#I kept trying to get back to 50 percent. So I’m rushing shots

[sincerelymarinette]

A Recorded Life (30/50) - Miraculous Ladybug

Words: 2671 Chapter Summary: Two days after talking to Master Fu, they give the cure a shot. At school, Marinette's friends have a small debate and come up with the perfect idea. After school, the gang hangs out, and Marinette and Adrien finally have a chance to play their favorite video game. Author's Note: Sorry for the missed upload last week! This chapter wasn't finished and I didn't want to rush it. And I'm glad I didn't, because I love how this chapter came out!

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Arm-Wrestling Match

---

Thursday

Adrien walks around his house carefully. He can feel eyes on him at all times, and though his father and Nathalie say he's paranoid, he doesn't believe them. He thinks they're prepping to tell him the decision about school is final, and he was going to be stuck in his room until Hawkmoth is defeated.

He hoped Marinette and he could figure out a way to convince Gabriel he was fine being in school.

They got Fu's cure and used it for the first time last night. It was a little different than Fu had told them, instead of affecting the Miraculous directly, it was to make Adrien and Marinette more alert and aware of things around them. For it being only one night, Adrien didn't feel any different. But Fu had told them it would be a slight change, just enough to catch something strange, even in their sleep. Adrien wasn't so sure about it, but if it meant Marinette would be sleeping through the night, then he would believe it.

Nathalie and Gabriel have been asking more and more questions about him being Chat Noir. It's like that's all they have on their minds these days. He gets it, they're worried about him, but they're overdoing it a bit. He's been escaping the house a lot more often, and even going to school a little earlier. At least Gorilla didn't speak much; he didn't kill him with questions.

On the way to school that morning, Adrien kept thinking about all the times he's escaped this car. As they pulled up and Adrien was getting ready to get out, he leaned forward. "Hey, I'm pretty sure you knew a long time ago. Thanks for keeping my secret."

For the first time ever, Gorilla turned to Adrien and had a hint of a smile on his face. It was slight, but just enough to show emotion. What was even more shocking was when he opened his mouth. "It is my job to protect you," Gorilla said, very soft-spoken. Adrien has rarely heard him talk, but whenever he did, it was always heartfelt. Adrien's face glowed, and the biggest smile appeared.

"You're the best!" Adrien said as he got out of the car, running into the school. He was a little early, but he was okay with that. Dropping some things at his locker, he saw Alya and Nino sitting at a table, and they were also there early. When he approached the table, he noticed most of his class was surrounding it as well.

"She's probably the strongest out of all of us!" Alya said. "She could beat Kim in an arm-wrestling match."

Kim scoffed. "Yeah, right!"

"There's an eighty-nine percent chance she would win," Max backed up with facts. "Sorry, Kim."

Adrien chuckled as he walked up to his friends. "What are we talking about?"

"If Marinette is stronger than Kim," Nino filled in. "He's the only one who thinks he's stronger."

Adrien's eyes widened. "Trust me; she's stronger."

"Got any proof?" Kim crosses his arms.

Deadpanned, Adrien stared at Kim like he was crazy for asking that question. "I have personally been thrown across Paris by Marinette. Multiple times."

"He does have a point," Alix laughed, standing right next to Kim and punching his shoulder lightly. "If anyone would know, it would be Adrien."

"Ooh! I've got the best idea!" Alya jumped in her seat. "After school, we could record an arm-wrestling contest between anyone in the class that wants to take down Marinette, and post it to her channel!" Alya said. "Maybe then, haters would see that she is fit to be Ladybug, and she's not a fake."

Everyone nodded at her idea. "That's a great idea, Alya. The comments have really been getting to her, even though we all keep telling her not to look," Adrien sighed.

Kim took a deep breath, and everyone looked at him. "I have an eleven-percent chance to beat her, according to Max. But, if I am going to lose on those unlikely stats, then it'll be for a good reason," He said. "She needs some of that confidence back, especially after that weird Akuma last week."

"Glad we're all on board! All that's left is Marinette, and we can pass a sign up around the class for who would want to participate," Alya said, reaching for her bag to grab a piece of paper.

"I'll text her to bring her camera," Adrien said. "Hopefully, she's asleep. We got some help yesterday, and I don't think it helped me sleep any better, but I hope it worked for her," He confessed.

Nino patted Adrien's back. "You're also one of those people that when they go to sleep, they stay asleep."

"Not really. I've become a really light sleeper." After Adrien said that to Nino, he sent a quick text to Marinette, and she replied immediately. "Nope, she's not asleep. She's been awake for three hours. Ugh, I hope that's just because it was the first night."

"I offered to stay the night with her, but she wouldn't let me," Alya said.

Adrien nodded. "I know. She's pretty stubborn, and has been super paranoid. I don't blame her; my father and Nathalie keep prying so much that I'm doing everything I can to stay away from them."

Before the conversation about Adrien's father could get any more intense, Kim was yelling about sign-ups to arm wrestle Marinette, and it distracted everyone. Adrien definitely signed up; he would do anything to boost her confidence again. Right before the bell rang, Marinette was running up to her friends with her camera bag and backpack. "What's Kim yelling about?" She asked, and even though she was sprinting, she was barely out of breath.

"We came up with an idea..." Alya said as they started to walk to class.

---

The class was sat in the courtyard for the competition. "I still don't know if this is a good idea," Marinette told everyone.

"Of course, it is!" Nino said. "You get a video out of it, and you get to beat Kim's ass."

Almost all of the class had signed up to arm wrestle Marinette. Even if they didn't believe they could beat her, they wanted to aid in helping her self confidence and show the haters that she really was the best choice for Ladybug. Alya set up the camera, and Nino was monitoring the sound. Since it was such an impromptu video, it wasn't going to be perfect, but they were going to help as much as they could. Though Marinette didn't slow posts on her fashion channel, (except for that one week...), her second channel had lost out on a lot of videos.

Maybe after this video, it would get rid of some of the haters, and it would encourage her to post more fun videos again.

They started going down the list to go against Marinette. Rose giggled the whole time, Alix gave a good shot but knew she would lose, and Ivan had a good laugh at how quick he was taken down. Surprisingly, Chloé even showed up to support Ladybug, but there was no way she would go against her.

Nino was taken down much quicker than expected, and Alya held up a good fight. Finally, it was Kim's turn. He cracked his knuckles before he sat down, and had a smirk on his face. "Max said you had an eighty-nine percent chance of winning. That means I just have to be within that eleven percent to beat you," Kim said as they locked hands.

"Is this really that important to you?" Marinette chuckled.

"Extremely."

"It's not too late to back out!" Nino shouted from behind the camera.

"Three," Kim started.

"Two..." Alya continued. "One... go!"

At first, it looked like Kim was going to overpower Marinette, but it also looked like Marinette wasn't using her full force. "Ha, are you going to go down that easy?" Kim laughed loudly as he saw how close Marinette's hand was to the table.

"Oh, really?" She raised an eyebrow at Kim. Within a flash of a second, Marinette pushed as hard as she could, and Kim's hand hit the table. Marinette stood up with both hands up to celebrate. "Sorry, Kim. I don't do well with competitions. Ask anyone I've ever played video games with."

"It's true," Max and Adrien agreed at the same time.

Marinette stood up to take her victory and end her video, but before she could sign off, Alya jumped in front of the camera. "We have one last contestant! You know him, you love him, Adrien Agreste!" Alya called, making her friends laugh as Adrien sat down at the table.

"Are you sure?" Marinette giggled. They had arm-wrestled before. Every so often, they would get bored after a patrol, and stick around and talk. Chat Noir was always confident he could beat her, but never could.

"I must redeem myself, Mi'Ladybug," Adrien smiled.

Marinette shook her head and sat back down. "You know, if you didn't say anything, then people would not have known about the multiple times I've already beat you," She told him. "But too late." With that, she smirked and put her arm on the table, interlocking hands with Adrien.

"See, but they don't know if you're telling the truth. It could be a cover," Adrien shrugged.

"When have I ever lied about arm-wrestling?" Marinette said, and all their friends stared at them as their banter continued. Alya just looked at them, thinking that they really were made for each other.

"Whatever, let me just count down!" Alya finally interrupted. She counted down from three, and their hands had barely moved. It was clear that they both were trying, as hard as they could, but their strengths matched.

Their friends all cheered for one of them, and it was split about halfway for fairness. "Come on, Adrien, you know how this will end!" Marinette said through gritted teeth. "I'm not even using my full strength yet."

"Well, why not? Holding back?" Adrien asked, sounding just like Marinette.

"Fine, you don't want to give in?" She pushed on, and Adrien shook his head. "Okay, then," She said, and with a little more concentration, Adrien's hand was slowly making it's way closer to the table. Once it was only about two inches from the table, Adrien gave in.

He sighed. "You won. Legally," Adrien admitted, and Marinette's hand shot up in real victory. This time, Adrien walked up to the camera. "There you have it, folks, the superior superhero is Marinette! But we all knew that anyway," Adrien shrugged, and Marinette realized what he was doing and pushed him out of frame.

"Now, we're done!" She laughed. "That was a lot of fun, thanks to everyone for setting it up!" She called out to her friends. "And thank you guys for watching! I'll have everyone tagged below so you can follow all of my fantastic friends. I hope to get back to regularly uploading onto my second channel, but you know I've been busy. I really do love silly videos like this, so be on the lookout for more!" Marinette said with a big smile on her face. "See you in the next video!" She said, and with that, Alya shut off the camera.

She turned to her friends who were watching her finish off the video. "Really, thank you guys for doing this. It was a lot of fun, and I'm thrilled you guys aren't mad at me, too."

"Why would we be?" Kim's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "You're still our Marinette."

Marinette walked over to Kim and hugged him. They had been really good friends for a long time, even if they don't hang out as much anymore. He still has the sappy moments, sometimes.

The day finished up, and all the students were dispersing, including Marinette. "Do you guys want to come over for some pastries? I feel like you deserve it," She offered Alya, Nino, and Adrien.

Unanimously, they agreed.

---

Alya and Nino were packing up their items in the bakery. Time had flown by, and they needed to get home for dinner. "You let me know if you need me to come over. I don't care what time it is; I will be over here within minutes. I want you to get the rest you need, Marinette," Alya told her.

"I'll be okay. I have the cure now, remember?"

"It's only a cure if it actually works, girl," She said. "And you said you didn't sleep well last night."

Marinette shrugged. "Probably just because it was the first night. I'll be fine. If not, I'll call you."

"Yeah, right," Alya winked. "Okay, we'll see you guys tomorrow."

"Bye, dudes," Nino waved as the two of them walked out of the bakery.

Marinette turned to Adrien, who seemed to be tuned out of the conversation. "When do you have to get home?" She asked.

Adrien shook his head, bringing himself back to reality. "Oh, I don't know. As late as possible? I'm trying to avoid the house as much as possible," He admitted.

"What? Why?"

He shrugged, taking a minute to figure out what he was going to say. "My father and Nathalie keep prying more and more, even when I ask them to stop. They know I'm not comfortable talking about it in detail, but they just keep asking. They keep trying to see my ring and asking me to take it off, and I'm afraid if I do that, they won't give it back and take Chat Noir away from me," Adrien word barfed. His thoughts had been circling in his mind all day, with no one to talk to it about. Once Marinette offered, he let it all out. He coughed once he realized what he said. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Marinette said, "It makes sense, I wouldn't want to risk it either. Especially with them thinking about pulling you out of school and keeping you contained. Maybe the next step is taking the ring from you, so you aren't endangering yourself. That isn't a good idea, but who knows what parents think is right," She chuckled, trying to bring some light to the situation. "I know! Want to go play some video games?"

Adrien sighed with a smile. "I always do."

The two grabbed their things and rushed to behind the bakery counter to run up the stairs and into the apartment. They threw their bags at the end of the couch, and while Adrien sat on the couch, Marinette turned the TV on and put the game on.

"You should record this," Adrien said, and Marinette replied with a confused look. "You did say you wanted to get back to uploading on your second channel. Why not record us playing our favorite game?"

"You want to have video proof of me kicking your butt, twice between two videos?" Marinette asked, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

Adrien shook his head. "No, this is my revenge. I'm going to win."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," She said. While the video game was loading, she pulled out her camera from her bag and started the video. "Hi again! I'm Marinette," She said. "And Adrien's here again, too. He decided he wants to record me kicking his butt again, but I'm not against it. We're playing our favorite video game, Mecha Strike III!"

Their banter throughout the video was like earlier in the day. Joking with each other, and having snarky replies to everything. And the same victory as earlier, as well. They played a few rounds, and the sun had long gone down. But neither of them cared, they were having fun, and they didn't have any homework that needed to get done. Finally, after a few hours of playing, they turned the camera off and turned on a movie.

They didn't even get through one movie before both of them were fast asleep on the couch.

---

@lady-of-the-roses-and-lilies @bookishserendipity03 @avatheexceed @gkz10 @coccinellegirl @kat-thatoneweirdo @strawberryblondish @snow-swordswoman @lilgaga98 @evufries

[caiuscassiuss]

Whiplash | Bad Boy! NCT Yuta (M) P.2

 P A R T  T W O

Description: “They say good boys go to heaven, but bad boys bring heaven to you.”

Genre: bff’s ex/ badboy angst | fluff | romance WC: 6.1k Warnings: alcohol, recreational drug use and distribution, graphic smut (angry sex) unhealthy possessiveness, profanity

(A/N: It’s probably necessary to read part one but this is basically the chapter where all the drama happens sooooo)

   “This scene looks familiar!” Eunji says jokingly as she comes through her apartment’s door, hands laden with bags of ice cream and junk food.    You grumble as you snuggle into the cocoon of blankets you have made for yourself, an astronomical belt of wrappers and trash surrounding your figure.    “So. I bought peaches-and-cream ice cream along with vanilla bean, 2 bags of onion rings and like some gummy bears. Good?” Eunji kneels down and starts sweeping away the trash from your bed.    Your head pops out and you mumble your thanks as you open the onion rings bag, greedily stuffing the high-sodium into your mouth. Eunji laughs at the sight of your cheeks being stuffed with food and shoves a bit to the left as she settles herself into your bed.    “If you told me two weeks ago you would be crying over a breakup with the same boy I was crying over, I would have never believed you,” Eunji muses, staring up at the whirring ceiling fan.    Your best friend was surprisingly un-shocked when you told her that you fucked Yuta and then consequently dumped him. She didn’t get mad or hold a grudge, but only looked at you sympathetically.    “Well, here we are now,” you sighed.  

