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footygirl114 · 4 months

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Oscuridad (Alexia Putellas X Reader)

Y'all wanted drama, I hope you brought a parachute for this cliff ;) but here's part 7. Thank you to anyone who's stuck this far, commented, reblogged, sent a message you are the ones driving me to finish this series <3

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

The slight brush of fingers on your temple, and the whisper press of lips on your forehead was the first feeling you had as you slowly woke up. When you blinked your eyes open you were met with Alexia smiling at you, leaning on her arm beside you. You smiled at her and asked “are you watching me sleep?”

Her smile widened and she softly answers “You are cute when you sleep.”

“Weirdo” you chuckled and then reached up and pulled her down closer whispering “good morning gorgeous” against her lips before you closed the distance and kissed her.

She pressed against you slowly licking into your mouth, letting your tongues tangle together. After a few moments she pulled back and whispered out with a smile “a good morning indeed.”

Smiling wide up at her you take a moment to savour the view “you are beautiful” you say softly keeping your eyes locked on her.

You watch as the blush deepens on her cheek and she leans back on the pillow beside you with a chuckle. She turns on her side and moves her head to your pillow keeping a bit of space between you and she asks “how did you sleep?”

Moving your hand up to her face, you use your thumb to caress her cheek and you answer “best night of sleep I have had in a long time.”

She smiles back and smirks asking “did someone tire you out?”

You chuckle and ask her back “did someone not tire you out?”

She smirks at you and says “babe I am a professional athlete, I have a lot of stamina” and she moves to straddle your thighs.

You smile and place your hands on her thighs on either side of you, feeling the hard muscle there, and you smirk up at her “One day I am going to get you under me.”

“Oh I am more than happy to let you be on top, but first let me show you just how far my stamina can go” She smiles and leans down to kiss you.

Before she connect your lips, her phone on the bedside table starts ringing. You groan out and say “ignore it Ale” and you both pause chests heaving watching each other waiting. When it stops and starts ringing again, she groans and rolls off of you to stand beside the bed grabbing the phone.

“It’s Mapi” she says with a groan “let me get rid of her.”

You watch as she moves to the bathroom, still naked, your eyes are locked to her backside as you listen to the one sided conversation in Spanish, that you do not understand. When the conversation continues, and she emerges in a bathroom and she meets your eyes with an eye roll you assume you wont be picking up where you left off.

She walks out of the bedroom, softly closing the door and you lie on your back for a moment, moving your hand up to your lips and you cant help but smile as you remember how good she felt and tasted. You move and get out of bed, moving to the bathroom you take a few minutes to wash your face and brush your teeth with the spare brush she left on the counter for you. Once you feel a bit more human you grab a t-shirt off of her dresser and chuck it on.

You move and walk out of the bedroom, and you ask her “I hope you plan on feeding me real food, not that you don’t taste-“ you don’t get to finish because when you look up you realise she standing there with both Mapi and Ingrid in her kitchen.

“Y/N, sorry I tried to get rid of them but Mapi has a key card to get in” She says as she moves out of the kitchen towards you with a soft smile. “I should have warned you” she says softly as she stops in front of you, when she meets your eyes you know she asking if your okay.

You smile at her and look over her shoulder to meet Ingrids kind apologetic eyes and Mapi’s mischievous eyes. You smile at her and lean in and say “there’s no denying this to them, we may as well tell them” and you finish with a soft kiss on her cheek.

Alexia’s smile widens and she turns towards them and says “Yes you were both right, but you need to keep it between us.”

Mapi smirks and says “I have 3 questions.”

Alexia rolls her eyes and places a hand on the small of your back and she whispers to you “you do not have to indulge her.”

You smile up at her and answer “I will answer only three questions.”

Your eyes are still on Alexia as Mapi asks “you will?”

“Yes but thats question number 1.”

Alexia and Ingrid both laugh and you turn towards Mapi and Ingrid and you smile at them. “I like you Y/N” Mapi says.

“sorry we didn’t get you a coffee.” Ingrid adds with a small smile.

“It’s okay, you weren’t expecting me in Alexia’s bed this morning” you smile at them and move to sit on a stool at Alexia’s island. Alexia moves to stand beside you, you feel her arm on the back of your chair and you twist so your legs are pressed against hers beside you.

Mapi and Ingrid share a look and you think Mapi is being warned but she smirks and turns to you and asks “So did Alexia finally knock the professional stick out of your ass?”

“Mapi!” Both Ingrid and Alexia exclaim, Ingrids scolding punctuated by a whack on the arm.

You chuckle at their reactions and her question as you answer “I can confirm that there was nothing up my ass.”

Mapi chuckles at the answer and Alexia laughs and says “Y/N”

Ingrid smiles and looks at Alexia and says “we may need to keep these two apart.”

Alexia chuckles and reaches down to grab your hand as she asks “Mapi you have one more question?”

She nods and asks “What are your intentions with Alexia?”

The seriousness of the question throws you, expecting it to be more of a fun one you take a moment to think. When you see Alexia start to speak you squeeze her hand stopping her and you keep your eyes on Mapi as you start “Listen, I had no intentions of coming out here and meeting someone, let alone falling for the person I was tasked to protect. but there is something between us that I have tried to ignore and I cant.”

“Y/N, you don’t have to explain.” Alexia says.

You turn and meet her eyes and say “I do, cause she’s just protecting her friend, but I have no intentions of hurting you, all I ever wanted to do is protect you, even more so now Alexia.”

She smiles at you and leans down and presses a soft kiss to your lips, before she can deepen it you hear a cough from the two in her kitchen and you both pull back with a small smile. Turning towards Mapi she says “I’m happy for you two, now can we order in breakfast since we won’t be going out? I am starving.”

Everyone chuckles and enjoys the rest of the slow Sunday morning. Them knowing about you and Alexia, means you are both comfortable with each other, the hand holds and small touches is nice, and when you get to fall asleep sated and exhausted in Alexia’s arms again that night you know there was a smile on your face as you drift to sleep.

The next week stays with the same flow, you are both careful to keep things professional outside of her apartment, but whenever you are both together you cannot keep your hands off each other. You spent every night in her bed, she took her time to show you we stamina and you were sated and sleepy everynight.

When Saturday game day rolls around you are waiting for Alexia in her kitchen, Its an afternoon game and the team had planned on going out after the game. You were preparing for this to be the last time you were able to touch her till you got back. When she walks out with a small smile, she says “sorry, couldn’t find my phone” and she moves closer to where you are sitting at the counter.

She moves between your legs and wraps her arms around your neck, you move yours and settle them on her ass pulling her closer to you. “Are you ready to go?” you ask into the space between your lips.

She chuckles and leans slightly closer and asks “I just need one thing.”

“oh yeah?”

“Yeah, a good luck kiss” she smirks and leans down pressing her lips to yours hard. You pull her closer into you, she pulls back and nips on your lower lip before pulling back slowly.

“we should go.” she says and presses a kiss to the tip of your nose and pulls back completely out of your reach.

When you don’t follow she chuckles and holds her hand out and waits for you to grab it and then she pulls you with her. “you are a tease Ale” you tell her as you stand beside her in the elevator.

Her chuckle follows you out to the car, and while you drive her there you cant help but meet her eyes in the mirror every chance you can get. With it being a game day, you have to park and escort her into the building as the players go into a side entrance. When you park in the designated spot you hop out and move to her door, looking around for anyone watching, as you do not see anyone you smirk when you open the door.

“what-“ before she can ask the question you have leaned into the car and pressed a hard kiss to her lips.

You pull back and tug on her ear with your teeth and whisper “I have plans for you later, so do not tire yourself out too much out there.” You pull back and offer your hand to help her out, as you smile and say “Mrs. Putellas, this way.”

She’s dazed as she gets out and you cant help but to put your hand on her back to guide her in, slightly teasing it down to her ass with a squeeze and then back to the small of her back. Once you get out of the protection of the parking lot you remove your hand and continue to walk beside her. You smirk the whole way in knowing you got her back for the teasing, and when you hold the door open and she meets your eyes you know you go under her skin.

The game and rest of the weekend goes off without the team did end up partying, and you ended up spending both Saturday and Sunday night in your own bed. On Sunday alexia spent the night at her moms, and on Monday morning your driver had arranged to bring her back to her apartment. You were waiting outside leaning against the car ready to take her to training, you realised you were giddy and couldn’t wait to see her.

When she comes out your smile grows twice the size and you say when she gets close enough “good morning Mrs. Putellas.”

She smiles and replies “Could be a better morning, but I will take this” with a wink.

You chuckle and open the door and say “My lady.”

She blushes and gets into the back seat. You move around to the front seat and when you get in you meet her eyes with a wink. “oh before I forget can you remind me to call the internet people later, they need to send a tech out my internet isn’t working again” she says with a smile.

“of course I can babe” You tell her with a wink.

The rest of the ride is spent flirting, and you spent the rest of the day in anticipation of being able to touch and taste her again. Michelle sends you a message during the afternoon asking for some paperwork that you have in your apartment. You know it will delay your reunion but you have to do what your boss asks.

You are waiting leaning against the SUV when Alexia and Mapi walk out of training together. “Hola Y/N, were you waiting for little ol me?” Mapi asks with a smirk.

You raise an eyebrow at her and ask “Where’s Ingrid?”

Alexia laughs and Mapi chuckles “She’s staying for rehab, Alexia said you would drive me home.”

You chuckle and open the door and says “Ms. Putellas and Mapi.”

“I don’t get a Ms.?” Mapi pouts.

You raise your shoulders and say “no you don’t cause I don’t work for you.”

Alexia chuckles and shoves Mapi in the car and she says “lets go.”

The ride is fun, but you are too wound up to enjoy their banter. When you drop Mapi off, the last bit of the ride is silent, but you meet alexia’s eyes every chance you get. You both get out and head into the lobby and you tell her that you have to run to your place then you’ll be up.

“Mrs. Putellas!” the security guard in the lobby gets her attention when she walks in and he says “the internet technician is up in your apartment working on the internet now.”

“Oh wow quick response they must have known, thank you.” she says surprised, but she moves to her elevator and sends you a wink and says “Hopefully you won’t take too long.”

You shake your head with a chuckle and watch her doors close as you move to your elevator. While you are riding it up you think about the day and how you have missed her. As it dings on your floor you realise she said that she hadn’t called the tech yet. Your mind immediately spins and you press the lobby again, when it doesn’t move you start pressing the button frantically and it finally starts descending.

When you get off you, sprint out of the elevator and press the button for her floor, and you turn to security and yell out “call the police and tell them to get here ASAP” as the doors open and you hop in and press the button for the penthouse.

The ride up you are thinking of every possibility but none of them are good. You have no idea what you are about to walk into when the doors open. You body is buzzing and when the doors open and you immediately spring into her apartment you are met with a sight that sets your blood running cold.

The man, the one who snuck into the stadium, and sent the two men after Alexia at the party is standing in the living room, with an arm around Alexia, and a knife pressed to her neck. When he sees you he smiles and says “finally the whore is here to join the party, don’t come any closer or our pretty girl here will die.”

#woso imagines #woso x reader #woso imagine #alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas imagine #alexia putellas #espwnt x reader

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ohtobeleah · 9 months

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Oh Chute // Bob Floyd

Summary: For some reason you’d never know, yours and Jake personal Heaven becomes a check point for the friends you left behind. One by one the Daggers come through on their way to their forever life after death.

Warnings: Mentions of death. Blunt force trauma. F-18 accident. Bob Floyd Angst.

Word Count: 2.5k

Author Note: This is a spin off Series to Bruises. Masterlist Tagged below.

Bruises Masterlist | Life After Death Masterlist

Name: Robert Floyd: Age: 36 Cause Of Death: Blunt Force Trauma sustained via fall.

***~***~***~***~****~***~***~**

“Where the hell am I?” Robert Floyd had no idea where the hell he was. One minute he was in the cockpit, sitting behind Phoenix like he had done for years, and then? He was in a field somewhere in the middle of nowhere. His head hurt, a lot. But when he came to with a mouth full of dirt he knew something had to be wrong. Very wrong.

“Oi.” Jake Seresin loved golden hour. It was his favorite time of the day. When the sun would kiss the horizon and leave a beautiful golden hume across the fields that seemed never ending. Rolling plains of green lush fields that were all his, all yours. Your own silence of paradise.

“Hotshot!” Jake snapped at the Boxer whose hair stuck up along his spine. His bark was just that, all bark and no bite. “I’m gonna get your vocal cords clipped if you don’t cut it out man.” It’s an empty threat that the Boxer dog has heard a billion times before—and it always seems to fall on deaf ears. Hotshot kept barking in the direction of where he’d sensed danger looming. “Dammit—!”

Jake stood from where he was crouching to fix the broken wire on the fence that bordered what he could only assume was another property. Someone else’s slice of heaven. He hadn’t ever seen what was beyond the rolling hills, but he didn’t care all that much. He already had everything he ever needed and more.

“Hello!? Is anyone here!?”

“Huh?” Jake frowned when he saw it, a figure dragging a parachute across the field in his direction. “Ain’t no way—“ Jake shook his head and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. He pocketed the gloves he’d been wearing and took a few cautionary steps closer to the figure that grew closer and closer. Until he knew for sure who he was seeing:

“Floyd?” It comes out a little bit questionable and albeit hesitant because Jake isn’t sure why exactly he was seeing Bob on his property. “Bob? Is that you?” He calls out again. “Oh fuckk—this can’t be good.” Jake says that last part to himself, he knows that the only people here are already dead or figments of his imagination.

Bob freezes in his tracks, it had been a few years since he’d heard that unforgettable voice. It’s Jake, it’s Hangman. Bob can only just make out the blonde hair and the stupidly symmetrical physique, but regardless of the distance he knows it’s Jake Seresin. Oh crap. He’d fallen asleep before training hadn’t he? He was asleep in the red room right this very second, dreaming of a friend he lost not too many years back.

“Hangman! Oh my god! What are you doing here?” Bob asks all the while he’s back on track, walking towards Jake as he makes his way over. Hotshot is already a mile ahead and at Bob's feet in no time, wagging his tail and licking Bob's hand. A welcome fit for an old friend. “Hey buddy, hi!”

Like Jake said, all bark, no bite.

“Uh, I—“ Jake knows he should probably approach this conversation carefully. If Bobs here then there’s only one real explanation as to why. He’s dead. “I live here.” Jake rubs at the back of his head as he assesses Bob's reaction. There’s hardly a flinch. “This is my home man, and you’re a long way from yours.” It doesn’t make sense, why was Robert Floyd in Jake's own personal afterlife? He didn’t understand the lore as well as you but even this was making his brain itch. Surely you’d know why?

“What do you mean you live here?” Jake can see the confusion all over Bob's face when he finally does reply. He can also see the blood creeping out of his nose. Something had gone wrong, terribly wrong. “I just ejected, my chute got tangled—“ Jakes standing there with his arms crossed just waiting for the lightbulb to turn on. Bobs a smart guy, he should be able to connect the dots. “Hang on, you died.” Bob's frowning while he looks up at Jake once again. “You died years ago. Does that mean?”

“Dead doesn’t mean done Bob.” Jake just smiles, he still wasn’t sure why Bob was here or what happened to bring Bob here, but he was thankful to see an old friend. “You might of—“ Jake doesn’t get to finish his sentence before Bob is cutting him off. Nope. Nope this can’t be happening. Bobs not dead. He’s just asleep.

“I need to get back.” Bob just shakes his head in disbelief. “I uh—I’m dreaming, yeah.” It’s his way of processing what’s happening. “I’m dreaming, yeah, yeah no I fell asleep in the rec room didn’t I?” There’s a silence that lingers in the field while Jake just looks at his old colleague, god he didn’t look a day older than the last time Jake saw the WSO.

“Sure pal.” Jake just sighs while the two men hug for what feels like the first time in a lifetime. He can feel how fast Bob's heart is racing. “Why don’t you come up to the house? I’ll fix you something to drink.” It’s the only thing Jake can think of to help settle the clearly distressed soul. Bob nods, he doesn’t know what else to do. He’s tried to wake up a few times now but damn this dream really feels real.

“Jake, is this real?” Bob nearly sobs while the two men walk back up to Jake's truck. He’d driven up to the border fence a little while ago. “Am I dead?” Jake contemplates how to handle this situation, but he settles on a little humour to take the edge off. He always did love fucking with Bob.

“As a doorknob dude.” Jake chuckles softly all the while Bob just stands there in disbelief. “You probably hit the ground hard too.'' Jake can see the colour draining from Bob's face as he takes his helmet off in the passage's seat. It’s then he sees the blood pouring out of Bob's ears. Damn. The ground must have been really hard. Jake remembers that feeling all too well. The thud, the snow. But for Bob it must have been so much worse.

“Oh god.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~**

“Honey!” You heard Jake's boots against the hardwood floor before you saw him. He’s got that all too familiar walk that lets you know it’s him. Not that it would ever be anyone else, but right now it did sound as if there were a few extra footsteps present. “You around?”

“I’m in the kitchen with Ellie!” You cooed back. Bouncing softly while you waited for your tea to steep. “She’s just gone down for a—“ Before you could even say that your daughter had just fallen asleep against your chest in her wrap, you were rendered speechless by the scared silhouette behind your husband. “Bob?”

“Hollywood?” Bob was in more shock than you were. “Oh okay yeah now I’m definitely dreaming.” He steps past Jake and into the kitchen to give you a hug that was all too welcomed. You send your husband a frown of concern over the WSO’s shoulder and Jake confirms what you think you already know.

Robert Floyd was dead. He’d recently died or was dying as you spoke and he was in denial about it.

“Uh—Bob honey I’d say it’s good to see you but I don’t think you belong here.” You cooed with a soft expression plastered across your face. As much as you loved seeing an old friend you knew for certain that if Bob was dead he needed to get to his own forever home before he got stuck between the land of the living and the land of the dead. “What happened? What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I’ll get you a drink man.” Jake adds all the while you and Bob sit down at the dining table in the kitchen. He finishes making you your cup of tea while he listens to Bob explain the last thing he remembered before he was waking up in the middle of Jake's back paddock.

“It was just a simple training session.” Perhaps the denial was beginning to wear off, you could see how shaky Bob's hands were while he played with his cuticles and looked around the kitchen. “Something was wrong with our altitude gauge, Phoenix couldn’t keep the nose and before I knew it we were punching out.” It all happened so fast. “I pulled my chute.” Bob explained all the while his heart began to race as realisation set it. “But it wouldn’t untangle—“ Your heart just broke, Jakes too. He couldn’t imagine free falling from the sky like that—even though he kinda did. “I think I hit the ground before I could pull my secondary.”

“Bob, do you know where you are?” It was the softness in your voice and the love you held in your eyes that made Jake fall a little more in love with you. He did everyday. Not a day went by where he didn’t fall more in love with you. “Do you hear anything? See anyone?”

When you had died, all you could hear was Jake begging you to stay. The sunset was so beautiful and the homestead was so peaceful and nothing seemed to hurt, you just couldn’t stay. As much as it pained you to turn your back on the faded image of the love of your giving you CPR, you had to see what was inside the home you now shared with that very same man. He’d come racing up the driveway not a few months later.

“I think I’m in a hospital somewhere?” Bob could hear a beeping sound, like a heart monitor reading his pulse. “I don’t remember it hurting, dying that is.” Bob let his chin fall as Jake handed him a glass of water, remembering that the weapons system office didn’t drink in life so he probably wouldn’t in death. “We all missed you, both of you, so much.” It was a beautiful thing to hear, even after all this time. You knew Jake missed his friends and hoped they understood why he did what he did. He had to be with you. If he couldn’t in life then death would have to do.

“For what it’s worth?” You looked to your husband with an all knowing smile before you rubbed your thumb on Bob's hand to sooth his worried soul. “We know, but we’ve been happy this whole time.”

“I understand why you both did it, you know.” Bob added as he sniffed. “Rooster was so mad for so long but I always understood.” It made Jake's heart sink into his stomach, but hopefully he’d get the chance to say he was sorry one day. “Am I really dead?”

“I’m sorry Bob.” You didn’t know what else to say. “If you wanna come into my office with me I can probably help you figure out where you’re supposed to go from here?” You offered. “I’m not even really sure why you’re here and as much as I’ve really enjoyed getting to see you again, but, you can’t stay.”

“Where do I go then?” Bob asked softly and all the more confused. “I don’t know what I’m doing?”

“What’s your perfect world man?” Jake asked as he leaned back on the kitchen countertop. He had his, you were all Jake Seresin ever needed. “Your idea of heaven? Your forever home?” Your little girl was his forever dream. “Surely there’s something—“

Robert Floyd was silent for a moment, he thought about where he’d want to spend the rest of his forever life.

“I had this old drum set when I was a teenager.” You caught the glint in Bob's eye, he could hear the music playing. “My dad owned this old instrument shop that had pretty much everything you ever needed in it, drums, electric guitars, pianos, even clarinets.”

“If that’s where you wanna go Bob then I’m sure that’s where you’ll end up once you step outside our door.” You could see the gears turning in your husband's mind, he was trying to figure out why Bob was even here. It was so random, so out of the blue. Were all his friends going to come through one at a time? Was this how things worked? Did they all miss him so much they couldn’t pass on without saying goodbye?

“I’m not ready to go yet.” It was as genuine as ever. Bob was just scared, he didn’t know how to feel or what to say. All he knew was that he just needed a minute to figure out if this was real or if he’d just fallen asleep in the rec room. “Could I maybe just sit here for a while?”

“Yeah Bob.” Oh how you’d missed your friends, the people who cared the most. “Yeah, take all the time you need.”

“You can go, if you want—“ It was the softest of voices, the most calming of lullabies. Bob could hear her right in his ear. “I’m right here, you aren’t alone, so if you need to go, you go, okay?” Phoenix cried as Bob turned around in his chair to look over his shoulder. He saw the image clear as day. He was in a hospital room being kept alive by machines and tubes.

“Who is it?” You asked as Bob saw his final moments play out right before him. He never wanted that, to end up on life support. Bob had always told the people who mattered most to him to pull the plug if he ever got to that point. Phoenix must have listened.

“It’s okay, you go, say hi to Hangman and Hollywood for me.”

“Nix—“ Bob smiled at the thought of his front seater. He hoped wherever his heaven was that hers wouldn’t be far away. “She says to say hi.”

It felt all too real when you looked over to your husband. These were his people more so than they ever were yours. He’d known them for years and left them all without saying goodbye. Now was his chance.

“I really did miss you Bob.” Jake sighed as he walked across the kitchen with heavy steps. His hand came to rest on the WSO’s shoulder, bringing a comfort Bob didn’t know he’d missed so much. Jake loved you so much, that was clear to everyone who knew him once he lost you. For some it was easier to accept than others. Bob only hoped that if Rooster got a chance to stop by on his journey into the forever that he wouldn’t hold his grudge. “But I couldn’t say, every breath I took since she left felt like such a waste on me.”

Bob looked at you, and then looked back up at Jake. The blood from his ears had begun to fade. There was no more pain. Bob was simply Bob. And he could hear the drums as clear as day just outside the front door. It was his time to go.

“I’m just glad that you guys got your happily ever after.” Bob chuckled to himself. “Even if it was in death.”

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#bruises // jake seresin #life after death //#robert bob floyd #bob floyd angst #Robert Floyd top gun #top gun fandom #top gun fanfiction

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whiskey-tango-matcha · 5 months

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FOH/BOH pt 1/2 (M, cold)

I'm splitting this in two because it's going to be 2 fairly distinct parts. In this one, Elijah is sick - but I'll be honest, a lot of it is just Mark being introspective. I wanted to write out a little of his story, since my last story had a good amount of Matt's inner thoughts. Idk what else to say about this one, lol other than Elijah catches something from the servers and is his usual pissed off self about it. Next part will hopefully be out soon-ish. Hope you all like it :)

CW: male, cold, fever, light mess, contagion, coughing. 2.7k words.

