#i got the fucked up cards by spending like all my coins and diamonds. they should be fixed by the time this gets posted hopefully??

[kingmaximusboltagon]

so marvel topp's has been having these throwback thursday events. and this week's is -- very excitingly!!!! -- the inhumans!!!!!!!

which is REALLY FUN!!!

the only problem being the comments that aren't people asking for trades are almost exclusively ppl complaining about the fact that the inhumans have a set.

and also! more than that one problem! these are meant to be the same cards as the old set, but with like a special filter. which sounds fine. except that this:

is not gorgon's common card, due to the fact that this is not Gorgon Petragon. this is actually tomi shishido. a mutant who goes by the gorgon.

and THIS:

is not black bolt's common card. this is not black bolt. this is so not black bolt that this specific image, in comic, is a panel of him revealing himself to not be black bolt.

i know marvel kinda hates the inhumans but they messed up TWO of the ten cards by mixing up characters,,,, 😭

#how did this even happen 😭 #i got the fucked up cards by spending like all my coins and diamonds. they should be fixed by the time this gets posted hopefully?? #i probably should have saved some for the updated ones #oops #well i guess ill have to get some trades going!!!! im putting my ENTIRE back into completing this set and getting dupes #im going to singlehandedly up the card count for this set #inhumans #gorgon petragon #blackagar boltagon #maximus boltagon #id in alt text

[softboywriting]

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back | Nathan Bateman | Ex Machina

Summary: You and Nathan hit it off at a tech expo. One thing leads to another and the two of you pull a stunt, claiming you’re married. Things get out of hand, and you end up going to stay with Nathan at his home to avoid people trying to harass you about Nathan’s work. The time you spend together will allow for a real relationship to bloom. [Swearing] [Fake Marriage Trope] [Soft!Nathan] [F!ReaderxNathan]

Word Count: 3.3k

|Masterlist In Bio|

One day you realize Kyoko is missing. You're not sure when she stopped appearing, in fact you can't remember the last time you actually saw her. Last week? No. A month ago? Wait,have you been here that long? Time seems to have lapsed here in the facility with Nathan. You worried about this when you arrived. Or maybe when you took the job. Was it really a job? Everything is a little fuzzy in terms of what you are. An assistant one might think, a housekeeper perhaps? No. You took the job as Nathan Bateman's wife. Yes. Job....well...sort of. Let’s go back to the beginning shall we?

Three months ago you met Nathan at the biggest tech expo in Las Vegas. You weren't exactly there for the inventions and hottest tech on the market. You were a handler, an escort of sorts for the creators and investors from companies attending. Your job was simple. Make things as smooth as possible while the people with disgusting amounts of money make big decisions. It was a great gig. It paid incredibly well for being temporary. But Nathan didn't think it suited you.

The second he laid eyes on you it was all over. You had been nervous for days after learning you were assigned to Nathan Bateman for Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the expo. The Nathan Bateman, creator of Blue Book and the AI Project. You may not be a tech genius or even understand most of the things on display at the expo, but you would have to be living under a rock not to know who this man is and what he has done. He is illusive, handsome, sought after by many people the world over. Nathan is the definition of a sugar daddy if you ever did see one. Notoriously single, generous with his money, beyond genius intellect. He is the whole package.

One thing lead to another after you met Nathan at the expo and before you knew it he had your collar bones a mess with hickies and you were dressed in his sweater to attempt to cover them up. It hadn’t taken long before he was all over you, hands in your hair, on your butt, lips on your neck. You and Nathan had just sparked the moment you got close and you let that fire burn as hot as it could.

Of course all things in life have consequences, good or bad, and as you were leaving the rest area for creators, where the little hands on session had gone down, some press junkie saw you together. Photos were taken. Nathan had not been seen with anyone privately in years. He was never seen with a woman, let alone a woman wearing his sweater and looking a proper mess. It was a scandal to be had.

By the end of Friday Nathan was introducing you as his wife, a plan he had come up with on the fly. He had even procured a huge diamond ring for you too. Somehow you were playing along with all of this. Nathan offered to pay you, just for the appearance because it would be good for the company that he was seen as a man like any other, nothing more needed to come of your relations. It was fine. You were getting paid more than you could hope to make in your lifetime and getting to hang out with Nathan Bateman who you actually clicked with and liked to be around. Win win. You had it made. In less than 24 hours you were to be done with all of this and have cash in pocket to do whatever you wanted with.

Until.

A week after you had your crazy weekend with Nathan you were being followed. People kept showing up at your part time job in the travel agency downtown. They asked questions about Nathan, about his work. You didn't know anything. You were half tempted to tell everyone it was fake, that he never even properly kissed you, but Nathan paid you to be quiet, to play along. You signed his NDA. After a man followed you home from work and watched your apartment for two days, that's when you decided to reach out to Nathan. You could call the police and have the man removed, but there would just be others. This wasn’t a matter for the police, it was a matter for Nathan to handle.

Reaching a man like Nathan wasn't easy. He had left you a business card. A number that went to Blue Book human resources. It wasn't a way of contacting him directly, but it was. On the card was scribbled a word. "REQUIEM" You called the number and listened to the prompts. None reached an operator or customer service line. It seemed that no matter what you did it sent you to an automated system. Eventually you got so annoyed you just said the word requiem as if it were a prompt. Sure enough the phone started ringing, connecting to a line.

"Hello?"

"Nathan?"

"How did you get this number?"

"You gave it to me. At the expo." You tell him that it's you and he sighs heavily in relief. "I need your help."

