#the plot bunny grows at midnight

[flordeamatista]

HAPPY NEW YEAR! LET DADDY BLOW YOUR BACK OUT 💕

Good For You

pairing: DBF!Ari Levinson x Reader

concept: At midnight, let me taste that desire from those lips.

word count: 1.5k

warnings: anal sex, ari kink, dirty talk, mirror sex, new year smut with a little poetic plot, nicknames- Princess and Bunny

a/n: @slyyywriting thank you for sending this lovely ask and hope Ari breaks your back this year.

lovely betas: @lunarbuck and @writing-for-marvel

Masterlist

On the first minute of the new year, a new beginning is expected to take place, and you are going to welcome the new way of life.

You finish touching up your hair and double-check your lipstick. You look down to adjust your dress, and it isn’t until you feel someone staring at your back that you see the man of your dreams. His hair is pulled back slick, and his beard is trimmed. He grabs you by the waist before you can even say his name.

"Quiet Bunny," Ari murmurs in your ear, one hand firmly pressing over your lips, muffling any whines that escape your throat. He bites your ear before spinning you around. “Tell me, do you like making me mad?”

You succeeded in getting him where you wanted him. This relationship with Angry Ari is what makes it so inviting and captivating. When he watched you flirt with DJ Mickey and promise a new year's kiss, you watched him hold onto that glass of whiskey.

Trying to claim what belongs to him, Ari clenches his fingers around your neck. “As much as I would like to be gentle with you, Princess, you make it so hard."

The feeling you get when you see his big beefy fingers and see him licking his lips before meeting your eyes is something that you have never experienced before.

Messy, wet, and hot lips meet aggressively in a mixture of flavors, the smell of rain, and a hint of vanilla on the tongue. 

 Your body's reaction to this man as you taste his kiss is electric. 

You moan as you reach out to pull Ari closer to you. This is exactly what you’ve imagined, what you’ve hoped for. 

You moan as Ari pulls your hair back and exposes your neck, and he licks and kisses your skin as hot air whispers on your body as he speaks every word. "This is what you were made for. You're just a filthy princess. Just mine, and I will only get the privilege of kissing you today and tomorrow."

Your little moans confirm his claim.

There is something primal about you - a ferocity that burns fiercely.

“Turn around, Princess.” You follow his instructions because you are already wrapped around this man's finger.  Pulling your dress to your waist and yanking your underwear off, you feel the cold winter air welcoming two fingers into your pussy. 

Ari watches your ass moves while he’s teasing.. He flicks your clit as you moan and grind against him. Ari stares you in the mirror and sees how he makes your body feel good just by touching it. 

It is a breathtaking view. 

You squint at the mirror and twist your hips in a circle, self-conscious. “Ari, please." You bite your lip.

He runs his hand along your spine, going up under the dress and then back down. The tempo grows chaotic as you learn to control the movement. It is as if every moan comes to life when he squeezes your ass. 

Ari wants to touch every inch of your skin, from the curves in your ass to the smooth expanses of your thighs and calves. Your skin is a magnet for Ari, so he wants to feel it all.

He kneels down and leaves a kiss on your ass cheeks and goes back to grab your neck, whispering in your ear. He looks straight into the mirror, your eyes meeting his azure color.

“Go ahead, play with yourself,” he says in a gruff voice. 

You move your hand into your clit. Ari spanks your ass to give you a little tease as your fingers slide into your pussy. 

After he watches you play with yourself, he grabs the lube from his drawer, kisses your shoulder, and gives you another smack.

Upon a whim, Ari slips his hands beneath your ass, and pulls your cheeks apart. 

Licking his thumb and pressing against the soft opening he is unable to see, he presses forward. Just as you are about to exhale, Ari has already eased the tip of his thumb inside your tight sensitive muscle ring, you shout out in surprised pleasure.

This is a new year and a new hole to explore, and this is what he deserves to be able to ring into the new year.

Spreading cool lube on your ass, Ari teases your backside and whispers, "I'm gonna fuck you into the New Year." 

“It's just a few seconds of pain, Princess, but you'll take it well for me," he says as he grabs your neck and presses the tip of his dick against you.It is a breathtaking experience as soon as the tip is pushed in.

“Taking a deep breath and holding it there will make it much easier for you." Ari strokes his dick before slowly pushing into your tight hole. One hand grips his length and the other remains on your hip to hold you steady as he slowly slides into you. 

You feel a sense of relief and a longing for more of him. 

To hold you so tight that something remains after the moment ends.

The party outside is in full swing, but you hadn’t realized your dad's best friend was about to take you for a ride, making use of every opportunity.

Your face is filled with emotion as you gaze into the mirror. Seeing your mouth open and your eyes meet in your reflection, you become more aroused. 

The movement of your hips lets Ari know he’s free to move. Despite his tense hand on your hips, he accepts your silent command. He is too distracted by the way you fit like a glove around him to realize how you're using him.

After feeling a deep longing for him the entire evening, you can finally provide your body with what it's been craving. The look on your face, the way your mouth opens wide, and the way your eyes search for more is enough to further enchant you. Ari is deep inside of you, causing the bubbling in your core to begin rising. A look of pure and intense hunger fills your eyes, the heat in them makes things possible that you never thought possible.

This leaves you needy and full, but aching as well. Not to mention that you had a dream of this moment not too long ago. 

The dreams pierce your mind like fireworks. Ari keeps thrusting his hips as you look up at him in the mirror, blinking at him while he breathes hard.

In response to your reaction, Ari praises you, boosted by your moans. "This is what you're made for. You're just a filthy princess taking my cock."

The sensations are more vivid than ever, making you feel like you are spinning but also more aware and focused.

He seeks to taste the natural flow of pleasure in my eyes, and every glance at me reveals a lustful desire to own me.

Hands fly to the mirror's edges as you bend closer, changing the angle so that every thrust hits you just right. As you bite your lower lip, a lustful last glance catches your attention. 

Your hips move in response to his.

You can only hear deep breathing and skin slapping together. By letting the feelings flow through you, you allow them to control you. The midnight countdown can be heard from the open windows. As Ari thrusts in and out of your hole, all you see is yourself getting a countdown to your orgasm. 

Your hot breath creates steam as your hands press flat against the mirror.

Almost grueling in its weight, his length and speed stretch you to your limits. Ari begins murmuring against your neck. "You're such a desperate whore, aren't you?" he teases. "Whores can't come until midnight" Before thrusting back and forth, he groans slowly and kisses your back, not in the mood for slowness, hoping to hear you scream his name into the New Year. "Mmm, Princess, how do you manage to squeeze me just right in every position?" 

As each second passes his thrusts become faster and harder. 

He keeps one hand on your hip and moves the other to your clit. "I'm not going to last. You feel so good. I―you're so tight," he groans again. He starts fucking you faster, his dick filling you in a way that makes your body numb. "Oh, fuck. Oh, God. Princess― look at you taking my cock."

At the last second, your mind spins in every direction and pressure rises within you as you grasp on the mirror. Ari bites down on your shoulder. Your most intense orgasm of the new year occurs right at midnight, when the fireworks go off. 

But the real fireworks are with Ari.

365 days of him blowing your back and more.

At midnight, let me taste that desire from those lips.

#dbf!ari levinson x reader #ari levinson x you #ari levinson x reader #ari levinson imagine #ari levinson x fem!reader #dbf!ari levinson #ari levinson x female reader #chris evans fanfiction #ari levinson x y/n #ari levinson x woc #chris evans fandom #ari levinson x plus size reader #chris evans one shot #chris evans x reader #ari levinson fluff #ari levinson drabble #ari levinson one shot #chris evans x latina!reader #ari levinson x poc reader #chris evans imagine #ari levinson series #ari levinson fanfiction #ari levinson x f!reader #chris evans x y/n #the red sea diving resort

[motifcollector]

hi!! I wanted to thank you for all the notes on my little book blog, your vibes are excellent and I'm honored that you're following me <3 would you like to tell me about some of your favorite books, or recent reads that you really enjoyed?

hi! this is so sweet omg, also i just saw your post about the sparrow--i've been meaning to read it and now i really have to!!

I recently did a post with my faves from this year so far (here), so I won't repeat the books I mentioned there but I have lots of favorites so I'm happy to have the chance to mention more! I added a little about each book for context but my blurbs do not give them justice at all, I just didn't want to throw a bunch of titles with no explanation at you :) Under the cut bc it's a long list w/ the blurbs.

EDIT WAIT IM SO DUMB I FORGOT TO SAY THAT MY GOATS ARE NABOKOV, DOSTOEVSKY, [TONI] MORRISON. I didn't want to mention all the books I loved by them bc that would take forever but yeah they are the best <3

FICTION:

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston: Just re-read this one after several years and it’s even better than I remembered. Comprised of several shorter stories based on stories the Kingston’s mother told her about her relatives in China growing up, with Kingston imagining her own version of these family legends. The final story captures the fear and anxiety and shame of childhood so well &lt;3

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson: An old favorite. Centered on 18-year-old Mary Katherine Blackwood, who lives with her older sister Constance and sickly uncle Julian after the mysterious deaths of the rest of her family. Oddly tender considering that premise :)

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih: Read this one in a single day—among its many wonderful qualities, it’s a page-turner! Reminds me of psychological thriller movies. It’s narrated by a Sudanese man who has recently returned to his hometown after spending time in Europe. Back home, he meets a mysterious stranger who’s also been to Europe and becomes obsessed with him.

The Lover by Marguerite Duras: Based on Duras’s relationship with an adult Chinese man when she was a teenager growing up in colonial Vietnam, but despite the title, it’s clearly focused on the teen girl character. Reflective and haunting.

The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie: Better than Midnight’s Children imo. Rushdie’s books are always tough to summarize I think, the plots are often convoluted and yet they’re also more than the sum of their parts. This one is about the son of a wealthy Indian family divided by a conflict between the businessman father and pioneering artist mother.

The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai: Dazai is one of those male artists who captures young women surprisingly well. This short novel is centered on a woman from a fading aristocratic Japanese family. So emotional and quietly eloquent.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood: Absolute classic of the stories-about-stories subgenre. The protagonist’s sister was a writer who died young with a devoted feminist following, and the protagonist resents others’ attempts to capture her sister’s legacy. Coming-of-age as she recounts growing up with her sister, but also intersperses the sister’s work.

Trieste by Daša Drndić: Centered on an elderly Italian Jewish woman haunted by her family’s complicity in the fascist order around them. Drndić’s body of work often focuses on characters obsessed with historical atrocities and is consistently fascinating, but this is my favorite of hers.

The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector: For the longest time I felt like everyone was telling me to read Clarice Lispector and I did and yet her novels did not click for me! These stories finally made me a Lispector stan—gotta reread her novels now :) Hard to sum up since it’s a long collection, but completely worth it.

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung: I’m biased bc I saw Bora Chung speak and she seems like such a sweet and modest and offbeat-in-a-good-way person—would be a good tumblr mutual :) But I loved this collection even before then, it’s surreal and haunting and most of the stories don’t sound like they’d work on paper but they absolutely do.

NONFICTION (I am actually a fraud when it comes to nonfiction bc I’m a novel girl at heart but some books I love…):

Twelve Who Ruled by R.R. Palmer: I just started re-reading this after a couple of years, it’s so fascinating! It’s history centered on the twelve members of the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution. Super interesting period in history IMO and the book is also a great study of personalities, it makes me want to write my own (fictional) characters lol.

Literature and Evil by Georges Bataille: A collection of essays on the works of a variety of writers—Blake, Kafka, Proust, etc., all the good guys.

A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib: THE music book. It’s a collection of essays around the theme of Black music in the US. Abdurraqib’s writing is so eloquent and touching, and whether I knew the musicians’ work well or not, I loved all the essays. He does a great job of interspersing the musicians’ stories and their significance with his own perspective and experiences.

Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. Du Bois: Extremely important from a historical perspective--Du Bois eviscerated the dominant racist + neo-Confederate school of historiography regarding Reconstruction in the U.S. Also just incredibly well-written--since it's a technical work, it can be tedious with the statistics etc at points, but Du Bois's prose is so stunning. The chapter “Transubstantiation of a Poor White,” focused on Andrew Johnson, is absolutely brutal (complimentary.)

Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard: Kierkegaard is so fascinating, this is a daunting read (at least to me) but totally worth it. You do not have to be Christian to be a Kierkegaard enjoyer :) It’s focused on the Biblical story of Abraham almost sacrificing his son Isaac, but also tackles much more.

#literature #book recommendations #favorite books #resources #reading list #answered asks

[plotandburn]

Harry gets adopted by...

ok so, before anything starts let's get to the rules:

The title of this prompt is "Wrong Boy who lived Meets Canon" so the canonverse has to follow the books down to a T untill the two universes colide (however feel free to correct any racist names and stereotypes and cases of Jk's bogotry against Slyterin's that you may find. i will not tolerate slander against Severus or Draco so if you hate them don't ever write a fict for this or any of my other plot bunnies. )

No reader-inserts, self-inserts or unhappy endings are allowed.

spanking, watersports, extremely underage ships or parent/child incest are only allowed if portrayed on a negative light.

Peter Petigrew and Dolores Umbridge must be bashed

Dumbledore must be gay and atracted to Grindewalt and Grindewalt alone.

poor grammar is not allowed (you don't need a beta but at least use grammarly some form of grammar corrector)

You are not allowed to bash Severus Snape, Sirius Black,Draco Malfoy or Remus Lupin

8. Hagrid can only be paired with Madame Maxine and no one else

19. Mad Eye Moody and Amelia Bones can't be paired with anyone

10. Minerva Mcgonagal can only be paired with Poppy Pomfrey or anyone on the staff that she never taugh herself.

11. Crabbe and Goyle can only be paired with Daphne Greengrass, Astoria Greengrass, Milicent Bulstrode, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot, each other or an Oc.

Plot:

Ok so...i'd imagine they would come across him after dubs leaves him at the Dursleys while taking a midnight stroll during a trip to England and take him to Barcelona with them thus Harry would grow up speaking perfect spanish and be very proficient in the use of muggle weapons....and in art. I'd imagine he would still be a griff and his mom's would be very good friends with Wolfstar.

Would be hella cool if Bobby shows up from time to time as he never acepted that Amy dosen't love him and of course, the family would eventually visit the other girls from time to time and Jannet would be happily married to Scud.

Recomended ship: Drarry because...C'mon it would be history repeating itself at it's finest.

Oh and of course feel free to pair Max and Dominique with any guy of legal age of your choosing.

