#just a plot bunny

[forluwithluv]

i know he's only like 26 but the idea of lu getting the snip so he doesn't have to deal with the consquences because of his back pain rarely does he ever nut so when he does he knows it's gonna be a big one - suddenly though he gets you pregnant and you have a *miracle baby*

[sakurasfallingstar]

The Sky, the Land, the Sea, and the Cherry Tree

So this was just a weird plot bunny I've had involving Kingdom Hearts and Sakura Haruno. It probably won't go anywhere else from here, but if anyone wants to use the idea, they can. Just please give me credit.

Also, this was written on my phone late at night, and obviously, writers can't catch all their own mistakes.

Anyways, enjoy.

Kaguya felt the burning rage consumed her very being as these two boys, who where the recarnation of her sons seal her away. She wanted revenge.

Then she felt it.

The door had opened opened, just ever so slightly. She could feel the energy of the worlds seep out from behind it. The world's that were never ment to connect to this one.

She smiled wickedly. She had a the perfect thought that would make this team suffer.

Kaguya allowed her hair to extend and wrap around the the girl.  She had flung her through the opening and watched as door closed as she was sealed away. The screams of the girl's name leaving her teammates lips, brought Kaguya great comfort.

Sakura bearly had enough chakra to one last healing, but nothing more than that. She along with her teammate had let their guards down. Watching as Kaguya was sealed. She even saw Naruto fling black Zetsu to be sealed along with his mother. If only they had known what she would do.

The moment Sakura felt the hair wrap around her she tried to struggle. She even reached out for her sensei for help, but was only able to brush her fingertips against his. She heard him call out for her. Watched as her two other teammates, looked at her. Their eyes shocked with not just worry, but what seemed like helplessness.

"SAKURA," they shouted, together.

Oh, how she once dreamed of them calling her name. However unlike those dreams, it did not sound warm, or happy. It sounded like a plea for her life.

Despite moving at such a fast speed everything around me seemed like it was all in slow motivation. I watched as they grew smaller the further I got.

My eyes grew heavy, after feeling like I was flung threw an invisible force. The force had stretched before tearing. Then I saw the door.

'It closing,' my subconscious, told me as the world around was enveloped in darkness.

The last thing I could feel was my body being submerged into water.

Sora and Riku were at it again, and Kairi was waiting for them at the end point. Most days it was fun to watch, exciting even. Today, however, was different.

From where she stood, she caught a speck of pink from the corner of her eye. She began to walk toward it, and when she saw that it was a person she ran towards them.

Kneeling down toward the girl, she noted that she was breathing, but unconscious. the girl couldn't be any older than 12, yet it looks as if she had been through a lot.

The pink haired girl's clothes were worn, burned and missing it's right sleeve. Not to mention the minor bruises, and the hole that Kairi was sure if she flipped the girl over she'd find an identical one on the other side.

"Riku, can't you just hold back a little for once?"

"Now that wouldn't really do you any good. If you want to beat me then you just have to keep getting better."

Hearing her two boys' voices she called out to them for help.

It was Riku who picked her up, and it was Sora who suggested she stay over his place. His mother was the island's healer in an unofficial way, so yeah.

His mother didn't ask many questions, just hurriedly guided them to the extra room. Riku laid her down of the soft bed. They watched as Sora's mom cover the girl up with a white sheet. The woman even opened the window's blinds slightly to let some light in.

When Sora's mom left, it was quiet between them. They could only stare at the sleeping girl, as the ceiling fan provided a light hum in the background.

In a way it similar to how they first met Kairi.

A girl who they never seen before, washes up on the island. They have no idea where she could have come from. The only thing it brought to the islanders was that thought that there might be more beyond the island. Now the only thing with this girl is that she, unlike Kairi, may have some recollection of where she came from.

It took three days for the pink haired girl to wake up.

Sora was in the room just taking away, to keep her company, when she opened her eyes.

Of course he and his friends have been visiting. Not only were they curious of the girl, but they also didn't want her to feel lonely. They knew she didn't have anybody to make sure she was ok or visit, so they took it upon themselves.

Only they didn't expect how she would react when she woke up.

When I opened my eyes, I knew I was in unfamiliar territory with an unfamiliar person. I shot out of bed taking a defensive stance.

The boy before me was shocked by my sudden movements. I fact he had even fell out of his chair. I watched as he stood slowly, careful not to make sudden movements. His rose his hand, keeping his palms open, as to show he ment no harm.

"Hi. It's nice that tour awake now. My friends and I found you washed up on shore," he paused, before continuing, "We brought you to my home so my mom can look after you. She's pretty much the island's unofficial doctor. Speaking of which, I think I should tell her your awake. She probably has some questions for you to answer, and some move things to check. I'll call for her from here. She's downstairs, so she shouldn't have a problem hearing me. I can see you're a little on edge so I'll stay here so you can watch me. I promise i am not here to hurt you."

I watched as he called for his mother. I even channeled chakra to my ears to listen for reinforcements just in case.  However, true to his word it was just his mother who entered.

Slightly letting my guard down I answered all medical related questions. I still had know idea if they were friend or foe, but I wasn't going to risk it.

When she and the boy left, I could hear the his excited chatter.

"I can't wait to tell Kairi and Riku she's awake. I'm sure they'll be so excited to meet her! In fact, I should go get them right now," he said, excitedly.

However, his mother stopped him in his tracks when she spoke, "Sora, perhaps you should hold off. She just woke up, and based on her physical conditions; she must have been through a lot. Give her time."

"Ok mom."

I listened to their steps as they walked away. Once they where far enough, I checked over myself, with my chakra. I noted the bruises, and the slight scaring but nothing too serious to waste my chakra on.

With a sigh, I removed the white sheet. Bringing my legs over the beds ledge, however I could quite touch the floor. They just hung there. In fact my feet haven't hung like this since I was in the academy. Panic was staring to bubble within me.

Hurriedly, I made my way to the connected bathroom. What I saw in the mirror, cause me to almost loose my cool.

There before me stood, a girl who I have long out grown. She stared back at me with wide emerald eyes, and tousled pink hair. The baby fat still being out grown, and the purple diamond faded but still there.

My hand reached out and presses against the cool glass.

This couldn't be happening. After the fight, I knew something must have happened. Especially after being flung, but for my body to regress back into my twelve year old state seemed unlikely. Yet, my reflection proves otherwise.

Backing away, my back was pressed against the wall. I felt like I couldn't breathe, my heart rate accelerated. I even saw my hands tremble as I brought them up to run through my hair.

I was having panic attack. 

I slid down to the floor, the wall being my only real support to stay somewhat upright.

"I need to calm myself," I said, to myself.

I looked around the bath room and tried to find something to refocus on. There was nothing that caught my attention. Next best thing to do is to take deep breaths and count.

Breath in.

'One.'

Exhale.

Breath in.

'Two'

Exhale.

Breath in.

'Three.'

Exhale.

On and on that cycle went, until I could finally feel in control.

How long I sat on the bathroom floor for, I don't know. All I knew is I was twelve again, on an unknown island, I just had a panic attack, and I was so fucking hungry.

Seeking out wasn't an issue, but being hungry can be slightly distracting. Which would explains why the brunette boy, startled me as I raided his fridge.

Rude, I know, but cut me some slack. I fought a war, got stabbed, saved countless of lives, pumped my best friends hear manulally, punch a goddess, got transported to who knows where, and was age reduced to be a preteen. I think food being the only thing on my right now is considerably reasonable.

"You know, if you were hungry, you could've just told us," he said, with a teasing grin.

For a moment, I saw Naruto instead of him.

Looking down, I mumbled, "I didn't want to be a bother."

"You'll never be a bother here. How about we get you some warm food, and talk a bit. You know, get to know eachother."

Perhaps it was the fact that I was hungry, that he had a familiar aura, or that I didn't want to be alone; either way I took him up on his offer.

It would be from this moment on that the strings of fate would intertwine Sakura to not just Sora's soul but to his friends as well. This is where her true journey begins.

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Vanessa wants to meet Glamrock Bonnie..

[erebus0dora]

let's just say that's one of the things i would like to see one day, but so far i just had to get it out of my head

(i caught a cold, i can't do complex stuff)

[dreamsteddie]

Background character Eddie, seasons 1-3, who's crush heightened awareness of Steve due to his proximity to the crowd Eddie loathes leads him to making several theories about the odd stuff happening in Hawkins.

Every theory is incorrect. Just completely off the mark.

After season one, he overhears people talking about Will Byers and knows that Steve got the shit beat out of him by Jonathan and figures pretty much what everyone else does. But then, he catches all three of them hanging out in secluded corners, whispering quetly and leaning, pulling apart swiftly the couple of times they notice him, and he gets other ideas.

He knows Barb went missing, and rumor has it she was last seen by Nancy at the Harrington house. Everyone seems to have brushed it off, the search ongoing, but Eddie gets it in his head that maybe they should look again. He pokes around the Harrington house a couple of times at night, but never finds anything besides a closed pool.

When season two happens and the whole thing with Hawkin's Lab is revealed, he feels both relieved and a little dejected. He really thought he cracked something there, and thinking Steve might have been a murderer was really doing wonders to squash his crush.

But now Eddie is convinced that the leak reached the Harrington house too, because nothing else explains the sudden change in personality. He's actually convinced that everyone in town is slowly being poisoned because so many people are acting strange these days, talking about feral rats and murdered journalists and the bad omen of Halloween.

Eddie makes monthly trips to the closest city for almost a year, demanding that Wayne and him only drink the bottled stuff. He tries to get his friends to do it too, but they all argue that if the water was poisoned, they'd all already be dead anyway.

Eddie has a very complicated home set up for music that includes some pretty powerful radio equipment, knowledge provided courtesy Scott Clark's AV club back in the day, to pick up radio channels from the bigger cities. One day he's surfing for some new channels when he picks up some strange frequencies. It's gibberish to him, but he's pretty sure it's some kind of language.

He makes the guys come over and try to figure it out, and they identify it as Russian pretty quickly. Their combined efforts only get them a couple of strange words before it abruptly cuts off. Less than an hour later, they're all getting the emergency broadcast about Starcourt burning down.

Eddie doesn't believe for a second that it is a coincidence, and with Steve and his merry gang being the only survivors, he knows he has to be involved somehow.