"My help? With what?"

"I'm being harassed because of the expo." Your voice trembles and you realize how much of a toll this is taking on you. "People have followed me to my home."

"Fuck. Can you get to an airport first thing in the morning?"

"Yes."

"Perfect, give me your email. I'll send you everything you need to get away. Pack your bags for a few months. I'll bring you to my facility as a guest until this blows over or we decide what to do next. It's the least I could do."

And that's how you ended up in his home in the middle of nowhere Alaska for the last month and a half. Your whole world uprooted because you decided that a few hundred thousand dollars was worth playing fake wife to the country's richest and most sought after man for two nights. It was so stupid at hindesight, but here you are actually the happiest you've ever been and connecting with Nathan on a deeper level than you thought possible. The two of you just understand each other, it's as if you're two sides to one coin.

______________________

"So, where is Kyoko?"

Nathan looks over from his desk, peering at you over his glasses. You're leaning against the door frame in a nightgown you know he likes. "She's in storage."

"Why?"

"Because I decommissioned her." He turns his attention back to the computer and begins typing.

You step in and he lets out a little warning hum. You know better than to bother him while he's toiling away on code. Being here for this long has been a learning experience with his reclusiveness, but also a lesson on reading his moods. He's not irritated, yet. "Why did you do that?"

"Kitten, you are distracting me."

Kitten. The nickname he picked out day one. Who gives a guest a nickname?

"I'm curious."

"I'm working. You know the rules."

You lean against the desk and he flicks his gaze to you for a moment as your nightgown rides up your thighs. His rules were simple. Don’t bother him while he works, no kissing, no sex. Really you thought the rules were ridiculous. You were meant to be a guest, hiding while the world forgets about your fake relationship. But things don’t go as planned do they? The two of you have been pushing the boundaries of entering a relationship, though it has never been discussed.

"We haven't talked in days."

Nathan sighs irritably. "I am on to something that could be the greatest breakthrough in AI history." He pushes his chair back and pats his lap. "Come sit."

You do as told and plop down onto his lap.

"Now, if I promise to go to bed in two hours will you stop asking questions?" He runs a hand up your back, fingertips dancing against your skin delicately and making you shiver.

"That's a long time. It's already late."

"My patience is wearing thin."

"Alright deal."

"Good girl." He swats your butt gently and you slide off his lap. "Go make that bed nice and warm for me."

You take one last look back and he's already returned to typing. "One more thing."

"Nope. Get out."

"But-"

"Out, Kitten."

"Nathan, come on."

He stops typing and even in the dim light you can tell he is tense and irritated. This is the time to stop pushing his rules. "Go, or I won't be nice."

You cross the room quickly to kiss his cheek and then hurry from the room. You know he is probably going to do something to get back at you for disrupting him amid a coding session. But that's fine. You like seeing him break his own rules just for you.

__________________

Nathan comes to bed some time late in the night. You just recently began sleeping in his room, it’s what really started to blur the lines of what you were to each other. He had invited you to sleep with him after you found that your brain seemed to wander when you were alone in your cold windowless room in the inner workings of the complex and sleep never came easy. Nathan's room is upstairs, with a view out to the forest should you wish to set the windows to day mode. His bed is huge, elevated on a platform, covered in blankets and plush pillows. One may think Nathan's bed would be neat and clean like the rest of the house but no. It's like a nest of comfort, a bog of pillows that you could get lost in.

"Hey, I can tell you're awake."

"Just woke up."

"Everything is okay, you can sleep."

You arch back against him, butt pressed into his legs. "I still wanna know about Kyoko."

"Don't worry about it."

You yawn and he wraps arm arm around your chest. "It's weird. You said she was fine."

"Hush." He kisses your ear. "Sleep."

You fall silent, stewing in your thoughts. What purpose could he have for decommissioning Kyoko? She seemed fine. He said she had been working for years seamlessly. It just didn't make sense.

_____________________

Morning comes and the bed is empty. Nothing new. You wonder what it would be like to wake up to a sleepy eyed Nathan. Bet he'd look so cute. He's so hot without his glasses on. Well, he is hot with them on too but there is just something different about it you can’t describe.

"You wanna go for a walk?"

You look to the doorway and Nathan has his cargo pants and a jacket on. "I'm not awake yet."

"Suit yourself sweetheart. Call if you need me."

"Yep."

You throw your arm over your face. Your dream is coming back to you. It makes you shiver. You had been riding Nathan, hips rolling down into him desperately, his cock filling you so full. God you couldn't wait to do everything with him, if you ever do. You haven't even kissed yet. Even at the expo, he kept his mouth away froms yours, letting his lips travel elsewhere.

Nathan made his rules very clear at the expo and again when you arrived at the facility. No sex. No kissing. You suppose it has to do with attachments for him. You're just supposed to be staying with him until everything settles down around your fake marriage stunt. It's not supposed to be a real thing, but like you mentioned, everything has become blurry and unclear around your relationship with each other. Of course you both know that you have feelings for each other. Head kisses, throat, shoulder and back kisses are now allowed. Bed sharing is allowed. Cuddling. Snuggling. Talking and sharing memories is allowed. You think it's a matter of time before one of you fucks up and throws caution to the wind. What kind of host shares their bed with their guest? What are you doing here?

You crawl out of bed and grab some sweatpants on the floor along with a hoodie. If you hurry you can catch up with Nathan on the trail. Assuming he took the trail.  

The air is crisp, a typical fall morning for Alaska. It's beautiful, so clean, so easy to breathe. Nothing like back home. You jog along the trail that leads away from the back porch and sure enough you find Nathan walking with his hands in his pockets.

