#but it had some offshoots that I took off and I bet I can get to root and resprout

[lostinthewiind]

Brave Heart: Chapter Thirty-One

Attack on Titan

Rating: Mature

Warnings: sexual themes, death, gore, mature themes, extreme violence, body horror, blood, weapons, major character death, age-gap relationship

By the time the sounds of crystal crashing down all around them had ceased and Vera had finally convinced herself to open her eyes and face what was left after the destruction, she was greeted by the sight of Eren's Titan form looming over her and the others, its body completely encapsulated by a hard shell of crystal.

Using the many branch-like offshoots of crystal that Eren had produced to protect his friends, Mikasa and Jean climbed atop the Titan and broke Eren free of the hardened body.

"Not too shabby, Eren." Levi gazed up at the crystalized Titan. "Even after we cut you from it, the Titan hasn't disappeared. This could be a game-changer."

Eren, who had been pulled to the ground by Mikasa, sat and tried to regain his strength. "I almost forgot . . ." His eyes widened. "Listen, before I transformed, I drank from a bottle that said 'armour'."

"Gotcha." Levi nodded. "Guess that's all you needed to pull it off because this time you did it easily. You saved all our lives. You came up with and built everything we see here in the blink of an eye. It's not exactly pretty, but I can see its potential. I bet this is how the walls were made too. Guess what, this means we finally have a real shot at plugging the hole in wall Maria. We had a hell of a time getting here, took long detours, watched friends die, but as ugly as it's been, look at the position we're in now."

Hanging his head, eyes still lined by the faint red markings that appeared after transforming, Eren exhaled slowly, his mind clearly plagued by worry and doubt.

"Captain!" Sasha called as she and Connie descended from a hole in the ceiling. "We've secured an exit, Sir!"

"Hange's fine," Connie quickly added, putting everyone's worries at ease. "Armin and Moblit, too."

"I'm glad to hear it," Levi acknowledged the welcomed information.

As soon as their feet touched solid ground again, Sasha and Connie rushed over to Eren, who had still been trapped in his Titan body when they had first left to find a way out.

"Eren!" Sasha dropped to her knees in front of him and bowed down before him. "We're all safe thanks to you! But to be completely honest, when I saw you run off into the lights, stumbling like a drunk and wailing like a baby, I thought we were screwed! You looked like an idiot and my fate was in your hands. It was awful! Quit your bawling, have some dignity! That's what I was thinking, anyway . . ."

Grabbing Sasha by the back of her cloak, Vera helped pull her back up onto her feet. "Thank you for that, Sasha. Very helpful."

"Yeah, relax." Connie side-eyed her.

Spinning on his heel, Levi turned and looked up at the hole from which Sasha and Connie had emerged. "Let's go," he ordered. "We have a big ass Titan to catch."

Working together, and with the help of Armin and Moblit pulling them out of the hole and back up onto the grass, the squad regrouped above ground. It was only then that they were able to appreciate the true damage Rod Reiss' Titan had left in its wake as it pulled itself meter by meter along the ground, its body much too large and its limbs much too thin and weak to properly lift itself up and walk. All in all, it was the most disturbing and pathetic Titan Vera had ever laid eyes on.

Heading back to the wagon and waiting horses, who somehow hadn't been spooked away by what they had witnessed, the squad got ready to go after the Titan.

With Eren and Historia resting in the back of the wagon with Hange, who was doing okay considering their injuries, Armin sat up front again while Levi, Vera, and Mikasa rode horseback this time around. Vera hadn't missed the way Levi had winced ever-so-slightly when he had used his sore leg to climb onto his horse's back, but she knew he would deny anything if she asked and decided to remain silent.

Not long after they had departed the Reiss estate, Commander Erwin met up with the squad. "Anyone hurt?" his eyes gravitated toward Hange, who was lying in the back of the wagon, their face scratched up and blood staining the right shoulder of their white shirt.

"Yeah, Hange took a hit," Levi informed him, even though he could clearly see that for himself.

"Doesn't look like anything too serious," Erwin commented. "You've done excellent work, all of you."

Levi gave a nod. "I've got a whole slew of things to report, but first . . ." He gestured toward the giant Titan crawling in the opposite direction as them a few yards away, the hot steam that continued to radiate from it preventing anyone from getting too close.

"Anything on that Titan?"

"It's Rod Reiss," Levi began with the most shocking tidbit of information. "I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this, Commander."

"Time's short." Erwin looked back over his shoulder at the Titan. "We can't afford to stand here and chat. Head back to the wall."

Levi cocked his head as Erwin pulled on the reins and turned his horse back around. "You gonna let that thing drag its fat ass all the way to Sina?"

"Well, more specifically, I'm letting it continue towards Orvud District."

Kicking their horses forward again, the squad continued their return to the wall while Erwin regrouped with his soldiers, the lot of them hoping to make it back with enough time to spare to come up with a suitable plan before Rod Reiss' Titan could reach Orvud.

Travelling alongside the Titan, Vera could feel the heat on her right side and before long, sweat began to drip down her forehead and neck. The warmth radiating off of this enormous Titan was almost unbelievable, and with just how much skin it had to burn away and keep everyone at a distance, Vera wondered just how they were going to get close enough to kill it before it reached wall Sina.

"All right, time to think," Hange said loud enough for everyone to hear, their brain working overtime even though she should have been doing nothing but resting. "First off, Lord Reiss was after the Founding Titan's power, and that power currently resides within Eren. Thing is, the Founding Titan can only be used at full potential by someone of royal blood. But then, when a royal does obtain the Founding Titan's power, they suddenly take on the first king's ideology; which means they'll refuse to do anything about the Titans. Well, this certainly is a conundrum. So the first king thinks this is true peace, huh? I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with him there."

"You know, we still have the option to go back," Eren suggested, his voice quiet, almost as if he felt conflicted about bringing up the option in the first place. "We just need that Titan to eat me. Then Reiss will become human again. We could still have a true Founding Titan. It's possible."

Mikasa, who was riding beside the wagon, overheard what Eren had said. "Wait, you don't mean-"

"It's worth considering," Levi said. "Once Reiss turns back into a human, we could capture him and undo the first king's brainwashing. Assuming that it can be done, it may well open a path to save humanity. Tell me, Eren . . . if that turns out to be our best bet, are you really willing to do it?"

"Yes, I am," Eren answered without a hint of hesitation.

"Eren, I can't let you." Just as expected, Mikasa refused to even entertain the thought of a plan that put Eren in harm's way, let alone hinged on his actual death.

"So we came all this way to rescue Eren, just to kill him anyway?" Vera quirked a brow. "Not to sound like I'm especially fond of Eren or anything like that, but sacrificing the only hope humanity currently has on a whim seems a little stupid."

Shaking her head, Historia addressed the group. "Let's not forget the other option." She looked up from her hands, determination set on her face. "First off, the plan you're discussing is full of flaws. For one thing, it may not be possible to free my father from the first king's will. And no matter how you restrain him, if he alters everyone's memories, we're finished. And consider how much there is that we still don't know about the Founding Titan. This isn't worth the risk."

"She's right," Armin agreed. "It's not even guaranteed that Reiss would turn back to normal if he did eat Eren; that's just a hypothesis. No one's actually seen it happen before."

Historia nodded, silently thanking Armin for backing her up. "So far, we've only been led by destructive pacifists, and if they'd kept the Founding Titan's powers, that's how it would stay. This is humanity's first chance to escape from them." Historia turned to look at Eren. "Eren, your father wasn't evil. He was trying to save humanity from the first king. He stole the Founding Titan from my sister and then he murdered my father's wife and children because he had no other choice."

Stunned, Eren reached up and grabbed a handful of his own hair between his fingers. "You mean . . ."

"Yeah, that's right! The Doctor Jaeger I knew would only have done something like that if he felt like he had to," Armin told Eren.

"Agreed," Mikasa added. "He must've known another way—a way to save humanity without Reiss blood. And that must have been why he left you the key to the cellar."

"What, your cellar?" Sasha inquired. "Oh, yeah, right. I'd forgotten all about that. You mean it's actually important now?"

Connie shrugged. "Apparently it is."

"What matters most to me is that we have a way to plug wall Maria," Jean said. "The way I see it, that makes our choice pretty clear."

"You know, that's actually a fairly convincing argument." Levi gave credit where credit was due.

Adjusting slightly and wincing, Hange sighed. "For what it's worth, I think we should stick with Eren too. But listen, are you sure about this, Historia? That Titan's a major threat. It's not like we can just let it wander around freely inside the walls. Capturing it isn't an option, it's way too big. Which means that our only way forward is to kill your father."

Blue eyes sparkling in the moonlight, Historia turned and watched the Titan that her father had become as it snaked along the ground beside them in the distance. "Eren, I should apologize." Her mood changed suddenly as she averted her gaze. "Under the Reiss chapel, I really considered turning into a Titan and killing you. And honestly, it wasn't to save humanity. I just wanted to believe my father was right. Even more than that, I wanted him to like me. But it's time for me and him to part ways now."

Looking down from the back of her horse, Vera locked eyes with Historia and shared a small, warm smile. "Really sucks when parents don't turn out to be the people you thought they were, huh?"

Historia cracked a faint smile in return. "Sounds like you have some personal experience."

"Oh, you don't even know the half of it." Vera exhaled. "Just believe me when I say it's a lot more freeing when you start living for yourself instead of trying to live up to someone else's expectations of you. You should give it a try."

"I might just do that."

During what was left of the ride back to Orvud District, Eren attempted to use the power to control Titans on Rod Reiss's Titan, but no matter how hard he tried or how loud he yelled, the monstrous beast continued its leisurely crawl toward the wall. After yelling obscenities and realizing that his words were doing no good at all, Eren slumped his shoulders and admitted defeat.

Once back behind wall Sina and within Orvud, Hange was sent to get some immediate medical treatment while the remainder of the squad got ready to attend the meeting where a plan would be put into place about what to do about the Reiss Titan.

Before that, however, Levi stopped everyone, making it clear he had one last thing to say. "Historia, I forgot to tell you." He captured the blonde's attention, along with everyone else's. "There's something we need you to do."

"What's that?" Historia questioned.

"This is an order from Erwin," Levi prefaced. "Once we finish off this Titan, seeing as you're the true successor to the throne, you'll become queen."

A collective gasp emitted from the gathering and Historia's jaw dropped. "Wait, Queen Historia?" Sasha blurted out. "You're kidding, right?"

"The coup d'état was successful but the people won't follow military rule forever," Levi elaborated. "We need to give them a heartwarming story—one where the rightful heir retakes her crown from the pretender."

"Oh, I see." Historia hung her head and slumped her shoulders, clearly less than excited about this duty she needed to fulfill.

Raising his hand, Connie didn't bother to wait to be called on before speaking. "Hey, you heard what Historia was saying earlier, didn't you, Captain? 'Cause, well, it sounded to me like maybe, in siding against her dad, she finally broke off from that part of her life, you know? It's just like . . ."

"Like what?" Levi glared. "You have something to say, then say it."

"Um, I-"

Before Connie could explain himself, Jean piped up. "Hey, Captain. What Connie's trying to say is that Historia finally broke free from the Reiss family and decided she's more than just a bloodline. So for us to force her into another role for that reason, I . . . I just don't think it's fair!"

"It's fine," Historia finally spoke for herself. "If my next duty is to become a queen, then that's what I'll do."

"But, Historia . . ." Armin could see the reluctance etched into her features.

"I do appreciate your concern, but whether this is forced on me is really up to me to decide, and I've decided." Historia smiled as she turned to Levi. "Captain, before that, I have one condition for you."

Levi crossed his arms. "And that is?"

"While my fate is still my own, I want to put everything I have on the line."

Levi agreed without hesitation, and from there, Vera and the squad joined Erwin and a few other soldiers to meet and decide what the plan of action was going to be.

When Historia strode into the room, uniform on and ODM harness strapped to her person, the look of confidence and happiness on her face had increased tenfold since Vera had seen her not five minutes ago.

As Historia fell into line with the others, Mikasa nudged her shoulder and nodded her head in Levi's direction. "Once you're queen, you can punch that smug runt right in the face."

Before Historia had a chance to react, a Garrison soldier entered to room. "Sirs," he addressed Erwin and the other officers present "We have determined the Reiss Titan's location. It's Southwest, approaching Orvud. It's fast; at this rate, it'll reach the walls before dawn."

"Right, understood." The Garrison officer beside Erwin nodded. "Commander Erwin, I'm sure everyone here would like to hear your plan. How can we evacuate the people in such a short time?"

"That's not part of the plan," Erwin said.

"What's that?"

"The people of Orvud District will need to stay exactly where they are," Erwin rephrased, causing the room to break out into hushed mumbles.

The Garrison officer gasped. "But, Commander!" He grabbed Erwin by the collar of his leather jacket. "If we don't get these civilians out of the city, they'll die by the thousands! That hulking monstrosity will be a stone's throw from the wall by morning."

"That Titan is an Abnormal," Hange informed him, their presence at the meeting a surprise considering how rough she had looked lying in the back of the wagon. Now, however, with her injuries tended to and arm in a sling, she looked only a little worse for wear.

"Right, and what the hell does that even mean?" the Garrison officer snapped.

"It behaves strangely," Hange explained. "Unlike most Titans we encounter, it's only attracted to large groups of people. Hence the word 'abnormal'. Put simply, given the choice between a few soldiers right next to it and a distant but densely populated city, it'll choose the city. So if we were to evacuate Orvud's populus to the Interior of wall Sina right now, the Titan will change its course, destroying the wall and anything else in its path. Left unchecked, it would make for the city with the greatest density of people, Mitras. The ensuing rampage would deliver a devastating blow to humanity. As we rode for Orvud, we had Eren Jaeger attempt to use his recently discovered power to control Titans. Rod Reiss' Titan didn't react in any way."

Once Hange had finished detailing why the people couldn't be evacuated, Erwin continued with the plan. "If we're to stop this thing, it'll have to be outside the walls of Orvud District. For that to happen, we require the citizens here to act as bait," he said. "However, this doesn't change the fact that our first and foremost duty as soldiers is to protect the people. In the event that we're unable to halt the target, we'll take measures to minimize civilian losses. We'll announce a district-wide evacuation drill tonight. The people will be gathered away from the outer wall, ready to escape if the battle is lost."

Eyes narrowed, the Garrison officer stared Erwin down. "It seems there's no other choice," he admitted.

"The body of this Titan is the largest we've seen yet," Erwin described. "It presents an easy target. Our wall-mounted cannons should prove highly effective, but if we can't bring it down with artillery, the Scout Regiment will throw everything we have at it."

With that, the meeting was adjourned and everyone was dismissed to get ready for the plan to take effect at dawn and get what little rest they could manage. As Vera exited the room and broke away from the group, eager to find a quiet spot to clear her mind and rest her body, she picked up on a quiet, barely audible pair of footsteps following her. At first, she paid it no mind, but as she ventured farther and farther away from the others and continued to hear her pursuer, she stopped in her tracks and sighed.

"I know I told you to scold me after, but maybe not right now, Sir." Vera turned to see Levi standing at the other end of the hall. "You can scold me double if I can take a rain check this time."

Levi clasped his hands together behind his back and cocked his head slightly. "How did you know it was me?"

"Your footsteps were light and almost undetectable, like someone who knows how to move around unnoticed," Vera shared her reasoning. "But you were purposefully stepping with your heel first so that you wouldn't actually sneak up on me. You wanted me to know you were following me."

"I'm impressed." Levi took a few more steps closer, this time completely silent. "Seems you are picking up a few things here and there."

"I'm observant," Vera smirked. "A good little shadow. Kenny would be proud."

Levi hummed. "Speaking of Kenny, care to share why, exactly, you were so adamant on fighting him earlier? You're extremely lucky you made it out unscathed, let alone alive."

"I told you. He made it personal."

"You have a nasty habit of lashing out when people personally attack you."

Vera blew out a puff of air as a strand of her blonde hair fell into her face. "If I'm allowed to choose, I'd rather a scolding than having my head bashed in again." She thought back to the courtroom and how badly her head had pounded after Levi had bounced her skull off of the bannister a few times.

"No scolding or beatings . . . this time," Levi assured her. "I'm just curious as to why you seem so eager to cut your life short, is all."

Vera crossed her arms over her chest. "You think I'm reckless."

"Rushing ahead after Kenny and his crew without any backup seems a little reckless to me, yes."

Shaking her head, Vera refused to show a sliver of weakness. "He tried to kill me first," she repeated her previous excuse, unwilling to say aloud that the possibility of losing yet another teammate had pushed her past her breaking point. She didn't need Levi thinking she was incompetent; not when he was already aware of her fragile state surrounding the family drama unfolding around her constantly.

"Yeah . . . you said that." It was obvious that Levi didn't believe her for a second, but instead of pushing for further details, he accepted her answer. "Just be more careful, okay? If you die, I have to fill out a lot of paperwork."

The hint of a smile played at the corners of Vera's lips. "Worried about me or something?" Levi didn't humour that with a response. "Well, if I die, there isn't really any next-of-kin stuff to worry about. Just hand my belongings out to whoever wants 'em, fill my spot on the squad, and call it a day."

Levi furrowed his brows and his lips pressed into a firm line. Still, he was silent.

"You seem unamused by my making light of the situation," Vera commented, her joking demeanour starting to fade away. "If you agree to forget about what happened today, I'll let you have something of mine after I die to remember me by."

Levi remained unimpressed.

Dropping the act, Vera exhaled, her body deflating like a balloon as she slumped her shoulders. "Can we please keep pretending like we're okay? Just for a little while longer?" she pleaded.

"You're the only one here pretending."

Vera almost laughed at that. "Yeah, okay."

Between Vera pretending that her emotional state was fine and Levi pretending that his leg wasn't still bothering him all the time, the duo had become a pair of regular liars—by then they lied to everyone else so much that it was evident they were starting to actually believe it themselves.

All they craved was for the people around them to believe they were capable of doing their jobs with a clear mind and able body. Beyond that, nothing else really mattered.

"You should get some rest, Kline." Levi broke the silence.

"Yeah, you too, Sir," Vera responded. Before turning and continuing her search for a quiet place, she spoke up once more. "Oh, and, Captain? I'll have my head on my shoulders tomorrow. No recklessness, I promise."

Levi just nodded before heading back the way he had come, leaving Vera alone in the dimly lit hallway with a whole new host of thoughts and feelings to decipher.

#lostinthewiind #attack on titan #brave heart #fanfiction #AoT #OC #original character #eren jaeger #mikasa ackerman #armin arlert #levi ackerman #erwin smith #story #titans #tumblr fic #wattpad #jean kirstein #historia reiss #annie leonhart #reiner braun #hange zoe #bertholdt hoover #connie springer #vera kline #sasha braus #ymir fritz #reiner braun x oc #levi ackerman x oc

[kvetchlandia]

Richard Meltzer     Lester Bangs Passed Out on Meltzer’s “Highly Uncomfortable Living Rm. Chair,” 104 Perry St., Apt. 4, West Village, New York City     1972

On December 14th, this December 14th, Lester Conway Bangs, while probably not the greatest writer of his generation, arguably its most vital so far to die, would have been 36. Haunted and driven by demons, so- called, a cheerless many of whom/what/ which — or their kindred ilk — he directly sought, found cum stumbled upon, or was inadvertently ensnared by on the demon picnic grounds of Rock and Roll, he never made it to 34.

Following the lead of a handful of babes in the rock-critical woods, one of which I'll admit (if sometimes reluctantly) to having been. Bangs at the dawn of the seventies played as prominent a role as anyone in both expanding the expressive boundaries of rockwriting as a form and giving it a voice that played the newer, more mannered and cautious, mass-market rockmags like Rolling Stone and Creem — the latter of which he even edited for awhile — as on the dime as it had played the catch-as-catch-can, limited-edition fanzines whence it came. Though he also served as the burgeoning genre’s most prolific scribbler, a mission he sustained with relative ease for the bulk of his days, it is to the man’s lasting credit that he rarely delivered copy on anyone’s dotted line. In fact, he probably “got away with more’’ in major- publication print than all his rockwrite brethren combined, conceivably (however) because it merely simplified matters to have a single Designated Outlaw, one entrusted with a blanche enough carte — and unmonitored options galore — to spike with “authenticity ’’ a rock-media stew of bogus Freedom and ersatz Candor.

Retrospectively cliched or not, there was an existential purity to the sheer commitment evinced by Lester’s prolonged wallow in (and about) the rock- and-roll Thing-in-itself. It was, in many ways, the critical headbang to end all critical headbangs; it would be hard to even imagine, for instance, a professional art-film bozo, a jock-sniffing sports jerk, or a food-review lunatic more uninsulatedy gung-ho vis-a-vis x — either as primary experience or typewrite wankery. His patented shameless multipage gush, coupled with an unswerving advocacy of certain conspicuously over- the-top rock genera (Velvet Underground offshoots; Heavy Metal; Punk Rock), made him a must-read favorite with both cognoscenti and dipshits alike, and he came as close to encountering idolatry per se as any non-musician in R&R. A good deal of which — natch —could not help hitting the self-consciousness fan, but while a man’s life was ultimately undone in the process (“I’m Lester — buy me a drink! ’’), the integrity of his art/craft was essentially unaffected. For, while he might have been a tad too glib-messianic those last couple years, he was by no stretch of things an opportunist, never really giving a hoot for what in squaresville would be known as a career. (Or, perhaps, unlike his role model Kerouac, he simply didn’t live long enough for that, too, to be strenuously tested.)

In any event: dead, cremated, literal ashes. California born (Escondido ’48), bred (El Cajon, ages 9-23), and traveled (I first hung with him in San Francisco, last in L.A.), Lester bought the big one on the opposite coast — his final home, the fabled Apple — April 30/82, ostensibly from a hefty pull of darvon employed, in lieu of aspirin, to placate the flu. Since his death, variously interpreted as a mile-radius teardrop’s once-in-a- lifetime terminal burst, a joke and a half on both himself and his precious chosen whole damn Thing, and — by occasional uncouth louts — the final glorious triumph of his excess, the spectrum of Bangs-in-ongoing-print has dwindled from monochromatic /sparse to colorless/ nonexistent. Of the two books in his name which appeared during his lifetime, quasi-coffeetable numbers on Blondie and Rod Stewart, neither a particularly representative Lestorian effort (or even particularly good: the former admittedly hacked out “in two days on speed,’’ and looking it, i. e., ad hoc and forced; the latter disowned as a clumsy, if innocent, foray into “writing as whoring’’), both are either out of print — officially — or on the back burner of barely having ever been in same, at least as regards this coast, where I’ve yet to see either in bookstore one. Nor have two posthumous whatsems. Rock Gomorrah, cowritten (early ’82) with L.A.’s Michael Ochs, and a projected collection of unpublished fragments scrounged from Bangs’s apartment a day or two after his death, gotten more than inches off the publishing ground — the former for reasons which if herein revealed would get me sued but good, the latter because, in the words of editor Greil Marcus, “the stuff is less tractable than I thought at less than 5000 words or so.’’ Also stalled, and/or abandoned (and/ or nonspecific pipedreams to begin with) : all known plans to reissue out-of- print Live Wire LP Jook Savages on the Brazos, recorded, Austin, TX, Dec. ’80, by Lester Bangs & the Delinquents, lyrics and vocals by guess who. In fact, the only anything by L. C. Bangs readily available where availables are sold is his liner copy for The Fugs Greatest Hits Vol. I, released by PVC/Adelphi some months after he’d croaked, for which he (or rather his atoms) later copped a Grammy nomination, and for which, reliable word has it, he never was paid.

Well, I’ve been proven wrong; it hasn’t been easy recollecting Lester in even half a toto in so much tranquility. Didn’t seem like such a bad idea back when obits were appearing left & right and at least two- thirds of ’em smacked of revisionism at its well-intentioned worst; having ridden the range with the guy, having been as intimate with his daytime/nighttime revealed essence — I would bet my boots — as anyone in or out of various possible beds with him, I had fiery goddam galaxies to say in his behalf that were simply not being said, at least not in print by his designated peers; and, although my no longer living in New York couldn’t help but delay my shot, remote and after-the-fact seemed like the ticket, y’know anyway, for some major necessary rerevision.

But here it is two, two and a half years gone & more, and whuddaya know if all the raw goddam pain (at the loss of, yes, a brother) and jagged fucking anger (at a waste of life, life-force, and relative inconsequential like “talent” and “genius”), an unbeatable duo which for weeks, weeks, months gave the Lester totality so cosmic a shape, scale and intensity, have by their own inevitable burnout given way to the contemplation of standard-issue mere data, of the skeletal remains of a larger-than-life life which have come to make sense (or not) in too neat, too linear, a manner. Well — hey — fuggit: Even if grocery lists, chalk diagrams and hokey storytellin’ are the forms ongoing life-as-life has imposed on the mission, there’s still a heap of essential Lester information that could use, uh, exposure to printed-page light.

What too many write-biz intimates sought to do in the wake of his death was debunk the Lester Legend (solely) by reciting evidence that his bark was worse than his bite. While I’m sure he’d have “wanted it done” (i.e., have the saga-as- litany scraped of treacherous barnacles, or at least of their treacherous vogue), I can’t imagine the projected post-life intent of such a wish as in any way entailing cosmetic overhaul, especially in the service of moral/experiential object lessonhood. Lester’s day-to-day transaction with post-adolescent life-as- dealt was — let’s be conservative — 94 % anything but pretty. If he’d have wanted his entire whatsis to serve up viable scenarios for intimates and non-intimates alike (gee, would the Pope prefer to be Catholic?), there’s no way the deal’d come out even provisionally Lester-functional without interested non-intimates having retroactive access to as hefty an eyeful of the not-so-pretty — in all its hideous, non-Clearasiled blah blah blah — as intimates galore regularly managed to cop and, in their various personal ways, have already learned from. To deglorify an earlier incarnation of shit (which the man himself was clearly hellbent on doing in his waning days on earth) you’ve got to at least speak its name — loudly! — for the whole entire planet: c’mon now, one & all. A solemn responsibility (I call it) which, credibly/incredibly, the smelly sumbitch’s closest associates have, to this day, all but refused to consider.

To wit: For every time anyone saw the defanged, declawed Lester teddy bear rear its cuddly li’l head (see obits 2, 3, 5 & 7) the man was uncountable times the asshole, the buffoon, the sodden tyrant; been those things myself — in semi-prior lifetimes — so I know. Back in ’73, for inst, the soon-to-be-dead Lillian Roxon gushed shameless love for the s.o.b., in New York on Creem business, ordering up a Lester button and leaving it in his hotel box; response to this purest of offerings was “What’s that fat cunt want from me?” About a year later I get this call from Nick Tosches requesting that I please take Lester, who’d shown up at his door on acid, “off my hands”; took him to a party at John Wilcock’s place, during which he verbally brutalized Wilcock’s wife (in green Fingernails) for being a “hooker,” snapped at an affable Ed Sanders for being “the only alkie in the counter-culture,” and had nothing more to say to Les Levine’s Asian girlfriend (wife?) than “Yoko is a lousy gook”; further into the night, at Vincent’s Clam Bar in Little Italy, he literally bellowed ( more than twice), “There’s a lotta tackin’ wops in this joint.” And how can I forget the way he treated me and Nick, his closest approximate friends f'r crying out loud, as our wonderful editor while at Creem? He’d call us each up at 3 a.m. to urgently solicit various (rather specific) reams of pap, needed via Special D toot sweet; we’d climb outta bed, peck away bleary-eyed to whack out the closest possible takes on what he’d claimed he wanted, whereupon he’d reject ’em with a vengeance (“I won’t print beatnik shit”), then run thoroughly like-minded i. somethings — under his own byline — or with our words, usually verbatim, laced throughout. Just a few “examples,” dunno if they sound like big stuff or small, in any event typical Lester, with plenty, plenty more where they came from — y’know times n-plus-many.

In spite of such anticommunal upchuck, or quite possibly because of it — post-adolescent of a post-summer-of-love feather & all that — I did have deep affection for the bastard during my final years in New York; he could really piss me off (and I, I’m assuming, him) but bygones were always eventually ditto. In those days I generally shared his affection for The Edge, and might even’ve gone extreme slightly ahead of him; in January ’72, this is true, he actually dubbed me “the Neal Cassady of rock and roll.” But by fall ’75, when I split New York to at least simulate an escape from the Frantic and Hyper (and he subsequently arrived, ostensibly to embrace same), I was feeling the first stirrings of apprehension re my own prolonged massive intake of Edge Substances (emotional, cultural, but above all chemical) and was on the verge of an early series of attempts to, y’know, cut down, to maybe get off my collision course with all sorts of walls, both metaphoric and real. Lester, meantime, seemed on a rapid upswing in the intake dept.; what had so far served as mere horizon or frame for his trip, or at most been its semi-essential fuel, was now lunging headlong for the foreground of his life ... or should we call it the twin foregrounds (life as Mythic Construct; life as physical/emotional/cultural Hard Mundane Reality).