He's always wondered why Steve had to have a job with parents as reach and influential as the Harringtons. One late night while he's ruminating on it in his bed, it hits him.

The Russian Mob! Steve and his family must be involved! That's gotta be it!

[starry-bi-sky]

"Uhp-uhp-bup-bup." Danny says loudly, cutting off the crime lord bleeding all over his living room. He presses a finger to his lips, despite knowing that Red couldn't see it, and stifles his rage behind a playful smile.

He's lucky he's facing the kitchen, his back turned to Hood. He can see the fury green of his eyes reflecting back at him in the chrome of the sink, he's threatening to crush the rag in his hands. His vision is futzing out in the corners of eyes.

"We don't speak the 'J' name in this household." He says in almost a sing-song, because if he doesn't, then the Gotham oil sitting, boiling, behind his teeth and coating his tongue will spittle out and Danny's already haunting his apartment just by his mere presence. He doesn't want to haunt it more.

He can hear the whine of the lightbulbs, threatening to burst like a popped balloon. He turns the water off and and rings the rag out tighter than he perhaps should.

"You don't like the clown?" Hood asks him, and Danny's not sure if he's mocking him for it. There's a knowing lilt in his voice that throws back Danny to their first meeting on that balcony. If he were anyone else, Danny might've just punched him.

His heel turns sharply towards him, a tight smile on his face and an even tighter look around his eyes. At least he knows that the green has faded because the pounding behind his eyes are gone, his grief-born, death-made rage sizzling back beneath his veins. "I think you already know why, Ridin' Hood."

A grief like this don't stay buried, after all.

[kortac-sweetheart]

plot bunny: nikto and kruger run on a “what’s yours is yours, and what’s ours is yours” policy

these men are built to PROVIDE, they’re traditional like that. even if you’re not a woman or traditionally feminine they don’t care, they still feel the need to dote on you and provide for you because that’s how they show love.

you’d never be left wanting for anything with those two, they are more than happy to buy you things or food (chide them all you want darling but it’s their money and this is how they want to spend it), and they are more than happy to give you all the attention and affection you could ever ask for. if you thought their affections were a lot already? it only gets worse when they’re retired.

and it doesn’t matter what you want, they’ll find a way.

the shirt off nikto’s back? they’re more than happy, rodnaya.

the shirt off kruger’s back? whatever you want, liebling.

the shirt off konig’s back? sure, why the hell not, and they manage to snag one of his shirts for you.

this goes beyond just material things too, they love to do things for you as well. nikto believes that there’s no greater honor for a man in life than having a near death experience shoveling snow for his family. he does not allow you to lift a finger when it comes to shoveling (or anything for that matter). always brushing you off with a “don’t worry solnishko, we can handle it. allow us.”

and although kruger used to somehow manage to burn water, he’s now got your favorite foods down pat like the good househusband he is.

“nein, don’t order out today. just sit down, i’ll make it for you.”

he also doesn’t allow you to help him when cooking, just asking you to sit at the dinner table and keep him company, he does love to hear your chatter after all.

don’t even bother trying to put together furniture by yourself, they both have a sixth sense that kicks in even if you’re just holding a screwdriver. nikto gently plucks it from your hands and silently turns to look at the instructions while kruger ushers you to sit down on the couch.

(they finish building it in about 30 minutes.)

they work together like a well oiled machine to provide for you, there’s no need for you to lift a finger when they’re here for you. just enjoy yourself ok? it makes them happy too, honey.

[nobodyfamousposts]

A bit of a random question : how would you imagine the events of BURN THE WITCH! happening in the Scarlet Lady continuity - assuming Lila is just as bad as in Canon?

@zoe-oneesama, since you are part of this, too.

SO.

I had a whole thing written up. A whole thing. And it was so awesome! I was so proud and happy with it. I was one paragraph away from being done and posting my glorious synopsis for the world to see. And then the screen refreshed, and I lost it all.  DX

So here’s my slightly less awesome description of the idea that I had to try and recover through memory. Fallible inferior memory of what could’ve been:

So if we’re ignoring Lila’s development and how glorious it would be to have Witch Hunter targeting Scar at the climax of the fall of her popularity, this would be a little more difficult to work with. Difficult, but still very much doable.

There are two ways it could work.

The first would be that Scar DIDN’T out Lila to the entire class so no one besides Chloe knows Lila is a liar. Perhaps the lazy option and closest to Canon, but it still works better than the Canon setup. Chloe would try to tell people that Lila is a liar and it would make sense that no one believes her because…well…it’s Chloe. She’s a known liar herself. AND a bully.

Of course, there’s still the matter of Adrien falling into jerk territory for not telling anyone that Lila is a liar, but given that this IS Scarlet Lady Adrien, we can arguably attribute his poor decision-making to his lack of sleep and added stress from solo hero duty. As such, I’m willing to give this iteration of him a break for not wanting to deal with the added drama between two girls he doesn’t want to be around anyway. Plus, it would be hilarious to see Chloe and Lila sabotaging themselves sabotaging each other in their attempts to rule the class and “win” him, only for each episode to end with Adrien hanging out with Marinette or Nino, because the boy deserves nice things and I live for the bromance.

The second option would be that Lila is outted but fakes her redemption arc.

After all, the classmates are naturally very easily forgiving of people. And Lila is a new student. All she would have to do is apologize and make up some claims, and they would totally be on board with still being friends.

Sure, they would take any of her future lies with a grain of salt, but that would only be her tall tales. Specifically her lies about connections and fame and the lies meant to make her seem “bigger than life“. That wouldn’t quite be the case for the lies made to make her seem weak and vulnerable. Especially if she kickstarts her new brand of manipulation by being just that.

“I’m SO sorry! *sobsob* I was so nervous being the new girl in a new school, and I was scared you wouldn’t like me. And you all are so cool that I wanted to be as amazing as you. *sob* I didn’t mean to hurt anyone! Could you ever forgive me? *sadface*”

And you know they would. Which would make for a particularly sinister form of emotional manipulation as she plays up the remorseful act. “I understand if you don’t believe me. It’s okay if you don’t forgive me yet.” Which would immediately invoke reassurance that of course they believe her and of course they forgive her! Which would distract from her current manipulations and suspicious behaviors. Emotional appeals are like that—focus on feelings and respond to those feelings instead of facts or truth.

And since Lila is “working so hard to be better”, of course they would want to support her in her efforts. Such as say, charity work. She may not go so far as to make up a charity like she did in the OG BURN THE WITCH!, but she can collect funds…which can then “mysteriously disappear” on the way to their final destination.

Meanwhile, Chloe would be the only one actively against it, which would make her a character for Lila to work off of. Nothing makes a liar look good like having someone else look like a bully. And Chloe’s attempts to out Lila for her manipulations wouldn’t get anywhere since it would be brushed off as Chloe being vindictive and not forgiving Lila over a past petty issue that everyone else has already moved on from. Which works both in and out of story because it is true. Right for the wrong reasons and all.

Unfortunately, this does mean that Chloe would get to do the “I Told You So” Dance when Lila does eventually pull her final stunt and gets caught.

Which would lead to Witch Hunter. It could be Rose again, though since the charity would be verified and she would be dating Ali this go around, he wouldn’t likely be mad or blame Rose for being deceived so she may feel less like her world is ripped out from under her. Mylene would also be an option as given her activism and involvement in the community, it’s something she would take seriously. It could even be Ivan or one of the boys. I’m not picky!

There are options!

So regardless, SOMEone is getting akumatized to burn a witch. 

…which would lead to two major problems in story.

The first, of course, would be that Scar is our Ladybug hero and she would happily let Lila burn. This girl intentionally led akumas to Marinette TWICE previously in the comic and also tried to hand her over to zombies another time—not even as a sacrifice or needed act to protect herself but simply out of pure spite. You KNOW she would get Lila caught immediately. She wouldn’t even be affected by the akuma. She would just hand her over and watch the show.

The second problem is that depending on when this takes place in the comic timeline, Marinette may not yet be Marigold. And since she wasn’t the one to out Lila, depending on which of the earlier mentioned to out Lila or not to out Lila versions we take, she may not be already aware of the depth of Lila‘s selfishness, which would make her susceptible to Witch Hunter and likely make her a part of the angry mob...assuming she doesn’t get akumatized into Witch Hunter herself.

Which means it would be up to Chat. A very tired, incredibly stressed out, and just about “done with this sh**” Chat. To save someone he hates from consequences she arguably deserves. All while resisting the urge to cataclysm her himself. 

Especially if she’s wasting time trying to manipulate him. Especially especially if Marinette follows the role of her self from the OG and tries to help Lila only for Lila to pull another “sudden but inevitable betrayal” and try to leave Marinette to the mercy of the mob.

His responses are open for debate at this point.

On the one hand, being the main hero and already hating Lila would grant him protection from the control effect so he could still save the day. And I imagine he would be SIGNIFICANTLY more terrifying than Ladybug was in the aftermath. See Ladybug’s “I will follow you around and make your life exceedingly unpleasant using the circumstances you have created and brought upon yourself” To The Pain vs Chat’s “Let me describe to you what Cataclysm can do to the human body. In detail.” Real Horror with serious implications and be careful with what you try to touch in the future *politesmile*.

…on the other hand, it amuses me to imagine Chat gets affected and helps stop Witch Hunter anyway. Either because he’s just that resigned to the job, because he sees Scar wants Lila burned and even when he’s under the akuma’s influence he still despises Scar more, or because Marinette remains sane and manages to navigate him to help either through cunning or out of his love for her.

……on the other OTHER hand, we were denied an akumatized Marinette in the comic and this could be a way to do it. Chat stays sane and ends up convincing Akumanette to stop out of her love for him to be the bigger person. Yes. Totally.

Chat: (Hugs Akumanette)

Marinette: (Deakumatizes)

Scar: (In background) Booooo. Laaaaame.

Lila: (Tied to a pole) Still tied up here!

Chat: Eh, you’ll be fine.

And since Akumanette is defeated and everyone is freed from the mob control with her defeat, there’s no need for the Cure. So we get the festival still set up and Chat and Mari can have a date.

