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thehighladywrites · 1 year ago

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lowered inhibitions.

pairing: plug azriel x reader

summary: Your cousins Eris and Lucien throw a party celebrating their father’s death. All of their close allies and friends show up. You meet Azriel, the hot, stranger who offers you a test of his personal stash. Of course he helps you smoke it too.

warnings: 18+, smut, fucking literally everywhere, tension, weed, smoking, drugs, weapons, criminal underworld, it’s all very cool, everyone is dabbling in some sort of illegal activity, weapons dealers, drug dealers, azriel becoming hypnotized by you

amara’s note: part one to the dealer diaries, pls lovelies don’t mind this omg

next episode! — cop cassian arrests you for selling drugs, so you seduce him into letting you go

series masterlist

Azriel is one of the top plugs in Prythian, always at every party, lounging on the couch with his legs spread, a blunt held between his thumb and pointer fingers.

Customers always hang around him, casually buying bags of weed and pills from him at every event.

Tonight, the Vanserra brothers have decided to throw a massive party celebrating their father's passing and the brothers taking over the business—it was definitely a cause for celebration.

The entire city was invited, so that's how Azriel finds himself in the corner of their penthouse, surrounded by his friends and allies. A table adorned with pills, weed, and alcohol— some from Azriel's inventory, some from Rhysand’s — stood prominently, ready to fuel the night's festivities.

Tonight’s party have made Azriel sell a ton of product, raking in well over his regular profit. He feels tempted to leave, considering he has tripled what he usually earns in just a single night. And as one of the most successful plugs in the city, Azriel makes serious money.

At last, he decides to stay a few more minutes, perhaps to scan the place for more potential clients. His eyes are bloodshot and low-lidded as they lazily scan the room before landing on you.

His eyes widen fractionally as he takes you in, dressed in a pretty little skirt and top. Without a doubt, you are the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. As you smoke with Feyre, he can't help but wonder about you, since he haven't seen you before—surely he would have noticed you.

“Yo, why are you staring at my cousin like that?” Lucien's questioning voice pulls Azriel out of his trance. He takes a drag from his blunt, inhaling deeply as he watch you hit a dab pen, before finally tearing his gaze away to look at Lucien.

“You're dreaming,” he says, trying to appear unaffected by the tiny bit of information he receive.

Cassian and Rhys exchange knowing glances with Lucien and Eris, all four males on the verge of bursting into laughter at Azriel's useless attempt to appear unbothered.

“Yeah, right. You're undressing her with your sneaky eyes,” Cassian tease, snatching the blunt from Azriel's fingers, inhaling and doing tricks.

Azriel narrows his eyes at him before snatching it back, taking one final drag before stubbing it out in the ashtray.

“I'm not doing anything, dickhead. I'm just looking for clients,” he retort, trying to play it cool.

Eris snorts, downing his glass of amber liquid. “Don’t go 'looking for clients' in my cousin. She’s very sweet, so if you're serious, try your luck. Otherwise, don’t,” Eris says, his tone growing serious.

Both he and Lucien are extremely fond of you, viewing you as a little sister, especially since your mother, their aunt, had passed away a few years ago.

—

A thick, yellow-tinted cloud of fog fills the room, your eyes low-lidded and bloodshot as you take a drag from the blunt, the aroma filling the air.

You are well aware of what your cousins do for a living, the illegal business they run, but you have always stayed out of it. For generations, your family have been in the weapons industry, illegally selling and distributing weapons to whomever paid the hefty sum.

Lucien and Eris make sure to keep that part out of your life, even though all of you know where the money came from.

You don’t care about any of it, and it is easy to evade guilt, especially since your friend Feyre and her family are also deeply involved in the criminal underworld of Prythian.

"Involved" is an understatement—the Vanserra’s, Feyre and Rhysand’s family, and five other families are the top 0.1% of the city, with their fingers in every business imaginable.t

To avoid raising suspicions, money still have to flow in legally. Casinos, nightclubs, bars, restaurants, and hotels are just a few of the ventures almost everyone in your circle own. It’s a delicate balance between legitimate businesses and the shadowy underworld they operate in.

You smile as you place the fat, neatly rolled blunt between your plump lips, taking another drag. The head glows orange, the paper dissolving into ash as you slowly inhale the smoke, giggling softly at Feyre’s horrible jokes. You inhale again, holding the smoke in your lungs before exhaling it slowly through your nose, enjoying the tranquil haze settling over you.

When you smoke, it's like slipping into a realm of carelessness, freedom, and pure relaxation. It's a sensation that washes over you, freeing your mind from the everyday life.

And you love that sinful feeling. You love it so much, that you can’t help but bring the blunt to your lips for another drag.

Sure it was unhealthy and very harmful, but damn it felt good.

“That’s your second blunt, you good?”

With a dramatic sigh, you meet her eyes, putting it out so you didn’t green out.

“I’m sad, Fey. Because my stash’s running low and my plug is a fucking asshole who has shitty prices for shitty weed. I need to find someone else.”

“I don’t know why you bother with this cheap shit, babe. If you need a new plug, I know a guy. Good prices, quality products. I swear one blunt is enough for me and Rhys to share. We always get ours from him; he’s a brother to us,” Feyre chimes in, her voice cheery.

You perk up at the possibility of finding a new source, intrigued by the promise of better quality. You staywith your current plug because you don’t have the heart to stop buying from him. Honestly, you’re loaded so you can afford amazing things but you still felt bad. But you were desperate now and as much as you liked your plug, you needed something new.

“He's actually here, he’s the one sitting next to Cassian and Eris. Want me to call him over?” Feyre asks, her voice filled with eagerness to help.

Following her gaze to the table where your cousins sit, your eyes lock with the guy, causing a flutter in your stomach. You trail your gaze over his built body, from top to toe. He is dressed in a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he has one rolled blunt behind his ear and another lit one between his lips., His low eyes are fixed on you with a smirk so small you almost miss it.

The best part about him are the tattoos decorating his neck, arms and hands. You give him a small smile before carefully turning back to Feyre, making sure he can’t read your lips.

“Okay, who is that, where the fuck did he come from? And why the fuck isn’t he on top of me right now?” you whisper urgently to Feyre.

Feyre bursts into laughter, throwing her head back as she slaps your arm playfully.

“That’s Azriel. He grew up with Cassian and Rhys and he’s very chill. And very single, wanna do something about that?” she smiles, looking between you two.

“Do i wanna— of course i do, Fey, hello? What a pretty man, holy fuck.”

You carefully look over your shoulder only to be met with him holding eye contact and standing up, your eyes going up as you follow his height.

Yeah, no way were you letting him slip away.

Feyre quickly whispers into you ear about how you better do something, a little good luck and a kiss on the cheek before she scurries away to Rhysand.

“Hi there.”

You smile as you greet him. “Hi.”

“Where did you get that?”Azriel's deep timber voice sends shivers down your spine as he nods to the blunt between your fingers.

“I bought it from my dealer. Why?” you smile a little as you bring it to your lips.

Azriel smiles right back. His eyes crinkle when he smiles, making him look impossibly more handsome.

“Nah, just lettin’ you know there’s better shit out there.” He reaches behind his ear and hands you a new, neatly rolled blunt.

“Come smoke this with me. If you don’t like it, I won’t bother you again. If you do, let me take you out for dinner,” he raises his eyebrows, a boyish smile on his face as he looks you up and down.

“Fair.”

The eye contact is intense. He looks at you hungrily, making your insides flip.

“What’s your name, beautiful?”

You tell him your name, blushing as he puts his arm on your shoulder, repeating it over and over, your name sounding almost forbidden.

—

“This is really strong,” you cough as you look up at him, handing the blunt back to Azriel.

He puts a hand on your back, rubbing up and down carefully. “You need some help?”

You nod, eyes filling with tears from the potent smoke. Azriel looks you in the eyes as he takes a tattooed hand and inhales the smoke, then lowers his head to yours. He puts his thumb on your chin, opening your mouth as he exhales the smoke into your mouth.

You feel your entire body relax at his touch, on instinct, you get closer and closer to him. The smoke doesn’t feel as intense this way but you still felt the effects.

You also feel like jumping on his dick this second. And Eris won’t mind that you’re using his guest bed right?

“You feeling good, pretty girl?”

“I feel really, really good,” you let out a sigh of content, turning your body to face him.

“You look good, ” you addwith lower inhibitions, watching him with a hazy gaze as you take in his deep breaths and flushed cheeks. His sweat-dampened skin glistened under the ambient light as his words rolls around your clouded mind.

“Yeah? How good do i look?”

—

Okay, it’s not really insane that you got high and fucked a stranger right? No, of course not. His stroke game is out of this world and he is really nice, so yeah, you gave him head! Then got bent, then got fucked missionary, then against Eris’s wall, then in Lucien’s bathroom, someone’s office and just about anywhere really. The party downstairs never seemed to end and neither did getting fucked either.

—

Your head rolls back as the effects of the drugs make you lightheaded and fuzzy. You’re slowly rolling your hips back and forth, grinding in Azriel’s lap. His warm, large hands grip your soft hips as he guides you.

“I need you in my life, i swear,” he whispers — or think he does. You blink down at him, putting your hands on his chest as you kiss him deeply, sucking and lightly biting his lip.

Azriel puts his arm around your waist, locking you in place as he kisses you back with need, tilting his head a little to the right to go deeper.

“I can’t believe I’ve never met you before. Let me take you out tomorrow night, please.”

“O-okay, that sounds good— oh, wait— fuckkk,” your breathless response turn into whines and broken moans as he thrusts, rocking your body forward as he fucks you from below.

Without hardship, he turns you over on the bed, his hand tracing the walley of your boobs. “Look at you, so beautiful.” Ariel languidly takes a handful of your breasts, tracing a finger on your hardened nipples.

You look up at his sincere eyes, feeling your cheeks heat at his intense gaze. Despite being high himself, there’s so much honesty in his eyes.

“I think you’re just high, Azriel,” you shy away from his hazel eyes, fighting the instinct to hide from him. You had never been looked at the way he looked at you and it was a bit nervrecking.

He chuckles, “High or not, i’m never wrong. Again, you’re a stunner.”

“Didn’t know you were such a sweet talker," you laugh playfully, but he is completely entranced by the way your eyelashes brush against your cheeks with each slow blink. He can’t help but be drawn in, his fingers instinctively tangling in your hair as he leans in to kiss you, utterly captivated by your presence.

Azriel continues to thrust, making your eyes roll. He is determined to make you cum on his cock for the umpteenth time this night. Your sweet noises of pleasure only spur him on, the way your hand find his makes his heart skip a beat aswell.

—

Even though neither of you have met before, it feels right waking up to wake up next to him. You wake up before him, feeling a headache on it’s way so you sneakily throw off the covers to head to the kitchen for some water and some ibuprofen, grabbing whatever item of clothes that is closest to you.

You spot Azriel’s white dress shirt, with the buttons popped off. Your face heats as you remember how hard you had ripped off his shirt.

The shirt is on the floor and you bend down to pick it up, when you do, something thuds to the floor. You turn back around to look down, curiosity piqued.

You cover your mouth with your hand as you see what had dropped to the floor. Hidden under his shirt and pants is a gun. A real-life, very dangerous, very dark, and very scary gun.

Upon closer inspection, you notice it’s one of your family's produced weapons—a very high-quality gun from an exclusive Vanserra collection from last year, relatively new.

Your family exclusively make those guns for the most dangerous, fierce, and powerful people in the world. Only a handful of people even know they exist. If he has one, then he is definitely one of the most important and dangerous men you have encountered.

Feyre did mention he dabbles in the drugs industry but you had expected that he maybe owned a block or two.

Just who on earth did you jump into bed with? And why were you not the least bit concerned about it?

🏷️: @redbleedingrose @readychilledwine @claireswritingcorner @cadiawrites @danikamariewrites @cupidojenphrodite @honeybeefae

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immortalecstasy-blog · 4 years ago

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The Man From Willow Creek - PART ONE Pairing: Mountain Man! Dean/Author! Reader

Y/N isn't in a good headspace, so her publisher sends her off to a remote cabin in the mountains in an attempt to rid her of all distractions and produce the highly anticipated first draft of her last book. But as she battles with snow, word counts, and surprise visitors, she learns that not every battle needs to be won, and that happy endings aren't always what we'd think.

WC ≈ 35,000 Total A/N: Thank you to@redweddingsandbowties for helping me to churn out over 25,000 words in a week and filtering out my typing fails. Warnings: Violence, Recreational Drug Use, 18+ Smut, Pet Death

Read on AO3 or...

“Miss, your total is $426.54. Miss?”

Y/N blinked and looked up at the cashier before taking her credit card out and handing it over.

“Are you stocking up for the end of the world?” The cashier asks as he runs her card. Y/N glances at the trolley loaded with a months’ worth of non-perishables and a dozen crates of beer.

“Something like that.” She tells him as she scribbles her signature on the store receipt.

The trolley is a bit on the heavy side as she heaves it across the car park towards her truck, but she manages it. When she’s got everything all loaded up beside the bags and bags of logs she’s worked up a sweat and has to unzip her coat as she climbs up into the driver’s seat. The truck feels empty without her little border terrier, and she finds herself wishing Harley could have been with her for this new adventure.

It had been her publisher’s idea to go on this little escapade, to get her out of the city, away from all the distractions. He cared more about the lack of pages than her deteriorating mental health, but for the sake of her sanity she had agreed that a month-long retreat into the mountains might do more for her writer’s block than being in her too quiet apartment. Her creative juices had bit the dust around the same time she’d had to make the heart-breaking decision to have Harley put to sleep.

His other idea had been to get a new dog. She’d used some extraordinarily strong language at that suggestion, so… mountains.

She feels fairly well prepared. Provisioned. Whatever. The cabin her publisher had found had been empty for a few years, and she had been warned that it may take a bit of work to get the generator working, and that there would be no mobile signal out there either. But she had been equipped with a satellite phone and the publisher had done some technological whizz-bang magic that meant she would be able to send and receive emails via satellite. She’d also done her own extensive research, which hopefully meant that once she arrived, she wouldn’t have to make the drive back to civilisation until her month was up and her first draft was on its way. She had churned out three books a year at some points, she could manage this.

She reaches over to the passenger seat to pick up one of her many notebooks, this one was her ‘survival plan’. “Snow tyres, check. Firewood, yes. Socks, hundreds…” She went down the whole list, covering everything from dry shampoo to copious amounts of candy and snacks. She’d even found a repair manual for the generator online, and had both printed and laminated it, just to be thorough.

“Okay, let’s do this.” She says aloud, still not used to Harley’s absence. The truck’s engine whines a little as it starts up, and she takes a moment to put the map (also laminated) on top of the paperwork piled up on the passenger seat. She still had a few hours until noon, plenty of time to get to the cabin while it was still light and make some sort of order out of it before dark.

The first two hours of her journey went as expected. She didn’t even miss the hairpin turn she had been dreading, but as the bare trees began to curl over the road and block the sun, she felt a prickle of unease. Wishing again for Harley. What was she thinking? A woman, on her own, hiding out in a run-down cabin in the middle of nowhere, all for a book she was contracted to write but had no heart for.

The last four years of her career had been dedicated to her high fantasy trilogy, the world, its characters, its mysteries. Mystery solved and arcs resolved, her baby was done. Before that she had spent years churning out a crappy serial romance saga before a well-earned break funded by selling the rights to turn them into a television series. That was until the inspiration for The Fallen had hit her. But of course, the publishers were keen to squeeze out more profit, and had coerced her into signing another book deal. They wanted a revival of the romance saga, but after over twelve years of being free from churning out two or three contentless books a year, it wasn’t something she wanted to revisit. Besides, it felt ridiculous to be in her early thirties, and turning back to something she started when she was only seventeen. Something different. She didn’t know how to write different. She had planned to save the existential breakdown until she’d arrived and at least got a fire going, but apparently her brain hadn’t got the memo, and she had to pull over to stumble from the truck and put her head between her knees. She focused on her breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose… “C’mon, you can do this.” … out through the mouth.

As she climbed back into the truck sometime later, she heard an engine and slammed her door shut just in time to see beaten up chevy truck thundering past, black smoke sputtering from its exhaust. The driver beeped their horn at her, and her panic was replaced with annoyance. She’d picked a safe place to pull over, she wasn’t blocking the road. Hell, that dick didn’t even have to move positions from the centre of the road.

Apart from the short break at the side of the road, and a five-minute detour down the wrong lane, Y/N was making good time. The only problem came when the cabin was actually in sight. A tree was blocking the drive, and nowhere on the map could she pick out any way to go around. The cabin looked to be only a ten-minute walk away, but everything was blanketed in thick snow, and she had a months’ worth of wood, food, water…not to mention all her writing stuff, clothes, blankets… beers. It would take an insane number of trips and eat into her daylight. But the tree was huge, and even if she had a chain or ropes to try and pull it out of the way, she had no idea how she’d do so safely. That wasn’t something she had researched how to do.

She climbed out and her legs disappeared up to her knees in the thick snow. Not to be put off by the first hurdle, she found the keys for the cabin, gathered up the only valuable things in the truck (namely her laptop and the satellite phone), and locked the truck behind her. The tree had a tangle of roots, so it seemed to have fallen naturally. Not that she really knew what she was looking at. She skirted around the edge and stomped through the snow towards the cabin, which was bigger than she had imagined. The ‘ten minute’ walk took closer to fifteen minutes, hampered by the snow, and then there was the issue of trying to get the door open. The wood seemed to have swelled, and she had to throw her shoulder against it several times before it burst open in a cloud of dust.

It stank. It had that unlived in smell, like stagnant water, and she kept the door open – not just for the light – but for the fresh air.

It was much as she expected really, a small kitchenette (which really was just a log stove and a cobweb infested sink with a single section of worktop) with a small dining table and four chairs. A mismatched armchair and leather sofa tucked close to a log burner. Two doors stood off the one side, presumably to a bedroom and a bathroom. “Right.” She said, setting her laptop bag down and wondering what to do first.

The owners hadn’t been sure that the water supply would still work, which is why she had lugged her own plastic barrels up here, but if it was working, she wouldn’t have to carry so many.

The pumped the lever over the sink a few times, still flushed from the hard walk. After a few tries, the tap sputtered out a dead spider and rust coloured liquid, followed a moment later by clear, precious water. The initial horror at the colour of the stuff still had her deciding to get some water from the truck, however.

“Okay.” She said to herself, stepping back. “Water, oil, logs, clothes for the night, bedding, cleaning stuff. Food.” She ran through her list again and then nodded, satisfied. On her way out of the door she spotted a big old wooden sled propped up under the window. “Perfect.”

Her second trip took longer than the first, fighting the sled the entire way and almost losing the barrel of water. It slid off the sled and looked for a moment like it might roll clean of the mountain, but the packed snow stopped it in its tracks.

Catching her breath for the next trip, she checked the other side of the two doors. Discovering to her horror that both led to bedrooms, then – to her relief – that the master bedroom had a rather basic en suite. It contained one of those giant clawfoot baths you only ever saw in movies, though this one was an old-fashioned green colour and a bit rusty around the plug. She hoped she could get the generator running to enjoy a soak at some point.

She tested the double bed in the master bedroom, and then checked both the twin beds, testing which of the three was the most comfortable, and therefore the one she would be using. The other bedroom, she would use as storage for all her supplies. The big bed in the room with the en suite was fortunately the comfiest, which meant she could pile all her stuff into the room with the twin beds.

She found an old oil lamp in the kitchen cupboards and a little paraffin heater in the cupboard under the sink. It was the ancient kind with no warning labels. Though common sense filled in the unwritten ‘use in a well-ventilated space or you will suffocate’. She set it up, just to take the edge of until she could get a fire going and put the lamp on the dining table next to her laptop, deciding there and then that this evening would be electricity free. She didn’t want to have to deal with the frustrations of the generator, and it seemed encompassing of her new mountain persona to forgo some of the basic necessities.

Two trips later and her hands are blistered from the friction of the sled rope, even through her gloves. Her legs are screaming at her, and despite the three thick pairs of socks, she would put all her royalties betting on frost bite setting in. There’s one last trip to make sure she has everything she’ll need for the night and most of the next day, and then she covers the flatbed of her truck with its waterproof cover and makes sure it’s stupidly tight. None of her things will enjoy a night in the freezing cold, but as long as nothing gets too damp, everything will be fine.

The door had been open all this time, so the cabin is now just as chilled as outside, but at least it smells fresher now. Her phone – devoid of all signal – becomes a glorified sound system. The oil heater starts to inject a little warmth, and as soon as it’s warm enough to abandon her coat and gloves, she gets to work on making the place fit for habitation.

“…As long as my heart's beating, and these old lungs keep breathing, the highs and the lows, yes and the no’s…” She sings loudly as she sweeps out the log stove of half burnt longs and powdery grey ash.

By the time the sun is setting, the whole cabin is as dust free as it can be without a hoover, the log fire is roaring, the bed is made, and the only lingering issue is the draft from the front door, which – having been forced to open – is now refusing to close properly. Having decided that the back and forth from the truck was enough work for one day, Y/N simply snacks instead of making a dinner and then sits by the fire with her notebook and pen. The flannel patterned throw she’d bought from home depot thrown over her legs.

Nothing comes. Not even a silly doodle in the margin. True, she usually wrote on her laptop. But the charge wouldn’t last long, and she’d been prepared to write this book by hand.

Even with the fire and the blanket there seems to be a wickedly cool draft, and she makes a note to put a makeshift draft excluder together in the morning. Finished with her bag of chips, she stands to select another snack and grab a beer, missing Harley weaving between her legs. She twists the cap of the beer bottle and walks back to the sofa and freezes in surprise.

On the sofa, is a pleased looking black Labrador.

The beer bottle slips from her fingers and shatters on the floor. The dilemma of broken glass and soft paws snapping her out of her shock.

“Hello…” She says slowly, answered by a thumping tail on brown leather. “You stay there. Okay?”

thump thump thump

“Okay, good boy… girl… good dog. Stay.”

Fortunately all the cleaning supplies are in easy reach. Y/N focuses on sweeping up the broken glass as a priority, ignoring the beer sloshing around the stone floor and seeping into the rope rug. Glass sorted; she gets a cloth to wipe the beer up. The front door in ajar, which explains how the dog got in. But it doesn’t explain what they’re doing out here in the middle of nowhere. They seem happy enough, well fed, shiny coat, wet nose. So they’re obviously being cared for by someone.

“Okay, it’s safe.” She tells the Labrador from the floor once she’s sure all the glass is up. They seem to be a pro at broken bottles, because with the all-clear, they jump from the sofa and come greet her properly.

“Oh, yes, hello. Nice to meet you too.” She tells them, trying to shove their face away as their tongue makes a beeline for her mouth. She giggles, giving their neck a good scratch. There’s a chain collar, but no tags. “Where are you from, huh?” She asks, attempting to stand, her knees protesting against the stone floor.

There’s a tremendous bang and the front door flies open. Halfway to her feet, Y/N loses her balance and topples onto her back, staring up into the doorway.

Where a bearded man in a Stetson and a heavy coat is pointing a shotgun at her.

PART TWO

#supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #spn fanfic #dean/reader #mountain man dean #dean winchester likes dogs

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tanvisingh · 4 years ago

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3 BIGGEST FACEBOOK ADS MISTAKES (AND WHAT TO DO INSTEAD)

With more than 91% of Aussies on Facebook, obviously the stage is an unquestionable requirement have for organizations.

In any case, while Facebook can be an innovator in deals for brands, there are such countless a bigger number of downsides than examples of overcoming adversity. A digital marketing company cardiff take a shot at Facebook publicizing, and reassess rapidly in light of the fact that it simply doesn't work.

What's more, indeed, 61% of all SMBs say their promotion crusade doesn't turn out great.

For one thing, the uplifting news here. In case you're publicizing on the world's biggest online media webpage, making a mean profit from advertisement spending (ROAS) is ENTIRELY conceivable.

It is quite difficult however as clicking "Lift Update" and seeing the income come in. You must be cautious and utilize Facebook's force for your organization assuming you need to.

In this post, we're dishing the soil on the most well-known Facebook Ad botches organizations make. Then, at that point, we'll give within scoop on what you can do rather to get all the more value for your promoting money.

How about we get everything rolling.

Facebook Ads Mistake #1: Pulling The Plug Too Soon

Like any social media marketing effort, it sets aside effort to make and enhance a Facebook Ads crusade. Yet, as a rule, sponsors fall into the snare of needing moment delight.

We do. We do. You've placed in significant promoting spending plan. You need to push the traffic and bring issues to light with regards to the brand. You need results. You are ceaselessly verifying whether you pull in additional snaps and income from your advertisement. Furthermore, on the off chance that following a couple of hours or days it doesn't convey, it's enticing to reassess and tap out.

Nonetheless, actually enhancing your mission sets aside time — regardless of whether you've effectively hopped in a tough situation previously.

Indeed, Facebook itself possesses said that it takes energy for the stage to pile up sufficient information to advance your mission for results. That doesn't consider the enhancement and testing you can do all alone, to ensure the inventive, crowd focusing on and timing is all right on track.