Hey, the guy was beginning to scare me. Certainly as an advanced — or rapidly advancing — version of what I no longer wanted to be and could (possibly) imagine once again becoming, but more as this vivid, palpable spectre of specialized human decomp not just out there but right there: a pal & a buddy headed (willy nilly?) for the sewer. From late ’75 immediately onward, on those unlikely occasions when separate coasts — underscored by far fewer rockwrite junkets — any longer allowed for it, I was usually unable to handle being in the same room with him, knowing I’d have to witness whole new increments of what could really no longer be passed off as anything but (gosh) misery and (dig it) horror. Where in the earlier ’70s it was almost cute — once in a while — the way Lester would stumble into classic self- directed drunk jokes (like the time he called me from the Detroit airport to tell me he was headed for an Alice Cooper show in London, presumably England, only he’d drunkenly got it wrong and was on his way to London, Ontario), there was this half-week in ’79, for inst, during which he hung out at Michael Ochs’s house in Venice with no daily design but to get skid-row-calibre gone and stay there, that was just fucking grim. Looking an unhealthy as I’d ever seen him, basic shit-warmed over with an ngly bump on his forehead (which he claimed he was “treating with Romilar”), he refused to eat without an Occasion. When, one evening, Michael and I pretty much dragged him to a Mexican restaurant, he refused to actually step inside until he’d fortified himself with the cottons from six Benzedrex inhalers — the local pharmacist was out of Romilar — busted open on the sidewalk with a shoe.

Washing down their remnants with a Dos Equis as his enchilada sat there staring at him, he quoted (or claimed he was quoting) Sid Vicious: “Food is boring.”

So, inevitably, when Billy Altman rang me up from N.Y.Clearly on a California morn, to let me hear it straight from a friend — “instead of from a creep” — my immediate response to no more Lester, steps ahead of all the pain & anger & whut, was holy fucking shit, the fucker finally did it; it’d been in the real-world cards for long-long times for Lester to cease to be. Though even on his gonest days he was no way a classic cornball suicide-romantic — heck, I don’t really think he was all that clinically suicidal (big-sleep fantasies never overtly/covertly lured him, not even metaphorically, from the darkest sub-basement of his World of Dread; nor was Danger, though he often nonstop lived it, itself the merest tickle of a ripple of a thrill for him, a context before the fact) — he’d sure staged more corny, frightful dress rehearsals than Jim Jones plus Judy Garland (squared) for simply ending up dead.

Biggest of which I ever saw was January ’81. I’m at Nick’s place in New York, en route back to L. A. from Montreal, when who should pay a surprise visite but Mr. Bangs, cassette in hand. It’s a tape of these tracks recorded during an Austin romp I’d heard about second or third hand (he’d planned to “live there forever,” it was said, ’til a night in the local drunk tank — on top of who knows what else — totally changed his mind), and in the course of the next 12-15 hours he played it, for us and at us, many times. Also during this stretch, after boasting, rather proudly, that he no longer drank, he managed to ingest at least 36 cough- suppressant tablets (three 12-packs of Ornical — we weren’t always watching) washed down with sizable slugs of bourbon, as there was nothing else but water to wash ’em down with.

All stages of this ordeal, in which Nick and I were little more than foils for surge upon surge of what we’d come to regard as typical Lestorian bathos, were hardly bearable in the state we were in (after far too many “nights with Lester,” going back to the days when we even could dig it, we’d opted for a change to take this one straight), but the morning-after phase was literally one for the books. On the umpteenth playback of what was soon to hit the racks as the Jook Savages LP, Lester insisted that one particular vocal was pure Richard Hell (in Lester’s cosmos an a priori yay); my dogtired no-big-deal of a response was it sounded existentially neater than that, more on the order of Tom Verlaine (a Lester nuh-nuh-no). Suddenly hair-trigger sensitive — in a performance-trigger vein — he tapdanced back with “Then I might as well go sell shoes in El Cajon.” Next cut he compared himself to somebody (very contempo) else, prompting me to comment, for non-pejorative, sleep- denied better or worse, that his vocals (across the board; in general) had the same basic flavor as those on such country-western parodies as Sanders' Truckstop or the Statler Brothers’ Johnny Mack Brown High School LP. Affecting grievous offense, as if any of his b.s. actually mattered (the Lester of ’73/’74 — in any chemical state — would merely’ve giggled), he took things up a full notch of indignant/sarcastic: “Well I guess I’m just no fucking good. ”

But he wouldn’t stop playing the crap, not with every cut looming as a supercharged occasion for kneejerk call- and-response, a challenge for him to goad Nick and/or me into goading him, in turn, into mock-self-deprecatory one-liners ad nauseum — a dress rehearsal, as it were — his puke-stained sweater seemed appropriate — for his triumphant appearance on Johnny Carson, which he had no doubt the worldwide success of his Blondie book would imminently require . . . along with a shot of his mug, cleanshaven, on the cover of People (over which he whined “fear” of besmirched personal image).

Ultimately Nick and I, weary of further compliance in so shoddy an interpersonal number, old buddy or not (and/or old bud in particular), found ourselves laughing in his face; enough was enough, and the sight of this bumbling mammal going gaga for an audience of two-who-knew- better was kind of otherworldly amusing. The object of our yuks, however, took it as us laughing with him: Great Moments in Standup/Audience Rapport! Swollen with illusory (or whatever) whacked-out self, Lester then proceeded to announce his program: (1) to save Rock & Roll; (2) to become president (presumably Oi the U.S. of A.); (3) to move to England and in turn save their Rock & Roll. As mere dipshit goals, nos. 1 and 3 meant topically little to either of us — geez, we’d all but buried the Anglo-Am mainstream as even an idle, y’know, sometime hobby or whatnot — but (2) hit us firmly, instantaneously, in the breastplate.

Lester’s neurons, no recent model of health to begin with, had made the short-circuit of Lester Bangs . . . [tenor saxophonist] Lester Young . . . (latter's nickname] Pres . . . Pres/U.S.A. per se!!!

Guffaw, guffaw — we guffawed — though I guess we could've gasped (or shuddered). Then: a heavy silence, as cosmic (or whatever) as it was awkward, filled presently by the man himself:

"Hey! I'm gonna buy some import albums! I'll get a whore I know to lend me her charge card! Cab fare too!" And he was off; no amiable nudging, no “Get the fuck out of here" could take the place of timeless vinyl hunger. Gone at last — and we gave him (in all solemn, empirical, non-jive reckoning) six months to live.

But of course he fooled us, by (nearly) a whole damn calendar year. Surprise, surprise: but an even bigger surprise was the extent to which he managed to actually turn things around — well, almost — during that extra annum, especially during its. and his. final months. Not only was he still among the living, not only did he no longer seem conspicuously earmarked for premature exit — the Lester with whom I spent a rather refreshing week in February '82 gave every indication of having already gone beyond mere survival (as an issue) and appeared, astonishingly, to be thriving on the theme.

In L.A. following his mother's eventually fatal stroke and staying with his 56-year-old half-brother in Studio City, he accompanied me one night to a low-stakes poker game attended by members of the Blasters, the perfect setup, you’d figure, for Lester to revert to type. But no, he just minimally fun-&- games'ed it like anyone else — no lookin' for opportunities to “be Lester," no showing off for rock-roll peers either verbally or intakewise. no diving for the evening's jugular and letting 'er rip — and after two beers (!). without so much as a grimace, he declared he’d had enough. Postgame he engaged Phil Alvin in a lively musical dialogue, but at no point did fightin' words fill the air, or were axes even poised for grinding. The pair agreed to exchange tapes — a wholesome friendship in the making — and next day Lester complained (true, true) that reefer had been smoked.

As the week wore on in consistent, low- key fashion. I was struck by the fuckload of inner capacities the guy was perceptibly calling on, left, right and center, to extend his defiance of Death to the domain of just plain living, capacities I hadn't caught sensory evidence of — all previously told — for more than 11 minutes total. A far cry from anything as cheaply benign as, let's say, more frequent eruptions of "Lester washes the dishes" (see obit 04), what I got to witness was kind of on the order of a whole new Lester, one who'd finally found a non-lethal, functionally less jagged (though in no way “benign") rhythm for his life. Engaging him in tight quarters with more open-heartedness per se than I*m sure I’d ever mustered (sharing an Edge does not always make for brotherhood-by-numbers. let alone by pure, unedited inclination), I willingly submitted to his rap/rant and bought its tenor if not its verbatim transcript; by the time he returned to New York, his mother still hanging on. I’d seen and heard a New Lester series pilot that could credibly have played — prime time — on the Pro- Life Network.

For starters, he’d learned to slow down, to proceed apace through a given experience without easy reliance on everpopular on-off switches. He'd gotten far more selective about the company he kept, seeking out, for the first time in his known adult life, social interactions stressing soulwarming interpersonal comfort over thrash-trigger me-you tribulation. A good deal less insistent upon strapping each day to an emotional chopping block (as recalled, for inst, in that old chestnut of his, “I need to be in love!"), he'd begun to let his life embrace emotional motifs of greater duration and resiliency. And. as stuff like this fed back to his theoretic apparatus, even Lester's ideas (as stated) began to display an unexpected day-to-day congruity; no longer, it seemed, would he write an anti-racist wowser for the Village Voice in one breath and scream, "Fuckin’ niggers!” at Village Oldies the next. Lester-as-flux had had its thoroughly engaging run. and for this to give way to a “maturer” unpredictability was not the worst of possible outcomes.

Even the drastic reduction in Lester’s intake of physical poisons bore little trace of on-the-wagon-or-bust — y'know, as if any day, minute, second the tension of it all would cause him to snap right back with equal vengeance — particularly with its status as but part of a whole-body package that included both eating at regular intervals and a radical olfactory modification: He now took baths. (One afternoon in ’74 Nick and I met Lester at some ritzy midtown hotel. Though he’d been in the room all of an hour, the smell was like a dog had died there, and been left to rot, weeks or months before. Consequently, we vetoed his offer to call down for drinks on Creem’s tab, suggesting, to his consternation, that any dump of a bar would be more, uh, whatever. Many of his heterosex liaisons had foundered on the rocks of precisely this issue.)

In terms of cultural orientation, no longer was he monomanically enslaved to rock & roll (-or-perish). For virtually the first time since the sixties he didn’t need, burningly, brand new Big Beat LP’s in his mail slot each (and every) day; the state of the Art, wobbling on a multi-year terminal gimp, no longer served as his external psychic barometer, his armband of first-person pride (or shame); having finally produced Music of his own, to severe personal specifications (regardless of the giggles it inspired in jerks like me), he no longer needed to prove anything with it or through it. Crucially, though some would probably like to deny it. he no longer saw Rock’em-Sock'em as a viable metaphor for his (or any, kindred or otherwise) state of being, viewing it as the all too easy — and ultimately, revoltingly, unsatisfactory — crystallization of (mega-numerous) blank and scattered lives. Lester's break with rock-roll mythos as his be-all/end-all of etc., which I have no doubt (had he lived) he’d've sooner rather than later made official, was as profound, and profoundly moving, as his break with the Myth of Lester. As one committed jackass who’d made the same painful transition — goodbye, Rock-Automated Self! — I knew how tough a bond the chronically intermingled personal/cultural can be to crack (and my heart went right out to him).

It also warmed my cockles, considering his record in the mere civility dept., to see him relate (graciously) to his half- brother’s wife, this unaffectedly pretty 21- year-old rural Mexican the macho blusterer, a stuntman by trade, had recently acquired, maritally, while on location Down South. Though she knew pun near zero English, my first sight of her she was watching some random English-language crap, while hubby rested for a shoot of the Fall Guy series, on the tiny TV in her fussy suburban kitchen; materially cozy for the first time in her life, she seemed lonely, disoriented, far from home. Silent and solemn, she visibly stiffened — shyly? menially? — at the intrusion of Lester, my girlfriend Irene and me. only to be put at ease by Lester introducing us, without missing a beat, as, well, friends of the family. Like it mattered to him that she feel like family — and thus shared in all aspects of etc. — and for a moment the loneliness left her face; she smiled broadly, shook (or at least took) our hands, went back to her tube.

But what came off as so genuine when he was dealing with his family, his friends, kind of sputtered into the ether when he tried to branch it to the family of Man. Whenever he got to talkin' Hard Humanism, which had all the earmarks of being his preoccupation of (Rock- replacement) record, he’d make these broad, lecture-ish, relatively flavorless statements which often didn't wash.

Never wholly credible 'cause once again he seemed to be performing — without booze/etc. but surely with a script — he’d say thus & such about human courage and folly that not only had an artificial ring, it tended to run in direct opposition to what had clearly been his experience. Even his word choice sounded stilted, alien, not his own; when he spoke of "women" he could easily have been reading straight from a column in Cosmo.

A lot of which suggested a Lester so hellbent on being a good boy once and for all that to merely work overtime cleaning up his own act was scarcely sufficient; he had to render a transpersonal commentary that made his good intentions “universal,” even if the topical universality he’d taken an option on was simply the first he found it comfortable song-&-dancing a provisional connection to. There were moments when his bill of particulars made me uneasy, realizing that to intellectually challenge any of this would be like kicking mud on some kid’s newest/truest pastime, 'specially when it was one so socially redeeming, so non- self-destructive. one which, for all intents and purposes, I basically shared with him anyway. What really counted was the miracle of Rock Tough Guy #1, after 15 years of rocknroll plug-in and little else, during which he'd come to thread that needle upside down (and asleep), to the point (even) of smugness, flipness, pomposity, out on a goddam limb over something else: a neophyte at last! (I could dig it.)

Anyway, finally, on the last night of Lester's stay — which worked out as our last time together, period — we did something we’d previously never found the appropriate nexus for: trading rants (in earnest) with blank tapes a-rolling.

For something like five-six hours we went apeshit re such topics as: the sellouts & prejudices of mutual colleagues; novels and novelists; New York as (quite possibly) the coldest outpost on Emotional Earth; the usual standard rockish garbidge (plus some un- and some non-). We also hit on shrinks-we- have-known, with Lester's rap on this rooty-toot of a subject being the single one, from the four-and-a-half hours I’ve so far transcribed, which most tellingly nutshells the excruciating self- examination he had to've undertaken — and undergone — just to be sitting around discoursing as fluidly as he was, to’ve transcended whatever the fuck en route thereto:

“Like I went to a psychoanalyst, one in New York and one in Detroit, for a total of, I dunno, three-and-a-half years. I finally concluded, I mean yeah I’m insane, I’ve got my problems, my sicknesses are fucking me, yeah, I’m sure they both probably helped me, y’know, I know the last guy in New York, it's like everybody I know was totally appalled by my drinking and drugging, well like you, right, and everybody else had the same reaction, y’know, except my shrink. He’d say, ‘No, that's alright.’ I went out to this, he had a country retreat, a whole bunch of us would go out there on weekends. And the first time I went there like I got drunk on Friday night, and Saturday morning I got up and washed down a bottle of Romilar with a bottle of beer while sitting on a slick rock by the stream. I got this great idea for something I wanted to write, I stood up on the rock in boots like these and whoosh, went like that and smashed, see it, the scar on my nose? That's how I got it, smashed my face open.

“And he thought my druggin' and drinkin' was great, y'know? He said, in fact he kind of told me I'd be not as great of a writer if I gave all this stuff up. And I said, 'Yeah, but look at all these people, they rot away, they end up like self- parodies like Kerouac and Burroughs and all that sort of shit.' And he said. 'No. no, not everybody's like that.' I said, How could I someday be 55 years old and have to take a handful of speed to sit down at the typewriter?' Well he said, 'People do it. heh heh heh!' Well both my shrinks, especially this guy, they had real great humanist compassion and empathy and all that, but I know what both of 'em did, and in the long run in essence they were no good for me, because they were getting off on me being there. It’s like they’re so bored, one housewife alter another, 'I don’t love my husband, I don't know why.’ Then they get someone like you or I that's actually interesting, that has ideas, and so it's fun time for 'em. I mean if I hadda follow this guy’s advice I’d be dead, uh, pretty soon.”

Hmm: one effing eery end-of-quote as, alas, all is now dust — reactively acquired caution or no. Possibly possibly possibly, any tonnage of prudence would inevitably have proven insufficient for the autopilot courses he was still, evidently, all too capable of flying. Or, reversing horses and carts, maybe his tortured shell was already jus’ too beat-to-shit, with even a radical lessening in his scale of abuse being too little — archetypally — too late. And then there’s this pharmacological biz about purified cells succumbing to doses they’d have been more than up for when poison was all they knew. (And can we ignore the Wrath of Influenza?)

Even if, to some bitter-enders, his death remains as shrouded in formal “mystery” as those of Eric Dolphy and Warren G. Harding, all-of-the-above can't help but provide a not-unlikely profile of how Lester came to die. Throw in a few more mainline Causalities (cultural: rock-roll glut, esp. coupled w/ too literal an intoxication with Kerouac, Celine, et al; primalpsychological: a childhood more woeful than most, his Jehovah's Witness mom — pushing 50 when she had him — mind-setting, almost singlehandedly. a chronic “inability to cope"; geographic: the Apple, even when it wasn't absolute Edge Central, affording him. given his makeup, scant opportunity for inner peace) and you'd easily have an explanation that 'd hold up in a court of his cronies/cohorts/camp followers.

But if Lester was the pawn, victim, and (indeed) fellow traveler of such easy- Aristotelian a-implies-b, he was also, in those last fitful months, a scatterer of all such shit to the winds, a man who showed his true destiny muscle by throwing all the elements out of on-the-head mythopoetic sync just when they threatened, conspiratorily, to reduce him to merely another Jim Morrison. Jimi Hendrix. Mr. Kerouac. Screamingly, courageously, he committed himself, as wholly (really) as possible, to a counter-causal gameplan which even if flawed — and accidents, y’know, happen — did actually manage to defuse (at least where I live & breathe) the mythic oompah of any time-delayed rat-trap he may subsequently (or previously) have fallen in. If there's anything almost pleasing about the timing, the anti-drama, of Lester's death, it's the monumental Mythic Disjuncture factors he'd set in motion were thereby — implicitly, explicitly — to forever effect.

LESTER’S (WRITERLY) LEGACY — “One of rock’s most colorful characters, Bangs made his reputation as a pugnacious, participatory journalist who was not above picking fights with rock stars in pursuit of a good interview." So wrote one voice of prevailing wisdom, Patrick Goldstein, in the May 9/82 L.A. Times; nothing — latter part — could be farther from the truth. If Lester (the writer) more than once battled Lou Reed into (and beyond) the wee hours of etc., it was not to get a story, it was to live a story: to encounter all the rock-related being his writerly credentials (as a wedge) were able to afford him (as a person)'. Nor was he in any way enthralled by the sickening spectacle of stars being stars; artists, maybe, but stars, fug 'em. When he as mere citizen found himself face-to-face with the pose, pretense, and professional guardedness of such gaudy, extraneous creatures, Lester could not (for the life of him) deal with such crap but to cut right through and speak, directly, to the mere citizen in them, or (failing that) force the situation into functional self-destruct — before the fact of anything so dispassionate as actually “writing it up."

That his eventual write-ups tended to display utter contempt for the entire food chain of music-corporate life, often biting, intentionally, a grimy hand that could not’ve been more willing — his mighty Credentials & all — to feed him, heck, fatten him, was but half the take-no-shit of Lester's essential statement as a writer de rock; forcefeeding the stuff, his stuff, the stuff-as-writ, to the only marginally less corporate (or grimy) running dogs of rockwrite publishing was at least as pugnacious a gesture of this-is-what-I-am/this-is-what-I-do/take-it-or-be-fucked. Since the extent of his success in shoving it down so many otherwise unyielding editorial throats may have had less to do with his willful intent than theirs — camouflage, for inst, for their being life-deep in major-label record company pockets — its significance at this juncture is, at most, merely ironic; the reciprocal influence, in any event, of his ease at getting published upon subsequent moments of raw critical-expressive spew was procedurally nil. In fact, what may most enduringly matter about Lester's approach to his chosen profession, way ahead of dandy journalistic touchstones — "courage," “integrity,” “pride in craft" — that he ate for breakfast like so much broken glass (but which, really, you can still get from Nat Hentoff and Howard Cosell), is the “anti-professional," forcibly non-dehumanized square-one struggle he by design submitted to — and could not. with any kernel of his humanity, avoid - in order to pump out critical prose of any scale of note. (Pugnacity with form; with ritual creative context; even — especially — with roleplaying writerly/critical self.)

That he was ofttimes a great writer/critic, so-called, was but icing on the cake. That scant few others, on the hottest days of their lives, have even approached him — or particularly cared to, considering the requisite gravity and passion of the chore he’d set — probably says as much about their investment in lesser quals of cake as it does about the relative inadequacy of their writerly follow-through. Rockwriting is, and nearly always has been, the trade of simps, wimps, displaced machos, brats and saps; of, in Lester's own words, “ass-kissers of the ruling class”; of fuddy-duddy archivists with cobwebs on their specs; of pathetic idealizers of a lost youth no one has ever (even approximately) experienced or possessed; of sycophantic apologists for chi-chi trends, musical and extramusical alike, without which (so they've always claimed) “rock is dead”; of binary yes/no cheeses with the cognitive wherewithal of vinyl, shrinkwrap, the physical column- inch. Rockwritin' Lester, like anyone else in the trade, was certainly each of these things from time to time, though (probably) none of 'em, singly or in tandem, for longer than the odd off review. Sadly, though his untradelike comportment surely tantalized mere tradefolk while he lived — at least in terms of Style — and even begat a not-half-bad (early-’70s) clone in “Metal Mike" Saunders, his actual abiding sway among such clowns, beyond the occasional liftable riff, was — as it continues to be — infinitesimal.

Finally: the twin silly questions (1) where a still-living Lester might hypothetically've taken it (i.e., beyond the rockwrite fishpond) and (2) what such imaginary newstuff could/would conceivably’ve meant to his basic audience. Second one first. Okay, that Lester's rockstuff generally read so hot as personal testimony is one thing; for it to have been perceived by so many as being eminently, genuinely about something — something rather specific, in fact something "rear’ — is something else. When you get down to it, the gospel of Lester's radical about-ness rested largely on a big hunk of readerly illusion, the illusion of a functional one-on-one between the guy’s fertile imaginings and the psychic infrastructure of rock & roll as dealt; there could be harsh discordance, of course, but as long as a firm relationship could (for whatever readerly vested interest) be consistently inferred between Lester’s mindgames and rock’s g-g-games per se, you at least had the stamp of a viable — if totally simulated — one-on-one. But, really/truly, while Lester’s psychic playground may surely have been one drastically twisted maze, its actual correspondence (sympathetic, hostile, whatever) to rock's own labyrinth, one so airtight and dank as to make his seem like wide open etc., was far too often naught but a matter of readerly convenience. Everyone loves a cipher, a living/ breathing anagram or two. even some — hey — with flaws more rampant than Lester’s, but for the man’s writerly service to’ve been gauged (almost solely) vis-a-vis his reliability as a stand-in cipher-of- x, y’know for readerfolk too lame — or lazy — to suss out x themselves, is the real tragedy of the trip, particularly when the first-&-final glue of most folks’ attachment to his writing was never much more than their own desperate attachment to an x they could, and should, have been accessing more independently (and less desperately) to begin with.

So, anyway, here's the rub. Had Lester lived long enough to both sever his own desperate rock connection — officially, in sheets read by his fuckheaded fans, simply by writing other stuff — and, furthermore, to back it up with an equally official rejection of the Fount of Neurosis from which he'd sung its tune (and they'd listened), it ain't really much of a longshot to imagine him losing a huge percent of the fuckheads — certainly the most gung-ho among 'em — in, well, no time flat. And, c’mon, how much of an immediate, uh, new audience was he likely to yank in writing up (as he insisted he would) such transcendently pivotal mere-humanistic trifles as the dearth of love (as we know it) in scene X or Y . . . how this set of new-age culture jerks uses that set of new-age culture jerks as props in regards to bluh . . . New York editors who pull rank (pshaw!) along collegiate lines [a hard-hitting exposé] . . . or, I dunno, something about shams and follies in clothes and/or grooming?

Plus, well, though, um — (even if) — then again: Aside from loss of ad hominem authority due to the fickle scumbait nature of the pop-world Beast, aside from the fact that many of his generic partisans would prob'ly now be targeted, topically and even personally, in scathing printed-page rants, aside from the limited run such goulash (Sensitive Ties His Laces, w/ Brass Knucks & Footnotes) has ever had — hey — can ever/will ever have . . . aside, aside, aside — the most glaring fact fact is how few times, as of his death, he'd as yet even aspired to the heights (or whats) or non- rock journalism. Four-five-six, some number like that, in the Voice and wherever else, all of ’em still pretty much rockwriterly appendices to the rockwrite “adventure," meaning he had a good ways to go before he'd’ve got the wings/chops/ legs for a total-pulp plunge (or at least a regular shift) at full oldtime capacity (but with newtime thrust and content). Which would’ve been no fall from grace no matter how you scope it — give the boy time (for fuck sake) to stumble and bumble and get it right — but how would any possible Lester have dealt with a (previously amenable) shithook book co. like Delilah telling him not now, sonny when he handed ’em a ream of copy on (let’s imagine) friends who’re fuckups? Personal persona limelight Lester had learned to live without — but writeperson limelight? (It would not’ve been easy.)

Okay, he's dead. All this brand new grief and hardship never befell him; never will. But words on pages remain: What is their lot? Lester's standard fare was so paradigmatically “of the moment" that he was the rockmag shootist. But books of the stuff? Nah; it’s kind of nebulous how even his best mag outings will wear when inevitably (??) anthologized. For someone so public in his orientation, both as input and output, he was — don't laugh or even smirk — one of rock’s more precious and fragile "private moments.” Private moments you can always document — coercively, of course — but try and play ’em back and. well . . . we'll all see, I reckon.

LESTER LEAPS IN — Y’all know all by now how Lester leapt out of New York; lemme just finish with how he leapt in. His first night in town, just a visit, fall "72, he stayed with me and my girlfriend Roni, West Village, 104 Perry St., apt. 4. Arriving semi-direct from JFK, he split pretty quick for the nearest grocer, returning with three six-packs of Colt 45. What he did for the next day and a half — all he did — was wade through 18 big ones, half quarts, as follows: start can, drink fast, get tired; fall out, dropping remainder; awaken following can’s impact with floor; stagger to fridge for fresh one; repeat cycle. What he mumbled or muttered during any of the 18 pre-fallout phases I simply do not recall.

So like hey y’know wo hey hey wo-wo hey, OLD SPORT: love ya, hope I didn’t cramp yer style, g’bye.

--Richard Meltzer, “Lester Bangs Recollected in Tranquility”  Dec. 6, 1984

[always5hineee]

Depreciation- Chapter 8: Relay

Chapter warnings: Mild language and violence

Word count: 1295

-----

       Y/N was promised complete privacy as she met with "the defendants" before the trial. It had been a few days, and she had triple checked that she had accomplished everything Kun required of her. They were brought in, thankfully unhandcuffed, into a remote office as an offshoot of the detention center. As each met her eyes, they had different reactions, but said nothing until their accompanying monitors were gone.      

       Once they were alone, Ten was the first to move, immediately getting up from his seat to give her a hug. It took her by surprise, and the others looked on with a bit of awkwardness. In a mostly soft voice, he spoke first.

       "It's nice to see you again." He started. "I'm sorry about... about Lucas." This again... she didn't want to think about it. She couldn't believe he was dead. She just couldn't.

       "When will we be speaking to the lawyer?" Kun asked, already honing in on the logistical aspect of their little reunion.        

       "Yeah, about that..." She looked down. His face shifted several times as she explained her situation. The voicemail lawyer, the house arrest, the choice she was given. Finally, everyone was staring in awe.

       "You're our lawyer?" YangYang asked. "That's so cool!"

       "That's so awful." Hendery commented, catching her off guard. She honestly assumed that he was in their out of necessity, not choice. Although, it did make sense that he didn't like the setup. She held his life in her hands, and if she could find away to get just him fucked over, she would do it in a heartbeat.

       "Hendery." Kun warned, looking over. They obviously hadn't had a chance to speak since the arrest, which would cause some tension to say the least. Once he was sure the man had settled down, no matter the hatred pouring from his eyes, he turned back to Y/N.

       "Have you been through discovery?"

       "Yes."

       "Summarize."

