#some friends and fans raised money to get him into a better institution

[tigergendermoved]

Hey. Don’t cry. “I fell in love with a lovely kitten. That kitten was myself.” and “I am happy because everyone loves me.” by Louis Wain, okay?

#louis wain #i've been in a louis wain mood lately i'm actually obsessed with his work #apparently the second one was made shortly after #some friends and fans raised money to get him into a better institution #which makes me feel an emotion

[five-rivers]

Danger First

Chapter 5

@pocketramblr :3

The day started off well. Really, it did. Izuku got up on time, still filled with warm fuzziness from the time he spent with his friends (friends!) the afternoon before, had a good breakfast, left early enough to catch an earlier train, saw an interesting hero fight, and then...

He was hit with a wave of nausea as he caught sight of the crowd outside UA's gates. Was it a mob? An attack? Terrorists?

... Reporters?

Yeah, those were cameras and microphones. But why was a crowd of reporters making him feel this way?

Maybe they were terrorists disguised as reporters. Or, maybe Izuku had picked up some paranoia to go with his anxiety. How fun.

If they were real reporters, they were probably here about All Might. Him cutting back on active hero work to teach had been big news.

Ughhhh. What should he do? Whoever they were, they weren't likely to leave. He didn't want to walk through them, though. What if they were dangerous? (And even if they weren't, he didn't want reporters looking at him, asking him questions. What would he say to them?)

He bit his lip and watched the crowd from around his chosen corner. Why did he have to be so wimpy and timid? He was a hero student, now. He should be better. Braver.

Oh! There was Iida!

He scuttled over to his friend.

"Ah! Midoriya! You're early today! Few people arrive at school at the same time I do!"

"Y-yeah! I managed to catch the earlier train today, so..." He looked back at the crowd of reporters. Maybe reporters. Maybe terrorists. "I think, maybe we should wait to go in as a group, though. I mean, it'll be more efficient than trying to fight through those reporters one at a time, right?"

"An excellent idea, Midoriya!" exclaimed Iida, waving his hands enthusiastically. "It's very admirable of you, to always be thinking about how to help others."

"W-well," said Izuku, blushing. It wasn't untrue, but it also wasn't the whole story. "I mean, I don't... It's more that they kind of freak me out a bit? The reporters..."

Iida nodded sagely. "There are heroes like that, too. Are you planning on going underground, then?"

There was a certain amount of appeal to underground heroics, but he was supposed to be All Might's successor. Then again, if One for All never worked properly for him and Mr. Yagi asked for it back... Quirk or not, Izuku was here, now, in UA, in the hero course, and Mr. Yagi had said he could be a hero without a quirk.

"I haven't really decided yet. But UA teaches all hero course students the three main branches of heroics, so we don't really have to choose a specialty until later, and even then there are heroes like Sir Nighteye who blur the lines, right?"

"Yes, it's one of the things that make UA such a superior institution!" chortled Monoma.

"Ah, Monoma! I agree! It is important for all heroes to be aware of the work their colleagues do, and to be well-rounded individuals!"

Monoma!?

"Um," said Izuku. "When did you get here?"

"Just a minute ago," said Monoma. "I was looking for a way around these savages when I overheard your conversation. Really, it's a shame that UA allows such rabble to prevent students from entering. If only there was something they could do..."

"I'm afraid I must disagree," said Iida. "Freedom of the press is exceedingly important for the function of society!"

Monoma looked slightly alarmed. "I don't mean to say it isn't, it's just-" he gestured at the gates, "-we can't get in. The other entrances are like this, too. It's aggravating."

"There... might be another way in," said Iida, after a moment.

"Oh?"

"Yes, my brother told me about a hidden entrance that was here when he attended UA. I suppose... I suppose these would be the right circumstances to use it."

"Lead the way, then, Iida," said Monoma.

Iida nodded stiffly. "We should wait and see if any of our classmates would like to come with us."

Several of their classmates did want to come with them, including Uraraka, Asui (who was still a little under the weather), Tokoyami (Dark Shadow was not a fan of flashing lights), and Hagakure. They were also joined by a couple of 1-B students, a cadre of business course kids, and a pink haired support course girl who seemed very interested in Iida's legs, much to his flustered confusion.

Kacchan did not join them, much to Izuku's dismay, instead choosing to bulldoze his way through the ranks of reporters, nearly giving Izuku a heart attack when he body-checked a man with blue-white hair.

At this point, their group was becoming rather large and noticeable, and Iida was getting antsy about the time, so off they went.

Iida led them to what appeared to be an entirely unnoteworthy piece of wall and knocked. There was a pause just long enough to make Iida start to sweat, and then the wall opened, revealing Midnight- Ms. Kayama!

"Oh?" she said, clearly delighted. "Chibiida using the top secret teacher's entrance? Has high school done what we couldn't? Are you finally loosening up?"

Chibiida.

Chibiida.

CHIBIIDA.

First: how? Why? Iida was over ten centimeters taller than Izuku! Secondly: Iida was never going to recover from this.

"That- that's not it! At all! I am simply attempting to help my fellow students enter the school without being harassed by reporters, Ms. Kayama!"

"You can still call me big sis Nemuri, you know."

"I refuse! It would be inappropriate of me as a student!"

Ms. Kayama sighed. "Well, you aren't wrong about those reporters. They can be a pain. So, just this once, let me welcome you kids to the forbidden environs of the staff area!" She made a grandiose gesture with her arm. "And it's all thanks to Chibiida here."

Iida started muttering about propriety and rules.

Izuku had the feeling it would be a long day.

.

"All right, Hikage, in your professional opinion-"

"What does building inspecting have to do with anything?"

"What?" said Nana. "I didn't say anything about building inspecting."

"You asked for my professional opinion."

"Yes?" said Nana, already dreading where this would go.

"I was a vigilante. For the purposes of money, I was a professional, licensed building inspector."

"I thought you were a professional hermit," said En.

"I was an amateur hermit. You don't get paid for that."

En blinked. "I can't believe people let you into their buildings."

"There were a few times-"

Nana decided to table the question of how neither she nor En had known Hikage was a building inspector. "Okay, fine. Forget the professional part. In your opinion, what was going on with that one reporter guy?"

"Oh," said Hikage. "He's definitely planning a murder."

"A murder!" exclaimed Yoichi.

"Yes, and probably of someone close to Ninth."

"Why didn't you say something?" demanded Yoichi, attempting to lift the taller man up by the front of his shirt and failing.

"Because there's not much we can do about it?"

"Just because you're right doesn't mean I have to like it!" He spun on his heel and stalked up to the silent and incomplete ghost of Toshinori. "It had better not be you, do you hear me? Don't you dare pull an Obi-Wan on poor, sweet Izuku!"

"Does anyone know what he's talking about?" asked Nana.

"Not really," admitted Banjo.

.

"Today," said Mr. Aizawa, after he finished passing out feedback from the battle trial, "you'll pick a class president."

All around Izuku, his classmates threw their hands into the air, eager for the chance to show off their leadership skills.

Izuku kept his hand down. It wasn't that he didn't want to stand out or do the work! It was just... between training after school with Mr. Yagi and Aizawa and trying to get his anxiety under control, he didn't think he'd do a very good job.

.

Yoichi started disappearing his "Izuku for President" banners.

.

Iida, though... Iida would do well, Izuku thought. Look at him, organizing everyone into a vote.

"You're not running, Midori?" asked Hagakure.

"N-no, haha, I have too many other commitments to do a good job, I think."

"That's too bad! I would have voted for you."

There was a smattering of agreement, mostly from Iida and Uraraka. Izuku started blushing.

"R-really? Why?"

("Strawberry," someone whispered.)

"Well, you helped me out during the entrance exam, and you were pretty cool during training yesterday." More agreement. "But if you're not running, I guess I'll pick Monoma. He did get rid of the purple creep."

"Ahahaha, yes, I am clearly the superior candidate!" crowed Monoma, standing up and putting his foot on his chair to pose.

"But his personality's really weird, which is why you would have been my first choice, Midoriya."

"I think Iida would be a good choice!" said Uraraka, raising her hand. "He's super organized and he helped a bunch of us get past the reporters this morning."

More general agreement. Then Todoroki cleared his throat. Everyone looked at him.

"Yaoyorozu," he said.

That was it.

"Good point," agreed Jirou.

.

"A TIE?!"

.

As the only one who hadn't voted for one of the three in the tie, Aoyama was forced to be the tiebreaker. This was done as dramatically as humanly possible.

Yaoyorozu was now president of class 1-A.

This led to a ferocious battle between Monoma and Iida that Iida won by a single vote. Monoma was promptly chosen as class treasurer. Just in time for their other classes.

.

"Those who possess forbidden knowledge should stay together," said Tokoyami gravely as he sat down with Uraraka, Iida, and Izuku.

"Are you talking about the staff area?" asked Asui, who slid in after him.

"Indeed," intoned Tokoyami gravely. "The dark path we have all walked-"

"Fumi is just bad at asking people to be his friends!"

"Dark Shadow!"

Izuku almost started crying into his rice. Having friends was so great.

"I'll be your friend!" said Izuku.

"Me, too!" said Uraraka, pumping a fist.

"Ah," said Tokoyami, coughing into a fist. "I am sure we will be great companions in the darkness of the coming days."

Speaking of darkness... Izuku couldn't help but feel uneasy about... something. He had been ever since seeing those reporters.

"So, Midori, is your hair full of secrets?"

"Wh-what?"

"Don't listen to her! She's just being silly! Like a little sister."

"It's what you always say about that actor you like! His hair is fluffy because it's full of secrets!"

"So, you and Dark Shadow are like brother and sister?" asked Midoriya, changing the subject.

The conversation segued into discussion of their families, and just when Iida was extolling the virtues of his older brother, Izuku's unease spiked. He dropped his chopsticks.

"Is something wrong?" asked Uraraka.

"I... don't know? It just feels like something bad is going to-"

The school alarm promptly went off.

.

"Wow!" said Kirishima. "Iida can do entrances and exits! Manly!"

.

"Wow," said Banjo, "I guess they picked the right guy for the job, after all. He can find entrances and exits! More than my class vice president ever did..."

"Are you copying the small red child?" asked Hikage.

"What?"

"Never mind."

.

"Today's heroics class will be focused on how to fall safely and other basic combat techniques. Before we begin, although you may practice these techniques on your own, outside of class, if you want to spar with others, you need adult supervision until you reach a level where I'm satisfied you won't seriously injure yourself or others by mistake. Now, firstly..."

.

"Mr. Aizawa? Is- um. Was it really just the press breaking in earlier?"

It was time for his first special quirk training with Aizawa, and he should be asking what they were doing today (especially since Aizawa had him change out of his gym uniform and back to his regular uniform), but he couldn't stop thinking about the break-in.

"What makes you think otherwise?"

"I'm, well, I'm not sure? I just, this morning, when I saw them, I got a really bad feeling? Like something bad was going to happen. And it doesn't seem, um, logical, that normal reporters would be able to do that to UA's gate. I mean, anyone can have any quirk- no such thing as a villainous quirk. But someone with a quirk like that, they'd put a lot of effort into controlling it and stuff so stuff like this wouldn't happen by mistake. I guess a reporter could have done it on purpose, though, but then it'd be really easy for UA to find out it was them, wouldn't it? Or the police. Since heroes and police have access to the national quirk registry, so you just have to cross-reference reporters with the registry to find quirks that could fit. But would they know that? Anyway, it seems more logical for a third party to have used the press as cover to infiltrate the school. But why? If nothing is missing and no one is hurt, which would be grounds for school being canceled, the next conclusion would be information gathering. But that still leaves the question of the ultimate ends- Mr. Aizawa? Are you okay?"

His teacher had been glaring at a camera mounted in the corner of the classroom and mouthing things at it.

"I'm fine," said Aizawa. He sighed. "You are right that we haven't located the person who destroyed the gates, but please be assured that we are investigating the incident throughly. Especially Principal Nezu." He shot another glare at the camera, as if to say he'd better be.

"Regardless, it isn't something you need to worry about as a student. We're adding more safety protocols to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Oh, okay. S-so, what are we doing today? Sensory deprivation? Electric shocks? Stress positions? Bean bag barrage for dodging? High stakes hell exam?" He was ready for anything and very excited.

Aizawa stared at him flatly. "We're... doing quirk counseling."

"Yes?"

"Kid... except for maybe the last one... what exactly gave you the idea that any of those things had anything to do with quirk counseling?"

Izuku started to get the feeling he'd seriously messed up. Except he didn't feel particularly anxious about it.

"Oh, uh, Mom used to get brochures like that in the mail, after I was diagnosed? She didn't ever answer any, but... Apparently, some people originally thought to be quirkless got quirks after being in a high stress situation."

"But no one actually did any of those things to you."

"Not really?"

"Midoriya..."

Izuku looked away. He shouldn't have said anything. He didn't like the quirk counselor at Eisley Elementary, but he didn't want to get her in trouble, either. After all, he was the only one she had to do that stuff with, since his quirk hadn't shown up...

Aizawa sighed with the air of someone exercising a lot of self-control. "Except for that last one," said Aizawa, "and that's debatable, all of those are torture techniques."

Ah. Well. That maybe explained a few things.

"They are not a normal part of quirk counseling. At some point, we may incorporate some combat into this, but that will be to help you become more familiar with your quirk. Not just for the sake of making you stressed."

"But if we aren't doing combat, what are we doing?"

"Well, first we're going to try to figure out what your quirk is. Why don't you sit down." He took out some papers as Izuku made his way to his desk. "Alright. I'm going to go through these questions and write down your answers... then we're going to go through them again while I'm canceling your quirk." He paused. "Actually, first. What did you mean when you said you had a bad feeling about the reporters?"

.

"If I were alive," said Yoichi, "I would be committing so much murder right now."

"I thought we left this behind when Ninth graduated," said Nana. "I thought you said you were going to forgive them because they were stupid kids and Ninth forgave them."

"Well, first off, I lied. Secondly, teachers aren't kids. If we ever get hit by a quirk that brings us back to life, the quirk counselor at his old school will be my first victim."

Nana sighed. "That isn't going to happen."

"Who's going to stop me?"

"Less a who, and more the fact that there has never been a quirk that could revive the dead."

"Meaningless!" exclaimed Yoichi. "Death cannot stop me!"

"Think he's finally lost it after all this time?" asked En, leaning towards Nana.

"No, I think he's just messing with us," hoped Nana.

.

"Alright, kid," said Aizawa exhaustion evident in his tone. "Between your answers, your exam results, the battle trial results, how you react when I use my quirk on you, and Monoma's assessment... Your quirk is at least partially sensory.",

Izuku tried not to feel disappointed, but that seemed rather incomplete as a conclusion. Even though he knew about Danger Sense and this probably was Danger Sense.

"Yeah, I know, it's underwhelming, but remember this is the first session. Whatever your quirk actually does, though, you seem to be using it to detect threats."

Okay, that was more in line with expectations.

"I mean... maybe? I think so. That feels right."

"We also need to figure out what it's stockpiling. Have you ever felt any particular draw to certain situations? More than your peers?"

"Um. I watch a lot of hero fights?"

"You're a fight chaser?"

"A little bit?" admitted Izuku, squirming a little.

Aizawa sighed heavily. "I seriously hope your quirk doesn't stockpile danger- don't test that."

He wasn't going to!

Probably.

Speaking of, though, what did One for All actually stockpile? Power was a very vague description... He'd just went along with it because a) quirk and b) All Might, but it would probably be good to know.

"Next time we meet, I'll be running you through the basic quirk assessment battery- that's a series of tests usually given to five-year-olds to help their pediatric quirk doctors and quirk counselors identify difficult or stubborn quirks. You should have gone through it when you were younger."

Izuku shook his head. "All I remember is the x-ray."

"Why would you get an x-ray?"

"For the toe joint? To tell whether or not I was quirkless?" Why was he saying this? He was going to blow his cover and his secret out of the water! This was so dumb.

But he did say it. Maybe it was his guilty conscience from lying to and misleading Mr. Aizawa so much.

"That's a myth," said Aizawa.

"What?"

"It isn't true." Aizawa began to slump down in his seat. "It's an old wives' tale. Everyone quirkless has the double joint, but not everyone with the double joint is quirkless. I have the double joint, as do about twenty-five percent of people with meta quirks." By the time he finished, only the top half of his face was visible.

"Oh," said Izuku. He wasn't sure what else to say. At least the secret of One for All was completely intact.

"I hate to say this, kid, but it sounds like everyone involved in your early quirk education was incredibly incompetent. You shouldn't have had to deal with that, even if you were truly quirkless. It takes just as much counseling to deal with that in today's day and age as something like, say, Ashido's quirk."

Izuku had never heard it put like that before. "Okay."

"Now, before I send you off for today, do you have any questions about anything we'll be doing? Any of the tests we'll be running, normal quirk counseling procedures, anything. It's important for you to feel comfortable about this."

Izuku's eyes teared up. This had already been a very emotional day, and he wasn't sure a teacher had ever asked him that and meant it. "Mr. Aizawa," he said, earnestly, "you're the best teacher I've ever had."

"Is that a joke?" asked Aizawa, flatly.

Izuku shook his head, centrifugal force flinging his teardrops away.

"That's messed up, kid. I'm terrible."

"You're the best," protested Izuku.

"I just need you to know how incredibly low that bar is. Your other teachers must have gotten shovels to dig tunnels under it. They must be dancing limbo in hell."

Izuku blinked. He had no idea what that meant. "I think they're all still alive..."

"Not for long," muttered Aizawa.

#bnha #boku no hero academia #danger first #danger first au #fic #fanfic

[dreamsinkandcoffee]

The Avillon Family - Rouin/Lord/Mu Headcanons (Modern Day AU)

@blacketernitystar requests:

Hi fellow loh fan~ if it's not too much to ask can I have some headcanons for Rouin, Lord and Mu acting like siblings?

Have a nice day!

Thank you so much for requesting, I love sibling dynamics! I decided to make it a Modern Day AU because this fandom needs more of them, I hope it doesn’t bother you and it satisfies you nonetheless! c:

Friendly reminder that requests are currently closed!

The Avillon Family - Rouin/Lord/Mu Headcanons (Modern Day AU)

- Rouin is 32, Lord is 22, Mu is 12. They aren’t sure whether the age-gap was planned or not.

- Because their parents have been out of the picture for a while, Rouin is the one providing for the younger siblings - he is lucky enough that he earns well enough.

- Lord studies politics at university and is very active in fights for human rights. If in town there’s a manifestation, chance is they organized it - and if they didn’t, they’ll still be there motivating the crowd with a megaphone! Rouin is proud of his little sibling’s involvement for a better world, but sometimes can’t help but worry they’ll get in trouble.

- Mu is of course in school, but she attends a special institute for gifted children.

- While Rouin earns enough to make them live comfortably, he is very stressed about Lord’s relationship with money - ok, it’s very cute that they shower with gifts their friends, but WHY do they have so many friends?! And why do they need so many gifts?! And WHY does Lord buy those gifts from that weird shop with the weird green-haired lady that seems to raise her prices everytime?!

- Mu is a very good kid, she never complains and never whines - but that doesn’t mean she isn’t spoil rotten. She just needs to ask with those cute eyes of hers to stop at McDonald’s and no matter what, they’ll stop ad McDonald’s. Having donuts for dinner? Sure. Watching “Frozen II” for the third time in a row in a single night? I can’t wait. It’s just impossible to deny her something.

- Rouin sometimes falls asleep on the couch because he is too exhausted from work. It’s always quite a bad idea, because he wakes up with the weight of two quite heavy siblings piled up on him for a nap. He tried to explain that if he is sleeping on the couch it doesn’t mean he is inviting them to lay on him, they always pretend to not understand.

- They have a tiny and fluffy dog whose fur shedding everywhere give Rouin an existential crisis once a week.

- Mu often tags along with Lord when they go out with friends. Surprisingly, Lord’s friends do not mind because she is very smart and cute. Actually, sometimes they are disappointed if Lord doesn’t bring Mu with them.

- Despite having lived on their own for years, they never managed to learn how to cook properly. Their genes are just refractory to the kitchen. They can do basic things, but they depend a lot on frozen food, takeout and the mercy of their friends. Rouin still makes sure they eat healthy. Tries to, at least. It’s hard when Mu is obsessed with sweets and Lord with chicken...

- Rouin brushes daily Mu’s long hair and gives her cute hairstyles.

- On the opposite side of the spectrum, Lord cuts their own hair with random scissors found somewhere in the house without even checking in the mirror and Rouin has to fight physically against them to bring them to a hairdresser.

- Because Rouin is always stressed for a reason or another (he cannot chill, he won’t chill, he refuses to chill), Mu and Lord take turns in giving him shoulder massages.

I hope you like the headcanons! Thanks again for requesting and sorry it took me so long, Tumblr deleted my first draft and I needed a bit to get over it. c:

#rouin (loh) #lord (loh) #mu (loh) #lord of heroes #francis writes #loh

[southeastasianists]

When Youk Chhang started writing letters to Zaha Hadid, it seemed like a quixotic mission. Chhang was beseeching the world’s most celebrated architect to help him build a genocide museum and research center in a small, wounded country. Eleven years later, books full of Dame Hadid’s designs for the center rest in his Phnom Pehn office, like precious secrets. Chhang has made significant strides in his quest, though the most important step remains.

The fact that Chhang made it to this point—that he even is alive—is a triumph. Like many other Cambodians from his generation, he suffered through horrors during the Khmer Rouge regime: He was tortured for picking mushrooms, and watched as his pregnant sister was cut open and killed under the suspicion that she had stolen rice. The teenager escaped to the Thai border in 1982, as fighting continued, then to the Philippines, and eventually the United States. He finally returned to Cambodia in 1992, where he worked as a UN election observer as the nation began to recover from over 20 years of genocide, brutality, and war.

A world away, Hadid was having a career breakthrough. Years after gaining attention in the architectural world for her creative designs, none of which were ever built, the architect finally found clients to realize them. Her first landmark building, an angular concrete fire station later used as an exhibit space, was completed in Germany in 1993, beginning a long run of success.

In 1995, Chhang became the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, or DC-Cam. In his time there, the nonprofit group dedicated to remembrance and reconciliation has GPS-mapped 20,000 mass graves, interviewed 10,000 victims and perpetrators, and collected more than a million documents about the genocide. DC-Cam’s work provided evidence for Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunals and helped Cambodia acknowledge the trauma it suffered through.

DC-Cam also created plans for a genocide center, dubbed the Sleuk Rith Institute, that would combine a museum, policy center, and school. The effort is as much about the future as the past. “It should be a place to heal, a place to commemorate. A beautiful place to look forward. We will turn a horrible past into a better future,” Chhang says. He wanted to break from the usual pattern of big genocide memorials around the world: depressing, heavy, and overwhelmingly male, both in terms of their sensibilities and who conceived them.

Chhang long dreamed of approaching Hadid to design Sleuk Rith, which means “the power of leaves,” referring to religious texts written on palm leaves, many of which were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. Hadid had a record of making celebrated modern buildings with inventive, dramatic curves, and Chhang saw that as a way to break away from the sharp, masculine angles and doleful sensibility of many museums related to acts of genocide around the world. (When told that someone liked the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., its designer, James Ingo Freed, was quoted in The New York Times saying, “You’re not supposed to like things like that. So I say: ‘Oh, yes, you did see it? Too bad for you, it was such an awful experience.’”) Hadid was born and raised in Iraq, and Chhang thought might help her understand Cambodia's situation, he says.

She also happened, by then, to be one of the most famous architects alive.

So Chhang, like a starry-eyed fan, began writing letters to the London office of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), asking if she would consider designing the institute. The firm saw requests from people around the world and could only accept a tiny number of them, so Chhang turned up the charm. “I made her a birthday card with a picture of Angkor Wat. I sent her folktales from Cambodia and a story I heard from a woman in a small village,” he says. He implored her secretary to make sure his letters found their way to Hadid personally.

Eventually the architect invited Chhang to the firm’s London studio. He flew there by himself, stayed with a friend to save money, and met with Hadid and about 15 other architects. Impressed at the pitch, the firm accepted the project and sent a team to Cambodia to learn about the country to inform their work.

In 2014, after two years of work, the firm unveiled a design based on five intersecting “volumes,” or sections, each dedicated to one main function: a library holding DC-Cam’s documents, a graduate school on genocide and human rights, a research center to influence policy and discourse, a media center, and an auditorium. The primary building material is wood, which helps distinguish it from similar sites, usually made from stone, metal, and glass. “There was a deliberate intention not to follow a typical path of memorial architecture as it’s normally or historically expressed—the heavy austere monumentality that’s in some ways depressing,” says Craig Kiner, a senior associate at ZHA who helped lead the design process. “It’s much more light and uplifting and delicate, which is something we talked about at great length with Youk and the team. It represents tranquility and hope and healing—for everyone in Cambodia but also for everyone who visits the building,” he says.

Unfortunately, Hadid herself will never get to see the building realized. She died of a heart attack in 2016, leaving a grand legacy and a number of designs that, like the Sleuk Rith Institute, are yet to be completed.

