#I will defend Marty to the ends of the Earth

[27emailsicantsend]

OK YA’LL NEED TO STOP SAYING MARTY NEEDS TO GET A PERSONALITY IF WE GET A S4

He already has one: it’s heart eyes for Buffy Driscoll™️ 😂

But, seriously though, Marty is one of my favorite characters. I think because he doesn’t have a lot of drama, people are disregarding him as not having a personality (this happened in the fandom until Jonah had panic attacks as well).

But let me prove to you he does:

He plays basketball, but still has some work to go

Is really good at track- so much so that he placed first for his age. He’s even better than Buffy as far as we know (which seems virtually impossible but he did it 🤷🏼‍♀️)

He doesn’t mind talking too much about his feelings, but leaves and shuts down when he’s too upset

He is genuinely such a nice person. He listens to Buffy, goes out of his way to make sure everyone around him is happy, and literally just does his best, but to a fault at times- like with Rachel (he is seriously such a soft boi- I stan)

Also, because he is so nice, he definitely doesn’t associate with crowds opposite him. Hence why he probably didn’t try too hard to get to know TJ and why TJ still might not know who he is

He is a flirty-banting type with girls he’s into, but maybe he just bants with everyone as part of his care-free spirit

He seems pretty outgoing. Almost every scene Buffy sees him he’s talking to 1-3 people, so he presumably is a people person with a lot of friends (which explains why it wasn’t hard for him to talk to Buffy at the snack table)

I genuinely would have been best friends with someone like him when I was in middle school. I have a very aggressive personality type (Aries), so most of my friends need to be on the more relaxed/fun side to counteract that. I see so much personality in him!

~However, if the show does get picked up, I would like to see his family life or if he acts fun and banty like this with all of his friends, even when Buffy isn’t around or even a more personal trial that doesn’t involve Buffy’s arc~

——————————-

Listen I want Marty in S4 100% as much as all of you, but give him some credit here.

He DOES have a personality, ya’ll just weren’t watching closely enough. 😎✊🏻

[permafusion-stevonnie]

 Posting not just the card, but the artwork clear of the frame, because I’m damn proud of how it turned out.

And, turns out, my list of cards to draw just got a little longer. When I got a list of cards online, it was an incomplete list. Now, having looked at a better website I have a whole bunch more to draw. I’m also looking up the meanings behind the actual cards, to help choosing characters to make things easier for us all. And for the number cards I think it’ll be less about having the objects in the scene, just something that reprisents its meaning, I’ll add the object to the background. So we don’t have to find a scene with, say six swords in it

Cards left to draw are:

The Tower - Luna Sea Spire The Star - Steven Universe The Moon - Opal The Sun - Sunstone Judgement -  Blue Yellow and White's hands as they blast the earth.   The World - A mural of Steven and the diamonds. Ace of Swords - Pearl 2 of swords - Pearl and Connie 3 of swords - Steven and Connie fighting three holo-pearls 4 of swords - Upright: rest, restoration, contemplation, Reversed: restlessness, burnout, stress.          5 of swords - Ruby Soldiers 6 of swords - Upright: transition, leaving behind, moving on, Reversed: emotional baggage, unresolved issues, resisting transition. - Steven in the car leaving Beach City.       7 of swords - Upright: deception, trickery, tactics and strategy, Reversed: coming clean, rethinking approach, - Marty 8 of swords - Upright: imprisonment, entrapment, self-victimization, Reversed: self acceptance, new perspective, freedom - Pink Diamond locked in her tower. 9 of swords - Upright: anxiety, hopelessness, trauma, Reversed: hope, reaching out, optimism. - Pearl in her first form from SU season one mirroring her most current form. 10 of swords - Upright: failure, collapse, defeat, Reversed: can't get worse, only upwards, inevitable end. - Buff Pink Steven just before he turns into monster Steven Page of swords - Upright: curiosity, restlessness, mental energy, Reversed: deception, manipulation, all talk       Knight of swords - Upright: action, impulsiveness, defending beliefs, Reversed: no direction, disregard for consequences, unpredictability Queen of Swords - Upright: complexity, perceptiveness, clear mindedness, Reversed: cold hearted, cruel, bitterness - Yellow Diamond King of swords - Upright: head over heart, discipline, truth, Reversed: manipulative, cruel, weakness.

Ace of cups - Lapis 2 of cups  - Nice and Mean Lapis 3 of cups - Garnet, Pearl and Bismuth when first reunited 4 of cups  -  Upright: apathy, contemplation, disconnectedness, Reversed: sudden awareness, choosing happiness, acceptance       5 of cups - Upright: loss, grief, self-pity, Reversed: acceptance, moving on, finding peace. - Crying Blue diamond. 6 of cups - Upright: familiarity, happy memories, healing, Reversed: moving forward, leaving home, independence   7 of cups  -  Upright: searching for purpose, choices, daydreaming, Reversed: lack of purpose, diversion, confusion - Lars (non Pink) 8 of cups  - Upright: walking away, disillusionment, leaving behind, Reversed: avoidance, fear of change, fear of loss       9 of cups - Upright: satisfaction, emotional stability, luxury, Reversed: lack of inner joy, smugness, dissatisfaction       10 of cups - Upright: inner happiness, fulfillment, dreams coming true, Reversed: shattered dreams, broken family, domestic disharmony  - Captain Lars Page of cups -  Upright: happy surprise, dreamer, sensitivity, Reversed: emotional immaturity, insecurity, disappointment. Knight of cups -  Upright: following the heart, idealist, romantic, Reversed: moodiness, disappointment. - Young Greg Universe   Queen of cups -  Upright: compassion, calm, comfort, Reversed: martyrdom, insecurity, dependence         King of cups - Upright: compassion, control, balance, Reversed: coldness, moodiness, bad advice  

Ace of Wands - Aquamarine 2  of Wands - Upright: planning, making decisions, leaving home, Reversed: fear of change, playing safe, bad planning   3  of Wands - Upright: looking ahead, expansion, rapid growth, Reversed: obstacles, delays, frustration - Sadie Miller 4  of Wands - Upright: community, home, celebration, Reversed: lack of support, transience, home conflicts - The Diamond party Steven held on Homeworld  5  of Wands   - Malachite 6 of Wands - Upright: victory, success, public reward, Reversed: excess pride, lack of recognition, punishment       7 of Wands - Upright: perseverance, defensive, maintaining control, Reversed: give up, destroyed confidence, overwhelmed  - Bill Dewey 8 of Wands - Upright: rapid action, movement, quick decisions, Reversed: panic, waiting, slowdown 9 of Wands -  Upright: resilience, grit, last stand, Reversed: exhaustion, fatigue, questioning motivations       10 of Wands - Upright: accomplishment, responsibility, burden, Reversed: inability to delegate, overstressed, burnt out       Page of Wands - Upright: exploration, excitement, freedom, Reversed: lack of direction, procrastination, creating conflict Knight of Wands - Upright: action, adventure, fearlessness, Reversed: anger, impulsiveness, recklessness - Onion       Queen of Wands - Upright: courage, determination, joy, Reversed: selfishness, jealousy, insecurities       King of Wands - Upright: big picture, leader, overcoming challenges, Reversed: impulsive, overbearing, unachievable expectations      

Ace of Pentacles -  Rose Quartz holding baby Steven with Pink diamond looking over them from behind them   2 of Pentacles - Upright: balancing decisions, priorities, adapting to change, Reversed: loss of balance, disorganized, overwhelmed   3 of Pentacles - Upright: teamwork, collaboration, building, Reversed: lack of teamwork, disorganized, group conflict       4 of Pentacles - Upright: conservation, frugality, security, Reversed: greediness, stinginess, possessiveness       5 of Pentacles - Bismuth at their anvil, making a sword. A barrel with four other swords next to her. 6 of Pentacles -  Upright: charity, generosity, sharing, Reversed: strings attached, stinginess, power and domination 7 of Pentacles - Upright: hard work, perseverance, diligence, Reversed: work without results, distractions, lack of rewards       8 of Pentacles - Upright: apprenticeship, passion, high standards, Reversed: lack of passion, uninspired, no motivation       9 of Pentacles -  Upright: fruits of labor, rewards, luxury, Reversed: reckless spending, living beyond means, false success. - Steven, Greg and Pearl in tuxedos.         10 of Pentacles -  Upright: legacy, culmination, inheritance, Reversed: fleeting success, lack of stability, lack of resources   Page of Pentacles - Upright: ambition, desire, diligence, Reversed: lack of commitment, greediness, laziness - Sour Cream Knight of Pentacles -  Upright: efficiency, hard work, responsibility, Reversed: laziness, obsessiveness, work without reward    Queen of Pentacles - Upright: practicality, creature comforts, financial security, Reversed: self-centeredness, jealousy, smothering - Vidalia King of Pentacles - Upright: abundance, prosperity, security, Reversed: greed, indulgence, sensuality. - Yellowtail

[wildflowerirwin]

Love Is War - m.c. Ch 2

Summary: When yeeyee meets a punk rock wannabe

Rating: PG-13

Words: 2.6k

Warnings: swearing

Michael woke up late into the afternoon, his head only slightly throbbing. He grabbed his phone off his nightstand and pulled his blankets up to his chin. He yawned as he opened Twitter, scrolling down through his timeline. Pictures of himself and Kaela were all that he could see. There were thousands of tweets proclaiming them as a new couple. Michael chewed on his lip as he swiped through the pictures of them together. There were pictures of them at the party, at the gas station, and kissing on the curb. Mike had to admit, he did find her rather gorgeous, even sober. He was pulled from his thoughts by his phone ringing, the caller-ID lighting up with ‘Tall, Dark, and Fucking Annoying.’ Michael sighed and tapped the little green button. “Yes?”

“Afternoon, Clifford. I trust you’ve had a good night’s sleep.” The deep voice of Martin, the head of Modest!Management, rang through the phone.

“Yeah, I had a nightmare where you called me. Oh, wait..” Michael’s tone dripped with sarcasm.