   “Pick your poison! Popcorn, Hot Tamales, Doritos, or candy corn? Also, I brought the Hunger Games,” Taeyong exclaimed as he burst into your apartment laden with bags, his ears red from the cold.    “Why the fuck do you have candy corn? It’s the middle of February,” you criticize, peaking your head out of your cocoon of blankets you have set up for yourself.    “Look, they were on sale, okay? And I bought—” Taeyong held up a bag that was roughly the size of medium-sized rice bag “like 50 million of these fuckers. For nine dollars. Is that a steal or what?” he laughed.    At this, you gasped dramatically and your glasses slid down your nose. “What would Mrs. Lydia and her health pyramid say about that?”    “Her? Fuck our Health class, it is totally acceptable to live off of candy for a week,” Taeyong muttered as he plopped his butt down onto the couch next to you. He held up the plastic grocery to your perusal.    “Hot Tamales?” You scrunched up your nose, seeing the flaming red and yellow packaging stuffed in the bag. “Who the fuck likes those turd nuggets?”    Taeyong froze and turned slowly towards you, an expression of shock and disgust on his face.    “Turd nuggets?! Hot Tamales is God’s invention!”    “In what world? Hell?”    “I’ll have you know that only intellectuals eat Hot Tamales!” Taeyong defends, swiping the remote from your hand.    “The only people I see eating Hot Tamales is you and, like, Kim Kardashian. What does that say about your IQ level?” you quip back.    At your admittedly brilliant comeback, Taeyong floundered like a fish, mouth opening and closing several times before he childishly turned away, clutching the bag.    “You know what, meanie? You can’t have my snacks!” he pouts.    At his adorable pout, a wave of laughter erupted from your lungs. Taeyong could always raise your mood, no matter the state of mind you were in. In fact, Taeyong (and maybe Eunji) have been your pillar of support these past few weeks. Even if his first initial reaction was to beat Yuta to a pulp when he heard you spontaneously start sobbing during a phone call, he heeded your words and calmed himself down. While stewing in his anger for Yuta, he was an absolute angel. You wanted pizza? He said he’ll be there in 5 with a 4 cheese pizza. You looked down? He dragged you to an amusement park and stuffed you full of cotton candy. It was certainly a departure from the frat boy persona you had seen him grow into as you two grew apart, and it was… nice to see the boy from your childhood again.    “Taeyong!”    He didn’t budge.    “Taeyong, please?”    Not a single twitch.    “Taeyongie?” you said hesitantly. It was his childhood name.    At this, he turned his head around in shock only to be met with your pathetic eyes of desperation. He pursued his lips, but you could see his resolve crumbling before your very eyes.    “Agh, fine!” he exclaimed, surrendering the snack bag.    Everyone in the world could burn as long as you had him by your side.

    Later, when your head accidentally fell onto his shoulder while the Tributes were being introduced, snuggling and mumbling complete gibberish, Taeyong felt a warm feeling in his chest.    If this what the future looked like if he took a chance—    It would be totally worth it.    

  “Taeyong, I know you have girls to fuck, parties to throw and people to slow down, but I have to be somewhere!” you seethed at your best friend, dragging him out of the lecture hall.    “Calm your tits, woman, I’m trying to pass this fucking class!” Taeyong shot back, running a hand through his black hair as you strode down the hallway.    “By seducing the teacher? Tell me more,” you replied dryly.    “What can I say? To reach their goals, others fly, others walk, and I just sweet-talk my way there,” the handsome boy smirked, eliciting a short laugh from you.    He was so cute but so greasy. Taeyong noticed you smiling slightly, and a crease appeared between his shaped brows as he contemplated you.    “Why are you smiling like… like one of those Barbie dolls?”    You turned your gaze towards him and your soft smile turned into a smirk. “Are you comparing me to a Barbie doll, Tae? I didn’t know you saw me like that,”    Taeyong uncharacteristically blushed, and started stuttering out his apologies.    A wide grin split your face as you laughed at his red-faced complexion. The way his eyes widened even further, his stutter and the way he kept shaking his head was adorable.    “No, but, for real, this might seem random and all, but I really wanted to thank you for what you’ve done the last few weeks. Like, I don’t think I would’ve passed my classes in my current state of mind without you or Eunji. So, erm… thank you a lot,” you awkwardly smiled, and rested a hand on his forearm.    Taeyong looked like he wanted to say something, but his eyes caught onto something behind you and his happy expression vanished with a snap.    “Y/N, come on. Why don’t we go the indoor route? I heard it was going to rain in a few minutes.” He started to tug at the hand you rested on his arm, pulling you towards the double doors you just exited out of.    “But the weatherman said there was a zero percent chance of rain—”    “Well, well, well, look who it is— the new campus couple,” a voice drawled from behind.    You froze.    You knew that voice.    That voice seduced you with its honeyed words, grunted in pleasure whenever he came, and the voice that wasn’t there when you kicked him out of your apartment.    Yuta.    “Y/N, c’mon!’ Taeyong tugged more insistently now, but you were frozen in place. A rush of memories accompanied that voice and you could only stand, helpless, against its overwhelming force crashing into you.    “W-What do you mean, campus couple?” you stuttered, eyes taking fleeting glances at his face.    A huge smirk broke over his features as a devious light entered his eyes.    “You mean you don’t know?” he asked, playing with your confusion.    “What?” you frowned.    “Y/N, don’t sit here and listen to this lying motherfucker!” Taeyong hissed.    Yuta’s eyes drifted over to him and imperceptibly frowned, before covering it up with a taunting expression.    “Isn’t obvious—”    “Y/N, let’s go.”    “— that he’s in love with you?”    At first, you wanted to deny it. Because of Taeyong? The boy you knew since you were in nappies? The one that pulled at your braids and cried because his Disney cap strap snapped at his chin?” No way.    But the more you thought about, the more Yuta’s sudden reveal made a bit more sense. No guy who drifted from you after freshman year in college would do that much for you unless his feelings ran... deeper.    Taeyong had stopped trying to pull you away from Yuta and stood uncomfortably next to you like he was ready to shield you. His back was tense and his expression was pinched. He looked so discomfited that even if he wanted to protest, his body language gave it away.    You frowned and opened your mouth to ask Taeyong, but Yuta interrupted before you could.    “So he hasn’t made his move, based on your reactions. Huh.” Yuta shifted his eyes is to Taeyong, who looked like he wants to run away but also fight.    “Well, I have.”        Taeyong froze.    “Oh yes, I definitely made my intentions known on Y/N. It was— what, 3, 4 months ago? Yeah, that was a good night,” Yuta chuckled, the perfect picture of lazy confidence.    “Yuta, shut up,” you hissed, looking worriedly at Taeyong who was turning a ghost-white.    “Princess, you don’t want me to. Honesty is the best policy!”    You gritted your teeth at his light-hearted comeback, but otherwise stayed silent and still. What could you say in the face of that?    Yuta walked slowly towards Taeyong, like a predator stalking its prey. “How does it feel, Lee?”    Taeyong, now at least a bit recovered, shot Yuta a dirty glance. His posture was coiled tightly. “How does what feel, Nakamoto?”    “Knowing I was making her cum while you were wishing you could even touch her?”    “You piece of motherfucking shit!”    Taeyong leaped at Yuta, who dodged easily as if he were anticipating the strike. Your best friend recovered and tried to land a punch at Yuta’s jaw but Yuta had already kicked him in the ribs.    “What the fuck?” you exclaimed in disbelief.    Taeyong gritted his teeth and went back on the offensive, trying to land a blow on Yuta. He managed to get through some Yuta’s defense, some that would definitely bruise, but not punishing enough for his anger. Yuta, however, kept an infuriating smirk the whole he was dodging.    “Can’t pass a test, can’t score a girl, and apparently can’t throw a punch!” Yuta taunted.    “Yeah? Well, I’m not the one who’s spreading fucking STD’s around campus!” Taeyong shot back and at the same time smashed his knuckles into Yuta’s mouth.    Yuta paused for a bit, both retreating a bit. He swiped the back of his hand against his bloodied mouth and turned serious.    “Looks like pretty boy has some bite. Not bad.”    Yuta then went on the offensive, landing punishing blows Taeyong bravely defended against. You could see a red flower bloom on Taeyong’s eyelid as they kept fighting.    “Yuta! You piece of motherfucking shit, stop it!”    He ignored you, as per usual.    “Taeyong! Do you remember what you promised me?!” you shouted desperately at Taeyong.    “I don’t really have time for that now, Y/N!” he yelled.    “You promised, Taeyong!”    He paused momentarily at the despondent tone in your voice but Yuta took that as an opening, knocking a punch into Taeyong’s already bruised eye.    You ran, stupidly and blindly, to pull back Taeyong. Yuta almost continued forward but stopped himself    “Do you remember, Taeyongie?” you whispered into his ears, a hand on his shoulder.    He shuttered his eyes painfully and sighed, as his shoulders slumped.    “Yes.”    “Then?”    “...Fine.”    You sighed in relief.    “This is disgusting,” Yuta complained, crossing his arms.    “You!” you rounded on him. “You piece of motherfucking shit. Rot in hell for all I care!”    You took Taeyong’s bruised arm lightly and dragged him off.    Yuta stared at your backs walking away and clenched his fist until he could feel his blunt fingernails digging into his calloused palms. His chest felt like someone had just stepped on it, crushed his ribs, and stomped on his lungs. Your face of utter anger and slight shock was burned into his retinas. He wasn’t an enough of a romanticist to say it felt like his heart was crushed, but what was he feeling in his chest?   

  It’s been a few days since you witnessed Yuta and Taeyong exchange blows in the courtyard of your college campus. After getting Taeyong home and cleaning him up, it quickly grew awkward between the pair of you as the weight of his said/ unsaid confession pressed on you both, but you fled his apartment before it could get any worse. You hadn’t come back since.    But beneath your skin, hot anger towards Yuta’s behavior simmered like a boiling tea kettle. Where the hell did Yuta get off behaving like this? What right did he have to expose one your friend’s insecurities that drove a wedge in a great friendship? What divine being allowed for him to taunt you like this, so bold to start a fight?    It built over the few days like a tsunami wave behind your eyes. It grew when you saw someone getting high behind the sciences building and expanded when you heard your neighbor’s cries of passion late at night. You should’ve known it would’ve boiled over at one point.    As you were exiting your 3 o’clock class, Yuta’s figure rounded the corner with his hands casually tucked in his pockets. A black backpack was slung on his shoulder, while his earbuds allowed him to tune out the rest of the world.    A flash of bright red anger flashed behind your eyes and you could feel your shoulders tensing up. You wanted oh so desperately to go over there and slap his pretty face, bruise it and blacken so it would at least come close to the damage he inflicted on your heart.    Your chance came when he neared your spot near the bathrooms, and you recklessly stepped in front of him.    Yuta stopped, raising an eyebrow while pulling out his earbuds. “Oh? Princess? Are you here to come back and confess your eternal love for me?” he smirked.    Your lips curled at his casual arrogance. “No, Nakamoto. Not now and not ever.”    “Harsh, but soon you’ll find yourself alone in bed and remember the feeling of my hands on you. You will never get over me, Y/N,” he pronounced with such certainty that it infuriated you.    “Where do you get off speaking like that, huh? First to me, and then to Taeyong! There was never need to push him like that, you piece of shit!” you hissed, careful to be relatively calm in the deserted hallway.    Yuta’s gaze grew a bit more serious, until the slight smirk he had on his face disappeared and was replaced but a frown. “He would’ve kept pining after you like some pathetic puppy, and I can’t stand to see shit like that.”    You poked a finger into his chest. “Taeyong is a great person! He’s my best friend and— “    “-- your secret admirer. Tell me, how have you two been for the past few days? He finally confessed?”    You stayed silent, while he stared at you smugly.    “Avoided each other, huh? Che, what a pathetic—”    “You, shut up! He’s done more for me in the past few weeks than you have ever done since I met you!”    The corners of his lips turned down until his face was perfectly serious. “Say what you want about me princess, but you can’t say I haven’t done anything for you. I cared for you after we had sex! I cleaned you, I stayed with you,  I… held you!”    Frustrated tears came to the corners of your eyes. “Yeah? And while you did that, you fucked girls behind my back and never bothered to make me feel like I was wanted. Newsflash, Yuta, of course, I wouldn’t be grateful because you fucking used me!”    Yuta’s lips smashed into yours hard, pushing you against the concrete wall of your college. His hands came up to cup your jawline, desperately tilting your face to receive his passion. In the midst of his tongue clashing with yours, you could feel his anger and frustration and jealousy poured into your kiss. You didn’t know you could make him lose his composure to this degree, and it was… hot.    He drew back suddenly and grabbed your wrists, dragging you behind him until you reached an empty classroom oh so conveniently placed right next to your previous classroom. He threw off his bag and ripped out his earphones, cornering you against the wooden door of the classroom.    “You… make me so… angry,” he murmured between liplocks.    And you? You knew you should be pushing him off, kicking him in the balls until he couldn’t reproduce, but it had been so long since you had felt him pressed up into you with his cologne making you dizzy and the familiar hardness of his sculpted chest. Your body was betraying you, and it made you mad.    You pressed back into his kiss, actually contending for dominance which took him off guard. Your tongues and teeth clashed together as you both tried to express your anger and frustration into this kiss, unable to properly confront it.    You could feel your lips bruise as he moved down to your neck, harshly biting and nipping at the delicate skin of your neck. Your head was tilted up in rapture you clenched at Yuta’s shoulders so hard that your fingernails were digging in.    Quickly, he divested you of your shirt and his. He continued his nipping and sucking down to your chest as he pulled up your skirt to your belly.    Yuta fingers pulled down your panties, exposing your pussy to the air. While his lips were on your chest, you helped pull down his tight jeans and underwear.    You gripped his cock tightly in your palm, harshly stroking it up and down. He groaned angrily and you could feel his fingers dig into the flesh of your waist. You totally knew it would bruise.    “Stop it, princess,” Yuta protested, but you kept going. You had his cock in a vice grip, rubbing your thumb over his head that was oozing precum.    He gripped your wrist and pinned it behind your back, gaining back control. He lifted you up over his the head of his cock and slammed you down, both of you eliciting groans at the familiar wave of pleasure.    His grip loosed on your wrists as he instead clamped his fingers of your waist. He pistoned his hips up into your pussy as you whined pitifully in an open room.    “Fuck you feel so good, baby, I fucking missed this,” he hissed.    His cock, slightly curved, rubbed against the walls of your pussy in a way that drew the most pleasure from you. Your back was slammed painfully against the wooden door but it was overridden by the pleasure the man in front of you was giving.    “Yuta!” you cried, tears that were angry and full of pleasure running down your face.    He grunted and increased his pace, slamming into you so hard that every thrust he did make your butt clang against the door. If the hallways were empty enough, any person who wasn’t an idiot would know what was happening this door.    Your nails created angry red marks against his back while he buried his head into your shoulder. There were pain and pleasure, anger and lust surrounding the pair of you in a haze, intoxicating you until all you could think about was the person seated inside you.    Yuta groaned lowly and his hips stuttered, his previous rhythmic drive pushed away in his orgasm. You arched your back into his chest, clenching your eyes tightly as you orgasmed right after him. You could feel your fingers digging into his back and blood underneath your fingernails, and his back flexing in pleasure.    The both of you panted heavily, finally coming back to the world. Your hazy eyes caught on his discarded shirt on a desk and your breath caught in your throat.    Holy fuck, what had you done?    You just had a quickie with a man that emotionally ruined you for other men, making you unable to trust anyone or anything. Just willingly spread your legs for him to hump his merry way into.    You pushed away from him hurriedly, pulling up your cum-covered panties and pulling down your extremely ruffled skirt. You slipped away from him and the door frame, grabbing your materials in a rush.    Yuta looked at you with wide eyes and extended a hand forwards like you were a skittish doe.    “Y/N—”    Cutting him off, you pushed through him and ran into the hallway with no destination in mind.    You didn’t look behind, but heard his frustrated “fuck!” loud and clear as the door was kicked angrily.