DC-Cam is now trying to turn the striking plans into a real place. Raising money for construction is a central need, but it is one that Chhang reframes. “It’s not a question of cost. It’s a question of the principle of engagement. We want it to be for victims and survivors. They [developers] want it to be a business.” Chhang says that the developers he’s negotiating with want to put Sleuk Rith on a small property, but Chhang insists that it needs about 15 acres, so it has a peaceful environment. “I think it needs a landscape. For them a landscape is a waste of villas.”

It would be easy enough to find space for the institute in the countryside, but Chhang insists on it being in Phnom Penh, close to the country’s political center, accessible to everyone from Khmer Rouge victims to Cambodian officials to international leaders and tourists. Finding a big-enough plot within the city limits is an as-yet-unmet challenge. As for whether the institute will look suitably dignified in a bustling city going through an often chaotic development boom, Chhang is unworried. “When you are beautiful, it doesn’t matter what you wear,” he says. “I like competition. I’d like to see a nearby casino compete with Zaha’s design. Let’s see who’s the winner. I have complete trust over Zaha’s design.”

Chhang says he’s confident DC-Cam will reach an agreement with developers and funders and get the center built, possibly one “volume” at a time. “People have talked about Sleuk Rith costing $55 million or $65 million. But there were two million lives lost. The cost is almost nothing,” he says. Projects like this often take a decade or so, he says, and DC-Cam has put six years into realizing Sleuk Rith, though he declines to adopt a specific timeline. “We work on this every day. I work on the costs every day,” he says.

Kiner says ZHA is working with DC-Cam to smooth the building process. “It’s something that we’re very committed to delivering,” he says.

Though Hadid’s name and reputation attract a lot of interest from developers and the public, not everyone appreciates the center’s approach. “Like almost every project in Phnom Penh, these images simulate that the building rises majestically from the lower structures around, embedded in a lot of greenery,” says Moritz Henning, a Berlin-based architect who studies Cambodian postcolonial architecture and published a guide to Phnom Penh architecture last year. “Why does every project have to be unique, stand out from its surroundings, or better: rise above its surroundings?” he wrote in an email.

“For me, the architecture refers much more to religious buildings, to Gothic cathedrals (and in this respect it fits, people there also wanted to make people small) than to Cambodian architecture,” he says. “Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not against the Sleuk Rith Institute. I think it would be great to have a place like this in Phnom Penh. But I’m very skeptical if this is the right way to go.”

Chhang sees the design-forward but still monumental approach as a way to draw the world’s attention to Cambodia and, likewise, connect the country with humanity as a whole. “The genocide center isn’t just about Cambodia. It’s about Armenia, Bosnia, Burma. That’s why I chose contemporary design, why I chose Zaha—to bring Cambodia out into the globe,” he says. “In Cambodia, there were lots of young girls like Anne Frank. There’s a lot of ways you can see the similarity. Why? Because we are all human beings.”

#Southeast Asia #Cambodia #Architecture

[thedeaditeslayer]

In Conversation with Bruce Campbell.

Below is a short interview with Bruce Campbell that mostly covers The Evil Dead.

The film tells the story of five friends who take a vacation to an isolated cabin in the woods, and find themselves besieged by demonic forces after playing a tape recording of incantations. One by one they are possessed, and Ash (Campbell) as the last man standing, must survive the gruesome mayhem that upset British conservatism and saw the film labelled as a notorious ‘video nasty.’

Campbell spoke about the slow burn success of the movie, the moral ambiguity of the American audience, and how horror shouldn’t be something you’d hear on the six o’clock news

FRIGHTFEST: What were your expectations for EVIL DEAD in the beginning, and could you have anticipated its eventual success?

BRUCE CAMPBELL: Let’s not forget the time frame – its success was a very slow evolution. It took longer to raise the money than we had intended. We went to a different state to film it thinking it was going to be warmer, when in fact Tennessee had one of its coldest winters, and the state we fled, Michigan, had one of its mildest. So right from the start it was all very troubled.

It took about three years to complete the movie and we could not even find a US distributor. We finally got a UK company to look at it, Palace Pictures, and they finally distributed it. We were not even successful in our own country first, which was a big shock to us. It had to happen in another country first and then New Line Cinema came on board after seeing the success in Europe.

The whole thing was very strange, long and drawn out. I think the rights from EVIL DEAD 2, which was seven years later was when we finally got the investors to break even. So it took a long time for EVIL DEAD to be successful - it was a slow-motion success.

FF: From the responses to the film in the UK and Europe compared to America, is there a difference between these audiences?

BC: Well cynically, one would say in the UK they were more at the centre of the fall of civilisation, so they would appreciate chaos and nightmarish imagery. So that would be one theory for it. I think European audiences are more forgiving, whereas American audiences are a little more morally ambiguous. European girls don’t have the moral ambiguousness about sleeping with some dude – like it’s not thought of as being slutty. If you want to sleep with a guy you sleep with him. In the States, it’s this whole dance of should I, or shouldn’t I? Is it right, is it wrong? It’s the same thing in the States of, “Well that woman’s being violated by a vine in the woods, should I leave, should I stay?” Whereas in the UK it was just an outrageous scene and they probably laughed their asses off. So it’s weird, and it’s different civilisations is really what it is.

FF: When you think about THE EVIL DEAD, do you remember moments from the film or do you recall the experiences behind the scenes?

BC: …All my memories are of the experience of filming it, and then the experience of seeing the finished film in a theatre for the first time. You asked a few questions ago what did you hope to get out of it? We just wanted to make a finished movie, and when the film was completed, it was booked into my childhood theatre where I went to see basically every movie from the 70s.

I saw it on a Saturday matinee and there were only about 30 people in the audience, but I thought, ‘Okay, this is it. We did it. We’re playing our movie on our hometown screen.’ The funny thing is everything was gravy afterwards. The goal was could we figure out a way to get our movie into this professional theatre with Hollywood movies, and that was the fun part. So our definition of success might be different than other people’s, and where a big box office would be definition for some movies, for us it was just the fact we pulled it off.

FF: After sitting there in your local theatre, there was then the moment of thinking about what’s next?

BC: Obviously the first EVIL DEAD allowed us to make another movie, and that was the key thing too. We were very concerned about failing with our first movie, and it was one of the reasons why we made a genre movie in the first place. Most of our amateur movies in high school were not horror movies. Most were action or comedy, occasionally a drama, but mostly they were just silly movies, and so we were concerned about our investors getting their money back. We thought, ‘Well let’s pick a genre, let’s pick horror because it’s cheap, you don’t need any name actors and they can be very successful.’

One of the reasons why it was a horror film in the first place, was not because any of us were great horror aficionados. I was a Three Stooges fan, Sam was a big fan of the Marx Brothers, and I don’t think Rob Tapert was into horror of any kind. It was an economic choice

FF: I recall Quentin Tarantino saying that if you want to write books, read books, and if you want to make films, watch films. But could we argue that there are benefits to being less schooled, that allows for a different approach?

BC: …Very often a filmmaker’s first movie is their best because it’s all hands on deck. They go for broke, they don’t know where the limit is and when they should say, “no.” As a result it can sometimes be very excessive and masturbatory, but I thought Sam did an amazing job with his very first movie.

There’s a sequence in there where Ash is going crazy, and Sam stayed up all night doing storyboards for this sequence where the camera was tilted at a 45 degree dutch angle for every shot. I remember at the time we had discussions about whether that was going to be visually acceptable – could the audience even watch what was happening because it was such an extreme way to film. Sam was saying, “Ash is going crazy, the audience should be going crazy too.” It’s actually one of the best sequences of the movie, and it’s one of the most contemporary sequences because it was ahead of its time.

FF: Ideally, you want the film to endure and to engage with a future audience, and to not be limited to the period in which it’s made. Would you agree with this sentiment?

BC: I think nobody knows until the film is out. In my experience a film that is easy to make, is usually hard to watch. And usually films that are very hard to make, are much easier to watch. There’s just something about it when you know that the filmmakers and the actors have really sweated for a project - generally it tends to be better. If you have enough time to sit around telling movie stories between shots, I don’t think you’re working hard enough.

FF: In recent years we’ve seen torture porn and the celebration of violence to disgust rather than to provoke fear. How do you think THE EVIL DEAD fits into a person’s concept of horror who is watching it for the first time in 2020, compared to the context of horror for the 80s audience?

BC: Horror always changes and maybe it’s generational. It used to be the slasher movie, which was some crazy guy released from an institution and with an axe type concept. Then torture porn came in for a while and I’m very happy to see that go, only because it doesn’t celebrate the skill of filmmaking. You put a guy’s dick in a vice and poke it with a stick for half an hour, that’s not really horror. It’s just something you might hear on the six o’clock news.

The real success of a horror movie is getting someone to feel the atmosphere, to feel dread and to actually jump out of their seat. To build to a climatic scare is something that takes an incredible amount of skill between the filmmakers and the actors, and everyone involved. I’m just a big fan of if you’re going to do a horror movie, then it should be scary, but there’s a lot of different ways that something can be scary.

THE SIXTH SENSE I feel is a very disturbing movie, but there’s very little blood and violence in the whole thing. The movie THE TENENT, which is one of my favourite horror movies by [Roman] Polanski, it’s all mental. It’s actually making you think you’re going crazy, and that’s a skill. I’m a big fan of any horror that takes skill.

FF: I always admired that beyond the blood and the violence, it feels like you’re trapped, and you’re slowing succumbing to the oppressive claustrophobia, the gruelling psychological and emotional experience.

BC: The situation was real enough that it permeated into all of us. It was a real abandoned cabin down about a half a mile of road in the middle of nowhere. There was no electricity and no running water. It actually had some creepy history - a woman had fled there during a lightning storm, when someone was murdered at the cabin. So it all helped us to feel the reality.

We were only supposed to film for six weeks and we filmed for twelve. As the film dragged on, people were injured, they left, equipment broke, and it all added up and started to feel real after a while [laughs].

It permeated the movie because back in those days, if Ash hears a sound and swings his shotgun and blows out a window, that’s what you did. You used a real shotgun and you just blew out the window. We just did stuff viscerally back then, but with ASH VS EVIL DEAD, it’s all digital at that point. There’s no real shotgun show, no smoke, that’s digital too, there’s no flash, that’s added later. So I’m glad we made at least one of these movies completely analogue, and just about as real as you’re going to get.

#Bruce Campbell #Fright Fest #interview #Evil Dead #The Evil Dead

[ofthomas]

⌠ GIANCARLO COMMARE, 23, CIS MALE, HE/HIM ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, THOMAS “TOMMY” BLACK! according to their records, they’re a THIRD year, specializing in PROTECTION & ENFORCEMENT + AWARENESS TRAINING, BREATH CONTROL HAND TO HAND COMBAT; and they DID go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of (disheveled brunette curls, the soft strum of an acoustic guitar, cigarette smoke clung to a white t-shirt, and a serious, unwavering gaze). when it’s the (pisces)’s birthday on 3/08/97, they always request their PASTA BOLOGNESE from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation. ⌿ deanna, 25, she/her, est ⍀

NAME: Thomas Edward Black

KNOWN AS: Tommy

BIRTHDATE:  March 8, 1997

ASTROLOGY:  Pisces sun / Pisces moon / Virgo rising

HOMETOWN: London, England

GENDER:  Cis male  ( he/him )

SEXUAL ORIENTATION:  Pansexual

HEIGHT:  6'1"

HAIR COLOR:  Brown

EYE COLOR:  Brown

TATTOOS:  Hummingbird on his forearm

KNOWN LANGUAGES:  English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic 

IMMEDIATE FAMILY.

Robert Black: father, former MI5 agent, now mercenary 

George Eaton: father, owner of Quantum Tech

Charles Eaton: brother  ( adopted )

FALL ‘20 SCHEDULE.

PE 301: The Power of Deescalation 

GEN 103: Know Your Treaties

AT 301: Disarming the Enemy 

TE 202: Advanced Hand-to-Hand

AE 101: What is Encryption?

CP 202: Covert Ops in the Public Eye

ABOUT.

Tommy is one of two adopted sons of two Blackthorne alums and spy legacies who fell in love, Robert Black & George Eaton. To understand Tommy is to understand his dads:

The Eaton family is an American legacy family, though by the time Tommy and his brother are adopted, George Eaton has moved out of the spy world and instead uses his knowledge of technology to start a software development company and AIs. They had only adopted two kids because George had reached a breakthrough in his company -- one of his employees had created an AI that they had been working towards -- but not long afterwards the AI work  ( and the employee who created it )  went missing. After this, his company slowly starts a downwards spiral, and it financially affects the Black-Eaton family badly. 

The missing employee eventually is found and killed by Robert so they can steal back the software, but it ends up being the wrong software they had stolen back. As far as they’re concerned, the software died with the employee  ( Ophelia’s mom ) .  

Robert Black’s grandfather was a former Chief of Intelligence at MI5, making the Black family well-known in the UK spy world. After graduating from Blackthorne, he had been able to get his own job at MI5, which was the reason for him and George moving to London together. More to come about him later ! 

Tommy and his brother  ( who aren’t blood relatives, but were adopted together ) ,  are kept in the loop with everything regarding the spy world, because one they too would follow in their fathers’ footsteps and join the spy world. It could’ve easily been a stressful situation to grow up in, but Tommy’s dads have always been kind and he has a positive relationship with them both, so the spy world has been a future that Tommy has always wanted for himself, rather than one his parents are pushing him into.

At the age of eight Tommy gets really sick and nearly doesn’t make it. It’s a miracle that he survives, but the family suddenly have all these bills and doesn’t know how to pay for them. Robert is far too proud to ask his family for money  ( will forever feel on thin ice with them because of his sexuality, which took them a long time to come to terms with ) ,   and George’s company is bleeding money each day, so they’re forced to take matters into his own hands. 

Robert has no choice but to quietly moonlight as a hitman for extra cash.  And the money’s great, at least for a while !   He continues it well after they’ve paid off the bills, though eventually MI5 finds out and immediately fires and blacklists him to work for any other spy agencies. It’s a rough life, and the Black and Eaton families shame them and stop speaking to them for a long time. Tommy, of course, internalizes this as his fault, knowing it only had to be done because he got sick.  While his dads never made him feel like that  ( because I cannot stress enough that he does not have daddy issues okay ) ,  it makes him decide that no matter what, everything he does going forward will be for the sake of his parents.

So he becomes the perfect son, making sure to get the best grades and getting into the best prep school   ( tesch prep )   so he had a smooth acceptance into his higher education goal :   Blackthorne Institute.  Both his fathers had loved it there  ( and not just because they had met there ) ,  so Tommy knows that it’s the place for him.

Despite his better judgment, his dads convince him to take a year off after high school and have some fun before going to Blackthorne  ( gee i wonder why ) .   He spends this time traveling and working odd jobs to save money, and it’s during his travels that he meets a civilian and falls in love. One year turns into two because of this relationship, and he’s so love he’s seriously considering giving up his plans for good, but it’s his brother that is able to talk sense into him and remind him of the life he had left behind.  Tommy, unfortunately, is a wuss and can’t deal with saying goodbye himself, because he knows he doesn’t have it in him to make the right move, so he has his brother be the one to essentially end things with her. What he doesn’t know is that his brother tells the girl Tommy died, haha !

So Tommy and his brother move to America and go to Blackthorne together… and maybe it’s because of all the stories he had heard, or because Tommy WANTS to like it so badly, but he really loves his time there.  Sure, it’s dirtier and not as nice as he had imagined it to be, but he’s surrounded by people in the business that he wants to be in. He’s also quick to realize how much of a mistake taking two years off had been, because it takes him nearly an entire semester to get back to the skill level he had been at previously.  Tommy vows to not let anything else get in the way of his career, at least until he has something to show for himself. 

He had been bitter when Blackthorne closed and he’s still bitter about it now, because number one on his list of goals had always been to graduate from his parents’ alma mater.  So naturally he’s bitter about being at Gallagher, and thinks it’s not as great as Blackthorne, especially after the disaster explosion that was last year. He won’t voice his opinion to just anyone, because he’s not looking to get chewed out, but he’s not a fan.

He’s about as serious as he sounds, personality wise. It takes a lot to make him smile and a lot more to make him laugh, and Tommy is more known for raising his hand in class or outside smoking a cigarette than much else. He’s quiet but not shy, just doesn’t see the point in talking without purpose   ( and hates when people do it themselves ) .  Has his eye on the prize which is a nice job for himself and being successful and making his dads proud. He’s a lil broody and sarcastic, kinda gets mistaken for a bad boy but? He’s not?  He’s a giant fucking nerd thanks.

Also really into music!!! It’s kinda his thing from when he was a kid. He knows how to play piano, guitar, and bass.

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

A bestie!!! 

Other musicians he can jam out with ty

Friends from Blackthorne!!!

Ex-Roommates

Friends in general  (though lbr they’d have to take school seriously and deal with his quiet ass)

Family friends 

People he met while traveling, particularly in Italy and the UK

On-again-off-again hookup

Others in his major

Smoking buddies

People he doesn’t like bc they don’t take their studies seriously

People who don’t like him

Someone have a crush on his brooding ass

Literally anything from his previous year at Gallagher

look here pls

I’m legit blanking but anything pls!!

#gallagher:intro

[aww-writing-no]

For Winterhawk Week, Day 3

Ao3 Link

Bond: 

Clint looked up from the cash register at Strike Bean Delta when he heard the door open and a cacophony of voices filled the small shop. Things had been quiet this morning, but with the new recruits arriving at Camp Lehigh today he hadn’t expected it to stay that way for long. 

Sometimes Clint hated being right. 

A whole pack of rowdy young men in army fatigues jostled for space as they stared at the menu above Clint’s head. He was about to roll his eyes at their ridiculous posturing when he laid eyes on one of them and felt a sharp pang of - something. 

There was nothing particularly remarkable about him. Grey-blue eyes and brown hair cropped army regulation short, he looked the same as half the kids who came through here for training. Yet Clint felt an immediate bond. Not lust. Definitely not lust, but more like… an old, comfortable friendship. Which was ridiculous because they’d never met before. 

When grey-blue eyes came up to the counter to place his order - medium dark-roast with extra room for cream - he paused, hand in the air and blinking slowly as he went to hand Clint his money. He shook his head slightly before asking, “Have we met?” 

Clint took the money and counted back his change before replying, “I don’t think so”. 

He seemed as confused as Clint, but didn’t press it, walking away to let Clint take the next order. On his way out he stuffed a five dollar bill in the tip jar, which seemed to indicate something, though Clint had no idea what it could be. 

Like many of the new recruits, grey-blue eyes became a regular over the next few months. Strike Bean Delta was the closest coffeeshop to the base, and got a steady stream of business from army folk who quickly tired of whatever institutional swill they served in the mess hall. 

With time Clint learned his name was James, but he went by Bucky of all things. He learned that he was eighteen, fresh out of high school, and had enlisted with his best friend Steve. He had big plans for when he got out of the army, most of which involved going to school and getting some kind of advanced science degree. He took his coffee with a frankly obscene amount of cream and sugar, and had a penchant for apricot cheese danishes. 

Basically, he was nothing like Clint. 

Clint took his coffee black, and often straight from the pot when he wasn’t working. He wasn’t a big fan of pastry, possibly because only ate them when they were stale - two days old and unfit to sell to customers, even at a discount. Technically he was supposed to throw them out, but he wasn’t about to go wasting food that was still edible. 

Clint had dropped out of high school at sixteen and immediately started doing whatever it took to keep food on the table. You know, when he managed to find a place that actually had a table. He was living on the street and had started getting into some real shady shit when he’d been approached by a guy who did outreach for a youth shelter. Somehow between Nick and Phil and the other counselors at SHIELD (Shelter for Homeless something or other - Clint could never remember the full name) they managed to help him get his life back on track. They weren’t good tracks. They were rusty and uneven and usually full of giant splinters, but they were his tracks all the same. 

When Bucky told him he’d been assigned to a unit and would be shipping out the next day, Clint told him to stay safe and impulsively scrawled his phone number on the side of Bucky’s cup. Bucky stuffed a twenty dollar bill in the tip jar on his way out. 

Clint got a text from an unfamiliar number a couple weeks later. It had a picture of the most dilapidated coffeemaker Clint had ever seen, and looked like it had been set up on a stack of crates in some kind of tent. The text read “I’d kill for a cold brew right now. -Bucky”.  

Clint laughed and sent back a picture of the fruit danishes in the display case. 

“Fuck, I’d kill for those too,” was the reply. 

They’d been texting on and off for close to a year - mostly idle chatter and pictures of deserts and humvees (Bucky) or coffee and dogs (Clint) - when Clint woke up screaming in the middle of the night, feeling like his arm was on fire. 

“What’s going on with your arm?” Natasha asked him later that day. 

Clint shook out his arm for what felt like the millionth time, wishing the pins and needles feeling would go away. He really didn’t want to drop a pot of hot coffee on himself today. It wouldn’t be the first time, but he tried not to make a habit out of it. “I probably just slept on it wrong,” he told her. 

Weeks later, his arm was still giving him problems. 

“Go see a doctor; you probably have a pinched nerve,” Natasha told him. 

“A doctor? Who can afford that?” he asked. Health insurance was for people with Real Jobs. He worked at a coffee shop. Besides, he was more worried about the fact he’d sent Bucky a picture of the cutest samoyed he’d ever seen and Bucky still hadn’t responded. One time he’d sent back a picture of one of the bomb sniffer dogs, and Clint still wasn’t over the cuteness of the german shepherd in its little vest and goggles. Clint wasn’t too proud to admit he was hoping for a reprise. 

When Bucky stepped into Strike Bean Delta almost six months later, Clint wouldn’t have recognised him if he hadn’t felt that sharp pang of something when he walked in the door. 

Bucky was wearing civvies, long hair tied up in a messy half-bun, and a lot more shadows under his eyes than when he’d left. Most notably, though, was the distinct lack of a left arm. 

Clint’s own arm went numb at the sight, and the blender he was holding fell to the ground with a loud crash. Strawberry-banana smoothie coated his shoes and oozed slowly across the floor. 

“Aww, smoothie, no,” he whined, and a wet towel hit him in the face, courtesy of Natasha. 

Cleaning up the smoothie gave him plenty of time to try to sort through his feelings, because he was having a lot of them. Like, a LOT of them. By the time he finished cleaning up his mess, his feelings still weren’t sorted, but Bucky was sitting awkwardly at one of the tables with a coffee in front of him. 

“Talk to him,” Natasha said, forcing a plate with an apricot cheese danish into his hands. “Don’t drop it,” she added a second later. 

“But Nat,” he whined, sneaking a glance at Bucky who was staring into his coffee like it held the secrets of the universe. 

“Talk. To. Him,” she repeated, turning Clint around by the shoulders and giving him a literal shove in the right direction. 

“Uhh, I’m glad you’re back,” Clint said, sliding the plate in front of Bucky and taking the seat across from him. He nodded at the missing arm. “I’m guessing that’s why I stopped getting pictures of cute dogs in uniform?” 

Bucky looked surprised, then let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Doctors tend to frown on having animals in the ICU,” he said. “Didn’t think you’d be interested in pictures of cups of jello.” 

Clint smiled, nervousness relaxing into a feeling of ease he seldom felt with other people. He rubbed his left arm unconsciously, telling Bucky, “You’d be surprised.” 

That got another laugh out of him and Bucky’s shoulders relaxed as he reached over to take a bite out of the danish. “Oh man, I’ve wanted this for so long” he said, tipping his head back and closing his eyes briefly. “You do not know how many nights I dreamed about coming back here just to eat one of these things.” 

Clint remembered all the times he’d had an unexpected pastry craving over the past few months and thought that maybe he did. 

“Who are you?” he asked abruptly. As soon as the words left his mouth Clint realized how crazy he must sound, but judging by the look Bucky leveled at him, he knew exactly what Clint was asking. 

Bucky took another bite out of the danish and chewed slowly, looking Clint over as if he didn’t know quite what to do with him. “I suppose I could ask you the same question,” he drawled as he finished chewing. “Who’s the mysterious barista that keeps showing up in my dreams?” 

“You dream about me?” Clint asked. 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

Clint shook his head. “No, not really. I just get these… I dunno, feelings? I don’t know how to explain it. I’m pretty sure I felt when you lost your arm.” 

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Bucky said, clearly startled. “That’s- that’s so messed up. I’m really sorry.” 

“Don’t be,” Clint said with a shrug. It wasn’t like he had any control over it - like either of them had any control over whatever the heck this was. “Still doesn’t answer my question, though.” 

“Last week I dreamt you lost your keys. You thought you’d dropped them on the subway and you had to have the neighbor let you in,” he told Clint, eyes seemingly focused somewhere past Clint’s left ear. “Last month I dreamt you were at a gun range, except you were hitting the targets using a bow and arrows. Last year when I was deployed I dreamt about you making coffee more times than I could count. One time you were making it while wearing a crocodile costume. I thought I was just missing home, but now? I don’t know.” 

Clint put his head in his hands as Bucky continued to stare off into space. He should probably be getting back to work soon, but this was too weird for words. He’d definitely done all of those things in real life. “It wasn’t a crocodile costume,” he said finally, at a loss for anything better to say. “It was Abigail the Alligator, the mascot for the sporting goods shop I buy my arrows from. They booked a coffee service for a special event, and they offered me a bonus for wearing the costume.”

