#Do No Harm: Jaime & Sebastian

[peachy-panic]

Companion, pt. 1

New Do No Harm content? In the current timeline? In 2024 the year of our lord? Could it be?

Here's part 1 of a couple-part saga in the Sebastian contract, which I lightly foreshadowed here.

WARNINGS: Not much outside the usual BBU tag and the uncomfortable power dynamics that come with it.

The house is warm when Sebastian gets home, in every sense of the word. A candle flickers an inviting glow on the coffee table, and the smell of garlic and onions rushes to greet him. As expected, he finds Jaime posted in the kitchen, tending to his latest creation on the stovetop. On the small bluetooth radio beside the toaster, a song he doesn’t recognize is playing.

It’s taking some time for Sebastian to get used to coming home to someone. For so long, for most of this adult life, it has been dark, empty apartments or cold, distant roommates, never allowed past arm’s length. And now, there’s Jaime, who has entered his life like a bullet and smiles over his shoulder when Sebastian walks into the room. 

He is getting better these days at reading his smiles, and this one, at least, appears to be genuine. Relieved, almost, that he is home. 

“Hi,” Jaime says first.

“Hello,” Sebastian echoes, dropping his coat over the back of a barstool. “What are we making?”

“It’s an Ezra recipe,” Jaime says, wiping his palms on his pants. “Is soup okay tonight? If that’s not substantial enough, I am happy to make something else with it.”

Sebastian does not let his smile drop or fade, no matter how desperately uncertain Jaime sounds. “Soup sounds great, Jaime. It smells amazing.”

It’s the truth, too. It’s a difficult balance, wanting to compliment his prowess in the kitchen and appreciate the genuine joy he seems to derive from it, while also trying not to think of the how and why. Sebastian doesn’t know much about what “training” looks like inside the facility, especially for the specialized domestic tasks that would have been assigned to Jaime, and he doesn’t particularly like speculating on the details. From everything he’s seen in the clinic, he knows that none of it is pleasant.

“How was work?’ Jaime asks, then seems to catch himself. He stiffens, looking sheepishly away. “Sorry. You probably aren’t allowed to talk about that.”

Sebastian snorts. “If only doctor-patient confidentiality applied in a place like that.” The words come out before he can consider the significance they carry to the person he’s speaking to. Guilt spikes sharp in his chest. “Sorry, that wasn’t…”

“It’s okay.” Jaime smiles, but it’s a tense, brittle line. 

“Um.” Sebastian clears his throat, trying to get their conversation back on the rails before he ruins the evening completely. “My day was okay. It was fine.” He shakes his head, pressing his fingers briefly to his eyes. “That was a lie. It was terrible, as usual. I don’t think I need to convince you that having a good day in that building would be a poor reflection of one’s character.” 

So much for salvaging the conversation, Tate. 

“Anyway, how was your day?” 

Jaime pulls the hand towel down from his shoulder and begins wiping at an invisible spot on the counter. “It was fine, thank you.”

Sebastian watches him, trying hard not to scrutinize the pre-packaged reply. His answer is always something of the same tune when Sebastian inquires about his day, never anything less than “fine,” never forthcoming on the details. It’s not the first time it’s sent Sebastian into a bit of a spiral about a concern he’s had from the very beginning: how does Jaime spend his days? Is he happy here? Has Sebastian provided him with enough resources to carve out some semblance of a life here?

He has tried. He has provided him access to the internet and all the movies streaming had to offer, he bought Jaime a reading tablet and granted blanket permission to fill it with as many books as he wants, he has given enthusiastic encouragement for Jaime to go for runs or walks whenever he’d like. It doesn’t feel like enough. He still ends up spending his long days at work wondering if Jaime is at home feeling like a prisoner. 

Sebastian pushes the thought away for now. 

“Is there anything I can help with?” He asks.

“It’s almost done, actually.” Jaime taps the excess liquid from the wood spoon and lays it on a ceramic dish. “Just needs a few more minutes to simmer. Sorry, I hoped it would be ready by the time you got home.”

Sebastian gives him a look. “You don’t have to cook at all,” he says. “Let alone have it hot and waiting at the table. You’re aware of my microwave burrito phase? My standards are low.”

“I remember.” Jaime assures him.  “I don’t mind, though. I like trying new recipes. Ezra lent me a cookbook. I tabbed a few that look interesting. If they look good to you, that is.”

“You have yet to steer me wrong. I’m starting to think it’s impossible for you to cook anything less than a masterpiece.”

The slight stutter in Jaime’s stirring is quick enough that Sebastian can brush it off as his imagination. 

“It passes the time,” Jaime says, a bit quieter. 

“What?”

“Cooking. Planning the meals, ordering the ingredients. Prep and cook time,” he elaborates. “It’s productive, is all I mean.” Jaime has gone tense, the way he does when he seems to say more than he means to, but he recovers quickly. 

The soup is ready shortly after, and dinner is delicious as always, but Sebastian can’t get out of his own head enough to really enjoy it. Jaime’s words—it passes the time—bounce around inside his skull, breaking open all sorts of subtext and confirming all of Sebastian’s fears. 

They’re cleaning up afterward, Sebastian scrubbing the dishes while Jaime dries, when a thought that’s been brewing spills out of his mouth. 

“Have you ever had any pets?” Sebastian asks, apropos of absolutely nothing. Jaime shoots him a quick side glance without pausing in his work. 

“Once,” he says after a beat. 

Sebastian knows it’s tricky ground, getting too close to details from Jaime’s past. He knows the rules he is bound by and how closely Jaime tries to follow them, even if sometimes Sebastian thinks he might be getting more and more comfortable with little rebellions. Sebastian is still riding the high from a couple weeks prior when Jaime had gifted him and Ezra the small nugget of truth that he used to play soccer, in his life before the system. What might have been an insignificant detail to anyone else was such a fragile, entrusted thing.

Sebastian doesn’t want to pry, though. He decides to keep his questions more general. 

“Do you like animals?”

“Yes.” That answer comes much quicker. 

“Would you…” Sebastian pauses, making sure he’s positive about the proposition he is making before he makes it. He is. “Tell me honestly if this isn’t something you’re interested in, and I won’t be offended in the slightest. I was wondering… if that might be something you would be interested in. Having a pet here.”

Jaime takes a minute to answer, like he’s choosing each word carefully. “Would it be solely for my benefit?”

“No,” Sebastian assures him, and it’s not a lie. “It’s something I’ve thought about before, but I don’t have a lot of experience with pets. Zero, to be exact, unless you count a goldfish that lived for under a week when I was seven.” He pauses. “I do worry about you getting lonely, though. Staying here by yourself all the time.”

“I don’t mind being alone.”

“I know. I just wonder if it might be nice to have some company. Something to look after.” Something to bring you comfort. Anything to make you happy here. 

A quiet falls over them, interspersed with the sound of running water and dishes clanking around in the sink, and Sebastian starts to think of how to walk this back. Because clearly this is something that gives Jaime pause. 

“What about…” Jaime starts, then stops. Sebastian puts down the dish he is working on and looks at him. Jaime meets his eyes for a split second and then averts them again. “Would you keep it, even after I’m gone?”

And shit. Maybe it’s a good thing he put the cup down in the sink, because Sebastian is pretty sure it would have shattered in his hand from the force of his grip. And he realizes, not for the first time, that the longevity of this… arrangement is something they need to talk about. In detail. At length. Soon. But now doesn’t seem like the right time. 

“If I brought a living creature into my home,” he starts carefully, “then this would become its home, too. It will be here for the long haul.”

After a long, weighty silence, he sees Jaime nod in his periphery. 

“I think I’d like that.”

****

@whumpervescence @shiningstarofwinter @distinctlywhumpthing @whumptywhumpdump @nicolepascaline @anotherbluntpencil @hold-him-down @crystalquartzwhump @maracujatangerine @batfacedliar-yetagain @thecyrulik @pumpkin-spice-whump @finder-of-rings @melancholy-in-the-morning @insaneinthepaingame @skyhawkwolf @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @mylifeisonthebookshelf @dont-touch-my-soup @whump-world @inpainandsuffering @cicatrix-energy @quietly-by-myself @whumpsday @extemporary-whump @the-whumpers-grimm @thebirdsofgay @firewheeesky @whumperfully @hold-back-on-the-comfort @termsnconditions-apply  @cyborg0109  @whumplr-reader  @pinkraindropsfell  @whatwhumpcomments @honeycollectswhump @pirefyrelight @handsinmotion @alexmundaythrufriday @scoundrelwithboba

[folkloresthings]

✩⡱ who i write for!

formula one: carlos sainz, charles leclerc, lewis hamilton, lando norris, max verstappen, fernando alonso, lance stroll, oscar piastri, daniel ricciardo, mick schumacher, sebastian vettel.

stranger things: steve harrington, eddie munson, nancy wheeler, jim hopper.

game of thrones: jon snow, robb stark, jaime lannister, sansa stark, jorah mormont, tyrion lannister, podrick payne.

house of the dragon: daemon targaryen, aemond targaryen, jacaerys velaryon, lucerys velaryon, alicent hightower, harwin strong.

marauders: james potter, sirius black, remus lupin, lily evans, regulus black.

the last kingdom: uhtred ragnarson, sihtric kjartanson, osferth, finan.

other: nate archibald, dan humphrey, logan huntzberger, dead poets.

(italics indicate current favs. these will change over time.)

✩⡱ rules + guidelines.

i will write: fluff, angst, smut (18+!) and suggestive content, polyamorous relationships.

i will not write: severe gore or harm, non—canonical sexualities, incest, hard kinks, abuse or rape, gang or mafia au, any use of excessive alcohol or drugs, extreme mental health issues (eg. eating disorders, depression…)

p.s.

i write fics (any length), blurbs and drabbles, headcanons. in the future, i may start writing ships. i’ll do pretty much any form of writing if i’m feeling it.

i always try my best to make all of my readers gender neutral, however writing may lean towards a female narrative. if you would like your request completely gender neutral, just let me know!

you can request these for any character from the list above! if a character you want is not listed, still ask! i’ll always try my best.

[whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump]

Do No Harm Fanfic: Happy Birthday Jaime

happy one year to do no harm!!!! this story is so so special to me, and the friendships i’ve made through it even more so. seriously if you have not read @peachy-panic ‘s stuff by now i cannot recommend it enough

This is set in the same universe as my Tiger fic but it’s not necessary to read that first

no CWs :) this is all happy

————

At first, Jaime isn’t sure what woke him up. He’s an early riser, and it’s a Saturday, so Sebastian should still be asleep. He tenses for a moment, then relaxes as he recognizes the sound as keys jingling in the door. Sebastian must have run out for some early morning errand.

He’s just closing his eyes again, and settling back into the air mattress, when he hears a muffled thump from outside the door, and then Sebastian’s anguished “NO!”

Jaime shoots up in bed, blinking away the remaining sleep from his eyes. He hops out of bed immediately, the panic in Sebastian’s voice infecting him like a virus.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting when he opens the door, but it is definitely not Sebastian crouched on the floor outside their apartment, fretting over an upside down bakery box. Before Jaime can even take in the sight, Sebastian’s head snaps to him, a horrified expression crossing his face.

“Oh, fuck, god damnit, it was supposed to be a surprise!” he moans, one hand raising to dig into his curls, as the other hovers uselessly over the flipped box.

Jaime cocks his head, the information in front of him slowly filtering into his sleep-addled mind. The box is the perfect size for a cake. And hanging off Sebastian’s arm is a plastic bag that Jaime can see contains balloons, and streamers, and a candle in the shape of 21.

And today is Jaime’s 21rst birthday.

He hadn’t mentioned it, hadn’t expected anything. Everyday with Sebastian already feels like a gift.

But Sebastian did all this anyway. For Jaime.

All of a sudden, his throat feels tight, and his heart too big for his chest. He swallows, looking down at Sebastian, who is still looking despairingly at the mess at his feet.

Jaime crouches down across from him, and carefully raises his hands to Sebastian’s cheeks. Sebastian looks up at him immediately, some of the panic going out of his eyes as he leans into Jaime’s touch.

“Thank you,” Jaime says. It doesn’t feel like enough, but as Sebastian’s eyes search his own, eventually softening, and Jaime feels some of the tension leave his neck, Jaime knows he’s communicated what he needs to.

That’s how it’s always been, with him and Sebastian, after all. They have never relied on words alone.

Jaime lets go of Sebastian’s face, looking down at the upside down cake.

“I’ve definitely eaten worse,” he remarks dryly, meeting Sebastian’s eyes with a small smile.

The corner of Sebastian’s mouth pulls up. “Yeah? You think it’s still salvageable?” His voice is light, but he can’t quite hide the edge of anxiety.

It still surprises Jaime. Just how much Sebastian cares. About him.

Jaime pretends to consider his question, bringing a finger to his chin and raising his eyes to the ceiling.

“If my calculations are correct, we might just be able to pull this off,” he says, tone infused with mock severity.

Sebastian straightens his shoulders. “I’ll follow your lead,” he says, and Jaime can’t help the way the words nestle into his heart.

Jaime positions his hands on his side of the box, then gestures for Sebastian to do the same.

“It is imperative that we time this right. If we lose the lid, this whole operation goes down the drain.”

Sebastian nods, trying for a serious expression on his face even as his eyes dance with delight.

“3, 2, 1, lift off!” On Jaime’s count, they both stand, the box held carefully between them, the lid pressed closed by both of their fingers.

“Kitchen table?” Sebastian suggests, and Jaime nods.

Even walking backwards, Jaime knows their home like the back of his hand, effortlessly maneuvering the two of them past his bed and into the kitchen,

“Ok, we flip on 3. 1, 2, 3!” They move as one, expertly turning the box and lowering it to the table, without a single sprinkle lost.

Jaime whoops, his hands flying up over his head in celebration, as if he’s scored a winning goal and not simply dropped a cake onto a table.

From the way his heart is pounding, it’s hard to tell the difference.

With the box right side up, he can make out the ornate lettering on top, spelling out the name of a bakery from down the street. They walk by it on their way to the grocery store, and Jaime hasn’t been able to resist from lingering every so often, admiring the elaborate cakes in the window.

He didn’t even realize Sebastian had noticed.

He looks up from the box, into Sebastians’s waiting gaze.

“I’ve uh, been meaning to get us something from there to try. Figured there couldn’t be a better occasion then today, right?” he says, nervous in the way he gets sometimes, around Jaime.

Jaime opens his mouth to reply, before something bright in the living room catches his eye.

He turns.

And then he sees the flowers.

They’re on the living room table, a delicate bouquet arranged in a simple vase. Bright yellow daffodils peek out from among sunny daisies. Sprigs of baby’s breath intermingle with sunflowers and tulips. It’s the brightest thing in the room by far, a garish explosion of sunshine sat on top of pale varnished wood.

Sebastian follows his gaze, and he rubs at the back of his neck.

“I, uh, I just told them I wanted yellow,” he says hesitantly.

Yellow. Jaime’s favorite color.

Jaime swallows down the lump in his throat.

“When did you even get these?” he asks, voice wavering, as if the fantasy will shatter if he speaks too loud.

“Yesterday,” Sebastian says, a sheepish grin on his face. “I kept them in my room and put them out this morning. Wanted you to wake up to them.” He shrugs, as if it’s no big deal.

Jaime’s heart thuds in his chest.

And then he’s moving, skirting around the kitchen table and up to Sebastian, registering his shocked expression right before Jaime wraps his arms around him, and pulls him in tight.

Sebastian’s chest is pressed right up against his, and Jaime feels his surprised exhalation at the same time he hears it. He feels the other man’s arms slowly lift and wrap around Jaime, not constricting or stifling, but the protective embrace of someone he knows will keep him safe.

He would be happy to stay like this forever, he thinks, his head tucked against Sebastian’s neck.

He probably would have, if it weren’t for the growling of Sebastian’s stomach.

Still wrapped in his arms, Jaime feels him jump, hears him stammer out an apology even as Jaime pulls away with a laugh.

“Sorry, sorry, I-I didn’t have breakfast,” Sebastian explains, his cheeks already burning red.

Jaime waves off his apology, still laughing. When he gets a hold of himself, he pins Sebastian with a serious look.

“In your expert opinion, how detrimental to our health would it be to have cake for breakfast?”

Sebastian smiles a little, the pink in his cheeks going down a little.

“On any other day I might have to recommend against it. However, I believe the first thing we learn in med school is that sugar doesn’t count on birthdays. So…” he trails off, looking at Jaime with a mischievous smile.  

Jaime grins back. “Shall we?”

Sebastian nods, and Jaime flips open the lid. To their relief, the actual cake is still in one piece, though whatever decorative shapes had been carefully frosted on top are smushed beyond recognition.

“There were uh, these really pretty swirls and flowers,” Sebastian says, a hint of sadness in his voice that Jaime immediately wants to make disappear.

So he swipes his finger through the crime scene imprinted on the lid, bringing it to his lips. The rich chocolate buttercream melts on his tongue, light and fluffy and delicious.

“It tastes just as good,” he says, smiling brightly at Sebastian. To his delight, Sebastian smiles back.

“I’ll get us plates,” he says, and by the time he comes back, the lid is wiped clean, and there is chocolate smeared on Jaime’s teeth.

Sebastian pretends not to notice, but Jaime sees him smiling to himself as he cuts them both generous slices.

Jaime eats his piece slowly, savoring every mouthful, still unused to the luxuries that are now given freely to him. It almost feels wrong, to feel so much enjoyment without suffering for it first. To not have to fight for the chance to survive into the next day.

To have a life worth fighting for.  

He looks up at Sebastian, whose eyes have taken on a ravenous delight as he devours his breakfast. Jaime smiles.

It is not just his life that he would fight tooth and nail for.

*

When their plates are scraped clean, Sebastian speaks up.

“When would you prefer to get your present?”

Jaime looks up at him, bewildered.

“This wasn’t the…you got me something else?”

Sebastian tilts his head. “Yeah!” he says, like it’s obvious.

“Oh, uh, ok, um, now is fine?” Jaime asks hesitantly.

Sebastian smiles. “I’ll go get it!” he says, hopping up and heading to his room.

When he returns, he buses Jaime’s plate, and deposits a carefully wrapped package in front of him.

“Happy birthday, Jaime,” he says softly, as he sits back down across from him.

Jaime stares down at the gift in front of him. He can’t remember the last time he received one, let alone one wrapped in real wrapping paper. The one Sebastian has chosen is even birthday themed, covered in zoo animals wearing birthday hats and sporting balloons. Somehow, it makes him want to smile and burst into tears at the same time.

He realizes he’s staring, blinks out of his trance and brings his hands up to the gift. He flips it over tenderly, slowly peeling away the sticky tape connecting the wrapping paper, careful not to tear it. Eventually, he can unfold the paper and see what lies beneath.

It’s a garment of some kind, folded neatly and clearly brand new. Jaime draws trembling fingers across the mustard yellow fabric, feeling the thick waterproof material.

It’s a rain jacket.

In the coming months, he knows, it will start to pour down rain.

Jaime hadn’t thought that far ahead. He still isn’t used to thinking more than one day ahead at a time.

But Sebastian did.

Before he can stop them, there are tears rolling down Jaime’s cheeks.

“Oh!” Sebastian’s voice is tight with panic. “Oh God, I’m sorry, I can return it! I can—”

Jaime laughs despite himself, the sound coming out a mix between a giggle and a hiccuping sob.

“No,” he chokes out. “No, no, I love it. I love it, thank you Sebastian.”

“You do?” Sebastian starts to ask, relief dripping from his voice, only to end his question with a surprised “oomph” as Jaime throws himself at him.

He catches him, their limbs tangling awkwardly until finally Jaime is somewhat settled with his butt on Sebastian’s thigh and his arms around Sebastian’s neck.

“I love it,” Jaime says again, from where his head is tucked against Sebastian’s chest, the sound of his racing heartbeat pressing against his ear. “I, I love…it,” he repeats, swallowing down a confession for another day.

“I’m…I’m glad,” Sebastian says, one hand coming up to hesitantly press between Jaime’s shoulder blades.

Jaime hums happily, then tenses when Sebastian suddenly gasps. He is just straightening up to ask what’s wrong when Sebastian exclaims.

“The candles! I forgot to do the candles before we cut the cake, oh shit—”

Jaime does not hear the rest. It is covered up by his own raucous laughter, and the steady heartbeat of Sebastian Tate.

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 22 July 2019

Quick Bits:

A Walk Through Hell #12 concludes what has been an excellent horror tale from Garth Ennis, Goran Sudžuka, Ive Svorcina, and Rob Steen with another trip into existential terror as we’re given a glimpse of what this is all about and what’s coming.

| Published by AfterShock

Action Comics #1013 keeps a lot of plates spinning as it works through elements of “Year of the Villain”, Event Leviathan, the ongoing Invisible Mafia story thread, and the Rose and Thorn revival. It’s kind of impressive as to how it remains entertaining and engrossing with as much going on.

| Published by DC Comics

Age of Conan: Bêlit #5 is another ending this week, as we finish off Bêlit’s coming of age origin story, as she confronts the Stygian priest and lays claim to her title of Queen of the Black Coast. Great art from Kate Niemczyk, Scott Hanna, Andrea Di Vito, and Jason Keith.

| Published by Marvel

Amazing Spider-Man #26 introduces us to the new Sinister Syndicate fully as they plan an attack on Boomerang. It’s kind of funny to see him still getting into trouble even now that he’s trying to stay legit. Great art from Kev Walker and Laura Martin.

| Published by Marvel

Ascender #4 gives us a few surprises in the fight between the vampires and the resistance. The grey washes, with mixes of red, from Dustin Nguyen on the vampire’s throneworld is very impressive.

| Published by Image

Batgirl #37 launches the new creative team of Cecil Castellucci, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Jordie Bellaire, and AndWorld Design with part one of “Oracle Rising”. There’s a nice battle with Killer Moth, emphasizing what some villains are doing in order to try to get noticed by Luthor to receive the offer, while playing up the expense that goes into crimefighting. Also, the Terrible Trio unleash something probably not too good.

| Published by DC Comics

Dark Red #5 concludes the first arc as Chip and Evie try to fight off an army of Nazi vampires. It’s good, with some nice funny moments. Great art from Corin Howell and Mark Englert.

| Published by AfterShock

Detective Comics #1008 is a straight-forward single issue story of Batman and Joker at the circus from Peter J. Tomasi, Doug Mahnke, Jaime Mendoza, Dave Baron, and Rob Leigh. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the extended arcs, even as it sets up a new threat in the “Year of the Villain” offering.

| Published by DC Comics

Dial H for Hero #5 gets a little meta as we dive into the Multiverse, the Heroverse, and the Bleed from Sam Humphries, Joe Quinones, Scott Hanna, Jordan Gibson, and Dave Sharpe. The use of breaking through panels, reproductions of old comics scenes, and a variation of styles just deliver phenomenal storytelling.

| Published by DC Comics / Wonder Comics

Dungeons & Dragons: A Darkened Wish #2 continues to fill in the backstory of the adventurers’ time with the White Sails, introducing us to the pitfalls that harried them, before giving more hints in the present of the nightmare that tore them apart. B. Dave Walters, Tess Fowler, Jay Fotos, and Neil Uyetake are delivering an entertaining fantasy tale here.

| Published by IDW

Fearless #1 is a new three-issue anthology mini-series spotlighting a number of the women of Marvel, both characters and creative talent. This first issue leads off with a continuing lead feature from Seanan McGuire, Claire Roe, Rachelle Rosenberg, and Janice Chiang, as Sue Richards, Carol Danvers, and Storm prepare to visit a girls camp as motivational speakers. There’s also an entertaining Mille the Model back-up from Leah Williams, Nina Vakueva, Rosenberg, and Chiang. And a very funny Jessica Jones story from the Captain Marvel team of Kelly Thompson, Carmen Carnero, Tamra Bonvillain, with Chiang. Though short, that last story is pretty much worth the price of the issue alone.

| Published by Marvel

Five Years #3 sees Tambi meet with Ivy and Julie to discuss that various nations around the world are dangerously developing Phi-alloy technology. Also a surprise appearance of people we thought were out. Great art as always from Terry Moore.

| Published by Abstract Studio

The Flash #75 delivers three stories for this extra-sized anniversary issue. The lead concludes the “Year One” arc. This is some of the best art that I have ever seen from Howard Porter, he and Hi-Fi just deliver amazing artwork here. There are also two back-ups, one hinting at things to come in the future for Barry and the other tying in to “Year of the Villain” as Captain Cold receives Luthor’s offer.

| Published by DC Comics

Guardians of the Galaxy #7 begins the second arc, “Faithless”, from Donny Cates, Cory Smith, David Curiel, and Cory Petit. It really introduces us to the new Universal Church of Truth as they take out an entire squadron of the Nova Corps and then worse things happen as the Guardians go off to investigate. I love the name for the Guardians’ new ship and that final page is one hell of a shock.

| Published by Marvel

History of the Marvel Universe #1 is an interesting project from Mark Waid, Javier Rodríguez, Álvaro López, and Joe Caramagna. It’s framed as Galactus telling Franklin Richards (at least I think that’s Franklin Richards) the history of the universe before it dies and the next is reborn. As expected, it’s dry facts, but it’s fascinating in how it’s comprehensively presented and the artwork from Rodríguez and López is jaw-dropping gorgeous. There are also annotations in the back to show where these events come from. It’s well put together and I highly recommended it to die-hard Marvel fans.

| Published by Marvel

Invisible Kingdom #5 concludes the first arc with an almost entirely one-sided battle between the Sun Dog and a Lux battleship. G. Willow Wilson, Christian Ward, and Sal Cipriano elevate the tension nicely through this issue and give a few surprises when everything seems grim and it looks like the end.

| Published by Dark Horse / Berger Books

Killer Groove #3 wonderfully showcases one of Jackie’s cases as it intertwines with the music scene and criminal underworld. Ollie Masters, Eoin Marron, Jordie Bellaire, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou are doing a nice job with this series of crafting one larger story out of many separate smaller tales.

| Published by AfterShock

Lazarus: Risen #2 is another dense read. The series has always been hefty, but this new format has elevated things further, doubling up comics content and adding a prose short story, the letters pages, and extra content like gaming material and the usual in-world advertisements. I’m loving it. Greg Rucka, Michael Lark, Tyler Boss, Santi Arcas, Simon Bowland, Adam Christopher, and Crystal Frasier are definitely giving you your money’s worth and more here. Excellent comics content as the war between Carlyle and Morray/D’Souza heats up.

| Published by Image

Livewire #8 pits Amanda versus Jada for a final round. It’s still interesting how practically everyone is trying to portray Amanda’s actions as harmful and villainous. Great art from Kano.

| Published by Valiant

Martian Manhunter #7 sees J’onn and Diane uncover some of the results of the experiments that have been going on with the kidnapped and missing people, it’s horrifying. Incredible and haunting artwork in this one from Riley Rossmo and Ivan Plascencia. 

| Published by DC Comics

Marvels: Epilogue is a short, but sweet, coda to the Marvels series from Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross, John Roshell, and Richard Starkings. It spotlights events from X-Men #98 through the eyes of Phil Sheldon and his daughters, capturing some of the awe, wonder, and terror that Sheldon experienced during the main series. The book is filled out with an interview with Busiek and Ross on their experience with the series and what it’s like to look back on it 25 years later, as well as interviews with the editors who worked on the book.

