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grayintogreen · 1 year ago

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OKAY SO. I am (and this is obvious for my followers as opposed to this tag), I am currently running headlong towards the ending of my huge CR longfic, but I have started to develop my next project. Not sure when I'll start posting because if I do it too soon it's going to be hard to keep up with it and YCDHN and I do NOT WANT THAT, so I'm gonna poke at it casually while seeing how much of YCDHN I can write before I come back from my posting hiatus in March. If it looks like I'm making a lot of headway in getting the next three chapters written, we'll see.

SO WHAT IS THIS NEXT PROJECT? Glad you asked.

learn that even death may die is going to be a Hazbin Hotel fic that goes AU after 1x06 (due to that being where I started plotting it). The official summary is as follows:

When Lucifer agrees to seal his powers to set an example of humility to buy more time for the Hotel to work, Adam and the Exorcists scheme with the Vees in order to take the Hazbin Hotel down once and for all. Meanwhile, Alastor has a little secret that he'd like to be through with that would change the face of Hell if anyone knew...

And Husk has caught feelings, which is unrelated to all of the above.

It's a plotty, ensemble piece, featuring Found Family dynamics, Alastor and Lucifer being each others' biggest haters, Husk and Angel in a bodyguard AU for reasons, and the kind of plot you can expect from the idiot who brought you two million words about Cree Deeproots.

Here's an extended preview of the first chapter. Spread the word! Get hype! It's something I'm really excited to work on when I've gotten a lot more progress on my YCDHN backlog.

The last week had been… Harrowing, to say the least. The Extermination had been personal- deeply personal- and while no one at the Hotel had fallen, the line of angelic spears stabbed into the ground outside with demon heads proudly spelling out YOU CAN’T HIDE FOREVER (Vaggie had noted that was such a waste of spears) had made the message clear. This was going to continue and next time they wouldn’t be so lucky.

She didn’t know when the next would come- back to a year or another six months or another week. She had paced, relentlessly, as the Hotel put itself back in order and those who had been injured licked their wounds. Husk, in particular, had survived a scuffle with Adam, himself, and while he didn’t appreciate the warm embrace he got for his bravery, she didn’t know how else to thank him aside from maybe a very expensive bottle of booze at Angel’s suggestion, which he did like and seemed to like even more when she told him it had been Angel’s idea.

That should have been something she lit on! Something that she could really sink her teeth into and do something about! Were Angel and Husk an item? Was there unspoken tension? What would that do for Angel’s suitability to Heaven? Surely, a stable, monogamous relationship could only-

But no. She’d let that thought slide out of her mind with barely more than a hum, never mind a full number about it. Her mind had to be on the Hotel and protecting it. She couldn’t even do a lesson plan in these conditions! Activities had ground to a halt in favor of ‘work together to clean up the corpses.’ She was going to scream or bite or… or something.

Vaggie helped. She always did. The initial shock of learning about her being an angel had passed and while there had been some distance in the month leading up to the Extermination, Vaggie’s dedication to her remained absolute and she had nearly gotten herself killed multiple times to make up for what she felt were her sins in the past.”

”Demons kill each other and that’s different,” she’d said when Charlie told her that no one in the Hotel, save herself, was fully clean of demon blood.”They aren’t killing because they think everyone here deserves to die. It’s different.”

So that was still sort of a whole unresolved thing too, and that was just before her father kicked the door in, ready to throw down because he had one rule when his hand was forced about the Extermination and that was not putting his family in direct harm. Getting him to do more than fume and fuss over it had occupied a lot of time she didn’t actually have, but the end result had led her here… Back to Heaven.

With her father.

Outside the golden gates, he stood ramrod straight, fingers clenched so tightly around the head of his cane she was certain his fingers would grip right to the core. She glanced at his shaking hands and laid her own over them. “Dad, it’s okay.”

“I haven’t been back to Heaven in… Oooh.” He whistled. “Awhile. It’s…” He tugged his collar. “Not actually full of great memories, y’know, sweetie?” He leaned over to whisper. “Maybe we should just go back down and work on this on a lower level. I know some phenomenal wards. You think that dusty radio guy has moves? Your dad has better moves. I invented some of those runes he uses. My wards- pristine.”

She wrinkled her nose and pulled him closer to the front desk. “Daaaad, come on. It’ll be fine. I think things will actually work out this time if you’re here.”

“Really? ‘Cause I feel like they’re gonna go much worse.” As if to prove it, the second the pair strode towards the desk, St. Peter nearly flung the guestbook to reach for something underneath the desk. Charlie had to lunge to stop his hand from hitting a button with a very familiar runic symbol on it- fuck, they had a Lucifer button.

“Wait wait wait! He’s not- we’re not here to cause any trouble. We just need to talk to Sera- or Emily. Actually, I’d rather talk to Emily, if it’s… all the same.” She shot him a winning smile.

Behind her, Lucifer was making what could only be described as a ‘stink face.’ “This is going greeeeat. Are you sure about this, Charlie? It’s not too late to go back.”

“Dad!”

“Charlie!” A winged shape suddenly burst free of the Gates and wrapped tight arms around her middle. Unable to resist, Charlie wrapped her arms around the gray-clad form as well and spun her around. “Emily!”

“Oh my Heavens, Charlie, I’m so glad you’re okay!” Emily pulled away to grip Charlie’s hands so tightly that it was a pleasant kind of crushing. Like a weighted blanket. She leaned forward to whisper, “I’ve been doing all I can. There are angels who truly believe this isn’t right. Sera has told me to give it up, that doubting leads to Falling, because-“

Both girls looked askance at Lucifer, fiddling with the head of his cane awkwardly, that vapid look he got when he was overwhelmed making it clear that he’d stopped paying attention.

Charlie, for the first time daring to doubt, whispered back in a nervous high-pitched lilt, “Iiiis it bad that I brought him here?”

“No! I… I don’t think.” Emily frowned. “I should warn Sera, of course.” She stepped back and approached Lucifer, who flinched like he was about to be scolded- oh dad how badly did the angels hurt you. “Greetings, Morningstar,” she said, bowing a bit. “It is an honor to meet you. I was only a fledgling when you Fell.”

“For the record, I didn’t Fall. I was pushed.” Lucifer, seeing Emily’s own flinch, immediately softened and underneath all the anxiety, Charlie caught a glimpse of the angel her father had been once as he ducked his head and accepted her greeting graciously and with the genteel quality of true nobility. “Thank you for being courteous about this. Tell the High Seraph that we won’t take up any of her time. We… have a deal to renegotiate. It seems Adam’s legions have forgotten what we agreed long ago.”

Emily bobbed her head with a grin and slipped through a portal, leaving St. Peter to anxiously open the Gates without his usual aplomb. Charlie strolled through and Lucifer, feeling somewhat more confident after seeing how Emily treated him, tapped the poor angel’s desk with his cane. “Keep up the good work, Pete.”

The promenade was still full of people dancing about in a joyous display of virtue and peace, but now looking at it, all she saw were people who had somehow gotten lucky. She tried to find a commonality in any of them, something that she could take back and use to prove her point, but there didn’t seem to be a single thing these people had that hers didn’t… besides, you know, the fixation on sin and murder. And, honestly, some of them might have that too, hidden under the surface. Look at Adam.

“Heyyyy, Short Stack! How’s it goin’?”

Speak of the fucking prick.

Every fiber of Charlie’s body reached for Hellfire and only her father’s iron-tight grip on her shoulder kept her from exploding in a rush of demonic energy. Her horns appeared and vanished in the blink of an eye and she focused on deep, healing breaths as Adam, the walking canker sore, swaggered up to them on the promenade.

“They’ll let anyone in here these days, huh?” Adam planted his hands on his hips and grinned. Behind him, Lute bristled.

“Funny. I was gonna say the same thing about you. Hah!” Lucifer barked. All that anxiety he’d worn outside had been cast aside like an old coat- something about Adam had struck the same nerve that Alastor had only in a different key. A beat, and then: “No seriously, how did you get in here? I was there, remember. You also ate the apple. It was a, uh, whole thing, actually.”

“Yeah, but I did it second.” He reached into his ear with his pinky to dislodge a bit of wax and flicked it across the golden streets. “That counts for something.”

Still lingering on the angels’ wishy-washy answer about how precisely one gets into Heaven and with the proof that there wasn’t some actual code to follow right before her eyes, Charlie crossed her arms over her chest and fought the urge to scowl. Scowling gives you lines that make your smiles less effective. Everyone knew that.

“How’s the wifey, by the by, Lucy? Still smokin’?” Adam slammed a hand into a fist. “Oh wait. I forgot. You two are hella divorced, amirite?”

“We are not divorced.” Lucifer began to panic, whipping to Charlie like he expected her to believe any of that shit. There was something in his eyes that spoke volumes about the truth of what was going on with him and Lilith that she would have to unpack later- she hadn’t asked before. It was too painful to bring up. “We- we’re on a break. Yeah, a break. Just a break.” He swallowed, leaned on his cane, and adjusted his stance. “Which is more than I can say for you and yours. How is Eve, by the way? Oh waaaait! She’s in Hell. With me. Just like your first wife. Hah. Man, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say one of us knows how to treat a woman.” Another pause. He leaned into Adam’s space and whispered. “It’s me.”

Adam’s ghoulish face screwed up in disgust. “Yeah, okay, pal, you just drink your ‘respect women’-” are the air quotes necessary? really?, “- juice. You can use it to gargle after you lick my balls.”

“Adam,” Sera’s voice said, coarsely, snapping him to attention with a mumbled aw fuck mom’s home.

She hovered as glorious as ever with her six wings, towering over Lucifer as she landed between him and Adam, shunting him out of her space and into Lute’s. Charlie and Emily both shot him sour looks and held hands in solidarity as they watched the fallen Morningstar engage with the High Seraph for the first time in millenniums.

The seconds ticked on in agonizing awkward silence. Lucifer’s throat bobbed. “High Seraph.”

“Morningstar,” Sera murmured, politely, her shoulders tense. Another long moment of silence followed- clearly she was waiting for Lucifer to explain himself. Charlie’s palms started to sweat, but not Emily’s. Angels apparently didn’t sweat. Her grip alone, however, spoke to her anxiety matching Charlie’s.

Lucifer’s jaw trembled and he finally, finally yanked himself together again. “Maybe we can talk about this somewhere more private? The street is… Open.”

Indeed, they were starting to attract attention. People might not recognize Lucifer on sight these days, but that apple and snake motif was sort of painfully obvious when you thought about it for a moment. Sera gave a nod and circled her fingers in the air to open another portal. “Certainly. Come into my office.”

Adam started to follow and Lucifer thrust his cane to stop him. “No, no. Not you. Seraphs only.”

Adam snarled and lowered the staff. “Your piece of hellsnatch daughter ain’t a seraph, Little Man.”

Charlie saw her father’s eyes light up with a fire she only saw when he had to be in a room with Alastor. “What did you say about my daughter?”

“Dad.”

“You want me to say it louder? Or do you want me to moan it, Daddy?” Adam leered.

“That’s enough!” Emily snapped before Sera could, her small form crowding into Adam’s space, all of her angelic eyes open and glowering daggers at the lesser angel. He shrank back. “There will be no more disrespect in this room. Adam, this concerns you, so you will be allowed entry, but please keep your mouth shut.”

Charlie felt her heart squish as Emily brushed off her dress and then strolled through the portal, nose primly in the air. Sera, lips pressed together, only gave a sober nod and followed.

“How come he-“ Adam snarled, but Lute gripped his arm and pushed him into the portal.

“Pick your battles, sir.”

“I wanna pick this one,” he whined as he vanished into the Seraph’s study. Lucifer and Charlie lingered for a moment- one with hope in her heart and the other rapidly descending into the pit of despair after just seconds of glorious, if not damning and futile, wrath. She reached for his hand.

“C’mon, dad. You got this.”

The soft smile melted her heart even more than Emily’s protection had. He stood on his toes to pull her into an embrace and give her a kiss on the head- more to comfort himself than her, she was sure, but she didn’t mind. He hopped through the portal and she followed into an austerely decorated space. Painfully minimalist. Ooh this was not a side of Heaven she liked at all. There wasn’t even art on the walls. Just gray slate with a huge plate-glass window behind the bare desk. Not a single knickknack to distract from its function.

Sera slid into the seat behind the desk, while Emily stood at attention next to her, hands clasped in front of her, eyes still fixed on Adam, daring him to speak. He skulked in the background, intentionally toying with the boring book-laden shelves- also free of knickknacks and personal touches- by running his fingers on the spines or pulling them out and pretending to read them before tossing them at Lute to put back with a bored eyeroll.

Conjured chairs were produced for Lucifer and Charlie, which they took, gladly. With everyone who was going to settle having done so, Sera sighed.

“Let’s talk, Lucifer. What brings you back to Heaven? You were told to never come back.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel fanfic #hazbin hotel lucifer #charlie morningstar #hazbin hotel adam #hazbin hotel emily #hazbin hotel sera #my writing #learn that even death may die

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trellanyx · 3 months ago

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Striker Drabble

Was thinking of how I'd merge my Striker with canon, and what might make him start to question some of the views he's expressed in the show, and then this fell out.

Set during Mastermind, after Striker leaves the stand.

“For the treacherous crime of stealing a Geotia’s grimoire for illegal use, bringing harm to a Goetic prince, and accessing the mortal coil without clearance or procedure, you, Blitzo, and your crew are hereby sentenced…to death.”

The echo of Satan’s judgment followed Striker down the pit. He hopped off the platform feeling lighter than he had in weeks. These were the moments that made it worth it, all those little deaths of dignity that came with working for Hell’s upper echelons. How else could he have secured immunity for twice attacking a Goetia and make his enemies pay for it? It was all about playing the long game.

“And due to your bold actions against the laws of Hell, your execution will be broadcast across the seven rings to remind all of impkind why our power must never be challenged again.”

Striker’s smile curdled into a bitter sneer. Fucking assholes, the lot of them. So damn convinced they were untouchable in their brimstone towers they never saw people like him coming. It was all yes sir, no sir, thank you sir, until a holy dagger was lodged in their eye. And for all the trouble Stolas’ family and fuck buddies had given Striker over this hit, he planned on listening to the bird’s brain sizzle.

There were several screens along the hallway to the exit, each showing a different angle of the courtroom. Striker leaned against the opposite wall, tail rattling in anticipation. He had enough grudging respect for IMP’s abilities to not leave anything to chance; he’d leave once he saw their heads fall into lava and not a second before.

“No! Not them, your Highness! It was me, it was all me!”

Striker snorted, shaking his head at Blitzo’s desperate attempts to bargain. Not for the first time he thought of what a damn shame it was that Blitzo was so set on going down for demons who’d only ever see him and his family as tools: to play with, to use, to destroy and to discard without conscience or consequence. If he’d just taken Striker’s original offer, Stolas would be dead and none of this would be happening.

“I suppose I created impkind to be obedient…”

Striker spat at Satan’s televised head.

“All I was trying to do was rise above the stupid fucking place YOU ALL FORCED US INTO!”

“Too lil’, too late, boss man,” Striker muttered. His tail thumped to the ground in a sudden state of weariness. For all the bad blood between them, Striker did still admire Blitzo for what he tried to do. Sure, he got too comfortable in the beds he weaseled his way into, but at least he built something. At least he gave imps something else to see when they looked up from under royal boots, something independent and unapologetically imp. On darker nights, when he was several whiskeys past midnight, Striker could admit that Blitzo had more to be proud of than he did.

But pride and survival could never coexist forever, and for all his boasting, Striker had chosen his side long ago. So he would salute Blitzo with one hand and not lift the other to save him, and in exchange for his cowardice he’d live to fight another day. Maybe when Striker worked through his hitlist and came to Andrealphus’ name, he’d throw in an extra bullet in Blitzo’s memory.

Then a streak of feathers cut across the camera, and Striker’s mouth dropped open like all the others to see Prince Stolas himself stand between Blitzo and the axe. He recalled sitting in Andrealphus’ freezing parlor room, listening to the Goetia siblings twitter about their latest scheme and his role in it. Stolas interrupting the trial was only one of the possible outcomes Andrealphus plotted for, but it was also the one he seemed most convinced would happen. Striker had scoffed that not even Stolas was stupid enough to put himself on the line for an imp, no matter how good the dick was, to which Andrealphus only hummed condescendingly.

Throughout Stolas’ ensuing song, Striker stepped closer to the TV screens like something had lassoed him from the other side. Gone were the multiple angles – now the footage had all coalesced into a single shot of Stolas flying around the courtroom. He was saying all the right things: Blitzo was too stupid to conceive of the crime, let alone carry it out unassisted; to make an example of him was not only foolish but insulting; pride and survival were clashing yet again, and of course the arrogant prince couldn’t bear to let his own pride take so much as a bruise, even if it meant…

It made sense. It was right. It was everything Striker had been trying to tell people about who the royals were, why amicability with them was impossible. It was…

…too perfect.

Striker’s tail lashed from side to side, rattling almost too loudly to hear the TV. Vindication should be running hot through his veins. Hell, seeing Stolas in chains should feel like Sinsmas come early! But Striker had seen that soppy idiot at the Harvest Moon Festival. He’d seen Stolas when he thought he was about to die, in that single moment when all masks fell away, no matter who you were. Stolas was many things, but he wasn’t cunning. Not like this.

So why was he pretending to be?

The obvious answer was also the one Striker was least willing to accept. If Stolas was genuinely trying to protect Blitzo at the risk of losing everything… it was inconceivable. Unacceptable. To admit otherwise was to admit Striker had been wrong about him. And if he was wrong about Stolas, about Blitzo, about what they had and about what was possible…

What else was he wrong about?

#helluva boss #striker #my fic #holy shit i actually wrote smth

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lryghe · 2 years ago

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MXTX thoughts; themes

Okay so this was supposed to be a post about themes AND conventions common throughout MXTX’s writing, but I literally wrote too much for one post so I’ve split it in half. This is the half that addresses two of the most prevalent themes splayed across MXTX’s novels. Yes, this post will contain spoilers for all of MXTX’s works (though probably minor ones in terms of plot points). Expect the second half in the next week as I’m kind of busy over the next couple days!

REDEMPTION

In SVSSS, Shen Qingqiu has this genius moment where he realises that he’s now an active part of ‘PIDW’, that the people around him are actually affected by what he does. This comes in relation to (unsurprisingly) Luo Binghe, and the guilt he feels for having been so caring towards him before hurting him so soundly. And this realisation takes 70 chapters but when he does realise this, he actively starts making himself better, so that he’s ‘worthy’ of staying by Luo Binghe’s side, even after all the anguish he caused him. He’s attempting to redeem himself even from the very beginning though, because when he had transmigrated, his very first thought was to change the hand fate had dealt him, wanting to survive past his probable miserable ending in a pickle pot at the protagonists' hands. This wasn’t driven by guilt but over time the guilt complex gradually appears in the picture.

MDZS is focused mostly on Wei Wuxian’s guilt complex and him working to forgive himself and move past his time as the Yiling Patriarch. Lan Wangji is a key factor in this, his presence being something that Wei Wuxian clings to when he comes back to life after the burial mounds siege. And it’s something so important to MDZS as a whole because it’s so lovely that although Wei Wuxian himself admits he had done horrible things, Lan Wangji is there to help him through it, and he eventually comes to forgive himself for his actions (even if the rest of the world probably hasn’t). I’ve already talked about this before on 4 separate occasions, so if you want more insight just find a post about MDZS thoughts on my page :)

And finally, there's TGCF. The key characterisation point that Xie Lian has is the guilt he carries over the situation of Xianle and the death of just about everyone and their mum, but over the course of 800 years he eventually moves past it? He even feels guilt over how Qi Rong turned out, something that’s so stupid in the scheme of things, but he’s such an empathetic and intuitive character that he’ll stew in guilt over it anyway. I don’t think this theme is as important to TGCF because Xie Lian is also very mature (one would hope so after over 800 years of living) character, and he states (in one of my favourite quotes of all time) “rather than remembering how I was butchered and trampled hundreds of years ago, I’d prefer to remember that I ate a delicious meat bun yesterday”. And this gives important insight, because he feels the guilt but he moves past it, and Hua Cheng is central to this, helping Xie Lian realise he’s worthy of love, after 800 years of suffering.

LOYALTY

This is a rather obvious theme and I plan to actually write an analysis about loyalty in MDZS specifically, but I think we can categorise it and explore it in two different categories.

Firstly we have romantic loyalty, something that is prevalent throughout all her works considering that they are all romances. Each love interest remains steadfastly loyal to their main character, even through the rise and fall of dynasties, through death and through years of steadfast mourning. It’s so important that these characters remain loyal, because even though Lan Wangji mourns, and Luo Binghe has every chance to sleep with his future 3000 wives, and Hua Cheng could have destroyed his ashes when he lost track of Xie Lian 800 years previous, none of that occurs. They continue holding on to that loyalty and it fuels many of their motivations. You can also point out the loyalty that the main characters have for their love interests. Shen Yuan sits through 1000+ chapters of some horribly written stallion novel because he has some ridiculous crush on the protagonist of said story. Wei Wuxian has a similar type of obsession with Lan Wangji, every second thought something along the lines of ‘Lan Zhan would love this!’. And Xie Lian waits quietly at Puqi shrine for Hua Cheng, no matter how long it took for Hua Cheng to come back to him… “Last time, they spent eight hundred years running towards each other. This time, it only took an instant to fall into each other's embrace.”

Another type of loyalty that could be explored is familial loyalty. Yi Ziyuan, Jiang Yanli, and Jin Zixuan end up dying to protect their home, dying to save their brother, and dying trying to make their wife (and by extension, son) happy. Wen Qing and Wen Ning die to protect Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian sacrifices his core for his brother. Qi Rong spends time hanging out in his aunt and uncle's tomb for some weird reason. The various peak lords of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect spend years fighting for Shen Qingqiu’s body. Xie Lian cooks horrendous food, because his mother cooked the same way and even if its not on purpose, he holds true to her memory. This loyalty is the backbone of character backstories, whereas romantic loyalty is more of a plot device, but both are equally significant.

There’s another version of loyalty that I want to talk about, but I think I’ll save it for my eventual post on analysing loyalty in MDZS.

I may post the second half of this post in a few days (I haven’t finished writing it (I haven’t started writing it)). Until then, goodbye.

Words: 997

Reading time: 4 mins

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dearviper · 3 years ago

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Certain Dark Things Chapter 14: Thanks to Your Love

WARNINGS: 18+ (minors dni!); incel behavior/language; nonconsensual voyeurism; nonconsensual cuddling/spooning; dubious consent kissing (Check the replies for where to stop/restart reading if you want to avoid these while reading the chapter!)

Table of Contents | My Masterlist

Edward had recently begun to let you venture into the rest of the apartment (under his supervision, of course).

Depending on whether he was busy with work, Edward either left you on the leash or tied you to a chair in the living room when he let you out.

It was irritating, but at least it was a change of scenery — and a disconcerting change, at that. With a figuratively and literally looser leash, you fell further down the rabbit hole of his plot.

The various apparatus scattered about the living room was disturbing, to say the least. It looked like a mad scientist’s lab, with flasks and beakers strewn across the counters and devices whose purposes you could not yet fathom.

He kept a cage full of rats (underfed, if his threat from a few weeks ago was to be believed) on one of the tables near you.

Their squeaking was incessant, and your skin crawled each time you glanced over at their writhing bodies.

The rest of the space was taken up by notebooks and scrap paper. Much of the scrawling writing you saw was incomprehensible, both because of his penmanship and the nonsensical phrases he wrote.

At the top of a wall plastered with newspaper clippings and photographs was the phrase “THE TRUTH ABOUT GOTHAM.” On various pieces of scrap paper lying around, he had written generic slogans, like “RENEWAL IS A LIE” and “NO MORE LIES.”

On others were Biblical allusions, though you didn’t understand most of them.

6 days — on the 7th I REST

Mitchell Family Values are that of Cain and Abel

Wayne Tower of Babel

Jericho’s Walls COME TUMBLING DOWN

You could tell the first phase of his plan was drawing near. He was more on edge than usual, raving about the mayor’s sins at the slightest provocation.

Once again, you performed the balancing act of feigning the right amount of interest when he spoke.

At first you thought that the less you knew, the more likely he would be to release you. But after two months with Edward (had it really been that long?), you had resigned yourself to the fact that he would not willingly let you go.

Every action you now took was with one goal in mind: survival. If you fawned enough over him, maybe you could extend his affection for you. It was certainly working so far.

A little too well, in fact.

Whenever he wasn’t working, his eyes were constantly on you. You pretended you didn’t notice them raking over your body, but he was growing far bolder.

You were now allowed to use the toilet and the shower with the caveat that he would supervise. Internally, you scoffed when he told you that.

He had already removed every possible weapon from the bathroom — razors, cleaning product cans, even the toilet tank cover. The only thing he would “supervise” was hot, soapy water running down your naked form.

The saddest part? You hardly cared. He had already taken so much from you; your privacy was just another item on your long list of losses.

Still, you didn’t enjoy being his one-woman peepshow. The poorly-concealed tent in his pants was an unsettling reminder that you were completely at his mercy.

As he grew more comfortable touching you and leering at you, you knew it was a matter of time before he would make a move. The shy, repressed Edward you had once known was no more.

There was one perk to having him in your thrall: with a little flirtation, he would do practically anything you asked. There was power in that, the only modicum you had since he took you.

You had grown used to his touching, and that made it easier to charm him with touches of your own.

What was a soothing pat or a held hand in the grand scheme of things? Nothing. Means to an end. If it kept him happy, it kept you safe.

But again, you knew he was itching for more. You gave an inch, he took a mile. Your caresses were succeeded by his gropes, and your chaste touches were bastardized by his lewd desires.

You knew things were getting out of hand when you heard the doorknob to your bedroom turn in the middle of the night. Thinking you were asleep, he eased himself down on the bed next to you.

Edward traced the curves of your body with his fingertips, fearing to apply too much pressure lest you wake.

You kept your breathing even, grateful you were facing the wall so he wouldn’t see you wince when he pressed his body against yours.

Nuzzling his nose into your hair, he inhaled your scent. When he slid his hand under the covers and let it rest on your lower hip, dread filled your stomach.

You pretended to stir in your sleep and he yanked his hand back. Gingerly, he clambered off the bed and exited the room.

Even after you heard the lock latch, you waited a few minutes to make sure he had truly gone.

Still feigning sleep, you rolled over to face the door and cracked your eyelids. When you were certain you were alone, you let out a quivering breath of relief.

Still, you did not fall back asleep that night.

Edward scrolled through the texts you received each morning over his coffee. It became a routine, like reading the paper.

He responded often to avoid suspicion, but very few people checked up on you.

Communication with Tyler and Claudine had dropped off after your firing, and he outright ignored Adam’s messages on your behalf.

The only correspondence he needed to maintain was with Marisol, and occasionally with your parents.

It was sad, really, to see how alone in this world you were — how alone you both were. It was lucky you found each other.

On the other hand, he was relieved that your circle was small. Keeping Marisol content with messages to distract from your impromptu “trip” was difficult enough; it would’ve been far harder if you hadn’t been fired.

That was just pure luck. Kismet, even. An act from the universe conspiring to bring the two of you together. The signs were all there — you were made for each other.

That made it all the more annoying when Adam refused to cease badgering you. Edward toyed with the idea of telling him off, of berating him as you.

It was tempting, certainly, but stupid. He had to be logical about this. There could be no doubts about who might have your phone.

Still, it drove Edward up the wall every time Adam’s name popped up on your screen.

“Your boyfriend keeps texting,” he drawled one day, trying to appear bored by the notion.

You looked up from the book he lent you. “My what?”

“Adam dearest,” he replied, unable to stave off the venom in his tone.

You arched a brow and spoke carefully. “Adam isn’t my boyfriend. He’s my friend from college. You know that.”

Edward looked at you with mistrust. “And the date I caught you on?”

You narrowed your eyes at him, anger already brewing at his entitlement. “You didn’t ‘catch’ me on a date because it wasn’t a date. I was hanging out with an old friend.”

“Sure you were,” he shot back caustically.

“I don’t even know why I’m justifying myself to you. I’m telling you the truth. If you don’t want to believe me, that’s your problem.”

You tried to go back to your book, but his eyes were burning holes into you.

“I don’t believe you because you’re lying to me,” he bit out. “You were toying with my emotions and then whoring yourself out-”

“Are you serious, Edward?” you finally lost your temper, slamming the book shut. You would have jumped to your feet if you hadn’t been tied to the chair. “If I had wanted to go on a date, that would’ve been well within my rights because I wasn’t in a relationship! It’s not ‘whoring myself out’ just because it makes you jealous!”

He opened his mouth to retort, but you cut him off before he could speak.

“And not that it makes a difference, but I wasn’t even thinking about dating anyone else because I thought there was something between us and I didn’t want to jeopardize that.”

Your breathing was coming out heavily, rage seeping from every pore. Edward was speechless, staring blankly at you as if his every thought had been derailed. Finally, he managed to speak.

“You wanted… to be… with me?”

“Yes,” you snapped back hotly. “As if I didn’t make it obvious every time you and I were alone. But you ran off every time things between us got intimate, so I figured you weren’t interested.”

“I was!” he protested quickly, making you snort loudly.

“Yeah, I realize that now,” you replied snidely, gesturing to your collar and the ropes securing you to the chair. He at least had the good grace to blanch in shame.

But something quickly changed in his eyes as he took in your words.

“You wanted me,” he repeated slowly, gaze darkening as he began to approach you.

You squirmed uncomfortably, fearing where he was going with this. Edward kneeled in front of you, and you could almost see the cogs turning in his mind.