READ MORE: Ways to Add a Facebook Feed in WordPress Website

What to do all things considered

Pause. It for the most part takes Facebook no less than 24-72 hours to upgrade your mission. Simply investigate this diagram beneath, which shows when cost per snap and navigate rates top:

Then, at that point, and really at that time, would you be able to begin to reach determinations around how your mission is performing. In case it's as yet not working, it very well may merit tweaking your promotion duplicate, imaginative or crowd focusing on. Then, at that point, stand by another 24-48 hours prior to reaching inferences.

Similar remains constant once a mission is finished. If you lack results you needed, that doesn't mean you should all throw in the towel on Facebook Ads. Change, refine, and retry. It can require as long as 90 days, from our experience, before your missions start to hit the perfect balance with regards to ROAS.

Facebook Ads Mistake #2: Too Many Ads Or Ad Types, Too Little Budget

It's not difficult to get energized with Facebook Ads and extended yourself excessively far. With all the crowd focusing on choices out there, numerous promoters get out of hand. Basically: they run an excessive number of missions, with such a large number of promotions or advertisement types.

What's more, as a rule these advertisements all have little financial plan behind them — which implies it's difficult to upgrade existing efforts, or scale up when something is working.

By the day's end, this prompts wasteful advertisement spend, dreary outcomes, and a pretty bleak ROAS.

What to do all things considered

Unite your promotions into bigger sets with bigger financial plans. While attempting to hit a specialty main interest group with an exceptionally customized message is acceptable in principle, it doesn't play out very also by and by.

Attempt to cut the promotions inside each bundle to 2-3 advertisement sets of 3-6 promotion structures. Zero in on making individuals focusing on dependent on a couple of clients and union all clones into one bundle. You along these lines channel sufficient information into Facebook to amplify your expense per press, cost per buy, and ultimately improve returns.

If you would like to test distinctive creatives or informing, or target various individuals don't make separate missions. Utilize Facebook's helpful split testing instrument to run A/B tests and see what works.

Facebook Ads Mistake #3: Focusing Only On Cost

It's simple for publicists (or their CFO) to take a gander at Facebook Ads according to the point of view of cost. A great deal of advertisers restrict themselves by contemplating the financial plan needed to run a promotion crusade.

There are two potential missteps that can come an expense centered attitude:

You can't get the outcomes you need

You get great outcomes, yet can't increase

In the principal case, you need more venture behind your missions. As we referenced before, upgrading efforts sets aside time. You must be in it for the long game. In the event that you irregularly support a post by $20 each now and, you will not get results. That's all there is to it.

Simultaneously, if you DO get great returns, zeroing in on cost implies you can't increase. You're covering your income potential — and you may be contributing more on different stages that aren't providing you with similar sort of gains.

What to do all things being equal

Zero in on returns. Rather than looking on the amount it costs your business, center around how much it's getting.

To completely exploit Facebook Ads' improvement calculation, you wanted to have no less than 50 transformations in a single advertisement set each week.

This implies if your central goal objective is to have a ROAS of $6 per lead, you really wanted to have a spending plan of basically $45 each day per promotion set. Any not exactly that, and your mission will not have the option to work the manner in which YOU need it to.

Facebook Ads Mistake #4: Setting And Forgetting Campaigns

Perhaps the greatest slip-up brands make is believing that Facebook Ads run behind the scenes and require no enhancement. It's not difficult to set up your record, let it run for half a month, and forget about it — particularly when you have too much going on.

Be that as it may, in case digital marketing agency in glasgow utilizing Facebook Ads, you ought to zero in on getting it done right. Essentially setting and failing to remember advertisements is a superb formula for sat around and spending plan.

What to do all things being equal

Monitor your Facebook Ads Manager consistently. Check out the key presentation measurements, including:

Promotion recurrence

Pertinence score

Change rate (both on Facebook and your site)

Snaps and cost per click

Leads produced

If following a couple of days your advertisement isn't working, change and enhance. What's more, when you see your advertisement volume climbing, it could be an ideal opportunity to turn the imaginative on and ensure your crowd doesn't get exhausted of publicizing.

It's not in every case simple to figure out how to check in consistently on Facebook, to say reality.

#digitalmarketing #socialmediamarketing #ppc marketing #seomarketing

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dustydahlin · 4 years ago

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Prayer of the Lazy Eye

Have you ever found yourself in a season of pain where you prayed one of those ugly, real, honest prayers? If you breathe air, I am sure you have. One of the realities we will experience until Jesus Christ returns to perfectly restore all things is trials and hardship. Jesus informs us of this when he says, “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). But this is not new information. If you have lived, you have likely experienced the impact of a truly painful and difficult season of life.

The Bible tells us these trials, hardships, and tribulations can be experienced in one of two ways: they can either be 1) debilitating, or they can be 2) a blessing for growth and maturity. This can be seen in many New Testament instances. James 1:2-4 states, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” However, seeing the blessing in a true trial or true suffering can be difficult. This being the case, I want to share a story about a season of pain and confusion I experienced. I hope to share the two things that God ministered to me – two things that can also help you walk through these seasons and help you see the resultant blessing.

For me, it was when my church plant failed. I will never forget it! For a very long time, my wife and I worked to develop and cultivate what we believed God had placed on our hearts.

We got to the point where the sun was about to rise on the launch of our church plant when all my core leaders started to drop out. One. By. One. It happened so quickly. It was a blur. Before we knew it, we were left by ourselves, and we had to make the difficult decision to pull the plug. I was hurt so badly, and I was so confused. I was certain it was God’s will and direction for us to plant the church. Everything I was so confident about vanished before my eyes.

It hurt so badly, I found myself in my work truck praying one of those honest, but ugly, prayers. It was one of those prayers that contained more tears than words. It was full of volatile emotion!

And so I prayed. In order to make a statement to God and show him how I was feeling, I closed my left eye (my good eye). All that remained open was my lazy eye (my right eye) through which I could not see well. Through it, everything was blurry. I could not clearly see the details of the things in front of me. And as I prayed, I told God that I was confused about everything that had happened. I told him I felt like my lazy eye. I felt like I could not see what my future holds in store for me. I told him how I felt. I felt as though I could only see as clearly as I do through my lazy eye. (Which is not clear at all).

As I expressed my frustration and confusion, God spoke to me. Do you know what he said? He told me, “Open your other eye.” That was it. Nothing more. No further words of guidance or comfort were given.

Thankfully, it didn’t take me long to understand what God meant by this. Below, I will share the two Items I understood from the Lord’s instruction to “open your other eye.”

Open your Other Eye!

Firstly, we need to surround ourselves with God’s people (1 Cor. 12:21). It is so important – especially today! Too often, we give in to the temptation to isolate ourselves when we are in seasons of pain. That is the last thing we should do. We need to surround ourselves with God’s people. This will be made more evident in the Scriptures below.

1 Cor. 12:21-25, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary... there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.”

As Mark Batterson correctly assesses, one of the greatest ways in which God speaks today is through people. We need to surround ourselves with wise, spirit-filled, and godly people when we are confused. If you need direction and guidance, you will see clearly when you open your other eye – when you utilize the help of God’s people. Within God’s economy, people have always been one of the greatest means through which God grants comfort, direction, and healing.

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Hebrews 10:24-25 states, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (ESV).

1 Cor. 12: 12-25, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body... that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.”

If we attempt to isolate ourselves from the other members of the body, we simply cripple our ability to move forward and see correctly. Healthy godly living requires us to place ourselves among the other members of Christ’s Body. If we do not, we intentionally separate ourselves from nourishment, care, and help for growing past our seasons of hurt and hardship.

Eph. 4:16, “Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

Seek God’s Presence in the Present!

The second thing God taught me was this: I was too caught up in the future. I was so concerned with what God may do – with what might happen someday – that I neglected the importance of the present.

One of the reasons I was so devastated was that I was working so hard toward something that was not guaranteed – the future. Had I spent more time focusing on living each moment, each day, each breath for the Lord, I would not have experienced as much of the pain when the potentiality of my future didn’t manifest.

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Prov. 27:1, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.”

James 4:13-14, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ — yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

Luke 12:31, “Instead [of worrying about tomorrow], seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.”

Note: the Greek in Luke 12:31 is in the present active imperative. This means we are to seek God continuously, regularly, habitually. We are to make it a lifestyle of seeking God.

While it is important to be wise with the temporary and material things God has given us to steward, it is of equal importance – if not more important – to press into the Lord’s presence as we have opportunity in the present. Yes. We need to make good decisions that will ultimately benefit our future and the future of others. However, neglecting the joy of seeking God through devotion, prayer, and Scripture every day only robs us of the life-giving strength that only God can provide. Besides, it will be the life and strength we access through God today that will supply what we need for tomorrow. Let us seek the Lord while we can.

Conclusion:

1) Surround yourself with God’s people, and 2) live in the present. These two things will help you during your seasons of pain and confusion. If you are in a season of pain and confusion, and you feel like you cannot see details of your future clearly, open your other eye. You are loved, and there is help for this season through the Lord and through his church.

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#pain quotes #seeing the blessing

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kodemunkey · 5 years ago

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ADHD and Me

I’m a British guy, 37 years old and I found out in April that I have innatentive adhd. I also have dyslexia, dyspraxia and suspected high functioning autism. I’ve seen a lot of things over the years about how people with adhd are always hyperactive and can never sit still. I’m neither of those things, I was always the “quiet, smart kid with his head in a book” It was only in October last year that it dawned on me that after years of struggling with my grades (always “acceptably bad” just enough to scrape by in school, college and later university, where they thought “Oh maybe he has dyslexia, let’s get him tested” I was seen and tested by one of the leading experts in the country to get my statement organised, and I utterly baffled them, as one of my test results came back as the highest test score she had ever seen, and this was a woman who had been doing this for close to fourty years solid at this point. So, I had my dyslexia statement and everything was figured out and I was pigeon holed quite nicely, next person please. I had gone to university, primarily to spite my school teachers (aside from one, who passed away a few years after i finished primary school and had always tried to find ways to help me, I miss her even now) My attempt at a foundation degree was, to be frank quite bad, as the college it was run through was labled as an “Arts College” But was anything but that, they would give you 6 weeks to do a project, where everything was to be done in a set way, you were expected to spend two and a half weeks researching and exhaustively analysing your research before going out to shoot and comng back and doing the same to your work and going out again to do more. I would go out and shoot for four weeks and come back with two weeks to spare to work on my analysis and just about made the cut for submissions. It wasn’t until four years on various courses with the same tutor that he thought I was “different” They spoke to the other tutors and staff, who knew me quite well at this point and decided I was an “intuative photographer” which I guess helped a little, but i still struggled. I somehow managed to scrape enough brainpower and grades together to go to the University For The Creative Arts (UCA) at Rochester in Kent. The difference in education styles was, to be frank, shocking and alarming. I didn’t have to produce a lick of written analysis or a single contact sheet and I had up to three months to produce a project! The quality of my work improved immensely, as did my grades when it came to my written work, I was a C average student, which is far more than I ever thought possible. I graduated with a third class honours degree in 2014. It’s now 2020 and I still can’t read or write for pleasure like I used to pre university. As for the employment situation, it’s been pretty bad for me, the Job Centre don’t know what to do with me, I’ve been on every single scheme they can get money to send me to, and i’m still no better off. I even tried to go self employed through a scheme they put me on, I chose to be a pet photographer after a lot of market research. The scheme provider and HMRC give you two years to turn a profit before they make you shut down if you’ve not earned anything. The Job Centre demanded I pull the plug after six months. I’m still continuing my photography, at present it’s a “profesional hobby” and i’m starting to alright with it. Fast forward to this year when I was diagnosed in April via a Zoom call (god how I loathe and hate video conferencing) by a wonderful consultant named Marco Cattani, who I believe is one of the leading ADHD experts. He told me after a conference between me and my older brother who had arranged everything that he suspects i have innatentive ADHD and possibly high functioning autism. I was in a daze for about two weeks after that, though i do remember at a followup conversation we spoke about medication, he told me all the options available to me and I asked to be prescribed medication from the weak side of the scale, my older brother also has ADHD and is on amphetamine based medication and it has benefited him immensely. He runs a web design agency in brighton with a sizeable staff and has a small art gallery too. Even before his diagnosis, he was, in any conventional sense successful, his agency has won numerous awards, he (pre covid) went on holiday a couple of times a year, owns his own house and has a flat he rents out in Brighton, he’s also married to his long term girlfriend and has a chubby ginger cat who adopted him out of the blue one day. Marco (the adhd consultant) prescribed me Concerta XL at 18 mg dose to start with, I now take 36mg once a day) What follows next is what taking Concerta XL was like (and still is) for me. Day 1, i take the tablet early in the day as I was told to, so that it would have time to kick in, which takes about 30 minutes to absorb it. 30 minutes later, my heart starts to race (which is something I was told would happen) I had to leave the house right there and then and I went for an extremely long walk (this was also during the opening stages of the Covid-19 pandemic here) Three hours later, I come back home and was still pretty wired from the tablet, so I spent the rest of the day alone in my room, not wanting to inflict myself on anyone. The next day, I felt utterly sick to my stomach and had a headache, I tried to actually be sick in the bathroom, but where i hadn’t eaten the previous day, there was nothing to get rid of. I sat dazed and under three huge blankets in the middle of an early summer, feeling like crap. My brother checked in on my later that day, having been told by my parents (who I live with) what had happened. He told me: “Oh, I should have warned you about that, I forgot”. That’s great, thanks for that. Over the next month, the palpitations gradualy subside as the tablets start to work. An “added bonus” is appetite control, pre meds, i was almost 22 stone as I would be eating and snacking all day long to try and control my anxieties (food and social mainly) These days, I don’t actually want to eat unless i’m going out on a (socially distanced) photoshoot. My weight has dropped off slowly since then and is almost stable, which has pretty much never happened before in my life. The most difficult thing I’m dealing with is that the meds are making me re-examine large parts of my life, to the point where I tell people that I feel like i’m owed the past 20 years of my life back. To me i’m somewhere between serious and it being a bit of a dark joke, to anyone on the outside they either don’t respond or say “well, we all wish that” It has also lead to me questioning my gender identity, which until this hit me in the face like a ton of bricks I didn’t know was even possible. I can’t talk to my family about this as they’re somewhat “traditional” and won’t understand, with the exception of my sister, who I belive identifies as asexual. I have a long way to go before I figure out the “normal” for me, which I guess is true for a lot of people during the current pandemic. I myself used to believe the adhd stereotypes before I found out i have it and am now on medication, now though I see things very differently. While the tablets do help me to focus on things (such as this) It’s taken me about 4 hours to type out and I feel like this is the most useful thing I can do today, even though I have photoshoots to organise for the next month. Medication is extremely useful, but it’s also life changing, It’s basically like having your brain removed, spun around, put back in and then rewired on the fly. I’ll have to stay on these things for the rest of my life, which is fine. Thank you for reading.

#adhd #medication #writing #kodemunkey #autism #questioning

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xmxisxforxmaybe · 6 years ago

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Decryption Error: “The Long Weekend, Part I”

Summary: Elliot and Y/N’s friendship continues to deepen as they spend time together. Even though the aftermath of what happened in the server room isn’t something either of them can forget as Tuesday morning draws closer, Y/N can’t help but wonder if being in a relationship with Elliot is what she really wants.

Summary/Mood Board, “The Server Room, Part I”, “The Server Room, Part II”

Word Count: 7700

Tags: @sherlollydramoine @rami-malek-trash @teamwolf2411 @limabein @lovie-rami @txmel @hopplessdreamer @ouatlovr @backoftheroomandnotbelonging @alottanothing @moon-stars-soul

If you want added, just let me know.

Warnings: Marijuana use, slight sexual references

Why am I in the guest room?

Oh.

That’s why.

My thoughts were only muddled for a moment until I glanced down and was greeted by a pile of messy black hair and the faint smell of cigarettes that clung to a well-loved hoodie.

I turned my eyes toward the nightstand as I reached for my phone to read the time.

9: 21 am.

I needed to call Franco if I wanted to have a chance of replacing the ruined servers before Tuesday. As I attempted to slide out from under Elliot, his arm tightened around me and his breath hitched before he sighed, still fast asleep. It looked like I was going to have to wake him up to make my escape.

“Elliot,” I whispered.

“Elliot,” I said again, this time in a clear voice.

Nothing.

I sighed and reached up to wipe the sleep away from the corners of my eyes, hoping my movements would wake him.

I looked down again and was struck with a profound sadness.

Elliot was clinging to me like I was the last thing tethering him to reality. His head was snuggled into the middle of my chest, his face planted between my breasts. His arm was slung across my lower ribs and his leg was hooked over mine. He also had my other arm trapped between our bodies which meant that my hand was—oh.

Yup.

That’s some morning wood.

I didn’t want to embarrass Elliot, but I desperately needed to call Franco. I thought I could just hook my leg over the edge of the bed and pull myself out, like one of those tricks where the magician pulls the tablecloth out from under a perfectly set table.

I moved my leg to the edge of the mattress and also used my free arm to do just what I had imagined.

It worked.

However, it also resulted in Elliot’s head thunking onto the mattress and startling him awake.

He sat up quickly, his head whipping back and forth to take in his surroundings before he fixed his eyes on me as I clung to the bed, half in and half out.

“You’re a heavy sleeper,” I said as I stood up and watched Elliot clutch at the blanket, his brows furrowing as his eyes searched my face.

“Do you know where you are?” I asked when Elliot failed to say anything.

He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He cleared his throat but only a whisper was all he could manage. For the second time that morning, I felt a deep sadness.

He wrecked his voice yelling for someone to let him out of the server room.

“Your place,” he croaked as he reached up to tentatively touch his head, wincing when he made contact with the bandaged wound.

I nodded as I stood by the bed.

“I need to call my friend Franco to see if he can get me some servers to replace the damaged ones. If he can get them to the office, you and I can install them, route them back into the network, and things can function as normal on Tuesday.”

Elliot nodded and croaked again, scowling over his inability to speak.

“Hey—it’s not like you use that voice that much anyway,” I said, pulling a frustrated smile from him.

“Have a lie-in while I make some tea and figure out our next move,” I said as I dialed Franco’s number and left Elliot alone in the guest room.

As it turned out, Franco could get the servers, but he couldn’t get them until Monday.

“Are you sure, Franc—no one in the city can do it any earlier? Money is no object,” I added, a clench of disgust shooting through me as I said it.

“Yes—I know you know, but I had to say it. It’s been that rough of a night,” I stated as I moved the whistling kettle off the burner.

“Monday it is then—I don’t care how early in the morning.”

“Stop thinking you still owe me something—this should make us pretty fucking even,” I quietly laughed, rolling my eyes and pulling teacups from the cupboard.

“Uh-huh. So noble of me to offer up Dad’s money.”

“Yes, the tea’s on.”

“Shut up. Call me if anything changes—bye.”

And before Franco could hang up, I spit out, “I’ll owe you!”

Franco Rivera attended Columbia on a scholarship. He used to be a skinny little Puerto Rican kid who literally fought his way through middle school and his freshman year of high school. Fate intervened when Franco saw something on TV talking about our increasing dependence on technology; paired with watching the rich kids at school get their Xboxes and iPods, Franco decided to learn everything he could about computers. When he got to Columbia, he already had a fully formed business plan for a company that would sell and repair computer equipment—eventually, he broke into the distribution of serves by capitalizing on the trend of companies moving toward software-defined data centers that relied on open-source standards. Franco had earned his big break by being smart and identifying a trend; however, he got the startup money for his company because I was his first investor.

I loved being able to support my friends—wealth wasn’t something to be hoarded; it was something to be used to give back to your community. My father had instilled that value in each of his children, and Franco’s company had been my first real investment.

Now, Franco had a company that employed over 45 people, and it was still growing.

I wasn’t naïve, though. I read. I researched. I paid attention. Working in the Financial District opened my eyes to the rampant greed that allowed people to damn near get away with murder if it meant making a profit. I liked to believe I was working for a good company—a company my father, who I knew was a good man, painstakingly chose to invest in.

But there was always a part of my mind that wasn’t so sure if any corporation could be categorized as “good.”

Maybe I really was naïve.

Elliot appeared in the kitchen and drew me from my thoughts. He was still tucked into his hoodie and he reached down to hitch up the oversized sweats once he stopped walking.

“I’m sorry I’m not a coffee drinker,” I said as I got up to pour Elliot some tea.

Elliot shrugged his shoulders and watched as I prepared the tea, eyeing the serving tray everything was set out on. I was copious with the honey and then squeezed in a good bit of lemon, too.

“Our nanny was English,” I explained as Elliot eyed my set-up. “Presentation always matters when it comes to tea.”

I smiled as I offered Elliot the steaming cup.

“Drink it all—the honey and lemon will help with your throat.”

Elliot took a long drink, using both of his injured hands to hold the cup steady.

“How much of my conversation did you catch?”

The tea helped give Elliot a bit of his voice back and he rasped, “Monday. No servers until Monday.”

“I don’t suppose you know anyone who could do better?”

Elliot shook his head no before adding, “Impressed you got them so fast.”

“Franco’s an impressive guy—he never met a “no” he couldn’t turn into a “yes.”

Elliot settled on to the same kitchen chair as he sat in last night, and we sipped tea in silence until I decided to talk aloud about what I had been planning.

“I was thinking we could swing by your place, get whatever you need for the weekend—don’t even open your mouth. First of all, you’re injured. Second of all, it’s a holiday and I don’t want to spend it alone. Third of all, Christ only knows how long it is going to take to do all of this, and if something goes wrong, I need you.”

Elliot never took his eyes off my face and I almost laughed as I saw the fight just drain out of them. Like Franco, I could also turn a “no” into a “yes.”

Elliot swung off the chair and walked over to his backpack; he pulled out his cellphone and his cigarettes. He held the pack up to silently ask permission.

“No, you can’t smoke in here, but I take it as a compliment I stress you out so much you need a cigarette,” I teased.

“Go out on the balcony. There’s an ash tray because some of my other friends are savages, too.”

Elliot rolled his eyes, and when I made a noise of offense, he turned and shot me a grin, an actual full-blown Elliot Alderson grin.

“Be still my heart,” I said, teasing him even more and drawing out a silent laugh as he opened and closed the balcony door.

* * * * *

Elliot was quiet during the drive to his place. I listened as the navigator gave me directions after he had plugged his address into my GPS.

When we arrived, I cut the engine and said, “I can wait, or I can come up, but I’ll confess I’m afraid you won’t come back if I just let you go alone.”

In his raspy voice, Elliot replied, “You can come up.”

I followed Elliot into his building and up the stairs to his apartment; he didn’t live in the greatest neighborhood, but I put the shabby interior—peeling paint, noises from other people in the building, the single, easy lock on the door—out of my mind and acknowledged my own bias.

Everything Elliot had, he earned on his own and I admired that.

While the interior of Elliot’s apartment was in better condition than the exterior, my eyes immediately went to the mattress on the floor in the bedroom. I wanted nothing more than to pull up my Amazon account and order him a bedframe—just a simple platform bed, nothing fancy.

“Sorry—don’t really have people over,” Elliot whispered, his voice cracking a little as he rubbed at the back of his head before realizing his hands still hurt too much for that.

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders, “I think it’s cozy.”

Elliot gave me a half-smile as he looked desperate to shove his hands in his hoodie pockets.

“Do you mind if I take a shower and change?” Elliot asked in his broken voice, hitching up the sweats once again.

“Of course not. You’re not my prisoner . . . unless you want to be?” I said darkly as I quirked my brow, pulling another lopsided smile from him.

“I am, though—at least until. . .” Elliot trailed off, his eyes leaving mine and fixing on the laptop that was sitting on the tiny table in front of the couch.

“Shower,” I said, taking a seat on the couch and pulling out my phone to prove I could occupy myself.

As soon as Elliot disappeared into the bathroom and turned the water on, I put my phone away and started tidying up. I gathered up the pizza boxes on top of the microwave and the take-out containers beside the sink. I pulled out the full trash bag and replaced it with a new one that I dug out from the nearly empty cupboard under the sink. I sat the garbage bag by the door so we could toss it on the way out.

Next, I went in to make the bed, and while the smell of stale cigarettes and—yeah, definitely weed, lingered, the sheets smelled a lot like Elliot. When I caught the scent of him, I found myself inadvertently smiling, which scared the shit out of me.

I shook it off and reminded myself I was Elliot’s boss and that I was also in his apartment on a Saturday because he destroyed four servers and didn’t remember doing it.

Without being too invasive, I looked around for the things that made the place “Elliot.” His reading selections were interesting: high-brow literature mixed in with metafiction, computer books that were probably from college, but as I looked closer, I saw that many of them were really old, ancient, in fact. I wondered if they had sentimental value.

He also had some psychology books and some philosophy books, including one that looked interesting called, Digital Disconnect. It was sitting on the shelf nearest to his computer, so my eyes continued their trajectory by scanning over the elaborateness of his computer desk; it was the only thing that seemed to scream “Elliot Alderson” in the entire place.

Something was niggling in the back of my mind—being here, looking over Elliot’s apartment made me realize something . . . was just off. He was so neat and particular at work about his desk and his workspace. I wondered why his apartment didn’t reflect that same precision. I thought through the possibilities and wondered if Elliot was depressed. I knew about his anxiety and his inclination to avoid touch, but his apartment told a deeper story.