| Published by Marvel

Middlewest #9 sets out a new quest for Abel as he comes across the Nowak people. Skottie Young, Jorge Corona, Jean-Francois Beaulieu, and Nate Piekos are continuing to make magic with this series. The art is beautiful and the story is endlessly captivating.

| Published by Image

Psi-Lords #2 continues to investigate these four captives, changed for whatever reason by the Psi-Lords, and the habitat of their prison. An interesting jail hierarchy of gangs is revealed and a bit of a memory of the four’s lives before being captured. Gorgeous art from Renato Guedes.

| Published by Valiant

Star Pig #1 is weird. Very weird. Delilah S. Dawson, Francesco Gaston, Sebastian Cheng, and Shawn Lee give us the story of a kid on her way to space camp whose ship is struck and destroyed by an asteroid, saved by a space pig and a scavenger energy ball. It’s probably one of the more unique tales I’ve seen in a while.

| Published by IDW

Sword Master #1, like Aero before it, features two stories. In the first, Greg Pak adapts into English a tale from Shuizhu and Gunji of the titular hero, Lin Lie, and his quest to find his missing father. It’s an interesting start and the artwork from Gunji is gorgeous. The back up original story pairs Shang-Chi up with Lin in a story from Greg Pak, Ario Anindito, Rachelle Rosenberg, and Travis Lanham. It follows up on their appearance in the New Agents of Atlas tie-in to “War of the Realms” and presents an interesting antagonist on their trail.

| Published by Marvel

Valkyrie #1 is a wonderful debut from Jason Aaron, Al Ewing, CAFU, Jesus Aburtov, and Joe Sabino. We get some continued supporting cast from Jane Foster’s time as Thor, although with a new status quo, and an interesting hook in trying to track down Dragonfang, the former Valkyrie’s sword. The art from CAFU and Aburtov is beautiful.

| Published by Marvel

Warlord of Mars Attacks #2 continues this crossover of John Carter and Mars Attacks. It’s interesting how it incorporates Edgar Rice Burroughs’ stories as actual things in this world and explains how Mars as a dead planet and one as teeming with life as Barsoom could exist simultaneously.

| Published by Dynamite

The Weatherman Vol. 2 #2 gives us more of a look at the nightmare that has consumed Earth as the crew attempt to find the doctor who might be able to fix everything. It goes about as well as could be expected. The monster designs and execution from Nathan Fox and Moreno Dinisio are incredible.

| Published by Image

Web of Venom: Funeral Pyre #1 is another one-shot catching up on the wider world of Venom as we barrel headlong into Absolute Carnage. Cullen Bunn, Joshua Cassara, Alberto Alburquerque, Jay David Ramos, and Clayton Cowles give us a great story checking in with Andi Benton, the former Mania and occasional sidekick to Flash Thompson’s Venom.

| Published by Marvel

Wonder Woman #75 continues “Return of the Amazons” from G. Willow Wilson, Xermanico, Jesus Merino, Vicente Cifuentes, Romulo Fajardo Jr., and Pat Brosseau. This arc basically brings Wilson’s run around full circle to deal with some of the elements that kicked off her first issue as Diana faces off against Grail. Some really nice double page spreads with border art from Xermanico.

| Published by DC Comics

Other Highlights: Archie #706, Archie vs. Predator 2 #1, Bone Parish #11, Books of Magic #10, Clue: Candlestick #3, Curse Words #23, Doctor Strange #16, Farmhand #10, Freedom Fighters #7, Grumble #8, House of X #1, Justice League Dark #13, Lumberjanes #64, Magic: The Gathering - Chandra #3, Magnificent Ms. Marvel #5, Marvel Action: Avengers #6, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #41, Night Moves #5, Redneck #22, Secret Warps: Arachknight Annual #1, Shuri #10, Star Trek: The Q Conflict #6, Star Wars #69, TMNT: The Rise of the TMNT - Sound Off #1, Tony Stark: Iron Man #14, The Wicked + The Divine #44

Recommended Collections: Black Panther - Book 7: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda Part 2, Go-Bots - Volume 1, Harrow County: Library Edition - Volume 3, House of Whispers - Volume 1: The Power Divided, James Bond: Origin - Volume 1, Lodger - Volume 1, Lumberjanes - Volume 12, Savage Sword of Conan - Volume 1: The Cult of Koga Thun, Self/Made, Star Wars Adventures - Volume 6: The Flight of the Falcon, Thor of Realms, William Gibson’s Alien 3

d. emerson eddy might well be a space lord.

[forme-iwrite]

Elia Martell: Ladies in waiting

part 2/2: North

I believe Elia was trying to have at least one companion from each of the regions in Westeros. I also believe that the ladies had to be connected to important and powerful houses if they were planning to take the throne from Aerys. We know two of Queen Rhaella ladies, Joanna Lannister and the Princess Of Dorne, who are both in a sense rulers of their regions. From the ladies Margaery has and the two Rhaella is known to have we can assume that the companions can vary in ages and don’t have to be the same age as Elia. If Elia had lived longer she would have added more prominent ladies or switched some. She might have asked Catelyn Tully who was betrothed to the heir of the North and who was the Lady of Riverrun until she married Ned, so she had a lot of power over the Riverlands because her father Hoster was the Warden of the land. She might have also considered Lysa Tully and Lyanna Stark. Lyanna might have been considered because of her betrothal to Robert Baratheon the lord paramount of the Stormlands and being the daughter of Lord Stark the ruler in the North, though after what happened in Harrenhal I doubt Elia would ask her. She might have also asked Cersei after a while though I doubt her or Tywin would accept, them being too proud and Jamie being a kingsguard. This is just my personal list of ladies for Elia. Which I wanted to give names and backgrounds to. 

Jeyne Darry

Riverlands: The Darry

She is from a prominent house in the riverlands. They were said to be a powerful house before Robert's rebellion. It is also stated they were very loyal to the Targaryens, even now they still have portraits of the Targaryens hanging in their castle. Willem and Jonothor Darry were in service at the Red keep, one being a kingsguard the other master-at-arms, both had a good relationship with Rhaegar. Her sister Mariya is married to Merrett Frey, the ninth son of Lord Walder Frey. She was also either soon betrothed (more likely) or married to Cleos Frey when Elia asked her to be one of her ladies. This is important because it ties her to the Freys and the Lannisters (Cleos being Genna’s son) giving Elia access to two strong houses.

I believe she was born in or around 268A.C. due to Cleos age and her kids age.

Personal headcanon: She came to the Red keep when she was eight because her mother passed away and she was left in the care of her uncle Willem. Mariya being older was already married and did not want to be left in charge, besides I doubt Walder Frey would allow it, he was trying to get rid of kids not bring more in. She was ten/eleven when Elia met her and asked her to be one of her ladies. She liked using a spear and dagger, and she was well skilled, due to the fact that both of her uncles were incredible fighters (How else are they a kingsguard and master-at-arms). Elia grows to think of her as a little sister, something that started because of Jeynes preference in the dornish weapons. Elia had a hand in Cleos being the Frey she is betrothed to, though she makes it seem like it was Mariya's idea.

Leyla Hightower

The Reach: Oldtown

She is from the oldest house in the Reach. The Hightowers are a prominent and powerful house. Her sister Alerie is married to the heir of Highgarden Mace Tyrell. We know Rhaegar and Aerys were at odds and Rhaegar was planning some way to take the crown. She would be useful in sending letters between Rhaegar/Elia and those houses without causing suspicion. The Reach was loyal to the Targaryens during the rebellion. Leyla could be one of the reasons the stayed loyal until the “bitter end” according to Kevan Lannister. Elia met Leyla when she was on her betrothal trip in 273A.C. Oldtown is a major port and has the citadel something that would interest both Elia and Rhaegar. Her great uncle was Gerold Hightower the lord commander of the Kingsguard.

I place her birth in or around 267A.C because she is Lord Leytons sixth child and I personally place Baelor around 256A.C. Also Leyton has had four wives.

Personal headcanon: Leyla is a bookworm like her father and it is something both her and Elia share. She is the only child born from her mother, Leytons second wife. Her mother is not from the seven kingdoms but was born somewhere in Essos. Elia was originally going to ask Alerie to be one of her ladies because of her stronger influence on the Reach but Willas and Garlan were both still too young to be without a mother by their side according to Elia (Elias own mother having been a lady to Rhaella and not spending a lot of time with her children). Elia becomes very fond of Leyla. Ashara Dayne and Leyla do not get along due to their house history.

Shyra Errol

Stormlands: Haystack Hall

Comes from a prominent house in the stormlands. As far as we know she inherited Haystack Hall so either her brothers died or she didn't have any, so she was an heir or lady to an important house (she also kept her name over her husbands). She is one of the few ladies we know in the stormlands with a name and she was alive during Robert's rebellion. After Robert dies she does not choose to remain loyal to his son the new king (nobody knows that he's Jaimes yet) but declares for Renly. Her loyalty does not lay with the Lannisters or Robert and maybe it's because she was one of Elias ladies. Renly was too young to blame for what Robert did during the sack in king's landing.

I do not have a year of birth for her but I believe she was significantly older than Elia. She has a son who is a knight, so he was at least fifteen, and she implied to have passed away during the parley at the walls of Storm’s End in “A Clash of Kings”. I personally believe it might be due to old age. Maybe around 238 A.C.

Personal headcanon: Shyra is a great at needle work and loves making dresses. Her and Elia are not extremely close due to their age gap but she does give her great advice when she thinks she needs it. When Rhaenys is born Shyra makes her a beautiful blanket that has a dragon circling a large sun. She is also really glad that Nymella Toland brought her daughters to court because now her son Sebastian will have playmates. She also makes a blanket for Aegon and gets really mad at Rhaegar when he leaves so soon after Aegon's birth.

Darlessa Marbrand

Westerlands: Ashemark/Casterly Rock

House Marbrand is one of the main noble houses in the West. She is married to Tygett Lannister brother to the Warden of the West. She is also related to the Lannisters because their mother was a Marbrand. Elia probably knew about Tywin’s plan to marry Cersei to the Targaryens and wanted to have leverage against him incase he decided to do something extreme. According to Genna, Tygett had a rivalry with Tywin and probably encouraged his wife to accept Elias offer, seeing it as an upper hand with the royal family that Tywin seemed to be losing. It might also explain why Tywin did not immediately side with the rebels. Though I know he was probably also waiting to see who had a better chance of winning the war. It would also explain why he came into kings landing under a peace banner, so they could safely get to Darlessa and any other highborns without Aerys harming them.

She was probably born at latest in 273 A.C because her son Tyrek was born in 286 A.C and she would at least need to be 13. I personally believe she was born around 251 A.C. I do not like the idea of her having a kid that young and 251 makes her around the same age as her husband who was born in 250 A.C.

Personal headcanon: She is very proud as most of the ladies of the West seem to be but she also has a humorous side. While Tywin is still hand and has Cersei in the Red Keep she divides her time between Elia and her. She loves her husband dearly because he is more kind hearted then his older brothers and doesn’t mind showing affection. She likes watching Tygett practice in the training yard and Elia and the rest of the ladies usually join her and place bets and gossip. She is only five years older than Elia and they don't have the greatest relationship at first, Elia thinks Darlessa has a stick up her butt, but once they move their court to Dragonstone Darlessa becomes more carefree. She refuses to talk to her husband after the sack of king's landing when she finds out what happens to Elia and the children, and it takes even longer before she can even look at Tywin.

Rhonda Rowan

The Reach: Goldengrove

The Rowans are one of the oldest and most prominent houses in the reach. They control the Reach’s north border so they are also very powerful and could have chosen to remain neutral like Tywin. They also chose to go against Joffrey. Though it is stated that the current lord of Goldengrove is very loyal to his liege lord. I believe that Shyra is his sister because the daughter he is said to have seems to young to have been alive during Robert's rebellion or way to young to be one of Elia’s ladies. Again like Shyra she is one of the few ladies in the Reach who is given a name and is alive during that time. Also I am just trying to find possible ladies for Elia, I know some might be a stretch.

I place her birth in 257A.C because she is married to Baelor hightower who I place around 256A.C. This also makes her the same age as Elia.

Personal headcanon: Rhonda likes to garden and had a little one at Goldengrove. When they move to Dragonstone she helps Elia fix Aegon’s garden since the castellan had neglected it. She is also loves books and gets along with Leyla. Elia helps set up her betrothal to Baelor, who she still writes letters to.

The following ladies are not characters that are stated in asoiaf but their is a possibility that they might have existed. The Lords Velaryon and Gafton are stated and might have had daughters or sisters or wives. These characters also give reason as to why one of their relatives might have been a lady to Elia.

“Elaena” Velaryon

Dragonstone: Driftmark

We know that the Lord of Driftmark during Aery’s reign was Lucerys Velaryon. Lucerys was master of ships and was probably in Aery’s court in king’s landing. Since not much is stated about Lucerys and his family or what happened to them after Robert’s Rebellion I gave him a daughter. It is stated that Lucerys was a big supporter of Aerys over Rhaegar. Elia could have asked “Elaena” to be one of her ladies to keep him from doing anything too drastic towards Rhaegar's position as heir. Also Driftmark and house Velaryon are prominent and wealthy. They are also the closest house to Dragonstone and they also come from valyrian descent.

“Elaena” Velaryon is a character of my making so I can make her any age I choose. I choose to place her birth around 269A.C, because she would still be too young to be betrothed or married and it's the age the westerosi start fostering their kids, making it harder for Lucerys to say no to Elia’s invitation. Also what offer is better than being in the company of the future queen.

Personal headcanon: “Elaena�� is very close to both Jeyne and Leyla due to them all being around the same age. Being born on an island she is a very good swimmer and loves going to the beach in Dragonstone and collecting shells. When Elia falls pregnant she goes and looks for rare shells and brings them to her as a gift. She claims to have seen a seahorse which neither Jeyne nor Leyla believe. Out of all the northern ladies she is the most excited when Elia takes them to Dorne. She whispers to Elia that she loves her and is glad she choose her as a lady in waiting when Elia gives in and takes her to the pools in the Water Gardens though she is a year or two older than the kids playing in the pools. ( Areo Hotah says the smallest child is 5 and the oldest 10 in one of his chapters). She stays in Dragonstone when Elia is called back to King’s landing and is there for the birth of Daenerys. It is said the Targaryen fleet was in Dragonstone during Danys birth, so Lucerys being master of ships was probably there with his daughter.

“Alys” Grafton

Vale of Arryn: Gulltown

House Gafton is a noble house in the Vale. They rule a main port and big city so they are probably also wealthy. Marq Grafton was Lord of Gulltown during the time of Aerys II. When Jon Arryn called his banners Marq remained loyal to Aerys. This might be because he believed in Rhaegar/Aerys or because he had a wife in service to Elia. He tried to stop Jon from leaving the Vale but was killed by Robert Baratheon. He is the only lord in the Vale who we know of that remained loyal to Aerys. “Alys” would be an option because I believe Elia was trying to have someone from all the regions in Westeros and “Alys” is someone who would have been alive during Robert's Rebellion and belonged to a powerful house in the Vale.

I do not a specific age for her though I imagine she was slightly older than Elia but still considered young because I think Marq was young and impulsive and that is why he decided it would be a good idea to try to stop Jon Arryn without much help. Maybe 252A.C making her only five years older than Elia and around 31 during the rebellion.

Personal headcanon: “Alys” is one of the few ladies who actually prefers King’s landing over Dragonstone because she is used to living in a city. She loves to gossip which gets her in trouble a lot. She prefers cold weather and hates the heat in Dorne. She likes going to the Ships and hearing the stories the sailors tell, and likes retelling them to Rhaenys and the rest of the children at court.

“Melisa” Whent

Riverlands: Harrenhal

We know that during the tourney at Harrenhal Lord Walter Whent and Lady Shaella had a daughter who was considered a fair maid. It is speculated that Rhaegar provided the money for the tourney so it can be assumed that Walter knew about Rhaegar's plan to remove Aerys from the throne and supported Rhaegar. House Whent was a Targaryen ally. Oswell Whent was a Kingsguard to Aerys. “Melisa” was probably made one of Elia’s ladies as a thank you for their support. They could clearly be trusted by Rhaegar/Elia in such a big plan.

“Melisa” is considered a fair maid so she is at least thirteen at the time of the tourney.  I am going to make her fifteen so it would place her birth around 266 A.C

Personal headcanon: “Melisa” wasn't made one of Elia’s companions until after the tourney. She has red hair as most Whents are known to have. She and Elia share the same sense of humor and when “Melisa” finds something hilarious her face turns as red as her hair. She is surprised to find how small all the castles are compared to Harrenhal. It takes her a while to bond with the other ladies because most of them have been with Elia since she came to King’s Landing. She develops a crush on one of the dornish knights in Elia’s service, Myria Jordayne finds it amusing and teases “Melisa” about it.

[sultryfandoms]

Prologue: "Be Strong"

||Sofia||

"I've brought you some wildflowers and some northern pudding today my love" I smiled softly as I sat down next to my husband's grave, placing the wildflowers on top of it

"It has been a year since you've been taken from me Jaime" I began, caressing the flowers he would give to me every time he'd go to Winterfell and came back to our previous home, Casterly Rock

"Many things had changed... Sansa being Queen of the North... Jon- Aegon being King of The Six Kingdoms... Bran being Hand of The Queen... The Dragon Queen killed by Wildlings... Cersei escaping Aegon and his men for her crimes against the crown... Arya travelling to the west of Westeros... Myself being Sansa's chosen heir to Winterfell even though I am very much older than her" I laughed and shook my head

"I'm still not used to not having you by my side" I took a shaky breath, tearing up "People always tell me to move on from you, remarry and find a suitable lord my age and bear another child" I caressed my stomach, looking up at the sky

"But I can never replace you and our daughter" I sobbed, hugging my knees together "I fake a smile every time they ask me if I'm alright.... Even though deep down I am still hurting because of your death" I sniffled, wiping my tears

"Sebastian was arrested by the Kingsguard and was sentenced to death by Aegon... I-I should be happy to have found justice.... B-but why do I still feel empty and sad inside?" I asked no one as tears kept falling down my face and I curled up and hugged my knees once more

|*|

"I thought we'd find you here" my sister's voice was heard as I look up to see her and my direwolf, Duchess. She smiled at me as Duchess laid near Jaime's grave with a sad whine, I stroked her fur softly

"It's been a year since his death and I still miss him" I sighed and wiped my tears with my dress sleeve

"Jaime was a good man Sofia" she says with a small smile "But you have to move on, he would've wanted you to" she said in all seriousness

"Let me grieve Sansa!" I stood up angrily, my eyes welling up with tears once again "You won't understand because you actually wanted Ramsay dead and you never really loved him!" I spat, mentioning my sister's fallen husband

"You're right... I will never understand your pain..." she trailed "But if Jaime was still alive he would've been unhappy on how you treat yourself!" she exclaims "You barely sleep, you barely eat and the only time you leave the castle is when you visit Jaime's grave" she sighs "Bran told me to let you grieve but I can't help but worry about you" she caressed my cheeks and wiped my tears "I don't want to lose you too" she tears up

My face softens as I pulled her into a tight hug "I'm sorry for worrying you" I kissed her forehead "I just..." she cuts me off

"No... I'm sorry that I'm forcing you to move on so quick... But if anything happens to me, you'll be queen of the north and you have to be strong for our people" she says, smiling softly

"I will be... And I will never let anything or anyone harm you Sansa, I would protect you with my life... I swear it to the old gods and new" I caressed her cheeks as Duchess nuzzles her nose on my leg

The pack stays strong

A/N: Hello my lovelies and welcome to the prologue! This is just a bit of a backstory on Sofia's side of the world. I altered the ending of the final season. (well altered the one sitting on the iron throne) 😌

The main character here is the same main character of my Jaime Lannister Story on Wattpad, The Lion and His Wolf buuut this is a mere alternate universe for that book since its not done yet because I revised it 🙈😅

First official chapter will be published here soon! 😽

-Sofia 💜

PS: The gif I placed was a little modern buuuutttt it kinda fits the vibe since Sofia is in her husband's resting place 🙈

[thestagthatlovedthewolf]

I just finished Lord of Shadows and my heart is broken… and the story is so good – I love how this new series explores the Shadowhunter society and life even more. Even more than all the other series, and then the plot is really great, it works so well

I don’t really know where to start with this, so much happened, but yeah, I will start with the gut-wrenching moment… The ending – Livvy freaking dies, and it’s not fair… I thought I had been spoiled and I thought it was Dru – and I was heartbroken, because she’s my favorite in this series and I identify with everything she says, and I really hope there’s more of her in the following books – so I felt that if it was anyone else I would be relieved… but I wasn’t… I never thought it would be Livvy, there will be a series about Ty and Kit, and how can you have them without Livvy?? They are a trio, and there’s an empty space in there, and there will always be… Ty dealing with this death will be super hard to read in the next book, and it will be hard for him to deal everything, and while Kit can help, Livvy had been his rock his all life, and now… I still can’t…

And now another death, Robert Lightwood – I know that it won’t mean much to most people (unless with his connection with Alec, and the way he was going to save Emma and Julian) – but this death came after reading Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, and watching the show which brought my love for him again!!! His storyline with Maryse was my favorite from the second half of The Mortal Instruments, and I remembered that with Tales and the show, and he was in such a good place now, and now this has happened – it broke into pieces… (and then to be broken again by Livvy)

Also Tales help me hurt even more with Jon dying, but I’m so glad he learned with Simon, and what he stood for. And then Arthur who I also LOVED – I LOVE his love for classics, and also how the pain he feels is described, but his death is good, his doing his best to save the children

Now, where to go too. The plot is so full, that I’m not sure where to start… Let’s go with London – they come to London!! And there’s Jessamine who I LOVED in The Infernal Devices, but also all the other little details (notes in books and carvings in the wall)!!! And Alec and Magnus come with the children – Max and Raphael – they are adorable with Tavvy (I love reading about young children), and there’s also something so special of Cristina talking in Spanish with Raphael (I love how the series includes lines in Spanish, and it flows so well).

Still in London, Dru and Jaime!! They could be quite good like in the next series, when they are older, and a three year difference is not much… but then there’s the scene with Ash (and again I feared she was going to die in there) – and I’m so curious about who he is. I’ve seen a theory that maybe it’s a son of the Seelie Queen and Sebastian, and the maybe even the weapon Clary and Jace are looking for (also surprising I actually like Jace in this series) – really want more of that!!! With more Dru!! Just again, with her talking about her body, and how other people see her, and it’s just something I identify with

Also in London, the development of Mark, Cristina and Kieran!!! I LOVED Cristina and Mark so much in the first book, but also like Kieran and Mark!! And then you get Cristina and Kieran, which is not yet love like the other couples, there is respect and caring that can grow into something, and I just think it could be a great polyamorous relationship, and there are so little of those…

And then there’s the politics and the society and it’s so well done. It’s my favorite thing!! The Shadowhunter world has grown so much, and you really get to explore the Cold Peace and the result of that – the Cold Peace is the Versailles Treaty clearly, but then it comes so interesting that the actions of the Cohort fit the Nazi uprising in Germany, so then History was twisted for this, and it works really well… I’m really scared of what will come from the Cohort and that it will rise to power; there will be a new Inquisitor (Robert wouldn’t stand for it, because of Alec, pretty much), but now anyone, including Dearborn, could take the place; and besides it was a dead-brought-back-to-life person who killed him and an innocent child; so there’s a big chance that they will rise. There was this speech on the show from Simon about the registering (because they are doing it now on the show, just ignore that), and comparing it to the Nazis, and his grandmother being under that regime, and how he would take it, and I like to imagine Simon doing this speeches in wherever he lives now. Also Luke standing up, because they want to annul his marriage with Jocelyn and register a lot of the people he loves. I really want to see people standing up with the Blackthorns against these racists in the next book, and I really hope they are stopped.

And then still in the society, the power of words, especially the ones that do not exist to the Shadowhunters and how harmful they can be. I love how Kit immediately notices that Ty is in the autism spectrum, and they don’t know about it – there’s all this medication, therapy, and techniques that will never have access too; the same with Arthur who feels the loss of Malcolm’s potions, and mundane medication would definitely help him, but it doesn’t exist to their knowledge. And then the most painful part was Diana’s story, it was happiness when she found out about the word “transgender”, and that it was something real, and her transition and her story was so beautiful, heartfelt and painful… I love having that scene!! And Gwyn and Diana are really cute!! (And when in the first book, I had mistrusted Diana, by the end I figured out she wasn’t betraying them, but now we found out what is her secret, and it’s really well done)

There’s so much more to say, but I don’t really know where I could start, where I could, so I leave this opened and it anyone wants to ask any questions, talk about anything… feel free to send me an ask :D And now it’s two years of waiting, but we will have The Last Hours in between with Henry and Charlotte!!

