#I just watched this for the first time recently and my brain… the cogs finally started moving

[lexi-does]

Don’t Starve x Over the Garden Wall

[cazzyvintage]

Hii

I don't know if you're requests are open but I just had an idea and I needed to share 😅

I'm from Brazil and today is Father's Day here and I had this thought with Zemo specifically bc I see him as a BIG FLUFF BALL that loves kids and all.

So what about something with the reader wishing him a happy father's day as a way to tell that he's going to be a father? 😭

Sorry if it's too basic and all

Thanks

Zemo absolutely LOVES children and you are so right that he would be a bit fluff ball. That is like my firm belief for him. I thought this cute so I quickly whipped this up, it isn't that long and not beta-read but enjoy nonetheless!

The first crack of dawn started to shine through your window, waking you up once again early for the day. Your eyelids complained bitterly as you slowly prised them open and stifled a yawn, as not to wake the man up beside you.

Zemo lay chest down in the bed, the duvet barely covering his naked form. His usually neat hair was a mess, sticking up in all sorts of parts from how he had been tossing and turning in his sleep. The side of his face now pressed into the soft pillow, facing towards you and you tried not to chuckle at the slight of a sliver of drool that came out of his mouth as he snored lightly.

You always loved to watch him while he slept. He seemed so at peace in these times, unlike the usual stressful appearance he seemed to possess when awake. He was a man who wore the burden of all his crimes, of his people's pain and agony, of his own families death upon his shoulders. In recent years with you, he had found solace, a peace where he could relax within your presence.

And now it was time to take all of this one step further.

You weren't sure how he would react to the news. Of course, you two had certainly talked about having kids but you had both seen it far out into the future. He was still grieving for Carl after all. You didn't want to feel like you would be replacing his child with your new one. Yet the thought of Zemo being a father, playing with your children, helping you look after him. Nothing warmed your heart more.

Gently you stretched your arm out and placed it upon Zemo's back, rubbing your fingers up and down the warm skin that was littered in pretty moles and small little scars he had gained over the years. Slowly but surely the sensation of your hand upon his back awoke him from his slumber.

His mouth closed as his light snoring came to an abrupt stop and eventually his eyes cracked open an inch to gaze at you. His mind ticked for a few minutes till a smile grew upon his face as he looked at you, then slowly shut his eyes again as he stretched and rolled over onto his back.

"Good morning love, happy father's day"

"Happy father's day" he mumbles back to you, his morning voice still deep and droozy.

Now was the wait. You counted it down in your mind how long it took him.

4...5...6...

Suddenly his eyebrows cast down as he repeated the words silently to himself, realising his mind wasn't playing tricks on him and that you had just said what he thought you said.

His body swiftly turned around on his side again to face you, his eyes now flickering over you in confusion. "Father's day, we've never celebrated father's day before"

"I know" you reply, smirking at him as you see the cogs in his brain go till finally the spark lit up in his eyes and he practically jumped up, sitting up in bed staring at you in bewilderment.

"You don't mean- you don't... you are?" he could barely get the words out as his mouth hung open, his mind was now racing with many thoughts but most of all he was shocked, unable to function.

"Zemo, Zemo, Zemo" you start to reassure him and help calm him down. You reach over, gently picking up his hand and rubbing your thumb over the top of it.

"Yes Zemo, yes"

There was a moment of silence between the two of you which made you anxious. His breath was heavy and his eyes wide and slowly flickered down to your stomach. Feeling anxious about what his thought would be you start to ramble again.

"I know how hard this might be for you, I want you to know that we won't be replacing your family, no one could but-"

You didn't get much more in when Zemo grasped your face with both of his hands and pulled you into a passionate kiss which you quickly melted into. It was different to his usual kisses, this time there was such a fire, such happiness within it than when he finally pulled away you were dizzy from lack of breath.

His eyes flickered back down to your stomach again and shakingly his hand went down and touched it, stroking it.

"I'm going to be a father again" he whispered, hardly believing it. A giant smile broke out on his face, excitement swarming him and he had to lean down and press a gentle kiss to your stomach, still hardly believing in there was your child.

A giggle left your lips as you watched his excited expression, relieved at how happy he was to receive the news. He leans down and places a kiss upon your stomach before looking back up to you again, true happiness shining within his eyes.

"We are going to be parents"

TAGS: @wonderwoman292 @justreadingficsdontmindme @thehuiabird@shrekboobies @arianalilyblack @handmaiden-of-mischief @andy-rocks @theartbooshlr @zemosimp420 @kadeuuijib @multiyfandomgirl40 @unbeatablecurlgirl @greeneyedblondie44 @sisterxciricextheatrical @there-goes-thefighter @lieutenantn @neoarchipelago @cable-kenobi @edencherries @faustlyaccused @julyvegan @prestigious-tea @hannahbal-the-fannibal @my-blood-is-maple-syrup @competitivepomegranate @welcometothemxdhouse @flutterskies @rumblelibrary @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @sky-writes-stuff @rhinestxn-e @davianos-blog @everythingbeginsineternity-blog @mysticalexpertdaze @nyx2021 @apparrio @greeneyedblondie44 @unhealthyob @sisterxciricextheatrical @alindeluce @danielBruhlsWife @mywinterivy @bruhidaniel @bweakmybonez

[sluttyminghao]

Part 1/?

✧ pairing: wen junhui x gender neutral!reader ✧ word count: 2k ✧ genre: smut ✧ warnings in this chapter: camboy!jun, masturbation, masturbating on camera, camboy!minghao makes an appearance ✧notes for this chapter: reader only makes an appearance at the end of the installment, i hope it makes sense as you read it! ✧ a/n: you asked, and i delivered! this is the first installment of going live! a series about camboy jun and his adventures! i hope you all enjoy, and if you would like to be added to a taglist pls inbox me! feedback is appreciated! ✧ synopsis: he’s a shy college boy who is stuck in financial difficulty, and his best friends gives him a suggestion that may or may not be a good idea.

A slight glance at the clock on his nightstand indicated that it was 10:49 pm, and he knew that within a matter of minutes he’d be doing the exact thing he said he would never do. His palms had grown sweaty and he felt his heart rate quicken at the thought, and all he could think to do was wipe his palms on his sweats. He remembers the conversation he had about his thoughts with Minghao vividly, even though it had happened months before his current situation.

“I just don’t see how you can do it, how do you not get embarrassed? Aren’t you being watched by...god knows how many people?” Junhui spoke between mouthfuls of ramen, immense heat rising in his cheeks at the nature of the conversation that had come up when talking about Junhui’s increasing level of financial difficulties. Minghao raised a brow at the older, before erupting into a fit of giggles and making Junhui cock one of his brows in confusion. Did he say something funny?

“Why would I be embarrassed about my livelihood?” Minghao began, wrapping some noodles around his chopsticks expertly and blowing them lightly to cool them down. “I make so much profit off of doing camming and making videos, that I’ve been able to pay my rent and amenities for the next six months, as well as keeping on top of all my art school debts,” he continued, an amused smirk finding its way onto his face at Junhui’s shocked facial features.

“Six months? That’s crazy... I’m basically living paycheck to paycheck at the minute,” he mumbled and let out a small sigh, picking at the small pieces of meat left within his ramen bowl with his chopsticks. “Well, that’s kinda what you get for working at a small and dingy diner run by a bunch of college students,” Minghao quipped while giving him a pointed look, letting his napkin fall to the table to signify he had finished his meal.

Junhui sighed. He knew Minghao was right, 99% of the time he generally was, but this was one thing he really didn’t want to admit to him. “But...would people recognise me? That’s one thing I really don’t want,” Junhui spoke shyly, and Minghao’s face softened towards his elder, before shaking his head slightly. “You can use blurring filters or wear items on your face so people won’t recognise you, that’s what I do, and no one knows who I am to this day.”

He thought a little more about it, and Minghao could practically see the cogs turning in his brain, deciding to offer a piece of advice to his struggling long-time friend. “Hey,” he spoke, gaining Junhui’s attention, “you should really think about it, especially if you need the money. With a face and a body like yours, I’m sure you’ll have thousands of subscribers in no time.”

Well, what did he have to lose? He sure didn’t have any shreds of dignity left, may as well give it a shot.

In all his years of living, he had been very well off financially, but in recent months his rent had become increasingly more expensive and the cost of living had jumped up exponentially. To his dismay, he found himself without a choice, needing the money as soon as possible so he would still have a roof over his head and the bare minimum of food. 

He had been staring at the webpage for the camming website for the past 45 minutes, trying to hype himself up, but he had just become increasingly nervous as the time had passed. Minghao had explained to him countless times that this website was very reputable and a great starting point for beginners going into camming, and he knew that he could trust the words of his younger friend.

But even still, the nerves would not stop pouring over him, almost acting like a cascading effect, flowing down his back like a waterfall and seeping into every crevice of his body.

He sucked in a breath before exhaling shakily and picking up his phone to call Minghao. He knew that if anyone was able to calm his nerves, it would be his long-time friend. He tapped on Minghao’s contact before placing the phone to his ear, listening to the phone ring a few times before he was met with Minghao’s groggy voice.

“Were you sleeping?” Junhui’s voice is quiet as he speaks into the receiver, awaiting his companion’s response even though he was almost sure he knew the answer already. “No, I was out feeding the ducks, of course, I was sleeping,” Minghao sighed sarcastically, and Junhui suddenly felt a pang of guilt for the late-night call to his friend. “What did you need, ‘Hui?” Minghao continued, sleep laced in his voice.

“I’m sorry for waking you up...I’m so nervous...I don’t even know how to start the camming videos…do you have any...pointers, maybe...” Junhui trailed off, and he could hear Minghao hum from the other end of the phone. He remained silent for a few beats, only further amplifying Junhui’s nerves to the point where his leg had begun to bounce incessantly.

“I think you just need to relax a little, maybe have a drink or two to settle your nerves,” he replied smoothly, wanting to end the conversation so that he could get back to sleep. “If you’re really worried, why don’t you just show everything from the neck down when you’re recording?” He continued, waiting for his older friend’s reply.

Junhui was contemplating the options laid out to him and decided to combine both, deciding he didn’t have anything to lose. “Thanks, Hao, I owe you,” he rushed, hanging up and throwing his phone on his desk and standing up to get himself a bottle of alcohol. He assured himself that he was only going to have a few sips to loosen himself up, but he figured that he may need to down the whole bottle by the night’s end.

A few swigs of his precious alcohol later, and he had finally built up the courage to remove his shirt but left his sweats on as a safety measure. Minghao was right, the alcohol definitely loosened him up, and before he had even realised what he was doing, he had pressed the record button and had started his live stream.

He didn’t know what he was doing, not a single clue. His mind was fuzzy and his last shreds of dignity left him the moment his pants were pulled down and thrown haphazardly to the side. The only thought that was now running rampant through his mind was how much he wanted to cum. He wasn’t even focused on the live video anymore, only focused on his hardening cock and the way his hand wrapped around it.

Normally when he got himself off, he would take his time and relish in the sensations, not wanting to rush. In his nervous and alcohol-fueled state, however, he wasn’t going to beat around the bush like he would if he was sober. His hand moved up and down the length of his cock rapidly, small whimpers eliciting from the man’s lips as he pleasured himself.

Junhui could feel himself getting closer and closer to the edge the faster he pumped his cock, but he knew he didn’t want to cum just yet. He slowed his hand significantly to a steady pace, almost feather-like touches, and moved his free hand up to flick at his nipple, sighing at the sensation. 

Not that he would ever admit to anyone, but his nipples had always been extra sensitive and even just the slightest feather touch would have him reeling and wanting more.

The whines poured endlessly from his mouth, even as he built up his orgasm for a second time. He kept one hand on his cock, pumping up and down swiftly and gaining speed, while the other pinched at his nipples. It was getting harder for him to hold himself back, and he knew he wouldn’t last much longer in the position he was in.

Before he could even think about stopping himself from cumming again, he felt the string snap in his abdomen and felt the hot streaks of white land on his stomach. He gasped at the feeling and let his hand continue to move steadily, letting the white streaks hit his chest. His head had grown fuzzy from the sheer intensity of his orgasm, and he could feel his hips lightly bucking up into his still closed fist.

When he was sure his orgasm had ebbed away, he removed his hand from his softening cock and sighed, leaning back in his computer chair. After a moment of stillness, his eyes widened upon seeing the small red recording dot on his computer, reminding him of the act he had just performed.

He clicked the stop button hurriedly and closed all his tabs before slamming the lid of his laptop shut. He couldn’t believe what he had just done; his mind was whirring with a thousand and one thoughts, his heart was about to leap right out of his chest, and he knew that there was no going back from the acts he had just performed.

He pushed himself out of the chair and headed towards his bathroom, showering in an attempt to get the cum off his body and somehow trying to scrub off the gross feeling he had from his lewd behaviour. It wouldn’t come off that easily, however, so all he could do was face the consequences of his actions and own them as Minghao told him to.

After a hot shower and a whole lot of contemplation later, Junhui knew that he would have to use his laptop again and see the damage that he had caused, so he decided to simply bite the bullet and take a look back at his video and see if anyone had commented or liked it. It didn’t seem likely in his opinion, since it was his first video and he had no subscribers, but there was a small glimmer of hope buried deep within him.

His eyes widened at the results in front of him. He truly could not believe the sight he saw when he clicked back on to his video to check for feedback.

200 new subscribers, 800 stars and 27 comments

He blinked rapidly, thinking it was all a hallucination. How could this be? He only sat in front of his computer for roughly 10 minutes jacking himself off and had garnered a huge response to it. He clicked the refresh button, thinking that it was simply a mistake on the website’s part. Surely he, a newbie to camming, did not just rack up over a thousand notifications from a ten-minute video.

When the page refreshed he saw the same notifications, except for one new comment that had caught his attention. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to look at just one comment and then head to bed, so he let his mouse hover over the little star-shaped notification icon and pressed on it. His eyes moved across the screen quickly, and he couldn’t help but feel the heat rise to his cheeks at the comment he had seen.

angelbaby96: you’ve got such a nice cock, and such pretty noises too. I would love to hear more of them sometime <3

[honeypirate]

Figure It Out part one (completed )

Masterlist

Hinawa x Fem!reader

Okay guys I really liked writing this even though I think it might be a little weird. It’s just the first part I have a lot more. very terribly edited

Warnings- maybe swears. Talks about a readers sisters death. Feeling so comfortable around Hinawa. Best friends with Hinawa. Aww.

You’ve liked Hinawa from the moment you met him. At first you liked him like anyone would like their superior but every day you were around him, the more you liked him. His hats, his jokes that most of the time no one but you seemed to catch, his under the breath teasing. You would chuckle every time you caught one and he would look at you with a little smirk, he liked having someone around who finally understood all of his humor. He began to look at you after every joke and whisper ones under his breath just to you, making you laugh in serious settings as he pretends to scold you for making a scene.

You became really close friends pretty quick. Sure he was your superior but you’re the same age so sometimes it was hard to see him as such. You found him easy to be around and he made you feel comfortable so you never overthought what you said or did with him. Sure you were easy going with everyone but you went out of your way to make sure he specifically knew you liked his hat, or his cooking, or that you thought he was brave and strong on certain missions. You were always honest, which he liked from the beginning. He appreciated it. (While the others found it strange when they witnessed your banters.)

One day when it was just you guys cooking together and joking around, you saw him truly smile, unabashedly, for the first time. “God Hinawa, your smile is dazzling” you said and his knife slipped, twisting in his hand when he went to cut his potato, the knife just cutting a weird chunk out of it. He felt his cheeks blush for the first time in what felt like forever, he’s worked so hard to devote himself to the world and accepted his place as a cog in the machine, but you bring his feelings to the surface without even trying. Every time you would compliment him, it would make him flustered for a good 15 seconds before he could say ‘thank you’ or something nice back to you. After a few months you found yourselves that much closer, found it that much easier for you both to address lighter feelings, feelings that you both haven’t had in a long time. Without realizing it you both changed your devotions from being about duty to being about each other.

It became a ritual between you both that whenever one would cook the other would assist, leading to you swapping stories and joking around the entire time. Cooking together became a sort of reset with each other, using it as a special few hours where nothing else mattered but the food and each other.

One night you had asked him once to tell you a story about his life before Company 8 and he surprised you both by bringing up his friend who turned infernal in front of his eyes. Telling you stories of when they would do crazy things, when they would goof off on weekends and hang out at the bar.

He didn't realize he had tears running down his face until your hands were on his shoulders, turning him to face you so you could cup his cheeks and wipe away his tears before pulling him down into your arms. “Thank you, for trusting me” you whisper as he cries on your shoulder in the middle of the kitchen.

