#I was watching and typing and I paused right before the box of doom roll and I’m so anxious

[feelingtheaster99]

LEAVE. Why are you still talking and planning. She has JUMPED out the window and called out to arms; you do not have time to TALK.

[wlwreader]

Dancing with the Devil

A/N: Just a little preamble before you start reading. This Natalia is pretty different in the way she treats reader in this fic compared to my other fic for a few reasons(Devil’s Advocate. Not a necessary read for this one, but if you enjoy this fic you’ll definitely enjoy that one) I had kind of come up with like I guess my own little world. So I considered the black box+collar from my other fic to be a marriage proposal of sorts. You’re pretty much her soulmate, in that you’re souls are bound in a way after you’ve put the collar on. Yes in my world succubi and incubi can only take one mate, so you’re her personal juice box for eternity and she’s allowed to feel some type of way

Summary: You’re back where you belong.

Warning: Somnophilia, Dacryphilia, Voyeurism if you like squint real hard, Overstimulation, Ruined Orgasm, Oral Fixation again if you squint but not as hard, Kitten/Pet and Mistress calling, oh and uh Tail Fucking

WC: 5.2K+

Pairing: Succubus!Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

Days pass in a blur after that night, Natalia having burrowed her way into your every thought, forcing you to continue your life on autopilot. Even in your dreams she haunts you, mind plagued with visions of gleaming red eyes and that devilish grin that always sends your pulse racing (for reasons you refuse to admit to yourself). You try desperately to convince yourself that there has to be a reason she won’t leave your mind, that she must’ve put some kind of hex on you or maybe it’s some lingering effect from being railed by a succubus, anything other than you wanting her. You can’t want her, not when the only way you’ll ever be able to see her again is becoming some sort of sex slave...forever. In any other context, being someone’s fuck toy for the rest of your life would be nice, might even be considered ideal, not having to worry about your financial state and the promise of good sex. But forever with an immortal being? There’s really only one way for you to interpret that and eternity is a terribly long time to be someone’s personal plaything...right?

You shouldn’t even have to try to convince yourself that it’s something you don’t want. No matter how sinfully good she is with her mouth or how she seems to know all the right angles to hit just the right spot that leaves your toes curling and your eyes rolling towards the back of your head or how-

You flop back onto your bed with a groan, trying to stop that train of thought from progressing any further before you’re doomed imagining all the things you want Natalia to do to you for the rest of the night. A sigh slips past your lips as you roll on your side, ready to force yourself to fall asleep, when your gaze lands on the small black box that still rests on your bedside table and all your dirty thoughts come rushing back to the forefront of your mind, followed by a faint throbbing between your legs.

A hand trails subconsciously down to the apex of your thighs, eyes falling shut when you find your slit, slick with want. Your mind wanders from scene to scene, each wildly different from the last, but all of them featuring Natalia. Your breath slips past your lips in soft pants as you circle your clit, free hand tracing a path up your abdomen to grope your breast for a moment before you’re tweaking your nipple, back arching with a quiet moan.

Your fingers dip down, sinking into your leaking hole, when you hear a shuffling noise followed by a soft click. Immediately, you freeze, eyes wide as you sit up and scan your dimly lit room. No one...not a person or creature in sight. The windows are closed and still looked to be locked after squinting through the darkness of your bedroom for a long second and your door doesn’t seem to have been opened. You look around your room again, hand reaching out in the dark for any kind of semi-heavy object you could use as a potential weapon, when it meets the now open top of the box sitting on your nightstand.

Was she here now? Watching you? Have you been on her mind just as much as she’s been on yours?

A shiver runs up your spine, a smile teasing the corners of your mouth at the thought as you sweep one last look around your quiet bedroom. You reach for the lamp on your bedside table, turning it on while you eye the lacy black collar proudly on display resting inside the box before gently scooping it out, the small bell attached to the front ringing and clinking against the name tag. Your fingers trace over the red stitching lining the top and bottom, then down to tug on the matching red bow and around the back to undo the small ribbon that ties the two ends together.

You pause for a brief moment, reconsidering, but the throbbing of your clit is far louder than that little voice of reason trying desperately to coax you back to thinking clearly and so without any further hesitation, you wrap the collar around your neck and secure it in place. 

The silence of your bedroom is almost deafening as you wait...and wait…..and wait, til the ache that’s taken home between your legs expands, enveloping you whole.

The bell on your collar rings with your movements as you lay back, the sound muffled by the thrumming of your heart pounding in your ears. You ignore your hurt feelings (whatever feelings those may be) and focus on the wetness that’s gathered at the apex of your thighs, fingers fucking into yourself long into the night until you fall asleep, your hand tucked into your bottoms and the collar still resting around your throat.

Your dreams are more vivid than usual, almost as if replaying the memories and sensations of your night with Natalia. Images of her head buried between your legs, the vague feeling of hands gripping your hips, soft hair tickling the insides of your thighs and the warmth of a mouth teasing your slit has you squirming in your sleep. 

The throbbing of your clit slowly lulls you awake, the feeling of fingers pushing into your heat pulling a shaky, high-pitched whine from your lips while your hands subconsciously reach down to tangle in soft waves (your fingers brushing against something famillarily ridged and curved has your heart fluttering happily) and pull that heavenly mouth back towards your clit. 

A tittering laugh has you finally dragging your eyes open and you’re blessed with a view of a grinning Natalia, pointed teeth on display and her crimson eyes twinkling with amusement.

“Did you miss me, kitten?” The words come out low and muffled, Natalia not waiting for an answer as she presses her face back in towards your cunt and dragging one of her fangs gently across your clit.

Your back arches, bell on your collar jingling softly as you throw your head back into the pillows beneath you, an intense orgasm rushing through you without warning, your clit unexpectedly sensitive. Fuck...just how long has she been buried between your legs before you were dragged from your dreams?

Muscles relaxing, you land on the soft black silken sheets with a blissful sigh, her husky chuckle ringing pleasantly in your ears. Your hands fall away as Natalia trails burning kisses across the insides of your thighs, her breath cooling your slick and sweat covered skin when she speaks, “It’s about time you woke up, pet.”, her lips continue their path, bruises slowly blooming beneath her touch as she sucks and nips along your hips, up your stomach to trace the shape of your breasts before she mouths at the stiffened peaks, teeth capturing your nipple and tugging. Air hisses out past your lips as her fangs dig into your sensitive skin, your hands finding her fiery hair again. The onslaught of kisses continues up your throat until she pulls you into a heated kiss, her tongue slipping past your lips and you can’t help the whimper you let out when you taste yourself.

Natalia pulls back, air fanning across your face from her huff of quiet laughter as you chase her lips, eyes still closed. When you meet her gaze you’re almost shocked to see how vibrant the red of her irises are, as if they’re almost glowing, until your gaze sweeps up to admire her obsidian like horns, reminding yourself that she’s a succubus and she IS feeding off of your sexual energy. For the first time, you wonder what kind of power she holds.

She shifts to straddle you, the feeling of her hot, dripping cunt resting against your stomach pulling you out of your thoughts. Your hands reach out to grip her bare thighs, but a raise of her eyebrow has you dropping them uselessly at your sides as you’re reminded who’s in charge. She shifts again, hips subtly rolling with a breathy sigh falling from her mouth before speaking, “Although I can’t really complain about you sleeping so long. Not when you taste so…”, she pauses, tongue snaking out to drag across her plush lips, “Devine.” she practically purrs, eyes hooded while the corner of her mouth pulls up into that devilish smirk that has your pussy clenching.

Natalia’s hips rock down again, dragging her clit across your stomach before she leans back, hands braced above your knees as she starts grinding down in earnest, eyes falling shut. You’re enraptured by the sight, eyes flitting from her beautiful face, delicate features scrunched in pleasure; down to her heaving chest, perky breasts and pebbled nipples prominently on display. Slowly, your gaze falls further down along her body, taking in every inch of smooth flawless skin and soft curves, your mind consumed by thoughts of how utterly perfect she is, as if she were sculpted by god themself, before your eyes land on the trail of slick coating your stomach and Natalia’s puffy, leaking cunt while her hips continue to rock against you. You can practically feel your mouth water at the sight, an involuntary whine slipping past your lips as you realize just how much you crave to finally taste her, to please her.

Her breathy laugh has your eyes shooting back up to meet her vivid crimson stare, cocky smile on display when she teases you,

“What is it kitten? Are you not enjoying the view?” 

You can’t stop the heat shooting to your face as you try to remember how to actually speak, mouth moving before your brain can form an actual sentence and tripping you up on your words. She laughs again at your stammering, clearly amused by her toy.

“I..I wanna-- c-can I taste you, Mistress?” desperation seeps through your voice as you lie underneath her, fists balled in the sheets trying hopelessly to fight the urge to reach out and touch her.

Natalia grins, pearly fangs catching the light and drawing your attention, just in time to watch her tongue flick out to wet her plush lips. The way her red gaze takes you in sends a shiver down your spine and you can’t help the way the blood rushes to your face or the way your heart stutters in your chest.

“Please…” the word leaves your mouth in a whimper and Natalia’s eyes soften just a tad, though her wicked smirk is still painted across her lips.

She hums, hands moving from the tops of your thighs to run up along the sides of your chest; lithe fingers dancing across your ribs to cup your breasts and tweak your nipples, pulling a whine from the back of your throat, “I suppose I could put that pretty little mouth of yours to work finally,” her hands continue their path, nails tracing up the column of your throat and toying with tag on your collar. She’s watching you intently, eyes soaking in your flushed and disheveled appearance, thumb dragging across your bottom lip. Your mouth parts and in a trance-like state, you nip the digit, tongue teasing the tip of her thumb before enveloping it in the warmth of your mouth. Natalia’s pupils seem to dilate further than before, the inky blackness slowly swallowing the red of her irises. You watch as she shakily exhales and the pride that swells in your chest has your tongue working her finger just that much more, eyes falling shut as you start to lose yourself in the motions. The squeeze of her strong thighs as she grinds her heated cunt harder against your stomach reminds you of the question you had just asked and you look up, your gaze meeting nothing but black as she stares back at you.  “Would you like that, pet?”

The words leave her mouth in a breathy exhale and she hasn’t even finished speaking before you’re rapidly shaking your head yes, eyes trying their best to convey how much you ache to serve her. You watch hungrily as her soaked cunt nears your face, Natalia’s hands tangling in your hair and tugging your head to meet her wet folds.

“Then make that greedy mouth useful.”

You don't have to be told twice, not when you’ve been plagued with dreams and fantasies of her soaking your face in her cum, and eagerly your tongue flicks out to trail along her puffy lips a few strokes before parting them with deeper licks. She sinks down with a hum, pussy pushing further into your mouth as her nails scratch at your scalp. The taste and sensation of her cunt dragging along your tongue is almost enough to have your eyes rolling to the back of your head. You’ve never tasted someone so sweet and you can’t stop yourself from gripping her thighs and thrusting your tongue into her quivering hole with a greedy groan, trying to lap up as much of her wetness as you can. 

The heady moan you’re rewarded with sends a pulsing heat straight to your clit. Her hands tighten their grip in your hair, hips slowly rolling along your mouth as you reverently devour her cunt, eyes closed in pure bliss while your tongue fucks her leaking hole.

You can hear Natalia’s heavy breathing above you as she uses you for her pleasure, the soft moans cascading from her parted lips are interrupted by a gasp when you finally manage to pull yourself away from the never ending slick dripping from her cunt to latch your mouth around her neglected clit. You suck, tongue lashing out to tease the swollen bud before she’s bearing down on you with a loud keening moan, powerful hands holding your head in place as she grinds her clit against your willing mouth.

“Fuuuck, that’s right kitten,” her rasping voice is shaky and your cunt throbs, knowing you’re the reason why, “eat my pussy like it’s your last supper.”

Her words pull a whine from the back of your throat, the vibrations shooting straight to her sensitive clit and the sound that leaves her mouth has you seeing stars as you cum; thighs squeezed together, pussy clenching around nothing as you shudder and moan under her. 

Who knew demons could make such desperate pitiful noises?

Your orgasm doesn’t go unnoticed, if the tail teasing your twitching hole and the trembling laugh above you are anything to go by.

“Enjoying this, are we?” You don’t have to open your eyes to know she’s smirking, you can hear the smugness in her voice even as it wavers with every roll of her hips. “If I knew how ea-” she cuts herself off with a deep rumbling moan as you easily sink two fingers into her wet heat, digits immediately curling up to search along her walls for the spot you know will reduce her into a quivering, moaning mess.

Her tail pushes into your soaked slit as a dragged out yes hisses out past her teeth. The way Natalia’s hips buck against your fingers and mouth fucks her slick tail into just the right spot inside your fluttering cunt and soon your muffled moans join hers in a sinful symphony as she takes what she wants from you.

“Oh, you’re going to make me cum, pet.”

The words renew what little willpower you have left and with great effort, you stave off your impending orgasm to force your eyes open and focus on fucking your Mistress. You’re blessed with a sacred sight. Her back is arched beautifully, pushing her hungry cunt as far into your mouth and fingers as she can and putting her perky, full breasts on perfect display for your greedy eyes. Your free hand is reaching out without a thought and you watch as Natalia’s mouth falls open, freeing her bottom lip from between her fangs, while her brows furrow and her nose scrunches up in pleasure. You squeeze her tit, appreciating the softness under your palm and watch as her chest stutters, her breath faltering for a second before picking up again. Experimentally, you drag a nail against her pebbled nipple then take it between your fingers and pinch. 

Her nails dig into your scalp as she smothers her pussy against your face til you can’t breathe and you’re sure you’re going to die, suffocating happily between her thighs when she freezes on top of you. You feel the tell tale signs of her upcoming orgasm when her walls flutter around your digits, desperately trying to pull them deeper and eagerly you drag your fingers from her quivering hole to join your other hand in their ministrations so that your tongue can once again taste the saccharine-like slick. The thighs encasing your head tighten as your tongue plunges and curls in her cunt until Natalia is gasping out a moan and her cum soaks your face.

If you thought her pussy tasted heavenly, you’re sure her cum is the nectar for the gods. Your eyes roll back as you lap at the mouth watering wetness leaking from her, your own cunt spasming as her tail frantically fucks into your sopping hole until you're sure she’s hitting your womb with every thrust. 

Natalia has stopped shaking atop you, her hands and thighs loosening their hold around your head but she doesn’t make a move to get off you. In fact, her hips are rolling along your mouth again as you practically sob against her cunt from the intense pleasure between your own legs. Your hands grip desperately at her hips and thighs, eyes squeezed shut as you futilely try to chase your orgasm. You’re so close, god, you’re so close, but the edge stays just out of arm's reach and you can’t stop the tears gathering in the corners of your eyes, nor can you stop them from falling, disappearing into your hairline and rolling down to join the mix of slick and cum coating your face as you cry and writhe pathetically under your her.

“You cry so cutely for me, kitten.” She purrs, “Let Mistress see those pretty, tearful eyes.”

The wild thrusting of her tail has died down to a slow crawl, dragging you away from the peak you were so pitifully chasing and so, with a whimpering sniffle, you dutifully open your eyes to meet Natalia’s pitch black gaze.

You can see the shiver of pleasure that runs through her body as you stare up at her with sad wet eyes, a shudder of your own wracking your body at her hum of “Good girl.” when you give her sensitive clit and cunt small kitten licks to clean up the rest of her cum. Her hands brush away any of your wayward hairs from your face before she drags a thumb along your temple, collecting your tears on the digit. You watch as she slowly brings her thumb to her mouth, gazes locked as her tongue slips past her lips to teasingly lick the salty liquid away with a quiet moan. 

Your pussy clenches around her tail at the sight, her tail twitching inside you in response and briefly you wonder if she can actually feel pleasure fucking you with it before you’re completely pulled from your thoughts as her pace starts up again.

With a sigh, she drags her cunt away from your soaked mouth and immediately your loud moans fill the once quiet room. Her body slides pleasurably against yours as she moves to lie atop you, chests pressed together and legs tangled as her tail continues to pump into your soaked hole. The tip of her nose trails your collarbone then up along the column of your throat, breathing in the scent of sex. Your hands tangle in the soft fiery waves of Natalia’s hair as she kisses above the collar resting against your neck before sucking the unblemished skin between her lips to bite and mark and claim and fuck your pussy just gushes at the thought of being her’s.

You lick your lips, a whine pulling from deep within your chest at the taste of your Mistress still coating your face, bringing you just that much closer to the edge. The appendage fucking into you twists and writhes in ways you’ve only ever felt her tongue do, but the added thickness of her tail has you hurtling towards climax, head thrown back, collar jingling as you press your neck further into her greedy mouth.

Your eyes are screwed tightly shut and your pussy quivers painfully, walls sore from the constant fluttering, and just as you start to crest the peak, her tail slips itself from inside you and your hole clenches miserably around nothing while you cum. You’re already crying again when your body relaxes, sobs bubbling past your lips at the ache between your legs and the still pent up frustration your ruined orgasm failed to rid you of.

Natalia pulls away from your bruised neck to admire her work, mouth parted in quiet awe at the sight of her cum covered, sweat soaked, crying pet; and reverently, she kisses along your jaw and cheeks, tongue lapping at the mix of cum, slick, and tears that coat your face, whispers of how pretty you look when you cry gracing your ears.

She leans back when she finishes cleaning your face of her mess and your eyes finally open again when nothing happens after, tears still trailing slowly along your temples and disappearing into your hair as you sniffle, just to find her watching you keenly. Only when your gazes meet does her tail dip down between your legs to sink into your poor sensitive cunt once more. It’s gentle in its movements, but that doesn’t stop the fresh wave of tears from welling up in your eyes as the pain ever so slowly starts to outweigh the pleasure. 

Your eyes squeeze shut, the tears that gathered there cascading in rivlets along your face, as the tail brushes along your walls, pressing into your g-spot. You can hear the click of Natalia’s tongue in disapproval as she tuts you.

“Keep your eyes open for me, kitten.” 

Fuck her voice is so sultry and rasping and you can’t stop your cunt from tightening painfully around the thickness inside of you at the sound. Her tail thrusts a little harder, hitting something inside you and pulling a choked sob from the back of your throat.

“Don’t make me repeat myself.” The words are growled into your ear and your eyes fly open. You can feel her tail twitch inside you again while she takes in your whimpering cries, tearful face, and sad desperate eyes. She plunges her tail deep within you again and you wail out in painful pleasure, eyes forced shut as your head tilted back into the bed.

There’s a low trembling groan from above you and before you have the chance to open your eyes once more, Natalia’s mouth is on yours, swallowing every whine and wail as her tail fucks into you deeply, twisting to hit every pleasurable, painful spot inside your pussy. Your hands tighten in her hair, holding her against you while you sob into her mouth, and your legs untangle from hers to wrap around her waist.

You’re close again, so painfully close and you don’t know whether you want her to finish you off or ruin your orgasm again, not when you know both options are going to hurt, but you don’t get to choose. You never had an option in the first place. Your Mistress knows just what she wants from you and she’ll take it, no matter what you say.

“I want you to cum for me.” She’s trembling, pressed against you, voice thick and shaky with pleasure and you nod frantically. She buries her face against your chest, mouth marking every available inch of skin within her reach. Your crying is louder without her tongue to muffle you and with every sniffle and sob, you can feel her tail jerk inside your trembling cunt. Natalia latches her mouth onto one of your nipples, pointed teeth burying into sensitive flesh and your fingers digging into the base of her horns as you cum with a keening wail. 

You can feel more than hear her cum with you as her moans ring through your chest, her tail squirming in your aching hole. Your pussy bears down on it, nails scratching at her scalp and catching on the ridges of her horns trying desperately to stop the painful pleasure wracking your body. The thickness inside you thrashes when your fingers scramble along the ribbed protrusion on her head and your sluggish mind slowly puts the two together, hands dropping to clutch at the nape of her neck and drag her into a sloppy kiss.

The moment your hands leave Natalia’s horns, her tail stops writhing and you breathe a sigh of relief into her mouth. Your lips disconnect as she pulls back slightly and when you open your eyes finally, you’re met with the quite literally glowing red eyes of your Mistress. As gently as she can, her tail slides out of your aching pussy, watching as your face pinches in pain at the soreness and she kisses your furrowed brow, nose brushing along your forehead and temple as she trails her lips down to press more kisses along the apples of your cheek and your scrunched up nose. 

It’s all so unexpectedly soft and distracts you enough from the burning stretch of the bulging end of her tail when she pulls the last few inches out that you don’t even cry out, though she’s quick to kiss away any silent tears that escape because of the pain.

“Are you okay?” Natalia breathes out. She’s watching you closely, intently, and when you nod yes, you’re blessed with your first genuine smile. No cocky devilish smirks or seductive, hooded eyed smiles. Just the smallest of quirks play on the corners of her lips, but it’s enough to have you staring up at her in silent reverence.

“Good.” She whispers and then, “Can you talk?”

“Y-yes.” The words come out quiet, hoarse, and trembling, your throat raw from all your crying.

You clear your throat and try it again, “Yes Mistress.” it’s just as rough as your first try, but at least the shakiness is gone.

“Good girl.” She’s still whispering, voice soft while she takes you in before she finally rolls off of you to sit up against the headboard of the bed. She’s patting the open spot between her legs, an invitation or a silent command, you’re not sure but you move your tired body to rest against her’s anyway. Your back is pressed against her front, your head rests against her pillowy breasts while her’s rests atop your own, chin pressed to the crown of your head and her left arm wrapping around to secure you against her. Her free hand stretches out in front of both of you and you watch in amazement as a fresh, cool glass of water appears right before your eyes in her outstretched hand, complete with a red striped straw.

She’s bringing it up to your mouth urging you to take the cup from her, her voice gentle against your ear, “Drink this for me, kitten.” 

You nod and do as you’re told, taking the refreshingly cold water from Natalia to start sipping and watching while two, what you think are, rags appear in her once again outstretched hand.

“Hold this.” She’s handing you one and you grab it with your free hand, feeling the warm damp cloth between your fingers and you think you can feel your heart melt when you realize what she’s doing. Slowly, she guides your legs open, not one word said while she dutifully and carefully drags the warm rag across the insides of your thighs, cleaning the drying slick from your skin. She trails the fabric closer to your sore center, just barely brushing your outer lips as she cleans the apex of your thighs, before running it along your overly sensitive slit as softly as she can, hushing you quietly when you whine and squirm. 

You can feel her press a kiss to the top of your head as she finishes, then she’s leaning back, left hand under your chin tilting your head, your bell twinkling softly, to look up at her while her right is taking the second rag from you. Her eyes follow her hand as she slowly sweeps the cooling rag across your lower face, wiping away any remaining remnants of cum coating your cheeks and chin. When she finishes, she gives you another kiss, this one lingering on your forehead.

The used rags vanish and she hums as she brushes stray hair from your face and you can’t help but to stare up at her with big doe eyes, melting under her gentle touch. You can feel the chuckle build in her chest before it flows richly from her full lips and you can hear the amusement that tints her voice when she speaks again, “Finish your water, kitten.” 

Despite everything that’s just happened, you still feel your cheeks heat in embarrassment as you quickly go back to drinking your water. It only takes you a few more seconds before you finish your glass.

“Would you like more?” You shake your head no and the glass disappears from your hand. “Do you need anything else, pet?” Her hands are softly stroking along your sides, stomach, and thighs, fingers massaging into any sore muscles they find.

“No, Mistress.” You’re quiet as you speak though your thoughts are loud, overcome with questions that soon fall into the recesses of your mind when she starts to shift lower onto the bed. 

Natalia pulls you over her while she settles onto her back, tucking you into her side and wrapping her arm around your waist, pulling you flush against her. You don’t hesitate to bury your face against her neck, your collar ringing with the movement and her chin resting against your head once more. Your leg and arm are thrown across her and you snuggle as close as you can with a content, sleepy sigh. She’s humming some soft unknown tune quietly, hands tracing patterns into your back and vaguely, you register the slithering sensation of her tail wrapping itself along your leg.

Briefly, your mind flashes back to the Natalia that left you in your bed all those nights ago with her cum leaking from between your legs and you can’t help the words that fly from your mouth.

“I didn’t know demons were into aftercare.”

She huffs a laugh, the air hitting the top of your head, and you hide your smile against her skin when she replies, “I’m a succubus, kitten, not evil.”

She must feel your mouth open against her, because before any sound can escape your parted lips, she’s shushing you. 

“I know you must have lots of questions, pet.” You hum a yes when she pauses waiting for your reply, then continues on, “I thought so. But now is the time for sleep.” One of her hands leaves the expanse of your back to run through your hair, nails dragging pleasantly along your scalp and you feel as she leans down, lips brushing across your forehead as she whispers. “I promise I’ll answer all your questions in the morning.” A kiss, then “Now, go to sleep kitten.”

You do, a small smile stuck to your lips.

[shyficwriter]

Temporary Home: Chapter 17

Guardians of the Galaxy fanfic | Reader x Guardians (With Yondu and Kraglin!)

Summary: Peter, grasping for straws to remain 'The Prank Master,' thinks he's found a way to annoy you into conceding. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to him, what he's found is something much worse.

Previous Chapter here | Next Chapter Here Or click here to: Start From Beginning

Author’s Note: Content Warning for descriptions/mentions of PTSD and flashbacks. Also, for my records this chapter ends on day 34 of the Guardians living with reader. Enjoy!

Word Count: 6,761

Red covered your mouth and nose, all over your hand, and a bit on your sheets. You blearily tried to gather your senses, tried to open your eyes against the unforgiving light that blinded you.

Peter stood over you, laughing. Telling you that you got what was coming to you as you groaned.

That fecker had put ketchup in your hand while you slept and then tickled your nose with one of the fuzzy-tipped novelty pens on your desk. The dickhead.

"Ugh! Gross! Dude!?" you complain, sitting up and reaching over to grab the tissues off your desk so you could clean yourself up.

"Serves you right for what you did to me!" Peter countered, gesturing to the blue staining his body. He began to walk out of your room, making sure to let you know that you shouldn't expect the two of you were even.

You roll your eyes and continue wiping the ketchup-y mess off of you. You glance down at your sheets and realized you'd need to wash them today too. Great. Guess this is what you got for sleeping-in.

Once you had finally cleaned yourself up you gathered your sheets to take them downstairs to wash them, but not before making a pit-stop to Peter's room. Wanting to make the trip quick you grabbed the first thing you could find- his comb- and pocketed it. It was about to have a date with some jelly.

As you turned to leave his room you saw Rocket standing in the hall just outside the door.

With a knowing grin he asked, "Whatcha doin' there?"

"Nothing," you answer flatly, gathering your sheets back up.

He let you pass but said, "So I guess I didn't just see you steal Quill's comb, then?" There was amusement in his voice.

"He'll get it back," you answer, not pausing in your walk towards the stairs.

"What do you plan on doing to it?" he asked, intrigued. He had no intents to squeal on you. This prank-y-ness was a side of you he had been pleasantly surprised to see. Much better the the stiff agent-type you usually liked to display. Had he maybe misjudged you?

"The less you know the better," you answered, continuing down the stairs.

No witnesses. Rocket liked your style. Maybe you didn't have such a stick up your butt after all.

***

You threw your sheets in the washer and put the kettle on. It was time to make some jelly.

While waiting for the kettle you grabbed the packet of jelly from the pantry and something quick for breakfast. Deciding on a granola bar, you go to pull one from the box when you also notice that all your spices had been flipped upside down. Obviously Peter's doing. That's also when you remember that you had hidden the rest of the food dye behind the spices, prompting you to give a quick peek to see that the box was still there.

It wasn't.

Peter must have found it while setting up his prank and took them, intent on making the two of you "even."

Crap.

The kettle began to whistle and you pulled yourself out of your thoughts of doom to start fixing the jelly. You could think about the dye later. Right now you had mischief to make.

You mix up the jelly in a glass bowl, adding in an extra packet of gelatin to make sure the shape would hold later. Then, looking around to make sure no one was around, you take Peter's comb out of your pocket and drop it in. The bowl was just big enough for the comb to catch on the sides roughly about halfway deep in the jelly water, so that when you turned it out it would be nicely suspended in the green jelly. You then quickly take the bowl to the fridge to set, burying it in the back on the bottom shelf so it hopefully wouldn't be seen.

Then you simply went about your day as normal.

***

Other than several bad puns, Peter surprisingly didn't attempt much to annoy you that day, and you had no doubts that it was because he was confident that he'd be able to return the favor in dyeing you an odd color when you showered tonight.

Not if you had anything to say about it.

Too bad for him he had no way to know that you knew, and you were confident that you could deal with it when that time came if you paid enough attention. For now you were just going to act none-the-wiser, and accept his invitation to watch a show with the others.

You settled in on the couch and the episode starts. It's a title you haven't heard of before.

Watching it you gathered it was a type of mystery/detective/thriller type that was somehow also a comedy. A detective was accused of killing this old lady, and he was on the run to try and prove his innocence. Lots of action, a bunch of red-herrings, overall not a bad show so far if you had to judge by this episode.

Then there was the end-scene.

The detective finally found the actual murderer, the mayor, and after tricking him into broadcasting his confession over the radio in this abandoned radio station- where he somehow had managed to make a broadcast work- the two fight. Only the mayor has a gun, and the detective's fell into a storm drain two scenes ago.

Through his cunning the detective manages to escape alive, but not unharmed. He's got a compound fracture to his leg. Cops are on the scene and arresting the mayor after surrounding him at gunpoint, and ambulances can be heard in the background.

You feel the hair on your arms stand up.

The sound of the sirens just keeps getting louder.

You swallow, your throat suddenly dry.

They get louder. You look away from the screen into your lap.

All you can hear now is sirens. You don't realize they've already stopped on the screen. There's now instead dialogue, a conversation between characters, but you are unaware of it.

Your hands clench into fists, nails digging into your palms. You fight the images in your head. You don't want to see them. You hear sounds of tearing metal. Sirens. Screaming. Beeping. Your breathing gets shallow and you work to keep it quiet. You had to fight it back. Sirens. Bright lights. Glass shattering. Screaming. Sirens. You keep saying to yourself inside your mind that it's ok. You're ok. But what about-

Kraglin makes a comment to Yondu about something said on screen. You don't hear him. You only hear the sirens. God, why won't they stop? Screeching. Sirens. Blinding lights. Sirens.

Yondu turns to reply to Kraglin, but sees you looking strange. He raises an eyebrow, which Kraglin notices. He follows Yondu's gaze and sees you staring into your lap, body rigid, hands balled tightly into fists. Your eyes are wide, but unseeing. Your jaw is set.

Before either of them can say a word the buzzer on the washer goes off and you seem to jolt out of it, quickly hopping up and making your way out of the room.

Yondu and Kraglin share a look. What was that about?

***

You didn't return for another episode. Instead, you decided it was a nice enough day to hang your washing on the line. It hardly took you any time at all to finish, but you decide to stay outside for a bit anyways. Fresh air and all that.

Everything was fine. You were ok.

When you finally come back in it's well after a suitable lunchtime, and realizing that the only thing you had today was a granola bar, you decide to cut up an apple and sit at the table, scrolling on your phone as you eat.

Yondu comes into the kitchen for a drink and joins you at the table. "Where'd you go runnin' off to?" he asks, "Decide you didn't like the show?" What he really wanted to ask was what had prompted that look in your eyes earlier, but he knew better than to just come out an ask. You'd just deny anything had happened.

"Had laundry to dry," you answer, not looking up from your phone.

"Ya were gone an awful long time for laundry." Yondu said, not missing that you completely ignored his question about the show. But the question still bugged him. He recognized the look in your eyes back then. He remembered sometimes catching it in the eyes of some of the older battle slaves in the barracks when he was younger. It was the look one had when they were flashing back to something horrific they had been through. He and the other younger battle slaves were always told by other elders to leave those be when they were "stuck in it", as they would say. Don't disturb them. They'll come out of it. Nothing for it but to let it pass.

That never did sit right with him.

"It's a nice day. Thought I'd enjoy it," you answered.

Yondu hummed shortly. You weren't giving him anything, and he knew you wouldn't.

He decided not to press it for now, but he could tell something had triggered that response from you, he just didn't know what. He suspected it had something to do with whatever it was that you kept locked away inside. He had clues and suspicions as to what, but of course he couldn't be sure, though he was more determined now than he had previously been to figure you out. Only one thing was certain. You had pain inside you. A lot of it. No one should have to go through that alone.

***

Kraglin, unlike Yondu, wasn't nearly as subtle when he saw you next. However, he wouldn't get any further.

"Mind if I help?" he asked, joining you in the garden where you were pulling a few weeds.

"Go for it," you reply, barely looking up. There weren't many to pull, as it was starting to get cooler lately. You mostly just came out for something to do. Soon it'd be time to harvest the whole garden.

The two of you work in silence for a bit. Then, Kraglin asks, "So, um, was you alright earlier? I mean, saw that ya looked mighty shaken when we was watching that show."

"Don't know what you're talking about," you answer, standing up and tossing the weeds you picked over to the compost bucket.

