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brywrites · 3 years

Text

Lock and Key I

Summary: In which Spencer Reid stumbles upon a GED class at Millburn and feels something like hope for the first time in weeks.

[Series Masterlist]

....

The prison library is a haven, for the few minutes he’s allowed to visit twice a week. It’s quiet, secluded, and full of his favorite things – books. The selection is nowhere near as nice as his personal collection at home, or the public library, but it’s better than nothing. Without words, he’d go mad. He needs stories to keep him sane, to give him a route he can escape by.

Today though, he’s startled to walk into the small space and find twelve other prisoners inside – accompanied by a face he’s never seen before. A woman. What’s even more surprising is that she doesn’t wear the uniform of a guard or an employee. Instead she’s in Converse sneakers and a lavender polka-dotted dress. It’s been so long since he saw that color – any bright color, really. But it’s his favorite and it isn’t until that moment that the realizes how much he’s missed the simplest of things. The sight of his favorite color. Bright images in dull spaces. Things that look hopeful.

Reid isn’t sure what’s going on, but the other prisoners seem to be too absorbed in the books to notice him. Just as he’s thinking he can back away quietly and return tomorrow, she turns around, smiling at the sight of him.

“Well hello there!” she says. “Are you Luis?”

Reid tilts his head, confused. How does this stranger know his friend? “Uh, no, no I’m not. I’m sorry, who are you?”

Her smile drops, though she doesn’t seem annoyed. Merely disappointed. “Oh. They told me Luis would be joining us today, but he never showed up. I’m Y/N. I’m one of the teachers here.”

This is the first he’s heard of such a thing. “You teach?”

She nods. “That’s right! I teach a couple of different groups – a few college classes here and there, a resume workshop. This is my GED class. We’re starting a unit on British Literature so they’ve all come to pick out a novel. You must be new here,” she notes, looking him over. He can feel himself flush under her gaze. It’s been a while since someone looked at him just to see him and not to evaluate his potential as a threat or a tool. “If you’d like, you can join the class. I’ve got plenty of open seats.”

“Oh no, I don’t need a GED.”

“It’s never too late to graduate,” she says. Then, considering him, “But that’s not what you meant is it?”

The way she’s studying him makes him nervous, though he’s certain it’s the same way he’s studied suspects and victims, trying to see beyond the obvious and understand what lies beneath. How strange, to be on the other side of that stare. “I’ve graduated high school already,” he informs her, hoping he doesn’t sound aloof. “And college. Actually, I hold three PhDs.”

“In what?”

“Mathematics, chemistry, and engineering.”

Y/N holds his gaze, taking this in. It’s as though she’s trying to decide whether or not to believe him. He figures in this environment, perhaps it’s not unusual to be told blatant lies by some prisoners. Delusion and paranoia aren’t uncommon. To teach in a place like this, she would have to be insightful and observant. For whatever reason, she must decide to trust him, because she smiles again.

“Well that’s rather impressive. You’re more qualified than I am. Just a Master’s for me.”

Reid decides against commenting in the irony of the situation, that despite his qualifications he’s nothing but a prisoner here. The same category as every drug-dealer, murderer, petty thief, and gangbanger. No better. But the way she looks at him, it at least makes him feel normal again. She looks at him like he’s a human being, with no disdain or disgust in her gaze, and no air of superiority in her voice.

“What did you study?” he asks her.

“English literature in college, education in grad school. I specialized in literature and languages, though I’m not too shabby when it comes to history. If it’s the STEM field you’ll be wanting though, you’ll have to check in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my colleague teaches those classes.”

Glancing down at her watch, her eyes widen. “Goodness, we’re almost out of time.” She turns to the other inmates and instructs them to make their choices before she has to dismiss class for the day. To him, she adds, “It was nice to meet you – um…”

“Doct-” he begins, before stopping himself. This isn’t a normal introduction. Here, he holds no title, no position of importance. “Er, Spencer. My name is Spencer.”

“Well, Doc –” He tries not to smile at her casual acknowledgment – “if you ever change your mind, we meet Mondays and Wednesdays in room W15 during the afternoon rec slot.”

Despite having no need to attend a GED class, and for reasons he cannot quite explain, he finds himself slipping into that very room on Wednesday afternoon. Y/N glances up from the whiteboard she writes on, faltering for only a brief moment when she catches sight of him slipping into an empty seat in the back row, but she carries on. They’re talking about common themes in Brit Lit, and she’s explaining the Canterbury Tales, which they’ll be reading parts of. From what Reid gathers, there aren’t enough copies of books for them to all read the same novel, but she’s printed out large sections of the Tales for them to read together. It’s familiar, and for someone whose life has largely revolved in academia, it’s soothing to be in an environment where learning is taking place and discussion is happening. Even though he sits silently in the back row, observing.

The other inmates have all picked out books to read on their own and report on, from King Lear to Brave New World. A few have even selected Bronte and Austen novels, which Y/N applauds them for. When she divides them into groups to read and discuss “The Knight’s Tale,” she slips over to join Reid in the back of the room.

“I didn’t think you’d make it, Doc,” she tells him.

He shrugs. “I – I’ve kind of missed the classroom. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to sit in. If you don’t mind, of course!”

“Not at all.” She smiles, dismissing his worry with a wave of her hand. “The more the merrier. Besides, it’s rare that I have students with such an extensive education beforehand. You’ll need to file an enrollment slip though, just for official records.”

She hands him a piece of paper and a commissary pen. While he doesn’t need the credit, he could use the normalcy. Discussions about books with other people in a space that feels a little safer – even if it doesn’t look like the classrooms he’s used to. The walls are stark white and bare save for three posters of famous writers and scientists. The two windows have thick bars on them. The desks are bolted to the floor. Every man in the room wears prison issued blues. But there is a whiteboard and a bookshelf and a clock. And Y/N, in a bright blue turtleneck. It makes him think of the sky, which he only gets a glimpse of for a few hours each week. Suddenly, she’s become the most vivid connection to the outside world.

“How long have you been teaching here?” he asks as he writes down answers to the form’s printed questions.

“Almost three years now. It started with just GED classes, but some volunteer programs have helped us bring new opportunities to the guys. It took me a while to convince the warden, but they’ve been a huge success. So are you coming from another facility? I know we had some transfers last week.”

He shakes his head. “I uh, I haven’t been sentenced yet. But there was overcrowding at the jail so they sent me here.” Reid pauses. “I assumed you would’ve known that.” The inmate records are publicly available. All she’d have to do is search his name or the number on his clothing and everything she needed to know would be right there – his charges, his admission date, his identifying information and that ID photo from his first day.

But she just shrugs. “I make a point not to look up what my students have been convicted of. I let them volunteer that information if they choose to, but I respect their privacy. Besides, I’d like to believe all of us are more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

He’s struck by her words. After all, for the last decade his job has been to see people precisely as the worst thing they’ve ever done. To delve deep into those actions and develop a profile of a person on that alone. He has an impulse to dismiss her statement as naïve, but it reminds him of Garcia, of her boundless optimism and her ability to see the best in the world even after looking at the worst of it. That memory and the smile Y/N looks at him with softens the heart he’s been carefully hardening since he arrived here. And so rather than dampen her spirit he asks, “Does it matter if I’ve read all of the books you’re discussing already?”

Her eyes widen ever so slightly with surprise. “All of them?”

“My mother was a literature professor,” he says. “And I just really like books.”

“Well, typically I’d encourage you to take the courses we offer for college credit but they’re full. Since you already have your GED, I suppose we could treat it like you’re auditing. It might help some of the guys to have someone with a little more academic experience…” She trails off and then gasps. “Oh wait! How would you feel about being the TA for the class? It’s been so long since I had one for the GED classes.”

“Like… grade papers and things?”

“No, not like that,” she says. “There are strict rules about who sees what here. Being a TA for me would be less typical TA duties and more of mentoring the other students, helping me clean up after class, re-shelving books, things like that. It’s not an official job so there’s no pay, but you would get good time credit.”

Though he doesn’t know what his sentence here will be, if he’s sentenced at all, he knows that any good time credit he can obtain to reduce the length of it is worth it. And so he says, “Okay.”

Y/N’s eyes light up. Her smile is the prettiest thing he’s seen since he got here. “Perfect! Oh, this is so exciting. I’m glad you joined us.” When he finishes the paperwork, she leads him to an empty seat at a group of tables.

“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong, Porkchop. It’s a love story,” one of the men is saying to another.

“Come on now, Xavier, you know the rules,” Y/N interrupts. “Nicknames stay outside the classroom. We use first names here.”

“Sorry, Teach,” Xavier says. He tries again. “It’s a love story, Carl.”

“That’s more like it. Carl, I can’t wait to hear your response. But first, I’m going to have Spencer join your group, alright? He’s our newest student and our TA for the class. He’s read a lot of these books so if you’re having a hard time or want to talk to someone about the material outside of class time, he’s a great person to ask.”

The group welcomes him – Xavier, Carl, Richie, and Luis. Reid is grateful to be with Luis, the one person he knows he can consider a friend inside. They talk about Chaucer and “The Franklin’s Tale,” and he’s surprised by the critiques and connections his peers make. Their debate is certainly different than the conversation he’d expect to find at a university class, but their ideas are still insightful and interesting. They make connections to their own lives, to the sacrifices they have made and the power of love they have witnessed firsthand. Mothers who never stop fighting for their appeal cases. Friends who send money so they can afford commissary. The difficulty of skipping commissary so they can send money home to their own families outside.

When their discussion finally winds down, Reid asks, “What’s the rule with nicknames about?”

“It’s Miss Y/N’s way of humanizing people,” Xavier says. “She says when we use first names like that, we’re all equals. But it’s different outside of class. We stick to nicknames because that’s what you do, y’know?” Reid shakes his head. Xavier chuckles. “You’re fresh meat, huh. First time you been down? In here, COs turn you into just a number or a last name. So nicknames inside are a way to hold on to some of your identity. Beyond that, there’s some guys in here you don’t want knowing your name, you feel me?”

“Nicknames gotta be given to you by someone else. Can’t make your own. Course, that means they’re usually a little insulting. They call me Porkchop,” Carl says. “Xavier’s Hammerhead. Richie is Spiders. And Luis, he been christened Slim Jim yesterday at chow. But don’t worry, we’ll find one for you soon.” Reid isn’t sure how to feel about the assurance. He doesn’t want to belong here, doesn’t want to fit in or get comfortable. On the other hand, he may be here for a while. Maybe laying low and finding allies wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

He knows one thing for sure – as he walks out of class, Y/N flashes that bright smile at him again. And for some reason, it makes him feel hopeful. More hopeful than any session with lawyers or judges has made him feel. Monday can’t come soon enough.

[Next]

Tags: @calm-and-doctor @averyhotchner

#criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #reid x reader #prison reid #prison!reid

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five-rivers · 3 years

Text

Danger First

Chapter 10

@pocketramblr :)

One day - and not even a whole day, because of travel time and Inko wanted Izuku home for dinner- simply wasn't enough time to master a quirk. Although he could turn Float on and off, now. So, they made plans to come back next week, and the next, up until the sports festival. Which. Wow. Really was only two weeks away.

Izuku had never realized how close to the beginning of the school year it was.

He was going to die.

"You're not going to die," said Mr. Yagi. "I'm not going to say the sports festival isn't important, because it is, it's one of the best ways to make professional connections for students, but not doing well isn't the end of the world, especially not in your first year. No one expects you to be perfectly polished."

"But," said Izuku, "I'm supposed to be the next you! I've got to stand out, right?"

Mr. Yagi looked very guilty. "I... may have given you that impression when we were first training, yes. But, since then, with all my research into the past holders... few of them were popular, flashy heroes. If you want to walk the same path as me, that's great. But you don't have to. Even I didn't really start that chapter of my life until after college."

Izuku looked down at his hands, letting silence fill the space between them as he contemplated Mr. Yagi's words. "This isn't about me manifesting One for All differently, is it?"

"What? No, no of course not, my boy. I mean, it certainly helped me come to this conclusion, I wouldn't have done so much research without it! But I certainly hope I would have come to the same conclusion eventually, even so."

"Okay..." said Izuku, still dubious.

"I mean it," protested Mr. Yagi. "Most of my work is essentially underground, you know. There's a reason the battle trial was what it was."

"H-huh? You? Underground? But you're so recognizable!"

"Am I? I firmly believe in bringing all my resources to bear in the fight against evil! Ha ha!"

His laugh devolved into a cough, and he fumbled for a handkerchief. But he recovered quickly enough.

"I guess that makes sense," said Izuku, cautiously, once he thought Mr. Yagi wasn't going to start coughing again.

"You didn't think I stayed number one by popularity alone, did you?"

"I- the formulas the Hero Commission uses to determine rankings are secret, and it only includes spotlight heroes, so when I extrapolated the hero billboard rankings, yes, I assigned a high weight to popularity. There were always some discrepancies between my predictions and the end results, but I figured I missed some events, or the commission assigned them different values…"

"That's quite impressive, my boy. But, though popularity is a factor, the HPSC does take unpublicized fights and rescues into account. Assuming you report them…"

That was the second time Mr. Yagi had mentioned not telling the commission something.

"Do you, um, do you do that a lot? Not tell the commission things, I mean."

"Eh? No, no, I try to stay up on my paperwork. I get a lot of help from Naomasa, though. Some heroes, especially independent ones, without an agency, do have trouble keeping up, sometimes."

"It's just… the other day you said something about not telling the commission about All for One."

"Ah," said Mr. Yagi. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "You're quite right. How should I put this… The HPSC knows All for One exists, and I have made them generally aware of his modern exploits. I haven't told them about his ability to give quirks, though they may know through other avenues, there are certain battles I've had with him that I haven't told them about, and they do not know about One for All."

“Why not?”

“Villains aren’t the only ones who seek power,” said Mr. Yagi. “The HPSC provides a vital service, and I think what one does matters more than why one does it, but… it is my observation that many of the people there are more concerned with personal power than doing the right thing. And positions of power and authority tend to draw in those who would abuse those things."

"Even heroics?"

"Especially heroics. The HPSC Ethics Review Board is supposed to stop that, but no system is perfect." He shook himself. "But look at me! I was trying to give you a pep talk, not saddle you with doubts about the government!"

Izuku laughed, nervously. "I mean, you've definitely distracted me from the sports festival…"

“Yes. The sports festival. Don’t worry about making a big spotlight combat debut. If you want to focus on rescue, or investigation, or the underground, I’ll support you all the way.” He paused. “You do need combat, though, because, because of-”

“All for One?”

“Yes, exactly. All for One.”

“Way to kill the mood, guys,” said Banjo.

“I think the mood was thoroughly dead already,” said Yoichi.

“Unlike your brother,” said En. “Ninth’s father.”

“Come on, it was just a little omission of information. It wasn’t even a lie!”

“It was definitely a lie. You’re so lucky that my relief about you not being a pedophile eclipsed my righteous fury regarding your mendacity.”

“You know, the fact that you’re delivering that completely deadpan gives me doubts about the fury part.”

“I’m mad at you.”

“You love me.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t be mad at you.”

“Hey, hey, wait a minute,” said Nana, making a ‘T’ shape with her hands. “Time out. Ninth’s father is All for One.”

“Yes,” said Yoichi, hanging his head, “I thought that had been established.”

“So, are we… What Toshinori is saying is completely valid, by the way… but, are we expecting this kid to fight his father? Is that a thing we’re doing?”

“Uh,” said Yoichi, “in our defense, we did think he was dead.”

“Maybe Eighth will get ‘im before Ninth has to deal with it,” suggested Banjo. “He’s got to have a better chance of that, now what with Fa Jin and all.” He paused. “But, you know what would give Ninth an even better chance, if he does have to fight his deadbeat dad-”

“He’s not a deadbeat,” interrupted Hikage.

“What?”

“Calling him a deadbeat would imply that he is neither supporting the Midoriyas financially nor regularly in contact with them. He is on both counts.”

“What?” squealed Bango.

“Did you miss his phone call with his father immediately following his return home after the USJ attack?”

“Oh,” said Yoichi, “no, I was very aware of my brother’s evil, evil voice. It’s just that these guys were too focused on scolding me to listen to anything I had to say. I still can’t believe he sent someone like that to attack his own son’s class.”

“Didn’t he, like, kill you?” asked En.

“No, my death was largely unrelated. You’ve got to remember, I was a chronically ill fugitive from the law with no money. Who told you that he killed me?”

Everyone looked at their immediate predecessor. Yoichi tracked the path back to Third, who had gone very stiff.

“What the heck, Third? You were there when I died. Why would you tell Hikage that?”

Third did not answer.

“Actually, what did he tell you, Hikage?

“Oh, it was very moving and heroic. It happened while you were saving a busload of metahuman orphans. You sacrificed yourself to let them get away from All for One. I even cried a little.”

“Is it weird that I’m now disappointed in myself for not dying like that?”

“Very,” said Nana.

“What were we talking about before this?” asked En.

“I have no idea,” said Banjo.

Izuku delayed going to class, nervous about everyone's reactions to his quirk. It wasn't that he thought they'd reject him, but more that he had no answers for the inevitable questions.

But he also didn't want to be late.

"Todoroki was so cool!" Hagakure exclaimed as he opened the classroom door. "He was all like, blam, bam, swish! And- and he checked whether or not I was there first, before attacking, which was super cool of him."

Todoroki's expression was halfway between 'statue' and 'help, I've been hit by a truck.' "Cool?"

"Very cool."

"You've grown since the first day, kero."

"Ah! Midoriya!"

All heads turned towards him. In the next second, he was hugged by several people, which was more friendly skin contact than he'd had since… ever, probably.

"Eep," he said.

"We were so worried about you," said Uraraka. "We made a group chat, after, but since you were unconscious…"

"Hm," said Monoma, "your quirk still is definitely a stockpile…"

"Monoma!" shouted Iida. "Did you join this hug just to copy quirks?"

"And what of it?"

"But speaking of quirks," said Jiro, "you can fly now? We kind of went along with it at the time, but that's kind of different from a sensory quirk."

"I know," said Izuku, "and I have no explanation."

"Maybe your quirk stockpiles danger," said Monoma, contemplatively. He rubbed his chin with one finger. "That could be why you can sense danger- you're stockpiling it. Then, when the danger gets over a certain threshold, you can release it as flight… why are you all looking at me like that?"

"Oh, nothing," drawled Kaminari. "Just that you're more thoughtful than you look, pretty boy."

"I don't want to hear that from you."

"Th-thank you, Monoma! I'll have to mention it when I go to quirk counseling next."

Which may or may not be this afternoon, depending on how Mr. Aizawa felt and- His head snapped to the door. "Mr. Aizawa's coming!"

They all rushed to their seats. The door creaked open.

"Oh my gosh, he's a mummy."

"Iida?"

"What is it, Midoriya?"

They were having a bit of a break during English while Present Mic cycled them through for short sessions with Hound Dog.

"I didn't have a chance to ask you earlier, but how's your brother?"

“He’s alright! It’s the first really major injury of his career, so he’s going to take it easy for the rest of the month, to make sure his engines heal properly. He’d prefer not to of course, but, ah, there is a silver lining.”

“That’s good,” said Izuku, encouragingly.

“I really shouldn’t be happy about it,” said Iida, rubbing the back of his neck, “but he’ll be able to come see me during the sports festival, and he probably would have been too busy if he were active.”

“I think it’s okay to be happy about good things, even if they happen because of bad things,” said Izuku. “It isn’t like we can go back and make the bad things not happen, after all…”

“That’s very true, Midoriya! What a mature way of thinking about things.”

Izuku didn’t know about that, but he was willing to take the compliment.

“Midoriya,” said Shouta, who was absolutely and unquestionably recovered enough to teach. Even if he had zoned out in the corner of the room in his sleeping bag all morning rather than trekking back to the teacher’s lounge… or teaching any of his other classes… shut up. “What are you doing at the window?”

“O-oh. Mr. Aizawa. I didn’t know you were awake?”

It was, maybe, a little unfair to single Midoriya out like that, since the entire class was standing by the window, and the way Uraraka, Sero, and Midoriya were closest to it, with Monoma a close fourth, was concerning, but Midoriya was the first one Shouta saw, and the one most likely to to cave and tell him what was going on.

“Midoriya.”

“R-right. Well, going out the door seems a little unpleasant today, so we thought we’d switch it up?”

What did that even mean?

“We were going to bring you with us, of course,” continued Midoriya.

What did that even mean?

“Out the window.”

“Um. Yes.”

“What kind of unpleasant are we talking about?”

“Battle trial unpleasant?”

Shouta groaned and hauled himself up, walking over to the door. He looked out the window and made note of all the students from other classes standing out there, circling like sharks. Great. Maybe they needed to have an assembly about respecting boundaries or whatever, especially if the people whose boundaries were being crossed were potentially traumatized.

Something to bring up at the next staff meeting he attended. Which… would probably not be soon.

Anyway.

He opened the door.

(“A mummy,” whispered someone.)

(First his kids, then these kids… he wasn’t that wrapped up.)

(Was he?)

“What are you all doing here?” he asked, voice rasping rather more than he wanted it to.

The students didn’t seem inclined to answer. Someone did mutter something about the sports festival, but it was far from the complete answer that Aizawa wanted.

“Right. Whatever. Scoping out the competition is one thing, but you are aware that class 1-A is recovering from a traumatic experience. And you’re blocking traffic. Clear off.”

The crowd slowly dispersed. Shouta sighed. He knew this would only be the first of many such incidents. He made a note to talk to Nemuri about whether or not she’d be willing to donate some of her class time to talk about public relations.

“You know,” said Nemuri, “if you actually rested, Recovery Girl would be able to heal you.”

“I know nothing of the sort,” said Shouta, glaring at his desk in the staff room. “I’m forgetting something.”

All Might walked in. “Er, young Aizawa,” he said. He paused for a painfully long, awkward moment. “Are you still meeting with young Midoriya today?”

“Crap.”

Did Izuku expect Mr. Aizawa to come to their meeting? No. The man had casts on all of his limbs. But, he hadn’t cancelled it either. So, better safe than sorry, right?