"Hey! Wait up!"

Nathan turns and stops, smiling softly at you. "Thought you were too tired."

"I changed my mind."

"Uh huh." He plucks at your hoodie. "This is mine."

"Yeah I just grabbed something in a hurry." You stuff your hands in the front pocket.

He runs a hand through your hair, fingertips lingering along the ends. "I like it on you."

"Thanks? It's just a hoodie."

Nathan pulls his gloves from his pocket and passes them to you. "Take these. I don't need you to lose a finger to the cold."

"You won't make me a cool robot one if I do?"

He pulls the gloves back teasingly. "Mmm, on second thought let's see if I can actually do that."

"No!" You giggle and he allows you to take them.

The two of you walk along in silence just enjoying the outdoors and everything it has to offer. Eventually you end up at the bottom of a waterfall. It's loud, beautiful, almost icy when you touch the water at the edge where it pools.  

"Do you want to know why I decommissioned Kyoko?" His sudden choice of topic startles you but it’s nothing new. He was always jumping on subjects randomly.

"Yes."

"Because of you."

"What?" You turn away from the water and walk to where he's leaning against a tree. "What did I do?"

"You took her place."

"What? She was your housekeeper and like an assistant or whatever. I'm neither, I'm just a house guest aren't I?"

“Just a house guest...” Nathan chuckles. "Kyoko was everything for me while I was here alone. A friend, a helper, my lover."

Your eyebrows shoot up. "She could fuck?"

"Of course she could fuck." He waves his hand dismissively. "When I say you took her place I mean in my life. I felt that she was unfair to you, that once you moved into my bed she didn't belong anymore. Kyoko is a great distraction but she isn't human, she doesn't think for herself, or feel for me. She doesn't connect like you and I do. It felt wrong to have her keep me company when you are here."

"But when I leave you'll bring her back out."

"No." He purses his lips and looks down. "Actually I wanted to ask you about that."

"Leaving? Have I overstayed my welcome?"

"Quite the opposite actually."

"The opposite? I haven't stayed long enough?"

Nathan pulls his hands from his pockets and gestures for you to come closer. You do as he asks and he cradles your face. "If you're interested, I'd like to actually start a relationship with you."

"Does that mean we can stop dancing around the edges of whatever this is between us? Because I don't think house guests normally sleep in their host's bed, or wear his clothes, or get neck kisses and give shoulder massages."

He smiles and licks his lips. "I wanted to see how far we could go until one of us broke down and drew a line."

"Nathan, I think we probably would have started showering together next if you hadn't said something by now." You laugh softly. "But yeah, I wanna see where this goes."

"So you'll stay with me a little longer?"

"As long as you'll have me."

"Don't say that." He puts his hands on your hips. "I might keep you forever. Might make you my wife for real."

"I'm not doing much for the rest of my life, so why not?"

Nathan laughs and it makes your heart swell. He rarely does so, it's such a treat to hear. "Never thought I'd meet someone I connect with so completely. Really I didn't think I'd ever meet anyone."

"Why not?"

"I'm not exactly social as you can tell by my living situation. But also I didn't think I deserved someone. Like I deserved to be alone, and be the way I am because I was gifted with such talent. I sort of accepted that it was a trade off for my intellect."

You lay your hand on his chest and his heart is pounding. "No one deserves to be alone. No one."

He smiles weakly. "When you called that day, saying you needed help because of the stunt we pulled, I knew it was you. I knew you were my chance at love in this life. There was no way I was going to let you slip through my fingers a second time."

"Second time?"

"I didn't want to leave you at the expo. I wanted to bring you home with me, I wanted to show you everything. But I knew I pushed it already with the wife stunt, and I knew you had a life and I couldn't be so selfish as to take you away from everything while chasing a high I got."

You smile softly and kiss his cheek. "I probably would have gone with you. That was the best weekend of my life and I didn't want it to end."

"I'm glad you let me play with you in that rest area and we got caught. If we hadn't I don't think we would be here right now."

"Don't make it sound so dirty."

"It was a little dirty." He kisses your cheek. "Hot too. You were so ready to just let me do whatever."

"Nathan!" You giggle and he presses his lips to yours. The sensation takes your breath away.

He cradles your face and slides a hand into your hair. He licks into your mouth and you let out a soft whimper. You grip his jacket and he turns you around so your back is against the tree. "Thought this would go a little differently."

"Yeah? How so?"

He presses another kiss to your lips. "Thought we'd be in the house, maybe curled up by the fire or in bed."

"Nathan Bateman a romantic? I'm shocked."

"I live to shock people." He chuckles. "I shocked my investors and my agent with our little marriage announcement."

"You didn't tell anyone it was fake? Not even your agent?"

"Not yet." He grins. "I like to make him sweat a little."

"You're mean."

"Sometimes."

"Well now we've established that this is happening, why don't we head back to the house? Are you free today?"

Nathan takes your hand in his and steps away from the tree. "I'm free every day."

"No you're not."

"I'm free every day you want me from now on." He threads your fingers together. "I promise."

"That's a big promise to make."

"I'll keep it." He brings your hand up and kisses it. "I'm a man of my word, you know that."

"Yes you are."

"Come on, I'm tired of waiting." He pulls you along the path and you walk quickly to keep his pace. "The last month and half have been torture."

You get ahead of him and pull your hand out of his. He raises an eyebrow. He knows what you're thinking. He knows you're going to run for the house and make him chase you.