Bond, Part II: Here

#Hawkeye #Coffeeshop AU #winterhawkweek #winterhawkweek2019

[simonbexley]

[ JACOB ELORDI, 21, CIS MALE, HE/HIM ] welcome to the du pont institute for the young & gifted, [ SIMON BEXLEY ]. you have been accepted as a [ REGULAR ] student from [ USA ], going into your [ SENIOR YEAR ] and majoring in [ PRE-LAW ]. your peers at the institute say that you are [ ALLURING & CLEVER ], but being [ DESTRUCTIVE & DEVIOUS ] may be the reason why the police are asking about you. did you think they wouldn’t find out that you were michael’s [ COMPETITIVE RIVAL ]? 

               yoo, i’d do it for rue !! but anyways hello hello, i’m nikki && pumped to be here <3. im shit with discord gcs but slightly better with dms/ims, so hmu on there or in the ims for plots anytime and i promise ?? to love you a lot ?? <3. i also apologize for him in advance cause he’s not even recyclable he’s just trash so ://

bio of sorts✌️

Simon was born into an affluent family — mother a judge while his father was the CEO of a reputable company. His parents weren’t exactly as happy as they seemed, for they were never in love to begin with. Raised in two families of immense power, their marriage was more on of a power, big dick energy, move to show the rest of the world. From what little Simon’s mother speaks of his father, Simon can assume it only hit him how real this whole fake life was once he was born, which is when good ol’ daddy ran off to do god knows what while raised by his mother in Washington DC. He has no memories of his father ; Simon only knows that every few weeks they get a check in the mail for hella money, so between both his parents they lived an extremely lavish lifestyle ( possible wc for fraternal twins separated when his dad left or half siblings ?? idk fam let a gal know <3 ). However to this day Simon’s always had this idea that his dad has to be better, wherever he is.

His mother worked her way up from being a lawyer, to a judge, and now she’s a super well known && liked politician. Simon however is one of the few who doesn’t like his mom, mainly because he sees how she really is: controlling, a perfectionist, && fake™ as fuck, as he’d like to put oh so bluntly. He hates how she wants everything to seem like it’s all perfect. But, that coming from his is just a joke™ because he’s extremely similar to his mother, dare you say he’s a hypocrite ?? ( big yes in the chat ). In his younger years he did as he was told ; going to all the functions, behaving accordingly. But as his annoyance, anger, and his own damaging thoughts only felt more terrorizing he started to do things his way. AKA causing a scene && getting a bad name with the press, mostly to just fuck with his mother and if there is a father figure out there watching, perhaps it’d get his attention to.

During high school, as another way to spite his mother he started to let his grades slip, despite him being more than capable of excelling his his classes. Tired of his antics, and figuring it was actually best for her career if he wasn’t around despite trying to create a happy family image, by the power of money she basically forced him to attend a college that was just far enough to be out of wey, but not far enough where she couldn’t check in monitor him. Simon of course was more than happy to do so, and what better place to go then one of the top schools ?? So she kinda donated heavily to get him here. In turn, Simon much prefers it here, since can relax (simon relaxing ?? lol what a joke) ; his grades have also improved since he’s studying things he actually cares about, and that extremely ambitious drive of his that was once overshadowed by the need to piss off his mother, has finally returned.

PERSONALITY (aka fuck im getting too lazy for paragraphs lordt)

definitely likes to take on the facade of not giving a fuck, but boy does he have ?? so many fucks to give. also takes on a facade of being super chill, charming, a sometimes likable dude really but like ... nahh

if anything he uses that to lure people in enough not to feel so fucking lonely, but also to get information from them and let them feel like they can trust him ?? because when they fuck him over, as he believes most people will, he can use that info to make sure he hurts them worse ... bless ://

so, as someone who isn’t a fan of himself or most, he tends to be rather destructive  /  self-destructive. anything good happens ?? he tends to fuck it up … sometimes on purpose, other times on accident.

though mainly he’s big up on planning, he’s all about the little details and the big picture ; so tends to have a plan for mostly everything and then gets mad when people don’t to as he expects / act how he wants them to ... :)

if he doesn’t like you he’ll definitely go out of his way to make your life hell wow we hate. and even if he likes you, he’ll probably still make your life hell because ?? it’s just funny right, like super hilarious.

fear of being alone ?? correct. still pushes everyone away ?? also correct. 

loves sports,the idea of perfectionism goes to his health too, so its one of the few things he can rely on and know he’s good at. at 6′5″ he’s one of the captains (centre position) of the basketball team and is damn good at it. 

also rich af and isn’t afraid to flaunt it hate him pls && thanks.

and for someone who despises his mother so much he’s literally her replica, even with his degree in pre-law so like ... good job bro, good job

wanted connections

a bro skwad (probably v v surface level but ya gotta have some bros), best friend (someone to actually trust ?? bLESS up), enemies/frenemies (please, give me all of them xoxo), high school exes (lbh none would end well??), fwb/hook-ups/revenge hook-ups (when shit gets rocky with the gal, which it usually is bless them; also big up on anyone who’s ever hooked up with Michael okay? okay), roommate, workout buddy, basketball teammates, debate team peeps, unlikely friends, always getting into shit friends, etc etc <3.

me: im not gonna ramble also me: wrote all this ... i played myself

#dupont.intro #( * failing pile of garbage !! ) — about. #this took so long bc the new euphoria score just ?? SLAPS #so i'll have ricky's intro up when i get off work late tonight sigh pray for me

[half-bakedboy]

To follow up my last prompt where Lorenzo goes to Magnus for advice, can you write a oneshot where he exposes it to Andrew? 💗 P.S I check your AO3 account constantly to see if you ever write any Reyhill. They are a drug for me.

Leave Your Mark

Read on AO3

When Andrew’s phone chimed a few minutes before his shift was over at the Institute, he instantly knew who the message was from. Lorenzo was nothing if not attentive to Andrew’s whereabouts throughout the day. It was something Andrew had taken a bit to get used to after he’d gotten serious with the other man. Lorenzo would send him messages right before his shift, telling him to stay safe. He’d get messages throughout the day, random thoughts the other man had or complaints about a client. They always left a smile on Andrew’s face. Before the end of shift, Lorenzo would let him know when he was going to be home so that Andrew could make his way over to his apartment, which had been routine at this point in their relationship. This day was no different.

After introducing himself at the wedding, Andrew learned many things about Lorenzo. The cute man from across the aisle turned out to be a fantastic dancer. On top of that, he was great with kids. The fact that he was a warlock just made him more interesting to the shadowhunter. It was popular belief after his less-than-friendly reaction to Magnus living at the Institute, that Andrew wasn’t a fan of downworlders but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. While he didn’t think he’d ever feel the way he did for a warlock, he didn’t ever discount the way that love worked. He was in love with a warlock. He was in love with Lorenzo. And all he wanted to do after a hard day at the Institute was cuddle up on the couch at his boyfriend’s apartment and listen to the record player Lorenzo rarely ever turned off.

Andrew stepped through the front doors of Lorenzo’s building, feeling the wards accepting his presence. He could feel the cool touch of Lorenzo’s magic assessing him before the warmth of the apartment hallway engulfed him once more. He knocked on the front door twice then paused, knocking once more. They’d made up this knock as a joke when Andrew first starting coming to Lorenzo’s apartment. If he knocked three times then paused then once, Lorenzo knew he was here for shadowhunter business. It made things a bit fun and the routine stuck with them.

“Lo?” Andrew shouted through the apartment. The lack of music playing from the record player surprised him, but not as much as the swearing coming from Lorenzo’s apothecary. Since Andrew knew better than to interrupt, he slid off his jacket and shoes, taking it upon himself to throw his favorite record in the player. The slow rhythm of “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” filled the room as Andrew lowered himself on the couch, his head resting on the pillow. He didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until he felt a soft kiss to his forehead. A soft smile found its way to his lips as his eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the dim lighting. When he saw Lorenzo leaning over him, he smiled wider, reaching a hand out to run his fingers along his boyfriend’s cheek.

“Rough day?” Lorenzo asked, picking up Andrew’s legs and taking their spot on the couch. He plopped them back down, lightly massaging the soles of Andrew’s feet earning a soft groan from the other man. Andrew nodded slowly, stretching his arms over his head and a yawn ripped from his lips.

“Normal day. Isabelle is kicking our asses lately. We all thought Alec was a handful as Head but Izzy is giving him a run for his money.” Andrew sighed, covering his face with his hands as he felt his body relaxing into Lorenzo’s touch. He removed his hands to place them on the back of his head, lifting it up so he could connect eyes with his boyfriend. “But, I’m here. You said you wanted to have a special night, so I’m wide awake and ready for anything.” Lorenzo laughed at the implications of his words, raising his eyebrows at the other man. Andrew just wiggled his in return, sitting up so he could press a small kiss to Lorenzo’s lips.

“I actually wanted to… Well… I went to Alicante today.” Andrew tilted his head in interest, his eyes widening only slightly. He knew that Lorenzo contacted Magnus every once in a while, but there wasn’t an impending disaster he knew about that constituted a visit. He could sense the nervousness radiating from his partner from the way he was wringing his hands and how he apparently found a very interesting spot on the coffee table.

“Hey, is everything okay? A visit to the High Warlock of Alicante is a pretty big deal.” Lorenzo nodded, forcing his hands apart and his eyes to lock on Andrew’s.

“A visit to the High Warlock, yes. But I was visiting Magnus. As a… friend?” The words came out as a question and Andrew chuckled a bit, inching just a little closer to his boyfriend.

“And why were you visiting your friend?” Andrew inquired, suddenly feeling like Lorenzo’s nervousness was burrowing itself into his body. He grabbed Lorenzo’s hands which felt a bit different than they had a few minutes prior. When Lorenzo looked down, Andrew followed his gaze and his eyes caught a glimpse at his boyfriend’s warlock mark. He gasped, taken aback at the trust Lorenzo had just imparted in him. He ran his fingers lightly over the scales that replaced Lorenzo’s skin, his fingers brushing the back of his hands and up his arms.

Without meaning to, a bubble of laughter escaped from Andrew’s lips. Andrew’s laughter usually had Lorenzo giggling along, but this time his heart broke at the sound. The instant Andrew saw the hurt on Lorenzo’s face, he let go of the other man’s hands to cover his mouth. The laughter kept falling out and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“I should have known this was a bad idea.” Lorenzo attempted to glamour his scales once more, but the agony rushing through his body was enough to make him lose control. “That you were just another shadowhunter who could never accept a vile warlock like me.” Andrew shook his head roughly as Lorenzo stood up, his magic shooting out and cracking the frame of one of his paintings. Andrew winced, an action that did not go unnoticed by Lorenzo. “Now you’re scared of me? Give me some credit, Andrew. I’d never hurt someone I love even if they have hurt me.” Andrew stood up, throwing caution to the wind as he grabbed his boyfriend’s hand. The cool magic instantly calming at Andrew’s touch.

“Lorenzo, I have to explain!” Before he could say another word, Lorenzo was attempting to pull his hand away. Andrew sighed heavily, drawing Lorenzo into his arms and taking his face in his hands. “You were a chameleon!” The warlock’s magic immediately ceased all movement, a look of mortification crossing Lorenzo’s face.

“I… Who told you that?” Lorenzo snapped, eyes widening as an amused smile found its way back to Andrew’s lips.

“The King of Edom and his warlock son turned the High Warlock of Brooklyn into a chameleon and you thought the Head of Security of the New York Institute wouldn’t hear about it?” Lorenzo sighed, looking down at their feet. Andrew stroked his thumbs across Lorenzo’s cheeks, still peppered with scales. He took a moment to absorb the new sensation across his fingertips, his eyes scanning over every inch of exposed skin.

Lorenzo looked up and asked with a slight bitterness to his tone, “Are you going to explain the laughter now that I’m calm.” Andrew chuckled, tilting his head at his boyfriend.

“Asmodeus turned you into a chameleon and your warlock mark is scales. You have to see the humor in that… Did he do that on purpose? Or was is just coincidence?” Andrew let out a grunt as Lorenzo shoved his shoulder, turning quickly away from his boyfriend. Andrew promptly placed himself back in front of Lorenzo, noting the fact his glamour was back up. He sighed, holding onto Lorenzo’s shoulders tightly.

“Maybe you should go, Andrew…” The words sounded too rigid to Andrew, so he leaned in and place his forehead on Lorenzo’s. He felt his boyfriend’s shoulders relax at the new connection and took a deep breath, trying to think of the right words to say.

“Ren, I don’t care what your warlock mark is. I didn’t fall in love with you without knowing we were going to have our differences.” Lorenzo peeked back up to meet Andrew’s eyes, a small smile crossing his lips at the love he saw in them. Andrew smiled back, placing a soft kiss on Lorenzo’s lips. “Show me them again.” Without hesitation, Lorenzo dropped his glamour, his yellow toned scales shining through.

Andrew took a step back to absorb the sight before him. He’d known from his studies as a shadowhunter and from Alec that warlock marks were easily hidden and not often shown except to those a warlock trusted. He couldn’t believe that he had gained that much trust from Lorenzo. He gazed over every inch of exposed skin, yearning to reach out and touch. As his hands made movements to do so, he paused, looking up at Lorenzo for confirmation. Lorenzo nodded his head, his heart bursting a little bit more at the silent question. Andrew stroked his fingertips over the smooth scales located on the back of Lorenzo’s hands, gasping at the new sensation. He slowly brought Lorenzo’s hand up to place it on his face, taking a small step closer. Andrew closed his eyes, letting Lorenzo’s fingers stroke down his cheek to cup his jaw.

Before he could open his eyes, Lorenzo slid a hand to the back of his neck and pulled him in for a passionate kiss. This one was like no other to Andrew. He felt like he was kissing Lorenzo for the first time. This was the real Lorenzo. This was all of Lorenzo, warlock mark and all. He vaguely registered the new feeling of scaled lips against his before Lorenzo’s tongue slid across his own. A small moan left Andrew’s lips as he wrapped his arms more securely around his boyfriend’s waist. He pulled away for a moment, his eyes opening to meet Lorenzo’s.

“So… These scales. Are they all over your body?” Andrew asked, tilting his head to the side as Lorenzo kissed his way down his neck. Lorenzo chuckled, nipping at Andrew’s ear lightly before whispering huskily.

“Why don’t you find out?”

#i really hope you enjoy this as much as i do #thank you so much for filling my ask with reyhill prompts #i love each and every one of them #reyhill #underrey #lorenzo rey #andrew underhill #underhill #shadowhunters #reyhill fic #my writing

[dbhilluminate]

DBHI: Redemption- "The Open Door", pt. 1

ARE YOU A FAN OF DETROIT? DO YOU LIKE GAY SHIPS AND COMPLICATED, LOVEABLE BOYS?? Then please keep up with our fic, you’ll love it, I promise!

Co-authored by grayorca15

Characters: Trevor Langley, Dennis Lenore, Nick Lenore, Dahlia Fleur, Rhea Fleur, Dylan Fleur, Ethan Fleur, Isaiah Fleur (mentions of Richard Fleur, Ophelia Fleur, Hank Anderson, Vivienne Lenore-Anderson, Zach, Sarah Word Count: 7,982

No matter how far you think you've fallen, there's always time to find your way back to yourself- and if you leave yourself open to change, sometimes what you need is right through the next door.

• Archive link • Chapter Index • • Related Works • Characters •

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July 4th, 2041 - 5:34 PM

For all intents and purposes, it was his first time in a suit in a while. 

Having taken virtually nothing of his old life with him when Archangel brought him to Detroit, he’d had nothing but the clothes on his back, which he’d thrown away as soon as he got the chance. Understanding of why, Detective Lenore had offered up one of his older suits (among other, less frequently worn items in his wardrobe) in sympathy. Not since Boston had he been in a dress jacket, loafers, and chinos- only this time, there was no watch or tie, no phone crammed into his pocket, only the one item he typically spent his nights in the company of anyway. 

It was a good thing he and Dennis were virtually the same size, even if the former had a stockier build. 

“Kid, it ain’t Homecoming, now come on. You look fine.” 

Though his tone was one of affectionate gruffness, which he treated eighty percent of those he knew with on a daily basis, now that they had actually arrived at the time to put the hand-me-downs to use, it seemed Lenore’s generosity had been left at the curb. Considering how they had met, Trevor was happy to be counted as one of those in said majority- what side he had seen and heard about when Dennis got truly angry, he wasn’t in any hurry to experience that for himself. 

Not that having to wait a few minutes longer than anticipated would warrant a baton to the teeth. 

He flicked the light off and locked up his apartment, then followed him down the hallway, fidgeting all the way with the edges of his sleeves, trying to get the just-too-large sleeve cuffs to sit comfortably in the cuffs of the blazer. 

“It’s only a dinner, not your funeral,” Dennis scoffed, eyeing him top to bottom. “I mean- points for wanting to look nice, first time meetin’ the family and all, but you’ll be wishing you had picked somethin’ more casual before the night’s over.”

“But it is just that, the first time,” Trev pointed out as they found the central stairwell and descended. “Aren’t you supposed to- look good?”

“Looks aren’t everything,” he sighed, passing the cubicle of dormitory mailboxes at the foot of the stairs, then came to a stop. 

Uncertainly, his intended guest did the same next to him, belatedly folding his hands behind his back. Their eyes met. With his aqua blue irises, red hair and bold, expressive eyebrows, it didn’t take much for Lenore to pull off maximum exasperation with minimal effort.

“I know you spend your days shut up in here between classes. But do you think, for one night, you can try to relax? I wouldn’t bring you along if I didn’t think you could handle it.”

Trev smiled, albeit uneasily. It was a vote of confidence, however indirect, the only kind he seemed to be catching from anyone these days. Though training to become an Archangel Officer, his was an unusual circumstance, which rubbed some people the wrong way- the special privilege of shadowing active duty officers only extended to him as a formality, being a formerly active (and certified) member of BCPD’s Police force. He didn't fit the usual definition of a cadet at the academy by any measure, in fact there was no reason he really needed to. But for an institution founded only two years prior and still working to establish its own standard of ‘normalcy’, putting him through their version of the academy made logical sense, even if it labeled him an oddity. 

By that standard, Detective Dennis Lenore was just as odd, as were the rest of Zion’s residents. This was a community of oddballs, at their most fundamental.

“Well? You gonna stand there smilin’ like you’ve got gas, or is that a yes?”

Called out for daydreaming his way toward an answer, Trev blinked and cleared his throat. “Yes. S-sir.” He could handle a dinner without falling to pieces. It would hardly be the worst thing he had ever been through.

*  *  *

Traffic only delayed them so long. Even with the festivities due to begin at sundown, most of the city’s business districts were closed to observe the holiday. With that initial rush passed, the streets had cleared; the many parks and backyards of Detroit were another story. Those people out shopping had done so earlier in the day, whereas now they were enjoying the afternoon with family and friends.

But tonight they wouldn’t be staying in the city. Trevor didn’t plan on it being an overnight event, but he couldn’t account for the plans of those he hadn’t yet met. Loaded with money as the Fleurs were, their private countryside estate probably wasn’t short a guest bedroom or two; and seeing as he was dating one of said prestigious family’s daughters, Dennis likely didn’t have any qualms about staying if the evening took such a turn. Either way, Trev was perfectly capable of arranging a taxi ride back to his dorm, which wasn’t a bad idea.

The moment he sat down and buckled in, he bookmarked the service for later, but out of the corner of his eye, Dennis caught him at it.

“We haven’t even gotten goin’.”

He didn’t need to elaborate. Cheeks flushing, Trev glanced away.

The cab pulled away from the curb and merged with the flow, the automated dash giving a chime and automatically bringing up a selection of soft classical background music. Dennis banished it from existence with one swipe at the volume bar and a slight curl of his lip. 

“Sorry, I know you’re jittery, it’s just-...” he paused to clench his teeth and furrow his brow a twitch. “Why you already expecting to have to need that?”

Hands folded in his lap, knees brought together, Trev made an attempt at clearing his throat. “No- no reason, sir. I was only trying to plan ahead.”

“I already said I’d make sure you got home. Was there something else? You gotta be back sooner, or…?”

It wasn’t his tone- despite the initial gruffness, Dennis had one of those sharp yet tactful voices. Where he initially sounded irritated and gravelly he almost always followed it up with some kind of concern to take the hostile edge off. Tiresome as it was to keep up with telling which was which, at least he was consistent, definable, and not a bad guy overall. Five months after Boston, Trev was still trying to figure out how much of those qualities he had yet to embody. 

“No, sir, I was only…” Sheepishly, he swiped the open app aside and turned his attention out the window. “I should have done it before we left.”

Affecting an eye roll but no other visible annoyance, Dennis sat back in his seat, hooking an ankle over his knee in the process. Being of shorter stature, he had legroom to spare. “You’ll be fine. I’m not bringin’ you along to this shindig to be the main course.”

Shindig. The term bore looking up. Defined as a lively celebration as defined back in the 1920s, it was very retro to use in conversation. Trev immediately sank back in his seat. 

“Please tell me there isn’t dancing involved.”

“No promises.” Neither too dismissive or reassuring, Dennis raised an eyebrow, pausing to seemingly reconsider his companion’s attire once more. “You’re dressed for it if there is… but haven’t you been to a barbecue before?”

A flurry of related memories besieged Trev at the reminder. Tactfully ignoring them, he looked down at his hands. “No.”

“...Are you gonna stick with single-worded answers all night?”

“Maybe… sir.”

He had cause to. Dennis knew better than almost anyone in Zion what a mixed-up bottle of impulses Trevor Langley consisted of, none of which were his own doing. With some indeterminable exceptions, it made even the most routine small talk a chore for him; hence, why he needed so badly to get out more. Classes at the academy only kept him occupied for so long. 

Chock full of as many instabilities as any survivor of Purgatory typically bore, it wasn’t any wonder why he kept quiet to fiddle with his quarter rather than mingle with his cohort. As yet, Trev suspected Dennis was more his friend than anyone, with Vivienne Lenore a close second; but even those titles felt forced, just enough to say he wasn’t completely alone in the world, because some semblance of bonds were better than none at all.

Glancing up, Trev frowned at seeing how the dubious squint hadn’t vanished. It was still trained on him like a weapon, poised to fire. (Not the nicest example to equate it to, but for him guns were never far from his mind - for a variety of reasons.)

Trying to sideline such discouraging thoughts, he cleared his throat. “I guess… Nick is already there?”

Dennis made an affirmative hum, finally easing off on the skeptical expression a touch. “He wanted to run this fetch quest instead. I convinced him otherwise.”

Brows furrowing, Trev sat up from where he had pressed into the seat. There was no further he could get away in that direction, anyway. “Why? He wouldn’t have been a bother... if that’s what you‘re implying.”

The taller Lenore sibling’s reputation preceded him. How bothersome said brother was or wasn’t evidently didn’t factor in here, as Dennis scoffed nevertheless. “Meaning, he wouldn’t have asked you too many questions, or made you uncomfortable like I am now.”

A very perceptive response, coming from him. Trev glanced away again.

Letting it simmer a moment, Dennis explained: “Kid, it’s only because I care that I take any digs at you- not that he doesn’t care too, but anyone can see you need pryin’ to even cough up a ‘Hello’, and it isn’t Nick’s style to do that if he can see how uncomfortable you still are.”

In an ideal world, that is just the kind of person Trevor would prefer to be spending time with, if he were forced to pick between chaperones. Despite his looming stature, Nick wasn’t half as imposing as Dennis could be. Such niceties didn’t extend to both in equal measure.

“I think I’m doing okay, compared to where I was, don’t you?”

“Oh? You’re constantly wallin’ people off. Okay is a word that didn’t occur to me.”

“It hasn’t affected me that… adversely.”

“Not yet. You want to try and tell me your career won’t suffer for it in the long run?”

“All due respect, sir, I’ve already had my psych eval this week. Isn’t asking such questions now kinda defeating the point of going out to enjoy ourselves?” 

Rolling his eyes, going by the minute pause in his words, Dennis sat up and reached over to tap the frames of Langley’s glasses. “You’re still wearing these when you don’t need them. If you were actually out to forget your troubles and enjoy the night, you woulda left them at the dorm.”

Recoiling, Trev shot him a standoffish glower. The cab was too small a space for his liking all of a sudden. How Dennis could essentially take one look at him and figure all these confused signals out was even less appealing. But then, Detective Lenore was known for that; if he hadn’t been a cop, psychologist wasn’t too far off, given his upbringing.

“You don’t know that. I enjoy myself without any hints blatantly on display, sir.”

“That’s a crock of shit, and you know it,” Dennis challenged. “Shut up in a room for hours on end focused only on studyin’ isn’t healthy, Langley. You gotta get out and live a bit. Dealing with Nick taught me all about that. Grateful or not, I suppose there’ll be time enough afterward for you to thank me later.”

Shuttling itself through the traffic as smoothly as a figure skater, the taxi took them past the last few commercial blocks and into a rundown suburb sitting on the Detroit-Warren limits, a quaint neighborhood of working-class families living well off the combined metropolis to either side. The Fleurs were apparently cut from the same cloth, even if they made upwards of twenty million each year, and they weren’t averse to entertaining visitors. Said destination was still forty minutes away, going by the timer on the taxi’s dashboard: the estate on the northern shore of Lake St. Claire may as well have been another city unto itself, with how far off it seemed. 