But it had been a while, now. Izuku could probably safely assume he wasn't coming after a half hour. He got up, packed his bags, and reached out for the door handle-

Only to freeze as Mr. Aizawa yanked it open and pulled Mr. Yagi into the classroom after him.

Izuku scurried back to his seat.

"Nothing physical today," croaked Mr. Aizawa. "We're going to figure out your quirk."

“O-okay,” said Izuku.

Aizawa collapsed into the seat behind the teacher's desk. “To be short, this quirk, One for All or whatever, is complete nonsense.”

“Uh,” said Mr. Yagi. “Sorry?”

“Sorry,” whispered Izuku.

“You should be. Not you, Midoriya. You’re fine.”

“Okay?”

“Right. So. You’ve got two quirks right now. Danger Sense and Float. Unless something else showed up over the weekend?”

“No, it’s, um, it is just those two right now.”

“And you’ll most likely get Smokescreen, Blackwhip, and that strength enhancement eventually. Plus two mystery quirks.”

“That is what I’ve been able to find out,” said Mr. Yagi.

“So, we have to figure out some way to get all those under a coherent umbrella that can account for the mystery quirks, and before the sports festival, so the evil immortal supervillain doesn’t notice that you have quirks just like a bunch of people he had personal beef with.”

Mr. Yagi cursed in English. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Yeah, I wonder what else you haven’t thought about. Maybe this year I can get Nezu to take my suggestion about doing hero names before the sports festival seriously. You know we’ve had people stalk students before because for some godforsaken reason we use their real names? I need a drink.”

“Ah, water?”

“No.”

“Young Aizawa, you’re a teacher…”

“A career choice I question daily. Midoriya, do you have any thoughts about how to make your quirk make sense in a way that won’t get you killed or abducted by the HPSC?”

“I- Does that happen?” despite his conversation with Mr. Yagi over the weekend, he still had generally positive thoughts about the hero commission.

“I have no idea. Wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Well, um, I was talking to Monoma earlier, and he said something about stockpiling danger, and how it might let out the stockpile as the energy necessary to levitate- which, really, would be a fascinating quirk if it did work that way- but I thought it might also work for Smokescreen and the strength enhancement? I mean, general responses to danger are fight, flight, or hide, so the strength enhancement is fight, Float is flight, and Smokescreen would be hide…”

“That might work. What about Blackwhip.”

“Yeah, that one has kind of stumped me.”

“Blackwhip sure is a problem,” agreed Mr. Aizawa.

The ghosts started laughing. “You’re a problem, Banjo,” chortled Nana.

“Come on, guys, that isn’t funny!”

"It is! It's hilarious!"

"They were just talking about All for One tracking the kid down and killing him!"

The mood sobered quickly.

"Considering that he is Ninth's father," said Hikage, "I suspect it's far too late for that."

"Yeah," said Yoichi. "But, just to be safe, and in case there are other weirdos out there, new rule: no giving him new quirks in public. Not that we can do anything about when he eventually manifests the stockpile…"

"What if he's going to die?" asked Hikage, raising his hand.

"He already got your quirk, why do you care?"

"We'd like to hear it," said Banjo, somewhat forcefully.

"Well, if he looks like he's going to die, do whatever you can to stop that from happening, I guess. But chucking a quirk he doesn't know how to use isn't always going to be the beat answer."

"Wait," said Nana. "Hold up a second. A few days ago we were talking about the potential for multiple quirk brain damage, weren't we?"

"Oh, good catch," said Yoichi. "I guess I forgot to mention it, which means Nana is the only one I'd trust babysitting my nephew in the event a quirk rewound him to elementary school age-"

"That is a suspiciously specific scenario," said En.

"-and all the rest of you are fired. You didn't even question giving him more quirks? Really?"

Hikage raised his hand. "I assumed you had discovered that Ninth had a constitution capable of handling multiple quirks, similar to yourself and your brother."

"That is true. Okay, Hikage would be another exception, but he's disqualified from babysitting for other reasons."

"That's fair."

"So we need something that can do all that, and has tentacles," said Izuku, squeezing his bottom lip in thought.

"Yeah," said Mr. Aizawa. "Honestly, even really dumb ideas would be welcome right now."

"Why are you looking at me?" asked Mr. Yagi.

"You know why."

There was only one creature Izuku could think of that could do all the things Izuku one day might be able to while maintaining room for the two mystery quirks. "Cthulhu."

Mr. Yagi looked mildly scandalized at the suggestion.

"Nah, it'd have to be something like eldritch. Cthulhu's trademarked in Japan, and that can give you aboveground types trouble."

"What is it a trademark for?" asked Mr. Yagi.

"Ask Midnight. I don't want to talk about it."

"Ah," said Mr. Yagi.

"The problem with that is that you currently have no justification to call it that. Now if you already had Smokescreen…"

The adults looked at him.

"... I don't think it's going to just show up like that," said Izuku.

"Why not?" asked Banjo, staring at En. "They practically asked you for it."

"Well, first off, I live for drama, so jot that down."

"Huh? What about me?" asked Yoichi.

"Nothing, it was just an idiom. Second…"

"...Right," said Aizawa. “For now, then, we’ll have to give it a temporary name, because it’s starting to get to the point in time where it’ll actually be illegal for you to not register it.” He shuffled his casts. “Yagi, start filling out those forms with what he can do currently. Midoriya, make sure you check him when he’s done. For now, we’ve got to come up with a name.”

“Um,” said Izuku. “Float’s the only one that’s really visible, so I could just call it Float?”

“Vetoed. You aren’t picking a name that the immortal supervillain knows.”

“He did seem to only refer to people by quirks unless he really hated them,” said Mr. Yagi. “Except his brother, who he always called ‘my foolish brother.’”

“Focus on the paperwork.”

“And he called himself by his quirk name as well,” mused Izuku. “Do you think it was a side effect? Quirks have document impact on people’s personalities-”

“Focus.”

“R-right. Um. Feather Fall? No, that’s part of a game. Flight Reflex?”

“Good enough for now,” said Aizawa. “Flight Reflex it is.”

#bnha #boku no hero academia #danger first #danger first au #fic #fanfic

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nyctophilin · 4 years

Text

Fake Affection | III

Chapter I, Chapter II, Chapter III, Chapter IV, Epilogue

Description: Han Jisung has been rejected by the girl he likes one to many times. He decides that he has had enough and is set on making her want him back. What could possibly make her want him more than seeing him with her rival after she boldly assumed he can’t find anyone better. That way Jisung and Y/N are stuck in a fake relationship until Jisung’s crush falls for him. Or he falls for someone else.

Pairing: Han x fem!Reader, Hyunjin x fem!Reader

Word count: 5.1k

Genre: College!AU, Fake dating!AU, Angst, Fluff, eventual Smut

Warnings: swearing, mild groping, mild violence

Pearl note -> This got long. Yeah, things got interesting in this part. :)) Also, I realized I forgot to add something so I had to come back last minute and edit it. Yeah, sorry for the delay. :/ I hope y’all enjoy it! Feedback is very much appreciated.

The sun was shining brightly despite it being almost 6 PM. The temperature outside reached unusually high numbers for that time of the year, and Y/N decided to take advantage of that. Dressed in a forest green spring dress that reached her mid-thighs and offered a modest view of her cleavage, she was waiting for Jisung in front of her apartment complex. The dress she was wearing had short sleeves, but she decided not to take any jackets with her thanks to the weather forecast that predicted the temperatures to be high until later in the night.

She was clutching the strap of her purse tightly and impatiently checking the time on her phone every few minutes. It has been such a long time since she went on a date. Just because she was going there to make Mina jealous didn’t mean she couldn’t have fun. What better way to convince the other girl that she missed on a lot of fun than have fun?

Coming from the left side, she heard the sound of an engine approaching. Soon, a black Range Rover came to a gradual stop right in front of her, the front wheel almost climbing the sidewalk. From inside the car, Jisung gestured her to get in. She opened the door and climbed in, placing her purse over her knees before fastening her seatbelt.

Without much of a word, Jisung turned the steering wheel and started driving to a destination unknown to Y/N.

“I didn’t know you had a car.” She spoke, trying to get rid of the awkward atmosphere.

Jisung threw her a look before concentrating on the road again.

“It’s Chan’s. He let me borrow it for today.” A long sigh left his mouth. “After a long talk where he told me that if I hurt his baby, I’m dead.”

Y/N let out a chuckle, and Jisung smiled as well, as the memory of the silly conversation he had with the older man flooded his mind. Another minute passed, and the silence in the car was being filled by the pop music coming from the radio.

“You look pretty!” Jisung complimented, stealing another glance at her.

A bright smile invaded her facial features at his words.

“Thank you! I didn’t know where we were going, but I figured a dress would be appropriate for many activities.” She chirped, the tiniest bit of excitement rolling off her tongue.

“What if we are going hiking?” Jisung said, and a smirk appeared on his face when he noticed her rolling her eyes from the corner of his eye.

“Then you can turn the car. I’m not coming!” Y/N crossed her hands under her chest and her mouth formed into a small pout.

“I’m joking. We are going to an outdoor cinema.”

She gave him a side look and raised an eyebrow.

“No offence, but how do you know when outdoor cinemas are happening? They don’t seem…” She eyes him up and down on the driver’s seat. “...your style.”

Jisung resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her comment. After a moment of silence, he sighed silently accepting her words.

“Mina told me about it three weeks ago. She said it was a rom-com she really wanted to see. We planned to go together.” He explained taking a right turn.

“Then how do you know if she’s going to come if you planned to go together. I don’t know if you realised, but you are supposed to be dating me, and she’s dating no one. Girls don’t usually go to this kind of thing without a boyfriend or a potential one.”

“There’s this guy from Theatre and Film that she used to hook up with when I wasn’t around. I know from someone that they are coming together.”

Y/N let a pitiful smile involuntarily invade her features. It was kind of pathetic how he knew about her whereabouts and still didn’t say anything. She understood that they weren’t together, but they were heavily flirting and behaving like a couple, hence why she and a lot of other people thought they were actually in a relationship.

She let her teeth sink in the flesh of her bottom lip holding back from telling him a piece of her mind. He was old enough. He knew what he was doing. Or at least she hoped he did.

The rest of the way to the outdoor cinema was spent in silence. The only audible sounds being the radio and Jisung’s soft humming from time to time. When they reached, their destination Y/N got out of the car and let Jisung find a parking spot somewhere further away from the location of the cinema due to the parking there overflowing with vehicles.

Checking her phone, she noticed the time indicating 7:17 PM, and only then she realised how much time they spent in the car. Walking lazily on the pathway to where space was designated for blankets and chairs she saw a sea of people. Maybe not really a sea but there were enough people to fill two of the auditorium in their university.

For a second she thought she'd lay out the blanket, but then she remembered the only thing she had on her was her purse. On top of that, they needed to ‘accidentally’ bump into Mina and her date and hope they end up sitting next to each other.

Just as she was thinking about that a squeal deafened her and a pair of delicate arms wrapped around her. When the girl let go of her, and she met Mina’s face, she grimaced, but she regained her composure fast. She smiled at her and her date, a guy she had seen occasionally in some of her classes.

“What a coincidence you are here!” Mina’s fake excitement was pissing her off. Coincidence her ass. Y/N was sure she knew they were going to be there.

“Yeah, what a small world.” She gave the two a visibly fake smile and prayed for Jisung to hurry.

“Are you alone?” The girl asked, moving her head in different directions as if she was looking for the person she came with.

“No. I actually came with Jisung.” As if on cue Jisung appeared from behind the two, a blanket in hand.

“Are you looking for me, princess?” A jolt of surprise went through her at the new nickname he used, but she didn’t let it show.

Observing the angry expression on Mina’s face at his words, she figured that was how he used to call her before they broke up whatever they had going on. She surpassed a smirk from painting her lips.

“Mhhm.” She extended her hand, which he gladly held and went in for a short kiss. “Look who I found. Isn’t it lovely seeing your friends here?” She sarcastically said, smiling up at him.

“You guys should come sit with us!” Mina’s date said, and a victorious smile spread across her face.

“We’ll love to if that is okay with Mina, of course. We wouldn’t wanna disrupt you!” Y/N faked concern and gave Mina doe eyes.

Mina’s jaw slightly clenched before immediately relaxing and letting out a forced giggle.

“Of course you can. Why wouldn’t I be okay with that?”

After that, the four of them went and found a place at the back of the crowd where they could sit. It wasn’t exactly the back of the crowd since there were some more people behind them, but they were reasonably behind.

Jisung spread the blanket on the fluffy grass, and Mina’s date, whose name she found out was Jay, did the same as Jisung. Their blankets were almost touching, the distance between them millimetric.

There were still 20 minutes before the movie was supposed to start. They sat down on the blankets, and Y/N stretched her legs, finally relaxing for not having to stand on the platform shoes she was wearing.

“So, are you guys dating or…” Jay asked, fixing his body position so he could see them better.

Y/N rolled her eyes at his question. The guy wasn’t the best at reading the room.

“Of course we are. Why would we be here together if we weren’t?” Annoyance was dripping off her tongue. She only wanted to relax for a bit before having to spend two hours watching some boring rom-com.

“Oh…” His voice sounded almost disappointed as his gaze lingered a second too long on her exposed legs. “Mina and I are not a couple. And since she and Jisung have had a thing before, I thought...” He bit his bottom lip while looking at her thighs that were pretty much bare thanks to her dress riding up when she sat down. “Never mind!”

Y/N shifted uncomfortably and placed her hands on her thighs in an attempt to cover them even a little. Mina wasn’t aware of her date’s actions as her eyes were concentrated on Jisung and on the way he looked under the golden rays of the sun that was preparing to set.

Jisung, however, was burning holes with his eyes into the other man’s head. Upon seeing him biting his lip while looking at Y/N in a less than appropriate way, he felt an unexplainable feeling of rage penetrate his body. What he wanted to do at that moment was to get up and punch that pig into next week for daring to look at her like that. But he kept his composure and decided not to make a big deal out of it.

There was literally no reason for him to get that angry. Besides the apparent reason that it made her uncomfortable and he shouldn’t allow something like that, especially when he is playing her boyfriend. But the sudden feeling to rip his head off filled him with turmoil.

Jisung decided to ignore it for now, and he took his jacket off and placed it over her legs. Her head shot in his direction, confusion and at the same time relief present in her eyes.

“What is that?” She asked, trying to act unaffected by Jay’s actions.

“I just thought you might sit more comfortably with this over your legs. It stops unwanted attention.” He subtly glared at Jay, but he didn’t seem to pay him any mind as his eyes were now fixed on Mina’s chest.

“Thank you!” She said, bringing the jacket further up to cover her thighs better.

Jisung inched just a little bit closer to her and cupped her face. Placing his lips on hers, he forcefully pushed his tongue in her mouth, taking her by surprise. He made sure their heads were positioned in such a way that the two on the blanket next to them will be able to see the exchange of their mouths.

Mina was watching Jisung drag his tongue inside Y/N’s mouth, his eyes closed in satisfaction. The exchange wasn’t rushed, and the way his thumb would caress her cheek so gently had her bursting with jealousy. Jisung had never kissed her like that. Their kisses were always rushed and sloppy, driven by sexual needs.

When she first heard about their little relationship, she laughed. She thought it was some kind of stupid joke. But then she saw how they behaved. The kisses, the hugs, the hand holding, how he would always have a hand around her shoulders. In the three days, they dated he showed Y/N more love than he showed her in a year and a half.

Her initial plan was to tease him a little bit, then finally accept to be his girlfriend. She didn’t think he'd go and find himself a girlfriend. And especially not her. From all the people he could choose it had to be her. Looking at them now, Mina regretted her decision.

Jisung broke the kiss and looked into her fluttering eyes before placing a peck on her nose. Y/N was sitting there dizzy from everything that happened. His sudden boldness left her speechless and burning hot from the embarrassment of being seen doing something like that.

She wanted to question him. Ask him why he suddenly did something like that. However, a loud sound erupted from the speakers surrounding them, signaling the start of the movie. So she focused her vision on the big cloth in front of her and decided to ignore it.

She shivered discreetly as a wave of cold hit her body. The movie was only half done, and with the midnight approaching slowly, a chilly air adorned their surroundings. The weather forecast predicted high temperatures, but at that moment she was far away from her city, and so the weather was different.

Y/N rubbed one of her arms with her hand, regretting not taking a jacket with her just in case something like that was to happen. From the corner of his eye, Jisung noticed her actions, and he leaned in close to her to whisper in her ear.

“Hey, are you ok?” His hot breath on her ear made the hair at the back of her neck stand up.

“Yeah, I’m just a little bit cold. I’ll be fine!” She whispered back giving him reassuring eyes.

Jisung thought for a second of what he could do. He didn’t have another jacket, and he didn’t want her to uncover her legs. At least not when Jay was around. An idea finally struck him, and he softly called her name, catching her attention again.

When she turned to look at him, he tapped the space between his spread legs. Y/N raised an eyebrow at his gesture.

“What does that mean?” She sounded a little bit annoyed.

“Come sit here. I’ll cuddle you so you won’t be cold anymore.” Y/N threw him a weirded out look. “We are ‘dating’. No one will find it weird. Or you could just stay there and freeze to death.” The man explained his voice a little bit louder than before.

She pondered his offer for a bit before getting up and making her way between his legs. She let herself fall backwards until her back hit his chest softly. Jisung put his arms around her, and warmth started enveloping her almost instantly. Y/N let out a purr at the newfound comfort, and her eyes shot open at the realisation of what she just did.

“Hey, don’t get too comfortable, you hear me? I’m doing this just because Mina might be watching.” She warned, her voice stern hoping he missed her last action.

Jisung rolled his eyes but decided not to bring up the sound she just let out. For now, he just wanted to enjoy the newfound proximity. Only so they can make Mina jealous. Right?

They sat like that, none of them daring to move. For some reason, Jisung found the position really comfortable. A few days prior at the start of their relationship he found skinship really awkward but now it wasn’t like that anymore. It felt almost natural. Like they have been doing it for a long time.

Some more time passed, but Jisung wasn’t sure how much. The movie was approaching its climax, and the man felt bored out of his mind. Was it really worth going through that only to get his dick wet? But then he remembered who he was doing it for. He was doing it so he and Mina, the girl who he has been in love with for the longest time, could finally be together. And when it happens, he will be able to slide his hand through her silky hair, and feel her smooth skin and kiss her soft lips without having to call it a friendly gesture.

His trail of thoughts was interrupted by a quiet mumbling coming from Y/N. Her voice was so small that Jisung couldn’t hear her.

“What?” He leaned his head down in order to hear her when she talks.

For a minute, there was silence. Thinking that she didn’t hear him, Jisung wanted to repeat the question when a puff of air left her mouth. Right after, she turned slightly to the side, pushing her head more against his chest, and that is when he realised that she fell asleep.

An involuntary smile tugged at his lips, and his heart started beating faster. He couldn’t explain why he was so happy about it. It was going to be a pain in the ass. Having to wake her up and wait for her to recover from her dazed form. They were going to be the last ones to leave after the movie was over.

A whistle-like noise left Y/N’s nose when she expired the cold air of the night, and his smile turned into a grin. Jisung moved a few strands of hair from her face before wrapping his hands better around her to keep her warm. He placed a kiss on top of her head and rested his chin on her head, swaying slightly while continuing to watch the movie.

If you were to ask Mina what has happened so far in the movie, she couldn’t give you an answer. As much as she wanted to see the film, the girl’s eyes seemed to be more interested in whatever was happening on the blanket on her left.

She watched as they were cuddling and whispering to each other things she couldn’t hear. Then Y/N fell asleep, and Jisung seemed to be even more loving, hugging her even tighter and kissing her. She was wondering if he has ever done that to her on the many nights they shared a bed.

Mina never thought she would be that affected by the fact that Jisung has found himself a girlfriend. After all, he was just one of the many boys she was hooking up with. She never thought she would have feelings for him, but here she was, being jealous of the last person she ever thought she would.

She had to somehow get the boy back. She wanted to see it as a challenge, but she couldn’t. It had barely been two weeks since they ‘broke up’ and scarcely four days since he started dating that perfect little missy. Love doesn’t fade away that fast. She’ll have him back in no time.

Y/N felt someone shaking her arm gently, and she mumbled some incoherent words, pushing the hand away. She was sleeping so well, she didn’t want to wake up. A hand pushed a hair strand that was ticking her nose out of the way before grabbing her shoulder and shaking it again. She groaned in annoyance.

“Wake up, Y/N! You have to go home. Unless you want me to take you to my place.” Someone whispered close to her face, and her eyes fluttered open, trying to make up her surroundings.

The first thing she saw when she finally managed to blink the sleep away was Jisung’s smirking face. God, he was so annoying. Ignoring him and looking around, she noticed she was in his parked car in front of her apartment complex. She vaguely remembered falling asleep, but she doesn’t remember waking up to get to the car.

“How did I get here? Did you wake me up?” Y/N asked, straightening her body and inhaling the cold air of the night.

Jisung held her hand and helped her out of the car before slamming the door closed. He let her lean against the front door and opened the back door to fish her purse from the back seat.

“I didn’t. You were way too cute when you shut up. Like a little obedient kitty. I had to enjoy the moment a little bit longer.” He teased, putting a hand around her waist and making their way to the entrance in the complex.

Y/N scoffed at his childish remark but decided to ignore it. She didn’t have the necessary energy to argue with him.

“So you carried me to the car? What about the blanket and the other stuff you had there? Did you go back for them?”

“No, I had Jay get them for me, so I don’t wake you up.”

Stopping in front of the elevator, Jisung pushed the button, and they waited a few seconds for the doors to open. Stepping inside, Y/N pushed the button for the third floor before leaning back against Jisung.

“Talking about Jay. Thank you for today!” The man threw her a questioning look, acting as nonchalant as he could.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t act dumb! I know you didn’t give me your jacket just because you are nice like that. You saw how he looked at me.” She wanted to sound more aggressive, but her voice came out soft and calm since she was still sleepy.