FOH/BOH

As far as Matt was concerned, there were two types of people in this world: front of house, and back of house.

Matt didn’t believe in astrology; he thought the enneagram was stupid, hated personality tests, and nearly scoffed in Elijah’s face when he told the management team at Elliot’s they’d be analyzing management styles using one of those what-color-is-your-parachute tests during the slow season this year. He did, however, believe firmly, almost spiritually, in the FOH/BOH divide.

The differences, Matt knew, could be subtle or obvious, but they were always distinct.

“Elijahhh!” Greyson called from the kitchen at the top of his lungs. “We can all hear you from in here!”

The cooks whooped with laughter from their prep stations behind the line, and Matt bit his cheek to keep from joining them. Greyson turned towards him, a smirk painted on his face, and secured his hair at the top of his head with a sharpie while they waited for Elijah’s inevitable trudge into the kitchen.

When Elijah pushed through the kitchen doors, the cooks forced themselves into submission and strapped in for the dressing-down they knew was coming their chef’s way. Elijah walked straight to the prep table in the middle of the kitchen and made livid eye contact with Greyson, obviously ready to go to blows. Matt, entirely too close for comfort, took a tentative step towards the line to keep out of the path of destruction.

“Do you thingk,” Elijah said, his voice low and cracking, “that you could fucking cool it with the theatrics, just this once? Just for today? For mbe – hh – hhITZCH-ue! HTSHH-uh! HRRTSHH-ue! Hh-!”

Elijah was stuck in a sort of pre-sneeze purgatory for longer than Greyson had the patience for, apparently. “By all means,” Greyson said, leaning on the prep table with his head in one hand, “don’t stop on my behalf.”

The GM colored and lowered his arm from his face, casting daggers at the chef. “Do you really thingk it’s appropriate for us to fuckigg squabble around your staff?” Elijah asked, quiet enough that only Greyson and Matt could hear it. Greyson smiled, stood to his full height, and placed a hand on Elijah’s shoulder.

“I do,” he said at full volume. “They’re not our real kids, it’s okay if they see mommy and daddy duke it out.”

The cooks roared once again, and Elijah flushed, clearly annoyed. “Fine,” he said, clearing his throat. “You’re on one today. Whatever. I have to go findish helping the servers set up for the night. Leave mbe out of your stupid little mood.”

“I’m on one because you have the server’s fuckin’ flu and you should be at home, not continuing the spread,” Greyson said to Elijah’s back as his boss started out the kitchen doors. “Mark is coming in in twenty minutes and you are leaving.”

Elijah didn’t turn back around, just flashed the kitchen the finger as he walked out into the dining room. Greyson turned towards his sous and rolled his eyes.

“Passive aggressive fuck,” Greyson said, picking his knife up and turning towards the line cooks behind him. “Don’t worry, guys, we still love you all, mommy and daddy just get frustrated with one another sometimes.”

Another round of laughter from the cooks. Matt shook his head, smiling until they all heard Elijah once again from the dining room – “HRRESHHH-ue!”

Greyson smiled devilishly at Matt, then his cooks, and held up his hand. “One, two,” he mouthed to the cooks, holding up the corresponding fingers. When he got to three, he pointed to the swinging doors that lead to the dining room. The whole kitchen, in tandem, called towards them.

“Bless you, Elijah.”

Within seconds, Elijah’s strained voice answered. “Oh, fuck off all of you.”

This time, the line cooks nearly collapsed with laughter. Greyson turned towards Matt, grinning ear to ear. “Think he heard us?” he asked. Matt couldn’t help but join in on the laughter this time.

***

At first, Mark hadn’t been sure that he bought Matt’s whole front of house person/back of house person bullshit.

“People have layers, babe,” Mark had said, coursing his fingers through Matt’s hair while they ignored the movie that was playing on TV. “No one is just… some caricature of ‘kitchen’ or ‘dining room’. This isn’t The Bear.”

“But that’s the thing, baby, it kind of is The Bear,” Matt said, sitting up straight and looking his boyfriend in the eye. “Did you not relate to The Bear? I don’t think this is going to work if you didn’t relate to The Bear, I’m not gonna lie to you.”

“I mean, yeah, I did but… I don’t know. I want to be more than just my job, y’know?” Mark pulled Matt back to laying on his lap – Matt allowed himself to be pulled.

“This isn’t about your job, it’s about your personality,” Matt explained. “Not everyone has worked in a restaurant, but that doesn’t mean they’re not a front or back of house person.”

“I’m so lost, honey. I thought this was about restaurants.”

“No, it’s about people.”

“Maybe you should look into getting your GED,” Mark said, elbowing Matt playfully. “So you can go to college for, like, sociology or something.”

“Oh fuck you,” Matt said, not unkindly. “You have to know what I mean. C’mon. You’re telling me you’ve never met someone and gone, ‘oh, that person’s totally a kitchen person’.”

“I can genuinely say I have not,” Mark said, placing a kiss on the top of Matt’s head. “Your mind is an enigma.”

They’d dropped it at that point, but Mark hadn’t stopped thinking about it all week. He’d thought about it when he’d talked to his dad on the phone and he asked Mark whether he’d gotten his oil changed lately, but didn’t say ‘I love you’ when they hung up – man, he’s such a back of house guy. He’d thought about it when he’d bought a coffee and the barista asked him about the entirety of his college career in England while a line formed out the door behind him – never met such a front of house person in my life. He’d especially thought about it at work, where the servers and bussers loudly complained all week about being sick.

“Maaaark,” Riley, their lead server, whined to him one day. “I feel like fuckin shiiiit.”

“Well, the shift is 85% over,” Mark replied as he replaced the silverware on an empty table. “Do you think you can make it another hour?”

Riley had pouted, sniffled, and shrugged. “I guess,” she said, opening her server book. “But, like, I’ve already made my money tonight, can’t you just cut me early?”

Typical front of house, Mark had thought to himself. So maybe Matt had been right; maybe there were just two types of people in this world. The problem was, despite having been ‘front of house’ most of his adult life, he didn’t know if he really… belonged there.

Mark had, essentially, fallen into working in restaurants; he’d been an English major in college – which basically guaranteed your life to veer towards serving tables or shaking cocktails – and when he’d graduated, he hadn’t felt the pull towards teaching or grad school or any of the typical ‘English major’ careers his friends had chosen. Instead, he kept his serving job; eventually, the resort that he worked at offered him a banquet captain position, which he did until he realized catering made him want to stab both eyes out with a cocktail fork. When he moved to New York on a whim, Mark had been sure he’d apply to grad school, or look for a copy-writing position, or apply to be a publisher’s assistant – but he didn’t. Instead, he found himself dialing the number on a flyer in the window of a soon-to-be-opened restaurant near the apartment he shared with four other recent college grads.

“Future home of Elliot’s restaurant, this is Elijah speaking,” the voice on the other end of the number answered on the first ring.

“Hi,” Mark had said. “I was wondering if you were hiring any front of house positions?”

It turned out that Mark was the first person to call Elijah in search of a job. Despite his only being twenty-one at the time, and despite the fact that he had no managerial experience, Elijah hired him on the spot to be the front of house manager.

“You have a good vibe,” Elijah said when they met at a coffee shop for Mark’s interview. “That’s all I really care about.”

And then suddenly, somehow, seven years had passed. He’d never found a good enough reason to leave Elliot’s; he was paid well, Elijah let him take tips when he had to cover for servers or bartenders, and the work, while demanding, felt mostly fun. He’d never felt like a front of house person, he was just… a person who worked in the front of house. Sometimes, Mark thought, he didn’t know what kind of person he was at all. A person who things just happened around. A background person. A person that no one could say much about, other than he had a good vibe.

That is, until Matt.

“Hi honey,” Matt said as Mark pushed through the back doors into the kitchen. Mark smiled wide when he saw that Matt was alone in the back kitchen; he pulled his boyfriend in for a long kiss, which Matt returned greedily.

“Hi,” Mark said, finally pulling away. “How have things been here this morning?”

Before Matt could answer, they heard a huge, “HRRTSHH-ue!” from the front kitchen. Mark whipped his head towards the sound, then back to Matt.

“Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is,” Mark said. Matt pressed his lips together, unwilling to be the bearer of bad news.

“Mbark,” Elijah said, rounding the corner with a hand held over the bottom half of his face, “you’re here, great.” The GM yanked a paper towel from the holder on the wall next to Matt and used it to wipe his nose before gesturing Mark to follow him, “Let’s go over the ndight, mbeet me in the office.”

“Right behind you,” Mark murmured to Elijah’s back. Before he followed his boss, he threw Matt a pained look, which his boyfriend returned with a mouthed, I’m sorry.

When the servers were sick, they were annoying because they complained constantly. They called out at the slightest provocation, they glommed onto one another and spread their illnesses like wildfire, and they always ended up sending their shit into the kitchen when one of them inevitably slept with a cook after a long night of drinking. When Elijah was sick, though, it was annoying for a whole other set of reasons.

Mostly, if he was honest, it was the blatant denial that he found obnoxious. “So, tondight shouldn’t be too heinous,” Elijah said, rubbing his nose on the back of his hand as he sat at the shared desk. “It’s tomborrow we really have to – tuh… hhITZSHH-ue! HTSHH-ue!” Elijah folded in on himself to sneeze away from Mark, blearily rubbed his eyes behind his glasses, and attempted to continue. “To worry about,” he finished, coughing into the back of his hand.

“Uh huh,” Mark said, taking in the state of his boss. Elijah had been quiet yesterday, and quick to annoyance, but despite knowing the man for almost a decade, Mark still wasn’t able to decipher between ‘quiet, easily annoyed’ Elijah and ‘getting sick’ Elijah. The two were indecipherable from one another.

“Don’t sit too close, Mark,” Greyson’s voice called from the prep station near the line. Both Mark and Elijah looked over at the chef, who was butchering New York’s and smirking to himself. “He’s sick as a dog.”

“Greyson,” Elijah called, his voice cracking on the word. “Could you combe in here for a minute, please?”

Greyson rolled his eyes, but put down his knife and walked toward the office all the same. “Yes, dear?” he asked, toweling off his hands and leaning on the office’s door frame. “How can I help you? Some tea, maybe, or perhaps a drive home?”

Elijah stood, pulled Greyson into the office, and shut the door. “Stop fuckigg patronizing mbe in front of the staff,” he growled, poking a finger into the chef’s chest. Greyson huffed out a little laugh and slapped a hand on Elijah’s forehead.

“I’ll stop,” he said, “when you no longer have a hundred-and-two fever.”

There they stood, the two ultimate testaments to Matt’s theory, duking it out in front of a clearly-forgotten Mark. Greyson, the gregarious, heart on his sleeve, back-of-house guy who would just as soon scream at you as he would give you the shirt off his back, and Elijah, the subdued stay-together-for-the-kids front of house man, who knew everything about everyone and cared so hard he couldn’t see anyone else caring about him in return. Yin and yang. Front and back. Which are you, Mark? he thought to himself as the standoff continued.

“Mark,” Greyson said, breaking the spell, “can you handle tonight by yourself out front?”

Mark blinked, first at his boss, then at Greyson, and finally found his voice. “Y-yeah, I mean, of course I can,” he said.

“It’s a busy ndight, Grey, I don’t waahhh – ETSCHH-zue! HhhNGTSHH-uhh!” Elijah wrenched to the side to keep from sneezing in Greyson’s face – much to the detriment of Mark.

“Yikes,” Greyson muttered, watching Mark cringe against the spray Elijah directed, unknowingly, into his face. His boss flushed bright red when he realized what he’d done.

“Fuckigg shit,” Elijah murmured, yanking a tissue out of the box and handing it, lamely, to Mark. “Fugck, Mbark I’mb so sorry I didn’t meee – ETSCHH-zue!” This time, Elijah tented both hands over his face to keep from having a repeat of that incident. Greyson took his hand back then, shrunk away from the GM.

“Maybe, uh, give us a signal next time?” Greyson said, an attempt to break the tension. Mark would’ve laughed if he didn’t feel so thoroughly...infected.

“Would��ve if I could’ve,” Elijah grumbled, pulling another tissue out and blowing his nose. “Mbark, I’m so -”

“It’s fine, boss,” Mark said, standing. “But, um, I do think Chef is right – maybe you should go home, sleep it off?”

Elijah swallowed, pain evident on his face, and finally gave up the charade. “Alright,” he said, curt. “Finde. I’ll go.” He turned back towards Mark. “You’re sure you’ve got this?”

“Of course, boss,” Mark said. Elijah nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “Take sombe Emergen-C or something, okay?”

“Okay, boss,” Mark said. Elijah coughed painfully into the sleeve of his shirt, grabbed his backpack, and signed out of the computer.

“I’ll drive you home,” Greyson offered, but Elijah shook his head.

“Thanks, mother, but I think I can handle a five-mbinute drive with a cold,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Just mbake sure your guys are ready for tomorrow ndight – it’s going to be a doozy.”

“And that’s how we know it’s really time for you to leave, when you start using words like ‘doozy’,” Greyson said, pushing Elijah out the door. “Go. You’ve infected enough people today.”

Finally, Elijah did as he was told and left. Mark and Greyson stood in the office avoiding eye contact with each other for what felt like a long moment.

“You wanna run to the store and get some Emergen-C?” Greyson asked, breaking the awkward silence. Mark laughed a little.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling a hand down his face, “I guess I probably should.”

On his way out the back door, Matt caught the back of Mark’s shirt. “The fuck is going on up there?” he asked, confusion written all over his face. “Where are you going? Did Elijah go home?”

Mark turned and embraced Matt, then pulled back to offer a small smile. “Elijah went home,” he said. “And I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Matt asked again. Mark just sighed and gave his boyfriend a defeated look.

“I’m going to try and ward off the stupid fucking front of house flu.”

#whiskeyswriting #snz #sickfic #snzfic #coldfic #snzblr #snez #male cold #male snz #contagion #sneezeblr

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little-miss-dilf-lover · 1 year

Note

HEY HEY HEY so I’ve never requested anything before bc I’m new to tumblr and idk if this is even where I’m supposed to request thing so if i’m wrong then I sincerely apologise.

BUT, if I am then slay I have a funky idea for a tangerine fic that I think you would write so well :)

So I saw you said you’re British but idk if you ever went to a youth club? Like where they have 5-12 year olds come for group games in a sports hall and they do arts and crafts and play with the big rainbow parachute thing on the ground?? Well anyhoo I’ve been stuck on this non hitmen au where I can see reader being one of the leaders who takes the club and usually lemon is the other one, but for whatever reason, maybe like a recreational injury, he needs tangerine to fill in for a few weeks. So this is reader and tan meeting for the first time other than Lemon mentioning him and obviously Tan isn’t used to being around kids and is a grumpy dude and doesn’t know how to talk to them while playing the games but reader finds it funny because she knows them all well. Some funny Tangerine and kiddio interactions results in him catching her attention and the two become better friends while the group are away with the arts and crafts leader. Maybe they get up to some interesting stuff after a few weeks in the sports supply store room?? I just think it’s a fun little thing and the idea gives me nostalgia because if my old youth club lol

HI HI HII!! don’t worry you did it right! okay so, for this I had too many ideas (as it felt so nostalgic to write) I kinda added too much but not enough and feel as though it may not make any sense (like I waffled) I really loved this idea and don’t know if I did as well as I could’ve. but thank you for requesting, hope you like it💌

uncle lemon’s brother

tangerine x f reader

wc || 1.2k

warnings || none

masterlist + rules

taglist

Most days, you worked at the local youth club, where you'd lead all sorts of fun activities for the kids. Whether that be arts and crafts, sports in the indoor hall or nature walks, whatever it was that kept the kids entertained, you did it.

Luckily you have a work partner that helps lighten the weight of the kids' intense energy. He's much like a child himself, so he fits in perfectly. When he first joined several months back, the kids gave him a nickname before he could even introduce himself, naming him Lemon, well, Uncle Lemon. There was no reason behind the nickname other than it was 'funny'.

You and Lemon were quite a pair when handling the kids. You had worked out a system that allowed the children to do as much as possible in the short time you had available. You'd lead the artsy sessions, and Lemon managed the sporty activities.

Last week, during one of the after-school sessions, Lemon ironically injured his wrist on one of the climbing apparatuses while on lookout duty. So for his temporary replacement, he asked his brother to fill in. You've never met his brother before, only hearing bits of him when Lemon would share stories or memories. You were a little uncertain if he would be a good substitute considering how much of a grump he was described as.

Today is his brother's first day, so you were patiently waiting by the front desk to give him a quick tour before the kids arrived. Hearing a car pull up out front, you hastily organise the schedule for this afternoon, flicking through the papers as you make your way to the entrance.

"Hey, 'lright?" the man greets, extending a hand.

"Hi," you reply, shaking his hand as you hold his intense eye contact. "You're Lemon's brother, right?"

"Yeah-- Lemon?" he questions, his head slightly cocking.

Snickering. "Yeah, the uh- kids gave him that nickname when he joined. Clearly, it's stuck. How is he doing, by the way?"

"So dramatic," he scoffs. "Acting like he broke his whole body. Can't believe the knob-- sorry, the idiot broke his wrist on a climbing frame," he snickers, following after you.

"Yeah, that sounds about right," chuckling.

It took a little time for Lemon's brother to settle into his new role. It was quite clear that he was not used to being around kids, but as the afternoon went on, he grew more comfortable, and his demeanour began to change. Soften, even.

He was 'coaching' a game of dodgeball while you entertained the eliminated kids, telling them stories until the next round.

"Bob..." a little boy asks, lightly tugging on your hand.

"We're still calling me 'Bob'?" you question, your features playful as you act displeased. "But, yes, munchkin. What's up?" you ask, ruffling his hair.

"What should we call him?" he asks, blatantly pointing across the hall.

"I think something funny," someone else adds, giggling.

"I think we should call him turd man,"

"Turd man?" you entertain, pretending to be disgusted. "That's so disgusting."

"I like turd man,"

"Me too," another adds.

"Mr Grump,"

"Don't forget he's Lemon's brother, so we should call him something similar?" you prompt, trying to ease them into a less disgusting name.

"BANANA," a young boy calls out, practically jumping in excitement.

"Apple,"

"Orange,"

"Lemon number two,"

"Oh, how about something citrus-like. Something sour, maybe?" you chuckle, occasionally catching eyes with the new replacement across the way.

"Satsuma," a little girl calls out, pulling the small orange from her shoe.

"Sweetie, that's a tangerine," you smile.

"That's a good name,"

"We should call him that,"

"Please can we call him that, Bob?"

"Please..."

"Hm, I don't see why not," you laugh, ushering the kids along to join in the new game.

"Tangerine," a young girl calls out, rushing over.

"Tangerine!" another screams.

"Why the calling me that?" he whispers, his head hung low as he leans towards you.

"Ask them," you snicker, talking close to his ear. "Could be worse. They call me Bob,"

"Okay, yeah, you're right. That's much worse," he chuckles. "'lright," he claps, gathering the kids together. "We got time for one more game, ain't we, Bob?"

Grinning. "Yeah, I think so, Tangerine."

After one quick game of dodgeball later, you, Tangerine and the kids walked back to the main rec room to wind down before hometime. All sat in a circle as you all took turns to share your favourite part of the day.

"Where are you from, Tangerine?" a little boy asks, picking his nose as he poked him with his free hand.

He turns to look at you, his features begging for help as he leans away from the bogey picker. "Um... from my house,"

"Me too,"

"And me,"

"I'm from Poland,"

"Me too,"

"My daddy is from Ireland,"

"Where is that?"

"Near Spain,"

"No, that's an island,"

"You're wrong,"

Listening to all the kids blabber on, you face Tangerine, masking a snicker when you see his exasperated expression. "Hang in there," you mouth, a smile pulling on the corners of your lips.

Playing along, he checks the time on his watch. "Almost there," he whispers.

As the days went on, Tangerine grew a lot more comfortable with the kids, and he looked as though he was starting to enjoy his time with them. There was something so endearing about seeing a burly, attractive man acting so juvenile while entertaining kids, how soft and gentle he could be while speaking to them.

The two of you had spent lots of time together over the last couple of weeks, hanging out and chatting whenever there was a moment free. Tangerine was very slow to warm up, very reserved, but once you got past the first layer, you realised just how decent a person he is.

The kids had just left for the day, so you and Tangerine had to pack away the equipment in the sports cupboard that was left out.

"Hey, pass us that, would ya?" he asks, nodding to the bag of balls behind you.

"The ballbag?" you grin, reaching over the messily organised area. "You gotta say it. That's the rule round here," you joke.

"Ballbag," he says flatly, extending a hand. "Now give it,"

"Yeah, one min, my legs stuck,"

"Stuck?"

"Yeah," you sigh.

"Don't move. I'll come help," grinning.

"You're a funny man,"

He parts the boxes to the side as he makes his way over to you, moving the equipment out of the way so he can crouch to the floor beside you. His hand is warm and firm as he grips your ankle, slowly guiding it from the crack, looking up at you.

He coughs in his fist, clearing his throat. "There we go," he says, glancing away from your admiration-filled gaze.

Clearing your own throat, awkwardly looking away. "Thanks,"

"Yeah," he nods, meeting your eyes once more.

He slowly stands up, keeping his eyes glued to yours. His head hangs low as he brushes a strand of hair away from your face, his eyes darting over you. "No problem," he whispers.

"We should get going," you whisper back, practically pulling away.

"Don't worry. I weren't gonna kiss ya," Tan chuckles, lacing his hands into yours. Smirking. "Not yet, anyway."