   The two of you sat in awkward silence, watching the Hangover in Taeyong’s apartment with your usual stash of unhealthy junk food by your side. However, there was no playful banter, snuggling, or food fights only a stiff silence.    You refused to let what Yuta said to affect your relationship, and showed up at Taeyong’s house 8pm sharp with a bag of shit from the convenience store and a blanket. He was visibly shocked but said nothing as he let you in.    He already had some snacks set up beforehand and a movie in his disk player but clearly wasn’t expecting you, only getting one bottle of Coke and one pillow on the couch. Few words were exchanged between the two of you, and eventually just settled into the routine to watch the movie.    An hour nearly passed in silence with only the loud soundtrack of the movie to listen to. You fiddled uncomfortably but cracked as soon as you glanced at Taeyong’s unreadable face.    “Okay, I can’t stand this. Can we… can we say something?”    Taeyong stared vacantly at the screen for a few moments and sighed, running a hand through his fluffy hair.    “Y/N I- I just have no idea what to say,” he managed to get out.    It was silent until you broke it. “I think we need to acknowledge what happened the other day.”    He snorted and leaned back on the couch. “Shoot. Go for it. There’s not much to get.”    “I- Is it true? What Yuta said?” you asked hesitantly.    “...yeah. It was pretty obvious,” he said flatly.    Your lips parted slightly in shock.    “Wha— wh— how?” you stuttered.    He grinned uneasily and fiddled with his blanket. “Y/N, everyone and their mothers could see I liked you. Can see that I like you. It’s just you never noticed, you dumbass.”    You slapped him on the arm lightly and frowned and in return, he gave you a slight smile.    “How long?”    Taeyong sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Fuck, uh… I don’t know. Since grade school, maybe? I can’t remember.”    “Grade school?!” You nearly fell off the couch.    He raised a thick brow at you. “Y/N, I literally hung out with only you. Remember getting annoyed when your hair would always get loose from its ponytail or pigtails or whatever? That was me. I hated seeing you with your hair up and always tugged it down. For fuck’s sake, I gave you my fucking goldfish and I give no one my food.”    You couldn’t look him in the eye and tried to look at other things in the room other than him. He let out another sigh and stilled your fiddling fingers with his hand, forcing you to stare at him when he turned your chin towards him.    “Y/N. I know we drifted apart during some of high school and some of college, but believe me. I like you. You’ve always been—” he put your hand on his chest, feeling his heart fluttering under your touch “here.”    He leaned forward, desperately trying to impress upon you his years on yearning.    Could you see it? In his lips were the squeals of joy the two of you shared when you play-fought, tickling each other with the unrelenting persistence of 5-year-olds. In his eyebrows you saw that slight slit he cut in sophomore year, his big “fuck you” to his parents even when he looked terrified holding the razor over your bathroom sink, looking back at you nervously for encouragement. In the scar underneath his eye was his embarrassment when he fell down from the swings when he was 10, tears seeping out of his eyes while you sobbed along on the grass beside him. And in his eyes…    Was everything. Every time you’ve been together, you could see it in his dark, almost black eyes.    You didn’t realize you were almost a hairsbreadth from each other until you felt his minty breath wash over your lips.    “Y/N…” he whispered.    “Taeyong…” you said.    He leaned in closer and so did you, but suddenly his black hair transformed into a dark brown, the uncertain lilt to his lips replaced by the devious curve of a smirk, and the edges of his eyes sharpening.    You jolted back from him, the hypnotic lull broken.    He looked at you sadly and averted his eyes away from you.        “I should’ve guessed it, huh?”    “Taeyong, I-”    “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”    Your mouth trembled. “... yeah,” you whispered.    He was silent as he buried his head in hands. However, after a few moments, you could see the slight tremble to his back as he gasped in silent sobs, filling every crevice of your heart and cracking it open. Tears splashed onto the comforter beneath him, each one panging deep in your chest like a physical blow.    You hesitantly circled your arms around his shoulders, trembling in repressed emotion. He stood stiffly in your embrace but quickly buried his neck in the crook of your shoulder. Wetness bloomed in the material of your shirt as he sobbed into you, his hands gripping onto your waist and bunching your shirt in his fists. You cried along with him, your face buried in his hair and trying to offer some semblance of comfort while your love for two boys split you apart.    “I shouldn’t. I hate it, Taeyongie, but I do. I do.”    

   Yuta stared at the murky waters of the campus’ lake, looking at the small fishes dart frantically in the water.    Was he a man that usually did this? No.    That’s why it must have really seemed fucking weird to see a well-built boy sitting pitifully in the grass, spread out on his leather jacket cradling his jaw in his right palm.    Uncharacteristically, the turmoil in Yuta became so great that he made the decision to collect his thoughts by trying to find some bullshit serenity in nature. So far, the wind was blowing his hair in eyes, the bugs were buzzing around him, and his boots were getting dirty.    Not really the ideal conditions to figure out why the fuck Y/N couldn’t get out of his mind.    He groaned and slumped back into the grass, giving up on trying to figure this out. He closed his eyes, deciding to try to slip into a light nap.    However, he felt a figure towering over him after a few minutes and he kept his eyes shut, hoping they would get the message and kindly fuck off. When they remained there still, he cracked open an eye to see who the hell would disturb him with his lips curled into a slight sneer.    When he saw the black hair and angular features of Lee Taeyong, president of Sig Nu and all around nuisance staring down at him, his sneer deepened into a black scowl and he sat up.    “Is there something you want, besides from disturbing my peace?” he said viciously, unable to explain the feeling of red-hot rage coursing through him as he caught sight of Taeyong.    The man snorted and clambered down next to him, not quite invading Yuta’s personal space but enough to make him uncomfortable.    “Frat presidents and people I’ve beaten black and blue don’t usually come crawling back to me. Come back for another reminder?”    Yuta tilted his head to the side and smiled viciously. “Oh, maybe you like the pain. Certainly explains why you’ve been hanging around Y/N so long—”    “Shut your mouth, Yuta. Besides, you say that as if you didn’t have to wear bandages on your face for a straight week,” Taeyong interrupted.    “Then why are you here, Mr. Friendzoned?” Yuta asked deceptively softly.    Taeyong stayed silent but looked him straight in the eyes.    “Do you or do you not want Y/N?”    Yuta was taken aback at how straightforward Taeyong’s question was. He expected some good verbal jabs exchanged before Taeyong revealed his real intentions, but apparently not.    “Yeah? Look, if you’re trying to warn me away—”    “And what are you willing to give up for that?” Taeyong sharply asked.    Yuta was truly set back into silence by the implications of the question but quickly recovered.    “None of your fucking business, Lee. Go back to moping.” Yuta turned away from Taeyong fully intending to leave but Taeyong’s grip on his collar forced him to stay.    “Get your fucking hands off me—”    “I may not be the one she wants, but I’m not going to sit back and watch her be broken over some fucker that doesn’t know what he wants. So tell me, Nakamoto, what are you willing to fucking give up for her?”    Yuta couldn’t answer Taeyong’s straightforward question, and stood there opening and closing his mouth like an idiot. To be truthful, Taeyong’s question struck a chord in him that he had been trying to bury, and was the answer he had been trying to figure out for the past few days.    Taeyong’s grip on his collar loosened as he saw Yuta struggling for an answer, and stepped back into a more appropriate distance.    “You don’t know, do you?”    Yuta stared back at the lake.    “What do you see when you first think of her?” Taeyong asked.    “... her face. Her face when she’s asleep and looks so… so peaceful. So unguarded.”    Taeyong inwardly raised a brow at his unexpected response but kept his face straight. Truthfully, he expected some fuckboy response like “her ass” or “her pussy cumming around me” but got a surprisingly mature response.    “When you see her in pain, what do you want to do?”    “Take it away,” Yuta responded immediately. Beat up whoever the fuck did that to her and… and hold her.”    “You know she’s in pain because of you, right?” Taeyong couldn’t resist getting a jab in.    “...yeah.”    Taeyong looked at him curiously, and as his face relaxed into the mask of realization Yuta felt an uncomfortable swirl in his stomach.    “You can’t get her out your mind, can you? No matter how many girls you fuck or how many blunts you take, you really can’t get Y/N out of your mind.”    Yuta stayed silent.    “I’m right. I’m always right. But Nakamoto: can you really give that up just for one more pussy to fuck? One more night spent getting high instead of spending it with her?”    “... No,” Yuta breathed out, eyes wide.    “Then you know what to do.”    Taeyong patted Yuta on his shoulder and stood up to leave.    “Why are you doing this?” Yuta asked, his thoughts jumbled and out of order.    “...I’m doing this as her best friend, not as… not as the person who wants her. If I have to push away my happiness so she can have a chance at hers, I’m... alright with that.”    

 You twisted the silver rings on your fingers nervously, trying to get your mind away from the impending meeting in a few minutes or maybe seconds.    This was a bad idea, you thought. A really bad idea.    Really, that had been echoing in your mind ever since you opened your phone, scrolled through your contacts list, and tapped unblock on ‘Yuta’. A voice whispered in your ear to stop as you typed your message, your fingers trembling so bad that autocorrect couldn’t decipher your message. And maybe, just maybe, it hissed furiously at you when Yuta responded. You shivered even when you were in a thick cardigan.    “Y/N,” a voice beside you said softly.    At first, you couldn’t believe that was him. The way he said your name was too tender, too delicate in nature that it couldn’t be whips-and-chains Yuta. You could scarcely even believe it when he stood in front of you like a figment of your fever dreams.    “Yuta. You came,” you whispered hoarsely.    “Of course I did.”    He moved to sit next to you, closer than you would’ve liked, and you scooted away from him slightly. You could feel him still in disbelief before he settled down.    10 minutes must have passed with the pair of you sitting in silence, avoiding each other’s gazes.    “Why did you text me to come out, Y/N?” Yuta asked softly.    “I want to tell you…” you trailed off, reaching a hand up towards his cheek. He closed his eyes and nuzzled into your hand like a puppy, while you stroked your thumb over his fading bruises. “That I want nothing to do with you anymore.”    His eyes snapped open and he jerked away.    “What?”    “Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming, Yuta. I thought this what you wanted?”    “I did but—”    “Either way, Yuta, I’m making your wish come true. I don’t see the confusion here.”    His confused expression suddenly grew dark.    “Is this because of— what her’s name? Inji?”    You gave him a cold stare and jerked your head no. “Her name’s Eunji. And it isn’t because of her; it’s because of all of the “hers”.    At his confuzzled state, you sighed. “Yuta, I didn’t make this decision lightly. I didn’t just tell myself one day: I’m going to tear Yuta out of my life. You can’t just do that to someone whom you’ve given your entire fucking heart to.”    “So?! I still have your heart, you can’t just leave it behind!” he hissed.    “But I can! Yuta, I love you so much it hurts and yeah, you may have my heart, but look what you’ve done to it! It’s ruined because of you!”    “It should be because you’re mine.”    He said it with such finality that red swam in your gaze. “See? This is the fucking reason. You treat me like complete and utter shite one moment only to get angry and macho when I show some shred of self-dignity. Yuta, I know you haven’t been in any functional relationships, but that’s unhealthy! Manipulative! Grounds for fucking emotional abuse!”    He ran his hands through his hair and seemed lost for words. Suitably pleased enough in imparting your decision, you slowly got up. You left him a mourning stare and slightly turned your head away to cover your trembling eyes.    “This… This is the part where I leave. I’m going to—”    Yuta stood up quicker than you anticipated and grasped your upper arms.    “Would you stop for one moment and listen to me?!” he harshly gasped, eyes trained intently on your wide ones.    “I’m not going to just let you… leave. Just— fuck!”    He swooped in for a kiss, however, with none of the passionate ardor his other’s had. This was gentle, almost casual in nature, but you could feel his desperation in every swipe of his tongue.    “Y/N- Princess, I… I realized how wrong I was after… after you left. I thought I wouldn’t care, that you were some chick that lasted a bit longer than the others, but to my fucking surprise, I couldn’t get you out of my goddamn head. I literally can’t stop thinking about you!”    “Okay, Yuta, but—”    “I spoke to Taeyong,” he interrupted rudely.    “You did what now?!” you nearly screeched, head spinning in this emotional rollercoaster.    “Yeah, I fucking did. And you know what he did? He asked me what I would give up for you.”    “...W-what did you answer?”    “Everything.”    You stared at him in surprise.    “The parties, the drugs, the girls. Even my own fucked up self just so I could… so I could wake up beside you every morning and… and stay with you.” The words stumbled so awkwardly from his mouth, careening sideways like drunkards at a bar that you could see him visibly unsettled. So unused and so unable to express.    However, you didn’t know what to do. Your heart was so set on this decision, so when your assumption that Yuta would just accept it and move on was shredded to pieces, you didn't know how to respond.    “N-no, that can’t—”   “Jesus fucking Christ, why can’t you see I’m fucking in love with you?” he hissed and grasped your cheeks, pulling you to him.    You stood there shock still, tears climbing to the edges of your vision and blurred like your train of thought.    “I- I don’t know, anymore Yuta. I can’t deal with this,” you tearfully choked out. But before he could speak or say something, you tore yourself away from him and strode off with your head in your hands.    For the first time in his life, Yuta was left high and dry.    His heart in his throat.    Heaven hurled to his feet.

(A/N: probs didn’t live up to the hype lol but im proud of it. hope y’all enjoyed it and my fantasy became yours.)

