#I’m like that guy who uploaded his brain into a computer and can’t think without excruciating pain in the magnus archives

[detentiontrack]

Happy day 10 of this migraine. Should I throw a party when it inevitably gets to 14 days?

[folkloreguk]

❥ My Sweet Evil Heart (C.Chanhee)

A/N: I wrote this as part of an angel/demon collab for The Boyz! You can find the masterlist HERE. This was really fun to write and I got to live out my alternate universe dream in which I'm a detective...I hope you like it, I'm always welcome to any form of feedback!

genre: demon!Chanhee, detective!reader, angst, fluff, reader is constantly sleep deprived, Chanhee is the sweetest demon ever

synopsis: You, a highly respected detective in your department, are investigating a case of a very strange demon who seems hesitant to do evil...but can you trust someone who is supposed to be the personification of wickedness?

words: ~ 10.6k

Have you ever met someone deeply unhappy? Someone who seems to, at all times, be fighting a war inside of themselves? Have you ever felt empathy for somebody, even though they tested you, over and over, as if the worst part inside of them was trying to make them lose you on purpose? Did you hold on and never stop believing in them? Or did you say something to drive them away, making them think they would only hurt you in the process of you trying to make them see clearer?

This is the story of a demon, whose every cell demurred at his evil nature. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start with the basics.

Being one of the head detectives at the local police station was not an easy-going, nor an amusing job. Whilst working on serious cases, lacking proper sleep was not an uncommon occurrence for you, and in some instances, self-care came up short until the mystery had been solved and the guilty ones were locked away. Every case pulled you in and swallowed you whole, keeping you deeply invested for days and nights until your brain felt like it had turned to mush and your body worked on autopilot, until you functioned a little like a highly intelligent zombie. And yet, you couldn’t imagine yourself doing anything else in your life. The thrill was close to an obsession, and seeing justice being served thanks to your work was more addicting than any drug could ever be to you.

Most crimes in your world were committed by demons, of course. They were your worst enemies, the monsters you saw in your nightmares and the reason you never strolled down a street without a gun by your hip. It wasn’t forbidden for them to walk the earth, so long as they kept to themselves. Their evil nature made it almost impossible for them to uphold these terms, though. You wished you could lock them all away in some putrid prison cell, or better yet, send them back to where they crawled out from originally. But the law couldn’t convict beings before they had done anything wrong. So, it was on you to make sure you kept an eye on the sinister beings, figure out what they were up to and stop them before they could actually hurt somebody. Like that morning, when you were called to a liquor store to investigate a break-in.

“My name is Y/F/N Y/L/N, I am the lead investigator,” you greeted the store owner with a handshake upon arrival. “Can you tell me exactly what happened?”

“I came here this morning at around 7 to open up the store. When I got out of my car, I saw the broken glass of the window,” he explained.

“What was taken from inside the store?” you inquired further.

“That’s the weird thing. Nothing is missing from inside,” he said.

“We might just be dealing with vandalism,” you thought out loud. “Do you have security cameras?”

He did, and so you went along with him to the back of the store. It was true, the interior of the shop seemed completely untouched. You suspected whoever had done this had never even intentioned on entering. There was a college campus not too far from the store, and you recalled countless times you had witnessed careless vandalism done by some intoxicated students during a Friday night. It was a very human-like crime. Demons weren’t known to do things by halves. Their crimes were usually the go-big-or-go-home-type of crimes. But then, when you watched the security footage, you were stunned.

At precisely 3:29 am, a dark figure appeared in front of the window. They lifted their arms, swinging a baseball bat against the glass. And against your speculation, they did climb through the hole in the window. With no mask or disguise whatsoever, the demon man looked right into the camera in the corner of the room. The abyss of darkness in his pitch black eyes was unmistakable. He looked around, as if he was debating on whether he should have done more, but then, to your utter confusion, spun around on his heel and climbed right back out the window.

You assured the store owner you would be looking into this case. With nothing left to do, you headed back to the police station. You had taken the security footage with you, and the moment you arrived in your office, you played it on your computer screen. Over and over - only puzzling you more, with each rerun you saw. You worried this might only be a warning. Not seldom had you been a witness to demons playing with their prey, feeding off the fear of innocent souls. Was this one indulging in one of those little twisted games? Right away, you uploaded the demon’s face onto the database for criminals, even if vandalism didn’t compare to the serious allegations that stood against other faces on that list. While you turned your attention to other cases, his features wouldn’t leave your mind. Even when you left your office at night, he was still the most prominent person in your memory.

By the time you began your walk to your home, the sun had disappeared. You couldn’t help it, even if technically you could finish work earlier, your desire to solve your assigned cases was always higher. Had you just walked home at 5 pm, you were sure to end up on your computer at home, researching and digging around on the web to discover possible clues. This way, at least you had all resources you would need at your office at the police station.

Now, in the dark, the streets were rather abandoned, most shops had already closed, and the moon dimly cast light through the clouds. Those conditions were what made it a breeze for you to notice your shadow. The figure had been following you for 5 minutes now. Judging by how carelessly loud their steps sounded and by their not-so subtle choices of hiding spots, you could tell this wasn’t something they had practice in. Purposely, you didn’t turn around, so they wouldn’t realize you had caught on to them a while ago. Instead, only a minute or so from your home, you took a turn left into an abandoned alleyway. Your hand was on the gun in your belt.

Just as you had stepped into the alley, you turned. He was right behind you. With dark orbs glaring and teeth snarling he came at you, knife in hand. Your eyes widened – you recalled his face vividly – as you took in the situation in the blink of an eye. After all, you had watched the security tape of him breaking into the liquor store countless times only hours ago. But you had the upper hand from the very moment you had spun around. His build wasn’t particularly strong, but you knew you should never underestimate demons. You grabbed his shoulders and along with him, your body crashed against the red brick wall to your left. He struggled against your grip, but his determined and feisty expression was the by far the most intimidating part about him. His face was inches from yours but looking into the sort of darkness that were demon’s eyes did nothing to you. Your hand was around his wrist with the knife – which he was aggressively trying to bring down on you – but only at first.

Because suddenly, something uncommon occurred. So uncommon, in fact, that not a single cell in your body could believe it. He willingly dropped the blade. It hit the asphalt, the metallic sound echoing in your ears. He relaxed his arm in your iron grip. Demons never gave up. They fought until you had forcefully brought them to the ground or done worse to them. Their ironic god-complex and evilness didn’t allow them to step away from a fight – until this one had come along, apparently. And then, as if his behavior hadn’t already stunned you enough, he did the unthinkable.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Without a doubt you thought you had misheard him. Swiftly, you pulled your gun out of your belt and pointed it at his face. One thing you knew. You weren’t going to play along in his little games. In panic, he rose his hands, showing defeat.

“Quit playing games, devil’s son,” you hissed. “What is it you’re trying to achieve here? You’re sorry? For what?”

He was hesitant. With every second, your curiosity only grew. Either, he was a skilled actor or…you had no idea what else it could’ve been about him.

“I almost killed you. That’s what I’m sorry for,” he said. “Does that get me a prison sentence?”

Your eye twitched because this didn’t seem right at all.

“You broke into a shop and attacked me, but then stopped out of your free will,” you assessed the situation. “You’ll most likely get away with a fine and your name in our register.”

If you had been awaiting an evil grin or any sort of enjoyment in his face, you’d be waiting endlessly. If anything, he seemed to be…disappointed?

“But you’re a cop, right?” he said. “You can lock me up, can’t you?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? You won’t be locked up if you don’t commit a crime severe enough. As much as I hate it, considering you demons are running free, it’s the law,” you said.

“You don’t get it,” he said. And he was right, you really had no idea. “I should be locked up. You need to get me to jail before I hurt somebody.”

His face was dead serious, but you didn’t want to believe a single word. How could you, when your daily life consisted of hunting down his kind, because all they brought upon the earth was chaos and death?

“Give me one good reason why I should believe you,” you said, unimpressed.

“I will tell you anything you want to hear,” he said. “If you bring me to a police station. You guys have these lie detectors, don’t you? I will take a test if that’s what it takes for you to believe me.”

~

So, that was how half an hour later you still hadn’t returned at home, but rather found yourself back at the police station. Almost everyone had gone home by now, so you took the liberty to choose the biggest interrogation room available. A few minutes and he was sitting in front of you, hands in handcuffs and his body connected to the lie detector.

“Okay, here’s how this works. I’ll start by asking some simple questions, and then we’ll get to the bottom of whatever your intentions are,” you explained.

“Alright. Go ahead,” he said. This was your first time seeing a demon take this sort of test. Usually, you couldn’t be bothered because you knew all they did was lie whilst smiling you in the face.

“What’s your name?”

“Choi Chanhee.”

“Where were you born?”

“In hell.”

“Did you break into a liquor store last night?”

“Yes.”

“Did you intend on killing me tonight?”

“…Yes.”

“Is that your definite answer?”

“…No.”

“How come both of your last two answers are lies?” you asked. “You didn’t intend on killing me, but yes is your definite answer?”

“I can’t stop the evil in me but I’m trying,” he said. You were stunned. The answer was the most truthful of them all.

“What do you mean?” you asked.

“I was never like the others since I came to earth. I’ve never felt a rush like they do, causing mischief and hurting humans. I don’t belong. It’s as if there was a demon inside of me, but it’s not controlling all of me, do you understand?” he said.

“I’m not sure, but go on,” you said.

“I don’t want to hurt anybody or destroy things. But on some days, I’m walking down the street and my body starts following the devil’s orders instead. I usually snap out of it quickly and stop myself. That’s why you’re still alive,” he explained.

“You’re telling me you’re some sort of good demon?” you asked. “Why don’t you go back to hell, if you’re struggling so much on earth?”

“I hate it there,” he said. “And either way, I’m banned from there forever.”

Your head raised as you stared at him.

“Banned?” you asked.

“I stopped a bunch of demons from killing a woman once,” he said. “Safe to say they weren’t happy to hear that, back at home. I couldn’t go back, even if I wanted to.”

“Can you tell me the name of the woman?” you asked. And he did. All this time, he really had been telling the truth. When you searched up the woman’s name in the computer, it only confirmed your suspicion. She really had been under attack when an unidentified person had interrupted and saved her life.

“I can tell you names of demons,” he said. “If you do me the favor of locking me up, I can sell out everyone I know about.”

You massaged the sides of your head and sighed. This guy really was one of a kind.

“I already told you, I can’t put you in jail for something you didn’t do,” you said. “That’s against the law, and then it’ll be me who ends up behind bars instead of you. I’ll have to let you go.”

“What if I mess up?” he said. The amounts of firsts you were experiencing in the timespan of an hour were giving you a headache. Never had you felt compassion for a demon before. But you were only human, and when you noticed the genuine concern and insecurity in his soft voice, you couldn’t stop yourself.

“How long have you been on earth for?” you asked.

“I don’t know, a few years, I guess?” he said.

“And in those few years, which of your deeds would you rate the most criminal out of all?” you asked. Any other demon would have been able to give you multiple answers, one more vicious than the other. He, on the other hand, took his time and even when he answered, he didn’t sound at all sure.

“I’ve broken into a house before, destroyed a car window and one time I stole a dog,” he confessed with his head tilted towards the floor.

“What happened to the dog?”

“I…gave it back,” he said. A laughter erupted from your throat against your will. In a friendly manner, you pat his shoulder before retrieving the keys to his handcuffs.

“Trust me, you’ll be just fine out there,” you said. “Whatever it is you’re doing to stop yourself from being evil, it’s working. I will let you go now."

Even though he wasn’t happy with your answer, he knew he had no choice but to comply. As you walked him through the hallways towards the exit of the station, you could only think of one thing: your beloved bed. Not only your body but especially your brain was drained from energy. You desperately needed a refill by getting a good night’s sleep.

“You’re the first person who’s been really kind to me,” he said, as you held the door open for him. The night air was cool, and you quickly zipped up your jacket to your chin.

“You gave me no reason not to be,” you replied.

“I almost stabbed you,” he said, bluntly.

“Almost.”

“For most people, me being a demon is reason enough to loathe me.”

“Well I guess I’m not most people,” you said. His smile was gentle, but his black eyes would always give him away. “I’ll be here at the station every day, if you have any concerns or need somebody to consult. But right now, all I want is my bed.”

“I understand,” he replied. “Thank you. Goodbye.”

“Good night,” you said, before you parted ways. Once more, you journeyed home. He remained on your mind until the moment you slipped off to dreamland that night.

~

The days passed without a trace of him. You followed your routine, but one thing you couldn’t help. You simply had to tell every person who worked with you about the changed demon you had met. No one really wanted to believe you. It was kind of understandable. Some thought you were testing their skills, seeing if they could figure out you were lying. Others went as far as to suspect your lack of sleep had given you hallucinations. But you didn’t let it go. And after all, you were a highly respected member of the police force. Some said they wanted to meet this demon gentleman, as they had renamed him.

But then you were called to a brand new homicide investigation and all of the jokes at the station were blown away by the intensity and buzz the case brought with it. You had a murder to solve. There was no place for sweet demon men in any part of your brain. Not for now. And as always, you slipped into old habits – staying up all night, living on coffee and quick meals – the toxic behavior was almost inescapable. Your fellow detectives tried their best to keep you healthy and most importantly, sane. They took you with them to get salad for lunch, invited you over for game nights (a futile attempt at giving you a break) and told you to go to sleep on time. After all, they needed your brain to function at full capacity for the case. You knew people were relying on your knowledge, and you weren’t doubting your capabilities. But a highly intelligent zombie was still a zombie. And so it happened that one Thursday night your boss sent you home. Not because you weren’t doing a good job – rather for of the opposite reason.

“You are allowed back at the station when you’ve caught a full night’s sleep. Do what it takes to take care of yourself,” your boss had said. Her tone displayed as much strictness as her eyes showed concern. Truth be told, you were too exhausted to even argue against her order. That’s when you knew. You really needed a rest. You dragged your body home.

“Hello sweetheart,” you greeted your pet bird, who chirped excitedly when you set foot into your apartment. “Guess what. I’m home early.”

As much as you wanted to drop into a slumber right away, your stomach growled. And you weren’t in the mood to wake up half-starved. As you prepared some left-overs from the fridge, you heard your bird call from the living room. “Peek-a-boo!” he sang. It caught your attention. He only played this game with you – when you were outside in your small garden and he was watching you through the window. So who exactly was he talking to, now?

You picked up a knife, because as a detective it was practically your job to be paranoid, and tiptoed into the living room. It would be harder for an intruder to spot you in the dark, so you pushed the light switch. Slowly, you advanced to the window and gently pulled the curtains aside. A shiver ran down your spine when you saw the figure standing between the trees. They didn’t seem to be hiding, if anything they were lazily resting their back against the garden fence. Maybe they weren’t aware you were watching them. Bold of them to assume they could intimidate you by acting so nonchalant. You cracked the window open slightly.

“If you don’t leave my property within the next ten seconds, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing,” you announced. The figure flinched. The moment he stepped into the moonlight and raised his arms, you remembered his face.

“Choi Chanhee?” You opened the terrasse door and stepped outside.

“Are you going to hurt me?” he asked, eyes glued to the knife in your hands. Quickly, you lowered your hand.

“What are you doing here?” you asked instead of answering his question.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” he admitted.

“And so you thought creeping around in a police woman’s backyard was an appropriate thing to do? Wait…have you been stalking me?” you asked. You should have cut back on the sharp tone, but you felt half-asleep and this was the last thing you needed. Plus, the immanent realization hit you, that you had not noticed him at all. You had been so caught up in your work that you had not recognized a demon lingering around your home address, watching you. It hurt your pride a little – and could have ended very differently, had it been a more malovent demon than the one standing in front of you. This one looked terrified, kneading his hands nervously.

“I thought you wouldn’t be upset with me…that maybe you would understand. Because you’ve been the only one who’s listened to me. I’m just trying to find a purpose,” he said, “And my head tells me you’re the right direction.”

Demons. They’ve always had a fondness for the dramatic. But his words tore at your heart strings. His behavior resembled a child who had done wrong and was in the process of being scolded.

“Do you have no home?” you asked, softening your voice.

“I’ve lived with other demons. But they don’t want me there, anymore,” he said. For obvious reasons, you thought. Your head was racing. There was no way you could leave him standing there in the cold. But letting a demon into your home sounded like you must have had a death wish. It’s not like you didn’t have enough space, though. With an extra guest bedroom that nobody had ever used before, he would be just fine. There was no excuse. You cursed your parents for making you get a bigger apartment “In case you got married and had children soon.” You never know what could happen, they had said. And how wrong they had been, but how right they had been on that last part.

“Would you say you’re a tidy person?” you asked. A gigantic yawn came over you, and once again your stomach grumbled.

“What? I mean…I think so?” he said.

“Are you hungry?” You were in disbelief. Maybe it was the zombie in you that had a heart so soft, it took pity on a demon.

“I’m starving,” he said.

And that was how you came to have dinner with a demon. Spoiler alert: It wouldn’t be the last time. You ate quietly, trying hard to fight tiredness but it was no use. Afterwards, you showed him the room he could stay in.

“How do I make this up to you?” he asked.

“We’ll think about that another time, alright?” you said, “I need to sleep now. I’ve got an unsolved murder case waiting on me tomorrow.”

That night, you locked your bedroom door and slept with your gun on your nightstand. Just in case. Even though you were almost fully convinced the demon in the bedroom across the hall was more harmless than a five-year-old, he was still a demon.

~

When you woke up and saw your boss’ message on your phone, you couldn’t believe it. She wanted you to stay at home for the day. Apparently, you needed the rest and she had no interest in getting into trouble for overworking you (which she obviously wasn’t, you were the one doing this to yourself). When you walked down the stairs, you had almost forgotten about the previous night. It felt a little like it had all just been one wild fever dream – that was, until you spotted the demon sitting on your sofa, your pet bird on his shoulder.

“I let him out, I hope that was okay,” he said. You were dumbfounded. “Listen, I just wanted to say…thank you. Tell me whatever you need me to do and I’ll get it done for you.”

You wanted to go to work. But you knew he would be no help making that possible. Your mind was already wandering off to your case, the tips of your fingers burning with anticipation to search the internet for clues. Your grumbling belly interrupted your eagerness.

“Um…you could go to the grocery store for me?” you asked.

~

You went back to work the next day. Unsure of what to do, you decided to keep your demon housemate a secret for now. The other detectives would have probably written you off as insane, and you needed them to take you seriously. To be fair, maybe you were a little crazy. But he had been really good on the first day. Only one incident, which involved him dropping an egg on the kitchen floor, stood out to you. Of course, that could happen to anyone. But any other person would not have apologized in the way that he did. Normal people wouldn’t have acted so guilty, had it been an accident. But as long as his malice remained to that extent, you could live with it. You almost laughed at the idea of him purposely watching the egg roll off the counter and not doing anything.

He sure was strange. But little did you know, his egg-dropping shananigans were only the beginning of his uncontrollable little pranks he would pull on you.

Once he let your bird fly out the window. When you came home you discovered him outside, talking to your bird, begging him to come back inside. Little did he know, all it took was a whistle and a few treats and you had him sitting on your shoulder, ready to go back inside. One night you returned home to find him staring at the ceiling in the dining room, a kitchen towel in his hand. When you asked him what he was trying to achieve there, he told you there was a mosquito sitting above him.

“So, why don’t you kill it?” you asked. He looked shocked.

“Kill it?” he asked, “We should probably just shoo it outside.”

That’s when you knew. Choi Chanhee wouldn’t hurt a fly. Literally. All those times you had worried about leaving him home alone with your bird vanished in an instant as you laughed.

“You’re right. Killing is one of the worst sins. But sometimes, especially when it comes to mosquitoes, you don’t need to worry about any consequences. If anything, I’ll be grateful,” you assured him.

Another instance made you think maybe you had been too quick to judge him as harmless. When you walked into your bathroom in the morning, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, you almost jumped out of your skin. A red substance stuck to your mirror in what seemed to be random shapes. On impulse, you called his name. On second look, you realized what he had done. The red was merely ketchup, and the random shapes weren’t so random, but they spelled “meeting at 2 pm”. When Chanhee appeared in the doorframe, he already wore his sorry expression.

“What did you think you were doing here?” you said. “You know where the post-it notes are!”

“I- He- The demon in me wanted to scare you…I’m so sorry,” he said. It was difficult to be mad at him when he was so sweet. You had, after all, told him to remind you of your meeting you had that day. He was so easy to forgive, too. Whenever he went to buy groceries, he returned with a bouquet of flowers, and after he had figured out your favorite candy, he made sure you never ran out of your supply. You liked being alone, but suddenly it felt nice to have someone waiting for you at home. A warm sensation filled your heart whenever he asked you about your day during dinner.

Even if after dinner you had to argue with him as if he was your son, because the demon in him had decided to take on the form of a teenage boy who was too lazy to take out the trash. You were still seated at the table, rolling your eyes at the demon’s horrible attempt at being evil.

“Don’t make me ask you one more time,” you threatened him, although you didn’t know what you would have done had he continued to argue against you. Only when he reached for the knife that he had already put down tidily on his plate, your eyes widened. His knuckles were white around the metal and you leaned back instinctively. Your gun was still in your belt – you had sat down for dinner straight after returning home – but you didn’t want to use it. Not on him.

“Chanhee,” you spoke in a calm tone. His face was unreadable. He wasn’t making eye contact. Instead, his gaze was glued onto the blade in his hand, staring blankly. His eyes blinked, almost robotically. Something changed in his demeanor then. There was a tremble in the hand that was clutching the knife. It grew more uneasy by each passing moment. Your heart was pounding in your chest and you kept your eyes trained on him, trusting your reflexes.

“Fine,” he suddenly said in a grumpy tone. Then he dropped the knife. The metallic sound rang in your ears for seconds afterward. You let out the breath you didn’t know you had been holding on to, as you watched him get up and retrieve the full trash bag from under the sink. You had been sleeping with your bedroom door unlocked for weeks. Even though it pained you, that night you locked your door again.

~

At 3:28 am you awoke to the sound of breaking glass. You allowed yourself to yawn and rub the sleep out of your eyes for just a moment, then you were on your feet. Gun in hand, you opened your door. Across the hall, the door to Chanhee’s room stood ajar. Light came from downstairs.

“Chanhee?” you called quietly. No answer. But your ears picked up shuffling and the sound of shards of glass being moved around. You approached slowly, trying not to give yourself away. Then you heard the quiet sobs. Your arm with the gun dropped to your side when you stepped into the kitchen.

He was sitting on the floor like he was one of the shattered pieces of glass himself. When he saw you, he flinched and tried to dry away his tears. But it was no use. They kept coming, and you had already seen them either way.

“I dropped it on purpose,” he said, referring to the broken glass. Another sob went through his body, making your chest ache at the sight of him. “I’m sorry.”

“I have nine more of those. It’s alright,” you assured him. Gently, you sat down by his side. You put your arms around his hunched frame. He stiffened at first but calmed his muscles after a moment and let you hold him.

“Shh, it’s okay,” you said. Whatever it was that was hurting him so much, you’d be here to fight it off for him.

“I can’t stop the evil in me,” he cried. His weeps seeped through your skin and tugged at your organs. It felt like a thousand tiny, sharp needles in your heart.

“It’s a part of you. It’ll never fully go away. But look at you, you’re doing such a good job holding it inside of you,” you whispered. He shuddered.

“I tried to kill you,” he stated. “I don’t deserve you. You’re so kind. You do all this for me, and I tried to kill you.”

“But you didn’t,” you said. “And that’s what counts. We all have urges inside of us…but it’s what we end up doing that truly counts and makes us who we are.”

“But it’s so hard,” he cried. His face was in the crook of your neck as he sniffled. The small teardrops that touched your skin felt like ice. “And all I do is bother you. I’m an inconvenience. Why don’t you just lock me up with the other demons? Why give me another chance every time I mess up?”

You couldn’t believe he would hate himself so much. Chanhee had more compassion than a lot of the humans you knew had. Some days he sat and pet your bird for hours just because it made him happy, he always had money on him to give to the homeless people in front of the grocery store and he almost cried thinking he forgot to pay for an item at the store (which you had obviously paid for).

“How could you even compare yourself to other demons?” you said. “If you want, I will take you in to work with me sometime. Then you’ll see the atrocities others commit. Even among humans, you’d still be sorted into the best of the best. I believe in you and that you will do good.”

He only sobbed harder at what you had said, and you felt the need to pull him in just a little tighter. You softly rocked your bodies in an attempt to calm him down.

“I would fall apart without you.” Between the hiccups and tears his words sounded like a broken confession, but that’s why they hit so hard.

“You’re not alone in this. I’m here for you,” you whispered, lips right by his ear. Your hands were in his hair, stroking his head as if you could pour all your emotions into this one gesture. What else could you do to show him you would never abandon him the way his demon people had? And it seemed to do the trick. His fists that had been clutching your shirt loosened up and his sorrowful crying turned into mellow breathing on your skin.

“Aren’t you sleepy?” you asked. “Let’s get you back to sleep. Tomorrow things will be better.”

“I haven’t been able to sleep well for three days,” he said. “But I need to clean this up first.”

He let go of you and started to pick up shards of glass. There was still a haggard expression on him, and his cheeks were painted red and tear stained. And yet he was determined.

“Let me do this,” you said, touching his arm. “You can’t even keep your eyes open. Go to bed, Chanhee.”

This time, he didn’t argue. But his good behavior didn’t stop the apologetic, almost battered look at you. He knew you would be by his side no matter what – but what he needed most was his own forgiveness. And you could tell by the way he spoke about himself that it would take a while until he was ready to accept himself as he was.

You heard his heavy steps on the stairs as he walked to his room. Quickly, you gathered the biggest shards of glass and then used a hand brush to collect the tiny pieces. This wasn’t what you had signed up for when you had taken him in. You thought you’d have to argue with him daily and that you’d miss having your personal space and privacy. You knew it would be new, living with another person after living alone for so long. But nothing could have prepared you for the way Chanhee had swept you off your feet with his adorable charms. You didn’t need to fake excitement when you came home to him, nor did you ever have to force yourself to tell him about your day or have any conversation with him, for that matter. He was truly enchanting with the way he made you care so much. Especially when you had assumed all demons were your sworn enemies.

When you finally dragged your tired body upstairs, you softly pushed open the door to his room, only to see him lying wide awake.

“Can’t sleep?” you asked. “Even though you’re so exhausted?”

“No,” he spoke. Even his voice made no attempt at hiding the sleepiness. His look was pleading. “Can you please stay with me…just for a little while?”

There was no way you could say no to his lovely gaze and messy hair and outstretched arms. So, you crawled in next to him under the covers. Your faces were inches apart. The last time you had been looking into a demon’s eyes this close-up he had been lying face-up and dead on the side of a road. Those eyes had been lifeless, and yet you felt like they had still held so much ferociousness, even in death. Now you only saw concern and genuine care in the black orbs across from you. You admired his softly sculpted face. It was one that seemed like it would much rather belong to an angel.

“You’ve been working so much,” he whispered. “You must be much more tired than me.”

“I’m used to it,” you said, “I enjoy my work because I’m doing it to help others.”

“You’re a good person,” he stated. There was something in his voice you couldn’t make out. Regret? Admiration?Maybe it was both.

“So are you, Chanhee,” you said. Without second thought, you leaned forward and pressed your lips to his cheek. He didn’t flinch nor pull away. Instead, his pretty lips curled into a smile as he closed his eyes, ready to finally drift off to dreamland.

~

From that night on he seemed to improve a little, day by day. No more breaking things or having to argue about simple house chores. It occurred to you almost as if he had turned into something more human – so much that you dared to take him to work with you. People there had found the idea of your new demon friend strange, and you were sure some would take more than a little convincing to let down their guard around him. You couldn’t blame them for the prejudices – you had once been the same, after all. But Chanhee was okay with it, even when you had explained to him that some people might hate him, just because of his black eyes and what they meant to people. He had lived years of receiving that sort of treatment. Nonetheless, it pained you to think about how used he was to it. It took bravery and thick skin to walk into a police station the way he did that day. He was fascinated, looking behind the scenes. Perhaps you found it amusing how alarmed everyone was when they first laid eyes on him at the station. His ability to turn around their views of his species within twenty seconds or less was nothing but astonishing. He very willingly took it upon himself to walk down to the nearest coffee shop and order ten cups, also earning him the sympathy from the last few sceptics. When you were deep in conversation with another detective, discussing the possible whereabouts of a highly wanted demon, Chanhee suddenly interrupted you.