He probably thought that if you had been attracted to him before, there was a chance you still would be. You wanted to ridicule him for believing you could ever care for him after this, but you knew better.

His eyes were filled with yearning as he stared into yours. Slowly, he raised his hand and caressed your face as he had many times before.

“Wanted,” he mused. “Past tense?”

You weren’t sure how to respond, eyes wide as he continued to stroke your cheek.

“I love you,” he said slowly, repeating his words from the day he had taken you. “Do you…?”

He trailed off, searching your face for the answer.

You couldn’t tell him no; it would be borderline suicidal to do so.

Instead, you cut him off in the only way you could think of.

Lurching forward, you pressed your lips to his. He made a small noise of surprise, but returned the kiss with equal fervor.

It’s just a kiss, you soothed your distressed mind as he forced his tongue into your mouth. You’ve kissed him before. You’ve kissed lots of people before. It’s okay to pretend, to lie if it keeps you alive.

Eventually, he broke away from you, gasping for air with a delirious grin.

“My sweet girl, my angel,” he breathed, leaning back in to press reverent kisses to your cheeks and forehead. “You’re gonna save me, you know that? Sometimes I- I go too far, get too close to the edge. But you always pull me back…”

He gazed at you with adoring, wanting eyes.

Fuck.

What had you just done?

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#edward nashton x reader #edward nygma x reader #edward nashton #riddler x reader #edward nygma #riddler #batman #paul dano #certain dark things #dearviper

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retrievablememories · 4 years ago

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matched | ten (m)

title: matched pairing: alien!ten x black!reader genre: sci-fi, angst, fluff, romance, smut summary: the quest for love leads you to a new dating app with a slight twist—and straight into the inbox of someone who’s light-years out of your usual dating pool. word count: 9.7k warnings: familial conflict, strained parental relationship, mentions of cheating, prejudice/discrimination based on species, body modifications/alien biology, unprotected sex, oral (female receiving), dom!ten, photography during sex, cumshot, squirting, some spanking a/n: as always, i lose all impulse control whenever i get a ten request so i have finished this sooner than i expected

i decided to lean more into the romance plotline than stress too much over the realism of the science-fiction elements with this fic, so there are some inaccuracies/impossibilities...but that’s fiction for you 🙃

AM 2074 (After Migration)

You are lonely.

Your last breakup did not end well, to say the least, and you haven’t dated for a while since then. It seemed like a smart move—a safe one—to shun all romantic relationships until you felt ready again. At the beginning, you were glad to be alone for a while, to regroup and rediscover yourself worrying about another person’s opinions on everything you did. To not have to deal with someone else’s drama.

The toll of not having companionship is gradually getting to you, though. Even if your last relationship was a mess more often than it wasn’t, you still long for those good moments, like going on night dates on the weekends and sharing pillowtalk into long hours of the early morning. You hadn’t realized how much you’d missed those things until all the emotions of it crashed down on you at once.

Your friend Malika claims to have a solution for your loneliness. Now, sitting at this outdoor cafe, you’re simultaneously eager and hesitant to hear what she has to propose, knowing her track record for silly plots.

With twinkling eyes, she looks at you and says, “You should try a dating app.” She clasps her hands together and puts them on the table like she’s made a grand announcement. You absorb her words for a few moments, looking out at the street across from you and watching cars—some hovering above the asphalt, some driven autonomously, and many still with human drivers—pass by.

You eventually sigh, your shoulders slumping. “That’s the big solution you called me out here for? People have been using dating apps for decades, that’s nothing new.”

“Exactly! The fact that they’re still popular even in 2074 is proof that they work, Y/N. You can put yourself out there and talk to dozens of guys without even meeting them in person. If one connection doesn’t work out, you don’t have anything to lose, and you don’t have to see the guy ever again.”

“Maybe I’ll lose my sweet time and patience during the process, though.”

Malika shakes her head and types something into her hologram pad, then holds it up for you to see. The hologram displays a dating app called matched—it reminds you of what Tinder was supposedly like before it became eclipsed by more advanced platforms, though that happened years before you were even born. “This one is kinda new, but it’s gotten popular fast and has good success rates. I’ve tried it before and met some nice guys. Give it at least one chance before you hate on it.”

“Ugh, I don’t know...there are always so many weirdos hanging out on those apps. What if I meet someone who keeps a collection of severed alien tentacles in an icebox in their house? Like that one guy who showed up on the news?”

“...Really?” Malika rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. Stop getting in your own way and just take a risk for once.”

You shake your head at her optimism. “I’ll do it because I know you won’t leave me alone about it, but don’t expect me to find some great love story on this app.”

Once you download the app and start making an account, it becomes pretty obvious that this isn’t just a regular dating platform.

Choosing your gender and age preferences is normal enough, and you pass through those screens quickly until you get to one that gives you two new options.

➤ Species Preference ❐ Human ❐ Extraterrestrial

Whoa. Aliens? An alien-friendly dating app?

You weren’t overly familiar with the mechanics of dating apps, and you certainly didn’t consider that ones allowing aliens might’ve existed until now. It had been 15 years since the first contact with aliens was established, and a little less than a decade had passed since aliens began migrating to Earth and taking up permanent residence—and vice versa.

Humans had little problem with accepting aliens’ technological adaptations and claiming them as their own, though they were far less welcoming of the aliens themselves. That resulted in strained interactions between the two species, with aliens trying their best to assimilate and humans questioning their every motive. As far as personal relationships went, interspecies mingling between humans and extraterrestrials was still fairly uncommon—something that only people who were considered to be on the fringes of society participated in. There were “normal citizens of society” who built relationships with aliens, but many of them also kept it solely as a kink or fetish to be done only in the dark.

You decide to check both options. It feels a little scary, like diving headfirst into the unknown, but you are open to it either way. You’ve interacted with aliens before, both as kind acquaintances and near strangers, and they’ve always been relatively normal in the grand scheme of things—beings trying to survive and make a life for themselves like anyone else. Certainly not plotting how to take over Earth as many people have speculated. If they really wanted to, they possess the technology to have done that ten times over already.

You take a while trying to come up with a clever bio and spend an even longer time mulling over which pictures of yourself to choose, but you eventually complete your profile.

The first few matches you make are not very successful.

Whether it’s human guys feeding you terrible pickup lines or alien guys who can’t make it past the language barrier—or who ask you to move back with them to their home planet after two days of talking—you don’t see any potential love interests during your first two weeks of using the app.

You’re not sure what kind of skills Malika used to make multiple good matches, but maybe you need to interrogate her so you can sharpen your own. So you decide to do exactly that.

“Don’t give up on it just yet. Just be yourself—which also means not being afraid to cuss someone out if they come at you crazy. Some of these dudes lowkey like the mean girl shit, though, which is kinda weird.” Malika speaks from the shimmering translucent mirage of your hologram pad as you walk through the park one afternoon. She couldn’t make it out to meet you today, but you managed to snatch a moment to talk to her even if it couldn’t be face-to-face. “You probably shouldn’t expect to find a boyfriend in the first few days—”

“Girl, I don't think anyone was expecting that. Duh.”

“I’m saying, just give it time!”

“Okay, but listen. You didn’t tell me it’s also for aliens. Have you dated one before? You never told me!” You lower your voice then, not wanting anyone nearby to eavesdrop on your conversation and hear that part. You feel kinda bad for even thinking that way, but it’s hard to shake the stigma associated with interacting with aliens.

“Yes, and it was the best sex I ever had, but maybe I’ll tell you about that later.”

“Sis. Don’t withhold tea from me!”

“Someday when you’re not literally standing in the middle of the park, okay?” Malika shakes her head, smiling.

“Don’t forget about it, either.”

“I won’t. And you know what to do if you find a guy. I want to be the first to know!”

“Sure, sure. I wouldn’t hold my breath on it, though.”

You decide to spend some more time on the app after that conversation instead of just deleting it like you’d planned to initially. And one day, you get another new match that catches your eye out of the many others.

“Ten? Like the number…?” Besides the interesting name, you immediately see that he’s an extraterrestrial. From the Sommu race, as it says in his bio.

You click on his profile.

You’re a little surprised by how pretty he is, which isn’t to say the other aliens you matched with were all hideous. But he doesn’t have tentacles coming out of his face or two sets of eyes, either. The most noticeable thing about his alienness is his blue skin.

“Likes...dancing, art, music, okay so we have an artist type here...dislikes...fruit. Huh. That’s...interesting.”

The pictures of him on his profile are all deliberately artistic, as in they aren’t just some half-baked selfies he took with a hologram pad. You grow increasingly curious. It’s safe to say he’s either super into himself or just appreciates the art of good photography, and you figure there’s only one way to find out. You decide to take the first step and message him.

➤ Nice pictures :)

You don’t know when or if you’ll get a message back, since he’s not online when you send it, so you try not to get your hopes up too much. Maybe you should’ve tried to come up with something more cool and funny—nice pictures?—but you try to remember Malika’s advice and roll your eyes to yourself. There’s no point in getting stressed over a dude you don’t even know yet.

You eventually get a reply back from Ten.

➤ thank you 🙏 are you into photography too? you have talent for taking beautiful photos

You giggle quietly to yourself; another line, but it’s definitely one of the tamer ones you’ve received. Why not see where this one goes?

The first conversation you have consists mostly of the regular getting-to-know-you talk, such as your personal interests and favorite things. You get him to talk more about his photography hobby, which he’s eager to tell you all about—as well as his penchant for art.

To your optimism, you and Ten quickly get comfortable with each other. You soon forget about all the other potential matches you have, but those don't matter much to you anymore. So far, you’ve connected the most successfully with Ten, which means you’re more than glad to stop spending your time reading boring messages from guys who’ve only pretended to have things in common with you.

Things go so well, in fact, that he asks you to meet in person not long after you begin talking to each other.

For your first meetup, you decide to meet at a park nearby—the same one you’d been walking through the day you were talking to Malika about that very dating app. You and Ten have talked through the hologram pad on multiple occasions, so you’re more reassured that you’re not starting from scratch with some faceless being. Still, the thrill of seeing each other in person for the first time is undeniable.

“Y/N?” You turn your head at the sound of your name, and you see Ten walking towards you.

“Ten!” You give him a smile, waving at him. You feel a little more nervous than you usually would on a date, though you can’t tell if it’s the good kind of nervousness. You mostly chalk it up to not having been out with anyone in a while.

Ten’s just as pretty up close as he was in the photos and on camera, if not even more attractive; he’s breathtaking in the light of the sun. His hair is styled nicely, meticulously-place strands curling over his forehead, and his clothes perfectly outline his slim body. He looks pleased to see you, his lips curving into a coy smile.

“You could’ve given me a warning,” he says as he outstretches his arms to you. You hug him, but not without a questioning glance on your face. He is warm and smells good, like juniper, which almost makes you forget about your question.

“Warned you about what?”

“How you’re even more beautiful in person.” He says this at your ear before pulling away, and it makes the back of your neck bloom with heat.

“Oh, you’re laying it on thick.” You giggle nervously, shifting on your feet.

“Are you ready to go?” he asks.

“Yes, let’s go!”

You leave the park to go to an aquarium nearby, which is the biggest one in the city. You find out quickly that Ten is easily fascinated by the wide range of creatures there. Despite living on Earth for a few years now, he hasn’t seen a lot of them until now.

You walk through the blue-lit hallways together, surrounded by water everywhere you turn. You observe the different animals up close and from far away, reading information about them from the signs beside their tanks.

“What the hell is that?” Ten says through laughter, looking at the squished-up mouth of a stingray as it floats in front of the glass, baring its pale underside to you both.

“It’s a stingray!”

He scrunches his nose up. “It’s ugly. But kinda cute, too…”

You both end up staying at the aquarium longer than you expected, with Ten wanting to see practically every animal they had on display; plus, you got to see some you weren’t familiar with before either.

After visiting the aquarium, you go downtown—which is otherwise known as food truck central, where you can get pretty much anything you’re craving. This area is always quite busy this time of evening, especially on the weekends. Food in hand, you and Ten end up walking through a few of the quieter back streets where there’s not as many people—streets where the closely-packed buildings give way to the grassy yards and paved roads of nearby neighborhoods.

“Should we talk about our families now, or is it too soon?” you say jokingly. “You know, that seems to be the only thing we haven’t mentioned after talking about everything else under the sun.” You’re not entirely sure why you bring this up while knowing your own relationship with your parents isn’t great, but you are curious to hear about Ten’s family.

“I don’t really know mine,” he replies.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” You feel a little bad about it, thinking there was definitely a reason why he never mentioned the topic.

Ten looks confused for a moment before shaking his head. “No, it’s not like that. Sommu never form close bonds with their parents or siblings.”

You give him a curious look. “Why not?”

“Well, we aren’t born or raised the human way,” he explains. “Our parents have a bunch of us at once, raise us for the first couple of years, and then go off to reproduce again and continue the population.”

You’re startled at that. “Just for a few years? How do you survive?”

“We age faster...both physically and mentally. We become independent around 4 or 5 years old, and we can live without our parents.”

“That’s...definitely very different.” You try to wrap your mind around that information, though it’s difficult. Even with your not-so-healthy relationship with your parents, you couldn’t imagine having no family whatsoever at such a young age. You also can’t even begin to comprehend what it’d look like to be taking care of yourself at only 5 years old, fast aging or not. “But, you said a bunch at once...how is that possible?”

“We are formed inside things like eggs. It’s not like your form of childbirth. See?” And you become flustered when he lifts his shirt up to show his lack of a belly button, right there in the middle of the street.

“Uh, wow.”

“The human concepts of ‘family’ and ‘relationships’ are...very new to me.” He seems a little embarrassed to admit this. “That’s why I, um, joined a dating app, for more experience...I was told I need to learn to be more…” He searches for the word. “Im...pertinent?”

“...Empathetic?”

“Yeah, that.”

“So, did that come from a previous partner, or…?”

“Yeah, I’ve had two relationships since I’ve been here.” He seems wistful now, maybe a little sad. “They didn’t work out well. Maybe we were too different.” Before the mood can shift too far into negativity, Ten turns to you with a soft smile. “But maybe that’s not the kind of thing you want to hear while we’re on a date.”

You shake your head and smile. “I don’t mind, it’s interesting to know about.” More than interesting. You want to ask him a hundred more things about what his life was like when he first got to Earth. “Anyway, you can never have too many new starts in life. Let’s enjoy this one.”

At the end of your date, Ten walks with you back to your place. It’s almost midnight at this point, with you both walking all the way back from downtown. You’d drawn more than a few skeptical stares over the course of the day, but you both did your best to ignore those and just focus on each other.

“I’m really glad we got to go out today, it was fun,” you say, hugging your arms to yourself to shield against the cool spring breeze.

“I think I haven’t had that much fun in a while,” he agrees. Ten smiles wide then, the tip of his tongue sticking out from between his teeth, and you have to do a double take.

“What—”

“Oh, that. Sometimes I forget everyone doesn’t have this...” And when he sticks his tongue out, you see clearly now that it’s split halfway down the middle. Sort of like how a snake’s would be. “D’you like it?” His expression is wicked when he asks this, and a strange heat sweeps through your body.

“Wow.” You cringe at your lackluster answer, but that’s the only thing you can muster up at the moment, too busy internally questioning yourself. You’ve seen body modders with split tongues in documentaries and on the internet, but it’s never appealed to you like this before, and you don’t know what to do with that new realization.

“It’s okay, it takes some getting used to.” He gives you a smile that might be called innocent by anyone else, but to your eyes it’s quite obvious he’s proud about making you flustered.

“Getting used to...yeah, I’m sure.” There are about 15 different questions you want to ask him about that, too, but you aren’t going there on the first date.

“So...can I expect to see you again?”

“Of course.” You smile again at the hopeful note in his tone. “Just let me know whenever you want to go out again.”

Before Ten leaves, he places a hand on your shoulder and kisses you on the cheek. It’s a simple and short kiss, but it still makes you blush beneath your brown skin.

You wave goodbye to him from your doorstep as he goes, feeling like you’ve finally done something right for the first time in a long time.

You’d taken a chance with dating an extraterrestrial, someone so different from yourself and your species, and you figured it would be a new experience. Obviously. What you did not bet on, however, was the idea that you’d fall for Ten so fast.

After three months of dating exclusively, you feel like you could say you love him, which is frighteningly quick for you; though you don’t tell him this yet.

You’ve decided to bring him to meet your family. The idea frightens you, because your parents have never been very receptive to the aliens’ migration. But you are still holding out some hope that maybe they’ll realize all their assumptions were wrong, and that you’ve found a nice man who you love and who you’re sure loves you just as much. Whether he’s human or not shouldn’t matter.

You manage to set a date when all your schedules match up so you can bring Ten over to your parent’s house. Ten is nervous—more nervous than he was when you went on your first date—which you find a little surprising. You’ve gotten used to him being the one who you can lean on, who always seems to know the right answer.

“Do you think it will go well?” he asks, his tone implying he’s not confident of the answer.

“I hope so.” You give him a smile that you hope is reassuring and squeeze his hand.

When your parents open the door, there’s visible surprise on their faces. You’d already told them your boyfriend was not human, which drew doubtful responses when you first said it, but they’re acting as if they never knew that information—as if this is the first time they’re seeing an alien, period.

“Um…hi, mom, dad.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ten says, though his own tone is overly formal, like he doesn’t know how he should speak. “I’m Ten.”

Your parents pause for a few moments longer. Finally, the awkward quiet is broken. “We thought you were just messing,” your dad says, though he steps out of the way to let you both come in, if a bit reluctantly.

“I—no.” You’re uncertain how to respond to that, though you don’t feel optimistic about what it entails. Your mother doesn’t say anything at all, just stares at you and Ten like you’re both strangers who’ve just waltzed in uninvited. She goes back in the kitchen to finish dinner once the door is closed, not saying anything to either one of you, and you already feel a cold pit settling in the bottom of your stomach.

Your dad sits in the living room with you and Ten, and another awkward silence ensues as your dad gives a stiff smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He clasps his fingers together and pulls them apart repeatedly, like they’ll give him the answers for what’s going on.

“This is just a fling, right? Of course you won’t be staying with this ma—” Your dad almost says man but then stutters, thinking maybe the term isn’t appropriate since Ten isn’t human. He makes a vague gesture to fill in the space of the missing word.

“It’s not a fling,” you say, feeling like you’ve had cold water poured down your back. You’re sitting straight and still on the couch, and it’s not comfortable, but you’re too tense to move. Ten is almost equally stiff beside you.

“Y/N, we just want you to make good decisions for yourself.” That’s what your dad says out loud, though the look in his eyes finishes the rest of that sentence: And I don’t think this is a good decision.

“I am,” you insist. “I don’t need to be told that over and over again.”

“Me and Y/N are happy together,” Ten explains, and your dad seems a little shocked that he’s decided to speak.

“Do you truly think you’re what she needs?” your dad asks. You’re not sure what makes you more angry; the question itself, or the fact that he keeps his tone non-accusatory and light, as if he’s only asking something like where do you work? Like the answer doesn’t matter because he’s already made up his mind.

“As long as Y/N wants to keep seeing me, there’s no reason to stop our relationship.”

A sound of displeasure comes from your mother in the kitchen, and your skin prickles. Your dad nods to Ten’s answer, but he does so in a way that conveys he just wants this conversation to be over rather than consider anything that was said.

You deeply regret not leaving straight after that failed discussion, but you soon find out just how bad it can get once you all make it to the dinner table. Your mother is chillingly silent for the first half of the dinner, acting like neither you nor Ten exist, while your dad attempts to make awkward small talk about how things are going.

There comes a point where you can no longer handle the cold sweat and the nerves, and you put your utensils down. Not that you had much of an appetite anyway.

“Why won’t you even talk to me?”

Your mother glares. “You can’t guess? What kind of question is that to ask?”

You falter. You don’t know why she always does this to you. Ask ridiculous rhetorical questions that you both already know the answer to. Now you must sit here and explain why you asked like it isn’t already obvious.

“I’m visiting after I haven’t been here in a while. With my boyfriend. I thought...I don’t know. The least you could do—” Your mother shakes her head at the word “boyfriend,” and you already know everything else you said went in one ear and out the other.

“I still don’t know why you didn’t just stay with Christian?” she interrupts. “He had a decent job, came to see us often, and was NOT an alien.”

“But he cheated on me,” you say, a sickness rising in you.

“That’s what men do sometimes, Y/N. You deal with it and move on. You’re supposed to be strong—fix whatever is making him do it.”

You and Ten exchange a tense look, and there is clear confusion whirling in his eyes, but you don’t say anything to each other. “That relationship is over. I’m trying to do something for myself for once, not whatever you think I should do.” Even saying those words makes you internally recoil, unsure of what the reaction will be, but you don’t take them back.

“You may be an adult but we’re still your parents. Frankly, you need to be with a man of your own race and species—not this blue Martian here. How would you even have kids?”

Ten gives a humorless laugh, like he wants to respond but doesn’t want to make the situation worse or offend you. “You know what, I should just leave,” he says abruptly, rising from his seat.

You get up quickly after he does, but your mom slams her hand on the table. “Y/N, you better not walk out of here.”

You feel defeated and exhausted, like you always do when dealing with your parents and their objections to every single thing you do, but you decide not to give in this time. “Stop treating me like I’m still a child, ma.”

“What does being an adult matter when you still act childish? Don’t come back here crying when this doesn’t work out. I’ve already warned you more than enough.”

“That isn’t going to happen.”

“So now you think you know better than me, when you couldn’t even keep a man the first time around.”

“This is hopeless,” you sigh, feeling wounded and angry at all these cheap shots.

“Y/N, please just listen to your mother for once…” your dad interjects, but you try your best to ignore their protests as you grab your things and follow Ten to the door. You can still hear your mother’s angry complaints as you close the front door behind you, though you’re surprised—but grateful—that neither of them attempt to follow you outside.

The ride back home is uncomfortable and mostly quiet.

“I’m sorry, Ten,” you say, feeling like you’ve been frozen from the inside out despite it being nearly summer. You’re near tears when you speak. Ten shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

“It’s not your fault…” he replies weakly, though his words aren’t very persuasive to either of you.

He still walks you up to your door when you arrive back at your place, trailing slightly behind you. The night air is distractingly humid, wrapping around the both of you like a physical thing. Neither of you know what to say to each other.

When you get to your front door, you turn to look at him. “I shouldn’t have made you come. I should’ve known...”

“I wanted to come,” he points out. “You didn’t make me do anything.” Ten’s tone isn’t outright harsh, but the words are noticeably sharp. Maybe he realizes it, because his face softens as if he’s said something wrong.

You nod. It’s as if there’s a mountainous gap between you two that you just can’t cross right now. “I get it.” You say this almost mindlessly, because you’re not sure what you’re getting, exactly. Your hand rests on the doorknob. You don’t want to end the night on this awkward and painful note, but neither of you are making any progress with this lack of a real conversation. Maybe now isn’t the right time to try to talk about it.

“I think...I’ll just go home tonight.” You expected he’d say that, but the words still make your heart hurt, even if you don’t want them to. He looks like he might say something else, but he just gives you a small nod before starting off.

“Ten…” You don’t know what you want to ask of him or tell him, if anything, but his name slips from your lips like it’s something you can’t keep inside.

Ten stops for a moment and turns back to you. He steps closer again, leaning forward to give you a soft kiss on the lips. When he pulls back, his eyes hold you in place.

He mumbles, “I’m not mad at you,” before leaving.

More than anything, you want to know how Ten is doing, but you’re too ashamed to contact him for the first couple days after that mess of a night. Maybe he thinks you’re just like your parents and doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore. His reassurance at the door wasn’t enough to soothe your worries, and you end up tearing yourself up internally over it—repeatedly recalling the warmth of his lips and wondering if that’s maybe the last time you’ll ever feel it.

Similarly, nothing but radio silence comes from his end. He doesn’t respond even after you finally muster up the nerve to send him a text—a short text, but still a message all the same—and you fear he must really be done with you.

On Ten’s part, he does have one justification for it; he’s preoccupied with dealing with the avalanche of unpleasant memories and emotions that incident resurfaced. Everything about what your parents said and how they looked at him reminds him of his past and ongoing struggles with trying to assimilate on Earth.

Even though he’s often very sure of himself and what he wants, he begins wondering if he’s “enough” for you. Maybe you’ve just been humoring him this whole time, or you’ve decided your parents are right and you’d be better off with another human.

Those thoughts keep him up into the early morning hours, and he soon realizes he doesn’t want to let you go. In fact, he’s not sure what he’d do with himself if you decided to walk out of his life right now, and the idea of it makes him ill. Which makes him feel even more foolish for tuning you out.

Ten’s anxiety over losing you culminates in him standing on your doorstep again after almost a week of emptiness and not knowing how you were thinking or feeling—which has been killing him in its own way.

You’re not quite sure how to feel when you open the door and see him on the other side, but relief shoulders its way to the forefront.

“Y/N, I’m sorry—”

“Can you please—”

You both speak at the same time, your words breaking afterwards.

“You can talk first,” Ten says.

“Come in.” You let him in the door, and the words start spilling before you know how to stop them. “Ten, I-I’m...really sorry. I should’ve known better than to put you in that situation, but I thought…” Your words trail off. You don’t want to let him know just how desperate you still are for your parents’ approval sometimes. Even though it’s a fruitless case. “I just wanted it to go well. I want things to work now, for us. I really, really want things to work for us.”

Ten surprises himself with how quickly he moves to take you in his arms before the last words have even finished settling in his mind. He hugs you tightly. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want me anymore,” he whispers, like he’s telling you something forbidden.

“That couldn’t happen.” You’re saddened he’d come to that conclusion. “But...it’s not fair for you to leave me in the dark, either. I want to help you...so would you please let me?”

Ten squeezes you a bit tighter, as if you might disappear from his arms. “I’m sorry I ghosted you...it brought back bad memories of how things were when I first got here. When people were more open about treating me like some kind of enemy. I didn’t know how to deal with it.” You tuck your chin into his shoulder and listen to his breathing, his heartbeat, the sound of his words. “Y/N, I’m not sure if I’m very good at love, or if I even know enough about it. Maybe the others were right and I’m kidding myself with something I’ll never properly learn. But, I…” His voice cracks. “I-I think I love you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Entirely overwhelmed, you answer his admission with a long kiss, cupping his face in your hands. His response to your kiss is automatic, the knots of tension unraveling in your embrace.

“I love you, Ten,” you whisper against his lips after you separate. Here and now, it doesn’t feel too soon at all; there couldn’t be a better time to say it. His expression is a lot of things at once. Relief, happiness, contentment...he’s blushing, but it shows up as a darker blue on his already blue skin. When he smiles, it turns his whole face into a picture of joy.

“I want to go away.” Quietly, you tell him this as you rest your head in his lap.

You’re both lying on your couch, the room dim and the sound of rain occupying the silence. A downpour started coming down soon after Ten got to your place. You’ve sat there just like that and listened to the rain on the windows for the past couple hours, not wanting to do anything else or separate from each other. You knew he wouldn’t want to go home, and you didn’t even have to ask him to stay.

Ten’s been petting your hair the whole time. The motion of his fingers in your kinky strands makes you sleepy, but now the movements pause at your words.

“Go where?” he asks.

“Away from all this. My parents hate me, and they won’t let me have any peace as long as I’m with you. I just want to go away for a while.” Despite you overflowing with love after finally getting your feelings out in the open, the thought of your parents’ disapproval has lingered steadily in the recesses of your mind. You close your eyes against the tears that begin to well up. Ten’s quiet for a few more moments, and then begins stroking your head again.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

A few tears fall despite you trying to keep them in, and your eyelids flutter when you feel Ten’s fingers on your face, wiping them away. “Then we’ll go away.”

Ten’s homeland is a planet where the sun—or rather, a star called Proxima Centauri that’s much like the sun—is always out, no matter what time of day it is. There are days where it rains or gets cloudy, but night never falls and the star never dips any lower in the sky, always staying pinned in that same spot like a tack on a corkboard. That everlasting light throws your body clock off, and combined with this weird new form of jet lag associated with space travel, you are a mess for the first week or so after your arrival.

Ten makes a few jokes about fragile human bodies, but for the most part he tends to you as best as he knows how and tells you stories about how he grew up to get your mind off the discomfort. He feeds you these neon green drinks that don’t look like anything on Earth you’ve had before, and although they do make you feel better, you begin to think maybe you should’ve had a wellness plan before running off-planet.

You aren’t the only human who’s ever visited or even lived there, though, which gives you reassurance about adjusting to everything. By now, there’s a small population of human beings living here due to the interplanetary exchange initiated by Earth.

Before you left, Ten told you he had a small home in his homeland. You didn’t quite expect to hear this, since he’d been on Earth for a while now and had no family to return to. Though he’d migrated, he still expected to come back to his planet every so often, if only to visit. Now was as good a time as any.

Although many differences exist, the scenery is much like Earth’s; there are ecosystems with plants and animals and other living beings—like the Sommu themselves. Ten’s homeland is not filled with wall-to-wall technology like you’d expect an alien city to be, based on the small examples you’ve seen on Earth. You might compare it to the tropics back on Earth, with the Sommu yielding to nature’s rightful place in their ecosystem instead of clearing out whole forests or continually mining for resources. Ten is amused by your struggle to comprehend the newness and unfamiliarity of it all.

When you feel good enough to explore, he starts taking you to the beach often. It looks mostly like any other beach, but there are large coral forms that grow out of the ocean, reaching up towards the impossibly blue and constantly illuminated sky. Because there is no moon to guide the tides, the water is eerily still, the surface mirror-like—like a huge lake or pond that extends in almost every direction for miles. You’d almost believe it was a mirror if you hadn’t seen a bird-like creature skimming across the surface as it flew by, creating fleeting ripples.