“Very funny.” Martin rolled his eyes. “After your stunt last night, we’ll need you to come down the office. We have some damage control to fix this. Be down here by 6.” Martin said, hanging up before Michael could argue. He reluctantly got up and got dressed, heading down to the management office. He walked inside and into the conference room, his eyes landing on Kaela’s icy blue ones.

“Kaela?” Michael raised an eyebrow as he sat across from her.

“Hi, Mike.” Kaela smiled softly.

“What’s this all about?” Michael asked, looking at Martin and Scott as they sat at the head of the table.

“It’s about the reaction to the two of you being together last night.” Martin said, pulling up a chart on the screen on the wall. “Fans have been going crazy since seeing you two together. Album sales have skyrocketed. Both of you have had increased site traffic and a 2% raise in social media followers.”

“Okay, so why are we here?” Michael asked, rolling his eyes slightly.

“For the time being, you two are going to be dating. Here is a schedule for upcoming public outings.” Scott said, handing both of them a packet. “In here, you’ll find the dates and times of all important sightings, such as: dinner dates, walks in the park, movie nights. You’ll also find outfit recommendations and requirements.”

“You want us to fake date?” Michael asked, looking at the two men.

“Essentially, yes.” Martin nodded. “Not forever, just until things settle down.”

“As long as this doesn’t ruin either of our careers when it ends, I’m fine with it.” Kaela said, leaning back in her chair as she twisted it from side to side.

“Kaela, please, keep your chair still.” Martin sighed, looking at Kaela.

“You give me a swively chair and expect me not to swivel? Yeah right, Marty.” Kaela shook her head and continued twisting.

“Whatever, you two can go, as soon as you sign these contracts. Your lawyers have already given the approval on the terms.” Tory said, sliding both of them a packet of papers.

“For the record, I don’t think this is going to work the way you all think it will.” Michael sighed, clicking his pen a few times as he read the first page of the contract. “I’m not a fan of that yeeyee shit, and I know a majority of my fans aren’t either.”

“Are you not the one who said your Spotify wrapped exposed you as a yeeyee?” Kaela asked, crossing her arms.

“Yes, but I’m a closet yeeyee. I can’t have my fans knowing that I’m an actual yeeyee.” He shrugged as he continued to flip through the contract.

“Whatever, just sign the contract so we can get out of here.” Kaela shook her head and signed her name on the line.  Michael sighed and signed his name, sliding the contract back to Martin.

“Alright, your schedules are on pages 3 through 8 of the packet. We will send you text reminders as well. If you feel like going out on a different date or time, please let us know so we can get media coverage.” Tory said, leaning back in his seat.

“You gonna plan out every kiss for us too?” Michael rolled his eyes.

“No, you two do a fine job locking lips on your own.” Tory rolled his eyes back. “Just try to follow the schedule, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Mike sighed. “Are we done here? Like, can I go?”

“Yes, we are done. You’re both free to go.” Martin shook his head and packed the signed contracts into his briefcase. Michael and Kaela stood from their chairs and walked out of the room.

“What are your dinner plans?” Michael asked her as they waited for the elevator.

“Was gonna make an entire box of spaghetti and eat it while watching the same 4 movies on repeat.” She shrugged, scratching her eyebrow lightly.

“As fun as that sounds, why don’t you come with me tonight? It’s game night at Luke’s place.” He said, stepping into the elevator as the doors slid open.

“You really want me to go?” Kaela asked, looking up at the tall Australian next to her.

“You’re my girlfriend now, the guys need to see us together.” Michael shrugged, glancing down at her. He knew when he was drunk that she was beautiful, but seeing her sober only confirmed it. The way her auburn hair was falling out of the bun on the top of her head, her cheeks slightly red from the warm air of the elevator.

“Alright, I’ll go with you.” She nodded, looking down at her feet.

“Great, I’ll pick you up at 6.” Michael smiled softly to himself and exited the elevator.

“Great.” Kaela muttered to herself and walked out to her car.

*** Kaela was much more nervous than she thought she’d be. She had met Michael’s bandmates before, but something felt different about this one. She stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom, looking at her outfit. “I look like a fuckin’ yeeyee..” Kaela whispered to herself. Her cut off shorts and her cowboy boots didn’t help, but they were her trademark. She sighed and looked down at her phone as a text from Michael lit up her screen. “Guess there’s no time to change.” She sighed and shoved her phone into her pocket before jogging down to the car.

“I knew you were a yeeyee, but you’re really goin’ for it with this outfit.” Michael chuckled softly as Kaela slid into the passenger seat.

“Shut up.” Kaela laughed, crossing her arms. Michael shook his head playfully as he started driving, the radio filling their silence. She glanced slowly at him as Silver Wings by Merle Haggard played back at them. “This is old school country.”

“It’s an okay song.” Michael shrugged.

“You know, I was in a movie with Tim McGraw and this song was featured on the soundtrack.” Kaela said, turning the song up slightly.

“I did see that on your Wikipedia page.” Michael nodded as he drove.

“Oh, did you stalk me?” Kaela raised an eyebrow, watching the houses pass.

“I had to learn a few things about my new girlfriend.” Michael smiled. “I needed to know about where you grew up, what the beginning of your career was like.”

“You could’ve just asked.” Kaela laughed as Michael pulled into Luke’s driveway.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Michael chuckled and got out of the car, meeting Kaela at the front door. “You nervous?”

“Extremely.” Kaela sighed, holding Michael’s hand as he pushed the door open. She followed him in and squeezed his hand as all eyes turned to them.

“The fuck?” Luke looked at Michael.

“Guys, this is my girlfriend.” He grinned, wrapping his arm around Kaela’s waist.

“Oh? You’re dating a yeeyee now?” Luke asked.

“I am dating a yeeyee and you’re gonna support me.” Michael said, bringing Kaela to the living room.

“I’ll support you if she proves herself worthy. If she can beat me at Monopoly, she’s worthy of my best friend.” Luke said, pulling out the game box.

“Oh, so you want to end my relationship before it’s even begun? What a good friend you are.” Michael huffed as he sat on the carpet next to the coffeetable.

“Y’all ready to lose or not?” Kaela asked, sitting in Michael’s lap.

“Big talk from Miss. Hick.” Ashton chuckled, handing both of them a bottle of Miller Light.

“I’m not a hick. Hicks marry their cousins.” Kaela said and took a sip of her beer, making a disgusted face. “Beer tastes like dirt.”

“Good dirt.” Calum defended.

“There’s no such thing as good dirt.” Kaela rolled her eyes. “Give me the dice, I’m going first.” Luke handed the dice to Kaela and she rolled, moving the shoe piece 4 spaces. Though the beer did in fact taste like dirt, Kaela continued to drink it.

“You don’t have to drink it, babe. I can drink it for you.” Michael said, rubbing his thumb over Kaela’s hip.

“I would like to do shots.” Kaela said, leaning back against Michael.

“Oh, she wants one of those game nights? Well, let’s give the lady what she wants.” Luke chuckled and walked over to his liquor cabinet. “I’ve got tequila, vodka, whiskey.”

“Bring them all.” Calum said. “We might as well do it all.”

“Tequila and whiskey hurt, so I’ll be doing vodka.” Michael said, taking a shot glass from Luke. Each of them filled their glasses and the shots were knocked back, each of them making faces.

“Luke, you got any soda or juice for mixers? I make the best mixed drinks.” Kaela said, looking at Luke.

“Take a look through the kitchen, take whatever you’d like.” He nodded and Kaela stood up. As she walked to the kitchen, the three boys turned and looked at Michael.

“Yes?” Michael asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re dating a yeeyee? For real?” Calum asked.

“She’s more than a yeeyee.” Michael sighed and set his beer down. “She’s funny and talented and so down to earth.”

“Okay, you can crawl out of her ass now.” Ashton crossed his arms. “What’s really going on with you two?”

“I’m being serious. I really like her. She’s just so real and she treats me like I’m normal.” Michael said, looking down at his lap.

“I want to see how yeeyee she gets when she’s drunk. Like how we all get very Australian when we’re drunk.” Luke said as he stood up. He walked out of the living room and joined Kaela in the kitchen, where she had an empty shot glass to her lips. “Uh, hi.” Luke said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Hi.” Kaela blushed, setting the empty glass down on the counter.

“How many of those have you had?” Luke asked, pouring himself a glass of tequila.

“Just 3.” Kaela shrugged, making herself and Michael a fuzzy navel. “What kinds of drinks do Ashton and Calum like?”

“Ashton likes whiskey and Calum’s a tequila guy. But, I’m sure they’d drink anything you made.” Luke said, leaning against the counter.

“Right, no pressure.” Kaela sighed, making a rum and coke for both of them. Luke picked up the rum and cokes and brought them out to the living room as Kaela brought the fuzzy navels. Kaela sat back in Michael’s lap and handed him the glass.

“What’s this?” He asked, looking at the glass.

“Fuzzy navel.” Kaela said, taking a sip of her own. Michael smiled to himself and took a sip.

“I’m bored of Monopoly.” Calum said, sipping the rum and coke.

“Let’s play a drinking game.” Luke suggested, earning grins from his friends.

The drinking game consisted of watching an episode of Family Guy and drinking every time you got bored of the episode, so it didn’t take long for the five of them to feel the alcohol. “Okay, okay, what’s that dance that you yeeyee people do?” Ashton asked, breaking the silence. There were empty glasses and shot glasses on the floor surrounding the coffee table, as well as on the surface.

“The two-step?” Kaela asked, pouring herself and Michael another tequila shot.

“Yeah, that’s the one.” Ashton nodded. “How do you do it?”

“First, you need music.” Kaela said, downing her shot.

“What song works for it?” Ashton asked, getting Spotify pulled up on Luke’s TV.

“Literally any yeeyee song will work, Ashton.” Michael said, downing his shot.

“He’s right.” Kaela said, taking the remote from Ashton. She found a today’s country playlist, hitting shuffle. “This will work.” She said, standing up. She held her hands out to Ashton and pulled him up with her. She held one of his hands and placed the other on his hip. “Put your hand on my shoulder.”

“This feels weird.” Ashton said, placing his hand on her shoulder.

