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airi-p4 · 3 years

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Miraculous escape - Chapter 2

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 |

Thank you @alittleshycat for the header and wanted posters pic! 💙 Thank you @brickercupmasterx3 for proofreading! 💙

I’ve been into comedy lately for some reason... This chapter has been finished for a while, but I’ve been writing more of this story. It’s fun to write because they’re all stupid XD

A/N: Remember this story is Lukanette + Adrigami endgame.

Chapter summary:

The fugitive and disguised men arrive to Milan and set in their Hotel rooms and Rose holds a girls' pajama party.

AO3

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Chapter 2: Arrival to Milan

The train arrived at Milan later than scheduled. Not that it surprised any of them - except probably Adrien who always rode bullet trains instead of cheap ones. Delays were part of the public transportation's everyday life (at least in Southern Europe).

It took them eight hours to reach the Italian city, and Adrien and Luka had mostly spent the time either sleeping (from exhaustion of the day before) or daydreaming about the girls that caught their attention. Juleka glared at them more than a few times too, reminding them to focus on their acting, but they pretended not to notice. She seemed to be having a good time with the short haired blond lady seated next to her, anyway.

During the ride, Madam Mendeleiev also assigned their hotel rooms: two members per room, sharing it with the person beside them during the train ride. That meant Luka and Adrien were assigned the same room, and Juleka and Rose and Marinette and Kagami would share theirs too. The men were relieved with the assignments- at least they could drop their acting during the night.

After arriving at the hotel, and leaving their suitcases at their respective rooms (courtesy of XY, who didn’t miss his chance to flirt again with ‘Lucia’- ew ), the band members reunited again to have dinner. Too bad for them, they didn’t get to share a table with Marientte or Kagami, but shared it with Juleka and Rose.

“Hey!” Rose called for their attention. “Why don’t we have a girls' pajama party here later, when Madam Mendeleiev is asleep?” she suggested.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea-” Luka started, but was blunty cut by Adrien.

“Oh, yes! A party! Yay! Let’s do it! It will be soooo much fun!” Adrien exclaimed happily, amicably joining the palm of his hands with the grinning Rose's.

“Yay! I’m going to tell the others!” Rose said, running to the other areas in little hops.

Juleka and Luka could only facepalm at Adrien’s reaction. It was probably his first ‘pajama party’, of course he would be excited. ‘Just be careful’, Juleka warned them, giving up at Adrien’s puppy eyes.

A few hours later, after assuring Madam Mendeleiev was pleasantly asleep, the boys changed into old fashioned nightgowns and moved to the Hotel’s bar, where almost all the ladies were already chatting and drinking together. Luka was disappointed to see how Marinette wasn’t there, and he soon left the party. On the other hand, Adrien was completely enjoying himself with the ladies. Chatting, laughing, singing, playing cards, fortune reading… The rich boy had never had so much fun in his life. Kagami had left early, but Adrien had made sure to stare at her as much as he could before his eyes couldn't follow her anymore.

Meanwhile, sick of his acting, Luka moved to a closed common room nearby. Dark and cold as it was, he didn't expect to find Marinette sleeping in one of the coaches, next to an incandescent lamp.

“Hey, are you ok?” He asked, shaking her a little. Marinette’s eyes opened all of a sudden, almost giving Luka a heart attack.

“Oh! Sorry!” She apologized. “Where am I?”

“You fell asleep in the common room. Can you walk...?” Luka asked her. She stunk of alcohol- lots of alcohol. Marinette nodded but almost fell down on her knees as soon as her feet hit the floor. Luka sighed. “Where's your room? I'll take you there”

“206” she answered, and Luka lifted her body to carry her in princess style. She was very light and he was probably enjoying her in his arms more than he should.

“Wow! You're so strong for a girl!” she said, in fascination, between hiccups.

Luka froze. *Shit* ‘ She’ll find out I'm actually a man at this rate! Think Luka, think! I need an excuse! ‘“It comes with carrying a guitar everywhere” he answered nervously.

But Marinette wasn’t really thinking. “That's amazing!” A short pause followed. “Wait! Put me down!” she demanded, and Luka obeyed, seating her on the coach again. “Let's have some girl talk before going to sleep!" she grinned.

Marinette's begging eyes were too much for his enamored heart and his body automatically answered. "Okay"

"Yaaay" she said loudly in a celebrating tone, between hiccups.

Luka gulped. She looked absolutely defenseless and beautiful in her pajamas. If he hadn't already fallen for her, he would have again at that moment. His long fingers threatened to betray him any moment, longing to feel her perfect skin under his touch. He bit his tongue trying to suppress his predator instincts and act like the woman Juleka expected him to be.

"Won't Madam Mendeleiev get angry if she finds us?" Luka asked, looking for an excuse to leave.

"She won't!" She assured, pouring more alcohol into her cup and taking a sip. "We'll just turn off the lights and hide, and that would do. Here." She offered him a glass. "Have a drink with me"

"Thank you. I could never say no to a drink" 'Let's hope it distracts me enough from my ‘naughty’ thoughts...'

"You know?" Marinette started, stopped by another hiccup. Luka carefully listened to her dreamy voice. "I thought you were a man at first…"

Luka choked on his drink. 'Oh, no. We've just arrived! Have I been found out so easily? I can't let her find out yet! We need to escape and-'

"Hahaha- really? No way. See? Breasts" he quickly answered, lifting his fake breasts awkwardly.

"I knooow. I'm just joking" she giggled, making Luka sigh in relief. "I haven’t introduced myself, have I? My name is-"

"Ma-Ma-Marinette, right?" Luka giggled, but stopped immediately after noticing her hurt expression. "Sorry, I didn't want to make you feel bad"

"No, it's ok. It's my fault for being so clumsy…" tears had started to form in her eyes and Luka felt his own heart hurt in regret.

"No, no! I should have been more sensitive. Sorry." He sincerely apologized.

"Thank you ugh- sorry. I don't think I caught your name…"

"Lucia" 'God I hate this name'

"Lucia. Pretty name. Are you from Spain? Or Southern France?" Marinette asked, curious.

"Yes, I'm from the Basque region" he lied to add credibility to his act.

"That explains your strength!"

"That's just a stereotype, Marinette… but who knows? Maybe I should try tearing a trunk in half with my bare hands sometime" Luka joked and Marinette laughed.

"You're so funny!" Her laugh sounded like the most beautiful melody in his ears, inspiring him to compose hundreds of songs. "Want more?" She offered him her bottle of alcohol.

"if you insist..."

Marinette opened the bottle to fill Luka's glass, but her trembling hands made her spill the alcohol on Luka's lap, surprising him.

"Oh, sorry! Your sleeping dress…" She lamented.

"It's fine. I'll ask for the hotel’s laundry service to clean it tomorrow and it will be fine" he smiled. 'how could anyone get angry at those beautiful regretful pure eyes? Impossible'

"What are these voices! Is anyone here!?" Madam Mendeleiev shouted from the aisle.

"Oh no! Hit the lights and hide! Here!"

Marinette pulled Luka's body strongly to hide him behind the coach, hugging him. During the minute they spent in that position, Luka forgot how to breathe, in awe of her softness and unexpected precise reflexes.

Madam Mendeleiev later moved toward the room where the girls’ party was taking place, and Luka could only feel sorry for Adrien. ‘ Good luck, my friend’ . But actually, he was more worried about himself, since the chest of the woman he liked was pressed on his face.

"Ufff… she's gone. Sorry!" Marinette stood up, offering her hand to Luka.

"No, it's fine…" he recomposed himself, shaking his head. "We should go back…" 'before the alcohol controls me and I do something stupid'

"Yes…Thank you for keeping me company, Lucia." She smiled.

“My pleasure" he smiled back. "I’ll go get Ad- Noirette first. Will you be fine on your own?”

“I guess so?” she answered, dizzily.

While Luka helped Marinette stand up, Kagami called for her friend, running towards them. “Marinette! I’ve been looking for you! Don’t tell me you’ve been drinking again? Are you ok?” she said, passing her arm under Marinette’s to help her steadiness.

“I’m perrrrffffect!” she said in a hiccup. “Thanks to Lucia! She’s soooo strong, you knowwww?”

Kagami’s eyes narrowed at Luka, giving him chills. But soon she apologized for her friend’s behavior, bowing her head at him. She also informed him she would take her to their room and thanked him for having looked after her friend. Luka excused himself to go look for ‘Noirette’. Kagami’s eyebrows frowned at his comment and started walking with Marinette.

“See you tomorrowwww, Luciaaa. Goood niiiiiighttttt”. With an exaggerated waving salute, Marinette almost fell straight to the floor in front of the elevator. Thankfully, Kagami made it in time to prevent the accident.

"Good night, Marinette. See you tomorrow" Luka waved back, blushing at her clumsiness.

'This is bad' Luka thought. His heart beat faster than ever. ‘ This girl is too damn cute. I’m going to fall in love for real if this continues... ’ Luka shook his head to snap out of his thoughts. Time to get Adrien back.

Back at the elevator, Kagami kept looking at ‘Lucia’ with judging eyes.

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When Luka arrived at the party room he could see the girls (and Adrien) being scolded by Madam Mendeleiev. Not daring to show himself, he waited until they all returned to their respective rooms to meet with Adrien.

“Adrien! Are you ok? I saw that witch scolding you. Did you have fun at least?” Luka patted his back.

“Luka! Where were you? It was so fun until that old woman arrived… I’ve never had so much fun before! We drank, sang and played games… I love this band already. Do we really have to leave…?” Adrien mumbled, looking like he was about to cry. Luka could sympathize with his feelings.

“Sorry, Adrien. You know what will happen if your father ever finds us… I’m happy you had fun, though”

“Thanks. Where were you, by the way? I’ve been asking for you, but nothing”

“You won’t believe it! I got to spend some time with Marinette! Man, I thought I would pass out due to her cuteness. She’s too much for my heart…” Luka answered, grinning like a lovestruck fool.

“At least it went well in your case… I couldn’t even exchange a word with Kagami before she left, and she avoided my eye contact…”

“Tomorrow is going to be another day, don’t worry. It will go better next time, you'll see. Remember we have rehearsal all day tomorrow. We should sleep” Luka said, removing his wig. Adrien mimicked his action, nodding in agreement.

Suddenly, the door opened and the two men froze. ‘Oh no’

“It’s not what it looks like!” Luka screamed, followed by Adrien’s “What he just said!”

Juleka rolled her eyes from the door, going inside the room. The clueless musicians sighed in relief.

“Are you stupid? Why didn’t you lock the door before removing your wigs? Do you want to be found out when the escape just started?” she scolded them, who made apologizing puppy eyes at her. “I’m here to discuss your escape plans”

“Oh” they both responded, making Juleka sigh at their dumbness.

“It seems no one has figured out your true identity yet. The police are still looking for you in Paris and France, so you should be fine- at least for now” she informed them.

“Good thing there’s no internet or mobile phones in this story! That would make things very easy for them to spot us when we play with the band” Adrien said, more to himself or someone not present in the room than to his interlocutors.

“Ad, man, what are you talking about? What the heck is intern- whatever you said” Luka asked, confused.

“I don’t know. I had the feeling I had to mention it. Nevermind- I don’t know it either. Go on, Juleka” Adrien shrugged and let Juleka continue with her explanation.