       "They have three categories of evidence: bystander witnesses, physical evidence, and victim witnesses."

       "That's impossible." He commented idly. "I can't think of a scenario in which even a single person we've dealt had made their way back and into the hands of a prosecutor that quickly."

       "The prosecution says otherwise." Was all Y/N could comment. She didn't know what to tell him.

       "You've been working with him on this?" She assumed Kun was talking about the real lawyer.

       "Yeah, we... we think we've got it. It'll be quite the move to pull, but just trust us."

       "I do." He said with no hesitation. Looking to the left and right for a moment, he sighed. "With all due respect, none of us want to do this right now, and it seems like there's not much we can do. We all know the cover story, we'll all get to hear each other in court, so..." Clearing his throat awkwardly, he asked, "Maybe we just talk?" She nodded.

       "I'd like that. I think we all have a bit of explaining to do." There was a long pause as everyone waited for someone to start.

       "Well?" Kun asked.

       "I think we all want to hear an explanation from the same person." Ten snarled, looking over to the other side of the room. Henry glared back, asking,

       "Do we have a problem?"

       "What kind of a question is that? Of course we have a problem. You killed two of my best friends!" He shouted, clearly willing to get violent much more quickly than she had expected.

       "And stole half a million dollars." WinWin added.

       "And killed a bunch of girls!"

       "You think I was just doing it for fun?" He yelled back, standing threateningly as well. He was clearly weaker than he had been in the previous days, even since she'd seen him in the cell.

       "Well what the fuck kind of reason would you have?" Ten was screaming at this point, tears practically forming at the corners of his eyes. She'd seen him emotional one time before, but this... this was something different. This was some sort of self-destructive absolute passion. "Lucas is dead and Xiaojun is close. They never did anything to deserve that, especially not from you! When you nearly cut your finger off playing with those stupid knives, XIaojun is the one that fixed it! Who's the one that covered us after we got into gang fights? Xioajun. He'd fix us up no matter what. Lucas would do anything for you because he respected you, and respected all of us! We may not have been a perfect group, and the things we're doing might not be conventional, but they were good men and you're a fucking demon for killing them!" He said, shaking at the knees as if he was going to fall over.

       "I bet you would have killed us too if you could! I wish I had done it before you'd gotten the chance! Then Lucas and Xiaojun would be alive! I hope you die, I hope you die, I hope you die!" He cried, sinking to the ground as he put his head in his hands, still muttering the phrase over and over. I hope you die. Just die. Hendery looked shocked as Ten sat on the floor sobbing, YangYang now having taken the liberty to try and comfort him, saying something that she couldn't quiet hear.

       "You have no idea what I've had to go through!" Hendery shouted down at him out of nowhere, voice cracking in fury. WinWin rose to try and calm him down, muttering something in his ear. "No, really! You're naive and stupid if you think I'd recklessly make decisions like that for no reason! I thought we knew each other, huh? You want to call these people your best friends and then treat me like shit? Is that what it's come to?" His eyes wide in some sort of crazed state, he lurched forward to drag Ten up off the ground by his collar, practically choking him for a moment.

       "You disgust me. You're just a fucking child that wants mommy and daddy to go away, you don't know how the world works. If you even had a sliver of the knowledge that I did, you would have killed them too. Everyone wants the big guys gone until they have to deal with the consequences."

       "Hey! Break it up!" YangYang was trying to separate them as Hendery slapped Ten clear across the face, causing his head to snap to the side. He put a fingertip to it, feeling it for just a moment, before jumping forward as well to knee him in the gut.

       "Stop!" Y/N was begging as it turned into an all-out fist fight between the two. She wouldn't be surprised if they started biting and pulling each other's hair before long. Finally, she was able to push Ten back by the chest as WinWin dragged Hendery away by the arm.

       "Don't blame me when the consequences come." Hendery spat as Ten looked over Y/N's shoulder at him.

       "We're giving you the chance to explain." YangYang begged him, trying to be reasonable as Kun looked on silently. "Just tell us what's going on and we can all get past this."

       "I'm done explaining." Hendery snarled. "I'll explain in court." And with that, he fell to the ground, eyes shut. Rushing to his side, WinWin put a hand to his neck.

       "I think he's just exhausted. He hasn't eaten since we were arrested."

       "How is he alive?" Y/N asked, still a little shaken. Ten clearly was as well, as she could feel his heartbeat beneath her hand, racing at a thousand miles an hour.

       "Sheer willpower, I guess. It's wearing on him. We'd better hope this gets solved quickly..."

Go to Chapter 9

#nct #nct x reader #nct fanfiction #nct fanfic #wayv #wayv x reader #wayv fanfiction #wayv fanfic #kun #hendery #xiaojun #winwin #yangyang #ten #lucas #mafia #crime #criminal #mafia au #criminal au #crime au #kpop #Kpop x reader #x reader #Kpop fanfiction #Kpop fanfic

[koffiehuis-love]

Can you explain the Three Hundred and Thirty-Five Years' War?

Ah, yes, that war.

This is the longest war in history, pretty much. I mean it lasted for 335 years. The loss of life as you might imagine must have been catastrophic. 

It all started in 1651. By its end, it was damn near folklore. Why is that? Because there was not a single shot fired and not a single casualty. 

I know, you’re probably thinking what the fuck? 

Who was I at war with, you ask? Scilly, some offshoot of England. I know, that name.  This 335 years’ war originated out of the Second English Civil War, it was a squabble between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists. Now, we stan the Parliamentarians because since Great Britain helped a brother out during the Eight Years’ War and aided our Dutch independence from Spain, we wanted to keep that shit tight with Britain. We chose the Parliamentarians because we thought they stood a chance to win the Second Civil War. Always bet on the winner.

Parliamentarians cornered the Royalists in Cornwall, but that Cornwall proved to be no place for a Royalist and their navy ran off to the Isles of Scilly. And of fucking course, Scilly was owned by some Royalist douche.

That Royalist fleet had done some dirty to our fleet so Admiral Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp wanted some payback for the damage and the shit they stole from our navy. The Royalists dragged their asses for an answer. So, with them being holed up on an isle with a silly fucking name, Tromp declared war on Isles of Scilly.

However, the Parliamentarian forces overpowered the Royalist fleet, they surrendered in 1651. So my boys left since there was no threat. We forgot about this shit and we never declared peace apparently, no treaty was signed. We were busy with other shit to care. 

It took a Scilly historian to send a letter to the Dutch Embassy in London, asking Netherlands to get rid of the myth that Netherlands and Isles of Sicily was still in a state of war. Turned out not to be a myth. So a peace treaty was signed, actually it was 34 years yesterday, April 17, 1986. 

Tl;dr  A big load of dogshit for a hypothetical, bloodless war.

#whew! #Anonymous

[applekitty]

‘game dedede’ is not a good person to ship escargoon with and here’s why

im glad my escargoon analysis resonated with lots of people. i saw some comments on it, which i feel the need to reply to because they’re on my post. a small few comments have been about the main focus of this whole multi paragraph crazed yammering; game dedede

(content warning: i talk about the horror comic killing stalking for four paragraphs. wow i bet this content warning doesn’t give mood whiplash at all)

now, game dedede isn’t much of anything. he’s a non-character, as he has no discernible personality in the games that isn’t really much of anything more than a catalyst for people to project a personality onto. as are all the game characters, because kirby isn’t focused so much on plot and indepth character development as it is about the gameplay. nintendo’s always been good at gameplay,  so they have basically stuck to what they’ve known and sprinkled small plot bits around places and entirely discarded anything other than hints personalities so that way they have an excuse for pure gameplay and fun to occur. it’s the same way with mario, and zelda, and usually basically all of their properties. yes, even pokemon, though usually when pokemon gets too plot heavy we get games like sun and moon, which are basically just cutscenes upon cutsc- 

what was i talking about? oh, right, game dedede.

game dedede is usually seen by the fandom as a variety of things, but the main one is nice. and by nice i mean he is usually portrayed as someone who is typically valorous and is doing the right thing, not someone who is necessarily pleasant, though some like to make him pleasant or jolly. if you know me or have even been on my blog even once on pc you’ll notice the cool deviantart stamp i got from one of my friends. i fully agree with the things it entails; dedede not being your typical uwu ‘do nothing wrong’ monarch that he’s often now plastered as because he did the whole ‘i help this cat’ in rtdl or because he wanted to keep nightmare from coming out of the fountain in nightmare in dreamland and.. whatever the name was of the game that it was a remake of.

people usually want to be able to root for the protagonist, and since dedede was a protagonist and / or in the right in a few occasions, we want to see him as a good guy doing good guy things. and there’s plenty of different ways to take that, as there’s both evidence for and against him being a morally light character. but that’s not really the point of what i’m talking about here. regardless of your own personal opinion on how ‘game dedede’ morally is, he is not a good person for escargoon to be with. there’s a reason why i said someone should be shipping him with an oc rather than game dedede, and it’s precisely because ‘game dedede’, even if he somehow zapped into the anime verse, would not be good to ship with him.

and it’s not based on chemistry or because game dedede is secretly or openly evil or something like that. it’s purely because escargoon is still a victim of abuse. and if you’re someone with a few braincells you want him to get out of that abuse and go find a new husband who’ll love and care for him. for escargoon to get game dedede seems to make sense at first because escargoon is so devoted to the anime one, but when you look at it, it’s not healthy at all.

this is essentially taking escargoon’s old abuser, wiping away all the ‘sins’ of his character just to make it so escargoon can date him. just so he can date an idealized version of his abuser. this person is quite literally just his abuser but with a mental coat of paint. 

allow me to draw comparison.

i’m going to go off here about a comic that i warned about at the top of the post. i’m not going to go too indepth about it due to the sheer nausea i might cause people if i do. it is a rather extreme example sheerly due to the content of said comic, but i can’t think of another better one off the top of my head. there’s a comic named killing stalking which was a big note for socio-political talk i think a few years back. it was a horror comic about a killer and a stalker wherein the murderer takes the stalker in, breaks his legs, and keeps in his house. the stalker, who already had sexual interest in his kidnapper, is abused due to various here and there reasons, and then after a while the comic begins the two’s sexual-romantic yet still abusive relationship. here’s the thing. the two of the characters are both men, so the relationship is gay.

many took to tumblr and various other medias smacking the comic for the display that it created (the comic chock is full of fairly nauseating things that are worth calling disgusting, but are expected of a shock horror comic) and the association it made between gay men and murderers, as well as making gay men look predatory and dangerous. normally said comic wouldn’t have been much of a problem or very noteworthy if it were about a straight pair, but it was about this Evil Gay Murderer Pair, so it was a source of controversy like shit is an attractor of flies.

despite the controversy that the comic had gotten, and the treatment in-canon it had of its characters being very clearly evil and in the wrong and clear deservance of being detracted, something strange happened. not in the comic, but in the people who decided to support said comic. people decided to support it for a number of reasons, one being that ‘oh it’s a horror comic i like horror despite what controversy or effects it may have on people’. i remember seeing it once, on my dashboard, i think. or back in the day when i was trying to figure out what the fuck was going on with this comic that everyone on my dash was just going to town on. people were shipping the two main, gay characters with eachother. and they weren’t doing it in a way that was ‘oh the murderer is so hot look at him in all this blood’ sort of way. it was in a much more.. ‘cozy’ position. it was fluffy. it was shown as cute. at first i thought it was because people were fucking weirdos, but i remember this one caption that has been recalled in perfect paraphrased clarity to me.

‘some people make aus to make their ships more angsty, but i’m out here making mine healthy lol’

people were taking the murderer, the main person who was causing the problems in the comic, and turning him into a loving husband for the stalker (who was shown as very mentally ill and in desperate need of love and attention). people were making the pairing that the comic itself showed as horrifying and awful to be fluffy and cute and devoid of any problems. so that way the victim was no longer hurt. it was an au. the murderer had a new personality, he was a changed man who never hurt anyone, so he was perfect for the stalker. that way, the ship could be had but there would be no issue whatsoever.

and to be quite honest, that’s what we have here. we have an offshoot of that. though obviously the source material is much less dangerous in our case, we still have a victim in desperate need of love in an abusive relationship with someone who hurts them. then, we have people shipping said victim with a new version of that abuser just to wipe the slate clean. just to keep the ship going without anyone objecting to it, because it can all be explained away as an au or what have you. though, i’m sure the ship in killing stalking was very much bashed by people (at least, i hope it was), while this one isn’t.

i can hear my strawman in the replies already going ‘well thanks for the tangent. but ching, game dedede’s a different person. he is legitimately a different canon than anime dedede, meanwhile this is people making things up that the canon doesn’t support. if you dated a twin you won’t apply the sins of the twin on the other one, would you?’ and if this were a real life situation, you’d be correct. 

it’d be wrong to place the sins of one twin onto another sheerly because one was an abusive asshole. but since is a real life scenario, putting a victim of abuse back with someone who looks exactly like their abuser would most certainly create extreme fear and panic in that victim. it wouldn’t matter if one of the twins hasn’t done anything, the potential relationship would forever be ruined and it’d be out of their control. and no one, no self respecting person, should ever have a victim date them if they look exactly like said victim’s old abuser. that’s just asking for mental troubles and constant panic attacks.

but that’s if this were real. it’s not real. this is video games and cartoons. it doesn’t come down to that, it comes down to us and what we decide to do, and what we decide to ship. these are not real people. we are putting them together for our own amusement because you’d think they’d get along. and doing this with a ship like this with game dedede says, to me, "I do not care if it is abusive in canon, I want to ship it anyways without any problems or people calling me out, so I’ll make it so people can’t do that by stripping the abuser of their abusive characteristics and make it so this abusive ship is all sunshine and rainbows". this is especially poignant if escargoon is stripped of all his abuse as well, allowing for him to be shipped more easily. it is quite literally going ‘nope’ when one is confronted with the very real trauma of a character and discarding it. don’t get me wrong, some things in canon should be discarded in some sources of entertainment, but a character’s abuse being discarded entirely for the sake of shipping just does not sit well with me.

of course, people who ship it are absolutely not thinking this maliciously when they ship discountdesuka, but that’s what it is irregardless of what they are thinking.

‘game’ dedede / escargoon is a ‘what could’ve been’ situation. 

it is an idealized version of dedesuka, one which throws a key aspect of escargoon’s out the door purely for the fluff and the cute gay moments that could’ve been. and sadly enough, it’s probably what escargoon dreams and hopes could happen (which is arguable because escargoon gets suspicious whenever dedede is nice to him), but it never does.

i understand why people do it. i know they don’t have some secret plan to be evil by creating secret abusive content that has hidden messages in it so everyone will ship abusive ships or something ridiculous like that, and if you thought that i thought that you’re very wrong. 

in some’s cases (as shown by the tags on my escargoon post), they want to reclaim a relationship which was blatantly homophobic in execution and turn it into something better. others just want a cute ship because their version of ‘game’ dedede is morally better than his anime counterpart, and wouldn’t hurt escargoon. they want to make wholesome content to drown out canon’s shows of abuse and negativity. which is understandable to want, but to show respect to the concepts the show puts out, isn’t something that should be embraced with ‘game’ dedede/escargoon. 

but there is no undoing what anime dedede/escargoon is in the show, and what it means to give escargoon over to ‘game’ dedede instead. ‘game’ dedede / escargoon is not abusive by any initial means, but it is still something that should not be shipped regardless.

it is disrespect to escargoon’s status as an abuse victim to  ship him with the same exact person who abused him and say it’s okay because ‘he has a different personality’. 

i am begging you. please ship escargoon with your oc or some other game character.

#shitpost #kirby #kirby right back at ya #hoshi no kaabi #analysis #it has a tl;dr at the end #bash anime dedede for being 'ooc' (or anything of the like) in the replies and die by my sword

[experimentalmadness]

Cin Vhetin Ch. 10: The Betrayal

Can I interest y’all in some good “let’s make you think your crush sold you out” tropes today? 

Synopsis: Din Djarin is hunted by a new mercenary, when they are forced to work together they slowly realize they are stronger together than apart.

Chapter Summary: After finishing their assignment together Din and Zethu are about to part ways when their mutual enemy catches up to them. 

Pairing: Din x OC/Reader (however you prefer to read it)

Masterlist: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9 

Ao3 Link

The minute they reached the safety of hyperspace and were well on their way out of Coreworld space, Din felt the stress that had been pressing on him since they started this mission lift. He left the cockpit to find his former hunter sitting between two crates of supplies in what passed for a living quarters on the Razor Crest. The kid was with her, perched on one of the crates, watching her with concern. Its ears were pointed back and down with worry. 

He didn’t bother to usher it away this time. Zethu Desh, was no longer the enemy. 

Din took a hard look at the merc. All trace of that former cockiness and confidence was gone. Her shoulders were slumped, her head down. She was running a vibroblade over her fingers and back in an agility exercise, but she was hardly paying any attention. The bruises on her pale face had turned to a dull yellow-purple. 

“What will you do now?” He had thought about cracking some sort of joke, but humor, even his dry version of it, felt ill-placed here. 

She looked up at him, brow furrowed. “I don’t know.” She sounded lost. “Get a new contract, I guess,” a shrug. “Might as well stay on Numidian for a bit. Lay low. I can hitch a ride back to Nevarro to get my Lancer once the heat dies down.”

Defeat hovered around her. How hard it was to spend your whole life clawing to get to some semblance of normalcy and routine only to have it ripped away. For his sake. He wouldn’t feel guilty, had no right too, but Din saw keenly her displacement. “You could stick with us.”

Zethu’s shock mirrored his own. The offer came instinctively. She had been nothing but trouble to him since they had met, a constant threat that had come close to ending him more than once. Even now she could still be baiting a trap. He remembered his first meeting with her, how congenial she had been before turning a blaster on him. There were other things he could recall as well. Her pushing the kid out of the way of a rockslide without hesitation, her pushing him back away from blaster fire, and her leaning out over the side of the busted speeder as he hung over thin air, pulling him up out of the ether. 

I’ve got you.

“I don’t need your pity,” Zethu’s cruel snap brought him back to reality.

“Not pity.”

She regarded him with wary eyes. The blade still undulated across her fingers like water as she nervously fidgeted. “So...what? You just travel across the galaxy picking up strays?” she nodded at the child. 

“The child is a foundling,” Din ruffled the kid’s ears as he made his way over, sitting atop the opposite crate. “Until I can either find its kind or it comes of age, it’s in my care and under my protection.”

Zethu’s eyes shifted from child to man before her face split wide and she let out a surprised, disbelieving laugh. “What, are you serious? Do all Mandalorians just go around adopting helpless creatures then?”

“This is The Way.”

“Well, sorry but I’m not looking to be adopted by anyone. Disappointing one species is enough for me, thank you.” Zethu stopped fidgeting with the blade, letting it rest, half tilted down, the sharp tip still balanced between her fingers. “Lucky kid,” she said with a small smile. “Maybe if someone like you found me when I was still young my life would have been different.”

“Still could be.”

The process for conversion was different for adults than foundlings. It was rare, but certainly not unheard of and—why in the galaxy was he jumping so far ahead? Letting Zethu loose among his own kind brought back the images of the sleek vornskr she reminded him so much of. Predatory, proud, and dangerous to their core. Not two standard days ago she was still threatening to kill him. Zethu had a faraway look in her eye, and the same sad smile hadn’t moved from her lips. 

“You know I almost got sent off to some fancy school in the Core?” She turned her head towards him. “Was too young to remember much and the war was on in full swing. But I remember my parents arguing with some Togruta about sending me,” she shrugged. “Maybe it was some scam or other, but I never stopped wondering what I’d be doing with a fancy education offworld. Been brought up respectable. Away from Arkania. What about you?”

The little one had snuck into Din’s lap, curling up rather happily. He put a hand against its head. “Not much to tell.”

“Aw, come on. I spill my guts and you get quiet?” She leaned her head back against the metal wall, fixing him with a look of open curiosity. 

Din shrugged. “Grew up during the wars, too. Family died during a battle and the Mandalorians took me in. That’s all there is to tell.”

“Look at us—ship full of orphans.”

Short, silver hair fell over her eyes and Din made himself look away. When those colorless eyes weren’t trying to stab you with rage or hatred, a person could get lost in them. “So…” he cleared his throat, “we land on Numidian and you go your way, that’s it?”

“Simple,” she nodded. “I doubt the imps are going to take kindly to my reneging on our deal.”

The alarm signaling their drop out of hyperspace began to blare and with reluctance Din rose to his feet to head back to the pilot’s chair. Zethu stood as well, laughing softly to herself as the kid raised his arms to be picked up, which she obliged, pocketing the blade before the child could start reaching for it. 

“You are more than just a merc, Zethu Desh,” he said before he could stop himself. 

Confusion laced with something akin to panic flashed across her face at his words. “Sometimes what you see is what you get, Mando,” she whispered, almost as if she couldn’t fathom summoning enough breath to answer him.

He’d seen her fight like a true warrior, a protector first on instinct, the rest all learned behavior. A creature of pure survival, like him, she had been right he had no place to judge her and she had proven herself. But what use convincing her when she would not see these qualities in herself? “Strap in,” he grunted, starting the climb up. “Numidian is never an easy landing.”

***

She couldn’t get the Mandalorian’s words out of her head. Most of her life had been lived alone since her exile from the rest of the Offshoots. She was sure she had committed almost every reprehensible crime in the galaxy. She owed no one loyalty, and no one owed her. It was better that way. Survival above all. Every day alive was a victory over the Arkanians, over her parents, over every other Offshoot that had wanted her to be something she never would. 

So what did it matter what this one Mandalorian thought?

No one stopped them as they walked right through the outpost’s gates with the carbonite corpse of Gedos Sal floating between them. Zethu stared straight ahead, trying not to look at the body of the man who had cursed her with his dying breath. 

Shame. That’s all she was, and if the Mandalorian had any brains he’d see that, too. Maybe letting him and the kid go was the one good thing she would ever do in her life. It hardly made up for anything. She still could barely believe why she was letting him go when her every survival instinct was screaming at her to get the jump on him, get the job done, take the payout and regard her hesitation as a rare moment of weakness and never think about it again. 

She couldn’t. She couldn’t. No realization frightened her more. 

They were met at the loading docks by the same severe Corellian woman who had sent them on their assignment. No fancy pent house office meetings this time. That suited Zethu fine. She was already itching to get the credits, pay for passage, and get on her Lancer far far away from the chance of running into any other Offshoots or Mandalorians ever again. 

“Such efficiency!” The woman spread her arms, ruby lips open in a charming smile. 

“He didn’t come quietly,” the Mandalorian spoke for them both. “Had to be put down.”

“Ah, a pity,” the woman nodded, checking over the carbonite slab, examining it as if it was some shiny piece of new tech. “But what’s done is done,” with a snap of her fingers an aide stepped forward with two separate pouches. 

Zethu took her half of the payout, tucking it away into her belt. She felt sick. 

“Our business is concluded. Feel free to enjoy our hospitality for as long as you remain on Numidian,” that smile again. “And as long as you refrain from shooting up any more of my employees. I should be greatly disappointed to put a bounty on your heads next,” she laughed and strode away on her heels, her guards taking control of the carbonite. 

And just like that Gedos Sal was gone, as if he never had existed in the first place. Zethu had a powerful desire to gamble and drink those credits down as fast as possible. “So…”

“So.”

There was no more contract keeping them together, no truces, no bounties. Zethu shifted awkwardly in the silence. “Stay for a drink?”

He tilted his head at her. “Not really my scene,” he gestured to his helmet. 

“Oh. Right.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. “A walk, instead? Bet the lil’ bug could stand for stretching its legs.”

As if in answer the kid poked its head out from under the Mandalorian’s cloak where it had been hiding. “You know you can come back with me as far as Nevarro, right?” The Mandalorian sighed, but he fell into step alongside her just the same. 

They walked out of the outpost, both realizing the gambling dens and catinas wouldn’t exactly make for a peaceful stroll; however much Zethu was still itching to burn those credits. Already she could feel the creeping flood of the inhabitants fears and excitements. Or maybe she was just projecting her own anxieties. 

As they exited the outpost and into the jungle trails that deluge in her mind receded and Zethu embraced the calm of the forest, and the silence of her walking partner. The landing bay was just behind them. They’d make a circuit and walk back. The little one was already toddling on ahead, following a jumping mantis-like insect. 

“Where are you two bound?” Zethu asked after a time. 

“The last time I was here I was looking for information on the kid’s people,” he explained. “Only got as far as ‘Jedi’ before I was...interrupted.” 

A low chuckle rumbled through her. “Be glad it was only an interruption. That distraction ended up saving your life, Mando. Hmm...I’ve heard that term once or twice by the way. Some kinda monks, right? Hey, if I hear anything more in my travels you’ll be the first I tell.”

“Thanks.”

In truth the few times she had ever heard the term Jedi was in hushed, frightened whispers here and there. She wasn’t really sure who they were. A religious order? Crime syndicate? It was as if people were afraid to even let on they knew the name. That would make getting intel extremely difficult and—hang on why was she already committing to going off on some star’s addled chase already?

The wind picked up around them rustling the leaves on some of the lower ferns. Blinking into the dappled light, Zethu noticed that all the rest of the leaves further down didn’t seem to be moving. Odd. 

“Should probably head back,” the Mandalorian said. 

“Yeah...hey, it was...good to meet you—”

“Din Djarin.”

He held out a hand. Zethu found herself staring before she reached out to shake it. “Din,” she smiled as he squeezed her hand just a little tighter as she said his name. It suited him, she thought, almost like she had already known his name.

“Offer’s a standing one,” he said, still not taking his hand from hers. “Would rather have you watching my back than trying to kill me any day.”

She laughed. “See ya, Din.”

“Hey,” he released her head and looked around. “Where’s the kid?”

Zethu also looked about, no sign of the little one anywhere. “Hey kid!” she shouted. She could see its distinctive footsteps leading off in a straight line through the jungle. “Probably just kept walking on ahead, shouldn’t be far.”

She shouldn’t be pleased this gave her more time with Din, but he was past paying any attention to her. He tore on ahead, focus solely on making sure his charge was alright. “There’s a clearing, I see it. Probably there,” he muttered, following the tracks. 

So he didn’t see the ships before Zethu did. 

“Din...Din run…”

But she couldn’t get enough breath to properly warn him. He was moving too far ahead and too fast. He finally saw right at the crest of the clearing. The freighters surrounded by Imperial stormtroopers. At least they found the little one, in the arms of an ex-Imperial officer. And at the center of it, her employer. 

Din had his blaster drawn. “Let the kid go!” If Zethu had thought she had seen the full wrath of the Mandalorian she had been dead wrong. Even with the modulator and the armor she could feel rage in its purest form radiating off of him. 

A dozen blaster rifles aimed for him at all once and Zethu felt her heart drop into her stomach at alarming speed. 

“That would be a mistake,” Moff Gideon strode forward towards Din, completely unaffected by the display. He stood tall, with a military grace and confidence that only came from years of effective leadership. Threats were beneath him, Zethu knew this. Even in  her short experience working for the man, Gideon only ever made promises. 

“You had an admirable run, but here we are. I have what I came for. Put down the blaster, Djarin or it won’t be you my men shoot.” The implication was impossibly clear. Din faltered for a moment as the blasters shifted towards the baby. 

“Ah, Zethu Desh, there she is, exactly on schedule.” Any hope of the imps not having noticed her died in that moment. She reached for her own weapon but found her hand gripped tight in Moff Gideon’s grasp. “I commend you for a job well done and let it not be said I am not a man of my word,” he slapped a bag of credits into her hand. 

“No...I…”

“You?” 

Din turned his head and Zethu did not need to see his eyes to feel his betrayal. It was everywhere in that one, quiet, pained, word. She shook her head, but Gideon’s pull was stronger. 

“Many of my staff felt you had gone rogue, but when we were so helpfully informed that you and Din Djarin were here on Numidian, I knew we could coordinate to plan. Thank you for leading him and the asset out. Take him.”

Gideon was stronger than he appeared. Zethu struggled in his grip as some of the stormtroopers approached. Din lashed out, dropping one with a solid punch and sending the other reeling backwards with another well-placed blow. “I wouldn’t delay,” Gideon said, not for a second taking his eyes off Zethu. “The longer I am made to wait, the more unsteady my men’s trigger fingers become.”

The kid let out a cry as the officer holding it placed her own blaster to its head. “Din, don’t!” Zethu shouted. All further cries were silenced at the prick of a blade against her belly. Gideon had her, concealing the weapon with his own body. 

Panting, Din whirled about, aiming his weapon at the circle of troopers helplessly before giving out a cry of frustration, throwing down the weapon. The troopers moved in then, latching stun cuffs onto his wrists before he could think to attack again. 