When you felt him relax and his breathing even out, he stood up to his full height and looked at you with semi embarrassed eyes. You reach up and brush away any tears that are left and then smile softly “do you want to hear about my sister? She was my best friend my whole life.” he smiles weakly at you “yes, please tell me” you nod and as you go back to cutting up vegetables. beginning to recount the time she tried to get the grocery boy to date you, how she was always the life of your family, crazy energy and who never thought about anything until after she said it.

“Fearless. She was always so fearless. I think God gave her it all, and gave me all the common sense” you chuckle and then clear your throat “when I uh lost her, she was making us lunch, I was watching her son in the living room and before I knew it, it was all over. Brain aneurysm,” you let out a sad laugh “Not even fire”

you feel your throat constrict and you try to clear it again, you reach up and brush away your tears, turning away from him as he takes the cut up vegetables and potatoes to the pot. You sniff a few times, trying to contain it but failing. He touches your arm lightly and you turn to him, your eyes on the floor “sorry, i didn’t know this would happen. Here i am trying to comfort you but this isn't really comforting is it'' you chuckle awkwardly, feeling uncomfortable about needing to be comforted when he was having a hard time. you just wanted to share something hard from your past, so he didn't feel so vulnerable but you ended up putting yourself in a same position. you try to clear your throat again but what comes out is a strangled sob.

He tilts your face up to look into his eyes “for what it’s worth, you are one of the most fearless people I know” he brushes away your tears and smiles softly down at you, before hugging you to his chest, returning the comfort you both desperately need.

Being alone with him was nice, but rare, not happening again for a few more days until one day after work when you guys were the only ones not occupied. You decided to just spend the time together in the lounge room, not on purpose, he just found you and decided to stay. Sitting side by side on the couch, you were reading a book and he was drawing something in a small notebook.

You look up and over at him, smiling at his look of concentration and thinking about the kitchen moment, recounting all the feelings that have been brought up since meeting him, how easy it has been recently to realize what you want. When you spoke you kept your voice so quiet it barely reached his ears in the quiet room.

“Ya know, I once thought that it was easier to devote myself to my duty and to the world. Easier because when someone you love turns infernal or dies it won’t hurt too bad. I never would allow myself to truly love, so i would have nothing to lose. but i think… I think that love is something that makes you learn how to live each moment like it could be your last. At any moment something could happen and someone could be gone, I could be gone. To be alone is to not get hurt, to not feel exhausted by every emotion. But knowing the pain could happen, I realize that it makes me want to truly cherish my life, truly live my life like I have meaning, because to our city and to our team we mean everything. that’s my world, that is what matters. There are some things that i will never understand, but if I could have one scrap of truly loving someone, it would be worth all the pain of the uncertainty. It’s a crazy rush to feel like a person who matters to others. And.. I know it could hurt so much, but it’s comforting to know that I’m not alone, that I have others who feel the same, the feeling of being safe and to feel like I truly matter, of being so sure about something, or someone, the trust that someone can love 100% of me...I think I would give everything for that. The kind of belonging you can only have with family or with being in love with someone. Being in this company made me realize it. Everyone here is my family. That is something that no one could ever take or burn away”

After your first sentence he had looked at your face, his heart racing at the feelings your words have invoked in him. Like you were saying something so easily that he has been afraid of for so long. Your voice was so confident he was shocked to see tears well up in your eyes and spill down your cheeks as you closed your book, setting it in your lap as you stared at the notebook in his hands while you spoke. You felt your hands start to shake, like you were saying something extremely important, like an epiphany you were sharing with him because he happened to be here with you, caught in the same moment.

Your eyes are caught by a flash of lightning outside of the window and you reach up wiping away your tears. “Sorry” you laugh “didn’t mean to go so hard there. Just forget it if it’s too weird.” He hums softly, a comforting low sound that gave you goosebumps “no, i'm glad you are comfortable to talk to me about anything you want. I.. I think i understand what you mean” you can tell he was struggling and you didn't push him, you just scooted closer to him on the couch, until you were pressed into his side so you could find some comfort in being close to someone.

You tried to read your book again, as he resumed his drawing, but it was getting late and you had a long day, your eyes burned with the exhaustion hitting your body. neither of you moved, not wanting to be alone tonight. So you stayed there, on the couch in the lounge room, reading and drawing together. A storm was raging outside, every once in a while loud thunder would make you flinch. You felt your eyes close and you couldn’t resist it any longer, your book going slack on your things as your head fell over onto his shoulder. Humming in your sleep at how comfortable his shoulder was.

You were awoken by the feeling of his fingers brushing your hair out of your face. You sigh and smile before opening your eyes halfway “what time is it?”you whisper “just after midnight” he responds, his cheeks a little pink. “Sorry i didn’t mean to fall asleep. I guess i should go to bed huh?” you laugh and smile up at him, your cheek still pressed to his shoulder.

He cups your cheek softly and kisses your forehead, smiling when your cheeks flushed. He couldn’t resist, it felt so natural. You were so much more than just friends, but you weren’t ready to admit what you were feeling, and neither was he. “Yes, we should get to bed” he stands first and offers you his hand, which you gladly accept.

You reach his room first “thank you for listening to me tonight” you say and he nods “always, y/n” he says before giving your hand a squeeze and letting go.

You were almost asleep, almost feeling the sweet relief of unconsciousness, when your heart started racing, your brain connecting all the dots, that you felt this way because of Hinawa.

You spent the rest of your night convincing yourself to sleep.

You like Hinawa. So what? You’re not even sure if what you’re feeling really are romantic feelings for him! You’ve never been in love before so you don’t know. You need more proof. That’s what eventually led you to sleeping, relaxing in the fact that you needed more proof to really know. And no it’s not against the rules because nothing is even going on.

[strangerobin]

Rue: Chapter 4 (Jasper Hale x OC)

Not everyone is excited for a reunion. Especially when expectations are not aligned.

**Note: Feel free to leave me a comment and tell me how you feel about the story so far!

I had a bit of difficulty writing this part I must say; but I don’t believe that two people meeting again in forever can go back to being in love like nothings happened.

But lemme know what you think!**

Elsewhere.

Adeline ran as fast as she could, her chaser right at her heels as she darted into the woods. Rain pelting heavily, the moon hidden behind clouds, the woods seemed darker than usual.

To make matters worse, she was slowing down. She had been starving herself greatly recently, in a self-loathing attempt and now she deeply regretted her foolish decision. As if it wasn’t enough she was having trouble controlling her hunger, now she was being chased down by an unknown assailant, vampire. She ignored the constant tugging at her heart again, begging her to stop, to turn around and just look at her chaser.

It occurred to her then that this person was the same one who was at Whitehorse. Judging from the female vampire that had approached her just now in the bar, someone or some persons were interested in her. It might not even be her father. But bullshit, she wasn’t going to let this unknown stranger get to her. Nor was she going to let them ruin her peace of mind she had fought to safeguard for decades now. She needed a plan, and she needed it fast.

There was a clearing just a few miles south, if she could just make it there…! Pushing her limits, she ducked under a pine and concealed herself into the night, mindful not to tread on anything that might give her away. Circled the perimeter and watched as the man who had been chasing her stopped in the clearing, apparently confused that he had lost her track somehow.

Now-

Blood pumping, she darted out and aimed for the jugular. Her hand clasped onto the man’s neck in a death grip and pushed him up into a tree.

“Who are you and what do you want from me?” Adeline hissed. The man, blonde she noted, made no move to subdue or even try to escape her clutches. His face was still partially hidden under his hair, but she was aware of his amber orbs observing her behind his curtain of hair. Neither did she miss the scars, multiple healed bite wounds littered across his porcelain neck and clavicles, screaming danger. Her heart hammering in her chest now, a tidal wave of anxiety washed over her and an eerie sense of foreboding was looming overhead. Her mind was trying to make a connection, something about this man just… But the anxiety got to her again and she tightened her grip over his neck even harder.

It occurred to her then that the man’s companion was also nowhere to be found. Was this a trap after all?

“Answer me.” She growled impatiently. “Who are you? Why are you after me? Where is your companion?!”

Yet he only remained mum. This only further enraged her.

“Speak or I’ll rip your pretty head off of its rightful place.”

“Just like how you ripped my heart out all those years ago?”

Momentarily Adeline was caught confused by the man’s reply, until he looked up and the dim moonlight casted shadows on his smooth marble like face. Adeline gasped, dropping her arm and taking a step back. A chill ran up her spine and grasped painfully onto her heart, tightening; just as her mind roared, losing its usual powers of logics and deduction.

“Jasper?”

*

Back at the parking lot, Jasper had suddenly felt a breeze, a sliver of a shadow passing by, and then the strongest urge he had ever had to run after the shadow. Unknowingly, he had let the urge overtook his actions; until he saw Adeline materialising out of thin air, running at top speed a few yards before him did he finally realised what had happened.

He had chased on then, close on her tail.

And now he watched, somewhat in fascination, at the myriad of emotions that ran through Adeline’s eyes in that instant. Shock and disbelief gave way to confusion, then guilt and grief. He’d forgotten just how expressive she can be at times and how he could read her like an open book.

Except it was his Adeline. His sweet Adeline.

There was no mistaking on his part. She had not aged a single day. Her hair was shorter now, but her countenance, and those expressive cornflower eyes they were the same, fresh from his memory. There was no doubt in it. Now that his vision was so much better, he could even notice features on her face that he would have missed as a human. And yes, he could also smell her sweet hybrid scent, so similar to Renesmee’s yet also different in it’s own way. Oh how his cold dead heart felt, ready to burst, he had never felt so alive since his transformation. Perhaps he shouldn’t be too hasty in accepting this hybrid thing, but it would explain so much of her past actions. And it would also explain so well how they were seeing each other right there and now. And more than anything, he was just… feeling all kinds of emotions now that she was here again. Joy and shock at the prospect of reunion, apprehension and nausea at how events would unfold. But mostly he felt a deep inner relief and serenity for the first time in years. One he did not know that he had been missing until beholding her again for the first time in centuries.

She was the missing piece he had been seeking unknowingly all these years.

He had meant to step forward, to embrace her, to touch her, anything, something just to confirm her presence right in front of his eyes. To hold onto her, to make sure that she wouldn’t just disappear again into thin air again.

But even as he pondered on his actions, those haunting orbs were now settling to something between fear and distrust.

Adeline, her hand trembling against her lips, was slowly backing away as she tried to process the events that had transpired; unsettled, she did not even notice that she had backed herself into the trunk of another tree.

“What sick joke is this?” She finally let out a shaky laugh. Her eyes darting everywhere but him.

With a sinking heart, Jasper swallowed harshly, his throat dry. He’d run through this in his head for uncountable times now. A simulation of their reunion, heartfelt exchanges and eager embraces, passionate declarations; or cold-hearted refusals and further blows to his heart. But nothing like this, not this deer-in-the-headlight shakiness, blatant denial, this refusal of even a simple acknowledgement.

“Adeline it’s me. It’s your Jasper.” He finally breathed, closing the distance. Reaching out a finger to twine her stray locks behind her ear, before leaning in to take a whiff of her floral scent.“It’s Jasper.” He repeated like a broken record.

“No… that’s not possible…” She murmured to herself, frozen in place by shock. Until fear flashed in her eyes again and she jerked away as if she had been electrified.

“What power do you possess? Did Father send you to lure me back?” She swallowed in alarm and closed her eyes, her cornflower orbs filled with unshed tears and undisguised fear.

“Adeline?”

“Please, I’ll go, willingly. Please… just stop what you’re doing, stop messing with my mind will you?” She continued to implore, on the verge of tears. “Stop this. I’ll go mad if you don’t.”

His heart almost broke again at her desperation, her pleads weighing heavily on him.

“No Adeline, darling. It really is me.” He whispered, cupping her face gently to catch her attention.

“No, you died all those years ago. In 1863.” Adeline shook her head furiously, as if every word was a bodily pain inflicted on her part. “I saw the stone, Mrs Whitlock told me so.”

“No, no.” Why couldn’t she just see him for what he was? Why was she so adamant on disproving his entire existence? “I was turned, I was found by a coven of vampires and turned.”

“I don’t believe you.” She finally looked him in the eye and he could see the determination behind, the determination to reject his being altogether as nothing more than a illusion of hers, put into her mind as some cruel joke.

His insides raged then, why couldn’t she see the obvious? He did not come so close to her only to lose her again! Not this time!

“So I will go. I will not shackle you to a life of secrets and miseries. Nor will I bind you to eternal gloom and slaughter your happiness, take your sun and hide your moon.” He recited in a sudden outburst of spite. “Just know that, in another life where I was free of lies and deceit, I would move heaven and earth just to stay alongside you.”

Adeline gasped audibly, her eyes grew big as saucers, and a tear glided down her cheek. Her lips trembled and he could feel the turmoil and shock in her. He could practically hear the whirling of the cogs in her brain moving, as she finally put two and two together. Her eyes darted frantically, as the truth dawned on her.

“This can’t be.” She finally let out a hysterical laugh and muttered weakly, backing up shakily and holding onto a branch for support. “This is impossible.”

“It’s the truth, darling. I-”

“No!” She screamed with all her might. “No.” She mumbled again raking a hand through her curls roughly and shaking her head in denial, even as tears were streaming freely down her face now. “You died… you died…”

“Adeline…”

“I have to go.” She muttered to no one in particular. “I can’t, I can’t, this can’t happen, this shouldn’t have happened…My fault, my fault. I shouldn’t have… shouldn’t have…”

“Adeline!” He reached for her then, to stop her, to pull her out of her panic.

“Don’t touch me!” She screamed, slapping his hand away. “Don’t…” Adeline chewed on her lips and swallowed nervously, before looking at Jasper, her eyes a sea of emotions and anguish. “Don’t try to find me ever again.”

Without so much as a backward glance, Adeline bolted in the opposite direction with lightning speed and melted into the night.

Left alone in the open, Jasper clenched and unclenched his fists. This was not what he had anticipated, in fact the worst had happened. There was a new agony in his heart, a heaviness weighing on him. Could broken hearts break a second time? If so, his had died a second time today. He could make chase, to corner her, to confront her; but was her blatant rejection not evident enough? Did she need to spell it out in black and white for him?

Letting out a heart-wrenching howl, Jasper dropped to his knees. His eyes were burning like coals but no tears would ever fall out, unlike her. He had lost that ability all those years ago, oh but how he wished he could cry now! To let release any, even the slightest of his unsurmountable grief.

But he could not.

Why couldn’t things stayed the way it had been back in Texas? If she had been a simple dressmaker, if he had never joined the army; they would have married, settled down, had a children or two and grew to see each other old. Buried together in the local cemetery, side by side and that would have been it.

Life was so so cruel.

He punched his fists repeatedly into the ground out of frustration.

Until he felt the strangest sensation.

A pull. There was a strange pull at his heart; tugging at his heartstrings, urging him on in the direction Adeline had just disappeared into.

Jasper stood up slowly, gauging at this new sensation.

It was as if an invisible pathway had just opened for him. There was a new lightness in his heart now. A giddiness at what he had just discovered.

And he thought that finally he understood what this all meant now.

*

This couldn’t be happening.

It was impossible!

Surely he was an imposter?! Her Jasper! Her Jasper had been dead for more than a hundred years, he couldn’t possibly have came back from the dead? And to become a vampire of all things?

A vampire? God forbid, that would mean that someone had changed him!

But she recalled his topaz eyes that shone eerily in the moonlight, the icy cold skin that had cupped her face so lovingly, that marble smooth and hard skin, the bite marks littered all over his neck. Literally nothing about him screamed human; those were the features of a top predator.

Was this some form of joke the universe was having on her? Her Jasper alive all this time? An immortal not unlike her, but stronger and more lethal?

No! No! No! No! She’d left this hole years ago. She wasn’t going to dig herself into another hole now! It couldn’t have been him! Dead as a door nail he was. She’d seen his grave, she was there.

Though no one ever recovered his body. A treacherous voice whispered in the back of her mind. And anyhow what was that line that he had recited then? It was word for word from the letter she had written to him all those years ago. No one other than himself could have read it.

Her treacherous mind continued to drift into dangerous territory, and though she tried to steer it away, the barriers were all but down now.

She’d rather it had been a stormy night. That thunder and the rain, they would have distracted her from her thoughts. But no.

The moon was a beacon hung against a starless backdrop, and through the half parted curtains, the clear moonlight filtered in, illuminating every feature of his in a white halo. Everything was so calm, so peaceful, in comparison to the raging storm within her.

She’d never stare into those warm brown eyes again, never run her hands through his thick golden curls, never feel his chuckle rumbling deep in his chest or his beating heart on her palm-

“Darlin’?” Jasper’s lashes fluttered, he had sensed her uneasiness somehow and was struggling to rise from his slumber.

“It is nothing darling.” She murmured before pressing a chaste kiss to his lips, relishing in his strong embrace one last time. “It was only a dream.”