“See? This is the band's schedule. We’re spending this week in Milan, then Verona, and then the band is going to perform in Venice. I contacted mom with my radio and she’s going to get us a motorboat ready to escape. I’ll have a radar prepared with the coordinates so we can meet in the sea with the Liberty- mom’s ship” she clarified for Adrien. ”That’s your escape plan. Make it to Venice, and it will be your win. Don’t screw it up! Understood?”

“Yes M’am!” they said in unison, doing a salute pose.

“Good. I’ll be here early in the morning for your make-up. Good night” she said, reaching for the door. “And lock the door next time” she warned before closing it.

Luka immediately hurried to lock the door and let his body finally relax and fall to the bed. “Let’s go to sleep… It’s been a long day…”

Adrien agreed, and just like that, the men fell asleep under dreams of beauties and the feeling of being chased by the demon himself.

#my fic #airip4 #airipyon #fic: miraculous escape #they are stupiddd #which is fun to write #endgame lukanette #endgame adrigami #lukanette fic

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rosemariad · 2 years

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Supernatural Season 7

It’s funny how Bobby was the one to say Ok and comply with bowing down before Cas the new god. And the guys’ solution to this is enslaving Death to kill Cas. Death & Castiel’s pissing contest was hilarious!

When Dean tells Death to just kill Cas already, poor Cas was devastated. He was looking at Dean like “after everything I’ve done for you?” I felt bad for the angel god dude. Seeing Cas spiral too, watching everything go wrong in the second episode was sad to see too, as he learned he fucked up by taking in the leviathans along with all the other souls of purgatory.

I know Cas dies again but I’m not worried, even by the lack of Castiel, which I’m not happy about, but I know he’s going to turn up sooner or later. Besides why would we follow Cas? Like it or not this isn’t his story. It’s all about the Winchesters.

Meanwhile, Sam is like spiritually mentally ill? Poor dude, ol’ Luci won’t fuck off. Like Sam buddy just tell him to fuck off. Don’t let him bully you like that. Anyway, Sam reunites with an old friend, who was killing for her child and Dean goes and kills her in front of her kid?! Damn Dean that’s cold. Too bad we’ll probably never see that kid turn up again though, it would have been a nice plot to follow up on later on in the show. Oh well.

The next episode we see Dean live with the guilt and Osiris, another deity confirmed to exist, puts Dean on trial with Sam as his unofficial attorney lol. Would have been interesting to see Sam become a lawyer like he wanted.

Then we’re meeting a witch couple or rather a couple of witches? Also was it me or was the female witch’s friend kind of in love with her? Idk about anyone else but I was getting that vibe, until you know she was murdered by the witch’s husband :/

So to resolve this episode’s conflict, the brothers act as couple counselors and punching bags for the witches as they make up while literally throwing the Winchesters around & Dean tries to fend off some bees XD nice change of pace from the killing.

Some leviathans steal Sam & dean’s identities and are causing havoc wherever they go by killing countless people and committing other crimes. And of course, in classic supernatural fashion, just when you think everything was resolved and people are safe, it turns out the bad guys survived and kill everyone left behind.

We get even more classic supernatural as Dean & Sam investigate Lily Dale and hunt some ghosts. That was a nice throwback vibe :)

Ever since Cas, Dean doesn’t trust anymore? Aw, its sounding like the angel broke his heart.

Garth was cool! Aw Dean made a friend, just like Sam said.

Dean found Castiel again! Sort of…as Emmanuel who had married Daphne after she found him washed up after Cas was submerged underwater. I love how unfazed this new version of Cas was by everything. When they’re in the car, they’re talking about Dean and his friend who betrayed him, and Dean says he can’t shake off his feelings regarding the friend who betrayed him, saying he wasn’t sure why. But I personally think its because he cared more about Cas than anyone else who came into his life. Cas was special to him, he was the angel who rescued him from hell, the guy who turned his back on Heaven & sided with the Winchesters & Bobby because Dean basically asked him to.

Dean kept the trench-coat the whole time! Wow! Maybe he wanted to keep something of the angel with him as he went on his way across the country. He clearly misses his angel but is also really angry with him about how everything went down.

Meanwhile Sam married his number #1 fan?! That was too funny, Dean was grumpy about it the whole time and suspicious of Becky too. I mean he was right to be though, since she was using a love potion of sorts to get Sam to be with her. I also enjoyed this episode because Leslie Odom Jr. was in it, who around this time was in the short lived series Smash and later on went onto to be on Hamilton!!!

Next episode we see Bobby again and the three guys hunt a new sort of creature, who became so via a turducken, which Dean of course wanted to eat but had to stop so he wouldn’t turn into one of those things. The turduckens were designed by the leviathans who are out and about trying to take over the world by turning humans into livestock.

I loved how Dick Roman, the leviathan boss/leader straight up dissed Crowley, that was funny. It would have been interesting to see the leviathans take on the demons.

Dick is aptly named, since he's been a massive one since he first appeared this season.

Now why'd you have to go and shoot poor Bobby in the head 😭

Bobby didn't make it. But I have to say I initially thought Bobby was going to die waaaay sooner in the show overall, I'm surprised he survived as long as 7 seasons. Sure here's a shoutout to Bobby Singer, surrogate father to the Winchesters.

Though he may be dead, he’s not out of the show just yet, remaining as a ghost just to stick around the boys although it takes the brothers some time to even realize Bobby is around.

I noted the amount of liquor Dean ingested this season I’m surprised he didn’t get into an accident or something because he was drinking constantly. I mean damn I get your life is shit but being on the sauce 24/7 is not going to help in the long run.

We meet Charlie this season, who’s a great addition, I wish she could have stuck around more but I guess I’ll see if she returns later on in the show :D

we also met Kevin, who I know we’ll see more of next season, since he got kidnapped by Crowley poor dude.

Why take son long to bring Cas back? Usually when he dies he comes back right away. Or maybe he did come back right away but he had lost his memory and was found by that Daphne chick who I don’t believe we’ll be seeing again by the way. Dean’s reaction of him being married to some random woman was priceless though XD Cas ends up remembering who he is/was and begins to make up for what happened by taking on Sam’s madness? I’m surprised he didn’t end up snapping after that but he does remain messed up for the remainder of the season, which was sad to see. And we end the season with both Dean & Cas being sucked into purgatory after offing Dick Roman. I guess I'll see what happens to the rest of the leviathans next season.

Also it seems like by the end of the season, Dean has forgiven Cas because when the angel says he's cursed and no good, Dean says he'd rather him cursed or not :)

Highlights of the season - Sam turns out to be scared of clowns XD but tbh though they used to freak me out too when I was about 4, but I got over it, they’re not that bad. Dean fathering an Amazon was wild, then Uncle Sam kills her, damn that’s cold.

And of course the line about Dean being strictly into the dick XD I finally reached that part I was looking forward to it since I saw clips of that scene on YouTube! I finally understand.

also how could I forget Dean singing I'm all out of love by air supply. that was definitely not his first time listening to that type of music. I see you Dean 🤣

#supernatural #supernatural season 7 #dean winchester #sam winchester #bobby singer #castiel #deancas #destiel #garth fitzgerald iv #charlie bradbury #kevin tran

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fizzingwizard · 3 years

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Episode 41 was another fun one! It doesn’t seem related to the main plot, but that’s ok because we needed more world-building. And it does give us a bit of character development. Most importantly of all, it’s the DESPERATELY needed Sora-focused episode. And it’s all hers. We really needed this for Sora and I’m really happy with how it went down. It’s a simple, easy to follow story, and yet it was still cute and funny and good for Sora.

My one complaint would be that, though it’s great to see Sora be awesome and see her friends appreciate her, she didn’t seem to have something she needed to “overcome” like Jou and Koushirou, or something she had to prove like Yamato and Mimi. There’s definitely an important theme for Sora which, like the others, is related to her Crest. It just didn’t have the gravitas I felt it needed. It was a much sillier episode than Yamato’s, for instance. (But nowhere near as silly as Jou’s.) Still, overall very good.

Pic of the day:

A vision of perfection.

More below!

First off, the animation in this episode is really nice. Almost uniform througohut, and some seriously great expressions. CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

The kids are taking a break (yay!!!! again!! I sweat the producers are reading my blog, HELLO PRODUCERS, THANKS FOR GIVING ME EVERYTHING I ASKED FOR, lol). Taichi and Sora spend it teaching the Digimon to play soccer. Interestingly, some of the Digimon evolve in order to play x’D I guess I can see why Gomamon can’t really play unless he’s Ikkakumon. Plus Tailmon is already Adult level anyway.

It’s really fun to see how much Sora and Taichi both love soccer and love playing it together. Koushirou has a cute moment explaining to the others how awesome Taichi and Sora’s teamwork is.

Sora blows the whistle on Tentomon for grabbing her because you don’t do that in soccer. I think this is a little unfair given that Tentomon can’t really kick the ball that well since he’s got bug feet xD

The whistle Sora has, for some reason, is Jou’s, given to him by his brother so that if he runs into a bear in the woods, he can whistle for help. Lol. That is adorable and hilarious. Still wish it was Hikari’s whistle though

Speaking of Hikari, she and Takeru are happily engaged in making flower crowns together while Patamon smushes the grass.

All of a sudden, these weird, veiny meteors come crashing from a huge island floating in the sky, leaving a crater in the field. Could be dangerous!

Taichi: I’m not afraid. Besides, I’m curious.

Yamato: Be careful, Takeru.

Takeru: Yeah, be careful, Hikari.

omg too cute

I mean look at these expressions and body language. It’s fantastic. I love how Taichi looks like he’s trying not to get too close as he pokes the object with a stick and how Koushirou is like hiding behind his computer lol.

They discover it’s not a meteor, but a fruit. (And look another adorable Taichi face!) Question is, is it edible?

Agumon: Sure is!

Taichi: D:

no seriously I love Taichi being freaked out by his own partner. Lol. It’s one of the best things about Taichi & Agumon. I ate it up in Tri lol

So, I expected Yamato to be the downer of the group here along with Jou, but he’s just concerned that the fruit is too small for everyone to share. Aw what a mom.

It’s also pretty funny that, when a floating island appears and a mysterious fruit falls down with enough strength to leave a crater in the ground, the kids’ reaction isn’t to wonder about what’s going on, but to try to figure out how to eat it lol.

At this point they’re just so used to floating islands that it’s lost all novelty. They’re like, “oh, floating island, been there done that”

Agumon comes up with the obvious solution and Taichi and Sora fly up to the island together to get more fruit. Why only two of them go... is convenience for the episode xD

But it does lead to some good Sora moments and Taichi/Sora friendship. First, Sora is absolutely adorable. Even Agumon comments that she seems in a really good mood and Taichi can tell it’s because of how much she loves playing soccer. The way Sora talks to him, all fast and excited, is just so cute. You can tell she really loves soccer, especially with Taichi.

This episode kinda made me ship Taiora ;_; it was honestly more Taiora than any one episode in the 99 show...

Meanwhile, another giant object starts falling off the island towards the rest of the kids, and Palmon makes THE WEIRDEST SOUND. Like SO WEIRD. I think Yamada Kinoko passed out and made this noise while recording or something bahahahaha

Anyway it’s a refrigerator. Now appliances are falling out of the sky. I don’t understand why it makes the same size crater as the fruit despite being way heavier.

OMG baby Taichi’s hairrrrrrr I cannot

Soon they come across Flymon (why do Sora episodes always involved bugs...? This is the third time lol) who’s abducted a very helpless looking Digimon. They decide to help. Agumon gears up his Baby Flame but is stopped by Sora, who realizes that if they attack they might hurt the victim as well. I assume this is meant to tell us that, while Taichi’s brave and a strategist, another pair of eyes from someone like Sora whose first priority is others’ welfare is a big help.