Kraglin looked up to meet your gaze, frowning. He was about to say something along the lines that you were full of shit, but he stopped himself when he saw your stern expression. You weren't just denying it. With just those few words, combined with the subtly hard look on your face, you were outright telling him that he didn't see whatever it was that he thought he saw.

He exhaled out his nose and just gave you a look that said that he didn't believe you, but he wouldn't push it. He could see that you would just shut him out, and he felt like it wasn't his place to press it.

Suddenly a gunshot rang out, breaking the awkward silence and causing you both to jump.

You sigh, not appreciating the jolt, and said, "Damn hunters."

Kraglin nodded and tried to take this distraction as an opportunity to change the subject. If you wouldn't open up, maybe he could try and make you smile instead. "So... nice job on dyeing Pete blue last night. Real funny."

"I certainly thought so," you said.

He almost thought he saw you crack a smile. Wanting to bring about a full grin he decided to tell a story. "Yeah, it was just like this time Pete rigged a dye pack up in one of Yondu's drawers, I think he mentioned it last night. Anyway, so somehow Pete rigs it up, I think he got mad at Cap'n for making him scrub the grease traps or somethin', but anyway then Yondu goes to open his drawer one mornin,' yeah? And he's blasted in the face with this red dye. Ohhh boy! He was madder than a muzzled Flerken!!"

The mental image was enough to make your lips curl up involuntarily.

Kraglin noted this and continued, "What's worse is he had to meet with some lady client the next day about a job, and he couldn't get it off. He was this funny shade of purple for over a week!"

A short laugh suddenly breaks through your throat and you look at him. "Really?" you ask, mirth in your eyes. The mental image of the blue man looking quite cross and splattered purple while trying to commit space pirate business dealings was a humorous one.

"Yeah. He grounded Pete for so long after that." Kraglin replied, chuckling.

"I'll bet," you say as you stand up and brush yourself off, now finished with weeding and prepared to go inside. "Thanks. For helping in the garden, I mean." you say.

Kraglin also stands. "Not a problem, ma'am."

You wince and shake you head as you turn back to the house. You thought of telling him to knock it off with the 'ma'am' stuff, but you were concerned with what might replace it. So you left it alone for now.

***

You were on alert when you got ready for your shower that evening. You knew Peter had plenty of opportunity to have tampered with your bath products, but you played it cool. Acted unaware.

The plan? Beat him at his own game.

First you turned on the shower and let it run. You cupped your hands beneath the stream to make sure the water wasn't an odd color.

All clear.

You get into the shower, deciding to inspect your shampoo and conditioner bottles first. You felt it was unlikely he'd put it in those, as it would be unlikely to have a decent enough payoff for him, but you still checked just in case. Your shampoo bottle was see-through and the liquid inside clear, so it was obvious it had gone untampered. You went ahead and used it.

Time for conditioner. Unscrewing the top you look inside the conditioner. Completely white. Untampered. Good.

Finally you checked your body wash. It was a rose scented type and was already colored pink. If he was was going to strike anywhere, it would likely be there with the red dye. You squirted a little into a rag to test it on your hip, an inconspicuous area. You didn't even need to use it before you realized you were right. The body wash came out much darker than usual. It was like he hadn't even mixed it. Actually, that's likely exactly what he did. He probably wanted to make sure as much dye got on you as possible and so just squirted it right on top. Just out of curiosity, however, you still tested it.

Yep. It left a red steak right on your hip. You catch a glance at Peter's bottle on the shower shelf, and grin.

Silly Peter. He shouldn't have forgotten his bottle in the shower. Again.

You reach out of the shower for a new washcloth, and use some of his body wash instead. Of course, not before testing it on the first rag to make sure it wasn't left behind on purpose as a trap. It wasn't. The test proved it free of dye and safe to use.

For now.

Once you finished washing you then unscrewed the top off of Peter's bottle and carefully poured in as much of the dye from the top of your tampered bottle as you could without getting it on your hands. You had to sacrifice a little of the soap down the drain just to make sure it would come out clean the next time you used it.

Was he sure to notice? Probably, but you didn't care. You'd be just as happy with the message it would deliver if nothing else.

He was going to see that you were the Prank Master here.

***

Once finished with your shower you retreated to your bedroom. On the way you could hear Peter in his room asking Gamora if she had seen his comb, and you grinned. You sure knew where his comb was.

Mantis is gathering her own stuff together to take a shower when you enter the room. You glance at what she's carrying to make sure she has enough soap. God forbid she might run out and then use Peter's instead of yours. You actually would feel bad if the prank accidentally hit her instead of Peter. Satisfied that she does you shut your door behind her and wait, unable to keep a grin from splitting your face.

Perhaps half an hour later, a good bit after Mantis had returned from her shower, you can hear Peter shouting.

"Are you KIDDING me!?"

Mantis looks towards the sound in shock before turning to see you covering your giggles with your hand.

Now you can hear Peter cursing your name.

"What did you do?" Mantis asks, both intrigued and alarmed.

"He tried to get me back for turning him blue by putting red dye in my soap. I found out and turned it back on him," you answered, nearly stuttering over your giggles.

"How?"

"I just poured the tainted soap into his bottle. Now he'll have been dyed twice." You grinned, but it fell shortly when you heard the bathroom door slam open and heard his footsteps coming in the direction of your room. You jumped up and quickly flicked the lock just before he reached the door.

The knob jiggled and then he started to pound on the door, cursing your name and demanding you come out.

Feeling cheeky, you answered, "Nobody's home!"

From the other side Peter said loudly, "Come out here, you coward!"

"Do you need something?" you ask, your grin wide.

"You. Out here. Now."

"Whatever for?" You're have a real hard time biting back your laughter. Mantis is sitting on her bed, hugging her bear and openly giggling.

"You know exactly what for!"

You look to Mantis. "Should I?" you chuckle.

"YES! You should!" answered Peter from the other side of the door.

"Didn't ask you!" you retort. You look back to Mantis and she nods excitedly. She wanted to see what had happened to Peter.

"Alright," you answer, loud enough for Peter to hear as well. You unlock the door and slowly open it.

You tried to hold it in. Honestly, you did. But the sight of Peter standing there in his pajama bottoms, and now purple where he had previously been blue, and a pinkish-red just about everywhere else you could see, you lost it.

Your laughter, combined with seeing that you didn't have a spec of dye on you, made Peter cry out in frustration. "HOW?!"

"It-It's your fault," you laughed. "You left a trail!"

Peter narrowed his eyes. "I did not leave a trail!"

"You did! I-I saw you had taken the rest of the dye and I knew what you'd do with it. Dude, you- you really should have left the box behind. I might not have noticed then." It was all you could do to say the sentence coherently as you tried to hold back your giggles. "How did you not notice I turned it around and poured it back in your bottle? Don't you look??"

As Peter sputtered indignantly for a reply you noticed that you again had an audience. Yondu and Kraglin stood at the bottom of the stairs, grinning up at the scene and shaking their heads. Rocket and Drax were standing by their room, Drax chuckling with a giggling Groot on his shoulder and Rocket almost looking impressed. Almost. Gamora was standing across the landing, shaking her head, though it appeared more out of second-hand embarrassment for Peter rather than disdain for you.

"Don't I- You- I'm- UGH!" Peter sputtered in frustration. He had half a mind to tickle you until you peed your pants for this- Well, not literally, though he wouldn't be above threatening it. He may be an asshole, but he wasn't 100% a dick. Regardless, the other half of his brain was too busy trying to think of any suitable comeback... and failing. He was The Prank Master! How were you beating him at his game? He glared at you. He wanted to wipe that smirk off your face. "You think you're so funny, don't you?! Just wait. You better watch your back. I'm gonna... I'm gonna..."

"You're not going to do anything, Peter." It was Gamora who spoke now, her tone teetering somewhere between warning and exhaustion, with a hint of amusement buried somewhere in there. "She beat you at your own game. Go to bed."

You couldn't stop the grin that split your face if your life depended on it. You took a calculated step back, hand resting on your door. You put on your most innocent voice. "So..." you started. "Does this mean I'm The Prank Master, now?"

The look in Peter's eyes could have vaporized you. "That's it!" he cried, stepping towards you. He wasn't sure what he'd do when he got hold of you. Hold you in a headlock until you apologized? Wet Willie? Both? Neither? Didn't matter. All he knew was you were going to pay for this.

However, he'd never get the chance. You were too fast, slamming the door in his face and flicking the lock just before he could get near.

You and Mantis doubled over laughing and Peter sputtered some more empty threats before Gamora could be heard scolding him and telling him to go to bed.

It was even better the second time.

***

The next morning you were, dare you say, cheerful.

Peter, less so. He was still a bit cranky that not only had he been the victim of the dye prank twice, just one night after the first, but that it had happened because he tried to get you back and you turned the tables on him. Sure, he had cooled down a bit from last night, but he was still an uneven purple/pinkish-red mess and the others kept snickering at him. Even Gamora had been caught hiding a grin behind her hand a couple of times.

It wasn't fair. He was determined to get you back, but how would-

He spotted something on the kitchen table, interrupting his thoughts. Something shiny, and green, and was that...?

Oh you were going to get it.

***

You were minding your own business, walking over to one of the bookcases in the sitting room, when suddenly you were accosted.

Peter had pulled you into a headlock from behind.

"Hey! What the hell! Let me go!" you demanded.

"Tell me you're sorry and I'll think about it!"

You had a feeling what this was about, but you played dumb. "I'm not going to apologize for turning the tables back around on you! It was your own fault for trying."

"That's not what I mean and you know it!"

You started softly laughing despite the moderate chokehold. You couldn't help it. "Did you- Did you ever find your comb?"

Suddenly you feel something wet in your ear. You knew there was only one thing it could be. "Ew! No! Peter!" you squeal, trying to squirm away. "That's disgusting! Stop it!"

Peter was chuckling now, still giving you a wet willie. "Say you're sorry!"

You jerk against him. "Never!" You were laughing despite really only having one hand to fight him with. The limited range on your brace made it so you couldn't bend your elbow enough to grab his arm with that hand, and you were standing too close to the bookcase to throw him over you and get out of the headlock. Well, too close to do it without hurting him, or your books, that is. You were stuck, but you still weren't going to give in.

Turns out you wouldn't need to.

"Alright. Break it up," came Yondu's voice from somewhere off to the side. "What's going on here?"

Peter released you and you rubbed your ear against your shoulder to get the wet feeling out of it. "She put my stuff in Jello!" he complained.

Yondu gave you a weird, albeit amused look. "Don't ya think ya did enough to him already, missy?" He wasn't scolding you, but he actually was surprised you were still on the attack after having seemingly won the war last night.

Fighting a grin you reply, "In my defense, I'd already done that before the dye thing. I only found out he was planning that afterwards," Technically not the full truth- you actually found out during the setup of the jelly prank, not after, but it was close enough, "and what was I supposed to do, not turn the tables back on him when I found out?"

Peter punches you in the shoulder, but there was no anger behind it, just cheekiness. You stick your tongue out at like a child in retaliation.

Yondu grinned and shook his head. It'd been awhile since he'd seen his boy carefree and goofing off like this, even if he was bickering with you like the two of you were kids. Still, he should maybe try to persuade a stop to the prank war again before things escalated any more and you two killed each other. It'd be a shame to save him from Ego just to let him die in a prank war of all things, and bad form to let him kill their host. "Boy, I think ya might need to accept that she won this round." he said, a hint of teasing in his voice.

"I will do no such thing! She just got lucky." Peter replied.

You smirked. "Yeah. Sure. 'Lucky'," you taunt. "Just say it and I'll call us even."

"EVEN?!" Peter exclaimed. He gestured to the stained purple and pinkish red of the areas of skin you could see. "Look at me!"

Trying not to smile you slowly look down to the brace on your arm. Head cocked to the side your eyes look back to Peter. "You were saying?"

Peter bit his lip and narrowed his eyes. You could tell he wanted to retort with something, but he knew he had no leg to stand on. Eventually he settled for, "I'm still not saying it."

Yondu snorted a laugh. "Whatever it is, just be a man and say it, boy. Quit while yer ahead."

Peter looked at him indignantly. "I am not going to declare her The Prank Master."

Unable to suppress your grin any longer you nudge him in the shoulder and say in your sweetest voice, "It's ok, you don't have to say it," taking a few steps away you add, "We already know." You then jogged out of the way when he made a grab for you.

You made your way out the front door, but he didn't follow, instead just stood there pouting.

"Ya finally gonna give it up, boy? Take yer loss like a man?" Yondu chuckled, teasingly.

"Never." Peter responded, too busy plotting revenge to fully catch the "take it like a man" part as he walked out of the room.

Yondu chuckled and rolled his eyes as he went to take a seat on the sofa. It was nice to see that you had a goofy side, though he wondered if it was Peter rubbing off on you, or if you had just had it buried under layers of stubbornness and sass.

Either way, it seemed certain that the boy was gonna have to relinquish his self-proclaimed title of "The Prank Master."

***

Over the next couple days the pranks between you and Peter had slowed down. This was likely in part because of how you made Peter realize that he couldn't complain too much about getting even for the dye prank if he considered that you were still in a brace as a result from one of his previous pranks gone wrong, but also in part because the two of you had pulled so many pranks so far you were seemingly running out of ideas.

Peter moved the furniture in your sitting room 3 inches to the left, likely to get your back for putting his comb in jelly.

You retaliated by setting up some cling film up at head height in the kitchen doorway for him to walk into and then calling him into the kitchen.

He got back at you by swapping your salt and sugar out, thereby ruining what would have been a perfectly good cup of tea.

For this high crime, you decided to get him back by scrapping out a couple Oreos and filling them with toothpaste. He was most definitely not fond of that one. Called it a crime against nature, and he may have been right, but so was what he had done to your tea.

Other than that, nothing really escalated, well apart from the oreos and tea, that is. The two of you kept making little jabs at each other and annoying one another. Really bad puns, petty insults, that sort of thing.

You did assume, however, that Peter was just biding his time, trying to think of something big that he could spring on you that might make you give up the game and declare him The Prank Master, because gods knew he wasn't going to concede.

And you'd be right.

Peter spent a decent amount of time brainstorming ideas for a really good prank, or even just a decent way to annoy you, in between all the smaller ones, but he was coming up with nothing he deemed quite good enough.

He was about to consider throwing in the towel when you inadvertently provided him with the fodder he needed.

***

It was the fourth day since the first dye prank and most of the dye on Peter had worn off by now.

You were reading on the couch, little Groot was playing with the TV and flipping through random videos on the YouTube app with Drax, and Peter and Kraglin were in the middle of a card game at the table on the other side of the room.

In what you would chalk up to a cruel twist of fate, Groot managed to find his way into a video of ambulance calls.

Rudely and immediately torn from your book by the sound, your hand shoots out for the TV remote and you mute the TV, much to the dismay of little Groot, who had found the noise fun and had been cheering the siren on. As calmly as you can despite your rapid heartbeat, you ask Drax, who was confused by your behavior, to please tell Groot to find something else to watch.

Drax looks at you strangely, but translates for Groot anyway, which again, only sounded to you like he was repeating your words verbatim due to his translator. You still didn't know that the translators didn't actually translate into Groot, but rather Groot had just picked up and could understand a bit of Galactic Standard, even if he couldn't speak it.

Groots looks slightly disappointed for a second but agrees and switches videos and you unmute the TV.

You didn't bother checking what new video he had chosen. That had been a mistake.

After the ad finished playing you were jerked back into reality from your book by the sounds of now multiple ambulance calls going at once. You mute the TV once again and say, "I'm sorry. I should have been more clear. Anything else. Anything else except for videos of that sound."

Drax, rightfully confused, asks, "Why?"

"I do not like it." is all you offer, and you don't elaborate when asked.

Peter, of course, overhears all this, and thinks he's found his new way to annoy you. He of course had no way of knowing the reason you couldn't bare the sound wasn't due to annoyance. He had no way of knowing its effect on you.

***

He tested the waters the next day after lunch.

You were washing up the dishes with Gamora when the sound of an ambulance siren makes you freeze in the middle of drying a bowl.

Gamora turns her head towards the noise and wonders aloud what it was.

Without answering you take towards the direction of the sitting room to, gently, scold Groot for playing those videos again.

Of course, when you get there, you only see Peter, who pretended to be surprised to see you.

"Turn that off," you say sharply.

"What?" Peter asked innocently.

You didn't ask him again. You just grabbed the control and exited the video before throwing the control back down into his lap. "Don't play that again," you warn.

"Why? Does it annoy you?" Peter asked with a smirk. He didn't notice your hands shaking.

Your eyes hardened. "Just don't," you say, returning to the kitchen.

Peter grinned. He was going to have fun with this.

***

Peter would play that sound three more times that afternoon, each time eliciting a more irritated response from you until you finally ripped the plug to the TV out of the wall and turn to him to angrily yell, "Stop it!"

"What?" Peter asked, chuckling in surprise at your latest response. You must really hate that noise.

"You know exactly what. I'm seriously, genuinely asking you to knock it off," you reply.

Gamora, who could tell Peter was working your last nerve and who was also becoming irritated by the repeated playing of the sirens, nudged Peter and told him he had his fun.

Peter half smirked and seemed to relent, saying simply, "Okay."

You sigh. "Thank yo-"

"After you declare me The Prank Master."

Gamora rolled her eyes and propped her head up on the hand resting on the arm of the couch, not wanting to get involved, but inches from yelling at her boyfriend that she was ending the prank war herself.

You were seething. "You're a goddamn child!" you scold, leaving the sitting room and considering getting out some of the vodka you had in the freezer just to calm your nerves.

You had only just made it into the kitchen when the sound started up again.

You back against the wall and cover your face, inches from tears. Your breaths came in shallow gasps as flashes of bright lights and the sounds of tearing metal and screaming fill your senses. You tangle your hands in your hair.

"FUCKING STOP IT!" you scream.

Peter and the others in the sitting room, as well as those upstairs, all paused in shock at the sheer volume behind your scream.

They then heard the sound of the back door slamming forcefully.

Yondu, who had been at the table playing cards with Kraglin, had only been present for the second and last incidence of Peter annoying you with the sound, and it wasn't until now that he put the pieces together. That day when you acted strange and walked out on the show- this siren sound had been playing then too.

Shit.

He got up and scolded Peter, who in his shock still hadn't turned the video back off. "Turn that shit off now, boy! If I hear it again I'm gonna shove my arrow up your ass! You hear me?"

Peter, recognizing the tone in Yondu's voice as one that he had encountered many times as a child when he was in trouble, immediately switched the video off. He had to concede that perhaps he went a little too far this time, but of course he didn't actually understand just how true that sentiment was.

Yondu went to go see where you went, and he didn't need to look very far, which surprised him. He was for sure you would have taken off for the forest again, since it was kinda your thing.

Instead, you were sat with your back pressed against the stone of the house about a couple meters from the door, hand clamped over your mouth and eyes in that terrible 'wide yet unseeing' way. In the dim light provided by what shone out the kitchen windows from inside he thought he could almost see the remnants of fallen tears.

He tried to approach you slowly, but you caught him out the corner of your eye and jerked to a standing position.

"Hey, hey-" Yondu said, holding his hands up. "It's alright-" he started, but then found he didn't know what else to say. After a moment he settled on, "Ya wanna talk about what that was about?"

You don't meet his gaze. "Nothing. He just pisses me off. He's a damn child."

"While that may be true, yer still full of shit."

You glare at him.

He continues. "If this was just about Quill gettin' under yer skin ya wouldn't be shakin' like that, and I doubt you'd be crying neither."

"Am not," you mutter. You turn away, wipe your eyes, cross your arms self-consciously, and start walking away. "It's cold."

Yondu rolled his eyes. It was cool out, yes, but it wasn't that cold. "Ya wanna talk about why ya dislike the particular noise so much?" Yondu called after you. "Ya ain't got to, but I can tell somethin's eating ya. I might help to get it off your chest."

"It's nothing." you reply. "Just an annoying sound."

Yondu frowned. "Now listen here. I ain't gonna force ya to tell me, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let anyone just flat out lie to my face, missy."

You turn to him, indignant. "I'm not-"

"Hell if ya ain't. I've seen that look before, I know what it is. Ya can lie to yerself, but ya can't lie to me!"

You glare at him. "Who the hell do you think you are? Coming in here acting like you know anything about me!"

"I'm the person telling ya that it ain't healthy to keep that shit bottled up inside ya. It'll eat ya alive."

You don't respond. Just roll your eyes and start walking away again.

Yondu threw up his hands. "To hell with you then!" He starts to walk back inside but stops at the door to speak again, this time his tone a little softer, "I have a feelin' no one's ever told ya, girl, but ya don't have to 'be strong' all the time. Sometimes it's ok to let people in. It don't make ya weak." With that he headed back in the house.

You lean your back against the cool stone and sigh in frustration. What did he know.

***

You head back inside a bit later, not feeling much better.

Peter catches you as you're about to head up the stairs. "Hey, I just wanted to say sorry for-"

"Don't." You cut him off, not stoping in your path. "I don't care. I'm going to bed."

Peter frowns, but lets you go. Maybe he could try again in the morning. He truly was sorry. It was just supposed to be a bit of fun.

***

You stared up at the ceiling from your bed for what felt like hours. You couldn't sleep, couldn't stop thinking about it. You knew Peter had no way of knowing why you couldn't stand that sound, but you still couldn't help but be unhappy with him. He just wouldn't stop.

You can feel your jaw clenching with each flash of horrific memory.

You were annoyed at Yondu too. Acting like he knew anything about you or some shit. What did he know? Not you, that's what. You didn't need someone acting like they cared. You didn't need anyone, really. People come, people go. No one stays forever.

You feel your chest clench. Your throat tightens and you sit up. You didn't want to cry.

A walk. That's what you needed. A walk in the forest would surely help wash the memories away. You could walk until you were too tired to think about it, then sleep it off. It would be better in the morning. You'd be ok.

You quietly slip on some jeans and make your way downstairs to put on your boots and grab a jacket. Choosing your thin leather one because it had been chilly when you were out earlier, you open the back door and head out into the cool night air.

You'd find out soon enough that you should have stayed in bed.

[2manyfandoms2count]

Sleepless in Paris

I ended up not posting anything Ladrien in June when I'd planned to do something, but then I saw the last prompt of @ladrienjune (Speechless), and since it tied in with an idea I had a couple of weeks ago... Here you go!

Established Ladrien, Adrien receives a text from his girlfriend and overthinks its meaning. Thankfully Ladybug comes and clears things up.

Loosely based on a quote from Le Discours, a novel by Fabrice Caro.

Read on AO3

---

Adrien, we need to talk.

Adrien read the message over and over again, like an overworked student stuck on a paragraph whose meaning just won’t register.

He tossed his phone aside and lied back down, rubbing his eyes as he did so.

Oh, how much he regretted ever getting Ladybug a private phone so they could communicate. It had seemed like a good idea after their third close call, when she had almost swung into his room like she owned the place (and maybe she did, she was his girlfriend, after all, anything was possible), in the middle of an impromptu piano recital his father had requested. Thankfully, the false notes he’d made upon seeing her almost crash into the window had covered any sound she’d made as she changed course, and made sure his father and Nathalie’s attention was on him, and not on the red blur just outside.

She’d laughed so prettily when she’d unwrapped the box and noticed that he’d painted little black dots on the back of the red phone case. She’d insisted on paying him back in kisses and sweet nothings. Even if he’d wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to refuse; his girlfriend was convincing like that.

Yes. Those had been the good old days.

The ones when the messages he received from her didn’t come as a blow that made his stomach tie into knots and question if he was going to be okay (although that might not have been entirely true; the feeling he’d gotten when he’d read “I love you” on his screen, written down, not just whispered between two makeout sessions or before she left, a permanent trace of her feelings, could definitely have fit that description, but the difference was that he’d questioned if he was in heaven, then).

The timestamp of the message read Monday, 4:36pm. He’d managed to type a “when?” at 5:58pm, which she’d seen at 5:59pm. Nothing since. That was new, too. Even messages that didn’t require an answer always got at least a couple of emojis in reply.

It was now Tuesday, 6:12am, and he hadn’t slept a wink, dissecting the five words, twenty characters, like they were a long lost spell that could fix hunger on Earth.

The first thing he’d noticed was the full stop. That didn’t bode well - even he knew that nobody ended a text like that these days.

Then, the comma. A pause. Not great either, in the context of a relationship.

Especially when it came before a “we need to talk”. He didn’t need to have seen many romantic comedies to know that this was probably an end of the line warning.

Even his name was a sign.

Adrien.

Not “my prince”. Not “my love”. Not even “my Adrien”, like she’d taken to calling him recently. Just plain old boring Adrien . Until the message had arrived, he hadn’t realised they’d been on a downward slope, but maybe he’d been too busy burying his head in the sand to notice. Maybe deep down, he’d known that it wasn’t viable.

That Ladybug, basically a goddess among men, had no business being in a relationship with a commoner like him, however much she tried to fool herself by calling him her prince. Adrien. The more he read it, the more emphasis he put on the second syllable. Ad- rien . Ad rien. Towards nothing. Maybe she’d known they were doomed from the start, that they had no future, but she’d tried anyway.

Maybe he was reading too much into it and the lack of sleep was making him delirious.

Whatever the outcome, he supposed they’d had a good run. He’d cherish all of the moments they’d spent together.

Actually, he thought, sitting up again, maybe that was what she needed. Maybe he could change her mind if he reminded her of all their good memories. There was no way she couldn’t be convinced, or at least persuaded, by his plea. He hadn’t gone six months playing a double game of putting on a fake insensitivity mask over the one he wore with Chat Noir's to avoid her seeing through him, when she deserved to be showered in compliments at every moment of the day, for it to end this way.

He loved her.

He picked up his phone again and pressed the dial button.

One tone. Two tones. Three.

Adrien suddenly remembered the time, hastily hung up, and facepalmed audibly, making Plagg roll over in his sleep and hiss.

“Sorry,” he whispered, before turning his attention back to the phone.

If his call hadn’t woken her up, then his mistake would be the first thing she’d see when she did.

This was bad. It wasn’t like he could go delete the evidence. He didn’t know where she lived, and since he doubted that she slept while transformed, there was no way to track her. Which would also be bad, he reminded himself, but maybe this emergency would justify it.

Anyway,  he couldn't cry over spilt milk, but maybe he could escape. Just move somewhere, preferably on the other side of the world. He could change his life, his name (actually, could that alone change the outcome of their relationship? If he changed it before planning anything, could they pick up as if nothing happened, and would the timeline be fixed? He wished he’d thought about it before calling her), and raise hamsters in the mountains. What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him, right? And then he could live happily ever after in the sweet, sweet illusion that despite them being miles apart, he still lived in a world in which he was Ladybug’s boyfriend.

He didn’t know if he preferred the idea of her never coming after him, or her seeking him out, even if it was to deliver bad news, but it didn’t really matter. The plan sounded good. Foolproof.

He hopped off of his bed and pulled a suitcase out of his closet. He’d always wondered why his father stored them there when it really seemed like an unnecessary temptation, but at least it was useful now.

If he was to start over somewhere, he needed to leave Adrien behind. The guy was a train wreck anyway, but unfortunately for him, a train wreck people would want to find, when he just wanted to be left alone to mope.

No more white shirts, then. They were too recognisable. He found a collection of dark hoodies at the back of the closet and stuffed them in the bag, along with t-shirts (they’d be hidden under his hoodie so he could keep those), a pair of jeans and some shorts.

He came back into his room and put his suitcase on his bed, scanning his surroundings for other essentials. His eyes landed on the fencing cup he kept his Ladybug pictures in. He’d definitely need those. It would help maintain him in his illusion. He also needed his Ladybug pyjamas, which he kept hidden since he wasn’t sure his father would approve of them. They’d be perfect for his new life.

Plagg stirred on his pillow. Before Adrien could ask himself whether it was reasonable for the small god to come with him, there was a knock on the window, and he froze. He turned around slowly; Ladybug stood in the window frame, looking glorious in the soft dawn light. He noticed she was holding a small paper bag in her left hand. He was sure it could fit everything he’d ever gotten her.

“Going somewhere?” She frowned, hopping inside before he could even move.

Adrien stared at her, before guessing he’d better bite the bullet. “Well I just figured I’d rather not stick around if you’re going to break up with me.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

He watched her face fall and started to doubt his conclusion.

“Break up with…” she muttered slowly, as if tasting the words, before shaking her head. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Adrien, we need to talk.” He airquoted. “I get it, it’s fine. I’m-”

“Adrien, I’m not here to break up with you. At all.” She shook her head again and took a step forward. “What would make you think that?”

“Adrien, first of all,” he stated.

“Your name?...” She tilted her head inquisitively.

“You used to call me my Adrien. Or sweeter stuff.” He pointed out.

“Oh Kwami.” She shook her head, trying to repress a smile, although the blond didn’t notice.

“And then don’t think I didn’t notice you being less present lately.” He waved a finger at her, feeling himself blush. He knew his accusation was a tad hypocritical; sure, their date hangouts in the previous few weeks had been less frequent than they’d been at the beginning of their relationship, when she’d drop in practically every day, but they’d also been full of Akumas and photoshoots, what with his father’s new collection dropping. She’d managed to beat him to his room most days, hanging out around the windows as she waited, which had made it very difficult for him to sneak back in.

But on the occasions they had seen each other, she’d also seemed more lost in her thoughts than usual. Nervously wringing her hands together while they chilled in front of a movie, despite him soothingly raking his fingers through her hair. Being even more elusive about what was going on in her life, if that was possible. Looking at him with determination in her eyes, opening her mouth to speak, only to close it and shake her head with a sigh.

“I’m really sorry about that, my love .” She gave him a pointed look as she took his hand. “I’ve just been thinking a lot lately, about you, me, our relationship. How, you’re right, it might seem like we’re spending less time together to you , but…” she trailed off, biting her lip.

“How could that statement have a but ?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, um, I had this sort of crazy idea, because we’ve only been dating for six months and it’s totally not like I ever imagined us getting married and having three kids and a hamster or anything…” she mumbled nervously, and Adrien felt his heart flutter in his chest. “Anyway, I’ve been trying to get a hold of Chat Noir all night to check that he approves the idea, and also because I feel like it’s kind of an unspoken agreement that unless it’s an emergency and it really feels right, we’d do this together first, but he’s not replying and I was awake and you were awake and I thought…”

“Okay my… Lovebug, breathe.” Adrien’s caring boyfriend instinct kicked in as her rambling gave him confirmation that their relationship wasn’t in immediate danger, and he placed his hands on her shoulders, taking a deep breath to show the example. She mirrored him, and they breathed in sync for a couple of cycles, until he was satisfied that she’d stopped hyperventilating. He lead her to his couch and helped her sit down.

“Croissant?” she asked shyly, presenting him with the bag she’d brought. A pastry bag. Not a bag with his belongings. He really needed to stop jumping to conclusions.

“You know me so well.” He smiled brightly as he took one of the baked goods. They were still warm. The croissant didn’t last long in his hands. “Anyway,” he gulped down the last bite, “if you don’t mind me asking, what was your miraculous idea?” He smiled at himself, proud of his pun.

“Well, I was thinking that I could reveal my identity to you,” Ladybug replied, daintily wiping the corners of her mouth with a tissue.

It was a good thing Adrien was already sitting down, else more than his jaw would have ended up on the floor.

“Your… Your identity. Reveal. To me.” He asked seriously, hoping his words would make sense to her. It was better than remaining speechless.

“Yes, I am considering it,” she laughed. The sound made his brain tangle even more.

“Why?” He croaked.

“Well, as I said, it would enable us to spend more time together.” He raised his eyebrows, but she didn’t elaborate. “And I don’t know, I feel like it would be right. You’ve got something, Adrien.” She smiled tenderly.

“I… I do?” He felt himself blush.

“It’s just a croissant crumb, there, let me get it for you.” She leaned forwards and kissed the corner of his mouth. The contact jump started his brain.

“Ladybug, this is serious.” He backed away slightly. “Why me?”

“Fine.” She sighed. “Well, you're my boyfriend, but I know you a lot better than you might think. Before you say anything, no, I can’t tell you why yet, I need to speak to Chat Noir first. But there is something about you, Adrien. I feel like I can trust you. With this. Because of course I trust you otherwise.”

Adrien looked down at his hands and twiddled his thumbs, pouting as he thought.

“Adr- Sunshine? Is everything alright?” Ladybug placed a concerned hand on his thigh when his silence stretched to a slightly uncomfortable length.

“When you talk to Chat Noir, and he agrees to your plan…” He looked up and met her gaze.

“If,” she corrected him, but he waved her interruption away.

“...Will you guys reveal your identities to each other? Will you ask Chat Noir who he is under the mask?” He felt almost feverish as he searched her eyes for a hint of the answer before she could speak.

“Um, yes, I guess that’s how I saw the discussion going.” Ladybug frowned. “Are you concerned that it will change our relationship somehow? Because I promise it won’t, I-”

“Oh Bluebell, it definitely will, but not in the way that you think.” Adrien pecked her lips, a mischievous smile spreading on his as he pulled away.