"Don't you do it."

"Too late." You take off and he follows in hot pursuit. "You gotta catch me if you wanna keep me!"

His arm encircles your waist the moment you reach the porch and he tumbles you both down onto the sun warmed smooth wood. He rolls you under him and pins you by your arms. "You're mine now."

"I guess I am." You smile big and he captures your lips with his once more. “I wouldn’t be anyone else's.”

End .

-----------

Header by delicate-venus

Thank you for reading! Please reblog if you read or enjoyed and support content creators like myself - A

*****Note: none of my works should be posted anywhere outside of my linked accounts. I do not give permission to repost with or without credit to my accounts. Please notify me of any reposted works.*****

#nathan bateman #nathan bateman fic #nathan bateman x reader #Ex Machina #ex machina fic #ex machina fanfic #ex machina fanfiction #Oscar Isaac #oscar isaac character #oscar isaac characters #oscar isaac fic

[greenninjagal-blog]

Deja vu pt2

Wow, I did not expect this to get the following that it did. I’m so glad you guys are enjoying this! Here’s part 2  But if you missed part 1 you can find it [here]! 

Summary: Four years after Remus runs away, he makes a friend and gets to see even more death.

Words: 5293

Read on Ao3 || My general writing Masterlist

Remus spends his twenty first birthday at his favorite location: The Basilisk Casino. Its a nice place, the type of place that drains life forces with people along with their wallets. The golden walls shimmer like scales if you look too long at them, which is all the more reason to focus back on the dice, the slots, the chips and coins and cards. The coins all have snarling snakes on them and Remus just loves rolling his thumb over the crevices of the design while he watches his opponents sweat. He can’t count the number of times he’s been cursed out at the table, the number of times he’s been checked for bugs by the debugging crew, the number of times that he’s had several dealers and security watch him as he played at the tables, the number of times where he cashed in his coins and called himself “Lucky”. 

Luck, of course, has nothing to do with it.

But he usually walks out of the casino several thousand dollars richer and it’s nice. To have money, to have a room in the upstairs hotel that he paid for himself, to have clothes that he picked out, to wave his excess cash in the faces of every person who’s tried to figure out how he’s cheating.

(Because they all know he’s cheating. One doesn’t go a full night at the tables without losing once. It's actually impossible.)

((Unless, of course, you can see the future.))

Remus is twenty one and he’s never lost a game of cards.

The staff has mixed feelings about him and Remus knows this, because they hate cheaters when it reflects badly back on them-- and boy did a lot of them get yelled at those first three weeks before Remus had asked his poor dealer to invite her boss to the table to play-- but the number of cheaters that Remus outed purely for the fun of seeing their eyes go wide has landed him in the good graces of a few.

Which is weird, being in the good graces of people. And so is knowing that if he finds that one cute dealer with the scar on his knuckles, they’d go up to Remus’s room and they’d spend the night with two bottles of Baileys and no clothes.

“Hit” Remus sings as he knocks on the table behind his cards. His dealer, a girl who’s been working for a while and knows his tendency to give her instructions before she’s finished dealing to everyone at the table, nods to show she’s seen him. The players to his left and his right both glare at him.

Remus smiles, because he already knows what cards they’ve got and what they were going to bet now that he’s announced himself: the old guy with the silver watch was going to stand, the loser with the mullet was going to hit as well, and the woman who’s tag was sticking out was going to hit then split. 

Only that old guy was going to walk away with any money earned, four rounds later, after the lady loses everything she made in a risky gamble and the slots catch Mullet head attention.

Remus stays because he likes Blackjack, likes the easy memorization, likes the repetition and the exchange of chips, and he flips one of his Barneys in the air as he waits for the table to refill. 

“That’s certainly impressive,” A voice says sounding like silk even over the chattering of the slot machines to their backs. 

“This? Its nothing!” Remus flips the coin again, letting the stranger catch it in the air. “I’m more impressive in the bedroom.”

The man hums, twisting his wrist to look at the coin he caught. “Do you often let people steal 500 American dollars from you?” The man asks so very teasingly as he rolls the coin between his own gloved hands. 

“You’re going to give it back,” Remus says with a grin, “One way or another!”

The man has a nice smile-- a smile far nicer than the one the dealer with the scar on his knuckles has-- and its prettier in the present time than looking at it in the future. His teeth are all aligned and straight and his molars grind together just enough to look like a threat. He was dressed better than most of the people out tonight: no fancy tourist with rented suits that barely fit, and he had an actual handkerchief. 

Remus wonders if he pulled it out would it be tied to another and another and another like every other clown he’s met? 

--No. The man just laughs at him and and twirls the Barney between his hands.He does not ask for it back.--

“You’re awfully confident about getting your money back when this is a game between the house and I,” the man says. He’s got green eyes, and black hair that’s gelled right back out of his face. The way he leans against the table makes him so easy to push--

--The man hits the ground spilling his rack of chips and the nearby tables pounce on them like panthers. Its honestly funny to watch and Remus laughs the entire time as the police are called.--

“I’m confident about a lot of things,” Remus wiggles an eyebrow at him. “How confident are you?”

Instead of answering the man places the purple coin in the betting square on the table. Remus tosses a pumpkin just to top him. 

“I heard a rumor that there’s a man here who’s never lost a game before,” The man with the green eyes says and even though there are four other people at the table (betting far lower than them of course; the table minimum is twenty five), Remus feels almost as if its just the two of them in the world. “Can I assume that man is you?”

“You know what they say about assuming,” Remus laughs as the dealer begins her deal, “It makes an ass out of me and you!” 