You swim around a little in the still waters after Ten convinces you that you aren’t going to turn into a fish or something equally scary. He has to hold both your hands the entire time to get you to step in, and he doesn’t let go until you’re confident enough to explore the water on your own.

“Just focus on me, okay?” His smile is bright and shining against his blue skin, and he looks you directly in the eyes as he backs into the water, breaking the surreal stillness of it with his movements. “It’s just like the water on Earth.”

“Okay, okay,” you say uncertainly, gripping his hands and stepping in tentatively. The water does feel like any other water you’ve touched throughout your life, which helps you calm down slightly. His hands stay tight around yours as you get waist-deep into the water.

When you’re finally able to let go of him, he claps his hands more enthusiastically than the situation probably calls for. “Yay, you’re a big girl now!”

You roll your eyes at him. “You’re not funny, Ten.”

On a bright afternoon, Ten lets you into a room of his house you haven’t entered before. You’ve passed by this shining white door several times, but it’s always remained firmly shut until now.

“What’s in here?” you ask as you hold his hand.

“That’s what I’m going to show you.” He laughs and pushes the door open.

You think it’s a darkroom at first, seeing nothing but dim light and the shiny surfaces of what looks like photographs as your eyes adjust. But when he touches his hand to a panel on the wall and the lights come on, you realize it’s not a darkroom. More like a small gallery for all his pictures.

The “pictures” are physical, but they aren’t like the old Polaroids or film photos that have begun fading out of existence on Earth. They’re small crystalline squares that play eternally-moving videos on their glossy surfaces—a bit different from the translucent holograms Earth adopted. You step further into the room to look at them. It’d probably take days to explore them all, there are so many. Different scenes play out as soundless movies, and when you look for long enough, you realize they’re split into different categories. Numerous events within a life.

Many are of the beach, other scenic places around his homeland, oddly-shaped buildings, and plants in colors that there are no names on Earth for. You step closer to one of the walls to look at the collection of images more closely. You actually do “recognize” a select few, linking them together with old memories Ten had shared with you only weeks ago. There’s so much happening in these small snippets of time, so many stories you haven’t yet heard, that you feel like you could look at them forever and not get enough.

“This is...something else.” Your words seem inadequate, but you don’t quite know how to express your sheer wonder.

“I could take some of you,” Ten suggests, from somewhere behind you. “I want to.”

You glance back at him. “Hm, yeah.”

“I’m serious.” Ten comes up behind you to clasp his arms around your waist. He tucks his chin into your shoulder. His lips are close at your neck, and you let them linger there. One of your hands goes to his own hand that’s over your waist, and you run your fingertips over his knuckles as you gaze at the photo wall before you. “I think you’d be the perfect muse.”

“You could do that.” You’re still entranced with it all, and you already know you’ve made up your mind to let him take as many photos of you as he wants.

The next time you go to the beach, Ten takes some photos of you standing near the huge coral forms—or at least as close as you are willing to get—and he laughs at your lingering hesitation.

Still, the crystalline photos he takes of you are the embodiment of perfection. When you look over them later, watching yourself twirl around and strike silly poses in the water, you can almost hear the sound of your laughter twining together and feel the warmth of a star that’s not the sun on your skin.

“What if we stayed here?”

You ask Ten this while you’re lying in his bed, watching a kaleidoscope of shapes on the ceiling. The bedroom window is open to allow the breeze to come in. The ceiling of the bedroom—and every other room in the house—is more like an ever-changing reflection of shapes and colors than an actual ceiling. You might compare it to a mirror, like the surface of the ocean, but you think it’s much more complex than that. Sometimes you can see the distorted outline of yourself in it, like a funhouse mirror. Other times, you see the sky above.

Ten lies beside you with one hand behind his head and the other resting on his stomach, and he turns his head to look at you.

“Stayed?”

“If we just decided not to...go back to Earth.”

He pauses for a few moments. “Is that a good idea? You have a whole life there...and your friends…” Ten doesn’t mention your family, which you are grateful for.

You sigh. Nothing like a quick injection of reality after letting your imagination get ahead of you. “We’d have to go back. I’d have to tell them goodbye. And sort some other things out. Maybe it wouldn’t happen right now. But, after I do everything I need to do on Earth...maybe I could migrate here.”

“That’s a big decision to make...and it should be yours to decide.” Ten pauses again, like he’s weighing his words. “You know I don’t have many connections on Earth…” In other words, leaving Earth and returning home for good might not be as big of a deal for him as it would be for you.

You sit up and look out the window, seeing how the warm wind stirs the trees outside. “I want to.” You say it almost inaudibly, your words nearly carried off by the breeze. You turn back to him only to find him already there, sitting across from you and looking at you closely. Your faces are only inches from each other’s as he searches your eyes. “What do you want to do?”

“I’ll do anything you want to.” Ten’s voice is earnest, like he’d follow you to Hell and back if you asked, and you believe him.

Resting your hand on his cheek, you kiss him.

This kiss is a little different from the ones you’ve shared before—more yearning. More desperate. You kiss like there won’t be enough time to do all the things you want to do with each other—to each other. His split tongue bumps against yours, caresses it, and it causes a shiver to go down your spine, like it always does.

You end up lying back on the bed again with Ten’s body crowding yours in, legs tangling together and hips pressing against one another’s. Neither of you have made a move to take the other’s clothes off yet, but then he separates from your lips for a long moment and studies your features, from your eyebrows down to your mouth.

“Touch yourself for me.”

Your mouth drops open slightly.

“I want to see it.” He takes one of your hands and guides it up under your skirt and between your legs, pressing your fingers against your sex through your underwear, and you look at him with wide eyes, taking a deep breath. He lets go of your hand, and you keep yours right where it is. You’re slightly nervous about his black gaze trained on you, unrelenting and prying, but you begin to move your hand anyway.

Over your underwear, you press your finger between your lower lips, sliding between them and over your clit, and a little tremor goes through your body. You find yourself getting wet more quickly than you normally would with Ten watching you as you tease your entrance. You breathe a little heavier but make no sound yet. One of Ten’s hands reaches out for your ankle, though he doesn’t do anything other than keep his fingers there, a light touch that keeps passing back and forth over your ankle bone.

You circle your fingers across your clit more insistently, your legs tensing as the pleasure mounts higher. Ten’s lips part as he watches you, a heavy breath escaping from his chest. The hand on your ankle slides higher up your leg, just below your thigh, like he wants to slide his fingers into the mix and take over, but he doesn’t make a move to do so just yet.

Finally, Ten reaches under your skirt to pull your sticky panties off, sliding them slowly down your legs and leaving them somewhere on the floor. You want him to touch you again, the brush of his hands against your hips not enough, but he doesn’t grant your desire. “Keep going,” he says, leaning back on his hands, and you can see he’s growing hard.

You bring your hand back to its original place between your thighs, sliding through the wetness more easily and shuddering when your fingertips graze over your clit. You slide a finger into yourself then. A small moan slips out, and you close your eyes, but Ten’s fingers pinch your chin—not enough to hurt, but the sudden touch makes you look at him. “Keep your eyes open.” His thumb presses into your lower lip, and he stares at your mouth for a moment like he’s imagining sliding something hard and hot between your lips.

Ten kisses you on the lips again, and this time he trails the kisses down your body until he’s gripping your thighs on either side of his face. You pause in your movements when he reaches the junction of your thighs, and you watch as he grabs your hand and slips your finger out of yourself. He sucks the slick digit into his mouth, and you cannot tear your eyes away from him.

He lets your hand go and pulls you a few inches closer to his face, dragging you across the bed, and you can barely get your bearings back to sit up again when he slips his tongue through your lower lips. You moan, and he responds to that by repeating it again, catching your clit between the split in his tongue, and wiggling both sides.

“Oh Jesus...oh fuck.” Your hands go to Ten’s hair, pulling on it as you push your hips closer to his mouth, your back curving up. He is alluring tucked between your thighs like this, teasing and sucking your clit with his split tongue and prodding his fingers at your hole until he chooses to slide two of them inside.

His free hand keeps you close against his face as he eats you out, that wondrous tongue sliding against the most sensitive part of your body and making you gasp with boundless pleasure. Little droplets of moisture bead at the corners of your eyes from how good it feels, your stomach tensing and releasing as you try your best to keep still.

He has to keep his grip on your body tight when you come, as you try to squirm away from his tongue because of how stimulated you are. He only lets you go after he’s satisfied himself with licking up all the wet that’s spilled from you.

Then he strips your skirt off for you, because he knows you’re not quite in a state to do it for yourself right now. He peels the rest of your clothes off similarly, which doesn’t take much time or effort to do; you’ve dressed lightly for the weather.

Ten looks at you lying beneath him on the bed, his gaze stuck somewhere between awe and lust.

He slips out of his own clothes with a certain practiced ease. Yes, he’s really blue everywhere. He looks mostly human-like everywhere, too, except for the lack of a belly button.

Ten kisses you deeply as he slips into you, and you clutch at his sides. He tries to keep his pace slow at first, maybe for your sake or to just savor how it feels, but he gives into the feeling of you squeezing around him and starts thrusting into you faster. There is already sweat sliding down to his jaw, though you think it might be because of the heat, too.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” comes out of you in a voice you hardly recognize as your own.

His pelvis sliding against your clit from the proximity of your bodies makes you curl your fingers into the strands of his hair, wanting to touch every part of him you can. His lips go to the sweat-slicked skin of your shoulder, leaving little wet kisses behind as he wraps an arm around your waist and simply fucks into you, his shaft dragging against your walls.

He eventually separates himself from your neck, though it comes with some effort, to gaze at your face again. However, he finds that your eyes have drifted shut.

“Do you wanna come?” Ten asks, softly, gently, like you might break apart if he speaks too loud.

You’re a little winded from how he’s thrusting into you and can’t yet see the motive behind this question—because of course you do—but you answer with a shaky “I-I want to.”

“Then don’t look away from me.” His voice becomes harsher on these words.

“I…” Your lips move without any real words behind them as he thrusts into you harder, sinking all the way into you before pulling out to the tip. You want do what he’s just told you, but you find it difficult with the way he’s intent on burying himself into you, his eyes piercing into your own. “Mmm, I-I…”

You don’t know if you can, but the way he’s kindling your rising heat with each thrust makes you want to try very, very hard. Ten keep his hands on the sides of your face so you cannot look anywhere but at him.

The pleasure bears down on you more with each second, and you try to keep your breathing steady as another climax approaches.

“You’re almost there, come on baby,” he coaxes you, sloppily kissing the corner of your mouth before slipping his tongue in again. The way you gasp against his lips and tighten around him signals him to your orgasm, and he sits back to watch it play across your face, smirking at how you moan his name desperately.

Ten’s continued thrusts make you shiver from the flood of sensations overcoming your body, and you whimper at his movements until he pulls out and comes on your abdomen.

Ten gives you time to recover after you come down from your second orgasm, though he makes sure to lay a few more enamored kisses on your weakened body. He gets off the bed and exits the room after that. You don’t bother to ask where he’s going, because you know he’ll be back anyway.

When Ten comes back, he has his camera with him. The teasing tilt of his lips never leaves his face as he points it towards you. He takes a photo of you lying on his bed nude, with the breeze coming in and rustling the tree leaves and your hair, your skin shining bronze under the light of the eternal star. Then he comes closer, making the bed sink under his weight, and nudges your legs apart. He takes more photos of your lower stomach glistening with sweat and his cum—and photos of him sliding his slender fingers between your thighs and bringing you careening into another bout of euphoria.

The camera is soon forgotten after you come again. Ten climbs fully back onto the bed now and pulls you into his lap. His dick is hard again, and the length of it nudges against your lower lips, making you whimper from how sensitive you still are. He shushes you with a kiss and lifts your hips so he can slide into you, his shaft nudging that soft spot inside you and making you grip onto his arms.

You’re too mushy and dazed to do anything but let him push his hips up into you while you cling to him, your head lolling back. Ten’s mouth goes to the open expanse of your neck, and he wets your skin with his tongue.

The kaleidoscope of shapes above you on the ceiling morphs into one glistening reflection, throwing the blurred shapes of your bodies back to you. It’s like looking through a dense fog. You’re a little caught off guard by it, and you stare up at your nude forms. Ten looks up as well to see the cloudy figure of you cradled in his lap, and he only grins and thrusts up into you harder and smacks your ass in reply.

He grinds into you while he has you sitting full on his dick, and you think he must have set off your internal “reset” button somewhere between landing slaps on your ass and repeatedly hitting your g-spot. Your mind is blissfully, amazingly blank. The only clear thing you can distinguish is how he feels in and around you.

When you come this time, it comes with a gush of wetness that makes Ten whisper several smug praises into your ear for being such a good girl and making a mess on him.

As you quickly find out, Ten’s refractory period seems to be nonexistent, while his stamina is overflowing.

Ten knows how to mix the pain with pleasure in a way that enhances both feelings, and you don’t know if you’ve ever experienced anything more perfect. One moment, he’ll say something romantic and fairytale-like to you before shoving your head into the pillow and taking you from behind in the next moment, pulling one of your arms behind you for leverage as he thrusts into you hard. You want him to do whatever he desires to you, and so you let him hammer into you until you think your hips and ass will be bruised by the next morning.

You’ve never knew that sex could be so carnal and so loving at the same time, but this is all of those things, and it makes you feel so full that you could split at the seams. You scream, cry, and moan more times than you can count, so enveloped by pleasure that it seems like the atoms of your body will simply dissolve from the intensity.

When you both finally become too exhausted to continue, it’s still daytime. Of course. But Ten draws the blackout shade forward and seals all the light out, and so you know it must be time to sleep. Time blends together here. Even if it’s not yet the midnight hour, it will be as long as you deem it so.

“Come here,” he says, and rolls you over on the bed so you don’t have to sleep in the wet spot. You grin in sleepy amusement against his neck as he hugs you to his body. “Let’s stay right here.”

You know he’s talking about sleeping for the next few hours, but you can also imagine he’s referring to your new life—one you’ll create together.

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Of Moons, Millionares and Mothers Part 3: Storkules in Duckburg! aka THE INCREDIBLE STORKULES TERRIBLE BUT WELL MEANING ROOMATE OUT OF MYTH

Hello all you happy people! And welcome and welcome back to Of Moons, Millionares and Mothers, my look at the season 2 arcs of Ducktales! This arc was paid for by WeirdKev27 and I truly enjoy his support. if you want to know how to commission your own reviews or to get a guarnateed review of me of your choice from me a month, stick around to the end. I realized that shoving all my plugs in up top may be driving people away and while I DO make them because I want to make a living off this, i’ts not fair to those of you who simply can’t afford to buy a lot of extra shit like myself to keep shoving it in your face.

Previously on the Louie Inc Arc, Louie, after believing he had no skills and it was a matter of when not if he ws going to die, found his talent: seeing all the angles and thus being Sharper than the Sharpies. With newfound confidence and a chip on his shoulder from Scrooge saying he could one day be a bigger success than Scrooge himself, founding Louie Inc as a result. But what is Louie Inc? Does he actually have a plan or a bunch of buzzwords. And what does STORKULES, MANLY GAY OUT OF MYTH have to do with any of this? Join me under the cut to find out.

We open with Louie giving Scrooge his sales pitch that is essentially...

Naturally Scrooge buys none of it. I mean he’s somewhere in his hundreds, he’s probably seen about 80 thousand pitches that amount to “I have no plan but give me money anyway”. There’s a reason there’s a Butch Hartman shaped crater on the lawn from where he threw his ass out.

Scrooge does mentor the lad, or at least attempt to pointing out he needs an actual product or service (Louie rejects the idea of a lemonade stand as too easy), or as he puts it “Find a problem and create a solution”.

While the basic PRINCIPAL isn’t bad, find something people want or need and provide it, phrasing it that way sounds like “find a problem people are having and exploit the shit out of that problem for fun and profit.” Granted that IS a guiding principal of business, it’s just not something an uncle should be teaching his kids. They should be teaching them about the anime and cartoons they grew up with as I do with my niece and nibling.

He does show him a valid example of this in action in the form of Donald. Turns out Donald has found a good way to make money while he looks for a job, can relate: since Duckburg is facing a housing shortage, likely because several square blocks probably get destroyed by Scrooge’s Adventures, Glomgold’s Schemes, Superhero Battles, whatever creation went horribly wrong for Gyro, etc at least once a week. So he’s taken it upon himself to offer up the spare room to whoever can rent it.. and to steal Scrooge’s chandelier which even when caught he still takes anyway. Scrooge.. you called the guy a god-damn moocher in the season premiere, despite the fact he lives there soley because YOU offered and because he’s you know, being responsible and staying by his boys so they have their father figure around. So yeah I feel he’s doing this partly out of spite as is the McDuck way. I mean if your going to call him a freeloader just for being a responsible parent, then he’s going to take it up a damn notch.

Scrooge proceeds to laugh off Louie wanting a million dollars and gives him a dime instead because of course he was. Seriously Louie there are two other billionaires in town who are FAR dumber and far more easily swindled. Just go get star up capital from them. Hell with Glomgold all you’d have to do is tell him it’d upset scrooge and he’d literally throw money at you. Or give you a shark full of money. He needs the shark back though. He’s family.

Meanwhile Donald prepares for his new tenant and finds.. THE INCREDIBLE STORKULES! Who to his mounting horror as he realizes it, IS the new tenant. And who throws him into the sun. Cue credits.

So after Donald somehow survives being thrown into the sun, Storkules explains why he’s here: Zeus responded to his son playing the lute a lot like any rational reasonable

No of course he responded to the “crime” of “playing his instrument a lot” with sending a swarm of harpies on the town then blaming Storkules for it and casting him out. What’s most shocking is not the action, this is honestly him staying the course of being a fucking disgrace, but that Zeus somehow ISN’T the biggest asshole i’ve dealt with this week. No that honor is reserved as always for this bitch:

Keep in mind she manages to be this obnoxious in only TWO scenes. Also keep in mind I had to put up with Julie for a MUCH larger chunk of the previous two volumes I covered before volume 5 yesterday for my Scott Pilgrim Retrospective and she is ALWAYS like this and you now feel my pain.

This does create a problem though: Zeus casts Storkules out until he’s a responsible adult.. and thus paints Storkules as the bad guy... in a situation where the only other person in the story sent a swarm of HARPIES down at him for simply playing his music too loud. It just dosen’t work as a catalyst: Storkules objectively did nothing wrong. The only person he annoyed was a person who clearly dosen’t love, respect or like his son in any way shape or form anyway and essentially assaulted him and a bunch of innocent people via harpie and then cast him out. Zeus is an abusive asshole and i’ts weird the narrative sides with HIM and not our well meaning doofus. Zeus being an asshole with harpies is not a bad catalyst for the episode, and the harpies being unleashed is used well.. it’s just not a good catalyst for THIS story to try and portray an abuser as in the right. And make no mistake Zeus is a domestic abuser: he had his son mind controlled to try and MURDER innocent people, something Storkules begged him not to do, sent a swarm of creatures after him for the crime of playing his music too loud and in his next episode manipulatives Storkules sad emotional state for personal gain. Why would you try and paint THIS jackass as in the right?

Speaking of painting this jackass in the right sadly.. this episode does not do my boy donald justice. In most episodes he’s pretty nuanced and i’ts fair enough he’d be frustrated by Storkules as a roomate. Storkules has little sense of personal space, breaks his stove thinking theirs hydra in it, makes a mess of the kitchen making them a meal, and in general clearly dosen’t know how to live with a roomate much less in modern society. He has valid concerns and the episode COULD have used it that way.. but he’s also horribly impatient with Storkules. He refuses to get the guy just hasn’t had to live in a modern society and dosen’t know HOW to function in it and instead of helping him just gets mad again and again and gets really pissed when it’s clear Storkules dosen’t have a job and didn’t consider paying rent. He’s not WRONG to want him to pay Rent, despite what ironically the musical Rent would try and have you believe, but he dosen’t have any patience with the guy. And stork isn’t nearly coming on as strong as he normally does. The worst he does is cook the guy lunch and bring his donald fan art with him. Which we don’t see but I am assuming is mostly naked. What i’m saying is for once that while still bombastic, Storkules isn’t trying to force a relationship/friendship on him and simply wants to learn t be an adult from his best friend.. and Donald isn’t bothering teaching him.

Asking for rent or for him not to destroy the stove is fine, but not explaining WHY he needs either of those things or why he needs boundaries, he makes a roomate list, isn’t helping the guy. And this would be fine... but the episode dosen’t call Donald out on it for no real reason. It feels like it’s setting up for a “you should learn to wokrk with someone instead of just screaming at them aseop” that never comes and like with Zeus takes his side because shutup. I’d also LIKE to say this is the only time the writers reduced one of the cast to a caracture of themselves.. but I can’t. Several episodes in season 3 forgot Louie’s character development and another episode in season 2, The Duck Knight Returns!, somehow reduced both Scrooge and Dewey to parodies of themselves with Scrooge SOMEHOW, despite Della as stubborn as she is being in his care and by his side for decades and Movies bein ga huge business, not having seen a movie since the 1920′s and not knowing how they work and Dewey being reduced to just hyperactive moron. It isn’t as common as other shows like say Regular Show, The Loud House or, for the exact reason I lost intrest, Rick and Morty, but I still expect better, especially since they went into this season KNOWING Donald would be gone for half of it and this would likely be one of his only spotlight episodes.

Back at the good part of the plot, Louie is having a company meeting aka already treating Huey and Webby like his employees. Webby of course is glad to sign on, if little help in actually coming up with a product while Huey just wants to nope out. And if your wondering why Dewey isn’t involved Louie outright says he’d make a bad employee and while Dewey rises from his bed to object.. he stops halfway to opening his mouth and concludes he has a point. Best gag of the episode. Louie being louie easily cons Huey into staying by making Webby his charts officer.

So the three have a corporate retreat at Funso’s... granted they don’t have a product but Louie figures this might help. Huey.. still wants out of this and suggest since they already spent what they had on ski ball “Company over?”. It’s clear that Huey just sees this as another one of Louie’s short sighted schemes... and while he’s not ENITRELY wrong, Louie has genuine ambition.. he just has no earthly idea what he’s doing and is shooting way too high.. but for understandable reasons. 1) He’s 11 at this point. 11 year olds aren’t great at business strategy or reinging it in. 2) he wants to live up to what Scrooge said to prove he can be successful and really be worth something like his mom was.

But sometimes fate throws you one and the harpies bust in. And while Louie wants to do nothing and hope they go away Huey and Webby spring into action.. as does Storkules, who had to leave but warns donald there’s Orzo in the slowcooker and to not open it “LEST THE PASTA FAIL TO ABSORB THE BROTH!” Which is just.... Chris’ best line dleivery the episode. He says it like he’s saying the title of an old Stan Lee and Jack Kirby comic, i’ts wonderful.

So our heroes defeat them and Louie steps in to charge for the service and quickly comes up with a company idea and name “Harp-B-Gone” (A Subsidary of Louie Inc). Louie hires Storkules on the spot. Storkules proudly tells Donald he has a job the next day and goes off to it. What follows is our heroes hilarously shooting a commerical with Storkules playing a baby to promote themselves so they can help who needs it. They just need to find out what they want.. and thanks to the JWG and the harpies stealing it find out they go after people’s most treasured posessions Cue Ghostbusters-Style Montage

And this isn’t just me saying thing. The Rewriting History Entry (Which as a series weirdly stops around mid-season 2 and I don’t get why frank hasn’t gone back and finished it since) states they specifically based this whole operation on ghostbusters and the entire sequence of our heroes cleanin up the town reminds me of it. The highlight of it is a glomgold cameo where he’s kidnapped.. and refuses to pay so Louie just lets him go. And were this an innocent person who couldn’t afford it, i’d call him a monster.. but it’s glomgold. he brought this on himself.. and also sues himself for it. Wonder if he won.

So with their stars rising, our heroes get booked on the hottest show in town: Dewey Dew-Night! I had honestly forgotten there was a Dewey Dew-Night segment in there, and delighted I get to talk about this recurring bit. It’s one of the shows funniest runners and just perfectly FITS Dewey: of course the most egotistical and energetic of the kids would not only want to be a late hnight host but make up his own show. I also love the slow evolution of it: it started as something everyone clearly knew about but he stlill tried to keep hidden, slowly escalated to him allowing the rest of his siblings (Webby very much included) and the giant man who stalks his uncle in, and by later this season he’s putting the show online in the web shorts and gladly shooting it into space, with Season 3 having him spend the first half of let’s get dangerous making a documentary that includes an episode of the show featuring Darkwing. It’s a small thing sure, but it’s the little things like this that make the show special.

The show does reveal a problem though as it turns out they’ve GOT all the harpies and while Storkules merely wanted to help, Louie points out they need more to keep a buisness going and naturally never bothered to ask Storkules just how many there were. They need SOME plan to get going. Webby submits a legitamte and great idea, training the harpies as she’s been trying to do in the background of the episode and aside from a hole in the floor they are starting to listen. But Huey is an ass about it and not only shoots it down saying let’s keep the dangerous creatures contained, even though A) he has no idea WHERE they’ve been kept so he can’t verify it’s safe, and since i’ts Donald’s Closet no no it’s not. and B)There’s no where he knows of to keep them. He isn’t aware of the other bin till next season. and C) it’s not ehtical to keep creatures locked up forever epsecially since while the harpies are dangerous they arent’ MALEVOLENT and are clearly acting on instinct. oh and for D) at least she has a plan to keep the company going instead of just wanting to end this and cash out.

Which Huey tries to.. but naturally Louie spent all their money on...

So their broke.. and Storkules has no rent money and feels like a failure despite having done NOTHING wrong. We do get a clever little nod to Disney’s hercules though “I”m not a hero, i’m a zero”. Webby rightfully glares at Louie who decides to fix it... by sneaking into Donald’s house that night to free the harpies.

Though to the shows credit it’s a VERY bad idea, and Storkules coming in mid attempt and congradulating Louie when he lies about checking the door gets the kid to come clean. And it’s a nice character moment: He could still go through with it.. but it’s clear he realizes just HOW low he was about to sink to save his own skin and that as much as Storkules WANTS a paycheck and deserves one, it’s not worth hurting people to get it. Louie tries to justify after this.. but can’t.

Unforutnately Donald took a lot of stupid pills this episode, yells about his no pets rule and frees them instead of you know, THINKING for five minutes.

So yeah NATURALLY Donald is an angry shit about it , refusing to actually TALK to Storkules about this or maybe admit this is partly HIS OWN FAULT. Yes their both at fault, Storkules shoudln’t of shoved a bunch of harpies in a closet. That’s a classic blunder. But Donald still opened it and isn’t called out on taking zero responsibility. Huey sees the fracas and just takes down their days without an accident placard, good stuff and he and webby arrive to help. Donald fights with Storkules and Storkules worries about loosing his friend.. lead to them going after the thing he values most aka donlad and hyjacking the house boat, though the kids manage to get aboard.

As Storkules saves Donald, Louie realizes the most precious thing he has is his merch and willingly gives it, and his buisness up to save everyone. It’s good character stuff and shows that despite his problems with greed, Louie IS a good kid and will do the right thing. It’s what seperates him from the Rouges Gallery the family faces: He has FLEXIBLE morals but he has morals when it comes down to it. So everyone tosses the stoff to help direct the hapries and make it home tying them up. Donald has a heart to heart with Storkules and agrees to help him find another place, but still considers him a friend and they hug. Awww. One intresting thing I DID find out from rewriting history is they originally fully intended to have Storkules STAY on the houseboat. He was going to be a permenant member of the household, at least as far as Season 2 was concenred and plans were made for several episodes down the road: the whole bit with him in “The Golden Spear” was simply because he lived there, he was going to be the one Della met in the houseboat, obliviously guilting her about what she’d missed, and he was going to set off the kids subplot in “Whatever Happened to Donald Duck?”

This ended up not happneing for logistical reasons: Frank, and I swear this was the term he used, felt they already had the perfect Himbo in Launchpad and it was just too much HImbo energy for the two to coexist without one taking the others screen time or neither getting a lot.

The next reason was having a god around simply broke the story: He cited the gilded man from “Nothing Can Stop Della Duck!” as a specific example. There were just too many hoops to jump to have him not break any story he should be around for. Finally with Della being added to the cast soon there simply wasn’t room in the main cast. Della brought it up to 9, Storkules would make it 10, and as i’ve gone on about the show already had trouble ballancing it’s cast, something Frank admitted to. Adding him would both be too big a stiatus quo change and be one on top of the massive one of Della joining the cast. So he was dropped back to recurring and only showed up one more time. And while it was the right call I am dismayed he didn’t show up for the whatever happened to donald duck subplot and it does feel very weird he never adresses Donald being gone despite, at least for season 2, apparently living in Duckburg. Otherwise though as funny as this wouldv’e been.. yeah it was the right call.

Scrooge returns... having been absent all episode because otherwise it wouldn’t work and easily saw Louie loosing it all coming.. but gives him a can of lemonade for his troubles and comforts the boy. The heart of htis arc and what makes it work at it’s best.. is these two. Scrooge GENUINELY wants to help Louie see his potetial successor in buisness: oh sure adventure wise he’s throughly covered.. but Webby, Dewey and Della all are more focused on the addventure part and that’s where their passion and talent lies, Huey’s better at science and given his close frinedship with fenton and how much that part of things seems to truly inspire him, i’ts what he was born for, and Donald just wants a regualar life and can’t manage his own life much less a company.

