#if you tell me you like these skins youre automatically a sociopath

[liminsendhelp]

Don't pet the flea cat

Price×f!reader

Tags: slight description of reader (chubby, muscular, strong, denying gender as a concept), possibly slightly sociopathic/autistic reader, profanity, denial of authority, evil scientist on the way to becoming.

tags and warns are the same as in the last post, srry, I don't have time to make it more civilized and readable

Enjoy

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

The draft work plan, as well as the topic, was approved a week ago. Dr. Moon didn't see fit to announce it for fear of your reaction. It was a smart move on her part. You'd just push the paperwork, which was wrong, too. After all, what could tell you more about the changing mental and physical state of the fighters than the fighters themselves?

Dr. Moon looked at you menacingly again in the morning. This night you lay down at 4 a.m., knowing you'd be up in two hours so you could intercept your test subjects early.

No interceptions. Dr. Moon smugly tells you that she's already hammered out an agreement for you to meet in person with their chief.

You actively pretend it doesn't bother you. Neither his agreement, nor her interference. Nor the fact that the situation is completely out of control.

Kudos on your paranoia and your irrepressible desire for adventure. You're prepared.

You had nowhere to start your investigation and no time at all. So at night, you tried to accomplish another feat. For the sake of experimentation with the local idiots could be socialized.

Going out for a smoke at three in the morning, you pretended that you couldn't light your lighter. You hoped that at the opposite wall your acting was taken for granted. The recruits on duty, watching you especially hard that night, pulled cigarettes out of their ugly mouths as you got closer.

I wonder if they've killed before or if they're just getting used to blood?

"Got a light?"

The soldier silently held out his hand with a lighter to your cigarette. You responded with a precisely calculated amount of gratitude in a smile so he wouldn't think you were flirting.

You took a couple puffs under their harsh stares. Your neck was starting to itch from the extra attention. You need to finish before you start blushing.

"Can you tell me who I was rude to today?"

"No."

You nod. Okay.

You stand in silence until halfway through your cigarette.

"Captain Price." Another voice. Slightly higher and calmer than the first. "You can automatically add to it a list of those who sat at the table with him."

"And the rest of his wives."

"What?"

Idiotic. Don't get me started, they wouldn't understand anyway.

You sigh, letting the smoke burn your throat before letting it out.

"In my defense, I apologized immediately."

"And still just as rude. You've been sheltered here. We have our rules on our turf."

You look him clearly in the eye for the first time all evening.

"We didn't ask. We were put on the spot, just like your management. That's one. Second, the territory here is not yours, it's theirs. Save your moralizing and lecturing, okay?"

You clamp the smoldering cigarette in your teeth, leaving your hands free. You're not yelling, judging by your tone you're just making conversation.

"I didn't do anything wrong, I even came to make up with you, even though you had nothing to do with the situation at all. So don't get worked up, lady."

The calmest of them all squeezes the shoulder of the guy breathing aggressively in your direction. Nice.

You throw the cigarette butt in the trash can and smile at the soldiers the way you smile at successful death jokes. As you walk away, you don't turn around, feeling your legs grow lighter with each passing second.

The unquenched thirst for the fight they've stirred up in you scrapes beneath your skin.

You do push-ups, squats, standing planks, wanking, brushing your teeth while you wash, and finally expel the unstoppable energy inside you. Closing your eyes you know that tomorrow you'll hate your decision to sleep in rather than spend two hours looking for information.

So at seven in the morning, Dr. Moon looks at your drained face with disapproval, and you stare at your laptop screen with annoyance.

There's no information on this Price guy.

Not even a Facebook page, not even a snippet in some archived newspaper.

You don't have access to local records yet, and--

You have to drink your coffee and take the first flight to the gym.

You think back to your high school days, standing here, behind the Captain's back while he lifts weights.

You're sure he must have sensed your presence, as long-serving military men often do.

But, since he decided to call you here (which by the way, caused you a lot of questions), you'll stare.

"Be polite. First impressions, dear. I beg of you, don't scare them off. The fact that you've been given a chance is already a huge breakthrough." Dr. Moon spoke. All day yesterday, before going out today.

But they already thought you were a stranger, didn't they? They've already seen the obvious fact that you don't fit into the narrow confines of the norm. So why try?

The muscles in his back were encased in a long-sleeved sweatshirt, his legs in loose athletic shorts pulling the fabric taut as he squatted with the barbell on his broad shoulders.

God, is that monster pumping his ass?

You snicker as he finishes his approaches. He catches your shameless stare in the mirror-you have nothing to hide. Let him not think you're better than you are.

His smirk lifts the neat bush on his face called a beard. He looks like a walrus.

You picture him in the shoes of that poor guy from 'Tusk' as the Captain wipes the sweat from his face with a towel.

"You're not in the database. I mean in yours, the institute's. You know about that?"

You don't answer, continuing to watch him walk. He reaches for the water bottle, apparently leaving you room to respond. You reluctantly take his offering.

"I cut myself out of it."

"Hacker, huh?" He grins skeptically.

His demeanor only triples your opinion of his treatment of you as entertainment. You bite your lip from the inside out, chewing on a piece of skin a little harder to taste the tang of blood.

"Can't find you either."

"Have you gotten to ours yet?"

"Negative, Captain." Blue eyes sparkle approvingly.

"Talked to someone, though. Good. I wouldn't have hoped so, given your performance the day before yesterday."

You remain calm. Expectedly, you need to settle things definitively now.

"I don't like the attention. I get nervous, I get creative. I find it easier to talk to work, not people." A little acting, a little honesty, a little understatement. He probably won't dig any deeper.

You step away from the wall, handing him a thin folder. There are literally two sheets in it, one of which is the cover page.

"A more detailed work plan, if you agree. I understand you'll be here for a couple more weeks." He pulls away from the text and looks into your eyes with a mute question. Even though he likes your idea, he's still deeply unconvinced of you himself. You flip to the first page and point your finger to the bottom corner. Right under Dr. Moon's signature.

"Yours?"

"Name, yes."

That's the payoff. A little information about you in exchange for your cooperation. Never mind that he could have gotten your name just by asking the guys who let you into the base a couple months ago. Or even easier, by approaching Dr. Moon directly, she wasn't exactly hiding, all loud and stern and friendly.

But, now that you've told him the name like that, like you're apologizing... He's gonna go along with this project, right?

"How's it gonna go down?"

Oh, yeah, like a sweetheart.

It's not going exactly as expected. You had hoped that, after yesterday's brainstorming session with Dr. Moon, where she criticized you to the hilt, your work wouldn't be questionable for at least some of the required research points. But, you argue while you walk to the shower, argue while he washes, argue through the locker room door.

You're easily obsessed. Work in particular.

And when someone tries to cut your already flawed work list down to two items, you can't stop. All calm goes to hell.

Although, it's worth noting that the Captain's not as hard-headed as you'd expect. It's like he's genuinely interested in getting results.

Why, then, is he trying to take the tool away from you?

You've been sitting in his office for an hour. You've finally gotten the real reason out of him for refusing certain interviews, certain data from the archive, and the amount of time to talk to you.

If you give in to him, you'll be left with two days of interviews, unable to observe his fighters or communicate with them outside of the interview on the officially approved form. Moreover, he's not willing to give you access to official paperwork other than medical records for the last seven years.

And you're not willing to do that. You're not a fortune teller. You can't take information off the top of your head. You're already conceding on your own, unable to verify everyone's word on a polygraph, and unlikely to be able to get videotapes of their interactions over the years within the walls of the base. For all that, you're delineated by geographic boundaries. Both facilities and countries.

And so, you can be lied to, miscommunicated, kept out, overlooked, disregarded, uncooperative, not tolerated for more than two days, and even with all of that....

"What do you mean they won't let you talk?"

"He won't, your max is his medical records. And that, he's cleaning up his information too."

Okay. Minus one. Whoever this Ghost-guy is. It's all the same.

"I need three days for an interview. I'm willing to chase you and your boys all over the place, But I need more time." You watch him scratch his chin. "Tell me who I don't need to approach and..."

"You won't believe this, missy, they're not exactly sociable either. It's easier to name the ones who won't be stressed by your meddling. Two days will be more than enough."

It was starting to smell like shit.

"How many."

"Five."

No yelling. No emotion. He's just probing you. Putting a price on you.

"Okay. Five people then, but a day each."

He whistles. His eyes sparkle like he's watching a lumbering animal. In that shitty uniform of his and his gleeful confidence. Santa fucker on steroids.

"Or, you give me three days and a group of fifteen men."

"What makes you think that..."

"Oh, I roughly understand how this works. You have a core squad and those who are on the backup. You can keep my head, but leave the tails. I need more data." Toward the end of your sentence, you speed up, biting your tongue to keep from saying too much.

"Ten."

"We're not in the bazaar."

The wrinkles in the corners of his eyes smooth out a little.

"And I'm not haggling. Ten fighters. Two days."

Fucker.

"Okay, what about the archives?"

"Nothing. You're not getting them."

"Put a watcher on me! Have someone control what I look at and what I report."

"There's no such person, missy. They're all busy."

"One day. I don't have to eat, I don't have to get out of my seat. Just the paperwork."

"Do you think a watcher can do that too?"

"I thought the military are supermen, sir, aren't they?" You say it so seriously that he's almost ready to start answering the question. Instead, he relaxes again, letting out a chesty chuckle.

"You'll need more days. At least one to organize all that pile of information."

"I'm a child of the internet. It'll all fall into place in my head."

"Still."

Price is looking at it, pricing it. You can hear the hands of the clock on his desk ticking. Your gut feeling is that it's about 9:00 in the morning. Give or take an hour, over your argument you weren't really keeping track of time.

"I'll give you three days. But from five to seven in the morning and maybe in the evening. With a condition."

"All ears."

What does he want? For you to do a backflip?

"You'll be eating in the common room this week."

"That's..."

"It's a prerequisite. If you're working with me, it's not appropriate for you to chase your mentor to carry your own food."

"It's not a matter of business. Don't think I'm going to consider it extra time for data collection. I'm not going to talk to them while they're eating. Suddenly they'll choke and I'll be charged with state treason."

"That's not the point. You want this to work out, don't you? Then don't separate yourself from them. They'll tell you more, and they'll give me less to think about. You come with me after morning at the archives, sit at the same table with us, explain to the guys what this is all about. If they agree to cooperate on their own, I won't interfere."

It sounded reasonable, actually. But you couldn't escape the feeling that he was just bossing you around.

"Coming with you so the other soldiers can smother me with a pillow out of jealousy?"

"I go to training from seven to eight. Suppose I took the little scientist under my mighty wing, eh? Besides, that's the way it is so far."

"Thinking of killing my sleep, then my body, and then my soul while I try to talk to your sharks?"

"I'm considered a worse shark than they are, and you're doing a great job so far."

You clench your fists under the table, bite your cheek, lean back, rub your face, and sigh. The blue of his stupid eyes hover on the back of your eyelids.

"You look like a walrus." You quietly bleat into your palms on your face. He laughs.

#limin #john price #price #captain price #price x reader #gnc women

[smolthealmighty]