There’s a four of spades in front of him, and an ace of clubs in front of the stranger. The dealer has a five of diamonds. 

--He hits and receives a King of diamonds that puts him at fourteen. The stranger also hits, and receives a matching King of diamonds. He stands and the dealer reveals her second card: a jack of clubs. Fifteen to Fourteen to the house.--

--He hits and receives a King of diamonds that puts him at fourteen. The stranger also hits, and receives a matching King of diamonds. He hits a second time and receives a three of clubs. The dealer reveals here second card: a jack of clubs. Seventeen to fourteen to Remus--

The stranger is watching him, Remus notes with a feral grin as he taps the table behind his cards for their lovely dealer. The stranger who was betting using Remus’s money, scans the table and then taps as well.

The dealer gives Remus and Dee their matching Kings of diamonds.

“What are the chances,” The stranger muses. “Perhaps I should bet with your money more often.”

Remus taps the edge of the table behind his cards again. 

“Don’t worry about that!” Remus waves him off, “You’re going to lose it in Poker in an hour.”

“Are you challenging me to a game?” the man says, half turning from the table to wave down a drink waitress. “Why would I ever want to play a game of cards with a man who doesn’t lose?”

“Beats me!” Remus admits, “but we end up over there anyway!”

The stranger laughs. It sounds like a melody to Remus’s ears, something soft and warm and Remus thinks he should hate it. Whats the point of soft and warm things when there are chips and cash and not-completely-terrible-whiskeys? Soft and warm things are illusions anyway: no mother’s love is unconditional, and no late night blanket forts in his brothers room last forever.

Isn’t it great? That whole “growing up” thing?

He’s thought about making a call with the payphone but Roman’s old number is someone else's now and Mom answers the landline with a different last name.

Remus is twenty one. Roman should be too. If he managed to stay alive this long without Remus being his godforsaken guardian angel.  

The waitress returns with the drink and its a screwdriver that smells like oranges even from where Remus is standing. The stranger gathers up his chips won in the game, and slots them back into his rack.

“Well?” He says, “I would like to see this cheating trick of yours.”

Remus laughs at him taking his own tray. “No one knows my trick.” 

“Oh?” The man sips his drink, “No one knows? Do I get a prize if I figure it out?”

Remus’s shoulder brushes with the man as they walk towards the poker tables. Its quieter here, away from the slot machines, and the tables are thick with intense glares at cards. The craps tables are going strong and someone must have just won big because everyone is clapping and someone is screaming. The roulettes are hardly any better, although Remus nearly cleared out a whole dealer last week with his multitude of correct guesses that got him physically dragged from the table because its literally a 1 in 36 chance every single game and theres no way anyone should be able to win three times in a row, much less fifteen. 

“I’ll tell you what,” Remus says as they join a table for poker that was just clearing up. “If you can figure out my trick, I’ll do one thing for you.”

“For me?” The man echoes, “Interesting. Anything I want?”

“I will fuck you on this table if you tell me to,” Remus says, making the woman next to them choke on her pina colada.  

“Charming,” The man hums, “But I believe I have a much better thought in mind.” 

He’s taking it surprisingly seriously and Remus knows he should probably be concerned, but the truth of the matter was, he wasn’t. After all, he spent nine years physically telling the people closest to him that he could see the future, and they didn’t believe him. A strange man who was going to lose the first three hands is never going to believe in a magic like that.

The irony of it all. Remus wonders what he did that pissed off the big G up there so badly that they cursed Remus to never be believed. Maybe he should have just changed his name to Cassandra and started wearing tunics around the casino (because hell yeah those things would have been much more breathable than these slacks and button up he was currently wearing). Plus a tunic would totally show off his calf muscles. 

--He gets to play three more games of roulette before he’s forced out by security who ask him very nicely to put on pants before coming back and Remus just thinks its funny how he got in to play in the first place. Turning the poor door boy bright red and stammering--

There’s something fascinating about the way the strangers lips look around the straw, the way his eyes settle on the cards of the table the way his gloves fingers weave over his chips with the certainty of someone who knows what they are doing. Remus thinks that he might have played a game with this man before, once or twice, (because he comes here often enough, doesn’t he?) but his memory hasn’t been great since he was seventeen and thought about crushing his brother’s windpipe.

Remus is twenty one and this stranger looks like danger no matter which way Remus squints at him. But is that such a bad thing?

“Are you going to look at your cards?” The man asks without looking at him.

“No,” Remus says, because he already has in the future and he’s got a seven and an eight both of diamonds. (The strangers fingers hover over his own cards-- a five of clubs and a jack of spades-- and his green eyes darting to glance at Remus in suspicion.) The other players at the table shift nervously and Remus thinks that even the old lady at the end is going to pitch a fit about Poker etiquette but she holds her tongue. 

He sees ahead to the rest of the hand, something he glanced at earlier. By the time the dealer draws the turn card, Remus not looking at his cards makes the the business man to their left  over confident about his chances about his straight. The couple on his right have both individually decided to back out, and the old lady is holding nothing but a two pair. She folds when she realizes that neither Remus nor the very attractive stranger to his left are going to fall for it. 

The stranger folds, the businessman checks, and Remus wins the round with a straight flush without having picked up his cards before revealing them.

“You’re cheating!” The business man yells and Remus grins at him as he takes the two blacks and the quarter that the man bet with.

“Not in any way that you can prove, big boy.”