“I know an underground club where they like to go after…committing crimes,” he said. “Every demon in this city knows about it.”

At that moment you realized his full potential and what good he could really do. That was, if he was ready to sacrifice his people. But he just had – without even blinking. He could be an immense help to you.

“Young man I can see you have a bright future, should you ever decide to join the police force,” said your boss from across the room. Seemed like she had the same idea as you. Chanhee only smiled shyly but couldn’t hide the glint of pride in his eyes.

~

The following days you instantly made arrangements to get Chanhee an interview with the head of the station. He had been scared, at first.

“What if the other people there hate me?” he suspected.

“They might make assumptions about you in their heads, you know, because you’re a demon. They only know demons to be evil. But the moment they realize how good of a person you are, I promise they’ll change their mind,” you said. “You’ll be precious to us, and if you want to do good, the police is where you can be the most helpful. You’ll change lives, maybe even save people.”

“Yes, I want to help,” he said. “I’m done with my kind.”

“I’ll talk to my boss tomorrow,” you assured him. “If you’re too anxious to come in to the station, maybe she’ll allow you to work from home, from my office here. This is just a try, okay? If you really enjoy this work, you’ll have to learn and earn your badge.”

The way he looked at you filled you with so much pride. He seemed to have found some hope. Like he could finally spend his time in a productive and truly good manner. You couldn’t wait to see how he would do.

~

A tiring day and many discussions with higher-ups at workplace later, you returned at your home, late at always. Your fingers tingled with excitement and you wanted to yell for Chanhee the moment you walked through your door. You had managed to score an internship for him at your station. He was allowed to start as early as the following week. As you walked up the stairs, following the shuffling noise you heard, you imagined his face when you told him the news. You knew he’d be ecstatic. His smile would make you so happy, and you almost grinned at the mere thought of it. The noises were coming out of your office.

“Hi, Chanhee. Guess what my boss-,” you started. Then you fell speechless. Paper was scattered all over the floor. Drawers stood wide open. The orderly sorted piles of case files you had been working on were dispersed into every corner of the small room. Photos and pieces of paper were falling out of the folders. And in midst of it all stood Chanhee.

“Y/N- I’m so-,” he said, helpless.

“Don’t,” you said. Every ounce of excitement was gone from your voice, replaced by an ice cold tone you didn’t know you had in you. He flinched, but you couldn’t keep in what you had to say. “You’re impossible. I can’t fucking believe this! These are real cases, Chanhee! I’m trying to save real people here! This isn’t some broken mirror or a spilled cup of water. I can look past a shattered glass, but this is too much…I honestly thought you were getting better…”

Somewhere you knew you were being too harsh. But your job was your entire reason for existing. This was your life mission, laid out in front of you as if a hurricane had rampaged through the room. It would take days for you to rearrange the files. You weren’t even sure if you’d be able to find the correct places for each piece of paper.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice cracking because he was about to cry.

“I don’t want to see you right now. Please get out. I need to clean this up and you can’t help me with this,” you said, trying hard not to scream out of frustration. Your eyes were already scanning the floor. You had no idea where to even start. With low-hanging shoulders and teary eyes that were threatening to spill over, Chanhee slipped past you. He granted you one more look before he scurried out of the office like a frightened animal.

Even though your stomach was grumbling from starvation and you could barely stay awake – as always – you needed to get some of the cleaning done. Now. Or you would go insane. Plus, you needed time away from Chanhee. While you collected the paper from every inch of the wooden floor, guilt slowly started to nag at you. You had never raised your voice at him to this extent. And he was sensitive. It wasn’t his fault, that’s what you always told him when he blamed himself for messing things up. He knew that. You cursed at yourself. How could you be so impulsive? All too well you knew how he felt about his demon half. You were supposed to be there for him, to tell him he was doing a good job and to make sure he didn’t beat himself up. Now you had achieved the complete opposite. A dull ache in your chest accompanied your hungry stomach.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. In a haze, you stepped down the stairs and to the door. You needed to apologize to Chanhee. When you opened the door, a delivery girl from your favorite restaurant stood there, handing you an order. You were puzzled.

“Already payed for,” she checked with a beaming smile, “Enjoy your meal!”

“Thank you,” you said, voice numb. Before you knew it, she had turned on her heel and was on the way back to the car.

“Chanhee! Your food is here,” you shouted, assuming he was the one who had made the order. You got no answer. When you set the bag down on the kitchen table, you saw a note, addressed to you.

Y/N,

Words can’t express how sorry I am about what I’ve done. All my life I only wanted someone to love me. In you, I thought I might have found what I had been searching for all this time. But I messed up. I always do. I drove you away from what we had. I’ve wondered why I always end up disappointing people. Now I know it’s because it’s the only thing I’m truly good at. You deserve someone you can trust blindly, someone who will walk through fire for you, someone who will take a bullet for you. I can’t give you that. I can’t even trust myself. Thank you for giving me a home and for being the most generous person I have ever met. You will always be in my sweet evil heart. Don’t worry about me too much. I will find my way and you will find yours. Who knows, our paths may cross again. I ordered your favorite food. I know you’re always starving when you get home from work. Enjoy it and don’t let it go cold. Make sure you get enough sleep tonight, and don’t forget to take your water bottle with you tomorrow, you left it here this morning.

I’ll hold you in my happiest thoughts forever,

Chanhee

You only snapped out of your motionless state when one single tear dropped down your cheek and onto the note. A heavy blanket of sorrow and regret sunk into your whole body. The emotions seeped through your skin and before you knew it, you were a sobbing mess on the kitchen floor. You wanted to take him in your arms and tell him you forgave him. Hell, you had forgiven him minutes after you had yelled at him. You should have gone to him then. Had you only apologized quickly enough, perhaps he’d still be here. Then he’d be eating dinner with you, and although you’d be frustrated, you both wouldn’t be alone.

Your tears fell into your food while you ate it, unable to control your sadness and frustration you had against yourself. They mixed with the shower water as you stood in silence under the hot stream, overthinking everything. Your pillow was wet from the crying as you struggled to fall asleep. Like a broken-hearted zombie you trudged across the hall and into his room. Chanhee’s covers still smelled like him and you hugged them tightly, as if you could hold a piece of him and bring him back that way. But there was nothing you could have done. He had left, and it was alone your fault.

~

The next day passed like a vivid fever dream. While you were sat in your meeting, you couldn’t possibly focus on the case your team was discussing. Instead, you pondered whether your makeup was able to conceal your puffy face and the dark circles under your eyes. If it was obvious, at least people didn’t seem to point it out. Maybe they were so used to seeing you tired that it would take a lot more than some tiredness and lack of concentration to arise concern. It was the first time in years you really wanted to go home after work. In fact, you couldn’t stand the laughter and good mood at the police station for one more second. All you wanted to do was scream and cry, and seeing people joke around without any idea about your feelings only intensified your desire. Of course, you could have confided in somebody. But you were afraid they would tell you Serves you right or I told you. You don’t think you’d be able to handle those blatant assumptions and the mocking.

Your plan for the night was set: You’d sit in the bathtub for half an hour, then you’d wrap yourself into a human burrito in a blanket and fill your brain with some brutal movie that would make your life seem like it was mere child’s play. But as most things in your life lately, nothing went as planned. Because after only five minutes in the hot tub, your phone rang on the other side of the room. The first time you ignored it. You really tried. But then it rang again, and you looked up to see the caller ID. It was your boss.

You groaned and quickly stood up, not giving up on the prospects of a peaceful night just yet. But then you heard her message – a break-in at a bank, one dead bank employee, five hostages, a possible shoot out. They were calling for back up. And when there was a chance to throw bad guys behind bars, the most inviting bath or an exciting movie suddenly turned dull.

Not fifteen minutes later you had jumped out the bath, gotten dressed in your uniform, taken your gun and ammunition, and were pulling up at the scene your boss had ordered you to. The bank was in the city center, close to the main square. The police team was stationed in a side street. Some of the team had already been sent to the front of the bank, where the police was attempting to make contact with the robbers.

“They’re holding four hostages in the back of the bank. One of them is at the front, right by the glass doors for us to see. The robbers have guns to their heads. If we come closer, they’ll shoot them,” your colleague informed you.

“Demons?” you asked. Against your will, Chanhee appeared in your mind. You wondered how he was doing. Was he hiding out in somebody else’s garden right now? Had he found a bed to sleep in? Then you quickly shook your head. This was not the time for heavy emotions of any kind.

“Yes. Five of them,” your colleague added. You huffed.

“What do they want us to do? Are they demanding anything?” you asked.

“They want us to let them leave with the money,” she said. You grinned bitterly and nodded.

“What about the back entrance?” you asked. You knew the layout of this bank and had been there multiple times in the past.

“That’s our route. Besides the one at the front, the other demons are inside the bank. The entrance isn’t guarded. A team of four will go to the back and try to sneak up on them. When we have a clear line of fire on all the robbers, we’ll take them out at the same time,” she explained.

“Alright,” you nodded, fixing your bulletproof vest around your upper body. You were ready for this. To others, missions like these would have been nerve-wrecking, and you would have been lying if you said you were completely calm. But the adrenaline was already rushing through your body, and fear was something you hadn’t felt since your very first operation.

“All ready?” your colleague asked the other two members of the team who would go into the bank. You received nods and professional expressions. You had all trained together and were used to functioning like one unit. Sticking close together, you rounded the bank, using a side street so the demons wouldn’t see you approaching. In your ear, the voice of your boss was giving orders and checking in on you. The street was dark and devoid of any life except for your team. Multiple of the surrounding streets had been evacuated and shut off to the public. The scene had something straight out of a heist movie. Except this time, the robbers weren’t going to pull of the perfect theft and get away. You would make sure of it.

“We’re almost there,” you said. “Twenty meters to the entrance. Awaiting permission to go inside.”

“You have permission,” your boss spoke over your earpiece. One last look at your teammates, and you were on the move. Sneaking inside soundlessly was easy. The backrooms were all empty. As you passed abandoned offices, you saw knocked over office equipment and paper scattered on the floors. Lamps had been left on and you heard the faint buzzing of a running computer that was most certainly unoccupied. Moving swiftly, you walked along the corridors, guns pointed ahead at all times. Your teamwork was untouchable. One of you made sure the path was clear, then the rest followed.

“You are one room away from the entry hall,” your boss said.

“Understood,” you answered and slowed down your steps. A cat wouldn’t have been able to walk more silently than you did. Now your ears picked up voices. Somebody was crying. There was shuffling of feet on marble.

“Shut up!” a male voice yelled. The crying faded out into muteness. In the dark, you could make out figures. A few countertops and a good distance separated you and your team from the demons and the hostages. You nodded to your colleagues and they understood. The four of you parted ways, moving into the room and taking shelter behind the bank counters. Once again, you checked the situation. Close to you, four hostages sat on the floor. A woman was still crying, and you could tell she was struggling to keep herself quiet. Around them, four demons stood, dressed in black. Their ski masks kept their faces hidden, but their body languages told you enough. They were not to be messed with. By the far entrance, the fifth demon was positioned with the remaining hostage, and you could spot the police cars outside in the town square. From behind your hiding spots, each of your teammates had a clear line of fire on the demons. The fifth one would be taken out from police outside the bank. You were just about to send a signal to your boss to let her know you were in position. Suddenly, the scraping of feet on the floor alarmed you.

“What was that?” one of the demons barked. The noise had come from your colleague beside you, who was now flinching. You had no time to think. No time to complain about her mistake. If you didn’t act now, they were going to close in on you.

You jumped up, pointing your gun at the closest demon. Right away, the remaining demons had their guns aimed at the hostages’ heads. Your colleagues had done as you, guns held towards the demons. Now you got a proper look at them. They were towering over the hostages, who were crouched on the floor in intimidation. The one in front of you only chuckled. Humans didn’t laugh like this. It was pure malice and recklessness displayed in front of you.

“I thought we told you to stay away,” he began. The only thing you could truly note about him was his mouth. The rest was covered by his mask and where the white of eyes should have been, two orbs of darkness sat, eying you like prey.

“Let the hostages go and we won’t shoot you,” you ordered, with a surprisingly calm voice.

“And why would we do that when we can just kill them?” he asked. His gaze momentarily focused on his fellow demons, as if he was a stand-up comedian and he had just delivered the funniest punch line.

“You will die if you harm even one of the hostages,” you stated.

“Oh, is that so? Humans never learn, do they?” he said. This monster was completely insane. And suicidal too, it seemed. “Go on, shoot.”

First, you thought he was urging your team to shoot. Then you realized, he was looking at the demon closest to you. The very demon you had your gun pointed at. He was asking the other demon to shoot at the hostages. You were preparing to pull the trigger.

But then your mind started racing. You stared at him intensely as your heartbeat quickened uncontrollably in your chest. The dark eyes. The soft lips. His skinny frame and gentle hands. You knew exactly who this demon was. You’d be able to pick him out of any crowd. What the hell was he doing here?

“Shoot!” the bigger demon shouted again, but Chanhee didn’t budge.

“I told you he was goddamn useless,” one of the others said. “Get rid of him.”

“You don’t deserve any of this money,” the bigger demon snarled, and his hand went to his belt. You knew there were human lives on the line. What you were about to do could be considered not only stupid, but wildly imprudent. Emotions were supposed to be left out of police operations. But how could you not have been blind with shock? You were going to let your heart control your body over your mind, and if it was deadly so be it. The bigger demon was now raising his arm at Chanhee.

Before you knew it, you had jumped out from behind the counter. You mirrored the demon’s actions and you pointed at him, pulling the trigger. At the same time, his gun went off. Just in time, you had pushed your body between the two demons.

“Y/N!” Chanhee shouted.

The bullet hit your shoulder and you fell backwards. Burning heat spread through your insides as you stumbled and reached for anything, anyone to hold on to. You could only think of Chanhee, and how your bullet had pierced through the big demon’s skull perfectly. Then, your colleagues opened the gunfire. The shots sounded almost muffled through the intense amount of adrenaline in your blood and the initial effect of being hit. Your body fell to the ground with a heavy thud, and a wave of agony spread through you. You grimaced at the excruciating pain, hands grasping at your shoulder. All you could see was white, before you sank onto your back and the world went dark.

~approximately 18 months later~

“Y/N,” Chanhee said, for the sixth time within the last ten minutes. You pressed your phone harder against your ear, holding it up with your shoulder. Your hands were too busy writing a police report on your laptop.

“Chanhee, I promise I’m writing the last few sentences already,” you assured him. He liked it when you came home early, leaving enough time to relax on the couch with him, instead of falling into bed like a corpse. Today, he was especially insistent, urging you to stay on the phone with him until you had finally packed up your things and left the police department. You guessed he was just trying to make sure you couldn’t stop somewhere along the way and start working on something new. And maybe that fear wasn’t so far off the truth.

“I’m done,” you said. “Status report: I’m switching off the laptop. Now I’m taking my bag. I’m getting up. I’m locking my office behind me. I’ll be home in twenty minutes or less.”

His laughter on the other side of the line made you smile. You couldn’t wait to see his face and get to hug him.

“Alright. I can’t wait,” he said. “I’ll see you.”

The walk home was calm. A soft breeze went through your hair and in the distance, you heard sirens of an ambulance. Promptly you were catapulted back to your memories and into the vehicle after you had been shot. Going in and out of consciousness, you kept repeating one name: Chanhee. When you woke up in the hospital bed, you half-expected him to be sitting there, waiting for you to wake up. But of course that was not the case. He had committed a crime – or at least tried to commit one. The prosecution was in his favor. They acknowledged his compliance with the police and his hesitation to hurt the hostage. Plus, he sold out the other demons and showed no resistance at any point. His regret and sorrow was apparent, nonetheless his mistake caused him 11 months in prison – by far less than the other robbers got.

People had called you insane for standing by him. Others thought you brave and newspapers named him the first good demon in the world. Every week you visited him in prison, often more than once. You made the most of your short time to talk, and with your kindest words you let him know that you were still here for him. Every visit you learned a bit more about how he had ended up in that bank.

After he had walked out on you, he had nowhere to go. So, after strolling the street mazes for days he found himself in the very demon night club he had once warned you about. Most unsavory figures twisted his mind into thinking doing good was no use. They made him believe he would never be able to escape the demon in him, and he might as well embrace the malice. They more or less pulled him along to the robbery, while he overthought the whole thing. It hurt you, seeing him cry as he recounted how scared he was when he saw the hostages. Some of them ended up injured, but all survived. You knew he would have never forgiven himself, had one of them died.

The day you picked him up from prison was a day you’d never forget. Holding each other in your arms felt so right, and you had missed it tremendously. His months at the prison hadn’t been easy, but you made sure he felt loved and cared for when he finally returned. He almost refused to believe that you would open your doors to him again. It was no question to you. You’d always be here for him. Even when he insisted you keep your office at home locked at all times. You trusted him almost a hundred percent by now. His demon only came out rarely, especially in times of stress or intense negative emotions. But you only treated him with kindness, and he gave back just as much of it.

“Chanhee I’m home!” you shouted as you entered your home.

“I’m up here,” he spoke. You ran up the stairs, excited to see him. Your eyes fell onto the open door of your office. For a moment, your heartbeat quickened as you approached it. You must have forgotten to lock the door that morning. Slowly, you pushed it open.

“Hello,” he grinned. You only chuckled as you watched him, sitting by your desk, a book in his hands. “I hope you don’t mind me being in here. This chair is so comfortable.”

“It’s all good,” you said. “Do you know what day it is today?”

“Umm…Friday?” he asked.

“It’s been exactly two years since you first started living here,” you said. “I think we should get some take out and celebrate, what do you say?”

“I can’t believe it’s been two years,” he said. “I’d love that. And you know what? I think I’m ready to start the internship at the police station.”

You smiled proudly. He had put his book down and was getting up.

“You’re going to do good things,” you said, wrapping your arms around him. He finally had found his place. His home. And you were never going to give up on him.

[tazanna-blythe]

Done

Chapter 5

~Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie~

"Wellcome ladies so how's school?" Sabine said with a motherly smile smile then placing a freshly baked Croissants on the table.

"Where fine, just another day at the clown house, I swear that our classmates have no brain cells not one of them "Chloe said while spreading butter on her croissant then without any hesitation she ate it.

"I beg to differ dear but i think they still have one connecting brain cell,seeing as they are one and no one can break their bond"Mari and she also ate the croissant happily

"So Dumb,Dumber,Dumbest then? or all equally dumb?" Chloe mumble (she took another bite on her food)

"No it's like they all have an on and off button for their reasoning and common sense and Liela has the button" Mari

"And She uses her sausage her as an antenna the give them signals hahahahahahahhaha"Chloe

"Ladies that's not nice besides everyone has their own preference or style that they think is fashionable ... all though i wanna know who told her having a sausage as an inspiration for a hairstyle especially when she moves her head she looks like a paddle ball a had when i was a kid" Sabine

both Chloe and Marinette bust into laughter

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Collège Françoise Dupont Clinic

*Bell *

Adrien is still sleeping soundly and the kind nurse doesn't want to wake him up and clearly from how pale his face is and how dark his eye bags are and how bone to skin he is, she made a decision to call his guardians to pick him up and have him take a proper rest and some good soul food too judging by how boney he is. this child is a model she understands this but this is to much and it has a medical term called MALNUTRITION so she's not gonna stand by and do nothing.

So she quietly and gentle as she can took photos and notes on Adrien body. because he is wearing a plain white T-shirt and a loose pants all she has to do is hold some of the cloth of the T-shirt to make it tight to show how small and boney he is and she all so did the same thing to the pants. His wearing a T-shirt so his some of is upper arm is shone so the nurse took a measuring tape and measure his arms and leg. And lastly because of the akuma attacks the School funds for the clinic doubled and because of this most of their equipments are brand new and the latest model so the bed has a scale built in it so she took his weight and height. and all of this is recorded in the clinic's CCTV camera she made sure of it.

After all that is done she neatly filed this info on her computer and flash drive then she called his guardians. fortunately for him his father and his assistant is so busy that they cannot answer their phone so it was Gorilla who was called to pick him up.

When Gorilla arrived the nurse was so scared of him she almost scream in fear when he suddenly appeared in front of her luckily she didn't.

"Hello Sir. how can i help you" Nurse

"Hi my name is SImon and I'm here to pick up Adrien" Gorilla (HIS NAME IS SIMON OH MY GOSH I JUST FOUND OUT TODAY!!!)

"Hi my name is Katty and I'm the school nurse nice to meet you"

"Likewise"

"Im sorry but before I hand over Adrien to you i need to see your IDs please"

"Sure"

"Ok it seems that everything is in order then you may take him home, and also my advice is to keep him stress free, eat and sleep more cause we don't want him to suddenly collapse now do we"

"Yes ma'am"

Then Gorilla slowly and Gently picked up Adrien like a porcelain princess and took his backpack/sling bag and went home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Collège Françoise Dupont Gym

"Ok class since Adrien is sick we need to still proceed to class. Now, I want all of you to make two lines.One for boys and one for the girls CHOP ChOP!!! " Gym teacher

“Um Sir. What about lila??” Rose

“What about her?“

“Lila Sprained her risk and ankle so she cant stand very long“ Alya

“Ok then Who’s Lila, Raise your good arm“

“Sir. I’m Lila Rossi“ Liela replied with a small smile and leaning into her left foot for effect

The Teacher saw her and slowly walk towards her while inspecting her body for injuries

“Which foot is sprained and which arm?“

“My right foot and arm sir “Liela said weakly.

“Can i check your arm and foot?“ The Teacher ask nicely

“Yes of course“ 

So someone brought a chair for her to sit while the Gym Teacher inspect her injuries

“Awww, Aw aw aw awaaa that hurts“ Liela cries dramatically like a spoiled dog. While the Teacher was just holding her arm not doing anything other than carrying it like a sausage

“Ok then Lila where's your medical note seeing as this is a “BIG INJURY” your parents shouldn't have let you go to school?“ The Teacher looking and talking to her like a person would to a two year old

“My Dad left us since i was young and my Mom is so busy that she’d forgotten about me“ Liela said sadly trying to make her tears drop not realizing that the teacher don't buy it

“Hush now don't cry dear I’m sure your mom is just tired now why don't you sit here and be quiet while all of us start the class,O.K“

“Yes sir“ with a final fake sob she smile at the Teacher.

“Ok,now two lines people, great now everybody just jog 20 laps then you are dismissed.But remember do not break your line and JOG NOT RUN OK ALIX AND KIM! if i see any of you break your line or run i’ll make everyone do 15 jumping jacks then additional 10 laps. Am I Clear! “

“Yes,Sir!!“ the Students then do as they were told while lila stayed seated smiling at her small victory and proceeds play on her phone and to search for more things to lie to make her even more popular.

While everybody was busy doing their task no one noticed the Gym Teacher also take’s his phone and contacted the School Nurse asking for Lila’s medical records and telling her what happen today.

Faking an injury to a teacher who was an athlete himself was a big No No but he cant just outed the child right then and there because she’ll get emotional and he doesn't want to cause another akuma.He’ll just do it the old fashion way... Making the parents discipline their own child. but first he needed her records. 

“Did you just see what i just witness?“ Chloe while looking at her exhausted classmates after they finished 20 laps.

“What?“ Mari while handling her a bottle of cold water

“You really didn’t see that?,Thanks“

“You mean Liela’s ridiculous lie then yeah and so?“

“So? So?, Mari she just gotten away with it and it wasn’t even a good lie and acting“

“No, I don’t think she did“

“Huh?! Would her majesty care to explain?“

“Our gym Teacher is an Athlete who won medals in his time. He out of everyone here would have known just by looking at someone if they have any physical injuries“