#harry potter #plot bunny #harry potter is raised by othes #harry potter gets adopted by #harry potter fic idea #harry potter fandom #d.e.b.s. #lucy diamond #amy bradshaw #pro sirius black #pro severus snape #pro snape

[littlestrawberries]

whoa me

so i'm not super active here, but i want to be, so here's an info post i guess.

i go by strings mostly, but also bunny, goldie, mazy, and zero. pronouns are they/them. active on facebook, kinda not really toyhouse, and artfight. i write gay skeleton fics on ao3 , as well. if you want to chat, i'll get notifications for here and discord (littlereddreams). i'm awkward but i do try to chat.

my undertale aus, all taking part in a verse of my own:

-under the flowers: an au based on flower language where monsters began growing various flowers on them after the death of the royal children. (toyhouse folder)

-midnight's dove: error and ink are gay sad bird gods that have sad shit happening to them. split into fanfic and rp versions. (toyhouse folder)

-infection boys: a collection of dumbasses that are very sick/based on diseases and their posse, including mutation and contagion, diseased nightmare and geno. there's no actual folder for them because i'm a dumbass.

my fnaf au:

-the traveler's au: a chaotic au that's been developed at the same time as actual fnaf via shitposts and weird crossovers so the plot's wrong, but at least it's convoluted just like actual fnaf. i'd give you the folder but there's only mike and one of his siblings, which is tragically, canonically, a creepypasta character (i swear there's some serious stuff in this au, my brother and i genuinely love it)

#send help #information #admin intro #undertale #undertale au #fnaf #fnaf au #intro post #introduction #pinned post

[itslulu42]

Fake Married and Soulmate AU! FOR SHIKASAKU.. :DDDDD

First words etched on your skin soulmate au.

But there’s a slight problem. Since Konoha has the ninja academy, a large part of the population ends up with the word “Hai” because of attendance roll calls. Sakura knows there is a good chance her soulmate is someone her age when it shows up on her skin.  She also watches for new faces every time there is a new roll call.  

It’s impossible to tell who it is by the word alone though, and Sakura can only hope that her soulmate as something a little more unique.

Meanwhile, Shikamaru has “Ino-chan” tattooed on his skin, so he strongly suspects it’s Sakura.  But Ino is also pretty popular, so he’s not going to say anything until he’s certain.  He never thought he would be assigned to a fake marriage mission, much less to her.  He’s pretty terrified of it.

Sakura, on the other hand, can brawl their way out of a sticky situation if they are discovered.  This is her fourth fake marriage and she’s getting tired of it.  

The fic is in Shikamaru’s POV and it has him slowly losing his marbles as Sakura bosses him around.  

“Kiss me properly, Shikamaru.  No one is going to believe we are newlyweds if you only kiss me on the cheek.”  It take four days for him to finally breakdown and confess.

Unbeknownst to them, Shikamaru and Sakura were made on day one, and the enemy was foiling their attempts from the start.  When the enemy goes to bust them, the find Shikamaru taking Sakura against a wall.  Embarrassed, the enemy thinks they wrong, and drop their suspicion.

Therefore, the mission is a success in more ways than one.  

#luna-orlha #shikasaku #ask game #the plot bunny grows at midnight

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update

I was going to wait a full month to make another reading post, but I’m impatient and I’ve read a lot of books since the last one, so fuck it! book blogging NOW.

what have I been reading?

Shades of Milk and Honey (Mary Robinette Kowal) - “fantasy of manners” may be my new favorite genre. short, sweet, fun, and scratched that “Pride and Prejudice 2005″ itch with a heaping helping of magic on the side. I have no idea how this is a five book series but rest assured, I will be reading more.

The Midnight Bargain (C.L. Polk) - another fantasy of manners! delightful! I will freely confess that I’m not as found of this book as I am of Polk’s debut novel, Witchmark, and it’s sequel, but I was still delighted by the worldbuilding, magic system, and elaborate rules of society and courtship Polk put forth. one of the few books I’ve ever read where I would have happily taken less plot and more romance, because the love interest is one of the most bangable men ever put to fiction.

Tampa (Alissa Nutting) - a vicious and nauseating character study delving deep into the profoundly unwell mind of a predatory and sex-obsessed middle school teacher. in interviews about the book, Nutting makes clear her distaste with the common narrative that teenage boys who are molested by female teachers are somehow not really being victimized; her debut novel does an excellent job refuting this notion, and main character Celeste is engrossing despicable from start to finish.

Bunny (Mona Awad) - a typical MFA novel that takes a sharp, trippy pivot into surreal horror. although it’s not my cup of tea all the way through - the plot plods and grows tedious in places, and the narrative obfuscation of reality can turn into a headache fast - the idea is darkly fun, the creeping sense of wrongness is dangerously effective, and at least one reveal hit me so hard I nearly threw the book across the room.

When The Tiger Came Down The Mountain (Nghi Vo) - the framing device of Vi’s novellas, in which the stories are revealed as they are told to a monk dedicated to recording history, is even stronger here than in The Empress of Salt and Fortune. this time around, Chih’s telling the story of a mythical scholar and her mercurial tiger wife, interrupted frequently by three tiger sisters who have their own version of the story. the reckoning of two different perspectives on the same tale adds an exciting tension, and has officially secured Vo as one of my favorite new writers.

Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Consent, Love, Porn, and Navigating the New Masculinity (Peggy Orenstein) - the follow-up to Orenstein’s 2016 book Girls & Sex, which I’ll freely admit was a formative influence on me as an undergrad. this sequel of sorts is as upsetting as the first, revealing the extreme degree to which many young men have internalized the pressures of masculinity. you’ll ping pong wildly back and forth between sorrow (here I’m thinking specifically of the kid who had to watch three Holocaust documentaries to make himself cry when his parents got divorced because he had so thoroughly trained himself out of displays of emotion that it couldn’t come naturally even when he wanted it to) to anger (for both the boys who have been victims of sexual assault and harassment, and the ones who guiltily admit they have almost certainly committed it themselves) and walk away wanting so, so much better for boys.

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America (Ijeoma Oluo) - now that we’ve all completed Oluo’s 101 course by reading So, You Want to Talk About Race, it’s time to get hype about Mediocre. this book’s chapters offer impressively comprehensive essays, drawing delightfully surprising and insightful comparisons between topics as seemingly disparate as the Buffalo Bill Cody-style romanticizing of the “wild west” to the 2016 occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by far-right extremists. also, if you like fun facts about how staggeringly racist the history of football is, boy is this the book for you.

The Wicker King (K. Ancrum) - before I even get to the content, I need to state that this is one of the most beautifully designed books I’ve ever held. the illustrations, the insertion of “found objects” like playlists and medical paperwork and photographs, and the way the pages literally darken throughout the story to reflect the characters’ deteriorating mental states is all brilliant. and the story itself? a breathtaking series of vignettes spelling out the story of August and Jack, a pair of terrifyingly intimate and co-dependent teenage boys struggling to make sense of Jack’s increasingly severe hallucinations. all the drama and devotion of Achilles and Patroclus, with (spoilers) none of the death.

what am I reading now?

no idea; I have five books on hold at the library and none of them are available yet, so I guess I’ll just suffer !!!

#bookblr #reading updates

[hopeassassin]

Listening to this OST while being violently assaulted by a Darling in a Franxx-ish AoMomo plot bunny that is 4100 words and counting and it’s already midnight.

Sometimes I wonder how I even do these things to myself but, eh, who cares? It’s fun. 

Will this ever see the light of day? I wonder.

I’m planning for this to be the summary of it, if it ever does, so here you go, in case you cared:

They call him The Evil of Humanity because although humans need him in order to continue existing in the hostile environment the planet has turned into over the past couple of centuries, he is a walking calamity himself. They classify him as evil because although his special genetic make up is absolutely necessary in order for the battle against the Disasters to ever end in humanity’s favor, his influence on his partners sucks the life right out of them in just a few tries. Humanity needs his power if they are ever to continue living in their own self-made hell, but to do so, they have to continuously offer up living sacrifices for him to bleed dry and discard atop the ever-growing pile of corpses that he figuratively stands on.

They call him a Beast and they treat him like an animal, because they claim he carries himself like one, behaves like one, roars like one. They revile him and fear him, yet humanity as a whole cannot be without him. 

And Satsuki? Satsuki thinks that he’s the most amazing creation in existence and that the most fearsome thing about him is how profoundly he is misunderstood and mistreated by others.

It’s just that she might be slightly in over her head when she gets involved with him in a way no one could’ve ever foreseen.

#about my most recent AoMomo endeavors #what is wrong with you Rally #I ask myself that every other day #science has yet to establish the answer #why is this so fun? #must be because it's some kind of amalgamation of Evangelion Darling in the Franxx and a bunch of other dark shit I've been into #writing #fanfiction #they call me Rally The Idea Generator #If only someone could draw them out and onto the sheet for me as well #LE SIGH #Kuroko no Basuke

[starpollen1998]

Drive: A new SciFi story - Part 1 / ?

I don’t know what it is with me and cars lately.  Maybe because I haven’t driven one in nearly 4 years, or maybe because I had a plot bunny about a hired driver and then couldn’t decide which direction to take it. So, naturally, I wrote 2 stories.  Hope you enjoy!

Part 1

I never got a call like this.  Usually it was a Lifer, or sometimes one of the Dots.  Not one of us T’s - we were usually given the cargo deliveries, or sometimes transferring a ferry vehicle from point A to point B.  But, then again, I had been with this particular ferry company for almost six years.  I suppose it was just a matter of time before I was made a Dot.

The thought made me… uneasy.

Pulling slowly up to the large gated entry, I ‘nudged’ with my cortical and the sedan came to a smooth stop.  Swiping my right wrist in a C motion triggered the suspended control panel, lighting up the interior like a Christmas tree.  It was still displaying the file I had opened when I got in to make the drive.

A man’s face stared through me.  

Jagged cuts skittered across his face, like lightning, starting at the ruin that had been his left ear and ending just short of his nose.  His hair had been shaved completely off, including his eyebrows, so there was no telling what color it would be. His eyes were so dark brown they were almost black. The left eye was obviously a cyber: its iris slightly larger than the right, eerily perfect.  Between the lightning strikes, raised whips of burns tangled together, twisting the left corner of his mouth, reminiscent of ivy suffocating a wall.

And that’s what his right eye was.  A wall.

Hard and blank, cold even in the fixed likeness projected from the dash.

Thorn, Keane R.

That was all I got when I downloaded the file to the sedan’s main frame.  A face.  A name.  An address most of us pretended didn’t exist.

Sisak Province Penitentiary.

A swish of my wrist to the left closed the file, plunging the interior into darkness.  It was coming up on two marks past midnight, and there was no moon.  

I didn’t know whether I was supposed to get out or not.  There had been no further instructions, simply the pickup and dropoff addresses and a time, along with his file.  If you could call a face and a name a ‘file…’  Sisak Province Penitentiary was known for housing the kind of criminals who didn’t simply rob or rape or murder.  No.  These were the spies, the assassins.  The ones who could topple governments, ignite global wars, or famines… all with a few keystrokes.

In a world full of Bad People, these were Abominations.

While I sat dithering between opening the door and staying put, there was a sudden knock on the backseat window.  I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Turning, I could see the form of a man waiting, though I could only see him from chest to wrists.  I ‘nudged’ my cortical and the back door slid open, the titanium panel disappearing smoothly into the frame of the door in front of it.  From the outside it would have looked like it retracted into nothing.  The man climbed in and the door immediately slid closed. From the outside there would have been no seam, no handles.

I realized too late that I hadn’t been the one to ‘nudge’ it closed.

The night was dark enough that I couldn’t clearly see his face, to know if he was the right person I was supposed to ferry.  “M-Mr. Th--”

“Keane.”

That one word, barely rasped, like wind creaking through a hollow tree.

“Okay…” I mumbled under my breath.  

The engine thrummed to life, and the ferry started moving forward.

I decided then and there that I needed to plan something to get myself busted back down to the lowest grade ferryman.  I didn’t want any more calls like this ever again.

“Do you wanna get up here and drive?” I barked out in a sudden fit of anger.  That’s what happened to me when I got flustered or fearful: my temper flared, usually with dire consequences… I winced, biting my lower lip.

“No.”

That sandpaper voice, barely there.  But I ‘felt’ control of the ferry return to me, as lightly as if someone had tossed me a set of keys.

It took a lot of psychogenic power for someone to be able to do what he just did, not only taking control of the ferry from my cortical without my noticing it, but then to return it without either one of us experiencing backlash.

Who the hell was this guy?...

I heard rather than saw him settle back into the ergonomic cradle, and the long breath he blew out had weight.  We drove in silence for 30 minutes.  Only once, about 10 minutes from the destination, did I hear a sharp intake of breath.  My ears strained to hear what would follow - a gasp, a word, a shifting of position - but there was nothing.  

Finally, we pulled up to a sleek high-rise apartment, one of the new ones that had several individual elevator pods hovering at its base.  Rumor was that this style of building had no interior doors at all: each black-tinted pod would take you directly from your vehicle or ferry to your balcony door, the ultimate manifestation of privacy and seclusion.

The ferry settled under one of the street lights, and a glance in the rear view camera showed a beam of light cutting directly across my passenger’s face.

It was him.  Thorn, Keane R.  But the side of his face that was ruined - the left - was in shadow.  He had turned so his right eye and ear were facing me.  Other than looking bloodlessly pale in the harsh blade of light, he looked normal.

Well, as normal as a man recently picked up from maximum security penitentiary can look, I guess.

As I looked at him, his eye closed, another sharp inhale causing his shoulders to lift.  Then, as before, no other sound escaped, but I watched as his body flinched forward sharply.  It was…

Was that a sneeze?...

Giving himself a little shake after and blinking rapidly, I ‘felt’ control of the sedan taken from me a little more roughly than before.  The door panel slid open, and Mr. Thorn unfolded himself from the cradle.  I hadn’t been able to see before, but he was a little taller than average, with a light layer of fuzz growing in on his head. It looked like it would be the same shade as his eyes.

Before the panel shut completely, he looked at me.

“Thank you.”

My eyebrows shot up.  “Um, you’re welcome?”

But the panel had closed.

[princesssarcastia]

in any other world (aka four ways veronica mars’ life could have ended up)

because i CANNOT get these ideas out of my head, goddammit.  whatever god gave me the plot bunny gene needs to take it back now.  anyway welcome to my veronica mars kick, 2020 edition. it’s another long one, boys, and readmores are for suckers.

1. just remember me when we used to be friends

them telling other people stories about each other (gia and whats-his-face wait another four weeks to kill carrie; logan is a thousand miles away with the best alibi in the world.  a movie!canon au

Cobb’s paranoia holds out an extra five weeks, and Logan is already on deployment when he and Gia sneak into Carrie Bishop’s home and electrocute her in her bathtub.  A troubled, drugged up starlet’s death is ruled a particularly gruesome suicide, and word doesn’t reach Logan until well after it happens.

Something about it doesn’t sit right with him, no matter that he predicted she’d end up here; something about it itches in the back of his mind, makes him want to reach for a phone he didn’t take with him when he shipped out and pull up a number he hasn’t dialed in nearly ten years.

But that’s ridiculous.  He writes it off as nostalgic product of a reunion he didn’t even go to, that he’s sure she didn’t, either, and gets back to work.  He’ll go brood and break down about Carrie when he’s off duty later, and let one of his squad-mates put a hand on his shoulder, and then move on.