Yet, another part of me thought about the fact that we are all multiple people, changing our masks from one situation to the next. How we are at home is not how we are in public; how we are with close friends is not how we are with strangers or new acquaintances.

The only way to find out which theory was correct was to get to know Elliot better.

When I heard the shower click off, I quickly made my way back to the couch. As I tucked my legs under me, my eyes landed on a little box on the end table. Curious, I opened the lid to take a peek and discovered it was his weed box. I jumped back when the bathroom door opened, surely looking guilty as sin, but I was equally sure that look was slapped off my face by another when Elliot came padding out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a too small towel that he clutched at his hip.

I am certain my mouth dropped open at his near nakedness because he squeaked out an apology before walking quickly to his dresser. I had not noticed the delightful trail of dark hair that ran down his stomach and disappeared beneath his towel last night, which I silently applauded myself for.

But right now, Elliot was not in immediate distress, so I found I myself watching the muscles in his back move as he dug around for clean clothes, wondering just how much that little towel would let me see. After another second, I mentally slapped myself and forced my mind to start functioning with some sense of propriety. I shifted my position on the couch, sitting so my back was against the armrest and I was facing the kitchen.

“Did you make my bed?” Elliot’s voice cracked with the question.

“I have an illness. I’m so sorry,” I said in a voice that was too loud for my naked employee’s tiny apartment.

I could hear Elliot shuffle into his clothes, his muffled curses audible as he had to use his hands to dress.

“Do you need help?” I asked, hoping to any god it didn’t sound slutty when I said it.

“Nah. I’m good. Hands are just stiff,” Elliot said, his voice a little clearer as he walked out from the bedroom.

“Kitchen, too?”

I looked over at him and while shrugging said, “I told you I have an illness.”

Elliot shook his head as if I were some sort of mystery he wasn’t ready to figure out.

“Do you have a first-aid kit here or anything? I can rebandage your hands, or at least your head.”

Elliot walked back into the bathroom and came out with a little basket that held some butterfly bandages, Neosporin, gauze, medical tape, and a few other first-aid things.

“Impressive,” I said digging around once he handed me the basket.

Elliot took a seat, flexing his hands and looking them over as I adjusted my position to scoot closer to him. The gash looked much better already, but there was definitely bruising around the wound. I swiped at some of the wetness along Elliot’s hairline before gently applying the butterfly bandage.

“Did I hurt you?” I asked, my eyes searching his face for any sign of pain.

“Didn’t feel a thing,” Elliot said with a quick flick of a smile, his voice still a whisper.

I held his gaze for way too long, lost in the depths of his grey, well, maybe a little more blue in this light, eyes.

“Let’s see those hands,” I said, blinking and finally looking away, wondering if there was blush coloring my cheeks because it sure felt like it.

He spread them out, flat on his thighs and his fingers trembled as he tried to stretch them. His knuckles still looked awful, torn and scraped, and the bruises had deepened into a darker red.

I dug around in the first aid basket again to pull out the bandages, medical tape, and the Neosporin. I applied the Neosporin to the worst looking of the cuts on his pinky, ring, and middle finger of his right hand, wrapping band aids around each of those second knuckles. On his left, he had deep gashes on the knuckles of his first and middle fingers so I had to apply Neosporin and use the gauze to cover that area. I tried to apply the medical tape so it wouldn’t be a nuisance, but it was such an awkward place to bandage.

“Sorry,” I said as I smoothed the tape.

“It’s fine,” Elliot rasped.

I put the medical supplies back in the basket and handed it to Elliot who returned it to the bathroom.

Because I could think of no other way to ask, I pointed to his weed box and blurted out, “Can we take that with us?” in my same too-loud-for-this-apartment voice.

Elliot laughed, his shoulders shaking and his teeth flashing, except that with his hoarse voice there was very little noise that emitted from his throat.

“Thank you for laughing, or in your case, shaking, at my awkwardness,” I said narrowing my eyes and frowning.

Elliot composed himself quickly, clearly worried he had actually offended me.

“You seem way too straight to smoke. You made me smoke a legal cigarette on the balcony,” he explained, still grinning, his voice rasping and graduating to an occasional squeak.

“Marijuana does not have the same Surgeon General’s warning as cigarettes,” I retorted. “Just forget I asked.”

Elliot shook his head and picked up his box, walking over to where he sat his backpack down and placed it inside.

He shot me a smartass glance before he took his backpack into the bedroom and packed up some more of his things.

“What else did you go through?” Elliot asked as he shouldered his bag, his eyes glancing toward his computer desk.

“I would never violate your privacy,” I said, a little offended that he seemed to think looking in a box on an end table that smelled like weed was akin to going through someone’s computer.

“Besides, I’m just way too straight to do such a thing,” I said, mocking him from earlier.

Elliot smirked and watched me with those big eyes again as he moved to stand in front of me, so close that I had to tilt my chin up to meet his gaze.

“Remind me to tell Pandora not to invite you over to her place,” he deadpanned.

“Smartass,” I said as a grin overtook my lips.

* * * * *

Before I put my car in gear, I did a quick google and loaded up the directions to a nearby grocery store. As soon as the navigator announced our destination, Elliot whipped his head in my direction.

I smiled and said nothing as I followed the navigation.

My car seemed to fill with Elliot’s unease and I had about all I could take of his shuffling in the seat next to me before he finally asked why we were going to the market.

“Well, since I was denied my long weekend, I figured we could have our own version of a picnic today. Do you ever eat anything other than takeout?”

Elliot took a while to answer the question, probably warring with just how much he wanted to tell me.

“Not lately,” Elliot finally decided.

After another long pause, Elliot rasped, “I don’t really know what people eat at a picnic—hamburgers, hotdogs, that sort of thing, but isn’t it different for every family?”

“Alright, I see your point. Well, what did your family do?”

“I don’t remember,” came Elliot’s very quick, very quiet reply. It was such an unnerving response that it made me feel anxious. I felt bad for prying, and even though it was an innocent question, the more I got to know him, the further away I felt from understanding him.

I compensated by talking in a rush about my family traditions.

“My family is pretty traditional. My dad grew up on a farm and so did my mom, although her family only raised horses. They both know how to cook good, old-fashioned dishes and picnic food for us was always, like you said, hamburgers and hot dogs, macaroni or potato salad, pasta salad, bean salad, cole slaw, fruit trays, veggie trays. Stuff like that. Mmm—and chocolate cake or brownies or s’mores for dessert. My mom makes a killer chocolate cake.”

“You’re going to make all of that?”

“Why? Does it all sound good? Not gonna lie—I’d love to fatten you up a little,” I said glancing over at Elliot as I turned down the street next to the store to look for parking.

Elliot didn’t say anything, so I let the question hang awkwardly in the air.

Grocery shopping with Elliot Alderson was no different than shopping with a morose teenager, except he was a little more interested in what was going in the cart instead of playing on his phone. He kept his hood up and his eyes darted around everywhere, like something was going to jump off the shelf and attack him.

As I was mulling over whether to get the tri-color noodles for the pasta salad or to stick with the plain, it occurred to me I was totally alone. I threw the tri-color noodles in the cart and glanced around, wondering where he went. As I made my way to look at the produce, I got a little worried it was too much for him and he bailed. I had just pulled my phone out of my bag to text him when he reappeared.

I laughed when I saw what he was carrying—s’more supplies.

“Dessert?” he questioned and I nodded yes.

“Good decision,” I praised.

Elliot offered to help me pay for the groceries, but I told him he could pay his way by helping me cook. He acquiesced, but insisted on carrying everything, loading up his arms with my grocery totes while I scolded him about his hands.

Once we got back to my place and deposited all of our bags on my kitchen island, I got to work on organizing my food prep under Elliot’s watchful glances. He eventually removed his hood and started to relax. I glanced back at him as I set two pots of water to boil on the stove.

“Your hair’s kinda curly when it isn’t styled,” I noted.

Elliot frowned and ran his hands through it.

“I like it,” I said as I walked over to where he was sitting on the kitchen stool.

“Can I?” I asked, my hand poised near his hair.

He nodded, and I ran my fingers over his scalp, fixing some of the stray pieces.

“There. Very nice—like a dark Ryan Phillippe circa late 90s.”

Elliot quirked a brow, probably unsure whether it was a compliment.

“Who is that?”

“You’ve never seen Cruel Intentions?”

Elliot shook his head no.

“Well—let me tell you, you’ve missed out. This was the movie that fostered the great love saga between Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon.”

I walked over to the TV and turned it on, flipping through my subscription services until I found the movie. I turned it on, and returned to my boiling pots, pouring noodles into one and dumping the potatoes into the other.

We cooked, chopping, slicing, and mixing, while we watched Cruel Intentions. Elliot was pretty enraptured by the actions of the characters, growing frustrated every time one of them did something terrible.

“You get really into movies,” I commented as I put the mayo back in the fridge and returned to stirring my potato salad.

“I like to think about what the characters should do and compare it with what they actually do,” Elliot said without moving his eyes from the screen, his voice stronger.

“Why?”

“I like to think about why people behave the way they do. Most of the time, I just don’t understand it . . . them. I don’t understand them.”

“Join the club,” I said.

Elliot turned away from the screen and looked at me.

“That’s not true—you know how to talk to people, how to manage them and their behaviors. Everyone at work respects you. Even likes you.”

“I’ve worked hard to earn a good reputation, but come on, El. I know what a lot of them say about me. It’s no secret my dad’s face is hanging behind the front desk downstairs.”

Elliot turned his attention back to the TV.

“You don’t act like them,” he said pointing to Kathryn and Sebastian.

I laughed and said, “I sure hope most people don’t!”

“I mean you don’t act rich.”

“My parents would kick my ass if I did. Not everyone on Wall Street is evil.”

After a long silence, I asked, “So, which character do you find the most interesting to watch?”

“Annette,” he replied almost immediately.

“Really? Not Sebastian?”

“Nah. You can tell he’s just another trope—a Byronic hero who will probably die as soon as he achieves self-actualization.”

“So, why’s Annette more interesting?” I said, avoiding confirming Elliot’s theory.

“She’s unafraid to follow her beliefs even though they go against societal norms, well the norms of her peer group at least.”

“Sex is hard to resist,” I said.

“Especially at that age,” Elliot added.

“Do you speak from experience?”

Elliot’s head snapped in my direction, his widened eyes moving over my face as he decided, presumably, whether or not to answer me.

“I guess so,” he finally decided.

I smiled and stated, “You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to. Ever. I’m getting used to you just ignoring me when you don’t want to say anything.”

“I don’t mean to,” Elliot said, and when I looked at him for clarification, he elaborated.

“I don’t mean to ignore you or anyone really. It’s just sometimes better that I don’t say what’s in my head out loud.”

“Does that get tiring? Having to always filter yourself?”

“Yeah. It does. But it’s better than being called a freak.”

“Have you been called that?”

Elliot looked back to the TV, and softly replied, “Yeah.”

I walked over to him and placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. Elliot closed his eyes and sighed.

“You can’t make up for every shitty thing that’s ever been said or done to me.”

“What if I want to try? What if I want to erase all that bad and create good to go in its place?”

“It’s impossible, Y/N. People are naturally inclined to hurt other people. Or at the very least, disappoint them.”

I frowned, wanting to tell Elliot he was wrong, but was he? Look at what just happened to him. It was clear this wasn’t the first time in his life something this shitty was done to him. I had no room to stand on a soapbox and tell him everything would be okay.

It was never okay for people like him.

I sighed, and I moved back to the other side of the kitchen island to start searching for my grill pan.

Elliot got up and paused the movie, heading out on the balcony to smoke.

After I prepped the pan and laid out the hamburgers and hot dogs, I joined Elliot on the balcony. He was almost done with his cigarette, but a pretty long ash had grown at the end as he was staring at his phone.

“What’s up?”

Elliot didn’t move or say anything for a minute, so I reached out to pull his cigarette away and stub it out in the ashtray. That movement caused his eyes to flicker up before he tossed his phone down on the little table.

He ran his hand through his hair and his leg began to bounce up and down.

I pushed.

“What happened?”

“Everyone knows,” Elliot muttered.

“Knows what?”

Elliot looked at me like I was an idiot, but I couldn’t read his damn mind.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about and stop looking at me like I’m an idiot because I can’t read your mind.”

“Everyone knows what the fuck happened in the server room!” Elliot yelled, standing up and kicking at the chair he was sitting in, sending it crashing into the side of my apartment. He was pacing, both hands in his hair, his eyes unable to focus on anything for more than a millisecond.

While it was unnerving to see this side of Elliot, I tried my best to tamp down my own frustration. I kept my voice even and calm when I asked Elliot about the message he received.

“Who texted or emailed you?”

“Sarah texted me.”

“What did she say?”

Elliot stopped pacing and picked up his phone, quickly entering his passcode and then thrusting the phone out to me.

Are you okay???

Answer me Elliot!!!

Aaron told me what Ali Maurice and Corey did—Aaron feels horrible. So does Julia.

Please answer me because if you don’t I’m calling Colin.

“Elliot. Answer her. I do not want Colin involved in this.”

“I don’t know what the fuck to say,” Elliot said as he snatched his phone back. “Hey, I’m fine. I’m stuck at our boss’s house because I went fucking batshit. See ya at work. Smiley face.”

I frowned and walked over to fix the chair Elliot had kicked and I heard the click of his lighter as I thought about what to tell Sarah.

“I want their weekend ruined,” I said, and Elliot’s eyes flicked to my face, clearly surprised. “And it’s always best to tell as much of the truth as you can—an elaborate lie only makes you look bad and for the fifteenth time, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

I walked over to the balcony where Elliot was leaning, his cigarette forgotten as he listened.

“Tell Sarah that in order to get out, you had to pull the power cables on a few of the servers. You knew when they went down and didn’t come back on, Miles would call me in. Everyone knows Miles calls me for everything so that won’t be a surprise to her. It also won’t be a surprise you figured out how to get out without a phone because everyone knows you’re ridiculously smart.”

Elliot just stared at me.

“Text her!”

Elliot’s thumbs moved over the keys, and we both waited for her reply. I moved closer to Elliot so I could see his phone. He took another drag on his cigarette as Sarah’s reply popped up.

THANK GOD YOU ARE OKAY!!! THOSE FUCKING ASSHOLES!! They deserve to be FIRED and if Y/N knows what happened I bet they will be!!

“Alright,” I said. “She’s testing you—she’s digging around to see if you’ve told me what happened. Little snake—I thought liked her.”

“How do you know that’s what she’s doing?” Elliot said as he exhaled more smoke, his voice starting to croak again.

“Stop smoking—you’re ruining your voice! Anyway, she said, ‘if Y/N knows what happened.’ That means she is fishing to see if you told me everything, probably because it’s pretty damn obvious I’m one of about five people you talk to at work. You need to tell her you don’t know what I know because you left after I let you out. Tell her I was pissed and the last thing you heard was something about checking the sign out sheet to find out who didn’t sweep the office and set the alarm.”

Elliot followed my instructions, including the one about stubbing out his cigarette. Sarah responded, once again, almost immediately.

I’m glad you’re okay and I still think they all acted like fucking assholes, but I know Aaron and Julia are sorry they didn’t stop it or come back to let you out. Actually if you didn’t answer me, they were gonna get Colin and go in to let you out.

“Yup—she just confirmed that she’s fishing for Aaron and Julia.”

“Why would she do that?”

“She’s friends with them—at least, I know they hang out. They’ve come to happy hour together before and I’m pretty sure Sarah eats lunch with that whole group. Sarah must’ve texted at their request because she’s one of those handful of people you talk to.”

Elliot shrugged his shoulders and said, “I thought she was nice.”

“People are fucking complicated,” I said, pushing off from the railing.

“What do I say next?”

“What would you normally say?”

“Nothing.”

“There’s your answer. Come on—I’m starving and I’m going to pull my gender card and make you grill up the meat because you’re the boy. Can you handle that?”

Elliot nodded.

“Hey,” I said, turning around so fast Elliot almost ran into me.

I put my hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

“They’ve taken up enough space in your mind. Do not give them any more today.”

Elliot nodded and licked his lips, his eyes growing a little watery as I looked into them.

As it turned out, Elliot was capable of cooking. The burgers and hotdogs turned out great, and as he manned the grill pan, I spread out the food we had been prepping all day. It was entirely too much, ridiculously indulgent, but I didn’t care. I was stressed—stressed about last night, stressed about Elliot being stressed, and stressed about having to deal with all of this absolute bullshit come Tuesday morning.

“Come on—let’s take our plates on the balcony,” I said, leading Elliot out the sliding glass door.

It was hot out, but not quite as muggy as it was on Friday night. It really did make for the perfect picnic weather, and even though I was listening to the cacophony of the city streets instead of the lapping of water at my parents’ house, I was determined to be happy.

I was determined to at least pull Elliot out of his anxious thoughts. I wasn’t so bold as to assume I could make him happy, but if I could distract him, that would be good enough.

I walked over to the little wrought iron table that sat in the corner of the balcony and pulled it away from the wall to make room for both of us to sit. Elliot sat across from me and looked completely dejected.

“Don’t let them ruin anymore of your weekend, El,” I repeated. “We slaved over this all day—let’s enjoy each other’s company and enjoy all this damn food we made. We can pretend this is it—this is our last night of existence. Nothing comes after this so there’s nothing to stress about.”

“Isn’t that a little morbid?” Elliot asked, a smile playing with his lips.

“All the best people in history have always been a little morbid, don’t you think?”

Elliot shrugged, but I kept the conversation flowing. Soon, the memory of Sarah’s texts began to fade from my mind, and I hoped they faded from Elliot’s, too.

After we both returned to the kitchen and piled our plates full again, Elliot laughed as I almost tripped and dumped everything on the floor. His reflexes were quick, reaching out to grab the arm that held my plate, but as I thanked him and moved toward the door again, Elliot didn’t let me go.

I looked at him and he said in a heartbreakingly soft voice, “Thank you.”

“This is what friends do,” I said, looking at him and smiling. “Not all people suck.”

“You don’t suck,” he said.

“Mmm—careful. That could be an insult if we were in a more . . . compromising position,” I said, winking at him and heading out to the table.

“You don’t take compliments very well,” Elliot noted as he sat down across from me again.

“Well, look at you being all observant. But you’re right. I don’t. I’m sure it’s some deeply rooted, psychological bullshit,” I said as I bit into my hotdog.

“No. You’re just a good person. Humble. Even though you don’t have to be.”

“Is that how you see me, here in my luxury apartment that my daddy mostly pays for?”

“Don’t do that—don’t deflect,” Elliot said, his fork poised above his potato salad. “You always try to negate a compliment by using humor or by bringing up the one thing you can’t change—the one thing that isn’t your fault.”

I was silent, shocked by Elliot’s observation. Every time I thought he was distracted or uninterested, he was listening. And he clearly spent time thinking—about me.

“Use your words, Y/N,” Elliot said, a little grin playing with his lips so I could see he was being a smartass by parroting what I had told him.

“You’re a real shit, Elliot Alderson. Do you know that?”

He shrugged and took a big bite of potato salad.

* * * * *

After we finished dinner and put everything away, I walked over to Elliot’s backpack, picked it up, and brought it over to him.

“I say we smoke and finish the movie because I’m too stuffed to eat a s’more.”

Elliot nodded, opened his backpack, and pulled his box out while I went to the cupboard to grab a tray we could use since my coffee table was made of wood.

I watched as he neatly set everything out on the tray and broke the weed up. I watched his fingers pack the bowl, and when he was finished, he offered to let me hit it first, but I declined.

I watched Elliot take a hit, my eyes drinking in the way his fingers moved and the way his lips closed over the pipe, watching as he pulled the smoke into his lungs to hold it. He waited before exhaling slowly, and then he passed the bowl and lighter to me.

I copied his movements and also took a nice hit—deep enough and long enough to cause Elliot to raise his eyebrows.

I shrugged and handed the bowl back to Elliot as I enjoyed the head rush from my first hit in a long time.

It was good weed, and I sat back and let it take ahold of me, feeling really relaxed for the first time in longer than I’d like to admit.

We slowly smoked the bowl and once it was ready to ash, he turned it over, checked the holes and repacked.

We smoked again, and I felt ridiculously good, ridiculously content. Mostly, I wanted to stare at Elliot because my inhibitions were currently dwelling in a land of incoherence.

I sat facing him while he laid his head back on the couch and looked up at the ceiling. I just couldn’t comprehend how fucking pretty he was. He had taken his hoodie off because it was too warm outside, so he was wearing a black t-shirt. Elliot had pulled on a pair of dark jeans, too, when we were at his apartment. His arms were relaxed at his sides and the bandaged hand closest to me was resting on the couch. For once, Elliot’s body was almost perfectly still.

I was a calm person from day to day, but when I got high, I was pretty much a caricature of a pothead. I loved everyone and saw nothing but the beauty around me through the most sensuous haze. I wanted to giggle and talk about the cosmos, but things felt different with Elliot.

It took me a long time to piece together what I wanted to say to him.

I scooted closer to Elliot, squinting at him.

“Do you ever wish you could just reach out and stop time. Just like, grab the second hand and make it stop ticking?”

“Is that what you want, Y/N? To stop time right now?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Elliot’s eyes were closed as his head rested on the back of the couch, but when I failed to answer him, he opened his eyes to seek mine out. I hadn’t stopped staring at his face, so his eyes met mine almost immediately.

“Because I really like you,” I breathed. “And if time keeps ticking, those feelings are going to make everything so complicated. I don’t think they’re going to go away and I’m afraid they’re not going to away but I’m also afraid they are going to go away and then I’d hate that and you’ve just got me all fucked up.”

“I really like you, too,” Elliot said, a little giggle bubbling out of his throat as his fingers twitched toward mine. “I think I feel the same fucked up way as you if I correctly followed what you said.”

I watched the movement of his fingers as they crept closer to mine. Our hands were barely a whisper apart, and it felt like there was poetry in that—we were so close, yet still so far.

But I was just too damn high to puzzle out that meaning.

I bypassed touching Elliot’s hand and moved into his lap. He lifted his head off the back of the couch to watch me. I perched closer to his knees, avoiding turning what I wanted to do into something overtly sexual.

I plucked Elliot’s hand off the couch and peeled away the bandages. I lifted his hand to my lips and began kissing his wounds, featherlight, noiseless kisses across each scrape, cut, and bruise. I repeated my kisses on his other hand, all while under Elliot’s watchful, half-lidded gaze. His lips were parted and he occasionally flicked his tongue out to wet them, but he never took his eyes off of me.

I placed a gentle kiss to the palm of each of his hands, enjoying the soft skin before I placed one of Elliot’s hands on my heart and the other on the side of my face. His fingers jumped a little, but I closed my eyes as I pressed my hands into his, his palm flattening out against my chest and my cheek.

“El,” I breathed, lost in the sensation of him, the weed making everything seem so far away yet so close that it was squeezing me from the inside out.

“I like it when you call me that,” Elliot whispered.

I smiled before releasing his hands and leaning forward to wrap my arms around him in a hug.

I felt his hands run across my back and snake underneath my shirt, softly caressing my lower back. I sunk into his ministrations as I clung to his neck and breathed in that citrus scent again.

I pulled back and smiled at him, his face so pretty in the haze of my high, his eyes smaller than usual, but still bigger than anyone else’s I’d ever met.

“Are we friends yet?” I asked.

Elliot seemed to genuinely consider the question before replying, “Yes.”

“Friends,” I said, feeling like I was tasting the word for the first time in my mouth.

Elliot smiled, clearly amused.

“Let’s finish the movie, friend,” he said, still smiling.

“Only if you’ll cuddle with me,” I said, wiggling off of Elliot’s legs.

He huffed, a tiny little laugh as he shrugged his shoulders.

He shifted his position to lay down on the couch, tucking himself into the cushions to make room for me on the outside. His head was propped up on a pillow and he was just slightly angled more on his back than on his side; in other words, he provided the perfect place for me to snuggle in.

I stretched out next him and damn near purred at the feeling of his body against mine. I wiggled back, trying to get as close to him as possible, and I giggled at the absurdity of cuddling on my sofa with Elliot fucking Alderson.

“You’ve gotta stop wiggling,” Elliot mumbled as he breathed in the scent of my hair. “Unless you wanna be more than friends.”

I wiggled into him again before giggling and promising to stop.

“Not yet,” I whispered.

We turned our attention to the movie and eventually dozed off. When I woke up, something way too bright was playing on the TV. I squinted my eyes and sat up, causing Elliot’s eyes to blink open.

I shut the TV off and pulled him off the couch, stopping to grab waters from the fridge before leading him to my bedroom. I shucked off my pants and squirmed out of my bra. Elliot pulled his jeans off and after a moment’s hesitation, his shirt, too.

“I want to snuggle you now,” I said, as I crawled into bed, my words thick with sleep.

Elliot got into bed and faced away from me. I aligned my body with his, and I wrapped my arm around his waist. His wounded hands were healing, their hurt practically forgotten as he pulled my hand tight to his body and secured himself in my grasp.