Spinaraki Week Round 3 Day 2: Help

Kisses Make the Best of Medicines

Tomura thinks he’s got the flu, but it’s fine because he’s sure he can still fight regardless. Spinner thinks it’s pneumonia so no Shigaraki, you need to lie the hell down. Unrelated fun fact, the list of “strange gecko properties” does not stop at sticking to walls.

~~~~~

“I’m telling you it’s not pneumonia, it’s just a small case of the flu. It’s not like I’m gonna puke blood and die, I’m just playing a little more nerffed than usual until they wear off.”

In spite of Tomura’s affirmations that he was not about to drop dead, Spinner was still trying to grapple him into another coat and tie a makeshift cold compress to his head.

“You’ve been achy and nauseous for two days now, and you’ve been getting chills while I know you already have a high fever!” Spinner protested as he finished tying his river-soaked scarf around Tomura’s forehead, “Can you just stop squirming like an angry toddler and lie down? You’re gonna mess up your lungs even more if you exhaust yourself!”

“It’s December in the woods and I’ve been fighting in 44-hour shifts, of course I’m chilly and achy! And don’t get me started on how I’m just naturally nau-” Tomura exclaimed before breaking out into a coughing fit that sent him sprawling towards the ground. Luckily, Spinner was already close enough to catch him quickly, and Tomura finally gave in and let Spinner help him lie down on the forest floor.

“Look, just because some of my symptoms match both bugs doesn’t automatically mean I have the worser of the two. You’re being more pessimistic than usual.”

“It’s not pessimism its realism!” said Spinner, at this point exasperated beyond belief, “If you do have the worse one than I wanna take it seriously, you’ve got enough odds stacked against you as it is.”

“Oh please, I’ve fought in more garbage conditions before, I can handle this.”

“That doesn’t mean you should damn it!”

Spinner groaned and proceeded to throw himself to the ground next to Tomura, crossing his arms and pouting.

Now who’s acting childish? Tomura thought, but instead said, “Hey, I’ll beat Machia whether I’m sick or not. You don’t gotta worry about us losing or whatever.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. I just… you’ve got enough on your plate with this mission. I wanna help lessen the weight you’re carrying as much as I can. If that means finding medicine or forcing you to give your body some more rest then I’ll do it.”

Tomura turned his head to see that Spinner was worrying his lip and his eyes were just a bit too shiny. If he didn’t do something to lighten the mood soon then he’d have to deal with a crying Spinner, and as far as Tomura was concerned no one wanted a poor, sad, crying Spinner except maybe a sociopath.

“Pfft, aren’t you sweet?” Tomura said, letting his voice be infected with the affection he had for his friend, “Does it mean giving me warm soup and a goodnight kiss on the forehead?”

The feeling of Spinner’s scaly lips on his forehead when he impulsively gave him said kiss confirmed that yes, Spinner really was willing to do whatever it took to help, even if it left the poor guy with a soft yet obvious blush of embarrassment.

“Hmph, I think we should call the doctor about this, just to see if he’ll get you some medicine or something that’ll make the debuffs suck less,” Spinner stated, barely keeping his composure.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Tomura replied, a little more breathless than usual, “but maybe he’ll be able to figure out what I’ve got and prove me right.”

“You wish,” Spinner chuckled. Suddenly he paused and reached out to feel Tomura’s forehead, the scales feeling cool but not unpleasant against his skin.

“Huh, that’s strange. Your fever’s gone down. What’s-”

“Hmm, now that you mention it,” Tomura mused as he sat up, “I don’t feel achy either. This must be the fastest flu I’ve ever had!”

“That can’t be right, you don’t just magically get better from pneumonia without some kind of medi- oh.”

“What’s oh?”

If Tomura had looked flushed from his fever before, than the new blush taking over Spinner’s face made him look like his head was on fire. “Uh well,” Spinner fumbled, “This is kinda stupid and probably isn’t an actual explanation but um… did you know that gecko scales are… um… antibacterial?”

Tomura couldn’t help it, he started giggling like a madman. Unlike the illness, the giggling was apparently contagious and soon had Spinner bursting into laughter alongside his friend. They both continued cackling until the rumblings of Machia called them back into battle.

~

“So, who won?”

Tomura and Spinner stared impatiently at Doctor Ujiko as he finished analyzing the test results.

“Neither of you won,” the doctor said as he turned to face them with a stunned expression on his face, “It wasn’t influenza or pneumonia.”

The answer was met with groans by the pair over what was likely a immature bet that now meant nothing, until Spinner asked, “Well, what was it?”

“An infection of Yersinia pestis, manifested in the pneumonic form,” Ujiko said shakily before composing himself, “Now how did you-”

“Ha, pneumonic! I did win!”

“Ugh fine,” Tomura sighed as he admitted defeat, “You can pick the first game in our marathon once we pulverize the mindless boulder-bitch. Alright if you’ve nothing else then send us back doc, we’re ready.”

Once the two were warped back to the battle zone, Ujiko took off his glasses to rub at his sinuses in a vain attempt to mitigate the oncoming headache.

“Tomura Shigaraki, only you would give zero cares to the fact that you caught the black plague and managed to survive it.”

#spinarakiweek2022 #spinarakiweekround3 #spinaraki #shigaraki tomura #spinner #shuichi iguchi #smol’s stuff #smol's stories

[seafoamswindler]

gross.

#apex legends #crypto #mirage #cryptage #if you tell me you like these skins youre automatically a sociopath #you need to see an eye doctor immediately #i dont make the rules

[iwhumpyou]

Brother (Part 3)

Masterlist. Assassin.

Part 2.

~#~#~#~#~#~

Aliya didn’t know where the rest of Livia’s men were, where Livia was, and she was afraid.  It was a fundamental terror, the instinctual reaction of prey to track the largest predator in the room.

And right now, she didn’t know whether Livia Redford was indeed the biggest predator.  

Aliya shuffled down the warehouse floor, walking down the length of a makeshift corridor formed by towering stacks of boxes.  She could hear periodic gunshots and sometimes screams but other than that, everything was silent.  No one wanted to give away their location.  Not here, not now, not when everything hinged upon this encounter.

Nathan was here.  And like every time Livia was confronted with a piece of her brother, she entirely lost herself and went haring in without a plan or backup.

Of course, Livia was death and ice and beauty on two legs so her haring in looked more like a slow saunter, but the principle of the matter remained.  Livia had lost her temper and her guards and Aliya had lost all of them.

It was why she was stumbling down this corridor with her left hand outstretched and her finger on the trigger of the gun.  Her right arm was still useless, her shoulder still throbbing at the thought of lifting it, and Aliya hated feeling this helpless.

Goddamn assassins and their goddamn family drama.

Aliya silently grumbled to herself as she reached the end of the corridor and paused to take a turn. She swung around the left corner –

And instantly came face to face with the enemy.

Aliya was exhausted and hurt so she could perhaps be forgiven for the second it took her to glance at his clothes and then back up, her left hand raising, but certainly her opponent didn’t feel that way.  He was moving before she even fully realized he was the enemy, his empty hand flashing forward to bury itself in her stomach.

Abruptly, all the air vanished and Aliya hunched over, her fingers tightening on her gun.  Her instinctive reaction was to protect her stomach and her left hand had a gun so she automatically used her right.  It was a mistake.

She cried out as she unthinkingly moved her right arm, presenting her weakness up on a silver platter. The man took immediate advantage – a knife hand hit her shoulder and Aliya didn’t even have time to scream before she sank to the ground.

Three kicks followed and Aliya didn’t have the breath to scream but that didn’t dull the pain.  It was white-hot, stabbing from her shoulder and turning her vision to grey and black and grey again.  She felt like she was going to be sick, pain turning to nausea in her stomach as she struggled to remember how to breathe.

But her opponent wasn’t done.  He hauled her upright by her jacket, Aliya hanging limply from his grasp, before he slammed her back.  Her head cracked against the shelf with a burst that sent stars dancing across her vision and she didn’t have the time to regain her breath or her bearings before a rough hand closed around her throat.

Aliya didn’t remember dropping the gun but her left hand was suddenly there, clawing against the hand choking her with increasingly futile desperation.  Her lungs spasmed and she tried to suck in air past the crushing grip on her throat but it wouldn’t come.

The sound of her dry gulps was undoubtedly the most terrifying thing Aliya had ever heard. Livia Redford’s voice in icy rage was a close second, which was probably why it took a moment for Aliya to realize that it was real.

The grip on her throat loosened enough to let her take a quick gulp of air but not enough to sustain deep breathing and Aliya kept her short, dizzying breaths as she struggled to hear what was going on.

“Let him go,” Livia snarled menacingly.  Aliya kept a weak grip on the hand constricting her throat but her opponent seemed far more interested in the conversation happening a few feet away.  He pulled away from the shelf, his hand still on her throat.  She nearly choked as he dragged her to the end of the corridor, where it opened out into a large hall.

They slipped into the shadows easily enough, his grip tight and soon joined by a knife edge.  Aliya stayed very, very still as she watched the tableau in front of her with fascinated detachment.

I’m going to die was a constant thought in her head but right now, she could see Livia standing in the middle of the warehouse with a gun pointing at the man pointing a gun at her brother.  Nathan Redford was slumped, unconscious, in a chair, a gun at his temple. Aliya could see bloodstains on his clothes and a gigantic bruise blooming over his left eye.

“You can shoot him before I shoot you,” Livia said, her tone almost reasonable if you couldn’t see her eyes sparkling with hatred, “But you have no backup and I will ensure you live out the rest of your days in unbearable agony, begging me for the mercy of death.”  She paused. “A mercy I will not give.”

“That doesn’t much entice me to let him go,” the man said in the same, cool tone.  “And who said I don’t have backup?”

Aliya’s captor pushed her forward, into the light, and she nearly stumbled onto the knife.  “Another hostage as well,” the man said as Livia’s gaze flicked to her.  Was it just Aliya’s imagination, or did they widen a fraction on seeing her?  “So now it looks like you’re outnumbered.  Are you so willing to watch your lover and your brother die?” 

Aliya wasn’t operating at full capacity, so it took her a minute to realize that ‘lover’ was supposed to refer to her.  When it hit her, she started laughing – more wheezes than actual laughs, but she couldn’t stop.  The knife was cutting into her skin and she could feel a drop of blood sliding down her neck but it was just too funny.

Livia’s lover? Her?  Aliya’s chuckles petered off into empty air as exhaustion weighed on her. She was going to die, she knew that. The man was staring at her with a look of faint surprise and Livia had long since turned her gaze back to her brother.

Of course she would. What was a sort-of enemy against your own blood?  Aliya should have been thankful that Livia hadn’t tortured her to death.  When she compared it to that, a quick death via a slashed throat was a much better way to go.

“Kill me then,” Aliya said hoarsely, “Because my life is worth less than dirt to her.”

The man stared at her, clearly discomfited, and his hand – the one on the gun – wavered.  It was clearly the opportunity that Livia had been waiting for.

The man was falling before Aliya heard the shot.

Her captor faltered and the iron grip at her neck receded.  Aliya thought she might be able to fight free, but the knife that had dropped from her neck returned with a vengeance.

Aliya screamed as he twisted the knife into her abused shoulder.

The fire-hot agony was the only thing she could feel.  It tore her apart, searing all rational thought from her mind as her shoulder sank in wave after wave of pain.  She scrabbled at the wound, unable to tell if her left hand was working, unable to tell up from down, and unable to hear anything past the screaming in her ears. 

Or was it in her head?

The torment swelled as the knife turned a quarter inside the wound, sending blood to drip down her shoulder as it scraped against muscle and nerve and bone.  Aliya could hear the faintest murmur of a conversation but it was drowned out by the most awful sound in the world.  It was a wail that could’ve rent tears from stone, half-sobbing, half-screaming and it resonated in every cell in her body.

Aliya realized it was hers seconds before another gunshot rang out.

~#~

Sanity came back to her in pieces.  The cold concrete pressing into her left cheek.  The strain in her thighs from her hunched posture.  The rasp of breath from her sore throat.  

The screaming was still there, still wailing in the back of her head, but it wasn’t real.  It wasn’t real.

What was real was the blinding agony in her right shoulder.  What was real was the sudden, dead silence all around her.

Aliya used her good hand to push herself off the floor.  It was cold – someone must’ve opened a door somewhere because icy wind was drifting past her.  Her shoulder, throbbing with fire, felt like a thousand suns in comparison, the contrast jarring and painful.

She rocked back on her heels, only to stumble as she met resistance.  Turning carefully, Aliya saw a sprawled form.  She swallowed, the movement catching against her dry throat. She could see the red.  She knew what it meant.

Aliya turned away from the dead body and scanned the rest of the room.  The chair in the middle of the room was empty, ropes hanging limp. There was another sprawled figure there, another pool of red.

No one else was in the room.

Aliya refused to categorize the feeling welling up as hurt. Livia Redford was a sociopathic assassin who cared for money more than she cared for people.  The most precious thing in the world to her was her little brother.  Obviously she’d take him and leave and not bother with the enemy she’d dragged along for the fight.

Aliya glanced back at her captor.  Livia had made good on her promise not to let her drown – she had killed the man before she left, which was the most help Aliya could’ve expected.

So why did she feel so upset?

She took a deep breath and pushed herself up.  Her knees wavered for a moment but they held and Aliya let out a sharp breath.  She hadn’t wanted to topple onto a cooling corpse.

Every step sent minute vibrations up her body, centering on her injured shoulder like it was a magnet. She tried to creep forward, tip-toeing, but movement jarred the injury, no matter how minute.  Aliya almost preferred the dislocated shoulder.

She didn’t want to look at it.  She didn’t want to see whether the knife was still sticking out of it like a big red button waiting to be pushed.  She could feel it, the tightness of skin stretching across the cold blade and the way it pushed against her muscles, causing pinpricks of pain.

Aliya trekked back the way she’d come, pausing every few feet to lean against the nearest shelf and press her forehead to the cool metal.  Her feet took step after step without any input from her, an automatic track that they would follow until they literally crumpled beneath her.  She could already feel them shaking.

Silence was everywhere and even the pain in her wound had begun to dull, losing feeling as the numbness crept up her limbs.  She reached the door and her left hand reached out and turned the knob.  Aliya stared at it, detached from her own arm as she stumbled over the threshold. 

A small part of her noted that she was in shock.  The larger part of her was simply too tired to care.

The cold wind outside hit her like a slap to the face and feeling returned, creeping back warily. Aliya’s breath misted in front of her face, forming small white clouds that dispersed on her cheeks as she walked into them.

Her cheeks were cold. Aliya raised an absent hand to warm them and blinked when they came away wet, her tears freezing on her hand even as she stared at it.  That was probably a bad sign.

There was a roaring somewhere and Aliya kept walking, the winds pressing deeper and deeper, chilling every part of her until Aliya was absently wondering if you could survive with a frozen heart.  Then she saw the headlights, blinding her eyes as they crested over the hill.

A car.  Aliya’s thought processes were sluggish but she patiently muddled down them.  A car meant…meant other people.  Meant phones. Meant warmth.

Meant help.

Of course, by the time Aliya had figured this out, the car had passed in a roar and she sighed, expecting to hear the engine fade away as she morosely thought about waiting for the next car.  If there even was a next car on this mountain road.

There was a sudden screech that jerked Aliya out of her thoughts and she froze, her heart hammering, as rubber squealed on tar.  The engine grew louder and the car that had passed her pulled to a smooth stop a few feet in front of her.

Aliya thought about Nathan Redford.  She thought about how a gang who had managed to kidnap an assassin’s little brother must’ve had help.  Backup. She thought about their motives, how far they were willing to go to hurt Livia Redford, and their mistaken belief in Aliya’s designation.

She tried not to whimper.

The back door swung open and a figure stepped out, a black silhouette against the starry night sky. Aliya didn’t even realize she was falling until her knees landed hard on the asphalt, the jarring vibrations shooting up to jostle her shoulder.

She cried out, or at least she thought she did.  There were arms around her, a careful warmth blanketing her, and something soft pillowing her face.

Aliya stayed where she was, kept the careful tension in her muscles, and breathed, slow and deep, into Livia Redford’s jacket.

“I was under the impression that you would wait,” Livia’s voice said near her ear.  The sound was enough to make Aliya want to jerk back, away from the murderer, but she knew she didn’t have enough energy to fight off Livia’s careful but firm grip. 

“Why?” Aliya dredged up from a throat sore from screaming and dry from thirst.

“Because I told you to?” Livia asked, sounding bemused.

Aliya wanted to point out that she didn’t take orders from psychopaths, thank you very much, but instead she said, “Was this before or after someone drove a knife into my shoulder?”

Livia hummed, “After.” Aliya stayed silent and glowered at Livia’s jacket collar.

“As much as you clinging to me is fun, we should probably get in the car before you freeze to death,” Livia said, shifting so that her arms were curled around Aliya’s elbows, supporting her rather than holding her.

There were several things Aliya wished to say in response, most of them unkind, but she rose up on wobbly legs, immeasurably thankful that Livia’s grip on her right elbow remained a soft touch and not a drag.  She didn’t have the energy to go into it with the assassin, not now, not when even the asphalt looked inviting.

Livia herded her towards the car with gentle movements and Aliya reclined against the leather with a soft moan, careful to keep her injured shoulder away from the seat.  Her eyes closed automatically as heat blasted from the vents.  She felt Livia slide in next to her and heard a low murmured conversation before the car smoothly slid into drive. 

She almost felt like she was dreaming.  She wanted to ask Livia why she’d come back, why she’d help her but the words floated around in her head.  She didn’t have the energy to say them out loud.  Hell, the thought of talking with her much-abused throat made her wince.

The rest of the ride was silent and Aliya only noticed that they’d arrived at their destination when the engine stopped.  She started at the sudden lack of sound and turned in time to catch the edge of Livia’s amused smile.

Livia got out first, leaving the door wide open.  Aliya narrowed her eyes on it.  She wanted to take the other door, just to be childish, but it was on her right.  Aliya snorted and scooted towards the open door. 

Aliya didn’t know what happened.  She didn’t know whether she stood up a little too fast, or whether she had underestimated the distance from the car to the ground, or whether the door hadn’t been open as wide as she thought, but when Aliya got out of the car, her right shoulder banged the edge of the car frame.

Aliya crumpled immediately, the pain short-circuiting any rational thoughts left.  The dimming pain rose into a crescendo, fueled by the sudden jostling, and the only thing that stopped Aliya’s swift reintroduction with the floor was the sharp jerk of hands fisting in her coat. 

Of course, the sudden stop jerked her shoulder even more and Aliya let out an aborted scream as the material tugged at the knife still embedded in her shoulder.

She felt the hard frame of the car beneath her and two hands holding her down.  When she opened her eyes, her gaze was blurry but the voice that was whispering into her ear was very familiar.  “Shh,” Livia said, a cold finger brushing down her cheek, “Shh, sweetheart, it’s okay.”  Aliya tried hard not to whimper but the pain was too much. 

There was a sudden jerk of the knife in her shoulder and Aliya screamed.

“It’s okay.”

The darkness swelled and crashed over and she knew nothing.

~#~

Part 4.

#whump #whumpfic #assassin #arc: brother #dislocated shoulder #knife wound #cold #enemy as caretaker

[kuriquinn]

How They Met [AU]

Disclaimer

Pairing: Itachi/Shisui

Summary:  The man in the waiting area is watching him, and Itachi pointedly meets his gaze. He expects the stranger to look away, embarrassed at having been caught staring, but instead, the man smiles at him, crooked and warm and only a bit apologetic.

Author’s Note: I’ve had this idea for a while and just never got around to writing it. Takes place in the Babysitter’s universe. Which I never intended to become a universe, but it took on a life of its own. Oops. (sorrynotsorry!) Anyway, it’s sort of a prequel.

Dedication: This is dedicated to @birkastan2018, whose barrage of Itachi and Shisui posts the past month or so started making me feel nostalgic. And since I haven’t been in the position to write lately, I want to give a big thank you for prompting me to produce something for the first time in a while. Thanks, luv!

Beta: None. This was basically a writing exercise and I just randomly decided to share it, so not edited. I’ll get to it. Eventually

Itachi slides into his desk late on a Tuesday morning, concentrating all his self-control on not bounding across the precinct and drowning himself in a pot of coffee. The precinct is alive with its usual controlled chaos, his fellow officers working at their desks or heading to their various patrol routes.

People normally crowd the waiting area near Itachi’s desk, but this morning there’s only one man. Tall and muscular, wearing a suit like he’d rather be wearing jeans, and reading an actual book instead of his mobile phone.

Itachi tries to think of the last time he saw that, but his partner Hoshigaki Kisame’s interrupts his musing.

“You look like shit,” he pronounces bluntly.

“Lack of sleep will do that,” he replies, returning his attention to where his partner leans against his desk.

Kisame’s pale eyes narrow, a gesture which unnerves most people who don’t know him; Itachi, though, detects concern behind it. The other man doesn’t remark on it, though. Itachi’s had more sleepless nights than just last night in the past six months—all for the same reason. Instead of asking him a useless question about it, however, the other man simply nods at Itachi’s hands.

“What’s with the nails?”

He blinks, gaze flitting to the glossy purple polish and back, before saying, “Solidarity.”

“What now?”

“Sarada painted Itaru’s nails this weekend,” Itachi explains, rubbing the palm of his hands against his eyes until he sees starbursts. Maybe it will wake him up. “Yesterday he came home from school upset because the other children made fun of him for it. It was important to show him it was perfectly alright for men to wear nail polish.”

Kisame appears bemused.

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

Itachi tenses.

“Izumi…” he begins, pausing for a breath against the automatic pain of saying her name. It’s a beat before he can continue, “Izumi and I have always encouraged Itaru to be himself and not fold to the pressure of others. It never did either of us any good, and if you have a problem with this—” Itachi brandishes his fingers warningly, “—you can take your opinion and—”

“Whoa, there, mother hen, calm down,” Kisame interrupts, mouth twitching in something like amusement. “I could not care less how you or your kid let your freak flags fly. You could show up here tomorrow in a skirt and heels and it wouldn’t make you any less terrifying.”

Itachi purses his lips, feeling his metaphorical hackles relax.

Ever since Izumi died, Itachi’s normally calm and unruffled manner has shifted into a kind of obsessive protectiveness. He hasn’t felt the like since Sasuke was a child. Itachi relaxed more about that as his brother grew older, and later when he met Sakura—who is a terrifying force in her own right. Itachi is confident she would kill a man for looking at her husband the wrong way.

But since losing Izumi, Itachi’s protectiveness over Itaru has become almost superfluous. More troubling is the fact that his formerly independent son has become reliant on it, almost reluctant to stray too far outside his comfort zone. Itachi wonders how much of that is a fear of losing another parent.

“I just meant, kids his age are little sociopaths,” his partner continues with a shrug. “They pounce on anything that’s different. Hell, I spent my childhood being made fun of because my skin was a different colour. Outright telling him to stand out won’t make his life very easy.”

“Life is rarely easy,” Itachi replies in a flat tone. “He already knows that.”

Kisame inclines his head at that, knowing what Itachi is referring to.

Izumi’s death is still all-too recent for both Itachi and his son. The past six months have been a dragging, empty struggle to figure out how to continue on with only each other. Izumi was so bright and lively in contrast to Itachi and Itaru’s quiet nature; she bound them together with her bright smiles and affection and warmth.

This past weekend while he babysat his niece, it was the first time he saw his son smile since Izumi’s death.

Izumi’s smile.

It must be protected at all costs.

“I don’t remember children being so mean,” Itachi murmurs, tiredly running a hand through his long hair.

“To be fair, do you even remember any other kids from school? The way your brother tells it, you were kind of off in your own little genius world. Not exactly tuned in to lesser mortals.”

“Since when do you believe anything my brother says?”

“Since what he’s saying fits with what I know of you,” Kisame retorts, and stands. “I’m going to grab some coffee. You look dead on your feet, and the Captain wants to see us a nine. Can’t have you passing out on me, making me look bad…”

“Of course not,” Itachi agrees.

He doesn’t thank Kisame or make any acknowledgement of the idea his partner worries about him. That would upset their dynamic. Instead, he settles back at his desk and taps his computer keyboard, preparing to log in.

Barely a minute later, he senses eyes on him, and pauses to look up.

The man in the waiting area is watching him, and Itachi pointedly meets his gaze. He expects the stranger to lower his eyes, embarrassed at being caught staring, but instead, the man smiles at him, crooked and warm and only somewhat apologetic.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help overhear your conversation,” he says, and Itachi detects a hint of an accent; not quite American, but close. “What you did for your kid, with the nail polish? It’s kind of awesome. I wish my father had done something like that for me. Maybe if he had, I’d still have been talking to him before he died.”

Itachi is not entirely sure how to respond to that.

He’s not used to people randomly starting a conversation with him; in fact, most people actively avoid it. Kisame says it’s because he has a ‘resting bitch face’, whatever that is. It usually discourages people from approaching him, but this stranger doesn’t seem at all perturbed.

Itachi studies him a little more.

Out of habit he looks at hands and hips first for signs of a weapon, noting calloused knuckles. This guy is someone who’s no stranger to fights, but there are no corresponding misshapen or badly healed facial bones—so someone who wins fights. The only thing that suggests a past injury is a scar just near his hairline, which causes the hair to grow out in a strand of white. The rest of his hair is thick and wavy and looks as if it resists any and all attempts to put it in place.

But the most arresting thing about him is his eyes.

They’re dark and warm, black but with flecks of brown that remind him of coal that could burst into flame at any moment. For some reason, Itachi’s cheeks warm just looking into them.

To cover his discomfort, he stands and approaches the man.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I am Uchiha Itachi.”

“Golden boy of the precinct,” the man agrees with a smile. “I’ve heard of you. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Kagami Shisui.”

He holds his hand out, then suddenly looks embarrassed, and pulls back, dipping into a polite bow. Itachi echoes this and then considers him.

“Are you American, Kagami-san?”

“Call me Shisui,” he says instantly, and there’s a flash in his eyes there, like a long-buried wound. Itachi remains carefully blank-faced at the casual nature of the invitation on such a brief acquaintance. “And your guess isn’t that far off. Canadian—I’m from Vancouver, but I spent a good half of my life here visiting my grandparents.”

It also doesn’t escape Itachi’s notice the man hasn’t explained his reason for being here at the precinct.

“I see,” he says after a moment, and holds out a hand, the way non-Japanese greet one another. He’s not sure what prompts him to do it, but he switches to English. “In that case, perhaps this is the more preferable greeting.”

Shisui laughs—low and rich—and replies in the same language, “Much obliged.”

Strong fingers close around Itachi’s, and he expects a short, perfunctory handshake and for them to separate. But almost from the moment their skin touches, it’s as if a current of electricity surges through Itachi’s body. The hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention and something in his stomach lurches.

His eyes flick from Shisui’s face to their joined hands and back again, and Shisui’s eyes reflect his surprise back to him. That surprise turns into something else, something considering, which makes the man’s warm eyes almost smoulder now, and Itachi’s cheeks fill with more uncharacteristic heat.

What is going on?

“Uchiha! Kagami!”

Both men jump, releasing their hold on each other, and glance up as Uchiha Obito—Itachi’s cousin and the captain of the precinct—strides forward with Kisame in his wake.

“Good. You two have met. It saves me time.” He gestures at Shisui. “Kagami’s an agent for CSIS.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Itachi mentally translates and frowns at the newcomer, who looks sheepish.

“I was getting to that,” he murmurs under his breath, almost in an aside to Itachi.

“He will be working with you two on the serial kidnapping case,” Obito continues.

“You mean he’ll be sitting back while we do all the work and collect all the evidence, then close the case and take the credit himself,” Kisame points out.

Never one to beat around the bush, he’s glaring at the man with undisguised distrust.

Shisui makes a pacifying gesture.

“I’m just here to assist the investigation and share resources. It doesn’t matter who closes this case, as long as it happens.”

“Bullshit. I’ve heard of you, Kagami,” Kisame replies. Itachi tilts his head to one side, both surprised and not; his partner has been in the business longer than him. “They brought you in on the domestic terrorism case that the Anbu precinct got embroiled in five years ago. Shushin no Shisui, they call you. You show up on matters that interest you and then disappear like you were never there. Usually, leaving behind the prime suspect in an investigation dead and of no use to us.”