(A/N:Also, I do have a fucking “read more” function on this okay? Don’ t @ me)

[archies-ginger-locks]

The Town That Saw Blood

Archie Andrews x Reader

Request: Hey I saw your new prompt list thing and I had three numbers I liked but for one fic. Numbers 36, 38,40. Archie x Reader. Where the reader had like a family emergency and he didnt come. So she is upset and ends things with him, but like over time he notices she hasnt been sleeping well and knows its nightmares. Then they admit they still care about one another. Kinda a sad until the end they are happy together. I hope it makes sense.

Prompts: 36. “Another nightmare?” And 38. “I needed you. And you weren’t there.” And 40. “I’m still not over you.”

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: lots of blood, PTSD, if you love your sister and never want her to get hurt then be careful reading this.

@onceuponatimegilmoregirls

—

Blood was pooling onto the crystal white snow. Screams of pain came echoing out of your sister while you cried out of help. Pulling off your jumper and wrapping it around your sisters wound was the best you could do. Your cries for help weren’t working, the park the two of you were walking through was empty.

Fumbling, you pulled out your phone and dialled the emergency number. Your sister was still screaming in pain and blood still poured onto the cold, icy pathway through the old park.

“It’ll be okay, you’ll see. It’ll be okay, their coming. Just, just keep breathing.” Her screaming had stopped and it was just heavy breathing now, she looked up at you.

Your hair was a mess and your white shirt was painted red. Your sisters red eyes looked up again, her cold hand had grabbed yours. You didn’t want to look in her eyes, it would be too painful.

“Look at me,” you drifted your eyes to hers. “Be okay, that’s all I wish. Be okay, tell Mum and Dad I love them.” She was smiling up at you.

It was the smile of death. That smile that people have when they just kinda, know. Know that it’s all over, it’s all gone so being positive was the last good thing that could give to the world.

The threatening ring of the ambulance came close and the bright Red and Blue lights were flashing as fast as your heart was beating. Everything started to blur when the paramedics pushed you away and started assisting your sister. Another one came over with a stretcher and they lifted her onto it.

One of the three help you up and into the back of the ambulance. They wanted information on your sister but all you could do is cry and hug the stranger of a paramedic close. You were shaking with the question, Will she be okay?

You spent the night in the hospitals waiting room alone. Your parents were stuck out in a blizzard across the country and your boyfriend, Archie, wasn’t answering his phone. So, with that said a cold night alone was the best you could get.

The hospital forced you to go home while your sister was still being checked. They told you that if anything happened that you would be the first notified.

Being home alone after what had happened, still seeing horrifying image of her attacker, was awful. You couldn’t wash your clothes in case, in case...

You tried to wipe your mind clean of thoughts like that. It was so hard because it was the truth, they told you she had a 50 percent chance of surviving. The only thing you could think of to calm your nerves was a nice hot shower. A hot shower was something you always did when everything just got too much and you needed to get away from everything. People thought you were crazy when you told them that, the only person to understand you was Archie. And he, he well wasn’t in your good books after ignoring your calls the day before.

You slowly took off your clothes, laying them out neatly on the bathroom counter. You re-tied up your hair before turning on the shower. The boiling water against the nippy winter air created a large amount of hot steam.

Stress seemed to drop off your shoulders when you stepped into your shower. It was oddly relaxing, the feeling of the steamy water falling over your body slowly. You closed your eyes and sunk into the feeling.

When you opened your eyes again the water had turned red, blood red. The running water muffled your scream as you reacted by reaching forward and turning the water. You closed your eyes, you didn’t want to see it all over you as it was on your sister.

Still shaking, you opened your eyes to see it was just water covering you. You let out a small sigh of relief before sitting down on the wet tiled shower floor.

You felt as if you were going crazy over your sister even though you saw her a few hours ago, calmly laying in her hospital bed sound asleep. All you could do was worry and think of what could happen, it was infuriating. The only thing you could do to help your sister was to relax and stay calm and you couldn’t even do that.

You stood up and wrapped a towel around yourself, you were about to open the bathroom door to go and get changed but to stopped in your tracks when you heard the front door open.

Jumping out of your skin from shock at hearing someone break in, you scurried into your parents room. They always told you if anyone, or anything, broke in that you should go straight into their room. They told you to open your father’s bedside table, the second draw and only use what was in there for a emergency and this felt like a big emergency.

You quietly stumbled over to the bedside table and slowly opened the draw. A small silver hand gun was hidden in the far corner. You didn’t want to do this but you also didn’t want to get hurt.

You silently opened the bedroom door and peaked a look down stairs you couldn’t see anyone but you could hear footsteps coming up the stairs. You stepped out of the room, your father’s gun out in front of you, your finger on the trigger and read to shoot.

Your heart was racing, your blood was pumping and your eyes were going to burst out of your head. Archie appeared at the top of the stairs with his hands raised once he saw what was in your hands. He looked scared of you and he had the right to be you looked nothing like usual.

Usually you had your hair at least half decent and brushed. You usually also had proper clothes on and not just a towel that you had wrapped around yourself. But the thing he had to worry about was the gun in your hand. You were the last person anyone expected to hold a gun up to anyone.

“(Y/N)? (Y/N), please put down the gun.” You shook you head in a ‘I need to wake up’ way and dropped the gun.

“What are you doing here?” You asked as you crossed your arms over your chest. Your feelings of anxiety and sadness were traded for anger when you dropped the gun and saw Archie again for the first time since your sister was shot.

“I ah, I got your messages. Is your sister okay? Are you okay?” He took a step forward towards you. You took a step back, you liked your amount of distance.

He looked shocked that you didn’t accept him coming near you. You looked up at him with anger and he looked at you with sadness.

“She’s doing fine and so am I. I’d like it if you left.” You said, you were trying so hard to be nice. Even in anger you showed kindness.

“What? (Y/N) I-“

“No, I said you should leave. So go, and I’d prefer if you didn’t come back.” His whole world just seemed to collapse in front of him. But Archie being Archie didn’t want to make things even worse so he left, like you asked.

It felt so right at the time. It felt like that was what anger did to people, it makes people think that bad decisions are good decisions.

——

The next day Sheriff Keller arrived at your door step. He looked almost as tired as you were.

You were tired from not sleeping from fear. Every time you even thought about sleeping the image of your sisters attacker kept appearing in your mind. It was terrifying, it felt as if he was right there coming after you.

The Sheriff was tired from work. Since Fred Andrews was shot not too long before your sister, he has been working this case since the moment Archie filed his report about his dad. Sleeping wasn’t easy when the town he loved so much might be in grave danger.

“I’m just here to ask you a few questions.” You nodded and opened the door more so he could enter.

Your parents were due home today, so you wanted to get this over before they got home. They would cry even more if they knew you were being interviewed by the police about a serial shooter. They almost didn’t want to come home due to danger but being there for their girls was more important to them.

The two of you took a seat at your old wooden dining table. He was on one sit and you were on the other. He brought out his note book and pen, this was really happening.

“Where was the shooting?” Memories from then came rushing back to you, it hit you like a ton of bricks.

“Maple Park, near the centre.”

Questions like continued on and on until he got to the question you didn’t want to answer. The question you dreaded because it was going to bring to light the truth of what seemed to be a epidemic of blood shed through the town.

“Andrews described to me a ah, a person who shot his father. I am going to describe to you what he told me and you’ll tell me if it matches what you saw.” Archie had already told you about who shot his dad and by what you saw, they were the same person.

“Man, possibly in a black ski mask. Green eyes with a average build and bit of a stomach. Does any of that sound familiar?” He looked at you with so much need. He needed to figure out this case, he truly loved this town so much. If it were the same person he would have a real case on his hands.

“Yes, That is the person that attacked my sister. Down to the mask and everything.” You started shaking a little just think about this.

This was real, you tried convincing yourself that it was all fake. Just your imagination but it was all too real and you couldn’t handle it. Keller could see it on your face that you weren’t well, mentally but he needed to get back to the station.

“Thank you so much. If I get anything I’ll let you know?” He stood up and chucked his paper and pen back in his pocket.

“Sure, sir.” You tried to smile, you tried so hard to look normal and at least a little bit mentally stable.

He hurried out of your house and back out into the harsh cold of American winter. You slowly clicked the door closed after him and went back to cooking dinner for you and your parents.

——

A few weeks past and a lot had happened. Your sister was released from the hospital at almost full health, they just what her to relax and stay in bed for awhile until she was fully healed. No more people have been shot but the tension for the fiasco still looked everywhere you go.

Archie hasn’t even tried to talk to you since you held the gun up to his face the day after your sister was shot and you didn’t know how to feel. Was it good that he was listening to you and that he didn’t try to contact you or was it bad because he should be trying hard to win you back? Boy trouble wasn’t the only thing keeping you up late at night.

The black hood, the name the town had given the masked shooter, still haunts you even though your sister had survived. The memory of hit sprint at the two of you shooting bullets at you was like a ghost. Floating around at appearing out of nowhere.

Your parents were so glade to see (S/N) and you okay. They had the worst fears on the long plane ride home, they truly believed she wouldn’t make it and they could cope with the pain and the bill for the funeral.

School had finally gone back after what seemed like forever. It was the first time ever that you were actually excited to go back to the place you called hell. But that he’ll was much better than the one in your mind.

People started noticing you had changed since the shooting. You went from being bubbly and talkative to quiet. From answering every question in class to being forced by the teacher to give a answer. The biggest difference had to be the way you looked in general. You at least used to look well rested and healthy but now you had lost some of the colour from your skin and you had bags and sleep lines around your eyes.

Luckily for you, you still had your friends around. They understood that it was traumatic and that you had the right to be affected by it. That’s why they tried to drag to to conversations or even to Pops.

It didn’t take them long to realise that something had happened between you and Archie. So, slowly one by one you explained happened when they asked you, you just left out the part with the gun. They were shocked because you two were always known as the Riverdale High power couple but they also understood that you wanted to end it.

Now that one thing was off your mind, another wouldn’t leave it. The thought of Archie and how he left you in a time of need but came to make sure you were okay when he had the chance. Which is more important, the good or the bad? All you could do was play imaginary tennis while trying to decide. Good? Bad? Good? It was too stressful.

The school bell had finally rung. It was like music to everyone’s ears because it signalled that school was over for another week. People were filling the halls, you were waiting behind so you weren’t stuck in the rush.

Once about a third of people had gone you made your way through the halls. You had a hold of your bag that was over your shoulder an dying had your earphones in. There was some song from your playlist but you weren’t really focusing on the music, your attention was to get out of there and to get to the next bus.

You were so close to the door, you could feel the cold of the metal. Someone grabbed you wrist and brought you into the music room. You almost screamed until you caught sight of the colour of your kidnappers hair.

“Archie?! What the Fuck!” You yelled as you pulled yourself out of his grip.

“No, (Y/N). Don’t you say that, what the fuck, you?” He looked shocked and tired. He probably had Football practice for last period, and a whole hour of Physical Education would tired anyone out.

“What happened to you? You used to be so happy, and now. Just look at yourself.” His hand lay out in front of him, gesturing to you.

“If you don’t remember, my sister was shot.” You took a aggressive step forward, your arms crossed the same way they were the day you broke up with him.

He wasn’t angry, he was more on the frustrated side of anger while you were a mixture of anger and sadness. You were sad because deep down you still loved the red haired, American dream boy. And being in the same room as him, alone, really hurt.

“Yeah I remember, so was my dad. We should’ve been there while we were rebuilding but you pushed me away.”

“I didn’t push you away. I needed you, and you weren’t there.” The deep pit of sadness you felt took you back to that day. The day she was shot and you started to sob.

You couldn’t help yourself, you almost lost her and you just needed someone. And the person who’s job it is to be that person, wasn’t there. So being what seemed like a good boss at the time, you fired him. Turns out it wasn’t a good decision for either of you.

“(Y/N),” he rushed towards you and wrapped you in a bear hug. Trying to push him away wouldn’t work, so you let him hold you.

You missed this. You missed him holding you and cuddling you. Sometimes you even missed going to watch him at football practice. When you two broke up and school came back, your whole life style seemed to change. You went from cheering on your boyfriend at footy practice, to sitting at home watching Disney movies while you shovelled ice cream into your mouth.

But the thing you missed most of all was him. Just Archie being Archie, the way he would mess up his hair to make you laugh. The way he would just randomly call you in the middle of the night for no reason. How he always seemed to drive his dads truck on the same day you didn’t want to catch the bus home. All those things were Archie.

“Archie, Archie I’m sorry. I shouldn’t of made you leave, I’m an idiot.” The sobs had stopped but your voice still quivered and a few tears fell down your face.

“No you’re not, you are not a idiot. Now, could be give this,” He gestured to the both of you. “Another chance because, I’m still not over you.”

“Of course Archie, you bid loveable dumbass!”

The two of you went on a date, you liked to call it your second first but Archie wasn’t having it. He wanted to forget you ever broke up in the first place. But ever since you two got back together, people have been noticing your mood change. You were back to your normal, bubbly self.

You eventually told Archie why you looked so tired all the time. The nightmares were too much so you didn’t sleep and he wouldn’t have that. From that day forward he promised to make sure you fell asleep and slept well, even if it went he had to cuddle you to sleep.

Eventually he did go back to sleeping in his own house but the second you call, he answered. It was great, you want to just talk or get something off your chest he was there for you. You didn’t use it too often because Archie needed his sleep too if he was going to be doing all his extracurriculars well.

You clicked your phone on, the time was around 11 pm. You wrapped the thick fuzzy blanket around you a little bit more as you edged closer to the edge of your bed. Scrolling through your messages you found his, Golden Boi.

You pressed the call Botton and put the phone against your ear. It rung out a few time before he answered.

“Are you okay? Another nightmare?” He sounded tired and kind of panicked.

“No,” you giggled quietly. “I just was feeling a bit lonely... and my parents are visiting my grandparents.”

“I’ll be there in 10.”

“Make it five.” You could hear his smile of the other end of the phone as he hung up.

[sudos-random-stuff]

LS - 28

Ch 28 - Screaming into the Unknown

The Ghostwriter walked slowly through the labyrinth of books.

The back of his mind brought fourth a slew of haphazard memories detailing the first few times he had done this. Wandering through the shelving, filled with wonder and awe and terror, instilled with the strange but intricate question: Was this heaven? Or was it merely an oasis that stood drifting through the midst of hell?

But that question had seemed so dull for so many years, now. He’d come to realise it didn’t matter — life went on whether you wanted it to or not, whether you even considered it living or not.

Somehow, this day felt a lot like his first day in the Ghost Zone, in spite of its differences.

… When you got down to it, the ability to twist reality at will wasn’t just uncommon, it was an anomaly.