And they may or may not leave Lila tied up while they do. Plus Lila is still left drenched in Seine water. So all in all, not a pleasant experience. And ultimately, she ends up in the same boat she was at the end of the original story, which I think is what everyone really wanted anyway.

Sadly, that includes Chloe. She will count it as a victory and be bragging about it for a while. A long while. 

But she’ll be getting hers soon enough anyway, so it will all work out.

[rainbowsuitcase]

Ice is woken up way too early by insistent knocking on the door of his room. Wondering what could possibly have caught on fire before 0800 in the morning, he opens the door trying to blink sleep out of his eyes and freezes when he's met by a very angry looking Nick Bradshaw.

"I really didn't think you'd stoop that low," Goose scoffs at him.

Ice glances down at himself. He's wearing dark boxers with no embarrassing pattern and the old USNA shirt he sleeps in is a little worn out, sure, but also clean. He knows his hair is a mess but c'mon, he just woke up, whose wouldn't be?

He concludes that he has no idea what Goose is talking about. "Uhm, what?"

"Don't play stupid, Kazansky. You know what you did."

Oh. This is about something in the past.

Ice still has no idea what though. "I... have not had a hangover in quite some time, so yes, I can say I remember just about everything I did lately-"

Goose interrupts him with a hissed, "That's really all you have to say to me?"

"-and I have no idea which of those things could have possibly pissed you off this much."

"Fuck you too, Tom." Oh no, not the first name. "What did Mav ever actually do to you?"

Ice is just more and more confused by the second. Is he still asleep? Is that why nothing's making sense? Mav did... quite a lot to him just a couple days ago, but Ice sincerely doubts Goose actually wants to hear about any of that.

"Uhm- not much lately?" he tries slowly. "Which I guess is actually impressive now that I think about it?"

"I'm not fucking around, Tom," Goose growls, leaning forward to get in his face. "Why did you punch him?"

"I... punched him?" Is this a joke? It's way too early for this.

"I fucking saw the bruise," Goose doesn't sound like he's joking. "Mav's refusing to tell me anything. What the fuck did you do to him?"

Ice tries to take a deep breath but no, he's not lacking oxygen, his lungs feel fine, his head doesn't hurt and this isn't making any sense. "You saw... the bruise?"

"Tom, I swear to God I'm gonna give you a bruise if you don't stop repeating what I'm saying and start answering!"

"Okay!" Ice exclaims, lifting his hands palms up because threats from Mother Goose should never be taken lightly, even by a very confused recipient. "Okay, uhm... what bruise did you see?"

"The one on his hip!" Goose shouts and Ice realizes too late that that was the wrong thing to say. "Is there more than one? What the fuck, man?"

"I- the bruise on Mav's hip-" Ice winces. He can't exactly say he didn't put it there, but he's not sure that admitting it's not really a bruise is such a good idea either.

And thankfully, before he's forced to find out, there's shouting from down the hallway. "Goose!" And that's Maverick running toward them. "Goose, stop! Ice didn't hurt me!"

Goose politely gets out of Ice's face and huffs. "How'd you know I was here?"

Mav is breathing hard, grabbing at his chest - did he run the whole way here? And he's still wearing his sleeping shirt too, with a stain on the collar, though he's taken the time to put on actual pants at least.

Gasping for air, he still does his best to answer. "Well I- I woke up and you weren't there and... You got so pissed last night, it wasn't that hard to figure out. But I swear, Goose-" he straightens up and raises his voice, "-Ice didn't punch me!"

"You don't have to defend him just because we used to be friends." Well, that emphasis hurts. But Ice is sure- he's hoping that they'll be fine once this gets cleared up.

"You can still be friends!" Mav throws his hands up in a frantic gesture. "He didn't do anything to me I didn't want!"

Goose freezes on the spot, anger melting into confusion at record speed. "What?"

And because apparently, Ice before 0800 is in the business of digging graves, he clears his throat. "Yeah, I... didn't exactly make that bruise with my hands."

And because apparently, Mav is a little shit in any and every situation, he meets Goose's wide eyes with a grin. "The one on my thigh, though-"

"Nope!" Goose raises his hands. "No, shut up, I don't need to hear more! I..." he hesitates, looking back at Ice. "I am very sorry for waking you up, Ice. And for yelling at you... And I'm gonna give two some space now! Happy for you both!"

He backs away slowly, giving them two thumbs up until he turns around and sets out at a fast pace.

Ice looks down at Mav and sighs, "That went well. You couldn't have just told him?"

Mav's smile dims. "I didn't think he'd react that badly," he mumbles. "Just wanted to keep you to myself for a while."

That's so damn sweet.

And, well. Mav is here, looking all ruffled and soft from sleep, and there's no one else around.

Ice puts a hand on his shoulder. "You do have me for yourself, Mav." And then he leans down to kiss his boyfriend.

[dionysiaproductions]

[phantomcomet]

Clone wars where anakin's insomnia is affecting his ability to he a general. Meds aren't working, he can't meditate, he can't focus, he's just spiraling. As a last ditch hope, he asks Obi-Wan to force suggest him to sleep. Obi-Wan hestiates, but Anakin is asking for help and Obi-Wan would do anything for him.

They give it a go and Anakin fights it. Obi-Wan doesn't think it'll work but Anakin is insistent they keep trying. They lower their shields, both sitting cross legged in the bed, hands pressed together. Obi-Wan pushes the suggestion, feeling Anakin struggling to accept it, until it finally sinks in and Anakin just collapses, limp and unconscious into his arms.

Obi-Wan holds him, smoothing his hair out of face and feeling warm from the trust Anakim has placed in him.

Anakin has the best sleep of his life and immediately decides that Obi-Wan is his personal sleep aide.

[hyperesthesias]

Nikto x Female Character

summary: nikto is being framed for a murder he didn’t commit. he turns to the only person he can trust -- the woman he planned to marry while in university, who is now an investigative journalist. but not all of nikto's alters want his name cleared.

author's note: this piece combines nikto's call of duty: modern warfare reboot lore, with his call of duty: mobile lore. i have included elements from both, and i have omitted elements from both as well. another half baked idea from yours truly.

content: canon compliant; canon typical violence; dissociative identity disorder; light stalking; terrorism; cheating; mentions of torture; mentions of child abuse and domestic violence.

words: 10,597

music: andre – pieces by sum 41 // sascha – away from the sun by three doors down // olev – daybreak by robin carolan // samantha – dangerous by sleep token.

AO3 LINK.

October 2022 ----

Nikto has landed in Russia with the rest of his KorTac unit. He is familiar with the area, but he hasn't been to his homeland in many years. He did not leave under positive circumstances, and he doubts he will ever be able to resolve what he left behind there. He has bigger, more current, issues to worry about. His two alters have been mostly behaving themselves, He's been able to keep them at bay enough for him to blend into his role the way he needs to -- he's an excellent liar, but he doubts he fooled the field psychiatrist and his superiors well enough for them to think nothing is bothering him at all. Eventually they'll find out, eventually he'll be diagnosed, and the ruse will be over -- his life will be over. Everything he's known and known how to do will be taken from him. He'll be deemed too unstable for the field, and he'll be discarded without so much as a second thought, or good enough benefits for him to survive on long term. He starts to spiral at the thought, and he can feel one of the other men in his head scratching at the wall he's put between himself and them. They've been more active, they've made themselves known more frequently since he heard that his unit would be returning to Eastern Europe. They're in Russia to capture a man named Petrov, whose dossier is longer than a novel. He was a lieutenant under Zakhaev, and while Andre has never encountered him, there's a stirring discomfort within him at the thought. There's a whole other life he left behind in Russia, a whole other lifetime ago, and he doesn't have the time, patience, or desire to sift through it all to get the voices in his head to settle down. All he can hope is that his unit is in and out of there quicker than he can spit, and that all three parts of him get back to headquarters without incident.

But he should've known that was too much to ask.

The job goes bad -- his team made a plan, the plan went wrong, so he made a new plan, and then he threw that one out the window, as he was actually being thrown out a window. He hesitated at the sight of Petrov, despite having him in his scope, and his teammates are ready to tear him to pieces. Everything is FUBAR, and he is barely able to catch his breath as his unit regroups at base. The plan changes for a third time: he and the rest of the men will lay low, and restrike before their target is scheduled to make his next move.

The rest of the men stay at the base, unfamiliar with the territory, but Nikto knows this area well. Things stay the same, as equally as they change -- signs change names, and carts and kiosks appear and disappear, and yet he can follow the streets and alleys with ease. His history as an undercover operative allows him to blend in anywhere, even when he stands out. There's a marketplace not far from the safehouse, and in weakness, he searches for a soft candy he used to find at its stalls when he was a child.

He doesn't remember anything after that.

He comes back into awareness as he's standing on a high bridge. There's a body on the ground beneath him – it’s Petrov, dead. A crowd is starting to gather. Even if he wasn't guilty, he certainly looks menacing enough for the blame to fall on him -- the balaclava, his backpack, and the .45mm on his hip are enough for the court of the people to convict him, whether he did something or not. But he can't remember.

He runs, not knowing where to go. There's enough heat on his team already, if he bolts back to the safehouse, he might lead people right to it. He's not sure he didn't kill Petrov anyway, and he has no way to explain that lapse of memory to his superiors -- no way to explain it and still keep his position at KorTac. Then again, disappearing altogether would only cement his guilt. He has no one.

Except for one person, someone he left behind a lifetime ago.

It's been sixteen hours after the incident at the bridge, and Nikto has tracked down a woman he once knew before he joined the military. She was a writer, an exchange student at the university he attended. At first, she wrote stories, and small pieces for the university's newspaper, but as time went on, as the world began to deteriorate, she developed a desire to pursue investigative journalism. He discouraged her from it at the time, but now her skills might be the only thing that can clear -- or convict -- his name. He wants the truth, regardless of what it is. He needs to know if he's unstable and volatile enough to black out and kill a man without knowing.

He seeks her out, and finds where she lives. The fact that she's alive at all is surprising, but Nikto has kept tabs on her since his time with the FSB and special forces. Occasionally he heard her name pass through the dossiers compiled by his superiors, and every time he saw her name and photograph, he hoped he'd never have to see her through the scope of his rifle.