... except that Sora’s plan for “tackle them” doesn’t seem to me that much better xD It still results in the poor abducted Digimon falling through the sky to her doom... I guess it’s better than falling out of the sky and alsobeing on fire tho

They catch the Digimon, who is Pomumon and just as pathetic as he looks. Meanwhile they’re being attacked by... Tropaliamon? Tropicanamon? lol I already forgot, a big bird with the ability to MELT ENTIRE FORESTS.

Pomumon explains that Evil Tropical Bird-mon and his Flymon invaded the island and started turning all the Pomumon into fruit. When the fruit ripen, they eat them. Pomumon is now the only Pomumon who hasn’t been fruit-ified.

Agumon: ... so... does this make me a cannibal?

Taichi: Maybe now you’ll be mindful of what you eat!

Okay and now the most AMAZING interaction ever, between Yamato and Mimi, and seriously it is a TRAVESTY that they don’t interact directly in the 99 series, I mean LOOK AT THE GOLD WE GET HERE,

Mimi says she hopes there’s fruit or juice in the fridge. Yamato makes an expression like someone just insulted his mother.

They then proceed to argue over what constitutes “juice” and Yamato’s all fired up about it and Mimi’s just like “lol not listening”

IT IS HILARIOUS. Quality content. Mimato shippers eat your heart out

And... this is all they do for the rest of the episode. bahaha. I DON’T EVEN CARE. I love the idea that they fought over this the WHOLE time and never even opened the fridge. The others just had to listen in baffled astonishment xD

Taichi and Sora fight Evil Tropical Bird-mon to save the Pomumon, but Taichi and MetalGreymon get knocked into the pitcher plant that turns Digimon into fruit.

Metla Greymon doesn’t quite fit into the fruit, his horns are really stretching it out lol.

and asdfghjkkl;’‘ TAICHI GETS TURNED INTO A FRUIT TOO, HE’S A DEFORMED BLUEBERRY, HIS GOGGLES THO, LMFAO

i really shouldn’t be as amused as I am

now... I have to say it - the one thing here is, the show has already played its trump cards like Omegamon and WarGreymon. I am sure they have more in store before the end, but the point is, it’s hard to believe Taichi is struggling against Digimon who seem like they shouldn’t have a chance against him. It’s like, you can defeat DoneDevimon, but not Evil-Tropical-Birdmon? You can escape the influence of Millenniumon’s miasma, but not a pitcher plant?? lol

Sora gets ANGRY when Taichi becomes Taichi-fruit. Her Crest of Love glows and brings out Garudamon. Taiora fans around the world screamed.

One way or another, this leaves Sora on her own (yay). And she is a busy girl. She wants to save Taichi first, but Pomumon also needs her help, and Garudamon needs her support while fighting the enemy.

Pomumon: don’t worry about me! I can fly on my own! *fails miserably*

Sora’s face says “I just don’t understand this world,” lol

They are then attacked by Flymon, and Pomumon still pretty much expects Sora to protect him. Sora’s like, “Fine, I’ll deal with Flymon, but you have to go save your friends,” and when Pomumon asks how, she just says “GOOD LUCK” and tosses him away, which honestly made me laugh out loud, you go girl

she’s like QUIT BEING SO USELESS DO SOMETHING ON YOUR OWN and just chucks him

buhahahaha

Pomumon, despite being useless, is able to free one of his comrades. After a brief discussion about how useless they are, they go to save the others.

I believe I can fly

I believe I can touch the sky

think about it every night and day

spread my wings and fly away

Sora thinks back to yet another soccer game where another student did a foul, I guess, on Taichi, and knocks him to the ground. Seeing Sora get so angry and protective of Taichi - omg, it totally squeezes my heat, gah. And it also makes her look so cool. Not just the girl in the back who comforts you when you fall down - also the one who runs up and tells the bully to back off!

that hair tho

Even though he’d been hurt, Taichi encouraged Sora not to quit playing and to win the game. In present time, Sora recalls that instance and uses it to push herself onward:

At this point, I could’ve gotten annoyed: as much as I loved the Taiora friendship and seeing their teamwork, it’s Sora’s episode, and I didn’t want her to succeed because of “what I learned from Taichi.” However, it’s very similar to Koushirou’s episode, where it was the faith Taichi had in him that gave Koushirou the confidence to find the courage he already had. It’s similar for Sora. Plus, since she’s got the Crest of Love, it makes perfect sense that love for her friend would be a motivating factor here.

On top of that - the things Sora thinks about Taichi are then echoed by Garudamon, only about Sora. Sora won’t give up because Taichi never does - and Garudamon won’t give up because Sora never does. You can see the chain reaction: friends building each other up through their support and faith in each other. Very sweet.

buhahahahahaha the freaking taichi blueberry

I really expected Taichi would be a little more wigged out about having been TURNED INTO A FRUIT, but once he’s free he’s like “Thanks, now let’s get back to the fight!” lol

to be fair there were only a couple minutes left in the episode, no time for freak outs i suppose

They save MetalGreymon who goes to back up Garudamon, but then Sora comes up with a plan.

Of course, it’s related to soccer.

Obligatory Cool Girl Soccer Star Sora shot

They kick the ball to lead the Pomumon’s seed? attack directly into Evil Tropical Bird-mon’s mouth. This... seems to be our kids’ favorite play this season, lmao

While choking on seeds, Garudamon and MetalGreymon launch their attacks and finally defeat him. Yaaaay goodbye weirdass fruit transmogrifying cannibal Digimon bird thing

Taichi tells Sora she’s awesome T______T It’s soooooooo sweet. My Taiora heart leapt

and my Taishiro heart whispered “he said カッコよかった to her but saves すごい for Koushirou <3 “ lol

Soooooo cute. MVP

Garudamon agrees that Sora is awesome

Ending card

So... the honest truth is yeah, this episode wasn’t necessary for the plot at all, and it would have been nice if it had been. But not all of the others’ center episodes were plot-related either. The important thing was for it to be wholly Sora’s episode and give her some Crest-related development. It did both those things.

I really would have liked a conundrum for Sora to fix, but I think the problem there is, since before now she wasn’t getting attention at all, they hadn’t set much of a foundation for that conundrum. The first time around, it was “oh, Sora is kind, so she wants to help anyone she sees” and there was a bit of personality clash with Yamato. Though it was small, it was a good bit of development and useful for two characters. It also led to Yamato and Sora’s friendship strengthening. With Taichi and Sora, we’ve been told they’re friends and teammates, but have not seen many strong examples of that. And, if there’s a fight between them, it could easily turn into a Taichi episode... that’s what I think anyway. So I guess the focus point for this episode was showing how Sora’s deep love for her friends strengthens her already, and maybe there’ll be more complex problems in the future, perhaps when she gets her next evolution... We’ll see.

Anyway. Good episode. So glad to see this show seems to be pretty solidly back on the rails. We only have like 20 episodes left though, seems like a lot but it’ll go fast.

That’s why I’m a bit surprised to see that next week looks like another not really plot-related episode:

Takeru and Yamato are going to a theme park. There’s no context for why they’re not with the others, but my guess is Takeru wanted to go and Yamato took him... easy as that xD I guess we’ll see, but I really hope this doesn’t mean the team is splitting up again.

However, we really do need quality time with Yamato and Takeru as well, so I’m all for this. It’s like the show really has got some self-awareness about how lax it’s been developing characters and relationships thus far and is now cranking it HARD to fit everything in we’ve been missing. Good.

#digimon adventure 2020 #digimon psi #digimon adventure:#digimon reboot #fizz watches digimon 2020 #digimon #didnt check for typos as usual

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lycheesodas · 3 years

Note

Different anon but I'm interested in that list 👀

aaaaa ok!! here we go

from the / tag:

Beneath a Young Sun and in the Eagle's Shadow by Strigimorphaes, G, 5.2k words

Beleg has been away for some time, guarding the border, killing orcs and generally living the rough life. Meanwhile, Mablung has been staying at Doriath's court. Once reunited, they are sent away to the Mereth Aderthad, but despite being headed for a joyful feast, Beleg still sees danger everywhere. Mablung tries to convince him that for once, there is some hope for this strange, changed world - and a chance for a peaceful moment or two in the wilderness.

We’re starting off with my favourite!! The entire atmosphere here is just so dreamy, so whimsical.. I love it. Pretty serious but also fluffy! And optimistic ; w ;

Hurry with the swift current by LiveOakWithMoss, T, 1k words

Beleg is foolish, Mablung is furious, both are wet.

Short! Cute! Really funny aljsdfk this is so,, in character for them imo. The last line always fckin HITS

The Black Sword by elfscribe for tehta, M, 12.4k words

Mablung sees a strange portent that causes him to fear that his beloved friend Beleg's affection for Túrin, the self-exiled young warrior, could bring grief to them all.

One of two (2) fics on this list with a rating higher than T. Missing scene, canon-compliant so.. a lot of angst. I normally don’t read first person POV but this is really quite good! It’s one of the longer fics that take on their last parting ; ~ ; and I think the author did an excellent job of exploring their feelings and how they each came to their decision on what to do. Also, just putting it out there, the M rating is for a short smut scene in mid chapter 2.

(Uhh there was another one but I think the author has it set on private now 😭)

Moving on to the & tag!! Because friendship fics also slap

All The King's Horses by Nauthril, M, 44.3k words

Beleg felt, more than saw the projectile that struck with a sickening thuck sound into the larger part of his thigh. Someone cried out in pain and surprise, and he vaguely realized it may have been him.

The Elf went to yank the dart from his leg, only to find that it was barbed, designed to let its venom overwhelm the victim before it could be quickly removed. The more subtle effects of the spike were nearly immediate, effecting his fine motor skills.

His right thigh burned fiercely with every pulse of his heart.

Fighting the urge to keep his own two feet from tangling with his steps, the Beleg made every effort to at least stand upright.

Or:

Beleg fails to return to Menegroth for Túrin’s birthday celebration. Mablung and Túrin set out to find him and bring him home.

A LONG FIC.. A LONG, CHAPTERED FIC!!!!! I felt like I won the lottery when I saw this hrhfsldfjk It’s an action adventure with multiple POV’s and it’s just really freakin good ok, I am absolutely living for that resolution in chapter 7. The relationship between all three main characters are handled really well! I think it’s gonna be part of a series too so HYPE!!! I wish there was like a follow or subscribe button on ao3 so I’ll know when the author would upload next ; 0 ; (EDIT: THERE IS ONE BUT I JUST NEVER FUCKING SAW IT LMFAO) Also, mind the warning tags here! Slight spoiler: it was an original side character so it wasn’t very front and centre but it could still bother some people

A Quiet Moment by Nauthril, G, 1.6k words

A Yuletide fic for the season. Beleg returns from the Northern Marches and shares some quiet moments with Mablung.

I know tis not the season but it’s so cute.. And honestly it’s immersive enough to make you feel like it’s actually Christmas! The banter, the gift exchange, the way they’re so comfortable with each other ; w ; This warms my heart <3

Parting by @glowingmechanicalheart right here on tumbler dot com

It’s literally six sentences but they’re such efficient sentences. It’s so clear and so sad because we know what happened in the end ; ~ ; it’s really what I was trying to convey with this piece!

The next two are by the same author on AO3!