“Well, you’re probably used to leading, but now I’m leading.” Kaela said. “Now, follow my feet. It’s one step forward and two steps back.” She explained as she pulled him along with her, the gentle sounds of Old Dominion’s “Make It Sweet” echoing through Luke’s living room as they danced.

“Okay, great. He’s got it down. My turn.” Michael said as he stood up. “She’s my girlfriend, I get to dance with her.” Michael grabbed Kaela’s hand and pulled her close to him. In his mind he knew that she wasn’t really his girlfriend, but the jealousy he felt at seeing her dance with his best friend was real. Kaela’s giggle was like music to his ears as she held onto his shoulder.

“I already know you know how to dance.” Kaela looked up at him.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it.” Michael smiled and rubbed his thumb along the exposed skin of her hip.

“Ashton, teach me how to do it.” Calum said, grabbing Ashton’s hand. Luke sat on the floor, bobbing his head to the music as Dan & Shay’s “Tequila” played back at them. Kaela laughed to herself and laid her head on Michael’s shoulder as she watched Calum and Ashton dancing together.

“You guys are doing great.” She smiled, genuinely impressed at how quickly they caught on.

“Well, looky here.” Luke smirked as he watched the screen of his TV. The familiar chords filled the room and Kaela gasped.

“No!” She whined, hiding her face in Michael’s chest as her own track echoed through the room. “Change the song.”

“Why? This one’s, like, the best one off your first album.” Michael said, holding her body close to his.

“This is absolutely not the best song on my first album. The best song on my album is ‘Lose The War.’” Kaela said.

“What? No, that song is totally depressing.” Calum interjected.

“Wait, how many of you have actually listened to my albums? Like actually listened to them.” Kaela asked, looking at the group.

“Me and Calum listened together.” Ashton said.

“I have not heard the whole thing, because I do not like country music.” Luke said, laying on his back on the hardwood floor.

“Okay, well, don’t listen to it. I don’t want you guys to know about my life.” Kaela said, sitting back down on the floor.

“Well, you’re dating our best friend. So, we need to know you. We have to make sure you’re the right girl for him.” Ashton said, sitting back down on the couch with Calum.

“Tell you what..” Kaela started. “I want you all to listen to my album, really listen to it. Next time I see you all, we’ll have a little discussion about your thoughts and if I’m good enough for you best friend. Deal?”

“Deal.”

~

Taglist: @flowers-on-the-graves @calumculture @kinglycalum @babylon-corgis @novacanecalum @lfwallscouldtalk @dontdoitluke @isabella10028 @bumblebet-20 @lockthisheartinchains @bitterbethany @sublimehood @myloverboyash @ironicallyirwin @lashtoncurls @mukesreject @sanfrancjsco @boytoynamedcalum @opinionatedpisces-official @blahehblah @lukehemmings @calum-uncrowned @findingliam-o @gh0st-0f-y0u-95​ @gosh-im-short​ @baldcalum​ @ukulelecal​ @noshamenion​ @talkfastromance4​ @galcalirwin​ @cxddlyash​ @spicycal​ @scorpiomichaell​ @calyumthomas​ @heavenisapeach​ @cals-wildflower​ @5sosfivesos​ @irwindoll​ @thenotsoartsybitch​ @beautiflybybri​ @loverofmineluke​

[fanfictionaries]

Love and Academia Ch. 1 - Retirement and Revelation

Pairing: AU Professor!Bucky x OFC

Warnings: Swearing, smut, NSFW/18+ only, mentions of death/violence/suicide

Author’s note: This started out as an original stand alone book, but then I thought why try to publish it and make money when i could turn it into a fan fiction and give it to people for free instead? 

I do not currently have a beta reader so please excuse any larger issues. it’s just little ol’ me! 

***

“Retiring?”

Emily sat, shocked to her very core as the older man sitting across from her nervously removed his glasses and began cleaning them on the corner of his Hawaiian printed shirt. Her graduate advisor of three years at Idaho State University, Dr. Erskine, had always been a fair man. He was a scientist! He was logical, factual, practical. So, why on God’s green earth was he retiring at the tail end of her doctorate degree?

“I understand this is probably frustrating Emily, but to be fair when I took you on as a graduate student it was under the impression that you were to just be a master’s student,” Dr. Erskine sighed. Emily opened her mouth to argue, but he held up a hand to stop her before continuing, “And I know I encouraged you to transfer to a PhD program.” He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and pointer finger. “If I’m being completely honest Emily, my health is diminishing. It has been for a while. It was even before I accepted you into my lab, and it wasn’t fair of me to accept you when I knew that my position here was potentially—" he paused to look down at his desk, “—that my time here was potentially limited. Think of it as an old man’s last hurrah.” He chuckled darkly, almost as if he was baffled by his own decision, “I was going to turn you away, recommend you to some of my colleagues that were taking on students at the time, but when I looked through your CV, read the glowing recommendations from your references, interviewed you and got to know you, I guess I saw something in you that reminded me of myself when I was younger. I guess, I just wanted to relive that. Help you as much as I could.”

Emily fidgeted in her seat, unsure of what to even say. This was a man she spent the last three years with. He was her mentor. He was like a father to her and she found it incredibly jarring to hear all of this now. He had never mentioned his health before; hell, he had been spry as a teenager their first summer, traipsing through the mountains of northern Idaho. But now that she thought back on it, the small groans when he stood from his chair every morning her first year, how he’d opted for the elevator over the stairs her second year, his insistence that he wasn’t needed out in the rolling hills and woods her third year, and the large bottle of aspirin next to his desk all started to make sense. She felt like such an idiot for not realizing. Even worse, she felt like a bad person – a bad friend. She considered herself a friend to Dr. Erskine, even if he was almost fifty years her senior, and friends noticed things like the failing health of those closest to them.

“But now Frances is insisting that I retire and spend what time I have left at home with her and the family. Which, to be honest sounds quite…nice.”

She looked up at Dr. Erskine and took a deep breath, “That’s some heavy stuff Doc.”

A smile spread across Dr. Erskine’s face until it reached his eyes. Emily watched as he physically relaxed, “So I’m forgiven then Marty?” She nodded and smiled back as they slipped back into a comfortable repertoire. In their early days, the two had bonded over the mutual love for the Back to the Future films. They had even gone as far as to compare themselves to the duo Marty McFly and Dr. Brown – mainly because of their drastic age difference and Dr. Erskine’s habit of being erratic and unpredictable. So, over the years they had begun to affectionately refer to each other by the characters’ names.

“I wish you had told me sooner. I would have complained infinitely less about you flaking out on my last trip into the field,” Emily admitted, trying to throw a little humor into the mix. She had never been good at talking about feelings and the mushy gushy stuff.

“I guess I didn’t want to burden you with an old man’s troubles.”

Nodding, she bit the inside of her lower lip trying to decide what to do, “I guess I could see if someone else in the department could take me on for my last year. I mean there’s not much left, all my data collection is complete. I just have data analysis, the conference in the spring and then defending my thesis. Maybe Dr. Foster would—”

“Actually—" Dr. Erskine interrupted her “—I’ve solved that little problem for you.”

At Emily’s surprised expression he laughed, “What? Thought I was going to leave you high and dry?”

Emily laughed as well, but with relief. She had thought that.

“Yes, they’ve managed to find my replacement already. Now, I don’t know whether I should be relieved or insulted that my spot was so easily filled, but nonetheless he has graciously accepted to take you on for your last year, as well as take my place on your graduate committee,” said Dr. Erskine.

Emily rolled her eyes affectionately at his comment – he knew very well that most could not hold a candle to his position within the field of ecology.

“And just who is it that they’ve chosen to replace the great Dr. Abraham Erskine?” Emily leaned in, raising an eyebrow in intrigue.

“Dr. J. B. Barnes.”

Emily’s mouth hung open in shock, “Barnes? THE Dr. Barnes?” She blushed momentarily at her small outburst before clearing her throat, “I mean, that’s uh great. I’ve read some of his work. When, um, when will he be arriving?”

Dr. Erskine gave Emily an amused smile, very aware that Emily had read all of Dr. Barnes’ work, before answering, “I believe he’s actually already arrived, but seeing as I still need to move about thirty years’ worth of stuff from my office and the lab, he probably won’t be moving in for a week or so – right before classes start.”

As if on cue, Dr. Erskine’s office phone rang. He made quick work of answer, “Ahhh Margret. Mark mentioned you’d be calling today.”

Emily took the phone call as an opportunity to stand from her seat and make her goodbyes. Catching Dr. Erskine’s eye, she gave him a quick wave, “Let me know if you need any help packing things up.”

“Could you hold for just one second Margret?” Dr. Erskine asked into the phone before placing it to his chest, “Are we still on for dinner Sunday, Marty?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t miss Frances’ salmon for the world,” Emily said before ducking out of his office and shutting the door behind her. Dr. Erskine’s office sat nestled in the far corner of his research lab – a large space filled with messy counter tops and lab tables covered by slides, scales, and various pieces of equipment that were worth more than Emily’s entire education. Sitting down at her desk, she attempted to work, but her head couldn’t stop spinning. Her heart ached for Dr. Erskine, but his leaving sent her stress level up a whole new level. Not to mention, the prospect of working with Dr. Barnes was a whole other story. What was that saying again? When one door closes, another one opens? Well this was certainly a big door to open. At least for her. Her phone buzzed on her desk beside her.

Clint:

If I have to listen to Dr. Stark’s Himalayans story one more time, I may drive this car off of the road.

Emily laughed, her boyfriend Clint, currently on a three-week field excursion in Montana, had a love/hate relationship with his advisor. He loved the man but hated having to hear the same braggadocios stories over and over again.

Emily:

Lol! What time are you getting home tonight?

Clint:

7, still at work?

Emily:

So late :-( Yea, I planned on staying until 5. Can’t wait to see you tonight!