He's using a scope now, to look at her through her bedroom window. She's as beautiful as the day they met. He suddenly has the crushing weight of realization that she won't recognize him. Certainly not in the balaclava, but even without it. He's different now -- in appearance, and in mannerism. To her, he would be a stranger. A sinking feeling hits his stomach, and he debates whether he should leave altogether, and take his chances back at the safehouse. But with each ticking second, he looks guiltier and guiltier, and his alibi gets thinner and thinner.

She starts to undress, and he knows he should look away, but a part of him wants to relish the sight of her before he disappears -- before he faces her and she screams. He remembers the feeling of her pressed flush against him, of her legs wrapped around him. He's never forgotten her, never moved on from her. The day he left Russia, time froze, and to him, she's still the love within him -- kept secret, stowed deep down where no one, and nothing can touch her. Not even himself.

He doesn't have the courage to knock on her door that early morning, nor the next. But he sits and watches her, follows her, hoping to get the willpower to shatter the fragile idea of the past he has with her. He learns about her -- her Russian has improved; she still smiles at the market vendors, and they still hate it; she has a tattoo now, even though she said she'd never get one, it's on the lower side of her left hip; she has a cat, who she loves, and he still thinks she would make an excellent mother. Thoughts come to the surface of his mind that he hasn't acknowledged since his life with her, and he debates on whether he should just fall on his sword and leave her be.

But her instincts are better than he gives her credit for, and as he follows her that afternoon, she makes him. He lets her.

Suddenly he has the barrel of a Beretta in his back, and he's being led to a blind, quiet alley around the back of her apartment building.

"Who sent you?" she asks.

He has his hands raised, and that pit in his stomach gets deeper as the moment becomes more real. She presses the barrel harder into his spine as he delays, and he grunts at the pain; his back is still sore from being defenestrated.

"Samantha..." he says, still trying to fight through his own thoughts enough to speak. "I'm not -- I am not here to hurt you. I was sent by no one." He feels the pistol fall, and there's a distinct, weighted silence that falls with it. He turns around, his hands still raised, and when he finally faces her, her eyes are starting to water. He feels like a boy again, standing in front of a girl who's crying. He doesn't know what to do.

"Andre?" she breathes. Instantly, she recognizes his voice.

They're back inside her apartment, sitting in the living room with a cup of chaya. It smells incredible, but he won't take off the balaclava, he won't even dare to risk lifting the edge. He is afraid of the look in her eyes -- that she'll see the scars, the missing pieces of his face, and that the love in her eyes will turn to horror. He wouldn't be able to live anymore. He prefers if she remembers him as that handsome, younger man from university.

"I heard about that," she says about the incident on the bridge. "The police are looking for a masked man, but they don't have many leads at the moment. They're still waiting for the lab to identify a blood sample they found at the scene."

"My blood?"

"You tell me. You said you don't remember anything about what happened, but do you have any unexplained injuries?"

"Unexplained? No. All of them are explained."

She almost chuckles. He always had a way of making her laugh, even without trying. "Are you hurt?"

"Yes," he says. "But not from the bridge. It was before that."

"Do you need a doctor?"

"No -- no. I don't need...anything."

Another silence settles between them. Neither one of them knows what to say, what to ask, where to start.

He sees movement from the corner of his eye, and he goes stiff -- ready to pull his weapon.

"It's okay -- It's okay. It's just Mishka, my cat." Samantha clicks her tongue, and the black cat comes running to her; she picks her up and puts her in her lap. "She was a stray, I found her in the alley out back."

"The last time you took in a stray cat, you were almost expelled."

She weakly smiles, but she doesn't look at him. "You remember that?"

His eyes are fixed on her, he studies her, like a pane of stained glass in a chapel. "I remember everything."

Her eyes are starting to water again, and Mishka jumps from her lap. "Why did you leave?"

"I don't want to talk about that."

"I've gone over it, in my head, for years--"

"I only want to talk about now."

"You don't think I deserve at least half an answer?"

"I said no!" he yells at her, he's on his feet, his breath his harder through his mask, and he sees that fear in her eyes -- the kind he dreaded seeing. He turns away from her, with his head in his hand. The scratching at that wall inside his mind is getting more intense, and he can feel it starting to give way.

"I will help you, Andre," Samantha says, and he can hear her pushing down the tears that threatened her before.

He's trying to keep the wall in his mind upright, he's trying to hold whoever is behind it at bay. "Samantha -- I am different...now," his voice wavers at the confession of weakness. He doesn't have time to explain everything to her -- he doesn't want to explain what Zakhaev did to him. But he knows he should at least warn her before he switches, and someone else comes to the forefront. The only thing he can think to do is leave.

He always leaves.

He's starting for the door -- everything goes black.

Samantha watches her former lover wrestle with something inside of him, watches as he keeps his head in his hands, and watches as he puts his hand on the doorknob to leave, then suddenly stop. He looks up at the door, looks around the foyer, and the living room, he looks at his hands, and then turns around to look at her.

There's a blank confusion in his bright blue eyes. He's staring at her. Trying to put pieces together.

"...Andre?"

The name gets a response from him, but it isn't the one she expects.

"Andre brought us here?" His voice is lighter than before, unlike the voice she remembers.

A coldness runs through her, and his warning to her begins to make sense. She nods, cautiously. "Yes, Andre came to me, to ask for my help."

"Who are you?" he's pointing at her, that confusion still churning in his eyes as he starts to approach her.

"My name is Samantha," she stands, with her hands plainly visible on the kitchen table.

He snaps his gloved fingers. "Ah! Yes, Samantha! I knew you looked familiar."

"Do you...remember me? Do you remember how we met, at the university?"

"No, no," he says, and brings his backpack around to reach for something inside of it. He sees her put her hands up, and flinch. "No -- No, no. Samantha, no. You are from the photograph." He takes out a worn and feathered photograph and hands it to her. "See? He keeps it here, with us."

"'Us'..." She takes the photo -- it's her official portrait from when she received her first award for journalism. "You and Andre?"

"And Olev. I don't think there is anyone else."

Samantha takes a deep breath, and returns the photograph. "Okay. Well, who are you? Let's start there," she invites him to sit.

He does as she instructs, and briefly lifts the balaclava to take a sip of chaya, it's still warm. "I am Sascha."

She can see the discoloration of scars as he lifts the mask, and she pretends she doesn't notice as he replaces it. "Do you know why Andre came to me, Sascha?"

He frowns and looks around again. "No -- I don't know anything about this place. I only know you from the photograph."

"Are you aware of the incident on the bridge?"

"The bridge!" he snaps again. "I remember the bridge. I was in the market, Andre brought us there. It took me some time to understand where I was, I got...confused, lost. But I saw our teammate, he found me. He said he would take me back to the safehouse, so I walked with him. But..." he pauses and shakes his head, "something did not feel right. I told him I wanted to go back to the market, and then he attacked me."

"Your teammate?"

Sascha grows quiet, mulling over what happened, still trying to put pieces together with half the puzzle.

"Does he know you have alternate identities?"

"No, I don't think so. We are careful. No one can know. If they find out, we are going to be discharged. Andre is careful, and so am I. The only one who might have compromised us is...Olev. But I don't -- I don't think so. He knows the consequences."

"May I speak with Olev?"

"No," he replies emphatically. "No, you do not want to speak to Olev. He is...not nice. He does not like to talk. Olev talks with his fists."

She takes another deep breath, and agrees. "Alright. The man at the bottom of the bridge, the man who died, was it your teammate?"

He points again, and a light of recognition flicks on in his eyes. "No -- he killed that man! He tried to kill me, but we took the gun from him. We fought. Petrov was there -- the target from our mission. I think, I think maybe I was following him. Or maybe Andre was. I don't remember. The mission was to capture him, but our teammate, he killed him. I tried to stop him, but he made it look like I was the one who pushed him. People started to come around. What people saw, was not what happened."

"This teammate of yours, have you had conflicts with him in the past?"

"I...don't know," he says, somewhat defeated. "I cannot remember what Andre sees. But from what I have witnessed, I thought we were on good terms. I don't know why...Why? Why did he betray me?"

Samantha keeps him at her apartment as she goes to the scene of the crime, as well as the lab to get an update on the sample results, hopefully before the police receive them. Sascha does not protest, a part of his mind feels safe with her -- as if he knows her from a dream he once had. He stays on the couch, and spends most of the day trying to coax Mishka out of the dark hallway.

She has a connection in the crime lab, a man she's been seeing for the past two and a half months. His name is Nikolai. He's sweet, a little naive. He's a scientist, not an officer, he's never been exposed to the field like she has. His innocence is refreshing. It's also the reason she can get him to tell her about the bridge case. The irony isn't lost on her that she's asking the man she's currently seeing to help her lover from a lifetime ago. But he doesn't have to know that.

Nikolai tells her that the blood sample returned a match earlier that day. It triggered a military file for a man named Andre Volkov, however the file itself was sealed. He asks her to dinner this weekend.

She tells him she'll check her schedule.

While she is gone, Andre returns to the forefront. The apartment is empty, and the cat is running away from him again. He finds a note on the side table: 'Samantha went out, she will be back. She is helping us.' It's written in Sascha's handwriting, and Andre once more considers leaving without a trace. Samantha didn't ask for this. But then again, neither did he.

Before he can make up his mind, Samantha comes through the front door. He stands, unsure what to do with himself, what to say.

She can immediately tell his body language is different. She stops.

"It's me," he says. "Andre." He awkwardly pauses again, with the paper still in his hand. "Sascha -- he left me a note. Did you find anything?"

She tells him Sascha's experience on the bridge, and that the lab results have confirmed his blood was at the scene.

"I don't even have a scratch from the fight Sascha had with him. I don't understand how my blood was found there."

"If Sascha was fronting at the time of the attack on the bridge, how do you know for sure that you were uninjured?"

He squirms nervously, already anticipating her next idea. "I checked."

"You need to check again," she tells him, softly persuading him.

He disrobes, piece by piece. He feels more vulnerable than he ever has in his life, naked in more ways than one in front of her. He's down to only his underwear and his balaclava, which he still hasn't removed. She helped him take off the jacket, and the shirt. He's sore, he says, his back hurts. It's covered in blue bruises, while older white scars lie beneath, they look like whippings. Feathered scars map the entirety of his body, from knife wounds, to healed bullet holes. Some scars she knows and remembers from when he was younger: burn marks made by cigarettes, left on his skin by his father. She touches him gently, running her hand along the newer impressions she doesn't recognize.