He’s twenty one and he wins the next three hands before the table clears out of all but him and the stranger who followed him there. Security is called twice to deal with another debugging ritual at the old lady’s insistence and the the dealer is screeched at by several parties. Remus thinks the old guy handles it with grace and elegance: threatening to have security called over if the players don’t sit down right then and there.

“How much do you make in a night?” The stranger asks, as the dealer changes from the older gentleman to a young girl.

“Are you planning something?” Remus asks, inhaling the scent of oranges that waft off this stranger, “Gonna get me drunk and in bed and then steal my money? Slit my throat for good fun?”

“I don’t think I’d have to get you drunk for that,” His eyes slide past Remus for a moment to something across the room. 

“Oh, so true,” Remus agrees, “Everyone loves a good bit of knife play!” The dealer begins to shuffle the cards to nicely. 

“Besides,” Those green eyes come right back to Remus, startlingly close and perceptive in a way that makes shivers run down Remus’s back. “Shouldn’t you already know the answer to that?”

Remus is twenty one, spending his birthday in a Casino as far away from where he grew up as he can be. And despite not having talked to his family in four years, he can still hear Roman’s voice in his head, chanting a mantra of “I don’t need you”, “I don’t need you”, “I don’t want you”. 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, pretty boy,” Remus says picking up his cards to look at them, to feel them, to remind himself he’s here in this casino and not back in the room with his hands on Roman’s fluttering little pulse.

The stranger rolls a Barney from his tray, Remus’s Barney, and places it on the betting pool. “Interesting.”

Remus wonders what that means, but there’s no answering vision. Any time he pushes the stranger laughs it off until the dealer motions for them to play or leave the game. 

Remus is twenty one and the way that this stranger said “interesting” is the way a scientist says it before they start dissecting a frog. Clinical, cold, like a knife straight to Remus’s throat. His green eyes are dangerous pins holding Remus in place at this table, but he can’t find it in him to wish he was anywhere else.

The stranger picks up his new cards and pretends to look at them. Remus isn’t sure what that means, isn’t sure why this stranger suddenly seems so much different, isn’t sure what could possibly be more interesting than the card game they're playing.

Until he is.

Of course because--

-- He places another three blacks in the betting pool in front of him and he turns just in time to see the stranger lunging towards the crowd that was passing behind them; towards the armed security guard that was wheeling the fucking cash box of the casino towards the elevator to the vault across the floor fuck. Several guns go off and and there’s a couple hundred screams that break Remus’s eardrums in the moment, but all he’s aware of is the body at his feet, the body of the stranger with pretty green eyes, with welts of red bursting out the back of that nice tailored suit that was suddenly shredded and that face smashed into the floor, but there’s no mistaking the way his skin on the left half of his face wasn’t--

There’s something in the back of his throat that tears him up inside, like he’s regurgitating a bunch of swords he forgot he had swallowed. Every hair on his body stands on end, curling with an electric current that didn’t actually exist but one that Remus couldn’t get out of his veins even is he started carving with a knife--

He forgot-- how did he forget? He hated the color red so damn much; how could he have forgotten that?

He grabs the stranger beside him with an iron grip and pressed him to the table as that cash box rolled by, as that future twists away, as that sight fades from his vision from something plausible to a nothingness in the back of his mind. 

“Sir?! Sir!” 

The stranger gasps for air, looking caught between surprised and not, with those fake green eyes and that stolen black hair, and that completely unmarred face and makes Remus’s skin crawl. Remus wonders if this stranger--this stupid idiot of a stranger-- knows his body reverts to normal once he’s dead and gone and passed.

The rest of the table is in chaos, and Remus isn’t sure if its because both his and this stranger’s chips just got tossed across the table with the viciousness of a life or death (or death or death or death) situation, or because the Dealer dropped her deck, or because Remus just grabbed a man and that wasn’t poker etiquette or something else entirely.

He doesn’t care.

He lets go of the stranger (the living, breathing alive stranger), and he shoves through the buzzed, singing pair behind him, knocking them both to the ground. His hands-- oh fuck his hands sting and shake with some emotion that Remus can’t remember the name of.

“Sir! Your chips!”

Remus rips at the collar of his shirt, tearing off an entire button as he struggles to get enough oxygen in his lungs. The golden walls shimmer and shine and distract, but Remus throws himself through the crowd to the exit.

Remus is twenty one the first time he meets someone else like him.

Well not entirely like him, because this stranger who stumbled upon him by chance doesn’t see the blood, or the deaths, or the future. He doesn’t know all the consequences, doesn’t know the feeling of seeing living, breathing people just stop, doesn’t know what it smells like to mix blood and a half finished screwdriver on the floor of a casino for a box of cash that he had no chance of leaving the building with in the first place.

The night air hits him like an eighteen wheeler (which Remus knows what that feels like, he does, because he thought about it once out of curiosity four years ago when he couldn’t quite believe that he had wasted seventeen years of his life on someone who would never been willing to do the same). Its bitter cold and harsh and it tears his skin almost right off his bones.

He stumbles and nearly falls, does fall, is caught.

Caught by the back of his shirt and hoisted back up, with a second hand stabilizing him by his chest. Remus starts to laugh because he didn’t see this coming. Of course he didn’t see this coming.

Its almost like that day when he didn’t see that argument with Roman coming, except back then he was looking ahead and that wasn’t an option, and now he just hadn't been looking long enough, hard enough, close enough.

Remus feels something against his back, solid, cold, oh its a wall. The stranger who followed him from Blackjack to poker, who bet with Remus's money, who just caused Remus to lose his first game of cards ever-- that stranger with green eyes that aren't real is right in front of him pressing him to the wall and holding him steady.