“So he just let her go?“

“No. I don't think he would so let's just watch and see what he'll do, besides if he really fell for it then his just another idiot who needs to be replaced” Marinette said as she and Chloe backed their bags and left.

~~~~~~~~

“Hey Nino do you have any info about Adrien??“ Alix

“Yeah Nino what happen to him?, you were the last person we saw with him?“ Alya

“Well he looked sick so i send him to the clinic, I didn't know that he was that sick“ Nino

“Well I Just hope he gets better“ Alix

“So has anyone gotten started researching yet??“Alya

“Nope we were just hoping that will do it together like in a slumber party?“ Rose

“Actually that’s not bad soo who's house are we going?“Juleka

“What are you guys talking about? and where are we going?“ Liela walked to them when she saw her minions talking without her and of course she was escorted by the ever loyal dog Kim

“I umm“ Juleka

“Yeah where are we going?“ Kim 

Everyone was looking at each other knowing that they can fool kim but not Lila.

“Well-“ Alya

“We were planning on a slumber party tonight but we haven't decided where will be staying?“Juleka

“Oh!! why don't we stay at my place my parents arent how so i have are house all to myself and you guys don't have to bring anything with you because and my parents just went to the supermarket yesterday“ Rose

“Really that's great so it's settled will head home pack then will go directly to Rose’s house“ Alya

“Great I can't wait to spend time with my very BEST FRIENDS! but aren't we gonna invite Marinette and Chloe?“ Liela 

“No need they’ll just destroy and ruined the party. So what are we waiting for let GOOOOOO!!!“ Alya

After that everyone started packing their bags and left to their respective homes with a smile on their faces.

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

It's been so long since I Uploaded something and i hope you guys liked it....        If you guys have any suggestion i’ll be happy to read and maybe include them in my next work.

Previous ~ Next

Tag list:

@sonif50 @iglowinggemma28 @kuroko26 @northernbluetongue @xxmadamjinxx @mochineko @zalladane @rikku052 @vixen-uchiha @bb-basbusa @thebananathatwrites @mewwitch @2sunchild2 @spicybelladonna @kiara-rose-blackthorn @elliecake5 @schrodingers25 @silvergold-swirl @lamestplaceontheinternet @marinettewayne07 @hunnibear-x @derpwolfgaming @flower2021 @gratefulenaa @miiaivi @kamarallil 

[spencersstrawberryjello]

Revelations (Spencer Reid x fem!MC)

Summary: SPOILERS FOR SEASON TWO As everything goes down with Tobias Hankel, Aria and the BAU have to find him before it’s too late. Once they do, Aria takes Spencer home and comforts him. 

Content: Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Warnings: Descriptions of torture and violence (all related to Reid’s abduction in season two), swearing, kidnapping and emotional turmoil

MC’s name and pronouns: Aria (are-ee-ah) Glenn, she/her

Word Count: 5024 (it’s a long one folks so buckle up - it ended up being almost ten full pages lmao)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey,” I looked up from my phone to see Emily standing in the doorway. “Can I sit?”

I gestured to the space on the bed beside me, in the small house that made me nauseous. Thinking about the fact that the bed I was sitting on right now belonged to the man who had kidnapped Spencer made me want to both punch something and throw up. Emily came and sat beside me, turning to face me as I did the same. Her voice was soft when she spoke, studying my face. 

“How are you doing?” She asked. It was a question she already knew the answer to, and I scoffed.

“We’re both profilers, Prentiss. You tell me; how do you think I’m doing?” I snapped. Immediately afterwards, guilt flared through my chest, and I sighed, shaking my head. “I’m sorry. It’s just - well, you know. I don’t think any of us are in a good state of mind right now.”

I dropped my gaze back to my hands, resting in my lap. She took them, directing my attention back to her as she spoke. 

“Glenn. We all care about Reid, and we’re all doing everything we possibly can to get him back. But I know that your relationship with him is… different. You kind of disappeared earlier, I just wanted to check on you.”

“I just couldn’t watch that anymore,” My chest tightened just thinking about the sight of Spencer, tied to a chair, being forced to decide who lives and who dies. He looked so broken -

I forced myself away from that train of thought, taking my hands out of Emily’s to press them to my eyes in an attempt to ward away the tears I felt rising again. 

I’ve cried so much in the past two days I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to again. 

“I understand,” She moved my hands so I’d look into her eyes again. “I just wanted you to know we’re all here for you, ok? We’re all in this together, we’re all worried about him. You’re not alone in what you’re feeling.”

I nodded, and she pulled me into a tight hug, one I returned gratefully. The moment was interrupted by Derek flying into the room, with a statement that made my heart drop. 

“The live feed is back on,” He announced, clearly intending for Emily and I to come with him. I knew that watching the videos was the best way for us to figure out where the hell this guy took Spencer, but the idea of seeing him in that cabin again made me want to throw up. I immediately started to shake my head, a childlike reflex to the statement. 

“No. No, I can’t, I -” I wanted nothing more than to be curled up in his arms right now. 

This all felt like one massive nightmare. I wished I could just wake up, scared before I realized he was safe in his apartment, laying in bed with me. I would turn over and press a quick kiss to his lips, not enough to wake him up but enough that I could appreciate his presence even more after imagining the worst possibility, before burying myself back in the warmth of his embrace…  

“Aria. Hey,” Emily had her hand on my arm, pulling me out of my fantasy. My mind had started to take over, to take me into a daydream that was safer than the turmoil that had become our reality. “I know this is hard. But the more people we have working on this, the better the odds of us finding him are.”

“I hate to say it, but you guys need to hurry. We have no idea how long he’s going to be live.”

I felt like I was going to pass out when I stood up, making my way into the computer room that had become Garcia’s base for the past two days. My attention focused immediately on the screen displaying the live feed of Spencer. Emily was still standing next to me, and she reached out, giving my arm a quick squeeze to make sure I knew she was right there. I nodded my appreciation, but I couldn’t break my eyes away from the video.

He looked exhausted. Exhausted, and in pain, physically and mentally. 

I didn’t know how much more of this he could handle. 

“This ends now.” Charles Hankel’s voice was one I knew would be at the center of my nightmares for years to come; and if that was how I felt, I couldn’t imagine what Spencer was feeling right now. I didn’t think I wanted to. “Confess your sins.”

I dug my nails into my palms, trying to steady my breathing. I could tell Spencer was trying not to cry, and for a moment I thought Charles wasn’t going to do anything before he moved closer to the chair, punching him hard in the face. A sob escaped my lips, and I clamped my hand over my mouth, trying to silence myself as I watched him beat him, over and over, demanding he confess to the sins he hasn’t committed.

I looked around the room, and I knew we were all feeling a very similar set of emotions right now. It’s just a matter of what was the strongest. Garcia was trembling from her seat in front of the computers. Derek looked like he was going to genuinely kill somebody, and JJ looked like she was going to be sick. Hotch and Gideon were watching with nothing but fatherly worry, and even Emily looked like she couldn’t breathe.

“Tobias, help me,” His voice was so quiet we could hardly hear it through the camera speaker, Spencer begging for some kind of rescue. He was crying openly now, and I knew that I was silently doing the same as Charles hit him again before pushing the chair backwards, causing Spencer to fall to the ground. 

At first I thought he’d passed out. But then I noticed him convulsing. 

“Oh my god,” Garcia was the first one to say something, her voice breaking as we watched Spencer gasping for air, unable to do anything but observe from the other side of a screen, “He’s killing him.”

I felt myself starting to spiral again, unable to even speak, wanting so badly to leave but knowing I’d never forgive myself if I did. So I stood there and watched the man I love thrash on the ground while Charles Hankel just stood over him, watching him die without even blinking. It wasn’t until Spencer stopped moving that he spoke. 

“That’s the devil vacating your body.” 

Spencer wasn’t moving.

Spencer Reid was dead. 

He was lying dead on the floor in a cabin in the middle of who-the-fuck knows where and there was absolutely nothing I could do to help him. 

Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. 

“No…” Was all I was able to say. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the image of Spencer’s body on the floor, still tied to that chair, abandoned as Charles Hankel left the room, leaving the camera still rolling. Gideon stormed out of the room - I thought I heard the bathroom door slam - and everyone immediately jumped into action, leaving Garcia and I alone staring at the unchanging computer screen.

“Come on baby, wake up. Please, for the love of god, please wake up.”

It felt like my mind was speedrunning the five stages of grief as I muttered under my breath, begging to a man who couldn’t even hear me. Who had no control over whether he lived or died. 

Garcia hadn’t moved either, her breath coming in shallow gasps as she stared at the screen. I moved over to her, grabbing her hand in mine, both of us trying desperately to comfort each other after the scene we just witnessed, unable to process what happened enough to even speak. After a moment, Hotch came back into the room, opening his mouth to say something to Penelope when something finally changed on the video in front of us. 

Charles Hankel had come back into the room.

Except it wasn’t Charles this time, it was Tobias, running over to Spencer’s body and immediately starting CPR in an attempt to save his life. Hotch called everyone back into the room, all of us gathered around the screen. After what felt like years, we heard it.

Spencer finally coughed. 

He woke up, and I thought I was going to cry from relief. I might’ve actually been crying; honestly I’d spent most of the last two days in a constant state of either crying or about-to-be crying, so it wouldn’t have come as much surprise. Everyone let out varying gasps of relief before getting to work again, deducing that Hankel would have to be within a 17-mile radius of the crime scene to have killed those people and then uploaded the video in the time frame that he did. Hotch was about to leave before we noticed Hankel’s demeanor change yet again as he stood over Spencer, who was still stuck on the floor. 

“You came back to life.” 

“Raphael.” 

“There can be only one of two reasons.”

“I was given CPR.”

“There are no accidents.”

Whatever momentary relief I got from seeing Spencer alive faded the moment Raphael began to ask questions. 

Questions about us. 

“He thinks it’s Revelation,” Hotch stated, concern filling his usually even tone. “The 7 Archangels versus the 7 Angels of Death.”

“Tell me who you serve.”

“I serve you.”

“Then choose one to die.”

My hand flew back up to my mouth as I processed the command, watching Spencer’s face crumble with the realization as well. 

“Kill me.” The words made my heart break, and I found myself desperately fighting the edge of tears, yet again. 

Damn, I really hated having emotions.

“Tell me who dies.”

“No.”

Raphael reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a revolver and pointing it straight at Spencer’s forehead. It was a game of Russian Roulette, and I genuinely thought I might puke from the omnipresent anxiety making my knees weak. 

“I can’t -” I broke, turning away from the screen and into Derek’s arms as he pulled me into a hug. I hated not watching, but it was more than I could bear. It was all I could do just to listen as Spencer denied his request over and over again, each time the click of the trigger bringing him closer and closer to a bullet in the brain. 

“I choose… Aaron Hotchner.”

The sentence made me snap my gaze back to the screen, not breaking the hug but watching attentively as Spencer quoted a Bible verse. Hotch, however, left the room as soon as Spencer had finished speaking, everyone trailing out into the main room after him. 

“Hey, he’s alive. He’s alive,” Derek comforted me as everyone followed Hotch.

It’s truly a sign of how fucked up the situation is when the only comfort is that he hasn’t died yet.

Or at least, not permanently. 

I nodded, and broke the hug, following after everyone who had already found Hotch again. He was holding a Bible, quickly explaining that Spencer misquoted the verse. 

Misquoted the verse on purpose.

We’d found him.

We piled into the cars, my heart racing a mile a minute as we sped down the abandoned country roads, pulling up to an empty plantation, with nothing but trees in sight for miles aside from a small cabin and a cemetery surrounding it. 

We checked the cabin first.

Clear.

It wasn’t until we started making our way across the grounds that we heard it. 

A gunshot. 

“Oh god please don’t let that have been for Reid,” JJ echoed exactly what the rest of us were thinking. We followed the sound, Hotch calling out his name as we ran towards it. Finally, we saw him, hunched over the dying body of Tobias Hankel. 

Hotch took off in a sprint, approaching Spencer first, placing a gentle hand on his arm before Spencer pulled him into a tearful hug. He did the same to JJ, until I finally moved into view. 

He looked like he’d been to hell and back. He could hardly support his own weight, he was sweating, bruised, and there was an open wound on his forehead. But I’d never been happier to see him. 

I wasted no time pulling him into a hug, finally not trying to keep the tears at bay. For a moment, neither of us said anything, we just held each other, both of us crying in the cold night air. 

“I thought I’d lost you,” I finally said, pulling back from the hug to look at his eyes. A small smile came over his face, and I’d never seen anything more beautiful. He was still crying, and I brought my hands up to cup his face, wiping the tears from his cheeks. He was very clearly out of it, and I guided him to put his arm around my shoulders, helping him walk back to the cars, whispering reassurances the entire way there. 

“Wait!” He protested, “I have to do something first.”

He turned back towards Tobias’ body, and I let him go, giving him a moment to do whatever it was he needed as he limped over to the corpse. I turned back to the team, noticing Hotch looking at me with curiosity. Seeing as the only person who knows about Spencer and I’s relationship was Emily, it didn’t really come as a shock that I’d be getting strange looks. But honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“He’s probably going to need to go to a hospital,” Hotch said. We nodded our agreement, knowing there was an ambulance waiting back at Tobias Hankel’s house. 

Spencer rejoined the group, and I helped him the rest of the way back to the car. I wanted nothing more than to hold him in the backseat, but there wasn’t enough space and I didn’t want to draw more suspicion by asking JJ to move. So I climbed into the front seat next to Derek, who was driving. He shot me a look, and I just shrugged, not confirming or denying anything. 

The drive back felt significantly shorter now that he was safe with us, and when we got back, we followed the ambulance to the hospital. Despite the fact that they definitely didn’t need an 8-person FBI escort to take Spencer into the hospital, Gideon didn’t even ask us whether or not we wanted to go. It was just assumed. 

We’d gathered in the waiting room, everyone waiting to hear the extent of what that monster put him through. I was sitting in the chair closest to the hall, and immediately sprang to my feet when I saw the doctor round the corner. 

“What all did he do to him?” I demanded. 

“He had a pretty nasty gash on his forehead that we had to stitch up,” He started, “And his face is pretty bruised. Same with the bottom of his left foot. It’s a miracle it wasn’t broken.”

We nodded along to him speaking, and he paused for a second before revealing the worst detail.

“We also found a series of needle marks on his right arm. Traces of Dilaudid were still in his system.”

We’d assumed they’d drugged him - he wouldn’t have seized the way he did if they hadn’t, not to mention that JJ found records of Tobias Hankel’s addiction to narcotics - but hearing confirmation made my chest tight. 

“What does that mean for him?” Hotch asked. 

“Well, Dilaudid is addictive. It’s a narcotic painkiller; you’ll want to keep an eye on him in the next couple of weeks and note any strange behaviors you might see him exhibiting.”

We all nodded our understanding, and the doctor wrapped up what he was saying.

“Other than that, he just needs rest. We gave him water and something to eat, so honestly the best thing for him right now is to go home, get a shower and get some sleep. He might have some trouble putting a lot of weight on his right foot, but there’s not really anything we can do for that because it isn’t actually broken, just badly bruised. We’re going to send him home with crutches, but someone might want to stay with him for tonight, if one of you is comfortable with that.”

“I’ll stay with him,” I offered before anyone else could open their mouths. Emily’s eyes snapped to mine, and I cleared my throat, trying not to sound too eager, “If he’s ok with that, of course. I’ll have to ask him.”

The doctor just nodded. “Sounds good. Whoever is in charge here can see the front desk for further information.”

Gideon started towards the front desk, gesturing for Hotch to follow him as they went to talk to some people, leaving me standing in front of Garcia, Morgan, Prentiss, and JJ, all of whom were looking at me with varying looks of suspicion. Except Emily, who just looked vaguely amused.

“Anything you want to talk to us about, Glenn?” JJ asked. 

“Nothing at all,” I denied, trying to fight the small smile on my face. I could tell just by looking at them that they all knew, at this point it was hard not to at least assume. Not to mention they were all experts in human behavior - let’s just say it was hard to hide things from them. But JJ just shook her head with a shallow laugh, returning to her seat. However, she quickly stood back up when Spencer came around the corner, supporting his weight with a pair of plain gray crutches. 

“Spence,” She immediately crossed the room to him, looking him over with concern, “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” He offered her a small smile, but it wasn’t real. We all knew it, and she pulled

him into a hug, being careful not to make him fall. 

“I should’ve never let you go off on your own. I’m so sorry -” She started to apologize, but he cut her off. 

“JJ, stop. It’s not your fault; splitting up was my idea. No one had any way of knowing what was going to happen. I mean, there was a 50-50 shot that either of us could’ve run into him, we had no evidence he’d even left the barn at all.”

She let out a shaky breath, nodding. “I’m just glad you’re ok.”

“Me too.”

“We’re going to go back to the BAU so everyone can get their cars.”

He nodded his understanding, and he gave everyone a hug before Hotch and Gideon came back from the front desk. As much as he tried to appear normal, the events of the past two days hung heavy in the air. And we only knew what we saw on the videos, we had no idea the extent of what he’d gone through. I don’t know if we ever would. 

Even just the fact that he was hugging people was a testament to the way he was feeling. He usually didn’t even like to shake hands, but he was clinging to our friends like they were the only thing keeping him grounded. 

Hotch and Gideon rounded the corner, Hotch’s face softening the moment he saw Spencer, pulling him into another hug. 

“Alright, let’s get back to the BAU so you can go home and get some rest,” Gideon said. Spencer nodded, all of us piling back into the two vans we’d taken to Tobias Hankel’s house. JJ shot me a look before climbing into the passenger seat, allowing me to take her place in the back with Spencer, sitting shoulder to shoulder in the car. Once we started driving, I turned and whispered to him. 

“I wanted to come back home with you. Is that ok?” I asked. He gave me a small nod, and I smiled, giving his arm a squeeze. I desperately wanted to press a soft kiss to his lips, but I had already been way too physically affectionate with him today for us being at work. 

We all went our separate ways, though it was clear that everyone was reluctant to let Spencer out of their sight again. I reminded them I’d be with him, and promised that I’d update them once he fell asleep so they knew everyone was ok. It might’ve been selfish of me, but I was excited to be alone with him. I just wanted to be able to comfort him without having to worry about if everyone thought we were dating. 

To be fair, we technically weren’t dating. We’d never really defined the relationship.

We elected to take my car, since I was going to be driving. The more time we spent away from the group, the more I saw Spencer retreating. We walked to the car in silence, and he climbed in the passenger seat, zoning out staring through the windshield.

I reached over and gave his hand a light squeeze.

“I love you babe. Don’t know what I’d do without you,” I told him. He didn’t move his gaze, just squeezed my hand back in response before allowing me to return both hands to the wheel. We drove the rest of the way home with no sound but the radio turned down to a low volume. When I finally pulled into the parking lot for his apartment complex, he didn’t even blink. I turned the car off, going around to the other side to help him out of the car and into his apartment.

“Do you want me to get you something to eat? Or some water?” I offered as I unlocked the front door. He just shook his head.

“I just want to go to sleep.”

“You need to shower, Spencer.”

He nodded again, allowing me to lead him to the bathroom. 

“Do you think you can stand? Or do you want me to draw you a bath?” I asked. 

“Bath would be better,” He said, propping his crutches up against the sink. I knew he hadn’t broken his foot, but he still winced as he put more of his weight on it so that he could pull off his sweater and begin to unbutton the shirt he had on underneath it. 

“You’re ok with me being in here?” I had assumed he would be, but I wanted to clarify as he finished unbuttoning his shirt, slipping it off. He just nodded, starting to undo his pants as I filled the bath with warm water. I shut the water off when it was filled enough that he could sit comfortably in it, and I held his arm, helping him sink into the warm water. 

“Do you want my help babe?” I asked. He nodded again, still not speaking. I didn’t try to press him with any conversation, I just slipped out of my work clothes and slid into the bath next to him, grabbing the washcloth from the side of the bathtub and dipping it in the warm water, lathering up the soap and starting to gently wash along his shoulders, scrubbing away the dirt and grime. He winced when I got to his wrists, and I noticed that the skin was rubbed raw, red from where he’d been restrained. I drew in a shaky breath, unsure of whether or not I was going to cry or punch someone. Instead, I just planted a soft kiss on his lips before washing down the rest of his body. 

I put the washcloth away and moved on to his hair, moving so that my chest was pressed to his back. I lathered the shampoo through his hair, and he sunk back against me, his eyes closing from the gentle touch. 

“You’re safe with me, baby. I’ve got you,” I whispered reassurances in his ear, trying to help him relax as I finished cleaning him up. “How’s your head?”

My eyes had flashed up to the bandaged gash on his forehead, and I reached one hand up to gently brush his hair back away from it. He had opened his eyes now, just staring at the water, not really here. His voice was barely above a whisper, and it broke my heart. 

“It hurts,” He murmured.

“I’m so sorry, Spencer,” I said, holding him closer to me as if it could somehow soothe his pain, both physically and mentally. “I am so, so sorry that this happened to you. You didn’t deserve any of this.”

“Didn’t I?”

The question took me by surprise, and I didn’t even have a chance to protest before he elaborated.

“I abandoned my mother. I could’ve helped her - I mean, I could’ve learned to help her. Instead I sent her away… he told me to confess my sins. And when I thought of my sins, all I could see was her face. I left her, Aria.”

“Spencer. Look at me.” I lightly put my hand under his chin, guiding him to meet my eyes. “Your mother needed help from a medical professional, someone who was specialized in understanding her condition. You didn’t abandon her - Spencer, you helped her. It’s not a sin to get someone the help that they need.”

“I know that. Logically, I know that. But…”

He trailed off, but he didn’t need to say anymore. I just nodded.

“I know, baby. But you didn’t deserve what Hankel did to you. You’re a good person, Spencer Reid. One of the best I know, and I’m not just saying that because I’m in love with you. You really are an incredible man, and,” I bit my lip, forcing back the tears that were stinging my eyes, “And you deserved so much better than this.”

He didn’t reply, he just leaned forward, kissing me again. It was harder this time, like he was putting all his feelings into moving his lips against mine. I kissed him back with just as much emotion, trying to tell him how much I loved him without saying anything at all. 

“Thank you,” He whispered, and I wrapped my arms around him, holding him close to me for a moment.

“Spencer, you have no idea how grateful I am for you.”

“And I for you,” He replied semi-dramatically, making me grin and bringing a small smile to his face. It wasn’t much, but it was something positive. 

“Alright Shakespeare, let me get dried off and then I’ll help you out,” I teased, grabbing my towel off the hook and drying my damp hair before wrapping it around myself and grabbing his hand, helping him up and guiding him to lean up against the sink while I grabbed his towel and offered it to him. 

“I don’t even have the energy to correct the historical inaccuracy of your Shakespeare joke,” He said, drying himself off as I left the bathroom to grab pajamas from his dresser. I grabbed him one of his t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants, and I grabbed myself one of his sweaters, slipping it on before going back into the bathroom and giving him the clothes I’d grabbed, hanging my towel back up as he changed.

When I turned back, he’d put on the pajamas, and was in the process of grabbing his crutches. With every move, his expression changed, betraying just how much pain he was in. I put my hand on his shoulder, supporting him as he made his way back out to his room, immediately sitting down on the bed and letting the crutches fall to the ground. 

“Son of a bitch,” He muttered. I just sat down next to him, putting my arm around him so he could lean his head on my shoulder. 

“Hey. You’re alright,” I held him close to me, rubbing his shoulder in a slight comfort. 

“I’m tired,” He yawned, and I nodded. 

He stretched out on the bed behind me, and I scooted over next to him, pulling the comforter over both of us. 

“Can I hold you, baby?” I asked. He nodded, and I curled up against him, holding him tight to my chest. I tucked my head into the crook of his neck from behind, feeling his steady breathing against me. 

It didn’t really surprise me when I felt his breathing pick up - I assumed his mind would probably wander once he had quiet time to think - but it made my heart wrench when I heard him crying softly. 

“Spencer…” I pulled him closer to me, running one hand through his hair and placing soft kisses along his jawline, trailing down his neck. There was nothing sexual about it, simply gentle affection as he cried. 

He rolled over suddenly so he was facing me, immediately crushing me in a tight hug, crying openly into my shoulder. I continued to run one of my hands through his hair, the other gently tracing slow circles on his back under his shirt, trying to ground him as he attempted to process everything he’d gone through. 

“You’re safe with me baby. I’m never letting anything happen to you again, I promise.”

“You can’t make a promise like that,” He argued through his tears, “No one can make a promise like that. You know our line of work; there’s no way you can ensure my safety.”

“That’s true,” I conceded, “But as long as I have any say in it, I will protect you. And that’s a promise.”

His crying had quieted, and he sniffled, nodding into my shoulder. I kept him close to me, and eventually he drifted off to sleep, tears still staining his face. 

[itgetsdarksometimes35]

Revenge is Best Served out of the Ice

Warnings: Non con, dub con, death, cursing, blood, rough vaginal sex, other things, Bucky isn’t okay. 18+

Word Count: 2,529

Prompt: I’m as mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore

Pairings: Dark ex-Hydra Bucky / Ex-Hydra Reader

Summary: Reader is in hiding after the fall of Hydra.

~ Indicates a time change

--- Indicates a POV change

A/N: This is my very late submission to @kellyn1604 challenge hope you guys like it. I’ll be in the woods for about a week, but I’ll upload an equally late submission to a challenge when I get back. 

XXX

It was never meant to go down like this. You had answered a silly job as an assistant with a company; never did you think you’d be helping a man who leads a terrorist movement looking to take over the world. 

You wanted out the minute you saw the asset. The way Alexander treated him wasn’t human. Even though he insisted he wasn’t, he was an experiment of sorts, it still didn’t sit well with you. His icy cold eyes held life, even if they did make you queasy every time you looked into them. 

Very rarely did you go into where the assassin was kept with Pierce, but when you did he always stared at you until his attention was drawn back to his abusers. The instruments made you feel awful, so you avoided invitations inside as much as possible. The machines that tortured him when he did wrong, the ice he was put in to keep him alive, the electricity that would go through his brain to make him forget. You wondered how old he truly was and who he was. Did he have a family? What did he do to get here?

~

You gasped as you woke up with a jolt from your nightmare. The same blue eyes that had met yours for 5 years refused to go, even in your dreams. You saw him everywhere; the Winter Soldier. After he was ordered to kill Captain America, Hydra was found out. Many were arrested and tried, some people had to go into hiding, including yourself, and others were ordered to rebuild under a new name. After Alexander was killed you had faked your death and ran away to Vienna. Nobody knows where the Winter Soldier went. 

That all had been nearly two years ago. You had moved on in every sense. You had gotten a new job, and this one you loved. Sure, it wasn’t anything you dreamed of doing as a little girl, but it awarded you the privacy you sought. You weren’t ready to reconnect with the world yet. Plus the hours were flexible and no job beats the one where you can be at work in your home in your PJ’s. 

You went out once a week for groceries. You didn’t have a tv, a computer, and the only time you used your burner phone was for work. You kept yourself entertained with the old books left in your old apartment. It was a life different from the one you were used to, but that’s what you liked about it. 

Today was the day you go shopping for food. You sat up in your bed, noticing the little bit of sunlight that passed through the black blankets you’d hung on the windows as makeshift curtains. 

You got up and started your routine before heading out the door. The small market was filled with buyers bargaining for better prices and sellers yelling their final price. You make your way from the seafood to the fruit; the seafood was always the first thing to go in the market. Vienna seemed to have too much fruit. 

As you’re checking out the apples you start feeling watched. You look around but see nobody. Weird. You get enough fruit to keep you satiated for the week so you leave the market as soon as you can. The less human contact and time outside as possible the better, and you were starting to feel off. Someone was watching you, you could feel it, but no matter how many times you turn you see nobody looking. Thank God the walk home is short. 

When you get near your apartment you run up the brick stairs and shove the key into the door, pulling it open and slamming it closed then locking it. You didn’t realize you had been running until you tried to catch your breath and calm your crazy heart. 

You look outside through the peephole before concluding nobody followed you. And if they did they at least left you alone for now. You walked to the kitchen to set down the mesh grocery bag before unloading everything. 

That’s when you heard it. 

The only way into this apartment other than the front door was the fire escape that was connected to the window in your bedroom. The sound of the window opening, no matter how faint it was, has been trained by you to be heard. Your irrational fears of being robbed or found while you're sleeping has finally helped you as you quietly reach for the knife on the counter. 