#Elliot Alderson #elliot alderson x reader #female reader #elliot x reader #elliot #mr robot #rami malek #rami malek character #mr robot fanfiction #Elliot fanfiction #elliot alderson fanfiction

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Lore Episode 130: In Plain Sight (Transcript) - 25th November 2019

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Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

In early winter of 1822, Captain Samuel Barrett Edes became a hero. He was sailing in the south-east Pacific when he and his crew encountered a Dutch ship that was in trouble. Edes managed to save every single one of the Dutch soldiers, and then headed for the city of Batavia, known today as Jakarta, to drop them off and see if a reward could be collected. While he waited, he did some shopping. Now, Edes wasn’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but he owned a small portion of the ship he sailed and of course, he was expecting a handsome reward for his heroic efforts. With this in mind, he kept an eye open for something unusual and conversation-worthy to take home, and that’s when he saw it. It was a mummified mermaid. It was over two feet long, had the curved tail one might find on a fish, but the upper body of something much more human in shape. It was brown from the preservation process, wrinkled with age and entirely addictive to look at, and Captain Edes knew instantly that he had to own it. In late January of 1822, he did something bold. He sold the ship he did not fully own and used the proceeds to buy the mermaid. Then he found transportation back to London and put the odd creature on display, because just about everyone who saw it believed that it was real.

Of course, there were those who could see through the hoax. Captain Edes had been fooled by a clever craftsman who had sewn the torso of an orangutan onto the lower half of a large salmon. Elements were added to the face and hands to give it a more humanlike appearance, but those with training in natural science and anatomy could spot the hidden clues that gave it all away. That didn’t matter to most people, though. The idea that mermaids could be real had been around for centuries, so when something as powerful as a mummified specimen floated into their world, they were blind to its flaws and impossibility. They wanted to believe, deep down inside, that the hybrids of folklore actually existed. Today, we know a lot more about our world than we used to, but if we were to go back in time and live through a less learned age, we would be amazed at the stories that await us, tales of creatures that sit at the very edge of our imagination, living things that defy logic, and monsters that inspire wonder. Our hearts want to believe while our minds are ready to move on. Instead, what we tend to feel is a mixture of deep curiosity and primal fear, and if the tales from the past are any indication, there’s a good reason why. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

When we talk about the natural world, the very first thing we need to do is gain some perspective. Today, we live in a technologically rich society. We carry supercomputers in our pockets that are more powerful than the ones that sent the first humans to the moon. We can walk past an intriguing part of our neighbourhood, pull out our phones and look at a satellite map or do a search for more information. We’re still hungry people, curious and drawn to unanswered questions, but rather than starving in a house with little food, we feast each day on a never-ending buffet of answers and information. Today, if you want to know something, chances are good you can learn about it in an instant, but hundreds of years ago, that was an impossibility. Not that people didn’t try, though. 2000 years ago, a Roman named Gaius Plinius Secundus attempted to gather everything knowable into one place, and he did an admirable job considering the world he lived in. Gaius was born into a wealthy Roman family in the year 24AD and followed a path of privilege all the way to the top. He was well educated, well connected, and when he entered the Roman military, he quickly rose to the second highest level possible – the equestrian order. Once out of the military, he served as a lawyer, before being assigned various governorships around the empire, and towards the end of his life, he had the privilege to serve as advisor to two different emperors. Today, we know him as Pliny the Elder, but in his day, Gaius was a success story.

Looking back, his biggest legacy was his 37 volume collection of knowledge called Natural History. It was possibly the world’s first encyclopaedia, gathering everything known about a whole array of subjects, from farming and botany to geography and anthropology, but the most influential contribution, filling up volumes seven through 11, were his writings on zoology, the study of all living creatures. But here’s the thing – Pliny the Elder, like everyone else in his society, lacked the proper tools to dig deep and apply hard science to every creature he wrote about. He also lacked the ability to travel and see each animal he described, so he relied heavily on others, like Aristotle’s Historia Animalium and the writings of Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, and that meant his collection was less than perfect. How so? Well, his work on zoology included such amazing animals as dragons, mermen, and even something called a blemmyae, a race of hairy, human-like beings who literally had no head on their shoulders, with eyes and a mouth right in the middle of their chest. Pliny was thorough, for sure, but not very discerning with his source material.

But what his work did do was give birth to something a lot of people have heard of, a type of book known as a bestiary. It took a while for their availability to spread, but by the early middle ages, bestiaries were a common enough resource. They were, at the basic level, books about known animals, typically with colourful drawings to help the reader visualise the specific details of each entry, and over the centuries, some editions became more popular than others. One of the most famous is the Aberdeen Bestiary, an illuminated manuscript that dates back to the 12th century. Aside from being a beautiful example of medieval artwork – and I mean that, you should seriously do an internet search for sample pages – the Aberdeen Bestiary is also a powerful example of just how popular these books really were. It’s filled with images of all sorts of animals, along with rocks, fish, trees and even worms, and a lot of the entries in the manuscript include notes about the nature of the thing in question, making it a valuable reference tool for any budding naturalist. But these bestiaries did more than that – they inspired the popular culture of their day.

England’s King John, who reigned from 1177 to 1216 was said to have a copy of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History in his personal collection, and John’s son and successor, King Henry III, even used images from it to decorate one of the chambers at Westminster. As their popularity spread, more and more writers got in on the tradition. The Norman poet Philip de Thaun wrote a bestiary about a generation after William the Conqueror invaded England, and it became a gift for King Henry II’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Even Leonardo da Vinci made one. It seems if you were an intelligent person in the middle ages or the Renaissance, making your own bestiary was practically a rite of passage – and let’s be honest, colourful manuscripts filled with unbelievable creatures and animals that defied logic couldn’t not be popular. Humans have this innate desire to look at curious things. We’ve always been rubberneckers, straining to take a long, hard look at things that sit outside our normal experience, and the spread of bestiaries is proof of that. But those ancient books and manuscripts also teach us something else about ourselves. Human beings are creative creatures. When faced with a mysterious gap in our knowledge, we’re more likely to invent something to plug the hole than to leave the question unanswered – and what we’ve come up with is equal parts entertaining and downright terrifying.

I mentioned earlier how the internet and the accessibility of powerful devices has given us an edge over our predecessors, and in a lot of ways that’s true. Yes, we have access to a huge majority of our collective knowledge, but not all of it. In fact, there are still things we don’t know. For example, scientists today believe that there are roughly 8.7 million animal species on this planet, and yet 86% of the ones that would live on land still haven’t been discovered or studied, and it’s even worse inside our oceans, where over 90% of life is still a mystery to us. We know a lot, yes, but our world is massive and diverse, and that makes the learning process slow and tedious. Some animals are also a bit harder to track down, they’re less abundant or more shy, and so it’s made studying them more of a challenge. A good example is the platypus. For a very long time, scientists thought the descriptions of it were nothing more than a hoax. I mean, it was rumoured in 1799 to be a hybrid of a duck and a water rat, part mammal and part bird, with venomous spurs that could kill a dog, and while we’ve learnt more about them over the years, the platypus is still an allusive creature. A recent documentarian was able to get what he considered to be a goldmine of actual footage of the animal, amounting to about 30 seconds, and when only half a minute of film is something to celebrate, you know the animal is hard to study.

Of course, while we’re searching for new species, the ones we do know about are slowly dying off, which doesn’t help. Some estimates place the number of species on the edge of extinction at around 20,000, and more get added to that list all the time. For the medieval writers of bestiaries, this would be their worst nightmare. All those creatures belong in their books, and yet they keep slipping away. But at the same time, not being able to see an animal never really stopped those ancient writers from including it in their catalogue of life on earth. In fact, there are a lot of entries that would cause most people to scratch their heads, because while, yes, we’ve grown in our understanding of the world around us, these bestiaries serve as a time capsule of our gullibility. As far back as Pliny the Elder’s collection on natural history, we can see those less believable creatures pop up. He once wrote that thousands of sea-nymphs known as neriads had washed up on the shores of what is modern day France, and that they looked just like the nymphs of the land, except that they were covered in fish scales. He also wrote about that fiery bird of legend known as the phoenix, which was known to burst into flames before re-emerging from its own ashes. And of course, I’ve already mentioned his fascination with mermen and blemmyae. It seems that Pliny the Elder had an obsession with gathering all known creatures, whether or not he had witnessed them with his own eyes.

Other historians added their own contributions to those mystical lists as well, and if I ran through it for you now, it would sound like a recap of the Harry Potter series. Hippos and elephants shared the same space as hippogriffs and mandrakes. There were dragons and tritons, giants and sea monsters. Honestly, it sometimes seemed that if a young child could draw a picture of it, that was good enough to get it included. Of course, some creatures were more popular than others, and that popularity varied from culture to culture. In Europe, one of the most talked about creatures of all was also one of the smallest, but don’t let its size fool you, because there was nothing safe about the basilisk. Our old friend, Pliny the Elder, wrote about it 2000 years ago, describing it as a serpent with legs that was no larger than a foot in length. But what it lacked in size, it more than made up for with attitude and special features. A basilisk was said to stand tall on its back legs and had a crown-like plume on top of its head. And they were dangerous, too – according to the stories, basilisks were so poisonous that even looking at them could get you killed. Other creatures avoided the like the plague, and wherever they chose to make their nests, the plant life would die and wither away. One description I read said that if a man on horseback stabbed the basilisk with a spear, the poison was so powerful that it could climb up the spear, kill the man, and then kill the horse as well.

Of course, when something is that powerful and deadly, it eventually becomes the centrepiece of tales of valour. It’s said that Alexander the Great once killed a basilisk, and like many of the other legends about him, he did it in a way that proved not just his might but also his intelligence. It’s said that he polished his shield until it was like a mirror, and then approached the creature holding it outward. When the basilisk saw its own reflection, it fell victim to its poisonous gaze and instantly dropped dead. We can find images of the basilisk in just about every bestiary in existence, most of which look like a cross between a snake and a rooster. There’s a statue of one in Vienna, commemorating an 11th century hunt, and there’s even a church in Sweden with a carved relief showing St. Michael stabbing one with a spear. So popular was this creature that people sold powders that they claimed to be ground-up basilisk, something that most people purchased for use in alchemy, but more than a few used as an antidote to poison. Everywhere you look through the middle ages and earlier, the basilisk is waiting to rear its poisonous little head. You can see society’s attraction to it in their folklore and superstition, a mixture of fear and fascination, of wonder and disgust. For centuries, it popped up in stories whispered all around Europe, like a well-loved character in a popular book series. But if one account is any indication, it might not be a work of fiction after all.

The people of Warsaw had a problem on their hands. They were two decades into a new political structure known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and while it gave a lot of freedom to the wealthy and elite, it left the lower class in a constant state of fear and oppression. Life in the city was challenging for many people, but that was the new normal. In 1587, though, something happened to put the people of Warsaw on edge. Livestock in the area around an old, ruined building had begun to turn up dead. Even a few of the neighbouring residents had been found poisoned in their beds, washing over the community with a wave of grief and loss. And in the midst of all that confusion and pain, two of the neighbourhood children disappeared. Well, disappeared might not be the right word for it. Folks had seen the two young girls playing near the ruins, they had watched them laugh and skip and revel in the freedom and joy that came with childhood, most likely muttering quiet prayers that it would last as long as possible. The neighbours knew what sort of hard life awaited those girls once they were old enough to work and carry their own weight. Their joy must have been bittersweet.

And then someone watched them step inside the ruins. That was the first reason to worry. Folks avoided the ruins for a good reason – it was dark and dangerous, and the cellar beneath it had been a den for all sorts of animals. So, whoever it was that watched them disappear into the shadows most likely headed over to warn the girls’ parents. When everyone arrived at the ruins to call them out, though, they were no longer visible. While there was a good chance they had simply moved on to a new playground, someone decided to peer inside the dark cellar, and there, laying on the broken stone floor, were the sleeping forms of both girls. So, one of the older women stepped inside to wake them. A moment later, though, she collapsed into a heap beside the girls, sending the growing crowd into a panic. They didn’t know what was causing the people inside the cellar to lose consciousness, but they knew there was something dangerous about the dark space, so they sent for a fire hook – a long pole with a metal hook on the end – and then reached in and pulled each body out into the light. All three of them were dead, and not just dead – they were bloated and dark, as if they’d been dead for days. Most frightening of all, though, was that their eyes seemed to be protruding from their sockets. No one could be sure, but it almost looked as if they’d been frightened to death.

Wanting answers, they sent for Benedictus, the king’s very own physician. If anyone would have the skill to identify the danger, it would be him. And, sure enough, after taking a long look at the trio of bodies, he brought them a definitive answer. All of them had been killed by a basilisk. In an instant, the atmosphere around the old ruins changed. Newcomers came to watch, while leaders gathered to form a plan. Something had to be done, and just like the stories all of them had grown up with, it seemed that a basilisk hunt was in order, but the trouble was no one wanted to risk their lives by entering the cellar to kill it – not even Benedictus, who seemed to know the most about the creature. But they had an idea. A group of leaders from the community quickly headed to the local jail, where two men awaited execution for various capital crimes. Each man was given the same offer: come kill the basilisk, and you will receive a full pardon and your freedom as a reward. It seemed like an easy choice, too – inside jail, there was no chance of survival. Outside, though, there was at least the possibility they might survive. It made sense to everyone.

The first criminal declined the offer, but the other one, a man named Johann Faurer, agreed to help. He was escorted from the jail to the old ruins, where Benedictus awaited him with tools and instructions. The townsfolk had quickly gathered dozens of small mirrors and sewn them onto a pair of leather pants and a coat. I imagine Johann gave the old physician a sideways glance at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, but at the same time, he would have known the folklore just as well as everyone else. Alexander the Great had defeated a basilisk using a mirror-like shield, so why would it not work for him? With a crowd of over 2000 witnesses watching, Johann began to carefully walk into the ruins, where he entered the cellar. He had a long rake in one hand and a torch in the other, to light his way, and as soon as he stepped into the darkness below, he cried out that he could see it – a long, serpent-like tail, with a head that resembled that of a rooster, right down to the crown-like plumage. Benedictus called out instructions to the man. “Grab it with the rake,” he told him, “and then carry it out here into the light.” Johann shouted back that he understood, and the entire crowd began to shift and rumble. If a basilisk was going to be dragged out of the ruins, no one wanted to be around to see it, so they all ran for cover and hid their eyes. When Johann emerged, he held the writhing creature by the neck in one of his gloved hands. They daylight somehow made it weaker, and that gave Benedictus the courage to step closer and examine it. It looked exactly like the bestiaries of old had taught him – the body of a snake, four long legs and a head that looks very much like a rooster.

But sadly, this is where the account of the basilisk hunt ends. Whoever had been recording the events had most likely been in the crowd, and when Johann had begun to emerge from the cellar, they had followed the crowd into hiding, which leaves the ending a bit of a mystery. Who killed the creature, when all was said and done, and how did they do it, knowing the risks the old legends spoke of? What we do know is this: the Warsaw basilisk hunt of 1587 was the last time the creature was reported anywhere in Europe. Maybe it had been the last of its kind, and its death marked its extinction, or perhaps the few that survived had a knack for staying out of sight – like the platypus of Australia. Either way, all that was left from that moment on were legends and stories. Like so many creatures that have once walked the earth, the basilisk – if it was ever real to begin with – has slipped into the shadows of the past, and it’s never been seen again.

There really is something delightful about the bestiaries of old. Their colourful pages and evocative descriptions were beyond sensational. In a world without television, radio or easily accessible works of fiction, those catalogues of natural history were the closest most people could get to travelling the world. Of course, the things most authors chose to include in their bestiaries would probably never make the cut in our modern times. After all, headless tribesmen with eyes on their chests, unicorns and sea nymphs all feel more like characters in a fantasy novel than entries in a study on the world’s flora and fauna. And yet some of those expectations have been broken over the years. For centuries, sailors told stories about the kraken, enormous sea creatures that could reach out and drag an entire ship underwater with its long tentacles. King Sverre of Norway recorded its description way back in 1180, and for hundreds of years people claimed to spot them in the waters of the ocean. Then, in 1853, the carcass of a giant squid washed up on a Danish beach, giving the legend new life. Over the century and a half since then, scientists have determined that there is indeed a giant sea creature that fits the ancient descriptions – give or take a few sinking ships, of course – and while they’ve been challenging to catch on film, we now know they exist. And those mermaids of old might have roots in actual animals as well. Many scientists and scholars now believe that old reports of mermaids could very well be mistaken sightings of an aquatic mammal known as the manatee. As is so often the case, our misunderstandings had given birth to frightening legends, only to have science bring a bit of clarity to the tale. Sometimes the monsters of the ancient world turn out to be real, and sometimes legends inspire new discoveries.

In the part of the world that stretches from Mexico to South America, scientists have been familiar for over a century with a lizard from the iguana family. It’s not the largest reptile around, but it can grow to around 2ft in length, and it can run at amazing speeds. Some scientists refer to it as the Jesus Christ Lizard because of its strange ability to run across the surface of water. But its most common name is based on other features, like its tendency to run on two legs and its serpent-like body – a body that’s topped with a head and plumes reminiscent of a crown or a rooster, which is why its name is both logical and a bit of a throwback. They call it the basilisk.

There’s something enticing about the mysteries that fill the gaps in our knowledge of the world around us. Looking back at the bestiaries of the middle ages, its clear humans have had a lot of fun filling those holes, and the creativity of the past has continued to inspire stories today. But there’s one more creature I want to tell you about. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to learn all about it.

[Sponsor break from Bombas, Casper and Fracture]

They had fallen in love, and it was something that would change their destiny forever. At least, that’s how the legend tells it. Long ago, a young man lived on a small island surrounded by deep blue seas, and in the process of hunting one day, he encountered a beautiful young woman. But the hunter quickly learned that there was more to her than he could see with his eyes. The woman, it turns out, was a fairy. In fact, she was well known to the locals there, who referred to her as the Dragon Princess. Despite their differences – him, a normal human being, and her, a magical fairy – the two of them fell in love and were soon married, and that helps this tale become on of those happily ever after stories that we all love so much. The couple went on to have twins, a boy and a girl, and just like their parents, they were an odd pair. The boy was just like his father, a human with no magical powers of his own, while the girl took after her mother, and because of that, both parents decided that the children should be raised in separate places to help them fully become who they were meant to be.

According to the legend, it was many years later when the son was out hunting, just as his father had taught him. He was creeping through the forest, his spear balanced in one hand, when he spotted a deer. He quickly threw the weapon, which found its target, and a heartbeat later the young man was carefully making his way over to collect his prize, and that’s when the dragon stepped out of the trees. It was enormous and frightening, and it clearly wanted to take the deer that he had just killed. The young hunter spoke to it, begging it to leave his future meal alone, but the creature ignored him and proceeded to move toward the deer, so he lifted another spear and got ready to take aim at the dragon. Suddenly, a figure stepped out of the shadows of the forest and stopped him. It was his mother, the fairy princess, who he had not seen since his childhood, and as she approached him, she spoke a word of warning. “Do not throw that spear”, she told him, “for that is no ordinary dragon. That is your sister.” Instead, she taught him to live in harmony with his sister, and according to the legend, that fateful meeting set the destiny of their entire community on a new path. Even today, if you were to visit the place where they lived, the people there would tell you that they are descended from dragons, illustrating how that harmony has continued.

And of course, this story is just one of many tales about dragons that fill the pages of folklore. In fact, most of us would be hard pressed to find a creature mentioned more often than those magical beasts, from the 11th century legend of King George and the Dragon to the fantasy novels and television shows of our modern world. They really do seem to be the king of monsters. Dragons are also one of those nearly universal creatures. It seems just about every culture around the world has had some version of them in their folklore. The ancient Egyptian god of chaos was Apophis, represented as a giant serpent. The Babylonians had their own god of chaos called Tiemat, and in Arcadian mythology there were not one but three dragons on display. Norse mythology features a giant serpent who gnaws at the roots of the world tree. In Ukrainian folklore, there is a dragon with three heads, while images of dragons can be found all over medieval heraldry. And of course, few cultures on earth hold as tightly to their dragon mythology as the Chinese, who have been decorating objects with images of the creature at least as far back as the Neolithic period, and we could speculate why, I’m sure. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how the accidental discovery of dinosaur bones might spark fear and wonder in the minds of humans thousands of years ago. The places where stories of dragons are most common are also places where such fossils have been uncovered, so it does make sense.

So, when Europeans arrived on an island in the Flores Sea, just south of Indonesia, they probably didn’t think twice about the local stories about dragons. In fact, those tales were probably a bit old hat, as they say. Dragons lived in caves, breathed fire, were vicious killers and could fly when necessary – nothing about all of that was new. What was new, though, were the things they saw there. On an island surrounded by deep, blue sea, an island full of people who believed they were descended from dragons, mind you, they discovered a creature that brought all of their legends to life. It lived in the caves along the shore, it was an enormous killer, and it sometimes even followed its prey up into the trees. It ticked all the boxes. These were 300lb serpent-like monsters that could bring down a half-tonne water buffalo. When they licked the air with their bright red tongue, it looked as if they were spitting fire, and they even dug into the graves of the dead looking for treasure. Of course, that treasure was always food, not gold. And they’re still there, crawling across the sandy beaches of the island, living in harmony, more or less, with the people who still call the place their home. They might not have wings or piles of golden treasure to curl up on, but they are the largest lizard on earth, measuring in at over 10ft in length, and they’re deadly. Sometimes the tales of the past stay shrouded in mystery, and other times we manage to crack the riddle and shed new light on the shadows that once frightened us. This living, flesh and blood dragon seems to offer a fresh answer to an ancient question, however incomplete it might be, but at least we now know that there really is one place in the world where that old cartographer warning is actually true: Here, on Komodo Island at least, there be dragons.

[Closing Statements]

#lore podcast #podcast transcripts #aaron mahnke #basilisks #dragons #bestiaries #cryptozoology #europe #poland #130 #transcripts

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thecomicsnexus · 6 years ago

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The Case of the Chemical Syndicate

DETECTIVE COMICS #627 MARCH 1991 BY BILL FINGER, BOB KANE, MIKE FRIEDRICH, MARV WOLFMAN, ALAN GRANT, BOB BROWN, JIM APARO, NORM BREYFOGLE, JOE GIELLA, MIKE DECARLO, STEVE MITCHELL AND ADRIENNE ROY

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC FANDOM)

This story is reprinted from Detective Comics #27.

Commissioner Gordon relaxes at home entertaining his young socialite friend Bruce Wayne. Wayne asks if anything exciting has happened lately, and Gordon explains that a fellow called the "Bat-Man" is puzzling him. Gordon receives a call that chemical manufacturer Lambert has been found murdered. They have Lambert's son in custody, whose fingerprints were found on the knife. Gordon invites Bruce Wayne to the Lambert mansion with him, and Bruce Wayne says he has nothing better to do.

When they arrive at the crime scene, young Lambert insists he is innocent. The lad explains that he arrived home early and saw his father lying on the floor. When he entered the library, he saw a figure escaping out the window. He pulled a knife out of his father's back, and his father's last word was "contract." Lambert's son recalls that his father had three associates, Alfred Stryker, Paul Rogers, and Steve Crane. Steve Crane calls Gordon on the phone. Lambert told Crane that he had received a death threat the previous day. Crane has received a similar death threat, and asks for police protection. Bruce Wayne decides to go home, and Gordon rushes over to the Crane residence.

Steven Crane is killed by a gunman who enters through the window. The thug and his partner steal a paper from Crane and climb onto the roof. They are confronted by a figure they recognize as the Bat-Man, standing in the moonlight. The Bat-Man punches the first thug out, then grabs the second one in a headlock and throws him off the second-story roof. He grabs the paper and escapes as Gordon is pulling up. The GCPD try to arrest the Bat-Man, but they are unable to catch him. Gordon learns that Crane has been murdered, and moves on to the next business partner. The Bat-Man smiles when he reads the paper he stole, and drives off in his automobile.

Paul Rogers visits the laboratory of Alfred Stryker, having learned of Lambert's death by news broadcast. Stryker's assistant Jennings clubs Rogers over the head and ties him up. Jennings explains that he will lower a gas chamber over Rogers and kill him the same way he puts animals to sleep. Jennings leaves to activate the gas. The Bat-Man leaps into the room through an open transom. The Bat-Man grabs a wrench and dives inside the gas chamber before it closes.

He plugs the gas jet with a handkerchief, and busts through the glass with his wrench. Jennings returns and tries to pull a gun on the Bat-Man, but the Bat-Man punches him in the face really hard. Alfred Stryker enters and demands to know what happened. When Rogers explains that Jennings tried to kill him, Stryker pulls out a knife to finish the job. The Bat-Man is hiding in the shadows, and he grabs Stryker from behind to stop him. The Bat-Man explains to Rogers that they were all partners in the Apex Chemical Corporation. Stryker had made secret contracts with all of them to pay them a sum of money each year until he owned the business. He grew tired of waiting and decided to kill them so he wouldn't have to pay. Stryker breaks out of the Bat-Man's grip and pulls a gun on him. The Bat-Man punches Stryker so hard in the face that Stryker breaks through a railing and falls into a tank of acid. The Bat-Man remarks that this is a fitting end for his kind, and leaves via transom. Rogers tries to thank the Bat-Man, but he is already gone.

Later at his house, Commissioner Gordon relates this story to Bruce Wayne. Bruce remarks that this is a lovely fairy tale, and leaves. Gordon thinks to himself that Bruce Wayne is a nice young chap, but he seems to lead a very boring life. Bruce returns home to Wayne Manor, where it's revealed that he is in fact the Bat-Man.