He grunted and soon his breathing was even again.

With his handsome face and his wits and charm, he’d be able to rise up in the ranks, and get a fine rich Southern Belle for a wife quick enough.

Father’s threats were still fresh in her mind.

Better this than a mangled body, six inch deep in the ground.

Better leave now when he still loved her, than when he learnt of the truth, the ugly horrible truth.

Every move was another battle. How she withdrew herself from his arms, how she struggled not to sob or to crawl back into bed and confess every little sin she had committed. To stay for another day, for him to tell her that everything would be alright for another day. How her heart broke to leave the ring on the dresser and the heartless note she had written.

One final kiss to his forehead because she couldn’t bear to turn back a second time for she was sure that she would lose her resolve and strength to leave him.

But another day would become another week, another month, another year. What then when Father returned for her? Or when he realised that his wife had not aged a single day since she turned 17?

Better this farewell now. Better to look back with love and fondness and regret, than to let it be corrupted by hate and disgust or worse… blood.

Tomorrow he will wake and she will be gone. And when the time is just right, he will forget her, he will move on, fight the war, get married, grow old. All men do, the world must go on. And only she will be stuck in time, reminiscing the past through rose tinted lenses.

It was alright so long as he lived. She would live with this pain. She would bear this petit mort.

Every. Single. Time.

Until there was nothing more left of her heart.

Was this all for naught then in the end?

Was there no need for to leave him then? Or was his death inevitable regardless of what she did? Was it something that she had done? Something she had miscalculated?

Was he even Jasper to begin with?

She needed to be somewhere, anywhere other than being alone with her thoughts. And as the little house at the end of the lane grew bigger, only then did she realise where her subconscious had lead her to.

“Adeline?”

Standing at the doorway was her half brother, Anakin, smoking. Jet black hair pulled back into a ponytail, tanned torso bare displaying all his tribal tattoos. His black eyes held surprise as he eyed her carefully.

“I didn’t think I would see the likes of you for the next few years.”

“Change of plans Anakin. Is Father here?”

“It’s only me and the tyke; you know me and the old man can never stay in the same room long before ripping each other throats.” Anakin snorted before flicking his cigarette butt away. “But Ad are you alright? You look awful and you’re shaking so badly; and you’re soaked through and muddy. What happened, Ad?”

“Nothing.” She mumbled. “Just invite me in for a bath will ya.” Though now that he mentioned it, she was feeling kind of faint. Intending to push her way in, Adeline stumbled instead and Anakin was by her side in a flash, supporting her.

“Shit you’re weak. When was the last time you even fed Ad?”

“Addieeeeeeeeeeee.” From within the house, a shrill cry sounded. It was followed by loud footsteps and a young girl of 7 or 8 bounded straight into the foyer; her features were Asian, soft brown eyes and straight dark hair. And a sunny smile on her face. “You came!”

“Hey Loreen.” Adeline tried to smile and felt another wave of nausea.

“Lorie be a good sport and run the bath will you? Addie needs a good bath and rest after her long journey.”

The child straightened her back immediately, sensing the edge in Anakin’s voice and the urgency of the matter. “Alright.” She chirped and turned to go into the bathroom.

“I see you’ve both been well.” Adeline remarked offhandedly, to which Anakin rolled his eyes.

“Bath and get changed. I’ll go get you some blood.” Anakin sighed eyeing his dirty sister. “And take those shoes off, I don’t want you trekking mud into the house. I just cleaned the floor this morning.”

Adeline pulled at his sleeve before he could turn to leave.

“Anakin thanks.”

The frown line over his faced softened and Anakin smiled a lopsided smile.

“Well what are family for?”

This time she didn’t have a smart comeback.

[bibliocratic]

Soulmate au for jm prompts? Any kind you want

soul-identifying marks, jonmartin, episodes 158-160 spoilers

(this prompt came into my home and beat me over the brain.)(it might not be exactly what you were after, hope it’s ok!)

–

Martin’s waging a passive-aggressive one-man war against an excel spreadsheet when the temperature, risen to bearable by the grunting old radiator in the corner, swan-dives into shivery.

“Peter,” Martin says, not exactly a greeting, as frayingly cordial as he can manage. Not absolving Peter’s intrusion with his attention, triple-pressing the right mouse button and hissing an irate oh come on when the computer refuses to bend to his will and instead freezes again.

Peter will say whatever mysterious bollocks he’s come to imply and hint at and implicate, scattering his bloody breadcrumbs. Martin will be left just as pissed off and in the dark as he was before, so he might as well get it over with so Martin can actually get some work done.

Surprisingly, Peter doesn’t say anything. That’s actually what makes Martin turn round.

Peter’s slate-shingle eyes are observing Martin’s exposed lower arms. Sleeves rolled up haphazard out of his way, folded over in messy and unmatching bunches at his elbow.

He’s studying the designs that blemish the sun-ditched pale of his freckled arm with an interest Martin baulks at. Traces with his eyes the blocky wood-cut patterns in precise and abrupt black lines that start at the line of his watch, sprout up and under his clothes. Idly, he takes his time to let his gaze traverse over the open pages of tomes unfilled with words and unbroken by ink; the landscape of woodland and tree lines and shadowy hollows of roads mysterious or untaken that mar the faint curve of his lower arm. The lantern swinging on the bough of a wintry tree, its candle recently blown out.

The eye, thick and wide, staring out at the crease of his elbow.

Peter flicks a glance up, and Martin reads something like pity there. His face heats.

“The Archivist?” Peter Lukas asks. His voice isn’t mocking. Martin isn’t sure what it it.

He hates the tone of it.

“Do you want something?” Martin responds curtly. Frosty. Tugging his sleeves back down pointedly.

Peter’s expression is ever so proud.

–

When Jon wakes up, he charts the changes death has wrought on him. Sitting on the small bed he’s set up in document storage, swaddled in the uncomforting comfort of his archives, he chronicles the new damages done. The rough tissue of scars on his arms, upper legs, chest. Pitted marks from shrapnel and debris and being in the radius blast of an explosion.  He supposes it could be worse.

He thumbs at the faded, almost unrecognisable nazar just below his shoulder, the crossed compass and ruler nearby in the same state. The colour bleeding out of them like they’ve been left too long in the dark. He doesn’t think about his parents much. Not in a long time. His memories sanded down to an uncertain rote recollection that his brain is equally as likely to have invented as not. He doesn’t recall enough to miss them, but there must be something there for him to still bear them on his skin.

There’s a bleary shape splotched on his inner wrist. Forming like the build-up of sediment, the slow grind of tide, and it has been doing so for months, since before he died.

It’s almost fully realised now. He rubs at the shape of it tentatively  as though the colour might run if he’s too rough with it. The delicate fawn-brown of its wings, the beaded black circle of its eyes.

He knows who it represents. Impossible not to, really. It’s his representation after all. The complex understanding of a human being realised as imagery and flowering on his skin.

He stares at the nightingale for the longest time.

–

When Martin was nine, struck by the well-echo hollow in his chest, unable to articulate the shamed and hot tears his mother would scold with a cluck of disappointment, he tried to clean the clock off his right leg. Sitting in the bath with the water gagging with too many bubbles, he scrubbed at the cogs and mechanical intestines of the thing, seeing the lies of his father in how it was wound, not wanting it, because surely if his dad had loved him then he wouldn’t have left, and if he didn’t then why should Martin boast his love so obviously. He held and scrubbed until his skin was pink and scalded and he’d started to wince. But connection doesn’t work like that, and so the clock never disappeared, and Martin tried to ignore it every time he took a shower.

Turns out the Forsaken was good for something after all.

–

“How’s the poetry?” Jon stammers at him, so obviously, earnestly angling to drag out their impromptu meeting. Martin wants to be anywhere else but here.

“Jon, I really need to – ”

“Oh. Yeah. I – sorry, I-I know you’ve got… your thing with Peter Lukas.”

“It’s not like that – ”

“I-I know, I know, sorry, I didn’t mean…” Jon stops. His eyes – and were they always so gaunt, so hungry in his face? – have stopped trying to both catch and avoid Martin’s gaze apparently simultaneously, and they’ve snagged instead on Martin’s collar. For a moment, something too thirsty catalogues the pale and vacant skin of his throat, where the purple hooded bells of monkshood usually thronged. Their leaves had grown spikier as he’d aged, stretching out to his Adam’s apple in a bid to form a collar of choking vines.

“Martin…” Jon stares at empty skin, and his expression blooms into something comprehending and distraught.

“I have to go, Jon,” Martin says forcefully.  He doesn’t give Jon much of a chance to reply.

He doesn’t want Jon’s sorries. Doesn’t need his worries or his understanding.

He just wants him to be safe.

–

The nightingale sings entangled by coarse and insidious brambles. Jon’s taken to holding his hand over the pattern, like shielding with a careful hand a wind-tossed, guttering flame, when the hunger starts to gnaw though him like frostbite.

It doesn’t stop there. The emblems grow into iconography, twist into tableau. The pictures grow and spread simply as moss, and Jon doesn’t despair because he doesn’t have the space for it any more.

Jon’s evidence has always been discrete. The stamped shapes for his parents like memorial images were all he held for the longest time. Something started to flourish for his grandmother, when she took him in, and he tried to show her the blotched shape in a childish effort to bring them closer. She hadn’t needed to stay anything. She pursed her lip and strained an apologetic glance and he knew even at that age that there was nothing, would be nothing in kind, decorating her skin for him. That choked the image like weeds, and it faded quickly as the passing of inclement weather.

The space, at his jutting hip-bone, was only later taken up by Georgie’s mark. That one never faded quite like the image for his grandmother or for his parents, but it went sun-stained and overexposed long before they broke up.

Martin’s imagery is not so subtle.

It swallows up his arm, roils over his shoulder-blades, infects the untouched skin over his collar bone.

Jon takes to wearing longer sleeves.

–

Martin’s skin has always taken easily to marking. Some people do, he guesses. Wear their hearts on their sleeves, on their throat, on their stomach. Martin’s a scattered museum of loves that he’s tended to over the years, unrequited affections or spluttered out romances.

He’s pleased, in those early days, that nothing ever bruises on his skin for Jon. He likes Jon, even fancies him, for a long time. And it’s annoying, because Jon can be a real arse, but it’s manageable. Jon doesn’t make him go hot at the nape of his neck or make him stumble over his words. His presence encourages harmless daydreams and flights of fancy, but Martin’s under no illusions.

And then Jon listens to his statement. Sits him down, and believes him, and doesn’t break eye contact the whole time.

And Martin had felt, dazedly, Seen. For the first time in a long time.

The first eye had opened up around then like an unclenching fist under his ribs. He’d seen it a week later. Had thought oh and had quickly dressed to cover it.

It’s not the first mark this love leaves him. In time, it scores him with tooth marks and sailor’s knots of worry, and eyes, always eyes, blinking open over his flesh.

He loses the one on his ankle first. Scratches at the space where it was, touching the crease where his sock has dug a band around his skin, right where the line used to bisect the thick and dark pupil.

Then the one on his lower back. His upper thigh. His left wrist.

It’s for the best, Martin, Peter says when he catches him looking at the undamaged patch of skin these absences leave behind.

Martin doesn’t disagree.

By the time Lukas banishes him to the mercy of Forsaken, thwarted and cheated and feeling something almost human, Martin’s skin has already been entirely washed clean.

–

There’s a nightingale on Jon’s wrist. It’s one of the first things that catches his vision, that refocuses from blurry in this undemanding nothing. The colour is too vivid, lurid in this desaturated landscape.

The bird is nestled, or maybe caught, in a twisting of brambles but its beak is open in song.

“Look at me, and tell me what you See,” Jon asks him, and Martin wonders if maybe Jon’s been carrying around his own heart on his sleeve for a while now.

–

His mother’s flowers don’t grow back when he vacates the Lonely. His father’s clockwork finally cleansed from him. The leaves and keys and umbrellas of the numerous small loves and connections he’s now lost the taste of.

Martin’s skin remains unblemished and clear, and he wonders if the Lonely took this capacity from him.

Jon’s hand is dry in his. And nothing blooms on Martin’s arms but a sensation like prickling, like pins and needles, settles under his skin, and Martin holds on just as tightly.

–

There was a downpour on the way back to the safehouse. The sky splitting with a cascade of rain, sheets moving in waves and quickly transforming dewy grass into boggy swamp-land. Their waterproofs, such as they are, have done a poor job and failed to live up to their name, and Jon is dripping a cloud’s-worth of rainfall from his hair alone as he crosses the threshold. Martin, no different, water draining off him like guttering, tuts. Helps him strip the sucking, soaking outer layers off, frigid fingers fumbling with the pull of the zip. Jon awkwardly gets in the way in his efforts to return the gesture, making a face at the sodden slump of Martin’s waterlogged woollen jumper as it hits the floor. Martin catches his t-shirt on his nose as he tries to pull it over his head, trying to unbutton and kick off his clinging trousers in one motion. 

He doesn’t feel embarrassed. Doesn’t cross his mind to be. It’s hard, when Jon’s snickering as he nearly trips over his own legs in his efforts to shake his legs free, when they’ve been clung to each other like tethered buoys each night, coddled by the unbroken dark.

“I’ll get dry clothes,” Martin says, the first to have divested himself of most of his clothes, and he bounds upstairs, damp feet squeaking and slipping, longing for a hot shower as he trails puddles into the bedroom. He throws on thick pyjama bottoms, is half wrenching on an errant t-shirt before he realises it’s Jon’s and has to rifle around for a spare one of his own before he slips it on. He collects some clothes for Jon and rushes back.

Jon’s managed to get off his own trousers, slopped in a pile of fabric by his feet, the skin goosepimpling and dark hair standing stark from the chill. He’s pulling his sticking vest off over his head as Martin returns.

Martin sucks in a gasp. Jon blinks, confused for a moment before a reddening mark stripes across the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, splotches at the dip of his neckline.

“What…?” Martin starts, staring at the tapestry on his skin, and he can’t help it.

Before, Tim would joke that Jon loved his job more than he loved people. Was probably conservatively decorated in little stylisations of his perpetually present tape-recorders, probably had a library over his heart. It was something he said as a joke at the beginning and hissed as a recrimination by the end, and Martin and Sasha (and later only Martin) would tell him off, tell him to keep it down, that it wasn’t fair, that it wasn’t his business. But if Jon had been marked, they wouldn’t have known. They were hidden under crisp shirt sleeves and well-placed collars even in summer.

The nightingale, wings scratched by thorns, was the first image Martin had ever seen Jon wear. He’d expected that to be it, had hoped such an emblem was meant for him, but it, well, it is dwarfed in comparison to the harmony of colour struck over Jon’s body like a collage.

Every piece of skin that is not torn up and jagged with scars has been brought into the striking shock of deep blues and blacks that slide and ring over dark skin. A choir of imagery that Martin can’t decipher immediately, like a jigsaw he has to step back from, the artworks all wrapped up in each other, each feeding off the other. There are nightingales, some grounded on thin wind-touched branches, some held mid-flight; these become a stylised compass pointing north. There’s the solid structure of a lighthouse taking up most of his gangly upper arm, its lower levels painted in a sea bound mist, or it could be the curling wisps of inviting steam. His stomach, curving concave, is overwhelmed by the imperious crags of icy cliffs, the rocks dashed by high foaming waves, above which hangs the ribboning line of northern lights.  On the sea, a sturdy boat tipping on the water, its spinnaker puffed out and billowing in defiance.

There is so much, so much of Jon taken up, painted in testament, and for a long moment, Martin doesn’t understand.

Jon looks at his feet, and then glances, almost shyly, at Martin’s unpainted throat, his blank arms. Visibly steels himself, moves his gaze up to meet Martin’s.

“It…” he begins, before he breathes in, sets his spine straight. “You. It’s – it’s you. In case, in case you didn’t know.”

“Can – ?” Martin asks, and his fingers are twitching, yearning to trace the lines, to memorise their shapes, and Jon blinks again and then makes a nervy nodding motion.

Martin’s about to reach out before he remembers that Jon’s half-naked and dripping wet in the hallway, that the stone flags will be frozen on his feet, that now is perhaps not the ideal time.

Later. After they warm up, after they shower and the gas boiler grunts and complains and then near-burns them with hot water, after they dress in pyjamas warmed on the radiators, after they go upstairs. Martin runs his hand reverently, shakily over the lighthouse, the compass, the boat, the birds, wonders if this is how Jon sees him, how Jon understands him, wonders why he’s taken up so much space. Looks at all the pictures that are both isolation and sanctuary, song and sorrow and strength, tries to decipher what Jon sees in him.