Jisung found that adorable but surpassed a smile. Adopting a disinterested expression, he spoke.

“He did? I didn’t notice. I just thought that, as your boyfriend, I shouldn’t let everyone see your underwear.” Y/N punched him in the stomach lightly, and Jisung dramatically bent down, letting out a fake grunt.

“You are such an asshole!”

A loud ding echoed in the restricted space, and the doors opened, revealing the dirty wall of the third floor. They stepped out of the elevator and slowly walked down the hallway to where Y/N’s apartment door was. Taking her purse from Jisung’s hand and finding her keys, she unlocked the door and opened it.

She leaned against the door frame and looked up at Jisung, giving him a bright smile.

“I'd like to say that I had fun, but I fell asleep halfway through the date.” She giggled, trying to mask her embarrassment. “But it was nice getting out of the house. Thank you for today!”

The man put his hands in his jean’s pockets and scoffed.

“You are lucky Mina got upset by you sleeping on me. Otherwise, I would have gotten angry. My shoulders are so stiff from having to support your weight. I might not recover for a few days.” A fake pained groan left his throat, and Y/N rolled her eyes.

Lifting herself on her tiptoes, she placed one hand on his shoulder and brought his head lower. She connected her lips with his in a short kiss. Breaking the kiss, she stepped inside her apartment and kept the door open enough for her head to be visible.

“See you on Monday!” With that, she closed the door all the way and made her way into her bedroom.

She wasn’t sure what was the time, but it must have been well past 11 PM. Taking off the dress, she discarded it on the floor before grabbing the oversized t-shirt from the back of the desk chair. She put it on and threw herself on the bed, letting the sheets envelop her body before falling asleep.

Y/N’s eyes shot open, and her mouth fell open as the realisation of what she did only moments prior sank in. Putting the back of her hand over her forehead and exhaling deeply, her eyes closed and her brows furrowed. Why did she kiss him? She’ll never interact with anyone while she’s still drunk on sleep.

Meanwhile, Jisung that just exited the complex couldn’t contain his smile. He couldn’t understand why that was happening. They kissed before to make Mina jealous. But maybe that was precisely the reasons such an insignificant gesture brought him so much joy. Mina was nowhere near. A spark erupted in his stomach at the thought that the girl might have a crush on him.

“Do it again! With more love this time. Come on. You want me! You desire me!” Y/N ordered to Jeongin.

The man let out a frustrated groan, using the script to cover his eyes from the brightness of the sun.

Both of them, Hyunjin and Jisung, were outside, in front of the university. They had a free period and decided to practice the script for the short movie they were playing in. Hyunjin, although not part of the film itself, was always with them thanks to Mrs. Bae’s affinity towards him.

Jisung, however, was new in the picture. Ever since they went on that date a week and a half ago, he seemed to be spending more time with her. She felt mildly suffocated by that but decided not to question it. As long as he wasn’t distracting her from her usual activities, she didn’t mind him tagging along.

“You don’t make desiring you really easy. We’ve done it four times already. We will start filming in three months. I don't have to be perfect right now!” Jeongin exclaimed letting his body fall on the bench on which Jisung and Hyunjin were seated.

“Hey! Be careful of what you say. My girlfriend is very, much desirable!” Jisung said in a jokingly offended tone earning disgusted groans from the other two men.

“Really dude? I could have lived my life without knowing that information.” Jeongin started fanning himself with the script. It was a sweltering day.

“I don’t understand why you are here. You are only four-wheeling us.” Hyunjin remarked, earning himself a dirty look from Jisung.

“A car needs all four wheels to be functional.”

“Yeah, babe, but we are a tricycle.”

Hyunjin, Jeongin and Y/N erupted into laughter at Jisung’s dumbfounded expression. From behind Y/N, they heard even louder laughter and Hyunjin scoffed at the scene unfolding under his eyes.

“I swear to God! Mina has been so annoying lately. Much more than when she used to hang out with Jisung. It’s as if she’s following us around.” The man rolled his eyes as he remembered how many times Mina ‘coincidentally’ happened to be in the same place as them the past week.

“Tell me about it. And how she is always with Jay from our major. If I wanted to watch live porn, I would have signed up on one of those porn sites.” Jeongin seemed as annoyed as the other man.

“Don’t stress about that guys. I’m pretty sure these are just coincidences.” Y/N tried telling them, even though she knew everything they said was right.

“No, I’m pretty sure they are not. There’s someone between us whose attention she’s trying to catch.” Hyunjin gave Jisung a side look.

“You can’t be sure of that.” She played dumb, wanting more than anything to change the subject.

“ Oh, please! She’s always watching him. In the cafeteria, when we are hanging around on our free periods, when she’s kissing that loser. It’s like he’s a good movie she can’t tear her eyes from.” Jeongin snapped, tired of the whole situation.

“Then let’s give them something to look at!” Jisung smirked smugly.

“What do..”

In the next second, Y/N has been pulled on Jisungs lap, and he captured her lips in an urgent kiss. One hand was on the nape of her head forcefully holding her in the kiss, and the other one was on her ass cheek, squeezing it.

She heard someone awkwardly clearing their throat from her right, and all her senses heightened. Y/N placed her hands on Jisung’s shoulders and tried lightly pushing him away while uncomfortably shifting in his lap. As a response, the man groaned lowly and slid his hand from her neck to her chest, cupping it.

Her eyes widened in shock at his action and mustering all the force she had in her, she pushed him away, finally breaking the kiss. A loud bang ringed around them as her hand made contact with his cheek. Jumping off his lap, she gathered her bag from the leg of the bench.

“You are a fucking asshole!” She shouted in his face before storming off inside the university.

The stomping of her boots was echoing in the empty halls, and the few students that were around decided to make her space to pass. Her thinking was clogged at the moment, and all she could feel was rage and shame. She was angrily making her way down the halls, but her destination was uncertain. She just wanted to be as far away from him as possible.

Y/N heard quick steps from behind her, and a hand pulled at her shoulder. Without turning around, she shrugged it off and started walking faster. The person behind her also increased their walking speed, but this time around, they grabbed her wrist.

Just as she was preparing to scream in their face, she was pulled into a hug, her face forced into a firm chest. Y/N felt herself calm down as the smell of a cologne she grew accustomed to in the last week invaded her lungs. His hand was gently rubbing her back, and she relaxed under her touch.

“Are you okay?” Hyunjin whispered softly in her ear.

She hid her face more in his chest, feeling shame overcome her.

“I’m sorry you had to see that. I swear it’s not what you think! We’ve never…” Her voice was shaky, as if she was about to cry. Hyunjin cupped her face forcing her to look in his eyes. She could see concern and sadness hiding behind his brown orbs.

“Why are you apologising to me? You are the one who’s been wronged here. I just wanna make sure you are okay.” His soft voice was acting as a calmative for her racing heartbeat.

Y/N felt her insides flip at his caring words. His hands on her cheeks were hot, and she decided to blame them for the blush that acaparated her face.

“Hey! Step away from my girlfriend, you motherfucker!” Jisung’s voice filled her ears, and she saw Hyunjin roll his eyes.

The warmth of his body left her, and he crossed his arms as Jisung finally arrived in front of them. Hyunjin was looking down at the other man, and both their expressions were filled with anger.

“I was just making sure she’s fine. It looks like you took your time deciding to do the same.” The taller man spat venom dripping off his tongue.

“It’s none of your business how I handle my relationship!” Jisung adopted a louder tone bringing his face closer to Hyunjin’s.

“But it is when you decide to act like a bitch in heat and make your girlfriend uncomfortable. This is why Mina never dated you and why you and Y/N won’t last long!”

Jisung clenched his jaw upon hearing the other man’s words, and before anyone could register what was happening, he plunged his fist into Hyunjin’s face.

970 notes · View notes

fivelakesinwriting · 3 years

Text

Side of the Road (JJ Maybank)

Author's Notes: This is somewhat of a continuance of Sour Straws and Short Shorts - same coupling. JJ tries to fix his girlfriends truck... I think I have her name in my head - if this coupling continues I'll name her "officially"

Warnings: Undertones of grief (parental death), Sexual references - sexual innuendos. Mostly just fluff.

Requested? NO, but all requests for OBX are open!

*My work is not to be transferred, copied, translated or reposted to any other sites without my permission. Please see my masterlist for all other works and warnings. Thank you! xoxo

Throughout the course of his young life, JJ Maybank had accumulated tricks of many trades, but the finer workings of engine mechanics was something he had yet to master. He did alright, but it took him some time to remember what exactly he was doing, especially with older cars.

The hood of her father's old Ford pick up truck was propped up, JJ had brushed the dried leaves from storms passed out from the engine block and looked down, hopping that whatever was wrong with the truck would pop out at him. He scratched the back of his neck as he glanced down at the engine again then breathed out a sigh.

"Are you sure I can't try to hot wire it?" JJ yelled over his shoulder to her as she swept the veranda.

"JJ, if you ruin my daddy's truck.." She stated as she stopped her motion and pointed a finger at him.

"Okay! Just an option for our back pocket." JJ laughed softly as he held his hands up in defense before he stuck his head back under the hood to keep tinkering.

After almost one hour under the hood, the hot Summer sun on the back of his neck, JJ was certain he had hit the mark. He grabbed the bandana from his back pocket, wiped his hands and called her name.

"Come start it. I think I may have fixed it." JJ grinned as he walked towards the house, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

"You did?" She asked as she scurried out of the sun-room and down the steps. She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the truck.

"Take the keys, and start it up. I'm pretty sure that I figured it out." JJ smiled as he placed the keys for the truck delicately in her hand, knowing what the truck meant to his girl.

She gripped the keys tightly in her palm, then climbed into the driver's side and turned the key over in the ignition. JJ tossed his hands up in triumph as the truck rattled to life. He watched as she brought her hands to her face and released a soft sob.

"I never thought it would run again." She whispered as her hands ran over the steering wheel.

"Told you I would make get it going for you again, baby." JJ smiled as he held his weight over the frame of the driver's side and looked at his girl. He reached a hand inside the cab of the truck and softly thumbed away a tear on her cheek.

"Thank you, JJ." She whispered, her cheek resting in his hand.

"Of course. So, you gonna take me for a ride in this old girl?" JJ smirked with a smack on the top of the truck.

"Nope. You're taking me for a ride." She replied with a small sniffle as she hopped out of the truck and patted his sides.

"You're letting me drive your dad's truck?" JJ asked as he watched her walk around to the passenger side. The truck was all she really had left of her dad. No jewellery, no books or clothes. Just the pick-up.

"It doesn't feel right to be the driver. Besides, I think my dad would have really liked you." She smiled as she placed her feet on the dash and curled her finger at him to summon him inside the cab of the truck.

"Other then when I wanted to hot-wire his truck." JJ grinned as he climbed into the truck and pulled on his seat belt. He rested an arm over the back of bench and pulled her close as he put the truck in reverse then drove off her property and down the street.

For a truck that had been parked in a dirt driveway for almost two years, JJ thought it handled like a dream. He kept her close against him as he drove through The Cut, the windows of the truck down, the breeze against his sweaty skin.

As JJ turned the wheel for a slight bend in the road he heard a sputter in the engine of the vehicle, and his heart dropped to his feet.

"No, no." JJ muttered as he took his hand off the back of bench and grabbed the wheel with both hands.

The truck slowly crawled to a stop and with a single sputter the engine died again. JJ groaned and with a curse dropped his head down to the steering wheel. She softly placed her hand on his thigh and the truck gave one more groan as it creaked to a halt.

"It's okay, JJ. I can't believe you even got it to start." She stated softly as she reached out and ran her fingertips through his hair.

"It should work. I don't know what I did wrong." JJ grumbled as he pulled off his seat belt and got out of the truck. He walked around to the front of the truck and gave the hood a smack with his fist before he tugged at his hair.

"JJ, it's alright. It was nice to have you drive me around in it for a little bit. I just want to get it off the side of the road and back home. Then we can figure out what it needs." She stated as she hopped out of the passenger seat and walked around front with him. She wrapped her arms around his waist, her head rested against his chest.

"Yeah. Let me call Kie, she has a hitch on the back of her car." JJ sighed as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head as he pulled his phone out of the back of his shorts.

JJ pulled himself away from her and made a quick phone call to Kiara requesting she come get them as quickly as she could. JJ slipped his phone back in his pocket with a sigh as he stood next to his girl and stared at the broken down truck.

"She said she'd be here within an hour or so. She's finishing up a shift at The Wreck." JJ replied as he bit at his bottom lip.

"Well, it's too hot in the cab of the truck. Wanna sit in the bed? We should both fit." She stated as she gave his back a pat then made her way to the bed of the truck and climbed in.

"Don't have to tell me twice." JJ muttered to himself with raised eyebrows as he kept his eyes fixed on her backside then followed her lead and crawled into the bed of the truck with her.

JJ laid in the bed of the truck and pulled her close, her head on his chest as they looked at the tops of the trees that gave them some semblance of shade in the late afternoon. The guilt he felt for bringing her dad's truck so far from home wavered as they watched the clouds pass overhead, and he felt her hands twist the hem of his shirt.

"You know, I think it counts as public indecency to have sex in the back of a truck, even on the side of the road. I think it's even worse because it's your dad's truck. So, I think he'll haunt me if I touch you." JJ smirked as he kept his eyes on the treetops but let her fingers wander beneath the hem of his shirt.

"I think he'll forgive you this one time." She smiled as she rolled over on top of him and straddled his hips, her hands on his shoulders for balance.

"I don't know. Are dads super forgiving about stuff like that?" JJ laughed as he placed his hands on the small of her back and rolled her over, placing himself between her thighs.

"My dad was." She grinned as she ran a fingertip through nylon of his shark tooth necklace.

"You weren't dating me when he was around." JJ replied with raised eyebrows.

"You're right. Probably would've sent him into an even earlier grave." She giggled as JJ playfully pinched her thigh as it pressed against his hip.

"Rest his soul." JJ smirked before he pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. He let out a sigh of relief as she pushed her hands through his hair then wrapped her arms around his neck to keep him close.

JJ held his weight on his left forearm, while his right hand reached beneath the waistband of her shorts to twist around the strings of her bathing suit bottoms. With the simplest of tugs they would be undone, but JJ still wasn't sure how he felt about the whole public indecency thing.

"I love you, JJ. Thanks for fixing my dad's truck." She stated softly, her forehead pressed to his.

"I didn't fix it. But you're welcome, and I love you too." JJ replied before he pressed his lips to hers again, his hands on her lower back to brace her against the hard bed of the truck.

JJ could only focus on her fingers in his hair, and her thighs pressed to his hips. He didn't hear her kick off her shoes, but he did feel her toes touch the backs of his legs. His mind only focused on what was in front of him, and that was her mouth.

"Did you guys want me to drive around for a few minutes? Because I can come back."

Kiara's voice pulled the two of them from their frantic kisses. JJ pulled his hands from the waistband of his girlfriend's shorts, untangling his fingers from the strings of her bikini. He sat on his knees and brushed a hand through his hair as he looked down at his girlfriend towards Kiara.

"How..how long have you been there?" JJ asked as he cleared his throat, a hand extended down to his girlfriend to pull her upright to a sitting position.

"Long enough to know you're really handsy." Kiara chuckled as she walked around the front of the old truck and hitched it onto her own car.

"I'm not handsy." JJ muttered as he hopped out of the bed of the truck, turned to grab his girlfriend's hips and helped her down onto the dirt once more.

"You're all hands, JJ Maybank." She smiled up at him with a pat of his chest.

JJ shrugged as he gave her a playful smack on her backside, then nudged her towards Kiara's SUV. He grabbed the keys from her dad's truck on his way towards the other car and pocketed them. As he sat in the backseat on the way back to their destination he ran through all the scenarios he could think of that made the car stall then die at the side of the road.

Maybe it was just old, and passed it's prime. The inevitable bound to happen while JJ pushed on the gas pedal. Or maybe, JJ liked to think as they pulled back into her familiar driveway, someone looked over them that day and gave that car a burst of life for her. JJ didn't want to take any credit because they didn't make it anywhere.

JJ wanted the truck to run again, for real. He wanted it to be her truck. He would figure out how to make it run as good as any Kook convertible on the road, no matter how many times he had to go to the junkyard for spare parts.

"Thanks again, Kie." JJ nodded as he watched as Kiara backed up off the property after they had unhitched the truck from the SUV.

JJ stuck his hands in his pockets, pursed his lips and lost himself in thought. He jumped slightly when he felt her arms wrap around him from behind.

"Think you might want to bring those hands inside for a bit?" She asked as she placed a kiss on the back of his shoulder.

"Yup." JJ replied as he turned around, grabbed her hips and lifted her over his shoulder. He laid a swift smack on her backside and smiled as she gave him one back.

He wasn't the only one that was all hands.

Please let me know what you think if you have a moment! Thank you for your support! xoxo

Requests for OBX are open!!

#protect jj maybank #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank fic #jj maybank fluff #obx fic #obx fluff #obx imagine #outer banks

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cosmiclatte28 · 3 years

Text

7 Minutes in Heaven (Jaehyun x you) 🔞

Okay this is suggestive and not suitable for under 18 readers, so please continue only if you’re going to bear the consequences. No it’s not super smuty, it’s just not a good thing to copy :)

Warning : don’t kiss random strangers, don’t drink, don’t smoke, wrap up or you’re skipping a nine month bloody day :”)... Jungwoo is your bestfriend, Shy!Jaehyun and you’re bold enough to try new things...

anyways this has been in my laptop for a while, wanted to post it on Halloween but didn’t finish it back then... soooo embrace yourself for a new journey of how it might be like to play 7 minutes in heaven with Jaehyun

here goes my (suggestive) fanfic... hope this won’t make you cringe

________________________________________________________________

“So…you're saying the boys think I am a pure innocent girl?” You scoff and laugh upon the remark Jungwoo just said.

“Well they don't believe me when I said you're totally different outside campus.” The man with blue hair bashfully looks around the canteen.

You pick up your fork and continue poking in chicken chunks to your small mouth, “And why are you telling this exactly?”

Jungwoo deadpan looks at you and leans closer, “Why don't you proof them wrong? They've labeled you as the boring mechanical engineering girl!”

He slams the table a bit dramatically, to which you shudder.

“Easy… you'll break the table! Well sorry, but they're not totally wrong. I'm a regular mechanical engineering girl, boring, studying all the time, nerd, and just never coming to parties!” you give him a dry chuckle.

“Look this is not the true you! I've known you since high school! I know how crazy the boys were whenever you pass by! I'll be honest there were like 5 hot guys who had crush on you in high school, just that sorry I told them you're not allowed to date yet.” Jungwoo trails off and feels a bit guilty when he finally spills the beans he has been hiding.

Your eyes fly open and your mouth too, you drop your spoon and grunt, “Say that again… you cock-blocked me?!”

Jungwoo closes his eyes and inhales a deep breath, “I'm saving your future! I just don’t want them to you know use you and throw you away…”

You hit the spoon to the metal tray, and it made a good “BANG"

“Surprise surprise you told me this after like I don’t know five years maybe. You made the men who liked me back away before even trying to reach me out! Jungwoo all my life I thought I was the one with problem?! I thought no one likes nerds like me; when I myself believe I am a fun girl!” your rage bubbles up from within.

You feel like crying, all these times you thought you were imperfect, you were never a crush for men, you've dealt with your insecurities. You overcome dark times when you see your friends walking through the hallway, having the spotlight on them. You thought you can never be that just because you're an A-grade-student. You did have Jungwoo standing by your side through high school, and he's a good friend who you cannot see as a man.

Your friendship with Jungwoo is indeed a beneficial one, since both of you love science and calculations. You have a study friend and voila you both made it to you best engineering school!

Just as you thought campus life will be lit, since you can “reset" your image, be the fun student on weekend, and study well on weekdays.

But no. You’re overworked with the tasks and quizzes, and to ensure your scholarship is still there, you need a minimum of 3.0 in GPA and that means you’re saying goodbye to parties and hello to enough sleep.

You're mad now when you think of it. Jungwoo has been a cock-block since grade 10 and maybe until today when he finally realized what he had done.

You massage your temple and look in disgust at your unfinished food.

You push your chair back and stand up, “I am mad at you. I don't feel like eating. Good bye Jungwoo..”

“WAIT! i'm sorry I know I was a jerk… but please let me fix it… give me a chance..” he begs you

Your mind is set already, and you shake your head, “I can fix it by myself. So long” you wave and quickly run to the bathroom.

There you let out your emotion in one of the locked toilets and you pull yourself back when you figure a way out to proof them wrong.

You're not the typical book-worm boring mechanical student. You’re you and that will blow the house on fire tonight.

You wash your face in the sink and pamper up yourself from the messy state. You're a fan of make up and you've always had natural looks over your pretty face.

Quickly you draw back your mascara and eye liners, one smack of lip gloss and you're smiling all the way to your next class. Writing.

Johnny greets you in front of the lecture class, he tells you about the upcoming party Lucas will hold this Saturday and Johnny suggests you come and see what it feels like to have some relaxation and fun. He knows midterm has just ended and he is sure you don't have lies to excuse yourself from the invitation.

“Great guess I can make it. Need that fun nights you know. Any theme?”

“Oh, it'll be a costume party since it’s Halloween.” Johnny explains.

You smirk already having lots of ideas in your mind. “Okay see you there then!”

“Nice! Dress up nicely, it's a competition!”

You give him two thumbs up.

“Sooo what are you going to wear?” Jungwoo finally gets to talk to you after trying so hard to win your forgiveness.

“I am not going as your couple okay.. I’m going simple this time. I don't want to try too hard.” You smile remembering how you're always prepared for costume parties.

“Let me see, I’ve won Bonnie and Clyde costume… last year we showed up as marry Poppins. Now I just want to enjoy the party.” You plop into your bed and stretch. The party is tomorrow night and Jungwoo is staying over tonight because he needs to finish his costume.

“What? Tell me…” he asks while sticking his props to you don't really know what costume is he going with.