You continue unpacking and pretend like you didn’t hear a thing in order to trick the intruder. You keep the knife in front of you on the counter, hidden by your body, as your ear strains to listen to what’s happening behind you. 

“You don’t live where I expected.”

Your eyes widened at the voice. The amount of times you heard that voice is less than the amount you saw the face connected to it, but you could recognize it in a concert of sounds. 

You spin around with the knife in your hand to see the man who plagued your nightmares. The Winter Soldier.

He looked down at the puny weapon in your hand. It would do little to protect yourself against the super soldier, but it helped your confidence a bit. He smiled at your shaking grasp on the knife.

“Do you think that’ll work?”

“What are you doing here?”

The man narrowed his eyes at you a bit before ignoring your question. He made a move and you stuck out the knife in a threatening manner. It did nothing to the assassin as he reached for the milk you had just bought, and popped the cap off before taking a few sips. He wiped his mouth before continuing. 

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. You’re hard to trace, you know.” Your breathing is getting more erratic and your heart is beating so loud you can hear it. But even if you couldn’t you know the superhuman before you could. “Do you remember me?” His eyes seem searching, like he’s not sure he’s got the right person. Or if he’s confused as to why you’re scared to see him. 

“Yes.” The man nods at your response. 

“After my last mission I was on the run from Hydra. I wasn’t sure what would become of it, but after figuring out I started a plan. I started tracking down the people who the government failed to bring into custody and killing them one by one.” Fuck. “At first I wasn’t looking for you, you hadn’t hurt me after all. I could see your hesitation every time you saw me.” Then why are you here? “But then I remembered the way you looked at me. How disgusted you were. You saw me for the monster that I was.” The man paused, waiting to see if you’d argue. You didn’t. You couldn’t. He was right, even if you felt bad for him, you saw him as a war machine, murderous monster.

“So, I tracked you down. I found you on a car camera at the market, but you never leave. I thought I had the wrong place for the longest time, but today I finally saw you. моя маленькая сука.” The blue eyes that haunted you weren’t dead anymore, they held a flame now that terrified you. 

“Listen, I’m sorry. I am. If I had any idea what was going on I would’ve never accepted the job. I was just trying to work, I’m sorry. Please, just go.”

The man just scoffed at your words. “You would’ve never taken the job, but you wouldn’t have helped me. You wouldn’t have helped innocent people. You think I wanted to kill all those people? I still see their faces, no matter how many times they fried my brains, I can’t fucking forget! I don’t have the option to just run away. Unlike you, you fucking bitch!”

You jumped as he was starting to get angrier, the container of milk crushed in his metal fist, leaking down to the floor. Tears started to sting your eyes and you were shaking even worse. “Please, I get why you’re angry, but you don’t have to do this.”

“And you didn’t have to keep quiet for all those years, but you did. Didn't you?” You shook your head. He didn’t get it, you could’ve died. You had no choice but to stay silent. “My name’s James Buchanan Barnes by the way. Everyone called me Bucky. I had a life, a family, friends. A career that I loved. Hydra took all that from me and turned me into the thing you see today. I should’ve died a long time ago; but now I’m as mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

The soldier suddenly lunged at you, twisting your wrist causing you to scream out. You dropped the knife to the floor with a clang, and you were shoved against the counter with your back to the man who had broken back into your life. 

“I could easily kill you, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t always have a thing for you. The way your ass would look in your pencil skirts, it made me feel normal again, the feelings I’d get when I’d see you. Well, that is until Hydra just fucked me up again.” He whispered low in your ear as you felt him unbuckling his pants. Your struggles were kept to a minimum due to the metal arm holding your body uncomfortably close to the wooden counter. 

“I used to even daydream about a life with you. White picket fence, big house, two kids, the whole nine yards. The normal shit I had as a kid.” the man dryly chuckled, “How stupid of me.”

Without warning he slaps your ass. Hard. He gripped your panties before shoving them down your legs, riding your dress up your thigh to reveal yourself to him. You squeezed your eyes shut as you felt your face get hot with embarrassment. 

The soldier suddenly drops to his knees and grabs your ass cheeks in his hands, spreading yourself more for him to see. He moaned before diving right in, licking at you slit. You moaned out before you could catch it with your hand causing the man to groan into your core. 

“You like that don’t you?” Slap. “Fucking slut.” 

The man continued to eat you out as you reached hopelessly for an escape. He held you steady and firm up to his face, and you had no control over the vulgar sounds that were leaving your mouth. 

You let out a high pitched scream as the soldier started sucking on your pearl of nerves, driving you over the edge into ecstasy. He continued to suck up all that you had to offer him before standing up.

“You’re slutty cunt has me hard as a fucking rock, you know that?” Another slap to your backside has you jolting forward just a bit and groaning out at the pain that blurred the line of pleasure.

You heard more clothes shuffling before you felt something hot poke at your entrance. “Ready Babygirl?” The man chuckled as you shook your head. 

“Please, you can still stop! I won’t tell anyone, just let me go!”

“Aw, imagine it being your choice.” With that he shoved himself to his limit within you. You both moaned out at the feeling of your walls stretching around the thick member inside you, pulling at him as he moved deeper.

“You’re tighter than I always imagined, Doll.” the soldier moaned into your ear, starting to find a rhythm inside you. He wasted no time using your body as his toy. He deserved this after all that Hydra put him through. After all that you allowed him to be put through.

“Y-you’re hurting me!” 

“Good.”

You’re closing your eyes so hard you can see stars. You feel hot tears escape from your eyes as you’re trying to wait out the torture your body was being subject to. Pretty soon the pain is too much and you’re sobbing.

“What are you crying for, bitch?” the man grabs a handful of your hair and yanks it back, your scalp burning from his roughness, “You don’t get to cry, not after what you let happen to so many people. You don’t know true pain.” He shoved your head forward and you barely miss hitting your head on the counter. Your neck still hurt from his force, though. 

The Winter Soldier’s movements start to get harder and he starts hitting a spot within you that makes you clench around him, your orgasm creeping up in your lower stomach.

“That’s right, clench my cock, cunt. Just like that and I’ll cum for you. You’ll like that won’t you?” Bucky slapped your ass three times before grabbing your left cheek, making you squeeze him again. “Answer!”

“Yes! Please cum inside me, Bucky!”

That was a mistake.

Bucky shoved your hips into the counter for sure causing bruises to rise. You cry out, more tears escaping down your hot and inflamed cheeks. “Don’t call me that. It’s sergeant to you,” The man growls out at you, “You know that? I was a fucking sargeant before this shit. Respected. Now look at me,” he chuckles humorlessly. 

You can feel blood trickle down your leg as the sergeant continues to abuse your pussy, any orgasm you might’ve had is gone now, replaced with a painful yet numb ach. 

“God, fuck-” You feel warmth spill into your channel as the soldier stills inside you. He pulls out of you, letting your weak and overused body fall to the tile floor painfully. You draw your legs up to your chest as you examine the blood on the floor, some of it gushing out from under your inflamed core. You have no idea what he fractured, he had to have done something, but it sure as Hell hurt. 

You hear a click and look up just as a loud bang is heard. Then everything went black.

---

Bucky looked down at the woman he just fucked, saw how the blood trickled from the bullet wound in her head down to the floor to mix with the blood from her pussy. 

He looked around at the dump she called an apartment. It is a place where nobody can trace easily, he thought. She was the last person he had to kill on his path of revenge, and now he needed somewhere to lay low. Maybe he’ll stay, nobody will realize a difference. The bitch never talked to anyone or interacted with people, and those who did know she existed would probably assume she left or that he was her boyfriend or something. They wouldn’t ask questions. They didn’t care.

Bucky finished putting the food she had gotten away before working on disposing of the body. He smiled to himself, content with the job he had done. It wouldn’t right all his wrongs, but it certainly helped. Besides, revenge is best served out of the ice. 

XXX

Tags: @coconutqueen21 @kellyn1604 @jtargaryen18 @collette04 @nsfwsebbie @what-just-happened-bro @gigistorm @avengerimscreaming @venusavengers @saharzek @navybrat817 @bucksgoat @xoxabs88xox

[dirty-urie]

Date Night

Third Person

Brendon x Sara (OC kinda)

College AU

PWP Oneshot

NC-17

5.4k Words

Disclaimer: This is a fictional story using the names and/or likeness of at least one real person. This is intended for entertainment purposes ONLY. Please do not share or bring up my work with anyone other than fellow fans. Any similarity to real-life events involving these characters that have not been shared with the general public is only coincidence. Just because I’ve included something in my fics does NOT mean I condone, support, or encourage that behavior, language, or action in real life. Please practice safe and consensual sex practices, and just be a good person.

Warnings in Order of Appearance: Real Person Fic, Crude and Vulgar Language Throughout, Mentions of Alcohol, Brief Joke About Forgoing Contraception, Talk and Consumption of Pornography, Unprotected Oral Sex, Female Receiving Oral, Intercourse, Male Receiving Oral, Female Masturbation, Use of a Non-Sex Toy as a Sex Toy, Minor Social Anxiety

Author's Notes:

1. I spelled Sarah's name wrong on purpose because I felt bad writing porn about her. Brendon's technically permitted to write about him, so I'll do that without guilt (okay, with some guilt, but I feel guilty about everything. I have anxiety), but I respect Sarah too much to do that to her. That being said, I didn't want to use a random name, so I decided on a middle ground. Here's Sara, who is both not a real person and also not not married to Brendon Urie in real life. Schrodinger's OC. Okay, thank you for putting up with me.

2. I don’t know if I’m going to write any more third-person fics. I know they’re not really that popular, but for some reason, this spoke to me in third, so I embraced that. Anyway, give it a chance, and if you don’t like it, give whatever I publish next a chance.

3. This used to be split into two parts because I uploaded it on mobile, but I have since condensed the two parts, and now the whole thing is on this post.

Brendon fumbles with his keys as he unlocks the door to his apartment. Sara won't be there for another little while, but he's anxious to get inside anyway. His roommate is away visiting his family for the first time in nearly two months, and he hasn’t gotten any real alone time with his girlfriend since then. It’s hard, and Brendon knows Sara’s been struggling too because she spent their whole coffee shop study-date the day before whispering to him about how she's been practically crawling out of her skin. Brendon shivers at the memory of her hot breath against his ear as he slams his front door shut and hurries to his bedroom.

He's thinking about all the nasty ways he wants to get back at her for getting him so worked up in public when, speak of the devil, his phone buzzes, and Sara's name pops up in the caller ID. Actually, "Brunette from Creative Writing" pops up, but he swears he'll change it one day. Sara jokes that they'll be married with a whole flock of adult children, and she'll be calling him from the bingo hall as "Brunette from Creative Writing." God, he fucking loves her.

"Hey, babe, I just got home," he says after he hits the answer button.

"Okay, I just got out of my lecture, but I'm stopping by my dorm to grab my duffel bag, then I'm going to the drugstore to get condoms that aren't the shitty university clinic ones, so I won't be there for almost another hour," she tells him.

"Noooo, just come straight here. You can just wear my clothes all weekend. And condoms are so unnecessary; I'll just pull out," Brendon whines.

Sara laughs into the phone, knowing he doesn't mean any of that. "Oh sure, in that case, I'll come right over. Did you want to pay me $400,000 to raise a child in cash or check?"

"Uh, check, but you're gonna have to wait a bit to cash it," he replies.

He can practically see her rolling her eyes, even through the phone, "I'll be there in an hour, but I'll bring you something fun from the drugstore," she says.

"Fun like sex fun or fun like gum from the checkout stand fun?"

"You'll just have to wait and see, love you, bye!" she tells him through the phone before hanging up.

"Love you too, babe," he says sarcastically to no one. He walks into his bedroom and makes sure it's spotless. He doesn't want anything whatsoever to get in the way of fun, sexy times once Sara gets here.

His apartment is clean; he has wine and groceries in the fridge, enough money saved up to rent a movie and order dinner later, and no homework, so once Sara shows up with the condoms, he’ll be good to spend the entire weekend at home with her. With nothing else to do, he climbs onto his bed and grabs his laptop. No harm in a little pre-gaming, he figures, pulling up his favorite porn website while he waits.

He clicks on the first video without too much thought. It’s a girl, one Brendon recognizes, wearing a tiny thong and nothing else, and playing with a small bullet vibe while her boyfriend watches. She’s wet, probably just with lube and not actual bodily fluid, he realizes, but at least they bothered to make her look physically aroused at all.

He gets invested in the video, in the new toys that the boyfriend hands her, in the way both of their arousal grows as time goes on. He gets so engrossed that he’s beyond startled when Sara interrupts with, “Starting without me?” eyeing the erection already straining through his jeans.

Brendon laughs with glee now that she’s finally here, “No, no, no, just passing the time while I wait for you. No touching yet, see," he says, holding up his hands and waving them around before pausing his video.

"Well, don't stop on my account," Sara scoffs. "I don't mind you starting without me as long as I'm there when you finish," she murmurs.

They both moan, Brendon in response to her words, Sara in response seeing Brendon's cock twitch in his pants, “Ah fuck, babe, that’ll be sooner than I’d like if you keep talking like that.”

Sara climbs in next to him and snuggles against him so that she can see his computer screen, “Ooo, she’s hot,” she says, pointing to the girl now getting eaten out by the guy who, coincidentally enough, doesn’t look dissimilar to B.

“Yeah, I like a lot of her work,” Brendon says back, disinterested in the video playing on the laptop now that Sara’s actually there in the flesh “hey, you should take your pants off,” he suggests, totally smooth and subtly.

“You’re such a guy, B. No ‘how was your day? Are you hungry? Can I get you something to drink?” she teases.

Under normal circumstances, Brendon would object to such slander on his impeccable moral character. But, well, there’s not a lot of blood in his brain right now, and he knows that she would just respond with more teasing, further delaying the Fun Sexy Times, so he rolls to his side and kisses behind her ear, pressing his cock against her leg in an attempt to tease her into pliability. It works; she melts, whimpering a little bit as heat pools deep in her stomach when she feels just how turned on Brendon is. “You feel so nice, B. Bet you’d feel nicer without this layer of denim between us. Can you help me?”

Brendon unbuttons her pants and moves down to slide them off her body, moving his mouth along the newly revealed skin as he works them off. He’s paying so much attention to the warm flush of her thighs that he almost misses her panties: dark red lace, even darker where she’s soaked through them, and so delicate that they’re nearly see-through.

“Oh fuck, babe, that’s gorgeous. Are you wearing a matching bra?” he asks.

She answers by sitting up and pulling off her t-shirt, revealing the same thin lace. Her nipples are hard, practically poking through the delicate material.

Brendon settles back on his heels to fully take his girlfriend in, now stripped down to just her matching bra and panties set.

Sarah grins down at him, “Why do I get the sense that I can expect this set in every color for my birthday? Although, I know for a fact that I can get the same reaction from you wearing full-coverage high-waisted granny panties,” she thinks aloud after seeing Brendon’s wide-eyed awe.

Brendon isn’t paying attention, though. His mindset shifted from the fun and playful sex they usually have to lust-fueled passion as soon as Sara took her shirt off. Don’t get him wrong, they have great sex, but they normally have to do it fast and quietly and spontaneously, so they’ve gotten good at not taking themselves too seriously, at laughing at Brendon’s old superhero boxers, and then getting to business. Now that he has the chance to really take his time to appreciate, no, worship her as she deserves, he wants to do it right.

He moves off his heels and crawls over her body, supporting himself with one muscled arm as he moves in to kiss her. She picks up on the change in mood immediately, grasping the back of his head to deepen the kiss. He’s throbbing against her thigh now, even through his jeans, and she’s worried that she might come just from feeling him.

She, too, loves their normal sex, but even though it’s fun, it can’t always be as intimate as either of them would like. And it’s a shame too because as good at Brendon is at fucking, banging, screwing, whatever, he’s damn good at making love. At making sure she’s safe and supported and in absolute bliss, even when they’re hooking up in someone’s bedroom at a party, but especially like this when they’ve got hours and total privacy.

When her moans increase in pitch and frequency, Brendon crawls back down on the bed and settles between her thighs. “Darling, these panties are a gift to humanity, but I’m afraid they’re going to get in the way of some things I have planned. You don’t mind if I take them off, do you?” he says, voice deep and gravelly. He mouths against the soaked fabric while he waits for her response.

After taking a moment to collect herself and catch her breath, “God, Brendon, please, I need your mouth, fingers, cock, something,” she whines.

Now that he has her permission, he moves his mouth from her core to the waistband against her hip and bites it, just letting his teeth scrape her skin as he pulls down. Whether intentionally or not, Sara arches her back up, making it easy to slide them all the way down her legs. He kisses her way back up her legs, but instead of stopping between her thighs, he keeps going up. He licks up across the flat planes of her stomach all the way until he reaches her bra. Just like with her panties, he mouths over the fabric first, inching up slowly before sucking on one of her nipples through the lace.

As much as he loves how her breathing gets faster and heavier just from that, he can’t resist the actual mouth-on-skin that the low cut of the bra allows. He sucks a pink mark on each breast and then moves to lick and suckle gently on her neck. They’ve both agreed that they’re not middle schoolers and visible hickeys are beyond tacky, but they both go so wild from neck stimulation that it can be hard to resist spending a few minutes sucking a licking at the rapidly-beating pulse points.

As much as Brendon wants to keep teasing, Sara’s squirming like crazy, and he’s worried that if he kept going in the same way, she’d come before he got to touch her for real. He finally settles between her thighs for real this time, kissing and sucking gently on her vulva for just a second or two. Sara is quivering by the time he moves down to suck on her clit. As soon as he finally makes contact with the sensitive hood, she screams out in ecstasy, taking full advantage of Brendon’s roommate’s absence. He sucks around her clit just like her nipple, a few short staccato bursts followed by long, drawn-out pulls. He moves his tongue gently the whole time to stimulate her further.

Both of her hands are tangled in his hair, tugging hard when he moves from sucking on her clit to licking across her entrance. He licks across the opening in broad strokes before his tongue enters her, rubbing her clit with his thumb the whole time. He waits until her thighs are clenched tight around his head, and she’s bucking up against his mouth before he slips two fingers inside to rub over her g-spot.

“B, stop, I’m gonna fucking come!” She shrieks.

He lifts his head without slowing his fingers, “You don’t wanna come?”

“Want you to be inside me when I do. Inside me for real, not just fingers,” Sara pants, trying hard to distract herself from her building arousal.

As much as Brendon’s disappointed that Sara won’t come on his face, after all, he’s been hard for over an hour now, and he would love to get out of his restrictive jeans and get a little more stimulation than rubbing himself against the bed.

He crawls out of bed and peels his shirt off. Now it’s Sarah’s turn to marvel at her lover. His cheeks and chest are flushed a deep pink from the exertion and arousal, his face is shiny with spit and her juices, and his cock is tenting the material of his pants.

Sara strokes over herself lazily, it’s not nearly as good as Brendon, but it’s something to take the edge off while she watches Brendon unbuckle his belt to strip his pants off. He’s moving slowly on purpose. He always did love to put on a show.

Once he’s down to his black boxer-briefs, he asks Sara where she put the condoms when she came in.

“B, I love that you’re so distracted by me, but the bag is right next to you on the nightstand,” she answers.

“Hey, I’m not wearing my glasses. That’s not fair,” Brendon replies softly. He turns and opens the plastic bag with the drugstore logo on the front. Sara laughs when his eyes visibly widen. “Should I be scared?” He asks, holding up a large vibrating dildo.

Sara laughs. “No, love, I just wanted to get some toys I could leave at your place,” she answers as he pulls out a bullet vibe, two different types of lube, a cock ring, massage oils, whipped cream, a multi-pack of condoms, and yes, gum from the checkout stand.

“...I may have gotten a little carried away in the sexual wellness aisle,” she admits.

Brendon’s eyes are still the size of saucers, “God, no kidding, babe, this is all incredible,” he says, stripping off his boxers and opening the box of condoms to tear a packet open with his teeth. It’s a bad habit, and usually, Sara would scold him, but she’s so worked up that she spreads her legs in anticipation anyway. Her mouth goes dry while he strokes himself with lube before he rolls the condom on.

He finally, finally, finally settles over her. “Is this position okay?” he asks.

“It’s perfect, baby; I love getting to see your face when you push into me,” she answers, whining as he drags his cock across her opening.

That’s good enough for Brendon. He rocks forward into her slowly, partly because he’s a tease but partly because he wants this to last as long as possible. After pushing in deep to rub back and forth across her g-spot, he starts thrusting in earnest, relishing her moans and pants.

“Oh B, you feel so good,” she cries out.

“You feel even better, love. Squeezing so nicely around me. So tight and wet,” he says.

Sara scratches down his back in sheer bliss. Brendon’s rhythm is steady, but he’s moving just slowly enough that they can both relish every thrust without feeling overly needy or impatient. She pushes her thighs together to feel him even better inside her.

His thrusts falter for a second, and he chokes out a gasp. “Love you, love feeling you,” he groans, “but it’s been nearly a month since we last had sex, babygirl. If you keep that up, I am going to come.”

She relaxes her thighs just a little bit. “God, I love how sensitive you are right now, babe, responding to my every touch so much. I love you collected and composed too, but it’s such a treat having you so weak for me,” she marvels, stroking the back of his neck.

A shiver goes down his whole spine, and he devotes all of his energy to not coming. “I haven’t touched myself since we last had sex,” he admits, “I figured if my sweet girl couldn’t get off, I couldn’t either. It’s been such a challenge, but fuck, it was worth it. I’m so on edge for you.”

She tightens around him, moving her hand to touch her clit. “Shit, Brendon, that’s so fucking hot. I’m just thinking about you late at night, hard and aching thinking about me, but controlling yourself so it could be all the better when we finally reunited. Did you ever cheat? Did you ever jack yourself but force yourself to pull away right before you came to roll over and go to sleep? God, I bet you had so many dirty dreams. Bet you woke up humping a pillow because your body needed to get off so bad. Bet you’d struggle to hide your hard-on in public when your mind wandered even just a little. Such a dirty needy boy, but so so good for me, aren’t you?” she pants out, squeezing tighter as she talks.

He laughs, “You know me so well, sweetheart, all of the above is true. My roommate was thrilled to have all the hot water for himself this month because… I took a lot of cold showers. I’ll leave it at that. Now, if you don’t mind, I believe you’ve taken my job,” he says, replacing her hand on her clit with his own.

Sara falls back and goes rigid, crying out. He circles his thumb faster as the pace of his thrusts picks up. “I’m gonna come!” She shouts.

“Do it, come on me,” Brendon whispers.

Sara contracts around him, shrieking and convulsing as she comes on him before melting back onto the bed.

Brendon leans down to nip at her shoulder and then kiss her lips. “Good, baby?”

She nods, eyes closed and still panting hard.

“I’ll give you a second,” he murmurs, mostly to himself before pulling out and collapsing down next to her. He strokes over himself while he waits for her to come back down to earth, still rock hard.

“Shit, B, you still haven’t come,” she finally realizes, “do you want me to blow you?”

His cock twitches at the thought.

“Or I could ride you? Let you watch my tits bounce as I fuck you?” She suggests.

“That one wanna be back in that perfect cunt.”

Sara moves to straddle him, rubbing her clit against his tummy and kissing him before moving back to settle on him for real. She lets him thrust up into her a couple of times before moving herself, relishing the way his muscles tense under his flushed skin.

Brendon loves being ridden. He wouldn’t say it’s his favorite position, but it’s up there. It’s even better when Sara takes her bra off, as pretty as it is, and he gets to see her entire naked body. She gets herself at the perfect angle and rides him as hard as she can.

“I’m really not going to last long,” he warns.

Sara tangles her hands back in his hair just like he loves. She’s pulling out all the stops to get him to come. “God, B, me neither, I didn’t think I had it in me, but I’m right back on the edge. Just rub my clit, and I’ll come.”

He moves his hands from her ass to touch her clit.

She shudders, “B, I’m gonna come!”

“Me too,” he grunts out, “do you want me to pull out?”

“No, wanna feel your hot come inside me, even with the condom,” she answers before coming again. Even harder this time as waves of pleasure roll through her entire body.

The rapid contractions around his cock trigger his own orgasm, and his entire head goes blank as he gets lost in the sensation. Sara collapses and situates herself in his arms just as they’re both starting to come down.

He moves, but she stops him. “Honey, I’ve gotta,” he starts, but she whines and shakes her head, knowing exactly where he’s going, “I’ve gotta pull out so we can clean up and eat dinner. Round two after Italian?”

She finally nods but wraps her legs tighter against him anyway, “just two more minutes. Then we can go be romantic.”

***

“Sara, sweetheart, food’s almost here,” he whispers thirty minutes later. He’s wearing pajama pants with no shirt, and his torso’s still wet from the shower he took to rinse off. “Do you wanna go get yourself cleaned up while I set up the coffee table to eat?” He asks.

Sara shakes her head, “I get clingy and needy after sex-”

Brendon cracks a grin because he knows this, of course.

“So you’re stuck with me for the next couple of hours,” she finishes.

“Mm, that’s fine with me, babe. I just want you to be comfortable,” he responds, kissing her forehead.

She moves up into the kiss and realizes that a shower might be nice after all, “Actually, I am a little sticky. Come into the bathroom with me?”

“Anything you want, love,” he says, scooping her up and carrying her to the shower.

He turns the water on for her and then goes to sit on the counter while she rubs off the sweat under the spray. “B?” She calls.

“Yeah?”

“I know it’s nothing fancy, but when you rubbed my clit in little circles, I nearly died on the spot. Normally when I’m alone, I just stroke back and forth, but god, it felt so good to feel something new,” she says. Brendon doesn’t respond immediately. “B?” She calls back timidly, shy now. “B?”

She’s getting worried that he left without her hearing, so she pulls back the shower curtain and has to choke back a moan. Brendon’s still sitting on the counter, his head tipped back on the mirror, palming over himself through his PJ pants.

“God, Sara, sorry, I just love hearing how I make you feel, and I couldn’t help it,” he tells her.

Sara shuts the water off and walks across the bathroom to Brendon, paying no mind to how she’s dripping all over the tile. She yanks him up to his feet and drops to her knees on the padded bathmat in front of the sink. She pulls his pants down just enough- no underwear, she observes without surprise- and takes him in her mouth, getting him slick enough that she can stroke him to total hardness with her hand. Once he’s fully hard, she takes him back in her mouth and sucks hard, making his knees tremble. She bobs her head up and down, stroking him with her hand when she doesn’t have his whole length in her mouth.

He’s bracing himself against the counter to stay upright and not buck into her mouth. She moves down to just stimulate the tip while quickly stroking over the rest of him.

“Can you come for me? Food is going to be here any minute,” she says, looking up at him with big eyes.

“You playing with yourself down there, baby? Getting all wet from sucking me off?” He asks, the dirty talk getting him closer to the edge.

“Oh, you know it, gets me so hot, making you feel good. I wish I had one of my new toys, though,” she pouts before licking his dick again.

Brendon gropes behind himself blindly, trying to find… well. It’s not a vibrator, but it does, well, vibrate, he thinks, hitting the button on his electric toothbrush. He hands it to Sara, who puts it between her legs without hesitation, pressing it against her clit.

She goes weak, moaning a buzzy hum over his cock while she sucks. She knows he’s close by the way his balls are drawing into his body, so she goes ahead and lets herself go. Tightening the pressure around his cock.

“Shit, babe, I’m gonna come,” he warns, hips bucking. “Can I come in your mouth or…?”

She holds up a thumbs up, and he comes, most of it staying in her mouth, but some ends up dripping down her chin. She swallows, and Brendon hands her a wad of toilet paper to wipe off the rest with.

He tucks himself back into his pants and then helps her back to her feet.

“Can I have my toothbrush back, love?” He requests softly.

Sara blushes and takes the still-vibrating toothbrush out from between her legs, “Sorry, I forgot I still had that.”

“No worries,” he responds with a soft chuckle, kissing her forehead. He takes the toothbrush and turns it off before rinsing it off under the sink. “Gosh, you did a number on this thing. It’s soaked,” he marvels, “My perfect messy girl.”

Just then, there’s a knock at the door. “Perfect timing, must be the food. I’ll deal with that while you get dressed?” He suggests, and she nods, still a little dazed from the orgasm. Well, orgasms, plural.

She goes back to his room, where she stashed her bag and rummages through it for her pink silk slip nightgown. It’s super simple, just spaghetti straps with a straight-across neckline and then deep pink fabric straight down to just below her ass, but Brendon loves it. She suspects it’s just because she can’t move very much without flashing her butt, but he insists that the slip itself is gorgeous.

As she’s getting dressed, she hears the door open and Brendon apologizing for his relative state of undress, saying he just got out of the shower. Brendon’s naked more often than he’s clothed, so Sara just shrugs it off until she hears a giggle and flirting coming from the delivery girl.