@tangerinesgf @kpopgirlbtssvt @v1ntage-daydr3am @earth-elemental18 @ashlynhasmanyhyperfixations @idontknowwhattohaveasmyuser @thewinterv @navs-bhat @ilovetangerinewithallmyheart @theredvelvetbitch @randomawesomeperson102 @lov3lypeaches7 @princess-pebbles-things @astermath @dynamitehacke @ugh09876554444 @boldlyimportantface @charmedkim @fruitlovertangerine @psiiconic @bubblezuku @sporadiccherryblossomfan @landryslove

#tangerine #tangerine x reader #tangerine x you #tangerine bullet train #tangerine fanfiction #tangerine imagine #tangerine au #tangerine fluff #tangerine blurb #tangerine x fem!reader #tangerine and lemon

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maybeimamuppet · 5 months

Text

OKAY MUPPETS IT IS TIIIIME FOR EZZYS OPINION HOUR

i saw the mean girls movie yesterday and i have THOUGHTS. spoilers below the cut but general thoughts up here

1. is it objectively not a super great movie? yes

2. is it my new favorite movie? yes

3. will i defend this movie tooth and nail from people who don’t like it just bc it’s a musical or bc they’re a 2004 purist? YES

4. did this movie make me feel so many conflicting emotions back to back i have now had a tummyache for 24 hours? YESSS

5. will i ever, ever, EVER IN MY LIFE forgive tina fey for the ending? no.

alright babes welcome to below the elementary school gym class parachute

last spoiler warning!!

these aren’t all in order and are most definitely not all the thoughts i had bc i have the memory storage of a flea and once an experience is over it is GONE FROM MY HEAD so this is the list of thoughts i struggled to put together when i got home lmao

overall thoughts:

it felt very gimmicky. the stage production felt gimmicky too but in a fun way, this was gimmicky in a way that kinda gave me a touch of the ick

it did not feel to me very much like a cohesive movie. it felt like browsing ig or tiktok and just seeing a hodgepodge of scenes stuck together. which is a cool idea but idk how well it worked in practice and i also don’t know if it was intentional.

this is not the word i’m looking for but in terms of personality they absolutely whitewashed all of the characters and i really don’t care for that. the visuals and the casting were so immaculate but in terms of personality they just made them all taste like unsweetened corn flakes.

i’m biased and didn’t care for most of the tweaks they made to the songs individually BUT i think they blended with each other more cohesively than they do in the stage production so that was cool. and i am able to understand why they made them more pop-esque than theatre-y it’s just not my personal vibe

it all felt very emma watson’s beauty and the beast. like. not deserving of much hate but also just not as good. it has its time and place but i still just. the changes they made were too much for me. that being said i am gonna be the #1 viewer whenever it’s released to streaming platforms was not kidding when i said this is a new favorite movie

the whole like. tiktok and iphone camera thing was an interesting??? idea. i really liked it for cautionary tale but the rest. i think it was a better idea than the way they executed it.

i miss do this thing!! i wish they had done like a mashup with it and the stupid with love reprise but i wasn’t mad at the reprise so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

fourth wall break was real cringe!!

thoughts abt cady:

angourie is so cute!!!!!!! she has the perfect look for cady. her costumes were kinda yikes but physically she’s mwah chefs kiss perfection

cady is so viscerally autistic in this version and it is DELIGHTFUL

but again i feel like they took so much from her. in the show she’s this overexcited little bubbly (autistic again but still) thing and she’s naive and then it’s revealed she’s conniving and manipulative and has this serious dark streak in her. in the movie it felt like she was just. awkward and then straight to conniving and manipulative. it was interesting but i miss my little jumping bean i wish they had given her some more spice

this movie has turned me into a cadina shipper of THE HIGHEST ORDER i’m already writing a fic for them and i call diiiiibs nobody else do it i write slow /j

i honestly really liked what ifs. i didn’t enjoy it as much as it roars but i think for the screen and for angourie’s voice it was a better fit. and i think it blended better with the new versions of the songs than it roars would have. not mad at it and the staging of it was really cool

cady being the one with a single parent is so interesting to me!! idk why they did that but i think it’s interesting. makes me wonder what happened to her dad but also go mom!!! women in stem!!!

her relationship with the art freaks was so???? weird??? it seemed like damian was the only one who really wanted all of them to be friends. i love this version of janis and damian together but when they were with cady it was all just so BLAND. it didn’t really feel like she and janis were friends at all which is what’s supposed to make the betrayal sting so much

whatever they were aiming for with someone gets hurt they missed hard bc holy cadina batman that shits gay dude BUT THE STAGING WAS SO COOL with everyone like frozen and then they all kick back in all crazy with the music it was great

janis thoughts:

THEY FUCKING RUINED HEEEEEEEER

AULI’I WAS SO PERFECT SHE WAS SO CUTE AND HER OUTFITS ARE SO COOL BUT THEY JUST TOOK AWAY ALL OF HER PERSONALITY

janis is supposed to be spunky and angry and hurt and vengeful and quirky and out there and firey and she’s meant to HAVE GRIT GOTDANGIT but again she just felt so whitewashed. like here’s a vaguely leftist lesbian in ripped jeans and cool eyeshadow that’s janis right?? LIKE NO IT IS NOT

i’d rather be me, while it had a little less vocal oomph behind it than the stage show, was as transcendent as i hoped for and i got chills multiple times. also the comedic timing of the bus was immaculate and the sound it made made me cackle

i can’t tell how i feel about the new middle school incident. i think it takes so much of the pain out of it for janis which is meant to be her main motivator. she was not supposed to be KICKED OUT she was PULLED OUT but i do kind of like that they clearly made it where regina kissed a girl and liked it and freaked out and that was the catalyst for everything

i do not ship this version of cadnis and that to me is unforgivable. they have sooo little chemistry as friends let alone lovers i just can’t stand it. janis doesn’t ever even seem like she wants cady around. it seems so much like they took away what makes janis janis just to turn her into another catalyst for regina and cady’s stories

apex predator was fun!! i honestly like it being janis and damian singing it better than janis and cady i think it works better as a warning and stuff! and also the band in the tree made me laugh so hard. i’m glad cady had them as her tour guides but again that’s all it felt like they were to each other and i miss them being a little posse

REVENGE PARTYYYYYYUH. i thought the staging was really fucking weird?? like all the pastels and shit didn’t really fit i would’ve much preferred it to start like that and then have blood dripping down the walls or something when they’re talking ABOUT PEOPLES HEADS ON SPIKES. but musically it was my favorite of everything!! i’m so happy they put the original verse back i almost screamed out loud in the theater when i heard it!!!!!

i never thought i would say this but i wish they had not canonically made her a lesbian. i will never forgive tina fey for having her end up with that random girl. no shade to the girl, she’s gorgeous and i’m glad we got some on screen, good, healthy queer rep. but in my eyes that is absolutely just a cop out because they know people wanted her to end up with cady or regina. they’re spitting on us and saying “here have your fucking lesbian and enjoy it this is what you get” and expect us to be happy with it. i get so angry every time i think about it and it honestly kind of ruined the whole thing for me. i would rather she have ended up with kevin g again. or like. honestly damian romantically would’ve made more sense in a twisted fucked up way. i just absolutely hate how they handled that.

damian thoughts:

HE! WAS! PERFECT! i am a grey henson stan first and a human being second but by golly he might be my new favorite. comedic timing on point and the fact we barely get to hear him sing is a FELONY. he was delightful and i love him also we love black queer rep!!! fuck yeah!!!! his bit with the fan before id rather be me. sent me into the dang stratosphere i love him so much

ALSO HIS DATE AT RHE END WE LOVE THESTRE BOYYYYY!!! ugh so cute i love

regina thoughts:

HOW DID THEY MAKE HER SUCH A COWARD???? HOW DO YOU TAKE A CHARACTER WITH SO MUCH POWER AND FUCK HER UP THIS BAD???

again everything that’s a core tenet of her personality was removed. i wasn’t afraid of her which is a CRIME bc renee on broadway’s regina was TERRIFYING. she just felt like one of those girls that every hs has like 7 of. they’re a dime a dozen, they’re rich and hot shit and they know it but you don’t care what they do because you know they’ll be divorced and broke and probably fat at your 10 year reunion. it’s giving peaked in high school and not queen bee which is really sad honestly

it made cady seem so much more evil tho?? like regina seemed. hurt. and cady was still so gung ho about taking her down. and it made janis seem much more manipulative too. i don’t care for either of those things

her costumes were so weird??? half that shit regina would not touch with a ten foot pole but it’s renee and she would and she’s hot so i do not care. also this isn’t a criticism but her halloween costume was giving gargoyle more than angel lol

plastics thoughts:

gretchen again felt really reductive. she was all anxiety. not that gretchen isn’t that onstage but it just felt like that was her entire personality. but bebe was adorable and i loved what’s wrong with me she did a great job

avantika was DELIGHTFUL. i loved her so much more than i was expecting to she was the only one where i never had a moment like “i am watching people acting in a movie they are repeating written lines” it felt much more like fluid with her. 10/10 beautifully done to her

aaron thoughts:

HOW DID THEY MAKE HIM MORE BORING????? MY GOD

he was already the most redundant character in the whole goddamn thing and they somehow made him even more useless. he could’ve been removed from the movie entirely and it would’ve changed NOTHING. he is white bread if he was a spice he’d be flour. didn’t think it was possible to make him more that but by golly they did it

HOW DID HE AND CADY END UP TOGETHER HE HAS THE CHEMISTRY OF A BRICK WALL. she has so much more romantic fire and chemistry with regina this is some of the most comphet shit i’ve ever seen. it’s giving wicked levels of comphet like gooooddamn.

misc. thoughts:

THAT LINDSAY LOHAN CAMEO HAD ME OUTBOF MY SEAT I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING BUT IT WAS AMAZING also that “i don’t know your life” was mwah

MS NORBURY SND MR DUVALLLL WERE SO CUUUUUTE i squealed ngl i love them

overall like 7/10 good movie i’m angry about a whole bunch but this is also amazing i’m so glad we got this new content and i am definitely hyperfixating on it now. so not that different from my stage show opinions lol

#ik this sounds like i’m shitting on it a lot but i promise i’m not #i absolutely loved it #i’m glad this amazing show is more accessible to people now #would absolutely recommend seeing it #i just have a lot of feelings #i feel like a parent #disappointed but not surprised and at the end of the day still absolutely in love #thus concludes opinion hour with ezzy #which actually took me almost exactly an hour to write #hope you enjoyed see you next time lol #entropy with ezzy #mean girls #mean girls musical #mean girls 2024 #caps tw #swear tw

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telleroftime · 11 months

Note

I have no idea what triggered this but I just got this image in my head of being some kind of mechanic stationed for the kart races and Bowser just absolutely falling head over heels.

You're all grimy and you've got grease on your face but you're still all smiley and happy to be helping everyone get ready and you even offer to help his kingdom when one of his mechanics gets a nasty injury while working. You're off on the side helping Junior with his parachute or fixing new wheels on Ludwig's kart and he's just stuck staring.

The paparazzi are taking pictures of you being all friendly with the kids and pictures of Bowser's heart shaped pupils. You're completely oblivious until the paper comes out the next day.

I love this - I love this so much. And now to turn it into a little blurb of sorts --

You already had such a busy day. You're working for your kingdom, looking over statistics when you overhear that the Koopa Kingdom's lead mechanic was injured. The races are already half way through, and if the mechanic is gone, having left behind a very frantic and panicked and stressed set of technicians, that would mean a near-definite forfeit for the Darklands. Your team appears to be doing fine, and after going through to the event organisers you get a temporary station with the Koopa Kingdom.

And you work hard to get all of the karts up to top shape. Kamek had heard of your little switch and observed you work. He had been constantly looking over your shoulder to make sure nothing foul was at play and he found no malice.

You end up all sweaty and grimy, covered in oil and grease with a little bit of a sore throat from calling out to the Koopa Kingdom's technicians over the sound of the engines, and it's in that state that Bowser finds you.

He had finished dealing with the injured mechanic, making sure they were okay, and expected to return to a dishevelled team of technicians that would end with him and his kids racing in subpar equipment, lacking all of the quality checks they all needed to remain safe in such a dangerous tournament. He wouldn't have let his children back on the road.

But that's not what he came back to.

All of the karts seemed to be ready and the technicians were taking a break. They were chatting with one another and when Bowser looked to them with a questioning stare they nodded towards you.

You, as exhausted as you were, were engaging with the kids. Most were looking through their karts. Iggy was standing by your side as you worked and Junior was giddily trying to get your attention. Even as you worked you made sure to answer their questions.

And Bowser was shocked, but most importantly he was curious. Who were you and what were you doing here? Why was someone who, based on your clothes and their colour, was not part of his kingdom. Nowhere on your uniform did he see his emblem, his family's crest.

It only took Kamek explaining the situation to get Bowser's tail to start to sway, bordering on outright wagging.

He watched you from a distance, seeing how patient you were when you talked to his children. How friendly your eyes were when you instructed the Koopa Kingdom's technicians on what to do.

He wanted to walk up and strike a conversation, to let his charisma carry him and to gain your attention. But he also didn't know what to say or do exactly. He just stood there, staring.

And then when you came up to him, asking him for help with something heavy, polite in your words due to his title as king, he could swear if his heart would beat any harder he would faint. Of course, he helped, but he was silent. The most he managed were mumbles and grunts in response to whatever you were saying.

He was instantly charmed and he wanted to do anything and everything to get to know you better.

...

Bonus points if he keeps on trying to get Reader to join his technicians and kingdom permanently.

#bowser headcanons #bowser x reader #bowser #super mario bowser #toonce responses #redaskeded

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that-gay-guy-from-hell · 5 months

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Can I request headcanons or a scenario for Reader (pick a gender, idc) giving V a handjob? Just holding him close, somewhere safe in some nice + safe bolt hole somewhere in Red Grave city, listening to him moan (and maybe talk? If he can talk while getting off) while Reader gets him off? Please, his voice is so pretty, he'd sound so nice 😍 And he deserves to feel good 💜

Lineaments of Gratified Desire: V x G/N Reader

Minors DNI; FOR 18+ ONLY!

Seriously, go away; go read some fluff or angst or something.

SUMMARY:

Despite V’s physical limitations and condition, the fragile man has saved you on more than one occasion from certain death. Today, you decided to repay his kind deeds.

BEGINNING NOTES:

Requested 10th June 2023 by Saiyanblood2 on Tumblr :))))

🛏️📔🛏️ Submissive V x G/N reader Fluff..? If you squint Smut Handjob; V receiving 📔🛏️📔 🟪Takes place during DMC 5 🟪The reader is a demon hunter who works with the DMC. 🟪The reader uses Gilgamesh and Revenant. 🟪Quick reminder that “sword” sizes are found in the character's H/C chapter (Linked here) 🟪I haven’t finished “Visions of V” yet (not very good at reading things and I haven’t had much time/motivation to do so no Vergil joke intended lmfao) but I’m like 99% sure that this conflicts with that, sorry. 🟪Yes, I know that jumping from a window you should do like a parachute roll or whatever it’s called; just let me have this lmao 🟪Bagheera is the name of the jaguar from “Jungle Book” which I’ve never seen, if I’m honest. But! I feel like Dante and Vergil would’ve seen it as kids since the movie was made in 1967 and they were born in 1980. (I use Bagheera in here and I figure I should explain it lol) 🟪Boxer briefs (as far as I am aware) usually have a zipper fly; so V’s do as well. 🟪This is my first time writing (and acknowledging) that I h/c V to have an uncut dick. It might be a bit rough; sorry. (Fun fact: I also h/c Vergil and Dante to also have uncut dicks lmao)

===

“So,” Nero mindlessly wandered around the interior of the van, waiting for Nico to finish her work, “You and V, huh?”

As you adjusted Gilgamesh’s gauntlets and furrowed your brow, responding without looking up, “What about V and me?”

Leaning against the inner wall of the van, Nero stuck his hand in his jeans pocket in an attempt to act casual, “You two a thing?”

“Wh-what?” A flustered expression adorned your features as you slowly panned up to meet Nero’s curious gaze.

“Come on,” he gave a playful smirk, leaning forward slightly, “You can--”

A loud southern-accented voice cut him off from the back of the van, “He an’ I got a bet if y’all are fuckin’ or not.”

“If we’re…” You slowly blinked, processing what was said, “V and I are not-” Putting your hands up, you shook your head, “We aren’t anything or doing anything.”

Nico clicked her tongue in disappointment while Nero pumped his fist with a quiet, “Yes!”

Rolling her eyes, Nico pulled a wad of cash from her back pocket, counting out what looked like ten dollars. Nero strolled over to her workbench, a smug grin plastered on his face. In an almost exaggerated manner, he snatched the money from her and tucked it in his duffle bag, which was neatly placed underneath the couch.

�� A squeak of the van door caught everyone’s attention, V looked around for a moment before his gaze fixated on you, “Pardon my late arrival, I was… busy.”

You smiled and took a few steps to stand closer to him, “It’s alright; it was nice having a break for a few minutes.”

Nero raised a brow, “You guys are already heading out?”

With a nod, you turned to address the pair, “Just a quick sweep of the next dozen or so blocks; we shouldn’t be long.”

“Uh-huh,” the white-haired man took a deep breath, shaking his head with a small smile, “You’re gonna burn yourself out again; gotta sleep at some point.”

He tossed you Revenant which you caught and slid in the holster on your lower back, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Besides,” you took a deep breath and sighed, “the city’s not gonna clear itself.”

Making a phone call motion with her hand, Nico spoke, “Keep in touch, hun.”

With a playful sarcastic wink you gave her double finger guns, “Will do babe,” the two of you shared a laugh before you addressed V, who, unbeknownst to you, hadn't stopped staring at you, “Ready?”

“Of course,” he pivoted around, opening and holding the door open, “I’ll follow your lead.”

With departing waves, you stepped out the door, V following suit. A warmth found its way to your face as you smiled as you walked side-by-side; a comforting silence settling between you. Despite only knowing V briefly, you had grown quite fond of the lithe man. The way he treated you and spoke to you was so different compared to the roughness of both Dante and Nero that it made his first meeting with you stick out like a sore thumb.

===

It had only been a week or so after the Qliphoth had appeared.

After only God knows how long, you had taken some vacation time and left the city. Upon hearing the news about the outbreak, you immediately turned around and put your holiday on hold. This wouldn't have been too big of a deal if not for the unbelievably high amount of military checkpoints you had to go through; re-explaining that you work as a devil hunter and your employer had been asked to help handle the situation. It was monotonous, to say the least.

Not to mention that Nico, Nero, and the client--whom you hadn't met yet--were on the complete opposite side of the city.

An exasperated sigh left your lips as you kicked a rock using Gilgamesh's boots. It had been nearly 72 hours since you'd slept, eaten, or had any sort of significant source of water. Exhausted didn't even come close to explaining how you felt.

Thankfully, life decided to throw you a bone and you stumbled upon a relatively un-damaged apartment complex. Not passing up the chance, you headed straight inside and cleared out the first and second floor: given it was only lower-level demons like Empusas. One of the second-floor rooms had a door still attached and a corpse-free bed. Quietly shutting the door, you flopped onto the bed.

Even with you sleeping with one eye open, you were jumped by a demon that you hadn't heard. It was a Nobody and by the time you got your arms up to block, it was too late to ground yourself. The demon smacked you out the room's window.

Landing on your feet, Gilgamesh took the brunt of the fall; however, it still sent a shocking pang of pain up your body. Crumpling over on yourself, you grumbled some obscenities before returning upright. Your eyes settled on a newly formed horde and you put your hands up, ready to fight.

The extent of your exhaustion was becoming evident as you threw sloppy punches and were only able to kick half as high as normal. Despite this, you still managed to clear the demons... or so you thought.

An icicle from a Baphomet nicked your bicep causing you to hiss in pain. Placing a gauntlet over the torn flesh, you spun around to see the demon which was floating right out in the open. Though it was a stupid move, you spirited straight at the icy demon, avoiding all manner of magical attacks.

Using Gilgamesh's saws on your boots, you sprung upwards and drilled up into its brain with the gauntlets; killing it. Smiling to yourself, you landed and shook the corpse from your hand.

Your hair stood on end and your expression fell.

Slowly pivoting around, you came face to face with a trio of Hell Judeccas. As you waited with bated breath for one of them to move, you felt the blood from your wound glide down and drip off your fingers. The Baphomet was a challenge enough right now; so this fight would most likely end poorly for you. Death was almost a guarantee and there wasn't even anyone around to see it.

Taking a deep breath, you took off towards the demons and dodged two sets of blades that were sent straight at you by sliding on your knees. Pulling Revenant from its place on your back, you shot at them, praying that you hit at least one. However, you weren't so lucky and they all moved or teleported out of the way.

Quickly getting to your feet, you readied for another attack when a strange cat-like snarl from behind you caught you off guard. The supposed source of the sound, a large black jaguar, darted passed you and attacked the opposing creatures.

Then a shrill cackle came from behind in the same direction, quickly approaching and flying over you, “Ha! Bagheera was right, I’ll be damned.”

Confusion set in as you watched with mouth slightly agape at the demons being shredded by, what you could only assume to be, more demons.

“ “The most sublime act is to set another before you. / If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.”.” A low sultry voice from behind you caught your attention, turning slightly; attempting to keep an eye on both the demons and the new voice.

“Who-?”

You froze, your already pounding heart picking up a few extra paces at the sight. Though Dante had called you and given you a small description of the newest client of (The) Devil May Cry, you hadn’t expected him to look like this.

He slowly walked past you, sliding the well-kept brown pleather and golden accented book into his, rather promiscuous, leather jacket. When you turned back around to face the demons, the amount of confusion you had only tripled. The two animals had taken care of the three Hell Judeccas, all looking oddly de-saturated and on the verge of death. The gaunt tattooed stranger, using his cane, swept up one of the large demon’s sets of blades and swung them around, slicing it in half. He repeated the action but was able to kill the final two in one combined swing.

All you could muster was a confused open-mouthed huff.

The large hawk addressed the raven-haired man, “Well that was fun.”

Rolling his eyes, the man sighed and turned his attention to the jaguar. The large cat had begun to creep up to you; not in a threatening way but rather, what appeared to be, a curious one.

Just as it got within an arm's length from you, the man placed his cane down using it to support himself, and simply said, “To me.”

Both animals returned to him and quickly disappeared into the man, causing more blackened ink to appear on his pallid skin.

“Are you alright?” His eyes focused on you.

“I-” You closed your eyes and rapidly shook your head, rationalizing that his animals weren't real, thinking it was caused by your delirious state, “I’m fine; thanks for the help.”

A warm smile pulled at his plush lips, “The boy asked me to keep an eye out for someone who looks an awful lot like you,” he gestured with his eyes down to Gilgamesh, “and would have that devil arm.”

You laughed softly, “Nero’s actually here, huh?”

“He is, however, we parted ways after stopping in that woman’s loud van.”

“Nico’s here too?” Shaking your head you looked down with raised brows, “Man, the whole crew’s out here.,” You looked back up, “What about Dante or the ladies? They out here too?”

His smile faded, “No, I’m afraid that they are more than likely dead at this point.”

“Dead? Surely you’re kidding.”

With a flat mouth, he broke his gaze away for a moment, “No. Sorry to relay such bitter news upon our first meeting.”

Grinding your teeth in thought and moving your jaw back and forth, you stood thinking for a moment, “So it’s just Nico, Nero, me, and--?”

“Call me V,” the lithe man took a few strides closer to you, standing comfortably close.

“So you are the client then?”

V nodded, “Yes, that is correct.”

“Man,” you gestured with one hand up and down his body, the other hand resting on your hip, “Wish we had customers like you more often,” for better or for worse, you spoke your mind, “cause damn you’re-- wow.”

He looked down, hiding the slight pink on his face at the comment, and laughed, “You’re much more blunt than the others led me to believe.”

A wide smile stretched across your face, emphasizing the bags under your bloodshot eyes, which V finally noted, “Just callin’ it like I see it, V.”

“May I do the same?”

Putting your arms up, you cracked your shoulders as you responded, “Sure.”

“You need rest.”

Putting your arms down with a heavy sigh, “It’s that obvious, huh?”

V laughed slightly, “Just calling it as I see it,” slowly, he began to walk back the way he’d come from, “We aren’t far from Nico, I'm sure you could rest up there.”

Happily, you turned to follow him, “I’ll follow your lead.”

===

“What’s with that expression Wanderer?” V raised a brow, his voice pulling you from your thoughts.

“Oh!” With an embarrassed smile, you placed a hand on the back of your neck, “Just got lost in thought, sorry.”

“May I ask what you were thinking so intensely about?” He shifted slightly, allowing Shadow to take a break from traveling, and began supporting himself with his cane causing the two of you to move slower.

“Just thinking about our first time, that’s all.”

A breathy sultry laugh left his lips, “ Our first time? Well now, I didn’t take you to be such a bold flirt today.”

“Wh-huh?” Replaying the conversation, your eyes went wide and you turned to him, doing your best to not trip as you continued walking, “No no- I didn’t-- that wasn’t-”

V laughed again, eyeing you up and down from the corner of his eye with a smirk, “Right, pardon my assumption.”

You stared with parted lips momentarily before returning to face the correct way, lips pursed and cheeks unbearably hot. Nervousness settled like a brick in your gut as you watched the ground in front of you, causing you to miss the fact V was staring at you with half-lidded eyes.

Mindlessly playing with his teeth with his tongue, he debated whether to tease you any further about what was said; ultimately he decided to drop it. In truth, however, the lithe man was a bit disappointed that you weren’t thinking about the idea of being with him as he had thought about many times before. V felt almost guilty about the intense lust he felt for you.