[jemsboner]

post lord of shadows thoughts and predictions

okay time to round up all this shit in one post. this is still all over the place though sorry, it’s in no order just writing shit down as it comes to me. this is going to be super long and spoilery so it’s under a read more

1. I enjoyed Lord of Shadows much more than Lady Midnight. LM was good but it felt very bogged down in character and plot introduction, not its fault it had a lot to introduce lmao. Wasn’t super excited to read los after lm cause it wasn’t that memorable, but now I’m dying for Queen of Air and Darkness. 2. Since LM was (I’m pretty sure been a while) told exclusively through the older kids povs, ty and livvy felt super young despite only be 2 years younger than Julian and Emma, but they really felt like teenagers who are just tired of being treated and seen as children in this one. 3. Um I really feel for Malcolm. Like a lot. Listen I know he went a little of the deep end there, but no one could argue against that he loves Annabel more than anything. All the diary entries and the house he built for them honestly kill me. I really don’t believe he left her alone on purpose which makes me sad because Annabel died believing he betrayed her and that was one of the reasons she killed him. I’m excited to see him before he knew the truth about Annabel in TLH. 4. Speaking of Annabel holy shit. Something is definitely not right with her. I like how powerful she is and she was pretty endearing at the end, she actually kind’ve reminds me of cecily. also I’m dying cause I just remembered while writing this that everyone thought that Livvy looked alike Annabel kill me. I definitely didn’t think she meant to do what she did at the end, obvs an explanation is not an excuse 😏, but she lashes out and then gets scared. she seems to regret killing livvy the moment after it happens and I’m interested to see how this affects her. 5. So I guess with no inquisitor that exile thing is not gonna work. but I still believe that cortana will have something to do with breaking the parabatai bond…it can cut through anything after all. 6. Speaking of cutting through anything EMMA FUCKING BROKE THE MORTAL SWORD. LIKE THAT CAN NOT BE GOOD AT ALL. AND WHAT WAS THAT BLACK SHIT INSIDE OF IT??? 7. I’m scared what Livvy’s death is going to do to Julian because the guy has really been slipping down the mental health slope for a while now. not gonna lie, Julian was TERRIFYING in this book. he really doesn’t give a shit about anyone that isn’t Emma or family. also the red flag for me was when him and Emma were arguing and he smashed that glass, like that is not a good way to take out your anger, but I mean Emma immediately puts a hole in the wall so they’re both not the best examples for how to act in a healthy relationship. also, despite what he told Emma, he seems to be absolutely fine with breaking every other parabatai bond just to be with Emma. listen I love Julian but he seems to be slipping a lil into antagonist territory. 8. Not that Emma wasn’t cutthroat either. she didn’t even consider mercy when it came to Annabel, she was gonna slice right through her, u know until the unseelie king spirited her away. 9. Kit and Ty were adorable. also has it been confirmed that they’re the Wicked Power protagonists? because if not I’m p sure they are. 10. I was so happy to be back at the London Institute. I loved all the little tid and tlh hints everywhere (jem and will’s height charts 😭😭😭) um so Bridget is still super alive somehow uuuuhh?? how??? jessamine is a darling brat as usual. love her. also that line where Magnus said they weren’t the first to think to burn down the blackthorn manor?? tlh reference maybe? 11. while Mark/Emma will always hold a place in my heart I really warmed up to Emma/Julian and Mark/Cristina/Kieran. btw I really feel like that’s gonna end in polyamory, I think cc has been wanting to write and actual poly relationship ( I love herongraystairs but I don’t think it technically counts going by only canon) for a while now, and while only Mark/Cristina and Mark/Kieran were introduced in lm, Cristina and Kieran def gotta a lot closer in this book and seemed to have a lot of romantic tension. anyway new ot3. 12. if u know anything about me u know I’M A SLUT FOR JEM AND TESSA. anytime they were mentioned I started breathing heavy. still sad they didn’t actually appear in this one, but it seems set up for them to appear in the final one speaking of… 13. listen I love Magnus and I want no harm to come to him but TESSA IS SICK I CANT DEAL WITH THIS. LIKE CAN HER AND JEM JUST BE HAPPY AND HEALTHY WITHOUT SOME INCURABLE ILLNESS HANGING OVER THEM. and like what other warlocks have been affected??? IS CATARINA OKAY? 14. y'all that guy with green skin has gotta be ragnor there is not doubt in my mind. cc has always regretted killing him and I’ve been waiting for this tree colored man to return for a while now. I want to know why he’s in hiding tho and he like bolted when Magnus showed up on the scene. 15. EY YO FUCK THE COHORT AND FUCK ZARA. at first I thought they were a little too cartoony of villains, like there was no complexity to them, they just seem like straight up douche nozzles all the time, but then I remembered that they’re based off real issues right now and people really do think like this sooo. but like Zara is absolutely the worst, how dare and her awful buddies talk shit to my children. everytime anything came out of her mouth I was like-LETS GO. OUTISDE. RIGHT NOW. TRIAL BY COMBAT, YOU LYING SNAKE. 16. I really loved the seelie and unseelie courts and their differences. like I agree cc is a little long winded, but her writing has greatly improved since CoB and it really showed in this one for me. I like the unseelie king and I hope we get to see more of him in the next book, and maybe more of Kieran’s brothers, wouldn’t want to let all those cute faerie boys go to waste. 17. as much as I hate to say it, I’m p sure that the seelie court member that was stolen by the unseelie was Sebastian’s and the seelie queen’s kid. LIKE I HOPE IM SO WRONG AND THAT THAT FUCKING KID DOESNT EXIST BUT ALL SIGNS SEEM TO BE POINTING TO HELL CHILD. 18. speaking of Sebastian, the way cc was talking about him before los came out, I was really expecting something big about him to happen, like his ghost (or demon seed ugh) he was barely even mentioned except closer to the end there. 19. oh yeah I can’t believe Clary’s dead???? like I’ve never been a big fan of clary or jace but the way she talked about like she’s already accepted it killed me. like if this happens it’s going to ruin jace. 20. I’ve become very endeared to Dru throughout los, I think she’s my fav blackthorn besides Julian. she’s chubby which is fucking GREAT and tho the whole pretend I’m not 13 thing with Jaime made me a lil uncomfy, he didn’t really flirt with her or anything and their friendship was really cute. it seems to me cc is setting her up with that Ash kid that appeared for 2 seconds. YO @emmascxrstairs JUST ROCKED MY WHOLE WORLD AND SAID THAT ASH IS THE DEMON SPAWN AND IM MAD BECAUSE OF COURSE HE IS LMAO FLEW RIGHT PAST ME. 21. that’s one thing that kills me with cc books, is that other than the main romances it’s usually super easy to tell who ends with who, and that she feels the need to pair EVERYONE OFF. lmao I was actually wondering why a love interest hadn’t been introduced for Livvy yet (Kit doesn’t count cause after that first kiss, it was real obvs him and ty were gonna be the thing) and then she died and I was like…oh…that’s why. 22. like many predicted, Diana is trans and im crying she’s amazing. her and Gwyn caught me off guard but I’m not gonna lie, they’re really cute. 23. also omg I just thought with livvy dying, what if Julian blames it on himself and the parabatai curse kill me. 24.so yeah all in all 👌👌👌 very good would recommend. now time to get fucking pumped for the last hours

[aion-rsa]

DC Comics’ July 2017 Solicitations

DC Comics has released solicitation information and images for new comics and products shipping in July 2017. When you’re through checking out these solicitations for new releases, be sure to visit CBR’s DC Comics forum, Batman forum, Superman forum or Wonder Woman forum to discuss these titles and products with fellow readers and fans.

DC Comics Solicitations – Last Six Months

Product shipping June 2017

Product shipping May 2017

Product shipping April 2017

Product shipping March 2017

Product shipping February 2017

Product shipping January 2017

DARK DAYS: THE CASTING #1

Written by SCOTT SNYDER and JAMES TYNION IV

Art by JIM LEE, ANDY KUBERT, JOHN ROMITA JR. and others

Cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS

Variant cover by ANDY KUBERT

Variant cover by JOHN ROMITA JR.

The Joker’s surprise attack threatens to lay waste to all of Batman’s carefully laid plans. Will the Dark Knight be able to regain the trust of his closest allies, Green Lantern and Duke, and prevent the forces of darkness from consuming the DC Universe?! Will Hawkman’s warning stop our heroes from peering into the abyss?

The great comics event of summer 2017 is on its way, courtesy of superstar writers Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV with art by a master class of comics artists: Andy Kubert, Jim Lee and John Romita Jr.!

ONE-SHOT • On sale JULY 12 • 40 pg, FC, card-stock cover, $4.99 US • RATED T+

ACTION COMICS #983

Written by DAN JURGENS

Art by VIKTOR BOGDANOVIC and JONATHAN GLAPION

Cover by CLAY MANN

Variant cover by GARY FRANK

“REVENGE” part one! A beaten and battered Superman can barely hold his own against the revenge squad of his greatest foes—but hope rushes from the horizon as the Superman family arrives!

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

ACTION COMICS #984

Written by DAN JURGENS

Art by VIKTOR BOGDANOVIC and JONATHAN GLAPION

Cover by CLAY MANN

Variant cover by GARY FRANK

“REVENGE” part two! A battle of titanic proportions rages through Superman’s arctic fortress as General Zod reveals his ultimate plan by accessing the Phantom Zone. Superman’s family’s lives hang in the balance as “Revenge” concludes.

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

ALL STAR BATMAN #12

Written by SCOTT SNYDER

Art by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE and SEBASTIAN FIUMARA

Cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE

Variant cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE

Variant cover by SEBASTIAN FIUMARA

“THE FIRST ALLY” part three! When Batman discovers the truth about the man under the Nemesis mask, it could change everything between him and Alfred forever.

On sale JULY 12 • 40 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T

AQUAMAN #26

Written by DAN ABNETT

Art and cover by STJEPAN SEJIC

Variant cover by JOSHUA MIDDLETON

“UNDERWORLD” part two! Enraged by rumors of Arthur’s survival in the slums of Atlantis, the ruthless King Rath orders the use of ancient Atlantean techno-magic to track down the Aquaman at all costs! But the ex-king Arthur can’t hide for long when his fate collides with that of a mysterious young woman on the run from Rath’s own secret police. Her name: Dolphin.

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC • $3.99 US • EACH RATED T

BATGIRL #13

Written by HOPE LARSON

Art by CHRIS WILDGOOSE

Cover by DAN MORA

Variant cover by JOSHUA MIDDLETON

“BATS AND CATS”! When an innocent bystander close to Batgirl’s heart gets caught in between a feud between herself and Catwoman, what started as just another case could become direly important.

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

BATGIRL AND THE BIRDS OF PREY #12

Written by JULIE BENSON and SHAWNA BENSON

Art by ROGE ANTONIO

Cover by YANICK PAQUETTE

Variant cover by KAMOME SHIRAHAMA

“SOURCE CODE” part two! Oracle crossed half the criminal underworld in his early years—and now, he’s caused a black cat to cross the Birds of Prey’s path! Catwoman’s been waiting for a chance to get her claws on this guy for a while…but at this point, do the Birds even want to stand in her way?

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

BATMAN BEYOND #10

Written by DAN JURGENS

Art and cover by BERNARD CHANG

Variant cover by MARTIN ANSIN

“RISE OF THE DEMON” part five! Just as Bruce Wayne had feared, the experimental new Bat-suit has altered Terry’s mental state and turned him into a colder, deadlier Batman. Trapped in the lair of Ra’s al Ghul and surrounded by the League of Assassins, the suit may be the only thing that allows Terry and Bruce to survive. But at what price?

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

BATMAN #26

Written by TOM KING

Art and cover by MIKEL JANIN

Variant cover by TIM SALE

“THE WAR OF JOKES AND RIDDLES” part two! The Riddler and The Joker escalate their bloody feud, and the villains of Gotham City are forced to choose sides or be caught in the crossfire! It’s up to Batman to push himself to the limit and keep innocent citizens out of harm’s way.

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

BATMAN #27

Written by TOM KING

Art and cover by DAVIDE GIANFELICE

Variant covers by TIM SALE

“THE WAR OF JOKES AND RIDDLES” part three! The war has spread to every corner of Gotham City, and while Batman battles back the forces of Joker and Riddler, an unlikely criminal becomes the pivotal key to its potential resolution…but it could cost him everything.

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

BATWOMAN #5

Written by MARGUERITE BENNETT and JAMES TYNION IV

Art and cover by STEPHANIE HANS

Variant cover by J.G. JONES

“THE MANY ARMS OF DEATH” epilogue! In this special one-off issue with art by Stephanie Hans (Angela), learn the truth of what went down between Kate and Safiyah, which led to the future Batwoman having to leave Coryana for what she was sure would be forever!

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T+

BLUE BEETLE #11

Written by KEITH GIFFEN and J.M. DeMATTEIS

Art and cover by SCOTT KOLINS

Variant cover by TYLER KIRKHAM

NEW STORYLINE! With an Earth-threatening menace behind him and Jaime now permanently back as Blue Beetle on his own terms, what’s a hero to do? Clean up the mess in his hometown, find places for his friends and family to live and deal with the latest super-menace to hit El Paso…the man called Ghostfire!

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

CYBORG #14

Written by JOHN SEMPER JR.

Art by WILL CONRAD

Cover by ERIC CANETE

Variant cover by CARLOS D’ANDA

“SINGULARITY AFTERMATH” part one! Mankind is dead! The world as we know it is gone! Welcome to Planet Anomaly, where all life takes the form of soulless cybernetic hybrids. But one spark of humanity remains deep within Cyborg’s robotic husk, and it’s the world’s only hope for restoration. Guest-starring Beast Boy!

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

DEATHSTROKE #21

Written by CHRISTOPHER PRIEST

Art by DIOGENES NEVES

Cover by RYAN SOOK

Variant cover by SHANE DAVIS

“DEFIANCE” part one! A new day has dawned for Deathstroke. Having emerged from the Speed Force a changed man, Slade Wilson takes aim at living a better life—a life in service of justice. But when the world refuses to accept the new Deathstroke, Slade recruits a group of young heroes to join him including including former Teen Titans, Kid Flash and Power Girl, his children, Rose and Jericho, and the bombastic Terra! But has Slade truly shed his villainous past? And what other shadowy forces are working against him? Find out as Deathstroke’s bold new direction begins here!

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T+

DETECTIVE COMICS #960

Written by JAMES TYNION IV

Art by ALVARO MARTINEZ and RAUL FERNANDEZ

Cover by YASMINE PUTRI

Variant cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE

“INTELLIGENCE” part three! With Zatanna joining the ranks of Batman’s allies, there shouldn’t be any foe the team can’t take on…but does that include their teammate Azrael himself, who just might be cracking up?

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

DETECTIVE COMICS #961

Written by JAMES TYNION IV

Art by ALVARO MARTINEZ and RAUL FERNANDEZ

Cover by YASMINE PUTRI

Variant cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE

“INTELLIGENCE” part four! Batman and Batwing have thrown every technological trick they have at the powerful A.I. that the order of St. Dumas dubbed Ascalon…now there’s nothing left to do but pray!

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

THE FLASH #26

Written by JOSHUA WILLIAMSON

Art by HOWARD PORTER

Cover by CARMINE DI GIANDOMENICO

Variant cover by HOWARD PORTER

“RUNNING SCARED” part two! Barry Allen and Iris West witness a chilling vision of the future courtesy of the Reverse-Flash, who reveals the couple’s legendary romance will yield only darkness for the world of tomorrow. Now, Thawne forces The Flash to make a choice: spend forever alone or doom the future?

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

THE FLASH #27

Written by JOSHUA WILLIAMSON

Art by HOWARD PORTER

Cover by CARMINE DI GIANDOMENICO

Variant cover by HOWARD PORTER

“RUNNING SCARED” finale! Barry Allen and Eobard Thawne. Legendary enemies separated by centuries pulled through time itself to battle again and again. Until now. For one year The Flash has been building to this single epic moment: the ultimate showdown between The Flash and Reverse-Flash!

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

GREEN ARROW #26

Written by BENJAMIN PERCY

Art and cover by OTTO SCHMIDT

Variant cover by MIKE GRELL

“HARD TRAVELING HERO” part one! Unwilling to let another city suffer the same fate as Seattle, Green Arrow kicks off a new quest to hunt down the Ninth Circle across America! To stop disaster before it can happen, the (in)famously hot-headed Oliver Queen must mend fences with those he’s alienated in the past, starting with THE FLASH! The second epic year of GREEN ARROW REBIRTH begins here!

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

GREEN ARROW #27

Written by BENJAMIN PERCY

Art by JAMAL CAMPBELL

Cover by OTTO SCHMIDT

Variant cover by ESAD RIBIC

“HARD TRAVELING HERO” part two! Oliver Queen is a pillar of morality. A champion of ethics. The essence of truth. Or at least he thought so. The self-described people’s hero Green Arrow crosses paths with the Justice League’s real paragon of virtue, Wonder Woman, when his cross-country fight against the Ninth Circle puts both heroes’ muscle and mettle to the ultimate test.

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

GREEN LANTERNS #26

Written by SAM HUMPHRIES

Art by RONAN CLIQUET

Cover by MIKE McKONE

Variant cover by EMANUELA LUPACCHINO

“OUT OF TIME” part one! Ten billion years ago, Volthoom nearly wiped out the Guardians of the Universe. What power was able to stop him, and where did it go? Learn more about the history of the First Lantern as “Out of Time” begins!

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

GREEN LANTERNS #27

Written by SAM HUMPHRIES

Art by RONAN CLIQUET

Cover by BRAD WALKER and DREW HENNESSEY

Variant cover by EMANUELA LUPACCHINO

“OUT OF TIME” part two! Cast back in time, Jessica and Simon must survive on the savage Earth of ten billion years ago! With a single ring between them, can the Emerald Knights locate the first Green Lanterns?

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

HAL JORDAN & THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS #24

Written by ROBERT VENDITTI

Art and cover by ETHAN VAN SCIVER

Variant cover by KEVIN NOWLAN

“FRACTURES” part three! Secrets are out and battle lines are drawn. The partnership of the Green Lantern Corps and the Sinestro Corps begins to crumble before it explodes!

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, $2.99 • FC • RATED T

HAL JORDAN & THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS #25

Written by ROBERT VENDITTI

Art and cover by ETHAN VAN SCIVER

Variant cover by KEVIN NOWLAN

“FRACTURES” part four! In this extra-sized issue, it’s Lantern vs. Lantern as the GLC and Sinestro Corps duke it out over the murder of Sinestro Corps members. And a Lantern turns his back on their friends, embracing the darkness.

On sale JULY 26 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

HARLEY QUINN #23

Written by AMANDA CONNER and JIMMY PALMIOTTI

Art by JOHN TIMMS

Backup stories written by PAUL DINI and JIMMY PALMIOTTI

Backup stories art by BRET BLEVINS and J. BONE

Cover by AMANDA CONNER

Variant cover by FRANK CHO

“RED ROSES” part three! The tension between Harley, Poison Ivy and Red Tool hits the boiling point! Who’s gonna stay—and who’s gonna go? And in the backup story, “Harley Loves Joker” part seven, Batman is back on the deranged duo’s trail!

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

HARLEY QUINN #24

Written by JIMMY PALMIOTTI and AMANDA CONNER

Art by JOHN TIMMS

Backup stories written by PAUL DINI and JIMMY PALMIOTTI

Backup stories art by BRET BLEVINS and J. BONE

Cover by AMANDA CONNER

Variant cover by FRANK CHO

“THE PARENT TRAP”! Harley has faced every challenge even she could possibly imagine, but can she survive…a visit from her parents?! And in “Harley Loves Joker” part eight, the duo’s new headquarters comes with some unforeseen complications!

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

THE HELLBLAZER #12

Written by SIMON OLIVER

Art by DAVIDE FABBRI and JOSE MARZAN, JR.

Cover by TULA LOTAY

Variant cover by YASMINE PUTRI

“THE SMOKELESS FIRE” part six! Constantine finally gets what he wants—just in time to discover he’s a better man than he used to be. Maybe. But will that matter in the confrontation he and Marid have been building to?

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T+

JUSTICE LEAGUE #24

Written by BRYAN HITCH

Art by FERNANDO PASARIN and OCLAIR ALBERT

Cover by BRYAN HITCH

Variant cover by NICK BRADSHAW

“AFTERLIVES” part three! Our heroes’ mission into the afterlife goes horribly wrong when the Demons Three trap the Justice League in a hellish realm where they’re haunted and tortured by the ghosts of fallen heroes, dead villains and innocent civilians whose lives they failed to save.

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, $2.99 US • FC, RATED T

JUSTICE LEAGUE #25

Written by BRYAN HITCH

Art by FERNANDO PASARIN and OCLAIR ALBERT

Cover by BRYAN HITCH

Variant cover by NICK BRADSHAW

“AFTERLIVES” part four! With the Justice League locked out of reality, the secret mastermind behind their predicament makes his move on the world of the living. Luckily (or unluckily), the JL is trapped in the afterlife with Felix Faust, who works with the heroes to fight their way out of limbo! The team-up no one saw coming kicks off in this extra-sized epic!

On sale JULY 19 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #10

Written by STEVE ORLANDO

Art by ANDY MACDONALD

Cover by IVAN REIS

Variant cover by DOUG MAHNKE

“CURSE OF THE KINGBUTCHER” part one! The Ray never thought he would go back to Vanity, but the citizens of America’s most depressing city have found themselves caught in the middle of a mystic feud between order and chaos. The mysterious force known as the Might Beyond The Mirror has been granting Vanity’s greatest wishes; disabilities are healed, romances are restored and hope is rekindled. But it’s not meant to be, as a ruthless Lord of Order will stop at nothing to destroy the city’s dreams.

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #11

Written by STEVE ORLANDO

Art by ANDY MACDONALD

Cover by IVAN REIS

Variant cover by DOUG MAHNKE

“CURSE OF THE KINGBUTCHER” part two! The JLA face off against the Lord of Order called Kingbutcher! In a battle that forces Ray Terrill to confront his own dark past in full view of his new teammates, the heroes struggle with the question of returning reality to its proper state or allowing the people of Vanity — including Ray’s estranged mother — to fulfill their fondest desires.

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

NEW SUPER-MAN #13

Written by GENE LUEN YANG

Art by BILLY TAN

Cover by PHILIP TAN

Variant cover by BERNARD CHANG

“THE ZERO ULTIMATUM” part three! Shanghai falls—and Emperor Super-Man rules the ashes! With an army of super-villains on the streets, the Justice League of China leads the movement to take the city back. New Super-Man’s head isn’t in the game upon discovering the shocking secret of his mother’s true identity, and Wonder-Woman has been transformed and Bat-Man is overwhelmed! It’s up to I-Ching and the New Flash of China to snap Kenan out of it and save Shanghai!

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

NIGHTWING #24

Written by TIM SEELEY

Art by MIGUEL MENDONÇA and MINKYU JUNG

Cover by PAUL RENAUD

Variant cover by YASMINE PUTRI

“BLOCKBUSTER” part three! Nightwing is trapped on a submarine, and in order to escape he must defeat the most lethal villains in the DCU, led by Tiger Shark! And if he can’t escape, Blockbuster will get what he wants: all of his criminal competition at the bottom of the sea, along with Nightwing!

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

NIGHTWING #25

Written by TIM SEELEY

Art by MIGUEL MENDONÇA and MINKYU JUNG

Covers by PAUL RENAUD

Variant covers by YASMINE PUTRI

“BLOCKBUSTER” part four! In this special oversize issue, the boardwalk is the heart and soul of Blüdhaven, and Tiger Shark and Blockbuster are willing to kill each other and whoever else stands in their way to rule it. Nightwing has to find a way to stop them both or suffer a Blüdhaven ruled by crime!

On sale JULY 19 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #12

Written by SCOTT LOBDELL

Art by DEXTER SOY

Cover by CLAY MANN

Variant cover by GUILLEM MARCH

“THE LIFE OF BIZARRO” part one! Bizarro’s final days are upon us! As Red Hood and the Outlaws rush home to Gotham City in an effort to save Bizarro’s life, a new threat is unleashed in the form of Solomon Grundy! Can the Outlaws stop Grundy’s rampage without their most powerful member? Who unleashed the monster in the first place? And can Grundy defeated in time to save Bizarro from certain death? Find out in the start of a brand new adventure!

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T+

SUICIDE SQUAD #21

Written by ROB WILLIAMS

Art by GUZ VAZQUEZ

Cover by EDDY BARROWS and EBER FERREIRA

Variant cover by WHILCE PORTACIO

“KILL YOUR DARLINGS” part one! Devastated by Rustam and his Burning World, the international conspiracy known as the People reveal themselves to Amanda Waller in a desperate move to secure their mysterious endgame for Planet Earth! Meanwhile, the walls tighten for Boomerang as Harley Quinn gets closer to discovering the traitorous murderer within Task Force X…

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

SUICIDE SQUAD #22

Written by ROB WILLIAMS

Art by GUZ VAZQUEZ

Cover by EDDY BARROWS and EBER FERREIRA

Variant cover by WHILCE PORTACIO

“KILL YOUR DARLINGS” part two! Face to face with the Russian mastermind she’s been tracking since SUICIDE SQUAD: REBIRTH #1, Amanda Waller is horrified to find the Suicide Squad commanded by her own dark mirror, the enigmatic Direktor Karla, who’s surpassed the Task Force X leader in the one game she cannot afford to lose: control.

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+

SUPERGIRL #11

Written by STEVE ORLANDO

Art by BRIAN CHING

Cover by ROBSON ROCHA and DANIEL HENRIQUES

Variant cover by BENGAL

“ESCAPE FROM THE PHANTOM ZONE” part three! Supergirl must quell the maelstrom tearing apart the Phantom Zone, as Batgirl faces down the Phantom King one on one. If they fail, they’ll be lost in the Phantom Zone forever!

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

SUPERMAN #26

Written by PETER J. TOMASI and PATRICK GLEASON

Art by SCOTT GODLEWSKI

Cover LEE WEEKS

Variant cover by JORGE JIMENEZ

“ROAD TRIP” part one! It’s been an emotional and physical rollercoaster for Superman, Lois, and Jon: the Eradicator, Dinosaur Island, Frankenstein and the Bride, Multiversity, Reborn and Black Dawn—a barrage of terror and horror! What does the family need right now? Yep, you got it…a vacation!

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

SUPERMAN #27

Written by PETER J. TOMASI and PATRICK GLEASON

Art by SCOTT GODLEWSKI

Cover by RYAN SOOK

Variant cover by JORGE JIMENEZ

“ROAD TRIP” part two! As the Kents’ family road trip takes some strange and unexpected turns that will reveal a foreboding threat reaching out to touch their lives, you can bet that their gonna need a vacation after their vacation!

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

SUPER SONS #6

Written by PETER J. TOMASI

Art and cover by JORGE JIMENEZ

Variant cover by DUSTIN NGUYEN

“TEEN TITANS TANGO” part one! Robin has a new member in mind for the Teen Titans, and—spoiler alert—it’s Superboy! But something sinister is at work, and Damian’s real motives for introducing Jon to the team are revealed to devastating consequences!

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

SUPERWOMAN #12

Written by K. PERKINS

Art by STEPHEN SEGOVIA and ART THIBERT

Cover by KEN LASHLEY

Variant cover by RENATO GUEDES

“REDISCOVERY” part three! Superwoman has taken matters into her own hands, and has engaged in battle with the deadly Skyhook! The tragic origin of Crash is revealed, and the dark secret he carries has made him public enemy number one!

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

TEEN TITANS #10

Written by BENJAMIN PERCY

Art by KHOI PHAM and WADE VON GRAWBADGER

Cover by BRAD WALKER and DREW HENNESSEY

Variant cover by Paolo Pantalena

“BLOOD OF THE MANTA” part two! After learning he’s the son of the villainous Black Manta, Jackson Hyde is forced to join his father on a journey to find the ocean’s greatest treasure—a game-changing weapon that would spell disaster for anyone in Manta’s way. Meanwhile, Damian’s status as team leader is challenged by Starfire, who recruits Tempest to help track down their missing member! Will the Teen Titans find their friend before Black Manta gains ultimate power?

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

TITANS #13

Written by DAN ABNETT

Art by V KEN MARION and NORM RAPMUND

Cover by KENNETH ROCAFORT

Variant cover by DAN MORA

“JUDAS AMONG US”! As Omen begins her investigation into the identity of the team’s traitor, the Titans launch a full assault on H.I.V.E., who they believe hold the key to restoring Bumblebee’s broken mind. Meanwhile, tensions rise when Roy discovers Wally and Donna’s blossoming romance—which threatens to tear the Titans apart!

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

TRINITY #11

Written by FRANCIS MANAPUL

Art and cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL

Variant cover by BILL SIENKIEWICZ

“DEAD SPACE” part three! Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman are in for the fight of their lives against the combined might of the Justice League and the mysterious alien force inhabiting their bodies and controlling the Watchtower! The trinity may have found a way to save their friends—but the cost is high, and time is running out!

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

WONDER WOMAN #26

Written by SHEA FONTANA

Art by MIRKA ANDOLFO

Cover by JESUS MERINO

Variant cover by JENNY FRISON

“HEART OF THE AMAZON” part one! Writer Shea Fontana (DC SUPER HERO GIRLS) steps in for a new story! Wonder Woman finally takes a moment to catch her breath and attend a friend’s wedding…but unfortunately, horror’s followed her even there!

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • FC • RATED T

WONDER WOMAN #27

Written by SHEA FONTANA

Art by MIRKA ANDOLFO

Cover by JESUS MERINO

Variant cover by JENNY FRISON

“HEART OF THE AMAZON” part two! Someone close to Diana is behind the most recent attack on her and her friends…but what has this person learned about her powers that she never even knew herself?