“There’s so much,” he marvels softly, scarcely believing, hovering the pads of his fingers over the horizon line of a lightening sky, the peaking gleam of a sunrise at Jon’s lower back, the anchor bound in twisting rope around his ankle bone, the up shoots of snow-drops and lily-of-the-valley not far away. Most people get one image, maybe two or three, as proof of meaning to another person, as a tangible reflection of connection. Martin has an entire gallery exhibited across Jon’s body.

“You mean so much,” Jon says softly in response, like that explains it. Maybe for him, it does.

He charts the other bold designs he finds. Realising that for all his earlier pretences, Jon has not, and never has been an island. There’s Daisy’s faintly rusted golden chain caked in mud and blood around his other ankle, Gerard Keay’s thick leather-bound book, its open pages wreathed in fire, the near-vanished marks for his parents, for Georgie, the scant others who came into his life and left their mark.

There might have been an eye, wide and open and unyielding, and it would stare out at the bottom of Jon’s throat if it wasn’t for the rush of wild-flowers also grown there, snow-drops and holly-berries obscuring its vision.

Jon asks him, falteringly, as though unsure of forming the question in his mouth, what Martin had. Before the sea-salt wash of Forsaken cleaned them from him.

And Martin points to where his mum, his dad, his old loves left their remembrances on him. Carefully, honestly, he tells Jon about the tooth marks clamped around limbs like he’d been bitten, because it was not always a kind love Jon made him feel. The eyes that near the end had swarmed like frog-spawn around his middle, slashed across his back like a constellation. The forbidding forest on his arm, the lantern.

Jon strokes the places where he would have seen these things.

“If they don’t come back….” Martin says, and Jon hums.

“They might not,” he says. “That’s… that’s OK.”

“But…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jon says, and he touches at the space where he would have marked Martin ever so kindly. “Something new might show up. In time.”

“Yeah?” Martin croaks, and it’s not a question of if it will or not. Jon’s looking up at him, a smile on his face, his whole body inked with how much he feels, all the words he finds so difficult to express writ large on his body. Martin’s heart feels too big for his chest. And he wonders what meaning they might make of each other together.

[hiswhiteknight]

Best Friends Turned Foes - Part 6

Summary: Reader is an up and comer with the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. The Reader’s relationship (lack thereof) with the one and only Bucky Barnes starts to become a problem, especially considering they’re usually moments from killing each other. They used to be best friends, but something in the past broke the bond. Y/N and Barnes bickering is now becoming too much, so Captain and Tony take it upon themselves to fix it by forcing them to work together.

**It’s been a while since I’ve posted for this series, but I’ve recently been motivated to continue writing and get back on track. Please forgive any contradictions or mistakes, I’m trying to do the best I can. Also, I lost the tag list, so if you’d like to be tagged or I’m tagging people incorrectly, please let me know. Oh and if it isn’t clear - italics are flashbacks. 

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Words: 1300

Warning: Angst, cursing

You sipped your wine as Bucky discussed his plan, after finishing he sat back up and watched you sip your wine. It was hard not to watch him glance at your lips, “So, what do you think?”

Sitting back, holding your wine glass to your chest, you let out a sigh, “Alright, I’m going to be completely honest.” You paused to watch his expression, he seemed interested and his guard was down, “Your plan sucks,” you let out a laugh.

He nearly flipped his table with his sudden stand, “Damn it, Y/N. I thought we were going to let the past be in the past and get past this petty shit.”

Taking another sip of your wine, you let a slow breath out to remain calm, “Well one Bucky, we can’t forget the past nor should we, but that’s not what is going on here,” your finger circled around his plan. “You’re having us do too much too soon, every single team out there are going to be showing off, that is just going to make them targets. We got to lay low until at least half the teams are out.”

“You’re crazy,” he soothed, “With your strategy and my field experience, we could take half the field out in a day.”

“Meanwhile painting a giant target on our back,” you finally stand to look him in the eye, “And with you on the team, we already got plenty of a target. Believe me, we are better laying low.”

Putting his hand through his hair, he took a seat, “Alright, let just say I’m listening to your idea. How do you suggest we lay low?”

Walking around the table and taking a seat next to him, you draw a great big x over his plan. He rolled his eyes at you, “Part of the mission is traveling to various locations, collecting clues, and making it to Starks giant, techno dome, which is where the fun begins.”

“Okay,” Bucky drug out, leaning back to look at you, “Your plan?”

“We have to be to that dome by a certain date, if we’re starting tomorrow that gives us 9 days. And not everyone is going to find all the clues, the more clues and tools the better, but part of this mission is to use your instinct and skills. Everyone wants to be the first to the clues and the dome, let’s take our time, enjoy a little vacation before the bloodshed and ass kicking.”

“Vacation,” he looked at you like you had six heads, “That’s your idea.”

You send a smile his way, “Bucky, you are absolutely right. I am crazy and this plan,” you point to your knee, “Literally no one will suspect because who wants to take their time during this competition, it’s about eat or be eaten. It’s just a bonus, everyone thinks we hate each other, it’s truly unbelievable that we’d be a happy couple traveling around.”

“A happy couple,” he mused at you, “There is a flaw in your plan. You actually hate me, we wouldn’t be able to pull this off.”

You shot up, stomping away from him to look out the window, “Here we are again, you always find a way to assume the worst of me. You never believed me, not ever.”

 Nat opened a bottle of champagne, prepping a few glasses for everyone. Clint walked around the counter, pulling you into a great hug, “I knew you had it in you, all the hard work finally paid off.”

“I was getting desperate, thought I’d have to get the kid to find a radioactive spider,” you laughed, hugging Clint tighter.

“I’m just pissed about doing the paperwork again, no one does paperwork like you do, now I’m going have to pull my own weight,” he mumbled.

You shake your head, pushing him away, “Do me a favor, just remember to capitalize and use some punctuation.”

You were trying not to think about one of your colleagues, your friend, not believing in you. It was easier to focus on the future than the past. Captain came around with Tony and a few other members of the team. Everyone was giving you well wishes.

Bucky walked in, “What’s with the celebration?”

You skipped up to him, pulling him into a hug, “I officially part of the team, I just got cleared for field missions.”

The smile left his face and he made eye contact with Cap, “Field missions,” he questioned.

The cogs in your brain started to click, the expression he shared with his best friend, “It was you.”

He finally looked at you, “You, you were the one who didn’t believe in me. You told them not to put me in the field. You knew how badly I wanted this,” you pulled away from him like he was burning you.

You felt numb and betrayed, you didn’t think you could feel so angry, especially at Bucky, “Babe, you have to understand I’ve got a century experience of the worst, you just so,” you didn’t let him finish.

“Fragile, human, weak, helpless, go on Bucky tell me how small and useless I am,” you yell at him, “I can’t believe it.”

Cap stepped closer to you, “Why don’t be forget about what was said before and focus that you made it. Tony is already working on your first mission.”

“Hell yeah I am,” Tony stepped in, trying not to not be so amused that he isn’t in the middle of the drama, “So let’s take this time to toast our girl, Y/N, welcome to the team.”

Through this entire speech, you just stared at Bucky in shock. He was looking at Steve, like he was the one betrayed, “I thought we talked,” he tried to whisper to him, “You know how I feel,” he said to his friend.

Looking at him, not even acknowledging everyone’s cheers for you, you whisper, “I hate you.” It was so low, you felt you were the only one to hear it, “I hate you,” you said again.

His eyes shot to you, looking hurt and scared, “No, Y/N, you have to understand, I didn’t mean.”

“You were my best friend.”

“Were,” he questioned.

You shake your head, “My best friend and you didn’t believe in me,” you look at him once more before putting your glass down and running towards your room. You’ve never felt pain like this.

 “Hold on,” he followed you to the window, “I thought we were trying to move past the past and don’t put words in my mouth. That’s not what I meant.”

“I never said anything about the past being the past, Bucky. That’d be too easy on you,” you said. You weren’t able to look at him, “What I am saying is, we can win this. I can prove myself to the crew if we fake it and it’ll be easy because I actually used to like you.”

He took a deep sigh, scratching the back of his head, “Alright, let’s go with your plan, for now. But I get to put my input when I deem necessary. You can’t always question my plans.”

“Right back at you cupcake,” you use his nickname against him. You put your hand out to shake his. He grips your hand, “We’ve got a deal.”

“Let the vacation begin, princess.”

You try your best to crush his hand and he just chuckles at you, “Buck, I think your first disguise should be a mullet, it’ll be very becoming of your soul.”

“Only if you go blonde with some double ds,” he pushed back at you with a smirk.

Hate is just radiating off you, but you take a deep breath, and make your way out of his room, “See you in the morning partner, wear your comfy shoes.”

PART 7

[stilloutofmyvulcanmind]

May Flowers Challenge Day 19

Prompt: “I’ve always been honest with you” requested by Anon

Pairing: Sherloque Wells x Reader

Word count: 1k

Warnings: Insecurities

The city looked peaceful from your spot on the balcony of the S.T.A.R Labs lounge, and since Barry had only recently returned for the night, it probably was for now. Any criminals that might still be lurking in the back alleys wasn’t what was on your mind right now, however. Your thoughts were far more occupied going over matters that directly impacted your life. In the last few hours, while the Team was helping Barry, you’d been busy learning some new information, and you were still trying to figure out what to make of it all.

“Y/N?” Ah, there was the main source of your dilemma, the one causing so much uncertainty.

Turning, you watched as Sherloque rounded the corner into the lab, his face lighting up when he spotted you. “There you are, ma chérie, I ‘ave been looking for you. Would you care for some tea?”

“No, thank you.”

Since starting to date Sherloque you’d learned quickly enough that it was pointless trying to mask how you were feeling from him, happy or sad, he always spotted it immediately, as was his way. So, now you didn’t even bother hiding your distress as you walked back inside to face him. 

“What’s wrong, ma aimée?” He asked, the smile fading away.

“What can’t deduce it?”

You could almost see the cogs in his brain whirl as he tried to figure it out, but you knew perfectly well that he’d find nothing amiss. Nothing had happened, there’d been no arguments, it had even been a quiet week meta-wise. By all right’s you should be content and looking forward to spending an evening with your boyfriend.

“I got a message earlier. From another universe. Only thing more surprising than that, was who it was from. Your first wife. Somehow word has gotten out that we’re dating, and she and the others wanted a little meeting with me. And that’s exactly what I did. While you were all busy, I got to have a face to face chat with your six wives. Imagine how informative that was for me. Meeting your six wives.”

For once in his life, Sherloque was clearly not following. “I do not understand. I’ve always been ‘onest with you.”

“Have you?”

“Of course! Ma chérie, I do not what they said about me, but-”

“It wasn’t what they said, it’s who said it.”

“I told you about them, non?”

“You told me you have multiple ex-wives. You never told me who they were!”

“I do not see why that would matter.”

“They were all the same woman, Sherloque!”

“I believed their identities irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant?! Can you truly not see why I would want to know a thing like that?”

Sherloque shook his head. “Y/N-”

“For a genius, you really are dense.” Sighing, you shook your head, suddenly feeling tired. “I’m going home. See you tomorrow.”

You left. Sherloque didn’t follow.

You really should’ve known better than to expect him to stay away though.

It was just after midnight when he was knocking on your door. You had yet to fall asleep, but you didn’t answer immediately either. It was a testament to Sherloque that he didn’t risk upsetting you further by picking the lock. 

“Let me in, Y/N. S’il vous plaît.”

Against your better judgement, you opened the door.    

“I couldn’t sleep, knowing that I’ve ‘urt you.”

Letting him in, you stepped into the living room, listening as he followed. “Do you understand yet why meeting them that way upset me?”

“Non. You ‘ave always said you were fine with my past.”

“I am.” That was the truth. It had taken some getting used to, but now Sherloque’s numerous marriages didn’t bother you. “And I don’t care about the list of accusations and flaws and everything else they rattled off. I’m not going to judge you based on their opinions.”

“Then what was it? Ma chérie, tell me.”

“You married the same woman seven times. They all have the same face. A face that doesn’t match mine at all. How do you think it felt learning that you fell in love with the same woman across all those different universes?”

Finally, you could see Sherloque understand. 

He stepped towards you, “They are in my past. You are my now, and I ‘ope my future.”

“Until you meet their doppelgänger of this Earth.” The look on his face said everything. “You already have.”

“Oui. While we were battling Cicada.”

“Did you marry her too?”

“Non. It did not work out.”

Nodding, you paced, hating how insecure you felt but unable to stop it at the same time. “And what happens when you get called to another universe for a case and meet yet another one? Will I get a note, or are you just gonna disappear never to be heard from?”

“I would never-”

“You can’t say that! You’ve fallen in love with the same woman seven, no, eight times! I’m not that woman! The odds aren’t in my favor here!” You were crying now, and you hated it, but you let them fall anyway. 

Sherloque closed what little distance was left between you and pulled you into an embrace. Clinging onto him, you buried your face in his chest. “I don’t want to be a placeholder until you find your next doppelgänger, or the second place trophy because you can’t win first,” you mumbled into his shirt.

“You are neither, ma bien-aimée, I swear,” Sherloque said, pulling back and tipping your head up to look at him. “There are a great many things I am certain about, but the one thing I am most certain of is my love for you.”

Those bright blue eyes dazzled as he spoke, singing of honesty. 

“You love me?” You whispered.

“Of course. In all of the multiverse, you are the star that shines most brightly. I would be a fool to ever let you go.”

You smiled, cheeks heating in a blush. “I love you too, Sherloque. I’m sorry for being so insecure like this.”

“Non, it is my fault. I should ‘ave told you. Forgive me?”

“Always.”

Sherloque smiled and drew you into a kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Like what you read? Consider buying me a coffee! (I’ll love you forever!)

[zippiestdraws]

Choking Curiosity Ch 12

ftm reader x michael myers

read on ao3

see the art that inspired me to write by @stabbyhandsmcmike

Light brown hair bounced back into small curls when the mask pulls off of them, just long enough to hang over his forehead.

You feel like you’re seeing too much all at once, yet not enough, unable to process what’s in front of you.

The pink of his lips, slightly chapped, is set in an unreadable line. Your eyes slowly trace the curves and along the straightness of his nose. You can feel the sadness change your face, seeing the long gouging scar through his eyebrow down to the cheekbone. Redness tints the flesh underneath as you pick apart his appearance, staring into the pale blue eye that can’t see you.

Finally, you meet his gaze, peering into you intensely from behind a stormy blue.

He’s beautiful.

Enraptured, you reach out to him still sitting before you. He spooks like a wild animal, standing and shouldering past you, filling you with regret.

“Wait, Michael-”

You try to follow, but you hear his door lock and stop, before sadly returning to your own room.

Closing your eyes on your bed, you try to remember his visage in detail, a warm feeling blooming in your chest.

*** It surprised you to hear his feet on the stairs in the morning as you sat at the table with your breakfast. You assume he’s usually gone by the time you wake up or, at the very least, not interested in leaving his room.

You sign good morning to him with your mouth full and you think you catch a small nod in response. Trying to go back to your food, you see him in your peripheral and hear the fridge open.

The egg carton hits the counter with too much force and you cringe.

“Dude? Are you trying to break them?” You put your spoon down and look up at him.

He points at the carton.

“You want eggs?” you sigh. You guess it’s better to make them yourself than to let him loose in the kitchen and have what happened last time.

He follows close behind as you scrub the char off the pan from yesterday, you can feel his body heat and try not to lean back too much.

When you dry the pan he turns to let you move to the stove.

“What do you want in it?” you don’t have many spices, but it’s better than just plain eggs.

He doesn’t move and you question how many signs about food the two of you know.

“Cheese it is then.”

The gas stove clicks for a couple of seconds before catching and a loaf of bread lands near you in a similar fashion to the eggs. You recall Michael’s attempt on toast and silently untwist the bag and press the slices into the hot pan.

You know he’s watching over your shoulder very closely, but his presence feels calming almost, like the slow morning and sleep still hangs over you both.

You toss everything onto a plate and it’s nearly snatched from you as you attempt to set it on the table, breaking the stupor.

‘guess he’s hungry.

You grab him a glass of water with a small smile when you see him roll his mask up to eat.

Sitting back down and pouring some more cereal in with the portion, you notice more now that he tucked into the chair next to yours.

You're close enough to brush elbows.

He finishes the food very fast, almost inhaling it, before grabbing the water.

“Hey, slow down! You’ll choke-” you doubt he even tasted it fully.

He doesn’t listen, but doesn’t rise immediately when he’s done, instead, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and pulling the mask back down.

You’re going to have to work on better manners with him. Frowning, you feel kind of like you may have signed up to be a babysitter.

“I have work today, but I get off early, do you want anything from the store?”

You can almost hear the cogs turning in his head and immediately almost regret using the word ‘anything’.

Michael signs over the mask's mouth in a way that almost makes you short circuit.