The raven-haired poet was unquestionably, unfathomably, undeniably, in love with you--even if he has only known you for a short time. V was certain that he wanted to be with you for the rest of this lifetime and, what could be argued to be, his next; in whatever way you’d have him. Whether it was just as colleagues, friends, or lovers; it didn’t matter, he needed you in his life.

His grip tightened on his cane, realizing that Vergil may end up pushing you away, despite the pronounced dependency on you. You were like a rich dark sweet wine that he was unable to put down and wanted to do nothing but sip upon you till the end of time itself. A low sigh left his nose, secretly praying that he was wrong about how things would be when all was said and done.

“V?” Your voice was quiet as you adjusted Gilgamesh for the umpteenth time, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” he straightened upright, holding the cane horizontally, gloved fingers wrapping around the blade.

“When this is all over, could we…” You paused for a moment, “stay in contact?”

“Do you want to?”

Sheepishly, you nodded.

V smirked, “Then of course we can.”

Your eyes flicked up to meet his unwavering gaze, smiling brightly at him, “Thanks.”

“Perhaps, if you’d like, we could consider some other things as well.”

“O-other things?” A shake had found its way to your words as you waited with bated breath for his answer.

However, he didn’t answer, instead, he gave a low chuckle and turned his gaze from you, gesturing with his cane, “It seems we have work to do,” he put the metal back down and leaned on it again.

A heavy sigh left your lips and, without a second thought, you took off toward the horde.

Not hearing V calling out for you to stop.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw fast almost unplaceable movement. Although you went to bring your gauntlets up as fast as possible, you were unable to make the time gap. Except when you opened your eyes, instead of a big demon skewering you through your middle, you were on your ass and V was lying on top of you. His arms wrapped around your hips with his face right underneath your navel, face down and breathing heavily.

Before you could ask, a familiar squawking voice chimed in, “Aw, how romantic; Romeo can sure as hell hustle when he needs to,” the bird let out a laugh.

A snarl left Shadow’s maw, seemingly annoyed at the lack of help from Griffon.

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m on it,” Griffon returned to the fight, leaving you to assist V up.

Slowly, he picked his head up enough to look at you, emerald eyes holding a heavy unplaceable emotion. Heat quickly filled your face at the realization of the position you were in which didn’t go unnoticed by the raven-haired man. Without moving too much, V snapped his fingers causing his hair to go white and the last of his tattoos to dissipate.

“Are you alright?” You propped yourself up with one arm and used the other to cautiously tuck his hair back, resting an armoured palm on his cheek.

“Mmn,” he paused in thought, enjoying the feeling of your touch, “If you are then I am.”

A corner of your mouth twitched up slightly, “I’m alright; thank you.”

He took a deep breath in response, resisting the urge to place his face back down against your abdomen. Though all good things come to an end he knew he had to get up. With a grunt, he pushed up and sat up in a kneel, one knee up for him to push off of. However, you were quick to your feet and offered a hand instead, which he graciously accepted.

“I’ve got this,” you squeezed his hand before letting go, “Don’t worry about it.”

Not giving him time to banter or reject your offer, you took off and finished off whatever half-dead demons were strewn about.

It didn’t take long for the horde to disappear into nothing but blood and gore. Admittedly, V always enjoys watching you work--especially with hand-to-hand weapons. Whether it is a holdover from Vergil’s distaste for guns or if it is because of the innate sensual nature of the style; he couldn’t help but find it arousing. The way you seemed to show off for him was just a cherry on top.

There was something in the way you pranced around that he couldn’t help but be mesmerized by. With all of this considered, V was struggling to not become visibly excited and, much to his dismay, was starting to lose the fight.

Once the demons were dead, you waltzed over to V and carefully grabbed his arm, tugging slightly, “Come with me.”

“Is something the matter, Wanderer?” The lithe man’s hair returned to its dark shade as Nightmare faded from sight.

You shook your head, flashing him a closed-eye smile, “Nope; just trust me, V.”

He swallowed hard and nodded, “Very well, lead on.”

A confused tilt adorned his brow as he tried to piece together what you were doing-- or planning. It wasn’t long before the two of you reached the destination you wanted, a mostly intact hotel.

“Could you leave Griffon and Shadow out here, please?” You turned to him, stopping in front of the entrance.

His gaze thinned, “May I ask why?”

“Last time I went into one of these, I got attacked and thrown out a two-story window,” you gave him a falsely doe-eyed smile, “Figure they could be our lookout for a little bit--just until we’re done.”

V wanted to push for a better answer, knowing that made no sense; however, his curiosity got the better of him and, deciding to play along, summoned both familiars.

“Stay here, we will be back shortly-”

Griffon immediately turned to you, laughing with a slightly impudent attitude to his words, “Be careful with him, don’t need him dying of a heart attack-”

You laughed, cutting the bird off, “I’ll take care of him; I promise.”

With that, the two of you disappeared into the building.

“I’m going to scout ahead a bit; okay?” You let go of his arm, making V ever-so-slightly frown.

“Sure.”

As you went on, V’s eyes quickly drifted to your hips. Lewd thoughts echoed in his mind as he watched you seemingly bounce down the hall, peeking into each room with just the right amount of lean forwards so that he got a perfect view of your body. Each stride of yours had this certain flaunting nature to it as if you were purposefully taunting him.

Reaching the final room on the first floor, you decided to head in. Though no one else was aware, you’d already surveyed this building earlier and cleared out every demon within; meaning only small fries--like Empusas--would be here, if at all. This room was the closest to normal there was, having almost zero damage.

The room was relatively large; the bathroom was to the left of the doorway and the rest of the room to the right. The bedding was still neatly tucked, the faucet still ran, and there was even a radio with quite an array of classical CDs.

You made your way over to said radio with a hum, bending over at the waist to rummage through the music.

V joined you in the room, looking around in slight confusion before his gaze settled on you again. A sway had found its way to your hips and, despite your flustered and nervous feeling, you smirked. You knew he was looking at you; confirming your hunch about his oddly vague words.

Eventually settling on a random assortment of Tchaikovsky's work, you slowly stood upright and placed the disc in the player with a half-surprised laugh at the fact it still worked. When you turned around, a wide-eyed stare was all you could give to V, who was shifting awkwardly and avoiding your eyes. Though you’d hope some light teasing would get him in the mood, you hadn’t expected him to get so hard so quickly.

Without a word to him, you slipped past him and into the bathroom. Carefully, you placed Gilgamesh’s gauntlets and Revenant on the countertop then washed your hands, using the soap left in the dispenser. Returning to the room while drying your hands, you meandered toward the extremely confused horny goth.

As you discarded the towel, V finally spoke up, “Wanderer, what are we doing here?”

“Well,” you gently grabbed the open of his jacket, a hand on each side, thumbing over the black leather, “After how many times you’ve saved me, I figure that it’s about time you get a reward.”

His eyes flicked all around your face then down to your forearms, resting his cane against a nearby wall. Cautiously, V snaked his arms around your back and pulled you tight to him, “A reward ?”

“Yeah,” you leaned closer and placed your nose beside his, lips just barely apart, speaking with a whisper, “If you’re interested…”

Closing the gap, V leaned into you for both support and to deepen the kiss. An icy hand slid up your back, gracefully dancing across your still-clothed skin, and came to rest on the back of your neck. Your hands slid down his sides, coming to rest at his belt line, hooking your forefingers into the loops of his ever-tightening skinny jeans.

Switching to long drawn-out heated kisses, V squirmed under your touch as he felt you pull his hips into yours. Breaking away for a moment, the two of you stayed close, breathing heavily in content. A smirk pulled at his lips as he moved to kiss your up jawline, taking his time, making his way to your earlobe, tugging on it with a bite.

V rested with the side of his face against yours. The hand from your neck made its way to your upper back and, mindlessly, the thin man began to sway with you, enjoying the music and relaxing in the moment. You could feel his heart racing from just his chest resting against yours; no wonder Griffon gave you shit about V having a heart attack.

Bit by bit your hands left his jeans and went to his corset, undoing the already loose strings further. Taking the hint, V let go of you and removed his jacket then his corset; being tossed onto the bed and floor, respectively. A small huffed moan left his lips as he watched your hands grope up and down his torso.

“Wanderer…” His voice was low, but brimming with an unmistakable lust.

Resting your hands on the sides of his hips, you stood for a moment. A smirk tugged at your lips as you watched his chest rise and fall with each breath. Leaning closer, you placed a kiss at the crook of his shoulder, followed by a soft bite. V submissively tilted his head away from you, giving you more access to his neck. A smile tugged at your lips as you placed tender kisses, and the occasional bite, along his cold skin. A hand slid to the front of his jeans, finally, your touch wasn’t to just tease him.

V placed his hands on your sides, holding you closer, pursed lips hiding a groan that hung in the back of his throat. Though he knows it’s a bit pathetic, just feeling your hand against his cock was proving to be somewhat of a challenge for the inexperienced man to not prematurely finish.

Using both hands, you went to remove his belt, before stopping. V’s swaying had become much more pronounced--not having a means of support other than you.

You whispered against his neck, “Why don’t we sit down, hm?”

V, much to your surprise, seemed to stumble over his thoughts, “Any par- particular position?”

Fully leaning back, you grabbed his hand and guided him to the bed, “Get up here-- do you need help?”

He gave a nasally laugh, “No, I am alright,” he crawled up onto the bed, kneeling with his knees both on the bed, “Now what?”

Without answering, you climbed atop the mattress as well, sitting with your back nearly against the headboard, and patted your thighs. Understanding what you wanted, V sat on your lap facing you, wrapping his legs behind you.

“You’re beautiful, V,” reaching up, you moved a strand of hair from the front of his face, tucking it behind his ear, and leaned in close, speaking right above his lips, “So very beautiful.”

The gap quickly closed between you and V’s hands cupped your jaw, thumbs rubbing against your cheeks. Your hands went back to work on his belt, making him shift slightly. Feeling that you had the belt fully undone, his lips left yours, and he moved back just enough to look you in the eyes. With kiss-swollen lips slightly agape, V swallowed hard as he heard you unbutton his jeans.

Slowly, methodically, you unzipped the fly on his jeans, making sure to note every little micro-movement V made. This had been something you’d wanted for a long time and you were going to make sure to enjoy every last bit. When you finally broke from his gaze to look down, you raised a brow.

Nervousness pooling in his gut, V noticed your expression, “Is- is something wrong, love?”

A wide smile tugged at your lips, “No- not at all,” trying to hold back a laugh you looked back up at him, “It's just, with the rest of your outfit, I honestly expected you to be wearing a thong or g-string; not boxer briefs.”

V let out a laugh of relief, “I see; I-” A stifled moan cut his words short.

Resting your hand on the inner side of his thigh, you started to slowly run the side of your thumb up and down his bulge.

Heavy exhales left his nose as he watched your hand and he moved his hands to the outsides of your shoulders.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw V’s coat on the bed and got a wicked idea, “You know V,” your motions slowed even further causing him to let out a small huff of disappointment, “I really like your voice…”

His brow twitched slightly, attempting to figure out what you had in store, “Is that right?”

Carefully, you reached over to his jacket, grabbed his book from an inner pocket, and then handed it to him, “Why don’t you read me something, hm?”

“Is there a particular poem you’d like?” The prized item was held between you both, the top of it resting gently against your chest.

You shook your head, “Whatever you think fits best.”

As he flipped through the book, you resumed your touch. With eyes trained on his crotch, you unzipped the boxer’s fly and heard his page-turning falter slightly. Slipping his cock out into the open air, V let out a small moan, a page pinned between his forefinger and thumb.

“Now, now, V.” You looked up at him from the tops of your eyes, “You stop, I stop; got it?”

He pursed his lips and then nodded, continuing with his search. There was a visible shake to his hands as he did his best to play along. Ghosting your fingers along his shaft, you noticed that he had pre-cum already dribbling from his tip and he was heavily twitching; apparently, he was much more sensitive than you’d expected.

Rolling his foreskin back slightly, you thumbed over his tip. His page-turning had stopped again, and you hummed slightly, “Find one?”

With a slightly strained voice, he nodded, “Y-yes, I,” he moaned as you lightly wrapped a hand around his shaft, closing his eyes he continued, “I found something suitable.”

“Good,” you brought your thumb to your lips and put it in your mouth, cleaning the digit, “The floor is yours,” V’s eyes flicked to you, watching you mindlessly roll your tongue over your lips, and his blush deepened tenfold.

A shaky breath left his mouth as he focused on the page before him, “ “What is it men in women do require? / The l-lineaments of Gratified Desire.”.”

Spitting into your palm, you once again wrapped a hand around his shaft. With slow lazy pumps, you noted the feeling of his cock in your hand. Eyes flicking between his face and dick.

V’s brow twitched as he let out a hissing groan, “ “Wh-what is it women do in men require? / The lineaments of Gr-gratified Desire.”,” The raven-haired man’s hips unintentionally jerked slightly at the feeling of you putting your forefinger and thumb tips together, encircling his cock, and gently pulling up on his tip.

He hunched forwards slightly, his hair falling in front of his eyes, “ “The look of love alarms / Because ’tis f-fill’d with fire; / But the look of s-soft de-deceit- / Shall Win the love-lover’s hire” Ngh-ah~” The fragile man’s legs constricted your middle ever tighter with each passing moment. Returning to stroking his entire length, you slowed down; not wanting him to finish quite yet.

Lips trembling, he continued, “ “S-soft Deceit & Idleness, / These ar-are Beauty’s sweetest dress. He--”

A sustained groan left his lips as he leaned forwards even more, placing the top of his head against your lips, which you placed a loving kiss upon, “ “He who binds to himself a- a joy / Dot the winged life d-destroy;”.”

V bucked his hips slightly upwards, desperate for more friction, speaking with a whimpering moan, “Please, Wanderer, I can’t-”

Whispering against him, you slowed your motions even further, “You’re almost done, my love… finish it for me; please?”

Taking a stuttering inhale through his nose and low breathy exhale from his mouth, he licked his lips before continuing, “ “But he who ki-kisses the joy as it flies / Live in Eternity’s sun-sunrise.” Ah-ah~”

Quickening your hand even faster than before, you placed another elongated kiss against his hair, “Good boy.”

Tossing the book from his hands V sat upright. Icy fingers wrapped around the back of your neck and gripped the side of your shoulder. The raven-haired man began to thrust his hips into your hand, practically riding your thighs.

You smirked and leaned in to place kisses on his collarbones, “I love you, V.”

“I- Uh-ah~,” another loud noise came from the man as he felt you add you use his pre to slick his cock even more, “I love you too, Wanderer.”

You upturned your face slightly, kissing his throat up to the underside of his jaw, a confident purr to your words, “You gonna cum for me, V~?”

The frantic shifting of his hands to cup the sides of your face gave you your answer. V guided your face up to his and placed his forehead against yours.

“Please,” his voice was soft and pleading, his mind a hazy lust-filled mess that was unable to come up with any other words.

Upon using one hand to stroke him and the other to play with his tip, you felt his thigh muscles tighten and his fingers dig into you. He pushed his lips onto yours, kissing you as if he were never going to be able to again. His hands wandered down your body, groping at your clothes.

Balling up your shirt in his hands from his grip, he broke off the kiss, a string of saliva connecting you momentarily. The skinny man leaned back and arched his body into yours.

He let out a final full-mouthed moan and bucked his hips one last time as his body tensed.

Warm silky white fluid decorated your hands as you slowly rode out his orgasm. A feeling of pride filled your heart as you made sure to etch the sight before you into your mind.

V’s skin had completely lost all of the inky patches and his chest was heaving. With how far he arched back, you could see the underside of his ribs and the prominent hip dips on each side. You watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he audibly swallowed a few times.

After a moment, he leaned back towards you.

Ghostly white hair fell in front of his flushed features as V’s eyes met yours. A small smile found its way to his lips and the two of you shared one more kiss. This time, however, it wasn’t lustful but a sweet loving gesture. With slow long kisses, V placed a forefinger under your jaw. Upon breaking away, you both shared a breathy satisfied huff and he slid his hand to cup your cheek, thumbing over your skin.

“So,” you relaxed into his touch, “Are we getting attacked or something?” His brow twitched in confusion, “Your hair.”

“Did I really..?” he leaned away and focused on the strands in front of his eyes which were slowly returning to black, “That’s… I didn’t know that would happen; how strange.”

You removed your hands and looked at them, a slight playful teasing to your voice, “Little pent up there V?”

Although you weren’t complaining, V had cum quite a lot harder than you’d expected and made a mess between both of you.

With an embarrassed laugh, he turned from your gaze, and rested his hands on his thighs, “Perhaps it is because you are so important to me…” V didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t even tried to masturbate while in this form--not to mention that Vergil hadn’t done anything like that in over twenty years.

Humming quietly along to the long-forgotten music, you brought your hand up to your mouth and cleaned it off. V’s eyes immediately flicked to you and he stared at you wide-eyed. Slowly, your eyes drifted to his as you continued.

When you went to give your other, less coated hand, the same treatment, you noticed something else and raised your brows in surprise, “That was a quick turnaround.”

The tattooed man looked down and then back at you, “It’s not my fault you are so… appealing to me,” once more, he leaned his forehead against yours, “Wanderer.”

“Mnm, well then,” you placed a long kiss against his lips, biting his lower lip after, “Guess my work isn’t done then, hm?”

“Your work?” V backed away and removed his legs from your waist, running a hand down your middle, resting it just above your hip line, “If it’s all the same to you, this time, I’d much rather be the one to play.”

===

ENDING NOTES: Not me having no clue how to end this lmfao 🛏️📔🛏️ Been a long time since I’ve tried to write V lol I really should write him more Also hope that this was close enough to the request. I just kind of ran with the flow so it’s not exactly the same--the poem reading isn’t really what was asked but I figured it was close enough. Another thing, sorry for the improper dividing of dialogue trees when V’s reading. It was too chaotic for me to feel comfortable leaving in one chunk (which is technically what I should’ve done since it was only V talking) sorry lol Also if you are into like video edit shit, I’ve been re-watching one from “V’s Love” on YouTube titled “V | Slow Down | DMC 5 GMV”. Give it a watch- seriously it’s fans myself gayly oh boy. 📔🛏️📔 Poem(s) Quoted: William Blake: Proverbs of Hell William Blake: Several Questions Answered (full version)

If you like what you read here; please check out the rest of my one-shots on AO3. Comments, reshares, and likes/kudos are appreciated!! Thanks for reading!

MASTER LIST FOR TUMBLR

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wexhappyxfew · 2 months

Text

when all else fails

(a/n): here it is! a Silver Bullets ensemble piece featuring all of the lovely ladies that man the B-17 Silver Bullets that is mentioned so very often. let's just say....adjusting to a new pilot after losing one that did so much in terms of care - is hard. but having each other, makes it a bit easier. (featuring also: frank, the orange cat that meatball chases when warranted).

"How many times has he mentioned that the God-forsaken cat loves him?" muttered Paulina as she came and settled herself into the chair besides Carrie, shaking her head and lacing her fingers together like an elaborate pie crust.

"Dougie'll probably keep saying it," Carrie offered and then nodded at Marianne, who was sat in her own chair, working her way through another beer, "Frank doing okay?" Marianne shrugged and glanced at the orange cat, curled up at her feet, licking at his paw, eyes half-opened as he lounged on the wooden ground of the flying club.

"Looks like he's as fine as he'll ever be," Marianne said, "Dougie snuck him a thing of cheese earlier, so….let's just say, he's content." Carrie snickered as Paulina glanced down at the little ball of orange.

"Remind me how you're going to get him home again? Strapping him up in Silver Bullets, his own mask to fit his whiskers, a parachute made out of napkins?" Paulina offered and Marianne chuckled.

"I'll just ask Benny, he got Meatball over here, I'll be damned if I can strangle Frank into a harness, but it'll happen," Marianne said, "plus, he's a big sky enthusiastic." Carrie raised a brow. Paulina blinked.

"Come again?" murmured Carrie.

"He climbs up the trees, ya know? Entertains the kids. Jumps outta them, too. Crazy son-of-a-gun. There's a reason he's got nine lives, well…probably five now." Marianne said with a sigh, like an exasperated mother, "I blame Meatball."

"Why are we blaming Meatball?" a new voice said, entering the picture, the bright-eyed silhouette of Margie Harlowe coming up to them, Kennedy Farley in tow - like sunshine and gray skies clashing together in the middle of summer, but somehow making it work.

"He chases Frank around," muttered Marianne, "therefore, Frank has it out for him. Don't think Benny would agree but." Kennedy glanced downwards.

"A real wild-eyed killer there, Mar." Kennedy murmured and Marianne grumbled.

"He's just a softie on the outside that's all," Marianne said and Carrie chuckled.

"I can promise you, if I wave a thing of cheese in front of him, he's done for, there's no fighting with Meatball," Carrie said, patting Marianne on the shoulder and she all but sighed.

"It's alright, Frank, I'd be the same way," Paulina called down to Frank - who sat wildly unbothered, "swear to ya, you could wake me from a dead-sleep."

"Any of you meet the new pilot?" Margie asked, sweeping her eyes through the current group of four staring her in the face, "Alright, what's with the blank looks?"

"Don't think we're the ones you should be asking," Carrie said quietly, "you think Francis is gonna lose it? We know what happened when Harding tried with the other pilot…..Francis couldn't stand her."

"That's because that Captain Atchinson was nothing but a stuck up twit with a stick up her ass," Kennedy offered, "told me three times about how to load my goddamn .50 cal - last time I ever went up with her telling me what to do. I know how to load a gun, sweetheart."

"Bunch of bullshit, too," Paulina said, "you know she told me I had to at least eat proper in front of the guys. Does she not realize most of these guys saw me on my death bed when we arrived in Greenland? Puking my guts up as I pathetically begged for Major Cleven to take me to the grave. That was the least of my worries-"

"Well, our new pilot is not Captain Atchinson - she's actually really sweet, level-headed, can hold her own." Margie said butting in, "You all oughta introduce yourselves, stop hiding."

"Gotta name?" Marianne asked, a bit more hopeful than the others.

"Annie Bradshaw." Margie said, a hint of a smile on her lips, "She was in Fort Des Moines, but she's been a pilot for a bit. I got Benny to spill about her to me a bit. Supposedly she was going to fly AT-6s before coming here, so I guess we can consider ourselves lucky." Someone coughed.

"We'd be lucky if Birdie was still here." Carrie murmured quietly and a collective silence came over the group.

"Alright, what's with the sour faces?" Bessie, beloved navigator of Silver Bullets, said coming with a fresh drink - beer in the bottle - and Vivian and Judy in tow, the three new sets of eyes wandering about the current display of grief that seemed to wash in like waves.

"Don't tell me," Vivian said, arm linked through Judy's, eyes narrowed, "Major Egan made another one of his bad jokes and Pauli ain't having it."

"It ain't that, Viv, but feels close enough to be just like it," Paulina mumbled from her seat and shrugged, before leaning her head on her hand, "meet the new pilot?" The group glanced towards the trio and found somewhat blank looks on all their faces as well.

"Saw her." Judy offered, a bit more enthusiastically than the others, "She's a pretty thing. Didn't say anything though. It was from afar; I was trying to keep Dougie company, poor guy got turned down. I offered him an emotionally-filled pat on the shoulder."

"You really are the sweetest out of us all," Margie said with a smile towards Judy - who grinned like she always did - one that still looked youthful and full of a life now past.

"Was he trying for Helen again?" Carrie asked, her voice a bit more stiff than it had been previously and Bessie shrugged.