Battle Worn But Going Home by GlowingMechanicalHeart, T, 1k words

The battle rages, hard and brutal. And it’s going to end badly, Mablung can tell already. Something feels off, like Belegûr is holding back, mocking their armies and their dead. Beleg stands side to side with him, and that is a comforting thought for him.

And then it happens, a betrayal from their own side and the battle grows worse.

Everything about the Fifth Battle is just pain...... I always wondered how those two handled it, though :0 And this fic gives us a glimpse of that. I really like how this author handles Mablung’s POV!

Mourning a Friend by GlowingMechanicalHeart, T, ~700 words

Mablung does his best to not to worry, if anyone can take care of himself, it’s Beleg. But his thoughts and emotions betray him, his whole being is screaming at him that Beleg is in danger, to run forth, find his friend and bring him to the safety of Doriath.

THIS FIC. I’M- I HAVE NO WORDS JUST READ IT 😭 Incredibly sad but well-written take on how Mablung finds out about Beleg’s death. Absolutely heartbreaking, I love it.

Now for some stuff outside the relationship tags because I'm literally that desperate.

Within a Dark Wood by Marchwriter, T, 7.7k words

"The tale of Túrin is known to many of this company… but…tonight is not the night to tell it. So I will tell you another tale. One that, perhaps, not even the eldest amongst our little company has yet heard." So the storyteller began…

Story within a story, which is always cool imo! Follows Beleg and Mablung from their first meeting to their last parting and a little bit after Beleg’s death ; w ; THE YEARNING..... it’s palpable. This one really tugs at my heartstrings because it made me think of what could have been (within the scope of the fic) if they’d just been honest with their feelings

The Two Hunters by theeventualwinner for Lunarium, G, 1.3k words, no summary ;;

Cute friendship fic!! Somehow full of hope in a time when the dark forces are growing. I like how it captures the difference in their personalities and approach towards life(?) but how they’re still close friends

And that’s basically my full reading list of my favourite marchwardens! They’re such an underrated pair (as best friends?? boyfriends? either way they’re soulmates 😤) that there’s not a lot of fics about them. I do my best with creating my own content but I’m more of an artist than a writer XD But they’re really starting to force my hand here.

I hope you guys enjoy my recs! Also, thanks anon and previous anon for reminding me to log back in to my AO3 account so I can leave a proper review soon 💀

#Anonymous #answered #tolkien #silmarillion #beleg #mablung #lychee's fic recs #as you can see it's literally only 3 in the actual ship tag #i spent almost two hours putting this together it's so late now omfg #i am going to SLEEP

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vidkid20ssimblrlair · 3 years

Text

Episode 32: Sundown At Ashfield (Part 2)

He grabbed his backpack and placed his mask inside. He then pointed towards the cemetery front gate and we entered. We walk through rows of graves as we went deeper and deeper into the cemetery.

Some graves were covered entirely by grass and weeds while others sat tall and crooked in the dirt. He pointed to a giant weeping willow tree and there a small tent sat under it. It looked like a campsite with a little campfire, a sitting area with logs, and various gear sitting around it.

"Welcome," he beamed. "This is my home away from home, so make yourself at home."

"In a cemetery?"

"It's not that bad. It's pretty serene. Plus the dead stay dead here. No rising from the grave so far."

"Still doesn't make it any less creepy."

"Oh, don't be such a Debbie Downer. Sit down. Let's talk."

He sat down and I sat down across from him. I placed my bag beside me and watched him do the same. He lit a fire with a lighter creating a warm glow amongst the chilly gloom.

"So what happened to the fancy stick?" I scoffed. "You actually managed to impress me out there.”

"Really? It’s just something I made using junk at the junkyard. A spear. It took me forever to make” he blushed as I rolled my eyes. “I fashioned it after my favorite video game-"

"Ugh, videogames. You sound like Audrey."

"Who?"

"Nevermind.”

“Well, I left it at the front gate if you want to look at it.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Ok. Ok. Well, I bet this will put a smile on your face." He smirked and reached for his backpack. He pulled out a packet of small spongy cakes. He held it up like a trophy, ripped it open, took out one, and bit into it. He then held the packet out to me. A mouth full of cake, he offered me the other. "Twinkie?"

"No, thanks," I frowned. He seemed disappointed but continued eating. I studied his face now getting a good look. He looked to be banged up a bit. He even seemed to be sporting a shiner and bruises to go with it. Poor guy. My eyes then scan the place as he chomped down on the second cake. I felt unease. Not because of the creepy choice of setting, but for the living who might come by. "So you sure this place is secure?"

"Yep. Along as the gate is closed, they stay out. Maybe one or two might squeeze in -”

“No. I mean the living.”

“Oh. Well, not even my sister knows about this place. Also, most strangers stay clear of places like this, so we’re good."

"Are you sure? No one followed you?"

"Follow me?! No way! They don't care about me or where I go. My sister does, but only when she remembers I'm related to her," he huffed. "Besides, they sent me out on a supply run. They've been sending me out for a lot of supply runs lately. To get me out the way I guess. They probably think I'll be gone for days since they sent me on some stupid hunt for watch batteries. Jokes on them, I found them already. Ha!"

"How about Jade though?"

"What about her?"

"Well, last I left you she was knocked out on the floor thanks to your genius thinking and you were going make up some bullshit story to save your ass. What happened with that?"

"Well, she woke up. That's for sure. She was a bit confused and dizzy at the time so she brought my story. Didn't make her any less angry though. She yelled a lot. Asked me a bunch of questions and yelled some more."

"Oh. So is that who gave you that shiner?"

"The black eye," he asked touching it hesitantly. He shook his head. "No. Ace did this but it's nothing. I've had worse."

"Worse?"

"Yeah. Let's just say I don't keep medical supplies around just for kind strangers like you," he chuckled. He then sighed. "He just gets really angry and frustrated with me is all. After Jade told him my story about getting jumped, he told me I should have done something. Said I was useless. Then he punishes me...with his fist."

I shook my head. "You should leave them."

"But my-"

"Your sister. Yeah, I know, but it's not fair to you. Does she even try to stop it? Does she do anything?"

"She tries to talk him down and she has kept him from killing me so far."

"That's fucked up."

"I'm fine. Really. Don't worry about me," he smirked. He fidgeted a bit and threw his twinkie wrapper to the side. He then grabbed another one. "You sure don't want one? Here take one."

He handed it to me, but I had no interest in cake or food at the moment. I placed it on top of my bag beside me. I looked up at him and his mouth was already full of cake. I groaned. "Enough with the twinkies!"

"You don't like them?"

"They’re fine, but I didn't come here to stuff my face, kid. I came here-"

"For Gemma."

"Bingo. You know her?"

"Yeah. Redhead, right? Tall, pale, insane."

"Yeah. Exactly. Definitely nuts. She part of your crew, right?"

"Yeah. Unfortunately," he mumbled. He tensed up and look downward. "When you said Gemma, I thought the name sound familiar. I wasn't entirely sure. Then it came back to me. You're talking about Big Red."

"Who?"

"Big Red. Her codename is Red Devil, but everybody calls her Big Red. Have you come across her or something?"

"Have I come across her? She's in my house right now. Well, where me and my friends are staying at least. She just showed up one day-"

"Wait! You said she's at your house?" he gasped. "Oh, God. Are you serious?"

"Yeah. She's tied up in our kitchen now-"

"That doesn't matter. You're like in serious danger," he shrilled. He then began grumbling to himself. "They never tell me anything. Shit. Of all the things to not to tell me..."

"Hey! Hey!" I snarled. I snapped my fingers in his face. "Talk to me. What's up?"

He came back to attention. His eyes wide and the color draining from his face. "Has anyone died since she's been there?"

"Meh. No. Not really. We had an old lady named Grace die, but that was before she came and the corpses killed her."

"Well, you're lucky. That's a damn miracle. You see Red takes pleasure in killing. She kills people. She likes toying with them first and then she lets them turn. Sometimes she lets them turn and watches them devour loved ones. She thinks it's funny. She's a psychopath and Ace loves her for it. She’s like his little pet," he said. "He sends her in when he wants a bloodbath, so I don't get it. You should be dead by now."

"Well, we're not and she's tied up. Maybe we got the better of her."

"Of her. Ha! If she wants to kill you... if she wants to get free, she will. She knows how to manipulate people to get what she wants. Trust me. She won't stay tied up for long," he warned. "Hmm...the only reason you're still alive because Ace had to order her not to. That's the only thing that makes sense."

"Why would Ace order her not to? Is that his usual thing?"

"No. Not at all. He takes pleasure in sick shit like Red, but he's a lot more tamer about it I guess. Still strange. At less...," he pondered. He then gasped. "At less, he needs you alive."

I scoffed. "For what?"

"I don't know. It's the only explanation I got though."

"You're hopeless. Do they really not tell you anything?" I sighed. "What about the Ace? What's his deal?"

"Ace aka Johnathan? He's just a power-hungry asshole who takes his jollies on preying on the weak and stealing from them. Who needs to find supplies or food when you can make someone else do it for you," he scowled. "But he didn't start off like that. He was a jerk but he was fairly normal when we met him. Part of me pities him."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Like you, he had a daughter, but he lost her doing this. It broke him. The way she died and everything. It truly broke him."

I started to ask how she died but part of me was afraid. People dying in this mess was enough to mess with your head, but losing a child...that was something else. I thought back to the zombified little girl and I got chills. I then thought of my daughter. Was Mya alive?

Both of us then froze as we heard something. It sounded like it was right behind me. The crinkling of paper? I quickly stood up and look back. A hand was reaching out from behind a gravestone and bushes. It had managed to pull my bag closer to them and its fingers felt around on top of my bag. It grabbed the Twinkies and I grabbed its wrist. It was no way it was a corpse. I pulled out my gun and pulled the intruder towards me. I gasped.

"Audrey?!"

"What? You're weren't eating them and I got hungry," she whined. I let her go and she grab the spongy cakes. "You don't want it right?"

Part 1

Audrey gets those Twinkies in Part 3.

P.S. I wish someone would make a normal looking wooden spear and Twinkies is a nod to Zombieland. xD

#sims 3 Dead on Arrival #ts3 dead on arrival #sims 3 doa #ts3 doa #sims 3 story #ts3 story #sims 3 #ts3 #sims 3 simblr #ts3 simblr #simblr #dead on arrival season 2 #doa season 2

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aziraphales-library · 4 years

Note

Hey!!! I’m kinda new, and I’d like to know if you can recommend me some good GO fics? My only request it’s that they should mostly be Teen Up or Gen s fics... and maybe some good AUs (I’m in love with those)

Okay, here we go!! I went a little all out on this post because it’s more about personal preference, but I still stand by it :D

An Angel who did not so much Fall In Love as Settle Into It Gradually by TheLadyZephyr - 7.5k - Rated T

Crowley was standing in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, looking a little lost. Aziraphale eyed the distance between them. Five steps. Five steps, and six thousand years, and a battlefield spanning an eternity.

The story of the little moments over the millennia that shape an angel’s regard for a demon, and the way he slowly, with great reluctance but inevitable surety, falls in love.

I simply adore this fic. It’s one of those fics that follows them through the ages and its just done so well. I don’t even know what else to say, just that you should go read it, and the fanart is also gorgeous!

Something So Magic by apliddell - 3.9k - Rated G

Crowley gets stuck in his serpent form, and Aziraphale tries his best to help.

This fic is simple, yet adorable, and I cannot get enough of it.