Oh

“Ice Cream?” he nods. “Okay, what flavor?” You pick up your plates to put them in the sink.

“Oh wait, we don’t know signs for those. Um…” you wrack your brain for options and turn back to him. “Chocolate? Vanilla? Cookies and cream?”

No answer.

“Butter pecan...cookie dough…strawberry...”

His hand moves to sign yes and you sigh in relief.

“Okay, I’ll write that down. Just don’t do anything-” you were going to say ‘bad’, but you doubt he’ll listen. “Just don’t hurt anyone tonight, please?”

You hope that ice cream is enough of a bargaining chip for someone’s life.

*** The day went well enough, Dwight came back from his vacation and the two of you got to talk about his wedding plans for a nice change of pace.

He asks if you’ve seen Laurie recently, and now that you think about it, you haven’t. You didn’t want to presume, but you did find it odd that she hasn’t called recently, since she’s been checking up on you since the night you told her about Michael.

“Yeah, I was hoping she wouldn’t do it this year, but every October she holes herself up in her house and tries to figure out ‘where the shape will strike this year’.” Dwight grimaces in disappointment. “I tried to talk to her about it, but her room looks like a conspiracy theory detective’s office.”

“The shape?” You already know what he’s talking about, but you try your best to sound inquisitive.

“Michael Myers. Don’t worry, she’ll be alright, she usually calls after halloween.”

You know he must have heard the concern you tried to hide in your voice, but you didn’t even want to admit to yourself that it wasn’t for Laurie. Now that she knows he’s alive, and even more, around your house, she could be dangerous.

The conflicting ideals you’ve been suppressing bubble to the surface. You don’t want either of them to be hurt, but it fully realizes within you now that you’ve been housing your friend’s tormentor.

You check out and excuse yourself from Dwight, blaming a headache.

The sliding doors part and you step out under a dark sky and to get pelted by freezing autumn rain. Hunkering in on yourself, you walk for a few feet before skipping into a quick jog.

It takes you at least 10 minutes to reach home, soaked and shivering around a tub of ice cream.

Moving to unlock the door, you find it open already. Sulking in and dropping your shopping bag on the floor, you begin to shuck off your dripping outer layer. When you jump and nearly fall over while peeling your pants off your legs, you notice a towel hanging from the end of the railing of the stairs.

A bit shocked, but still grateful, you wrap it around your shoulders and try to rub yourself warm. Looking around, you don’t see Michael, so you leave your clothes by the door and shuffle to put the ice cream in the freezer before it melts.

You hurry to put on your most plush pajamas, wrapping a blanket around you like a cape, before searching the house for Michael. You find him downstairs, reclined on the couch in the living room. Standing in the doorway, you wait for a response, but you get none.

Moving closer in the dark, you can hear his soft rhythmic breathing.

This is the first time you’ve ever seen him asleep.

Unsure if you actually want to wake him or not, you try to slide onto the unoccupied portion of the couch.

It dips underneath you, in an instant Michael starts forward with his knife stopping centimeters from your chest, a sharp gasp stinging your throat and staying there.

The willpower it takes to lift your eyes from the knife to his face feels is straining, blood pumping in your ears as he stares you down. It slowly lowers, his breathing betraying his adrenaline.

“..sorry..” you breathe out, not moving from your spot yet.

His form corners you for a little while longer until you hear a small huff behind the mask and he relaxes back to his side.

You allow it to be quiet until your heart rate lowers.

“I brought you your ice cream...”

He looks almost sheepish and doesn’t meet your eyes. His hand signs a small thank you from his chin.

“Thank you for the towel.”

This silence you can feel thickly, but this time Michael is clearly uncomfortable in it.

“Hey...you know you’re my friend, right?”

He startles, startling you, never having seen a reaction like that from him.

The way he looks you in the eyes is almost vulnerable and it makes your heart ache.

“I’m glad you live here with me. I would be really lonely without you.”

You feel the blanket shift and his large hand touches yours, making your world feel like pop rocks for a brief moment.

[bowieandqueen11]

Best Friend / Queen Imagine

Request: The reader is a makeup artist for the boys and she's close with all of them. But then Paul comes in and gives her the idea that they don't really care about her. At first she ignores it but when she goes to talk to the guys and they act completely nervous, so she begins to think she's about to get fired and gets upset. But then the boys take her and it turns out they were trying to throw her a surprise party for the 1 yr. anniversary of her working with them. 

@mirkwoodshewolf sorry this took so long darling!! <3

It had been an absolutely manic, but joyous year. Here you were, on the set for the Bohemian Rhapsody video shoot, surrounded by the boys who had become your best friends, your stronger than blood family, who you had shared constant late night laughs and silly day trips out over the last few months, knowing deep within your heart that they meant the world to you, but not realising you meant even more than that to them.

A slight bump on the heavy beige door made you jump uncomfortably against Freddie’s legs slightly, your hand wavering and drawing a slight dipped line down the crease of his eye with black eyeliner as Roger’s elbows shuffle against the door. You can’t fully understand what they’re saying, but as you see Freddie’s eyes nervously shift over to Brian and Roger’s conversing form, you start to fear its nothing good. You hear Brian’s slight chuckles and snort from beside Roger, his clogs tapping slightly impatiently on the tiled floor with a rhythmic beat matching the slight hammering of your heart.

‘Hey John’, you shout, receiving a small grunt in reply from the man who’s lounging on the leather sofa, one foot scraping gently against the floor as the other hangs over the edge of the armrest. The slight sun rays that fall through the window above his head illuminate his glowing cheekbones in an ethereal light, despite the slumped frame that lies nearly asleep.

‘What are those two planning?’

‘Uh-um-I, uh, not a clue, y/n’, John stutters out, swinging his feet onto the floor before shoving Roger out of the way and walking out the door. ‘But the shoot’s about to start!’

Freddie turns back to you, a surprisingly shy smile on his face as he nods at Roger and Brian, letting them know it was nearly time to go. They both run over, pressing little fervent kisses against your forehead, attacking like swarming bees as you swat them away with your brush, laughter bubbling up your throat.

‘Thank you for the makeup, y/n’, Roger shouts as he walks out the door.

‘Yeah, we look very glam, as always’, Brian adds, following him.

As you sit there, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips as your gaze seems to be drawn to Freddie’s eyes by some uncontrollable urge, you swear he beams, his black curls bouncing happily around his face like the slight flitting wings of a cherub, so human and yet something so majestic and untouchable about him, which made the pit of your stomach flip in uneasy somersaults. Your hand accidentally swipes against a few precarious bottles littering Freddie’s dressing tables, the vibrant powders dancing like pockets of starlight against the fragile glass bottle as they shook in their place, your legs starting to tingle gently where they lay slouched upon Freddie’s bare thighs, his silver shorts tickling the tips of your toes where they brushed. You keep your eyes focused on dabbing the glitter eye-shadow you held in your hand, not noticing the concerned look he gives you as he bites the bottom of his lip.

‘I’ll see you soon, okay? Promise me, when the shoot’s over, we’ll all go out.’

‘Okay, Freddie’, you sigh lightly, ‘I promise.’

~

‘Hey there, y/n, how’s it going?’

‘Oh, alright, Paul’, you answer with a sigh, continuing to straighten out the little bottles you had sent spilling around the vanity table as Paul sticks his head through the doorway.

‘You don’t sound so alright to me’, he replies with a little nod of the head, sliding slowly over like a snake to rest his hip against the edge of the banged up sofa in the corner, brushing the dust off the striped shirt that covers his shoulders.

‘Is it those silly boys again. Tut tut, y/n, I didn’t take you for the lass to take their words to heart.’

Placing down your palette, you turn to him with your eyebrows furrowed, allowing the hair to fall lightly over your eyes and askew your vision.

‘What words are you talking about, Paul?’

‘Oh, haven’t you heard? There’s been some talk around here recently of... well, I suppose it’s not my place to say. Don’t you worry your silly little head about it, y/n, everything will work out the way it’s meant to in the end.’

Before he leaves, a smirk twitching on his lips, he stiffly places his hand on your shoulder.

‘Just watch out around them, alright y/n.’ His breath is warm and sour as it wafts against your face, and you can’t help but flinch away from his grasp as he winks at you, leaning away before sauntering off with a faint kick to the door.

It was too bright in here. Too bright, it made your head ache. You shut your eyes tightly, wincing slightly in pain as the bright vanity bulbs shine out aggressively, their white beams hitting the former shadows of your skin like hot bullets as sweat begins to lightly trickle down your forehead, curving down past your lips and landing like sick teardrops onto your cheek, your breathing becoming shallow and rough as it begins to constrict against your command. The dim rays of the lights above bathe the room in blue coldness as your arms begin to shiver, or rather shake, their grip on the oaken table becoming tighter until flashes of pain rip through your knuckles and you can feel the small droplets of blood ping easily onto the floor as the splinters break your skin.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you manage to tremble out, ‘oh god, am I about to be fired?’

‘Fired, what on earth do you mean darling. Why would we ever let you out of our tight grasp?’

You turn around, shocked to hear Freddie’s booming voice, as the rest of the boys fan out behind him, hands on their hips as anger flashes through their faces.

‘Fired, whoever gave you that idea?’

‘I swear, once I get my hands on whoever said that to you-’

‘Darlings, lets focus instead on what we’ve been planning, hm?’

Running over to grasp your hand, Freddie flashes you a bright smile before tugging you out past the boys, who hurry after.

When you finally manage to tug Freddie’s hands away from his eyes, your head bumps into a multitude of rainbow streamers that hang down from the ceiling like delicate fairy lights. A huge cake covered in thick white icing and decorated with tiny pink roses sits in the middle of the table surrounded by brightly coloured bowls that were filled with food. There was a delicious moment for Freddie where your face washed blank with confusion, like your brain cogs couldn't turn fast enough to take in the information from your wide eyes. Every muscle of your body just froze as Brian grabbed onto you, before a grin crept onto your face. All words left you as Roger leaned down and whispered, ‘happy one year anniversary love, we couldn’t be more proud of you. Here’s to a hundred years more!’

Wrapping you into a massive hug, pressing a wet kiss against your forehead before nestling your head against his chest, Brian blows his curls out of his face as he mumbles out a very squashed ‘enjoy this day, darling, because you’ve made every day extraordinary for all of us.’ 

You open your eyes again when you feel John’s hands connect with yours, ripping you away from Brian’s grasp, his curls bopping from side to side in shakes as his laughter lines his youthful features, his cotton t shirt ruffling against his chest as his shoulders sway from side to side. As the two of you swing around, you rush past Roger who’s trainers are busy bustling up the cushions that lie on the fabric sofa, his denim jeans whooshing past as he leaps up and down upon the sofa with such childish glee on his face, and you start to become dizzy when you fly past Brian and Freddie who are having a shimmy off by the door. It was the happiest you had felt in a long time, and you couldn’t be happier to be friends with such manic boys.

[chances-r-high]

[ @leera-ozynite ]

Chance shifted in his seat as he stared at the currently blank screen. Was he really going to do this? Was this even safe? Well, he supposed they already knew where they were. It was common knowledge that he lived on the Metallah.

Would she even answer?

Would she want to talk to him?

The last time they spoke he’d been fairly snide to her. It wasn’t until he had been around Addie and the Denivars that he realized how good Leera had been to him. It wasn’t much, but he knew it was good as she could have been. And that he had sorely taken it for granted.

He took a deep breath. He had to talk to her. He needed it.

He typed in the frequency he was given, hands shaking as the monitor beeped and the screen connected. His stomach felt like there was an expanding balloon in it. He swallowed and waited.

Leera was finishing up sending out some emails to other members of the staff. Apparently there had been some new policy changes that Mr. Dwicky wanted to implement. Leera has already glanced at a few of them. When was the last time he changed policies for the benefit of his employees? Had he ever?

Her computer beeped with a message. At this point she would simply answer any calls without checking where it was coming from. Telemarketers were immediately hung up on. Anyone she knew Mr. Dwicky would not want to talk to was asked to leave a message, which she typically burned in the fireplace. She had careful practice with this sort of thing, and didn’t want to miss anything important. “You’ve reached the personal secretary of Dwight Dwicky, how may I help you today?”

There was a long pause, causing Leera to furrow her brow before finally looking at the screen. “Hello? Is there something I can-,” She immediately froze, looking into eyes that were familiar yet different. Brighter, younger. His hair was dark green. Mr. V had said he liked dying his hair. She couldn’t bring herself to speak.

Chance’s mouth went dry, nerves buzzing along his entire body. She looked exactly the same. He never knew how Mefni aged, or if they did at all. Her eye was widened, still startling green as ever. He took a breath, forcing himself to speak. “Hey, Leera.”

Leera took a little longer to compose herself. Why...why… “I...I would say that this isn’t a wise decision, but I think that would go over about the same as it has with everyone else.”

Chance managed a smile. As polite as ever, her voice soft and sweet. Perhaps it was starting to make sense why he clung to Dibkins like he did. “What can I say? They’re all bad influences.”

Leera couldn’t help it, her emotions surging forth as she smiled. Her eye felt watery. “It is...very good to see you again.”

“It’s...actually good to see you again, too,” he told her sincerely. “I...would have tried to contact you earlier but…” He trails off. There’s a million reasons and excuses he could say.

Leera shook her head. “It’s alright. I...I understand.” She really did. Being on opposite sides wasn’t exactly an ideal situation to call and catch up with each other. 

Her chest tightened, remembering the last time she’d heard his voice. Remembering how she’d expressed her displeasure for the first time after Dwight had hung up that call. How it had perhaps been the only time she had she’d been tempted to go against him. But of course she didn’t, always the coward. “Chance I...I know apologies do no good here but I...I just…”

Chance expression soften, his throat tightening with his own emotions. “...I know, Leera. I know if you could…” He didn’t see it then, but looking back he saw it now. She did everything she could. “I’m not angry at you. I’ve never been angry at you.”

Leera gave a sniffle and squeak, quickly recovering. “S-so! How are you? Mr. V filled me in on some things, but I would love to hear them from you. Your hair looks very nice, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Chance replied. “I think I might change it again soon. My roots are starting to show.” He ruffled his hair for emphasis. “Might do some red again.” Though he knew he didn’t necessarily have to, he did think about discussing that with Dibkins first.

Leera’s smile became a little nostalgic. She remembered how when Chance was little he had such a fascination with her dark red hair, constantly wanting to touch it and pet. When he was an infant he’d pull on it sometimes. Oh. Well just be careful with that sort of thing. Wouldn’t want it to fall out.”

Chance chuckled. “It hasn’t yet. My hair’s pretty resilient. Don’t worry.”

Much like the rest of you. She refrained from saying that out loud. She wasn’t proud of the pain Chance had gone through, even if it brought him somewhere better. A place she never could have given him with the circumstances they had. “I will take your word for it. I hear you have a dog now?”

“Yeah!” Chance replied lighting up. “Persephone. I’m starting to think she’s not a normal pit bull, though. She’s huge. I also have a cougar.” He was careful not to mention the dragons. Not that he didn’t trust Leera. He just didn’t trust the device she was using. He knew Dwight perhaps better than anyone, and he would never put it past the old man to have surveillance of everything.

“A cougar?” Leera said in surprise. “How wonderful. Do they get along well?”

“They do, actually,” replied Chance. “The cougar’s name is Diana. She sort of treats Persephone like a wild cub that needs to be calmed down every now and then. It’s kind of funny to watch.” Something on her desk caught his eye. “Oh my Togal is that goddamn Carnarian?”

Leera looked down at the sprout, which seemed to already be getting too big for their pot. She smiled. “Their name is Neville. Or at least they seem to like that name. Agent Dib gave them to me. Not sure why.”

Chance couldn’t help but snort, thinking of several reasons why Agent would do that. Most of them aren’t that good. “He does things like that. I’d be surprised if anyone understands.”

“He does come off as quite the puzzle,” Leera agreed.

They sat in silence for a moment. Chance wasn’t sure why Leera had gone quiet, but he knew what he had. He needed a questioned answered. He needed to know what the hell was going on.

“Leera...what’s going on with Dwight.”

Leera meet Chance’s gaze again, her stomach flipping at the question. It was strange to hear Chance call him Dwight, as the last time they spoke the boy was following the older man around, proudly calling him Father. However, she couldn’t blame him. Not one bit. “What do you mean?”

Chance sighed. “I think you know what I mean. He had a Dib in his grasp recently, probably the easiest Dib for him to kidnap and assimilate, and he let him go without so much as a scratch.” His brow furrowed. “Apparently he’s also been talking to Honey as well? I think Go Fish was involved?”

“...I suppose you haven’t heard about him letting Agent Dib and Captain Dek go recently?” Leera asked.

Chance balked. “...What?”