"A pretty poor attempt, I'll give him that," Bessie offered, in that comforting voice of hers that never seemed to let anyone down even in the worst of times.

"That or he's going on about the damn cat." Paulina groaned, receiving a shove from Marianne, "Sorry, sorry-" she glanced down at Frank, "sorry Frank, we love ya, I promise."

"So," Bessie started, glancing around the group, "anyone else willing to make the first move or should I bite the bullet. Again, might I add."

"I'll come with you," Judy offered, "she seems real sweet, I tell ya." Bessie smiled and glanced towards the group. Silence.

"Listen, listen, I'll come," Kennedy offered, "nothing a little New England charm can't do."

"New England charm?" Paulina crooned.

"Very experimentalist of you." Carrie said with a smirk and Kennedy rolled her eyes.

"I don't see anyone else jumping to their feet," Kennedy said, placing her hands on her hips with a raised brow, "imagine that was you! Comin' in here and your first introduction is Major Egan - Jesus Christ he probably scared her off-"

"I don't have to imagine," Paulina said with a sour look on her face, "if Birdie were here, we wouldn't be having to start this all over again."

"Yeah, well, Birdie ain't here, Pauli." Kennedy said. It was tough love. A tough realization that was a hard pill to swallow and something no one wanted to have to face.

None of them had really been flying since - Francis had done a practice run with Benny, but had come puking out of the plane and that had been that. Sometimes on walks around base, there was a presence about Silver Bullets that was almost sickening. It was like trying to face a fear none of them wanted to actually have to face. Getting in Silver Bullets without Birdie there. Because how much could you trust the next person to look out for the group and do much, if not the same or more?

"Well, what a surprise," Francis Montez said, swaggering over, a tired look on her face, an even more exasperated smile growing on her lips, "go on, what's happened now. Who are we bettin' on now?"

"No one, Lieutenant, except maybe the new pilot," Judy offered with a shake of her head, "you meet her yet?" Francis' face fell flat and she glanced around the group and shrugged.

"Ran into her, was on the move, didn't have much to say yet," Francis said, her words awkward and spaced uncomfortably. A few of the women exchanged side-eye glances or random coughs or sniffs.

Everyone knew Francis was struggling the most with it all - losing Birdie like they did. Just like that. Having her stuff back at the base, having to send it home to her folks, having to write out the letters and mail it out. Having to even think or say anything regarding it all. No one wanted to express any emotion towards a new pilot, or try to replace Birdie in anyway - it's why this whole new pilot shindig hurt just a little more than they all thought. They knew Birdie would never be replaced, but sometimes it felt like it was replacing her. Francis had been the one to see it and live it. She felt it the most it seemed - and showed it.

"You doing okay, Lieutenant?" Marianne asked quietly, a few worried glances going towards Silver Bullets' copilot - the drawn in expression on her face that fought with whatever inner emotions she was feeling more and more, the dark circles under her eyes, her gaunt cheeks. Francis Montez seemed to take on the weight of the world and let it stay on her shoulders for as long as she could handle; she hadn't fallen down yet.

"Fine," Francis said and then settled onto the open chair beside Carrie, "so, who's gonna make the first move? Or well, let me rephrase, who should be the one to make the first move?"

"I vote Margie." Paulina said, with a raised hand as she sipped her beer, "Margie or Vivian, someone who walks around like it's always sunny outside or something, ya know?"

"Flattering, Pauli, truly," Margie said, and Vivian offered a graceful smile with a nod.

"I appreciate the sentiment, Pauli, you really do butter me up," Vivian said, "but I think this is a Margie Harlowe situation at its finest." Margie grinned and crossed her arms and glanced around.

"You guys shouldn't have."

"Take the compliment, Margie," murmured Carrie. Margie smirked.

"She here?" Margie asked out loud.

"Supposedly Brady invited her."

"She blonde?"

"Blonde, more dirty-blonde, but nice dirty-blonde, shorter-side."

"That her?"

Everyone followed Carrie's finger and line of sight and found the new pilot, Lieutenant Annie Bradshaw, moving towards the bar, leaning up against it smoothly and ordering a drink and then looking around, her movements fluid, calculated and purposeful, her presence not entirely overwhelming and the look on her face a mix - calm, cool, collected about herself. Someone you probably didn't want to mess with unless you had it coming.

"Yep, that's her," Judy said, "Margie you should go for it." Margie turned to the group, took a gracious bow, cracked her knuckles like some professional sports star and then turned away.

"Watch and learn, ladies," Margie said and then plowed forward.

"There she goes," Kennedy said with a chuckle, "our Margie, whodda thought huh?"

"Whodda thought what?"

"Volunteering herself like that," Kennedy offered, "going into the line of fire. She's better than me."

"What the hell do you mean by that?" Francis said, "Whatcha trying to say?" Kennedy glanced over her shoulder just as Margie stuck out her hand to shake and then glanced back at the group of women and Frank, who now was cuddled in Judy's arms.

"Harding's been trying to get a pilot in for days after Atchinson was booted. Supposedly, he didn't let anyone even meet us until he was sure, especially after what happened before." Kennedy said, "Egan let me in on it, Mr. Chatterbox. Anyway, it seems legit. The entire thing. And she made it through all their levels of inspection, interviews, questioning, all of it. She's good." The group seemed to gravitate to looking towards Francis, attempting to judge her facial expressions before coming to a consensus.

"Francis?" Bessie offered. Francis was quiet for a moment, then leaned forward and took the beer bottle in her hand.

"I won't say anything until she's up there flying Silver Bullets."

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queermentaldisaster · 2 months

Text

"Shoulda Been Dead A Long Time Ago"

Chapter two is finally here! This chapter was a mess to figure out, but I just went with the way I did "The Hunt Is My Muse".

No chapter warnings!

The Reactor

“One minute!” the jumpmaster called, as Simon watched Soap and Gaz push the crate into position, his eyes hidden by the mask made out of his companion. His eyes were locked on Soap's biceps and the way they strained, the way the light glistened off the sweat.

“Tight!” Soap called out, and Simon snapped back to reality, focusing back on the task at hand. Don’t get distracted now Simon, Ghost gently reminded him. ‘Oh, yeah, like you weren’t staring either.’ Simon responded, and Ghost went silent.

“Crate’s all good to go,” Gaz said, patting the top of it.

“That’s our gear on the ground if we need it,” Simon reminded them, readjusting his hold on his gun, Ghost’s thin tendrils wrapping around it to keep it in place.

“We will.” Price muttered, as the jumpmaster hit the button to open the ramp. The alarm sounded and the ramp opened, as Price looked back at the others. “Pull altitude is 2000 AGL!” He called out.

“Cuttin’ it close!” Soap called back, grinning over at Simon, who grinned back under the mask as Gaz lightly punched Soap in the arm, grinning.

“That’s how we do.” Gaz said, and Simon straightened his back, pulling his shoulders back a little.

“Roger up at the rally point,” he said, and Gaz responded with a simple “check!” as Soap gave him a fist bump. The crate flew out, and they jumped out shortly after, each of them deploying their parachutes at the right moment.

“Watcher-1 to Bravo,” Laswell’s voice crackled over the radio. “ISR is overhead. Be advised, Konni has three helos on the ground. Locations marked with orange smoke.” Ghost snarled in Simon’s head. Monsters, every last one of them. Simon made a vague sound of agreement. ‘Terrorism is a nasty business. Just one of the worst aspects of humanity.’ He responded, before responding to Laswell verbally. “Extract points for the nuclear material.” He muttered.

Soap jumped in with a snort. “Aye Lt, tha’ much was obvious, ye daft numpty.” That caused Ghost to purr happily, and Simon’s heart swelled slightly, before Laswell cut back in, clearly annoyed.

“Affirmative,” she said, and Ghost snickered. “Those helos are your primary targets. Destroy them and we can keep this threat contained.” Simon let out a grunt of affirmation, as he spoke. “Roger. Moving to overwatch.”

As he landed, Ghost spoke up. Do we need to be stuck on overwatch? they asked, before its voice took on a whiny tone. I’m hungry, Simon. Simon sighed, turning off his side of comms. “Once we get the helos taken care of, then we’ll make sure to take a few of these bastards out.” He promised.

Alright, Ghost muttered, but I don’t have a good feeling about this place, Simon. Watch our back. Simon nodded. “Always.” Then he turned his side of comms back on, only to hear Price’s voice.

“-Ghost, you picking up radiation spikes?” Simon held up the little device, much to Ghost’s chagrin, and checked. “Negative. All the helos scan clear. Should be safe to use explosives on em.” His symbiotic companion scoffed. I could’ve told them that, he said, putting emphasis on ‘I’. Simon chuckled.

“Copy,” Price responded, before informing them that he’d found an armaments cache. Laswell responded, then Soap chimed in. “We’re at our primary set points.”

“Konni in sight,” Gaz responded in a whisper. “Working to secure perimeter.”

“Work quietly until the captain kicks things off,” Simon ordered, getting down on the ground and setting up his sniper rifle.

“No promises, Lt.” Soap’s voice came over the radio, and Simon rolled his eyes. “That’s an order, sergeant.” He responded, and hints of Ghost slipped into his voice. “Be careful.”

“Aye, Lt, ye got it.” They could hear Soap’s cocky grin from here. “Ah’m nae gonna make a peep, ye have mah word.” Simon smiled fondly, letting out a slightly bitter laugh. “Well you’re already failing, sergeant.”

Soap’s voice took on a more sensual tone. “Aye, well…maybe ye could…shut me up?” Simon let out a soft sigh at that, but let Ghost creep back into his voice. “Maybe later, sergeant. For now, keep your head in the game before I make you lose it.”

Soap went dead silent after that, and they let satisfaction swirl in their stomach, knowing they'd likely flustered him.

Gaz cleared his throat, speaking up. “All stations, we're seeing Konni patrols on the outer perimeter. They're searching the area.” Simon’s eyes narrowed. Both him and Ghost had a bad feeling about this…

•✧-----------------------------------✧•

Soon enough, that feeling turned out to be proven right, as Price yelled out on the comms. “This is Six! Reactor’s sealed, I’m trapped inside!” Simon cursed, taking out a couple of Konni soldiers who’d surrounded him, rushing for the reactor as the others yelled at each other through the comms. Ghost quickly enveloped him, their only thought to get to the Captain. Ghost ripped off a couple heads, as they quickly made their way to the reactor.

“Konni wasn’t after nuclear material…” They vaguely heard Gaz say, and had just enough sense to respond in Simon’s voice. “Never were.”

Soap’s voice crackled over the comms, breaking them out of their panic. “Chems were stashed ‘ere.” Ghost retreated back into Simon’s clothes, as Simon began running up the stairs to the reactor, joining Gaz and Soap. They took out more Konni soldiers, and Simon watched as Soap slammed his gun into one of their heads, and threw them off. They got to the top just as Price spoke again.

“There's no cover up here! Gas is closing, Bravo, what's your status?”

“We’re up top!” Gaz said, dropping a rope down.

“Grab the fuckin rope!” Simon yelled. From there, it was a blur for both of them. They remembered a disfigured Konni soldier trying to pull Price back down, they remembered watching Price pass out and Gaz call Laswell for medevac. They were running on pure survival instinct, and nothing else.

They remembered the moment that Price started breathing again, they remembered the relief all of them felt. But most of all, Simon remembered seeing Soap looking guilty, as if he should’ve been the one in the reactor instead of Price. Simon remembered how Ghost had wanted to curl around Soap and shield him from the pain and guilt.

•✧-----------------------------------✧•

Simon watched as Price came to. Soap nodded, giving Price a smirk. “Mornin’, sir.” Gaz handed Price a headset, and Price nodded, putting it on.

“Take it easy, Cap. You beat the gas, but you still need some time to recover.”

“I’m fine.”

“Got a headache? Nausea?”

“Always.”

Gaz nodded, turning to Soap and Simon. “He’s good.”

Soap nodded, crossing his arms. “Was worried your face was gonna melt off like those other poor bastards.” Simon chuckled, looking at Soap. “If ya ask me, it’d be an improvement.”

Price chuckled, before his face turned serious. “Konni got away with the chemicals?”

Simon nodded. “Affirmative.”

Price let out a curse. “Makarov’s been out of prison for six hours, and he’s already ahead of us.” Simon looked to the side. Those assholes! They almost killed our captain! Ghost mentally yelled. “The fuck is in that gas?” Soap demanded, looking at Gaz. “Remnants of Barkov’s program.” He explained.

“Sarin?” Soap asked. Simon nodded again. “Highly concentrated…and far more lethal.”

Gaz let out an annoyed breath. “One pod contaminated the whole area.” He said, which caused Soap to curse. “They made off with enough to kill a whole country.”

Price spoke up. “Right now, it’s in Farah’s backyard. We have to warn her.” All three of them nodded, and went silent.

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greenninjagal-blog · 4 months

Text

Deja Vu pt 12

Hey, pretend it hasn't been eons since the last update!

If you’re new around here you can find the first chapter [here] or if you just want a refresher you can find the previous chapter [here!]

Summary: Remus is falling, and he's just now realizing that he's been falling for a lot longer than he thought he'd been.

Word Count: 10901

Read on Ao3 || Hero Worship Series || My General Writing Masterlist

The thing about freefalls is that there’s absolutely nothing freeing about it, but there’s a whole lot of falling.

Sometimes minutes, sometimes seconds, sometimes years and eons and eternities and blinks: sometimes Remus doesn’t realize he’s falling at all because his brain has mentally reset too many times and he forgot there was ever a feeling that was not falling and then the weightless, worriless feeling becomes its own type of prison because he can’t do anything but fall.

It doesn’t feel like falling though. It feels like floating, like if he closes his eyes he wouldn’t be moving at all, like he could breathe and float and enjoy the dose of overwhelming euphoria that comes from his brain trying to make sense of all the alarms going on inside of him. He’s stuck and he’s floating and time means nothing, and existence means nothing, and Remus Regis means nothing.

Here’s the other thing about freefalls: they don’t end softly.

The sidewalk outside a skyscraper in Detroit that he gave himself access to on a Tuesday afternoon at 3:46 pm, the water surface that tastes like cement when Remus’s foot misses a step on the bridge railing on a summer night so hot it feels like his skin is peeling off, the rocky bottom of the shallow end of the pool from the hotel balcony when Remus got too curious, too tempted, too alone, the windshield of an SUV at 3 AM.

There’s no cushion. No parachute. No hidden cartoon trampoline or careful hands wrapping around his waist to drag him back from the plunges that he’s taking bites out of like they’re all midnight secret pleasures.

Remus steps off that solid sturdy ledge and there is no other ending. There’s no way for him to say wait, no way for him to scream hang on, no way for Remus to think I didn’t mean to lose control like this, please let me take it back, please let me kiss Janus one more time, please let me try on Virgil’s sweatshirt just for a second, please let me see that Roman fucking does care just this once—

Remus would know.

They don’t end softly. But they do end.

But hey, maybe that was for the best. Remus had spent his whole childhood choosing who gets to live and die. He’d been selfish and arrogant and Roman Roman Roman and now the universe was telling him he used up all his good will: the headaches and nose bleeds were all warning signs to knock it off and instead Remus flipped a coin in the air and told Janus that he was going to see this through.

((Remus is twenty one and he knew kissing Janus was like letting go of the railing. Is it any surprise that there’s no soft ending to this either?))

Remus’s body had curled on instinct: wrapping himself around the kid— Logan’s kid brother, Remy— so that Remus would hit the ground first and maybe his body would break the fall for the kid so he didn’t die due to Roman’s shitty ass powers and poor Library structural upkeep and Remus’s own stupid part in all this.

He’s never jumped with someone else before. Never had something to hold close as the tattering, violent winds and the heavy iron chain of gravity, and the long, drawn out, endless, breathless space between his heart’s rapid fire beating and none at all, work in tandem to make his last moments the most memorable. But despite it all, Remus’s arms wrap around Remy’s head and the impulse to protectsavekeepalive consumes the last of his mind.

(He can’t be older than sixteen, maybe seventeen, he can’t be any more enamored with his older brother, he can’t be aware yet that all older brothers are shit and they stand at the top of staircases in houses that don’t feel like home and they say I don’t need you, Remus— )

The noise around them turns to static and Remus can’t hear Remy’s scream, but he can feel it in how Remy clings desperately like he hadn’t been fighting to get away like a wild animal less than thirty seconds before.

Remus braces for the floor, for the pain, for the end because he doesn’t have any type of control and there are no soft endings and he was an idiot for ever thinking he’d get to have anything soft in his--

R emu s wak es up thi nki ng abou t sh ards of gla ss in his spine, barbed and jagged and clinging to his insides, because his inner organs are much warmer than the cool night air and much more accepting than the windshield frame.

There’s blood in his mouth, cotton in his throat, a bursting, bulging headache behind his eyes. The rest of his body almost feels like nothing in comparison. His limbs are a distant memory, or maybe a dream? He can’t quite remember what it’s like to have them, even as his left arm wavers in the air over his head and limp and heavy and Remus shakes it just to see if his wrist will fly off and toss his hand into the fuzzy world around him.

He’s lying on the ground.

His spine is still intact by some miracle. His skull isn’t shattered and his brains aren’t spilling across the white porcelain tile floor he’s on. He doesn’t even think his ribs are fractured although they ache and whine with bruises that match every other part of his body. If it weren’t for the dizzy, distant feeling of needing to vomit up all his organs Remus would think he just fucking died and this was his shitty prize in the afterlife.

He blinks a few times trying to… trying to focus his mind on anything. The taste of saliva in his mouth, or the scent of coffee and Lysol hovering in the air, or the pins-and-needles feeling of his fingers twitching as if they had lost all blood circulation in the blank space where Remus’s brain refuses to make any connection as to what is going on, what had gone on, and what is going to happen now.

It’s like scratched DVD in a video player: his memory plays perfect scenes, Blue Ray edition of his tragic life, right up until the floor breaks— until his arms wrap around Remy— until he tries to brace them both for the impact— then there’s a jump-skip-scratch and Remus is staring at blurry, fuzzy drop ceiling tiles and the outline of fluorescent lights that do not belong in the public library that Remus spent all of the night prior memorizing the layout of.

There are desks, a couple dozen, all around him; a giant window, partially weeping condensation and the blinds slightly bent that colors the entire set in a gold-yellow filter; cement brick walls painted a truly inspiring shade of off-white and if Remus squints he can make out pencil sketches of dicks dusting over the closest wall. But the masterpiece that ties it all together is the shitty poster handing right over Remus’s head, staring down at him in some type of mockery.

You miss 100% of the chances you don’t take, it reads. There’s a hockey puck and a net and fine white print of a “Wayne Gretzky” that makes Remus want to claw his skin off.

Remus is twenty one and he’s staring at a shitty drop ceiling feeling like he’s seventeen again and one of Roman’s friends just laid him out in the five seconds the teacher turned her back after the bell rang to release them. Remus’s lungs hurt as he laughs because— because his head swivels around and the cloudy surroundings begin to piece themselves together, creeping out of the fog to say hello, hello, do you remember the worst years of your life, Remus? We remember you!

He is not in a library. He’s not in the library. Remus thinks he’d rather be dead in that library than lying on the floor in a high school classroom.

It’s not even a classroom he recognizes. But the suffocating feeling of his mother forcing his jaw open and the powdered pill taste overwhelms all the other sensations in his disconnected body. The memory of snipped comments from his teachers rings in his ears, living ghosts that Remus hadn’t been able to shed no matter how loudly he’d screamed and hadn’t been able to outrun no matter where he’d gone. His eyes are burning, but he’s certain that if he closes them he’ll wake up again as that same stupid seventeen year old that let Roman’s shitty friends ruin his life on the blind hope that Roman wouldn’t turn out like them too.

Remus had met people who said they peaked at high school, that college had broken their spirits and grinded their souls to dust, that life after schooling was lofty and uncertain whereas high school had been crafted with such rigid rules and a constant social struggle that surpassing expectations had been a breeze that they no longer could grapple with not having. Remus doesn’t know much about normal people, normal lives, normalness, but he remembers very vividly thinking of blood dripping off his lip onto the boys locker room bathroom tile and knowing that he’d met people whose cruelty peaked at high school too.

((Fourteen year old Remus had been excited for high school. Seventeen year old Remus had gripped the edge of a gas station sink debating which hurt worse: getting run over, or knowing that Roman had chosen those asshole high school friends who were going to kill him at a party Remus hadn’t been able to convince him not to go to over his own brother.))

The sterile silence breaks suddenly with a soft snore, and abruptly Remus is very aware that the reason he can’t move the right half of his body is because there’s someone on top of it.

There are no soft ends to freefalls, but Remus’s chin is pressed against the dark curls of Logan’s younger brother who is completely asleep on top of the other half of Remus as if they hadn’t ever been in danger at all. The kid is drooling, lips barely parted, salvia dripping out onto Remus's leather jacket. The fake bomb vest Remus had been wearing is completely crushed, the edges of the cardboard digging numbly into Remus’s ribcage as the kid just curls up on him like a human sized koala.

“What the fuck,” Remus rasps out.

The kid doesn’t stir. Remus uses his still strangely disconnected left hand to shove at the kid’s body, bapping his face just enough to wake him, but the kid’s face scrunches and he nudges his face deeper into Remus’s chest, perfectly content to continue using Remus’s like a giant awkward pillow.

“Kid. Kid. Damnit fuck— Remy.” Remus says. Then louder. “REMY! Fuck, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

He shoves the kid off his right arm in a slow painful movement that is not made easier by the fact that Remus can’t feel anything that had been pinned underneath the kid, but after all the shoving, Remy still just gratefully curls up on the floor as if he found that just as comfortable as a king sized bed in heaven itself, and lets out a drowsy mumble of syllables and goes back to snoring.

Remus’s head throbs distantly as he tries to put anything together, come to some reasonable conclusion, remember if this was some part of Janus’s plan that he cleverly forgot about. He shifts slowly trying to leverage himself into a sitting position and still Remy doesn’t make any move to wake up and start screaming.

There’s a tsunami of panic in the back of Remus’s mind, blocked behind a glass wall made of confusion, just so that Remus can wave to it casually, experiencing microdoses of jitters that usually would have put him into a frenzied state of needing to drive a car into a guard rail. He needs to get up, he needs to find Janus and Virgil, he needs to find out if they’re okay, if anyone is okay, he needs to figure out what the fuck miraculous thing happened to save them both and why Remy then decided to curl up on a known villain, who may or may not be the most wanted man in the country and take a fucking nap.

He needs to— he needs—

They’re both at the back of an empty classroom and had been awkwardly crumpled against the back wall. Several of the desks closest to them are spread in some sort of weird ass pattern which, at first glance, Remus had assumed all teachers who needed to be on pills much more than Remus ever needed to be liked to put their desks in, but at the second, more clear glance, all the desks at the front are lined up in exact rows facing a wall mounted white board with the words “Homework: pg 234, odd problems ONLY!!” printed on it in blue expo marker. In the back closer to where Remus is, the desks were tossed out in some chaotic, nearly artistic design, swirling inward.

But the more Remus looks at it, the more purpose everything has: almost as if someone or something had rolled a giant human-sized, bowling ball into only the third row of seats.

It’s another second before Remus notices that where the figurative bowling ball would have ended is exactly where he just woke up with Logan’s kid brother solidly asleep on his shoulder.

“Ah,” Remus says to an empty classroom. “Fuck.”

Remus isn’t a genius, but well. He can see the future and Janus can shapeshift into animals and Virgil can talk to targeted people on frequencies no one else can hear. There must have been a reason Logan and his brother were both at the FBE.