There would be his first round of lessons in learning how to let go and just be lax for a spell. He was overcomplicating this in his own head, but if Dennis really understood anything about him, he knew just how tough a habit that would be to break. One dinner wasn’t going to miraculously change him, or so he surmised, but who knew? Maybe a stint outside of Zion would do him good. Surrounded by another crowd of near-strangers with entirely normal expectations of him could be just what the doctor ordered. 

Or it could be exactly what he didn’t need to be reminded of. This constant wallowing in between hadn’t been pleasant on the whole. Without something to sway him one way or another, how else was he going to figure out what he ultimately preferred? Dennis Lenore had had more than a few years to figure himself out, so it was easy for him to say what Trevor did or didn’t need. He had experience and perspective to call on, perks of being an older model and all.

Lucky him.

*  *  *

Sitting atop a hill on a thousand acres of southeastern Michigan woodland, with its southernmost edge reaching right down to the beach, the mansion itself wasn’t visible from the road. After being buzzed through the front gate it was still a two minute journey up the cobblestone driveway. Framed by thick-trunked oak trees, rectangular hedges and multicolored flowerbeds, the ornate, ivory structure was eventually revealed, facing an adjacent parking garage no less grand and steepled. 

The bay doors of the garage stood open, lights on, spotlighting the four vintage automobiles neatly lined up within. The Detroit taxi idling looked so boxy and very not-sleek compared to the likes of all American muscle- a black 1969 Ford Mustang, a pearlescent yellow 2001 C5 Z06 Chevy Corvette, a purple and black 1970 Plymouth Fury, and a cherry red 1968 Dodge Charger had been pulled out and put on display for guests to admire. 

They seemed right at home next to the lavish mansion, which vaguely resembled a state capitol building or a downsized museum without its signature dome. East and west wings stretched open to either side at a one-hundred and thirty-degree angle, banister flags draped from every windowsill. Footpaths wound off to snake around the estate, trailing off into various gardens and parts of the woods, leading to other much smaller structures and cabanas spread across the property. 

The main entrance was a hike at least twenty steps high to a landing midway up, then to a summit guarded by two pedestals framed by half a dozen stone vases full of flowers. It was in peak summertime bloom, greenery everywhere and no gray urban confines in sight, besides the cars on display. The air was thick with the smell of them mixed with fresh cut grass after a cleansing rain, but one whiff confirmed there was more on the wind tonight than natural aromas.  There was also the smoky, husky smell of meat simmering on a grill. 

As soon as the cab door slid open, Trev hesitated to step out. The last time he had cause to smell burning anything was back in Boston. 

-the horrifying sight of every other building along the avenue aflame, screams emanating from within, no fire department on its way to save the day, but all he could do was run-

“Kid, move.”

One little prodding nudge at his shoulder drew a flinch out of him, and he hurriedly stepped out of the cab in the intended direction while avoiding meeting Dennis’ eyes.

“What’s the matter? You look like…” Circling to look at him, Lenore trailed off. He knew the rabbit-eyed expression and what it signified. Reading the muted silence as what it was, he patted Trev’s shoulder reassuringly. “It’s okay. I’ll make the introductions, all right?”

“Yes, sir,” he mumbled half-heartedly. Even if Dennis was used to it to the point he didn’t care either way, adding the honorific always served to keep authority figures mollified. He was more of a guide than a friend, so it wasn’t unreasonable - the first time they met, he’d promptly knocked Trevor’s lights out; for his own good, of course. Kind of like now- dragging him along to this get-together, never minding the reluctance or snippiness; it was for his own good. 

He was never violent or forceful without reason; dealing with his so-called brother, who was described by most to be as skittish as a deer caught in headlights, had helped him hone it. And now here was Trevor, testing him in all sorts of ways similar yet unfamiliar. As mentor and understudy, they fit together fantastically.

Trekking up the steps, he fell in behind and beside the off-duty detective, taking a second to appreciate his more casual wear of jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie. It made the burgundy suit and loafers feel even more unnecessary, even if it made him look classier and more put-together on the outside, despite the mess inside.

The person to answer the door before Dennis had even lifted his finger from the buzzer didn’t read much into it either way. He was simply happy to see them, as evidenced by the unabashed group hug he greeted both of them with, knocking Trevor’s glasses askew. 

“H-hi, Dr. Lenore,” he stammered, managing to duck out from under his arm first

“Oh, come on, Trev. Not you, too.” Unwinding one long arm to recapture the new visitor, he frowned as Langley stepped aside and out of range. Nicholas Lenore wasn’t half as formal as his name would suggest, though part of that was his looks, which were all gangly and sloped in ways Dennis’ weren’t. The other half of the reasoning was the insistence that followed. “You can call me Nick, same as everyone else, remember?”

Though he was one of Zion’s best-qualified physicians, when he wasn’t tending to a patient his behavior was more akin to that of an excitable ten-year-old boy: all optimistic and well meaning, with no attitude to spoil it. Incongruous didn’t begin to describe him as a whole.

“I did. I-I just…” Not quite sure if he should finish that thought, Trevor blinked and shifted his gaze aside. “You startled us, is all.”

“Speak for yourself, Langley,” Dennis muttered, face half-squashed, still pinned against the other’s jacket. “I’m used to this sorta thing.”

“I didn’t mean to, sorry.” Nick apologized the moment he remembered, let go of his brother and steered them inside to close the door. “It’s good to see you both. Everyone else is busy talking or cooking, so I thought I’d make myself useful and play doorman for a bit.”

“Nice of you,” Dennis commented airily as he rolled his shoulder and stretched it. “God- you really need a warning label for those damn hugs, though. All these years, you think I’d have realized it sooner and slapped one on the back of your head.”

Assuming he didn’t need a ladder to reach it.

“No I don’t, I’m careful every time!”

“Sure, careful not to completely and permanently dent someone.”

Leaving them to their banter for a moment, Trev stole a look around the foyer. A big, spectacular ballroom painted in soft browns and shades of ivory, red, and gold, housed a golden grand chandelier and a mosaic marble floor which stretched the length of the space several hundred feet across the room to the foot of a centralized staircase leading up to the second-floor wings. To the left, halfway into the room, sat a sharp black grand piano beside a few free-standing planters filled with flowers and creeping ferns on either side, and a chaise lounge to the left of it. A few oil portraits hung on the front and sidewalls, and at the top of the stairs, assumed commissioned works so lifelike he could tell who the people featured were without introductions being needed. Wherever the flesh-and-blood Fleurs presently were, they weren’t within sight. 

Or so he thought. 

Movement caught his eye. The door was so far away, Trevor almost missed it, as Nick and Dennis seemed to have- but two doors down from the top of the staircase to the right, a figure reached out through the illuminated cracked door and quietly pulled it shut; instead of a face, all he glimpsed was a tattooed wrist. It appeared someone else here was as disinterested in the event as he was. Not given free reign to wander just yet, he set curiosity aside and drifted after his escorts.

“-favor, and don’t go out of your way to confuse him, got it?” Dennis scolded, around the same time Trevor opted to start listening again. It went without saying who the ‘him’ in the statement was.

“Confuse, how?” Confirming the assumption, Nick tossed him a very overt glance. He always looked so unintentionally aloof, with those mismatched green-brown eyes, pitchy voice, and slightly-knotted chestnut hair. “I don’t do it on purpose… and Trevor’s smart enough to figure it out if in the event I do.”

“Sure, I know lots of words with three syllables, minimum,” Trev played along, shrugging with a self-deprecating smile. Even if their argument wasn’t exactly serious, it would only help to clarify what his boundaries and possible triggers were. “But it’s not that kind of confused he’s talking about, Doctor.”

“Oh, right.” Nick only responded with an absent blink. Physicians were inherently prone to speaking with a certain over-eloquence, using big words without meaning to, making those around them feel either dumbed down or alienated or both. Being forever mindful he wasn’t stepping on toes or offending anyone (and constantly worrying for the welfare of those around him), Nick stopped them from proceeding on through to the dining room to offer a last bit of encouragement. 

“Well, that said- if you feel too bothered by any of this, let us know. No one expects you to stay if you don’t want to.”

Trev nodded. He shouldn’t need this much coaching to make a few simple meetings, but it was always better to take time for a little extra prep work, lest something short circuit.

——

“He doesn’t look like an android, though...”

“Yeah, well, he wouldn’t, right? The whole point is, you can’t know just from looking at someone.”

“But he’s studying at Archangel? Humans don’t enroll there, but if they ever did, I’d-”

“Boys, please. You’ve barely said hello back and now you’re on to this. Give him some breathing room.”

Trev stood back from the dining table-turned-buffet and glanced over the edge of his drink in silent gratitude as Dennis ran interference, shepherding the gawkers out of his presence. The youngest members of the Fleur clan, nine-year-old Ethan and seven-year-old Isaiah, weren’t so shy as to resist bombarding him with questions the moment their elders looked in the other direction. It wasn’t that they meant any harm- Trev couldn’t fault them for wanting to get close and see for themselves,  being the excitable, impressionable boys they were, but Ethan’s parting remark still stung more than he wanted to admit. 

“He looks just like Connor, too. I told you!”

“Ethan!” Dahlia squatted down and popped the boy softly on the behind as she shooed them away, reminding them that they ‘knew better’ than to say such things. While most androids had been created to look the same, the Fleurs had all been raised (since her adoption into the family) to recognize each as an individual, and not treat them as duplicates. This was easier done in the cases of Nick, Dennis, and Dahlia, who looked nothing like their default models. 

That in mind, Trev reminded himself it wasn’t the worst reveal he had ever suffered. Few things could measure up to Nicodemus shattering the human veneer Cyberlife had so painstakingly applied. Being compared to the most infamous of the RK800s was a pinprick compared to that sledgehammer.

With the exception of the two boys, the rest of the clan was proving genial enough. For being multimillionaire moguls of the music industry (responsible for finding at least ten of the current top forty artists of the past five years), they dressed almost demurely for the occasion. Richard Fleur was at least six feet of middle-aged stoic, unreserved Britishness, more personable and less stern than expected but certainly from high societal stock. His wife, Ophelia, was altogether different his polar opposite both in appearance and respective origin of South Africa. Poised and reserved in her enthusiasm for conversation, she exuded a more regal presence than her husband. His posh drawl paired nicely with her distinctive Johannesburg dialect.

Trev took a minute sip of his drink, noting neither of them had worn suits or evening gowns, but kept the observation to himself as he sat down.

“I really overdressed, didn’t I?”

“Just a little…” A flinching nod of agreement crinkled Dahlia’s nose, yet she bore a small smile in sympathy as she flipped the hem of her maxi dress out from between the heel of her foot and the heel of her shoes. 

“But it’s what you wanted, I figured better to let you have it,” Dennis explained as she moved to lean down and greet him with a kiss, then pulled out the seat to her left; his lingering smirk wasn’t sympathetic or mocking, just the result of how preoccupied he always tended to get in her presence (the joke being, making sure he wasn’t stepped on). “It’s closer to what you’re used to wearing anyway, right? Back in- the old days?”

Now there was an inappropriately appropriate way of putting it.

“Sure, similar…” Trev hated how such an otherwise innocent question called up so many mixed feelings. Out of nervous habit, he went for another sip so small he may as well have only wet his lips. Dennis knew better than to ask, but to avoid every little uncomfortable conversation would defeat the purpose of being there. Langley blinked back the nervousness as best he could and shrugged, hoping it came across as dismissive. “If anything, I feel more under-dressed in class. I don’t know if I’d call cadet duds a uniform, but…”

It seemed he wasn’t the only one who had a hard time disconnecting from his work. To his right, Nick had taken a moment to do some follow-up work on a tablet held in one splayed hand, but picked the conversation back up where the others failed to. “Zach hated cadet gear, too. It was too plain. We used to have to wear suits every day, company mandate.”

“Yeah, but after the revolution…? Good luck getting him to let go of it,” Dennis added, with some wry fondness. “Like a kid carryin’ around their favorite blanket- that jacket was ready to fall apart at the seams by the time Sarah peeled it off.”

After a couple years of continuous use? Trev declined to ask and swirled the contents of his glass in a gentle counterclockwise circle, knowing it was probably just exaggeration for the sake of story. 

“I don’t miss it that much. And most of the- time I was in basic patrol garb, anyway. Not like-…” Even as he veered off from saying his name, his glass-holding hand shook. As he set it down, he reached for the nearest napkin to wipe the sweat off his palm- water from the glass, nothing he actually sweated out.

Dennis’ casual smirk melted off as he watched him fidget. He knew without being told who Trev was thinking of. “You’ll get used to it. You’ve been enrolled for what, a couple months?”

“Basically.” Trev sat back in his chair so as to not be pinned between Dahlia and Nick’s curiosity. “I mean- there’s not much I don’t already know, but Detroit’s not quite on the same level Boston is with… statistics. Criminal types here don’t seem to be given to the same pursuits.”

“Has Zion treated you well, at least..?” Dahlia’s question was genuine, but naïve in the way anyone who didn’t know him would be. She had only ever met him after Boston, or Purgatory as it had been temporarily known, was brought under control. Zion was paradise compared to what he had seen there, even with its own slew of district-specific issues. Unique to him was the fact it was the best possible place he could be- everyday discrepancies notwithstanding.

“So far, yes. No one… has given me too much trouble.” None that they didn’t mean to give, anyway. Thinking twice of how that probably sounded, he tried for a mollifying smile. “The folks at the academy are agreeable enough. They’ve probably laid off the hazing because they’re not sure how I’ll take it.”

Because instabilities had to be good for something.

Dennis hummed a not-so-convinced affirmative. “Sure. That’s Langley-speak for ‘not yet, they haven’t’. Even I went through a bit of fine tuning there, Trevor. No special treatment when it comes to who gets to be the butt of a prank.”

He sounded so genial about it, Trev was inclined to doubt the claim’s validity; if it was true, Lenore was doing an admirable job of underselling his outrage. “No? What’d they end up doing to you, then?”

“Filled my locker with maple leaves.” At the two, not quite three, disbelieving glances this answer earned him, Dennis shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it was supposed to make me feel at home. Montreal was that, for about a decade.”

“Sounds more like blatant stereotyping… you aren’t Canadian.”

Met with a deadpan sidelong look, Dennis scoffed. “Pft. You think it mattered to them at the time, Langley? If it did that’d defeat the whole point of a prank.”

Trev acknowledged it with a nod and another sip of his drink, realizing how painfully literal his thought processes could sometimes be. The blue substance didn’t have much flavor aside from a refreshing coolness as it went down. If he ignored what it was, it didn’t look like he was drinking antifreeze.

Music, laughter, and voices drifted in from the open patio doors. Adjacent to the dining room was the gathering space where most of the estate’s visitors had congregated, Viv and Hank among them. There was where the smells of grilling and sizzling were most prominent. At a guess the gathering was approximately three-quarters humans to one-fourth androids; and at the moment, it seemed all those confirmed as such were seated at this table. Lopping himself in under that category, Trev pursed his lips and set the glass down once again. The little daily reminders of his old life were everywhere he looked, and he didn’t need them as much as he did. A couple months in protective custody under observation hadn’t assuaged them- if anything he missed the certainty, false as it was. Now he had nothing but uncertainty, and the constant wear of it was chafing something fierce.

Aaaand five bucks says Nick is staring so hard, he’s trying to burn holes in the side of my head.

As he glanced aside he caught just the barest hint of motion from the taller android, whose focus immediately shifted back to the tablet. Trev knew an aborted look when he saw one, enhanced reaction times or not.

“What about that, Dahlia?” he asked, trying again for impartial dialogue in the face of all his skittishness. “Is your family the wild type, or is that just the two boys?”

“Three,” she corrected with a small hint of a smile and a quiet exhale through her nose. “You’ll have to watch out for Dylan, too, if he ever comes out of his studio...” 

The sighing and eye-rolling was contagious- not so much uttered in distaste as much as in disappointment. Nick shrunk down in his seat a hair at the mention of the boy’s name, but perked up as Rhea (having just come in from the patio) placed an understanding hand on his shoulder. 

“I doubt we’ll see him today, it’s been a long time since he’s shown his face at any social gatherings.”

“Then what do you call him picking on us?” Nick whined as she sat down beside him and gave his hand a squeeze.

“Jealousy,” she replied with a quiet smile. “He had my full attention before you came along.”

Trev looked from one pair to the other and considered his newfound stance between them. He deduced out the whys in short order, decidedly ignoring the outdated examples in his own head claiming to know what it was to have siblings. He glanced back toward the crowded patio as he considered this new information. So he wasn’t the only one present who had an aversion to crowds. But didn’t groups make the most rewarding prank targets? To incite the most amount of mayhem in the least amount of time?

“Well, jealous or no, he can keep to himself if it so suits him. I’m not out to steal any of his remaining siblings away.”

Dennis scoffed, but it was half a laugh. “Don’t assume that means you’re safe. Any reason to hit you with inanimate objects is a good one,” he explained, presumably recalling the few times he’d been assaulted with nerf darts and paintballs the very moment he’d walked through the door. 

“Isaiah told me about this time they folded enough paper airplanes to launch off an aircraft carrier and take over Taiwan. Once the snow went away, Ethan wanted to do his homework outside, but after giving Izzie enough grief they decided he wouldn’t be able to finish it in peace- whatever window he sat under, at least three found their way into his lap.”

How dastardly. 

Trev took another not-sip with only the tiniest of eye rolls. Nonchalance should have been his reaction of choice from the start. “He sounds very… conniving.”

“Impish is a better word for it.”

“A conniving imp, then. One quality serves to define the other.”

It certainly explained the closing door, and if that was the bare minimum of rebelliousness they could expect to see tonight, that was more than tolerable.

“So… if he’s a no-show, when are you gonna put the nerves aside and go mingle?” Dennis propped an elbow up on the table as he nodded toward the patio and leaned a cheek against his curled fist. “You can’t nurse one drink all evening.”

Watch me. 

Meeting his arched eyebrow with one of his own, Trev went for the next question on the proverbial checklist. “When did you all meet? I mean, I know that’s a lot of origin stories, but where did it start?”

“When Dahlia broadsided me with a door,” he recalled without reservation, to her complete and utter mortification. “I deserved it, being the stoolie dumbass standing where I was.”

The redhead immediately flushed bright red and buried her face in Dennis’ shoulder with an embarrassed laugh. “It was an accident! I didn’t expect you to be standing there…” 

And so went their storytelling, fondly recounting how one chance run-in at the Motown Lounge led to this happy, steady state of affairs for them. Past a certain point Trev only listened half heartedly, their enthusiasm just a little too much for him to stomach. 

New noise caught his hypersensitive ear again from atop the stairs- as the door creaked open, a shadowy figure moved from the studio two doors down the hall and shut it behind him. The only one who seemed to notice aside from Trevor was Dennis, blue eyes darting in the direction of the click some four hundred feet, one floor and a few rooms across the mansion, before looking back at Dahlia.

As both of them fell quiet and no one opted to keep up that line of thought, Nick sighed and put the tablet down, circling back to the elephant still in the room. Perhaps he had noticed after all. 

“He doesn’t need to keep acting all jealous. We’re easy enough to get along with, and his paintings are nice.”

“Oh? You been spyin’ on him?” Dennis teased, even as Trev frowned and raised his eyeline to the impassive ceiling. “You’ve spent a lot of hours with your back turned at that piano. Risky business.”

Nick shook his head, failing to see the humor in such a comment, too caught up worrying over what could be done to ingratiate themselves. He didn’t cope very well with thoughts of being at odds with anybody: family, friend, and certainly not foe. No wonder he had stayed as far away from Boston as physically possible.

Trev traced a fingertip over the rim of the glass in contemplative gesture. Apparently the missing link fancies themselves a painter. The minute beads of sweat, smeared and not, stood out like little crystalline glints of ice. Chilled thirium wasn’t meant to grow warm any more than fidgety Dr. Lenore had business in a city under siege.

“Not so risky- it sounds like they’re both of the artistic persuasion… just different instruments.” Hooking a fingernail on the rim, he pressed and noted how it didn’t bend back, then rolled his eyes. The urge to self-pity out loud hit hard and he went for a small dose of it.

“But I don’t know him, hardly better than I know any of you. Must be nice to hold such… easy company.”

Rhea had had her eye on Trev from the moment she walked into the room. All of the nuances in his body language -the subtle fidgeting, the way he averted his eyes, hiding behind the frames, and kept his jaw tight with lips thinly drawn, the crease in his forehead from pressed brows- and the way he avoided talking about himself by asking questions just to divert the topic, were enough to express to most that he was visibly uncomfortable. But being the observant and experienced counselor she was, she could probably tell this was more than just surface tension. 

“It comes in time with conscious effort,” she offered with a sympathetic smile, stealing a glance aside to Nick and lifting a hand to thread into his hair and scratch at the back of his head. “I had to really fight for this one’s attention… didn’t want anything much to do with me when we first met.”

“Hey! That’s not true!” he protested with a huff, Rhea’s head rolling back with a smile and focusing her gaze on the ceiling momentarily. When she didn’t immediately refute him, he uncertainly amended, “I was just… nervous.”

“So nervous you turned me down every opportunity you were given, even when things were still platonic,” she teased with a pop of her brows and a smirk. “But… the point is this.” Rhea focused her honey brown eyes on Trev across the table. “Familiarity is cultivated- we didn’t click the moment we met. It might look easy now, but we had a rough start getting here. So give yourself time, and leave the door open- you’ll find that easy company soon enough.” 

She meant well, saying such things. Trev would have liked to listen and believe it in equal measure, but even the concept of basic familiarity didn’t really apply. It wasn’t a straight line between points. It was a snaking twisting route that doubled back on itself and wound around in ways these four had no conceivable idea of (or so he thought). None of them could know, was the worst part.

“Sure.” Trev glanced sidelong toward the patio, leaving his response as one clipped word. The music drifting in was an assortment of classic rock that he could kill a few seconds trying to put a name with the lyrics with.

Dennis gave a hmph of agreement, counterpointing her advice nicely. “You wouldn’t be the first one who took his time about it, kid. But you know you’ve got friends here, no matter what the academy throws at you, right?”

As close as they could be, anyway.

Pegging the musician as the late Bruce Springsteen, Trev bit the inside of one cheek. A bit of insight wasn’t horrible to hear, but if this was the part where he thought laying it on thick was a good idea, Lenore could drop it. This wasn’t meant to be an interrogation posing as small talk.

“The academy hasn’t been so bad compared to… this.” He gestured vaguely at their surroundings, then reached for the glass again as the hurt, defensive expressions painted their faces one by one. Once it was empty, he could politely excuse himself for a refill. 

“This just isn’t my kind of familiar. Here is-… there aren’t-…” The thought fizzled into nothing as he drummed his fingers on the tabletop, and he muttered his last thought under his breath, useless as it was considering these were androids listening to him. “Bugger it. You have your normal and I have mine.”

Dennis knocked a foot against the leg of his chair. “Hey. Don’t get all sour on us now. We’re only trying to help, not bust your balls.”

Trev drained what was left of the blue substance and breathed out through his nose to cover the loud swallow. “I appreciate the disclaimer. Really. But I seem to have run out of refreshments, so if it’s all the same, I'll help myself to another.”

Even that much called up an unpleasant phantom of a memory.

-drinks with the squad after the successful closure of a half dozen interlinked cases, narcotics off the streets, justice for the dead almost a gimme- 

He scooted his chair back out of the focal point between the two couples, and instantly felt less claustrophobic for it. Trev started to move away from the table but reached back and grabbed the glass he’d almost forgotten, decidedly avoiding any of their eyes and ignoring whatever protests they tried to voice.

Not even five steps out of the dining room on his way to the kitchen, a foam dart with a rubber tip pelted him in the side of the head. The flinch it drew brought him to a temporary stop. From behind a potted plant near the grand piano to his left, Ethan giggled and sprinted across the room and up the stairs, darting down the west wing, presumably toward his bedroom, before Trev could retaliate. The bright orange-yellow nerf pistol in his hand instantly marked him as the culprit. Compared to the last bullet that had hit him, this was no great insult to suffer; it was tolerable next to the nitpicking, well-meaning offers of help he was being pincered between just a minute earlier.

Trev stopped to pick up the toy dart and dropped it into the empty glass to set both items aside on an end table, then looked up at the steps and all the wings they could lead to. It was a tempting place to get lost- he could wander the halls for a spell, see what there was to behold, maybe glimpse some of that art Nick mentioned. If Ethan Fleur wanted to take repeated potshots at him only to scurry off, at least his awkward presence would provide amusement for somebody’s sake. Better that than to be put on the spot and start confronting the first mixed-up impulses about himself amidst the company of an impromptu therapy group. That was the kind of soap opera tripe irate inner monologues were better suited to.

‘Help’. They can help me. What do they know? It’s all just conjecture and secondhand accounts. None of them were there, they couldn’t know what it was like before, they don’t know what it’s like now. They shouldn’t bother themselves with trying to understand. I’m not broke, I’m just - resetting.