Louie is the only one in his family whose the right fit to inhereit that part of his legacy and I feel that’s why he takes a special intrest in him and webby over the other two: While he loves all of them and will clearly again leave a piece of his fortune and empire to all of them, Webby is the most like him, as we later find out not coincidentally in the slightest, when it comes to adventuring and curosity and a love of exploration. But Louie is the most like him in other ways; He’s cynical, money driven and passionate. Scrooge simply wants him to be as good a person and buisnessperson as he can be and is trying to push him in the right direction. And does so here by pointing out that failure isn’t a huge problem..it happens, comes with the terriotiry and as we’ve seen with life and times, even with portions of it clearly not happening in this universe, he failed a LOT to get here. What matters is that he tries and tries to do it the right way.

Scrooge also sympathizes as he was buying a lemonade company in cape suzette, giving Louie the can as a present... but laments there’s no cheap effective way to deliver the lemons. Louie notices the harpies going after the can after he throws it and Webby controlling them with it and muses that theyd idn’t think about what THEY wanted.. nad rightfully gets punched across the lawn by Webby, whose had to spend an entire episode having her surrogate brothers talk down to her and ignore her valid ideas. She dosen’t even open her eyes she just bops him one.

So we end with Scrooge having enlisted the hapries, Louie trying to take credit again and both realizing they might just steal the lemons instead of work for them. Ha ha ha their going to get so sued.

Final Thoughts: This one was mediocre. It has some good points, Louies arc continues to fascenate me, Huey’s done with this shit attitude is hilarous, and Storkules is at his best in this episode: his crush on Donald is toned down from this..

To this

To the point I could see shipping them off this one if Storkules episode didn’t have him do eveyrthing short of .. well see above. So it’s not WITHOUT merit: I love me a ghost busters style plot, there are great jokes and Chris Dimatopolis is a gem as always. Glad he’s getting work after this show on Invincible and hope he gets to play Darkwing again some day. But the Donald stuff and the fairly predictable plot drag this one down. I’ts fairly obvious they’ll run out of harpies, Louie will have spent the money and they’ll somehow get free. It’s not a terrible episode but it’s it’s sandwiched story wise between two straight up classics on both sides: the previous two episodes were even better than I remembered and the next two are incredibly good: Whateve Happened to Della Duck?! is one of their finest hours and The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck, while not making my best of list for the series as a whole is still one of my favorites for the season. It’s just disapointing this one wasn’t nearly as good as I remmebered and it’s understandable why I forgot almost all of it, unlike the previous two episodes. Thankfully as I said better’s over the horizon.

NEXT TIME ON OF MOONS, MILLIONARES AND MOTHERS: I’m taking a break for a week. One of two weeklong breaks for the arc, the other being the first week of July where i’m on vacation anyway (Though i’ll be doing the episode I would’ve done for that week the week before to keep the pace up, so no worries),

As for why, it’s my utmost honor to announce GOOF WEEK! Goof Week is a weeklong celebration of Goofy’s birthday. The idea came about because as I do for the big three, I intended to just do a shorts special. But Kev , the guy who made this very review possible, suggested doing the two part Goof Troop pilot. And since kev pays for a house of mouth episode a month anyway and thaks to you lovely people I hit my patreon stretch goal to review the goofy movie, I figured “why not make a week out of it. Hence Goof week. So next week we’ll have a review of the two part pilot for Goof Troop, the special Sports Goof, the House of Mouse episode Super Goof, your regularly schedule shorts spectacular, with The Goofy Movie for the grand finale! yaaahoooooieeee!

When we come back i’ll be shuffling episodes around slightly so I can do the Della comics from the Ducktales Tie-In Comic before her debut and in time for Donald’s own theme week in June, i’ll be saving “Whatever Happened to Della Duck?” for the week after Donald Week. Instead next we get a fun wild west adventure as Scrooge tells a story of his outlaw days, his tension with goldie and his encounter with a certain robber baron as John D Rockerduck FINALLY makes his screen debut. Yee-Haw!

If you liked this review, subscribe and follow for more and consider joining my patroen, patreon.com/popculturebuffet. I have exclusive reviews, my most recent duck based one being an obscure carl barks story about wigs and the boys attempting to murder a guy with a blow gun, and your contribution helps me reach my goals and thus gets everyone, patreon or not, a bunch of neat new reviews. If you get me to 20 dollars a month, i’m currently at 15, EVERYONE will get a monthly darkwing duck reviews, reviews of the two remaning ducktales 87 mini series including the origin of GIZMOOOODDUUUUUCCCKKKK, and a review of the Danny Phantom movie The Ultimate Enemy. And with the month running out NOW’S the time to join. YOu’ll also get to pick one of the shorts for my Donald Duck birthday specail next month, so if you want to join in NOWS the time. But wether you can or you can’t, thank you for reading, i’ts been a pleasure.

#ducktales #louie duck #storkules in duckburg #dorkules #donald duck #storkules #scrooge mcduck #webby vanderquack #huey duck #flintheart glomgold #dewey duck #funzos #disney #disney+#disney plus #disney xd #harpies

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forevercloudnine · 4 years ago

Text

batman forever riddlebat ship meme

(This one was inevitable. God, do I love this movie. @heroes-etc gave me questions from this ship meme.)

2. Who is the most insecure and what makes them feel better?

The obvious answer here is Edward because he is... clearly and pathologically insecure in his identity and requiring outside approval. You could argue he gets over this once he adopts his flamboyant supervillain identity, but as soon as he steps out of it to be Edward Nygma again he’s as self-conscious as ever. On some level his Bruce cosplay at the Nygmatech party is probably supposed to be a dig at his former idol, but it’s pretty transparent that he’s paranoid about not measuring up, especially once Bruce actually walks in.

As for what makes him feel better, two obvious high points of his self-esteem right off the bat (lol) are when Bruce is giving him positive attention in his intro scene, and directly afterwards when he’s murdering his boss for ragging on him.

Of course, neither external validation or murder is, like, a permanent solution to insecurity. Obviously. If they ever got together Bruce would probably make him go to therapy, which would be incredibly hypocritical because, as Dr. Meridian points out in this movie, that’s not exactly something Bruce is doing. Although in Bruce’s defense, if you count the novelizations as canon for this continuity, the psychiatrist Alfred hired for him as a child basically wrote him off as a lost cause that was going to inevitably self-destruct at some point in adulthood. So I can see why he’d think therapy isn’t for him.

"Young Bruce may seem quite the stalwart, but there’s still a child beneath that veneer of calm acceptance [...] The day will come when that veneer crumbles, and the boy reacts to the memory of his ordeal. Such matters may be postponed, but not indefinitely. And the longer this one is delayed, the greater the damage will be to his psyche.”

“Still,” Alfred pressed. “How do you think this will all come out? Off the record, if you prefer.”

Another pause. “I am not terribly optimistic,” the stout man admitted. “But I assure you, I will do my best.”

Alternatively, Bruce just lets Edward borrow his clothes and calls it a day. It’s less time consuming than therapy and both the movie and novelization demonstrate how into that Edward is.

He was murmuring to himself, “We’ll probably be dining at Wayne Manor together.” He envisioned Bruce sitting across from him, and began to launch into a narrative [...] “Yes. Yes. A Party in my honor? I should have rented a tuxedo. What?” he couldn’t believe it, “One of yours, Bruce?” He gave it a moment’s thought and then shrugged. “Why not? We are the same size.”

3. Who is the most romantic?

Uh, not Bruce! Batman Forever is the most thoughtfully romantic he gets in the entire series, and even here his only two dates ideas are “whatever Gotham social event my secretary tells me I need a date for” and “coming on to my date in my alternate identity to see if she loves me enough not to cheat on me with Batman.” Also, he vacillates between staunchly refusing to do any flirting at all and dishing out the least romantic pick-up lines possible.

You say “bad writing,” I say “totally in character for a hot rich guy who knows that this is as hard as he has to try to get into someone’s pants.” Bruce might love his partner with the intensity of a thousand dying suns, but he’s still sending Alfred to buy all their Valentine’s Day presents. His idea of a romantic evening for two is finally trusting someone enough to tell them his secret identity. If he’s done that already, or they already figured it out, then his playbook is over. That’s clearly the only romantic fantasy he’s ever allowed himself.

(I was going to say he does this once every movie, but he actually never does this in Batman & Robin specifically because he doesn’t actually care about Julie Madison. She proposes to him and he gets her name wrong while shooting her down. Add that to the “Bruce Wayne isn’t romantic” box.)

The ridiculous amount of magazine cut-outs populating Edward’s apartment indicates that he probably has a very vibrant and extensive set of fantasies involving Bruce, which is hinted at a couple times in the novelization.

Edward would certainly know him when he saw him. He’d spent enough time anticipating the moment, after all [...] Finally he was going to be meeting Bruce Wayne face-to-face, and he had every moment of the encounter scripted [...] He’d rehearsed it to perfection in his mind for weeks upon months.

In the grand scheme of things... in the fabulous, sweeping, intertwining destinies of Bruce Wayne and Edward Nygma, such a slip would not even rate a footnote.

He becomes suddenly and painfully aware that if Bruce Wayne walked away without Edward Nygma by his side, then that would be it. It would be finished. All these weeks, months... indeed, a lifetime of planning... and it was crumbling under him just like that.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean his fantasies are all romantic in the traditional sense of the word. This is a man who was charmed by Harvey holding a charity circus hostage with some kind of graffitied missile warhead. Tonally, there’s not even that much of a difference between his crush collages and his riddle death threats.

What’s weirder, using a magazine cutout of someone you hate to make a pop-up card of their face, or using a magazine cutout of someone you love to replace the anatomically correct heart in the cardiovascular system diagram you keep in your apartment/arcade/makeshift laboratory? Probably the former, since it was made with the express purpose of Bruce actually seeing it. Although presumably Edward was planning on taking Bruce to his apartment at some point? And in the novelization, he actually drags Bruce into his cubicle to look at his Wayne Shrine.

He grabbed Bruce’s arms and shouted “No, don’t leave me! I need you!” [...] Bruce was thunderstruck as he was pulled partway into Edward’s office... and then he caught sight of the shrine.

Edwards’s head bobbed eagerly. Now, finally, Bruce would understand the depth of Nygma’s devotion to his idol. He would see how important he was to Nygma.

Notably, the only thing that upsets Bruce about the fact that one of his employees has a serial killer wall dedicated to him at their work station (@heroes-etc: realistically.... IS this the first time this has happened? i doubt it.) is the fact that the shrine includes a picture of him taken directly after his parents’ death, which is obviously a huge trigger for Bruce’s PTSD.

Wayne’s gaze zeroed in on the picture of himself as a young man.

The eyes of Wayne the elder locked with Wayne the younger, and when he slowly turned his scrutiny back to Edward Nygma, Edward could feel the temperature in the cubicle drop to subzero.

Later, once Bruce isn’t being actively reminded of the most traumatizing day of his life, he reflects that he could probably relate to Edward’s specific brand of crazy, and hopes that it’s not too late to try again (it is).

He paused momentarily at Edward Nygma’s cubicle, thinking about the intensity he’d seen in the man’s eyes the other day. Nygma’s ideas might have been a bit odd, but that sort of passion—if properly channeled—could accomplish miracles. That was something Bruce Wayne certainly knew better than anyone else. Perhaps after this fiasco was the time to take Nygma aside under less-pressured circumstances. Start again...

With any other character, I would call bull on their being this unphased by someone being obsessed enough with them to build a stalker shrine, but, like. It’s Batman. He probably has a stalker shrine to Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman in his cave somewhere. When they start dating, Edward mails the weirdest magazine cutout valentines to his office on the regular, and every time Bruce has to assure his staff that it’s not a ransom letter and it’s just “his boyfriend being romantic.”

9. What is the most embarrassing thing they have done in front of each other?

I mean, by most people’s standards, any one of the things that Edward does in front of Bruce could easily be the most embarrassing thing to happen to them in their lifetime. But for the most part, Edward seems blissfully free of that kind of self-consciousness. He accidentally introduces himself to Bruce as “[extended moaning sound] Bruce Wayne” and shakes it off without even registering his mistake. Even when he feels like Bruce has rejected him and his project, his emotional state is more shocked, saddened, and angry than it is ashamed. He does apologize to Bruce, during the scene where they first meet, for holding on to his hand too long during their handshake. And by “handshake” I mean that Bruce extends his hand to be shaken, and Edward just grabs on and holds it without any motion whatsoever for the entire first half of their conversation. Which might be the only time he ever apologizes in the entire movie. So I’ll say that was his moment of embarrassment.

Bruce only really embarrasses himself in front of Alfred, but Edward does manage to trick Bruce into getting scanned by his mind reading device at the Nygmatech party. Being tricked in general would be pretty awkward for Bruce, since this movie goes out of its way to show the audience how SMART and CLEVER and KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT BRAINWAVES Bruce is at every opportunity. But being tricked into getting your mind read is about a million times more embarrassing than just running into a wall like some kind of Looney Tune. Obviously having access to Bruce’s mind allows Edward to figure out that his former boss/current obsessee is Batman, but also it’s just got to be super weird in there. Bruce is a bizarre man.

12. What first changes when it starts getting serious?

Whether he’s idolizing Bruce or plotting his destruction, Edward is still seeing the subject of his lifelong obsession as a larger than life exaggeration of the real man. Some of that pedestal would probably survive into the beginning of a romantic relationship, but by the time they got serious Edward would have had to recognize that Bruce has both positive and negative traits. He would also have had to grapple with the fact that the man he once assumed would make everything in his life better is a lot of work to be around, especially in this movie’s continuity where the trauma of his family’s death and his guilt over allowing enemies like Joker to die are genuinely affecting Bruce’s day-to-day functionality.

(A lot of things, Chase.)

Edward’s introduction scene demonstrates that he doesn’t see Bruce as having these kinds of problems. His Escapism Wish Fulfillment Device TM is clearly a very personal project for him, since he, you know. Is kind of already living in a Bruce-centric fantasy world.

When he’s pitching it to Bruce, however, he states that he doesn’t think someone like Bruce would ever need to escape reality (which could just be ingratiating flattery, but he barely seems aware of what he’s saying at the time because he’s too busy staring with his mouth open at Bruce putting on glasses).

(Side note: an interjection from @heroes-etc

Anyway, moving on.)

Obviously we know he’s wrong, since Bruce escapes his reality every night by dressing up like a bat and scaring people. Normally that’s just subtext (or me being cynical and creating subtext), but Batman Forever introduced a hot psychiatrist who is constantly poking at Batman for being a power fantasy created by a traumatized mind to cope with intense feelings of helplessness in childhood.

The novelization makes it clear that it’s not the illusion of perfection that Edward is attracted to, however. The picture of Bruce in Crime Alley is what kickstarts Edward’s obsession, not because Bruce seemed flawless but because he seemed to be going through similar pain as Edward (whatever Edward’s pain even IS in this continuity). So I think recognizing Bruce’s issues would be less of a dealbreaker and more of a point of connection, were they to get serious.

He saw, there in Bruce Wayne’s face, an intensity that mirrored his own. An anger, a frustration at the hand that fate had dealt him. There were no tears on Bruce’s face. Instead there was a smoldering intelligence that Edward intuitively sensed was on par with his own.

There was something in Bruce’s eyes, something in that gaze. There was Bruce, in a moment of raw emotion, his parents just having been cruelly taken from him. And there was no self-pity. Just cold, hard anger.

[...] Ed still had the newspaper with him when he was walking home from school. Not that he needed it to read; the contents were safely locked away in his skull, thanks to his photographic memory. But he wanted to clip out the articles and pictures about Bruce Wayne. He found the young man fascinating, as if he had discovered a soulmate of sorts.

For Bruce, on the other hand, getting serious presumably just means attempting to include Edward more and more in the found family he builds in the latter half of the 90’s Batman movies. Alfred approving a love interest is not quite as tantamount in this continuity as it is sometimes (Micheal Gough Alfred is pretty laid back), but Bruce is still spending all of his non-Batman, non-socialite time with his butler. So if Edward wants to hang out with Bruce, he has to either get on Alfred’s good side or prepare for a lot of “romantic quality time” where his boyfriend’s dad is glaring at him from the background.

Dick is less important to get on the good side of, since he and Bruce argue all the time in these movies (apparently one of the proposed scripts for Batman & Robin was Bruce kicking Dick out of the house and making him go to college, where Dick would cope with his dad-related anger by bullying his psychology professor Dr. Crane into becoming a supervillain. I personally feel like I deserved to see that Scarecrow origin). So if Dick doesn’t like Bruce’s new boyfriend, it’s just one more thing for them to be catty to each other about.

Alfred’s niece Barbara Wilson on the other hand (who is adorable as a fusion of Barbara Gordon and Julia Pennyworth, do not @ me) would be absolutely vital for Edward to win over, because her opinion could easily either make or break his standing with her uncle. Also Bruce decided to adopt her within five minutes of meeting her, so he’s obviously fond.

19. Where do they go on their first date?

Edward’s fantasy sequence in the novelization makes it obvious enough that he would really, really like to have dinner at Wayne Manor. Hanging out at someone’s house isn’t really a traditional first date, especially if one of you is a billionaire who could have taken you literally anywhere, but clearly none of that matters to Bruce, because that’s exactly the first date he invites Vicki Vale on in Batman (1989).

It’s pretty painfully awkward (“You want to know the truth? I don’t think I’ve ever been in this room before”) until Bruce gives up on the formality and takes her down to eat the rest of their courses with Alfred in the kitchen.

I feel like his first date with Edward could probably go the same way, with a few major differences. One, Edward would have been super enthused about eating in the fancy dining hall, and Bruce would have only suggested finishing their meal in the kitchen because Edward clearly wanted to see As Much Of The Manor As Possible. Two, when Alfred offers to stop embarrassing Bruce and leave them alone for the end of their date, Edward would have insisted he stay and break out the baby albums. You cannot convince me that Alfred is not a scrapbooker. Actually, does what Edward’s doing count as scrapbooking? Maybe they could compare notes.

#riddlebat #batman forever #edward nygma #riddler #bruce wayne #batman #ship meme #i do not actually recommend reading the novelization because it did chase so dirty i still seethe about it sometimes #but it did make edward pretty fucking gay #now the batman & robin novelization i recommend wholeheartedly #because for some reason bruce has a huge crush on mr. freeze #like literally bruce stalked him for a while in his 20's #and his internal narration is constantly monologueing about how handsome victor is #truly george clooney batman is canon gay

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jonah-aesthetic · 4 years ago

Text

That One pt. 4 I Jonah Marais

Jonah Marais X Reader / Ivette X Daniel Seavey

Plot: Jonah escorts the reader to the gala finding out the pull to her wasn’t one sided.

Word count: 6.0k+

Author’s Note: I really struggled with this piece but I got her done! It’s been almost two weeks and I’m happy I got it finished. The piece is a whole roller coaster so enjoy!

Rating: 16+

One Two Three

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The sapphire dress was pulling tight around the small of your waist to your bust. The sleeves were circling your upper arms and resting just below your shoulders. The skirt of your gown flared at your hips lightly and continued to cascade upon the floor. There was a slit in the left side of the blue skirt reaching your high thigh.

Most of the day was spent with Ivette pampering yourselves for the gala that was taking place tonight. When you both came back Ivette’s entire team had been waiting in the den impatiently. Caroline a blonde stylist rolled her racks of shoes and jewellery. Aurora a brown skinned British hair stylist with a curling wand glued to her waist. Gamila an Arabic Makeup artist itching to use her brushes.

Together they made an incredible team and you knew why Ivette always picked them for her events. Aurora respected your request for a simple hair style and only vaguely curled it into soft loops. Gamila created a stunning blue cut crease smokey eye look that colour matched your gown. Caroline picked silver heels that went with your gown like a perfect combination.

The wounds on the tops of your feet had officially healed perfectly into light scars. You were now ready to slip into a pair of heels without wincing in pain. Just in time for the gala.

Staring at yourself in the body length mirror resting in Ivette’s bedroom. You could hear the fashion team bonding out in the den as if they did projects together often. It blew you away at how they could make you look like a Richie in a few hours of work. You didn’t know if you enjoyed the view or despised it.

You watch your best friend’s head pop in pass the door frame. A proud smile stretching onto her red lips, “He picked a good dress, fits you like a second skin.” Her voice light as she came into the room hands resting behind her back out of view. Her black gown flowing around her body like the damn dress was made of her. Scratch that the dress was definitely made for her.

“I knew Daniel was a scheming little devil, but you? I trusted you.” You playfully narrow your eyes at her in fake accusation. She shrugs and the gown follows the movement. It was parallel to her personality, a stunning jet black gown. A deep ‘V’ neck ran down the front and kissed the waist band. Revealing the curves of both her breasts, and circled her shoulder into a long sleeve. The skirt of the gown flared and parted in the middle, the slit reaching her thighs.

“Just give him a chance he’s a good guy.” You turned around and faced her, taking a step back not realised how close she was.

“I’ll think about it as soon you stop doubt Mr. Drummer.” Her face falls at that,

“I brought a gift.” Her voice optimistic as Ivette steered from the topic of the man in question.

“I know. Did you really think I didn’t notice your hands hiding behind your back the entire time you’ve been in here?”

“It was worth a try.” She playfully says pulling her hands front behind her. A dainty crown immersed in diamonds sat into the palms of her hands. Your heart beamed recognising the head piece instantly wanting to melt in the presence of it.

“It’s a replica of the crown Harlow Reed wears in the book to movie adaptation of The Redemption Of The Wolf. This gala is the closest thing to ball and I don’t think you’d be complete without this.” Ivette’s eyes were hopeful as she offers the crown to you.

Your hands were claps to your lips holding the excited shock you wanted to let out. The chilling accuracy of the diamond placement and the detailing in the swirls. Almost made your blood run cold, you could’ve swore this was the exact crown Mavren gave Harlow as a piece offering.

“How much was that?” Were the first words to spill from your tongue. Ivette gives you a bored look saying ‘Really I’m offering a prop from your favourite book series. And that’s what you ask?’

“Come nerd, Aurora is itching to thread it into your hair.” Ivette links her arm in yours guiding you out of the room.

-----

The overwhelming aroma of the gala made you excuse yourself from your table, leaving Ivette, Daniel, Jonah, and Corbyn behind. the contents in your stomach was threaten to pass your lips. A tightening sensation pulsed in your abdomen as you reached the most expensive ladies room. The main door blurred out most of the suffocating noise of people.

You rushed for the first open stall, shutting the door you realised it was more of a mini room then a stall. Locking the knob you could finally hear your own breathing letting the sound of it calm you down. It’s been years since your last panic attack. At first it didn’t click in your brain that you were having one. Must of been the reason why Ivette kept asking if you were okay, she knew.

You were laughing and in deep conversation and all of a sudden it dawned on you. The loud noise of many people and the rumble of the music, you began to suffocate in your mind as your body heated at the first sign of panic. The shine of the slowly spinning car in the middle of the room made your breathe quicken and bile raise in your throat.

Back pressing against the door you slid to the floor and paced your breathing pattern. How did Ivette live and survive a life style like this? You couldn’t last a few hours without wanting to throw up and go home.This was a horrible fucking idea, you didn’t belong here with all these high held people who knew they could afford that car without a dent. A car like that would cost your entire life and some.

You wondered if Jonah and Ivette would notice if you slipped out the door and into your bed?

You closed your eyes pretending to wrap your hand around a paint brush and create a new story. It surprisingly helped with negative feelings like this. Wasn’t long before your heart slowed and your body heat regulated. Gathering yourself on your feet you unlocked the door and headed for the sinks. You looked as if you didn’t experience a panic attack on the floor of the bathroom. You were fucking grateful.

Not a single crinkle creased into the skirt of the gown. The crown threaded into your hair never loosened nor was a strand of hair out of place. Ivette was right this was the closet you were going to get to a ball and it was damn close. although you never anticipated your fear reaching the surface. You weren’t Harlow, she was a badass with a dagger and you were....well you. As much as you wanted to be something from a fantasy novel you had to be patient with yourself.

“Not all of us were made for this life.” The sickly sweet voice had you twirling around. Julie stood there wearing a delicate pastel green gown gasping the aesthetic of princess Tiana perfectly. Confidence oozed out of her pores as she took in your entire outfit. “I must say you do look the part, but your expression tells me you’re overwhelmed.” She says watching your vulnerable presence fumble for words.

“Once you’re sucked into this life everyone knows your business. Enjoy the normalcy while you can.” Julie says not letting you grab onto words to share with her. As quick as she came Julie disappeared behind a bathroom door leaving you confused. Was that a threat or a warning.

Shaking the entire encounter away you catch the door handle in your hand. Stepping out you collide with another body, embarrassment gathering in your cheeks you’re about to apologised. But Jonah’s green wolf eyes catch your glance and you sigh. The plan to sneak away without catching their attention flew out the window.

Massive hands rested on your bare shoulders to stead your wobbling form. Familiar warmth bloomed against your skin. Beginning to travel down to your wrists, caressed the wings of your shoulder blades. You fought the instinct to shudder under his comforting touch. Your body reacted to him in such a way you didn’t want to admit.

Concern was carved into his eyebrows. “Are you okay?” His voice was chillingly gentle, Ivette must of told him.

“Yes, I just needed to use the rest room.” You cleared your throat with a forced grin that never reached your ears. “You sure?” He softly pressed with an expression that was unreadable. Sighing in defeat you caved into his gentle presence.

“No, It’s all a little much for me, I’m not cut out for any of this.” You felt frustrated with yourself. As if you didn’t finish something in time when you know you were fully capable of doing it. Angry at yourself for not adapting to this life the way your mind adapted entering a new book world.

“Close your eyes.” He says,

“What!?” You asked a little too loud catching a few eyes. His small command threw you off the train track.

“Close your eyes,” He repeated with a light smile. You stare at him searching for any wrong intention but you come up dry. Maybe it was his soft smile or the way his hands were placed, thumb rubbing comforting circles into your skin. But you comply closing your eyes cutting your vision into the dark trusting him fully.

“Now breathe. Inhale the positive through the nose, exhale the negative through your mouth.”

“Why?” You asked with a small giggle feeling like the exercise was childish.

“Just do it.” Jonah playfully snaps at you making you laugh more, taking the anxious thoughts away.

“Okay.” You say before doing the breathing excise you learned when you were six. You did it once, twice, and a third time. Your brain was calm and content once again and you were perplexed on how a useless calming exercise worked. Or so you believed when your mom told you to use it to chase away the icky bad feelings.

“Take my hand I want you to come with me.” You kept your eyes closed as you felt his hands leave your shoulders. Tracing the warmth down your biceps and down your forearms. Causing you to genuinely smile at the sensation but fought against the shudder your body wanted to make. Softly his hands entered your palms, heat spread like it always seemed to.

“Keep your eyes closed, follow my body.” Before you could respond you felt the muscles in his fingers and hands tense. Gasping lightly Jonah pulled you slowly and your body followed him.

“Good.” He says watching the way your body followed him. Trusting him with everything you had. Faster he pulled you through the ocean of people. A colossal of a function held in the city’s legendary museum, massive rooms connecting with spacious hallways.

With your vision gone your other senses heightened. Your nose drowning in his cinnamon scent. Callouses embedding into his finger tips from the strings of his guitar. You could feel the aroma of other people passing, hearing conversations near and distant.

You clung to Jonah’s arm then knowing he was guiding you through the sea of nightmares. Anxious blood running in your veins then washing out of your system as him warmth engulfed your whole body.

Jonah’s head strained down to see you nuzzle into the sleeve of his blazer. Crown digging a tiny tear in the fabric, he could care less as a proud smile grazed his lips. “Are you okay?” His voice was dripping in honey, “I am now.” You hold on tighter to him feeling content like this with him as he never once tired to pull away.

It was a small journey to his destination. You had a hunch he had brought you to the ball room. Delicate music flowed louder and bounced off the halls carrying it back to the centre of the room. The flooring was more slick like butter under your heels a lot different then the other rooms.

You knew Jonah was planning to stop as his muscles strained and weigh sifting in his body. Standing beside him you relied on the movement of him more then anything. He was silent as he grabbed your hand and placed it upon his left shoulder. Seconds later his slender fingers dug into the fabric of your gown and pulled your waist to his.Your body pressed into his fitting like missing pieces from the same puzzle. You let a breathy gasp pass your lips as you felt the shudder work through your body on its own accord.

“Follow my lead.” His voice smooth and deep at the close proximity of you. Words lodged into your throat and all you could do was nod at his words. Now familiar with the way his muscles strained and shift you fell in sync with him on the first step. Slow pacing into the shape of a diamond. Jonah began to pick up the pace in the same pattern, noticing you syncing with his foot work perfectly.

“Why are my eyes closed?” You asked getting familiar with his body and falling into the melody of the music. “Personal experiment.” He says continuing his dancing pattern. Adding a body circle letting your dress flare with the quick movement.

“And would that be?” You asked feeling his fingers crawl to the middle of your back. Pushing your body further into his causing your breath to hitch. Your arm instinctively wrapped around his neck as your breath began to mingle with his.

“To see how your body reacts to mine with your eyes closed your reaction would be raw and real. because your mind isn’t conscious of who you’re with.”

You’re quiet as Jonah brings you into two ratios of his dance pattern.“Why would you want to know that?”

“I’m drawn to you in a way I cant explain and no matter how much you want to deny it you are too. Tonight proves it.” At that pure fact your eyes flick open. Jonah’s immediately connect while fierce passion swam in them. Your face mere inches away from his and you could spot out the things he’d might find as flaw. The crease in the middle of chin, or the way one side of his top lips was bigger. You couldn’t help adore those things.

Dancing in his arms all you could see and feel was him. Unaware of the other couples dancing in one of the most historic ballrooms the world as seen. Taking away the fact Jonah wrote you into your own fantasy world.

Noticing your stare he smirked, green eyes shifting to your lips. Tongue poking out as he began to stare at them like they were the only source of his survival. “It’s rude to stare, Rockstar.” You mumble not sure if you should lean in and bring your lips to his. If you did you had no idea if you would be able to stop, Jonah was right you were drawn to him and you had no fucking idea why.