“Get them onto the ship.”

“No!” Zethu choked as the blade dug in, she felt it begin to draw blood through her jacket. 

Din was tugged forward by one of the stormtroopers. He looked back at her. “Traitor,” he hissed before being led onto the ship. The little one crying in fear after him. Zethu glared fire at Gideon, struggling harder at the sound, gagging in pain as the blade drove another inch further in. 

As soon as he had his prizes Zethu found herself released. She tried to run for the ship, but was backhanded by Gideon, sending her sprawling onto the underbrush. “My advice to you, Zethu Desh, would be to take your money and get out of this system” he spat, contemptuously. He wiped the blade with a kerchief before sheathing it. “If it hadn’t been for our point of contact with Crimson Dawn we might have missed this little rendezvous. As it stands...I have what I came for, you have your money, and if…” he loomed over her. “You think to interfere in anyway after this I will revisit letting you live, but I believe the Mandalorian won’t be accepting any further help from you.”

Rage. Hot, red, and burning exploded behind Zethu’s eyes. Blood roared in her ears as she lunged at Gideon. She had no weapon in hand when she attacked. It wasn’t too late to hold him hostage herself and negotiate terms. Or to tear him apart. 

The blaster shot felt more like an inconvenience than a real threat. Half mad with anger, Zethu simply cast her hand out to shove the incoming plasma bolt aside like an annoying pebble. She felt something shift against her, like a thread, and the bolt never struck her. 

Vaguely she was aware Gideon was firing again, but there was only a red hazy mist over her. He was backing away towards the ship and the soldiers who had far more firepower than a single blaster. 

“Although our contract is concluded, Zethu, you should know,” Gideon stepped up onto the boarding ramp. “I have neglected to fulfill one half of our full bargain. I believe this is a worthy enough trade given the trouble you have seen fit to cause me. Best of luck with the Dominion.” 

Blood was running down from her stomach, but she ran anyway. The boarding ramp was lifting. Gideon was already out of sight. The child was gone. Din Djarin was...gone. In her rage she threw her vibroblade at the hull of the ship. 

That tether from before reared back through her, pulling muscle and sinew with a weight Zethu had never felt before. All the breath left her lungs, her blood seemed to heat in her veins. And for one startling moment it looked as if the ship had lowered in the sky before she collapsed into unconsciousness in the now quiet and peaceful jungle clearing.

#The Mandalorian #Din x oc #Din Djarin x oc #Mandalorian x oc #long post #Cin Vhetin #everyone's fine here

[phantomphangphucker]

Gray's A Ghosties Host - Phic Phight

Prompt Creator: @latterdaysaintvampire​ Prompt: During a high-stakes chase, Danny’s parents’ newest invention has shorted out all his powers, except one - possession. Summary: What to do when the boy who possesses your heart is literally possessing your heart?

No warnings Italics means thinking that the other can hear

“What are you doing, Phantom?”, The Red Huntress watches Danny Phantom carefully as he falls out of the sky onto her board. “Uh, not a whole lot of time to explain but you see that”, Phantom points aggressively to the faintly glowing red centipede as he continues, “yeah needs to be stopped and my shit ain’t working, so could I jack your body for a bit?”. Red opens her helmet to gape at him, to which he just sighs, while the centipede draws closer, “over-shadowing, get with the program. All my other powers are fried”. Red throws her hands out to the side, “why the hell would I! I could beat it with my own body better than you could!”. Phantom groans and flails a bit as Red swerves to avoid the centipede, “because you don’t know how to beat the thing and I don’t have time to explain!”. Red glares at him and he makes a pouty face at her, Red facepalming, “fine! But don’t turn off my consciousness or whatever!”. Phantom groans again but nods, quickly slipping inside.

“You know that unconscious shit happens naturally, pretty damn hard to force it not to”

“I don’t care, my body not yours”

“Yeah yeah, now how do I use your goo blaster thing?”

“Right elbow, twitch like you or I or whatever, have an inch”

“Well that’s vague”

Phantom can feel Red mentally glare at him but he just rolls her eyes. Shooting her board forwards and maneuvering it with ease, as he chases after the centipede; which has unfortunately gotten pretty far away by now.

“Phantom, how do you know how to use my board?”

“Uh, I’ve done it before. That and it’s pretty straight forward”

“What! When?! And bullshit I took days of practice to maneuver it this well”

Phantom quickly jerks to the right as the centipede tries to smash his tail into them.

“When I got us out of the zone, when Skulker abducted us. I got you home my way, which yes, meant over-shadowing”

“You ass! But fine, good enough reason”

“And Red, your board is way easier than my tail and that’s attached to me”

Phantom manages to use her blaster after a few tries which he can feel her snickering about. Shooting off the goo to melt away some scales on the mid-back of the centipede. Ducking low on the board he flies them in. Phantom’s kind of glad for the full body suit right about now, since this thing is dripping ectoplasm all over them. Red pipes up again as Phantom is flying them through twists and turns of what’s basically a giant maze, all lined with what’s basically egg sacs.

“Okay this is disgusting, you are helping me get this off my suit”

“It’ll be a lot worse if those sacs burst, which will happen if I, or I guess we, don’t find the right one in about 30 seconds”

“Well you fucking better, driver”

Phantom mutters out loud, “that’s what I’m trying to do”. Flying past one of the offshoot hallways Phantom jerks to a stop, flies backwards and speeds down the hall. Smirking the whole time, “found you”.

“Care to explain why I couldn’t just play scavenger hunt myself?”

“One, I could sense about where it is. And two you can’t just shoot it, that’ll make everything way worse”

Phantom feels quite satisfied with himself at Red mentally grumbling to herself. Phantom starts rubbing Reds hands on the sac and a bunch of lights show up in it. He starts tapping the lights wildly in a specific pattern, that he forced himself to memorise after one too many unpleasant encounters with this thing.

“How many times have you had to do this?”

Phantom completely ignores her, which she mentally glares at him for. But watching the sac turn green and liquify, Phantom grins, “Hell yeah!”.

“More times than I like and here comes the unpleasant part”

“Um what?”

After about a second or two the entire ghost just liquifies into very wet jello like green ectoplasm. Half climbing and half swimming, Phantom gets them to the surface and sits them down on Red’s board, shaking the ectoplasm off her hands.

“This is disgusting, again you’re helping me clean my suit”

“Try doing that without a helmet. Shit gets into everything. And yeah sure, I’m not an ass”

“Well, could you get out of me now?”

Talking out loud, “yeah yeah, sure”. But before he has a chance Red’s suit electrocutes him and results in him knocking Red out cold, accidentally. “What the fuck!”, shaking her head he tries to actually hop out of her but nothing happens. “Oh fuck”, mentally poking Red back into consciousness.

“What the hell Phantom!”

“Your suit shocked me, or us, lost my grip on the not knocking you out thing”

“Fine”

Phantom shifts a bit awkwardly on her board.

“There’s uh, a bit of a problem though. I can’t seem to get out now”

“What! Did you even try?”

“Of course I tried! I’m not an asshole and no offence but I like my own body. Preferably not inside someone else’s, even if it’s you”

“Uh, you’re not half bad yourself but seriously, you can’t get out?”

Phantom nods her head but tries again anyways, this time Red can actually feel him trying to get out but both can tell that somehow the suit is stopping him. Frowning, Phantom flies them into an alleyway.

“Okay that’s weird, it would be really dumb for my suit to have a feature like this. I’m guessing we’re in an alley so you can deactivate my suit?”

“Yup, not about to reveal you in broad daylight”

“I don’t even know how I feel about that, you’ve revealed me before”

“Only to your own dad. To stop you from a damn suicide mission”

Phantom shakes her head and deactivates the suit, or at least attempts to. Talking out loud, “uh, unless this works differently from last time, we’ve got another problem”.

“Oh come on! I bet you anything that weird ectoplasm is at fault here”

Sighing, “yeah probably, I swear I had no clue though”

“I believe you, this doesn’t really benefit either of us”

With a groan, Phantom summons Red’s board out again and flies them both to her place. Landing in her bedroom,

“I’m guessing you have suit repair stuff”

“Yeah, though my suit’s self-repairing, usually. Just grab the diagnostic machine from my closet. It looks like a PDA but red and pointy”

Phantom chuckles as he pulls it out, looking exactly like what she described. Thinking to himself about how Tuck would love to get his hands on this. Flopping down on her bed,

“Now open up the panel on the underside of my left arm and plug it in. It’s just a push and pop, I’m sure you can do that”

“What do you take me for, a moron? Well, you’re absolutely right”

“You’re awful”

Phantom leans them back on her bed as he waits for the machines results. He can’t help but smirk at a couple of the glow-in-the-dark stars on the roof.  

“You know, I can fell what you’re doing with my face. What? My stars not to your liking?”

Phantom can feel the sarcasm there and chuckles almost loudly at that.

“Red, my ceilings covered in them. Hell, I’d stick these fake ones on everything if that wouldn’t make me look insane”

“My knowledge on lairs is pretty small, Phantom. Couldn’t you just make literal stars everywhere?”

Phantom laughs again as the machine starts beeping, grabbing it as he responds to Red.

“Pretty sure Amity Park would have problems with me doing that. Might make it hard to drive or live with literal balls of flaming gas everywhere! Even fake ones would make things difficult, for everyone involved”

“Wait, all of Amity is your lair?!”

Phantom nods as he stares at the screen, “Uh, the hell does any of this mean?”. Rubbing Red’s neck, “and yes all of Amity is my lair, though I have my own little room inside Amity as well”.

“That’s major contamination, need a system flush. We’re stuck for a bit and seriously? Why is there such a ghost issue then? Shouldn’t you be able to keep them out or whatever? And you better not be messing with people”

Phantom can feel her glare, though he can tell she’s more curious than genuinely angry.

“You can’t just keep ghosts out, all you can do is make your lair a place they really don’t want to go. Tons of humans is pretty well attracting them, looking to mess around with them. Amity would be a very unpleasant place for anyone but me to live, if I went out of my way to make Amity unappealing to ghosts. And there’s nothing wrong with a prank or two”

Phantom rolls her eyes at Red’s continued glaring, “I don’t mean anything nasty, so chill. You know me better than that, I’d hope”. Sitting up and glaring at the little device, “so system flush?”.

“Just push the green button, red one and blue one, at once. And you’re right, I do know you better than to be mean. Thanks, I guess, for not screwing with Amity. Lots of folks live here. You really are as protective of the people as much as the town, aren’t you?”

Phantom nods and smiles warmly as he pushes the buttons. Jumping a bit at the sudden weird tingling and movement in her bodies veins, but shaking his head a bit amused at Red’s mental laughter.

“Trust me having two or four bodies feels weirder, that was just unexpected. I forget your suit is literally inside you and part of you. And what? You gonna sue me for being a protective little shit. I care more about the people than the town. Buildings can be fixed, people just can’t”

Phantom can’t help but shiver at some old memories. He could feel Red’s shock, though he’s glad she seems kind of happy.

“I’m not sure I want to know what your sudden disturbed feeling was. But that’s good you care about the people. Man, I really used to be a dick to you”

“Don’t worry about it, I don’t really care much about myself getting hurt. And no you don’t, I wish I didn’t. Well, sorta; it’s complicated. Anyway, how long does this take?”

“We are both messes, but about six hours”

Phantom flops them back down on the bed and fiddles with Red’s fingers in front of Red’s face. Blinking her eyes a bit before muttering, “oh well that’s, uh, not actually good, shit”.

“Oh now what?”

“Well, the stupid weapon that shorted my powers is gonna wear off in about an hour. And they’re going to be a bit squirrely”

“So what? You’re just going to use them at random?”

“Pretty much, only easy to use ones though. Might fall through the bed a couple of times or start sneezing ice”

“That is going to be very weird, it won’t hurt me will it?”

Phantom rubs her neck and chuckles awkwardly,

“Uh, can’t say I know for sure. But it is safe to use my powers in someone else’s body. This really isn’t a power I use much”

“That’s just great. Well, try not to hurt me”

“Of course, and I’m guessing you’ll  need to sleep at some point?”

Thinking to himself, about how he really needs to himself and he’s not even a regular human.

“Duh, which is going to be a whole new level of weird. Do you even know how to sleep?”

Phantom can’t help but start laughing his ass off, putting Red’s arm over her eyes. “Sometimes I think I don’t, god! But yes, hell yes”

“Not sure why that’s so funny, ghosts don’t sleep so it’s a damn valid question”

“It just is. Just chalk it up as another weird aspect of the enigma that is Phantom”

“How do you manage to be so powerful, horrible and cute”

Phantom coughs, caught a bit off guard, “what was that?”.

“Uh”

Phantom laughs playfully at that complete lack of a response, “well then”.

“Jerk”

“Oh come on, you’re all those things too. I’m just not embarrassed to say it, well, think it; in your general direction. But at least you weren’t 24 years old this time ”

“What? What the fuck? You’re less of a jerk now, but what?”

“What the fuck is a pretty accurate way to describe time travel. You look pretty good with a buzz cut by the way”

“That’s insane, what uh, what was I like?”

“Pretty much the same, didn’t really talk much. You realised I was from the past, called me cute and then passed out”

“Wow, somehow that feels really lame”

“That was the only real highlight of that day. Pretty shit day. Come to think of it, every-time time travel is involved shit gets really messed up”

“You really are a mess”

Phantom scrunches her face up a bunch before lifting her hand to her face, completely invisible.

“Holy shit, you weren’t kidding. How did neither of us feel that”

“My powers are extremely natural to me, like blinking or breathing to you. It can be harder to not use them than to use them”

“That’s weird even if it makes sense, I guess it’s like how I don’t notice my suit doing its thing in me anymore”

Phantom shakes her head but feels a fair bit embarrassed,

“Even from the very beginning, it was like that for me. Half the time I was using my powers on accident and usually didn’t even notice”

Phantom can feel her snickering at him

“Goddamnit that’s adorable, oh hell”

“I like how you go from mocking me, to being embarrassed”

“Oh shut it”

“I don’t think I will”

Red mentally yelps as the two phase straight through the bed and floor. Phantom has to latch onto a ceiling light to keep them from crashing into the living room. Phantom silently watches Mr. Gray walk from the living room into the kitchen, before phasing then back into Red’s room. “Well, that was eventful”.

“More like nerve-racking”

“Eh, nothing much phases me anymore”

“You’re awful”

“Then you must have awful taste in men”

“You’re a child!”

“So are you!”

“You’re a ghost...”

“So what? Why care?”

Phantom sighs a bit as he sits them down cross-legged on her bed, she doesn’t think anything at him for a bit.

“We’re not the same, you’re literally possessing me right now”

“No one is the same, and you have a nanobot suit in your veins. How is that not just as weird as my powers?”

“You, you’ve thought about this before”

“Like I said, or thought, I’m not embarrassed by my interest. Hell, most ghosts and even a few humans, know how I feel”

Phantom rubs Red’s neck, “though I’ve been called an insane idiot many times for it. I guess it is kind of absurd and stupid to be interested in someone who’s trying to kill you”.

“Wait, so you’ve been, interested, in me since almost the beginning? Yeah that is pretty stupid, I really was trying to destroy you”

“Heh, yeah I know. My self-preservation was pretty well butchered by the time you popped up”

“Can’t really say mines all that intact either, but this is just so weird”

“Red, for as different as we are, we are also very similar. Hell, our “jobs” are basically the same. And we’re both out to lunch compared to the rest of our kinds”

“True, I don’t know if this would be more or less awkward face to face”

“You’re the awkward one here, I’ve been owning this shit pretty well publicly for years”

Phantom can feel her embarrassment as he rolls over to stretch out a bit, blinking at the layer of ice they’re laying on, “well there’s an ice breaker for you”.

“Pft you’re awful, it’s not even broken”

“Oh you know better than to tempt me”

“Don’t you dare!”

Snickering, “I’m the scary ghost boy! I do what I want!”

Phantom flicks a corner of the blanket, shattering it off, “HA!”. While Red mentally laughs.

“So, you going to own your shit now too? Or do I need to make more horrible puns for you actually admit you like me”

“God damn you, how are you so just out there? With everything? And yes I’m still hung up on the ghost thing, but you really don’t care do you?“

“Nope, I really don’t. Two humans, two ghosts, a ghost and a human, or something else entirely; I see no real difference. Though, I’ll never get over Boxy getting with the Lunchlady. They're going to be so confused at the baby shower, I fist fought their kid before they even started dating”.

“Oh my god, that is really ew. I think this kind of shit is why you are so self exposed. No matter what weird shit you show publicly, there’s something weirder unsaid or did”

Phantom scratches Red’s head with her hand, “you might just have a point there”. He then flings her hand over the top of the garbage can, clearly seeing the glowing green forming ectoblast.

“Well I hope nothing was hidden in there”

“Why would I hide stuff in a garbage can? That’s asking for it to be thrown out”

“Must you insult me so”

“Seriously? What even are you?”

“A mess that’s what. A spooky mess”

“The spookiest”

���A spooky that you likey”

Phantom puts her hands behind her head and smirks while Red mentally groans.

“So...”

“Oh my god”

Red doesn’t get to properly respond as Phantom snaps her head to the side, ghost sense going off. “It’s been all of three hours”, with a groan Phantom flings them up off the bed and sticks her head out the window to look around.

“What even was that? And what are you looking for?”

“Ghost, that was my Ghost Sense. Goes off whenever a ghost is near”

“Oh my god, you have built-in ghost radar and ghost tracker”

“So do you?”

Phantom jumps about a bit, making sure he can make her body float reliably, as Red thinks at him.

“From nanobots, not my own natural body, but point. And you know none of my suit is usable right now, right?”

Phantom smirks, “yup” as he vaults them out the window. Flying low to the ground, off to where he can sense what turns out to be a snake ghost.

“Please don’t crash me”

“Flying might as well be my number one skill, Red”

“And your powers are being crazy right now, so your point?”

Rolling Red’s eyes, “oh please, have a little faith”. As he shoots off an ectoblast at the snakes head, “that’ll give ya something to sink your fangs into!”. Only to snap Red’s head towards Skulker as he shoots a capture net around the snake. The two, technically three, float there for a bit while Skulker slowly tilts his head. Until Skulker smirks, tosses his catch over his shoulders and gives the two of them a thumbs up, “well whelp, that’s not how I’d go about snagging a lady but a fellow hunter always congratulates another on a successful hunt”. Phantom, snapping back at the retreating ghost, “I asked first, you metal ass”.

“You really weren’t kidding about that either. Am I seriously the only one who didn’t clue in?”

Snickering as he flies them back to her place, “well most humans don’t know and ghosts are horrible gossips, but I’m pretty sure you knew; sort of”.

“That makes no sense”

“I’m an enigma remember”

Flopping down on Red’s bed and crawling under the blankets, “comfy”.

“Glad you approve, not sure how you’ll handle sleeping for the first time in however long”

“Like a very scary baby”

“More like a cute one”

Phantom raises her eyebrow, “Oh is that so”

“Alright fine, I like your ghostly ass ok? And not in the just friend's way. The interspecies thing is still a mind trip though”

Smirking contently into her pillow, “well now I can die happy”.

“Don’t you dare”

“Be happy or die?”

“You’re awful and we’re a mess”

“Well then, I’ll remind the reaper to bless this mess”

“You are an affront to god, now let me or us or whatever sleep”

“Oh you have no idea”

Red wakes up after only an hour or two of sleep, thinking to herself, she’s mentally blaming that on Phantom.

“You still here, Phantom?”

“Yeah, you can’t get rid of me quite yet”

“I think I’m ok with that”

“Same, but I’m still jumping this body-sharing ship when I can”

“Good, cause we so need an out of my body talk, you cute ass spook”

End.

#phic phight #phic phight 19 #Danny Phantom #phantom #fan fic #phan phic #Valerie gray #romcom #romance #phantomphangphucker #have a fic suck my dick #team human #possession #over-shadowing #gray ghost

[queen-scribbles]

Ghost Story

For @pillarspromptsweekly fill #93: Mission. I filled it with Sagani doing the Lovers’ Light mission in Adi’s Stars Rewritten canon. 

Sagani was not particularly happy on boats; she preferred solid earth under her boots. That went double for stormy weather. Give her the risk of trees falling on her head over capsizing any day. Yet here she was. Rowing out into the Grace of Ciamena during a storm. All to chase a ghost story. One that might actually be true, from what she could tell, but that didn’t make the pounding rain any warmer or the salt spray sting any less. Still she’d promised Adi she could handle this while Adi saw to whatever trouble was brewing up in Stalwart.

“Sounds like the Republics are lovely this time of year,” she joked. “Once you’ve seen one snow-covered landscape, you’ve seen ‘em all. The change of scenery will be nice, and I’ve never tried tracking ghosts before. Sounds fun.”

Adi had laughed and wished her luck before heading off to round up her chosen companions for this adventure.

Bet my good hunting knife she takes Heodan, Sagani had thought to herself. Despite repeated claims of not being a fighter, the soft-spoken rogue sure seemed to enjoy traipsing after their illustrious leader on adventure after adventure that involved just that. And for all her worrying about him, Adi kept asking him along. Sagani was pretty sure she knew why.

She was pulled from her reverie as the boat shuddered into the trough between two waves, tossing her into the Ondrite priest next to her. The woman yelped and both started to lose their balance before a sailor hauled them upright.

“Sorry,” Sagani said ruefully, watching Revena rub the sore spot from their collision. “Not used to boats. Guess it’s a good thing I don’t have my fox with me, huh?” Itumaak would have been decidedly less gracious about being tossed practically in someone’s lap.

The priest chuckled. “Interesting a sight as a flying fox might be, ac, I think it not being here is for the best.”

Sagani laughed as well, but before she had a chance to continue the banter, one of the sailors swore and pointed off the port side of the boat. “There!”

Sagani shifted past Revena to get a better look at the twin lights that hovered over the storm-tossed water. Even as she shielded her eyes from the rain, the faint sound of singing wove between the chaos of the storm.

“It is them!” another sailor cried, followed by a string of Vailian Sagani didn’t understand, though she did catch ‘Alessa’ and ‘Pellanne’ in there, so she had a good idea what he’d said. The rest of the crew all froze in their duties to stare at the dancing lights, some murmuring what sounded like prayers as they did.

The boat lurched, and Sagani’s grip on the side tightened til her knuckles went white. The sailors didn’t seem to notice--or if they did they didn’t care--their attention still claimed by the twin lights. As she peered through the rain and churning water, Sagani could almost believe the lights took the ethereal forms of two folk women. But even as she peered out, wondering how much that was influenced by tales of star-crossed lovers and the mob that chased them to their deaths, the boat gave an even harsher lurch and then capsized completely.

If being on a boat during a storm was bad, being in the water was even worse. The Grace was fierce, and the pummeling waves soon destroyed any lingering hope of knowing which direction was up. Sagani still tried; this would be a bullshit end to her hunt for Persoq, and Adi would feel guilty forever over letting her go.

She was really, really glad she hadn’t brought Itumaak.

Struggling against the waves proved futile, especially not knowing which way to go, so Sagani finally relaxed. Just in time for her head to break the surface. She barely had time to gulp down a lungful of air before the roll of another wave sent her tumbling. And then another.

But when this one retreated, there was the sting of gritty sand against her palms, knees, face, and Sagani found herself on a beach of sorts. 

In a cave.

A big cave.

She coughed and sputtered until she purged what salt water she’d  swallowed, and only then let herself sit back and take in the surroundings. Even as she did, another roll of the surf deposited Revena and a couple sailors--Gialo and Edden, if she recalled correctly--on the beach with her.

“Ondra’s tits,” Edden groused, spitting sea water and shooting a sheepish look at Revena. “I see why the duc wants that dealt with, it’s a bloody menace.”

The priest was busy wringing water out of her robes and seemed to have missed his abuse of her goddess’ name. “Ac, there are many who fall prey to the romanticism of seeing ghosts with their own eyes.”

Gialo pushed himself upright and finger-combed sand from his shaggy hair as he chipped in his two pands. “What’s romantic about being run off a fucking cliff to your deaths?”

“The star-crossed lovers part, I believe,” Revena replied tartly.

Sagani tuned out the rest of their semi-friendly bickering as she continued examining their surroundings. This cave was massive. The wreckage of whole warships and trade vessels peeked through the water’s surface or hung precariously between rocks along the walls. Squeezing water from her hair, she cautiously approached the closest such wreck. She wasn’t terribly surprised to see mostly-decayed remains dotting the shoreline near the beached hull. What did surprise her was the fact the remains had been stripped--there was no evidence of clothes, jewelry, weapons, anything.

“There’s someone living in here,” Sagani muttered, instinctively reaching for her bow. It was, of course, not there. She hadn’t counted on needing it to investigate a ghost story. Which meant it was safe back in her rented room with Itumaak, at least, rather than lost to the roaring surf.

She turned to inform the others of this development and discovered they had multiplied. The constantly rolling waves had dropped almost all the remaining crew on the beach as well. All coughing up sea water and growling various oaths and epithets as it sank in they weren’t dead. There were a few injuries Sagani could see as she approached; gashes from hitting the stone wall on the way in, colorful bruises, a couple with skin scraped raw like her from how they hit the sand.

Sagani set two fingers in her mouth and whistled loud and sharp, the echoes chasing toward the impossibly high cavern ceiling. The low rumble of chatter and complaining stopped abruptly and all eyes swung toward her in the dim light of phosphorescent fungus that pocked the walls in clumps. 

“First things we need to do are get wounds bound and start a fire,” she said. “I think there’s kith of some kind livin’ in here, so we’ll need to keep an eye out--’cause that means tunnels--until we can investigate.”

No one so much as protested or back-talked her plan. Some of the less banged-up sailors went to gather wood for a fire, some started ripping up shirts to bind wounds--salt water sting or no, it was better than letting them bleed--while keeping half an eye out for trouble. In short order, they had some semblance of a camp set up. With the brighter firelight, they could see the mouth of a small tunnel along one wall. Sagani wouldn’t have any trouble, of course, but some of the taller sailors, like Gialo, would have to duck.

“So, who’s coming with me to scout?” she asked, fashioning a better than decent torch from a spar of hull-wood.

The sailors all exchanged looks before Edden raised  hand. “Fuck it,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll go.”

Gialo and another uninjured sailor(whose name Sagani felt guilty for forgetting) quickly followed suit. As they prepared additional torches, there was a low, animalistic hiss from the direction of the tunnel.

Eyes glittered in the light of Sagani’s torch as she moved closer to investigate. The figure finally revealed was hunched, matted hair and beard hiding most of the face. He snarled and backed away from the light, only to run into the pair crouched behind him. All three watched with baleful, feral eyes as Sagani approached, finally turning and running when she waved the torch at them and hollered as she reached the mouth of the tunnel.

“Yeah, you’ll want to keep that fire going while we’re gone,” she called back to Revena and the others. “Maybe get a couple torches going, too.”

“Whaddya think they are?” Edden asked.

“Kith,” Sagani said slowly. That part had been obvious. “But from the look of ‘em, they’ve been down here their whole lives. Maybe descended from survivors?” She gestured toward the wrecked ships. Something dark and wet-shiny caught her eye where the trio had stood. Upon closer scrutiny, it proved to be a handful of blackberries. Fresh blackberries. “There’s a way out.”

“What?” Gialo frowned.

“These berries.” She scooped them up to exhibit. “They’re fresh, need sunlight to grow, and don’t smell like salt. They’re from outside. Which means who- and whatever these ferals are, they have a way out of here that doesn’t involve ocean water. We just need to find it without gettin’ lost and we can get out of here, too.”

She felt a little guilty scrapping her original goal for this trip, but plans changed when you were shipwrecked. Getting to safety was more important, and maybe once they were out Revena could perform funeral rites from the cliffs overlooking what was undoubtedly Alessa and Pellanne’s watery grave.

Edden snorted. “Without gettin’ lost bein’ the tricky part, yeah?”

“The alternative is to stay here and either turn into or be eaten by that,” Sagani pointed out, gesturing after the ferals with her torch. “Which I’d rather avoid, personally.”

He gave a reluctant grunt of agreement, and the four of them started down the tunnel.

~~o~~

It proved relatively straight, and the first few offshoots dead-ended quickly, which saved a lot of time. Sagani made sure they marked their choice at the first serious branching very clearly. There was another decent-sized side passage not far past it, and when Sagani paused to mull over whether it was worth checking, Edden and the third sailor--Cirocco, she’d finally remembered--cocked their heads.

“Do you hear that?” Cirocco asked.

Even as she opened her mouth to reply, Sagani realized she could.

Singing. The same song they’d heard out on the Grace, in fact. Drifting faintly up the passage she’d been about to skip. “Wait here.”