How Much To Give, How Much To Take by thechemicalgirl - 3k - Rated G

“It’s like…’ he paused, trying to calm down. ‘It’s like after I came back from Heaven and we switched our bodies back, something has happened. I can’t use my power anymore, not even to start the Bentley.”

Crowley loses his demonic abilities and Aziraphale tries to help him cope with it, but things get much more complicated than that.

Angsty, but also soft, and just a great execution of a favourite premise.

In Peace I Will Both Lie Down and Sleep by fizzybiscuits - 5.6k - Rated G

Aziraphale starts having nightmares. For some reason, he doesn’t talk to Crowley about this right away.

Title is from Psalms 4:8. “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

This fic just has everything. It’s a stellar example of an established relationship fic and is cavity-inducingly fluffy.

Be All My Sins Remembered by CloversDreams - 43.4k - Rated T

“The trial,” Beelzebub continued loudly, “will consist of seven tests.”

“Seven…” Aziraphale muttered under his breath. He had a bad feeling about this and it showed. He twiddled his thumbs nervously as he waited for more details.

Crowley scrunched his face and shook his head. “Oh you don’t mean–”

“Correct. The Sins have been charged with the task,” Beelzebub interjected.

“Crap.” Crowley groaned. He slapped his hands onto his face and dragged them downward slowly. This was just what they didn’t need.

Gabriel nodded. He had a rather unpleasant grin on his face as he said, “Don’t know much about them, myself, but they can be a pretty gnarly group of high-class demons from what I’ve heard. On par with the archangels back home. Wouldn’t want to… what’s that delightful human phrase? Oh, right. Wouldn’t want to cock this up.”

Listen, in my opinion, this fic is massively underrated. I unintentionally binged it all in one go because it was so gripping. The angst in some chapters had me practically screaming, and the whole idea is a brilliant take on the seven deadly sins. The pining is magnificent, and I live for the Husbands drama.

Let Sleeping Snakes Lie by Blue_Sparkle - 2.6k - Rated G

Aziraphale confesses his love for Crowley when he can contain it no longer. Oh, not to the demon himself of course. To a sleeping snake.

Another fic featuring Snake!Crowley, this one is magnificently soft, and I adore the scene in Stardust it’s inspired by. Just can’t stop coming back to read, 10/10 recommend!

Serpent of Eden, Original Tempter by noodlefrog - 33.4k - Rated T

During Crowley’s trial, the agents of Hell present evidence that the demon has been fraternizing with the enemy. Careful to protect Crowley’s pride (and his own concealed feelings), Aziraphale turns on the saunter and leans into his friend’s reputation as a tempter to spin their relationship into something that looks more demonic than lunch dates and feeding the ducks.

This fic combines Pining, Misunderstandings, and a fantastic ‘what if?’ for the execution scenes, and I am here for it. The Original Characters are written fantastically well, and I loved the bonus chapter!

What They Say About Assumptions by DragonGirl - 7.9k - Rated T

While it’s true that God bestowed upon the angels the divine power to sense love of all kinds, that does not mean they were given the ability to sense exactly who or what that love is directed at. A minor design flaw that hasn’t been much of an issue. Until now.

Or:

Aziraphale has known that Crowley loved someone since the beginning. He’s also spent most of that time believing that someone was a demon.

Aziraphale’s obliviousness in this fic was so ridiculous it felt plausible. It was hilarious but also heartwarming, and has one of my fave love confessions. It was angsty as hell in the best way, and I just implore that you read it!

Futile Devices by ticketybye - 3.2k - Rated G

Crowley pretends to sleep. Aziraphale talks.

Just adorable. Cavity inducing fluff and love confessions are my favourite things and god does this deliver on that.

Foolish Principality by seashadows and WikdSushi - 6.6k - Rated M

Upon moving into a South Downs cottage, Crowley gets left alone while Aziraphale rushes to help the new proprietors of his bookshop. Thanks to a miracle gone wrong, Crowley discovers Aziraphale's greatest material secret, and a few things neither of them could ever fully face.

Is rated M but in my opinion there’s nothing too bad in here, though you should judge for yourself. The poetry is beautiful, horrifying masterpieces, and it is honestly fantastically funny and sweet.

——

Y’all know by now that I adore anything by Arinia, but this fic is one of my faves:

Just This Once by Arinia - 2.7k - Rated T

An idea came, slowly at first, before filling up his heart, setting every nerve alight. It might be another decade, another century even, before he saw Crowley again. No one had come to rescue him from Above. No one had chastised Crowley for wasting a miracle from Below. Perhaps, just this once…

The streets of Paris are soaked with blood, and Aziraphale realizes just how much he owes Crowley for saving his life.

It’s freaking adorable, the kissing is fantastic, and I have a secret love of the French Revolution that made me love the fic all the more. Read it, I beg you.

——

As for AUs, I don’t read loads, but I do have some faves!

Neighborly Affection by Thestarlitrose - 4.6k - Rated T - Human AU

Anthony J Crowley was four years old the first time he met the tiny Ezra A Fell; he wasn’t impressed.

He was forty-six when he found him again in a bookshop in Soho.

The Childhood Friends, Flower Shop, Christmas, Friends to Lovers fic nobody asked for in the middle of October.

This fic is a complete tangle of tropes, and it’s also incredibly sweet. Perfect for the fast approaching holiday season!

a book elegantly bound by AwkwardPotatoChild - 6.5k - Rated G - Library AU

Two idiots. One book series.

or alternatively, Aziraphale and Crowley are united over their common love of books and the scheming of one Miss Anathema Device

This fic manages to be both very funny and incredibly endearing at the same time. The book names were hilarious, and I adored Anathema’s matchmaking.

A Jaunt Or Two by sonicsora - 3.1k - Rated T - Human AU

They meet by happenstance twice over, only to end up quite woven into one anothers lives. It’s all quite accidental, but sticks.

Crowley realizes a bit belated he’s quite attached to this man who freely uses the word jaunt and wears cream-colored suits.

This fic is just adorable. It’s sweet, fluffy, and exactly my kind of thing. Also Gabriel’s a dick in the comedic way, which is fun to see.

Restoration by arealshitwizard (gaiusgallus) - 2.6k - Rated G - Human AU

Ok I had this idea in my head and it wouldn’t go away so here is Aziraphale as a painting restorer and Crowley as a flash stock broker… There’s just one chapter sorry for my sins

This is a really unique fic (I know I keep saying that, but it’s true!), and featured such fun interpretations of their characters!

——-

I’m aware that 90% of this list is very specific to my preferences, and that it got a little out of hand, but I hope y’all enjoy the recs anyway! XD

Does the blog have any favourites they’d like to share?

~ Mod B

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reducttiddi3es · 3 years

Text

Feels Right Monty x OC- Requested

REQUEST: @vintagemac94 Hey🌸, I just came across your blog and loved the Monty love I saw there those two stories were pretty awesome. Could I pls make a request for MontyxOc where she has a boyfriend in college but when she moved to town and transferred to Liberty High she fell for Monty because of the amazing chemistry they had when they first met... As much as she wanted to stay loyal the connection her and Monty had proved too strong to ignore and she let the temptation take over💜. Tysm

I really enjoyed writing this, so much so that I had to split it up into parts XD. I will put the second part up soon(once I complete it that is)

hope ya’ll enjoy it. requests are always open.

WORDS: 1389

MASTERLIST

“Ok, babe. I’ll call you tonight. I can’t afford to go late on the first day of school”

“No, Soph, you call me in break time ok.”

“Ugh, fine. I love you but I really got to go now”

I hung up smiling about how much my boyfriend cared for me. We had been together for a little more than a year and it was going great. He was a little possessive but that’s because he loves me. Right?

I ran down the stairs excited for my first day at Liberty high.

“Morning, mom. Hey dad”, I said kissing both of them.

“Here, have your breakfast and then we’ll leave”

“Have a nice day, sweety.”

“Bye dad”

I walked into the massive property of Liberty high which was crowded with noisy teens. I looked around, there were the cheerleaders, nerds, punks and the jocks. Ugh.

I never really fit in with most of these groups. I am friendly but I’d rather be alone. But I had promised myself to make friends.

I looked around and spotted a boy and a girl talking, they seemed nice.

“Hey, I’m Sophie Miller. I’m new here, can you please tell me the way to the counsellor’s office”

“Hey, I’m Hannah Baker.”

“I’m Clay Jensen. Well I was just heading there to take the new students on the school tour.” He laughs.

“Well then you can give me a little preview” I said before we bid goodbye to Hannah and headed towards the counsellor’s office. Wow. Its gonna take some time to memorize all these hallways.

The day went by well, I had a few classes with Clay and others with Hannah, so I didn’t have to put in the effort of socializing.

I sat at their table during lunch. They were so sweet, and we talked about random stuff while they told me a little more about the school.

As soon as the bell rang, we all moved towards our next class, when I realized that the next class, I had neither Clay nor Hannah with me. They showed me towards my classroom before going off towards their own. I walked in slowly, almost as if I was walking into a dense cave. I walked slowly to a bench at the end of the class, satisfied that I had caught the attention of nobody, or at least that’s what I thought.

I managed to get away from the “new girl introduction” bit successfully. Since it was the last class of the day, I went out towards the parking lot wondering where my dad was.

Things went on quite smoothly for the next few days. By smooth I mean little to no social interaction except with Clay, Hannah and a few teachers. It felt nice, like I could fit in, that I did not need my boyfriend as a barrier between me and the world. Jake (boyfriend) had asked me to call him at least 5 times a day. It was getting a little annoying, but I had to, after all he agreed to me going away to another town. It was the least I could do for him.

It had been almost a week in school and it is safe to say I still don’t know anyone other than Clay and Hannah, I mean I did make efforts to make friends but it seemed as if everyone had their friend groups filled already.

“Honey, I’m so sorry but you’ll have to walk to school this week”, my dad told me as he was getting ready to catch his flight to go on a business trip.

“Don’t worry dad, I CAN walk to school. It isn’t far” I chuckled.

Monday morning came soon, I got up realizing that I had to walk to school and so I had to be quick. But after all I’m as slow as a sloth bear. I ran, literally ran out of my house without breakfast, racing with the wind. God, I’m going to be late.

“Hey, careful.”

In the haste of getting to school on time, running like a mad-man on the streets, I did not realize when I bumped into someone.

“I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking, so sorry.” I said sweating and almost at the verge of freaking out. “I didn’t see, I don’t- I’m sorry”

“Oh god, shhh, quiet”, that someone clasped a hand over my mouth with the other slowly rubbing up and down my back. This somehow immediately calmed me down. I looked up to meet the eyes of this kind stranger.

I looked into his deep hazel colored eyes, and I felt something. Something, that I can’t explain. Something I haven’t felt before. Something that was nice. I was so lost in his eyes that I did not realize that I had literally been gawking at him.

“You’re a weird girl, aren’t you” he laughed.

I snapped out of my bliss and gave him a confused smile.

“And a pretty one” he added, sending more shivers down my spine. His smile was so confident, so sweet yet almost like a smirk oozing with arrogance.

“Why are you walking to school today? Do you need a ride?” he asked.

I was shocked he knew as much as he did. And I guess it was written all over my face. He added “I go to the same school. I’ll give you a ride, it’s not very safe to leave you unsupervised right now”, he laughed.

He walked over to a jeep parked near the sidewalk and sat confidently in the driver’s seat, sure that I would follow him. And I did. I don’t know why I did it but I did. I sat down in the passenger seat.