“Not when it’s you, Princess.” the intimate nickname caused the blood to rush upon your cheeks. You broke eye contact quickly looking at the way your feet chased his on the dance floor. A deep chuckle erupted against his chest and vibrated into yours. “I’ll let it go this time since there happens to be a crown on my head.’ You threaten playfully.

His eyes caught the sight of it in all it’s glory, “You should wear it more often, it fits you perfectly.” The diamonds sparkled into the green rings rounding his pupils. You almost snorted as you asked “Do you really think aimless flirting is getting you anywhere?”

“Usually does. Especially with the professors.” He winks at you teasingly. “God you’re so cheesy it wounds my soul to hear it.” You giggle and watch him beam at the happiness he managed to pull from your soul. Your eyes were brighter in the presence of him and Jonah never failed to notice it.

“Do you trust me?” A sudden question out of the blue,

“Seems like a trick ques-” You yelp as he twirled you a few times, hands still connected over your head. Anxious butterflies enter your stomach at the fast motion. You began to miss the warmth he brought you as if you were always meant to me in Jonah’s arms indefinitely. You giggle as Jonah pulls you back and you're relieved by his cinnamon presence.

“I trust you.”

“I know.”

The rest of the night is spent dancing in his arms, Giggling and feeling genuinely happy for the first time in along time. So distracted in him you both missed the auction. So lost in him that you hadn't noticed the couple danced a few feet away had been Julie with Trey.

------

A few weeks later

The moon hung high in the night sky as the harsh wind howled against your old windows. The blue glow of the television washed over your sleeping form. Curled like a kitten into the wall until a loud pounding at your door woke you. Mind hazy and confused as you were brought to consciousness. The loud banging started again as you heard a deep slurring voice. “Y/n? Y/n are you home?”

You almost felt like you were still wandering in dreamland. Who would show up at your dorm in the dead of night drunk out of their mind? Scurrying out of the covers you walked a couple steps to your door, your dorm was the small. Pulling the lock free you turn the knob and open the door.

Jonah stood in the hallway swaying on the balls of his feet. The bitter scent of alcohol engulfed you. He looked so wasted, a state you’ve never seen him in. you always saw him sober even at parties his frat liked to throw. Crinkles and strains littered his clothing, a rip was torn in the collar of his shirt, blotches of dried blood spotted the light fabric. Eyes dazed as he glanced at you, dark bags weighed under his eyes. Bruises and cuts were spread across his face.

“Jonah?” You asked beyond shocked,

“I saw him and I lost it.” Jonah lazily shrugs losing balance and his shoulder run into the frame of your door. Groaning he continues to lean against it too drunk too hold himself up. “I needed to see you..b-because you’re the only one that-”

“It’s late Jonah you should go.” You say regretting your words, holding the door you’re about to close it. “Please.” Jonah begs trying to nudge the door with his shoulder. But leans his entire weight against the door instead causing it to fly out of your grip and bang upon the wall. Jonah falls to the floor with a softer then you thought.

Without thinking you’re at his side helping him to his feet and you wonder how he got into the building. Once he’s onto his feet you guide him slowly to your desk and tell him to sit. He already barged in there was no point on kicking him out now. Shutting the door you flick on the light and your brain scolds you for it. Turning back to him you noticed blood seeping through his shirt on his side.

“What the hell did you do?” You asked him gently shaking your head as you walk to him. Jonah doesn't say a word as he watches you gather his shirt in your hand. Lifting it you spot a large scrapping wound running up his rib the chest. Dried blood covered his chest not too badly scraped like the side of his rib cage. Blood ran down his side that wasn’t there before. The wound tore open when he face planted to the floor.

“Take your shirt off I’ll fetched the first aid kit.” You speak to him sternly. “Yes ma’am.” Jonah chuckles darkly in a flirtatious manor and you ignore it. He didn’t have a right to that, not after dodging you like the plague for the last week.

You could’ve swore Jonah’s chest is something forged by angels. perfect sets of muscles tempted you to drop the aid kit and sit in his lap. A lazy smirk played on his lips and you had to look away, Swallowing the attraction down you forced yourself to focus.

“I don’t want to know how you achieved to look like this.” You sitting down on stool and catching the rubbing alcohol from the kit. “I wasn’t planning on telling you.” He pointed and your heart wrenched at his response.

In silence you drown cotton balls in the liquid and dab it on to his rib. They slightly shrink and expand sharply as he seethes through his teeth. You pull your lips in tight to stop the laugh that wanted to come out. It amused you to see him squirm at your hand. It was short lived as you remembered the situation between to two of you.

“Why are you dodging me like a bullet right now.” The liquid slides down his middle with ease. “I’m not.” He sucks onto his teeth as you work your way through his wound. Disinfecting it like he had that night at Chocolate Spot, taking care of you like no one else ever would.

“How can you say that when we were..friends or whatever you want to call it. We saw each other every day from dawn to dusk, almost spending every hour together. I accidentally fell asleep in your bed one night with Sawyer when we were watching Cars. We got ice cream every second day cause if we went every day Marcel would cut us off. We walked through the city and you showed me your favourite places. You pushed me to start painting again, I came to your band practise so often Jack started calling me your groupie. “

“Then one day you didn’t answer my text, you weren’t answering my calls either. Daniel was a complete asshole when I dropped by the fraternity house. You stopped getting coffee with me and you never saw the way I progressed with my painting. You abandoned me Jonah, but maybe you’re right that you didn’t.”

Your focus was surprisingly on the task at hand, not once did you look up at him. If You did you knew you would crumble into the palm of his hand and you were making good process. He was silent as he watched you work through it. You honestly didn’t know what you expected from him but it wasn’t silence.

Just over halfway through his wound and a few cotton balls later is when you felt your eyes sting. Blinking softly hot tears rolled down your cheeks and you could feel you nose get stuffy. “I’m sorry.” His voice is a gentle slur.

“Why are you sorry? It’s my fault for thinking I was different. It’s pathetic the way I believed you.” You both fell into silence vulnerable hearts beating the same rhythm, scared to say the wrong thing.

Wasn’t too long before you finished disinfecting the wound. Plastering a bandage to his rib cage where the wound was deeper. Leaving the cuts on his face alone because that’d take too much mental energy to tend to them.

“I don’t know why you chose to come here, but I think you should take your shirt and leave.” You say throwing the bloodied cotton balls in the trash and sliding the first aid kit back under the bed. “Which one?” He noticed the shirt that your body was clad in. First failed band merch he lent the first time you were at his house and you weren’t planning on giving back. You liked sleeping in it.

“The one you came in.”

“It has blood on it.”

“I don’t care, just get out.” You say heading for your bed way too tired to deal with him at the moment. “Wait.” Jonah’s hand catches your wrist and slender fingers wrap around it. A small shiver runs down your spine as if you were deprived of his touch. Body soon growing content from the skin to skin contact of him. Pulling lightly he turned you to face him, regret dripping in his eyes.

“What?” You ask sharply almost in a snap.

“I loved the time I spent with you, watching you fit into my life like you meant to be there. I see the way you get along with the band goofing around with them like they’re siblings. How you treat Sawyer as if he’s your dog, doesn’t help that the canine is in love with you. I just can’t help think that you deserve better then me. You know my past and you know who I was...still am. You don’t deserve to worry about me and expect to clean me up.” Jonah’s green eyes sparkle.

You narrow your eyes at him. Yanking your wrist from his grip and cross your arms over your chest. “What gives you the right to tell me what I deserve Jonah?” Your voice filled with anger. “I think I’m the one who decides that okay?” You asked pointing a finger to his still bare chest. He only nods watching the fury burn from your ears.

“I know who you are Jonah, and I’ll keep choosing you because no one. And I mean no one as ever made me feel the way you have in those few weeks.”

Passion burning in Jonah’s eyes like nothing you’ve seen before. Fingers dig into your wrist again as he pulls you into him. You yelp at the sudden action and let yourself get entirely lost in him. His hands are delicate as they cup the sides of your face. Soon guiding your face to his giving you time to reject him, but you don’t.

Once your lips meet his you swore you felt the entire world fall into place. He tasted of harsh vodka and coca cola while his whole being was drowning in the scent of it. You could care less in this moment as you melt into his arms perfectly. His kiss is gentle and careful as if pressing more into the kiss would shatter you into dust.

Pulling away from the kiss you look to your nightstand breathless and rosy cheeked. Instantly you felt bare without his warm touch upon your skin. It was weird the way your body always reacted to him as if this man was your whole life line. Like your body couldn’t get enough of him.

Jonah’s fingers caught your chin in his soft grip forcing your attention on his drunk hazy eyes. Exhaustion was wearing on his body now and you watched a dopey smile spread on his lips. “Beautiful.” His mumbles a soft slur of syllables as he tucks a few strands of hair behind your ear.

“You’re tired,” You respond back with fond smile.

“Can I stay with you?” Hope begins to dance in his eyes and you nod, “turn the light off.” was all you said before you pull from his grip and crawl into bed.

The light flicks off and you’re engulfed into the darkness only hearing light shuffles that Jonah makes. Soft thud of jeans hit the floor before you feel his body sink into the mattress of your bed. You giggle feeling him press his head into your stomach. The giddiness reaching your brain as his weight pushes into your legs.

“God I love the sound of your laugh.” He says into the fabric of your shirt. You smile in response and thread your fingers into the curls of his hair. Jonah pulls you thighs tighter against his bare chest and you feel his sigh contently in your arms. And you too were content in him and you begin wonder if this is what home felt like.

Jonah is quiet for a long while before you sense his breathing patterns slow and light snores erupt from him. You pull the blanket to your chest and surrender to sleep for the second time that night. This time was more rewarding then the first, because you had him.

-------

Late morning sun light floods into the dorm through light mesh curtains. Mind growing conscious while you felt the man cuddling against you nuzzle his face deeper into stomach. Looking like a sleepy puppy while doing it. You smile softly to yourself and comb your fingers into his chocolate curls enjoying the moment.

Until the Tuesday morning dawned on you, and by the bright light you knew you missed the first half of your eight am lecture. Desperately trying to get out of Jonah’s grip, he pulls you closer to his body instead. Rolling your eyes you try again, prying is arms from your thighs, but his hold is stronger then your resistance.

“Jesus what the hell is in your protein shakes?” You asks more to yourself,

“Protein.” Jonah murmurs into the fabric of your shirt. “You’re awake?” You asked surprised still trying to force yourself out of his grip. “Yes. Now stop trying to escape.”

“Can’t and because of you..” You groan digging your fingers into his bare bicep and push. “..I’m really late for my morning class..” Your grip slips and you yelp. “...Let me go!” You sigh in defeat and fall back into your pillows.

“I might be able to spare you.” He says reluctantly and pulls his arms from around you. You missed the feeling of them circling your body and as much as you wanted to put then back you couldn’t.

“Thank you.” You say gratefully and scoot yourself to the edge of the bed. Jonah crawls higher on the bed, back muscles glistening against the sun beams. He face plants into the pillow abruptly and moans into it sending shivers down your spine. Wondering what it would sound like on the shell on your ear as you reach of your phone.

The time displays on the screen and you swore under your breath as Jonah stirs in your bed and hums in question. “It’s 11:30am I missed the entire lecture, I still have time to get to my second class. I might have enough to grab a coffee on the way.”

“Me one too?” He asked in a coo and looks up at you. Gasping lightly you rush to him and grab his face to inspect the swelling of a yellowing bruise. It definitely didn’t look like that last night and must’ve grown in the night. Softly you finger tips dance onto the swell and Jonah curses at you and winces out of your grip. You muffled a small laugh, “Sorry, I wanted to see how bad it was.”

“Yeah I bet you did.” He snaps at the pain you caused him.

“Okay I’ll let you rest Mr. Attitude..” You tease him. “..I have a class to get to, and you know your way out.” You gather up your bathroom things in your catty and before you head out the door, you glance to see Jonah already sleeping peaceful in your bed.

----

After a long lecture you walk into Golden Biscuit and find Ivette already waiting for you. Ready for your two o’clock lunch date as she had ordered you an iced coffee and a sandwich. she sits in a spacious booth and you wonder how long she’s been sitting there scrolling on her phone.

“Hey.” You greet sliding into the seat across from her. Instantly she puts down her phone, screen kissing the table. “Finally what took you so long?”

“You do realise I don’t have a car right? Not to mention it’s a twenty minute walk from the lecture hall.” You reach for your sandwich and sink your teeth into it. “Calm down I know I was only teasing. I missed you and your dumb ass.” She says and you roll your eyes as your mouth was full of a deliciousness.

With Jonah on hiatus for the last week you kept to yourself. You didn’t think it was fair to come in between her relationship with Daniel. Especially since he was Jonah’s best friend and band mate. And in that time Jonah was avoiding you Daniel told you ‘if he wanted to be found you would’ve found him’ Honestly a dick move on his end of the plate but you understood his reason.

You knew Ivette would tear out his throat for that one despite what she felt for him. She’d do absolutely anything for you, that’s who Ivette was. It’s the reason you never told her about it and said you needed space. Because at the end of the day Daniel was the only whose ever made her feel secure in a relationship. You weren’t about to take that away from her, she’s happy with him.

“I missed you too and your loud personality.” You take a sip of your coffee to wash down the bread down.

“Speaking of loud I heard that a certain someone forced his way through your dormitories last night.” The excitement glowed in her brown eyes as she took a sip of her own coffee.

A small smile crawled onto your lips at the mention of the man that slept in your bed last night. “Yes..” You start and tell her everything that happened last night. That he woke up at two in the morning absolutely wasted and bruised from the waist up. How you weren’t too pleased to see his face after everything that happened between the two of you. Yet you still tended to his massive wound that ate at his side, saying how you felt the need to do it even after feeling that resentment for him. How you two made up and kissed and fell asleep in each others arms like you were meant to.

By the time you finished your coffee was gone and your sandwich was half eaten. Ivette held her coffee in both hands looking at you with an expression you couldn’t place. “The way you describe him tells me you’re in love with that one.” He voice is soft and light.

You choke and cough on a piece of bacon, shocked by her words. “Me and Jonah aren’t together together. At least I don’t think we are, he never asked. I can’t be in love with him, not yet. That-that would be almost im-impossible.” You scramble for the words. Desperate to deny the idea out of your mind.

“The way you talk about him is as if your souls are made from the same stars. It wouldn’t be that impossible.”

You muffle a small laugh, “That’s from a movie.” You point out,

“I know. What do you expect from a theatre major who doesn’t devour books the way you do?” She shrugs and takes a bite out of her panini.

You shake your head playfully as your phone vibrates in your back pocket. Eyebrows knit together while you fish it out. A white notification from eBay with a picture of you lion painting pops up. Blocking a picture of you and Ivette when you went to Disneyland last year.

You tap on it and it takes you to your listing of the painting. A green banner is displayed at the top and in white lettering SOLD is written inside it. Your eyes fall upon more zeros then you could count, your phone slips from you grip. “Holy fuck!” you shout and clamp your hands to your mouth in pure shock at how much your panting sold for. Phone clattering to the phone and you could care less if the screen cracked.

“What?!” Ivette leans onto the table with an urgent expression. eagerly wanting to know what caused you to respond the way you did. Hands shaking vigorously against your mouth as your eyes almost popped out of their sockets. Ivette watches you like this for the next five minutes letting you comprehend what the hell just happened.

Slowly you remove you hands from you mouth and look at her bug-eyed. Still in shock. “My painting sold.” Your voice is just above a whisper as if you said it any louder it’d go away.

“How much?” Ivette matches your tone,

“Five-hundred-thousand dollars.”

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

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has supported me through this series. It honestly means so much to me since I’ve struggled heavily with this part.

Which was your favourite part? Mine personally was when Jonah took the reader to the ball room and danced with her.

Don’t be afraid to message me if anything offended you with my POC characters. This is a safe space for everyone and I want to make it right!

Taglist: @jonahlovescoffee @randomlimelightxxx @someinsanefangirl @evans-dejong

39 notes · View notes

buckstaposition · 5 years ago

Text

I cling to your lips like gloss (3)

a Javier Peña x OFC story

also on AO3

author: @youhavereachedtheendofpie 👋

tags&warnings: spoilers for season 3, wonky timelines & odd pacing, drinking, swearing, mentions of sex work, mentions of canon-typical violence, Miss Salome is back!, some mild domesticity, partial nudity, a lil’ bit of sexual & romantic tension, soft&protective!Javi today tomorrow and forever

words: 8906 🙃🤡🙃🤡

summary: “The United States government is buying you a dress because you being at that party is of strategic importance to this investigation.”

Author’s note: Thank you SO SO much everyone who read, reblogged, and commented! It means so much to me and I want you to know that I read those comments and reviews at least every other day

Also this chapter was originally going to feature more as I was planning to move into the actual plot of the season, but then it just got longer and longer and I wanted to keep it under 10k words so that has all been moved to the beginning of ch4 instead. Anyway, remember it’s okay to take breaks in between, stay hydrated, and enjoy!

—

Tag list: @keeper0fthestars @opheliaelysia @dindjarindiaries @fromthedeskoftheraven @shikin83 @cinewhore @maddoggrahaml

(message me if you want to be added to the list)

beautiful moodboard made by @huliabitch

Masterlist

Prologue • Chapter 1 - The Informant • Chapter 2 - A Wedding and Four Funerals

Chapter 3 - Swallow Pride and Anger

He made a habit of checking in with Miss Rivas regularly, usually on Wednesday evenings. It was late enough in the week for her to have gathered something to tell him, and for him to need interactions beyond dealing with pissy bureaucrats and the chorus of 'yes boss'es from his agents. That and he made the conscious choice to never bother her on Thursdays, seeing as how often she'd come back from a work day in the double digits, only to rise again with the sun on Friday mornings for her frequent trips back to Medellín.

On this Wednesday, his self-imposed cigarette embargo inside his office combined with a slow and frustrating day had led him to go back to his apartment at an uncharacteristically early hour. He threw his jacket, wallet and keys down on the table, then loosened his tie and grabbed a beer from his fridge. He took a slow pull from the bottle, allowing himself to slump a bit against the kitchen counter. This apartment, while never what he would call a home, was still a sanctuary of sorts, even if most days he only came here to sleep and change clothes. He finished about half the bottle before clicking the bent cap back on haphazardly and placing it back in the fridge. He checked his watch and decided that a shower would, if not make him feel better, at least wash off the stale dryness of the embassy complex's aircon.

His hair still damp, he exited the bathroom about half an hour later. He padded across the floor barefoot, shuffling around the few rooms a bit, pulling on a clean t-shirt and preparing a small meal in the kitchen. He didn't have much except for the usual staples, chosen by how easy they were to prepare and by how effectively they would fill his stomach, rather than for any considerations of taste. The only thing he allowed himself to indulge in was the selection of fresh fruit he picked up at the street market down the road. By the time he'd gotten something in his stomach it was nearing seven. Javier reckoned she would be home by now and would have had enough time to settle in. He grabbed his fruit plate and trudged over to his wall-mounted landline phone. After placing the plate on the low side table, he dialled the satphone's number and waited for the line to connect.

"Agent Peña, good evening!" The sound quality was much better than with those tinny phone cells. It allowed him to hear how pleased she sounded as she greeted him, and how slightly out of breath.

"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Miss Rivas. I can call back later?" It occurred to him that she might be in the process of making dinner herself.

"Oh no, it's alright!" He heard the shuffling of steps and the hum of music in the background. "Hang on, let me finish on the landline, then I'm all yours." She must have set the satphone down right next to her stereo system. He could hear music more clearly now, still distant like not all of it survived the transmission, but distinct enough to make out a string section paired with electric guitar and words in an unfamiliar language.

"Interesting music selection." He mused as she came back on the line.

"Huh? Oh yes, Angelika let me borrow some of her tapes. Newly historical contraband from behind the Iron Curtain." She laughed quietly, and Javier thought of how for some of his former CIA colleagues, that might have been reason enough to drag her in for an interrogation. He sneered at the notion, glad it was no longer relevant. "Not that I understand anything, but that's why music is called the universal language, I suppose."

"Your German friend." Javier hummed thoughtfully. He'd had to look up what that Stasi remark meant, embarassingly enough. Despite the added information included, he'd been made to change it to 'Calí KBG' in his preliminary report on the matter.

"Yes. I'm sorry I couldn't convince her to help more. It's half the way she was brought up and half fear. I guess the thought of going up against a powerful drug cartel and helping the American government at the same time is just a bit too much. And with her and Julio now trying for a baby she just really doesn't want to risk it, you know?"

"It's okay." Javier said reflexively, allowing himself to sit on the floor by his phone, his back against the wall. Angelika Florez-something-long-and-German-with-lots-of-umlauts that he wasn't even going to attempt to pronounce worked at the Calí phone company and would have been an invaluable asset, but then again she'd already placed herself in danger by allowing Diana to relay what she knew. Javier wasn't going to force anyone to become an informant. "Anything new on your end?"

"New corner office."

"Nice."

"Oh, very." He heard more soft rustling over the line, as if she was moving around, and then some light clicking noises that might have been a large window or door being opened. "Miguel Rodríguez did stop by yesterday. Unannounced, of course. Cut into my lunch break."

Javier straightened, the hand with a piece of orange sinking back down from his lips. "Oh? What did he want?" Unfortunately it was nothing he could be nailed down for. The Rodríguez brothers did own that bank and had every right to be there, every once in a while.

"Wanted to talk about the tax evasion scheme I devised. I swear, there's nothing rich people hate more than paying their taxes!" Her huff made him laugh softly, despite everything. "Nothing of substance to report, sadly."

"We'll get them." Javier promised. "With your help, they'll go down like a bag of rocks in water."

She hummed, tapping her nails against the phone casing absently. He could hear the light click of it over the line. Javier let himself enjoy the reprieve this unassuming silence offered.

"I've been wondering," she started again after a moment, pensive, "how you met Gabriela. Was it when she was still at the brothel or after?"

Actually screw reprieve. Javier felt like all his blood was now rushing to his ears and neck. "Umm..." he said, eloquently. "W-why d'you want to know?" And hadn't the other woman told her that detail, since they apparently shared everything? He had made it until now in forcibly not dwelling on what exactly this 'everything' would entail.

"Sorry no, that came out wrong. I was just wondering if she'd ever been in any way involved in your... work. I'm sorry, this isn't... I just- I worry."

Javier exhaled slowly, thinking back on the night he'd chanced upon the stunning redhead at a bar. He hadn't planned on it becoming a regular thing, and then before he knew it, the sporadic nights he spent with her were the only thing removed from the stress of his job. "No, never."

"Dammit."

That was... not what he'd expected. He frowned a moment before it dawned on him.

"You're worried that by involving her when Maritza asked you for help you put her in danger."

"...Yes." She sounded glum now, not pleased and at ease enough to attempt to joke with him like before. He hated it.

"Hey, it's alright. Nothing happened to her." At least to her. At least one person had come out of that nightmare mostly unscathed. It was something to be grateful for. "They're gone now. Escobar and his men are gone. She's safe."

"Thank you, Agent Peña. I just-" Her voice sounded so small, suddenly. He frowned, plate of fruit long forgotten. "I couldn't bear it if I lost her, too. And while I didn't live in Medellín for all of it I ...you hear things."

Unbidden, his mind flashed to the brothel on 23rd street in Envigado, all the women executed, La Quica putting bullets through their brains because one of them had been brave enough to call the Search Bloc and DEA on him. He thought of Helena. He thought of the dozens more who had the violence in their lives compounded tenfold because they'd dared to defy the narcos' terror. And often enough, through him. Sometimes the guilt ate Javier alive.

"Hang on a moment." He said, already heaving himself up and striding over to the kitchen, grabbing his unfinished beer from the fridge, then doubling back over to the bar and grabbing a glass and a bottle of whiskey. Mixing the two was probably not a good idea. As much as drinking in general. He didn't care right now. Javier tried to be a better man than he had been, but there were times when he slipped.

He poured himself a glass of the liquor as he sat back down and snatched the phone receiver back up from where it swung against the wall.

"I'm back." He announced simply and took a swig.

"I shouldn't have brought it up." She sighed long and drawn. "I'm sorry for... I suppose I just wanted to make myself feel better. That if something had happened to Gabi it wouldn't have been my fault, too. I didn't think- I cannot begin to imagine, Agent Peña-"

"It's alright." Javier said, reflexively. The beer bottle was just one generous sip away from being empty now. His fingers played with the rim of it absently as he stretched his legs out in front of him, the tumbler of whiskey at his side.

"It's not alright." Miss Rivas insisted, sounding even more distraught. He hated that, too.

"Maybe. Maybe not. It is what it is." He scrubbed a palm over his face, rubbing at his burning eyes. The alcohol was beginning to swirl through his bloodstream. It helped, he supposed, that there was a sort of artificial distance through the telephone line. Otherwise the next words would likely never have left his lips.

"Can I tell you something?" Javier Peña wasn't a religious man, but there were times when he saw the sense of a confessional.

"Of course." Her voice was just the slightest bit shaky. "Should I get myself a drink, too?"

"If you want." He threw back the last bit of beer, following it up immediately with a gulp of whiskey, then pressed the still cold bottle against his flushed neck. He hesitated a moment, listening intently to the shuffling and rustling on the other end of the line. He felt his shoulders tighten and draw up, let his head fall back against the wall with a soft 'thud', his fingertips tracing the rim of the glass until he heard her soft affirmative.

This was not a time to let shame hinder him. Hell, the fact that he paid women for sex was the first thing she ever knew about him.

"You should know that I have a kind of... reputation." Javier began slowly. Like she didn't know that already. Like she couldn't guess. Like maybe this illusion where he could make this a confession instead of a confirmation was somehow more dignified.

He'd gotten the idea a few months into coming down here. Or rather the idea had found him in the shape of a lovely, doe-eyed brunette who'd introduced herself as 'Aurélia'. And Javier had been hungry and lonely, his shame at his ruined wedding fresh and the frustration of running after leads into empty corners even fresher. And he doesn't even remember how he ended up inside her room, and while under no illusion that what was about to transpire was merely a business deal, a service rendered and compensated for, he'd found himself talking. Javier wasn't a talker, but she'd been so sweet in the way she carded her slender fingers through his hair and let him ramble on, probably wasting her time.

"That's who you're here for?" Javier remembered still, with such distinct clarity, how her fingers had stuttered against his scalp. Javier had lifted his far-too-heavy head from her comfortable bosom and peered up at her, wondering whether disclosing all this had been a mistake. What kind of idiot walks into a brothel in Medellín half drunk and says he's a cop looking to take down Pablo fucking Escobar plus associates?

"They come here sometimes. Those sicarios I mean." Aurélia had said, resuming her caresses. Sweet girl. Sweet, sad girl who kissed so softly.

"Oh yeah?" Just his luck. "Not tonight though, hopefully." Suddenly he wasn't quite as drunk or tired anymore.

"Not tonight, no. At least not that I know of. Anyway, it's not- I shouldn't tell you this." She'd tilted his head up and pressed a lingering kiss to his lips. That girl could kiss like she was in love with you.

That was that. Four days later he'd come back, with a proposal wrung from his superiors. Any information that could lead to the capture of one of the Cartel's sicarios for a generous chunk of solid American cash.

"Aurélia?" Miss Rivas asked in a voice as if she was running calculations. "With curls or with a birthmark?"

"Umm, birthmark." A mole on her left cheek, just under the eye, like a rococo lady in every period piece about the French, except real.

"Oh! Catalina Vasquez!"

"You know her?" Of course she knew her. Apparently Medellín was actually a damn village and not a city of millions.

"Yeah, the family lived just down the street growing up. I used to babysit them sometimes, her and her younger sisters."

Javier hummed, unsure of how to reply. He pinned the receiver between his head and shoulder and shoved the freed hand up under the collar of his shirt to rub at the tension in the back of his neck.

"Sorry for interrupting, do go on."

It had taken some convincing. A whole lot of planning, too. But by the end of it he had one of Gacha's sicarios in custody. A large, brutish man who'd nicknamed himself 'Cobra'. Low-level and not especially bright, as it turned out, but not completely worthless. Javier had gone back to the brothel that night to give Aurélia her reward, and then he'd come back again the night after, when the high of success had worn off and he'd craved being kissed again like it meant something. Only, she'd been gone. Left without a trace, her erstwhile colleagues unwilling to divulge the whats and wheres and whys. Frustrated and anxious and in no small part betrayed, he'd drowned himself in a willing bottle blonde who could do extremely interesting things with her mouth. And that was that, the start of a career and a reputation. Not that he ever expected to be 'serviced' when he was there in a professional capacity. But when they offered, he found himself too weak to refuse. And they almost always offered. For whatever reason.

Professional pride perhaps.

"What happened to her?" It had been years but he had to ask, just on the off chance.

"She took your money and cut loose, moved to the coast and got a job at a baker's. Last thing I heard she was married and had another baby on the way."

"Good. That's ...good." He'd wondered, all these years... "Thank you."

"I didn't do anything."

"For listening. For letting me ...unload." For lifting a bit of guilt and uncertainty off of me. "Just... you don't have to do that. So thank you."

A short rustling, the squeak and groan of a chair, then: "I will listen to whatever you want to tell me, Agent Peña."

Javier released a sigh, deep and weary, and set aside his glass and the bottle that was significantly lighter than it had been. His mind was somewhere in that soupy stage now, floating aimlessly on some sort of thick fog. It dulled the creeping pain in his back that told him he was too old to be sitting on the floor now. He mumbled something indistinct, rubbed his eyes and shook his head in an attempt to clear the haze.