Over the thirty-three years he had spent in this place, the Ghostwriter had read and read and read, but not once had he ever uncovered even a trace of a human ghost who had wielded a power like his. The only true contender had been the Sorceress, but her power had been described so differently — not so much a reality shift but something more akin to magic. Maybe… maybe that had been the pitfall all these years. Perhaps she truly was the only other who shared his core type, all the while wielding power of such a boggling magnitude.

As he kept walking he realised, with a sickening droop in his stomach, that he was capable of doing anything.

The only other ghosts that truly stood at his level were those that seemed born from concept itself; the few laws of reality that had always eluded his grasp. Time, life, death, and the strange must-be world that laid beyond the bounds of causality — these things were and always would be inaccessible to him. But the ghosts that represented them never seemed human.

Strangely, he felt again as he had the first time he’d walked this path. Stepping quietly into the unknown, struggling to understand the nature of his own being.

And yet, the entire situation was as frightening as it was intoxicating.

It was with the Ghostwriter’s previous change of reality that he suddenly understood the true nature of his own core. He now knew that the limits his keyboard had placed upon him truly were limits of its own — when his power got serious, it didn’t need written words to control it, nor a battery to charge it. While in the act of escaping the Sorceress’s dimension he’d wondered if he might become spent trying to fight her off, but then the simple act of wanting more energy had resulted in its creation from nothing.

He’d watched — no, felt — one of the most serious laws of physics break in front of his very own eyes, and the idea rushed him to the core with an excitement he scarcely wanted to admit.

… How much of that had Jazz heard in his mind, though? It was impossible to tell how much she might know, and this particularly, the way he had felt, was something he was uncomfortable sharing.

Well, it wasn’t like he could stop her from knowing if she did.

Perhaps it was even possible for him to end this little spat with the Sorceress right now, but he shuddered to think what might happen if he misjudged his advantage over her.

Perhaps in the end the real question was this: In a war between the unstoppable force and the immovable object, was it ever actually possible to win?

Jazz’s first real conversation with Mira was an awkward one.

The Script of Sin and Grace sat politely on a side table, exactly where the Ghostwriter had left it. There’d been some quite explicit instructions to not even think about touching it, and as a result, such contemplations had been at least 50 percent on Jazz’s mind at any given time. Her attention was now split between an invisibly inked document of great power and pure misery, and a crumpled, broken ghost that had once had the displeasure of breaking both of Jazz’s arms. He had left them both there alone, disappearing into the depths of his library, apparently seeking out the first swaths of books they’d need to start collectively picking through.

Naturally, she’d felt his hesitation towards leaving the room at all.

Mira was now just starting to get a feel for sitting up on the couch, but she could never quite take her eyes off the human so ill-suited and out-of-place in this environment either. Jazz tried to block the ghost’s thoughts from entering her mind, but even this simple action seemed to be getting ever more difficult as time went on, as her mind hooked more and more automatically into the minds of others. Memories of what she had done to this ghost sliced uncomfortably into her head, and then mixed around with other memories from Mira herself. It was enough to paralyse you.

“I’m so sorry,” Jazz muttered, quickly. “It shouldn’t have come to that, I’m—”

“You’re not worse.”

The rest of Jazz’s sentence fell straight out of her train of thought. “What?”

“Him. He was worse,” said Spectra, and so honestly that it gave Jazz serious pause. “The man who kept me.”

Jazz was pulling herself away from Spectra’s mind by force, now, some primal sense of survival screeching danger from within. “… What are you talking about?” said Jazz, slowly.

Mira’s voice was quiet. “Life.”

A million possibilities ran through Jazz’s head at once, screeching and jeering for equal consideration, each one considerably more horrible than the next. And yet here Mirabella Spectra was, sitting quietly as she stared down at the floorboards beneath her feat.

“… Who was the man who kept you?” Jazz asked, a little more urgently.

Mira didn’t immediately respond, almost as if she was off in some sort of distant dream world. Instead, she started to float away from the couch, and Jazz saw it for real now — this strange, elegant, entrancing way she moved, something Jazz had only seen hazily and infrequently from the inside of the Ghostwriter’s memory. Mira stepped out with grace unlike any other ghost Jazz had ever seen, and like countless individuals before her, she just couldn’t help but stare.

“… Not Ghostwriter, someone else…” Mira muttered, distantly. She was looking around now at all the little suspended dust particles, never having seen anything quite like it before. “Dust, dust everywhere…” she added, apparently in some kind of haze.

A mistake — Jazz had the audacity to stand up. Mira froze midair like a deer in the headlights, still drifting forwards a little even as every one of her muscles locked up tight. Jazz froze too, hands out in front. “Sorry!”

“I thought—” said the ghost, unable to banish a shudder. “—No, sorry, I thought… I don’t know.”

She was only managing whispers at this point, so Jazz took this as a good indication to stay well away from her. And as much as it horrified Jazz to watch the shaken actions of a ghost who had been so terribly taken advantage of, it horrified Jazz much more to cause further harm than she already had. So she did the only thing she could — slowly sit down again, and try to make herself look as though she wasn’t going to be a threat.

Well, not again, anyway.

“… Spec—Mira?” Jazz began, cautiously. “Can I call you that?”

Her gaze drifted down to Jazz  as if she was only half seeing her. “Mm,” she said. “… Mira.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?”

One side of her mouth slid downwards, the other enduring a slight delay before it made a proper frown. “No, I want to… I can move, I want to move around, the other one was always moving for me, and I couldn’t…” Mira hesitated for a second, eyes darting around the room as she twisted midair to see what was behind her. The bottom of that white summer dress followed in a swirl. “I can do everything myself now.”

Jazz watched this spectacle with absolutely no idea what to actually do. She didn’t want to admit it, but a ghost who had suffered in such a way  and still actively traumatised was quite a bit out of her depth. Maybe there wasn’t anything she really should do anyway — maybe it was better just to wait.

Mira swung around to face Jazz again, expression knitting together into honest contemplation. “You’re not the same person as the one in that big house, are you?”

… This was going to take some processing. “Um, what do you mean?”

“… Never mind,” said Mira, quietly.

This painful conversation was cut blissfully short by the Ghostwriter’s sudden reappearance in the middle of the room, prompting Jazz to come uncomfortably close to liberating herself from her own skin. Mira on the other hand simply watched amiably, as if she was already so used to herself performing erratic teleportations that it was no longer a surprise when someone did one in front of her.

Perhaps the whole thing was par for the course, at this point.

The Ghostwriter hadn’t only brought himself, either. At least forty books appeared suspended in the air behind him, not floating — instead, they were simply stopped in time, suspended. It gave one a feeling bordering on anxiety, knowing that the moment time caught up with the fact that it was supposed to flow, all of those were going to come crashing down to the floor.

“Sorry for the wait,” he apologised. “I was testing something.”

Jazz almost hadn’t even considered it waiting. In fact, for having picked out and gathered several dozen different titles, the amount of time the man had taken was little short of a miracle. Mira turned her gaze to him levelly almost as if the sight of him relaxed her, but it certainly didn’t take long for her face to screw up in worry.

“But you always said you might not be able to go back.”

He shot Mira a guilty sideways glance. “It was probably going to happen sooner or later, anyway.”

She shook her head. “But in a few hundred years.”

“Well,” he said, but rather than heated he seemed utterly resigned. “What’s a few hundred years in the face of eternity, anyway?” Short. Overwhelmingly short.

“Do you think you can go back?”

The Ghostwriter shrugged, eventually, while trying his damnedest to look away from Mira and over at the bookshelf instead. “Don’t know. I haven’t tried to yet.”

Of course, Jazz had hooked into exactly what was meant by all of this the moment the ghosts had opened their mouths to discuss it. She could feel the discomfort coming from the Ghostwriter in particular in ebbs and waves, and decided steadfastly not to prod thing — his mental state about the entire situation was haphazard at best and it probably wasn’t worth risking the Jenga tower that was his mind.

“… Do you really think you’re stronger than her?” asked Mira, eventually. The Ghostwriter had been halfway through plucking one of the books out of the air behind him but had stopped this action simply to turn and face her properly. “I mean… you can’t just make her disappear, can you?”

“I can’t make any change that would directly result in her death or otherwise any sort of disappearance from causality,” he elaborated, carefully.

“So what can you do?”

“… That would mean you’d have to find some indirect way of getting rid of her,” said Jazz, finally, who was reluctant to use the word kill but who was also painfully aware of what would need to be done. “So wouldn’t that make the first question, how can you destroy a ghost?”

That was when the Ghostwriter shot Jazz a glance that made her insides wobble. Raw green ectoplasmic energy, so concentrated that she could feel it screeching into existence through her heart, quietly surrounded his fingers.

Mira said nothing. In fact, every time Jazz stole a glance at her, she seemed to have moved slightly further backwards.

“Good question,” said the Ghostwriter. “I’m hoping one of these books is going to give us a good idea, or else I’m just going to have to get creative about it and pray it works.”

I wish I didn’t have to kill her… I wish I didn’t have to use my power like this.

Those words entered Jazz’s mind with no permission whatsoever, and yet she was almost certain they weren’t meant to be heard. Confined to her head and yet still the thought seemed to echo around the room, accompanied by an unmistakable chill that settled into the inside of your skull. There was a tired, measured acceptance of the events that may soon come to pass, and it was the first time the Ghostwriter had really slipped his thoughts on the matter. How had he hidden this feeling from her? All this time? … Or maybe it was only just now that the issue had truly come to a head.

In an attempt to escape from what she’d just heard, Jazz ran down another train of thought. “But,” she began, “How can you even hold all of that power, anyway? I can feel it from here.”

The Ghostwriter looked carefully at his dangerously glowing hand, turning it over and stretching his fingers through the ectoplasmic energy that emanated from it. “I can’t. It’s potential.”

“Potential…?”

He frowned, a strange shade falling over his eyes. “The potential to create energy from nothing at all…” he said, quietly. “When I use my power, I don’t… the energy doesn’t need to come from me. I’m just the conduit.”

“I think most ghosts are like batteries,” Mira added, and then she pointed squarely at him. His eyes zeroed in on the tip of her index finger. “But Ghostwriter’s also kind of like a power line.”

Jazz was still staring at his hand. “Doesn’t this violate one of the most basal laws of physics? What happened to matter cannot be created nor destroyed? I know I’m human and I probably just don’t get it, but even in mum and dad’s experiments, we never found any evidence of ectoplasmic energy coming into being without some kind of conversion or source.”

“… Don’t ask me how it works,” the Ghostwriter said, but only after considering his thoughts carefully. “If I want something to happen, it happens. Reality be damned.”

Mira had finally stopped backing away, and now, it seemed, the curious side of her had her haphazardly leaning forward, squinting at him. “You are kind of like a god.”

“I told you not to say that!”

Unfortunately for the Ghostwriter, Jazz had been paying attention over the past week a little too carefully. “If she truly wanted a god, then she can have one,” she repeated. “I dunno, you kind of admitted it there.”

“Please don’t—”

“I mean, how many other ghosts can create energy from nothing?” Jazz continued, much to the Ghostwriter’s dismay. “Probably—”

“The Sorceress can’t.”

Both sets of eyes shot straight to Mira, and she inched backwards in surprise. “Did I… say something?”

A million tiny scraps of knowledge about the Sorceress rushed through the Ghostwriter’s mind, and he barely stopped himself from summoning her right there and then. Books he’d forgotten he’d ever read constructed themselves out of thin air straight on the floor, the change to reality committed before he could even contemplate stopping it. His eyes darted down and then back up as if embarrassed, and he quickly changed the topic before either of his accomplices might have chance to comment.

“It seems like she can bend reality too, we’ve seen that much,” he began. “But that uses an enormous amount of power. If you can’t make at least some of that on demand—”

Mira almost couldn’t get her own words out — Jazz could see it. The ghost had stopped, leaned forward, almost seeming to choke as she forced herself to speak. “It’s from other ghosts, all of it,” she managed. “Y-you know those stories, how she… killed ghosts, forever? I saw her do it, and she — I don’t know, she makes her whole arm disappear, and then… it’s like she reaches right into their chest and tears their core out, crushes it in her fingers! The light from that, it’s so bright, I think the amount of energy she can get from that is unimaginable…”

Unimaginable was right. Trying to visualise the death of a ghost, as described by a variety of books that detailed the Sorcerer’s terrible and terrific service of Pariah Dark, was like trying to visualise the creation of the universe. You could try as you might to wrap your head around the idea, and yet even if you conceptually understood it a solid visual would never quite come to mind. The Ghostwriter suspected heavily it might look, to a bystander, like a contained nuclear explosion, but the writers of that time were a little bit too early to be able to have nuclear weapons in mind as a point of reference.

“But how can she do all of that without an arm?” asked Jazz, breaking him out of his train of thought.

“I don’t know,” said Mira. “It’s like her arm’s still there, underneath. It’s gotta be in the same phase as a ghost core, right?

Jazz’s mind seemed to be ticking over. She fidgeted as she thought. “Does anyone know what a ghost core’s actually made from?”

Silence.

“… But if you break it open, it causes a huge energy release? Ectoplasmic energy?”

“Something from it likely converts into ectoplasmic energy, if the Sorceress is taking it and saving it for later,” the Ghostwriter added. “Cores are out of phase with ghosts. The Sorceress can manipulate them, though, which… hmm, wouldn’t that suggest she can operate through multiple separate planes of existence?”

If Jazz hadn’t already read his mind, then they might indeed have actually been one and the same person, he was sure of it. Because the next words out of her mouth sounded so predictive, so exact to the wording of his own thoughts, that he wasn’t sure how else they could’ve been sourced. “So, she’s getting energy by killing ghosts on a level that’s essentially an inaccessible plane of existence, and she possibly gets access to that by leveraging an ability to bend reality. Or—”

“Or…?” said Mira, who was staring fixedly at Jazz.

This is the part where Jazz’s thoughts diverged. “Or, she doesn’t have a core ability that allows her to bend reality at all. What if her core ability allows her to shift through dimensions and planes of existence instead? What if the things she does look like reality bending, but are actually more like… I dunno, controlling… how… dimensions go together? Maybe? Manipulating how she can move around in those dimensions?”

The Ghostwriter’s first reaction was to reject this entirely. It sounded like something baked up out of a mind that had little context for the situation, and honestly, that’s… pretty much what this was. The problem herein, however, was that he couldn’t find any scrap of knowledge that might discredit her. To make things even fishier, the Sorceress had already shown herself to heavily favour dimensional jumping, and could obviously operate in some kind of strange etheric form to remove and destroy cores in the first place.