Brendon stammers out that he has a girlfriend, but he’s flattered, but that doesn’t seem to be deterring the delivery girl, who makes an extra point to linger her hand on Brendon’s as she hands him the food. Sara strides out of his bedroom, “Hey, B, have you seen my panties? I can’t find them in your bed or your bathroom or the kitchen or the sofa, so I wonder if I left them in your pocket during our multiple rounds of lovemaking,” She calls before pretending to spot him and the girl for the first time by the door. She scootches in next to him and kisses him on the cheek, plastering a sickly-sweet smile on her face. “My apologies, didn’t know you had a guest,” she lies, shooting death beams at the delivery girl whose hand is on Brendon’s bicep. The girl retracts her hand, and Sara grabs a twenty-dollar bill from her wallet on the doorside table to tip her. Sara knows Brendon would’ve already tipped her on the website, but this more of a ‘please don’t touch my boyfriend without his consent tip’ than a ‘thank you for your work tip.’ “Have a nice day, ma’am,” Sara tells her, shutting the door.

Brendon smirks, but there’s a weariness behind it, “Way to save the day, baby. Getting possessive?”

“No, I love it when others check you out. Just validates how hot I am for you. You just sounded like you do when you get overwhelmed at the grocery store, and I figured you were feeling a little claustrophobic,” she explains.

Brendon nods. “I don’t mind a flirt, but she was getting way too handsy. And even then, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world; I just felt a little vulnerable being shirtless and all. She probably just wanted a big tip. I bet that works for her a lot. And y’know, I probably shouldn’t have been shirtless at all. If I was in a restaurant, they’d have every right to kick me out, so really, I’m lucky she didn’t blacklist my address,” he rambles, turning to get plates and silverware from the kitchen.

Sara touches his shoulder and grabs the bags of food from him. “Hey, B, you don’t need to justify your feelings, okay? I get it; she was in your space. Both your personal space by touching you and your physical area by being near your home. But it’s sweet of you to give her the benefit of the doubt. You’re probably right, I would guess that works with nine out of ten guys; she was cute. And hey, I gave her a nice tip to get her to go away, so it worked on us too.”

“And you got to brag to a stranger about our hot sex life, so it really did all work out in the end,” Brendon half-jokes, and she’s happy to observe that any panic seems to have left his body.

“Mhm, my favorite hobby. Maybe we should order dessert, and I can change into something even more slutty. This shows my ass so nicely, but my chest is totally covered,” she suggests, and he cracks a real smile for her. “Seriously though, you’re totally good?”

“Yes, ma’am, everything’s perfect,” he responds, and he’s telling the truth.

“Good, let me set up dinner then. You go relax on the sofa,” she orders.

Brendon goes to sit on the couch, knowing better than to deny a direct request. Sara plates the food and brings it to the now dim living room, where Brendon’s lit three candles in the center of the table.

“Awww, how romantic,” she praises, settling against Brendon with their food.

“I had more romance planned, I promise, I just weighed my options, and I cared more about snuggling with my girl than trying to overdo it on decorating the living room,” Brendon responds. “I do still have wine in the fridge if you want that?”

She twists around to kiss him. “The romance level is perfect. Consider me totally romanced. I think I’ll wait on the wine until later if that’s okay? It’ll make me sleepy, and I’m still interested in a round two,” she says, resting her hand against Brendon’s thigh.

“Whatever you want is fine with me, love,” he says, sighing contentedly.

***

“You’re falling asleep, babygirl.”

“Am not.”

“Your eyes are closed.”

“Your eyes are closed.”

Brendon smiles, “Do you wanna keep watching the movie, or do you wanna go to bed? If you’re sleepy, that’s fine, but we’ve gotta move to the bedroom then,” he murmurs.

Sara moves off the couch and stretches, turning on the light. “I’m not even tired; I took a nap earlier. It’s just the dim lighting and carb surplus. C’mon, let’s keep watching, it’s only 10 and we’re not even to the, ‘paint me like one of your French girls’ scene.”

“Okay, if you insist, then we’ll soldier on. I’ll get dessert,” he agrees, getting up to head to the kitchen.

“Ooo what’s for dessert?” she asks.

“Cannoli and coffee,” he responds.

Sara moans playfully. “God, Brendon, I’m so turned on right now.”

Brendon rolls his eyes. “I’ll try not to take offense that you’re more attracted to sweets than me.”

Sara wraps her arms around his waist from behind him. “I’d choose you over cannoli any day. Someone could offer me a thousand cannoli and I’d scoff in their face and then go kiss all over you. I love you, babe. Thank you for a great date night,” she says before spinning him around to kiss him.

“I love you too,” Brendon whispers against her lips. “Tonight was wonderful, and I owe it all to you.”

[steve0discusses]

The Full Metal Alchemist Live Action Movie Part 8: Watch This Episode Covered in Butts be the Only One Not Flagged by Tumblr

Gonna be risky business and not only upload all of these caps the way I screenshot them--which has just SO MANY poorly CGI’d butts but also gonna do it on the Tumblr Drafts folder, which I have been assured works now.

I’m so worried about so many things, but considering all the fears I have about like...everything else in the world right now...I guess I’ll take a risk on tumblr.

Edit: I cannot believe that I had 8ish episodes of Kaiba’s tall dueling tower get flagged but not this movie. I just....wow I cannot.

So anyway, last we left off, General Hakuro stepped in and was like “Hi guys, you like my wily plans that no one in their right mind would have ever guessed???”

Yo remember this part of the anime? Where the bodies drop from the ceiling and it’s a hunk out of the final arc--it’s here. In this movie. This movie that can’t possibly afford to do that. Lets get some CGI animated bodies in here ASAP.

(see some texture regrets under the cut)

It’s like a Monet, as the Mean Girls say, because far away and shrinked to 500 pixels this looks kinda neat. They sort of look more like those slime ball that grow in the back of your throat rather than human bodies, but they still look pretty gross hanging up there.

But then.....we zoom in. Remember again that this was full screen on my computer, and at one point was on a freakin movie screen. This level of 3d...was on a movie theater screen.

The mind boggles. The mind boggles!

Like as you know, I am an artist, and I’ve dabbled in...basically everything in my pursuit to make a dollar...and I have taken about 2 years of classes in 3D art with Maya and all those. I’m not thaaat great at it--I’m much more an illustrator/painter--but I feel like I have that reference point. Can I just say--the model is...fine...you can do a lot with layers of bump maps so you don’t need a truly detailed model (not like they did that, because they didn’t do that, but I can figure that maybe they had an intention to do that and forgot?)

But, there’s no connection of the wires to bodies. They just kinda float? The bodies are also all the same shiny-ness? To the point that it looks like a copy paste? (I don’t think it is, the wires are slightly different on a few of them) There’s just not much in the way of a texture map or a bump map. It just...there’s also something missing from the skin.

Skin is actually kind of rough to render, so when I did it back in the day, I followed like a checklist to make sure I had all the layers and steps to make someone look...clammy. Some things are kinda translucent, they reflect light a different way...especially white skin like this wouldn’t be just...white like putty. Dunno if you ever saw a white person, but we got so many veins...there was so much potential to make something really gross and fleshy.

Instead we got silly putty. It’s fine. I’m fine.

So General Hakuro decides to just...kill everyone right now.

This makes no sense to me.

That means that the whole thing of Lust killing Hughes was completely unrelated to General Hakuro. All Hakuro needed was Shou Tucker, who has been in prison for...I assume months since Ed shipped him off. And Shou was only released today? Just now? Just now when Hughes was shot?

So this all just happened at the same time by accident?

I mean the General sent us to the wrong lab initially, so he didn’t actually want us to be here, and now that we are here, he’s going to set off an entire army as a reaction to three people walking in and going “oops”?

So, lets get a look at our army.

Oh it was so disappointing, this reveal. Not just the eyeball that has a bounce light coming from below the top lip there (how did that even happen???) but also when it opened it’s mouth, it had a flat animation of skin breaking--it wasn’t actually rendered 3d skin, it was like a jpg wrapped around it or something (or at least that was the illusion I got. That is fine for a video game or a TV show, but this is a movie. This is shot so that it can be displayed in a size bigger than your own house.

What happened to the animation team on this one? Not saying I can do better, cuz no, I can’t, that 3d chapter in my life was a while back, but I’m just one guy. This was an entire animation studio and they just...didn’t render 3d face ripping (which is their entire job, to work in 3d) and then they kinda just turned on the stock physics dynamics and dropped em instead of animating them.

The way they fell was like fish from a bucket--the same amount of speed, too. they all ragdolled like a 3D shooter, their rigs just hanging on for dear life (and yes, you could see the deforming happen on the joints of these models.) I’m fine with having a computer program render something out with a physics engine...but there is a balance.

You do have to still go in there and finangle it back because...real life is hella stupid. Real physics? So stupid. It was hilarious how nonthreatening it was, too because they’re like...the size of shrimps in that zoom out image. The scale is just so wild!

It was like one bored guy in a sound booth and they multiplied his voice three times. Golden. Absolutely golden.

So these guys stride over, all of them with the same amount of speed (leading me to think it was probably a recorded walk cycle they all share with slight alterations between all of em) and they kinda just...pile on eachother in a weird way.

I will give them this: I was happy to see something that wasn’t physics or procedural. They mo-capped and animated that part for sure. It had the touch of an artist’s hand. It was also a very funny way for Hakuro to die because this guy was on screen for like 5 minutes, and maybe 7 minutes of this whole movie.

Youknow...I think it really says a lot about your nude 3d models if they’re not disturbingly human enough to trigger the tumblr filter, youknow?

Anyway, Envy looks on.

And then Gluttony saves the city.

Meanwhile, they decide to bust out the fire effects and Mustang becomes the most useful person in this entire movie. Like honestly this movie was poorly named, because it should have just been “Mustang saves the FullMetal Alchemist’s Entire Ass.”

The next part seems like I forgot a cap, or maybe missed something. I swear to you, I did not.

First off, Al becomes fullmetal and makes this happen without an alchemy circle. The show doesn’t really care to talk about that though, it’s just a thing he can do now, and you’d only notice it if you were writing a Tumblr post about it.

I swear to you, Winry is just inside of Al and there is no explanation.

There is no explanation for this.

She was on the couch...why is she not on the couch? What?

And then when you think they might have a moment, Ed’s like.

Damn.

For reals what the hell was that entire scene except for a way for Ed to get his arm stitched back on in like 2 minutes?

Outside, Envy and Lust are just strolling around the back-alley of this red brick building we have seen used for this entire movie.

And like...it’s so funny to me because they weren’t trying to run or hide. It makes complete sense why they got shot. This is what happens when you just...walk away when the whole military guard wants to kill you.

Now lets go see how Hawkeye is faring.

Luckily, all of the ambling bodies have decided to walk slowly through this one weird grass section between extremely long buildings.

And Hawkeye tells everyone “You have to shoot their heads off” and I want you to look at that scene and tell me how many of those bodies still have heads.

Oh, all of them. Don’t worry about it.

Kinda hard to see, but Ed shows up to give Mustang a hand, which was fully unnecessary but we’ll get to that in a bit.

This movie is such a gem.

Ed goes big brain and realizes that Envy is still burned up, and thus is about to pass on.

And whatever, I’ll take it. It’s not like the movie has told us that they are made out of 1000000 lives, for all we know, in the movie universe, they really are only 4 lives. Like half a cat. Maybe Father only killed half a cat instead of an entire city.

Yugi Muto would be so freakin proud of Envy for how often this guy gets hit square in the chest with fire balls. It’s basically every scene where Envy and Mustang share screen time.

And don’t worry, I don’t think Envy died? But they sure made it look like he did, which I’m sure everyone everywhere was really happy to see, since Envy’s death was one of the climaxes of the whole series. Like people used to make these lists of “top 10 saddest anime deaths” and how many people had Envy on there? Like everyone? People freakin love Envy and they did him so much dirty in this movie.

Again I have no explanation for Winry.

So Mustang is like, Ed, you make sure Winry doesn’t biff it in that corner, and I’ll do my actual job over here on this side. And yo, he did.

And so then that’s it, Lust is dead, and now we have a Sorcerer’s stone.

Man it looks delicious, right?

I’d eat the hell out of that.

Anyway, we only have one more update and we’re done with this movie!

I know!

I know! They only have 10-15 minutes to resolve pretty much everything, and that’s assuming that the credits don’t take up a heap of that. Hell, I might only have 3 caps next episode if that’s all credits. I honestly don’t remember.

Anyway, hope y’all take it easy this February, here is a link for people who just got here to read these FMA recaps in Chrono order.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono

[wambamshangalang]

Squeak

Summary: Shane finds out something interesting about Ryan, and decides to poke at it some more.

(This is a tickle fic)

Word count: 3,754

Despite the fact that they haven’t even gone to lunch yet, it has been a long day at work and Ryan is tired. Maybe staying up into the wee small hours of the morning editing the latest episode of Unsolved had something to do with it, but the episode had to be finished today if it was going to be uploaded on time. Still, Ryan is exhausted. He stretches out behind himself in his chair, just as he sees Shane approaching with two more cups of coffee in hand. Shane puts one of the cups next to Ryan’s computer and sits down at his own desk with a dramatic sigh.

“Thanks, big guy.” Ryan acknowledges as he sips from the hot cup greedily. “I think I��m almost done with this, if you want to go grab some grub soon.”

Shane pushes his feet off the floor in order to quickly scoot his office chair towards Ryan’s desk, looking over his shoulder at the laptop screen. He reaches in front of Ryan to do some clicking around and to examine the work that Ryan has done. After a few moments he takes on a mock affronted look and turns to face Ryan, Startlingly close to Ryan’s face. Close enough that Ryan could count all of his freckles if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t.

“You took out my bit!” He accuses in false alarm, making Ryan wheeze out a laugh.

“I didn’t take it out,” Ryan assures him then continues, “I shortened it. It was 7 minutes long. I only kept the parts that were funny.”

“The whole thing was funny, I am a comedic genius.” Shane deadpans causing Ryan to break into another fit of giggles.

“Sure man,” he jokes through his laughter, “and I’m America’s Next Top Model.” Ryan was ready to go and get something to eat, he hadn’t had much for breakfast this morning. He puts his coffee back on the desk and contorts his body backward again, arms reaching back and up for one more satisfying stretch.

He didn’t see it coming when Shane reached out towards him to pinch him in the side, and maybe if he had been more prepared he could have schooled his reaction back a few notches, but as that jolt of electricity hit him he let out a very high pitched, and very loud squeak. He jolts so hard he nearly falls out of his chair, and every eye in the office looks over toward him at once. As soon as Ryan can regain his balance, he ducks low into a crouched ball in his chair in an attempt to hide from the prying eyes of the room. He tries to wrest off the burn he can already feel crawling up his neck onto his face, but that is made impossible by the fact that he can see Shane staring at him in his peripheral vision.

The silence stretches on for a couple of unbearable seconds as Ryan avoids looking over at Shane. Shane, who is holding back a fit of laughter and staring at Ryan as if he just told him a secret, and grew a second head at the same time. When he finally does speak it’s quiet, only loud enough for Ryan to hear.

“What was that all about, little guy?” His tone is friendly and well-meaning, but teasing all the same, and Ryan is growing more and more flustered under his attentive gaze. He finally gathers enough of his pride and willpower to lift his head back up and glare in Shane’s direction, though any heat from his look is gone as his cheeks are pink and he’s fighting back a shy yet persistent smile.

“Shut up, Shane.” He responds, much less cool and collected than Shane had been. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Defensively stumbles out of him next followed by “You just surprised me is all.” And one last “Shut up.” For good measure.

Shane starts laughing now, like he just can’t stop himself, and Ryan rolls his eyes and stands up.

“Whatever, let's just go get food. Chipotle?” He suggests, hoping desperately for Shane to drop the issue. Shane obliges and stands up as well, though he was still giggling. They walk out of the office and eventually, the moment is seemingly forgotten. They get burritos and talk about where they’d like to shoot if they get the opportunity for their next season of Supernatural.

Back at the office for the rest of the day Ryan has a hard time focusing. It’s not like it hadn’t crossed his mind before, but after the incident today all he can think about is Shane. Shane, and his big, huge, stupid hands, that are just stupid and huge enough to fit on his big, huge, stupid body.

Ryan’s in trouble now, because the last thing you need when you’re at work is to be hit with a massive lee mood, as you sit right next to your massive best friend who you happen to have a massive crush on. And who you would love to be absolutely wrecked by, oh my God Ryan needs to get it together. He can’t be thinking about this in the office.

“...Right, buddy? ...Ryan?” Ryan snaps out of the trance he must have slipped into staring at his computer screen to see not only Shane looking at him expectantly, but also Curly standing next to Shane’s desk, staring at him with this knowing look as if he’d just been caught doing something naughty as a child. Apparently they had been having a conversation, and Ryan didn’t realize he was a part of it.

“Huh? Sorry, what?” Ryan stutters out, having missed completely what was being discussed here.

“Are you doing alright, man? You seem pretty distracted.” Shane asks, looking at Ryan with obvious curiosity and subtle worry. Ryan blinks at him. What exactly is he supposed to say? That he’s fine, he just couldn’t stop thinking about how it would feel to be pinned down and demolished with light touches from his best friend? His face was heating up for the second time today. Man, does Ryan have an awful poker face.

“I’m fine! I was a little distracted just thinking about this shoot we have scheduled for next week.” Shane knows Ryan incredibly well at this point, and Ryan knows Shane well enough to know that Shane can see right through him.

“Oh, well that’s what Curly and I were just talking about!” He says cheerily anyway, obviously not buying what Ryan is selling, but seemingly going with it for now. Ryan pays attention now to the rest of the conversation, steadfastly not allowing his mind to wander for the rest of the work day, out of fear of embarrassment.

———————————————-

That evening, Shane and Ryan are having a movie night back at Shane’s apartment, as they often do on Friday nights. The movie: Jaws. As they have both seen it multiple times they spend most of the movie bantering and cracking stupid jokes as they share a bucket of popcorn. The movie ends and Ryan gets up to grab them each a beer from Shane’s fridge.

“I wanna ask you something.” Shane says casually as Ryan reenters the room.

“Shoot.” Ryan responds. He’s standing in front of the couch, putting down the two bottles he just retrieved on the table. Just as he puts the drinks down, he feels Shane’s finger jab into the soft flesh of his side.

And it happens again. Ryan squeaks, turns red, and shoots back down onto the sofa. He glares at Shane this time immediately, but he doesn’t make eye contact.

“Shaaane!” Ryan yells at him, a nervous smile pulling at his lips and red flush fully covering his face now. In his head he’s already panicking. Shane’s laughing again and looking at him like he’s trying to solve a puzzle.

“See, what’s up with that? Obviously I understand the reaction, though I didn’t realize you were so ticklish, what I don’t get is why you’re so embarrassed?”

“I am not embarrassed!” Ryan quickly defends, but he’s sure he’s turned a shade darker at hearing The Word spoken aloud. From Shane’s lips.

“You are!” Shane responds, smiling widely. “You’re turning 50 Shades of Pink over here! I thought it might have been from the attention in the office before, but I wouldn’t have gotten the same reaction right now if that were the case.”

Ryan scoffs and looks away. He needs to come up with something to say that won’t give him away, and that he can get through without stuttering like an absolute fool.

“I’m not man, you just startled me, that’s all.” It wasn’t very convincing, but silence feels more damning than anything right now.

“You’re not what?” Shane was asking, “Embarrassed? Because you shouldn’t be, but it seems like you are. Or ticklish?” There it is again, “because you’re obviously very ticklish.” Oh my God.

“Stop that!”

“Stop what?”

“Saying it!”

“Saying what?”

Ryan opens his mouth to keep going, the quick back and forth banter they’re so used to, but he can’t say anything. So he closes his mouth and covers his face, falls back against the couch cushions and growls in frustration, though horrifyingly it comes out more like a whine than anything.

He can’t look at Shane. However, he can feel the amusement rolling off of him. He can hear the pieces clicking into place in his mind. This is Ryan’s worst nightmare, and he wishes silently nothing more than for the floor to open up and swallow him whole.

That’s when Shane’s hand is suddenly placed on Ryan’s knee. Ryan peeks out from behind his hands to look at it, just sitting there, unthreatening. Shane doesn’t even have to move before Ryan is hidden behind his hands again, tiny breathy laughs already escaping from him. The nervous and flustered energy he gives off is almost palpable and Shane can’t stop himself from laughing.

“Dude, come on.” He manages to get out, speaking softly. “I’m not even doing anything to you yet.” That word ‘yet’ echoes around Ryan’s brain, anticipation and humiliation growing so steadily that it’s pulling even more giggles from his mouth, and to Shane it sounds like magic. “Oh my God..” Shane continues in awe before suddenly he lifts Ryan up and spins his tiny frame so he’s lying longways on the couch. Shane straddles his waist as Ryan squeaks and refuses to uncover his face with his hands. “You are just too cute for your own good.”

Shane begins lifting the soft fabric of Ryan’s t-shirt up, slowly dragging it along his skin and exposing his toned but soft tummy. He positions his fingers on top of it and Ryan realizes, once again, just how large Shane’s hands are proportionally compared to Ryan. The pads of Shane’s long fingers start drumming softly, like he’s playing a little beat, and Ryan dissolves into giggles as he struggles between his current position of keeping his face in his hands and the desperate urge to paw at Shane’s forearms. Shane moves slowly and deliberately, completely fixated on Ryan and his reactions.

“You haven’t asked me to stop.” Shane says, and it isn’t a question. Ryan can only giggle helplessly as his best friend and crush slowly pieces together his biggest secret, as the fingers on his stomach don’t stop. They don’t speed up, they don’t slow down, they just keep up the drumming consistently. “Ryan? Is there a reason you haven’t asked me to stop?” Shane starts drumming a little faster here, maddeningly soft and repetitive touches coming down rhythmically onto Ryan’s sensitive skin.

But he couldn’t answer if he wanted to, so he just laughs, shyly and frantically in a stream that he has no control over.

“Hm?” Shane presses on, growing more and more comfortable in this role, teasing the hell out of Ryan and seeing just how flustered and sensitive he could get him. “Does it tickle, Ryan?”

“Oh my God,” Ryan groans through his laughter, “Shut up, Shane.”

At this point Shane digs in, his fingers working quickly into the sides and sensitive little tummy of Ryan and the dam is broken as loud panicked laughter rings out through Shane’s apartment. He works his thumbs into the muscles at Ryan’s sides and softly skitters his nails along a spot right under Ryan’s naval.

“What! Shut up?” Shane asks, accusatory, as he reduces Ryan to a puddle. “You’re in no position to be so rude here, buddy. Not when you’re soo sooo ticklish.” That’s it, there’s no denying it now. Ryan’s secret is definitely out. Shane knows, he knows exactly what that word is doing to him. All he can do is laugh and shake his head desperately, but he knows there isno way to save his pride now. Shane sees him shake his head and he decides to try something else.

“No? You’re shaking your head no?” Shane reaches up to Ryan’s hands and peels them off of his face, pinning them both above his head in just one of his own. Ryan’s eyes widen looking at Shane and he shakes his head some more, avoiding eye contact all he can. Shane’s fingers slow.

“No what? No you’re not ticklish?” Shane stops tickling but he doesn’t move off of Ryan or let go of his wrists. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not ticklish.”

Ryan calms his breathing over a few seconds and eventually locks eyes with Shane, who is looming over him with his left hand still on Ryan’s stomach. He summons his best air of defiance in the given situation, his face and neck stained red from laughter and embarrassment.

“I’m not.” He says, voice as firm as he could possibly get it. Shane’s grip tightens and his eyes narrow.

“You’re not what?” He demands, and waits for a response. Ryan stares for as long as he can, but eventually breaks eye contact. Shane chuckles, and Ryan notes that the laughter radiates warmth and fondness as opposed to judgement. “You can’t even say it. Is that what you were telling me not to say? Tickle? Is the word tickle just a little too much for little Ryan to handle?”

And suddenly Shane lets go of Ryan’s wrists, but the smaller man has no time to cover his face again as Shane’s hands are promptly shoved into his underarms, fingers moving a mile a minute. Ryan slams his arms down, and immediately knows he’s fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

“Oh look what you’ve done!” Shane exclaims dramatically, “You’ve trapped my hands! I suppose we’ll be stuck here forever won't we?” He wiggles his fingers around as Ryan laughs loud and bright. Ryan has no wits about him as he goes through a varying series of emotions. Yes, this is everything he’s ever wanted. He’s also never been so mortified in all his life. Part of him knows that Shane will not judge him for this or look at him differently, but part of him also knows that he’ll never hear the end of this.

Part of him is excited for that.

Shane eventually starts moving back down from Ryan’s underarms, small pokes into his rib cage making him jerk and into his stomach and sides eliciting yips and squeals of laughter from him, but then Shane’s hands land to rest on top of Ryan’s hipbones and the smaller man freezes in place and his eyes widen to about half the size of his head. Shane makes eye contact with him. The smirk as he marks Ryan’s reaction, looks at his own hand placement, and understands exactly what’s about to happen here could have killed Ryan on the spot.

“Oh?” Shane asks innocently to Ryan, and the man under him begins to squirm and push half heartedly at Shane’s chest. “What’s the matter Ryan?” He doesn’t move away from Ryan’s sensitive hip bones as he waits for a response. Ryan swallows heavily, like a cartoon character in great danger, and the nervous giggles again find themselves cascading out of his mouth. He has no pride left anyway, he figures if there’s a time to plead it’s now.

“Shaane,” his voice comes out small and hoarse from laughter “please no. I— I’m too-,” but he just can’t make himself say it.

“Too what?” Shane punctuates his question with a flex of his fingers. “Little guy is too ticklish in this spot? Little angel can’t handle a little bit of tickling?” The angel part he didn’t mean to say, and maybe Shane goes a little pink himself, but Ryan is far too lost in his flustered state to notice. “How about this. Do you want me to stop? If you tell me that you want me to stop tickling you, I will stop tickling you.”

But Ryan doesn’t want that. So he doesn’t say anything.

“You like being tickled.” And there it is. It’s not as if that wasn’t already obvious at this point, but having it confronted makes Ryan feel like his heart is going to explode from his chest. “You’re loving this. If you wanted to be tickled so badly, you could have just asked.” Shane’s teasing is relentless, and soon his fingers are too, and he pinches all along Ryan’s overly sensitive hip bones.

Ryan screams out a laugh that is just so genuine and so childlike, that Shane lets out an audible “aw.” He scratches into the hollows of Ryan’s hip bones, successfully holding down the thrashing and screeching man underneath him as he is, of course, very small.

“Tickle, tickle, tickle..” Shane teases evilly as Ryan absolutely loses his mind underneath him, and Shane is met with a chorus of sputtering, small ‘no’s’ and frantic ‘Shane, Shane, Shane Shaaane, Shane’s’.

“And to think,” Shane mock ponders as he tweaks the bones from top to bottom, not staying in one place for too long as to keep Ryan absolutely hysterical. “All this time we’ve been hunting ghosts, huh? Ghouls! To think you’d be taken down by the Tickle Monster!” Shane moves off of Ryan’s left hip with his left hand, only to stick one long squirming finger directly into his little innie belly button.

“Noooo!” Ryan cries out in distress, and it’s so adorable that Shane once again starts laughing along with him. He can tell that Ryan might be reaching his limit though, so he decides it’s probably time for the grand finale. He takes the hem of Ryan’s shirt and folds it up fully, his tummy now fully exposed and at Shane’s mercy, and he looks Ryan directly in the eye.

“Are you ready, little guy?” He asks, the mischief in his eyes absolutely unmatched as he lowers his head down towards Ryan’s stomach a small amount, enough for Ryan to immediately understand his implications and starts to squirm uncontrollably.

“No! No Sha-Shane wait no no no..” but it was too late for Ryan to be saved. Shane made a big show of taking a big breath of air, lowered his lips right over top of Ryan’s sensitive little naval, and blew a huge raspberry that absolutely sent Ryan manic. Shane spent the next twenty seconds absolutely wrecking Ryan as he alternated teeny tiny raspberries and teeny tiny nibbles all over his tummy, sides and ribs.

Shane then got up from his place on top of Ryan, helped move the man so he was sitting up straight in the corner of the couch, and left him still giggling and and fighting off phantom touches as he went to the kitchen to get Ryan a glass of water.

He gave Ryan the water, which he accepted and sipped quietly, his knees pulled up to his chest on the couch, face still red and with a shy smile. Shane sat down next to Ryan and neither of them said anything for a moment.

“Shane..” Ryan started, but he trailed off seemingly at a loss for words.

“Listen,” Shane spoke instead to fill the silence, “This isn’t something I would ever make fun of you for. I’ll tease you about it surely, as long as it doesn’t upset you, but I would never make fun of you for something you like. Especially something as adorable as this.” Shane seemed to be the nervous one now, one hand up scratching the back of his neck. “Let me know if I crossed a line or made you uncomfortable, and we never have to talk about it again.”

“No!” Ryan exclaimed, a bit too hastily, and Shane turned quickly to face him. “Uh.. no, dude just- I... ugh” Ryan made a frustrated sound and blushed again, burying his face briefly into a couch cushion. “That.. isn’t it at all. That was fun and it’s... fuck. I’ve. Wanted you to do that. For a long time.”

