#Din: He has self preservation I’m no worried about him I WAS TALKING ABOUT YOU!!

[thewriterowl]

Some of the scariest words Din will ever hear from Luke...

“Hey, Grogu, watch this!”

#Din: (running out of the room in a panic) NO NO NO NO NO #Luke: (seconds away from doing something dangerous and stupid) aww man #dinluke #Star Wars #the Mandalorian #Din: (still panicked) Where’s my baby!!? #Luke: Grogu is fine...I wouldn’t let me do anything #Din: He has self preservation I’m no worried about him I WAS TALKING ABOUT YOU!! #luke self disaster skywalker

[heliads]

Rainstorm

Y/N and Newt have been best friends ever since she arrived in the Glade. However, she might find that her feelings over the blond boy have changed, especially after the events of a rainy day.

masterlist

There’s a great clamoring around you, the tearing and shrieking of metal. You feel like your head is being pounded by an anvil, and you clap your hands to your skull, desperate to stop the pain. You realize you’re moving, the floor beneath you swaying as it is dragged up by some unseen chain. There are boxes around you, crates of something that you can’t see in the dark. The worst part isn’t the echoing din, or the insufferable darkness lit by sporadic bursts of fluorescents. The worst part is that you have no idea how you got here.

After a couple of seconds, you force yourself to stand up straight and look around. There are boxes littering the ground, yes, but you’re in a larger box yourself. Is that what this lurching, moving metal room is? There are four walls and a ceiling that seems to press in on you with every waking second. Just as you come to this conclusion, the room stops moving with a sudden jolt that sends you to the ground. Panic crests over you and you throw yourself to the edge of the room, hiding behind the stacks of boxes just as the ceiling is lifted away.

Bright, overwhelming sunlight flows into the room like a wave. You squint, careful not to make a sound even as your eyes water from the sudden light. You can see the dim silhouettes of a group of people standing over the room, looking in on you. They must not see you, because you can hear dim snatches of conversation being tossed back and forth in the space above you. “Shouldn’t there be a greenie? Where’s the new kid?” You have no idea what a greenie is, but you do have a sickening feeling that they’re expecting someone, someone who will turn out to be you.

After another moment of indecision, a boy jumps down into the room, causing the floor to shake slightly from the impact. He peers between the crates. Your breath comes harsh in your chest as you realize he must be looking for you. Your hand closes around something in an open box, and as you pull it out slowly, you realize your fingers are clenched around the grip of a knife. It’s not much, but at least you have a weapon.

The boy calls out to you now. “Hey, we know you’re there. There’s always someone in the Box. You can come out now, we’re not going to hurt you.” He takes a couple of steps closer, and you realize there’s no getting out of this. Might as well use the advantage of surprise while it’s still in your court. You stand up suddenly, stepping away from the shelter of the boxes. You point your knife towards the boy’s throat. For a second, the two of you stand there- you with your blade, him with a look of surprise coating his eyes.

Now that you’re both standing in the sunlight, you can see more of him. This boy has light dirty blond hair and warm brown eyes. His hands rise by his sides the second he sees your knife. “Hey, there’s no need for that. We’re not trying to hurt you.” Then his brow furrows and he takes a step forward, surprise overwhelming his previous hesitation. “Wait. You’re a girl.” You raise an eyebrow. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be a girl?” The boy glances up at the silhouettes of the others still standing over the box. “Back off, guys. She’ll be fine.”

He looks back at you. “Let’s start this over. My name is Newt. You’re in the Glade now, with a few other shanks. I’m just surprised because they’ve never sent a girl up before, that’s it. Now, can you please put down the knife? What would you do with it, anyway?” You keep the blade up, feeling slightly defensive. “I could use it.” Newt lowers his hands, humor outweighing any sense of self-preservation. “For what?” You gesture with the blade. “To, I don’t know, stab someone. It’s a knife, what else would I do?”

Newt grins. “Maybe not stab me? We’re going to be here for a while, I’d appreciate it if you didn't kill me immediately.” You lower the blade at last, reaching over to put it back in a nearby box. “I’ll consider it.” Newt offers you a hand to help you out of the Box. “Can I help you up? You can trust me, you know.” You consider him for a second, taking in everything you know about the boy. He looks at you encouragingly, smiling with all the peaceful freedom of a dove, and you relent. After a second, you stand blinking in the sunlight, turning in a slow circle to stare at the massive walls surrounding you. “What is that?” Newt comes to stand beside you. “That’s the Maze. Keeps us all stuck in here. Once a month, the Box sends up some new sap. This time it’s you.”

You glance around you at the other boys pretending to do their work. “There’s not that many people here. How long has this been going on?” Newt shrugs. “I’m not entirely sure. Maybe six months or so? Alby’s been here longest, he’ll have a better answer. Alby’s in charge here, by the way. I’m second in command.” You nod. “And you really don’t have any other girls here? That’s awful.” Newt laughs. “Don’t worry about it. I have a feeling you’re going to fit in just fine around here.”

Newt, as it turns out, is right. You talk and laugh with the other Gladers like you’ve known them your entire life. Conversation flows freely that first day, and after a few hours, you already remember your name, taking joy in turning it over in your head like a smooth stone from the river. You make fast friends with Minho, the runner, after he hears the story of how you nearly stabbed Newt back in the Box. Alby talks Glade politics with you, Gally seems to tolerate you far more than the others. However, your closest friendship will always be with Newt.

Maybe it’s because he was the first friendly face you saw, the reason you ever agreed to enter into the Glade at all. Maybe it’s because Newt hands away his trust like a gift, free of charge. You couldn’t stray from him if you tried. You exchange quick chats and stupid jokes in between shifts, and you find that you look forward to every minute shared with the blond second-in-command.

One day, Newt and his track-hoes are forced to give up their gardening to retreat underneath haphazard awnings from an encroaching rainstorm. Even the builders have hurried away, trading in their bricks and wooden slats for the dry cover of the few buildings in the Glade. You lean against a tree conveniently growing underneath a cloth shelter, eyes alight as you watch the rain pour down over the Glade. A faint smile plays on your lips. Newt walks up beside you, an eyebrow raised as he takes in your peaceful expression.

“You know, I’ve never seen someone look this happy over a bloody thunderstorm. We’re all forced indoors and we can’t do anything, and you look like someone’s just won you a million pounds.” You turn to face him, grinning. “I just think it’s nice. You’re the track-hoe, I thought you’d be happier about it. If it doesn’t rain, all your plants die. Honestly, we should both be celebrating.” Newt shakes his head in horror. “You’re ridiculous. I mean, look at Gally. He seems like he’s going to kill somebody just because of a few clouds.”

You reach out a hand, feeling the burst of the fat raindrops against your palm. “You want me to be like Gally and hate everything in the world? Not a chance.” Newt watches you, an amused expression entertaining itself on his lips. “I’m not asking for that, I’m asking you to stop looking so excited about a rainstorm. You’re making the rest of us look like miserable downers.” You grin at him. “Maybe you are. Have you considered that?”

You crane your head out from the awning, gazing up as the drops rain down upon you. “I’m going out there. Come with me.” Newt scoffs. “And be soaking for the rest of the day? Not a chance.” You look at him, a mock pout tainting your eyes with incredible sorrow. “It’ll be fun. Not everyone has to be a miserable downer, you know.” You reach out to grab his hand and pull him into the rain, but Newt dodges your grasp. Instead, your hand darts down to his pocket, and you steal his prized pocketknife, holding it up teasingly before him. Newt lunges for it, but you run out into the rain-drenched clearing, forcing you to run after him.

Newt’s carried this one knife around with him for what feels like forever. He uses it for everything- gardening, threatening greenies, lending it to Chuck for the boy’s latest carving project. It won’t rust in the rain, but it will be important enough to him so that he’ll follow you out into the storm, away from his shelter. You sprint through the clearing, Newt chasing after you. You can hear him shouting. “You’re a terrible friend, Y/N, you know that?” You risk a glance backwards, feeling a laugh bursting on your tongue when you realize he’s only a few feet away from you. “That’s just mean!”

Eventually, he catches up to you, reaching out an arm to stop you in your tracks. You come to an abrupt stop, still doing your best to hold the knife away from him. Newt laughs to see your last-ditch efforts. “You’re insane, you know that? Absolutely insane.” You beam at him, feeling the rain pour down over you. “Maybe so.” Newt lunges for the knife and the sudden shift in balance makes you slip on the soaking wet grass. Newt leans over, catching you, and for a second you feel like you’re frozen in that moment, his arms around your waist and the rain pounding around you.

Then he’s straightening up, knife held triumphantly in his palm. “Told you I’d get it back.” You grin at him. “That wasn’t the point. We’re both out here now.” Newt looks up, as if finally realizing that you’ve goaded him into leaving the tent. He tosses a playful glare your way. “I thought we were friends.” You laugh. “We are. That’s why we’re having such a good time.” You tilt your head up towards the sky, taking in the crisp, clear freshness of the rain. Newt groans, but you can see the smile he’s unsuccessfully trying to hide. “Maybe it isn’t that bad. Not all of it.”

When you look back, you see his smile, the rain pressing his hair against his face. You can feel your own breath coming sharply in your chest after the running, the cool of the rain against the heat in your cheeks. You’ve never felt this way around him, and you can’t figure out what it means until that night, when you lie awake for hours, mind still turning around the storm from earlier. The truth comes to you after a while, letting itself in without so much as a knock. You love Newt, no matter how much you’d like to hide it. 

The only problem is that Newt would never feel the same way about you. He constantly refers to you as his friend, even his best friend, and that’s all you’ll ever be. The fault lies solely with you, for falling in love with such a sunbeam of a boy and expecting that he’d look back at a matchstick of a girl, someone who’d light up only to die out seconds later. The only thing you can do is try to get over your little crush, hoping you can snuff it out like a candle.

This proves to be more difficult than you’d thought. Your first attempt is to just forget the whole thing ever happened. This plan runs into the ground as soon as you look at him the next morning, and feel all of your heart’s pounding rush over you. Your only idea after that is to edge slightly away from him. Maybe the distance will keep your mind from turning to him, from falling in love so easily. You still sit with him at mealtimes with all your other friends, but you don’t run to him at every break. Honestly, this is for the best. He probably thought you were too clingy anyway, this is just making things even better.

Yet it still hurts when you feel his absence, like a phantom limb that should have always stayed by your side. Maybe you’re just kidding yourself, but you could swear that Newt looks for you when you’re not there, like there’s a one in a million chance that he just might feel the same way. After about a week of this, you’re sitting in a quiet, empty part of the Glade on a rest break when Newt approaches you. He doesn’t say anything at first, just sits down right next to you. From the second you saw him, you noticed the crease in his brow, the look of unhappiness that seemed to permeate his every movement. Whatever he’s about to say, it won’t be good.

Newt fixes you with a quiet stare. “Why are you avoiding me?” The question, so blunt and straight-forward, demands an answer. You’re not sure that you want to provide one, so you try to steer away from his interrogation. “What are you talking about? We sit at the same tables at meals. We talk all the time, actually. We’re talking right now.” It’s a nothing answer, and Newt knows it. “We’re talking now because I came up to you. We used to spend a lot more time together, and then you decided that I wasn’t good enough for you.”

Your eyes widen. “That’s not what I thought at all! I-” You break off, wishing you could hold your tongue for once in your life. You almost gave it all away. Newt sees this sudden silence and presses it. “You what? I was closer to you than I was to anyone else in the Glade, and now I barely see you a couple of times per day. There’s always a reason, Y/N, and I would like to know why.” You sigh, but keep your mouth shut. Maybe he’ll hate you right now, but it will be better than the disappointment and even disgust when he finds out that someone he sees as a sister has fallen in love with him.

Newt’s voice is quiet. “I guess this was a mistake. You what, regretted all of this? You’re trying to pretend that we were never friends?” Your eyes flash. “I never regretted a thing. I loved you, and it was a stupid mistake that I’m trying to fix. Is that what you wanted to hear?” There’s silence for one heartbeat, two. You look away, furious with yourself. Then there’s a hand on your cheek, guiding your face back to his. Newt’s lips are on yours now, and you stifle a gasp of surprise.

At last, he breaks away, a smile dancing across his face. “You could have said that a lot earlier, you know.” You stare at him. “You liked me? You actually-” Newt chuckles softly. “Have for a while. I was trying to tell you, but you made it so bloody difficult sometimes.” You feel like you can’t think straight. “I can’t believe I never figured that out.” Newt’s smile is intoxicating. “I’m glad you know now. Makes it a lot easier to do this.” When he kisses you again, it’s even more breathtaking than the first.

#newt #newt imagines #newt x reader #tmr #tmr imagines #tmr x reader #maze runner #maze runner imagines #maze runner x reader #tmr newt #tmr newt imagines #tmr newt x reader #maze runner newt #maze runner newt imagines #maze runner newt x reader #scorch trials #death cure #thomas brodie sangster

[tennessoui]

if you wrote obikin for #4 with anakin as a single parent and obi-wan as luke and leia's teacher i would simply die happy!!

here it is!!! thank you so much!

4. Teacher/Single Parent AU (modern!AU)(DinLuke shows up as little kids)(2.4k)(whoops)

Anakin stares across the table at Luke, who gnaws on a slice of grilled cheese, carefully leaving the crusts behind. Oh god, he’d forgotten to cut them off of Luke’s sandwich, had cut them off of Leia’s instead, even though she didn’t mind them. And of course they hadn’t told him either. He can’t tell if he’s been forgiven for his error or if it will come back to haunt him later tonight when he tries to put the twins to bed at eight.

“Luke,” he says carefully. “I think I’m just a little confused.”

Leia looks up. She loves when her father is a little confused because it means Luke is probably a bit in trouble and she gets to be the one to set the record straight for him.

Which isn’t to say Leia is a tattle-tale. Anakin’s seen her watch Luke hit another child upside the head with a toy train and then say absolutely nothing when questioned by the daycare instructor.

Daddy’s interrogations are just a special case where she can become a guilt-free turncoat.

“How did you get a Unicorn sticker in art class?” he asks.

The Unicorn stickers, of course, mean unsatisfactory.

He pays extra money for his children to be coddled and kept away from words like Fail and Unsatisfactory, even though that’s what all the parents know the stickers mean. As long as the children don't yet.

“And I don’t understand the rainbow sticker at all,” he continues helplessly, regarding the piece of artwork in front of him, where a handful of dried macaroni noodles are lacklusterly glued to the page.

“The Unicorn sticker means it was bad, but the rainbow sticker means that Mr. Kenobi forgives him,” Leia pipes up, leaning across the table to take the icky crusts from her brother’s plate and dipping them into her tomato soup.

“But it was dry macaroni,” Anakin says incredulously. Luke’s eyes start getting misty as he stares resolutely down at his plate. That’s the last thing Anakin wants. But he just doesn’t understand. Luke’s the most creative of both of his children, has seemed to take after Anakin in that way. Last Christmas, Anakin had given him a model train set that he’d put together inside of a week. If he can do that, he can do a self-portrait in dry macaroni.

“He gave Din all of his noodles,” Leia reports.

“Didn’t Din have any?” Anakin asks, feeling completely out of his element and also sort of like a detective trying to solve a cold case.

“He wanted to save them for his puppy,” Luke mumbles. “They just got him and they can’t figure out what he eats, so Din thought he could try macaroni because I told him I like macaroni and cheese a lot.”

