You shook your head. They had gotten to you too much, it was time you left that god forsaken place. “Nevermind. How do we go through that barbed wire?”

He pulled out a medium sized pair of cutters from… You had no idea where, but he had them. You shrugged, gesturing to him to go ahead. In a blink, you were in. You sneaked inside without being seen, navigating the building with guesses and feelings. You finally ended up in the main production room, where crates of products were opened and emptied in a giant bassin. The stirred liquid was purple and smelled strange, but you knew it was to do no good. And right beside, there was the pie filling packaging.

“I knew it!” You hissed under your breath. “They’re putting drugs in the pie! Can you see what it is? Cocaine? Heroin?

“Doesn’t seem like…” He leaned in. “Wait…”

“Al-- Allegra?” You managed to read the crate.”Never heard of it, but it must be terrible and dangerous”

Jason turned his head and stared at you. HIs helmet bore no expression, but you were sure he looked at you like you were dumb. Did he know what it was? “Are you kidding me?”

“No, why?”

“Allegra is--” He sighed. “It’s allergy medication. It’s… Not drugs per say”

“Uh?”

“God dammit--” He paused as something caught his eyes. It was sparkly, and unfit for this environment. From it emerged five armed guys dressed in earth clothes. They had a bag of white substance, which was tasted by the man who welcomed them. “Of fuck, THAT’s cocaine”

You waited as they put some of it in a vial, which already had purple liquid.

“Fuck, they mix it with allegra?” He cursed, mostly to himself. “What kind of fucking insane dimension did I step in?”

“I told you”

“Okay, so those guys will have to leave eventually” Jason pointed at the visibly Earth humans. “We’ll make sure we catch it as well”

“But they have machine guns” You pointed out, not sure how his mind worked.

“Wait for my signal” You knew he was grinning under that helmet. Before you could ask him how the fuck he would manage five armed guys, he jumped over the rail and started running toward them. You shut your eyes shut as gunshots went off, then opened them again when it was silent. There were bodies around, but Jason was still standing, wrestling with two guys. You watched for a few seconds when you noticed a pink figure sneakily approaching from behind, a frying pan in his hand.

The mayor!

You jumped over the rail too, but your landing was way less graceful than Jason’s. Actually, you were pretty sure you sprained your ankle. But still, you ran-limped to the man and jumped on his back before he could bonk Jason’s head with his weapon.

“ARRRRRGH”

He did not see you coming, as he lost balance at your attack. You crashed on the ground, where you managed to get on top and start hitting him. But apparently neither of you knew how to punch, so it was a rather pathetic looking fight. You swapped and slapped, pulled hair and scratched, until you got a hold of his pan and made a pancake of his face.

“Take that you pink fucking nightmare” You spat as you stood up. You turned to Jason, whose shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.

“Wow uh” He covered it with a cough. “That sure was an interesting fight to watch”

“Keep mocking me, mister fucking assassin” You rolled your eyes. “I stopped him from bonking your head”

“Alright, alright, thank you”

“No problem” You replied. “Let’s get out of here”

You went and stood on the platform the dealers came through, then waited. But nothing happened.

“I think we need to activate it” He spoke up. That was logical.

You scanned the room for a panel control, and you believed you spotted it on the opposite wall. You grabbed your shoe to throw at it, before Jason held back your arm’s motion.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Activating the portal” You furrowed your brows, pointing at the panel. A big red button on which was written ‘ON’ was glaring at you from the distance. Practical target.

“Don’t throw your shoe, that’s dumb” He snorted. “Let me”

Before you could argue, he cocked his gun and fired a bullet right on the button. A death sound resonated, but nevertheless sparks began to fly and not just from the ruined panel. The portal opened and swallowed you, sending you through flashes and weird colors until you were spat out in a dull, dark place that smelled bad. Jason seemed to have landed just fine, but you were another story. You pulled yourself up, whining at the pain in your ankle.

“I didn’t expect to see you here”

A creepy, unknown voice made you both turn around. It was a pale man with an unnaturally stretched smile and bad taste in clothes, and right away it made you think the worst. You had been thrown in Dark!Happy Town. Without thinking, you let out a war cry and hurled your frying pan to the more evil version of the Mayor, knocking him out instantly.

What you didn’t expect though, was the roaring laughter from beside you.

“Oh--Oh my god” He could barely talk. “I wished I filmed that”

“What? What’s happening?” You asked. Had he gone crazy? “Who’s that? We’re not back home are we?”

“Relax, we’re back” He took a deep breath, his shoulders still shaking. “You’ve just knocked out the most wanted criminal in Gotham city”

“WHAT?”

“Welcome back, (Y/N), welcome back”

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #jason todd imagine #red hood #red hood imagine #red hood x reader #dc #dcu #dc universe #dc imagine #dcu imagine #dc universe imagine #batfam #batfam imagine #imagine #jason todd x you #red hood x you #outlaws #crack fic

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lloydskywalkers · 4 years

Text

*sweats* yeAH i know the one gbdfjgh. It’s very much a Halloween-centered piece so I was incredibly sad tumblr decided to end its life the one time i actually hit a deadline i’d set for myself, but it’s been kind of just...marinating in my docs folder since then. I might post it formally on FFN eventually, but in the meantime, i’ll post it on here below the cut!

“Guys, you will never guess what’s running around Ninjago City."

Jay’s announcement is met with a distinct lack of reaction, which is pretty disappointing, because it’s the kind you drop for a dramatic pause and reaction. And he did — try to, at least.

However, instead of reacting properly, like anyone in their right minds would, his team is woefully un-reactive. Nya continues to snore into the couch, her face pressed against the couch pillow in a way that’s gonna leave a spectacular mark later, and Cole’s too busy referee-ing Lloyd and Kai, who are in the middle of their sixth round of Dance Dance Ninja Revolution, which Jay can’t really blame him for, because they chose a Rihanna song this round and they’re getting a little too into it.

“How did you get that bonus and I didn’t!”

“You gotta pop your hip on that last move, like this—"

“What, and crack my spine in half?”

“I mean, your bones are pretty fragile.”

“Fragile?!”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re so old.”

“I’ll crack your spine, you tiny brat—"

Zane is the only one to actually acknowledge him, even if it’s a slight cock of his head from where he’s video-chatting Pixal, making him the only one of these terrible people Jay actually likes right now, unless Kai manages to make a comeback and beat out Lloyd, in which case he’ll celebrate with him.

But it’s looking unlikely.

“Are you talking about the vampire rumors?” Zane asks.

Jay’s expression sours. Never mind, he retracts his appreciation of Zane now. Way to steal his thunder.

Kai snorts from where he’s waving his arms in a butchered kind of Macarena. “Seriously, Jay? Those rumors crop up every year. There’s no vampire.”

Jay glares at him, mentally switching his loyalties to Lloyd, as it looks like he’s going to wipe the floor with Kai anyways, because he’s just snatched that one difficult bonus Kai usually wins where you hair-flip like a diva.

“This is for real, though,” Jay argues. “It was reported on the police scanner. Someone’s running around biting people!”

“Maybe they’re just into that,” Nya yawns, burrowing her face further into the couch pillows. “Don’t be so judgmental, Jay.”

Jay colors, and Kai chokes. Lloyd gives a triumphant crow of victory, doubling his score at the last minute, leaving Kai solidly in the dust. Kai makes a sour face, collapsing on the couch and crossing his arms.

“You cheated.”

“Not my fault you got distracted,” Lloyd shrugs. He turns to Jay, wiping the sheen of sweat from his forehead and looking curious. “Wait, they’re really reporting that someone’s out there biting people?”

“Or something,” Jay says, quickly seizing on the attention. “Something bloodthirsty that goes around biting people’s necks, which obviously has to be a vampire.”

“It says here it steals their wallets, too,” Zane remarks, scrolling through the news article.

“A wallet-stealing vampire,” Jay amends.

The others look decidedly unimpressed, which is rather insulting and extremely disappointing. Geez, you fight one giant stone titan and a few mythical, apocalypse-bringing monsters and suddenly no one’s impressed by anything anymore.

“Sounds like petty crime, not our thing,” Kai yawns. “Besides, vampires don’t exist.”

Jay sputters. “Are you kidding me?” he exclaims. “They totally exist!”

Cole raises an eyebrow at him. “You know those vampire books are fiction, right?”

Jay presses his lips together tightly. “Are you telling me,” he says, stiffly. “That after everything — everything we’ve seen — which includes and is not limited to warriors made up of tiny snakes, a walking eldritch horror that’s actually another realm, and living skeletons — you don’t believe vampires can exist?”

“Well, yeah,” Kai says, simply. “Because those other things are real. Vampires aren’t.”

“You didn’t even think the Serpentine were real!” Jay accuses, because Kai’s opinion is clearly trash here, and he obviously should’ve started by attacking Cole, or Nya.

“Jay, chill,” Lloyd says, rolling his eyes. “Whatever it is, it’s not a vampire, unless someone stumbled off the set of a B-movie horror film. They don’t exist, Jay."

Jay opens his mouth, prepared to fire back, because of all the people to argue with him, Lloyd has no right at all, he’s a walking eldritch mutant himself — when Lloyd suddenly continues.

“It’s clearly a werewolf, if anything.”

Jay stops, his mouth half-open. He blinks. “Wait,” he narrows his eyes at him. “You don’t believe in vampires, but you’re game for werewolves?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd shrugs. “Werewolves make sense.”

“And vampires don’t?!”

Lloyd shrugs. “I mean, after Akita and the Formlings, you know?” He pauses, eyes widening as he contemplates something. “Wait. Is Akita technically a werewolf?”

Jay seizes the opportunity. “If she counts as one, then Oni count as vampires,” he argues.

Lloyd frowns at him. “What? No. That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Oh yeah?” Jay counters. “Then explain why they both have fangs. And glowing eyes. And drink blood.”

“I don’t drink blood!” Lloyd exclaims, indignantly. “And neither do Oni!”

“How would you know?” Jay challenges. “You’re just a tiny little quarter Oni.”

Lloyd glares at him. “A quarter Oni with teeth that can bite you—"

“Okay, okay!” Cole says hastily, shouldering between them. “No one’s biting anyone, geez. I’m taking this opportunity to declare it time for bed.”

“Aw, but I didn’t get to trash Kai yet,” Nya yawns, waving absently at the still-scrolling game on the television. Zane quickly turns it off.

“We can trash each other tomorrow, after six a.m. practice,” Cole huffs. Everyone groans in unison at the reminder.

“We should start getting skip days,” Kai grumbles into the pillow. “Like, mandated days we get to just sleep in instead.”

“You would use that every day,” Zane sighs, tugging him up. Jay watches as they slowly pack up, preparing to head off to bed.

Unbelievable.

“Wait, so we’re just gonna let this thing run loose?” he exclaims, waving his arms in the air. “Ignore our civic duty for sleep?”

Cole pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Jay, there’s one article about it, and these kinds of things crop up every year,” he sighs. “It’s just some Halloween pranksters using it as an excuse for petty crime. The police can handle it, okay?”

“But a vampire,” Jay bemoans. “What if it’s real?”

“Or werewolf,” Lloyd corrects. Jay would elbow him for that, but — aha. Lloyd has that spark in his eyes, the one that means trouble. Jay’s hooked at least one person then, even if it’s for the totally wrong reason.

“Whatever it is, according to reports, it will still be here tomorrow,” Zane says. “Halloween isn’t for another day, and it usually strikes then. If it means that much to you, we can look for it then.”

Jay squints skeptically at him. Kai and Cole are both wearing expressions that say they will not be helping with that particular excursion, and Nya’s already halfway into her room, clearly writing him off as well. Hmph.

“But by then, we won’t have a sighting to follow,” Lloyd says, hesitantly.

“Good,” Kai grumbles, apparently done with the conversation. “Then we can forget about make-believe monsters.”

Jay is pleased to find that he and Lloyd are still just as effective at giving people the stink-eye in perfect unison as they’ve always been.

“Drop it, guys,” Cole warns, his dark eyes tired. “You can argue over this in the morning. When we’re all dead tired at dawn practice.”

Jay scowls, but he nods. He knows a lost cause when he sees one.

However, he also knows when a cause isn’t lost. He trades looks with Lloyd from the corner of his eyes, and Lloyd gives him a tiny, imperceptible nod. Halfway into their bedroom, Kai suddenly turns on them.

“And you guys better not sneak out to hunt it down by yourselves,” he says, his eyes narrowed. “The police have it covered. There’s no such things as vampires or werewolves, but if I wake up at three a.m. tonight and find out you guys snuck out, you’re gonna wish one had already killed you.”

“Geez, overreact much?” Jay mutters.

Lloyd rolls his eyes. “We’re not gonna sneak out just to chase down a few rumors, Kai,” he scoffs. “We’re not stupid.”

Kai eyes them both. Jay can almost see him mentally scrolling through Lloyd and Jay’s Best Hits, Screwing-Up Edition, in his brain, and he doesn’t like it. Like Kai has room to talk about dumb decisions.

Kai finally shakes his head, sighing as he heads for his bed. “I swear,” he mutters to himself. “If I have to fish you out of a river later…”

“You won’t!” Lloyd promises cheerfully. “Word of honor.”

**************

As it turns out, Lloyd’s word of honor is garbage. But so is Jay’s, so he’s not gonna judge.

“Okay, the reports said it was last sighted over in the east sector in the sewer tunnels, so I vote we start here,” Jay tells him in a hushed voice, as they plot their path from one of the city rooftops, the dim streetlights blinking down below. “There’s a bunch of bars and stuff around, so if I was looking to steal someone’s wallet by biting them, I’d go here. Down for a stakeout?”

“I’m game,” Lloyd says, slightly muffled through his mouth of—

Jay blinks at him incredulously. “Are you eating our garlic bread right now?”

Lloyd freezes, shifting guiltily and quickly swallowing. “No-o?”

“Lloyd!” Jay hisses. “We need that for the vampire!”

“Then you should’ve gotten actual garlic,” Lloyd hisses back. “I got hungry, and we’re carrying around garlic bread! Can you blame me?”

“Hmph.” Jay glares at him, then snatches the bag Lloyd had been hiding behind him. Lloyd makes a face.

“S’not like we need it anyways,” he mutters. “Garlic doesn’t work against werewolves.”

“It’s not a werewolf,” Jay retorts. “And even if it was, it’s not like we have any silver.” He frowns. “Wait, doesn’t silver work against vampires too? Maybe I should’ve gotten us some…”

“Got it covered,” Lloyd says, pulling a small ziplock bag from his sweatshirt pocket. They’ve opted to wear civilian clothes tonight, as one, they’re trying to be inconspicuous, and two, it’ll make it a lot more difficult for Kai to claim that they were out breaking their promise if they aren’t in very distinctive, undeniable gis.

“I snatched a pair of Nya’s earrings earlier,” Lloyd continues. “Sterling silver counts, right? ‘Cause they even have these little bits on the back you can stab people with.”

Jay blinks rapidly. “You snatched her—"

Well, actually, on second thought, it’s not the worst thing they’ve ever stolen from each other. And it’s definitely not the worst purpose for such a theft, either.

“Okay, nice, we got silver,” Jay says instead, trying not to think about what Nya’s reaction to finding out her earrings were used as lethal injections for a vampire is going to be.

“The better prepared, the lower the chances of dying horribly,” Lloyd says, cheerfully.

“Please don’t phrase it that way.”

“You literally said that exact same thing to me last week, on the Metallonia mission—"

“You must’ve had water in your ears,” Jay waves him off, knowing full well he did say that but having zero intent of admitting it. “Anyways, it’s just one vampire. We can handle this, easy.”

“Or one werewolf,” Lloyd says, pointedly.

Jay takes a very long breath, then lets it out. If it were Kai or Cole, maybe he’d pick the fight. But it’s Lloyd, and he’s risking Unholy Big Brother Wrath as it is.

“Fine,” he half-surrenders. “If it’s a werewolf, we can handle that too. But it’s not, because it’s clearly a vampire.”

“That’s what it wants you to think,” Lloyd grouses.

Jay rolls his eyes, shoving the rest of their supplies back in his ratty old backpack. He cranes his head over the edge of building rooftop, watching the evening crowds just beginning to flood into the bars.

“Now what?” Lloyd whispers, materializing next to him.

Jay, with his reflexes as sharp and well-honed as they are, does not nearly jump off the roof at Lloyd’s sudden appearance. He doesn’t squeak, either, the look Lloyd is giving him is just — Lloyd being a terrible gremlin.

“Now,” Jay clears his throat instead, taking on an air of expertise, because he is an expert. “We wait.”

**************

In the excitement, Jay has, tragically, forgotten how absolutely boring stakeouts are.

Really, he should’ve brought a board game or something.

“—somethin’ strange, in your neighborhood. Who you gonna call.”

Jay punches his hand in the air without enthusiasm where he lies on his back, yawning, “Ghostbusters.”

“Dun dun, dun dun, du-du-dun—" Lloyd continues humming the bridge, staring up at the sky where he’s got his arms beneath his head, sprawled out next to Jay.

“You know, I still swear I heard the ghosts playing this back at Styx,” Jay murmurs.

Lloyd’s humming halts, and he snorts. “Maybe they had a sense of humor.”

“Heh. Yeah.” Jay frowns. “So wait, this is your favorite holiday song? The song about ghosts? Really?”

Lloyd nods. “I ain’t afraid of no ghost,” he sings.

Jay makes a face at him, then shrugs. Well, he guesses he doesn’t have room to judge people’s coping mechanisms. He still deals with spiders by blowing the entire room up. “That’s one way to deal with it, I guess.”

“I like the irony,” Lloyd continues, with a lopsided grin. “Also, like, do any of us deal with our issues?”

“Ye—" Jay pauses, considering. Huh. He knows they’ve all been putting off therapy, but sometimes they, like…cry all over each other? At three in the morning? That counts, right?

He supposes that doesn’t quite equate.

“I stress-baked eight batches of brownies with Cole one night and ate half of them after the Oni thing?” he offers weakly.

Lloyd stuff a fist over his mouth, holding back a laugh. “I ate a whole container of frosting with Nya after the SOG thing.”

“That’s where it all went?” Jay snaps his head up, his eyes accusing. “Lloyd, that was our only cream cheese frosting! I was going to use that for a meltdown!”

“Oops,” Lloyd says, unapologetically. Jay digs his foot into his side, and Lloyd jerks away, giggling.

“You, I’d expect, but Nya…” Jay grumbles, processing this betrayal. “That’s like, cliché teenage heartbreak coping there.”

“Well, I mean,” Lloyd says, his smile suddenly painfully forced. “Kinda…was. A bit.”

Jay frowns. “Wha — oh.”

Oops. Too late, Jay realizes that he has accidentally stumbled into a mine zone. He should know better, seriously — Lloyd probably does not want to talk about teenage heartbreak right now. Or any time…soon, considering his last and only romantic excursion kind of…stabbed him in the back and got crushed by a building. Amongst other things.

“So!” Jay quickly says, trying to cut through the sudden awkwardness and turn the conversation to something better. “How is, uh, your life going, in that…area…?”

Never mind, Jay’s mind screeches at him. Abort, abort, this is going somewhere worse—! Maybe if he’s lucky the vampire will just come attack them now. That would probably go better.

Lloyd’s expression screws up, like Jay’s forced him to eat a lemon, or a ghost pepper, or like, swallow pure Venomari venom. “You mean my love life?” he spits, as if the word love is a personal insult.

“Not necessarily,” Jay says quickly. “I mean, no, but also…yes?”

“Nonexistent as usual, which is probably the best I can hope for,” Lloyd mutters, kicking at the ground.

Jay bites his cheek in sympathy. His poor baby brother. His voice finally stops cracking and he immediately decides to swear off love for life.

“Look,” Jay says tentatively, feeling like he should at least try to impart some wisdom on his kid brother. “Have you thought about like, I dunno, trying to meet new people? Just like, you know, being open to, uh, the idea of trusting someone…like that?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd grinds his teeth. “I’ve also thought about getting ‘love is a joke’ tattooed on my wrist as a nice reminder because that’s about how well it tends to go for me.”

Jay cringes. “Aha,” he breathes. That is — that is bad. Yikes, that’s…bad bad, maybe they should book a therapist. One of these days. Probably sooner than later, going by that statement.

Lloyd sighs, suddenly deflating. “I dunno, Jay. I just…maybe someday? I don’t really wanna think about it.” The edge of his mouth twists wistfully. “It’d be nice to just be a kid again, so I could stuff my face with candy instead.”

“Hey,” Jay says, elbowing him. “Who says you can’t stuff your face with candy now? We can totally hit up the store on the way home, you know. Zane can’t stop us if he’s not here.”

Lloyd cracks a grin, and Jay is infinitely pleased with himself. “After we catch the werewolf?” Lloyd asks.

Jay glares at him. “After we catch the vampire, and I prove all you heathens wrong,” he grinds out. Lloyd snickers.

“You’re fighting a losing—"

A piercing scream rings out from the streets below, and Lloyd and Jay jolt to their feet in well-experienced unison. Jay sweeps his eyes across the street below, his head whipping widely back and forth as he tries to spot—

“There!” Lloyd calls, already sliding down the fire escape. Jay follows his arm, and spots a disheveled man now crumpled in the street, other partygoers crowding around him. Lloyd’s hand is pointing just beyond, though, locked on the shadowed, dark figure fleeing into the alleyway.

Jay grins viciously at him. Lloyd grins back.