Shane didn’t respond for a few moments, trying to sift through all of the information he was receiving.

“You’ve wanted.. me to do that for a long time? Like, me specifically?” Ryan paled as he realized the implications of his words. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it again. He had to say something, and when he finally did it came out as a mumble, a voice smaller than Shane has ever heard from him, which broke his heart a little bit.

“Yeah.” Ryan began mentally going through the process of grieving his friendship with Shane. What was work going to be like now? Humiliating. Will they have to cancel the show, will Shane tell him he wants to quit Unsolved? How will he explain this to their coworkers? The fans? Ryan could feel tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, as if this moment could become any more mortifying.

“Hey, well then you could’ve just asked.” Shane replies after a few moments and Ryan... what? Ryan looks over at Shane, searching for a joke, or for anger, for any negative emotion but there was nothing there. Just Shane, with his big huge stupid smile. And Shane’s leaning closer to him, just a little bit. And he looks nervous, just a little bit. “Can I kiss you, Ryan?” He asks, and he doesn’t break eye contact.

If Shane squeaks a tiny bit when Ryan leans up toward him and closes the distance, Ryan doesn’t make fun of him for it. Though, maybe he teases him about it from time to time.

[howardpotts]

four: buy your pretty heart

Love on the Brain - Masterlist in links

Pairing: MobBoss!Steve Rogers x Reader

Summary: You’re just a student, living her normal daily life in New York. One night changes everything, without you even knowing. Steve Rogers slowly introduces you to his world full of money, drugs and violence. But are you able to handle what he has to offer?

Chapter warning: Uhmm none, i think. 

A/N: I haven’t uploaded in a while, but I had some unplanned hiatus. It’s just that a lot has happened privately that made me lose interest in anything. I hope this chapter is any good, since it’s been written in small pieces in the last 3 months. 

Let me know what you think! Comments and reblogs are highly appreciated! 

You thought you were going to spend your entire day daydreaming about the night before, instead you were thinking over and over about what has happened.

Even when Wanda was gushing to you about that girl and how they spent the entire night dancing, kissing, talking - you had a hard time to keep your thoughts away and your focus on her.  She looked tired, just as you. Big bags under her eyes, hair was a little bit more fussy than normal. You tried to cover your tiredness with makeup, which was pretty well done in your opinion. 

You were grateful it was friday, meaning that you could focus on other stuff on the weekend. Take your mind of whatever happened today, trying to suppress it til monday; when Steve is going to take you out on dinner and, well, probably fuck you senseless after. 

“Lets go shopping after school”, Wanda stated. She had a date on sunday and she knew that you were going to meet with Steve on monday. You told her about yesterday night, but you didn’t dare to tell her what happened this morning. You didn’t want to get her in any kind of trouble.

“Wan, you’re a genius”, you admitted, smirking to her. She claps her hands in excitement, her golden bracelets sounding like bells, making her look even more enthusiastic. 

You slumbed out of your class, eyes a little foggy from all the staring to the screen in front of you. The teacher had you noting everything he said on your computer. It couldn’t get any more boring than it already was - and that on a friday afternoon.

“What kind of dress are you looking for?”, you asked Wanda, trying to shake away the boring class. She hooked her arm into yours as you walked through the busy hallways of the school. You both didn’t care to look who was walking around, you just wanted to get out of here and into the city, focussing on way more exciting things.

“I think something laced. Black, maybe? Or would that be a bit too tame?”, she asks you.

“Depends on the dress”, you respond. “A little bit of lace, a shape that makes your figure look like candy and it can serve you well.”

The fresh air gives you new energy when you step outside. It’s pretty cold outside, but for February, it’s actually quite nice. 

A call of your name has you looking around. Some guy approaches you. Brown hair, little bit ruffled. You have never seen him in your life. “Steve sent me. He wanted me to give you this.”

A big grin on Wanda’s face, and you fake one too. It isn’t that you don’t like Steve, but at this moment you were a little bit terrified of what could be in the package. You want to , thank the guy, but he’s already walking down the stairs, acting like he never spoke to you.

“Open it, open it!”, Wanda squeals enthusiastically. 

Your heart could jump out of your chest when your hand moves to open the package. 

There’s a little note on top of it, almost flying out of the box as the wind waves lightly in the box. You grab it quickly and turn it around. 

Wear this and nothing else. 

Wanda giggles, you blush. A little paper still hides what exactly is in the box but Wanda’s patience is wearing thin and she gets rid of it as quickly as you can blink.

There’s a black jacket in it. On the inside a label saying ‘BALMAIN’.. Wait, that’s designer right? That’s a pretty well known brand. Not that you expected Steve to get you some cheap stuff, but designer? Did he really put that much money into you or did he send this to every other girl, asking it back after wearing it once? Ew, no, he didn’t do that. That’s disgusting.

“BALMAIN?”, Wanda gasps. “You’ve got to be kidding me! Where the hell did you find this guy- Don’t answer that.” 

“That’s pretty expensive, right?”, you ask. Her eyes turn big as she watches you.

“Yes, that’s fucking expensive”, she calls, still impressed by the gift in your hands. “And we’re not talking hundreds here, darling. We’re talking thousands. Two, maybe three.”

“Thousand?”

“Thousand!” She throws her hands in the air to give the words even more of a drama effect. 

You don’t know what to say. Or do. It’s kind of overwhelming, to be honest. You’ve met the guy not even 24 hours ago, and he already gave you the responsibility to decide a man's fate and now he gave you a jacket worth thousands. You have to admit that it creeps you out. Alarm bells are going off, warning you to cut him out of your life and find a good man. One that will swoon your parents and will probably be better for you than he’ll ever be. 

But you’re flattered at the same time. Why would someone like him - a man with charm, looks, grace, money and a lot of female attention - invest money in someone like you? You’re not special in any way. You’re as average as can be. You’re a communications student, living in some apartment with two other roommates because you can’t afford to rent one for your own. You have some kind of barista job in the weekends, trying to earn enough to pay for your rent, food and some fun activities. 

“Maybe we should drop this first”, you suggest, looking at the box in your hands. 

As you walk, Wanda starts talking about her night. “She was amazing”, she sighs. “I walked up to her and straight up told her how beautiful she looked. Later on she told me she liked that directness, that no one ever does that to her.”

You’re so happy for Wanda. She’s been crushing on this girl for a few weeks now, but never acted on it. Apparently everyone thought that the girl was pretty intimidating.

“Wait, what was her name again?”, you ask, interrupting her story.

“Maria”, she answers quickly before picking up her story again. “Anyway, we started dancing, but I wasn’t sure if she was into women. So I kept my distance, and so did she, so I got more and more insecure. I looked over at you and saw you chatting with some guy. When I looked back, I saw her checking me out. And I’m not talking about girl-ready-to-bitch kind of checking, but the lesbian kind of checking.”

You chuckle. Her stories were always this over the place - but it was fun to listen to. She always knew how to keep you interested, waiting eagerly on how the story is going to end. 

“So that kind of felt like my que. Wow, I say a lot of ‘kind of’, don’t I? Anyway, I moved a bit closer, gave her my famous flirty eyes.”

You walk over a crosswalk and turn right after, only two streets away from your apartment.

“Did you kiss?”, you ask, not being able to wait anymore. You need to know.

“Oh honey, we didn’t just kiss. We made out, we did the dirty, we went down town, we-” 

“Yeah, okay, I get it”, you laugh. She chuckles and pushes you lightly when you fake roll your eyes. 

“Will you see her again?” Her eyes glow up after you ask that question. She nods furiously as she grabs her phone, showing you a few messages. Excitedly, you squeal lightly. 

“Thank you a thousand times for joining me last night”, she sighed as she hooked her arm in yours once again. A content feeling settles in you as you walk further. A few seconds of silence between the two of you. Cars pass by, people sometimes almost bump in to you as you walk further down the street. 

“And your night had to be pretty exciting as well, right?”, Wanda breaks the silence, wiggling her eyebrows. You nod, a little smirk on your lips. 

“God, it was good”, you sigh. You tell your story shortly but swiftly, letting details pass and not mentioning what happened the morning after. 

“And more than a one night stand?”, she asks you as you stand in front of your apartment door. You give her a quick look before focussing on letting yourself in. 

“I’m not sure”, you say. “I think we just want to booty call each other. And apparently giving me gifts.”

You let yourself in your room and drop the box on your bed. Again you open it, this time taking the jacket out. It turns out to be longer than you thought. He was quite serious about not wearing anything else. The jacket is long enough for you to cover up everything you want to hide from the public. But it also shows enough to seduce him. And he knows that.

“Can you please stay another hour?” Your manager, Sarah, looks at you with her big puppy eyes. “Pretty, pretty please?”

A little smirk is on your face as you roll your eyes. “What would you do without me?”, you say as you put on the brown apron again, after taking it off just a minute ago. 

“I would be homeless and a failure. Thank you a thousand times!”, she cheers as she grabs your shoulder to give it a little squish. You smile and walk back into the little cosy cafe. It was pretty crowded, with a little line of five people waiting outside to get a free table. 

Slowly you check your half of the cafe, the front half. Your colleague, Brent, watches over the other half and Sarah is behind the bar making the best coffee of the city. She owns the cafe and made it a big success, promoting her selfmade cookies and waffles as her original trademark. And it works. Whenever it isn’t busy, you make small talk with the customers and they always tell you that they’ve heard from someone else that they had to try one of her delicious cookies. 

A man puts his hand in the air, making a little gesture to come over. You put on your smile and walk over. “How can I help you?”

“Why don’t you start by giving your number?”, he smirks. “And a cappuccino.”

Your hand balls into a fist, nails digging into your flesh as you watch his smug face. He watches you. Not even your face, but your body. He checks you out. 

“Sorry sir, we’re not allowed to give out personal information to our customers”, Brent hops in from behind you. You turn your back to the customer and mouth a little ‘thank you’ to him. 

You walk towards Sarah and ask her for the cappuccino the guy asked for. As much as you’d like to not serve him his coffee, you still had to be customer-friendly. 

“Why don’t we switch sides ‘til the d-bag over there leaves this place?”, Brent asks when he stands beside you before focussing on Sarah. “Oh and a latte plus a chocolate chip cookie for table fifteen.”

You nod, a little smile appearing on your face. You couldn’t be happier with your colleagues and your boss, they were all so attentive and supportive to each other. There was this atmosphere that made you enjoy the work you were doing. You’ve worked at other places where the ambience was a little bit different. 

The cappuccino appears on the counter, not a second later it’s in Brents hands and he walks towards the guy. It wasn’t the first time someone asked for your number - and you wouldn’t be annoyed if he asked about it nicely. But the arrogance on his face and his eyes on your boobs did not make a good first impression. 

“And the latte, cookie’s coming right up”, Sarah sighs as she put down the latte. You give her a quick smile. She grabs a small white plate and puts a napkin on it first before grabbing the wobbly cookie. 

See, the thing about Sarah’s cookies was that it wasn’t just your ordinary round cookie. It was a bit thicker, but still moist from the inside. It was a little bit warm, the chocolate was on the edge of melting, and the sugar wasn’t as overwhelming as most are. The moment you had your first cookie, you fell in love. You actually had to watch yourself to not overeat, restraining yourself to one cookie a week. 

As you walk to table fifteen, you take a quick look at it already. Just swiftly taking in the customer to decide what kind of small talk you can make. Most of the time you could see it in a splitsecond; some were here just to work, some were here for some social acts, and with some you had to guess.

But this one had you by surprise. He made your breath stuck in your throat. How in the living hell did he end up here? Did he stalk you?

“One latte and a chocolate chip���, you say nervously. With a little shake, you put down the latte. “I didn’t expect to run into you here.”

His blue eyes meet yours, making you hot all over. You’re not sure if it’s because of the nerves, because of the things he made you feel or because of the morning you’ve witnessed at his place. 

“It’s my regular. I didn’t expect you’d work here”, he countered. You give him a little smirk as you also put down the cookie. “Did Paul give you the package?”

“Yes, he did.” You didn’t know what else to say. To say it’s beautiful? That you like it? That you’ll wear it? That’d be cheesy.

“Good. I hope to see you in it tomorrow”, he smirks as he takes a sip from his latte.

“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t”, you tease as you turn around, moving your hips a little bit more as you walk to your next customer.

Tags: (OPEN)

@mcueveryday​ @mschellehitt​ @thamuddagirl​ @buckysthot​ @what-if-i-am-weird​ @myspectacularfantasies​ @ornella0910​ @steeeeverogers​ @babygirl-htx​ @estillion14​ @my-super-musical-life​ @tranquil--heart​ @golddaggers​ @swanlakemikey​ @notyourtypicalrose​

[poppy-in-the-woods]

ArkAngel Part 2 - Chapter 10

Tags: plotting, cops, Hardy hacking into a computer a la ‘wake up, Neo’, not perfect grammar/ orthography.

Word Count: 2068

Tag list: ​@triplexdoublex​ @welcometohoteldiablo​ @rumoured-whispers​

Author’s note: Though The Flats is a real place in Cleveland, The Grim Reaper Lovers Club is not a real coffee shop, at least to my knowledge. A pity, if you ask me. Also, two quick things:

Almost no Jake in this chapter, so that’s always a good thing, even if it means no Molly, and the text in bold is there because Tumblr does not support small caps and I didn’t want to put it all in regular caps.

Also, I apologize for not following the regular upload schedule anymore.

On with the show!

As promised, Qweenie woke him up at six. It was still Saturday, but it seemed to Wes a month has passed since they'd been to the club. Without saying anything, Leonor handed him a cup of coffee as soon as he entered the kitchen.

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome. Do you already have a plan to rescue that girl?”

“I've been thinking of one, but we're going to need some help,” Qweenie said.

“Whose?” Leonor asked.

“From Tar Pit's brother.”

“No. No, not even mention it. That guy's a cop, if the cops get involved…” Wes started, speaking very fast.

“Please let me explain,” Qweenie said, raising her hands reassuringly. “Hardy told me that as soon as it became known that one of the bodies was Tar Pit's, the police blocked and audited his accounts. The only reason Jake knew she was involved in that night is because he knew she transferred a thousand dollars to you. So I've been thinking: they must have a mole in the department, right?”

“Probably, but how do you know it's not Hannigan the mole himself?”

“Well, Hardy's been watching him, and he doesn't think he is,” Qweenie replied, shrugging. “In fact, he still has an open case against O'Shea.”

“An open case?”

“For murder, but without a body it's not easy. At the moment it’s only a case of missing person, but Hannigan believes she is dead and that the Irishman has something to do with it.”

“Can Hardy sneak into the police servers?” Wes wanted to know.

“Yes, although not for long, and she can't do too much or she’ll drawn attention on herself. What I've thought we could do is this: we secretly contact him, ask for his help in exchange for unofficially telling him what happened the night his brother died, and incidentally, we expose our suspicions regarding the mole.” Suggested Qweenie. “He can probably help us come up with a plan to rescue Molly that doesn't end everyone dead and bring the mole out of their hiding place.”

“You would kill two birds with one stone,” said Leonor.

“Let's check with the others, see what they think.”

 Anthony was at his desk, going through a case file and racking his brain about where a certain piece of evidence fit in when his screen went black.

-What the hell…? He mumbled, annoyed.

He tried moving the mouse, but it did not respond. He was going to call the IT department, but then letters started to appear.

¿?: Good morning, detective Hannigan. Don't worry, nothing happens to your computer, I have only taken control temporarily to be able to communicate with you. Please act normally.

Anthony put down the phone and put his hand on the mouse again.

¿?: You can write your answers. For the moment, I’m going to ask you a question, would you like to know what happened the night your brother died?

AH: Of course.

¿?: I can tell you, but you have to do me a favour.

Ah: What favour?

¿?: You have to help me rescue a hostage from O’Shea. And you can't tell any other policemen.

AH: Why not?

¿?: Sure you have realized that you have a mole in your department. This is how O’Shea knows what evidence to make disappear so that you cannot arrest or charge him. There may even be more than one.

¿?: Would you like to discover who it is that is failing your attempts to lock him up?

AH: Of course I would like it.

¿?: Come to the Grim Reaper Lovers Club on The Flats this afternoon at 1PM and I’ll tell you all. And come alone.

¿?: I know your face and that of your co-workers. If I see Castle or someone else approaching the area even, I’ll leave and you will not know anything. Have you understood?

AH: Yes.

¿?: Very well, see you at 1PM. Talk to the person wearing a green t-shirt and is reading The Children of Lir.

¿?: And now, I return you the control of your computer.

The screen returned to normal, as if that had never happened. Anthony tried moving the mouse, and it responded smoothly. Before he forgot, he wrote on a post-it:

Mabel, 13:00, GRLC (The Flats). Bring flowers.

And he continued working as if nothing had happened. As he expected, no one asked him what that reminder meant, because at first glance it seemed that he had a date with a woman, but he had developed his own codes over the years. ‘Mabel’ meant ‘date with a stranger, potential suspect,’ and ‘carrying flowers’ meant ‘go armed’, but even Cas didn't know that.

At the agreed time, Anthony walked into the Grim Reaper Lovers Club, a popular goth-style coffee shop, and searched the tables for who was wearing a green T-shirt and reading The Children of Lir. He found him toward the end of the hall: a tall young man with blond hair combed into a Mohawk and multiple tattoos on his arms. Without saying anything, Tony sat down across from him.

“Good afternoon, detective,” the man greeted him, closing the book. Now that Tony saw him better, his face was familiar.

“Are you the one who talked to me this morning?” He asked, just to be sure.

“No, not me, but for the sake of that person, I have agreed to be the face of this operation.”

“What do you know?”

"Oh no, this isn't going to go like that,” he replied, smiling. “First I will tell you the basic rules and then you will decide if you want to follow them or not. If my conditions are not good for you, you can leave without any problem.”

“But then you won't tell me anything.”

“Exactly. The rules are as follows: everything I am going to tell you is unofficial; I'm telling Anthony, not Detective Hannigan, so you can't do anything about that information as a cop,” the young man explained. “You also cannot tell anyone about what is discussed in this meeting, and you have to help me free the hostage.”

Anthony considered it for a moment. He knew that his brother was a criminal, and that the person who had probably killed him had done so in self-defence or in retribution. If that boy offered him a resolution to the mystery in exchange for his help and also O'Shea on a platter, it was a more than good deal.

“Okay. I swear I won't tell anyone.”

“The night your brother died, he had two prisoners and three hostages. One of the prisoners was the Chemist, I was the other.”

“Why was he holding you?”

“Because of the fairy dust. He knows what it is, right?” Anthony nodded. “The Chemist managed to recreate the formula from his father's notes. Your brother wanted to buy it, but The Chemist refused, so your brother kidnapped him and ordered his goons to search his house, but since the drug did not appear, he ordered one of his thugs to torture him. That's when he slipped that I had a copy of the formula.”

“And he kidnapped you to try to get it.”

“Yes. So there we were, the two of us, tied up and beaten, not saying anything that Tar Pit wanted to know. It was then that the three hostages arrived.”

“How, voluntarily?” asked Tony, surprised.

“They were my rescue, but they had to voluntarily surrender to get in, yes,” the boy explained. “They had an absolute insane plan, but in the end it worked. Sadly, in the process, we had to shoot your brother and his two thugs to get out.”

“I imagined it had been something similar,” he sighed. “And the Chemist?”

“Unfortunately he was already dead, so we burned the warehouse in an effort to pretend that we had never been there, but you know, karma keeps count,” the young man replied with a bitter half smile. “The girl who saved me that night, who devised the plan that allowed us to survive, is now a prisoner of O'Shea, and I want her back.”

“Do you have a plan?” He asked.

“Maybe, but surely you can help us refine it. And if we get it right, we can find the mole in your department.”

“How are you so sure there's a mole?”

“Because O'Shea's son knew something that he could only have known from the cops. And if the bank didn't give him that information, and we know that he didn't, the leak had to come from your side,” the young man replied.

“Okay, I'll help you.”

“Well, go to this address in an hour,” he said, handing him a business card. “To be opened the door, call the number on the back and say your name. We will be waiting for you. See you later,” he said, leaving a five on the table.

 At two o'clock, the detective went to the address on the card (a closed furniture store), and called the number hand-written on the back. No one spoke, but after he said his name the blind opened enough for him to enter.

Inside, CC, Mei, Qweenie, Leonor, Hardy, Chalky and Wes awaited him. Hardy had his laptop open at one end of the table. The detective sat in the vacant seat.

“Now that we're all here, let's get started,” Hardy said. “This is Molly Davenport,” she began, putting up a photo of the aforementioned. “Molly has the fairy dust formula on a pen drive in a KeyBank safe.”

“These boxes can only be opened by the owner, direct relatives (ascendant or descendant) with a death certificate and the key, or the police with a court order. The plan is for us to let O'Shea know that Molly has what he wants so the mole can get it for him, thus coming out. While they examine the contents of the pen drive, we will secure the area and rescue Molly. Any questions?”

“There is very little time margin,” said CC.

“We can buy some time,” Chalky said.

"Since I'll be the one to give them the tip, I'll also be the one to crack the password for the file or folder, so it'll take as long as I can," Hardy added. And when it's there, I'll tell you to make sure it's the correct formula.

"So they'll call me, because they already have my sister as 'helper,'" Chalky said, drawing the quotes in the air.

“We are too few to do that in a short time and stay alive. O'Shea has dozens of men patrolling his house,” the detective said. “Believe me, I know, I've investigated him.”

“Well, that's where our second person of interest comes in. Hardy, show him,” Wes said.

“This is Grace Blair Williamson, aka the Snow Queen,” Hardy said, switching to another photo. “Currently, she is the one who controls all the cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking in this city. Her territory borders on what it is currently in dispute, so we thought that if we offered her to get rid of her competitor and hand her extra territory, she might help us.”

“What if she doesn't?” Hannigan asked.

“Then we'll go to the next one on the list: Jesus Diego Torres, the King of Mary Jane and the third in contention for Tar Pit’s old territory,” Hardy explained.

“What if none of them want to help us?”

“Well, I hope we don't have to resort to it, but I have enough information on both of them to blackmail them,” Hardy said.

“It might work,” Mei said.

“It will work,” CC said.

“How do we know O'Shea has Molly at her house?” Leonor asked.

“Because the security cameras have seen them arrive around nine in the morning in a car, with four other people,” Hardy said, playing the video.

The images showed Molly dressed in the clothes she had worn to the club on Friday and sneakers that were clearly not hers, being escorted into the house by a man and a woman, followed by another man and a boy.

“Is that the Irishman's son?” Hannigan asked.

“Yes.”

“How I hate that little bastard...!” The policeman exclaimed, clenching his fists. “Okay, I say we go ahead with the plan.”

“Good. The first step is to contact Williamson,” Wes said. “We can only do it this way if we have her help.”

“Hardy, do your thing,” Qweenie said.

[harrysbbby]

European Adventure Part 5 - Peter Parker x Reader

A/N: im backkkkk! im so sorry for the delay but i went to a music festival and got absolutely wrecked and now college has gone back so uploads wont be as frequent but i hope you all enjoy this part!

You and Peter strolled along the streets of Prague, a brisk breeze and shared nervousness causing both your teeth to chatter slightly amidst your fumbling awkwardness. You both searched for the words to begin the conversation but failed, continuing to walk in silence. Your bag was slung over your shoulder, holding the very valuable piece of evidence you were going to present to Peter to either confirm or deny your suspicions.

You made your way over a bridge, arms swinging by your sides. With one swift movement the back of your hands brushed. You both quickly pulled them into yourselves, looking at one another and smiling gawkily. Peter chuckled,

“Sucks that the trip got cancelled.” He said, you nodded.

“Yeah really sucks...” there was a lapse of silence before you spoke again, “especially because you didn’t get to complete your plane, hey?” With this sentence your heart gave a pang, but you masked it but looking at the ground.

“Wait- what plan?” Peter’s voice went up at octave as he asked, genuinely confused. His heart lurched as the first thing his mind went to was the elementals and-

“You know with MJ?” you said, raising your eyebrows as if your answer was obvious. He screwed his face in confusion, so you continued, “you know, Paris, the necklace…” you trailed off. Your voice trembled slightly with the hurt you were feeling knowing that the plan was not intended for you, but also because of your inclination that Peter is Spider-Man.

“What?” he queried. He looked at you astonished- mainly because he had not thought about this plan since the bus to Prague. That when he knew Brad had that photo of him he was petrified he was going to show MJ the photo. But ever since you helped him, without judging, without knowing the full situation- hell, you even distracted the whole class, so he could jump out the emergency exited- he started to see you differently. (Especially after accidentally seeing your texts with your sister, thanks to Edith).

You were just the girl in a couple of his classes, the one he had hung out with on the trip, the one who gave him advice on how to get MJ, the one who had made his heart flutter when you asked to do something together and then made his heart sink when he had to bail for saving-the-world-duties. That’s why he had agreed to hang out with you- to spend more time with you, develop his feelings, and maybe tell you he was over MJ.

“Oh that plan,” he clarified, “oh yeah…” he said quietly before perking up again, “actually, NO!”

His sudden rise in volume made you jump slightly. You turned to him and he did the same, stopping in the middle of the bridge.

“Sorry,” he mumbled sheepishly, “I mean, I have a new plan actually. And I wanted to speak to you about it- “

“I wanted to talk to you about something too.” He was taken aback by your words but nodded, indicating for you to continue.

You took a deep breath before letting the words you had been dwelling over for day leave your lips:

“Is your new plan to do with Spider-Man?”

His face whitened. His eyes widened. You saw his breathing begin to sharpen. His brows pulled together as he tilted his head to side.

Peter was freaking out- how did you figure it out? He knows he hasn’t been the most discrete he could have been about it, but he didn’t actually think you’d put the dots together. He ever had the stealth suit made so that this exact thing would not occur.

His mouth opened and closed repeatedly as he racked his brain for the right words to say, highly aware that the longer it took to do this, the less he was helping his case.

“What!” his voice squeaked as he narrowed his eyes at you, “No! What!” Me, Spider-Man? I’m not- no way! What, um, what gave you that impression?” he stumbled over his words, crossing his arms in an attempt to act nonchalantly.

You pursed your lips together, finding his words unconvincing.

“Well Peter, I mean there was the white string coming out of you in Venice. The ride to Prague where you literally jumped out of a moving bus! The fact you ditched the Opera and then showed up where the monsters were- you knew my name!”

“Have you been watching me, Y/N?” he asked coyly, raising and eyebrow. You were caught off guard- maybe you had been watching him, you did in fact like him, so it was hard to not watch him- but you played it off by scoffing.

“No!” you said (unpersuasively), “and stop trying to change the subject.” You said sternly, pointing your finger at him. He uncrossed his arms and let his shoulders relax, looking at your sincerely.

“I’m not Spider-Man,” and you could’ve almost believed him, “besides that guy last night was Night Monkey.”

“Then why does Night Monkey have the same webs as Spider-Man?” you said, digging your hand into your bag and fishing out the silver contraption. You handed it to Peter, and he took it curiously, seemingly dropping his façade.

He looked at perplexedly, “What is this?”

“I have no idea, it just came off your web last night-“

“Hey, I said it wasn’t me!” he said almost sharply.

“Then where were you last night?” you countered.

“I was sick…” he said slowly. You rolled your eyes slightly.

“You were the last one to come back!”

“I got lost,” he tried to convince you again, but his attempts fell short.;

“Peter-“ you said, beginning to become extremely irritated, but your frustrations were cut short when a beaming light emitted from the silver object. Peter dropped it as it cast a scene in between the two of you.

The monster was swirling around above you before it disappeared.

“What did you do?” you asked.

“I barely touched it,” Peter grumbled, bending down to inspect the device. “What..” he whispered to himself lightly grazing his fingers along the metal and over the- his?- webs. “Does this mean-“

“is all fake?” you said finishing his sentence. You both looked at each other perplexed. Peter picked up the device holding it between the two of you.

“But we were there, everything was real- the destruction, the fire-“

“Wait, we? Peter you just said-“ he ignored you as he continued to ponder.

“Who would do something like that?” his question was answered as quickly as it was asked. The device began to project again, but this time, swirling around the monster was a trail of puffy green smoke…

“Mysterio.” You said, looking back at Peter. He was already looking at you, eyes opened as wide as they could, a look of sheer terror on his face.

“Y/N” he started, “I am Spider-Man” – your heart skipped at the confession- “And I messed up really bad.” He said, cringing at the end of his sentence.

“Wait, you are Spider-Man?” you clarified. He nodded, his face still fear-stricken. “You’re being serious with me right now?!” you screeched.

“Yes, I am. I’m Spider-Man and I need your help.”

“Oh my god, Peter! You’re SPIDER-MA…” you were cut off by his hand covering your mouth.