All of Remus’s bones crack as he stands up, even bones Remus hadn’t been sure he had anymore. His neck aches so dramatically that would have made Roman jealous of its performance and his ribs are certainly whining like a little bitch and the taste of blood in the back of his throat might be real or it might be a side effect of reenacting a swan dive off a hotel balcony in a thunderstorm this time with the supporting cast of a teenager who may or may not be able to teleport on command. The clock on the wall is covered up with a handmade poster stating that a watched clock doesn’t learn math and Remus thinks that he hates this teacher more than he hated any teacher he actually had.

He squats back next to Remy, watching him sleep for a long second, the subtle in….hale and ex….hale steadily unconcerned in all the ways contrary to most people when a sociopath is this close to them. He’s got all the marks of being Logan’s brother, to be honest: the same nose shape, same eye shape, the same hair color although there’s a distinct lack of gel in his hair compared to Logan’s over-saturation. He’s wearing a black, unzipped biker’s jacket, and skinny jeans with white T-shirt that reads “I’m SLEEPING” in Times New Roman Font, like a joke that someone had half heartedly put together and abandoned half way through.

Remus taps his fingers on his knee twice before he makes up his mind. “If you wake up now, I’m going to shove a calculator down your throat.”

And then he starts a quick process of checking the kid’s pockets for his phone. Jacket pockets, inside jacket pocket, jeans front and jeans back as quick and formal as a bouncer at a casino checking someone for bugs. Remy snores deeply, and his breaths even out again and Remus steps back a healthy distance, filled with a relief he’s not going to acknowledge, and holding a slick black iPhone with a kawaii coffee cup hand painted on the case.

It's one thing to be on the FBI’s most wanted list for super villainy. It’s another thing for him to be on the list for the combination of an empty classroom, a sleeping teenager, and Remus’s reputation for being unhinged.

((Seventeen year old Remus remembers a party that he begged Roman not to go to and twenty one year old Remus sucker punches him in the face so he will shut up and stop bringing those memories up.))

The lock screen is a picture of Remy and Logan standing in front of some model spaceship. Logan’s expression is uncharacteristically open and excited, as if he’s experiencing true joy in the face of a hunk of metal. He looks….normal. Human. As if Remus hadn’t watched him die, as if Remus hadn’t feared that smug smirk on his face, as if Remus hadn’t heard Logan use whatever his bullshit superpower was to utterly dismantle all of Remus’s part of the plan, start a gunfight that could have killed them all, and look fucking good while doing it.

Remus could play the logic game here: the back right pocket is where Remus found Remy's phone, so it's a 56.734% or whatever likely that the kid uses his right hand to unlock. But in all honesty Remus “Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Fuck-This”-ed it and chose the right hand.

The kid’s hand is limp and cold as ice. It startled Remus for a whole moment, sending cracks along that glass wall holding back his panic. It if weren’t for the obvious respiratory movements, Remus would have thought he was handling a four-day-old corpse in the middle of a winter snow storm.

But he presses Remy's thumb to the sensor (a very logical finger choice and not at all picked at Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Fuck This again) to unlock it. And then, once Remus has congratulated himself on his very exciting first time hacking the mainframe, he swipes away every. Single. One. Of the billions of notifications the kid has. Even as he's doing it the kid gets fourteen more, each bright and shiny and terrifying to someone who only gets notifications when his phone is almost out of battery.

Instagram reels being sent by four people, text messages from a group of people who don't know how to say everything they need to in one message and aren’t afraid of double-quadruple texting, TikTok videos alerts, gacha game reminders, six calendar notifications for today alone--

The home screen is a selfie of Remy in a big group of kids, all laughing and smiling and holding boba cups and peace signs in the middle of a cafe. It's a bright day in the photo, and several school backpacks shoved under the table as if all the kids had run to this cafe after school on a whim. Probably Remy’s based on how he’s in the middle of it all, looking rather smug for someone who’s personal space had been reduced to a negative.

"I bet you and Roman would get along fucking great," Remus says.

Remus still stares at it for a long minute longer, analyzing the various smiles and fending off the bitter gritty feeling in the back of his throat that comes from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

"Whatever," Remus says, clicking the call button.

Nearly a dozen suggested contacts pop up when Remus starts painstakingly typing Janus’s phone number, with someone having the same number until the very last digit. Remus's thumb hovers over the call button, his eyes flicking to the dutiful clock in the top left corner of the screen (already crowded by new notifications again).

Math has always been one of Remus's more average skills: his perception of time and his ability to count are probably superior to any living being on the planet, but a childhood plagued by the constant visions of the most important person in his life dying meant that his focus had never actually been on his classes. His report card read out half the alphabet, but he especially cheesed his way through his math classes, using a hand full of futures to copy the answers off tests of various studious kids around him, instead of actually learning how the fuck to solve a triangle.

((Remus had been seventeen when Mrs. Copperson had decided to start making him take the her pop quizzes and tests out in the hallways by himself on account that his psychiatrist mandated drugs made him a distraction in her class and Remus liked adding "uck" after the giant red F's she stamped on his papers.))

Still, it throws Remus for a loop, checking the time and then the date because at most he thought he managed to buy Janus twenty minutes of distractions so that he could download the FBE's records and upload a virus that Virgil made which had the defining features of being able to eat through the rest of the system like acid and leave the FBE and Janus’s mother with nothing. When Remus had woken up in the stillness of this classroom it felt like his entire body had been in stasis for eons; a crumpled ragdoll that didn't need bones, left forgotten in the back of a closet or a computer suddenly being booted up but the whole rest of the world didn’t exist anymore thanks to one apocalypse or another.

In fact, Remus thinks that he might have just woken up from the best sleep he's had since he was eight.

But despite the surge of energy, the distant rolling anxiety, the strange suffocating stillness of the atmosphere, and how deep of a sleep Remy is in, the time reads of less than seven minutes since Remus guessed he'd been in the library surrounded by gunshots, clinging to a railing, and facing Roman’s maybe-brainwashed ass.

Remus thinks he might have spent all of it just getting his fucking barring on the new surroundings and the sleeping child and not being dead and buried in a library he’d never stepped foot in before today.

Janus and Virgil probably hadn't even made it out of the library themselves yet, assuming the entire library hadn’t come down with them.

Remus closes out of the call screen, searching through Remy’s apps for a news app that he doesn’t have, before Remus caves and pulls out DuckDuckGo. The top stories are already flashing on the screen: six different news sites with live reporting videos of what is happening at the FBE center in Portland. Remus taps on one that has a frozen picture of Kidnapped Virgil’s panicking face as the thumbnail.

“—et Down! Everyone, get down!” The female reporter is yelling. Underneath her, the border headline of the new site spells out Karen Davenport: Reporter. LIVE ON SCENE. As if the background wasn’t already enough to show what was going on. The tinted glass windows of the library shatter over the frame, and the camera fumbles as the glittering shards dance through the air to the tune of gunfire.

“Are you getting this?!” The reporter yells, caught between fear and excitement. Her hair is frizzing, a strand of it stuck to her pink lipstick, as she crouches with the other reporters and civilians at the front of the crowd, ignoring the police and hired guards and common fucking sense trying to back them away. The camera doesn’t seem to know what to focus on, struggling to jostle between the reporter and chaos in front of them.

Several people rush out of the doors of the library, nearly tumbling down the staircase and into the crowd, screaming. Remus’s heart thunders as he looks at the glimpse of faces contorted in horror for the people he’d recognize or a flash of those blue-grey eyes that no other person in the world has.

“John, are you seeing this?!” the reporter repeats. “I’m here, live at the newly registered FBE headquarters in—”

The camera and the cameraman pitch to the side, disrupted by the chaotic crowd rightened only at the last second before it topples to the ground. Remus has to wonder how much the person behind the screen is being paid, and how they could possibly think it's enough. The bruises on Remus’s ribs ache distantly and his tongue remembers the taste of tear gas and blood and—

By the time the camera rightens again, Virgil is skidding on the platform at the top of the concrete stairs leading up to the front of the shuddering-but-still-standing library. His mask is down, hung around his throat, and displaying his fangs for the world to see. Janus tumbles into him, nearly knocking him down the flight, and his mouth moves in a WE CAN’T LEAVE HIM way although the crowd and the reporter are too loud for Remus to truly make it out.

Virgil grabs Janus by the shoulder, yanking him down several inches and a blast of Patton’s white, power stealing light explodes over their heads in a narrow miss that makes someone to the left of the report scream so loud it peaks the microphone.

“Where is The Prince?!” The reporter’s mic picks up from someone nearby as the camera zooms in on Janus and Virgil arguing. “He was just here!”

“—where it appears a super power aided fight has broken out with no sign of The Prince. Twenty minutes ago, the controversial twin brother of the Prince, previously identified as Remus Regis, armed with a hostage, charged into the building igniting what was sure to be a direct confrontation with The Prince. However, no new information could be captured by our cameras until moments ago when gunfire from inside the building signaled some type of gunfight breaking out. Sources have even suggested that the Mezzanine level inside the building has taken significant damage and gave way— HEY!”

Logan materializes from the side, ripping the microphone away from the reporter with all the finesse of someone who previously owned it. His black jacket is dusted grey with the dust from the collapsed level inside and there’s a scratch along his hand that’s bleeding bright red. Still he shoves the reporter back and brings the microphone up to his own mouth even though his gaze isn't on the Library or the camera.

“The Prince was inside,” he says to the crowd of people still pressed together at the barricade line. “He managed to move fast enough to save all of those underneath the collapse and barely sustained any injuries himself. Statistically—”

“Give that back!” The reporter says lunging at him.

The camera frame latches on to Janus and Virgil as the camera man probably tries to help his coworker get the microphone back. In those precious seconds, Janus’s head snaps over his shoulder and he shoves Virgil back, pushing him down the stairs and towards the crowd and sets himself in front like a human shield. There are too many voices picked up by the reporter's mic— the fight between her and Logan has it jostled in every direction and the confusion must have jostled the settings, but Remus feels his stomach sink all the same when the library doorways fill with those guards and their guns.

“GET DOWN!” Virgil’s voice booms in the area, echoing off the buildings like a scream in a cavern. The rest of the windows in the library and the surrounding buildings shatter at the sudden pressure, the screen of the camera fractures, but it still gives a decent view of Janus throwing off his stolen lab coat, and the acute tips of his wings slicing through his shirt.

Remus feels like he’s underwater. Like he’s stuck floating in space as his arteries burst from the low pressure. Like he’s watching another (and another and another and another and anoth—) future and he can’t change it despite the fact that it's not 3 AM and there’s no thunderstorm and he’s not falling.

Janus’s wings erupt from his back, flaring outwards and unfurling like yellow and black caution tape, covering the civilians behind him like a burning shield. Virgil grabs the nearest person, Logan, and yanks him and the reporter under the cover, under the protection of Janus, and Remus wants to scream at them to forget the people, to leave them, to run, but he can’t breathe around the sweltering terror that sweeps through the open area leaping from the phone screen right into Remus’s chest.

“—police would know better than to fire into the crowd—” Logan’s voice says desperately.

“Oh MY GOD!” The reporter screams.

The light seers into his eyes with crackling, horrific popping noise. It's like popcorn, or Pop Rocks, or the Pen Clicker Douchebag Olympics and all Remus can think of is the noise that the bones in the human bone make when bullets splinter.

The camera does not catch Janus’s face, and the microphone doesn’t catch his screams over everyone else’s, but his body jerks, his wings tremble, and blood sprays up into a mist over the crowd. Remus thinks he might be dying too, thinks that he might have stopped breathing, that he’s seen Janus die a million times and it should have stopped feeling like he’s being ripped open.

“JANUS!” Virgil’s (unmistakable, indisputable) voice yells, sharp and cracking like lightning, and the blowback over the microphones would break the eardrums of anyone listening with earbuds.

“— multiple people have been reported to have survived being shot that many times!” Logan’s voice tries.

The camera gets a single shot of Virgil’s eyes widening, of his mouth opening, of his hands reaching out to Janus as he drops, wings still flared out trying to protect people who were too stupid to leave, who won’t even thank him, who don’t know his coffee order or how he likes to organize his stacks of stolen dollar bills or what size oxfords he likes to wear.

And then Virgil looks up, at the top of the stairs, opens his mouth, and everything explodes away from him. The camera frame flings into the air, swirling around in a epileptic nightmare of colors before slamming into something and the frame goes completely black.

On the news app, holding a phone in both his hands Remus stares at the “[The video you are watching is experiencing some connection issues]” message with white knuckles, but the video stays cut off, the screen frozen and broken and dark and Remus is left drowning during what feels like the end of the world from the other side of the universe a million years after it's happened.

“H-ha,” Remus’s mouth twitches, a rumble clawing up his throat with fingers made of his stomach acids. He desperately covers his mouth with a hand, pressing the meat of his palm into his lips if only to keep the laughter from tumbling out into the air like a freefall because there’s no such thing as a soft end and Remus was stupid for ever thinking so.

He thinks for a moment, that he’s back on that staircase staring at Roman knowing that what he says next is going to be the wrong thing, that he’s on the ground at a mall blinking away visions of flame grilled corpses and words that Janus doesn’t mean, that he’s in a crowd staring at an empty stage seconds and seconds and seconds too late for someone who trusted him more than Remus ever deserved to be trusted.

(How can he always be too late?)

The ground is solid and sturdy under his feet, but Remus is falling anyway. Suspended in the middle of a jump he hadn’t meant to take, his stomach is swooping with the acceleration pressing up into his lungs until he can’t force them to accept any oxygen anymore and his limbs are tingling in that disconnected way that makes them seem like they belong to someone else, something else, somewhere else.

He had fallen asleep, fallen into a wonderful dream, fallen and kept falling and forgotten that the real world didn’t end softly. A scream creeps up Remus’s throat, inch by inch, wriggling and thrashing and tearing horribly against his lungs.

His fingers tremble over the phone, fumbling through the apps for the phone even though he knows what's going to happen, he knows what’s coming, he knows, he knows, he knows.

The buttons are not stiff. Remus’s knuckles are not bleeding and they don’t leave behind traces of his blood as he dials. There’s not a gritty feeling along his teeth and the bottom of his mouth from the Cliff Bar that he ate at a rest stop an entire lifetime ago. His knees tremble to the sound of the ringing, leaving him swaying in the too-long silences, in the bated breaths, in the calm before the hurricane that’s left him at the only survivor when he was supposed to be the only casualty.

The line is ringing and Remus is standing in a high school classroom, shaking apart even though he knows that Janus is not going to answer. The line is ringing and Remus is standing at a payphone knowing that his mother didn’t try half as hard for him as she did for Roman.

The line is ringing and Remus is listening to a generic voicemail and his fingers are canceling the call just to start it again because maybe this time he’ll pick up, maybe this time Janus will huff at him for not believing in him, maybe this time Janus will snap about Remus not following a plan, maybe this time Janus will pick up the phone.

Remus remembered leaving his own phone in his bag, stuffed inside a pair of socks that he stole from Janus the second week they’d been together. He knows he watched Janus leave his in his own bag, grinning as Virgil and him had been bickering about if pumpkins were a fruit or a vegetable. So he knows, he knows, that Janus doesn’t have his on him, that answering a phone call would be the least of his concerns after— five, six, seven— bullets landed in him, that no matter how many times Remus’s fingers dial out the number, Janus still isn’t going to miraculously answer and beg him to come home and call him the wrong name anyway.

He’s twenty one and Janus is not going to pick up the phone call.

He’s twenty one and he thinks he’s been falling for far too long. He’d gotten too used to the jolt of adrenaline and taste of the winds. He’d been treating his four-year fall like a never ending dream that he could live in forever, and now he was waking up with a start in his bed with all his muscles contracting and remembering that the real world is a fucking nightmare.

Remus could have call himself a free fall expert, with all the times that he’s tipped himself over the edge, with how many times he’s merged himself with the concrete sidewalks, with the number of times he’s seen the great THE END to his own story but this… this—

He’s been falling for so long he forgot he’d been falling at all.

“I need to go back,” Remus gasps out.

The idea latches on suddenly, and Remus is suffocating in it, trapped in a void that’s approaching absolute zero at rapid speed. The anxiety swelling around him crashes down like a guillotine’s blade, sharp and merciless in all the ways that Remus has always known the universe to be and forgot anyway.

His hands are shaking and his knees give out but it's fine because he landed next to Remy’s sleeping form. He reaches out and shakes the kid’s shoulder, hard enough to jolt his entire body.

“Kid, Remy. Wake up. You gotta take me back. I need to get back to him.”

Remy's head lulls to the side, his skin an icy cold compared to the burning in Remus's veins. There's no movement behind his eyelids, no sudden jolt that knocks him awake, no grimace of his face or swallowing as he drags himself back to consciousness.

“It’s time to wake up!” Remus says. “You have to take me back!”

Because if he can get back he can— he can— Janus was on the ground, they were shooting at him, Virgil was screaming and Remus can see the future and they need him. If he can get back Janus can tell him what he needs to do to save him and Remus will kiss him and tell him and tell him he’s stupid and he’s sorry he left him. If he can get back— He needs to get back, he has to get back because they need him and Remus pinches hard on Remy’s cheek, but even that doesn’t cause the teenager to flinch.

“I have to fix this. Take me Back! Take me Back There! TAKE ME FUCKING BACK THERE!”

Remus shakes him, and Remy’s head makes a dull thud as it bumps the ground with each shove. Remus barely notices; his brain is counting every second he spends here, scrambling to catch the passing breaths like they're grains of sand in an hourglass counting out Janus's life while Remy dreams so soft and peacefully.

“REMY!”

--There’s no bump or bruise or anything under the dark curls, and Remus doesn’t even have a memory of hitting anything on the way down, not even the fucking floor and so there shouldn’t be shit causing him to be this fucking out of it. Janus was dying and Remus was here with an idiot fucking teenager who was sleeping like they had all the fucking time in the Fucking World. If it weren’t for Logan, if it weren’t for Remy, if it weren’t for Remy’s fucking horrible power that Remus didn’t ask for him to use--

--There’s no bump or bruise or anything under the dark curls, and Remus knows too much about being splattered on the ground to think that they might have hit it like that, to think they might have died, to think that the bitchass kid in front of him is doing anything other than pretending like they have time to pretend to be asleep when Janus just took seven bullets for people who don’t love him and wouldn’t care if he was dea--

--There’s no bump or bruise or anything under the dark curls, and Remus took the brunt of whatever hit they did have, was ready to fucking die when Remy did whatever the fuck he had to get them out of there, wasn’t going to let Remy get hurt and he didn’t get hurt so Remus shouldn’t need to keep shaking him to get him to wake up because they need to get back to Janus who just got shot and shot and shot And Shot AND SHOT and Remus needs to fix it because Janus wasn’t supposed to die, he wasn’t supposed to be alone, Remus promised to stay, promised to help, why aren’t you waking up What is wrong with youwakeup,WakeUp WAKEUPWHATDOESITTAKETOWAKEYOUUPDOYOULIKETHIS?DOYOUTHINKITSFUNNY? STOPMESSINGAROUNDHE’SGOINGTODIEICAN’TFIXITICAN’TSTOPITWHATDIDIEVERDOTOYOU?--

Remus blinks his eyes, just barely manages to stop himself from ramming the kid's head into the porcelain tile floor again.

His hands are around Remy’s head, cupping his ears, and Remy’s limp body is impossibly still, barely breathing and the golden yellow light reflects off the poster over them creating a red hue over his pale skin.

There’s no blood.

Remus can’t breathe anyway. His hands are trembling, his fingers stiff and robotic and bending like metal spoons when he pries them off Remy’s uninjured head. The kid’s skull lulls to the side, a soft huff, another snore, and Remus thinks he’s losing his mind.

The cold silence of the classroom has the walls closing in around them, the cinder blocks exchanging knowing looks because even if Remy didn’t wake up, even if that future— those futures— didn’t happen, even if Remus backs away now and swears never to get near the kid again, the sticky feeling of brain matter on his hands won’t leave.

He can't be older than sixteen.

There’s something in Remus's throat that tastes like blood and feels like live bees and burns like tear gas and hot sauce. He scrambles away from the kid, slamming into a desk so hard that his ribs displace further than the desk does as he flees the room.

((He remembers running through halls like these once, remembers his nose feeling like it was broken when one of Roman’s friends grabbed his hair and slammed his face into his locker after the last bell, he remembers leaving his bag behind in his panic to get away, scrambling on nearly on his hands and knees with blood from his second broken nose trailing down his lip. He remembers the laughter of billions of students as he ran away, and he remembers Roman waiting impatiently at his car later, asking where he was, why he took so long, doesn’t he know that Roman has play practice at the community theater today? Why would you deliberately try to make me late? I’m not even going to ask what happened to your backpack. I should have just left you here, Re. Come on, Let’s go.))

He remembers blood on his hands and on his face and a hundred billion bathroom mirrors that show a person he doesn’t recognize and hasn’t recognized for a long time.

The posters on the walls are colorful smears and Remus wants to drag them down one by one and tear them apart as he runs. His shoes skid on the polished tile and he takes the corner so sharply he slams into the lockers and remembers the sound of a sleeping teenager’s cranium shattering under his fingers.

Remus hits the ground, panting, laughing, choking, crying until the world around him blurs. He’s suffocating on oxygen that tastes like tar, on breaths that congeal in his lungs like molasses, on gasps that harden like stone in his tightening rib cage. It burns worse than a fireball to the face, searing, smoldering, scorching his entire body.

And Remus— Remus can’t— he can’t get it to stop, every inhale throttles in his throat wheezing out through the hundreds of puncture holes in him that match every gunshot wound that Janus is currently dying out from, eons and realms and miseries away, because he believed in a promise that Remus had never been able to keep to anyone.

Stupid, idiot Remus.

Murderous, psychotic Remus.

Sick, sick, so fucking sick Remus.

Who kills— who killed— Roman. Remy. Who got Janus killed and dragged Virgil in this. His parents. Those people at school. Those people on the street. Everyone. All the time. Sick, stupid Remus.

Who can’t just fucking seem to kill himself and make it stick.

Fuck. Fucking Fuck.

He can’t breathe.

He’s aware of every oxygen atom fizzling in the air around him, laughing as he gasps for some type of stability, like he’s on the Mezzanine Level of a library that’s centuries away, feeling the floor crack under his feet and staring at a brother who doesn’t love him and probably never has. His throat is sandpaper and dried stucco and blood and every version of I love you that he never said to his father and when he blinks his eyes, the ghosts of every person he didn’t save, couldn’t save, hadn’t saved, are screaming around him because he can’t do anything right, he can’t save anyone, he’s a murderer and always has been and he’s been pretending this whole time that it was Roman’s fault, but it wasn’t, was it?

It’s just Remus. Sick, stupid Remus. Who should have died getting hit by a silver sedan going twenty over the speed limit instead of Roman.

It would have been better if he had. It would have been right. It would have been— It would have been—

Fuck. It would have been good.

Because if he hadn’t survived, Mom would have never known how to be disappointed, Dad would have never stopped coming home, his friends would have never turned into the monsters that he’d brought out in people. Janus never would have been attracted to a Casino where rumors of a person who never lost were and he never would have died a billion times for something as meaningless as money and Virgil never would have been dragged back into this fight kicking and screaming just to watch his best friend, his lover, his everything die in front of him.

Remus laughs, tears dripping off his chin into the polished floor, splattering over the shadowed silhouette of his reflection. He presses his forehead into the tile, squeezing his eyes closed because if he can’t see— if he can’t see it then— then— fucking then—

It would have been better if he hadn’t been born. All he’s done is ruin things and people and places. He’s brought out the worst pieces of people, like a magnet for every terrible thing that the people he loves are capable of doing: he’s stained through the family portrait and leaving black smears on everything he touches.