“Oh?” Ladybug blinked a couple of times. Adrien tried to hide his smugness at her speechlessness.

“Yep. You see, I’m one hundred percent paw-sitive your dearest partner will agree to your plan.” He grinned, watching the realisation dawn on her face.

“How hard was refraining from making cat puns in the past six months?” Ladybug finally sighed, a small smile tugging at her lips.

“Very, my Lady.” He pouted. "But not as hard as refraining from kissing you on patrol."

“Maybe you can help him pay up all the Camembert he owes me for sitting through him ranting about all the missed opportunities,” Plagg called out, making her jump slightly. Adrien rolled his eyes.

“Anyway, you were right, your plan really will allow us to spend more time together!” His face lit up like a kid's on Christmas morning.

“You don’t know the half of it.” Ladybug shook her head, before looking back up at him, an indecipherable look on her face. “Need a lift for school?”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?” Adrien looked at his girlfriend with kitten eyes, disappointed that she hadn’t held up her side of the bargain.

“Well, it’s time to go if you don’t want to be caught by your bodyguard.” She shrugged, stood up, and extended a hand toward him, the twinkle in her eye the only tell in her poker face.

“Ladybug…” He whined, pouting.

“What, Chaton?” Her smile finally broke free. “It’s very literally on my way. I can drop you off at your seat, and then walk to mine… Right behind you.” She booped him on the nose.

Once again, Adrien was thankful he was already sitting down.

As she carried him to school, Adrien decided sleep was overrated. Sometimes reality was the best dream of all.

[cali-holland]

Risky Quizness- Tom Holland One Shot

Pairing: Tom Holland X Reader

Requested by Anon: meeting tom at one of the pub quizzes he goes to at his local pub, he and his mates need more people on their team to sign up, so they asks you and a couple of your friends to join, you and him connect. Xxoo

Prompt: When you meet Tom at a pub quiz, sparks fly between the two of you.

Word Count: 1800

A/N: Huge shoutout to @saysomethingspiderman​ for being a major help with this one. I’m hella American and never experienced a pub quiz before lol aka brits dont hate me for this

Masterlist   Tom Holland Masterlist

*Gif is not mine*

~~~

“Damn it.” Tom muttered, looking at his phone with a frown.

“What?” Harrison asked, sitting next to him at the table with their two pints.

“Harry just texted me. He’s sick.” He replied. “And Sam’s with his girlfriend and you know mum would never let me take Paddy.”

“So it’s just us then?” The blond let out a sigh.

Pub quizzes weren’t much fun with two people. Normally, they’d go with Tuwaine, Harry, and Sam- sometimes even Sam’s girlfriend would tag along, but Tuwaine had a family thing come up, and now the twins had bailed.

“We could always try to find someone to join our team? Right?” Tom offered weakly, and his friend shrugged.

“We’d have to find people willing to actually join us.” He stated and Tom nodded. The pub was already filling up with hopefuls for the pub quiz, there was no way they’d find others to team up with them-

“You can’t do a pub quiz with two people! It just doesn’t work like that!” You let out a frustrated groan as you passed by Tom’s table with your friend. And just like that, a light bulb went off in Tom’s head as he jumped after you.

“Hey, wait!” He called out and you and your friend paused, turning to him skeptically as you held your drinks.

“You only have two people for the quiz? My mate and I are also a team of two. Did- did you want to, maybe, join us?” Tom asked, realizing how stupid it sounded to ask that out loud- to ask a couple strangers to be on his team for a pub quiz. Your friend looked at you and you contemplated it for a moment.

“Sure, but we better win.” You stated, following a triumphant Tom back to his table (much to Harrison’s surprise). You sat down in an empty chair, leaving one open between you and Harrison, and Tom slid into it. 

“I’m Tom, and this is Harrison.” He introduced the two of them.

“Y/N, this is Jess.” You replied with a smile. The quizmaster quickly made his way around the pub, handing out a sheet of paper to each of the teams.

“What should our name be?” Tom asked, looking at the paper in front of him.

“Risky Quizness.” You said simply and Jess let out a laugh beside you.

“Risky Quizness?” Tom and Harrison both repeated, and you nodded.

“Every time we’ve used that name, we’ve won the pub quiz.” You stated.

“That’s because the only time we’ve won it was our name!” Jess added, and you rolled your eyes at her.

“We still won. Maybe we wouldn’t have been second last time if our name was Risky Quizness, not Universally Challenged.” You picked up the pencil from the table and grabbed the paper from in front of Tom.

“Risky Quizness, like the Tom Cruise movie?” Tom asked you, a small smile on his face.

“I’m writing it!” You announced and Jess groaned, but the boys just laughed.

“In case you couldn’t tell, she runs the quiz.” She teased.

“Shove off.” You groaned, “I’m competitive.”

“How many of these have you won?” Tom inquired. He honestly wasn’t sure how well he and Harrison would do with their usual team; by the end of the night, he would have always had enough beers to be a bit hazy on how many he actually knew on his own. He wanted to do well though because who didn’t love winning? And he also may have wanted to impress you a little.

“Just the one.” You mumbled, not wanting to fully admit it, “But we keep coming in second. There’s this group at our usual place called Let’s Get Quizzical and they win every single time. So we’re here in hopes that they won’t be.”

“What about you two?” Your friend asked.

“We’ve won a few times, but honestly, I don’t remember if I got any of them right.” He laughed.

“So, it’s up to you then, blondie.” You joked, and Harrison smiled with a grimace. “You two are lucky you’re attractive.”

Before either could respond, the quizmaster began to speak, announcing the general knowledge round. Some were easy questions like name the longest river in the U.K., complete the line from Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” (which you knew immediately), and how many hearts does an octopus have (that one you and Harrison got in a heated debate about whether it was two or eight, when Jess stepped in as the marine biologist to tell you it was three). 

The next couple rounds went by smoothly, the four of you working together to make sure you got the right answers. By the time you were on the final round, the movies round, you felt fairly confident that your answers were like 90% right (you still weren’t sure if you trusted Tom and Harrison in saying that the DeLorean in Back to the Future had to hit 88 to time travel because you definitely thought it was 85 like the year the first movie came out).

“Which Star Wars character gets namechecked in Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom?” The quizmaster asked, making the four of you pause.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that movie.” Harrison stated.

“Yoda?” Tom suggested, thinking it was a fairly iconic Star Wars character.

“It’s Obi-Wan.” You said as you wrote down the answer. “I just watched the movie like two days ago, and trust me, you’re not missing out if you haven’t seen it.”

“Two hours I’ll never get back.” Jess shook her head with a sigh.

“That bad?” Tom asked and you both nodded.

“The worst.” You shuddered just thinking about it. 

Though that question stumped Tom and Harrison, it wasn’t until the last question of the round that you really didn’t know the answer.

“Last question. This sequel film is the 10th highest grossing superhero movie of all time.” The quizmaster read off the question, and you turned to the rest of your team, unsure of the right answer.

“I don’t know? Captain America?” You asked, wracking your brain for any good superhero sequel films you’d seen. You watched Harrison try to nudge Tom inconspicuously, who was blushing beside you. He mumbled something to you, but you couldn’t hear it at all. “What movie?”

“Uh, Spider-Man: Far From Home.” He spoke up louder, the blush on his cheeks darkening as he shot Harrison a glare.

“Oh, right, never saw that.” You replied, and Tom laughed nervously.

“You really never saw it?” He asked.

“Nope.” You shook your head, “I don’t even think I saw the first one, honestly. Not that big of a Spider-Man fan.” As you wrote down the answer Tom had given you, you missed him sending a look back to his friend, trying his best not to be slightly offended by your words.

“You should watch them. They’re really good movies.” Tom said with an encouraging smile when you looked back up at him, ignoring Harrison’s kick under the table. It wasn’t until then that he realized you had absolutely no clue who he was, and it was the best thing ever for him; you were treating him like just another random guy who invited you to join his pub quiz team.

The quizmaster announced the end of the quiz, and everyone went over their answers. Much to your familiar disappointment, your team ended up second again.

“Maybe, it’s just you.” Tom teased you as Harrison and Jess went to go get more drinks.

“Rude.” You playfully scoffed, though you were still a bit upset by the loss. “Maybe if you had known that Wisconsin was the dairy state then we would have won.”

“You didn’t even know that one!” He refuted. It was true- the American geography round just about wiped your team out. Tom shifted a bit closer to you, leaning on his arm, flexing it almost, “So you think you’ll be back at this pub for next week?”

“I think I could be convinced to return.” You replied slyly. Before Tom could ask for your number, you already had your phone unlocked, sliding it over to him. “Here.”

“You already knew.” He chuckled, handing you his phone in return. You both typed in your numbers and switched phones back.

“That one Spider-Man question. How did you know that?” You asked, thinking back to all the sigh’s the erupted throughout the pub when the answer was revealed- most had gotten it wrong, so how did Tom know so quickly that he was right?

“I just know.” Tom shrugged in an effort to play it off.

“You know off the top of your head the 10th highest grossing superhero movie of all time?” You eyed him suspiciously.

“They said it was a sequel, so it had to be either that or Incredibles 2.” He joked, but you weren’t too amused. He leaned in closer to you, creating an intimate distance between your two faces, “Can I tell you a secret?”

“What, are you Spider-Man or something?” You asked teasingly, but his smile never faltered.

“Yeah, I am.” Tom replied. You laughed before you realized the complete seriousness in his voice and his face.

“Seriously?” You managed through a fit of laughter.

“I really am! And you said you didn’t like my movie.” He teased.

“I said I never saw it.” You corrected him. “That has to be cheating for it to be your movie as the answer.”

“No, it definitely isn’t.” He shook his head with a laugh.

“How much did it gross? How much?” You asked, wiggling your eyebrows at him jokingly, “You check the box office daily, don’t you?”

“I do not!” He protested, chuckling, “And it made over a billion, thank you very much.”

“Did you drop your pants for that to happen or something?” You quipped, and his face heated up. You gasped, “You didn’t!”

“It was just for one scene and I had my underwear on!” Tom insisted, “You’d know that if you saw the film.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll watch it- both of them.” You laughed.

“How about I quiz you on them next week?” He joked, and you groaned.

“No, that means I’d have to pay attention.”

“Fine, I won’t quiz you on them on one condition.” Tom rested a hand on the back of your chair, leaning in closer to you. You raised your eyebrows at him, telling him wordlessly to continue, “Go on a date with me?”

You nodded, laughing as you spoke, “Yes, but I gotta say, I really thought you were going to make me watch your own movie with you.”

“Trust me, darling, we can do that, too.”

~~~

Tag List: @viagracex​ @theamazingtomholland​ @hellomoveonby​ @heyitsshrez

Tom Tag List: @quaksonhehe​

[coldflasher]

Title: don’t threaten me with a good time Chapters: 1/1 Length: 7.7k Fandom: The Flash (TV 2014) Rating: Gen Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Minor/Background Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Kamilla Hwang, Barry Allen/Iris West Characters: Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Kamilla Hwang, Caitlin Snow, Killer Frost, Iris West, Leonard Snart, Original Male Characters Additional Tags: Alcohol, Drunken Shenanigans, Bisexual Barry Allen, The Flash 7x12 Good-bye Vibrations.

Kamilla leaned forwards to read the front page. “The Barry Allen Drunkenness Scale.” Bemused, she looked up. “What’s this? “This,” said Cisco, “is the result of a great deal of research and a number of hard-earned lessons.” He pulled up a chair and sat beside her, pulling the folder towards them. “There are eight stages of Drunk Barry, each one with a varying level of severity. It begins with stage one.”

Inspired by the Santiago Drunkenness Scale from Brooklyn-99. Team Flash are throwing a party to celebrate Kamilla and Cisco’s departure from Central City, and Kamilla wants to make sure they go out with a bang. But with great power comes great responsibility, and sometimes responsibility means making sure your friend doesn’t break the sound barrier by doing the worm at Mach 2.

Read on AO3

@dctvgen​ (i hope this is okay!! didn’t really use any prompts but i had this one saved up and seemed like a good time to post it, lmk it’s not suitable!!)

Life came at you fast. After seven years being besties with a speedster, working to save the world, Cisco knew that to be true in more ways than one. But apparently despite everything he’d seen, it still had the capacity to surprise on him.

One minute the thought of leaving Central City had been a vague, abstract thought – a ‘what-if’ or a ‘maybe’ he dwelled upon whenever yet another crisis announced itself with a shower of broken glass raining into his Vibeuccino, or when he’d compared the news in Central City, which was all doom and gloom and murderous metas, to somewhere nice and peaceful like Keystone, where the biggest news story of the day was some kid winning the national Spelling Bee Championship. Then the job offer came in, and Kamilla had tested the waters with wanting to leave – and now their stuff was all packed and in boxes, he had a start date at ARGUS, and what had been a daydream was now a very clear reality. He’d hung up the gloves, said a final goodbye to Vibe.

It was the other goodbyes that were going to be the hard part.

“It just feels weird, you know?” he said, pausing in the middle of hanging bunting from the corner of the cortex. “We’re saying goodbye to everyone we know. This has been my life for almost eight years now. Team Flash are my family. It feels weird to celebrate leaving all that behind.”

“Don’t think of it as a celebration of what we’re leaving behind,” said Kamilla, who was sat at the desk, partway through ordering pizza. “Think of it as a celebration of everything we’ve accomplished. Making friends and building inventions and saving the world! I know it’s difficult and change can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. We’ve done amazing things, and I think it’s important to honour that.”

Cisco sighed as he successfully stuck the flags to the wall. He climbed down from the table he was stood on and joined her at the desk in his usual chair, pushing himself back and forth with his foot. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re always right. I’m not getting cold feet, I promise. I’m excited. We’re going to make this work. We’ve done amazing things, and we’re going to do even more. Together.”

Kamilla beamed. “That’s the spirit.” She held out her hand for a fist-bump.

Grinning, Cisco returned it. “You’re such a dork.”

“Which is exactly why you love me,” Kamilla countered, with a few final clicks and a flourish as she placed the pizza order. She consulted the list on her phone. “Okay, so we’ve got the cake, the decorations, the drinks, and the pizza is in transit. There’s just one more thing we need.”

She slid past him and made her way towards the small metallic fridge tucked away in the corner. Kamilla typed in the passcode 05-20-80 – the release date of The Empire Strikes Back – and the fridge unlocked with a clunk, revealing two test tube holders – one containing a single emergency vial of Velocity IX, and another that held eight tubes of liquid a few shades lighter than blood.

Cisco glanced over, bemused. “Babe, did you stash your Kraft beers in my security fridge? Because that seems a little excessive.”

Kamilla eased the second rack of tubes off the shelf like a tray of freshly baked cookies out of the oven. “No, I’m just getting a couple of vials of 500 proof for Barry. I didn’t want him to feel left out of the festivities.”

Cisco had met a lot of speedsters in his time, but in that moment he was pretty sure he moved faster than any of them as he sprinted across the room to intercept. Startled, Kamilla jerked back and the test tubes clinked together like champagne glasses mid-toast.

“Sorry, can we just back up a little bit – you’re what now?” said Cisco.

“I’m grabbing some drinks for Barry,” Kamilla repeated slowly. “This is his special speedster booze, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Cisco said nervously. “It is, but…”

“But…?” Kamilla prompted.

“Listen,” he said, hands up in a pacifying gesture. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but that is a highly controlled substance and it’s really in everyone’s best interests if you put it back.”

Kamilla grew wide-eyed. “Why? Is it dangerous?”

“I mean, if any normal person drank it, it’d pretty much liquidize their insides, but that’s not the problem.”

As he spoke, Cisco headed over to the shelf on the wall, ran his fingers along the various binders tucked onto the shelf, and pulled one off. Cisco carried it over to the table, pushed aside the keyboard and laid the folder flat in front of her.

“The problem,” he said, flipping it open, “is this.”

Kamilla leaned forwards to read the front page. “The Barry Allen Drunkenness Scale.” Bemused, she looked up. “What’s this?”

“This,” said Cisco, “is the result of a great deal of research and a number of hard-earned lessons.” He picked up the metal test tube rack and returned it to the fridge, his fingers flying across the buttons to input the code before he slid the vials back into place. “It’s also the reason why this stuff doesn’t leave the lab except in dire emergencies, including but not limited to break-ups, deaths and severe metahuman disasters.” Decisively, he closed the fridge and it locked again with a clunk and a beep.

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s because you are fortunate enough to have never before encountered an inebriated Barry Allen,” said Cisco. “Let me walk you through it.” He pulled up a chair and sat beside her, pulling the folder towards them. “There are nine stages of Drunk Barry, each one with a varying level of severity. It starts with stage one.”

 1 DRINK BARRY: A LITTLE CLINGY

One of Barry’s many wonderful qualities is his propensity for affection. Unimpeded by the bounds of modern-day toxic masculinity, 1 Drink Barry generously bestows physical affection on everyone he encounters. To put it plainly: he’s a hugger.

Standing outside Barry and Iris’ front door, Cisco checked his watch.

Usually at this time of night, he’d be hanging out in the cortex watching the red dot darting around on the monitor as Barry did a lap of the city, or in his lab tinkering with some new invention. Tonight, though, was different. They’d all agreed work was off-limits – time to take a hard-earned break. Cisco had been looking forward to it all week, but he guessed the rest of Team Flash didn’t share his enthusiasm, because they were late. That wasn’t like Caitlin at all. Shrugging, he lifted his hand to knock.

The click of heels made him turn just in time to see Caitlin bouncing up the stairs in her heels. “Hi, I’m here! Sorry I’m late; Frost and I couldn’t agree on an outfit.” She leaned in. “Did you bring the, uh…”

Cisco slid a silver flask out of his pocket slightly. “Sure did.”

“Then I guess we’re ready to go!”

“Damn right. …Ladies first?”

Caitlin knocked. They waited, listening to the rattle of six locks being unfastened one at a time, until the door opened to reveal Iris standing on the threshold wearing a tight red dress and a leather jacket.

Cisco whistled. “Damn. You look good.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” said Iris as she stepped back from the door to allow them entry. “Barry will be down in a second, he got held up at work, so he’s a little behind –”

There was a whoosh and a crackle of lightning, and Barry skidded to a stop beside her with windswept hair and a grin. “Here! Hey, guys.”

“Oh. Famous last words.” Iris reached for her purse and swung it onto her shoulder. “Well I’m also running late, so I’d better get going. You guys have fun! And try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

“I’m afraid we can’t make any promises, cos everybody knows there ain’t no party like a Team Flash party!” said Cisco. “You sure you don’t wanna come with us? It’s gonna be one hell of a night.”

“Thank you, but I’m going out with a couple of the girls from CCPN tonight, so… rain check?”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Cisco warned.

“You’d better.” She rested her hand on Barry’s arm. “I’ll see you later, okay? I love you.”

“I love you too,” said Barry, and he leaned in for a kiss.

“Boo! Get a room!” Cisco hollered.

Iris rolled her eyes fondly. “Goodbye, Cisco,” she said, and headed out.

Cisco sighed. “And then there were three.” He looked from Barry to Caitlin and back again, stretching out on the sofa. “Okay, drinks!” He headed into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine in one hand and three glasses in the other.

“Uh, isn’t the drinking supposed to start after you leave the house?” asked Caitlin.

“Only if you’re an amateur! You always have a drink or two before going out on the town. It’s financially savvy.”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” said Barry when Cisco offered him a glass. “No use wasting perfectly good alcohol when it doesn’t even touch the sides.”

“That,” said Cisco, “is why you’ll be drinking this.” He pulled out a silver flask from inside the breast pocket of his blazer. “I call it 500 Proof 2,” he said, and held it dramatically aloft like Frodo holding the one ring.

Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “Really?” she said.

“The name’s a work in progress,” he admitted. “But the drink itself…” He kissed the flask. “She’s ready to go.”

Barry eyed the flask warily. “I don’t know…”

“Oh, come on, you’ve earned it. The city can manage without the Flash for one night. Go on, live a little.” When Barry continued to look skeptical, Cisco started to chant. “Barry, Barry, Barry–”

Grinning, Caitlin joined in. Barry endured it for all of thirty seconds before he rolled his eyes and snatched the flask. Caitlin and Cisco both cheered.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” said Cisco.

He splashed wine into his and Caitlin’s glasses, and passed one to her. She took it with a twinkle in her eye.

“All right, Team Flash!” Cisco whooped, and they clinked their glasses against Barry’s flask before they all drank.

Barry pulled a face. “Jesus! That’s – that’s potent.” He coughed, eyes watering.

“You’re welcome,” said Cisco. “We made a couple of tweaks to the formula. It should stay in your system longer instead of just burning off in thirty seconds flat like the first batch.”

“It tastes like rocket fuel!”

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll put some hairs on your chest,” Cisco said dismissively.

“You can say that again,” muttered Barry, massaging his chest.

“Speaking of hairs on your chest,” said Caitlin, curling up comfortably in her seat. “Did they grow back yet?”

“Not entirely,” admitted Barry. “It’s sort of a peach fuzz.”

“That’ll teach you not to get so close to my experiments,” said Cisco.

“Maybe it’ll teach you to label them better,” said Caitlin.

“Really? Don’t do me like that!”

“Sorry, it’s true.”

This triggered a bout of good-natured bickering as they debated the results of some of Cisco’s more disastrous experiments. Before long they were all laughing, loosened up by the drinks. Barry, who was perched on the arm of Caitlin’s chair, leaned against her.

“I love you guys, you know that?”

“We love you too, Barr – ooof! Oh. Okay,” said Caitlin, bewildered. Barry had slid off the arm of the chair and squeezed up next to her, taking up half the chair like a Great Dane still trying to sit in its owner’s lap.

“Look at him, he’s getting tipsy already,” Cisco teased.

“Shhh.” Barry rested his head contentedly on Caitlin’s shoulder. Amused, she patted his knee.

Cisco downed the rest of his drink. “All right, let’s get this show on the road.”

He offered Caitlin his hand – only to have Barry grab it instead. Then he grabbed Caitlin’s hand too.

“Oh, we’re holding hands?” said Cisco. “Is that a thing we do now?”

“It is when we’re running,” Barry said, grinning.

Caitlin’s eyes widened. “Oh. No, no, no runni–”

The rest of her sentence was lost to the wind.

 2 DRINK BARRY: KINDA CLUMSY

When Barry became a speedster, he gained a massive boost in motor functions, including enhanced reflexes that have massively improved his coordination. Prior to this transformation, his ability to walk unhindered across a flat surface was roughly equal to that of Bella Swan from Twilight. Two-Drink Barry is harmless, but he must be kept at a safe distance from breakable objects.

 Okay, so travelling at super speed sucked – Cisco would stick to breaches from now on, than you very much – but he had to admit it had its advantages. They’d beaten the evening rush by minutes and found themselves a table, where they had been comfortably situated for the past half hour. Since then the bar had filled rapidly, and now they were surrounded by people. Glasses clinked, bodies gyrated. All around them was laughter and the throb of music; he could feel the buzz of the bass against his elbows where they rested on the table.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” asked Caitlin. “No monsters, no metahumans… just the three of us having a few quiet drinks.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Cisco said darkly. “Also, I don’t know that the ‘drinks’ part is entirely accurate. The fastest man alive is about to lose his title. Where the hell is he?” Barry had offered to get the next round, but that was ten minutes ago and they hadn’t seen him since. Frowning, Cisco and scanned the room.

Just as he had started to get concerned, the crowd parted and Barry appeared with three glasses in his hands.

“It’s about time! What took you?”

“I’m so sorry,” said Barry. “I got held up at the bar, there was a huge li–”

Whatever he’d been about to say next was cut off as he abruptly tripped over his own feet.

All three drinks spilled everywhere. Lightning flickered as he lurched forwards to try and intercept, and he managed to right the glasses, but not before the majority of their contents had ended up all over the table.

Cisco’s plastic cup floated across the tabletop in a puddle of dismally fizzing coke, which dripped steadily into his lap. Caitlin looked down at her soaked sweater, hands held up in shock. Her eyes flared white.

“This,” snarled Frost, “is a cashmere sweater.”

Barry’s eyes were wide. “Oh my God, guys, I am so sorry.”

With a jerk of her head, Caitlin regained control. “It’s fine,” she said, then winced, presumably in response to whatever Frost snarled in the back of her head. “Really. It happens to the best of us.” She pulled the sopping wet fabric away from her with a grimace. “Um… does anyone have a tissue?”

“Let me get some paper towels!” said Barry.

Cisco reached out to stop him. “Actually, Barr, maybe you should –”

But it was too late: Barry had already turned around and crashed into a guy going in the opposite direction, who slopped beer all over himself. Cisco winced sympathetically.

“I’m sorry!” Barry said, while the guy glared and shook his wet hands.

“Maybe you should take a seat,” said Cisco.

Still apologising profusely, Barry sank onto his stool and shrank in on himself, nursing what was left of his drink while Caitlin went to get something to clear up the mess.

“So I guess those adjustments we made to the 500 proof are working, huh?” Cisco said with a smirk.

“Oh, they’re working,” said Barry. “Speaking of which, can I get a top-up?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Caitlin asked, returning with a wad of paper towels. She started to mop up the table.

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I’m not even buzzed, seriously. Tipsy at best. Come on, hit me.” He waved at his drink.

Cisco and Caitlin exchanged looks. There was a slight flush to Barry’s cheeks, and his eyes were a little brighter than usual, but other than that he seemed stable.

“I have wanted to study how the speedforce interacts with alcohol,” Caitlin admitted. “Metabolic processes aside, I am interested to measure the effects.”

“What the hell,” Cisco said. He unscrewed the cap of the flask and tipped it in to Barry’s glass, pouring a generous measure. “Knock yourself out.”

Barry beamed and picked up his drink. “Cheers,” he said, and they all clinked their half empty glasses.

 Three Drink Barry: Barry Dance-Pants

This Barry is able to flawlessly replicate the choreography for every single Britney Spears music video unprompted. So far we have been unable to determine where he acquired this information.

They all agreed that it was best if Cisco got the next round. He didn’t retrieve the next lot of drinks any faster than Barry had – if anything, he was slower; people kept shoving in front of him every time he got close to the bar – but at least the glasses stayed upright this time. When he returned to the table, though, Caitlin was alone.

“Where’d Barry go?”

Caitlin frowned. “I thought he was with you.”

“Nope.” He passed her drink over to her.

Caitlin worried at her lower lip.

“Hey, don’t stress,” said Cisco. “Barry’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.”

“I don’t know. He’s been gone a while, and he wasn’t exactly steady on his feet. He might hurt himself.”

“Good thing we have a doctor on call,” said Cisco, sipping his drink.

“That’s not funny. Seriously, I’m worried about him. I’m not sure he should be left unsupervised.”

She had a point. Speed and immense clumsiness wasn’t a great combination – they’d learned that the hard way. Cisco downed the rest of his drink with a grimace. “All right, let’s go look for him.”

They got up and headed out onto the dancefloor. The music was so loud that the entire room vibrated, Britney Spears’ Womanizer throbbing through the room. Caitlin pulled back and made a face as she almost inhaled a mouthful of some stranger’s coarse blonde hair. She batted it away like cobwebs.

“Ugh. Remind me why we decided to come out on the busiest night of the week?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” muttered Cisco, craning his neck. “Man, I can’t see him anywhere. It’s like playing Where’s Wally? Hey – hey, excuse me! Can I just squeeze – guys?” He attempted to slide past a knot of people, only to give up with a frustrated sigh. “Jesus, it’s like talking to a brick wall. What the hell are they looking at?”

Caitlin stood on her toes. “It looks like...” She stopped. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

She grabbed his arm and steered him through the crowd, using him as a battering ram to force her way through. Eventually, breathless and sweaty, they made it to the outskirts of the dancefloor, where Cisco finally got a good look at exactly what had captivated everyone’s attention.  

Barry was in the middle of the dancefloor, tearing it up. He strutted up and down, squatted and slut-dropped before he arched his back and pumped his hips forward in several lewd thrusts. The crowd cheered.

“Oh my God,” said Caitlin.

“He is killing it!” Cisco cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Yes, Barry!”

Barry winked and blew a kiss, rolling over to air-hump the ground with an alarming level of enthusiasm.

“Should we maybe go over there?” asked Caitlin.

“In a second,” said Cisco. He held his phone up, pressed record and zoomed in on Barry’s gyrating body, careful to keep his face in shot. “I wanna get this for posterity’s sake.”

“Cisco!” Caitlin scolded, and reached out to cover the camera.

Cisco jerked the phone out of reach. “You are aware that his ringtone for you is still thirty seconds of you butchering Summer Lovin’?”

Caitlin pursed her lips. “On second thoughts,” she said. “I hope you’re getting this in HD.”

Cisco grinned and went back to recording.

*

“Okay, that’s a little embarrassing,” Kamilla conceded.

“That? That was iconic,” corrected Cisco. “The man has moves. I swear he was a professional dancer in another life. I still have that video; I’ll show you later if you ask me nicely…”

“I’ll hold you to it. But none of this explains why this stuff has to be so rigorously controlled. I mean, being clumsy, affectionate, kinda sloppy, tearing it up on the dancefloor… that sounds like pretty standard drunk behaviour.”

“The first three drinks aren’t the problem,” Cisco said darkly. “It’s what comes after that you have to worry about. See, drunk Barry is insatiable. One drink is never enough. Once he’s had a taste of that sweet, sweet 500 proof concentrated speedster juice, he won’t rest until he’s had more. And while he may be an icon, three-drink Barry soon gives way to…”

 FOUR-DRINK BARRY: LOUD BARRY.

Barry Allen is a hero in every sense of the word. Time and time again he has sacrificed everything for the noble goal of making the world a better place. Barry doesn't save lives for the glory or the recognition; he does it because it's the right thing to do. But four-drink Barry… he thinks a little recognition might be nice.

 The final chords of Womanizer faded out into a sea of applause. Beaming from ear to ear, Barry took a series of bows, flapping his hand as if to say, ‘oh, stop it!’ After a few more moments of thoroughly enjoying the spotlight, he disengaged from his loving admirers and headed back towards Cisco and Caitlin and slid breathlessly back into the booth. His sweaty hair stuck to his forehead.

“Where did that come from?” Cisco asked, impressed.

Barry shrugged. “I’m full of surprises.”

“Clearly. I think you just earned yourself another drink!”

Cisco handed him the flask, and Barry clinked it cheerfully against Cisco’s beer bottle before he tipped it back and swallowed with a grimace. His eyes watered.

“Damn. That never goes down any easier.”

“Well it is just concentrated alcohol,” Caitlin reminded him. “Speaking of which…” She pulled her testing kit out of her purse. “Four drinks should be more than enough to start showing some side-effects. Let me take a quick blood sample.” Before Barry could object, she stabbed a lancet into his finger.

“Ow!” Barry put his finger in his mouth and sucked on it.

“Everything okay there?”

They all turned. A blond man in a grey t-shirt stood a short distance away, looking at them in concern.

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m good. Just hurt my finger.” He held it up ruefully.

Blondie moved closer. “Well it’s your lucky night: I’m a nurse. Why don’t you let me take a look?”

Cisco plastered on a smile. “That’s real nice of you, but our friend here is actually a doctor, so –”

Barry held out his hand, overriding Cisco’s objections. Blondie took it and examined it, tracing his palm with the tip of his finger. Cisco rolled his eyes hard and took another swallow of his drink.

“I was just watching you out on the dancefloor,” Blondie said. “Those were some impressive moves.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” Barry said modestly.

“No, it was definitely something. If I busted out a routine like that I’d be laid up for a week. What’s your secret?”

“Funny you should say that, cos…” Barry leaned in and said impishly, “I’m actually the Flash.”

Cisco choked on his drink. It went straight up his nose; his sinuses were on fire. He coughed hard, eyes watering.

“Are you okay, man?” the stranger asked concernedly.

“Great,” Cisco managed.

Satisfied, Blondie’s attention returned to Barry. “Well, I think your finger’s okay.” His thumb pressed against the inside of Barry’s wrist and his forehead creased slightly. “Your pulse is pretty fast, though.”

“Is it?” Barry said, resting his chin on his hand. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes.

Blondie released him, but he showed no signs of leaving. He looked Barry appraisingly up and down. “So you’re the Flash, huh?”

“Yep,” Barry said. His eyes twinkled. “Fastest man alive.”

“Mm. Maybe we’ll have to test that.”

At this point, Cisco decided, enough was enough. He slapped Barry on the back hard enough to make him stagger and complain, “Ow!”

“Ha!” he said. “This guy. He’s a kidder, right? A real riot. Hey, uh, Barry, can I talk to you for a second?”

Before Barry could object, Cisco had grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pulled him out of the main bar area into the corridor, where there was a line of people waiting for the bathroom. Out here it was cooler and while he could still feel the throb of the music through the sticky soles of his sneakers, at least he could hear himself think.

“Dude,” he said. “Seriously? What the hell?”

“Oh, come on. It’s just a little harmless flirting. Iris and I, we have an agreement–”

“I’m not talking about the flirting! You can’t just –” Cisco stopped and made himself take a very deep breath before he lowered his voice. “You can’t just tell people you’re the freaking Flash!”