“Don’t shout it out for everyone to hear! Come on, I’ll explain everything on the way back to the hotel.” He said, taking your hand in his and leading you back along the bridge. Your heart was already beating fast from the confirmation of your reservations but skipped a beat at the feeling of his skin against yours.

On the way back to the hotel Peter explained what had been going on- how Mysterio had showed up and claimed to be a soldier from another Earth. How Mr Stark (who it took you a moment to realise meant Tony Stark aka Iron Man, once you realised Peter had the Stark “Internship.”) gave him the glasses aka Edith and how Mysterio must have been using the same technology to create the illusions.

“I can’t believe I gave Beck those glasses. I cannot believe I was so stupid,” Peter sighed, shutting the curtains in his room. “He’s probably spying on me right now,” he said moving towards his laptop, “or send drone to come and kill me.”

“You had access to killer drones?” you asked dubiously.

“Yeah” he said, almost too indifferently, “but I didn’t really want them especially after I nearly killed Brad.” He slammed the compute shit and walked over towards you, picking up his phone on the way.

“You nearly killed Brad!” you whisper yelled, looking at him scoldingly.

“It was an accident! Besides you helped me!”

You looked at him in bewilderment, “I didn’t help you kill anyone!”

“Oh no, like, you helped me stop the drone that was going to kill him. You know, ‘baby mountain goats’” he said with what you could only assume was a terrible attempt at impersonating your voice.

“Oh,” you said, nodding your head slightly, still confused as to how that situation got to the point that Brad nearly died.

“Anyway,” Peter said shaking his head, changing the subject, “I have to call Mr Fury and tell him that Beck’s a fraud, but I think he tapped my phone…” he said trailing off, looking up at you for support.

“What are you going to do?” you asked softly. You could see the cogs turning within his rich brown eyes.

“Uh, well I need my suit,” he said, grabbing the large black bag from the corner arm chair. “And I have to go to Berlin and talk to Mr Fury in person.”

In one swift movement he unzipped the bag and emptied its contents on to the bed, before moving his arms to the bottom of his torso and lifting his shirt over his head.

He turned to look at you in embarrassment, eye wide open. Your eyes however were drifting lower and lower from his eyes down to his toned chest…

Peter cleared his throat awkwardly. “Um,” he started, still looking at you but at a loss for words.

“Oh! Sorry,” you said blushingly before turning around. You hair created a curtain around your head, but you found yourself twisting slowly on the spot to have another look-

“No! That’s so wrong and pervy” you thought, but still found yourself trying to catch a glimpse of his abs through the gaps of your hair. You saw movement from the corner of your eye and turned to see the hotel room door open. There stood Ned, a look of mild stress on his face.

Peter turned around and saw his best friend and sighed, “Oh, Ned, perfect.”

“Costume looks great!” he spoke quickly, eyes darting between you and Peter. You narrowed your eyes at him, “for the costume party…” his voice trailed off as Peter shook his head.

“She knows, I told her.” He clarified, and you see Ned visibly relax against the door frame.

“That’s cool,” he nodded.

“Technically, I think I figured it out,” you said somewhat cheekily. You turned to Peter with your brows raised when a voice carried from behind you.

“See, another person figured it out Peter. You have got to get better at this.” MJ was now stood behind Ned, arms crossed across her chest. Peter frowned at her, but you could only see his eyes squint because of the suit.

“MJ knows too?” you asked.

“Yeah, I figured out a long time ago,” she replied, “like, a really long time ago. You know, you really should have a better hold on your identity by now…”

“We can work on better hiding my identity when I get back,” Peter interrupted, waving a hand dismissively at her.

“Okay,” she said looking disinterested, “I’ll pencil you in.” she deadpanned. Peter grunted, clearly frustrated with his friends antics before continuing.

“Mysterio is a fraud,” he explained to them. Ned looked confused.

“But he saved me and Betty’s lives. Y/N was there too.”

“It was fake,” you stated, “he’s using illusion tech.”

“He’s using these hologram projectors to create the whole thing.” Peter continued. Ned’s eyes widen whilst Michelle’s continued to be impartial.  

“Wow that’s…crazy.” He said anxiously.

“Yeah,” you sighed, looking at Peter. Both Ned and MJ noticed the way your eyes lingered on one another. MJ’s lips fell into a smirk whilst Ned said,

“Were you guys working the case or something?” he laughed light. You nodded,

“Kind of, although, it has been mostly me,” you whispered the last part, bring the back of your hand to the side of your lips. Ned’s brows creased.

“Look Ned,” Peter said stepping forward, “I need you to call May and ask her to call Mr Harrington and say that I’m going to be staying with family in Berlin until this all blows over.” He spoke quickly, you having to blink a couple times to keep up and comprehend what he was saying.

Without hesitation Ned affirmed, “yep, got it.”

“Wow,” you said in astonishment, “you came up with that so fast. You lied so easily,” looking between the two of them in surprise. Ned chuckled humbly.

“Get used to it,” MJ said, picking at one of her nails, clearly not as invested in this as the rest of you were.

“I gotta go,” Peter said, placing a gloved hand on your shoulder as he moved passed you. As he opened the curtains you saw a glint of light reflective off some silver.

“Wait,” you stopped him, grabbing the projector and chucking it at him. “You’re going to need this.” He caught it in one hand with ease.

“Don’t tell anyone about this okay?” he said, “anyone who knows about this in danger.” You nodded. He pulled his mask down over his eyes and with a THWIP had swung out the window.

You let out a sigh and let your shoulder relax. Ned’s voice cause you to turn to him.

“So, you know too?” he said. “That’s cool, we have a bit of a squad going here,” he laughed comically, referring his hand over his should to MJ who was still stood by the door. “But you know I’ve known first and the longest… but it’s not a competition,” he assured.

You laughed slightly at him, “Okay, Ned.” You said turning back around to look out the window thinking- What the hell have I gotten myself into now?

Tags:

If it didn’t tag you it meant it wouldn’t let me

@vanillanestor @wonders-of-the-multiverse @sweetdarlingholland @basically-thanks @deku-nyan @awesomefandomsunited @thegirlwiththeimpala @inkphilosopher @hardyxlove @mxxkscreate-write @eridanuswave @aiianovna @i-rather-not-say @irxnspxder @emilymarie0422 @exquisitebts @silhouettecrow @softrdj @dasydni @spnsquirrel @foxylupines @thomasstanleyholland2013 @thatpersonwithissues @galaxyrose10 @philophxbicrxmantic @belles-garden @morgannope @fanficscuziranout @magikmina @njallhorannjh @noa-caffery @kaptainkool-aid @yes-imshe @nerdy-98 @itsjustgoobi @magicalturmoil  @secretagentben @ddaeing @itsbebeyyy @writtenbypics @season-four-is-imminent @wakandahoesarethose @bellamyblakemorley @phluffyphantom @sleepygal124 @olliekookie @abitofeverythinggg @hufflepuff-always-and-forever @tiny-friggin-human @jackiehollanderr @edwisenpai @ettorah @divergentjade @thelostandweeping  @lovesteverogersbaeworld @spideyspoods @spn-imagines-fics @willowbowie @cats-before-us @fangirl-127 @cleoprker @leilei-draws @unhealthyobsessionwithmarvel @xxr-88xx @girlontumblur @oofparker @greenarrowhead @aestheticsandmarvel @cubedtriangle @fangeekkk @sincereleygmg @ajxlawley @ibookishqueen @demonsintheair @blizzbx @adoringinsanity @elektraliu @fienneskarsgard

[thanksjro]

Last Stand of the Wreckers, Issue #4: This Series is Awash With Lippy Sons of Guns

Issue #4 starts off with an uncomfortably handsome Prowl. I mean honestly, look at this asshole, he’s simply too pretty.

I don’t think Roche has ever drawn the guy ugly, but this is on another level.

We’re in a flashback sequence here, as we start to gain an understanding of just why exactly Ironfist got put on the Wreckers in the first place. Back when he was working at Kimia, Ironfist got a call from Prowl. Seems Prowl’s read his work, and is impressed by the sheer amount of effort he’s put into it. They chat a bit about it, but no call with Prowl is ever casual, and he asks Ironfist if he’s ever been interested in actually being a Wrecker. Which, of course he has, but he’d never exactly been cut out for that kind of work, especially after his Accident™. Prowl has a little push in that area, because he’s Prowl, and makes a deal; Ironfist joins the Wreckers as a weapon expert, and in exchange he does something for Prowl.

We won’t find out what exactly Ironfist’s agreed to do until later, as we jump back to the present, where the Guzzle and Kup are about to lay the smackdown on some unsuspecting Decepticons.

With how many cameras are currently trained on you guys, I can’t say you really have the time for wisecracks, old-timer.

That big vault door behind them leads to the cell of one of the most notorious Autobots ever to grace the galaxy- Grimlock. This is the “help” Springer requested they find, meaning that he’s a sort of last resort, which tells you just how much of a powerhouse the guy is. Volatile, sure, but a powerhouse regardless.

Too bad the cell’s empty.

Snare steps in to explain just why that is, having snuck up on our Big Gulp duo.

Well I’m sure that won’t be a plot point later on.

Of course, Guzzle doesn’t really feel inclined to believe a word of what this Getaway kitbash says, and starts threatening to shoot him. Snare however, has even more secrets to tell.

Perceptor and pals have finally discovered just what the hell it is that they’ve been looking for all this time. Aequitas is a supercomputer, and a massive one at that. They’re here to download its memory files. Topspin is less than pleased with this whole thing.

Ironfist agrees- there’s no way they’re going to be able to get all the data in Aequitas downloaded before the Decepticons get through to them and tear them to pieces. Verity, however, is more concerned about the size of the computer itself.

A large part of Aequitas is made up of something called a culpability drive, which breaks down factors like motivation and accountability into a streamlined equation so it can do something completely ridiculous: calculate guilt. Yes, someone had the bright idea to break down guilt into a binary system, without any “human” element involved. Because that couldn’t possibly backfire.

Then the narrative catches up to Topspin, and Ironfist and Verity get put on babysitting duty while he deals with his phantom pain. Pyro’s made to help Perceptor with booting up the computer.

Over with Springer, he and Impactor have a little heart-to-heart, while Twin Twist is passed out with a shadow over his face, probably waiting for the horrific reveal of what the dentist’s done to him. Springer feels really bad about Impactor having been sent to Garrus-9; he’d figured that after the trial, Impactor had been sent to rehab, or at least a prison that wasn’t quite as torturey.

Impactor points out that Springer’s testimony at Aequitas was pretty damning, and I’m starting to wonder why Springer didn’t see this coming. Unless they somehow managed to move that massive friggin’ supercomputer in the last few years, Impactor’s trial happened on Garrus-9. Kind of seems like a foregone conclusion that anyone who got put through the Aequitas wringer would end up staying if found guilty.

Impactor still doesn’t think that what he did was wrong, and the only reason they stop verbally duking it out is because Twin Twist does his dramatic face reveal and the dentist comes back in to finish off those fillings.

Funny, they had a similar setup at my old orthodontist’s.

As the dentist prepares to turn what’s left of Twin Twist’s face into the “Lust” scene from Se7en, we get back to the real point of this whole miniseries: fanwanking. Ironfist is telling Verity about the Decepticon’s answer to the Wreckers- Squadron X.

This group is made up entirely of characters who only existed in the Marvel UK comics, and even then only barely. This is convenient on multiple levels; it allows the Wreckers to have an antithesis to their own group that won’t disrupt any of the ongoing storylines outside of Last Stand of the Wreckers. Nobody’s really vying to use the guy who beat up a piano and then got thrown out of a bar, now are they?

It also allows you to use an already-established character that still has plenty of wiggle room for story application. No point in trying to make a new set of characters when we’ve got a bin full of nobodies off in the corner. Especially when we’re only going to have these guys around for a few minutes.

But we’ll get to that later.

Back to Ironfist’s story…

Oh hey Whirl.

Springer’s in a bit of a pickle- his lower half is trapped under a busted barricade, and Squadron X is closing in. Impactor has no intention of leaving Springer behind, so it’s time to get crazy. Springer tells Impactor to blast a hole through his TORSO so he can surprise-attack the approaching enemy. Impactor does so, reluctantly.

Please note that the emphasis is not mine, but the narrative’s.

That’s just a cool panel.

Once all that’s over and done with, Squadron X are all put into inhibitor harnesses to keep them from trying anything funny while in custody. But oh ho, what’s this? They’ve escaped! And they’ve ripped Sandstorm’s arm off! Surely, this must be dealt with, and who better suited for the job than the dude who’s been obsessed with taking these guys out for years now? Impactor gets to work.

And thus the day is saved, thanks to the Wreckers! Yaaay!

With Ironfist’s story concluded, Perceptor takes the time to mention that they’ve got a problem. Turns out Aequitas has some state-of-the-art security measures going on- in order to even turn the thing on, someone’s got to feed the thing their spark. You know, a robot soul. This thing runs on souls, and the donator has to be a willing participant otherwise it won’t work.

Well that’s awful convenient for you, now ain’t it, Percy?

I’m assuming they just never turned the thing off during the trials, otherwise they would have run out of juice very quickly.

So it’s slim pickings in terms of sparks. Perceptor’s playing IT, Topspin’s whole spark situation is a consent minefield, and Verity’s soul is the normal, human, intangible kind. And now we get to the part of our story that’s a little sad.

Pyro and Ironfist aren’t popular. They’ve never been in the spotlight. They aren’t important. They were brought on the Wreckers to die, plain and simple, because it’s a game of numbers, and their numbers are miles below the likes of Springer and Kup.

Pyro isn’t on-board with this at all, saying that this isn’t how it’s supposed to go down for him.

Say what you will about his delusions of grandeur, but this is a guy who knows what he wants.

While Pyro’s dreaming big, Topspin’s having a really bad time in the background. That vicarious perception’s hitting real hard right now.

Ironfist plays the child in a bitter divorce between Pyro and Verity as they argue over who the hell should die so the plot can keep moving. Ironfist has a lot to say, a lot that he really should say, but he doesn’t. He’s not proud of himself, or the things he’s done as a weapons’ expert. After reflecting on his life- a life that hasn’t been profoundly wondrous or meaningful- he concedes to being the one to die.

But that doesn’t happen, because Topspin takes matters into his own hands and puts the goddamn dog to sleep. The dog in this case being himself and Twin Twist. Aequitas thanks him for his donation, sucks out his spark, and over in the torture chamber Twin Twist explodes.

With the twins(?) dead, Aequitas is online, and not a moment too soon, because those Decepticons are starting to bring the door down. Perceptor hands a headphone jack to Ironfist, tells him to plug it into his brain, and to get ready for the hurt, because they’re about to download the entirety of this supercomputer into his head.

Back with Impactor, he’s about to get his cornea scratched, when Guzzle and Kup come to save the day, following Snare’s guidance.

I just want to say, Guzzle wins the Worst Crotch award. It’s simply awful.

So Kup and Guzzle free Springer and Impactor, just in time for Springer to revenge-stab the dentist with the torture stick. Too bad he’s already shot Snare.

Play… makes you free... in the prison that’s been turned into basically a death camp. Is… are we really doing the Holocaust parallels again? God, I hope I’m reading too much into that, I really do.

We finally find out what the prize for winning the Pit fights is: you can either fight Overlord, or kill yourself. Not much of a prize, if you ask me.

Speaking of the Blue Terror, he’s on his way over. Snare asks that Impactor just kill him, because there’s no way he’s going to risk being found out by Overlord that he was being sneaky. Impactor obliges, crushing his brain module between his fingers.

Then Overlord quite literally explodes into the room.

Back over in the Aequitas chamber, Ironfist’s just finished with his upload, and he’s shaken by what he now knows. The Decepticons have nearly broken down the door at this point, and there’s only one way to save themselves- they have to detonate the prisoners’ deterrence chips. This, of course, includes Impactor. Perceptor’s all for it, but Pyro’s wholly against the idea. Verity tries to put in her vote, but humans don’t have rights in the eyes of Wrecker law, so it all comes down to Ironfist.

You heard the man, let’s kill the purple guy.

[samsexualdeancurious]

Thanks For Listening | Chapter 1

Square: Free Space

Pairing: Sam x Reader

Words: 8,498

Warnings: hurt!Reader, pining, eventual smut, dirty talk, voice!kink, unprotected sex.

Summary: Sam hosts two podcasts - a secret one for hunters called the War Room and a public one with fellow hunter Y/N called Criminal History. Y/N and Sam have never seen each other, let alone met, but that doesn’t stop Sam from worrying when Y/N suddenly goes missing.

Betaed by @manawhaat 

Written for @spnkinkbingo

Header by me and Mana

Masterlist - AO3

--

You rest your elbows on the cheap motel table, leaning on it as you speak into the microphone. "Chief, you've heard my thoughts on this. What do you think?"

There's a pause, the same little dramatic one Sam does every time, and then that rich voice you adore says, "I think he's guilty as hell."

You can't suppress a small laugh at Sam's straight-forward statement. "Well, folks, the Chief has spoken - and the jury has, too. Guilty. As. Hell. Keith Hunter Jesperson, A.K.A. the Happy Face Killer, was sentenced to life without parole and is currently housed in Oregon State Penitentiary. If you want to hear another side of this story, I recommend the podcast Happy Face, which is hosted by Melissa Moore, Jesperson's daughter. Anything else you want to add?"

"Definitely check out that Happy Face podcast, guys. It's a great one."

"Thanks, Chief. Until next time, then, folks. This is Criminal History. Thanks for listening."

You sit back from the mic, both you and Sam leaving a moment of silence where Sam can later cut the recording and add in the outro music.

"How was that?" you ask. "Think we need to go again?"

"No, you were great," Sam assures you. "You always are. You know that."

Your cheeks warm at the compliment. "I know," you say, putting on a little bit of a playfully cocky tone. "I just like hearing you say it."

Sam laughs and your stomach does happy flips. "Fine," he teases. "I see how it is. You're just using me for my voice."

"You caught me," you say with enough playfulness in your voice to hopefully combat the heat in your cheeks, even though Sam can't see that.

You find yourself staring longingly at the computer screen, wishing for the hundredth time today alone that you could see Sam's face. But, unfortunately, voice recordings are easier on shitty motel WiFi than video calls are.

“If you think we’ve got everything we need, I’m gonna stop my recording,” you continue, pushing past your wandering thoughts.

“We’re good. Go ahead and stop the recording.”

You do just that, saving the file and uploading it to a file sharing service Sam found. “File’s uploading now. We’ll see how long it takes on this motel WiFi. I’m surprised we didn’t have any connection issues. The WiFi really sucked earlier.”

“Gotta love motel WiFi. What episode number is this?”

“47 according to my notes,” you reply. “We’re not even to 50 and you’re already losing track?”

“I’m running two podcasts. There’s only so much my brain can handle.”

“What? Sam Winchester’s brain has a limit? Alert the media.”

You can practically hear his eyes rolling. “Ha ha. You still chasing that vamp nest?”

“Unfortunately. I’m gonna meet up with Allen Burton tomorrow. He caught wind of the nest moving south past Moab.”

“Allen. I’m not familiar with that name. He’s experienced?”

“Not as experienced as I would prefer but everyone else is caught up in something or on the other end of the country, and I’m not waiting around for these bastards to kill anyone else.”

Sam makes a soft, displeased sound. “Be careful, okay?”

Your heart warms at the concern in Sam’s voice and you try to play it off with a little joking. “Always am.”

Sam doesn’t fall for your change of tone, though. “Y/N. Please. Vampires are no joke.”

“I know. I’ll be careful,” you promise, suddenly eager to reassure him.

“Call or text me when you’ve got the nest wrapped up?”

“Of course.”

---

Sam is reluctant to end the call. He always is. Y/N is just so easy to talk to, which is part of why they make such good co-hosts. Recording their weekly episodes are one of the highlights of his week.

He reaches over and flicks the switch on the wall behind his desk - the one connected to the “Quiet Please. Recording in Progress” sign and the red light above his office door. This was his own special addition to this room and the wiring was a giant pain in the ass but it was definitely worth it to minimize the sounds in the hall outside. 

Someone knocks on the door as soon as the sign and light are turned off. “Come in,” he calls, saving his own audio file to a folder he’ll download Y/N’s to once it’s uploaded.

“Ya done in here?” Dean asks, poking his head in.

“Done with Criminal History,” Sam tells him, spinning his chair around. Another worthwhile investment, his nice desk chair. “Still gotta record an interview for the War Room.”

“I’m Sam Winchester,” Dean says in a gruff voice, stepping fully into the room. “Welcome to the War Room.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “I don’t sound like that.”

“You totally sound like that.”

“Do you have a reason for being here or are you just being annoying?”

Dean holds up a plate Sam didn’t notice he had. “Dinner.”

“Have I really been in here that long?” Sam asks, happily accepting the plate to find that Dean made chicken and rice with chipotle green onion gravy.

“You sure have. You and Y/N must’ve been a coupla of old Chatty Cathy’s today.”

“Yeah, it took us a while to get going,” Sam admits around a bite of food.

“What’s she been up to?”

“Still tracking that vamp nest. It’s moved into southern Utah now and she’s gonna meet up with another hunter, some guy named Allen, to finally take care of it. Well, that’s what she’s hoping for, at least.”

“You two gonna hang out once she wraps that case up?”

Dean shoots Sam a wink and Sam responds with a glare. That only prompts his brother to laugh.

“Seriously, Sammy,” Dean says. “You’ve been digital pen pals for over a year. It’s about time you finally meet.”

Dean’s right and Sam knows he is, but it’s his duty as the younger brother to never admit it. Truthfully, Sam’s dying to meet Y/N. As hunters, they’re both a little paranoid about new people and despite knowing each other for so long, they’ve never actually video chatted, let alone met in person. He trusts Y/N, though. He feels like he really knows who she is, after all their texting and phone calls pre-podcast, all the time they spend just talking ‘off the clock’, and the hours of recorded chat he sometimes edits down into bonus episodes.

In all honesty, Sam likes Y/N. He likes her a lot. He’d never tell her that, though. They’ve got a good thing going and he doesn’t want to ruin that with his own mess of feelings when it’s so much easier to just keep things to himself.

“We’ll see,” is all Sam gives his brother. He drains his water bottle washing down a mouthful of rice and shakes the empty container at Dean. “Can you go fill this?”

“I’m not your butler,” Dean grumbles even as he takes the water bottle.

“Thank you!” Sam calls after him, spinning to put his plate on the desk and really go to town on his dinner. It’s a simple recipe but a delicious one, if a little spicy.

Dean returns with the water bottle just as Sam is scraping his plate clean.

“You’re the best,” Sam says, happily accepting the bottle in exchange for the plate.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean replies. “Don’t you forget it.”

“I won’t. Now get out so I can record.”

As soon as the door is closed behind Dean, Sam flicks his sign on again and swings over to his microphone. He drinks a little water to clear his throat, checks the clock to see that he has a few minutes left until his guest hunter calls, and hits the record button. A thirty-second wait for white noise and then he leans in a little closer to the microphone than he usually does for Criminal History.

“I’m Sam Winchester,” he says, unable to resist being just a little dramatic. “Welcome to the War Room.”

---

Y/N texts Sam right up until she and Allen are headed out to where they think the vamps are hiding, three days after they’d first met up.

She doesn’t text Sam after that.

---

"You've reached Y/N. I'm probably off having more fun than you are. Leave a message."

Sam signs, scrubbing a hand over his face as he enters the bunker kitchen. "Y/N, it's Sam. Again. Please call me as soon as you can." He hangs up, tapping his phone against his hand as he fights the urge to call again.

"She still not answering?" Dean asks from where he's standing at the stove frying bacon.

Sam shakes his head and shoved his phone in his pocket. "It's been almost a week. I'm getting really worried."

"Do you know where the nest was? Maybe you should go check on her."

"Somewhere in southern Utah. I don't know exactly where, though. Last we spoke she said the vamps had holed up somewhere not on a map." Sam slams one hand flat against the door of the fridge before running that same hand through his hair. "Shit, I should've gotten the coordinates from her."

"Hey, hey," Dean says, dumping bacon onto a paper towel and returning the pan to the burner. "I'm sure she's fine. She probably just lost her phone somewhere and hasn't been able to get a new one"

"After a week?" Sam shoots Dean an incredulous look.

"Just trying to think positively."

Sam slumps, leaning against the fridge. "I know. I'm just-"

"Really worried. I know. I can tell." Dean nudges Sam to the side so he can get a carton of eggs from the fridge. "Are there any hunters we know that are in the area and can check on her?"

"I don't know. I think Charlie was in Idaho."

"Well,” Dean says, cracking a couple of eggs straight into the bacon grease that still coats the pan. “Go give Charlie a call."

Sam feels a little better having something he can do right now and he immediately pulls his phone out. He realizes too late that Charlie is in a different timezone, but by some miracle Charlie is just getting back to her car after a salt and burn and answers after the second ring. She promises to head south and see if she can track down Y/N.

"I'll keep you updated," she promises. "It's almost a seven-hour drive, though, and I need a few hours of shut-eye before I get on the road."

Sam nods, stirring a bit of creamer into his coffee. "Do what you need to do. I don't want you putting yourself in danger."

"I'll text you when I'm on the road."

"Thanks, Charlie. I really appreciate it."

"Hey, man. After everything you've done for me? Checking up on someone is the least I can do. Plus, Y/N is a friend, too. But I know you guys are really close and it's not like her to be out of contact this long."

Sam leans against the counter, suppressing another sigh. It feels like he’s done that a hundred times in the last hour alone.

“Hey,” Charlie says gently, seeming to sense Sam’s distress. “We’ll find her.”

“Thanks, Charlie,” Sam murmurs. “I’ll let you get some sleep.”

They end the call and Sam turns his attention to his coffee, fighting to keep his mind from wandering.

“It’ll be fine,” Dean says from where he’s now sitting at the table, mouth full of eggs and bacon. “Eat some bacon and find something to distract yourself.”

“I’ll try,” Sam mutters, snagging a piece of bacon and heading off to his office.

---

Sam’s really glad they’re ahead on recording for Criminal History because he’s able to lose himself in editing and getting the episode uploaded. Then he gets the next episode of War Room ready to go. From there, though, all he has left is to edit more episodes of Criminal History and he just… can't. He can't sit in his office and listen to her voice when he doesn't know if she's even alive 

No. Don't think like that. He rubs both palms over his face, trying to scrub that horrible thought from his brain. She's alive. She has to be.

--

Like this fic? Support me longterm on Patreon HERE or make a one-time donation of Ko-Fi HERE

--

Team Forever: @mrswhozeewhatsis @books-and-icecream @laughing-at-the-darkness @tumbler-tidbits @imsuperawkward

Team Sam: @saxxxology

Team TFL: @wonderfulworldofwinchester @kickingitwithkirk @muchamusedaboutnothing @ellen-reincarnated1967

[gwaciechang]

Love Run (1/10?)

“But I held your hand As you shook In the middle of the night.”

If you haven’t watched the episode “Run Rabbit Run” of “Stan Lee’s Lucky Man,” you won’t understand anything happening here. If you have, you’ll know what trigger warnings are involved with Bobby Hayes’ life. This fic will deal heavily with drug addiction, recovery, and cravings, as well as the self-hatred and self-worth issues that usually come with that. As usual, grammar and stylistic warnings are accepted with gratitude, content criticism will get you blocked. This won’t be uploaded to AO3 until the full story is complete, but you can read this section below the cut.

It wasn’t that you hated your job at the bar. You like mixing drinks, you like figuring out delicious new combinations, and you especially liked getting a discount on said delicious combinations. And the patrons were usually very friendly. Sure, one or two would get handsy, but the bouncers were very good about removing anyone who was less than respectful. The only thing you didn’t like, in fact, was the walk to the bus stop.

It was only these last few days of construction for some downed power lines, but now the only way to your usual bus stop involved walking in a big circle across a dark alley. Yesterday, you’d almost stepped on a syringe of dubious origin.

Only a warning so quiet you hardly heard had stopped you from getting tetanus or something. You couldn’t find anybody when you looked around, so you chose to thank the shadows as you walked around and went on your way. Other than that, no one had ever interrupted your trek down the alley.

But today, you wouldn’t be so lucky.

You hear the yelling before you get there, something about shoes, and then something quieter that you can’t hear properly. You spend a few minutes mentally debating whether it’s worth it to potentially miss your bus trying to take an even longer route in order to avoid whatever is happening. The yelling stops suddenly, and you start running, hoping you can avoid whatever is happening.

You’re almost there when it suddenly starts again. “Understand?” an angry man shouts, and you hear something solid collide against something hollow.

Another man is shouting now, but not out of anger. He’s shouting with so much fear and desperation that you want to hide from whatever is hurting him. And he’s shouting numbers. A phone number.

Then there are steps, and you’re paralyzed by fear for a second. But the end of the alley is in reach, and you take the last few steps toward the stop, just in time to see the bus pull away.

You curse, not too loudly in case the angry man is listening. All of a sudden, you're terrified. He could be anywhere, and you’re all alone outside at night without any self-defense skills or weapons whatsoever. You start walking back toward the alley because if he is here, if he’s going to find you and kill you, you’d rather it happen without several minutes of torturous anticipation first.

There's no one in the alley, so whoever the angry man was, he’s already gone. The only sound left in the alley is a guttural sobbing from someone who’s hurt and has no hope that anyone will comfort him. You’re a little iffy about entering a strange building, but if there’s anything you’re good at, it’s listening to people talk about their problems and, if necessary, advise them not to ingest substances to deal with it. Besides, the bus wouldn’t be there for another hour and a half, and the angry man is still out there somewhere, so you suck it up and enter.

It’s not any question where the crying man lives, since there’s only one door that's open. Everything looks clean and neat, so you take your shoes off, almost forgetting the start of the argument.

What you do forget is how slippery socks can be, especially when you’re balanced on one socked-foot while trying to yank your other shoe off. And that’s how you end up screaming as you faceplant into linoleum.