Something changes in Shisui’s face; his smile now is cold and dangerous.

“All the documentation related to those cases has been meticulously catalogued and shows no unnecessary force or action was taken,” he replies smoothly. “In fact, I could even make an argument that all of those instances were for people who would never have seen the inside of a courtroom. Their fates were…fortuitous even.”

A loaded silence follows that.

This man is dangerous.

Itachi isn’t known for being intimidated or feeling threatened by others, but his heartbeat suddenly picks up and he finds himself inexplicably breathless. Shisui meets his gaze, an unreadable glint in his eyes, and somehow, it feels like something between them just clicks.

Not wanting to dwell on whatever it is, though, Itachi quickly gets back on topic.

“So, your involvement in this investigation suggests our primary suspect is more than just a serial kidnapper.”

Shisui considers him for a moment, as if evaluating how honest he intends to be about his intentions regarding the investigation, and then gives a grim smile.

“Have you ever heard of Yakushi Kabuto?”

Both Kisame and Itachi tense in surprise.

“He was in the news a few years back,” Obito says. “We don’t hear much from Canada regarding violent crimes that become international sensations. I think the last big one was the Pickton case in 2002.”

“This one’s right up there,” Shisui says seriously. “Yakushi was born in Tochigi, but both parents died in an accident. He was put in the system, ended up being adopted by a Canadian couple—Shin and Nono Yakushi, and led a pretty good life in Vancouver. He was a genius, consistently amazing marks throughout his career, skipped two grades and was on track to enter medical school at sixteen.”

“Until it was discovered he had kidnapped several boys in the area and performed terrible experiments on them,” Itachi says, remembering the case. “Afterward, he dismembered their bodies and disposed of them in the sea.”

“And he gave you guys the slip before you could catch him,” Kisame adds. “You never found him again. That was over ten years ago.”

“He’s still on our Most Wanted list,” Shisui agrees. “We’re confident he spent most of that time up in the northern communities. But recent intel suggests he’s made it over here. A few of your kidnapping cases in the past year too closely resemble the MO for his previous victims.”

“You think he’s starting up again here,” Itachi realises.

“Yes. Between this precinct and two others, we suspect he’s operating around the Chiyoda area. I’ve been tasked with tracking this bastard down and stopping him.”

Itachi’s entire body has gone still at these words.

Chiyoda is where Itaru and Sarada attend school.

That irrational surge of violent protectiveness flares up once more, and he meets Shisui’s gaze.

“If this is the case, we welcome your help in locating this individual,” he says quietly, ignoring the grunt of surprise and irritation from his partner. “Such a monster needs to be taken off our streets immediately.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Obito says with a wintry smile. “I take it this little collaboration won’t be a problem then.”

Kisame forces a smile, one with too many teeth, his eyes remaining cold and suspicious on Shisui.

“Of course not.”

Obito nods.

“Then get to it. I want this solved as soon as possible. And Kisame—come back to my office. We need to have a conversation about how not to greet international guests.”

Kisame rolls his eyes behind his back but follows the captain; not before shooting Itachi a glare that promises words later about how quick he was to welcome Shisui onto their case.

The latter watches them both go and then turns back to Itachi. His amiable smile is back as he meets Itachi’s gaze.

“Looking forward to working with you, Detective.”

“Yes, me too,” Itachi replies, and unsure why his voice comes out in a lower murmur than he intended.

“Also, you look like you could use a cup of coffee. I found a shop two blocks away that serves much better than the sludge here. We could discuss the cases—catch each other up on what both our offices have been doing?”

Itachi’s having trouble catching his breath and doesn’t know why.

“That…would be a good idea,” he says cautiously.

Somehow, Shisui’s smile becomes wider in genuine delight.

“Excellent! I’ll let Captain Uchiha know I’m kidnapping you and meet you out front in five minutes.”

“Perhaps don’t use that particular phrasing, considering the nature of our investigation,” Itachi says faintly.

Shisui laughs, and Itachi shifts in confused discomfort at the warmth that suddenly spreads across his entire body.

“You may have a point there.” He turns away, and then pauses, nodding at Itachi’s hands. “By the way…purple is definitely your colour.”

This time, there’s no denying the flustered blush that overtakes Itachi’s cheeks.

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

And thus...the meet-cute of our favourite Sarada uncles. 

I don’t know if I’ll continue this, simply because writing a case-fic story involves a lot of planning for things to make sense. Either way, I wrote this so it could be all open-ended on its own.

Thanks for reading!

栗

#itachi/shisui #itashisu #itachi uchiha #fanfiction #shisui uchiha #slash #m/m #references to past itaizu #references to sasusaku #it's bi pride month #so here's bisexual itachi #naruto fanfiction #real world au

[main-to-card-games-and-pain]

IronDad Bingo 4: Drowning

Evidently Tumblr hates me an DELETED ALL THE CONTENT OF THIS POST. So, just to recap for those who didn’t get to see it, Captivity is my last for this row, and then I need to start a new row. So, if you have a row you would like to see, pls tell me. :D DO NOT TAG AS STARKER.

The room was dark and cold, and the air was sticky and thick. The only source of light was an  eerie glow of the two tanks in the middle of the camber, which were connected to a jungle of wires and machinery. The room was silent. 

Until the person in the tank woke up. Well, one of them. 

There were two, both confined to a separate tank. 

The older of the two woke up first, taking in the cold metal pressing against him, the confining space, the handcuffs attaching him to the ground, his drugged mind struggling to comprehend his situation. But then Tony Stark saw Peter Parker in the same predicament and the fog cleared. 

“Kid!” The inventor hoped desperately that this was some kind of dream. He tugged uselessly on the handcuffs, which held true. He checked his wrist, the watch predictably removed. He was trapped. “Kid, wake up!” 

Teenage eyes blinked blearily back at Tony, confusion evident there. “Mr.Stark,” he mumbled, his heading cocking upwards like a questioning puppy, “where are we?”

“I don’t know Bud, but we’ll figure it out. We’ll get out.” 

Peter scooted so he was at least sitting up and not sprawled against the bottom of the tank. He tested his handcuffs too, Tony foolishly hoped that their captors wouldn’t know about his super strength, but to no avail. 

“Mr.Stark?” 

“Yes, Pete?” 

“I don’t like small spaces.”

Oh shit. 

“I know kid, how you doing with that one?” 

“I’m okay…” Tony could sense the lie in the child’s voice, how it quavered and questioned its own words. Peter was scared. 

“Just take some deep breaths for me, we’ll be out of here in no time.” 

The one solace Tony had in this ordeal was that he could see Peter. His wrists were chained so that he almost was forced to look at the teen. 

“Where’s ‘here’?” Peter’s curls waved back and fourth as he took in his surroundings. Doe-eyes found Tony’s again and relaxed against the glass of the tank, despite the uncomfortable way it seemed to pull against his shoulders. 

“I’m not sure, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” 

“That you will Mr.Stark.” 

The staticky voice made both mentor and mentee jump, blasting into their tanks from an external speaker, malicious and cunning. Tony’s fists clenched with the want to grab Peter. 

“So I’m assuming you’re the one responsible for our little predicament then?” Tony spoke before Peter had the chance to. They were both looking up, trying to find whatever camera was recording their movements. 

“I am, yes. Do you like it?”  It was a male voice, he sounded absolutely delighted at their situation. Tony knew then that this wasn’t about money or tech. 

“I’d like it a lot more if the kid and I were on the outside.” 

“That is, unfortunately, impossible right now.” 

Peter shuddered, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but he knew it was bad. 

“I want to play a game, Mr.Stark.” Tony resisted the urge to growl at the name, only Peter was really allowed to call him that. 

“If you’re going to try and be the villain, at least make up your own quirk Jigsaw.” 

“I assure you, this will not disappoint.” Tony glanced at the kid, whose eyes were wide and alert, his muscles taut. It didn’t bode well. “Above you, you will notice three buttons on both of your chambers. In a few moments both your tanks will begin to fill with water.” Tony’s whole body tensed with alarm. 

“The green button will make your tank fill faster. The blue will make your counterpart’s fill faster. The red will stop your counterpart’s tank from filling. Once one is pushed it cannot be overridden by the opposite tank. Once one tank fills completely the other will automatically release after two minutes. Escape your cuffs and you can make the choice of who lives and who dies, don’t and you both die together.” 

The speaker crackled once more and the voice disappeared. 

“No! We aren’t doing this, you sick son of a-”

The water turned on. 

Tony had never felt such panic. Instantly, he was up, looking for a way to escape his handcuffs. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Peter doing the same. He knew what Peter would do, which is why he needed to get out of his cuffs faster. He was not going to watch his kid die. 

The water wasn’t too fast, steadily filling the tank without rushing in. 

Tony’s fingers desperately tore at everything and anything, looking for a pin he could use to unlock the handcuffs. If this guy was the kind of sociopath Tony pegged him for then he wouldn’t give them an impossible task. 

Peter was taking a different approach, sure, the guy knew about his super strength, but that didn’t mean he fool-proofed the entire entrapment against him. The glass, reinforced. The cuffs, reinforced. The metal he was attached to? Steel. He could work with steel.  

The teenager drew his leg back and kicked at the loop of steel, and then did it again, and again, and again. And eventually, the metal began to bend. There was a metallic screech as the steel gave away, allowing Peter to slip his wrists away from the tether. 

Tony heard it too, his head snapped up with fearful eyes. 

Peter scrambled up, his eyes meeting his mentor’s terrified gaze. Tony could see the intent there. Peter broke the stare by tilting his head upwards and finding the glowing buttons.

“No! Peter, no! Look at me, look at me Pete,” Tony begged, frantically jerking at his cuffs. “Look at me Buddy.” The teen hesitantly turned away from his task and glanced backwards. “Don’t do this, you know what I want and this isn’t it.” 

The water was to Peter’s knees now, creeping up Tony’s chest as he kneeled. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, before he began to crawl upwards against the glass. 

“No! Peter! Stop!” The inventor renewed his struggles, though it had basically deteriorated into desperate floundering. The water around his handcuffs began to turn red from the bleeding in his wrists. He didn’t care. “Fuck!” 

Tony couldn’t live in a world without Peter Parker. He wouldn’t be able to live if he had to watch the kid die. 

He dove into the water, his chest inadvertently hitting his bound wrists. The handcuffs clicked open. 

Magnets. He’s such an idiot, the cuffs are powered by magnets. 

But he didn’t have time to dwell on that, not when Peter is too close to- 

The water stopped filling his tank. Tony scrambled to stand up. 

“Peter, please! I can’t do this without you, kid. You’re my world.” 

“The world needs Iron Man, and I need you to survive.” Peter looked up from his place on the top of the tank, he looked scared but accepting of his fate, his eyes shone with the love he had in him. “I love you Mr.Stark.”

“Kid, kid, please, the world needs you more than me. I lived my life, I’m old, don’t do this.” A sob ripped it’s way from Tony’s throat, guttural and raw. He urged Peter to save himself, “Please, push the blue one kid.” 

Peter didn’t want to see Mr.Stark cry, and he didn’t want Mr.Stark to see him cry, so he turned away. He pressed the green button, his harbinger of death. Mr.Stark was screaming behind him, he couldn’t block out the noise of his cries. 

Tony slammed his fists against the glass, Peter hadn’t been able to break it, but he still tried. 

The tank began to fill up with water at three times the speed it had been before. The water rose steadily from three new pumps, at a much higher pressure. When Peter lowered himself back to the bottom of the tank, he could hardly touch. 

“Peter,” Mr.Stark cried. Wisps of blood streamed from his wrists and knuckles. 

The water rose past Peter’s mouth, an effective gag. The boy instead opted to put his hand flat against the glass, meeting the man’s gaze steadily. I’m okay, this is okay. 

Peter could swim, and he could float, but neither were quite so effective with his hands still being handcuffed together. 

He spasmed, legs kicking out uselessly against the water. 

“No, no! Please I can’t do this, I can’t watch him die,” Tony sobbed, begging God or their captor, or whoever was out there to save him. “I love him, please, you can’t take him away.” 

Peter fought against the water, but it was no use. He couldn’t gain any traction in the small space of the tank. He saw through blurred eyes Mr.Stark attacking the glass, his tears. Peter realized that watching Peter uselessly try and survive was probably more painful to the inventor than it had to be. So, despite the burn in his lungs, desperate for air, and the panic in his chest, the teenager relaxed. 

A stream of bubbles tickled his nose, and the hero fought no more. 

It was a strange sort of peace that took over him then, like he was breathing water but that didn’t really matter anymore. Nothing mattered, except these next few seconds of peace with Tony. He hoped Tony would be okay. 

Peter Parker lost consciousness. 

For Tony, there was no fate worse than this. 

When Rhodey found them, hours later, he felt his heart shudder to a stop at the sight. The room was covered in shattered glass and sodden with water. Tony Stark, sat with his back to the door, as if he didn’t care what came for him. In his arms, his protege, his son, cradled close to the reactor. 

Tony was bleeding from everywhere, little gashes littering his skin. He was rocking back and fourth. 

“Tony… what happened…?” The inventor flinched at his voice, rough from the lump in the colonel’s throat. 

“I got him out. I got him out. Why didn’t he wake up if I got him out? I promised we’d get out.” 

#iron dad #fanfiction #writing #tw; drowning #whump #angst #tony stark #peter parker #hurt peter parker #not starker #iron dad fanfiction #drowning #irondadbingo

[bitch4vanya]

Indestructible  (Klaus x Reader x Vanya)

Ep 3. Extra Ordinary

Warning: Mention of drugs (cocaine/weed are abused in this series), Swearing, Pretty gay, Female POV but can be easily changed if needed, SPOILERS, it follows the same story line as the show so there’s a ton, gore

Word Count: 1.6k+

//

You and Vanya had broken up a year before when you saw her book in the stores. The jolt in your heart was extreme and left you shocked in the middle of the sidewalk for a second. Obviously you rushed in and bought it and started reading immediately on your walk to the record store.

Disappointingly, there was absolutely nothing about you.

//

After seeing the video of Reginald's death, you were unfazed. It was totally obvious that he’d killed himself. And you thought that that was the general consensus so you, admittedly, spaced out. Switching between Vanya, who was listening intently, and Klaus, half paying attention. How you managed to have feelings for a quarter of the academy was… If anything inconvenient. Your attention was drawn back, however, when Grace was brought up.

“Well if her hardware's degrading then- we need to turn her off.” Luther stated, making your jaw drop from your position next to a pillar by Hargreeves’ bar.

“Whoa whoa whoa, wait she’s not just a vacuum cleaner you can throw in a closet she feels things, I've seen it!”

“She just stood there, Diego, and watched our father die!”

“I’m with Luther,” Allison butted in. Making you roll your eyes as Klaus passed you to lean against the pillar next to you. You both exchanged a look of exasperation.

“Surprise surprise.” Diego mocked.

“Shut up,” Allison sneered. All eyes were on Vanya as she stumbled over her words for a second.

“Yeah she shouldn’t get a vote.”

“Alright well,” You were about to defend her when she finally spoke up.

“I was gonna say that I agree with you.”

“Okay, she gets a vote.” Diego smirks, “What about you stoner boy, whatta you got?”

“Oh, so what? You need my help now-well get outta the van Klaus, well welcome back to the van,” He answered, mocking Luther, making you snicker, which naturally filled him with a sense of accomplishment and made his heart flutter.

“What van?” Allison asked.

“What’s it gonna be, Klaus.” Luther changed the subject.

“I’m with Diego because screw you! And if Ben were here, he’d agree with me.” He hissed at the space next to you, making you giggle, assuming Ben’s presence. Diego pointed at you, happy with his majority of votes.

“No, no. She actually doesn’t get a vote.” Luther growled, making you gasp, Diego brushed him off encouraging your vote.

“So she’s losing her mind, I lost mine ages ago.” You say shrugging, making Diego pump a fist in the air.

“So whats that four to two.” Diego smirked holding the ratio on his fingers.

“It’s not final yet.” Allison pushed.

“What?”

“Five’s not here.” Klaus sighed, patting your shoulder before exiting. You followed but parted ways to see your old room.

Sadly it wasn’t much better than your current home. Small and cramped. But posters lined every inch of the previously bare and boring walls. And the small bits that couldn't be covered had been painted with the nail polish that had been such a connecting force for you and the siblings. Whether it was bonding with Allison, joking around with Klaus and Ben, or getting to know Vanya.

You two had such a strong connection. She was warm and sweet and vulnerable and beautiful. You wished she knew that. You had your first kiss in that room. With her, when you two were sixteen. She left months later, leaving you to chase after her.

You brushed your suddenly teary eyes, holding a light blue bottle in your hands, remembering her favorite color. You closed the door behind you and placed the bottle back in the basket under your bed. You turned and take a look at yourself in the mirror that was lazily leaning against the dresser and the wall. It had fallen once during an... incident. And you never bothered to put it back up. You looked different, so different from your once open and bubbly self.

You brushed some hair behind your ear and went through some of your old books, it had been years since you’d been there and weirdly it wasn’t full of awful memories like everywhere else in the house.

Gun shots from upstairs take your mind off the books immediately. You ran, automatically searching for Vanya seeing as she was basically helpless against anything dangerous. You rush the living room where you see a man with a blue bear mask corner her.

A bubbling rage soars through your veins and you shake your head desperately trying to get control. You step in front of her eyes glowing yellow. The man steps back, shocked at your agility and appearance. You turn to Vanya and your nerves calmed, as they always did when you looked at her. You shook your head again and your eyes returned to their natural color.

“Run, hide, tell Klaus if you see him.” You whisper, she nods and you pounce on the prick the moment she turn the corner. You take his gun and completely tear it to shreds as you blank into your enraged form.

When you settle down the masked intruder is long gone and exhaustion over took you. You pulled yourself together and raced into the hallway to search for him. He meets you there and slams a heave spiked morning star into your lower half. Your intestines revolt against the metal and you crouch to the floor as wave after wave of pain sears through you.

“God, that hurts like a bitch, man,” You groan removing and swaying the bloody weapon back to him. You stand, to his shock and from the holes in your shirts he sees your organs heal and the muscles and skin tissue recombine in your abdomen Your eyes glow again and a shot rings out as you collapse back on the ground. Blood streaming from your forehead.

//

You were fifteen and had been at the academy for a couple of days, getting used to the swing of things. All you knew it that you were part of the 43. At fourteen you had been hit by a bus when riding your bike in the busy streets of New York. Your mother's heart was shattered, sobbing over your unconscious body. You were awake and completely healed by the time the paramedics had arrived.

Your mother decided it was best to at least see Dr. Hargreeves for your new found power. He was… As thrilled as a sociopathic alien could be. You decide to stay for the summer.

So here you were chatting with your new friends and gushing over a certain quiet girl in the corner who was basically begging for attention. Your attention was elsewhere now as you were discussing your powers with Klaus.

“That’s awful.” You frown. He shrugged, insisting it wasn’t a big deal, trying to impress the new pretty girl as was his brother and sisters. Luther was uninterested and annoyed, distrustful of you, and Ben gushed over you, though you couldn’t see him. Five had been gone for years.

“Number Eight,” A commanding voice echoed from his lab.

“Ooh, I have a number now,” You smirk, swaying back to the old man after getting a laugh from Klaus, who was genuinely worried for your safely.

“Sit in the chair,” Reginald instructed back to you and preparing your notes. You did as instructed and were strapped into the device. “Starting with 3 mA.” He started, having Grace pull a lever. An aggressive shock ran through your body. You yelped clenching the arms of the chair.

“What the hell?” You cried when the shocks stopped, Reginald ignored you taking a note.

“10 mA.” He mumbled. Your body convulsed with the current making you scream and your arms to twitch involuntarily.

After 30 mAs you were gasping for breath and coughing your lungs out. All very common reactions to the amount of electricity your body was receiving.

“2000 mAs.” Hargreeves announced, excitedly? You roared at the shock, your heart stomped uncontrollably and your breath aching in your throat. Your arms and fingers clenching. Fianlly you lied still.

In an almost panic Hargreeves stood, Grace’s hands shook as she looked at your unconscious, lifeless body. 

After fifteen minutes you awoke, gasping for air but otherwise physically fine. 

“Marvelous,” He muttered writing every second down.

//

Diego walked in to you passed out on Grace’s lap. “She’ll just be another hour or so.” Your head wound had scarred over and your breathing was slow as your body healed itself. Diego sighed staring at his beloved mother with regret and disappointment.

“Mom did you hear anything that was happened down there?” He begged. She didn’t answer, she just continued to stroke your locks out of your face. Diego’s eyes traveled to your exposed arms at the scars from the treatment you had received as a child. They were the only things that ever remained. No matter what injury. Just scars. “Let me take her, mom.” He sighed picking you up with ease and setting you on the couch in the living room before returning to his caregiver.

//

You wake up in Diego’s lap he stared at one of the animal heads on the wall deep in thought. You shot up, surprising him. “Where’s Klaus?” You asks, your gut screaming at you that something was wrong.

“I don’t know I haven’t seen him since this morning,” You stumbled upstairs. “(Y/N) come back you need to rest!” You ignored him, passing Vanya and looking everywhere, “He disappears sometimes. It’s nothing new.” You sighed and picked up the Walkman from his bedroom floor. Something was off and you knew it.

//

From Reginald Hargreeves’ notes, July 9th 2004

Subject (Y/F/N) has proven to show that she is very capable of dealing with immense pressure and pain. It is my diagnosis that she has powers such as self regeneration. Studies will continue with various different activities to test her limits and abilities.

#umbrella academy vanya #umbrella academy klaus #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #klaus hargreeves #klaus hargreeves x reader #klaus x reader #tua klaus #vanya hargreeves #vanya hargreeves x reader #klaus x reader x vanya

[willsherjohnkhan]

Here Be Dragons

Chapter 1: Consumed By One's Inner Dragon

***

“I consider myself married to my work.”

“I’m a high-functioning sociopath.”

“All that matters to me is the work. Without that, my brain rots.”

“Sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side.”

“I don’t have friends.”

“Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.”

These were a few, but by no means all, of the ridiculous mantras Sherlock Holmes, world’s only Consulting Detective, and all round pain in the arse lived by.

The more he espoused these stupid statements, the more they became fact, in his mind at least.

And as such, they proved to be his ultimate downfall...

***

221B BAKER STREET – BEDROOM

Sherlock opened his eyes, and groaned. He felt like he’d been on a drug-fuelled bender after running a marathon, maybe several marathons. His whole body ached, and the more he tried to get comfortable the more pain he felt.

Even getting himself up into a sitting position proved extremely difficult, but once he’d managed it, he became aware of the smoke-haze that hung over his bed. And yet he had no memory of smoking the night before.

Unable to twist himself around to get out of bed, he ended up getting on all fours to crawl to the end of the bed, where he promptly lost his balance, plunging headfirst.

As he toppled off the end of the bed he automatically braced for impact. Instead however he managed to perform an impressive summersault that ended with him landing on his feet. It was only then that he realised how unbalanced and top heavy he felt. Taking an unsteady step forward he felt something wrap itself around his legs, impeding his momentum forward, and he fell face-forward to the floor.

His overriding thought, once he could formulate one was, ‘What the bloody hell did I take last night?’

Raising his head he looked around to see what had tripped him up. And that’s when he spotted something that looked suspiciously like a tail, a highly unusual tail.

With some effort he managed to struggle to his feet, and began to walk towards his chest-of-draws. But as he passed the full length mirror something extraordinary caught his eye, and he paused to investigate.

What he saw in the reflection left him momentarily stunned. He felt like he was looking through someone, or rather something else’s eyes. His face and upper body still looked familiar, but even so there was no disguising the fact that he had undergone what could only be best described as a radical transformation.

His hair had been flattened, save for a few errant curls that fell across his forehead. Keeping his hair down was a crest of horns that had also elongated his ears. His skin around his now pointed ears had a golden brown hue to it. A colour that was also reflected in his eyebrows and eyes, although if he looked close enough he could still make out a flicker of familiar blue and green.

Golden brown also covered his shoulders. The skin here was covered in an elaborate pattern of scales of varying sizes that although soft to the touch were extremely strong, like armour. These same scales were visible all over his body, some light, others dark.

Two magnificent wings protruded out from his shoulder-blades. The membrane looked very thin, but was flexible and incredibly strong. Keeping the membrane in place was a patchwork of delicate, hollow bones, three of which extended past the membrane to form a thumb and two finger-like appendages.

The tail extended out from his tailbone. It was long and thin, with thorny spikes all along its entire length, ending with an arrow shaped tip. The tail was strong and flexible, and like the wings was prehensile.

Around his neck and upper arms were items of jewellery. They were made from the finest gold, inserted into the gold were sparkling rubies and garnets.

His nose, lips, arms, hands, legs and feet at least still appeared human. And although he still remained slim, his shoulders were now broad, while his chest had expanded to become much more powerful.

Abruptly Sherlock turned away and let out an agonised roar that resulted in a plume of flame emerging from his mouth. And with an audible ‘WHOOSH’ the chest-of-draws with its impeccably maintained sock index, was instantly incinerated.

Sherlock stared aghast at the little pile of smoking ash.

“Well shit,” he muttered, before making his way over to the bedroom door.

But when he tried to walk through, he discovered that couldn’t fit through the doorframe. Having no control over the appendages that had sprung out from his shoulder-blades, and as they stubbornly refused to fold back to allow him through he ended up having to take the matter into his own hands, quite literally. With the only way to deal with them requiring Sherlock to reach behind and take hold of each wing, pulling them close together so that he could fit through the door.

*

221B BAKER STREET – SITTING ROOM

Once out he made his way to the sitting room. He opened his mouth, intending to call out to Mrs Hudson, when he remembered what happened in his bedroom. So instead he walked over to the door to his flat, opened it, and called out as loud as he dared. “Mrs Hudson!”

To his relief only smoke emerged through his lips.

Shortly after the familiar footsteps of his elderly landlady could be heard coming up the stairs.

To her credit Mrs Hudson didn’t bat an eyelid upon discovering that her tenant had transformed into a dragon. But given what she had to put up from him: body parts in the fridge, unsavoury types coming and going at all hours, bullets being fired into the wall because he was bored. This no doubt was the least of her worries.

“I need food now,” Sherlock demanded, feeling unusually ravenous.

“Of course dear, you sit and relax, and I’ll be back in a jiffy,” she responded calmly, in a soothing motherly tone.

After Mrs Hudson had gone back downstairs to make his breakfast, Sherlock realising just how exhausted he was from the mornings events, decided to take his landlady’s advice and attempted to sit down in his chair, only his newly acquired tail and wings made it almost impossible.

“What is the point of you?” he snarled, immediately becoming irritable when the wings continued to refuse to co-operate. A deep, rumbling growl of frustration emerged from his lips, as he attempted to do all he could to not lose his temper.

As he continued his struggle a cheerful voice from the doorway noted. “Wings are quite handy actually. They allow you to fly.”

*** NB - The fanart that inspired this story can be found at: http://cumberbum.tumblr.com/post/63210349920/cumberbums-manips-cumbersmaug-inspired-by

***

Chapter 2: Not Your Ordinary Case

***

Molly Hooper had a most unusual problem that needed solving. But she knew she was going to need someone very particular to help her out.

For this was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill type situation. It required someone who could look outside the box in order to find the solution.

She then remembered hearing rumours about a man who had made a career out of specialising in the type of cases that were beyond the scope of Scotland Yard. The type of problems generally categorised as surprising, funny or odd. It was also said that he defended those regarded as different.

And that was precisely the type of man she needed.

As she set out for Baker Street, she could only hope that all she had heard about him turned out to be true.

***

BAKER STREET, LONDON, W1

Making her way along Baker Street, Molly began to have second thoughts.

Her story was just too incredible, and completely unimaginable to comprehend. Why would anyone, let alone one purported to be of the calibre of Sherlock Holmes believe anything she had to say.

As she approached the famed detectives address, she was overwhelmed by a need to turn tail and go back the way she had come, when she became aware of something taking place from the upper level flat. An inhuman roar filled with agony and despair filled her ears, followed by the unmistakable whoosh of expelled flame.