“Mhm. He even returned Agent Dib’s binder to him fully repaired and everything.” By the look on Chance’s face, she decided to leave out the part about Dwight also upgrading it. She was certain Chance’s brain would implode.

Chance’s brain was already frozen, several wrenches stuck in the cogs. None of this made sense. Not a single bit of it. “Leera, listen to me. I know you’re loyal to him - Togal even knows why. But...I have to know. Why is he doing all this? What’s he planning?”

Leera gave him a sad look before looking down at her lap, twiddling her fingers. “...You know that even if there was something to all of this, I wouldn’t be at liberty to tell you.” She nibbled her lip. “But Chance, I know this is going to be hard to believe but...something has shifted. I’m not sure how, but I...I just feel the day Prince Honey was here...something changed.”

Chance stared, his expression growing hard. “You expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t,” she told him sincerely. “And even if you did, I’m am neither blind nor naive. And I also would like you to know that regardless of whatever happens, you owe him nothing.”

Chance blinked. If anyone knew Dwight on the same level he did, it would definitely be Leera. And for her to say such a thing knowing that Dwight might be listening, that spoke volumes in itself. About millions of things. He ruffled his hair again, thoughts racing around like frantic sugar ants. What was he supposed to do about this?

No. He didn’t have to do anything about this…

He looked back up at Leera, smiling sincerely. He definitely did not want this to be their last conversation. “I have a meeting in a few minutes I have to get to. But I would love to get together sometime for coffee maybe?” He hums. “We’d have to find somewhere outside Alliance space. Or wear disguises. Togal knows what the press will say if they see you with this time.” Not that many people would recognize Leera, but still.

“Oh? Are you not the charming playboy they all say you are?” Leera asked teasingly. She was certain it wasn’t true. The press loved dramatics and perhaps without Dwight in power they had to make their own

Chance laughed. “I suppose we’ll have to meet up so you can find out.” His expression was soft, a familiar feeling of fondness in his chest. “It was good talking to you Leera. Take care.”

Leera smiled back. “You too, High Chancellor.” She had the biggest, proudest smile on her face.

Well, that speaks volumes, too, doesn’t it. Chance shook that thought away as he hung up.the call, leaning back to stare that the ceiling. He grumbled and pushed himself up, forcing the brewing conflict into silence.

Nothing had changed.

Nothing was going to change.

A few strange occurrences would never be enough to change Fate.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

Awkward Sibling Hug

Guess which minor ship I’ve jumped aboard. Toot toot for there being no content so I make my own! 

If you enjoy this or my other work, reblog, leave a comment on ao3 or donate to my ko-fi! 

------

Cassandra’s mouth twitched up into a smile at the sign on the elevator doors. Printed on stiff, dove grey paper with the crest of the building at the border (what kind of apartment building had a crest?) so it didn’t marr the effortless elegance of the foyer, its tone of polite exasperation was clear nonetheless.

No residents are to tamper with the elevator under any circumstances. Regardless of previous experience with mechanical engineering. A qualified technician has been contacted.

She had a pretty good idea who that referred to.

The stairs weren’t so bad at first. The black carpet was so thick and lush Cassandra felt as if every step were a spring and the whole staircase was wrapped in nothing but thick glass so you could watch the city unfold as you climbed. And climbed. And climbed.

By the time she was almost at the top, even her small backpack of books and a few days worth of clothes was starting to feel like it was full of rocks. She started to wonder if this ridiculous, ostentatious building was actually so tall she’d start to get altitude sickness before she reached her brother’s door.

She’d been here a few times before, of course, whenever time away from her classes coincided with the part of her that missed Percy getting louder than the part that wanted to strangle him when she saw him. And of course, Cassandra had grown up surrounded by luxury, they all had, there was a part of her that could still sink into it so easily.

Percy’s apartment was the topmost one, the one their father had been granted when their company had bought the building in the first place and fixed it up and polished it into what it was. It made sense for Percy to live here, of course, Cassandra knew that. They’d probably always intended it for him when he came of age. But especially now that everything Mother and Father had built was his, the company, the subsidiaries, the charities, all of it and this building lay in the centre of it all like a beating heart. Like a glass and steel spider squatting in the middle of it’s impossibly intricate web. Surely here was where he belonged.

She just didn’t understand how he bore it.

Surrounded by things that reminded them of their parents. Decor so elegant that it could only have been chosen by their mother. Old heirlooms that had the family crest engraved in it. Books their father that thumbed through so often, highlighted and crossed out and scribbled his thoughts down in the margins so he wouldn’t forget them later, almost like he was bottling his sudden flashes of brilliance.

Cassandra would have torn and ripped it to shreds, as small as she possibly could, and set it on fire.

That was another one of their reasons she saw her brother so infrequently. A reason other than the distance between school and the city, the distance she’d placed there herself, or the natural distance but there by two siblings who were either just too different or far too similar.

It was the other, deeper distance between the two of them, though who’d put that one there, neither of them had any idea. It was a distance made of awkward silences, an uncomfortable tugging in the chest, when your throat closes suddenly because a slant of a jaw, a sudden smile reminded you of someone you missed so desperately.

It was hard to be around.

But Percy was all Cassandra had left. And she was all he had left. So she was coming for a surprise visit, just to see his tired, heavy lidded eyes brighten a little at the sight of her and hear him call her Cassie and look so proud when she told him her most recent grades, even if she’d been a little disappointed in them herself. It would be worth the twinge in her chest when he’d smile like their mother.

Cassandra rapped on the black wood door. There was a silver number nailed to the front, a perfect round 0, she could see her reflection stretched and twisted in its surface.

No one came to her knock which didn’t surprise her. Percy was probably sequestered in his workshop like a medieval monk, bent over greasy gears and cogs and springs rather than illuminated manuscripts, music blaring through his earphones which he turned up far too loud to be good for his health.

Another reason why Cassandra had come. Someone needed to make sure Percy got some sun every once in a while. And while she didn’t wholly appreciate that the task had been left to her, it was a small price to pay to feel less lonely. Or at least to be lonely with someone else, who understood the unique, sharp de Rolo brand of loneliness, passed down like a particularly ugly heirloom.

The door was locked but Cassandra had a key, fishing around in her pocket before closing her fingers around the reassuringly cold metal. Trying incredibly hard to feel, or at least act like, she felt at home, she dropped her backpack straight in the hallway and kicked off her trainers.

“Percival?” she called, knowing it annoyed him when she called him that. Maybe he wasn't at home, he might be at work, at one of the rare meetings he was required to attend as de facto head of the company. Or maybe out combing the scrap yards or making deals with the less than reputable scrap dealers he still kept in contact with from his slightly seedier days before he successfully won back his parents’ worldly goods.

She walked through to the living room, noting how the whole place still looked like an Ikea showroom, perfect and pristine and unlived in, all of the mess of her brother’s existence carefully stored away behind his workshop door. The walls were white, the furnishings were gleaming steel and black leather, the cupboards looked like they’d never been opened.

The sofa had a man on it.

A man who was completely and utterly naked. Feet up on the coffee table and a book in his hands, resting in his lap, mercifully providing some cover.  

Cassandra stopped in her tracks. The man regarded her with eyes that were more bemused than embarrassed or startled, relaxing back on her brother’s sofa like he’d always been there.  

His hair was thick and black, tied carelessly into a knot on the top of his head that was coming undone, spilling locks like dripping ink down his shoulders. His ears were delicatley pointed, subtly elvish. His mouth turned up in a perpetual amused smirk.

“Well, hello,” he said, his voice sprightly, accented like her’s and Percy’s though with a bounce to it that no de Rolo had ever possessed.

“Hello,” she replied politely, not left with many other options, short of throwing her shoes at him.

There was a long silence, while the two of them sat and marveled at the ridiculous awkwardness of their situation. Fortunately, just as things were getting on to the point where they really should have to do something, bare footsteps came from down the hallway and things got insurmountably worse.

“Vax, darling, I don’t think my arse can stand another round just yet but I had a think about what I want for breakfast and I’ve decided on your co-”

There was no awkward pause with Percy, he went straight for an alarmed, birdlike shriek, jumping and slamming his back against the wall. Fortunately, he was wearing boxer shorts.

“Cassandra, what in the name of fuck are you doing here?” he yelped, face immediately turning vermillion.

“I thought I’d treat my brother to a surprise visit,” she replied, her words still very deliberately calm and careful, even as her brain was shrieking inside her skull. Never in a million years would she have expected this and she couldn’t see why the gods were punishing her so. “I didn’t know you were going to have...company.”

“You could have called!” Percy ground out through gritted teeth, eyes darting to this Vax man, sitting on the sofa and grinning delightedly like this was the best day of his life.

“I’m Vax’ildan, by the way,” he chirped, fluttering his fingers at her.

“Can you go dress please?” Percy managed to choke out, eyes begging shamelessly, looking like he was trying to decide whether or not to just make a break for it.

“Of course, my love,” Vax’ildan rose languidly, still keeping his book rakishly covering the juncture between his legs, though Cassandra snapped her eyes to the view out of the wall to wall windows and kept them firmly there until the delicate, padding footfalls of the half elf had passed her by. “Lovely to finally meet you, Cassandra!”

The two siblings stood silently in their torment for a long few moments, neither able to quite look at the other, Percy in his embarrassment, Cassandra because she had never seen her brother in this little clothing and had no intention of starting today.

“I like men,” Percy ventured cautiously after a while, “I don’t think I ever...um, formally announced that to you.”

“It was a little obvious,” Cassandra replied, wondering which muscles the human body used to cringe because she was pretty sure hers were going to ache tomorrow.

Percy shifted from foot to foot, looking utterly lost for what to say or do.

“He called you love,” Cassandra eventually said, her voice quiet and curious.

Percy’s dark eyes flickered to her, surprised. He hadn’t been expecting her to say that. Neither had Cassandra. Both of them got the sudden, strong sensation that they were in the vast uncharted waters of their relationship.

“He did…”

“And do you?” Cassanda asked, making herself look at him. His face, at least. “Do you love him, I mean?”

Percy’s mouth opened and closed, though not in the way where he didn’t know the answer. More in the way where he was trying to form words he wasn’t used to saying.

“I do love him,” he eventually murmured, “I know that’s strange for me. But I do, I love him. I’d like to spend the rest of my life with him, if I’m allowed.”

Cassandra allowed herself a small smile and a weak chuckle. She reshouldered her backpack, striding past Percy, towards the spare bedroom that was always hers when she stayed over. As she passed, she patted him on the shoulder in the detached, fond way they had. Though for the first time, there was a spark of hope in it.

“I didn’t know you had it in you, brother.”

[ghostmartyr]

Avengers: Endgame Thoughts

SPOILERS, obviously.

So I figure I’ll babble enough to keep all the genuinely spoilery content under an appropriately timed cut. Even though everything after this statement is full of expectation spoilers. The few key things that I can think about to mention are that I really appreciated the movie and enjoyed the highs and teared up aplenty.

Also that I think this is going to be a primarily negative post. Whoops.

Not because I think it’s awful. I want to emphasize that I don’t think it is awful, because I am very worried that I’m going to forget to say that.

There’s a base level of quality you can sort of expect from MCU movies, so I don’t generally feel the need to move beyond the role of passive audience member for them. Then Infinity War really impressed me, and I couldn’t wait to see how everything was going to wrap up when they really left the movie there, so my investment level piqued.

As a result, there are more thoughts than usual. About a movie I really did find to be of high quality, and probably would see again happily if planning to sit still for another three hours didn’t make me twitchy.

I liked the movie.

There are just some character decisions and plot mechanics and overall writing decisions that... really?

First thing that I don’t have much to say about but can’t rationalize having a complaint post with no mention of: Thor and Hulk.

People in charge of the movie, you had no problem including Captain Marvel when you had no earthly clue what to actually do with her. Her smile warmed my heart in every scene she graced, and while I was criminally disappointed she was not more involved, none of the material she was given made me feel like the people writing her didn’t care about her.

...

Actually, now that I think about it, this should not have just a Thor and Hulk complaint section. Like that was the idea, because I didn’t have much, because I don’t care (slightly different than the writers’ level of don’t care), but the whole...

...

Oy.

Here, once for flavor, with the knowledge that I’ll get back to it and repeatedly whine about it this whole post.

I find the fucking time skip wanting in too many ways for me to really forgive the film for.

Anyway, Thor and Hulk.

In short, no.

In less short, what are you doing.

Hulk I don’t have a serious gripe with, except my main complaint about Infinity War was how Banner (I should probably change how I name him based on which character I’m talking about, but I really just mean the entity represented by a particular actor so I can’t care that much) got used up as comedy relief. You can have comedic moments and characters. If you have transformed your character into a comedic moment, you’ve fucked up.

(See Thor in too much of this movie.)

But one of the interesting parts of Hulk’s general arc in the MCU was how Banner and Hulk were starting to negotiate for their place in their body.

Cue Endgame, cue time skip, cue completely glossing over how they make their peace with each other.

Avengers franchise, why?

I am not attached to Hulk or Banner or any of that section of the plot, honestly, but the potential of that entire element is shot and left for dead in the water. Then the floating corpse gets up and starts walking around as part of a cog of the story.

Hulk’s most interesting plot point basically happened in another movie that doesn’t now, and probably won’t ever, exist, and considering what Infinity War put the guy through as a character, my writing senses are hurt and sad all over.

Then there’s Thor.

I think he might fit into the whole thing I will soon get into about character resolutions that hit the right emotional keys solidly enough that you forget they’re playing the wrong song.

Mostly he picks up the “hole” (wrongly perceived as something that needs to be filled) left by Hulk leaving the walking gag scene party. Drinking himself into oblivion and disregarding self-care in the aftermath of an immense trauma is one of the film’s chosen humor mainstays.

My impression is that I’m the only person in my tight corner of the internet who doesn’t really like Ragnarok because its silliness felt like it was trying too hard. It’s my favorite of the Thor movies, but a bunch of the humor didn’t feel natural to me. Better than Infinity War’s handling of Hulk, and better than Endgame’s handling of Thor, just not my favorite tone.

Endgame sort of takes that element, jacks it away from its surrounding strengths, and rolls out a keg for it to drown in.

When the movie remembers to empathize with Thor instead of mocking him, there are some great moments. But he draws one of the shortest straws of the movie.

And the character resolution is...

Good fuck this is why I had to say I liked the movie. Because when I actually sit down and think about my problems with it, the rest of my brain just lounges to the side in horror, wondering what could possibly have been entertaining if such elements were included.

The very beginnings of my problems with the movie is that they kill Thanos.

I think he’s dead ten minutes in.

Then they skip five years.

Five years.

Ooooh my everything.

Okay so like, you know how you start reading something, or watching something, and your head immediately takes note that oh, this must be a dream sequence. The couple in a romance is suddenly way too hot and steamy for where the story has them in their development, a random bomb goes off, the guy who destroyed half of all life in the universe because no one can stop him in the last movie is killed in the first ten minutes of the next--

There’s like.

A rhythm. There’s a rhythm to how stories work.

When that rhythm is disrupted, the audience is left with a tangible feeling of wtf. Either that feeling enhances the other quality stuff going on, or it enhances the other Quality stuff going on, if you catch my drift.

You step into a vacuum.

It’s great for recreating that sense of absence. The world is irrevocably changed. It’s emptier. The heroes are broken. Their revenge doesn’t fix anything. They just. continue to exist, with losses they aren’t equipped to handle.

FIVE YEARS OF IT.

I have probably a longer list of things I want stories involving time travel not to do than is perhaps healthy. But maybe stories involving time travel should keep their act together better or I don’t know.

Bad Future ends are not something I appreciate, because often, they go grimdark just because they can, because they know it’s not the final future, so anything goes. You don’t have to treat it like any reality that matters, because it isn’t permanent.

This story... I would say it toes the line there, but in ways that grate on me thoroughly enough that it presses all the same buttons.

Thanos can die in the first ten minutes, and it doesn’t matter. We know it doesn’t matter, because it happens in the first ten minutes. ...Maybe twenty, to be safe. It’s early. But you have this villain who’s built up to a ridiculous degree, bizarrely succeeds in living up to his own hype, then you kill him off so that a younger version of himself gets top billing in the final battle.

Why?

I get why as far as the story is designed, but at some point in the process, this story is designed by humans. Humans who could have stopped and asked themselves if they were really telling the best version of this story they possibly could.

Thanos is defeated while his blight remains. I love saying that. I love that I can describe a story with those words.

But the initial defeat is so unsatisfying and bereft of life. All the energy of him as an external force for our heroes to unite against is bled out early, and to get it back, they really do just ship in a younger model.

Which does make sense. Younger Thanos’ motives are fine and reasonable. Just, as far as the plot design, the whole presentation of the movie’s setting feels like a dream sequence. It feels, very early on, like this will never be allowed to be forever.