Barry gave a slow, confused blink. “But I am the Flash.”

He didn’t say it quietly. Several heads turned their way.

Cisco gave an uncomfortable laugh and rolled his eyes, before darting them at Barry like, ‘this guy, am I right?’ After a moment, the bystanders lost interest and went back to their conversation, and Cisco lowered his voice. “I know that, Barry, but it’s a secret, remember?”

“A secret?” Barry’s eyes widened and he clapped his hands over his mouth. “Oh! Right, I forgot. I’m sorry.”

“You know what? It’s all good. Just a little misunderstanding. But uh, let’s keep that one under wraps from now on, okay? Lips…” He mimed zipping up his mouth.

Barry nodded dutifully. “Got it.”

“Okay.” Cisco exhaled heavily. Jesus. Babysitting a drunken speedster was hard work.

Barry patted him on the shoulder. “M’gonna go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in…” He held up two fingers. “Two seconds.”

“You’d better be. And remember –” He made the zipping motion again.

Barry imitated it, pretending to lock his mouth up and tossed away the imaginary key. Then he went to join the queue.

Feeling like he’d just aged a decade, Cisco made his way back to their booth. Mercifully, Blondie had gone to chat up some twink at the bar. Cisco sank back onto his stool and buried his head in his hands.

Caitlin, who was squeezing a few droplets of Barry’s blood onto a testing strip, made a sympathetic sound. “Not having a good time, huh?”

“I’d be having a great time if Black Canary over there could quit singing about his secret identity for five freaking minutes.” Cisco snatched the silver flask off the table and screwed the cap back on with a sharp twist. “We’re cutting him off right now, before we get into any more trouble.”

“Oh, come on, cut him a little slack. He doesn’t exactly get to let loose very often.”

“There’s letting loose and then there’s whatever the hell this is.” Cisco shook his head. “It’s like –”

A high-pitched shriek cut him off, and Cisco grimaced as it rang throughout the room. Everyone turned to the source of the commotion – and Cisco’s heart sank. Barry stood on the stage, fumbling with the microphone stand.

“Is this thing on?”

“Oh God,” said Caitlin.

Cisco launched himself at the stage, fighting through the crowd. As he did, Barry continued to ramble into the mic.

“Hi. My name’s Barry, Barry Allen, and I just wanted to say something real quick. Because I love this city. It’s like… my favourite city. And I love all of you. Especially you.” He pointed unsteadily at someone in the crowd and gave a clumsy wink. “Anyway, I’m gonna tell you a secret while I’m here. You guys can keep a secret, right? Shhh!” He put his fingers on his lips. “See, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but…” He leaned in so close that his lips brushed against the mic. “I’m the Fla –”

Just in time, Cisco jerked the mic away from him. “Flaaa–ha! Okay, that’s quite enough of that. I think my buddy here needs some air.  Come on, Barry, let’s go.”

Luckily, Barry didn’t resist. He whooshed cheerfully as Cisco shunted him back to their booth and into his seat, then lolled sideways against Caitlin, who – with reflexes well-honed from constantly grabbing flying paperwork – managed to save her testing kit from being swept off the table.

Barry giggled. “I’m fast,” he said.

“Okay,” Cisco said resignedly. He turned to Caitlin. “Got any better ideas?”

She shrugged. “Pray that six-drink Barry is a little more tight-lipped?”

It sounded like a terrible idea. But when had that ever stopped them? With a shake of his head, Cisco withdrew the flask from his pocket.

“Hold on.” Caitlin’s voice had dropped an octave, and silver began to creep down from the roots of her hair. “I wanna see this,” said Frost. “It’s gonna be a total shitshow.”

Unfortunately, Cisco suspected she was right. He splashed more alcohol into Barry’s glass. “Here you go, big guy. Drink up.”

Barry looked down at his drink and frowned. “Can I get ice in this?”

Frost passed her hand over the glass and a chunk of ice dropped to the bottom with a clink.

“Awesome,” Barry said, and downed it.

“Oh God,” said Cisco. “We are so gonna regret this.”

 *

“Okay,” said Kamilla, looking up from the binder. “I think I’m kinda starting to see the problem. But we won’t have that issue tonight. Everyone at this party knows Barry’s the Flash.”

“Listen,” said Cisco. “Four-drink Flash is a cake-walk. The worst is yet to come.” He flipped the page. “Let me introduce you to five-drink Flash.”

*

 5 DRINK BARRY: THERAPIST BARRY

Five-drink Barry got a little too invested in Iris’ Intro to Psychology textbook in college. He’s all heart, zero clinical training.

Leonard Snart lay back on his bunk in Iron Heights, one leg resting lazily over the other, flipping through a nudie magazine. At least, that was how it appeared from outside the cell. Tucked between the pages was a blueprint of the prison, which his sister had smuggled in during her last visit. The bed creaked as he shifted his weight.

One of the guards struck the bars with his baton. Len glanced up.

“Snart. Get your ass out here. We’ve got a phone call for you.”

“Who from?” Lisa didn’t usually call so soon after a visit, and Mick never called at all; the signal on the Waverider was terrible.

“What do you think I am, your PA? Just get your ass out here.”

Interest well and truly piqued, Len tossed his magazine aside, careful to make sure the blueprint stayed safely tucked between his pages as he crossed the cell and waited for the door to be unlocked. Given his status as a high security prisoner, the guard cuffed him before leading him to the payphone booth in the reception area, the walls marked with grease stains and graffiti. With some difficulty, Len picked up the phone.

“Hello, this is Leonard Snart speaking. How may I be of service?”

The quality of the call wasn’t great. He could hear the throb of music, people talking and shrieking and laughing in the background.

Then a familiar voice said, “Snart? Is that you?”

Len’s forehead creased. “Barry?”

“Shmart. Snart.” Barry cleared his throat. “Hi. Are you okay?”

“…Peachy.” Len flicked a glance over his shoulder. The two prison guards stood watching him with folded arms and distinctly unimpressed expressions. “Can I ask if this is a business or a personal call? Because this isn’t exactly a secure line.”

“I just –” A loud, deep burp echoed down the line. “Wanted to check in n’ make sure you’re doin’ okay.”

“What?”

“Because I wanted you to know,” Barry said, his voice thick and indistinct, “that it’s okay not to be okay, you know? You shouldn’t bottle up your emotions. You gotta let ‘em out, you know? After everything you’ve been through with Lewis, I just wanted you to know that if you ever needed to talk…” He choked up, before recovering. “I’ll be here.”

“Barry, are you drunk?” Len said incredulously.

“See, there you go again, changing the subject. Have you ever noticed that you often use de… def… deflection as a way to avoid talking about difficult subjects?”

“I’m hanging up now,” said Len.

“No, no, no, no, wait! Wait!” Barry said urgently. “You need to talk about what bothers you. Don’t just bottle it up. Your emotions are a beautiful thing. Emotions are what make us–”

“Barry?” came another muffled voice on the other end of the line. “Who are you talking to?”

“No one,” Barry said immediately.

“Barry, give me the phone.”

“No.”

“Just give me the god damn –”

The sound of static and scuffles crackled down the line, and Len grimaced, lifting his head as far away from the speaker as he could to keep from being deafened. Over the commotion and the continued music blasting in the background, he could hear Barry shouting.

“You can be anything you want to be! Your past does not define you!”

“Okay,” said Len, and went to put the phone down.

“Wait!” said Barry. “Before you go, do you have a number for King Shark? Because I wanted to check in and make sure he’s doing okay. I know he looks scary, but underneath that slimy exterior he has the heart of a –”

Len rolled his eyes and hung up.

*

Sober Barry was a seasoned fighter, with speed, agility and hard-won experience on his side. Fortunately for Cisco, however, Drunk Barry’s combat skills comprised of slapping and some half-hearted attempts to bite, which meant that he was able to wrestle the phone away from him fairly easily. As he hung up, he glanced at the caller ID and blanched.

“Seriously? You’re making phone calls to Iron Heights? Are you gonna tell all the bad guys your secret identity too?” He held Barry’s phone up. “You know what? I’m keeping this; you clearly can’t be trusted.”

“My phone!” Barry said, and made a pathetic grab for it.

“Nope. Not happening, pal.” Cisco tucked it into his back pocket.

Barry pouted.

“Hey, don’t give me that look. I’m going to give it back later, I promise. I just need you to sober up first.”

“Okay,” Barry said sorrowfully. His bottom lip started to tremble.

“Oh, no,” Cisco said. “Not the lip – oh God, Barr, you’re breaking my heart here.”

“What’s happening?” asked Frost, returning to the table with two more beers, frost creeping down the side of the bottles. She gave a disinterested look at Barry, who was staring at the table with tears brimming in his eyes. He sniffed hard.

“Uh-oh,” said Cisco. “Six-drink Barry must be…”

 SIX-DRINK BARRY: SAD BARRY

Shortly after his fifth drink, Barry loses his well-honed ability to repress and crumbles under the weight of well over a decade of trauma. In times of crisis, he can be medicated with chicken wings or, in a pinch, large servings of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

 Cisco turned to Frost for help, but she inched away, rapidly shaking her head. Great, thought Cisco. Super helpful. He rubbed Barry’s back tentatively.

“Hey, Barry. You doing okay there, bud?”

Barry looked up. “I just got off the phone with Snart. He’s having a really hard time, you know? I mean, some people just can’t catch a break. He had a crappy abusive drunk for a father; he practically raised his sister. In and out of juvie, never graduated high school – and in spite of all of that, he comes up with these brilliant heists – like seriously impressive – and then the Flash comes in and totally ruins every single one of them. I mean, come on. The guy’s gotta make a living somehow, am I right?”

“Uh,” said Cisco.

“I always said to him, you can do better.” He poked Cisco clumsily in the chest to emphasize each word. “You have what it takes to be a hero. So the guy joins the Legends, becomes a hero, and then he freaking dies in an explosion. Kaboom! And then he comes back, returns to Central City to start over, robs one lousy bank and gets thrown straight back in prison. How is that fair?”

“Jail time seems like a fairly reasonable consequence for grand larceny,” said Frost.

“It’s just a bad habit,” Barry said forlornly. “He deserves help and compassion, not a prison cell. Do you know what it’s like in Iron Heights? The food is terrible. My Dad spend a decade in there and he always said…”

He trailed off. For a moment Cisco thought he’d gone into a trance, as he stared down at the table, forehead slightly creased. Then he saw the haunted look in Barry’s eyes. The face of a man who had seen terrible things.

They needed a distraction. Luckily, Cisco had just the thing. “You know what?” he said. “Maybe the food in prison isn’t great, but you know what’s awesome? The food you can get delivered right here. Nice, starchy, alcohol-absorbing food. Let’s look at a take-out menu and see what we’ve got.” He pulled up JustEat on his phone. “We could get you a pizza… maybe some fries… a couple of burgers; that sounds–”

“Chicken wings,” Barry said distantly.

They both turned to look at him.

“Chicken wings?” said Frost sceptically.

“Chicken wings,” Barry insisted.

“Okay!” said Cisco. “We’ll get chicken wings.” He added one portion to the basket. Then took another look at Barry’s face and hit the plus button several times. “Lots… and lots… of chicken wings.” He locked the phone. “Okay, food should be with us in a couple of minutes. So what now?”

“More drinks!” Barry said.

“No! No more –”

It was too late; there was a crackle of lightning and then the flask slammed back down onto the tabletop.

Cisco closed his eyes in defeat.

 8 Drink Barry is a Michelin-star chef

Sober Barry’s cooking is average at best, but 8 drink Barry reveals a deep inner passion for the culinary arts.

It was a little past two am when a breach opened at the top of the stairwell, pulsing and flickering with pale blue light. Frost and Cisco staggered out of it, each holding one of Barry’s arms to keep him from escaping.

“Okay, almost there,” said Cisco. “You’re doing a great job. Can you let us in?”

Barry patted himself clumsily down until he found his keys and tried to open the first lock. He kept missing the keyhole. After his third attempt, Barry sighed and collapsed forwards, head resting against the wood panelling. Then he started vibrating.

Cisco suddenly realised what he was trying to do. “No, no wait, don’t–”

There was a buzzing sensation, a sickening lurch, and then all three of them fell straight through the front door.

Frost gave a full-body shudder and released her hold on Barry’s shirt to rub her arms.

“Never do that again! It makes my skin crawl.”

“I feel like we should have a rule about phasing under the influence,” Cisco muttered.

Together, they managed to get Barry onto the couch, where he lay blinking up at them, floppy as a rag doll, barbecue sauce smeared down his chin. More of the wings had ended up on his face than in his mouth, but Cisco hoped the restorative properties would kick in soon.

“Hey, Sad Flash. How’re you holding up?”

“I’m hungry,” Barry said. He clawed his way to a standing position. “Gonna make food.” Yellow light blazed as he sprinted into the kitchen.

Frost turned to Cisco. “He’s still hungry? He had like, eight servings of chicken wings!”

“Just go with it,” Cisco muttered, and then the alarming sounds of crashes and bangs came from the kitchen. “Barry? Do you need some help in there?”

Lightning crackled erratically as Barry sped around the room. Within seconds, every available surface was strewn with culinary equipment: a chopping board; a stained knife; various ingredients. A knife flashed as he rapidly diced an onion and swept it into the pan too fast for the eye to follow, and then the burner came on with a click and a whoosh. Oil sizzled as Barry dropped a steak into the pan. He grabbed a wine bottle off the side, yanked the cork out with his teeth and spat it across the room; it missed Frost by inches, and she recoiled in disgust. Barry sniffed the wine, and after a moment of consideration, he sloshed a generous amount into the pan. Flames leapt skyward, and Barry expertly tamped them down.

“Uh… what are you doing?” said Cisco.

Barry flipped the steak with a flick of his wrist. “Cooking.”

“Yeah, I can see that, but I thought you were going to make pasta, or fries, you know – normal drunk people food, not –” Cisco inhaled. “What even is that?”

“Braised steak in a red wine sauce, with asparagus on the side,” Barry said.

“…Right,” said Cisco. “Sorry I asked.”

*

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Kamilla.

“It isn’t,” said Cisco. “It’s goddamn awesome. The problem with 8-Drink Barry is that hot on his heels is –”

*

9 DRINK BARRY – SLEEPY BARRY.

On the night the particle accelerator exploded, Barry went into a coma and remained unconscious for nine months. During that time, his score on the Glasgow Coma Scale was a 5. Rumour has it that nine-drink Barry scored even lower than that.

 “This is the worst night out I’ve ever been on in my life, and I share a body with Caitlin. Her idea of fun is wearing hideous pyjamas and watching documentaries on Hulu,” Frost hissed.

They stood on the doorstep laden with plastic bags while Cisco searched through the assortment of keys Barry had given him, trying to find the one for the first lock. “Look,” he said, inserting one into the lock with a crunch, “I know it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing, but hopefully he’ll have got the rest of it out of his system while we were out breaching to every grocery store in the city.”

“Right, because Gordon Ramsay in there had to have…” Frost slid the bottle of wine out of the grocery bag. “Whatever the hell this is. Chateau Belair Mona–whatever. As if a hundred-and-fifty-dollar bottle is going to taste any different than the fifteen-dollar fifty bottle from the liquor store.” She rolled her eyes. “What the hell is he even going to do with it?”

“To be honest, as long as he doesn’t drink it I could care less what he does with it. Just keep him distracted for long enough to get some more food inside of him and make sure any breakable objects are out of reach before he gets down to the two-drink level.” He shook the keys in frustration. “Jesus, how many keys do they have?”

“I still don’t see why we had to–” Frost paused and narrowed her eyes. She sniffed sharply. “Is something burning?”

They looked down. Thick grey smoke billowed out from underneath the kitchen door.

Seconds later, the door burst off its hinges in a cloud of icy fog.

Inside the loft was total chaos. Barry slumped at the kitchen table, dead to the world, his hand still loosely clasped around the flask of speedster booze. A small puddle of drool on the table shone in the firelight. Behind him, his frying pan lay abandoned on the range, smoking violently while flames leapt towards the ceiling.

The piercing shriek of the smoke alarm tore through the room. Frost blasted the frying pan with a thick stream of ice and cold energy crackled from her palms, barely making a difference in the temperature of the room. Cisco grabbed a damp tea towel off the side and beat at the flames, trying frantically to extinguish the blaze. Behind them, Barry didn’t so much as twitch, his snores drowned out by the alarm.

*

“Okay, I think I get the gist,” said Kamilla, looking up from the folder. “No-booze Barry is the way to go.” She hesitated. “But just out of morbid curiosity, what about nine-drink Barry?”

“Unchartered territory,” Cisco said darkly. “We figured eight drinks was enough.”  He closed the folder conclusively. “So yeah, it sucks that Barry can’t drink with us, but with great power comes great responsibility. And sometimes responsibility means making sure your friend doesn’t accidentally break the sound barrier by doing the worm at Mach 2.”

Cisco went to slide the folder back onto the shelf. As he did so, his gaze caught a framed photo on the countertop. He paused and picked it up, smiling sadly. It was a picture of himself, Caitlin, Barry and Thawne – or Wells, as they’d believed back then – from the early days. They all looked so young, grinning at the camera, hair tousled where Barry had sped out from behind the phone before the shutter clicked. His chest ached.

Kamilla put a hand on his arm. “You’re going to miss them, aren’t you?”

“Always.” He put the photo down. “But we gotta keep moving forward. Speaking of which, it is beyond uncool to be late to your own party, so we’d better get shaking.” He held out his arm. “Ready?”

“You go,” said Kamilla. “I just have a few last-minute things to take care of. I’ll catch up.”

“Okay.” Cisco kissed her on the cheek and slipped out of the room.

Kamilla glanced over her shoulder, bit her lower lip. Then her gaze slid over to the fridge.

Tiptoeing across the room, she approached the container and input the code again. Her hair tossed as she glanced over her shoulder to make sure that no one was watching. Then she slid out a single blood red vial and tucked it into her purse.

Just in case.

[polar534]

Slumber Party... OF DOOM!

So. Here is my submission for @johnnysfire ‘s TOH Prompt challenge. For anyone who doesn’t know the prompt chosen was “Evil.”

I asked my lovely friends from discord whether I should go emotional or lighthearted with this and they said lighthearted, so here we are. It was actually really really fun to take a topic like evil and twist it to something fun and hopefully fluffy. I had to keep a lot of things shorter then what I would’ve liked to meet the word count (spoiler alert, I still went a little over), so one day I do plan on fixing this up and making it an actual one shot, detailing the game and everything. Until then, enjoy the read! My idea going in? 

Haunted Boardgame:

(EDIT: Um so Tumblr ate and spat out some paragraphs at random the first time I posted... so hopefully everything is in its correct order. Yikes.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Pillows?" 

"Check."

"Blankets."

"Check!"

"Hot chocolate?"

3 sets of eyes turned to the green-haired witch sitting in the corner. Amity Blight was currently too busy staring at the glow that inexplicably seemed to surround Luz as she sounded off the ingredients for her perfect 'Slumber Party' to notice her companions all staring at her.

"..."

Amity's eyes shifted only slightly to the left as her ear twitched, finally noticing the silence and the fact that everyone was staring at her.

Wait.

Everyone was staring at her.

"Oh um..." Amity looked around panicked, flushing red as she realized she had completely zoned out. She quickly analyzed the scene. Willow had wrapped a fluffy blanket around herself as Gus clutched a pillow excitedly to his chest.

Right. The checklist. Refusing to look at Luz (to avoid any further embarrassment or lapses in attention), Amity quickly reached out and snatched her sound-off item. Only barely remembering what it was at the last moment, Amity somehow saved herself from the splash of scalding liquid that flew out of her mug.

"Hot chocolate, acquired!" She grinned forcibly and altogether too nervously.

Finally risking a glance up to her crush she realized that Luz was giggling, the human's eyes closed as she snicked softly against her hands.

Amity's ears pressed flat against her head as Willow chuckled to her left.

"Well that would be Amity for 'check.'" The plant witch giggled, shifting her body to face Luz excitedly. "So. What happens now?"

"Yes, what new human traditions are you going to show us? I'm so excited!!" Gus squeaked happily, crushing the pillow in arms.

Luz grinned. "Just a little more patience my friend. We've got to start this off correctly. So… if everyone would grab their cocoa, probably a little more gentler then Amity over there, then I'll begin the toast to make this the best slumber party ev-"

THUMP THUMP

Luz stopped short as all those in attendance whipped around to face the door. Amity was finally able to unhunch her shoulders and stare with the rest of her friends at the mysterious knock at the door. The human was inquisitive herself.

"Luz, I thought you said there was supposed to be no one home tonight?" Amity questioned her curiously, cocking her head slightly to the side.

Luz's brow furrowed as she got up.

"There isn't anyone home tonight."

The entire room seemed to hold it's breath as Luz approached the door and pausing for what had to be dramatic effect, opened it sharply.

"HAH! GOT YOU… absolutely nothing…"

Amity peered around Luz's body to see exactly what was going on only to be met with the same sight and disappointment. An empty hallway.

Glancing both ways in the doorframe, the human shrugged nonchalantly as she went to close the door.

"Wait!" Gus cried from behind all of them. Flinging the pillow away from him and into Willow's stomach, he jumped up and dived underneath Luz to swipe something up from the ground.

Holding it proudly over his head both him and Luz marched back into the room, the bedroom door closing softly behind them. Willow and Amity leaned in close as Gus dropped the mysterious object to the ground with a soft and dramatic thump.

"What… is it?" Willow asked curiously, inspecting what looked to be a black rectangular box that lay before them.

"Is this part of the slumber party?" Gus asked curiously as Luz picked up the box and gave it a small shake.

"Not that I'm aware of. Let's open it!" The human said excitably, turning the box over to rip it open.

"Wait!" Amity yelped, grabbing Luz by the arm to stop her. Realizing what she was doing, Amity immediately dropped the contact, blushing profusely as she pointed to a small piece of paper that had fluttered to the ground.

"A note!!" Luz's eyes twinkled, causing the blushing witch to somehow go even redder. "Amity, you should read it for us!"

"What?!" Amity choked in surprise. "Why me?!"

"You found it! Besides you have a nice voice!" Luz explained casually, shaking the box slightly and holding it up to her ear.

Amity found it difficult to breathe as she shakily grabbed the note and held it in front of her, Willow and Gus scooting forward in excitement. Trying to ignore the thundering of her heartbeat in her chest and the full attention of the room, Amity glanced down at the note.

"Dear Sleeping Party attendants! You have been called upon to vanquish the evil from within this board! Inside you'll find what seems to be a normal board game, but is actually a prison for a very powerful and evil spirit! The only way to keep it's villainy contained is to play and win the game. The world is counting on you. Good luck! Mwehehehehehe."

Amity frowned and reread the note to herself. The world? That seemed farfetched to say the least. Where did this box even come from? Who sent it to them? Looking up Amity saw the stars dancing in Luz's eyes. Her crush was sold. Gus was practically buzzing beside her.

"I've heard of objects that could be bound with spirits before, but never like this!" He babbled excitedly.

"I have! You know how many human stories are filled with things like this? How long I've been wanting to do this?!" Luz grinned, finally figuring out how to open the box.

As the top lid slid off, a cheap and busted old board fell to the ground with a cloud of dust. Flipping the box over, a pile of cards, dice and one rather large hour glass spilled out as Luz gave it one final shake. Willow automatically went to organize everything and flipping the board over Amity saw a long and complicated maze pattern. The entire board seemed to be black, with the path cutting along through it a dull, brownish red. It seemed like each square had one of 3 icons sprinkled randomly throughout. In the very, very center of the board there was some sort of design. Amity reached forward and brushed the dust and dirt away from it as Luz and Gus talked excitedly above her.

The chatter quickly faded as everyone's eyes slid to the symbol that Amity had just uncovered. It was carved into the board itself, the deep grooves of the design painted in a faded and chipped white. Luz stared curiously while Gus, Willow and Amity all exchanged a concerned look. The design was simple, a small circle, with 4 tight loops surrounding it in all 4 cardinal directions, connecting in a diamond pattern in the very center of the circle.

The Witch's Knot.

Luz looked up at the plant witch curiously, one eyebrow raised as Amity swallowed the lump that was quickly growing in her throat.

"Oooh. That's elegant." Luz cooed.

"It's not elegant Luz…" Willow breathed quietly.

"That's," Amity pointed at the symbol, "a witch's knot. It's a symbol used to ward off evil."

Luz turned her head down to the board game and nodded. "Oh I get it, because of the evviiiilll theme this game has going on right?" She chuckled lightheartedly. When no one responded in kind, the human became quiet, her grin slowly slipping off her face.

"No. You don't understand. The Witch's Knot isn't just some superstition or tradition. In the Boiling Isles it had been used as a spell, carved to literally seal away evil. It hasn't been used in centuries though." Amity explained further, staring at the ancient white symbol. A cold feeling crept up her back.

Maybe there really was something to this game.

"Well, that makes what I'm about to say next, something that I have wanted to say forever by the way, a little more somber…" Luz gulped as she grabbed the dice Willow had set aside. The human tossed them into the air, and as they all watched the cubes crash down, she spoke again.

"Let the game… begin."

***

Despite the incredibly dramatic and powerful gesture, Luz had no idea how to play the game, none of them did. Luckily for the companions, Willow eventually found the directions taped to the inside lid of the box Luz had tossed aside. They were scribbled out in child-like handwriting but they were detailed enough to understand:

- Rolling the dice will move your character that many steps forward. On the board there are 3 different symbols. These represent your obstacles, fail to complete them and you lose your life. The only way to reverse this death is for a living player to revive you by taking a detour off the fastest route. Be warned, choosing this path will waste precious time and you will be risking your own life. You may only revive one player per game.

- Each player must choose a small token to represent themselves on the board. You will work together with those around you to overcome each obstacle in your path to the sigil. The goal is to reach the end with at least one player still standing to revive the The Witch's Knot protecting us from the evil.

- You may not begin the game until you have flipped the hour glass. If the last grain drains from the timer and you have not reached the end, evil will be unleashed.

-The Board itself is enchanted to tell if the players are worthy. It will be the judge and jury for the challenges you complete.

[ ~ ] Draw a blue card and cast the correct type of magic listed on it at the board. If you fail to cast the correct spell you lose your life.

Below are the symbols you will encounter on your quest:

[ + ] Draw a pink card and complete the challenge listed upon it. If you fail to meet this challenge you lose your life.

[ * ] Draw a green card. Answer the question on it correctly to move forward. If you get it wrong you lose your life.

Now having read through the rules, everyone seemed a lot more hesitant to start.

- When your token reaches the end, the correct lines to reseal the evil will appear. Read them aloud in a strong and clear voice.

"This seems like a bad idea." Amity echoed the thoughts of everyone in the room. Her amber eyes flicked up and caught Luz's warm brown ones. The human gave her a shaky smile.

"Come on Ami," Amity had to remind herself to keep breathing at the idea of her nickname. "It will be fun. Besides… I'm not exactly itching to find out what happens if we don't play." The human admitted quietly. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the dice.

They had all chose board pieces to represent themselves from Luz's large collection of knickknacks. Luz was a small figure of Azura while Amity was Hecate. Gus found himself a tiny rubber chameleon toy while Willow fittingly found a small plastic flower. Each kid seemed to fidget with their tokens as Luz looked at them each in turn. Nodding, the human set her figure down on the start square. Immediately a buzzing sound filled the room and the dull red path illuminated itself. The symbols now glowed their respective card color.

"Well. That seems ominous." Luz laughed nervously, her eyes growing wide as the light from the path traveled towards the Witch's Knot, as it reached the chipped white paint, the symbol flashed, changing it's paint to a bright angry red. "Scratch that. That is just ominous. Is my soul about to be consumed? Did I just sell my soul to a board game?"

Willow set her piece down next, a small ring of light forming around it as the board recognized yet another player.

"Well, I wasn't really using my soul for anything important at the moment. Let's do this." The plant witch grinned and Amity watched as Luz's confidence swiftly returned.

Gus whooped and set his own piece on the board earning him a wide smile from both of his friends. Soon all sets of eyes drifted to Amity who was staring down at the note that had been originally taped to the box. She couldn't shake the horrible suspicion that someone was setting them up. Looking down at the now glowing and obviously magic board, it was clear they were already too far into the trap to back out now. Taking a deep breath she placed Hecate down right next to Azura.

"Alright. Let's do this." Amity nodded, swiftly grabbing the hour glass sitting next to her. "Is uh, everyone ready?"

"Oooh! Can I say it? Amity pleaaaseeee?" Luz jumped in suddenly, startling the green-haired witch into nearly dropping the time piece. Resetting her heartbeat, Amity handed the hourglass to Luz who grinned widely.

"Alright. This time for real. Let the game begin." The human announced as she flipped it and begun their countdown.

The dice magically floated over to Luz as soon as the first grain of sand hit the bottom of the glass. It was clear who was going first. Tossing them out in front of her Luz rolled a 3 and 5. As she reached to move her figure, it zoomed away from her hand, darting forward 8 spaces by itself. The symbol beneath it glowed a bright pink. A challenge space.

Luz grabbed a card, and the race against time began.

Gus was the first to die, his token being swallowed by the board itself after he lost his balance 2 seconds into a 5 second handstand.

Amity was the next to lose to the game. Her concentration on a fireball spell having been completely shattered by Luz's supportive hand laying on her shoulder. Amity knew it wasn't her simply being startled like Luz apologized profusely for, but there was NO way she would be explaining that today. Not over a stupid board game at least. Fate of the world or not.  

Luz and Willow were about 3/4th through the path leading to the sigil when just a few spaces ahead the path split in two. Written in very faint lettering was the words: "Forest of Revival" by the detour path. Looking down it, the companions saw every single square through the 'forest' was lined with knowledge cards. The path itself eventually weaved back to the sigil, but was easily twice as long and packed with symbols.

If they wanted to revive someone it would be a struggle. Deciding to move forward Willow rolled her dice and landed on a spell square.

"Summon a small abomination to pick up your token off the board."

The group fell silent. Willow had never been good at abominations. She slumped in defeat.

Amity had to speak up, the painful memory of her teasing hanging over the entire room.

"You've got this." She said quietly, looking anywhere but Willow.

Luz's eyes flicked worriedly towards Amity, before they turned back to Willow.

"Amity's right. I've seen you do much cooler then a little abomination." Luz cheered helpfully.

"Thanks you two, but I think we both know what happens now." Willow admitted holding a hand up and drawing a pristine circle.

The resulting pile of barely sentient goop unsurprisingly earned a negative reaction from the board and Willow's token disappeared.

Luz wasted no time grabbing the dice for the next turn. They only had about 20 minutes left.

"I'm going to revive someone." She announced, rolling the dice and moving her token into the empty space before the forest.

"Wait, Luz! The forest is full of knowledge checks. Chances are you're going to get something you haven't learned yet. And we won't be able to help you." Amity spoke up quickly.

"Yeah, well you can't really help me if you all are dead right? Look. I'll be fine. There's 12 spaces to the revive square. If I roll double sixes, I'm there."

"That's a pretty big IF Luz..." Willow said worriedly, glancing over at the hourglass.

Turns out they didn't have to be worried at all. As double sixes appeared on the dice, Azura shot forward safely through the forest and landed directly on the revive square.

"I'm reviving Amity." Luz announced decisively as the square began to glow a bright yellow and Hecate appeared beside Azura.

"Me? Why?"

"Because statistically you are the most obvious choice. Top Student and well versed in multiple different magic tracks." Gus nodded, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Good choice Luz!"

Willow merely looked away in shame and Amity felt guilt twist at her heart.

"Well that's not exactly true, but I figure since all of us are always getting up to magic mischief that Amity should get to be a bigger part of this adventure. Plus, historically we have made a pretty good team." Luz beamed, somehow melting the tension of the entire room with her words.

She practically melted Amity face too as heat rushed to the witch’s cheeks at the compliment.

They resumed the game, getting further and further through the forest. As the sand ran down in the hour glass, Hecate and Azura inched closer towards the sigil and the evil within the board.

"1234...5...6... and 7. Nice! Just enough!!" Luz counted excitedly as the board moved her token into the final square before the Witch's Knot. She glanced worriedly at Amity who was still several spaces away and then at the hour glass with just a sliver of sand left.

They were running out of time.

Luckily the board seemed to recognize Luz's finish as a team victory and Hecate was pulled straight to the end, standing alongside her friend/rival Azura.

Two white cards appeared in front of Luz and Amity.

"Ok. So... now we just read whatever's on this card and the evil gets re-sealed?" Luz asked uncertainly, fidgeting with her card.

Amity simply stared at the white card still laying in front of her, dread building in her chest. If there was ever a time for the trap to spring... it would be now. Haunted objects like this often came with a curse, especially here in the Boiling Isles. The ancient symbol currently pulsating red in the center of the board reminded Amity that there was a chance that whatever 'evil' this board contained may be far too old and powerful to simply be sealed away by two witches in training...