"Don't look at me like that," he says.

She doesn't say anything.

"Like with pity," he growls.

But she's as stubborn as he is, and she looks him right in the eye.

He backs down.

Slowly, she reaches up to remove the balaclava. He watches her do it, he waits for it. He grabs her hands before they touch the fabric, and he attempts to push her away. She pushes back, and keeps willing her way to his face. They both know he could overpower her easily, he could snap her wrists in half if he wanted. But he doesn't. He lets her struggle, makes her work for it, waiting for her to change her mind -- that he's not worth the effort, he's not worth the fight. Their eyes haven't left one another's, and she keeps her hands strong and steady, until eventually...

He lets go.

He braces for the impact of her scream of horror -- of her turning the color of nausea at the sight of him.

She lifts the balaclava, and it falls to the floor.

His face is bare in front of her, and he keeps his eyes on her -- present, but not.

She doesn't scream, she doesn't turn away from him. Her eyes take in the sight of his injuries -- pieces of his face are missing, as if they were shorn purposefully. Half of his nose is gone, a portion of his upper lip is gone, the entire left side of his cheek has been cut, as if peeled by a knife, leaving only the thin lower dermis to heal. A 'Z' is carved into his flesh from the top of his brow, to the bottom of his jaw.

The static feeling of shock resonates at the top of her skin, but she keeps her face still. She can't prevent the water at the edges of her eyes, but she keeps it from falling. Her breathing is heavier, and the shock gives way to the heat of rage.

It's a long, long time before either one of them speaks.

"Who did this to you?" she finally pushes the words out of her mouth.

"Zakhaev."

She knows exactly who he is. "I will kill him, myself."

The vengeful sentiment snaps him out of his dissociation, and he swallows, finally breaking eye contact. "You always surprise me, solnyshko."

She takes his face in her hands, and kisses him. He leans into her, he doesn't fight back; his hands cup her head, his fingers in her hair. Every moment he imagined in secret, every night he longed to be beside her, it suddenly becomes a reality. He pulls away only to take a breath, and to look her in the eye, to make sure she's really there, to make sure he isn't dreaming -- that he hasn't lost touch with reality completely.

His thumbs caress her cheeks, and when he convinces himself she's real -- when he convinces himself it wouldn't matter even if she wasn't -- he nudges her lips again. And again, and again. He wants to make love to her, right then, right there. He wants to make every fantasy that's put him to sleep for the last decade come true. But he doesn't. He stops. Again, he thinks about leaving.

She doesn't push him.

There's a knock at the door.

Andre grabs his clothes, and retreats to the hallway, away from the door's line of sight.

"Get rid of them," he tells her.

She shoos him, and regathers her composure. She looks through the peephole -- it's Nikolai.

"Nikolai --" she opens the door, blocking his path inside. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes -- I am alright, but I am...confused," he says. "That case you asked me about today, the one with the sealed military file, someone just came to my office and took all of the evidence. The blood, the fibers, all of it. Whatever you are investigating, I think someone does not want you to."

"Well, this certainly isn't the first time someone has wanted to stop an investigation of mine. It's part of my job, Nikolai," she smiles in an effort to put him at ease. "It will be alright."

"Be careful, milaya. I worry about you, you know.” He takes her hands and kisses them. “I was sent home early because of this mess. Why don't we have some tea together."

She touches his face, and pulls away. "I wish I could, but I am very busy right now. The harder they work to put me off the case, the harder I have to work to stay on it. You understand."

He sighs and nods. "Promise me you will be careful. You still owe me dinner."

She laughs and agrees.

Andre is in a million pieces in the hallway, half dressed. He hates himself, he hates himself for wanting her -- he hates himself for thinking it might have even been an option, if even for a brief moment. She has her own life. She has men falling at their feet for her, ready to provide for her, of course she would. She moved on. It was him who was the fool. She closes the door, and his head lands on the wall behind him with a dejected breath.

"KorTac is going to burn me," Andre tells Samantha later that night. "They will move the investigation in-house, and then bury me."

"Then we need to move fast."

He shakes his head and stops her, as he begins to collect his things. "It was a mistake to come here."

"I need to know more about this teammate of yours. What your encounters have been with him, Sascha said --"

"No."

"I won't let them accuse you of something you haven't done. I'm looking into this with or without you."

"Then it will be without," he says, and lifts the backpack onto his shoulders. "You will not get far." He once more starts for the door.

"Then you don't know me as well as I thought you did."

He stops, grinding his teeth -- he knows she's baiting him. Trying to get him to stay by way of conflict. She's done it once before, the night he left all those years ago. "I know you, Samantha," he says. "And I know that you have, in front of you, better than me. Whatever we had, when we were young..." he glances behind him and shakes his head, "it was only a dream."

He leaves, and disappears. He doesn't return to his unit, knowing that he will be caught and crucified by the very people he was supposed to trust. It was better to restart somewhere else entirely, to blend in, and create a new version of himself somewhere else. He plans on leaving the country within the week, but it will take time to find someone who can forge documents.

That weekend, Nikolai picks up Samantha for their dinner date. She is distracted, but he does what he can to alleviate her mental burden. He knows her job is difficult, she has told him briefly of the horrors she has seen, but she never shares much. He figures the past is haunting her, he can see it on her face. They finish their dinner with little conversation. He drives her home.

"I wanted to tell you something," he says while they are travelling. "I did not want to share it around all those people."

Samantha braces herself for an ill-timed confession of love.

"That case you were working on..."

She braces once more, this time for his improbable discovery of her past with Andre.

"...Before those agents came and took all of my work, I put in a requisition for any files relating to the sample from before the man, Andre, joined the military. I got a hit yesterday. It was not digitized, it was a paper file, that is why it took so long to find. I brought it for you, it's in the glove box."

Confusion, trepidation, and relief all at once smother her, and she cautiously opens the glove compartment without a word. A manilla folder sits right on top, with the name 'Volkov, Andre' on its tab. She opens it, and staring back at her is a photograph of the man she once knew: that beautiful boy, with bright blue eyes and soft skin, sharp features, unmarred by evil. A pain tightens in her throat, and she begins to read the file. The photo isn't a mugshot, it's an identification photograph from the foster care system, taken a few months before he became an adult — from two years before she met him.

The file details the brutal murder of Andre's father. Something she did not know about. He was killed right before Andre left her, before he joined the military. It was a particularly vicious crime, and investigators noted that there was a distinct presence of anger in the act. There were no suspects, but Andre was the person of interest. It was no secret his father had abused him and his mother for years, and investigators assumed Andre finally snapped and killed his father in an act of revenge. His mother had been missing for a week, and Andre filed a missing person report earlier that day. She was never found. However, Andre's blood was recovered from his father's knuckles. This did not immediately make him a suspect, as the investigators at the time found separate DNA beneath his fingernails, which was not a match to Andre. The leading theory was that his father's gambling habit caught up with him, and a warning from his bookie went wrong.

She spends the rest of the car ride reading in silence.

"Milaya, I need the file back," Nikolai tells her softly.

She finally looks up to see they've been parked in front of her apartment for some time. "I'm sorry, of course."

"Or, perhaps, you could take it inside, and you can read it while I make you tea. You need to relax, you need time to rest, too."

She smiles weakly, and hands him back the file. Guilt starts to gnaw at her that she wishes the man beside her was Andre instead. "Thank you. You are right. I think I will go to bed early."

"Another time then. I will make you tea, eventually."

"Sometime soon."

Samantha goes upstairs, and enters her apartment. There's a draught coming from the bedroom window, she hears a noise coming from the master bathroom. She reaches for a gun taped beneath the entryway table, and cautiously makes her way to her bedroom. She hears panting, shaking breaths, and quiet cursing coming from the bathroom.

She rounds the corner, and faces the open bathroom door with the barrel pointed directly at Andre.

He's covered in blood, there's panic in his eyes. He's shakily trying to patch a knife wound in his side.

She holsters the weapon, and immediately puts pressure on the wound. "What happened?"

"I don't know," he groans, trying to catch his breath. "I woke up like this. I don't know what happened." He stifles a yell as she starts packing the wound with gauze from his med kit.

"Tell me what you remember," she demands.

He's trying to focus on something other than the pain and the looming darkness that's starting to encroach on his vision.

She smacks his masked face a few times. "Tell me what you remember," she says again.

"I went -- I went to get papers. To leave the country. But the forger, he was dead. I found his body. My teammate was there, but that's it -- that's all I remember." He leans on her a little more heavily, balancing himself on the counter.

"What happened after you woke up?"

"I woke up -- my teammate -- he was dead. I...stabbed him. I think. The knife, it was in my hands."

"Where's the knife?"

"It's here," he points to the sheath on his belt.

She continues packing the wound tightly, and putting pressure once it's packed. She once more reaches for his medical kit, and places the high pressure bandage around his wound.

"I...I had nowhere else to go," he apologizes without saying it.

Over the course of the night, Andre stabilizes, and he's keeping himself awake on the couch. Samantha makes him a cup of chaya again, this time he drinks it. There's nothing left to hide from her. Somehow, she always seems to see him at his lowest.

"It wasn't just a dream, you know," she tells him. "It was real. To me."

He doesn't say anything for a while, staring at the nothingness in the hallway in front of him. Two little green eyes stare back. He has no excuses to give her, but he could lie to her -- he could lie to himself. But lies matter as little as the truth does at this point. "I dream of you every night. You are a dream to me. Something I cannot have."

"You left. I thought you and I were going to get married, have a family. Then you were gone." She doesn't mean to guilt him, she can see the pain in his face. "I would have helped you," she says.

He looks at her, uncertain of her meaning.

"I know about your father."

He looks away again.

"You never told me."

"I did not want you to think differently of me."

"I don't. I never have."