"Well, in any case, now you know." He'd only need to tell her about Lorraine, Helena, and Carillo, and he'd have shared all of his major sins. Huh.

"What are you asking for?"

Absolution. "A verdict?"

"I have no intention of judging you, Agent Peña. Not for this. You acquainted yourself with all the working girls in Bogotá and Medellín, and I married a man I did not love and stayed with him for years."

"That's hardly the same."

"Isn't it?" Her voice was soft and rueful, brimming with words not ready to be spoken quite yet. He sensed it, and agreed, and therefore decided that it was time to cut this heart-to-heart off here for both their sakes.

"Hell, I don't know. Maybe, in a way." He was way too drunk for this. He shouldn't have drunk this much. Where had his threshold gone? It's like he'd spent years tempering his liver for nothing.

"Well then, I'll let you know whether or not it'll be worth for you to come down to Medellín next weekend. Sleep well. And drink some water before then."

Javier glanced at the clock mounted on the oppsite wall. When the hell had it gotten this late? No wonder his ass was numb and his back was killing him. There was a moment when the strangest words were just hanging on to the tip of his tongue, ready to plummet off. That it would always be worth it to see her. Even just to take a turn about a park with her and the kid. Javier swallowed thickly. Gathered his professionalism and detachment.

"Until then, Miss Rivas. Good night." --- --- --- The phone rings insistently in a way that tells him it's been at it a while. Javier sighed while sliding the glass door of his office shut behind him. He hadn't planned on being all but ambushed by one of Stechner's CIA stooges under the guise of 'inter-agency liasing', and that was after getting caught up with a lenghty presentation one of his newly transferred agents had prepared for him. Feistl, he'd said his name was. The presentation was full of good ideas, too, just too involved. Javier had told the guy as much. If you can get your point across with ten words there's no point using fifty.

Javier picked up the receiver, one hand rubbing at the dull throbbing that was just starting to build in his temple.

"Peña."

"You're still at your office? It's past eight, you should go home." He smiles despite himself, and the chiding tone.

"Got delayed." He offered by way of an explanation. She harrumphed softly.

"Not that I'm not delighted to hear from you, but what's the occasion?" She rarely called him, he usually called her. She certainly didn't call on Thursday nights because when she wasn't preparing to drive up to Medellín she was usually exhausted enough at this point in the week to turn in early.

"I hope you're sitting down."

Javier perched himself on the edge of his desk where it wasn't piled high with reports and mind-numbing paperwork awaiting his signature. "I am."

"They're having a party and I've been invited. Friday next week. They'll all be there; Santacruz is apparently coming down from New York for it. The chief accountant, the money launderer, everyone. And their wives, or other-"

Javier's foot slipped a bit where he'd foolishly leaned a significant percentage of his weight on it. He caught himself as the desk gave a loud groan, slipping a bit on the linoleum floor. He righted himself quickly, sitting more firmly on the edge of the desk.

"What do you know?"

"Apparently there's going to be some sort of important announcement, but no one knows what it is, not even Miguel. Gilberto called it. All I know is that all four of them will be there, as well as everyone important in the organization. And then some. Likely every politician and law enforcement official in their pocket. Other cartels, too, but I don't know who exactly-"

"Miss Rivas, stop." Javier said firmly. Her voice had gotten that rambling, frantic quality that wore thin its natural pleasant rasp. "That's plenty. This is..." he twisted around and fished for his desk calendar, grabbing the nearest pen to circle the day, "This is huge. It could even be just the break we need."

She was silent for a moment, only her long, deliberate breaths crackling over the line. "You think so?"

"I think regardless of what it is, if it's important enough for a gathering this big, then yes."

"I don't suppose you could raid the party and arrest them all just like that?" She mused.

"Only in my dreams, Miss Rivas." He allowed himself a second to picture it: surroundig what was no doubt a very large and fancy property, riding in like the cavalry, the dumbstruck faces as the Gentlemen of Calí and their associates realized their luck had run out, clapping the handcuffs on them - he'd want to do it himself, hear the gratifying click of metal on metal that would wipe the self-satisfied smirks off their faces.

The warrants for the Calí godfathers existed, that wasn't the problem. The problems started with finding the location, circumventing their no doubt expert security, getting the lot of them without anyone escaping... Then there was the trouble of getting a search warrant for the property, even if they did know the address, and it was going to be a whole lot more complicated if the guy who signed those warrants was at that party himself. Then there was the fact that for all the valuable intel Miss Rivas had provided already, it wasn't nearly enough to nail the godfathers beyond what their army of slippery attorneys could weasel them right back out of. What they really needed was for someone to talk. Someone who had been there for longer and knew the operations of the cartel more intimately than Miss Rivas ever could (or than he would want her to, if Javier was being honest). The mysterious money launderer perhaps, or the chief accountant. Either would be good, both would be better - then again, the immunity deals that usually came with these kinds of cooperations didn't sit too well with Javier.

"Hell, I don't even have a plus one. Do I really have to go? I could pretend to be sick." She sighed and scoffed, and muttered something about not having anything to wear.

"I think you know." And if these people didn't know his face (and would put a bullet through it on sight) he'd gladly offer to be her plus one, if only to keep her safe. He hated knowing she'd be all alone there, among the wolves. It didn't make what he still had to ask of her any easier.

"Yes, I know. Miguel called me the 'third corner of their finance trifecta'." A bitter laugh, not that Javier needed that cue to know. He could tell from her voice alone how much she despised it. "In any case, now you know, so you can make whatever arrangements you need. I'll see you tomorrow?" Ah yes, about that.

"I'm afraid I can't make lunch. Urgent meeting called by the ambassador." Urgent and useless, but when the new president and minister of justice wanted a briefing he had to oblige. "Sorry."

"That's alright. Dinner then? My aunt will be in the hospital overnight."

"I'll see what I can do." There was just one more thing. "Miss Rivas?"

"Yes?"

"Would you be willing to wear a wire? To the party?"

"Well, I was thinking a cocktail dress would be more appropriate-"

Javier scoffed. "You know what I mean." He could picture her grin on the other end of the line, pleased at her little joke.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I suppose I might as well, seeing as I'm not getting out of this-"

"Thank you."

"Best bring the necessary ...equipment with you. I need to go dress shopping this weekend."

He promised that he would. He promised to call as soon as he knew when he'd be in Medellín. And he promised to go home for the day as soon as they said their good-byes.

He intended to do just that; he only needed to file away some things first.

"Boss?" Another one of the new transfers poked his head in after knocking. Why was he still here at this hour? Javier struggled to recall his name.

"Yeah, what is it, uh..." He did feel bad about it, too. A little bit at least.

"Van Ness, sir."

"What is it, Van Ness?"

"Duffy just faxed this over." Van Ness leaned further into Javier's office, holding himself steady on the doorframe, and handed him the flimsy sheet of paper. "They've gotten a lead through Cornerstone."

--- --- ---

Dinner instead turned into an apologetic phonecall during a meeting break and then a red eye flight out to Medellín. Then there's another meeting at the Search Bloc home base with Colombian National Police representatives and the only high point of it is that he briefly sees Hugo Jr who looks well. So by the time Javier finally starts out to Envigado it's lunchtime again. He makes it there just slightly after.

He walked up to the small house, past the flowerbeds on the windowsills, and knocked on the door. That side of the house was south-facing and it was a hot, cloudless day that has him sweating in his suit in no time. He's just about to knock again, thinking perhaps the first time he'd been too soft to be heard so as not to disturb the aunt who must be resting after her overnight stay at the hospital, but then he hears the quick tap of feet and the door is yanked open by an out-of-breath Diana. "Hey."

She was wearing a wide smile and cut-off denim shorts with a simple blue cotton blouse and her hair was loose and much longer than when they'd first met. It seemed like no time at all had passed since then when in reality it had been close to a year now.

"Hi," Javier breathed, "Sorry for the delay."

She waved it off. "Come on in, I saved you a plate." She turned and walked back the short and narrow hallway. Stop gawking at her legs.

"That's not necessary." He tried to deflect, toeing off his shoes near the door and loosening his tie and shirt collar, just the top button.

"Nonsense, unless you've eaten?" She looked over her shoulder before turning into the small kitchen.

"I haven't, no." Javier conceded, following behind. It wasn't exactly spacious, a round table squished to one wall with just enough space for three chairs. Little Salome sat at one, drawing with an array of colorful crayons. She acknowledged him silently before going back to her drawing and Javier sat down.

"Coffee?" Diana asked over the hum of the microwave, already pulling two mugs from a cupboard.

"Please." Javier stretched his legs out as far as he could without becoming a tripping hazard. "How's your aunt?"

"Resting now. She's been better recently, but overall she's been declining so I don't know-" She gave a helpless shrug, then brought over the mugs, shortly followed by the steaming plate which she set in front of him. He'd learned a while ago that even the most minute resistance was futile anyway. Besides, he actually was really rather hungry. Catering wasn't a priority for the CNP.

He waited until she sat down in the chair opposite to start eating. They talked quietly, not exactly smalltalk, but nothing too heavy either. It was strange sort of almost-domesticity if one looked over the fact that he was being snuck in like a teenage delinquent boyfriend whenever the aunt was out or asleep (which was fine by him as he had no desire to meet the woman whose only daughter he'd gotten killed).

"So how does that whole wire situation work in real life?" Diana asked after she'd cleared away the dishes (and physically slapping his hand away when he moved to help).

"Well it's... there's a literal wire, a microphone on one end, and a recording device on the other. And a battery." Javier began haltingly.

"And it needs to be concealed under the clothes, obviously."

"Obviously."

"Hmm, I see. How big?" She sat back down again, brushing a hand through Salome's hair affectionately. "And how do I secure it under the dress? I need to know these things so I can pick out one that'll cover it all, you see."

Javier nodded. "Did you want to leave soon? Because I was thinking it's probably easiest if I just came along."

At this, she seemed surprised, but recovered quickly. "You sure?"

He sipped the last of his now tepid coffee and nodded again. "Yeah, let's go buy you a dress."

"There's no need to buy me a dress, Agent Peña." He recognized that tone by now, how testy she got at any allusion of charity. It was an ingrained reflex that he knew better than to be irked by.

"The United States government is buying you a dress because you being at that party is of strategic importance to this investigation." He stood to put the empty mug in the sink before she could beat him to it, then returned to the table, standing behind the seat he'd previously occupied and gripping the back of it. "Besides, more of American taxpayer money is spent on worse things." Like Stechner's salary, he thought. She gave him a look that said they'd have more words on this, probably when they reached the checkout, then stood, saying she'd go say goodbye to her aunt.

Javier nodded, watching her leave. A little noise caught his attention. Salome still didn't speak much, but she knew how to make herself known nonetheless. "What is it, Miss Salome?" Javier stooped to get closer to eye level with the kid. She looked up at him with her big brown eyes and held up a scrap of the paper she'd been drawing on.

"Oh, what's this?" She shook the paper insistently in her tiny fist, an adorable frown creasing between her brows, as if miffed that he was being slow. And it's... he's gotten more relaxed around the little girl by now, but it still always lingers that he's part of the reason she's an orphan, and traumatised into a selective mutism that apparently even the average counselor or child psychiatrist doesn't quite know how to deal with to boot, that leaves him with a lingering apprehension that manifests in the kind of awkward hesitation that now has her scrambling off the chair and patting his leg as she holds the paper up for him to take.

"Want me to take a look?" He bends and takes it gently. Is answered by a sort of long-suffering sigh. The scrap is barely the size of his palm, covered in colorful blobs of red and orange and yellow and blue, pink and green and purple swirls in between.

"Very pretty." He decrees and attempts to hand it back just as Miss Rivas is poking her head back the room.

"Can you please grab the car seat?"

"Huh?" It's not very eloquent, but then again he's engaged in a game of impromptu reverse tug-of-war with a toddler. "She's coming with?" She's also pushing the paper back at him again, pouting.

"Yes of course she is. The car seat? It's on the shelf behind you." There is no argument to be had with the women in this family, so he doesn't even attempt it, just straightens and looks for the car seat which is indeed in the described spot. "And that drawing is for you so just take it."

"For me?" It's still clutched in his hand, and Salome is heaving a huff as if to say 'Duh. Idiot.' His throat feels tight all of a sudden. "Well, thank you very much." He makes a show of tucking it very carefully into the pocket of his suit jacket, then turns to retrieve the car seat. Together they make their way out. It takes a moment to set up the car seat in the back, another to wrestle the stroller into the trunk, but eventually they're on their way downtown.

--- --- ---

They have entered a world of ruffles. And sequins. For a moment Javier thinks he's having flashbacks to Lorraine's endless sessions discussing bridesmaid's dresses all those years ago. He exchanges a look with Miss Rivas, her expression stony and tense.

"Alright, quick in and out. If at all possible, I want to be out of here again before Salome wakes up." Javier nodded, tightening his grip on the stroller handles. Salome had dozed off in the car on the drive over and was now out cold, not even stirring throughout the transferral from car seat to stroller. Javier eyed the sea of satins and gulped, then turned to the woman at his side. "What's your plan?"

"I'm going to find a shop assistant." She narrowed her eyes, gaze flitting over the masses of racks.

"Good plan." Javier mumbled. He had an inkling that they'd be here forever if they attempted to brave this ocean of dresses alone.

"Right, you can..." she trailed off as her eyes fixed on a woman some feet away, her head just bobbing up from between two racks where she was rearranging some very bright red and very small garments, "...um, wait by the changing rooms?"

"It's fine." Javier replied, starting to push the stroller in that direction. If nothing else he figured he could function as a temporary clothing rack or something. On instinct, he scans the perimeter while Miss Rivas elucidates to the shop assistant what she is looking for and the younger woman, perhaps in her mid- to late twenties, snaps her fingers in triumph before announcing that she has 'just what you're looking for' and starts marching away. They follow her like ducklings from rack to rack, and a good ten minutes later they have an armful of cocktail dresses of varying lengths, cuts, and colors. It's the kind of brutal efficiency that even Search Bloc could only dream of, all in the petite shape of this eager retail employee with a side pony.

"Let me know if you need help." She chirps as she deftly deposits them in the changing room area before returning to her other tasks.

It's an almost enclosed space, five curtained cabins in an open half-circle arrangement with a long-ish bench in the middle and some tall mirrors on the spaces between. He wheels the stroller beside the bench and sits a moment later, so that the both of them are facing the changing room where the shop assistant had hung up the dress selection. Shrugs off his suit jacket, then drapes it carefully over the sleeping child to block out the light and muffle the noise of shoppers. Miss Rivas looked at him expectantly, one hand on the curtain that was half drawn.

"What?"

"You're gonna have to show me how to put on the wire thingy." She jerked her head towards the changing room. Javier gulped, the implication dawning on him. Looked at the stroller helplessly. There was nothing but an effectively timed baby snore and a twitch of one little ladybug-socked foot.

"Come on, the sooner we get this over with the sooner we can leave." As previously stated, there is no arguing with the women of this family, especially when they're right, so he resigns himself, dives for the case that holds the machinery, and stands. Miss Rivas stepped aside, drawing up the curtain after a furtive glance around. "We're both adults."

"Yeah." Javier agreed, his throat tight. At least these cabins were decently sized or they'd be squished in there like sardines in a can.

Javier turned away to give her some privacy, fiddling with the wire instead, pretending it had gotten more tangled than it was. At her soft confirmation that she's ready he turns around, making a conscious effort not to look... anywhere really. At least she'd only chucked her top; the shorts are still on.

"Agent Peña, I would assume that you have seen women in their underwear before." She sounded amused, and clearly more relaxed about this than he could ever pretend to be. He gives a terse nod, making his eyeline give a wide berth until his gaze lands squarely on her face where a bemused smirk just barely masks something more uncertain.

"Sorry, there is a real dearth of female agents or this would be much less awkward." Javier stepped closer, holding the wire in his hands like the world's flimsiest shield. She's right of course, the sight of a woman's brassiere hasn't been new to him since he was a teenager sneakily perusing clothing catalogues in his bedroom after dark. Hers isn't even... it's... functional, off-white, unwired and unembellished, and reveals just the edge of a tan line, something he quickly drags his gaze away from. The problem is of course, that the path his eyes take is further down her body, suddenly snagging on a raised line down at the very edge of her ribcage on the left side.

"What's this?" His thumb drags across the raised skin instinctually. It's a thin, straight line of scar tissue, around half the length of his index finger and sitting right on the lowest rib. Diana gasped softly and he snatched his hand away like he'd touched one of the electric fences back on the ranch. "Sorry."

"It's fine, it's just a scar." She took a steadying breath and retraced the path his finger had just taken on her skin with her own, pensive. "I got caught in a shootout on my way home when I was home for summer from university once. It's just a graze." Just a graze that would have been more than that if it had hit just a few inches to the side. Javier felt faint at the thought.

"Do you have any?"

"Huh?" His brain is lagging on something, hence the eloquent reply.

"You said you get shot at a lot in this job. Ever been hit?" She ducks her head a little, looking up at him through her lashes from where she's leaning back against the wall. "Come on, I showed you mine, you show me yours." It's clearly a joke, and one she obviously regrets as soon as the words are out, judging by the pained expression that comes right after the statement.

"Just one." Javier said, tapping his leg about a handwidth above the knee. "Went right through. Apparently missed the main artery by less than half an inch."

"Hmm, " she hummed, "Looks like we're both lucky then."

"Yeah," Javier agreed, his voice soft and low, "lucky."

The changing rooms really were not cramped, but with two fully grown adults inside, they were just about spacious enough. They stood barely an arm's length apart, mirror to one side and thick faux-velvet curtain to the other. Javier felt heat prickle from the base of his neck downwards, and he wasn't even the one with half his chest out. He'd only rolled up his shirtsleeves to his elbows, leaving his forearms bare.

Her hand brushed over one gently, curling around his wrist and startling him out of whatever feverish reverie he'd zoned out into.

"So," she trailed her fingertips further down, over his knuckles and the wire slung around them, before tapping against the small black cylinder that housed the recording device and battery, "does this thing get hot?"

Pull yourself together and be fucking professional! "It shouldn't."

"Right, well let's get it on then."

He handed her the microphone end first. Explained ideal placement, the closer to the face the better. This was a modified necktie bug, small and discreet, secured against the skin with tape if necessary. She took it, pinned the mic to the strap of her bra, high up on the shoulder. The wire itself was long enough to wind around her torso once with some slack. The slim casing that held the battery and recording device she tucked into her bra for now. Listened intently as he explained how to turn the device on and off.

"I'll keep this on for the rest of the day, just to get used to the feeling." Her smile was a bit wobbly as she spoke.

"Yeah, that's ...uh, a good idea." Javier fidgeted a moment, not sure what to do with his hands. "Right, I'll leave you to your-"

She gripped his hands just as he was about to turn and leave. Alarmed, he stilled. Watched he lip wobble and the rims of her eyes redden under furrowed brows. "Hey, what is it?, What's wrong?"

She heaved a deep and shaky breath that ended in an even shakier laugh. "I'm sorry I'm just... I'm scared."

"You don't have to do this if you don't feel safe." Javier was quick to offer. "You've helped us so much already."

She swallowed hard. "No, I do want to! Do this, help you. I want to bring them down! Besides, I'm going to be there anyway, so it would be a waste not to-"

She was trembling now, unaware of her own body's reaction until it was brought into sharp relief by his large warm hands on her shoulders.

"Hey," he said, thumbs rubbing gently at her collarbones, "It's going to be alright. I won't let anything happen to you, okay?"

She knew, realistically, that there was only so far he could carry a promise like that, but her nerves calmed nonetheless. It was silly, really. This relationship was just a professional alliance, no matter how many deep secrets they'd shared with one another. Officially of course they couldn't ever be associated, at least as long as any of the 'Gentlemen' of Calí still roamed free. And yet, she trusted him.

"I know. I'm sorry." She babbled, nerves imploring her to externalize her anxiety through words. "I came to you; I wanted this... want this. I'm in. I'll try to be brave."

He squeezed her shoulders gently. "You're one of the bravest people I know." And that was the crux of it, wasn't it? Because deep down he didn't want her to be brave. Helena had been brave too, and what did it get her?

"I'm just… I'm tired of being afraid." She steadied herself on him, hands gripping his biceps now.

"Sometimes being afraid is what keeps us alive." He murmured, bringing one hand up to tilt her face to meet his gaze. "Listen to me. I will do whatever it takes to make sure you're safe, okay? Whatever I can, I promise. I can't have you on my conscience as well." The last part was whispered so softly that she barely caught it, but she nodded, pulling herself together and schooling her breathing.

"Thank you." She squeezed her hands once and let go. Javier searched her face for a moment longer, thumb brushing over her cheekbone absently, before he remembered himself and drew back.

"You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah," she nodded, "yeah I'll be fine."

"Okay." Javier breathed, straightening, hand going for the curtain. "I'll wait outside."

Her answering smile was still shaky, but not quite as much so.

When Javier ducked out of the changing room his first glance is towards the stroller, where Salome is still napping peacefully. His second glance is directed towards the shop assistant sorting through the returns rack, directed there by the woman's disapproving huff. It's not the same one who helped them pick out dresses, but a slightly older woman, one who carries the gravitas of authority derived by experience with her.

"Did your wife need help?" She quips while untangling garments from hangers. Out of all that's happened over the past quarter of an hour or so, this is what really makes Javier's ears burn.

"Yes, with the um... zipper." He stutters, wishing for the first time that day since leaving the base that he could have a smoke.

"Hmm," the shop assistant resumed her folding, "You would not believe the kinds of things people get up to in there." Her disapproving stare moved to the stroller where Salome was still blissfully asleep under his blazer. He snatches the garment away guiltily, but Salome doesn't even stir, just slumbers on cutely. At last, the woman's eyes soften.

"Yes, well... call me or any of my colleagues if you need further... assistance."

"Thanks." He clears his throat and sits as she sails off with an armful of clothes. Miss Rivas poked her head out not a second later.

"I'm sorry, your what?"

At least she was laughing again, even if her eyes were still slightly red-rimmed and watery.

"Sorry, next time I'll be sure to clarify that you are my confidential informant and we're taking down the world's biggest drug cartel together." He retorts, and she breaks out into a wide grin accompanied by a snorty burst of laughter.

"Well, if you put it like that it sounds almost romantic." Now it's his turn to snort. "I do actually need help with this zipper, though."

She stepped half out of the little alcove, clad in a floor-length, wine-red halter gown with intricate beading all over, and a slit so high it makes his brain short-circuit. Which causes him to just stare at her dumbly for a long moment, even after she's already turned to present the high back of it.

"Agent Peña?" She throws over her shoulder, somewhere between amused and slightly concerned. He jumps and strides over, fingers fidgeting with the zipper tab until he gets a decent grip and starts to pull it up the rest of the way.

"Uh, no I meant down." Her voice is as strained as he feels. He pulls the tab down, desperately trying not to focus on the skin being revealed as he does. She releases a relieved breath when he's done and turns, stepping back inside the changing room.

"Thanks."

"This one good?" He asks with a non-committal shrug, nodding towards the dress without really looking at it.

"No, I think I do need to be able to breathe. And also I'd like to be able to walk without flashing everyone. I do work with these people, after all." She smiled, one hand on the curtain ready to draw it back shut. "I'll be quick with the rest, but you can take Salome for a turn if you want, maybe have a smoke outside? We can meet back here or by the registers."

They both look at the little girl's sleeping form simultaneously, watch her eyes move rapidly under her lids as she is lost in dreams.

"Thanks, but it's alright. I can stay in case you need further...help."

It really isn't long after that. She hurries, but they also make light conversation while she tries on another five or six dresses. She doesn't come out with most of them but narrates all their flaws very entertainingly. Javier once again enjoys how forward she is, not censoring herself in the least as she complains about everything from odd sizing to itchy material to unfortunate placement of embellishments.

"Okay, last one." She announces and then draws back the curtain with a flourish and Javier... just gapes. The dress is midnight blue, so dark it looks almost black until light hits the silky fabric and reflects off of it. The color compliments the deep bronze tan of her skin like it had been chosen specifically for her. It's slim-cut, body-hugging and high-collared with thin spaghetti straps and subtle beading on the bodice. A tasteful slit goes to just above the knee and the hem brushes just over the tops of her feet.

"I think this will work."

'Oh it definitely works.' Luckily Javier's mouth is currently too dry for these words to slip out, so he just nods, clearing his throat awkwardly.

"Great! Let me change back real quick and let's get out of here."

He's just adjusting his suit jacket to lie over the still blissfully sleeping toddler like a blanket when Diana steps back out, back on her shorts and top.

"Looks like the American taxpayers are in luck. It's discounted." She said as she read the tag, then draped the blue dress over the top of the stroller. "Twenty percent. Not bad."

Javier snorted. Took the other dresses and hung them up on the returns rack. Grabbed the stroller handles and gently set the vehicle in motion. Salome stirred a moment, then bunched a chubby hand in the fabric sheltering her from the chilly air-conditioning and settled back down. Diana's gaze is soft upon her niece, and soft still when she raises her eyes to meet Javier's.

They make their way down to the registers, walking from the top floor of the department store downwards, weaving around racks and shelves and other shoppers. Javier is pushing the stroller, Miss Rivas at his side where possible, her hand loosely hooked into the crook of his elbow again as she likes to do. It's two floors down, as they traverse the men's section, that she suddenly sidetracks, half disentangling herself, half pulling him over to a wall display. Neckties. He raises a questioning eyebrow.

"Since we're here already." She shrugs, like that explains everything. It doesn't. The eyebrw remains up and quizzical.

"Explain."

There's a dangerous glint in her eye as she lets her fingertips glide over the assorted fabrics.

"Gabi said you only have ugly ties." Has she now.

"She's only seen two!" Javier protests without heat. She eyes him critically, eyes the tie he put on this morning at the asscrack of dawn for his damn meetings. He has half a mind to argue that he didn't feel like dressing up all pretty for some pissy general at half past four in the morning.

"Was this one of them?" Though truth be told perhaps his tie selection is a bit... outdated. This one is several brownish tones in a very 70s pattern, if he's being honest.

"No?" But this one was also one of the old ones that had been gifts from Lorraine he'd never gotten rid of.

"Then you have three ugly ties." There is no arguing with this woman. So, he submits. "You'll have to make announcements on national television sooner or later; you'll need to look decent."

"I'm not arguing, am I?" He figures what's the point. What's the worst that could happen. And she knows she's won, too. Gleefully starts peering through the selection before them.

"Is this revenge? For this?" He motioned to the dress still draped over the stroller, his meaning clear between them. Is this for making you go to a party with the world's most powerful drug bosses with a wire up your boobs.

"No." She lied, picking up a solid charcoal tie and holding it up to his collar. "Of course not."

She picks out four, two solid and two patterned.

By the time he parks the car back on a side street in Envigado Salome is awake and very grumpy. A snack of peach slices and crackers mollifies her somewhat, but just enough to get her in the house and distracted by her toys before throwing a fit. Javier carried in the car seat and then the stroller, after Diana's signal that the coast was clear, and lastly he grabs her shopping bag and stuffs the last item on his itinerary for this visit inside, before he forgets again.

"Another coffee?" He wants to, he really does, but if he ingests any caffeine now he knows he won't sleep until well after midnight. So he shakes his head, apologetic. He's tired, sure, but he'll power through until he reaches his hotel (and then promptly collapse on the bed there.)

"I have one last... I brought you something, just in case." He hands her the bag, and she looks at him quizzically. Until she looks inside, that is.

"What's this?" She holds the garment up in question, turns it in her hands a a few times. Javier clears his throat.

"Bulletproof vest."

She gulps. Pales imperceptibly, eyes flitting between him and the vest.

"You really think this is neces-"

"Just in case." He insists. It probably wouldn't- it's a newer model, thinner and more discreet than the tac vests they use out in the field, but likely still too bulky to be hidden under her normal work clothes, even though she favors looser cuts. He takes it from her gently, motions for her to put her arms up so he can lower the vest over her head and do it up at the sides. Explains how it needs to be secured tight to the body so it doesn't shift.

"It won't work under my normal work clothes." Miss Rivas frowns, hands smoothing down over the front of it, calculating. Probably going through her wardrobe mentally. Doing an admirable job of not letting fear grip her again like that earlier hiccup. "It's too bulky."

"No, you're right." Javier conceded, hands still at her sides where his fingers are hooked into the clasps of the vest. "You should still take it. Who knows when it'll come in handy."

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

Author’s note cont’d: this is the song Javi is hearing over the phone in the first scene btw

youtube

learn about bugs and wires here (though I do admit that I am playing a bit fast and loose with this here ;)

this is what I based the first dress on:

and here’s the final dress:

and yes, I hate about 90% of the ties they have him wear in the show and that is how that bit came about. Sorry to throw Lorraine under the bus a bit there but I’m sure they were fashionable at the time :/

Next Chapter

#narcos (tv)#narcos #narcos fanfic #I cling to your lips like gloss (series)#like gloss tag #javier pena x ofc #javier peña #javier peña fanfic #my writing #multipart #series #part 3

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thero0ks · 5 years ago

Text

A Rose From Starrick’s Garden

I debated if I should post this oneshot. It is completely self indulgent, I couldn’t pick a plot line, and well I just wanted A LOT out of one fic. It’s complete trash, but hopefully you enjoy it as much as I did.

Also, I am aware this fic is not cannon compliant at all, but just enjoy the dumpster fire of a fic I created :)

The research Evie had trusted her with, had lead to another dead end. Defeated, she had shuffled through the train car in search of Evie to relay the bad news. Evie's voice indicated she was in the den, but another soft voice had Y/N pressing herself against the wall.

Shame flooded her for a second, eavesdropping was rude, but her curiosity won over in the end. A small smile played at her lips at the bashful exchange between the two. The subtle flirting had her feeling giddy inside. In her mind Evie and Henry were a match made in heaven, and she'd been watching the romance blossom between the two.