These sounds were music to Molly’s ears. Everything might be all right after all.

*

221B BAKER STREET

Molly made her way up the stairs. As she reached the landing she could hear down below the landlady making preparations for breakfast. She was also aware of the presence in the upper flat.

As she walked over to the already open door, she saw that her conclusions about the detective were spot on. Pride, arrogance and a supreme sense of his own superiority over others had led to him being currently in the process of transforming into a dragon.

He was still in the dragon-kind midpoint stage of his transformation.

And he clearly wasn’t happy about it.

“What exactly is the point of you?” the exasperated question was directed at the wings he was attempting to get out of his way, having still not yet learned how to control them.

His predicament brought a smile to Molly’s lips, as she noted cheerily. “Wings are quite handy actually. They allow you to fly.”

There was barely any warning, just a snap and a flick, and then the sensation of a dragon’s tail wrapping itself around her, before she was lifted in the air and held up for inspection.

With his head cocked to the side, Sherlock took his time to peruse the woman, his gaze taking inventory of everything about her, head to toe.

Lifting her even higher, he queried curiously. “And who might you be, may I ask?”

“Molly Hooper,” Molly responded.

Sherlock frowned, something wasn’t adding up. Leaning forward, he sniffed her cautiously. Pulling back, he appraised her once again.

“You appear human,” he sniffed her again carefully to confirm his assessment. “Yet you don’t smell like one.”

Unwise as it was to look a dragon in the eye, Molly felt confident enough that Sherlock wasn’t aware of that particular power as yet, to do precisely that. “You’re right,” she answered honestly. “I’m not human, I’m fae. Or at least I was.”

“By fae, you mean as in fairy?”

Molly nodded.

“And why does a fairy require the services of a Consulting Detective, pray tell?”

“I was placed under a curse by...”

Before she could finish her explanation, Sherlock had already made his mind up.

“Boring!” he pronounced, and promptly threw her across the room.

Thanks to her still reasonably quick reflexes, Molly managed to ensure that she landed safely on the sofa.

Getting to her feet, she decided she’d had enough of his attitude, whether human or dragon, Molly was about to give Sherlock a piece of her mind when an outraged ‘yelps’ had her rushing over to see what the problem was.

His transformation thus far had taken place while he had been sleeping. But now he was seeing it in action, and the visual, let alone the sensation had Sherlock as close as he’d ever come to an all out panic attack as he observed and felt claws and talons replacing his finger and toenails.

“What the hell, this cannot be happening?”

Molly heard the panic in his voice, and made her way over to him. She placed her hands firmly on his shoulders. “Sherlock, you need to calm down,” she instructed. “Take deep even breaths, and concentrate on the thought ‘retract.’”

Sherlock does as she suggests, and to his surprise, and great relief his fingers and toes return to normal.

Molly stepped back.

“Will that work to get rid of the rest of all this?” he asked, his question showing true vulnerability.

“No,” Molly replied. “A stronger magic is required to reverse such a transformation.”

‘What type of stronger magic, like Fairy magic?’ It suddenly occurred to the dragonised detective that helping her out would benefit him greatly.

“All right I’ll take the case,” he announced, making his way towards the doorway.

“Whoa there, where do you think you’re going?” Molly enquired.

Sherlock turned back to her, his expression one of annoyance, “To hail a taxi, obviously.”

Molly shook her head, as a delightful giggle escaped her lips as she pointed out. “There’s no way you’ll fit in a taxi, or a train carriage for that matter.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” Sherlock huffed out impatiently, a small trickle of smoke emerging from his nostrils.

Molly indicated his newly acquired appendages with a nod of her head. “You fly.”

“I don’t fly,” he huffed indignantly.

“You are Dragon-kind now Sherlock,” Molly reminded him, her tone turning serious. “You have wings. It’s time you learned to use them.”

***

Chapter 3: Learning to Fly

***

HYDE PARK – LONDON – EVENING

“Whoa! Whoa! No! No! No!” Sherlock bellowed as trees emerged as if from nowhere, forcing him to duck and weave the end result sending him spinning out of control twisting and turning like a whirling dervish.

“You’re losing altitude Sherlock. Flap your wings faster or you’ll...”

The instructions from below went unheeded, with the inevitable result.

“Oh shit!” and then the all too familiar sound of impact as Sherlock crash landed, yet again.

Molly rushed over to assist him, but Sherlock would have none of it.

“Are you all right?” she asked, giggling in obvious amusement as she attempted to help him to his feet.

Sherlock tore his arm from her grasp with an angry snarl. “You think this is funny?”

“A little bit,” Molly admitted, while doing her best to appear contrite. Laughing at one’s pupil was bad form. But seeing the funny side of things was part of her fae nature.

That she found his predicament humorous didn’t help Sherlock’s temper, in fact it only served to enrage him further.

He stood straight and tall, towering over the diminutive woman before him. The dragon-like aspects of his personality coming to the fore, having been triggered by his increasingly foul mood.

Sherlock began circling Molly in an unmistakably predatory fashion, becoming more bestial as he worked himself into a rage, growling and snarling and baring his teeth, his tail flicking and snapping like a whip as his agitation grew. His crest of horns stood to attention, while his eyes glowed hot, going from golden to red with only the barest hint of his original blue/green colour remaining.

Standing with his wings spread wide, his chest heaving as his breathing sped up, causing a hissing sound to emerge as smoke poured from his nostrils. This was followed by the telltale glow of ignited flame, coursing through his veins, moving with lightening speed from his abdomen, over his chest and up his throat, giving fair warning that it was about to emerge from his mouth.

It was a truly terrifying spectacle, but all Molly could think was how magnificent he appeared in all his serpentine glory. It was an astounding transformation.

But she knew she needed to remain professional. “You need to learn control,” she instructed sternly.

Molly felt the full blast of his heated breath as he turned his frustration on her. “Well you could help by giving a demonstration. But wait, oh no you can’t can you, you no longer possess wings!” Sherlock pointed out petulantly, his tone sarcastic.

Molly’s response was immediate, and totally unexpected. The first Sherlock knew of it was the sharp, stinging sensation when the palm of her hand connected with first his left cheek, then his right, and back to his left again Tears of hurt poured down her face but the hurt she felt helped to fuel her own anger. She was damned if she was going to let him take his aggression out on her. And time was of the essence.

Taken aback Sherlock reared back in shock, surprised by both her vehemence, and her spunk.

“You need to focus Sherlock,” Molly instructed bringing them back to the task at hand.

“I was,” he interrupted, a pout forming on his cupids bow lips. “I was calculating all the permutations and variables of atmospheric pressure, and...”

“And that’s your problem right there,” Molly interjected, as she reached up to lay her hand against his chest. “Flying is intuitive. It comes from the heart not the head. Constantly thinking about what may happen due to external factors only distracts from the innate ability that will guide you if you freely give yourself over to its care.”

“That’s fine for you,” Sherlock huffed dejectedly. “You were born able to fly. I wasn’t.”

Molly didn’t take offence, she sympathised with him. As things stood, both were learning to deal with things that were completely out of their control.

“But you have that ability now. You just have to learn to trust it,” she said in an encouraging tone.

Sherlock still didn’t look convinced.

“If you can’t trust it, will you at least trust me?” Molly asked.

Sherlock considered her request for a moment or two before nodding his agreement.

The smile that lit up her face, coupled with the feel of her hand still resting on his chest caused a particular sensation in the region where the heart he always claimed he didn’t possess resided.

***

Chapter 4: The Professor of Baskerville Hall

***

GRIMPEN VILLAGE – DARTMOOR

It was a dark and stormy night. Not that unusual in this part of the country at this time of year. And yet, the residents in the small village were wary and on edge. All doors and windows were bolted firmly, and no-one dared step out of doors after nightfall.

Not since Baskerville Hall had become occupied once more.

***

BASKERVILLE HALL

The house glimmered like a ghost at the end of the avenue. The centre was a heavy block of building from which a porch projected. The whole front was draped in ivy, with a patch clipped here and there where a window or a coat of arms broke through the dark veil. From this central block rose the twin towers, ancient battlements, pierced with many loopholes. To right and left of the turrets were more modern wings of black granite. A dull light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of smoke.

**

James Moriarty, failed professor of mathematics and inept criminal mastermind was in desperate need of a change in fortune. Regarded with disdain in his first choice of career, and as a joke in his second, he was determined to excel at something so devious and unorthodox that it would send shivers up and down the spines of those that had taken great delight in mocking him.

And then one day opportunity fell into his lap as he read an article about the fearsome history of the abandoned manor of Baskerville Hall. The article ended with...

‘There are certain things here which are impossible to reconcile to the settled order of nature. Tis a worthy setting if the Devil did decide to dabble in the affairs of man, where the powers of evil are exulted.’

“It is indeed...” Moriarty murmured to himself, his black eyes sparkling with an unholy glee as the beginnings of a devastatingly diabolical plan began to take shape in his evilly twisted mind.

*

Several weeks later in the company of his faithful companion and fallen peer of the realm, Sebastian Moran, and armed with the knowledge they had acquired on the occult they set off for the infamous Hall of the doomed Baskervilles.

Along the way they picked up a stray waif, in the form of former chemist, now drug addict Billy Wiggins.

**

GRIMPEN VILLAGE

Moriarty’s presence was immediately felt, even though he rarely made an appearance in person in the village.

On the few occasions when he did, those he interacted with were left feeling queasy in the pit of their stomachs, and troubled and uneasy in their minds without quite comprehending why. When pressed all they could say was that it had something to do with the unnerving way he had looked at them.

For the most part it was Billy they dealt with, as he was despatched on any number of errands, while Moriarty and Moran set about putting their plan into action.

And once they had the villagers cherished feelings of security vanished forever.

***

BASKERVILLE HALL

The gates were a maze of wrought iron, with weather bitten pillars on either side, blotched with lichens, and surrounded by boars’ heads of the Baskervilles.

Strong they may have been, but they were of little deterrent to anyone game enough to scale them. But no one from the village was fool enough to try.

In reality there was little need for the gates at all, not since Moriarty had used the information he had gathered on the occult. He used it to call upon the Devil himself, willingly exchanging his soul and that of his co-conspirator Moran for the ability to perform the darkest of dark magic.

The Devil granted the former Professor his request, before offering him the use of his most trusted sentinels...

*

Gigantic black hyena-shaped monstrously brutish beasts born in the bowels of Hell itself now patrolled the grounds of Baskerville Hall.

Their fur glowed red in the dead of night, as did their fiercely burning eyes. They possessed powerful shoulders and legs, which allowed them to move with the speed and unpredictability of lightening. Their equally powerful jaws capable of crushing bone like they were made of sticks of celery. Smoke poured from their nostrils, while their slavering mouths released a lava-like substance capable of inflicting third degree burns should it make contact with human or animal flesh.

All this unnatural activity had caught Molly’s attention. Her curiosity to learn what was going on drawing her closer than she should ever have come. Too late she realised her mistake when her presence was detected, and she was caught.

Moriarty had just been on the verge of beginning some new experiments when the fairy was brought before him. And it was then that inspiration struck. Instead of using the hapless Billy as the guinea pig, Molly would make a more suitable candidate.

Using the dark powers the Devil had given him, Moriarty stripped the fairy of her fae magic, and destroyed her wings. Once finished he mercilessly threw her outside, where the hounds soon caught a whiff of her scent. In her weakened state she didn’t stand a chance.

It was entirely thanks to the swift and timely actions of Billy Wiggins that she was able to get away safely.

*

It had been several weeks since that incident, and Billy was still alive, and reasonably unharmed, but it came at a terrible cost.

Moriarty had been initially furious, and Billy was certain he was about to meet his maker, when without warning he was ordered to go to the main road and bring back any tramps or gypsies he encountered along the way.

Knowing his own life was on the line he had reluctantly done as he had been instructed. And he had continued to do so whenever the Professor needed his next batch of unwitting lab rats.

Tonight however he had been told to go to the Grimpen Mire to collect an assortment of mosses and the like.

As he approached the dreaded mire he turned on his torch. Everywhere he looked was bleak and uninviting, and incredibly dangerous. Many an unlucky Moor pony had been sucked under due to a misjudged step.

Making his way into the murky depths Billy wondered, not for the first time, if this nightmare was ever going to come to an end.

***

Chapter 5: On a Wing and a Prayer

***

HYDE PARK – LONDON – EARLY MORNING

After a shaky start Sherlock, having put his faith, not to mention his life into Molly’s capable hands, mastered the basic tenets of flying. To his relief his wings indeed knew what they had to do, seeking out the air currents and using them to soar high above the clouds, before swooping low enabling Sherlock to appreciate the incredible view all around him. And as his confidence grew, his wings began to feel more a part of him.

Molly was impressed by how proficient and adept he had become in such a short period of time. She was also relived. With that invaluable skill mastered meant they could get to their destination much faster.

And time was of the essence. To that end she needed to bring the dragonised detective back down to earth.

“Sherlock!” she called up to him. “We need to get moving.”

Sherlock swooped down once more, making a perfect landing. By the time he made his way over to Molly, he had his wings securely tucked away.

“So where exactly are we headed?” he asked, eager for the opportunity to really stretch his wings.

“Dartmoor,” Molly responded.

***

EN ROUTE TO DARTMOOR

Molly sat astride Sherlock as he ploughed through the clouds, the rhythmic beat of his wings reminiscent of a hurricane.

Her emotions at that moment were of extremes. She felt exhilarated being high off the ground in the fresh air, the feel of it caressing her skin, rekindling treasured memories. But those memories left her feeling heartbroken for what had been so cruelly stolen from her.

Perhaps sensing the turmoil of emotions, Sherlock chose that moment to intrude upon her thoughts to enquire. “Don’t you think now would be a good time to explain what happened to you?” he asked as gently as he could.

“I allowed my curiosity to get the better of me and paid the price,” came her bitter reply.

“Explain,” the Consulting Detective was on the case.

“I became aware of some unusual, and by unusual I mean supernatural, goings on at an old abandoned manor house,” Molly explained. “But when I went in for a closer look I was captured.”

“Who by?”

“I don’t know their names, but there were two men. One of whom was referred to as Professor.”

“What happened next?”

A sob escaped as Molly replied. “They performed various experiments on me.”

“What type of experiments?” the question was direct, and may have been regarded by some as cruel, but Sherlock needed data.

“In the use of dark spells and curses,” Molly said. “But it was clear they were armatures, they weren’t well acquainted with how magic works. So it took a number of attempts before they achieved their ultimate goal.”

Sherlock felt anger rising through him for what had been done to the fairy. He was no more the expert in magic than those she had been unfortunate enough to encounter. But he knew torture when he heard it. “How did you escape?”

“With the aid of a poor soul they treated more like a slave than a servant. If it wasn’t for him I dread to think what would have become of me.” Molly shuddered at the very thought of the terrible experience she had been forced to endure.

“So why come to me?” Sherlock asked genuinely curious. What Molly had told him thus far was well out of his realm of expertise. And then a worrying possibility crossed his mind. “Do you think my transformation is linked to one of their wayward curses?”

Molly gave his question some serious thought. He was right to ask why an ordinary, human investigator, even one with his reputation could help her in this matter.

Had the professor of Baskerville Hall been the conduit of Sherlock’s mysterious transformation? Or had her need for someone quite extraordinary been the cause? Or was it something else completely?

In the end all she could offer him was, “To be honest Sherlock, I really don’t know. But maybe we’ll find a more definitive answer once we get there.”

***

#Sherlolly #Dragonlock

[cloneslugs]

oh fuck u sent me multiple so demo/engie/medic/scout and also u can do the one i already sent

ty i love you

Demo

favorite thing about them

he’s super fun!!! but also really smart and caring and just an all around cool dude he’s like B) !

least favorite thing about them

this isnt about him personally lol but like official stuff(comics) lighten the fuck out of his skin and its like. dont

favorite line

i didnt even see this question when i first did this wtf but uh all his “i love you” esque lines are really excellent

brOTP

exclusing soldier lol!!! probably sniper or engie!!

OTP

soldier :’)

nOTP

besides scout & pyro & just like. looking at just the mercs no one really demo deserves love

random headcanon

he likes turtles a lot & just reptiles/amphibians in general just in a kinda neat/favorite animal type way nothing special, he gets around with engie and sniper and they all get drunk and they talk about cryptids, he has a super big heart he loves love, outside of the battlefield he’s pretty apprehensive and cautious moreso than lots of the others at least, he doesnt push himself to be it often just bc he doesnt like leaderly positions but he defo has one of the more valid voices of reason amongst all of them, he loves to help and just listen to people he’s always ready to offer you a drink and take a load off and just talk things out & he’s super chill and easy to talk to anyway, he comes off as really lazy but he can jump up and make do when he needs to

unpopular opinion

idk whats considered popular or not on here lol but like!! he’s not just stupid silly drunk man he’s actually got heart and is pretty intelligent & like probably one of the better off mercs if he wanted himself to be

song i associate with them (this is literally the worst question im so bad at this if i dont have lots n lots of searching time and also i forget all music ever)

cheap thrills - sia

favorite picture of them (sorry 4 bg edits im doing what i have on hand lol)

hes so fucking happy i love you!!!

Engie

favorite thing about them

he’s my fucking husband he makes my heart fucking soar!!! he’s a quiet little sweetheart and he’s just really smart and nice and has morals iusdahui

least favorite thing about them

fucking nothing you animals 

favorite line

all his fucking nerdy engineering lines are so fucking good ;____; he’s so smart and passionate god“i love engines! pinion shafts! flanges. mitigating shock loads. but most of all: i love winnin’!” “they won’t know what hit ‘em! though it’ll likely to be bullets. statistically speaking” theres more but im like ;___; just thinking about him ah

brOTP

medic babey!!!!!! i have a thing for shitty best friends that tire each other out (especially on one side) but love each other at the end of the day and are just ride or diepyro also but for completely different reasons :-)

OTP

spy is fucking excellent -.- dont @ me

nOTP

soldier lol (excluding pyro & scout)

random headcanon

i think all the mercs are autsitic but engie is one of my fucking fav ahhhhh, he and medic info dump for hours especially where their special interests overlap and it gets really boring if youre not one of them lol, he loves learning but he hated school so much ):, he has pretty bad anxiety but only under certain circumstance, he’s kinda jealous that spy gets to automatically be seen as a paternal figure bc of scout and he kinda wishes he could settle in like that but he also doesnt think he’d be very good at it for a very prolonged amount of time, he loves math!!!! he loves numbers a lot he associates it with lots of fun and colors and just !!!!! wow wow!!, he has really really really high empathy when it comes to machines and stuff, he loves dogs especially smaller ones, he really loves to fidget w/ tools and stuff bc he always has one on hand and theres lots you can do with some of them, he’s really lazy and has a hard time applying himself sometimes

unpopular opinion

the comics really brush him aside i need to see him more please for the love of god he’s just as interesting as anyone else also fat engie is the only valid engie & also soldier/engie is fucking forced and weird idk where it comes from except they wear hats lol & also people call engie short but if you dont make him 5′00 give or take 3 inches youre doing it wrong and i cant stand by it

song i associate with them

this is like. also a soldier song for me lol but Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect - the decemberists

favorite picture of them

ms pauling and medic!! his buddies :) also i just love the shadowboxers art

his fly costume makes me so ;___; i love you little man

also i hate to default to beard engie but this is literally the sexiest man alive

Medic

favorite thing about them

i have a thing for shitty men with halfway decent hearts but are trying(sometimes) okay like okay he’s so chaotic and bad but ;___; i love you

least favorite thing about them

this mostly applies to his Meet the vid but he comes off as really apathetic and cruel? i think in everything else he comes off as a bit nicer if not absentminded and not too socially aware which is :)

favorite line

bro when he warns heavy about that gun in the comix? gay rights U__U also the like “you can take the brain out of the criminal and put it in a pumpkin, but you cant take the criminal out of the brain in the pumpkin” or whatever shit sir i love you

brOTP

engie baby!!!! i also really like spy & sniper bc im weak for shitty support relationships i think med just works really good w/ everyone really in some way

OTP

heavy baby!!!

nOTP

all of the mercs are fine (excluding the usual lol) but like cHeavymed people are freaks die

random headcanon

he has really poor eating & sleeping habits he almost relies on everyone else to keep him alive, he’s autistic & he’s jewish but not really practicing, he pulls & tugs on things when he’s stressed, he’s actually really smart medically he just doesn’t like showing it/messing w/ people (it makes some of the smarter mercs nervous lol), when he gets bored & has nothing to play with he digs for drama he loves to start unnecessary arguments that have no value whatssoever, he’s scared of dogs, he only trusts sniper & maybe heavy to handle his birds if he were to die, heavy & archimedes are like mega comfort objects(?) for him !!, he’s kinda really bad at showing he likes/cares for people, this goes especially hard on engie ):, he has a really big sweet tooth, he cant cook, he doesnt ever censor himself and can be pretty rude, he’s an open book and has no sense of integrity, he got super attached to heavy right off the bat for seemingly no reason and it was just super awkward lol, he gets distracted really easily and drops projects too often when he gets bored/forgets, his room is a mess he doesnt know how to do chores, he’s trans and hasnt done anything to medically transition but he handles everyone on team who is 

unpopular opinion

he’s not a fucking sociopath lol like he has a heart and cares he just has a hard time differentiating right from wrong and doesnt think things out i love you

song i associate with them

this is my emo music time i keep changing this but im gonna go It Was A Swift Not A Swallow - Crywank

favorite picture of them

i cant pick between these two he’s saving his fucking boyfriends life & also the 2nd he just looks so peaceful and :)

Scout

favorite thing about them

he’s a sweet boy!!! he just wants friends and he’s stuck with a bunch of middle aged men we have to love his endurance also he’s a little baby faced menace i love you

least favorite thing about them

in the canon i ignore lol.. too straight we cant have that

favorite line

all his lines talking about how the group of them are all best friends and stuff??? i love that

brOTP

sniper !!!! also spy also everyone

OTP

no one really lol pyro is like. the only one im comfy w/

nOTP

sniper lol if we’re talking popular things & all the rest of the mercs really

random headcanon

he’s a super sweet boy who loves everyone on the team, he warmed up the fastest out of all of them and became super attached!!, he really wants a base dog, he really likes to spend time with everyone and listen to them talk like he loves sitting with engie and having him explain nerdy engineering nonsense that he’ll never get but he tries to but its just fun seeing how excited the other person is!!!, he became super close to sniper right off the bat for some reason which is weird bc scout can talk forever and sniper doesn’t know how to hold a conversation for more than 5 minutes but they like hanging out even if it gets tiring, he lives off of sugary drinks medic keeps telling him to stop, he loves to hang out w/ spy and they get on each others nerves but really enjoy it at the end of the day, he has little to no sense of boundaries, he loves to give hugs!!, he really tries to engage with everyone’s interests like i said he just loves making/seeing other people happy, he loves being part of big groups it always just feels like a big family to him

unpopular opinion

he gay :)

song i associate with them

the calculation - regina spektor

favorite picture of them

trans rights!!!

Soldier

favorite thing about them

he is a sweetheart he is my big stupid husband and we both love raccoons =.=

least favorite thing about them

the patriotism……  we arent having that

favorite line

he’s literally so fucking funny especially all his things w/ merasmus and just. everything

brOTP

excluding demo uh !!! SPY!!!! :D

OTP

demo :)

nOTP

engie x.x

random headcanon

he’s super sweet !!! he loves his friends so much, he loves to show off his raccoons to everyone :), he bonds w/ sniper over wildlife(raccoons), everyone has a lot of patience w/ him bc he struggles to communicate things a lot and kinda needs his time to get points across, he’s actually really observant and it would be really good if he just didnt jump to wild conclusions based off of it all the time, he’s really conscious of his actions and how they affect others like he’s kinda violent impulsively but hes taken note of who is and isnt okay with it or who’s okay w/ him saying what in front of them, he’s really protective of his friends!!! he knows theyre capable but he loves looking out for them, he loves to drag them off on fitness expeditions/training but he tires out before a good number of them/gets bored, he wakes up the earlies he loves the mornings, he can cook but nobody knows it, like scout he loves to indulge in what other people like but he’s more handson he loves to screw in screws for engie or hand medic tools or read out loud to spy or heavy or show sniper things he catches/turn over rocks with him, he loves medics birds but doc wont let him touch them ):, he wants to get a base dog too, he has no volume or tone control, probably the best hugger, he’s kinda shy about personal things like himself in general or being trans & liking guys he’s actually pretty decent at keeping personal things to himself not that he wouldnt share it just feels weird, 

unpopular opinion

he’s not just like shouty mean stupid man,,, he’s actually really sweet 

song i associate with them

rejoice- AJJ 

favorite picture of them

i have worse naked honey pics but this is fucking it lads gay rights

#im like. digging thru my tee eff 2 playlist on spotify this is hell #asks #tf text #sorry this is long lol i feel like im leaving out so much #also shout out to cecil youre the only valid person out here #triplecrossed #if i missed anything kick me #these make me so happy to do i love talking and talking and talking about my interests

[robininthelabyrinth]

Fic: The Beginning of Wisdom - Chapter 9 (Ao3 link)

Fandom: Flash, Legends of Tomorrow Pairing: Leonard Snart (Len) & Leonard Snart (Leo), Len Snart/Mick Rory, Leo Snart/Mick Rory, Len Snart/Mick Rory/Leo Snart, Leo Snart/Ray Terrill, Len Snart/Barry Allen

Summary: In which Leonard Snart is twins.

(the life and times and loves of Len and Leo Snart)

—————————————————————————————————–

"Have you seen him?" Leo asked quietly, after they’d held each other for some time. They both had excellent internal clocks, of course, but they never functioned right when they were together; that time always seemed to go on forever and yet never be enough. "Mick, I mean?"

"Of course I've seen him," Len snapped, though his vehemence was muted. "I go there practically every day –"

"As yourself?"

"...as Leonard."

"So, not really."

"No," Len agreed. "He always knows it's me, of course, but I don't feel like I deserve to be me around him."

Leo held him close. "You do."

"I hurt him."

"He's forgiven you."

"I haven't forgiven me," Len said. "And if I were you, or Mick, I wouldn't."

"Luckily, you're neither of us," Leo said, shaking his head. He knew that Len would never have held it against Leo or Mick if it had been him that'd been injured and they the cause, not for a second: it was only himself that he ever blamed for not taking the blow meant for another. "You should see him. As you."

"I'm trying," Len said.

I'm scared, he did not say.

"I'll come with you," Leo decided. "Both of us. That'll help."

Len pulled his head back and frowned at him. "The risk –" he started.

"Nothing we haven't dealt with before," Leo said. "Unimportant. We need – I need – to tell him about Ray, before anything else happens."

"Because Mick's first."

"You're first. Then Mick." Leo frowned. "And Lisa, but Lisa's on a whole different scale."

"Girl," Len agreed.

"Sister. I know plenty of perfectly nice, perfectly understandable girls."

"Yeah, and outta all of 'em, you like one: Lisa."

Leo decided not to dignify that (correct) statement with a response.

Mick, when he heard the story long after visiting hours that same night, burst out laughing.

"Don't do that," Len said crossly, rearranging his blankets and making sure his pillow was appropriately fluffed. "You'll hurt yourself."

"Stop fussing, boss," Mick said, cuffing him fondly upside the head. "My skin flexibility's back up, I can laugh all I want. And it is funny."

"It is not," Leo said. He might have been pouting.

"It really is," Mick said, shaking his head. "Don't worry, I don't mind. This Ray business, I mean."

"You – don't? You don't even know what my intentions towards him are!"

"You don't even know what your intentions towards him are," Mick pointed out. "That's what happens when you try to decide things using only half your brain."