This story is reprinted from Detective Comics #387.

Batman and Robin swing across Gotham City. They arrive at a crime scene where the wealthy atomic chemist Lambert has been murdered with a poker in his own living room. Commissioner Gordon is accusing Lambert's hippy son Mel, whose fingerprints were found on the murder instrument. Mel is furious and rants about authority figures abusing their power. Batman determines that the fingerprints could have gotten there at any time, and they cannot prove that Mel is guilty. Batman and Robin leave to investigate while Gordon has his back turned. Mel announces that the scene is one big bummer and he is going to split.

Batman and Robin return to the Batcave, where they're welcomed by Alfred Pennyworth. Robin hates Mel, believing that punks like him should all be locked up without a key. Batman reminds him that their job is to protect everyone's rights, not just those of the people they like. The Batcomputer determines that Lambert was part of a chemical syndicate with three other men, Alfred Stryker, Paul Rogers, and Steven Crane.

They drive to visit Steven Crane in the Batmobile. Crane explains that Mel and his father had a heated argument several days ago in the lab. The elder Lambert insisted that his chemical research would benefit all mankind. Mel Lambert insisted that the research would really be used for military purposes, and lead only to advances in war. Robin believes this proves Mel guilty, but Batman tells him not to jump to conclusions. They leave the apartment and hear gunshots behind them, as Crane is murdered. They rush back in and the killer shoots at them as well. His silhouette resembles Mel Lambert, and he escapes but drops a piece of paper when Robin hits him with a batarang. The paper is an account of Crane's part in the research. Batman believes this casts doubt on Mel as a suspect, but Robin believes it confirms his suspicions. They rush to find Paul Rogers next.

Paul Rogers has heard about Lambert's murder, and gone to visit the laboratory of Alfred Stryker. Stryker lets Rogers inside, and Rogers is clubbed on the back of the head with a gun. The culprit is a masked man resembling Mel Lambert. Batman and Robin burst in, and they take down the masked man. It is not Mel Lambert, only a man dressed like him. Stryker picks up the gun and reveals that he hired this killer to do his dirty work. Stryker forgets to keep track of Batman in the shadows, and Batman karate chops the gun out of his hand. Batman explains that he knew one of them was the culprit because only someone involved in the chemical syndicate would want Crane's research data. Stryker was attempting to eliminate his partners so he could claim their research as his own for financial gain. Mel Lambert was simply a convenient scapegoat to frame for the murders.

That night, Mel Lambert and Robin are both troubled. Mel Lambert criticized Batman for being part of the system, but Batman was the only reason he wasn't thrown in jail. Robin realizes that he tried to jail an innocent man simply because he didn't like him personally. They both know they have some thinking to do.

Batman watches over the city at night. An older man gets into a cab with an Iranian driver, who complains about racism in America. The cab is attacked by a costumed woman who sprays it with acid, destroying the vehicle and killing its passenger. The woman announces that her victim coordinated transportation, so it is only fitting he died in transport. The Iranian later recounts these details to homicide detective Dana Hanrahan. Batman arrives and Dana tells him that the victim was Theodore Lambert, Vice President of CLRS Chemicals.

Bruce Wayne knows Theodore's son Ted Lambert, and has Alfred set up a late-night tennis game with him. Ted complains to Bruce about his father, who made his fortune by abusing the environment. Ted announces that he is waiting for his father to die, so he can undo this damage using his father's fortune. Hanrahan arrives and accuses Ted Lambert of murdering his father. Ted admits to a history of arguing with his father about chemical dumping, but insists that he loved his father.

There is a press conference held for CLRS Chemicals by public relations executive Steven Crane. Crane tries to put a positive spin on their dumping, insisting that these chemicals can be used to save the planet. They are developing cleaning materials and pesticides to kill viruses and bacteria. The costumed woman arrives and reveals that she calls herself Pesticyde. Pesticyde murders Steven Crane and his wife in front of a giant crowd, melting them both into a pile of goo. The crowd scream and run in terror, so she begins killing them indiscriminately. Batman arrives to investigate the convention center, and Pesticyde tries to kill him. Pesticyde escapes by burning a hole into the sewers. Hanrahan is horrified when she arrives, and throws up several times at the sight of the melting bodies.

Hanrahan investigates Fred Stryker, the chemist at CLRS Chemicals. Stryker was disfigured in a horrible chemical accident, and is now confined to a wheelchair. His nursemaid Mrs. Watkins tells the police that he cannot move or speak, so Hanrahan leaves. It's revealed that Fred Stryker has a daughter named Priscilla Stryker, who took the identity Pesticyde to avenge him. The other three executives at CLRS refused to listen when Fred told him their chemicals were too dangerous and harmful. They were only concerned with making a profit. When a machine broke, the chemicals fell onto Fred Stryker. This was apparently a mechanical error, but Priscilla believes it was a plot by the others to kill him.

The only remaining executive is Paul Rogers, in charge of business at CLRS. He denies police protection, but Pesticyde easily breaks through his security system. Pesticyde reveals her identity to Rogers, who is her godfather. She kidnaps him to a chemical processing plant, where she dangles him over the vat of chemicals that destroyed her father. Batman arrives just in time and knocks the remote out of her hands with a batarang. He is barely able to swing Rogers to safety before she returns fire. Batman and Pesticyde battle on the catwalk. Pesticyde insists that she is not a killer, she only wants justice, and asks if Batman wouldn't do the same. Pesticyde accidentally destroys the ground underneath her, and falls to her death in the tank of chemicals she prepared. Batman stands on the catwalk and says that he would not do the same thing.

Late at night, a bum walks down the highway into Gotham City. He finishes drinking his bottle of table wine and throws it at a sign. There is a disturbance at G.C. Chem Co. when a thief steals something in one of the trucks. Batman and Commissioner Gordon arrive to investigate. The guard on duty explains that he chased the thief to an office, where they stumbled on the corpse of company owner Professor Lambert. The thief takes his mask off and reveals that he is Mel Lambert, Professor Lambert's son. Batman determines that Mel could not have been the killer, based on fibers on the knife. Batman realizes that Mel is still hiding something, and grabs a bag of cocaine out of Mel's pocket. Mel pulls a gun and threatens to shoot Commissioner Gordon. Batman throws the cocaine in Mel's face and punches him out. Mel is taken into custody.

Batman leaves to check up on Professor Lambert's partners. The homeless man from the beginning tries to tell a cop that his friends are dead, but the cop won't listen to a drunk. Lambert's partner Steven Crane is at home reading when his butler receives a call from Gordon. His butler opens the door and is pistol-whipped by two robbers. The robbers force Crane to open his safe, then shoot him in the head. Batman bursts in and violently beats the two killers. They confess that a man named Paul Rogers hired them to make it look like a robbery. Batman and Gordon rush to the Rogers Chemicals building.

The homeless man is attacked by several muggers, but Batman sees this and defends him. Paul Rogers is innocent, and the real culprit is his partner Alfred Stryker. Stryker forces Rogers to write a suicide note at gunpoint, claiming responsibility for ordering the deaths of his friends. Gordon arrives at Rogers Chemicals to find Paul Rogers swinging dead on a noose. Batman arrives and does not believe the suicide note. He knows Alfred Stryker is still in the building, and calls out to him. Stryker fires his gun at Batman and Gordon. Batman throws a batarang to make Stryker drop the gun. Stryker tries to leap over a metal railing, but the railing collapses and he falls to his death in a tank of acid. Batman fishes out Stryker's skeleton, and remarks that this is "a fitting end for his kind."

Batman explains that Alfred Stryker owned a waste disposal company partnered with Lambert, Crane, and Rogers. To increase profits, Stryker illegally buried the toxic waste and his partners kept quiet. The city bought Stryker's dumping grounds for a housing project, and this lead to an incident where several homeless men died. Stryker killed off his partners so they couldn't report him to the police.

REVIEW

So, two reprints (one of them already reviewed) and two new versions (by the then creative teams of Batman and Detective Comics).

The second story is odd, Robin is profiling hippies, while at the same time he is hanging around with heaps of them when he is with the Titans. Being so conservative doesn’t really fit the character. Another problem I have with this version of the story is that the main theme here is atomic power, so while it is related, I doubt a “chemical syndicate” would be involved. This, by the way, would be Earth-1 version of the case.

Wolfman and Aparo’s version is pretty much horror. This was common in the modern age (and in Batman). While this story is perhaps the strongest one in the book, I felt it was a bit anti-climatic. I was also confused by the detective first, as she looked exactly like Sarah Essen (who was around back then). That’s one of the problems with Aparo’s art, everyone has pretty much the same face and expressions (sometimes there are certain combinations where he does look a bit different).

The Grant and Breyfogle story is plagued with references to several Batman artists. Since I am biased for Breyfogle, this is the one I enjoyed the most. But I admit it starts to force itself to become a homage by the end. Which is ok by me, as the whole purpose of this issue is to do an homage.

While the first two stories happened in Earth-2 and Earth-1 respectively, the last two are probably imaginary stories (as both of them happen in modern times). But of those two, the Wolfman version is more in continuity than the one from Grant (as Gordon just had a heart attack).

I give this issue a score of 8

#norm breyfogle #detective comics #batman80 #batman #comics #review #dc comics #1991 #modern age #silver age #golden age

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essford · 6 years ago

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Together in Fear

On March 30th at approximately 4:21 PM, my father and I were officially checked in to room 149 at Motel 6 in Fife, Washington. Fife is a city of almost 10,000 people on the eastern end of Tacoma, existing as the gateway between King and Pierce Counties. It is the home of Emerald Queen Casino, where my father, Chris Ford, recently purchased tickets to see Blue Oyster Cult, the hard rock band that has gone on to create a profitable, if not ultimately predictable, touring career in the casino circuit over the past two decades. I always wondered what it would be like to wind up in that environment, as in, paying money to see a band with two surviving members play a small collection of hits compacted into an hour and a half set in the back of a crowded casino, where the combined odors of urine, sweat, and booze indebted belches are barely detectable inside the multipurpose showroom, just beyond the rows and rows of slot machines, black jack tables, stuffed shoulder to shoulder with salt of the earth workers, local natives, tourists, the sloshed and slobbering, the dismal and desperate, draining savings, collecting earnings. Everybody burning money together in the name of luck.

This show would mark Chris’s sixth time seeing Blue Oyster Cult, and for him, this was business as usual. BOC was coming to EQC, and it was my mission to join him on this quest. There was no one else I could imagine myself sitting next to as “Don’t Fear The Reaper” was performed with precision to an adoring audience before someone, like surviving members Buck Dharma (age 71, with vocal cords intact) and Eric Bloom, who perhaps feared reapers of their own, so to speak. I couldn’t help but think of young Chris, sitting around at age 16, puffing a joint listening to Agents of Fortune for the first time at my Nana’s house in West Seattle. We had to hit the casino. This was a good time to lose some money very quickly.

Room 149 was furnished with two twin beds that faced a modestly sized LG TV screen, set against the center of the wall. Underneath the screen was a bare desk. Before Chris placed down his bags, as well as his cooler, filled with 1 bottle Crown Royal (with bag intact) and somewhere around 9 (?) Budweiser 12 oz. cans, he picked up the television remote which was placed on a small nightstand between our beds. Less than one minute had passed before he turned on the TV, turning up the volume. I chose the bed closer to the bathroom. Out of some instinct, I pulled back the bedsheets, and noticed three thin, stranded hairs. I am fairly certain that one of them was pubic. For no discernible reason, I then turned on the bathroom light and wondered how many people, upon entering a new motel room, inspect the bathroom out of a similar instinct. It was then I realized I forgot to bring a toothbrush.

“Oh, I love this show,” My father said, sitting on his bed, Budweiser newly cracked and a healthy slug sat in his cup like a monument. He was wearing olive cargo shorts, nondescript sneakers with Nike socks, a Washington State Cougars shirt, and a hat with a camouflage bill (not intact), emblazoned with a Cougar logo. As his eyes began to glaze, I turned my attention to what he was watching. It was a show called Live P.D. The premise of the show was similar to that of Cops, in which camera crews across America follow police officers in the line of duty, dealing with the day in, day out mayhem that one has expected to come across as a citizen of the United States. It was a livestreamed television show, hosted by a cast of three commentators, all with backgrounds in law enforcement. One of the hosts looked a lot like Paul Ryan. After each corresponding clip of real time crime, the camera would cut back to the three men, nonchalantly giving analysis on what had unfolded. Car thieves in Ohio, domestic disputes in Florida, drunk and disorderly folks flinging themselves through the streets of Baton Rouge are caught, not only by the claws and sharpened talons of the law, but on camera, and after having their rights read by stern and foul mouthed officers, they are detained, and just as if they never existed before that moment in time, the scene CUTS to a slow fade, panning to the next adrenaline fueled saga of American Crime..

In 15 minutes, we made 200 dollars disappear. Each slot machine screamed and beeped, strobing bulbs of hot light reaching out from all angles to flood my visual and aural senses. Beckoning me closer, I indulged. The miniature luxury of smoking a cigarette indoors. A soft drink simply known as “Alert” was an available option at the complimentary soda fountain. Swiveling necks in every direction could observe the multiple chins of the aging average American male. Camo garb draped flabby bodies, scores of tricep meat and missing teeth. 50 hour work weeks. Weak knees and pension checks. God blessed every vet.

My father called me frantically from a Wheel of Fortune machine. “It’s almost time for the show!” He burped into his phone, one eye on the slot, one on his shot. I happened to notice one of his chins from where I was currently losing my money.

To my right was a Hispanic man, winning big at game called WILD WOLF. “Amigo, can I use your lighter?” He asked, staring straight ahead.

His body was almost motionless, eyes unblinking behind wire framed glasses in a frosted stasis. A light Marlboro cigarette barely stuck to the dry surface of his bottom lip. He had just won a “Mega Bonus”, and for a moment his hypnotic trance was broken, but quickly returned by the next spin. I could tell he was very pleased with his current earnings, even through his glazed veneer. Fishing for my lighter in between my own failed attempts at WILD WOLF, I couldn’t help but notice this man’s special ritual. The only bodily movements he was seemingly capable of making was when he pressed down on the SPIN button, which activated his next bet, but more hypnotizing was the moments after, as he pointed and drifted across the machine’s screen with his digits, like a painter casting brush to canvas, drifting in small circles with smooth and fluid strokes, until resting with a period like pressure from his index finger on one of the 20 digitized squares that made up the game. I lit his cigarette for him as the scrolling shapes of 7’s and words like SUNOB and EMAG EERF scrolled over his glasses, slot machines themselves, consuming his vision.

I made my way closer to the Cult, and further from the life of the WILD WOLF. I couldn’t help but think about the Reaper and what he meant to the ticketholders I was standing behind and in front of. Who was he, and who really feared him? Did my father ever truly fear the Reaper, after losing his father and friends? Death and loss are made familiar through experience, yet its aura lingers beyond the confines of each individual life, leading to big questions, grander than casino floors, blander than plug in and play rock bands. In this place, everyone is free to live in fear, together. Fear waits beyond the corner, after last call, and after the last drag. After the last hit. Fear is the in between moments. Between pulls from a heartless machine, between paychecks, between distraction and destiny. The fear that we will never accomplish goals held in our hearts. The fear of not following through on every dream left unrealized. We imagine ourselves in our final moments, cursing time wasted, action untaken. Admittedly, I spend too much time pondering on death. I miss my friends who have passed too soon. I miss people I’ve never met. Watching my dad sigh heavily with impatience in the bar line, which was tended by a hardened middle aged woman, sleep deprived and numb from the crying machines steps away, reminded me of what brought us together tonight. This was life.

(REDACTED: Please include any pertinent details readers may find desirable regarding the review portion of the concert)

The next day arriving home, in true 21st century fashion, before setting down my bag or acknowledging my surroundings, I found my laptop and logged onto one of three social media platforms that have succeeded in controlling the minds, moods, and attitudes of our generation. It was around then I learned a former classmate had died the previous night.

Moments such as this, to friends and family alike, anyone with two eyes, aren’t so much moments we experience consistently, but moments absorbed in random blasts, often with explosive impact. A moment of fear in the internet age, bringing individual worlds closer in some small way, every second of the day. A moment of silence, a helping hand, a loving comment, all facing us, but all too far away to try and explain. We are here to remember life itself, which dangles by an ankle, from a cliff called humanity. We can feel it. Somedays, we are engulfed in flames, dragged ashore, blue lips kissing, with two eyes smiling. Shreds of memory flicker, spraying tangerine sparks to the cold concrete of shop class, only shrapnels of memory to bind our souls together. Moments like this, we get used to this.

Together in fear.

We are here

To remember so much, just before the eclipse

Losing oxygen, wasting breath in equal measure

To fear the reaper,

Is to never have had the pleasure,

To face it himself

#206 creativewriting rocknroll blueoystercult newontumblr #shortstory

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mikegranich87 · 4 years ago

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OnlyFans’ policy switch is the latest victory in Big Banking’s war on sex

OnlyFans, the platform that allows creators to sell material directly to customers, will soon implement new restrictions on the publication of adult content. Starting in October, the company will ban the sale of sexually explicit content and depictions of sexual acts. The move does not cover all nudity, but says that specific rules will be outlined in an as-yet unpublished acceptable use policy. In a statement, OnlyFans said that the changes were prompted by “requests” made by its “banking partners and payout providers.” In short, the company’s arm has been twisted by the same big banks that have waged war on online sex work for years.

Big Business

The business can certainly attribute much of its success to enabling sex work and helping sex workers to get paid. Over the last two years, OnlyFans has grown from relative obscurity into a brand that is synonymous with adult content. Earlier this year, it boasted that its creators had earned more than $3 billion, and the platform was name-checked in a Beyoncé remix. It’s believed that the company, which had around 7 million users in 2019, has seen that figure reach closer to 130 million in recent months. And, on June 16th, Bloomberg reported that the site was looking to attract investors in order to raise more funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion.

here's OF full statement. nice of them to throw the transparency report in there. here's that too: https://t.co/xfFrfmX4Wppic.twitter.com/8WqjSGjLUk

— Samantha Cole (@samleecole) August 19, 2021

It is clear, however, that a number of people who both create content for, and use, the site feel that the impending adult content ban is a betrayal. In a statement shared with Engadget, Isaac Hayes III, founder of Fanbase — a social media site that lets users sell their content — summed up the general sentiment rather neatly. Hayes said that the move was “disgraceful,” and that OnlyFans had “made billions off that user base.” He added that dumping sex workers after becoming a household name was “exactly what these platforms do. Discard the users who make it popular once they get what they want.” And in this case, it does seem as if the twin aims of securing more money from investors and retaining access to banking is what prompted the move. It’s a story that we’ve heard several times before.

Deja Vu

The most recent example, and one that we covered extensively at the time, was the cultivation and subsequent dumping of a sex work community on Patreon. Before 2017, the site had passionately and publicly courted sex workers, encouraging them to use its platform. In 2016, it loudly defied PayPal’s longstanding ban on payments to sex workers, allowing users to support content creators through its platform. At the time, Patreon even criticized PayPal’s lack of transparency, saying that its opaque policy “impacts the lives of Adult Content creators.”

This attitude did not, however, last very long. On September 15th, 2017, Patreon raised $60 million from investors, and updated its content policy a month later, seeming to repudiate the sex workers it had previously courted. In subsequent interviews, the updated policy was described as not a big deal, with the company pledging to work with creators to ensure compliance. The general notion was that Patreon would crack down on content that was illegal or otherwise nonconsensual.

A year later, however, and the site would further toughen its rules, saying that any and all adult content — including the famous erotic art project Four Chambers — was no longer permitted. (Four Chambers, the name of a British art-erotica collective led by artist Vex Ashley, was long held as the canary in the Patreon coal mine.) Patreon said that it had stepped up “proactive review of content [...] due to requirements from our payment partners.” In short, the same banks that Patreon had battled so loudly the year before had tied the site in knots, demanding it hunt out any and all content that could be considered adult.

It's worth noting that swerving away from sex work doesn't ensure the future prosperity of a business. In 2019, Patreon CEO Jack Conte told CNBC that its business model was not sustainable, and in April 2021, the Wall Street Journal said the site was still not profitable. Tumblr meanwhile, which under Engadget’s parent company mass-purged adult content from its site in 2018 but left a wide variety of neo Nazi content on its platform, saw its valuation fall from $1.1 billion in 2013 to just $3 million in 2019.

Tangled up in Paperwork

Back in April, MasterCard announced that it would further toughen the reporting requirements around adult content. John Verdeschi, Senior Vice President, wrote that banks using its network would need to “certify that the seller of adult content has effective controls in place to monitor, block and, where necessary, take down all illegal content.” This includes rules requiring platforms to keep a record of the identity of every performer shown, as well as who uploads the content. In addition, all content would need to be reviewed prior to release, and all platforms need to run a beefed-up complaints resolution process to take down illegal or non-consensual material within seven days.

As TechDirt wrote back then, as reasonable as these policies sound, they seem intentionally designed to block all adult content, not just the illegal stuff. As it explains, “the new policy [...] makes it impossible for streaming platforms to comply with the new rules. Since they’re not able to prescreen streamed content, they’re [sic] just going to start blocking anything that seems like it might lead to MasterCard pulling the plug.” Mary Moody tweeted, upon announcement of the policy change, that “OnlyFans, MyFreeCams & more are in danger.” As with Patreon, MasterCard's reporting requirements appear to be such a burden that companies would rather avoid the issue altogether than attempt to comply.

Today MasterCard introduced a policy that will ban much of online sex work, especially live streaming. OnlyFans, MyFreeCams & more are in danger. We need @ACLU@RoKhanna@AOC@ewarren@RonWyden to investigate this financial discrimination immediately.#MasterCensorspic.twitter.com/DUR93QXCXQ

— OF SALE🌈Mary Moody in VICE, NBC, & BBC ✨ (@missmarymoody) April 14, 2021

This isn’t a new story, however, and in 2015 Engadget laid out in detail how banks were systematically withdrawing access for adult content platforms. This isn’t just prohibitions on working with select adult content sites, but a blanket-ban that impacted individuals beyond their life in the sex industry. JPMorgan Chase shut down a number of bank accounts owned by adult performers, and refused banking services to a company that makes condoms. This crackdown had an disproportionate impact on individual accounts held by women and LGBTQ people.

The Right

This crackdown is part of a broader alliance between banks, lawmakers, right-wing pressure groups and religious extremists. As The New Republic explained late last year, these groups have been able to use the cover of sex trafficking to push an anti-porn, anti-sex agenda. The movement’s most successful victory was the passing of FOSTA-SESTA, a US law designed to tackle human trafficking by neutering the safe harbor provisions of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 1996. Despite contravening the first amendment, the move has not shut down many groups of human traffickers, but has closed safety services created for, and used by, sex workers, and even forced Barnes & Noble to purge its ebook store of erotica.

Naturally, OnlyFans became a clear target of those campaigners both because of its success and because it contradicted their narrative. By enabling individuals to sell their material to consumers without intermediaries, it was allowing people to make a living. You can also argue that sites like OnlyFans have enabled people otherwise excluded from the workforce — this report from Arousability explains that a person with chronic pain who can’t work a 9-to-5 job found that sex work offered them financial independence they couldn’t have found otherwise.

Alternatives

We are drawing together a list of resources for sex workers impacted by the OF ban. If you are a sex worker with experience of online work and you have a bit of time today to add any advice, tips or recommendations to it, please DM us or email [email protected]

— SWARM (@SexWorkHive) August 20, 2021

While creators wait for OnlyFans to detail just what content will be allowed, in its brave new world, many may wish to take their business elsewhere. There are a number of platforms that occupy a similar space in the market, including AVN Stars, FanCentro, Unlockd and AdultNode. Just For Fans, for instance, says that it is a sex worker owned-and-operated platform, and that it will welcome any and all creators that OnlyFans has “abandoned.” Similarly, a number of in-progress projects to build more sex-worker owned and operated platforms are currently underway.

Our statement based on today’s news. pic.twitter.com/3PHKmkQ5qQ

— JustForFans (@JustForFansSite) August 19, 2021

It’s likely that this will be seen as another reason to switch to a blockchain and cryptocurrency-based system as a way of escaping the reach of big banking. There are several, including SpankCoin and Nafty, that offer sex workers the ability to sell content through their systems. And as more major platforms are picked off by a combination of payment processors and regulators, this space is going to grow.

But there are inherent risks to switching, including currency fluctuations and the risk that a sex work-specific currency can still be excluded from mainstream exchanges. And then there’s the fact that if a platform gets big enough, it gets noticed — and targeted — by anti-sex advocates. Crypto can shore up the finances, but pressure can always be exerted on providers, hosts and platform owners wherever they may be.

And that often forces creators to leap from platform to platform to keep one jump ahead of the people who want to strip them of their ability to make money. But every time they do so, they risk losing their user bases, and have to expend time and energy to recover the fans that they already had. Either way, until there is better political and corporate leadership who can handle the nuanced situation of online sex work, individuals will often be left with no choice but to keep moving, or sink.

from Mike Granich https://www.engadget.com/onlyfans-big-banks-war-adult-content-174041161.html?src=rss

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riftactuators · 4 years ago

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Know why the Part Turn Valve & Butterfly Actuators are quite necessary

This present-day technology has seen the latest prospect, where it has been utilized by various industries, individuals & business apertures. And, persons like scientists, doctors, and researchers for developing a lot more advantages and creativity that can be of best utilization for the public. Currently established machines, tools, and types of equipment have proven their value by abating a load of the burden from the life of the laborers.