Normally, they’d have Zane at their backs, insisting on safety and such nonsense, but tonight it’s just Lloyd and Jay, who gold-medal at being an awful combination of adrenaline junkies. So by the time they’ve finished hurling themselves off the building and surfing down a couple of unfortunate clotheslines, they land in perfect synch just behind the fleeing figure. They immediately break into a sprint, following their quarry down the dark alleyways and gaining rapidly.

One of the few perks to being the smallest on the team — Jay and Lloyd are fast.

The figure jolts, finally realizing it’s being pursued, and suddenly takes a hard left. Jay yelps as he almost overbalances, his momentum nearly toppling him before Lloyd catches his arm, yanking him upright. They follow where the figure’s fled into an abandoned tunnel, one of the ones Jay recognizes leads to the sewer.

“Why in here?!” he gasps between breathes, as their feet splash through dirty rainwater the deeper they go. Ugh, he hates these tunnels — they’re too small and close and dark.

Lloyd doesn’t grace him with a reply, simply lifting his hand up in an eerie, makeshift green flashlight that lights up the tunnels around them.

“They went that way!” He hurls the bright globe of energy down the tunnel, throwing green shadows up all around, and illuminating their prey far ahead.

Darn it, Jay curses to himself. He forgot vampires are supposed to be fast, too. They need a way better plan then just running after it.

“Trap, we need a trap,” Jay pants. “What do they do in Scooby-Doo to catch the vampire?”

Lloyd glances at him incredulously as he runs beside him, his hair dyed a white-green in the eerie light where it bounces around his head. “Scooby-Doo?!” he exclaims. “There aren’t any vampires in Scooby-Doo!”

“Uh, yeah there are,” Jay argues, ducking under a rusted pipe. He almost has to pause to swipe his own hair out of the way before he gets blinded by falling curls. Mental note, book a haircut later. “Remember that movie with the bands and stuff?”

“Oh. Right,” Lloyd huffs, sliding through a puddle of water. “Forgot about that. Don’t they die or something?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you! Come up with a plan, you’re leader!”

“Not right now, I’m not!”

“You can’t do that — you’re our designated team captain, live up to your role!”

“Only in big crisis situations!”

“This is a crisis!”

“Fine! Here’s me leading — I order you to come up with a plan.”

“Oh for — what kind of Green Ninja even are you, huh?”

“Oh yeah, static for brai—agh!”

Their argument is cut short as the floor suddenly decides to take the day off, and drops neatly out from beneath their feet. Jay screams, Lloyd shrieking beside him as they both go tumbling down the sloping sewer tunnel, sliding through broken rock and upturned stone. The sharp slope finally evens out, leaving them to roll to a graceless stop in a heap of limbs and freezing rainwater.

“Ew,” Jay scowls, swiping at his hair as he kneels, supporting himself on one hand. “Sewers are the worst.”

“Ge’off me,” Lloyd wheezes, hitting his shoulder. Jay belatedly realizes that he’s got one elbow and a knee digging into Lloyd’s middle, and pulls back quickly.

“Whoops,” he says, cheerfully. “Hey, no broken bones, at least!”

Lloyd just makes a face, straightening his hoodie. He pushes himself to his feet, offering a hand to Jay and hauling him up. Jay brings a crackle of lightning up in his fingers, squinting around the tunnel they’ve fallen into. Lloyd finally remembers to pull out their actual flashlight, and shines it warily around the tunnel, lighting up the old, molding stone around them.

“D’you think they fell, too?” Lloyd questions, taking a hesitant step forward as he brandishes the flashlight like a weapon.

Jay shrugs. “Vampires aren’t normally clumsy,” he says, starting down the tunnel. “But who knows.”

Lloyd pauses for a moment, reluctant, then quickly hurries to catch up, falling into step beside him.

“Ninja aren’t normally clumsy either,” he huffs.

Jay snorts. “Have you seen us?”

Lloyd eyes him. “I control your training schedule, you know.”

“A heinous abuse of power which never should have been given to you,” Jay sniffs.

Lloyd’s eyes narrow. “I’ll stick you on stair sprints. Endless. Stair sprints.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Jay retorts. “You’re too chicken to do that. Too soft.”

“I am not!” Lloyd says, offended. “I’ll make you run a gazillion stair sprints, watch me.”

“Oh yeah? Whatcha gonna do when I start tearing up on you, Mr. Marshmallow Heart?”

“My heart is not a marshmallow,” Lloyd grinds out. “It’s—"

“More like cotton candy,” Jay nods. “‘Cause you hit it with one tear and it melts all over the place.”

“I will trip you face-first into sewer water,” Lloyd threatens. “And stop using candy metaphors. I’m starving, and you won’t let me eat the garlic bread.”

“That’s ‘cause we need it for the vampire!” Jay huffs.

“Werewolf.”

Jay throws his hands up. “Do you need glasses or something? Because tell me, please, if that looked anything like a were—"

Jay cuts off abruptly as he and Lloyd freeze. Directly across from them, a mere ten feet away in the connecting tunnel, the hooded figure they’ve been chasing freezes as well. For a beat, the three stare at each other, the only sound the steady drip-drip of the sewer tunnels around them.

Then—

“It’s the vampire! Grab it!” Jay yells.

He and Lloyd dart forward just as the vampire makes to run, turning for the tunnel. Jay side-steps, using the wall to push himself up and flip neatly over the vampire’s head, landing in the tunnel before them and neatly cutting them off. “Gotcha,” he grins.

The vampire’s eyes widen from beneath their hood, and they backtrack, only to nearly run into Lloyd, who points the flashlight threateningly at them.

“Stand down,” he orders. Jay rolls his eyes. Oh, now he decides to sound like a leader.

The vampire makes a hissing noise of frustration, shaking their head. Lloyd goes to move forward, a familiar green glinting at the edges of his fingertips—

When the vampire suddenly snaps into action, rushing at Lloyd. Before Jay can blink, they snap a leg up to kick the flashlight from Lloyd’s grasp, snag him with their forearm, bare two glinting teeth, and—

Snap. Lloyd gasps sharply, his eyes going wide as the vampire bites right into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

Jay shrieks. “Lloy—!”

His scream cuts off, trailing into a gaping wheeze.

Jay is not entirely sure what — no, he’s not sure why what happen next happens. Maybe Lloyd panics. Maybe he forgets he’s a god-powered elemental with the capability of blasting people to heck with his hands for a second. Maybe both his Oni and dragon instincts decide to suddenly kick in and overpower the human. Or maybe he’s just so ticked at getting bit in the neck that his childish side comes out with a vengeance.

Either way, not even half a second after the vampire bites him, Lloyd snaps out his own too-sharp teeth and bites right back, firmly chomping down on the forearm pinning him in place.

The vampire gives a muffled scream, releasing Lloyd as they stumble backward, frantically clutching their arm. Jay takes this chance to send a bright bolt of lightning after them, just barely missing as they turn and flee, skittering away down the tunnels. Any other time Jay would give chase, but he’s got a slightly more pressing concern right now, and by that he means a big fat bad concern, because his brother is currently sporting a bleeding neck and trying to hack his own lung up.

“Oh god, the vampire bit you, Lloyd, the vampire bit you,” Jay babbles frantically, dancing around Lloyd as he doubles over, coughing and spitting frantically.

“—freaking — gross—"

“But —but then you bit the vampire,” Jay pauses, eyebrows furrowing. “So does that like — negate it?”

“—need hand sanitizer in m’a mouth—"

“Or does the vampire turn into an Oni?” Jay rubs his head. “Wait, wait no — you both swap, because you bit each other, so—"

“—tastes like battery acid—"

“Either way your neck is bleeding and why didn’t you just use your powers!” Jay shrieks at him.

“I panicked, okay?!” Lloyd cries in defense, wiping his mouth as he sticks his tongue out, clearly trying to rid himself of the taste. “Ugh — gimme that garlic bread, this is awful—"

“No way,” Jay snatches his bag away. “We definitely need it now.” His eyes narrow down on the two sluggishly bleeding marks on Lloyd’s neck, that he should really be patching up, actually, but first—

“Besides, garlic could be toxic for you right now! Since you might be turning into a…a vampire.”

Lloyd turns two smoldering, angry red eyes on him, and Jay swallows. Oh FSM, he’s already turning into a vampire, his eyes are red—

Oh wait, right, Lloyd’s eyes are red anyways.

“I am not turning into a vampire!” Lloyd hisses. He winces, clapping a hand over his neck. “I probably have like, rabies or something though,” he says, half-panicked.

“I don’t think vampires have rabies,” Jay tries to assure him, finally shaking himself into action, pulling his jacket off and pressing one of the sleeves against Lloyd’s bleeding neck. Lloyd jerks away on instinct, before letting Jay examine it.

“I can’t turn into a vampire,” Lloyd says, an edge of fear in his voice. “Kai’ll kill me if I turn into a vampire.”

“That’s your main concern?” Jay exclaims, swiping blood away — the bite doesn’t look too deep, and it seems like it won’t need stitches, or anything. He suddenly pauses, considering Lloyd’s words. “Okay, I will admit you have a valid point there,” he concedes.

Lloyd nods tightly, then makes a face before spitting again.

“So gross.”

Jay watches him, then speaks up hesitantly. “I mean…you have to admit that it’s definitely a vampire now, right, haha? Like, not to say I told you so, but—”

Lloyd turns his head, ever so slowly, his eyes narrowing into slits as he does.

“I will kill you.”

“Duly noted.”

**************

In a noble sacrifice of true brotherly love, Jay lets Lloyd get his weird mutant blood all over his hoodie as he uses it as a makeshift bandage.

“Rude,” Lloyd mutters, sounding wounded.

“Weird mutant blood is cool,” Jay assures him. “You Oni-dragon-hybrid, you.”

“I don’t even get any of the cool stuff, like shapeshifting or wings.”

“Yeah, that is a pretty lame tradeoff,” Jay admits. He pats his hoodie where it’s wrapped around Lloyd’s neck once more, nodding. “There. We’ll just…dump an entire bottle of sanitizer on it when we get home.”

“Can’t wait,” Lloyd sighs. His eyebrows furrow into determination. “After we catch this thing, though. It’s personal now.”

“Agreed,” Jay says. “But we definitely need a plan this time, ‘cause like, the biting thing worked, but it worst-case-scenario worked, you know? We need something a little less primitive, like, say, um…”

“Like this?”

Jay turns to Lloyd where he’s bent over one of the canal drains. He lifts the object he’s fished out, revealing a soaked but intact fishing net, likely abandoned from one of the boats.

A grin spreads across Jay’s face. “I have a plan now,” he says.

“Good,” Lloyd breathes in relief.

“You’re bait.”

Relief successfully obliterated. “Wait—"

**************

Jay’s wristwatch glows a dim 3:30 in the morning by the time their vampire finally takes the bait.

Said bait is very put out at being bait, granted, and is doing a frankly awful job at it, if anyone asked him, but he supposes that’s the best he can ask out of Lloyd when he’s been denying him their garlic bread the whole night.

“Oh no,” Lloyd intones dully, kicking through the tunnel water half-heartedly. “I’ve lost my way, whatever am I going to do with all this money in my wallet.”

“Boo,” Jay hisses at him, where he’s perched atop of a broken sewer pipe. Lloyd pauses his melodramatics to glare at him.

“I’d like to see you do better.”

“Oh no, you’re a much better damsel in distress than I am,” Jay assures him.

Lloyd looks furious. “Listen—"

He might’ve finished, but then the vampire jumps him from the shadows, and they both go tumbling as Lloyd’s voice turns to a shriek.

“Don’t die!” Jay hollers as he jumps down onto the vampire, startling a shriek out of them as he desperately tries to yank them off of Lloyd. “Roll, roll, get out of teeth range!”

“I’m trying!” Lloyd yelps, twisting himself free from the vampire’s grasp. The vampire makes to grab him, but Jay is already pouncing, tossing the net out so they run smack into it and go flailing to the floor, twisting themselves further and further into the rope webbing.

“Oh, thank FSM,” Lloyd mutters into the ground, where he’s yet to move. Jay ignores him, giving a cheer of triumph as he finishes knotting off the net.

“We got it!” he gasps, stepping back and surveying their struggling captive. “We caught the vampire!” He turns to Lloyd, grinning brightly in victory.

“Everyone else is gonna eat their words.” Lloyd nods, and Jay holds his hand out, slapping it against Lloyd’s before knocking their fists together.

Who’s stupid now, Kai? he thinks triumphantly.

Striding forward, he places his hands on his hips, smirking down at the vampire where it writhes against the net they’ve caught it in. He bends over, yanking their hood down.

“No use struggling. We got you now, you malevolent creature of the ni — ight, wait.” Jay blinks rapidly, staring at their quarry. “You’re….not a vampire?”

“No, you ssstupid human.”

Oh. Oh. Jay is incredibly, massively, thoroughly disappointed to realize that the figure on the ground glaring daggers at him, is not, in fact, a vampire. Not unless vampires come in Serpentine flavors.

“A Serpentine?” Lloyd blinks rapidly, looking as colossally disappointed as Jay is. “Aw man, we both lose, then.”

“A weird Serpentine,” Jay frowns, leaning closer. “This one’s got hair. Why do you have hair?”

The Serpentine — who is a she, from the looks of it — rolls her eyes. “I’m part human,” she hisses. “Ssso I do not look like other Ssserpentine. You humansss are just ssstupid enough to think I am a vampire.”

Jay opens his mouth, then shuts it. “Ah,” he says. He then brightens, glancing at Lloyd. “Oh hey, you have that in common, then! Lloyd’s a freaky mutant anomaly of nature, just like you.”

“Hey!” Lloyd exclaims, looking offended. “A freaky mutant anomaly?”

“I mean it in love, Lloyd.”

“Would you let me out of thissss infuriating net.”

“Uh, yeah, no can do, pal,” Jay replies to the furious Serpentine. “We aren’t letting you off the hook just ‘cause you told us what you were. You’ve been running around and biting people in the neck and stealing their wallets.”

“You bit me,” Lloyd accuses, glaring hotly at her.

“You bit me back,” the Serpentine snarls at him.

“You bit me first!”

“Guys, guys, it’s not a contest,” Jay laughs, a little nervously. “Please. Calm your mutant anomaly selves.”

Lloyd looks as if he’s going to smack him — which he probably should, all honesty, Jay’s been pushing him — but the Serpentine just frowns.

“How issss he one?” she scoffs at Lloyd. “He looksss like a normal human. Maybe with rabiesss.”

Lloyd looks incredibly offended. “Like you can talk.” He shakes his head, sighing. “I’m…part Oni. And dragon. A bit.”

The Serpentine's mouth drops open, and the color leeches from her face. “O-Oni?” She stammers. She looks at the hastily bandaged wound on her arm in alarm. “Did you poissson me?”

“Wha—no!” Lloyd exclaims. “Oni aren’t poisonous!”

He pauses. So do Jay and the Serpentine, leaving the tunnel in silence for a beat.

“I don’t….think?” He turns to Jay, eyebrows furrowed in question.

Jay shrugs. He’s not the one with a bunch of inhuman relatives. “I mean, she hasn’t gone all, y’know — grey-skinned, purple-eyed, turned-to-stone, so?”

This does nothing whatsoever to quell the look of fear on the face of— Jay frowns. “Hey, what’s your name, by the way?”

“What, ssso you can tell the copsss?” their Serpentine hisses dully.

“Well, you’re a criminal, so,” Jay shrugs. “But look at it this way — I won’t call you Elvira Vampira, Terror of the Night, the whole way back instead.”

The Serpentine rolls her eyes, but she does look mildly threatened at being called Vampira for the rest of the evening.

“My name is Sssiri,” she finally admits, looking put out.

“Siri?” Lloyd blinks. “Like the phone voice?”

The Serpentine makes a face as if he’s called her the scum of the earth instead. “I hate that ssstupid company,” she hisses. “And their ssstupid phone voicesss. I hate them.”

“That’s nice,” Jay tells her. He exhales, placing his hands on his hips. He glances at Lloyd, who looks every bit as tired.

“Time to drag her to the police?”

“Time to drag her to the police,” Lloyd sighs, sounding disappointed, if not a bit vindictive.

**************

The cops are nice, at least, and the guy whose wallet got snatched thanks them profusely, so the night doesn’t end up being a total bust. Everyone looks pretty relieved that there isn’t an actual vampire running around, though, which Jay feels a little resentful at, because he’s losing a bet here.

“Hey, cheer up,” Lloyd tells him, elbowing him lightly. “At least no one ever has to know about it.”

“True,” Jay admits. He gives a sigh of melancholy, watching as the cops lead a put-out Siri into the car. He glances at Lloyd, then grins wickedly.

“Hey!” he calls quickly, waving at Siri. He slaps a hand on Lloyd’s shoulder, shaking him. “You don’t have a boyfriend, do you? Because this guy here is a hundred percent single and looking to ack—"

Jay’s idea is immediately torpedoed by Lloyd viciously throttling him in front of the entire crime unit.

“Jay what the heck!” he whisper-shrieks, sounding on the verge of an aneurism.

“I’m trying — to get you — back in the game—" Jay croaks out.

“With a neck-biting criminal?!”

“I wouldn’t be oppossssed,” Siri remarks, cocking her head as she studies Lloyd.

Lloyd goes an odd purple-scarlet color, then immediately turns on heel, marching away and looking not a little bit like his father storming off to destroy a village.

“He’ll call you!” Jay mouths at Siri, before hurrying after Lloyd. “Well, I’d call that a mild success, at least.”

“I am not calling her,” Lloyd grinds out, as he stomps down the street.

“Oh, obviously,” Jay says. He snickers. “Can you imagine Kai’s reaction, though? He’d blow five blood vessels at once.”

Lloyd remains stubbornly stoic, glaring forward. Jay winces. Oops, crossed a line. Still too sensitive. Maybe he can try again in like…a year.

“Hey, on the bright side,” Jay tries. “We can eat the rest of the garlic bread now?”

Lloyd’s pace slows. Jay holds out half of the buttery loaf they have left. Lloyd eyes him for a second, but Jay can see his resolve quickly dying. Lloyd finally snatches it, sighing.

“Tha’ is a bright side,” he says, through a mouthful.

“Garlic bread solves half y’er problems,” Jay nods through his own bite, pleased to find that it’s still good, even if cold.

They walk in silence for a minute, quietly chewing at the rest of the bread. Then Lloyd speaks up.

“Like….can you imagine being a real vampire though? And you couldn’t eat garlic bread?”

“Oh yeah, that would suck.”

“Seriously. I wonder if it’s maybe like, a lactose intolerance thing, where they can have a little bit before breaking into vampire hives or something?”

“Or maybe it’s like a peanut allergy thing, where their throats swell up and they have to use like, vampire Epipens.”

“If I was a vampire, I’d risk it either way.”

“Oh yeah, same. Totally worth it.”

“Totally.”

**************

The thing people tend to overlook about Jay is that, despite how loud he can be — and yeah, he’s admitting it, he can be a big enough person to recognize that he can get a bit worked-up sometimes — anyways, despite how everyone seems to think Jay has one default mode, he is, in fact, one of the best people on the team at sneaking. It’s one of the perks of being small — he’s learned to be light enough on his feet that even Zane can’t pick him up. And everyone expects him to come in all excited and loud anyways, so Jay’s got that advantage. No one expects him to be quiet.

And it is, of course, a trait he’s dutifully passed on to his little brother, who already has experience from sneaking around Darkley’s and lurking in Serpentine tombs, so by the time the alarm is an hour away from going off, Lloyd and Jay are safely back in bed, snoring quietly with the others, who are none the wiser.

Granted, Jay’s got the worst eye-bags ever in the morning, and Lloyd’s running a record for how long he can get around without actually opening his eyes — but Cole doesn’t say anything, and Zane isn’t looking at them suspiciously, so voila! They are off the hook.

Jay supposes he has the usual array of night terrors to thank for that. Always a good cover for sleeplessness, those.

He does have to drag Lloyd to the bathroom first so they can fix his gi collar high enough to hide the rather incriminating bite marks. Jay doesn’t even want to think about explaining those, because any plausible excuses he can come up with for them are just more likely to make Kai barbecue Jay on the spot.

“Good to see you this morning,” Cole tells him pointedly, as he joins the team around the breakfast table. Jay resists the urge to shoot him a gesture, and grabs for the coffee pot instead.

“Did you sleep alright?” Kai is asking Lloyd from across him, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. Jay can’t really blame him, seeing as Lloyd keeps falling asleep in his cereal, dark circles vivid beneath his eyes.

“Jus’ tired,” Lloyd yawns. “Didn’t sleep that well."

Kai pats him lightly on the shoulder, looking sympathetic. “Take a nap or something later,” he tells him. “For my sake.”

Lloyd nods, and Jay leans back in his seat, sipping contentedly at his coffee. As he said, no one suspects a thing. All’s well that ends well.

And then Zane turns the radio on.

“—the neck-biting thief was caught early this morning by the Ninjago City Police, with the aid of two accomplices—”

Jay goes pale.

“Huh, isn’t that what you guys were talking about last night?” Nya remarks.

Jay and Lloyd look at each other, their eyes wide. In a desperate grab for survival, Jay dives for the radio, fully prepared to hit it with a lightning bolt if it means turning it off before—

“—special thanks, of course, to the green and blue ninja, looking out for us as always.”

Jay finally smacks the radio off, plunging the kitchen into silence. There is a long, ominous pause of utter dread. Kai slowly turns to look at Lloyd.

“You went after them—"

“We didn’t!” Lloyd says quickly. “That’s not what we were doing!”

“Oh yeah?” Kai says, and uh oh, that’s a scary look. “You’d better have a heck of an excuse, then.”

“We do, we have a really good excuse,” Jay defends quickly. “We were out there for something way more important.”