Anakin is on the cliff of despair, but he can’t exactly ask whether or not this Din knows there’s a difference between the dried macaroni from art class and boxed macaroni and cheese from Kraft. He’s not sure he even wants to know the answer.

“And then Luke didn’t have a lot left for his picture,” Leia finishes the story and her soup in one fell swoop.

“Couldn’t you have asked Mr. Kenobi for more?” Anakin asks Luke who shakes his head but doesn’t seem to want to elaborate. Anakin turns only slightly pleading eyes to Leia, who is the expert on anything her brother doesn’t want to say.

“Mr. Kenobi sits at the front, and Luke sat at the back today so it was really far.”

“But you always sit at the front!” Anakin says, appalled. Sure, he hadn’t managed to make it to the most recent round of parent-teacher conferences due to an unfortunately timed shift at the garage, but he knows where his kids sit in a classroom.

Luke mumbles something into his bowl.

“What was that?” Anakin asks.

Leia translates. “Din doesn’t sit at the front,” she says.

Anakin sits back in his chair and runs a hand over his mouth. Luke has a crush. His son, Luke, has his very first crush on a boy and he’s already doing stupid things in order to see the boy. Oh no. Oh god. Of all the things to take after Anakin on, it’s this one.

“Okay,” he says, mostly to himself. “It’s okay. Unicorns aren’t so bad.”

“Way better than giraffes,” Leia tells her brother bracingly, seeming to know instinctively that the gossiping part of this conversation is over. “And you got a rainbow, which means Mr. Kenobi isn’t mad.”

Anakin wonders, with the context, if that’s actually what the rainbow means, or if Mr. Kenobi isn’t just incredibly observant.

“TV time, kids,” he says, only feeling sort of bad about the screentime or whatever, as Luke perks up and runs with Leia into the living room.

After five minutes to make sure they’ve successfully turned on and found a child-appropriate show, Anakin gathers the dishes and loads the washer. Then he sighs as loud as he can without disrupting the kids.

Then he pulls out his phone and the school directory and finds the email for one Mr. Obi-Wan Kenobi, art teacher.

It takes him twenty minutes to figure out an email that doesn’t sound too judgemental, harsh, worried, skeptical, or angry. It takes another five minutes to figure out how to sign off on it. Kind regards? Best? Thanks? Sincerely? What is the etiquette for emailing your son’s art teacher to arrange a meeting because you’re worried your son will fail the class simply because he’s inherited terrible genes from his father?

It takes ten minutes, in the end, for Mr. Kenobi to email back, and he does so with a very straightforward message. He’s available to chat after school hours tomorrow, if it works for Anakin.

Anakin pulls up his work schedule. He’s supposed to work until five in the evening tomorrow, has already booked a slot at the after-care program for the twins. But.

He texts Ahsoka to ask if she could cover the last few hours of his shift. She texts back a string of rather offensive emojis, but settles down when he tells her it’s for his kids. Technically, he isn’t even lying. He’s just being overbearing.

He spends another fifteen minutes trying to compose a response email in between making sure the kids brush their teeth, wash behind their ears, and have their bags packed for the morning. He’s so stressed out by it that he’s not even sure he includes a signature at all before he hits send. God. Meeting Mr. Kenobi had better be worth all of this stress.

---

Finding Mr. Kenobi’s classroom is almost more stress than the correspondence from the night before had been. The only reason Anakin doesn’t sit down and cry against the garishly yellow brick lining the hallways is that he keeps telling himself that if his two seven-year-olds can do this, Anakin surely can.

The art classroom is tucked away in a forgotten corner of the school and it takes three wrong turns and one accidental entrance into a thankfully deserted first grade room for Anakin to find it. He knocks on the open door and then decides he should call as well to announce his presence. “Uh, Mr. Kenobi? I’m Anakin. Skywalker. We talked last night?” He takes a couple of steps into the room, which is lined in children’s art and paint-stained tables.

A man emerges from a backroom, dressed in a very loose and paint-flecked denim shirt over a white tank top and a pair of slacks. He’s wearing a pair of thick glasses that he takes off as soon as he sees Anakin. His beard is neatly trimmed and his hair, a sort of bronzed auburn, neatly combed.

He’s holding a paintbrush in one hand, and still, of course, Anakin’s dumb brain overrides the part of him that’s saying, This is clearly Mr. Kenobi in favor saying, quite politely, “Oh! I’m sorry. Is Mr. Kenobi back there?”

The man who could not possibly be more obviously the art teacher raises an amused eyebrow.

Look. No one told Anakin that elementary school art teachers could be so attractive. He’d not done anything to prepare for this.

“You must be Luke’s father,” Mr. Kenobi says, waving him forward.

“What makes you say that?” Anakin asks, a tad too defensively, thinking of his own self-deprecating thoughts last night about Luke taking after him when it comes to being sort of stupid around people they liked. He’s just being paranoid.

“The...last...name,” now Mr. Kenobi is definitely trying to hide his smile and Anakin wants to die. “Would you like to sit?”

Anakin does so rather graciously, given the circumstances. He even makes sure he keeps their chairs very far apart. Mostly in order to preserve his own dignity, but he thinks he should get credit for his self-control at this spur of the moment single-parent-hot-teacher conference.

“I’m sorry for my appearance,” Mr. Kenobi says, pulling the oversized button up closed over his tank top. “I must admit, I mostly forgot you were coming by. I was working on one of my own projects.”

“You paint?” Anakin asks.

Mr. Kenobi tilts his head slightly and flicks his eyes around the room as if in answer.

Anakin flushes but digs his heels in. “Well, I don’t know,” he mumbles mulishly. “Do math teachers do math in their spare time?”

This startles a laugh out of the teacher, which makes some long forgotten part of Anakin’s psyche sit up and preen. “I’m sure some of them do,” he says. “No, I do art mostly for the town right now. I’m working on a series of pieces for the public library at the moment.”

Anakin tries his hardest not to obviously melt, but Mr. Kenobi has not looked away from his face much so surely he can see it in his eyes.

“That’s quite. Nice,” Anakin says, coughing into his fist.

“And what do you do?” Mr. Kenobi asks in a way that’s just on the other side of polite. Anakin has the strange thought that if they had cups of coffee between them, he’d feel like he was on a very casual first date.

He has to shake his head to rid himself of that idea. “I’m a mechanic,” he says.

Mr. Kenobi looks interested, of all things. Most people don’t. Most people make some sort of assumption about him, about his life, his ability to parent his children, as if they’re not the ones rolling into his shop at 5:54 pm because their car is “making a funny noise”.

But Mr. Kenobi just looks interested.

“Oh?” He says. “That makes sense. Leia is always talking about how her father can fix anything.”

“Well,” Anakin blushes and looks away. “You know kids. Turn it off and turn it back on usually blows their minds.”

Mr. Kenobi smiles indulgently before clearing his throat. “You wanted to talk about Luke?”

“Oh! Yes!” He had come here with the express desire to talk about Luke with Mr. Kenobi. Not secure a date with Mr. Kenobi. “I saw that Luke got a... unicorn...and a rainbow on his last project, and it made me worry.”

It sounds very, very overbearing coming out of his mouth. This is an elementary school art class. Why did he think that he should come in and talk to a teacher over his son’s bad grade? Especially when it was pretty clear Luke deserved it.

Mr. Kenobi tilts his head in confusion. “Well, yes, I suppose I usually give Luke two suns on his work, so I understand if the change was upsetting to you.”

“And we’re saying that two suns are good?” Anakin checks, feeling very out of his element here.

“Oh, yes, very good,” Mr. Kenobi assures him. “But his last project wasn’t. Well.”

“He says he got distracted,” Anakin mutters, rubbing a hand down his face. “Over a boy.”

“Haven’t we all been there,” Mr. Kenobi murmurs, sounding very amused. Anakin peeks over his fingers at this declaration.

“Yeah,” he says roughly. “That’s sort of exactly what I thought.”

Mr. Kenobi clears his throat again. “Well. That’s why I gave him the unicorn then. It was a bit of bad work, but a very rare showing of it. And the rainbow, to signify that I know he’ll be back to normal again next time. You shouldn’t worry about this one project either, Mr. Skywalker. I do give final grades holistically, not weighted by any one assignment. This is, after all, a children’s art class.”

Anakin wants to thunk his head on the table in front of him. “You do know that all the parents think unicorn means unsatisfactory, right?”

“Why?” Mr. Kenobi has the nerve to look shocked.

“They both start with U, I don’t know,” Anakin says, waving an agitated hand through the air.

“Well, sometimes parents can be quite stupid,” Mr. Kenobi says primly and then looks horrified at himself. “Please don’t tell them I said that.”

Anakin laughs and gets to his feet reluctantly. His worries over Luke have been dealt with, but he finds himself very reluctant to leave.

“Well,” he says slowly, eyes firmly looking only at Mr. Kenobi’s face, “Thank you for meeting with me. I guess you don’t get many frantic parent-teacher conferences over a unicorn sticker.” He ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck with his hand in embarrassment. He can admit now that perhaps he had overreacted.

Mr. Kenobi places his hand delicately over the hand Anakin still has on the table, just for a second, squeezing it with enough pressure that Anakin has to look up at him again. “Only the best parents,” he says with a half-smile.

Anakin finds himself grinning back, unwilling to move his hand now that Kenobi’s touching it. “And, um. If you ever take the kids on an art museum tour or something, and you need chaperones….give me a call.”

“Would I have to wait that long?” Kenobi asks innocently.

Anakin’s never shaken his head no so quickly before. “Any time,” he tells the man very seriously, already backing out of the room. “Before you think too much about it and decide not to would probably be preferable.”

Mr. Kenobi laughs. “I’m sure I’ll think about it a lot,” he says as he turns to go back to his art studio. He calls over his shoulder. “In bed, tonight.”

Anakin trips over a child-sized easel with a loud clatter and an even louder curse, and he can’t decide which of the two should be more thankful school is out for the day. Probably Mr. Kenobi. Yeah. Probably definitely Mr. Kenobi.

#asks #my fics #obikin #just fluff #also omg re: my last tagged fic prompt and my gyoza #i was so excited about my gyoza i forgot to add a keep reading cut #so it looks SO long #and i went back and i added it but im also very sorry #i also had three gyoza which was a bit too much for 12:45am #and now it's 3:15 but i finished another prompt bless #prompt fill #art teacher obi-wan au

[sithapprenticemaul]

Hunter ; Hunted - Part Two

summary: Stripped of his sacred armour and weapons, Din has a choice to make.

 word count: 1.6k

 pairing: Din Djarin x Sherrif!Reader

 warnings: tooth rotting fluff I guess

 a/n: part two electric avenue. I struggled with this chapter, but I’m pleased with how it turned out in the end. let me know what you think!

 Part One

Din awoke with a groan, his head throbbing, an after effect of whatever had been injected into him to make him lose consciousness. Part of him wanted to go back unconsciousness. The dark, restful warmth of not having to face the consequences of his actions. He felt like he needed a millennia’s worth of sleep.

Blinking his heavy eyes open, he was instantly as alert as he could be. It was dusk; he estimated he had been out for around eight hours. He felt a strange sensation in his body and as he tried to move his arms, realising he was tied up and more worryingly he had been stripped of his sacred armour and weapons. He felt naked and vulnerable without his second skin, only his helmet remaining.

Din tried to move his legs to find his footing only to find himself swaying in the night air. In alarm he realised he was tied up and hanging - there was no ground beneath him, only the dark chasm of the dusty valley below.

“Nice of you to finally join us in the land of the living.” you spoke dryly. You had been waiting for nearly two hours for the Hunter to wake up so you could question him. There was only so much scenery to look at out in the middle of nowhere on Tatooine.

You sat back against a large boulder, feigning relaxation, and ease. The warm fire you had built was staving off the cold night, bathing your body and face in a flurry of warm colours. You watched in amusement as the Hunter was slowly piecing together what had happened to him. He dangled out over the cliff face like bait; the rusted imperial mining machine he was strung from groaned in the night.

You pushed yourself up, making your way over to the edge of the cliff to talk to your captive. Hands on your hips, you couldn’t help but smile in sympathy at the plight of the mighty Hunter brought low. The sky behind him was a dazzling array of orange, yellows, purples, the twin suns on their way out for the evening.

“What do you know about me?” you asked quietly, the question almost getting lost in the breeze.

Silence. The Hunter simply hung there, unspeaking, and unmoving. Was he ashamed of being caught? Embarrassed? Perhaps he simply was not the talkative type.

“Bear in mind I haven’t killed you yet. You could at least do me the courtesy of answering my questions,” you spoke as you shifted your position, drawing your cloak tighter around you. You were too far to feel the warmth of your fire.

“(y/n) (y/n), Imperial bounty, 75,000 credits,” he finally said coarsely, his throat dry.

Your eyes bore into his helmet, your mind ticking over the information.

“Do you know why there’s a bounty on me?” you asked tentatively, almost afraid of the answer the Hunter might give you.

“No.”

 You released a breath you didn’t realise you were keeping. Your past was not something you liked to discuss, let alone with a stranger who had come to take your life.

“You have two choices now Hunter; me or your life,” you started to pace the edge of the cliff as you spoke. “I’ll let you go unharmed if you stop pursuing me. You have my word.”

Din couldn’t deny that he was intrigued by the offer. There was no doubt you could kill him without a second thought right now. You could have, should have, killed him at any point given the threat he was to you - but you hadn’t. Yet here you were, offering him freedom in exchange for his silence. His life for your life.

You walked over to the old machinery, a crane, pressing a dusty button that brought the Hunter down to the cliff.

Din was grateful to finally feel the earth beneath his feet.

You leaned passed him, your bodies uncomfortably close for a fraction of a second as you cut the rope that attached him to the machinery. His arms and torso were still bound as you walked him over to the warm fire, setting him down across from you as you sank back down. You were showing him kindness, but you weren’t stupid. He would stay bound until you got what you wanted from him.

Din sat, the warmth of the fire warming his cold body, only now realising how hungry and thirsty he was. His stomach grumbled loudly. He felt weak, tired, yet still as on guard as he could be. You had caught him, tied him up and questioned him. Din wasn’t sure what to expect from you next.

You heard the grumble of his stomach too, feeling guilty that you’d left your prisoner to go hungry. You were fiercely protective of your people and town and your self-preservation skills were off the proverbial charts, but you were not a cruel person. You leaned over, rooting around in the bag you had packed for the trip. You brought out a canteen of water and some fruits.

Walking back, you dropped to the floor, sitting cross legged in front of the hungry bounty Hunter, your knees touching ever so slightly. You reached out for the Hunter’s helmet and he jerked his head away from your touch.

“Easy, Hunter,” you spoke tenderly, as if comforting a wild animal. “I’m just lifting it up a little, I won’t take it off, I promise.”

He relented, his thirst getting the better of him and you tipped the shining beskar back just a touch as you brought the canteen of water to his lips. He hesitated before drinking deeply, closing his eyes at the relief of the cool, clean water. He could feel droplets of water spilling from the sides of his mouth.

Din opened his eyes suddenly as he felt your soft fingers wipe at the corners of his mouth. You were so gentle. Maker when was the last time he had been touched with such care. Din noticed the softness in your eyes, your demeanour warm, calm, stripped of the brash and tough exterior that came naturally with the responsibility of caring for so many people.

You fed him the sweet fruit, taking bites of it yourself as he chewed. You were tired and hungry yourself, but you couldn’t rest until you had an answer. Until you knew that you were safe.