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • FC • RATED T

BATMAN ’66/LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #1

Written by LEE ALLRED

Art and cover by MICHAEL ALLRED

In pursuit of the time-traveling criminal known as Universo, the super-powered kids from the 30th century travel back to the 1960s to enlist the aid of the “greatest teen superhero ever”—Robin, the Boy Wonder! But Batman’s hard-boiled nemesis Egghead has stolen one of their unattended time bubbles and taken off to the Legion’s own time period. Looks like Batman has to head to the far-flung future with one group of heroes while Robin stays in the swinging sixties with another. Holy time-travel paradox!

One-shot • On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED E

BANE: CONQUEST #3

Written by CHUCK DIXON • Art and cover by GRAHAM NOLAN

Sure, they may have had to team up to escape Damocles’ clutches—but Batman and Bane can’t keep their hands off each others’ throats for long! The question is, will Damocles be able to use that rivalry to his advantage?

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, 3 of 12, $3.99 US • RATED T

BATMAN/THE SHADOW #4

Written by SCOTT SNYDER and STEVE ORLANDO

Art and cover by RILEY ROSSMO

Variant cover by TIM SALE

Variant cover by DAVE JOHNSON

The Shadow must fight his way through Gotham City’s worst rogues in order to stop the Joker and the Stag from carving out Batman’s heart! But if he’s freed, will Batman be able to save the villains from the wrath of the Shadow?

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, 4 of 6, $3.99 US • RATED T

DC COMICS BOMBSHELLS #30

Written by MARGUERITE BENNETT

Art by CARMEN CARNERO, RICHARD ORTIZ and ANEKE

Cover by LAURA BRAGA

The original Bombshells lineup discovers how Killer Frost became a killer ice queen and end up tangled in the dangerous delusions of Hugo Strange. Then, as Faora joins the battle in Leningrad, she reveals to Supergirl what her origin is and how she is related to Faora.

On sale JULY 5 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST

DC COMICS BOMBSHELLS #31

Written by MARGUERITE BENNETT

Art by CARMEN CARNERO, LAURA BRAGA and ANEKE

Cover by ANT LUCIA

The sound of a metronome echoes through Leningrad’s streets, reminding people they are still alive…for now. Supergirl can feel her father is still alive, and joins Harley’s traveling circus, where Power Girl and Superman have now become part of the show! Then, it’s the return of Bunny Constantine as he and Zatanna fight Nazi-controlled mythical creatures in order to find Raven!

On sale JULY 19 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST

INJUSTICE 2 #5

Written by TOM TAYLOR

Art by BRUNO REDONDO and JUAN ALBARRAN

Cover by BRUNO REDONDO

Batman pays a visit to Ted Kord, beseeching him to become part of the team that rebuilds the world—not as Blue Beetle, but as Ted Kord, inventor and industrialist. But Batman’s not the only one who has designs on Ted. A trusted old friend pops in, as does someone else—someone with less noble intentions.

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+ • DIGITAL FIRST

INJUSTICE 2 #6

Written by TOM TAYLOR

Art and cover by MIKE S. MILLER

Get ready for the Origin of Supergirl! Jump back in time to see the early life of Kara Zor-el and the destruction of Krypton. Sent to Earth to be her infant cousin Kal-el’s protector, an accident delays her by decades. She’s met upon her eventual arrival by a most unexpected benefactor and learns a very different version of the story of Superman’s regime.

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+ • DIGITAL FIRST

THE KAMANDI CHALLENGE #7

Written by MARGUERITE BENNETT

Art by DAN JURGENS and KLAUS JANSON

Cover by BILL SIENKIEWICZ

Variant cover by DAN JURGENS and KLAUS JANSON

After the explosive ending of the last issue, writer Marguerite Bennett and artist Dan Jurgens fly us to the land of the Polar Parasites and the malevolent Snow Wizards that control them. Alongside his new allies, the Bulldog Brittaneks, Kamandi must fight to survive the cold. Will Kamandi make it long enough to find new clues about his missing parents? Or will this frost bite back?

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, 7 of 12, $3.99 US • RATED T

THE WILD STORM #6

Written by WARREN ELLIS

Art and cover by JON DAVIS-HUNT

Variant cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS

Variant cover by JASON MASTERS

Michael Cray, the world’s best professional killer, is going to get himself killed for refusing to assassinate an innocent. Angela Spica, whose only mistake was saving someone’s life, is discovering that her life is over forever, and that the people in this strange new world she’s forced to survive in…may not be people at all. Treaties have been breached. Secrets are being told. There’s a war coming.

THE WILD STORM will skip shipping in August and return in September!

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T+

GOTHAM ACADEMY: SECOND SEMESTER #11

Written by BRENDEN FLETCHER, BECKY CLOONAN and KARL KERSCHL

Art by ADAM ARCHER, MSASSYK and SANDRA HOPE

Cover by KARL KERSCHL

“The Ballad of Olive Silverlock” part three! A terrible revelation sends Maps on a quest for answers at Wayne Manor! With Two-Face hot on their trail, Maps and Damian Wayne must work together to stop Olive’s rampage of destruction across Gotham City.

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

SCOOBY APOCALYPSE #15

Written by KEITH GIFFEN and J.M. DeMATTEIS

Art by DALE EAGLESHAM

Backup story art by JAN DUURSEMA

Cover by CARLOS D’ANDA

Variant cover by JILL THOMPSON

We finally catch up to the migrating monsters—and their destination is even more horrifying than anyone imagined! But before the gang can act, Scrappy-Doo and his pack of smart mutts show up with a heck of a grudge against Scooby. It’s two threats for the price of one! And, in the backup story, Scrappy strikes again—and someone pays the ultimate price!

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

LOONEY TUNES #238

Written by DEREK FRIDOLFS

Art by WALTER CARZON and HORACIO OTTOLINI

Cover by DEREK FRIDOLFS

Wile E. Coyote’s new Acme universal remote does more than just control his TV. It can slow, pause and speed up anything around it, and might be just the thing he needs to catch the Road Runner once and for all. What could possibly go wrong?

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E

MAD ABOUT TRUMP TP

Written and illustrated by THE USUAL GANG OF IDIOTS

MAD Dumps On Trump: A Brilliant Look At Our Brainless President is an all-out comedy assault on the most idiotic idiot to ever reach the White House (George W. Bush and visitors included)! In these 128 pages, President Trump is mercilessly mocked, relentlessly ridiculed and savagely satirized. The book features MAD’s sharpest satiric shots at “The Donald,” comically chronicling his rise from obnoxious businessman to really obnoxious reality show host to uber obnoxious “Commander-in-Tweet.” Please note: MAD will not offer refunds on this book when Trump is impeached!

This title also includes a new introduction by CNN’s Jake Tapper!

On sale JULY 5 • 128 pg, FC, 8.125” x 10.5” • $12.99 US

SCOOBY-DOO TEAM-UP #28

Written by SHOLLY FISCH

Art and cover by DARIO BRIZUELA

The gang uncovers a tale of their great-great-grandparents (and grand-dog!) in the old West. When monstrous rumors bring the Weirdness Wagon to town, will they find a fearsome beast, or just come face-to-scarred-face with the lawman Jonah Hex?

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E

SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? #83

Written by DEREK FRIDOLFS

Art by WALTER CARZON and HORACIO OTTOLINI

Cover by DEREK FRIDOLFS

Howdy partners! There’s a Wild West mystery to be solved by a crew of city slickers and their dog. Ya see, the cattle have skedaddled, and there’s a ghost in cahoots up in them there hills. Can our sleuths solve the mystery and send this yokel to the hoosegow? Or will these greenhorns miss the hoedown? Time to pony up. Giddy up, li’l Scooby, let’s go!

On sale JULY 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E

BUG!: THE ADVENTURES OF FORAGER #3

Written by LEE ALLRED

Art and cover by MICHAEL ALLRED

Backup story and art by JAMES HARVEY

Variant cover by AARON CONLEY

Forager’s latest tumble through time and space lands him in a rough wilderness. There he meets the muscleman Atlas, who himself has run afoul of Chagra, the mysterious figure that caused the reality shards that put Forager on this multidimensional trip to begin with. What happens when a Bug of New Genesis teams up with a legendary powerhouse like Atlas? It’s a story we could only call “Atlas Bugged”!

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, 3 of 6, $3.99 US • MATURE READERS

CAVE CARSON HAS A CYBERNETIC EYE #10

Written by GERARD WAY and JON RIVERA

Art and cover by MICHAEL AVON OEMING

Backup story written by MARK RUSSELL

Backup story art by BENJAMIN DEWEY and BRANDON BIRD

Variant cover by BENJAMIN DEWEY

Things aren’t just weird for Team Carson, they’re mega- weird, as their trans-dimensional adventure brings them to a world unlike any they have ever seen before (with or without cybernetic enhancement!), filled with sentient plant life and megafauna. Plus, a new installment of “The Wonderful World of Rocks with Marc Bartow” by Mark Russell (THE FLINTSTONES) and Benjamin Dewey (Autumnlands) and “Bane’s Coloring Corner” by Brandon Bird!

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • MATURE READERS

DOOM PATROL #7

Written by GERARD WAY

Art by MICHAEL ALLRED

Cover by MICHAEL ALLRED

Variant cover by NICK DERINGTON

How have you been, Niles Caulder? The Chief is back, and he’s ready to reshape the new Doom Patrol to be just like the old Doom Patrol—a prospect not everyone is happy with. But the team’s former leader hasn’t grown less manipulative in his old age, so nobody make any rash decisions. Pretty sure he’s up to something. Michael Allred (iZOMBIE, Silver Surfer) joins the team for this special issue.

RESOLICIT • On sale JULY 26, 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • MATURE READERS

MOTHER PANIC #9

Written by JODY HOUSER

Art by JOHN PAUL LEON

Backup story written by JIM KRUEGER

Backup story art by PHIL HESTER

Cover by TOMMY LEE EDWARDS

Variant cover by PHIL HESTER

As Mother Panic zeroes in on Remains, Violet’s augmentations continue to lock up, making her unbelievably vulnerable. Will she be able to defeat her mysterious nemesis in time, or will Dr. Varma’s warnings and predictions finally be actualized? Also includes the next installment of “Gotham Radio” by Jim Krueger (JUSTICE) and Phil Hester (GREEN ARROW)!

On sale JULY 26 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • MATURE READERS

SHADE, THE CHANGING GIRL #10

Written by CECIL CASTELLUCCI

Art by MARLEY ZARCONE and ANDE PARKS

Backup story art by LEILA DEL DUCA

Cover by BECKY CLOONAN

Variant cover by JILL THOMPSON

Following her encounters in Gotham City, Shade decides to head out west and check out Los Alamos, New Mexico, the one-time location of nuclear test sites, and also the setting of her favorite TV show, “Life with Honey.” But it’s been half a century since those bombs went off—and since “Honey” went off the air. So what kind of ghostly memories await Shade in the desert? Plus, a brand new “Life with Honey” backup story.

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • MATURE READERS

AQUAMAN VOL. 3: CROWN OF ATLANTIS TP

Written by DAN ABNETT

Art by BRAD WALKER, ANDREW HENNESSY, SCOT EATON, WAYNE FAUCHER and PHILIPPE BRIONES

Cover by BRAD WALKER and ANDREW HENNESSEY

Recovering and rebuilding after the “Deluge,” Aquaman finds himself locked in a ferocious battle with Warhead, a monster awakened during Atlantis’ war with the surface. Then, Deadwater makes an unwelcome return! Collects AQUAMAN #16-24.

On sale AUGUST 30 • 216 pg, FC, $19.99 US

BATMAN VOL. 3: I AM BANE TP

Written by TOM KING

Art by DAVID FINCH, DANNY MIKI, MITCH GERADS and others

Cover by DAVID FINCH

The man who has physically tested the Dark Knight like no one before is back to finally break the Bat for good. Can a battered, exhausted Batman fend off one of his greatest foes? Plus, catch up with Catwoman as she and the Dark Knight battle a collection of villains and plan for the future! Collects BATMAN #16-20, 23 and 24.

On sale AUGUST 30 • 176 pg, FC, $16.99 US

BATMAN: REBIRTH DELUXE EDITION BOOK ONE HC

Written by TOM KING and SCOTT SNYDER

Art by DAVID FINCH, MIKEL JANIN and others

Cover by DAVID FINCH

In the wake of DC UNIVERSE: REBIRTH, Batman faces his most challenging foe ever—the idealistic hero known as Gotham, who wants to save the city from Batman himself! Then, in order to retrieve Psycho-Pirate and save Gotham Girl, Batman must recruit a team from Amanda Waller to break into the most impenetrable prison in the world and steal from one of the Dark Knight’s greatest foes…Bane. The next great Batman story begins here! Collects BATMAN: REBIRTH #1, BATMAN #1-15.

On sale AUGUST 30 • 400 pg, FC, 7.0625” x 10.875”, $34.99 US

CYBORG VOL. 2: DANGER IN DETROIT TP

Written by JOHN SEMPER JR.

Art by WILL CONRAD, PAUL PELLETIER, TONY KORDOS and SZYMON KUDRANSKI

Cover by WILL CONRAD

With a fearsome high-tech terror cell threatening to invade the country, Cyborg participates in the creation of an experimental cybernetic female counterpart—code name Variant—whose abilities might exceed his own! But when the process ravages her memories, Cyborg must retrieve crucial national security secrets from her mind before it’s too late. What’s on the line? Control of the nation’s most powerful nuclear weapons that could start a new world war! Collects CYBORG #6-13.

On sale AUGUST 9 • 192 pg, FC, $19.99 US

GREEN ARROW VOL. 3: EMERALD OUTLAW TP

Written by BENJAMIN PERCY

Art by OTTO SCHMIDT, ELEANORA CARLINI, GUS VASQUEZ, CARLOS RODRIGUEZ and JUAN FERRERYA

Cover by JUAN FERRERYA

In this volume, green arrows fly—and people are dying! But when the media and police point their fingers at Green Arrow, it’s up to Ollie and Black Canary to find the real killer of high-profile Seattleites. Their prime suspects? A who’s who of archers including Emiko Queen and a deadly Green Arrow villain not seen in years! Collects GREEN ARROW #12-17.

On sale AUGUST 2 • 152 pg, FC, $16.99 US

HAL JORDAN AND THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS VOL. 3: THE QUEST FOR HOPE TP

Written by ROBERT VENDITTI

Art by ETHAN VAN SCIVER, RAFA SANDOVAL and JORDI TARRAGONA

Cover by RAFA SANDOVAL and JORDI TARRAGONA

In the latest collection of the hit series, Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner are on a quest to find Saint Walker and restore the Blue Lantern Corps while Guy Gardner deals with a personal grudge. The events lead straight into “The Prism of Time” in which a mysterious time traveler threatens the future of the Green Lantern Corps! Collects issues #14-21.

On sale AUGUST 16 • 192 pg, FC, $19.99 US

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA VOL. 1: THE EXTREMISTS TP

Written by STEVE ORLANDO

Art by IVAN REIS, JOE PRADO, FELIPE WATANABE and others

Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

The new Justice League of America is here—and now, in these stories from issues #1-6 of the new series, they’re going to meet the Extremists—self-proclaimed saviors from another Earth, they thirst for peace, prosperity and total submission to the will of their leader, Lord Havok! How can the newly assembled JLA stop this group of misguided maniacs before the Extremists unleash their own unique—and dangerous—brand of law and order on our chaotic world?

On sale AUGUST 9 • 168 pg, FC, $16.99 US

SUPERMAN VOL. 3: MULTIPLICITY TP

Written by PETER J. TOMASI and PATRICK GLEASON

Art by IVAN REIS, JOE PRADO, RYAN SOOK, CLAY MANN, ED BENES, JORGE JIMENEZ, TONY S. DANIEL and SEBASTIAN FIUMARA

Cover by IVAN REIS and OCLAIR ALBERT

All around the Multiverse, Supermen are going missing— someone is collecting them! Joining forces, the collective of Men of Steel must find a way to escape their cells and defeat their captor. Plus, Superman meets Swamp Thing! Collects SUPERMAN #14-17 and ANNUAL #1.

On sale AUGUST 2 • 144 pg, FC, $16.99 US

WONDER WOMAN VOL. 3: THE TRUTH TP

Written by GREG RUCKA

Art and cover by LIAM SHARP

As Wonder Woman picks up the pieces of her shattered psyche in the wake of “The Lies,” Barbara Ann Minerva walks into the devil’s lair to defend her…or is she being led into a trap? And Diana, Steve and Etta come face to face with their newest foes—the deadly group known as Poison! But what do they have to do with the plot to unravel Wonder Woman’s life? Collects WONDER WOMAN #13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23 and 25.

On sale AUGUST 23• 176 pg, FC, $16.99 US

BATMAN: ARKHAM — CLAYFACE TP

Written by BILL FINGER, LEN WEIN, MIKE W. BARR, DOUG MOENCH, A.J. LIEBERMAN and others

Art by BOB KANE, JERRY ROBINSON, SHELDON MOLDOFF, MARSHALL ROGERS, DICK GIORDANO, KEITH GIFFEN, KELLEY JONES, AL BARRIONUEVO and others

Cover by GUILLEM MARCH

Clayface, one of the most recognized villains in Gotham City, is the star in this new best-of collection featuring stories from Detective Comics #40, 298 and 478, Outsiders #21, Secret Origins #44, Batman #550, Catwoman #4, Batman: Gotham Knights #23 and 69-71 and Batman Villains Secret Files #1.

On sale AUGUST 9 • 280 pg, FC, $19.99 US

BATGIRL: STEPHANIE BROWN VOL. 1 TP

Written by BRYAN Q. MILLER • Art by LEE GARBETT, TREVOR SCOTT, PERE PEREZ and others

Cover by STANLEY “ARTGERM” LAU

Stephanie Brown is Batgirl—and now, she must learn to balance school and crime-fighting or face the wrath of Barbara Gordon! With guest appearances from Batman and Robin and villains like Man-Bat and Scarecrow, Batgirl steps up to the mantle! Plus, Batgirl must stop a nanovirus that will turn the citizens of Gotham City into mindless techno-zombies! Collects BATGIRL #1-12.

On sale AUGUST 16 • 296 pg, FC, $29.99 US

BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT VOL. 2 TP

Written by ALAN GRANT

Art by NORM BREYFOGLE, JOE STATON, STEVE MITCHELL, BRET BLEVINS, MIKE MANLEY, VINCE GIARRANO and others

Cover by BRIAN STELFREEZE

Follow Bruce Wayne through Gotham City’s underworld, a crazed carnival, the streets of London and even into the deep, dark recesses of the Batman’s mind in these 1990s stories! Collects BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT #13-24 and BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT ANNUAL #1. In stories that tie into the “Knightquest” epic, Jean-Paul Valley, formerly known as Azrael, takes over as Batman to battle Scarecrow and more!

On sale AUGUST 30 • 352 pg, FC, $29.99 US

BATMAN: KNIGHTFALL OMNIBUS VOL. 2: KNIGHTQUEST HC

Written by ALAN GRANT, CHUCK DIXON, DOUG MOENCH and others

Art by VINCE GIARRANO, BRET BLEVINS, GRAHAM NOLAN, MIKE MANLEY and others

Cover by KELLEY JONES

The next movement of the “Knightfall” saga is collected for the first time in its entirety! In this volume, Jean-Paul Valley assumes the mantle of the Dark Knight and faces the Scarecrow, the Joker, Gunhawk and others! Collects for the first time all of “Knightquest” in a single hardcover edition including DETECTIVE COMICS #667-675, ROBIN #1, BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT #19-28, BATMAN #501-508, CATWOMAN #6-7 and JUSTICE LEAGUE TASK FORCE #5-6.

On sale OCTOBER 25 • 888 pg, FC, $99.99 US

BATMAN: THE GOLDEN AGE VOL. 3 TP

Written by BILL FINGER, JOSEPH GREENE, DON CAMERON and others

Art by BOB KANE, JERRY ROBINSON, JACK BURNLEY and others

Cover by MICHAEL CHO

In these classic tales from the 1940s, the Dynamic Duo faces off with The Joker, the Conjurer, the Penguin, Two-Face, Tweedledee and Tweedledum and more! Collects BATMAN #8-11, DETECTIVE COMICS #57-65 and WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #4-6.

On sale AUGUST 30 • 384 pg, FC, $29.99 US

BATMAN/SUPERMAN VOL. 6: UNIVERSE’S FINEST TP

Written by PETER J. TOMASI and TOM TAYLOR

Art by ROBSON ROCHA and DOUG MAHNKE

Cover by YANICK PAQUETTE

The final days of Superman are here! Batman and Superman are working to prepare the world for the loss of the Last Son of Krypton, but nothing can prepare the planet for what’s to come. The superheroes will find friends and foes as they traverse the Earth in a desperate last attempt to save the Man of Steel! Collects BATMAN/SUPERMAN #28-32, plus never-before-published stories originally slated to appear in BATMAN/SUPERMAN #33-34 and ANNUAL #3!

On sale AUGUST 16 • 224 pg, FC, $19.99 US

WONDER GIRL: ADVENTURES OF A TEEN TITAN TP

Written by ROBERT KANIGHER, BRUNO PREMIANI, JOHN BYRNE and others

Art by ROSS ANDRU, BOB HANEY, NEAL ADAMS, JOHN BYRNE and others

Cover by NICOLA SCOTT and DOUG HAZLEWOOD

The adventures of Wonder Girl are collected for the first time! These stories include appearances by Wonder Woman, the Teen Titans and more from the pages of WONDER WOMAN #105 (1959), THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #60, TEEN TITANS #22, ADVENTURE COMICS #461, WONDER WOMAN #105 and 113, WONDER WOMAN: DONNA TROY #1 and WONDER GIRL #1.

On sale AUGUST 30 • 168 pg, FC, $14.99 US

DEADMAN BY KELLEY JONES: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION TP

Written by MIKE BARON

Art by KELLEY JONES, VINCE GIARRANO, TONY DEZUNIGA and PABLO MARCOS

Cover by KELLEY JONES

Deadman has gone from supernatural hero to insane spirit of evil, and with a tide of demons threatening humanity, his true power can only be unlocked if he faces the secret within him that has driven him mad. Collects DEADMAN: LOVE AFTER DEATH #1-2 and DEADMAN: EXORCISM #1-2, plus stories from ACTION COMICS WEEKLY #618-621 and 623-626.

On sale AUGUST 30 • 272 pg, FC, $24.99 US

EARTH 2: SOCIETY VOL. 4: LIFE AFTER DEATH TP

Written by DAN ABNETT

Art by BRUNO REDONDO, VICENTE CIFUENTES and others

Cover by BRUNO REDONDO

Earth-2 is dead! Following a climactic battle with Ultra-Humanite and his super- powered army, a handful of the Wonders awaken in a twilight limbo. Are they the only ones to have survived? Has their desperate gambit to save their world ended in total disaster? In the wreckage, the surviving heroes have failed in their effort to save the world. As they struggle to accept the disaster they have caused, something in the phantom mist begins to hunt for them. In the Ghost World, no heroes can be allowed to exist. Collects EARTH 2: SOCIETY #17-22.

On sale AUGUST 9 • 136 pg, FC, $14.99 US

GRAYSON: THE SUPERSPY OMNIBUS HC

Written by TOM KING, TIM SEELEY and others

Art by MIKEL JANIN, STEPHEN MOONEY, CARMINE DI GIANDOMENICO, ROGE ANTONIO and others

Cover by MIKEL JANIN

Collects all of Dick Grayson’s adventures as Agent 37 for the spy organization known as Spyral! Faking his death, and entering a game of cat and mouse, Dick must take down Spyral from the inside in order to save his loved ones. This omnibus edition collects GRAYSON #1-20, SECRET ORIGINS #8, GRAYSON ANNUAL #1-3, GRAYSON: FUTURE’S END #1, ROBIN WAR #1-2 and NIGHTWING: REBIRTH #1, with appearances by Batman, Superman and more!

On sale OCTOBER 18 • 792 pg, FC, $99.99 US

LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT: JIM APARO VOL. 3 HC

Written by BOB HANEY, MIKE W. BARR, GERRY CONWAY, CARY BURKETT, ALAN BRENNERT, ROBERT KANIGHER and others

Art and cover by JIM APARO

In these classic tales, the Caped Crusader crosses paths with Metamorpho, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Green Arrow, Swamp Thing and more. Collects Aparo’s art from THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #152, 154-178, 180-182, DETECTIVE COMICS #444-446, 448, 468-470, 480, 492, 493, 495-499, 501, 502, 508 and 509, plus BATMAN FAMILY #17 and THE UNTOLD LEGEND OF THE BATMAN #1-3.

On sale AUGUST 23 • 552 pg, FC, $49.99 US

LOONEY TUNES GREATEST HITS VOL. 3: BEEP BEEP TP

Written and illustrated by various

Cover by DAVID ALVAREZ and MIKE DeCARLO

Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Taz, Tweety Bird and all your other favorite Looney Tunes are at it again! Will Elmer E. Fudd ever catch that wascally wabbit? Will Wile E. Coyote finally catch the Road Runner? Will Pepé Le Pew get the girl? Don’t miss all the action with this third collection of the greatest adventures from the Looney Tunes! Collects LOONEY TUNES #47-53.

On sale AUGUST 23 • 144 pg, FC, $12.99 US

HARLEY’S LITTLE BLACK BOOK HC

Written by AMANDA CONNER and JIMMY PALMIOTTI

Art by JOHN TIMMS, AMANDA CONNER, MAURICET, NEAL ADAMS, DAVE JOHNSON, JOSEPH MICHAEL LINSNER, WILLIAM TUCCI and SIMON BISLEY

Cover by AMANDA CONNER

It’s the sensational team-up series in which Harley meets (and annoys) DC’s greatest heroes and villains! Harley meets up with Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Lobo and more! But can she keep up with beings of this caliber? Collects HARLEY’S LITTLE BLACK BOOK #1-6.

On sale AUGUST 2 • 256 pg, FC, $29.99 US

HARLEY QUINN BY KARL KESEL AND TERRY DODSON DELUXE EDITION BOOK ONE HC

Written by KARL KESEL

Art by TERRY DODSON, RACHEL DODSON, CRAIG ROUSSEAU, PETE WOODS and others

Cover by TERRY DODSON and RACHEL DODSON

Terry Dodson and Karl Kesel’s original run on HARLEY QUINN is now in hardcover! In these tales, Harley must do without her beloved Mister J’s “calming” influence and take on the world on her own. From jailbreaks to shopping sprees to her origin story, this book is jam-packed with over-the-top action! Includes appearances by Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Catwoman and more. Collects HARLEY QUINN #1-8.

On sale SEPTEMBER 6 • 216 pg, FC, $29.99 US

ABSOLUTE JUSTICE LEAGUE: ORIGIN HC

Written by GEOFF JOHNS

Art by JIM LEE, SCOTT WILLIAMS, GENE HA, CARLOS D’ANDA, IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO

Cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS

For the first time, Geoff Johns and Jim Lee’s stellar run on JUSTICE LEAGUE from the dawn of DC: THE NEW 52 is collected in DC’s Absolute Edition format! First, Batman discovers an evil that requires him to unite Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg for the first time as the Justice League! Then, find out who has joined the team after its origin! And why does Green Arrow want to join their ranks so badly? Plus, someone is out to get the Justice League, and he is determined to show the world how mortal these godlike beings really are!