… It was an interesting guess. It still wasn’t magic like the stuff the Sorcerer had always been associated with in lore, but perhaps from an outside perspective, any appearance of bent reality might itself look like magic. Any technology sufficiently advanced, as they say.

The uneasier part of this was that it raised some interesting questions about the flow of time, particularly in hypothetical dimensions where things like that might not be so straightforward. It was true he’d frozen time for every conceivable point of causality, but what about the inconceivable? Could the Sorceress know or operate in some way he couldn’t even imagine? Was there a way to circumvent time itself, or would she merely remain trapped in the dimension she was in? The very idea made his non-existent blood run cold in his veins. Maybe he wouldn’t bring that up, for Mira’s sake. Jazz’s face had already turned white, though — when your partner is a telepath, you’ve little choice but for full transparency.

The Ghostwriter made a mental note to himself, and to Jazz, that he would, from this point forward, be keeping a very close eye on things with all the mental capacity he had available to do so.

“… We need to do some proper research before we commit to anything,” he eventually declared, with a quick glance to the books suspended behind him. “We’ve got about fifty different books that might have relevant information — I’m going to drag Randy back here so he can help. Any objections before I do that?” Jazz shook her head. Mira’s face brightened a little, though, apparently looking forward to seeing him. “Okay, good.”

It was a display of enormous self control, in fact, that Randy hadn’t magically appeared here already. The very moment the Ghostwriter had started thinking about wanting — no, needing — his presence, the risk of an accidental summoning shot straight up. In response, the writer was already beginning to compartmentalise his mind into thinking softly and thinking permanently. The last thing he needed was for a wild daydream to leak into reality, to speak nothing of the other horrors that could accidentally be done. Now, though, now it was time to think permanently — the words arranged themselves in his mind and no sooner had he done that did Randy appear, startled, red-eyed, and for some reason clutching a rifle.

Not a normal rifle, of course. Jazz knew what it was in an instant; a prototype long-range projectile rifle that carried miniaturised prods from the Fenton Inhibitor as its bullets. Randy had managed to grip this so hard that he looked as if ready to break it in half, and then started to stare around at the strange state of the time-frozen library.

“I stopped time,” said the Ghostwriter, helpfully.

“… Huh. So that’s why those books are… stuck, rather than just floating.”

“I didn’t get around to putting them down,” he explained. “… By the way, you might want to take a look to your left.”

Randy’s eyes met with those of the reanimated Mira. He almost seemed to forget about the rifle in his hands and indeed dropped it on one side, causing its tip to strike the floor gently. At first Mira didn’t seem all too inclined to emote, but just when Jazz was thinking it a lost cause, she broke out into an awfully tense but relieved grin. “Hey,” she said. “… Look, I can move!”

Randy smiled just a little, but his eyes zipped back to the Ghostwriter. “Exactly how long did you have time frozen for before you zapped me in here?”

“It felt like fifteen or twenty minutes,” Jazz supplied, trying to be helpful.

Randy turned back to Mira. “… About enough time for you to get your wits together, it seems. And I assume John had something to do with restoring your autonomy?”

It seemed like Mira didn’t quite get it. “Uhh, yeah, I think so?”

“I rewrote her back to normal and took her here.”

“Rewrote, or rethought?”

“Rethought.”

There was a slightly awkward pause in which Jazz and the Ghostwriter didn’t quite want to stop Randy from saying something to Mira, but in which Randy also found himself at a loss for words. He held his free hand up, half pointing and half not pointing at the female ghost in the little white dress. “… It’s good to see you as yourself,” he managed, eventually.

Mira didn’t seem to mind. The Ghostwriter cleared his throat.

“Anyway, I’ve got a job for you. There’s about fifty books here that might have information on the Sorceress here and I’m going to need some help picking through all of them.”

Everyone expected Randy to accept immediately, but that was the exact opposite of what actually happened. His brow furrowed as if he thought he was missing some kind of important joke, and then he looked from the books in the air to the books on the floor in quick succession just to check he wasn’t. After that, his free hand found his opposite arm’s elbow, and rubbed it. “… Why?”

The Ghostwriter stared back, expression blank and confused.

“Look, well, it’s not really my place to explain to you how to use your own powers—” Jazz suddenly realised what was happening, and stifled herself from laughter. “—but couldn’t you just change reality to instantly zap all of the knowledge into our heads in about half a second and with zero percent of the legwork?”

It was the loudest silence Jazz had ever known. The Ghostwriter’s face didn’t move. Mira’s grinned.

“Really?” Randy continued. “You have all of causality at your fingertips, the very fabric of space and dimensions, and you somehow managed to forget that the power that allows you to do anything allows you to do anything? My—”

The Ghostwriter interrupted him, far too green-faced for dignity. “I’ve considered your proposal and offer my own esteemed opinion: Shut up.”

Randy paid no mind. “—It’s not that I’m criticising you or anything, but you could really do to be somewhat more creative—”

“Randy, I can and will create the ideal conditions of your second death,” the Ghostwriter shot back, pointed teeth grinding together. “I may have overlooked some slight logistics of this situation.”

I could disappear right now. Scratch that, I should disappear right now. Definitely should’ve thought of that sooner — in fact, why the hell didn’t I? Damnit, Jazz is looking at me. She must have heard everything.

After a brief period of total humiliation, the writer finally cleared his throat and crossed his arms and realised he’d just have to take it all on the chin after all. “Fine, but just you and Jazz, yes? Mira’s been through more than enough and this might be uncomfortable even outside of that.”

“Uncomfortable?” asked Jazz.

“I’m about to inject potentially fifty books worth of random knowledge directly into your mind in an instant of a second. I have no idea of the psychological implications of that.”

“Just mitigate them,” said Randy, helpfully. The Ghostwriter pretended to pay him no attention but wrote the advice down on his mental scratchpad like a hypochondriac at a doctor’s office anyway.

“… Well, are you ready?”

Jazz nodded. Randy decided to take a seat and simply shoot a lingering indifferent look at his brother, but only after carefully putting the Inhibitor Rifle down on the floor. “In your own time, John.”

Honestly, Jazz was surprised at how smoothly it all went. She didn’t even notice anything different — the Ghostwriter had made no move except tightening the cross of his arms. When you got down to it, the information was simply absent one moment and available the next — Jazz had been expecting some kind of mental whiplash even with Randy’s suggestion, but there was no such thing at all. It was a little unbelievable, really, but then when she thought about the Sorceress suddenly she had all of these unexpected ideas about her wild and ruthless history.

“Well, it seems you didn’t kill anyone,” said Randy, after a moment. It was obvious in his eyes that he was sifting through things in his head, too. “Plenty of people died at the hands of that menace, though.”

“What do you know about her now?”

Mira’s innocent eyes were shining up to them, but there was a silent not-exactly-telepathic debate going on between the three who Knew about whether Mira was really in a good position to be finding out now. In the end, however, it was the Ghostwriter who knew her best, and both Jazz and Randy found themselves awaiting his response.

He said nothing.

There was a small technicality about shoving dozens of books worth of research into your brain at once; you might have had the chance to absorb it, but your mind sure hadn’t had the chance to process it. The Ghostwriter had a feeling he could just think himself into improving that processing power millions of times over, but also concluded that doing so would be objectively terrifying — his library’s current state of timelessness would probably suffice for their safety. After all, as long as he kept everything else suspended in time, there wasn’t much possibility of the Sorceress bursting out of nowhere and disintegrating them.

… But the possibility did still exist, and so he remained sitting on the edge of his comfortable armchair, leaning forward and drumming his fingers upon his knee, filled with staticky nervous energy. He didn’t want to answer questions right now, but fate was going to bring them to him anyway.

“What happened to her?”

Jazz. His Jazz. Mira and Randy were gone by request, and so at least in this room they were alone. And yet, with a question like that, the Ghostwriter’s eyes suddenly felt so overwhelmingly heavy.

“Mira?”

“She said a man had kept her,” Jazz elaborated.

He slumped forward a little more, hand catching his chin. “I see.”

“Well?”

The writer was mulling it over in his head, the ultimate question of whether or not it was even a good idea to tell her. It seemed she was trying her best to keep her mind out of his and ask the questions properly, rather than just extracting answers by force — respectful. The thought of telling her rolled from one side of his head to the other as he contemplated the situation, not quite coming to the best of conclusions but to a resting point nonetheless. “It’s not really my place to give detail,” he began, carefully. “But before this life, she was a kidnapping victim, Jasmine.”

She paused, having already figured this out but wanting to approach the subject with respect. “… For a ransom?” she asked, slowly. When that yielded no response, she continued: “… Human trafficking?”

“I believe it went on for a number of years.” His voice was quiet — maybe even a little fearful. In truth the Ghostwriter felt uncomfortable even acknowledging this, knowing how horrible it had been and how hard Mira herself had tried to put it all behind her. “What happened doesn’t bear describing, really.”

“… Did they kill her?”

No. They hadn’t. The Ghostwriter wasn’t sure if that was any better or if it was worse, and so he stared down at the floor trying to find his voice and failed.

“… Maybe she escaped?” Jazz guessed.

“Mm…” said the Ghostwriter, eventually. “… Well, I suppose you could say that, in a way.”

“What do you mean?”

…

“She took her own life, Jasmine.”

Silence. Jazz somehow backed away without moving.

“Don’t you understand?” he asked. “… Someone who can teleport can escape from almost anything.”

They stared at each other, and Jazz finally understood.

“We can’t ever tell her.”

[investmart007]

WASHINGTON | AP FACT CHECK: Trump's bent reality: Cohen, clean air, taxes

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/Tr2xMg

WASHINGTON | AP FACT CHECK: Trump's bent reality: Cohen, clean air, taxes

WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump is living in an alternate reality when it comes to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and other controversies swirling around him.

He laments the threat of a “perjury trap” in explaining why he’s hesitant to be interviewed by Mueller in the Russia probe, even as Trump’s lawyers assert that Mueller had ruled out trying to indict a sitting president.

Trump also makes the head-scratching claim that the crimes of his ex-lawyer, Michael Cohen, are not criminal and falsely suggests that Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign chairman, should be viewed as innocent even after being found guilty on several bank fraud and other charges.

The statements came in a week of distorted truth in which Trump also complained about a politician plagiarizing his slogan despite his history of doing the same, wrongly claimed his tax cuts are the biggest ever and defied data in declaring the U.S. is No. 1 in environmental quality.

A look at his rhetoric and how they compare with the facts: RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

TRUMP, citing concerns of a “perjury trap”: “So if I say something and he (former FBI director James Comey) says something, and it’s my word against his, and he’s best friends with Mueller, so Mueller might say: ‘Well, I believe Comey,’ and even if I’m telling the truth, that makes me a liar. That’s no good.” — interview with Reuters published Aug. 20.

RUDY GIULIANI, TRUMP’S ATTORNEY: “I am not going to be rushed into having him testify so that he gets trapped into perjury.” — remarks Aug. 19 on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

THE FACTS: They’re making a disingenuous claim. Both Trump and his lawyers point to a threat of perjury charges, even as Giuliani has maintained that Mueller’s team indicated the special counsel had ruled out the possibility of indicting Trump.

Legal experts generally agree that sitting presidents can’t be indicted. Mueller would presumably be bound by Justice Department legal memos from 1973 and 2000 suggesting that a sitting president is immune from indictment and that criminal charges would undermine the ability of the commander in chief to do the job.

Trump and Giuliani falsely suggest that Mueller would be able to easily bring a perjury indictment based solely on Comey’s contradictory testimony. In fact, perjury charges are often difficult to prove: Mueller would have to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump intentionally lied. A conflicting statement from Trump doesn’t rise to a criminal offense if he arguably misunderstood, forgot, misspoke or misremembered information.

Mueller could also prepare a report detailing allegations intended for Congress to act upon as an impeachable offense. But impeachment is a political rather than a legal concept, strongly influenced by whichever party is in control of Congress.

Trump’s assertion of a “perjury trap” comes as he and his lawyers have hedged on an interview amid a months-long negotiation over whether and how investigators can question the president on possible obstruction of justice in the Russia probe. Mueller’s team has put forward questions including about his firing of Comey last year and his public antagonism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. ___ 2016 ELECTION

TRUMP: “You know, they kept saying I had a problem with the women’s vote; I get 52 percent in the election.” — remarks Friday in Columbus, Ohio.

THE FACTS: No. Trump appears to be citing a figure pertaining to white women only.

Among all women, about 54 percent nationally voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to exit polls, compared with Trump’s 41 percent. ___

COHEN AND MANAFORT

TRUMP: “Michael Cohen plead guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime.” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: False. The campaign finance violations are crimes. While it’s not a crime to pay someone to keep quiet, the Justice Department says the hush money payments arranged by Cohen to conceal allegations of Trump’s extramarital affairs were actually unreported campaign contributions meant to influence the outcome of the election.

That’s a critical assertion because it makes the payments subject to campaign finance laws, which restrict how much people can donate to a campaign and bar corporations from making direct contributions.

Though some campaign finance experts suggested before the guilty plea that the payments to two women who say they had sex with Trump could have been arranged for other purposes, such as protecting Trump’s personal reputation, Cohen himself acknowledged that the goal was to affect the election and protect Trump’s candidacy.

The $150,000 payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal by National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc. and the $130,000 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels far exceeded permissible campaign contribution limits. ___ TRUMP: “A large number of counts, ten, could not even be decided in the Paul Manafort case. Witch Hunt!” — tweet Wednesday.

THE FACTS: The jury’s lack of consensus on 10 of 18 counts hardly makes Manafort an innocent man, or supports the notion that Mueller’s investigation is a “witch hunt.” Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, was found guilty on eight counts, including filing false tax returns and two bank fraud charges that will almost certainly guarantee years of prison for him.

On the 10 other counts, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict; they did not acquit him of those charges. Federal prosecutors have the option to try him again on those charges or accept what they’ve got.

Manafort faces another trial in Washington next month on separate charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S., money laundering and witness tampering. ___ POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

TRUMP: “Bill DeBlasio, the high taxing Mayor of NYC, just stole my campaign slogan: PROMISES MADE PROMISES KEPT! That’s not at all nice. No imagination!” — tweet Tuesday.

TRUMP: “‘Promises Made, Promises Kept.’ They’re copying it now, the Democrats.” — West Virginia rally Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Trump is a slogan copycat himself. His slogan about promises made and kept was used by President Barack Obama in his 2012 campaign. Republican John Engler used it when he ran for re-election as Michigan governor in 1994.

“Make America Great Again” was used by President Ronald Reagan, preceded by “Let’s.”