Bellies full and thirst sated, you sat back down across from the hunter, the fire illuminating you both in the dark night.

Din watched as you stretched, taking care to mind your injured shoulder.

“How is your shoulder?” he asked, guilt swirling within him at having injured you.

“Oh, it’s okay. I’ve had worse.” you replied, looking over at the bandages and gauze where Kintara had patched you up.

You both sat in silence, the only noises being the crackling fire and the nocturnal creatures of Tatooine.

“I’ll drop the bounty on you.” Din finally spoke. He swallowed thickly; he’d never done this before. He was hoping his fierce reputation within The Guild wouldn’t take a hit. Then again, if you killed him, he wouldn’t have a reputation to worry about.

“Swear to me...on your beskar,” you offered back to him, needing more than words. You needed a solemn vow. Your life and the lives of many others weighed heavily on your shoulders. Anyone could make a promise – the trouble was keeping them

Din perked up at the mention of his holy armour. It wasn’t common for outsiders to have knowledge of his religion. You’d stripped him of every piece of his armour but his helmet. Evidently you understood it’s importance. Din was grateful.

“I swear.”

The days tension finally dissipated from your body; the exhausting kept at bay by your anxiety finally kicking in. You and your town were safe, for now at least.

“Thank you, Hunter.” you replied gently, grateful.

“Din. My name is Din.”

Your face gave away your surprise. You were happy with his vow, even happier with this show of friendship.

“Din.” you repeated back to him, testing the word on your tongue. “It’s a handsome name.”

The night air was close to freezing now, and you dug a blanket from your bag. You held the blanket tenderly as you stood up and walked over to Din. You softly placed the blanket on him, only now realising his body was still bound.

“Oh, sorry...I forgot,” you said sheepishly.

You leaned down, being careful as you cut the ropes binding the Mandalorian with you pocket knife.

 Din was grateful to have his body back, settling himself under the warm blanket. His body was calm but his mind racing with a million questions - would you really have killed him? Had you killed others that came before him? The biggest question was directed at himself - had he really just sworn on his beskar for you. You and you alone, for the first time in his life.

His mind darted back to your gentle fingers on his face. He couldn’t deny he wanted your hands back on his face. Din wanted to know you – this strong yet compassionate woman. A leader who radiated strength, tempered, and sustained with love. One who could have easily taken his life and yet delicately offered it back to him, asking only for your own in return.

Din had no doubt had you been a foundling you would have been a fierce Mandalorian warrior. Din blushed, grateful at his helmet for shielding his face. It had been a truly eventful day.

“Get some rest Din, we have a long trip back to town in the morning.”

You both slept, safe in each other’s presence, unaware of the bond forming between you.

#din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #star wars x reader #star wars x you #star wars self insert #star wars fanfic #din djarin #the mandalorian #alina!writes

[that-mom-friend-talks]

Everyone's been talking, and I'm gonna add to the din!! A list of things, in no particular order, that I noticed/loved in the latest vid

ALL THE GODDAMN ANGST everyone was bitter and selfdepricating and shit was/is a mess. Kudos to the creators bc it portrays how bad Thomas's mental state has gotten and I'm living for it

No Virgil!! Baby boi was probably having a panic attack off screen, the type where our don't feel sad or anxious but just straight up empty. He was just void this vid, and personally I think Logan didn't show up bc he was staying with him for comfort, bc we know how logic soothes anxiety

FUCKIN JANUS!!! THIS BITCH!! He's everything i thought he would be and more. He's the wine aunt and the cat mom all in one, and I stan this judgemental sophisticated gay. His mannerisms!! We're so subtle but distinguished!! Shoulder shimmies, moving his body with his head first, the hand gestures, the fUCKING GLOVE THING!!! Bitch has gloves on so he isn't compelled to tell only the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth the fuckin GENIUS OF THOMAS AND JOAN AND CO.

Speaking of, character Thomas!! He reached his point!! Boi is fed up with his mind's bullshit and wants some goddamn answers. Most aren't what he wants to hear, and that has an impact on him!!! Which is so beautiful!!

I'm just living for the design of this bc they must've had this planned for so goddamn long to bring all the little things out into this big climax and breakdown and bitch we ain't even dealt with the why's yet!!!

Speaking of, let's get specific in this angst bc boi is there a LOT to unpack!!!

First and foremost, Patton!! Focus of the vid and progressively breaking down throughout but desperate to hide it. Morality is supposed to have answers, but as I touched on earlier, they aren't always the ones we want or like to hear, and none of them are simple when you get older. He was stressed bc he didn't know and he wasn't allowed to not know (and I thought that brand of angst was reserved for Logan but I'm wrong and I'm happy I am). He freaked out and said the truth, in all of its painful repressed liberating glory!!! I noticed his major deflecting throughout the vid and called him out on it so much my bro wanted to know who I was talking to.

Roman!!! Not my fav of the sides but still deserving of the love he gets!! Boi had a breakdown bc he was stuck in dichotomy, black and white, good and evil, and when that shit (Janus) proved to be a grey area he couldn't deal. Gets called evil by Janus and closes in on himself so damn fast I was worried he'd catch his fingers in the door. Self worth is shit, but boi is trying to stick to his brand so hard he breaks. I was gonna say snap but it was much more self-directed then Patton's breakdown (the fucking DETAIL IN THIS PRODUCTION IM-) He is really angry at himself and deflects real well with that sword of his. Made a mistake and is harrowed by it (another thing I thought was Logan brand but hey!! You get angst, you get angst, everyone gets some angst!!) And when he's like "I thought I was your hero!" And Janus nods my take is that Janus was confirming that he was but Roman doesn't trust his honeyed words at ALL so he thinks it's a lie and is hurt. God, this is phenomenal.

MY BOY LOGAN!!! Baby really went "you guys don't listen to me when I'm there so I won't show up. I have to be present, because I care, but maybe I at least can inform the audience since you guys won't listen." And when I say I cRIED- He was trying so hard he literally smacked Patton (whether to snap him out of it, end the train of thought to help I'm see reason, or just out of spite any reason is valid). He was trying so fucking hard with the little room he was forced to work with, and they kept cutting him down (literally) and choosing to ignore him and insulting him and I 100% think the reason he didn't breakdown was because he knew he had to be the lighthouse in the face of a hurricane and guide the others to safety and home.

Also! Logan got pulled out by a cane. Like the cane Janus used to pull Thomas aside. Janus pulled Logan out before he broke down and lashed out bc Janus is self-preservation and he needed him to take care of Virgil, don't worry, I'll deal with them.

Janus and Logan work together and you can fIGHT ME ON THIS THEY ARE THE PARENTS OF THE WHOLE GROUP TELL ME OTHERWISE!!!!

Logan is the dad Janus is the tired mom and both of them bitch about how much they love their family and how tiring it is to keep doing this over and over and over-

In summary, the things I'm taking from this video is

Character!Thomas is having the biggest breakdown and crisis of his life, and all of the sides are breaking down individually (besides Remus and barely Janus)

Logan and Janus work together to keep this shit show afloat and both are fed up with it all.

Everyone needs to work out their shit

The quality of production and the effort that Thomas and Joan and co. put into these videos make them entirely worth the wait, and I am in love with them bc of it.

Janus is THAT BITCH, and I now stan him almost as much as Logan (but not equally)

And fuck, real Thomas, are you doing alright???

#logan sanders angst #sanders sides logan #sanders sides #ts roman #ts virgil #ts logan #ts patton #ts janus #ts spoilers #roman sanders #roman sanders angst #patton sanders angst

[tellywoodtrash]

immj2 25.12.20 lb

you know what’s hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighly unrealistic about this scene? that she picked up a call from a number she doesn’t have saved. no millennial does that. we wait till it stops ringing and then google/truecaller the number and see if someone worth talking to.

vansh knows this and is thinking omg what kinda crazy person have i married?????? this bitch bonkers.

anyway, after ACP Anda, i think she deserves another catchy nickname, so imma call her Bitch-oo Babe.

he fully knew who was calling based on his reaction and is trying to distract her. this shadyassssss fucker, man.

also music therapy? i shudder to think what kinda music this freak might like. those alone might be grounds for divorce. i could never be with a person whose music taste i don’t at least begrudgingly tolerate, if not respect and appreciate.

anyway, hearing his voice, Bitch-oo Babe hung up, like any sane woman would, knowing that this dude is around.

HE KNOWS. HE FULLY KNOWS. FUCKER.

this looks hella uncomfortable. not to mention dangerous. stop distracting the driver!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ghar nahi, kahin aurrrrrrrrrr. for quality time. with this dude. oh boy.

lmaoooooooooooo she’s like “but dadi.......???”

“riddhima, dadi se main pyaar karta hoon but tumhe nahi lagta honeymoon par dadi ko laana thoda awkward ho jayega???” snortttttttt.

she’s like nooooooooo but dadi’s waiting for us and he shows his horndog side and is like and i’ve been waiting monthssssssss. AND WHOSE FAULT IS THAT, ASSHOLE??? TUMHE FURSAT KAHAN FROM PLAYING SHITTY MINDGAMES, INSTEAD OF LIKE..... STRIP UNO OR SOME OTHER FUN GAMES THAT WOULD RESULT IN ORGASMS? 

he literally just told her “humara din hai, riddhima. aaj ke liye apne dimaag se sab kuch baahar nikaal do.” oh don’t worry bro, she’s permanently like that only. aapko aaj ke din ke liye koi special instruction dene ki zaroorat nahi hai.

gaadi mein gadbad. of course. but it just stopped. didn’t blow up or anything. hmph.

how fortuitous ki gaadi stopped in front of this beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful setup. hum toh jab bhi phas jaate hain kisi busy road pe hi hota hai, and then traffic builds up behind and honks at us repeatedly and makes us cry.

he’s saying “nice” but very creepy shit about aaj ke baad jeene ke liye kuch bachega nahi and aakhri pal and all, and this idiot girl is just simpering at him instead of having alarm bells go off in her head. sis................ why are you like this??????? self preservation naam ki cheez kyun nahi hai tummm mein??????? like, i’m a depressed bitch who is constantly craving death and even my brain is like GET OUT IF YOU WANNA LIVEEEEEEEEEEEE every time i hear something “meaningful” said by this guy.

of course when he’s being normal, she has to ruin the moment by thinking of telling him everrrrrrrrrrrrrrything. sigh. why are you two so fuckinggggg exhausting?

SOMEONE’S WATCHING THEM FROM OUTSIDE HERE ALSO?!?!!?!? WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK, ARE THESE TWO NEVER TO BE FUCKING LEFT ALONE EVER?????????????????????? JESUS.

YET AGAIN, SHE’S TRYING TO TELL HIM THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT THE PAST AND HE DOESN’T LET HER COMPLETE WHAT SHE’S SAYING. BOY IF YOU DON’T SHUTTTTTT THE FUCK UP AND JUST LISTEN TO HER I SWEAR TO FUCKIN’ GOD..........................

SHE EVEN TRIES TO TELL HIM KI LET ME COMPLETE THE FUCK I’M TRYING TO SAY IT’S LIKE A BURDEN ON ME I NEED TO GET IT OFF AND THIS ASSHOLE................ I .................

blah blah ateet hai, not present and aane waala kal, blah blah blah. let’s live our life and forget everything in the past. yeah ok, let’s see if he’ll follow his own words or if he’s gonna dig up shit from the past and torture her over it.

bathroom mein ek surprise hai? oh boy. this fucker’s surprises are never good. 

thankfully she used her brain and is like was all this planned, us coming here???? he’s like jagaah yehi thi, but the car breaking down here was a coincidence. sure. i don’t believe a single word outta your mouth, you silver tongued fuck.

man, you’re so hot. why can’t you just be a good human being also???? ouff, apparently, that’s asking TOOOOO much of men these days.

aslkjdlsakjdlsakjdlaskjldkjsalkdjsal the way the psycho theme music just started playing in my head!!!!!!!!!!!

some shady talk with angre. could be talking about riddhima, could be talking about anupriya. who knows??????/ either way, some woman about to get her life ruined by this fucker.

behen still adamant on confessing the truth to him. wrote one big dramatic letter. who the fuck writes letters anymore???? put that shit in an email or a whatsapp message or some shit, sis.

anyway, condition is that gimme a rose and i’ll understand you’ve forgiven me and want to start a new life with me despite all this.

kept the letter next to his wallet.

ek pal ka sukoon nahi hai is ladki ki life mein. always from the frying pan into the fire.

vansh came running, tab tak person has disappeared. with his wallet. (and her letter.) so he’s like koi chor tha shaayad.

SHE JUST TOLD HIM SOMEONE TRIED TO KILL HER AND HE’S LIKE SO CASUAL ABOUT IT AND SAYING “RIDDHIMA, RELAX, KUCH HUA TOH NAHI NA TUMHE?” WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?! DID HE PLAN THIS?????? WAS THIS THE SURPRISE HE HAD WAITING FOR HER IN THE BATHROOM????????

he’s like let’s go home if you’re uncomfortable and she’s like NOOOOOOOO I’M FEELING BETTER NOW.

yeah. this is the face of someone feeling “better” minutes after being attacked.

sis soooooooooo horny for her husband she’s just brushing aside trauma acquired 2 minutes ago, to get laid. god, could never be me. 

jesus christ what the fuck it’s like a gulabjal ka factory exploded nearby. i have a headache just looking at this. so fucking ott.

anyway, she’s panicking about no gulab in his hand. SIS. LOOK AROUND YOU??????? GULAB HI GULAB HAI. HAR JAGAAH. LIKE...... WHAT MORE GULAAB THAN THIS YOU WANT, HUH??????????/

LO. HAATH MEIN BHI GULAAB. HAPPY? LORD.

happy tears, happy tears. (FOR NOW.)

everytime he does this getting down on his knees and making this 🥺🥺🥺 face thing, i go buck wild.

god he looks soooooo good and he’s saying allllllllllllll the right things. pity i don’t believe him.

behen ne bhi kar diya pyaaaar ka ailaaaaaan.

LOL WHAT KINDA AMATEUR BS IS THIS???? SIR WHERE’S THOSE MOVES YOU HAD AS VIHAAN????????? UGH, I MISS VIHAAN. HE WAS SO MUCH SEXIER THAN THIS DORK. 

i’m so fucking mad that this is the fucking nonsense they gave us as first sex scene. ugh. ek toh lip sync. woh bhi to a song i hate. upar se so much ootpataang nonsense. in terms of disappointment, i think this might rank even higher than shivika’s laal ishq. that at least had sexy soundtrack and the expressions and all on point. this is literally cringey as fuckkkkkk.

wow. one neck kiss that lasted .03 seconds. thanks. i’m all satisfied now. 😒😒😒

anyway, i sat through it so y’all could have these caps of rrahul’s face looking good. enjoy.

agla episode mujhse abhi dekha nahi jayega. uska lb kal. i need to go get rid of my disappointment at whatever this was, by watching some new girl or something. ok bye.

#ishq mein marjawan 2 #immj2 #immj2 lbs #episode liveblogs

[redrobin-detective]

Family Man

I got talking in the discord last night and I got inspired on the idea of Inko not only knowing about AFO but being something of an equal partner in his business. It was fun to write and I figured since my writing has been very sporadic as of late, it would serve as my entry for @thefruitloop-chan‘s DFO fic contest. I hope you all enjoy Villain Dad and his Lovely Villainous wife with their Hero loving son.