"Yep. And hurry! There's not much time left!" Gus's panicked voice jolted Amity out of her thoughts. Taking a deep breath, Amity snatched the card up and flipped it over, almost completely in sync with Luz.

"To defeat the evil within in this board, I hereby announce that-" The two read off in unison.

"... King is the greatest of all time."

"... Luz is a buttface."

The entire room fell silent as the two finished the 'spell' causing the Witch's Knot in the middle to flash a bright, blinding blue before the entire board went dim.

From the doorway the companions could all hear a malicious cackling.

Amity turned around slowly, only to see the resident demon of the Owl House rolling around on his back, laughing.

"YOU SHOULD'VE SEEN YOUR FACES! Oooooh. Oh nooooo! The evil of the board is going to get usssss. Wheeeeheheehehe."

"King!!" Luz reprimanded angrily, but the smile on her face gave away her true feelings. "You know, if you wanted us to play a board game you made, you could've just asked!"

The little demon pushed himself off the floor and wiped his eyes. He walked to the center of the board and kicked over the hourglass, seconds away from running out of sand.

"Psssh. Like I'd want to be involved in your silly little 'Sleep Party' thing anyways. Not that I got an invite or anything..." King grumbled.

Amity felt bad for the little guy, even if the game had them all stressed over nothing, he just wanted to feel included. Reaching forward hesitantly, knowing she didn't have the best relationship with the demon, Amity gently scooped him into her arms and coddled him.

And to both of their surprise, The King of Demons let her.

"Besides, it's not my game anyways. I just wrote those last two cards." King continued, crossing his arms defiantly from his position in Amity's arms.

Luz frowned. "But if you didn't make it then... who did?"

"I don't know. Eda just had it laying around. I found it a couple of days ago and planned this spectacular and amazing prank to pull on you guys for not inviting me. And it workkkeedd! Hah!"

Amity tensed. Nobody knew who made it? A board this enchanted had to have been made by someone.

"No, that's not right. There has to be some sort of clue, right?" Luz frowned, looking around at her friends.

"I don't know, I didn't look." The demon king shrugged before stretching out and curling tightly into Amity's chest.

"Try flipping it over? Maybe there's a name or something. That's what my dad's always do to our stuff in case it gets lost." Willow suggested helpfully.

Everyone nodded as Luz tentatively reached over and flipped the board over. On the back, faintly scratched into the cheap cardboard, were two initials and a small inscription. They had found their answer.

L + E - Vanquishing evil together. Forever.

The End

[artificialqueens]

Level Up, Chapter Ten (Branjie) - Holtzmanns

read on ao3 | word count: 4722

“It’s a great thing. Hey, can I be your momager? Kris Jenner style? Build a Mateo empire and all that?” Alexis’ face lights up, and Vanessa has to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Her sister never changes.

“You’re not even my mom. Besides, if you were a Kardashian, you’d be Khloe at best.”

Alexis pouts. “That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

AN: So…it’s been another month…oops. Sorry everyone! Real life is busy busy, but I’ve had time here and there to work on this fic so while it’s slow going, it’s still trucking along. Thank you guys so much for all the love you’ve given this fic so far, I appreciate it so much. Let me know what you think of this chapter as well! As usual, writ is amazing for betaing <3

Beep beep beep-

“Fuck.” Vanessa grumbles underneath her breath as she hits snooze on her alarm clock for the fifth time in a row, but looking at the 7:15 that flashes on the display, she can’t ignore her wake up time for much longer.

She’s back at work today, a shoot up in midtown. First day back after the tournament.

Not that Vanessa wants to think about it.

The evening after her last match had been a blur, the events mixing together and forming a grey cloud hovering above her brain. Maybe it’s good, though, because the last thing Vanessa wants to do is relive the way her opponent broke down the structures of her boxing skills as if doing so brick by brick.  Now, she feels no better than a beginner walking into their very first class. Hell, maybe Vanessa never had been.

Brooke must be so disappointed with her, now that yesterday’s events have had a chance to settle and allow for some reflection on their surfaces. She hadn’t wanted to show it much last night, being more concerned around whether Vanessa was okay. But now, the fact that her coaching skills are being wasted on Vanessa is probably sinking in, considering Vanessa wasn’t able to stand up to a little bit of a challenge in the ring.

The fact that Vanessa has the day off from training today feels like a blessing. She can push away the events of yesterday and hide them behind a wall in her brain, one strong enough to conceal all the humiliation and disappointment running through her veins, the types that feel like they will never clear out of her system again. She doesn’t have to peek behind the wall until tomorrow, until she’s back in the gym for another morning practice to relive how terribly she’d burned under pressure.

Vanessa reaches out towards her bedside table, fumbling around until she snags her phone by the popsocket in between her fingers just as it’s about to drop. The battery that flashes on the screen is low, nineteen percent, something that makes her frown. She’d definitely plugged it in last night when she’d gotten home, in between sulking on the couch and watching reruns of Malcolm in the Middle to try and wipe her brain. By the time she’d climbed under her covers and unplugged her phone, it had been fully charged.

The dropping battery, now at seventeen percent, is a far cry from being the most alarming thing on her screen. Not with notifications upon notifications on her lock screen from both Twitter and Instagram and, wait - one that says that Bad Bunny of all people has just followed her?

What?

Maybe Vanessa’s still in dreamland, one where she’s become a famous boxer or a rapper with connections in high places. Maybe her alarm clock is about to go off one more time to properly wake her up, because nothing about her screen makes any sense at all.

But then Vanessa’s phone starts to buzz and it’s Monet who’s trying to Facetime her, and she swipes and is about to grumble how it’s early in the morning, damnit-

“Finally! The legend herself is awake!”

“What are you on about?” Vanessa holds back a yawn as she pushes the blankets away from her legs, swings them over the side of her bed.

“You’re a meme, bitch!”

“Huh?” Vanessa’s brows push together as she heads to the bathroom to brush her teeth, phone held in one hand. “Was that Monique’s voice?”

“Not relevant.” Monet waves her hand, when a figure in the background shoots a smile to the camera. “What’s more relevant is the fact that your dumbass has gone viral. You’re trending on Twitter.”

“I’m what now? What the hell would I go viral for? I don’t do anything.” Vanessa mumbles, the toothbrush still in her mouth. “Except lose matches.”

“That’s sort of what you’re viral for.” Monique pops into the frame, a gleeful smile on her face. “Well, more like your little performance after you lost.”

Wait, what?

“What do you mean, performance? I don’t remember doing anything.”

Vanessa tries to ignore the way her heart is beating faster and faster as she spits out her toothpaste, trying to rack what’s left in her brain after actively pushing down the events of last night, because shit, did she do something stupid like have a tantrum? Throw a fit? She can’t even remember after trying to forget it all and the night feels like a blur to her, and fuck, if she’s gone and done something stupid…shit.

She’s real screwed now.

“Wait. You don’t remember?” Monet’s mouth drops open almost in sync with Monique’s and Jesus Christ, this would be funny if Vanessa wasn’t currently filled with a sense of impending doom. “You serious?”

“What did I do?” Maybe Vanessa’s voice gets a little bit squeaky but it’s a miracle that it even comes out at all, from the way that she’s about to implode on the inside.

Monet fiddles with her screen on the other end as a link pops up in Vanessa’s notifications. “Better you watch it yourself.”

Jesus Christ.

The link takes Vanessa to Twitter and fuck, it’s a video of her and her opponent after the match has ended, one that’s surprisingly good quality - probably all the professional cameras that were filming the final matches for some obscure sports network. On screen, Vanessa’s drenched in sweat and looking a little woozy but somehow her braids are still intact, and it’s nice to see that at least her opponent is looking equally as knackered. Though the referee raises the hand of her opponent to indicate the win and watching the events back, it does sting a little bit. They’re still in the ring as the tournament’s master of ceremonies makes his way over, a bedazzled microphone in his hand that sparkles under the bright overhead lights.

“That was quite the match, ladies! I gotta hand it to both of you because that was entertaining boxing. Let’s talk to you first, Vanessa, after that loss. What’s going through your head?”

Vanessa watches as her on screen self leans in towards the mic, a little bit unsteady on her feet. “Coulda done better. On that note…Miss Vanjie out.”

On screen, she sways a little bit, her eyes rolling back and-

Wait. She’d gone and fainted yesterday during the interview?

The camera pans to the floor for a second before focusing on the interviewer again, who looks only slightly alarmed as a medical crew surrounds Vanessa. “Well. That’s one way to make a statement.”

“What the hell?” Vanessa mumbles to herself, because…that’s what she’s viral for? Fainting?

What?

She goes back to the Facetime app where the call with Monique and Monet is still open, twin expectant expressions on their faces. “What’s so exciting about fainting? That’s embarrassing as hell.”

Monique looks delighted by the question. “You see, it’s memeable.”

“Very memeable.” Monet finishes, and Vanessa wants to bonk both of their heads together, really.

Text after text pops up from Monique on the top of the screen, all Twitter links and oh god, Vanessa’s almost afraid to see what they hold.  

But she has to know.

She clicks the first, the caption making her pause.

Interviewer: so why would we hire you?

Me :

There’s a cropped version of the video right underneath, and Vanessa’s not sure why she presses play, really, to hear herself say ‘ Miss Vanjie out’ and faint again.

Doesn’t get any less embarrassing than the first time she’d watched it. She clicks on another that Monique’s sent to her.

My mom: are you gay?

Me:

Vanessa can’t help but giggle because, well, the video does fit. She can’t deny that. She goes through the rest, and the way the captions get better and better is a little infuriating.

Me seeing a person from high school in public:

Me when my mom asks if I took the chicken out of the freezer two hours ago like I was supposed to:

When your professor calls on you in class as you’re about to enter REM sleep:

Good lord. Vanessa really is a meme.

She lets out a groan as she goes back to Facetime, Monique and Monet’s twin cackles an unfortunate soundtrack. “I’m really a meme. I’m a whole ass meme.”

Monet looks almost proud. “Yeah you are. ‘Miss Vanjie’ is trending on Twitter.”

“Okay, but what am I gonna do?” Vanessa almost doesn’t even notice the way that she starts pacing in front of her closet, in line with the way that her thoughts are beginning to race because fuck, this is going to be embarrassing.

Hell, it’s already embarrassing. She’s a meme, in a viral video and she’s trending on Twitter of all things for fainting at an opportune time and her mom’s probably seen it and her coworkers and the entire fucking world, for that matter. Jeez.

What does Brooke even think about all of this?

“You can’t faint your way out of this one, Vanj.” Monique snickers, growing into a full laugh when Vanessa groans, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Just a little too soon for that.”

Monet is oblivious to her internal turmoil, though, her face close to the camera on screen. “You have like, a hundred thousand followers on Instagram now. Pretty damn cool if you ask me.”

“I do? What?” Vanessa goes to the app, which opens for a split second before crashing. Damn. “Who the hell is following me?”

She tries to open it a second time and her notifications page refreshes every few seconds, with likes and comments pouring in on her recent posts. Most of them say ‘Miss Vanjie out ’, a fact that Vanessa does her very best to ignore. But hey, at least Monet is right. She does have a shit ton of followers now.

Woah.

“They want to follow the meme, the myth, the legend, that’s why. I bet you can get sponsorships and shit.” Monet’s looking excited, sharing a gleeful smile with Monique. “Damn. I shoulda fainted on television.”

“I didn’t faint on purpose.” Vanessa groans, flopping back onto her bed and trying to ignore the way her heart is pounding out of her chest. “It just sorta happened.”

It did. Not that Vanessa can remember it in the least, because the evening still feels like a blur in her brain, one that she had tried to bury in the initial embarrassment of losing the match but now, she’s not sure if she can.

It’s going to be a little bit harder to push the events of yesterday behind a wall when the whole world now knows about it. She’s going to need some Men in Black style memory wiping to even think about living in blissful ignorance now.

“Brooke said it was ‘cause you had low blood sugar. She was damn relieved it wasn’t from a concussion.”

Shit. Vanessa didn’t even think of Brooke’s reaction to her fainting, after seeing her dad go through what he did all those years ago-

“I should call her.” Vanessa rushes out, biting her lip. “Talk to you later?”

Monique waves. “See you, meme legend.”  

Vanessa rolls her eyes as she hangs up, trying to wipe her clammy hands on her pants before calling Brooke. She answers on the first ring, her eyebrows creased and a worried look on her face.

“Thank god you’re okay. You feel okay?”

“I’m a meme.”

Brooke’s anxious expression melts away, her eyes beginning to crinkle as she holds back a laugh. “That you are. How did you even manage that?”

“I dunno! I forget most of it!” Vanessa runs a hand through her hair, because hell, that’s a question she wishes she had the answer to. “Did that actually happen?”

“You bet it did. Next time, I’m giving you an extra protein bar before your third match of the day. Your energy was just drained.”

“Speaking of the match…” Vanessa trails off, busying her eyes with her closet to pull out some clothes because what is she supposed to even say, really? “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” The confusion on Brooke’s face is genuine when Vanessa looks back at the screen, her eyebrows creasing together and it’s almost worse, really, to have to actually explain. Pick it apart.

“For losing. For not really taking in the coaching that you were trying to give me between rounds. For being overconfident during the match, I don’t know.” Vanessa lets out a breath. “I just…I feel like I let you down.”

The words really begin to settle in as they leave Vanessa’s lips, crystalizing in the air. This tournament had been the first one of hers that Brooke came to, and she just had to go and lose the last match in a blisteringly pathetic way. Does Brooke regret coaching her? Having her name attached to someone like Vanessa?

Vanessa lets out a breath as the thoughts build upon one another, filling up more and more space in her abdomen, but Brooke shakes her head. “You think I’m disappointed because you lost a match? Unless you’re the Hulk and have something to tell me, it’s impossible to win every single fight that you enter. You’re not invincible, and guess what? Boxing is hard. Really hard. Even making it to the finals on your first try is something that you should be proud of.”

“Yeah?” Vanessa doesn’t mean for her voice to come out so shaky, she really doesn’t.

Brooke for her part smiles, though it doesn’t do much to calm the beating of Vanessa’s heart in her chest. “I, for one, am proud of you. Not only for the matches that you won, but for that last one. Even when it was tough, you kept pushing until the very end. You gave it everything you had.”

Vanessa makes a face. “Quite literally.”

“Had a feeling you were going to make a splash somehow. Didn’t think it would be by becoming a meme.” Brooke keeps a straight face for approximately three seconds before bursting into laughter, and Vanessa groans, flopping back onto her bed.

She’s never, ever, going to live this down. Ever.

“At least it’s a funny meme. Could’ve been worse.” Vanessa sighs.

She supposes she’s lucky it wasn’t as humiliating as it could have been. Though as she’s trying to think about it, Vanessa’s not sure how to make it even more embarrassing. A nip slip? A crowd reaction shot?

“Speaking of which, the gym is getting tweets from news outlets trying to write about it. They want a first hand scoop.” Brooke snorts.

Vanessa raises an eyebrow. “Seriously? Are you kidding? What sort of wack news outlets want to write about a meme?”

“Think of places that start with ‘b’ and rhyme with ‘uzzfeed’.”

“Ah.” Vanessa nods, because that makes more sense. She pauses, looking at the way Brooke’s face is smiling and kind, when she doesn’t necessarily feel like she deserves it. But maybe, Brooke’s just that nice. “Also…thanks. For what you said.”

“I am proud. Real proud.” Brooke’s smile is soft, reaching her eyes, and it makes Vanessa want to reach into the screen, give her a hug. “As far as students go, I got lucky.”

“Even though I turned into a meme?”

“Especially because you turned into a meme. Don’t let the fame get into your head, though. We have practice again bright and early tomorrow.” Brooke clicks her tongue as she winks, and it’s nice, because for a minute, everything just feels normal.

“Looking forward to it.”

Vanessa hangs up the call and maybe she’s feeling a little bit better after talking to Brooke, her heart not quite threatening to break her chest open anymore. Sure, the threads of disbelief are still hanging over her head in webs because this doesn’t feel real, not really, all the notifications on her phone and the way that Monet and Monique had gleefully told her the news, giddiness mixed in with a little bit of jealousy. Vanessa’s not at the point of wanting it, not just yet. She’s not sure if she’s going to get there, just not the way that her friends would.

But hey, maybe it’ll be fun. And she has no other choice but to roll with it, does she?

“What the fuck?”

Alexis’ exclamation of surprise echoes from her bedroom and it’s enough to make Vanessa amble over, see what she’s up to.  “What?”

“How the hell did you get verified on Instagram? Totally not jealous or anything, nope.” Alexis huffs and Vanessa scrambles onto Alexis’ mattress beside her, peering over at her screen.

And there it is. A fancy blue check beside Vanessa’s 245k followers, which, when she refreshes her page, grows to 250k. Holy shit.

“But that means at least two hundred and fifty thousand people have seen that stupid video. Lord almighty.” Vanessa groans, walking over to Alexis’ bed so that she can hide her face in the blankets, as if it will hide her from everything else, too.

Two hundred and fifty thousand people now know what Vanessa looks like, and know about the idiotic things that she tends to say under pressured situations. That many people have decided to follow her on Instagram, which up until now has really only featured makeup looks and silly pictures with her friends.

Alexis pats her shoulder, looking a little too calm for Vanessa’s taste. “Technically the video on Twitter has millions of views, so I’d say the number is a bit higher.”

Vanessa’s stomach turns. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Who said I was trying to do that?” Alexis waves a hand. “Listen, mom and I are the ones you should be thanking. We made you go take boxing classes, right? Now you can be an influencer.”

“You say that as if it’s a good thing.” Vanessa makes a face. A nice gift from them, truly. All Vanessa’s wanted in life. To be a meme of all things, a fucking meme.

One that Bad Bunny follows.

“It’s a great thing. Hey, can I be your momager? Kris Jenner style? Build a Mateo empire and all that?” Alexis’ face lights up and Vanessa has to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Her sister never changes.

“You’re not even my mom. Besides, if you were a Kardashian, you’d be Khloe at best.”

Alexis pouts. “That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Whatever Khloe, this Kim has to head out to work.” Vanessa stretches, lifting herself off the bed to grab her bag as she hears Alexis huff from her position on the mattress.

“Who says you get to be Kim?”

The thing about owning a business is that there is always work to be done.

There are bills to pay. Parents to call. Equipment to order. It never ends, not when Brooke is the sole one responsible for making sure everything gets done the way that it should.

Not that Brooke minds it too much. She likes being at the gym, even if she’s getting work done - the place is always comfortably busy, with classes taking place, athletes training on their own, parents cheering on their kids. The hum of activity in the gym is easy to tune out and becomes white noise that is comforting, a reminder of what she’s used to. The gym is a second home at this point, the banners on the wall and the constant stream of the classes as familiar to her as breathing.

It’s a home that she likes to be in.

So that’s why Brooke is there at 8 p.m. on a weeknight, despite the fact that today is Vanessa’s day off before training starts again tomorrow. She still has things to do in her office, always does and sometimes, it feels better than just sitting at home.

“Three kids fell over dramatically and yelled ‘Miss Vanjie out’ as I walked into the gym just now. Their instructor did not look amused.” Vanessa’s head peeks past the doorway and Brooke ignores the way her chest feels a little bit lighter from hearing her voice, seeing her face. Confirming the fact that she’s still in one piece.

“What are you doing here? It’s your day off.”

Vanessa shrugs, leaning against the doorframe. “I got bored. What are you doing here? Do you live here? Serious question, is there a bunk tucked away somewhere in this office?”

“As convenient as that would be, I haven’t fully lost it yet, so no.” Brooke snorts.

Vanessa plops herself down on the edge of her desk, her matching lilac sweatshirt and sweatpants dwarfing her frame while making her look cozy. “I was going stir crazy after work.”

“Hmm?”

“At home.” Vanessa shrugs, her legs swinging a little as they dangle. “Don’t wanna do any chores, can’t talk to Alexis ‘cause she won’t shut up about the fact that I’m a whole ass meme. Can’t go on social media ‘cause it keeps crashing. Also, some reporters found my number and won’t stop calling me. That’s weird, right? Where’d they find that?”

Vanessa bites her lip as she fiddles with her hands on her lap, and the sight makes Brooke’s chest tighten. Sure, Vanessa is smiles and bravado personified, someone with an uncanny ability to charm the pants off of anyone who interacts with her, but her current situation is…exposing. It’s as if she’s put on display under a lens for the whole world to see and react to and share their thoughts on, and worst of all, it’s not in Vanessa’s control, or anyone’s control for that matter.

And despite Vanessa’s charisma and extroverted personality, Brooke understands how it can be unsettling. She’s been there, after all.

If only Brooke had a way to protect her. She’s her coach, isn’t she? Shouldn’t she know what to do? Except no rulebooks that Brooke has thumbed through have ever come with instructions on what to do when an athlete becomes an internet sensation. Especially when most of the time, athletes are trying to make it big on purpose.

Brooke lifts herself up, ambling around the desk to sit down beside Vanessa. There’s a vulnerability in Vanessa’s eyes that’s not often visible when others are around, like her teammates. No, it’s an expressiveness that Vanessa has allowed Brooke to begin to witness over time - the softer sides of her, the ones that are less polished and ready for an audience, and Brooke doesn’t want to ever take it for granted.

She holds out her hand and Vanessa intertwines their fingers without a second thought, their hands fitting together like pieces of a puzzle despite their difference in size. Vanessa’s palm is warm and there’s no way that Brooke can actually feel her pulse through their grip but from the way that Vanessa’s looking up at her, she wonders if their heartbeats are in sync.

Brooke looks at Vanessa, really looks at her. She’s someone that Brooke has trained for a while now, someone who is trying to convince her to marathon Bad Girls Club, someone who Brooke considers a friend - Vanessa’s her friend, right? Is that what they are? Vanessa texts her memes while she’s at work and makes Brooke laugh more than she ever thought she could during training sessions and that’s what friends are supposed to do, aren’t they? At least, Brooke thinks so. Sure, Vanessa is her athlete and someone that Brooke trains and there’s a certain level of professionalism that goes into a coaching scenario but…it’s different. This is different.

Vanessa is more than just her athlete. She’s someone that Brooke cares about, someone who deserves everything and Brooke just wishes that she could give it to her, make her happy because her smile is the cutest thing and always lights up a room. So it makes sense, then, the way that Brooke’s heart tugs, seeing Vanessa like this, her shoulders slightly slumped and her leg bouncing from anxious energy.

“I wish I could control it, y’know? I feel like it’s a beast that’s definitely outta my skill set ‘cause last I checked, ‘Miss Vanjie’ was still trending on Twitter. How is a dumb meme spreading so fast?” Vanessa pulls out her phone, her eyebrows scrunching together when the screen is already lit up with notifications. “Christ on a bike.”

If only there was a way that Brooke could shield Vanessa from all of this - no, not shield her, but rather help her wield the spotlight that’s been cast on her. Somehow give her a chance to sit in the driver’s seat with control over what her new audience can see. Brooke wracks her brain, trying to think back to her professional boxing days and how she’d managed her career. Well, not that she’d done the managing, Detox had done that for her-

Oh.

“I don’t know if control would be the right word, but managing, maybe? I know someone who might be able to help with that.” Brooke ventures, because hey, it’s been years since she’s talked to Detox, much less been a client of hers but maybe she’ll have some suggestions.

Maybe she’ll even take Vanessa on as a client of her own.

Vanessa raises an eyebrow. “Who? The lord himself so that he can control all of social media?”

“What? No,” Brooke snorts, “though I like that suggestion. I was thinking more in the direction of my old manager.”

Hell, Brooke doesn’t even know if Detox is still in sports management anymore because it’s been years, after all. Though Brooke supposes it’s never a bad idea to at least look into her - having someone that she already knows and trusts is better than a random sleazeball who could be trying to fleece Vanessa for a fat check.

Brooke’s definitely not going to let Vanessa be taken advantage of, that’s for sure.

Vanessa looks unconvinced. “A manager? Slow down, ‘cause I’m not even a pro yet. I’m apparently the most amateur boxer to box this side of the equator, from that tournament. Wouldn’t a whole ass manager be a little fast?”

“First of all, continue that negative self talk, and that’ll translate to more reps during tomorrow’s morning workout.” Brooke gives Vanessa a look and her sheepish smile is enough to make her own expression soften almost immediately.

“Aye aye, captain.”

“Second,” Brooke continues, “you may not be a pro boxer just yet, but you seem to have splashed into the mainstream in a more memorable way than any pro boxer will ever be able to achieve. You have a platform now, and that’s not something that’s easy to get.”

“A platform built on a meme.” Vanessa mumbles, and Brooke nudges her shoulder.

“It’s your platform. Your microphone. Sure, it’s not exactly what you expected, but what big break ever is? It’s your turn to figure out what you want to do with it.”

Vanessa bites her lip. “You make it sound easy.”

“Sure as hell won’t be easy. Fame never really is, honestly. But I’ll be here with you to navigate through it and figure it out. If you’ll have me. Help you discover what kind of stage you want to have.” It’s presumptuous, Brooke knows, because she’s only Vanessa’s coach after all and it’s not like they’ve been working together for years and years, and maybe Vanessa doesn’t even care that much.

But then Vanessa’s throwing her arms around Brooke’s neck, and Brooke’s face is pressed against the soft cotton of her hoodie and it’s funny, really, how well Vanessa fits in her embrace, from the way she almost curls up against her. “You better be. You’re my coach, which means we’re automatically ride or dies, right? Isn’t that how it goes?”

“Is that how you want it to go?”

“Is that how you want it to go?“ Vanessa pulls back and the sudden uncertainty in her eyes makes Brooke want to reach out and smooth over her furrowed brow.

But she doesn’t. Instead, she pulls Vanessa back into a hug. “It’s definitely how I want it to go.”

“Good.” Vanessa’s voice is muffled as she shuffles closer in their hug. “Now call up your friend Detroit or whatever her name is, ‘cause we need her advice.”

“Detox?”

“Close enough.”

Find me at @plastiquetiaras ! Let me know your thoughts if you feel like it

[deans-mind-palace]

Forget me not  (Pt. 2)

Pairing: Castiel x Reader

Summary: Cas was your guardian angel and best friend. He protected you from everything that tried to harm you as child. But a terrible accident caused you to get separated from him. Years later, you’re still determined to find your guardian angel again. What happens when you meet him under unexpected circumstances?

Word Count: 1,558

Warnings: None. Just some hunting and growing up.

Author’s Note: Second part, guys! Like always, likes are silver, feedback is gold! Like, comment and share. Enjoy and show it some love! Next part is with Cas, so stay tuned, guys!

Part 1 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5

A long time ago God created a flower. But one day he forgot its name and it was very sad that God had forgotten it. So God renamed the flower Forget-me-not as a promise to never forget it again.

After that one night, your life changed drastically. Your parents died, but at least their memory was honored, but the most important person in your life disappeared as if he had never existed. You never doubted that Cas really existed.

Of course you knew the stories of children and their imaginary friends, but Cas was too vivid, too real to be dismissed as a mere fantasy. Besides, even when you were ten years old, he still had tea with you. His loss was a profound mark on your life. From one moment to the next, you were without parents and Castiel. Alone in this damned world wondering what you did to deserve this fate.

Soon you had to move in with your aunt, but she was a lady of advanced age who liked to sit in her chair by the window and knit when she wasn't watering her ranunculus in the garden. For four years you put up with her more bad than good. But you couldn't lead a normal life. Not with the knowledge of what was lurking in the shadows out there. In deserted alleys, in dark corners that the light of the streetlamp could not reach, in the blackness of the night. Whatever killed your parents and thus took Castiel from you and destroyed your life was still out there waiting for another opportunity to strike. And you would not rest until you avenged your loss.

At fifteen, you couldn't stand the semblance of a perfect and unblemished world anymore. In the middle of the night you packed your bags and stepped through your aunt's door for the last time, never wanting to return. You were young and had nowhere to go, but the last few years had raised you to be a lonely fighter. You knew how to survive on the tough streets. Away from the well-kept front gardens and shiny cars, life was dangerous and the line between good and evil did not exist. Everyone was looking out for their own advantage and if necessary, they would kill each other for it. You were no different.

All those years you fought for yourself, your thoughts were with Castiel. You wanted to find him again even if you had to walk the earth. At night in your dreams, you'd see the angel's blue eyes, and each time, you'd watch them turn into a deep obsidian of that horrible creature. In search of the creature that had taken everything from you, you soon came across your first hunters. You felt at home in their community. They were all humans who were haunted in one way or another, but they were exactly the sort of people you hoped to find.

Hunters were reserved and distrustful people, so you soon adopted these character traits. The little girl who had been lying happily in the grass with her angel, watching clouds, had long since disappeared. It took some time, but then you met a hunter who was willing to take you under his wing.

Ash was only a few years older than you and had suffered a similar fate. He taught you a lot about hunting and soon you were an invincible team that made a reputation among other hunters as well. You were known as fearless, but why be afraid when you had nothing more to lose? Ash was a good friend, maybe even more than that, but you had never really defined the relationship between you two. Yet you never told him the reason why you became a huntress. Nor did he ask again after you once threatened him with a knife. Castiel was your well-kept secret. Ash and you went through thick and thin, but eventually the secrets between you became too much.The pauses between your words too long. More and more often, each of you did their own thing and disappeared. Only one day Ash never returned. He died as he lived. With nothing to lose.

After his death you were alone again, but you carried on Ash's legacy. In his name you killed seven demons in one night. You traveled the land always seeking for clues to Castiel's whereabouts. On your journey you met many people with strange abilities, but no one was able to help you. Further years rolled into the land and you were twenty-nine years old when it happened.

There had been problems for some time in Ohio with an old slaughterhouse in a run-down factory district with cracked asphalt and broken windows. Again and again on new moon nights, groups of young people ventured into the old slaughterhouse. Only rarely did they come out alive again. Your research was thorough and you soon knew that you were dealing with the echo of a deceased butcher. He had loved to hang his victims like pieces of meat on his hooks. But one day his own hatchet became his doom. Which didn't stop him from killing even after his own death.

You were perfectly prepared. Your shotgun was loaded, the salt was hanging in a bag on your jeans and the lighter was in your jacket pocket with a flask full of spirit. You were perfectly prepared, which was more than you could say for the mysterious hunter. You were just creeping around another corner when you heard a clang and a heavy cursing. A few shots were fired, then only the empty barrel of the gun clicked. A crash broke the short silence.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! That motherfucker!" You heard a male voice yelling. You turned off your flashlight and drew your pistol, the shotgun dangling from your belt. You pressed yourself against the wall and crept silently closer, step by step, until you could see around the corner. For a moment you saw nothing but all-consuming blackness welcoming you. It took time for your eyes to get used to the darkness, then you could make out the outline of a man. The light from the distant street lamps fell in jagged pools through the broken windows to the ground.

Suddenly there was another crash and the man was hurled out of the shadow by an invisible force into the pale light of the street lamps.The pieces of broken glas crunched under his shoes as he hit the ground and his heavy body slid across the floor. He groaned and rubbed his hand over the dirty encrusted blond hair at the back of his head. His rifle had been hurled across the floor out of reach to your feet. It clattered further back, then a clattering sounded and the stranger jumped back to his feet as he looked around for his gun.

You stood in the darkness, but when his green eyes met yours for a brief moment, you thought he would see you, so intense was his piercing look.

He did not see the ghost behind him with the raised axe coming. At the last second you jumped out of your hiding place and shot over the stranger's shoulder past him, right between the ghost's eyes. He vanished immediately and you had a few minutes to catch your breath.Wordlessly you kicked his shotgun to him.

"Thank you." He said out of breath and wiped the sweat that shone in the light from his forehead. "No big deal. Let's take this guy down," You said and tossed a box of bullets at him. He caught it deftly and loaded his gun. "Let's make sure this son of a bitch gets what he deserves," He growled. You followed him and it wasn't long before you had the ghost neutralized.

"Well, salt 'n' burn it, baby," said the stranger. He smirked at you with a twinkle in his green eyes and winked at you slyly.

He was exactly your type of man. Three or four years older than you and handsome. The blonde hair shone in the light and the green eyes immediately captivated you. They reminded you of the summer grasslands where you had spent the balmy summer evenings of your childhood with Cas. He was muscular and knew how to handle a gun. He was also confident and had a wry grin on his lips. He resembled a riddle you couldn't escape, but you couldn't find the solution either. He had an open and honest face, yet there were these shadows in his eyes that you knew from many hunters. It was his dark past that was reflected in the deep green. He masked these shadows well and his grin fooled away the pain. You knew this because you saw it every time you looked in a mirror.

"How about a beer?" The elder asked you. "My motel's not far from here." You had just saved that guy's life, so why not? "Sure." You responded, throwing him a tentative smile. It felt weird and pulled in the muscles of your cheeks. The pulling reminded you painfully of how long it had been since you had smiled. He smiled at you, looking at you like a hunter looking at his prey while his eyes sparkled. "I'm Dean, by the way. Dean Winchester."