Len smirked at Leo, who made a face back, conceding the point.

"And no, I really don't mind," Mick said. "You're a lot to handle, Leonard Snart; I always figured I'd have to share a piece of you one day. As long as he ain't awful..."

"He isn't," Leo said.

"Open to determination," Len said.

"'course, that does raise the question, don't it?" Mick continued thoughtfully.

Two sets of eyes blinked at him.

Mick settled down into his bed and reached out both hands, pulling an unresisting Leonard Snart down beside him, one on each side.

"I know this might be a new experience for you," he said, "but relationships are two-sided."

Another blink.

"He likes you, Number Two," Mick clarified. "But as you well know, that doesn't mean he'll like the boss. Lots more people like you than him, Two."

Leo frowned. It was true, of course, that he had many more acquaintances than Len – his industry supported that sort of thing more than Len's, as all of the backstabbing in the fashion world was purely metaphorical rather than very, very literal. And even before that, back in school, when people had known about them both, he had been the more popular because he had been the more charming and outgoing one...and yet...surely...

"Look at you," Mick laughed. "Each one of you with the same confused little wrinkle between your eyes. Did you guys really think that anyone you really cared about had to care about you – both of you – equally in return? Or would, just automatically?"

"Worked with you, didn't it?" Len grumbled.

“I’m not everyone.”

“It’s ‘ain’t not everyone’.”

“No, boss. It really isn’t, I swear. And anyway, atrocious grammar issues aside, you know that most people like just one person at a time, right?"

No.

Well, yes, but it didn't apply to them, surely?

"Besides," Mick continued. "I don’t see what the problem is, though: only one of you likes him, right? So what's it matter if he only likes one of you?”

“That’s not the point,” Len said.

"What a mess," Leo sighed.

"Can we even trust him enough to reveal the truth to him without him squealing?" Len asked.

"I think so," Leo said. "But I'm biased."

"I'll analyze him, then," Len said.

"Analyze," Leo said. "Not threaten."

"Fine."

"Before you get to putting the cart before the horse," Mick said dryly, "didn't the boss just scare him away?"

"Oh. Right. Crap."

Mick started laughing again.

The Leonards looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

(Leo noted approvingly how relaxed Len was with his head on Mick's shoulder, just the way it ought to be. They might not be fixed yet, but they were on their way, slowly but surely.)

Now, normally, they operated on a "he who screwed up is he who fixes it" approach, but in this instance they decided that Leo would probably have better luck sweet-talking Ray back into the job and thereby make himself available.

Leo sent flowers – Ray had once confessed that he liked them dreadfully, even if they were stereotypically girly – and an apology note, and asked Ray to meet him in his office.

Ray arrived with a smile.

"I know I said it in the note, but I really did want to apologize for what happened last time," Leo said.

"It's fine."

"It really isn't."

Ray shrugged. "No, it's – really, it's fine. Actually, to tell you the truth, I'd kind of been wondering when we'd get to see Hyde again."

Leo blinked. He hadn't been expecting that - nor did he know what to do about it. "Hyde? What do you mean?"

Ray had a way about him that when he blushed, he positively glowed. It was a Ray thing, not a model thing; by this point, Leo was familiar with enough models to say that with confidence.

He was glowing now.

"I – oh – er – you didn't know – I thought – can we forget I said that?"

"No," Leo said. "Please explain."

"It's just a joke," Ray said. "Among the models you use most. It's just, you know, you have mood shifts sometimes, you know, like, bipolar?"

"That's not how bipolar disorder works –"

"Right, I keep forgetting you did a BA in psych. You know what I mean, though, right? Sometimes you're an asshole with a heart of gold, sometimes you're a well-meaning sociopath with a friendly smile, Jekyll and Hyde."

Leo blinked. "Wait. Which one's Jekyll and which one's Hyde? They both sound – unflattering."

Ray's glow goes up by several watts.

"I mean, everyone has their own preference, honestly?" he said with a shrug. "The sociopath is Jeykll, because he's there more often - plus, you know, not really a sociopath, just charming as hell, but you can tell he's not really interested in anything you're saying or feeling, you know? - while the asshole is Hyde because we only see him once in a while. I usually prefer Jekyll, since I click really well with people who tend to be more distant and analytical about their emotions, but a lot of the models really like Hyde's whole aura-of-danger combined with a sort of secret-inaccessible-inner-friendliness thing. I don't know, it's just a bad joke. Models have a lot of those."

"Huh," Leo said.

"It doesn't mean anything," Ray said hastily. "It's not like I actually think you have an alternate personality or some sort of evil twin hidden in the closet –"

"I usually prefer the couch," Len, who had never been able to resist a good entrance line, said, poking his head up above said couch. "No one ever looks there."

Ray spun around and his jaw dropped.

His mouth moved, and sound came out, but it wasn't really coherent. His hands twitched in the air like baby birds that had just leapt out the nest and abruptly realized they never learned how to fly. He was utterly dumbfounded.

"I thought we agreed I was going to tell him," Leo said mildly. To be fair to Len, that had really been an irresistible set up.

Len smirked. "Hyde is better than Jekyll any day," he said with a shrug. "Do you know in the original movie version, it was pronounced GEE-kull instead of JEK-uhl?"

Leo, who had watched said original movie with Len, rolled his eyes at this bizarre attempt at flirting. Having found Mick at an early age, Len had never had to learn any flirting skills, real ones rather than the cons he ran on marks, nor had he ever had any interest in picking any skills in that field up – Leo was the one who interacted with people, after all, not Len, so why bother?

Len rolled his eyes back. He had no idea why Leo said his flirting was so terrible – puns and unnecessary movie trivia always seemed to work well for him, and the way Leo would sometimes cough down his hand that it was out of pity for a pretty face with an empty head was entirely uncalled for.

"There's two of you," Ray finally squeaked.

"Quick, this one," Len said.

"Shut up. You get yourself a quick one if you want one," Leo said. "I happen to prefer glowing."

"I noticed that..."

"There are two of you!"

"I think we broke him," Len said thoughtfully. "Oops. Sorry."

Leo gave Len a Look, receiving only a smirk in return.

(He'd never admit it, but he was maybe slightly regretting how he first reacted when Len brought Mick around. In his defense, he'd never thought that he'd be in the reverse situation – not that that was a defense.)

"Am I – is this a hallucination?" Ray demanded. "Did I get drunk and start seeing double or something? Are alternate universes real?!"

"I approve of that fact that that's your go-to thought about what's going on," Len said.

"No alternate universes," Leo said patiently. "Just twins."

"Identical twins," Len added. "In case you hadn't noticed."

"Very identical," Ray said faintly.

"To be fair, you and the other models managed to spot some differences, apparently, with your Jekyll and Hyde analysis," Leo said. He's still not entirely sure about what to do the 'well-meaning sociopath' part of that analysis. "Which puts you ahead of most people."

"Most police, certainly," Len drawled.

"But –" Ray said, clearly too distracted to pick up on Len's hint. "If you're twins – what's your name?"

They blinked at him.

"...Leonard Snart," Leo said. "That hasn't changed. Why would it have changed?"

"Then, what's his name?"

"Leonard Snart," Len said.

“I...what?”

"If it makes you feel better,” Len adds generously, “I go by Len while he goes by Leo. People get really insistent on using the nicknames for some reason.”

Even Lisa preferred them, though she did have a tendency to call them both Lenny that they thoroughly approved of.

"Oh," Ray said. "Is that why you got so angry when I called you Leo the other day? Because you were actually Len?"

"Long story," Leo said hastily.

"Which one of you –" Ray hesitated. "Never mind."

"I'm the one you've been interacting with," Leo said. "Not Len."

"I'm the one that pointed out that we’re married to Mick," Len said, a touch of acid in his voice. "Though, just so you know, we both consider ourselves bound by that."

"I see," Ray said faintly.

"Would you like a seat?" Leo asked, a little concerned that Ray was going to fall over. "You've had a shock."

"Yeah," Ray said, scrabbling for a chair. "Good idea."

"You can have some time to think about this –" Leo started, only for Len to interject, "But in the meantime, you can't tell anyone."

Ray nodded slowly. "Because – the police don't know?"

Leo gave Len another Look, this one triumphant. Len rolled his eyes – fine, maybe Ray wasn't as slow as previously assumed.

"That's right," Leo said.

"And – wait. All those times you've gotten stopped and questioned..."

"He wasn't lying when he said they had the wrong man," Len drawled, looking quite pleased. "Just not being entirely truthful, either."

"You're a thief?"

"A very good one."

"...oh. That's a lot to take in."

"Why don't you take a few days off to think about it?" Leo suggested. "I know this isn't exactly what you thought was going on."

"I mean, I think I always kinda thought you were a thief?" Ray said. "Some sort of James Bond-the Saint kind of deal, with the fashion stuff as a cover. I mean, that many policemen in that many countries can't all be wrong. I'm kind of happy you aren't, actually."

Leo smirked. This wasn't going as badly as he had feared.

"I think I will take those days off, though," Ray said, rubbing his face. "I – I mean, I knew you were with Rory, and I thought, you know, maybe you were polyamourous –"

"Or willing to cheat, at least," Len muttered, causing Ray to flush.

"– but I admit that I didn't consider – I didn't even think about there being two of you."

"Okay," Leo said. "Totally fine. You need processing time. Just, you know..."

"Don't mention it to anyone?"

"Right. Sorry."

"No, it's fine. I understand. I think."

Exit Ray, stage left.

"Well," Leo said. "That went – not unlike a trainwreck."

"Sure thing, Jekyll."

"Shut up, Hyde."

"What do we do if he only likes you?" Len asked, abruptly changing gears. "And not me?"

"I don't know," Leo confessed. "I mean, when I thought Mick was just yours, I figured he'd just take up some of your free time and I'd find someone to fill mine, but now we both have Mick as well...there's a sadly limited number of hours in the day."

"Well, you were doing a pretty good job of interacting with him mostly during your work and a little bit after work hours –"

"Yes, but presumably he'll want more at some point. Wouldn't you?"

"We'll see, I guess," Len said, a little doubtfully. "When Mick and I are out on a job, maybe..?"

"Ah-ha!" Leo exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Len. "You are planning on working with Mick again, despite everything."

Leo made a face. He hated it when Leo was right, but he thought to himself that perhaps he was. Len had somehow slid back into thinking of jobs as Len-and-Mick instead of just his own, all without him noticing.

The healing power of time.

Leo, for his part, was just happy that Len would stop working with that awful pair of psychotic lovers he sometimes teamed up with, Scudder and Dillon. Leo never trusted them about anything, and certainly not with Len's safety, but he trusted them even less now that Len didn't have Mick to back him up.

"Not until he's all the way better," Len said, conceding the point. And yes, damnit Leo, he'd do something about Scudder and Dillon; there was no need to look at him with that half-worried-half-smug expression. "At least not any jobs in Central. Maybe some outside as a way of warming up..."

Leo grinned.

Len, realizing, grinned back.

Neither of them could resist a good set-up.

"You know,” Leo drawled, relishing the moment. “If you’re looking for an expert in warming things up –"

Len threw one of the couch pillows at Leo, which they both agreed was the correct response.

#dccoldwave #coldray #leonard snart #ray terrill #mick rory #leo snart #len snart #my fic #beginning of wisdom

[wiseabsol]

WA Reviews “Dominion” by Aurelia le, Chapter 7: Redirecting Lightning

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6383825/7/Dominion

Summary: For the Fire Nation royal siblings, love has always warred with hate. But neither the outward accomplishment of peace nor Azula’s defeat have brought the respite Zuko expected. Will his sister’s plans answer this, or only destroy them both?

Content Warnings: This story contains discussions and depictions of child abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and incest. This story also explores the idea that Zuko’s redemption arc (and his unlearning of abuse) is not as complete as the show suggested, and that Azula is not a sociopath (with the story having a lot of sympathy for her). If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I would strongly recommend steering clear of this story and my reviews of it.  

Note: Because these were originally posted as chapter reviews/commentaries, I will often be talking to the author in them (though sometimes I will also snarkily address the characters). While I’ve also tried not to spoil later events in the story in these reviews, I would strongly recommend reading through chapter 28 before reading these, just to be safe.

Now on to chapter 7!

CHAPTER 7: REDIRECTING LIGHTNING

Alright, this is it. I have hit chapter seven. I have hit the first benchmark chapter in this story; the one that makes or breaks “Dominion” for readers. Because this is the chapter where Zuko rapes Azula. And I am going to stand by and defend that interpretation, because regardless of how ambiguous the situation seemed to Zuko, I think the authorial intent here is clear if the reader is paying attention. So expect this to be a lengthy review, because I plan to go into depth with that. As for the rating of this story—you upped it to an M rating a long time ago, which I think was appropriate, given that “Dominion,” due to what it’s exploring, really is more of a story for adults than for young teenagers. And you’re completely right about the decision to depict what happens in this chapter, rather than tell us what happened later. No one would have believed it otherwise. Also, I’m curious, but what tropes specifically are you deconstructing where Azula redemption fics are concerned? I haven’t read enough of them to be knowledgeable about that. But onwards with the chapter itself. So Zuko and Azula are facing each other after four years of separation. Zuko notices that Azula has grown up to look like Ursa, which I love, even though this passage is incredibly creepy: “It was that resemblance that struck him most, to see Azula standing there in his mother’s robe. He recognized the elegant swirls embroidered at the neck, the hem she was too short to keep from dragging in the dust. And even if she inherited their father’s sharp chin and slanted eyes, she had Ursa’s hair and painted mouth, and lined her eyes with kohl. It barely occurred to him to wonder where she found cosmetics, when Azula hadn’t stayed here since she was a little girl. His mother’s robe, his mother’s paints…. How in eight years had he never noticed, that she tinted her lips the very same shade?” Let’s unpack that. So the least creepy interpretation of Azula using the same makeup as her mother is that their hair/skin/eye colors are the same, so Ursa’s paints are the ideal shades for Azula to use as well. However, this is clearly meant to unsettle readers, so I do have to wonder if Azula was encouraged to use the same makeup as Ursa by Ozai (or perhaps by Lo and Li) to make her a mini-Ursa in appearance. That or Azula did it unconsciously to emulate her mother/to appeal to her father’s tastes (gags). On the flip side of this, Zuko’s…interest…in Azula looking like Ursa feels Oedipal, which makes something already disturbing even worse. “‘You…came to see me?’ she spoke slower, almost tentatively. ‘Why?’”—Oh baby you’re so hopeful that Zuko came to visit you because he cares about you. “‘I hardly think that /matters/ now, after what you’ve /done/!’ Zuko reproached her, angry not just at her escape anymore, but something he couldn’t even name….”—I don’t know, is it maybe because she grew up to look like your mom and you’re weirdly turned on by that? “‘It matters to me,’ she said simply. And looked sincere as she always did, when she lied.”—Maybe because she’s not lying to you, dumdum. They argue about whether he was helping her or not by putting her into the asylum (he wasn’t), and she definitely wouldn’t have left there if not for her own cunning. Zuko liked having her under his control too much. Zuko then starts patronizing her, telling her she’s dangerous to herself and to other people, which he really isn’t in any position to be saying, since he didn’t see her for years and has no idea what kind of progress she’s made. “He blinked once at her defiance, reminded uncomfortably of another confrontation, one he stood on the other side of.”—You’re more like Ozai than you know, Zuko. Okay, it’s amazing that Azula “banished” her hallucinations. I love how you borrow dialogue from the show and use the repetition for effect like this. I noticed it in “The Road” and in the most recent chapter of “Dominion,” too, where Iroh was concerned. “And suddenly, her letters made a little more sense. Not much, but a little more. ‘You really think,’ he said slowly [ . . . ] ‘I’d keep her from you?’”—You’ve given her no evidence to the contrary, Zuko. “‘You’ll see what you want to see. You always have.’”—Azula’s got your measure, Zuko. Then Azula reveals that she wants to find Ursa, because she thinks that will help her get better (there are strategic reasons for this, too, which we’ll learn later), to which Zuko thinks in response, “And [he] had to make a conscious effort to crush the hope that surged like fire in his veins. The tiny voice of truth that said if anyone could do the impossible, it was Azula.”—Just let her go, Zuko. What do you have to lose from this plan besides Azula? Oh wait. “‘You /hated/ her! You didn’t even /care/ when Dad sent her away!’”—Zuko, did you ever ask how your sister felt about your missing mom? Or did you get so caught up in your own grief that you didn’t? I’d bet money that the latter option is what happened. “Zuko advanced on her in growing anger, but she held her ground. ‘You’re in no position to make demands!’ he reminded her, with a sweep of his hand for added emphasis. ‘A /disgraced/ princess with nothing but an /empty/ title to her name! No money, no power, no friends—’”—Be more of an ass, Zuko, why don’t you? Also Ty Lee exists, in case you’ve forgotten. Azula has a friend in her, even if she has nothing else. “‘It doesn’t /work/ like that anymore!’ he said hotly, fists clenched to match her own. Zuko was nearly close enough to lay hands on her now, and two steps away from trying it. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, /I’m/ not the one who landed in an /asylum/!”—Zuko’s hostility is starting to edge uncomfortably close to violence, in part because he feels like he’s losing his control over the situation. “But the thought of apologizing to Azula was as foreign to him as bending water. He didn’t owe her anything.”—Given later events, this may be the crux of Zuko’s character development: learning to tell Azula that he’s sorry for how he’s treated her and thanking her for the things she’s done for him over the years. Because she has helped him, at risk to herself. “‘So much better to be cruel than crazy, isn’t it?’ she whispered, close enough that Zuko could just glimpse something sad and secret behind her eyes. ‘I should know.’”—Oh baby, you need so many hugs from Ty Lee. So Azula makes a break for it and Zuko thinks, “He made a promise to Mai. And he was a father now, he forced himself to recall.”—It’s interesting to me how detached Zuko is from Lu Ten emotionally at points, while he later desires to have a certain child with him. It occurs to me that his feelings aren’t dissimilar to Ozai’s in that respect. “‘That’s not what you came here for,’ she chided, a familiar promise written in the arch of her brows.”—Well that’s not creepy at all. “‘You never should have turned you back on me.”—Channel Scar more, Azula, why don’t you? Also, I think Zuko misinterprets what she said here—he takes it as more of a threat than it probably is. Azula then asks him why he’s here. “‘To bring you to justice,’ Zuko replied automatically, because he’d said it to himself and other people enough times that that must make it true.”—That’s not how the truth works, Zuko. “‘You need to be tried for your crimes in the war,’ he insisted, ignoring how her teeth ground at the suggestion that what she’d done was wrong. ‘And as soon as you’re sane, you will be.’” Alright, so I looked up what our society defines as war crimes for this. Azula has done the following: “Depriving a prisoner of war of a fair trial,” “Unlawful deportation, confinement or transfer,” and “taking hostages” where the Kyoshi Warriors and the head of Dai Li are concerned. Now here’s what Zuko has done: “Unlawful wanton destruction or appropriation of property,” “directing attacks against civilians,” and “taking hostages.” Azula’s crimes probably wouldn’t be considered unlawful during the time that ATLA takes place—capturing and imprisoning enemy combatants happened on both sides of the war. In addition to this, none of her victims died (presumably the Kyoshi Warriors were hurt, but that happened in combat). Zuko, on the other hand, destroyed peoples’ homes and probably did hurt civilians in the process. It’s little wonder that Azula grits her teeth when Zuko suggests that what she did was worse than what he did. “‘Well if /that/ isn’t an incentive to recover, I don’t know what is.’”—I laughed. “‘Our nation owes it to the world to hold people like /you/ to account.’ ‘People like me….’”—Yeah, I’d be disappointed in my brother, too, if I was Azula. “her voice low and silky”—Azula, this is what people mean about you talking to men in an inappropriate way. I realize you don’t know any better, but this is dangerous for you to be doing, especially to someone who is being aggressive towards you. “And Azula smiled. It was not a nice smile. ‘Five points for good parenting, Zuzu,’ she condescended, turning quite casually to leave. ‘Kids are scared enough of imaginary monsters at that age.’ Her voice fell as she moved off down the hall. ‘How soundly would he sleep, if he knew about /me/?”—So I think she actually felt hurt that Zuko hadn’t told Lu Ten about her yet. His decision to do so probably makes her feel even more isolated from their family. Her trotting out the comparison of herself to a monster is also something Azula tends to do when she’s having moments of insecurity and self-hatred. “her back to him like an invitation”—An invitation to what? Hit her? You’re so gross, Zuko. “‘So why don’t we make a deal? [ . . . ] Leave me alone to find Mother, and I will have nothing more to do with you. Or yours.’”—Take that deal, Zuko. It’s the best offer from her you’re going to get, and at this point, it’s probably the healthiest option for both of you psychologically.

"'If the best I can expect from you is /neglect/'"—It's telling that Azula uses the word "if" here, because it suggests that she would be open to having a better relationship with him, if he was willing to be a better brother to her. "'the best you can expect from me is neglect. Not quite as nice as having me under your /thumb/, to be sure [ . . . ] but don't pretend you wouldn't rather I was gone.'"—She both understands his desires here and doesn't. Zuko wants her close, but he wants her close on his terms. Zuko, in any case, shuts this conversation down by calling her crazy and rejecting her offer, which sets off the fighting between them. "Zuko had the advantage here. And the black look Azula gave him said she knew that he knew."—Let's keep this in mind as we get farther into this altercation. "Azula tumbled painfully end over end through the dust, her short, sharp cries punctuated by the dull thuds of her repeatedly striking the gray stone floor."—And Zuko claims that he doesn't want to hurt her? You'd think the pained noises she's making would pull him up short if that was the case. "'Of course you do'"—See, Azula agrees with me. "'You just don't want to admit that you /can't/!'"—Azula, I get that you're trying to get him to slip up, but if you goad him like this, he could seriously hurt you. "She wanted to knock him unconscious? he considered."—Her plans don't work if you're dead, Zuko. And I don't think she actually wants you dead, either. "Could she mean to take him hostage? [ . . . ] She had to know he would never go along with that."—Because hostages totally get a say in their captivity. Zuko thinks that Azula has a "near-perfect memory," which may be true when she's lucid, but I can't imagine it's true when she's not. "[He] thought back to that one time he'd searched her room"—for hints to where their mother had gone? Then they collide. This is where their fight starts to go off the rails. First, we get the "hug" that isn't a hug, keying us into the fact that something isn't right about the physical contact between them. Then it keeps buildings: "lifting her head so the tip of her nose just brushed his chin." "He stiffened at her closeness. Her body was pressed right against him, leaving little to the imagination. He was probably about to die. So he really should be thinking of anything other than how very thin her robe was." "Her voice was low and almost seductive, her breath hot in his ear."—In short, Zuko is very turned on by this. Random note: Azula is left-handed. I love it. "And Zuko struck her hard across the face."*—Remember when I said I had a theory I was going to get into in this chapter? This is a part of it. Also, Zuko, you are a terrible human being. "Zuko stared in horror first at her and then at the hand he still held before him, as if he suspected it of acting against his will. He hadn't meant to do—How could he—/Why couldn't she just be/ normal? the old resentment drowned out his shock."—Zuko deflects the blame for his violence towards Azula onto her, with the implication being that she deserves this for not being exactly what he wants her to be. This is classic victim-blaming from the abuser. "Zuko grabbed her wrist to jerk her back, and didn't know he burned her until he felt the heat beneath his fingers [ . . . ] and Azula fell against him with a sharp cry that choked off too quickly, as if she were afraid to make a sound."*—We're starting to get hints here at how Azula has been conditioned to respond to abuse. "He barely had time to register this, his hand still gripped her hot and blistered skin"—OUCH!—"when Azula pressed a soft kiss against the side of his neck"*—(Horrified moan.) "His stomach lurched like he stepped off the edge of a precipice, fallen into the gap between who he was before she did this, and now."—Great line. "He still stood in that attitude when her free hand slid under the crossed collar of his crimson shirt. Her fingertips on his skin were electric, and Zuko exhaled a shuddering breath when he remembered to breathe again. She was—Why was she—/What/? [ . . . ] he leaned into her next kiss, and her teeth pulled at the soft skin where his neck joined his shoulder. Her nails began to scratch, he could feel her tense against him…."—She's being physically intimate with him, but her body is tense and she isn't making any verbal indications that she wants this. "/No./ The word cut like morning light through the fog that settled on his mind. He gripped her arms hard to throw her off."—Zuko could have asked her what she was doing here. He doesn't. "If he could catch her gaze, he would know why—He would know what to do. But her eyes were tightly closed as a child's who pretends to be invisible, just because she cannot see. Tears struggled at the corners of them, and she turned her face away when Zuko brought his mouth too close to hers."—SHE IS NOT INTO THIS. SHE IS IN DISTRESS. STOP! But Zuko doesn't stop. "/Such a fucking tease,/ the ugly thought burst into his mind like a damn breaking."—Please excuse me while I throw up at how disgusting that is. "There was nothing she could hide from him, whatever she thought."—Zuko thinks this as he strips her, and I can't help but think that he's never sounded more like Ozai. "Her fingers grasped his collar, and she pressed closer, as if to hide herself against him"*—Again, she's not into this. She's scared. "But Zuko refused her, tore the shirt impatiently from his shoulders and cast it to the gray stone floor, like throwing down a gauntlet."—Another great line. Zuko demands that she look at him (probably like his father has) and this happens: "But Zuko stopped at the face she showed him. Her dark brows drew low over amber eyes that were impenetrable as two stones. The curve of her mouth was as fixed as a painted smile on a porcelain face. She didn't feel anything. /She never did/."—Azula is deep into a dissociative episode at this point. Instead of realizing that something is wrong with her mental state, though, Zuko persists in his belief that something is fundamentally wrong with Azula /as a person/, which dehumanizes her. His lack of empathy for her contributes to what he does next. "Zuko hated that smirk at once, wanted nothing so much as to see it gone. It was wrong, as wrong as everything about her. That was the only motive he could think of to explain why he pressed his mouth to hers."—No. You're doing it because you're turned on. "But the only thought that broke through his haste was that she tasted like blood."—This adds to the association of violence with their intimacy. "He grabbed her arm reflexively and pulled her along, vowing she would not escape him."—We see possessiveness on Zuko's part again. When they actually start to have sex, we also get Zuko's creepy line, "to hold so much power in his hands…," which adds to that feeling of possessiveness and to his objectification of Azula. "He felt her whole body tense up around him, her arms closed about his neck to pull him into the closest thing to a hug they'd shared since there were children."—First, this body language is still screaming that she's not okay with this. Second, that is so, /so wrong/! "Something coiled in his chest and threatened to break, when her breath came so hard and fast he thought she might be having a panic attack."—It's interesting to me that while you noticed this, Zuko, you still didn't STOP OR SAY ANYTHING TO HER! You could have done both of those things, and probably would if you were with anyone but Azula.