The sailors all nodded, and Sagani ducked down the passage. It twisted a little but wasn’t a terribly long way before dead-ending in a small, eerily beautiful cave. Streaks of the glowing blue cave fungus ran along the walls, rock swirled with the glitter of mica, and in the back, so close as to be intermingled, lay the bones of two people. The haunting melody.was louder now, and she could see why; a pair of cean gŵla hovered over the remains, hands clasped as they sang their mournful song.

Sagani took in the sight, whistled softly, and slowly backed away, hoping these two would remain as calm as the one in the lighthouse had for Adi. They did, and she swiftly backtracked to the waiting sailors.

“Dead end?” Gialo asked, sounding unsurprised.

“Yeah, but I found ‘em,” Sagani said. “Alessa and Pellanne. Pretty sure it’s them, anyway. There’s a pair of  cean gŵla hanging over them singin’ the same song we heard out on the water. So who wants to go get Revena? She can do the burial rites that’re the whole reason we’s here.”

“I’ll go,” Cirocco volunteered.

Sagani nodded. “Don’t dawdle. Soon we can get outta here, the better.”

“Wasn’t plannin’ to,” he promised with a boyish smile, and took off.

~~o~~

True to his word,Cirocco returned shortly with Revena in tow--as well as the other surviving sailors. Some sported new injuries that looked suspiciously like claw and bite marks.

“Those... people fell upon us again,” Revena explained, lips curling at calling the cave dwellers people as she brushed dark hair out of her eyes. “I believe they came to scavenge and were surprised to find living kith. We drove them off, but not easily, as you can see, ac? The beach was clearly no longer safe, and we were already preparing to follow your trail when young Cirocco appeared and said you had found the lovers we seek. So we all came, rather than risk some being attacked again.”

“Fine by me,” Sagani shrugged. It wouldn’t really make finding their way out any harder. “But before we get back to looking for the exit, let’s take care of these poor ladies, hmm?”

“Oh, ac.” Revena nodded, attempting to straighten her sodden robes. “Lead the way.”

Sagani showed her--and a few of the more curious (superstitious) sailors--to the cave. Revena murmured something in Vailian and began issuing instructions. A shallow grave was dug in the sandy grit of the cave floor, and the bones collected. As she helped with the latter, Sagani caught the faint glimmer of blue on skeletal hands. Closer inspection revealed rings, clearly meant as a set. One was silver, set with a single large round sapphire that fit snugly in the notch between the two smaller sapphires that decorated the copper band. The craftsmanship was amateurish but still beautiful; if only for the care that had clearly gone into their creation. She pocketed them, figuring they’d make good proof of completion for the duc, and returned to helping.  It wasn’t long before Alessa and Pellanne were interred together with solemnity and respect. Revena spoke the burial rites with the wailing of the cean gŵla rising and falling in the background, finally fading into silence as she finished the rites and the spirits disappeared.

They all stood there a moment longer, the silence almost as haunting as the song. Sagani finally turned and headed back up the tunnel, gesturing for the them to follow. They’d seen to the dead, time to worry about the living.

~~o~~

It took a few more hours of searching, a couple wrong turns, and at least one frayed temper, but they did find the opening the cave people must have used for raiding. It was more of a crack, really, and an uncomfortably tight squeeze for some, but it was a way out.

They found themselves on a rolling hill near sunset, and quickly made for the nearest house to figure out where the hel they were. The poor farmer, who didn’t know what to make of this group, explained they were two hours’ travel outside Barda before before graciously offering to let them spend the night in his barn, given the hour. They accepted, and Revena prayed a blessing over the household for such kindness.

Tired as she was, it took a while for Sagani to fall asleep. She was worried--and slightly guilty--about Itumaak, but finally convinced herself he’d be fine. And she had enough money to compensate the innkeeper for any damage a bored fox might cause to the room.

They made for Barda first thing in the morning, settled up, and went their separate ways. Sagani reunited with Itumaak and gave him several strips of jerky to apologize for her long absence, which seemed to mollify the fox. She cleaned up and put on fresh clothes before heading to meet the duc.

He was shocked and impressed by her tale, convinced by the rings she brought that the cean gŵla had been the unfortunate lovers. “I can never thank you enough for your help, or your Lady for sparing so able an adventurer.” He nodded to a servant, who produced a small pouch of coin, and picked up the rings to offer back. “Keep them as part of your reward, ac? I regret I cannot spare more, for your travails, but our town has hit hardships recently....”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Sagani assured him, looking at the rings as they rested on her palm. Something about the way they glinted made her think there was magic of some sort involved, but even if not, giving them to Adi would be fun. “I know someone who can use them.”

#queens fic #pillars prompts weekly #sagani #stars rewritten au #pillars of eternity

[tessatechaitea]

Teen Titans Spotlight #5: Jericho

Princess of Gemworld

How will he not know when he finds his fingers have been Crazy Glued to his cock?

With Jericho's powers, I don't know why he needs Garfield's fingerprints. Why not just possess Steve Dayton himself, knock him out so he can't scream for help, and just walk in to grab the promethium? Or hire his dad to get the shit! He could probably guilt Deathstork into doing loads of illegal stuff for him.

Why would Steve Dayton allow Garfield Logan access to his promethium?! Yeah, I fucking know Logan's his son. It still doesn't fucking make sense!

Jericho takes the promethium back to Arthur Lord so he can trade it to the Quraci government and save his daughter's life. But it's only after Lord leaves Addie's place with the promethium that she says to Jericho, "I think we just got scammed!"

Jericho responds, "I think you're a loser."

Sure enough, Penny and Arthur were just using Joey and his mom to get their hands on the most destructive non-Lobo thing in the DC Universe. Penny is all, "That dupe actually thought I loved him! But we didn't even fuck! I just held a tin of microwaved potato salad between my legs and let him fuck that." That's what sex feels like, right? Fucking warm potato salad? I mean, I totally know that's what it's like. I hope! I mean, I don't hope it feels like that in that I love the feeling of fucking warm potato salad! I hope that's what it feels like so people who have fucked don't think I haven't fucked because I described it poorly. We all have different experiences anyway! You can't invalidate my description of what it felt like when I totally had sex all those times! Joseph, being the biggest dupe of them all, didn't replace the promethium tablets with Sugar Mamas like I would have expected him to do. So now he and his mother have to break into Arthur Lord's secret laboratory and resteal the promethium tablets! If only they had consulted Nightwing, they could have been done with this adventure already. He would have been all, "Man, Joey, you smell like potato salad ! Did you fall for the fake lover with the potato salad between her legs trick? You better not trust her, buddy!" Oh, I was wrong! They don't break into Lord's place at all! They think their smartest move is to break into Qurac and kidnap Curt, Penny's husband! I guess they can use him as leverage. Although couldn't Joey have lifted Penny's fingerprints off of his prostate to gain access to the secret lab? If Joey had the ability to sneak into Qurac to rescue Penny without risking the entire world by giving Qurac promethium, why the fuck wasn't that the plan from the beginning?! I'm starting to sense that maybe Marv Wolfman was on Quaaludes when he wrote this script.

That would be Joey's crotch.

There's an advert for NBC's Saturday morning line-up in this issue and it just makes me wonder: if modern conservatives are so pissed off about everything in our culture that they see as emasculating the kind of man they think every guy should be, where the fuck were they in 1986 while I was watching Kissyfur, The Gummi Bears, Smurfs, Punky Brewster, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Foofur, and Kidd Video?! The most manly cartoon in that list is Alvin and the Chipmunks and they wore dresses! Stop doing the math and trying to point out that I was fourteen or fifteen in 1986! Gummi Bears had one of the best cartoon theme songs (right after Ducktales)! I'm going to go listen to it right now! Joey and Adeline take Curt to Tokyo where they finally begin interrogating him. Even though he spent multiple days being tortured by the Quraci government, he wouldn't tell them a thing. He spends two minutes alone with Adeline and Joseph and he begins spilling the beans. The only threat they used was that Joey was going to put himself inside hi...oh. I see what he's afraid of! Dude, it's nothing to be frightened of! Just relax, man! Joseph's a sensitive poet. He'll definitely provide a reach-around. Joseph infiltrates Lord's secret base and discovers he's resurrecting H.I.V.E. (which stands for Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination which is fucking stupid. Just spitballing for a few seconds and I already came up with a better one: Higher Institute of Violent Extremism!). Joseph's movements are described as catlike which is why he's noticed freaking the fuck out, bouncing off walls, and yowling at the top of his voice. Arthur Lord, leader of an organization full of soldiers who are only in the organization because they killed a bunch of other master fighters, decides to fight Joseph himself. His mighty warriors (the best of the best!) just stand around in robes watching.

What good is your invaluable edge if you're not going to use it?! Kill the little creep, you idiot!

Arthur Lord tackles Joseph straight through a wall where they both disappear from view. Then he emerges and he's all, "He's dead! And since Joseph can't control the host's talking, I must be myself and telling the truth! Ha ha ha!" But I know better! Remember how I already saw there's another issue in this stupid story arc? Joseph is totally still alive! And probably possessing Arthur! And probably able to speak because Arthur was knocked unconscious! Pshaw! Marv Wolfman, you need better twists! Arthur and H.I.V.E. take off from their secret base to go take over the world. And they won't need the base anymore for some reason, so they just blow up the island on the way out. Ugh, he's the worst kind of tenant. Teen Titans Spotlight #5: Jericho Rating: B-. So much betrayal! So many twists and turns! Not much fucking though. Which makes it a mediocre Teen Titans story. And yes, the B- factors in the fact that this whole conflict is, once again, somehow driven by family.

#Teen Titans Spotlight #Jericho #Teen Titans #DC Comics #DC

[stevieang]

You Can’t Hurry Love  Chapter 28/30

Chapter 1   Chapter 2   Chapter 3  Chapter 4   Chapter 5  Chapter 6   Chapter 7 Chapter 8   Chapter 9     Chapter 10     Chapter 11     Chapter 12    Chapter 13 Chapter 14      Chapter 15     Chapter 16   Chapter 17  Chapter 18   Chapter 19   Chapter 20  Chapter 21   Chapter 22   Chapter 23  Chapter 24  Chapter 25 Chapter 26  Chapter 27

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Plus-Size OFC

Word Count: 4600

Warnings: Fluff, family and relationship drama, (trigger warning) healing after a trauma, some pretty strong angst, and explicit sexual content that is NSFW 18+.  SERIOUSLY.

Tags:  @3dsaunt  @andiyholly  @averyrogers83  @babybluesunsets @bettercallsabs @brittyevans  @brookebarnes @cecygee   @csrfavs   @docharleythegeekqueen  @dorito-distractions  @everythingisoverrated  @fabicchi  @favhearts  @flawless-disaster  @gifsbysimplysonia @hazeleyedgirl7   @hennessy0274-blog @inumorph @jaguars2007  @jaamesbbarnes @jamesbarnesappreciationsociety  @janeyboo @jouhainak @learisa @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @lilylovescomics   @lojo83   @lookwhatyoumademequeue  @lostinspace33  @madicardi  @magellan-88   @mamapeterson   @me-a-hopeless-romantic  @meyoko10  @mindingmyownbusiness @mizzzpink @neverleturheartshow2  @nomadicpixel  @nothanks-justlooking @part-time-patronus @patzammit @pinkieandthebrain1 @redqueen1221 @rosiethebaker @sebbytrash  @sgtjbuccky  @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan  @stark-spangled-banner-man  @st-eve-barnes @stillherebiandabitch @sunriserose1023​ @suz-123 @the-real-kellymonster    @tutis24 @winterismyfavoriteseason1945​  @winters-beauty​ @yaykitty3​

Summary: The cliche is true - the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Stephanie and Steve had enjoyed their honeymoon, had spent time with family and friends, and enjoyed relative peace for the first time since their wedding.  The life of an Avenger is never quiet for long, and this new chapter of this life was no different.

A/N: This is why I love Tumblr.  So many of you took the time to reach out and tell me that you love my little story, my baby if you will, and that you will miss it when it ends.  Thanks, a lot.  i am so grateful to you for all the love and likes and reblogs. They mean so much.  I could not have done this without @MSEnglish101 encouraging me from the very first day.  She has been so wonderfully patient with me - helping me fly on my own and feeling confident to do so!  Thanks also to @HMarvels31 who is just the sweetest, kindest Bucky-obsessed Canadian I know (though she may be the only one I know, which is lucky in and of itself).  Enjoy and thanks again for being such great readers!! - Steph

The pre-trial conference was not a formality.  Your legal team explained that it was a way to introduce motions about things like excluding certain witnesses or pieces of evidence and also a venue for the judge to encourage settlement.  

“Whoa.  Settle?  That’s not a serious consideration, is it?” You stared at Julia, the attorney that you’d worked most closely with and with whom you had developed a friendly rapport.

“From a budgetary and legal standpoint, it is always a consideration.  Trials are expensive and require an excessive amount of time and human resources.  It is prudent to explore the option, but in this case, neither side is suggesting it.  The Webers want to be heard and we want to be able to use their own words against them.”

You had read up on the lead defense lawyer.  He was considered an up-and-coming legal genius that dominated courtrooms and charmed jurors.  Thankfully, your team, as well as the government lawyers, were beyond reproach and had been prepping with intensity for months.  Everyone was as ready as they could be.  You had confidence in their abilities and just wanted to get the show on the road.

Wil and Ellie had not seen each other since their arraignment, when they decided to be tried together.  Ellie’s fears for her brother’s well-being were justified when she saw him at the pre-trial conference.  Wil had lived the somewhat pampered life of an academic, a scientist, and a businessman.  He was his father’s favorite son, cherished by his mother, and protected by his stronger, more aggressive twin.  Jail had not been kind to him.  He was thin, with skin the color of an old yellowing t-shirt, and worst, lacking the confidence he always exuded.

She immediately slipped into German when they saw each other.

“What have they done to you, dearest?” She hugged him with a ferocity she rarely exhibited.  

He didn’t answer.  She cupped his cheek with her hand.

“This life is not for you, but we have a way out.  West sent me a message.”  That got him to raise his eyes with a glimmer of hope behind them.  She relayed her orders.

“How? You know we are not going to be found innocent, El.  We have nothing they need and we tried taking something that means everything to them.”  He bowed his head in resignation, and his sister slapped him.  Hard.  He responded with fury in his eyes.  That’s what she wanted.

“Barnes.  I am going to ask our lawyers to get in touch with Barnes.  He’s all kinds of devastated that this happened on his watch.  I’ll feed him the line he wants - a chance to right his wrong with me in exchange for what we want.”

Wil understood and didn’t try to convince his sister to change her mind.  “No matter what, he is not going to get me released, allow me to work with them.”

Ellie smiled.  Her brother was back.  “No, but I have an idea.”

_____________________________

The conference netted some excluded evidence on both sides, but nothing that Julia deemed critical to the case.  The week before the trial you began daily run-throughs with the lawyers on various parts of your testimony.  Each person had an area of specialty for which they were responsible and would take the lead.  You trusted each of them and, by now, felt like an expert witness.  Steve and Bucky were there, but it was Natasha you were the most thankful for.  She had been in charge of the CGS pharmaceuticals investigation from the beginning and played a significant role in establishing the chain of physical evidence against the Webers.  You were particularly touched when she took you out to lunch and refused to allow the men to join or other security to tag along.  Not one dissenting opinion was heard.

You were getting bigger every day, as your third trimester rolled along.  You were only 32 weeks - with the longest 8 to go until your due date.  Each of your daughters had attempted to hang out past their due dates, so unless something happened, you weren’t betting on an early delivery.  As you dug into your salad and sipped your water, you questioned Nat about her observations and solicited any advice she had to give, as you knew she wouldn’t sugarcoat it.  She had a few thoughts, but overall was pleased.  When your plates were cleared, she looked at you and smiled as she lightly placed a hand on your tummy.

“You’ve done well, Steph.  I’m not one for big emotional speeches, but I know it may have seemed like I was always coming down on the side opposite of your safety, I want to make sure you know why.”

You gently put your hand on hers.  “I do, Nat.  I didn’t at first, but I get it now.  Steve and Bucky explained it more than once.  They love you, and I know you only do things you feel are right.  We’re good.”

She pulled out another one of Tony’s credit cards (was he just handing those things out like Halloween candy?) and offered one more piece of advice before returning you to the conference room.  “Steph, don’t underestimate the Webers, particularly Ellie.  She’s going to do and say anything she can to save her brother and herself.  She’s going to try to take down Bucky, Steve, SHIELD, everyone - and don’t let anyone tell you that she can’t do it.”

_______________________________________

The first day of the trial you did a double take when Bucky arrived to escort you to the courthouse.  Steve was already there, as he wanted to personally review all the security protocols before allowing you in the building, so Bucky was on point for you.  You and Pepper had gone shopping for suitable outfits, given your ever-changing shape, settling on comfortable loose dresses with sweaters, if needed.  

“Sergeant Barnes? Is that you?”  You chuckled as he flipped you off.

“Yes, Mrs. Rogers, it’s me.  You’ve seen me spiffed up before, don’t start.”  

You took out your phone and snapped a pic of him scowling in his navy blue suit, white shirt and tie.  His hair was pulled back low on his neck and his stubble was as trim as you’d seen it.  Whoa.  Thank God you were taken or there’d be drooling.

“Ally is going to die over this.”  You sent it quickly and put the phone away, checking you had everything you needed for a day sitting in a courtroom.  It was predicted that you wouldn’t testify for at least a couple of days, depending on the length of opening statements and other miscellaneous issues.  

Bucky walked you downstairs and through the back entrance to the garage.  He was personally driving you each day, with at least two agents backing him up.  When you sat side-by-side in the front seat of the car, he put his hand on your knee.

“Ready, doll?”

You smiled and nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”

_______________________________

Ellie saw Stephanie as soon as she and Wil were escorted into the courtroom.  She was ecstatic that Barnes sat next to her, not even looking her way as the guards brought her and Wil to the table flanked by their lawyers.  During the pre-trial conference, after Wil agreed to her idea, she asked her lawyer to reach out and get a time for them to meet with the government, particularly with Barnes, suggesting she had information to share about a larger circle of criminal activity.  

Ellie’s request was denied, following a lack of hard evidence to back up her claims, but she knew that Barnes had received her message.  Now all she had to do is wait.  She knew that idiot would not give up any chance to destroy an offshoot of HYDRA, or to wipe the Webers off the face of the planet.

As the government started its opening statement, she could feel Barnes’ eyes on her.  Only at the end of the first day did she grant him the satisfaction of turning to look him in the eye.

_________________________________

The Winter Soldier was a master assassin.  If he wanted to take out Ellie Weber in a packed courtroom, he could and no one would know it was him.  Irregardless, when she walked into the courtroom, it wasn’t the Soldier’s cold, detached reaction that flooded his system.  No, the feelings all belong to James Buchanan Barnes, the kid from Brooklyn who protected a certain little guy, his sisters, and his Ma with everything he had.  Bucky Barnes knew he had to squash the white hot anger that threatened to boil over, for Steph’s sake.

What he could not keep under wraps was his curiosity.  Weber’s lawyer had approached him to set up a meeting, and upon approval from the government’s attorneys, it was going to happen after this first day of court.  He knew not to believe a word that bitch said, but if listening to her would protect his family or end The HIVE, he would do whatever was necessary.

__________________________________

“Mom, please, can we come?” You shook your head firmly, not inviting debate.  The girls had asked to talk to you alone in their suite, the night before your testimony began, and you had obliged.

“But Mom, listen.  We thought about what you said.  About being there and showing them they can kiss your behind?” You all laughed at Lizzie’s editing.   You nodded in agreement.  “We want to show them that, too.  We almost lost you, but we didn’t.  We want to show them that we are stronger, together.”

For a split-second you were tempted, but then thought about a million different variables, the biggest being that you would not be able to filter or censor anything they heard.  They would be present for a full and realistic accounting of every minute of your capture at the hands of people you, and they, had trusted.  You couldn’t put them through that.

“Girls, I hear you, but the answer is no.  I need to ask you to trust me and your Dad on this.  We decided that the things you could hear might cause you some real and possibly permanent trauma.  I could not live with myself if that happened because you wanted to support me.  I do have an idea though.”  You shared with them what would help you get through, and though they weren’t completely on board with not attending, the discussion ended amicably.

“Was it what you thought?” Bucky and Steve were waiting in your apartment while you talked with the girls in theirs.  The first days had gone well, according to people who would know, and now these men were making sure you felt safe and ready for your turn the next day.  

“Yes.  We talked it through, and they agreed to support me in other ways.”  Both girls were going to be with their father and step-mother with an expanded security detail during the duration of your testimony.  That is the only way you felt free to do what you needed to do.

“Good.  They don’t need to hear any of that shit, and I don’t want Weber eye-ballin’ them, not even a little.”  Bucky was calm, but talk of the girls and Weber breathing the same air was a very real trigger.  You and Steve each took one of his hands, and silently breathed deeply.  

Steve got up from the table and walked to the door, smiling at you as he turned his head.  

“C’mon.  Tony’s Pizza for dinner tonight!”  

“What? You’re letting me go to Brooklyn for dinner?”  You looked at your husband with wide, thankful eyes.  

He and Bucky smiled at each other as they opened the door to your suite.  Waiting in the hall were the Unholy Trinity - Maria, Jen, and Ally - and boxes and boxes of piping hot Tony’s Pizza.  You kissed both men and ran into the arms of three women who were as much family to you as your siblings and parents.  

Of course, Maria was the first to speak. “Steve said that you wouldn’t mind some non-legal, non-Avenger company tonight.  I thought you might be missing Tony’s almost as much as you missed us, so I stopped and got a few pies.  I also brought videos of the renovation and a punch list of things we’ll need to do to get it ready.” You might have squealed as you hugged her and asked FRIDAY to alert the girls to come over.

She smiled lovingly at your tears.  “You may thank me now.”  

That night as you and Steve lay in bed, you thanked him for being the best husband in the entire world.  “That was exactly what I needed tonight, love.  Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  I knew the last thing you needed was to dwell on tomorrow.  I also got the distinct feeling that Bucky was really missing Ally, but he would have never left us to go see her, so….two birds and all.”

“You’re pretty smart, Cap, you know that?”

“In addition to being the best husband in the entire world? This is a night to remember.”  You both laughed as you kissed, his hand molding to your stomach where Baby Rogers was doing its best to keep you awake.  He scooted down and talked to the little one, and as you listened to his soothing deep voice, your eyes started to close.  

___________________________________

You were nervous but not panicked as you walked into the courthouse the next day.  You made sure to pee at least 100 times so you wouldn’t have to excuse yourself in front of the entire courtroom.  

“The government calls Stephanie Rogers to the stand.”  Now - panicked.

After the first questions you calmed down and got into the rhythm your lawyers drilled into you from day one.  You listened carefully, answered only what you were asked, and looked at the person asking the questions, as well as the jury.  After over an hour of questioning, the judge called for a recess and you took what felt like your first real breath of the day.  After coming back from, you guessed it, the bathroom, Steve brought you a snack and a glass of water in the antechamber near the main room.  

When the bailiff called you back in, you both stood and your husband looked you straight in the eye.  

“You got this.  Remember, Rogers don’t run.”  He kissed you hard and held your hand until you returned to the stand.

After your team was finished came the hard part - the defense team’s cross examination.  You breathed deeply, took a sip of water, and rubbed your stomach, as Baby Rogers chose that moment to play soccer in utero.  After the initial getting to know you chit-chat, fun time was over.

“Mrs. Rogers, why were you kidnapped in the first place? You do not hold a security clearance, you do not have any known value to the intelligence community, what possible reason would anyone have to take you?”

“You mean other than having neurologically-deviant thinking?” That was objected and the judge gave you a “don’t be a smartass” look.

“I do not know why I was kidnapped.”

“Can you offer your opinion?”  Your team did not object, so you did as you were asked.  You maintained a neutral expression and made eye contact with Steve.  He gave you an almost-imperceptible nod.

“Captain Steven Rogers was my boyfriend at the time of the first abduction and my husband at the time of the second.  He has all the things that I lack regarding value to the intelligence community, etc.  I surmised I was used as leverage to get something from him.  This was confirmed by both Agent Weber and her brother when they attempted to harvest somatic stem cells from my unborn child, in utero.”

The defense lawyer continued to fish around, with multiple attempts to get you to provide information.  Your legal team had prepared for the contingency that they might try to get you to talk about Erskine’s serum and had done significant prep in that area.  Thankfully, classified intel is protected from testimony in open court, and he was not successful.  

“Mrs. Rogers, how do we know you’re telling the truth?”  He was not ready for you.

“I believe that my eye-witness testimony, in conjunction with the material evidence produced by the prosecution, including fingerprints, conclusive IP address information for the streaming video ransom notes, collaborative testimony from Agent Romanoff, Captain Rogers, and Sergeant Barnes, and the ballistics and DNA evidence at both crime scenes are more than sufficient proof that my testimony is true.”  Fuck you, asshole.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Bucky smiling ear-to-ear and Steve fired up with pride.  You were pretty damn proud of yourself, too, if you must admit.

He continued to poke and prod, trying to deconstruct your testimony around the apartment break-in, your kidnapping and abduction across the US border, your injuries, and your eventual betrayal by Ellie Weber and attempt on your and your unborn child’s life.  You felt guilty you had ever complained about all the trial prep, because you had a calm and accurate answer for everything that idiot threw at you.

“How did I know Agent Weber was responsible for these acts?  She told me, while I was strapped down to a table and introduced to her brother who was inserting an IV into my arm.  I believe that the GPS tracker data on me from Mr. Stark, already entered into evidence, showed our approximate locations for the entire time in question.  She confessed - no - bragged about her plan to me, during the procedure, prior to the explosion.

“Last question, from your observation, were there any other people present at either abduction who were giving orders or directives to your captors, or to the Webers?”  Ahhhhh, first smart question of the day.

“Yes, I observed people who appeared to be conveying orders or directives to both Ellie and Wil Weber.”

“Are they present in the courtroom today?”

“I do not see them.”

“Were they taken into custody the day of the second abduction?”

“I would not know, I had lost consciousness following the amniocentesis and was rushed back to Stark Tower for emergency fetal medical care.”

Of course, he knew that.  Of course he wanted to introduce the idea that the Webers were not wholly responsible for what happened to you.  He opened the door just enough to get the death penalty off the table.

When you were dismissed, the judge adjourned for the day.  You returned to your seat to find only Steve.

Despite questioning where Bucky was, Steve would only allude to an appointment he had with the lawyers related to his portion of the case.  You were too tired to probe further.

___________________________________

Bucky waited in the conference room for the lawyers.  He felt calm, in control.  He played this scene in his mind often since Weber was taken into custody - what he would do, what he would say the first time he came face-to-face with her.   In preparation for this meeting, Steve and Nat reminded him of one thing - let the Soldier run the show.  There was no place in this meeting for Bucky Barnes’ love and emotion.

The room soon filled - a lawyer for each side, Ellie and Wil Weber, and Bucky.  He sat and waited, letting the Soldier’s face, his voice, his body language be the only things the others saw.  On the other side, Ellie thought she was in charge.  It irked her that she had to get approval from her lawyer before proposing her idea.

“We know you want West.  We know you want the HIVE.  We can give them to you.”

The Soldier’s dead stare bore into her, causing the merest blip in Ellie’s confidence.  She laid it out.  There was no room for coy negotiating tactics.

“West has used the genetic material from the Rogers fetus to identify the last element of Erskine’s serum,” she saw understanding around the table and continued “but he does not have a scientist that can successfully integrate it into what The HIVE already has - the imperfect formula that runs through your veins.”

The Soldier’s voice was barely audible, lacking all the vitality of James Barnes.  He leaned forward in his seat, his left hand sliding across the table, his eyes never leaving Wilhelm Weber’s.  

“You can create the serum using me, can’t you.”  

The scientist tried to remain unruffled, but he was much less accustomed to the muscle end of the business and quickly looked away.

That intense gaze turned towards Ellie.  “You want us to let him go back to West.”

With calculated intent, he stood up, knocking the chair to the floor while laying his metal hand on the table with just enough force to vibrate the large piece of solid-wood furniture.  The startle around the table confirmed that they were all paying attention.  

“No. There is no win for us in this.  If he doesn’t do it, you will both be murdered in a gruesome and vindictive way.  I don’t see a problem there.  If he goes back, The HIVE gets the serum and we’re fighting an army of super soldiers? THAT is a problem.”

Ellie knew she had to leap. Now. “Do you think I’m that stupid?”

It was Barnes’ emotions she saw when he turned towards her and sat back down.  She was jubilant that she had his attention.

“Wil needs to testify.  He needs to testify and he needs to talk about the serum, in open court.”  

The entire table erupted.  