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[snowdice]

Gaps in His Files (Part 6) [Relabeled; Refiled Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Logan/Patton

Characters:

Main: Logan, Patton

Appear: Remy, Virgil (but only in the epilogue)

Summary:

Logan Berry has learned many things the last 10 years: a lot of math and physics, a bit of humility, and how to be a hero being just a few. Through his education, his experience teaching, and his exploits as the superhero Bluebird, he’s changed in a lot of small and large ways. He has recorded these changes in well-organized documents and files. He’s even had to create two new file designations: a red one for files about his moonlighting at Bluebird, and a light blue one dedicated to his boyfriend, Patton.

When Bluebird is targeted by a memory device and all of those 10 years of progress suddenly disappear, Patton Sanders and Logan’s extensive files are left as his only resource to get those memories back. But what is Patton supposed to do when there are clear gaps in his files? And what does he do when he is one of them?

This is set 25 years before Sometimes Labels Fail though it’s story is completely independent of it and it is not necessary to read that one first.

Notes: Superhero AU, memory loss, past child abuse, past child neglect, unhealthy ideas about ones place in relationships, emotional suppression, self-deprecating thoughts, medical procedures mentioned, very brief unhealthy views of sex

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

There are some *cough* illusions to sexy times in this one. Also Patton is um... not doing okay.

Patton said words that he’d usually scold Logan for using when, after the warning, Logan’s eyes fluttered closed and he toppled forward. Patton caught him around the waist. He sighed. “I really wish I had your powers right about now,” he groaned while eyeing the distance to the couch.

Patton was not a weak man, but Logan was not a light one. He managed to maneuver him onto the couch, though his feet dragged the entire way. Patton situated him with a pillow behind his head and then went into the kitchen to grab the quite extensive first aid kit Logan kept there.

A quick check up told Patton that there was nothing physically wrong with Logan baring a few scrapes from the fight. Which meant Patton’s usefulness was quickly dwindling.

He resisted kissing the man even just on the forehead because that would be bad and wrong when he didn’t know who Patton was to him. Instead, he contented himself with gently stroking his hair back into place and covering him with a blanket from the closet in the front hallway.

After that was done, he went to the kitchen. He braced himself against Logan’s refrigerator door and took a few deep breaths. He guessed it was an almost breakdown in Logan’s kitchen kind of day. When he was eventually able to wrestle control over himself, he calmly opened the refrigerator. There were leftovers from two nights before when Patton had tried his best to teach Logan how to cook chicken enchiladas. Logan had resisted the venture by attempting to distract him by any means necessary (mostly kissing and wandering hands). It had half worked, but they’d still ended up with something edible even if the kitchen had been a complete mess.

He could have just warmed them up, but he needed something to do that he could pretend was useful. He found some frozen cooked chicken and started thawing it in the microwave while he chopped up some vegetables from the refrigerator. He stir-fired the vegetables with some soy sauce and garlic and added the chicken to the pan at the end. With no idea how long it would take for Logan to wake, he dished out a portion for himself and placed the rest in the fridge.

Eating did nothing to fill the growing hole of numbness inside him, but at least he wasn’t hungry.

If this was his own apartment, he would have just left his bowl on the table and the pan in the sink, but it wasn’t his apartment, so he washed and dried them both and put them back where they belonged.

Then there was nothing else to do.

…

He went back to the living room. Logan seemed to be sleeping easy and showed no signs of waking up anytime soon. Patton sat down on the chair next to the couch.

He must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew, Patton’s eyes were closed, and he could feel a presence hanging over him. “What?” he asked without opening his eyes.

“We are in a sexual relationship,” Logan’s voice informed him.

Patton blinked open his eyes to look at him. He was leaning a bit too far into Patton’s space than would normally be polite, boxing him in against the back of the chair. “How…?”

“You have a key to my apartment, are comfortable enough in my kitchen to not only cook but to put everything back into place perfectly, and I have a hickey on my inner thigh.”

Patton’s face went red immediately. “Oh my god.”

“It is not a difficult deduction,” Logan continued. “I do have to compliment you. It is quite a large mark, assuming of course, that was the intention.”

Patton hid his face in his hands. “Oh my god.”

“It’s interesting. I have never had any romantic inclinations that I can remember. Is it just sexual?”

“What? No!” Patton sputtered.

He hummed, eyes scanning Patton like he was trying to figure out how he worked or perhaps more like he was trying to figure out what aspects of Patton would serve to intrigue a future version of himself enough to give him the time of day.

Patton swallowed. “Could you, um, give me a little space now, you think?”

“Why?” he asked with a frown. “I’d imagine you’d be used to such closeness considering we have had sex.”

“Yes, and at the moment, you are mentally a high school student.” Patton reached up and pushed at his forehead with two fingers. He stared at Patton for a few moments without moving and then slowly stood back up. Patton pushed himself into a less reclined position. “How’re you feeling?” he asked.

“My head still aches though not nearly as bad as it did before and, other than the small injuries I observed you have tended too, my body feels fine.”

“That’s good,” Patton said. “Let’s get you something to eat, and then I’ll check you over a bit more thoroughly to make sure there isn’t something I missed.”

Logan agreed and Patton dished him out a serving of the stir fry he’d made earlier and popped it into the microwave. Patton checked the clock: 4:30 am. He’d slept for a while. “Want coffee?” Patton asked. He nodded. Good. Patton was pretty sure he himself was going to need it. He started the coffee machine and Logan continued to watch him intently as though he’d never seen anyone make coffee before (not true as Logan had confessed to sneaking coffee behind his parent’s backs at the age of 12.)

“Could you tell me what you know about my current self?” Logan asked when Patton set the two mugs of coffee down.

“Sure, but do you want to be more specific? I know quite a bit about you.”

“You said I am 28 and I can afford an apartment. Do I have a job?”

“Sort of,” Patton replied. “You’re in your last year of your math PhD program and they pay you to teach a couple of low-level classes.”

Logan nodded. It likely wasn’t a surprise to him as even at 18 he’d been planning to attend graduate school in either math or physics.

“What am I teaching?”

“Calculus at the moment. Two discussion sections a week. You’ve taught up to discussion sections for first year graduate level classes, but you went for an easier assignment in your last semester to work on your dissertation.”

“Yes, yes, that all seems to plan,” he mumbled more to himself than to Patton while tapping his formulating-a-question pattern on the tabletop with his fingers.

“I seem to have a superhero persona. You are at least aware of said persona. Do you know how or why that alias came into existence?”

“Bluebird,” Patton provided. Logan’s nose twitched, and Patton laughed a bit. “No. You didn’t pick it, but it grew on you. You created the persona when you were 22 and just starting your graduate program. You were taking a physics course and noticed some strange behavior from your least favorite professor. It turned out he’d snapped under the pressure when one of his TAs missed a final exam the semester before and started to build a dooms day device. You were originally more of a vigilante actually, but when he almost killed a bunch of people, you quickly ended up a hero to the city. You just kinda… didn’t stop.”

Logan considered this for a moment. “That does make sense,” he admitted and then looked back at Patton. “Give me a brief overview of my foes,” he demanded and then tacked on, “please.”

Patton allowed himself to be grilled about Bluebird all through Logan’s breakfast from his enemies and allies to the public’s perception of him to details about the ‘special car.’

“You know a lot about me,” Logan said finally. “You answered all of my questions easily.”

“Any question you can come up with has likely already been deemed important enough information for you to share with me at some point.”

Logan scrutinized him with narrowed eyes. “How do I organize my files for Bluebird’s ventures.”

“Red files, hidden in your office, organized by different file types, and then by date.”

“What type of fabric is Bluebird’s costume?”

“A 60/40 bamboo/cotton blend because of ease of cleaning, breathability, and texture reasons.”

Logan paused and thought long and hard. “What’s Bluebird’s favorite color?”

Patton rolled his eyes fondly. “That’s just a question about you silly.” Logan continued to peer at him. “HEX number 3673b9.”

Logan looked surprised. His eyes scanned Patton up and down. “How many people know I’m a superhero?”

“Oh, uh, just me,” Patton said quietly. “At least that’s what you told me. Well, I think Remy may have guessed. He was in the surgery when you accidently said my name in mask, and he knows you and I pretty well now so…”

“The surgery?”

“Oh,” Patton said. “Right. I’m a doctor. I never remember to tell you that…” Logan raised an eyebrow. “That’s how I figured out who you were,” he explained. “I hadn’t told you I was a doctor and when you were going under anesthesia after being hurt helping the city, you called me by name and asked why I was a doctor. It wasn’t a hard guess from there.”

Logan nodded, his eyes sparking with understanding like they did when he finally figured out a concept he’d been struggling with for days. “A doctor,” he commented idly. “A useful companion to have.” Patton felt himself flinch, but Logan didn’t seem to notice having looked away and down at his coffee. Dismissing Patton as simply useful.

Well at least he was honest.

Patton bit back his emotions carefully. Actually, perhaps this was a good thing: the memory loss. Well, not a good thing, but maybe an opportunity. Maybe without Logan having years of knowledge about Patton and preconceived ideas about how he had to interact with him, Patton could figure out what on Earth was wrong with him.

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AO3 Part 7

[modernsocialmediaau]

AVALANCE AU

AU: Sara is lead singer in a band called The Legends. Her band mates are; Charlie: Bass Player, Nate: Lead Guitarist, Zari: Drummer, Ray: Pianist. They call their fans beebos. Ava on the other hand is a famous actress with an entourage; Nora her best friend, and stylist, Gary: Manager, and Mona her publicist.

Surprise Motherfucker.

Nora smiles happily taking Ava’s phone before getting into the car to head to the airport. 

“Let the detox begin.” Nora smiles jumping onto the front seat. Ava is still unsure about this weekend, honestly she’d rather be at her small apartment arranging her life away. So when she comes back from Vancouver it’ll feel more like a home instead of boxes. 

“Hey, it’s going to be a good weekend. I promise—“ Nora pats Ava’s leg smirking “What are you planning Darhk—because if its another music festival through the mud and rain I am out.” Ava rolls her eyes thinking about the time she was dragged through the mud just to see Ed Sheeran. 

“Detox weekend, no phones, no paps, no internet. Just a nice, good—detox.” Nora takes her hands off of Ava and places them both on the steering wheel. She is starting to get a little anxious because she knows that as soon as they are at the airport and Ava see’s Sara there is no turning back. 

“Okay, if its suppose to be relaxing and detoxifying why do you seem so anxious?” Ava chuckles tapping along to the music that was playing in the background. 

The car pulls up to the private jet hanger that Gary has arranged, and Ava sits up to see the very familiar crew of The Legends. She rubs her eyes to make sure that she isn't actually crazy and thats who she thinks it is. 

“You didn’t, I told you Sara and I will never be a thing—we are two different people.” Ava turns to Nora who’s got a stupid smirk on her face. Ava turns around to see her window open with everyone including Sara to hear what she’s said.

“Message received.” Sara protrudes her lips and nods, heading for the passenger seat to grab bags with Ray. 

Ava smacks her head on the dashboard and waits for the passenger doors to close which indicates that the two are gone. Ava then turns to Nora and smacks her like crazy, “WhAt Is WrOnG wItH yOu!” Nora chuckles trying to shield herself from Ava’s fire 

“Detox weekend, c’mon lets go.” Nora cheers taking her the key out of the ignition getting out of the car. Ava is still not ready for her impending social doom and sits in the car for a little while longer. 

Ray walks out of the jet and towards Nora, while everybody else is in the jet. “What happened, is she bailing?” He whispers. 

Nora looks over at the parked car to see Ava let out a scream then get out of the car. She then looks back at Ray, happily taps his chest “See on the plane Rayge.” Nora gets on the plane and greets everyone. 

She gets around to hugging everyone but Sara, she makes a face and Zari nods to the bathroom, and Nora smiles she looks around for an empty seat to find that there are two left, one next to Ray’s things and one next to Sara’s things. Nora being somewhat devilish and selfish herself decides to sit next to Ray’s things. Ava comes stepping onto the plane to see the seats available she was about to sit next to her conniving best friend. Yet, as she gets closer to the seat she see’s somebody things there. 

“Excuse me,” Ray maneuvers from behind her to make his way to get to his seat. Nora looks over at the empty seat next to unbeknownst to Ava, Sara’s things. Ava crinkles her nose mockingly wanting to strangle her so called best friend. Ava fastens her seatbelt and everyone starts to converse about what they are most excited about the upcoming weekend. Sara comes out of the bathroom with one eyebrow cocking up at the sight of Ava sitting next to her.

“Hey Nora--Oh! You know for somebody who is convinced we are polar opposites you sure are clingy.” Sara teases sitting down on her seat and fastening her seatbelt, placing her eye mask on and headphones in. Before Ava can respond Sara’s already put up and impenetrable wall of DO NOT DISTURB. Ava looks over at Nora who is happily flirting with Ray. As for Mona she simply smiles at Ava trying to express her excitement. Ava rolls her eyes and takes her book out to distract herself. 

The flight takes off and it’s about a 2 hour flight to Oregon. As Sara sleep and Ava reads the rest of the gang distracts themselves.

“Alright pets who would like to have a friendly little wager—” John smirks getting Nate, Mona and Gary’s attention 

“Wager for what?” Mona wonders proceeding with caution she’s come to know the Brit quite well to be cautious at these things. John has a knack, to simply put it he has a weird sixth sense like some off brand Raven Symoné. 

“For starters, those two.” He points at Nora and Ray who are currently watching a show on Ray’s iPad sharing headphones with one another. Nate and Mona sit up and turn around to look at them and Mona aw’s catching their attention. The two look up and all four of them wave. “Hey buddy,” Nate offers sliding back down on his seat. 

“I’m all ears,” Gary smiles sneaking a look at the two of them every now and again, “Nate, Mo?” John smirks, the two exchange looks and nods in agreement. 

“Alright I’m going to say, that by tonight those two will kiss.” John starts

“How do you know they haven't kissed already?” Gary wonders 

“Nora’s told me, they haven’t .” Mona chimes in, and thats the truth they haven't shared a kiss. 

“What about you luv?” John turns to Gary grabbing his hand and rubbing circles on his thumb “I’m going to say tomorrow afternoon, I mean we’re going on a hike thats a perfect time to get a kiss.” Gary justifies now he’s the one rubbing circles on Johns hand 

“Alright, Nate? Mona?” 

“I’m going to say tomorrow night, we’ve got the fire going, the stars and nothing else.” Mona confidently answers, having read and represented so many romance novels it basically the perfect recipe. 

“None of you know Ray like I do okay, he’s a rather last minute type of guy when it comes to these things. I’m going to say right before we board the plane—”Nate nods his head

“Alright pets $10 in lets go.” John smirks, all four of them put money in the middle and Gary takes it. Placing it safely in his wallet. 

“Now for the second wager—” John smirks before tilting his head at Sara and Ava who are sitting next to four of them 

“That’s a hard one.” Mona shakes her head unsure 

“And thats what makes it more interesting—So? I propose that Sara kisses Ava tomorrow afternoon during the hike.” John finishes and turns to the other three

“My money is on tonight, Sara closes all too well.” Nate sips on his coffee confidently taking out another $10 from his pocket 

“I say Ava kisses her tomorrow night,” Gary hesitantly says

“I’m going to say Sunday morning.” Mona staring at Ava, she of course notices and puts her book down. 

“What?” Ava sasses looking at the four of them gawking at her, the four chuckle awkwardly before turning back to their discussion

“Alright, love playing with you lots. Best of luck” John smirks taking the money, “Now who wants to play a little D and D?” Gary smiles. 

For the rest of the flight the four play their little game. Nora falls asleep on Ray, Ray sleeps as well. Ava reads most of her book, and Sara’s shut eye lasts the whole flight. 

*Alright folks thank you for flying Star Airlines I hope to see you guys soon.*

Ava gets up from her seat and walks over to the bathroom, and Sara took this time to take her eye mask off. The rest of the crew collect their belongings and off of the plane. Sara stretches and nods of to Nora who is the last one off, and Ava walks out. The two girls are quiet as they collect their items until finally Ava speaks, “Sara about what I said earlier—” Ava pauses but Sara continues to put her things in a bag. When she finishes she looks at Ava, 

“Don’t worry about it, like I said message received.” Sara nods off and heads for the exit. Ava rolls her eyes because that doesn't exactly clarify anything, does that mean that Sara does like her but message is received that Ava doesn't feel the same way. Or message received as in I agree with you Ava we are polar opposites and are better off as friends. 

Ava gets off the plane to be greeted by an old jeep that she presumes only Gary can choose. 

“C’mon Sharpie we’ve got some miles ahead of us before we’re really detoxing within nature.” John smacks the side of the car, unsure of where she’s suppose to seat everybody in the car points to the front passenger seat. 

Ava shakes her head knowing that everyone is really scheming. When she gets in the car, Sara is fixes her mirrors. She see’s Ava buckle up, and they head off to their cabin for the weekend. 

“Alright kids, lets get our green on.” Sara says

“Can I at least get my phone?” Ava turns to Nora and she happily shakes her head. 

——————

“Alright pee break before we enter the woods and say goodbye to the 21st century.” Sara parks the car and turns to everyone in the car. Everybody heads for the small quaint diner/gas station including Ava. As for Sara she paces around the car just thinking, lately she’s had a tune stuck inside her head with an amazing melody and upcoming arrangements but no concept. Every concept that keeps popping into her head doesn't fit how she saw the song becoming. 

“Hey Capn—” Charlie walks over handing her a cup of tea, knowing that they aren't coffee drinkers. 

“Hi Chaz what’s going on?” Sara looks down from the stars to her friend, and happily receives the coffee

“How are you doing?” 

“What do you mean? I’m great we get a music break, no paps, phones, or—”

“I meant about the whole Alex thing, I know you saw her recently—“ Charlie states shocking Sara making her choke on her tea

“What do you mean? How could you possibly—“

“I’ve known you for 10 years Sara behavior doesn’t go unnoticed. Plus when you left for the bathroom your phone rang and it was none other than Alex ringing you up.” Charlie chuckles, Sara sighs. Yes she’s been with Alex recently but that’s too catch up. Before they dated, they were friends. Alex is one of the friends that Sara has outside of the band. She loves her band mates she really does but she loves having friends outside of them too. It broke Sara when Alex broke up with her. For Sara everything was going great, because before she knew it her tour was going to end, and they’ll be together.

They flew out to one another every now and again when the opportunity would present itself. And when they finally were in New York the two were going to celebrate being in the same country and state at the same time. Sara came by Alex’s hotel room and broke it off with her. Her main explanation being that even though Sara was there Alex always felt alone. As if her mind is still elsewhere. That truly they weren’t even in a relationship at all.

Sara couldn’t even bother to fight for her because everything she said is true. Anytime Sara would emphasize giving her privacy for a day it was often disregarded. But recently 2 months ago to be precise, Alex sent her a text to grab some coffee just to talk.

Sara doesn’t know what it is about Alex but she’s got a certain soft spot for her and went. Has she been using Ava as an excuse to sneak out from her friends yes, but’s it’s only happened a couple times.

“We’re just talking Charlie, we were friends before we dated.” Sara explains

“Which made it worse when you broke up. You were gutted when she let you go. I’m just looking out for you. You lost a lot when you lost Alex.” Sara nods in agreement stirrring her tea

“You’re telling me, we didn’t even date that long”

“8 years of friendship speaks volumes, you were practically married. Is that why you aren’t so bothered with the whole Ava situation.” Sara chuckles at Charlie’s insinuation

“That and the fact that she is right we are different people. Ava is the type of celebrity who’s private and has mastered the art of being so as well as down to earth. The whole you can take me home to your parents ordeal. As for I—“

“You—“

“Am an artist who can’t be trusted and is often moving. If it hasn’t been clear most of my relationship end due to my unavailability.” Sara finishes her explanation

“That’s just an excuse mate.” Charlie winks getting in the car, Sara looks at the group chuckling and giggling as they make they way back to the car. Sara rolls her eyes getting in the car to start it. Once they are all piled in they start driving the last hour of their trip.

1 Hour Later...

“Alright kiddos four bedroom. Two big rooms, 2 medium rooms and 10 of use which means...” Zari pauses turning to Sara to signifying to take the lead 

“Right Z, Chaz and I take one of the larger rooms,” Sara pauses waiting for anybody else to talk 

“Nora, Mona, and I can take the other big room,” Ava smiles and the others agree. Nate and Ray fist bump “Bunk buddies.” the two say in unison. 

“And the happy rowdy couple get the other room.” Nora jokes 

“Please take the one in the attic, we dont ever ever want to hear you guys.” Zari adds making everyone in the room agree. After that discussion everyone disperses to unpack their things. Mona and Nate have decided to make dinner for the group, which should keep them busy. 

As Sara, Charlie and Zari unpacks Charlie and Zari decide to exchange looks. Charlie only ever trusted Zari about the new Alex information but having confronted Sara with that information she thought it’s the perfect time to bring Zari into the conversation.

“What have you been Alex been doing?” Zari brings up. Sara turns around to face Zari then Charlie then back to Zari. 

“Obviously nothing public because that is something I don't want to spring up on the managers. So we hang out at my place or at her place, recently we took a trip to CO to visit Kara. Her and Monel aren’t doing so hot.” Sara sighs

“When did you have the time to fly to Colorado?” Zari shouts, Charlie throws a pillow at her trying to shush her. Zari puts a fist up at Charlie and she simply winks

“Do you that remember that time I said I was going back to Star City to visit Laurel and Tommy?” Sara sheepishly smiles, Charlie and Zari throw a pillow at Sara in utter disappointment 

“Listen I've known Kara okay, and she asked for me--” 

“Are you sure Alex didn't just tell you that so you’d come?” Charlie wonders finishing unpacking her things 

“What was wrong between Kara and Monel?” Zari asks.

“It wasn’t good and that was last month, Monel wasnt even sleeping in the house. Kara couldn't talk about him without breaking down, but from what Alex has told me as well as Kara. They might’ve gotten married to early and that they shouldn't have rushed into it before getting to know each other. Monel from Alex’s point of view is a bit manipulative and emotional abusive. Before we left this weekend I helped Kara move in with Alex. I believe they are getting a divorce.” Sara explains sadly

“Fuck. That’s shit.” Charlie swears, shaking her head knowing that anybody with eyes can see that Kara was madly and deeply in love with that boy.

“Yeah, now I need a drink.” Sara comments not wanting to think about this situation. “I’m with yeah, lets head down for a bottle then head for the jacuzzi. Z are you down?” Charlie suggests, Sara nods grabbing a suit, starting to walk out of the room. She stop when she notices that Charlie isn't following her and the two are merely having a conversation by exchanging looks. 

“We’ll catch up with you captain.” Z salutes and Charlie shakes her head. Sara oddly nods her head. Sara changes and heads downstairs. In the other large room, Nora, Mona, and Ava are having a heavy discussion about the events of today.

“Ava you have to apologize.” Mona insists 

“I’ve tried and all she said was message received? What the hell does that mean?” 

“Mhmmmmmm you’ve got me there—Mo?” Nora turns to Mona who is slowly pacing the room, she goes for another 3 minutes before slowly turning to Ava.

“Do you like her?” 

Ava scoffs, “Of course I do she’s been one of my closest friends recently.”

“Not like that, do you like her?” Ava scoffs again turning to Nora for some help, she puts her hands up in defeat. Knowing that once you’ve got Mona’s ball rolling it’s best to not block her.

“It’s simples Ava, when you see her call you or text you do you get a weird feeling in your stomach. Do you oddly get excited when you hang out even though you probably saw each other the day before or two days ago? Do you feel like the biggest dick having said what you said and having to know that Sara heard it all.” Mona says in one breath shocking everyone in the room.

Ava is speechless, as well as Nora. Ava then clears her throat “Excuse me. I need some air” Ava ducks out of her room. She hears the two have a small argument but before she knows it she’s downstairs in the back balcony. Unaware that Sara is also out there in a hot tub by herself drinking. 

“Interrogation getting too much?” Sara speaks up scaring the shit out of Ava “Jesus—fuck.” Ava puts her hand on her chest, then turns to Sara who is still not looking at her and continues to sip her beer. 

“How did you know?” Ava questions walking towards the edge of the balcony looking around at the forest 

“Because I was getting same treatment why do you think I’m drinking at three o’clock in the afternoon—” 

“You do like the taste of scotch—”

“True but this is beer. Here.” Sara reaches for another beer and finally looks at Ava to hand her the beer. Ava sighs and happily takes the beer.

“To your weekend.” Sara puts her beer up

“To your dire band trip.” Ava chuckles and the two girls cheers

------

No kiss that night but here are the pics that they can’t share... ;)

Part 12/?

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |

[yeats-infection]

@sqvalors tagged me in a lil writing meme... if you’d like to participate please do and tag me! 

ao3 name: fluorescentgrey but i also post some things as drglass (dr. glass is the second song on the fluorescent grey EP by deerhunter, so if i make another pseud it will be likenew, then washoff, etc.) 

fandoms: about two thirds of my fics are harry potter or star wars but there are a lot of random little goodies. currently i have shifted into the terror (2018) mode. 

number of fics: 59 right now... i will throw a party when i get to 69... 

fic i spent the most time on: this is funny because some of these technically took me like six months or more of working on them extremely intermittently... namely, bone machine. the series in the garden has taken me the most time generally... and in that, minuet did take me several months of working really hard while i had a schedule / commute that was not conducive to having a creative practice... 

fic i spent the least amount of time on: hilariously, literally my most popular fic by ninety miles, the witcher PWP that i wrote out of spite in two or three hours. 

longest fic: the source codes series... particularly heelstone which is 102k. i wrote these two stories in a single summer like a crazy person and i hate talking about them because i find them WAY too gooey. honestly, that’s why they are so long. it’s all the gooeyness!!!!!! 

shortest fic: yes, the answer is the witcher porn again (this silly thing is going to be the answer for many other questions in this little meme but i’m just going to stop talking about it while i’m ahead). the west end is just about 50 words longer and is much better and is a much better and more interesting story. 

most hits: we’re just going to pretend it’s sex and dying in high society, which has the second most hits. this is certainly due to the fact that @wolfstarwarehouse hypes this story a lot for which i am endlessly grateful! 

most kudos: recovery position has the second most kudos so let’s go with that one! i have been very touched by the response to this story, though i do personally like the sequel beachcoma a little more... i understand why not everyone wants to read it because it is a little more bittersweet. but it also comes from my soul. 

most comment threads: the two stories in the source codes series are leading here, because i only posted two chapters at a time so that i would get maximal validation, lol. 

most bookmarks: in order to talk about a story i haven’t talked about yet, the rosary has the fourth-most. i think this fic is truly my r/s swan song... i said everything i wanted to say and did everything i wanted to do. it’s a really good mystery/noir story that i didn’t think i could pull off until i did! and i love the OCs in it who have sort of manifested these secret headcanons for me that i may expostulate upon someday. thank you to @piovascosimo for the inspiration to write it. 

total word count: 1,000,478. lol! 

favorite fic i wrote: cannot possibly choose but probably the top five in order of date posted are: desperado, a handful of dust, doom town, beachcoma, jump into the fire

fic i’d rewrite / expand on: i already said all of source codes because it’s way too gooey, i also could make hard time killing floor blues a lot tighter, and a memoir of the flesh deserves a way better ending because i was rushing to make the yuletide deadline...

share a bit of a WIP: i was trying for a while to write a band of brothers AU where they are vietnam vets who start growing cannabis... based on the steve earle song “copperhead road.” this could have been SO good but the plot was too huge and unwieldy so i gave up. my roommate is obsessed with this idea and keeps asking me how it’s going so i may yet finish. but there’s a bit below the cut.

The knock at the door in the night was a sharp shock, bright as lightning, that sent them both back to Khe Sanh and before. Nix ducked. Dick went behind the doorframe. They kept low into the kitchen, where Nix took his old officer’s pistol out from where he kept it hidden behind the fridge. Then they went to the door, keeping to the edges of the hallways.

On the porch was Liebgott. He could have made his own way in likely right onto the couch without either of them noticing, so it was something that he had knocked on the goddamn door. It was particularly something given that none of the boys from Easy should have known about the grow operation, or even about Dick’s farm, being as Dick’s address on file at the V.A. was a post office box in town and Nix’s was still in Jersey. These considerations were nil to somebody who had spent the better part of five years in the bush of Vietnam. He took a last draw from his cigarette and put it out against the rubber sole of his boot, then he put the butt in his pocket. As far as Nix knew, he hadn’t said a word since January 1970.  

“Joe,” said Dick diplomatically. He put his hand out and Liebgott took it. Then he took Nix’s. He had handsome dark eyes, but they were full of a wall. You could tell he saw you, but it was like nothing followed the necessary channels to the brain to spur emotional response. It had been like this even while he was still talking, and after a while you got used to it.

“You comin' in,” said Nix, knowing he probably would even if he wasn’t invited.

Inside, they all three sat at the kitchen table in silence nobody was about to break. Finally Dick got up and went to the drawer where they kept the rollies and their share of the product. He passed a sheaf of papers and a film canister full of bud to Liebgott across the table. Nix understood as well as Dick apparently did that there would be no getting anything over on this kid, who had eyes in the back and sides of his head. He’d probably had a nice tour of the property before coming inside. “You hungry, son,” Dick said.

Liebgott shook his head. He extracted one of the buds from the canister and inspected it. They did look mighty good if Nix said so himself. They looked artful in Liebgott’s hand. There were black scabs across his knuckles and a dark rime of filth under those fingernails which still existed. He seemed satisfied enough with what he saw to take a paper out of the sheaf and start shredding the flower into it.

“Captain Nixon calls it Easy Diesel,” said Dick, like he was trying to pretend it wasn’t the funniest thing in the world.

Liebgott looked up and a smile flashed across his face like the savage golden light of a flare falling over the far hills. His smile was sort of brutal, like the edge of a knife in a barfight, or like a seething animal. Luckily it went away as quickly as it had come. He rolled the joint with a quick grace and lit the business end with his old silver Zippo Nixon hadn’t seen since the war. There was a skull engraved on one side and on the other it read IF YOU ARE RECOVERING MY BODY, FUCK YOU.

“I don’t know how you found us, Joe,” Dick said thoughtfully. “You don’t have to… tell us. But we ain’t exactly keen to have just anybody here.” He paused and looked quickly to Nix, who tried to make it abundantly clear by means of eyebrows that he wasn’t sure they ought to go down this road, wherever it was leading. Dick ignored him. Liebgott was watching them, fully understanding their attempted clandestine exchange. “We ain’t exactly keen to have the DEA here,” Dick said at last.

The cherry at the end of the joint atomized with a crackling hiss. Liebgott looked between Dick and Nix with extreme seriousness sullied only by his exhaling a dignified white cloud out his nose. Then he nodded, once, curtly, demonstrating he understood his orders as they had been relayed.

Nix flashed Dick what he thought was a what have you done type look. But Dick looked totally unbothered. He should have gone into this business years ago for how violently unflappable he was. He said to Liebgott, “I’ll get some blankets and you can make up the couch.”

Liebgott shook his head to say no need. He got up, careful not to scrape the chair against the floor, shook each of their hands again, and in less than a minute’s time he was back out the door with nothing more than what he’d come in with except the joint.

Nix and Dick, on the porch, listening to the crickets, watched him disappear into the darkness.

“Are we hallucinating,” said Nix eventually.

“I sure as hell hope not,” Dick replied. “We’ve got to ship all that product or we’ll starve.”

-

In the morning Nix was in the field, inspecting the plants. Liebgott was standing there at his quarter for god knew how long before he cleared his throat and Nix jumped about six feet in the air. There was a smirk shifting across Liebgott’s face that he would have been better about hiding when Nix had been his commanding officer. He looked like he hadn't slept. Back over there he had looked like that a lot, but it had been different, because of all the uppers they were taking. He cocked his head back over toward the long driveway and then he was off across the dew-wet grass which had already soaked through the hems of his canvas pants and his destroyed shoes.

Nix followed, like a duckling behind a hen. Liebgott still walked as though there were eyes in all sides of his head quickly processing information as he moved. Nix doubted you ever lost that kind of skill, even if in the real world it made you look like a mental patient. He caught up so they could walk side by side through the dew-wet grass. “What did you think,” he asked Liebgott.

Liebgott passed Nix the universal sign of furrowed brow that meant please clarify.

Nix gestured with pinched fingers to his own mouth as though Liebgott were also deaf. “The grass.”

He shaped his hand into an a-ok sign.

“You get any sleep?”

He nodded an infinitesimal nod, like the answer was a secret just for Nix to know.

“Well if you think it could be better just tell me how.”

Nix had had a high school friend whose sister was deaf from scarlet fever and whom he had watched on occasion communicate with her by means of sign language. Early on, back over there, he had sent off to command for a book, but by the time it came he understood it wasn’t that Liebgott couldn’t speak, he just didn’t want to. It was something like how people’s hair supposedly turned white if they witnessed some evil thing, or how people became ascetics in the name of god. If you were really fucked up on drugs or fear or otherwise, or if the natural magical thinking from childhood hadn’t been fully beaten out of you, you might have seen it as the sacrifice he had given to the forest for letting him out without a scratch so many goddamn times. It had been a bit of a trial to explain this to Spiers, who was practical almost to a fault, sometimes.