“see me tomorrow okay…”

Jungwoo rolls his eyes when he sees what you appear with tomorrow.

“Seriously?! You’re keeping it a secret. Just to come to the party dressed as a Ravenclaw student!”

You turn around to final check your appearance. Well coming as a Ravenclaw is what you want today.

Jungwoo is by your side ready in his F1 racer costume.

Everything as fun and cool you're having a blast when you see Jungwoo's frats brothers. One man caught your attention when he looks so cute in his Slytherin costume. Your eyes dilate when he flashes a smile to another person, but you caught the smile.

“Whew that is hot.” You whisper to yourself and keep your eyes on him. You never hear Jungwoo talking about him, but seeing him seated nicely between Doyoung and Taeyong, you knew he belongs in that frats. Doyoung and Taeyong are the boys from your music class and they're your best friend.

“hey (y/n)!! Come! We’re playing spin the bottle!” Johnny calls you over to join the table full of 23 men and several girls lounging over the empty seat.

You bring yourself to the seat next to Jungwoo and you're face to face with the cute slytherin boy.

You fix your skirt and calmly cross your legs while watching the man's reaction across you. He was caught watching you but when your eyes met, he quickly averts his gaze away and drinks his cup.

The game starts and you're drowned in alcohols. Well when they ask you stupid personal questions, you're shy to answer, you choose to drink.

Jungwoo keeps on telling you to stop, “Hey enough! You downed three shots .. too fast girl.” He holds your hand before you chug another shot.

Johnny sends a smug look, “Hey Jungwoo why don't you be her dark horse? If you think she drank too much, take a double shot.”

Jungwoo is not the best alcohol drinker and he needs to make sure you got home safe, before he can open his mouth a deep voice makes the whole room move their head to face him.

“I'll take her shots.” The Slytherin boy downs two cups like they were nothing and you catch his ears turning red.

“Thank you…” your voice trails off.

“It's Jaehyun,” he winks.

You pop your lips, “Yeah Jae, thanks!”

The room cheers and starts throwing cat calls to the two of you. You remain calm while deep inside your heart you're dying to squeal and bury your face. Jaehyun on the other side is also turning red, but his sweet smile is still there.

The bottle spins again and this time it points to Jaehyun and he chooses dare.

“Okay Okay this is gonna be fun!!” Mark claps his hands after him and Johnny whisper about the plan.

“Jae, you and the person across you go in that closet and do the 7 minutes in heaven thing… or drink” Johnny clicks his tongue. The room cheers and you can see it's you they meant ..

“Across me?” Jaehyun rubs his neck slowly, he somehow feels shy around you.

“Yeah (y/n)!” Doyoung punches his shoulder, “I'm doing it if I were you"

Taeyong claps his hands and pushes Jaehyun to stand up.

“Just do it!” someone else is also pushing you, it was Lucas.

You did not object and just shrug your shoulder.

Without further ado, you and Jaehyun are forced into the small closet.

They close the door and gosh you hear a click.

It’s dark inside, but somehow there’s a good air circulation at least you two won’t die out of breath.

You can’t really see him, but with the small lights penetrating through the space, you swear your heart is beating super fast. He looks ethereal.

“You good? Sorry they did this to you.” Jaehyun starts the conversation.

You let out a small chuckle, “No..it's fine. I'm okay… I’m not claustrophobic nor afraid of the dark.”

He laughs nervously, “Nice, me too.”

“Thanks for taking my shot earlier.” You try to break the thin air.

“No problem,” he fidgets with his fingers.

“So… are you gonna kiss me or we're keeping this safe?” you slap yourself for saying that out loud. Jaehyun swears he thank the darkness that his burning red face is hidden.

He chokes and coughs, you quickly apologize “Sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you. Look, I thought you were the kind of guys who will just be straight forward and keep things casual.”

Jaehyun laughs, his laugh sounds sweet you almost melt.

“And I thought you're a shy quiet innocent girl.” He licks his lips. Well he's fast in reading the atmosphere and he knows if the time is right, he'll get that lips he has been eyeing since you entered the room.

You feel your cheek warming, “Ah.. yeah sorry Maybe you don’t see me interesting. I'm just the boring-"

“no. You're not. Girl you're not what people say.”Jaehyun cuts your sentence.

His hands cup your cheeks, “You're brave and oh I am the shyest boy here and I just like girls like you.” He blurts it out.

You feel your heart clench, really a handsome man like him who can win every girl's heart with one smile and wink… is a shy boy?

“You're telling me... you're a shy boy.. even when you can win the girls with one wink and a smile.”

He blushes, “Well… did I win your heart like that??”

You sigh, “Actually you won my heart with the Slytherin coat and you did toss me a smile. My heart somersault when you took my shots.”

He chuckles, “Can I make a confession?”

You nod, “Sure, what happens here stays here.”

He leans closer and whispers, “I've never kissed a girl before and you too look cute little Ravenclaw.”

Your eyes linger to his plump wet lips, you bite yours. Oh gosh you were also a virgin! You've never kissed anyone, but you're going to break that image, right? Tonight, Is the right time you guess.

“May I?” you ask. Fuck the stereotype girls can also start kisses.

Jaehyun did not reply anything instead he brings his hand to cup your face and with one hand in your chin he leans in to mold his lips into yours.

You feel electricity running in your body and your mind is full of stars. Your stomach is doing things and oh you regret not kissing him sooner. His lips indeed taste good and the way he holds your neck is enough to make you squirm.

You open your mouth and his tongue slips in. You're loud. You swear anyone could hear the two of you making out. But his soft touch and his slow head movement makes you crave more.

He almost pulls back thinking you don't want this, but you're faster. You push yourself to him more and run your fingers to his hair. You play with his hair according to how your body tingles by his kiss.

He pulls back to take a short breathing and you smile when the two of you just lean on the walls and take in as much air as you can. Jaehyun feels like crawling into a hole, he just had an intense first kiss with you, the girl he secretly put interest in for the last six months.

“Was I good?” he glances to you.

You smirk, “If this is what I’ll get every time we kiss, I’m addicted already.”

He scoots closer and in that small room, he manages to pull you up on his lap. You chuckle but follow his game.

“Can I taste that soft cherry again?” he whispers hoarsely, and you shudder. Hey, weren’t you going to show how not innocent you are but why are you so pliant and shy under this Shy Slytherin boy?

You peck his lips, “I'm afraid our seven minutes timer is up.”

He brings his hands to your waist, “No one is opening the door yet for us. Might as well seize the opportunity.”

You chuckle, “Good at bargaining huh?” and you lean in for another hot make out session.

“So… can we two be a thing?” he asks with his wet swollen lips.

You put your hands on his shoulder “I don't know. Can a Ravenclaw date a Slytherin?”

He laughs at your obsession of Harry Potter. “I don’t know. Should we test it?”

You bend your neck and hide it on his neck. Inhaling a quick whiff of his musk cologne.

“Well I don’t see anything wrong in trying..”

“I wish I could see your face now. Because right now.. my face is burning… “

“I can feel your heartbeat Honey,” you giggle as you plant your palm over his fast heartbeat.

“Slow down or you'll get a heart attack.” You rub his shoulder blades

“It's getting hot here or is it just me?” he fans his hand

You knock your hand to the door and yell, “Hey guys it's been more than seven minutes! We need air.”

You hear someone shuffle to the door and unlocks it.

You did not move from his lap, you wait til that person is out and when you hear no one else is in the room, you kick the door opens.

Lights come into your peripherals and you quickly close the big room's door.

Jaehyun tosses you a questioning look

You shrug your shoulder, “Happiness can be found even in the darkest place when one turns on the lights.”

“Such a fanatic here!” he picks you up and pushes you to the wall. You can see his starry eyes now under the lights and oh gosh they were so pretty.

You can see his deep dimple showing whenever he gives you a side smile and your hands find their way to cup his face.

Like casted by the love potion you bend your neck to kiss him. His lips is an addiction and you're blaming the alcohol for whatever happens afterward.

“I guess you're going home alone Woo,” Lucas said when he passed by the locked room and his face turns red upon hearing the sinful noises.

Jungwoo chugs down another drink, “Let her, she's big enough to take care of herself.”

“And why are you not bringing her to parties sooner? I thought she was the regular boring student.” Haechan was jealous of Jaehyun. Hell, he found you super intriguing too.

Jungwoo smirks, “Told you she’s not like the others.”

Lucas pats his shoulder, “And you're not the one getting laid. Be patient okay…”

Jungwoo laughs out loud, “Hell no, we're bestie since long time. I can’t see her as a woman. We’re good. Jae can have her.”

Jaehyun looks hot without his coat and after climbing down the high. The best one you two ever had. You were laying down on the big mattress staring to the ceiling and catching breaths with Jaehyun beside you.

“Do you think Jungwoo will hate me?” Jaehyun picks out a cigarette box he found in the closet earlier.

You shake your head, “He'll be happy I got laid finally.”

Jaehyun huffs a cloud of smoke, you ask him “you think the boys will think of me as less? Like maybe they see me as the same cheap sl-"

Jaehyun presses a finger over your lips “No. They don't and won't. They are not that type of men. They respect women's choices. In contrast, I’m sure if they hear our story, they’ll be jealous.”

A small smile comes to your lips, the naughty side of yours is awake. “Oh yeah? Then try it. Tell them about us and see if they're jealous.”

Jaehyun offers you the stick of cigarette, you're not a new smoker. Actually, you smoke sometimes to relax, you smoke a special herbal one… and this is one of it.

“Whaoh you're not a newbie?” he sounds surprised when you did not cough after taking the first smoke.

“I did sometimes the herbal ones.” You blow a cloud of smoke.

“Funny how we have a lot in common, but we just know one another tonight.”

You smile, “in seven minutes actually.”

He hugs you from the side, “Yeah the best seven minutes in heaven.”

*op hides in the corner* end

how is it??? aaaa I guess it’s soo bad :”)

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blazehedgehog · 2 years

Note

I've noticed that the only Sonic fangame engines that seem to be extant are for paid software such as Multimedia Fusion or Game Maker Studio. Doesn't this limit how accessible making fan games and joining the scene is, especially to kids? (Doubly so considering that you can't even save up your allowance or paper route for the latter; it's switched to subscription-only like Adobe products have.)

No.

Software developers will go on and on and on about how piracy is this big ugly problem and they're losing millions of dollars, but you gotta think about the logistics.

First of all is the old chestnut that software piracy isn't actually piracy. It's data. Nothing is being stolen, because that implies it is being taken away. It's not. It's being copied. People who want to pay for it can still pay for it and will still get their product. "Piracy" has been assigned to this because it's a threatening word that makes it seem violent and evil.

Second of all, you have to ask who is doing the piracy: it's most common among poor people and very expensive software. Adobe Photoshop was (and maybe still is) the most pirated software on earth, because Photoshop cost like $600 and had the reputation as being the best image editor ever made.

When I say "poor people" I'm talking about developing nations where software isn't widely distributed, but most importantly I'm also talking about kids. When you're old enough to understand how to use a computer but not old enough to amass $600 to buy Photoshop, you figure out how to get Photoshop anyway.

You gamble on a shady site, risk getting a virus, and download a pirated copy. Or maybe you get it from a friend, who has vetted their pirated copy as being "safe." Either way, you absolutely do not pay for Photoshop, largely because you... can't.

So, like, back in the day, when I was 16, first getting in to the Sonic fan gaming scene? I didn't pay for Corel Click & Create. I knew a guy who knew a guy who gave me a pirated copy. And, from 1998 up until around 2012 or so, I pirated every single Clickteam product. Click & Create, Multimedia Fusion, Multimedia Fusion 2, etc.

In 2012, Clickteam finally activated a hidden piracy detection routine they had been sitting on for years and locked guys like me out of the software. I still didn't have any money, but thankfully I had a friend that was still in college, where they sold copies of Multimedia Fusion 2 at a student discount. He got me the basic edition for something like $60 (back then, it was normally $150+).

In the years following, Clickteam Fusion 2.5 Developer Edition has also been part of Humble Bundles and various other sales for as little as $15.

My point in all of this is that if a kid wants to use something like Sonic Worlds Delta, they'll find a way to do it, legally or not.

That's not me endorsing piracy, either, that's just the way it is. Very, very few of my friends back in the day actually owned any of the expensive software we were using. It wasn't until we were adults that we started actually trying to buy the tools we'd already been using for decades. But make no mistake: most of us, even poor old me, ended up eventually paying for it. I own Vegas Pro now. I own Clickteam Fusion now.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I've paid for Clickteam Fusion multiple times now (on disc and digitally!), and I'm constantly dancing around the day I'll finally bite the bullet and grab Fusion 2.5+. Yesterday's pirates are today's paying customers. Even without the lockout they turned on back in 2012, I would have eventually bought Fusion (after all, as I said: I bought Vegas Pro).

But kids? Teenagers? They are probably the #2 source of software piracy, and always will be. Life finds a way.

#questions #fanofsmbx #clickteam #multimedia fusion #gamedev #shoutouts to nasser muhandes

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x0401x · 3 years

Text

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #6

Feel free to message me about possible corrections, and please consider supporting the creators by purchasing digital copies of the official releases: Novel || Manga || Fanbook. In case anyone is feeling generous: Ko-fi | PayPal. ( ╹◡╹)っ’･*

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Moonstone’s Charity

“The moon is beautiful, huh!”

By the time that we exited the Shiseido Parlor, it was already completely dark outside. The moon loomed a faint blue, as if overlooking the night view of Ginza. Putting his coat back on, Richard silently averted his eyes when I looked back at him with an “isn’t it”. At any rate, I had gotten wholly used to eating out with this guy on Saturdays after work. It was worth making him puddings as payback, I thought.

“Speaking of which, the stone you sold to today’s customers was a ‘stone of the moon’, wasn’t it?”

“Please call it ‘moonstone’. There are other rock specimens that are referred to as ‘stones of the moon’. Confusing the meaning of the words is deplorable.”

“Is that so?! Aight, I’ll take it to heart.”

Today’s customers were the parents of a naïve young lady, and the goods they bought were a moonstone jewelry set for her. It seemed that the young lady, who still had childish facial traits, was going to get married, so her parents ordered a necklace from Etranger for her to take along when the time came. Bearing a rainbow light over a milky blue color, the cabochon-cut moonstone was combined with white diamonds for the necklace and bracelet. It overflowed with a soulful beauty, almost as if it had borrowed the glow of an aurora from a Scandinavian sky.

Apparently, the moonstone, which was also one of the June birthstones, had been familiarized as a power stone since the distant past, and was renowned especially as a stone that celebrated the well-being and fortune of women. Having the commemorative jewelry delivered to her as a surprise, the young lady had cried until her eyes were bright red, but she recovered by way of a sweet royal milk tea, expressing gratitude to her parents with a sniffling nose. I believed that there were several forms of joy depending on each person, and what I had witnessed today was unmistakably one of them.

Even as we headed to the parking lot where Richard’s jaguar was, the moon followed us from the gaps between the buildings. As I walked while looking up and repeating, “It’s really pretty, so pretty”, Richard seemed exasperated.

“‘The moon is beautiful’, huh. Are college students not familiar with anecdotes of their own country’s literary figures nowadays?”

“Don’t they read that stuff? I’m in the faculty of economics, so there’s lots of people with names written in horizontal characters on our textbooks. Like Marx Weber or Mankiw.”

“What about Futabatei Shimei or Natsume Souseki?”

“I’ll ask you back: have you read them?”

“Yes.”

Uwah. As I cried out, the gorgeous jeweler sighed. “Honestly, today’s youths,” he said.

I ended up laughing at him without thinking.

“What is it?”

“You say ‘youths’ but you’re pretty young yourself.”

“I merely disagree with the worldwide trend of thinking that classical literature is an enjoyment for old age. The world, matured by the various interpretations of our ancestors, is deep and wide-ranging, as well as something that envelopes our hearts, just like stones.”

“Feels like the part where stones come up is ‘just as expected of Richard-san’.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

“I am complimenting you. I have the feeling that I get smarter when we talk.”

“For you to be the kind who is satisfied with just ‘having a feeling’, my existence must be a harmful one.”

“I shall take this to heart... Aah, by the way, in sociology or some other class, I heard that the phrase ‘had a feeling’ has increased too much in pop music. Why is that? I guess it’s because, when they assert, ‘I can be strong!’ instead of, ‘I have the feeling I can be strong, I find myself inwardly wanting to retort with a, ‘Nope, nope, it’s not like that’ and the mood cools off.”

“Unfortunately, I have not studied the trends of modern Japan’s younglings. But if we are to speak of such things, even the power invoked by stones is a matter of ‘having a feeling’.”

“Is it okay for a jeweler to be saying that?”

“We are already out of business hours. Besides, this is not a negative subject in particular.”

Having arrived at the parking lot, Richard glanced at me and folded his arms lightly. He was a beautiful man from the top of his head to the tips of his toenails, like a doll made of moonlight. I was used to looking at his figure, but beautiful things will be beautiful. I could look at him without ever getting tired and it would put me in a good mood, just like the moon.

“W-What? What’s up?”

“I mean that people can become strong just from ‘having a feeling’. The power of belief is namely the force of human beings who seek hope even in a small gleam. Is that not a wonderful thing? On nights like these, when we ‘have the feeling’ that we are being protected by the light of the moon, people are sure to be in some sort of calm mood.” Saying this, as if to copy me or something, Richard looked up at the night sky above the buildings of Ginza and murmured, “The moon is truly beautiful.” He then smoothly got on the jaguar’s driver seat. I followed him on the passenger seat.

Still, this car’s seat base did an exquisite inclination no matter how many times I sat on it. It felt like a chair sticking to your body.

“Well, are you okay with dropping off at Takadanobaba?”

“Thank you. By the way, should I reply with the ‘I could die now’ already?”

Richard’s face at that moment was a spectacle. His mouth and beautiful eyebrows distorted as if to say, “Haah?”. His eyes stared dangerously at me.

“I mean, isn’t that the context? Futabate Shimei and Natsume Souseki, right?”

“I love you”.

Apparently, the literary masters of the Meiji Era had racked their brains about to how to translate a sentence that didn’t originally exist in the Japanese language. This would be a standard drinking party talk. Well, I didn’t know if there was a standard for all kinds of drinking parties, but just recently, during a drinking party we held with a group of men from the Department of Letter’s Faculty of Japanese Literature, we got fired-up over that topic. “Girls like this kind of talk, so you guys from the Faculty of Economics should also keep it in mind every once in a while,” they told us. Futabate Shimei used “I could die now” as a code for “I am yours” and Natsume Souseki used the anecdote “the moon is beautiful, isn’t it” as what was claimed to be a good anecdote for “I love you”. We were thankful for the trivia. That being said, none of the members who attended the drinking party had girlfriends, so I had thought there would be no opportunity to use this trivia, but to my surprise...

Richard, who had been stiff for a moment, exhaled with a loud “haaah” and turned the engine key. The body of the iron machine shuddered.

“That was terrifying.”

“So even you got freaked out! I can say some Japanese-like things too.”

“I will proceed to kick you if you say the same thing again. Be quiet for the time being.” Richard pulled the car out of the parking lot from backward, and as he stepped onto the accelerator and we got out into the street, the car trundled on with us in silence for a while. After we had passed four or five buildings, the beautiful jeweler opened his mouth again, “These words are not meant to be spoken lightly. A sentence taken out of context is like a lonely stone removed from a bracelet. In what kind of situation did people say, ‘The moon is beautiful’ or under what circumstances did they think, ‘I could die now’? What matters is the process until things arrived to that point, and not scraps of words. In the past, during the times when the people of this country were not as filled with imported mentalities as they are now, they probably understood this very well.”

“Hey, why’d you think of reading Natsume Souseki?”

Richard didn’t respond. I’d known for a while now that there were lots of things this guy didn’t want to answer, but his silence at the question was unexpected. Was something up?

Something related to moments when he might feel like saying things such as “the moon is beautiful” or “I could die now”.

It was clearly not a topic that I should pry too much about. Pretending to have found something interesting out the window, I put on a smile with no particular connotation. Leaning my body against the window, I looked up at the sky. “Ah, I can still see the moon.”

“You do not say. Is it beautiful?”

“Yup, but you’re more beautiful.”

Richard’s hand instantaneously glided in a swift motion. He pressed the car stereo switch. What played at an explosively loud volume wasn’t the Finnish rock that I had listened to before. It was a sutra in an ethnic-sounding female voice. That was all I could say. What was this? As I asked in a loud voice what language that song was in, he said it was Bengali. Was it an Indian song then? I couldn’t talk to him unless I shouted in one breath.

“HEY! IF I PISSED YOU OFF, SERIOUSLY, I’M SORRY!”

Richard’s mouth moved in the form of an “I cannot hear you”. It seemed he wasn’t in the mood for conversation. But he didn’t look angry. The corners of his lips were smiling just slightly. Like he wanted to say that this was so stupid it made him laugh. He appeared a lot more relaxed than when listing up the names of those literary figures, so I became kinda happy.

When I got out of the car, the southern country atmosphere was gone at once. At the roundabout in Takadanobaba, Richard took off with the jaguar as soon as he said goodbye. As the same old habit, for whatever reason, I ended up watching him off until I couldn’t see him anymore.

As I looked up the blue moon was floating in the black sky, unchanged. This was also a matter of “having a feeling”, but this emotion I was feeling today at this moment was a definite form of happiness too.

Honestly, the moon was beautiful tonight.

#housekishou richard shi no nazo kantei #housekishou richard #jeweler richard #the case files of jeweler richard #richard #nakata seigi #richard ranashinghe de vulpian #richard ranashinha de vulpian #jr short story collection #tsujimura nanako #yukihiro utako #novel #my translation

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katytheinspiredworkaholic · 3 years

Text

Correspondence, Chapter 01

Pairing: HotchReid

Summary: An AU where Reid never joined the FBI, but got roped into consulting for the LA field office while working and teaching at Caltech. Hotch gets his email referred from a fellow agent, and they start to work on cases together -- until they start talking on a regular basis. Regular becomes frequent, frequent becomes constant. They know nothing about each other, but they don't really mind.