Then that feeling lasts for five years.

Getting into the time travel thing.

Time travel is really hard to get right in stories. You want to change something, but the people doing the changing are products of what they’ve lived through. How do you honor that while still fixing the unspeakable evil that happened? How do you change the world while keeping the threads that made us care alive and relevant?

One thing I very much like is that Tony fights to keep what he’s gained alive. Good. The volcanic soil grew him something irreplaceable, and it’s perfectly reasonable for him to want to hold on to that, and I’m glad he does.

But then you have the other half of the story, where no one is able to move on.

My preference for time travel correcting things is for characters to either be trying to change their own future that they have yet to live through, or for them to trying to fix something that is so recent the characters are still wrangling with it as a piece of their present. I have more than a touch of “humans should not mess with these things they don’t know what they’re doing,” past a certain point.

In case it weren’t obvious, five years is pretty far past that point for me. It hits this awful uncanny valley sweet spot of people wanting to change a reality that never should have been vs. people who are willing to fuck up the world because they can’t let go.

I like superheros. I like correcting injustices. Save all the people. I like people fighting tooth and nail to fix things set in stone because these are their people, dammit.

I also hate seeing people so stuck in the past they refuse to make a future.

This movie screams both of those elements so loudly that it’s hard for me to really piece out how I feel about the story in its entirety.

I like that they don’t simply hit an undo button, and do bring everyone back in a way that lets the future that has already happened continue.

But then there’s Steve and Nat and just... fuck, dude.

Gun to my head, I’m a happy person. If everyone could be alive at the end, that would be my preference, I don’t care if it’s cheesy. But you have the choice between Hawkeye and Black Widow. The man who’s lost his family, and the woman who’s lost purpose.

Or something. I don’t do MCU meta.

The sense I get from watching is that Natasha feels like her life works better as a sacrifice. If they succeed, she doesn’t have children and a wife waiting at home. So clearly it makes sense for her to be the one to die. Her road ends to bring back the happiness of others.

Which...

I don’t know how to articulate my problem with this without moving on to Steve first.

So let’s do that.

Steve.

Steve, whose story ends with him going back in time and staying there.

Forget about how the story criticizes every movie that does time travel better than it. Forget about all the levels of not caring went into designing the time travel elements. If possible.

I do not like how Steve’s story is essentially about how there’s only one time and place for him to experience a fulfilling life.

It is the nature of writing stories that we want to encapsulate things. The perfect moment. The perfect set of emotions. The perfect time. Everything falls into place, and that’s how we want it. We’ll never get it better than that. Keep retreading that dead horse, because it was so good.

Steve and Peggy are beautiful together.

What I hate about them ending up together is that... there’s this obvious, painful belief that the world of the future doesn’t have anything left for Steve. Bucky’s there. Sam’s there. Billions of people have just found there way back. Steve’s lived in this century for years.

Reclaiming the past is more important than building a future.

Even though the story’s driving plot is about keeping their past maintained so they can have this future. Or something.

Steve doesn’t have a future. Natasha doesn’t have a future. So the story removes them from it, and calls that a clean, happy (if bittersweet) ending. They’re pieces that don’t work in this world. Their chances are gone. They can live in the past or die.

I hate that. I’m a sap who will read a million stories about someone having a single true love they can’t be without and no one else could ever compare and blah and blah and blah, but that somehow feels different from watching a character’s life play out for years, and seeing them come to the conclusion that they can never belong in this place.

Building a new home never compared to the old one.

That’s depressing as fuck.

Thor gets a piece of this as well, becoming more of a knight errant than a king. After going to so much trouble to become his people’s king and just. Geez.

I don’t think that this is a thing the movie as a whole is really trying to encourage. I think the people working on it just had different visions for what would be cool as a sendoff and so on. Tony’s insistence that they don’t undo the five years they’ve had, and Nebula’s... everything--those aren’t elements of a story that says you can’t grow and find a new place. You don’t have to keep on repeating what you know and nothing else. You really don’t.

But that feels very twisted around for some of these characters’ personal journeys, and as happy as I am for Steve getting his dance with Peggy, the idea that this is a person whose true happiness could never be in the future...

That lingers in a way that I can’t like, and colors a lot of the other resolutions.

.

.

I really enjoyed the movie?

Yay?

Even though no one cared even a little at all even once except to attempt to drag other movies about time travel.

This movie’s time travel mechanics are terrible.

They’re just bad.

When you drop the titles of that many other things that have time travel.

And say this isn’t like that.

You should. you should hope. that your thing could at least make a convincing case for making more sense.

This does not succeed in that.

How could you watch enough of those movies to know they had time travel, yet fail to learn anything about how to write time travel. How. Why did you. why. Dragon Ball Z has more internally consistent time travel.

Three hours well spent. The hours on this, maybe less well.

[ravenish-huffnpuff]

I love fantastic beasts and all of the characters. However I’ve just noticed that perhaps Queenie doesn’t seem grow as attached to Newt’s creatures as Jacob and Tina do. For example when the thunderbird is released: Tina looks up in awe and wonder (adorable by the way), Jacob is a little tentative but still walks forward. Queenie however kinda lingers back with- I don’t even know how to describe the look on her face. But I just get the feeling she doesn’t like them as much (not that I don’t love her), and perhaps this will cause some conflict in CoG. She also doesn’t step out into Newt’s case- just stays in his shed.

This of course is just my opinion and might be just me reading into it too much- but this is what this short story is about and me explaining why she might not like them as much. Also Newtina. Because I love them. And Tina’s smile when she looks at the occamy kills me every time. 

Ps. this is my first post ever and first fic ever. Enjoy!

Tina clambers down the ladder, two stairs at a time. Once again she has no time to proper inspect the mess that is Newt’s case on the way- Queenie’s heels are coming dangerously close to snitching her fingers. Her feet touch the floor, but still she waits, silently hoping, as her sister hesitantly takes her first steps into Newt’s abode.

Queenie walks straight to Jacobs side, the side which the silvery mass of Demiguise does not accommodate, and roots herself there. Her normally pleasant face is slightly morphed; she’s biting the inside of her lip in the manner usually reserved for the comeuppance of early morning shifts. Tina can’t help but notice her perfect hair has become slightly skewed from their recent adventures.

You okay? Tina thinks, concerned at the lost expression on her sisters face.

“Fine,” she replies out loud and squeakily, crossing her arms. Tina attempts to take her hand, but Queenie flits away, closer to Jacob.

Really? Tina asks again, attempting to think in the most sarcastic yet worried tone she can. Jacob who has said something to make Newt to laugh- a charming burst through his nose- hasn’t noticed Queenie’s discomfort and averts his arm. Tina cocks an questioning eyebrow at her little sister.

“It’s just…,” Queenie jingles her whole body anxiously, “I can’t hear them. I can hear them of course. Just like a crowd of people, but I can’t hear them,” she nods her head minutely towards the door.

Tina leans back on her ankles at a ragged wooden door, which has managed to open itself slightly amidst the chaos in the tiny area. A beam of light shines in. As does a cacophony of twittering, scratching and snorting. A small smile falls onto Tina’s face.

It’s so obvious she doesn’t know how she didn’t realise before. Of course Newt’s case isn’t just a small work area, with several small creatures running around his feet. Not just, an adorable tiny leaf who sits on his shoulder and the extraordinary, life-saving, bat like ‘swooping evil’ in his pocket. He’s a man who likes breaking the rules, after all. This must be only the beginning. How many creatures does he have in here?

In a trance she wanders across the wooden boards, hearing the beastly noises getting louder and louder. It’s like music in a jazz club, intriguing and buzzing. It makes her foot tap and blood race. She reaches out a hand, and goes to slightly push when-

“Tina?” Newt says quietly. She whips round, her hand quickly jumping off the door. The others are all staring at her- Queenie restlessly, Jacob distractedly, and Newt…well Newt. He’s removed his great coat, and she watches his chest breath underneath his musty waistcoat, refusing to meet his eyes. What must he think of her? She’s was about to open what must be the most important room in his life (if there is such a thing for everyone) and without his permission. It would be like a person she just met snatching her old auror badge out of her hands. She can feel the anxiety dancing against her chest by just imaging it.

And worst of all- realisation suddenly hits her like a slap. She already has. She took his case, without his permission and handed it in. To people, she thinks bitterly, who wouldn’t have treated it or the beings inside with the respect they deserved. And not just to one or two creatures like she previously believed. To apparently many, innocent creatures who had done nothing wrong.

But, the reasonable side of her brain argues, you thought you were doing the right thing. You thought he was helping the person causing all the damage to no-maj’s and wizard’s alike. Handing him in to your government was the logical thing to do (at the time). He’d just escaped from your house in the middle of the night with no explanation for Circe’s sake, what were you supposed to think?

Yes, her conscience says quietly back, but you were wrong. And don’t forget what you said yesterday- ‘an extermination guide’. That’s the impression you gave him of what you would do to his fantastic beasts.

Her eyes burn a bit and she swears at them in English and Yiddish until she feels the tears retract themselves. He must hate her. She would. She does.

“Tina?” he repeats concerned. She looks at him properly. His eyes are blue. And gold. With flecks of green. They’re all at once soft, compassionate and sad. They move between her own and the occamy baby, who has slivered out of the tea pot and has made it’s home around his neck. Newt’s expression never changes between her and his creature, and it squeezes her heart a bit.

“I’m so sorry,” she stutters, “I didn’t mean to, well I did, at the time, but now,” she squeezes her fingernails into her palms to the point of pain, begging him to understand the context beneath her words. He does. Newt’s posture straightens. His mouth is set in a solemn line. She gives a shaky intake of breath, wondering if getting on her knees would be enough. Or and most likely, it would make her look even more pathetic.  

“I didn’t understand, but I do now,” she says to her shoes, “I was wrong. I only thought…but I promise, again, I never meant…it’s just” she rocks backwards and forwards on her heels awkwardly. How can she tell him, that after all that she’s done and said, that this place calls to her? In a way she only thought she’d feel again after solving a case or finally getting Credence out of that awful woman’s hands.

A sharp cry breaks her out of her thoughts. The occamy opens its golden beak giving another loud screech. It seems to have gotten sick of it’s post around Newt’s neck and is wanting attention. It’s eyes are just as mesmerising as in Macy’s, deep and dark and completely trusting. It bumps Newt on the head, hard. But he still seems to be frozen, not even flinching although it must’ve hurt. Stuck in time by the job of comprehending her staggered speech, he completely ignores it. The occamy shakes it’s dainty head agitatedly, and leans back again, seemingly going for an even harder hit.

“No darling,” Tina says quickly, pushing her palm between Newt’s head and the assault. The occamy, unable to stop itself, crashes into her hand. Tina doesn’t know which is worse. The pain of a sharp beak or the slight tingle enlightened her skin which came from brushing a few hairs of Newt’s fringe. The occamy stares at her, and Tina feels like she’s inherited Queenie’s talent for a second. ‘Another human!’ it seems to say, ‘will you pay attention to me?’ It slithers its strong body around her wrist, a feathered bracelet. Deciding it likes it’s new home, it wraps even tighter causing her bones to crack.

“Ahh,” Tina breaths out a painful laugh, “like this I think,” she cups her hands, gesturing motherly to the makeshift bowel she’s made and the occamy slips into it. It settles down, testing out it’s new environment- pulling at the buttons on the edge of her sleeve, noticing it’s own reflection in the shiny surface of her necklace. “Yes, there you go,” she whispers, smiling in wonder at it’s acceptance of her.

“It’s okay,” Newt says softly. Tina whips her eyes up. He’s staring at her, in a way she hasn’t seen before. Hasn’t seen from anyone before, “I forgive you,” he offers her a small grin, and gives a slight stroke to the occamy who has nested happily onto her fingertips.

“Do you- want to go in?” he asks, bobbing his head towards the door. Contented again, back in his element.

“Yes, of course. If you’d like me too,” Tina says, a bit too quickly.

“I’d like you to,” They stand there stupidly, nodding at each other, eyes bright. Tina offers up her armful of occamy.

“No, no,” now Newt seems to be the nervous one, “I want you take her. I’ll…supervise,” he gives a huff of laughter. He finally trusts her, Tina thinks breathing out a thankful breath. And I trust him.  

“Okay then,” Tina grins down stupidly at the occamy who has started fidgeting again.

“Well, are we doing this?” Jacob’s voice rings out, re-adjusting his arms around Dougal, whose eyes are currently flashing a bright blue.  

“Yes, yes,” Newt claps his hands together. He moves around Tina, refusing to meet her eyes again and pushes open the door. He walks briskly into the magical environment, and Tina’s eyes burn in the burst of light. She takes one step, then another, looking around in wonder, clasping the occamy closer to her chest. She hears the brusque sounds of Jacobs steps following her. Then…nothing. Twisting her head around slightly, she notices Queenie hanging by the edge of the shed. She hasn’t taken a foot outside.

[universal-kitty]

Commission for @robotarmjokes!       [My Commissions Here]

Based off this prompt.

   There wasn’t a lot of times DL got to see Rhys at work. Either he was up to his neck in something or the other or she had her own work to be overseeing, so neither of them got too deep into the other’s work sides... However, that’d since been one-sided since Rhys had gotten to tag along for one of D’s assignments not too long ago (complete with a new look and shades, much to her then-flustered amusement).

   It’d only be fair, then, for the tables to eventually be turned and for her to see what work he does, right? Perhaps...if they hadn’t been so busy recently! Plenty of things to be done and even D found herself with barely a break in keeping toes in line from certain...nosy groups that she had ample knowledge on.

   Honestly, you’d think some people would wise up when they’re aware that their dirtiest laundry is in someone else’s hands, but people are always full of surprises.

   Anyways, it’s finally a day for them to hang out together. For DL to see how the CEO works! Talk a bit more with his assistant, Cassie, and...

   Honestly, realize it’s not as jazzed up as it may seem at first glance.

   “That’s it?” D can’t help but muse, having been allowed to overhear a meeting under Rhys’ allowance and the fact she’s kinda marrying the guy sometime in the future. “I always thought that- like- you were super busy and doing big things. I thought that meeting was gonna put me to sleep and I’d embarrass everyone!”

   “It’s...” Rhys’ hands work in an awkward gesture, squinting slightly as he pries into his mind for some reason why his CEO work isn’t that bad...but the sigh and slump of his shoulders gives him away before he ever has to say a word. “Alright, alright! You’re...kinda right. I thought it was gonna be pretty cool, too, and for awhile it was! It’s neat, watching a company rise back up and getting say in hiring, what we’re doing... Getting the techies hired to fix the cappuccino machines! Eh, but.... Everything after Atlas got stable got boring.”

   “Only for you, boss,” Cassie chirps up, still filing away information in her tablet. “Makes my job easier, these days. Less chaos.”

   “Well, I liked the chaos,” he snips back, a pout forming as D giggles at his expression. (It manages to cheer him up a little- brows raising into a more relaxed pout- but he’s definitely not going to completely recover from that for a while longer. For someone who’s gotten so good at professionalism, he can still be such a dork!)

   “Remember, boss. One more meeting more towards the evening and you’ve still have paperwork to go through for R&D,” she says, heading over to her desk. Rhys seems a little more put out by that, but D is suddenly more preoccupied with the hand at her lower back as he opens up the door to his office.

   “Yes, yes! I know....” He groans as they walk in and D can’t help the little laugh of sympathetic amusement that leaves her, looking up to her grumpy fiance.

   “Well, at least this shows that your work is busy and boring, huh?” ...She regrets it the second the words leave her mouth. It sounded so good in her head! A witty comment to bring some laughs! Ugh--

   “It really is,” Rhys admits, stroking his hair over with a sigh. He pauses, leaning down to press a kiss to D’s forehead, then walks over to his desk and settles himself in. “The working cogs, seeing plans come to life... That’s the fun part. This?” He sits up, reaching for a folder and waving it about as D walks closer. “Not fun at all! Super boring, actually. I don’t know how anyone else does it.”

   “Dedication, I’d imagine?”

   “Probably?” He sighs again, already looking pouty before sitting up, grabbing a pen and getting to work as D watches from her spot on the opposite side of his desk. “I just...don’t see the point. Well, I do, but- Agh! My point is I’d rather be more...hands on than here. Kinda sick of doing paper work. It’s all I did at Hyperion, too.

   “Besides, the last time I had to do paperwork for R&D I goofed it up, big time.” That catches D’s attention, perking up in curiosity as Rhys starts signing off things, making notes and edits to requests...and she has to know what he goofed up on.

   “What do you mean? What didja do?” Rhys sighs, head tilting back into his chair and ruffling it up slightly as he laughs, the sound light with how flustered he is at the memory alone.