“Oh?” Cole says, looking close to blowing a gasket. “And what was that, exactly?”

“Well,” Jay says, looking Kai dead in the eye. “We were trying to get Lloyd a hot date.”

Then, before anyone can react, Jay grabs a sputtering Lloyd by the hand and runs.

#answered #my fic #i forGOT how long this one was gndjfgk

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autistic-din-djarin · 3 years

Text

The Merits of Candy in Bribing Children (For Their Own Good)

Rating: G

Word Count: 1127

Summary: Din’s concerned about how little the kid seems to be able to communicate. Sure, he understands him well enough, but... he decides it’s time to try another approach. (Or, Din attempts to teach Grogu Tusken Sign Language as an alternative form of communication. Using lollipops.) Set nebulously pre-s2e5.

No triggers for this one! Let me know if you need anything tagged.

A/N: After realizing that tumblr eats links, I've decided to post the text here directly. Please enjoy, and reblog if you can!

Din has been worried about the kid for a while now.

Beyond the obvious— well. He isn’t really reactive to Din’s speech, at least not in a way that shows comprehension. He’s kept talking anyway, of course. He’s no parent, regardless of how he kids himself, but he remembers hearing that it’s good for kids to be exposed to language. Something about forming their brains, or maybe just about learning to talk from exposure. Din is hilariously uninformed. But when he first got the kid, he was barely responding to him at all. Now he’s at least physically responsive to Din’s voice, even if that’s all he really gets, so. Din takes that as improvement, and continues talking to him. With the amount of trauma he must have experienced and with how slowly he ages, Din knows there are far too many variables for him to consider all of them fully. He does the best he can.

Still. It feels like it’s not enough. Which is why Din has his foundling sat on the floor in front of him, with a bunch of lollipops in his hand to keep the kid’s attention.

“Okay. Let’s try this again.” Din unwraps one of the lollipops— a red one— and holds it up. He puts the others in a pocket, having learned his lesson when the kid used his Jedi powers to steal them when he just set the extras down last time. The kid looks up inquisitively at the sweet, then looks up to Din, clearly wondering what he wants in exchange. “See the color of this? It’s red. Red.” He over-enunciates, and watches as the kid stares at him for a moment longer, then coos and makes grabby hands at the lollipop.

Din sighs. At this point, he can’t help idly wondering if this is harder for the kid to understand without seeing his lips move. He knows he’s not deaf, since he’s responded to noise happening out of his line of sight in the past. Unless awareness of surroundings is another weird Jedi power? He doesn’t know. “No, kid, I…” He trails off. It’s not fair to withhold rewards if the kid is just too young to speak, or if he doesn’t understand. He sighs again, and hands the lollipop to him anyway. “Okay. I have another red one. You can suck on that while I… figure something else out.”

The kid babbles happy nonsense as he takes it and begins eating it with crunching noises that tell Din maybe he should try this again with something softer next time. He ponders, watching the kid. Maybe… the problem is that he can’t physically make the sounds? From his vocalizations, Din doesn’t suspect that to be the case, but he’s been surprised before. Or maybe he just doesn’t feel like using his voice. Din can certainly understand that. He hums, and gets out the lollipops, unwrapping eight of them and arranging them so that he’s holding all eight of them in color order with one hand. “Hey. Look here, kid. Okay?” He looks up at the sound, although whether that’s from the sound itself or from understanding, Din has no way of knowing. “Good.” He signs, deliberately, as he repeats the praise. “Good.” Tusken sign is very flexible, thanks to how often members lose limbs and fingers. Which is convenient when Din is signing one-handed. “I’m going to teach you colors. Okay? Colors.” He signs and speaks slowly, trying to solidify the link between the meanings of his signs and his words. It’s pretty terrible, grammatically. Sign leaves out many words, so the translation isn’t exact, and the order really should be a bit different, but hopefully it’ll be enough to help the kid gradually gain some level of communication.

The child sets down his used lollipop stick and gibbers unintelligibly at Din. His tone sounds happy enough, and the sound makes Din’s heart clench. He smiles, beneath his helmet. “The candy you just ate and this candy,” he says, pointing at first the spent stick and then the red lollipop, signing sweet, “are the same color.” He signs, Color same. “Red. Now, you try.” He repeats red before gesturing at the kid’s hands, and signing again. “Come on, kid. I know you can do it.”

The kid looks at Din. He looks at the lollipop. He looks back at Din. He reaches up with a clawed hand to grab at his still-outstretched hand, cooing, and Din can’t help but chuckle softly and fondly.

“Aw, kid.” He gently squeezes his hand with one finger before easing it back down in front of himself. “Can you try for me? I’ll give it to you if you can sign this.” He repeats the sign, and carefully moves his kid’s hands to form the beginning hand shape. “You can heal people. I know you can do this.”

The kid blinks up at him with his big eyes, then slowly and cautiously moves through the sign. Din can’t contain his excitement.

“Yes! Good, kid—” He remembers to sign good, and realizes the kid seems a bit startled by his outburst. He scoops him up with one arm to set him in his lap. “You did good, ad’ika.” He coos over him quietly, and positions him so he can still sign while holding him close. The kid gives him a little smile, babbling, and Din chuckles fondly. He returns to loose signing. “So good. Those two are the same, red. And this one is green!” He skips a few colors, figuring it’s more important to establish the concept of same and different than the correct order of colors in the rainbow. “Green is different from red. But this candy is the same color as you.” He points at the lollipop and signs green before pointing at the kid and repeating the sign, then signing same. “Understand?”

The baby babbles a bit more, sounding almost like laughter, and makes Din’s heart soar when he signs green without prompting. “Oh, so good, ad’ika, such a clever kid.” He gives him a little kov’nyn , prompting a soft giggle from the kid. “I’m so happy you understand.” He repeats, happy. “Here. You can start with the red again while we continue the lesson.” He hands the lollipop to his foundling, who sucks and crunches happily on it as he walks him through the other signs slowly and patiently. He has plenty of lollipops, and plenty of patience. And, for once, he feels like he’s actually done something right by this kid. He was beginning to fear he never would. Still. Somehow, it’s hard to worry too much when there’s a happy baby signing and giggling in your lap, bleeding you dry of candy. His concerns will wait.

Thank you for reading! There is. A pretty decent chance that I’ll write a follow-up to this tbh. I have a lot of feelings about them and it’s a crime that there isn’t more Clan of Two content. Take care of yourself. <3

#mine #my fic #clan of two #din djarin #grogu #grogu djarin #found family #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fic #star wars #star wars fic

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askthefaeling · 3 years

Text

A Walk in the Park (2/2)

When Vellner didn’t say a word about the nature, or the fresh air for that matter, Kiran reached up and nudged the wingless fairy with a couple of slender fingers. “Cat got your tongue?” he teased. “Your lack of gratitude is no surprise, but usually you have something to say.”

Vellner rolled his eyes, though he had jolted in surprise at the nudge. “Can’t I just enjoy the outdoors in peace?” he retorted. Even so, the response was nothing more than reactive snark- in all truthfulness, he hadn’t really been paying attention to their surroundings. He looked around now, but even the bright sunlight couldn’t completely dissolve the heavy thoughts in his mind.

Eventually they made their way out of his mouth. “...Why are you trying to be nice now?” he asked, his voice a monotone sort of mumble. All his confusing thoughts recently came back to that, and Vellner couldn’t figure it out.

“What, am I not allowed to be nice?” Kiran asked.

Vellner huffed. “You know what I mean!” Kiran had never been anything close to “nice” to Vellner, not before… everything, and even after he wasn’t exactly a saint. But, Vellner also couldn’t deny that something seemed to have changed. The old Kiran would never have taken Vellner on a walk outside simply because Vellner liked being outside. He wouldn’t have listened to Vellner about locking the bedroom door so his brothers wouldn’t get in, or stopped considering things just because Vellner interrupted him.

The new Kiran was still a self-assured brat, but he was somehow attempting to be a slightly more considerate one, and Vellner found it confusing as hell.

Kiran shrugged lamely, bobbing Vellner up and down on his shoulder, and stared resolutely out at the garden as he walked. Vellner’s question was making him think about how he acted in the past too, and he didn’t love doing that. “You’ve changed too,” he mumbled defensively. He still couldn’t quite forget how Vellner had acted when they first returned to the castle. “I just…”

He didn’t actually know the end to that sentence. There was some desire somewhere in him to do something, or be something, or make something happen, but it wasn’t clear enough to put into words.

So he did the next best thing and went to a point of commonality. “It’s just that Ebby’s a kid, and a girl, so it’s not like I can just do whatever. You’ve made that point quite clearly yourself, in case you forgot.” The words were more defensive than anything else.

“I’m not talking about Ebby,” Vellner argued, though he supposed he kind of was. Most of Kiran’s new attempts at being reasonable had been aimed at the little girl. That, at least, Vellner sort of understood. He’d never been granted that sort of leniency as a kid, but he was relieved that Ebby was, and honestly Kiran – for all his many, many faults – still wasn’t the worst human out there. He had some odd sense of chivalry aimed at Ebby, if nothing else.

Vellner was just confused. “I just mean, you’ve had no trouble ‘doing whatever’ in the past, so why change now?” He glanced down at his feet, and the vertiginous drop down Kiran’s body to the ground beyond that, and tried to explain the uncertainty he felt. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but it’s just weird.”

He watched as Kiran crossed his arms, his fingers fidgeting a little bit at his sides. The prince’s answer came out haltingly. “Well, you’ve been mine for a while now, right?” Not counting the gap in the middle that neither of them ever talked about. “So, it just stands to reason that we’d get more used to each other. You don’t act up as much, so I don’t have to be as forceful, or anything…”

It was a weak response, and it obviously wasn’t the whole story, but Vellner let it go. From the sounds of things even Kiran didn’t know why he was being so strange; and the last thing Vellner wanted to do was somehow give Kiran the idea that he should go back to his old, terrible ways. “Whatever,” Vellner muttered instead. “You’re still horrible, I don’t know why I even asked.”

Kiran scoffed, though there was some relief there. This was the type of conversation he was used to having with Vellner. “You’re the one that brought it up,” he argued back. “Besides, is this the thanks I get for bringing you outside? Next time I’ll just leave you in the room with Ebby.”

“She’s better company than you are,” Vellner snipped in return, kicking his heels against Kiran’s shoulder for good measure. “Honestly, you think a little sunlight is going to make up for everything you’ve done? You must be insane.”

Their bickering followed them down the garden path, a backdrop to the gentle breeze and the aroma of flowers; but the uncertainty they both felt followed them all the way home.

#a walk in the park #hmmmmm it's almost like kiran's trying to be a real person #almost #he's not so good at it

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my-own-oracle · 4 years

Text

Something Between Us Ratchet x Reader

You watched as Ratchet collaborated the ground bridge. The team had gone out to investigate a new entergon mine, to see what they could scavenge from the remains or outright take. The kids had gone home hours ago. Ratchet was supposed to take you back as well, but like most nights the medical bot had gotten caught up in his work. You knew there was a good reason, but it didn't make it hurt any less.

You had met the bots some time ago; you had been grabbed off the side of the road by Decepticon as leverage. And when Ratchet had been given the task of being your guardian, he let you know how much he disliked it and you.

You disliked him too, or at least you thought you did.

Slowly you had grown on each other. Ratchet and you shared a subtext; something was there, some bond. You both knew it and knew better than to say anything. He was millions of years old and a soldier in a war spanning longer than life had existed on your planet. You were a human; whose existence would come and go far to fast. You knew you both cared deeply for the other, but you both were smarter than to say anything.

You checked your phone; it was 7 pm, not too late. Perhaps you could see yourself out. You hated bothering Ratchet or any of the other bots; you knew the team would be tired and need Ratchet to patch them up. The medic did not have the time to worry about taking you home.

You quietly got up and began the trek home. You slipped on some earbuds while sneaking past the door and allowed the music to dictate your pace. The sky had begun to turn orange and red, stars slowly twinkling into sight. It was beautiful out, not too hot nor too cold. You lost yourself in the music, somewhat dancing as you walked.

It's just another night

And I'm staring at the moon

I saw a shooting star

And thought of you

I sang a lullaby

By the waterside and knew

If you were here,

I'd sing to you

Ah. Ed Sheeran, another endless love song for your emotionally confused mind. You swayed as you walked. Wishing you had someone to dance within the emptiness of the desert.

You're on the other side

As the skyline splits in two

I'm miles away from seeing you

I can see the stars

From America

I wonder, do you see them, too?

Yeah, a dance partner would be lovely. But you would never be able to convince anyone you know to dance with you in the middle of nowhere, even if it would be romantic.

So open your eyes and see

The way our horizons meet

And all of the lights will lead

Into the night with me

And I know these scars will bleed

But both of our hearts believe

All of these stars will guide us-

Pain flooded your system. Tires squealed, but the car never stopped. Your body hitting the ground didn't help, the impact on the rocky terrain sending lightning through you. Your legs felt off. Your body's in shock, blocking the pain from flooding your systems. Looking down you saw your knees where dislocated. Panic and anxiety took over.

You need a doctor.

You scrambled for your phone. You held down the speed dial, praying nurse Darby would answer.

Ratchet’s voice met your ears. “(Y/N), where are you, I realized I never took you home.”

“Sorry Ratchet, ” you tried to steady your breathing. “I was trying to call Mrs. Darby.” You shifted your body trying to pull yourself further off the road. The action caused your right knee to pop back into place. Pain flashed through your body, and an involuntary scream flew out of you.

“(Y/N) what's wrong, where are you?”

“No, no, no, I'm fine; I'm fine, no, no, no, I'm alright.”

“You're not alright. Your voice is wavering, and you're repeating yourself. Stay where you are; I'm coming to get you.”

“No-” the connection cut out. Moments later you heard sirens. They grew closer lighting up the area. Ratchet transformed when he saw you, kneeling over your form. The medic part of him came out.

“Do you still have feeling in your injured leg? Do you feel pain anywhere else?”

“Trust me Doc. I can still feel everything, and it all hurts.” You tried to sound firm, downplaying the feeling of fire flowing through your blood with terrible nicknames and sarcastic tones. But the initial rush of adrenaline was wearing off. Your arm was beginning to hurt along with both legs and your head. Ratchet scanned your body.

“You've broken your arm, have a potential concussion and dislocated your knee.” he steps back and transforms. His driver's side door opens, and his holoform hurries out. The middle-aged looking man takes your hand. “I know you hurt, but I need to put this back in place or else I won't be able to move you well.” Your breaths are short; Ratchet can tell you're doing your best to hold yourself together. His blue eyes flood with worry. “Look at me; don't look down. On three I'm going to put your knee back in place, ” he moves, one hand on your upper thigh right above where your knee should be — the other hand grasping around your ankle.

“Ok”

“Ready?” You nod and at that Ratchet pulls your lower leg down and twists it back into place. The pain in your leg eases to a dull ache.

“That's better; that's better.” Ratchet leaned over you again, placing his forehead against your own. “You didn't count Doc.”

“It was better that way. I'm going to lift you into the back, then take you to the hospital. I need you to stay awake the whole time.” The human-like mech carried you through his back doors. And as soon as his holoform was seated holding you close, he began driving. His arms were secure around your body, you could feel his worry seeping from his holoform and the vehicle all around you. Gently you run your hand across the bench next to you. You hope this action radiates calm and not fear.

You don't remember much of the drive. You were far too focused on Ratchets mental state and his holoforms tight grip on your form. Ratchet muttered a lot, asking questions you didn't want to answer. Most of them consisting of ‘what had you been thinking?’

The hospital had taken you back, and after an hour and some gentle persuasion, released you into Ratchets care. Ratchet decided on bringing you back to the base so he could watch over you. The ride started silent — the sound of Ratchet’s wheels and the road filling the cab.

“Why were you out here alone?” That was the 17th time he's asked. The answer still hasn't changed.

“You were busy, and the team would be back soon, I didn't want to bother-”

“Yip, yip, yip I don't want to hear it.” Silence lapped again. “You could have been killed, or kidnapped, I could have lost you, and I wouldn't have even known.”

“But you didn't lose me,” you looked at the empty driver seat. “None of my injuries were even close to fatal.” The base door opened to the empty main room of the base, Ratchet pulling in and stopping ever so slowly.

His holoform reactivated, walking around his front to open your door and help you out. He carries you up the stairs and to the couch, sitting on the floor next to you he places his head on your stomach.

“I'm not losing you (Y/N). I can't lose you.”

“What makes you think you'd lose me?” You run a hand over his holoform’s somewhat blond and grey hair.

“We've all lost so much to this Primus forsaken war; our home was destroyed, bonds shattered, comrades scattered to the wind.” He sounds more defeated then you've ever heard him sound. “I don't know what this is we have, but I'm not ready to lose it.”

You don't know how to respond, so you both lay there; Your hands endlessly running through Ratchets hair, his gently caressing your face.

#transformers #ratchet #ratchet tfp #ratchet x reader #tfp #re-post

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spiffyspuffy · 4 years

Text

My Mystic Messenger Opinions

(That no one asked for)

Zen

Character: 8/10 I know a lot of people think Zens annoying but I find him endearing. One of the best things about this game is the complexity of the characters and I love that Zen’s cockiness is actually how he hides his insecurities. Even though he’s egotistical about himself, he’s never shallow with MC. He says multiple times that he doesn’t care about MC’s looks. He loves her for who she is and shows this in how he makes an effort to get to know her and be her cheerleader everyday. An underrated thing about Zen is how emotionally intelligent he is. He’s great at helping the RFA members when they need emotional support (Yoosung’s grief over loosing Rika, Jaehee crying from the stress of her job and MC’s shock at almost being kidnapped).

Route: 2/10 Zen is a great character and he deserves a better route. The false rape accusation plot is horrible and offensive. Also, his route functions as an introduction to the game’s plot, so it’s exposition heavy and lacks action. The creators said that the lesson of his route is that when our insecurities are handled in a healthy way, they can push us to be better people. I love this message and I wish it had been highlighted more in his route.

Romantic Potential: 9/10 Zen is arguably the most dateable of all the characters. He’s a bad boy without being sketchy. He’s protective without being possessive. He’s kind without being a pushover and he’s smart without being pretentious. His biggest drawbacks are his overconfidence and and how busy he is with working. There aren’t any glaring red flags.

~ More under the cut ~

Jeahee

Character: 7/10 I love this adorable theater nerd! She comes across as formal and stuffy at first, but reveals herself to be passionate and funny the more you get to know her. I gave her a lower score because she does have a strong personality that rubs me the wrong way sometimes (her jealousy of MC in Zen’s route, her lack of sympathy towards Jumin in her own route and her general rudeness towards Yoosung). She is the most mature of the RFA though, so her exasperation is warranted. Being mature and grounded also makes Jaehee the least complex Mysme character. I’ve got a lot of respect for her though!

Route: 5/10 Getting to engage in discourse about capitalism and the patriarchy? Amazing and hands down the best part of her route. It’s really inspiring to see Jaehee stand up for herself and choose to follow her dreams. I think it’s important for every young person to hear that they should have a positive work/life balance and demand that their employer supports that. Other highlights are Seven helping Jaehee by making the Power Point presentation for Jumin’s cat project, getting to fangirl with Jaehee over Zen and the creepy stalker plot. I thoroughly enjoy her route and the only reason the score is so low is because some of the other routes are seriously incredible.

Romantic Potential: 8/10 Jeahee doesn’t have any red flags either. I think she’s perfectly capable of having a healthy, romantic relationship with MC. The biggest issue standing in their way is Korea’s bias against lesbian relationships. As a fellow coffee lover and theater enthusiast though, I could definitely see myself or someone similar having a happy life with her, even if it might have to be in secret.

Yoosung

Character: 6/10 I can’t stand people who aren’t competent. Yoosung is a terrible cook, he barely cleans and he doesn’t pay attention to his studies. On top of that, 80% of his personality is that he’s a gamer AND he’s in love with his “dead” adopted cousin. Yuck. ~ But ~ I understand that he’s depressed and depression can seriously effect someone’s executive functioning. Taking all of those negatives away, we’re left with a young man who’s trying to his best to be taken seriously, which is something I can relate to. It’s nice to see imposter syndrome represented and I admire his loyalty to his friends.

Route: 8/10 This route is sooo good! Who can forget the night when the RFA starts being aggressively stalked by Minty Eye? And the pic Zen takes of a believer looking at him through his apartment window...chills. His route only gets better from there when he infiltrates Mint Eye with Seven. This is the first time we get to see the twins interact and damn, is it confusing. But in a good way!! The biggest drawback is that MC is stuck in Rika’s apartment and doesn’t play much of an active role in the story.

Romantic Potential: 7/10 Despite all the negatives I listed about Yoosung, I do think he’s capable of have a healthy, romantic relationship with MC. Yoosung is also the only true sub of the RFA men, which is a definite plus for some players. Yoosung’s yandere side is a huge red flag though. MC better watch out if she doesn’t dote on him as much as he wants. Once he falls for her, he’s all in.

Jumin

Character: 5/10 Unpopular opinion, but I hate Jumin. I understand that he’s some people’s guilty pleasure though. Jumin’s good aspects are that he’s intensely loyal, an animal lover and has a dry sense of humor. I appreciate how devoted he is to the RFA and it’s members. He offers to help Zen multiple times (albeit rejected), sends everyone body guards in his route and pays the hospital in the SE to keep Saeran’s identity top secret. What I’m not a fan of is the way he obsesses over MC and traps her in his house. This isn’t the first time he’s shown obsessive tendencies either. Seven explicitly states that Jumin acted this way with Rika in the past. Huuuge red flag.