On sale SEPTEMBER 27 • 360 pg, FC, 8.25″ x 12.5″, $99.99 US

JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE DARKSEID WAR SAGA OMNIBUS HC

Written by GEOFF JOHNS, PETER J. TOMASI, FRANCIS MANAPUL and others

Art by JASON FABOK, JIM LEE, FRANCIS MANAPUL, PHIL JIMENEZ, FERNANDO PASARIN, SCOTT KOLINS and others

Cover by JASON FABOK

The Justice League originally united to stop the forces of Darkseid from destroying Earth! Now the ruler of Apokolips is back, but this time he’s set his sights on the world-shattering Anti-Monitor. Will the combined might of the Justice League be enough to protect Earth from becoming collateral damage as gods fight? This new title collects JUSTICE LEAGUE #40-50, a story from DC COMICS DIVERGENCE #1 and the DARKSEID WAR specials starring Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Superman, Lex Luthor and Shazam!

On sale OCTOBER 11 • 512 pg, FC, $75.00 US

JUSTICE LEAGUE: AN ADULT COLORING BOOK TP

Art by JIM LEE, JASON FABOK, BRYAN HITCH, GEORGE PEREZ, NEAL ADAMS, MIKE SEKOWSKY and others

Cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS

The World’s Greatest Heroes unite in black and white in this new adult coloring book! Featuring the art of top talents including Jim Lee, Jason Fabok, Bryan Hitch, George Pérez, Neal Adams, original Justice League of America artist Mike Sekowsky and many others!

On sale OCTOBER 11 • 96 pg, B&W, $15.99 US

TEEN TITANS: EARTH ONE VOL. 2 TP

Written by JEFF LEMIRE

Art and cover by ANDY MACDONALD

After months on the run from the twisted project that created them, Cyborg, Terra, Beast Boy and Garth are near the breaking point, barely surviving on what they can steal, squatting in the ruins of an abandoned subdivision. But as they reach their lowest ebb, their creator, Dr. Niles Caulder, is ready to make his move…and they’re about to learn that they weren’t the only kids to go through Caulder’s twisted process! There are more children with powers out there, and unlike our heroes, they were raised to be the living weapons Caulder wants all his Titans to be!

On sale AUGUST 16 • 144 pg, FC, $16.99 US

THE NEWSBOY LEGION BY JOE SIMON AND JACK KIRBY VOL. 2 HC

Written by JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY

Art by JOE SIMON, JACK KIRBY and others

Cover by JOE SIMON and JACK KIRBY

In these 1940s tales from STAR-SPANGLED COMICS #33-64, the scrappy inner city boys known as the Newsboy Legion work together to stop crime in their home of Suicide Slum. Watched over by adult hero the Guardian—a.k.a. policeman Jim Harper—the Newsboy Legion battle crime through their own newspaper reporting, taking on crooked politicians, slum lords, fifth column agents and more.

On sale AUGUST 2 • 368 pg, FC, $49.99 US

NEW TEEN TITANS VOL. 7 TP

Written by MARV WOLFMAN and GEORGE PEREZ

Art by GEORGE PEREZ, STEVE RUDE, DICK GIORDANO and others

Cover by GEORGE PEREZ

From the retirement of Robin and Kid Flash to the birth of Nightwing and the introduction of Jericho to the ultimate betrayal of a Titan—“The Judas Contract” riveted readers during its initial run in the 1980s, and it still has fans talking today. This new title collects TALES OF THE TEEN TITANS #42-48 and TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #3.

On sale AUGUST 23 • 224 pg, FC, $19.99 US

SIXPACK AND DOGWELDER: HARD-TRAVELIN’ HEROZ TP

Written by GARTH ENNIS

Art by RUSS BRAUN

Cover by STEVE DILLON

When John Constantine comes calling, Dogwelder finds himself face to face with destiny as the truth about his powers and origin suddenly seem to lie within his grasp. Could his journey of discovery be just what Sixpack needs to snap Section Eight out of its funk? Now the pair are off on the road trip from hell, leaving a trail of mayhem (and empty bottles and canine corpses) from Gotham City to Egypt to outer space. This title collects SIXPACK AND DOGWELDER: HARD-TRAVELIN’ HEROZ #1-6.

On sale AUGUST 16 • 144 pg, FC, $16.99 US

SUPER POWERS TP

Written by ART BALTAZAR and FRANCO

Art and cover by ART BALTAZAR

Aw yeah, the World’s Greatest Heroes are back in a new all-ages tale—except for Batman! Superman helps out by cleaning up in Gotham City, where he discovers a clue that sends Wonder Woman into space to locate the lost Caped Crusader. Her journey brings her a step closer to Batman, but can she uncover the truth behind his disappearance? It’s not going to be pretty—it involves Darkseid and Apokolips!

On sale AUGUST 9 • 136 pg, FC, $12.99 US

SWAMP THING: THE BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS HC

Written by LEN WEIN, DAVID MICHELINIE, GERRY CONWAY, MARTIN PASKO, BRUCE JONES and others

Art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, NESTOR REDONDO, TOM YEATES, JAN DUURSEMA, TOM MANDRAKE, STEPHEN BISSETTE, JOHN TOTLEBEN. MARK TEXEIRA and others

Cover by KARL KERSCHL

The Swamp Thing faces a plethora of monsters and the uncaring savagery of his once-fellow men in these original stories! This giant hardcover collects HOUSE OF SECRETS #92, SWAMP THING #1-24, SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #1-19 and SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING ANNUAL #1.

On sale OCTOBER 4 • 928 pg, FC, $99.99 US

WILDSTORM: A CELEBRATION OF 25 YEARS HC

Written by BRANDON CHOI, J. SCOTT CAMPBELL, WARREN ELLIS, CHRISTOS GAGE and others

Art by JIM LEE, SCOTT WILLIAMS, J. SCOTT CAMPBELL, BRYAN HITCH, PAUL NEARY, DUSTIN NGUYEN, BRETT BOOTH and others

Cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS

In 1992 Jim Lee changed the course of comics history with the founding of WildStorm Productions, which would revolutionize the business and launch the careers of so many top creators. Now, the WS crew is back to celebrate 25 years of WildStorm with new short stories of the imprint’s greatest heroes by their classic creative teams, including WildC.A.T.s by Brandon Choi and Jim Lee; the Authority by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch; Gen13 by J. Scott Campbell; WildCats by Christos Gage and Dustin Nguyen; Backlash by Brett Booth, and more!

This new hardcover also includes a massive pinup gallery featuring new art by WS alumni including John Cassaday, Tim Sale, Adam Hughes, Carlos D’Anda, Adam Warren, Tony Harris, Lee Bermejo, Ryan Benjamin, Neil Googe, Fiona Staples, Cully Hamner and more, plus behind-the-scenes material that will blow your mind, and epic reprints of some of WildStorm’s greatest stories! This new hardcover is a must-have for old fans and new readers alike!

On sale AUGUST 23 • 240 pg, FC, $29.99 US

AMERICAN WAY: THOSE ABOVE AND THOSE BELOW #1

Written by JOHN RIDLEY • Art and cover by GEORGES JEANTY

It’s been a decade since the Civil Defense Corps was exposed as a fraud created by the U.S. Government for propaganda purposes. While most of the heroes who survived the catastrophe have retired or disappeared, the New American still carries on, trying to keep communities safe amid the social turmoil of the 1970s. But with the nation split in two over civil rights and the changing political landscape, this isn’t easy. Some of the American’s former colleagues are on opposite sides of the law: Amber Waves joined a group of domestic terrorists, while Missy, a.k.a. Ole Miss, has thrown her hat into the political ring. As the ground shifts beneath his feet and new threats arise, which side will the American choose?

This sequel to the hit miniseries by the original team of writer John Ridley (Oscar-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave and creator of TV’s American Crime) and artist Georges Jeanty (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight, Serenity: No Power in the ‘Verse) moves the story forward in history, factoring in how real-life events might be affected by the presence of superheroes, and how those events change the heroes in turn.

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, 1 of 6, $3.99 US • MATURE READERS

ASTRO CITY #46

Written by KURT BUSIEK

Art by BRENT ANDERSON

Cover by ALEX ROSS

The final chapter in the Broken Man’s century-spanning revelations about Astro City, music, rebellion, heroes and the threat of the Oubor. The Broken Man is mounting a defense—but does it stand a chance, or is it as cracked as he is? Featuring Honor Guard, the First Family and more, in a story that sets the stage for everything that is to come for Astro City.

On sale JULY 19 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T

EVERAFTER: FROM THE PAGES OF FABLES #11

Written by DAVE JUSTUS and LILAH STURGES

Art by TRAVIS MOORE

Cover by TULA LOTAY

The Shadow Players are fractured and under siege by some of the Lone Star State’s darkest legends! Connor spills his guts to La Llorona, Bo tries not to get rammed and Peter bites off more pain than he can swallow while he searches for ancient artifacts! Meanwhile, back at Plano South, the rest of the crew gets an education from the mysterious Kara Bass in this arc’s pulse-pounding penultimate chapter!

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • MATURE READERS

SAVAGE THINGS #5

Written by JUSTIN JORDAN

Art by IBRAHIM MOUSTAFA

Cover by IBRAHIM MOUSTAFA

New York has succumbed to chaos. Devastating attacks by Black Forest have brought the city to its knees. Abel and Kira are trying to quell the situation, but it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys in the confusion, so not only do they have to contend with Cain’s goons, but local law enforcement and scared citizens alike. Amid all the violent disorder, Abel begins to realize Cain’s real target is much bigger—and potentially deadlier—than anyone imagined.

On sale JULY 5 • 32 pg, FC, 5 of 8, $3.99 US • MATURE READERS

THE LOST BOYS TP

Written by TIM SEELEY

Art by SCOTT GODLEWSKI

Cover by TONY HARRIS

The stakes are raised in this nostalgic and unstoppable sequel to the ’80s cult classic vampire film, The Lost Boys. Santa Carla, California, is on edge. The eccentric coastal town and haven for the undead was finally returning to “normal” after its last supernatural scuffle left the local coven’s head vampire dead and gave newcomers Michael and Sam Emerson a housewarming both violent and bizarre. Now the brothers must team up with militant vampire hunters Edgar and Allan Frog when a new gang of ruthless, stunning, life-sucking nightcrawlers known as the Blood Belles emerges to collect Michael’s love interest and their lost sister, Star. Collects THE LOST BOYS #1-6.

On sale AUGUST 9 • 144 pg, FC, $16.99 US • MATURE READERS

UNFOLLOW VOL. 3: TURN IT OFF TP

Written by ROB WILLIAMS

Art by MIKE DOWLING, SIMON GANE and JAVIER PULIDO

Cover by MATT TAYLOR

It’s the conclusion to UNFOLLOW in these tales from issues #13-18! First, learn how Akira plans to defeat Larry Ferrell’s 140 experiment and move the world toward peace. Then, the last survivors of the original 140 meet for a final showdown with Larry Ferrell! And what will become of Rubinstein’s mask when it returns home?

On sale AUGUST 2 • 144 pg, FC, $16.99 US • MATURE READERS

JUSTICE LEAGUE MOVIE STATUES: BATMAN, CYBORG AND SUPERMAN

The World’s Greatest Heroes unite on the big screen for the first time this November in the Warner Bros. feature film Justice League! Now, DC Collectibles captures the likenesses of BATMAN, CYBORG and SUPERMAN in these spectacular new statues!

BATMAN—12.75″ high Sculpted by Alterton

CYBORG—13″ high Sculpted by Alterton

SUPERMAN—13″ high Sculpted by James Marsano

Limited Editions of 5,000

Each statue sold separately

Each $150.00 US

On Sale NOVEMBER 2017

Allocations May Occur

WONDER WOMAN BRACELETS WITH LASSO AND TIARA PROP REPLICA

Sculpted by JOE MENNA

Three of Wonder Woman’s most recognizable accessories in her battle for justice—her tiara, bracelets and lasso—are united in this exciting new prop replica. Celebrate Wonder Woman’s new movie with this amazing tribute to the Amazon Princess!

Limited Edition of 5,000

Measures Approximately

14.50″ high x 10.50″ wide x 10.50″ deep

$300.00 US

On Sale NOVEMBER 2017

Allocations May Occur

BAT-SIGNAL PROP REPLICA

This exquisite metal prop replica of the Bat-Signal will light your night! This powerful Bat-Signal comes with three Bat symbols: one inspired by the Batman movies, one “Knightfall” symbol and a traditional symbol from the pages of the Dark Knight’s comics. Comes with USB cable, removable power adaptor and LED light source.

Limited Edition of 5,000

Measures Approximately 12.75″ high x 9″ wide x 8″ deep

$300.00 US • On Sale NOVEMBER 2017

Allocations May Occur

DC ICONS: THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN ACTION FIGURE 2-PACK

“The Death of Superman” epic grabbed headlines in 1993, and the story remains one of DC’s most memorable. Now, DC Collectibles commemorates it with a new action figure 2-pack that includes two interchangeable Superman heads, snap-on heat vision and punch-blast effect, two displayable sound effects captions plus a battle base with a tattered-cape flag!

DOOMSDAY—7.1″

SUPERMAN—6.1”

$75.00 US

On Sale NOVEMBER 2017

Allocations May Occur

DCTV: THE FLASH — KID FLASH ACTION FIGURE

From the hit CW series, it’s Wally West, a.k.a. Kid Flash! This young hero comes with extra hands and an extra head without his familiar mask.

KID FLASH—6.69”

$28.00 US • On Sale NOVEMBER 2017

Allocations May Occur

DCTV LEGENDS OF TOMORROW: THE ATOM ACTION FIGURE

DC’s own Legends of Tomorrow are here in a new DCTV action figure series! The Atom includes alternate hands and energy blasts.

THE ATOM—7″

$28.00 US

On Sale NOVEMBER 2017

Allocations May Occur

DCTV LEGENDS OF TOMORROW: WHITE CANARY ACTION FIGURE

DC’s own Legends of Tomorrow are here in a new DCTV action figure series! White Canary appears with her own battle-lance plus two sets of alternate hands.

WHITE CANARY—6.74″

$28.00 US

On Sale NOVEMBER 2017

Allocations May Occur

DC ICONS: BATMAN REBIRTH ACTION FIGURE

As seen in the DC REBIRTH: JUSTICE LEAGUE ACTION FIGURE 7-PACK, the Dark Knight is back in a new solo action figure featuring his appearance in DC’s smash-hit Rebirth titles!

BATMAN—6.25

$28.00 US • On Sale OCTOBER 2017

Allocations May Occur

DC ICONS: SUPERMAN REBIRTH ACTION FIGURE

As seen in the DC REBIRTH: JUSTICE LEAGUE ACTION FIGURE 7-PACK, the Man of Steel is back in a new solo action figure featuring his appearance in DC’s smash-hit Rebirth titles!

SUPERMAN—6.25

$28.00 US • On Sale OCTOBER 2017

Allocations May Occur

DC BOMBSHELLS VIXEN STATUE

Designed by ANT LUCIA

Sculpted by AMY SHARPE

Her claws may be hidden by those evening gloves, but make no mistake—Vixen is dangerous! She’s also the latest Bombshells statue designed by Ant Lucia!

Limited Edition of 5,000

Measures Approximately 10.55” Tall

$125.00 US

On Sale NOVEMBER 2017

Allocations May Occur

DC DESIGNER SERIES: BATMAN BY ANDY KUBERT MINI STATUE

Designed by ANDY KUBERT • Sculpted by ALTERTON

Legendary writer/artist Frank Miller returned to Batman with DARK KNIGHT III: THE MASTER RACE, teaming with superstar artist Andy Kubert! Now, the DC Collectibles statue based on Kubert’s rendition of the Dark Knight is back in a new, miniaturized edition!

Limited Edition of 5,000

Measures Approximately 7” Tall

$80.00 US • On Sale SEPTEMBER 2017

Allocations May Occur

The post DC Comics’ July 2017 Solicitations appeared first on CBR.

http://ift.tt/2onw0yg

[peachy-panic]

Companion, pt. 2

A (slightly delayed) follow up to this chapter. Jaime & Sebastian add another member to their little makeshift household.

WARNINGS: The usual BBU stuff, animal shelter setting, collars, mentions of past foster care, anxiety, but mostly good things happening here.

The animal shelter they chose is in the heart of the city. Their website mentioned that they often deal with overpopulation, since it’s the biggest one in the area, so Sebastian thought they might have the most positive impact by adopting from them. They have a list of available animals with photos that they update daily, but Jaime turned down Sebastian’s offer to look through them.

He doesn’t tell him that swiping through a catalog of strays, deciding their fate behind the comfort of a computer screen, feels too much like how a prospective Keeper might shop for their Companion. How someone once shopped for him.

They make a plan to go on Saturday morning, and Jaime spends the rest of the week quietly stewing in an unnamed anxiety. He doesn’t bring it up—not when Sebastian talks excitedly about pet toys he found online over dinner, not when his nerves cut into his ability to fall asleep at night, and certainly not when he is buckled into the passenger seat, watching the big, yellow bridge that leads into downtown come into view. 

The building itself is large but sparse, all cement-gray walls and scuffed floors and signs of age that reflect a probable lack of funding. As they walk through the main hallway, flanked by rows of doors and cages, Jaime thinks that it reminds him a little of the training facility. He keeps that to himself, too. 

There is a volunteer—a young woman with her hair in a bun and a stain on her shirt—showing Jaime and Sebastian around. 

“The dogs are back this way,” she says. “Green tags on the doors are puppies under six months. Yellow tags mean they can be a little jumpy around people, red equals not good matches for homes with young children. Blue tags mean they’re seniors. Those are usually the ones that have been with us the longest.”

Jaime tries hard not to think about what happens to the senior dogs that overstay their welcome. 

“Cats are on this side,” she continues, pointing to her left. “We just ask that you wash your hands if you enter one of the playrooms, and avoid direct contact with any red tags. Any questions?”

Sebastian looks at Jaime, who tenses slightly at the attention but shakes his head. 

“I think we’re all good.” Sebastian says. 

She smiles. “Just let us know if you have any questions.”

With a nod, they set off down the hall on their own, Jaime sticking close to Sebastian’s heels. 

“So,” Sebastian says, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets. “Anywhere in particular you want to start? Young? Old? Big? Small?”

Jaime looks around at all the cages, suddenly overwhelmed—by the decision, by the sharp whines and barks for attention, by the closeness of the other prospective adopters, by the sad, watchful eyes of the animals as people pass them by. By the collars fastened around their necks, reminding Jaime of the weight of his own, the visibility of it peeking up through the dip in the sweatshirt neckline. Absently, he touches the warm metal with his fingertips. 

Sebastian seems to sense his discomfort, because he eases back. “You know what? Maybe we just take a lap or two and see what happens,” he says. “Maybe there will be an instant connection.”

They start with a black lab with a green tag on his cage door, who instantly jumps up and tries to paw at them when Sebastian sinks into a crouch.

“Well, aren’t you full of energy?” Sebastian’s voice lifts into a high sing-song tone when he speaks to the dogs, and the surprise of it is so endearing that it momentarily pulls Jaime from his inward spiral. “Only five months old,” he says to Jaime.

Against his wishes, memories of a long lost life in foster care rise to the surface. Jaime had been old enough when he entered to know that his chances of finding a family to adopt him were low, and only getting lower with each passing birthday.

“I’m sure she’ll be very popular,” Jaime says.

“Yeah,” Sebastian agrees, sticking his finger through one of the holes in the grate so that the puppy can sniff him. “You’ll find a home in no time, sweet girl.”

They move past a few more cages, Sebastian seemingly thrilled with the prospect of bringing any one of them home, but Jaime’s anxiety only grows. It’s when they come upon a cage with a golden labrador puppy—one that looks a little too similar to the fading image he has of a puppy from his childhood—that he reaches a breaking point. 

He takes a few steps away—not so far as to wander away from Sebastian’s watch, but a couple of doors down the row. Jaime takes slow, deep breaths as he looks down at the sleeping dog in the kennel in front of him, trying to imagine her laying on Sebastian’s living room rug. Trying not to imagine what it might look like to feed her every day, to brush her, to walk her, to love her, and then to leave her behind in six months when Jaime is called back to the facility. 

Sebastian doesn’t seem to mind Jaime’s straying, so he allows himself the space, moving slowly along the row of animals. He makes it all the way to the end of the hall when a flash of movement catches his eye. At the corner, secluded away from the glass-walled play rooms, is a singular cage with a black cat inside. The flash of movement he saw, it seems, was the cat’s abrupt recoil from a pair of reaching hands.

“Don’t put your fingers in the cage!” A young mother scolds, grabbing her child’s wrist and pulling him back from the cage. “You’re going to get bit.”

The kid gies a grumble of complaint but moves onto the next door quickly, not sparing a look back at the cage. Jaime watches as the black cat shrinks even further behind a wadded up blanket, pressing herself to the back corner of the cage, where no one can reach. Her bright, green eyes scan the area, back and forth, watching for invaders. She doesn’t look aggressive, Jaime thinks. She looks scared. 

Without realizing it, Jaime has taken a step toward the cage. He sees both a blue and a yellow tag on the door and tries to remember what the codes mean. On a small slip of paper at the top of the cage, the name “Bella” is written out in sharpie. 

“Hi Bella,” he whispers, barely audible. “You’re okay.”

Slowly, broadcasting the movement as much as he can, he lifts a hand and places the tip of his finger just at the edge of the cage; not enough to intrude the walls of her space, but hopefully enough to be a show of invitation. Bella looks at his finger for a long few seconds, then up at his eyes. Stupidly, Jaime smiles, like it might soften her to him.  

“Pretty eyes, right?”

The sudden voice startles him, even more for the fact that it isn’t Sebastian’s. He pulls his hand away like it was burned and turns to find another young woman with a volunteer shirt on. 

“Sorry,” he says automatically.

“No need,” she says, then nods her head toward the cage. “I think you’ve got her attention.” 

Jaime looks back at the cage and finds that the cat has taken a few steps out from her hiding spot, a curious nose pointed where Jaime’s finger had been. Carefully, darting a quick look at the woman for approval, Jaime lifts his hand again. This time, the cat only stares at it for a few seconds before she bumps her nose against his skin. A breath of a laugh startles out of him. 

“That’s the most contact she’s had with anyone on her own terms,” the girl says. “She must like you.”

“Can I ask…?” Jaime starts then hesitates. The woman's gaze dips, almost unwittingly, to Jaime’s throat. He watches something flash across her expression before she schools it with a neutral look. 

“You can ask me,” she tells him. 

“Why is she in a cage by herself? Away from the other cats?”

“She’s FIV+.”

Jaime glances back at the cat. “She’s sick?”

The woman nods. “It’s an immunodeficiency virus. There’s no cure for it, but it’s entirely possible for cats to live full, happy lives with it. But it’s best that she goes to a home with no other cats.”

“I think he… My…” Jaime clears his throat. “I think he is looking for a dog.”

She presses her lips into a thin line. “I see.”

As if summoned, Sebastian appears at his shoulder. “Oh, look at this cutie!”

Jaime tries to conceal his startled jump. “Her name is Bella,” he says quietly. 

“Look at her,” Sebastian croons, crouching beside the cage but not attempting to make contact. “She’s a love bug.”

“She’s actually quite shy,” the woman says, taking the smallest nudge of a step in front of Jaime to stand between them. “I was just telling him how he must be special to win her over so quickly.”

Sebastian’s first instinct is to shoot Jaime a smile. He stands slowly, knees cracking, and says, “I can’t say I’m surprised.” Then, to Jaime, he adds, “I didn’t know you were a cat person.”

“I’ve never had one,” he says honestly. 

“Hmm.” Sebastian turns back toward the cat, studying her for a few long seconds before he says, “Do you like her?”

Jaime blinks, letting his hand slowly drop to his side. In his periphery, he sees Bella raise a paw to tap impatiently against the cage wall. 

“I…” He looks to the cat, to the volunteer, and back at Sebastian. “Yes.” 

Sebastian nods, once, decisively, then turns to the volunteer. “We’ll take her.”

There’s a moment’s pause. They both turn to him, surprised. “I… I thought you wanted a dog,” Jaime says. 

He shrugs. “I think Bella has made the decision for us, really.” He nods toward where she is still perched at the edge of the cage, nuzzling against the bars to reach Jaime. “I mean, look at her. It’s out of our hands.”

He is fawning over the cat—who has decided to regard him with a look of skeptical displeasure—but Jaime only has eyes for Sebastian. He blinks up at him, trying to tame the spread of warmth in his chest. “Really?” he asks. 

Sebastian gives an uncertain smile, one that Jaime is becoming more and more familiar with. “Is that okay with you?”

Jaime swallows tightly, lowering his voice. “You’ll keep her?” he asks, trying to ignore the inquisitive glance from the volunteer. “Even when I’m gone?”

It looks like there’s a lot more that Sebastian wants to say, but in their present company, he only meets Jaime’s eyes and says, “Yes. Of course”

Jaime breathes out and gives a single, decisive nod. 

“Alright then,” the woman breaks the silence after a few tense moments. “Let’s get the paperwork started.”

***

On the way home, Sebastian drives carefully enough that his knuckles go white around the steering wheel, trying to avoid every bump and crack in the road. Jaime is in the backseat, which is an arrangement Sebastian normally wouldn’t prefer, but it’s only because he wants to be able to sit next to Bella’s carrier. 

He casts a glance in the rearview mirror to see Jaime gently running the back of his finger against the mesh wall, ducking his head so he can peek inside. 

“What should we name her?” Sebastian asks, almost regretting breaking the moment of reverence. 

Jaime sits up, meeting his eyes in the mirror. A dip of confusion forms between his brows. “You don’t like the name Bella?”

“Oh.” Sebastian blinks. “I—no, it’s cute. I like it. Just… I think most of the time the names they’re given in the shelter are temporary things? People usually change them to whatever they want when they bring them home.”

Jaime is quiet long enough to make Seabstian think maybe he’s stepped in something he didn’t mean to. Then, he asks, “Do you think she had a name before the shelter?”

Sebastian shrugs. “They didn’t know much about her history. If she was a stray her whole life, I guess she probably didn’t.”

He looks back down at the carrier, continuing the slow, soothing motion of his finger. “I’m okay with whatever name you decide for her,” he says, and Seabstian can’t help but hear a bit of dejection slip through. 

The pieces connect, and Sebastian considers the kind of weight a name might carry for someone who has had his stolen. 

Sebastian tightens his grip on the steering wheel, keeping his voice as even as he can. “No, I think you’re right,” he says. “Bella suits her just fine.”

****

@whumpervescence @shiningstarofwinter @distinctlywhumpthing@whumptywhumpdump @nicolepascaline @anotherbluntpencil @hold-him-down @crystalquartzwhump @maracujatangerine @batfacedliar-yetagain @thecyrulik @pumpkin-spice-whump @finder-of-rings @melancholy-in-the-morning @insaneinthepaingame @skyhawkwolf @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @mylifeisonthebookshelf @dont-touch-my-soup @whump-world @inpainandsuffering @cicatrix-energy @quietly-by-myself @whumpsday @extemporary-whump @the-whumpers-grimm @thebirdsofgay @firewheeesky @whumperfully @hold-back-on-the-comfort  @termsnconditions-apply  @cyborg0109  @whumplr-reader  @pinkraindropsfell  @whatwhumpcomments @honeycollectswhump @pirefyrelight @handsinmotion @alexmundaythrufriday @scoundrelwithboba

[peachy-panic]

Lonely

Hi everyone, I'm alive! Have some Torley Era Jaime content.