He lets go of, Veronica, I need your help, and ignores the bone-deep certainty that she’d drop everything for that, after years and continents spanned and blood shed.

—

Meeting The Piznarskis is a surreal glimpse into a normal upbringing; the kind no one Veronica knew growing up ever got.   They’re kind, maternal and paternal people who unreservedly love their son and live simple lives.

And they seem to really like Veronica, which is good.  Piz keeps giving her beaming looks whenever his parents turn away, and her heart crawls deeper inside her in shame because all this clearly means so much more to him than it does to her.

She is keeping polite-society smiles on her face and using her tame, Normal Veronica anecdotes to entertain them instead of really opening up.  Is this how everyone is with their in-laws?  

These people will never know me, she thinks distantly as Mrs. Piznarski lays a hand on her arm and smiles as she inquires after her years at Stanford, and it is a comfort because she doesn’t want them to.  Doesn’t want to see their normal bubble pierced by the mud smeared all over her real history.

She starts keeping her polite-society smile on face in the apartment with Piz, too.

He doesn’t seem to notice.

—

She catches the tail end of Bonnie DeVille’s funeral on Hollywood Access at her favorite deli.  The volume is cranked up, probably so the guy at the counter can hear it over the crush of customers during lunch hour.  Which means that Veronica catches every unfortunate second of their coverage, vaguely familiar faces in the crowd drawing her attention back again and again.

Mentally giving up as a way to pass the time, Veronica compares faces to ten year old memories.  

Dick, Gia Goodman, Luke Holderman...some vaguely familiar schmuck...

She doesn’t even realize who she’s looking for until the correspondent mentions that DeVille’s last boyfriend, Logan Echolls, son of the late Aaron Echolls, is not in attendance because his current tour of duty with the Navy started just days before her death.

God, Logan.  Veronica bites back any kind of expression at the thought of Logan learning that his girlfriend committed suicide while high off her mind.  Even the media circus at the funeral is a bitterly familiar echo of what happened when Lynn died.

The thought of him lingers all the way to the front of the line and her brisk walk back to the office, until she finds her hands hovering over keys, debating whether she should look him up. Then one of the partners walks briskly past and she jerks back to reality, where she’s working through the rest of her lunch to keep the edge on the other new hires.

But the impulse lingers, long enough that she resigns herself to ignoring it until  a new obsession seizes that confined part of herself she shut away that first year at Stanford.

—

Veronica refuses to go back to Neptune for the reunion, but after Truman-Mann jumps at the chance to hire her, she splurges on two round-trip tickets to New York for Wallace and Mac, figuring meeting up was the whole reason they were so gung-ho about it in the first place.

She really doesn’t make it out to California very often, let alone Neptune.  After her disastrous freshman year at Hearst, Veronica jumped at every chance to step further away from the crash-and-burn-site.  The only reason she didn’t lose them is because Mac understood that impulse, and Wallace is a better man than everyone she’s ever met.

But god, skype and Facebook and phone calls don’t measure up to the real thing.  Veronica throws her arms around them right there in the airport and fights the inexplicable urge to tear up. 

Something between nostalgia and longing wells in her chest as they sit shoulder to shoulder with her in the back of a cab, chatting about their lives in Neptune.  She crushes it ruthlessly and fires back with tame, hollowed out stories from work and Piz, and smiles all the way through.

Her father was so proud when she told him.  My daughter, the big shot New York lawyer.  Veronica smiled all the way through that, too, and had an extra glass of wine that night where she derided her own inability to put two and two together.

Fortune 500 companies.  Frivolous lawsuits.  Disappear before they ever make it to a courtroom.

She knew exactly what she was doing, going into corporate law.  The smart thing, right thing, the thing that paid her student loans and kept her out of the oh-so-tempting mud surrounding criminal law.  She knew it would be contracts and smug rich people and ruthless competition.

But that didn’t stop her growing guilt—no, not guilt, shame—as she helped further grind the little guy into the dirt.  As she poked holes in probably-legitimate sexual harassment suits and helped companies with more money than they needed break contracts with smaller service industries and...

All that keeps her going in the disgustingly large paycheck she gets every two weeks and the fact that she does corporate law for filthy rich companies, not defense law for filthy rich people. 

(Though that doesn’t stop her from waking up gasping, one night, after dreaming she’s back in that courtroom, with Aaron Echolls’ goddamn face smiling smugly at her as she tears Logan’s and her father’s and her own testimony to pieces, as she gets him out of Lily’s murder and his attempt on her life.  Piz rolls over in his sleep, breathing quietly, and she slips out of bed. )

She and Piz treat them to dinner that night, and she enjoys it once she gets over the childish jealousy that she has to share these two people she adores with Piz, who she also adores, dammit.  

Their apartment has an office/guest bedroom and a separate living room, so when they get back near midnight (we’re way too old to be out this late, Wallace joke-groans, and Piz laughs back) Wallace heads to bed, and Piz does, too, after she waves him off from helping her set up the couch for Mac.

They share a look, and Veronica lets a smile pull her face wide as they have the same thought.  The sheets and pillow get piled up in a chair as Veronica quietly retrieves two beers from the fridge and plops down on the sofa next to Mac. 

“Cheers,” Mac says, clinking her bottle against Veronica’s, and they both take long pulls.

Veronica sighs more heavily than she means to and lets some unknown tension flow out with the air.  After a long, comfortable silence, Mac nudges her with her knee.

“How are you, really?”  Mac asks pointedly.  Veronica lets her head fall against the back of the couch and grumbles.  No, she didn’t miss the glances Mac and Wallace kept sharing all night when they thought she wasn’t looking, but when Wallace went to bed she thought they’d somehow agreed not to pry.

Now she realizes they just decided to be nice and not tag-team her, which is somehow worse.

“I met Piz’s parents a few weeks ago,” Veronica says, still looking at the ceiling, but even as she says it she knows it’s not the right place to start.  A symptom, not the disease.

Mac hums at her, listening but not interrupting, so Veronica takes the chance to start again.  Her head lolls to the side to examine Mac, really pin her with her stare.

“Did you ever imagine you’d end up working at Kane Software?” Veronica asks.

Mac catches her stare and raises her eyebrows, clearly recognizing it for what it is, and pauses to really thing about it.  “You mean, when I was scamming 09ers that deserved it for their money and helping you crack cases like a budding hacktivist?” She says with a wry look.  “No.  But I knew I was going to do something with computers, and terrible reputation of their founding family aside, Kane Software is a pretty good place to do that.”

Now it’s Veronica’s turn to hum noncommittally.

“I never had your sense of justice, though,” Mac continues.  “I just enjoyed getting swept up playing Q to your Bond.”

Silence falls again as Veronica mulls over what to say next.  She’s avoided putting her finger on this feeling for months and months, because new, normal, successful Veronica Mars is not supposed to...to...

To miss sticking her hands in the mud.

“Sometimes I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself,” she says finally, forcing herself to keep meeting Mac’s eyes.  To get a second opinion.

“Yeah,” Mac agrees.  “I looked up the kinds of cases Truman-Mann takes when you told me you got the job.” ‘Looked up’ for Mac doesn’t mean ‘googling;’ Veronica grimaces lightly at the implication.  “It was, uh, surprising.”

Veronica turns away when her eyes start to burn with that now-familiar shame, taking another long drink.  “Well, it pays the bills.  Keeps me out of trouble.”  Another drink.  “They tell me if I keep up the good work, I can make junior partner in four years.  Three, even, if I snuff the competition.”

Mac nudges her again and Veronica starts to fiddle with the label on her beer.  “My dad hasn’t worried about me in four years,” she admits softly.  “He’s proud of me, Mac.  Proud that I got out, proud that I don’t ruin people’s lives anymore.”

“Hey,” she says gently, “You didn’t ruin peoples lives.”  Veronica lets her incredulous face speak for her.  “Well, no one who didn’t deserve it,” she amends.

“I ruined his life,” she says sharply.  “I got you and Wallace in trouble, I lost—” she bites that off.  “I wasn’t happy.  I saw dark corners everywhere.  That’s not a healthy way to live, Mac.”

“No,” she agrees.  “But was that because of your cases, or was it leftover from the long string of traumatizing bullshit in high school?”

Veronica takes another drink.  Getting a psychology degree at Stanford was a fun exploration of all the ways the previous four years of her life were fucked to hell, and fucked her to hell.  And she did seriously work on her trust issues, though she stopped short of going to therapy, because that was never gonna happen.

Mac goes in for the kill.  “Are you happy now?”

Veronica, hyper-aware of Piz in their shared bedroom scant feet away, doesn’t reply, and Mac lets her.  But they both know what the answer is.

—

She passes the bar exam with flying colors; a 320 that makes her father beam with pride once she takes the time to explain the scoring rubric to him.  Piz kisses her cheek and brings her flowers when he gets off work.

It takes more effort than she’s willing to admit to ignore the fact that she scored so much higher in criminal law than contract law and civil procedure.

—

It takes her three more months to gather the courage to break things off with Piz.  He’s smart enough to notice that she waited until their shared lease was up, and that leads to a fight more vicious than any they’ve ever had; a final nail the coffin of their relationship.

Apparently she’s cold-hearted, mercenary; unwilling to open up and share her inner life with him.  Unable to commit to anyone.

But if I did that, you never would have loved me, Veronica almost says, biting it back at the very last second because the last thing she needs to release that knowledge for circulation.

She methodically packs up her clothes, the scant few knick-nacks and numerous pictures spread around in a facsimile of personal touches.  Her new apartment was lined up before she even spoke to Piz, who later scathingly rejects her careful offer to pay for half of next month’s rent while he looks for a place.

In the end, it take three days to dismantle their year-and-a-half-long relationship completely.  He’ll certainly get all their mutual acquaintances in the aftermath, who were always more his friends than hers, leaving her with no one but the service people at her regular take out places and a handful of Columbia friends in the city to talk to. 

But as she unloads her things into her new space, all the emotion she can dredge up is a faint relief, and fainter satisfaction at having her own space for the first time in her life.  That’s it.

Cold-hearted.

She pours herself a shot of tequila and knocks it back, in the interest of dislodging any hint of feeling she might be repressing unconsciously.   Fiddles with her phone and considers texting Mac, or Wallace, or her Dad, to let them know—because she’d done this, new address and all, without mentioning a word to them.  She’d even changed her paper subscriptions, but didn’t say a word to the three most important people in her life.

God, at this rate Piz will probably mention it to Wallace before she does.

All another shot gets her is her hands hovering over a keyboard again, still resisting the urge to look Logan up, to investigate he new life in some morbidly curious impulse. 

Kids these days call it Facebook stalking, but back in her day it was just plain old stalking.

And she doesn’t do that anymore.  Right?

—

Veronica channels her excess energy and time in a post-Piz existence into her work, and it earns her a “keep up the good work” from Gayle Buckley.  A nice word from one of the two female senior partners at their firm makes her all warm and fuzzy for the rest of the day.

But that dissipates as she remembers exactly what got her that compliment; playing asshole intimidating lawyer muscle for another “frivolous” sexual harassment suit at a fortune 500 company.

This time, she’s sure the company man did it, but that doesn’t matter in the face of all his money and scary lawyers.  The woman quietly folds for literal hundreds of thousands of dollars less than she should be entitled to.

That earns her another night in, drinking more wine than she really should be on a work night. 

Are you happy now? Mac asks in her head, and Veronica takes another drink.

—

She exchanges nods with the man at the corner store as she lines bottles on the counter; they’re familiar to each other at this point.  It’s late, even for a hard-working New York Lawyer in her late twenties, but she polished off everything two nights ago and somehow can’t face going to sleep sober. 

It’s not until she settles back into her couch with her second drink of the night that ice rushes down her spine in spiraling shivers.  Veronica freezes with the glass halfway to her mouth.

The blood rushes out of her face in a way that makes her feel cold.  An exhausted cold, a mix of expressions she remembers on her Dad and her Mom’s faces growing up.

Her hands shake as she sets it down with a decisive clink on the coffee table.

I will not turn into my mother, Veronica thinks, still reeling with realization.  Not even for Normal.

It’s close to 1:30 here, so everyone in Neptune will be sound asleep; she can’t stomach waking them up for this.  And there’s no one in the city Veronica is comfortable calling up at this hour.

Faintly, she recalls hands hovering over a keyboard, and her chest aches even more. 

If this were a movie, she’d probably go pour out her glass, and the bottles she bought tonight; make some kind of vow.  Sign up for meetings.

Instead, she gets up and collapses into bed as-is, barely remembering to set the alarm on her phone before she does.

—

After that she tentatively reaches out to people from Stanford and Colombia, desperate for connections to ground her and soothe the gaps she only now realizes she’s been filling with alcohol.

Just a few Facebook messages at first, but nearly all of them reach back.  Veronica has a weak moment of tearing up and rereading some of the replies in her inbox after a particularly hard day at Truman-Mann.

In another few weeks, she and a few people from Colombia have mutually coaxed one another into a standing lunch date, risking that relentless workplace competition for a chance at real human connection with people who won’t throw a fit if they have to run out of the restaurant unexpectedly.

She orders water with the meal and laughs for real at least twice.

—

Her last straw is a predictable one.  That final push, the leg stuck out to trip her so she faceplants back into the mud, like she wasn’t two seconds from deep diving into it on purpose.

I need your help, Veronica, one of her friends from Stanford says.  And that, as they say, was that.

—

Lilly laughs in Veronica’s ear as she picks her way through the crowd, for the first time in a long time.

Fleet week.  In New York, not San Francisco, but she laughs back all the same.

His posture is different.  Clearly, there’s something to be said for military training.  But it’s not that he’s standing taller, or with more confidence; despite the presence to him, he seems...lighter, like all that weight on his shoulder finally got shucked off.

It takes him a few minutes to sense her gaze, and she savors them, watching Logan Echolls in the wild.  Satisfying her inner stalker.

Their eyes meet across the crowd, and his face melts into that boyish grin she remembers, softened with age and warm, just for her.  She smiles back, delighted, and waves.

Yeah, she looked up him.  Eventually.

2. bloody knuckles, longing for home

logan, veronica, and weevil gather like fate after aaron echolls gets off for lilly’s murder; and decide to do something about it.  and then flee neptune, because the perfect murder doesn’t exist.

Veronica lets herself into Logan’s room at the Grand with the key she swiped from Duncan before he fled the country.  Steam pools out from the cracked bathroom door, so she drops her back on the couch and heads for it, making no effort to conceal her presence.

His head is bowed between his shoulders, arms tense as he leans against the vanity.  He breathes out sharply, almost a laugh, and doesn’t move.

“Chlamydia, huh,” he says roughly.

“Immunity, huh,” she fires back, but her heart isn’t in it.

“You know he’s staying here?” He asks, still not looking at her, but tension pools in his bare back.  Condensation starts to run in rivulets down the mirror. “He cornered me outside the elevators, earlier.  Threatened to cut me off.  No more mister nice father.”