Clint:

Me too. See you tonight <3

After about an hour, Emily decided that trying to get any work done that day was futile. Her whole body vibrated with excitement. So, she grabbed her bag and headed out of the Life Science’s building. She contemplated what to do with the rest of her day as she hopped into her old Jeep Cherokee and immediately rolled down all the windows allowing a small breeze to blow through the stuffy space. If there was one thing you could count on, it was the unbearable summer heat in Pocatello, Idaho. Leaning her head back in the driver’s seat, a large smile spread across her face and she let out a small squeal. She couldn’t wait to tell Clint about Dr. Barnes. Her boyfriend had unfortunately been listening to her fan girl over the man’s work for the past two years. She could only imagine his reaction when she told him that she would be working with him. With that thought in mind, she put her car in drive and headed towards the store. She would splurge on a couple of nice steaks and some champagne, maybe even bake a chocolate cake, and surprise him with the news over dinner when he got home.

As she carried the heavy bags up the stairs to her third story apartment, she cursed silently under her breath; it was hot, and she was out of shape. She fished her keys from her purse and balanced the bags on her hip as she unlocked the front door and stepped in. She rounded the corner into the kitchen and began to put the groceries away when a voice startled her.

“Em, what are you doing here?”

“Oh!” Emily let out a small shriek and turned around to find Clint standing behind her, “Jesus, you scared me! You said you weren’t coming back until seven tonight babe.”

She crossed the kitchen to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into a tight hug. He wore only a pair of boxers and his hair was damp from a recent shower. Burying her nose in his neck, she breathed in the scent of his familiar body wash before pulling back and pecking him on the lips.

“I, uh, I thought you were at work until five,” he pulled her back in, wrapping his arms even tighter to her. Emily smirked into his chest, figuring she had just ruined his attempt to surprise her.

“Well, that’s actually a really long story. I was going to surprise you with dinner tonight and tell you about it, but I guess you beat me to the surprise.” She leaned back in his arms and smiled up at him. Clint laughed stiffly, his eyes not meeting hers, and Emily scrunched her brow in confusion.

“Babe, are you oka—”

“Clint honey! Are you getting water or not? I need something to cool me down after that steamy shower,” a voice called from the other room. The sound hit Emily like a brick. Unhooking her arms from around Clint’s neck, she took a step back.

“Em, I can explain,” Clint said, his eyes large and panicked.

But Emily didn’t listen, instead she moved towards the bedroom, no longer in control of her body.

“Em, wait!” Clint followed behind her, but his words were a hazy buzz. She swung open the door to her, their, bedroom and found Sharon, Clint’s coworker, lying in their bed. Sharon let out a shriek and quickly moved to cover herself with the sheet.

“I thought you said she wouldn’t be home for hours!” said Sharon, jumping up to dress herself. “Oh my god.”

“Em, please. I know how this looks,” said Clint, but Emily did not reply. Instead she stood still, rooted to the spot, watching as Sharon hastily pulled her pants up her legs and shirt over her head. It wasn’t until the woman brushed past her and exited the apartment, that she looked up at Clint.

“Get out,” she said, voice calm and even.

“Emily…”

“I’m going to leave, and when I get back tonight, I want you and all your stuff out of my apartment.” She turned on the spot and headed to the kitchen to grab her bag.

“You can’t be serious Em. This is my apartment too. Aren’t we at least going to talk about this?” Clint tried to reason with Emily, grabbing ahold of her forearm to stop her.

“Last time I checked, only my name was on the lease Clint,” she said icily, ripping her arm from his firm grasp.

“Where the fuck am I supposed to go Em? Huh? You’re going to just throw me out on the street?!”

The anger in his voice shocked Emily to her core. She didn’t know this person. Two years and she had never heard Clint so much as raise his voice, but now he was yelling at her like it had been her cheating on him in their bed. The urge to run from the situation was so strong, she didn’t even hesitate when she grabbed the handle to the front door and swung it open. “I’m sure Sharon would be more than happy to let you stay with her.”

Sprinting down the stairs, she ran to her car and pealed out of the parking lot. She had no idea where she was going, but all she knew was that she needed to be as far away from Clint as humanly possible. With shaking hands, Emily pulled her phone from her purse and called the first person she could think of. The phone rang a few times before a sultry voice answered.

“Well hello sexy, calling for a mid-day booty call?”

“Hey Nat,” Emily answered.

“What’s wrong babe?” her best friend, Natasha, asked picking up on the tone in Emily’s voice.

“Want to help me pick out a new bed?”

[martisxladyshura]

On the crest of a small hill overlooking the burning village below, he found her.

She lay on her side, motionless, facing the bed of flowers that sprung around her from the blood she had fed the earth. 

Even in the worst tragedy, nothing but beauty came from Lady Shura.

Martis dropped his blades and rushed towards her, his breathing quick and shallow at the sight of his ward sprawled lifelessly on the ground.

He knelt and cradled her in his arms. Relief washed over him as he felt her breath, though it was cold.

Lady Shura slowly opened her eyes. It took a while for her to grasp what was happening as a deep slumber had taken ahold of her. She willed her senses to waken as soothing green energy briefly enveloped them. 

Martis had cast a healing spell.

In a different circumstance, she would have laughed. He hated any form of magic, claiming it was a cheap trick used by the weak.

“...Won’t work...” She managed to mumble while breathing out.

“QUIET!” Martis commanded, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Don’t waste your energy on words.”

“...Deadly Blade.” 

Martis glared at her. Such a blade was laced with poison that negated any healing effects. 

If her wound was fatal, nothing could be done...

He let out a disdainful growl to mask the growing dread in him.

“Disobedient woman! Look at what you've done!"

Had she stayed in their fortress, none of this would have happened! She wanted to fight for justice and light, meaningless concepts made by an inferior race to fool themselves that they had some semblance of control and dominion over their pathetic, fleeting lives.

He fought in the Land of Dawn for supremacy but could not care less for the conflict between the Moniyans and the Abyss. She pleaded for him to help the former and when he refused, she unwisely decided to take on the endeavor herself. 

Though a prisoner of an old war, she became the king’s favorite pet, perhaps becoming even more than what he cared to admit. Her every whim was granted given she caused no trouble and remained within their walls.

She was obedient until that day. She left all the comfort and luxury he offered her to die for a pointless cause.

Stubborn. Weak. Foolish.

How he scorned her.

Martis drew her close and held her in a tight embrace, his nails burying deep into her skin. She wearily rested her head on his shoulder.

“WHO DREW THE BLADE? NAME WHOSE HEAD I MUST SEVER AND IMPALE!!!”

No response.

“WOMAN!”

She heard him but his words sounded distant. Lady Shura took in deep breathes, desperately clinging on to the last threads of life to be with her lord.

He could feel more of her weight in his arms...

“A NAME!”

The words echoed in her thoughts and an unbearable longing came over her. The urgency strengthened her enough to evade the clutches of death a bit longer.

“Name?… My name… What’s my name?”

The question stunned Martis, suppressing his rage. He loosened his hold on her.

“Say my name... The one you took from me.”

“Enough of your sentimentalities! You are the lady of the Shura clan. I will take you home and you will be - ”

“It’s too late…”

Tears fell down Lady Shura’s cheeks as she looked out into the fiery blaze that raged on from below the hill. He was right: she was not fit for war. Even with the Pride she conjured from his energy, she could not defend people from the Abyss. She also did not know that being away from Martis caused her powers to wane gradually.

She saved one life… a warrior who fought for the abyss. And she paid the ultimate price for it. Fate mocked her till the end.

Both were silent for what felt like an eternity.

She didn’t have much time…

With all that she had left in her, she touched his face. She felt him grab her hand and press them to his cheek. 

She couldn’t absorb his energy anymore, but she could still feel him.

“It’s no longer these chains that bind me to you.” She whispered softly. “Give me my freedom to be by your side.”

Stillness. Silence.

“Please… let me pass on as myself.”

She felt him let out a deep sigh and he tightened his embrace, unwilling to accept this inevitable tragedy. 

Slowly, he turned to her. She felt him nudging his head to part her hair, taking in her scent. 

He placed the hand he held on his chest.

With a barely audible whisper, he spoke a name she had long forgotten. It sounded like the sweetest lullaby.

She smiled weakly. “Thank you… my king.”

She closed her eyes and let herself rest on his shoulder. With the hand he still held, she caressed his skin. 

Memories of her home and her people flooded her; She remembered the sweet taste of ambrosia, the merriment of the harvest festivals, running through the woods and taking in the lush beauty around her.

Her surroundings began to blur away, replaced by visions of everything she used to hold dear inviting her home.

Under a fiery crimson sky and the ever-watchful waning moon, dreams-of-a-life-once-had took the young girl from the Ashura King, who let out a rage-filled cry that shook the heavens and made the earth tremble with fear.

*******************

Cover Art by Lee

Story Written by Me (SnowFallDoodles)

[thinkingaboutyoungroyals]

Lost Boy (Chapter 5: Learning New Things)

Summary: When his family moves from San Francisco to the town of Shadyside, T.J. thought his life would change. And it did. He just didn’t think it would come in the form of the ghost of a boy who haunted his new bedroom.

Prologue

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4 

Tag list:@delicatesleeper,@ibroughtachallah,@frenchtohste,@alittletooliteralleah,@tyrusmagocious,@tjskipping, @mirrorslover, @opatrickr, @lesbianrelateddeath,@mirrorslover,@opatrickr, @justkimberley, @burning-hot-pan,@green-lemonboys, @anotherangelfromspace,@thebisexualweirdo,@likelightning-inabottle,@thedampjofangirl, @fizasdr, @awkward-bisexual-alien, @whipashwhipash, @abg-blah​, @atthemomentimintothis​, @emberofthefrost​ 

.........

Sweat rolled off his back and forehead while his lungs burned from the exertion. Every muscle in his body was tight and ached. And his cheeks were red and heated.

It felt good.

A whistle rang in his ears just as he caught the ball passed on to him.

“Alright! Ten-minute break and we’ll dive right into a mock play!” announced the Coach.

T.J. tossed the ball into the nearby cart, gave Buffy’s friend (a guy named Marty) who was his partner for the drill a fist bump, and headed for one of the benches by the bleachers where he left his bag. He rummaged around for his water bottle and took a generous gulp. The cold water soothed his throat, cooling him down.

“Hey, T.J.! Great job out there!” Andi had come down from the bleachers, Libby behind her.

He smiled at her. “Thanks. You think I’ll make it?”

Libby made a few signs in ASL. Unfortunately, T.J. wasn’t familiar with it yet but Andi or Walker often interpreted for him.