Know More On Butterfly Valve Actuator?

Pneumatic Butterfly Actuators are among the modern skill-based instruments that have made a rebellion from the moment it has come into survival. These motors provide relentless measures of protection, authenticity, and profit to the attempted job. The organizations that retain these machines provide unmatchable engineering norms that make sure these Pneumatic actuators are furthermore perfect than operations like a plug, ball, butterfly valve, and restraint.

Before this present time, most of the job was performed by human labor which was very tedious and costly. But, now with a lot many highly efficient automated machines, the job is done with less time, fewer human forces, and is cost-efficient.

Part-Turn Valves:

Many of the Part Turn Valve Actuators need a quarter-turn of the valve branch for the motion from closed to open and vice-versa. This kind of valve, bearing a basic move of 90 degrees, permits the utilization of an actuator with a noted travel length. The force needed for the motion of the valve over its field of movement is crucial in choosing an actuator. In the case of drifting stem valves, this force will be a definite push or pull. A rotating force or turn is necessary for multi-turn or part-turn valves.

#Butterfly Actuators #Part Turn Valve Actuators

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michaelandy101-blog · 5 years ago

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Advertising Tendencies to Watch in 2021, In keeping with 21 Specialists

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/marketing-trends-to-watch-in-2021-according-to-21-experts/

Advertising Tendencies to Watch in 2021, In keeping with 21 Specialists

Entrepreneurs are community-minded folks. We collaborate throughout a number of departments in our personal corporations, whereas holding monitor of aggressive gamers and making certain we’re deeply linked to the wants and targets of our clients.

So, to higher perceive what to anticipate or pay shut consideration to in 2021, I’ve linked with 20 marketing specialists for his or her perspective.

Whereas there may be vital variety of concepts and visions introduced under, I really like the frequent theme of how we’re working towards a greater future collectively, which is why my prediction is that this: Advertising in 2021 might be extra empathetic than ever.

I proceed to imagine in my mantra that marketing is highly effective and have to be used for good, not evil. That may sound overly simplistic, however I do imagine it is paramount that entrepreneurs perceive their affect and what an exquisite optimistic energy it may be.

We’re people, serving people. Whether or not B2B or B2C, clients are on the lookout for manufacturers they’ll belief to satisfy their wants and make their lives simpler or extra pleasant. If we deal with every particular person with loving kindness and respect, we’ll be making the optimistic affect I do know we are able to whereas constructing a stronger, extra loyal base.

This is what else 2021 has in retailer primarily based on the predictions of this fabulous group of marketing leaders.

Digital Occasions

1. Entrepreneurs will plan asynchronous occasions that plug into the funnel.

Latané Conant, Chief Market Officer at 6sense, predicts: “This year saw an explosion of virtual events as marketers adapted to a changing world. While I suspect a lot of us are feeling some virtual burnout right now, there will still be a place for these kinds of events, even after we resume in-person ones. Imagine a virtual event running 24/7.”

“Your prospects get triggered into the event as they proceed to the right steps in your funnel, and they engage with this event through multiple means, like Netflix meets Slack. There’s video content they watch on-demand, there’s a live stream playing on-site and there’s a community of users and fans who create a unique and engaging place to be. Prospects learn about your solutions and then, after watching videos and chatting with others, they get directed immediately to your product team. Now that sounds like a virtual event worth attending!”

2. Neighborhood marketing will exchange event-based marketing.

Adam Masur, VP of Advertising at Credly, instructed me: “The era of anchoring marketing around a big, industry event is coming to a close. We’ve all seen the annual conference go virtual due to the impact of COVID-19. But I expect hosts to find that their audience’s appetite for the singular virtual gathering will wane, as well.”

“Look for more intimate, and more topical online get-togethers in 2021. Experts with verified digital credentials and a willingness to share will be highly valued virtual community leaders and influencers.”

“Companies should be ready to be active contributors and bring practical value to the conversation.”

three. Companies will discover new methods to encourage online connections.

Kevin Alansky, Chief Advertising Officer at Higher Logic, says: “The digital and digital-first world will proceed in 2021 and presumably past. Many organizations have shifted their annual occasion and tradeshow to a digital one. Many organizations have not succeeded, nevertheless, as a result of they tried to copy the expertise on an outdated mannequin. This has led to a flood within the variety of digital occasions and many individuals dealing with ‘Zoom fatigue.'”

“Organizations are actually questioning tips on how to battle this overcrowded market and stand out towards the remainder. The reply is online communities — how do you interact earlier than, throughout, and after your occasion? We have to discover methods to higher interact our audiences and construct significant connections between our organizations and our clients. We’re seeing the demand for engagement already this yr and this may proceed to be a giant development by means of 2021.”

four. The interactivity that is been promised for many years is now a necessity for 2021.

Jake Milstein, CMO at CI Security, instructed me: “When the pandemic hit, there was a huge spike in registrations and attendance in virtual events that attempted to mimic in-person events. Attendance at those events lasted a month or two and then dropped off quickly. People are looking for more human interactions — something out of the norm. Webinars just don’t do it anymore.”

“People are now interested in discussions and panels in which they can ask questions, they can be part of the action, they can offer their own expertise. That’s not something you could do when watching someone on-stage, but we all know it’s something you can do online. The interactivity that’s been promised for decades is now a necessity for 2021.”

Model Values

5. Buyer-centricity will propel manufacturers ahead.

Natalie Severino, VP, Advertising at Chorus.ai, predicts: “Throughout the many challenges of 2020, revenue teams have been able to weather the storms and thrive by putting the customer at the center of every decision. This is only made possible through total alignment between sales, marketing, and customer teams, as all must rely on using the actual voice, pain points, and goals to create a winning partnership.”

“While conventional methods of relationship building, like in-person meetings, may not be possible today (or simply don’t scale quickly enough), entering 2021 provides us a paradigm shift for bringing relationships and shared business goals to the forefront of every opportunity.”

6. Manufacturers will navigate an more and more polarized social and political local weather.

“One of the biggest trends to watch in 2021 will be how brands navigate an increasingly polarized social and political climate. Presidential politics, the response to navigating the global pandemic, and an increasingly siloed media and social media landscape is forcing brands to make hard decisions about how and where they align with their customers.”

“Every ad dollar spent, every choice of channel and platform, every social post, every inch of shelf space, and every conference or trade show will be evaluated through the lens of what a brand’s marketing decisions say about who they are and what they stand for,” says Tim Linberg, Chief Expertise Officer at Verndale.

Income and Price range

7. A/B Testing will turn out to be a waste of time and funds.

R. J. Talyor, CEO and Founder at Pattern89, says: “The next decade will see the end of A/B testing. Marketers have long relied on validating their intuition with A/B tests to guide creative advertising and marketing decisions — however, the rise of AI makes this not only obsolete, but wasteful.”

“Once machine learning predicts the trends before they happen and provides clear guidance for marketers, why waste money to A/B test something that wouldn’t work as well? Soon, marketers will be able to go all-in on what will work best without having to test the theory.”

eight. Digital marketing spend will proceed to develop.

Bridget Perry, CMO at Contentful, predicts: “We have discovered a digital innovation hole between what clients demand and what manufacturers are at present able to delivering. That is why digital leaders throughout industries inform us they plan to spend, on common, 25% extra on digital in 2021. And 25% is simply the common — some plan to spend considerably extra. CMOs who aren’t scaling up their digital spending will quickly be outpaced by rivals.”

9. Tech spending ranges will return to regular over 2021 — however not all classes will profit.

“Some companies will remain remote, others will move to hybrid offices, and some will — eventually — go back to business as usual. In 2020 we saw user searches jump on TrustRadius for software categories like e-signature, collaboration, video conferencing, endpoint security, antivirus, and of course telemedicine. Those categories will stay strong in 2021 and beyond, reflecting the new workplace. Other categories — event management and facilities management, for example — will radically reinvent themselves,” says Russ Somers, VP Advertising, TrustRadius.

10. Content material marketing will begin with conversations.

“The content marketing playbook we’ve been using is at least two decades old. Marketers are still focusing on keyword-heavy blog posts as the main tactic to captivate their audience. But it’s a strategy made for Google, not for people.”

“Today, your audience wants to have an authentic experience with your brand and the best way to do that is by leading with conversations.”

“As marketers aim to create a more human-centric experience, we will see more content pulled from actual conversations with people in the industry who can provide that genuine interaction today’s consumers are looking for,” Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO of Casted, instructed me.

11. Many corporations will lower their marketing budgets.

Melissa Sargeant, CMO of Litmus, says: “In the coming year, marketers will experience budget cuts and even smaller teams. But, by doing this, companies are setting themselves up for failure. During an economic downturn, companies that pull back and starve marketing efforts, do not perform well. And, when our consumerism-driven environment re-engages, those brands will be further behind than they were when they made those budget-conscious decisions.”

“Ultimately, the pandemic has accelerated trends in business. Look at digital transformation and work from home initiatives, for example. But, if there were cracks within a business’s model beforehand, the pandemic brought those to light so now is the time for them to fix it, not bury it. Businesses have to position themselves the best they can now in order to come out even stronger in the end. And, it requires a mature, advanced multi-channel strategy with experienced marketers.”

Groups and Collaboration

12. In 2021, it is all about folks, folks, folks.

Caroline Tien-Spalding, CMO at Aptology, says: “Marketing’s north star will be evolving in 2021. Marketing has always been about understanding people and acting on that knowledge. A key difference in 2021 is that marketers are able to know more than ever. It’s the rise of the psychologist, and the rise of the digital marketer.”

13. Many corporations will implement a brand new Internet Operations staff.

Christy Marble, CMO at Pantheon Systems, predicts: “Marketers will require technology to enable real-time responsiveness to customer needs that span the customer lifecycle and each customer touchpoint. The events of 2020 taught us that we must demand the agility to transform on a moment’s notice to respond to customer needs. This forced an end to the era of lengthy multi-year brand and website re-builds.”

“In 2021 those will be figments of the past, replaced by cross-functional teams that collaborate through technology-enabled workflows to continuously test, learn, and evolve their digital customer experience. These WebOps teams will have a distinct advantage — especially those supported by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation.”

“The pace of change has accelerated, but one thing will remain constant: Marketers who focus on people — on customer experience — will be the ones who will keep pace with change. Focus your team on improving personalization, advancing your customer journey, and creating a truly authentic web experience that meets your customers where they are.”

Digital Transformation

14. Manufacturers will unlock the important thing to orchestration.

Andrea Lechner-Becker, CMO at LeadMD, instructed me: “Data should be on every marketer’s mind as we enter 2021, but not in the way it usually is. B2B marketers must realize they’re generally strong with orchestrating their own data, but weak with third-party data — which must be a top area of focus. They can’t afford to depend on marketing automation or CRM platforms for this, but will need to strongly consider creating their own system, something along the lines of a CDP. If they do that? They’ve unlocked the key to orchestration and success with data in 2021.”

15. The ‘panic pivot’ will flip into extra purposeful reinvention.

Laliv Hadar, VP Advertising, InVision Communications, says: “In 2020, out of pandemic-induced necessity, marketers have rapidly transformed face-to-face events into virtual ones, and developed innovative ways of connecting with audiences digitally. In 2021, this reactionary ‘panic pivot’ will turn to more purposeful reinvention of the ways we engage our core audiences. That reinvention will manifest in hybrid audience experiences that are wholly connected across the communications ecosystem. This integrated brand approach will be built on the premise that our audiences comprise real human beings, whose brand perceptions are shaped by their experiences, and now, more than ever, crave professional empathy and connection.”

As a result of whereas quarantines, social distancing and distant work will play a vital function in our eventual emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic, additionally they have had a big aspect impact: Disengagement. 2021 will see entrepreneurs tapping into the human want for simply the alternative: engagement.”

16. Manufacturers will capitalize on change.

John Graff, Chief Advertising Officer at Sonim, predicts: “I believe 2021 will be a year that will provide significant opportunities for companies to grow/expand market share. Why? Because many companies will fall into the trap that there will be a post-2020 ‘return to normal.’ Marketing has already been experiencing constant change and evolution the last decade, and just because many people are ready to get past COVID times, does not mean the change will stop. In fact, for best of breed, it very much will accelerate. Everything has been changed, whether it’s work-from-home, education, online retail, and more.”

“The best marketers will look to capitalize further on those changes in 2021, while others unfortunately revert to the old pre-COVID playbooks. It’s a great time for marketers to further embrace change, and be the stewards of helping their companies grow and gain share in 2021!”

17. Entrepreneurs will proceed to include actual, true personalization.

“Marketing automation should not be confused with personalization. Oftentimes, it’s just quicker batching and blasting. When marketers use intent data and data-based insights to fuel their automated communications, they can create remarkable brand experiences sophisticated consumers rely upon. In the year ahead, marketers will better incorporate real, true personalization.” says Nick Runyon, CMO of PFL.

18. Entrepreneurs will depend on deep knowledge insights and machine studying to ship worth to prospects.

Richard Jones, CMO of Cheetah Digital, predicts: “The next generation of personalization is not about cookies or third-party data, it’s not about merchandising, and it’s not about guesswork. The next generation of personalization is about relying on deep data insights, first and zero-party data and using machine learning to derive not only the right content, not only the right offer, not only the right channel but, the right sequence of events that leads to an automated path to conversion.”

“The next generation of personalization is about providing a value exchange for consumers in the ‘moment’ when you have them on your mobile app, on your site, in your store. How can you provide them something that will generate trust and affinity with the brand?”

19. Cross-channel integrations will proceed to develop.

Meg Scales, CMO of SlickText, instructed me: “Incorporating multiple channels within campaigns is much more effective than simply putting all your resources into one channel — even a versatile channel like SMS. It’s why we’ll see channels and varying tactics continue to cross-integrate in the coming year.”

“For example, channels will adopt services like loyalty programs to better connect brands with customers through a variety of strategies within just one platform. Also, a customer interaction in one channel could trigger a personalized, automated sequence in another, creating data- and behavior-driven campaigns many are unable to produce currently due to a lack of time, money and expertise.”

20. We’ll see an acceleration with the digital-first shift.

Auseh Britt, VP, Progress Advertising at Terminus “We saw an acceleration in the shift to digital in 2020, mainly due to the gap left by live events. Substitutes like virtual conferences lacked the ability to really engage audiences, making them glorified webinars, exacerbating the ‘Zoom’ fatigue.”

“I see this trend continuing in 2021 as we look for more creative ways to engage customers and prospects through hyper-personalized outreach, high impact direct mail, intimate and interactive virtual experiences, and relevant educational content.”

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tarysande · 8 years ago

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Fic Update: Any Four Walls: Trap

Well, since it’s my birthday, you guys get treats for coming to my party. <3

Also on AO3

Trap

Garrus’ visor counted the time since the airlock doors had closed behind Shepard. When the team’s comms went dead, he chalked it up to the amount of interference the ship was giving off. Not surprising. Unpleasant, though. A lot could happen in 16 minutes and 46 seconds. And he hated being in the dark.

To keep himself from worrying, he kept his gaze fixed on the sensor readouts, waiting for the inevitable. As he and Shepard had discussed, the whole damned thing screamed trap like Omega’s flashing neon signs pointed to bars and dancing asari. He just wasn’t sure where it would come from.

He was so plugged into the ship that he was already on his way to the QEC before Joker pinged him to let him know Liara was on the line.

“She doesn’t sound happy,” Joker added, unnecessarily.

No one who knew the girls had sounded anything like happy since they were taken, after all. Garrus swallowed his initial retort, thanked Joker for the head’s up, and hit the elevator’s controls again, harder, as if repetition and frustration could make the damn thing move any faster. He ignored the faint echo of ache in his chest and tried not to imagine the way the doctor would scowl at him if she knew.

Liara started talking even before her form shimmered to life, words tumbling over each other so rapidly he had to make her start over again three times. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes—a gesture borrowed, no doubt, from Shepard—and said with forced enunciation, “What is happening over there, Garrus? What is she thinking?”

The words still didn’t make sense. Panic began to gnaw at his gut, tenacious as a varren’s jaws clenched around a fat pyjak. “You know something I don’t, T’Soni? We lost contact the second she boarded that ship.”

Liara turned away from him slightly, fingers flying over a series of haptic interfaces he couldn’t see. She said, “This broadcast has hijacked emergency signals across the galaxy, Garrus, pinging from comm buoy to comm buoy, bypassing protocols. I’ve seen nothing like it since the early days of the Reaper invasion.”

Before he could start demanding answers instead of vague fear-mongering, his omni-tool pinged with Liara’s link.

“That is as close to live as I can manage across this much distance, and the turian Councilor does not want to know how many laws regarding appropriate use of data transmission I just broke sending it.”

Garrus hardly heard her. The angles and quality of the video were those of a decent security system. Black and white, but not grainy. The kind of footage he’d always appreciated when working at C-Sec, because facial recognition was easier when faces weren’t pixellated all to hell. Not cheap. Not amateur.

In this case, he almost wished for some interference.

His eyes tracked the images flashing before his eyes and though he recognized all the players—of course he did—he could make no sense of what they were doing. As he watched, a biotic explosion from Jack sent turian bodies flying into the air, all splayed limbs and awkward angles. Alenko’s powers kept them there. And Shepard—Shepard took them out, one perfect headshot at a time. Faces disappeared in unmistakable showers of greyed-out blood and bone and plate. One after another. No misses. No warning shots. No shots to disable instead of kill.

Though he could not actually hear it, he felt the report of the Widow like he was the one on the wrong end of it.

A shiver ran the length of his spine and this time the ache in his chest had very little to do with his recent brush with death. Sure, they’d had their good-natured competition over headshots, but that was back when the galaxy was swiftly going to hell and the forces shooting at them were very much aiming to kill.

Even then, he’d seen Shepard shoot out knees or shoulders when she could easily have taken the kill. He’d teased her for it, on those rare occasions he’d pulled ahead. She wasn’t big on killing when she didn’t have to. He’d never known her to be motivated by hatred or revenge.

This, though.

This was a massacre. Cold and clean and precise. Almost surgical.

The turian forces—if they could be given such an illustrious designation—wore armor predating the Reaper invasion and none carried weapons more dangerous than outdated pistols and the occasional assault rifle that had seen better days. The shots they managed to fire didn’t come close to penetrating the armor and shields of the squad raining death down on them.

Garrus knew turian expressions. These were not murderous. They were confused.

Terrified.

He knew, he knew Shepard was familiar enough with the anatomy of plates and mandibles and body language to see what he was seeing. Especially since she was looking down a scope. Zoomed in. Nowhere to hide.

Another head exploded. Another turian fell.

Over it all, a desperate turian voice—was it the voice of the woman Shepard had spoken with? He couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure—subharmonics trembling with fear, whispered, “If you can hear this, if you can see this, please. Please, we need help. We are under attack. This is Matta Casarus of the trading vessel, Enixus. Please. We don’t have much time. We—Spirits, we think it’s Commander Shepard. She’s—oh, help us. Please. Please help us. We haven’t done anything wrong. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

Over and over and over.

Of course it was Commander Shepard.

The N7 emblem on her chest was unmistakable, after all.

Even he, who’d thought he’d seen every side of Shepard there was to see, didn’t recognize the cold, implacable expression in the eyes behind the glass of her helmet.

“Liara,” he said, “this isn’t—you know this isn’t Shepard. This isn’t her MO.”

Liara said nothing. The turian kept pleading for help. Garrus shook his head. “Liara.”

“Garrus, this looks—”

“I know how it looks. She wouldn’t—she was provoked. She had to have been provoked.”

Again Liara fell silent. He’d known her long enough to recognize the expression she wore as discomfort. Pain, even. “If this is about the children—”

“Of course it’s about the children!”

Her eyes pleaded with him. “The rest of the galaxy doesn’t know about the children, Garrus. To them, it looks as though…”

He exhaled heavily, crossing his arms over his chest because what he really wanted to do was hit something. Hard. Really hard. And he didn’t think it was smart to take his frustration out on the QEC. “As though the galaxy’s most recognizable hero has gone rogue.”

Liara nodded. “I could—I could attempt to cut the feed, but I fear it would only make the situation worse.”

“Shit,” he snarled. “This is the trap. Not a ship swinging out of deep space, guns blazing. Nothing that would allow her to come out on top, like she always does. This. Discrediting her. Destroying her.”

“Discrediting you both.” Liara worried at her bottom lip with her teeth and shook her head. “There are two Spectres at the heart of the destruction, and you’re the only Councilor aware of their movements. Either you sent them, or they have both gone rogue. The Council will want an explanation.”

“The Council will want a scapegoat, you mean.”

“You know they are still recovering from the damage Saren did to the reputation of the Spectres. If Shepard…”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.

He bit down on his tongue. The pain was a focus. Something tangible. Something he could control.

“Who is she, Liara? Who has this kind of power? Not some two-bit trader, that’s for damned sure.”

“The Enixus is registered to a Matta Casarus, whose record is impeccable. She was with the turian military for eight years, regularly earning commendations of the highest order. She was given an honorable discharge to take over her father’s trading business when he was killed by pirates in 2180. She ran supplies during the Reaper war. According to her financials, she took losses while others were profiteering.”

He sighed. “A paragon of virtue, then. Wonderful. And?”

“And the woman Shepard spoke to is not Matta Casarus. I am certain of it.”

“I hear the ‘but’ loud and clear, Liara.”

“I do not know who she is. Forgive me, Garrus. I will continue my search, but—”

“I know,” he said. “By then it’ll be too late. Shepard’ll have killed the real Matta Casarus and her whole damn crew in front of an audience of trillions and anything we say afterward’ll look like a coverup. Keep looking. I’ll—crap. I have to stop this.”

“Are you certain that’s—”

He ended the communication before Liara could finish.

He connected to the flight deck. “Joker—”

“Already on the way, boss.”

“Listening in?”

Joker snorted. “Didn’t need to. Not like Liara ever calls with good news.”

“And you’re not going to try and stop me?”

“You could break both my legs by looking at ‘em the wrong way. No, thanks. You might have to go through the doctor, though. She’s parked herself in front of the airlock and she’s looking mutinous.”

Garrus wished he could laugh. He really did. Instead, he cut the line and started composing a message to the rest of the Council he feared would be utterly ineffectual.

Had to try, though.

He had to try.

#any four walls #garrus vakarian #shakarian #femshep #shepard vakarian family shenanigans #mass effect #my fic #fanfiction

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justsomebucky · 8 years ago

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Finding Closure (Part 6)

Summary: AU. Reader left behind a hometown full of misery to make a new home in Brooklyn. A death in the family forces her to briefly return to the place that has haunted her dreams and memories for three years. Will she finally be able to move on, or will a figure from the past change everything?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Word Count: 2,366

Warnings: angst, language, introspection, fluff. I’m a chump.

A/N: Happy 4th, America and Happy Birthday Steven G. Rogers! I hope everyone likes this ending. I’m a chump. The gif only sorta fits. He’s so cute. This is the final part for my submission for @sgtbxckybxrnes’s AU Challenge. My prompt was innocent enough: 28 .“____ is not a real word.” “Yes it is!”

Part: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

You looked up from your laptop, blinking innocently at your roommate. “I’m not doing anything, Darce.”

Darcy marched over to you. “What are you working on? It’s Saturday!?”

Before she could grab at the laptop, you pulled out the power cord, watching with a sick satisfaction as the screen turned black.

It was no one else’s business, not in this early stage anyways.

“What are you hiding?” She let out a frustrated groan. “Please don’t tell me you took Jane’s suggestion about online dating seriously?”

Jane Foster was her current employer, and she hired Darcy a few weeks ago to sort of follow her on her scientific expeditions (which were really just excuses to be gorgeous in nature) and create a photo journal about them. Darcy still did freelance work, but she found that shooting subjects in nature ‘soothed her soul’ or some such thing, and you encouraged her to take the stable work.

You tagged along on one of their particularly hilarious photo sessions in Central Park, where Jane went through the botanical gardens and Darcy compared everything to life and death. Jane asked the inevitable question: how did you end up in New York?

Your answer had perturbed her, so she told you online dating was the only way to go, spending at least a half hour talking about the logical benefits of choosing a ‘mate’ with algorithms and then attraction.

“Why do you care, Darcy?” you sighed, rubbing your eyes. “Don’t you have some urban jungle to traipse through today? I saw your calendar on the fridge.”

Darcy leaned over the desk, her face a mask of utter seriousness. “Do not online date, Y/N.”

“I have to move on eventually,” you countered, plugging the laptop back in. “I can’t live here with you forever. I’m sure you want a life of your own, too.”

“Yeah, but not with creeper number seventy-five, whose picture is in front of a car that’s obviously not his.”

“Go away.”

“Fine, but make sure you have your phone on, so when you’re kidnapped the police can find you.” Darcy tossed her hair over her shoulder and flounced out of the room.

“Whatever.” You logged back in, and luckily the browser reopened to the last page you’d been looking at.

No, you weren’t signing up for online freakin’ dating.