Remus laughs harder like he can dislodge the cancerous lump in his throat by the force of his will alone. 

"Did I die?" The stranger asks as Remus wheezes for air.

And isn't that just hilarious?

"Everyone...dies!" Remus convulses under the man's touch, "Everyone dies... someday, Scales!"

The stranger isn’t like him, because instead of seeing things and wondering if they’re all in his head, he fucking changes his appearance.

Remus hiccups painfully-- a gasping air that shreds his diaphragm as he laughs with tears on his face. He forgot again: how he hates the sight of red, how he needs to breath if he wants to keep living, how he's too old to be crying over every single, little, itty, bitty death he sees.

"You can see the future," the man says like a statement while Remus drags his nails over his own face and through his hair to get rid of his worthless tears.

"Its funny!" Remus grins with all his teeth. "It's always funny! Did you know you revert back to your natural half snake self when you die?"

The stranger flinches, just like everyone does when Remus opens his mouth and talks about death, just like someone who’s afraid of dying, just like Roman.

“You,” Remus says gaining enough sense of his own to shove the stranger off of him and back, “You are…batshit fucking insane!” He laughs, because what else is there to do? Scream? Cry?

(He’s screamed and cried before. It doesn’t work, because they never believed him and then they go and get hurt and tell Remus to shut up, shut up, I don’t need you--!)

“How far in the future can you see?” The stranger asks.

“Take me to dinner first,” Remus twists a hand through his hair, then drags it down his face, smushing his nose and flattening his mustache and then dropping it into the empty air.

The stranger catches his hand, and the silk touch of the gloves freezes Remus’s where he stands, against the wall of a casino in a dark alley where the shimmering light doesn’t touch and the sound is strangely diluted.

“Answer me,” the stranger demands.

Remus laughs, “Or what? You’ll turn your hands into claws and rip my throat out? Maybe roll your body into a giant python and choke the life out of me without leaving a fingerprint? Can you secrete poisons too? Spit them right into my eyes--”

His other gloved hand goes right over Remus’s mouth, squeezing the hallows of his cheeks until its just borderline painful. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Remus already knows the answer before this stranger asks, already knows that despite the burning closeness between them, despite the cool indifference he’s been portraying, despite the millions of ways that he could kill Remus, he’s not going to, not in any way that matters.

He’s a good guy like that.

Kinda.

“You must think I’m insane,” Remus gurgles, shoulders shaking from laughing, with the future in his eyes and no air in his lungs.

“Are you?”

“Not that insane. Not yet!” He pushes off the wall and leans forward into his companions personal space until their faces aren’t more than a few inches apart. “Can’t you tell? I’m the pinnacle of stability, Slitherous Snape!”

“Stability is a lie made up by society to sell more products.” The man waves him off, easily without putting so much as an inch between them. “You are a seer. And I’m in desperate want of someone who can see the future.”

“Because you want to rob the casino we just left,” Remus says.

It sounds different coming from his own lips rather than the man before him. It sounds different hanging in the space between them. It sounds different being a real thing.

“Because I want to screw over the owner of that casino for some unsavory acts he performed against someone who was dear to me,” The man corrects.

“An altruist!” Remus does a shimmy with his upper body. “All that money is just a bonus then, right?”

“Oh yes absolutely! And How…” The man hesitates and clears his throat innocently, “How much money…did you say?”

Remus laughs at him, again. The hysteria is fading leaving another pesky emotion that Remus doesn’t know if he likes or not. Its dangerous, he knows that. Dangerous because even while he stands here, talking to this shapeshifter who is every bit a lie as a person can be, he feels his heels beginning to dig into this idea.

This stupid awful terrible idea. This What if---

---oh…. Oh no.---

“How many times do we die?” The man asks, breathlessly excited. “How many times do we get away?”

Remus is twenty one and he knows that stealing is morally wrong.

But.

But there’s a man in front of him who likes money far too much and a casino behind him that’s filled to the brim with cash waiting and six hundred fifty million futures where they both die painful, violent, expected deaths.

And for once Remus can’t even focus on that part of this frankly awful idea. He’s too busy focusing on the way that in every single future-- all of them-- there’s not even a little--

Remus watches them again and again, as many times as he can until he almost forgets that they haven’t even happened.

And oh. 

The stranger is looking at him and there’s something in those green eyes that he can’t hide even if he wanted to.

“There’s a dealer,” Remus says, because he needs to see it happen for real. “Two inches taller, blue eyes, scar on his knuckles. Turn into him.”

The stranger blinks and his eyes are blue, his skin ripples like a puddle when a child jumps in it, and suddenly Remus is staring at someone completely different and yet entirely the same. The man before him is the dealer from the casino, but when he smiles so softly all Remus can see is that stranger who didn’t hesitate at all.

And oh. 

Remus knows he’s in trouble, because he can feel electricity in his veins, that burns all of his nerves and hijacks his brain. Because this is what its like for someone to trust his power, for someone to have complete and utter faith in him.

This is what someone believing him when he said he could see the future is like.

“You’re bleeding,” The man says tentatively.

“Happens,” Remus says cupping his hand under his nose to catch the red splatters before they hit the ground. In the shadows he can’t see just how scarlet they are and he thinks that’s a relief. “You really….you really didn’t hesitate.”

“Should I have?” The man cocks his head to the side, half a grin on his face, as if he doesn’t quite get the joke Remus is telling. (There’s no joke, and that fact alone makes Remus’s stomach flip.)