He’s seventeen again standing outside Roman’s room staring at a closed door and wondering why Mom didn’t come to break them apart, why Dad hasn’t been home for dinner in months, why the future he saw didn’t line up with what happened and why he can’t stop laughing and why he hurts and hurts and hurts and why Roman seems so certain that he’d be okay without Remus when Remus had given him everything there was to give of himself? Why is he the only one hurting? Why is he always the only one hurting?

He’s seventeen and he’s twenty one and he’s eight and he’s eleven minutes younger than Roman and he wishes that he’d just died instead of growing up.

Because— Because if he stares at his reflection and sees that kid, that stupid idiot sick little kid he’d wrap his hands around his throat and s-squeeeeeeeze just to put him out of his misery because it didn’t get better. Because it only hurts more. Because he wanted to be so right that he stopped listening and maybe those pills had made him better and—

Remus wheezes against the stranglehold on his own lungs, painful and grating and choking as his eyes fight against tears he didn’t give permission to leak out. There’s a person staring back at him in the polished white tile floor, and he looks like a boy who he once saw get run over by— fall off of— dropped a toaster in with— scissors— keys—

A hundred million deaths and Remus didn’t learn from any of them.

There’s a reflection of every person Remus didn’t want to become staring at him and then there’s not because there’s a purple blob covering right where his right eye would be.

Remus gasps for air, sucks in, gulps, and his fingers scrabble over the item: small, round, fits in his palm. His thumb grinds into the imprint on the flat side, his nail chipping along the irregular shape, the irregular grooves, the irregular scratches and gouges and furrows.

The color is plum purple with intersects of off-white eroded with wear until its nearly gray and Remus hysterically remembers bruises on his own skin, on his throat, on his ribs, on his shoulders, on his knuckles. He’s staring through burning eyes, through lava tears, through ashy eyelashes thick with slag and he’s thinking, a coin, a casino coin, a casino chip, a promise made between business partners in a hotel room of a place that housed a million deaths for both of them before Janus’s death had meant anything to him.

There’s a snake on the coin, jaw agape, with fangs on display inviting danger, courting risk, encouraging peril because it’s survived it all anyway. There’s gash across one of the unseeing eyes, notches in the scales, scrapes along the trimming edge from Remus’s special brand of stupid, idiot carelessness, but the dirt and grim has been cleaned from it by Virgil’s gentle, kind hands. There’s a coin in his palm that Janus once bet with, bet on, bet for.

Remus’s lungs ache and weep and Remus squeezes the coin to his chest, and breathes.

His chest shudders in rebellion too short, too quick, and Remus’s fingers ache from how they cling and hold and stay. He breathes, he breathes, he breathes. Even when it feels like he’s trying to move a mountain, even when it feels like he’s trying to climb his way to space, even when it feels like he’s trying to un-bury himself from the grave his family put him in at eight years old.

Remus is twenty one years old and he breathes.

When it stops feeling like he’s drowning after every breath, when the fireburningacidic sense pitters out like a resilient spark being snuffed along hot coals, Remus finds himself sitting against a row of olive green lockers. His head feels cotton stuffed all over again and he uses his sleeve to wipe his face numbly, only managing a wince when he tries to uncurl himself from the ball he coiled into. His spine creaks, twinges, complains and whines and Remus makes an awful noise when he straightens out and takes another look around himself.

Right. Hallway. Highschool. Right.

“Fuck,” Remus rasps.

The hall is empty, and Remus almost laughs at the passing thought of hundreds of students being in the building peeking out of the classroom to see a wanted supervillain having a breakdown in the corridor. He’d be the picture perfect symbol of “Reasons to Stay in School”, and he could almost hear the squeaky voice of a well-meaning, underpaid educator clicking their tongue and saying “And this is what will happen if you don’t clean up your act and focus on passing your classes. Do you want to be this type of embarrassment to yourself?”

Jokes on them, Remus thinks idly. He’d been an embarrassment to himself for so long he didn’t know how to be anything else. He was— is— a mess, the stain and splatter on a blank canvas that ruins it for the artist, the blemish in a glass that causes it to shatter at the slightest touch.

He’s also alone, and not falling, and holding a coin made of a thousand promises. He’s a mess and he’s Janus’s mess.

The thought sends a pain down his throat, an itch that only another round of sobs would satisfy. If he closes his eyes he can picture Janus sitting next to him dressed up in that suit he likes, yellow and gold and dangerous. He can picture those blue-grey eyes that only ever looked at him with kindness, and hear his haughty tone repeating that he does have a poker face thank you very much, and smell the cardamom scent that follows after him like a cloak. If he lets himself sink, he knows he’ll fall into that memory of Janus carding his hands through Remus’s hair, warm and gentle despite all the ways that Remus continued to fuck up.

But he can’t let himself. Remus shakes with his whole body, dislodging the warmth of the anamnesis.

He’s not sure where he is, or what he is, or who he is anymore. But he knows he can’t stay here. He knows he doesn’t want to stay here.

His list of other places to go is short— achingly, brutally short— but it's okay because Remus is not exactly in the mood to do a lot of thinking. He feels like someone came and stole all his skin while he wasn’t looking, like he’s raw and exposed for all the world to see and not in a fun way. The walls aren’t leering at him; they’re sharing side eyes with each other, snickering and whispering about Remus just loud enough for him to know they think he’s irrational and weird.

There’s a chill ghosting along his limbs that he hadn’t noticed before, something plucking at his skeleton, wrapping him in a cocoon of cold. He feels sluggish, and distantly hungry. The thrumming of his headache is back, pounding in his skull like a car alarm someone set off in a hit and run.

He drags himself back to his feet, hugging the lockers as his legs wobble and his vision blurs. It clears after he gives himself a frustrated tickticktick of a second.

He can’t go back to that Library. Remus’s mind creates the picture of it without prompting: the gaping broken structure marked off with caution tape and police officers and all private security; News reporters and cameras flashing because horror sells more than common sense; Roman. The frozen picture left of the news video has Remus’s lungs combusting. How many people got caught underneath? How many people got hurt when Remus managed to get out without more than bruises? There’s a body cooling at the top of a concrete staircase for everyone to see, a martyr made of love for strangers who never fucking deserved it.

If he goes back, walking on his own two feet, he’ll fall to his knees next to that body, and that fall will have so much collateral damage that Janus’s sacrifice would mean nothing.

He can’t go to Virgil’s apartment again. Remus knows that like he knows he can’t trust himself to drive a car without losing track of the speed limit. If he thinks too long about Virgil’s apartment, he’ll remember what Janus’s lips taste like, what level of softness Virgil’s clothes feel like, what warmth and safety and hope could be like, and the stability that is keeping Remus’s feet underneath him will give away. If he goes to Virgil’s apartment he’ll remember everything that could have been and he'll try to figure out he's supposed to do without....without.

And if then he’ll tumble off Virgil’s little balcony and the thing that crawls out from the splatter— because something will crawl out— will take a retribution in pieces from every person it sees after that.

((His bones are humming, rumbling, vibrating with the horrible horrible urge to go anyway.))

He can’t go back to the hotel room he shared with Janus just three days ago, before Roman had reappeared, before the world knew his name, before Janus was Janus and before Remus let himself admit that he wanted to be loved like loving him wasn’t a fucking nightmare that got people killed. For all Remus knew the organization of the parking lot, and the sounds of the city at night, he couldn’t remember the name of it as much as he could remember the taste of rain during a thunderstorm.

He breathes. Forcibly.

Remus is awake, jolted out of a dream he didn't know he'd been in and now he doesn't recognize his surroundings anymore and doesn't think he can fall back asleep ever again.

There's no Idahoan Mall. There's no stolen cars with seats reclined enough for Remus to throw his feet on the dash. There's no generic diner with waitresses that will scream over a kiss. There's no casino with sparkling chandeliers and smiling strangers waiting to be business partners.

That’s nothing new. Remus hasn’t had a stationary place to stay since he was seventeen. He slept in cars and in back alleys and hotel rooms he jimmied the lock to. He hitchhiked his way from the east side of the country to the west with nothing but a bag of two outfits and a pair of boots he stole.

Now he’s twenty one and doesn’t even have a bag.

Well. Remus blows out a breath. He doesn’t have his bag yet. The fragments of the plan are coming back to him, like broken puzzle pieces: Janus had drafted up the entire thing on the napkins on Virgil’s coffee table until Virgil had relented into giving him paper. For all that Virgil had been stubborn about not being involved, he’d been drawn into the planning phase like a comet falling into a blackhole, vetoing ideas left and right as a one man council and poking holes in others like he’d been possessed by a bored second grader left alone with a hole puncher and a stack of report cards.

Janus had picked out Linda Maddock the chocolatier and her daughter as his own way in (after several arguments over how to approach the situation: Janus had wanted to give the mother plausible deniability by not telling her at all, and Virgil’s voice had found a pitch that could make glass shatter), and negotiated Remus’s way in with an antsy vampire who didn’t like the idea of having all those eyes on him for such a long time (a whole five minutes). After about an hour of pointless back and forth, Remus had stepped in to personally promise that Virgil wouldn’t be the center of attention for more than thirty seconds; Remus would steal the show himself or he’ll brighten the ever present spotlight on Roman. Virgil had been soothed with promises of being labeled as a victim of a horrible kidnapping, and subsequently forgotten after he’d been “saved” just like all of Roman’s other damsels-in-distress.

“Alright, fine. Fine! Stop looking at me like that!” Virgil had said, chewing on his lip with his fangs. “You both have a way in. How are you idiots going to get back out? Other than in body bags after this blows up in your faces.”

They had a bunch of contingency plans for their exits. The first was if everything went according to plan and it meant that Janus would sneak his way out through the back entrance of the library and then welcome himself in from the outside through the front for the cameras to catch, swooping in to drag Remus out before anyone could figure out what happened. It incorporated time for Janus to throw a few misleading comments about where he’d been, and for him to flash a smile at the cameras, both of which Janus had insisted were non-negotiable points for himself and Remus had kissed him for it.

If Janus got found out and an alarm got pushed, he was to ditch the flashdrive entirely and get himself out by any means, Remus would leverage the bomb threat over Roman and the security until he got outside and then Janus would find him and fly them to safety. If Janus didn’t meet up with him again (meaning he got caught or injured enough that he couldn’t heal), Remus was supposed to use the crowd to get away, stealing what hats and other clothes he could until he was a few streets away and felt safe again. If no alarm went off but Janus wasn’t appearing for their escape, (meaning that something worse than being caught or injured was going on) then Remus was supposed to ditch entirely, use the crowd to escape, and let Virgil figure out what happened.

If Roman called Remus’s bluff immediately, the whole plan was to be ditched and both him and Janus were to leave by any means possible.

If Dragana Witchall appeared at any point, the whole plan was to be ditched and they’d escape by any means possible.

If aliens attacked—

Remus is pretty sure they had everything covered except for what to do when Logan steps forward and steals the whole show. Revealing the bombs were fake, incentivizing the gunfight with innocent civilians around, having Remus suddenly outnumbered and forcing Virgil out of hiding just to save his life…Remus hands shake thinking about freefalls.

In every version of the plan they said goodbye to Virgil at the library, never to see him again, but amidst the gunfire Remus had hesitated leaving him there and it had caused their escape opportunity to explode into fragments and bring the Mezzanine level down on their heads literally.

But also in every version of the plan, their place of residency to lay low after it all is a motel several counties away that Virgil drove to after he’d done the honors of tossing the molotov cocktail through the library window at nine thirty and checked into and left their bags at.

So. That’s where Remus’s best bet is to gather his unstable, unsteady, un-fucking-believable thoughts and figure out what to do next. The Motel. He can get Janus’s things. He can get his own things. He can figure out a plan to get Janus’s body back and he can bury it somewhere safe and gentle and and and—

He takes a step away from the lockers he’s leaning against and the batshit fucking insane amount of exhaustion yanks at his bones. As if someone amped up the gravity on earth and Remus was the only one to get the fucking memo, or maybe the one who fucking cared to notice all the hard work the universe was doing.

The thought nearly drags a laugh out of his abused strained lungs: wouldn’t that be grand? If the universe took gratitude that Remus was paying attention to it and decided to repay it with even the tiniest smidge of kindness? Wouldn’t it be amazing to wake up in a few seconds and realize his entire life was just one nightmare that never happened? Wouldn’t it be fucking fantastic if he could shed this reality the same way he shed every single one of his deaths?

The more he looks around the less the hallways mimic the ones that he’d grown up in: the brick pattern here is off-white and green and he grew up with gold and reds and blacks, the walkways are wider, polished and there’s no graffiti on any lockers that point out exactly who everyone had collectively decided didn’t belong. The lack of real color has him feeling off-balanced and the haze of weariness has his footsteps dragging like a dream he didn’t remember entering: there’s a taste in the air that reminds him inexplicably of being in the middle of a crowd and seeing flashes of white light wrap around him until there’s nothing left of the world he knew.

He only barely knows where he ran, barely realizes that he’s retracing his blurry fuzzing panicky paces until he’s nearly walking right by the only classroom with an open door.

Remy is still laying there, on the floor, unharmed and asleep, chest rhythmically lifting and falling with a deep unconsciousness. It feels like no time has passed, like all the time has passed, like the world is gone and they’re the only ones left, and at any second Remus will turn around and find a billion people behind him watching and waiting to prosecute him for the mistake he makes.

He hovers in the doorway, hands dragging along the fringe of his shorts, and fingers catching on his fishnets. His feet are waiting to walk away, to sing adios as he leaves the kid right there, to forget about the feeling of brain matter on his hands and the shine of blood on the off colored brick walls.

No one would have to know about a future that didn’t happen, and he could keep running away.

But Remus can’t help thinking of the snippets of blurred futures where Remy got shot in that library for the crime of being behind Remus when he dodged and how Logan screamed like the world was ending. Remus can’t help but think of a home screen of a boy surrounded by more people than Remus can count. Remus can’t help thinking that people would miss the kid in front of him more than they had ever missed Roman Regis’s weird younger brother.

“Okay,” Remus says to himself. “Okay.”

He’s not Janus. He’s not a shield to defend against attacks, throwing himself forward without a hesitation to take the brunt of something he won’t survive. He’s not and never has been, but if Janus were here he could never leave this kid to wake up alone after dying or near dying or almost dying or dying-but-not-this-time or not-dying-but-I-thought-I-was. Remus is not a comfort, but even he wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone.

He shoves his way into the classroom before he can think anymore. The desks flinch apart with a little persuasion from Remus’s hands, jolting like they’re afraid of him, of what he did to Remy, of what he could do again. The small shrieks of noise pick and pluck at Remus’s resolve, until he’s moving on adrenaline and animal brained instinct only.

((There’s a phone on the ground, face down, with a coffee cup winking up at him, and Remus’s hands shake as they pick it up. It’s not covered in blood and his hands are not sticky and there’s a billion notifications dinging on the screen and not a single one talks about a murder that just happened on live TV to a man whose last act was trying to protect people.))

But he can’t think about that. He won’t think about that. He told himself not to think anymore, and so he doesn’t, not until he has Remy’s arm pulled over his shoulder and he’s dragging him towards the hallway again, and then after that, the only thing Remus is focusing on is getting them both to somewhere far, far away.

[Next Chapter]

#deja vu au #Remus sanders #Janus Sanders #Remy Sanders #Lets goooooo #sanders sides #demus #dukeceit #tw: panic attack #TW: temporary character death #Remy's existence is enough to get him into Situations(TM)#That Feral Type of Love That Makes You Commit Crimes

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arpmemething2 · 9 months

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Loony Tunes Sentence Starters

Send one for my muse’s reaction. Feel free to change pronouns as needed.

“It’s supply and demand! They supply the ghost, and I demand the money!”

“And remember, 'mud' spelled backwards is 'dum'.”

"Go ahead! I’d love to see the audience boo you off the stage!”

“Consider yourself as lucky because you are getting another chance from me to draw a gun.”

“Go on! Shoot me again! I enjoy it! I love the smell of burnt feathers and gunpowder and cordite!”

“Jumpin' without a parachute? Kinda dangerous, ain't it?”

“Don’t think it hasn’t been a little slice of heaven…’cause it hasn’t!”

“I do so enjoy observing the flora and fauna of that tiny planet.”

“I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque!”

“You know, sometimes me conscience bothers me… but not this time.”

“It just goes to show ya that a one-eyed jack rabbit can beat a king.”

“I didn’t say I would be nice. I said I would try. It was too hard.”

"He’s about as sharp as a bowling ball."

"What's up doc?"

“Oh dear, now I shall suppose I have to use force.”

“Help me, please. I’m too moist and tender to retire.”

“Okay Okay I'm shuttin' up. Why should I continue to keep yappin' when I'm told to shut up. I'm not the kind that don't know when to stop.”

“Ho! Ha-ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!”

“I wonder what the poor bunnies are doing this season?”

“Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive!”

"What a perfect time for me to go on a diet."

“When I say whoa, I mean whoa!”

“Brace yourself for immediate disintegration.”

“I don't want to be grown up anymore.”

"You wasted a wish! I wish that burrito was stuck on your big dumb nose!"

“Carrots are devine… You get a dozen for a dime, It’s maaaa-gic!”

“The way I run this thing you'd think I knew something about it.”

"Sssshh... Be vewwy quiet. I'm hunting wabbit!"

"Champagne nights, tropical music and a heavy bank account!"

"Thufferin' thuccotash!"

“I’m in my own little word. But it’s okay, they know me here.”

"You rack'n frack'n varmint!"

“Oh, drat these computers. They’re so naughty and so complex. I could pinch them.”

"Well, it's 5 o'clock somewhere."

“Do you happen to know what the penalty is for shooting a fricaseeing rabbit without a fricaseeing rabbit license?”

“Wait! I haven’t tried toadying, kowtowing and butt-kissing yet! I’m still begging here!”

"Cats don't lay eggs. There's something screwy here."

"Of course you realize, this means war."

"His muscles are as soggy as a used teabag."

“I know this defies the law of gravity, but I never studied law!”

"Looks like the boy genius is tryin' to show me up."

"It was a terrible storm, the boat wocked and worked up one wave and down the other."

"You're despicable."

"If you're gonna be two-faced sweetie, then atleast make one of them pretty!"

"F-f-first they told me to lose the stutter now they tell me Im not funny anymore. "

“Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?”

"That's all folks!"

"I don’t know the meaning of the word fear!"

"Beep beep!"

"I don't ask questions, I just have fun."

"Hungry!"

“Just when I’m getting used to the voices in my head, one of them starts stuttering.”

"Say your prayers!"

“Me? Normal? How dare you insult me like that?”

"You know, it is possible to be too attractive."

"I am positive, I am mental and I know I have attitude.”

“I’m not like other people, I can’t stand pain, it hurts me.”

"I tawt I taw a puddy tat!"

“Well, what do you know … there’s the little Wiener Schnitzel now.”

“If you’re happy and you know it, you're probably annoying someone who isn’t.”

"This is gonna cause more confusion than a mouse in a burlesque show!"

"Who's responsible for this unwarranted attack on my person?"

“I'll be scared later. Right now I'm too mad.”

“If an interesting monster can’t have an interesting hairdo I don’t know what this world is coming to.”

“You say the Loch Ness Monster is living in your jacuzzi? Well, call Roto-Rooter!”

“I hate it when people are at you house and ask, ‘hey do you have a bathroom?’ No not at all...”

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missathlete31 · 11 months

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Left Behind- Chapter 2

Chapter 1 Here- aka the chapter where Javy lets Command have it for leaving Jake behind.

Masterlist for all my angst Hangman stories is here

Chapter 2 Summary: We check in on what happened to Jake after he is abandoned behind enemy lines.

Warnings: Angst, injuries, and being captured by enemy forces. This is a very dramatic story folks- be prepared. Also Jake Seresin would be a smartass no matter the situation- we all know it.

On a frigid hill, hundreds of miles from home, Lieutenant Jake “Hangman” Seresin woke with a start. His senses immediately became overwhelmed, pain radiating through his body in waves of agony. Opening bleary green eyes slowly, Jake managed to catch a glimpse of his predicament; he was crumbled into the smoldering ruins of his F-18's cockpit, there were excruciating spasms seizing his entire body and the cold mountain air was biting at any exposed flesh it could find.

The memories came back to him slowly, like all meaningful things do, and Jake recalled his heroically dense plan of shielding Rooster from missiles while leaving himself open and unprotected. A part of him wanted to chastise himself for his actions but another part was proud; the others could chide him all they liked but he didn't leave his wingmen and under his leadership the impossible mission was a miraculous success. He wished he had made it back, if only to spare his best friend Javy from the heartbreak, but if someone had to lay their life down, Jake would always choose to sacrifice himself; he had less to go home to.

But Jake wasn't dead yet, no matter how hard the universe tried to make it so.

There was blood running down his face, catching the corner of his eyes from the angle that he laid. His neck felt too sore to move so Jake was stuck blinking the offending liquid out every few seconds, an action that was getting old real quick. He tried to shimmy to move instead, getting rewarded with a shock of pain that left him breathless and on the verge of passing out. When he was able to tamper down the blackness from his vision, Jake spared a better look at his situation and injuries. His head was throbbing with the telltale symptoms of a concussion, his ribs sore with each breath and shift. His left side was squashed into the broken debris of his jet, his head lulled to that side and his shoulder feeling out of its socket. His right leg lay at a sickening angle, his hip holding a piercing ache. His left leg was crunched under the wrecked remnants of his Super Hornet’s dashboard console, only a dull pain which was worrisome to his frazzled mind. He vaguely felt stickiness along his back but Jake couldn’t pinpoint an origin point; the pilot could only hope it wasn’t too fatal.

His synopsis of his state of affairs left one vital fact clear for the American: there was no chance of Jake getting himself out of this dilemma alone, especially when even the slightest movement caused a whimper to escape his throat.

Jake's eyes took to the skies on instinct, but there was no hope there. The sun has risen all the way by now and there was barely a cloud above him. Even more concerning, there was no plane. No teammate or even a foe circling, no one to see the stranded pilot stuck in his craft, locked in a battle over what will kill him first: blood loss or hypothermia.

There was a rational part of Jake's mind that knew command would have ordered his team back, to save who could be saved after Hangman was shot down with no ejection or parachute. But there was also a part, albeit a tiny one, that couldn't help the twinge of disappointment to see no one had turned back for him. Perhaps his parents were right; he amounted to nothing; nothing worth caring about at least. His team had abandoned him and from the lack of any sort of rescue in the sky, it seemed his country had as well.

The day flitted on, and if his wrist watch wasn't broken perhaps Jake could have gauged it better. Instead after an indiscernible amount of time, the sound of voices reached the American's ear. He tried to prepare himself but he was limited. His body still ached, and though time and the temperature had dulled and numbed most of his body, he was still trapped under his jet's debris. Jake had his sidearm, but it was on his left side, crushed into his side as he teetered towards that angle. He knew he had a full magazine, and some extra rounds stashed in his gear but he was in no condition to scale a defensive stand. He would have to be patient and read his opportunity.

Jake hated being patient.

Soldiers trekked into his vision, their uniforms informing Jake that not only were they enemies but the burns and dirt meant they came from the tomahawked airfield a few miles away. They all took peeks into the cockpit with raised weapons, catching a glance at the injured American and sharing smug expressions. The parade of onlookers seemed endless and besides putting into numbers how outgunned Jake was, it didn't help the steady throb in his head. The annoyance pushed Jake into an eye roll that made him border on a nauseous attack, stopped only by his desire to not seem even frailer to his capturers. Instead Jake deflected to where he always went when he was uncomfortable or in pain, his Hangman persona. Channeling his inner asshole, Jake snapped towards the nearest soldier, "Yeah, I know, I'm a vision" he sneered arrogantly, "now will you all stop your gawking and help me?" He was ignored, like he knew he would but Jake felt some vindication when he startled the young soldier back a few paces and the line of guests receded.