All For One, currently Midoriya Hisashi along with a hundred other useless, abandoned names, has never been a conventional man. He was born in a period of upheaval with a power that beyond comprehension and saw that things could be different, better. His whole life was dedicated to improving the lives of people with quirks and fighting back at the government’s idiotic kneejerk reaction to controlling the super-powered populace. When his only brother died on the opposite end of the battle field, he had given up on trusting people and contented himself with a life of solitude. Until he met her that is.

“Hmm good morning, Hisashi,” Inko purred, leaning down to sleepily nuzzle his neck while he reviewed the latest dealings with his underlings. He doesn’t the close the tab when Inko began to skim the report and instead angled the screen her way. “Looks like the Kuronaga Genetics Corporation is misusing their funds again; just look at all those unexplained expenses,” she pointed out. “I think we need to remind them whose money they’re embezzling.”

“Yes, I noticed that as well, I could probably spare a few low levels thugs to encourage them to be more mindful of their spending,” Hisashi nodded while Inko just tutted.

“Fear is an excellent motivator in some cases but this will be the third time you’ve called them out on their practices. I would recommend you make them cooperate of their own accord; we have six other quirk labs on our payroll. Pad their budgets a little more, start pulling people from Kuronaga onto other projects as if you plan to shut them down. Nothing is as motivating as self-preservation; they’ll straighten themselves out to avoid being liquidated with no brute force needed.”

“Brilliant,” Hisashi blurted out suddenly, turning to his wife and kissing her cheek. “I would be nothing more than a two-bit villain without your insight.”

“You’ll always be a two-bit villain, my love,” she whispered in his ear. “Do you have time for breakfast?”

“I’ll make time,” he smiled back, watching her hips sway as she walked in the kitchen.

He met her under completely ordinary circumstances, at the station watching the news while waiting for the train. He’d been muttering about the government’s negligence regarding the increasing amount of unrest surrounding quirk advocacy groups. The unassuming green haired woman next to him intrigued him by agreeing and suggesting several ways for the state to address the issue. And so they continued to debate for the rest of the wait over the busy din of the train. By the time she stepped off her train for work, he was several blocks past his stop, late for his meeting and more than a little smitten as he carefully tucked away her phone number. The intelligent gleam in her eyes as she tore into the inadequacies of quirk law stayed with him long after she’d left and he called her later that night. Their courtship had been brief and intense, by the end of the third month, she had a ring on her finger and a positive pregnancy test. He took her surname and they moved into a cozy little house together and All For One was reminded, for a moment, what it was like to be happy.

“What time are you going in today? I’d like your opinions on several of the open contracts we have, you’re so much better at picking up loopholes and inconsistencies than me,” he asked as he sat down at the table and was greeted with a bowl of rice and eggs.

“In a couple of hours, I have a meeting with Izuku’s principal and the Bakugou family regarding Katsuki’s reckless and dangerous use of his quirk,” Inko said, setting herself down.

“I still say I should relieve the boy of his quirk since clearly he’s not being taught to use it correctly,” Hisashi growled, his anger still boiling from when his precious son came home the other day with burns on his arms. Inko had barely been able to restrain him from burning their whole house down.

“Don’t go causing trouble, I’m not eager to move again,” Inko chastised, pointing at him with her chopsticks. “I’ll make sure to impress on them just how unhappy we are with the situation, I’m pretty sure they’re more afraid of us suing them into poverty than anything else. Maybe then Mitsuki will learn to control her son.”

“She never learned to control herself,” Hisashi mused into her coffee.

“Well then I guess we’ll just strongly encourage them to relocate their feral child far away from Izuku,” Inko stated and Hisashi couldn’t help but sigh and stare at her with open love and admiration. He’d tried to keep his less than savory dealings away from his growing family but Inko never lost her sharpness and picked up on all his lies and half-truths rather quickly. He can still see her standing there, incredibly pregnant, after he’d guiltily laid out his whole past and current operations.

‘I don’t care that you’re a villain, Hisashi, I care that you lied to me about your job and your quirk,’ Inko raged. ‘Not to mention that your manner of trying to reform the system is completely childish. You want to create an underground villain league to fight the heroes? It’s a waste of resources and just reinforces the public’s trust in the self-serving hero system. If we’re going to be villains, we’re going to do it right.’

“What?” Inko asks dryly when she catches him staring.

“Just wondering how a bitter old man like me managed to win over someone as charming and wonderful as you,” he sighed.

“Because I want to take over your criminal empire in order to enforce my will on Japan,” she teased.

“It’s yours, my love; for you and Izuku, I would level this country and burn the world to ash,” Hisashi professed, meaning every word. For his family, he set the whole world aflame.

“And if you did that, we would be living in a burned, decrepit dystopia only slightly worse than the one we’re living in now,” she sighed, rubbing at her forehead. “Not everything needs fire and brimstone, darling. We don’t need to break the whole system to reform it; we’re already turning the tide. By the time Izuku is in high school, the hero system will be on the outs.”

“Hopefully,” Hisashi grumbled, looking at Izuku’s All Might themed place setting that had been purchased with his hard earned money. There was nothing he hated more than monetarily supporting All Might’s brand, except, of course, his small son’s disappointed face.

“All the kids are into heroes now, he’ll grow out of it, don’t worry,” Inko smiled, reading his thoughts. As if being summoned, there were several loud thumps reverberating through the apartment before Izuku suddenly appeared in the entryway, his hair a tangled whirlwind. He waddled forward as fast as his little legs could carry him before crashing into Hisashi’s knees.

“Hey there, where’s the fire?” Hisashi asks, lifting his boy up into his arms.

“Papa always goes into work early and I didn’t want you to leave before I could say goodbye,” Izuku wobbled, clinging into Hisashi’s dress shirt. He looked up Inko who gave him a small shrug as she gathered up their dishes, before turning back to Izuku. His wild curls with Inko’s rich green color, her sweet rounded face and the freckles he and his brother had as children, Izuku really was the perfect blend of the two of them. He’d never planned on becoming a father but having Izuku is something he would never regret, his boy’s curiousity and joy were infectious, it reminded Hisashi why he and Inko were fighting so hard to create a better world.

“I would never leave without saying goodbye, son,” he soothed, bouncing Izuku lightly on his knee. “I do have to go to work but you know that Papa will always come home to you and Mama. I love you both more than all the quirks in the world.”

“All the quirks?” Izuku said with a puzzled little expression, “more than Kacchan’s Explosion? Or Mama’s Attraction? What about All Might’s quirk? Do you love me more than All Might’s Superpower?”

“Yes, Izuku,” Hisashi said, shaking his head with amused affection. “I love you more than All Might’s quirk.” Once upon a time, he might have been more interested in recovering One For All. It was, after all, the last vestiges he had left of his brother. But he’s spent too much time fussing over the past; he needs to look now towards the future, to Izuku’s future.

“Wow that’s an awful lot,” Izuku muttered with an adorably serious face. Hisashi ran his fingers through his son’s hair and set him gently back to the ground.

“More than you know, now go get dressed; you and Mama have an appointment at school and then she needs to join me at work. We have some important things to do today and you have exciting things to learn in school,” propaganda most of it but Inko refused to let him homeschool Izuku, something about ‘lack of time’ and ‘he needs to play with other kids not debate politics with immortal cryptids.’ Oh well, Izuku was only four, he had plenty of time to convince her.

“Okay,” Izuku squealed, tearing back off towards his room with all the enthusiasm a four year old can have. Hisashi watched him go with a fond smile.

“You better keep your promise,” Inko said quietly over the sound of water spilling into the sink. “I know your work is important but I want you to always come home to Izuku and I.”

“Inko, everything is going to be fine,” he soothed.

“It will be when you stop taking so many risks,” he could hear the frustration in her voice. “I know you hate All Might but will you stop goading him so much. He has all that power built-up, if you slip up for even a moment, you might-.” She stopped and brought her hand up to her mouth, unable to continue.

“Inko,” he said again, walking over to her and placing his hands onto his shoulders. She brought one of her wet hands up to hold his own.

“You need to make a choice Midoriya Hisashi, you need to decide which is more important, your need for closure on your brother’s quirk or your family. I’m telling you, if you keep chasing after All Might then you will lose us, one way or another.” The house fell quiet after that, even the sound of Izuku stomping in his room seemed to fade at her heavy proclamation.

“You, always you,” he answered after a few tense moments trying to find his voice. “You and Izuku are the best things that have ever happened to me, tell me, what do you want.”

“Let the past be the past,” she said turning to him. “Focus on our goals, dismantling the establishment from the inside out. Stop it with these petty fights and this obsession with stopping All Might. They say the best revenge is living well, so do that. Live well, love your son and change the world.”

“Okay,” he sighed, leaning down and kissing her forehead before setting his cheek on her hair. “No more All Might, no more fighting, it will be strictly business from now.”

“Don’t sound so sad, my love,” she hummed, pulling out of his hold to pat his cheek before returning to the soapy dishes. “I just saved your life.”

“Well don’t sound so proud about it, now you’re stuck with me for life,” he teased, already calculating how to circumnavigate her decree. Part of being All For One meant he had to be in the field occasionally but as for All Might… well maybe it is finally time to let his brother’s ghost stop haunting him. Inko’s probably right that the big oaf would punch his face off one of the these days and he can’t let that happen, not when he has so much to lose.

“I am here!” Izuku announced, jumping back into the room with a broad grin. Hisashi moaned, on the other hand, he might need to murder All Might anyone for making his son into a fanboy, complete with grinning t-shirt and light up shoes.

“That you are,” he nodded, scooping his son up into his arms. “How about a deal, you go change your shirt and Papa will pick you up from school today and take you to the park for some quirk spotting.”

“Quirk spotting yeah!” Izuku wriggled leaping out of his arms to go change into what was probably going to be another All Might shirt but he’d take what he could get.

“You better not be trying to drag Izuku into our work,” Inko warned from the sink.

“I’m just encouraging his natural interest and skill with quirk analysis,” and subtly probing for any signs that he’d inherited Hisashi’s quirk, “but we’ll be good and be back in time for dinner.”

“You’re never good, you villain,” she said with a toss of her hair.

“Oh my dear villainess,” he grinned, wrapping his arms around her from behind. “You only like me ‘cause I’m bad.” He had not been born Midoriya Hisashi but that didn’t matter much. It was the only name he had truly cherished and the only name he wanted to have. His life was unconventional, running an underground conspiracy alongside his wife while managing a hero obsessed four year old. But he had found in his many, many years of life that it’s better to live an abnormal life. He’s just lucky he found such strange people to share it with.

#boku no hero academia #bnha fics #i wrote this #dad for one #all for one #I probably could make this better #maybe edit it a few more times but its probably as good as it will get #@Nobody and Bone Break Jack: thanks for the ideas last night #I dont actually know your tumblrs so there you s/o

[thewhiterabbit42]

Full Circle: Part 2

Full Circle Masterlist

Pairing: Gabriel x Reader

Word count: 6121

Warnings/Tags: Winchester sister!reader, more angst, canonical character death

Summary:  When a strange occurrence leads you back to Indiana, you find the past becomes resurrected along with a certain archangel.  Unfortunately, you both become caught up in something bigger than you expected.  Takes place between Seasons 5 and 6.  

Author’s note:  I have checked the The Hammer of the Gods transcript so many times at this point I’m surprised it’s not seared behind my eyelids when I close them.  Taglists are at the end.  If there's a line through a name, I tried to tag and it wouldn't let me.  Sorry!

Special thanks to my amazing beta @sumara62 for her great feedback and for helping me grow as a writer and for @blondecoffeecake who pretty much feeds my soul (with not only sunshine but a whole lotta Dick).  Both of you ladies are the best and your kind words and encouragement are always appreciated.  

***Please do not repost or copy my work to any other site without my written permission.  Giving credit does NOT count.  Reblogging is ok.***

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It was no wonder your instincts had been on high alert.  Muncie, Indiana might not have been next door to Winchester, but it was in the same county. 

Like Gabriel, a piece of that disastrous night still lingered, consistently trying to chime in on the edge of your existence.  You’d become so accustomed to it being there it had melded into the clamoring din of emotions that rose whenever you toed the line to the past.  

The fact you were about to drive straight over it had snippets piercing your consciousness.

“Am I the only one wondering what a place like this is doing… in a place like this?” You finished lamely, staring up at the fluorescent blue lights that had beckoned you in from the road. You couldn’t remember the last time you saw a gas station, let alone anything worthy of a hotel this nice.  

Then again, you also couldn’t remember the last time you could see anything past the torrents of water raining down upon the car.  

“Are you really going to argue with a place called ‘Elysian Fields’?” Dean demanded.  He had a point.  You could already tell by how well cared for the grounds and signs were that this was guaranteed to be the nicest stop of your lives.  

You just couldn’t shake the feeling that it was too nice.

“Tell you what, if you’re so worried, we’ll go check it out and you can sleep here for the night,” he suggested, pulling into the spot closest to the door.  You didn’t say a word as he turned off the engine, even though it was obvious to you there shouldn’t even be any parking left this close.  The whole place should have been filled, but you knew telling him that wouldn’t make a difference.  Not when it was dinner time and there were at least three states between him and his last meal.

He turned, eyes drifting conspicuously between you, to Sam, and back again, before his lips curled up into a sly smile.

You knew that look.  It often preceded him doing something that made you wonder if murdering him would be an extra special sin because he was your twin, or if it still fell under ordinary fratricide.  

“Last one out grabs the bags!”  He announced before bolting from the vehicle.  

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes.  Clearly, the five minutes he had on you had not given him a leg up in the maturity department.  

Sam’s gaze met yours in the mirror, a burgeoning apology flashing through them.  You glared.  No freaking way was he about to do what you thought he was going to.

Before you could say “death wish” he, too, was making a break toward the hotel entrance.  

Now if you had pulled up to this building nearly a year ago, you would have been more apt to walk inside.  

You didn't expect to find the place lit up, but you also didn't expect it to look so run down.  Storms had hit the area hard, leaving some damage around the outer edge of the structure.  The tubing for both signs had been blown out, shards of glass glinting in the fading sunlight.  A few of the sign panels attached to the building were missing, looking as if they’d been ripped clean off, though the one that flagged the hotel from the road was still intact.  

You pulled into a familiar parking space, letting the engine idle as memories continued to leach across your vision.  

It had been nearly an hour since your brothers went inside. You still hadn’t budged from where you sat, despite Dean’s attempts to lure you in with promises of pie so heavenly it put sex to shame.  You’d almost given in, considering you couldn’t remember the last time you’d had a piece, with either vice.

You also couldn’t recall the last time you’d had any peace, which is what ultimately had you resisting temptation.  

Unfortunately, that meant remaining in the back seat of the impala which you had been stuck in for over a day now.  You couldn’t tell if that’s what had you crawling out of your skin or if you were still stuck on how this place just didn’t belong.  

You wished you had something other than your gut to go on, something tangible that could --

“I’m beginning to think you absorbed all the intelligence in the womb and that’s why your brother is a walking meathead.”  You jumped, whirling toward the sudden voice to your right and the familiar figure you found lounging beside you had your hand freezing halfway to your gun.  Amber glinted with amusement, and you were too caught off guard to notice that something else flickered in your guest’s gaze.  

“Sam, on the other hand, has no excuse,” Gabriel finished, lips twitching as he propped a languid elbow up on the back of the seat, head resting casually against a closed fist as he idly regarded you.  