Her fingers delicately trace one of the myriad scars that cuts across his spine, and then another, and another, and Logan lets her.  She maps out sins of the father visited on the son, and makes a decision.

Aaron Echolls will get his justice in his own way.

“Room 619,” she says, and his head rises.

Their eyes meet in the mirror.

—

Mac does extensive research on the Cayman Islands, just for fun, since Cassidy mentioned his father holds some of his assets there.

Veronica and Weevil go out for a drink.

Logan flirts with the woman on the night shift at the Neptune Grand’s front desk.

Veronica and Weevil and Logan go out for a drink.

Keith and his daughter spend the days between the end of finals and graduation decidedly not talking about it, but he thinks she’s taking it as well as she can.  Almost surprisingly well.  Veronica finds the tickets to New York he has stashed away.

Veronica and Weevil and Logan and Wallace go out for a drink.  It becomes a regular thing, grabbing beers or tequila or whatever they can get their hands on and sitting on a darkening beach every other night or so.  Sometimes the hush of their voices run underneath the waves.  Sometimes silence rings out.

Deputy Leo intercepts a mother and two boys who come into the station to make a witness report, but they can’t seem to find what they’re looking for in a book of the usual suspects.

Wallace forgets a pen in the coffee cup on the desk outside Clarence Wiedman’s office, when he goes to visit his mother at work.

Dick and Logan plan a blowout bash to celebrate graduation at the Grand.

Cliff McCormick brushes up on inheritance law in addition to juggling six other cases.

Logan books a plane to the east coast for after graduation.

—

After the graduation ceremony is over, half their graduating class descends on the Grand, filling the lobby and conference space rented out.  Some of them even make their way to the penthouse, Logan throwing open his door with a flourish.

But something about it just doesn’t feel right.  So Logan, Veronica, Wallace, and Weevil grab drinks and head out the front door, letting everyone see them leave for the beach.  Dick loudly complains to anyone who will listen about how Logan has been doing this every night for two weeks, like he’s got a standing appointment to hang out with narks and gangbangers.

Veronica calls her father and leaves a voicemail, letting him know she’s staying out on the beach with her friends for a while longer, in case he makes it back before she does.

Mac stays in the lobby with Cassidy the whole time.  Kendall Casablancas exits the hotel a little after midnight.

Weevil and Wallace stay out on the beach all night; the Xterra, which they all took together, sharing space for the last time, does not once move.

When housekeeping make their way through the hotel the next morning, there is a do not disturb sign on room 619.  It stays there all day, and night, and day, and night, and day again, and night again, until they start to pass it by automatically.

Veronica and her father leave for New York.  Logan boards a plane.

—

When the news breaks about Aaron Echolls’ death, neither of them are in Neptune.  Logan arranges for a private service in absentia, and sends Cliff McCormick as his representative to the will reading, which the executor of Aaron’s estate takes with more grace than Trina.

His assets are divided evenly between his two children, in addition to the existing trusts tied to age.

Cliff makes a brief stop at a coffee shop on his way back to his office, and says a few words to that computer geek friend of Veronica’s he catches sight of.  He forgets some of his notes on her table when he leaves.

—

Keith Mars comes back to Neptune alone.  The investigation into Aaron Echolls’ death stutters, stalls, stops.  Eventually, a harassed medical examiner admits it’s possible he could have maybe committed suicide.

—

Halfway across the world, a sweet and mischievous little girl named Lilly grows up with a kind, doting father, and an Aunt and Uncle whom she adores, whenever they’re in the country to see her.

Twice every year, her father and Aunt Veronica and Uncle Logan share a toast, even if only by skype.  Once on her Aunt Lilly’s birthday, and once on some day in late may.

3. all things grow

veronica mars, special agent with the fbi and logan lester, english professor, love each other well with the strength of decades, and still impress the hell out of everyone who meets them.  the one where veronica went straight to stanford after the whole cassidy debacle, and never quite lost the knack of investigating but with some distance from the neptune cesspool, learned to do it without ruining lives, her life.

Everyone knows Professor Lester is a jackass—with tenure, so he can’t be reprimanded for it.  But everyone also knows Professor Lester has the best analytical mind in the English department, and all the brightest stars in the Lit program come out of his courses.  He’s not bad to look at, either; the planes of his face are so sharp you just might cut yourself on them, and his eyes are always glittering like he knows something you don’t.  And he really doesn’t dress like a forty-year-old college professor, which doesn’t hurt.

Only the simultaneously lucky and unfortunate bastards who load their schedules up with him, or worse yet, get him as their advisor, ever see those planes soften.

His office is tastefully decorated, for those few English majors who know enough about interior decoration to say so. It’s also surprisingly devoid of books to belong to a man who seemingly memorized every text he’s ever taught. Pulling quotes and passages out of thin air is a particular talent of his.

There’s only one personal touch in the whole room, beyond the probably-expensive furniture: a picture of himself and a blonde woman holding a pit bull, on a beach so clean it can’t be in New York.  In it, her eyes glitter the exact way Professor Lester’s usually do, but his have melted into something infinitely more tender.

Very rarely, at the end of the afternoon or occasional evening class, the particularly observant students notice a blonde woman in a black pantsuit slip into the back, legs extended, ankles and arms crossed. She never says anything.  Just follows Professor Lester’s sharp movements at the front of the room.

None of them are trained to notice the outline of her holster, or the way her gaze actually darts around the room, tracking movement and exits, though it always comes back to rest on Logan.

—

Special Agent Mars is always fun at the Agency’s mixers and dinner parties and fundraisers.  Seeing her out of the sleek suit some of her coworkers suspect she was born in is all the more jarring for her ease in formalwear.  A real chameleon, they murmur, as she flips a switch and becomes more of a tittering socialite than a federal agent.

But the real fun is when she drags her partner with her.  Neither of them wears rings, but then, many agents don’t, so whether they’re married or not is up for debate.  He’s her standing date for every function, though, so in the end it doesn’t matter.

Veronica Mars has a rapier wit. Paired with her degrees in psychology and law and penchant for cataloguing every detail about a person at a glance, it’s safe to say she’s been verbally skinning people up one side and down the other since Quantico.

When her husband opens his mouth, it’s clear he shares her talent for sparring with words.

And watching them talk to each other is like following a tennis match—or perhaps boxing; trading barbs like endearments.

The best times is when some stuffy higher up with more ego than sense tries to glad-hand one of the most promising agents of the decade, and leaves the conversation head three sizes smaller and feeling vaguely emasculated.

—

Veronica learned the hard way in high school not to put too much of herself into her cases; learned to save some for her father, and for Logan, and for her.  But every so often one just stick in her craw and she can’t help sinking her teeth into it.

Her partner is too good to blink when her edges are sharper than usual, but Veronica can tell he notices.

And the man they’re tracking sure as hell does, too.  There’s something magnetic about Special Agent Veronica Mars on your trail, and this asshole is responding to it.  Leaving her...gifts.  Messages at crime scenes.

Verr-onicaaaaaaa, an old demon slithers in one ear and out the other.

When she starts to respond in kind, her supervisor removes her from the case and puts her on unpaid leave.  It’s in New York, though, and Veronica knows herself.  Knows who she is when she looks in the mirror.

Logan kisses the tip of her nose and thanks her for scheduling her crazy after his semester is finished.  They pack together, trading soft looks and touches as they maneuver seamlessly around each other.  Veronica calls Keith.

She silences the voice that sounds like teenage Veronica hissing that she’s running away from the fight.  That’s not her anymore.  And she’s not alone in this; if she didn’t trust her partner she wouldn’t have made it six months in the agency.  If she didn’t trust Logan, she would have died at seventeen.

Their visits to Neptune are rarer than her father would like, but just enough to soothe that part of them both that comes from here, that lives in every McMansion and dark alley and seedy bar and raging club and deserted beach.

Neptune is in their blood.  Veronica wouldn’t wish this place on her worst enemy; but they are akin, she and it. 

While Logan pulls his board and wetsuit out of storage and practically moves onto the beach, she does the usual tour.  Eli’s shop is doing well, and Valentina is adorable in her little oil stained overalls as she helps her father.  Wallace still eats lunch at their table, after all these years, and she smiles reflexively back at him like she did the first day they met.  Mac is still selling her soul to the devil for more money than god, running their software development with an iron fist.

Cliff quirks an eyebrow at her, and drops hints about cases he needs help with like other men his age drop little candies into children’s hands.  She rolls her eyes, but glances over the files anyway, and spends a couple nights taking pictures and video and surprising him with it in court.

It feels...nice.  Nostalgic, but not addictive.  Just some legal favors for an old friend who never failed to scratch her back when she scratched his.

Her forced leave isn’t up yet, and her partner says they’ve hit a frustrating but not definitive dead end back home, so she considers driving to San Diego to drop in on Leo with a pizza, for old time’s sake.

Then the man she was tracking in New York finally shows his face in Neptune.  He followed Veronica back here, to her home.

Oh, if that isn’t the worst, and last, mistake he ever makes.

Her friends, her family, closes ranks.  The town closes like a lobster trap for people stupid enough to come after Veronica Mars on her home turf.  By the time her partner and replacement make it out to the west coast, he’s beaten and bloody and wrapped up in evidence like a Christmas tree in Sheriff Lamb’s lockup.

The Sheriff takes the credit for the arrest; there is no mention of old biker buddies of Eli’s, or information passed along from Cliff and Wallace, or systems infiltrated by Mac. Of tasers and favors.

Veronica is cool as a cucumber when they call to tell her about it, while she’s out to lunch with an old friend.  Her partner is suspicious, but there’s no evidence.  And frankly, he’s not sure even Veronica Mars could have collared this guy without the resources of the Bureau behind her.

Deputy Sacks shakes his head in disbelief that people are still falling for that after all this time.

They go back to New York.  Life goes on.

—

Neither of them went to the ten year reunion, still too fresh off the horrors of high school. 

But they do go to the twenty year reunion, and win the shit out of it.  Not that they care, beyond vague petty satisfaction at the faces of those few people who do.  They leave early, have dinner with Keith, drinks with Wallace and Mac, and fly back to New York the next morning.

Some infinitesimal weight neither of them realized still existed was off their shoulders by the time they touch down in their home of fifteen years.

4. ten stoplights bleeding out

the one where keith mars dies in that plane crash, and veronica mars takes over mars investigations; veronica mars never escapes the insidious pull of neptune; and after ten plus years of money shots and favors, has perfected handing down her own particular brand of justice—and revenge. logan still joins the navy, but always finds his way back to her. 

it’s a story Eli’s heard a thousand times before, living in this town.  a story he’s lived himself, once or twice, though ever since he met Jade he’s done his upmost to keep his nose clean—to be that better version of himself she somehow managed to see in him.

the cops have it all wrong, lazy, corrupt, blaming it on the first brown kid they lay eyes on, planted evidence, ruined lives, etc.

there’s nothing he can do for them.

there’s nothing he can do for them.  But V always did love referrals.

“You need to go see the Sheriff,” Eli tells the kid, still hoping that one day the nickname will catch on just so he can see her expression.  His face crumples in heated confusion, because he just spent twenty minutes laying out how “Sheriff” Lamb was an asshole, but Eli smirks and jerks his head toward his car.  (Car, not bike)

They climb in, and drive to one of the last places in town holding out hope against gentrification—the 09ers he went to high school with would’ve called it seedy.

He still has a key to her offices after that stint working as her secretary for a few months when she was in college—though it’s not the same key.  Veronica Mars is too paranoid to keep the same locks for too long.  Never does catch her changing them out, just reaches in his pocket some days to fiddle with his key ring and fights a smile when his fingers find unfamiliar teeth.

But today, her doors are open.  They chime as Eli guides the kid inside, and gestures toward the old couch still sitting against the wall.

The receptionist’s desk is empty again.  He wonders vaguely what the last one did to earn the brush off.  She never manages to find what she’s looking for in an employee (either herself or her father, Eli’s never figured out which, but either option makes him want to clasp her shoulder).

He raps his knuckles on her office gently and pushes it open without waiting for an answer. 

She looks up sharply, her resting face before she registers his presence that special kind of pinched that means Logan had damn well better be at the end of his current tour of duty.

“Weevil,” she lets out a little breath and some of her tension.  “Long time no see, huh?”

“Yeah, we missed you at dinner last week.”

She shrugs.  “Life of a PI; there’s always another stake-out to ruin your night life.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” he drawls, raising his eyebrows at her.  After a decade and a half of knowing Veronica Mars, he’s more than familiar with her self-destructive tendencies. 

He’s vaguely grateful she’s pulling back from him before she unsheaths her paranoid claws and scratches everyone in reach, even friends like him; but mostly, it puts an ache in his chest that makes him want to hug Jade close and kiss Valentina on the forehead.

“Whatever, vato.  Just because you’re a successful businessman now doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t fight to keep the lights on.”  Her lips twist wryly.

And now he feels sort of bad, because she never charges his referrals full price for her services.   But favors are part of her gig, the way she tells it—keeps her in information and the occasional backup.

“Speaking of,” he starts, and she leans back in her chair and throws her feet up on the desk in a self-satisfied manner, one after the other, “I’ve got a Sheriff Lamb special in the waiting room for you.”

“Let me guess,” she drawls, “rich ‘victim’,” she pairs it with air-quotes, “planted evidence, and a timeline that makes no goddamn sense?”

“Got it in one,” he says tiredly, suddenly exhausted with the never-ending Neptune narrative.

“Send him in,” she says immediately, pulling her legs back and flipping through the one of the endless files that populate her life.

He hesitates at the door; once he hands off the kid, it becomes a case, and Veronica will tune out everything else that matters.  And Eli owes it to her to ask, to give a shit.

“When’s he back?” He asks softly.

Veronica’s hands slow, tension pouring back into her frame.  “Four more weeks,” she answers, clearly unwilling to further the conversation anymore.

“Yeah, well, make sure you remember to drag his ass to dinner with us then.  Valentina misses his stupid impressions.”

She rolls her eyes, and he shakes his head and leans out of the doorway to gesture to the kid, and that’s that.  Veronica Mars is on the case, and somewhere across Neptune, a familiar shiver just went down Don Lamb’s spine.

#veronica mars #logan echolls #cindy mackenzie #fic #weevil navarro #veronica mars movie #fanfic #veronica mars fic #vague musings about addiction #stosh piznarski #what-if #alternate univers #lmk your thoughts #2 is from that post i made about the leverage au (at least a little bit) #falling off the wagon #relationship drama #the last one is my favortie #because tbh i hate that they made weevil fall off the wagon in the movie #he deserved better #long post #sorry #you're a marshmallow Veronica mars

[thenovelartist]

All Over Again

Dude, I’ve written 2 one-shots in a week. What miracle had happened to me? XD

I watched a youtube video of the MLQC “Old Days Date”, and it gave me a BAD case of the plot bunnies!

So have this angst-with-a-very-happy-ending (I Promise! bear with me) Gavin/MC story :D

It’s a time old question: if you could do anything over again, what would you do?