Route: 3/10 His entire route is fraught with rich people problems. I’m supposed to sympathize with him for an arranged marriage? All he had to do was say no. His father couldn’t force him. He’s possessive of MC because women have only ever wanted to be with him for his money? Not an excuse. Elizabeth going missing was a vaguely interesting story line, but Jumin’s relationship with his cat was cringey enough to overshadow the drama of it for me.

Romantic Potential: 3/10 Jumin has some serious issues. He’s never had a good female role model which has given him a deep seeded hatred of women. Remember when he tells MC that respecting women goes against his core beliefs? Yikes. Then, after meeting a woman who respects him and he actually likes, he locks her up and tries to change everything about her (cutting her hair, buying her a new wardrobe, teaching her the ‘proper’ way to walk, etc). We’re supposed to believe Jumin learns to be better by the end of his route, but he still proposes to MC after only a week of knowing her! I’m having a hard time picturing Jumin in a healthy relationship.

Saeyoung

Character: 10/10 I’m not saying Saeyoung is a good person. Far from it actually. But he IS very well written and extremely interesting. In the other routes, Saeyoung is energetic and funny, bringing much needed humor to heavy moments. It’s always a joy being in a chatroom with him. Then you have the reveal that he actually hates his job and that he was faking his personality, all to a sad and slowed down version of his theme song. This plot twist shook me to my core. What makes him so well written is that the devs did a good job dropping hints to his real personality in the other routes that players might not notice during their first play through.

Route: 9/10 This route is a wild ride from start to finish. This is when the plot threads from the other routes come together and start make sense. This route has secret agents, assassins, a deadly bomb, kidnapping, an evil twin, a powerful cult... It’s action heavy while still carrying enough emotional weight to make me cry every time. Saeyoung’s route is heavy and emotional and sooo worth playing.

Romantic Potential: 6/10 Saeyoung has a shady job and a complicated past. Choosing to be with him means putting your life in danger every day. If you’re okay with that, he’d be a decent romantic partner. He’s a little rough around the edges, but I do think he has potential to become more like his ideal self (God Seven) after reading his AE. He’ll always have that mean and serious side to him, but I don’t think he’s hopeless.

Character: 4/10 He’s low-key the worst. I sympathize with his trauma from being abused by Rika, but I don’t understand why he feels the need to fix everything by himself. Rika might be the source of most problems in this game, but V is partially responsible for standing by and letting her get away with everything.

My first issue with him comes from encouraging Saeyoung to join the agency. I know Saeyoung didn’t have many options, but how was encouraging him to train to become a hacker and assassin the best option?! On top of that, he stalked Zen per Rika’s request and took creeper photos of him, failed miserably at protecting Saeran and don’t get me started on how he loves Rika unconditionally. V has some good characteristics but I really don’t care about those when he’s so terrible otherwise.

Route: 10/10 This route is *chef’s kiss* the BEST. I wouldn’t call it a romance since Vs barely in it but damn is it riveting. Saeran is the perfect amount of loving and unhinged, MC get’s to know Rika on a personal level and V finally gets to be active instead of just reactive like he is in all the other routes. It’s also satisfying to find out how much V has been keeping secret and to get a glimpse into Rika’s psyche. But what really makes V’s route stand out among the rest is that there are spy action scenes like in Saeyoung’s route, but the player also gets to spend time in Mint Eye.

Romantic Potential: 7/10 I’ll be honest. I don’t think V will ever be able to move on from Rika. He’ll always love her, as evidence in his AE. Besides that drawback, I do think he’d be a good romantic partner for MC. V was never the issue in his past relationship with Rika. She was the abusive one and he was 100% the victim. I think he would treat MC just as well in their relationship as he treated Rika.

Saeran

Character: 7/10 I know I’m not the only one who loved the suave and cunning Saeran of the main routes who, after getting the therapy he needed, became an adorably shy and awkward man. Sadly, that’s not the character we got in AS. Instead, we met Ray, the split personality of Saeran’s psyche. Ray is charming and sweet as well as possessive and manipulative...which is something I’m into. But it’s not for everyone. Saeran’s real personality in AS is revealed to be angry and abusive and not at all similar to who he was in the main routes. I’ll give Cheritz props for writing a fairly accurate portrayal of disassociative identity disorder, but I think Saeran’s characterization is inconsistent. I get the impression Ray was an afterthought when creating AS.

Route: 7/10 A mixed bag for me. I really enjoy any chatroom/scene with Ray. He’s undeniably creepy, but those scenes were entertaining in a dark romance kind of way. On the other hand, the Saeran scenes had a lot of unrealized potential. Abuse is never cool. All his route needed to fix this was a scene where Saeran explained to MC that he was pretending to hate her to appease Rika and the other believers. While this fake hatred is implied, I think it needed to be outright stated. It’s also hard to believe that Saeran overcame his DID in the course of one night. I know all routes are limited to 11 days, but this one needed more. Highlights of this route are Saeyoung being kidnapped by his father and of course, dark Yoosung with Elizabun.

Romantic Potential: 7/10 I truly do believe that Saeran could go on and live a happy life in any of the endings where he escapes Mint Eye and receives therapy. While we only get a glimpse of what an emotionally stable Searan looks like, we know that he was kind and attentive with MC. Saeran is a giver and would do anything to make MC happy. Red flags are that Searan is still clingy at the end of his route. Yoosung makes a comment that he’s always holding MC’s hand when he sees them together. Also, his DID is something that will occasionally return and that’s something MC has to go into their relationship knowing.

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datawyrms · 4 years

Text

Electric Influence

Danymay2020 day 10- Corruption

It was easier to ignore the fact Danny should not have walked out of that portal alive. Tucker ignored any ‘shock’ his friend must have gotten would have been lethal. Sam pretended the scorching stench of flesh burning was only the ectoplasm of the portal. She didn’t kill one of her best friends on a dare.

He’d fallen out of there, after all. Cold, glowing and terrified once he had seen himself, but it was fine! He just. Stopped being that way. He breathed, his heart raced and his grip was warm when they hugged, so tightly as if they let go they’d be separated forever.

Did it have to make sense that Danny was somehow a ghost while also being human? So their friend had ‘ghost powers’. Powers that he struggled with, but they were there to help and support him. What kind of friends would they be if they didn’t?

Sam and Tucker didn’t seem to hear the low constant buzz that felt like it was trying to rip out from under his skin. They didn’t jerk away from him, or hesitate in helping as he started falling through the floor, even though at those times it was louder, more like something clawing at his ears and demanding his attention. He didn’t want to worry them, so he didn’t mention the noise. It did make it hard to concentrate. Tucker did manage to help him without knowing about the problem, though it had been a bit of a joke.

“I swear I’m not trying to fall through every floor in the school!”

“They’re your powers dude. Maybe try thinking loud thoughts?”

Loud thoughts had actually helped. If he tried screaming in his head, louder than that irritating low hum, his powers actually seemed to respond. They still went off basically at complete random, but he could at least stop the falling or the vanishing once he noticed it. It was awkward, but he’d take anything at this point. Tucker and Sam had convinced him that letting Mom and Dad know wouldn’t be good. They might think he was dead, or something like that. With how much they seemed to focus on ghosts, he really didn’t want to be their new ‘special interest.’

They weren't sure how to react when Danny became that inverted self again. The dead-no he wasn’t dead. His ‘ghost form’. He seemed proud that he had enough control to do so intentionally, so they smiled and congratulated with a few jabs about practicing not vanishing as often. They ignored the hissing voice in the back of their minds, insisting their friend was dead. Dead people couldn’t just stop being dead with two rings of light. The small spike of fear Danny caused when he was glowing was just because of the temperature drop. He was still their friend, he wasn’t acting like some out of control monster like the Fentons said all ghosts were. So he couldn’t really be a ghost. When the black haired boy suggested he might simply be half ghost, they latched on to the excuse, not thinking very hard on why their friend even thought that.

The never ending noise changed after he figured out how to switch between himself and the green eyed ghost form he’d gotten. It was less a meaningless irritating noise, now it seemed to vary and change depending on what he was doing. At first he figured it was just more noises he had to mentally ignore, but they started to be consistent. When it pitched low with a steady pulse it became easier to become invisible, not needing the mental shout to get his powers to play along. The times he unintentionally went invisible out of alarm also dropped, now that he knew if the weird energy scrabbling at his skin was making that sound, he could shout over it before it happened.

He still failed to catch it sometimes, the odd ectoplasmic song was just a constant background noise to him now. If he didn’t tune it out from time to time, he probably would have gone mad. It was more manageable now. When he became that second self, his ghost self, the crackling sound wasn’t trapped under his skin. More that he was wrapped in it, protectively swaddled in the noise that swung from beautiful to nails on a chalkboard irritating depending on his mood. The powers always came easier like that, as if being under his human flesh made it hard to exert his will on them. More surprisingly was when he managed to just instinctively do things. He had no idea he could fly, until he had started hovering because it ‘felt better’.

He didn’t really need to think too hard, or struggle to control anything with the sound outside. He could just relax and just do. His head pounded less as his capabilities broadened. In fact it almost seemed like planning too far ahead weakened him, or had him take the wrong choice. His hangups about being a poor ghost fighter led to so many unneeded hits against Bertrand, more so when the right answer came to him too late. The self doubt and shame was a weakness.

It was easier to be reactive, to let these instincts do as they will. After all, he was getting better at all of this, Sam and Tucker said so. Relaxing into the steady buzzing confidence felt right, and seemed to be working out fine. It was still part of him, it wasn’t something to worry about.

Danny was really getting the hang of this ‘being half ghost’ thing. That should have been a good thing, that they didn’t need to fish their friend out of walls or hiss at empty air to ‘show up’, but something felt off.

He’d stopped using his powers for his own gain. Sure, Tucker was glad his friend wasn’t casually possessing people after the whole Poindexter thing, but the slow shift from occasional ghost pranks to practically none was strange. Sam would say he was just ‘more mature’ now and didn’t want to blow his cover over something stupid. Yet even she would admit it was weird he wouldn’t brag to Tucker about sneaking into locker rooms he did not belong in anymore. He just ‘wasn’t interested’ in doing that sort of thing anymore.

More disturbingly he seemed to reverse that opinion shortly after the Freakshow incident. He slipped back to ‘before the accident’ Danny, more interested in space talk than ghosts, openly offered to help sneak them into a movie for free and seemed to avoid ‘going ghost’ as much as possible. Were they bad friends for not noticing Danny had practically dropped any ‘negative’ trait like being selfish or spiteful? Surely he had only been trying to ‘not be like Vlad’, or be like a comic superhero. After all, their friend slowly slid back to his new normal over a few weeks.

Sam didn’t tell Tucker that Danny had come to her one night, eyes wide with a strange mix of terror and exhaustion.

“He would have let you die! I-I broke free but I’m so, so sorry!”

“Danny, you didn’t do anything wrong. You broke free when it counted.” she reassured her friend, trying to ignore how fragile he felt as she forced the trembling boy into a hug.

He’d shaken his head. “I let him-I didn’t even realize-”

“You couldn’t help it! It can’t happen again, don’t beat yourself up about it.”

It was only weeks later that it occurred to her that Danny might not have been talking about Freakshow that day.

The sound was too much. His skin felt stretched tight simply containing his now ever present companion. Every movement, every action felt like this would be the one that would split him open and let the crawling screaming noise devour him whole.

Though it wasn’t really a noise anymore. It could talk. It had been named, though he wasn’t sure if he had named it, or the sound had named itself. He remembered the conversation, how Tucker had called him out for such a terrible alter ego name, but he couldn’t remember if he had answered back as himself, or if Phantom had done it. They were always influencing one another now, the ghost had practically trained him into letting it take control through the constant ghost fights. Danny didn’t know how to fight, Phantom knew almost nothing but. Of course it had made sense to just let the noise prompt and delegate his actions, of course it had been easier when he didn’t try to struggle control away with a half baked plan.

Yet apparently this throbbing pulsating thing wanted more than that. Being the hero that forced ghosts back wasn’t enough, because apparently Danny was misusing their powers. Danny was their weak link.

Didn’t his friends deserve better than some slacker? Didn’t he want to be the best he could be? He’d stumbled through fourteen years with minimal success, while the new self under his skin was practically a hero within a year.

It wasn’t a fair comparison, and he was only struggling so much this year because of all the ghost fights. Yet who’s fault was that? Who was the one who let them all here to put everyone in danger?

It was his responsibility to fight it. Shirking it just showed he wasn’t a very good human.

Their only real compromise was they couldn’t worry their friends. So Danny was still present in a way, a flimsy bit of cloth hiding who really was in charge a significant amount of time.

He had always wondered how Vlad could have gone off the deep end, to turn so violently on people who were once friends. Now he was fairly sure it was easy because Plasmius barely knew the Fentons at all, and warped Vlad into whatever best suited him.

His friends didn’t say anything about it. Maybe they liked him better this way, dragging them into adventure and danger because of ghosts instead of throwing out star charts and insisting on nights they needed to watch the skies.

Phantom was always happy to remind him that Sam and Tucker liked him better than Danny nowadays. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Yet the shrieking in his ears was getting harder and harder to ignore.

The Master of Time broke him. His ghost half, his dead self, whatever Phantom was would no longer stand for Danny to put their friends at risk. He made a bad choice. He got all their friends killed. HE plunged the world into ruin by trying to escape his guilt! He’d asked Vlad to remove his humanity after all, and wasn’t Danny always insisting that was him? He couldn’t risk any of that happening, not when Clockwork gave them a second chance. The uneasy status quo was torn asunder as Phantom attempted to claim dominance over both forms by force, the static sound a shrieking agony, like knives being driven deep into his brain. He wasn’t needed, he wasn’t wanted. No one would know that Danny was gone. He was just getting replaced by a better version of him in every way. The one who didn’t almost drive the world to ruin over being an immature child.

He was a child! Of course he was! He wasn’t even sixteen, he was allowed to make mistakes. That didn’t keep the ghost from shoving him deep down, too convinced in his own way to even consider letting his other half do as much as blink.

The sound finally stopped, but he couldn’t even feel the pain that should have been put in his stomach, disconnected as he was from himself. Now he was the quiet humming nudge, aware and ever constant, but unable to act without permission.

He was fairly sure his sound was not like the electric hum Phantom had been. At least, he had no trouble ignoring him. He’d listen when talking to his friends and family sometimes, but that was it. The ghost eventually got to the point that Danny didn’t even have much to add. He already knew what to say, they were his friends and family too.

Maybe he was pointless. Trying to fight for control was exhausting, and even if he won there was nothing to do. Sam and Tucker wouldn’t know what he was going on about if he said he was trapped in his own body. Being split apart never seemed to go well, and his ghost self was vehemently against it thanks to Clockwork.

He had to just stay put and watch someone else live his life. Someone that was basically him, but not quite.

Yet as time went on, he almost started to believe Phantom. Maybe this was for the best. He’d never reach his own dream now. No one cared that Danny wasn’t actually Danny. They liked this one just fine.

He could feel the strange pressure that seemed to be trying to crush him completely. Yet it was warm and comforting instead of terror inducing. A warm weighted blanket that slowly squeezed ever tighter. He’d be whole again. Not the same, not himself. Assimilated, overwritten. Replaced.

He couldn’t bother to keep fighting it anymore. Besides, the ghost’s whole name was Danny Phantom. Maybe he was meant to have been devoured like this way back at the accident. He didn’t even need to bother to ask the ghost to protect his loved ones.

They were more Phantoms’ family now anyway.

#dannymay2020 #Danny Phantom #sam manson #Tucker Foley #my stuff #the angst train has pulled into the station #honestly this is such a good prompt #so many ways to do it #but i'm going with the obvious #i actually had a fanfic from While The Show Was Airing #that the one we were following the whole time was Phantom #and his powers going out of control/being more violent #was his HUMAN side waking back up #(i never finished it lol)#now you know the twist for a mystery fanfic you will never find :V

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love-and-anarchy-au · 3 years

Text

Love & Anarchy: Chapter 28

well, this is the last chapter i’ll post of this au. i’m going through the roughest time in my life and i just feel like it would be for the best that i stop posting this. thats it. i’ve got nothing else to say.

REMEMBER THIS AU HAPPENS IN THE SAME UNIVERSE THAT THIS ONE

Find out what this AU is about here

Masterlist

Tag list: @healing-winston-pratt @honey-hippie-harper @obsidianfr3sk @nodrianbcyes @everyone-has-a-nightmare @redassassin @magykaldealings @cerenoya @cassin-the-assasin @cindersnightmare

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Words

12,873

Part 3: A man named Ace Anarchy

18 years old Ace - Age of Anarchy Year 1

Boom.

BOOM.

Margot and Honey grumbled in tandem.

One year without sleep.

One. Year.

They deserved that, he guessed.

“Why? Why can't they do this at noon?” Honey complained, as she sat up.

Carrie, who was already awake, handed her a cup of tea.

“It wouldn’t be as annoying as it is at this hour,” she replied and went down on of the side aisles of the cathedral.

Ace sighed and sat up. Every day, every morning, it was the same: civilians demanding their blood, police thirsty for justice and even prodigies who wanted to help them and were there only to annoy those who annoyed them. It was a vicious cycle that did not seem to end and only generated lazy fights from the Anarchists’ part, who had not slept well for a year.

One. Year.

They must have seen it coming, of course. The government's duty was to oppose them, imprison them, fight them. While all of its first acts of destruction, the assassination of the mayor and the invasion of the cathedral had created enough chaos for the next ten years, Gatlon’s government remained vigilant and resisting. Every day there were more deaths, more chaos, and more anarchy. The spark that the Anarchists had generated was turning into a fire, and that generated the most pleasant sensation of pride in Ace's chest.

But that did not imply that he did not want to sleep one night on a mattress and not a mass bench, surrounded by his fellow Anarchists who slept just like him: terrible.

They had tried to sleep in the catacombs, found by Ace the first week they spent there, while he was sniffing one of the side aisles. Running his fingers over the walls, it all started when he perceived a void in them, so he formed a ‘door’ and found himself with narrow stairs and descents. Without hesitation, Ace went down the stairs and found the most beautiful and creepy place he had ever witnessed: the catacombs. Dark, so full of bones that it was practically the only thing visible, and calm. Very, very calm. Within a minute, he told the others about his discovery, and they tried to sleep there however, all but Margot (and Ace, of course) were overwhelmed by the coldness of the place and preferred to return to the noisy quality of the main nave.

Ace and Margot followed them, as they had all agreed to sleep in the same place; in case they smashed the barrier that Carrie, Bruce and Ace had built (with the houses of the old cathedral’s neighbors and a couple of Carrie's plants) to prevent anyone from entering the cathedral except them (Carrie, Margot and Ace, the only Anarchists whose true identity still remained unknown for the public), who went out once a week to buy food and other supplies.

It was a hard life.

But at least they had a roof over their heads and the ability to steal food without making a fuss.

Honey stood up and started walking in circles, searching for something while she muttered under her breath. She had a corner all to herself, since no one wanted to sleep next to ten combs of ten different varieties of bees and wasps. Her corner was draped over because she considered privacy was a 'right' and not a 'privilege'; luckily, she did, since the mess in that place made Ace want to tidy everything up in one blink.

For his part, Ace slept on the very chancel, next to Mary (not to say under her). He had his bed-bench (it had been a cathedral bench once, but he and Bruce had rebuilt it so they could lie down ‘comfortably’) and his belongings, all carefully stored in wooden boxes (which had been part of a bench once, too). His corner was simple, but clean and pleasant.

Well, as nice as a Gothic chancel could be.

The rest of them also had the corners of it. Carrie, Bruce and Leroy slept one on each side of the aisles and Henry and Margot slept in the center of the main nave, as they had the fewest belongings (Henry had his clothes and art supplies and Margot had a couple of books and quite high fashion clothes). Carrie had personalized her corner by filling it with bright colors and mostly green; it was a small biome. Bruce and Leroy's (because they slept in the same area) was practically a laboratory and competed with Honey's place for the top spot for ‘messiest corner.’ Ace stayed away from those areas, since he did not need to circulate through them, nor did he want to; from the very moment they had moved there, he started rebuilding parts of the cathedral to turn it into a house (the first thing was a shower, because they needed to wash the blood from their clothes and skin; the second was to install gas for heating and cooking, which had a cost, but it was worth it in order to be able to eat things that did not come out of a package).

It wasn't easy, but it was better than dying in the streets for being themselves.

Ace stood up and put on his helmet. It was the first thing he did every morning: put on his helmet. It was his armor, his sword, his second heart. Without that helmet, he would be nothing at all, and he owed it all to his brother, David. That thought made him want to laugh at how ironic that was, as he knew that his brother didn't totally agree with what Ace had done (and did every day) for prodigies and his release.

A faint smile crept across his face as another boom echoed throughout the nave and it made him tremble a little. He slipped on his leather shoes (stolen shortly before the Gatlon Bridge was destroyed) and cracked his knuckles, rousing himself.

“Good morning, Anarchists,” Ace greeted as he walked down the nave and donned his black blazer with gold details. “Shall we end this for once and for all?”

Margot, who was lying on her 'bed' with a frown, stood up abruptly and with her hand, she threatened to grab her hat that wasn't there. The girl snorted.

“Where’s my hat?” Margot demanded, furious, because she needed her hat to be able to go outside and fight the military and the police without revealing her identity (although it made no sense, since her entire family was dead and she was already exposed every day anyway). She said it was to ‘keep up the appearances.’ Ace bit back a laugh, snapped his fingers and with his hands he handed Margot her hat. He had seen it the day before at Honey's mess.