“That is classified top secret.”

“There is no way Fury and the government are going to allow it.”

A chill went through the room when he started to laugh as Ellie finished speaking.  He understood her game before anyone else.  Bucky stood and walked out of the room.

As he left, he looked Ellie Weber in the eye.  “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

_________________________________________

You put your feet up and moaned graphically when Steve started massaging them.  You looked down at him over the baby bump and smiled wearily.   He looked up and kissed your belly, then lifted you out of the chair to bring you to bed.  You didn’t say a word, letting him gently deposit you, help you out of your dress, and put on one of his t-shirts and your boy shorts.  34 weeks was upon you and you were starting the hard part of pregnancy - the “tired, can’t eat, always have to pee, get this kid out of me and feel extremely undesirable” part.  

“I am so proud of you, Steph.  You were astounding today.  I think anyone in attendance saw how you were in command the entire time.  It was sexy as hell.”

You laughed quietly and kissed his cheek.  “That’s the last word I would use to describe myself right now, but I do feel proud of how I handled everything.  Do you think I’m done testifying?”

He leaned beside you, rubbing your lower back, which hurt most of the time these days and kissing your neck.  “As you wrapped up, Julia thought today was it.  She even suggested taking tomorrow off to rest, in case you were called for rebuttal.  I’m going to make that an order, soldier.”  He laughed as he heard you talking nonsense and drift off to sleep.

You had no idea what time it was when you woke up, but quickly realized it was the middle of the night and Steve wasn’t in bed.  That wasn’t altogether unusual, and you didn’t think much of it while you trudged to the bathroom.  You laughed as you shuffled back to bed, feeling every bit of your age, with Baby Rogers dancing the tango directly on your sciatic nerve.  When you got back into bed, you stretched in an attempt to alleviate the shocks of pain running down your leg, and felt a new, noticeable, sharp pain in your abdomen.  Your first instinct was to lay back and breathe deeply - you were probably dehydrated and overtired.  As you closed your eyes and breathed in through your nose and out through your mouth, the pain came back again and you couldn’t help but cry out.

You called out for Steve, if he was in the apartment he would come running when he heard you yell.  No bueno.  You grabbed your phone and texted him.

Steph: Where are you??? I need you.

Steve: On my way.

A moment later he came into the bedroom and found you sitting up in bed, night table lamp on, and breathing rhythmically.   This was your favorite part about being married to Steve - he didn’t overreact, didn’t get flustered, just worked the problem, and the problem was to figure out what was going on with you.

“Do you think it’s labor?”  You shook your head and repeated your thoughts about dehydration and exhaustion.

“FRIDAY alert Bruce and Dr. Cho we’re meeting them in the med bay ASAP.”  You attempted to get up and put your robe on, but a pain struck just at that moment and you reached for his hand to squeeze.  For the second time that night, he picked you up and walked with purpose but without fear to the elevator.  When you walked out the door, Bucky was coming into the hall from his suite, clearly on his way to see if he could help.

In order to avoid 20 questions, you summed up what was going on and asked that he inform the agents outside the girls’ door not to say anything and you would talk to them later, if necessary.  You were trying to be quiet, but as usual weren’t successful, and several doors opened on the hallway, spewing out cranky, sleepy Avengers.  When they saw Steve’s back as he walked down the hall with you in his arms, Bucky explained and went to tell his agents what was up.  

“Bruce, Helen, I’m so sorry to wake you.  I told Steve it’s probably dehydration, but we agree you’re the best people to evaluate that.  Plus, he already had picked me up and started walking down the hall before I formulated a thought about whether to come here or not.”

After more than an hour of ultrasound, bloodwork, and monitoring, the 16 combined PhD’s and MD’s came to the same conclusion you did - round ligament pain resulting from your uterus stretching, dehydration, and exhaustion.  They put you on bed rest for at least 3 days, forbidding you to go to the courthouse or do much more than watch Netflix and go to the bathroom.

“But…” Your mind was revving - the renovations, the trial, the girls and on and on and on…..

Steve’s look was more stern than you’d seen in a very long time. “Listen, soldier.  The docs have put you on bed rest and you are going to follow that order to a T.  You’re going to do that, right?”  His expression softened as he held your hand and watched the comforting regular blips on the heart monitors for you and the baby.

“Yes, sir.  Bruce, Helen, can you please tell him that I am allowed to get up to go to the bathroom and to the kitchen? Maybe even walk to another room for a change of scenery?”  They gladly clarified that distances of 10-15 steps or less were fine, as long as you didn’t stand for too long.

After thanking them and returning to your suite, you laughed when you found Bucky sitting on your sofa when you walked in, a look of concern on his face.  After you were back in bed and sleeping, and both Super Soldiers convinced you were not going into labor, Bucky gestured Steve into the living room.

“We need to talk about my meeting with Weber and Weber today.  There might be something to what they’re proposing.”

Chapter 29

#plus size marvel #Plus Size #you can't hurry love #chapter 28/30 #chapter 28 #ch 28 #plus size ofc #marvel #marvel fan #MARVEL FANDOM #captain america #captain america x oc #Steve Rogers #steve rogers x oc #steve rogers married #teenage children #reblog for time zones #ch 28 reblog

[mortalmenagerie]

BLUE FOR LUKA

                   Insert witty reference here - Mega accepting

                      “We are reestablishing an entirecourt, moi lapochka. You can’t do that without a few symbols here or there!” Lilyexplained for the last time, strolling into the jewelers as if she owned theplace. She may as well have, it had been the only shop she trusted to pawn herfineries to when she’d first arrived in Paris. Over the years she’d been ableto get most of them back, and the shop owner seemed pleased with all the newbusiness she brought in. Today, however, she was on a mission.

             WithAnastasia’s return from Russia came a strange sort of changing of the guards.Of those nobles who had escaped their homeland, few had children. Even fewerwere liked enough by the dowager empress to keep their title as much more thana pleasantry. Anya, however, had gone about titling all her friends andrecreating a court for herself. A noble enough goal, if one may use the term,but a damned exhausting one for the last old Lady in Waiting. Clothes needed tobe bought, manners learned, traditions handed down at a breakneck pace. She’dstarted contemplating just rounding up the lot of young men and women twice aweek for classes if she thought itwould help.

             Todaybelonged to Luka, her own pet project from before Anya had even begun to thinkof reinstating the old ways. He was so eager to learn, bless his heart, even ifhe’d had no training on his own. She herself wasn’t as horrified as the Empresswould have been, but it was like he was raised in a barn! Thinking to what the Bolshevikshad done to Russia, maybe he had been. So lessons continued, clothes wereordered and tailored, and slowly she was building him up to be a proper gentleman– then they could work on a Count.

              Theyoung man’s eyes grew wide as dinner saucers when the stepped in. Though a pawnshop, the store held as good real estate as ever – even in these dire times, theywere able to keep quality stock. Diamonds sparkled and emeralds gleamed in thelight filtering in from outside, all set in gold, silver, platinum, and allcolors in between. Lily kept him from getting too distracted and sidled up tothe counter. The clerk bowed his head respectfully.

                       “Good afternoon, Countess. What bringsyou in today?”

                      “Buying today, Phillippe. New Russian off the train, we need toestablish some credit before he’s dragged back by a bayonet.”

                 Theold man laughed along with Lily, used to her gallows humor even if he was stillslightly unnerved. Luka, for his part, smiled along nervously. He felt like hewould break things just by looking at them in the shop, but they were all sobeautiful!

                       “We’re looking for an heirloom. Something that was minted off a family duringPytor the Great’s time.”

                         “Or thereabouts?”

                         “Plus or minus one hundred years. Unless it’s a good fake.”

                         Phillippe bowed once more and disappeared into the back room to studyhis finer inventory. Lily leaned on the counter and took a cigarette from herpurse. She offered one to Luka, who shook his head and leaned closer to the glass.

                       “Don’t you think this is a bit… Unnecessary, Countess? Everyone knows mytitle is going to be new.”

                  “Ofcourse they do. But if you don’t have at least a few family heirlooms, you’lllook like a fake yourself.” She took a puff, letting her eyes close before shecontinued. “If I thought we could find you a Fabergé egg, we’d have gone thatroute. You know I never knew anyone outside of the Imperial Family who had one,but everyone here thinks all noble Russians had at least four in their displaycase.” She chuckled, shaking her head. “You’re going to become a fairy tale forthese people, whether you want to or not.”

                “Iunderstand it for Any-Anastasia, but why me?”

                “We still look the part. The French got rid oftheir Kings years ago. They put enough distance to being fond of them again.And then you have the English, but you know…” She waved her hand across herneck, as if signifying that the less said about the British the better.

                Phillippe returned with several rings ofvarying ornateness and antiquity. Of the three, one was an obvious fake – Lily onlyneeded glance between it and its owner with a haughty, raised eyebrow before heremoved it from the lineup. Two remained; one with a sapphire encircled by tinydiamonds in an inlay of woven, ivy-like gold, and another much plainer cousin.The sapphire remained, though the band was solid, plain gold. A crest remainedover the stone, but it was nearly worn away.

               “Thathouse is dead anyway.” She recognized it as an offshoot of the Hanovers inPrussia from her studies decades ago. She spoke as if to reassure him, althoughthat seemed to make Luka even more uneasy. “Go ahead, which one do you like?”

               “… MayI try them on?” He asked sheepishly, looking up at Phillippe. The salesmannodded, handing him first the ornate ring, then the plain. The ornate was onesize too big, but moreover, made him feel even more like he was pretending.Though the plain band was still more than he had ever expected to see in hislife, it felt more at home. It could always be adjusted, but it felt just snugenough for comfort’s sake. “I think this one will work.”

                 Lily seemed a bit crestfallen – the first had certainly been her style.But she would let it slip. It was his choice, even if he made the wrong one. “Howmuch?”

                 “Foryou, Countess? I can let it go for twenty-eight hundred.”

                 Lukaappeared to have a brief heart attack, but Lily only smiled and nodded. “Andthat’s what keeps me coming back, Phillippe! My favorite gem shop in all France.”

                 “L-lily, I can’t-“ Even with the stipend tocome from the Romanov fortune, he couldn’t afford that! That was four monthsrent!

                “Lapochka,that isn’t for you to worry about.” She reached into her purse, neatly pullingout the stack needed – in cash none-the-less! “You’ll more than pay me back, Ipromise.”

                 She’dmade more than a few bets at the Neva club about her new project. If Popovcould make Anya a princess, she could make Luka a Count. Besides that, she’dhad a good few many more years ahead of him. It would hurt to take a loss likethat, but she had savings.

                Lukawas knocked dumb. The countess was kind to him in a way few had, but this wastoo much. Spending so frivolously on him -! It’d been one thing for the suit.She was scandalized when she heard he’d never had a new full suit before, thatwas practically charity of him to let her settle the score. But this-!

                Oncethey were squared away, Lily walked him back to the street, the small baghanging by her hip.

                 “You’reto wear this at formal occasions and balls, but it’s fragile – do not wear itto the club unless you need to impress someone.”

                  “Countess,I really can’t-“

                  “Noneof that! It’s only part of my job.” She smiled at him fondly, reaching up tosqueeze at his shoulder. “Nothing I won’t do for your friends.” Perhaps. But itwould involve much more grumbling on their part.

                  “Thankyou, Countess.” He finally settled into an awkward smile, posture relaxingagainst her kind gesture.

                   “Shouldersback, Mikhailov, we spent too long on posture to go back to that slouch.”

#softlyrcse #long post #serdtsefought #𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚘 𝚏𝚊𝚛 {Answered Asks} #𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚎 {Fanfiction} #𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚋𝚘𝚍𝚢 {Lily} #welp uhhhhhhh #that's a little more than a drabble whoops

[aion-rsa]

Will the Real WandaVision Villain Please Stand Up?

https://ift.tt/2NdA7zB

This article contains WandaVision spoilers.

WandaVision is in its home stretch, with one big “villain” reveal hitting at the end of episode 7, and more expected any episode now. Agatha Harkness’ basement gave off some real strong bad gal vibes, but historically in the comics she’s never been the mastermind behind Wanda’s troubles, so much of the world is expecting another.

And while all the speculation so far has centered on Mephisto – justifiably so, considering his history with Wanda, Billy, Tommy, and Master Pandemonium’s arms – we think there’s one dark horse contender that not enough people have been talking about. With his history with Wanda and his future with the Avengers (and very likely in the MCU, if the tea leaves we’re reading are correct), there’s a better than decent chance that this guy will be popping up in WandaVision’s final episodes. 

But first, let’s get one thing straight…

Agatha Harkness…is a red herring?

The end of episode 7 of WandaVision plays up the sinister aspects of Agatha Harkness. Her basement looks like it could have been ripped from the set of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. But that doesn’t mean she’s actually evil. 

In fact, through the entirety of Wanda’s story in the pages of Marvel Comics, Agatha has been one of the few people actually interested in Wanda’s well being. Sure, she was often very matriarchal about it, but she actually seemed to care that Wanda was messing with her own children’s existence. And in a Scarlet Witch solo miniseries from the mid ‘90s, she was the only one actually concerned with trying to give Wanda agency. It would be a big swerve for the show to adapt her into an outright villain.

However, she was also prominently involved in Wanda’s “nexus being” storyline as the one trying to snap Wanda out of Immortus’ trance (more on that in a minute). I am willing to bet a small amount of money that Agnes is not the main villain of WandaVision, just acting shady about how she’s trying to break Wanda free of someone else’s control.

That you, Mephisto?

We’ve been inundated with Mephisto references to this point – between all the “Demon Spawn”s and Coronet Theaters and devils in details. And to be completely fair, Mephisto makes a lot of sense as the big bad of WandaVision.

Billy and Tommy’s birth in the comics was a bit of a mystery when it happened. As in, how could a woman and a synthezoid possibly have offspring? Also the fact that they were twins was a surprise, but I don’t know that that’s especially relevant. Anyway, turns out Doctor Strange is a crappy OB and also, the way a woman and a synthezoid could have children was if the woman loved the synthezoid very much, she could capture wild magical energy loose because of damage caused to the lord of Hell’s soul by a battle with Franklin Richards, channel that energy into her womb, and create life and souls with it. Mephisto was not powerful enough to escape battle with the Fantastic Four’s firstborn, and Wanda unwittingly used shards of his soul to create Billy and Tommy.

Later on, a movie exec who cut a deal with Mephisto, one Master Pandemonium, tried to capture the twins, as he believed that the kids were actually fragments of his lost soul. Alas, instead they were just his arms, and when he went to reabsorb them into his body, Mephisto hopped in and took his complete soul back from the sleazeball with babyhands.

So Mephisto is deeply entwined with the origins of Billy and Tommy, and with Wanda’s story in the comics. But what if he’s not in the show? What if, while everyone else is focused on Mephisto, WandaVision actually gives us…

Immortus

Immortus is, among other things, the Scarlet Centurion, Iron Lad, Victor Timely, Pharaoh Rama Tut, and a Pope. He is a continuity black hole, but the simplest explanation is that he’s the oldest version of the being who, at varying points in his history, was/is/would become Kang the Conqueror. 

Here’s a…profoundly condensed version. 

The being who would become Immortus was born in the 30th century, to a post-scarcity world of peace, prosperity, and plenty. He was bored as shit by this. So he stole a time machine, traveled back to ancient Egypt, ruled as Pharaoh Rama Tut for a bit, got a taste for conquering, and eventually became Kang, who would come to rule tens of centuries as the undisputed lord of time. Eventually he got so good at conquering that he ended up just…ruling…instead of conquering anymore, and that was where his downfall began. 

After a series of paradoxes he got his own damn self into, he eventually hooked up with the Time Keepers, a trio of beings from the end of all time trying to do a bunch of stuff that ultimately would end up ensuring their own creation. As a brief aside, the Marvel time travel characters are like if you kept introducing new invasive species to a pond to wipe out the last invasive species you put in the pond. It’s grandfather paradoxes all the way down. 

Anyway, the Time Keepers put Immortus in charge of cleaning up his own timeline as well as monitoring the Avengers segment of the timestream. Along with his mastery of time, Immortus also had the ability to dance around the multiverse. He could peer between timelines, prune the bad ones, trap Kang and Songbird and Yellowjacket in the wild west, etc. etc.

Also his name is Nathaniel Richards.

The Fantastic Four Connection

Wait, does this mean Immortus is the father of Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards?

Technically no. But he may be a descendant of Reed Richards. Or Dr. Doom. That’s where he gets the time portal from. Apparently. 

Read more

TV

WandaVision: The Mystery of the Aerospace Engineer

By Mike Cecchini

TV

WandaVision: Is SWORD Hiding MCU Fantastic Four Clues?

By Mike Cecchini

This is probably not how they’re introducing the Fantastic Four to the MCU. It would be very weird to, say, flash back to Howard Stark and Nathaniel Richards going on a SHIELD mission in the ‘50s that had them cross paths with the Time Stone, have Howard believe Nathaniel was lost in action when Richards merely created an offshoot timeline that included the Fantastic Four and mutants, only to have an immortal Nathaniel, embittered by countless lifetimes of loss and hollow conquering, travel back to find a way to remerge the timelines so his past self could have a happy life. 

It would be particularly ridiculous for that to happen in a future Marvel show like Loki. Anyway, let’s get back on subject.

What Does Nexus Mean?

The commercial in episode 7 featured an anti-depressant called Nexus, a pointed reference to one of Wanda’s roles in the greater Marvel Comics cosmogony. Wanda is a Nexus Being, an entity with tremendous power over the path of reality, who can alter futures even after they’ve set, create branching timelines, and possibly prevent powerful, important beings in the future from being born. And they typically have exceedingly powerful children – kids who, when fully mature, can rival universal constants like Eternity, the Living Tribunal, Chaos, Order, or Death. 

In the comics, Wanda was a threat both to the Time Keepers, who wanted nothing more than to ensure their own existence would come to pass, and Immortus, who wanted to also ensure his own timeline would come to pass and ALSO screw those fish faced Time Keepers out of their jobs. To do this, he decided the best path would be to be a real dick to Wanda.

First, he tricked Wanda and Vision into falling in love, thinking nobody could make a baby with a synthezoid. Then he screwed around with Vision’s body and timeline, making him inhabit the body of the original Human Torch, then not inhabit that body, then do both at the same time. Then he just up and drove Wanda insane, infusing her with additional power to amp her nexus abilities, letting her manipulate the timestream at a whim.

Which leads us to…

MCU Phase 5: Avengers Forever

Here is a sampling of things we know or can reasonably ascertain about the future of the MCU. 

Time travel is probably going to be the thrust of Loki. We see the Time Variance Authority in the trailer, along with a brief flash of statues that look like the Time Keepers. 

A lot of the MCU TV shows seem to be pointing towards Young Avengers. Kate Bishop is in Hawkeye, Billy and Tommy are in WandaVision, and while it’s not a TV show, Cassie is in Ant-Man 3.

Also in Ant-Man 3 is Kang the Conqueror himself. He fits the Young Avengers theory – the youngest version of Rama Tut/Kang/Scarlet Centurion/Immortus was Iron Lad, the mysterious Iron Man analogue from the teen hero group. 

Chris Evans is rumored to be coming back one more time for an Avengers role.

The Young Avengers theory feels like a slam dunk. It would be the least surprising thing in the world to have Patriot (Eli Bradley, the grandson of Isaiah Bradley, a recipient of an experimental super soldier serum in a dark, Tuskegee Experiment-style follow up to the original super soldier program) show up in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and there’s no way Marvel would spend that much energy laying the groundwork for a new generation of Avengers and not have it pay off. However, if you squint hard enough, you can see a second path being cut by these shows.

Avengers Forever.

Avengers Forever is a 1998 miniseries by Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco that is widely beloved for its distillation of decades of Marvel continuity into one epic story. It has Kang and the Kree Supreme Intelligence gathering a team of Avengers from disparate points in the timeline – Yellowjacket from the early days of the Avengers; Hawkeye from just after the Kree-Skrull War; a disillusioned Captain America from a low point in the medium past; present day Wasp and Giant Man; and Songbird and Captain Marvel from a future Avengers team – to battle Immortus and the Time Keepers for the life of Rick Jones. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

All the elements are there, from the time travel nonsense to the easy opportunity to get the whole gang back together. The key is Immortus, and he could be revealed soon in WandaVision.

The post Will the Real WandaVision Villain Please Stand Up? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3biWZpm

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[necrowriter]

Fog and Fire: 1.5

There was a very strange moment, like something in a dream. Everything twisted and stretched around them, and the light was blinding and Ms. Harcourt thought she was walking into a wall, except the wall was giving way-

-and then they were in the dark, and behind them the doorway collapsed, the swirl of colors spiraling around and around until it all blinked out into nothingness and left only an ordinary blank wall behind.

“You can let go now,” Mr. Vervain said.

“Wh-what?” Ms. Harcourt didn't really know where she had expected to find herself. Somewhere wild and strange, perhaps, in a luminescent cave or walking amongst the stars. But in fact they were standing in the dimly lit corridor that the window had looked out into from the beginning. Which, of course, made logical sense...but it was difficult to reconcile the drab library corridor with that dreamlike passage. For a moment Mr. Vervain’s calm voice, speaking as if nothing particularly interesting had happened, only added to her confusion.

“I said you can let go,” he repeated. In the dim light, with her eyes still dazzled, she could not properly make out his face, but she would have been willing to bet that it his expression was amused. “Of my hand. If you like.”

She blinked rapidly, trying to scatter the spots dancing before her eyes. “It won't break the spell?”

“The spell is already broken,” Mr. Vervain said. “It made us a part of the library, but we are no longer in the library, so...”

“Oh...right.”

She was surprised to find that letting go was difficult. Not that she had grown to enjoy holding hands any more than usual over the past hour or so, but it gave her a sense of vertigo, almost, as though she were letting go of the only thing keeping her from falling down a ravine. As long as they had maintained that grip, she was safe from being found.

Then again, she had only remained undiscovered by taking up the company of a magician, so perhaps safe was not quite the right word to use.

She let go. Nothing especially interesting happened. There were no shouts of alarm, no sudden appearances of angry accusers. The corridor remained silent and dark, and they remained undiscovered, for the moment.

Ms. Harcourt took a deep breath and shoved both hands in her pockets, feeling a bit ridiculous. “So...now what? We're still in the main library building, aren't we? How do we get out?”

Mr. Vervain was silent at first, and for a horrible cold moment Ms. Harcourt thought he was going to tell her that since no one was looking for him, he would be walking right on out and leaving her to fend for herself. She thought of the way he had said you would not succeed, not angrily, not cruelly, merely stating a plain but indisputable fact, like the answer to mathematical equation.

“I wonder...” he said pensively. “Do you suppose they've discovered your absence yet?”

The words seemed so ominous in the midst of her unpleasant thoughts that Ms. Harcourt was unable to suppress a shiver.

Mr. Vervain glanced at her. “Are you quite well?”

“What? Oh...yes.” Ms. Harcourt shook her head. Easy there, Harcourt. Can't afford to go leaping to conclusions just yet. Hasn't served you well so far this afternoon, after all.

“It's just that it would make something of a difference to our escape plans,” Mr. Vervain mused. “If they are not actively looking for you it will be a great deal easier to leave. Hm...”

He pulled out a pocketwatch and glanced at it, although Ms. Harcourt was not sure how he could make it out in the dim light.

“They check the wards on the hour,” he said. “I'm not really sure if anyone will have noticed the disruption just then, but if they haven't yet they certainly will at the check-in. Which gives us...about fifteen minutes.” He sighed. “Could have timed that one a little better.”

Ms. Harcourt's stomach twisted. “So we have fifteen minutes to get out of here?”

“We have fifteen minutes, at most, before a great deal of panic breaks out. Exactly what will happen then, I cannot say.” He brushed his fingers against the wall they had come out of and frowned. “I think...no, they haven't alarmed the wards, and I'm certain they would if they noticed. So. We most likely have a narrow window of opportunity.”

He set off down the corridor. Already he seemed to be feeling better, although there was still a slight weave to his step. Ms. Harcourt hastened after him.

“Do you have a plan as to how to utilize this window of opportunity?” she asked. “We can't just walk out the front door.”

“In my experience, simply walking out the front door works remarkably well more often than not,” Mr. Vervain said. “That's how I got in, after all. Come to that, it's how you got in.”

“Point,” Ms. Harcourt muttered.

“But no, I suspect additional measures will be needed. We have to assume they will be on the lookout for you. But until we get some more information, it is difficult to plan...” They came to a fork in the corridor. Mr. Vervain sighed and glanced in both directions. “It would help if I knew where we were.”

“Um…” Ms. Harcourt glanced around, but she didn’t see anything familiar either. “I’m afraid I don’t know. This is all administrative space. They don’t let students in here. Although…”

A thought occurred to her. She stopped for a moment, trying to chase it down.

“Although?” Mr. Vervain prompted gently.

“I was just thinking-I’ve seen some maps of the old library. This-this sort of ring around the inner library, that was one of the first things they added on to it. It was just sort of an outer wall for a while, and then they built the first larger building around it. All the offices and whatnot, they didn’t add those until later, and they’ve been rearranged and rebuilt a lot over time.” She glanced up at Mr. Vervain and saw his eyebrows raised. “I wrote a paper about this once.”

“How very fortuitous,” Mr. Vervain muttered.

“So-I think-what that means is that if we just follow the main corridor-the parts that look the oldest-we’ll wind up back in the main building eventually.”

“Excellent,” Mr. Vervain said. He peered down the two corridors in front of them. “If that’s the case we should probably go right.”

Ms. Harcourt couldn’t make out any difference in the construction of the two corridors under the low light, but Mr. Vervain sounded confident, so she shrugged and followed him.

“Is this a magician thing?” she asked as they hurried along, not quite in a run.

Mr. Vervain paused briefly to consider another offshoot before continuing on. “...What?”

“They say magicians are supposed to be-well-sort of better, I suppose. That they see better, and hear better, and think faster, and...they’re just generally impressive. It’s one of the things they test for. I think.” It was why Llewellyn got so many taunts-not to mention Andrews, who stammered, and Stuart, who was always off in the clouds and tended to walk into things, or, for that matter, just about anyone who didn’t seem impressive enough to be studying magic.

Mr. Vervain paused and gave her a look of abject, incredulous confusion. “I’m sorry, I really don’t understand where you’re going with this-”

“Well, apparently you can see where we’re going,” Ms. Harcourt said. “I certainly can’t, and I thought I had pretty good eyes. And you’re wearing dark glasses! Can you see that well?”

He stared at her a moment longer. “It’s...a bit more complicated than that.”

“Right.” She sighed and followed him as he turned and started walking again. “Is that true though? That magicians are...like that?”

“Is this going to lead up to another argument about why you apparently can’t be a magician?”

“I don’t know,” Ms. Harcourt said irritably. “All I know is I can’t do anything like that.”

“Not as far as you know,” Mr. Vervain replied, and before she could ask him just what he meant by that, they turned a corner and found themselves in a considerably more open and well-lit corridor.

“Oh...I recognize this,” Ms. Harcourt said, glancing around in surprise. “This is near the lecture halls.”

“Yes...I don't hear any particular excitement, so that bodes well.” Mr. Vervain paused for a moment, humming vaguely to himself, and then suddenly ducked into a nearby side room. Ms. Harcourt followed him, curious. It was a little study room, crowded with a table and some of the harshly made chairs that the library favored, to the irritation of the entire student body.

“Close that,” Mr. Vervain said, nodding at the door even as he took off his satchel and began to shrug out of his coat.

Ms. Harcourt edged all the way into the room, pulling the door closed behind her. “Erm. What are you doing?”

“Taking precautions.” He unknotted his scarf and tossed it and the coat at her. “Put those on. I don't know if they're actively looking for you yet-I suspect not-but it hardly seems like a good idea to chance it once we get out into the main area. Even if it's not yet known that you've escaped, we have to assume you've been identified to the staff as a, ahem, rulebreaker of some caliber.”

“Thanks, I think,” Ms. Harcourt muttered as she pulled off her own jacket. “But how exactly is me wearing your coat going to help that problem?”

“I've found that simply changing one's silhouette a bit can go a remarkably long way towards not being recognized,” Mr. Vervain said. “But that coat in particular-and that scarf- may help you.”

Ms. Harcourt paused partway through adjusting the coat. It fit her fairly well, although it was a bit tight in the shoulders. Mr. Vervain was a very narrow man. “You mean...in a magical sense?”

“Somewhat, yes. That coat is...used to not being seen, let's put it like that.” He picked up her discarded jacket and pulled it on. “It's not nearly as strong of an effect as I would prefer under these circumstances, but I'm afraid I'm still rather severely limited in my abilities at the moment.”