“I’m Sophie. Sophie Miller” I said mustering up the most confidence I could and smiled at him.

“I’m Montgomery. Montgomery De La Cruz. But I prefer Monty” he said mimicking me. But I wasn’t offended, in fact I smiled at him wider than before. “Monty” I said softly.

The entire ride we spoke about tons of things. I’m not saying we had many things in common in fact we didn’t but it did not feel awkward. Also did I mention that that he was the hottest person I’d ever seen (still is). I hadn’t gotten the chance to see him that well considering I was near-freaking out over stumbling into him but when we reached school and he got off the car, the radiation of the morning sun hitting his skin in all the right places making him look more godly than he did before, had taken my breath away. Wow.

My feet carried me to class, my hands carried my books, physically I was in class but my mind could focus on nothing but Monty. His voice echoed inside my head; his soulful laugh made me smile like an idiot without realizing that I was in class.

“Miss Miller, is there something that you want to share with the class, so that all of us can laugh”

My face turned red at the teacher’s voice and I shook my head. The bell rang before she could go any further. The entire day, I barely payed attention to any class, my brain flooded with images of Monty (funny how I could imagine him in ways I’d not even seen him).

I absent mindedly walked out of the school towards home, still smiling wide. All of sudden a car pulled up next to me. The window rolled down.

“You know you can’t just ditch me, today morning was certainly not a one-time thing” he said smirking.

“N-no I was-“

“Oh God, just get in sweetheart” he laughed, the nickname leaving his lips effortlessly.

***

It had been a week and my dad was back home but I still drove with Monty to school. We had gotten incredibly close, I went to his games and we spent a lot of time together after school, gaming, listening to music, I even tutored him while he failed to teach me baseball. But the most wonderful time was when we sat together and talked about random things. Monty had gotten me to feel so good about myself, I had become more confident. It felt nice.

We were jamming to some music while riding to school when my phone rang.

Jake.

MASTERLIST

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love-sapphirerose · 3 years

Text

Still Useless Kagome

https://www.deviantart.com/rivaanime/art/Still-Useless-Kagome-858230208

WARNING (PLEASE READ THIS KAGOME FANS): This de-motivational screenshot is anti-Kagome Higurashi. So.. if you like Kagome and want to say how stupid this is, don't you worry, I already know..ok. I repeat again if you do not like this de-motivational screenshot, please do not make offensive comments, or better yet, do not do comments, I want to avoid punishment for reporting your feedback. But if you, however, are not a fan of Kagome you are more then welcome to comment on it. XD *FINAL WARNING* If you are a fan of Kagome Higurashi I seriously advise you to stop reading any further because what you are about to read is my own personal opinion on this miserable excuse of a "heroine". There is going to be MAJOR BASHING on Kagome and her character because YES. I am not a fan of her at all and her immature childish ways. SPOILER WARNING This article might contain some spoilers so if you had not read or seen the ending to InuYasha yet I advise you to also turn away at this point at well but if you are brave enough to read on then read at your own risk. ANTI-KAGOME FANS ENJOY!! "zako", meaning "small fry", and also is a crude Japanese term that alludes to someone being worthless but also used to describe a person who can't seem to do anything right. *THE FOLLOWING ENTRY IS BASED SOLELY ON MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION AND NOT ON ACTUAL FACTS* I truly meant to post this demotivational screenshot after I watched the 1st episode of Yashahime back when it first aired on October 3rd but of course I got busy with other stuff in my life and also dealing with my ongoing battle of procrastination as well . But of course, as most you might know that when I first started watching the original series of InuYasha I was a fan of Kagome and shipped her and InuYasha but over the years and after re-watching the series a few more times I have become less and less of a fan of Kagome as just like others have, I have come to realize that she was a very petty person who was always feeling sorry for herself, getting jealous over a love triangle that was seriously downright pathetic, because she was technically jealousy over herself and couldn't seem to realize that. She manipulated her little group of ZAKOS to always take her side on everything especially when InuYasha went to see Kikyo or when he was going through a hard time that involved her. Kagome was always getting herself kidnapped or into dangerous situations where others had to put their own lives on the line to save her useless, pathetic ass. She lacked any character development in the series and also in the first episode of Yashahime, the writers have done NOTHING to turn her into a more likable character as she might be 18 years old but she still retains the maturity of a petty 15 year old girl. In the first episode of Yashahime, you think that after living there for 6 months that she would greatly approve her archery skills or reflexes to be better prepared in case of danger but when the root demon attacked the village and mistaked her for Kikyo (can't tell the difference between a woman and a pile of trash apparently) all she did was revert back to what she did when she was 15 years old and during the events with Naraku. She just stood there looking at it while she made glances at her bow and arrow that she lef to the side and frozen by fear and becoming completely helpless that the breed mare (Sango) had to end up saving her. Once again, she had to get her useless self saved by another person. When InuYasha arrived on the scene and she stated that the root demon called her "Kikyo" it was pretty obvious that she was indeed ONCE AGAIN jealous that even after 3 years she is STILL jealous of Kikyo. When she asked InuYasha what was going on he didn't really answer her or give her a proper answer and you can't seriously blame him due to her treatment of him in the past whenever he brought up Kikyo, especially the one time when he did tell her the TRUTH she still didn't trust him or believe him and made him sit over and over a few times. When they went after the root demon to save the village, Kagome told InuYasha to put her down so she could draw the demon to her he refused and then she made a smart-ass remark that he would have listened if she was Kikyo which made InuYasha stiff and Kagome commented to herself that she hit it right on the mark. Okay, that part got a huge groan of aggravation from me as that was not funny at all and really shows that Kagome has not gotten over the past at all by bringing up Kikyo like that. She then puts herself into a very dangerous situation to make the root demon reveal itself that could have seriously gotten her and InuYasha killed (not that I care if Kagome dies, but InuYasha; definitely not). Then after it was all over her and InuYasha talk about what happened and she goes onto to say that she "trusts" him...(bulls**t!) then when he asks if she is angry at him she tells him "no" but then makes him sit AGAIN and goes on to say that InuYasha should trust her more...yeah right, like she is the freaking queen of trust herself. So, bascially what has happened is that just from that one episode it has only raised my hatred for Kagome just more and more. I have not been watching this sequel series but all I can tell you right now is regardless and from what a friend has told me briefly, it seems that once again Kagome's irresponsibitlity and her recklessness with her time-travelling has caught the attention of a new villian who now wants to use that time-travelling capability to rule the world that could even lead to the collapse of the time and space continuim itself. So once again Kagome's irresponsible behavior has caused a tremendous amount of a mess and brought chaos as well, not just to the people of Japan but the entire world as well. The writers are not doing their best to make anti-kagome fans like her or even feel sorry for the fact that she is missing as the only person they are worried about is InuYasha and also Rin's fate from what I heard was revealed at the end of episode 4. Once again, this sequel is nothing but crap and they could have done something different then turn it into another tragedy-story like it's predecessor. Also even after 20 years, nothing was done to improve Kagome and turn her into a more likable and responsible character at all. You think if the writers liked her they would take the time to add in some character development but just from this it seems that she is getting the "Sakura Haruno" treatment from the original series of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden. I will say this, at least they improved Sakura more in Boruto as she has shown to grow and mature after marrying and becoming a mother but Kagome...yeah...she is now the new "Sakura Haruno" from the original series. I mean I am sure at the end of the series, fans are going to find out where Kagome is as I am sure that the writers won't let her die (pity) but the only joy I can get out of this is that she didn't get to raise her daughter (shame for InuYasha though) but it seems that her daughter has actually turned out ALOT better then her mother from what I heard as she doesn't stand around like a little Miss Prissy Pants waiting for someone to save her and can actually fight too so her not being in her daughter's life was probably the best thing for her. Plus, her daughter doesn't seem to care about knowing who her mother (and sadly, her father) is at all. So in a way that is some karma in itself.

#inuyasha #anti inukag #anti kagome #anime #manga #anti yashahime #inukik #inuyasha kikyo #anti sakura

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party-with-books · 3 years

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Hiya! So I’m just getting into musicals after my friend sent me two songs that were absolute bangers from Heathers and I’m pretty sure you like musicals so do you have any recommendations? 👀 if not that’s totally fine!

Oh. HOney.

Do i know musicals?!?! (i’m so sorry in advance, but you’ve opened pandora’s box)

Strap in, i’m your humble tour guide!

A Beginner’s Guide to Musicals

Now, its hard to organize these all but i’ll do my best. I orignally had MANY others on the list, but it seemed smarter not to overwhelm you with too many different genres, so i kept it simple. I also will recommend some songs out of order before listening to the show from the beginning, but that’s just

Some are gonna be movie musicals, so just bear in mind, but if you want the broadway version i can oblige! A couple personal favorites i highly suggest are:

Wicked

The backstory of the Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda the Good, before the events of the Wizard of Oz.

Listen, if i had to choose one show to see on Broadway, its this one. When the u.s. tour came to my city, i was beyond excited. And when my in-laws got orchestra seats for us to see it in, i all but cried. :D I could quite literally write an entire essay about the show deep diving into the costumes, the set and stage design, the tech and lights, the script adaptation, etc...

The music is iconic in its own right, and its just so much fun and full of heart! Start right at the beginning with No One Mourns The Wicked and The Wizard and I are brilliant places, but legit with any of these songs you can’t go wrong. There are even reprises in the show they didn’t put on the soundtrack but 1000% should be there, its just that good!

Full soundtrack available here!

Phantom of the Opera

Ah yes! An oldie but a goodie. Its almost all singing, but boy is it worth it! I actually recommend watching this, cause it’d end up being the same runtime and you get the added benefit of seeing everything going on. But the whole movie soundtrack is available on YouTube, of course (the prologue is super slow, just fair warning, its a lot more for visuals than musical). The Phantom of the Opera title song is a great starting place. Music of the Night (immediately following POTO) and Think of Me are some of my top favorites, but really this whole soundtrack is just *chefs kiss*. Oh! And All I Ask of You just melts my heart! Also, of you want a great stage production soundtrack, the 25th Anniversary at Albert Hall starring Sierra Boggess and Ramin Karimloo is fantastic as well!

Also also, i know where to watch both movie and stage performances, so just lemme know if you’d like that. :D

Hamilton

Ok now hear me out! I honestly also didn’t like Hamilton when it first came out. And i didn’t for a long time. I’m a more traditional broadway connoisseur, plus the only rap i really listened to was Eminem. But even there i’m super selective, and i made the mistake of listening to the intro song first.

Don’t be me.

Sometimes you need the familiar first before you get to the place where they branch off (in this case, throwing in some rap verses).

Hamilton in 7 Minutes is an amazing a cappella compilation of the entire soundtrack, plus the animatic someone drew for it is phenomenal. After that i highly HIGHLY recommend Helpless and then You’ll Be Back, oh and The Schuyler Sisters! This show is just as quirky and sweet as it is emotional. And i get its not for everyone, but i’d be remiss if i didn’t at least mention it.

Newsies

Inspired by the real-life happening of the Newsboys going on strike in 1899 New York.