The truth was much worse. It was sad, it was pathetic, even.

You didn’t want Darcy to know that you’d been looking for jobs closer to Bucky.

Brooklyn was amazing…it was everything you had hoped for, it offered everything someone would ever need to be happy…

The trouble was, ever since you arrived back home in Brooklyn, you couldn’t stop thinking about him. Four weeks now, an entire month had already gone by, and you knew you should move on. You knew that it wasn’t healthy, that the nostalgia must have really taken you in a strangle-hold this time.

The thought of living the rest of your life without Bucky made you want to curl up in a ball and disappear forever.

So, yeah, you were looking for jobs closer to him, on the off-chance that you’d actually find something and he’d change his mind about your love and want you back, too.

Pathetic.

Just like you assumed, there was nothing near your hometown. There was nothing in the nearby locations, either. But near the end of the list of your search results there was an opening for an analyst at a telecommunications firm located about halfway between Bucky and Brooklyn.

Would he be willing to meet you halfway on this? You googled the town, and it was really beautiful. There were parks and a big library, and lots of cute little townhouses. You wouldn’t mind starting over in a place like that; it was smaller than a city but big enough to feel modern and alive.

There was just one problem.

You sat back in your seat, feeling completely deflated again. It’s not like he gave you any hope when you parted. It’s not like he said ‘hell yeah there’s a chance for us!’

This was just absurd.

Maybe you’d go there by yourself and live. Maybe you could get away from Brooklyn, the city that always reminded you of the hometown you left behind simply because it was the first place you’d gone.

Maybe you didn’t need anyone to start a new life. Maybe you’d meet someone else there, someone happy to have you, someone to cherish you always, someone you wouldn’t have such a hard time communicating with.

You settled on bookmarking the job for now, to be revisited after lunch.

Amidst all your maybes and your somedays, you decided you were a little hungry, and it was never a good idea to change your entire life on an empty stomach. That probably wasn’t the saying, but you didn’t care and neither did your rumbling stomach.

There was a little café down the street that you loved, where they knew you and your favorite order. Comfort food and friendly faces were exactly what you needed.

These final few weeks in Brooklyn were going to be well-spent, until you finalized your plans to leave this great city and could gently break the news to Darcy.

You started looking at everything with a new perspective. The cramped but cozy apartment…the stairwell that echoed with laughter every time you and Darcy trudged up the steps together…the front security door that the landlord had decorated himself with beautiful New York landmarks…

As you pushed open the front door to go outside, you ran right into the broad chest of someone hovering just outside the door.

“Oof!”

“I’m sorry, sorry! I was in the way, it’s my f-“

You looked up when you recognized the voice.

Bucky Barnes was here in Brooklyn, standing at the door of your apartment.

“Bucky?” To say you were confused would be the greatest understatement of the century. “What are you- how did you-?”

He looked like a pragmatist caught in the middle of one of Darcy’s experimental art shows. His blue-grey eyes were wide, and he was wringing his hands together.

“I can’t believe I actually found this place,” he chuckled nervously. “Hell, I can’t believe you can actually find this place! How do you live here?”

Yeah, you kind of figured that Bucky would have been unhappy moving to Brooklyn with you. “I love it here,” you admitted, shrugging your shoulders.

“I know.” Bucky’s eyes dimmed a little. “So I didn’t just come all this way to say hi, I guess you must realize that by the way. Ugh, I’m stammering and- shit, I’m messing this up already. Can we just go get coffee or something?”

“I was just on my way.” You nodded your head in the direction of the café. “Let’s go get a table and talk.”

“This is actually pretty good.”

Bucky had insisted on trying a veggie burger in some misguided attempt to try to accept your little hipster neighborhood, and he only cringed once right when it was placed in front of him. After that, he really tore into it.

“It’s not my favorite, but they are healthy for you,” you replied, picking at your salad. Your nerves were too high right now to even taste the stupid food. “So anyways, back to your magical and mysterious appearance?”

“Yeah.” He set the burger down and wiped his hands on a napkin, still clearly fidgeting in what could only be the same level of discomfort you had right now.

You waited patiently as he chugged half of his coffee, biting your lip to stop from smiling at his antics.

God, how you missed him.

“So I wanted to talk to you today about something.” He leaned forward, pushing his plate aside and clasping his hands together. It looked like he was about to make you an offer you couldn’t refuse or have you sleep with the fishes, that’s how serious his expression was.

“O-Okay?”

Was this it? Was this the moment you’d been waiting for? Had he come to get you, to tell you he wanted you back?

“I need Sam Wilson’s number.”

What the hell? Definitely not what you expected.

You tried to keep the disappointment off your face. “Bucky you know there’s a thing called Google, right?”

“Well I don’t really need his number yet, but I might, because I might need a good lawyer to help me transition. It all really depends on-“

You couldn’t handle the riddles anymore. “Bucky! If you have a point, feel free to arrive to it!”

He stared at you, giving a single nod. “I want to sell the garage, but I only want to sell it if you think there’s a chance for us, a second chance to make it work.”

You were pretty sure you stopped breathing for a second. “You- you what?

He heaved a big sigh. “Look, we were kids with adult problems back then, Y/N, we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. I sure didn’t, anyways. I didn’t know what it was like to be you, though I knew what it was like to hold you while you were crying because of something that happened. I just…I want to see if three years made any difference.”

“That’s a big step for a chance at something, Bucky.” Your heartbeat was picking up the pace, and your palms were sweating. “You built that business up to be profitable. They trust you and your name. You can’t just magically get that back someplace new.”

Bucky leaned back, wiping a hand down his face. “Ever since you were there, I have this vision of you stuck in my head. You’re sitting across from me in my office, and we’re sharing dinner, and we’re laughing and talking…I want that all the time, Y/N. There are jobs for mechanics everywhere. We could be something like that, we could make it work if we just let go of the damn past.”

He sounded hopeful, downright positive about it, but not wholly convinced.

You chewed your lip, unsure of what to say. If it worked, it could be amazing. If it didn’t, it would be another way in which you’ve failed the love of your life. He would resent you, forever. Could you handle that?

“Bucky, this is a big decision.”

“We both need a fresh start, right? I don’t want to go back to that place with the ghost of you reminding me what an idiot I was to put my feelings on paper instead of talking to you about it face-to-face.” He leaned forward again. “That’s why I’m here, talking to you in-person.”

“How did you find me, by the way?” You didn’t remember leaving your card or anything. In fact, you were pretty sure he didn’t even have your phone number.

“I called Darcy’s business number,” Bucky admitted sheepishly. “She told me – well, she wouldn’t give up anything about you or how you were or whatever. But she told me that if I felt like I wanted another shot, I should take it.”

“She didn’t say a word to me about it,” you mused, feeling your heart swell a little for your roommate. “The only thing she told me was not to try online dating.”

“You- you’re trying online dating?” he asked, his expression falling.

“No,” you assured him quickly. “I was messing with her this morning. She asked me what I was looking at on my laptop, because her boss had told me to sign up for it and give it a try, and I guess she got paranoid that I would. I was actually looking at new jobs.”

“Really? Why?”

“This is weird timing, and it’s going to sound totally made up, but I was- I looked for jobs closer- closer to you, this morning.”

His eyes lit up. “You want to move closer to me?”

Okay, so you figured now was as good a time as any to talk to him about your ‘meeting halfway’ idea. The sheer thought of this idea actually coming to fruition made you a little giddy.

“I can’t be here anymore,” you explained. “Bucky, it’s just like you said. There’s a little ghost of you following me around and I’d rather have the real thing. But I don’t want to move back there, either. I think we should find someplace new and make it home, and Darcy and Steve or any of our friends can come visit us there.”

Bucky’s head tilted a little as he processed your words. “I need you to mean it, Doll. If we go for it, I want it to be for good this time. I want it all with you, and I’m not just talking a house. You’d be giving up this city life you always wanted, and I’d be giving up my business, and we would be starting back at square one.”

“But we’d be starting over together, Bucky, and that makes all the difference, don’t you think? Besides, I kind of already bookmarked this one town...you know, just as a potential place we can discuss...”

Bucky Barnes had the most beautiful smile you’d ever seen.

There weren’t any actors or models or socialites in all of New York who could possibly try to cosmetically capture how perfect it was. The sight of it gave you all the reassurance you could possibly need.

“So you’re saying I should call Sam, then,” he asked softly, reaching for your hand across the table and giving it a squeeze. “You’re saying it’s worth another shot?”

You placed your hand on top of his, offering your own bright smile. “We’re worth another shot.”

Bucky got up and came around to your side of the table, and you stood up too, figuring you might as well start meeting him halfway.

You didn’t realize that someone had spilled a little bit of water on the floor, and you ended up sliding right into his arms.

“Careful,” he murmured. “It’s a little slippy just there.”

You laughed, wrapping your arms around his neck and moving even closer.

His kiss was even better than you remembered.

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#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes drabble #bucky barnes imagine #mechanic!bucky #jsd finding closure #i hate this app

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moonfox281 · 8 years ago

Note

Wow your story of the lotus of the night is amazing would you be willing to make a part 2?

Never thought of it before, but I never say no to any of your requests, so yeah. P/s: this is longer than I expected, had fun writing it too but still, super long for a prompt.

I’m in trouble, Officer.

(Word count: 9,151)

Link to AO3 for anyone who can’t read it on Tumblr: Cupcake

It was Sunday morning, long, cold winds and empty avenues. It was October, but Gotham did have her way with the weather, flipping the hands and bringing winter to her town sooner than usual. Today was his day off, a perfect occasion to snuggle deep down in the layers of heavy blankets and sleep till noon, or simply do an old time movie marathon that his shifts had taken his time from watching. But, of course, it was also a perfect time for Bruce to find and call him back to Gotham.

Wayne Manor still looked the same. Ancient, big, exorbitant, and cold. Cold even with all the memories of running down the endless halls, of swinging between chandeliers and sliding down the long handle of stairs. Dick still faintly remembered waking up at night, tugging the blanket onto his shoulder and walking through the number of old painting to get to Bruce’s chamber, to slide down against his door and just sleep like that. Born in a circus, to live in a huge mansion with just two people, it was fated that soon Dick would find his wings and fly away.

And he did.

“Ah, Master Dick. It’s been such a long time.” Alfred greeted him, still looking the same, but undeniably older. 7 years had worn him out, if not caused by Bruce’s stubbornness.

“It has.” Dick replied and watched the old man standing there eyeing him like he wanted to say something more. His wrinkled eyes flickered up and down his face, hunting for every change since their last encounter. Very much had changed indeed, for the 17 year old Dick Grayson must not look anything like him right now.

“You may find Master Bruce at the garden.” Alfred said, eventually, though his eyes were speaking louder than the voice that met Dick.

“Thank you, Alfie.”

It was awkward, and not how Dick imagined it would be. But 7 years was a long time, and to be honest, Dick didn’t plan to ever come back here again. Seeing Alfred brought back memories, good ones with cookies, delicious food, warm hugs and small talks in the kitchen. Alfred had made the Manor home when it felt nothing like it.

Dick wondered why he hadn’t come to visit sooner, but again, he remembered why.

Bruce looked exactly the same as the day Dick left him. Handsome face and cleanly shaven, fancy suit and Italian shoes. He looked like a billionaire from afar. Maybe they should make a movie or TV series about him just like this, sipping Earl Grey at the well set tea table while looking at the blue sky of his enormous garden.

“Dick.” He set his cup down, stood up, and straightened his suit, a small smile made it to his lips that made Dick sick. Bruce never smiled, not since Dick knew him.

“What do you want?” Dick asked and didn’t react when he saw Bruce pull out a chair for him.

Bruce’s smile slipped off his lips, his face hardened like someone had pulled the wrong string of it. Someone that was Dick.

“Can’t I just want to see you?”

“Don’t play around, Bruce. I know you, after all this time, you only call when you want something.” Like the first night after Dick had stormed out of this place, leaving for good and leaving everything behind, Bruce had called, and the phone had rung up all night, and the next morning.

For a big and important man, Bruce lived like a child, hurting and ignoring people and only wanting them back when he lost them.

Bruce stayed silent and just looked straight at him, face cold and emotionless. The same face Dick had learned to love, but also forced himself to hate.

“What do you want, Bruce.” He repeated. “I don’t have all day.”

Lie. He had all day, but he wanted Bruce to think he was a busy man, one that barely had time for his bullshit, not one that despite everything still came running all the way back from Bludhaven after just one short phone call.

Something shifted on the older man’s face, like another layer of cold, hard makeup to shield away his emotions that Dick could hardly ever see. But something had definitely changed in the way he looked at Dick, or the way his fingers lightly tapped a calming rhythm on the glass surface of the table. He took his time, long enough for Dick to start shifting his pose.

“The Red Hood case,” He started, and Dick couldn’t hold back a mocking huff from escaping his throat. Bruce waited for a few seconds before continuing. “He was originally from Gotham, but decided to make a move to Bludhaven. The GCPD don’t have access to any file related to him. Gordon said he has already bought half of the department. It was already hard enough to keep an eye on him when he was in range,”

“And now that he’s in the Blud, things got out of his hands.”

Bruce nodded and handed him a paper envelope. It was surprisingly thin for an A-class criminal case.

“There isn’t much. The Red Hood is good at what he does. He built up a kingdom of his own from the Black Mask scraps. But Bludhaven is new grounds, connections needs to be made, words will be slipped around and that is what I hope we’ll start at.”

“I.” Dick corrected.

“I’m sorry?”

“That is what I’ll start at. This case belongs to the BPD now, and most of the guys there have already started working for the Red Hood. That’s why you contacted me, because you know I’m clean, I’m trustworthy, and I’m on my own.”

“You’re not on your own−”

“Right, Gordon may be able to pick something up for me. But I doubt he’s gonna be much help, this helmet guy has been running around Gotham for almost 2 years and no one can do anything about it.”

“We’re doing our best.”

“We? I see you still go around with him.” Gordon was a good man, a really good man, one that made Dick doubt why he could be around Bruce for this long.

“I owe that man everything. And Gotham is my city too.”

“A city where you pay too much attention to the profit and not enough to the low life streets. If you had, you would have recognized that crime levels have gone down a significant amount since Red Hood took control of the underworld.”

Bruce’s face didn’t move an inch but his shoulders tightened like an invisible weight had been set on them.

“Are you taking his side?”

Dick huffed.

“I’m a police officer, Bruce. And apparently, one of the only clean ones left. I’m not taking anyone’s side aside from justice. I’m just stating facts.”

“He’s a dangerous man.”

“And wouldn’t I know that.”

A dangerous man that 2 weeks ago had kissed Dick out of the blue and drugged him right off. A dangerous man that looked so young, like he might be around Dick’s age. Yet, he carried guns and weapons around like they were just some plastic toys, lead a whole gang of criminals dealing drugs and selling illegal weapons like it was just some poker game.

This world just kept getting weirder and weirder every day.

He turned and was about to leave when Bruce called, voice yearning and maybe desperate too if Dick could let himself be a little paranoid.

“You can stay for lunch.”

And Dick knew this was his attempt at a peace offering, a detente for the cold war that had been set between them for 7 long years. Dick knew today’s meeting was just an excuse so he could agree to see Bruce’s face. Bruce was doing Gordon a favor and all of this would have been simpler if he had given the commissioner his number. But no, Bruce had chosen a face-to-face meeting.

It was soothing, knowing he tried. Still, 7 years was just enough for wounds to heal, not for scars to fade.

“I can. But I won’t.”

And he left, just like that, despite wanting to stay so badly. Because if for once Bruce could feel the torment of this, then the pain would be worth it.

When he came home, the first thing he did after kicking off his shoes was dig through the kitchen cupboard for something dry to eat. The drive wore him out, but seeing Bruce drenched him the most. He shouldn’t have gone there, but again, the envelope that was resting on his countertop now could be worth a year of investigating.

He pulled out the chair and started pouring milk into the bowl for the box of Cocoa Pebbles because it was the fastest thing he could grab that wasn’t spices. He pulled the string and opened the envelope, dumping all the papers down on the island’s wooden surface. Pictures, files and a flash drive fell out, about a third of them were blacked out. Name unknown, age unknown, nationality unknown, no profile picture, height somewhere above average, alias Red Hood, wanted for loan sharking, gambling, drug trafficking, producing illegal weapons, committing arson, bribing legal forces, terrorism, assault with a deadly weapon, etcetera, etcetera. The list just went on and on and by the end of it, he was 110% sure that Red Hood had made it onto the FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, and Interpol blacklist. It was shown that Red Hood was actually the cause of Gotham’s Kingpin Black Mask’s criminal confession, and the death of 12 other crime bosses. The file also included that a duffle bag full of heads of these crime lords had been sent to the GCPD’s doorstep 2 days before Black Mask’s headquarters had been blown up. The killing of the infamous psychopath Joker seemed more or less a part of Red Hood’s plan too when the ambulance that was carrying him had been bombed in the same month.

The pictures that were included in the envelope were of left-over scenes and few of the Red Hood’s gang tattoo. Dick went into his bedroom with the spoon still in his mouth to take his laptop out and back to the kitchen island, plugging the flash drive in. It didn’t take long for the items to transfer, when he opened the disk, various clips appeared. He skimmed through all of it, most were from police body cameras, the rest where scraps from the news and surveillance tapes that were retrieved as evidence.

Bruce was right, there wasn’t much, and all of this didn’t give any help to him at all. Dick himself might even get a better chance with the blood sample and prints he got from his last encounter with the Red Hood. He had run tests at the state’s lab, nothing came up, he had even given Diana some samples to give it a run in the AFIS database. Still, nothing came up, it was like the man didn’t exist at all.

A thudding sound got Dick to stop his chewing and look behind his back. His eyes skimmed through the place and nothing seemed to be out of place or unusual, but something had his guts twisted, or maybe he was just too tired from driving around today. Maybe it was his neighbor’s cat again, the fluff ball kept inviting himself into his apartment when he felt like it, wandering around his feet till he surrendered and picked it up even in his busiest moments. Looking back at the clock, it was 6:30 already, the sun had gone down and the lights had turned up when he was still busy digging his nose through the files. Time flew when you needed it the most.

Dick got up to stretch his back and suddenly yearned for a shower. He went to turn on the heater, grabbed a hoodie and sweats then went right into the shower room. He thought about Bruce when the water hit him, thought about the way he had looked at him when Dick declined his lunch invitation, thought about the alternative scene where he had said yes and stayed. He remembered Alfred too, the look on his old face when he bid his goodbye and the way he kept staring at him when Dick walked to his Prius on the front yard. He hated that he had broken the butler’s heart, hated that by punishing Bruce, he had also pulled the old man into this torturous game of theirs.

His head ached for relief, for a short break that it hadn’t gotten for what felt like forever. This case was draining him, but again, every case that fell into his hands caused the same affect. Dick couldn’t bring himself to remember the last time Amy walked to his desk and didn’t complain about his health issues. His chest ached every time he blacked out at the desk and woke up with a cooling coffee cup next to his head. Maybe some of the guys in the department felt pity for him, for trying to change the way this world turned, for playing the hero when it was way out of his league.

Maybe he was indeed stupid, for running after a criminal case that even the Feds couldn’t handle.

He toweled his hair and walked back to the living room, head somehow both lighter and more crowded, like it was filled with kapok tucked tight in a fat pillow. Dick didn’t see him then, only after he called out.

“For a cop, your security is crap.” Red Hood was sitting right there at his kitchen counter, hand holding the Cocoa Pebbles box, setting it down as if he had taken a look at it just a few seconds ago.

“Don’t tell me that’s your dinner.”

Dick was still staring at him, heart stopping and mouth gaping. He must have looked like a dead fish, but in his defense, this dead fish was taken by surprise.

“I− it’s my lunch, actually.” He mumbled, still too blown out to actually phrase the sentence properly.

Red Hood huffed and when he stood up, Dick instantly took a step back, hand reaching for the back of his hip out of instinct, just to realize that no, normal people don’t carry gun when they’re fresh out of the shower, even cops. The next steps the guy took, Dick founded himself stumbling back against the wall, too defenseless to actually do something besides thinking of the quickest way to run. The moment there were only a few inches between them, Dick actually thought he was gonna die.

Red Hood still looked as big as he always did, hard muscle coiled up like a bull underneath the heavy armor, pouches stuck out like they might carry grenades in them… wait, maybe they did. Those cold digital eyes of his helmet felt like they could shoot Dick’s soul dead. He towered over him, like a giant bull shark smiling in front of a baby seal, making Dick’s breathing hitch to the point of nothingness.

When his gloved hand went up, Dick squeezed his eyes shut and started counting down the seconds he had left before he said goodbye to the 24 years he had lived in this life. He thought of the way he was going to be killed, either by that military knife the Red Hood tucked in one of his chest pouches, or one of the AKs he carried behind his back, or would he cut off his head like he had done with the crime bosses in Gotham?

No matter the weapon, Dick was 100% sure he was gonna die right here, right now when something solid touched his cheek. It was warmer than he thought for a gun barrel, a bit leathery if his mind still worked properly.

A moment passed and the touch spread to his temple, rubbing soothing circles with what Dick would bet with the dangling life of his was a thumb. A click sound came up, closer than he expected and rang right up to his ears. Dick slowly opened his eyes, and there it was the handsome face he would die before he forgot, up so close they might be inhaling each other’s breaths right now.

“You look good like this, Officer.” He said, voice rumbling so low and close it raised the hair at the back of Dick’s neck.

When he pulled away and walked back to the kitchen island, Dick felt the sudden cold reach his whole body. He hadn’t realized the warmth of Red Hood’s body till he lost it, hadn’t really believed it had actually been Red Hood’s hand touching him gently till he saw it pull away.

“I see you’re doing your homework.” He flipped through the files Dick had laid out and played a few seconds of the video on his laptop. “I’m flattered.”

Red Hood gave a devil-may-care smirk. Dick’s mouth was still lightly gaping and lungs tight with the breaths he took. He couldn’t remember how long he had held his breath before Red Hood had pulled away, but his chest hurt with the deep inhales he took. Aside from that, he was quite shocked that Red Hoof would do all the talking.

No. Talk about shocked, between the infamous A-class international criminal Red Hood showing up at his place, said criminal showing him his bare face, said criminal not killing him in the first instant, and not killing him after he found out Officer Grayson was investigating him, he had no idea which one sounded less mental than the others.

If he survived tonight, Dick thought he might need to give himself a heart check, or get himself on a lifetime supply of Aspirin.

Damn it, he was an officer. The case he had been working on for months was standing there right in his apartment in front of his face. Think, Grayson!

“Why are you here?” Dick came closer and gripped his hand on the corner of the marble countertop.

“Can’t I just want to see your pretty face?”

Ha, it had been the second time he heard that line in the same day. Well, Bruce hadn’t put it like that, but still, same same to him.

“And what makes you think I won’t arrest you right now?” Keep talking, Grayson. He needed to keep Red Hood’s mind occupied, needed to distract him, needed to−

His hand fumbled on the empty holder tucked hidden underneath the marble countertop’s surface. His breath hitched again and when he looked up, Red Hood looked straight at him, spinning Dick’s Glock like a child toy on one hand, grinning like a damn shark.

“Too slow.”

This time, this time Dick thought he was actually gonna die.

He watched the smirk slowly turned into a nonthreatening half smile. Red Hood huffed and closed the open files before he slid off the chair, tucking Dick’s Glock into the back of his waistband like it was his own weapon now.

It was his weapon now.

“I’m not your enemy, Officer. Not tonight.”

“And you expect me to believe that?” Dick glared, watching the only thing he could use to defense himself now fall into a criminal’s hand.

Red Hood didn’t answer to that, his hand went up to motion him to stay quiet. Dick didn’t understand anything when the man turned his head aside like he was trying to pick up a sound in the silent night. Then suddenly, he picked his hood up and put it back on, finger tapping on something that turned the LED of his eyes on. He stayed like that for a couple of minutes, continuing to listen. That was when everything came up to Dick’s mind.

They were being watched.

“Get into the bedroom.”

Dick almost flinched when he heard the robotic voice, but he nodded and followed the order when Red Hood pulled out one of his massive guns. Dick ran inside and opened the drawers one by one, knocking everything aside till he found the escrima sticks lying inside.

It had been long since he used them, since he last practiced with them. Last time he put on a show with these sticks, he was still airheaded with the dream of being a GCPD police officer, was still running around in the Manor, demanding of Bruce’s attention and Alfred’s cookies.

Now they lay deep in the bottom drawer of his nightstand, slowly dusted through time.

He must have gotten lost for too long because when Red Hood touched his shoulder, he immediately jumped and grabbed his wrist, twisted it the way he knew would hurt. Red Hood was caught by surprise by it, but he didn’t make a sound.

He twisted his wrist back, arm full of strength Dick didn’t even believe was possible. He pulled his hand back, pulling Dick along with it, making him almost stumble into his chest.

“Get on the bed.” He whispered, hand slowly peeling Dick’s grip off him. He must have realized the confused look in Dick’s eyes when he said again. “Just do it.”

At moments like this, Dick could only nod and climb up on his bed. He tugged the blanket up and watched as Red Hood made his move to the window, standing just aside but his eyes were out, a position that all Police Academies taught their students how to spot a sniper without being spotted.