“Can I sit here?” you ask, pointing to the couch. He jerks his head in a nod before moving so you can't see what he's taking out of the minifridge. Probably ice or something.

He’s shaking, so you put your shoes in one hand and reach to pat his shoulder lightly. He jerks away, and you hold your hands up in surrender. “Sorry,” you say, “I didn’t mean to upset you. Will you tell me how to make you feel better?”

He doesn’t answer because he’s almost hyperventilating. You're about to leave and avoid causing more trouble when he grabs his shoulder and pats it, one, two, three, four, five times, and then calming down. “Please sit back down,” he says in the resigned voice of someone who doesn’t expect to be listened to. So what can you do besides sit down?

He returns to whatever he’s doing in the fridge, only this time you notice that it’s taking a long time because he keeps tapping his fingers on his arms in a rhythmic fashion. You start tapping your feet to the rhythm and humming “We are the Champions,” because you’ve never heard a rhythm you didn’t want to put to music.

He gives you a look that's sharp, but not unhappy. You smile back at him and dare to sing a little louder. You think he’s humming too, but he’s tapping less, and he closes the minifridge to go to a big white thing that you only recognize as an actual refrigerator when he pulls out a bag of frozen peas and hands it to you. You take it and stare at the minifridge. “What do you keep in there?” you point. Shit, that was too close to home. “Do you keep your desserts in a different fridge too? I thought I was the only one who does that,” you try to quip. He laughs nervously and shakes his head. He keeps shaking it, almost frantic, and he starts to tap his fingers again in the same rhythm. You resume humming, but he doesn’t calm down this time, and there are steps outside, making his eyes go wide with terror. But your heart isn’t pounding in your ears, so you can hear the telltale clicking of heels on the pavement. “It’s a woman,” you rush to reassure your odd new friend. “He’s not coming back.”

His tapping relaxes a little, and he doesn’t meet your eyes when he lifts his head, but he does take a deep breath and start humming the next chorus. You’re a little embarrassed at how wide you must be beaming at him. “I don’t blame you for being scared,” you tell him. “I missed my bus because I was too busy hiding, and I only heard his voice.”

He rubs his temple where there’s a small crescent-shaped bruise. Something solid had collided with something hollow, you remember with horror. You knock the hand not holding the peas against the wall, and it makes the same sound.

“Shit,” you hand the peas back to him. “Are you okay? Did he hit you in the head or something?”

He stares at you like a deer caught in headlights, and the humming stops. “Did you hear what he said?” he asks in a rush.

“Some numbers?” you rack your brain. “I don’t remember which ones, but he had you repeat them.”

He’s whispering now, probably the same numbers, and he’s tapping so hard that his fingers are a blur.

“Are you in trouble? Am I making trouble for you?” you ask. You don’t want to spend the next hour and a half in the dark, waiting for the angry, scary man, but you also don’t want to be the cause of what seems to be an impending panic attack.

He dives for his minifridge, and it occurs to you that this isn’t a panic attack. It’s something else. “You need to leave,” he snarls at you.

You’re a little surprised at how steady your voice comes out. “That doesn’t seem to be a good idea.”

This close, even though he’s too big for you to see exactly what he’s doing, you can smell it. It wasn’t your poison, but your dealer ran a diverse business, so you became very familiar with the smell of cooked heroin.

You squeeze your eyes shut against the phantom itch that spreads across your arms and face and there are no bugs, there aren’t. This guy keeps his apartment way too clean for that. But you’re still gasping, still trying to fight off invisible monsters.

A soft, warm thing covers your hand, and when you open your eyes, you see the sad man putting a pair of leather gloves on your hands to keep you from hurting yourself when you scratch. God, how terrible did you have to look for him to do that in the middle of a fit?

“I’msorry.” Your voice spills out as a single word, “It’s been a long time, but I smell that and I’m just immediately back there, and it’s not a comfortable feeling.” You realize you’re grabbing his hands tightly and let go.

A frown appears between his eyes, and his hands follow yours to your sides.

You squeeze again, and again, and again, and again, and again, then let go.

He exhales and the frown disappears, but he’s still tense and his eyes flick helplessly toward the minifridge.

You cover your mouth and nose with one hand and grab the peas with the other. You start to sing again when you hear the click of the lighter, and wish you had the resources to help him.

You keep singing, and to your surprise, he actually sits down right next to you and sings along. His voice is childlike and bright, just like his expression when he leans his head on your shoulder. He wraps one arm loosely around your waist as he starts to slide across the floor. You bump his knee, and he laughs instead of bumping you back five more times.

The time ticks away, and once an hour passes, you get up to leave. He murmurs unhappily, and you pause while you put his gloves next to his computer table.

“Stay,” he begs, and he’s trying to get up and reach for you, but he can’t do either, so you end up dragging him onto the couch and setting him down. He cheers, and you sit down on the armrest and listen to the bus leave with his hand in your lap, holding yours.

You must doze off at some point, because your neck hurts when you sit up from where you’re basically draped over him. For a second, you’re not sure what woke you, and then you hear the knock.

Your frantic face is reflected in his eyes for a split second before he’s pushing you off of him and into a room.

"Don't say anything," he's nearly hyperventilating again, and his fingers are drumming his six-beat rhythm on the doorknob. "I won't let him know you're here," he promises.

You press your ear to the door, ready to jump in. But instead of the shouty, angry man from last night, whomever your friend is talking to is so quiet, you can barely hear them. You can hear your friend sometimes, talking about how it’s too late, how he can’t leave and the person can’t stay, and asking about the person’s family. Then the stair creaks.

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“No, but now you’ve got to do it five more times.”

“You do it,” the not-angry man says, and your friend actually laughs.

You wait until the front door closes to come out, and the laugh dies on his face when he sees you.

“You have to go,” he says. “The man from last night is going to come back.”

“I’m not leaving,” you say. “You asked me to stay, so I am.”

“I wasn’t in my right mind,” he argues.

“And you’re not in your right mind now. You’re panicking because you think the man from last night is going to come back, but not because he’s going to hurt you. You sent the man who was here just now away because he made you laugh, so you don’t want to see him get hurt. And you’re trying to send me away now for the same reason. Is it really that hard to believe that there are people who don’t want to see you get hurt either? And that if we can, we want to protect you?”

He finally makes eye contact with you. “Don’t,” he says.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t protect me.”

“Have you met me? Does it look like I run away from things?”

He gives you a sarcastic look that, okay, is totally deserved.

“Yeah, that was a bad question. You don’t actually know my name and I literally did run away from the guy who was threatening you earlier. Well, my name is Robin, and now that I’ve spent a few hours in your company, I know you’re a good person.”

He laughs. It doesn’t sound good. “I scared you, and then I made you stay with me while I was strung out.”

“You also gave me a bag of peas and sang with me.”

“Because you came when I was crying!”

You reach up to thumb a tear off his cheek. “You’re crying now,” you say as sincerely and hopefully as you can, “which means I should be here. And remember, last night, when I didn’t know who you were and that man from last night was outside, I came here, to you, because I knew it was safer in here. And I still know that.” Only when you give his hands a squeeze do you realize they’re clasped in yours.

He looks at them like this is the first time he’s seeing them too, and he looks shocked. He’s probably not used to non-threatening physical contact, and your heart breaks a little bit more.

You squeeze his hand five more times, and a miraculous little smile appears on his face.

“You can stay, but you have to do what I tell you,” he says with almost no volume, like he can’t believe he’s doing this either.

“Thank you, I will,” you lie.

“And um, my name’s, um, Bobby.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Bobby,” and this time, you’re telling the truth.

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #205

Sat Sep 7 2019 [02:15 PM] Wack'd: Previously on Fantastic Four: Reed, Sue and Ben went into space with an alien lady named Adora to save her world from Skrulls. Meanwhile Johnny checked out a college for the rich and famous, where he is unknowingly targeted by an assassin who shoots lasers out of his camera and has atrocious facial hair [02:16 PM] Bocaj: Did they meet catra [02:16 PM] Wack'd: No [02:16 PM] Wack'd: It'd be better if they did [02:16 PM] Bocaj: They did meet Tigra though [02:16 PM] Bocaj: It’s a similar concept without all of the same trauma [02:17 PM] maxwellelvis: And to also recap, this is like the first time the Four have gone up against the Skrulls since the Lee/Kirby run, and their old enemies have gone up in the galactic food chain since then. [02:17 PM] maxwellelvis: They also no longer look like goblins. [02:17 PM] Wack'd: They're just in time for the end of the world!

[02:17 PM] Bocaj: If they don’t look like goblins the. What’s the point? [02:17 PM] Wack'd: Agreed [02:17 PM] maxwellelvis: See what I mean? [02:18 PM] maxwellelvis: This is the Skrulls at their peak. [02:18 PM] Wack'd: Skrulls are a superstitious and cowardly lot

[02:19 PM] maxwellelvis: This must be before the Skrull Emperor and/or Empress [02:19 PM] Bocaj: A lot of things have a Supreme in marvel [02:19 PM] Umbramatic: SUPREME [02:19 PM] Bocaj: The Kree, the skrulls, the sorcerers, the AIM [02:19 PM] Wack'd: The SuprAIM [02:19 PM] Bocaj: Nice [02:20 PM] maxwellelvis: No wait, that cannot be. [02:20 PM] Wack'd: Anyway the Skrulls are using hit and run tactics. Show up, fuck shit up, retreat from weapons range before the enemy has a chance to retaliate, launch another attack, repeat [02:20 PM] Wack'd: The upshot is that this buys Reed, Sue, and Ben a little bit of time before things get too bad [02:20 PM] Bocaj: I mean, good tactics if you can get it [02:21 PM] Wack'd: Yeah this is actually a clever way to establish stakes while still giving the team a chance to get their bearings [02:22 PM] Wack'd: SCANMAN! WITH THE POWER TO...SCAN!

[02:23 PM] Wack'd: I give Keith Pollard a 6/10 for wacky hat effort

[02:23 PM] maxwellelvis: In that big spread, I just noticed, you can see that the artist took pains to show that Adora's people aren't getting entirely curbstomped; you can see that they've managed to down about three Skrull ships, if you can figure out the color coding on the lasers. It's just, that's three ships out of... a lot more than that. So it shows that they're fighting courageously, but are still outgunned, outmanned, and almost out of time. [02:23 PM] maxwellelvis: S'a Kirby original, Dorrek's hat. [02:23 PM] Wack'd: Pollard's kinda toned it down but I guess it's the same general idea as this 60s one [02:24 PM] Bocaj: Skrulls have dogs [02:24 PM] maxwellelvis: I can't find a picture of him from then, but have this screenshot of Dorrek from the 1967 cartoon [02:24 PM] Bocaj: I want to believe in green shapeshifting doggos [02:24 PM] Bocaj: That’s not green [02:25 PM] maxwellelvis: Nobody was the right colors in that cartoon. [02:25 PM] maxwellelvis: It's got coloring errors worse than Star Trek: The Animated Series up the wazoo, and I'm pretty sure this show doesn't have the excuse of a colorblind guy doing the colors. [02:26 PM] maxwellelvis: Also love that Dorrek says it's not fair that the Fantastic Four are here when the way he's been waging war here hasn't given the illusion of any sort of fair fight. [02:26 PM] Bocaj: Love those giant ears [02:27 PM] Umbramatic: ye [02:28 PM] Bocaj: Apparently one of the skrulls reed turned into a cow (which was later turned into hamburger and eaten) was a relative of Dorrek’s [02:28 PM] Bocaj: To put it lightly he hates the fantastic four with all his hate [02:28 PM] Wack'd: So the Watcher creates the illusion of an incoming Earth starship, freaking the Skrulls out and causing Dorrek to point all his troops at it. And then the Watcher mopes a little about breaking his oath again [02:28 PM] Bocaj: All he does is break his oath [02:29 PM] maxwellelvis: I'll reiterate, Uatu is like the Doctor but lacking the backbone to actually chew his people out for their total non-interference policy. [02:29 PM] Wack'd: Meanwhile back on Earth...Johnny's already moving into a dorm! Things move fast at Security College [02:29 PM] Bocaj: Like the doctor I think he got put on trial once [02:30 PM] Wack'd: well that's not creepy

[02:30 PM] Bocaj: Wow that’s very illegal [02:30 PM] Wack'd: So it turns out this was all a Batman Gambit [02:30 PM] maxwellelvis: Wait, that’s illegal [02:30 PM] Bocaj: I can’t believe Johnny rebellious youth supports the police state [02:31 PM] Umbramatic: oh no [02:31 PM] Wack'd: That random lady who insulted Johnny for being intellectually uncurious and immature a few issues ago was hypnotized into doing so by The Monocle because by weakening his ego and making him doubt himself he'd be easier to convince to go to this school [02:31 PM] Bocaj: .... [02:32 PM] Umbramatic: oh [02:32 PM] Bocaj: Villains sure have incredibly specific plans sometimes [02:32 PM] Wack'd: He didn't have hypnosis last time we saw him but "murders people with camera lasers" is kind of a weak gimmick so I don't mind [02:32 PM] Wack'd: Also: Lanie had a point! Johnny should be more interested in the fact that he got go literally go to space numerous times [02:33 PM] Bocaj: Hypnotism is one of those powers villains tend to get for free [02:33 PM] Bocaj: I think super Skrull has it [02:33 PM] Wack'd: Oh hey another shadowy mastermind. Not sitting in a chair facing away from the camera though

[02:34 PM] Wack'd: What's the point of video calling if you're not going to show your face? Just call him on the fucking phone [02:34 PM] maxwellelvis: This doesn't surprise me. The Monocle just doesn't have the presence to command an entire story by himself. [02:34 PM] maxwellelvis: @Wack'd Ask the Sovereign [02:34 PM] Wack'd: Eh he was a hired goon in his original story too [02:34 PM] Wack'd: He's an assassin for hire [02:35 PM] Wack'd: So Johnny goes to bed. And then he and every other student on campus hear a compelling voice that leads them to the administration building. HYPNOSIS [02:36 PM] Wack'd: Also the compelling voice is calling Johnny "John" and. Nope. Wrong. never gonna get over that [02:36 PM] Wack'd: MEANWHILE BACK IN SPACE [02:37 PM] Wack'd: Oh hey this weird bubble city of survivors are from Xandar! [02:37 PM] Wack'd: Their planet it looks a lot less destroyed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe [02:37 PM] Bocaj: Yeah I don't think Xandar gets destroyed until 200something with the Annihilation story [02:38 PM] Wack'd: ...but it's [02:38 PM] Wack'd: it's already destroyed [02:38 PM] maxwellelvis: COMPLETELY destroyed [02:38 PM] Wack'd: this bubble city is all that's left [02:38 PM] Bocaj: I just realized that Xandar might be a riff on Kandar [02:39 PM] Wack'd: Aliens love brain uploading

[02:40 PM] Bocaj: What a perspective [02:40 PM] Wack'd: hahahaha ben points out they stole this shot from *forbidden planet* [02:40 PM] maxwellelvis: That's a heck of a way to preserve your culture, but I sure hope the brains are happy in there. [02:40 PM] maxwellelvis: Metahumor, or Marv Wolfman ribbing the artist? You decide. [02:41 PM] Wack'd: Anyway the Skrulls want this computer, or more specifically the fucking metric ton of power it takes to operate it, to give themselves an upper hand against the Kree [02:41 PM] maxwellelvis: Or, with the changeover in how comics are made, would that be more like directing the artist? [02:41 PM] maxwellelvis: And there we are. [02:41 PM] Wack'd: Probably conscious homage [02:41 PM] maxwellelvis: Gotcha [02:43 PM] Wack'd: Anyway the Skrulls come back! Fight scene! [02:44 PM] maxwellelvis: Anyways, I should have figured that this was motivated by either expansion or asset acquisition. [02:44 PM] Wack'd: Kinda weird that the Skrulls have ground troops (or, uh, anti-grav troops) rather than just using spaceships for everything [02:44 PM] Wack'd: But it gets us a fight scene, so [02:45 PM] maxwellelvis: It's a fool who commits all his resources to one branch of his military. Don't know if that's an actual saying about war and warfare, but I feel it's true, at least from my limited strategy gaming experience. [02:46 PM] Wack'd: I mean this is a little like if Germany sent troops into Britain during the Blitz. Really you're just risking blowing up your own dudes

[02:46 PM] Umbramatic: SPLAM [02:46 PM] Bocaj: Spinel [02:47 PM] Wack'd: Yes [02:47 PM] Wack'd: So! Reed, Sue, and Ben are knocked out and taken to the Skrull ship [02:47 PM] Wack'd: And so we cliffhanger into...*sigh* [02:47 PM] Wack'd: Nova #25 [02:47 PM] Wack'd: Dammit

[fearfearer]

more thoughts about the magnus archives as i reread the transcripts

i was thinking about how gertrude robinson was really an extraordinary person (not extraordinarily Morally Sound, but extraordinary) just because of who she was, whereas the only extraordinary things about jonathan sims are things that have been arranged for him (i.e. his role). i don't mean this as a diss for jonathan, as i'm not extraordinary either. it's just striking that gertrude was so driven and confident compared to jon. of course, now we know that basically everything she did was in the pursuit of a moot goal (i.e. killing people in order to stop rituals that were already doomed to fail) so maybe my point is somewhat moot as well.

i've been doing some rereading of episodes on my phone (i.e. away from this text document on my computer) and i'll have a realization like "right, i should note that down when i get back to my computer" and i have forgotten all of them now that i am back at my computer. suffice it to say there are quite a few things i misheard/misunderstood on the first listen, unsurprisingly.

reading through the first 20 or so episodes i'm surprised by how well i remember each of them, considering i was listening like 4 episodes a day when i started. then again, it was only a month or two ago that i even listened to them, so one should hope my memory is at least this good. anyway the first episode i'm re-listening instead of rereading is 22 bc that's the first one where we hear martin's voice, i'm pretty sure

i've also noticed some errors in the official transcripts, which aren't a big deal because obviously what matters most is the audio, but still... some of them have been simple typos. magnus archives hire me as your official transcriptionist and i'll make all your transcripts 100% error-free bc im smatr

(reading through the rest of the transcripts and my standards went way down in terms of grammar/stylistic consistency, as most of the later ones are fan transcripts by several different people. i found quite a few mistakes, but obviously i have no particular way to help fix them short of sending an email to the tma transcripts fansite person like “hey there’s all these mistakes. upload my good version instead?” bc i’m not that much of a dick)

the whole reason martin went to the spider guy's building was because he didn't want jon to be disappointed in him for not doing Due Diligence. he says so twice. then he went back for the same reason. it seems the fandom joke is "jon asks his assistants to do crimes for him" but in this case martin is like "oh no maybe i didn't do enough crimes to satisfy jon"

jon was doing his archivist voice HEAVILY in season 1, huh?

tim's first appearance is so jovial compared to how he ends up...

if this boat lady is speaking spanish in brazil, then it doesn't matter if it was "bad spanish" or not. anyway now i understand why we already knew peter lukas was serving the lonely by the time jon mentioned offhand that peter lukas was serving the lonely. it was my whole “let’s not bother noting down any FREQUENTLY RECURRING names”

well i guess robert smirke was a real person. should i feel dumb about this? idk. it’s such a fictional-sounding name, to be fair. but i guess that set the precedent of using a real person as an important historical figure in the fiction that we see happening again when edmund halley is referenced later on. also episode 35 has foreshadowing for the separation of 14 powers, and people thought it was 13 because they mention 13 halls PLUS the one they came through.

totally forgot about tim goofing around in episode 39... he was really not having the worst time at this job before bad things started happening and he realized he was trapped, huh

the worms were trying to make a doorway into the Worm Wealm

ep 40 jon's like "I need to hear it. I need to record it. Or else I can't finish." (lightly abridged)

listening to the season 1 Q&A for the first time and EARL BIGMAC

also good to know there's only going to be 5 seasons. very good to know. this seems like a good kind of series to write with a fixed endpoint in mind, as it's very easy to do an episode that has effectively no bearing on the MetaPlot but which is still a short story in itself and therefore doesn't count as "filler"

jonathan sims performs with a mythical space pirate music cabaret. so he IS a ham

jonny says, "no rude words. i could say bums, maybe..." (alexander j newall does a laugh while i do the exact same laugh irl) "...but i won't."

some dumbass writing into the Q&A to ask if the background music is diegetic... get a podcast brain, ya fool. though for my part, i have to say that one of the most striking things about this podcast when i first started listening (though i never made a note of it before) was the Too Spooky Music, and i didn't like it at all. the reason was that i am, and have been, vulnerable to Getting Spooked about irrational things at night, such that it becomes really hard to fall asleep... and one of the things that has an outsize effect on my level of Spookédness is spooky audio. so if i was watching a video at night and i was worried it would Get Me Spooked, i would just turn the sound off, and it would turn out fine. but obviously you can't turn the sound off on a podcast. and i've been listening to podcasts after work, i.e. after 5pm, and i go to bed at like 8 or 9pm because i'm old. so the way it turned out was that even if the actual subject of the podcast wasn't that scary to me, the music would amplify it in an unpleasant way and make me more likely to have trouble sleeping. also i think most of the episodes would have been fine without the music, or maybe with some less intentionally-disconcerting background music.

this just in: i seem to have totally missed episode 50 on my first listen-through, despite having gone in linear order. bc i'm listening to it now and i've definitely never heard this before. fortunately it doesn't seem to have much of a bearing on the rest of the series, so it's not like i missed any crucial information. tbh the only worthwhile bit was a brief moment of tim being a ham, which was good. i hope i didn't miss any other episodes the first time... still don't know how i managed to miss this one.

the official transcript said [EXTENDED SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PIPE MURDER] ...

so gertrude and leitner WERE played by jonny's parents <:3c i'd thought as much when i saw the cast names but i like that it's confirmed. his mom is a really good actress too. i always find the gertrude episodes to be striking in a certain way

"it's Fine working with your parents. it's Fine." as someone who worked with my mom for like a year i can confirm this

i'm tickled to find that the official transcripts have a sense of humor. i wonder who is behind them. i also wonder, what is the excuse for not having a full set of official transcripts when it is a script-based show? surely you know what is going to be said beforehand, and you have it written down, and if someone ends up saying something different in the final recording, surely it wouldn’t be too hard to give the original script a little edit, and bam! that’s a transcript. i wonder if this approach is not feasible for some reason.

whenever martin reads statements, he says something about jon... whenever he talks to someone, he says something about jon

i think episode 110 is an instance of the tape recorder turning ITSELF off... at the end of the episode. because they walk away, and they say something distantly, and then it turns off. lots of other times, there had to be a diegetic reason for the tape recorder to turn off at the end.

i noticed something which i missed last time, which was that there is a rumor between melanie and georgie and basira that implies that jonathan is asexual. worth noting, i think. [side note added in later: yeah it’s canon. cool]

also i listened to episode 103 again and yes. i had thought-- i had been SURE-- that the person interrogating the traffic cop (using the asky ability) was martin. but it was actually jon. how did i possibly manage that mistake? i'm not great at distinguishing voices, but i'm not THAT bad. the only possible answer: when i was listening to the episode for the first time... i must have been eating a crunchy snack.

"it doesn't have to make sense! alex has to make it sense." (jonny sims re: writing the spiral)

glad to know that jonny sims regrets using his own name for the protagonist. doesn't make a difference either way at this point but yeah

YES i knew episode 100 was improvised. and i see, all the statementers had actually had supernatural experiences, but because the archivist was absent, their statements didn't have the coherence and clarity normally lent to them by the eye (in exchange for becoming cursed). i think melanie or basira actually said pretty much that in the episode itself, but i still couldn't be sure that all of those people had something real to talk about.

"in the same way that tim is dead, michael is helen." good shit

the archivist is canon a bit of a drama queen. the first bullet point in my first tma notes document is vindicated

jonny sims mentions another podcast (apocrypals) that sounds 100% up my alley, so that is appreciated, i will add that to my list i think. (listened to episodes 0 and 1 of apocrypals and i'm heavily struck by how VERY clearly i can hear the smiles in chris sims's voice. i did not know smiling could be so audible, truly.) (listened to quite a few more episodes of apocrypals and it’s certainly entertaining at times. i should’ve been reading along though. maybe some other time)

I DIDN'T LISTEN TO THE SEASON 4 TEASER THE FIRST TIME AROUND.........................................

i must confess something that people who know me well may already know: i hate when stories have a bad ending. an unhappy ending. a painful ending. a hopeless ending. bittersweet is the furthest in that direction i can tolerate. my perspective, which is pretty deep-seated, is that there's no point in getting to know and love characters if you're only going to be hurt by that connection to them when the end turns out to be bad. if i have even a mild inkling that a story is heading toward a bad ending, i make a conscious effort to regard all characters from afar and not develop any strong attachments. this is not so much "how i think all stories need to be," but rather, "the characteristics a story needs to have to appeal to me personally." so i understand that my view is very subjective and mostly based on my own mental weakness. but i can't help but apply it to the media i consume. and the idea that someone would do something like "make characters very human and strongly developed" IN COMBINATION WITH "heading toward a bad end" makes me upset. like, picture a horror movie. think about the characters in a horror movie. with the exception of a main character, if there is one, there's no guarantee that anyone is going to survive to the end of the film... BUT... the characters generally aren't fleshed out and very sympathetic. i wouldn't go so far as to say they're disposable, but you're not SUPPOSED to cry when they die; you're just supposed to get scared. their purpose is as objects of fear, and you never expect or even hope for a happy ending. but in the magnus archives... all i'm saying... is that i would cry if any of the remaining members of the main cast died. and it seems clear that we're not heading to a happy ending. so i'm somewhat afraid, and not in a good way. i don't know how much i can trust jonny sims to give me the story i want, and obviously, i'm not entitled to it.

if your name is jonathan and you want to shorten it, the short form is jon. it ain't john, no matter what the official transcripts say. where'd you get that h, huh? stole it from someone else's name? are you shortening it like JOnatHaN? you can’t just be that sneaky!

i listened to scrutiny again and it hits so hard. now, in heart of darkness, when manuela begs jon not to force her statement, it's really heavy given the direct context of the previous two episodes where we see how compulsion works and how it hurts.

also when jon was talking about how to destroy the dark sun and he was like "i just need to see it," when i first heard it, i assumed he meant something along the lines of, "by seeing it, i will learn how to destroy it." but now i understand that the mere act of the eye seeing it destroys it, because being known is what the darkness is weakest to.

the magnus employees who work in the library probably at least have a LITTLE BIT of a feeling that they work in an almost normal place, given that jon and all his assistants were able to have that impression before transferring to the archives. so i wonder how the magnus library people feel about their institute's director getting arrested for double murder and now the big boss is a completely unrelated ship captain who seems to want nothing to do with the place but simultaneously is trying to continue business as usual

on second listen, listening to jon ask helen when the guilt stops (wrt hurting people in order to feed one's patron fear) is pretty chilling. because it seems like he's definitely accepting that he will have to hurt people, and what he's concerned about is how bad it makes HIM feel. of course, helen then answers with precisely what i just wrote, so...

i should've read the transcript for episode 159 instead of relistening because i forgot that peter lukas's actor got so gravelly and hard to listen to in this one. anyway, time to re-listen to the season 4 finale... then i'll listen to the season 4 Q&As and stuff... and then the new episode. (DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI)

i heard in the Q&A that the voice of peter lukas did multiple takes for episode 159?! but it was because of technical difficulties. right. because i can’t imagine the way it turned out being deemed the best take. sorry

ok, things i missed last time i listened to 160: daisy and the other two hunters are missing. also jon mentioned "magnus's body" and martin mentioned "an old man's corpse" and at the time i took this to mean (somewhat unthinkingly) that when jon and martin returned from the lonely, they killed elias/jonah's body. which would be a weird thing to happen "off-camera," so to speak. so i think i must have been wrong? slightly confused. ok, no, i'm now sure that elias survived, so i must have misunderstood. definitely alive.

as martin leaves and jon is about to begin the statement, he sounds so peaceful and satisfied. that's good acting.

by the way, in one of the previous few episodes, i noticed that jonah seems to have body-swapped by switching out his eyes into his preferred body, which i'm pretty sure i missed the first time.

i like that jonny sims checks reddit to see whether people have solved the mystery. that's just a really funny way to do things, sneaking a peek like "hmm how mysterious is my mystery? let's see who has figured it out..." and for the record, i wasn't even close to figuring it out. but to be fair to myself, i didn't try. like i said from the beginning, i started listening with the intent of going along for the ride. plus the mystery had already been solved before i started listening to the series, so it's not like i had a lot of time in between updates to contemplate whether elias was jonah, etc.

JON'S AMERICAN ACCENT FOR THE IONIZED YEAST AD

ALEX WAS THE VOICE OF JARED HOPWORTH?! i mean it was so messed up it could have been anybody but god

ALEX DIDN'T LET GERTUDE CACKLE

i've listened to the bloopers (including a gertrude cackle?) and the season 5 trailer (martin seems slightly cavalier about the end of the world but maybe he's just trying to keep his shit together for jon) and i'm going to listen to the new episode Soon.

final conclusion on rereads/relistens: i had pretty poor comprehension of some important happenings. i’m realizing just how easy it is to mishear/fail to hear exactly what is happening in a podcast when you’re doing other stuff at the same time. there are still a couple things i don’t quite understand, but i think i’ll have a look around the wiki one of these days.