Liebgott showed another a-ok sign. Then he did a thumbs up which Nix knew meant it was good.

All in all it was smart. If he was still talking, Nix might have asked him, what have you been up to? You been sleeping on the street? You been to the V.A.? What did they tell you? And the answer would’ve been nothing good. Instead they just walked in the cool grass together in the sunshine and the morning was beautiful, and the air was sweet. It was all lovely until Liebgott had to physically stop him, laughing, somehow silently but also hysterically, from stepping right onto the razor-thin tripwire stretched invisibly across the dark gravel.

In the kitchen, Dick was doing the numbers. He took his glasses off when Nix came in and put the coffee on. “He learned a thing or two from Charlie,” Nix said, leaning against the counters.

“Who, Joe?”

“Our driveway is thoroughly ratfucked.”

“Hmm,” said Dick. He put the glasses back on and turned back to the accounting book. He was going to do this whole thing as above board as was humanly possible. The vivid daylight came through the window and struck the lens of his unstylish Ray-Bans and threw a kind of prism of color upon the white paper and the chicken-scratch sums. Nix felt like maybe this was something you would paint if you had the necessary implements and artistic ability. “Maybe we should see if we can get any more help.”

-

He was mildly ashamed to say it, but the doc had always kind of creeped Nix out. He imagined a hypothetical conversation with Dick, who he knew loved the kid, almost like a son: Listen, don’t get me wrong, he’s a good kid, I owe him my life, yadda yadda. But either he’s dropped the brown acid one too many times or the voodoo exorcism went FUBAR.

The doc had arrived on the farm on the heels of Sunshine and Rainbows, aka Mr. Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed, aka one Edward “Babe” Heffron. Nix had written Babe in South Philly, being as he was a connoisseur of bud and once upon a time had been famed among their company for smoking anything anyone put in his hand, often to his own detriment. The operation was getting big enough that Nix needed another pair of hands, other than Liebgott, of course, who was still fortifying the long driveway whilst giving away his cover by playing Led Zeppelin IV as loudly as was possible. It was a tough calculation, because Babe was a genius of pot, but he couldn’t keep a damn secret, and lo and behold he had dragged along with him a dark shadow in the human form of Eugene Roe. They came up the driveway in a big old Ford pickup that rattled its rust off in the potholes. Liebgott had dismantled the traps specially for their arrival when they had called from Williamsport to say they were an hour out.

“I figured we could use a medical professional to lend some credibility to the operation,” said Babe thoughtfully, sparking a joint on the porch over sweating jam jars of iced tea.

Roe snorted or something but it wasn’t really a normal person’s self-effacing laugh. Winters clapped his back. Nixon knew Roe had dropped out of medical school after two years but there was no need to say anything. Everyone knew that. Now he was working construction and Babe claimed to be working as a mechanic in a garage, but this seemed suspect given the state of the car they had driven up in.

“Well we sure as hell are glad you boys are here,” said Dick magnanimously.

Babe exhaled an opaque cloud that rivaled Nix’s own father’s ability with a stogie. “Can we see the bush?”

They went out all together to the field and ducked between the rows of corn. Babe knelt in the soil. It was damp with dew and quiet in here. It would have been almost like over there except it smelled good. “What’s the cross,” Babe said, inspecting the plants.

“It’s an indica blend…”

“Well, I can tell that,” he said.

“So you’re an expert on the plant now too?”

“I’ve just smoked an awful lot of joints in my life, Captain Nixon.”

Roe snorted again. When they all looked to him he said, “You said in the letter there was some kind of altruistic reason for all this.”

“It’s medicine, Gene,” Babe said gently, but also like they had had this conversation thirty thousand times. Nix filed away for later the intimation that Roe had read the letter he’d sent Babe at home in South Philadelphia.

“I guess you don’t remember the psychic break you had at the Do Lung Bridge.”

Babe waved this remark off, even though Nix remembered it too. It threw a chill down his back, like a water balloon had hit him at the base of his neck. “That was laced,” Babe said.

“With what!”

“I don’t know! Something bad!” Babe turned to Dick and Nix. “Gene’s teetotal,” he said, like this was a big old point of contention.

So that counted out the bad acid. Maybe he was just like this. Maybe he had had those big sad bug eyes as a child or an infant or a fetus in the womb. “Good on you, Doc,” Nix said.

“I ain’t trying it,” Roe said, folding his arms over his narrow chest, “no matter what it does.”

The doc was a tough cookie. Babe had claimed, over there, about as high as the Byrds song, that the doc came from a long line of the kind of folks described in Dr. John’s “Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya” and that, as such, he could heal wounds with his mind. When it didn’t work, as on the night when Jackson died, or the night when Hoobler died, or in the forest when Muck and Penkala died, or the night when Liebgott stopped speaking, he went to sit for a while on the edge of camp until Dick went over and made him eat something. Nix watched them in a state of confused envy, and then he went to write the letters to the families, so that Dick wouldn’t have to.

At dusk, after they ate a light dinner of corn on the cob and rice and beans, he took the boys up into the hayloft with an armful of blankets. “Sorry this is the best we got,” he said. He had said that about a hundred god damn times since they got here.

Roe looked like he wanted to say, you’ve got to stop apologizing for everything. Instead he said, “Where does Lieb sleep.”

Babe perked up. “Joe’s here?”

“You didn’t see him in the driveway?”

Nix sighed. “He’s gonna want to know what he did wrong that you saw him,” he said.

“Does he still — ”

Nix shook his head. “Not a peep.”

In a couple days time, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he was hot and tired and stoned, up to his elbows in earth in the field, showing Babe how to replant the hatchlings he’d grown from seed. “You guys room together or what?”

“Me and Gene?” Babe’s eyes were red in the corners from smoking and from the sun. “What about you and Dick?”

Dick, who had the radio on inside turned up as loud as it would go, so that they would hear it in the field, playing Crosby Stills and Nash doing “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” “What about me and Dick?” said Nix.

Babe was a smart kid. He realized this was going nowhere. With muddy hands he popped one of the seedlings out of its little pot and cradled it into the ground. “Well, I think he thinks he’s looking after me, but in actuality, I am looking after him.”

[jq37]

thoughts on this week's ep?

**spoilers for broadway brawl**

***Before we start, I remembered as I was typing this one of the important notes I lost from last week’s recap: Interesting that Christmas seemingly went off without a hitch. I expected Santa to come back into play somehow (like, someone would check on him to make sure Christmas was still on or he’d call them in to help or something) but he hasn’t, at least not yet.***

My guys, my guys, my guys. Was that something or was that something?

I think I am on record as saying that combat is my least favorite part of ttrpgs generally speaking because I’m here for the RP but when a combat episode shines it really freaking shines (see eg: that first combat ep of Bloodkeep where everyone went full Galaxy Brain except for Matt who couldn’t hit a single thing) and this is such a good example. This is easily a top five ep of the season for me, maybe top three so let’s get into it and break down why it was so awesome.

We start right where we left off with Titania and members of her court having come into the theater to beat the tar out of Misty mid-show.

Quick note: At the end of last ep, it was set up so that Misty was thrust on stage right after hearing the mirror was on stage which would place this fight right at the top of Act 2 but at the start of this ep, Brennan seems to indicate that it’s taking place during what would be the closing number. Which would make more sense but imagine you go see a play, the first act is super dope, and then the second act is an insane, minute long fight that’s pretty unconnected to the plot and then a buff, naked, beautiful man tells you the show is over and you should leave. Wild. Anyway.

Pixies with tommy guns in inherently funny.

So one of the things that makes this fight really great is the way it directly ties into the story in a way besides “These bad guys are in our way.” Misty is using this show as a part of her reincarnation spell so if the show is messed up, it fails and she’s on her last life. Brennan has a cool mechanic of making her roll death saves every round at a difficulty lower than her modifier (which is s/t crazy like 11) but that gets harder with damage done to her and performance checks failed by other players who decide to jump on stage. It’s a great way to make the battle feel like it has more personal stakes and it’s my fave original Brennan mechanic since the Family in Flames Sophie’s Choice situation.

(I love that the death save counter is changed for theater comedy/tragedy masks for this. Nice touch.)

Em, Esther, and Wally are also at the fight which is clutch.

Also, Sondheim is specifically here which is an insane detail to add just because.

WILD that no one knows what’s going on with the ritual initially because, as Lou almost does, getting all the civilians out is the smart move and it would COMPLETELY ruin Misty’s plans instantly.

Lou having Kingston take the stairs bc’s he’s 50+ years old and has no time for that nonsense has equal but opposite energy to him doing extra rolls for Fabian to do unnecessary parkour before a simple attack because Fabian’s Like That.

Murph fireblasts the hell out of Titania’s foot soldiers right off the bat from outside of counterspell range which is very cool.

“Give me a performance check for the cockroach.”

“You’re upstaging me bitch?”

Another great thing about this fight is that because of it’s theatrical nature, everyone’s RPing it more than a usual battle ep (or more intensely maybe is what I mean).

Titania hypnotizes Don Confetti and his goons into fighting for her.

“She doesn’t know she’s in a play but she does sing most of her dialogue which is helpful for you.” Titania is just Like That.

Pete drops an erupting earth and drops a sick 37 damage on those same minions Kug got.

I didn’t notice before but yeah, Ally does roll die like a f-ing beyblade champion.

Emily hearing Murph’s low key, offhand comments and cracking up is great.

“Get Sondheim!” (Emily and then Ally: WHAT?!)

Actual living dude Stephen Sondheim being involved in this fight is just so ridiculous and fun and crazy.

We go around to Misty’s turn and she has to beat a 28 (upped from 10) and she fails which feels worse than a normal failed death save somehow.

Lou, in a very good RP move, tells Pete to tell Misty to end the show so she can tell them not to so the group has a valid reason to not evacuate which is a thing they (or at least him and Ricky) would obviously want to do.

Sophie, the madwoman, jumps out of the balcony, grabs a costume, then runs on stage. Emily’s glee at being told that her grabbing the costume will give her advantage is great. She’s always trying to figure out how to make the most of her moves. She is the living embodiment of the concept of method to madness (which is from Hamlet since we’re talking Shakespeare today). 

Ox is constantly dying (Brennan!) but also it’s like, why was he even there before the fight started? I’ve never seen a non-service dog in a theater.

Ricky: Is this part of it?

Oh, forgot to mention that everything that happens on stage is kinda shielded by the Umbral Arcana so everyone watching thinks it’s part of the show, which is a cool plot detail.

Ricky gets fULLY NAKED (Emily, with perfect comic timing: Now do I roll with disadvantage?) and leaps into the fray. He casts Protection from Evil and Good on her which (1) He does by Magic Mike body-rolling on her while he’s naked and considering how much shorter she is that her raises some interesting questions about positioning and (2) is the most clutch use of this spell I’ve seen in a while. It’s a spell I always wanna take as a Paladin because it makes sense character-wise, but I’ve never been able to actually use it because we’re never fighting fiends, fae, or celestial.

Brennan’s dime change change reversal of the critic’s comments on Ricky’s body rolls when Zac re-rolls his 11 makes me glad I never had to face him in a debate team setting.

Ally: What’s Esther’s deal ;)/Brennan: *Esther’s Weapon Stats*

“Your only secret you’ve ever had in your life is that you have a crush on her.”

Wally has a beautiful singing voice and a working knowledge of Midsummer's which is wild.

Lou’s periodic, “My man”’s when Ally/Pete does something cool. He’s very dialed into being Kingston.

Ricky’s aura keeps everyone near him from being charmed and Misty saves everyone else w/ a nat 20 counterspell. Few things in D&D are more satisfying than a well executed counterspell.

Titania trying to get Pete to be her consort or something when he just over the super posh Priya is very funny.

“I mean between me and Sondheim, get Sondheim!”

“DO WE HAVE HOMEWORK TONIGHT?” (“We did have homework.”)

Anyway, Misty has one success now!

Misty tries to use puppet to get Titania to drop her crown and it doesn’t work. Brennan says the crown is Crown of Stars which I looked up and it’s actually a spell, not a physical crown, but I’m assuming he used the mechanical effects of the spell on a physical item.

Brennan doing all these musical/singing bits when he absolutely doesn’t have to. I love it.

I love Ricky and Sophie being the two martial fighting heavy hitters of the group. Like, the two fighters, having the spellcasters’ backs.

I hope the one kung fu fan in the back of the theater never sees another Broadway show again because he’s gonna be so disappointed. 

“I’m just so inspired by that beautiful penis.”

Murph, out of character, verbally acknowledging how insane what they’re doing is. I love when someone pauses in a game of D&D to just recite what’s currently happening out of context so everyone can appreciate how crazy it is. D&D. Gotta love it..

Emily and Siobhan have a quick conversation in the background about whether Sondheim did Les Mis or not (not, that’s Claude-Michel Schönberg) while Brennan and Murph are Ring nonsense.

I also was mildly suspicious of Alyssa so I’m glad Kingston checked her out.

The entire roast of Brennan when he’s selecting D6s is an instantly iconic D20 moment. I can’t do it justice. You kinda just have to see it.

“Someone call Wizards of the Coast!”

Em, Wally, and Alyssa go out when Titania puts out a huge spell that blinds Kug.

“Yummy, yummy, tastes like ass.”

On Misty’s next turn, she rolls a fail which makes it 2 failures to 1 success. Brennan mentions that a nat 1 counts as 2 failures and a nat 20 counts as 2 successes. I’m sure that won’t be relevant later because you can’t foreshadow things when dice rolls are completely random.

Misty fails on puppet again again and Titania goes full Wicked Witch of the West on her and starts Jonesing for those shoessss.

Emily’s Emily(tm) move of the session is doing a flying leap at Titania, hitting her with a stunning strike and having Brennan retract the Box off Doom he was pulling out because she can’t save when she’s stunned. She just plummets out of the sky.

Don Confetti respecting the sacrament of marriage as he goes full Opera ghost and tries to garrote Sophie.

Ricky (still naked) grabs the crown from Titania, tosses it to Misty, and, with some improv and a good charisma roll, makes the show suddenly make sense to the very confused but entertained audience.

I’m so glad that Murph decided to turn into a bear and that they made the Winter’s tale ref. I should have had faith in Brennan and Siobhan, the theater nerds. Exit pursued by a bear y’all.

Lou and Emily bonding over being proud of their die for rolling well when they lend it out for a big roll.

Really wish Pete had wild magic surged in this fight. Just to add that extra bit of chaos. 

With a very good turn (no damage taken, no performances failed) Misty only has to avoid snake eyes to get through this turn. She leapfrogs over that low bar and rolls a nat 20, instantly fulfilling her win condition. At this point, the play is superfluous and Titania is still down.

“Brennan lost and now he knows reddit is gonna eat his ass.”

OK, remember how I said earlier that Misty seems like the kind of character you nudge a little temptation at just to spice things up? Yeah, her killing Titania and getting the crown of the Seelie Fae makes me a liiiitle apprehensive, but we’ll see how that turns out.

“I killed my queen! This is America we don’t have royalty here.”

“Bear, I don’t know who you are, but take me on your back, let me ride on stage.” —creator of West Side Story, Stephen Sondheim

Misty charms the critic at the show to make sure they get a good review which is such a fae thing to do.

Kingston’s clearly not loving attacking Don and Co. post “real fight” what with his whole Do No Harm thing (well, that’s Dr’s but same principle applies I assume) is a good character detail. For that matter, so is Ricky just taking Titania’s crown and not beheading her which he super could have done while she was down but it would have been very incongruous with everything else about him.

Brian “This isn’t Loony Tunes” Murphy throws Sondheim as a projectile weapon at a pixie who snaps the pixie’s neck and then does a monologue at the audience.

I love it when someone rolls low on an insight check and Brennan gives them useless info and then they repeat it in their character’s voice.

4 mins from the end of the ep, Siobhan realizes there are two Perrys in this story for the first time and has a bigger reaction to that than almost everything else in this ep except her nat 20.

Ricky looks for costume faun legs to cover his fully out dick instead of costume pants or even his own pants.

Misty starts glowing with reincarnation energy and she runs into her dressing room for privacy. Also, she still super hasn’t told anyone what’s going on. (ALSO, assuming she’s gonna make the world think she died, it’s gonna be wild for the company of the show to have their leading lady put on the performance of her life and then die on opening night).

“Who am I to refuse a crown when it’s placed so deftly upon my head?”

You know that behind the scenes thing where Brennan is like, “Yeah, I knew Siobhan was gonna steal that book,”? I got some of those vibes during the crown scene.

The implications of what Misty did are gonna be left until next ep but Brennan says something about her creating her own court and it looks like she’s recruiting followers in the promo. IDK how I feel about that (these stories tend to have great power--especially tied to powerful magical items--as a corrupting force) but I am very excited to see how it goes down! See you then!

[idkthisisjustforfanfic]

Chapter 8 - Come Sunday

Waking up Christmas morning in a strange bed in a strange house wasn’t the most awkward part of the day. The most awkward part of the day, in fact, was when Harry had given out the majority of his gifts, save for a small box nestled beneath the tree.

I’d sat on the couch to keep myself out of the way--I was already intruding enough on a family holiday, the last thing I needed was to insert myself any more into what was meant to be a family occasion.

I had my knees pulled up against my chest as Gemma tossed her wrapping paper to Robin, who’d somehow been in charge of all of the garbage. I was distracted, really, and only pulled back to the room when I felt something graze against my leg.

Harry--who was seated on the floor in front of me--had the small box in his hand, hoisted up to me, a smile on his face.

I’d almost thought he hadn’t gotten my anything. Which was fine--he was under no obligation to buy me a present of any sort. He paid for every meal we ate together and every Dirty Shirley I’d gotten at The Keg Stand since I’d known him. He really didn’t need to buy me a gift for a holiday on which I was already intruding.

He must have been able to gather all of that from the look on my face, because he simply nudged it towards me. “Open it.”

I stared at it for a second, suddenly very aware of the eyes on me. His mother, his sister, his step-father. I picked up the tiny box, decidedly big enough for a bracelet or a watch or something like that.

The ball of nerves in my stomach was growing with each second, I held it in my hands, made eye contact with him, and then looked back down at the box.

Here’s the thing--I wasn’t much of a gift person. I was shitty at giving them and worse at receiving. Christmas, to me, seemed like it had lost the meaning it was intended to have. Sure, I wasn’t even religious by any means, but even I was aware that Christmas was supposed to be about family and love and friends and that sort of stuff.

Here, sitting in front of Harry’s family with my hands on a box that was sure to contain something pricey, I felt somewhat out of place. The feeling of doom seeped into my stomach--the same feeling that fought its way in every time I thought of the fact that Harry seemed to be rather attached to Charlie and also somewhat invested in my life.

I let my fingers pull at the green paper--revealing a simple, black box. Nothing clanked inside, nothing heavy was hiding beneath the lid. Instead, when I opened it, there was a piece of paper, and scrawled in Harry’s handwriting was one word.

Jamaica.

I looked up at him, my eyebrows dipping in confusion. The rest of his family seemed to be just as lost as I was--Gemma had Charlie on her lap, stroking his back repeatedly, and looked between her brother and I.

“Jamaica?” I asked, setting the piece of paper back in the small box.

“M’going to Jamaica--to record an album,” he said. He was twisted around to look at me, his eyes somewhat hopeful and a small smile still lingering on his lips. He couldn’t tell what I was thinking--there was a tiny bit of hesitance in his voice. “I want you to visit.”

“Visit?” I asked, slightly unsure of all the logistics. I couldn’t necessarily afford to just up and go to Jamaica because suddenly my popstar friend had a reason to be there. Realistically, I still had a job to pursue and a career to try and build.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “come see me.”

“When did this album plan get set?” Gemma asked cheerily, her hair was up in a bun on top of her head, I was thankful for the fact that she seemed to pull some of the attention off of me and my impending answer.

“Few weeks ago, really--spoke with a few people and I’ve had a few meetings. I’m meeting with the guy who’s going to produce it next week.”

“That’s quick,” Anne noted. “Sure you’ve had enough of a rest?”

“Yes, m’sure,” he said, running a hand through his long hair. “It’ll be like a vacation, really. An extended one.” He turned back to me now, apparently still waiting for some kind of answer. “The gift would be plane tickets, if that wasn’t clear.”

I nodded, something still holding me back from joyful agreement. There was no denying that Harry’s gift was more than generous and would be more than amazing. I’d be crazy to not enjoy a tropical getaway with the guy who was maybe possibly interested in pursuing a relationship with me and the guy who I was definitely into.

If I could admit one thing at this point, it was that I had feelings for Harry and that there was no point in trying to deny it. He’d kissed me more times than I could count the day before and for whatever reason, he seemed quite committed to having some sort of relationship with me. Whether or not it lasted, whether or not it was ever official or exclusive was yet to be determined. But the least I could admit was that I liked it.

“That’s very exciting, Harry,” his mom said, a smile on her face as she stood from her spot on the hearth of the fireplace. She came to kiss his forehead and then took the remnants of the wrapping paper from my lap.

“Thank you,” I said, handing it up to her before she walked away.

I wasn’t sure whether or not Gemma was simply proficient in reading a room or if she genuinely had things to do, but she stood and announced that she needed to begin getting ready if we were to make it to a brunch at Harry’s grandfather’s house. Luckily, this broke up the room and got both Anne and Robin to leave Harry and I behind for a second.

“Y’don’t seem too excited,” Harry said, his voice quiet as he kept his eyes on mine. He didn’t seem nervous or worried, really--he was simply observing.

“I am,” I told him, reaching a hand down to rest on his arm. He leaned up against the ottoman, his eyes staring up at me as he waited for me to say more. “I just was kind of planning on really trying to get back to work after the holidays.”

He nodded, bringing his eyes to the floor. Charlie, who’d seemed to adjust to a new house and new people just fine, came to climb up on Harry’s lap.

“I’ll come visit you, for sure.”

“I was kind of thinking if you came down you could stay the whole time,” he said, his eyes still avoiding mine. He looked at Charlies instead, ran his fingers through his fur and seemed completely engulfed in the way that Charlie rubbed his head against Harry’s hand to magnify the pressure.

“The whole time?” I asked. “And do what? Just hang out?” I didn’t mean to sound so judgmental or uninterested or anything like that. I knew Harry well enough to realize that any time spent in Jamaica in whatever fancy house he planned on renting (or buying, who even knew, really) would be completely furnished by him.

Whether or not I could afford anything didn’t seem to be a question with him--it was more an act of chivalry.

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t,” he paused, seemingly unsure of how to respond.

It bothered me somewhat--the thought that I could and would just follow him somewhere with no plan and no schedule and no input.

“I guess I was hoping that you’d come and write with me.”

He didn’t even look at me--he was still using Charlie as a distraction and as a focus of his gaze.

“On the album?”

He nodded.

“Harry,” I said, if only to get him to actually make eye contact. He looked up, blinked twice, and forced a small smile. The fact that he seemed worried about my answer was endearing--it made my heart feel warm and it felt like maybe Jamaica would be a nice break.

He kept his eyes on me now, as if he was hanging on my every word.

“You really want me to write on it?”

He nodded again.

“You don’t think it will be weird?”

“I don’t,” he said. Whether he knew what I meant or not, he didn’t show it. It seemed, to me, like writing songs for an album with someone you were sort of dating might make things weird. I’d never written songs with someone I was into. Minus the whole three and a half days of thinking Liam was super cute.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

**

I was back in London for the entirety of two days before Kyle managed to barge into my apartment, nearly in tears. They were happy tears, he said, fanning at his face and wiping the water from his cheeks.

“I’m just so proud of you,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion as he let himself fall to the couch. I had my suitcase on my floor, it was open and ready to be packed--yet it was still empty.

“Yeah, yeah,” I waved him off, giving Charlie a light shove to get him away from the pile of clothes on the floor beside me. I had no idea what to bring to Jamaica. I was certainly more of a shorts and t-shirt kind of girl in that type of weather than anything else--but something inside me felt like I should bring at least a few nicer outfits.

“This is amazing,” he said, twisting the engagement ring on his finger. “You’re like seriously a rock star now.”

I rolled my eyes and moved a few pairs of pajama pants into the suitcase. “Okay, you’re the definition of overreacting right now.”

He shook his head and fanned himself again. “Okay, sorry, you’re right--I’ll reel it in.”

There was a knock on the door, Charlie immediately flew in the direction of the noise. I hadn’t been expecting anyone, but something told me it was Harry. He’d been much more keen on the whole showing up unannounced thing. In fact, since we’d been back in London, he’d done it twice--and if this was him behind the door, he’d be up to three.

“That’d be appreciated,” I said to Kyle with a smirk, walking over to open the door.

Harry--in joggers and a jumper--was stood behind the door, phone in his hand. “Hi,” he smiled at me, looking over my shoulder to see Kyle.

“Speak of the devil,” Kyle teased, sitting up straight in an attempt to seem more innocent.

I stepped aside, allowing Harry to move into the apartment and for Kyle to get a better look of him. Despite the fact that Kyle--up until the hiatus--had spent just as much time with Harry as I had, he still seemed to be somewhat enthralled just by the idea of him.

Harry walked towards Kyle and took a seat beside him on the couch. “Girl’s night in?” He teased, slapping a hand on his knee in a sign of greeting.

“Something like that,” Kyle shrugged, keeping his eyes on Harry as I made my way back to the suitcase on the floor.

“Can I help you, Harry?” I asked, trying my best to hide the smile on my face as I continued to arrange the clothes in an organized way. Charlie hopped up onto the coffee table, shoving his nose near Kyle’s feet to get a good whiff.

“No, love, just came to say hi, see what you were up to,” he said, pulling out his phone from his pocket to give it a look. He clicked it off quickly and then met my eyes with a smile.

Kyle--much to my dismay--had that big, obnoxious, I’m more excited about this than you are grin on his face. I shot him a look, hoping he’d understand the message.

“Just packing, trying to get my entire life in order before we leave,” I told him.

Harry hadn’t really given much notice. At first he made it seem like Jamaica was a good bit in the future. He made it sound like an eventually, rather than an immediately. Apparently, though, my commitment to him and the album seemed to be enough. My word that I’d accompany him on his find myself trip--that’s what I was calling it--was good enough.

He’d told me on the car ride back to London that he wanted to leave sooner rather than later. He told me that night he wanted to leave in a week.

“You don’t need to get your entire life in order,” Harry smiled, letting a hand rub down Charlie’s back as he made his way onto the couch for more attention. “He’s staying with you, right?” He turned to Kyle, who let his gaze fall down to my cat.

“Mhm--he better not scratch my furniture,” he said.

I grabbed for a sweatshirt and placed it on top of my shorts. “He won’t, he’s not like that.”

“No you’re not, are you, Charlie?” Harry stuck his face out and scratched behind Charlie’s ears. At first Harry insisted he should come with us. He insisted that Charlie would probably like the beach and the sun and the ocean. When I reminded him that Charlie was a cat and not the dog that Harry often treated him like, he agreed that he’d be better off with Kyle and Mark for a while.

At the sound of my zipping one of the compartments in my suitcase, Charlie made a mad-dash for me, interested in the noise and the movement he wasn’t involved in. “I am gonna miss you, though,” I deepened my voice and let my words bleed together as I pulled Charlie into me. He clawed at me a little, making a displeased noise before I let him out of my grasp.

“You can come back and visit if you really feel the need,” Harry let out a laugh and smiled down at me.

“Yeah, well, I’m not paying all that money for a plane ticket when FaceTime exists.”

Harry tilted his head to the side as if he didn’t understand what I was saying. “You can take the charter,” he told me.

“What’s the charter?” I asked.

“The plane. We’re not flying commercial,” he laughed a little, as if the thought was silly and surely, I couldn’t have thought that we were.

I raised my eyebrows at him, a wave of uncertainty washed over my stomach. I’d pictured Jamaica as a vacation of sorts. Beach, sun, sand, alcohol, good food. The only thing, though, that I hadn’t realized, was that this wasn’t just a vacation. This was a vacation a la Harry Styles.

**

Kyle left around 10pm, and Harry felt comfortable enough on the couch to stay. I’d made my way into the bathroom to gather my toiletries, but I could still hear the TV on in the living room.

I was sat on the floor once more, trying to sort my way through the cabinet beneath the sink as I looked for my blow dryer. There was a knock on the wall.

“Hi,” Harry said, leaning against the door frame.

“Hi,” I said, looking up at him. The fact that we were suddenly alone in my apartment dawned on me. Sure, we’d been alone here plenty of times before, but not since after all of the kissing that occured.

“You don’t feel like--pressured to come, do you?”

I felt my eyebrows knit together--I hadn’t meant to give Harry any sort of vibe like that. “What? No, I’m excited,” I defended, pushing myself up off the floor to be on my feet. “I think I’m just stressed about packing--but I’m thrilled, really.”

“Okay,” he said, his voice quiet and hesitant.

I stepped closer to him, hoping that less distance between us would somehow prove my point. “I really appreciate you asking me to write with you,” I said. “I’m honored.”

He let out a laugh and rolled his eyes a bit. “Don’t be,” he shook his head. “You’re the most talented person I know.”

The compliment made me uncomfortable, but he moved in to kiss me before I could overthink it. He hands landed on my waist, pulling me into him ever so slightly in the harsh lighting of the bathroom. Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was the stress over packing, but my heartbeat was probably loud enough that he could hear it.

I let my hands find his face, cupping against his jawline as he took a few steps back, steadying himself against the wall in my hallway. His hands gripped harder at my waist, keeping our bodies flush against each other.

His lips were warm and soft and I felt like a puzzle piece that fit naturally against him. He made me nervous and unsure and hyperaware, but in this moment, in the dark hallway of my flat, he made me feel comfortable and excited.

I kissed him harder--thankful for the fact that I didn’t need to initiate. The anxiety in my head about the difference between the two of us would have surely gotten in the way. The growing excitement beneath his belt seemed to calm the nerves that threatened to slip into my mind as he moved himself towards my bedroom.

It’s not like I hadn’t expected it--maybe I sort of played it off and pushed the thoughts away. The idea of me sleeping with someone like Harry seemed like a schoolgirl fantasy. It seemed distant and silly and naive. As he pulled me on top of him as he crashed down to my bed, it felt a little more realistic.

His hands were searching my body, searching for skin and searching for connection. I let them wander, finding the hem of my shirt before pulling it away from my skin. I pulled my mouth away from his for a second--a dip in his brows told me he didn’t appreciate that--to lessen the layers of clothing between us.

He managed to sit himself up--I adjusted my legs to straddle his lap. His hair, long and curly, seemed matted to his forehead in some spots. I pushed it out of his face as I stared down at him.

“What?” He asked, a smirk coming into his lips as he reached around to find the clasp of my bra.

I shook my head, feeling his fingers fumble with the clasp. I felt somewhat reassured that he wasn’t too familiar with the maneuver. I reached back and did it myself, letting the garment fall between us as he brought his lips back to mine.

His hips buckled beneath me, pressing into me for more contact. His joggers--however thin--were still in the way.

I pressed a hand to his chest to push him back, he hit the bed with force, letting out a laugh as his head bobbed on top of the mattress.

“Jesus,” he smiled up at me. “Relax, we have all night.”

“I’m sorry,” I giggled, pulling my hands back from his chest to refrain from being too rough.

He shrugged his shoulders playfully, looking around my dark bedroom as if he were amused. “I mean, I guess I kind of like it.”

I took that as a cue to reach for waistband of his pants, letting my fingers slip before the fabric as I leaned forward to meet his mouth again.

His hips buckled again, allowing me the space to push them down to his knees. He kept his lips connected to mine as he reached for the button on my jeans, the warmth of his fingers felt good against my skin.

“Take those off,” I said to him, climbing off from my spot on top of his hips. He shimmied the pants down and kicked them off, giving me time to remove my own pants. He hands found my waist again, pulling me into his side as he laid back down on the bed.

I pressed my lips to his, but he pulled away quickly. “I’m glad you’re coming with me,” he spoke, his voice barely a whisper.

Instead of replying, I kissed him again, letting my hand slip down to his hips once more, reaching beneath the fabric of his boxer-briefs. My hand grasped around him, he immediately let his mouth open into mine.

He pushed himself up, positioning himself over me as his thumb slipped into my panties. He let one finger trace along my inner thigh before letting another make its way closer to my center. If I hadn’t been so in the moment, I would have definitely felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety about the fact that I was about to have sex with him.

Any trace of doubt was pushed out of my mind, though, because the second he slipped a finger inside of me, my hips buckled towards him and a noise escaped my mouth that caused him to smile against my lips.

He worked his finger against my clit, taking great pleasure in the way that I pulled him closer to me.

“Y’like that?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly in my ear.

I nodded, reaching my own hand down to apply more pressure. This seemed to get him even more excited, as he quickly pulled his fingers out and smirked up at me, before letting his head dip down to let his tongue connect with me.

He lifted my right leg over his shoulder, his thumb rubbing at the bottom of my folds as his tongue started moving in and out of me.