It wasn’t a question I’d thought much about at all until I had a police officer show up at my door. I’d never forget his name: Eli. He’d given me a sad look when he’d appeared, letter in hand. The first words out of his mouth were, “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”

Despite my lack of contact with police officers, I knew those were words you never wanted to hear from them.

And as he went on, I learned just how true that was.

In my apartment complex lived a police officer I knew back from high school. We ran into each other occasionally in the lobby, but I couldn’t say I knew him well beyond the fact he used to be one heck of a delinquent back in the day. When I’d first seen him in my apartment building, all decked out in police gear, I’d been shocked, to say the least. It had always made me somewhat curious, but I’d never worked up the nerve to talk to him again.

I wish I would have, because that morning was the last time I’d ever see him.

“I’m sorry, but Officer Gavin Bai was killed in action.”

And then he’d held out a box of letters. “He probably would be mad at me for giving these to you, mostly because he was always too chicken to give them to you himself, but… I just feel like you should have these.”

I couldn’t not take the small box that seemed to be overflowing with letters. “What are these?”

“Letters he wrote to you,” Eli explained. “He told me once about you, and how he wrote you a letter back in school you never responded to you. He’d always wondered if he’d messed that letter up, so he picked up the habit of writing them so that he might finally be able to get one right. Lately, he’d always write them before a mission with the intent of giving it to you when he got back. It gave him something to keep alive for, but… not this time.”

How long did I spend standing there at the door, processing all that after Eli had left me with a box of letters in my hands? I don’t know. Time seemed to stop.

I remembered the letter he’d given me in high school, envelope soaked in blood. I’d been too terrified to open it, thinking it was a threat, but now…

I’d never been more curious as to the contents.

But the best I had were the letters in my hands.

And come midnight, surrounded in a pile of opened letters scattered about the carpet while the full moon shone far too brightly in the sky and the stars sparkled joyfully to spite the somber atmosphere in my living room, I blew my nose in the last tissue remaining in the formerly half-full carton I’d pulled from the bathroom.

He’d loved me.

And I didn’t use that word lightly. I couldn’t. Not when he clearly wrote each letter carefully. Even the ones that were crumpled and torn from an eraser were full of carefully chosen words that he wrote in earnest.

Any girl would kill to have the man she loved write her just one letter like the ones I’d received. How so very cruel that I had been written a menagerie of letters from a man I’d clearly judged too harshly. A man I couldn’t even apologize to since he no longer existed in this world.

For the first time since that day back in high school, I regretted throwing that letter away. If I’d dared to open it, would I have learned of his crush back then?

I laid down on the carpet, in the square of light cast by the full moon through the window. And for the first time, I thought of the one thing I’d change if I could do it over again.

“Why’d I have to throw away that letter?”

That was the only thing I thought of until my mind caved to exhaustion.

…

I was falling.

White light surrounded me as I fell through the sky, gingko leaves fluttering around me.

“If you could change the past,” I heard on the breeze. “Would you?”

“I would,” I answered without second thought.

…

I startled awake, surrounded by gingko leaves that had fallen from the tree looming above me, the not-yet-empty branches dancing in the breeze.

I forced my body up, feeling dizzy yet exhilarated at the same time as I tried to get my bearings.

“Is this… high school?”

The bell rang, and I watched teenagers all in matching uniforms fill the outdoor areas, some running to their next class, others chatting with friends. And as a certain group of girls passed, I found myself staring in shock at one of them.

That was…

That was me.

Younger me didn’t notice me, too engulfed in chatting with who I recognized as some classmates about some upcoming festival.

I couldn’t help but watch until the younger me had disappeared. And as I fell back in my leaf pile trying to process what I’d just seen, I spotted a young man leaning out an open window, letter clutched in his hand as he looked longingly at where younger me had disappeared.

Gavin…

My heart hurt at the sight of him. I hadn’t seen him for nearly a month prior to Eli showing up at my door, so seeing him again, even as a younger man, made me want to go talk to him. Even just to say hi.

In his hand, he clenched a letter, clearly frustrated by something. And that’s when I realized…

The letter.

Was it… was it that letter?

And though he’d disappeared before I could finish that thought, I just knew I had to get my hands on it one way or another. I had to know. I had to know what was in it.

…

When I finally found Gavin again, it was in my old classroom. He now, somehow, looked much worse for wear, beaten and bloody. And considering some of those wounds were still bleeding, he must have gotten into that fight recently.

And it showed on the letter.

He stared at it, disappointment clear on his face. Blood was dripping down his arm, yet he seemed to not notice as he held that letter like it was the most precious thing on earth. He sighed, setting it down on the desk before searching the classroom for something. He dug through the teacher’s drawers, but when the class bell rang, he gave up, leaving the classroom dejectedly.

Part of me wanted to follow him, but another part of me wanted to fix this moment. I knew how younger me reacted to that letter, and I didn’t want her to do that. I wanted her to see him. I wanted her to not have the regret I bore. And as I watched Gavin disappear down the hallway, I determined she wouldn’t.

I glanced inside, spying the bloody letter still there on the desk before running in to snatch it. I pulled out the letter, one that wasn’t stained with too much blood, and quickly scanned it.

To my surprise, it didn’t say much more than “Meet me in the library tonight.”

There had to be more to it, but then again, maybe he wanted to meet me and tell me in person?

The quiet murmur of students marching down the hallways echoed in the classroom, and I knew I had to do something. I had to make sure that younger me got this. I might have judged Gavin harshly, but I would make sure that younger me wouldn’t. I might not be able to speak to him again, so all I wanted was to watch younger me get the chance. The chance to hear him out.

The chance I had thrown away.

So I took the envelope. I didn’t have time to search for a new one. I would just have to leave the letter itself. I snatched a pen from the teacher’s desk, quickly scrawling my name on the outside before tossing the pen back in the holder and scurrying from the room.

…

From my hiding spot behind a bookshelf, I spotted Gavin lingering by the door of the school library, clearly waiting for younger me. As time went on, I watched Gavin grow more and more disappointed. To the point I was growing worried, too. Did younger me still toss the letter? I didn’t stick around long enough to find out, but now I wish I had.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please, don’t be an idiot this time.”

Five more minutes passed, but that was just enough time for me to learn that younger me hadn’t tossed the letter. She’d arrived.

And I don’t know who ended up being more surprised: younger me or Gavin.

“I… didn’t think you’d come,” Gavin said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

And it was clear younger me didn’t know what to do about the fact Gavin had been the one to leave the note. I had plenty of reason to be afraid of him back then, but I also knew I wouldn’t run if put in that position. It would surely be just enough time for Gavin to get out whatever he needed to.

Except, he didn’t say anything. He clearly wanted to, but no words came out.

And I just couldn’t watch any longer. Even if I had to risk not seeing what happened, I couldn’t stand here and let it go south. Not when I needed him to say whatever he needed to say to younger me.

So I stepped out of my hiding spot, keeping my head down long enough to bump into the back of Gavin, which forced him forward into younger me. “Sorry,” I shot back, pitching my voice high to hide the similarities of me and younger me while also not glancing back at them. “Continue your confession.”

And then I walked out of the library entirely.

I frowned, leaning back against the doors. Who knew if that helped or not. And I’d given up my only chance to learn what he’d had to say. All I could hope was that this time ended smoothly.

I shut my eyes and sighed, and that was when a wind kicked up, blowing a pile of gingko leaves into my face. I covered my face with my arms instinctively, blocking the sudden gust. And when I opened my eyes again, it was no longer night, but somewhere… bright. Warm, white light surrounded me, and I slowly lowered my hands, only to freeze at the flash of gold on my ring finger.

I couldn’t help but stare. I… I wore a wedding band. When did I get it? When did I put it on? And why…

Why were gingko leaves embossed into the gold around the small diamond?

“Sweetheart?”

At the sound of the close voice, I looked up, my eyes locking in on amber ones that looked on in worry.

“Gavin?”

He smiled, his eyes never leaving me. “What’s got you so lost in thought, Mrs. Bai?”

Mrs. Bai? I looked once again at the ring on my finger, then back up at him. Was he talking about me? Was I…

Was I Mrs. Bai?

He practically confirmed it when he took my hands and pulled me closer, closer, and closer still, wrapping me up in his strong arms against his chest where I could hear his steady heartbeat pounding, proving to me he was alive.

He was alive. And he was here with me.

I couldn’t help but cling tight, all his letters playing through my head. The ones that never directly professed his love but proved it in the details.

“Don’t leave me,” I whispered, my heart growing tighter and tighter by the moment.

He chuckled, warm and deep, his chest shaking with the sound and thereby proving to me once again he was alive. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And then we were falling, wind whipping past us and gingko leaves fluttering by.

“At least, not without you.”

…

The light was so bright. I wanted nothing more than to burry my face in my pillow and sleep more. Yet, as my thoughts came back to me, more and more the more I returned to the conscious world, I suddenly sat up with a jolt. And while I expected to be in the living room surrounded by heartfelt letters and soggy tissues, I wasn’t.

I was in bed.

And I wasn’t alone.

The figure next to me stirred, the arm he had thrown around my waist tightening as he pulled me back towards him.

Gavin.

Shocked, I let him pull me back down as he groggily opened his eyes. The amber orbs were hazy and unfocused at first, but eventually, they locked on me, and his expression turned warm with a smile. “Mornin’, pumpkin.”

“Morning,” I murmured back, unable to take my eyes off him. But then I remembered the ring, the one that appeared in my dream. I couldn’t help but look at my left hand, and sure enough, the ring remained.

I was only able to admire it a second before Gavin grabbed hold of my hand, pulling it towards his lips and kissing my fingertips, causing warmth to shoot through me. “Sleep well?”

“Uh… I think.”

He chuckled. “Did you wake up when I carried you to the bedroom?”

“Hmm?”

“I got home late last night. Obviously, you were waiting for me because you were in the living room, surrounded by all those letters I wrote to you on missions. I don’t know how the floor was comfortable, but I’m sorry for making you force yourself to try and stay up for me. I told you that you don’t have to do that.”

Confusion couldn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling. I was in bed with Gavin, who I was apparently married to even though I didn’t have any memories of any of that. What had happened? My mind was too muddled to come to any sort of conclusion, and the fact Gavin was holding me so sweetly and securely didn’t help the muddled mess that was my mind at all. “Sorry,” was all I could say.

His expression fell as he looked on with concern. “What is it? Something on your mind?”

“Ahh… nothing, just… nightmare.”

He tightened his hold on me, pulling me closer to him and sending my pulse skyrocketing in the process. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I didn’t know what was the dream and what was reality at this point. Everything was a mess and nothing… nothing had felt like a dream. “It… it was a dream,” I began, unable to meet him in the eye. “Where… where we weren’t married. And I had this knock on my door only for this cop to be standing there. Eli… it was Eli.”

I glanced at Gavin, trying to read his expression, but it was currently very focused on my words. “Go on.”

“And he… he told me you were killed on a mission, and so he gave me all the letters you wrote me but were too scared to give me. And so I was sad that I never married you if… if you wrote me so many love letters. And then… then you were gone, so I’d never see you again.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” Gavin said, reaching up to cradle my cheek. He swiped at it, and I felt a wet sensation roll across my cheek where he swiped it. It made me realize I must have been crying without even realizing it. “I promised you on our wedding day I’d stop taking those super dangerous missions, remember? I can’t leave you. And I won’t.”

He then leaned forward to press a kiss to my forehead, and if I thought my face was warm before, it was on fire now.

“That… that wasn’t all,” I said, pressing forward. “Then… well, in that dream, we weren’t married because I threw your letter away instead of reading it because I was too scared of you.”

Gavin let out a huff. “I never expected you to come,” he said, sadness now lingering in his own voice. “You were the kind to stay away from guys like me. And… and back then, you should have. I didn’t know what to think when you appeared. I was just… at a loss that you even showed.

“But…” He then turned a smile on me. “But you somehow did. And… well…” He turned pink. “You know the rest of the story.”

I couldn’t exactly say ‘not really’ even though I felt like those memories were right on the verge of my mind. I couldn’t pull them into focus no matter how hard I tried. But… but the way he talked as if… as if that dream of mine had become my reality. As if I had changed the past. Or… or was this the dream? If it was, even though I was confused, I knew I didn’t want to wake up from it. I wanted to know what had happened between us. I wanted to know everything that changed just by me reading and accepting his letter back in high school.

So I gave him a smile. “Why don’t you remind me anyway?”

He paused, frozen, but then sighed. “I made an idiot of myself tripping over my feet trying to get out the words to you,” he said. “I’ve never been so lost for words, but then, after a while, you started laughing, thinking it was amusing to see me so tongue-tied. I think you said later on that it made me less intimidating.”

It had. I remembered now as the fog around the memory cleared. Now, I just needed to keep him talking and maybe the rest of the hazy memories would follow suit. “It had. I liked the less intimidating Gavin, enough to maybe open up to him a bit?”

I was having to be careful fishing, but thankfully, it seemed he took the bait. “I think you were still afraid of me, but you agreed to keep in touch with letters when I transferred schools. And even when I went into the police academy. To the point I knew I just wanted to graduate and see you again.”

One by one, letters popped into my mind. Writing them, receiving them. Hesitantly at first but soon growing excited at receiving mail from Gavin. “I wanted the same. I was… I was really, really happy then,” I assured.

He smiled. “I’m glad. Because I was happy then, too. It… sometimes was the one bright spot I could look forward to.”

“And seeing me again,” I said. “You could look forward to seeing me again.”

“Yes, that too.” He rubbed little circles on my shoulder with his thumb before his arm slid behind me to pull me against him.

I settled into his embrace. I could get used to this. Who ever would have thought that rough-and-tumble Gavin could be this sweet, could make me feel the safe and secure and loved. But even though I almost was perfectly content to get lost in his warm embrace, I knew I had to get him talking to clear out the last of the fog from my mind. “And then somehow, we ended up from that to here.”

He scoffed. “Somehow.”

“You say that like it’s unbelievable.”

“Kinda,” he said. “I… that was the most impulsive thine I’ve ever done, proposing to you fresh out of police academy like that. I still can’t believe you agreed so easily.”

Just like that, everything else came into focus. His red face as he so earnestly proposed. Our wedding mere months later, eloping with only my father as witness before Gavin whisking me away on a lovely honeymoon. Us moving into this current apartment while I started my second year of university and he was promoted to Loveland’s Special Task Force.

And us generally living happily ever after.

If you could change the past, would you?

Those words rung in my head as Gavin snuggled me tightly as I giggled and snuggled into him back. I don’t know how I was given a second chance, or how it was possible at all. I almost wanted to write it off as a dream, but I knew in my heart it wasn’t. I knew I’d been given a chance to fix my biggest regret, and I wouldn’t take it for granted.

Not when I finally had a bright future with the man I love ahead of me.

#mlqc #mlqc gavin #angst #fluff #angst with a happy ending #i promise!