He sighs, struggling to believe it. He shakes his head. "But you will. You do not now. But...you will. There are things I did. There are things...I don't remember. Things that were done to me. It will change you, as it changed me." He sighs again, squirming uncomfortably, and then wincing in pain as the knife wound stretches with his body. "I don't remember...what happened to my father. But I knew that if I stayed, they would make me guilty, no matter the truth. All I remember of that night, is seeing my mother for the first time in a week -- she and my father were in the kitchen, he was beating her. She fought back. But then, I remember nothing. I thought she killed him, and that she left. I thought the truth was too terrible to remember." His eyes become distant again, and the void of shadows in front of him starts to whisper at the back of his mind, as if something wants to be let out. "But...after what happened -- with Zakhaev -- after I started to lose time, after I realized there was someone else, in my head..." he trails off, he doesn't say anything for a while, unsure of what it is he's trying to convey exactly. "They said it was acute, temporary, that it was the way my mind processed what he did to me. That my mind created someone else to take the pain: Olev. They said it would go away. It did -- it did go away, the voices, the losing time. I was myself again. They cleared me, for the field. But then...it came back. And when it came back, I told no one. And then, I started to think that maybe...if it came back, maybe it was always there. Maybe...it was me who killed my father, all those years ago. Maybe it was...Olev."

"Do you think Olev killed your teammate?"

"He is capable of anything," he looks at her again, that pain twisting his face again, of a torment not physical. "It can only be a dream, you and I. It is safer there, it is better there -- in dreams."

"If we cannot be together as we once were, then let me only help you now -- let me help you leave the country."

"No," he shakes his head again, and once more turns away.

"Let me help you this time."

"No," he insists more heavily.

"Why? Why do you come here for my help, and then push me away all the same?"

"Because I am a coward! Samantha," his voice breaks, and he stands, ignoring the pain in his side. His fingers dig into his chest. "I am a coward! -- and a killer. Who cannot provide for you. Who cannot give you a home, and children. Who can give you nothing! I am a coward who takes! Who takes and takes! Because I am a man who loves you, and a man who has nothing to offer." He turns around, not wanting her to see the weakness in his face -- in many more ways than one.

"You have always been many things, Andre. But a coward has never been one of them."

A whisper once more slithers its way through his mind, and he tries his best to push it back. But the stress of his vulnerability with the woman he loves, and the conflict he endured earlier in the night, the pain from the wound in his side, it’s broken down his ability to hold it off. His consciousness slips into the abyss of his mind, and something else emerges.

"Andre was always a coward," he speaks.

But it is not Andre's voice.

"Olev..." Samantha takes a breath and stands, the gun is still in her waistband. She doesn't know if she has the courage to use it against him, if it comes to that.

"Ever since he was a boy. Too weak to face his father, too powerless to save our mother. Too afraid to show his face, to close his eyes at night — to see what I saw." He turns to her, a darkness in his eyes, a weight upon his shoulders, he watches her carefully. "Too afraid of losing you. You are his weakness. And so you are mine."

"You know who I am."

"I know...everything," he growls. He approaches her, unfazed by the blood that's leaking down his side. "I watch everything -- from the corners of his mind, I watch as he tries to hide, tries to run from himself, his past. From you. It makes me sick."

"What happened on the bridge?"

"I took care of us. As I always have."

"Did you kill your teammate?"

Olev scoffs and takes another step towards her, revelling in her confusion. "He always finds a way to shift the blame. Even onto people who were never there."

The rush of fear and adrenaline begins to course through her, and she keeps her hands at her sides, ready to pull her weapon. "What do you mean?"

"Andre and Sascha remember what they need to. And I let them. Even if it means they imagine things. Even if it means...we struggle against each other," he writhes and the wound at his side gushes.

“There was never a teammate. You...You framed Andre. You killed Petrov. You planted your own blood at the scene. You killed the forger."

"I promised Petrov that he would pay for what he did to us. I always keep my promises," his voice is dark, and he fixates on her.

"Why frame Andre? You could have killed Petrov quietly. No blood, no witnesses. We both know you could have gotten away with it."

"I had to make sure he could never go back to KorTac."

Anger sets in, and Samantha stops, she plants her feet on the floor, waiting for Olev to meet her — face to wretched face. "KorTac is all he has."

"But it is not all he can be." He's standing in front of her now, they are mere inches apart. She can feel his breath wash over her face, it's calm and even, yet hot as his eyes run over her features. "I have waited...so long...to meet you, tsaritsa." He coils a lock of her hair around his finger, and pushes it behind her ear.

Her blood is racing through her veins, she can feel her heartbeat in her throat. She keeps her eyes on his, barring away the fear within her. "What are you going to do?"

"I...am going to do what I have always done," his voice is barely above a hoarse breath, his hand still caressing her hair, her neck. "I will level the scale of justice. I will take power from the powerful, and protect those who are weak." He holds another lock of her hair between his fingers, and places it to his lips. "And I will not be a coward -- like him. I will not abandon you. Like he did."

She doesn't flinch, but she can't keep her nerves from trembling. "How many people will die? To balance the scales?"

"You know as well as I do, tsaritsa, the price of slavery is its weight in blood. And so it is with liberty."

She encroaches on him, closing what little space there is between them. "Give him back to me."

His eyes narrow, and his jaw tenses as a breath seethes from him.

"I know that you can."

"I will not." He lets go of her hair, putting it behind her shoulder. "I am jealous of his years with you. And I will not release him until I have shared with you those same number of years."

"I will not go with you."

"You do not need to. You are of better use to me here. Here, your work will provide me with valuable intelligence about those who mean to oppress the People."

"What makes you think I won't go underground?"

"You forget, tsaritsa, I know you as well as he does. I know that you cannot keep injustice quiet. And you know — that I will always find you."

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

TWO YEARS LATER ----

Samantha has kept tabs on Olev's actions — a bombing in Lisbon, a Nova gas attack on a gang of mobsters, the rumor that a pilot by the callsign Nikto took down members of Task Force 141. She knows that as carefully as she's kept an eye on him, he's done the same to her. He was right about her -- she has continued to pursue investigations into the corrupt and powerful. She lives with the knowledge that her intel has helped him kill a group of crooked financiers in Germany, and along with them, other innocent lives who happened to be in the wrong place when Olev exacted his justice.

He sends her letters with no return address. He writes her poetry, he sends her sketches of buildings and animals he has seen in his time away from her, he recounts memories she has with Andre, but from his own perspective. He tells her that he loves her. In one letter, he assumes she has not given over his writings to the authorities, as no one has followed their trail back to him. She hates that he's right. She hates that she can't bring herself to do it. If she condemns Olev to prison, she dooms Andre with him. More than that, she confesses only to herself, on a quiet winter night, that she is enamored with Olev. There is a clear part of him that loves her. To be loved so thoroughly by a person -- that every facet of him desires her -- it enthralls her. But it is as Andre told her the last night she saw him -- their love could only ever be kept safe in dreams.

A year after he vanished, Olev appears to Samantha. She moved to a different place, a house in the suburbs, and yet he and his letters still find her. He gives her a USB drive filled with the information of brokers who are fixing the market, proof of their treachery. She almost refuses his gift, but she can't deny that his brutality has been making an impact -- the scales are slowly shifting as the greedy are becoming scared. She's conflicted on whether she should endorse his actions.

He is a looming shadow over her and her work, over her heart and mind. And yet, his presence fills her with relief -- relief that he is alive, and relief at the sight of adoration that still lingers in his eyes whenever he looks at her. He kisses her hands as he gives her the drive, gently putting her knuckles to his mask. She is alone at home, Nikolai is at work, she doesn't hurry Olev to leave.

She tells him she should turn him in.

He tells her he knows she won't.

"How do you know that?" She's standing in front of him again, once more inches from him; his face is veiled, but she can hear his breath heavy and quickened beneath it.

"You are our fortress. Our shelter. Always." His gloved hand caresses her hair, and this time that sense of relief replaces the apprehension she once felt at his touch.

She reaches for his face, and delicately removes the buttons and belts that hold his mask together; she slides the balaclava off. He does nothing to stop her. He trusts her implicitly.

"I am a bird within your palm, tsaritsa. Have care."

Her heart softens, seeing not a villain, but a man. "You would have me love you."

"You do."

"You would have me forsake Andre."

"You can no more forsake him, as you could forsake me. I am not his murderer."

"You are his warden."

"I...am his protector. And I protect that which he loves. I protect...what I love." The rough fabric of his gloves smooths against the frame of her face. "...What you love. That you love him, you must also love me."

"And is this love a betrayal, of the man we both want to keep safe?"

"Zhizn moya, I told you -- you could never forsake any part of me."

Samantha rests her hands on his chest plate, as he continues to wander against her: her arms, her back, the dips of her waist. She falls into his embrace, wrestling with herself and her desires. Olev’s body aches for her as she steadies herself upon him, as she is nearly flush against him. He cradles her head within one palm, and makes the decision for her -- he takes her lips in his, and thus seals their fate.

"Andre is going to kill me," she breathes.

He smirks. "I know the feeling."

He is ravenous. Every fiber of his strength and energy is spent ensuring she remembers who he is, even when he is gone from her. That she feels him, even when they are parted. He leaves gentle imprints and bruises along her soft skin. Yet, when he is beneath her, he is as pliable as a doll -- to be used by her, to be fettered by her want, he is tamed and awakened by his love for her. Every moment he lingered, locked behind the wall inside Andre's mind, watching her, loving her from behind a pane of glass -- every moment he longed for her, pours out of him, as her satisfaction comes in waves around him.

She sleeps beside him. His dreams are quiet that night. There is only the black, and silence.

He leaves before dawn, she watches him ready himself, layer by layer. His underclothing, his flight suit, his armor, and every weight that is strapped against his waist and shoulders. Olev is a weapon. He's never known how to be anything else.

"You will live your life however you please," he tells her as he departs, his voice is calm, and yet there is grief and anger within it. "But you will always be mine. You will always belong to us."

His letters become less frequent, he sends her blank postcards instead -- and yet the attacks on the wealthy are getting more coverage.

A year after Olev appeared to her, Samantha is engaged to Nikolai, and a week after their engagement party, she receives a blank card in the mail with no return address, congratulating her on her upcoming nuptials. She says nothing of it to Nikolai. As far as he knows, the case about Andre Volkov, the case about the man who was killed on the bridge, was a dead end. She never spoke about it again.