Even thinking it made his insides churn. Knowing now that it wasn’t anything like indigestion or an empty gut causing such sensations, it only served to make him walk faster, just to get moving and try to forget again.

His once-clear HUD filled with a few cursory warnings, reacting in time with the pique in stress, but he blinked and shook his head once to abolish them. Trev mounted the stairs in several precise steps, steadfastly marching up to the next landing with intent. So what if this area wasn’t for guests to wander off to? It ‘s not like he was planning on swiping anything. He was a cop in a past life, and that wasn’t just hyperbole or metaphorical comparisons at work. He wasn’t some side-show company project, he didn’t need to be set straight simply for having been shown different; he just had to deal, but he would do so at his own pace. He didn’t need any follow-along lessons to help the transition, he only needed space- closed, simple, quiet space, without anyone in it.

“Oh, yes, gorgeous little android-centric district you have going on here. Me? You say I need answers to my jacked-up life? ‘No worries! Welcome to Zion. We’ve got more than enough lived-in personalities offering sage, tried-and-true advice to help you out. Just gotta give us a chance’.” Like a tacky sales pitch at a used car lot. Wasn’t what I was already doing called living? In some form, if not how they knew it? Know it? I wasn’t bunking in any fancy mansion nibbling on crepes while the rest of the world tried to sort out its own problems because machines had to go and get all uppity over not being allowed their full potential. Yeah, well, what good does potential do you when you don’t even know it’s a… thing?

Walking on autopilot, without necessarily looking where he was going, Trev only slowed down at the top of the staircase to turn the corner to the east wing. The cracked marble columns and wood-paneled walls overlooked a tasteful beige runner on the same mosaic tiled floor, accented only by a few more ferns on pedestals standing sentry outside of closed bedroom doors. Windows lined the furthest wall, opening up to the greenhouse at the mansion’s back. 

But he paid all of it no mind for longer than a fraction of a second, too taken aback by the painted likeness of Dahlia Fleur looking down on him from his left, just outside the curiously open door. The dimensions of the canvas scrawled across his eyes on automatic- rendered in traditional oil pigments, whomever had captured her likeness didn’t simply copy it. The brush strokes, invisible to human eyes, struck him as even and smooth, with no unsightly pause marks or remnants of gopey residue. Her freckled skin was only slightly bronzed for effect, complementing the cool background and the emerald green gown she wore. Gazing sidelong over her bare shoulder, expression sedate yet slightly coy, fingers lifted to rest on her chin as if poised in thought, her lengthy crimson locks of hair had been loosed from whatever binds that once might have held them back.

It was quite the exquisite portrait for what most human owners might have only seen, at one time, as a serving classic domestic android.

Staring at her perhaps a bit too long, Trev didn’t see the rubber band before it bounced off his temple, nor the shadow just out of the corner of his vision that had sent it flailing his way. 

Speak the devil’s name, and he shall appear.

“Hey, wiseguy- quit eyeballin’ my sister.”

#dbhilluminate #dbh: fanfiction #detroit: become human #detroit become human fanfiction #dbh fanfiction #dylan #trevor #dyvor #dbhiredemption

[okimargarvez]

SHE IS PERFECT FOR HIM

Original title: Lei è perfetta per lui.

Prompt: Spencer and Lila are getting married; handbook for shippers.

Warning: mention of various kind of TV-series.

Genre: comedy, humor, romantic, friendship.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez, O.C.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: oneshot 33 in Garvez collection.

Legend: 💏😘🎈.

Song mentioned: L’amore e basta, Tiziano Ferro.

GARVEZ STORIES

I mentioned many of my ships from various series: jelinda (Jim Clancy and Melinda Gordon, Ghost whisperer) ; Elliot and JD (Scrubs) ; Ted Mosby and Robin Scherbatsky (How I met your mother); Tate (Caitlin Todd and Anthony Dinozzo, NCIS) ; Jack and Amanda (Diagnosis Murderer) ; Danny Messer and Lindsay Monroe (CSI New York) ; Semir Gerkhan and Andrea Gerkhan (Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei).

This story is dedicated to @thinitta cause it's just one way to say something I think I don't say to her yet: I love you, we are like a sisters even if we live so far... And I love our crazy conversations XD

SHE IS PERFECT FOR HIM

Luke Alvez didn’t know he was so sentimental before he saw Penelope, sitting in the church next to him, crying during a colleague's wedding. Yet, a song doesn’t stop turning in the head, even after, during the reception, especially when, with great joy, he ends up again next to the blonde IT, sitting right in front of him.

I change, perhaps, always nice, no, nice for me, that I see you always nice that I feel like dying. Even if you close the doors in front of me, sometimes, even if I’m alone and far away, sometimes, and when I am in the hotel, I’m less mine and more of the fate, and write it in a terrible letter, but if you carry a cross, don’t keep it in silence in the soul, love, shout it out loud!

He has eyes just for her, the whole table realizes it. He already feels lucky like that, a whole day without unsub to chase, so long time to admire her. But she, as always, ignores him, talks to JJ about the marriage of the latter and a missed one, hers. And while he feels jealousy rise, towards a stranger who has had the ardor of asking Penelope's hand, something falls on his shoulder. He raises his head and understands instantly.

-Well, they say: wet bride is a lucky bride!- someone exclaims, while some women scream, complaining about the hairstyle cost hours and money. Luke has always loved the rain and today his level of worship goes up considerably. The hotel where the reception is held obviously had foreseen this eventuality, in fact the tables are ready inside, in a decidedly less suggestive, but dry environment. Even these with the seats assigned and not exchangeable. He and Penelope, jubilation, end up with a group of strangers, or rather unknown. The bride's friends and bridesmaids.

-Excuse me.- Penelope draws the attention of a waiter. -There must be a mistake. We... I should be with the groom's friends.- the young man looks displeased.

-I'm desolate, miss, but these are the procedures. Take this opportunity to make new friends.- and he goes away. He never thought that Garcia had these problems, indeed, the opposite, but today she seems so lost in her thoughts. In the end she surrenders, sits down next to him and sighs.

-Well, it seems that fate wants to keep us close.- Luke says, not very loud, pouring himself a drink. Then he asks her if she wants the same, and she shrugs, holding out her glass. Their fingers touch each other.

-Yeah, Newbie, I bet you did it raining, on purpose.- he chuckles, glad that she wants to play in this way. It is definitely a beautiful day.

-Yes, uh, it happens that I have a friend in the meteorological institute...- it's not even a complete lie. He approaches slightly, winking at her and the blonde can’t help but smile, shaking her head.

-Hey, it looks like you've impressed someone.- she whispers softly, causing shivers down his back with her hot breath. They look at each other, he with a confused expression. -Do you see that beautiful brunette, on the other side of the table? Since we've arrived, she's just staring you.- Luke raises his head to check and she stops him. -Stupid, she could see you!- their mouths are only a few centimeters apart and for a moment he loses control. Then Penelope lets him go and returns to a normal position.

-Too bad that I prefer blondes.- he comments shamelessly flirtatious.

-Ha ha, very funny. Instead you look exactly the kind of man who likes brunette, Latin, slender, tiny, in short...- she gets stuck, because she ended up on rough terrain. He laughs openly.

-Brunette, Latin...? That is a feminine version of me. So boring.- the waiters pass to collect the dishes with the leftovers of the appetizer. It will be a long day. -No, I repeat, I’m attracted more to blondes. Light hair, fair skin...- he passes the tongue on the lips. -Better yet, if she wears glasses.- he dared too much and in response receives a weak fist on the arm.

-The more time passes and the more you become stupid, Alvez.- but at the same time Penelope keeps an eye on the brunette who keeps looking at them.

-It's the effect you're doing to me.- she seems to be back in time and there's Morgan beside her, not Luke. She misses to flirting with a man, but she doesn’t flirt with him, never, it's too... dangerous. She looks up at the sky. Without stopping to stare her, the man tries to grab the glass, but he clashes right with... that brunette. Penelope doubts that she took the opportunity to find an excuse to start talking. -Oh, sorry .- Luke is forced to turn around.

-Don’t worry, it was my fault, I'm so clumsy...- yes, she's definitely right, the woman did it on purpose. Penelope finds herself annoyed, but believes it is due to her feminine pride. She would never falling in down to impress a man. Luke smiles politely at the chick. -You're a federal, are not you? I think I saw you on TV.- he nods, shrugging his shoulders modestly.

-I could say the same thing. I'm Luke, nice to meet you. And she is Penelope, the best computer technician in the world.- uh, definitely exaggerated. The blonde is stunned by this presentation, especially because the last time he had said to her a compliment like that, it was a mockery. She merely smiles and shakes her hand.

-But sure, you both work for the unit of behavioral analysis with Spencer!- apparently they are more famous than they thought. -And... if I can ask, sorry but I work for a tabloid newspaper... professional deformation... how long have you been together, you two? There would be perfect to write an article on the changes in recent years within the federal regulation against fraternization at work.- Penelope, who was drinking, almost chokes, while a smile on the face of Luke is painted. However, she talks first.

-No, we're not engaged, we're just colleagues. Just colleagues.- any psychologist could tell him that repetition is certainly a sign of nervousness, present when trying to tell a lie. And Garcia has never been good at lying, as far as he knows. In addition, she seems decidedly blushing.

-Ah, weird. I could have sworn that...- even the brunette who, according to Penelope was interested in him, remains confused. Before she can restrain him, Luke decides to say his own.

-Well, it's actually she who thinks so, but I'm not satisfied to be just his "colleague".- he says the last word in a strange way. -And I don’t give up. She's about to go down, I feel it.- the blonde's protest is slowed by the arrival of the first plate. Spencer have been very attentive and warned all staff that she was a vegetarian. What she doesn’t understand is why the waiter served the same dish also to Alvez. He understands where her gaze fell. -I didn’t want you to feel alone...- he whispers softly, and the tone seems very serious. Penelope swallows and chooses to ignore it.

-Wow, guys, you'd be perfect for a TV series. There is so much feeling between you two. One shot and we would already have a million shippers, I'm sure.- the IT decides to change the subject.

-Do you know who is the best ship ever? Melinda and Jim. Ghost whisperer. Fabulous. They have shown that there is no need for the typical tension of the "before they get together" phase to drive fans all over the world crazy. When he dies, he refuses to leave her and enters that body and forgets her, but he is still pushed towards her... and then when he finally remembers... I have consumed a box of tissues, and if I accidentally turn on the TV and there is that scene, it's the same thing, always.- Penelope talks in one of her passionate monologues. He loves to listen to her, because every time he discovers something new that concerns her. In this case, the thought of her that looks at such shows and is moved doesn’t surprise him. He had imagined it exactly like that.

-You are right, it's one of the best ships that exist. Then Jennifer Love Hewitt is a great actress, very beautiful, without falling into the vulgar, intense... however, I'm so stupid, I realized I hadn’t introduce myself yet. I'm Clara, one of the bride's bridesmaids.- Penelope has definitely changed her mind about the brunette and now they're both immersed in sharing ships, one of the quickest methods in the current millennium to make friends instantly. If you share my ship, then I could even fall in love with you.

-And in your opinion? What is the couple that made you suffer more and that was successful?- Luke has been transformed from an object of desire to an uncomfortable third wheel, and is not sure that it displeases him.

-Elliot and JD, definitely.- seeing the confused expression of Penelope, she opens her mouth. -Don’t tell me you never watching Scrubs!- the other hurries to deny. -Oh, you scared me. It was a continuous back and forth, but even when they were separated... it was as if they were together anyway. And in the end, they got married. Better than that, it could not have ended.- both women utter dreamy sighs. -Now it's your turn.- of them three, Luke is the only one who is eating.

-Ok, I'm a bit ashamed, but... Ted and Robin.- no need to specify which series it is, he even understood it. -I think that producers and screenwriters have found a good idea, that of a father who tells his children how he met their mother and ends up putting in everything about the period of his youth... I do it for anything, talk nonsense, I mean, as at this moment.- they laugh in an accomplice way. -But in the meantime they needed something to move it all, and although the ship between Lily and Marshall is great...- spoiler alarm. -...it is still the canonical ship and it needed a more... messed up. But they have definitely exaggerated, creating the story of Ted and Robin. The French horn was the pinnacle, but there is so much to tell you...- Clara nods, but doesn’t seem entirely agree.

-I have a confession to make, that I fear will break your heart.- even if she is a journalist, it could very well be an actress like Lila. She takes Penelope's hand in hers. -I went on the dark side...- the blonde opens her eyes and nods her head. -Yes, I'm sorry... but I prefer Robin and Barney.- it can be true friendship only if you are able to overcome the diversity of opinions on one of your favorite couples. Penelope nods, not letting go.

-Yes, well, I find them nice too. It is difficult to choose, I think the producers have just done a bullshit, with this double possibility. But after all, their goal is only to have ratings, that people look at it so as to continue to obtain financing.- the sad reality behind every alleged work of art. Sad and resigned sighs.

-But let's move on to really important things. Do you love more the couples who are already canon, engaged, married, like Jim and Melinda, or those of which we see the slow development?- oh yes, it is these, the fundamental things of life. But he is curious to discover Penelope's answer.

The woman seems to think about it. -It's a difficult question, I love both possibilities. Perhaps, but... more the second. I believe that, even in real life, the phase in which everything is in the balance, in short, it is clear that two people are going in one direction but there is still uncertainty, every moment is full of possibilities... is the best. Like the moments before the first kiss...- Luke manages to attract his attention brushing her arm. -What's there?- for a thousandth of a second they look into each other's eyes and only they exist, as pure spirit.

-Nothing, I wanted to know if the ladies liked to drink.- he also winks at Clara, who is quick to hand over her glass. Penelope nods her head. But is it just a casual gesture, or should he read more behind it?

-Anyway I agree, those are among the best moments, even if I always find myself shouting at the television as it is possible that someone is so naive as to not understand when the person he is in love with, feels the same.- the blonde doesn’t notices it, but Clara launches a decidedly explicit look at Luke, and certainly not to flirting with him. The man tightens his lips and raises his eyebrows, as if to say that he no longer knows what to do. -And how kind of dynamic? Friends or enemies? Or, let's not forget, there is also the "first in bed and then exchange of names" version. Usually these are the couples that last longer.- she laughs, while Penelope blushes.

-Uh, I'm a bit bad, but I love when the man is clearly the more taken and she, although not fully aware of it, for some reason decides to keep him at a distance and treat him a bit bad... I don’t know, I think it is guilt of my feminism.- Luke chokes with a mouthful and is forced to drink again. He swaps another look with Clara.

-Give me an example.. it is now clear that the journalist has decided to give him a hand, even if she doesn’t know why. Perhaps she got slightly carried way by this story of the ship.

-Well, Kate and Tony. Although there the situation was fairly balanced, but between the two, in the end, he was the more taken. When Kate died, I stopped looking at NCSI.- a thoughtful pause. -Jack and Amanda. Diagnosis Murder. It's an old series, but, hell, I rewatched an episode by mistake last week and... I realized I was shipping them even more than in the past. Unfortunately, between them there was been only a kiss...- Penelope hasn’t quite understood that she is ending in a trap. As the protagonist of any self-respecting fanfiction, she is naive and unaware.

-Yes, I remember, when Jack saves her life, one of many times.- the blonde nods with emphasis. -But don’t you think that their relational dynamics could be described as that between brother and sister? I don’t know about you, but I grew up with two older brothers and they treated me that way, but they weren’t in love with me, I assure you.- Clara has launched the supreme challenge. She has to demonstrate that her ship contains the motivations to become canon.

And the IT certainly doesn’t hold back. She positions herself better on the chair, waits for the waiters to pass with the second plate, and starts to talking, as a lawyer who exposes his plea in court. -I have three brothers, no, it's not their case. These are imperceptible things, because after all it is not a comedy, but an old-fashioned crime, so relationships develop in the margins, as a boundary and are often used to create hilarious situations. But if we go to see the nuances well, Jack is clearly jealous of Amanda, like in that episode with the doctor who finally flirt with her friend in front of her and it turns out that he was also the killer...- Clara nods, looks a second to Luke, almost winks and then returns to focus on Penelope.

-Yes, that Jack is interested in Amanda is also clear to me. But to be together, they must both be involved. And you say that from the way she behaves with him, that is, because she treats him badly, it's clear that Amanda also feels something for him. I say wrong?- well, Phil will not be offended to share the rule of his best man with Clara. If this is successful, it is the least he can do to thank her.

Luke turns directly to look at her, but Penelope doesn’t notice, so taken by the defense of her ship. -No, that's right. Because... after all, to treat badly, to keep at a distance, they are all defense techniques. The same thing happens between Danny and Linsday. At the beginning they can’t stand each other, they have to argue on any occasion, they prick each other and then... they even end up having two children. I think it's the crime couple with the most consistent dynamic, as Andrea and Semir of Cobra 11 Special Team for the action series.- Clara nods, then, after a few seconds, she stands up.

-Sorry, I... I'm going to the toilet for a moment.- she winks at Luke, who returns her.

Penelope turns to him. -Well, I was right. It seems that something is being born on this table. You'll have to thank your meteorologist friend...- the man smiles, but then realizes that she has clearly misunderstood.

-What are you saying?- meanwhile the time continues to flow, inexorable.

-You and Clara! Hey, I saw that you looked at each other all the time. When she comes back, I'll go to the bathroom, so that you can...- he silences her with three moves at the same time. Leaning forward, bring his face close to that of the woman; he puts a finger on her lips; with his other hand he grabs her arm.

-But what…? No, Garcia, you didn’t understand anything. I don’t care Clara, I told you, she's not my type. You see too many TV series and you can’t help shipping, even in the real world.- it sounds a bit too much as a reproach. She looks at the amber fingers around her arm. -Really, don’t you get it, Penelope? Even Clara noticed it, that’s the reason why we looked at each other while you are talking about couples and relationship dynamics and those things. Why can’t you apply the same parameters to yourself?- he lets her go and she starts breathing again. She can’t think, is confused.

-To myself?- she asks, with a little voice as a child.

-Yes, to yourself. Why the way Amanda treats Jack should be symptomatic of her interest, and the same behavior, yours with me, is not it?- again, she's out of breath, swallows, turns her head. Her body implements every possible defense to prevent that thought from making its way into her mind. -Why did you keep me at a distance before you even met me? And you call me Newbie?- too many questions, she feels like she's being accused, on the stand.

-I... you know. I told you, you took Morgan place, who was my best friend. I promised myself that I would hate anyone who replaced Derek, so it has nothing to do with you. You're not special.- she at least manages to convince herself.

-No, it's not just this. You were jealous of Roxy, when you thought she was my girlfriend. And you can’t hate people, Penelope.- damned all the profilers of the universe. -Do you say that you really don’t feel anything for me? That you don’t even like me a little?- he looks straight into her eyes, as he asks her, he doesn’t even know with what courage. Despair, of course. Clara will be take time on purpose to give them time to conclude.

-Uh, Luke...- signs of surrender: she has used his name; dilated pupils. -No, you're not my type. Surely many women think differently, that you're an attractive man, and there's nothing strange, because it's true.- she got messed up by herself. This time nobody will come to the rescue. -I mean, it's an objective fact, like... like... something that I can’t remember of right now.- she blushes to the tips of the ears and he swears that she's also sweating. -But the physical aspect is not enough, you know?- why she persists to treat him as if he were a superficial playboy?

-I know.- he blames the blow well, after all. -I told you, in fact, that as well as blonde, with clear skin, glasses, the girl I like also has a huge heart, is sweet, playful, and an absolute genius?- maybe white wine that Luke is sipping it was been altered by some substance or he doesn’t hold alcohol at all. It is the only explanation.

-Listen, Luke, I also love flirting and play this game, but sometimes less is more.- she makes clear, while in the distance sees Clara come.

-But it was never a game for me.- he tries to take her hand and sees her wavering.

-No?- before he can answer, the brunette sits, apologizing with her eyes.

-I couldn’t really miss the dessert.-

And... and I’m the only one who knows every answer, and I will not change with the passing time, and while I lose myself thinking about just love... and you remember that this is what I’m, and I challenge life always with my head down, because I care about just love... and I’m the only one who knows every memory, and for me you're not the first thing to come along, because for me you're just love... and I’m the only one who know my mistakes, even if there is still a trace left, in front of everyone for you I’m just your love...

 The wedding is over, the couple have flown off for their honeymoon and everyone is slowly moving towards their respective destinations. Penelope doesn’t understand why Luke is still following her. -Hey, Newbie, the party is over, you can stop playing the part of the seducer, now.- if he was another type of man, would take her by the wrist and making her a turn that would catapult her in his arms. But, unfortunately, he is part of those who struggle to expose themselves with gestures of that kind, the opposite of macho.

-Play the part? Do you seriously think that I am like that? No, but you would like it. It would make things easier. But no. I'm the opposite of a seducer, and I'm not ashamed to tell you. I always thought it was better to be alone, don’t bind me, especially while I was at war. I'm not good with women, I don’t go to a romantic date since high school. I'm a complete landslide.- his words had the strength to stop her and force her to turn around. Luke performs in a sad smile.

-Why are you telling me all these things, Luke? Do you want to pity me? Do you need someone to vent your masculine instincts?- damn it, this woman would put a strain on anyone. -Because, I'm sorry, it's a tempting offer, I don’t deny, but...- he reaches her, shaking his head and sighing.

-Fuck, Garcia, do you think I just want to fuck with someone? Getting that would definitely be easier than a hug from you. We've known each other for two years, and the only kind words you've addressed to me have actually been directed to my dog. You don’t want to give me even a miserable chance.- she has never seen him so much altered, not with her, over all. Penelope trembles, but the fear of getting hurt is stronger than everything else.

-Chance for what, make me believe you're crazy in love with me and then make fun of me? You're not the only one who's been dry for quite a while. I'm better alone.- finally the truth. -It's just because I treated you badly, if you're so attached to me, don’t you realize? If only I...- Luke shakes his head and slowly lays his hands on her shoulders, then down the arms.

-No, it's not just for the chase, it's that I'm fine when I'm with you. I can’t hold back the smiles. And I feel like one of the protagonists of your TV series. And if you want to know, we already have a fan club. And a ship name.- Penelope opens her eyes and mouth. -All the team, but not only.- he answers to her mute questions. -People from O'Keef, Phil, even your Morgan. And Clara.- she doesn’t reply anything. -Garvez, the name is Garvez. Garcia and Alvez. It's not bad, what do you think? It’s by JJ.- of whom others, she had been the founding partner of the ship.

To get out of the quagmire, Penelope finds herself saying the first bullshit that goes through her head. -Lila is perfect for Spencer, because she will never ask him to stop loving Maeve.- Luke is so surprised to let her go. The mouth bent in his typical crooked grimace.

-You are right, she is perfect for him because she can understand and make him happy, even if they are completely different or maybe because of this. But what does it really mean what you said? That your first love is dead, or that you will never look at me in the way you look at Morgan?- the woman understands that he has no intention of surrendering. She sighs, bites her lips and returns to look at him.

-Of course, I'll never look at you as Morgan, you're not him. You're another person.- a calm, resigned tone. In the air around them it is possible to see the formation of the written canon in the sky, in cloud’s shape.

-And this is good or bad, for you?- it can’t just be a fixation, it can’t be just for the thrill of hunting, it can’t be just to take her to bed, it can’t be a sophisticated revenge. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

-I don't know.- she shrugs and he takes her face in his hands. -I can’t risk, do you understand? Because it was so damn taken for granted that I would have a crush on the new one, everyone was expecting it and I hate the obvious things, I hate them to death...- maybe when the man's soft lips press on hers, she changes her mind. A delicate kiss, trembling, at the same time intense. And in those few minutes a real process takes place in Penelope's mind. The defense attorney is herself, the only one to say no, she's not feeling anything because Luke is indifferent to her. Luke is the lawyer, that is the banality. The witnesses at the stand are all their friends and even some strangers. The jury is the heart of Penelope and the judge, who issues the sentence, the one who has the last word... is her head.

The blonde suddenly pulls off and looks at him. Luke thinks he messed things up, but it would still be worth it. Both the mind and the heart are repeating the same thing: you are perfect for him and he is perfect for you. Nothing else matters.

The bang of the gavel. The verdict is: guilty.

TAGS: @theshamelessmanatee  @arses21434 @kathy5654 @martinab26 @reidskitty13 @jenf42 @gracieeelizabeth27 @silviajajaja @smalliemichelle99 @charchampagne14 @thinitta   @myhollyhanna23 @garvezz @mercedes-maldonado  @shyladystudentfan @cosmicmelaninflower

#garvez #criminal minds #cm #penelope garcia #luke alvez #luke x penelope #penelope x luke #garcia x alvez #alvez x garcia #tiziano ferro #l'amore e basta

[randombtsprincessa]

Asylum || 5

Author: Randombtsprincessa

Characters: Kim Namjoon x Reader

Chapter:  01  02  03  04

The ceiling fan rotated with the same dull creak as I stared at it listlessly, my eyes drooping from the now familiar warmth provided by radiators as my small group of boys lay scattered around me.

Yoongi as usual had his eyes fully closed, body stretched out in the chair as Tae laid his head on his knee, silent for once. Even Hoseok was quiet, watching as Jimin tried to solve a Rubik’s cube, his tongue poking out cutely in concentration.