Rating: Mature/Explicit (eventually)

Chapter CW/notes: some profanity, a side character who is a dick about Reid, set in season 06, self beta’d

Word Count: 2437

Masterpost Link

Ao3 Link

Chapter 01

March 2010

Dr. Spencer Reid

(Current Tenure: California Institute of Technology): Fred Kavli Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics; Director, Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, Department Head of Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy at Caltech.

- (Degrees, in order) Ph.D. Mathematics, Caltech, 1995; Ph.D. Chemistry, Caltech, 1997; M.A. Nuclear Science, MIT, 1999; Ph.D. Engineering, MIT, 2000; M.A. Sociology, Columbia University, 2001; M.A. Philosophy, Georgetown, 2001; Ph.D. Psychology, Georgetown, 2002; M.A. Applied Analytics, Columbia University, 2003; M.A. Socio Economic Statistics, MIT, 2004; M.A. Geology, Caltech, 2006; Ph.D. Geography, Caltech, 2006; M.A. Economics, Caltech, 2008; M.A. Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Caltech, 2009

- (Teaching positions, in order) Professor of Mathematics, Caltech, 1995-1997, Professor of Mathematics and Statistical Analysis, MIT, 1998-2005, Visiting Associate, Georgetown, 1999-2002; Professor of Chemical Engineering, MIT, 2002-05; Kavli Professor, Mathematics, Caltech, 2005-; Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, 2006-; Deputy Chair, 2005-; Director, 2008-.

“Jesus.”

The dossier is just an information sheet; no photo ID, no news articles beyond text component pieces, but it is a thick stack of correspondence and case consultations that S.S.A Aaron Hotchner holds in his hands.

“Five Ph.D.’s and eight separate M.A.’s in fourteen years? What was he doing before that?”

“Who knows? You don’t earn a Ph.D. overnight, even if his accommodation sheet makes ‘em look like they pop up like mushrooms,” Mark Anderson says, audibly tired through the phone speaker on his desk. He was one of the Unit Chief's from the teams at the FBI L.A. field office, who’s phone number was given to him by an old friend, Sam Cooper -- another BAU team leader. Hotch had hit dead end after dead end on this case, and sitting at his desk in Quantico, Virginia, he looks down at the recommended consultant’s extensive list of degrees and teaching positions with a building headache behind his dark eyes. He wasn’t a fan of Anderson, or his briskness, but at this point he’d take anything he could get. “I’m pretty sure that man has never lived outside an academic field. He’s a handful, runs my agents up the damn wall, but he knows his stuff.”

“I hope so. I’ve been on the phone the past three days trying to find someone with a background in Obscure Cognitive Linguistics,” Hotch reads from a separate file, filled with violent images and depraved acts described in morbid detail. “Our unsub sites a very particular thesis about a Study of Language from a Cognitive and Developmental Law, and I keep getting sent to experts in adjacent fields. I don’t see anything in this Dr. Reid’s background about language.”

“Oh, trust me, Hotch -- you’ll get more than you bargained for. This is your guy. He’s basically an expert on everything, and if he doesn’t know anything about languages I’ll eat my tie. He never shuts up.”

Frowning at the speaker phone, Hotch keeps his comments to himself. He’s sure that Anderson probably doesn’t appreciate having an old professor puttering around the field office, but that didn’t mean he had to insult the man. Especially when he was there as a consultant.

“Okay, fine. Thank you. I’ll give him a call now-”

“Oh, you don’t want to do that. Just send him an email. Trust me.” Anderson all but groans like a petulant child. Graining on Hotch’s nerves excruciatingly.

“I’m sure he’s busy enough with his students, he doesn’t need to be fielding emails from the FBI,” Hotch hedged, still frowning.

“Not too busy to write you a dissertation in reply, I’m sure, but you’ll at least get the answers you need. You could be on the phone with him a half hour before you get to what you called about. Hopefully it won’t take you too long to sift through.”

Alright, now he is done listening to the other agent.

“Right. Thanks, Mark.”

“Anyti-” Hotch hangs up on him before the man could make any other remarks. His patience is non-existent after the past week and this extremely brutal case that only seems to compound exponentially in it’s viciousness with each passing day. If Anderson felt like being an asshole to some old man with nothing better to do than rack up Ph.D.’s, he could do it on his own time. Hotch needed help, and this man seemed to be the only person around who might be able to finally do so.

Dr. Reid’s office number is in front of him, as well as about three different lab location phone numbers, and one email address connected to the school faculty. He considers for a moment just ignoring Anderson’s advice and calling the old professor, but he has a meeting with his Department Chief, Strauss, in twenty minutes and the team would be arriving from canvasing the dumpsites soon.

So with a suffering sigh, Hotch pulls up a new email (for what feels like the millionth time for this case) and composes a standard correspondence introduction. Who he is, credentials, case numbers and specifics as far as clearance rates for civilians go, and then finally the questions he needs answered. There is something about this particular thesis that has to be very tongue in cheek to the unsub, saying something that isn’t really there, and this could just be another dead end -- but if it led to them saving a victim from becoming another dead body, he is willing to give it one last try.

Thank you for your time, S.S.A. Aaron Hotchner Unit Chief, Behavioral Analysis Unit, FBI Quantico, VA.

Then he hits send, and leaves the response up to the universe.

The team came up with nothing fruitful. Strauss proceeded to ream Hotch six ways from Sunday for wasting valuable bureau resources and coming up with zero results. His day was spinning down the drain in a hellish cyclone when he sits down behind his desk in his office an hour after leaving it. Case files still piled to one side, grotesque photos stacked within them, and Aaron Hotchner wants nothing more than for them to disappear. For the case to be solved and to be able to go home to his son and his quiet house. But there was no break in sight, no new information, nothing.

Except a new email in his inbox.

Agent Hotchner,

I know that thesis paper well. I can help you.

All air seems to have been sucked from the room as Hotch reads the words a couple of times, not quite comprehending after the morning he has had that someone wasn’t giving him more bad news. That this Dr. Reid said he could help him.

A single click of the email opens up the correspondence reply, and the agent is met with a giant wall of text. Scrolling down for pages, and a quick skim of the material shows such a complex, comprehensive amount of information that there is no way it’s just copy and pasted from any one source. Or even several. It’s a long email spanning a vast number of pages, covering every topic he had asked about (and then some).

The thesis paper, the tongue-in-cheek citation from the unsub, how this killer is acting like he’s being clever when it’s really ‘very obvious what he’s doing, as long as you know the paper’ and detailed links and quotations and references to locations and side tangents on items mentioned that could be evidence to look for or weapons of choice, and so much else Hotch’s head feels like it’s spinning. Like reading the cliffnotes of a complex spy novel, with all the spoilers in one place.

It takes him half an hour to read through everything Dr. Reid sent, meaning the professor had to have been typing a million words a minute from the moment Hotch had emailed him to get everything replied so quickly, and Hotch was baffled to realize that an old man with a handful of Ph.D.’s and no FBI training just solved his case.

Not a figment of speech.

Dr. Reid just solved the case, without even holding the file in his hands.

Hotch is dialing a phone number on his speed dial without even looking away from the screen.

“Garcia? Call the team into the briefing room, and phone SWAT to mobilize. We’re going down to the riverfront in thirty minutes.”

“--Wait, what are you talking about? Did you figure out the unsub’s code?”

Not me, Aaron thought to himself, standing up and printing Dr. Reid’s email after forwarding it to the entire team and their tech analyst, Penelope Garcia. He didn’t have time to explain it that many times, and the amount of information in that single email would be enough to send any of them tumbling heels over head. But it solved every aspect of their case. Hook, line, and sinker.

And the clock was ticking.

“Now, Garcia.”

He rushes from the room with the stack of files in his hands and his laptop open to Dr. Reid’s email. Not even thinking to thank the man for his help as he heads across the bullpen with profound determination.

They have work to do.

They catch the unsub that very day.

Quick, efficient, completely by surprise. They saved Amanda Sutton and another girl they hadn’t even known was missing. No one died. None of his team was hurt. The unsub hadn’t confessed, but Rossi and Morgan had played him like a fiddle in interrogation and now all of his team members were walking to the elevators leaving for a long weekend where they wouldn’t have to worry about serial killers or another dead soul on their conscience. Today was a win. As close to a win as they ever can get, in their line of work.

And it isn’t until he’s back at his desk, the hours ticking into the night, that he opens up his email and there in his inbox is the very reply that started everything. Dr. Spencer Reid. CalTech Department Head. Professor of everything under the sun. Expert on anything, even the obscure.

The reason Hotch will get to spend the weekend with his son, without the overbearing aftershocks of a case gone so horribly bad plaguing him.

His hands are moving before he can stop them. Opening up the email, typing out a response to Dr. Reid thanking him for his help. Relaying what happened, detail by detail much in the same fashion he had completed the paperwork piled on his desk. Letting him know that his information really did end up helping them. All of it. Even the side tangents.

I don’t know how I can ever thank you for the extensive consideration you gave this case, or how to explain how it solved it so seamlessly, but your time and effort does not go unnoticed by me.

Okay, so maybe he fluffs it up a bit more than the dreadful bullet-point list descriptions required by the Deputy Chief and the Director and SWAT Team justification reports. Just so it doesn’t look so inadequate in comparison to the man’s thesis-paper-length email he sent to aide Hotch and his team. The passion he has for his work leaps off the page, but it was a lot -- and if the old man put that much dedication into a basic FBI correspondence email, then he was probably used to it being a thankless effort.

Hotch sends the reply, and continues with his work. He always takes a bulk of the paperwork, so his team can go home and rest and recharge. He needs them at their best for each case, and if that means he spends a couple hours longer after when they finish a case, it is worth every minute. But this time, once he finishes, he gets to take the coveted time off as well.

It’s as he’s finishing up, everything stacked neatly and ready to be dropped at records, in the mailroom, Strauss’s office, the director’s, and he’s about to log off his laptop that he sees a surprise -- Dr. Reid replied to him, again.

It’s much more brief this time.

Agent Hotchner,

I’m so glad I was able to help you.

You are one of the only agents to reach out and tell me how the case went after my consultation, and I’m very grateful to know that my information actually helped your team catch the killer. I know I tend to spout facts at random, but I do have methods to my madness and it’s such a nice change to correspond with someone who understands that.

My services are always at your disposal. Anytime. Whatever I can do to help.

Sincerely, Dr. Spencer Reid

Hotch types out a brief reply. Thanking him for his offer, for lending him his expertise, and letting him know in not so many words --

I’ll have to take you up on that.

He’d be a fool not to. Someone with that much knowledge and the ability to connect it all in the way Dr. Reid had in the span of an hour? He could be a real asset to the BAU, as a permanent consultant, even through email correspondence.

He sends the reply just as he stands to leave. Turning off his office light, and his chest feels lighter for the interaction. For giving the professor that sense of assurance that what he had to say did in fact do some real good. Hotch even finds himself smiling softly, sadly, that he has also found a little bit of solace in helping another lonely old man across the country find a sense of purpose that night. Who was working late, as well, despite it being the end of the week. Speaking to not much waiting for him back at home, in whatever shape ‘home’ takes for the man. But Hotch can relate to that, too. Jack is at Jessica’s until the morning, and there is nothing at his apartment to greet him but silence and bare walls and memories he’d rather not dote on. Maybe this Dr. Spencer Reid is in a similar boat, finding comfort in his work when he can. He certainly seems to, with the amount of time he’s poured into his doctorates and degrees. In the number of departments he runs and monitors.

Hotch can’t help but feel a connection, a companionship between empty offices. Thousands of miles apart, but maybe -- possibly -- at least similar in that aspect.

Not so alone, even if only for a brief moment.

(tbc...)

Tagged list: @spencehotchner @ssa-sarahsunshine @gothamapologist @reidology @marsjareau @dragon-snaps-fandom @emmyraebird @just-an-emo-rat @aaron-hotchner187 @dk18077 @more-heid-pls

#omg i forgot to do tags #Jesus so ive been so excited for this and here it finally is and i fuck it up .2 seconds in go me #this is a S L O W B U R N fic and we are starting all the way at the beginning and im so excited im kind of shaking #updates every saturday evening #message me if you want in on the tag list #also on ao3 #HotchReid #Heid #katyswriting

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star-spangledstud · 3 years

Text

MIND GAMES - ONE

Summary: You arrive at your new home. Steve is a blank canvas.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x (Female!)reader

Warnings: none (so far)

Note: Had to reupload cause instead of editing I accidentally deleted it.

Raindrops, heavy and loud against the window beside your head, clash against and glide down the glass in messy, squiggly lines. The title of the song playing on the radio, ‘Soft like Rain’, fits the scene almost perfectly. Almost, because the rain that pitter-patters against the fogged-up window isn’t very soft in nature. In fact, the droplets come down so hard they bang against the roof of the car, its sound almost entirely overtaking the mellow tones of jazzy piano and drums in the background. The lines obscure your vision of Times Square, lights from the streets blown out and blurred to look like colorful stars and wicked shapes in the darkness.

I hope I made the right decision.

Your breath further fogs up the glass when you sigh audibly. A pair of dark eyes can be found eyeing you carefully through the rearview mirror when you sink further down into your seat. They offer you a hint of concern, of uncertainty. Nick Fury doesn’t know whether you’ll be okay or not. He can’t tell just yet, but the glimmer of hope he feels inside tugging at his heartstrings motivates him to give you a shot.

“We’re almost there,” his voice is quiet and deep when he speaks for the first time since picking you up from the airport, “just a few more miles.”

Of course I made the right decision. I always do. When have I ever fucked up?

You nod in response without checking to see if he’s looking at you through the mirror again because he undoubtedly is. After all, it’s all he’s been doing for the last hour. If you were to study the look in his eyes or his inner monologue just a little longer, you’d find out he’s scared. Nick Fury is afraid, both of you and for you, and he doesn’t like it because Nick Fury doesn’t get scared. He’s seen so much, experienced so many horrors in his time that he genuinely didn’t think anything could frighten him any more. Past tense, because the you’ve clearly made him change his mind.

This could be the best thing I ever did, or the worst. Can’t wait to find out which one it is. Cap better not fuck this one up.

There are so many questions you want to ask, but the voice in his head is loud in such a confined space, and nothing appropriate comes to mind. All you can pay attention to is the rumbling of the engine and the occasional ambulance rushing by somewhere in the distance. In the meantime, the song on the radio changes and morphs into something that sounds more melancholic.

When the two of you finally pull up to the compound, the rain has mostly stopped. It’s only drizzling now, tiny drops tickle your face while you brush strands of dampened hair from your forehead. A chill runs along your spine when a gust of wind blows through your open jacket, and you immediately zip it up for extra warmth.

You quickly scan the building, breath hitching in your throat when you notice its sheer size. It’s huge, much larger than where you used to reside, and the bright blue Avengers logo on the front causes your heart to beat a little faster. Seeing that logo makes it real, you think. You’re not so sure if this is the right place to be, but you don’t believe you have a better option. Either way, you told yourself you wouldn’t fuck this one up, and you have no intention to break this promise. This is home now, or at least it will be for a little while, and as intimidating as it is, you’ll have to make it work.

You can adapt, you’ve done it before. Hell, you’ve done it more times than you can remember. It’s extremely easy to make the people around you feel at ease in your presence when you can literally read every single thought they’ve ever had.

“I’ve assigned you to our best agent. He’s going to accompany you wherever you go to keep you safe. You cannot, under any circumstance, leave the building without him. You will listen to him and do what he tells you to do because it’s in your best interest. If you need anything, ask him, and he will provide. Do not tell anyone private information. If you need to vent, tell him,” Fury pauses, waits for you to nod, “no phones, no computers and especially no social media allowed under any circumstances. We need to figure out how much they know first. Don’t worry, we got Tony and Banner on that one.”

Did I get it all? I’m getting too old for this shit.

He watches you intently while you have to stop yourself from chuckling, “Got it?”

You nod.

“I need a verbal confirmation,” he grumbles, sounding annoyed by his own protocol.

“Yes,” you mumble against the whistling wind, “I understand.”

“Good. Let’s get moving, then.”

The opulent, open design of the ground floor greets you warmly when you walk in. Your boots, black and caked with mud, make streaks of brown along the white linoleum with each step you take and creak beneath your feet when you force yourself to move slowly forward. Fury watches your gaze flickering across the entrance and motions for you to follow him to the elevators, which you do silently.

A look of disapproval follows when he notices the trail of mud you’re leaving behind, but he doesn’t say anything. It won’t do him any good to verbalize his annoyance, because you’ve already picked up on it. Still, you drag your feet in an attempt to make him think you aren’t listening.

“Gym is in the basement,” he comments after watching you eye all the buttons inside the elevator, “roof is a terrace and pad for the Quinjets. There’s a penthouse underneath you’ll see soon enough.”

You raise a brow, and to your surprise, he chuckles, “Christmas party.”

“All the other floors include a lab, living quarters, conference rooms with workspaces, IT, a weaponry and gear storage. There’s a training room attached to the building that offers simulations. The building has a common kitchen and living room, a game room, a movie theatre and some other crap. Steve will show you when he has time.”

Your voice is dry and hoarse when you speak, “Steve?”

The elevator comes to a halt on the fifth floor, and before Fury has time to reply, the doors open to reveal a tall, blonde man in the opening. His arms, broad and encased in royal blue wool, are crossed over his chest. He has a stern expression on his face and a deep crease in his brow until he sees you and Fury, standing so far apart both of you are nearly hugging the mirrors on the walls. Fury has some of the loudest thoughts you’ve ever heard, and being stuck in a tiny box doesn’t do the volume any favors.

A glimmer of amusement is evident in his light blue eyes when you get out of the elevator. You look awkwardly at Fury, who’s making no move to follow you into the hallway, leaving you standing with one foot in the hall and one still in the elevator.

“Steve,” Fury says with a nod of his head towards the stranger, “is the agent you’re assigned to. He’s the captain of the team. I’d love to stay and chat, but you know how it is. Things to do, people to see… Keep me posted, Cap. I’ll be back soon for updates.”

He nudges you softly until you fully exit the elevator, and wastes no time pressing the button that will lead him back down to the ground floor. The heaviness of Nick Fury’s presence and the loudness of his inner monologue disappears with him when he leaves. It’s not until the doors close behind you that you feel like you can finally breathe again.

You turn to the man in front of you when you notice how quiet it’s become, and you subconsciously tilt your head to the side when instead of a constant stream of low mumbling and whispering, you hear nothing at all.

Steve raises a brow when he notices the way you’re looking at him. The soft expression on his face falters just a moment, but he recovers quickly, deciding not to allow his concern to show for now.

“Hey,” he says “I’m Steve Rogers, captain of the team.”

It takes you a while to reply because you’re so focused on listening for his inner voice that you don’t even notice his rosy lips moving.

You swallow down a stream of curses in a variety of languages and force yourself to stand up straight when you realize he’s waiting for you to say something. What the fuck is going on, you think to yourself while you plaster a smile on your face.

“Yeah, I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Y/N,” you reply politely, “nice to meet you.”

“I hope Fury didn’t intimidate you too much,” Steve says with a chuckle, “the first conversation I had with him scared the hell out of me. To be fair, I did think I was still in the 40s.”

You bite your lip and shake your head, grip on the straps of your backpack tightening until your knuckles turn white. You’re glad he doesn’t extend his hand for you to shake. You assume he contemplated it. Don’t know for sure though, because it’s still quiet up there in his skull. Does this guy even think at all?

“Come on, let me show you to your room.”

Your footsteps echo against the walls when the two of you silently cross the hallway. In total, you count a number of six doors. You tip your chin up when you reach the end and take a moment to study the man’s appearance while he points to the door on the right. He’s even taller and broader than you imagined him to be when Fury pictured him in his mind for you to see. If the upward curl of his lips wasn’t so genuine and soft, you would have been terrified of how big he is.

“This is mine,” he says, “I’m right across the hall if you need anything. This is yours. Usually, the doors open with fingerprint recognition, but you have a key. Nobody else has a copy except for me, for safety reasons. I’m obligated to tell you that you aren’t allowed to make any more copies.”

“Wasn’t going to,” you reply quickly.

He pulls a short, silver key from his back pocket and places it gently in your open, shaky palm. He notices your fingers are shaky when you fumble with the lock and smiles again in an attempt to make you feel more at ease. It’s almost like he can read your mind instead of the other way around. That stupid smile pisses you off.

“You have your own private bathroom,” Steve explains while he follows you inside, “Fury told us you don’t own much, so I asked Natasha to get you some clothes. We can go out and buy you some more if you want, just let me know. Feel free to decorate the place however you want.”

“Natasha?” you ask while looking around.

“The best spy we have. You’ll get along just fine, I’m sure. Anyway, I’ll leave you to get settled for now. Don’t hesitate to knock on my door at any time, okay? I’m not supposed to leave for another mission for a few weeks until you get situated. We can explore the compound tomorrow if you’re up for it. Maybe you can meet some of the other team members while we’re at it. No pressure.”

“Thanks,” you swallow thickly, “Steve.”

“You’re safe here,” he presses, “don’t forget that.”

For a brief moment, you wonder how much he really knows. You knowFury’s told him and Tony a watered-down version of what you’ve told him, but the kindness in his voice allows you to believe he hasn’t heard much. Still, you try to enter his brain and find out yourself, but once again you come up with nothing.

You exhale loudly after Steve leaves and take a moment to look around the room you’re now supposed to call yours. It doesn’t feel like it belongs to you, not yet anyway, and you wonder how long it will take before you find yourself succumbing to a new routine.

You take a shower to warm your bones and wash your hair with the shampoo and conditioner that smell like papaya. The towel you use to dry off is too fluffy for your liking, and a look in the mirror reveals dark circles and sunken in cheeks. It’s fine, you think. You haven’t recognized yourself in years.