"Azula looked over his shoulder, her face turned into the headboard so he couldn't see the awful concentration in it, her breathing strictly controlled. As if she were performing some complicated kata. Her eyes were closed, her mouth set in a pained grimace."—Ugh, "performing some complicated kata" is right. That /is/ how she would think of it. But again, what we're getting here is a conditioned response from her, rather than something she genuinely wants to be doing. Also, as far as her…"performance"…goes, I feel like most people would realize that she's forcing herself through this. She's not acting like she's enjoying it, which I feel would be necessary for Ozai's "honeypot" plan to work. I'm surprised he wouldn't have been more critical of her lack of "passion"…or maybe he was. Azula does think that he was "demanding" in their "training," so maybe he was trying to make her more convincing in the act. That definitely isn't coming across here, though, since she's clearly in pain. "He thought he saw his own anguish in her mouth drawn tight."—What are you talking about, "your anguish," Zuko? "They were the same. They were the same…."—No you are fucking not, Zuko! "'Now you've taken everything from me,' she whispered harshly. 'Is it enough? Will it ever be?'"—So she's snapped out the disassociation for the time being. "'Never,' Zuko breathed."—God, he's such a terrible person. They start struggling again, and we get this incredibly telling passage: "He moved hastily to pin her down, grabbing her arms to restrain her [ . . . ] Without time even for conscious thought, he crushed his mouth against hers, and stole her breath before she could ignite. Azula jolted with surprise and a frantic noise of protest that died in her throat, without voice. Zuko only deepened the kiss, and she wrenched in his grasp, arched beneath him in a last desperate attempt at escape. But he clamped an arm around her waist and gripped the damp hair at the nape of her neck, holding her so tightly against him he left her no room to move."—She's protesting and trying to get away from him. He won't let her. "As if this had been a signal*, she shuddered once and went still, without explanation. If felt enough like surrender that Zuko broke from her, breathing hard, and laid his head against hers, his harsh exhalations stirring dust from the faded covers. He could feel her heart beat much too fast behind her ribs, like a bird breaking itself on the bars of its cage. Zuko wondered, distantly, if there was even more wrong with her than he knew."—First, yes, there is something very wrong with Azula that you aren't aware of at this point, Zuko. Second and much more importantly, /this is where Zuko could have stopped/. Azula is no longer fighting. He could have pulled back and tried to assess the situation. He could have tried to say something to her or tied her up, to capture her like he'd intended. I could almost forgive him for the first rape (you know, despite the fact that he knows what a healthy sexual relationship looks like and should have realized that something was wrong with how Azula was acting), but then this happens: "It was the last coherent thought he managed, before he found himself again in her midst." He rapes her a second time. And he realizes that that what's he's doing, too, even if he doesn't call it rape: "She cried out once, and his stomach twisted with guilt"—he knows what he's doing is wrong—"but he didn't stop, couldn't make out what she screamed before she strangled the sound in her throat, as if she were scared of getting caught."—He keeps going anyway. "She didn't speak again and only held tighter, as certain as Zuko, it seemed, that letting go would mean her death…."*—That has to be one of the most depressing things I've ever read. She felt that way about Ozai too, didn't she? "Her eyes were empty of recognition. Her lips moved silently, forming the same word over and over again. But he couldn't read it."—We know from future chapters that she's saying "father" here. "A deep and visceral horror filled him. She was never this bad before. He did this, he /did/ this…."—Yeah, people don't tend to respond well to being raped, Zuko. So this next section is arguably where Azula rapes Zuko: "Her vacant gaze lit with a predatory gleam, a look he'd seen her wear before, but one he caught more often from his father." "'Aaah-ah! Ngh…' was all the objection Zuko could manage, when she thrust herself aggressively against him. It was too much. He had nothing left to give, and she was hurting him."—He's not into this anymore. He's in physical pain. At the same time, though, I don't think Azula has any control over what she's doing. Her dialogue heavily suggests that she's in another dissociative episode and reliving an encounter she had with Ozai: "'You're mine. You'll /stay/ mine,' she breathed, and her voice sent a shiver down his spine. She didn't even sound like herself. 'You will /bend/ for me, you will /obey/ me.' She punctuated each command with a thrust of her hips, and Zuko's hands on them did little to deter her. 'You'll never tell. /You'll never tell./ And even if you tried,' she faltered here, and had to choke out, 'who would believe you?' Her tears fell on his chest, so hot they almost scalded, when she whispered haltingly, 'Azula always lies. /Azula always/—lies…'"* I'm going to get back to this dialogue in a minute. I'm going to cover the rest of this chapter before I discuss my theory about this. "Frozen with the shock of realization, she looked down on him as if she'd just woken from a nightmare, to find it followed her into the waking world. 'No…' she whispered brokenly, her voice edged with panic."—Yeah, she absolutely wasn't in control of herself the third time they had sex. "But she tore [her hands] from his fingers, her teeth clenched in disgust." "The rest of her trembled with rage."—So here's the thing. While Zucest happens in "Dominion," I don't think that Azula feels any sexual or romantic desire for Zuko. I don't even think that Zuko feels romantic desire for her either (sexual desire, though, absolutely). What they've done obviously disgusts Azula, and Zuko even acknowledges later that what they did was an act of hate. It was also an act of dominance, with both of them, but mostly Zuko, taking the dominant role at different points. But Zuko—who wasn't drugged and who wasn't disassociating—bears more of the responsibility for what happened. Azula wasn't cognizant of her behavior. Zuko was. Which isn't to dismiss the trauma Zuko will feel from this incident later, but I am much less inclined to sympathize with him than with Azula, given the above. And as far as the blame for this encounter goes…while it ultimately leads back to Ozai's abuse of both of his children, I don't feel comfortable saying Zuko that had no agency in this. He made choices here—and one of them was the choice to have sex with his sister when the opportunity arose. And since Azula didn't want him when it happened, that makes Zuko a rapist. "'I missed you,' he offered weakly, too exhausted to realize this was the first time he had admitted it to anyone. Even himself."—That might be one of the saddest things I've ever read.

Zuko falls asleep after this, but Azula does not. This is technically our first scene from Azula's perspective and it is /heartbreaking/: "Azula took five halting steps into the dusty room before she succeeded in tying the sash of her robe with shaking hands, so tightly she could barely breathe. It wasn't nearly tight enough."—She feels violated from what happened. "She had done worse than this, she reminded herself. She had done worse, and lived. She would survive this too."—This makes me wonder just how extensive Ozai's "training" was and I don't think I actually want to know the answer. "Her mouth bent into something resembling a grimace, and her sight blurred with tears. She clenched her hands into fists to forget how Zuko tried to hold them, when she panicked. He was just trying to save his own worthless life, she told herself, bitterly. /It had nothing to do with you. It never did./ Azula had to look down before she realized she had drawn her fists to her chest, as if to shield herself from a blow."—Oh baby I am so, so sorry. I wish I could give you a hug. "The dagger their uncle gave Zuko from his abortive conquest of Ba Sing Se. How much she coveted this once, Azula recalled. But he never meant it for her. And she contemplated putting it to a use he never intended."—I'm pretty sure no jury would convict her if she killed Zuko here. I'm not even sure I would, given the extent of the violence he inflicted on her. But of course, I also know that she won't do it, because, A.) Azula isn't keen on the whole murder thing, B.) The note she wrote was obviously meant for him, and C.) That would end the story too soon. So Zuko gets to keep breathing and I get to keep glaring at him through my computer screen. Alright, so now to get to that theory I've been listing *s for. Here are the specific points again: "And Zuko struck her hard across the face." "Zuko grabbed her wrist to jerk her back, and didn't know he burned her until he felt the heat beneath his fingers [ . . . ] and Azula fell against him with a sharp cry that choked off too quickly, as if she were afraid to make a sound." "He barely has time to register this, his hand still gripped her hot and blistered skin, when Azula pressed a soft kiss against the side of his neck." "Her fingers grasped his collar, and she pressed closer, as if to hide herself against him." "But he clamped an arm around her waist and gripped the damp hair at the nape of her neck, holding her so tightly against him he left her no room to move. As if this had been a signal, she shuddered once and went still, without explanation." "She didn't speak again and only held tighter, as certain as Zuko, it seemed, that letting go would mean her death…." And most importantly: "'You're mine. You'll /stay/ mine,' she breathed, and her voice sent a shiver down his spine. She didn't even sound like herself. 'You will /bend/ for me, you will /obey/ me.' She punctuated each command with a thrust of her hips, and Zuko's hands on them did little to deter her. 'You'll never tell. /You'll never tell./ And even if you tried,' she faltered here, and had to choke out, 'who would believe you?' Her tears fell on his chest, so hot they almost scalded, when she whispered haltingly, 'Azula always lies. /Azula always/—lies….'" I'll start with the dialogue. When I was first reading "Dominion," I thought that this was something that Ozai had said to Azula while he was "training" her. Then I realized just how hostile this dialogue was. "You're mine. You'll /stay/ mine."—This implies that when this was happening, there was a question about whether or not Azula would try to break away from him. Her loyalty, in short, was under question. "You will /bend/ for me, you will /obey/ me."—Azula's obedience was also under question. But what's most telling to me is this: "You'll never tell. /You'll never tell./ And even if you tried, who would believe you?" This, combined with the predatory expression and the aggressive thrusting, gives me the distinct impression that this sexual encounter wasn't "normal" by Ozai and Azula's standards. "You'll never tell" indicates that it's something that Ozai knows Azula will want to do afterwards. As far as the timing goes, this means that there was someone around who she could potentially turn to, which suggests that this happened either before Mai and Ty Lee left originally, or after the trio were reunited. And then there's the /purpose/ behind this—because if Ozai is addressing the possibility that Azula will want to tell someone about what happened afterwards, then he is also acknowledging that what he is doing to her is wrong. Which means that the intent behind this encounter wasn't to "train" Azula—it was to /hurt her./ Why else would he taunt her that there was no one she could go to for help, because no one would believe her? So this is my theory: what we're seeing here isn't a general episode of abuse, but how Ozai punished Azula after Zuko defected. For lying to him, he struck her in the face and split her lip, then burned her. Then the violence turned sexual in nature, though it's unclear who initiated it—it could have been Azula doing it as a defense mechanism, or Ozai doing it to enforce his power/control over her, or a mixture of both. Azula definitely obeyed him, in part due to her conditioning—the grip on the back of her neck is a trigger to get her to comply—and in part due to her genuinely fearing for her life during this encounter. That is what Ozai meant when he said he "made sure [Azula lying to him/disobeying him] would never happen again" and what Azula keeps alluding to when she thinks about the aftermath of Zuko's defection. It also, I suspect, was a contributing factor to the deterioration of her mental state in the last few episodes of the show, because her father not only assaulted her (without any ambiguity about that being was what he was doing, unlike during the other parts of their "training"), but then abandoned her not long afterwards. And here's thing: I only realized the significance of this exchange recently. It's not obvious on the first read through what is happening here, and it's not obvious the fifth time either. Which suggests to me that you, as a writer, were purposefully trying to obscure the contents of Azula's flashback to the readers. The fact that Ozai and Azula alike both avoid going into detail about it later on only adds to this deflection. Which suggests to me that you're planning to reveal the aftermath of Zuko's defection in full later—and that if there is one scene you include that depicts Ozai raping Azula, that scene is going to be it. And why/when would it come up? When Azula is finally being confronted about what Ozai did to her. She will try to defend their "training," but I think this assault will be in the back of her mind, arguing that there was actually something deeply wrong and evil about what Ozai did to her. And as far as your writing style goes, its inclusion would also further your use of "echoing" scenes and dialogue, deepening the impact of chapter seven upon re-read.

Now I'm of mixed feelings where showing Ozai raping Azula is concerned, if it in fact happens. On the one hand, you have never shied away from depicting disturbing material before in "Dominion," and it feels as if not seeing that abuse from Azula's perspective would be a notable absence. On the other hand, showing the aftermath of the abuse is much more important than showing the abuse itself, and showing it risks feeding into reader voyeurism as well. Ultimately, it's up to the writer to decide how much to show or only allude to, but I trust you whichever way you go with this. Now if it turns out I'm wrong about this theory, I'll feel both surprised and embarrassed. I /am/ confident that my interpretations of the sex scenes in this chapter are correct, though. I've been wanting to dissect those scenes for a while now, because there are readers who find the issue of consent in them to be ambiguous (I'm thinking mostly of icewhisker21's discussions of "Dominion," which seem colored by Zucest shipping googles). However, I think it's clear that there was no mutual or positive consent where the sex between Zuko and Azula is concerned, and as such, Azula's later claims that Zuko raped her are completely justified. So that's my lengthy analysis of chapter seven. This will probably be where I leave off until the summer, unless my homework load lightens and I get some time before May. As always, though, thank you for the read! Sincerely, WiseAbsol

#WiseAbsol #Azula #avatar: the last airbender #Dominion by Aurelia le #Fanfiction #Review

[bonkaisecretsanta]

Trigger Point

Happy holidays @fuckitimfangirling​ from @goldscribbles​! This is an unconventional take on the soulmate trope. I've never thought about this idea before, so I found myself with a lot of questions and tried to work through them in this piece. I'm not sure if this is what you were looking for, but I did my best and hopefully you like it!

Kai steps out of the dim room into the hallway squinting at the light, his body loose and pleasantly aching from the massage.

“How are you feeling?” a soft voice asks.

He looks at his massage therapist, a short young woman with dark hair, who is holding a glass of water in her hand. Something is off with his vision. He rubs his eyes, but the slight blurriness still lingers.

The woman smiles, extending the glass to him. “Take your time. It can be hard adjusting to the light.”

“Thanks.” He takes the offered water from her, their fingers barely grazing, and color explodes across his retinas.

“Mr. Parker? Mr. Parker!”

He’s surprised to find himself on his knees (when did he fall?), his pants damp along his shins as it presses into the soaked carpet. She’s holding him by he forearms, and he finds his grip on her is equally tight. Her skin is no longer gray, but a warmer color he doesn’t know. The contrast between his skin tone and hers is more dramatic than he previously thought. What does the rest of her look like? He manages to drag his eyes up and what little air is left in his body is knocked out when he gazes into her panicked, vibrant eyes.

“Sir, are you alright? Oh god—”  

He tries to tell her about the colors, but he’s lost control of his tongue and can only sputter helplessly. When he feels her pulling away, he panics, tightening his grip on her. “N-no. Wait.”

“Mr. Parker, I’m going to call for help. I’ll be right—”

“What’s your name?” He’s sure she told him an hour ago, and he could kick himself for forgetting something so important.

“Bonnie,” she answers with a forced calm. “Do you remember where you are?”

“How old are you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re just so young.”

She tenses up. “Mr. Parker, I should be the one asking—”

“Call me Kai,” he says, desperate to remove the formalities between them. His eyes dart all over her face, taking everything in. “It’s you. I can’t believe I finally found you.”

She eyes at him warily. “Okay, Kai. I think you’ve just had a stroke. I need to call an ambulance to get you checked out.”

He laughs breathlessly. “What?”

“You fell down suddenly and couldn’t speak.”

“I was shocked.”

She tilts her head. “About what?”

“The colors, Bonnie! Don’t you see them?”

Bonnie yanks herself out of his hands and steps back. “No, I don’t.”

The colors dim.

“Jo! Come deal with your other half,” Luke shouts as he drops Kai’s dead weight on the living room couch.

Alaric sighs, before picking up the twins. “C’mon girls. Uncle Kai had too much grape juice again.”

“Nuh uh. ‘s agave,” Kai mumbles into the cushions.  

“What did Kai do now?” Jo sighs, walking down the stairs.  

“Luke could’ve been talking about me.” Alaric pouts. “I married you.”

“And that was the best decision you’ve ever made.” She pecks her daughters on their heads, before kissing him. “But the drunk on our couch is the guy I shared a womb with, so technically speaking, he’s the only one who fits the description.”

Luke grins. “It’s a twin thing.”

“Well, your other half mentioned tequila so have fun with that part of your life.”

Jo gasps in disbelief. Alaric saunters upstairs to the nursery.

“Why on earth did you let him have tequila?” she demands, stomping over to Luke and smacking him on the head.

“Ow! Hey, I didn’t let him do anything. By the time I found him, he finished half a bottle worth of shots.”

She kneels next to the motionless body. “If you throw up on my couch, I will skin you alive,” Jo threatens.

Glassy gray eyes squint up at her. “Sissy…?”

“This is not how executive vice presidents act, Kai!”

“Stop yelling.” Kai pushes himself up, rubbing a hand down his face. “I’m not wasted.”

Luke snorts. “Half a bottle of tequila says otherwise.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t trying to be.” Kai glares at his brother. “Beat it, kid. The adults are talking.”

Luke rolls his eyes but heads toward the exit. “Gladly.”

“Don’t forget to tell Liv to come to dinner for next week. Mandatory attendance!” Jo shouts, making Kai wince. She takes a good look at him, and from the way her face crinkles up, she’s not impressed. “Care to explain why you’re trying to drink this town dry?”

He presses the heel of his palms into his eyes. The lights were making his temples throb. “It’s called a coping mechanism.”

“No, it’s called alcoholism. Specifically alcohol poisoning. I can’t even picture the state of your liver right now.”

Frustrated with Jo’s nagging and the blinding light emitting from the nearby lamp, Kai grabs the offending glass object and hurls it across the room, shattering it against the wall.

“Kai!”

“Much better. It was too bright in here.”

“My kids live here, your nieces, and you break my lamp because you don’t have enough living brain cells to figure out the flip switch?”

“Well I guess you have to add another fuck up to my tab then, don’t you? Bad uncle. Bad brother. Horrible boss.” He stands up laughing like it’s the funniest thing in the world. “In fact, I’m so shitty, my soulmate isn’t really mine. I’m riding a goddamn rainbow, and all she sees is some old creep in black and white.”

Jo purses her lips. “You’re not an old creep.”

“Thanks, Sissy. Great pep talk.”

She pushes him down on the couch and sinks onto the cushion next to him. “I’m not going to lie to you.”

He smiles dryly. “How’d a good girl like you end up with a defect like me?”

She grabs him by the chin and forces him to look at her. “Hey. Stop that. You are a nightmare to be around most of the time, but you there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“You diagnosed me as a sociopath when you were in med school.”

“And as long as you stay away from torture and murder, everything will be great.”

“Better seat Joey as far away from me as possible next week.”

“He broke your pager when he was six, and we’re all on iphones now. You need to let that go.”

“Joey has an android.”

“You literally don’t care about that.”

“Just stating a fact.” Jo huffs, but doesn’t say anything. Kai continues in a softer tone, “Just like dad did. The defective twin.”

She nudges him with her shoulder. “Hey, he didn’t mean it. Dad just didn’t know how to handle you. None of us did.”

“He meant it. Used to say there was something wrong with me. He told me there’s no way I could have a soulmate. Said it so casually, too.” Kai clenches his jaw. “Guess he was right all along.”

“You said you saw colors with this girl. That’s enough to prove him wrong.”

“She didn’t.” He rubs his face.

“Tell me about her. You didn’t even give me a name.”

“Bonnie. She’s beautiful and young. Too young. Probably still in college. Christ.”

“Well you still drink like you’re in college. That’s common ground.” she jokes weakly. “Why don’t you visit her again? Find out if you have other shared interests.”

“Forget it. Maybe I’m wrong. There was some weird candle burning in that room, so it could’ve been a hallucination. Or a stroke.”

“There’s only one way to find out.” She stands up and walks out of the room. When she returns, she hands him a card with six gray boxes drawn on it. Below each box was a list of three words: hair, eyes, and skin. “We’re both getting massages tomorrow morning at that spa. I requested that you have Bonnie. When you see her, if you see colors again at any point, I want you to mark each of her features on this card, and I’ll tell you if you’re right or not.”

“I’m not going.”

“Of course you are. You want to see her again.” Jo slaps him on the back before walking away, pointing at the broken lamp. “Clean that up.”

“Mr. Parker, it’s nice to see you again,” Bonnie greets him, her smile stiff.

She’s colorless. The sight of her knocks the breath out of his lungs.

When he doesn’t respond, Jo steps in. “Hi there. I’m Jo Saltzman. Thank you so much for taking care of my brother when he had that episode last week. I think the stress of the job must’ve gotten to him.”

Bonnie glances at Jo and relaxes. “Oh no worries. I completely understand.” She turns back to Kai and tilts her head toward the hallway. “If you’re ready, we can get started, Mr. Parker.”

He clears his throat. “Sure.”

Jo pats his chest, pressing on the card and pen he placed in that pocket. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

Afterwards, Jo studies her brother’s face as he walks back to the reception area. His hair and clothes are rumpled, but there’s a tightness to his expression. He holds her gaze for a moment before pulling out the wrinkled card and marking it. When he reaches the front desk, he slips to her as he reaches for his wallet to pay for their sessions.

She looks at it, and fights a smile.

Bonnie emerges, and waves at both of them. “Have a great day you two. We hope to see you again.”

Kai turns automatically toward the girl. “Thanks, Bonnie. I’ll definitely be back.” He hands her the small tips envelope, and Jo catches the way he straightens when Bonnie’s fingers touch his.

“Thank you!”

It’s a quiet drive to Kai’s house. Jo tries to engage him in conversation, but Kai remains silent and stares out the window. She parks in front of his driveway, keeping the doors locked.

“You were right, you know,” she says. “Bonnie has green eyes and brown skin.”

“Let me out, Sissy.”

“Kai, talk to me.”

He unbuckled his seatbelt and stares straight ahead. She notices the muscle pulsing in his jawline. If he keeps clenching his teeth, he'll wear away at his teeth. “Why did you mark this box with a star?”

He doesn’t answer at first, keeping his eyes on the line of cars in front of them. When she gives up and reaches nearly pushes the release on the doors, he murmurs, “That’s the closest thing to your eyes.”

Jo swings her gaze back at him to find his attention on her. There's a tickle in her nose and eyes that tells her she's on the verge of tears. It's something she often forgets. While most people were born seeing colors as a child before everything faded to gray with puberty, Kai always lived in black and white.

“Yeah. They're blue, just like Mom. Liv and Luke also have it. Joey’s are brown like Dad, kind of like Bonnie’s skin tone, but darker. You have blue eyes too, but it's not the same shade as mine. It’s more gray.”

“Of course it is,” he says laughing humorlessly. It breaks her heart, because he doesn't stop laughing. The longer it goes on, the more it sounds like crying. But his eyes are dry and he still has that unnerving smile on his face.

She unbuckles her seatbelt to turn towards him. “We're going to figure this out, Kai. I'm here, I promise. You're not damaged, you just need to work a little harder.”

He cups her face, staring deeply into her eyes, before placing a soft kiss on her forehead. “You've always been a crybaby.”

There's a soft click, and the moment, she's alone in the car with tears trailing down her face.

A thought strikes him at night. Given her profession, Bonnie must touch at least thirty bodies a week. What if she finds color with one of them?

In the morning, Kai fires five employees, including an employment lawyer who tries to stop him.

Because he’s a glutton for punishment, Kai sets up a weekly appointment with Bonnie. Ever since he found her, there’s a living itch underneath his skin that only her touch can ease.

“Mr. Parker?” Bonnie greets at him. “Ready for your massage?”

As he lays face down on the cushioned massage table, gritting his teeth against the sensation of her elbow digging a path along his spine, he feels like he can breathe again.

Afterwards, when she hands him a glass of water that tense smile, he feels the tension return to his body. The impulse to shake her and demand that she looks at him properly overwhelms him momentarily. He’s dizzy with want, especially when her lingering touch on his skin allows him to see the world fully. Why couldn’t he have this?

His dad’s voice rings in his ear: I doubt there’s someone out there for an abomination like you.

There is someone meant for him. He’s staring right at her. The problem is that he isn’t meant for her.

His dad must be laughing in his grave.

Still, Kai can’t stand her being nervous around him like the employees at work. He thinks about what Jo would do in this situation, and immediately feels uncomfortable. Nevertheless, he does it.

“I’m sorry about the time I...lost my head here. It wasn’t my intention to freak you out.”

“It’s not your fault,” she reassures him quickly. “These things tend to happen, no matter what age you are, although it’s rare for people under 45.” He has the sudden urge to tell her he’s definitely under 45, but stops himself. They have his birthdate on file, so she probably knows his age. “Um, you mentioned that you saw colors that day. I guess you haven’t found your person yet, huh?”

He takes a sip of water. “No, not yet.”

She makes a sympathetic tut. “That must be hard. I’m sure you will soon though.”

“Hm. Have you found yours yet?”

“No, but I’m also not looking right now. I need to finish my last semester first and then find full time work before I can think of soulmates.” She pauses, then laughs with a shrug. “Besides, if there’s someone fated for me, then we’ll cross paths eventually, right?”

Kai stares into her green eyes and smiles tightly. “So you’re a college senior? That must be exciting, being on the cusp of the real world.”

Bonnie is a twenty-two year old (he’s twice her goddamn age!) doctoral candidate for physical therapy. She’s working as a massage therapist for the extra cash. Hailing from a sleepy small town called Mystic Falls, she claims the most scandalous thing that happened was when her grandmother claimed to be the town witch after too many drinks at the school’s holiday party.

“What about you?” she asks, slotting her fingers between his. “What do you do for a living?”

“I work in an office,” he says, suppressing a moan as she presses the heel of her palm down and pulls his hand into a stretch.

Liv walks into his office unannounced on Thursday. She’s followed closely by his assistant.

“Mr. Parker, I tried to stop her,” he says anxiously.

Kai glares at them over the paperwork in his hands. “You’re both fired. Get out.”

The assistant looks ready to cry.

Liv rolls her eyes, and drops into the chair in front of his desk. “Stop being dramatic.” She glances over her shoulder. “Go back to your desk Ben. You’re not fired. Kai is taking his lunch break now and shouldn’t be disturbed.”

Ben nods eagerly and shuts the door behind him.

“Big brother.”

“I fired you. Leave.”

“I’m a shareholder of this company.”

“You’re a college junior with an internship.”

“Who owns five percent.” Kai scoffs at the number. She plucks the papers out of his hands and tosses them on the floor. “You need to stop firing people because you’re in a bad mood.”

He heaves an aggravated sigh. “This is an at-will company. If I will them to never step foot into this building again, that’s my prerogative.”

She crosses her arms. “Jo spilled the beans on your soulmate missed connection.”

Kai leans back in his chair. “And you’re here to do what? Give me a valedictorian speech about fate and tarot card readings?”

“I don’t need some magic trick to know that you’re a miserable person who will be less miserable once your situation with this girl is resolved.”

He flashes his teeth in a menacing grin. “Liv, just because you found a puppy to follow you around doesn’t mean you know anything about it. Now get out of my office before I have you thrown out.”

She narrows her eyes at him before looking away. Jo said Liv had blue eyes too, and through his anger, he tries to picture it. Her lips twist and purse, as if trying to stop the words from escaping her mouth. “Tyler didn’t see me in color when we first met.”

It feels like an out-of-body experience. He gives her his full attention, and really looks at his youngest sister for the first time.

“He had a girlfriend at the time, and we were barely friends. I didn’t know what to do, so I was a huge bitch to him. I thought that if he just stared at me long enough, he’d realize who I was.”

He leans forward. “What did you do?” His voice is strained and rough with desperation, but he doesn’t care. Nothing matters more to him than what Liv can tell him in this moment.

“It was Luke, actually. When Tyler got fed up with me and told me off one day, I hit rock bottom. Drank my way into an emergency room visit to have my stomach pumped. Two days later, Luke wrestled me into a therapist’s chair and made me confront myself.” Liv keeps her eyes on the ends of her hair, seeking out split ends. “It didn’t make Tyler situation better, but it helped somehow. He forgave me and we were able to become better friends. Then one day, he gets this dumb look on his face in the middle of our study group. He touched my hair, and kept repeating how bright it was.”

“You think therapy will help me.”

Liv meets his gaze finally. “I think that we have to work to become the partners our soulmates deserve.” She slides a business card across his desk.

“Are you going to hand me the contracts you threw too?”

She flips him off on the way to the door.

Kai has an appointment that evening.

“What’s got you so stressed that you’re seeing me twice a week?” Bonnie laughs.

“It’s busy at year-end,” he replies.

“I can imagine. C’mon, let’s see if we can work out some of those knots.”

Therapy is hard. He quits a hundred times a week between appointments, vowing to never return. Only the thought of his soulmate keeps him coming back.

“Let’s continue our conversation about your parents,” Dr. Benson says.

Kai closes his eyes and chants her name in his head like a prayer. Bonnie. Bonnie. Bonnie.

“Are you doing anything fun for the holidays?” Bonnie asks after his last session of the year. He won’t see her for two weeks.

“Family dinner,” he replies.

“Same. Are you going back home to Portland?”

“No, surprisingly most of us have settled here so no traveling.”

“Convenient. Well, happy holidays, Mr. Parker. I’ll see you in the new year?”

“Please, it’s Kai.”

She smiles easily, and it sends his heart pounding. “Merry Christmas, Kai.”

“How often do you see cases like mine?”

“I've never met someone born colorblind before, but the situation with your soulmate isn’t unheard of. From what I’ve seen, this usually means that one or both parties involved are on the cusp of a transformation. In your case, this woman is well-suited to be your companion, but you cannot serve that role to her as you currently are.”

Kai leans back. “Wouldn’t the opposite be true too? She may be great now, but there’s a chance that I’ll be back to black and white in the future.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“What’s the point of having a soulmate then?”

“What is the point to anything?” Dr. Benson taps his pen against the desk. “I have been in this practice for seventeen years, Malachai.” His full name still pricks his nerves, but it’s easier than before. “The only answer I can give you is that everything changes. It’s a risk to live. There is a misconception that when soulmates meet for the first time, they are bound together for life. This is false. Nothing is guaranteed in this world: not your life, your health, your money. Why would this be any different?”