“Libby says they’ll be crazy not to let you in! And I agree with her! You’re a natural!” Andi grinned

“Thanks, guys. That means a lot.”

He turned his head to see what the others were doing and spotted Buffy talking to Marty nearby.

Perfect.

He lifted a hand and made his voice as loud as possible. “Buffy! Hey!”

The curly-haired girl turned her head, catching sight of him. She waved back and jogged over, the brunette boy following behind her.

“’Sup, Kippen?” she grinned. “You really gave Marty a run for his money!”

“Hey! He has longer legs so he’s naturally faster!” the boy protested.

T.J. laughed and turned to Andi, whose smile had dropped slightly. He pretended not to notice and gestured to her.

“This is Andi and Libby, by the way. Andi and Libby, this is Buffy. And Marty.”

“From the party,” Andi blurted out before blushing. “Sorry, force of habit.”

Nonetheless, Marty laughed and Buffy’s lips twitched in amusement. T.J. wondered what the story behind that was.

Andi managed a small smile as she turned her attention to Buffy. “Hi, Buffy.”

Buffy returned the smile, rather sadly. “Hi, Andi.”

He could practically feel the tense electricity in the air. Even Libby looked a little awkward, her gaze moving from Andi to Buffy and back to Andi.

T.J. pretended to look confused. “You, guys, know each other? Oh, wait, Andi. This is the Buffy you were talking about?”

“Well, there’s no one else at this school named after a famous vampire slayer,” Buffy joked.

It made everyone laugh and, for a moment, the atmosphere was a little less tense. From the outside looking in, they probably looked like a group of good friends.

If only that were truly the case.

When the laughter died down, the awkwardness returned. Andi and Buffy couldn’t look at each other in the eye. Libby was staring at Andi, her hands twitching like she desperately wanted to say something. And Marty kept his gaze on the floor, though his arm made its way over Buffy’s shoulder.

“Well, this is great!” T.J. forced perkiness into his tone, cringing at how fake he sounded. “We should all hang out! After tryouts? We can go to The Spoon.”

He grinned expectantly at everyone, even showed some teeth. If Cyrus could see him now, the ghost would no doubt laugh in his face because he was clearly trying too hard.

Instead of the enthusiastic agreement that he was hoping for, the tension only grew. Buffy looked a little hopeful but still, she didn’t say a word.

“Um, Libby and I are actually helping Walker with a mural later,” said Andi, softly. 

Beside her, Libby nodded in agreement.

Buffy’s face fell as she looked away, refusing to meet their eyes. “And Marty and I already have plans. Sorry.”

T.J. felt his heart sink. “Oh…”

Meanwhile, Marty cleared his throat. “Maybe another time?” he offered.

T.J. nodded. “Yeah, definitely.”

Another awkward silence fell upon them as he racked his brains for something to break it. He wished he had something, anything, to get them to start talking.

“Uh, I need to go to the bathroom,” Buffy announced, already turning away. “I’ll see you, guys.”

“Sure,” T.J. replied.

He, Andi, and Libby just watched as Buffy and Marty walked away from them and through the door to the locker rooms. Sighing, T.J. turned back to the two girls.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize…”

Andi shook her head. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not like Buffy and I don’t like each other anymore. It’s just…we lost touch. She became preoccupied with sports and I wanted to concentrate on art.”

And the silent third thing was there: there was no Cyrus to glue them back together, anymore.

T.J. wished he could offer more comfort, given the knowledge he had about their friendship. But, he could only keep his mouth closed and look sorry as much as he could.

After all, they didn’t know that he knew exactly why they stopped talking.

……….

After tryouts, he headed to The Spoon Diner. Amber was working there as a waitress now. Her shifts were after school, three times a week, from 4-7pm, which meant that T.J. could stop by and get free food when she was working. It was one of those days and he really needed some comforting junk food in his system.

He spotted his sister’s blonde ponytail taking orders at the bar counter so he settled on a stool there and patiently waited.

Amber finished with her customer, spotted him, and walked right over.

“Hey, twerp. How were tryouts?” she asked.

T.J. glared at the insulting nickname before grinning. “I think I did pretty great! I’m definitely in!”

“Oohh, sounding confident, aren’t we?” Amber raised an eyebrow. “When do you know the results?”

“Monday. But, I know I’m definitely in!”

“Aww, I’m proud of you.”

Amber reached over to ruffle his hair and T.J. recoiled, slapping her hands away.

“Can you just get me some food? I’m hungry.”

“I don’t hear the magic word.”

“Now, please.”

Amber rolled her eyes but lifted her pad and pen to take his order. “What do you want?”

T.J. shrugged. “Don’t know. Never been here. What’s good?”

“The baby taters are pretty popular. And the milkshakes.”

He raised a brow. “What are baby taters?”

Amber chuckled. “Their version of a tater tot. But, it’s really good, almost everyone orders it.”

“Then, I’ll have that. And a chocolate milkshake. To go.”

She lifted her eyes from her pad. “You’re not staying?”

“Nah, I’ll just head home. Cyrus probably wants to know how it went.”

And just like that, his sister’s smile dipped into a frown. “So, you’re actually helping that ghost?” she asked in a low tone.

T.J. shrugged. “Yeah.”

Amber’s hands fell on top of the counter, clutching the edge tightly. “You promised you wouldn’t do this anymore. You said you wanted a normal life, yet you’re back to the same old routine again?”

“It’s just one ghost,” T.J. defended. “And it’s not anything dangerous, either. I’m just helping his friends make up again, that’s all. Nothing illegal, no breaking and entering, and no trip to the police this time. I swear.”

“And what if the other ghosts find out and they flock to you for help?”

“Cyrus promised me he wouldn’t tell the others. He told me he doesn’t talk to them anyway.”

Amber steeled her gaze. “And you believe him?”

“Yes.” T.J. returned her look, stubbornly refusing to back down. “I trust him. And he trusts me.”

Well, he didn’t know, exactly, if Cyrus trusted him, but what else he could say to get her to drop the subject and accept his decision? 

And, besides, Cyrus had declared them friends and told him many things about himself (except for the way he died, that was still a well-guarded secret and mystery). That meant he trusted T.J. even just a little, right?

Amber continued to stare him down, in big sister mode now. She may support his abilities but she never did approve of his activities, which mostly stemmed from the trauma with Emily. She didn’t trust ghosts, no matter what.

“I’ve never seen you act like this towards a ghost before,” she stated, her brow furrowing. “Normally, you’re detached. You treat it like a job you hate. But with this one… you’re different.” She narrowed her eyes. “Do you like him or something?”

Immediately, T.J.’s cheeks flushed, caught off-guard. “What?”

“Is he your type?” she pressed.

“What are you talking about?” T.J.’s entire face burned, including his ears.

“I need a picture of this boy. What was his name again?”

“Amber!”

“Never mind. I’ll find out, myself.” 

Without another word to him, she spun on her heels and headed towards the kitchen. “I can’t believe my brother has a crush on a ghost,” he heard her murmur before she walked through the doors.

Groaning, T.J. dropped his head on the table.

Amber was just being ridiculous. He didn’t have a crush on Cyrus! Sure, he thought he was kind of cute and endearing, but T.J. barely knew anything about him!

And, besides, Cyrus was a ghost! It would never work out! As soon as T.J. finished helping him with his unfinished business, he was going to move on and disappear from the Earth forever. T.J. could not afford to crush on a ghost, it would just all end in heartbreak.

Feeling a presence settle on the seat next to him, he lifted his head. Amber was beside him, no longer wearing her hat and apron.

He raised his brows, questioningly, at her.

“I’m taking my break,” was all she answered.

T.J. rolled his eyes. “If you’re just trying to find out if I have a crush on Cyrus, I don’t. Okay? We’re just friends. He’s not interested in me in that way and neither am I.”

His sister didn’t look like she believed him. Instead, she took out her phone and quickly typed and furiously scrolled, not looking at him. Finally, she found what she was looking for and turned the phone around.

It was a Facebook account - a private one but the profile picture was clear as day in revealing who owned it. And the smiling image staring back at him was of the same boy who lived in his bedroom. 

“Is this him?” she asked.

“H-How did you…?”

“I can ask mom questions, too.”

“You texted her?! What if she was in the middle of a lesson?!”

“If she was, she wouldn’t text me back.” Amber flashed him a pointed look. “So, there aren’t many Cyrus Goodman’s who live in Shadyside, just this one.” She raised an eyebrow. “So? Is this him?”

T.J. nervously swallowed. “Y-Yeah,” he admitted.

Amber hummed as she looked at her phone again. “I guess he’s kinda cute. Not my type, but he’s got a certain charm to him. I can see why you want to help him.”

“Amber, his looks have got nothing to do with my helping him, okay?” T.J. sighed. “I just feel bad. He’s obviously stuck and doesn’t know why. I’m just trying to help. And he’s really nice, not like the others. They’re always demanding me to do things for them but Cyrus? He never asked for my help. I offered it. And he’s not making me rush either. I just… want to help him.” He sighed again. “I don’t even know if I can help. So far, my plan to get his friends to talk again didn’t work. It’s like they don’t even know what to say to each other or how to start a conversation.”

Amber puffed her cheeks, indicating that she was actually thinking deeply about something.

“Maybe… they just need something to remind them of their old friendship,” she suggested.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Things like… the place they met… or a place they frequented… maybe an activity they often did together.”

T.J. didn’t know what those were but he could always ask Cyrus.

“… or maybe old photos? Those can always make you remember the good ol’ days. Never underestimate the power of nostalgia.”

T.J. pursed his lips. “I guess I could ask Cyrus.”

Amber gave him a worried look. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

He appreciated her concern but he already made up his mind. He nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Sighing loudly, Amber nodded. “Alright. Just be careful.” She got to her feet. “Your order should be done soon. I’ll go check.”

She affectionately patted his cheek before leaving. He smiled after her in gratitude.

For all of her hatred of ghosts, his sister still came through with offering him advice.

……....

He had to admit. The baby taters were addicting. They were lightly salted and the grease stained his fingers. He never cared about tater tots before but, for some reason, he just couldn’t stop eating them.