“Please,” I said quietly, “can we just do it?”

He let out a laugh, peering up at me from between my legs. “Do what?”

I rolled my eyes--suddenly brought back to the night he drove me home from the bar. He was cheeky and obnoxious and while I might have been livid about his hiatus, I was also somewhat turned on.

“Just have sex with me,” I told him, my voice impatient and pressured.

He laughed again, a big grin on his face as he came back up to hover over me. “My, my, Maggie. I thought you’d never ask.”

[unfortunate-stranger-losers]

Six Baudelaires AU, Part Two {AO3} {Masterlist} {Part One}

Chapter Eleven → in which Klaus finds an Ersatz Elevator

“It’s not fair!” Klaus said, punching a pillow. “Olaf is right here, and once again, nobody believes us!”

“And it’s not just that.” Nick said, leaning off the top bunk as he glanced down at his siblings, and Solitude held Babbitt up to say hello to him. “It’s not just that nobody believes us. It’s that the Quagmires’ lives are at stake.”

“I just keep thinking of all the horrible things he could do to them.” Lilac said.

“Well, don’t do that.” Violet said. “We need to figure out his plan. Maybe he’s planning to auction us off?”

“It’s illegal to auction off children.” Klaus said.

“Squ?” Sunny asked, meaning, “Do you think the Squalors are working for him?”

“No.” Violet shook her head. “There’d be no reason for them to play along with him, they could just leave us with him.”

“How did he leave without the doorman seeing him?” Nick asked.

“Maybe the doorman fell asleep and was embarrassed to say.” Violet said.

“Maybe he left right before we arrived, and took the elevator.” Nick said. “That way we wouldn’t see him.”

“Out.” Solitude shook her head.

“Just because it’s out doesn’t mean it’s out of order.” Nick said. “He could’ve used it anyway.”

“Esme wouldn’t have let him.” Lilac sighed, rolling up her sleeves.

“And we can’t turn him into the police until we find the Quagmires.” Nick said sadly.

“Maybe he was bluffing.” Violet said.

“If he was bluffing, that means the Quagmires…” Klaus trailed off, looking ready to cry. “If he did anything to Duncan- or- or Isadora…”

“We can kill him after we find the Quagmires.” Nick said.

“Killing’s still illegal, Nick.” Klaus said, grabbing the pillow and hugging it to himself.

“I think we should have a pass by now.” Nick said.

“Maybe he hid them in the penthouse.” Violet said. “It’s certainly big enough that they could be here and we’d have no idea. And Olaf’s living here, too, and that’s why we never saw him leave.”

“We’ve been here for a week.” Lilac said. “Surely we’d’ve run into something.”

“Nobody asked you!” Violet snapped.

“I’m not going to let us chase red herrings!” Lilac shouted back, hurt.

“Oh, go tell us not to swear or some shit!”

“Stop fighting!” Solitude shouted, standing up and holding out her arms. “No fighting! ‘S what Olaf wants!”

Everyone fell silent. Then, Nick said, “Solitude’s right. If we fight, we can’t solve this problem.”

“Let’s…” Violet sighed, sitting beside Klaus and grabbing her ribbon to tie her hair back. “Let’s go over what we know. Olaf had to have gotten out of the penthouse, but he didn’t take the stairs. So he must’ve taken the elevator.”

“But he couldn’t have, not without pissing off Esme.” Klaus said.

“Unless she didn’t see him?” Violet said. “Maybe she stayed in the penthouse.”

“Wouldn’t she want to see him out?” Nick said.

“She’s not that polite.” Violet shrugged.

“It’s getting late.” Lilac said quietly, glancing at the clock. “Maybe we should get some sleep and figure it out in the morning.”

“How can we sleep when the Quagmires are in danger and Olaf is nearby?” Nick asked.

“We’ll do our best.” Lilac said. “We all know what happens if we try to defeat Olaf without sleep.”

They all fell silent, and then they nodded.

The next morning, however, to everyone’s surprise, they actually did figure things out very fast.

When they awoke the next morning, Jerome quickly told them that Esme told him that aqueous martinis were out and parsley soda was in, so he had to go into town and buy lots of parsley soda while Esme had brunch with the King of Arizona. As soon as he left, Violet said, “Well, now we have time to think about how Olaf got out of the house.”

“Maybe he climbed out the window.” Nick said glumly.

“He doesn’t seem the type.” Lilac shook her head.

“I still think he took the elevator.” Violet said.

“He can’t have-” Lilac began.

At that, Klaus sat up, suddenly thinking of something. “The elevator.” he said.

“What?” Nick slid off the top bunk.

“The elevator!” Klaus said. “Oh my gosh, guys, we’ve been so stupid!”

“Well, yeah, always, but why?” Nick said.

“Come with me.” Klaus said, and he leapt off the bed. “I think I know how Olaf got out… and possibly, I may have figured out a way to find the Quagmires.”

“Look,” Klaus said, as they exited the penthouse and went onto the landing of the stairs, “The elevator doors in the lobby would lead up to here, right?”

“Yeah.” Nick said. “That’s how elevators work.”

“What do you girls know about elevators?” Klaus asked, turning to Lilac and Violet.

“I know how to fix them.” Lilac said.

“I know quite a bit, actually.” Violet said. “Ben gave me elevator blueprints for my birthday. It’s essentially a platform, surrounded by an enclosure, that moves along the vertical axis via an endlessly looped belt and a series of ropes.”

“It’s controlled by a push-button console that regulates an electromagnetic braking system so the transport sequence can be halted at any access point the passenger desires.” Lilac infodumped.

“In normal-people speak,” Nick said, “It’s a box that moves up or down. But who cares?”

“Yeah.” Solitude nodded.

“Freijip?” Sunny asked, meaning, “How can you think of elevators at a time like this?”

“Here’s the thing.” Klaus said. “Outside the door to this penthouse, there are two pairs of elevator doors. There’s only one in the lobby, and one on every other floor.”

“That’s true.” Violet said, suddenly realizing, her eyes drifting to the second pair of doors. “It means only one elevator can stop at the top floor… but then where’s the exit?”

“I don’t think it’s really an elevator.” Klaus said. “There isn’t actually an elevator here.”

“Then it’s just an empty shaft.” Lilac said.

“It’s ersatz.” Klaus nodded. “Meaning it could, very easily, be a hiding place.”

“A hiding place.” Nick echoed.

“That’s why elevators are out.” Lilac said. “So Gunther can hide here.”

Nick walked over to the second elevator. “Well, then,” he said, “Let’s see what’s here.” He moved towards the panel. “Now,” he said, “Why would you need an up arrow if you’re at the top floor?”

Violet joined him and quickly pressed the Up button, and they watched as the sliding doors opened. The children peered into the shaft, and quickly, Sunny said, “Lakry,” meaning, “There are no ropes.”

“There’s no belt, either.” Violet said. “Nor a push-button console, or electromagnetic braking system.”

“There isn’t even an enclosed platform.” Lilac said.

“It’s ersatz.” Klaus repeated.

They stared for a moment, and then Lilac said, “We have to get down there.”

“The Quagmires could be there.” Klaus agreed.

Nick and Violet glanced at each other. “Maybe we should ask the Squalors for help, when they get back?” Violet suggested.

“We don’t have time to wait for them, and we definitely don’t have time to argue with them.” Lilac said. “If Olaf left this way, there’ll be an exit, so we won’t need a way up…”

“But he might’ve left a clue, so we have to look.” Klaus said.

“We could tie ourselves a rope to go down.” Lilac suggested.

“We’d need a lot of fabric.” Violet said. Then she paused, and said, “Or maybe not. Do you guys remember craft room number three?”

“The one with all the out items?” Nick huffed.

Violet pulled out her ribbon, tying back her hair. “I think it may just be useful. Nick, can you get us there?”

“Yeah.”

“Then that’s where we’re going. Come on, move your asses. We have some friends to save.” 

As soon as they reached the craft room, Violet said, “Okay, everyone, gather up these items: Lilac, get that giant basket. It could fit all of us, right?”

“Yeah.” Lilac nodded. “Why-”

“Nick, get those blankets, and I’ll tie them together with the Devil’s Tongue Knot.” Violet continued. “Klaus, get some rope. Soli, Sunny, get me flashlights. We’ll need them.”

“What are you planning?” Klaus asked, grabbing the rope.

Lilac realized first, as she was pushing the basket over. “Oh, Violet,” she said, “This is a horrible plan.”

“Are you going to stop me?”

Lilac smirked. “Oh, hell no.”

Violet smirked right back, as Nick said. “What? What are we doing?”

“We’re making ourselves a parachute basket.” Lilac said. “We’re going to drop ourselves down the elevator.”

“Help me tie these.” Violet said, dropping to her knees. “Then we’ll attach the parachute to the ropes, and the ropes to the basket.

“This is an awful plan.” Nick said. “We could totally die.”

“So you’re all in?” Violet asked.

“Of course I am. What else can I do?”

“Leave a note for the Squalors.” Violet said. “Tell them we went shopping for pinstripe suits. Oh, Lilac, hand me that cup.”

“Lying! Fun!” Nick said.

“Why do you need this cup?” Lilac asked.

“Might be useful.” Violet shrugged.

Lilac sighed, tossing her the cup. “Solitude, make sure Babbitt is safe in your pocket. We don’t want them to fall out in the shaft.”

Solitude nodded seriously and patted her pocket.

“This could take a while.” Violet said, looking at the blankets. “We better hope we can get this finished before the Squalors come back.”

“We will.” Nick said, smiling at her. “You guys finally have a plan, meaning we’re totally gonna win this thing.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, First Matey!” Violet said, mockingly saluting him. “Now go write us a ransom note!”

“Aye aye, captain!” Nick said.

“Bull, I’m the captain.” Lilac protested jokingly.

“What am I?” Klaus asked.

“You’re the mermaid we pick up on the way.” Nick said.

“Sweet.” Klaus nodded. “And Soli and Sunny are the parrots?”

“Solitude is,” Nick said, moving past him to find a pencil and paper, “Sunny is the albatross that curses us.”

“Doom!” Sunny cheered.

“No, no curses right now.” Lilac giggled, starting to die. “We’re gonna need all the luck we can get.”

It took a long while, but eventually they got the basket contraption together. They all placed Solitude and Sunny inside, and then pushed the basket out into the hall. It barely made it past the doors, but it seemed like it would fit into the elevator shaft.

Nick climbed in first, grabbing Solitude, followed by Violet, and then Lilac and Klaus.

“Are you ready?” Lilac asked.

“No.” Klaus said honestly.

“None of us are ready, are we?” Nick asked quietly.

“If we wait until we’re ready,” Violet said, “We’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.”

They nodded at each other, and then they pushed the basket into the shaft.

For a few brief seconds, they were falling fast. And then the parachute opened up, and their descent slowed. They all breathed sighs of relief, moving to sit in the basket as best they could.

“Dark.” Sunny said.

“That’s what the flashlights are for.” Nick said. “Klaus, you have them?”

“Yeah, I…” Klaus paused. “Wait, no, that’s the spyglass. Shit… here, got it!” he turned a flashlight on, shining a light up onto their parachute.

“It worked.” Violet smiled.  

“We never expected otherwise.” Klaus said.

“Question?” Solitude said, holding up her arm.

“Yeah, Sol?” Nick asked.

“If we find Olaf there,” Solitude said, sounding out her words very slowly, still getting used to speaking sentences, “What do we do?”

They froze a moment.

“We,” Nick said, “Suck at thinking things through.”

“We’ll…” Lilac sighed. “Guess we’ll go with Nick’s plan. Fight him until he stops moving.”

“Whoo! One for Nick!” Nick cheered.

“No! Still illegal!” Klaus said.

“I’m down for murder.” Violet shrugged.

“Shh!” Lilac said. “I thought I heard a voice!”

They all fell silent, and then the older four scampered to their feet, peering over the edge of the basket.

“I don’t see much.” Nick said. “Klaus, shine the flashlight over here.”

Klaus shined the light, and it hit, several feet below them and to their left, several metal bars.

“Holy shit.” Violet said.

They all backed up slightly in the basket, and Violet took the flashlight, grabbing the cup and shoving it over the flashlight to make a makeshift lamp. She held it up as the basket dropped to the floor, the parachute falling behind them.

Up ahead, in a large, metal cage, were the Quagmire triplets.

“Duncan!” Klaus called.

“Isadora!” Violet shouted.

“Quagmires!” Lilac and Nick said.

“Ypu!” Solitude and Sunny said, which meant something like, “Pick us up! We can’t see them!” Quickly, Lilac and Nick picked up the girls, but after a moment, as their eyes adjusted to the dim light, they started to wish they hadn’t.

Duncan and Isadora looked completely awful. They clearly hadn’t washed up in several days, and they still wore their Prufrock uniforms, though they were dirtied and ripped. Their hair was a mess, they both had a bruise or scar here or there, but worst of all, there was something dark behind their eyes. Like all the light inside had gone out.  It took the Baudelaires a while to find the word for it.

Haunted.

The Quagmires stared at the Baudelaires, and Duncan said quietly, “Isa, are we seeing the same thing?”

He reached over, grabbing her arm and holding her very close to him. Isadora said, “I don’t know.”

“I remember reading that sometimes people in desperate situations hallucinate good things.” Duncan said.

“I read that, too.” Klaus said, reaching out his hand. “But we’re right here. We’re here to rescue you.”

Slowly, Isadora reached out her hand, grazing his fingers; it was too hard for Klaus to reach farther through the cage.

“You’re here.” Isadora said quietly.

“We’re here.” Lilac nodded, tears springing to her eyes. “We’re here and we’re sorry.”

“We’re going to get you out of here.” Violet said.

“What has he done to you?” Lilac asked.

“Are you okay?” Nick asked.

The Quagmires blinked at them for a moment, as if in shock. Then Duncan started to cry, and he moved to the edge of the cage so he could grab Klaus’s hand. Isadora moved, too, wiping tears away with her sleeve, and Lilac held out her free hand for her to hold.

“You’re here.” Duncan said. “We didn’t think…”

“You found us.” Isadora said.

“We’ll always find you.” Nick said. “You’re our friends, and we’re not letting that bastard hurt you any more.”

Solitude leaned over, pulling Babbitt from her pocket and showing the triplets. “Babbitt missed you.” she said, and Babbitt chirped agreement.

Isadora stared for a moment, and then she let out a slight, broken laugh. “We missed Babbitt, too.”

Babbitt hopped back onto Soli’s shoulder, and then she said, “Soli missed you, too.”

Duncan and Isadora looked about ready to break down. “We missed you, too.” Duncan said. “We missed you all.”

“We missed you so much.” Violet said.

“Has he kept you in here all week?” Lilac asked.

“I don’t know.” Duncan said. “We can’t tell time in here. They sneak us out to use the bathroom every now and again, and sometimes one of Olaf’s henchpeople brings us food, but we don’t know when. And sometimes… sometimes Olaf comes in, just to brag. He keeps saying all these horrible things, he says that once we’re of age and he can get our fortune-”

“Don’t.” Isadora shook, gripping tight to Lilac’s hand. “Don’t make me think about it, Duncan, I don’t want to think about what he’s said!”

“He’s said quite a lot of things.” Duncan said quietly.

“But the good news is, he’s said what his plan is.” Isadora said. “He couldn’t help bragging about it.”

“He’s going to smuggle us out in the auction tonight,” Duncan said, flipping through his commonplace book, which he still had in his pocket, though it looked slightly worn. “He’s going to hide us in one of the items for sale, but he didn’t say which one.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Klaus said. “You’re not going to the auction.”

“We’re getting you out.” Violet said. She reached forwards, seeing a lock on the cage door. “Lilac, do you have your pins?”

Lilac shook her head, and Isadora said, “That won’t work, it’s not an ordinary enough pin-tumbler lock.”

“We could try burning it open.” Violet said. “I could try to make a flamethrower.”

“You’re not making a flamethrower.” Lilac said.

“Try the spyglass.” Isadora said. “Do you have it?”

Klaus confusedly released Duncan’s hand to pull it out, and Violet quickly grabbed it instead. Klaus held out the spyglass, and he said, “How can it help?”

“Flip the dials like… this.” Isadora reached out, moving the dials on the side of the spyglass. At that, the lid flipped open, and it emitted a low orange glow. “That’s heat.”

“How do you know that?” Lilac asked.

“We found the book.” Duncan said. “It had everything on the spyglass- and more stuff.”

“There was so much in there.” Isadora said, almost breathless, as Violet took the spyglass and aimed it at the lock. “About our parents, and your guardians-”

“It’s all connected.” Duncan repeated. “VFD.”

“What’s-” Lilac began.

“Son of a bitch.” Violet muttered. “The lock won’t break. It just gets hot.”

Lilac glanced down at the lock, which was looking slightly red but wasn’t breaking at all. She leaned over and said, “We’ll need to get materials in the penthouse. How do we…” she narrowed her eyes, glancing at the parachute. “Heat rises.”

“Heat rises.” Violet repeated, running for the parachute.

“You’re leaving?” Duncan asked.

“Just for a bit.” Lilac promised. “Someone should stay with the triplets.”

“Me!” Sunny volunteered.

“No, no!” Isadora said. “Stay together.” She smiled a little. “You’re stronger together.”

“But come back soon.” Duncan said.

“We will.” Lilac promised. “And then we’ll all be together, okay?”

“We trust you.” Isadora nodded, grabbing Duncan’s arm.

“You’re our best friends.” Violet said, as she placed the spyglass under part of the parachute.

“We love you both.” Nick said.

“We love you all, too.”  Duncan said.

“See you soon.” Isadora said.

All the Baudelaires had tears in their eyes as they nodded.

Then Violet slowly moved the dials on the spyglass, and it heated up more. The parachute rose, and so did the basket.

“We’ll be back soon!” Violet promised.

“We’ll see you as soon as possible!” Klaus said.

“We’ll set you free!” Nick said.

“Soon!” Solitude and Sunny cried.

Lilac didn��t say anything; she just stared down at the triplets, trying not to cry as she saw them wave hopefully after them. They looked so broken, so hurt. And they were just children.

Just like us.

It hit Lilac then. We’re just kids. We’re just kids. This shouldn’t be happening to us.

But it was.

And now Lilac had to make sure all of this stopped. Before the Quagmires could suffer more.

And before what happened to them could happen to her siblings.

[cyb-by-lang]

Shell Game (24/?)

Talk no Jutsu, Midoriya-style.

Midoriya and Todoroki were both terrifying for different reasons.

In one corner: Midoriya, whose pain tolerance was better suited for creatures without skeletons to pulverize and whose off-hand flick could launch a human being the length of the entire stadium. If not for the fact that the backlash tended to keep to internal damage, Kei thought that it’d be safe for the event staff to be looking for violently ejected bits of Midoriya’s bones in the stands.

In the other: thermodynamic equilibrium writ large in the form of Todoroki, who had apparently only been using half his goddamn Quirk for the entire Sports Festival so far. In addition to on-demand icebergs and tremendous ice floes he could put out at a moment’s notice with his right side, his left could launch the kind of fireballs Kei tended to only see from Uchiha on a rage-bender. This was the kind of unpleasant surprise she got for not paying attention to introductory spiels from people like Present Mic.

Well, at least throwing a fight with Todoroki would be easy.

“Midoriya broke two fingers earlier, and he’s still going into this,” Shinsō said, his eyes narrowed slightly as he sized up each of the other boys.

“It’s Midoriya-san,” Kei said. “He’s…” She frowned suddenly. “Todoroki-san spoke to him earlier, but I don’t know what happened. Something’s different, though.”

“Different how?” Shinsō asked.

“Midoriya-san usually doesn’t seem to be the type to get intense like that,” Kei tried to explain. “He’s the type to back down at the first sign of trouble so everyone can go away happy.”

“What obstacle race were you watching?” Homura sounded utterly incredulous. “He triggered twenty mines at once!”

“That’s not the same thing,” Kei told her. “That’s a competition, sure, but Midoriya-san doesn’t really want to hurt anyone. Even in his fight against Shōda-san, he did everything he could before actually using force. His Quirk is an option of last resort.”

But he had gone full-force for Facepalm-kun at the USJ. Even then, only when he’d been scared out of his mind that the villain was going to kill one of his classmates in front of him. Not that Kei could share that observation with Shinsō. There were certain things she wasn’t supposed to know, and he really oughtn’t find out.

Nevertheless, Kei found her opinion of Midoriya steadily rising. Though he needed a bit of help standing up for himself, she could respect someone who put everything into defending other people. With any luck, though, he’ll never be forced to the extremes she had in pursuit of that goal. He’ll be a hero instead.

Midoriya, down on the field, had his shoulders squared and his arms held in a ready position, putting all of his attention into the fight. His mouth was twisted into the most wobbly smile Kei had ever seen, but that wasn’t really what he was trying to do, was it? Midoriya could put on a brave face for the crowd, but his concern was all about Todoroki.

Todoroki’s expression was so flat Kei could have balanced a level on his nose. And she had to wonder what had hollowed him out quite like that.

“I don’t know him that well, but something put steel in his spine.” Kei’s gaze focused on Todoroki. Whatever that kid had said, Midoriya was not going to back down. The days of Midoriya rolling over and playing dead were dead and gone. “This match might get out of hand.”

Which it did.

The second Todoroki created his fuck-off ice attack, designed to push Midoriya out of the ring, Kei was already at the front of the box with her hands braced on the wall. While the noise was nearly overwhelming, that wasn’t the important part. Lipreading was a shinobi skill, too, even if she usually took the lazy route and brought teammates with perfect or better hearing abilities. Genma was a frequent victim of her team-building philosophy.

There was a noise like a cannon going off in the other direction, blasting the ice apart in one huge wind tunnel of doom that was unmistakably the result of Midoriya’s Quirk breaking another damn finger.

“He has seven more to go,” Kei noted aloud, watching Midoriya clutch at his right wrist.

“Seven what?” Shinsō asked, as a brief hush fell over the crowd.

“Fingers,” Kei said, and Shinsō winced.

Out in the middle of the arena, Todoroki recovered from the attack only to send another wave of ice in Midoriya’s direction. Once again, the would-be glacier ripped across the concrete like it was a living thing, and once again Midoriya blasted it into next week.

More ice.

Another smash.

This time, the snap of Midoriya’s Quirk was strong enough to send Todoroki skidding backwards until he hit an ice wall of his own creation, bracing against any further attempts to hurl him out of the ring.

“Six,” Kei said, trying not to let tension bleed into her voice.

Next to her, Shinsō seemed a bit green around the gills. “I don’t… He’s not thinking past this match.”

“Probably not.” Kei shaded her eyes against the glare, peering closer at the battlefield. “There is no way in hell he’s using that hand like that again. He’s down to a thumb.”

Todoroki’s ice snaked out again, before Midoriya could recover from the backlash of his own attacks. This time, though, a lack of spare fingers kept Midoriya from automatically blocking the attack in the only way he knew how, the ice grasped his leg.

Once again the ice shattered, sending frost and fragments flying all across the audience opposite Midoriya and blasting Todoroki back.

Kei raised an eyebrow as the air settled back to normal.

Midoriya’s entire left arm was limp, purple with burst blood vessels. Using the entire arm might’ve been a reflex, but nevertheless Todoroki’s attack had fucked him up good.

“Well,” Kei muttered while pinching the bridge of her nose. “He didn’t use that hand.”

“What the hell is wrong with this kid?” Shinsō said faintly, eyes locked on the fight.

Kei didn’t answer. While Midoriya was probably riddled with shards from his own skeleton, he was still upright. That situation would change when it changed.

Across from him, though, Todoroki was shivering. A quick shot of him—standing with his back to an icy wall and short of breath—flashed across the jumbotron screen above. Frost crawled along his face and his right arm, shining in the sunlight.

So his Quirk did have a limit.

The battle reached a brief lull. Though the two kids were being drowned out by the audience, per usual, Kei squinted at the combatants anyway.

“Are they just talking now?” Homura asked, leaning forward.

“Something… about Todoroki-san’s father,” Kei muttered, trying to strain her ears at the same time. It wasn’t working.

Shingetsu gaped at her. “You can read lips that far away?”

“Sort of?” Kei leaned back from the fight for a second, hoisting herself up onto the divider wall and craning her neck to see above their little alcove. Endeavor was definitely in the audience—it was hard to miss a flaming face like that—but she needed binoculars to make out much else. Still, Todoroki had looked that way, hadn’t he?

“Get down,” Homura said sharply, and Kei obeyed.

“Still,” Kei said as she settled back onto solid ground, “there’s something else going on here. And Midoriya-san knows what it is.”

Homura paused. Her hair had gone out, again, so she was wearing a fellow student’s uniform jacket like a turban. “…You mean like why Todoroki-san isn’t using fire? He almost did during the cavalry battle, but I’m not sure either of you could see it…”

“All I saw was a lot of ice,” Shinsō said, frowning. “Seriously, what is Midori—?”

And Midoriya, with all the lung capacity of someone hopped up on adrenaline, clenched his broken fingers into a fist and shouted, “Come at me with everything you’ve got!”

A shudder ran through the entire 1-C box. Someone needed to stop Midoriya before he tried using his Quirk in a headbutt or something and actually managed to kill himself. He was already breaking himself into bits on public television. Todoroki would be an accessory to any death-related crimes.

Todoroki, perhaps having a brainfart moment, responded to Midoriya’s declaration by creating an ice bridge and charging the kid with the almost uncontrollable super strength Quirk instead of just trying to go for ice again at a stretch. He was butting up against his own limits, but they didn’t seem to involve shattering bornes. More frostbite and hypothermia.

Midoriya, probably having an equally boneheaded reflex, punched Todoroki in the stomach with his right arm alight with power. And all his fingers still quite thoroughly broken.

Everyone in the audience gave an awful “oooh” of sympathetic pain as Midoriya finally started screaming.

Opposite him, Todoroki was nearly folded in half by the the punch and blown off his feet. He skidded the length of the stage, coming to a stop only against a low ice wall. He rolled to his feet unsteadily, breath coming in short, foggy gasps. From the screens overhead, ice still crawled along his right side. His personal timer was ticking down.

“Why isn’t Kayama-sensei calling the match? Her or Cementoss,” Homura fretted, her eyes like saucers in the face of all this carnage.

“Technically, neither of them is immobilized, unconscious, out of bounds, or surrendering,” Shingetsu half-guessed. When Homura whirled on him, he spun his head around to avoid having to meet her eyes as her hair flared blue. “I’m just trying to explain their reasoning!”

“Midoriya-san could die,” Homura insisted to the back of Shingetsu’s head.

“He’ll be fine!” Shingetsu countered, sounding more desperate than convincing. Behind them, the rest of 1-C was getting more anxious the longer it took for harmony to be restored. Also, they were horrified by Midoriya and Todoroki’s match because they had pretty decent compassion, whether or not it was mixed with a healthy dose of “how badly it hurt to break a bone” empathy.

Shinsō leaned away from the arguing class reps. Instead, he muttered, “What is Midoriya’s play here?”

Kei’s gaze flicked up toward the screens overhead, again. There was no way audio recording equipment could fully catch what was happening in the ring without being blasted out of existence by one of the combatants in this match. While she could lipread only a fraction of what the cameras showed, it was clear the pair of them were talking.

More ice flooded across the field, and—

“There goes his thumb,” Kei said, while blood flowed from Midoriya’s mouth. He’d used his cheek to get enough resistance to use his Quirk.

“I can’t watch this,” Homura whimpered, hiding her face in her hands.

Shingetsu patted her shoulder, and his hand nearly caught fire when Homura shook her head hard enough to disturb her flaring hair.

“I want to be a dependable, cool, smiling hero!” was what Midoriya had to say for himself. Approximately. “If you become the number one hero without giving it your all, then I don’t really think you’re serious about denying him everything!”

Kei’s mouth pressed shut in a thin, unhappy line. She found herself glancing toward Endeavor again, checking for his reaction.Nothing.

Midoriya is being Naruto.

Pardon? He is not a toddler.

Wrong Naruto. Kei crossed her arms on the front of the box, sending a vision of the Naruto-versus-Neji fight from a very different tournament to Isobu for perusal. Particularly the bits before Naruto pummeled Neji into submission while miraculously avoiding an otherwise-earned dental bill. There’d been a lot of shouting Kei couldn’t entirely remember, but the parallels were clear.

Todoroki said something, but Kei didn’t see what it was because her eyes were on Midoriya just as he screamed something along the lines of, “Your power is your own!”

And at that point, Todoroki caught fire. Starting from his left eye, flames crawled up his face and down his shoulder, until the entire upper left side of him was engulfed in a tower of fire.

“So, since Todoroki’s stopped holding back…” Shinsō nudged Kei’s elbow. “Midoriya’s already lost.”

Kei nodded. At this point, it was all over bar the screaming.

Speaking of screaming, however, Kei’s eyes shifted to Endeavor once again. While the boys on the field were probably going to annihilate each other if Cementoss didn’t stand up and do something, the big arsonist himself was stomping down the stairs with his own head almost fully ablaze. He was shouting something, though, and Kei wasn’t optimistic about the chances for those words being helpful, kind, or any good for Todoroki’s mental health.

Kei carefully revised her regard of Endeavor downward. And kept going until she was almost tempted to let him know—to his face—that Itachi had set the themed onesie on fire. An ironic death for that particular outfit.

If I were to extend our chakra in that direction, I could theoretically douse his flames.

That involves at least one chakra tail, doesn’t it?

I did not say it would be subtle. You do not use my power because you want to get away with the enemy unaware of your presence.

True.

In the arena, Midoriya and Todoroki were charging their final attacks. Ice hurtled from Todoroki’s right foot in a wave as overwhelming as one of Kei’s bigger ninjutsu, while Midoriya’s right arm and left leg lit up with the red-streaked light of his ridiculous Quirk. The ice curled around his shattered arm flaked off into nothing as the wind whipped around into the beginnings of a tornado.

Midoriya threw himself forward, over the wave of ice with the exact same technique that had shattered his legs at the USJ during All Might’s arrival.

Todoroki disappeared into yellow-orange fiery light, all coming from his left hand and arm as Midoriya closed in.

“Everybody down!” Shingetsu shouted, while Homura’s hair once again got blown out. He waved his arms and most of the 1-C students obeyed, out of fear of being caught directly in the backwash of the two monster attacks. These two combatants had already more than proved they had no sense of how to scale back their AOE attacks meaningfully.

Five concrete walls leapt upward from the center of the arena before the two boys could make contact as Cementoss finally got off his ass.

That was the last Kei saw before Homura grabbed her and Shinsō’s collars and dragged them behind the 1-C box’s front wall. It probably saved her a few minutes of flash-blindness from the resulting inferno-slash-shockwave. And possibly her eyebrows.

Hot air flowed over the dividing wall, drying eyes and sending bits of concrete rubble and plenty of dust raining over the crowd. For a second, Kei was tempted to use Water Release ninjutsu just to stave off the worst of the effects, but it was over quickly enough to cut the impulse short. It was the next best thing to a steam explosion that didn’t end in raining limbs, but Kei still found herself up and almost over the front of the 1-C box just to see what happened to Midoriya and Todoroki.

Homura, her hair once again blown down to orangeish embers, made sure Kei couldn’t get stand on the divider. It seemed to be a new reflex for Kei’s civilian companions to develop, and Homura was admirably on top of things. Now she just needed to learn to shamelessly blame Kei if she got caught up in ridiculousness.

Not that anyone could see into the ring. Todoroki’s initial ice attack had been pretty thoroughly turned into steam by his follow-up, and the concrete walls that Cementoss had raised were still falling like ash. It was about as bad as Kei’s earlier Hidden Mist ninjutsu, only people without heat-adaptive Quirks were sweating a little instead of feeling chilled.

“Midoriya is out of bounds!” Kayama-sensei announced, once the steam cleared just enough for her to make out the tiny, slumped form at one end of the field. “Todoroki is the winner!”

It looked kind of like the crater Kirishima had put into the concrete as a direct result of Kei’s attacks, but Kirishima could take those kinds of hits. Midoriya, by contrast, could’ve slipped past “unconscious” to “dead” with worrying ease.

But hey, Todoroki was still standing. Barely. And in the ring!

Kei settled back into the 1-C box as the medics carted Midoriya away. Her heart was beating faster than she’d expected, and it took her a second to identify the reason why. While, yes, she’d seen the kid shatter bones before, there was a little tickle in the back of her mind regarding another big-hearted, green-themed kid who’d gotten limbs crushed in a public sporting event. Or nearly.

“Be right back,” Kei said as she nudged Homura aside. “I’m going to see how he’s doing.”

“Midoriya won’t be able to tell you anything if he’s doped up to the eyeballs,” Shinsō told her bluntly.

“I know.” But Kei was already taking the stairs three at a time.

“Tell Midoriya he’s terrifying! And don’t miss my match!” Shinsō called after her, but that was all.

Kei ended up joining the small group of Midoriya’s friends who were likewise trooping toward the medical station, because the center of this little social group was literally self-destructive to a degree that earned him some worry from others.

And on the way up to Recovery Girl’s office, Kei checked her phone.