Your backpack finds its way onto the bed, which is big enough for at least three people to sleep in. You follow shortly after, arms spread wide across the silky, forest green sheets until you sink down so far they almost wholly envelop you. Your hair is sprawled messily across the pillows. They smell like lavender and fresh cotton, and the scent is so relaxing and calming that within just several minutes of staring up at the ceiling, you drift off into a dreamless sleep.

When you wake up in a cold sweat several hours later, your hands are curled tightly in small fists around the silk sheets that cling to your legs. It’s hot in your room even though the chills along your arms would suggest otherwise, and your eyes frantically scan the shadows that seem to momentarily engulf you. It takes a while for your eyes to adjust to the darkness, and while you lie there in the dark, for several minutes, the only thing you can see is the vague outline of the face of a man.

As images from the dream you’ve just woken up from begin to fade, your heartrate slows down enough for you to remember where you are. You push the covers away from you and get up out of bed. You consider making a trip to the kitchen to get yourself something to eat, but you have no clue where the kitchen is located. Irritation pricks at your skin when your stomach rumbles loudly in the deafening silence, and five seconds later you’re stomping through the hallway with one goal in mind; to find something to eat.

The memory of Fury pointing out which floors of the building contain which rooms replays in your mind while you speedwalk through the hallway. You try to make a mental map of the compound for future reference just as you round the first corner, and in your state of tiredness and annoyance fueled by hunger, you don’t have time to realize Steve Rogers is on the other side of that corner.

Before he slams into you chest-first, his arms stretch out in front of him out of reflex. He grabs onto your shoulders and holds you steady while the both of you inhale sharply. Your head shoots up to meet his gaze, and he quickly releases his grip. What are the odds?

“Jesus Christ,” you gasp, “I didn’t see you.”

You didn’t hear him. That’s what you really want to say, but it wouldn’t make sense.

“I can tell,” he replies, “What are you doing awake?”

He’s tired, you can tell by the raspiness of his voice and the droopiness of his eyes, but he’s trying to hide his exhaustion by showing concern.

“I’m not trying to bail,” you cross your arms, “if that’s what you think.”

“I didn’t say that,” he replies, “didn’t think it, either.”

I wouldn’t know, you think.

You take a step back to study his face for a moment, unaware that you haven’t answered his question. When the silence between the two of you becomes nearly unbearably heavy, you finally speak up.

Your cheeks heat up, and you swallow thickly, “I was hungry.”

“Damn it,” he mutters under his breath, “of course. I’m so sorry, I should’ve given you something to eat. The kitchen’s all the way at the end of the hall, on the right. Fridge should be stocked. I think there might be some leftovers, if Sam hasn’t eaten them already. I gotta go, see you in the morning.”

As you watch him walk away in the opposite direction, you can’t help but wonder what the rush is all about. Perhaps he’s really eager to get back in bed, you muse, although you doubt that’s the real reason why he’s speedwalking away from his room in the middle of the night.

NEXT CHAPTER.

#marvel masterlist #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers fic #Steve Rogers #captain america #captain america fic #captain america imagine #captain america imagines #steve rogers x reader #captain america x reader #marvel imagine #marvel #chris evans x reader #chris evans imagine #chris evans #captain america fluff #captain america angst #steve rogers angst #steve rogers fluff

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avnkin · 4 years

Text

The Pogues - Prologue

Pairing: jj maybank x fem!reader

Warnings: toxic relationship, swearing

Word count: 2k

Summary: You were a kook, born and raised but when a messy breakup with your boyfriend takes place you find comfort in the people who you’d been taught to despise and keep away from your entire life, the Pogues.

(A/N): Soooo here it is the prologue to my upcoming series i’ve literally been working on this for the last couple of days and the first chapters are almost finished but I just wanted to post this as a kind of introduction to the story and the life around Y/N,, and pleaseee don’t be afraid to give me any feedback I love when y’all come in my inbox (not my gif creds to the owner)

series masterlist

You were seated out on your patio opposite your mom and dad enjoying the nice weather, your tanned skin practically glistening in the sun rays “so Y/N, is Rafe going to be escorting you to Midsummers?” Your father asked, you groaned at the idea of even having to go there mostly at the part about Rafe being your escort “do I have to go” you frowned playing with the salad blades that lay untouched on the plate before you “we’ve already talked about this Y/N you’re going” he replied sternly, annoyance evident in his tone. Most of the time you could talk your way out of almost every single one of these events but since Ward was your fathers best friend and the event was practically being held in his honor you had to go otherwise it would ‘reflect badly on your father’s image’.

You and Rafe had been an on and off thing for about a year now, maybe even longer since it was hard to keep count of all the breakups, currently you guys were on another off stage after you’d found him and another girl going at it in his bedroom when you had planned to surprise him on his birthday but instead ended up crying yourself to sleep in Sarah’s room who held you as you sobbed and being the loyal friend she is she ended barging into her brothers room to yell at him as soon as you fell asleep.

You and Sarah were the same age and had been best friends long before you and Rafe got together, considering your fathers were close friends you spent almost everyday over at the Camerons when you were younger and now you two were glued at the hip, you didn’t know what you’d do without her since you’d done everything and anything together since the age of 3.

“Yeah well I don’t think Rafe’s gonna be my escort, we broke up” you stated blatantly, crossing your arms over your chest as you looked back up at your displeased father “come on Y/N can’t you fix it just for that night and then you never talk to him again I don’t care but it’ll look really bad for me if my daughter ditches my best friends son at an event that’s being held in his honor” you looked over at your mom hoping she would back you up since there was no way you were going to get out of this without her help, but instead she just sat there pretending not to notice your lingering glare.

“Fine i’ll fix it” you mumbled knowing that there was no point in arguing with your father “thank you sweetie” he smiled “whatever” you rolled your eyes pushing the chair out from behind you and making your way back inside and up to your room. Closing the door behind you, you sat down at the edge of your bed dreading dialing Rafe’s phone number since you really didn’t want to be the one crawling back after he cheated, you had some respect for yourself.

It’s for dad you thought as you pressed call on his contact your back colliding with your mattress as you felt your heart sink more and more with every ring. Just as you were about to hang up he answered “hey baby” the nickname made you sick to your stomach, did he have no recollection of your break up “can we talk?” you asked getting annoyed as you heard nothing but silence on the other end of the phone.

“Yeah uh i’ll be home in like ten minutes want me to pick you up or something?” he asked, it was obvious in the way he spoke that he had no interest in going out of his way to come get you, you rolled your eyes “no Rafe i’m perfectly capable of getting myself to your house by myself thank you very much” you spoke before hanging up groaning as you went and got dressed pulling a black hoodie over the white crop top you’d been wearing and struggling to get into your converse attempting to squeeze your heel into them as you trudged down the spiral staircase in your house.

You grabbed the keys to one of your dad’s cars, opening the front door you slammed it shut behind you making your anger evident to your mom and dad.

Walking out into the cool summer air you quickly unlocked the car and pulled the handle, opening the door and placing your self down into the drivers seat. You turned the engine on dreading the soon to be conversation with your ex boyfriend as you slowly backed out of your driveway and out onto the main road.

As you stood outside of the Cameron house you contemplated driving away and never looking back but knowing you’d have to face the wrath of your father if you did that was enough to make your knuckle connect with the door and slowly but surely tap onto it, seconds later Rafe’s deranged figure stood before you moving out of the way allowing you to walk in, you put on a fake smile as you followed him up to his room.

It was silent between the two of you when he closed the door behind him neither one of you knowing what to say as you both stood facing each other “Y/N i’m really sorry for what happened the other day I-I was drunk” he stumbled over his words the lie evident as sweat started to form at the top of his forehead “I don’t care, I don’t want to get back together” he looked puzzled at your words “then why are you here?” he questioned sitting down onto the bed that was placed in the middle of the room.

“We’re going to go to Midsummers together and then we’re over and you’ll never hear from me again” he simply sat there not giving you any reaction whatsoever, so you turned to walk out but before your hand could reach the door handle he grabbed you and pulled you back to him “so we’re over just like that?” he practically barked down at you fingers tightening around your wrist clearly not pleased with your words “yes, my dad just wants me to go to this stupid thing with you and I know you want to impress your dad just as much as I do mine so it’s a win win for both of us” ripping your hand out of his grasp you tried to read his facial expression but it was blank the part about his dad clearly striking a nerve within him “whatever” he stated coldly turning away from you. You had to admit it hurt after almost a year of being with him that he didn’t even try to stop you or fight for you, but what were you expecting it’s Rafe.

You exited his room tears profusely falling from your eyes, you weren’t crying because you guys we’re no longer together but because you had just now realized how toxic the entire relationship had been and you were more then disappointed in yourself for letting anyone treat you that way for that long.

You made your way down the stairs towards the front door but before you could reach it an arm grabbed you stopping you from moving any further, thinking it was Rafe you turned around prepared to cuss him out but immediately calmed down once you noticed Sarah standing before you, it was obvious by her facial expression that she knew something was up with you and Rafe.

“What happened?” She frowned as she pulled you into a tight hug, you quietly cried into her shoulder as your arms rested weakly on her waist. “I don’t know what I ever saw in him” you sniffled pulling away from the hug so you could look back up at her “you know what I don’t either” she smiled wiping away the few tears that continued making their way down your cheeks.

“Come on lets go do something” she smiled intertwining her hands with yours dragging you out of the house behind her “like what?” you asked opening the passenger side door of her car and stepping into it not to worried about leaving yours behind, you’d come and get it later. Sarah got into the drivers seat shortly after you “first we go eat, can’t do anything on an empty stomach” she replied putting the key in the ignition and turning the car on “there’s this place that I absolutely love it’s called The Wreck” she spoke as she exited the driveway “isn’t that the restaurant that Kiara’s parents own?” you questioned raising an eyebrow at her since Sarah had told you about their previous feud multiple times. “Yeah but i’m pretty sure she’s not working right now and either way it doesn’t matter if she is i’m a customer so i’m sure we’ll both keep things strictly professional” she huffed causing you to chuckle your mind quickly forgetting all about Rafe and his stupid antics.

As Sarah parked in front of the wreck she involuntarily groaned noticing Kiara and the rest of her Pogue friends all sitting in front of the entrance enjoying their fries and hamburgers some you recognized, some you didn’t. “Shit” Sarah mumbled “strictly professional” you joked copying her words from before, she lightly hit you in the shoulder before grabbing her purse and getting out of the car you following behind shortly after.

As you walked past the Pogues and toward the entrance all you received were dirty looks and glares especially from Kiara, the only one who wasn’t glaring was JJ who not so subtly let his eyes wander up and down your body, Kiara clearly noticed as she hit him in the back of the head scolding him, “what the hell” you heard him mumble as he rubbed the back of his head causing you to let out a small chuckle.

The only reason you knew who JJ was, was because of the multiple fights you had to break up between him and Rafe, you could never understand how two people could hate each other that much.

Turning away from them you followed Sarah inside the restaurant and just your luck you were seated right next to the window that was facing them, “Oh god” Sarah groaned hiding her face behind the menu that had been placed in front of her “she’s still staring” you looked over your shoulder, and sure enough you got a perfect look of Kiara’s face and oh boy if looks could kill you’d both be dead by now.

“Is this all seriously because you didn’t invite her to your birthday party?” you questioned turning back around “yup” Sarah replied resting her chin in her palm “I kind of miss her though she was fun to hang out with, you’d like her” Sarah smiled causing you to look back one more time making direct eye contact with JJ who subtly winked at you, you felt heat rising to your cheeks and quickly turned away eyes diverting to the menu in front of you.

“So what do you wanna do when we finish eating?” you asked looking up at Sarah who only gave a shrug in response “you wanna go buy some dresses for Midsummers, I literally have nothing to wear?” she groaned taking a sip of her water giving you a hopeful look “sure” you chuckled looking out the window once more only to see the Pogues were no longer there, you felt slightly disappointed at the lost sight of the Maybank boy.

I’m gonna make a tag list for this series so let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters!! xx

#jj maybank #jj x reader #jj maybank imagine #jj obx #jj #jj outer banks #outer banks #outer banks netflix #outer banks fanfiction #jj maybank x reader #outer banks imagine #kiara #john b #pope #rafe cameron #rafe cameron imagine

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thelordofdarkreunion · 3 years

Text

Magnificent Scoundrels- We’re the Best

“This is Unit Delta-5-9! We need immediate reinforcements! We’re getting torn up over here!”

“Copy that, Delta-5-9. Who are the hostiles in your area?”

“Commander Shepard is here! Repeat, Commander Shepard is here!”

“Copy that. Anyone else?”

“There’s one guy in some sort of silver armor. With a spear! He’s tearing up our guys like it’s no problem!”

“...repeat last.”

“Yes, he’s got a spear! And there are these two guys in trench coats, too!”

“What are they doing?”

“Uh… dancing?” “...”

“And there’s some other guy, too. He’s moving too fast for us to track, and… where did he go?”

“Hello.”

“Wha-” [Several gunshots are fired. Transmission ends.] -Transmission Intercepted from Attacking Force Delta by combined Quarian/Starfleet/Mechanicus operatives

“The elevators in this place are so goddamn slow.” Shepard shrugged at Drake, a move which made him bump against Vir.

“Yeah, I know. Cramped, too.”

“Got that right,” muttered Quill as he jostled for position with Cooper. Drake sighed and activated his wrist computer.

“Might as well do something useful. Ordelphine! Saul! Whoever the hell’s up there. You might have heard, but we have problems down here. Every available crewmember is to deploy with full… everything. Heavy weapons, heavy armor, tell Garang to wear the power armor, and get Kraiker, Mark, Oliver, and Muelka to get down here with all their stuff.” He paused for a moment, then pressed the transmit button with almost indecent haste. “And tell Muelka to not set anything on fire!” He shrugged at Shepard and Quill’s curious expressions. “I think it would be best if my crew and I were remembered for saving the Citadel, not blowing it up.” Vir shrugged and nodded.

“Makes sense. Actually, I ought to get my crew down here too.” He tapped the communications button on the side of his Iron Eye helmet. “Simone! Cannon! Get the Marines, Valhallans, and Drev clan down here! This is a full battle. Extended combat operations, so be ready for that.”

“Understood, sir. I… uh… Conn wants me to tell you that… “A vampire masturbating in front of a mirror. Bet you didn’t see that coming.” What the hell? Conn, you little-” Vir shook his head.

“It’s fine. So as long as he stays there. We don’t want to freak too many people out.”

“Yes, sir. Although that means I’m stuck with him,” responded a slightly put-out Simone.

“Have fun!” replied Vir with a bit too much cheerfulness than was required.

“I’m sure I will, sir.” Vir released the comms button on his helmet and shook his head again.

“I’m not so sure I want to meet Conn,” intoned Quill.

“Take my advice and just… don’t,” replied Vir. Quill nodded.

“Fair enough.” he rubbed his chin for a moment. “At least I don’t have to contact anyone. Everyone from my ship is in the other elevator.”

“Maybe you should have gone with them,” muttered Cooper as he jostled against Quill once more.

“No. Drax is there, and he takes up way too much space as it is.” Shepard shook his head at their banter, and activated his comms as well.

“Miranda, get the ground team down here. The entire ground team.”

“Should I come along as well?” replied a woman’s Australian-accented voice. Shepard considered for a moment.

“Yes. Tell Joker not to get the Normandy too beat up while we’re gone.”

“Understood, Commander.” Cooper looked over from where he was pressed against the glass.

“So, we have that down. Now what?” Shepard activated a button, and a glowing orange hologram sprang to life around his left arm. He pressed something else, and a map of the Citadel came up.

“We’re here.” He tapped near the Council chambers. “There’s a pretty hefty attacking force outside, fighting C-Sec officers and Turian shock troopers outside. We clear the attackers, set up a space where shuttle reinforcements can land, and proceed from there.” Everyone nodded.

“Well, that’s a better plan than most of what we do.” The group looked at each other speculatively.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is,” said Quill. “Reminds me. Have I ever told you about the time where I saved the galaxy with only 17% of a plan?”

Elsewhere on the Citadel

It was decided that Master Chief would take up the rear, as eight feet of muscle and Mjolnir armor would be a reasonable deterrent for most pursuers. There had been a short but intense argument over who would lead, but Kirk had suggested a combined force of bodyguards to placate everyone.

Now, a group of various bodyguards led the delegates through the under-tunnels of the Citadel to safety, with Cain, Kirk, and Solo sprinkled throughout the formation. The delegates murmured to each other, careful to not let their words be overheard. Each had groups of powerful special forces soldiers at their command, and each was wondering what to do with them, or if and when to deploy them.

“Councillors! We are under heavy fire! Some of the C-Sec officers have turned traitor, and the attackers are taking more of the Citadel. We need reinforcements!” came a desperate cry over the communication systems. Sparatus, the Turian Councillor, replied immediately.

“Hierarchy soldiers are currently on the ground. We’ll send more, but it will take a while for their shuttles to get there. You’ll have to hold,” he replied curtly. Several other diplomats heard the exchange. Normally, many would not have lent their forces to the fight, but if it meant the difference of getting out alive or dead, it wasn’t even a question.

“Captain Faro, this is Thrawn. Deploy our troopers immediately. Have TIE’s escort the shuttles. Keep the Destroyers in a holding position.”

“Captain, this is Agent Omicron. Have the ODSTs ready to drop immediately.”

“Watch Captain, this is Inquisitor Vail. Order the Scions to deploy in high altitude grav drop. Have the Kill Team and the Assassins ready in the teleportariums.”

“Captain, this is Marder. Have the Pilots stand ready in their Titans and be ready to deploy.”

Elsewhere on the Citadel

The elevator sounded a clear, high ding! and the doors slid slowly open.

“Fucking finally,” muttered Drake. The next elevator over sounded a similar chime and disgorged Quill’s crew, looking none happier than the Scoundrels over the slow ride down. The sounds of gunfire and screams filled the air from just beyond the indoor plaza at the foot of the Council Chambers. “Well, back to something I know better. Actually…” Drake’s face turned into a sly grin. “Tali! Scotty! Can you two give me control of the P.A. system?”

“Why do you want the P.A. system?” came Scotty’s, well, Scottish bur.

“Uh… psychological warfare?” There was a pregnant pause on the other end. Drake tried again. “For funsies?”

“...fine.” There was another pause. “You have control Drake,” came a very tired sounding Scotty.

“Wonderful!” replied Drake, utterly delighted. “Now, here comes the fun part.”

------------------------------------------------

Major Viter of the Turian Hierarchy cursed as a bullet chipped the wall he was kneeling behind. The Cerberus attackers and traitor C-Sec agents had his combined forces of Hierarchy soldiers and loyal C-Sec agents pinned down in front of the Citadel Tower. They had held well enough for the past ten minutes of grueling firefights, long enough to give the Council and the other delegates enough time to escape. Viter didn’t care much for the other diplomats, but he had been ordered to hold, and death was a preferable alternative to disobeying those orders. Another volley of fire raked the wall, and he shrank back from it. Cerberus was getting crafty. They knew the Hierarchy shock troopers were far superior to the C-Sec agents under his command, so they endeavored to keep the Turians pinned down for as long as possible. Not good. He turned to his left and yelled at his communications officer.

“Where are those reinforcements? We can’t hold the tower without them!”

“They’re still ten minutes out! And that’s not including the time it’ll take the shuttles to find a safe landing zone!” Viter cursed. “But someone said we have additional reinforcements en-route. Some kind of special team,” added the communications officer. Viter calmly shot down a traitor C-Sec agent who was stupid enough to poke their head in the open before turning back.

“What kind of special team?” But before the comms officer could replay, the Citadel’s P.A. system fizzed to life. Cerberus, C-Sec, and Turian soldiers looked up with confusion as an unmistakably human show tune started to play.

“Yippie yay! There’ll be no wedding bells for today!” There was a flash of electric blue, and a Cerberus trooper took a shot to her head, which promptly melted, complete with horrifying screams from its wearer. Viter looked back to the Tower’s entrance. Standing there was a black haired, black coated human wielding a silvery, triple barreled rifle. Flanking him was another masked and trenchcoated human, a small (about up to viter’s knee), rodent-like creature holding a full-sized machine gun, and… Commander Shepard. Back from the dead? To borrow a human expression: Oh boy. This just got interesting.

As the abominably cheerful tune continued to play, a figure clad in solid grey metal armor and some massive, bare-chested, grey and orange humanoid alien ran past Viter at speeds he didn’t think were possible for a biped to produce. He did a double take. They were holding a spear and two knives respectively. Did they have a death wish? The Cerberus and C-Sec attackers seemed to think so, as they stepped forward as one to cut the running figures down.

With no warning, a man wearing a strange set of advanced-looking armor materialized beyond a Cerberus trooper wielding a machine gun, drew a pistol, gave a cheerful “Hi!”, blew the back of the trooper’s head apart, and disappeared. Farther down, a Cerberus combat engineer looked down at his chest, where a lithe blade appeared through his breastbone. A green-skinned alien woman gave him a surreptitious wink, and, before his comrades could react, faded into oblivion.

Within the space of a second, the attacking line devolved into panic. The gunmen behind the running figures opened fire, forcing the Cerberus personnel to keep their heads down as the two sprinting figures collided with them at full tilt.

The grey figure’s spear slid through a trooper’s neck armor joint, producing a gurgled sigh as he crumpled to the ground. The silvery figure spun around, and with pinpoint precision, impaled another Cerberus trooper through the joints of her armor. The massive grey humanoid went flying into a group of traitorous C-Sec agents with reckless and utterly terrifying abandon, stabbing wildly.

The green-skinned woman appeared once more, and gracefully cut down two Cerberus soldiers with just as many strokes of her keen-bladed swords. The Turians and loyal C-Sec agents were now all firing at the disorganized attackers, Shepard was killing with horrifying, lethal accuracy, the rodent-creature was cackling maniacally as it fired it’s huge machine gun, the two trenchcoated men were dancing along to the music over the P.A. system while firing off precise, perfectly timed-to-the-beat shots, there was a walking tree now that was impaling people with wooden growths from its arms, and the man in advanced armor, who had been appearing and disappearing was now running on the walls, almost horizontally, supported by only thrusters on the back of the suit and a hand held out for balance. In short, utter mayhem.