It had been a hard week.

Taehyung’s court refusal to let him out had sucked a lot out of him, what with all his family money going to waste on the lawyers. Hoseok’s drug cure always left him weak and pale for a few days and while Yoongi tried his best to appear stoic, I knew watching his young friends going through this made him feel helpless.

I caught a flash of blond hair in the corner of my eye and opened my eyes wider to see Namjoon slowly entering the room, his head dropped as he shuffled to the bookshelf again.

I raised my head a bit watching him narrowly as he shifted on his feet awkwardly, eyes trailing on the books. I frowned; hadn’t he probably already read all the books in this entire establishment already? He pushed his glasses up before looking at me. He paused for a little before shooting me a nervous smile which I returned. He was wearing the glasses again; maybe he did listen to me the last time we talked.

He returned his attention to the shelves, hands shuffling again as he shot me a look again, this time trailing over my friends. Was it me or was there a hint of wistfulness in those brown eyes?

Turning back he finally reached out and pulled out a book, then sighed before casting one final look at us and starting to walk over to a corner chair.

Did he perhaps want to sit with us?

Without another thought, I sat up straight. The motion was so sudden, it startled the others.

Hobi and Taehyung jumped and Jimin accidentally dropped his cube. Yoongi opened his eyes as Tae’s weight vanished from his side then sat up at the clack of the fallen toy. He frowned at me. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Namjoon!” I called instead of answering him and they all gaped at me, even Yoongi’s jaw dropped slightly. In the other corner, Namjoon glanced up at the call of his name, his glasses hanging low on his nose bridge.

“Yeah?” he called back.

“Come sit with us.”

Everyone stared at me.

Yoongi was sitting completely upright, and Taehyung, Hoseok and Jimin were all wide eyed and loose jawed. Even Namjoon himself looked shocked.

“…sit with you?” he asked.

“Sure, we’re all friends, right?” I asked. I looked at the others and after a few more seconds they all shrugged. “Sure, Joonie, come on over.” Yoongi said in his usual gruff voice.

It took a few moments for Namjoon to stand and walk over to us, a small smile gracing on his lips as he gave me a subtle grateful look. “Thanks, I didn’t really want to be alone.” He said.

“Don’t worry about it.” I said as he sat next to Jimin, giving them all smiles. “Hi Hyung,” he said shyly to Yoongi.

“Hey Namjoon,” he said, back in his original position as Taehyung laid his head back on the older man’s leg, watching Namjoon open his book again with a careful expression on his face. Jimin picked up his toy again, staring at it for a bit before offering it to Hoseok. The older boy took it with a fond smile as Jimin turned to look at Namjoon.

“Why don’t you sit with us more often?” he asked.

Namjoon started, his eyes looking at the boy in wonder. Naturally, it was rare Jimin asked questions. It was rare that he talked period.

“Um, I guess, I didn’t feel welcome.”

“You’re a part of our batch, why won’t you be welcome in our group? We took Y/N in.” Jimin said bluntly.

Namjoon hung his head. “I’ll sit with you from now if you want.” He offered.

“That’ll be nice.” Taehyung said finally.

I smiled. Watching Namjoon finally be inculcated into the group was strangely satisfying.

Namjoon’s inclusion in the group brought about a couple positive changes.

Yoongi now had someone to talk music with. It was amazing how much passion could be induced in creativity. It practically blazed around them.

Hobi and Taehyung smiled quicker than their usual week end. One moment, Namjoon was animatedly talking about the new book he was reading and the next moment, Tae had broken out into guffaws and Hoseok had thumped him on the back, giggling himself.

The best thing?

Jimin talked more around the older boy, almost quietly blunt around his Hyung; the way he’d told Namjoon off the first time had been shocking to witness, but now it was usual to see Yoongi, Namjoon and Jimin talking about their respective music choices.

“…and it’s a really nice thing, to see them get together like this,” I smiled, picking at the loose thread on my sweat pants as I sat cross legged on Dr. Sihyuk’s couch.

He smiled back.

“It was nice of you to invite him. He’s always so shy about making friends.” He shook his head.

“He’s helped them more than I helped him. He’s like that.” I shrugged.

“I see…is there a particular reason why you did it?” he asked.

I bit my lip, looking around the room.

“We talked…out by the trees and he just…he reminded me of Jungkook.” I said softly.

I trailed off, looking outside the window.

I smiled cheekily as Jungkook walked up to the front of the classroom. He looked uncomfortable in a starched and impeccably pressed button up and slacks, hair parted to reveal a sliver of forehead as he smiled nervously at the bunch of youngsters he was supposed to give voice coaching to.

The Music professor whose assistant he was had been stuck down with flu, leaving him red and unable to talk. Hence, now my nervous and slightly awkward best friend had been rendered into the teaching profession for the first time.

Even as I gave him thumbs up from where I was standing at the back of the room, I couldn’t help but think he looked good, even if he looked like he was going to puke. The sentiment seemed to be shared by at least half of the girls in the class, as they began to exchange coy glances with their friends. I made a point to tease him about that later but I had to cut them some slack. Jungkook’s boss was a middle aged man with a receding hairline and despite being an excellent teacher, even girls wanted eye candy once in a while and teenage boys could offer only so much.

“Hi…hi, my name is Jeon Jungkook…and I…I will be taking your batch till Professor Lee feels well enough to resume work.” He said, his breath coming out in a huff at the end and I almost – almost – laughed.

“Right…so where were you…when Mr. Lee…left you?” he asked again, casting a glance at me.

I shot him another thumbs up and he smiled gratefully before returning his attention to the class.

I grinned again before backing out to go get some work done and bring us something to drink. Knowing Jungkook, he would race me back to his apartment and be back in sweats and an oversized white shirt after today’s ordeal. At least a sweetened drink would help.

But when I opened the door, I let out a gasp of surprise.

Jungkook was sitting cross legged on the floor with all the kids in a semi circle in front of him. The benches were pushed back and he was watching as each student sang a particular line of a song.

“Now see, the harmony isn’t the point of a single person. It only comes into play when you’re singing a duet or in a group. You’re singing solo right now; think of yourself as a star.” He said and the kid in front of him, a freckly kid, blushed.

Jungkook suddenly looked up to see me and grinned.

“Well, my girl’s here. All of you, good job! We’ll meet up tomorrow and I want to see all of you be stars ok?” he patted his thighs before getting to his feet, grinning as a couple students praised him before making his way to me.

“Wow, you just went from stuttering Stanley to Grade a Professor.” I said, handing him his latte.

He chuckled, bringing the cup his lips as he surveyed the room. “I was just nervous about you hovering over me, you know. The moment you left, I felt this sense of manliness of flood me. The girls and boys were practically begging for a piece of me.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah sure, if you like being hung on a rack and ogled by teens like a piece of meat.” I said.

He swung an arm over my shoulders as we exited the classroom. “Don’t worry, Y/N, you’re still my go to.”

It wasn’t until we were driving back to his place that I told him. “You did a good job there, Kookie. Better than Lee,” I said sincerely.

He turned to look at me, his bunny teeth stretched out in a wide smile. “Yeah, you think so?”

I nodded. “Definitely, you…brought them together…like a class. Like a group…I think they need that.”

He reached out to give my hand a light squeeze; his silent way of saying he appreciated it.

“We should go out by the lake,” Hoseok said one day as we all lounged out in the grass. Our group was the only one still sitting in the sun, the other batches all migrating towards the clusters of trees dotted here and there to provide shade.

“The lake?” Yoongi asked suspiciously.

“Yeah, I haven’t seen it in such a long while. Tae misses it too. I’m sure Jimin and Namjoon do too and Y/N hasn’t even seen it.” Hoseok said.

“Yeah but…it’s nearly sundown.” Yoongi huffed.

“Fine, you stay.” Taehyung grumbled as he got to his feet, pulling me up with him.

“You’re not going without me anywhere. If one of you falls or something, my ass is going to get fried.” Yoongi snapped, hand shooting out and latching onto mine tightly.

“Oh come on, Hyung,” Namjoon stood up too. “We’ll be quick,” he said. “Please,” Jimin chimed in and we knew it was sealed.

Yoongi opened his mouth but shut it again, shrugging resignedly.

“Oh my god, it’s beautiful.” I breathed as Taehyung and Hoseok helped me climb over a small stile like hill overlooking the entire lake and the Institute’s estate.

“We found this hill our second week here. Shh, none of the other groups know about it.” Taehyung said as the rest of them clambered up too.

“This is amazing.” I said.

The lake was still, only small ripples of water from the movement of water life disturbed the water. A small dock was lined up at one side while the rest of the outlands were surrounded by woodland. It was such a serene place; no wonder this establishment was one of the finest.

“Sunsets are considered an ends to a mean, you know. A cycle of life and death…meaning the sun dies then comes back to life the next day, more beautiful and magnificent.” I heard and looked to my side to see Namjoon looking at the glowing orange globe vanishing behind the lake horizon.

“That’s…morbidly poetic.” Jimin said.

“No, it’s beautiful. We never lose anything. It always comes back to us some way or another.”

Namjoon turned to look straight at me and I swallowed, feeling pinpricks behind my eyes as tears welled up in the corners of my eyes.

As I looked as the small group of people who’d brought me to the lake, I realized he was right.

There was a part of Jungkook in each and every one of them. I may have lost him, but I still had his essence, his spirit, in different forms in these five boys. I hadn’t lost him completely.

That really was beautiful.

#namjoon angst #namjoon fanfic #bts angst #bts fanfic #bts smut #namjoon smut #namjoon #bts #asylum

[carmenlire]

Higher than the Big Trees Ch. 34

read chapter one

read on ao3

Like Father, Like Son: The Apple Didn’t Fall Far from the Scheming Tree

Byline: Victor Aldertree

Magnus Bane, son of notorious Asmodeus Bane, who is currently serving thirty seven years in state prison for defrauding his clients and shareholders of over one billion dollars in assets, has been spotted out on the town with music’s darling, Alec Lightwood.

Is it love, though, or has Magnus just found a different way to make his fortune?

Dear reader, we at Idris News love good gossip and when a source close to Bane came forward to tell us about the hottest tip in town, we couldn’t resist.

It appears that Magnus Bane, professor at Columbia University, has been hiding an unsavory past.

An insider reveals all. To protect her privacy, she asked that we not reveal her name.

Let’s start the story with one Magnus Bane. Born and raised in Manhattan-- on the upper West Side-- Magnus is the son to notorious swindler Asmodeus Bane.

Bane, who is infamous for his unbelievably successful ponzi scheme that stretched over twenty years.

Asmodeus Bane was a wall street broker from 1980 to his long tumble from his gold-plated pedestal in 2004. Considered far and wide to be a charismatic man, Bane Sr. was a shark on Wall Street, known for having a bloodhound’s nose, always sniffing out the Next Big Thing.

Most accredited his success to sheer luck and hard work.

No one knew that he was swindling coworkers and clients alike out of savings accounts, retirement plans, and talking up potential investments that would become a long string of proverbial gold mines in the Old West.

No one knows for certain just how much money Asmodeus Bane absconded with when all is said and done. Working for twenty years afforded him connections and a sharpened sense of when the chips were about to fall. There were dozens of accomplices and just as many scapegoats as Bane kept his nose clean even as those closest to him were caught and indicted.

Bernie Madoff who? Some estimates have Bane’s scheming amounting to over one billion dollars, most of which has never been recovered.

In 2000, the FDIC launched an investigation with the White Collar division of the FBI. After four years, they accumulated enough evidence to formally arrest Asmodeus Bane of over one hundred counts of fraud and embezzlement. After his lengthy trial-- which was a media circus in and of itself-- Bane was sentenced to 53 years in New York’s State Penitentiary.

Due to good behaviour, that sentence has been reduced to thirty seven years with the possibility of parole after ten more years.

Which brings us to his son, Magnus.

Magnus Bane, now an esteemed faculty member of Columbia University, wasn’t always so sparkling clean.

No, our source reveals that Bane Jr. has quite the sordid juvenile record.

Literally.

Magnus Bane was arrested half a dozen times for petty crime between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, when his record was officially sealed. Our intrepid reporters were able to find the dirty details, though.

After Asmodeus’s incarceration, Bane became part of the foster system where he bounced from home to home in the city. His mother died just a few years after giving birth and growing up, Magnus looked up to Asmodeus as only a son can look up to his father.

By all reports, Magnus was a model student-- at least on paper. That didn’t stop him from regularly skipping class or getting up to no good.

Looking at Bane’s record reveals charges for petty larceny, vandalism, and underage possession. And that’s the mere tip of the iceberg.

Things certainly don’t look good for Magnus, do they?

Still, something changed and Magnus took his SATS, graduated summa cum laude and headed for greener pastures-- Yale as a matter of fact, where he completed his undergraduate degree in three years before moving on to his doctoral thesis, spending part of that time in London.

Magnus Bane will be thirty in just a few months and things have never looked better for him-- he’s the Chair of the History Department at an Ivy League Institution, he’s been published dozens of times and is regularly invited to speak at conferences, both domestic and abroad.

We’ve even heard that he’s been busy working on a new book with an anticipated Summer 2019 release.

But that’s not all. Magnus Bane has been spotted out on the town with Alec Lightwood, the hottest musician in the world right now who just wrapped up a sold out world tour in May.

By most estimates, Lightwood is worth an astonishing 300 million dollars.

That begs the question to any reporter worth their salt: What does Bane see in Alec?

It’s easy to see what could have captured Lightwood’s attention. Magnus is handsome (have you seen his Insta???), successful, and we’re sure charming as hell.

We bet he gets it from his father.

But does Magnus see Alec’s million watt smile and rugged good looks or does he see dollar signs flashing?

Does he see a man who would do anything for his fans or his next meal ticket?

Alec is talented-- he can sing, act, and is well-known for his philanthropic endeavors. Idris News has long since waited with bated breath for the biggest name in the music scene to find his perfect match.

We just didn’t want to see it happen like this.

Our inside source claims that things went cold between them when she refused to keep paying for Bane’s tuition in London. Apparently, the professor was in dire straights and like a good girlfriend, our source had wanted to help-- until it became too much.

As you can see from our photos, it looks like Magnus and Alec have been getting cozy for quite a while. Those pictures at the zoo are #couplegoals and don’t get us started on the two of them enjoying a romantic walk throughout the city.

Is Magnus in love? Are we witnessing a real life fairy tale or has Bane just duped Lightwood into becoming his naive sugar daddy in a move that would make his father proud?

It seems like a dream come true for an earnest professor to meet a polished celebrity. We just wonder if fate had a helping hand and if Alec isn’t being played for a fool.

Shame on you Magnus for breaking our golden boy’s heart. We’ve seen Alec through many a scandal dating back to his pre-album days and we’ve got to say that we aren’t impressed.

Or maybe we are. It certainly takes a certain je ne sais quois to pull off such a trick. Time will tell what’s truth or lie with Alec and Magnus and who wouldn’t miss a seat to potentially one of the biggest scandals this year.

Whatever the case, the staff at Idris can’t wait to see what happens next.

Magnus looks up from the glossy magazine at the knock on his door. He sends Ragnor a wan smile.

“I take it you’ve seen the news.”

Ragnor looks at the magazine like others would a vulture. “If you’re asking if I’ve read that piece of trash then, unfortunately, the answer is yes.” He’s quiet a moment, studying Magnus before asking in a gentle voice, “How are you doing?”

Magnus laughs and it’s a bitter, angry noise. “How do you think I’m doing. I woke up next to Alec feeling great enough to take on the world. I didn’t think I’d actually have to, though,” he says, shaking his head.

Ragnor’s gaze sharpens at the mention of Alec. “And have you talked to lover boy since the story broke?”

Shaking his head, Magnus sits back in his chair. He looks through his office window and everything seems the same. There are students milling about like zombies so early on a Monday morning and there’s the kid that’s always flying a kite in a dinosaur onesie.

On any other morning, it’d be more of the same.

Too bad that Magnus’s world has imploded.

“I left his place less than two hours ago,” Magnus says, gaze unseeing. “I only found out when I came to campus. I was passing the Student Center when their magazine stand caught my eye. I certainly didn’t expect to see myself on a cover.”

He chuckles humorlessly. “I haven’t been in a magazine since I was fifteen.”

“Is your career at risk?”

Magnus shoots him a look. “I have tenure so they can’t fire me, if that’s what you’re asking. Forget that I haven’t even done anything. No, I think I’d go so far as to say that I’ve just become the most sought after guest at conferences for the next little while. What is it they say? All publicity is good publicity?”

Ragnor is quiet and the silence starts grating on his nerves. He can’t believe how fast things went to shit, after all.

“Goddamnit,” Magnus mutters, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s bad enough that my past has come back to bite me in the ass. I always knew it would if I continued this thing with Alexander. What I can’t stand is that I wasn’t the one to tell him.”

Magnus looks at Ragnor, beseeching. “Alec had to find out that my dad’s a fucking con from someone else. From the press? From his PR team? It doesn’t matter-- all that matters is that I’ve probably ruined everything. Sometimes I hate my father so much I can taste it,” Magnus bitterly whispers and clenches his fist where it’s resting on the arm of his chair.

Taking a seat in front of Magnus’s desk, Ragnor takes his time thinking before looking up at Magnus. “What makes you so sure that you’ve ruined anything, friend? Surely if Alec is as great as you’ve been screeching about all this time then he won’t cast judgement so cavalierly?”

“What is there to judge? My dad is quite literally the worst crook Wall Street has ever seen. For Christ’s sake, his nickname is ‘The King of Wall Street.’ How does someone get that reputation,” Magnus demands before answering his own question. “They get it by being a cheat, by swindling hundreds and hundreds of people out of their money. Shit, he took savings from the elderly and college funds from middle-aged couples. He was a greedy bastard and he got what was coming to him.”

“That doesn’t mean that you should pay for what he did,” Ragnor says quietly. “You dad was a bastard. That shouldn’t reflect on you. If Alec is the man you say he is then he will see that, friend.”

“Yeah? And what if he doesn’t,” Magnus asks morosely.

“Then he doesn’t deserve you,” Ragnor snaps back impatiently. Magnus looks up to see Ragnor looking at him with fire in his eyes. “You’re a good man Magnus and I can’t stand that you let your father weigh you down like this.”

Magnus shoots him a dry look. “I think I’m incredibly well-adjusted for the shitstorm that was my adolescence.”

“Be that as it may, you’ve castigated yourself enough. I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you looked at Alec yesterday. From what I’ve seen, Lightwood seems like a decent enough man and anyone with eyes could see the way he’s smitten with you. I’m choosing-- shocking, I know-- to give the boy the benefit of the doubt.”

Thinking over Ragnor’s surprisingly impassioned speech, Magnus reaches for the phone on his desk on autopilot when it starts ringing.

“Bane,” he says, voice clipped.

“Dr. Bane, this is Elle Donovan from Celebrity Magazine--”

“No comment,” Magnus says coldly and hangs up without another word.

“The little parasites have already latched on to you,” Ragnor says easily.

Blowing out a breath, Magnus glares at the phone. “Goddamn rodents.”

“It looks like everything is out in the open now, at least. No matter how it was revealed, at least it’s no longer hanging over you and your relationship with Alec like a proverbial thundercloud.”

“You’re right,” Magnus drawls sarcastically. “Now instead of worrying about Alec’s reaction to learning about my past-- in which I envisioned that we would talk about things and, assuming he didn’t run as far away from me as he could get, we would sit down and formulate a plan to deal with the press-- I get to jump right to the inevitable break-up as well as deal with the fucking media frenzy at the same goddamn time.”

Ragnor raises a brow before standing and straightening his jacket. “I can see that you’re in no mood to listen to reason,” he sniffs. “I’ll leave you to your sulk and trust that you’ll deal with things without too much time spent crying into your damn hanky.”

“Like I have a choice,” Magnus mutters.

Ragnor ignores him. Making his way to the door of Magnus’s office, he spares a glance back.

“I know that this isn’t what you wanted and I know that you’ve been running from your past since the day you stepped foot onto Yale. I know that you had a bit of a misspent youth that’s easily forgiven. Alec makes you happy and I’d hate for you to end things before you even see what your boyfriend is thinking.

“As loathe as I am to admit it, there is rarely a silver lining that can’t be found. Talk to Alec and go from there. It doesn’t do anyone any good to decide the future before it’s even had a chance to play out. Talk to him,” Ragnor repeats and Magnus nods once.

“Thank you, Cabbage,” Magnus says softly.

Ragnor doesn’t say anything, just sends him one last piercing look before leaving Magnus’s office.

Sighing heavily, Magnus scrubs his hands over his face, makeup be damned. Looking at his clock, Magnus laughs a little incredulously that it’s still shy of eight in the morning.

He has class in half an hour and Magnus doesn’t even need to think about it before he’s opening an email and cancelling his classes for the day.

Just the thought of teaching to a room full of twenty year olds with such a white elephant hanging about ominously seems repulsive.

Standing, he picks up his bag-- that he hadn’t even had a chance to unpack-- and calls it a day, leaving his office and locking up.

He heads back to his apartment, hoping to fuck that he doesn’t run into anyone.

Magnus looks up from where he’d buried himself in work. The last of his revisions are due by the middle of August and he still has hundreds of pages to edit and review in the next two weeks.

Seeing that it’s late afternoon-- Magnus has successfully distracted himself for hours-- he stands, working out the kinks in his back from where he’s been bent pouring over his manuscript.

Looking through the peephole to ensure it’s not a particularly perseverent journalist, Magnus opens his door to see Cat and Madzie waiting in the hallway.

“Good afternoon. What are you two doing here,” he asks with an arched brow.

Rolling her eyes, Catarina moves past him as Madzie skips to the living room. “What do you think we’re doing here? The shit has hit the fan and what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t check in?”

“No, ‘I told you so?’”

Shaking her head fondly, Cat goes to sit down in the living room as Madzie goes to her cabinet and takes out some crayons and a coloring book, settling down in front of Cat to draw on the coffee table.

“I’m better than that,” Cat says dryly.

Magnus just sighs before sitting down in a chair. “You did warn me, though,” he admits.

Leaning forward, Cat rests a hand on Magnus’s knee. “Yeah, but even I thought you had more time.” She raises a brow. “You know who went to Aldertree, don’t you?”

“I’d have to be a fu-- fool not to,” Magnus scoffs, clearing his throat as he glances at Madzie.

Smile reaching her eyes, Catarina just shakes her head. “All this time and she just can’t help herself.”

"She did warn me in London. I probably should have seen this coming. Maybe I’m losing my touch,” Magnus mutters under his breath.

“Or,” Catarina draws out. “You’ve been a little preoccupied lately. It happens to the best of us,” she teases.

Magnus laughs a little. “Still,” he allows. “I feel like I should have known-- had a feeling, something-- that my world was about to implode.”

Cat shrugs as she leans down to pick up a crayon that fell to the floor. “The only thing you can do now is move forward. Deal with whatever happens and know that you aren’t alone. You have us, of course, but don’t forget that you have Alec.”

“Do I?”

Glaring, Catarina replies, “Yes, you stupid man. You do. Until Alec explicitly ends things, he’s in your corner. From what I’ve seen, I hardly think that an opportunistic viper is going to make him tuck tail and run. He’s made of sterner stuff than that and you do both yourself and him a disservice thinking otherwise.”

“But I didn’t tell him, Cat," Magnus implores. "He found out from someone else and you can’t tell me that doesn’t cast things in a dark light.”

“Please, Magnus. Like we don’t all have things in our past that we’d rather not see the light of day. Like Alec Lightwood doesn’t understand that.”

“Cat,” Magnus says, tone soaked in self-deprecation. “We literally talked about this a few days ago-- about his reputation and insecurity surrounding his career. He’s been used in the past and was rather jaded. I talked him down and we reached an understanding. I said that I didn’t want his money, that I was far more concerned with the person behind the wallet.”

“Well, there we go, then,” Cat exclaims. “He knows your intentions and that you aren’t just another bottom-feeder.”

“Don’t you see, Catarina? I said all of that only for my past to blow up at the worst imaginable time and you must know that any sane person would have an unpleasant case of whiplash.”

Cat sends Magnus an arch look. “Not if that person was as smitten as your boy is over you.”

Magnus opens his mouth to retort but Cat beats him to it. “On the surface? Yeah, Magnus, it looks bad. I won’t lie about that. But that isn’t taking into consideration that you two have been friends for months and Alec should know better. He should at least talk to you before making any rash judgments.”

“I just don’t want to talk to him-- to have that conversation-- and have it be the end.”

“Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do and sometimes people surprise you, even if you thought you had it all figured out,” Cat counters.

“What’s wrong?”

Magnus looks up from where he’d been brooding to see Madzie at his side. He smiles, smoothing a hand over her hair. “Some people found out some things about me that I’d rather they hadn’t. I’m a little afraid of what the consequences will be.”

Madzie hums a little as she thinks before her gaze snaps back to Magnus. “You’re always telling me that I have to be brave even when I don’t want to. Like, when I fell off my bike and didn’t want to get back on. You told me that I had to face my fears and I did! And now I love riding my bike in the park with Cindy.”

“Are you saying that I have to take my own advice?”

Madzie nods solemnly and Magnus smiles. It’s small, and a little defeated, but it’s there nonetheless.