   “Well, I was pretty tired, it was late... I’d already done a ton of math for wages and this and that, so I couldn’t be bothered with more stuff, right? As it turns out, I signed off on a few remaining papers...one of which was actually testing on these out-of-galaxy creatures that were being brought in. I thought it was something about dogs, in my sleepy haze!!

   “Anyways, turns out those creatures are super powerful or something. The scientists of that wing bit off more than they could chew, to say the least of it. Had to hire more scientists, rebuild that sector, and I got scolded for not paying attention.” D’s jaw had dropped somewhere in the middle of that story, surprised and wondering...when? Where?? She would assume it happened before her hiring, but- then again- she’d never been a social person while working here... The bare minimum is what she got away with and so she did.

   “That’s just...incredible. Makes me wonder why did I fall in love with the King of Bad Decisions?” D grins when he laughs, seeming to relax and be a lot happier with her jest... Then sitting up with a light in his eyes. (Or was that just his golden eye glowing a little?)

   “It’s because I look really good in hot pants. Anymore questions?” That...came out of far left field and it hits her upside the head with the image of Rhys in hot pants. An orange-red color, probably. With the Atlas logo on the butt, maybe? Wait, wHY IS SHE THINKING ABOUT THAT?!

   D’s face goes a fantastic pink to match her hair, head ducking down and trying to shoo that image out of her brain right now, holy SHIT--

   “Uh, nope! But...where did the hot pants come from?” Her gaze goes from desk to his face and almost stares at the ground when he laughs again, all smiles and grins now.

   “I dunno, I think I’d rock them. You’re always making jokes about my height- giraffe man, beanpole- so I thought, hey!, hot pants really make legs obvious, don’t they? I bet I’d look great in them!” He might have a point, but honestly? The power in that visual is way too much for D to handle. (Would it be better to envision it with his usual, dorky socks? ....Hmm, no, that just makes him adorkable.)

   “I suppose, but I don’t think I’d have the power to handle it, Rhys.”

   “I suppose we’ll have to see about that,” he muses, looking far too smug...and D’s heart skips a few beats in sudden concern.

   “What?”    “What~?”

[almostafantasia]

Lancelot (3/14)

Lexa Woods, an impeccably dressed British secret agent for the covert Kingsman organisation, whose latest mission sees her sneaking through the corridors of the White House in the middle of the night, finds herself having to seduce the daughter of the newly elected President of the United States in a bid to save the world. It’s a surprise to Lexa when she ends up falling for her target as fast as she does, meanwhile Clarke doesn’t expect her gorgeous date for an international political gala dinner to drag her into a world of thrill and danger where one wrong move could cause a global disaster.

a clexa kingsman au | chapter 3/14 read on ao3

“So what’s the plan?”

Having finally made it to their hotel room in Washington D.C., Lexa asks the question as she unpacks her suitcase, so casually that she might as well be asking what their lunch plans are, not how they’re intending to break into the White House.

“Well I thought I’d send you in and I’ll provide support from the outside,” replies Anya, who sits cross-legged on Lexa’s bed.

“Wait, what?” asks Lexa.

It’s not the answer she’s expecting to receive, and Lexa’s head snaps up, momentarily distracted from hanging up her clothes. At first she thinks that it must be a joke, that this is just another one of Anya’s ways of playfully keeping Lexa on her toes, but Anya’s expression betrays no sign of teasing. She appears to be deadly serious.

“You go in and I’ll provide supp-”

“I heard you,” Lexa says with a frown, turning her attention back to the wardrobe as she hangs up one of her shirts next to the suit that she’s already put onto clothes hangers. The shirt will need ironing before she’s able to wear it, having been folded up inside her suitcase, but she’d rather hang it up with a small crease than to leave it to become a crumpled mess in the bottom of her case. “Why am I the one going in?”

“Well if two of us go in we’re more likely to get caught,” shrugs Anya, who has decided to take a less urgent approach to unpacking her own suitcase - meaning that she dumped her case in the adjacent room before following Lexa into this one and taking up residence on Lexa’s bed.

“So I’m risking my life by breaking into the White House while you sit right outside and provide ‘moral support’?” asks Lexa, arching an eyebrow in Anya’s direction and using two fingers on each hand to make air quotes as she says the last two words.

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” says Anya, rolling her eyes in response. “At worst you’ll get imprisoned and tried for treason. Wait, does D.C. still have the death penalty?”

Anya takes a moment to search up the answer on her phone, a moment in which Lexa actually panics that failing this mission could cost her her life in the most undignified way imaginable.

“Nope, you’re good,” Anya eventually tells her. “Just imprisonment.” She glances up at Lexa, then asks, “But you’re not planning to get caught, are you?”

There’s a hint of a challenge in her voice, like she’s taunting Lexa, and it wouldn’t be quite so bad if it hadn’t been only a couple of days since Anya beat Lexa in a training exercise that involved breaking into a building and remaining undetected - the exact thing that Anya is asking her to do again now, only for real this time.

“Nope,” answers Lexa, trying to come across as cool and unaffected. “Just another day at work.”

“You sure you can handle breaking into the White House?” smirks Anya.

“Of course I can,” answers Lexa, pretending that the very thought of what she has to do doesn’t set her heart racing with trepidation. “I’m Kingsman’s best agent for a reason.”

“Oh, that’s cute,” grins Anya. “You’re not Kingsman’s best agent but it’s adorable you think that.”

“Do you want to break into the White House?” Lexa challenges Anya.

Anya’s eyebrows furrow into a little frown, before she shakes her head and replies, “I think I’m okay.”

Lexa finishes hanging up the last of her shirts, then takes the much smaller pile of neatly folded casualwear and splits it between two drawers in the dresser opposite the bed. When all of her clothes have been put away, she closes the lid of her now empty suitcase and then takes a seat on the very end of her bed.

“So, the plan,” she says again.

Anya leans down off the side of Lexa’s bed and reaches for her carry-on bag from their flight, pulling out her laptop. She opens up the lid and taps away at the keyboard, and then turns it around to show Lexa the annotated floor plan of the White House on the screen.

“You want to make it to here,” says Anya, pointing at one of the rooms. “That’s the main security office. I don’t think it’s always manned but if there’s somebody in there I’m sure you can come up with a distraction. You know, as Kingsman’s best agent.”

Anya’s dark eyes flick up to look at Lexa’s face, with the hint of a mocking smile gracing the curve of her lips.

“So I’m bugging their security office?” Lexa asks for clarification, ignoring the bait that Anya is giving her. “Do you want me to hack their systems too?”

“Just don’t risk getting caught,” Anya tells her, the amusement dropping off her face and replaced by a serious frown. “We can always hack into their security externally. It’s a little less subtle, but…”

“Less subtle than breaking into the White House?” interrupts Lexa, both eyebrows raised in incredulity.

“Okay, point taken,” agrees Anya with a tiny shrug. “Just plant a couple of bugs and get the hell out of there.”

They might tease each other and joke around about which of them is the better agent, a silly sibling-like rivalry that brings out the competitive edge in them both, but at the end of the day they’re always going to be on the same side. Anya might take an inordinate amount of pleasure in beating Lexa in training exercises, but when it comes down to missions in the field, Lexa knows that Anya doesn’t want her to be caught any more than Lexa does.

“How am I going to get in?” asks Lexa, because they can discuss the fine details of what she needs to do once inside for hours but it will mean nothing if she can’t actually make it inside the White House in the first place. “Security has to be tight. Like, snipers on the roof, patrols in the garden tight.”

“I … I don’t know,” admits Anya, appearing unsure for the first time since they started planning the heist. “I hadn’t thought about that yet.”

Lexa gets up off the bed and walks over to the recently organised wardrobe. She slides open the door and rummages around inside, looking through the clothes that she’s brought with her to the States, and slowly but surely a plan starts to form in her mind.

“I have an idea,” Lexa says to Anya, even as the cogs continue to turn inside her brain. “It’s crazy, but it might just work.”

“Crazy but it might just work?” repeats Anya. A slow smile passes across her lips and she says, “Damn, I love this job.”

“Can you hear me?” asks Anya.

Lexa reaches up to the small earpiece and adjusts its position in her ear so that it’s more comfortable, before she answers, “Loud and clear.”

As she walks along the sidewalk outside the tall fence that surrounds the White House, Lexa tries to act like she belongs - her disguise won’t work if her shifty behaviour gives her away and makes it obvious that she’s an intruder.

“I’m having second thoughts,” she murmurs aloud for Anya’s benefit. “This is never going to work.”

“Not with that attitude,” Anya chides her, the voice in her ear sounding a lot like a tiny conscience in her brain rather than that of a remote colleague. “Remember, the hardest part will be getting over the fence. Once you’re inside the grounds, just act like you belong.”

Lexa pulls her jacket a little tighter around her, attempting to ward off the cool night air, though she isn’t entirely certain that the chill that has every hair on her body standing to attention isn’t a result of nerves and not the cold March night.

Exactly where Anya managed to acquire a black windbreaker emblazoned with the words Secret Service, Lexa isn’t entirely sure she wants to know. But whether the jacket is genuine or just a good replica, it does the job of letting her blend in. Paired with Lexa’s own black slacks, a white shirt, and a plain black tie, Lexa looks like she could be one of the many guards that stand on watch outside the White House. Though her costume probably won’t stand up to close scrutiny, at a glance she looks like a member of the Secret Service and that’s what matters.

Lexa just has to hope that the disguise is good enough to get her inside the White House.

Lexa has only ever seen the building in pictures before but now that she’s close enough to see it in person, it’s a lot more overbearing than she might have expected - or perhaps that’s just the knowledge of what she’s about to do that makes the White House seem like an impenetrable fortress.

Lexa lurks just outside the railing that protects the grounds from the public area beyond. Her disguise won’t hold up if anybody inside sees her vault the fence and she has to wait for the right moment. She spent part of her afternoon memorising patrol routes and they are burned into the front of her mind, and with the lenses of her glasses currently working as infrared cameras, she can see the outlines of two snipers on the roof in the distance, as well as two pairs of patrolling guards in the grounds.

“It’s your call, Lexa,” Anya’s voice comes through the earpiece. “I can tell you when to go but only you can see if it’s actually safe.”

Lexa remains silent, watching as the sniper nearest to her turns his back to look the other way. This could be her chance, and she feels her heart beat ever more rapidly in her chest as she waits for the patrols to move far enough away from her position to allow her time for a clean jump over the fence. With each second that passes, with each erratic thump of Lexa’s heart against her ribcage, the window of opportunity gets smaller and Lexa knows that the sniper could turn back this way at any moment and spot her vaulting the fence.

“I’m doing it,” Lexa says to warn Anya of her actions, doing a quick double-check of her surroundings on this side of the fence before she reaches up and wraps her fingers around the cold metal railings.

Hoisting herself up is easy, a brief strain on her biceps as she pulls her weight up and clambers onto the top of the fence, avoiding the spikes spaced out at regular intervals. Lexa glances up once more at the roof before she jumps, checking the sniper’s position, then drops down onto the soft grass with a gentle thud.

“I’m over,” says Lexa.

“Good girl,” comes Anya’s response. “Now you just need to act like you’re supposed to be there.”

Lexa straightens up, brushing down her clothes so that her trousers hang smoothly, then adjusts the knot of her tie so that it sits perfectly at her collar. Even in an extremely pressurised situation, she’s still a stickler for looking the part. In fact, the very act of straightening out her clothing soothes Lexa, and she feels slightly less like she’s about to have a panic attack less than a hundred feet from where the President of the United States sleeps soundly in her bed.

Lexa tries to follow Anya’s instructions and strolls through the garden like she’s patrolling it. The sniper on the roof looks back in Lexa’s direction and she turns her head away from him, an extra precaution in case he looks closely and realises that he doesn’t recognise her.

“There are guards outside the front door,” Lexa tells Anya. “I expect it’ll be the same around the back.”

“And the ground floor windows?” comes Anya’s response.

Lexa risks the sniper seeing her face by turning back to the house, scanning the windows along the wall of the house facing her.

“I can’t see any that are open.”

“You need to find a way inside, Lexa,” Anya tells her, a sense of urgency to her voice. “You’ve already made it this far.”

Lexa squints at the two guards standing at the front doors, then reaches a hand into the zipped pocket in the lining, fingers closing around a slender object. She takes it out of the pocket and slides it up her sleeve, a plan formulating in her mind. A plan so crazy that it will either work spectacularly or get her caught.

“I have an idea,” Lexa tells Anya, as she starts striding purposefully towards the front door.

Her heart is racing, but Lexa ignores it and remains focused, knowing that her plan is so bold that it will only work if she oozes confidence. Even an inkling of nerves could betray her and Lexa is nothing if not determined to tackle every mission to her very best.

Predictably, the guards on the door notice Lexa as she approaches, and Lexa makes to walk straight past them, like she has the authority to enter through the front door of the White House without being questioned.

Of course, it doesn’t quite work that simply, but Lexa thinks that her confidence has given her the upper hand as the two guards stop her outside the front door.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“Bathroom,” answers Lexa.

Lexa puts on an American accent and limits her answer to one word so as to not give herself away, but the result comes across like her answer should be obvious, which perhaps works even better because Lexa can see the doubt in the guard’s eyes as he considers her answer.

“You’re on duty,” he reminds her.

Well at least Lexa knows that her costume passes off as authentic.

“Sorry, dude,” says Lexa. “When a girl needs to go, you don’t ask questions.”

And then, in a move that she tries to pass off as an accident but is actually very deliberate, Lexa lets the tampon she removed from the pocket of her jacket earlier drop from her sleeve and onto the floor.

“Shit,” mumbles Lexa, bending down quickly to pick up the tampon, pretending that she doesn’t want either of the guards to see it but knowing full well that they both know exactly what has just fallen from her sleeve.

And, just as Lexa expected, when she stands up straight and looks at them with a pleading expression, they’ve both turned beet red and can barely make eye contact with her.

“Oh,” says the one on the left. “My bad. Of course.”

They step aside to let her through, too flustered to consider doing otherwise, and Lexa nods a thanks that masks the exhilaration that courses through her veins as she walks through the front door and enters the White House.

“Did you just walk through the front door?” asks Anya, her voice full of a mixture of awe and incredulity.

“Men are weak,” answers Lexa, rolling her eyes despite the fact that Anya can’t see her, though she’s pretty sure that the sentiment gets across through her words. “One flash of a tampon and they can’t even look you in the eye.”

“I never would have thought of that,” says Anya, and the hint of pride that Lexa hears in Anya’s voice makes Lexa’s chest swell with delight.

“Kingsman’s best agent,” she quips, ignoring the snort that Anya gives her in response.

“You can brag all you like, but only after you’ve planted those bugs,” Anya reminds her.

Lexa tucks the tampon back into the pocket of her jacket, leaving it there for easy access in case she needs to deceive more security guards.

“Right,” says Lexa. “Security office. I want to go upstairs, don’t I?”

“Yes,” answers Anya. “But I wouldn’t suggest taking the main stairs. There’s a smaller staircase off to the side that you can use. You’re less likely to meet somebody.”

Lexa tries to recall the floor plan that she studied in the hotel room earlier while Anya was sourcing the jacket for Lexa’s disguise, closing her eyes for a few seconds. The image swims to the front of her mind like it’s been branded there with a hot iron, and Lexa’s eyes snap open again. She knows where she has to go.

Once up the stairs, Lexa knows that the danger may only just be beginning. It’s a straightforward plan on paper - plant a couple of bugs in the main security office so that Kingsman will know as much as the Secret Service do about any breaches past or future, and maybe even try to hack into the security itself, remotely cloning the entire system onto Anya’s laptop so that they can comb through it later - but the risk of getting caught is probably at its highest. The office is likely to be manned, and Lexa doesn’t know if her disguise will be good enough to waltz straight in like she did with the guards at the front door.

“Excuse me?”

Lexa is so caught up in her own mind as she silently stalks down the upper hallway of the White House, the cogs inside her brain whirring and formulating an infinite number of possible plans depending on the situation, that when a voice speaks up behind her, she startles and almost trips over her own feet.

This is it, she thinks to herself. This is the moment that she gets caught.

Lexa tries to keep her cool, reminding herself that she’s dressed the part and that she might still be able to bluff her way through another encounter. But when Lexa turns on the spot to face the other person, every inch of her training flies straight from the bank of resourcefulness in her mind when she sees the owner of the voice.

Wearing a navy dressing gown over plaid pyjama pants, the girl’s blonde hair is tousled and sticks out at weird angles like she’s just woken up, but she’s still extraordinarily beautiful. She pads barefoot towards Lexa and her face comes into the light, questioning blue eyes watching Lexa from beneath a slightly furrowed brow.

Lexa recognises her immediately, but even if she didn’t, the facial recognition software in the lenses of her glasses does a quick scan and a name pops up for Lexa to read.

Clarke Griffin. First daughter of the United States.