This kind goes along with a (much happier) future piece I'm hoping to finish writing and post soon, so stay tuned for some better vibes. For now:

WARNINGS: BBU/BBU-Adjacent, hunger, the sadness of stray cats (no animals were harmed in the making), brief suicidal ideations, gun mention, implied noncon

Restless. That is how Jaime thinks of the long weekdays in the Torley house, when the boys are at school and his Keeper is at work, and Jaime is left on his own until they return home to demand his attention. 

It is not that he is without work; Mr. Torley holds high expectations for his home, and Jaime strives to meet them all, even if it means double, triple, cleaning over a room he’s already scrubbed bare or taking all of the glassware out of the cabinets just to polish and arrange them again. But there are days when he finds himself with idle hands, in the time between completing his chores and his keeper’s return. That’s when anxiety creeps in. He knows it’s a conditioned thought, but it’s in him too deep to ignore. He can’t rest, can’t be useless, can’t be found being lazy when Mr. Torley comes home. 

It gets lonely, though, these pockets of restlessness. He is so fucking. lonely.

Sometimes he wishes that he had permission to go out on errands—collecting groceries, making returns, dropping off suits at the dry cleaner—just so that he can have a reason to talk to another person. He was trained to believe that many domestic contracts allow for that kind of thing, but Mr. Torley has made it clear that Jaime’s place is in the house. In the month that he has been here, he has never once been allowed to step foot outside, and he knows better than to ask. 

He is usually good at avoiding temptation, but on one Friday morning, Jaime is caught off guard.

He is cleaning the sliding glass doors at the back of the house when he catches a flash of movement in the corner of his eye. Jaime flinches, startled, but when he looks into the backyard, he finds that the source of the motion was a fluffy, white cat, now tucked halfway behind a thick tree root, peeking up at Jaime with obvious apprehension. Through the thick glass, he can make out a muffled meow.

It must be the same cat Kade saw last night. Jaime hadn’t seen it himself, but he overheard the argument between him and his father from the next room. 

“Dad, we should keep her!”

“It probably already has a home, Kade.”

“No it doesn’t,” he shot back. “Look, she doesn’t have a collar.”

Ubidden, Jaime’s hand rose to the metal band at his own throat. Funny, he thought, how a collar is the mark of a safe home to some. 

“That doesn’t mean it’s our responsibility.”

“Daddy,” Jaime recognized the edge of frustrated tears slipping into Kade’s voice. “What if she’s hungry?”

“She’s fine.”

“Can I give her some water at least?”

“Kadence.” Even from the next room, Jaime couldn’t help but flinch at the impatient tone in his Keeper’s voice. “You will not give this cat anything, do you understand me? You feed it once and it will keep coming back. That’s the last thing I need to deal with.”

“But Dad—”

“I said, do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

Without really thinking about it, Jaime stuffs the washrag into his back pocket and crouches down, putting himself closer to eye level. The cat perks his head up in response, fixing him with a steadier stare. 

“Hi,” Jaime mouths, lifting one hand to wiggle his fingers in a half-wave. The cat puts a hesitant paw forward, and Jaime smiles. “Hello, there.”

Another soft meow, and then it pulls its paw back. 

“Don’t go,” he whispers, struck by the sudden, urgent fear that it will dart away and leave him alone. All at once, it is Jaime’s greatest wish to keep this small animal in his sights, if only for a little while. If only to feel just a little less alone for a few minutes. It's desperate and sad, but it's true.

Jaime’s eyes flick up to the latch on the sliding door, just above his head. It would only be for a moment. Just a moment, just long enough to see if the cat will come closer. He won’t be breaking any rules—not really. 

When he looks back to the cat, he sees that it has moved several paces closer, and it’s all the push he needs. Slowly, Jaime reaches up and flips the lock open. The sound is enough to freeze the small animal in place, but it doesn’t retreat. Still, he slows his movements even further as he wraps his fingers around the handle and pulls it to the side. The burst of clean, fresh air on his face is the best thing he’s felt in months. 

The noise of the door startles the cat into motion again, but when Jaime stretches out his arm, his palm open, it bounds toward him instead of away. It slows its approach as it gets within a couple feet of him, stretching out its tiny, pink nose to sniff at his hand. 

“It’s okay,” he whispers, keeping himself still and steady. When the tip of its nose makes contact with Jaime’s finger, the cat only jumps back for half a second before it twists its neck, pushing its tiny head into Jaime’s outstretched palm. 

A sound bubbles out of Jaime’s mouth, and it takes longer than it should to recognize it as his own laugh. Carefully, desperate not to scare it off, he scratches between the small animal’s ears and elicits a soft, vibrating pur. 

“Hi,” he says again through another burst of delighted laughter. “Hi, sweet girl.”

He’s not sure if he’s right about that guess, but it feels better than referring to it like an object. He decides to trust Kade’s intuition on this one. She meows up at him, and he chooses to take that as approval enough.

“Are you lost?” Jaime asks, noticing without conscious thought that his voice has risen to a pitch he only ever uses for Kade’s bedtime stories. “Do you have a home around here?”

He knows the answer before he asks it, though. The edges of her white fur are caked with mud and grime, and he can feel her spine a little too prominently through her skin. 

Jaime remembers well what that kind of hunger feels like. A dangerous thought begins to take shape. 

He glances at the clock in the hallway. He still has a couple of hours before he expects Mr. Torley home. That should be plenty to sneak something out. Even if it’s just some water. Jaime can clean it up and put everything away before his Keeper comes home. He never needs to know. 

He flinches as the thought lands. These are the kinds of things he’s not supposed to think about anymore. 

But Mr. Torley does plenty he isn’t supposed to do, doesn’t he?

He hesitates, just for a moment, before he stands, knees cracking. 

“Will you stay here for a minute?” he asks, scratching under her neck when she raises her head. “If I go to get you something to eat?”

She scuttles back a few steps at the sudden movement but doesn’t run away. He will have to hope for the best. 

In the kitchen, he goes straight for the plastic bowl in the cabinet that is designated for Jaime at mealtimes. He used to think about the fork scratches in the bottom when he first arrived at the house, wondering how many boys before him had eaten from the same bowl. He would never use any of Mr. Torley’s good dishes, but this serves him perfectly well as he fills it halfway with water from the tap. 

Food is another matter. Jaime has never had a cat before, but he knows the basics. Normally, he would expect to find a can of tuna or two stashed away in the back of someone’s pantry, but Mr. Torley isn’t the pantry staple kind of person. He likes his food fresh and expensive and expertly prepared, and—

Salmon. In the refrigerator, there is a small strip of leftover salmon filet from two nights ago. Mr. Torley never eats leftovers, and the boys hardly touched their fish to begin with. Jaime might have allowed himself to it before he would be expected to throw it away, but this is a far better use. No one will notice it's gone. No one will miss it.

Before he can talk himself out of it, Jaime carries out the bowl of water and the strip of salmon on a paper towel, relieved to find the cat waiting for him in the same spot. 

“Here you go,” he says, setting the offering on the cold cement patio. Her hunger becomes more apparent as she dives headfirst for the small piece of fish, tearing away large bites at a time. Jaime feels a pang of guilt that he doesn’t have more to offer her. 

She purrs as she eats, poking her head up every few seconds to glance at Jaime—either to check that he is still there, or to make sure he’s not coming close enough to snatch away her food. He sinks into a crouch a couple feet away, happy to watch her filling her belly for the night. In the back of his mind, somewhere well into dangerous territory, he starts to think of ways he might be able to sneak her food in the future. Maybe, if he’s smart about it and he plans his meals right, he will be able to save back small portions of whatever meat they have for dinner. Even if Jaime needs to slim down his own portion, it’s not a big deal to save a little bit for her the next day. Maybe if he only keeps her fed during the daytime, Mr. Torley won’t ever see her when he’s home. 

He is pulled from his planning when the cat suddenly stops eating and goes rigid. There are still a few bites left on the napkin, but she has turned her attention toward the side gate, her little ears twitching at something unseen. 

It takes Jaime another second, and then he hears it, too: the low, almost silent electric hum of Mr. Torley’s car in the driveway. 

He’s home early. Hours early. 

Fear ices him over, but Jaime has no time to freeze. He has less than a minute before Mr. Torley will make his way around to the front door.

It breaks his heart to have to pull the last bits of salmon away before she can eat them, but he hurriedly bunches the napkin into a fist, trying to pick up the tiny shreds that have fallen on the patio with shaky fingers. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to the cat, who has started meowing in objection. “I’m so sorry. You need to go now. You should go.”

He curses under his breath as he spills a bit of the water bowl, but that’s easily explainable enough, he supposes, if he’s asked about it, he just—

He has one foot through the patio doorway when the sound of the gate latch stops him cold. Mr. Torley never comes through the back gate. Why is he coming through the back gate?

“Stop,” Mr. Torley says simply, low and cold. Not a shout, but a single, flat syllable that raises the hair on the back of his neck. Jaime nearly drops the bowl of water with the lurch of dread that curls in his stomach. In his periphery, he sees a ball of white fur retreat across the yard and disappear. 

He knows that, no matter what happens now, the last thing he should do is keep his Keeper waiting, so Jaime pulls in a shuddering breath and turns to face him. 

“Put it down,” Mr. Torley says, “And come here.”

Of all the things he could have said, that unexpected directive inspires a spike of fear. Regardless, Jaime places the water bowl and the wadded napkin on the ground at his feet and makes his gallows march across the yard. 

He stops a couple of feet away, keeping his eyes trained on Mr. Torley’s expensive shoes. Helpless words race through his mind, scrambling to arrange themselves into a coherent explanation, an apology, anything that might soften the blow of his inevitable punishment. 

But his Keeper doesn’t ask for an explanation or an apology. He simply raises a hand to the gate latch—making Jaime flinch—and pulls it open once more. 

“Get in the car,” he says. 

Jaime’s eyes rise to meet his, confusion and alarm ringing through his skull. “Sir?”

Mr. Torley doesn’t move toward him, doesn’t raise his voice. He simply repeats, a beat slower this time, “Get. In. The car.”

On trembling, boneless legs, Jaime walks through the gate. He hasn’t been this far outside in nearly a month, but the terror and the strangeness of the moment takes away any joy he might have derived from the fresh air and sunlight. 

Mr. Torley’s car sits in the driveway, sleek black and still humming quietly. Jaime has never ridden inside, and he hesitates a moment before reaching for the back door handle. It’s locked, much like his throat when he tries to vocalize it. Instead, he stands silent and unwillingly disobedient with his fingers clutching the handle, waiting. Mr. Torley takes his time latching the gate and walking to the driver’s side. He gets in, closes the door, and fastens his seatbelt, all before Jaime hears the quiet click of his lock being undone. He scrambles into the backseat and barely closes the door behind him when the car lurches into motion. 

Jaime flattens himself against the leather seat back as they glide faster than what he’s sure is legal down the road. He doesn’t fasten his own seatbelt, too afraid in this heightened unknown to make a single move without explicit permission. His fists curl into the soft material of his pants, and he only realizes then that his feet are still bare. 

Where are they going? Where is he taking him? Why isn’t Mr. Torley saying anything? The quiet feels like a threat of its own, but Jaime doesn’t dare be the one to break it. Should he? Would an apology gain him any ground? What is expected of him here: his silence or his contrition?

The lump in his throat makes the decision for him, blocking any hope of words along with the ability to draw a full breath. 

That is, until, the car jets past a familiar sign on the highway, and cold acid releases into his bloodstream.

“Sir?” The words come out less than a whisper, and are met with more stony silence. Jaime grasps for another pull of oxygen and sits up further in his seat. “Mr. Torley?”

Nothing. 

Jaime’s heartbeat pounds in his fingertips, his temples, his throat, his chest. It could be a coincidence. Wherever they are heading could just be in the same direction. The sign doesn’t have to mean anything. 

And then they pass another sign, in bold, harsh, undeniable lettering: EXIT -  WRU PITTSBURG. The car glides smoothly onto the ramp, and the dam holding back Jaime’s panic bursts wide open. 

“Please,” Jaime whispers in horror as the first corner of the concrete hell comes into view. “Mr. Torley, please. Please.”

Nothing. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Jaime babbles, tears blurring the massive wall of false windows that seems to stretch a mile long. He is suddenly struck by the irrational fear that Handler Smith can see him already, that he already knows Jaime is here, is being returned, is being surrendered for early termination. 

“Let me catch you back here early from a contract, even once,” Handler Smith had whispered to him a week before he was assigned. “Let me find out you’ve embarrassed me by forgetting your manners, and I promise you, you’ll wish you would have slit your wrists before ever showing up in my training room again.”

Wildly, he pictures the razor sitting out on Mr. Torley’s bathroom counter and thinks, He was right. I should have.

“Please don’t do this,” Jaime cries, tears falling openly now. In a desperate corner of his mind, he wonders if it will help. Jaime so rarely grants him the opportunity to see his tears, and he knows just how much he enjoys them. In any case, he can’t stop them now. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, please, I won’t do it again.”

The car slams to an abrupt stop, hard enough for Jaime to jerk forward, jamming his wrist as he catches himself from slamming his face into the seat in front of him. They are stopped short of the entry booth for incoming cars, veered to the side of the road. Mr. Torley spins around to face him, making Jaime shrink back. 

“What are you sorry for?” he asks, eyes hard and resolute.

“F-for—”

“For getting caught?”

Jaime presses his lips together to stop them from quivering. Mr. Torley reaches into his pocket—and Jaime has the wild, hysterical vision of him pulling out a gun and dumping his body on WRU grounds. But he only pulls out his phone, flipping the screen around to show Jaime a camera feed of the back door at the house. 

“I have an alert set,” Mr. Torley says, “To monitor all exits of the house. Imagine my surprise when I was on my way home for an early weekend, and received a notification of my backdoor opening, unauthorized.” 

“I wasn’t trying to get out,” Jaime rushes to assure him, shaking his head. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t going to run.”

“No?”

“No. I promise.”

“What, then?”

How much will his honesty buy him now? Is it worth anything when Mr. Torley has clearly already seen, already knows? It’s better, at least, than a lie, and it’s all he has at his disposal.

“The cat,” he whispers pathetically. “She seemed… hungry. I fed her the leftovers that would have been thrown out. I gave her water. I’m sorry.”

“And you did so thinking you wouldn’t be caught?”

The affirmation feels like slipping a noose over his head. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“I’ll have you say it.”

“Yes, sir. I did.”

“And you did so after hearing me explicitly forbid it to my own children?”

He swallows. “Yes, sir.”

Mr. Torley inclines his head toward the building ahead of them. “What do you think the people behind those doors would have to say about such abject deceit and disobedience from someone they sent out on a paid contract?”

Jaime pinches his eyes shut, shaking his head. 

“Answer me.”

“I…” Jaime begins, his voice pinching. “I would be disciplined.”

“What kind of discipline do you think this warrants?”

Behind his eyelids, he sees the lash of a thick leather cord, a shock clip locked to his throat, a tub of ice cold water. 

“I don’t know,” Jaime whispers. 

“You don’t know,” he echoes.

Jaime shakes his head, and he can feel Mr. Torley’s stare burning through him. 

Then, as abruptly as they had arrived, Mr. Torley faces forward in his seat and turns the gear shift. Jaime opens his eyes as the car rolls into motion once more, making a U-turn away from the facility. 

“Well,” Mr. Torley says once they’re back on the highway. “You’ve got thirty minutes to think of a better answer.”

Jaime spends the rest of the night, and the rest of the long weekend that follows, atoning.

On Monday morning, he sees the cat again. When she catches a glimpse of Jaime cleaning in the next room over, hunched on his hands and knees, she raises one tiny paw and scratches against the glass. He forces himself to look away. And when her hungry meows come muffled through the glass panel, he scrubs harder, bending his head closer to the floor so that the scritch scritch scritch of bristles on the hardwood almost manages to drown out the noise. 

After that, she gives up on coming back at all. 

***

@whumpervescence @shiningstarofwinter @distinctlywhumpthing @whumptywhumpdump @nicolepascaline @anotherbluntpencil @hold-him-down @crystalquartzwhump @maracujatangerine @batfacedliar-yetagain @thecyrulik @pumpkin-spice-whump @finder-of-rings@melancholy-in-the-morning @insaneinthepaingame @skyhawkwolf @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @mylifeisonthebookshelf @dont-touch-my-soup @whump-world @inpainandsuffering @cicatrix-energy @quietly-by-myself @whumpsday @extemporary-whump @the-whumpers-grimm @thebirdsofgay @firewheeesky @whumperfully @hold-back-on-the-comfort @termsnconditions-apply  @cyborg0109  @whumplr-reader  @pinkraindropsfell  @whatwhumpcomments @honeycollectswhump @pirefyrelight @handsinmotion

[peachy-panic]

This Could Be The Moment

This is it. The chapter I’ve been fist-fighting for weeks. This was one of those moments that was in my brain since the original conception of Do No Harm, so naturally there’s a lot of internal pressure to get it right. I hope I’ve done it some justice for y’all.

WARNINGS: BBU/BBU-adjacent, ongoing sleep deprivation, nightmares, PTSD, the most fucked up of headspaces, whumpee fearing caretaker, noncon kissing, nudity, two survivors of trauma navigating some messy, messy waters

Jaime wakes in a cold sweat.

His first instinct is, as always, to look toward the bedroom door. Where moments ago there was a vivid silhouette against a backlit hallway, lurching toward his bed, there is now only a closed door. The house beyond it is still and silent, and Jaime is alone. As always, the only looming monster in the vicinity is his own imagination.

He closes his eyes, trying to catch his breath. It’s routine by now, but even after so much repetition, the physical toll never seems to lessen. The bed sheets beneath him are soaked through, his hair matted to his forehead in clumps. Jaime sits up, peeling the soiled nightshirt from his body and tossing it into the laundry basket. 

He rolls out of bed, knowing there is no point in trying to steal a few more hours. Some nights, he gets lucky enough that the exhaustion wins out over the lingering anxiety and knocks him out. But most nights, his only solace is a hot shower while he waits for the sheets to dry. It doesn’t do much to quash the crawling sensation under his skin, but it’s a few less minutes spent tossing on a mattress and watching the slow approach of daylight through the curtain.

Blinking away the last remnants of sleep, he drags himself silently to the bathroom. He cranks the faucet to the hottest setting and forces his body under the flames.

As the water runs through his hair and scorches lines down his back, Jaime finds himself swaying. Crumbling. He doesn’t cry easily these days, but he feels the burn of frustration building behind his eyes. How long can he sustain this? How long can he wait out what feels like the inevitable?

It feels so much like those first few terrifying weeks at the training facility, where sleep was a commodity earned through acts of submission. The deprivation was torture then, and it’s torture now. This house is nothing like the cold, cement walls of that prison, and Sebastian is nothing like Handler Smith, but the fear is the same. He can’t seem to separate the feelings in his head.

At least in the facility, and even with the Keepers from his past, Jaime had learned what to expect. And he never had to wait long to find out for sure.

In the daylight, things with Sebastian have begun to crawl, slowly, toward a better place. The two of them have found routine in the small things: morning runs around the neighborhood, cooking sessions in the evenings, movie binging on the weekends. It is, objectively, the best living situation Jaime has had in years, and beyond what he could hope to have again. He recognizes this as fact. But Jaime can’t control his subconscious mind. He can’t help what comes at night.

The nightmares about Sebastian—about Sebastian touching him, hurting him—haven’t stopped. They haven’t even slowed down. If anything they’ve increased, and a vicious cycle has ramped into a hurricane: the more nightmares he has, the less sleep he gets, and the more difficult it becomes to discern reality from fiction. The nightmares get worse. The sleep becomes more sparse.

Even after a good day, Sebastian (or the shadowed version of him that exists in Jaime’s worst fears) finds him in sleep. The warm eyes that Jaime has come to recognize in the light get replaced by a cold leer, the gentle touches turned rough and demanding. The ghosts of those memories follow him into the daytime, whispering in his ear that everything Jaime so desperately wants to believe is a lie.

It’s the anticipation that suffocates him. The not knowing, but the suspecting. The when, not the if. Even when Sebastian has done everything he can to make Jaime feel safe, the guess work that goes into trying to brace for the moment when the rug gets ripped out from under him bleeds him dry of all his energy. No one has ever signed his contract with pure intentions. All kindness comes at a price.

Every day, Jaime stares at the black and white “rules” posted on the refrigerator door, listing out a dozen iterations of promises not to hurt him. Every day he watches Sebastian from the corner of his eye—when they’re in the kitchen, on the couch, in the car—and wonders if this will be the moment it happens. The moment he finally reaches out, lets his skin make contact, lets his hand linger the way it always begins in his nightmares. Jaime knows, sure as anything, that he won’t fight him when it happens. Even if his position as a Companion allowed him the space for resistance, Sebastian has been so good to him. And Jaime has done more for less deserving men.

This is the thought that plants the seed of an idea—one Jaime has never entertained. He has never been the one to initiate sex, and he wonders: if it’s going to happen anyway, would it be better under the illusion that the choice is his? He doesn’t know how he would go about it, if he ever gathered the courage to try. The thought floods him with nausea that he can’t seem to shake, but so does the waiting. Sometimes he just wonders if it would be easier to get the first time over with.

Then, at least, he will know.

He takes as much time in the shower as he can allow himself, but eventually the thought of wasting water forces him to shut off the faucet too early. He shivers in the sudden absence of the spray, but he doesn’t think it has much to do with the temperature. In a daze, he wraps himself up in one of the soft towels that Sebastian bought specifically for him. He makes his way back toward his room, but a light from the end of the hallway freezes him in place.

Sebastian is awake.

He doesn’t know what compels him to walk toward the living room, but he feels his legs moving beneath him, operating several steps ahead of his mind. He sees Sebastian before Sebastian sees him. He is on the couch, hunkered over the computer that rests on his crossed legs, and Jaime’s heart begins to race, because there it is again: that small voice in the darkest corner of his mind whispering, This could be the moment. Something has to give.

He tries to fight against it, to swallow it down, because he doesn’t want this, he doesn’t want to do this. He could turn and pad back to the relative safety of the bedroom that Sebastian has never once entered without Jaime’s explicit permission and sweat it out until daybreak like always. But then Sebastian looks up, noticing him for the first time, and the voice in Jaime’s head gets louder and louder.

This could be the moment.

“Oh. Hey there.” Sebastian smiles at him.

Something has to give.

Jaime’s fingers tighten briefly around the towel at his waist, and before he can process his next move, the idea crystallizes into a plan.

****

Sebastian scrubs the heels of his palms over his eyes, but it only seems to dry them out further. He’s been staring at his computer screen for the better part of the last two hours, and that’s on top of the work day behind him. Not that he’s complaining. The work he’s doing now is entirely voluntary, and he doesn’t regret taking it on for a second.

Aria had helped set him up. It involved a secure VPN, some protective softwares that, ironically, look like they might infect his laptop with a virus at any given moment, and a long vetting process; though Sebastian suspects it might have been a little more rigorous if their need wasn’t so urgent.

There are less than fifty doctors and registered nurses in the database who take on Companion cases across the US, and now Sebastian is one of them. It’s a fairly new system, and thankfully a growing one, slow as it might be. Mostly, the cases are a matter of remote visits: giving medical advice, diagnosing where they can, and—at the discretion of each provider—writing prescriptions. Always in the name of the unmarked person helping them. By design, it’s nearly impossible for a Companion to seek assistance or gain any amount of freedom without depending on someone on the outside.

He was surprised to find out that there were others like him; people who have purchased a contract with the intention of helping someone for as long as they can. There are others—fewer, rarer—who are like Ezra. People who have somehow broken free of the system altogether and exist under the radar. The details of those cases are always lock-and-key. Sebastian doesn’t ask, and no one seems eager to tell. Probably safer for everyone that way.

Sebastian’s patients tonight have been fairly simple ones. He was able to provide antibiotics to a young woman with an ongoing infection, sleeping pills to a man with debilitating sleep anxiety, and advice to someone else on managing their chronic pain. For the first time since graduating with his medical degree, Sebastian feels useful.

And still, it never feels like enough.

When he pulls his hands away from his face, he nearly launches out of his skin. Jaime is standing in the mouth of the hallway, hair dripping and wrapped in a towel. Sebastian hadn’t even heard the shower running through the music in his headphones.

He settles himself with a hand over his heart and smiles up at him. “Oh. Hey there.” He starts to take his earbuds out, but he is interrupted by the world abruptly shifting on its axis.

It takes a few seconds after the towel hits the floor to process what happened. What is actively happening. And then he still doesn’t understand.

Because what. The fuck.

Jaime is standing—naked—in his living room, still as a statue, with a towel pooled at his feet. Sebastian is fairly certain Jaime isn’t even aware of the silent tears tracking down his cheeks.

Calling upon every conceivable ounce of composure he can muster, he removes his headphones the rest of the way and sits forward, setting his open laptop on the coffee table. He unfolds his legs and stands, each movement pronounced and broadcast.

“Hey.” His own voice sounds far away, and far more calm than he feels. He keeps his eyes dutifully trained on Jaime’s, refusing to dip away for even a second. “Let’s just… Why don’t we just talk? Okay? Let’s… here.” Acting on the instinct to cover him up, Sebastian reaches for the zipper on his hoodie.

Across the room, Jaime’s breath hitches. His eyes pinch shut for just a second, fists clenching at his sides.

“Hey. No, no, it’s okay. I’m—” Sebastian pulls the zipper down as quickly as he can, only jamming it twice on the cloth. As soon as it’s free, he extends his arm, not daring to take a step closer, and shakes it in his direction. “It’s for you.”

But Jaime doesn’t move to take it. His pale chest heaves with breaths that are coming too fast and too short, and the glassy look in his eyes tells him that Jaime might not be all the way with him. He needs to tread lightly.

Sebastian takes a cautious step forward. “Jaime?” His eyes snap to him, wide and wet. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” When he’s within arm’s reach, Sebastian holds his sweatshirt out again, and Jaime’s gaze falls to it for a moment, before flashing back to him. He still doesn’t take it.

Sebastian is about to reiterate his assurance that Jaime is okay, that he is safe and that he is not in trouble, but before he can speak—

Jaime—

He—

Jaime’s mouth is on his.

Their lips only touch for half a second before Sebastian jerks back, but the brief contact sends a shockwave of horror through his body. It’s so much happening at once: the heat of naked skin through his clothes, wet hair dripping onto his chest, the tremble in the arms draped around his neck, but Sebastian can’t afford to panic right now. They can’t both be falling apart at once.

With all the deliberate gentleness he can manage, he reaches up and wraps his hands around Jaime’s wrists, pulling his arms from around him. They stand painfully still for several long seconds, Jaime’s arms suspended between them. The whites of his eyes jump as he searches Sebastian’s expression, utter terror written all over his own. Slowly, Sebastian lowers his grip, releasing Jaime’s hands at his sides.

“No,” the word stutters out of him. “Jaime, I… No.” He needs to find the words to elaborate, to tell him he’s not in trouble and that Sebastian’s rejection isn’t meant as a chastisement, but before he can formulate them, Jaime sinks to his knees, and a fresh pit opens in Sebastian’s chest.

“Please,” Jaime says—the first he has spoken since coming into the living room. Fresh tears leak from his eyes. “Whatever you want to do, I… it’s fine. We can do it. I… I want to.”

Unable to tolerate towering over him right now, Sebastian sinks down to one knee, then the other. Carefully, he takes the sweatshirt in his hand and drapes it over Jaime’s shoulders. “Jaime,” he says finally, “you’re crying.”