The men who surrounded him spoke in a language that Jake should have recognized but couldn't at the moment with the pounding in his head. They talked fast, almost as though excited and Jake could hear the sounds of a pair of footsteps running in the opposite direction, perhaps to alert someone. The others lowered their weapons and while that was at least a little comforting for the injured American, he knew it was because in his current state he didn't pose much risk of escape.

Jake was in a bad situation if he was honest with himself. Alone, surrounded by armed enemy soldiers and injuries that were progressively getting more dire as time went on. It would be easy for the man to start to panic, or beg to his adversaries for some kind of pardon or peace but that was never Hangman's style. Instead he decided to use the language barrier to his advantage and to do the two things Jake was best at besides flying: talking and annoying the crap out of his company.

So Jake talked.

"So since we're all friends" the blonde began sparing a look at the un-amused group around him, "I'm going to let y'all know a few secrets." There were looks of interest from his companions, but all of them carried the faraway look of misunderstanding. "The first" Jake raised a bloody index finger, not noticing he had skimmed it in his crash. He paused a moment looking at it, the blood bringing back some of the pain he was trying so hard to forget about but he shouldered on, "Okay first secret" he got back on track, "Phoenix- she's a female pilot" he made a face, "I know- I know, your culture probably frowns on that but Billy" he called, choosing a random name for the closest soldier to him and going with it, "you really got to embrace the 21st century man, feminism and women's rights. It's very big right now" he lectured. 'Billy' merely stared silently though, so Jake continued his story, "anyway Phoenix, she has these yogurts that she keeps in the ready room fridge which I mean is her first mistake and even worse, she leaves them unmarked! I guess she does it because she knows everyone is too scared to piss her off directly but how is anyone supposed to know for sure they are hers, you know? Play stupid games win stupid prizes am I right Fred?" he turned to the soldier on his left who also ignored him. "Alright maybe Fred doesn't get it but anyway I ate two of them because I mean look at me" he gave a wink to his audience, "a man like me needs his sustenance." Jake gave a chuckle until he felt the pull of pain in his abdomen and he winced. The inflection of pain seemed to get the most reaction from his capturers as something was shouted by the goon named 'Fred' and another puny private was ushered away. Jake spat onto the snow on his side and felt his heart stutter at the red tinge in his saliva. "Well that's not good" he mused softly, seeing 'Billy' share a look of concerned interest. "But alas-" Hangman refused to stop his show, "where was I" he continued, "ah yes Phoenix's yogurt, I ate two of them and she noticed of course, the feisty little bird, and well, I might have blamed Yale. Which-" he gave a grimace, "wasn't the nicest thing to do but he hip checked me during dogfight football so the jerk deserved it. Besides Phoenix was way nicer about it to him than she would have been with me” Jake sighed animatedly, “that Phoenix, she loves to pretend to hate me but how can you hate all this?” he flashed a smile to which his only answer was the sound of wind drifting through the snow and anxious fidgeting from the men around him.

In the distance Jake could hear what sounded like a jeep coming closer which meant the Calvary had arrived. It didn't take a genius to know that the decision about whether Jake was worth the effort to extract was going to be made by someone other than the lowly foot soldiers that had found him but Jake was hoping for a little more time. His stomach churned at the thought of his possible final moments on earth, anticipating a bullet into his brain if his enemies were generous or being left to freeze to death if they weren't. His mind went to Coyote, his promise to his best friend on the deck this morning that he would come back, that they would take a leave together and just be young and stupid like they were in the academy days. Jake stifled a sob at how much his heart ached for his brother Javy, a wet shudder earning him a pleased look from 'Fred'. Jake scowled back and prepared for his next verbal diatribe.

"Alright next secret is that I hate roller-coasters" the American mused loudly, noticing a few of the soldiers sigh from the trademark Hangman annoyance. He really did impress himself with how quickly he could exasperate a room, "ironic I know" Jake jested as he persisted, "especially with this line of profession but something about not being in control" he huffed a sigh, "just never sat well with me you know?" He looked over to see one soldier watching him with narrowed eyes. "I think I'm going to name you Evil Henchman Four." Jake announced to no one in particular, "You're clearly not in charge enough to be one through three." When the man gave no reaction, he continued his monologue, "so anyway back to roller-coasters, I hate them but J-Javy," he ignored the way his voice broke on the man's name and hoped the others did too, "my best friend, the guy loves them, so every time we are on break he makes me go to a Six Flags like a bunch of middle schoolers." He turned to a different soldier, "have you ever been?" When he received no reply, Jake just sighed, "Right communism, not usually big with the amusement parks. Anyway" he drawled, smirking when he noticed a few guys exchanged looks, "I promised Javy that we would go to the New Jersey Six Flags after this mission and ride Kingda Ka which for those of you playing at home might not know is the fastest roller-coaster in the United States." Jake announced the last bit like a game show host, smirking until the newly named Evil Henchmen Four tilted his head. "Have you heard of it?" the blonde asked, strangely excited at the prospect of being understood, "Kingda Ka?"

"No" a deeper voice that was heavily accented answered from his other side, "he hasn't."

Jake turned his neck so fast at the sound of English words, if he didn't already have whiplash, he did now. The pilot winced before recovering, peering out from a hole in his wreckage to catch the insignia of a captain standing before him. "What a chatty little American" the commanding officer reproved with a smirk that looked cartoonishly evil, "all stuck in his plane."

"That's me" Jake smirked cockily, "now would you mind asking one of your silent brooders over there to get me the hell out of here? I think my leg fell asleep."

"And why" the man leaned down to face Jake directly, his brown eyes distressingly wide, "would I have them do that?"

Hangman offered as much of a shrug as he could manage in his position, "because I asked oh so nicely" he brokered, his unease rising as the captain gave a merry laugh. "Oh you are entertaining aren't you? A real Johnny Carson."

"Jesus" the cocky blonde scoffed, "I know I made the joke before but really, what century do you think it is?"

The commander ignored the jab, instead inspecting the ruins of Jake's plane. "Quite the predicament you have yourself in American, all broken and alone."

"Not alone now" Jake knew he should keep his mouth shut but he was never good at following his own advice, "not with my friends Fred, and Billy and Evil Henchmen Number Four." He smiled sideways towards the Captain, "I can give you a name as well but the ones popping up in my head might not be the most flattering."

"You can laugh with your cheerful jokes all you want pilot, we will laugh when your blood finishes coloring the snow." He motioned to under Jake where a steady pool of the vital fluid seemed to be seeping. Jake's body instantly lurched, coming back to the pain that he had spend so much energy trying to ignore and feeling the sticky wet liquid that was dampening even more of his flight suit. Jake raised shock-widened eyes and was rewarded with chuckles, the captain announcing something in his native tongue to the group that had them all looking haughty.

Jake moved his right hand across his body to where he knew his gun was kept. The situation had turned progressively worse and though he had no illusions that he could get out of a gunfight alive, Jake figured it was better than being at the mercy of Captain Chuckles and his band of Merry Men. His movements must have alerted the others because frantic foreign calls started at once and a few weapons were drawn. Jake froze before turning back to the Captain. “What did they say?” he asked, not expecting the truth.

“They are all fighting for the right to shoot you dead. It is quite the honor it seems.”

The blonde pilot gave a short smirk at the news of his impending death, “Well I always like to inspire a crowd” he spoke.

“But you are no use to me dead,” the Captain informed icily, sending a chill down Jake’s spine, “besides lessening a headache.” He reached a hand through the slit and captured Jake’s jaw harshly in his grip, “but I think I can find a better use for that large mouth, don’t you?”

“If you think I’m telling you anything useful” Hangman started, “you might as well kill me now-“

“Where’s the fun in that” the older man turned to two soldier, barking orders that didn’t sound anything like ‘let the nice American pilot go.’ Jake couldn’t contain the shudder through his body as the men came close and began pulling at the debris surrounding his legs. “Stop- shit!” he moaned as a wave of pain assaulted him. But like before no one listened, instead they kept shifting until a particular large piece of the jet came off his leg, a flash of white light blinding his eyes until the sweet relief of unconsciousness beckoned the American under.

When Jake came back to awareness he was being held by Evil Henchmen Four and another soldier that looked so much like his old High School Principal Jake’s concussed mind wondered if Mr. Sergison might have enlisted with a foreign country’s army. His injured body held none of his own weight, instead falling lulled between the two sets of arms. Pain was overpowering his senses, the pilot barely able to comprehend that he was out of the wreckage of his F-18 until a harsh slap smacked against his cheek.

“Where is my talkative American now?” the Captain jeered, slapping two more times and laughing when Jake hissed at the battering. “We rescue you, American, where is our thanks?”

“Thank you” Jake deadpanned, forcing his green eyes up to face his adversary. “Now you think you can drop me off at the airport, oh wait we bombed that to shit right?” His sass was rewarded with two punches to the gut, blood hacked out in rough coughs as he lost his footing and was once more at the mercy of the men who held him.

“Funny you say that” the foreign man explained, “because the good men you kill have new uses.” He motioned behind him where Jake watched ‘Fred’ and another soldier lug a dead body forward. “Strip him” the captain ordered and Jake didn’t have a moment to focus before his tattered remains of his flight suit were ripped off him and he was left in his wife beater and boxer shorts in the harsh winter weather. “At- At least buy me dinner first” Hangman tried to joke but he was pushed into the wet snow without a second glance. Between the pain of his injuries and the numbness of the freezing snow on his exposed skin, Jake cried out with devastating whimpers but all he got for his trouble was a sharp kick to his kidney.

A soldier leaned over him with a hand outstretched and for the strangest moment Jake thought it was to offer him help. Instead the man ripped the dog tags from his neck, leaving the American feeling even more naked than how he felt after his clothes were taken. “Wait-“ he groaned, pushing his body as much as he could to see where the precious metals were going. The soldier handed it to ‘Fred’ who was putting them over the dead foreign body along with Jake’s flight suit. The pair stuffed the body into the wreckage remains then hollered for one of their comrades who stepped forward with an old fashion flamethrower and started to get it ready.

Jake watched it all with a detachment born from his concussion. He couldn’t seem to comprehend what he was witnessing until he was pulled along the snowy terrain until he was a safe distance from the impending flames. The enemy forces gathered together to watch, talking excitedly and with a look of glee as the orange glow seemed to erupt in front of them.

The Captain moved down the line of his men to stand right in front of Jake. “Now they will never find you” his capturer explained, the fiery glow of Jake’s burning Super Hornet washing over his face and making it even more menacing. Jake was slung back over the two enemy soldiers and shuffled forward, away from his jet and the man wearing his dog tags, away from any chance he might ever have of rescue.

One week later a highly trained Navy Seal team was deployed behind enemy lines to the last listed location of Lieutenant Jake Seresin. The soldiers found the crash site quickly, noticing the burned ruins of the Super Hornet and an unidentifiable body inside. They radioed their base headquarters, filling them in on the remains in the pilot’s seat. A calloused hand of the Seal’s leader reached forward, finding the dog-tags that hung from the charred corpse and pulling them gently towards the moonlight. There, reflecting in the lunar glow was the name ‘Jake Seresin’ engraved in the metal. With confirmation back from command, the team carefully extracted the destroyed body and packed it with respect to bring home.

A moratorium was issued the next morning to all Navy personnel, stating that Lieutenant Jake “Hangman” Seresin was officially KIA.

When Javy Machado received the news, he collapsed to the ground in an anguished cry. His friends and teammates huddled around him; working together to try to provide even the smallest semblance of comfort but it was futile. Javy cried for his best friend and cursed the Navy, the Daggers, and everyone else to all hell for taking his brother from him. He and the rest of the team were put on a mandatory grievance leave while the details of Jake’s funeral was set in Coyote’s hands; the only person in the world to claim Jake as family.

Meanwhile the man Coyote and the rest of the team mourned for laid in a bunker tied up. His body tortured over the past week, bleeding and battered and disfigured. Jake’s larynx hurt from all his abuse but still he found just the tiniest voice each night to pray, whispering out to the stars for his friends and his country not to give up on him.

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meikuree · 2 months

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book review: exordia by seth dickinson

alternative title: more people should read exordia please please please so I can talk to people about this book because it's eaten my brain.

note: not a spoiler-free review.

"where do I begin" is a common response to this book and I can see why. if you thought the locked tomb was adventurous for bending genres across books, Exordia does it six times or so in a single book.

perhaps I should start with how I got interested in reading this: i'd just come off the back of reading Serious Weighty books about memory, war atrocities, complicity and genocide, so I figured this would be a nice palate cleanser and 'transition' book. it's still about ethics and genocides after all, only dressed in the clothes of an author-described “fun” indulgent SFF book. a friend also sirened me with details and screenshots of a fraught central mother-daughter relationship (involving said mother [Khaje] pointing a gun to her daughter's head when she reunites with her) which I’ll admit expedited my interest.

long story short: I ended up so sucked into this that I was reluctant to put it down, and I inhaled it in 1.5 days. a 576-page book! that has happened a total of never times in my recent imaginatively parched life. this book reminded me in a way that reading can be limbically fun and unhinged, which sounds absurd and as if i should return to primary school but is true. i've been stuck in the academic reading mines for too long. I felt like my brain was being squeezed into a wormhole and emptied out in fragments on the other end, albeit in a nice and dysfunctionally salutary way reminiscent of crack.

the barebones plot is as such: anna sinjari (birth name jiyan) is a disenchanted 30-something office worker in new york city who's just been fired and is dealing with PTSD symptoms when she comes across an eight-headed "snake centaur hydra" eating turtles out of a pond. cue the rest of the plot. cue the second act, where a mysterious "spaceship" construct thing has landed near anna's hometown village Tawakul and she gets parachuted in to figure out what's happening and whether it'll accidentally spark off intergalactic conflicts. cue, also, a long ensemble structure that cycles between eight different characters' POVs and time and metaphysically-bendy happenings.

or, TLDR: it's a subversion (or rather anti-homage, cr. transversely) of first contact and geopolitical narratives with a relatively considered and considerate indictment of american imperialism, that also explores the practical ramifications of trolley problem-style situations*.

* fun fact: the beginnings of the trolley problem were developed in 1967 by british philosopher Philippa Foot. there may be something to be said for how the concept's been de-gendered since then, since I don't think it's really common knowledge these days that it was written about by a philosopher who was a woman

the not so much tone shift as tone derailing between acts 1 and 2 caught me off guard (the first act is very domestic and features cursed slice of life stuff, very much my thing!) but act 2 captured me once the bio-body horror shenanigans started happening, annihilation style, though... uh... with two of the characters (Erik and Clayton) who took up a lot of narrative time in early act 2, I was incredibly bored and going I'M JUST HERE FOR THE KURDISH FAILMOTHER [Khaje], GET OUTTA MY WAY GAYBOYS. but every character is important to the narrative and even if I think the 50 pages of davoud being plane-sexual should've been trimmed, they all add flavour!

arguably for instance the most beneficial purpose of davoud's interludes is to charm plane otakus into reading this book, which I can get behind. if I can get my plane otaku friends to be insane about this book along with me, even if it's for completely different reasons (I'm mooning over the complicated snake sisters and mother-daughter dynamics and kurdish side characters and worldbuilding) it'll have been worth it.

the big "scifi" element of this book centres around souls and narratives -- the snake alien Anna meets is called Ssrin (and also now my morally grey babygirl, more on that later) and also part of Exordia, the prevailing imperialistic system which 'pinions' (enslaves) other species' souls. this system's been explained better elsewhere, so I'll move on.

by the way, the marketing copy for this book by tor fails utterly to do it justice aside from Seth's own snake woman courts Kurdish faildaughter. just ignore it and go in blind like I did if you want. it's better that way.

what I liked

i've read the first Baru Cormorant book and bounced off it emotionally, even though cerebrally it should've been everything I'd have loved. bits where I would've exulted in war by inflation along with Baru, for instance, felt like I was simply revising my macroeconomics and monetary policy textbooks, and not in a positive way. well, I enjoyed this book a lot, which surprised me! there were many elements that were YMMV and which are usually incredibly inadvisable to pair together, but seth pulls it off. somehow. it's intentionally maximalist and deranged and A LOT but seth was clearly leaning into their id and if it works for you, it will work well.

this book directly references and subverts the whole anthropocentric "humans are destined saviours of the universe" scifi pillar shtick in the first act:

“Nooo,” Anna protests. “That’s it?” “That’s it.” “We’re not unusually stubborn? We’re not particularly diverse? Experimental? Curious? Willing to take risks? Jacks of all trades but masters of none?” “No,” Ssrin says, crossing two of her necks in a big X of negation. “You are jacks of running and masters of being inbred.” [...] “Good. You’re learning. The story of man is a story of mediocrity. But so are most stories, I think. Most things are average, or median; if they were not, nothing would make sense.” Ssrin begins to unwrap herself. “Anna, I came to Earth tracking a very old story, a story that goes back to the dawn of time. Your species is not special. It is not destined. But it is very, very inbred … and that makes it transparent to a certain kind of analysis. Your souls all bear the same tint. They are touched by the same story. It rings in your myths, deep down, lower than you know. [...]"

the story is often irreverent and driven by black comedy, but it does have real tragedy at its core (the Anfal genocide). the black humour isn't edgy, it's very resonant with the way communities who have suffered genocide or repression will use humour as a coping mechanism, something something sloppy james scott citation here.

the disavowal of humanity as a homogeneous group or race was refreshing, and I don't just mean in terms of the international posse of characters. I really appreciate the awareness in the narrative of the fact that apocalypses and disasters are nothing new to communities who have already experienced turmoil and the ongoing present/slow violence/necropolitics of colonialism and imperialism. as the common refrain in decolonial circles goes: the world ended long ago in 1492. and the book takes that seriously and grapples with why the residents of Tawakul would be deeply suspicious of the american secret ops teams coming to them, and is sympathetic to them if not siding with them. there's a good evisceration and explicit consideration of american imperialism and homo sacer regimes, eg. this segment where seth lays it bare and we're transparently not meant to see this as a good thing:

You are a contractor, and therefore you are not subject to American military law. But you are not on American soil, and therefore you are not subject to American criminal or civil law. No law exists for you. So I have created myself to enforce a deeper law. The law of right and wrong.

and the epigraph has this obama quote:

Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine. —President Barack Obama

which seth includes a citation for probably because they anticipated people going "wait, obama really said that?"

I'm not inclined to laud seth dickinson just for depicting viewpoints that have long been the default in segments of fiction outside the US media landscape (all this is not new to anyone who's spent 30 minutes researching the CIA on wikipedia or read about the USA's interventions in Southeast Asia) but I do like the gumption in centering the wretched of the earth. and very few things in this book feel tacked on, from subaltern perspectives to sexuality to the magic system. for better or worse everything is very intentional and constructed. whether that feels like rigid artifice or art to you will depend.

I also have a line in my notes for this post that goes "seth is very sciencey: he expresses human insights via mathematical language. compare to anthropological slant of le guin" I've forgotten what I was going to say, but I like that seth is interdisciplinary to steal a friend's phrase. I was bamboozled by the abstract maths in this (I'm not conversant in mathematical theory, alas, I should fix that) but after a while I was like: oh! these math debates are just like the structuralism/poststructuralism split, albeit expressed in well, STEM language, and: hey, this sounds just like assemblage theory. I've connected the dots.

other things (actually very central):

Khaje and Anna's relationship. THEIR RELATIONSHIP!!! the bit where khaje says "I should've asked my daughter to come home sooner so I could spend more time with her" ...

Ssrin and Ssenenet (her sister), all the tantalising nuggets of complicated sister relationships Seth gave us. if you thought I wouldn't be going in the direction of lesbian snake incest, you thought wrong, I am entirely down for that shit and craving fic though we've gotten barely 4 paragraphs about them

Khaje, Arin, and Anna/Jiyan, aka weird snarly triangle of platonic jealousy between a slighted actual daughter, her estranged mother, and said mother’s sort-of surrogate daughter

THE BODY HORROR I didn't get nightmares but you might and the body horror is impeccable and mixes both metaphysical horror (what if Hell was an actual place?) and fleshly ones

the ubiets and old gods, yay for cosmic

i should've also expected it given that it's seth, but the ending can be quite a downer. seth does the thing where they build up hope and then it crashes. i'm TragedySicko #6969 and have a libido for melancholic misery so I loved the emotional devastation, but I felt like I needed a drink and to inhale a depressing book about grief to properly process my feelings after.

segments I wheezed at:

Khaje groans. She can tolerate Arîn Tawakuli, but only when she has been awake for between three and eight hours, only if she doesn’t have a hangover, and only if she doesn’t hear any particularly cheerful birds. Arîn is too young to remember the hard times of civil war. She’s an Apoist and a true believer in jineology and Khaje resents her. Not for her beliefs, but for the ability to believe. Arîn also loves to tell people that Khaje isn’t really crazy, she just has PTSD. For that Khaje truly despises her.

“He’s my uniformed prisoner now. What do you think I’m going to do, heval? Torture him?” “You have been acting pretty strange!” Arîn blurts. “Sitting out there all night watching the Ugandans—skipping all the assembly meetings—I mean, you’re sober, that’s kind of out of character!” People laugh. Khaje bristles: “Fuck your mother, Arîn.” “Hey, we don’t curse mothers here,” Arîn snaps. “It’s bad jineology.” “Can everyone stop talking about mothers!” Haydar screams.

3 (after a nuclear detonation):

“How can our pickups be broken, but not their tanks?” Khaje demands. “Look at them, driving all over our meadow. Look, Arîn, they’re destroying your sustainably planted wildflowers. They’re ruining your topsoil.” “This is amazing,” Arîn says. “Look, the blasts cover the whole sky! They must have hit the entire hemisphere, at least!” “So?” “So the power is out everywhere. This could be the intervention we need to break out of the trap of endless growth, Khaje! The end of the Anthropocene!”

what I didn't vibe with as much

the Erik and Clayton interludes. dear god. I'm sorry, they represent the key levers of the american imperialist establishment and their presence has narrative importance and clayton is an expy/critique of Obama and "first Black guy to drop an atomic bomb"-style diversity rhetoric + there's a scene where it all does pay off, but... to borrow a meme, I'm tired of hearing about all these american men. I just did not care about their childhood reminisces and I would've loved to hear more about Anna and Khaje's childhoods instead. their madonna complex over Rosamaria was also tiring

and a paratextual note: I came into this a little suspicious of Seth or at least not as generous as I could be after reading Baru 1. I was proven wrong. still, they have this annoying habit of chastising themself in interviews for not citing female writers as inspirations off the cuff more often when it's like... you could prepare your answers beforehand. but I digress.

things I'm musing about

I've been comparing this a little to le guin's oeuvre, because I'm thinking about stories that centre small interactions but have high-concept interplanetary stakes. both le guin and seth do that, but le guin's writing distinctly feels anti-epic to me in a way seth's doesn't. perhaps because seth appears to subscribe to a "maths and engineering is the answer to the universe"-style idea.

lastly: I've never really believed in the recent grimdark/cozy division in sff circles, it's as meaningless to me as angst/fluff categories in fic. form IS related to content but there are stories with grimdark or gritty aesthetics that have pretty hopeful conceptions of justice, ethics, history, revolution, etc. and feel-good stories that are the inverse, that refuse myopically to reckon with uncomfortable histories and ironically end up looking way more cynical and nihilist to me. in the first category I'd place films like mad max: fury road. this is a book that ironically does have a spark of hope at the end: anna's people survive a nuclear apocalypse. and this book, I think, might very loosely belong in the former, which is an endorsement coming from me.

#exordia #seth dickinson #book reviews #meikuree talks #long post

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