[itslulu42]

I sent one already so I don’t expect you to answer this but if you’re feeling generous, how about “52. Marriage of Convenience” and “97. Time Travel” for KakaHana? Thanks!

Hey, look at me!  Finally getting to the last one of these that I received.  XD

Time Travel, eh?

The two of them are sent out on a tracking mission of course.  High risk missing nin that stole a scroll from a shrine.  The trail is a bit old by this point, which is why they need some of the best trackers they have.   They find the missing nin of course, and it turns out it’s a super secret time travel scroll.  How convenient!  So there are Kakashi and Hana, back in the Fuedal Era.  

They don’t have a clan to go to, it’s not like anyone would recognize them.  They realize they have no choice but to get married asap, they don’t have any money to afford renting 2 rooms at an inn and sharing simply isn’t done.  The first village they end up is a small and quaint farming community.  There are a bunch of old people in it who are happy to throw a ceremony for such a nice young couple!  In return Kakashi offers to help with the rice farms, saying that they have specially trained dogs to help out.  It’s a lie.  He just used Kage Bunshin for most of the day to speed up the process.  

So after that experience, that’s what they do for a bit.  They go from town to town saying they have amazing rice farming dogs to get a little bit of coin.  They are still trying to figure out a long time solution though.  

It becomes a moot point when the Inuzuka and Hatake Clan show up looking for them.  They got a little bit too well known for their rice farming dogs and each clan had sent someone to investigate.  Much to Kakashi and Hana’s chagrin, they don’t ask for any explanation on their lineage.  

They start asking for kids.  XD

#purple-possibilities #the plot bunny grows at midnight #ask game

[nexuschampion]

GUESS WHO GOT A BRAIN WORM AND GOT A MINUTE TO WRITE A THING!!!!

It meeeeeeeee!!!! *frizbees a thing atchu that relates to some plotting we did like 5ever ago but since it’s more future tense idk if u wanna post it yet. U r ok to hang on to this for a bit until we get to this part in RP land if u want. Or u can just post it now lol

——————————————————————

2:19 AM

It was so late into Wednesday night that it had become Thursday morning when Shadow’s phone lit up in the dark. A cheery chime dragged her head off its pillow and she groaned at nothing in particular, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with a yawn. It was Mikey. She didn’t need to be able to read the too-bright screen to know that. And if it was this hour of the night, then she did need to be able to read the screen to find out why.

There was just one emoji. And Shadow blinked at it a few times before rubbing her face again and dragging herself out of bed, gut already starting to twist. This wasn’t uncommon anymore. Not since the first time. Every time was still a bit nerve wracking. A bit out of her comfort zone. But she knew it was important to him and truth be told, it was growing to be important to her too. She just wished she felt more comfortable and confident doing it.

2:36 AM

The couch had been pulled out, their new one that now also converted into a bed. Fresh sheets, pillowcase, and a couple soft and friendly-looking stuffed animals adorned the make-shift bed. Shadow stood in the kitchen, hair pulled up in a ponytail, Kraft mac-n-cheese coming together on the stove. A fluffy towel and some gentle soap waited next to the bathtub.

You never knew what was going to come through the window. Shadow was learning how to be prepared.

2:52 AM

The window slid open and Mikey was finally home. Shadow sat on the corner of the pull-out bed and waited while their guest was gingerly maneuvered through the window too. He was little. Puffy faced. Clinging, and not because of the aerial entrance. He didn’t look too dirty, a little smudged here and there, but he was hungry. Shadow set Mikey and little Donovan up at the table with a bowl and a spoon each, the hug and kiss served with it was a Mikey Special though.

They all spoke quietly. Spoons clinked and clacked until the midnight snack was gone. Shadow tried to clean his little face but Donovan wasn’t keen on having a stranger in his personal space, so she left the task to Mikey. The two boys set up shop in the pull-out bed, Mikey introducing their guest to his cotton-stuffed bedfellows before slipping out of the room to take a quick shower.

Left alone with the small boy, Shadow knelt down at the foot of the bed. Donovan hugged a rabbit to his chest and looked at her with big, shy green eyes.

“Hey buddy. What would you like to eat for breakfast tomorrow?”

He squeezed the bunny tighter and gathered up a floppy puppy as well, holding both like life rafts. Leaning her chin on the bed, making herself smaller, she looked up at the ceiling with a comically exaggerated thinking face.

“Hmmmmmmmm... what do little boys eat? Do little boys eat... grass?”

Donovan shook his head emphatically. “Do little boys eat... paper?”

He shook his head again, squeezing his new friends. “Do little boys eat... turtles? Should we fry up Mikey for breakfast?”

He shook his head again but she did notice the corners of his eyes crinkle, so she pressed on with that one. “Is it because he’s so big? You’re right, you’re right, he’d be too big to eat for breakfast. What if we just eat his toes for breakfast?”

Donovan giggled and shook his head again. “No? No, you’re right. He doesn’t even wear shoes! His feet are probably really dirty. We can’t eat those for breakfast. What... about... his... ears?”

Another little giggle, another emphatic shake, and this time he spoke up. “How would we eat his ears, because he doesn’t even have ears!”

Shadow nodded sagely, as if he had just dispensed some deep wisdom. “You’re right, you’re right. We couldn’t eat his ears if he doesn’t have ears. What about his pants?”

“But he doesn’t HAVE pants!”

Shadow gasped and placed a hand on her chest, really hamming up her shocked expression. She whisper-screamed an incredulous “what!?” and then placed the back of her hand against her forehead. “No pants? No. Everybody wears pants! He can’t Not have pants! I think you’re being silly. Of course he has pants!”

“No!” Donovan giggled and put the puppy down, pointing at the bathroom. “He didn’t wear pants today!”

Shadow leaned in a little, still giving him plenty of room, so she could whisper at him again. “Do you think he forgot to put them on?”

Donovan nodded and giggled, and Shadow nodded along with him. “Ok, so we can’t eat HIS pants for breakfast. Maybe we should another turtle’s pants for breakfast. Do you think we could find a turtle in Central Park and eat his pants for breakfast?”

“Turtles don’t wear pants.”

Shadow opened her mouth, took a breath, and then furrowed her brows and sat up so she could rub her chin thoughtfully. “Now wait a minute... wait a minute... isn’t Mister Mikey a turtle? Do you think maybe that’s why he doesn’t wear pants?”

Donovan nodded and giggled again, finally taking the lead in the conversation. By the time Mikey exited the shower and re-entered the living room, Shadow was sitting on the bed listening intently as Donovan chattered away about his preschool class and how it wasn’t fair that nobody liked “dan-lions” because they were his third favorite color.

She leaned into Mikey without looking as he came up beside her, one hand on her shoulder. They listened to Donovan’s enthusiasm, Shadow doing her best to keep her eyelids from drooping. But as if by some telepathic magic, Mikey seemed to sense her struggle and he scooped her up in his arms. The action startled Donovan into pausing his story and Mikey flashed him a huge smile and a wink.

“I totally agree with you bud, and I’ll be right back so you can keep telling me all about it. But this pretty lady needs to get to bed since she has to work in a few hours. So I’m going to tuck her into bed and then I’ll be right back. Ok?”

Donovan nodded and squeaked out a shy little “ok, nite-nite,” over his new stuffed rabbit. Shadow waved a sleepy goodbye and wished him a good nights sleep before being whisked away to their bedroom. She really did have every intention to talk to Mikey, ask if he was ok, hug and kiss him and make sure that the night hadn’t been too harrowing. It was never a good sign when they had a one-night foster child... but the alternative was worse. So for good and bad they would house this peanut until relatives could be located. And she really wanted to make sure to tell Mikey that Donovan should go to the bathroom before settling in for bed. But it was early. Really early. And almost as soon as the blanket had been pulled over her shoulder the world went dark and she was fast asleep.

Mikey could handle things until morning. He always did.

And he always would.

********************************************************

//we aren’t the best at sticking to timelines are we lol? And we can try to do some rp but I've got at least another week of pure chaos and destruction left so no promises in quality or time heheheeh  :D

Michelangelo loved his wife. Not just because of all the obvious reasons, but also because she entertained his wildest ideas. He loved her because she willingly rolled out of bed in the middle of the night and entertained traumatized, exhausted children that he dragged into their home after rescuing them from varying levels of horrific situations.

He loved her because she didn’t question him about it.

That night it didn’t take him long to make the call. There would be no police or social warriors stepping in for this kid. If he had relatives anywhere that were still alive they would be dead soon.

By the time he got the kid out and somewhat calmed down he’d had plenty of time to consider what he was doing. How wrong it was. But also how right. He knew Shadow was going to hate him for what he was about to do. But of all the outcomes he’d been expecting this was not one he’d even imagined and it gave him more hope than anything else.  He didn’t know why, it wasn’t like it was a solution.

The boy was distracted by being on the top of the tallest building he’d ever been on, gazing out above the city. Wide eyed and gripping the rails with white knuckles showing his not so subtle fear, he seemed to have let go of his trauma for wonder lust for the moment.

“Hey kiddo. Want to go to my place and get something to eat and have a nice, safe night?”

The boy didn’t answer. Mikey nudged him. “Tired? Your eyes are drooping.”

He nodded a tiny bit.

“Come on. Ready for another ride?”  The boys eyes it up. “We’ve got a few blocks to go to my place where a super nice lady is going to have something to eat and a nice bed ready. Can you hang on that long? It’s going to be really scary!”

Based on the first ride they’d taken he’d noticed the boy was entranced by the thrill rather than terrified. He hoped another trip would give him enough of a rush of adrenaline to let him to crash into sleep in the late hour. A huge trauma followed by the ride of a lifetime twice in a row should be more than enough to put out such a tiny kid for a good long while.

After they reached home, had some food and he left the boy with Shadow for a bit to take a shower, he eventually coaxed the kid to sleep. He didn’t leave the bed all night out of fear. He hadn’t slept at all when his wife sidled up to him and kissed him good bye for the day.  He hated himself both because he knew he was hiding the truth and because he loved her for being so kind to the boy that it hurt.

Ever since he’d met Shadow he felt far more often than he cared for that every kiss or hug might be the last. Because one of them might die in their mutually precarious lines of work or because either of them crossed a line the other couldn’t accept. Though each were equally likely he was always convinced that it would be him that would either kick the bucket or cross the line first. And he was pretty sure he’d just done it and felt horribly about it.

But it also felt like the right thing to do. Even if it meant she hated him for it.  By mid morning the kid still wasn’t awake so he ninja’d his way to the kitchen and called her, cementing the memory of seeing her happily sitting with Donovan the night before like it would be his last treasured memory of her.

“Hey.”

“Hey babe. Things okay?”

“Yeah. Things are great. Totally awesome. Kids still asleep. Things are cool.”

“I know that tone. What’s wrong?”

He was quiet for a long time. He wanted to tell her face to face but he didn’t think he could bear to.

“Mikey?”

He took a shaky deep breath. “I’m sorry Shadow. I’m so sorry.’

“Mike?”

“I couldn’t help it. I really couldn’t. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m coming home. Just stay there.”

“No, please. No. I just can’t tell you face to face. I’m a coward. You know that.”

“Michelangelo Hamato you are anything but.”

“No, I am. Because I can’t bear to see your face when I tell you … I can’t bear see the moment I fuck everything up.” He was quiet again for a few long moments as he glanced over the boy sleeping soundly, building up the courage to just say it. She would understand he also couldn’t tell her because he didn’t know what she would do. 

“The kid? He’s a Morinaga. I saved him from the Foot last night before they knew he was there. They….Leo. …will be coming for him eventually. Once they realize. . . .they missed someone.”

#fallacy of devotion #accioturtur:donovan #don't remember everything we talked about #so maybe i shouldn't have had him spill the beans so soon #but he's terrible with secrets so... #He wouldn't be able to keep it from her for long anyway #submission

[yukipri]

The shipping pref if you're still doing it (I love reading your headcanons/plot bunnies for ASL) 33 and 37 please!

So glad you enjoy reading them, they’re fun to write! Thanks so much for sending these in!

33. How would they react to long distance?

Realistically based on canon, all three bros do excellently long distance, or with time apart. They DO in canon. They have explicit and absolute respect for each other’s independence, and freedom to choose their own lives and follow their own dreams. They each have their own independent found families: Ace with the Whitebeards and former Spade pirates, Sabo with the Revolutionaries, and Luffy with his crew. Their bonds with these families are no more or less important than their bond as brothers, and if anything they’re comforted by the knowledge that even apart, their brothers are surrounded by loved ones.

Because see, that’s sorta the definition of their particular “brotherhood”: a bond that that can’t be broken by time or distance or even death. A reassurance and promise that they’re always connected, and they’ll always love each other no matter what. So even if they don’t see each other or hear from each other in years, they know these feelings won’t change. It makes them perfectly suited for long distance, because there’s not a waver of a doubt that they might grow apart.

(That being said, in a modern AU/reincarnation AU/future!AU where their independent goals are accomplished, I like to imagine them wanting to stay together as much as possible. Apart is fine, but together is better when they can and nothing’s keeping them apart ^ ^)

37. Describe one reunion after time apart.

(modern AU)

Luffy always greets his older bros with a flying crushing hug (sometimes the full on legs-wrapped-around-head crotch-in-face type), and depending on time spent apart, open bawling with crocodile tears, the kind he doesn’t shed for anyone other than his bros really. Luffy loves his friends and he never feels lonely when he’s with them, but he misses Ace and Sabo and all the time they spend apart hits him in the face every time they’re reunited.

Luffy lives together with Ace and Sabo, and even though he’s still a college student, his older brothers have graduated and are working. Ace is a local firefighter, and very attached to his boss Whitebeard and their crew, and Sabo works at some very secretive but prestigious company under Luffy’s dad (and some say he’s being groomed to be Dragon’s successor, though Sabo claims he’ll only do it if Dragon agrees to let him marry Luffy…). So Sabo’s away on trips frequently, but Ace usually comes home.

But during one unfortunate incident, Ace was supposed to come home early, but sends a quick text to Luffy curtly stating that there’s been an emergency, and he won’t be back till late. There’s no elaboration, but he’s a firefighter and it happens, and at first Luffy’s content to trust in Ace and just wait.

But he slowly starts getting more and more anxious as it passes midnight.

Bad luck, Sabo’s away, and although he’s supposed to come back the next morning, but Luffy can’t wait and texts his other older bro. Usually, no matter the time, Sabo responds immediately but…nothing.

The sun rises, and Luffy, who usually goes to sleep early like a lil kid, is still awake and a nervous wreck.

He tries to call Ace and Sabo, but neither of them respond. He probably should have considered calling one of his friends to keep him company or help calm him down, but he’s in such a panic mode that it doesn’t occur to him. He decides to call work directly, and is surprised when instead of a Whitebeard firefighter, Jinbe picks up. Jinbe’s a friend, but he works ocean rescue, not land rescue, and when Jinbe says he’s here because the Whitebeards aren’t available at the moment, Luffy immediately jumps to the worst conclusion and hangs up before he can hear the rest.