Dick stared at Red Hood’s cargo pants, stared at the guns and knives on his thigh’s straps, and wondered how he managed to do that, carry all those weapons so easily like they meant nothing, like they were parts of his body. Every single day Dick walked out the door with a pistol on his hip, it weighed more than its physical load, bringing him down and pinning every one of his steps with the responsibility and the capability of it.

“How many are there?” He whispered, needing to say something to break the silence between them. He felt tired of not knowing, tired of always being three steps behind what he was chasing.

“One on the rooftop, five downstairs.”

Downstairs?

“My neighbor−”

“Is not your neighbor.”

He cut Dick off, eyes still out the window, gun ready in his hands. Dick took a second to swallow the fact and continued on.

“Did they follow you here?”

Red Hood turned to look at him, the light of his helmet’s eyes in the dark bedroom seemed cold and haunting, like the full moon of a forest’s night sky.

“No.” He startled Dick, he had stayed silent for too long for him to expect the answer to come. “They’re here for you.”

“What?”

Red Hood just looked at him and stayed silent like he was trying to find a way to put it together. Dick didn’t care though, it was literally his life dangling off the cliff now, and he didn’t even know what he had done for it to lead to him into this situation.

Red Hood rubbed a hand in front of his hood, groaned out a frustrated sound that he had no right to make at all.

“What?” Dick repeated, running out of patience.

“Remember 2 weeks ago you saved my life?” He asked like Dick had actually gotten the magical ability to forget events like that. “I pissed off some really bad guys. And they didn’t seem to like the fact that you didn’t let me die.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Believe me, sugar. I don’t want to be either.”

Red Hood must have seen the way Dick glared at him irately, because he looked away instantly, going back to the view outside the window. The moonlight hit his helmet just right, making the metal shine a beautiful dim red. Dick wondered what people at the station would think if he told them he was in bed when the Red Hood showed up next to his window frame.

He shifted in the bed, tugging the blanket closer to his nose. Red Hood cocked his head to give him a look, face masked making Dick feel both uncomfortable and irritated at not being able to see his expression.

“Those guys have been following you since the day I left this place.” He was still looking out, and at this point, Dick thought it wasn’t for whatever was out there anymore, but to avoid his eyes.

“They tail you to the station, even got one as your neighbor. Learning your living habits, when you go in when you go out, are you single and living alone or have someone visiting frequently. Damn fuckers probably know what you dream about when you sleep. It only took this long for them to plan on killing you because you’re a cop.”

Red Hood said it like it was nothing, dirty booted foot resting nonchalantly on Dick’s ottoman as he bent down to pick out something on the opposite building. Dick tried to calm his breathing when he looked at the man, his stomach felt all wrong when the cargo pattern played tricks with his eyes, making him imagine the details of some kind of venomous snake.

It took him longer than he had comfortably expected to find it odd in the way Red Hood had said it.

“How do you know all of this?”

Dick could see it, could feel that something had definitely changed in the air when Red Hood’s shoulders tensed at the sentence. It took long enough for him to panic, for him to repeat the “stupid, stupid, STUPID” inside his head. He should have held his tongue.

Dick clutched tight to the escrima sticks, feeling the burn when his heart started to pound like a druggie high on nicotine dips. He should have known sooner, his instincts should have picked up the signs, should have seen that this was all just a play, and the real enemy was right here in his room, holding machine guns and dynamite right on his watch.

“Listen−”

Red Hood cut off, just as unexpectedly as he had started, and snapped his head toward the window, holding a gun that looked like a crossbreed of a pistol and a military shotgun, and fired.

He fired.

He fired and the loud bang Dick had expected to hear didn’t even come, muted by the muffler stuck on the top of the barrel.

Dick took a few good seconds to lay there in the bed dumbfoundedly, brain stopped and heart seized. His mind was still scrambled when he found the courage to slowly sit up, eyes open wide staring at the man.

“Did you jus−”

“I did.”

Dick’s breath hitched.

“Is he…”

“He is.”

Red Hood said as he took off his helmet, shook his hair free and looked straight at him with piercing blue eyes. Dick felt himself caught in his gaze like a fish in the net.

“I said it already, didn’t I? I’m not your enemy.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Dick glared, still not very sure how to react correctly.

“What if it’s too embarrassing that I don’t want you to know?”

“What’s too embarrassing?”

“You…” Red Hood snapped halfheartedly and got tongue-tied, Dick didn’t know if the red face belonged to his anger or embarrassment, probably both. He heard him mumble something like ‘Dickface’.

“I watched you, okay?” Red Hood spat out, finally. “I watched you wake up and go off every day, I watched you play dumb head hero out on the streets, watched your shit living schedule and your shit eating habits. I don’t even want to know how you sleep 4 hours a day and still are able act like a 5 years old on a sugar high.”

For a while, Dick just stared at him, watching the faint redness spread to Red Hood’s ears like a drunken man.

“And that happened before or after you found out I was targeted?”

Red Hood avoided his eyes and stayed silent.

“Red?”

“Before, okay?!” Red Hood snapped again. “Jesus, keep bitching about it and I’ll let you die tonight.”

They both knew he wouldn’t do that.

“What about the others?”

“They’re coming. Stay in here.” He strapped the big gun back on his back, and pulled out two pistols, checked the bullets, and clicked off the safety.

“What? No, I’m coming with you.”

Red Hood turned and looked at Dick like he had spoken in another language.

“Are you stupid or something? Those men are mercenaries, and they have firearms.”

“And I’m a cop.”

“I don’t see why that reason alone is fucking enough to you.” Red Hood looked like he was just two seconds away from knocking Dick’s head out.

He inhaled and swore and turned back to look at Dick all over again before reaching for the knife on his thigh strap.

“Take this. And stay behind me!” He gave the knife to Dick and ordered, eyes serious.

“I don’t need it.” Dick frowned.

“Of fucking course you need it. Did those law courses suck all the living will out of you?”

“I don’t want it.” He pushed the knife back to Red Hood’s hand and held the escrima sticks up. “I have these.”

“What…” Red Hood took one solid second to look at them before shaking his head. “No, nope, no. You’re not fighting with that shit. Either you take the knife or a fucking gun, or stay here and wait till I get back. Do you hear me?”

“No, I have to go. I can’t let you kill all those men.”

“What!!?”

The sound of the front door slamming open startled both of them. Red Hood grunted angrily before pushing Dick down on the bed and pointing an accusing finger towards his face.

“You stay here.” He commanded and put his hood back on.

Before Dick could protest, he kicked the bedroom door open and closed it again. The next second was chaos, a blended mixture of colorful curses, painful screams, furniture smashing and gunshots fired. He heard the sound of bodies hitting the floor, of people choking on their own blood, and felt nauseous. Dick didn’t know where Red Hood had found the thought that locking him here inside his own bedroom while he went out there going on his killing spree with people that were here to kill Dick, would be such a thoughtful idea. He was, by all mean, scared, but no delicate flower was he. While the files Bruce had given him today didn’t do much help his investigation, those people out there might help.

Red Hood said something about pissing them off, or pissing their boss off, maybe he was trying to do business with them. Maybe other forces on the streets were working together to put off the big bad wolf with the red helmet. Maybe a gang war was happening right now under the BPD’s neglecting eyes.

Either way, Dick couldn’t ignore it. Those people out there, whether they were here to kill Dick or not, they weren’t just dummy bags for Red Hood to play shoot and run with anymore.

The moment he kicked the door open, Red Hood was in the middle of choking some guy to the point that his tongue poked out. His kitchen was a mess, the bowl of cereal had been smashed to pieces, left-over milk running down his wooden floor and wetting an unconscious guy’s head with it. Glass was shattered everywhere, and one of his chairs was now hanging on another unconscious guy’s neck, broken with splinters poking out everywhere. Luckily for Dick, his only neighbor now turned out to be not his neighbor anymore.

The whole room turned to look at him for one solid second. Dick didn’t know what had hit him to think that that Red Hood was making a facial expression.

Dick wished that second was a bit longer, just a bit longer so he wouldn’t have to regret running out at gun point with nothing but stupid sticks in his hands. A gun pointed at his head and in a mere tick so many more. Red Hood shouted something that didn’t quite reach his ears but Dick was already moving, sliding on the floor and back behind his sofa like a piece of soap on the bathroom floor.

It didn’t take long for someone to walk over to his place. This one didn’t carry a gun, and Dick kicked his ankles on instinct, jamming his head with the butt of his escrima. He got up and got a mere second to look at the situation. He charged up the escrima sticks, waited for them to shoot out some electricity and got up, yelling.

“Red, duck!”

The escrima came flying and hit the one on Red Hood’s back as he dodged it in time, electrocuting him and sending him down to the floor, shaking like a dying fish.

There was only one guy left, and to Dick’s surprise, it was his neighbor.

“Mark…”

“Sorry, sweetheart. Nothing personal.” He raised his gun and pointed at Dick.

“Don’t do this, Mark.” Dick didn’t know if he sounded right or not, but his lips started shaking as the barrel staring point blank towards him.

“You have no idea who you pis−”

Mark didn’t get to finish his words as a hole marched on his forehead. Blood splattered on Dick’s chest before Mark’s body went down with a loud thump, revealing Red Hood behind him, holding Dick’s Glock with the barrel still smoking.

Dick’s knees started trembling as he looked down at Mark’s body, at the blood pooling around his head.

“Why did you kill him?” His voice came out, could barely win a breath, shaking and breathless like he had been choked by invisible hands.

“Because he tried to kill you.”

When Dick looked at him, it wasn’t digital eyes that stared back at him anymore. Dick felt like he could sink into the blue of those eyes, so cold yet so tender. A gentle hand came up to touch his cheek, rubbing lightly.

He smiled, so charming and warm Dick didn’t know what to do. “You’re okay now.”

He took off his gloves and this time, this time his warm skin touched Dick’s, sending electricity down to the very core of his whole body. This was the first time they had been this close that Dick didn’t feel like dying. Sharp eyes and crooked brows, straight nose, perfect cheekbones, lightly tanned skin but fading, neat undercut hair that was short enough to never get out of place even with the helmet. In another scene, Dick might have mistaken him with a soldier, a very handsome one.

Something about him, so tall and big and looking down at Dick had his heart beating in a whole new way.

“Do you wanna call the police?” He asked, so suddenly it startled Dick a bit.

“I’m the police.”

Red Hood huffed.

“Call your friends then.” He smiled again and ruffled Dick’s hair before walking into his bedroom, leaving him behind standing dumbfounded and not knowing what to think or do about that.

Dick had just gotten back from patrol when Amy was waiting for him by the door and motioned him to come to her desk. She gave him the look like she was ready to gut him and eat his organs. The paper coffee cup in her hands was pushed forward, abandoned.

“Are you going to talk about it?”

He knew what she was asking about, knew she was one of the only honest cops left, one he could totally trust. He looked around to check if anyone was eavesdropping on them, and turned back to look at her.

“Does it matter now?”

“This is no time for one of your stupid jokes, Grayson. You’re testing my patience.” She glared at him as her hands entwined and pushed beneath her chin. “You didn’t write the report, did you? It’s not even your pretty curvy handwriting, Wayne didn’t pay good money for you to paint chicken scratch like that. Is it Clay? Or Teller? Did the guys even give you the papers or did they just fill them in on their own?!”

She dumped the report down in front of his face, lips pulled into a thin line.

“I know how this department works, I know you know it too. And I know things must not have been easy for you since moving here, compared to the life you had in Gotham. You’re a good kid, I’ll give you that, but life in here isn’t a Hollywood movie, there are boundaries that we must not cross, not because we can’t, but because we shouldn’t. Do you understand?”

Dick stayed silent, watching her cup of coffee instead of looking into her eyes. Amy slumped back into her chair, she must be feeling frustrated dealing with him.

“It’s organized crime,” She said, finally. A sigh escaped her lips as her fingers lightly tapped on the wooden surface of her table. “Like in the old days, back in the 80’s and early 2000’s, when everybody knew each other, would be eating with the Mafia−same guys who remember your grandmother at Christmas and buy you ice cream. Truth be told? They kept the streets clean of scumbags. Burglars, rapists, pedophiles? Their bodies would end up ground and rotting on Highway 61.”

Her coffee cup lightly trembled under the rhythm of her fingers.

“Organized crime was a good thing, the best Bludhaven could hope for right now.” She continued. “At least they had a code, didn’t believe in beating up old ladies, carjackings, home invasions, molesting kids, shooting you in the head for your wallet. Or for no reason at all.”

She looked at Dick, and her eyes made Dick wonder that growing up under her motherhood must be real difficult.

“Last night five bodies were found in your apartment, three already died, one in a coma with only 10% chance of ever waking up, and this morning the Feds came and took the other away, all with 10 years in jail or criminal records. And what was on your report again?” She picked up the document in a halfhearted attempt and spoke in a mocking tone. “Self-defense violence?! I know you’re impressive with your… talents.” She decided. “I checked your profile myself when you first came here, people at the Academy really liked you, you finished your training in what? 19 weeks? Fastest time ever recorded since 2004. Had a bright spot to West Point Prep, but no, you chose this shithole instead.”

She stopped, waited for Dick to say something, but then gave up.

“I know you didn’t do all of this. Too violent for even a normal cop, not to mention you. The Grayson I’ve worked with in the last 13 months wouldn’t go for headshots or stab someone in the back with a kitchen knife 14 times just in defense.”

“I…”

“Oh, he can talk. I’m not done yet, Grayson.”

“Sorry.”

Amy stopped her tapping and forced Dick to look at her without even trying. She had her ways, a strong fine woman like her always had her ways. She took a minute to look away, made it look like she was too tired to see his tired face, eyes glancing around to see if anyone was around close enough to pick up what they were saying.

“Grayson,” She said.

“Yes?”

“Are you in trouble?”

He thought of Red Hood, of the way he had made his way inside his apartment like it was his home, thought of the way he had constantly taken off his hood to show Dick his face whenever he could, had smiled at him so wickedly, his hand had touched Dick so gently. He thought of how much Red Hood had surprised him when his face heated up and his ears had turned red when he was embarrassed.

He wondered whether all of that was trouble or not.

“I know with the investigation you are doing, the Red Hood case that seems to keep sucking you in, it’s dangerous.” Amy warned him, her eyes suddenly didn’t seem so scary anymore. “Organized crime is a good thing, but still, Red Hood is Mafia, and Mafia are criminal, don’t push them to their limits.”

If he told her he was almost murdered last night thanks to Red Hood, but was also saved last night thanks to Red Hood again, would she believe him?

Probably.

“I’m fine, Amy.” He smiled, hoping she would stop staring at the bags under his eyes. “I know when I should run or not.”

She was about to say something else, but decided against it. She nodded and waited till Dick was half way out of the door to call after him.

“Hey Grayson,”

“Yeah?”

“If you die, I don’t want Wayne knocking on my door asking questions, understood?”

That was her way of saying she didn’t want him dead.

“Understood.”

It was late dawn when Dick slumped back into his apartment, too exhausted to even take off his shoes without leaning on the wall. His phone slipped out of his pocket and dropped down on the floor, Dick didn’t even care to pick it up and turned back to lock his door, he had already decided that today was more than enough. He was too tired to eat, to answer the door if someone came and asked for something.

He was ready to stay dead to the world for a good 5 hours before his shift came up. Tomorrow he needed to make a call to Gordon, or at least send him a thank you note for trying to help. He needed to get a new pistol too, now that his belonged to Red Hood.

It took him longer than necessary to pick up the phone, but in the end, he was too tired to even move a few muscles. He was more than ready to land face first on the couch when he saw him, sitting on the countertop.

“Jesus Christ!” He jumped, hand on his chest when Red Hood gave him a wicked grin.

“Told ya your security is shit.” He said, no helmet today, no armor either. Taking a complete look at him, Dick realized Red Hood was here in civilian clothes. Prada leather jacket, Levi’s jeans, premium denim, $80? Could be more. Dr. Martin boots, black, high neck, thick lugged sole, size 11, authentic no doubt, that one should be around $150.

Good thing about growing up with Bruce was that you had to have a good eye, good thing about growing up with Alfred was that you had to have good taste in everything.

He wore gloves, thick, brown, leather ones that were meant for bikers and not for showoffs. Dick had spotted a red Ducati Monster parked down on the sideway in front of his apartment building, had been curious about it since not a lot of people in town were bikers, and especially, not a lot of people in town could afford to spend that much money on a bike.

There were two plastic bags behind him, and suddenly Dick remembered the crime bosses’ heads that this man had cut off then stuffed into a duffle bag to send to the police.

Red Hood must have noticed he was staring at them too, he grinned and jumped off the island, unfolding the bags and showing Dick his back so unconcernedly.

“I brought Thai, also got half of a Guangdong roast duck in this bag, had to make a detour for it but damn, the thing smells good.” He pointed at the other bag. “You haven’t eaten anything today, just like usual. Couldn’t cook since I didn’t wanna scare you off that fast.”

He went around and opened the cabinets and started taking out dishes with two bowls.

“But, I also don’t want it to look like takeouts, what kind of gentleman would that make me if I do?” He slowly dumped all the food in the containers out on the dishes and placed the duck pieces carefully into a circle. When all done, he gave his finger a lick and whistled low.

“Et voila!”

He washed his hands and motioned Dick to come and sit. Dick, who was looking at him with all the blood drained out of his face, and was 2 steps away from running back to the station.

It only took him two seconds to grab the nearest object and fling it towards Red Hood. The guy caught it, as expected, Dick slammed into him, knocking him down to the floor with his body and fumbled behind his back for the handcuffs.

“Woah, easy tiger. Not right on the first date.” He still had guts to joke around, lips pulling into a wide grin and showing white teeth while Dick pressed on his back and pulled his wrists together.

It was annoying to admit this wasn’t the first time a criminal tried to flirt with him.

“Red Hood, you’re under arrest for drug trafficking, producing illegal weapons, committing arson, bribing legal forces, terrorism, assault with deadly weapons, mass murder, kidnapping and operating illegal gang activities. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” Dick read his rights and snapped the handcuffs closed.

“Ah, so you do remember your homework.”

“Let’s hope all that dirty money you make can afford you the best lawyer in town.”

“Ooh it sure can. But is that really how you’re gonna say thanks to your knight in shiny armor last night?” He smirked.

“Remain silent, please. You’re not as charming as you thi−Wah!”

Red Hood turned on his full force, knocking Dick on his back down to the floor. In a swift he was up and on Dick, handcuffs off his wrists now twirling on his index finger as he gave him a wolfish smirk.

“You haven’t seen me trying.” He leaned down and blew the words into Dick’s ear, raising baby hairs at the back of his neck.

Red Hood stood up after that, and Dick fumbled to get up, didn’t dare to let this man out of his sight for once. Red Hood seemed to take Dick’s anger and glaring as threatening as the frustration of a stray kitten. He walked behind the island and pulled up a black backpack, opened it, and took out two bottles of wine.

Dick didn’t even want to question why he carried wine in his backpack, but the idea kept flying around his head like an annoying bee.

“Which one is better with shrimp?” He asked.

Dick took a better look at the bottles, stayed silent for a minute, then asked.

“What kind of shrimp?”

Red Hood checked the dish in front of him. “Fried, spicy with a bit of sauce, got a hint of lime in them.”

“The 2000 Ladoucette Sancerre Blanc.”

“What about the other?”

“The La Stella Moscato D’asti? Good with smoked salmon, grilled pancetta shrimp, and garlic bread.” Before Dick could stop, Alfred’s lessons poured back out like an opened champagne.

Red Hood smiled at him, soft and sweet like Dick was his summer lover. He turned and dug around his cabinets again for two glasses, setting them down on the table.

“Let’s eat.”

Only then did he turn on the light in the kitchen, not the new bulb Dick had installed by himself when he first moved in, but the old one that came along with this place, dangling right on top of the dining table. The thing had looked so old and lonely Dick had to put a little DIY into it, had had to wrap old electric cord around a balloon, spray painted and coated it with walnut stain. It flickered a bit before shining decently, giving out an unhealthy orangey light that made the shrimp and the curry on the table look redder than usual.

Red Hood pulled a chair out for him, waiting.

“If you put anything in the food…” Dick voiced out when he was pushed down in the chair, eyeing the table suspiciously.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’ve tested this guy’s patience quite a lot tonight.” He poured the wine out in both glass and sat down. “Alright, let’s dig in.”

Dick watched Red Hood sipping his wine and eating a few pieces of duck, he would nudge his fork on his hand once in a while to encourage him to eat the food. The duck was good, crispy on the skin and the meat was quite tender and sweet, the curry was a little too spicy for him, but he was glad the shrimp were seasoned lighter, and it really went well with the wine.

Red Hood watched him all the time and kept smiling. It made Dick feel unsure about how he should react to that.

“So, why Bludhaven?” He asked suddenly, while pouring more wine into Dick’s glass.

“The Blud is small with little people, and it has nothing to do with him.”

Red Hood took in a big bite of chicken with cashew nuts, and Dick appreciated that he didn’t ask any further questions about “him”.

“So, why Bludhaven?” Dick asked, repeating the question.

“Small place, too many little fears.” He answered nonchalantly. “Best way to stop it is to become the most feared.”

“You want to stop the chaos in the Blud? Like the way you do in Gotham?!”

Red Hood looked at him and sipped his wine, eyeing him carefully before setting the glass down, tapping it lightly.

“Chaos and vice are… unavoidable.” He said. “They are like rats and cockroaches on the streets, no matter how hard you keep it clean they will still exist, lurking in the dark and waiting for an opportunity to breed and grow.”

He got up and took both his and Dick’s plates away, dumping them into the dishwasher and went back to his chair. He licked his slightly chapped lips, eyes on the wall for a few seconds before they were back on Dick.

“You can’t kill crime, it’s part of our nature, part of the society. That’s why I control it, all the rats and cockroaches on the streets live by my rules, listen to my words, and follow my orders, then they get to eat, and they get to live. I protect the streets, by controlling the devils on them.”

“That’s a twisted way to do it.”

“Twisted, indeed, but efficient.”

Amy had told him about this, about organized crime and the way it helped the people living with it. So far Red Hood had gone way against everything Dick had spent strength and time on learning about him, and Dick didn’t know what to do about that. Didn’t know if saying he agreed would make him a traitor to everything he had worked for, didn’t know if he should even let this man keep getting this close.

It was like a Rubik’s cube, the more he tried to shape it back in order, the more it went wrong.

“Why…”

“Hum?”

“Why are you here, tonight?” Dick asked, not quite looking at him. “Why did you buy me dinner, why are you telling me all of this?”

He had to know, he just had to know. Red Hood could have killed him at anytime if he wanted, could have let him die yesterday, but he hadn’t. He out of all people should know Dick could never be swayed easily either, not by good food or even attractive smiles.

Red Hood glanced at him, testing. Testing whether he should give away the honest answer, Dick could see it, could read it in the way his eyes flickered on his face like an open book. He had always been good at reading people, and now the helmet was out of his way, he felt better at it than ever.

“Officer Grayson,”

His voice sounded strange this time, lower than normal, raspy like the words had to fight their way to the surface.

“Yes…” Dick gasped when Red Hood got up off his chair and into his personal space, face closer and closer by the second.

“I think I’m in trouble.” He whispered and it raised all the goosebumps on Dick’s skin.

Dick smelled him, like mint and gunpowder, cigarette tar and newly baked bread, homely and so mundane, he felt their sleeves brushing each other, felt his presence, pulling him in like gravity.

“Why?” His question was barely whispered, but it caught his ears and his fingers were up to gently catch Dick’s chin.

“I’m not drugged now.”

In the first few seconds, or maybe even minutes, Dick didn’t seem to mind the meaning of it, was too occupied by Red Hood’s mouth on his. To his surprise, his kiss wasn’t as rough as his appearance might seem, his lips mumbled on Dick’s, asking for permission that kept throwing him off.

Dick did flinch when his hand snaked up to catch the back of his neck, but he cooed him back to the safety zone by feathering kisses on the corner of his lips. He only moved further when Dick had settled back, his tongue got in and flickered playfully at his teeth. Dick grabbed onto his jacket out of instinct, needing something to hold on to when it felt like the world was spinning too fast.

It was slow and gentle, yet the ground beneath his feet became unsteady. If he didn’t hold tight to Red Hood, Dick was afraid he was gonna fall off his chair.

When Red Hood’s lips left his, and their foreheads met each other, he looked into Dick’s eyes in the way Dick never thought a man like him could. After tonight, Dick didn’t even know what kind of man he was anymore.

They breathed and just stayed silent to catch the air their lungs needed, the room was turning warmer as Red Hood’s hands were still on him. Dick remembered it then, about what the man had said, about him not being drugged anymore. Last time they had kissed, so quick and sudden, Red Hood had been high on pain medication, had had that rush of leftover adrenaline from the fight he had had before, had needed a distraction to drug Dick to sleep, to find an escape route because it was clear he wouldn’t let a wanted criminal get away just like that, or so Dick assumed.

He was fully conscious this time, no drugs in the system nor reason to run away. And he smiled at Dick, just like so many times he had tonight, so warmly and fondly it had his chest aching and melting.

Only when Red Hood moved to kiss his cheek, Dick realized that maybe he was in trouble too.

#jaydick #jason todd #dick grayson #writing prompt #my fic

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