T.J. stared forlornly at the Styrofoam box sitting on his desk that was once filled to the brim but was now half-empty, only around six tots left. He should go on a jog tomorrow morning because he was pretty sure he gained quite a bit just from that. All he wanted was a snack but Amber gave him the huge serving and he didn’t know whether to thank her or curse her.

As he reached over to take another piece, he caught a shimmer from the corner of his eye.

As usual, Cyrus was sat on his desk, smiling and waving. “Hey, T.J.”

The blonde let out a chuckle. “No nickname today?”

Cyrus shrugged. “Couldn’t think of one.” When he looked down and saw the box, his eyes lit up. “Oh my god! Are those baby taters?!”

“Yeah? Want some?”

T.J. almost kicked himself. Of course, Cyrus couldn’t have some! He was a ghost!

Thankfully, Cyrus just laughed. “No, thanks. I’m on a diet.” He looked on with a sad smile at the tater tots. “These were my favorite. Andi, Buffy, and I used to get a huge order and share them. And I would do tater theatre!”

Raising a curious brow, T.J. asked, “What’s tater theatre?”

The question seemed to light up Cyrus’ entire face. He proudly straightened up. “Only the best and most entertaining show in Shadyside, presented to you by the wonderful Cyrus Goodman.” He gestured to the baby taters. “May I?”

Confused yet curious, T.J. gave him the go-ahead with a simple nod.

Excitedly, Cyrus picked up two of the tots. “High School Musical or Camp Rock?”

“Uh… High School Musical?”

The ghost grinned. “Excellent choice. So, today’s installment of tater theatre presents, High Tater Musical!” He lifted a tot. “From the moment Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez met, they had no idea that it was going to be the start of something new…”

T.J. watched in total astonishment as Cyrus re-created the entire movie using only the tater tots and his voice. It was the most ridiculous display he had ever seen in his entire life.

He loved it.

He clapped loudly when Cyrus finished and the boy blushed yet gave a little bow. 

“Thank you, thank you! I’ll be here all night!”

“That was... wow.”

“Not exactly an adjective but I’ll take it!”

T.J. grinned as he picked up a tot, dipped it in ketchup, and popped it into his mouth. “And you did this all the time?”

“Only when I felt inspired. Which was a lot.”

If any of those were just like the one he just witnessed, Cyrus’ friends probably had a grand time watching them.

“So, aside from baby taters, what else do you like?”

It didn’t take long for the boy to answer. “Chocolate-chocolate chip muffins! They’re the best thing in this world! Aside from baby taters, of course!”

“I’m learning new things about you everyday.”

Cyrus cocked his head to the side. “What about yours?”

“My what?”

“Your favorite muffin.”

T.J. pursed his lips in thought. “Hmmm… Blueberry macadamia.”

Cyrus made a face. “That doesn’t exist!”

“Of course, it does! There’s this bakery back in San Francisco that makes really good blueberry macadamia! We went there all the time!”

It was one of the very few things he missed about San Francisco, but he could live with it. 

The ghost looked at him, suspiciously. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

T.J. opened his mouth to answer but stopped himself on time. He had been about to tell Cyrus that he would take him. 

What was he thinking?! Of course, he couldn’t take Cyrus to San Francisco! Ghosts were normally tied to one place and Cyrus was tied to this town. They couldn’t just go on a road trip to San Francisco… could they?

“But, you know, if you dip the baby tater in your milkshake, it tastes like heaven. Or, that’s how I imagine heaven to taste like.”

T.J. blinked, confused, but Cyrus was staring at the little container of ketchup on his desk.

T.J.’s chest twitched and he lifted a hand to scratch at it. “Sure, I’ll give it a shot.” He opened the top of his milkshake cup and dipped a baby tater in before taking a small bite.

As soon as the cold sweetness combined with the light salty taste met his tongue, his eyes widened in shock.

Cyrus looked utterly delighted when he dipped the tot in a second time.

The simple things really did make the ghost happy. “So, how were tryouts?” he asked, leaning back as he playfully kicked his legs back and forth.

T.J. wiped his hands on a napkin. “Pretty great! I’m definitely in, but I don’t find out for sure until Monday.”

“You’re in. I just know it!”

T.J. smiled, feeling warmth take over his body as he was filled with gratitude for the boy’s support.  

He waited for Cyrus to ask about Buffy and Andi but he didn’t. Honestly, he wasn’t looking forward to telling him that his plan failed. He hoped Cyrus wouldn’t be too disappointed.

“But, my plan… didn’t actually work,” he stated, slowly.

Cyrus frowned. “Your plan?”

“For Buffy and Andi. They barely talked! It was so awkward!”

“Oh.” Cyrus nodded, his eyes falling to the floor. He did look disappointed but not surprised. “That’s okay. You tried your best.”

T.J. didn’t like that forlorn look on his face. It just didn’t suit him. 

T.J. scooted his chair closer to the boy, placing a hand on his knee. 

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep trying. This isn’t the end.”

Cyrus managed a small smile at that. “Thank you.”

T.J. nodded. “So, I talked to my sister about it. And she said maybe they’ll talk if something reminded them of their friendship. Like, maybe the place you guys met?”

“Second grade. Jefferson Elementary. It’s only a couple of blocks from the Middle School.”

“Where did you guys hang out a lot?”

“The Spoon. Red Rooster since Andi’s dad owns the place. And, sometimes, Cloud Ten. That’s the Salon on Main, Andi’s mom owns it.”

T.J. pursed his lips. “Now, how do I get them both in all those places? They wouldn’t even go to The Spoon with me!”

Chuckling, Cyrus shook his head. “I don’t know. I mean, everyone hangs out at The Spoon, they’re bound to run into each other there at some point. And wouldn’t they find it weird if you asked them to go to the Elementary School? They don’t even know that you know me. Unless you told them you found pictures of us or something.”

T.J.’s ears perked. Pictures.

“Do you have any?” he asked, the wheels in his head turning.

“Any what?”

“Pictures! Of the three of you! Maybe if I show it to them, they’ll remember they were friends. And they’ll…” He looked at Cyrus, trying to decipher his expression. “Remember you. And the times you guys shared.”

Cyrus bit his lower lip, seeming like he was struggling with a thought.

It only then occurred to T.J. that, obviously, Cyrus wouldn’t have any photos. At least, not here. His whole room was cleared out with almost everything when his parents sold the house to T.J.’s mom. And he didn’t really feel like breaking and entering into Cyrus’ parents’ new place - those days were behind him. 

He was about to apologize when Cyrus nodded. 

“I do. In the closet, there’s a loose floorboard. I used it to hide some things. I’m sure they’re still there, no one else knows about it.”

With Cyrus’ approval, T.J. got up and went over to the closet. Crouching on the floor, he pushed sneakers and boxes aside.

“It’s towards the back,” Cyrus called out.

T.J. crawled further in, rapping his knuckles against the wood. Finally, he heard it – a hollow sound. Using his fingernails, he jiggled and pried the wood loose, lifting it up and setting it aside. Inside was a blue shoebox, a little frayed but still intact. Taking it in his hands, he crawled back out of the closet and placed it on the floor. He crossed his legs underneath him.

Cyrus appeared across from him, the box between them.

“You can open it,” the boy said with a nod.

T.J. nodded back before removing the top. His eyes met a stack of photos placed neatly on top of a little blue notebook. He carefully took out the stack. 

The beaming face of a young Cyrus standing in between a young Buffy and Andi stared back at him.

“Wow, you guys were adorable,” he said, unable to stop himself from smiling.

He flipped through them, each one showing a new memory, a new stage of Cyrus’ life as the three gradually got older and older. There were photos of them in Halloween costumes, at The Spoon, at birthday parties, on bikes. 

In almost all of them, Cyrus was always in the middle, always sandwiched in between the two girls who clearly adored him and whom he adored in return. They were a huge part of each other’s lives.

T.J. arrived at the last photo of the three friends at what looked like a pizza place, a fourth person standing next to Cyrus.

“Jonah Beck,” T.J. stated, staring at a much younger-looking version of the boy from his English class.

“Yeah.” Fingers gently grasped the edge of the photo as Cyrus reached over to take it from his hold. “This was taken the year before I died. The Space Otters won their final game of the season.”

T.J. didn’t know who the Space Otters were but he dared not interrupt to ask.

Cyrus continued to talk, “Jonah gave me the MVP award and an honorary Space Otter member t-shirt. It was a fun time.” He smiled at the photo, fondly. “That was when I…”

The ghost trailed off, looking like his mind was far away now.

“When… you?” T.J. tried to ask, his curiousity piqued.

Cyrus looked up at him, meeting his eyes. The brown orbs looked conflicted, like he was trying to make a decision.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” said T.J., immediately. “But, I may not be the son of three psychologists and a life coach, but I can still listen.”

At that, the other boy broke into a smile. “Yeah…”

“I promise I won’t judge. Well, unless you think the ‘The Last Airbender’ live-action movie was great. Then, I’m sorry but I have to judge you.”

Cyrus finally laughed. “Never. I have some taste.” He quieted again, lips pressed tightly in thought.

T.J. decided to look through the photos again, giving the other boy time to decide and get comfortable.

There were a couple of pictures of a young Cyrus, Buffy, and Andi on the swings and a few more recent-looking ones, too. They must really like the swings. T.J. recognized the playground it was on, he passed it often whenever he took a shortcut through the park on his way home from school.

And Cyrus wore a lot of sweaters and button-ups. T.J. couldn’t judge his fashion choices. He, himself. only wore hoodies, after all.

And Cyrus could dance? There was a photo of the three in fedoras and sparkly jackets mid-dance on a dance floor at some kind of huge event. He didn’t strike T.J. as the type, but then again, there were many things he didn’t know about Cyrus.

“I’m gay.”

T.J.’s head flew up so fast that he thought his neck had snapped.

Cyrus wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were firmly set on the photo he still clutched in his shaking hands.

“I’m sorry, I kind of sprung a big one on you,” he continued, his voice breaking. “I just… I know we’ve only known each other for maybe three weeks but I feel comfortable talking to you and I feel like you won’t judge me. But… please don’t think I’m weird or looking at you or something like that because I’m not, I swear. I respect your privacy and if you want me to leave any time, I-.”