Her wedding is in a month, and Samantha is asked to report on the terrorist named Nikto. She can't give a coherent reason of refusal -- not without incriminating herself. She does what she can to fulfill her duty, and yet protect information that might be vital to his capture. She is informed by her editor that Nikto has agreed to a one-time interview. Many news outlets, both domestic and international, are being censored from showing his transmissions, and some outlets are censoring the videos without being instructed to do so. According to her editor, because of this, Nikto has chosen them to give the interview  -- their outlet has circumvented censorship, and is broadcast in his mother tongue of Russian.

She knows more than well the reason he chose them is because of her. Samantha is tasked with the interview. It will be broadcast live on the internet.

Nikolai begs her not to do it. It's too dangerous, he tells her. They have their whole lives ahead of them, and she shouldn't tempt fate by putting herself in the lion's den. The man is a terrorist and a predator -- a perverse example of authority. She asks him to trust her -- even though, silently, she knows she does not deserve it.

Samantha is sitting across from Nikto, in a room that is empty, except for a camera and two chairs. It is an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere, a mutually agreed upon location, chosen by Nikto. Besides them, only her cameraman and two of his guards are present. The pair sit near a window for natural light. He makes no indication that he knows her -- and for a brief moment, she wonders if someone else is behind those eyes, if someone else is fronting. But then he speaks:

"Shall we begin, tsaritsa?"

Samantha introduces herself, as well as Nikto, to the camera and begins her questioning. Pretending she knows nothing of him is more difficult than she anticipated. She hides the desperation inside of her, the desire to reach out and touch him, to speak with him as she used to -- she draws on every ounce of professionalism within her, and keeps to her notecards.

"You and I want the same thing, Samantha. You with the pen, and I with the sword." They are at the halfway point of the interview. "And it is true, your work is more important than mine -- I could take down an empire, but if there is no one to witness the People's power, ignorance can only remain."

"Is that what you mean to do? To take down an empire?"

"I have said it."

"To take down Russia?"

"To take down the evil of the oppression -- the oppression that keeps the poor hungry, and the rich fat. Oligarchs rule my homeland, and yet my people have never suffered more. If they deny their greed, why are they afraid of me? If they are so righteous, why should they have anything to fear?"

"I think even the righteous fear death, wouldn't you agree?"

"I do not fear death," he says, his eyes piercing into her as he does. "I fear nothing."

"Not even capture? Or failure?"

"I cannot fail. Even if I am captured, I have already won. And if they kill me, still others will know that these men are not gods. They are cowards. Fat, hungry cowards. Who will take, and take, until nothing is left."

Samantha swallows, hearing Andre's voice buried beneath Olev’s. She briefly pauses, and takes a moment to regather her composure.

A flicker of light from beyond the window catches Olev's eye -- he can see the outline of a red laser sight, but when he follows its path, it's not trained on him, but on Samantha.

Without warning, he tackles her to the ground. An explosion of glass erupts from the window, and a bullet whizzes through the scene. The sound of its impact, along with a yell from Olev, resound in Samantha's ears. She's suddenly flat on the ground, and the weight of his body and his armor are crushing her. Something hot is leaking onto her chest, and pooling beneath her. More gunfire breaks out, as his guards return fire in the direction of the window.

With all of her strength, she pushes herself out from underneath him, and pulls him out of the line of fire. She shelters them with the cover of a partial wall, drawing her own weapon; her cameraman is filming the firefight from a corner on the opposite side of the room.

More sniper fire rains down on the building, until it briefly stops, and the room is hit with a smoke bomb. One man infiltrates from the broken window and takes out the cameraman, and one of the guards.

Olev is slumped against her, in her arm; he opens his eyes and takes in the blurry image of her returning fire as a cacophony grows on the other side of the wall. The bullet tore through the weak point of his armor as he dove onto Samantha, it went through his shoulder; he's losing blood fast, but his first instinct is to sit upright and reach for his pistol. He's about to fire off a shot into the smoke, when Samantha stops him. She slings his arm around her, and pulls him onto his feet. The attacker is following the blood trail from the initial point of contact to her hiding place, and she needs to find an exfil now.

They exit the rear of the building, where there's nothing but trees and plenty of places for cover. She drags him, his feet moving as fast as they can, until they reach the copse. There's quiet for only a moment before the gunfire starts again, and bullets fly by their heads. She pulls him behind a large pine out of the attacker’s eyeline.

"Fuck, I'm out of ammo," she checks her magazine.

He's leaning on the trunk, trying to put pressure on the wound, but the blood is draining too quickly. It seeps through his fingers like a waterfall. "Take it," he hands her his pistol. "Leave me. Go -- run."

"No," she says, and chances to peek round the tree to see where the gunman is. She can't see him.

"I'm too much weight. You'll...be faster -- on your own."

"Not an option."

He shoves her and growls. "Go."

She takes the push, and settles back beside him. The gunman is stalking them, he's starting in the wrong direction, but he crouches to see the droplets of blood left on the leaves. "I'm not letting you off the hook that easy." She looks at him and taps him on the face, bringing his eyes to hers. "Stay with me -- all of you. I have a plan that may get us out of this alive.”

Something deep inside of him breaks. He sinks to the bottom of the forest floor as she tells him what to do; his back leans against the pine tree as his body starts to give out. He’s placing the entirety of his trust in her.

Samantha emerges from behind her cover, and aims the barrel of her empty weapon at the gunman's head. "If you were aiming for Nikto, you got him. But you killed my cameraman, and you almost shot me."

"I was aiming for you," he says.

She takes several steps back, with her pistol still raised. "I've made a lot of enemies, forgive me if I don't remember how I've wronged you."

"You give that sick fuck a platform -- you listen to him as he spews his lies, and all the meanwhile, people suffer because of him. You're no better than him, to let him be seen in the daylight, instead of rotting in the ground where he belongs."

"And if I'm no better than him, then I deserve the same fate -- is that right?"

"We understand one another. I killed that terrorist, Nikto," he glances at the motionless body of Olev, slumped against the pine tree. "And now I will kill you."

Samantha lures him only two steps further --

Olev springs to life again, and fires three shots into the man's head. Blood and matter spray across the greenery, and his lifeless body falls to the ground with a quiet thud.

Samantha takes the man's weapon, and kneels at Olev's side, trying to put his arm around her, to get him to his feet again.

"Samantha..." he breathes, his voice filled with an uncertainty she's never heard within Olev before. His blue eyes look into hers again, searching them for something. His eyes are duller, dimmer -- greyer than they should be. "...I am not going to make it."

She starts to protest, but he stops her.

"Listen to me —” he pulls her close, his breath straining and wavering. “You must live your life, Samantha. Marry that idiot who loves you. Make children. Do all the things I cannot give you.” She starts to protest again, still trying to pull him to his feet, but he holds her still by the shoulder. “Do what you have always done: Listen, and speak. Others need you…to speak. Others need you…But do not forget me. Do not forget...any of us. All of us -- we have loved you." His hand moves from her arm and he touches her face, his glove leaving behind a thick trail of blood. "Zhizn moya...my life…I have given it for you." His hand falls from her, and his body falls entirely slack.

Her tears finally fall, staining and mixing with the blood on her face. She touches him, expecting him to brush away her hand, or to pull her close. But he does nothing. She is alone in the forest, the only sole survivor of the attack, and she knows the military will converge on her location soon. But in those brief moments of quiet before they come, she allows herself to break, to fall to pieces entirely.

Samantha leans on him, holding him and his shielded face to her body, placing a kiss on the metal of his helmet. It would be the last time she sees him, and she wants to keep the image of him, before the world mutilated him, intact within her mind.

She holds him as long as she can, until she notices a familiar feeling against her chest. He's breathing. His body is rising and falling against her. She digs two fingers past his gorget and past the fabric around his mask, until she can feel his pulse. It's thready, but it's there. Helicopters are approaching in the distance, and they'll search high and low through the brush to find him in the forest, once they see his body missing from the building. She packs his wound as quickly and tightly as she can to quell the bleeding, and then she pulls him through the copse.

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

He's in a medical facility, but it doesn't look like a hospital. He's lying in a hospital bed, and there are IVs through both his arms. There is clear tarp all around him, and through it, he can see that he's in some kind of warehouse.

Andre remembers flashes of what happened, of their life throughout the past two years. The last thing he remembers is Olev saying goodbye to Samantha -- on behalf of all of them. Suddenly, his body reminds him that he‘s been shot. Nurses and a doctor swarm his makeshift hospital room at the sight of him being awake.

Hours go by, and Andre is still trying to piece together what happened. Olev is unsettlingly quiet within his mind -- not in anger, but with what feels like sadness. Sascha is relieved to be alive. So is he.

A nurse brings him broth and other liquids, he drinks them with the one arm that isn't in a sling. A familiar face emerges as the nurse exits. His breath stops, and his body goes numb.

"Samantha..."

She fixes on him with that distinct look -- of trying to figure out who's talking, exactly. "Olev?"

"Andre."

She sits on the corner of the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel like the morphine is working."

She lets an amused breath. "How much do you remember?"

"Pieces. Like...a painting out of focus."

"You'll have to go into hiding."

"That much I guessed."

She doesn't say anything for a while.

"Did he hurt you?" he asks. "Olev?"

She shakes her head, finding she misses that facet of him, despite seeing the same face in front of her now. "No. The opposite, really."

Andre remembers a moment of passion between her and Olev, but he can't quite put together the whole memory.

"I called in a few favors," she says. "This is one of them," she looks around at the haphazard triage. "The other will fly you out of the country in two days. I've got you papers."

"You didn't have to do this."

"I did." She looks at him, the life has returned to his eyes, and the lighter presence of Andre now shapes his features. "I love you. Every one of you. Olev was right..."

He scoffs. "I wouldn’t recommend letting him in your head."

"But he was right.” She remembers the morning he left, after the night they spent together. She thought she’d never see him again, at the time she thought he meant to threaten her. But she realizes now it was never a threat. It was simply the truth. “I will always love you. And a part of me will always belong to you.” She can see him searching his mind, as if he can nearly recall what she means, but not entirely. “This is what I needed to do."

Andre falls quiet. "I am not worth the trouble, solnyshko."