“Jesus’ burnt and buttered toast, don’t do that!” You hissed, hand clutching at where your heart was frantically trying to burst through your chest.  If it hadn’t come as such a shock, you would have been able to feel how full the car had become just moments before he said anything.  The archangel’s presence had a way of saturating a place, and currently it was flooding the impala with the chaotic energy that often surrounded him.   

“I like it when you talk dirty,” he said with a wink.  “But I’m afraid the foreplay will have to wait.  There might be a room full of gods and goddesses weighing the fate of your brothers as we speak.”

Well no wonder you didn’t want to go inside.  There was a supernatural convention going on, and not the kind where you needed to be reminded putting a bullet in participants was “not helpful” and “murder.”

“All right,” you said taking a breath and running a hand through your hair.  You took a moment to refocus yourself, picking up the scattered pieces of information you had so far.  So there was a small gathering of deities inside, which you assumed meant nothing good for your brothers, regardless of whether they were accidentally involved or not.  You had Gabriel on your side, however, which was a solid plus.   

“So what’s plan A?” You asked, looking to him for guidance since you assumed he at least knew some of the crowd from his time as Loki.  

He snapped his fingers and the impala roared to life.  “You, my dear, get as far away from here as possible and let me worry about tweedledum and tweedledee in there.”

“I’m sorry, have we met?” You asked, arching an incredulous brow.  There was no way you were leaving your brothers behind; Gabriel knew better.

“Listen, we both know leaving your brothers unsupervised is just asking for trouble, but here’s a novel idea: how about you trust me,” he suggested, his eyes like liquid honey as they burned bright with something you couldn’t recognize.  “For once, don’t argue with everything that comes out of my mouth simply because it’s coming from a pretty face,” he said, sliding a hand beneath his chin to highlight the area, “And continue listening to whatever small shred of self-preservation you received that the rest of your family clearly didn’t.”  

Sarcasm colored his words, giving weight to the casual air he tried to maintain.  You were caught off guard, mostly because he was right.  You did fight him.  A lot.  Only it wasn’t entirely for the reasons he thought it was.  

“And plan B if things go south?” You asked.

“For you? See plan A,” he answered, as if it were the most simple concept in the world.

“I’m not leaving them behind,” you insisted.  “So either we’re going to have a change in plans or you’re going to have to break your promise.”

If there was one thing you had in common with the archangel, it was that neither one of you liked having your options taken away.  You’re not sure if that was why the olive branch he offered after trapping you in TV Land involved a promise to never snap you anywhere without permission again, or if it was the fact you tended to break things on him when he did.   

“Well, someone’s getting their heart broken tonight, because Deana-rino also made me promise I’d get you out of here safely,” he informed you.  “And I have to say, that’s one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard come out of his mouth.”  

“Don’t worry.  He’s a big boy.  He can handle the disappointment,” you said sardonically as you reached out and pulled the handle to get out of the car.  You had barely gotten the door open when Gabriel’s arm shot across you, hastily pulling it shut again.  

Your breath hitched as his rippled across your lips, your eyes caught up in the storm in his gaze that rivaled the one outside.  The energy in the car soared as the front of his jacket brushed against yours, heat pouring across the tiny gap between your bodies.  Cas had always been a little cool to the touch, and you imagined angels were that way in general.  Then Gabriel came along, blasting that expectation, along with many others, right out of the water.  You could always feel his heat from a few feet away, but this close to you?  He was an inferno.

“Don’t go in there,” he warned, his glib demeanor disappearing.  There was so much behind the statement you couldn’t begin to tease it all apart.  A heavy feeling formed in the pit of your stomach, and your intuition grasped at something still beyond your understanding.

“Gabriel,” you began, licking your lips nervously, “What do you know that I don’t?”

His brows drew together, something breaking through the intensity of his features.  

“They’re going to summon Lucifer.”  

You couldn’t remember much about the night you realized what that look had been.  It could have been any number of states in the South West that you had landed in that particular time of year.  You might have had dinner, or it could have been one of the many instances you didn’t feel like eating anything.  Lying awake, staring at faded and dingy walls, too on edge to sleep, but too exhausted to do anything other than think had become too frequent a routine until everything blended seamlessly together into one long stretch of nightly nerves and regret.  

The moment it clicked, however, that was etched into your mind with vivid clarity.   

The chatter of a city that refused to quiet even well into the night.  The warm breeze wafting through yellowed curtains, bringing with it the lingering smell of old tobacco and cheap air fresheners.  The fact you were alone, for once, handling one in a never ending number of cases so your brothers could focus on getting the keys to the cage.  

All those little details became locked into your mind the second you realize Gabriel had been afraid.  That in and of itself was a revelation.  You wouldn’t have thought that sentiment existed within his repertoire (or any archangel’s for that matter).  Though what made it so memorable was the fact the angel hadn’t been scared of anyone.  He had been scared for you.  

You scrubbed a hand over your face, refocusing on the building in front of you.  You killed the engine, your hand lingering on the door as doubts spilled through the large gaping holes in the puzzle you were facing.  Were you actually being directed here or was it your own desire to put the past to rest causing you to see connections among coincidences?   What were you even looking for in either case?  There was nothing here for you other than ghosts, and they weren’t even the kind you could gank.  

Not that you hadn’t tried.    

Dean burst through the front door, and in the blink of an eye, Gabriel was back on the other side of the car.  While your relief was more palpable, amusement sparked as you couldn’t help but be reminded of a similar experience.  You were sixteen and had snuck out to meet Tony DeMarco, the resident bad boy from the latest school you were at.  Dean had caught you both in the backseat of the kid’s beater and the moment Tony saw the look on your brother’s face, it was over.  Less because your brother had arrived, and more because you soon found out that a jellyfish had a better chance at developing a backbone than your date did. 

Though you imagined Gabriel’s was sturdy enough so he wasn’t in need of a fresh pair of pants.      

The smirk fell from your mouth the moment you saw the line of people that came rushing out behind your brother.  

“Psst! Dean! Don’t look at me! Act natural.  Get in,” Gabriel half-whispered, half shouted out the window.

“Man there is nothing natural about this at all.  I thought you were dead,” Dean fired back, looking like he had the worst case of mental whiplash.  

You paused, eyes settling back on the angel with accusation.  Apparently someone had left out a few important details.  Like the number of other people trapped inside or the fact that someone had tried to kill him already.

Then again, with how often you wanted to put a blade in him, that shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

“You think I’d give Kali my real sword? That thing can kill me!”  Gabriel insisted.

You shook your head as you watched your brother and the angel go back and forth.  It wasn’t like there was a situation inside that Sam was clearly still a part of, judging by his absence.  But they should go right ahead and argue the finer points of whether or not Gabriel gave a shit about anyone else.  

Spoiler alert: he clearly did if he was sitting in the backseat of the Impala instead of sitting on a sipping beach in Maui while being served fruity beverages by scantily clad women in hula skirts.  

“... I can’t kill my brother,” Gabriel insisted and despite the cynical mask he wore, something around the rim of gold tugged at your chest.  Like earlier, Dean seemed oblivious to the signs that maybe, just maybe, the archangel wasn’t as much of an ass as everyone thought he was.  

“Would you two cut it out so we can figure out an actual plan?” You demanded, folding your arms over your chest.  You must have been sitting outside Dean’s line of vision by how fast his head swung around.  His eyes widened in surprise a moment before igniting with his anger.  

“What the hell is she still doing here?  You had one job, Gabriel…”  Dean snapped before pointing at you.  “You, get out of here.  You,” he swung his finger to the archangel.  “Make sure she does, and then maybe you could sack up and help us take down Lucifer… if it’s not too much to ask,” he sassed, before jumping back out of the car and storming inside.

The glass panels on the front entrance had been smashed, no doubt the work of one of the previous hunters.  Since then, the gaps had been boarded up only to have someone else come along and cut a hole in it, big enough for someone to reach in and undo the deadbolt.  At one point two separate set of chains had been used to lock it, the remnants of which lay strewn across the ground.  One set was older and rusted, the other much newer and still retained some of its silver coloring.  

You pushed at the handle, noting the way it swung open with ease, though it wasn’t that surprising to find that the sheriff’s department had simply given up trying to keep it secure.  

Your phone buzzed angrily, causing you to pause for a moment in the threshold.  You knew you should return Bobby’s calls.  At least shoot him a text to say you weren’t about to be eaten by anything (that you knew of).  Yet you found you couldn’t resist heading through the door anymore than you could before.  At least then you were committed to helping your brothers.  

Now, you probably just needed to be committed.

“You sure you want to do this?” Gabriel asked as you stepped into the front lobby. “You’re the only one not caught in Kali’s blood spell…”

“Which makes me the best candidate to go and get said blood,” you reminded him, silently closing the door behind you.  

“Normally, I wouldn’t underestimate your abilities but… I’m not sure Kali swings that way,” he deadpanned, carefully eyeing around the corner before motioning the coast was clear.  “And by ‘that way’ I mean human.  Unless, of course, you're offering to be the hors d'oeuvres.”

“Why is operation honeypot the only plan on your mind?” You demanded.  You knew he had sex on the brain more than the average being, but it never seemed to leak this much into his logic.  

“Because sex and destruction are the two things she thinks most about?”  He retorted.

“And what makes you the expert on her?” You continued, taking the lead.  His sudden silence did not bode well, and you froze.  You turned, fully expecting to be hip deep in entities who were not thrilled to find Gabriel re-crashing the party, extra guest in tow.  The only thing there, however, was an archangel who seemed awfully intent on looking anywhere - to the side, down the hall, over your head - but you.

“There something I should know?” You leveled an even gaze at him as he, very casually, stepped around you.  

“Oh, nothing, other than… we may have been a thing at one point.”  He gave a nonchalant  shrug as if he’d just informed you they’d gone to the same school rather than he hooked up with an entity known as “The Destroyer.”   

“Do all your exes try to kill you or just the really special ones?”  Your defenses snapped into place in the form of your humor.  It didn't necessarily bother you to talk about how he’d dated someone.  You’d probably be more worried if he hadn’t had any exes considering his extensive existence.  It was the what that got beneath your skin.  

Why you were surprised that goddesses were his thing, you’d never know.  It was Gabriel.  The angel likely had a harem of nymphs on retainer to entertain him in his downtime.

Provided those actually existed.

“What can I say?  It’s been a slow century for all of us,” he said, gesturing with his arms as if to say what can you do?  The motion was so wide, his body swayed slightly with it, and not for the first time you were struck with just how expressive he was for coming from a lineage with such a collective stick up its ass, they wanted to let the world burn on the off chance it might result in paradise.

“But, sweetheart, really, I got this.  Why don’t you do yourself a favor and take a little vacation.  I could see you… somewhere tropical?  White sandy beaches, crystal waters…” he paused, brows raising as his gaze drifted lower. “An itty bitty bikini to tie it all together.” 

He gestured exaggeratedly over the front of you and for a moment you were afraid you were going to look down and find yourself in said scrap of clothing.  When you didn’t feel a sudden breeze, you rolled your eyes.

“Careful, or I might start to think you actually care about me,” you warned.  He suddenly stopped, posture stiffening as he turned to look at you.  Something glinted in his gaze that had everything hardening again, but whatever it was, you didn’t have time for it.  You quickly moved around him, forging ahead without giving him the opportunity to respond.   

Something crunched beneath your feet, causing you to halt your steps as you dropped the beam of your flashlight down to the carpeting.  Hundreds of shards winked back at you, stretching along the length of the hallway.  Judging by how evenly they were spread out, they could have only come from one source.  You swung your light upwards, confirming something had, indeed, blown all the light fixtures.

By the way a thick layer of dust covered the carpeting but not the pieces, it had happened recently.    

You continued forward, following a path you had walked too many times since that night.  You became caught up in the minor inaccuracies where your mind had simply filled in superfluous details, to the point you found your fingers tracing idly over dark spatters along the wall before realizing what they were.  

You’d been in such a rush to get out you hadn’t even noticed the mess that Lucifer made.  Kind of like now.  You were in such a hurry to move from one place to the next, though this enemy was far more difficult to outrun.  

Then again, how did one escape themselves?

All you wanted was to not have to think about the long list of people you had failed.  Some, like Gabriel, however, refused to be forgotten.

“I take back what I said earlier about you being the smart one.”  You weren’t sure if the angel was baiting you, grumbling to himself, or just making idle conversation.

“How did she get your blood again?” You asked, smirking when he went quiet again.  

You finally found the entrance to the stairwell, stride lengthening the last few yards.  Gabriel increased his pace, cutting in front of you at the last moment.  He held up a hand for you to wait before silently pulling the handle and cracking the door.  He leaned closer to it, head tilting in concentration.  One second passed.  Then another.  You held your breath as another few ticked by before, finally satisfied, he pushed open the door for you.  

You ducked beneath his arm, head craning back as you stepped inside to peer up the small staircase.

“You know, New Zealand is amazing this time of year,” he persisted, body nearly brushing yours as he stepped in behind you.  His energy was so palpable, likely from being confined in a much smaller space with him, but you also couldn’t help but notice how close he was standing.  You forced yourself to take a step forward, eyes raising to the second floor entrance.

“I’m saving your ass too, you know,” you reminded, starting up the carpeted steps.  Technically the plan was you all rode out of Dodge together.  Or flew, in his case.  

“Cupcake, I am the last person in need of saving,” he balked.  “If anything, you should be worrying about saving your own behind - because it would be a tragedy for the world to lose such perfection.”

You glanced behind to find him a few steps below you, hands raised, thumbs extended and framing the area in question.  This was how the game was played and on normal day, his antics tended to amuse and flatter you.  Tonight, you were finding yourself less and less in the mood.   

Maybe it was the prospect of going round two with the devil without a single trick up your sleeve.  Maybe it was due to Carthage having spurred your brain into a frenzied need to prioritize your life, which was one giant reminder of how sorely lacking in things like relationships you were.   Mostly, it was because you had no idea how in the hell were you were ever going to compete with a fucking goddess.  

 "Get a grip, Gabriel,” you said flatly.  

“Do you take rain checks?  Because as tempting as that offer is, my hands feel a little full at the moment,” he said, cocky grin spreading wide, and when that failed to elicit the usual response, he announced, “Last one up has to let the devil in the door!”

Gabriel playfully bounded around you and all you could do was stare at him as he skipped up the stairwell.  His arms flew up in victory as he made it to the landing.  He began to showboat, clearly not intending to stop the ridiculous display until you joined him up there.  You tried not to give in, but it was useless.  The archangels antics were too much and as your lips tugged up at the edges, a look of triumph illuminated his face.  

He reached out, offering his assistance for the last few steps.  Surprise slowed your reaction, and something flickered across his face at your hesitation.  What the hell, you thought, reaching forward and taking his hand.  You couldn’t tell if his touch was really as electric as it felt or if it was just your own ill-advised emotions rising up to make it feel more magical than it really was.  

Instead of releasing you once you reached the top, his grip tightened.  He gave a tug, spinning you around and into his arms as if you two were dancing.  Your eyes widened, unsure of what was happening.  

This wasn’t how you played the game.  

“I’d think you’d really enjoy the Alps.  They have some of the most amazing views… but mostly I can see you enjoying the privacy.  Appreciating the quiet,” he said, voice lowering as he stared down at you.  “What do you say?”  