“I’m gay, too.”

It was Cyrus’ turn to almost snap his neck as he looked up at T.J., mouth open in disbelief.

T.J. flashed him a gentle smile. “Hi.”

Cyrus’ mouth opened and closed. “I… You… Really?”

T.J. nodded.

“And you’re just… telling me? Just like that?” the boy continued to ask, still sounding unsure.

T.J. shrugged. “I’m not exactly out everyone but the people who matter already know the truth. There’s Amber, my mom, and, now, you.” He smiled again. “I trust you, Ghost Boy. And you can trust me.”

For a beat or two, Cyrus was quiet as he continued to stare at him like he had two heads. And then, he let out a breath – one that was full of relief.

And, T.J. wondered: how long had been hiding it? How long had he been keeping it all in? How long had he been holding his breath with no way to release it?

“I do,” Cyrus said, smiling at him, his brown eyes shining with unshed tears. “I trust you.”

T.J.’s heart was suddenly beating so fast that he feared that it would jump out of his chest. He recognized this feeling. He had only felt it once before and never thought he would again. At least, not right now. And not towards a ghost. But, maybe he had been trying to deny it because Cyrus was a ghost.

Shit. Maybe Amber was right.

[fizzyxcustard]

A Rose At Twilight (2)

Chapter 1

Masterlist here

Read the most up to date version on AO3 here

Summary: From the series 'Imagine your Thorin poster coming to life at night'. You notice that someone has been visiting you at night; things have moved and roses start appearing on your dresser. Your nightly visits with none other than Thorin Oakenshield start becoming more intense, passionate, and he is eager for you to return to Middle-earth and be his Queen. However, your abusive boyfriend Ryan stands in your way, intent on making your life hell. Will you and Thorin overcome all the obstacles to begin your new life together as King and Queen? And is your past with an abusive boyfriend the only challenge you now face in a new world? Your new friends and family help you uncover all your strength that you never realised you had. But will it be enough to fight away your past and the rising opposition of you becoming the Queen of Erebor?

Warnings: Domestic violence, emotional abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse, smut, oral sex, fluff, anxiety, depression, reference to suicide, poisoning, hospitalisation, strangulation, nightmares, character death.

Pairings: Thorin Oakenshield x Fem!Reader, Fem!Reader/Original Male Character 

Comments/Notes: Originally posted last year on fizzy-custard under the imagine title ‘Imagine your Thorin poster coming to life’. This fic is now 20 chapters long over on AO3, so if you want to skip ahead, the link is above and also in my blog header. If you wish to be added to any series, character or fandom tag list, message me or send an ask. 

Follow Forever tag list: @himoverflowers @shikin83@theincaprincess@deepestfirefun @nowiloveandwilllove@houseofrahl@mynameisnoneya1991 @blankdblank @captainrainbowpanda@cd1242 @c-s-stars@thorins-magnificent-ass @patanghill17 @trees-and-ink@inumorph @leah-halliwell92 @greendragonette @msjava1972 @thequeenoferebor@bespectacled-bunny @ghostlyandee @raindancer2004 @dottiechan @captain-almighty@hobbitlover23 @catthefearless @epicallychrissy @nelswp@adaliamalfoy@spn-obsession

Thorin Oakenshield tag list: @exhausted-human-being​ @samara-marty-art

Hobbit tag list: @fentah @hails270105 @princess-of-erebor1992@mechromancing-cinnamon-roll @online-imagines-reader

A Rose at Twilight tag list: @obnoxious-in-pink 

The rest of the day and you tried your hardest to put your mind away from the thoughts of what had happened the night previously. You served customers at your job in the local music and film shop, forcing a smile and trying to keep awake with non-stop coffee on breaks during stock checks.

By the end of your shift and you were drained in every sense, physically, emotionally and mentally.

As you got to your door and pulled out your key, your neighbour, a middle aged man from the maisonette flat next door, greeted you. “Is everything alright?” he asked, his hands full of bags of grocery shopping.

You looked at him, confused. “How do you mean? I’m fine.”

“I heard you arguing with your boyfriend last night. It was fairly late, around half one. I thought about coming round and knocking on your door.”

You froze. “Erm, yeah, everything’s fine. You know, lover’s tiff and all that. Thanks though, Terry.”

You opened your door as quick as you could and slammed it behind you.

Thorin must have been real. Your next door neighbour had heard you telling him to go away as you had battled with your own sanity, but also must have heard Thorin’s voice.

After slamming the door behind yourself, you quickly dashed back out into the damp air of the autumn evening. “Terry?” you called. Your neighbour was just about to close his front door and reappeared.

“Yeah?”

“What exactly did you hear last night?”

“Well, I couldn’t hear the exact argument but I could definitely hear your voice and a man’s. It was quite a deep voice, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure if it was your boyfriend’s. It sounded deeper than his, but it’s not my business to ask.”

“Okay,” you said softly. “Thanks.”

Thorin was real. How in the name of hell was he real?

You ran back into your flat and raced through into your bedroom. For a few seconds you stared at the poster on your wall. Was this where he had been coming from? “How can you be real?” you whispered, looking up at the image. “I believe you are, but how?”

***

For three nights you remained vigilant, hoping and praying that Thorin would come back to you. But your words of telling him to be gone must have sealed his resolution to not come back. During the nights you kept waking every hour and would call his name into the darkness, your heart pounding in excitement and anticipation at hearing his voice again.

Nothing.

On the afternoon of the fourth day since you had met Thorin, Ryan came to visit you. He brought a four pack of lager with him, but you could see he was already fairly intoxicated when he walked into the flat. He was staggering, his eyes heavy and his speech slurred.

“You’re drunk, Ry. Go home,” you told him as he followed you into the flat.

“Fuck that. I’m staying here...”

The look in Ryan’s eyes began to scare you as he came closer. “You stink of beer,” you hissed and shoved him away.

He grabbed you tight at your hip and pulled you against him and then kissed you, his wet lips sliding against yours.

“Get off me!” you shouted, shoving him away.

Ryan raised his hand and slapped you hard down the left hand side of your face, almost knocking you off your feet. Pain stripped through your face and you rocked backwards, only to then feel him grab your breast perversely. “Come on, babe. You like playing rough.”

Anger rose in you and you shoved him as hard as you could, pushing him completely to the ground. He looked up at you, shocked by your outburst and sudden retaliation.

“Get the fuck out!” you growled. “And don’t you dare come near me again.”

Ryan left your flat, dazed and silent. As your front door slammed shut, you fell backwards into a dining room chair and wept again. Where had that sudden surge in strength come from? Everything of late was becoming overwhelming, and you felt that intense need to get away wash over you again.

***

Two days later and you received a call from one of your mutual friends of Ryan. He was an ex colleague of yours who had introduced you to Ryan about a year previously. Your friend’s voice came down the phone line at you quickly and almost frantic. “Ryan has been attacked and is in hospital.”

“Hospital?” you asked. You looked around to see if anyone else was close enough to hear you as you sat in a local Starbucks drinking a coffee. “What happened?” You felt genuine concern for Ryan, wanting to know how severe his injuries were. “Is he alright?”

“He’s got concussion, a broken nose and missing a couple of teeth, but doctors say he’ll be okay. Do you know anyone who could have done this to him? He was on his way back from the pub around midnight when someone jumped him just outside his flat. The only description that Ry could give was it was a short bloke with long hair. And the strangest thing was, he had a sword on him.”

Immediately you sat bolt upright in your chair and felt shivers race down your spine, freezing cold. Short man with long hair, carrying a sword?

***

After work you raced home, running for the bus and then running again to your flat. Your whole world was spiralling out of control, but the bottom line was, you liked it. Someone had defended you, attacking your now ex-boyfriend for his disrespect and abuse. The thought of it all made you shiver from head to foot and smile at the same time.

By now it was dark as the autumn night closed in. The roads were shining with a fresh gleam of rain, and in the air a fine mist was beginning to descend.

You ran into your flat and straight into your bedroom, switching on the light.

“Thorin, I don’t know if you can hear me,” you said, slightly breathless, and feeling stupid for talking to nothing but thin air and a piece of paper on your wall. “I’m sorry for telling you to go away. I know what you did for me. You attacked Ryan. Please, come to me tonight.”

You waited.

Every slight bump or knock and you felt your heart leap. You remained on high alert to every sound. When you showered, you rushed to get dry and back into your room. You then fetched yourself a cup of tea, rushing around the kitchen to get back in your room.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered as you lay yourself down for the light, switching off your bedside lamp. By now the excitement of everything swirling around you became overwhelming and you dozed, swaying into a light sleep.

Until suddenly you jolted awake, gasping.

“Thorin?” you called out, praying with everything inside you that he would answer. “Please be there. Please.”

You reached out and turned on your lamp, letting light illuminate the room.

Tears fell down your cheeks as you looked upon your room and Thorin was nowhere in sight. “Why are you hiding from me?” you asked. “I’m sorry for what I said.

However, as you looked at the poster on your wall, you gasped again. His image was not there; the paper was only coloured by a blue background.

“Who said I was hiding?” a voice came, and your bedroom door slowly creaked open.

You felt your whole body freeze as you admired his form. He walked towards you, a smirk curling his lips upwards. “However could I stay away?” he asked, standing before you at the side of your bed. His blue eyes studied you, those beautiful eyes which held sadness and a sense of something longed for.

“You attacked Ryan?” you asked.

Thorin’s eyes grew darkened by his frustration and hatred for the man who had disrespected you. “No one dishonours you,” Thorin hissed. “Most of all the one who should love you and defend you.”

Complete silence overtook you. How could you answer such a statement? Was he declaring love to you? How could he love you?

Thorin sat down beside you, turning his upper body to face you. “I have watched over you for some time now; I’ve seen your tears, heard your laughter, and you have the spirit and heart of a Queen.”

You looked down, trying to comprehend his words and this whole situation. For a few seconds you forced your eyes shut and then looked up at him, smiling sadly. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” you said. “You talk as though I’m strong and fierce, and I’m not.”