“It’s all a lie then,” Kai murmurs.

“Your soulmate may leave you colorless one day, but there’s a possibility she will not.”

“This hardly seems worth it.”

“Are you deciding to give up on this girl then?” At his silence, Dr. Benson adds, “Love is many things, Malachai, but it is not lazy.”

Kai takes over Jo’s kitchen and whips up a feast for Christmas dinner. He laughs at his siblings and mocks everyone at the table, but there’s a noticeable lack of malice in his words. He goes through the whole evening without casually making an attempt on Joey’s life too.  

“Are you dying?” Joey asks.

“Josiah!” Jo snaps, glaring as she holds a spoonful of apple sauce to her baby’s mouth.

“Probably,” Kai says around a mouthful of ham. “I might’ve had a stroke a couple of months ago. Maybe some internal bleeding in the brain is making me actually enjoy your company.”

“Alright you two, can we bring things back to lighter topics?” Alaric asks with a sigh.

When the dishes were cleared and everyone moved to the living room for the annual boozy holiday movie, Jo pulls Kai into the kitchen.

“Seriously, is there something wrong with you?” She presses the back of her hand against his forehead.

“I thought you said that was I was perfect as I am,” he teases.

She shoves him away. “Ugh, nevermind. You’ve just been acting weird all day.”

He shrugs. “Just trying something new.”

“Being nice?”

“Yeah, let’s go with that.”

“How was your holiday?” Bonnie asks as she enters the room. Kai is already face down on the table underneath the sheets.

“Oddly enlightening.”

“In a good way or a bad way? I can’t tell by your tone.”

He shrugs, anticipation running underneath his skin like a livewire. She peels the sheet off his back and tucks it around his waist. “Just enlightening.”

She hums, but drops the subject. “Made any new year’s resolutions?”

“Just one, but it’s a long term goal.” He hears her oiling her hands.

“Care to share?” she asks lightly.

“I’m going to open a restaurant.” Her hands pause over his back for a moment, close enough for him to feel a phantom touch.

“That’s so cool.” Her hands make contact with his skin and he melts. After two weeks without her touch, he finally feels at ease. “What made you want to leave your cushy office job for this?”

“I love cooking and I’m good at it,” he mumbles, already lost in the sensation of her firm fingers pressing into his muscles. “It was something I learned from my dad.”

“That’s nice.” He could hear the smile in her voice “Good luck with that.”

He walks out of the room, dressed but disheveled, and sees the familiar sight of her holding a glass of water. She probably does this with all her clients, but he likes to think this is their routine.

“How do you feel?” Bonnie asks.

“Good as new,” he grins.

She laughs, extending the glass toward him and he takes it, fingers brushing against hers. The smile trips off her face. He watches her green eyes widen and sees her leaning forward.

“Woah there! Bonnie?” He winds a arm around her waist, pressing her body to his in order to hold her up. “Are you alright?” Her hands shake as she reaches up to cup his face.

“Kai,” she breathes in wonder, her eyes darting around his face.

His heart pounds painfully against his ribs. “Yes?”

“I can see you. The colors...!”

#bkss2017 #fuckitimfangirling #goldscribbles #bonkai

[somegoodsheith]

Out of Breath (sheith fic)

Summary: AU. Keith and his friends go to the beach, despite Keith’s rather sour mood. However, he finds his mood turning to a sweeter direction, when he sets his eyes upon a very handsome lifeguard.

Ship: Shiro/Keith

Rating: M for swearing, just to be safe.

**

So here it is! The very first fic I’m publishing in my life as a never-publishing kind of writer (it’s still nerve-wrecking... :o ). 

I hope you guys’d like it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Likes and comments would be appreciated (pretty please)~ ♥ :>

The second I answer my phone, I regret it.

 It’s Sunday morning. I should have kept on sleeping. I should have ignored my phone completely or just hung up on whoever that is.

But no. I had to answer it.

And you know what’s even more irritating? Having Lance’s voice screaming into my ear at fucking nine on a fucking Sunday morning.

“Keith! Get up! We’re already outside in the car!” Lance’s voice is practically screeching through the phone. “Did you get your bag ready?! We gotta go! There’s a long ride before us.”

I curse under my breath. “Fine! Fine. I’m up. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“You better be!” With that, Lance hangs up.

I groan loudly and finally get up to quickly brush my teeth and take the only few things I need in a simple bag.

A towel. Sunscreen. A bottle of water. First aid kit. My wallet. A book.

My phone - I put in the swimming trunks’ pocket. The headphones go around my neck, like I always put them.

I put my sunglasses on and lock my apartment behind me. Why the hell is it so bright today?

“Look who decided to finally show up!” Lance shouts at me once again after he rolls the window down. “Good morning, sleepy-face. Or should I say - sleepy hair. You look like a hurricane got you out of bed, man.”

“Seriously? Sleepy hair? That's the best you can do?”

“Shut up. Get in the car, bro, we wanna go.”

Hunk is sitting beside him, in the driver’s seat, waving at me with a friendly apologetic smile.

I hate them both at the moment.

I put my bag in the trunk and get in the backseat. The only good thing about this trip is that I have this entire space just for myself.

“Remind me again why I agreed to go with you to the fucking beach,” I huff. I make sure they both hear how annoyed I am.

“Because we’re your awesome friends who take you out to have fun instead of letting you stay in bed all day like a sociopath?” Lance smiles at me through the front mirror. “Besides, it's summer break now! And we all passed our tests! What better way there is to celebrate it than going to the beach, getting some tan done and getting all the hot babes?”

“I don’t get tanned. I get burnt,” I groan again. I completely ignore the “babes” part.

“Well, too bad, because I do get tanned!” Lance says cheekily. “It’s gonna be perfect for my skin.”

“Well, I don’t give a shit.”

“Okay, okay, guys,” Hunk chuckles nervously. “Can we go now? Keith, put your seatbelt please.”

I roll my eyes and buckle up.

With that, and another excited, annoying yelp from Lance, we start the ride. Lance makes sure to connect his phone to the car with the AUX cable, and put his music in full volume.

After a short while of driving, I pull the seat belt away and lie down in the backseat, with my feet against the window and my head on one of Hunk’s bags. I put my headphones on and put my own music loud enough to overcome any other noise, and close my eyes.

Now I can catch up with the sleep they made me miss.

*

I wake up to the feeling of my legs drop on the seat.

“Keith. Keith, wake up. We’re here.”

I realize that voice is much softer - it must be Hunk. He stands right in front of my feet, after pulling the door open, with the sun on his back and a smile on his face. I pout nonetheless.

 After stretching myself and yawning, I put my flip-flops back on my feet and pull myself up. Good thing I still have my sunglasses on, since Hunk decided to move just a moment ago and reveal the huge beam of sunlight right into my eyes.

I lazily get out of the car and stretch again. Hunk and Lance already take their bags out of the truck, and I wait for them to finish - Hunk brought way too much stuff - until I can finally take mine. I can see Lance in the corner of my eye and I only now notice his weird star shaped sunglasses and his Hawaiian flower necklace and I have a feeling he's up to something. It’s just turned eleven in the morning, and it’s a hot, hot summer day. If I was in a better mood, I might’ve enjoyed it. I’m not, so I pout even more.

“Oh, come on, Keith! Stop being such a pain in the butt. Live a little!” Lance puts his arm around my shoulders and I fight myself not to kick his stomach. “You’re already here. You might as well enjoy yourself.” I roll my eyes again and get his arm off of me.

“We'll see about that,” is all I say.

The three of us enter the beach together. Hunk and Lance continue to walk without a care, I stop and sigh with annoyance.

I like the beach, usually. No, actually - “like” isn't the right word. I appreciate it. I think it can be beautiful at times, and the quieter it is, the better.

That's not how the beach is today. It's filled with too many people, who have too many parasols, children and garbage. I can hear loud music and shouts in a farther part of the beach, and I immediately know exactly why Lance was so eager this morning, and why he looks so festive.

I find myself hesitating in going any further, but Hunk is putting his hand on my shoulder and flashes one of his it's gonna be okay smiles. “Sorry we didn't tell you that there's a party here, man. Lance was afraid you'd refuse to come.”

“Well. He wasn't wrong,” I sigh.

“But hey, c’mon, you don't have to go to that party, you know. I'm not going either. Pidge and her brother are here too, we can hang out with them. We can play cards and I brought a ball, and we can go for a swim too. What do you say?”

“And, most importantly - we can bury Lance in sand and make a mermaid outta him,” says a young, female voice on my other side - it's Pidge, who is walking towards us and waves. We wave back, and I can't help but smile, and while Hunk hugs her like he hasn’t seen her in years, I just wrap my free arm around her small shoulders and tap. She does the same.

 “Knowing Lance, he wouldn't say no to that,” Hunk chuckles. “What's up, Pidge? Are you here for long?”

“Nah, we got here about thirty minutes ago. We're lucky to have found somewhere to sit.” She says. “But hey, speaking of Lance - where is he?”

“He went on to find us a spot and probably watch some pretty girls on the way.” Hunk shrugs. Like on cue, Lance whistles at us and waves to make us follow him. Behind him we can see Matt, Pidge’s brother, and we already know the spot he “found” is most likely where the Holts are. None of us is surprised.

We all make our way together. I look at the hot sand burst on my feet, until I hear Matt talking to someone. I stop walking and look at them, just out of curiosity, and even though I have my sunglasses on, I move them down a bit.

“Hey, Shiro!” He calls, looking at the lifeguard’s high stand to our left. At first, I can’t clearly see the man he’s talking to since he sits in the shade, and everything else is too bright around him. Then, he gets up and comes into the light.

Suddenly, he’s the one that’s too bright for everything else.

“You’re on duty today, huh? What a shame! The bunch of us ‘re gonna have tons of fun and you’re stuck up there!”

That Shiro guy laughs cynically. “Well at least I’m getting paid for being here!” He calls back with a beautiful smile. “Tell Pidge and your folks I said hi!”

“Our parents aren't here today, but I'll text them! See ya later!” They finally wave at each other, and I can’t help but keep on watching the lifeguard for a few more seconds. He keeps on looking at our direction as well, and suddenly I realize he’s waving at me.

Damn. I must be staring.

I manage to wave back somehow, and practically run away. My face feels so hot and I know it’s not because of the sun. I curse myself for not bringing a hat today either, because now I can't hide how embarrassed I am.

Fuck. I hate me so much.

*

The day goes much better than I originally expected. I spend most of it with Hunk, Pidge and Matt, if it’s by swimming, building sand castles (and ruining them violently - that’s the best part), or just playing cards. After Lance comes back from the party he was in on the other side of the beach, I kick his ass in a quick volleyball match. His punishment is, of course, to become a sand mermaid. Pidge doesn’t miss the chance to take pictures of everyone and everything around, including me, despite my desperate attempts to avoid her camera.

When I get tired of being with the others, I sit underneath the Holts’ parasol and read the book I brought along with me. At some point Hunk sees me and asks me if I drank some water today, and I automatically say yes.

After a while, I see Matt sitting by the point where the water hits the sand. I think about it for a bit, and then I decide to go and join him. I'm thankful that Pidge, who was with him before, is walking to another direction - now I can talk to him privately.

“Hey…” I stutter. He looks up at me and smiles.

“Hey, Keith! If you're looking for Pidge, she went that other way to look for more seashells.”

“Oh, um… thanks, but I… I wasn't looking for her. I uh… I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Oh?” He asks and blinks a few times. We don't talk too much in private usually, but we do get along. “Okay. Go ahead.”

I sit beside him and pull my knees to my chest. I can feel my heart beating so fast. Fuck. “Um… that… That lifeguard… You know him, right?”

“Who, Shiro? Yeah. We go to the same classes,” Matt smiles. It means he's going to the same college as us. That’s cool. “Why are you asking?”

“Ah - no - no reason. I just, um, saw you talking when we got here and ah… I was just wondering.” I want to punch myself because my cover sounds so weak.

Matt hums. His suggestive smile is both irritating and giving me hope.

My face can't get any redder as I think about what more I can ask. I can't even face Matt now. I just look down like an idiot and do my best not to just shout at him for that stupid smile. “What is he like?...” I finally ask again.

I can hear him hum in thought. “Mmm… Well, he's a really fun guy to be around. There's always stuff to talk about with him and he's always good for laughs. He's very smart, and really nice to others…” he pauses and I'm certain that he's looking right at me. “... and he's both perfectly single and into men.”

My heart skips a beat. I open my mouth, but not much comes out. “Oh. Th-that’s, uh… I mean…”

He laughs at me and taps my back. “Dude, don't be so nervous. I'm sure he's gonna like you, if you try to approach him.”

“R-really?” I whisper.

“Yeah, of course! I'm sure of it. I can even ask him for you, if you want. Or maybe - introduce you?”

“No! No. Don't introduce me. And don't… Don't ask him. I… I'll think about it.” I pause, and finally have the courage to look at Matt again. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” He says. I can see Pidge coming back with her hands filled with seashells, and as much as I like those, I don't want this issue to be spread around. I get up, ask him to keep this talk between us, and after he agrees, I say bye and leave.

*

From time to time, I look at the Shiro’s stand, which isn’t too far away from us. When I get lucky, I can see his back when he stands and talks to people with his megaphone. I smile whenever I hear him, and then I feel stupid and curse myself for paying a stranger so much attention.

The luckiest I get to be today is when Hunk and I go to buy some ice cream. We pass the lifeguard right in front of his stand, and I almost automatically glance up to look at him. I watch his white bangs blow in the wind, and it's completely pale in comparison to the black undercut he has on the rest of his head; I watch his chest radiating in the sun, and his right arm that's made of metal - and though I know the story of why he has a prosthetic must be hard, I can't help but think how cool it looks on him. I swear I can see something on his nose - a scar maybe? - but his sunglasses are covering most of it. Hunk says something that I can't hear, because at that very moment, the lifeguard is smiling and I swear to God he looks directly at me.

I don't even notice that I smile too, and that my hand is half the way up for a small wave, when suddenly Hunk puts his hand on my shoulder. “Earth to Keith!” he says, and I jump and turn to him. “I know you're busy staring at your new crush, and even though I admit that's adorable ‘cause that never happens, we're still on an important mission here. I want my ice cream!”

“What? I - I don't have a crush!” I say a bit too loudly. I can see by the face that he's making that he doesn't believe me. I pout and cross my arms. “Are we getting ice cream or not?”

“Yes!” Hunk practically drags me away from our spot and on to the little kiosk behind the shopping center.

I still feel warm inside, thinking about what just happened.

*

I take a nap for a while in the warm side of Pidge and Matt’s parasol, where the sun hits just above me, and the shade is far behind. I do my best to sleep off the slight pain I feel in my head.

I don't dream about anything. It's better that way, I think.

*

I put the sunscreen on myself again when the afternoon turns into evening. We're here since the morning, but this entire day is actually pretty nice.

When the guys and I go again for a final swim, I go to Lance and poke him with my elbow. “Thanks for… making me come today.” I mumble. I don't look at him directly.

Even without watching, I know Lance's smile is bigger than ever. He's so proud of himself at the moment, his eyes must be screaming I told you so. “That's what friends are for, buddy! I knew you'd thank me in the end.”

“Don't overdo it,” I tell him. “You won't hear me saying it again.”

I do my best to ignore that hellish headache that attacks me.

The water is warm. Too warm for my taste, but I get used to it. The waves aren't peaceful either, but we all have our fun. We splash around and we swim and laugh. We barely notice that we're getting farther away from shore, but we can hear the lifeguard's voice echoing through his megaphone. “The ocean is not quiet. Please come out of the water. I repeat, the water is getting dangerous. Please come back to shore.”

I know I need to go back like the others do, but I see something in the corner of my eye. I turn and see a little girl, who doesn't look older than six, on a surfboard alone a bit further away from me.

Despite the high waves and the tiredness that makes my body hurt, I swim to her and get my hands on her surfboard. “Hey. What’re you doing here? Where‘re your parents?” I ask breathlessly.

 She looks at me with those big blue eyes of hers. I can see she does her best not to cry.

“Okay. C’mon. Let's get you to shore, okay? Then we'll look for your parents?”

She nods and I start to swim with her surfboard in front of me. I keep her above the waves as much as I can, but it's getting harder the more we go.

My breaths are too deep. I know it. I feel like puking, too, and my throat is so dry it's hard to swallow. I blink hard - my eyes feel so heavy.

Did I even drink today? I told Hunk I did, but now that I think about it -

I hear someone calling the girl's name - it looks like it's her dad. He takes her to him and thanks me, and us three try to swim back to the beach. But before we know it, the waves are getting stronger, enough to pull me away from that man and his daughter.

The man shouts to me, but I can't really hear what he says.

After that, they’re both gone.

All I hear now are the waves and my breaths - they turned to gasps by now. My head's killing me. I try my best to move, to do something, anything, but I'm too exhausted and distracted from the pain and dizziness and before I know it - the water that hits me takes me down. I somehow manage to swim up to the surface but I can barely draw my breath when another wave comes for me again, and again I'm under the water.

I can't reach the surface anymore.

I can't breathe.

I can't breathe.

Oh no. Nononononono - ! I don't wanna die I don't wanna die I don't wanna die I don't wanna die I don't want to die like this - I can't die like this, I can't, I can't, I CAN'T -

I  C A N ‘ T  B R E A - -

My lungs burn with salty water.

Suddenly, my entire body is going numb and heavy. My mouth is open, but I can't make a sound. I can't scream or move. I don't even know what's happening. It's like everything is so… So fucking calm. Like I'm dreaming. Like I'm frozen and my body won't listen to me. And I can somehow acknowledge that my head is lifting up, but I don't know why.

Why is everything so still?

A fragment of one last thought is going through my head:

 I didn't even get to talk to Sh -

Then suddenly, everything starts to fade away. Darkness is taking over me, and even the pain is drifting away. My eyes were squeezed shut because of the salty water, but now, I can feel them getting… Soft.

I don't even know when I started sinking, but I can't even think about it now. I can't think about anything…

I'm… I…

*

The first thing I can feel is something pressed to my mouth. It's… Warm. And it's giving me air.

Then I realize something soft is pinching my nose, and something cold is pressing under my chin.

The breeze is cold, but something is blocking some of it.

I try to think about what's going on but instead I find myself coughing. Water is spilling out of me and my lungs are burning. I try to open my eyes but I'm too tired, and everything is too damn bright.

The warmth on my nose and mouth is gone, and instead, something hard - I think it's made of plastic - is covering them now. It's giving me air, too.

I blink when a voice is talking. Then I notice there's a shadow above me. It's getting clearer a bit, and then more, and then I can see it.

It's Shiro’s face.

He's talking, and I can't really understand what he's saying at first.

“... Keith.”

Oh.

He holds one of his metal fingers in front of my face. “Follow my finger with your eyes, Keith.” His voice is finally clear enough for me to understand and do as he asks. It makes him smile, and I feel a bit proud of that.

He's looking up and talks to someone else, so I get the chance to look at the sky that he was blocking before. It's… Purple and red… Must be evening already. I move my fingers to feel the sand underneath me, but other than that, it's hard to move.

His hand is pressing the oxygen mask on my mouth and nose this entire time. It gives me a bit of comfort.

He leans above me again. His face is so close to mine, I think I’m gonna explode.

His eyes are so beautiful, though, and his scar is, too - it really is a scar, like I thought before.

“Keith. The ambulance is almost here. You must be very confused, but please don't panic. You're safe now.”

I don't understand what it is that I'm safe from because I can't really think properly… But I do know he says my name a lot, and that sounds so good in his voice. I focus on him, or at least I try. I can hear the others - Lance, Hunk and Pidge - somewhere near me, but I can't really turn to them or speak without feeling nauseous or too tired.

I hear a distant sound of sirens. Must be the ambulance Shiro was talking about… I want it to stop making so much noise. My head hurts. My body hurts. Shiro's prosthetic hand is on my mask, and he's so close to me, still speaking to me, but as much as I wanna listen to him all day… I wanna sleep…

Let me sleep… just for a minute...

*

When I wake up again, I'm lying on something so soft - a bed. I take a deep breath when I open my eyes, but it's hard to see - everything is too bright again. When I can finally open my eyes without feeling any pain, I realize I'm in a hospital. There are a few cables and small tubes connected to me, but the oxygen mask is gone.

I turn my head to see Hunk, Lance, Pidge and Matt sitting beside me.

Hunk notices first. “Hey! Guys, he's awake!” He calls, and everyone is looking at me. They get up and surround me, and I can't help but feel a bit embarrassed.

“Keith, man, how do you feel?” Lance asks, but his voice is too high and strong for me. Pidge notices and nudges him. “Ah. Sorry.” He says, softly this time. “How are you?”

“I'm… ah… A bit thirsty, actually.” I mumble. Matt is going out of the room after that. “Um… I don't really… remember what happened.” I confess.

“Dude. You don't remember? You almost died today!” Lance says loudly again, and I blink at him. “We were all swimming back but you weren't with us. Luckily the awesome lifeguard was there to help you.”

I blink slowly again, trying to think about what he just said, and suddenly it all comes back to me. “Wait. What about the girl?” I ask. “There was a girl on a surfboard with her dad, too… and the water was so strong that it separated us… Are they okay? Did you find them?”

They all look at me like I'm high.

“What are you talking about?” Pidge asks. Her brother comes back into the room with a glass of water and puts it beside me, and I look at him gratefully. “There was no one with us when we swam, and no one came to shore from your direction. It was just us.”

“And what do you mean, the water was strong? It was pretty chill,” Lance adds.

I look at them all confusedly. “B… But… it didn't feel… Chill. It felt like a storm.”

“Well, the one that saw you in time was the lifeguard,” Hunk says, and I can see he tries to hide a smile. I feel my heart jump because of that. “So maybe he can tell us what happened.”

At that moment, there's a knock on the door. I hope for a moment that it's gonna be Shiro and my heart beats so fast I'm sure I'm gonna have a heart attack - but it's just a nurse. I ignore everyone's stare at the heart monitor and thankfully they don't say anything. When she sees I'm awake, she comes to check me up and says she'll call a doctor. She tells the others to get out so the doctor can test me properly, and after they tell me they'll be out in some coffee shop until the doctor finishes, I’m left alone.

When the doctor comes, I ask him what exactly happened to me. “Well,” he says, “you suffered from a heat stroke and as a result, you almost drowned. Luckily for you, the lifeguard managed to notice you just in time. You were actually less than a minute away from irreversible brain damage.”

I gulp hard and look down - I can’t face this half-disappointed half-pitiful expression. “Is… Is that why I thought the water was storming?” My voice is so quiet I can barely hear myself, but I can’t talk more loudly than that. I just can’t. “I mean… my friends told me the water was totally fine and that there was no one there with us… even though I thought I saw someone, so…”

“A powerful enough heat stroke can cause hallucinations, yes. In your case, your heat stroke wasn’t the severest one there can be, but it was strong enough to cause such disorientation, weakness and lightheadedness to make you see or hear things that didn’t happen, or that you thought were one thing when they actually were something entirely different.” He continues with the examination and tells me what to do and what to avoid for the next few days. “I’ll come to check on you again later. Once I see the results, I’ll be able to determine when to release you. I believe it would be best for you to stay the night here for observation, but we’ll see what the tests will bring. In the meantime, have some rest, alright?”

I nod and thank him quietly before he leaves. I feel like such a moron - how did I let this all happen?

After a few moments, I hear a knock on the door. I can barely feel annoyed by the disturbance, when I hear a voice from the other side.

“Um… Keith? This is Shiro, the lifeguard from the beach… may I come in?”

I freeze. Sh… Shiro? Why is he here? Is he here for… For me?

He's calling my name again, and my chest fills up with butterflies.

“Ah - - yeah! Yes, you can come in.” I tell him, and I give everything I have for my voice to sound normal and not too emotional. When he opens the door and steps in, I can't help but stare.

He looks at me and smiles widely. I can't understand if it's from embarrassment or kindness or something else. “Um… Hi.” He mumbles. “I, ah… I have your bag.” He lifts it up with his prosthetic arm and shows it to me. “I found it on the beach. Your friends must have forgotten about it after you were evacuated.”

Typical.

 He brings me the bag and I nod gratefully. “I hope you don't mind that I looked inside,” he says, “I just checked who that belongs to at first… And then I wanted to make sure that everything important is in there.”

I can't help but think how sweet he is. He looks so embarrassed that he had to invade my privacy, so to speak, by looking through my stuff, when he was actually being so kind to make sure to return it properly.

“Thank you. Everything is here.” I smile. “And, of course, more importantly… Thank you for saving my life. Without you… I would've… Never made it.”

I swear to God his cheeks look redder than before.

“O-of course! You're welcome. I'm only glad I was able to help and that you're all better now.”

A small moment of silence is awkwardly falling between us. Despite that, I see that he doesn't hurry to go. I tell him to take a sit beside me, and he does.

I lick my lips and clutch my bag closer to my chest. “How… How did you notice? That - that I was drowning?”

He looks stunned for a moment. I have no idea why. “Well, it's - I'm trained to something like this, of course, and it was the end of my shift and I had to make sure everyone comes to shore before I -”

“Wait -” I interrupt, “that's what you said?”

“... What do you mean?”

“I mean… I know I heard you back then, but I was certain you said… That the water was dangerous and… that's why you wanted everyone to go back.”

He watches me for a moment and then, he smiles again. Such a kind, soft smile. I can't get enough of it. “It must be because of the heat stroke you suffered from.” He confirms what the doctor told me earlier. “I… I noticed when you went to swim, so… I knew where to look, I guess…”

Now it's my turn to look at him with wide eyes. He… Noticed me?

He chuckles and keeps on looking at me. “What?”

I feel my cheeks burn.

Fuck, fuck. I… I never felt like this before. My heart is racing, like… like…

The machine beside me beeps like crazy because of that, and I feel even more self-aware now. Shit. I'm caught right on the spot, aren't I?

He gets up and leans towards me. His expression is somehow a combination of shyness, worry and… Is that… A smile I see on his face again…?

He puts his hand on my cheek and looks right into my eyes. I notice that he uses his human hand, even though he's clearly right handed. “Keith,” he says so softly, I think I'm melting. Somehow, even though he's so close… I suddenly feel much more relaxed. “It's alright. You're safe now. You've got nothing to worry about.”

Licking my dry lips, I'm about to say something in return, but he opens his mouth again to speak. He takes his time, like he's thinking about what to say or how to say it. As I stare at his lips, I suddenly realize that when we were on the beach after he rescued me… he was the one who did the CPR on me. His lips were actually on mine for that. Just thinking about it makes my face go entirely red.

“Keith…” his voice is cutting through my thoughts, and I concentrate on him again. “I didn't come here only to bring you your bag back.”

I can't get my eyes off of him. Not for a single second. “Then… What is it?” I whisper.

His smile is getting bigger, and so is mine. “I like you.”

My breath is stopping in my throat for a moment. He… Likes me? “I… really?” I mumble.

“Yeah… I really do.”

“Even if we talked only for a few minutes?”

“Yeah.” He whispers. “And… I noticed how you looked at me today, and… I… I wanted to say that… I looked at you, too. When I had the chance.”

No one has ever told me anything like that before.

“I want to get to know you, Keith. If you'll let me… I'll be happy to.” He continues, and I know I smile as widely as my face lets me. I nod fiercely, and then I take his hand and hold it in mine. I mostly feel like crying.

“I… I'd love that.” I can barely say. “I like you, too.”

“Then…” He starts again, looking at our hands together. He squeezes my palm and then lets it go. I look at him curiously, and he looks back at me. “We should introduce ourselves properly. We didn't do that until now, so. We should do it right.”

I laugh like an idiot and nod again. “Alright. Go ahead then, stranger.”

“I'm Takashi Shirogane, but everyone calls me Shiro. It's nice to meet you.” He holds his hand out towards me, and without hesitation, I shake it.

“My name is Keith. Keith Kogane.” I tell him. Neither one of us is letting go, even when the handshake is over. “It's very nice to meet you,too… Takashi.”

*

We end up talking for hours, about everything, and about nothing. I feel like I've known him for years, even though we only met today.

Eventually he really does have to go, though, much to my disappointment. I don't even notice how late it is, at first, but when he shows me the hour on his phone’s screen, I sigh in defeat. He keeps on doing something on his phone and suddenly gives it to me. I look at the screen and feel my cheeks heat up again.

I smile when I put my number in his contact list.

“I'll call you tomorrow,” he promises, and I nod,  still smiling like a moron.

“I'll look forward to it,” I manage to say. I give him back his phone and our hands touch, and some part of me hopes he won't let go. When he does, I feel the warmth still tingling on my fingers for a second.