“Thanks,” she murmured and put it on. She was ready now, since she never changed her clothes except when she washed them in her morning showers (like everyone except Honey to tell the truth, she had ten dresses in the same colors). Henry suddenly roused himself, and ran a hand over his face to reactivate its blood circulation. Ace continued to parade down the nave.

“Leroy, Bruce, wake up,” Ace asked, in a slightly singsong voice and he ducked into the boys' corner against his will. They were the only ones who slept well, either because they were heavy sleepers or because they used sleeping substances. Both were likely to be true.

Ace resisted the urge to hold his nose because of the smells that place was emitting, and clapped his hands to wake them up. boys, who slept soundly in their beds. The applause didn't work out, so Ace decided to go rough mode and directly split their beds in half. Leroy and Bruce woke up to splinters and dust, startled, as expected.

“Come on, we have work to do,” Ace encouraged them, and walked away from that stinking corner. He did not go to wake Carrie up since she was always the first to wake up, she put the ‘early’ in ‘the early bird catches the worm.’

And yet, she was already waiting for him at the doors of the cathedral, with all her disguise on her. They nodded at each other, as a greeting. They had a respectful relationship, period, nothing more. While Honey and Margot were a tornado and a fire, Carrie was just the sound of leaves falling to the ground; minimal, indistinguishable. she gave her opinion only every now and then, and even so, she was the most helpful of the group: she prepared breakfast with Ace every morning, and she was ready for anything, as long as it was in silence (except for the battles of course, that was too much to ask).

Carrie Harper was undoubtedly indecipherable.

“Morning, Miss Harper,” Ace greeted and smiled behind his helmet.

“Morning, Mr Anarchy,” Carrie replied and handed him a blood-red flower.

Ace arched an eyebrow.

“It’s for our victory. I know you know what will happen today,” Carrie explained as she pulled on her garden gloves, like she needed them.

“I do, but how do you?” Ace questioned, as he put the flower on the top lapel of his blazer. It gave it a tragic, romantic touch.

Carrie sighed.

“I have investigated the government's resources and they’re almost run out of them. Most of the soldiers have died, weapons have been stolen and functionaries have quit. They have no chance against us.”

Ace smiled, pleased that his analysis had been perfect.

“And why will we win today?”

“We will win today because the soldiers, tanks and helicopters that are here now aren't from them but from outside the government. They have reached out to them for help and they listened, thinking we'd be easy peasy. But we are not, so they will be surprised when they see what we can do.”

Ace nodded.

“That’s correct. They don’t know we are prodigies, and we’ll use that advantage against them. Once they see what we can do, they will never come back,” he explained, very happy to know that he was not the only one who understood strategy.

Honey and Margot made it to the door in two runs. Margot applied mascara to Honey while the other applied red lipstick on the other’s lips. That image gave Ace a sense of familiarity that he hadn't felt in a long time. Not that kind of familiarity.

Bruce, Leroy and Henry came after them, only in a messier way (although it was true that they were always like this).

“Ready, Anarchists?” Ace roared and his roar echoed throughout the cathedral.

“Always,” Margot replied, and Ace kicked the doors open with an invisible kick. They all came out after her, followed by their battle cry.

“At all costs!”

Ace undid a fraction of the wall so they could get out; Bruce and Carrie did the same. Thunder and lightning invaded the sky in seconds, and millions of bees generated deafening hums as they exited the same place as them. Through the corner of his eye, Ace saw how Henry melted on a policeman, until he turned to charred meat, and also how Leroy threw acid bombs from the top of his lungs. Everything was screaming, explosions, buzzing.

Ace rose from the ground one, two, ten meters, until he was skimming the top of the bell tower. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to feel the show without seeing it. Time slowed down for a couple of seconds, and that was enough for him to feel everything around him, moldable like a mass. This is how, when they shot him in the chest, he was able to turn the bullets against whoever had shot them. When bombs were thrown at him, he threw his own tanks at them, then blew them up. When his companions needed help, he shielded them with walls or cars, or attacked back for them. He ripped off roofs from nearby houses, underground pipes, buses, wheels, even firearms. Everything served as a weapon to destroy the enemy, you just had to use it in such a way.

The best thing was that nothing supposed a superhuman effort.

Not at all, he was having a better time than ever.

He felt… powerful. Yes, very powerful. Almost invincible.

An unstoppable laugh rose up his throat and manifested itself in his acts, as each laugh was synchronized with an act. Hahaha, a tank crushed over ten soldiers. Hahaha, a helicopter turned to ashes. Hahaha, metal pipes shot like arrows. Hahaha, walls crashing into flesh, and bones breaking. Hahaha, skulls cracking from blows to the back of necks. Hahaha, blood on the ground. Hahaha, airplanes compacting like cans. Hahaha, Anarchists laughing. Hahaha, hahaha.

All the prodigies were laughing at those who had laughed at them, while going through the same act of violence.

They shouldn't have laughed at us, Ace and James thought.

And they were right.

The battle lasted two hours. Only that. Nothing and no one was left, only the Anarchists and their beloved cathedral. The battle ended gradually, like everything else; they practically realized it was over when they had almost killed each other. They never stopped laughing or smiling; Ace descended gently from the sky and entered the cathedral with his companions, who were covered in dust, blood and other fluids. They all had a triumphant and empowered smile drawn on their lips. They were proud of each other and of themselves.

Who wouldn't be, after such a historic victory?

Well done, Ace, James whispered in approval. Well done.

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 3 years

Text

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.72

Keith was doing something stupid. Keith was doing something very stupid and he was well aware of his own stupidity as he walking in with Lance hidden up under his shirt. He’d taken Lance home. Not home to Garrison like Lance really did deserve, but home to the apartment he shared with Shiro.

Slipping into the darkness of the apartment, Keith punched the code into the alarm, before closing and locking the door behind him, reactivating the alarm purely out of paranoia of Kolivan or Krolia turning up during the night. He didn’t want to face either of them. Not now he’d been made to look a fool all over again. The pitter patter of paws came from Shiro’s room. Lance gently telling him that underground was no place for Kosmo long term came to mind. His puppy forced to stay with Shiro. He wished he could carry Kosmo around like he could Lance. Kosmo made him happy. Even if he had to clean up all his messes, he loved him.

Knowing Kosmo would follow, Keith headed to Shiro’s room. He needed to talk to Shiro about what the fuck had happened. Narti’s words about being too close to see came to mind, her “warning” made sense now. He was the pet and the Blade was doing whatever it felt like without consideration of him and Shiro. Lotor had probably known all along, befriending them and enjoying them all chase their own fucking tails. Sitting on the end of Shiro’s bed, Keith tugged the laces of his boots undone, before pulling them off and climbing up to lay beside his brother on his back. Lance still under shirt, a hand on his back to keep him close.

“Keith? You... here?”

Keith winced as the brightness of Shiro’s lamp filled the room. His brother pushing himself up, before he rubbed at his eyes tiredly

“Whaaa...?”

They all joked about how bad he was at waking up, yet Shiro could be just as terrible

“Kolivan showed up”

“He... what?”

“He knocked Pidge and Hunk out. Turned up. Told us our investigation was on Antok, and that the Blades would be handling it”

Kosmo was clawing at the side of Shiro’s bed, his brother leaning down to pick the puppy up. Bounding from Shiro’s lap, Shiro grunted as Kosmo used his crotch as a spring board. His puppy trying to step all over Lance to lick at Keith’s face

“Kosmo, no”

Shiro frowned at him, picking Kosmo up and sitting him in his lap

“You can’t just ignore him... wait... why is your shirt lumpy... Keith...”

Pulling his shirt down a little, he exposed Lance’s little face as he explained

“Lance fainted”

“And you brought him here?!”

“He’s unconscious”

Shiro groaned. Yeah. Keith had done something stupid but he couldn’t leave Lance to wake up alone

“Okay. Okay. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking I’m sick of this shit. I’m sick of all of it Shiro. We busted our arse like dumbarses only for Kolivan to waltz in laugh in our faces”

“That... I’m not awake enough for this. Keith, you can’t just bring Lance here”

“Why not? What does it matter anymore? The Blades obviously don’t trust me enough to tell you anything about what’s going on”

God. Someone get him some tequila and lemon, he sounded salty as hell.

Shiro sighed again

“Keith, if the Blades kept it secret then there must be more to this”

“Yeah. Honerva’s fucking around here now. Lotor probably knows what’s up. Pidge and Hunk were sedated and taken to VOLTRON for Coran to handle. Who fucking knows how long Kolivan had his hands on them before showing up”

“Look. Get up. We’ll go back to headquarters...”

“Kolivan doesn’t want our help. He said the Blades will be handling the investigation”

“Look, I know this is hard on you...”

“Coran told him about me and Lance. It slipped out”

Sighing for a third time, Shiro closed his eyes. Keith knew he was being a prick, but the words kept coming out. He’d thrown all his walls up the moment he’d stormed out the conference room

“Okay. Alright. Well. We’re employed by Coran now. We’re still registered Blades. But it makes no sense for Antok to be so reckless”

“He’s dead”

He was dead and Keith didn’t know how to feel about it

“Shit”

“Pretty much. Lance fainted when he heard about Pidge and Hunk. Coran says he’s okay, but he’s been out for a while now”

“How do you know what’s happening?”

“We were still trying to work the case”

“Keeeeith”

Groaning his name, Shiro lifted Kosmo off of him. The puppy whining as he was placed back on the floor

“What? What else was I supposed to do?”

“I know. I know them coming has messed with your head, but you can’t work yourself like this”

He’d just wanted... he’d wanted to prove himself... he’d wanted to be done with the case. He wanted Lance to be able to go home... and him with him... He wanted Lance to have his life back. To not have to worry about Lotor any longer

“Why? Why does it matter? Oh that’s right, it doesn’t”

“Keith...”

“What? Are you doing to tell me to grow up?”

Shiro wriggled back down, his brother laying next to him before wrapping his arm around Keith’s waist

“No. I’m worried. I’m angry. I’m not completely sure I understand anything of what you’ve said, but you shouldn’t be working yourself to exhaustion. I thought Lance would have sent you to bed”

“He was trying to support me. That’s all he bloody does”

“You’re worrying now that Kolivan will notify the order and your mother about Lance, aren’t you?”

That... yeah, there was that. Krolia wouldn’t be pleased, nor would the Blades. But Kolivan seemed to blame Lance for Coran’s slip up... thanks to Pidge

“Kolivan mentioned that Pidge and Hunk knowing could be problematic. Lance let humans know”

“Pidge... Pidge was bound to find out eventually. Matt would have told her when the time was right”

“That doesn’t mean he would have told her about Lance. He spent so long being careful”

“He did. You both weren’t lying to hurt them”

“That doesn’t matter when you’re upset. Kolivan said Pidge and Hunk had been trailing us. Pidge probably has a board on Lance, Matt and Rieva. Kolivan took their phones”

“And? What’s he going to see on there that’ll make things harder? He’ll see a conversation between the three of them, probably going back years. What he won’t see is Lance flaunting being a vampire”

“Matt might have said something... after all the strings you pulled to have them here...”

“Look. You’ve always been like this. Seeing the worst when we don’t know how things will go down. For now, we should head back to headquarters. Pidge and Hunk will be safe with Coran”

Coran didn’t seem to receive much respect from Kolivan. Coran might have Pidge and Hunk’s best interests in mind, but Kolivan... maybe not

“I don’t know. Kolivan was his usual talkative self. He knows something’s up with Lance”

“Did Lance turn in front of Kolivan?”

“Fainted then turned... I’m worried Kolivan’s going to want to hurt Lance��

“Honestly this kind of situation was why I was against you both dating, but I can’t deny he hasn’t been good for you. I see how you are with each other. It reminds me a lot of Adam and I when we first started trying to muddle through dating”

“Muddle” was right. Lance occupied his thoughts to much that everything else kind of became muddled

“How did you know Adam was the one for you?”

“I didn’t. Not at first. But then our friendship moved on and wasn’t enough anymore. Are you thinking maybe Lance isn’t the one?”

“What? No. I like dating him. I like being with him. I nearly told him I loved him but I don’t know how to love”

“You do. I see it in the way you look at him”

Keith’s cheeks reddened

“He makes me... He makes me feel like I can do almost anything. He’s always encouraging me and telling me he’s there for me. Even when I’m an arsehole, he’s still... He says we make a good team”

“You do. You know, he has the mind to be a hunter. Sure, he’s goofy and goes about things in a way that’d get him kicked out the Blades, but he’s got a good grasp on himself”

“This coming from the man who leaps to blame him”

“I don’t mean to. You’re my precious brother. Sometimes I can’t get Adam out my head and I fear I’ll lose you like he was lost to me. I don’t hate him as a person. It’s his vampire side I fear”

Keith sighed as he rubbed Lance’s back. He couldn’t deny he felt that way sometimes too

“I just... I don’t see why the Blades had to come now”

“You mean you’re scared of Krolia”

“I’m already a disappointment to her. Everyone says to talk to her, but what’s there to say?”

“You won’t know if you don’t try. I can be there. Not to interrupt, but so you have someone who understands”

Keith was silent for a long moment

“I told Lance. Not all of it. Some of what happened. I thought he’d... I thought he’d leave but... he didn’t leave”

Shiro rubbed Keith’s side

“He really likes you. I’m working on not letting my thoughts of Adam get in the way. I wish you hadn’t brought him here, not without warning. But that’s only because we’re safe here. If you want to stay here while I go to headquarters, I can come back for you in the morning”

“I feel like... I don’t know what to do. I think maybe I’m scared to see them. I want things to go back to how they were. Lance at his house in Garrison, with all of us there. Pidge and Matt yelling at each other. Rieva with her nose in a book. Hunk baking. Blue running around her house. Lance helping me train...”

“What about Curtis and I?”

“You two doing what you two do... Can you be honest with me, are you two dating?”

“Not quite. We are but we aren’t. I do enjoy spending time with him. He’s a lot like Lance in the way he fears his curse. He struggles with not being able to keep his thoughts to himself. He’s pretty fond of Lance. He said Lance made him feel safe to be himself”

Lance did that. He just kind of accepted everyone and encouraged them

“You should have seen both of them in the beginning. They thought neither of them liked each other. Or however you say it. They bonded over their soap operas. If you like him, you should be with him. Adam would want you to be happy. Take him on a date”

“Like you took Lance on a date”

Keith blushed again

“He said he enjoyed it”

“He should have with the amount of work you put into it. Not bad for a man who’d been freaking out, then refused to tell the details”

Because he’d messed up and he kind of liked Lance’s idea of keeping it to themselves. Especially what happened in their hotel room

“This isn’t about us. We’re completely off topic now”

“Fine. You stay with Lance until I get back and get some some sleep. I’ll meet with Coran and sort out what’s going on with Pidge and Hunk”

“I feel like I should be there”

He didn’t feel a good friend for leaving them at VOLTRON

“And I feel you need to get some rest. Pidge is going to have a lot of questions and you’re no good if you’re working yourself to exhaustion”

They were all exhausted. All exhausted because Kolivan couldn’t pick a phone and let Coran know what was going on

“What about you? You’re tired too?”

“Let me be the cool big brother right now. Get some rest, kiddo, and I’ll be back. And don’t have sex in my bed”

Keith mentally rolled his eyes. He and Lance weren’t like that. And after the scare, he wasn’t sure he was ready to start having sex again. He wasn’t sure Lance was ready to either. Besides, Lance was a bat, and he was unconscious. Keith wasn’t touching him like this. Shiro wasn’t going to get a rise out of him. After all, he wasn’t some punk arse kid.

#once bitten twice stupid #oncebittentwicestupid #ashratherose

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books · 5 years

Photo

Writer Spotlight: Daniel Kibblesmith

Daniel Kibblesmith is an Emmy-nominated writer for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and has written comics for Marvel and D.C., including Marvel’s Loki (2019) and Black Panther Vs. Deadpool (2018). He co-wrote the humorous How To Win At Everything (2013), and is also the author of the picture books Santa’s Husband (2017) and Princess Dinosaur (2020). He was one of the founding editors of ClickHole.com, and his comedic writing can be seen in places like The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and APM’s Marketplace. He works and lives in New York with his favorite author, Jennifer Wright.

What are your inspirations for Loki?

Loki is ever inspired by himself (or herself, or themselves), and that was how it worked for me, too. I was a big fan of Loki as a villain in the MCU, but I hadn’t read a ton of Thor-related comics until I got the gig. The exception was the Journey Into Mystery series by Kieron Gillen and a whole roster of great artists who—alongside Tom Hiddleston's MCU appearances—really set the mold for the modern take on the character. So I re-read that, and from there I expanded outward into past and future, and read the tremendous Agent Of Asgard comics written by Al Ewing, Lee Garbett (and other artists), as well as going back to early 60's Loki appearances orchestrated by his own creator gods: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber.

Aside from comic-related research, one of my editors, Wil Moss, recommended Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, which was incredibly fun, concise, and helpful in giving me a more rounded view of Loki’s history and personality. I’m a big Sandman fan as well, so it was inspiring to stand at the nexus of Kirby’s influence on Gaiman, and mythology’s impact on both of them, and to see their impact on me, first as a reader, and then as a writer, as I set out to place these mythological figures in an approximation of our actual world.

What aspects of yourself do you see or put into the characters you write?

Loki’s defining trait, especially in the original myths, is that he is both the creator and the solver of the problem. Because no one else is clever enough to get him out of the mess he started, he’s barely ever fully exiled from their society. As a former “problem” student, whatever that means, the aspect of Loki I relate to the most—and I think a lot of people do—is the idea that you can mean well, try your best, and still get punished for it.

Authority figures love to reward cleverness if it comes with obedience. I tell a story in the introduction letter to Loki #1 about getting detention for pointing out, during an assembly, that two teachers were inexplicably wearing the same clothing. I obviously didn't break any rules but the people who make the rules found me to be inconvenient and disruptive, so I got punished.

When I hear the phrase, “too smart for your own good,” I think of kids like that who don’t even know they’re about to be labelled as “bad”, which can alter their entire future and identity—for something that, in any adult circumstance, would be seen as attentiveness, or creativity, or intelligence, or just relatively harmless humor. Loki is a kid who got treated this way for a thousand years, so, of course, he became a villain.

The story we’re telling now is about coming back from that—healing, forgiveness, and the responsibility that comes with an ever-racing, ever-curious brain, the default setting of which is casual mayhem. Loki’s superpower is one that real people actually have to live with and manage: “I just noticed a vulnerability in our world. What would happen if I acted on it?”

You’ve written for television, the internet, for magazines, and have authored books and comic books — how does the writing process vary for these different forms? Is there one you prefer?

I often compare it to playing different video games because the needs and reflexes are different. Writing satire about the news is faster-paced, and comes with its own formulas, just like character-based narrative. Writing a monologue script based on a news event is very reactive, like Mario Kart: foot on the gas, hit the important stuff, miss the stuff that will slow you down. Writing fiction can be a lot more exploratory, like Zelda: I walked around for two hours today but I found a really important acorn, that I really needed for the stuff I'll do next. Writing comics can be very nose-to-the-grindstone, but for me, breaking story is often incidental and happens at the gym, or before sleep, or in the shower. The major architecture of my narrative writing exists as fragments on my phone and in pocket notebooks, born out of little sparks of inspiration. The heavy lifting happens in fleshing them out and editing them together into something cohesive.

If you could live in the universe of any book or comic book, which one would you pick and why?

I’m not the biggest Harry Potter fan—I've read five of them, I think. But I would choose to live in the Harry Potter universe because as near as I can tell, it’s just our current universe but with far superior candy.

If you could have a conversation with anyone, real or fictional, who would it be and what would you talk about?

Probably Gumby. He seems chill.

What advice would you offer to your fourteen-year-old self?

Fourteen is honestly too young for most actionable advice from successful adults, and you’re not really in charge of what you’re going to do that day, anyhow. I usually tell college-aged writers to finish entire writing samples, that ideas and potential are far less attractive to people who can hire you than finished scripts or stories are. But I can’t imagine my career taking off based on the screenplay I would've finished at fourteen. So my advice would be to start drinking coffee and working out because both of those things are going to make you feel better in a world of things that are trying to make you feel terrible—including, in some cases, young adults roughly your age and twice your size with whom you are trapped, by the hundreds, in a massive brick building, in which they are often inexplicably literally trying to maim you. In case anyone was wondering where comic and comedy writers—and trickster gods—come from.

Thanks so much, Daniel! Follow @kibblesmith! If you’re lucky enough to be attending New York Comic Con in October, Daniel will be signing in Artist Alley at Booth A-28.

Photo: Nick (IG: @goldenparachutephotography) for Midtown Comics.

#writer spotlight #spotlight #daniel kibblesmith #tumblrnycc #booklr

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brideofedoras · 4 years

Text

Soulbound

Disclaimer: the usual

Word count: 3100+

Rating: 18+

Warnings: maybe some terrible flirting, hints of anxiety and asthma

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

John walked into Maldonado’s office and shut the door. “We’ve got more information on that synthetic,” he grabbed a chair and dropped into it. “You’re not gonna like this.”

Sandra turned to give him her full attention, brow furrowing over her brown eyes. “Why’s that?”

“Dorian was able to download the memory from that thing. Someone was surveilling…” He looked over his shoulder before leaning closer and dropping his voice. “Someone had Emily under surveillance. Had us all under surveillance. At crime scenes. At McQuade’s. At dinner. At the damned hospital.” His jaw tightened. “They hacked the security system at the hospital, footage of me, of Emily visiting me.”