Luffy’s about to call Sabo’s colleague and another friend, Iva-chan, when the door opens and a very exhausted but happy Sabo comes home. The happy, “Luffy I’m home!” smile shatters, because Luffy latches onto him screaming, “ACE DIED!”

Sabo flips.

(Luckily, before Sabo can personally storm the fire department with an army of spies, Ace comes home, a lil battered but very much alive. He jolts when Luffy shrieks “A GHOST!” at him, followed by a hug with a faceful of tears and snot being smeared into Ace’s chest and a, “I don’t care if you’re a ghost, don’t leave!!!!”

Jinbe, concerned for Luffy, arrives at their house shortly afterwards to find all three brothers in a very messy pile of confusion and relief)

Get to know my Shipping Preferences & Ships Ask Meme

#thesleepymelon #AceLu #SaboLu #ASL #One Piece #YukiPri replies

[headoverhiddles]

Killing Strangers - Marilyn Manson x Reader AU [Smut]

Synopsis: Your boyfriend is a dangerous man, with secretive toys, a secretive past, and skeletons in his closet. But what will you do when he’s not around to protect you? 

P1/? I may continue this on ao3.

Notes: Undercover Agent/Assassin Manson AU!! I couldn’t get this plot bunny out of my head, so here you go. This is me procrastinating on all my other planned MM fics. Enjoy! (Kill4Me, Killing Strangers, and Gangster by Kehlani are great songs to cycle while reading this)

It’s midnight in Stuttgart, Germany.

You spread out on the chaise lounge, your dress riding up to your knee as you rest your head in your arms and watch the lights of the city blink. It’s beautiful here.

Your boyfriend is an assassin working for a non-government branch, and has got three different places, in different spots. The first one is a penthouse in New York City, upper Manhattan. The second is, as he likes to call it, ‘homebase’, in Los Angeles, a hilltop mansion with bulletproof gates. He’s been spending the most time here in the German penthouse lately, having left behind much of his work in LA.

You rise from the chaise, dress brushing the floor as you walk over to the bookcase. He’s got a single photograph connecting him to anything he’s done in the past, and it’s a photo of him ten years ago, and five other men, all dressed in black suits. 

That had been the dream team: The Antichrist Syndicate. It had started with his partner Jeordie, codename Twiggy, who used to run with Manson in the early days of the business. Then Kenneth, codename Ginger, John, codename 5, Stephen, codename Pogo, Skold, codename Arctic Wolf, and finally, your boyfriend: Brian Warner, codename Manson, the Pale Emperor. They had all worked for an international organization for undercover peacekeeping, called Interscope, under a philanthropist named Trent. They did good, keeping secrets, taking out high profile people. Trent ran a tight business, no loose ends. Then after Mission Grotesque, a particularly bloody affair in Berlin, they parted ways.

5 left first, then Pogo, then Skold, and finally Ginger decided it was time to leave as well. Ginger and 5 had teamed up again in some kind of partnership somewhere across the world in Romania, Pogo had left the life for good (and had probably gotten killed for it by now), nobody really knew what happened to Twiggy, and Skold had gone rogue, become a ghost, a gun for hire.

Manson would have done the same, if becoming a lone wolf wasn’t so unreliable. He liked the benefits he got from working under contract, which meant he could provide for you, keep you safe, keep you under protection when he wasn’t around to look after you. The Loma Vista organization under Bates paid him good, and made it clear that you and he would both be untraceable.

You adjust the framed photograph, dusting it off with your fingertips. Manson played it like he didn’t give a shit about anything or any of those ‘backstabbing assholes’, but you could read him well enough to know he missed those days sometimes.

You walk over to the bar in the penthouse, pouring yourself another cosmo. You had been a bartender before Manson had picked you up in that club three years ago, so you knew how to mix a good one. You run your fingers down your neck to your diamond dagger-shaped necklace, smiling. It felt good knowing how much he cared for you. The danger of his job was all worth it—you would kill for him, and he would do the same.

You walk back over to the window, and sigh. The cars passing below look like small fairy lights, dancing in the blur of the night, and your eyes in the glass reflection mirror the stars.

Suddenly, all the lights go out. You swish your drink, letting the lit up city illuminate its path up to your lips.

"There's an intruder in the house," you remark dryly, "Whatever will I do?"

"Beg for mercy," Manson's voice growls behind you, and fingers wrap around the back of your neck. You take another sip of your pink drink, blinking your eyelashes.

"You gonna choke me, daddy?"

He hums, vibrations rumbling against your back. "I've gotten too used to having you around. I’d probably go crazy without you." Instead of choking you as some lethal assailant in the night may have, he begins massaging you instead. "You haven't been relaxing. You're stiff, sweetheart." You reach back, hand finding his crotch.

"And you're not." You turn around, looking up at him teasingly. "That's a problem." He turns the lights back on, smirking as the shoulders of your dress fall down your back.

"We won’t have to worry about that for long." He walks over to fix himself a drink, undoing his top two buttons to reveal the tattoos on his chest. "What’d you do today, babygirl?"

"Made sure nobody broke in and killed me," you smile sweetly, sauntering by him. You hum, and look at his gun cabinet as you pass it. "That gets me wondering..."

"Mm," he mumbles, half listening as he downs his glass of vodka and pours himself another. You watch him, biting your lip. His black shards of hair are in his eyes, and his cuff links have the slightest trace of dried blood on them. It makes you wet imagining how it got there.

Turning to the cabinet your curiosity had brought you to, you unlatch it, and take a small gun out. You make sure to attach the silencer, as you’d seen Manson do a million times, and close the cabinet door softly. Walking back over to the living room, you stand across from the west wall.  

Looking around, you aim at a plate on the shelf across the room, and pull the trigger. It instead blows a hole through a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and Manson looks up from where he’s cutting lines.

“Mind telling me why you’re shooting up the place?”

“I’m practicing,” you shush him, getting up and inspecting the smoking bullet hole, “What am I going to do when you’re away one day and some thug comes in, trying to kidnap me to get to you?” He stares at you through dark eyes, taking a sip of his vodka. You go on. “Picture it. Bates sends you off to Hong Kong to kill some arms dealer who wouldn’t pay. I’m here... all alone... dressed like I am...” You inch your dress up your leg, and his eyes dart down, following the hike of your skirt.

“So, you wanna protect yourself with a gun?” he muses, using a rolled up hundred to snort his lines. “How patriotic.”

“Fuck off.” You lick your matte red lips. “If you get to play with guns, so should I.”

A smug smirk dances on his lips as he admires your form. At least your breasts are being pushed together nicely the way you’re holding that pistol. “Uh huh. Have some of this.”

“I’m busy.”

He walks over to the couch, and sits behind you with his drink, watching. “Okay. Try again.”

You look at him, then back at your target: the damn plate.

He settles in, elbows on his knees, and watches your finger stroke the trigger. “Careful, angel. Aim nice and close.” You close one eye, and pull the trigger. Manson cringes as you blow his first edition Alistair Crowley book away.

He gets up, sighing, and sets his drink down. “You wanna learn how to do what I do?” he mumbles in your ear. He presses his weight up against you from behind, and wraps his arms around you, rolling up his sleeves. His hand encompasses yours, tattooed fingers making sure your grip is right. “Here’s what I do.” He jerks your arm, shooting the plate. Then he shoots a cross pattern into the wall behind it, with four bullet holes, and strokes his hand down your hip. You moan gently, and he pauses. “Oh. You like that?”

“Mhm,” you nod, and he brushes your hair aside, holding your shoulder.

“Your turn.” You aim, and he holds your hand again, steady. “Shoot,” he whispers, pointing just past you, “Here. And the world’ll get smaller, sweetheart.”

His voice is like sandpaper honeyed over. You lean back into him, and his hand finds your breast, massaging it as you try to aim. You give up a few seconds later, and he guides the gun down between your breasts, down your stomach, and slides your dress up your thigh.

“Please,” you whisper, and he dips the barrel of the gun into your black lace panties.

“I fucking wanted you all week,” he growls in your ear, “It killed me being away from you.”

“You could’ve called me.”

He drags the gun up and down. “I don’t have enough burner phones for how many times I had to jack off thinking of you.”

You shiver, reaching back to palm him. He’s half hard in his pants, and you want more. “What did you think of?”

“You, putting on a little show for me. Those gorgeous eyes, staring up at me like I’m the world while you suck my cock like it’s all you live for.”

“Oh,” you breathe, and he massages your other breast, starting to move the gun against your clit.

“You look good holding a gun, babygirl. Aim and show daddy just how good you are.” He gives you the gun, but you drop it and press your lips to his. He walks you back into the floor to ceiling glass windows, and tears your dress, letting it fall around your ankles.

“I liked that dress,” you pout.

“Fuck the dress,” he mutters, and turns you around so you’re facing the building opposite you. You’re only in black pantyhose and a black push up bra, otherwise exposed. He sinks his teeth into your shoulder, his grill making the mark even more pronounced, and you purr, grinding back against him. He grinds his cock into your ass for a moment, just reveling in the sound of your soft moans growing in volume.

He finally pulls your panties down, and positions himself, slowly sinking into you. You gasp, palms splaying out over the window. He grunts once he’s all the way in, then starts up a pace. You grind back into every thrust, and he holds you around your middle, slapping your ass with his hips every time he pounds in.

“You know, if someone broke in, you could just fuck them to distract them until I got back. Your pussy could send a man to an early grave.”

Angrily, you shove back against the window so that both of you fall to the floor, and you get back on top of him. He holds your hips, mouth falling open and head falling back as you start to ride him hard into the floor.

“Babyg... ah, ah... ah...”

“You like that?” you circle your hips, slamming down, “Huh? Mister tough hitman, scary pale emperor, thinks I can’t protect myself. You like feeling my wet little cunt around you? Guess who’s on top of who?!”

“Fuck,” he groans, and you put your forearms on either side of his head, dragging your breasts up over his face.

“I’m close,” you whisper, “Oh god.” He holds you tighter, reaching up your ribcage to grope your breasts and suck your nipples.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Cum on my fucking cock,” he sneers, “Do it, I know you want it.”

“Manson,” you moan, and he rocks you through your orgasm from beneath. When he knows you’re done, he flips you over, roughly pounding into you a few times before his hips stutter and he swears again, finishing inside you.

He catches his breath, and kisses your forehead, rolling over beside you. His hair is messed up, eyeshadow smudged over half-lidded eyes. 

“I’m sorry about the dress, babygirl. I’ll buy you a new one. Pretty one, just like that one, hm?”

“Thank you,” you whisper, crossing your leg with his. He holds onto your leg, chest rising and falling. You two finally rise, and you pull your panties up, so your lingerie set is at least complete to walk around in.

“Now. About this gun thing.” He runs his hand through his hair, and picks it up. “Why don’t we practice on something useful?”

He points out the window at the neighbour he absolutely despises. The guy has his Christmas tree decked out in LED blinking lights that never seem to go out, and while the building across from you seems like it’s miles away, it hasn’t stopped irking either of you.

“Kill Griswold over there.”

“I can’t kill him!”

“Your aim is fine.”

“I bet you I can’t.”

“I bet you can, and whoever is wrong has to give the other person... four straight hours of oral sex.”

You sigh, and aim the gun. “What about the windows, genius?” His hands find your hips, and he holds his hands together in front of you, resting his forearms on your curves. He lays his head in the nape of your neck, watching with you.

“We’ll replace them tomorrow, with your dress.”

“You think it’s smart to leave the penthouse of a contract killer wide open all night?”

“If anybody comes to get us, I know who’s gonna protect me.” He nudges you with his head. “Shoot the motherfucker.”

You pull the trigger, and hit the poor guy’s power box. His tree goes up in flames, and you stifle a laugh. You two watch as he comes storming into his living room, and looks over, trying to find who did it in a sea of tiny apartment lights. He finally looks all the way up at you two. Manson waves, grinning, and you blow him a kiss.

“My nasty little femme fatale,” he mumbles into your neck. He saunters over to the chaise, sitting back, and you sit on his lap, slinging your legs sideways over his.  

“When’s your next job?” you ask, taking a sip from his tumbler of vodka. He plays with a lock of your hair.

“Next month. Contract in Berlin.”

Berlin. That’s... “That’s not far,” you murmur, mouthing kisses along the corner of his mouth, playing with the last few done up buttons above his navel. You trace the long upside down cross he’s got tattooed there.

“Mmm,” Manson agrees, fondly stroking up and down your arms. “I think we should get a cat. We can pawn it off on Bates when we leave.” He idly looks back at the picture frame on the shelf, staring for longer than usual. You follow his line of sight, and try to think of the best way to say it.

“Maybe... he doesn’t want to be found, babe.” Manson looks back to you.

“Good. I hope the fucker stays lost.”

Snuggling into him on the couch, listening to the late night Stuttgart traffic from the open air where your window used to be, you feel his heartbeat pick up a little. No matter how much he tried to deny it, the mystery was weighing on him.

After Mission Grotesque, where had his old partner disappeared to?

#marilyn manson #marilyn manson x reader #reader x marilyn manson #the pale emperor #pale emperor #pale emperor era #heaven upside down era #heaven upside down #brian hugh warner #brian warner x reader #reader x brian warner #spy au #secret agent au #assassin au #hitman au #alternate universe #au #marilyn manson fanfiction #marilyn manson fandom #mansonite #mansonites #marilyn manson imagine #marilyn manson imagines #heavy metal #bandom #heavy metal fanfiction #heavy metal music

[transhawks]

TBH as much as I love MHA, I just can't find it in me to care much about the kids. I know 1A is the main focus, but the adults interest me so much more- especially with Hawks vague flashbacks and clearly more 'soldier training' than 'raising a literal child'. Especially with the kid pic of Aizawa recently, I'd love to hear more on the backstory of how the adult heroes were brought up. (Was Endeavor raised by people like him, in a shitty cycle of abuse? What happened to All Mights family? ....

So while I do care about some of the kids, and I definitely cared about them more before I got into Hawks, I see your point. I really feel the school setting limited My Hero Academia - Horikoshi has all but acknowledged this by delegating important plot info to Vigilantes and Team Up.

In a sense, My Hero Academia took two tropes that were getting really popular in the early 10s. American-style heroes, with the resounding success of Tiger & Bunny, and the Marvel movies (i think OPM and MHA started at similar times), and very 'special' schools. Think assasination class room, or all the other highschooler animes that became specialized. Kakegurui works in this vein, too.

But!

The thing about making your protagonists schoolchildren is that it limits a lot. It's not like this is bleach where the protag and rheir cadre can skiv off school, live a double life - in this case the setting /is/ the school. So the movement and interactions the kids can have are limited and so is their outlook.

It's why the adults are introduced. I'm really pleased that Hawks gave us an in into observing the rest of the society along with the League. The children do not have developed understandings of the world and society around them yet. The adults do, and are not limited by the constraints of being children and students.

So the appeal of the heroes and villains is basically that they interact way more fully with the world. It also means that for the most part, as a group, they have far more agency in their choices than the children have shown yet. That's appealing to us as readers.