Her sights settle on him. He's not looking at her, but at the folds in the sheets -- he's thinking, she can see it. His eyes are darting back and forth, as if his thoughts are quick. She wonders if all three of them are talking in that head of his. She wonders if they had known about the complexity of his mind when they were younger, if things would have been any different. If things might have turned out better for him. "You always have been."

He looks up at her, his lips parted in both uncertainty and surprise.

She caresses his face. "You always were." She stands to leave.

"Samantha..." he calls after. He watches as she faces him, and water lines his eyes. "I owe you my life. All of us."

"I love you, Andre."

"I love you. Dusha moya."

She disappears through the maze of vinyl, and he watches her until he can no longer see her figure.

He owes her everything, and he knows it. And he will work for the rest of his life to give it to her. To earn her. Even if he never sees her again.

[dreamsteddie]

After the events of season four in a world where Vecna dies a minute earlier, Eddie lives, and Max gets away with a broken arm and some vision loss, Nancy and Steve start spending a lot of time together.

Everyone assumes that since Nancy and Johnathan broke it off not long after they reunited, having found themselves on different paths, the two of them were naturally drifting back together. Some of the kids are even betting among themselves on whether or not they're actually already back together and trying to keep in on the down low while everyone heals.

What really happened was that Nancy showed up on Steve's doorstep one day and asked if she could come in. She was nervous and it showed in the way she pinched her brow and rubbed her intex finger over her thumb nail but still made direct, almost aggressive eye contact with the man in front of her. Steve was worried that she was, indeed, here to confess which...wouldn't have been the worst thing, just not the right thing.

Instead what she says, directly and to the point despite her nerves, is that she's sorry if she led him on during their last time in the Upsidedown. She tells him that while she did feel a remnant of that old flame between them, it was ultimately a flicker in comparison to the forest fire of complicated emotions building up inside her for someone completely new. Someone completely unexpected. She looks genuinely mournful for having to tell him this, but all Steve can really feel is relief.

Steve had felt it too, and for a moment there it had really felt like their time had finally come. It felt like all the hurting and the fighting and the miscommunications and the missed chances were all leading them to this climactic moment during their last stand where they could begin their epic love story all over again. But then suddenly all he could think about between the blood and fear was eyes deep and dark like the forest floor after a long rain and the fleeting feeling of cool silver on his sore shoulders. He tells her that it's ok because he found someone new and unexpected too.

After that night they find a new kind of kinship that they always reached for but never could attain with all the history between them. They start meeting up as often as they can for late-night talks. Once Steve returns from his work at the shelter and visiting Eddie in the hospital and Nancy's parents come back to relieve her of babysitting duties while they help rebuild the town they meet at Steve's house. They avoid the back patio at all costs, instead deciding to set up lawn chairs out front to face the empty street, all of Steve's neighbors having fled with the first tremors.

They drink and talk for hours about all the mistakes they made, apologizing for all the ways they hurt each other in their youth in the days when they knew how to hurt but not how to heal. They talk about the life they could have had if things had been different. They talk about jobs and white picket fences and children and all the ways they would have been happy but not content. It should be awkward, and sad, and uncomfortable. And it is. But more than that it's cathartic, and by the end they are closer than they've ever been and fully ready to move onto the next phases of their lives as close friends.

They also spend quite a bit of time after the heaviest topics have run their course trying to help each other woo their respective crushes. Robin came out to the group not long after Will returned. She decided that it was time for her to claim the "most coveted of all Queer positions, Steve. The Queer Mentor!" and that being in the closet with their friends was antithetical to her cause. Steve argued that he was her first pupil already, but she claimed that his gay crisis was so minuscule that it hardly deserved the name. He came out a fully formed bisexual man. Steve wasn't 100% sure about Eddie, but there were enough rumors about him that he felt comfortable at least shooting his shot. Eddie was a good guy and he was so happy when Robin came to his room to share her coming out with him since he'd missed the bigger announcement.

All that is to say that they were both ready and willing to start pursuing their respective targets. They made game plans and tried to come up with date-but-not-really-a-date ideas for them to test the waters.

Meanwhile, Eddie and Robin both separately decide that they need to help push Nancy and Steve into the relationship everyone sees on the horizon. Steve is and always will be Robin's number one and she knows better than anybody how hung up he was on Nancy for literal years. She knows they hang out just the two of them and despite Steve dodging her attempts to figure out what it is they meet up about if they're not already together, she's pretty sure they're just taking things slow. The fact that her tummy feels all warm whenever Nancy Wheeler walks into the room is inconsequential to her far greater goal of Make Steve Happy. It sure would help if she would stop looking up at Robin from beneath her lashes like that though. Those eyes are killer.

Eddie, on the other hand, has felt some kind of way about Steve for the entirety of their not-quite acquaintance. It began with a sweet crush in grade school that developed into spiteful teenage lust and then back into a less sweet but much more robust crush following the not-so-end of the world. But all of those feelings are null and void in the face of the rapidly approaching epilogue of Steve and Nancy's epic si-fy/fantasy romance. He saw the way they looked at each other on their journey and he meant it when he said what Nancy had done jumping in that lake was a show of love. It feels almost poetic that he ended up doing the same thing, just a little too late to really matter. But despite the way Steve's visits seem to soothe the ache in his bones better than any opioid or cold compress, Eddie is going to do his damnedest to lead those two sheep in the right direction. It would be a heck of a lot easier if Steve could pick a shirt to wear in his own damn size, though. Those arms really were begging for release.

[iviin-855]

Honestly Hazel is completely understandable in the huggin Molly chapter and that's what makes the tragedy of it work so well.

She just had the worst day of her life, she knows she can't trust Bunny, but that's her grandmother and while she desperately clings to the hope her mother is alive she knows how dangerous the flood is. Bunny might just be the only family she has left. She can't believe she could betray her because then she would have nothing. As desperately as she clings to her mother being alive she also clings to the role as the one who defeats the monster and saves her mom. That role might have kept her upright so far but it also makes her unable to grasp things that don't fit into that narrative. At least until it is too late of course.

We as players see puzzle pieces, begin to understand Molly, but Lacey is not our mom. We didn't just have our whole life swept away. Could I act any different in Hazel's position? Could you?

[laurelsofhighever]

Teia teaching non-Crow Rook some "helpful" Antivan phrases to woo their beloved Lucanis

Rook thinks they're saying sweet things like "I love you" and "You have my heart"

That is not what Teia is teaching them to say

The first time Lucanis hears one of these phrases, he goes bright red, blinks a couple of times and then all but drags them somewhere private

Rook just assumes he really likes it when they talk in Antivan

[amultitideofdrops]

Random AU because I love alternate character origins/childhood.

Julian grew up on Cardassia, as a ward/totally not adopted child of Kelas Parmak. Let's just say that Cardassia attacked his family's passenger ship on the way back from adigeon prime or something, with Julian being a lone survivor. Tain suspects the reason why the Bashir's took their child to the planet so gets his personal doctor to check the kid- out the secrets of true genetic enhancement are too good an opportunity for the head of the Obsidian Order to pass up.

And soft hearted Kelas obviously gets attached to this soft skinned child way too quickly, and Julian whose brain is overwhelming him and doesn't understand what happened to his parents, is equally quick to cling right back. Kelas dutifully reports back that he's just a normal child, and it was likely one of his deceased parents who was augmented. When Tain decides it's best to get rid of the last bit of evidence of their unwarranted attack on a civilian ship, Kelas manages to convince him to let the doctor keep the child.

(So Tain gets some extra bonus leverage over the person he has to show weakness around, quite a win in his opinion.)

Kelas doesn't know how to interact with children, let alone a human one. So he just tries to be kind and involve Julian in all the things that interest him. Which is just what the newly genius child needs. The two bond easily, though Kelas always has to maintain the facade of this being more a mentor relationship than anything. Keeping a distance around the few Cardassian's who ever see the child. He's taken aback each time Julian gets clingy, wrapping his arms around Kelas' waist and holding on like a barnacle, or small hands gripping near possessively into his.

Julian's nearly as lonely as Kelas is on Cardassia, but they have each other.

He goes once a month to Tain's office, at first just accompanying Kelas on his check ups, but as he gets older Tain asks he makes his own visit, and they play Kotra and Kal-Toj and near a new game every week which he always wins. He tests Julian's Kardassi, and then teaches him Romulan and Vulcan, just to keep his mind sharp he says. He presses large volumes to his hands each week and asks his opinion the next one. Kelas sees Tain's knowing smile as he sees the human off at the end of each visit and despairs.

Of course Kelas still dissents. Of course he stills gets caught. And 15 year old Julian shouts and screams and fights like a vole when they come to arrest Kelas.

Garak's interrogation with the doctor goes even quicker here, unbeknownst to him that the dead stare of his eyes are promising retribution against someone else entirely.

Kelas goes to the labour camp. And Julian, after Tain is overruled by Central Command, is sent home to Earth in a hostage exchange with the Federation.

Julian gets debriefed and counselled to shit, before living with a foster family up until he applies to Starfleet Academy because he never forgot.

(He briefly considered going into Intelligence rather than medicine, as a quicker way to find out what he needed, but if he finds Kelas again he's going to take after him, not the man who locked him away)

Cue the start of DS9- which Julian couldn't apply for fast enough. His superiors are aware of his Cardassian knowledge, but not how he got it, and everyone's just generally thankful they have someone who can deal with the systems and any diplomats that come by.

And how useful for Julian, that the protege of Tain is exiled on the same station, so full of secrets and so willing to approach Julian straight away.

All this to say Julian hatches a plot to honey trap Garak and get information on where Kelas was sent to and how to free him. It's a brilliant plan really, and no his feelings aren't confused on the matter. He's staying up days to help Garak detox from the Wire because the man isn't going to die from hating the cold too much dammit. If he's enjoying the book club discussions it's because it reminds him of the same titles he discussed with Kelas. If he's entranced by the movement of grey hands, he's probably just remembering the blood on them.

Julian eventually plays his hand sometime prior to Improbable Cause, and Garak is both scared and horny, and mostly confused because my dear doctor, what makes you think I'd know where he went?

Idk how this goes for the rest of the middle, but there's some awkwardness in the dominion camp, even more awkwardness between the two trying to reconcile their feelings and their past, and of course post season Cardassia sees Julian and Kelas reunite.

And then the worst meet the parents dinner you can imagine happens.