He was still looking a bit sickly. Ms. Harcourt shook her head and began tying the scarf. “Those spells before really took it out of you, huh?”

“Mm.” He took off his glasses, squinting as though the unlit study room were blindingly bright, and slid them into a pocket. “That might help as well. But none of it will hold up to careful scrutiny, so try not to do anything too conspicuous.”

“I'll do my best,” Ms. Harcourt said dryly. It seemed to go over Mr. Vervain's head, as he only nodded and concentrated on attempting to button up her jacket. He was having some trouble with this, as his fingers were shaking and his eyes seemed unfocused.

Ms. Harcourt sighed. “Here. Let me.” She did up the jacket and, as an afterthought, adjusted the sleeves and quickly tied her own neckcloth on him. “Great lights, you're a mess. I thought magicians were supposed to be snappy dressers.”

“Where in the world did you hear that?” Mr. Vervain muttered, tugging at the neckcloth. “Thank you. But we'd best get moving now.”

They left the study room and hurried down the corridor as quickly as they could without drawing attention. Fortunately a certain degree of panicked haste was expected in the library, at least among students.

Ms. Harcourt felt her heart skip a beat or two when they got out into the more well-occupied corridors around the lecture halls, but there was no immediate ruckus. Various students passed them without comment, but being students they were generally paying only as much attention as was required to not walk into people, so on its own this was not terribly reassuring. It was the library staff she was more concerned about, but when a librarian came past them at a fast, anxious clip, he only glanced their way and carried on without a comment, let alone a raised alarm.

So far, so good, then-but it felt like walking on thin ice. She missed Mr. Vervain's concealment spell more every minute.

After what seemed like a grueling eternity but was probably closer to two minutes, they made it to the library atrium. It was a truly impressive space, cavernously large but swallowed in a deep, dusty velvet hush. Heads were bowed and voices automatically lowered when in the atrium-unless one was for some reason in need of experiencing some vertigo, in which case a look at the glass ceiling a long, long way up would usually do the trick. Ms. Harcourt usually liked the atrium and its feeling of solemnity and scholarliness, but just now it felt hopelessly intimidating, a massive open expanse that they had no hope of crossing without being discovered.

Not that the atrium was quite as open and empty as usual. There was an unusual amount of people there, mostly students, clumped into little groups and whispering together or staring around confusedly. Ms. Harcourt felt her heart sink, but Mr. Vervain looked around and nodded.

“Good,” he whispered. His speaking voice already being so quiet, his whisper was so faint that Ms. Harcourt had to lean close to hear.

“Good?” she hissed back.

“I don't think they've discovered your absence yet. Look, the doors are still open.” He gestured toward the main entrance. It was difficult to see at that distance, but there certainly did seem to be people going in and out. “If they were looking for you they surely would have locked the building down.”

“Unless it's a trap,” Ms. Harcourt muttered. “Maybe they're trying to lure me into making a break for it.”

Mr. Vervain gave her a sidelong glance. “A possibility, but I suspect you are likely thinking much more tactically than your potential pursuers.”

“Well...maybe...but even if I am I can't just walk out. I don't have my insignia anymore, I can't check out-even if they didn't recognize me.”

“I may be able to manage something.” Mr. Vervain began to head toward the front, keeping to the edges and the protective shadows of the huge pillars that lined the atrium. Ms. Harcourt followed him, trying to simultaneously keep an eye out for anyone watching them and look as if she were not doing so at all. A few students glanced toward them as they passed, but without any particular interest. From the few snatches of conversation she caught, it sounded as if the general topic concerned the sudden and unexplained evacuation of the inner library. No one seemed to know what to make of it.

When they were near to the edge of the atrium, Mr. Vervain signaled her to wait off to one side while he casually walked over and glanced around. A moment later he came back, looking satisfied. “The coast is clear, for the moment.”

Ms. Harcourt nodded, feeling a little relieved but not too much so. “So...what’s the plan, then?”

Mr. Vervain sighed. “Give me a moment.”

He tugged at the front of the coat Ms. Harcourt was currently wearing. She held it open, perplexed, while he retrieved something from an inside pocket. It was a small metal flask with some kind of symbol engraved on the front. Mr. Vervain unscrewed the cap and took a drink.

Ms. Harcourt glanced at the flask dubiously. “What’s that?”

“Tea.” He held the flask out to her. “Want some?”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” she said dryly. She’d committed enough fairy tale mistakes for one afternoon already without accepting a drink from a strange magician.

“Good decision,” Mr. Vervain said, taking another drink. “You shouldn’t use stimulants when performing magic. Bad habit.”

“Um. Right.” She watched him screw the cap back on and replace the flask in its pocket. “That must be some tea, then.”

“Well, I may have added a few things to it.” He dug into his satchel for something and frowned. “Where...”

On a hunch, Ms. Harcourt produced the pot of black pigment from the pocket he had put it in earlier. “Looking for this?”

“Ah!” He took it with a slightly sheepish look and quickly uncapped it. “You catch on quick. Hold still.”

He dipped a finger in the pigment and drew a quick symbol on Ms. Harcourt's forehead. The stuff was surprisingly cold to the touch, a strange aching sort of hot-cold like peppermint on the tongue, and she was hard pressed to not flinch away as soon as it touched her.

“What is that, anyway?” she asked, digging her hands into the pockets of her borrowed coat to resist the urge to wipe it off.

“A story for another time.” Mr. Vervain put the pot back into his satchel. “How long can you hold your breath?”

“What? I don't know. A minute? Why-”

“I can hide you completely for a short time, but it's something of a quick and dirty spell. Best I can do under the circumstances, I'm afraid. It'll last for as long as hold your breath.”

She glared at him. “That's...that's a terrible spell.”

“I don't disagree, but there's only so much I can do right now, and our time is very quickly running out. Hold onto my jacket-your jacket-whatever-and follow me. I'll get us out as fast as I can.”

Ms. Harcourt sighed, but this was clearly not the time to argue about it. “All right, but I want it on the record that I would not be following those instructions without a great deal more protestation if I had any other choice.”

“Noted. Are you ready?”

“Yes-no, wait. Give me your satchel.” She took it and slipped it on over her own. It was surprisingly heavy; she wondered that Mr. Vervain hadn’t collapsed underneath it yet.

“They’ll check,” she said, in response to his querying look. “If you leave with a bag or anything, they’ll want to see inside it, to make sure you aren’t trying to steal any books.”

“Ah. Good thinking.”

“Alright.” She gripped the edge of her own jacket; easy enough, as it was loose on him anyway. “I suppose I’m ready.”

“Take a deep breath then, deep as you can.”

Ms. Harcourt closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Mr. Vervain muttered something, and the lines of paint on her forehead suddenly felt almost painfully cold. She nearly gasped in surprise and ruined the whole thing, but after a moment the feeling subsided slightly, though it remained distinctly uncomfortable. Then Mr. Vervain was walking quickly away, leaving her to follow at a stumbling half-run, feeling awkward and ridiculous.  

Between the atrium and the beckoning freedom of the outside world was one last obstacle, a small lobby flanked with desks guarded by library clerks who ensured that only the right people came in and out of the prestigious halls. Ms. Harcourt thought she could feel their eyes on her, burning hot pinprick brands across her face; surely they could see her, standing there in plain sight behind Mr. Vervain, surely she would be found out. Her lungs were already aching for air.

Mr. Vervain walked quite calmly over to one of the desks and presented a library access token. Ms. Harcourt struggled to remain still-she wanted to fidget, she wanted to scream- as the librarian looked it over sedately.

“Very good,” the librarian said, putting the token back somewhere under his desk. “Find what you needed?”

“Quite,” Mr. Vervain said.

The librarian nodded vaguely, already returning his attention to something on the desk. Mr. Vervain strode away, trailing one surprised and rapidly asphyxiating fugitive.

They walked out through the impressively engraved doors, down the wide flight of steps, and out across the courtyard. Ms. Harcourt was starting to see spots dancing in her vision as Mr. Vervain ducked into the lee of one of the smaller university buildings.

“Alright,” he murmured, after glancing around to make sure they were unobserved.

At that point three things happened all at once: Ms. Harcourt gasped for air, Mr. Vervain buckled at the knees and began to fall, and, for the first time in fifty-seven years, the low coals of the ward-lamps outside the library burst into blue fire.

#writing #serial writing #Fog and Fire #Fog and Fire: C1 #fantasy writing

[juuls]

Breaking the silence: Fandom hatred, bullying, victimization, and hacking

Does anyone have an inkling/suspicion or a friend, who I can get in touch with, who might know anything about who hacked my AO3 account and removed all my fanfiction back in January?

My husband I, both proficient when it comes to computers, and he with viruses/hacking/malware protection experience, found out that my pc had been infected with a keylogging software (it tracks every single keyboard key I hit) which also took pictures every few seconds/ran a continuous stream of what I was doing on my pc visually. That means that private emails with numerous people were viewed by the hacker, private information seen, and every single one of the usernames and passwords I had typed in while infected. Unfortunately I didn’t have active monitoring of my pc on, instead relying on a virus and malware scan run once a week, so I didn’t catch it on time. When we looked back, we saw that my pc had been infected for at least 72 hours.

So what happened was they saw me log in to AO3 (which does NOT have two-step authentication – that thing where it sends a code to your phone) and within an hour my fics started to be deleted, one by one….

Thank goodness I was home from work and my husband was able to talk to me on the phone as the next steps were taken… I was able to stay a step ahead of the hacker for pretty much everything else.

So. They not only hacked my AO3. They also changed my username to SlutBitch and proceeded to send threatening emails to my email address. They tried to hack into every single one of my email accounts, and were actually successful on a few of them, but I was getting alerts on my phone (my email monitoring of many of my accounts telling me there was a new device being used to log in) and was frantically requesting password resets before they could change the single-level password reset method, and then I followed behind by adding in a phone verification method for every single log-in attempt made, including my own log ins.

All this without realizing that they were watching me through screenshots, and watching as every keystroke I made was recorded.

I was pretty much handing them my log-ins as I went.

But I stayed ahead of everything else.

Sure, I lost my fanfics with every kudos, every bookmark, every comment ever made, but at least I was able to protect my multiple emails, my Paypal, my Amazon, my Dropbox, and many other things. They made attempts to hack into my husband’s and my mother-in-law’s emails, but they didn’t have the password so I bet it was just to show me how far their reach was. A show of intimidation.

They even made an e-mail account of their own that used my handle: Juulna. My husband was able to hack it back from them, so at least now /I/ own that e-mail address. They used it to send me an e-mail threatening me by saying that they have my real name (of course, since they hacked my emails) and my credit card info. I received that email while I was at work on an 8-hour shift, and I freaked out. Because I couldn’t do anything about it, and I felt so scared. I felt harassed, harried, and completely drained. I just wanted to be left alone to lick my wounds in peace. It was awful. I felt awful.

Oh, and part of the e-mail they sent to me was traced back to my local area, and we called the police who checked into the address, and then apparently couldn’t give us any information because “there was a minor involved.” But I have my doubts that they were actually involved – that the hacker was smart enough to use a proxy or an IP mask.

So, yeah. This malware I’d been infected with (I didn’t use that pc often but, the couple of days before this, I was using it) was pretty sophisticated, and required some knowledge to use it. I had to have clicked on something like an image for the program to download in the background. Someone had to have known I would click on said image (or whatever it was). It’s highly likely I was targeted personally.

So there are a few different options: A) the person who attacked me was knowledgeable about malware and hacking, B) they hired someone who was, C) or they were knowledgeable but not targeting me personally, and it was just a coincidence I was attacked.

I never really pushed the issue back then or even since I returned at the end of March 2017, because I wanted to move past it at the time. I was first off too devastated to want to think on the topic, and then when I returned I inquired into it a little bit by speaking privately with a couple of people and mentioning it here and there to see if there was anyone in the public who might approach me with a tip.

But I’m done getting caught up on reposting, and my mind cannot leave it alone anymore. There’s nothing I can use to distract myself and put the thought off with anymore. 

How does this tie in with fandom and bullying?

Well, because of my own suspicions on who this might be connected with. Many of you know about my run-in(s) with a certain BNF in the fandom. Many of you don’t, or haven’t realized I’m connected to that story in a pretty major way.

I’m not going to go off on a rant here, but suffice it to say that I truly, truly believe that this incident was either perpetrated by her, though she’d been out of the fandom for a few months at the time (though her fics were and still are up), or was perpetrated by someone who felt that I was responsible for her being run out. Maybe I was, a little, but it was only because I shared my story of what happened (and acknowledged the mistakes that I made, as well), which was then included as only a part of what this person did to the fandom and to other people – not just me. But some of her friends have since, and continued to, cast her as a complete victim in all of this, never mind the fact that she’s done this to numerous people, and she and I both escalated our feud. But that’s no reason to paint her as the innocent victim of the whole tale – and neither am I.

I’m human. There are people I really hate or dislike immensely or just a little bit; people I really wish would disappear; and even some people whom I’m jealous of (especially after my fics were removed and all my statistics lost – and after reposting said fics, have only achieved about ¼ of those previous stats, or even 1/20th of the comments I had on one fic…)…….

….. Despite this hate or resentment, or whatever, I would never hack another person and remove all of their hard work, just because I’m upset. I would never ever ever remove someone’s heart and soul; their work, their hours, everything that is theirs. It’s awful. It’s an awful feeling. It’s horrible. And I would have known all that before my work was taken from me.

Stop bullying people.

Stop taking away all their hard work.

Think twice before you speak.

Don’t take away what isn’t yours.

Even if a person is terrible, it’s not your choice to make to remove something which they’ve worked so hard on.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

In conclusion

Thank you for reading/listening to my long-winded rant.

Also, yes, to clarify: the bullying (and possible hacking) occurred from one Reylo to another Reylo (and within an ot3 ship that’s an offshoot of Reylo)… This was not an anti to a Reylo – and that’s just awful that we’re fighting each other. Shouldn’t we stick together?

Also. Yes, I’ve spoken about this in hints or small sentences here and there over the last 9 weeks that I’ve been back. But I’ve finally decided to open up about this, and explain what went on, in the hopes that someone might know what happened, or might know someone else who might know something or be able to help.

And, failing that, it is my hope that someone learns something from my experience, awful as it might have been. If this helps someone… then maybe my experience was worth it, in the end.

I hope so.

Edit: adding the following message from one of my reblogs so that the message gets out there....

I have a message for the hacker: I promise that if you message me, or e-mail me at [email protected], that I will never reveal your identity to the community. I mean, as long as you don’t bully others or don’t do this hacking thing again, to me or to others, I will keep your identity a secret. Even if everything and everyone is screaming at me to reveal it and making them pay, I would be content with simply knowing who did this to me. If you did this to me, please come forward privately, at any time, and let me know.

#star wars #reylo #reylo family #reylo vs reylo #fandom #hacking #bullying #malware #computer viruses #fandom discourse #virus #thank you for listening #personal #cyber bullying #reylo against reylo #rey/lux against rey/lux #the force awakens #fanfiction

[switchcheek14-blog]

Is South Street's retail apocalypse coming to an end?

A downturn decades in the making

The boom-bust business cycle may point to a coming revitalization for the eastern blocks of South Street, but the corridor has a particularly persistent hole to dig out of. For several years, business owners and the local business improvement district have been trying to bring more customers to the street with mixed results, even as the national economy has improved and shopping districts in Center City have experienced a boom.

That’s partly a legacy of South Street’s previous renaissance in the 1970s, which began after older businesses fled to make way for a proposed expressway that was later called off. Cheap rent attracted artists’ galleries, rock clubs, and cafes, run and patronized by young people. Steinberg, who lived in Queen Village in the 1980s, said the youth-centered business model enlivened the corridor, but it didn’t support retail stability and resulted in an “incredible amount of turnover.”

The youthful crowds also caused a major image problem when some 50,000 revelers descended on the street for Mardi Gras in February 2001, leading to riots that made national news. They smashed windows, looted a dozen stores, and threw bottles at police, resulting in 100 arrests and a clampdown on Fat Tuesday celebrations in the years since. “That cast a negative shadow on South Street,” Steinberg said. “That doesn’t happen anymore.”

During the recession, scores of businesses closed and were not replaced for years, prompting some landlords to donate their storefronts to arts organizations for use as low-cost galleries and art studios. Anchor stores like Gap, Tower Records and Blockbuster shut down. The rise of online shopping took a toll. Meanwhile, shoppers began discovering other cool places to spend their time and money.

The variety of alternatives is something the street has “wrestled with over the years and still wrestles with,” said Michael Harris, executive director of the South Street Headhouse District business association. “Frankly, South Street used to be the only game in town, in the 80s and 90s. But the heat map moves, the areas of popularity move, so now you have Fishtown and North Liberties and East Passyunk.”

While the internet and changing shopping habits have challenged retailers everywhere, Center City’s retail market is booming. Some 2 million square feet of new retail space is in development from Vine to South streets, according to a 2017 report from Center City District, “expanding Philadelphia’s prime retail district and reactivating long-dormant downtown shopping streets.”

On Walnut and Chestnut streets west of Broad, the retail vacancy rate dropped below 5 percent last year, CCD said. The vacancy rate citywide hovered around 8 percent as of mid-2018, according to Collier’s International. Meanwhile, South Street struggles with a vacancy rate of 16 percent, nearly twice the citywide average, Harris said.

The loss of businesses on South Street is reflected in stagnant retail rents. Storefronts there rent for about $40 per square foot, well below the amounts charged in the core of Center City, according to a report by the real estate firm CBRE. That figure is almost unchanged from 13 years ago, while asking rates on Chestnut, Walnut and Market streets have risen steadily since then.

Yet with so many buildings vacant, rents should arguably be even lower. Landlords’ unwillingness to accept less profitable lease arrangements may explain why some spots remain empty for months or even years. A similar phenomenon is occurring in parts of Manhattan, where landlords are reluctant to lower rates despite a supposed retail apocalypse driven by online competition.

“There are people still expecting to get rents much higher than I think the street can support, so they’re holding out and holding properties vacant against the dream that has probably changed as retail is facing ever more pressure from the internet,” said Paul Levy, CCD’s chief executive and a resident of nearby Society Hill. “A lot of the property owners have made decisions to wait for certain types of tenants who may not be coming.”

South Street’s future may depend on embracing the model of the neighborhood main street. Levy, Harris, and the brokers agree that the best bet for the long-time tourist attraction may be catering to the affluent residents who have moved in over the last few decades.

“You’ve got incredibly strong market demand on either side of the street, from Society Hill and Queen Village, from Washington Square and from Bella Vista. This is not like a marginal commercial corridor struggling for businesses,” Levy said.

That would mean accelerating the street’s shift from its youth-oriented focus of the 1980s and 1990s, which depended on weekend visitors from around the region, to a balanced model that brings in more local shoppers on weekdays.

“Part of our challenge, and part of our opportunity, is that we have to service both the neighborhood and tourists,” Harris said. A recent survey of people on the street found visitors from 20 different states, he said. “We are a tourist destination and we want that to be a good experience for people, but at the same time we want to be serving all the neighbors that live around here, which are lots of families, and lots of people with disposable income. It’s kind of finding that balance of things that work for both. If you can get the right mix, both sets of consumers will be happy.”

An indication of what that could look like can be found right off South Street, on 4th Street’s Fabric Row, where boutiques, salons, cafes and restaurants like Hungry Pigeon thrive off a steady stream of local customers. One popular boutique, Moon + Arrow recently opened an offshoot shop, Little Moon + Arrow, catering to the organic-onesie-wearing, wooden-toy-playing children of their customers.

Nearby residents are particularly eager to see a grocery store fill the long-vacant storefronts of Abbotts Square. Ahold Delhaize, the Dutch company that owns Giant and other supermarket chains, reportedly leased space in the building in 2016 to open a smaller-sized, higher-end market, but the owner has encountered difficulties that have slowed redevelopment of the complex.

Harris and Steinberg said Ahold recently announced that the 16,000-square-foot market is coming soon. A spokeswoman for Giant Food Stores would not confirm a date or address for a new South Street store, but she said the company is planning to announce several new locations in Philadelphia in the coming months. A Giant Heirloom Market is set to open in December at 24th and Bainbridge, close to South Street West in Graduate Hospital.

The South Street Headhouse District already has Whole Foods and ACME at 10th Street, as well as Essene natural foods and two small markets on 4th Street. There’s also a small ACME on 5th Street in Society Hill. 

Another prospective anchor business is the small-format Target proposed for 5th and Bainbridge, where buildings have already been demolished in preparation for construction of the store, a parking garage and apartments. Steinberg said a “highly regarded” national fast-food chain is also working on a deal to open a restaurant on South Street.

“That’s the kind of happening that gives us hope,” he said. “What we’re hoping happens is there are some stabilizing-type tenants that are looking [to occupy space] on the street, that may not have the funky panache that some of the other retailers have had on South Street, but add national stability, which make it a safer destination for retailers and adds more interest.”

Apart from individual anchor stores, what South Street needs are developers who gain control of several properties that are close to each other and pursue visions for cohesive, attractive shopping areas, Levy and Weiss said. Similar approaches worked well for East Passyunk, Frankford Avenue in Fishtown, and 13th Street in the Gayborhood, among other areas, they said.

To that end, Weiss’s firm is working on transactions with large investors who would acquire a whole portfolio of properties at once, he said.

“It will take some time to turn around,” he said. “It’s not going to be one landlord at a time. It will be larger, well-capitalized landlords who have a vision and patience to execute that vision, not to open another hookah shop.”

A promising development along those lines was the sale of several properties owned by New York developer Michael Axelrod to Midwood Investment & Development in 2016. Axelrod has reportedly owned more than 40 South Street buildings and kept many vacant for years, apparently holding out for high-profile tenants willing to pay higher rents. Since the sale, Midwood has started filling the spaces, including a former McDonald’s that was vacant for a decade but recently reopened as a nail salon.

“There are a lot of property owners who are willing and interested in negotiating [with prospective tenants],” Harris said. “There's no magic wand that suddenly cures it all, and the needle doesn't move as fast as I want, but I think there are a tremendous number of great restaurants and great retail down here that we want to remind people of.”

Source: http://planphilly.com/articles/2018/11/20/is-south-street-s-retail-apocalypse-coming-to-an-end

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

[robininthelabyrinth]

Fic: The Swiftest Course (Ao3) (Chapter 5/8)

Fandom: Flash, DC’s Legends Pairing: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart/Mick Rory, Eddie Thawne/Iris West Summary:

Barry of Allen is on his way to the capital of Tortall for the final part of his knight training, hiding a secret that could threaten his career there. He’s determined to keep his head down and not get into trouble.

He isn’t expecting to meet Len, Corus’ Rogue, or his right-hand man, Mick. Or meet Princess Iris and his new friends, Cisco and Caitlin.

He certainly wasn’t expecting to be roped into adventure.

(It’s the Gods’ fault, really.)

A/N: For joyous-lee, who purchased one of my stories for the FandomTrumpsHate event. She requested a Tortall AU, with Barry as Alanna. Thank you so much for your patience, and I hope you enjoy it!

——————————————————————————————–

“I swear, they’re practically asking for us to break in,” Len murmurs as he slips through the window of Castle Perilous.

“No kidding,” Mick says. “Candy from a baby.”

“Let’s go visit the ladies’ quarters, grab some gems, and then we’ll find Barry and Iris,” Len says. “Business before pleasure, after all.”

He promised his thieves that the Rogue would pull a heist on Castle Perilous, after all. He just didn't expect it to be this easy.

A scary reputation works wonders, but only on people who know it.

Mick nods.

“You good?” Len checks.

Mick rolls his eyes at him. “You’d think you’d worry less, now,” he grumbles, his shoulders rising up to his ears defensively, even though that wasn’t what Len was referring to.

They didn't talk about the revelation that Mick’s mother was a goddess of some variety until they were alone, despite Barry’s inquisitive looks and Iris’ leading questions. Len alone knows the story of Mick’s family: how he became possessed with the firebug fits at a young age, drawn to the fire as the sole method of quenching his anxiety, delighting in watching the flames jump and dance; how he lit one fire too many, and it spread too far, too fast, until it consumed the house and Mick’s family with it, while he was locked into the firebug fit and unable to call for aid or even a warning; how the village he lived in cast him out afterward, disgusted with the local knight’s finding that Mick had not intended any harm and had not been to blame. How Mick wandered, alone but for his knack for making fire, through the woods and the plains and the swamps until he had walked all the way to Corus.

Mick’s story involved both a mother and a father. Neither had ever given any hint that he was not a true-born member of the family, much less what goddess was involved.

It's a bit of a touchy subject. Only Len is allowed to touch on it, and only because he knows when to drop it and when to joke about it, like now.

Len widens his eyes. “But Mick,” he whines theatrically, “I’m not worried at all, unless you mean about the legions of worshippers that will no doubt appear once you ascend to the heavens in a burst of light…”

Mick sniggers. “You’re a dick.”

“Business first,” Len reminds him.

Getting the jewels is easy enough. Finding Barry and Iris, it turns out, is even easier – they’re walking away from the ladies’ quarters, their pockets full, and they hear them coming down the hallway, their voices echoing ahead of them.

“So you don’t have any idea what the spell affecting you was?” Barry asks. He’s speaking in a low voice, but Len can still hear him. It’s also clearly not the first time he’s asked; if Len was a betting man, he’d say Barry’s likely been asking it all week. He’d certainly asked it at least three times on the way back from Gorilla City.

“Nope,” Iris says, equally frustrated. “Solovar said it was subtle.”

“It can’t be that subtle.”

“Sure it can be,” Len says cheerfully, coming out of a dark corner.

They both spin around. “Len! Mick!” Barry yelps. “This is Castle Perilous, you can’t be in here!”

“And yet, look and see it happening,” Len says.

“But – how…?”

“The windows were wide open.”

“That’s because it’s hot,” Iris says, but she’s hiding a smile. “Tell me you aren’t stealing anything.”

“I don’t like to lie to you,” Len says, smirking at her as she rolls her eyes and mouths ‘Rogue’ as if it’s an insult. “But I’ve been thinking about it – subtle bespelling’s pretty hard to do, but there’s a couple of ways I can think of it to go.”

“Oh?”

“Favor,” Mick says, having discussed it with Len. “Having the good opinion of the princess counts for a lot, and it’d be pretty subtle.”

"I don't think I really favored anyone," Iris objects. "Not really." She frowns. "Wait - not Eddie?"

Len is surprised into a snort. "Don't be absurd."

"I don't feel any different, thinking about him," she observes.

"Also, he's - Eddie," Len says, which really should say everything. Eddie is a terrible thief, being as he is honest, stalwart, and true, always willing to believe the best of others but with a practical understanding of people, good judgment and strength of will that keeps him from being gullible. Len eventually gave up and got him a legit job selling in one of the Rogues' offshoot pawnshops, and he's been doing brisk trade ever since. Honest trade, no less, and the Provosts' Men keep raiding him because they can't figure out his game. It distracts them from the real Rogues' games in the area; Len wishes he'd thought of using honesty to bamboozle the Provost years ago.

"He has a point," Barry says, shooting Len a warm, fond look.

Len feels his lips quirk up instinctively in response, and that just won't do. "Speaking of good points that I have, let’s go back to what we discussed on the way back to Castle Perilous, Barry. Have you given any more thought to my offer of running lessons?"

Barry sighs.

"You should," Iris says. "If you refuse to get, uh, formal training."

"Given the disadvantages of formal training include being shipped off to the mountains for the next ten years," Barry says, "that answer isn't changing."

"Then what's wrong with this? You already go to Mick and Len for fighting lessons."

"Which you're doing pretty good at," Mick says.

"Mick doesn't compliment people lightly," Len tells Barry, who already knows that and is glowing with pride as a result. "We can reserve half or even two thirds of your lesson time for, uh, running."

"Oh, fine," Barry says with a sigh. Iris smiles a victorious smile, which makes Len suspect that she has something to do with his agreement; he doesn't care, really. He's just happy Barry's going to keep coming down to see them every week.

Hmm. Len hadn't realized he so looked forward to Barry's company. He'll have to discuss the issue with Mick.

Though, he notes to himself, judging by Mick's fond, somewhat possessive expression when he looks at Barry, he doesn't think Mick will an issue so much as an opportunity.

"Maybe tell me about the last week," Mick tells Iris. "Maybe we'll see something you lot missed."

"I guess," Iris says.

"You're going to be disappointed," Barry adds.

They are. A knight-in-training's life is apparently hideously boring and repetitive. Class, training, chores, sleep; class, training, chores, sleep; training, then class, then chores, then sleep, just to mix it up.

"No wonder you haven't figured out the spell," Len mutters. "You haven't done anything."

"Corus is more interesting," Iris concedes.