Sandra’s eyes widened. “Do you think it’s tied to inSyndicate?”

“That damn thing was planted at a crime scene,” he shrugged. “But why Emily? Why her? She’s not a cop, she’s never been involved in any investigation for inSyndicate, she wasn’t even working for Rudy before the ambush!”

“She’s your soulmate,” Sandra reminded him. “Whether you believe it or not, Emily is.”

“You, Dorian and Rudy are the only ones who know that, aside from Emily and myself,” John sighed heavily.

“You’ve accepted that Emily is your soulmate?”

John met her warm gaze. “I know her voice, her touch, her perfume. Her handwriting matches my words. I’ve remembered bits and pieces of her conversations, but I don’t remember her saying my words. Until I do… It won’t be real.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Still doesn’t answer why inSyndicate had Emily under surveillance!”

Sandra tilted her head, brows furrowed as she tried to meet John’s averted frown. “Anna.”

“Anna? How the hell would she know about Emily?” John’s expression darkened. “I found out my first day back on the job, after I reactivated Dorian!”

“Your soulmark,” Maldonado sat back, folding her arms over her chest. “Your words. Anna could’ve easily deduced exactly who Emily was.”

“Did you know?” John braced his forearms on his knees as he slumped forward, giving his friend a hard glare.

She nodded.

“How long have you known?”

“Long enough,” Sandra admitted. “Does Emily know about the surveillance?” She redirected the conversation back to the disturbing discovery and away from John’s probing questions.

“Just what she saw before Dorian stopped the playback,” he reached up to rub at his temples. “She told us she felt like she’d been watched for a while, back when I was in the coma.”

“She told me about it when she first suspected she was being watched,” the captain straightened in her chair. “She told me not to pull an officer from the streets to follow her, she would check in via text at certain times and came up with a code word to use if something happened.”

His head snapped up. “She ever have to use it?”

“No,” she shook her head.

“With inSyndicate still out there, with Anna still out there, I want Emily protected,” John told her.

“She won’t go for that,” Sandra warned. “She won’t admit it but I know she fears it will trigger her anxiety and her asthma. I’ll talk to her--”

“She’ll be here sometime this afternoon with a list for me, and to sit down with you, me and Dorian to review that damned android’s video footage.”

“Good.”

“And she’s supposed to call me before she leaves the lab,” John pushed to his feet. “Were you able to get me what I needed?”

Sandra scooted her chair back and reached under her desk. “I don’t know where his notebook is, John. When I cleaned out his desk and locker and separated personal stuff from city property, I might’ve dropped the notebook in the box to take to Emily,” she set a box on the desk. “I’ll ask her when she gets here.”

John stood up and grabbed the box. “We have any other big cases right now?”

She shook her head. “Nothing major, no. I’ll get everyone on board and let them know you’re lead detective.”

“Thank you, Sandra,” he nodded before ducking out of the office.

His phone started ringing as he crossed the bullpen to his desk. Shifting the box to his left arm he fished the phone out. “Kennex.”

“Detective, it’s Emily Williams.”

John fumbled the box when he heard the tremble in her voice. “Emily, are you okay?”

“Y-yeah.”

“You don’t sound okay,” he eased the box onto his desk and headed for an empty interrogation room so he could hear her better.

“I’m fine, I had an asthma attack after you left,” she admitted after a bit. “It was mild, but Rudy is beside himself. I just need a drink and…”

“And what?” He prompted when she fell silent.

“Nothing,” she sighed. “I managed to finish the list. I have the stores listed by district to make it easier.”

“Thank you,” he turned to face the bullpen. “You’re still headed this way, right?”

“Yeah, I’m… I’ll head that way in a few minutes.”

“Be careful. When you get here, just head to Sandra’s office. Dorian and I will meet you there.”

“Sounds good, Detective,” she agreed.

“John. You can call me John.”

“All right… John. See you in a bit.”

She clicked off before he could respond.

Something tickled at the edge of his memory. He squeezed his eyes shut as he concentrated, not wanting to lose it.

“My lunch break is almost over,” her voice filled with regret. “But I’ll be back after work.”

He felt his blanket lift and resettle before her slender hands smoothed the wrinkles out. His heart skipped a beat when she rested her hand over his chest. I look forward to every visit, Emily, he longed to tell her, breathing in her warm scent as she leaned over him.

“I’ll see you later, John,” she whispered before her lips pressed to his cheek.

Be safe out there, Sweetheart. Come back to me. His heart ached when Emily pulled away.

His legs buckled. John braced his hand on the table to steady himself as the intensity of the emotions, affection, worry, love, assaulted him.

Love stronger than what he had ever felt for Anna.

Blindly he reached for the nearest chair and pulled it out, falling heavily onto it. He braced his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. He let out a ragged sigh. Dammit. Why the hell can’t I remember her?

He jumped when someone tapped on the door. He looked up sharply with a glare firmly in place before seeing Dorian.

He joined his partner. “Emily’s on her way,” he kept his voice low. “She’s got the list for us.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yeah,” he barely nodded. “I just… I had another memory pop free, of Emily visiting me.”

Dorian shifted to give John his full attention. “Did you remember her first…” he trailed off when Kennex shook his head.

“No,” he exhaled heavily. “Just a memory of her saying good-bye when her lunch break was ending and promising to come back after work.”

Dorian folded his arms across his chest. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, John. What are you not telling me?”

His jaw tightened as he shook his head again.

“John, does it have anything to do with her being followed?”

“No. Nothing like that. I… Jesus, D, I don’t even understand it,” he started to walk toward the bullpen. “Once I’ve figured it out, I’ll let you know.”

Emily slung her messenger bag over her neck and shoulder and locked her car. She drew in a deep breath and flinched when she wheezed. No, she shut her eyes and dropped her head back. Slow, easy breath in and out. No reason to be anxious. You’re just handing off information they need, and watching video surveillance with Sandy.

She took another slow, easy breath, and another until the wheeze was barely a rattle. She patted her pockets just to reassure herself where the inhaler was, fished her identification out of her pocket and headed into the building.

The bullpen was teeming with activity when she stepped off the elevator. She circled the perimeter, heading toward Sandy’s office like John had told her.

Sandra met her at the door with a warm hug. “Hey, Kiddo,” she squeezed her.

Emily melted into her godmother’s embrace. “How bad is it? The surveillance?”

Maldonado pulled back. “I haven’t seen it yet.”

“But you know something,” the younger woman’s eyes narrowed. “Sandy, you only hug me that tight when you’re worried.”

Sandra chuckled. “You know me too well, Emmie,” she pulled back and gestured for Emily to follow. “We’ll discuss that with Kennex and Dorian when they get back. We’ll be meeting in the conference room, less claustrophobic.”

Emily kept pace with Sandra’s determined stride. “They leave?”

“Coffee run,” the captain nodded before opening a door. Once inside the room she turned her full attention on Emily. “How are you holding up with this?”

The tech shrugged as she pulled her messenger bag’s strap over her head. “I’m scared,” she admitted, setting her bag down.. “I thought when the feeling of being followed stopped, that it was over, that it was nothing serious. But now… I’m honestly terrified to see what all Dorian saw in that footage.” She looked up at Sandra once more. “Whatever he saw… I know it’s bad, Sandy. If Detective Kennex wants me to learn how to handle a gun it’s gotta be. I wound up having an asthma attack after they left the lab.”

“John has a very good reason for wanting to teach you how to handle a gun, Emmie,” Sandra reached up to cup Emily’s jaw. “I know you don’t want to, but you need to.”

She nodded. “I know. And I will.” She managed a smile. “I looked up a few different types of handguns, but I don’t know what would be best for me.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Sandra brushed her thumb over Emily’s cheekbone before dropping her hands and stepping back. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure this doesn’t happen again, Emmie.”

“I don’t want you pulling anyone from their job to shadow me,” Emily frowned at her. “I’ll get a gun, I’ll learn how to handle it, I’ll check in frequently, but I don’t want anyone taken away from keeping the city safe just to make sure I’m safe.” She turned back to the table and her bag. “If I feel like I’m being watched, I will let you and Rudy know.”

“Okay,” Sandra agreed. “I want you to be safe, Em, but I won’t push.”

“Thank you,” Emily pulled her notebook from her bag.

Sandra’s eyes dropped to the spiral notebook. “Emily… The box I brought you of your dad’s personal belongings… was there a notebook in it?” “There were three,” she nodded. “I put them in the footlocker in my bedroom.”

“Did you by chance look through them?” Sandra’s brow furrowed.

“No,” Emily shook her head. “I… Are they related to this case?”

“I hope they are, they weren’t with the evidence. John asked for everything we had on Sam’s last case, including the notebook.”

“I can get it after we review the footage and go over my notes, I can bring it back here, or we can meet up somewhere…”

“That’s something you need to discuss with John,” Sandra trailed off when the door opened behind them.

“Discuss what with me?”

Emily looked over her shoulder, her breath hitching at the intensity of the look John was giving her. “Um… the… uh… Daddy’s notebooks,” she wheezed out. “I have several at… at my apartment.”

“I’ll follow you home to get them,” he nodded, joining them at the table with a box and a drink carrier. He looked at the three cups he held before handing one to Sandra. “Dorian’s on a call with Rudy regarding the android and the surveillance, he’ll be up in a bit, I hope.” He handed another cup to Emily.

“I don’t drink coffee,” she offered him a shy smile.

“It’s not coffee,” he smiled back. “I hope hot chocolate is all right.”

Her smile widened as she reached for the cup. “I’ve been craving hot chocolate all afternoon,” she admitted.

John dropped into the chair to her right. “I hope I got it right. The barista gave me a weird look when I ordered it.”

Emily blushed when she realized John was watching her. “Kinda hard to mess up hot chocolate,” she pointed out.

“Actually, when someone likes it a specific way and the person ordering it has a spotty memory, it is,” he grimaced. “I remembered your dad fixing hot chocolate a few times on stakeouts. He always fixed it a certain way, said it was how you liked it. Double the chocolate, double the foamy milk, double the whipped topping, and white chocolate shavings?”

“It was our special hot chocolate for when I was having a rough day,” she whispered. “Sometimes Mom would make brownies if it was really bad.”

“Will cupcakes work?” John pointed to the box on the table. “They were setting out vanilla cupcakes when I got there. I’m a donut guy myself but I’ve--”

“Sorry that took so long,” Dorian walked in. “Rudy is on his way up from the forensics lab, he wants to see the footage as well.” His head tilted at the glare Kennex aimed at him. “I’m sorry, did I interrupt something?”

“No, your timing is perfect,” Sandra said at the same time John growled out a barely heard “yes”.

Emily looked over at John, her eyebrows inching up when she realized he glaring at his partner. “Detective?”

“John, please,” the glare melted away as Kennex returned his attention to her. “You, uh, brought your notebook,” he tipped his head toward the table.

“Yes,” she grabbed it and handed it over. When John’s callused fingertips brushed hers she barely suppressed a shiver. “I still wish I’d had the time to type it all up and get it on celos for the investigation,” she gave him an apologetic smile.

“This is perfect, Emily,” he smiled back before dropping his eyes to the notebook. He flipped it open and started thumbing through. “This is… very detailed,” he cleared his throat as his face darkened.

“Very impressive sketches, Emily.” When had Dorian moved to look over John’s shoulder? “You have an eye for detail,” he reached out to trace a fingertip over one sketch in particular.

John snapped the notebook shut and thrust it at his partner. “Don’t do that, D,” he growled.

“Do what? Emily’s sketches is incredible, the bulging veins really stand out, and the labia--”

“Yeah, Dorian, they do,” John cut him off with a frustrated groan, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Where the hell is Rudy?”

“I’m right here,” Lom walked into the room. “What’d I miss?”

“Have you seen Emily’s sketches?” Dorian started to open the notebook.

Emily snatched it from his hands, her face flushed. “Later, Dorian, let’s… worry about this later, please?” She sank down further in her chair, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole. I knew sketching those toys was a bad idea!

John reached over and took the notebook from her. “We’ll get these copied and distributed, with no further commentary on the sketches,” he shot another glare at Dorian. “We ready to see that footage?”

Emily looked up to see the much softer look he was directing at her. No. “Let’s get it over with,” she forced a smile.

“If it’s too much, tell me and I will stop projecting the surveillance,” Dorian walked around the table to sit opposite her and John.

Sandra dimmed the lights in the room and activated the privacy to frost the windows. As she took a seat at the end of the table, she nodded to Dorian.

“From what I could gather, the surveillance started long before the ambush,” Dorian told them. “Everyone in this room was under surveillance, at crime scenes, at the bank, at school, out shopping, on a date, or out to dinner or at the bar to celebrate,” his brilliant blue eyes landed on Emily. “Are you ready for me to start projecting the footage, Emily?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

Her breath caught in her throat when the first video projected was of her father at a crime scene, pointing something out to John and Marty Pelham, his notebook in hand. “Dorian,” she leaned forward. “Can you pause and enhance on the notebook?” She squinted. “Those notebooks in the box you gave me, Sandy, they were pink,” she looked over at Maldonado.

“I’ve gone through the itemized evidence logs for all of Sam’s other cases, none of them had pink notebooks,” Sandra nodded. “John, do you remember what color notebook he used for his last case?”

“Pink,” he snorted. “I gave him hell for using pink notebooks, and he said it was all the store had at the time Emily was buying some,” he shot her an amused grin. “Marty and I thoroughly enjoyed teasing him about it.”

“He told me,” she settled back in her chair. “He lied to you about the reason he had pink notebooks. Pink was the only color available that he hadn’t used yet, and neon colors were making a comeback.” She drew in a deep, slightly rattly breath, before nodding to Dorian to continue the playback. “He swore he’d never ask me to buy notebooks for him again.”

The more she watched, the harder it was for her. Seeing her dad again, even on old surveillance footage, left an aching hole in her heart.

“Stop the playback,” John’s voice startled her. “Emily, do you need to take a break from this?” He swiveled his chair to face her.

She nodded. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought I could handle it, but… I can’t. Seeing the last time Daddy and I went to Mom’s grave for her birthday, or the last time he treated me to ice cream at the park…” She reached up to wipe away a tear that slipped down her cheek. “This isn’t about his last case, is it? Whoever was behind this was following all of us.” She noticed the look John and Sandra shared. “What, do you know something?”

“No,” John’s eyes narrowed slightly at Sandra, as if he was silently warning her before turning to her.

“Right, like the two of you didn’t have some kind of silent conversation just now,” Emily pushed to her feet. “Your misguided idea of trying to protect me needs a lot of work, Detective. If you’ll excuse me, I need some fresh air.”

#almost human #john kennex #john kennex x ofc #soulmates #self harm

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funkymeihem-fiction · 4 years

Text

My Lovely Assistant - The Revenge of Dr. Junkenstein (NSFW)

“Oh, Dr. Junkenstein! There you are!” A voice chimed from above, a soft orange glow descending from the dark skies. The Witch’s curled slippers made no sound as she alighted on the cobbles, wet with rain and blood and scattered with ash from the charred corpse that lay half-curled near the wall.

His labcoat was in tatters, burnt to a crisp and spattered with black where it had once been clean white. The man’s skinny form had gone fetal in a hopeless attempt to defend himself at the very last, but he was peppered with arrows and bullets, and covered in alchemical fluids that had burned him all the faster when his own grenades had exploded as he’d fallen. A pair of blue glass goggles lay in a puddle nearby, the left lens cracked.

The Witch of the Wilds leaned down over the gruesome thing with surprising tenderness, her gloved fingertips reaching out and gently touching the burnt locks of ashen hair. Her eyes closed, she said the correct words, and focused…as a bright light lit the world for half a moment, and the charred husk was a man once more. Dr. Junkenstein uncurled from the ground, coughing up a mouthful of ash and wiping his lips on a thick rubber glove. Understandably, he seemed more disoriented than anything, dragged back to the world of the living yet again.

“Wuugh…” Sitting up, his eyes rolled in two different directions, swaying slightly. “You never think that fire is going to hurt as much as it does, y’know?”

“Welcome back, Dr. Junkenstein,” the Witch said smoothly. “Although I fear that you were bested yet again. Where the Lord of this Castle keeps summoning these new allies from, I’ve no idea. I wonder if I too should seek allies elsewhere…Dr. Junkenstein, please pay attention. That was a veiled threat and you’ve just missed it.”

“Huh? Oh, right. What?”

The mad doctor looked around him, spying the crumpled and exploded scrap metal of his zomnics littering the castle grounds. Scarecrow, too, had been utterly mangled, and his erstwhile creation was little more than piles of moldering cloth and scattered straw. And past that, he spied a familiar lunk of rotted meat… With a wail, Dr. Junkenstein clambered through the cold puddles, carelessly tossing aside Scarecrow’s mask and picking up a huge severed shoe with part of a leg still attached.

“Nooo! My Monster! My creations!” He clutched the leg in a mad embrace, seemingly caring nothing for the smears it left on his coat. He even gave it a sobbing little smooch, not noticing the severely disgusted look the Witch was giving him. “What have they done to you! Not to worry, not to worry, Dr. Junkenstein will fix you right up. Mei, sweetie dumpling, get the needle and thread! Mei, hurry with the…Wait a minute…Mei! Where’s my Mei!”

His loyal jiangshi was nowhere in sight. With the rest of his army in ruins, had they managed to destroy her as well? Could that untidy rabble truly destroy a creature like his faithful Chinese vampire? There was no trace that his undead assistant had ever been there at all; not a bloodstain or scrap of cloth or even the feather from her cap. Now frantic, he tossed the Monster’s severed leg aside and began digging through the wreckage with both hands, metal bits going flying.

“Don’t worry, lovey, I’ll find you!”

The Witch drifted forward and cast him into shadow, primly adjusting her hat and dodging a piece of zomnic scrap that went hurtling by her. “Calm down, Dr. Junkenstein. Mei-Ling is…Well, she’s still alive in a sense of the word. Although I fear she’s had a bit of a complication that I’m unable to assist with.”

“Wot? Then where is she?” Junkenstein breathed out, then scoffed. So Mei was still ‘alive’, at least. But he had a hard time imagining anything beyond the scope of the Witch’s power. He himself had just been violently risen from the dead again, an occurence that was starting to become all too familiar. “Er, whaddaya mean, even you can’t help her? What complication can’t you fix?”

The Witch cleared her throat, perhaps a little awkward for the first time that the Doctor had ever seen. Her lips pursed, gaze darting almost imperceptibly while he busied himself with replacing his goggles. The comforting shield of blue glass settled over his vision once more, turning about with his hands on his bony hips. For once, he was the one doing the confronting, as the Witch busied herself with the sudden need to inspect her broomstick.

“I have helped her to the best of my ability, but it seems that we have hit a…shall we say, impasse?” she said. “It’s all a rather silly matter, really. And she’s terribly embarrassed about the whole thing, so we’d appreciate you stepping in and taking care of this quickly. I’ll take care of the rest of your servants in the meanwhile. Mei-Ling, dear, you can come out.”

There was still no answer, and Dr. Junkenstein frowned as he peered into the darkness past the Witch’s unearthly glow. “Aw, Mei. Where are you, my l’il pudding pie? There’s naught to worry over now, the magnificent Dr. Junkenstein, the Master of Life and Death himself—” He paused at the Witch’s warning cough. “Er, the Doctor is in, and you know there’s no reason at all to be sheepish. No secrets here. You and I’ve been through so much alrea—”

Something moved in the shadows. A very small hunched figure, seeming smaller than ever, shuffled out of the night. Like a very shy vampiric schoolgirl on her first day, Mei took small little hops forward, scooting slightly to the side to hide behind the Witch’s grandeur. Despite the violent battled beforehand, she seemed to be in relatively good shape. There was a splash or two of blood on her robes, marring the white crane on her chest. One of her slippers had torn and would need to be mended. A visible cut had ruined the cuff of her sleeves, and her hat was missing…although the missing hat was easily explained.

Mei was sporting a severed stump of a neck, and her head was completely gone. Cold, blue-tinted meat was all that was left, with the white vertebrae of bone and the tubes of the esophagus stuck within, their edges too clean to have been anything than the swift single cut of a very sharp blade.

Dr. Junkenstein frowned, rubbing his stubbled chin. “Aw, pookie bear, is that the problem! Nothing to be ashamed of, darl, we’ve all lost our heads now and again. Which way did it go? Who did that to you, anyway? Oh, they’re gonna be in for it now! You just tell me who’s the perpetrator, I’ll show them a thing or two about a thing or two! So, first let’s just find that pretty little skull of yours before we…Hm?”

What was left of the jiangshi’s corpse seemed very upset about the matter indeed, hunching down behind the Witch again. When questioned on her head’s whereabouts, she waved both metallic claws and started making very strange gestures. But with no way to verbalize, she was left to an elaborate game of charades, and the doctor could only squint at her in growing consternation. After a moment, she smacked one fist into the other and held up her taloned fingers.

“Hmmm,” the doctor mused aloud, squinting behind his goggles. “Okay, two words. First word. Okay. Big. Giant. Tall. No, movement? Forward, up…Over. Over!” He cackled in delight as Mei gave him the thumbs up. “Okay second word. Shape. Triangle. Wave. Slope. Mountain. Mountain! Right, right, over the mountain.”

She waved her confirmation and pointed towards a large and rocky peak just outside the castle’s territory, then began gesturing again.

“Squeakies. Bats. Spooky, dark, in the dark. Oh! Right you are, darling! I see, they’re on the other side of that mountain, just outside the mouth of a cave with a bat population, on a rather narrow ledge with a crumbled pile of landslide boulders on one side.” He nodded, then turned and started walking. “All right, let’s go!”