You would have gone anywhere with him… except that wasn’t what he was asking you to do.  He was asking you to run.  Alone.  

“Why do you want me to leave so badly?”  You inquired, curiosity overriding everything.   You knew his charm was just an act.  He was trying every trick in the book to get you out of there, and you hadn’t the slightest clue why.  

“I promised your brother --”

“Bullshit,” you cut him off, and when you saw the edge of gold growing hard, you added, “And it would be a shame to break such a distinguished nose.  Again.”

He released a puff of air through said nose, eyes glowing with amusement.  His lips turned up into a smile, one of the few you’d ever seen that didn’t have an undercurrent of sass or smugness lacing it. 

“If you don’t know the answer to that, sweetheart, you haven’t been paying attention.” Despite the cavalier drawl, something softened in his gaze.  There was a quality about him that seemed almost sad, which didn’t fit with anything you knew about the ex-trickster.

In that moment, he looked far more human than he’d ever seemed and far far more approachable.  Better yet, he was suddenly well within your reach.

Your lips parted, tongue darting out to wet them in a nervous gesture.  Gabriel’s eyes immediately dropped, taking in the movement.  When they looked back up amber seemed a little darker, those shadows melting away to something a little warmer in sentiment.  

Feeling emboldened, you leaned closer.  The movement was agonizing as you made sure to give him ample time to draw back in case this was not his intent.  The hand at your waist slipped around your back, drawing the rest of you closer in tandem with your face.  You could feel his breath ghosting over your lips, warmth spreading from the contact, down through your chest.  

At the last moment, his head turned just enough to avoid the kiss.  You blinked, confused, and suddenly feeling very foolish.  

“It’s too late,” he breathed, everything from his voice to his muscles growing taut as he released you. That’s when you felt it.  A slow building sense of dread, a familiar, looming presence that left your insides cold.  

Then the screams began.   

You blinked, clearing your thoughts, only to find yourself standing at the entrance to the ballroom.  You hadn’t even realized you’d come this far.  You turned back, eyeing the path you’d just taken.  Walking through the darkness on complete autopilot seemed like a good way to get yourself killed.  

Your hand came down on the doorknob, fingers vibrating with a combination of your nerves and newfound uneasiness.  This room symbolized more than just a failure.  This was a pivotal moment during the apocalypse: the beginning of the end.

The room had been in the file.  You’d skimmed through the photos, stopping when you caught a glimpse of the hallway that led there. The photographer seemed fairly thorough, but it wasn’t the type of thing you wanted to see in a picture.  You needed to look at this first hand.  You’d been trying without success to shut the door on this part of your life.  Maybe coming full circle would help you seal it off for good.  

You took a breath, slowly releasing it before giving the doors a push.

“Y/n, Wait!”

You were too caught up in that driving need to find your brothers, to get to them before the devil did and protect them, that you didn’t pick up on how odd Gabriel sounded as he called your name.  You backtracked to the main lobby where you paused, unsure of which way to go.

By the time the archangel appeared in front of you, you were positive there was more adrenaline than blood flowing through your system.  You were too startled to even make a noise, your body stumbling back, convinced Lucifer had just popped in to give you a more personal greeting.  

“Fuck, Gabriel!” You hissed as he grabbed your hands to prevent you from pitching backward.

“I would love to after we take care of the elephant in the room,” he said dryly, wincing as an awful lot of something sounded like it was splattering down one of the adjacent hallways.  “... again, not referring to you, Ganesh.”  

You went to take off after the noise when the he kept a firm grip over you.

“We have to help them,” you insisted.  You could only imagine what Lucifer would do to your brothers if he caught them - what he would do to Sam to be let in.  You couldn’t let that happen.  

“Is there anything I can say or do to change your mind?” He asked.  

“They’re my brothers,” you reminded, desperation causing your voice to come out much softer beneath the strain of the sentiment.  “Gabriel, please…”

You would never forget the way gold glowed with a dissonance of determination and what you later would recognize as resignation.

“Alright, kid.  Let’s do this,” he told you.  

You let out another string of swears, squeezing the lockpicking tools hard enough in your hands to leave marks.  You couldn’t get the damn doors to budge.  You’d tried pushing, pulling, checking for deadbolts, something barring the inside, furniture, anything that would indicate why you couldn’t get it to move.  

When that proved fruitless, you’d done your best to pick the lock.  Well that wasn’t true.  You had picked it, having heard the latch between them release only to find you hadn’t actually solved the problem.  The only thing you hadn’t tried was brute force which was something your brothers had always been better at than you.  

You stepped back, placing the end of your flashlight in your mouth before you shook your body out.  You couldn’t believe you were actually going to do this.  You were terrible at these things.  The last time you tried, you’d fractured the right side of your foot all the way down through the end and Dean insisted on calling you twinkle toes for two months straight.

You had to try, though.  This was the last place you’d seen the angel.  Well, outside of the ridiculous guest spot he’d had in Casa Erotica, although honestly, you tried your best to forget that even existed.  It stirred up too many mixed feelings you had no intention of ever exploring.

“Are we seriously going to do this?”  You asked, watching as Sam fed the dvd into his laptop.  What you really meant was were you really going to watch it together.  

Because nothing said family bonding like a good old fashioned porno.  

While it didn’t surprise you this would be what Gabriel left as his legacy, it didn’t exactly please you either.  You were already coming  to terms with the realization you cared more for the angel than you should have, let alone accept the abysmal chances that you would ever see him again.  

“We are seriously watching a fucking porno,” you muttered, your anger overshadowing any discomfort as you watched Gabriel intently feeling up some tall blonde chick who, like Kali, you couldn't hope to measure up to. Thankfully, it didn’t last long before he turned toward the camera, ripping off his mustache and revealing his intent.

“Sam, Dean, if you’re watching this with y/n, your family is way more dysfunctional than I’ve given you credit for.”  

You snorted as Dean muttered, “Yeah, thanks to you, pal.”

“Sadly, if you are all watching this, it also means I’m dead.”

You knew it.  Part of you had spent the entire ride on edge, waiting for him to pop in and do his usual stress test on your heart, but you had felt something shortly after you’d left.  There was an unmistakable feeling that the world had grown a little smaller, as if there was suddenly a whole lot less in it.

Your nose gave a tell tale itch.  You did your best to blink back your emotions, covering a slight sniffle by rubbing at your nose.  If your brothers noticed your reaction, they didn’t mention it.  Sam’s demeanor simply became a little more deflated while Dean stood stoically staring at the screen.  

You did your best to focus as he shared the way to trap Lucifer.  The fact that there was a way in and of itself should have been a relief, but you were too busy trying to shut everything down.  You couldn’t afford to lose it now, not with everything that rested on all of your shoulders.

“Can’t say I’m betting on you boys, but that sister of yours…” He turned slightly, pointing at you through the camera and winking.  “You’re something special, sweetheart.  Though the chemistry was undeniable, we just weren’t meant to be.  I was planned out to perfection while you… well, you weren’t in the plans to begin with.”

Your brothers exchanged a look before glancing back at you.  You were too tapped out to react.  A numbness filtered through your system, and you did the only thing you were capable of at the moment and filed away what he said for later processing.  

As if sensing this, Dean put his arm around you, drawing you into his side before turning back to the video.

“That’s right, cupcake.  You are completely off the books.  In all this divine grand planning, you weren’t supposed to exist and yet, here you are,” he said making a grand sweeping gesture with his hand.  “Which just goes to show you, not everything is set in stone and maybe, just maybe, you guys have more help out there than you realize.”  

You slammed your foot down a final time, more in frustration than from any planned intent.  Where was your help now?  In fact, where the hell had it ever been?  Whoever or whatever was rooting for you apparently had a lag in their cosmic connection considering help only ever arrived after the fact: after Cas had been snapped to bits, after Bobby’s head had been twisted clear round his neck, after Lucifer had dropped the Impala on you, pinning you beneath the back tires so all you could do was watch as your brother’s face was turned to pulp, blow by bloody blow, as your world slowly faded to black.

You knew it wasn’t Sam, but it was his body and those weren’t the types of images that could simply be unseen.  You could live with them, however, because all those people were still alive. Where was your help when Jo saved your brothers from hellhounds?  When Ellen stayed behind to make sure the bomb went off?  When Gabriel was the only thing that stood between you and the devil?  

If anything is really out there, now would be a good time to step in.  

You didn’t actually expect a response, but you still couldn’t help giving a final, petulant boot to the bottom of the door.  It was the failures that always got to you.  Which is why you desperately wanted to be able to bury this one.  

Enough to actually contemplate shooting the shit out of the locks to see if that would make any difference.

You were about to pull the trigger when a soft click sounded, the door furthest from you swinging open slightly. 

About freaking time.  

 Next Chapter>>  

Everything tags:

@girl-next-door-writes @wayward-mirage  @fand0maniac @feelmyroarrrr @omgreganlove @jannalionheart @baritonechick, @deaths-maiden @lucifer-in-leather @stone-met   @the-moose-of-baskerville @summer-binging-spn​  @raspberrypuddle @ourloveisforthelovely @deanxfuckingadorablexwinchester

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#Gabriel x reader #Gabriel #reader insert #supernatural fanfic #spn fanfic #rabbit writes #Full Circle

[kateyes224]

A Preponderance of the Evidence: Prelim (Part 3 of 3)

Author:  KatEyes224 Rating: R (For adult themes) Timeline: Post-ep for Never Again and Memento Mori.

A/N: @piecesofscully, you are the peanut butter to my jelly, and I love you more than you know.  If you missed it, read part 1 here, read part 2 here.

Mulder tosses and turns as minutes trickle into hours, entertaining himself by memorizing the way shadows dip and swirl across the ceiling to the sound of traffic gradually overtaking the steady metronome of Scully’s breathing.  He kicks the sheets off at one point, frustrated when they cling to his legs with a crackle of electricity, his body still charged with the current of all the things he hasn’t said.  

Morning finally comes.  

The late winter storm has retreated overnight, leaving the sun and blue sky to glare into the room as if demanding the two of them acknowledge that day has dawned.  They’ve ended up facing one another on their respective beds, and Mulder is watching Scully’s face when her eyes snap open seconds before the alarm goes off.  He sees her focus as the haze of sleep retreats, and doesn’t bother to look away when she finds him staring at her.  

Slipping past one another in the bathroom and their room, they’re comfortable enough with the dance of the other’s morning routine that they don’t even need to speak.  Mulder shaves while Scully showers; Scully leaves the water running when she steps out with a towel wrapped securely around her body.  She finds that Mulder has wiped the fog away from the mirror in a perfect circle where she can stand to apply her makeup; Mulder discovers that Scully has hung his suit and tie from a hook on the back of the bathroom door.

They catch a cab to the courthouse and arrive almost half an hour before they’re supposed to meet with ADA Venegas.  At a small coffee cart out front, Mulder buys them both coffees and wordlessly hands a banana nut muffin to Scully.  He frets until she rolls her eyes and eventually nibbles the top off before handing him the rest.

They’re sitting outside a long row of courtrooms when Scully makes eye contact with a young woman in an impeccably tailored grey skirt-suit who’s speaking animatedly to a uniformed police officer.  The woman nods at them, and they both stand.

“Agent Scully?”  

Clicking her way towards them in towering high heels, the petite brunette smiles and extends her hand.  She’s even shorter than Scully by a good two inches, although her shoes bring them almost eye-to-eye.  

“I’m ADA Regina Flores-Venegas.  Thanks so much for coming down on such short notice.”

Scully nods and takes Venegas’s hand, shaking it firmly.  “This is my partner, Fox Mulder.”

Venegas looks up at Mulder and her lips quirk into a bashful smile.

“Ah, Agent Mulder.  Nice to finally meet you.  Sorry for being so curt with you on the phone the other day.  I was...a little stressed out.”  She shrugs and holds her hand out to him.

Mulder grasps it and narrows his eyes, frowning at her.  “Not a problem, I understand.  If you could get Agent Scully on the stand first thing, we’d really appreciate it.  She has a doctor’s appointment back in Washington this afternoon.”

Venegas looks back to Scully, curiosity flashing in her eyes as they study one another.  “No problem.  I can call you out of order and get you up on the stand first thing.  Have you had a chance to review your report?”

Nodding, Scully sips her coffee and waves a few stapled sheets of paper up as proof.  “Yes, I have.  I’m good to go.”

Venegas glances over her shoulder as the bailiff steps out of their courtroom and catches her eye, motioning to her.  “Great.  That’s me.  Just have a seat in the hallway where I’ll be sure to see you, and I’ll have you in and out of here in a jiffy.  You’re free to go once you’re done with your testimony.”  Tilting her head in close to Scully, she lowers her voice so that Mulder has to crane his neck to hear over the din of the hallway.  “And Dana, remember what we talked about on the phone.  Expect some pretty...intimate questions from defense.  I’ll be doing my best to make sure they don’t overstep their bounds.”

With a toss of her long, wavy brown hair over her shoulder, Venegas clips away and disappears into the courtroom.

Scully sinks back down onto one of the benches that line the hallway.  “Jesus, I forget how nervous this part makes me,” she mutters.

“No need to be nervous,” Mulder says, sitting down next to her even closer than he usually would, leaning in so that he can feel the heat radiating from her.  Draping an arm behind her, he lets his thumb swipe a few circles on her shoulder blade.  “You’ve testified for prelims before.  And you’ve got your report there if you need it.”

“It’s not the testimony I’m worried about, Mulder.”  In the bustling courtroom hallway, Scully’s eyes look everywhere but at him.  “I haven’t seen him, not since…” She trails off and stares down at her hands as she starts to fold her report into smaller and smaller squares.

Mulder swallows a tennis-ball-sized lump in his throat and unconsciously tightens his arm around her.  That’s what she’s nervous about.  She hasn’t seen Jerse since the line-up at the police station, when she’d identified him as both her attacker and her one-night stand.  Yes, that’s the man who took me home and fucked me.  Yes, that’s the man who tried to kill me.  

Jealousy and wrath burn like wildfire in his chest as he stares at her, unfiltered light streaming in through the windows from behind them to set her profile aglow. Mulder quashes the urge to shake her, to scream at her, to demand answers from her.  He wants to tell her that whatever happened the night before Jerse tried to kill her doesn’t matter; but he’s not sure if he means that it doesn’t matter to him, or that it doesn’t matter to the court for the purposes of a preliminary hearing.  He thinks he’d be willing to lie to her, either way.

But he’s only able to get out a strangled, “Scully, I-” before Venegas pokes her head out of the courtroom and beckons Scully in.

Scully stands and straightens her suit jacket.  With one brief, searing look back at him over her shoulder, she’s inside the courtroom with Venegas following close behind as the door eases shut behind them.

Mulder stands and rakes a hand through his hair, pacing in a tight circle before he strides towards the door and grabs the handle just before it closes completely.  

Slipping quietly inside, he surveys the courtroom and settles himself in the back row of the gallery.

“The People call Special Agent Dana Scully to the stand.”

Venegas is standing just behind Scully where the bailiff has stopped them at the bar’s swinging door.  The clerk asks her to raise her right hand and swear an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help her God.  As if she could ever do anything else.  Scully is nothing if not brutally, wonderfully honest.  

“I do,” comes Scully’s response, clear as a church bell on a cold winter morning.

Rounding the defense table, Scully climbs the low stairs to the witness stand beside the magistrate and eases herself into the chair.  She casts one quick glance around the courtroom, assessing her surroundings, before her eyes find Mulder’s, and her tongue darts out quickly to trace the edge of her upper lip before it disappears.  It’s a tell he recognizes.  