With that, Catarina stands up, helping Madzie clean up her crayons. As she does so, the shifts so that she can see Magnus.

“When are you going to talk to him? You really can’t let this fester,” she warns.

Magnus opens his mouth to respond just as his phone vibrates. He looks over on autopilot and freezes when he sees the text message.

“Speak of the devil,” he murmurs and stares down at his phone, dread settling in his stomach like lead.

Magnus, when are you free? We need to talk.

#httbt #my writing #malec wip #malec fic

[qqueenofhades]

the tangled web of fate we weave: xxi

you.... you might wanna buckle up, because this is a Chapter.

part xx/AO3

For a very long moment, those words – spoken with a curled lip and arched eyebrow, making it plain Emma is deliberately echoing the last time she said them, when she kidnapped Lucy and Flynn from the reading room in Penn – echo in the air. I think it’s time to take a ride. Lucy has hold of her gun, is still pointing it, but Emma jerks her own gun harder into Amy’s head, Amy lets out a gasp, and Lily wakes up and starts to whimper. Amy tries to comfort her, the best one can in the present situation, but Emma’s nostrils flare. “I’m not really a fan of babies crying. Put it down, princess, or I’m shutting her up.”

Lucy’s hands are frozen. She doesn’t know if even Emma is so pathological as to shoot a child at point-blank range, but she’s not about to find out. Slowly, letting Emma see her do it, she bends down and sets the gun on the floor, then straightens up, hands raised. “There,” she says, as coldly and calmly as possible. “I put it down.”

“Good.” Emma smiles faintly, giving Lucy half a look that makes her think that if Emma wasn’t so completely devoted to Rittenhouse, they might be friends. A bizarre thing to ponder when the woman just broke into your house, is still holding a gun to your sister’s head, and has straight up threatened to shoot your infant daughter, but strength recognizes strength, and Emma, a formidable adversary herself, is prepared to acknowledge the same. “Now come on, all of you. You can even bring the rugrat – actually, yes, especially bring the rugrat. Mommy dearest does want to see her.”

“You – ” Lucy chokes. “You’re doing this for Carol?”

“She’s waiting, yes. We have a big night planned, Lucy.”

“She sent you to kidnap us?!”

“Actually, she sent me to pick you up. Warned me you might not want to come easily, so the kidnapping part was my decision.” Emma shrugs. “Chop chop.”

Lucy calculates frantically in her head. She can’t run back for her dropped phone without Emma shooting either Amy or Lily – there might be the chance that Carol has issued orders for her daughters and granddaughter not to be harmed, but there’s no certainty that Emma intends to obey them, at least where the spares are concerned. She certainly can’t call Flynn in time, and even if she managed to tell him that Emma was here, even if he turned around and roared home on the spot, they won’t still be here by the time he arrives. Emma is taking them somewhere else, and if it’s another Rittenhouse black site, like the one in West Point, there is no guarantee of fighting their way out. Amy has a black belt in karate, she’s not totally helpless, but Emma is a trained and ruthless killer. Oh God. Oh God, what do they do?

After a final pause, Lucy can’t see anything for it. Hands still up, she allows Emma to usher them through the broken patio door, across the yard, and through the gate to where Emma’s car is parked in the alley. (Illegally, but that’s probably not something that concerns hitwomen for powerful shadowy crime syndicates.) Emma opens the back door with her free hand and forces Amy and Lily in, then nods at the passenger seat. “All yours, princess.”

“Stop calling me princess.” Lucy glances around, trying to stall. Maybe if one of the neighbors spots this and calls the cops – she doesn’t know what good it will do, but at least it would raise some kind of alarm. But they’re hidden from view by a fence, a tall hedge, and trees (damn Californians and their fondness for aesthetic landscaping). Unless some poor kid on a bike rolled up at the end of the alley – and Emma would plug him anyway – nobody can see them. They are just going to vanish. Possibly in more ways than one.

“Well then, Lucy.” Emma inclines her head with gracefully lethal sarcasm. “How about you get in the car and let’s go?”

Lucy wants to kill this woman with every fiber of her being, with a fury that alarms her. Pulses through her body and bangs in her eyeballs and trembles in her fingers, makes her not that far from thinking that Flynn’s plan to crash through time and murder them one by one is altogether bad. She debates her odds of doing it, even bare-handed, untrained, and three days postpartum. She would definitely get shot, but if she could somehow overpower Emma –

“You really want to?” Emma aims the gun more steadily at Lucy’s forehead, as it doesn’t take a genius to see what she’s considering. “With them already in there?”

Lucy doesn’t know what that means – though she doesn’t put it past Emma to have fitted her own car with a bomb, or a poison gas tank, or anything else – but it drains her of any resolve to find out. Maybe they can get to her mother and she can convince her of how insane this all is. It’s a very slim chance, but it is the only one they have.

Lucy opens the passenger door and gets in.

Emma comes around the far side and swings behind the wheel, careful to keep her gun out of Lucy’s reach. Not that Lucy could take much chance of crashing the car with them all inside, but either way, Emma is not underestimating her or writing her off as a negligent threat. Lucy supposes it’s oddly flattering that she could be categorized as an actual danger, but right now, she just wishes she was. Still, this is going to take other tactics. As Emma pulls out of the alley, Lucy says, “You must have a family of your own. You must have people you care about.”

“Oh, so you’re trying to bond with me now?” Emma smiles coolly. “Fine, I’ll play ball. I make plenty of money to give my mother a very nice life. She has a mansion in SoCal and she doesn’t want for anything. After what she did for me, and what she got us out of, it’s the least I owe her. She’s chatty and she likes lemon cookies and she always loves hearing what I’m doing at work. She still keeps my pictures on her fridge like I’m in grade school. Probably invite you in for tea if you stopped by.”

Lucy doesn’t answer immediately. Her imagination conjures a picture of an older Emma, a warm, matronly woman with grey-streaked ginger curls and a ready plate of cookies. She tries to work out how such a woman could have ever had a daughter like Emma, stone and steel with no soft places at all, and then wonders how Carol had a daughter like her. Not that she thinks they’re so different, or she’s so much better than her mother, but it still seems like a mystery. She ventures, “What’s her name?”

Emma glances at her sidelong, never taking her eyes off the road. “Why do you want to know? Send your psycho husband to shoot her in the head?”

“I think it’s a little rich of you to be calling anyone else a psycho, don’t you?”

Emma laughs, but in a way that makes it clear she doesn’t appreciate it. “I’m not a psycho. You don’t like what I do or who I work for, but believe me, there’s a reason for it. Rittenhouse has always wanted me, always pursued me and given me real responsibility and known I was destined for greatness, and happily, for the most part, they’ve been right. You do know this isn’t personal, right? What we have to do. It’ll be fine. You won’t remember.”

“Won’t remember.” Lucy feels that sink into her stomach like a rock. “That is what you’re doing, isn’t it? You’re planning to change the night that Gar – that Flynn and I met, the car accident in 2003 when he fished me out of the Bay. So he never meets me and never saves me and none of this happens.”

“Clever.” Emma doesn’t seem upset that her plans have been rumbled. “Essentially, yes.”

“You can’t.” Lucy turns to her. “Emma, please don’t do that. Please. Please don’t do that. We’ll – look, there’s something we can do, we can – ”

“We can what?” Emma almost looks tired in the early-evening shadows. “Make a deal? Do I believe that Flynn is going to stop hunting us or trying to destroy us? Frankly, no, I don’t, and it would be a dereliction of duty on my part to leave that much of a threat unchecked, on his word that he was going to be a good boy from now on. So I don’t think there’s anything you can offer me, princess. Sorry.”

“Please,” Lucy repeats. “You’re a smart woman, you can see that Rittenhouse is – they’re evil, Emma. They’d probably turn on you too, if the price was right.”

“Nope.” Emma smiles, as if she is enjoying pricking each of Lucy’s hopeful bubbles with the sharp needle of reality. “Hard for them to do that when you run a major sector of it. The men in charge are idiots, I’ll give you that. They kept me on the bench for two years while Flynn was out causing chaos – the desk job in London, getting boring bureaucratic ducks in a row, rather than letting me off the leash. But that’s why I have to take control and institute an executive purge. You don’t like ol’ Benny Cahill very much, do you? He’s a stooge. I can easily arrange for him to go.”

Lucy opens her mouth, then shuts it. In a twisted way, you have to admire Emma’s ambition and commitment, her sense that she is chronically undervalued by a bunch of incompetent male supervillains and will rise to the top by crushing them beneath her fashionable high heels. “What?” Lucy manages. “Are you asking me if I want to join Rittenhouse?”

“It’s a thought, isn’t it?” Emma changes lanes without signaling and throws up a middle finger when she’s honked at. “It’s in your blood on both sides. Remember Nicholas Keynes? I mentioned him back at Penn.”

“Yes,” Lucy says warily. “Why?”

“He’s your great-grandfather. On your mother’s side. He died in 1918, in World War I, like I said, but he’s the founder of Rittenhouse’s vision for the modern world. All our major writings, our manifestos, our plans for everything, they owe a great deal to him. Who knows. Maybe one of these days we’ll rescue him too.”

“Wh…” There is, obviously, not much you can say to that. Lucy feels tainted and unusual. How many generations back does this go, how deeply is she tied to this? Emma looks at her like this is something to be proud of, something to be envied. “How… how far?”

“I don’t know,” Emma says. “A long way. Carol is trying to prove that you’re descended from David Rittenhouse himself, did you know that? The record of his son John’s descendants get a little fuzzy in the nineteenth century, but it’s possible. So even if you did manage to travel back to the eighteenth century and kill both of them, there’s a good chance you’d never exist. How’s that for a conundrum?”

“You know,” Lucy says flatly. Rufus has told her, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. “You know that’s what Flynn wants to do.”

“Yeah.” Emma taps her fingers on the wheel. “It’d be a stupid idea, for that and other reasons, but I don’t get the sense that your boy is really into smart ones.”

“Come on,” Lucy says pleadingly. “Come on, Emma. How can the three of us be a threat to you? He was willing to leave it behind, if you just let us have a real chance to live with Lily, we’re not going to – ”

“Willing to leave it behind?” Emma raises both eyebrows. “Until the moment he heard Benjamin Cahill had dropped by Stanford and went racing out, leaving you alone and pregnant, on the merest off chance that there was another battle to be had? While he thinks that America shouldn’t exist if Rittenhouse does? The way he has all but convinced himself to steal a time machine and do it himself? Garcia Flynn is never going to stop hunting Rittenhouse, Lucy. Not even for you. Don’t delude yourself that he loves you more than the war. He’s already proven he can live without one, but not the other. Honestly, I didn’t want there to be a kid in the equation. I’m not a monster. But you two made that choice, and the innocent die in war. And is it even dying if she’s never born?”

“There has to be something.” Lucy is well aware that she’s grasping at straws, but straws are all she has left. She doesn’t want to admit that Emma is right, that she isn’t sure she could ever talk Flynn into stopping the hunt – not when Rittenhouse is this much and this relentless and this unmerciful. “What if – if he doesn’t save me, am I just going to drown?”

“I’ve arranged that,” Emma says. “Someone else will be there to save you. Just not him. It’s this or joining Rittenhouse. And if you thought you’d do that and then double-cross us, I wouldn’t recommend that. We’d also keep custody of Lily until we thought you were ready to raise her in the right way, and Flynn, well. You definitely couldn’t see him again.”

“That is – ” Lucy opens her mouth, keeps it that way, then shuts it. “That is – ”

“You wanted an option other than us changing the night of the accident. I gave you one. You can still remember him, you can still have your daughter. Pretty nice of me, don’t you think?”

“No. No, it’s not.”

“I’m sorry, Lucy.” Emma glances at her with something almost close to genuine regret. “But I didn’t get into this to care about your feelings, and especially not about Flynn’s. You’ll be happier without him. He’s put you through a lot of shit. Honestly, the clean break sounds like a more humane idea to me, rather than you just hurting and brooding and obsessing over him. You yank a rotten tooth, you know. One quick jerk, and over.”

“The love of my life is not a rotten tooth.” Lucy clenches her hands on her knees. “I don’t care what you think. Especially if you don’t care about what I do.”

“Love of your life.” Emma looks amused. “That’s sweet, you know. I mean it. You two do have a sort of twisted fairytale love story, I can see it. If he’d stayed out of the Rittenhouse stuff, I’d have been happy to let you have it. Mazel tov and all that. But since you both made the choice not to do that, there’s something we call consequences. It’s a bitch, but there you have it. Last chance, princess. Rittenhouse, or restart?”

“Neither,” Lucy says through gritted teeth. “Actually.”

“Unfortunate.” Emma takes the freeway exit, turns once and then again, as Lucy realizes that they’re headed to Mason Industries. “Well. I advise taking a good look at everything now. Maybe you’ll dream about it, I don’t know. We’re still getting a handle on how this works, so you’ll be an important test case. If we can manage changing history with this, we can manage it with others. Thank you for your service.”

Lucy has nothing to say to that, can’t even form words, as she glances at Amy white-faced and silent in the backseat. They turn into the Mason Industries parking lot a few moments later, as Lucy’s brain goes on red-hot overload. She could run (but that would leave Amy and Lily behind, and she couldn’t get very far). She could once more try to attack Emma. She could wait until they get inside and see if there’s some convenient vat of industrial acid to push her into. She could try to appeal to her mother’s love for her (it has to be somewhere, doesn’t it?) She could try to get away and steal a phone and call Flynn. Anything besides marching meekly to her nonexistence, or her life’s reset, like a cow in the slaughterhouse.

They park. Emma takes out the gun again and beckons them out of the car. It’s cool in the April evening, and Lucy and Amy shiver in their shirtsleeves, as Amy passes Lily back to Lucy and they stand there in a defiant huddle. They could possibly charge her together, but they’d have to put Lily down to do it, and besides –

The front door opens, and three men in dark suits walk out, clearly Emma’s colleagues and backup henchmen. They’re all the size of linebackers and are packing serious heat, and don’t seem perturbed by the fact that they would be using it on defenseless women and a child. “Good job, Whitmore,” one of them says, which gets a tiny eye-roll from Emma; she has to do everything around here, God. “Let’s get them inside.”

The goons fall into lockstep around Lucy, Amy, and Lily, escorting them toward the looming building, as Lucy has the distinct sense that she is a condemned prisoner walking into a death chamber. Her heart is racing. For better or worse, she’s been half-convinced that Flynn will sense something wrong, turn the car around, and race back here to stage a dramatic rescue. But for the first time, she starts to realize that that might not happen. He probably has no idea. Unless he saw her missed call, tried to call back, and got suspicious when she didn’t answer, but that is only wild hope. There is no way he can know where she is now, that Amy and Lily are in danger as well. This might happen. They might die – or rather, be erased, rebooted to factory default, like a defective iPhone. She has to fight. But how?

Lucy twists her head as they walk past the empty reception area (no Tammy) and through a set of several doors, onto the warehouse floor where she and Wyatt literally ran into Flynn and first saw the time machine. It’s there now, an imposing white plasteel orb banded with blue lights, and it’s surrounded with scaffolding like the space shuttle preparing for launch. Rittenhouse has everything ready, apparently. They are doing it tonight.

The goons come to a halt, and Lucy and Amy stumble to one as well. Lucy is still holding Lily, which severely limits her ability to look for something heavy and solid to hit Emma with.  Panic buzzes blankly in her ears. Is her mother here? Not that that’s necessarily an improvement, or someone she wants to see, but at least there might be a chance, however remote, of prevailing on her. Emma and the goons aren’t about to be moved by tender pleas. It looks like Emma has pulled rank and cleared out Mason Industries for the night, claimed she had some big project (which, strictly speaking, is true) that needed privacy, so none of her unwitting coworkers will stumble in. What is –

“Lucy? Amy?”

The Preston sisters start, grimace, and wheel around in unison, just in time to see Carol emerge from across the way. By the expression on her face, she clearly knows this isn’t going to be a happy reunion, and Lucy clutches Lily closer. She doesn’t rear back like a cobra, but barely. “You.”

“Me.” Carol comes to a halt. “Emma, what is this? I told you to bring them, not to – ”

Emma shrugs. “They weren’t exactly leaping at the opportunity. Honestly, I don’t blame them. It’s not like you’ve been Mother of the Year.”

Carol opens and then shuts her mouth, clearly not expecting a burn from that quarter, as she turns back to her stone-faced daughters. “It will be better for us,” she says entreatingly. “We’ll be a real family, all of us, once this is done. We can get a chance to mend it, to – ”

“Reality check, Mom.” Amy’s tone is cold and flat as glacier ice. “When people want to fix their relationships with their estranged children, they make effort to examine their own behavior, maybe think hard about some changes, go to therapy, see where they were in the wrong, and accept that a new relationship has to be on the children’s terms. Not get their evil secret society friends to erase their oldest daughter’s last ten years of life, partner, and newborn baby. So if you thought Emma was getting in that machine to do whatever, and then we’d wake up having been Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-ed and would be ready to frolic in the strawberry fields forever, you can fucking choke.”

Carol looks as if she’s been hit with something heavy. She turns to Lucy appealingly, then presses her mouth shut and takes a few steps back. The goons grip Lucy by either arm, clearly to keep her in place while this happens – and then, as Emma turns and starts toward the machine, Amy lowers her head and rocks back on her heels. There’s no time for Lucy to shout – not that she would, not that she knows what she’d say – as Amy runs full tilt at Emma. Jumps on her back, wraps her arms around her neck, and manages to leverage enough momentum to throw her flat to the polished steel floor.

There’s a horrendous crack as Emma’s nose hits the metal, and a spurt of blood, but she’s too well trained, and she’s already reacting as she falls. She lunges around like a viper, punching Amy ferociously in the face to return the favor, and they roll around, grappling, kicking, trading hits. Carol is frozen in place, clearly unsure who she should assist, until she starts, “Emma – Emma, don’t hurt – ”

Emma bares her teeth at Carol, deliberately ignoring her, as she and Amy wrestle to their feet, grabbing each other in half-headlocks. Emma is trying to pull her gun, and Amy is trying to prevent her from getting it, and it’s a blur and muddle a moment more, until their arms both twist up, there’s a lot of scrabbling, and then the sound of the shot goes off like a clap of thunder. It’s utterly impossible to know who it hit, if it hit anyone, as Lucy’s scream turns to char in her throat. For a moment more, there’s nothing. Only silence.

Then, slowly, Amy staggers backward, pressing a hand to her stomach. Wet redness wells beneath it, staining her fingers, as she reaches woozily behind her with her other hand and doesn’t quite manage to break her fall. She goes down hard on her rump, grimaces, and manages a breathless, “Well, shit.”

“No!” Lucy finds strength she didn’t know she had as she rips free of the goons and dashes across the floor to her sister, throwing herself to her knees next to her. She has to put Lily down, which she hates doing, as she catches Amy in her arms. “Amy, Amy. Amy, it’s all right. It’s not that bad – Mom. Mom, for God’s sake! For God’s fucking sake! Call 911!”

Still Carol hesitates. Her eyes flicker between Emma, looking like the embodiment of all four of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and Lucy clutching Amy.  Then she says, “Emma – if you go, if you reset it – Amy will be fine, she’ll never have been – ”

“No!” Lucy screams. “Call 911!”

Carol’s face is sheet white. She seems to be having a genuine struggle, though between what, it’s impossible to say. Perhaps she does actually think that the best way to save Amy is to send Emma back to change the timeline, just as planned, so Amy doesn’t end up here tonight and doesn’t get shot. That is twisted in a way Lucy can’t begin to envision, and she’s desperate – she doesn’t have enough arms to hold both Amy and Lily, this isn’t –

A moment more. Utterly, deathly, ghastly silence.

And then, from behind, there’s another gunshot.

Flynn has been in the car with an absolutely murder-faced Wyatt Logan for about – oh, forty minutes, there having been the bare minimum of conversation as they plow south on I-5 – when his phone rings. He squirms around to fish it out, sees it’s Lucy, and frowns, swiping to answer it. “Yes? Lucy?”

There’s nothing on the other end, except for what sounds disconcertingly like muffled crashes. Another pause, and then the line goes dead.

Flynn’s pulse jacks up a few uncomfortable notches. He immediately redials, but it rings and rings without being answered, and the result is the same when he tries it a second time. When he’s quite sure that she’s not picking up, he kills the call and looks over at Wyatt, who has been hyper-concentrating on the road with a muscle going in his cheek. The plan has been to drive straight to San Diego and obtain a prison interview with Wes Gilliam by hook or by crook, but Flynn can feel cold foreboding spreading through him like poison. He clears his throat. “I think something’s up with Lucy.”

“What?” Wyatt, attention torn off the asphalt for the first time, glances at him. “Why?”

“She just called me, but she wasn’t on the phone. There were a few crashes, then it went dead. She didn’t answer when I called back, either.”

“Maybe it was a butt dial.” Wyatt doesn’t sound entirely convinced. “Look, if we’re going to stay ahead of the traffic, we need to – ”

“No.” Suddenly, Flynn has no idea what the hell he was doing, what he can possibly have been thinking, to do anything but stay at Lucy’s side all night, every night. “Turn around. Turn around, take me back to San Francisco. Then you can do whatever you want to Gilliam, I don’t care. Just take me back right now. Right now!”

“What?” Wyatt challenges. “You don’t want to babysit me?”

“You can drag him into the prison yard and beat him with a tire iron, I don’t care. Your wife will still be gone either way, it’s not like a little more time will make a difference. But mine, but Lucy – she could – TURN AROUND!”

Flynn’s bellow rattles the inside of the truck, and Wyatt stares at him, white-faced and tight-lipped. Then he nods once, swings into the right lane, takes the next exit, and loops around to get back on I-5 north, without another word. He is gunning it several miles past the posted speed limit, and Flynn is on the edge of his seat, when it’s Wyatt’s phone’s turn to ring.

Since he’s still driving like a bat out of hell, Wyatt tosses it over to Flynn to answer, as Flynn catches it and restrains himself from a smart remark as to whether Wyatt really wants him to act as his secretary. According to the caller ID, it’s Rufus. “Yes? What?”

“Flynn?” Having expected to speak to his roommate, Rufus is forgivably surprised to reach his still-kind-of-nemesis instead. “What are you doing with Wyatt’s phone?”

“He’s driving. What is it?”

“Where are you?” Rufus starts, then changes his mind. “Wait, no. Never mind. You need to get over to Mason Industries right now. I’m on the way over myself. It’s a long story, but – Rittenhouse knows what you were planning. It’s my fault. Then tonight Emma insisted she needed to work by herself, and – it’s tonight. Whatever they’re doing, it’s tonight.”

Flynn’s stomach turns over. “What do you mean, it’s your fault that Rittenhouse knows what we’re – what I was – ”

“I really do not have time to explain.” Rufus sounds tortured. “And I would give anything for it not to be the case. But we need to get to Mason Industries. Right now. I’ll meet you there, I’ll let you in. Tell Wyatt, if you’re with him. Seriously. Please.”

Flynn hesitates a split second more. He could shout at Rufus, he could demand answers, he could swear to kill him for whatever he’s done, even inadvertently. But there is no time for that, and no space for anything but consuming terror. He hangs up without another word and turns to Wyatt. “Mason Industries. Right now.”

Wyatt looks briefly about to demur, and then doesn’t. He clocks up what would be a substantial increase on his speeding fine if he was caught, and they roar through the maze of Bay Area freeways and into Silicon Valley, laying rubber all the way, until they reach the technological campus. Wyatt almost runs over the Google Street View car as he guns it to the end, into the Mason Industries parking lot, and the two of them jump out practically before he’s turned the engine off. Rufus is waiting by the entrance, waving frantically, and they don’t break stride as they run to him. He swipes his ID card, curses when it blinks red, rips open the control panel, and performs some sort of admirably fast complicated override that finally dings it open. Then he, Wyatt, and Flynn sprint flat-footed inside.

There’s a commotion coming from up ahead, shouts and bangs, as they put on even more speed, dodging and weaving through doors and sealed access areas. Rufus has to override each one, which slows them down – Emma has clearly tried to lock out everyone but her. Then they pound through onto the factory floor, and Flynn’s heart stops.

All he can see is Lucy, on her knees, holding her sister in her arms as Amy struggles and jerks for breath, shirt turning red. Lily is lying on the ground next to Lucy, though she is trying to scoop up the baby somehow without letting go of Amy. Carol Preston is across from her, the murderous conniving bitch, and in front –

Flynn pulls his gun by completely unconscious reflex. It’s up and pointed before he can even think about it, whether it would be safe to kill her or not, he doesn’t care. He squeezes the trigger, and almost simply, it goes off.

Emma ducks just in the nick of time, so the bullet grazes her scalp instead of drilling her forehead. She spins around to see Flynn, Wyatt, and Rufus all charging at her like a herd of furious rhinos, and it’s clear from the expression on her face that she did not see that coming. There are three goons nearby, turning slowly, too slowly, and Flynn shoots one of them square between the eyes, dropping him like a stone. The other two pull their own pieces and return fire, bullets clattering and banging off the steel walls, as Flynn can think of absolutely nothing but getting to his wife and daughter. He hears the sharp crack of Wyatt’s gun, and another of the goons yells and staggers. Emma’s running full-out for the time machine, and Flynn spins and fires at her, but his hands are shaking too much, and he misses. “WYATT!” he roars. “WYATT, SHOOT HER!”