The man hopping from wall to wall jumped down and kicked a Cerberus trooper with enough force to crack her helmet. The grey armored man and green-skinned woman impaled two more opponents with perfect synchronicity. Viter overloaded a Cerberus soldier’s shields, then shot him in the head. The last enemy, a panicking traitorous C-Sec agent, turned and ran, only to be gunned down by the black coated human.

The grey armored figure removed their helmet to reveal the cheerful face of a green-eyed, blond-haired human man. Shepard and he walked over to Major Viter, who turned and stared at them with an expression that was equal parts confusion, shock, and gratefulness.

“I’m assuming you’re the team that was sent to assist me?” he asked. “Pardon me asking, but who exactly are you?” Shepard opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the black coated man.

“We’re the Magnificent Scoundrels, and we put the laughter into slaughter!” Shepard’s mouth moved spasmodically for a few moments before the blond haired man stepped in.

“Don’t… don’t listen to… him.” The black coated man shrugged.

“Yeah. I get that a lot.” Shepard rolled his eyes.

“We’re a team made up from a variety of different governments present, and we’re here to help take back the Citadel.” Shepard looked around, experienced eyes taking in the mayhem around them. “What now?” he asked Viter. Viter’s mandibles moved in an expression that Shepard recognized as turian thoughtfulness.

“Well, we press on and clean up the Citadel. But we,” he gestured at the group, “Can’t do it alone. We’re going to need help.” Shepard and the blond man shared a knowing glance.

“Don’t worry, ‘cause help you’re going to get.”

If you have any comments, questions, concerns, criticisms, questions, or requests, feel free to tell me. For the curious, the song is called “Jingle Jangle Jingle.” I recommend finding the Fallout New Vegas version ‘cause apparently it’s the only remastered version on the internet.

#story #writing #my writing #crossover #magnificent scoundrels #mass effect #guardians of the galaxy

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tagsecretsanta · 3 years

Text

From @TsarinaTorment

to @gumnut-logic

Secret santa does not own this work, full credit to the author mentioned above!

Prompts used: all of them but in true Tsari fashion I also twisted them so much they probably barely resemble the prompts at this point.

Virgil and many, many butterflies (probably not what they had in mind...)

Virgil has a puzzle to solve (actually maybe stayed on some sort of track with this one!)

Virgil and a brother go on a boat trip (of the rescue sort)

Nothing Christmassy, so sorry if my requestee was hoping for that. But on the plus side, it's 8k words of Virgil!

Tsari--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Title: Steady Hands

Rating: Teen

Characters: Virgil, Gordon, Scott, John... and some friends :D

Summary: One boat. Two brothers. A life-or-death game of Jenga.

“Eeeeaaasy.”

Virgil didn’t bother to glare at his brother, far too used to his distraction techniques. He didn’t even spare him a glance, keeping his attention firmly on what he was doing. Gordon wanted him to fail, like the supportive little brother he was, mostly because he inevitably had a bet on with Alan, and Virgil had far too much pride to let his younger brothers’ schemes throw him off of his game.

He had the steadiest hands of all of his brothers. All four of them were too jittery, too used to moving, whether it be the physical activity Scott and Gordon preferred, or the twitching at the tips of fingers over keyboards and virtual reality. Virgil was an artist, a pianist, an engineer. A medic. His hands didn’t tremble unless he let them.

The tower in front of him wouldn’t fall. Not on his turn.

Perfectly steady hands poked at a single block, careful yet confident. It moved, but its neighbours didn’t. Gordon groaned loudly. Virgil ignored that, too, and once the block moved far enough, deftly plucked it from its fellows.

The tower didn’t even wobble.

“How do you do that?” Gordon groused, pouting at the stack. There were more holes than blocks in the Jenga tower now, and Virgil’s latest move had left it teetering on the very edge of stable. Even he would struggle to get another out without nudging neighbouring blocks and bringing the whole thing crashing down. Gordon had no chance, and they both knew it.

But Gordon wasn’t a quitter. Eyes narrowed in concentration and tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth, he surveyed the stack in front of him for several moments in silence, assessing. None of the blocks would go without pulling others down with them, Virgil knew, but Gordon still refused to throw the game.

Eyes almost slits, he selected his target and reached out to touch it.

“International Rescue, we have a situation.”

Clatter.

“Aw, man!” Gordon complained, looking at the jumble of blocks in front of him. “That doesn’t count! John knocked them down!”

“John’s a hologram,” Virgil reminded him, satisfied grin on his face. “That was no more of a distraction than you talking when I picked. My victory.”

“What’s the situation, John?” Scott cut in, ignoring them in preference of John as he always did when a call came in. With one last look at the still-pouting Gordon, Virgil turned his own attention to the projection of his brother.

“There’s a large fishing trawler in distress,” John said. “There was a small explosion in the engine room and now they’re taking on water. The crew are requesting evacuation.”

Virgil straightened up. He didn’t need to look to know that Gordon had done the same, poised to dart for his Thunderbird the moment the brief was over.

“What caused the explosion?” he asked. John shrugged.

“The crew don’t know,” he said. “But the ship’s sinking, so I suggest you launch. I’ll see what I can find on the explosion.”

“F.A.B.,” Scott agreed. “Virgil, Gordon – you’re up. I’ll attend in Thunderbird One.” Virgil didn’t wait to hear anything else, standing up and heading over to the painting that concealed his launch chute and trusting his brothers to be doing the same. “Thunderbirds are go!”

Scott always loved saying that. He denied it, but Virgil knew his big brother.

John was efficient. By the time Virgil was sat in his pilot seat, Module Four selected and little brother rising up into the cockpit behind him, Thunderbird Two’s navigation systems were updated with the precise location of the distressed trawler.

It wasn’t too far, down in the waters south of Tasmania, and before long they got visual on the boat in question. It was listing to one side, figures crowded on deck. From the way they were waving up at Scott in Thunderbird One, Virgil thought it was a pretty safe bet that they were the crew.

“That boat’s too big for Thunderbird Two to stabilise,” Gordon noted. “I’ll see what I can do from the water.”

“F.A.B.,” Virgil agreed.

“I’ll drop down and help the evacuation,” Scott said over the comms. “Virgil, stay overhead in Thunderbird Two and drop the rescue platform. It’ll be a tight fit without the module, but once they’re on board take them to the nearest port. John?”

“I’ve got their home port located,” the ginger said. “Sending co-ordinates now.”

“Once they’re all evac’d, I’ll look around and see if I can find what caused this,” Scott continued. “If Gordon can get the hull patched, we’ll get the GDF out to tow it to port.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Gordon said, hologram flickering to live next to John’s on the dash. “Ready for module deployment, Virg.”

“Dropping you now, Gords.” He brought Thunderbird Two into a hover just above the water and released the module. The familiar shudder passed through his ‘bird as she dropped her belly, and it was with a practiced hand that he kept her steady. Out of the window, he saw Scott bring Thunderbird One down before dropping the few feet onto the deck. The silver rocket soared back into the sky under remote control or autopilot – Virgil didn’t know exactly which controls were being used but she wasn’t slaved to Two – as Scott made his way to the crew.

Leaving his big brother to corral them, he focused on his own task, bringing Thunderbird Two overhead and getting ready to drop the rescue platform.

“How many guests am I expecting, Thunderbird Five?” he asked.

“Captain tells me there’s ten,” John told him. “Life signs agree.”

“Gonna be cosy in here,” he observed.

“Cosy or not, we’re ready for evac, Thunderbird Two,” Scott cut in.

“Copy that, Thunderbird One. Lowering the platform now.”

Aside from the unknown cause of the explosion, it was about as standard as they got. Well, Virgil wasn’t used to carrying an entire crew in his cockpit, but aside from that little detail, it was nice and simple.

“Scott, I’ve just picked up another life sign.”

Well, it was simple, until John dropped that little detail. Already leaving the danger zone, Virgil glanced over at the captain, sat in the co-pilot’s seat.

“I thought we had the whole crew here?”

The captain looked shocked. “We do.”

Virgil frowned. “Thunderbird One, all heads are accounted for.”

“Thunderbird Two, keep going. I’ll find our mystery person and evac them in One.”

“I’ll help you search, Thunderbird One,” Gordon chipped in. “I’ve patched up the hole best I can; I’ll leave Four here and join you.”

“F.A.B., Thunderbird Four. Everything’s under control here, Thunderbird Two,” Scott assured him. “You get the crew to dry land.”

“F.A.B.,” Virgil agreed.

“I don’t get it,” the captain said, shaking his head. “There are only ten of us. Who’s the other life sign?”

“If I had to guess, Captain,” John said, “I’d say that’s probably the cause of your explosion. Scott, Gordon, be careful.”

“Noted, Thunderbird Five. Gordon, I’ll rendezvous with you on deck.”

“F.A.B.”

Both his brothers flickered out of sight, presumably switching to a private channel, and Virgil let out a breath, glancing over at the crew behind him. There weren’t enough seats for all of them, so he couldn’t go at his usual speeds, and inwardly he frowned. Even if it was Scott and Gordon, he didn’t feel right leaving them with someone potentially dangerous and without backup.

But he had a job to do, and some people to get to shore.

The trip took longer than he was happy with, but once the crew were safely offloaded, he turned around and shot for the boat and his brothers as fast as Thunderbird Two could go.

“Scott, Gordon, you found our mystery life sign yet?”

His brothers flickered into view.

“Negative, Virgil. No sign of them yet. John keeps losing the signal. I’m guessing it must be some sort of cloaking device.” Scott looked frustrated.

“I don’t like this,” Virgil said bluntly. “Call the GDF to deal with it and get off that boat. If you haven’t found them yet they’re trying not to be found.”

The journey was much shorter when he could go at top speed. Thunderbird One was still hovering above the boat, gleaming silver from the sun.

“Virgil, this boat is still likely to sink. We’ve got to get them off,” Scott argued. “We can’t wait for the GDF.”

“Scott’s right, Virg,” Gordon agreed. “We’ve got to- Scott! I saw them!”

He broke into a run, Scott seemingly hot on his heels.

“Guys,” Virgil ground out. “Guys, if they don’t want to-”

BOOM.

The explosion rocked the boat; through the cockpit windows he saw it list from one side to the other, and then back again, noticeably lower in the water. The cabin was gone, replaced with timber sized matchsticks.

“Scott?” he shouted. “Gordon?”

His brother’s holograms flickered once, twice, and then they vanished. No, no, no. Virgil didn’t think, just reacted, pushing his ‘bird forward the last short distance and firing the grapples down towards the once again sinking boat. As Gordon had noted earlier, it exceeded her lifting power, and VTOLs shrieked as he gunned them with everything she had. His brothers were still down there, somewhere inside looking for their elusive lifesign, and he absolutely was not letting them slip from his grasp. Not now, not ever.

“Scott!” he shouted again, over the sound of Thunderbird Two’s screaming engines. “Gordon! Come in!”

Autopilot couldn’t keep the pressure on the VTOLs; if he tried to leave the cockpit and find them himself, the boat would sink. Even on manual pilot, Thunderbird Two couldn’t hold it for long. A shudder ran through his ‘bird and he grit his teeth. He wasn’t Scott, but he still solved problems. Logistics. Thunderbird Two was at maximum lift strength; her engines would burn out if he kept this up.

His brothers were still down there, unresponsive. He couldn’t risk that.

Module Four was floating on the swell of the waves, waiting for Thunderbird Four’s return. The bright sub was under the waterline; he could just about see her through the ocean swell. Remote controlling her was difficult, and he didn’t know precisely what Gordon had done with her to latch her to the boat. She was also their backup exit if their route to the deck was blocked.

After the explosion, it probably was.

So he couldn’t move Thunderbird Four. Gordon would know exactly where he’d left his ‘bird, and would be making for her if they hadn’t been incapacitated by the explosion. With neither of them picking up comms, Virgil knew better than to cling to a false hope, but he still couldn’t risk it, just in case they were fine and it was just some damaged radios.

He did have Thunderbird One. Her lifting power was nowhere near that of Thunderbird Two’s, but combined, it might just be enough to keep the boat from sinking. It was now an inconvenience that Scott hadn’t slaved her console to his, but he could still override her from Thunderbird Two, and unlike Thunderbird Four, there was no way she’d be of use to his brothers in the boat.

Jaw set, he flicked the control pad and jabbed in the override code for Thunderbird One, slaving her to her sister’s controls before remote piloting her to the more laden end of the ship. One high-tensile grapple cable fired.

It missed. He didn’t have Scott’s precision, or Gordon’s innate dead aim. Those thoughts got pushed away as he reeled the cable back in to send out a second time. The ship below him had to be secured – before Thunderbird Two’s VTOL overheated. He could worry about finding his brothers once he knew the ship wasn’t sinking any more.

The second shot caught, the light going green to represent the clang of success he couldn’t hear over Thunderbird Two’s engines. Thunderbird One’s VTOLs joined the chorus; a cacophony of sound so loud he could barely hear himself think. It was enough.

Just.

Virgil still couldn’t risk autopilot on Thunderbird Two, the weight remaining beyond her official lifting parameters. If it wasn’t for Brains’ over-engineering, she wouldn’t be holding even with her sister’s help.

“John!” he called. Unlike his missing brothers, the ginger appeared immediately. “They’re not picking up. Do you have their signals?”

John looked annoyed, and a little worried. That wasn’t good.

“Their location transmitters are still working,” he said. “But I can’t get either of them to respond, either.”

“Take control of Thunderbird Two,” Virgil ordered. “I’m going to get them.”

“F.A.B. Taking control of both Thunderbirds One and Two now.”

The holographic symbol for Thunderbird Five flashed up over his controls, and Virgil released his grip on them, trusting John – or EOS – to keep the boat from sinking.

Now he had two brothers to save.

“Locations, John?”

“They’re both in the engine room,” his brother told him, the boat’s schematics appearing over his wrist controller as he hurried along the internal corridors of his ‘bird. Her module was detached, floating too far away to reach, but Virgil made it a point to have one Jaws of Life accessible at all times. Just in case.

That just in case paid off as he reached the small storage room, filled with spare gear – and a half-eaten celery crunch bar. He ignored it, but made a mental note to remind Gordon where food was and wasn’t permitted on Thunderbird Two later. Once his brothers were safe.

“Bzzt!”

Static erupted from his wrist controller just as he began to shrug on the mechanical exosuit and he paused, tapping at it to try and clear the signal.

“Bzzt! -irgil? Bzztin -Two!”

“Gordon?” The static was bad, but Virgil still recognised his brother’s voice. “Gordon, can you hear me?”

“I’ll try to boost the signal,” John said. Virgil nodded distractedly, his focus on his comm as it crackled again.

“-ear you,” Gordon confirmed amongst more static. “-dio damaged. Bzzt-bzzt-pair job.”

“What’s your status?” He resumed suiting up, unwilling to waste a moment if his brother was trapped.

“-t great,” his comm crackled. “Not hurt bzzt-ott bzzt cold.”

Virgil frowned, trying to parse what his brother had said through the static.

“Say again, Gordon?”

“Bzzt-t hurt bzzt Scott-bzzt-t cold.”

That was either Scott’s cold or Scott’s out cold, and considering the lack of communication from his older brother, Virgil decided to assume it was the latter. That was a problem, but not an insurmountable one.

“I’m on my way down to you,” he declared, Jaws of Life now settled over him. “Any idea what caused the explosion?”

“-egative, Virg. It’s bzzt-gerous.” Virgil scowled, hearing Gordon’s too dangerous protest and wondering if he thought for one moment that that would stop him. “-ther problem. Bzzt-bzzt-”

“-me a probl-bzzt?” another, unfamiliar voice cut in. Sharp, female. Their missing life sign?

“-ou-bzzt been goo-bzzt-bzzt-fore,” Gordon retorted.

“Gordon?” Virgil cut in. “What’s the problem?”

“-os Crew bzzt-bzzt.” Whatever else Gordon had to say was lost in a snow of static, but Virgil had heard enough to start piecing it all together. Chaos Crew. Explosions. Unfamiliar female voice.

Gordon, and presumably an unconscious Scott, were with Havoc, and Fuse was running around somewhere with no eyes on him.

“Gordon, I’m coming,” he said, cutting off whatever the static was supposed to be. He hoped their connection was better on his brother’s end. “John’s given me your location.”

“No!” Gordon protested, but Virgil ignored him as he left the safety of Thunderbird Two to slide down one of the cables holding the boat up. The roar of the engines drowned out anything coming from his comms for several long moments before his boots hit the surface of the deck.

He’d known it was bad, but this was worse. His comms spluttered at him but he ignored Gordon’s static-garbled protests that he’d left his ‘bird in favour of reassessing the situation.

Virgil was no Scott, able to take everything in at a glance and make snap decisions, but he had an eye for detail and the patience to spend an extra moment looking things over before acting. It was that eye that told him this was not going to be easy.

The main entrance to get below deck – he was sure it had a name but that was Gordon’s area and Virgil might not be Scott but right now he did not have the time to waste on remembering it – was entirely collapsed in, the cabin so much steel and timber covering it and well and truly trapping anyone down below. According to the schematics, that was the only way down.

This was why Virgil had the Jaws of Life with him.

“Virgil.” John’s voice overrode Gordon’s crackling with an urgency that demanded his attention right that moment. “I can’t boost their radio signals any further, but I did manage to boost their suit telemetry and get a more detailed scan of the compartment they’re trapped in.”

“Let me guess,” Virgil sighed, stomping over to the mangled mess of former-cabin and starting to calculate the best way to clear it. “Bad news?”

“Scott’s helmet’s taken some damage, probably from the initial blast, and his oxygen supply is depleted.” Virgil frowned as he identified the first bit of rubble that needed to go – a large sheet of mangled metal that was probably part of the cabin’s roof or walls.

“So they can’t swim for it? That’s not a problem unless their compartment starts to flood,” he observed. It wasn’t ideal, and if Scott’s helmet was damaged that confirmed that he was probably unconscious, but he trusted Gordon to do any initial first aid until he got there.

He ignored the uneasy feeling in his stomach.

“Yeah,” John said in that flat way that meant bad news. “About that.”

Uh oh. “It’s already flooding?”

“Got it in one. The flow’s reasonably slow and the compartment’s quite big so they’ve got time, but I’d estimate ten minutes and they’ll be under.”

“And with Scott unconscious he can’t hold his breath.” Virgil scowled and shifted the metal with more force than he should have done. The diluted clang of metal on deck reverberated through his boots.

“I imagine Gordon-”

“Hey, watch it!” John’s speculation – probably on how Gordon, their resident aquanaut and underwater rescue specialist, was going to get oxygen to Scott when his helmet was damaged and didn’t fit Gordon’s rebreather anyway – was cut off by a disgruntled exclamation from behind him.

Virgil turned to see unmistakable purple armour, and wondered how on earth he’d missed Fuse coming up behind him.

“You almost hit me with that!” the young man griped, but his heart didn’t seem to be in the accompanying pout. Instead, he was hurrying forwards, almost frantically, and Virgil remembered that Fuse was reportedly Havoc’s brother. “What are you doing throwing metal around on a ship full of explosives?”

“What?”

Virgil hadn’t seen any more explosives. There weren’t supposed to be explosives on the ship.

Fuse hurried past him – probably as fast as he could run in that suit – and started digging through the pile. Metal and wood creaked in protest at him and Virgil clapped a hand on his shoulder, forcing him back.

“Hey! Careful or you’ll bring the lot down.”

“I left a charge around here,” Fuse told him, and Virgil took a deep breath. “They weren’t supposed to go off yet!” He sounded panicked and even though it was blindingly obvious this whole thing was Fuse’s fault – probably directed by the Hood – Virgil couldn’t help but slip into reassuring rescuer mode. That was what he did, after all.

“Okay, okay, take a breath,” he instructed, eyeing the pile of former cabin warily as he tugged Fuse to take a step back. The young man resisted, but Virgil was stronger and he stumbled a single pace away from the pile. “How many explosives are on the ship?”

Fuse glanced around, clearly nervous and slightly scared. Virgil could relate, but he’d been doing the job long enough to compartmentalise that part of his brain and still-fluttering stomach. “Uh… I’m not sure. Nine or ten? I think? I just put them where the Boss said to.”

The silence in his ear from a definitely-eavesdropping John turned frosty, even though his brother still didn’t say a word. No doubt he was about to do his best to wreak hell on the elusive criminal.

“And how many haven’t gone off?” How much of a ticking timebomb was this ship he was stood on – the ship his brothers were trapped in and slowly running out of air as the water seeped in, the ship three Thunderbirds were attached to?

“Only one went off,” Fuse said. He was wringing his hands, still glancing around nervously. “It shouldn’t have gone off until Havoc was clear. He said she’d be safe!”

“Well, she’s trapped with my brothers somewhere down there,” Virgil pointed out. “Where are those explosives and how long do we have until they go off?”

“Five minutes,” Fuse gulped. “I think. But that one went off early and the others are all close enough that if one goes…”

“They all go,” Virgil realised with a sigh. He assessed the situation again. “You want Havoc out of there, I want my brothers out. There’s five minutes, tops, until this boat blows.” Those ten minutes of air didn’t seem significant any more. He took a breath. “We’re going to have to work together on this.”

Fuse glanced sideways, thinking, and Virgil fervently hoped that he loved his sister more than he feared the Hood. John hadn’t warned him about the explosives, which meant Thunderbird Five hadn’t picked them up – the Chaos Crew’s cloaking technology was something Brains and Kayo were itching to get their hands on. That meant that if he had to do it alone, he was working blind. Five minutes to disarm nine or ten explosives… even with the person who had made and placed them with him, it was going to be tight.

It felt like an eternity before Fuse sighed and met his gaze. “Okay.”

Okay. Plan of action time. “We need to get those bombs disarmed as quickly as possible,” Virgil said, knowing the words were redundant but saying them all the same. “Tell me where they are and how to disarm them, and we’ll take half each.” A minute per bomb – just under. He could do that, except Fuse was wringing his hands again.

“I don’t know how to turn them off.”