He says goodnight and finally, I'm alone in the room. I lean my head back against the pillow and try to settle the butterflies in my stomach by breathing deeply. It doesn't really work, but I don't care.

My phone vibrates in my bag. I take it out and see a text from Shiro - it hasn't even been two minutes since he left, and yet here he is, sending me an adorable message.

I don't regret going out of bed today anymore. 

#sheith #i'm only looking at you #my fic #ahhhhh god i'm excited #sorry if it's a bit long bros #i tried my best #au

[ilygsd]

170918: 1

everyone i hear and everything i read says i should leave. i would never let my little sister or friend be with a person like him. so why cant i? why do i still want him? why do i think that he has what i want? he’s just an empty shell. he’s just manipulating me. he’s an asshole. but i just want to give him more chances. i just want to feel THAT whatever the fuck it is im feeling. im not even in love with him, im just obsessed with the feeling. its everything ive ever wanted. safety and unconditional love. from a sociopath??? safety from someone so impulsive and unpredictable? unconditional love from someone who cant even feel basic empathy? HAAH.

i know with every bone in my body that i dont want to be with this person. i JUST had a fredh start, i dont want to be ruined again. i dont want to be destroyed again. not again. not so soon. i wouldnt be able to get up this time. i really wouldnt. i KNOW FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART that i DONT WANT to be with a sociopath who cant fucking ever love me in a normal way, who cant ever respect my feelings in a normal way. i DONT WANT to spend my precious time on someone like him

so WHY is this so hard? ffs i didnt even realise i was obsessed until my mom and ex challenged me to not talk to him for a week. its not like i was super engaged and texted him all the time, but now when i KNOW i cant talk to him…. fucking abstinence. i feel like shit?? ive known this guy for max a month and i feel like absolute shit. i feel lonely and worthless without him, which is weird because i know my mom and ex loves me so much more than he’ll ever be able to do. i feel ashamed like im disappointing him. i feel WEAK for letting my emotional ass get manipulated like this

he didnt even have to do much tbh. its not like he’s giving me attention and love 24/7, he’s pretty……… normal?? maybe its not the attention i want. maybe its his intellect. he seems so sure of himself and as i said, i can identify myself in him. i want to think good of him because i want to think good of me. that i deserve to be happy like him.

this is so dangerous im so fucked. at least i cant smell him on my skin anymore (omg pls i sound like a fkn creep, do u know how much i’ll cringe over this when this is all over 😔😔). ive become obsessed with other ppl too, thats why i partly want to blame myself and not him. the difference is that those were good people. normal people. they realised that im fucked up and unstable so they ditched me before i could start anything. this little fella right here doesnt. he wants to control people, we’re a perfect fuxking match made in heaven.

fuck keep your head, keep your head. i low key regret i ever told my mom and my sister and thats dangerous. i will NOT hold secrets to them. if i do i’ll only turn to him. i’ll isolate myself. not because he tells me to, he wouldn’t need to be that controlling. i’d do it automatically because i want to. fuck me. i want to meet him. i want to cuddle with him just one more time. just a little longer. i want to hear his voice, i want him to sweet-talk me to sleep. i want to live in his little dream world and let him live for me. im too tired anyways and he knows that. i always tell him things before i realise myself. one of the first things i said was that he makes me feel safe and calm and that i just want to give in. ive told him so many things because i cant shut the fuck up and hold my feelings and thoughts to myself. im too anxious, i need constant reassurance because i dont trust mysef

one day i wont need my mom or my ex. one day i will be able to make these decisions completely on my own. and when i can do that, i wont have to be afraid of people like him using me. i will be able to be with him….. what the fuxk is that my motivation again? ”recover and heal so you can be with this sociopath?” as long as i want to be with him im not recovered right. its when i DONT want to be with him right

wow im so proud and happy i recognised this so early though. in that way its kinda good i dont shut up but have to talk to my mom all the time so she can give me advice. i mean if i didnt tell her, i’d probably go back to him. i’ll probably go back to to him again after this week is over. thats how fucking much i miss him. i cant eat, sleep or think. i dont even watch any series anymore. i dont know what the fuck is up with bts or anything. i cant study. i want to go back. i want to sleep next to him. i want to hear his heartbeat and i feel his scent. i want him to play with my hair and smile when he kisses me. i want to sleep with him. but i can absolutely the fuck not let that happen holy shit

he was right abt that. i wasnt aware but its true i need an emotional bond to sleep with someone. thats probably why i got this weird mating/impregnation kink anyways EW SORRY FOR TOO MUCH INFORMATION I HATE IT BUT I CANT HELP IT. I DONT WANNA BE USED AS A SEX TOY OR BABY MACHINES BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN…… the intimacy. if i were to let myself have sex with this manwhore, this really fkn horny bastard…….. i would basically try to bond with him again. i want to be a hoe, i want to be promsicous but i dont think i can

fuck that makes me so sad though for real. ive been aromantic and asexual for like 2 years, i was honestly scared i’ll never feel anything anymore. then i met him and i was so HAPPY THAT FINALLY I KNOW HOW TO BE IN LOVE AND SEXUALLY ATTRACTED AGAIN but SIKE, he’s a fucking sociopath it doesnt even count bitch. erasw him from your mind and you’ll realise that you still dont find anyone in this fuxking world attractive

fuck me in the asshole, someone save me. someone tell me WHY cant i be with him? who cares? i just want to die anyways right. i mean he makes me feel stuff i obviously want to feel. im obsessed, its my drug. its the easy way and im too tired to fight anyways. i just want to sleep. i just want to be taken care of. he could do that for me. everyone would be happy, he could brainwash me until i no longer have any individuality. great, right? would he really do that though? in a very subtle way in that case. he’s smart, he wouldnt want anyone to notice

i wonder how he feels about his diagnosis. if he likes it, dislikes it…. he said he was jealous of ppl who can feel empathy and that he used to feel it when he was younger. lost it when he was around 13. but like…… that could be bullshit because he only says shit after my reaction. he only started with his ”maybe it will come back” crap after he realised how……… not attracted i an to his sociopathy

and i wanna be a good person. i want to ve openminded. I IF ANYONE WANT TO UNDERSTAND SOCIOPATHS AND PSYCHOPATHS BECAUSE I MYSELF LOW KEY FEEL LIKE ONE, ALSAYS HATED AND DESPISED BY ANYONE AND EVERYONE. but wow…. when it comes to it i really cant. i feel superior. what the fuck is wrong with him. i feel sorry for him. this guy cant fucking feel basic love how sad isnt that. he’s a machine. a master ar disguise. he only lives to use. thats so fucked up

its scary how im isolating myself without him even telling me to. like he encourages me to talk to my mom and ex and get to know people and do my thing. right now its like im living in a bubbel. when im with him im in a bubble. i had trouble going to school yesterday because i was so caught up. when i meet other people its like i realise wow ih yeah im here. thats why in panicking. thats why i want to meet so many new people again now. i stopped chatting with people after i met him but now i feel like i have to.

he was worried i was rebounding with him after my ex. its more like the other way around. im trying to rebound from him. im trying to meet someone else like him so i can forget about him, but no one else is as interesting or as smart or as charming as him. its fucked up. je is a great guy…… uh…… if youre not in my position and let yourself get manipulated and used. i would NEVER have guessed if it wasnt for me being in love (or smth) and therefore wanting to know his TRUE intentions/feelings with out relationship whatever the fuck it is. i didnt understand his ”im just interested, it takes time for me to like someone”. but then we continued to fight and i realised this fuxker doesnt know how to stop, he doesnt feel guilt or regret

can i still be friends with him though? like he’s super smart i’d love to hear his advice on certain things. WAIT. why the fuck do i even want to be his friend?? hes still a fucking weirdo and you still dont know his intentions……. what if im overthnking? what if he’s avtually nice? NO ITS NOT BICE TO FORCE SOMEONE TO DEINK COFFEE ITS NOT NICE TO THREATEN SOMEONE TO TAKE AWAY THE BLANKET IF I DONT DRINK HIS COFFE AND TEELS HIM IT TASTES GOOD. ITS NOT NIXE TO GUILT TRIP ME OR ACCUSE ME OF TRYING TO MANIPULATE HIM WHEN HE JUST HURT MY FEELINGS SO MUCH I STATTED TO CRY. ITS NOT NICE TO ACCUSE ME OF GASLIGHTING WHEN I AVCUSED HIM FIRST OF GASLIGHTING.

im scared of him. im scared that he’ll be angry if i tell anyone about this

#the abstinence i had when i wrote this is fucking crazy #and sad #wow im such a dumbass honestly i deserve to get used lmao #diary #jo

[ithinkimsoberyeah]

The heroin helps.

what a cloudy clutch of pearls to swim in.

What a wonderful, most powerful place to be. Not liked. Not hated. Not even indifferent. One would be lucky enough to be invisible. But no, just have your small, sad pattern of people unlucky enough to know you in your statistical static hell. Beverly Hills. It looks easy to be me. But you'd never make it a day. All you have to do is have the darkest sociopathic edge after a long desperate streak of forced potential.. and then of course, disappoint everyone you've ever met. Kids in my high school; shot up My povery stricken parents; their only son smashes the only car they can afford into a house, or two.. on Christmas. Happy Kwanzaa Called the best natural talent, agent after agent for 10 years; show up to everything high and drunk And now? About to be fake murdered for god doesn't exist so he wouldn't know how many times. *masked men shoot up hospital lobby *Squibs burst out from his chest splaying maroon dye everywhere, he lays lifeless on the ground This is my life, getting up everyday to get brutally murdered for money. Welcome to America. *Cut! He is motionless as the fluorescent lights absorb his pasty skin, the blood sugar cocktail drips off his frozen face, A flurry of crew whirl around him A woman with a large headwound approaches and lears over, panicky about the nothingness drowing her life, *You feel that one?I felt that one, you know you always feel the one they're going to use, and the ones they cut. She looks into his bloodshot eyes. That was it. She smiles for no one to see She hasn't been it in her life. Finally I come to, enough to crawl to the fake elevator left ajar by the all too easy muslim terrorists that just shot up a bunch of white people in hospital waiting room. Because if you weren't afraid enough by news media, now just sitting in an ER dying is now merit for more fear and loathing. The ultimate death My head is spinning. I'm coming down while my hands altetnate between numb and needle shock. The effects and wardrobe departments molest me, preparing me for battle again. Another starched white button down and fresh squibs plopped around my back and chest, Susan, i think here name is, hovers near still. *I guess this is just for safety. They got it. They got it. She murmurs I can only imagine how thecat she moans about daily must attempt new ways to commit suicide before she ghosts in after midnight from the redline and has even more coversation swelled within. She holds her hand to her bleeding head. It will never stop. New camera setup is complete after the two richest guys in the room are done screaming at the union help permanently glazed over from good money and close knit companionship that shows evidence of a longer life, no matter how much catering you gorge. First team is back in, and we're back to one, I hope this time Allah takes us all, fake and all. *the masked gunmen come howling out of the shaft into the lobby and into our 18~34 targeted male hearts. They're so hard to get a pumping these days. My cell phone i'm forbidden to bring because real life background people on every scene you've ever watched would never carry their phones,. No the studio doesn't want anyone posting baldly lit instagrams of their shitty over produced show thats 112 in ratings because anyone will visit some random day players page and be spoiled.. At least that's what they say, with lawyers and angry butch lesbian second ADs pointing her freckled finger at you, *back in holding 8 missed calls to my burner phone This one must be big. I flip over to texts It's local. they must know im closest. Like it ever matters. Glendale Galleria, another movie theater. I guess I won't even change. One meal penalty and blood bump, I'm ridesharing it the next big scene. A real close up this time. I rummage through my clothspinned backpack for a baggie, any size will do, i clasp at empty plastic and sort through everything in the dim light inside the electric powered sedan, Finally one that sparkles from passing street lights. I stick my sweaty finger in and dab out the crystal. I swab my gums and tongue as it darts away from the bitter fairy fuel soon to spark my heart. I pillage the back of this eagar Asia girls leased vehicle for all her free waters and gum into my rancid bag. She pretends not to notice me as we arrive.   "By the red zone here I mumble out and spill onto the sidewalk. I don't tip, I never do. I see the yellow tape and flahing lights ahead. I see my reflecting in a closed phone repair shop and scratch at my face some to moisten the blood, I just realized, as I always do, too late, that i taje rideshares while in full effect.No wonder my rating is so low. I'm getting sloppy. I'm steps away from the live camera broadcasting to millions of real people in real fear, desperate for any news of a safe world they once knew, i'm afraid this isn't that time, nor will it ever be agsin. Showtime. Real tears stream from my blurring eyes as they pick up Jennifer. She's been getting all the scopes out here lately. Makes me really wonder about that wildfire now. "Sir, can you tell us what happened in there? What you witnessed? My sobbing let's up. I... I... There were three men... body armor.. the screaming Oh god the screaming, they yelled Akbar something.. Automatic rifles.. so many bodies .~the usual I got it all in from the texts. From the phone i crushed under my meth-roid strength and tossed. The red light blinks off, america has recoiled once again, Back to scrollingBack to trollingBack to isolation I look around the mob scene, i wonder who's working this with me And where crafty is set up. Jennifer shouts in her phone to some producer and dashes off I check my real phone, paypal loaded right up again False flags always pay more than union, no matter the bumps But I'll take the double shift Holidays are just around the corner. A movie theaters still need shooting up.

[waldos-writing]

The Dig Initiative: Chapter 32

Today I Am

“Thomas?” It was an echo through a dream. It came down to him through pitch, again and again. “Thomas?” Someone familiar calling to him. He’d been sleeping in a cocoon of hands, of familiar friends who had gone silent after the fever. They were warm and soft and silent compared to the rest of the world. One of them pushed their fingers into his left eye. It hurt, bruised, but he didn’t brush it away. “Thomas?” Fingers were going down his throat too, jabbing at his gums. He didn’t want to fight it. Not really. He wanted to sleep some more. Maybe forever. But they were calling out to him. Crisp, bright sounds. He had to get up.

The place was dark, but busy. There were people chatting nearby, nothing hurried or urgent. Someone turned a light his way, blinding. He flinched and shielded his face before figures started taking shape. A blurry man to his right. A distant one down near his feet. Someone to his left, but they were still dark.

“Thomas?” That was Dr. Fletcher next to him. He had to turn his head to see her. It was almost like there was a dark film over his left eye. “Oh, I can’t tell you how good it is to see you awake.”

“I can’t see,” he said calmly.

“What was that?”

Thomas waved a hand in front of his left eye, staring wide-eyed, even going so far as to close his right eye just in case, but didn’t see anything. His arms flopped back down on his chest and he said, with a small sigh, “I can’t see.”

“You can’t…at all?” asked Harvey, bless that worry wort, who hovered closer. He didn’t have to open his eyes to find him. He shimmered like a flash of light through cobwebs and lace.

“No, I can.”

“You can or you can’t?”

“I can.” And he sat up, ignoring Dr. Fletcher who crowed at him to take his time, with her “Okay, okay. Easy now.” When he was propped up, he looked right at Harvey and covered his useless eye. “I can’t.”

“Oh.” Then it dawned on him. “Oh! Oh, okay. Ah. Really blind, huh?”

“Just the one, though.”

“Ah.”

“Mm.”

Thomas opened his arms just as Harvey barreled into him, and the two embraced, so damn happy that the other one was alive and well. They laughed, clapping each other on the back and gripping onto shoulders and arms, saying how good it was to see the other.

They gave him time to come together, get used to his eye. He joked about taking Warren’s, but the hard woman was somewhere else and not up for jokes just yet. He took in the dark surroundings, squinting up at a low square light in the ceiling that pulsed down UV like the solar substitutes. There were other lights too, more orange, more organic. The girl, Alice, was back. Her head was cool but there was something dull in her eyes. Thomas decided he would see to that later. His head hurt and he had to chew flour paste and cold beans around the pain in his mouth. The teeth were ruined, and they screamed whenever he managed to bite down on them. It was exhausting to give them attention, so he pushed that back too.

“What happened while I was asleep?” Thomas asked the small group eating off of aluminum foil and paper plates. “Do we have word from the city?”

“Oh, we have word,” Harvey said. He nodded and shoved some more food between his teeth, scraping his finger on the rough patch of beard that covered his skin. Still wouldn’t grow in full. Harvey didn’t like to be teased about it, but it was such an ugly thing.

“And?”

They were all silently trying to figure out how to line up their answers, who was going to say what. Melissa wouldn’t look at him but stayed close by to make sure nothing happened. Warren was busy with the kids telling stories. Jay and Annalise were off comforting Alice. The new kid, the recruit, crouched nearby.

Thomas turned to Harvey and pressed him, impatiently grabbing at any thought. He heard …been five days…and…full lock down. Ask about Subject 01.

“Who’s Subject 01?” Thomas asked.

“Joe Diggs,” Melissa said with a defeated sigh, her back still to him. “Said his name was Joe Diggs.”

“He was a patient of yours.”

“More a ward of Montemille.”

“But he was specifically your patient. What was he like?”

Her first reaction, of course, was to ask how he knew. She wanted to throw it at him like an accusation. Thomas held his hand over his blind eye, cupping it as he propped his elbow up on one knee. He wanted her to accuse. He wanted her to test him, but he was afraid of her anger and her fear and her scorn. He just wanted to be Thomas Carter. Back at the Center of Hope. Back with his mop and his watch and the quiet room with her photographs. He wanted to be Thomas Carter, that’s all. Instead of whatever this was.

“He was bullheaded, which is to be expected from a case like his. I preface this because he was textbook sociopath, and that doesn’t automatically make him evil or a bad person, no more than someone who is manic depressive or schizophrenic or autistic. All it meant was that he had no empathy towards others and he had learned to read someone like an open book and offer the emotion that would best suit the situation. A good trick, really. I could tell you how many CEOs…. Anyways. So, along with being a sociopath, he had delusions of grandeur. Pretty standard for people who claim what he claims.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, when they brought him in he claimed to be the Messiah. He was the fourth Jesus Christ I’d dealt with. The only reason he was at Montemille was because he had swindled dozens of families out of millions of dollars to support a church in his name. That was the reason for his arrest. This has happened before.”

“Yeah?’ asked Harvey with a laugh. “Got a lot of Gods running around?”

“We do,” said Dr. Fletcher matter-of-factly. “We have plenty of people around the United States who think they’re Jesus. There will be others.

“Joe was charming. He was. He was compliant to a point—he didn’t enjoy the meals and would arrange food strike protests until he eventually caused panic by suggesting that we were poisoning them and he was given a feeding tube for a stretch of time. That wasn’t my idea, but my advisor demanded it.”

Thomas wasn’t sure if he wanted to pry into that and discover Melissa was lying. Not that she had actively lied to him, of course, but she kept these secrets from him. It would be ugly to pry. He let her continue.  

“Joe was helpful to others in the program and offered to pray over them when they first started the injections. He had, I recall, a very sweet voice. Very convincing with that whole ‘I am the Shepard of my flock’ gimmick he liked to give.”

Melissa leaned back, the makeshift plate resting at a hazardous angle on her thigh. She closed her eyes and disappeared in there, recalling.

“When we got the first Westwood trial correct, he noticed that he was the only one who knew how to get through it. I’d been talking to him, reminding him of his humility, if there was any. He used to laugh and promise....” Melissa laughed and it was discordant and sad. “He promised me a place in heaven. I couldn’t get through to him, but the whole point was that we were re-developing the brain to overwrite these anomalies and correct disorders. I just told him I appreciated it and thanked him each time, because I thought it better to appease him then, right when he was fighting off the fever.”

“Now he thinks he’s a god,” Thomas said.

“He was the first successful patient. ‘Burned him clean’ is what he was always saying. He knew, I swear, that when he made it through he would be gifted with the unknown abilities attributed to the virus. I mean, we couldn’t detain him if we tried. I was gone before he broke out with his partner, the woman. I never learned her name, just that she was paired with him, this symbiotic nature that kept them both alive. Subject 47. Augmenter.”

“What do you think his connection is with the director? Lawrence DuVang?”

“I don’t know,” she answered with a helpless shrug. No eye contact. Maybe he appreciated that too, because he wasn’t sure what his blind eye saying. What his good eye was saying. “Working for him? Maybe he is Lawrence DuVang. I mean, it wouldn’t be hard to come up with a persona. Not for him.”

“But they’re going to do something with the CleanAire systems,” Harvey offered. He took Melissa’s plate, folding the tinfoil together into a tight ball and hooking it towards a large black plastic bag that they were using as a trash bin. “And, hey,” he added with pointed bitterness, “at least we have that Declan guy hacking away at them.”

“What?”

“Jay and Alice,” said Harvey. He rolled his eyes. “They have this guy in their band who says he can hack the towers and take them offline. I mean, Christ, if he can do it, we’re saved. For now. But that’s a pretty huge if, you know? He does it or not, we still have to act on this Diggs guy or this Lawrence guy or whoever, don’t we?”

“How’s she holding up?” asked Thomas.

“She’s….” Harvey rolled his shoulder, glancing back at Jay and Annalise who sat next to her, stroking her hand occasionally or joking about nothing. “Found out about Devon. Remember that guy we found? That was Jay’s cousin. Doorman Devon. Apparently he was a DJ and then a priest or something, I don’t know. She was in love with him. Really wrecked her to hear about it. That and. Well. I mean, I can only imagine, but she….”

“She lost the kid,” the recruit said. He’d been watching the trio too, with big soft sighs and slumped shoulders. “Fucking sucked, man.”

“Yeah,” Harvey answered. “Yeah. Sucks.”

“Fucking sucks,” the Recruit corrected.

“Okay, so, who asked you anyway?”

The recruit just shrugged and got up without saying anything. They watched him go. Harvey was vocal about his displeasure at having him at all, though he was not actually unkind to him. Just tired. There was nothing cruel to Harvey, nothing that would force the kid out and back up there with the rest of the Black Jackets. Thomas wasn’t sure what he would do if Harvey ever did become cruel.

Thomas got up to take a walk. He couldn’t have imagined what the underground place would look like. There were so many people. So many more than he remembered in the nest. They came out of little garbage tents and makeshift rooms and hidden coves. It reminded Thomas of his time with Ma Stuff, with the homeless people near the river, but everyone here was warm and slower and calmer.

Everyone came up to him, in groups or one at a time, and asked him questions from “How are you” to “When are we getting out of here” to “I had a dream and it scared me and I want to know if everything is going to be okay.” He loved them each and listened because he wanted to. He found Warren and hugged her, even if she bristled and turned over to Kay like it was the most embarrassing thing she could do. He found Harlow and Kate and their young children, the twins who had needed so much care. He wiggled their feet and made them laugh. He helped the three trouble makers—Ian, Mijar, and Avrich—find a string of lights with some of the underground people and told them all to go decorate one of the corners. He took his time so that they each felt appreciated and content and, for a moment, assuaged from the cruelty of everything. He made his way over to Alice and sat with her as Jay and Annalise went to talk to some of the other people. The subway people.

“Hey,” he said and pressed his back against the wall. She was sitting on his right, so he didn’t have to turn his head to see her out of the corner of his eye. “Did you get some food?”

She offered him a shrug in response. He had to ask if she wanted anything, to which she shrugged again.

“Yeah,” he said and sighed, letting his head fall back so he could look up at the ceiling. Or maybe try. It was too dark to see it. “I wonder how it’s going up there.”

They both looked up, trying to imagine the Heights spread out like a map. He had heard Harvey squawk about an extended curfew, something he would have to ask about. But, just then, he thought of the people in the city. Mothers and fathers inside their homes, old guys named Jerry rubbing grease off their knuckles with turpentine, artists named Vivian pushing big globs of acrylic around a five-foot canvas. He imagined children doing homework or pretending to do homework or just watching TV until someone called them out of their room. He imagined a young man with locks tied up in a thick bunch, pouring over a computer, poisoning himself with water laced with anti-anxiety medication.

“I’m glad I lost it,” Alice said quietly. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “For lots of reasons. I just didn’t think I could be a mother, you know.”

“I don’t think I could be one either,” Thomas said and smiled. “Sorry.”

“Sounds like something he would say,” she answered with a laugh, but it was gone just as it started. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

Thomas didn’t know him. They never had a chance to meet, and the cold body they found didn’t have any spark rattling around inside to get a read off of. He could see flashes of him drifting from her, though. They were yellow lens flares over a drum kit. Blue smoke in a dark room. Red sprinkles of wandering fingertips. The colors spooled around him and he started to feel a deep pit grow in his stomach.

“It won’t help, I know. But, if I find the bastard who started this? And I take him down? It’s all I can offer.”

Alice snaked her hand towards his and entwined their fingers in a loose knot. She gave it a squeeze then. He would miss that warmth when he was back in the city, marching towards the end of the street with an army of black and white boiling around him. He tried to keep hold of her colorful memories. Maybe that would comfort him in the gray.

“Take his head and I’d call it square.”

“You want it delivered on a silver platter?”

“I like gold better,” she said, and there was that little smirk at the side of her face again.

“Golds harder to come by.”

“Hey. Steal one of those ceramic platters from like a grandmother’s pantry or something, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Thanksgiving dinner style,” she added, and laughed, short and simple, before she took her hand away.

Harvey had stowed away in the largest shed, the one where he had been sleeping. He enjoyed a kind of privilege there, but the man who governed the subway people was nearby, mending some clothes with a big ugly needle and a spool of fishing wire. Clause. Thomas would need to talk to him too. Harvey was busy with Melissa, distracting themselves with camping trips when they were younger, sharing recipes to make the right S’mores.

“I’ll be back,” said Thomas as he got back up. He was lying.

“Okay,” said Alice, her knees up by her chest. She knew.

Thomas left Harvey and Melissa, veering off instead towards Clause. The big man with his big white beard didn’t look up as Thomas approached.

“So you’re their guy,” said Clause, tugging the needle through the leather sleeve of his jacket. “The top dog.”

“Not by choice,” said Thomas. “Is this seat taken.”

“Taken in that it was stolen from up top? Yes. Taken as in occupied? No.” He motioned to the milk crate near him. “It’s yours.”

“Thanks.” Thomas sat on the milk crate, leaning on his knees to give the illusion that he was shorter than Clause. Even with the different heights in chairs, Thomas was right there at his eye-level. “How’s it going down here?”

“Well enough,” said Clause, still not looking up. “You got a lot of people with you.”

“So do you.”

“First come, first serve.”

“Do you think you can keep them a little longer for me?” Thomas asked, bracing himself on the milk crate.

“How long?”

“Only a little longer.”

“I need more than that,” said Clause and finished up his stitch in the sleeve. It was ragged and lumpy, but it would hold well. He admired his work by shaking the jacket and cutting the extra wire with a short knife from his belt. “How’s that?”

“Looks good,” said Thomas with a nod.

“Looks like shit.” Clause shook it out again, giving it a good once over, before he nodded and shrugged himself into it. It barely fit. He appeared to be very proud of it all the same. “Anyways, you going to give me a time and I’ll tell you yes or no, or we’re going to end this now.”

“And where would everyone go if we did?” Thomas asked, just because he felt up to a little challenge.

“I dunno. Not here.”

“Up there?”

They both looked up at the ceiling, imagining the empty streets above and the cold gray clouds above that. It was a dead world up there compared to the warm fires and Christmas lights in the subway tunnel.

“Up there with the Black Jackets?” Thomas continued.

Clause’s whole face scrunched up at the words “Black Jacket.” He huffed and started respooling the fishing wire. But he was firm in his beliefs and his need to protect not only his people, but what he perceived to be rightfully his, if anything could be belong to anyone in that dark little world of theirs.

“Two days,” Thomas said at last.

He got up before Clause said anything, dusting his hands on the side of his pants. It was good enough. Thomas knew the offer was valid and he’d make sure he kept his end of the bargain.

“But what’re you going to do?” Clause asked after him, still on his seat, still holding the needle and thread.

“I need to find Joe Diggs.” Before Clause could ask why, he continued, “I owe someone a head on a platter.”

“Well.” Clause wasn’t getting up. In fact, he sank further into the shadows. Someone came to them with a basket, leaning in towards Clause to share a few words. If he wanted, Thomas could listen in, but he didn’t. Clause nodded and turned back to say, “Give ‘im hell for us.”

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#The Dig Initiative #Writing #prose #novel #Against the Gray