Wyatt tries to do just that, but he’s distracted as the third Rittenhouse goon tackles him, sending his gun flying out of his hand. Flynn reaches Lucy, Amy, and Lily, but can’t throw himself over them to shield them, because Emma is now running up the steps of the machine and about to seal the door. If she gets in there, there will be no stopping her. It will be over.

The following moment is the worst of Garcia Flynn’s entire life, as he has to decide in that instant what to do, who to go for, who to help. Rufus has grabbed hold of a piece of rebar, runs up and takes an almighty whack at Wyatt’s assailant, and Flynn fires at Emma as she is climbing into the machine – this, then, would be the Mothership? He might have hit her, but only glancingly. Then the door cycles shut and it starts to whir and flash, even as Flynn runs furiously at it. If he grabs hold, he’ll be scraped gruesomely out of existence when it jumps, worse than being run over by a freight train, but he’s about to take his chances. “NO!”

The gyration increases, the lights blink, and then, with a pop of bent space-time, the Mothership vanishes altogether. Flynn keeps running, even as it is registering that he just saw a time machine work, it’s real, it’s all real – and it’s too late. Emma just jumped. She is at large in the past now like a wrecking ball, and he knows exactly, instinctively, where she’s gone. There is still a chance, a tiny, insane, desperate chance, and –

There’s another gunshot behind him, and Flynn whirls around to see that a panting, bloodied Wyatt has just finished off the third goon, thanks to Rufus’s timely assistance. Flynn runs back, but even now, he can’t stop, can’t grab onto Lucy and Lily and can’t, can’t, do anything but this. “The Lifeboat!” he bellows at Rufus. “Where’s the fucking Lifeboat?”

“Wh – ”

“In London. Remember? You told me there were two machines! The Mothership and the Lifeboat! In case the Mothership’s crew needed a rescue. There’s another one. We have to go, right now. We have to go after Emma and – ”

“Go where?” Rufus looks stunned. “Emma could have gone anywhere, anywhen, we can’t just hop in and plug an address into the GPS – we were working on linking the processing cores, but that isn’t done yet, we don’t – ”

“1950,” Flynn says. “She went to 1950, Juarez, Mexico. When I was in the Bay Area in 2003, when I saved Lucy’s life, I was tracking a cartel kingpin, Albert Costa. I had been following him for a while, I knew about him, read all his files. He was born in Juarez in 1950. She’s going there to – I don’t know, pose as a nurse and drop him out the window. He never grows up, he never founds his trafficking empire, I never go after him in 2003, I’m not there to save Lucy. It has to be. It has to be!”

“Are you sure?” Rufus continues to look flattened. “We haven’t run any tests with the Lifeboat, let alone full jumps. I’ve only piloted it in the simulator, I have no way of promising that we’d get remotely near 1950, let alone survive, or not be dismembered in the time stream. It’s absurdly dangerous, we – ”

“Just get it!” Flynn shouts. “Now!”

Rufus looks about to protest, and then, as his eyes flick between them – Lucy still on her knees, Amy shot and bloodied, Wyatt and Flynn looking equally desperate – he stops. He whirls around and opens a keypad, starts punching in numbers, and a panel in the ceiling opens with a whir and whine of hydraulics. As it lowers an ugly grey metal eyeball, smaller than the Mothership and clearly less refined, toward the launch pad, Flynn finally runs to Lucy and Lily, scooping up his screaming daughter and trying fruitlessly to calm her. “Lucy – Jesus, Jesus Christ, are you – ”

“No, I’m not hurt, I – ” Lucy stares frantically at Amy. “We need to get her to a hospital.”

Flynn throws a loathing glance over his shoulder at Carol. “Are you really going to do this?” he demands. “Stand there and let your own daughter die?”

“I thought – ” Carol’s lips are white. “Once Emma – once Emma – ”

“GO! CALL! AN! AMBULANCE!”

Something about that – whether Flynn’s sheer volume, or maddening rage, or perhaps, finally, her own guilt – gets through to her. Carol turns and runs off across the warehouse floor, and while she might be summoning more Rittenhouse backups, Flynn presently does not have the luxury to care. He looks at Rufus. “How many people does the Lifeboat take?”

“Three.” Rufus stares at the machine as it descends. “I have to pilot it, and if you’re going too, that leaves one more spot. But I don’t – ”

“I’ll go,” Wyatt says. “Used to spend a lot of time around that part of the border, and near that line of work. Of course, not in 1950, but.” He shrugs grimly. “Still.”

Flynn wants to ask what exactly a seemingly clean-cut, all-American boy like Wyatt was doing near Mexican drug-running – he doesn’t mean just the Colombian Black Eagles job, apparently – but there’s no time to ask. He looks at Wyatt, volunteering to come along on an unspeakably dangerous mission that’s leading him farther away from Wes Gilliam, from Jessica, from everything else he’s been fighting for this whole time. It could be just to see how the Lifeboat works for future reference, but still. Flynn stiffly inclines his head in half a respectful nod, and Wyatt nods back. A truce, at last. It’s taken them long enough.

Flynn hands Lily back to Lucy and stares into her eyes, as Lucy grabs hold of his face with both hands and kisses him as desperately and frantically and adoringly as any human being could possibly kiss another. They know this has absolutely no guarantee of success whatsoever, that he’s about to embark on a journey through time to an utterly unknown end, and this is the very last shot they have. “I love you,” Lucy says. “I love you, Garcia – I love you.”

“I love you too.” He kisses her once more, then gets to his feet, striding toward the Lifeboat, as Rufus pulls the lever to open the door. Wyatt clambers in first, and Flynn ducks in after him, staring at the backup time machine and its janky seats with a judgmental expression. Beggars can’t be choosers, but he didn’t realize they were trying to save the love of his life in a fucking Yugo. “Does this thing even fly?”

“We’re about to find out, aren’t we?” Rufus climbs in last and gets into the pilot seat, flipping switches and peering at readout screens. Wyatt and Flynn sit down across from each other and fumble with the seatbelts, as being strapped in seems like an excellent idea when you’re about to jump fifty-three years backwards in a sardine can. The buckle seems more goddamn complicated than is really necessary, but Flynn pulls it tight.

“On the bright side,” Rufus goes on, hitting another row of buttons. “If it doesn’t work, we won’t even know, because we’ll already be dead. So. I guess that’s an upside?”

Flynn doesn’t answer, straining his neck to get another glimpse of Lucy, clutching Lily and still on her knees next to Amy, as the Lifeboat door cycles shut and locks with a clunk. He tries to imagine what this can possibly be like, and then decides then since he’s about to find out, it’s probably not worth it. He can feel the spinning building speed beneath him, more and more, prepares to lurch forward or back in any direction at all –

– and then, with a sickening clunk, it stops.

“What was that?” Flynn demands. “Isn’t it supposed to still be going?”

“I told you.” Rufus stares at the console. “We haven’t run any tests. Let alone any jumps. There was no promise that this thing even worked yet.”

“Reboot it,” Flynn snarls. “Reboot it now!”

“I don’t know that that’s going to help.” Rufus starts hitting keys, hands shaking. “If the system isn’t complete, we’re still not going anywhere, no matter what I – ”

“We have to. We have to!” Flynn absolutely, categorically refuses to get this far and then be foiled at the last instant by technical difficulties. Yes, a time machine not being finished is a little different from your internet losing connectivity at an inconvenient moment, but still. “We have to go after her!”

“I’m trying!” Rufus enters in an override sequence, briefly gets a row of lights to flash green, and even as Flynn’s heart leaps savagely, they die. The panel goes black. All of Rufus’ efforts can’t get it to spark back to life. The machine is dead silent. They are not going anywhere. They are not going to stop Emma. They are not going to stop her.

Flynn crashes back in his seat, feeling cold adrenaline surging through him from head to heel. His instinct is to shout, to pull his gun, to threaten Rufus to try absolutely anything, but he knows in his gut that it’s no good. He has done everything possible, even pushed into the impossible, and it’s not enough. They sit there in tomblike silence for a moment more. Then Flynn says in a croak, “Let me out.”

“I – ” Rufus is barely able to meet his eyes. “I – I’ve done everything I can think of, everything I – if there was anything else, I – ”

“I know.” Flynn barely feels like it’s him speaking. The words echo as if from a distant tunnel, nothing to do with him at all. “I know you did. Please. Let me out.”

Rufus hits the door lock. It cycles open again, Flynn struggles to undo the buckle, and bangs his shin against the side of the Lifeboat as he climbs out. Presumably Wyatt and Rufus do the same, but he doesn’t look back. Strides to Lucy and gets down on the floor next to her, taking her head in his hand and leaning their foreheads together. “I’m – ” He can’t get the words out. “Lucy, I’m so sorry. I’ve failed us. I’ve failed.”

“No.” Lucy is holding onto Amy with one hand and Lily with the other, she doesn’t have enough to spare for Flynn, but she presses her face into his, as he can taste the salt of her tears on his lips. “You didn’t. You didn’t fail us.”

Flynn tries to answer, but he can’t get the words through the massive, unbearable wreckage in his chest, the pieces of his broken heart, as he takes his love’s face in his hands and cradles it, gazes at her, gazes at her as if he can’t have enough – because in fact, he can’t. He can hear sirens in the distance, wonders if Carol actually went to call an ambulance for Amy, and isn’t sure if they are ever going to find out. He looks down at Lily, lets her tiny hand wrap around his finger, bends to kiss her, as he puts his arms around Lucy and the baby and Lucy tries awkwardly to get Amy’s head into her lap. Both of them shake with crying. Amy’s eyes are closed, her face grey. It’s not altogether clear if she’s still breathing.

“I love you,” Lucy says, desperate and ragged, over and over. “I love you, Garcia, I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. I’m not going to forget you, it’s not going to happen. I’ll remember, I’ll find you, I’ll find you.”

Yet again, even as the words are spilling from her in a ragged gasp, Flynn can’t bear to get his tongue around the same. He cradles her face, touches her chin with his thumb, kisses her eyes and her mouth and her nose. He can hear (or perhaps only thinks he does) far off, a rushing noise. Like a freight train speeding down a tunnel, or wind over water, the onset of a coming storm, the instant before the thunder claps and the lightning strikes. Before the rain sighs down, and all the world is swept clean.

He stares into Lucy’s eyes. Kisses her one last time.

“I love you,” he breathes back to her, not sure if he’s said it in English, or Croatian, or Russian, or German, or Spanish, or any or all of them at once. “I love you, Lucy, I love you. You and Lily, I won’t forget, I won’t, I love you, I won’t forge – ”

The word is never finished.

Instead, indeed, it is never spoken at all.

#lucy x flynn #garcy #garcy ff #timeless ff #the tangled web of fate we weave #i apologize in advance #welp

[abrclub]

ABR Club Exclusive: Interview with Kip

If you've ever stopped by the merch table at an August Burns Red show, there's a good chance you've met their merch guy, Christopher "Kip" Hondru. Having been a fan of the band for nearly ten years, Kip and I developed a casual acquaintanceship through many merch table transactions over the years. While following ABR on The Phantom Anthem Tour in January and February, I had the chance to meet up with Kip in Milwaukee, WI where he gave me a tour of the historic Eagles Club venue and sat down afterwards to talk about tour life, photography, and how he spends his time when he's not on tour.

Photo by Ray Duker

David: How did you get the nickname Kip? Do you prefer Kip or Christopher?

Kip: It's something my sister called me when I was younger. Friends and family always call me that, and it just kind of stuck around. I'm told that Kip is a nickname of Christopher. In regards to which name I use when I'm introducing myself to somebody, it depends on who I'm with. If I'm with my friends, I'll introduce myself as Kip. If I'm some place where I'm by myself, I'll go straight to Christopher. I do like that name a little better, but I'm not picky. I was named after my grandfather, so I think that's why I like the name Christopher. I use Kip when I'm selling merch for ABR, unless I'm trying to be funny. Then I'll give them a funny name. Sometimes it's fun to mess with the kids [laughs].

David: How did you get introduced to ABR, and how did you start selling merch for them?

Kip: I grew up with a lot of the guys in the band, went to the same school (Manheim Central), and rode the school bus with JB. I've known Brent since second grade, so I've always been around and would always help out here and there with local shows. When I was in college I would go out with them during the summer or on weekends when time allowed it. In 2009 I came on full-time when our previous merch guy was looking to get out of it. I wanted to stop my 9-to-5 job and go on tour because my friends were doing some cool stuff.

David: Did you go to Manheim Central from 1st through 12th grade?

Kip: Yup, born and raised. JB and Brent went as well. Matt was homeschooled, and Jordan [Jordan Tuscan, the original bassist] was homeschooled along with Matt. Jon Hershey, the original singer, was in my grade. I knew him longer than I knew Brent, probably by about two years. JB was in the grade above us. Josh Bowman, our tour manager, was in JB's class.

David: What's it like in Manheim with August Burns Red? Does everybody know them, or know of them?

Kip: A lot of people do. When I meet someone and they're like "oh what do you do?", I tell them I work for a band. They'll ask "what band?" and I'll say August Burns Red, and they'll be like "oh I think I've heard of them!" or "oh I saw them in the newspaper the other day!" [laughs].

David: Where did you go to college, and what did you major in?

Kip: I went to The Art Institute of Philadelphia from 2003 to 2007 and majored in photography. I really excelled at digital output and large format printing. I also did a lot of traditional film photography as well and would mix the two mediums together, scan the negatives, and then print them out digitally. I used specialized cameras called large format cameras, which are unique to work with and something I enjoyed.

David: I know you have a camera collection. How many cameras do you have in your collection? Do you use them?

Kip: I'm not sure, maybe over 200. Not all of them are work. I try to use them, but other things have kept me busy recently. I always try to keep a camera around or on me. I have one on tour with me, but I've only shot two pictures so far [laughs]. A lot of what I shoot doesn't need to be rushed around, so I'm just amassing images. I have a spreadsheet of the cameras in my collection, but it's not up-to-date. I kind of stopped adding to it and recently sold a lot of cameras.

David: It's always surprised me that you're really into photography and collect cameras, yet you don't use Instagram. Why is that?

Kip: I was never much about posting and sharing a lot of things. I never really got into that. I'm trying to stay off my phone much as I can [laughs]. It becomes an annoying habit.

Editor's note: If you want to check out Kip's photography, visit www.christopherhondru.com.

David: You used to post on Twitter a lot about things that happened at shows while selling merch and you started the Shoes Got Weird photo series. What happened to that?

Kip: I just lost interest in that stuff. I do think that photo series was funny, as a quick off-the-hip kind of thing. That hashtag came out of one particular tour I was on. I was working for The Devil Wears Prada, and they would spend a lot of time at the mall on off days, so I would be walking around the mall with them killing time. We would walk into shoe stores, and I would be like "dude, shoes got weird! Look at these!", and then it just became a thing [laughs].

David: What's your favorite part of selling merch?

Kip: I can't pinpoint just one thing. It's a combination of a bunch of stuff, like traveling with my friends, seeing new sights, and continually meeting new people. Like you for example, and getting to recognize your face and getting to know your name, seeing you come back time and time again, and seeing how stoked you guys are as fans. It keeps me going just as much as it keeps the guys in the band going and excited. It'll be sad the day I stop touring, because I won't be able to see everybody who I'm acquaintances with as easily.

David: What are some of your favorite ABR merch items you've sold over the years?

Kip: I like selling guitar picks. They're fun, unique, and collectable. I've become a pick collector myself because of selling them, and I've met lots of pick collectors through that. Now I save some picks for certain people because I think they're great guys and I want to make sure they get some picks. I've got two of every pick we've sold ever since we started selling them at the merch table. Someday I'll put them all in a frame of some sort.

David: What are your favorite cities, venues, and places to eat on tour?

Kip: A lot of people ask me this question. My quick answer is I like a lot of the smaller college towns, particularly in the Midwest, like Spokane, Washington; Lawrence, Kansas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Des Moines, Iowa; Missoula, Montana. Those are cool because they're smaller towns, so if I wanted to check something out it's not far away from the venue. I usually have limited time before a show to go check something out, so if I'm close enough I can maybe ride my skateboard there in half the time I could walk there. It's usually a cool cheeseburger joint, burrito shop, or a bar/brewery that I'd like to check out, maybe a skatepark sometimes.

David: I didn't know that you skate. Do you use a longboard or a normal skateboard?

Kip: Cruiser board, and some longboarding. Not as much as I used to. I used to skate in the skatepark when I was younger. I'm not trying to do any tricks anymore [laughs]. I'm strictly cruising around. I like snowboarding a lot. I don't get to do that much, so that's where longboarding comes into play. Being on Warped Tour really got me into that because it had a lot of parking lot space, so it was an easy way to get around. We had a group of friends who liked to skate and we would find cool hills. That was always fun and something I enjoyed about going on Warped Tour.

David: So do you bomb hills a little bit then?

Kip: Yeah [laughs], I'm not trying to get max speed, but I will carve pretty fast.

David: Besides cities, what are some of your favorite venues?

Kip: One of my favorite venues right now is The Fillmore in Philadelphia. It's a newer one, beautiful, it's good on all fronts. It has good parking for us, and there's an easy load-in. It's also in a cool neighborhood. There's lot of things to do around there. I also like Philadelphia a lot. A venue a lot of us like in in Belgium. It's called AB Brussels. It's a scenic venue too and state-of-the-art. It's completely soundproof, like you'll walk outside and have no clue there's a metal show going on inside [laughs]. It's in a historic town with lots of cool architecture, which is something I enjoy about touring. I like architecture and history and being able to see something that had some kind of tie to the past and is still around. This building (the Eagles Club) is an example. I really dig that stuff. Anything that's an old theater that's still being used is cool to me, especially if I can find an old picture of what it used to be.

David: What do you do when you're not on tour?

Kip: A lot of different hobbies, odd jobs, and things to make money where I can here and there. I don't actually look for other tours, but if they fall in my lap, sometimes I'll take them. Lately I've been really involved with making cider. I've been a longtime home-brewer, so I started making hard cider and learning about apples and different apple products. Living in Lancaster County, PA, there's a lot of farm history and barns that I'm intrigued by, so I'm exploring local history back home through the history of the apple.

David: What's your favorite kind of beer?

Me: I like all kinds of beers and ciders and the whole gamut of the spectrum. I don't have an absolute favorite, but I definitely like something that's very flavorful and hopefully 100% real ingredients and no adjuncts if that makes sense. That sounds kind of nerdy [laughs]. So like a good farm-based or orchard-based cider, rather than random ciders you're gonna find at any bar.

David: If someone is visiting Lancaster, what would you recommend they check out?

Kip: Drive into the country side if you can. Go see the farms and see an Amish buggy. There's lot of cool things to see in the city as well. There's Central Market which is the oldest farmer's market in the country. There's good food and stands to get produce. There's tons of restaurants and cafes. A lot of people like Prince Street Cafe. I like a lot of bar restaurants like Pressroom, Taproom Spring House, Lancaster Dispensing Company, The Fridge, Quips Pub, Lancaster County Brewing Company, Horse Inn, and Isaac's Restaurant.

David: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Kip: Come to the 15-Year Anniversary Show! We haven't talked about it yet, but we might do some cool merch items there. This is the first time it's on the record, I haven't said this to anyone else, but there's a small chance I might bring some of my personal poster collection there. I have a flat file cabinet at home with photos and posters I've collected over the years that have been piling up.

#August Burns Red #Kip #interview #ABR Club Exclusive

[mermaidsirennikita]

I wonder since Harry marries Meghan maybe they are gonna replace William with Harry as new King? Cause Meghan seems more lively and progressive and fit for the role of modern Queen, than Kate who is famously doesn't do her job as she should and just plain boring. I'm not sure Kate even popular in UK.

A) Kate is very popular.  She’s pretty and has lots of babies.  She’s brought a ton of tourism $$$ to that country.  People who already don’t like the monarchy bitch about her not doing as much, but people who like the monarchy like her because she was a beautiful bride, wears pretty clothes, and has adorable children that she seems to love.

B) The job isn’t a real job.  It’s going to things they want you to go to to bring awareness, and frankly you don’t even *really* have to do that if you don’t want to.  People do seem to forget when critiquing Kate that William is rumored to want her to not be out in the spotlight as much as his mother was because he doesn’t want a repeat of the Diana Effect where people think she’s a saint and obsess over her.  William wants as normal a life for his family as possible, which means that he is probably the one getting them out of engagements.  I really don’t give a fuck; he was born into it, he had no choice, he’ll do his duty when he has to but as it is right now he’s the eventual heir but not the Crown Prince, compared to Charles who has always had more active engagements because he’s always been the Crown Prince.  When Diana was alive she had more active engagements because she was the future queen, until she got divorced, and then she did a lot of things because she wanted to and was used to it.  Kate also has been preoccupied with being pregnant or raising babies for the last few years, and her pregnancies are not the easiest so I super don’t care if she doesn’t want to go out and about as much for that reason either.

C) I don’t think she’s boring, and I don’t think it’s fair or right to put Meghan and Kate against each other because it’s kinda gross to do that to women anyway, and they also are most likely friends, what with them being the wife and future wife of close brothers.  What you might see as boring, I see as someone having her shit together to the point where there isn’t much for the tabloids to talk about, and enjoying her privacy.  At the end of the day, did she know what she was getting into by marrying William and becoming a public figure?  Maybe, to an extent, as much as anyone can.  But she also was marrying the guy she loved, and I can’t really expect someone to not do that because the person’s a public figure and that’s not ideal.

D) There is absolutely no way that William will EVER be replaced by Harry lol.  Ever ever ever.  Harry does not want the crown.  WILLIAM does not want the crown, but he’s been raised knowing it will be his, which is why William has not gotten naked in Las Vegas.  I like both princes; Harry is more accessible for a reason.  William has spent his entire life knowing that someday he would be king and I’m sure he’s always been in a very difficult position because he hates the press and probably isn’t a fan of some aspects of his father’s side of the family, but…  He’s gonna do it.  Abdication is something the Windsors are soooo against.  When David (Elizabeth’s uncle) abdicated her father had to become king in a time of war.  It was chaotic and stressful, and though let’s be real Liz’s dad died because he had lung cancer, she’s apparently always blamed a bit of his death on the stress of becoming king in such less than ideal circumstances.  It was very traumatic for her, and it also led to her becoming queen FAR before she wanted to; she thought she’d have 10-15 years to be a normal mom and wife, at least.  Even if William were to abdicate (which would be entirely his choice, lol when people throw around Windsor abdication rumors they say “they” will “skip” someone; who is they???) which he won’t, or get into a tragic accident, which God willing he won’t, he has two, nearly three children who will be his heirs.  George and Charlotte are ahead of Harry.  The next baby, male or female, will be after them.  After Charles, four people would have to give up the throne or die for Harry to be king.  And for that matter, William and Kate could very well have another child before then, you never know.  Any legitimate child of William’s comes before Harry in the line of succession.  The fact that Harry has almost absolutely no chance of being king is part of the reason why there isn’t as big a fuss of him marrying a Catholic mixed race American divorcee actress.  They’re more forward-thinking than they were, sure; but it’s “bad” enough that Charles is married to Camilla, who’s just one of those things, and she’s very possibly not going to be queen when he becomes king, where Diana was very much expected to be when she was married to him.  Charles is gonna fight for that, but as it is Camilla should prooooobably be Princess of Wales.  And yet she isn’t.  His big obstacle tbh is that Camilla isn’t the mother of Charles’s heir, who will be the next Prince of Wales in all likelihood.  Kate will still be a step out of the norm as queen for the record--she’s a commoner and prooooobably wasn’t a virgin when she married William, seeing as they’d been shacked up for quite some time before they got married.  A far cry from Diana.

As it is, the only Windsor who’d have a remote chance of abdication is Charles because he’s not so popular, his wife is less so arguably, and he’s getting long in the tooth.  But conversely…  I think he does love William.  I think he probably would take that L so that William could have his normal-ish life for as long as possible, and it’s very probable that at this point Charles is ready to be king and since he’s spent his whole life preparing and arguably kinda ruined his own life and that of another person because he had the expectations of being king (if Charles had been Andrew, he probably could have waited and eventually told his mom to fuck off and marry Camilla like he’d wanted) on him.  He might as well be king for as long as he can be; and it would kinda be dishonoring his mother to abdicate, imo.  If Lizzie were ever to abdicate, which I doubt, I think it would only be because she was SEVERELY incapable of being queen anymore, and she’s still pretty spry for her age.

So in conclusion, I like Kate, I don’t care if she does her job which isn’t a real job the way people want or not because at the end of the day her family is a pretty meaningless historical institution who doesn’t really *have* to do shit, but people want them to in order to feel better about all the money they get because they were born or married that way.  I’m not interested in comparing her to Meghan.  And Harry will never be king; Meghan will never be queen.  Chances are that once queenie croaks you’ll be seeing a lot more of William and Kate, who will likely be past the “popping out babies like they’re cookies coming out of the oven” stage of their marriage anyway.  Which is arguably Kate doing her job lol–that line of succession is super secure.

#Anonymous