The Witch gave him a startled look. “You got all that from charades?”

“You didn’t? Thought she made it pretty obvious,” he scoffed. “Can’t forget, when I first found her, we spent weeks together with her unable to speak even a lick of the language. And don’t tell them I told you this, but my Monster and Scarecrow have never exactly been much for scintillating conversation either, if you catch my drift. So I spent months and months in that tower, perfecting my beautiful creations and perfecting the art of supernatural language interpretation because none of them could talk to me!”

The Witch slowly lifted one brow. “Dr. Junkenstein, yet again I find myself simultaneously impressed and depressed by your personage.”

The good doctor only busied himself with fussing over his headless jiangshi, puckering his lips and leaning down to plant a kiss right on the ice-cold meat of her open neck. “Not to worry, smoochie. The Good Lady and I aren’t going to let my most ghoulish girl go without her parts for too long. Now a stray foot or arm is one thing, got plenty of replacements for those. But well, awfully hard to replace a head, and yours is the prettiest head in the world. Plus all the things we use it for, ehehehe…” His pale cheeks lit up pink at the thought.

The decapitated corpse placed both claws over her heart as if touched by his words, then waved abashedly at him in a ‘Oh, you!’ sort of gesture before wrapping herself up in his gangly embrace.

Unable to entirely hide her disgust this time, the Witch sighed and rubbed two fingers against her temples. “This would all be so much easier if I could simply resurrect you myself, Mei-Ling. But as it stands, your standing with death was made long before we met. Oh, and Doctor? This is really more of a quick recovery sort of thing. Please simply get the skull back and try not to cause trouble. I…have my eye on the one who did this to her. And I do not want him badly harmed.”

“Like hell!” The doctor’s temper flared, even while Mei tugged fretfully at his sleeve. “Resurrect the rest of my minions and I’ll reactivate the zomnics! I’ll turn our whole damned army after this bloke!”

“Mind your tone, Dr. Junkenstein,” the Witch replied coldly, and something seemed to curdle inside the man’s veins. His scrawny body shrunk and hunched down once more, still clutching covetously at his headless companion. She adjusted her skirts to smoothly lower and sit upon her hovering broom, narrowing her gaze at him. “I shall be tending to the remains of our cohorts. You are tasked with simply finding Miss Zhou’s missing head and bringing it back, with no harm coming to the perpetrator. Are my instructions clear?”

“Y-yes ma’am. Lady Ma’am. But…why wouldn’t—”

“Are. My instructions. Clear.”

“…Yes Ma’am.”

***

He was eager to leave the Witch to her duties, hurrying out of the dark castle grounds with Mei’s corpse hopping in step just behind him. She had always been more quiet and polite than him, but now her utter silence was unnerving. He really did miss her having a mouth…for lots of reasons, really, but if he thought too much about it, he’d get distracted. Best to stick to the task at hand. Limping forward along the muddy kingdom paths, they soon left the destruction behind them.

“I’m still not entirely clear on the physics at work here, darl. Can tell you’re able to see and hear me despite having no eyes or ears attached at the moment, but are you really sure you’re up for this? Er, we could always just ask for the Witch of the Wilds to bring back the Summoner. Now she’s not exactly the nicest, I know, but we could ask to have her teleport us right up to—” He tilted his white-tufted head as the jiangshi made more silent gestures, before he gasped and placed a gloved hand to his chest.

“Well! You don’t have to get so snitty, my dear. I know this is the most urgent of matters, but there’s no need to lose your head—” A black claw whapped him in the arm and he cackled aloud. Snagging her hand with his own, he lifted it upward and placed a few smacking wet kisses to the backs of her knuckles. “No, no, no, just a joke! Just lightening the mood! Just give us a laugh- Er…or a nod- Er…Wait.”

Mei waved both hands, gestured, slapped him in the other arm, and gestured again. But her admonishment seemed to be a playful one, headless or no. Especially when she made several more signs with her curled talons, then grasped onto the front of his labcoat, sliding a hand inside and then down his narrow chest.

Junkenstein gasped. “A reward? Mei! Blimey! You’re lucky the others aren’t around to hear you say all that. You’re a naughty girl, aren’t you? You know how the Witch feels about the PDA. But uh, I mean, we do kinda need your head to…Agghck!” His shriek faded into a reedy giggle as her claws slid a little lower, cheeks going from pink to neon red. “W-well! You know that just returning my lovely assistant’s head to her is plenty reward enough. But maybe, you know, since you’re already offering? Yeah, all right! That puts a pep in my step! C’mon!”

The jiangshi did not need to be told twice. She withdrew wordlessly from his skinny body and followed after him, with Dr. Junkenstein fussing and grumbling as he started looking for quicker paths up the towering black escarpment above them. His attempts to climb were a rather pathetic affair, his peg leg screeching against the rock and his flimsy build doing him no favors. Mei waited patiently to at least let him make the effort, before she outstretched her arms and hopped forward once more.

She scooped him up as one would a damsel in distress, claws hooking under his knees and back. He might have even swooned a little, as the headless corpse of a woman lifted him up and bent her knees…and her movements went from hopping to leaping. She bounded with an agility that she rarely showed openly, the scientist rattling against her chest and clinging onto her as up and up they went. Little pebbles went scattering away from her soft slippers, ricocheting off of boulders and scaling the cliffside as the jiangshi was finally boosted up by an unnatural whirl of white mist. With an artistic little spin, she landed with a soft noise amongst the debris of the struggling pines attached to the perilous mountainside.

Unfortunately, the decapitation had affected her a little more than her body was willing to admit. She landed gracefully, even posing with her charge in both arms…and then promptly tilted straight over with a rattling crash when she tried to take a step forward. Trying to navigate the world without her eyes and ears really attached was not the easiest. Like a felled tree, she just tilted right over and the doctor went with her, his shriek muffled as he landed on top of her in a spray of pine needles and dirt.

Dr. Junkenstein pulled his head out of her bosom, one eye opening warily behind his goggles. Groaning, he staggered upright as his assistant helpfully ushered him up again, swaying to one side and jamming his peg into the dirt. “Ooooh, hold on. Hold on. Too fast, just got resurrected here…Brrp. Okay. Nooot gonna chunder…Oh hell—” He bent double, making gagging noises while Mei apologetically patted him on the back. “Hggh. Hggghhh!”

Luckily, he hadn’t eaten anything on his freshly reformed stomach for him to vomit. The nausea soon passed, and he wiped at his chin and looked around blearily as the two found themselves on the other side of the mountain. The doctor composed himself as best he could, smoothing out his labcoat, and tilted his tufted head as he lowered into his favorite creeping hunch.

“You hear something, sweetie? Think that’s them?”

She did not respond, only hopping after her master as he crept along the dark rocks. Junkenstein soon spotted the faint glow of a campfire, and the shadowy figures lurking around it. Just as his jiangshi had ‘said’, the group of mercenaries and allies had made their camp at the mouth of a cave in the steep hillside. Junkenstein kept his distance, even though anger and hatred rankled inside his ribcage as he spied his hated foes that had just finished killing him and stealing his poor girl’s precious head. He was close enough that he could recognize a few of them; the Alchemist, the Gunslinger, the Swordsman, the Archer… Where the rest had gone, he couldn’t say. He was already outnumbered— and if the others were nearby, massively so.

Mei tugged urgently at his sleeve.

He waved her off and squinted, adjusting his goggles. “I know, it’s not looking good. Too many. Others might be close by, too. And she expects me not to blast them sky high? Really, why would the Witch make this a bloody stealth operation? She knows I’m no good for those!”

Another pull at his coat.

“Why wouldn’t she have sent the Reaper or even that useless Scarecrow for stealthy nonsense…Unless it was a trick and she wanted me to blow up this stealth operation? She’s always been a tricky one. This might be another one of her cunning plans, do you think? Like, maybe she was so adamant about not killing whoever stole your head, because she knew I was going to kill whoever stole your head. I mean, it’s not like I can do anything less. After what they did to you?”

There was a soft movement at his side, though he barely noticed.

He dug through his lab coat, pulling out handfuls of bombs and scrap. “I see it now! I’m onto her game! It’s actually a brilliant plan because it’s such a bad plan! Ohohoho, I’ve got it this time, that’s the rub. So it’s decided, then. We blow up this whole stealth mission, kill everyone as revenge, and then find your head! Nobody steals my pookie pie’s head! Except me! Because that’s different in a much more foreplay sort of way! Dunno which one took it, but we’re gonna find out real quick, we are. The Witch can sort through the piles afterward. Okay, Mei. You go in soft, and then I’m gonna go in real loud. You ready, darl?”

A finger tapped him on the shoulder.

He turned. “Darl…?”

A metallic face peered down to look at him, the metallic joints of its tentacled face clicking very softly below the slitted green gaze, glowing brightly in the shadow of its hood. Orbs bearing strange symbols floated around them. Its pointed fingertip withdrew from where it had politely hailed him, curling by its broken manacles. It was an omnic he had glimpsed only briefly, the ‘Monk’ that the Witch had reacted rather strangely to. And now it was poking him.

“Darkness and shadows be upon you,” the Monk said.

The noise that Dr. Junkenstein made next was not the most dignified one, and he had made a lot of undignified noises. But luckily for him, the ensuing sounds of explosions were quick to cover it up. He flung out both arms, detonating the bombs he’d been sorting through. White and yellow light exploded in a spray of heat and metal, catching both the Monk and the doctor in the blast and sending them both hurtling away from each other as they were flung upward.

To his credit, Junkenstein was very well-versed in explosives. He recovered mid-air, already pulling more mines and his grenade gun from the void of his labcoat. With a scream that was half laugh and half warcry, he sent volley after volley raining down upon the startled group of adventurers. He caught both the Archer and the Gunslinger unawares, engulfing them in a series of blasts as their little drinking session was interrupted in the harshest way. The Swordsman was swifter, pulling his blade in a hiss of steel…but not swift enough, forced into a fire-covered retreat as he leapt away.

Beneath the blue glass of his goggles, Junkenstein’s wild eyes darted to and fro amongst the chaos. Which one of them had Mei’s head? It wasn’t immediately clear. Probably best he just kill them all as planned, then. They deserved it for beheading his girl, killing him, and his Monster, and even Scarecrow. They deserved it for laughing at him. They deserved it for kicking dirt in his face all these years.They deserved it for—

A dart sang through the air, sinking into his chest even as his grenade launcher lifted for another round. His limbs suddenly went limp, body unresponsive as the last of his bombs went bouncing along the ground, sending more caustic smoke and dust into the air. Even through the haze, he saw her…The Alchemist stood with her arm raised and her face grim, her wrist-launcher now emptied of the dart that had buried itself into him.

With another crash, he fell into a twisted heap of tangled limbs and mechanical parts, twitching madly as he tried to force himself to move. He managed to snarl, lips curling around bared teeth, drool practically foaming with his efforts. Oh, the curses he longed to spit at them, but he was unable to do anything but utter a distressed wheeze.

The clanking of weaponry all around him belied his situation to be a dire one. As a group they advanced, no doubt ready to send him to his death yet again. He scraped a glove in the dust and waited for the hail of bullets, blades, and arrows to take him: his mission failed.

There was a whooshing noise as a purple blur hurtled through the air, clipping the Alchemist right off her feet and sending her spinning into the darkness beyond the campfire. Mei landed with more of a stumble than usual, her headless body scrambling to Junkenstein’s aid. Placing her body between him and the mercenaries, she swung both claws in a silent warning.

“Fffhgh mmn nnnnn,” Junkenstein slurred from the dirt, helpfully translating her threat.

“All right, this is getting outta hand,” the Gunslinger grumbled, raising a hand over his weapon’s hammer. “Ain’t we killed y’all enough for one night? We better get paid extra for this bull.”

“What could possibly have possessed you to even attempt to follow us?” the Archer sneered. “You’re both weakened…and one of you is not even whole.”

The Swordsman said nothing, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at the decapitated jiangshi.

The doctor was finally starting to twitch back to life behind her, dragging himself up to one knee and reaching for his grenade gun. Mei signed something, desperately swerving back and forth in front of the downed scientist to keep their foes at a distance. He lifted his head, frowning severely as he watched her urgent game of charades.

“What do you mean you don’t want to fight, schmooples? They got what’s yours! And I’ll take it back from—” He started to reach for his mines, but jolted back a moment later when another wave of nausea and exhaustion overtook him all at once. It was different from the dart, and when he looked up he saw its source. A single shining orb hovered around him, shining with a sinister looking rune that seemed to drain his energy with a poisonous purple glow. “What the hell! Damnit, lay off!”

“Let us all take a calming breath,” the Monk said, hovering in from the darkness. “I believe there has been a misunderstanding. Perhaps if we allow them to explain.”

“Mish mumkin!” The Alchemist joined his side, holding her ribs and looking none too pleased. “I am not entirely sure what explanations we can expect from a madman and a headless vampire.”

Mei waved hurriedly, hopping in the Monk’s direction, and then hopping right back again when the Swordsman advanced upon her with his sword still drawn. He positioned himself in front of his master just as she had positioned herself in front of hers, his blade held at the ready.

“I have already relieved you of your head once tonight, little leech. Rest assured, I will relieve you of your other parts as well if you—”

The Swordsman was not able to finish his threat. Mei was already moving but not towards him, slamming both hands into the Doctor’s chest to keep him back as he tried to lunge forward. Such was his anger that even the jiangshi was faced with a struggle to hold him at bay, her slippers sliding in the dirt as he surged against her efforts. His voice rose once more into demented screeching.

“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO HURT MY LOVELY ASSISTANT?! YOU TOOK HER HEAD, THEN I’LL TAKE YOURS! I’LL BLOODY GO YA! I’LL—”

The Alchemist narrowed her eye at him, catching his gaze and very pointedly loading another dart into place. “Dr. Junkenstein, you’ve been given a rare chance. Have sense for once in your life…lives…and make use of this time. If not for yourself, then to at least translate whatever this poor creature is trying to say.”

The Archer curled his lip. “A waste of our time. Whatever excuse this lunatic and his vampire has concocted to attack us, it matters not. We should do away with them both.”

“I believe that the Doctor is of the genuine belief that we have taken something important,” the eerie omnic Monk said, folding his spindly fingers where he hovered nearby. “I cannot condone dispatching him…this time. While his methods remain enigmatic at best, this time his motive seems to be a pure one.”

Dr. Junkenstein grit his teeth and snarled, but wrapped one arm around Mei and halted in his struggles to get past her. The other snapped up to point viciously in the Swordsman’s direction. “You got a lot of nerve! Now it’s one thing to kill a gentle and innocent girl like my assistant. But stealing from her is entirely another!”

The Swordsman only seemed more baffled and angry than before. “What are you babbling about? I feel no shame in dispatching your vampire, but I have stolen nothing!”

“Explain this then!” The Doctor gestured to the jiangshi’s extremely missing cranium. “Where is it! Stealing a lady’s head while she’s still using it, that’s absolutely low!”

“What? Why should I know where her head went?” The other man scoffed, but slid his blade back into its sheath in another frustrated motion, if only to gesticulate in an equally affronted way. Their pointing grew more aggressive over the campfire separating them. “Likely it fell into your moat or into a ditch during the battle. Go look for it there and cease troubling us.”

The Gunslinger opened his mouth, then shut it again. The Archer gave him a strange look, then turned back to where the Swordsman and the Doctor were still trading barbs.

“Liar! I know you’ve got it! She says it’s here!” Junkenstein looked down to Mei, who made an affirmative motion.

“Then she is wrong! I said I do not have it!”

The Monk tilted his head to the side, tentacled face writhing in subtle consternation. “My student speaks truly. It is not in our possession. Perhaps the jiangshi is mistaken somehow? Though…It is strange that she has not yet been able to find it.”

“She’s gonna find it when you lot finally give it up! Can’t even believe this. I expected better of you.”

“And I expected nothing from you. I say again, we do not have it!”

The Alchemist knitted her brows. “I am reluctant to even say this, but this seems to have been a simple misunderstanding. As a gesture of good faith, perhaps we can simply let you leave to search elsewhere? We are honorable people and have taken nothing from you—”

The Gunslinger coughed loudly, his gaze swerving skyward. All eyes moved to him, and the argument abruptly stopped. Somewhere out in the darkness, an owl hooted just to interrupt the sudden silence.

The Alchemist slowly lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, cursing softly. “Please tell me you did not.”

The Gunslinger pasted a leery smile on his face, chewing down on his cigar. Lifting both hands in a placating motion, he sidled backward and away from the fire. “So, listen…”

“Please tell me you did not.”

“Well Ma’am, you know how these things go,” he wheedled, leaning down to his bulging supply pack. “I figured, we went to a whole lot of trouble for a pretty damn paltry reward from His Lordship, all things considered. Now I ain’t entirely sure what to make of all these particular…Monsters, and Pumpkinheads, Dragons, Scarecrows—”

“Yeah, well. Not much to make of the Scarecrow, frankly,” Junkenstein snorted, then grumbled when Mei slapped his arm again.

“Uh, so, ya see. I was moseying along after the bloodshed and all, and I thought I saw somethin’ in the bushes there. And I thought to myself,” He unstrapped something inside his pack, holding up a round burlap-bound bundle. “Er, well I thought to myself, I might know some folks who would pay a pretty penny or two for a bona fide trophy from a real Chinese vampire, and she was already dead and all so I thought maybe…”

The straps and burlap fell away, draping open. Mei’s missing head sat like a heavy stone in his palm, her eyes opening and blinking owlishly in the sudden firelight. She brightened visibly at the sight of her body nearby, fanged jaws opening and closing. She mouthed silent words, noiseless except for the faintest little mute gasps from an open throat that was no longer attached to any vocal chords. Her body released its grip upon the Doctor, lifting both arms and starting to hop forward to reclaim her missing piece.

The Gunslinger winced away when Mei’s head screwed her lips to the side and glared up at him. “To be fair, Missy, I didn’t know your head was still gonna be all…alive and whatnot. It didn’t respond when I picked it up or anything, or I never woulda assumed— I mean, all the other vampires I killed before, never had this particular problem.”

The Archer haughtily ran a hand through his hair, nose in the air. “Perhaps if you had actually read a book in your life and done studies on how Eastern vampires actually differentiate from their inferior garlic-fearing counterparts? I have killed more than enough of them to know.”

The Gunslinger bristled, turning upon his fellow mercenary. “Then you should know there’s a lot more to my vampire-hunting than garlic. Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to brag when your Eastern vamps are afraid of duck eggs and rice. Eggs and rice! Maybe we didn’t even need the Swordsman’s blade, and I could have just chucked a to-go bag at her!”

Junkenstein uttered a shrill giggle from the other side of the camp. “Oh you don’t even know, mates! One time I tried to make her this stew—” He faltered again as Mei slanted her gaze at him. “Uh, nothing. Never mind. Now could you stop flirtin’ long enough to give my jiangshi her head back! Cretins.”

“W-we weren’t…uh…”

Mei snatched her head out of the stuttering Gunslinger’s grasp, hugging it covetously to her own chest in triumph before bounding back towards her Doctor. He flung open his long arms with a grin and she leapt into them, and he cackled and swung her in a circle before leaning down to kiss the top of her head as she lifted it up to him. He beamed down at her as she gently settled her head back into place, straightening it upon the stump of her neck. He only seemed more charmed by her than before. “There she is! Talk about a true beaut.”

The others watched with the usual disgusted curiosity that Junkenstein was so used to, although the Alchemist chanced a small smile.

“In a way it’s actually sort of sweet, how they—”

Dr. Junkenstein pulled a long needle and coarse thread out from his coat, roughly jamming it into the jiangshi’s cold flesh and pushing it harshly through the layers of meat and muscle beneath. Grinning maniacally, he tittered another shrieking laugh as he pulled it taut and began very aggressively sewing the two pieces of her throat back together. Meanwhile, the little vampire flailed and uttered horrid strangled gurgling noises as her head was forcibly strung back into place.

The Alchemist sighed. “Never mind.”

“Don’t listen to them. You look- Hrrrngh!” He pulled the string tight, the stitches sinking deep. “Amazing! There we are, that should help it heal all the faster. How do you feel, darl?”

Mei adjusted her head several times, rubbing at her throat. Her first attempts at words were useless little whistling noises like a distressed guinea pig, but as she finally seemed to line up which tubes went where inside her neck, and she managed a few more hoarse whispers in her native tongue before trying to speak. “C-can you hear me? Hello? Oh! It worked! Thank you, Doctor!”

“The most lovely assistant in all the world! What would I do without you? That’s all right, no answer needed, don’t you strain that pretty voice too hard.” His expression lit up all the more, fussing at the thread end and tying it off. He stepped back and caressed her hair and adjusted the spell paper on her forehead, leaning down over her to plant another kiss to the end of her nose. “Good to have you back proper.”

She uttered an adorable squeak and smiled up at him, dimples just below the dots painted on her cheeks. “It’s such a relief to be able to talk again.”

“Too right! Now, let’s finish blowing up these prats before we head back—!” He reached back to his coat, this time for his gun. But the rattle of weaponry all around him gave him pause, as did the jiangshi’s claws as she grabbed onto his arm to stop him.

“W-wait! It was just a mistake, that’s all. I’m sure none of them meant it. I was still stunned, and even the cowboy man probably just wasn’t thinking.”

The Archer smirked around his bow. “Not an uncommon occurance.”

“All right, I’m just about tired of you steamin’ my beans—”

Both the Doctor and The Gunslinger looked ready to ignite another battle that Mei was not at all prepared for. Her fanged smile wavered, and she clutched onto the lunatic scientist a little tighter, tugging at his arm to urge him back the way they came from. “Listen, it’s been a very long night for everybody, hasn’t it? And…And there’s such a lot of work we need to do back at your lab. And the…you know?”