In a desperate, childlike gesture, Jaime swipes at the tears running down his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he says.

You don’t have to be sorry. But it’s very clear to me that you don’t want this.”

“I can,” Jaime insists, fixing his wide, brown eyes on him. “I can learn to want it. With you. Please, just tell me what you want.”

“I…” Sebastian’s mind is speeding past him in circles, unable to land on a singular thought except the resounding question of How the fuck did we get here?  Because genuinely, Sebastian had thought things were getting better. He thought things were, if not ideal, at least okay. But this… This is the furthest thing from okay.

“Did I…?” Sebastian clears his throat and starts again. “Can you tell me—did I do something? To make you think that I wanted this?”

He remembers the stilted half-conversations they had once upon a time. In the clinic, when Jaime was brought in for testing after each contract. Sebastian knows what happened to him with past Keepers. His tests may have come back negative, but Jaime had confirmed in the only way he could that he had been sexually abused. He had hoped that Jaime knew he never had to fear that from him. He realizes now how selfish that assumption was.

Jaime’s gaze breaks away momentarily. “No, but I…”

“What?” he prompts gently. “If I did something, I want to know. I’m not going to be upset with you. I just want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The inquisition seems to press him further into himself. He curls over, retracting into a ball before he can reach out. The notches on his spine protrude through the shirt in a trembling arch. His fingers are twisted through his hair, pulling so tightly at his roots that Sebastian has to restrain himself from tugging his hands away. Then the noise. At first it sounds like he’s choking; a desperate, clunky gasp for air where there is none. And then the sobs erupt, almost completely silent but heavy enough that his entire body convulses with the force.

And Sebastian is absolutely fucked. His heart is thumping against his ribcage like it wants to escape, his fingertips have gone numb, and the spot where their lips had briefly touched buzzes with the intensity of a fresh wound. But he can’t fall apart right now. After a moment of hesitation, Sebastian places a palm over one shoulder blade, and when he is not shaken off, he begins to rub a slow, steady circle.

“Jaime,” he tries as soon as he is sure his voice will withstand it. “I don’t know what’s happening right now. I don’t… I don’t know what to say to you to make you feel okay, but you are safe. I can promise you that. I am not going to hurt you. No one is going to hurt you while I am here.”

It goes on for as long as it takes Jaime’s body to exhaust itself to silence. Over the next several minutes, the sobs whither to raspy pulls for breath, and then eventually soft sniffling. Sebastian doesn’t remove his hand. When he has gone nearly silent, Sebastian makes a decision.

“Can you sit up?” he asks softly. “Please? Can you just… look at me for a minute?”

Jaime obeys the request a little too quickly. When their eyes meet, Sebastian takes a deep breath, willing his own tears to stay where they are.

“I want to talk about this,” he says. “We absolutely should talk about this. But before we do anything else… Do you maybe want to put some clothes on? We can just… we can take a minute.” God knows he could use one himself. “If you want to keep talking after that, I’ll put some coffee on and we’ll stay up and talk, for as long as you want. If you would rather go to sleep, that’s okay too. I’ll still be here for you in the morning. It’s your call. Sound okay?”

Jaime hesitates, then nods.

“Okay.” Sebastian picks up the towel between their knees and extends it to him, already turning away. Once Jaime takes it, Sebastian shuffles around awkwardly on his knees until his back is to him. “I’ll wait out here. I won’t look. Just… take your time.”

Sebastian listens to the brief silence of his hesitation, then the quiet rustle of cloth and clicking of joints behind him. He counts the soft pad of footsteps retreating down the bedroom hallway and waits for the door to latch shut before he breaks. He pulls his knees out from under him and puts his head between them, taking slow, even breaths.

Slowly, his heartbeat recedes to a sustainable pace, but his mind buzzes with the prospect of the conversation ahead of him, and his lips still burn from a kiss that never should have happened.

***

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[peachy-panic]

I Want To Stay

DO NO HARM. Followup to The Incident last chapter. Sebastian and Jaime have some shit to work out. 

WARNINGS: BBU/BBU-adjacent, discussion of past sexual assault/abuse, self-victim-blaming thoughts, panic attack, some dehumanizing thoughts

Ezra is quiet for several long moments after Sebastian stops talking, the line crackling with static.

God, it’s even worse when he recounts the story out loud.

Part of him wonders if he made the right call, suggesting he and Jaime wait until the morning to talk. But after Jaime got dressed last night, Sebastian took one look at him perched on the edge of his bed, puffy eyes fighting to stay open, and he knew that the kid needed sleep more than he needed whatever weak reassurances Sebastian could offer him in the moment. Neither one of them were in the right headspace for the kind of talk they needed to have.

Not that Sebastian got much sleep in the end. A couple of broken hours at best. But that, at least, gave him the advantage of being awake before Jaime. He needed a window of time to get his head together, and the best way to find some clarity in this tangle was to dial Ezra’s number. And of course, despite the early hour, his call was answered.

“I recognize,” Ezra finally says slowly, “that this is not a comfortable subject, but I think it’s best if I speak freely now.”

“Please,” Sebastian says, a little too eagerly.

“I don’t think it will come as any surprise to you that there is a high probability he has been sexually abused by his previous contract holders.”

Sebastian pulls in a breath. He does not tell Ezra that he knows this for a fact. Even if the law does not uphold doctor-patient privileges for people like Jaime, Sebastian would never betray his confidence. Still, having the words spelled out between them in black and white, after the horror show in the living room, stings like a slap to the face.

Fortunately, Ezra doesn’t seem to expect a response.

“The first few weeks of a contract are incredibly difficult, no matter how long you’ve been at it. There is never any guarantee of what you’re walking into. I had…”

There is a brief, uncharacteristic pause, and Sebastian panics, because the last thing he wants to do is drag his friend into the murky waters of his own past to fix something that is Sebastian’s problem. But Ezra recovers quickly, moving on before he can call the whole thing off.

“I was contracted out a lot,” he says. “Early on, I learned that humans can always come up with new and unique ways of hurting each other. This boy… He is young. He is only beginning to find this out for himself. To him, right now, everyone in power is a threat to his safety. And nobody has more power in his life, right now, than you.”

Ezra gives that a moment to sink in, then asks, “Have the two of you had a clear conversation about your expectations?”

“I try to make it clear that I don’t expect anything from him.”

Ezra breathes out something that might be a laugh. “That is a nice sentiment, Sebastian, but not very helpful in practice. Expecting ‘nothing’ is rather vague, and is sort of an expectation in itself, is it not?”

Yes, it is. Of course it is.

Sebastian tries again. “I gave him a list of guidelines, like you suggested. Something he can reference if he gets nervous. I told him he doesn’t need to address me as a superior, that he is welcome to anything in the apartment and isn’t obligated to work around the house or… or serve me in any way.”

“I’m going to be blunt again,” Ezra says, “which is probably what you should do with him as well. Have you told him outright that you have no intention of having sex with him?”

Sebastian closes his eyes. “I… I told him that I would never hurt him. I didn’t specify—I mean, I would never even think about touching him like that, you know I wouldn’t.”

“Yes,” he interrupts gently. “I do know that. He, very clearly, does not. And given what you’ve told me, and what I already know about the system, he is going into this contract with every reasonable expectation that he will be assaulted at some point. It’s likely he still will believe that, even after you talk to him. But that trust has to start somewhere, and this is one promise that I know you’ll keep.”

Sebastian feels very suddenly like he might cry again, but Jaime could wake up any minute, and he doesn't want him to see his bloodshot eyes. He cannot go into this conversation framing himself as the victim.

“I thought he was starting to trust me.” It sounds as pathetic as he feels. “We’ve made so much progress in a few short weeks, and still, he… Jesus, Ezra, I’m doing exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do. You should have seen him last night. He’s terrified, and I didn’t even notice. He’s been spending—god, weeks just waiting for the moment I would…” He swallows back a gag. “He must have been so scared, and I didn’t even see it.”

“You see it now,” Ezra says—and isn’t that putting it mildly? “Now, you can address it.”

“Yeah,” Sebastian agrees. He just hopes it isn’t too late to reverse the damage.

****

For the first time in weeks, Jaime wakes to a morning that is even more grim than the night that preceded it. The memory from the night before slams into him before he even opens his eyes, sharper and meaner than any nightmare could be. Because last night, the demons weren’t just in his head. Last night, Jaime let them out into the open, laid them bare for Sebastian to see, and now he has ruined everything that could have been good.

Dread turns him to stone where he lay. From his tight ball on top of the blanket, he looks around the room—at the clothes hanging in the closet, the borrowed book on the nightstand next to the full glass of water Sebastian brought him the night before—all the tangible tokens of kindness that will be ripped away if Sebastian, justifiably, decides to sever their contract early. Jaime wishes he could turn back time. He knows that there will never be another assignment like this one. This was his best case scenario, far and above, and he has thrown it away.

The thought of sitting quietly in Sebastian’s passenger seat, empty handed as he drives him back to the facility, hollows his chest. He thinks about what it would be like, seeing him in the facility—passing him in the hallway with his head bowed, being brought into the clinic to be examined after a new contract—and Sebastian looking through him like a stranger.

Jaime swipes angrily at the tears that try to burn their way out. He has no right to cry about it now. There is no one to blame but himself.

He doesn’t know how many minutes pass, only that the sunlight coming in through the curtains has tinted gradually warmer over time.  From the kitchen, he hears the muffled signs of life and knows Sebastian is up. Still, Jaime avoids the clock on the nightstand, desperately wishing to play ignorant for as long as he can. It’s selfish to hide himself away when Sebastian said he wanted to talk this morning, but the thought of facing him feels insurmountable.

Finally, the guilt outweighs his anxiety, and he can no longer delay the inevitable. Even if he really, really wants to.

He takes more time than strictly necessary picking out his clothes for the day, and even more pulling each article into place, but eventually there is nothing more he can do to stall. Standing in the middle of the room, Jaime turns to face the door and draws one slow breath after another. He does it again, and then again, and again, until suddenly the breaths are controlling him and not the other way around. They come faster and more shallow, and suddenly he’s not getting enough air at all. He jams one fist against his stomach and the other against his chest, digging his knuckles hard enough to bruise. Breathe. You have to breathe.  

When he finally gains control, or some semblance of it, his knees are on the carpet, but he doesn’t remember hitting the floor.

He allows himself only the amount of time it takes for his breathing to level out, then he pushes himself up, rolls his shoulders back, and leaves the room.

Sebastian is sitting at the kitchen table, phone to his ear, when Jaime stops in the doorway. He looks up at him, eyes widening slightly, but covering the expression with a quick smile. “Hey, I’ve got to go,” he says to whoever is on the line, followed by a pause. “Yeah. Yes. I’ll ask him. Thank you again.”

He sets the phone facedown on the table and turns his full attention to Jaime. “Hey. Good morning,” he says, making half a move to stand, then seeming to think better of it.

“Good morning,” Jaime echoes numbly. Before he can start gushing whatever useless apologies his brain can come up with, Sebastian nudges a plate and a mug toward Jaime’s side of the table.

“I made some coffee and toast. It’s still warm.”

This is his way of softening the blow, a voice in the back of his head whispers. Still, Jaime obediently folds himself into the chair and thanks him. Not wanting to add ingratitude to his list of offenses, he nibbles on a piece of toast slathered in butter and honey. His favorite, he notes with a twinge of sadness.

A long silence overtakes the table. Both of them chew a little longer than they need to, taking extra sips of their coffee to buy time. Finally, when the tension feels tight enough to snap, Jaime blurts “I’m sorry I kissed you,” at the exact moment Sebastian says, “We should really talk about what happened.”

There is, inevitably, another long silence.

“Sorry, you go ahead,” Sebastian says quickly.

Jaime’s eyes fix to a spot on the table’s wood grain and don’t deviate from there. Somehow it’s even harder saying the words a second time, but this is the most important part. Jaime has been on the receiving end of a lot of kisses that he didn’t want. He needs Sebastian to know that he means it.

“I’m sorry for kissing you. You didn’t want to, and I… I was selfish. And I’m sorry.”

“Jaime,” Sebastian says gently, because even now, of course his first instinct is to meet Jaime with undue kindness. “It’s o—I mean, no, it’s not okay. But I don’t think you have a selfish bone in your body. I know you didn’t do it to hurt me.”

“I shouldn’t have done it,” Jaime whispers.

“No,” Sebastian agrees. “But I am not angry with you, or upset with you in any way. Okay? I just… I’m hoping you can help me understand how we got here.”

Jaime’s mouth clamps shut. He stares at the wood grain until his vision goes unfocused. A couple of times, he tries to pry his mouth open, but no words make it out.

“Okay.” Sebastian says patiently. “It’s okay. I know that was kind of a broad request. Maybe… maybe we can start with last night?” Jaime nods. “To be clear—It’s not that you’re not allowed, or that I’m in any way upset by it, but you were up pretty late. Is that… unusual for you?”

There is no point in lying now. “No.”

“Oh.” Sebastian sounds so sad, he wishes he could take back his answer immediately. “I’m sorry that I didn’t notice before.”

Jaime inclines his head. “I try not to wake you.”

Sebastian hesitates long enough for Jaime to look up, then says, “You can, you know. If you ever want to or need to. I’m no stranger to late nights. I know they can get pretty lonely sometimes. I won’t ever be mad at you for waking me up.”

Jaime doesn’t know what to say to that, as he doesn’t think Sebastian would appreciate a thank you, so he just nods.

The kitchen chair creaks as Sebastian shifts his weight across from him. “Jaime, I—” He stops, then starts again. “It’s okay that you couldn’t answer me last night, but I really need to know. Have I done something—even by accident, even something small—to make you feel like I wanted that from you last night?”

“It’s not you,” he says honestly. Not this version of you, at least. Not the real you. “You’ve been… you’ve been so nice to me.”

It doesn’t earn the smile he hoped for . “That’s… I’m glad you think so,” Sebastian says, “but obviously I haven’t been doing as well as I should, to let things get as far as they did last night.”

Jaime shakes his head, a bit frantically. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Haven’t I, though?” A bit of frustration seeps into Sebastian’s voice, and Jaime can’t help but wince. Immediately, Sebastian retracts. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Jaime feels dangerously close to tears again. He’s clenching his fists under the table hard enough to make his joints ache, but the words tumble out of him anyway.

“I’ve been having nightmares.”

He doesn’t know what he thought he would achieve by telling him this, and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to elaborate without making it worse for everyone, but the words are out there now and Sebastian seems to latch onto them.

“Oh,” he says softly, his copper brows drawing together above his glasses. “Do you want to tell me about them?”

He bites down on his cheek until he tastes blood. He doesn’t want that. He really, really doesn’t, but his silence seems to fill in the blanks that he doesn’t say out loud. He can almost feel the moment it clicks.

“Jaime?” Sebastian says. “Are these nightmares about me?”

He will not cry again. He won’t.

“I…” Jaime’s throat is dry. He swallows, trying to wet it. “I’m not allowed to talk about it, but you already know. What they did. The…” He’s treading dangerous waters, and his body knows it, if the trembling in his hands is any indication. It’s like the conditioning they forced on him is a physical part of his chemical makeup, rejecting the attempt to override it. “My Keepers, before you. You know what they did to me.”

At the time, in the clinic, it was humiliating to have all his secrets bared to Sebastian as his doctor. Now, he is grateful he doesn’t need to say the words aloud.

Slowly, Sebastian nods. “I do know. And Jaime?” He ducks his head so that he is closer to his line of sight. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that it happened to you then, and I’m… I’m so sorry that I didn’t make it crystal clear to you until now—but I will never, never, do anything like that to you. I will never expect anything like that from you, nor would I want it, and just like last night, I would stop you if you tried.”

The conviction in his voice is hard to deny, though there is still a part of Jaime’s fucked up mind that tries to fight it. “Thank you,” he says anyway.

“Don’t—” Sebastian’s eyes clamp shut. “That is not something worth thanking me for.” When he looks at Jaime again, he studies him with an unreadable expression. “You know what they did to you was wrong, right? It was fucking evil. You know that, right?”

Hesitantly, Jaime nods.

“They had no right to touch you, and neither do I.”

Legally speaking, that might be true. But they both know that it is not the law that determines what is allowed and forbidden, but the systems that uphold it. And this system has been broken since its inception. Still, something about hearing the words out loud soothes some broken, desperate part of him that aches to believe it’s true. The part of him that’s been aching to believe it since he stepped through the door.  

Sebastian has given him reason after reason to believe it. He realizes now, more than ever, how much he doesn’t want to lose that.

“Are you going to take me back?” He rips off the bandaid, clean and quick. He needs to know the answer now, before his hopes can climb any higher.

For a moment, Sebastian stares at him with the kind of quiet you expect to hear before a bomb goes off.

“Jaime,” he says, and there are tears in his eyes. “You’re not a… You aren’t a fucking toaster. I’m not just going to dump you off on WRU the second something goes wrong. You are a human being, and I… I care about you. The only thing that would make me take you back to those people is if you told me you wanted to go, and even then, I would insist that we explore every other possible fucking option first.”

Jaime doesn’t know what other options there are, and he doesn’t ask, because right now his brain is reverberating with one single thought: I get to stay. I get to stay. I get to stay.

“I want to stay,” Jaime says.

Sebastian nods. “Good. Okay. Good. I want you to stay, too.”

This time, when they return to their toast, the quiet is much lighter than before, the tension slackening along with their posture. They take their time, finishing their food before either of them speaks again.

“I know that you’re not allowed to talk about what happened with your… on your past contracts,” Sebastian says suddenly. “But for what it’s worth? I promise that I’ll never tell a soul if you decide you want to talk about it with me. You deserve to have that option, whatever you decide.”

Jaime briefly entertains the thought of unloading those stories, what it might feel like to share that weight with someone who cares about him, if only for a little while. But the darkness will slip in fast if he allows it, and he doesn’t want to bring Mr. Torley or Bryan or Thomas or Handler Smith or any of the others anywhere near this moment.

“Okay,” he says.

Sebastian nods, accepting that answer easily. He collects both their empty plates and carries them to the sink, turning his back to Jaime.

“There is something else I wanted to talk about,” he says over the running tap. “Do you remember the friend I told you about? The one who mentioned wanting to meet you?”

He does remember. At the time, the idea of meeting another one of his Keeper’s friends filled him with cold dread, too fresh off the memory of Football Sundays at the Torley house. Now, after the night behind them and the conversation they had, Jaime tries his hand at trusting him.

“Yes, I remember.”

Sebastian turns back to him and leans against the counter, drying his hands on his sweater. “I think it would be good for you to know you have someone else on your side. Someone besides me, I mean.”

Jaime’s confusion must be apparent on his face, because Sebastian elaborates, albeit somewhat uneasily.

“He gave me permission—or… well, an instruction, really, to tell you this before you make your decision about meeting him. And let me be clear, it is completely your decision.”

He seems to wait for some sort of confirmation, so Jaime nods again, fighting against the instinct that tells him the rug is about to be ripped out from under him.

“Ezra is… Ezra was in the system, too.”

Jaime blinks, truly lost now. “He’s a companion?”

“No, he isn’t,” Sebastian says, and there is the slightest tug at the corner of his mouth. “But he used to be.”

***

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[peachy-panic]

To Steady Your Hand

Do No Harm, still early in the Sebastian Contract. 

WARNINGS: BBU/BBU-Adjacent, past surgery, lingering medical issues, nerve damage, maybe the closest I’ve come to some genuine moments of fluff (sprinkled with some pain)

Sebastian is going out on a limb. He can recognize that. But even after several weeks in the house, Jaime gives very little outward indication of what he genuinely enjoys. What he likes. In no particular order, he seems to derive joy from exactly three things: running outside, cooking with Sebastian, and cleaning. The last one makes Sebastian nervous, because it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to infer that he might be feigning some of that enthusiasm to fall into the role he thinks he’s here to fill. It does, however, seem to bring Jaime a sense of peace sometimes, so he tries not to interfere.

Still, it’s not enough. His goal was never to give Jaime a place to survive in stasis until the next bad thing comes along. He wants him to be happy here. He wants to make him feel like he has the space to be a person, and that means knowing what he likes. So when Sebastian finally catches a glimpse, he latches on with both hands.

They are in the checkout line at the drugstore when it happens.

It had been a precarious trip, both of them a little on edge after their first attempt at a store-based outing went to utter shit. Thankfully nothing of note happened, other than Jaime hovering a little closer than normal, his eyes scanning their surroundings every few seconds as if they were being hunted for sport. By the time they’re ready to pay, Sebastian is so eager to get them both in the safety of his car, he almost misses it: they way Jaime’s eyes catch on the end cap closest to the register and stay there.

Jaime, who has been flighty and anxious since stepping foot through the door, is suddenly engaged and… curious?

Sebastian does a double take, then follows his eye line. He doesn’t know what he expected, but a flutter of endeared surprise catches in his chest as he looks at the display of nail polish.  

After a brief, internal tug-of-war, he decides to sit on the information for now. Buying it now might draw attention to the fact that Sebastian caught him staring, and he doesn’t want to embarrass him or worse. So he pockets his change from the bored-looking cashier, grabs his bag, and they head home.

A few days later, on his way home from work, Sebastian swings by the store to pick up more lunch meat, fresh strawberries, and a bottle of Essie sky-blue nail polish.

He places it on the countertop as he’s unloading the bag. Jaime, who is perched in a barstool across from him, blinks down at it. He is quiet for a long time.

Sebastian does his best attempt at casual. “The color caught my eye.” He shrugs. “Have you ever painted your nails before?”

Color blossoms in Jaime’s cheeks, and Sebastian feels the first pang of doubt. Maybe this wasn’t the right move. Maybe it’s too soon after the pharmacy and he thinks Sebastian is calling him out. But Jaime doesn’t look away from the small bottle as he shakes his head, so Sebastian barrels forward.

“I used to do it sometimes. In college, mostly,” he rambles. “I wanted to before then, too. I tried it once, in high school, but my dad—” Oop. No. Nope. Go back. Abort mission. “Well. Anyway, I haven’t done it in years, and I saw this and thought… Maybe we could try? Together? If you want. Only if you want to.”

To his distress, Jaime frowns. “I…” he starts, then stops, looking down at his hands all of a sudden. He places one over the other, his fingers delicately hiding what Sebastian knows to be an incision scar. “I can’t promise I’ll be very good at it. My hand. Sometimes it’s hard, with… It’s not always very steady. I have trouble, sometimes.”

A rising dread creeps up on Sebastian, one he cannot will away. He swallows. “Jaime.” His voice comes out a whisper. “When did that start?”

He knows. He knows the answer, and he’s terrified of it, and he needs to hear him say it out loud, all at once.

Jaime ducks his head, drawing his shoulders up half and inch, and Sebastian knows he needs to tread carefully. Needs to pull himself back before he upsets him even more. But he needs to know.

“It doesn’t get in the way, mostly,” Jaime says in lieu of an answer. “I hardly notice it anymore.”

Almost definitely a lie.

Sebastian notices his own hands are shaking now, so he presses them flat against the countertop. He just needs to rip the bandaid off.

“Jaime. Was it after the surgery?”

The surgery.

A piss-poor fucking euphemism for the institutionalized, medically-sanctioned torture that it was.

The surgery that Sebastian himself performed on a patient who was strapped down and screaming to the point of unconsciousness.

The surgery he performs over and over in his nightmares.

Jaime gives him all the confirmation he needs when he says, “It’s not your fault.”

A surprised laugh sputters out of Sebastian, but it sounds more like a sob. Feels like it, too. Because of course Jaime would say that. Of course his first reaction is to show Sebastian undeserved grace. Of course his first instinct is to take care of Sebastian’s feelings first.

“Can you…” He swallows, trying to be professional. “Can you tell me what it feels like? Is it painful? Numb?”

“It almost never hurts,” he says quickly, like he’s dying to reassure him further. “It’s…” He runs his fingertip over the inside of his opposite index finger. “I can’t really feel this part anymore, but really, it only affects me when I’m working with small stuff. I just don’t know how precise my work would be with painting nails.”

Sebastian is still caught in his own private tunnel of horror. The way Jaime is speaking about it so casually only twists his insides tighter. He is living with permanent nerve damage from a scalpel that Sebastian wielded. He had volunteered—insisted—to be the one to perform the surgery under some misguided notion that he would somehow be sparing him further pain and dehumanization, but his inexperience or his nerves or Jaime’s rightful panic or… or something had caused him to slip and sever a nerve, and he didn’t even know.

How did he ever expect Jaime to trust him? Or even like him?

He doesn’t know how to make this right. He doesn’t know if it’s possible to even come close.

“Jaime, I—”

“I’d like to try,” Jaime says quietly, looking up at him through earnest eyes. “Painting our nails. If you still want me to. If you don’t mind that it's a little shaky.”

Sebastian blinks away the burn in his eyes. These aren’t his tears to cry, anyway. And if Jaime doesn’t want to talk about this now, as he very clearly does not, the last thing he should do is force it.

He smiles at him, and it’s only a little bit forced.

“I don’t mind at all.”

****

Jaime really does want to do a good job.

He is a little more than suspicious about where this idea sprouted from, but at least Sebastian is kind enough not to admit that he found Jaime looking at the store.

He doesn’t really know why it caught his eye in the first place. It’s not like he’s ever been overly into nails before. The only association he has is a distant memory, almost completely faded with time, of him and his mother at the kitchen table. It was summer, he’s pretty sure. He can remember the natural light coming in from the bay window and the faint scent of his mother’s favorite peppermint tea mixed with the sharp, clean smell of nail polish. He would watch her paint each hand, and she would sometimes offer to do his, but he could only even sit still long enough for one or two.

He blinks away the half-memory before it can take him, resettling himself in Sebastian’s living room. They’ve each taken one side of the coffee table, legs folded under them on the soft carpet. The little blue bottle and a box of tissues sits between them.

“So,” Sebastian says, drumming his fingertips on the wood. “Who wants to go first?”

This catches him off guard. Jaime studies him for a moment, making sure he’s come to the right conclusion before speaking it out loud. “You… want to paint mine, too?”

“Oh.” Sebastian’s eyebrows raise a fraction, as if he hadn’t realized it wasn’t obvious to both of them. “Only if you want to! I was thinking we could paint each other’s, but if you don’t want to, that’s totally fine, too. We don’t have to even do this at all. I can return this. Or just throw it away. I can dump it down the toilet and we can pretend this never happened.”

Jaime has lived with Sebastian long enough to start to recognize his nervous humor, and he’s fairly certain this is it. It’s strange, the feeling that he might be able to laugh at something his Keeper says, but he has to press his smile into the side of his hand to keep it contained.

“What?” Sebastian laughs, seeming genuinely relieved by his amusement. He picks up the bottle, waving it between them. “You think I won’t go pour this down the drain right now? Because I will.”

Jaime nods, humoring him. “I believe you,” he says. “I… Yes. You can paint mine, if you want to.”

Sebastian’s smile falters, just a little. “You’re sure? You really don’t have to do it just for me.”

Jaime folds his fingers over his palm, studying the pink-pale color under his nails. Then he nods. “I want to try.”

Jaime offers to go first. He figures if he can study Sebastian’s technique, he might be able to emulate it when it’s his turn and do a better job. He watches as he shakes the bottle, a small clicking sound rattling around the bottle. Sebastian starts to reach for him but stops before he comes close to touching Jaime’s hand.

He looks up at him, smiling apologetically. “Is it alright if I touch you? Just here,” he says, tapping the table near Jaime’s fingers. “Just to steady your hand?”