And the side mangas are full of stuff that explains things - we see so much of eraser, present, and Midnight's actual personalities and backstories. We see Ingenium and how his agency works. We meet Stain before he was Stain. The world is more complex in vigilantes, far more adult too. And I think that's also why the school setting hurts bnha - Horikoshi has not yet really pushed his charact3rs into fully developing world views and adulthood. They are still growing and while it's nice to see that, when you compare that to the established League they feel undeveloped.

I understand the disatisfaction completely.

#Asks

[hellyeahomeland]

“In Full Flight”: an HYH recap

The most delightful Homeland episode since “Two Minutes” picks up with Mike, Jenna (in a chambray shirt), and Alan in Kabul station, observing drone footage of Carrie, Yevgeny, and crew. Jenna deduces that they’re probably going to Kohat, and she is correct for the first time all season.

Mike asks about an exfiltration team from Islamabad but they won’t be there until later tonight. Saul interrupts their pow-wow to ask what’s going on:

Saul: What is this about grabbing Carrie Mathison? Mike: Oh, hello, sir. Let’s go into my office. Saul: Fuck your office and fuck you, too. What are y’all talking about? Mike: No problem, sir. A special ops team is planning to grab Carrie. You know, because she’s a defector. Saul: FOR FUCK’S SAKE SHE IS NOT A DEFECTOR. Actually she’d be right here telling you that herself if you hadn’t cornered her like an animal three hours ago without telling me. Mike: Actually actually she was supposed to be back in America like a week ago but then she broke custody and started her adventure with a GRU officer. Now they’re out there doing God knows what. Sir.  Saul: I’ll tell you what they’re doing. They’re finding the flight recorder. Mike: What’s a flight recorder? Saul: I can’t believe I’m still having this conversation with you. Do any of y’all have brains or critical thinking skills? Mike: By the way, sir, you’ve been called back to DC. Saul: Fuck my whole life. Fuck all of you too.

Carrie and Yevgeny are very much on their way to Kohat. It’s been just a few hours since Carrie turned her back on Saul and her loaded expression as she stares out the window is very much “questioning all my past life decisions.” That could take a while, Carrie!

Carrie and Yevgeny arrive in Kohat and begin driving under a series of … I have no idea what they are, basically overhangs in the street so you can’t tell where their car is. It’s very “From A to B and Back Again” when Quinn lost Haqqani in the classic baseball stadium game “Which hat is the ball under?” trick. The team in Kabul is annoyed and prepares for a grid search.

Carrie & Co. are checking into a hotel for the night. Yevgeny makes a very obvious performance of leading Carrie to her room and what ensues is the most sexually tense scene on this show… ever. First he offers her some Ambien and Carrie cracks a joke for the first time in eight years and says she could open up a pharmacy of her own.

She apologizes for not telling him about the flight recorder sooner. At first it was all personal, she needed to find Max, she couldn’t focus on anything else. Yevgeny asks what she thinks actually happened to the presidents’ helicopter, since she certainly doesn’t believe Jalal was involved. She thinks it was probably just a freak accident: pilot error, mechanical failures, shitty weather, any or all of the above. Then she reveals that detail from the fifth episode, that the Black Hawk fleet has had a series of mechanical issues. Oh, I should add that this conversation all takes place in the doorway of Carrie’s hotel room and every fifteen seconds or so Carrie and/or Yevgeny glance back toward the bed. You can cut the sexual tension with a knife.

Yevgeny asks if there are any more secrets she’s been keeping from him. She smiles, pauses… it’s the most interesting moment. Then she says very quietly, “I think I’m fresh out of secrets.” They stare at each other for a long time, Yevgeny probably wondering if Carrie is going to invite him in and Carrie probably wondering if Yevgeny can take a fucking hint. Finally, I exhale, and Yevgeny says to just “bang on the wall” if Carrie needs anything, which at least elicits a laugh.

Elsewhere in Pakistan, a Pakistani military officer named Aziz has come to see Bunny to ask just where the fuck Tasneem is. Aziz is pissed because Tasneem was supposed to control the Taliban—first Haissam, then Jalal—and her “incompetence” has led to the Americans threatening to invade. Bunny is the opposite of worried. The Americans are all talk, no bite. They won’t actually invade Pakistan for failing to produce a man they claim they can’t find. I guess he hasn’t met John Zabel. Anyway, he says Tasneem is off to find Jalal somewhere in the mountains.

Instead, she actually meets (Haissam) Haqqani’s right-hand. She is beyond pissed that he just let Jalal control the shura last week. This is all so fucked. He doesn’t have much of a response, beyond, “well, he was the emir’s son, so I guess so?” He offers to take Tasneem to Jalal but only if she puts a hood over her head and lemme tell ya, Tasneem is none too pleased about that either!

It’s the next morning in Kohat and Carrie and Yevgeny really are going shopping, just like the logline said. They’re winding their way through the bazaars on the street but still no luck finding this flight recorder. Enter A Kid. He’s all “pardon me, excuse me,” and Yevgeny puts on his best Dad Hat and tells him to get lost. It’s very touching. Then he says he knows what they’re looking for, which is enough to get their attention.

He takes them to a shop where Mr. Shop Owner #1 is like, “Hi, do you like flight recorders? Because I’ve got lots!” Unfortunately he doesn’t have the one they’re looking for and he also seems pretty skittish because a) what the hell are a Russian and an American doing together? and b) is this official government business or something private or, like… just generally what the hell?

Saul has arrived back to DC and meets Hayes in the Oval Office with our favorite Odd Couple, Linus and Zabel (this should really be the name of a sitcom). Saul passively aggressively says he knows of Zabel “by reputation.” Aside from that jab, the meeting unfortunately goes from meh to ugh to wtf for Saul. He has to play bad cop and tell Hayes that the video of Jalal is unvetted intelligence, completely lacking in context, and probably just a straight-up lie. Hayes has the expression of someone who’s never followed Thought A to Thought B—which is true, obviously—and Zabel has to jump in to say of course POTUS has already done the Thought A to Thought B exercise, he just arrived at a different conclusion. You know, mine! The best part of all THIS is that as Saul grows increasingly incredulous at the conversation, Linus sits there, silently, looking like he’d like to be swallowed up by an alligator. Afterward:

Saul: Wow a bit of warning would have been helpful. Or maybe just an assist there, Linus. Linus: I didn’t even know you were coming back. I’m outside the ~information flow~ Saul: God, we’re so fucked. Linus: I wish I’d get swallowed by an alligator.

Back in Kohat, Carrie has entered another shop, this time sans Yevgeny. This one proves a bit more fruitful. She actually finds Max’s rucksack, which means that flight recorder had to have been here recently. Mr. Shop Owner #2 feigns ignorance, but Carrie is relentless.

Yevgeny enters all of a sudden to let her know that that special ops team from Islamabad is here, so they need to get out of there, pronto. He leaves quickly to lose the tail and instructs her to go back to the hotel and wait. His absence gives her the perfect opportunity to keep grilling Mr. Shop Owner #2, whom I actually love and seems really sweet. Poor guy is just no match for Carrie. He finally reveals the flight recorder was there but he sold it to a broker he works with. Carrie offers him a lot of money to find the broker and get the flight recorder back there for a trade at midnight.

Tasneem gets the black hood off her head in exchange for an audience with Jalal, but homie remains pissed. Jalal is sort of confused at her reaction. A few episodes ago she was plotting to put Jalal in the place he’s currently in. What changed? Well, for starters, now the Americans are threatening to invade Pakistan. She says he’s got to go to ground, but he refuses to run.

Jalal: Who do you think I am? Tasneem: You’re the loser whom I picked up on the side of the road. I bandaged your feet and listened to you crying about your daddy issues for hours. Jalal: You think that you control us. Actually it’s the other way around.

He leads her up to a rooftop where hundreds of Taliban fighters have gathered. He says the last time the ISI got in the way, they killed a thousand of their officers on the street. And now they’re twice as strong, so you do the math. Tasneem has a general “oh fuck” expression on her face and… same.

In Kohat, Yevgeny finally shows back up in Carrie’s hotel room. He reveals that eight men are hunting her and they need to leave, now. She says they can’t, as they haven’t found the flight recorder yet. Of course we know Carrie has found it—and in hindsight, at this point Yevgeny probably does as well—but she needs to stick around a few more hours to make the trade. For a split second you think maybe Carrie is going to preoccupy Yevgeny for a few hours in her bedroom but instead she calls Jenna.

Carrie: Hey, how’s it going? Jenna: OH MY GOD I STILL HATE YOU. Carrie: Chill for a second. Also I know you’re walking toward Mike and do yourself a favor and pause and just listen to me. Jenna: Ugh, fine, I’m listening. Carrie: I need you to give up the location of the exfil team that’s looking for me. Jenna: Are you high? Carrie: I am not, but you are if you think this will end up any other way than me convincing you. Jenna: You’re putting me in an impossible position. Carrie: You must do this. I compel you. Jenna: If I give up their location, you’ll turn yourself in there? Carrie: “Sure.” Jenna: Ok I’ll call you back.

This entire conversation transpires with Yevgeny sitting on the sofa in Carrie’s hotel room, legs crossed. It’s… I’ll be honest, it’s hot. When Carrie hangs up he applauds her performance and says she was clever and convincing. That’s right, Carrie played Jenna… again. Again! Again again again!

Carrie is kinda down on selling out her own people but Yevgeny says she did it for all the right reasons and in any case, the local police will only hold them for a day (uhhhh yeah right). He starts to compliment her strong instincts. He really respects her for that.

“Why, how do you do it?” Carrie asks.

“Me? I am more of a planner,” Yevgeny answers.

The alarm bells start ringing in her head and Carrie asks him all speaking of which whether he arranged for them to “run into each other” outside G’ulom’s office way back in the season premiere (show time: 10 days???). Before he can answer, Jenna rings back and tells Carrie the safe house location. Carrie says “you did the right thing” and the amount of self-disgust in her expression for this just being too fucking easy is … significant.

A few minutes later, Mike is on the phone with one of the special ops team members in the Kohat safe house. Local police have surrounded the building. Exasperated, Mike tells them to stand down. One by one, they file out and are led into custody. Jenna watches in horror and the amount of self-disgust in her expression for this just being her life is… also significant.

In Rawalpindi, Tasneem is at Bunny’s house and freaking out. Jalal has consolidated power extremely quickly. She’s concerned, but Bunny says they just need to take him out, root and branch. Bunny is offended by the prospect of being ordered around by a smarmy teenager but Tasneem thinks they need to protect him. If Pakistan protects Jalal, they’ll protect themselves too. And they need to respond to the Americans not with concessions but with threats just as strong. Remember when they were three minutes away from a generation-defining peace agreement?

Back in her hotel room, Carrie is growing restless. She decides to get some fresh air and by that I mean she jumps out the window to get the show on the fucking road. On the way she calls Saul, to whom she is apparently still speaking. She asks if their protocols for transferring money over the dark web are still a go and he says yes. She says she’s got a lead on the black box and he promises to arrange the funds ASAP.  

Carrie winds up back at Mr. Shop Owner #2’s shop. Mr. Shop Owner #1 is there, too! Plus the broker. They do a little thing, Carrie says she won’t pay any more than $999,999, she is very In Charge and it’s pretty great to see. Not that we needed any more convincing, but the kind of instincts and improvisation Yevgeny admired just a few hours earlier are on full display here. She knows exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. It’s breathtaking.

What’s also breathtaking is Carrie doing something correctly with a computer. Apparently the black box just hooks up to her Macbook with a USB-C cord… whoulda thunk?! After pulling a gun on Mr. Broker and telling him to beat it, she starts listening to the cockpit recording.

Then Yevgeny arrives! She starts to apologize but he stops her—he just wants to listen. They each share an earbud like goddamn Jim and Pam and continue listening. Turns out, Carrie was right. No one shot down that helicopter. A freak mechanical malfunction, “brace for impact,” etc. “Fucking helicopters,” Yevgeny says.

Carrie attempts a segue and says, “So… what now?” She wants to get this to the embassy in Islamabad. He wants to do the opposite of that. Then Carrie starts on him. Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all. Maybe he’s actually… good.

Carrie: Plus, I’d owe you a favor. Yevgeny: Carrie, if I drop you off at the embassy I’ll literally never see you again. Carrie: Not true. I won’t betray my country, but I’d still move to Scottsdale with you. Yevgeny: I still don’t believe you. Carrie: Why not? You’ve already helped me a ton, and it’s cost you nothing! There has to be a way where we can make a “mutually beneficial arrangement.” Yevgeny: Is that what they’re calling it these days? Carrie: What? Yevgeny: What? Carrie: …anyhow, aren’t you sick of all this bullshit? Shitty bosses, shitty politicians, clearly the current way of business isn’t working for us. We could do better. You and me. We could chart something new here. You and me. God, we’re already halfway there! Yevgeny: Our own private network, huh? That would be nice, but it’s a pipe dream. Also, I like what you’re saying, but you still lied to me. Carrie: Technically, I just withheld the truth. Which is exactly what you did to me. Yevgeny: Heh? Carrie: The asylum, Yevgeny. What actually happened? We just took long walks in the woods and shared our life stories and you just happened to be the there the day I tried to hang myself? Give me a fucking break.

She moves closer and mentions the whole “picking up where we left off” thing. Well, will he or won’t he? Because she’s already decided.

There is a long pause and then they start making out. It’s exactly what you’d expect it would be, by which I mean it’s really hot! The scene is fraught with the unknown. How much are they playing each other? How much are they being genuine? Like Carrie says, they’re living in the grey areas. And who’s the first to blink?

Evidently it’s Carrie. After a few moments she breaks away and says they need to wait until after Islamabad. “Ok,” he says quietly. She tries to kiss him again, but he pulls ever so slightly away.

She hops off the table and begins to pack up the flight recorder. At that moment, he stabs her in the neck from behind with a tranquilizer. “Sorry, baby,” he says as she falls unconscious.

In DC, Saul is waiting anxiously by the phone. It rings. It’s not Carrie, but Linus. Everyone’s in the situation room, there’s some sort of activity in one of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. Saul’s day goes from bad to worse.

In the situation room, resident hottie Scott Ryan is giving a PowerPoint presentation about said activity. Hayes is trying to understand literally anything that’s happening. Zabel explains that Pakistan only has the nukes in the first place to defend against a possible invasion from India. They’ll never actually use them. Saul growls that that’s because India isn’t fucking stupid enough to invade Pakistan. Hayes is beginning to understand the whole concept of “consequences” but before his mind can dwell on that for too long, he decides to just up the ante. More troops, more preparations for war, more of the same.

Saul’s day is not possibly as bad as Carrie’s has wound up. Yevgeny carries her, still unconscious, back into the hotel room. He places her gingerly on the bed and then kisses her forehead. He shuts off the lights as the camera moves in slowly on her her peacefully sleeping face.

#homeland #homelandedit #an hyh recap #in full flight #* #by: sara #homeland spoilers