Dr. Junkenstein was still trying to catch the eye of the Swordsman, who was pointedly not looking back at him. “But that one, the one the Witch was on about. He cut ya up!”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been cut up. And I’m fine now, see? I have my head back. Why don’t we head home! For…you know?”

“But…Huh?”

“Your reward?” She fluttered her eyelashes up at him. She tried what she hoped was a salacious whisper, but with her ragged throat it came out a little croakier than she’d hoped. Still, she tried. “You know? For being so, so good. At helping me.”

Realization hit him like a thunderbolt. His sallow skin went pink and almost as clammy as his vampire as he started to sweat, face twisting into a very particular and stupid grin. Puffing out his bony chest, he pointed at the group of baffled adventurers before him.

“You’re lucky, that’s what you all are. My girl has a soft and tender heart and…oh yeah, soft and tender everything, er…Uh, you’re all pardoned this one time! And only because you gave her back her head without too much trouble. Although you two,” He pointed to the glaring Archer and Gunslinger. “You two piss me right off. But not as much as the guy with the sword. And you,” He shifted to the Monk floating peacefully nearby. “You give me the skeevies, and you got no idea how hard that is to do. And the old lady, you…Well, you’re actually sort of scary too.”

“Charmed.”

He swallowed throatily, twitching. “We’re pissing off. And don’t you dare steal any of my creatures’ parts again, you don’t even appreciate them. Not like I’m gonna appreciate them. Ehehehe.” There was a unified groan from the mercenaries, but Junkenstein ignored them. Looping an arm about the much shorter woman beside him, he turned and began hobbling off towards the darkness. “Anyhow! Damn you all! Blow you all to hell next time, toodle-oo!”

“Have a good night, Dr. Junkenstein,” The Alchemist replied calmly, over the murmuring of the others.

Nobody moved to stop them, and the adventurers watched the strange pair gallavant away together. Once more, the night grew quiet save for the crackle of the campfire and the hush of the insects. Peace returned, and eventually conversation slowly returned after an uneasy silence. But the Doctor and his companion seemed to be gone, having found the strange prize they had pursued.

The Gunslinger chewed on his cigar and merely shook his head. “And they say I’m the oddity…”

The Swordsman said something about more firewood, skulking off into the forest. But he did not bend to scavenge wood from the forest floor, only finding a shadowed place in the already shadowed night. The darkness there could be just as comforting as the cheerful glow of the campfire. He was not the only one who found it to be so. A presence joined him there in the blackness, heralded by no footsteps, gliding through the void.

“My Student,” the Monk said. “What troubles you?”

“Nothing. Merely…the lunatic’s shrieking left me irritable. And I dislike the way the foul little jiangshi looked upon me.”

“The jiangshi was quite polite, considering the state of things.”

“The Doctor, then.”

“…Is it the Doctor’s presence that bothered you, or his words?”

“The man is so addled he can barely string them together. It is nothing.”

“It is not how the Doctor spoke, my Student. It is the truth of what he said. Her gaze has found that which is within you. Do you still carry such thoughts of vengeance and regret? Hers is an old and powerful magic, and she will come to offer you all that you—”

“Then I will deny her.”

“…Will you?”

The Swordsman was silent, gaze downward. After several long moments his head lifted, eyes glinting red even with no light to catch them. He turned away from the Monk, and stepped deeper into the forest.

“We still need to gather firewood.”

“Of course. I shall help you, my Student.”

They moved together into the dark.

***

Elsewhere in the dark, the jiangshi and a rather bedraggled Doctor Junkenstein finally returned to the outer fortifications of the castle. Half-ruined walls and crumbled stone towers were half sunken or in the process of sinking into the muck. The occasional flickering torch lit up the gloom, but the castle and the villages remained locked away and all was silent. The Doctor groaned, pausing to sit on the remains of a low wall, pounding pebbles out of his boot before thrusting it back upon his foot.

“Ooooh my dog is barking. Long walk back, even with you helping me down the steep bits. Not to complain, mind, it’s nothing compared to your troubles! How is everything? Head all right? Stitches holding? Are you sure we shouldn’t go back there and blow them to smithereens?”

“No, I’m sure. We got what we wanted, right? And I think the Witch wants something else from them and we shouldn’t cause her too much trouble. Especially after she was so nice enough as to resurrect you first so you could help me? Although it did take me a little bit to try and get across to her that I wanted you.“

His hairless brows lifted. “My little dumpling! You were the one to ask for me back?”

“Of course. I was so embarrassed when I woke up. Nobody’s ever stolen my entire head before, and I couldn’t even talk to her. She wanted to send the Reaper with me at first, but I said no thank you. Just you. She can understand my language, but…I don’t even need language with you. Nobody can understand me like you can.”

“Got real good at that, just like I said.”

“Plus, you’re a lot more fun than anyone else here. And…” She leaned down to loom over him for once, lips parting to reveal a fanged smile. “You taste a lot better, too.”

The Doctor’s face went heated again. “Aaaha…aaha-ha-ha-ha!” His gloved fingers immediately started groping at the high collar of his labcoat, fumbling with the snaps. He swallowed audibly, the lump in his throat bobbing up and down, and he saw the jiangshi’s keen gaze follow it. Licking at his chapped lips, he tugged the snap free and tilted his head to the side, baring the sweat-dampened pillar of his neck. “W-well! Speaking of! I know what’ll heal that mild case of decapitation quicker than stitches. Hot and fresh, right here!”

The little vampire practically purred, even as she slowly traced one curved claw to his neck, feeling the pulse thundering just below the surface of the straining flesh. “But Doctor…Aren’t you forgetting about your reward? Just for you?”

“P-part of it! This can be part of it!” he practically barked aloud, leaning into her touch. “After all, doesn’t my lovely assistant have to be in tip-top condition before she can assist me?!”

“I should have considered that. I guess…I really should be at my best for you? You make a good point, Doctor.” The very tip of her claw curled a little at the word, scratching at the skin and threatening to break through.

That was not the only thing threatening to break through. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was his love of horrible puns or how the jiangshi was teasing him or a combination of the two, but an erection was already forming a hard lump beneath his coat where he sat. He tried to drag her down on top of it, but she only giggled coyly and pulled away from him. Groaning, he pulled at her robes to tug her back, but she deftly avoided his grasp, hopping several steps towards the darkness of a ruined stairway tower.

Dr. Junkenstein practically somersaulted in his haste to follow, staggering upright and stumbling as he limped after her. She giggled, still just out of reach as she dodged his seeking hands, leaping into the yawning shadows of the tower’s arched doorway. Her laughter echoed around the cold stone walls left to rot so long ago, ringing strangely from the tower’s dark and empty bowels, and anyone else might have thought it eerie. The Doctor did not think so, only redoubling his efforts to chase her.

Something hit him as he ducked into the gloom, where the light was barely enough to see. Just as he was nearly going to trip upon a collapsed section of the stone, the little purple blur hurtled out of the shadows, snatching him up by the front of his coat and dragging him several steps with no effort. His back hit the wall and it nearly knocked the breath from his fragile ribs, but it only made his grin grow wider and his trousers grow tighter.

“My good Doctor…” she whispered in a voice he couldn’t even describe, and her grip on him could have crushed his bones and he wouldn’t have even cared.

“Mmmeiiieiingnh…” he tried to whisper her name as well, but it came out as an embarrassing gurgling moan when her lips pressed to his.

Up on the very tips of her slippered toes, the jiangshi kissed him. Her lips were cold but that hardly mattered, the tip of her spell paper tickling his cheek as she tilted her head. She also smelled a little like burlap, probably from her head being so rudely shoved into a bag for so long, but that hardly mattered either. At least she had her head back to even kiss him with…and to do other things as well.

Cool lips finally pulled away from his, and he choked down air where he’d been forgetting to breathe again. Claws caressed at the side of his face, undeterred by the scratch of his stubble, a five-o-clock shadow just as permanent as the dark circles under his eyes. Instead she scraped a kiss to the side of his jaw, adorable little nose urging his chin upward.

With utterly no hesitation he bared his throat again, and waited. He waited and waited for the bite, but it didn’t come. Instead she playfully tucked her head underneath his chin and just sat there, completely ignoring his irked little growls and whimpers of impatience. She leaned into his chest, still pinning him firmly with his back to the wall, her deft talons dragging up his chest to start plucking at the snap buttons of his labcoat. One by one they snapped open, her hand traveling lower and lower until they reached the belt strung around his scrawny waist. He practically vibrated in helpless excitement, fumbling to help her. But she batted away his attempts, taking her sweet time as buckles clicked and leather hissed through the straps. After a moment, the belt fell down around his legs with a clatter, and his labcoat fluttered down after it.

“Dr. Junkenstein, is something the matter?” she asked, far too innocently.

“Nnngh!” He realized that he was whining aloud and grabbing at her, and he couldn’t help it: his hips and then the rest of him surged forward towards her, stopped only by her grip pinning him to the wall. She giggled again at his misfortune, pressing her chest more firmly against his, but finally had some semblance of mercy as her other hand drifted down, finally gracing the straining bulge in his trousers.

He exhaled noisily as her fingers tickled across him, sliding the gentle pressure of her palm up and down. He grimaced and sweat even at the lightest touch, eyes rolling back beneath his goggles when he felt her unbutton his pants, the downward motion of the zipper seeming to last forever before he was at last freed. No matter how his ears pinkened, his cock was utterly shameless as it sprang loose of its confines, bobbing upward into the night’s chill and into her waiting hand.

His noises echoed strangely around the damp stone walls, little grunts and sighs as she worked him, his breathing already heavy save for when it hitched occasionally at a particularly good one. Eventually his noises were joined by the sounds of wet flesh, when she licked a pool of saliva into her palm to slick his path through. His gloved hand occasionally clawed at her robes, his metal one already sunk so deep into the wall for hold that the rock was threatening to crack. He panted into her hair, hips shifting as her wrist jerked steadily and tirelessly.

“Mmmh! Darl, darl, darl…Please! M-my…” His voice was hoarse, raspy with effort.

“Shhh, Doctor…Let me assist you…”

The pressure built quickly, leaving him slumped against the wall while her tongue lathed at his throat, finding the a pulsing vein and placing her lips there. But still she waited, with the good Doctor writhing under her care, with the patience of one who was not moved by his pleading, focused instead on the precise moment to best strike. And it would be coming soon, as his cock twitched in her hand and his spine ground into the wall and his breathing rasped once, twice—

Her fangs pierced his flesh, opening the vein against her lips. Hot red spurted against her tongue just as hot white coated her palm, turning sticky as she gave him a few final strokes, coaxing out the last drops: even though she knew he barely felt it, not compared to where she sucked on his neck, his body held upright only by her own strength. He was mouthing words, likely nonsense, and his eyes were so far back in their sockets that only the whites were showing, lost to everything in the world except this.

She measured out their pleasures slowly and carefully, pulling his blood and his essence out of his body and into hers. He tasted like unused potential and painful anger and unbridled curiosity, like electricity, as if she had placed the tip of her tongue against a still-hot wire. She liked it: a flavor unlike any she’d had before, before meeting him. His blood always ran too hot, and she took some of his heat as her own…her body radiating warmth where there had been none, skin flushing with new life.

But she knew when to stop, no matter how he begged for more. She wrenched her hungry mouth away from his neck, two thin trickles of red oozing down before she lapped them upward, licking and kissing scarlet-stained lips at the opened wound until it had closed. With the tender care she always gave him, the boneless Doctor was gently eased down onto a nearby pile of rubble where she had thoughtfully spread his labcoat, sitting slumped backward while he shuddered back to life.

“H-hell’s bells…” He awoke to his jiangshi sitting by his feet, arms folded atop his knees, where his trousers had been loosely pulled up around his thighs with her head resting on them. Large, dark eyes swerved up to him as he gasped, and she smiled up at him. He managed a weak grin in reply, head spinning. “Ooooh, that’s my dove. Was afraid you’d…gone? Or…was I?”

“Just stay a moment, Doctor. I’m here.”

“Ah…Yes, good. Just a moment to reflect, is all.” They sat together in the dark, until the haze had cleared and he had control over his faculties again…or at least, as much control as he usually had over those pesky faculties of his. He sighed aloud, shivering as the sweat started to dry on his brow. But the night’s chill was staved off at least a little, when the warmth of her arms wrapped around his waist, nuzzling into his skinny belly. There was still a fleck or two of dried blood by her lip, and it looked most fetching. He always did look good on her.

Sighing happily, he flopped back against the rock. “Does wonders for the mind and the body, all of that. And you’re looking grouse! Knew that blood would help.”

The jiangshi tightened her grip in another fond squeeze, kissing at his belly. “You were right again, Doctor.”

Another grin pulled his lips taut across teeth almost as sharp and shiny as his vampire’s. “Ah! What can I say, lovey? I’m an educated man and you just happen to be one of my favorite subjects.”

“But what about a repeated measures study? It’s just, now I feel so warm and…wouldn’t it just be wasted if we went back to the others and it simply wore off before I could share it? Maybe we have time for just a little more reward? Shall I check your schedule for you, Doctor Junkenstein?”

Mei could barely finish the sentence before he was trying to sit up straight again, jostling her head atop his thighs. “I checked! I checked, schedule’s cleared! Busy man, but I penciled you in. What sort of Doctor would I be if I couldn’t make time for further study, ay?”

“Very generous, Doctor.”

With an unnatural lightness, she rose from the floor and slid easily onto his lap, right into his open arms. They kissed again, but this time her lips were soft and warm with the borrowed life now surging through her. Were it not for the gruesome stitches in her neck, she might as well have been a human woman nestled atop him. But Mei was better than any human woman, better than all the humans in all the world. If it had been up to him, he would have killed them, killed them all, and left nothing but ashes and destruction: a world for his toys and his army and her. Then it would just be him and his jiangshi for the rest of eternity, with him gifting her his blood and her biting him, scratching him, telling him he was good—

The daydreams of bloodshed coupled with her subtle grinding was starting to reawaken him proper. Slyly angling his mechanical arm down her side and groping at her thigh, he pulled her down in a slow rhythm against his front. Dragging his tongue against her jaw and back to her lips, he rasped against her kisses. “Lovely, lovely…Yes, make it warm for me, my lovely.”

He growled when she pulled away, but leaned back when he felt her touches go lower. Her lips moved down his chin, his neck, across the bruises on his chest, his midriff… And then it was warm, all right. He was very well familiar with the eastern vampire’s tongue, how long and wet they could be when fully unwound, but with his absent-minded tendencies it was always a delightful reminder when she used it on him. It coiled about him like a serpent, delicate but strong, pulling his cock from up against his body and up against her open lips.

She kissed it a greeting, slathering that tongue up and down his length while her soft lips circled around the flared tip. Junkenstein was again left a panting mess in no time, leaning back to get a better view of her even though his nerves screamed to grab and take her. Slick with saliva, her tongue squeezed wetly around each inch of him, flesh bulging a little each time she tightened its hold, rivulets of spittle squelching as they dribbled down to his sack and stained the coat beneath him.

For a while he was content to watch her work, but never for too long. Eventually the urge grew too strong, and he reached out to take a hold of the top of her hair, pushing her downward. She moved easily with the motion, her lips opening fully, tongue withdrawing only to guide him into the heat of her mouth. Large, dark eyes gleamed up at him, watching how his expressions twitched madly while he tried to focus.

Warm. Blissful, wet, warm…Lovely! Lovely!

His hand remained draped atop her head, enjoying the leisurely start of a nice hot blowie. She closed and sealed her mouth around the tip of him, sucking gently before pushing him the rest of the way in. She was just as good at this as everything else she did, tongue playing along with soft sucking and the occasional exciting scrape of her teeth. Knelt between his gangly legs, the jiangshi sucked on his member just as expertly as she had sucked on his neck, occasionally toying with that wonderful tongue of hers.

Junkenstein’s tongue was nowhere near as impressive, lolling from his open mouth as he uttered another rattling groan. Chalk up another point for his jiangshi, but she really was superior to a human lady in every way. With no need for air and no need for food as such, she had no concept of things such as choking or gag reflex. Handy, that.

It didn’t mean he couldn’t try. His grip tightened atop her head, no longer resting but actively pushing her down. It urged her deeper, deeper, until her nose was mashed into his pelvis and he was nudging past her tongue, knocking against the back of her throat while she lapped at the sensitive underside of his shaft. And when she swallowed…even through her wounded throat, it squeezed hot and wet and tight and perfect, perfect!

He seized onto both her pigtails and let his dark urges rage. His hips pounded forward, pulling her until there was no more room at all— into her throat, again and again and again. There was no reprieve and no pause, her glasses knocked onto the ground with a clatter as she gripped nigh-painfully onto the insides of his thighs. She welcomed him on every brutal thrust, as he panted and snarled and bent over his undead companion covetously. Alternating between petting the back of her head and yanking on her braids, he groaned praise over the obscene sounds of his cock in her mouth.

“Y-you like it? You like it? It’s good? It’s so good! Yes?” It was simultaneously a demand, a question, and begging desperation: pausing only for half a heartbeat as he stared wild-eyed down at her.

She smiled and nodded, and swallowed him again, and he nearly died for the third or fourth time that night.

“Yes?! Yes yes, YES!”

***

The sounds they made were almost unnatural, together in the darkness of that ruined kingdom. The sounds were so unnatural, in fact, that they did not notice another unnatural sound come upon them. There was a low hiss, something foul and sibilant on a sudden breeze, as the swirling fog was displaced by a darker mist.

The Reaper heard the squawking of that damned irritating Doctor, no doubt busy with some toy or other. There was still work to be done, and the Lady had sent him hence. He would collect the scientist and his vampiric assistant, and they would begin to plan for the next time. Another night full of bloodshed and darkness, never ending and never enough to satisfy any of them: not even the strange human who had cast his lot in with monsters such as them.

“Doctor Junkenstein?”

There was no answer, only more noises from the debris of a tower nearby. It sounded violent. Perhaps one of the adventurers yet lived, and the Doctor was fighting for his pathetic life within? The Reaper would turn the tides, then, and finally finish this—

He solidified, yellow eyes and grinning mouth alight within the enchanted pumpkin that served as his head. Full sight returned to his senses. And he wished it had not.

Junkenstein was once again violating his vampiric servant, frenzied with lust. The jiangshi was knelt between his open legs, stroking up and down his legs while he facefucked her with not an ounce of mercy. Terrible noises were uttered from both their mouths, though his involved much creative cursing and she had no words at all. Neither of them noticed his presence until the Reaper bellowed in surprise and disgust from nearby.

“BY ALL LEVELS OF HELL, DR. JUNKENSTEIN.”

“AAAHH!”

Everyone involved either screamed, or tried to scream through an extremely full mouth. Reaper reeled back, dropping his guns to try and shield his eyes. Dr. Junkenstein fell backward against the stone, while Mei scrambled backward in the other direction. There was a loud ripping noise, and the stitches around her head and neck were popped and pulled apart, scraps of twine hanging loose from her decapitated head once more. Her body collapsed back onto the ground without its anchor, and alarmingly and silently groped at the empty top of her neck. Junkenstein was left holding her loose head, blinking at each other in shock.

Dr. Junkenstein turned with surprising ferocity upon this new interloper, teeth bared and insults at the ready. But he paused when he saw the Reaper already cringing back, still trying to shield himself from the sight of them.

“A little privacy, mate?! I’m in the middle of an extensive study session, here!”

Mei’s head rolled its eyes towards the Reaper helplessly, then opened her mouth a little wider while her body pulled itself to sit upright again nearby. For a moment it seemed that she was trying to decide on being mortified or not. But when Junkenstein only adjusted his grip on her head and continued thrusting, her lips tilted into a cheeky grin and she only wrapped her tongue around him to make him groan all the harder.

The Reaper made a noise of revulsion, his lower half dissolving back into mist as he beat a hasty retreat. “PDA, you two! You know what the Lady said about the PDA! This goes so beyond the rules of Public Displays of Affection, you’ll be sorry y—Auuugh!”

Emboldened, the mad Doctor only moaned in response and actually stood up as he continued driving into the head still attached to his lap, making a mocking display of it. The exhibition of it only heated his blood further, and the jiangshi uttered a muffled laugh even while her headless body sat back and shrugged in a ‘what are you going to do?’ sort of manner.

The Reaper was vanquished, fleeing with a fading roar as he vanished back into the gloom.

Cackling madly to himself, Dr. Junkenstein finally pulled Mei’s head off of him long enough to grin down at her apologetically, features still flushed and glistening with sweat. “Sorry about those stitches, loveykins. I’ll get the better thread for—Oh!”

Mei’s body offered him a little thumbs up, then scooted closer upon her knees. Down by his still-erect cock, Mei fluttered her eyelashes, then stretched her mouth wide open, bidding him welcome. The good Doctor’s expression slacked in surprise, then softened in genuine affection, then grew manic and grinning once again while he took her invitation…and slammed himself home once again.

He could die happy like this. Maybe he would get lucky and he would die like this. He’d die again and again, over and over. They both would, and he’d be happy so long as she was with him. So long as they were together, it would never end. He could think of nothing better.

“M-my lovely! My lovely assistant!”

#meihem #junkmei #meirat #iceboom #junkrat #dr. junkenstein #jamison junkenstein #mei #mei-ling zhou #jiangshi mei #jiangshi #Overwatch #Dr. Junkenstein's Revenge #fanfic #writing #hijinks #humor #mild decapitation

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