Oh man, how do profess my love to thee? Mainly an all boys cast (but the ladies who have songs in it are *chefs kiss*), the choreography is as incredible as the music itself, and boy howdy is the music great! Jeremy Jordan is the butter on my bread and as Jack Kelly, just lives rent free in my head on repeat. If he sang to me every night, sleep would never be an issue. xD Carrying the Banner, King of New York, and Watch What Happens are great ways to start off this party. And here i shall grace you with the whole Live soundtrack (i didn’t like the audio quality for the regular recorded one i found, but its still the same cast so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

The whole stage show was professionally filmed and lives on Disney+ currently btw! (so go watch it! The tap numbers and spoon playing in it give me LIFE)

Heathers the Musical

The darkly delicious story of Veronica Sawyer, a brainy, beautiful teenage misfit who hustles her way into the most powerful and ruthless clique at Westerburg High: the Heathers. But before she can get comfortable atop the high school food chain, Veronica falls in love with the dangerously sexy new kid J.D. When Heather Chandler, the Almighty, kicks her out of the group, Veronica decides to bite the bullet and kiss Heather’s aerobicized ass…but J.D. has another plan for that bullet.

I’m so glad you already like this! The music really is a great banger and the story surprisingly manages to be both edgy humor-wise and serious when the moments call for it. Its a lot of fun and i’m surprised by how much i like it. If you haven’t already listened to them, Beautiful is the intro and is really good, and also Candy Store & Big Fun!

The Little Mermaid Musical

The movie and musical that need no introduction! I was really surprised by how much i liked Broadways soundtrack for the show, and how short-lived its time on stage was. It really doesn’t get enough credit for how much creativity went into everything. And what an all-star cast too! All the original songs from the movie are there, and i think they did a really good job expanding them even more, especially Under the Sea. Her Voice (10/10 just melts my heart) i’ll also recommend beforehand but honestly you don’t need too much. Just go straight from the start and head onward, you’ll really enjoy it!

The Sound of Music

Man i’m getting nostalgic. Another oldie but goodie! My mom, sisters and I loved watching this movie growing up (along with Oklahoma, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Singin’ In the Rain, My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof, and just...every musical in our collection ;P). Funny, sweet, romantic, heartwarming, its got it all! The Sound of Music kicks everything off, and from there you can’t go wrong, but this is another movie musical i highly encourage watching! Also i just wanna throw in The Lonely Goatherd now cause its so much fun, so why wait?! ~~

Ok whew! I think that’s it (for now). It took a while to find links for everything, but we did it! Please holla at me if you have any questions or concerns. :)

Oh yes, and if you would like to see any of these masterpieces via recording, i may or may not have such knowledge for your viewing and/or audio entertainment.

#i edited this list like 5 times #trying so hard not to vomit so many shows at you all in one go #every time i keep thinking of another one like 'aw man i forgot to add Joseph and the Dreamcoat or Cinderella'#if you want like a round 2 list i got that also #xD #(tbh i have a whole word doc full of musicals i adore and love and keep adding more to every day)#this is like my overall collection of well-known musicals that got me started in the theatre world #looking at this i'm also realizing these are all shows i'd really want to perform in at some point in my life #a bookdragon answers #dillislazii #broadway #musicals #wicked #the phantom of the opera #newsies #heathers the musical #hamilton #the little mermaid #the sound of music

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snowdice · 4 years

Text

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 21]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Okay, my life is finally somewhat under control and I can get back to business as usual. Not sure how long I’ll be working because today I just plan to get my life in order. XD

Chapter 5

Janus stepped back into the reception area and booted up his time piece. Instinct said to go back to the office despite the fact that it was late enough that most people had gone home, but he hesitated. Surely Emile had given up by now, but considering he’d sent someone to ambush him in his office, Janus wasn’t sure if he should trust that. He could just go home, but he already knew his mind was racing too much to sleep tonight so he’d probably just end up staring at the lake for the next 6 hours. So, he decided on the only other legitimate option he had. He pulled up Remus’s home coordinates and selected.

The home that Remus had chosen (after his long line of rejected requests) managed to somehow make no and absolute sense simultaneously to anyone who knew him. It was a small farm in the United States just west of the Mississippi in 1842 in what would be ratified as the state of Iowa in a few years. When asked why he would choose that time and place, Remus always responded with “I thought it was funny,” whatever that meant.

Unlike most time agents who simply used the identities assigned to them by the AMO as a cover, Remus actually lived his part time.

Janus was… fairly certain he was cheating a bit to get everything done, but he maintained his small farm all on his own, growing most of his own food. The neighbors he had lived very far away, but he still spoke with them far more than Janus did his own.

Janus appeared inside the small home, his eyes already shut. “Are you hear and dressed?” Janus called. Something bumped lightly into his legs.

“I’m in the kitchen!”

Janus peaked his eyes open and squatted to pet the cat at his feet. “That doesn’t answer my question!” he called back to Remus.

“It’s a surprise!” Remus said.

“Remus.” Diesel Fuel the cat flopped to her side on the ground as Janus continued to pet her ears. He heard Remus’s footsteps, and saw cloth covering his legs, so risked looking up. He was currently not only dressed, but wearing an apron that Janus was fairly sure was not time appropriate judging by the fabric and cat pawprint design. He had a bit of flour on his hands, and it may have been a bit too white for the time and place, but Janus couldn’t be completely sure.

“What’re you doing here?” Remus asked.

“My day has been an endless series of frustrations,” Janus said. “So, I have come to see the only tolerable being in the history of the universe.”

Remus snorted. “Since I know that isn’t me, I’ll assume you’re talking about the cat.”

“I still don’t understand why you tolerate this creature,” Janus addressed Diesel Fuel. She blinked slowly up at him. “To be fair, he was assigned as my partner. I didn’t have much of a choice in it. You could go always run away and become feral in the woods if you’d like.”

“So could you, technically,” Remus pointed out.

“I’m thinking about it after today.”

“Would you like some bread?” Remus asked. “That’s all I’ve been making this afternoon. Some fresh should be coming out of the oven in a few minutes.”

“Do you have anything stronger made out of wheat?”

“Ew, no, but I do have vodka.”

“Vodka works.”

“Want me to mix it with something?”

“No.”

“One of those night then,” Remus said, easily. “Let me finish up the bread, so I don’t burn the kitchen down. You can go get the alcohol from the cellar while you wait if you want, or you can just flop down on the couch.”

He was going to just flop down on the couch.

He did just that as Remus disappeared back into his kitchen. The cat hopped onto his stomach, proceeding to purr loudly and kneed at chest. Janus petted the cat and listened to the noise of Remus moving around in the other room, letting his mind drift. His mind drifted to Virgil for a bit and he steadfastly did not allow it to drift to his brother. Yet, the thing that most was on his mind was the strange man who had flirted and charmed Janus all night before mercilessly screwing him over. ‘Pat’ he’d said his name was, but surely that was not his real name.

Janus sighed and scratched the cat’s ear. “He certainly wasn’t an amateur,” Janus mused to the cat. “With that amount of precision to get in before we did, he must have someone not on the ground feeding him information. Perhaps more than one.” He was part of a group of time traveling thieves perhaps or something worse. “I didn’t get a good look at his face since he was wearing a mask,” Janus said, “but I spent a lot of time with him, and I’m sure Remy swiped the mask from the police since it had been on me when I was arrested. It’s a good lead.”

He continued to pet Diesel Fuel. Eventually, Remus came back in, noticed Janus hadn’t bothered to get the alcohol and went outside to the cellar. “I’m going to find him,” Janus told Diesel Fuel. “I’ll stop whatever it is he’s doing, and I’ll bring him in.” Diesel Fuel mewed her support, and Janus patted her on top of the head.

Remus came back in with the bottle of vodka and handed it to him without a word. He sat down on the couch near Janus’s feet and patted his lap so Diesel Fuel would come over to him and allow Janus to sit up.

The bastard waited until he was approximately 3 shots in (he didn’t have a shot glass and was just taking drinks from the bottle) to ask the questions Janus really didn’t want to answer. “Are you mad at Emile?” Remus asked.

Janus groaned, trying to wash out the bitter taste of shame and grief with the sharp sting of vodka. It didn’t work. “No,” he said to Remus.

“Then why have you been avoiding him?”

“Shit, I’m here because I didn’t want to think about it. Can’t we just not.”

“Don’t want to think about what?

“It’s none of your business, Remus.”

He could feel Remus frowning at him, but Janus stared resolutely ahead. At least, he did until a foot poked his face. He slapped it away, but it did the job of getting Janus to look at Remus.

“It is my business,” Remus said, foot still in the air. “I’m your partner and your friend.”

“If I’m your friend, you’ll drop it.”

“So, you’re not mad at Emile,” Remus continued, contemplatively. “Did you do something to him, then?” Janus bit his lip and looked away. “What?” Remus asked. Janus didn’t respond. “Look, I’m sure he’ll forgive you for whatever it is. He’s a good guy. Just talk to him about it.”

“I can’t,” Janus said.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably been long enough that he forgives you. You literally just have to have a conversation, say you’re sorry, and everything will be A-OK.”

“I can’t,” Janus repeated.

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t know about it.”

Remus paused. “So, as far as he knows, you just cut contact with him all of a sudden for no reason and have been avoiding him ever since?”

Janus looked at his shoes. “Yeah.”

“That…” Remus said, “is not fucking fair Janus.”

“I know.”

“Then why the hell are you doing that to him? He’s like… soft and feeling-y. He’s probably really upset.”

“I know, Remus.”

“Tell him. Whatever it is.”

“I can’t.”

“Look,” Remus said. “You tell him and he either forgives you or he doesn’t. If he does, everything’s fine. If he doesn’t… well, it’s not like it would be any different from you two never being in the same room the last few years. Either way, you can’t just do this to him. He’ll probably forgive you. He’s your brother. Brothers don’t… brothers would forgive each other.”

Janus laughed softly and met Remus’s eyes. “That’s the problem,” he said. “He’d definitely forgive me.” He turned away and opened the vodka bottle again. “Now, if you’ll shut up for a few minutes, I’m going to drink until I black out.”

Chapter 6

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

“We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so I’ll be running it.”

“Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only senior agents.

He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of thick glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness. It was so caked on that Janus couldn’t even recognize him.

In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. Even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the time lock would serve to prevent most damage outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and it would break the moment the time lock ended.

As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So, we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus as a seasoned time traveler could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

“Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

“Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

“Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patton said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

“Oh,” Patton said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

“Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

“He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

“Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

“Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

11594

Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

“Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

“There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

“Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

“You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

“Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

“You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

“Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

“It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

“He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

“Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

“You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

Well, Janus was screwed. He swallowed his nervousness and got to his feet, taking Diesel Fuel with him. He turned to hand her off to Remus with a plea in his eye, but he just got an eyebrow raise in return. Traitor.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“The one noodle restaurant? Sure,” Emile answered simply. They walked side by side out of the front doors of the TPI building. Janus actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken these stairs. He usually used his timepiece to get in and out.

The noodle bar was only moderately busy at this time. They were quickly able to find a table near the back and Emile pulled his menu up in front of him. Emile hummed as he flipped through the different displays. “What are you having?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

Emile glanced at him through the menu displays. “You used to.” Fortune noodles were a bit cheekily named. They didn’t actually indicate anything about your future. They were just supposed to taste like what you wanted from your future. A grad student might experience a feeling like they’d just aced a paper. A child that they got to stay up an hour later that night. Janus had liked the experience when he was younger, but in recent years, he’d begun to taste the underlying chemicals in the dish until that’s all he could.

“Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“Forgive me,” Emile said, eyes now focused on Janus, and tone much darker. “How has your life been since I last saw your face 5 months ago during a business meeting and you refused to look me in the eye? Anything interesting happen? Shave your head and let it all regrow? Develop an allergy to peanuts? Join a convent and take an oath of silence that you only just broke today?”