When Jaime takes a moment to respond—not out of any real hesitation, but perhaps caught off guard by the request for permission—Sebastian pulls his fingers back an inch.

“You can say no. We’ll make it work either way.”

Jaime clears his throat, suddenly thick with saliva. “I think it’s okay.” It’s Sebastian who hesitates this time, so Jaime tries again, more confidently. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

“Yeah?”

Jaime nods.

“Okay.” Slowly, slow enough to broadcast his movements, Sebastian slips two fingers under Jaime’s, pulling his hand toward his side of the table. He checks in with a glance at least twice before he gets to work.

And this is… Jaime doesn’t know what it is. Sebastian’s skin is warm and soft under his, his touch so gentle and undemanding that he doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s not the first time Sebastian has touched him. A slew of memories from the clinic—most of which he would rather not revisit—come to mind. He had always been kind, both in spirit and in touch, but something about the tenderness he is showing Jaime now knocks him off balance.

He watches, a bit hypnotically, as his long fingers drag the brush over each nail, leaving him spotted in blue. Small flecks smudge onto his cuticles and the skin around his nails, but it still looks good. The color was a good choice, he thinks.

“Still okay?” Sebastian asks when he finishes the first hand.

Jaime nods and surrenders his other hand easily. Sebastian’s eyes only linger on his scar for a second or two before he sets his focus on the job at hand.

“I was thinking,” Sebastian says after a stretch of quiet, “maybe we can set you up with a physical therapist. Someone who… well, who works with…”

“Companions,” Jaime offers.

He winces. “Yes. Under the table, though. Someone who would treat you kindly. That would be non-negotiable.” Jaime looks up at him and Sebastian looks up from his work long enough to scan his expression. “Would that be something you’re interested in?”

“For my hand,” Jaime surmises. Sebastian nods. “You don’t have to do that for me.”

“Well, the matter of my responsibility to you as a human, a doctor, and the person whose name is on your contract is a whole other debate.” He flashes a smile that looks more like a grimace. “But all that aside, it wouldn’t be out of obligation. It would be because I genuinely want to help you. And this might be a real way I could do that.”

A few seconds pass. There is a strange sensation in Jaime’s chest, like stretching a muscle he hasn’t used in a long time. His first instinct is a collection of pre-conditioned responses that were hammered into him in training—polite agreement, smooth avoidance, gratitude. None of them feel right at this moment, and the indecision chokes him up.

Sebastian saves him by speaking again. He drops his freshly painted pinky finger and meets his eyes. “You know, Jaime,” he says, “I think maybe I haven’t done a good enough job of making that clear to you.” In anyone else’s voice, in any other inflection, the words might have set him on edge. The words don’t scare him now.

“Making what clear?”

“That I really want to help you.”

“You have,” Jaime is quick to assure him.

“No, but—” Sebastian pauses, breathes. “I want to do more than the bare minimum. You deserve more than the basic necessities it takes to survive. I know this is… I mean, I can’t even really imagine what it’s like for you to try and talk about this, so we don’t have to linger. But what happened to you? What keeps happening to you? You don’t deserve to live like this, Jaime. There is nothing about you that makes you any less of a person.”

Jaime knows, somewhere buried deep beneath layers of toxic conditioning and learned behaviors, that there is truth in what Sebastian is saying. He believed that once. But Jaime knows now that things aren’t so simple; that justice and righteousness are only as fair as the systems that uphold them. And in the eyes of this governing body, this law, this society, he is less. And ultimately, one man’s objection to that isn’t enough to change anything.

But maybe Jaime can let it be enough for this moment. Maybe he can let it be enough for him, just for a little while.

“You know someone?” Jaime asks tentatively. “A physical therapist?”

“I could find someone,” Sebastian promises. “There are people out there. Networks of them who feel the same way I do. I know people who—” He stops suddenly, the tips of his ears going a little pink. “Well. Anyway, yes I could find someone. You would have a say in it, too. I wouldn’t force you to see anyone you weren’t completely comfortable with.”

Jaime’s answering silence is heavy with ingratitude, he knows it is, but his head is spinning. This privilege that would have, should have, once been a right doesn’t feel like it belongs to him or that it ever could. Despite all that Sebastian has done to prove otherwise, the smallest part of him still bellows out in warning: Lie, lie, lie, trap, trap, trap. But it isn’t either of those things. Jaime knows it isn’t, deep down.

“You don’t need to answer me now,” Sebastian assures him softly before he can respond, and Jaime feels a little bit relieved and a little bit like a failure. “In fact, we can let this drop completely. This—” he waves the tiny paintbrush between them “—is meant to be fun. But… You know, just something to think about. Yeah?”

Once again, Jaime substitutes a nod where his words fail him, and they ease back into the task at hand.

When it comes time to paint Sebastian’s nails, Jaime does an okay job. Neither of them mention the slight shakiness in his grip or the way his precision sometimes veers off course. When he goes out of line, Sebastian just hands him a tissue, he wipes the polish from his skin, and they move on.

He mirrors the position that Sebastian took with him, sliding two fingers under his. As he works, he can’t help but study the hands in front of him. There is a faint pinkish-white to the flesh around his nails, and slivers of peeled skin beside his cuticles. Jaime thinks about the times he’s seen him biting his nails, usually when he is nervous. He always seems to be a little bit nervous around him.

He also notices a stillness in him that can’t be anything but intentional. The way every movement is slow and careful, and the way he keeps his contact overly gentle, convincing Jaime, reminding him, over and over, that his hands are not to be feared.

When they each have two coats of sky-blue at the tips of their fingers, they stay on the floor but lean back against the couch, side by side.

“Can I take a picture?”

Jaime blinks at him. “Of… me?” He doesn’t remember the last time anyone asked him that. He’s had photos taken in the last couple of years, of course, but always in much different contexts, and never with his permission.

Sebastian looks a little sheepish, pulling out his phone. “Of our hands. Would that be okay?”

“Oh,” he breathes. “Sure.”

They hold their hands out in front of them, close enough to fit into frame but not enough to touch, and Sebastian snaps the photo. Jaime doesn’t ask to look at it, but Sebastian shows him anyway.

A week later, when Jaime spots a four-by-four print pinned to the refrigerator with a smiley-face magnet, he finds himself smiling right back.

**

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[peachy-panic]

It's Nice To Have A Friend

Here it is, the chapter I've been mud-wrestling with for a literal month. Jaime and Ezra finally meet :)

(yes the title is a t-swift reference)

WARNINGS: BBU/BBU-adjacent, brief mentions of past foster system, mentions of grief/parental loss

< PREVIOUS

The car radio carries on for several minutes after Sebastian kills the engine, then, eventually, that shuts off too. The silence they’re left with is all the more heavy given the remote location. Still, neither of them make a move to get out. Sebastian will gladly wait all day, if that’s what Jaime needs. 

A couple of times, he catches movement out of the corner of his eye; Jaime’s hand twitches toward the door handle, then flattens back against his thigh. 

“We don’t have to do this today,” Seabstian says. “No one will be upset if you want to back out and go home.”

“I know,” Jaime answers too immediately to be completely true. Sebastian glances over to find the familiar crease between his brows. He waits him out a few more seconds. 

“Whatever it is, you can say it.”

Jaime takes a breath. “It’s just him here?” he asks. “Your friend Ezra? No one else?”

“No one else,” he promises. “Ezra’s partner won’t be back until he gives him the word.”

Sam, of course, was perfectly happy to skip out for the day in the sole interest of making Jaime more comfortable. Sebastian finds himself, not for the first time, marveling at the generosity of this group of people he has found himself entwined in. He can’t imagine handling this contract without their support. 

“And you won’t…” Jaime pauses. 

He gives him a second to find his words. “Won’t what, Jaime?”

“You won’t leave me alone with him?”

Sebastian grinds down hard on his molars and pointedly does not let himself think about the kinds of situations Jaime may have found himself in during past contracts to make him ask something like that. He absolutely does not let it show in his expression. 

“Not if you don’t want me to,” he promises. 

Jaime lets a narrow wisp of a sigh slide between his lips. “I think I’d feel better if you stayed with me.”

And that… sort of knocks the wind out of him. Because, on one hand, that could be a crock of shit fed to him by handlers to make him feel reliant on the person who holds his contract. On the other hand, Sebastian has somehow made the jump in Jaime’s mind from active threat to someone he feels better around in the presence of strangers, and that is not a privilege he is about to take lightly. 

“Then I’ll stay,” he says. 

“Okay,” Jaime breathes, sounding genuinely relieved. He nods once, setting a look of determination over his features. “I’m ready.”

****

Jaime positions himself slightly behind Sebastian as they approach the door.

“We can tap out at any time,” Sebastian reminds him. “Just give me the word and we’ll go.” 

Jaime nods, even though Sebastian isn’t looking at him. He stands stiffly, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides, as Sebastian knocks. A few seconds later, the door swings inward and Jaime forces his feet to stay planted where they are. 

The man standing in the doorway is nothing like the image Jaime had in his head. He didn’t have much to go on, physically, from Sebastian’s description, but in hindsight, Jaime realizes he was picturing someone more like himself. Someone shrunken and cowering, someone visibly less alive to the naked eye. 

The man he presumes to be Ezra is none of those things. He stands taller than both Jaime and Sebastian, with light brown skin and dark hair twisted into a bun at the crown of his head. Like the sweater he wears over a pair of jeans, the smile that spreads across his expression is unmistakably warm. He looks strong. He looks like nothing could ever scare him. Jaime can’t help but stare. 

“Hello.” Sebastian gives a small wave. 

“Sebastian.” Ezra nods. “Glad you could make it.” They don’t reach for a handshake or a hug, but the familiarity is obvious anyway. His eyes shift to Jaime. “Hi, there,” he says. 

Jaime swallows. “Hello, sir.”

“Ezra, please,” he says, and his smile doesn’t falter a bit. “There are no formal titles in my house. What would you like me to call you?

Jaime turns to Sebastian, who offers an encouraging nod. They’d talked about it beforehand—that Jaime is safe and allowed to use his real name around Ezra, and that he already knows that Sebastian knows it, too. That doesn’t make it any easier to get used to. 

“My name is Jaime,” he says after only a short beat of hesitation.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jaime. Please, come in.”

The house is beautiful. Big, but not arrogant. It’s not immaculate and sleek like Mr. Torley’s or Bryan’s, but well lived-in. Taken care of in a way that reflects how cherished it is to the people who live there. Mostly, Jaime just keeps thinking this house belongs to Ezra. 

“You’re welcome to keep your shoes on or take them off,” Ezra says, immediately clocking the silent way he watches the two of them for a cue. “However you feel most comfortable is fine with me.” 

Sebastian slips out of his sneakers, but Ezra keeps his on, leaving Jaime momentarily torn. In the end, he decides to follow his Keeper, bending down to untie the high-tops Sebastian bought for him. 

“Smells incredible in here,” Sebastian says, stepping further into the house. 

“I’d be flattered, but I think you’d say the same if I’d ordered pizza.”

“And it would be true either way.”

Jaime watches from a detached distance, surprised at their easy banter. He’s not sure he’s ever seen this side of Sebastian, but it immediately sets him a little more at ease. Ezra is obviously someone he trusts.

“I’m finishing up a few things in the kitchen,” Ezra says, leading them further into the house. “The two of you can keep me company at the bar, if you’d like.”

Sebastian pulls out two stools along the raised counter that separates the kitchen from the living area, and Jaime climbs obligingly into his. It feels intrinsically wrong to be sitting like a houseguest while someone else cooks, but he supposes that is exactly what he is expected to be tonight. His mind supplies the memory of his twenty-four hour contract on Christmas eve, where he spent the night at a lush family dinner, pretending to be a rich man’s arm candy, which does nothing to settle his nerves. He forces his thoughts back to the present. 

“Would you like something to drink?” Ezra offers, already pouring himself a glass of wine. Jaime eyes the liquid, once again looking to Sebastian for a cue. 

“I’m fine, thanks,” Sebastian says. He told Jaime beforehand that he would stay sober in case he—in his words—needs to play getaway driver at some point, but that Jaime is welcome to drink if he likes. 

“Jaime? A drink?” Ezra offers, tilting the neck of the bottle toward a second empty glass. 

He swallows, remembering the burn of each sip that Mr. Torley would coax down his throat. “It’s alcoholic?” he asks stupidly. 

“Doesn’t have to be,” Ezra says easily. “I’ve also got iced tea, coffee, lemonade.”

“Water?” 

A small smile quirks at the corner of Ezra’s mouth, but it doesn’t feel unkind. “Of course.” He pours a glass of water from a filtered jug and sets it in front of him. 

Jaime takes a few sips, mostly to have something to do with his hands, and observes quietly. He finds himself watching Ezra closely, fascinated and curious and bewildered, as he makes his way around the kitchen. There is a certain practiced grace to his movements that Jaime recognizes with a bit of a chill. The way his fingers poise around the handle of a knife in just the perfect way, how he stands with his shoulders back, even when he’s looking down at a cutting board. He can feel the pull of muscle memory in his own back, feel the brush of a handler’s fingers on his spine, hear them whisper in his ear, stand up straight, trainee.

A morbid thought invades his mind: that Ezra’s skill in the kitchen—and whatever other learned skills he brought with him from his time as a Companion—are part of the reason his partner was drawn to him in the first place. 

But Sebastian called him his partner. That word implies a level of equality. And that… Well, that opens the door to even more questions. Jaime hasn’t allowed himself to think much about it since entering the system, but now he has to wonder: is that kind of relationship equality even possible for someone with a past like Ezra’s? Like his own?

It’s such a surreal thought. He still hasn’t quite wrapped his head around it.  This person in front of him—this person with a real name, a real home, a real partner, a life—used to be a Companion. Used to be. It’s not a sentence that even makes sense in his head. For as long as Jaime has been acquainted with the system—both inside of it and out—there has been no way out short of a body bag. 

It’s built into the structure. It’s a lifetime commitment. Companions can be reassigned designations, transferred to different locations, and even shifted to government-direct work when they reach a certain age, but no one ever retains their freedom in the end. There are barriers too tall to escape: high tech locks on the back of their collars, unbreakable metal binding it together. Trackers embedded under their skin, into the surface of their skulls behind their ears. All their money and resources are drained the moment they “sign the contract.”

But here is Ezra, in the flesh, defying everything Jaime believed to be true. 

The thought unsettles him. Sitting still and watching someone else prepare a meal for him unsettles him. The empty patch of skin at his throat where Jaime knows a collar used to exist unsettles him. But he can only fix one of those problems. He shifts on his barstool, inching toward the edge, and clears his throat. 

“Can I help with anything?” he asks.

Beside him, Sebastian tenses. He begins to say something along the lines of, “You don’t have to—”

But Ezra interjects before he can finish the thought. “You’re certainly welcome to, if you’d like,” he says. “The sourdough is cooling now; it should be ready to slice, if you’d like to do that?”

Relief sags his shoulders. Out of instinct, he looks to Sebastian, who offers a smile that he takes as approval. Jaime slides off of his stool, and Ezra sets him up with a cutting board and a serrated knife. Out of the corner of his eye, Ezra works steadily at his own workstation, piping a bag of frosting over some puff pastries. 

The conversation picks up again. Every once in a while, one or both of them make an effort to pull Jaime in, but he is more than happy to just listen. The soft cadence of their voices and the repetition of the task in his hands slowly lulls him into something more like relaxation.

“Sebastian mentioned you like cooking,” Ezra says, passing Jaime a basket for the bread.

“I do,” he says. Briefly, he wonders if Ezra had the same thought that Jaime had about him and his partner. He wonders if he should say something in Sebastian’s defense, to make it clear that Jaime is never obliged to do the cooking, but Ezra chuckles before he can.

“I’m sure Tate is happy to have someone around who knows how to use a skillet.”

“He always helps me,” Jaime adds quickly. 

Ezra and Sebastian share a quick smile. “That’s good to hear. I’m sure he has a lot to learn from you.”

Sebastian feigns offense with a dramatic scoff. “You tell a guy about your affection for frozen burritos once!” 

“Well,” Ezra says, reaching behind himself to untie his apron. “I can only hope this meal will hold up to your sophisticated palate.”

The three of them carry the food into the dining area. The table is long—long enough to make Jaime question just how many people a fugitive like Ezra keeps in his circle.

“So,” Ezra says, folding into the chair at the head of the table. Jaime and Seabstian each take one side of him. “For the main, we have beef brisket with rosemary and garlic. On the side: smashed fingerlings and roasted Brussels sprouts with a chili oil infused honey glaze. And the sourdough, of course, with some freshly churned sea-salt butter.”

“Oh my god,” Sebastian says, looking out over the spread with genuine adoration. “Thank you so much, Ez. It all looks amazing.”

“Let’s not leave it to sight, shall we? Dig in.” 

As both Ezra and Sebastian reach for serving spoons, he must catch a flash of Jaime’s hesitation, because without looking up from the task at hand, he says, “No one goes hungry in my home, Jaime. I expect you to serve yourself as much as you want, eat what you like and ignore what you don’t, and know that I will be thrilled if you reach for seconds but not disappointed if you do not.”

Jaime blinks at him, and Ezra looks up just long enough to meet his eyes. 

“Are you okay with that?”

In the back of his mind, he remembers the face of the woman who ran Jaime’s last group home. My boys don’t go hungry, she told him on his first night. He thinks she would have liked Ezra. He reminds him a bit of her. And that’s the thought that makes him nod in agreement and reach for the last unclaimed spoon. 

For a few minutes, Jaime allows himself to slink back into the background, happily listening to the easy back-and-forth between Sebastian and Ezra. The food is incredible, but Jaime knew it would be. After all, they are trained to be the best.

“What else do you like to do, Jaime?” Ezra asks, pulling him into the conversation. “Beyond supervising Sebastian in the kitchen.”

His fingers twitch around his fork at the unexpected attention, but he recovers quickly. “I like to run,” he says. It’s an easy enough answer—WRU-approved and the one personal fact he’s already divulged to Sebastian as well. 

“Speed or long distance?”

“Either,” he says. “Both.”

“Well, I bet that made morning sessions a bit more bearable in training, at least.”

Jaime goes still. Across from him, Sebastian’s fingers clench around his fork. Neither of these things seem to deter Ezra’s co-conspiratorial smile in the slightest. Jaime, anxious under the silence, is the first to speak. 

“I’m… I’m not allowed to dis—”

“Discuss the confidential training periods,” he finishes softly. “I know.”

And it’s so bind-bendingly bizarre, because he’s hearing those words, in that cadence, from the mouth of a man who has a house and a partner and a life that stretches far beyond anything Jaime has allowed himself to hope for, but it’s undeniable. Ezra used to be like him. Ezra knows what it is like to be in his shoes, and he is on the other side of it. And still, he remembers the rules as easily as breathing. 

“Jaime,” Ezra says carefully. “You don’t have to divulge anything you do not wish to. I won’t push you. But for what it’s worth—which I fully recognize is very little at this point—whatever you say to me will never make it back to anyone who might hurt you. I know you have not been allowed to speak freely for some time, but you can do so here, if you’d like.” A small smile cracks through his somber tone. “Or, alternatively, you can make things up. Lie to me all you want, I won’t get mad. It’s your choice.”

Slowly, Jaime brings his eyes back to his plate, pushing around a piece of meat with his fork, because nothing about this evening is easy to process quickly. After a moment, he clears his throat and says, “I like soccer.”

The admission is followed by a whoosh of air expelling from his lungs, because he hasn’t talked about—or even let himself think about—that part of his life in so long. Most days, it feels more like a detail about a character he read in a book rather than a piece of his reality. A reality that suddenly feels not so far back. 

Because it’s not, he reminds himself. It wasn’t very long ago at all. 

Across from him, Sebastian perks up, eyes alight. “You do?” he asks, sounding genuinely surprised and disproportionately happy. “Did you play?”

Jaime nods.

“Is that one a lie or a truth?” Ezra asks, still grinning ruefully at him. 

“It’s true.”

“Good to know,” Ezra says. “I played soccer, too. Very briefly, when I was young. But I’ve always enjoyed being active.”

“It…” Jaime begins, surprising himself by being the one to offer up more information. “It helps. Moving, I mean. Sebastian has been running with me sometimes.”

Ezra turns to Sebastian, one brow raised. “Has he now?”

“He’s being nice,” Sebastian says. “What I actually do is kind of limp behind him while he leaves me in the dust.” He casts a glance at Jaime on the last part, and he has to duck his head to hide the smile playing at his lips. 

“If you ever want another workout partner, I’ve got a gym set up in the basement. You’re welcome to it any time. No soccer nets, I’m afraid, but I’ve got plenty of cardio and sparring gear, if you’re interested.”

“Sparring?” Jaime asks. 

Ezra nods. “Mixed martial arts, kickboxing. I’m not a professional by any means, but I can hold my own.”

“I didn’t know that,” Sebastian says. 

At this, Ezra’s smile goes a little crooked. “I’m full of surprises,” he says, then turns back to Jaime. “Speaking of… I’m guessing I’m not the only one with some questions tonight. Shall we address the elephant in the room?

For a few seconds, Jaime doesn’t breathe. He watches him, rapt and curious and inexplicably nervous. 

“I gave Sebastian my permission to tell you anything he already knows about my story. Can I ask you what he conveyed?”

Jaime’s gaze once again dips to the smooth column of Ezra’s throat, unobstructed by metal that Jaime has been told, time and time again, is indestructible. Immovable except with the explicit allowance of a high-clearance Handler.  “That you used to be… like me,” he whispers. 

Ezra nods. “I was a contracted Companion for many years. I was seventeen when I was taken in—though of course, my file stated otherwise. I was well into my twenties by the time I got out.”

“How?” The question escapes before he can reel it in, but Ezra doesn’t look offended. He seems to have expected it. 

“There are specifics that I won’t get into right now, not yet, for the safety of the other parties involved,” he says. “But I killed the last Keeper of my contract.”

The sharp intake of breath next to him tells Jaime that this is new information to Sebastian, too. 

For a dizzying moment, Jaime is swept up in a technicolor fantasy: he is towering over the lifeless body of James Torley, droplets of blood collecting at the tip of a knife and splashing into his dress shirt. A shiver runs down his spine. He pinches his thigh to ground himself.

“You ran?” he asks, a bit breathlessly. “They didn’t track you?”

A wry smile pulls at Ezra’s mouth. “They couldn’t.”He turns his head, pulling his ear forward and brushing his hair back to reveal a thin scar where his tracker would have been. Jaime stops breathing.

“I had the right people on my side at the right time,” he explains, turning back to him. “There was someone who could safely extract the tracker without setting off any of the emergency failsafes. I had someone else who was able to remove my collar as well. It was staged as a murder-abduction. Someone kept me sheltered for months, in a house in the country. I laid low. The case eventually ran cold, and I was deemed a casualty. Not so much a missing person, but a financial loss the government had no choice but to write off. And now I am here.”

No one makes a sound for a long time.

“I can’t promise you an answer,” Ezra follows up. “Not about everything. But you can ask me anything you’d like to know.”

There are a hundred questions spinning in Jaime’s head—most of them incoherent, some of them he’s afraid to know the answer to. He unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth and asks, “How long?”

“Since I’ve been out? Nearly a decade.”

“Aren’t you afraid?” Jaime asks. “Of being found?”

“They haven’t found me yet.”

“But they could.” Jaime’s heart is hammering inside his chest. He can’t stop the words from escaping any more than he can control the sudden tremble in his hands. 

Ezra softens his expression, letting out a long breath. “Yes,” he concedes. “They could. But, Jaime, I have spent so many years being afraid. I have fought hard for the life I have now. I refuse to let fear control me again.”

Jaime can’t remember what a life looks like without fear. He has been afraid for as long as he can remember. 

In his very first memory of true terror, he is six years old. They had just moved to a new house, and the layout was still unfamiliar. There was thunder and lightning, so loud it shook the window in his bedroom. Jaime stumbled into the hallway, fingers plugged into both ears, desperately searching for his parents to make the noise go away. But between the fear and the darkness and the newness of the house, he couldn’t find their room. He couldn’t find them. In his mind, in that moment, he was entirely alone in the world. He ended up curled against the wall, wailing into the knees of his pajama pants, until they found him. 

That was the night he learned what it felt like to truly fear the loss of his parents, even if it only lasted a few minutes. Four years later, when that fear came to fruition, he thought the worst had happened. Nothing else could ever hurt him that bad again.

Then life spent the following years proving to him that there are always new things to be afraid of, new things to hurt him, new lows to reach: cruel foster parent, hungry nights in a locked room, a disciplinary board staring him down from the wrong end of a table, a man in a shelter standing over his bed, a stranger in a bar and a cloth pressed over his face, dark gray coveralls and blinding white lights, hands on his body, cuffs around his wrists, pain and pain and pain and—

And what Ezra is telling him now scares him, too. Existing so long in the system without the knowledge of a way out is a hell of its own, but this is a labyrinth he isn’t prepared to face. 

“Maybe…” Sebastian speaks up, eyeing Jaime cautiously. “Maybe we should table this conversation for now.”

“It’s a lot to take in at once,” Ezra agrees, keeping Jaime’s gaze. “I don’t want to overwhelm you. Let’s put a pin in it for now? You can always ask me questions later, if you want.”

Grateful for the out, Jaime takes a few deep breaths and nods. Wordlessly, Sebastian reached forward and nudge’s Jaime’s water glass closer to him; not a command, but a concern. Jaime takes a long drink, focusing on the cool stream down his throat. 

“So,” Ezra says after a few long moments of quiet. “Would anyone like dessert?”

****

While Sebastian laces up his shoes by the front door, Ezra pulls Jaime to the side. 

“Here,” he says, handing him a small slip of paper. “Sebastian already has my number. Now you have it, too. It’s not just for looks; I want you to use it if you need to. For any reason at all, you can call me and I’ll pick up. Okay?”

“Thank you,” Jaime says.

Ezra nods. For the first time all night, there seems to be a brief moment where Ezra is not entirely in control of his emotions. He blinks at Jaime a few times through an unreadable expression, then takes a deep breath to smooth his face into perfect neutrality once more. Jaime shivers, seeing a flash of his own reflection in his eyes. 

“I’m glad you allowed me to meet you tonight,” Ezra says. “I will make no demands of your time in the future, but I hope this won’t be the last time. You are welcome here whenever you’d like. It might be good for you to have a friend right now.” He shrugs, bringing his smile back to the surface. “It might be good for me, too.”

***

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[peachy-panic]

‘ i’m here. ’ for Jaime

CW: PANIC ATTACK

“Breathe in with me,” Sebastian says, level and practiced. “One… two… three. That’s it.”

He is down on one knee. Jaime sits on the toilet lid in front of him, clutching Sebastian’s hands with vibrating ferocity. He follows the instructions as best he can, but he is jittery on the exhale. When he clamps his eyes shut, Sebastian gives his hands a squeeze.

“You’re alright,” Sebastian tells him. “You’re here with me.”

“I’m here,” Jaime repeats, willing himself to believe it.

Weeks into the contract, the panic attacks still happen frequently, but they are getting better at identifying the things that trigger them and the ways to bring Jaime back to earth.

“Again?” Sebastian asks.

Jaime doesn’t trust his voice, so he nods, and Sebastian begins counting again.

He breathes in.

He breathes out.

He opens his eyes and clings to the green of Sebastian’s eyes like they will anchor him in place.

He is here.