“Drain the swamp” was a mantra of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi during the 2006 midterm election campaigns, in what turned out to be Democrats’ successful bid to take control of the House. ___ CLEAN AIR

TRUMP: “I want clean air. I want crystal clean water. And we’ve got it. We’ve got the cleanest country in the planet right now. There’s nobody cleaner than us.” — West Virginia rally Tuesday. THE FACTS: The United States does not have the cleanest air on Earth. Not even close.

The Associated Press consulted five databases and reports. Each showed countries with cleaner air both in dangerous small particles and in ozone, which is smog.

For example, the Health Effects Institute’s state of global air report found 65 countries with less smog when adjusted for season and population. Those include Sweden, Switzerland, France, Germany, Norway, Canada and Venezuela. And in the more dangerous small particles, or soot, eight countries bested the U.S. Among them were Finland, Sweden and Norway.

Yale’s performance index ranks the United States 10th in overall air quality behind Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand and others. But when it comes to dangerous soot exposure levels, the United States ranked 87th, just behind the Philippines.

When it comes to clean water, the data comes close to supporting Trump. Yale’s team took the top countries in the world on drinking water and ranked them all No. 1, including the United States, although there are some technical differences among them. ___ TAXES

TRUMP: “It is the biggest tax cut in the history of our country and you people are benefiting by it.” — West Virginia rally Tuesday. THE FACTS: This biggest-ever claim has become one of the president’s favorite fabrications.

His tax cuts are nowhere close to the biggest in U.S. history. It’s a $1.5 trillion tax cut over 10 years. As a share of the total economy, a tax cut of that size ranks a lowly 12th, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Are people already seeing benefits from the tax cuts? Companies definitely are.

Economic growth has picked up this year because of the deficit-financed stimulus. Companies are taking their tax savings and buying back stock at a record pace, according to TrimTabs Investment Research.

But so far, the tax cuts haven’t delivered a major shot of financial adrenaline to most families.

One recent estimate by former Treasury Department official Ernie Tedeschi is that the cuts are adding $50 a month to average take-home pay, a figure that falls to $17 a month when higher state and local taxes are included in the estimate.

Nor are the cuts fueling higher wage growth. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that wages have dropped in the past 12 months after adjusting for inflation. ___ IMMIGRANTS AND CRIME

TRUMP, praising Immigration and Customs Enforcement: “To hear some of the stories going on with MS-13, you wouldn’t believe it. And they’re doing an incredible job. They’re actually liberating towns.” — remarks Aug. 20.

TRUMP: “A vote for any Democrat in November is a vote to eliminate immigration enforcement, throw open our borders and set loose vicious predators and violent criminals. They’ll be all over our communities. They will be preying on our communities.” — West Virginia rally Tuesday.

THE FACTS: Trump suggests that weak border enforcement is contributing to crime committed by MS-13. But the gang actually has many U.S.-born members at this point — people who by virtue of U.S. citizenship can’t be denied entry based on their nationality, or deported. The government has not said recently how many members it thinks are citizens and immigrants. In notable raids on MS-13 in 2015 and 2016, most of the people caught were found to be U.S. citizens.

More broadly, Trump overgeneralizes about people who arrive illegally in the U.S. Several studies have shown that immigration does not lead to increased crime.

Foreign-born immigrants are less likely to commit crime than native-born Americans, the research found, but crime rates rise for succeeding generations as the children and grandchildren of immigrants become more like native-born Americans. ___ TRUMP: “We have MS-13 on the run. They’ve poured in here with Obama, we have them on the run.” — remarks Tuesday.

THE FACTS: There’s no evidence that MS-13 gangs “poured in” during the Obama administration. The Justice Department has said there are about 10,000 MS-13 members in the U.S., the same number as more than a decade ago.

Trump’s Justice Department has indirectly credited the Obama administration, in its early years, with putting heavy pressure on the gang. It said, “Through the combined efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement, great progress was made diminishing or severely (disrupting) the gang within certain targeted areas of the U.S. by 2009 and 2010.” ___ TRUMP: “The new platform of the Democrat Party is to abolish ICE.” — remarks Friday in Columbus, Ohio.

TRUMP: “Leading members of the Democrat Party have even launched a campaign to abolish ICE. In other words, they want to abolish America’s borders.” — remarks Aug. 20.

THE FACTS: While some Democrats in the House and Senate have raised the prospect of eliminating Immigration and Customs Enforcement, no top Democrats in the House or Senate have called for such a move. Those Democrats who have expressed openness to eliminating ICE have said they would not abandon border enforcement, which is largely carried out by Customs and Border Protection. ___ By HOPE YEN ,  Associated Press ___

[junker-town]

The Jaguars defensive line will chase you down like a swarm of angry wasps

Retired NFL defensive end Stephen White is giving the Hoss of the Week award to an entire unit. They damn sure earned it.

When I went looking for a Hoss recipient on Monday I expected to be able to narrow it down to one guy or maybe even two, like I did for Chargers teammates Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa. After watching the way the Jaguars annihilated the Colts on Sunday, I decided that their whole defensive line deserved a shout out.

Look man, that performance was incredible. And I don't give a damn what you say about Indy's offensive line, before Sunday the most Colts quarterback Jacoby Brissett had been sacked in any one game was four times. The Jaguars defensive line more than doubled that by themselves.

Lets run the numbers:

Nine of the ten sacks for the game were produced by the defensive line (For context the Tampa Bay Buccaneers don't have nine sacks as a team for the season).

The defensive line also had eight pressures by my count and remember my definition of pressure means you have to be close to the quarterback and the pass has to be incomplete.

They also had one pass knockdown.

And out of Brissett's four scrambles, the defensive line made the tackle twice.

You add that all up and it means Jacksonville's defensive line helped to end the play on at least 20 passing plays out of the 50 times on Brissett dropped back to throw on Sunday. That's a cool 40 percent success rate which is absolutely fucking insane!

At first I was thinking about naming just Yannick Ngakoue as Hoss, since he had the most sacks on the day with two and a half, but when you watch the film it’s so clear that pretty much everybody on the Jags defensive line put in on this.

Hell, they had six different guys get at least half a sack, and three of those dudes are technically backups. The film also showed that most of those sacks and hurries were the result of those guys up front working together as well.

In Week 1, the Jaguars also had ten sacks against the Texans in a similarly dominant fashion, but I really thought Calais Campbell's efforts stood out above everybody else's. This time I felt like it was more evened out among the whole group.

Dante Fowler is a guy who I have criticized in the past for not being diverse as a pass rusher, just running down the middle of offensive tackles too much. Now, he has started to work his moves more lately and getting on the edge of blockers, so he is finally pulling his own weight. With Fowler coming on strong and Campbell, Ngakoue, and Malik Jackson continuing to ball tf out, I don't think there is any question that the Jaguars currently have the best pass rushing front four in the league.

That's something I am sure Brissett can attest to.

You ever mess with a wasp nest when you were a kid and the wasps got pissed and start chasing your ass? That's how it had to feel to be Brissett on Sunday.

Rather than go through all of the plays the Jags's defensive line made, I will just describe a few of them for y’all that best exemplify that wasp analogy and also why the defensive line as a group was worthy of praise.

First of all, the Colts had a first-and-10 with 1:39 to go in the second quarter on their own 44-yard line. (Oh, I forgot to mention that 11 of the 17 combined sacks and pressures occurred when the Colts were already at least at their own 44-yard line). Ngakoue was at left defensive end, Jackson was at left three-technique, Campbell was at right three technique and Fowler was at right defensive end.

On the snap off the football Ngakoue and Jackson executed a TEX game where the three-technique gets upfield in the B gap and the defensive end sells speed rush first, then loops inside to the A gap.

On the other side, Fowler was working a speed rush while Campbell tried an inside move.

Colts right guard Le'Raven Clark ended up stuck on Jackson's B gap rush, leaving Ngakoue a free path to the quarterback. Fowler's speed rush forced Brissett to step up so that he couldn't avoid Ngakoue's rush.

Then, while Ngakoue grabbed Brissett to try to take him down, Campbell, who kept working even though he was double teamed by Indy left guard Jeremy Vujnovich and center Ryan Kelly, came back outside and prevented Brissett from escaping the pocket that way.

Where "prevented" really means Campbell grabbed Brissett up top while Ngakoue had him down low and damn near made a pretzel out of him. It wouldn't be the last time.

It really warmed my heart to see those cats working together like that to get the quarterback on the ground. And that was kind of the recurring theme for the day.

Check out the sack with just 19 seconds left in the first half.

For context, the Colts had a first-and-10 at their own 48-yard line after their defense created a turnover by sacking Blake Bortles and forcing him into a fumble that they recovered. They had enough time for a couple of plays to help them get into field goal range, in theory.

In theory.

This time the Jags lined up with Ngakoue, Jackson and Campbell all on the right side of the center (as the defense views things) and Fowler all by his lonesome on the left side of the center at left defensive end. But it was a set up.

Clark saw Campbell lined up in the opposite A gap between Vijnovich and Kelly and correctly anticipated that Campbell would try to cross the center's face on the snap of the football to even up the pass rush lanes. Because of this, Clark stepped toward Campbell likely thinking he would ultimately end up being the one who had to block him. What he evidently didn't anticipate was that Fowler would stunt inside of right tackle Joe Haeg, because Fowler was actually running an EX game (end comes into B gap, Tackle wraps behind him outside) with Campbell the whole time.

Fowler, seeing Clark's back and no doubt smelling blood, exploded into Clark's chest just as Clark turned back to try to block him.

Timbeeeeeerrrrr!

It took about three seconds, but Clark finally ened up on his back as a result of that blow, while Fowler continued on his merry way to the quarterback.

While all this was going on on the other side of the center, Ngakoue, after initially getting up field on left tackle Anthony Castonzo, looped inside to the A gap behind Jackson who was upfield in the B gap. Fowler ended up being a little off balance after having peter rolled Clark, so Brissett was able to shake him in space. But Brissett couldn't try to scramble to his right because by that time Campbell arrived from his long ass loop from right A gap to left C gap. That left Brissett with only one avenue of escape.

He tried to take off running straight ahead, but Ngakoue, who had gone as far as the left A gap before changing directions, took off like a shot and got to Brissett before he could make it past the line of scrimmage. That's what you call teamwork right there.

Alright, last one.

With 3:55 left in the third quarter and the game already well out of hand, the Colts were threatening to finally put some points on the board with a first-and-10 at the Jacksonville 14-yard line. This time Eli Ankou was in at left defensive tackle in the left A gap. Ngakoue was on the bench. Fowler was at left defensive end, with Jackson and Campbell at right three-technique and defensive end, respectively.

At the snap, Jackson did a stutter-punch to a rip move to get upfield on Vujnovich. Campbell initially got upfield as if he was going to bullrush Castonzo, but then came inside with an arm over once he saw Jackson already upfield for contain. This had the effect of boxing in Brissett on that side.

On the other side of the center, Fowler came off and executed a beautiful long arm on Haeg, mushing him back past the level of the quarterback. Clark, who had been helping block Ankou with backup center Mike Person, tried to help block Fowler, but it was too late. Fowler slid off inside to grab Brissett around the waist and at the same time Campbell came zooming up the pike in the A gap.

The ensuing tandem takedown gave me a Dudley Boyz 3-D flashback. If that game went any longer Brissett was going to need a back-e-otomy.

Of course there were also some really impressive individual efforts from the defensive line for several of those sacks and pressures, like Sheldon Day's rip and run to beat Clark for a sack early in the fourth quarter. Or Campbell's out-in-out hump move with 7:37 left to go in the game. But the Jaguars defensive line was at its best when it worked together on Sunday.

Calais Campbell, Malik Jackson, Yannick Ngakoue, Dante Fowler, Sheldon Day, Eli Ankou, Abry Jones, Dauwaune Smoot, and Lerentee McCray — who is listed as a linebacker but rushed as a defensive end at the end of the game so I'm claiming him — all contributed to that dominating performance. All of those guys deserve the accolades from it. That group combined for 10 sacks, eight pressures, two caused fumbles, one pass knocked down, one tackle for a loss and eleven other tackles in only 66 plays.

That kind of production is entirely friggin’ nuts, which is why the Jacksonville Jaguars defensive line are my Hosses Of The Week for Week 7 of the NFL season.

The for damn sure earned it!

[flauntpage]

This Is The Year Zach Ertz Actually Breaks Out, and Other Fantasy Values for Week 1

Jim McCormick has covered fantasy football for ESPN for over 10 years. Each week, he’ll go over the best daily fantasy values and waiver wire pickups. This week, he focuses on Zach Ertz, who is poised for a breakout season in both fantasy and real-life. The numbers say so.

Baseball front offices got infinitely sharper when it became clear amid the Moneyball era that a range of outcomes for each player could be compared against the huge database of previous performance.

For instance, it wouldn’t take a very sophisticated statistical model to map out the very likely demise of aging power hitters. If age, injury history, and diversity of skills—such as defense and plate discipline—were factored in, you’d assume no competent general manager would have allocated Ryan Howard the money and years Ruben Amaro Jr. did in April of 2010.

It’s not that it was impossible for Howard to live up to the massive pact, it’s that doing so would have required bucking a massive sample size of Cecil Fielders before him. Amaro was betting a 34-year-old Howard would still be mashing instead of just cashing. There is an alternative outcome, likely one that would only occur with a probability of five or six percent, where Howard carried the Phillies’ power production into his mid-30s. In the end, the most likely outcome unfolded.

Banking on outliers isn’t always an awful practice, as there are undoubtedly human elements to a player and/or team that no spreadsheet can consider. Data shouldn’t define the decision process, but it should be part of it. Systemic dismissal of clear trends is often managerial malpractice in professional sports.

To pivot to fantasy football, Amaro definitely drafted Adrian Peterson and Frank Gore on all of his teams this season.

We’ll allow that incredibly overwritten intro to segue into a discussion of the upcoming NFL season through the lens of fantasy football and nerdy numbers. Football doesn’t translate nearly as well to predictive analytics as baseball, the ultimate Excel sport, but we do have an increasingly rich base of data to consider.

The Amaro example serves as precedent to consider how established trends should earn our attention when analyzing sports, particularly at the fantasy level. (I also used to cover the Phillies, and Amaro would have a separate presser at 3 PM most days, like 90 minutes before Charlie and the players were available for BP. All so he could tell the 11 disheveled reporters Utley’s knee was doing better. Thus, I’ll take shots when I can.)

Viewing the Eagles as a fantasy portfolio, I’m finally buying Zach Ertz as a breakout fantasy commodity after years of fading him. Rotoviz posts similarity comps for each skill position to help us get an idea of which previous seasons are viable future outcomes for a given player. We find Ertz in some strong company in regards to his career arc.

What have tight ends with similar age, experience, physical measurables and production to Ertz accomplished in past seasons?