Scully adjusts the microphone down with a harsh squeal and looks directly at Venegas.  She has not once looked at Jerse, who Mulder notices has been staring intently at Scully since she walked in.  

The court clerk clears her throat and drones, “Please state your full name and spell it for the record.”

“Dana Katherine Scully, D-A-N-A K-A-T-” Scully spells, her voice unwavering.  “-U-L-L-Y,” she finishes.  She turns her head from the clerk to Venegas.  

Venegas takes her time flipping through a couple of pages in her binder, and the deliberate pause allows Scully to take a few deep breaths before Venegas looks up from the podium and throws a quick, encouraging smile at Scully.  Scully, remaining stoic, simply blinks back in response.

“Ms. Scully, please tell the Court what you do for a living.”

“I’m a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“And how long have you been a Special Agent?”

“About five and a half years.”

“What kind of training do you undertake to become a Special Agent?”

“I attended a 16-week training course at Quantico, Virginia, that included classes in preservation of evidence, self-defense, forensics, behavioral science, and procedural criminal investigation.”

“And are you required to maintain certifications in these various areas of expertise?”

“Yes.  Periodically we are required by the Department of Justice to attend classes that keep us abreast of changes in the law, department-wide procedural changes we need to be made aware of, advances in technology, and then those courses that are required to keep all of our certifications up to date.”

Venegas nods, adjusting her glasses.  “And do you hold any other degrees or certifications that the FBI does not deem to be a requirement or necessity?”

“Yes.  I’m a medical doctor.  I completed my degree in medicine at Stanford University and was recruited by the FBI just after I completed my residency and fellowship in anatomic and clinical pathology at Johns Hopkins.  I am also a board-certified forensic pathologist.”

“And how does a forensic pathologist end up working for the Department of Justice as a special agent?”

“I was recruited by the FBI just as I was completing my fellowship.  I found that I had a…” she breaks off and her blue-green eyes flash over to Jerse for a split-second before she juts her chin back to Venegas, “...a passion for criminal justice.  I felt I could distinguish myself there while serving my country.”

Venegas smiles serenely, nodding along.  “Fair to say you wanted to make a difference?  Help put the bad guys away?”

Mulder’s eyes slide over to Jerse’s defense attorney, a bearded, grizzled hulk of a man with a gleaming shock of blue-black hair, who is hunched over his legal pad furiously scribbling.

“Yes,” Scully answers.  “That’s fair to say.”

“And where are you currently assigned in your capacity as a Special Agent?”

“To a division of the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit called the X-Files.  My partner and I investigate cases that have been deemed by the Bureau to be unexplainable, or that may have a paranormal element.”

At that, the defense attorney stops scritching on his legal pad.  He glances up at Scully and seems to study her for a long moment before he lowers his head and goes back to writing.

Venegas marches on.

“Agent Scully, I want to draw your attention to February 26, 1997.  Where were you on that day?”

“I had been asked by the supervising agent in my division, my partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder, to pursue a lead in an open investigation here in Philadelphia.”

“And did you pursue that lead?”

“I did.”

“And where did that lead take you?”  

“To a small neighborhood in the Little Russia area of the city, northeast Philadelphia,” Scully replies.  

“And what type of lead were you pursuing?”

Scully glances up at Mulder for the first time since she’s taken the stand, a questioning look in her eyes.  He shakes his head almost imperceptibly.  

“I’m not at liberty to reveal that information as the investigation is still ongoing.”

Venegas flips a page of her binder.  The defense attorney keeps writing.

“And on February 26, where did you find yourself?”

“On the northeast side of the city, in Bustleton.  I was staking out the lead that my partner had requested I follow up on when I saw my mark enter a small convenience store on Hendrix Street, just east of Barlow.”

“And what did you do next?”

“I followed him into the convenience store, where he stayed for only a moment or two.  I observed him speaking Russian to a woman I believed to be the shop owner before he left and crossed the street into a tattoo parlor.”

“Do you recall the name of the tattoo parlor?”

Scully’s brow creases for a moment before she answers.  “I believe it was Svo’s.”

“And then what happened?”

“I followed him from the convenience store into the tattoo parlor, but at that point I’d lost my visual on the lead.”

“You didn’t see where he’d gone?”

Scully shakes her head.  “No.  At that point, I knew he had entered the tattoo parlor and that he hadn’t exited through the front door because I’d been able to maintain a visual on the front door the entire time.  But I didn’t know whether he had escaped through the rear of the shop or through some other exit.”

Venegas nods and checks off a few things from her binder.  “So you entered the tattoo parlor.  Then what happened?”

“I went in and didn’t see the man I’d been tailing right away, but I did encounter a white male, mid-30s, engaged in a discussion with a man who appeared to work at the tattoo parlor.  The white male was complaining about a tattoo he’d gotten there recently.”

“And do you see that man here in court today?”

Scully closes her eyes, takes a slow, deep breath, and as she exhales she looks briefly over at the defense table.  “I do.”

“Can you describe where he’s sitting and an article of clothing that he’s wearing?” Venegas asks gently.

“He’s seated at the defense table and he’s wearing an orange jumpsuit,” Scully says, her voice wavering almost imperceptibly.

“May the record reflect that the witness has identified the defendant?” Venegas asks, looking up at the magistrate, who nods before intoning, “The record shall so reflect.”

“Agent Scully, you said the defendant was complaining about a tattoo he’d gotten recently?”

“Yes, he was arguing with someone who appeared to be an owner or manager of the tattoo parlor, I’m not sure which.”

“What was the nature of the argument?”

“I’m not sure exactly.  I wasn’t paying complete attention to the argument, as I was still looking around the shop for the person of interest I’d been tailing.  It wasn’t until I was brought into the conversation that I started to pay any attention to it.”

“How were you brought into the conversation?”

“The owner, or manager, I believe his name was Svo, asked my opinion about the quality of the artwork of defendant’s tattoo.”

“And what did you say?”

Scully finally looks over at Jerse, who is still studying her intently, before answering a moment later.  “I said I thought that it was beautiful.”  Mulder glances back and forth between Scully and Jerse, a cold sweat ripping through him the longer the two maintain eye contact.

Venegas clears her throat slightly, then asks, “And then what happened?”

Scully seems to remember herself and closes her eyes again, shaking her head slightly.  “At some point, I saw my lead open a door at the rear of the tattoo parlor and catch the owner’s attention.  The owner left the defendant and I on our own in the shop and we struck up a conversation that eventually led to him asking me out to dinner.”  The skin on Scully’s chest starts to flush scarlet and the color creeps its way up her neck until it stains her cheeks.  

Mulder chews on his bottom lip and looks over at Jerse, who has sunk down in his chair.  

Venegas flips to the next page of her binder and starts thumbing through some photos.  “And what did you say?”

“Since I didn’t know if my lead was still within earshot and I didn’t want to blow my cover, I told the defendant I was visiting an aunt but that I was supposed to leave town that night.”

“So you declined his invitation for dinner?”

“Yes, initially.”

Mulder closes his eyes and exhales heavily through his nose.  

“But you did end up going out to dinner with the defendant that night, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell us how that came about?”

Scully clears her throat.  Her voice has dropped an octave when she answers.  “Mr. Jerse had given me his number.  Since he seemed like a nice enough guy, when I was back at my hotel room that night and I’d had a chance to think it over and reflect on my encounter with him, I decided to take him up on his offer.”

Venegas taps her pen against the podium to punctuate her next question.  “And why did you do that, Agent Scully?”

Scully’s eyes lift from Venegas to Mulder, and she holds his gaze as she answers.  Each word slices through him like he’s being flayed wide open and disemboweled on one of her autopsy tables.  “It had been a long time since someone had seen me as anything more than a badge and a gun.”

Mulder’s eyes slide shut, breaking contact momentarily with Scully.  They’d always managed to have entire conversations, arguments, theories bandied about and shot down, with their eyes.  Today, he reminds himself, he needs to hear what she has to say.  All of it.  Even if it hurts.

“So you agreed to go out to dinner with someone you’d just met, someone who seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be normal, correct?”

“He did appear to be a perfectly normal, nice man, yes.”

“Did he appear to you, when you first met him, to be suffering from any auditory or visual hallucinations?”

“No, he did not.”

Venegas nods and checks something off in her binder.

“Then what happened?”

“I called Mr. Jerse later that night and told him that I’d changed my mind, and that I would like to go out to dinner with him.  And I believe he said his car was being worked on, so I told him I’d pick him up from his apartment.”

“And did you pick him up?”

“Yes.  He invited me in, as he wasn’t quite ready to go yet, and said something about having made dinner reservations somewhere.  I noticed that he was bleeding through his shirt near the area of the tattoo I’d seen earlier that day.  I asked to take a look at it to be sure it wasn’t infected.”

The defense attorney’s head jerks up and he takes a hard look at Scully before he scribbles something on his notepad.

Venegas crosses her arms and starts pacing behind her podium.  “Did you make it to dinner, Agent Scully?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Scully again looks directly at Mulder when she answers.  “I asked the defendant to take me out for drinks instead.  At a bar across the street from the tattoo parlor where we had met earlier.  I believe it was called The Hard Eight.”

“And why did you decide to go out for drinks instead of dinner?”

Scully licks her lips and shrugs slightly.  “I don’t know.  I guess part of me was thinking it would be easier to get out of drinks than dinner if it ended up being awkward.”

“So you went to the bar.  How much did you have to drink?” Venegas asks.  She had told Scully over the phone that she was going to ask this question in order to, as she put it, ‘jump on that grenade before defense has a chance to blow us up with it.’

Scully swallows and ducks her head, staring at her folded hands.  “At least three.”

“Do you usually drink alcohol while you’re actively investigating a case, Agent Scully?”

Scully bristles, but just barely; Mulder reads it in the subtle way she straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin a bit higher.

“I was no longer actively investigating a case.  When I’d returned to the Philadelphia field office on the evening of February 26, I’d handed the case off to another agent, effectively turning it over to them for further investigation as they saw fit.  I’d notified my partner over the phone that the case agency had been transferred, and that I was officially off the case.  I was just awaiting a flight out the next morning.”

“So you weren’t violating any internal policies and procedures when you agreed to go out on a date with the defendant and have a couple of drinks with him?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Okay, so you had a couple of drinks with the defendant.  What did you talk about?”

Scully shifts in her seat and a pained look crosses her face, like she’s suddenly discovered a pine cone underneath her rear end and she needs to sit comfortably in spite of it.

“I don’t- I don’t recall the specifics.  I remember making small talk, about the bar we were at, how he’d come to find it.  And about how…” her brow furrows, “about how I felt like I was caught in a circle...”

Mulder’s heart starts to thud in his chest.  Caught in a circle?  

“At some point,” Venegas interrupts, jarring Scully from what she was remembering, and Mulder curses under his breath, “did you and Mr. Jerse decide to leave the bar?”

“Yes.  We got to talking about his tattoo.  I noticed that it had started to bleed again, so I asked him if I could take a look at it, and he, uh...he d-declined.”  Scully’s eyes drop to her hands clasped in her lap.  

Mulder’s ears perk up at the slight stumble and her sudden lack of eye contact, and he notices that Venegas also leans forward on her podium, sensing something more that Scully wants to say.  Mulder watches Venegas watching Scully.  She’s incredibly perceptive, reading Scully’s cues almost as well as he’s able to.

“What do you mean he ‘declined’?” Venegas presses.

Scully licks her lips and continues to stare down at her hands as she fidgets with them.  “The same way when I had asked to see his tattoo back at his apartment, thinking it was possibly infected or not healing properly, he brushed me off.  This time, when I asked, I, um...I tried to roll his sleeve up to see it for myself, and he, uh, grabbed me.”

Mulder feels his temperature start to rise, and he unbuttons the first button of his dress shirt and loosens his tie as he glares at the back of Jerse’s head.  Jerse stares down at the table in front of him.

“He grabbed you?” Venegas asks.

“He was trying to stop me from touching the tattoo,” Scully explains quickly.  “I don’t know if it was painful, or if he just didn’t want me to see it, but he grabbed my hands to keep me from touching it.”

“Agent Scully,” Venegas starts to pace again, “was this a violent grab?”

“Objection, your Honor,” Jerse’s attorney speaks for the first time, and his voice is deep and mellifluous, tinged with a genteel Southern accent.  “As far as I’m aware, as pertains to Agent Scully, my client is only being charged with the one count of assault and one count of attempted murder, and I’m not sure what Counsel is trying to get at here.”

Venegas whirls and faces the magistrate.  “Your Honor, if Agent Scully was assaulted not once, but twice, then I’m perfectly willing to amend the charges if necessary.”

The magistrate looks back at Jerse’s attorney for a response, who shrugs.  “Overruled.  You may answer, Agent Scully.”

Scully contemplates her answer carefully before responding.  “It was forceful, yes.  But not violent.”

Venegas pauses and turns towards her again.  “Did you fear for your safety when he grabbed your hands?”

Scully stares at Venegas.  “Uh...n-no.  Not at that time.”

“Why not?”

“He, uhm...he didn’t appear to me to be dangerous at that time.  I just thought that maybe he didn’t want me to touch the wound.  That it was tender or inflamed, and maybe I’d unintentionally hurt him when I’d touched it.”

Venegas’s lips purse and she’s silent for a long moment before she nods, appearing to be satisfied.  “So what happened next?”

Scully speaks down into her lap, so that Mulder has to strain to hear her.  “He said if I was so curious about his tattoo that I should get my own.”

Venegas perches once again over the podium on her elbows, leaning towards Scully.  “Did you have any tattoos at that time, Agent Scully?”

“No.”  

“Do you now?”

Scully swallows hard.  “Yes.”

“Did you get a tattoo that night?”

“Yes.  We went across the street to the tattoo parlor where we’d first met.”

“Did the defendant convince you to get a tattoo?”

“No, he did not.  It was my decision.”

“How long did the process of getting the tattoo take?”

“About an hour.”

“What happened after you got the tattoo?”

“We went back to the defendant’s apartment.”

“Did you keep drinking once you got back to his apartment?”

“No.”

Boring twin holes in the back of Jerse’s head with his eyes, Mulder leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers over his mouth.

“But were you still feeling the effects of the alcohol, Agent Scully?”

“Yes.”

“Did the defendant ask you to spend the night?”

“He offered for me to spend the night.  The weather was especially bad that evening, and he said he’d feel better if I stayed there, and that he would sleep on his couch.”  

Yeah, I’ll just best that would make you feel better, you sonofabitch, Mulder thinks venomously at Jerse.

Venegas has started pacing behind her podium again.  “And did you spend the night at the defendant’s apartment?”

Scully lifts her head and looks directly at Jerse, who is staring intently at the table in front of him.  Mulder’s breathing has become shallow, like he’s sucking oxygen through a straw instead of his nose.

“Yes.”

“Agent Scully, did you have sex with the defendant that night?”

Oh, God.  

Scully’s chest rises and falls slowly, once, twice, as she breathes deeply through her nose, her gaze shifting from Venegas to Jerse to Mulder.  Mulder finds that he can’t blink.  He can’t think.  He can barely breathe.  