The question is a loaded gun anyway and Remus doesn’t feel like pulling the trigger on himself today at least.

Remus is twenty one and he helps rob his first casino.

Which seems insane, because Remus is a lot of things, but he wasn’t really a lawbreaker until that moment he talked the man who could shapeshift into anyone straight through the four levels of security and the cameras and figured out the codes that he needed to get in to the vault and the path he needed to take out, which led him all the way up the stairs to Remus’s hotel room.

There’s enough money on the floor to fix the world hunger. The man, his partner in crime, the shapeshifter sits in the middle of it like a dragon watching his hoard, scribbling mathematics on the hotel provided pad of paper so that he can count it all. His shapeshift is off, allowing Remus a look at his green scales and yellow eye without all the blood.

He’s grinning like the cat that caught that little canary. Remus thinks its a good look on him.

Remus holds one of his poker chips in his hand, a Barney that wandered off from the casino floor and found its way to Remus’s hotel room.

“So,” He says, because silence has never been his type of thing, “What now? We split ways?”

The man makes another mark on his pad of paper shuffling through the green papers. “I’m afraid not. You still owe me.”

“What?” Remus turns to face him, and if there’s a spark in his chest, a nudge of excitement, well who can blame him? Its not like hes spent his whole life waiting for people to leave him.

Another dash on the paper. “We made a deal, unless you’ve forgotten. You said that if I could figure out how you were cheating, you’d do one thing that I want you to do.”

Remus snorted and waved to the money around them, “What do you call this?”

“This?” The man gave him a shark-like smile, “You did this of your own violation!” He held up a wad of cash, a smug superior smile on his face, that makes his fangs glisten.

“I seem to recall you asking,” Remus challenges.

“Not in this timeline, Love Muffin,” The man throws the cash at him. “You still have blood on your face by the way.”

Remus lets the cash fall to the floor because money is nice, but there’s something much nicer about the way that this man is looking at him, the way he’s still looking at him, like Remus is something more than a nuisance, more than a distraction, more than an unwanted, frustrating intrusion. 

“What do you want?” Remus says, because he hasn’t looked ahead this far yet and the uncharacteristic fear in his chest is slowly turning all his organs to butterflies. 

He knows what he wants this man to say, knows what he wants to hear come out of this man's mouth and he thinks that if he looks in the future and its not what happens, Remus will surely explode right there in his (their) room. 

“Hm?” The man says tapping his hotel offered pencil to his chin. “Well, you did say anything I wanted right? Anything at all?”

Remus nods, rolling his finger over the snake design on his stolen poker chip.

“Well then, the one thing I want…” He hesitates, “...is for us to stick together. I think we make quite the team, don’t you? My name is Dee.”

“Remus,” He chokes, because suddenly there doesn’t seem to be enough air in the world, and he’s afraid if he inhales too deeply trying to get more, the whole reality will shatter.

Dee makes another mark on the paper. “Well Remus,” He says, “Any other places you’d like to rob with me?”

Remus is twenty one and he thinks that this is the best birthday he’s ever had.

(Part Three)

#sanders sides #Remus Sanders #deceit sanders #roman sanders #deja vu au #remus has precognition #casinos #Blood #violence #robbery #Sometimes you just gotta Oceans Eleven this Shit #the author probably should have slept instead of written but #oh well #Demus? Demus #The power of friendship compels you to rob a casino

[vaporjawn]

lavish prod. hollow (MUSIC VIDEO IN DESCRIPTION) by bbno$ ON TOUR WITH GRAVY GOING DUMMY, THIS THE 2ND SINGLE OF MY ALBUM LETS GOOO JUNE 30 WHO READY. skrrrrrrrr https://ift.tt/2j9RhgM mixed by @lentra [bbno$] Spotify: https://ift.tt/2loQ5Ir Apple Music/ iTunes: https://ift.tt/2hbP2Ha Twitter: https://twitter.com/BBNOMULA Instagram: https://ift.tt/2yFDG8B Facebook: https://ift.tt/2ufHmwC Youtube music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn6xemqUpqs&feature=youtu.be [Hook] I NEED A BAD BITCH TO DO SOME MAGIC GOT DESIGNERFABRICS BITCH IM LIVING LAVISH COUPLE OF STOCKS AND IM GROWING THE CROP AND SHE GAVE ME THE TOP AND I BE SWEET LIKE SOME POP DRIPPING SO MUCH GOT THE ICE ON MY NECK AND I AINT TRYNA FLEX BUT I LEARN FROM THE BEST Run up a check im go run up a check fuck up some debt and ill call that shit bet Baby no money got his hands in a stack cuz I put in the work yeh I think its a knack [Verse 1] So I heard you trying hard I heard im going far, ill put it on my card, these hurdles aint that hard, im on my way to mars, im on my way to top, your popping all these bars, like spending aint that hard, im saving quite allot, im saving all these racks im a money cop. Grinding every day like im tony hawk What what Elevation way I wont ever stop Up up Bout my money way And it better pay Tough luck Diamonds on my nuts And they 30 k Aye aye [Verse 2] Betty crocker Huh how I whip my wrist yea! Hmm! MR. CLEAN WHAT! How I rep my fitss, you get the jist, my coin be bit, Im with the time, I do no crime, I get my paper clean and right i aint about my Martha stewart shit Press u like a crease now u a FOLD! Im sorry that im flowing kinda slow Babys our here tryna harvest dough Baby’s living lavish now u KNOW!!!

#IFTTT #SoundCloud #bbno$ #hollow #fire #ysl #lol