Jason Witten finished second to Tony Gonzalez at the position in PPR (point-per reception) formats in 2008. Martellus Bennett was fourth behind only historic touchdown producers Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham and Antonio Gates in 2014. Witten was fifth at the position in fantasy production in 2011. The top career comparables for Ertz suggest he’s wading in the top-five territory among tight ends for 2017. Sure, Ertz could be a low-end outlier of this collective, but I’m willing to bet he’s closer the median performance. I find the results of this comparative tool intriguing beyond fantasy football, as this is an Eagles team that really doesn’t have any impressive youth at the skill positions, thus it could prove pivotal to have a mid-20s player like Ertz take his game to another level.

A lack of touchdowns on Ertz’s resume has in part kept him from consideration for the top-tier at the position in both real and fantasy regards, but opportunity rates suggest positive regression should be on the way. The larger set of numbers suggest a correction is coming.

Ertz fielded 16 targets in the end zone over the past two seasons, tied with Gronkowski (who played six fewer games over this sample) for eighth at the position. Ertz caught four of these valuable looks for touchdowns– 25%. The conversion rate for NFL tight ends since 2015 is 43%. Cincinnati’s Tyler Eifert sports a ridiculous 79% rate, which is rare, but most of the big names at the position are north of 30%.

Ertz caught three of his nine end zone targets from Carson Wentz last season. Wentz threw into the end zone 37 times with a completion rate of 24.3%. The average completion rate on end zone throws league-wide last season was 37%. To avoid suffocating you with more stats, both Ertz and Wentz are due for positive regression in the touchdown department on such throws.

Their names also end in the letter Z and it’s quite likely they attend secret Z meetings together in the offseason—undoubtedly upping their rapport in the process. But seriously, if you told me Ertz and Wentz did Outward Bound together this offseason, I’d believe it. Even if there isn’t an established correlation for value, please inject players-hanging-out-with-the-quarterback-in-the-offseason narrative directly into my veins.

This passing battery should prove simpatico statistically if solely because Doug Pederson will set up play dates within the playbook; Wentz threw 172 passes to his tight ends last season, the most in the league by nearly 18%. Ertz’s 98 targets last season represent just 56% of the market share Wentz, by proxy of Pederson, created for the position in 2016. The absence of Jordan Matthews as a target magnet over the middle should also help, as Wentz was fourth in the NFL in passes between the hashes as a rookie.

Ertz has been tabbed a slow starter in his career, and this proves accurate via data; he’s averaged just 3.3 receptions and 40.7 yards and .11 touchdowns in games played in the first eight weeks since 2014. From Week 9 on? He’s averaged 5.7 catches, 61.4 yards and .27 touchdowns over the past three seasons. I figure the Eagles’ staff just needs to fuck with his phone or go full Truman Show and convince Ertz it’s already November. But really, injuries and schematic overhauls are likely the strongest corollaries for the sluggish starts. A big debut against an exploitable Washington defense would prove a welcome signal that these splits might just be noise.

Ertz doesn’t need anything remarkable to occur for a breakout season; simply the confluence of career arc, positive regression and one of the best usage scenarios in the NFL.

Well shit, I could have posted this piece a few weeks ago in time for your fantasy draft in order to actually provide a service. But how about in DFS? Ertz is 10th in pricing among tight ends on DraftKings at just $3,500 this week– the same price as the Panthers’ D/ST. The Redskins allowed just over 69 (nice) yards per game to tight ends last season, third most in the league, along with 11.6 yards per catch after initial contact, most in the NFL (as if Ertz breaks tackles). We can seek to exploit this lag between opportunity and expectation.

You’ve already likely drafted your team and there are plenty of start/sit and rankings resources around to rely on, so in future weeks, I’ll try to avoid verbose baseball analogies and instead work to identify market inefficiencies in fantasy football. Whether the focus is the waiver wire in traditional redraft leagues or the daily fantasy market, I’ll try to highlight some of the names and numbers that pop up as I work on player projections for ESPN each week. (Those player burbs you see on ESPN? I wrote 12,244 words on the AFC this past Sunday and Monday.)

In order to analyze more than one player this week, here are some of the other values I’m pursuing in Week 1, specifically when it comes to DraftKings:

Quarterback

Wentz shines as a value play on DraftKings at just $5,300, as Fantasy Labs (awesome resource) affords him one the highest value ratings at the position. He’s also leading the position in Bible scripture read this week, so there are real reasons to like Wentz in DFS and redraft this week.

Or we can turn to Carson Palmer, Wentz’s older ginger Sherpa. Palmer is a bit pricier than Wentz ($6,000) and went really cheap or even undrafted in most season-long fantasy leagues. The Lions pressured quarterbacks on just 20.2% of dropbacks last season, last in the NFL, while Palmer was third in air yards per attempt. Which is to say, an old guy who likes to throw the ball vertically could shine against a no-show pass rush. Detroit also allowed a 72% completion rate last season and this game has some positive Vegas metrics; such as a tight spread favoring the Cards and a healthy point total nearing 50 points.

If you drafted Andrew Luck or Philip Rivers (Denver has allowed multiple passing touchdowns just a few times over the past two seasons), Palmer is an ideal streaming signal-caller.

Running Back

Carlos Hyde fits my narrative checklist for the offseason; his value was dampened by buzz that the coaching staff supposedly hated him, he lost a good bit of weight, and his name is Carlos. Kyle Shanahan might be a running game whisperer (Alfred Morris!), and Hyde is an advanced data darling in the sense he forces lots of tackles per touch. Most importantly, Hyde doesn’t cost anything ($4,600 on DK) and plays atop a shallow depth chart. Did you see that slant route for the score in the preseason? I’m in a narrative coma at this point.

Sticking with the Eagles, if you want to pay punt pricing for your backfield, pairing Hyde with Darren Sproles is a solid move. Sproles was eighth among all backs last season in routes run per game, and the Birds were eighth in targeting tailbacks. The ceiling isn’t so high for Sproles unless he’s playing the Steelers, but a stable floor is helpful when loading up at receiver.

Receiver

Larry Fitzgerald is clearly aging, because he doesn’t go very far anymore. His average target is close to the line of scrimmage, and while Palmer likes to throw deep at times, Fitzgerald led the league in receptions last season (no really) as an elite security blanket. I barely go more than two miles from I house, so I get it, Larry. Read the part above about how bad the Lions’ pass defense proved. Fitz tops several predictive models, including those of Fantasy Labs. For those chasing tournaments, sub 4.3 burner J.J. Nelson should see the field for over 40 plays and was WR2 over the past six weeks of 2016.

The Titans’ Eric Decker is another veteran we can identify as a value play, as his touchdown rate with a variety of quarterbacks over his career has proven prolific. We don’t know who Marcus Mariota will click with in the red zone this season (where he’s among the most efficient quarterbacks in the league), so Decker is a cheap name in both redraft and DFS to consider against an Oakland secondary that could be exploitable on the outside.

Tight End

Ertz.

Defense

The Chargers are cheap in DFS and widely available in most redraft leagues. The Bolts also have a wrecking crew of pass rushers and created the second-highest pressure rate in the league last season; producing a hit, hurry or sack on nearly a third of opposing dropbacks. Quarterbacks don’t like pressure. I don’t like peeing next to people, so I get it. Trevor Siemian averaged fewer than three yards per dropback under pressure last season. Trevor loves peeing next to people. This defense could be fun.

This Is The Year Zach Ertz Actually Breaks Out, and Other Fantasy Values for Week 1 published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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Match report: Crows edge determined Blues

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ADELAIDE has survived an almighty scare from Carlton and maintained its hold on a top-two spot with a hard-fought 12-point win at the MCG on Saturday, its fourth straight win at the venue.

The Crows entered the match as the competition’s highest scoring team and looked set to do as they pleased when they rammed on four unanswered goals in the opening 15 minutes.

Full match details and stats

But the Blues soon got the game back on their defensive terms and threatened to pull off an upset win when a Dale Thomas goal put them one point in front at the 12-minute mark of the final term.

The Crows then kicked the next three goals to prevail 13.11 (89) to 12.5 (77) and leapfrog GWS to the top of the table, pending the result of the Giants’ clash with Geelong at Spotless Stadium on Saturday night.

The Blues cut an 18-point quarter-time deficit to six points at half-time and drew level midway through the third term when they kicked three of the first five goals in the third term.

Five talking points: Carlton v Adelaide

But Adelaide kicked the final six scores before three-quarter time – only one was a goal – and appeared to have a comfortable buffer when Josh Jenkins extended their lead to 17 points with a goal early in the final quarter.

The Blues, however, were not about to roll over. Goals to Charlie Curnow and Matt Wright cut the margin to five points before Thomas’ goal from 49m gave them the lead for the first time all day.

Taylor Walker levelled the scores with a behind three minutes later and a rushed behind soon after gave the Crows the lead.

A clever left-foot snap from Matt Crouch at the 18-minute mark put Adelaide seven points up and consecutive goals by Jenkins and Riley Knight then put the result beyond doubt.

Brodie Smith (30 possessions and one goal), Brad Crouch (30 possessions, six clearances and 10 tackles) and Matt Crouch (29 possessions, nine clearances and one goal) were prolific ball-winners for the Crows, and were ably supported by Richard Douglas (25 possessions, eight clearances and seven inside 50s).

Jake Lever’s class was important in defence for the Crows, Daniel Talia kept Levi Casboult (two goals) quiet for most of the day and Jenkins chipped in with a game-high three goals.

Adelaide coach Don Pyke was proud of his team’s ability to grind out a win against a tough defensive opponent.

“It was always going to be one of those (ugly sort of) games. Carlton have played that sort of style most of the year and, to their credit, they’re a really strong, defensive side, so we knew they were going to try and play that style because that’s the way they’ve done it and they’ve won some games doing that, so I’m just proud of our guys for hanging in there,” Pyke said.

“We got challenged in the last quarter – Carlton got in front – and we were able to find a way to get a win.

“Sometimes that’s what you do in this game. It’s not always about high-scoring and free-flowing footy. It’s a good test case for what we think we’re going to experience in the coming weeks, so we learn and reflect and move on.”

Bryce Gibbs (30 possessions, 15 tackles and seven clearances) was outstanding for Carlton through the midfield and kicked two goals – the second of them after a spectacular pack mark early in the third term – and set up a Liam Sumner goal in the third quarter with a beautifully weighted chip pass.

Born-again key defender Liam Jones (19 disposals, nine marks and 10 one-percenters) and ruckman Matthew Kreuzuer (14 possessions, eight marks and 42 hit-outs) continued their  outstanding recent form, while second-year forward Charlie Curnow (22 possessions and 11 marks) served notice of his boundless potential.

Patrick Cripps (29 possessions, nine clearances, three contested marks and one goal) and Marc Murphy (29 possessions, nine tackles and five inside 50s) were also influential for the Blues through the midfield.

Carlton coach Brendon Bolton said his team’s performance showed how much it had grown since its 60-point loss to the Crows at the MCG in round 16 last year.

Bolton said the Blues had been able to get back into the game late in the first quarter by starting to press and getting the game played in their front half.

But he said they would have to learn from their failure to get over the line in the last quarter.

“They’re not big things, they’re an accumulation of little things: misconnection with the footy, maybe not taking ground under pressure when required, missed tackles,” Bolton said of the areas that had let his team down.

“I think that’s what it is in high performance, the accumulation of little things. Our players understand that, but you’ve sometimes got to live it to really appreciate it and we’ll do that.

“We’ll go and have a good look at it.”

The game’s opening 15 minutes suggested the contest might prove a true reflection of the teams’ ladder positions, when the second-placed Crows sliced through the 15th-placed Blues’ defences to kick four unanswered goals.

Carlton did not score until the 25-minute mark, when David Cuningham converted a set shot from 35m. It was the Blues’ only score for the quarter, but they had managed to keep Adelaide scoreless in the second half of the term, ensuring they went into the first break just 18 points down.

The Crows continued to find goals hard to come by in the second term and it was Blues midfielder Cripps who kicked the first major of the term, when he bombed a set shot from 53m after taking a strong mark on the lead.

Gibbs cut the Crows’ lead to six points when he added another goal for Carlton two minutes later.

The teams went goal for goal in the second half of the term.

First, Knight converted for Adelaide after receiving a free kick at top of the goal square, then Jack Silvagni kicked truly for the Blues after a two-bounce run. Rory Sloane hit back for the Crows when he goaled from short range after a spectacular pack mark, only to watch his direct opponent, Sam Kerridge, burst from the next centre bounce and bomb a 60m major.

At half-time, the Crows led by six points.

MEDICAL ROOM Carlton: Caleb Marchbank landed heavily on his right shoulder after a marking contest early in the final quarter. After going down to the Blues’ rooms for assessment, Marchbank returned to the action soon after. Lachie Plowman appeared to hurt a finger in the last term but played on. Jacob Weitering also came from the ground in the final term favouring an ankle. Carlton coach Brendon Bolton said after the game he expected all three defenders to be “OK”. “I haven’t been given a message that they won’t be right, so I would have thought they’re all all right. (They’re) just sore, you get that in those sort of games.” 

Adelaide: Kyle Hartigan reached for his hamstring as he tried to spoil Charlie Curnow on the wing late in the third quarter. The Crows defender was near the interchange bench at the time and hobbled straight there before being helped down to the rooms. He played no further part in the match. A Crows spokesman confirmed after the game Hartigan had suffered a hamstring injury, but said the club would have “to wait and see” how severe it was. Coach Don Pyke later added: “We’ll certainly have to replace Kyle.”

NEXT UP The Crows host the Western Bulldogs at the Adelaide Oval next Friday night, which will be the first time the teams have met at the new home of South Australian football. The Blues take on Melbourne at the MCG next Sunday, having lost to the Demons at the same venue earlier in the year, by 22 points in round two.

CARLTON           1.0       5.1       8.2       12.5 (77) ADELAIDE          4.0       6.1       9.7       13.11 (89)

GOALS Carlton: Gibbs 2,Casboult 2, Cuningham, Cripps, Silvagni, Kerridge, Sumner, Curnow, Wright, Thomas Adelaide: Jenkins 3, Betts 2, Knight 2, Smith, McGovern, Sloane, Walker, Jacobs, M.Crouch

BEST Carlton: Gibbs, Cripps, Jones, Kreuzer, Kerridge, Curnow Adelaide: M.Crouch, Smith, B.Crouch, Jenkins, Douglas, Lever

INJURIES Carlton: Marchbank (right shoulder), Plowman (dislocated finger), Weitering (ankle) Adelaide: Hartigan (hamstring)

Reports: Nil

Umpires: Dalgleish, Harris, Pannell

Official crowd: 33,433 at the MCG

More to come.

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