It doesn’t matter, Mulder reminds himself.  Whatever she did with Jerse that night, whatever her motivations, it was her choice.  It’s her life.  She doesn’t owe him any answers.  Not now.  Not ever.  He needs to tell her now, needs her to know that whatever happened with Jerse that night, it doesn’t matter.  And they’ve always been more fluent in body language, always been able to convey more with their eyes than their words.  

Without breaking eye contact with Scully, Mulder rises from his seat and sidesteps his way across the row of seats towards the door.  Scully’s brow furrows slightly in confusion, and her lips part as if she wants to say something, to stop him from going anywhere.  It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, I love you, it doesn’t matter, he telegraphs to her on an endless loop, praying she understands.  

And now that he’s seen the man in the flesh, been in the same room with both Scully and Jerse, Mulder realizes that he truly doesn’t care what happened between them.  All that matters is that she’s alive.  He needs her to know that whatever the answer to this question is, he loves her, regardless.

The reality of it hits him like a ton of bricks.

He loves her.  

Regardless.

His hand is just touching the cool wood of the door of the courtroom, a whoosh of air sliding past him as the door cracks open to ruffle his hair and whip at his tie, when her answer comes.

“No.”

Scully’s strong, clear voice stops him, and he turns to find her looking directly at him.  

Venegas flips a page in her binder.  The defense attorney keeps scribbling on his notepad.  The bailiff whispers into the phone at his desk.  The court reporter types away on her stenograph.  

But Scully just keeps looking at him, and the rest of the courtroom fades into the background as Mulder stares back at her.  She shrugs almost imperceptibly and for a fraction of a second, the ghost of a smile washes over her face before it disappears.

“Why not, Agent Scully?” Venegas’s voice brings the two of them back to the present.

“I think we had both had a little bit too much to drink,” Scully answers slowly, and she turns to face Venegas again, her demeanor and inflection switching easily into clinical doctor mode.  “We weren’t able to have intercourse that night because the defendant wasn’t able to sustain an erection.”

If it’s possible, Jerse slumps even lower into his seat and covers his eyes with one handcuffed hand.  

Scully glances at Jerse for a brief moment before she lifts her eyes again to Mulder’s.  He hasn’t moved, hasn’t stopped staring at her since all of his air left his lungs.  

xxxxx

Venegas finishes her line of questioning over the next hour, painstakingly going over the events that unfolded the morning after Scully’s date and failed sexual encounter; how Scully learned from detectives that knocked on Jerse’s door that his neighbor had gone missing and two separate blood samples had been collected; how one of the samples yielded an abnormality that she’d been able to determine from the toxicology report was ergot, a parasite that potentially caused auditory hallucinations; how she’d confronted Ed with this information when he’d returned with breakfast before he’d assaulted her and wrapped her in the same sheets they’d been tangled in the night before and almost thrown into an incinerator; how Jerse had roasted his arm.  

Scully testifies with conviction and doesn’t even have to look at her report when asked about the minutiae of the case.

Mulder is even more impressed with Venegas.  She’s precise and thoughtful in her questioning, skillfully skirting the potential pitfalls of Scully’s testimony to build her case against Jerse.  What’s more, Venegas is able to read Scully like she’s an open book, sensing when Scully is willing to say more but needing time to formulate her answers.  Mulder has to hand it to the fiery prosecutor.  She’s good.  

But the morning is far from over.  

After a brief morning recess, Scully is back on the stand and it is the defense attorney’s chance to cross-examine Scully.

Judd Wilkinson, Jerse’s privately retained defense attorney, is tall and imposing; he’d spoken and objected little during Venegas’s direct examination, busy taking notes on his legal pad and studying Scully intently during direct.  

At points during Scully’s testimony, Jerse had leaned over to whisper into Wilkinson’s ear, gesturing wildly as far as he was able to with his hands still cuffed to his chair.

When Wilkinson finally stands up, he cuts an imposing figure in the courtroom.  Broad shoulders, a slight paunch he covers with a navy double-breasted suit, slicked-back jet-black hair and piercing blue eyes.

“Agent Scully, I’m going to show you a series of photos that have been premarked as Court’s exhibits one through five and I’d like you to take a moment and look over them for me.  Just look up when you’re done, alright?” Wilkinson says, and he ambles up to the witness stand and hands a stack of photos to Scully.

Mulder notices that Scully’s eyes darken as she flips through them, and her nostrils flare slightly.  By the time she’s done, two flaming spots of color have appeared on her cheeks.  

“Have you had a chance to review those photographs, Agent Scully?” Wilkinson drawls, rocking back on his heels and linking his hands behind his back.

“Yes.”

“Do you recognize what you see in those exhibits?”

“Yes.”

“What do those photos depict, if you don’t mind telling the court?”

“Injuries I sustained at the hand of the defendant.”

Wilkinson suddenly stops the slow swaying he’s been doing and he tilts his head to zero in on Scully.  “Well, now, Agent Scully, are you certain that those photos depict injuries you sustained at the hands of my client?  Doesn’t Exhibit 1 show bite marks on your neck?”

Mulder watches Scully blink slowly at Wilkinson.  “Yes.”

“Was that an injury, Agent Scully, or was that a love bite?”

Venegas almost catapults out of her chair and leans over her table.  “Objection, your Honor, argumentative as phrased, vague as to ‘love bite’.”

The magistrate looks over his glasses at Wilkinson, raising a bushy eyebrow at him before turning to Scully.  “Did you understand the question, Agent Scully?”

Scully’s jaw clenches visibly before she responds.  “Yes, your Honor.”

“Then you may answer.  But tread lightly, Mr. Wilkinson,” the magistrate warns.  “I don’t think I like where this line of questioning is going.”

“Understood, your Honor,” Wilkinson smiles through large, square teeth.  “Please answer the question, Ms. Scully.”

“Those bite marks were the result of our consensual sexual encounter the night before the assault,” Scully says tightly.

“And what about the bruises on your back pictured in Exhibit 2?”

“Well, that depends, Mr. Wilkinson,” Scully responds icily.  “If you’re talking about the finger-shaped bruises on my lower back, those were also the result of our sexual encounter.  But if you’re talking about the bruising along the T-10 and T-11 vertebrae, then no, those were the result of your client throwing me against a wall.”

Mulder has to quell the urge to stand up and cheer.  

Undeterred, Wilkinson crosses his arms and starts pacing behind the podium.  

“And what about the bruising and the scratches that we see depicted in Exhibit 3, Agent Scully?”

Glancing down at the photo, Scully lifts her head up and answers again in a clear, tremorless voice.  “The bruising and scratching on my thighs and buttocks were from our failed attempt to engage in intercourse.  The rest of the injuries pictured in that exhibit were the result of our physical altercation the following morning.”

“And how do we know, Agent Scully, that your ‘attempts to engage in sexual intercourse’ didn’t continue that following morning?”

Venegas stands again.  “Objection, that’s argumentative as phrased, your Honor!”

“Your Honor, I fail to see how I can determine exactly when this consensual sexual encounter, which was already apparently consensually painful and resulted in physical demarcations that Agent Scully obviously had no problem with when they were inflicted upon her, stopped being consensual unless I follow this line of questioning,” Wilkinson said, his voice smooth as molasses.

“Probably right about the time the defendant threw her up against a wall and she lost consciousness, Judd!” Venegas practically shouts.

“COUNSEL!” the magistrate yells, staring down at the two of them sternly.  “Sidebar, both of you.”

Venegas crosses her arms and brushes past Wilkinson, who gestures grandly with an ‘after you’ sweep of his arm before following her to the magistrate’s dais.  The judge bends down and the three have an animated conversation in hushed tones and sharp whispers.  Venegas pinches the bridge of her nose over her glasses and glares up at Wilkinson, whose smug smile has started to widen as the conversation progresses.

Eventually, the two attorneys retreat from the magistrate and resume their position, Venegas sinking into her chair and Wilkinson returning to the podium.

“Now, Agent Scully,” Wilkinson continues, “you say that by the morning after your encounter with my client, you already had sustained quite a few bites and bruises, is that right?”

“Yes.”  The slight bob of Scully’s throat as she swallows is the only indication Mulder can see that she’s uncomfortable.  

“And you didn’t mind those bites and bruises when they were being inflicted upon you, did you?”

“I didn’t know until the next morning that the defendant had left contusions.”

Wilkinson smiles broadly.  “You didn’t answer my question, Agent Scully.”

Scully closes her eyes for a moment, sighing audibly.  “I’m sorry, what was your question?”

“I said, you didn’t mind those bites and bruises, did you?”

“No.”

Wilkinson waves hand through the air and gestures between Scully and Jerse as he asks the next question.  “In fact, Agent Scully, didn’t you, at one point, tell my client during your consensual encounter to ‘make it hurt’?”

The furious blush that Scully has been maintaining throughout cross-examination drains rapidly from her face, leaving her shockingly pallid.  The air leaves her lungs and her gasp is amplified by the microphone so that it echoes in the courtroom.

Mulder silently begs Venegas to object, but Venegas just licks her lips and looks down at her table.  Their sidebar must have gone worse than he’d thought.

Scully’s breathing is labored now.  She sways slightly in her seat.  “W-What?”

Wilkinson smiles again, and looks at Scully with all the innocence and charm of a snake-oil salesman.  “Did you or did you not tell my client, Agent Scully, to ‘make it hurt so I know you’re not him’?”

Black spots swim before Mulder’s eyes as his heartbeat skids out of control and when it restarts it seems to be beating at triple time.  He vaguely realizes that he’s hyperventilating.  A fine sheen of sweat has broken out over his face and neck, but conversely a chill shudders through him.

Scully’s lips open and close wordlessly for a moment before she gulps and responds.  “I- I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember,” Wilkinson repeats slowly.  “Well, when exactly did the pain stop being consensual, Agent Scully?”

Scully’s eyes dart to Mulder’s, and he lifts a shoulder, trying to belie the naked astonishment that he knows must be written all over his face.  He shouldn’t be surprised; he’s a trained profiler.  He reads people for a living, has learned to see past the constructs and facades that they erect for one reason or another.  He’s adept at breaking them down to study the cracks and demons hidden within their foundations.  

For reasons he’s tried not to examine too closely, he had stopped himself from doing the same thing to Scully, in part because he’d needed to believe that she was the capable, detached hardass of an equal she’d projected herself to be.  He knew if he didn’t take her at face value, his twisted psyche would somehow find a way to make her a surrogate for Samantha.  Another kid sister.  

Lucky for him, Dana Scully was all of those things she projected: Capable.  Efficient.  The equal he’d been waiting for.  

He had always figured that when it came to the tightly-wound woman underneath the Kevlar, the woman who’d gradually been pared down to the essentials of herself since being partnered with him, she’d need to lose a certain amount of control in the bedroom.  But that was another thing he’d tried not to think about, for obvious reasons.  Scully in the bedroom was not a place he needed to be thinking about her.

But, Jesus, he’s never dreamed that she’d flirt with masochism so brazenly; that the line between pain and pleasure would all but disappear for her.  

And then this...this encounter with Jerse and how it had come on the heels of their argument in the office.  

I wish I could say that we were going in circles, but we’re not. We’re going in an endless line - - two steps forwards and three steps back. While my own life is...standing still.

How he’d voiced his disapproval of the way she’d handled the Pudovkin case.  How angry he’d been, how he’d scolded her over the phone.  

What, you don’t think I’m capable?

Mulder starts and his breath hitches when the pieces of the puzzle click into place, like the last few twists of Rubick’s cube.  

I’ve always gone around in this, uh...this circle. It usually starts when an authoritative or controlling figure comes into my life. And part of me likes it, needs it, wants the approval. But then at a certain point, along the way, I just, you know...

Mulder looks up at his partner, pale but strong on the witness stand, and remembers where she came from. Her Navy captain father, who had been loving but had no doubt run his household like a battleship, doling out stern words and corporal punishment; her strict Catholic upbringing that had included knuckles rapped bloody with a yardstick; how she had continued to wear the remnants of the plaid uniforms of her grade school days, even as an adult, in the shapeless, boxy suits that she’d just recently started to leave behind, right around the same time she’d stopped going to mass.  How pain must have become synonymous with punishment.

When she’d slept with Jerse, she hadn’t just been punishing herself, she’d been lashing out at him.  Reminding him, reminding herself, that she wasn’t a moon orbiting him, lost forever in his gravitational pull.  She was her own person. 

Scully pulls her shoulders back a few notches, lifts her exquisite jaw.  Some color has returned to her, though she’s still a shade too pale.  But the audacity of Wilkinson’s line of questioning has fortified her.    

“Since you seem to be having trouble understanding this, Mr. Wilkinson, let me make it perfectly clear for you.  At no time did I consent to the defendant’s actions the morning after our consensual encounter.  Any time he touched me after I’d woken up that day, he did so against my will, and I believe with the intent to harm me, or kill me.”

The smile disappears from Wilkinson’s jowly face, and he returns to his table and grabs his notepad before circling back around to the podium.  Mulder is weak with relief when Wilkinson moves to his next set of questions.

“Agent Scully, isn’t it true that you believed my client to be acting under the influence of a toxin known as ergot, which is known to cause auditory hallucinations and even psychosis?”

“Objection, your Honor,” Venegas speaks for the first time in what feels like hours.  “Total lack of foundation at this point for this line of questioning.  Agent Scully’s qualifications as an expert as pertain to the defendant’s reaction to this alleged toxin have not been established.”

“Sustained,” the magistrate nods.  “Next question, Mr. Wilkinson.”

Wilkinson looks like he wants to belabor the point, but Mulder knows it’s a losing battle.

“Isn’t it true, Agent Scully, that rather than inflict further harm upon you down in the basement, my client stuck his own arm inside the incinerator of his building?”

Venegas stands again.  “Objection, calls for speculation as to defendant’s intent and frame of mind.”

“Sustained,” the magistrate agrees.

Wilkinson tries one last time.  “Well, didn’t he have the opportunity to inflict further harm upon you, Agent Scully, and instead he chose to inflict harm upon himself?”

Scully answers before Venegas is able to object again.  “He could have killed me.  I believe he would have.  I don’t know what made him stop.”

Tapping his finger to his chin, Wilkinson leans over from the podium and whispers into Jerse’s ear.  Jerse shakes his head and looks down at the table.

“I have no further questions at this time, your Honor.”  And with that, Wilkinson sits back down.

Scully looks at Venegas, who stands and says, “No redirect, your Honor.”

The magistrate peers down at Scully and says, “You’re free to go.  Thank you, Agent Scully.  Ms. Venegas, please call your next witness.”

Looking like she’s about to wilt with relief, Scully stands and takes a shaky breath.  She steps down from the stand and walks past Jerse, who follows her with his eyes.  Mulder thinks he hears Jerse say softly, “I’m sorry, Dana”, but he can’t be sure.  And he doesn’t care.

His focus is on the woman who is striding past the bar.  She pauses long enough for Mulder to stand, and he murmurs into her ear as he opens the courtroom door for her, “You did a good job, Scully.”

Scully ducks under his arm and looks up at him as they walk down the hallway.  “Take me home, Mulder.”

He hesitates only a moment before letting his hand settle softly into the sway of her lower back, the place she’s reminded him is only his because she allows it to be.  Mulder releases a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding when she leans into him.  

As they walk out of the courthouse and into the sunlight, he adds the slightest bit of pressure, curving his fingers around her so that he can feel the dip of her waist and she can feel the weight of his hand.  Her hand covers his as he touches her gently.  

Reverently.  

Softly. 

So she knows it’s him.

#my writing #a preponderance of the evidence