"Spying are we?"

That smooth voice, tickling the shell of her ear made her jump. Her cheeks flamed red at being caught. It didn't help that the person who caught her had to be Jacob Frye of all people. The smug bastard would hold this over her head for weeks to come.

"It's not what you think…"

She knew it was a lame excuse, and by the quirk of his brow he conveyed that it was exactly what he thought.

"I wonder how my dear ol' sis will take it when she finds out her best friend has taken up match making?" He pressed his gauntlet against the wall as he leaned close to her. "And when she finds out she's the main target."

The complete arrogance he conveyed had her shrinking against the wall. He was aware that he was in complete control of the conversation, and it amused him to no end to watch her squirm.

"There aren't two people more perfect for each other…" She dared a glance up at him. Her statement seemed to briefly catch him off guard. He straightened, adjusting the lapels of his jacket. His next words were muttered under his breath. If her hearing wasn't so keen she would have missed it.

"I can think of two people more deserving."

Before she could inquire further he had already made his presence known in the next room. Y/N could already feel the tension in the next room grow. Evie's obvious annoyance at her younger twin interrupting a shared moment with Henry.

"Careful Greenie, my sister seems to be having another fit again."

"A fit you say?"

Y/N made her way into the room to find Evie ready to explode.

"You nearly wrecked England's economy!" She cried.

"Nearly Evie, key word." He said lounging on the sofa.

"Nearly? If fath-" Y/N was quick to intercede.

"Jacob was just about to brief me on a party Starrick will be attending." She said shooting a pointed glance at Jacob.

Mirth danced in his eyes at the sight of Evie being worked up once again by his antics. "Yes, I was. A party your dear friend offered to go to in your place."

Evie's shoulders relaxed a bit, "no rib crushing contraption for me then?"

"Precisely." Y/N said with a nod. "Starrick is unaware of my involvement with the brotherhood, so it is possible that I may be able to glean some information from him."

Evie's eyes ran over her figure a moment, "with a bit of cleaning up I suppose you're exactly the type of woman Starrick would take an interest in."

"Yes, but how far are you willing to go for information?" Henry asked thoughtfully. "The most you could carry is a knife, which you would only have access to if you were…" Henry coughed, rubbing a hand up his neck.

"I believe the word you're looking for is undressed Henry." Jacob chimed in. His voice was taut as he shifted into a sitting position on the couch. "Which at that point Starrick will put two and two together, and her throat will be slit faster than either of us can blink."

"Then I'll go unarmed." Y/N said simply.

"You expect us to let you walk in there unarmed and alone, right into Starricks arms?" Jacob inquired.

"I think the plan is bloody brilliant!" Evie said excitedly. "Think about it, if he decides he likes you he may start inviting you to other places as well."

"A double agent infiltrating Templar ranks?" Henry interrupted, catching onto Evie's plan.

Jacob scoffed, "do you even realize what you're asking?" He said standing up, "you're asking your best friend to not only court the Templar Grandmaster, but warm his bed as well?" He cried, exasperated at Evie's schemes. "He could break her neck like a twig if he got the slightest hint that she's an assassin."

Evie rolled her eyes, "don't act like Y/N can't protect herself. She's a trained killer."

"So is Starrick!" Jacob cried, throwing his hands up. "When she's caught in a Templar den, surrounded by a bunch of highly trained Templars her odds of survival drop to zero!"

"Oh just admit it Jacob, you can't stand the thought of another man touching her." Evie said brushing him off.

Jacob froze, and Evie's shoulder's stiffened the moment she realized what she had said. "Jake, I didn't mean...it slipped." She said softly, as if she were trying to approach a startled deer.

Jacob brushed past her, slamming the car door behind him. Y/N's jaw had gone slack as her eyes darted between Henry and Evie.

Evie looked shameful, her hand covering her mouth as she sat down at the desk. She was still in shock over the secret she'd accidentally let slip.

"Evie..." Y/N began.

"You should get ready for the party." Evie's voice sounded hollow. "We've been waiting to infiltrate the Templars ranks for years. We can't waste this opportunity." Evie's crystal gaze seemed miles away.

Y/N's eyes darted between Evie and Henry. He only offered her a shrug, as if this was another feud between the Fryes he'd rather not get involved in. With a sigh she left the two to scheme up their next plan.

She could expect very little help from Evie with getting ready, which left her with only one option. Find a Rook willing to stuff her into a gown.

She was lucky enough to find a few female Rooks occupying the bar car who agreed to assist.

White knuckles gripped the table as the lacings were pulled tight. "How tight do you want it ma'am?"

"As tight as it'll go." She gritted. She had concluded that Starrick's suspicions would be laid to rest if she appeared overtly vain. No assassin would dare to waltz into a ball in a contraption they couldn't breath in...right?

The deep red satin skirt hung heavy on her hips, and the shoulder sleeves left her feeling bare and exposed. After inspecting her reflection in the mirror she concluded that she could appeal to any man with minimal effort. "I"ll be right surprised if Mr. Starrick leaves your side at all tonight." One of the Rooks concluded.

Y/N offered her a kind smile, "thank you Emma."

She grabbed the shawl wrapping it around her shoulders before making her way off the train. She was able to exit at (train station). Her next objective was to find a carriage.

•

••

•

Jacob watched the swish of a red dress disappearing into a carriage. A frown pulled at his lips. It was just like Evie to get her way. The mission was the only thing that mattered to her. When he had returned to the train car to plead his case once more she had quoted their father at him, "don't let personal feelings compromise the mission."

It had mattered very little that the mission involved her best friend. She could be extremely shrewd at times, and there was little he could do or say that would change her mind.

The carriage was easy to catch. In a flash he'd opened the door and seated himself across from her. A look of shock was plain on her face, and a bit of fear once she realized she was unarmed. A scowl quickly appeared on her face as soon as she recognized him. "Jacob Frye! How dare you scare me like that!" She hissed slapping him with her fan.

"Oi, I was only checking in love." He said, and a blush dusted her cheeks at the word "love." The unresolved tension from earlier hung in the air.

Y/N was the first to look away, giving Jacob the chance to take her in. She was stunning. The dress complimented her soft skin, and the low neckline of the dress created a beautiful decolletage. He'd never seen so much skin on the assassin, and greedily his eyes hungered for more. He had to avert his hazel eyes, "you won't have any issues catching Starrick's eye in that."

(E/c) eyes flickered down at the ensemble. "Evie will be thrilled." She muttered.

Jacob leaned forward capturing her chin in his hand tilting her gaze up into his hazel pools. "I'll be on the rooftops, if there are any issues signal me and I'll get you out of there."

To his surprise she threw her arms around him engulfing him in a hug. "Thank you Jacob." She pulled away quickly, "perhaps I'm more nervous than I thought."

Jacob quirked a smile, "I'll be there if you need me love." With a soft kiss to the back of her hand, he disappeared out of the carriage and into the night.

•

••

•

She steadied her breathing as the carriage pulled up to the stone mansion. The carriage driver assisted her out the carriage. Her sides were already aching as she made her way up the steps of the house. She fanned herself in hopes that it would draw more oxygen into her lungs, but it was no use. Many eyes were drawn her way when she stepped into the gardens. Satisfaction grew inside when she noticed even the Grandmaster had paused mid sentence to stare. She threw him a small smirk before heading towards the dance floor.

The bait was laid, and all she had to do was wait for him to bite. Her eyes were about to dart to the rooftops when she felt a hand press into the small of her back. "I don't believe I have made your acquaintance."

His voice was elegant, and refined. One would suppose it was due to good breeding, and coming from a proper upbringing. "I very much doubt it Sir, I just arrived in London not three days ago." She turned to face him, but found herself even closer to him as he guided her closer with his hands.

"Dance with me." It wasn't a request, he was a man who was used to being in control.

"I take it you always get your way?" She inquired as he lead her to the center of the dance floor.

"I'm a man who knows what he wants, and you look like a woman who knows what she wants."

Her lips quirked up, "I confess my strong will has lead me into trouble at times."

"A rose among the weeds, beautiful to look at, but painful for those who cannot handle the thorns." His palm felt solid on her waist, and she caught his eyes drinking in her figure that was on display.

"Have you handled many roses then?"

She found herself chest to chest with him. His eyes were hypnotic, and his body radiated power and control. A shiver went down her spine as his fingers trailed up her back. "Never one so sweet."

His lips were dangerously close, and propriety was insisting she pull away. She was unsure if it was the corset making her pant, or her heart that pounded dangerously inside her chest.

A smoke bomb went off, and the shuffling of feet could be heard. She felt hands pulling her from behind. Crawford's arms felt like a steel cage as they tightened around her. She was being pulled in both directions. "Let go of her." That snarl could only belong to one man.

"This has made the game more interesting Jacob." The smoke had started to clear and Starrick's expression was predatory. Cold steel pressed against her throat, and Jacob immediately froze. "What would Jacob Frye do to save a rose?"

"Let her go, this is between you and me Starrick."

Starrick touted, "I suspect she is an assassin. More's the pity, she would have looked absolutely divine spread across my desk." Gloved fingers tightened around her esophagus. She fought desperately to pry his fingers off. "I wish this had been under more sensual circumstances." His low voice tickled the shell of her ear.

Panic flooded Jacob's eyes, until a lucky blow found its mark. Y/N could feel the hard impact of bone against her elbow. It was enough for him to loosen his grip. Jacob sprung to action pulling her to him and grappling to the nearest rooftop. He took off across the rooftops. Y/N doing her best to find any speed quicker than a brisk walk. Jacob realizing she wasn't close behind, stopped to find her picking her way across the roof. "Why did you lace that thing so bloody tight?!" He cried.

"Why did you decide to ruin the mission?!" She countered.

"I rescued you from that man's skeevy arms!"

A roll of her (e/c) eyes was all she replied, "just find us a carriage. I can't run in this!"

Jacob was quick to zipline them to the ground. He found a small carriage and unceremoniously stuffed her in. She hadn't even seated herself when the carriage jolted forward, throwing her into the leather seat. "Can this thing go any faster?" She cried finding several blighters on their tail.

"I'm sorry your highness, did you want to drive?" Jacob quipped back.

A gunshot echoed behind them. "Glad to know I got dressed up for my funeral." She shouted angrily.

"Oh, Y/N I've been in worse spats than this. We are perfectly fine." He said simply. It wasn't a second later when another carriage slammed into the left side of theirs. Y/N wished she hadn't gazed out the window. It all seemed to happen too quickly. Jacob had taken a sharp turn onto the bridge when the blighter carriage had slammed into theirs. The world was upside down a moment, and Y/N knew she was headed right for the Thames.

Jacob had been thrown out of his seat when the carriage tipped over. He braced himself for the cold water. When he surfaced he found the carriage slipping below the water's surface. It was then that it dawned on him that Y/N would be stuck. He dove under searching blindly for the carriage. The murky Thames making visibility poor. He found a window and began to smash through it. He pulled her body through the window, but found the dress was stuck. His hidden blade set to work shredding any material he could get his hands on. When the dress finally loosened, he pulled her free and pulled them up to the surface.

The shore wasn't far and she was barely breathing. As soon as they reached shore he cut the lacings. She coughed up water, gulps full of air burning her lungs. She was freezing, and the white shift sticking to her skin made her realize how exposed she was. "J-j-j-a-a-cob Fr-r-rye," her teeth clattered as shivers wracked her body.

"Shh love," he said softly as his eyes ran down her, inspecting her for any damage. Self consciously she covered her chest. The shift was extremely see-through while wet, and she was mortified the younger Frye twin had practically seen everything at this point. To her surprise there was no trace of smugness in his eyes. Only concern, and possible guilt.

"Let's get you back to the train before you freeze." He said simply.

"I cant walk around London like this." She said gazing down at her stockings that were caked with sand.

Jacob looked her up and down, "I think this is the best you've looked yet." Hazel eyes flickered down at sopping linen that was barely hanging onto her body.

"My eyes are up here Mr. Frye." She dead panned. She immediately got to her feet. "Well I suppose if I'm to be a trollop, I shall be the best trollop London has ever seen." She set off towards the train tracks, shoulders back and head held high.

Jacob's head cocked to the side, how he loved a woman with spunk. However, he was just starting to realize just how see through that shift was. If there was anything Jacob Frye considered himself to be, a gentleman was one of them. He was quick to remove his over coat and soon engulfed her in it. A shiver ran down her spine when the dripping coat hit her shoulders. He scooped her up in his arms, and he was surprised to find out how light she was in his arms. "Jacob!" She squeaked in surprise.

"Now come love, a gentleman wouldn't let a lady stroll about the streets in her undergarments."

"A gentleman wouldn't have made me go for a swim either." She grumbled.

His chest rumbled with a chuckle. "I am taking you for a moonlight stroll, and what's more romantic than that?" He inquired. "All in all, I would say this was a successful date."

She sputtered, "a successful date?"

"Fancy clothes, a carriage ride, an evening swim, a moonlit stroll, and you're almost completely naked. What more could I have done to make it a success?"

A blush stained her cheeks, "pray, what gave you the notion that we are on a date?"

A smirk spread across his lips, "you never denied that we were on a date, besides there are some positively wicked things I've wanted to do to you all evening."

"I think this whole night started, because your jealousy got the best of you Jacob."

His grip tightened on her, "what do I have to be jealous about love? My hands are the ones touching your arse not Starrick's." His breath tickled her ear as it lowered an octave, "and what a lovely arse it is."

"Why haven't you said anything?" Her voice sounded small. Unsure if this was a conversation the two should have.

He sighed, "I never thought you'd give a bloke like me a second glance." He said with a simple shrug.

"Jacob, you literally stuffed me ass first into a carriage, then proceeded to wreck said carriage in the Thames. I should be pissed, but honestly it's a little endearing. I know you mean well." Her hand came up to cup his face, and a small blush appeared on his cheeks.

"What in the bloody hell did you do Jacob?" Evie's voice snapped the two at attention.

"The mission was a success Evie!" Jacob said with a grin.

"Starrick’s men are all over London looking for you two! You wrecked a carriage off the bridge, and Y/N where on earth are your clothes?"

"The bottom of the Thames…" she said sheepishly.

"The mission was an utter disaster!" Evie cried.

"That is where you are wrong. Your mission was a disaster, mine was an utter success." Jacob said proudly. "Now if you don't mind dear sis, I would recommend staying far away from my train car for the rest of the evening." He leaned closer to his sister, "I have plucked a rose from Starrick's garden that I plan to worship thoroughly."

@marshmallow--3

#jacob frye #jacob frye x reader #jacob frye oneshot #assassins creed #assassins creed syndicate #assassins creed oneshot #ac oneshot #ac syndicate

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gingerwritess · 5 years ago

Note

It’s my birthday tomorrow!!! Can I get some wholesome Loki birthday content? 🥺 ilysm

sorry i missed it hon, happiest of birthdays to you and all the birthdays i’ve missed!! hopefully this makes up for it!

read on to get a little drunk with Loki on cheap champagne (this is the fluffiest thing i’ve ever written oh lord it’s my new favourite)

For the past couple weeks, Loki’s been plotting.

You’d say planning, but that’s not quite what’s been going on. He’s…plotting. Setting an elaborate plot, not just making plans, thinking he’s being slick about it.

Not quite.

The fifth mistake was his random “let’s play would you rather” attempt around the dinner table.

Starting subtly with “would you rather drive or fly somewhere?”

You’d opened your mouth to answer, but Elliot cut you off.

“I’m learning how t’ fly. Mr. Wilson’s teachin’ me.”

…which only caused immediate chaos in the Loka household, resulting in a few panicked calls to Sam wondering how in fresh hell he thought putting your six year old in a flying robot-bird-suit was a good idea.

Apparently it was only once, and Bucky was on the ground watching, and Elliot wasn’t wearing the suit, I was carrying him—‘cause that’s so much better.

So on the evening of the day before your birthday, when Loki insisted on starting the celebration, you didn’t call Sam or Bucky. You called Peter.

Why is trusting a seventeen year old kid with your children easier than trusting two grown adults? THOSE grown adults??

He’s a good kid, and actually had been Loki’s first choice of a babysitter. He arrives right on time, ever the politest, and immediately gets dragged off by an excited Elliot to go play Legos.

“Feel free to leave!” He yells from Elliot’s room, “I’ve got them under control!”

“I’m unassured,” Loki announces.

You have to agree.

After showing Peter where to find dinner, Frigg’s favourite blanket, extra diapers just in case, the fire extinguisher, and the other basic items needed for Loka-home survival, you both kiss your kiddos goodbye with a stern “be good.”

Loki lays your coat over your shoulders and offers you his arm.

“We’d better be off, and I’m driving. No arguments.”

“Goodbye forever,” you sigh to your children.

—

Loki’s evil scheme turns out to be…not so evil.

He did drive, rather well, actually, and simply booked a reservation for two in a chic, modern restaurant overlooking the city.

“Surprise,” he smiles, offering his arm once again when you step out of the car.

You take it, albeit suspiciously. “What’s the catch?”

“Elliot made me promise not to keep you to myself on your birthday,” he explains with a laugh. “So tonight is just for us. No obligations, no diapers, and absolutely no stress.”

Right there in the middle of the parking lot, you wind your arms around his neck and pull him close, pressing your lips to his.

“Thank you.”

“Happy birthday,” he murmurs, grinning against your lips. “I adore you.”

There’s a skip in his step when you head off towards the city walk, hands intertwined and swinging mindlessly between the two of you.

A dream of golden darkness, night has fallen beautifully over the city, bringing an unexpected rain along with it as people hurry by, window shop, stroll aimlessly.

“Ah, your first gift,” Loki remarks when you step out from under the parking structure, lifting his face to the rain. “A kiss in the rain. Redeemable whenever you see fit.”

“Please tell me you didn’t put Thor up to this,” you giggle, grabbing the umbrella from his coat pocket. Opening it with a quick shake, you give Loki’s hand a tug and pull him under it. “Bribe him for rain tonight or anything.”

“Mhm.” A soft smile tugs at his rain-speckled lips. “I use my brother to seduce my wife, of course.”

“Is that what’s happening?”

“Maybe,” he purrs, arms slipping around your waist to pull you against him. “I’d say it’s working, wouldn’t you?”

You just hum contentedly and let him sweep you off into this rainy, city-lit dream, complete with a kiss in the rain that leaves you breathless, the umbrella slipping from your grip.

“We really should be going now,” he whispers when the kiss morphs into an embrace, catching the umbrella and moving it back over the two of you. “Don’t want to miss our reservation.”

“To hell with the reservation—”

“No,” Loki laughs and pushes you gently away. “I did something relatively normal and exceptionally midgardian, so we’re following through with it, no questions asked.”

You huff and complain the whole way, grabbing Loki a few times in the middle of crosswalks to steal a smooch—not that he argues against it, at all—but eventually, Loki comes to a stop in front of the restaurant and pries his hand from yours.

“Remember,” he hums as he opens the door for you, “we’re perfectly average humans.”

“Gotcha. You definitely aren’t a wizard.”

“Exactly.”

Loki’s apparently in the mood to impress you tonight, judging from the beautiful restaurant and the prices on the menu. There’s a tiny hint of smugness to his smile as he helps you out of your coat and pulls your chair out for you before sitting down himself, so once he’s seated across from you, you quirk a suspicious eyebrow.

“So. What movies have you been watching, dear?”

He quirks an eyebrow right back.

“The same as you, my love, why do you ask?”

“You’re being weird.” You prop the menu up in front of your face, just to send him pointed glares right over the top.

“I am attempting to be romantic,” he replies, mirroring your actions with his own. “Now shush and let me spoil you.”

You give an indignant scoff, but go back to browsing the menu, pretending not to notice how Loki’s locked his ankle with yours.

That may be the worst conflict he’s had to face yet - whether to sit next to you and be within touching distance, or across from you to more easily speak with and gaze at you.

He’s left one hand empty, resting on the table as he scans the menu, so you take it and lean over to press a quick kiss to his knuckles.

“Heh—no, I’m supposed t—y-you don’t—”

“Shush, Loki.” Behind your menu you smile, overly pleased at his instant fluster. “Let me spoil you.”

After composing himself slightly—though not letting go of your hand—he flags down your server and asks for the “most expensive, hardest to acquire bottle of wine in your stock.”

The server, some twenty year old named Matt, looked slightly confused, but brought it nonetheless.

Loki, ever the showoff, pours it with a flick of his fingers all the while mouthing something close to you are so beautiful across the table. You don’t last long; crumbling into a fit of laughter, you shove his hand away and bury your face in your hands.

“You’re so weird,” you laugh, shaking your head. “What is your deal tonight??”

“Look, it’s been a while since we’ve gotten to go out.” He shrugs, a grin on his lips at the sight of yours. “I’m just trying to take every advantage of tonight! Just drink your wine and let me spoil you, norns.”

“I thought you wanted to be average tonight,” you snort and lift your wine glass. “But okay, fine. To spoiling each other.”

“To spoiling you.”

“No, you.”

“Don’t start this,” he warns, clinks his glass against yours, and takes a sip with you.

The drink hits your tongues and for a split second you consider—only to spit the wine right back into your glasses.

“Oh, my god, that was disgusting,” you gag, trying not to laugh when Loki takes the napkin straight to his tongue.

“I don’ think ‘at kid was e’en old ‘nuff t’ drink,” Loki responds ever so eloquently.

When Matt come back around, Loki spits out the napkin and orders the exact opposite of this bottle: “your cheapest, please.”

It’s a simple champagne in a golden bottle, and this one Loki pours by hand.

“Take two.”

Another clink, another testing taste—

“Oh, yeah. Much better.”

By the time you’re done with the bottle, it tastes expensive.

Ever since Frigg was born, it doesn’t take so much to get Loki tipsy—no more immediate need for some special “Asgardian” liquor, because with the general sleep deprivation and slow deterioration of hyper-masculine Asgardian “tolerance” levels, he’s been slowly relaxing.

You can’t complain. Luckily, alcohol only adds to Loki’s charm, turning him into a giggly, affectionate, ridiculously touch starved poet who doesn’t give a single crap about opinions on pda.

Judging from the flush of his cheeks and how he’s stroking your calf with his ankle, he’s teetering off the tipsy edge by the bottom of the bottle.

“You,” he announces, and points his fork at you, “are my lover.”

“Mmmhm.” The pride shines clear on your face, and you don’t mind him seeing.

“That’s so…so fantastic. You are the one who loves me. And I am the one who loves you.”

“Life is so cool.”

“I don’t want you to die,” Loki grins. He takes a bite of his dinner and washes it down with another sip.

And there in that much-too-posh restaurant, soaking in a bubble bath of golden champagne, you absolutely cannot die, it’s simply incomprehensible, so you lean in with a grin of your own and theatrically whisper one of his favourite words.

“Never.”

The wink you slap on the end of your promise seems to send Loki’s thoughts spiralling into elsewhere, and you go back to your dinner with a flustered little smirk.

Loki doesn’t hesitate to order dessert, waving off your tipsy concerns about how expensive the first three courses were, and when the pièce de résistance arrives in all it’s nine layer, dark chocolate, gold flakes and vanilla gelato glory, your protests drown in the second champagne bottle.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Loki tuts when you reach for it, and he holds up his own fork, visibly fighting back a laugh. “You are my birthday girl. This–this has to be something romantic.”

“But I wanna eat it all. Romantically.”

He plucks up a beautiful, decadent bite and lifts it to your lips, his chin resting on his hand as he watches you lean over to take the bite off his fork.

Even with your lamely “seductive” attempts to lick your lips, Loki promptly bursts out laughing.

“What??” You cry, grabbing a napkin and furiously searching your mouth for any messes. “Don’t laugh at me!”

“I’m not laughing at you, darling,” he snorts and lifts his fork to show you. “I can’t–I can’t feed you anymore, I can’t—”

He can’t breathe, he’s laughing so hard, forehead on the table and shoulders shaking as you watch on in confusion.

“I’m kinda offended, baby.” You reach over and take your own slightly angry bite of dessert. Maybe it wasn’t the prettiest bite you’ve ever taken, but hell, it’s your birthday and you’re drunk.

“All I see is our kids,” Loki wheezes, nearly crying with laughter. “We’ve fed them both, so–so now I just—heheh—all I can see is feeding you—”

Then he breaks off into incoherent snorts, and you manage to piece it together.

The image of little Frigg, onesie-clad and head lolling back onto her high chair with her mouth consistently open and ready for food to fall into it, flashes through your mind.

She makes these little open-mouthed grunts if she doesn’t get food upon request, head still thrown back and mouth still wide open, like a tiny baby raven freshly hatched and begging it’s mother for a meal. With that striking image of your daughter in mind, you consider what you must have looked like just then, across the table, and burst out laughing, too.

The two of you give it a couple more tries, switching off with who’s feeding who, but when you decide to bounce the forkful of chocolate heaven towards Loki’s mouth with a giggly “here comes the train—choo choo!” Loki wheezes so hard he falls out of his chair, and you collapse onto your silverware, weeping with laughter.

Matt calls you a cab.

The driver is a wiry little man with a tough face and a shiny bald spot, and brilliant blue eyes. Todd, Loki deduces as he climbs in after you. He refrains from commenting on the bald spot, but norns, it shines like a diamond.

“Todd?” Loki asks after a moment of sitting primly in your seats, heads held high and hands folded in your laps.

The epitome of “too much to drink,” but to the two of you, right now, you could pass as perfect royalty.

“Yup.”

“If I were to double the price of this trip, would you mind if I kissed my wife?”

Todd ponders the request for half a second.

“It’s her birthday,” Loki helpfully adds.

And shoots you a ridiculous wink that seems ridiculously attractive, at the moment.

“Meh, what the hell.” Todd shrugs. “But clothes stay on.”

Loki salutes and is on you in an instant, and the rest of the trip is a complete blur of giggles and shushing and sloppy kisses with no seatbelts until Loki rips himself from your grip to gasp “here!” to Todd.

You blindly follow him out of the car, still ridden with giggles and not at all minding the view you get when Loki climbs out of the cab, only to find yourself standing on the sidewalk of an empty street, glowing under a streetlight in the leftover drizzles from earlier’s rain.

He pays Todd with a wad of cash that’s most definitely more than double the charge, but Loki thanks him profusely for the ride and the backseat and insists he keep it.

When the cab drives off, Loki jumps in a puddle, sighs, and walks over to wrap an arm around your shoulders, pressing his lips to your temple.

“We need to walk it off,” he says, and you agree. You’re only a few streets away from home, so you don’t bother with the umbrella.

The fresh air does wonders as you and Loki amble towards home, arm in arm and leaning on each other, the occasional leftover giggle escaping.

“Happy birthday, my love.”

You miss a step and glance over to him to find him already staring, a soft smile on his lips.

“Thank you,” you murmur as you wind your arms about his neck. “Thank you for everything, Loki.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.” You emphasise it with a kiss.

He returns it, not the most precise but still laced with effort, and it’s so gentle and warmly caressing that you know in the end, he still got the last word.

“Love you,” he mumbles, and you mumble it back, leaning into him with a tight hold of his arm to land another kiss on his neck as you turn onto your street.

Loki laughs and kisses you right back, ducking under your ear and pressing his lips to your pulse point before you can squirm away. Your hands find his shoulders and you shove him with a giggle, only encouraging him to pounce again and hold you tighter.

“Okay,” you gasp through giggles, “okay, stop it, stop, we’re home!”

He resurfaces with a grin and straightens your shirt for you. “To be continued.”

With a roll of your eyes you grab his hand and drag him to the door. “Remember. Sober and mature. We’re adults with kids.”

A solemn nod.

Then he bangs the door open and sings “we’re hoooome!” before you can say or do anything.

Peter looks blankly up at you from the kitchen table.

“Oh.” The two of you push through the doorway, fighting back more laughter. “Sorry, Peter. We’re home.”

“Hey, welcome back.” He stands with a grin and Loki sticks out his hand for a shake—which Peter gives, a little confused. “Everything was great here, just perfect, they’re great kids.”

“I know,” Loki sighs, still shaking Peter’s hand, “I made them.”

“We,” you correct.

“Right, right, couldn’t have done it without her.”

“Okay…cool.” Peter pries his hand from Loki’s grip with an awkward chuckle. “Anyways. I gotta go, um, just…just one little hiccup we had…”

“Did Elliot set something on fire again?” You groan, fishing around in your purse for your wallet to pay the kid. “Damn it, I told Loki he was still too young—”

“No, nothing caught on fire!”

Loki bumps you with his hip and holds up another wad of cash—I’ve got it.

“He was really hyper,” Peter explains, pretending not to notice Loki leafing through what’s got to be the biggest wad of cash he’s ever seen. “We went outside and ran around and everything, but nothing could get him to stay still, so uh…Mr. Loki, is it legal to take money you conjured?”

“Perfectly,” Loki assures him, pressing the money into the kid’s hand. “I worked for most of it.”

“O-okay…”

“It’s all real,” you promise him with a laugh. “Really. It’s not illegal. How’d you get Elliot in bed then?”

“Right, I might have kind of sort of had to…” he scratches his neck, laughs. “Um, well, I maybe had to usemywebtostickhimtothewall.”

Loki just nods understandingly and pats Peter on the shoulder. “Wonderful. As long as he’s asleep.”

You can’t bring yourself to mind too much, either. It’s certainly not the strangest thing that’s happened in this household.

After assuring Peter that you’re not at all upset that he webbed your son to a wall, Loki sees him to the door and waves goodbye after another very formal handshake, then he turns back around and lets out a giant breath of relief.

“I think I covered that perfectly. He had no idea.”

“Definitely.” You give him two thumbs up. “Wanna go see if Elliot’s really on the wall?”