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

“Great,” Emile said clipped. “Small talk over. Order your food.” Janus reached up blindly to select the first thing that came up on the food and drink menu as Emile punched something into his own and both menu displays disappeared, meaning there was nothing between their faces anymore. “You know, I was willing to give you a year,” Emile said. “I was willing to let you deal with it on your own because I thought eventually, you’d come talk to me about it, but apparently I was mistaken. The next year, I thought maybe you thought I didn’t want to talk to you, so I subtly made myself available, and you never took me up on the offer. I thought maybe I was just not being clear, and I should make my desire to talk to you more explicit, but as you have been routinely, clearly avoiding me at every single turn, I’ve decided I’ve had enough. So, let’s lay it all on the table. Is it me or do you need help?”

Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

Janus stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. “And it’s going to keep going on!” he said. The food popped up at that moment. It appeared Janus had ordered lasagna and bubble tea, and Emile had ordered something with spaghetti and a fizzy drink.

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

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Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

Chapter 10

“And I thought Remus was going to be the most disgusting roommate in this equation,” Lena grumbled. Janus and Lena were apparently the earlier risers in the group as Fred was still curled up around a pillow and Remus was sprawled out under his desk.

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

“I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

“Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

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“Millennia,” Remus mumbled from under his desk. Janus hadn’t been aware he was awake. “He said something something about it being the only time he could see the change of the millennia.” He turned his head to look at Janus. “Considering he’s a time traveler, that’s definitely a weird thing to say.”

“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

Luckily Sliver Mountains ended up only being about an hour away from the TPI by time adherent travel, but considering Janus was used to his travel being instantaneous, it was an aggravating trip. He had to show ID and be buzzed up to the fourth floor since it was usually locked to everyone not traveling by timepiece or who worked in the office.

The receptionist was the same man as before. “I’m here to speak to Professor Eran,” Janus said.

The receptionist nodded. “He mentioned you asked to meet him but didn’t know when you’d arrive. He’ll be done teaching his class in about 5 minutes. You can wait over there.”

Janus nodded and sat, waiting for time to slowly tick by. Virgil arrived after a few minutes, lugging a giant bag with him. He caught sight of Janus and wordlessly jerked his head towards the hallway. Janus followed him.

“What’s in the bag?” Janus asked.

“Early 21st century cell phones,” Virgil said, dropping it on his desk. “I let my students mess around with them for their lab.”

“I see,” Janus said.

“What did you need?” Virgil asked. “You said it was official business.”

“You’ve heard about the lockdown, I presume,” Janus said.

“Yeah, it really screws up my research schedule for the summer,” Virgil said.

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“Do you know why the lockdown was instituted?” Janus asked. Virgil shook his head, so Janus explained briefly that they had been trying to find a timebomb on the eve of the year 3000, but it had been swiped by a free agent time traveler. “Some of the things seemed to be references to things that I couldn’t place, and I was wondering if you would recognize any.”

“Shoot,” Virgil requested, seeming intrigued by the prospect.

“Okay,” Janus said. “First, the alias he was using was Nick Jonas.” A weird expression crossed Virgil’s face immediately and Janus paused.

“You said the year 3000?” Virgil asked.

“Er. Yes.”

“Nick Jonas. Year 3000,” Virgil repeated with a snort. “Were Joe and Kevin a part of this too?”

Janus blinked. “Yes, how did you know that?”

“Yo-you’re going to have,” his sentence was broken by a giggle, and actual full-fledged giggle, “have to give me a minute.” With that, he sort of listed to the side and seemed to purposefully fall off his chair onto the floor under his desk.

Janus blinked and when he didn’t surface after a moment, he stood up to lean over the desk and look down at him. Virgil had his arm thrown over his beat red face, as he shook from what Janus thought was suppressed laughter.

“What?” Janus asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Virgil said, sobbing through his laughter. “Just tell me the things he said.”

“Er, mostly he just had weird inflections on words and phrases. There was ‘paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback…’”

“Wait, stop,” Virgil said. “Let me guess a few. That’s Just the Way We Roll, Burnin’ Up, Sucker.”

“The first two were, but not the last one.”

Virgil laughed. “Maybe the last one was just implied.”

Janus frowned down. “What are you talking about? What does this all mean?”

Virgil pulled himself out from under his desk and grabbed his bag of phones. He dug through it for a few seconds before pulling one out and handing it to Janus. “I have a lab for my students where they get preloaded phones from the early 21st century and are supposed to guess the demographics of the person who owns it. This one is an iPhone 3 meant to belong to a pre-teen to teenage girl from the year 2009. Look under music artists starting with the letter ‘J.’”

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Confused, Janus scrolled through the old style phone, finding the music app and opening it easily. Upon getting to the ‘J’s, he immediately paused on an artist called the ‘Jonas Brothers.’ He clicked on it and read a few of the song titles. They weren’t all there, but…

“That rat bastard,” Janus said.

“Scroll to the bottom,” Virgil said. Janus did and found a song titled ‘Year 3000.’

“You’re kidding me.”

“Click on it,” Virgil requested.

Janus did, listening to the fairly standard pop like intro from the time period. It wasn’t until he got to the lyrics saying, ‘He told me he built a time machine’ that he cursed, understanding exactly what Pat had been doing. When the singer a few lines latter proclaimed that his neighbor said ‘I’ve been to the year 3000’ he almost smashed the artifact to pieces right then and there.

“I have no idea who this guy is,” Virgil said, “but he’s a comedic genius.”

Chapter 11

Khalid caught him on his way back into the TPI building. “I heard you went to Silver Mountains to follow up on a lead,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was garbage,” he seethed. “All I learned was ‘Pat’ knows early 2000s popular culture and likes to fuck with us.”

She hummed. “I’d still like a report about whatever you found. Who knows what we might end up getting from seemingly inconsequential data.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I have a mission for you.”

“We’re on lockdown,” Janus pointed out with a frown.

“For nonessentials,” she said. “This is essential.”

“What happened?” Janus asked.

“We picked up a small time distortion in France 2027. At the moment, it is small enough not to cause any disruptions, but it is slowly growing, and we don’t know what caused it. Usually we’d just send surveillance agents at this stage, but considering what’s going on, I think it would be best to send a field agent. And it would just be you, because we don’t want to send too many people out at once.”

“Is this related to the time bomb?” Janus asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “At the very least, it’s not it being set off as it was in 2999, but if it’s been altered for some other purpose…”

“I’ll go,” Janus said.

“I’ll send over the mission directive to everyone who needs it. You’ll go in around 3 hours.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he agreed.

In less then 3 hours, he was dressed for 2027 France and in decontamination. “Well,” he said out loud when he was given the all clear sign, “I hope I don’t explode.” He selected the coordinates on the timepiece and the next moment he was in a small alleyway in the city of Montpellier, France in 2027.

It was a little bit warm, but not stifling even in the mid-afternoon and he could faintly smell the sea on the breeze.

After a moment to get his bearings, Janus made his way out of the alleyway and onto a small street. The street was lined with restaurants and shops as people went about their daily lives. He carefully integrated himself into the crowd and began weaving his way through them. He needed to find the source of the distortion but doing a quick scan with his timepiece told him there wasn’t any sign of it yet. He’d have to wait for it to act up.

For now, he decided to get slightly away from people by heading towards the river. He found a park that had benches along water.

As he walked towards the river, he noticed a man on the bench, angled slightly away from Janus and looking out at the water. He immediately recognized the man. “You!” he exclaimed.

Pat’s head shot around to look at him, and he gave a slight head tilt. Then, he smiled, amused. “You are not the person I’m here for,” he said.

“Well, I am now,” Janus snapped. “Where’s the time bomb?”

“Time bomb?” Pat asked, eyebrows drawing together, but amusement on his lips. “Oh sweetie, the time bomb happened a long time ago for me.”

“What?” Janus asked.

“Oh, you’re just a baby,” Pat laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? The two of us are out of sync timeline wise. You’ve been apparently running around with a much younger version of me, but all of that happened quite a while ago for me. Don’t worry though, it gets better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The time bomb has been long deactivated. Here,” he reached into his pocket and tossed him something. Janus caught it on instinct. “Proof. Don’t worry, we took all of the dangerous bits out years ago from my perspective.” It was the core of a time bomb, the time bomb Pat had stolen if he was to be believed. “You can tell your people it’s safe to remove the lockdown.”

Janus curled his fingers around it. “I don’t get it.”

Something on Pat’s wrist beeped and he looked at it curiously before he stood from the bench, “and I don’t have time to explain it.”

Janus jerked forward to grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

Pat reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be seeing me later.” He twisted his wrist and a small electric current sparked between them. Janus jerked his hand away, and Patton smiled at him. “Or… earlier.” He winked, and then he was gone.

Janus cursed, but he didn’t have more than a moment to be angry because in the next second there was a yelp, and something landed on top of him. He was bowled over into a tangle of limbs and pained noises.

“Oh my god, we need to figure out the height thing,” a familiar voice groaned, just as Janus managed to pull himself away. Pat blinked up at him and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he hissed.

“…What?”

Pat jumped to his feet, leaving Janus on the ground in front of him. “What are you doing here?” he spat, his tone much different then the one he’d been using a moment earlier. His hair was longer than it had been before, and if Janus looked closely, he did seem like he was a couple of years younger suddenly. Out of sync timelines. I’ll see you earlier. Holy shit.

He was suddenly very glad he’d been forced to let the other Pat (the older Pat?) go, else they’d have a whole thing on their hands.

“What are you doing here?” was Janus’s retort as he stood up and dusted himself off.

“It’s none of your business,” Pat told him.

“It is my business,” Janus said, “because for all I know, you are the cause of the time distortions I’m after. Considering that I doubt you have a license for that,” he waved at the odd looking timepiece of Pat’s wrist, “it’s very possible.”

“What are you?” Pat asked, “the time police.”

“Yes.”

Pat dared to roll his eyes, but then he tilted his head slightly. “Time distortions?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”

He still had a confused frown on his face. Did… did he not know what a time distortion was?

Just then there was a sudden flash of lightening through the sky despite the absolutely lack of clouds. He and Pat both looked up.

“Is that the time distortion?” Pat asked.

“It’s probably the beginning of it,” Janus said.

“That doesn’t look good,” Pat said as he squinted at the sky.

“Just wait,” Janus answered grimly. He looked at Pat. “Usually I’d arrest you on the spot,” he said, “but I’m alone for this one, and that is far more important at the moment. So, have a nice day doing whatever bullshit you are doing.” He glanced at his timepiece.

Janus turned to walk away from him.

“Wait!” Pat exclaimed, and Janus turned back to him to see that his eyes were wide. Janus raised an eyebrow. “So, this time distortion thing is dangerous, right?”

“Depending on the severity, it could cause time to fracture around this place and time, basically erasing it from existence and killing everyone in it.”

“Well, in that case, I should go with you. To help.”

Janus looked him up and down. “You… have no idea what’s happening, do you? You’re an amateur.”

“I’m not,” he claimed. “I just. Pooling resources. You know?”

Janus sighed. “Well, you going around mucking about this time period without knowing what you’re doing could just exasperate the situation, so fine, you can tag along.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he grumbled even as he rushed to Janus’s side at the permission.

“Sure,” Janus said with an eyeroll. He guessed he was a babysitter now. “I believe you.”

Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

“You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Patton agreed, “but you did.”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

“Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

#study break stories #not writing

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