“What!” Virgil didn’t panic – was the last of his brothers to ever panic in a given situation – but he was starting to get really, really close. “You make them! How do you not know how to disarm them?”

“I-I’ve never had to!” Fuse protested, and right then he’d never looked more like a kid. Virgil took a deep breath, pushing the panic back because this just made things a lot harder but he wasn’t giving up. Not now and not ever.

“We don’t have time for this,” he ground out. “Do you have one with you that isn’t primed?”

Fuse nodded jerkily and reached behind him, withdrawing the familiar purple triangle of a Chaos Crew bomb. Virgil took it gingerly and wasted no time in slipping an arm out of the Jaws of Life to palm a hexdriver and pry the cover off. Five minutes – probably four, now – to work out how to disarm them, teach Fuse, and then get nine-or-ten bombs disarmed.

Easy peasy.

The crisscrossed wires that greeted him weren’t complex, thankfully. If they were, then no amount of miracles would have been enough to pull it off. But it was a simple enough wire pattern; only two wires needed cutting to render them useless.

Well, they could have done with knowing that several times in the past. If all Fuse’s bombs were like this, that was a lot of explosions they could stop. But he didn’t have time to muse on that right now.

“You have a hexdriver and wirecutter?” he asked Fuse, who shook his head. Silently despairing – and starting to wonder if the Hood’s plan wasn’t to one day blow the kid up with his own bombs – Virgil fished out spares from his toolbelt and handed them over. “Okay, it’s simple enough, luckily for us. Pop the cover, and cut these two wires.” He pointed, and then demonstrated by doing it on the one in his hand. “Those two. Got it?”

Fuse stared at the bomb, swallowed loud enough for Virgil to hear it, then nodded.

“Yeah, I got it.”

For the sake of everyone on the boat, Virgil really hoped he did.

“Okay, so where are they? Time’s running out.” Somewhere, Virgil noticed that Gordon’s static had ceased buzzing in his ear, and really hoped that was John’s doing and not because he’d lost what little contact he had with his younger brother. He didn’t have time to worry about that now, not with three and a half minutes and five bombs to disarm.

Luckily, with a plan of action in place, Fuse seemed to regain both his confidence and his memory, bringing up a schematic of the ship and highlighting the ten points he’d fixed bombs to.

“That’s the one that went off,” he said, indicating one inside the cabin area. It was positioned to do exactly what it had managed and cripple the cabin, Virgil noticed. The others were all scattered around the deck, ensuring no escape if any of them went off. Whoever had been trapped by the initial explosion would never stand a chance.

Three minutes, five bombs.

“I’ll take these five,” Virgil said, pointing at the ones on the left of the boat – port side, Gordon’s voice whispered in his head. “You take the other four.”

Fuse nodded and then they moved. Trusting Fuse – trusting a member of the Chaos Crew – felt like something heavy in his gut but Virgil had no choice. He couldn’t trust Fuse, not really, not after everything the guy had done, but he could and had to trust Fuse’s love for his sister. He stood to lose almost as much as Virgil did if he didn’t help.

That, Virgil clung to as he found the first purple bomb, merrily flashing red at him. Popping the cover was harder when it was fixed down to something, but Virgil wasn’t going to let anything stop him and the purple casing was no match for a Tracy on a mission. Two quick but steady snips of the wirecutter later, and that was one down, four to go.

Onto the next.

He reached the fifth and final one with thirty seconds to go. Plenty of time, but the casing didn’t pop off when he levered at it like all of the others had. Instead, it bent alarmingly, and the red flashing light sped up, much like Virgil’s heartrate was doing. He tried tackling it from another angle, but the cover might as well have been superglued for all the luck he was having.

Fuse let out a shout that sounded triumphant from the other end of the boat, and Virgil took a deep breath. Fifteen seconds, and this was the last one. If Fuse was telling the truth, but Fuse had to be telling the truth otherwise his sister was going to die, too.

Ten seconds, and the cover still refused to budge. He wasn’t going to get it disarmed in time, but Virgil wasn’t giving up. Not now, not ever.

Five seconds and he finished cutting around the part of the boat it was fixed to with his laser. He didn’t know how big the blast radius was going to be, but the further from the boat it was, the better their odds.

He was still wearing the Jaws of Life. Virgil wasn’t the best pitcher in the world, but he had mechanical assistance and the steadfast determination that no-one’s dying today. With barely two seconds left, the bomb was hurtling through the air, away from the boat into the open ocean.

It barely reached the water before exploding, sending a shockwave that rocked the boat and had Virgil stumbling backwards, colliding with the cable from Thunderbird One. Above him, VTOL continued to scream their displeasure.

He took a moment to breathe, stomach churning its way back to stability one breath at a time, before pushing himself upright again.

The rescue wasn’t over yet. The bombs were gone, but there was only five minutes left until the compartment his brothers were in flooded. Gordon had plenty of oxygen and could hold his breath another five minutes, easily. Longer, if he was prepared. He had no idea what Havoc’s condition was, beyond ‘conscious and sniping with Gordon last he heard’, but Scott was unconscious and while Virgil had every faith that Gordon would be able to work something out, the fact was that they hadn’t gone into the rescue expecting to need extra oxygen, and Gordon’s supplies were mostly in Thunderbird Four.

He trusted Gordon, but the hard number he had was five minutes before Scott was at risk of drowning.

His comm crackled into life, Gordon’s voice barely audible past the static, but he couldn’t make out a single word his brother was saying. That didn’t stop him from hearing the underlying panic.

“Gordon, I can’t hear you,” he replied, pulling himself together and heading back towards the ruined cabin, where Fuse was staring somewhat blankly at the pile of rubble between them and their siblings. “John, is there any way to clear this static?”

“It’s physical damage to the unit, so there’s nothing I can do,” his brother said, sounding rather annoyed at the failure of their communications. Virgil didn’t blame him. “But after that shockwave, the boat seems to have taken more damage. The compartment’s filling faster now. I’d estimate you have two minutes, three at most, before they’re underwater.”

So much for five minutes.

“Any good news for me, John?”

“You… seem to be working with Fuse rather well?” his brother offered. “Otherwise, I’m afraid not. Communications are still down, as you’re finding, I don’t know any more than you do on their conditions, and both Thunderbirds are struggling to keep the boat up. Once you’ve got them out you’ll need to move fast.”

“So no breathing room until we’re off this sinking boat,” Virgil summarised. “Thanks, John.”

“Just get them out,” his brother responded.

Virgil slid his arm back into the Jaws of Life and felt the technology whirr around him as he returned to Fuse’s side and the jumble of debris between him and his brothers.

“Does Havoc have an oxygen supply?” he asked. “They’ll be underwater in less than three minutes.”

“If it’s not damaged,” Fuse slumped, reaching for the mishmash of former-cabin. “Her radio’s damaged and I can’t contact her.”

“Well I heard her over what little communication I’ve got with my brothers, so she’s conscious,” Virgil reassured him. “We just have to get them out.” He eyed the mess in front of him and shook his head. Move the wrong bit and it’d probably all go crashing down. “Just like Jenga. You any good at that?”

Fuse shook his head. “Don’t play that sort of game.”

“In that case, stand back,” Virgil told him. “I’m good at Jenga.” Although admittedly he’d never played it with people’s lives on the line before, or on a time limit.

The load-bearing chunks of broken cabin were easy enough to pinpoint, and it was with all the confidence of years of heavy lifting that he cleared away all the loose debris so that it wouldn’t fall when he moved the heavier ones later. Still, he was ever-conscious of the time slipping away from him, and it only took one jerky move to send a cascade of small segments tumbling down, past the load-bearing sections and into the belly of the ship.

Less haste, more speed, he scolded himself, but the action had actually cleared the immediate issue; the load-bearing struts were no longer load-bearing, and with a mechanical whine, the Jaws of Life made short work relocating them to clear the area.

One minute down, one to go, and he still had to find his brothers. They were still in the engine room, and the fact that they hadn’t moved told him that they must be stuck there. Unconscious Scott or not, Gordon would have moved them as close to the exit as he could get.

Unless Havoc…

No, he refused to let that cross his mind. Fuse was working with him to make sure Havoc was safe. Surely Havoc was smart enough to know that working with Gordon would be better for her than being hostile. He’d even heard Gordon’s garbled tones over the comms not two minutes earlier. Havoc wasn’t the problem, not this time.

The problem was the collapsed corridor between him and the engine room.

Time was ticking, the fluttering in his stomach that had died down was back in full force because he could hear the water sloshing around on the other side of the barricade but not his brothers, and there was an entire collapsed section of corridor in the way.

If he couldn’t hear Gordon sniping with Havoc or trying to rouse Scott, they were probably already underwater. If Scott hadn’t regained consciousness, his life was entirely in Gordon’s hands right now, and while there were no hands Virgil trusted more given the situation the fear was curling up inside him that he was too late.

No.

He took a deep breath.

He was not too late. He was going to get them out of there and he was going to do it now.

Virgil had steady hands. He was an artist, a pianist, an engineer. No matter how much his stomach fluttered as though an entire swarm of frantic butterflies had taken up residence and his heart raced to the rhythm of a bomb’s flickering red light moments before detonation, his hands stayed steady.

It was those steady hands that reached out and directed the mechanical hands of the Jaws of Life to dig their way through the jumble of broken boat in his way. Fast, but steady and sure as he stopped letting himself think about lifeless bodies and instead remembered the game of Jenga he’d been having with Gordon just before the call came in. Jenga was easy, a simple logistics puzzle, and Virgil slipped into that mindset. All the turns were his, the tower of blocks was a mass of broken boat, and Virgil hadn’t lost a game of Jenga in years.

That record was not breaking now.

Debris piled up beside him, and at some point Fuse had followed him down, but Virgil’s focus was on the shimmering surface of rising water as he broke through the precariously-balanced debris. A blur of purple almost knocked him over, but while Havoc was strong, she was slight and he caught her – sopping wet and clearly fuming – by the shoulders.

“Go careful or it’ll fall down on top of you,” he warned her. She scoffed and shrugged him off before hurrying past him, but she wasn’t his concern any more, not when there was IR blue with a bright splash of yellow breaking the surface of the water and taking in a huge lungful of air.

Gordon was helmetless, blond hair plastered to his face as water trailed down his skin as though he was in the swimming pool at home. Aside from the deep breaths he was taking after holding his breath for however long, he seemed fine, and Virgil’s attention snapped to the limp body he was clutching.

The yellow-rimmed helmet jammed on Scott’s head and creatively secured with far too much insulation tape to keep it air and water tight did not belong to his eldest brother. It didn’t fit right – hence the need for the insulation tape – and was definitely too small, but Gordon’s yellow rebreather was attached to it and while it was an unorthodox solution that Scott would be complaining about later, Virgil had no doubt it had saved his life.

“Good thinking,” he praised, reaching down to take Scott from his brother. “Injuries?”

As soon as he had hold of him, Gordon was scrabbling at the tape, ripping it off in a way that was bound to smart Scott later. “Not that I don’t like hugs, but there’s no way we’re getting through that tunnel tied together,” the aquanaut said in a rush. He was right; the rebreather was still attached to Gordon’s baldric and getting Scott out was going to be difficult enough without them being linked together. “I’m fine, wasn’t near the blast, but Scott got hit in the head by the debris and it smashed his helmet. He’s been out of it since everything went boom.” That worried Virgil, but what worried him more was how long it was taking Gordon to get the helmet off of Scott’s head.

The water level was still rising.

“Ah hah!” Gordon exclaimed triumphantly as the last of the tape came off and he was able to detach the rebreather and reclaim his helmet. Trusting his fish of a brother to get himself out of the water, especially now he had his helmet back, Virgil turned his attention to Scott and hauled the limp body clear of the flooded room.

Despite the helmet, his hair was still wet. Virgil latched onto that observation as he pulled him over his shoulder and headed back for the exit as fast as he could. Behind him, the familiar sound of wet flippers reassured him that Gordon was following, but also told him that the water levels were still rising.

“Thunderbird One’s VTOLs are overheating,” John said suddenly, his voice grim. “She won’t hold much longer.”

Virgil frowned. If Thunderbird One went down in the ocean, she’d be all but impossible to retrieve and he really didn’t need any more delays. He eyed the end of the corridor, knowing that somewhere, Fuse and Havoc were ahead of him.

“Any sign of the Chaos Crew?” he asked, speeding up as much as he dared. A jolt in the wrong place would bring the debris down on top of them. Water sloshed around his ankles.

“I’ve lost them.” He could imagine John shaking his head. “I’d assume that means they’re in their ship and clear.”

Virgil was going to have to take that chance.

“Is Thunderbird Four still attached to the boat?” Gordon asked. Virgil had all but forgotten the little yellow sub, but John confirmed it and he nodded, realising that with his comms still down, Gordon couldn’t hear their brother.

“John, cut Thunderbird One loose and get Thunderbird Four back to the module,” he said.

“Are you sure? Thunderbird Two can’t take the full weight of the boat for long,” John reminded him.

Virgil reached the end of the corridor, water somewhere near the top of his boots, and gestured for Gordon to go on ahead. The aquanaut started to frown, then glanced at Scott and acquiesced.

“I’m sure,” he said, watching Gordon scramble up to the deck. “We can’t afford Thunderbird One crashing, and Thunderbird Two can hold long enough.”

She had to.

“EOS has Thunderbird Four,” John informed him. “She’ll be back in the module in approximately forty seconds. I’ll cut Thunderbird One loose once you’re on the deck. Not before.”

Virgil supposed that was as good a reason as any to hurry. Gordon was clear, leaning back in to take Scott, and he passed their brother up to him before heaving his way out.

True to John’s word, above them Thunderbird One jerked skywards, disengaging from the boat. Her VTOLs were spluttering painfully, and in the blink of an eye John had her diverting power to the rear thrusters and jetting off for home.

Thunderbird Two squealed, a noise that shot right through Virgil as the boat juddered and lurched beneath his feet. A resounding crash from below deck told him that his careful Jenga of debris had toppled entirely, but they were all clear so that didn’t matter now.

What mattered was getting onboard Thunderbird Two as she juddered and shrieked in protest at the weight Virgil was asking her to hold up, just a little longer.

“Thirty seconds before her engines reach critical,” John warned him. “Get on board now.”

Gordon had hold of Scott, one hand clinging to the deck while the other clutched his brother’s unmoving form close. A particularly large lurch had Virgil crashing down, landing on one knee and forcing him to stabilise himself with one of his claws. Above them, swinging violently with the Thunderbird’s movement, the cockpit platform lowered.

If all three of them were conscious, they’d make it. But Scott’s eyes were still closed, and either Virgil or Gordon needed to sacrifice their hands to keep hold of him. Hands that were very much needed to keep their own balance and scramble onto the platform.

Gordon knew it, too. Virgil could see it in his eyes.

“Go,” he said, reaching to take Scott. “Get on board.”

“Not a chance,” Gordon disagreed. “I’m the aquanaut. If anyone’s going in the water, it’s me. You’re weighed down by the exosuit.”

He was right, but Virgil didn’t want to admit it. He’d only just managed to get Scott and Gordon out of the water; the last thing he wanted was either of them going back in, but Thunderbird Two’s lurching was getting worse and he could hear her VTOLs starting to splutter.

“How about you all move and no-one goes in the water?” John snapped in his ear. “Virgil, get on the platform.” He sounded half angry, half terrified. Not for the first time, Virgil decided that he did not envy his older brother’s job.

Another lurch sent all three of them sprawling sideways, slamming them against the side of the deck and further from the rescue platform. Something went clatter.

Virgil saw something fall past him, but before he could register what it was, there was a dull thunk, like the sound of one of their cables hitting the deck, and the ship lurched back upright.

“What the hell?” Gordon muttered. “What was- oh.”

Oh indeed.

Virgil looked at the cable that had just appeared where Thunderbird One’s had been, heard Thunderbird Two’s VTOLs quiet down just a tad as something else took the strain, and followed the thick grey line up to see a purple and grey machine spluttering away.

“I guess she didn’t hate me after all,” Gordon quipped, but Virgil could hear the wide-eyed surprise in his voice.

There wasn’t time to wonder why the Chaos Cruiser was helping them. The little thing was even less equipped to hold the boat up than Thunderbird One had been, and wouldn’t last long. But the little clatter had reminded him of something he really shouldn’t have forgotten in the first place.

“Gordon, hand me Scott’s grapple launcher.”

There was a split second pause before Gordon dove for their brother’s baldric. “Oh, we’re idiots. Virgil, get moving.”

“Gordon-”

“I’m the better shot, and also less weight,” his brother argued. “Get moving.” The aquanaut didn’t even wait for him to agree before firing straight at the hole in the bottom of the cockpit. It was a bulls’ eye, of course, and Virgil stifled a reflex noise of complaint as he scooped Scott up and scrambled for the rescue platform.

It was still rocking, the Chaos Cruiser not strong enough to fully stabilise the boat, but with stubborn determination and a healthy dose of grappling using the Jaws of Life, he fumbled his way onto the platform, Scott in a heap beside him. The familiar whirring of a grapple cable – and seriously, why hadn’t they remembered Scott had those until one of his grapple packs had fallen out of his baldric – heralded Gordon swinging in on a rapidly-shortening cable, and with a sigh of relief that sounded an awful lot like finally, John set the platform rising back into the cockpit.

Just before they were swallowed up by his ‘bird, Virgil found himself looking out at the Chaos Cruiser. Havoc and Fuse both stared back, one gaze cold as ice, the other warmer than he’d expected. Then it cloaked, shimmering into invisibility, and he was staring at the inside of his cockpit.

Thunderbird Two juddered, and the red warning lights shut off.

“I cut her loose,” John said from his wrist before he could panic. “I’ll get her to pick up Thunderbird Four, and then she’s heading for home, unless Scott needs a hospital?”

Scott. It was against regulations and Virgil was going to be grumbling at himself for it later, but he disengaged the Jaws of Life entirely and stepped out of it, leaving it loose in the cockpit. Gordon had already crouched down next to their brother, and was poking Scott’s cheek.

The malcontent grumble he got was music to Virgil’s ears. “He’s waking up, John, but I’ll do a scan just to be sure.” Bleary blue eyes blinked at him as he held the scanner up, and Gordon broke into a relieved grin.

“Hey, bro,” he beamed. “Nice to see you back.”

“Ow,” Scott rasped as the scan flashed up a group of ambers but no reds. Nothing they couldn’t handle at home. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing particularly exciting,” Gordon told him airily, in that tone that all older brothers knew meant trouble. Virgil was pleased to see Scott squinting at him suspiciously. “Just a woman with a very sharp tongue and an extended swimming session. Pretty fun, actually!”

“Your idea of fun concerns me,” Virgil drawled, but kept his eyes on Scott, who was already pushing himself to sit up. “John, I think home is fine.”

“F.A.B.” His brother didn’t even bother hiding the relief in his voice.

“Do I want to know?” Scott asked, voice dripping with suspicion. It was a rhetorical question – he’d be hounding them for every last detail before the day was done.

“Know that we maybe kinda just a little might need to be a smidge thankful for the Chaos Crew saving our butts?” Gordon asked in that same sunny tone. “Probably not.”

“We saved them first,” Virgil clarified before Scott could explode. “Long story short, your last life sign was Havoc, one of the explosives Fuse planted went off too soon which knocked you out and trapped you two with Havoc in the engine room, and then I had to teach Fuse how to disarm his own bombs before the rest of them went off, then dig you three out.”

Scott groaned and put a hand to his head. “I think I must be hallucinating, because I could have sworn you just said you taught Fuse to disarm his own bombs.”

“I wish it was all in your head, Scott, but no, that actually happened,” Virgil admitted. “Come on, let’s get you in a seat.” He looped Scott’s arm around his shoulders and grabbed his waist before hoisting him up. Gordon hovered on his other side as they made the short few steps to one of the passenger seats and Scott sank down into it.

“Thunderbird One?”

“John’s sent her home already.” Virgil decided against mentioning the damage to her VTOLs. He didn’t want to be in the room when Scott found out about that. “You were unconscious for fifteen minutes, Scott.” Was it really only fifteen minutes? The whole thing had felt so much longer. “You’re piloting nowhere until Grandma gives you the all clear.”

Scott groaned, but it was his normal groan of annoyance at being grounded and not one of pain. Still, Virgil checked his head with his fingers, which Scott suffered with his usual bad grace. A lump, but no cut – fortunate, considering his unintended swim – and otherwise seemed in pretty good shape considering his spate of unconsciousness. Virgil snapped a cold pack and prodded his brother into holding it against his head.

“And keep it there,” he warned. The eye roll he got in response should have annoyed him but was really just another reassurance.

“So are you going to tell me what happened?” Scott asked. “Because so far I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Unfortunately, big bro, it’s all true,” Gordon drawled. He’d sprawled himself out over the co-pilot’s chair, arms folded behind his head and flippers on the dash. Virgil glowered but the squid ignored him. “Chaos Crew got involved but ended up helping us out. Rather begrudgingly, in Havoc’s case. Virg had Fuse, so he’s the one to ask about him.”

“He was worried about his sister,” Virgil shrugged. “Family loyalty trumps his loyalty to the Hood, apparently.”

“I can believe that,” Gordon shrugged.

Scott sighed. “This all sounds ridiculous. Let’s just go home.”

Virgil grinned. “That’s the plan, Scott.”

“Besides, Virg still owes me a rematch,” Gordon injected. “Johnny ruined our last game.”

“You ruined your own game,” the ginger sniped, proving that he was still eavesdropping. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“I think I’m done with Jenga for the day,” Virgil admitted, pressing his hand over Scott’s on the cool pack as his brother’s grip slackened. A quick check on his brother proved it was just Scott trying to escape treatment again, rather than anything concerning. “How about chess?”

Gordon squinted at him in confusion. “You know you’ll lose.”

Virgil smirked. “We’ll see.”

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds 2015 #tag team secret santa #secret santa 2020 #Tsarinatorment #Virgil Tracy #Scott Tracy #Gordon Tracy #The Chaos Crew

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