"Though we do have an extra class tomorrow," Barry grumbles. "With Eobard."

"Thawne Eobard of Bergen?" Len asks.

"That's the one. And before you say anything, Iris, I know you think he's nice - everyone thinks he's nice - but I just plain old don't like him, so you can stop trying to argue me into it."

Iris isn't arguing, though, she's frowning. "Eobard," she says. "I said he was - nice?"

"Oh yeah," Barry says. "You say he's nice, Cisco says he's nice, Caitlin says he's nice..."

"I'd use plenty of words to describe him," Iris says, frowning deeper. "Good ally, yes, but nice? He's not nice. He's a dick."

Len and Mick look at each other.

Barry is frowning, now, too. "But you - we had an argument about this just the other week, before we went to the city! I was complaining about how much he brought up the hidden city legend, and you said I was being rude because he was just being nice, and I told you it practically sounded like he was daring you to go -"

"I think," Len interjects, "that we've found our spell. And our spellcaster."

"Eobard?!" Iris exclaims. "Don't be ridiculous. He's a good ally; he's never given us any reason -"

"A good ally with a murky past," Len reminds her. "The Thawnes have always been good allies of Tortall - at least, they were before they were all slaughtered to a man, and far-cousin Eobard suddenly took the throne."

That gives Iris pause. "We didn't really do a proper investigation of that," she murmurs. "Not really. I thought it odd, at the time, and - I think I was pressing Dad to let me do it, actually, since it was an opportunity to travel - but then we dropped it, for some reason. I don't remember why."

Len and Mick exchange glances again.

"Barry," Mick says, "exactly how many people did you say called Eobard 'nice'? Specifically 'nice'?"

Barry's starting to look pretty upset himself. "All of them," he says. "All the knights-in-training in our class, for sure; plenty of others, too. That first day, we were talking about the Thawne's past, remember? With Caitlin and Cisco? I didn't pay any attention that day because I thought Caitlin would cover me the way she always does, with her perfect memory and note-taking, but all she could tell me about that class was that he'd talked a bit about his role in his government...and then she said he was 'nice', too."

"Exactly how often does this Thawne guy come talk to your knights' classes?" Len asks. He's concerned he knows the answer.

Iris looks pretty grim. "Every year," she says. "For the last three, at least. And he does it for knights sometimes, too."

"There has to be a base spell," Mick says. "If it's all the same -"

Len's nodding. "That makes sense."

"I'm not sure I understand," Iris says.

"I do," Barry says. "I read up a lot on magery for, uh, obvious reasons, but if you want one spell to affect a lot of people the same way, it's easier to build a spell apparatus somewhere safe and then use something else, a conduit, to apply the spell to people."

"A light source of some type," Len says. "A mirror, a lamp, even reflections in a jewel would do it."

Iris and Barry glance at each other.

"You think..?" Barry starts.

"That stupid yellow jewel he's always playing with," Iris says. "He brings it out for meetings like with the knights, but keeps it away the rest of the time - I thought he was just nervous around crowds or something, but he isn't the rest of the time - the more fool me-"

"You were bespelled," Barry reminds her.

"By a spell you apparently missed by being bad at class," Iris says, scowling.

"I wanted to see my mother," Barry says, shrugging. "I couldn't focus...wait, do you think she's affected? She's the spymaster!"

"I think we have to assume everyone is affected," Iris says. "Or else someone else would've noticed it - the King’s Mage, for one thing! Master Darhk! Why didn't he notice?"

"How friendly is he with Thawne?" Len asks.

Iris winces. "Very. They agree on - many things."

"Many things, some of which have become policy, if I guess it," Len says.

Iris' jaw tightens, confirming his suspicions.

"We have to stop them," Barry says.

"But how?" Iris says. "If everyone's affected -"

"The spell basis has to be close to its victims in the beginning to get it going," Len says. "It'll be in the palace. If we find it, and destroy it..."

"Everyone breaks free," Iris says, nodding.

"I could use my speed if we need to," Barry says. "You all say I'm barely recognizable as a man when I do it; we could get in places, search them..."

"Yes, that'll work," Iris says. "Then we need to -"

"Princess Iris!" a voice shouts from down the hallway. "Princess Iris!"

"Here!" she shouts back, scowling and turning towards the voice. Len and Mick sink back into the shadows.

A page boy runs down the hallway, panting. "Princess Iris," he says. "Oh, Princess -"

Iris frowns, clearly alarmed. "What? What is it? What's happened?"

"Your family - Corus - it's all been hit -"

"Hit?! What do you mean? With what?!"

"Disease," the page whispers. "They're all sick and getting sicker - oh, Princess. They say it's the Sweating Sickness."

-----

The Sweating Sickness, terror of the reign of King Roald I, is in modern times known to have been an artificial disease, created by Roger of Conté. It was particularly pernicious, designed to kill first the mages who could heal or determine what the sickness was, and then the common folk, and only then the royal family. As far as anyone knew, the secret to conjuring it was lost with Roger's death, and it had never been seen again.

At least, until now.

"Who is the person sending it?" Iris demands of Mick. "How do we stop it?"

Mick shakes his head mutely. He's slow and he knows it, and Len knows it, and Barry knows it, and Iris' new-found belief in Mick's omniscience has obscured her memory of its faults.

Barry recalls how Len explained it to him in an aside - how Mick has always been slow to process things, slow to recall words, slow in a way that had made people scoff at him for being unintelligent, but how he always came up with an answer in the end and only Len with his perfect memory could match answer to question. Barry suggested to Len that perhaps that was the answer, that the two were related - if Mick was a demigod, then perhaps he was somewhat omniscient in a non-joking sense, but he was processing that vast knowledge through a human mind and as a result even simple answers or words could at times come slowly. Len agreed, but warned Barry that it was a sensitive subject.

"It also," Len said, "gives rise yet again to the question of what goddess? Assuming we know of her."

"The Goddess doesn't bear children herself, she adopts them; and at any rate she is known for wisdom, not all-knowledge," Barry replied. "Gainel, perhaps? He's a god of dreams, he's as close as the gods get to omniscient, and he's known for taking the shapes of others..."

"Mick seems far too practical for that," Len said doubtfully.

And then they stopped, because Mick was coming, and the topic upsets him. Barry doesn't want Mick upset.

That's why he steps forward now. "Iris," he says. "You can't force foreknowledge. You know that."

"The last time the Sweating Sickness came to Corus, it killed thousands," Iris snaps. "We have to - we have to do something."

"We're a lot more advanced than they were then," Barry says. "We have the mage universities, and a lot more trained mages."

"And the King’s Mage potentially in league with the enemy!" Iris exclaims. She shakes her head, upset. "We have to find that model."

"You can't do that without returning to Corus," Len says. He's been packing his things all day to return himself; the Rogue no more abandoned his people in a crisis than the royal family did. "When I'm there, I'll look -"

"You'll be busy with organizing the criminals and the poor," Iris says. "They need treatment as much as the rich, after all."

"And they'll get it," Len confirms. "Even if I have to steal it."

"I have no doubt," Iris says. "That's why the office of the Rogue has been permitted to flourish all these years. But you're wrong about one assumption - I am also returning to Corus."

"What?!" Barry yelps.

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

Iris carried her point; Barry had to admit she had one. As a member of the royal family, she was a potential target of the Sweating Sickness, and they didn’t want it to spread outside of Corus if it didn’t have to. At the very least, she had been forced to concede that she would remain outside of the city in a small camp, instead of actively walking into the diseased city.

Barry also successfully insisted on being part of the group that comes back with her. Cisco and Caitlin as well.

He’d finished his packing earlier and gone off with Len to try to find Mick – Mick had disappeared earlier, claiming that he needed to light a fire and looking antsy. Barry hoped Mick was all right; he liked Mick.

He liked Mick a lot, actually. He's seen how people will sometimes overlook Mick because he's overshadowed by Len's exuberant personality, but Barry's always appreciated Mick's quiet confidence, the rare but heartfelt compliments, his deadpan sense of humor...

Oh, crap. Does Barry have a crush on Mick? He thought the one he had on Len was bad enough!

“I see him,” Len says.

Barry puts aside his newfound concern and squints up ahead, where an old warehouse by the river is on fire, yes, but it’s also already ringed with firefighters prepped to fight it. “How’d they find it so fast?”

"Already scheduled demolition," Len replies in a murmur. "I get Mick a list of all of 'em going on."

Barry nods, relieved. He knows Mick's a firebug, doesn't hold it against him, but he wasn't really looking forward to carting buckets of well-water to help put something out.

Mick is standing by the edge of the fire, staring at it, his pupils dilated, his mouth slightly agape. Barry doesn't need Len to tell him to take a seat next to Mick's unmoving form. He already knows they might be here a while.

It's nearly half an hour before Mick stirs.

"Mick?" Len says immediately. "I'm here. Barry, too."

Mick nods mutely. "Thanks," he rasps.

Len hands him the cup of water he retrieved for him at the start. It's warm now, of course, after so long by the fire, but Mick still gulps it down gratefully.

"Just a fit?" Barry asks, as gently as he can. "Or did you see something?"

Mick wipes his mouth clean. "I have to go," he tells them.

Both Len and Barry droop a bit.

"Not now," Mick clarifies. "But - when you go back to Corus, I'm not coming with you."

"You're not?" Len says sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I have something I need to do," Mick says. "Something only I can do; something that needs to be done."

"Can we help?" Barry asks immediately.

Mick looks at him fondly, and Len's glance is no less tender. Barry blushes a bit. Having them look at him that way...

"No," Mick says. "You have to stop the Sickness. And Eobard. Be careful; someone willing to bespell a foreign power in their own palace has tricks up his sleeve."

"I'll be careful."

"And what about me?" Len asks, his voice strange and strangled. "What'll I do without my right hand?"

Mick puts a hand on Len's shoulder. "I'll come back to you," he says comfortingly. "But this is something that's gotta be done."

Len swallows, hard, and nods. "But not now," he says.

"Not now," Mick agrees. "Tomorrow."

Len puts his hand on Mick's.

Barry feels his cheeks flush and he averts his eyes. He's always thought that Len and Mick were so beautiful - both of them, each in their own way, Len's wiry strength next to Mick's burly breadth and thick muscles - and he's always suspected that they were lovers, thought about it late at night when he's alone, dreamt of it, but...

Well. This is not a moment for him. This is a moment for them.

"Hey, Barry," Len says, his eyes flickering to Mick in that way they had, instant understanding at a glance.

"Ye-yeah?" Barry asks, having to clear his throat. "I was just going to head back to Castle Perilous, actually, now that I think about it -"

Mick's hand falls on Barry's shoulder, heavy and warm. "Don't go," he says.

"No," Len says, "don't go, Barry."

"But -" Barry says helplessly. "Don't you - I don't know - don't you want to be alone?"

They glance at each other, then turn and regard Barry with shark-like smiles. "We do," Len says. "We just want to be alone with you."

"If you get our meaning," Mick says, his voice low and deep and just right to send shivers down Barry's spine.

"This isn't some sort of 'you're probably going to die' thing, is it?" Barry asks weakly. He's pretty sure he's going to say yes even if it is.

"No," Mick says. "We like you."

"And we have it on pretty good authority that you like us," Len says.

Barry licks his lips.

They both watch the movement.

"We've discussed it," Len says.

"We're not opposed to keeping you," Mick adds.

"Not like you don't come over every week already," Len agrees.

"You suit us both," Mick says.

"So, Barry, how about it?"

Oh, well, if they put it that way...

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

"I can't believe you spent your packing time getting laid," Iris grumbles as they set out by horse.

"You're just jealous because Eddie's still in Corus," Barry says. He's still languid and relaxed all over; he knows it's driving Iris mad with jealousy and amusement both, but he can't help glowing about it. Len and Mick - they're something special. Each one of them alone, and together they're even more extraordinary.

"Yes," Iris says. "Yes, yes I am."

"We'll find the model," Barry assures her.

"My father’s guards are turning over the entire city looking for the spell that’s causing the Sickness," Iris says unhappily. "It’s not like they don’t know it’s an artificial illness; everyone knows that. But nothing’s been found yet."

"They don't know where to look," Barry says. "We do. We're almost there, Iris."

"We have to stop the Sickness before we can do anything else," Iris says. "Even before we go for whatever spell Eobard is casting. People are dying. I just - is it bad that I hope that it's all one big plot? Because if it's someone else..."

"It's not," Barry says. He's sure of it.

Well, Len is sure of it, having surveilled Eobard for a few hours, and Barry trusts his judgment of people. Len says he's good at smelling rats.

Speaking of rats -

Barry reaches for his pocket to confirm that Faithful is still sleeping there. Mick gave him to Barry on his way out of the city earlier, telling him to take good care of his pet; Barry promised he would.

Faithful makes a small, satisfied squeaking noise when Barry runs his fingers through his fur.

"You can't intend to carry him everywhere," Iris notes.

"Mick said to take care of him," Barry replies. "And he likes riding in my pocket. I don't see the problem."

Iris sighs dramatically, but Barry knows she doesn't mean it. She's worried about Mick's mysterious mission, too. It’s not like him.

Arriving at the impromptu camp set up at Corus' edge, in the park reserve, doesn't make anything better. Eobard frustratingly goes straight into the city proper, walking through each district without a hint of fear, talking to people and rallying morale in the way Iris would love to do but can't for the sake of her people. She's a royal and a target; she can't risk bringing more sickness with her.

Eobard's efforts - noble and selfless as they appear - would be very effective, very subtle propaganda; poisonous treason disguised as aid, a way to make the city residents think of Eobard as 'appropriately kingly' in a crisis the way the royal family isn't. And it would work, too, but for one very special feature of Corus politics.

In Tortall, the royal family rules the country and is beloved by the people of its capital city, that much is true. But when a crisis comes, they are expected to focus on the bigger picture, while the citizens of Corus turn for succor to a different source.

Only one King walks the streets of Corus in a crisis, and he is not the King of Tortall.

The sheer flood of relief that greets Len when he returns is visible, faces relaxing, shoulders easing, tension disappearing although fear is not gone. The office of the Rogue has evolved over the years, gaining in influence and power, but it remains, as ever, the figure to whom the poor give their trust when the politicians fail them.

They call the Rogue the poor man's last resort.

In the last centuries, that role has grown. The Rogue, the city knows, cares first for the city which houses the treasure he steals. Unlike the royals, he has never abandoned Corus, remaining steadfast; he moderates the violence in the streets and fights against the unfairness of the Provosts' Men when no one else will. If he fails in his duty, he is murdered by another who takes his place; if there are no such contenders, the city itself rejects the Rogue, robbing him of his legitimacy, until one worthy of the role steps forward.

The Rogue doesn’t just steal. He rules.

He protects.

When a sickness comes, the Rogue fights, threatens, and steals his people what resources they need. Every poor man who ever dropped a few pennies to the Rogue's tithe, every woman who's ever remained politely blank to the Provost's questions – they all know who has their back.

Eddie has been leading the charge in demanding that the healers of Corus treat the poor, too, right alongside the rich who can pay for the privilege, but the city's aristocracy has been slow and resistant to his efforts, no matter how prettily worded. The poor have given Eddie their support as the public face of the Rogue’s efforts, but their support means little in the courts, which have their own fears and their own interests.

After Len arrives, things change.

Barry doesn't know if it's blackmail or bribes or threats or something else, but suddenly the machinery of the city begins to move. Nobles who were earlier indifferent to the city suddenly start singing a very different tune, opening their coffers and lending their votes to strengthen the city hospitals as well as the private ones frequented by nobles. A band of street-cleaners comes together, entirely voluntary and – if asked – spontaneous, and the streets of Corus shine like never before in an effort to stem the spread of the Sickness. Water is carted in from wells outside the city and people wait in line for it, drinking nothing else regardless of temptation. The city abruptly obeys the king’s curfew as if Mithros himself had imposed it, where before you could be guaranteed to find a good half of the city out and about after hours and damn what the Provost might say.

Len's legion of bully-men are the only ones out after hours. Where before their role was to patrol the city for unauthorized crime, to intimidate those criminals who failed to pay the Rogue's tithe, to keep an eye out for any sign of the Provost’s men coming too close to a job, it is different in the sickness. They run errands, they do chores, they beat the crap out of anyone they find outside, but they are easily summoned to any house that finds itself in desperate need of night-time excursions with a penny-whistle, which had been left on each doorstep. The house whispers through the door its needs and the men do whatever night-time task is necessary, dropping off parcels and delivering assurances. And at each dawn, Len’s legion of men turn themselves over en masse to the mages and doctors sworn to the Rogue, who examine them for any sign of illness.

The Sickness' spread is ground down to almost a halt. Yes, new cases continued to appear every day, but far, far fewer. Even a magical sickness needs be transmitted by regular means.

Barry breathes a sigh of relief.

Len has bought them time.

Iris frowns when she sees Eobard, whose annoyance is well-hidden, making a point to stop by Master Darhk on a daily basis to get, as he says publically and often to the news circulars’ men, "regular updates" on the crisis.

"He's implying we don't," Iris says bitterly to Barry. "The Rogue does a lot, but it's the regular folks that follow him in times of need, not the nobles - and it's the nobles he's playing up to."

"I've seen him with the Rathaways," Barry says. "Among others."

"They're very rich, very powerful - and they don't much like my dad, ever since he banned them from court after they cast out their son for being deaf and therefore, in their eyes, 'imperfect'." Iris sighs. "They'll be able to spread whatever he says. Everyone knows they have a grudge, but as long as my dad continues to favor Eobard, praising him sounds like it's praising Dad - for now - and gives them extra credibility. Have we found anything yet?"

"No," Barry says. "Luckily we weren't here when the first wave hit - all the mages are at half-power or worse."

"All of them? Not just the healers?"

"All of them," Barry confirms. "Corus was the target - historians are agreeing that before the actual Sickness was released, a preliminary version went through the city, invisible, and stuck to anyone using magery."

"Damnit," Iris says. "But we were out of town..."

"But we're knights," he reminds her. "The majority of the mages are in the original training center in the City of the Gods or in the universities or outposts where they serve, all scattered all across the country, and they don't dare come here for fear of catching the sickness. All the mages Corus did have were in the desert, remember, because of that unrest; they were all there, instead of out on individual tasks, and they all rushed back to try and fight the Sickness before they realized what it was."

"Very effective," Iris says bitterly. "Almost as if the caster of the Sickness knew it would happen - oh, wait. They probably did."

Barry, helpless, puts a hand on her shoulder. Iris smiles at him, a small, tremulous thing. "Thanks, Barry. I know you're trying your best."

"Want me to get you Eddie?" Barry offers. Eddie always could take Iris' mind off her troubles.

"No," Iris sighs wistfully. "He's doing good work in the city. That's more important."

"Let me at least get you a letter," Barry presses. "I'm searching the palace anyway - a detour to the city won't take that long, with my speed."

Iris pauses, reluctant to ask for anything so self-interested, but Barry can see that she wants it.

"I'll do it," he promises her, and smiles. "It'll give me an excuse to see Len."

"Well, if that's the case, then yes," Iris says, a real smile curling her lips this time. "But be careful!"

"I will."

Barry hugs her, then goes.

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

Barry heads to the palace first. He's been here every day this past week without fail. He’s already searched Eobard and Darhk's quarters without any luck, so he's widened his search, but despite zipping along the corridors like a flash of lightning, he’s just not finding anything. No mage-working, no circle, not even some vaguely suspicious-looking books. Nothing at all.

Damnit.

Barry sighs and veers off to the city. At least he’ll achieve something.

Barry runs into the city, looking for the Rogue.

He sees the signs of the Sickness everywhere he goes - what seems like a flash of light and a whoosh to everyone else seems, to him, like a mild jog, long enough to pay attention to things around him. Sometimes, like now, he wishes he didn't; the signs of illness are all around. The people scurrying through the streets like they're scared, the houses with the shutters painted black to warn of contamination, the tired-looking healers staggering on to their next patient -

There's an audible squeak.

Barry slows for a moment, unsure for a moment what is making the sound, but in that moment, Faithful slips out of his pocket and onto the street, streaking towards the next corner.

Barry yelps - visions of a disappointed Mick dancing before his eyes - and dashes after the rat.

Faithful is fast - he gets around the corner and halfway down the block before Barry catches up - but luckily he doesn't go down a pipe or somewhere Barry can't follow and so Barry scoops him right up, coming to a halt in a secluded cranny in the mostly-empty street.

"Don't do that," he hisses at Faithful, still vibrating at super-speed to try to hide his identity. "Do you know what Mick would do to me if I lost you?"

Faithful squeaks apologetically.

Barry shakes his head and sighs. "Sorry for snapping," he says, only mildly embarrassed by the fact that he's talking to a rat.

Faithful nuzzles at him forgivingly.

Barry sighs and slides Faithful back into his pocket, looking around the street to see if anyone likely to report him to the knight's court saw him, but there's no one he has to worry about around.

No, now that he looks, he can tell that there's nobody around. Every house's shutters are black and there's a musty sort of smell, like the whole street is empty - not just people hiding inside, no, but empty.

Dead.

Barry swallows. "Oh, Faithful, where did you lead me," he murmurs. A dead street, where nothing moves but the wind in the empty awnings and the shapeless ghostly form moving down the main street -

Wait. What?!

Barry peeks out. It's not quite shapeless, but it's definitely translucent. Like a ghost, if ghosts come in the shape of giant rats with huge, putrid pus-filled sores all over -

Barry's eyes go wide as all the scary stories of his childhood hit him all at once.

"Oh Goddess," he whispers. "It's Malady."

Malady - one of the three Sorrows released upon the world during the Immortals War. The avatar of sickness and pestilence. Most deadly of the Three.

What the fuck.

Faithful squeaks.

"Shhhhh!" Barry hisses. He does not want to get Malady's attention.

Luckily, the giant ghostly rat drags itself onward, down the street, head hanging low and swaying from side to side, nose crinkling just like Faithful does when he's annoyed. It doesn't look like it's particularly upbeat about going about its duties, which isn't what all the stories say about its vicious pleasure in illness. Barry's not sure if it's because of Len's brutally efficient anti-illness measures or if it's something else.

Faithful squeaks again.

Barry looks down at Faithful's strange purple eyes. He's about to shush him again, but -

He wouldn't have found Malady if Faithful hadn't come this way. He's still not sure why he can see Malady, unless it’s because of the fact that he’s vibrating at super speed; but he wouldn’t have thought to look. And, well, if Mick's a demi-god, then there's no reason...

No, that's absurd. Faithful was a cat, not a rat. The stories are pretty clear on that.

But, still...

"What is it?" Barry whispers to Faithful, feeling a bit stupid.

Faithful squeaks again and crawls out of Barry's pocket into his hands. He's facing away from Malady, studying something behind him which Barry doesn't entirely understand - there's a Sorrow! Right there! How are you not looking at it?! - but Barry obediently turns to see what Faithful is looking at.

He doesn't see it at first, even starts doubting himself and thinking Faithful's looking for some snack, but then it flickers in the corner of his eye.

It's -

He's not sure how to describe it.

There's a wavering yellow ribbon, barely visible, trailing through the air. It's incredibly thin - scarcely a ribbon, even - but it flickers when the light catches on it sometimes, floating gently in the wind.

It extends back quite some distance, turning around the far block just at the edge of Barry's vision, and it goes forward to - Barry turns to follow the line -

It goes straight to Malady, wrapped around the ghostly rat's throat as it trudges onwards.

Barry doesn't understand.

Faithful squeaks, satisfied, and dives back into Barry's pocket.

Barry doesn't understand.

Malady turns the corner, disappearing out of Barry's sight, and Barry breathes out a sigh of relief. Then he goes to find Len.

This clearly calls for a conference.

"Can you spare me a minute?" he asks Len, who looks like he hasn't slept in days.

Len looks up from his paperwork, where he's scratching down payment totals and the lists of the sick. The lists of the dead. "I can spare you ten," he says, rubbing his eyes. When Len says a number, he means it.

Barry nods, wraps his arms around him, and sprints.

As Len had theorized, Barry's speed either makes him stronger or everything else feel lighter; carrying Len is no difficulty at all.

It takes nearly twenty seconds to drop Len off at the edge of the camp where Iris is keeping watch for him; forty more to double back and collect Eddie.

Iris is blinking. "A letter from Eddie," she says. "We agreed - a letter. Not that it's not great to see you in person, Eddie."

"What," Eddie says blankly. "What?"

"I'm a speed mage," Barry tells him. "Don't tell anybody."

"Why are we here?" Len asks. "Nine minutes."

"I need your help," Barry says. "I saw Malady."

"We've all been seeing the malady, Barry," Iris says. "We're facing an epidemic of the Sweating Sickness."

"No! Not a malady, Malady! Itself!"

Len's eyes narrow. "The Sorrow?"

"Yes! It was going down a dead street - there was a ribbon tied around its neck - "

"A ribbon," Eddie says, frowning. "A long, thin ribbon?"

Barry blinks. He hadn't actually expected Eddie to be useful, which he admits is not the most generous thought; Eddie's extremely competent when he's not mooning over Iris. He'd just assumed Eddie would be there for Iris and stand in at least a little their missing fourth.

Not that anyone could fill Mick's place.

"Yes," Barry says. "Exactly so."

"Where I'm from," Eddie says, studying his hands, "there's a practice of string-magery. It's taught to everyone: if you can bind it in string made of spirit, you can control it. Not perfectly, but, well -"

"That must be it," Iris exclaims, reaching out to take Eddie's hands and squeezing them. "Barry, no one knows how the Sweating Sickness was first formed, or where Roger of Conté learned it -"

"Eddie, where are you from?" Len cuts in.

"I - I'm from Bergen," Eddie says.

"That's what I thought," Len says smugly.

Iris has gone still. "Thawne Eobard's land," she says.

Eddie flinches, oddly enough. He must not like his monarch.

"It was a yellow ribbon," Barry adds. "Same yellow that Eobard always wears - and the string went back some ways."

"We need to unbind Malady," Len says.

"Unbind a Sorrow?" Iris yelps. "That's a terrible idea. We can't just - let it run loose!"

"Malady's natural state is running loose," Len says. "We make it uncomfortable with our medicines and our cleanliness, but it is meant to roam free and cull our numbers where we don't take enough care, to remind us that it is always a threat. It's a fact of nature."

"But what if it strikes at us?"

"Better a natural malady," Len says grimly, "than the Sickness. Cholera I can hold off and fight, that's a city-man's disease. The Sickness is unnatural."

"Artificial," Barry says. "No wonder Malady looked, uh, peeved."

"Peeved," Eddie says disbelievingly. "Isn't it supposed to look like a rat?"

Barry pulls Faithful out of his pocket. Len barks a laugh and reaches out to scratch Faithful's chin. "Of course," he says. "Mick. Shoulda known. Barry, time for me to go back."

"But we haven't figured out how to fix this!" Barry exclaims.

"What you need is simple: gloves that don't let illness through. You have a doctor and a weaver. Use them. I need to go back now, Barry."

"Me, too," Eddie says, looking at Iris longingly.

Barry sighs, but he runs them both back, Len first, Eddie second. He leaves Len with a kiss and Eddie with an apology, though judging by his blush Iris used the forty seconds they were alone to good use.

Then he returns to a pleased looking Iris. "So," he says, rubbing his face. "Malady. Which Len thinks I can deal with using gloves."

"If Malady doesn't want to be doing what it's doing, it might let you untie it," Iris says reasonably.

"Touching Malady means horrible, awful death, Iris."

She winces. "Point. Well, as Len says, we just need to make sure you can untie Malady without touching it."

"With a doctor and a weaver?" Barry asks. "Len's not normally so cryptic."

Iris grins. "Oh, that wasn't cryptic at all - or haven't Cisco and Caitlin told you all about their families' favorite hobbies?"

Barry smacks his forehead. Of course! Caitlin's mother heads up one of the largest hospitals on the northern border, and Cisco's family were clothiers, and clothiers were one part design and the rest weaving.

"Will they believe us?" he asks. It's been hard, having to keep their suspicions of Eobard from them, but Iris and Barry had decided that they couldn't risk the possibility that Eobard's spell had a trigger to make its subjects inform him of any investigation or threat against him.

"We don't have to tell them about Eobard," Iris decides. "Everyone knows that the Sickness is man-made."

"But how to explain how I happened to see it? They don't know about - well - me."

Iris bites her lip. "That one I don't know."

Barry swallows. "Well, then," he says. "That just means I ought to explain. I trust them - on everything other than Eobard, anyway - and they're my friends. They should know."

Iris touches his shoulder. "They won't mind."

#coldflashwave #dccoldwave #mick rory #leonard snart #barry allen #iris west #eddie thawne #westhawne #my fic