A grin splits over Loki’s face, and he dashes down the hall to Elliot’s room with you hot on his heels.

“Unreal,” he whispers when he peeks his head inside, “he’s dead asleep. He looks comfortable.”

You stick your head through the doorway and have to pull back immediately, letting out a loud snort of laughter at the sight of your little son, spread eagle against the far wall and snoring lightly with his Iron Man plushie clutched in one hand, webbed and weirdly comfortable.

“There’s no way he’s—”

Loki claps both hands over your mouth with a very loud “shhhhhhhh!” before slumping against the wall with his own silent fit of giggles.

“Shuddup.” You lick his palm and he laughs harder.

Seconds later you’ve tackled him to the ground to smush your hands to his mouth, the two of you giggling and screeching and shushing and slowly forgetting your two kids are sleeping behind these doors.

He finally catches your wrists and holds them tight, keeping you above him as you catch your breath, still grinning and breathlessly laughing.

“Do you want your present now, my love?”

“Loki,” you gasp, pretending to be scandalised, “in the hallway? You dirty boy—”

“It’s an actual gift,” he groans, head falling to the floor with a thud. “Sometimes you’re worse than I am.”

“Yup.” You settle onto his hips and smile down at him. “I’ll take the present now.”

“You don’t want to move somewhere more comfortable?”

You wiggle a bit; he grunts and lifts an eyebrow.

“Nope, this is pretty comfy.”

“Careful.”

Resigning himself to your hallway-lap-straddle, he sighs and pulls a package wrapped in brown paper out of thin air. “For my birthday girl. Our birthday girl.”

You eagerly rip through the paper, and a thick leather-bound book falls onto Loki’s stomach.

“Ooh…”

Running your hands over the smooth cover, the stamped gold embellishments, you catch Loki’s eye.

“I’m writing you a book,” he explains.

“What’s it about?”

“You.”

He pushes himself up to lean back on his hands, guiding you to open the book and flip through it. Sure enough, it’s handwritten, about half of the book already filled with Loki’s beautiful script, a couple sketches, some pressed flowers, loose papers…

“It’ll never run out of pages.” He points to the spine, the thickness. “I used the entire book just trying to capture the kind of person you are and the beginnings of how we met, so I charmed it to always carry enough blank pages for our story.”

“Sheesh, that’s a lot of writing.”

“And there still aren’t enough words in the universe to describe you.”

You scoff, but Loki shushes you with a finger to your lips.

“It’s a constant work in progress, and one with an conclusion I never want to reach. But, I can assure you that it will have a happy ending, when it arrives.”

“Loki. Thank you.”

He looks up at you with those big puppy dog eyes and smiles, dimpled and ageless, and you lean forward and kiss him.

—

Midnight passes and it’s your birthday, officially, as you and Loki eat some bread and drink some water, sitting on the kitchen counters quietly laughing and teasing and reminiscing—among other things—until you’re exhausted and heading back towards sober.

The two of you carefully cut Elliot off of the wall and carry him to bed, slowly realising that Peter actually webbed your child to a wall and that maybe you should bring that up again with him tomorrow. Elliot clings to you for a minute when you try to lower him into bed, whispers “bappy hirthday, momma,” tries to kiss you on the cheek, and falls back to sleep.

Frigg, when you check on her a room over, is a little sack of cotton footsie pjs and dark hair, mouth wide open blowing spit bubbles as she sprawls across the mattress of her crib.

“I love her,” Loki croons, kissing the tips of his fingers and brushing them over Frigg’s round little cheek. “She sleeps like you.”

Your elbow finds it’s way nicely under his ribs and he hisses.

In bed, you’re snug under Loki’s arm smushing your cheek to his chest, ankles entwining. He’s tired, but still awake, so you reach over and grab your new book, setting it on his chest.

“Read to me?”

His drowsy chuckle rumbles under your ear and he takes the book, thumbing past the in-depth love letter/birthday dedication you already cried over twice.

“On this day, some years ago,” he begins, yawns, and scoots you closer into his arms, “you were born. You came into this world and I like to believe you cried a beautiful song, unlike our own screeching children (spoiler alert, I am so sorry). At this time, I was, of course, well into my adulthood, just waiting for the day you would try to kill me. Not to make this weird.”

“Brilliant.” You lean up and plant a sweet kiss on his jaw.

“Darling, you’re making me blush.”

“Shh, I know. Keep reading.”

“Luckily, this is not my story, and my wife has a thing for older men.”

You poke him in the gut.

He laughs and steals a proper kiss.

The two of you huddle even closer, trying to press yourselves into one, and Loki reads you the beginnings of your happy ending until neither of you can keep your eyes open.

You fall asleep in a tangled mess of searching limbs, Loki’s book lying open over his heart to save your spot.

― ― ― ―

fuel the writer?

~ masterlist link in my bio ~

loki tags: @bluediamond007 @himitoshi @drakesfiance @destiel1597 @dangertoozmanykids101 @archy3001 @jcalpha1 @yzssie @skullvieplu @forthesnakeofdragons @skulliebythesea @wegingerangelica @storiesfrommirkwood @agarwaeneth @adaliamalfoy @laurfangirl424@fitzsimmons-is-forever @ladylokimischief @katelinwrites @tarynkauai @polaristrange @loavesofmeat @canadian-ravenpuff-multishipper @lou-makes-me-strong @holyn0vak @chocolatealmondmillk @swtnrholland @kenzieam @jessiejunebug @catticas @the-republic-and-face-of-texas

~ breaking up the taglist to fix the scrolling problem! ~

@doralupin01 @whitewitchdown @atomiccharmer @falconfeather23435 @babygirlicecream @avengrcs @vethrvolnir2 @bookgirlunicorn @wabisabigrl @myhealingstar @khaleesi-marvel @ei77777 @spacecrumbs @scarlettghost13 @rocks-are-pretty-odd @confessionsofastrugglingteen @easilydistractedwriter @arttasticgreatnessoftheawesome77 @fluffyllamaswearinghats @milktearose @lcyouinhell @h0tshotholland @dontmesswithmemundane @southsidesarcasticwriter @helnik-s @lilith-akemi @fire-in-her-veinz @unlikelysamwinchesteronahunt @mischievousbellerina @kcd15

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@mellowgirl01 @lokislilcaribbeanprincess @allthingzhiddleston @scorpionchild81 @lokixme @blue-automne @devilbat @kangaroobunny @end-up-well @planetariumx @sarcsep @mrfandomtastic @amaru163 @im-way-too-many-fandoms @caswinchester2000 @kybaeza @wester-than-west @vintagesunshinebitch @adefectivedetective @poetic-nikolai @moonduhsted @kerri-masson @iamverity @innaminitus @spnbarnes @narcissxblack @woohoney @anxiousamandapanda @padmeisgay @authordreaming13 @lokisironthrone @theunknowinglys

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@highfuncti0ningfangirl @epicfallenismine @stubby-toe-589331 @fandomnerdsarecool @retrofantasyland @arch-venus25 @forever-trapped-in-my-dreams @littleredstarfish @marshyrebelcloud @okie–loki @atterodominatus @stfxlou @pandacookieowo @tonakings @shinisenko @tinchentitri @nildespirandum @thefallenbibliophilequote @vodka-and-some-sass @highfunctioningfangirl19 @sadwaywardkid @lokioneshot @brooksaza @wild-honey-piy @ellaenchanted91 @watermelon-lights19 @just-another-romantic @skinny-macncheese @lokisironthrone @rorybutnotgilmore

~ scroll here ~

@toozmanykids

#loki x reader #loki reader insert #loki imagine #dad!loki #domestic!loki #loki requests #loki fluff #loki laufeyson #loki series #elliot lokason #frigg lokadóttir

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rocorambles · 5 years ago

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ok, hear me out. yandere sugawara is the delusional type, and will try to mold their darling into perfection. but, his plan backfires when he realizes their darling turned into a murderous and dangerous feral animal instead of the pretty, soft princess he wanted. how do you think he will react? any headcannons for this concept? thanks a bunch, love your writing!!!

I love this concept! Thanks for sending this through and I’m glad you’re enjoying my blog xoxo

- Suga loves you so much and you believed him at first. He’s so sweet and kind. He always seems to know exactly what to say to make your heart flutter and being around him is so comforting. It’s like being constantly wrapped up in a fuzzy cloudy cocoon.

- But as time passes, the sweetness becomes sickly sweet and the once comforting cloud around you is now beginning to squeeze you tighter and tighter. Suga’s always trying to control every aspect of your life. Any makeup you had that was deemed too edgy is thrown out and replaced by hues of nudes and pastels. Any article of clothing too dark for his taste is mysteriously replaced with fairy shades of tulle, velvet, and silk.

- When these things begin to happen, you don’t have the heart to question it because you want to make Suga happy. He’s always taking care of you and you want to try and reciprocate, but you begin to lose more and more sense of who you are as he buries you alive with everything girly and feminine.

- The last straw is when you’re hanging out with your friends and one of them makes an off hand comment about your new appearance. “I didn’t know you liked pink so much, Y/N.” That sentence makes you freeze. You liked pink? Did you like pink? Doubt begins to grow within you as you look down at your outfit and it’s that same doubt that has you coming back home with bags of new clothes.

- Suga comes home from work to find you sitting on the couch in a black crewneck and black joggers and his mouth slightly curls in distaste. Much too boy-like. Much too dark. “Y/n, sweetheart, did you get new clothes? I like you better in the stuff I bought for you. Can you change?” He asks it all so tenderly while softly kissing you and you almost melt into his affectionate embrace. Almost. “But Suga, these are comfortable and I like them!” Suga pouts, but doesn’t say anything as he continues to gently embrace you. Little do you know the gears are turning in his head.

- As an elementary school teacher, Suga has patience. And he patiently waits and plots as you revert more and more into your former tomboy self. He strategizes as you go out drinking with friends, as you loudly curse while playing video games, and as you replace everything he’s bought you with your preferred athletic wear. He schemes as you begin to lash out whenever he tries to tell you to do something his way and as you begin to outright reject his ideas.

- It’s the end of the school year and as celebration, Suga and you go on a week-long trip. You go to a cute cabin in the woods to spend some quality time with each other. Suga’s been so busy with end of year exams that you haven’t seen much of each other and despite your recent attitude, you do miss him. You’re finishing up your first dinner on your little vacation when you begin to feel dizzy. “Suga, I’m not feeling good-” You fall into his arms as he shushes you and that’s the last thing you remember before the world goes black.

- When you wake up, you’re lying on a bed, tied in a spread eagle position wearing the daintiest lacy white dress. In any other situation, you would have thought it was pretty, but now it raises confusion and growing panic within you. You’ve never seen this dress before. Why is it on you? Your head whips around at the sound of a door opening and you stare as Suga lovingly looks at you and coos about how beautiful you look. “Just like a little doll. My little doll.” You’re shouting at him to untie you, but he just lies on the bed next to you, tucking your head under his chin as he cuddles your thrashing form.

- You’re just going through a slight rebellious phase, he thinks. He’s seen some of his students do the same thing. It’s nothing a little discipline won’t fix. He continues to drug you and he also begins to starve you throughout the week. To your credit, you fight him with the fierceness of a wild beast, constantly raving murderous threats at him, always trying to bite and claw at any inch of him you can reach in your position. He hisses as he bandages the wounds you’ve left on him and just increases your dosage.

- Despite your strong will and your animalistic desire to escape and survive, you finally break as the week comes to an end. Hunger and incredibly high drug dosages have finally etched away at any physical or mental strength you had. You’re sick and tired of feeling hungry and not in your right mind. You just want the fog in your mind to clear and the pangs in your stomach to go away. The next time Suga brings you your pills and water, you feebly plead for him to stop, promising you’ll behave, be his good girl, be the perfect doll.

- Suga is ecstatic to see you so docile and so obedient. He’s quick to wrap you in his arms and whisper sweet words in your ear. “Sweetheart, I’m so glad you’re finally cooperating. It hurts me to have to punish you like this. You know I love you, right, darling?” A hint of a flame in you burns at those words, but it’s quickly squashed out by the mindless mush the drugs have turned your mind into and it’s all you can do to weakly nod your head before you close your eyes and sink into a sugary cocoon once again.

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu #yandere suga #yandere sugawa #yandere sugawara koushi #yandere suga x reader #yandere sugawara x reader #suga #sugawara #sugawara koushi #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu headcanons #suga x reader #sugawara x reader #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu yandere #yandere haikyuu

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anamaleth · 5 years ago

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I took part in the holiday gift exchange organised by @sanderssidesgiftxchange ! My giftee was @to-precious-to-process , who requested a fantasy au, stargazing, and a whole bunch of fluff.

This fic focuses mainly on the last wish and includes elements from the other two - I hope you enjoy it!

@ashblood1314 was my beta-reader and I cannot thank punk enough for that! Ash did an amazing job and without stars help, this fic wouldn’t be what it is now. Thank you so much, AG, I care you ♡!!!!

xxx

Traditions

Summary: An observation of the traditions the Sides have.

Movie nights, prank wars, playing tabletop RPGs together - their desire to regularly spend time together as a family had led to them creating a lot of traditions.

"Patton was leaning onto Logan, who was holding hands with Roman, and Roman was sitting back-to-back with Remus. Remus had Virgil lying in his lap, whose legs were draped over Janus’; while Janus’ head was resting on Patton’s shoulder. The Sides found comfort in each other’s presence, a blissful serenity that nothing else could provide them with."

Content Warnings (it’s just a whole bunch of fluff, honestly, but to be safe):

Food Mentions

Brief mention of poison (no one actually gets poisoned)

Mentions of in-universe fictional character deaths (they play Dungeons and Dragons and their characters die)

read on ao3

xxx

Weekly movie nights were a tradition for the Sides, just like the Secret Santa, and the Easter Egg Hunt that Patton organized every year.

"It's important for families to have traditions!" he would often tell the others, and the smile Patton's face whenever he said those words made it impossible for the other Sides to turn him down. Patton's excitement was infectious, how could they resist?

The prank wars all of them had could technically also be counted as a tradition, but only unofficially so. They never followed any sort of schedule, which Logan insisted was a fundamental part of traditions, nor were they really organised. Instead, they broke out whenever one of them decided that peace and quiet had prevailed among them for too long.

It was fairly common for one of the twins to start the prank wars, given that “annoy my brother until I get some sort of reaction out of him” seemed to be part of both of their agendas. Not that there was any malice behind it, causing any lasting harm was never their intention. But given Remus’ love for wreaking havoc and Roman’s usual theatrics combined with his inability to resist being dramatic, it came as a surprise to no one that the chances of chaos doubled when the two of them were in the same space together.

In addition to that, the chances of chaos increased exponentially after a certain threshold of time spent by the twins in the same space was exceeded, especially when Virgil or Janus were with them. The amount of time passed since the last prank war and the absence of any Sides that could be considered a responsible adult (Patton is not to be considered a responsible adult) factored into the probability of a prank war breaking out as well. At least according to the graph Logan had created.

Logan kept this graph for two reasons.

The first one was that there was simply no such thing as “having too many graphs and lists”, not to him at least. Creating them was a fun and useful way to practice organisation, and there was most certainly no such thing as being too organised!

And the second reason was that Logan wanted to be aware of the likelihood of a prank war occurring at any given time so that he would always be prepared for them.

“Prepared” both as in “ready to take part in the planning and semi-serious attacking” and as in “I will not be caught off-guard by my friends’ shenanigans”. He had made that mistake once and he would not allow for it to repeat itself. Just thinking about the feather incident made him shiver, and that one had happened back when the twins were on “no speaking” terms. Logan couldn’t and certainly didn’t want to imagine what the two of them would be capable of together.

For all his distaste for “wasted time” and general aversion of disorganization, Logan considered the prank wars to be valuable bonding time with the ones he cared about. This may have had something to do with his love for scheming in said prank wars. It wasn’t unusual for Logan to be utterly absorbed by a task, but for him to be so open about his enthusiasm? That was a rarity, and it was one the other Sides treasured immensely.

Having Logan on your team in the prank wars was a huge advantage, and if both he and Janus were on the same team, their victory was almost certainly guaranteed. The combination of Janus’ wit and Logan’s intellect made for a nearly unbeatable force, which meant they ended up being allies fairly often.

The twins weren’t normally on the same team, given that one of them “attacking” the other was what often started the prank wars in the first place – but the two of them joining forces was the only way to beat Janus and Logan. And given the twins' distaste (read: hatred) for losing, coalitions between them had started to occur more and more regularly.

Roman’s and Remus’ creativity, their ability to improvise and the sheer chaos that seemed to transpire whenever they worked together were a fair match for Logan’s and Janus’ genius scheming that had rightfully earned them the title of Strategic Masterminds. There was no telling which team would win, especially not with Virgil and Patton as rogue elements.

Well, with Virgil as a rogue element, given that Patton got that “I’m about to make a pun and inflict 80 damage on everyone around me”-look on his face whenever someone referred to him as such, after which he would cheekily remind them that he played as a paladin and not as a rogue in their Dungeons and Dragons sessions, which would make him a paladin element.

As much as what Patton said was true, hearing it made Logan go through all five stages of grief over the course of two seconds. He then considered using his powers as the current Dungeon Master to do something to Patton’s character to finally get him to stop making this awful pun. But, after a few moments of contemplation, he quickly abandoned this plan as he reminded himself that he was a responsible adult.

Logan was aware of the fact that Patton had gotten very attached to his character, and he didn’t want to upset him. He was also aware of the fact that Patton would be the next one to DM for all of them.

And given that Patton had started to spend more time with Janus, Remus and Virgil, Logan really didn’t want to risk getting on his bad side. Not because the three of them would do anything to Logan - he was their friend, too, after all – but because the metaphorical seeds of chaos that Patton had carried with him since the very beginning had started to fully blossom under their influence.

Apart from that, Patton brought home-made cookies to their D&D sessions whenever he was in a particularly good mood, and Logan a) didn’t want to miss out on those and b) couldn’t be one hundred percent certain that, with enough persuasion from Remus and Janus, Patton wouldn’t end up poisoning the cookies as a way to get revenge if Logan really did go through with killing his character.

This only further contributed to Logan’s assessment of Patton not being a responsible adult. He chose to ignore what the fact that he had just had an internal debate on whether or not killing off his friend’s D&D character for making puns would be worth it if it meant that he would have to miss out on the cookies said friend makes said about his own status as a “responsible adult”.

The D&D sessions the Sides had together were also a tradition, and they all took turns being the DM, assuring that each of them would both get the chance to be an active player in the game and, every once in a while, get to decide what challenges and narratives their friends would face.

Janus and Remus joining their sessions had brought the number of player characters from three up to five, which meant that instead of having barely enough players for the sessions to work, they now had a group that could face any monster or villain with ease.

Emphasis on the “could”, because what they actually ended up doing most of the time was very different from the heroic deeds their characters were technically capable of.

Virgil played as a rogue, Janus played as a warlock and even without the added chaos of Remus’ multi-class Bard/Barbarian (or “Bardbarian”, as Patton called them, much to Remus’ delight and Logan's dismay) they were capable of completely derailing every single session.

In the most affectionate way possible, they were a complete nightmare to DM for.

Yet watching them interact and build off of what the other said made the horror of being the DM and watching your plans for the game disintegrate right in front of your very own eyes absolutely worth it.

The biggest session the Sides had played so far had been the campaign that Roman and Remus had created together. Both of the twins loved designing classic high-fantasy games, although Remus preferred to lean more heavily into the gruesome and macabre aspects of high-fantasy, while Roman never strayed far from “noble quests”, “heroic adventures” and “saving your true love from the lairs of evil”.

Which was why they both adored fairy tales – the campaign they created together ended up being a modern, much less heteronormative, and almost sci-fi-esque retelling of just about every single fairy tale they could think of. It was a huge project that took them several weeks of planning and two and a half months of bi-weekly game sessions to complete, and some of them even ended up crying during the last session.

The plot focused on a rebellion against a corrupt king and his followers, led by the characters that the Sides played. None of the characters, neither protagonists nor antagonists, survived the final battle; and while the evil king had been defeated, there was no truly Happy Ending for any of them.

As painful as it may have been, it was the perfect ending for the story – absolutely brilliant and tragic, but in a cathartic way that would leave them with fond memories of everything that they had experienced. They held each other after the session was over, the giant table they conjured whenever they played tabletop games together quickly replaced by blankets and pillows that they let themselves sink into.

Patton was leaning onto Logan, who was holding hands with Roman, and Roman was sitting back-to-back with Remus. Remus had Virgil lying in his lap, whose legs were draped over Janus’; while Janus’ head was resting on Patton’s shoulder. The Sides found comfort in each other’s presence, a blissful serenity that nothing else could provide them with.

Given that all of them wanted to play something with less emotional investment to take a break from the emotional toll that the last game had taken on them, they moved on to playing one-shots again after that. Although, taking a break from emotional vulnerability wasn’t the only reason for that; Remus and Logan had informed them that the two of them had started the planning process for their next proper campaign, which they were certain would take them a lot of time and effort to complete.

Logan and Remus, as different as they seemed, got along surprisingly well.

Whenever they needed someone to listen to them, they knew they could count on the other to do so without any judgement.

Logan had known of Roman’s love for mythology, specifically Greek- and (surprising to no one, considering his name) Roman mythology, but he had been absolutely overjoyed to learn that Remus shared this interest.

As much as Logan enjoyed having discussions with Roman, it was refreshing to hear things from a completely different perspective every once in a while. Roman adored the tragic love stories, particularly Orpheus and Eurydice, and Achilles and Patroclus; while his brother seemed to fixate more on Heracles’ trials and the story of Oedipus.

Logan and Remus had been stargazing together in Logan’s room when they had come up with the idea for their campaign. Technically Virgil had also been with them, but he had quickly fallen asleep looking up at what had once been a ceiling but was now a vast, clear night’s sky. He was curled up next to Remus, who had taken off his sash so that Virgil could use it as a pillow, burying his face into Remus’ side and using him as a teddy bear.

While Virgil was sleeping, Logan rambled about space and the origins of different star constellations. At one point, Remus chimed in to give some additional information about the mythological story behind one of the constellations Logan had mentioned, which resulted in them having a rapid-fire brainstorming session that lasted for several hours.

During that discussion, they decided on the setting for the campaign: a huge dystopian cyberpunk city in which they would tell modern versions of the original Greek myths.

The D&D sessions Logan planned often featured intricate riddles and complicated challenges he designed himself, which were a perfect fit for this setting. And as much as the other Sides tended to struggle with solving Logan’s puzzles, they earnestly encouraged his passion for creating them and looked forward to what he would come up with next.

Remus and Logan, however, weren’t the only ones who had hour-long discussions about shared interests, as Patton and Janus had started having conversations about the concept of morality. Referring to those conversations as debates, although Logan liked to do so when he occasionally joined them, wasn’t quite accurate. It was never their intention to convince the other of their opinion, they merely enjoyed exchanging their thoughts and points of view.

When Logan was with them, their talks tended to become a lot more philosophical than when it was just the two of them. With him present, it wasn't as casual as when they were on their own, as Logan enjoyed having debates in a more serious setting. But even then, they still valued each other’s company more than the actual outcome of the discussion.

One time, in one of their earlier debates - Janus and Patton had been sitting in Patton’s room together, Janus’ legs draped over Patton’s, as his back rested against the armrest of the sofa - Janus had explained the concepts of Utilitarianism and Deontology to Patton. The latter had listened intently as Janus explained the two fundamental approaches to morality, one where ends are justified by the means it takes to achieve them, and one where one’s actions are justified by the results they achieve.

When Janus brought up the Trolley problem as an example, he noticed how Patton immediately tensed up. Janus paused, taking Patton's hands into his own and apologised.

"It was never my intention to upset you back then, Patton. I was trying to prove a point and I hurt you in the process. While I got what I wanted, I shouldn't have pushed you this far. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have used you as a-"

"Means to an end?" Patton interrupted him. He seemed uncertain, but there was a small smile on his face.

After a moment of hesitation, Janus nodded, almost self-conscious, when suddenly, Patton's eyes lit up.

"Like in-! Like in Utilitarism!"

The tense atmosphere evaporated and Janus looked up to meet Patton's eyes.

"Close."

"Ulitiriorism?"

"Ah, getting further away now-"

The fond amusement was clear in Janus' voice.

"Ulitaro...okay, what was it again?"

"Utilitarianism."

Patton beamed at him and Janus couldn't help but return the smile.

"Exactly! That one! And I insisted on the other one? The one where you can’t break your own moral code to achieve a greater goal, what was it? Deon-”

Janus’ expression became impossibly fond.

“Deontology, yes.”

“I got it right!”

After that, their conversation continued as it had before, just that Janus’ fingers were intertwined with Patton’s now. Eventually, Patton came to the conclusion that putting your own needs first can be a means to an end, something that ultimately leads to the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. He could keep his own values and stick to Deontology while occasionally approaching situations in a more utilitaristic way. He had already done so when it came to the Plato (...or was it Kant? Did it really matter?) dilemma with the murderer that you lie to in order to protect your friends; maybe he could learn to apply the same approach to self-care?

In order to practice, he and Janus had come up with the idea for Patton’s current D&D character: a Paladin who had sworn an oath of devotion to achieving the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people, no matter the means they had to seize to achieve that goal.

Logan, as the current Dungeon Master, simultaneously marvelled at the concept of Patton’s character, and anguished at the chaos that character caused with the help of the characters the rest of the Sides played.

Apart from D&D, the Sides also regularly played board games together and, of course, held movie nights. Janus and Remus had started joining the others in both of these endeavours. They were family tradition after all, and the two of them were part of the family. Both Janus and Remus – although neither of them would ever admit to it - had been dangerously close to tearing up when Patton had first told them so. Part of the family.

They really had come far, hadn’t they?

Despite the sofa being too small for six metaphysical people to sit on, and despite it now being way more packed during their movie nights than it had previously been, none of them seemed to mind sitting closer together.

Patton was sitting in front of the couch, wrapped up in a blanket while wearing his cat onesie. He was holding a cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows in it and there were two bowls of popcorn set next to him, which he regularly passed around. One of them was salted and one with sugar.

Both of the twins preferred their popcorn ridiculously sweet - much to Roman’s triumph, because this meant that his brother joining their movie nights tipped the scales so that there were now two Sides who wanted to drown the popcorn in sugar.

On their first movie night with very sweet popcorn, Roman had exclaimed “Democracy wins once again!” to a very tired Logan, who was now seriously considering switching over to salted popcorn out of spite, even though he really did not like salted popcorn.

Patton, despite being, in some regard, the literal embodiment of emotions, had no strong feelings on the matter. He held no preference regarding how sweet or salty his popcorn should be and ate out of both bowls. Meanwhile, Virgil had just laughed at the now pouting Logan (“I am not pouting, Virgil, this is ridiculous”), as he shared his bowl of salted popcorn with Janus.

Now, several movie nights later, Logan sat, as he always did, behind Patton.

He kept absentmindedly running his fingers through Patton's hair, and it seemed as though nothing was out of the ordinary. The only real difference to previous movie nights was that he was now dressed in his unicorn onesie.

No one had commented on this, but Logan had registered the fond smiles on his friends’ faces as they realised that he had started wearing it around them again. Terrified of being written off as immature and unprofessional, it had taken Logan quite some time to get comfortable doing so again. But here he was, happy and cosy, dressed in his favourite outfit.

Janus sat right next to Logan. The first time he had been invited over, there had been a considerable distance between them, but over the course of a few weeks, Janus had found himself moving closer and closer to Logan each movie night, until he eventually found himself leaning against him comfortably.

By now, Janus had reached the point where he didn't even bother waiting anymore before gradually scooting closer to Logan. Instead, he assumed his rightful position immediately - Janus' head, mostly covered by the hood of his snake onesie, resting on Logan's shoulder.

Remus was taking up the most amount of space: his head was lying in Janus' lap while his legs were sprawled on the rest of the sofa. Roman had protested in the beginning, screeching at his brother to get his feet out of his face.

Roman had eventually given up, as Remus refused to move his legs and instead stuck out his tongue.

“How very mature of you, Remus”, Roman had grumbled in response, but his twin had already gone back to playing with the tentacles of his octopus onesie. Defeated, Roman settled for moving his throne - built out of a beanbag and all of the pillows and couch cushions he could get (which was all of them) - next to Patton.

Virgil sat on the backrest of the sofa, close enough to Janus to easily share their bowl of salted popcorn. Every once in a while, one of them would reach for the other’s hand, a simple gesture of affection that was starting to feel familiar again.

Familiarity, that’s what it all came down to in the end. The Sides loved each other dearly, and the traditions they had created allowed for them to regularly spend time together as a family. They adored each other and the connection they had, and they made sure to actively cultivate the conditions under which their bond could thrive.

They supported one another, encouraged each other, and all of them found themselves working towards being the best possible version of themselves they could possibly be, motivated by the love they had for the others.

Love, not simply as a state of being but also as an active choice and effort every single day of their lives.

Love, in everything they said and did - in kind words and in bickering, in gentle expressions of support and in playful insults. In fond smiles and gentle touches; in reaching out and lifting each other up. In helping and in being helped; in establishing boundaries and in respecting those set by their companions. In disagreeing and finding ways to compromise. In making the others laugh, and in finding ways to make their days better and easier, if only a little bit.

In being seen, for all of their facets. Their weaknesses and flaws being exposed, and being loved not despite them but for who they are with them. Always working towards being better and having their strengths and efforts appreciated and encouraged by those who love them.

They were a family. And they cherished the traditions they had created because they cherished one another.

#sanders sides #sanders side fic #patton sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #remus sanders #Janus Sanders #fluff #found family #My writing #my fic #long post #long post cw

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