Thorin moved towards you. “You do not see yourself as I do. I heard you defend yourself against that oaf you have called your lover. There is strength in you, and you must believe in it.”

“That wasn’t strength. That was me trying to imagine being you.”

“Never be ashamed of yourself. Never,” Thorin insisted as he watched you hang your head. “Be proud of who you are, because I know I’m proud of you.”

You looked at Thorin as he sat beside you on the bed and smiled weakly at him. “If only things were that easy. You’ve got to be careful here. Attacking someone is a serious offence, and you can be arrested for it. Ryan described you as his attacked and I knew straight away that it was you.”

Thorin scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Then he should not have dared touch you the way he did. Vile, disgusting piece of filth. No honour, no respect...”

You reached forward and touched Thorin’s hand. “Just be careful, please. I’m not worth getting yourself arrested for and thrown in prison. And, anyway, how have you become so good at sneaking about?”

“I may have borrowed your key,” Thorin said and then smirked. “I know that you leave your bag next to your bed, and after I heard your altercation, I could not allow him to get away with his actions.”

“So, you can see me even during the day time?” you asked.

“I can see you, but I cannot move into your world until the sun has set,” Thorin replied.

“I can only imagine the weird crap you’ve had to watch and hear,” you giggled.

Thorin looked at you, shifting so he could turn himself towards you. “Watching you and being able to sit beside you as you have slept has lightened by heart greatly, dear one. I am glad that at present the nights are longer. It means I have more time to spend with you.”

In that moment you decided not to ask any more questions, and just allow the situation to unfold naturally as it was meant to. There was some supernatural force at play here; you had no idea what it was, but you said a silent prayer in your heart, thanking whoever was responsible for giving you this chance to find a connection with someone who genuinely cared for you. If this was indeed the Thorin you had always admired, then you knew he was kind, honourable, steadfast and would do anything in his power to protect you, as long as your intentions to him remained true.

You leaned against Thorin, your cheek being tickled by the fur on his pelt. “Thank you,” you whispered. “For caring.”

Thorin kissed your head and drew his arm around you. “I not only care for you, my dearest, I love you.”

He loved you? You had been having suspicions since you first met him that his feelings for you ran deep, but the words actually being said hit you hard. You swallowed hard and your heart jumped as a pleasurable shiver wound its way down your body. This man was prepared to fight for you, attacking anyone who disrespected you and that made you yearn for him, as well as the lust in his eyes, the beautiful words he spoke and his gentle touch.

Your eyes remained locked for a few more seconds until you leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss against his lips. You felt his beard tickle your chin and you smiled beneath the kiss. And then you felt his hand brush up your cheek, cupping it and caressing your skin.

The kiss grew deeper until you both lost your breaths and the heat mounted to such a plateau that you found yourself straddling him, your hips rocking against his. His right arm was holding your body tight to him, and his left hand was still in your hair. Thorin groaned, the sound becoming lost between your locked lips, until he began nuzzling and sucking your neck.

“My love,” he moaned loudly against you.

You had never felt so loved, treasured and worshipped as you did in those moments with Thorin.

The excitement of having Thorin beside you only kept you awake for so long, until fatigue began to get the better of you. The Dwarf King held you in his arms as you both lay down on your bed, warm beneath the covers and encased in each other.

You breathed in deep, savouring Thorin’s unique aroma. It was so unlike anything you had smelled before; leather mixed with musk, with the slightest touch of tobacco and earth.

“You must rest now,” he told you, his deep voice resonating from within his chest and throat, then vibrating through you. That voice was enough to send you over the edge with delight.

Thorin began to hum against you and kissed your hair, holding you tight. However, the realisation that you wouldn't wake up next to him began to unfold and you turned around in his arms. He smiled as you faced him, and you suddenly had the urge to kiss his long nose. Thorin chuckled at the impact of your lips tickling his nose and held you even tighter.

“I want to wake up next to you but you’ll be gone in the morning,” you said sadly.

“Do not think on it just now,” Thorin told you. “Allow yourself to sleep. I will always be with you in spirit.”

[leolamin97]

Steven Universe AU Pitch:

ONE PUNCH GEM

Synopsis:

(This world is a fusion of Steven Universe and One Punch Man. Characters from both series exist in this world and some take the place of others.)

    In this world the gem war went the same, except for when the Diamond attack happened. When White, Blue, and Yellow unleashed their blast and Rose blocks it with her shield all gems on Earth became corrupted. But there was another unseen side effect the attack had on humanity, it caused them to evolve. Humanity was changed allowing them to achieve strength, speed, and abilities beyond what they were capable of. Super strength, ESP, invulnerability, and more humanity were able to achieve making them stronger. But there was a negative effect to this as well, the chance that people could transform into monsters. Every human on Earth has the capability to become a monster, though the reason why has yet to be narrowed down, many believing it has to do with emotional states.

   Fast forward to present day where Rose gave up her physical form to give birth to Steven. And things go about the same with the Gem’s raising Steven at the temple and capturing Corrupted Gems, but they also fight any monsters they come across who threaten humans. Steven is the same lovable kid he is kind, friendly, and heroic. But when Steven became 11 his hair suddenly turned Pink and he gained an insane amount of strength. He easily outmatched the gems in physical strength and was practically invulnerable, much to the gems shock. 3 years later Steven managed to get a hold of his strength with only a few slip ups.

   In Modern day Steven lives peacefully in Beach City, but he dreams of becoming a hero like the Crystal Gems and the members of the Hero association. But the gems are still worried about his strength and not sure if he can handle a serious mission without accidentally breaking something. So, Steven is now out to prove himself to them and show that he has what it takes to be a real hero.

Character Bios

Steven: Still the peace-loving half-gem, all he wants is to make friends, have a good time, and save the world from monsters. Steven really looks up to heroes and wishes to be one someday. He of course looks up to the Crystal gems, but also the Heroes Association. His favorite heroes are Sweet Mask, Child Emperor, Atomic Samurai, Bang, Terrible Tornado, and of course the hometown hero Mumen Rider. Steven wants to help, but knows that he usually causes more trouble than help due to his strength, which is why he trying super hard to keep it under control so he can help out his friends. Steven is still very emotive, though he does have moments of Apathy whenever he runs into one of the dozens of monsters that seem to come to Beach City. He tries his best to be nice and supportive to most people, but can get on people’s nerves with how blunt he can be and often misunderstanding things. Thanks to the gems he’s now able to open a door without tearing it off it’s hinges and even developed some of his own moves. (Attacks) Super Move, Crystal Series: Crystal Flick- He puts all his strength into one hand and delivers a powerful finger flick to his opponent. Usually aims for the forehead and cheek a sure fire KO for most opponents. Super Move, Crystal Series: Amethyst Tackle- Based on Amethyst’s spin dash Steven charges forward with incredible speed and rams his shoulder into his opponent Super Move, Crystal Series: Rose Flurry- A single armed flurry of blows to whatever poor soul in front of him Finishing Move, Crystal Series: Garnet Punch- His ultimate move, Garnet taught him how to throw a pro style punch and it’s destructive capabilities are limitless. Garnet told him to never use this move unless she gives an order to do so, or if it’s an extremely dangerous situation

Connie/Genos: Connie takes the role of the Cyborg. Rebuilt by her mother Professor Priyanka Maheswaran after a terrible attack from a Cyborg that took the life of her father Connie has sworn to find out who was responsible and bring them to Justice. She is socially awkward not having talked to a lot of people ever since the attack and her mother revived her. This leads her to usually stumbling with her words, and not understanding social cues or boundaries. She tries to be serious, but it’s all a cover to hide her nerdy side and some of her insecurities. But she has a heroic heart and wants to help those in need and in battle she is a forced to be reckoned with devastating attacks thanks to her cybernetics Most of the characters are the same from their original appearances The gems, the heroes, and etc. Though this is a work in progress and things can change.

(Attacks)

Durga Rush: A vicious barrage of punches she moves so fast it looks like she has multiple arms striking at once. Incineration Cannon: A powerful flame based cannon capable of melting metal, she can control the intensity of the blast going from 5 to 100% power Jetstream Kick: She uses her arms to push herself forward at Mach 3  and deliver a powerful flying kick Durga Mode- After an upgrade she is now able to activate two extra sets of arms increasing the ferocity and power of her attacks

Fun Facts

   1.     Steven is still a pacifist, though he’s not afraid to get physical and understands that sometimes a good punch will solve the problem. Though he will usually attempt to talk his opponent down first before going to physical violence, it usually doesn’t work but there are a few times it does. Steven takes this approach with everyone humans, Monsters, and Gems. He will never Kill anyone not even monsters he usually just Knocks them out and leaves them for the authorities.

   2.     Greg and Rose unintentionally started the hero’s association. After kicking out Marty and driving to Beach City Greg doesn’t drive straight to the Beach, he sits down and thinks about what he’s doing and how his life got here. That’s when he is approached by Crablante who lets him go because he see’s he’s a coward. Later Greg runs into the Butt-Chin boy and saves him from the monster. Rose jumps into defend. Then in a moment of insane bravery Greg jumps in and defeats Crablante to save Rose and the Kid amazing both of them. The kid then told his grandfather about the kind act and the Association began.

   3.     Steven ends up becoming a deputy Hero after taking a Junior Exam. A deputy hero is like an afterschool activity for kids between the ages of 14 to 17. It mostly entails helping heroes (usually by pointing out threats or contacting the authorities) and just helping around the community. Steven of course does that but also assists heroes by just taking care of the monster. The he only does this if the Hero is in dire trouble or has been Knocked out. The Hero get’s the credit, but onlookers who saw this start talking about the boy who took down a monster with one punch on social media.

   4.     Connie ends up becoming an S class hero though a low ranking one due to them learning about how she destroyed the House of Evolution. She is ranked 16th.

   5.     The gems have known of the Hero Association but try to stay out of its radar taking out corrupted gems and monsters in secret.

   6.     Beach City resides in Sector Z what many consider a dead zone and a monster breeding ground. But despite that Beach City has won the Safest City award on multiple occasions. Monsters do attack, but they are dealt with quickly and no serious damage has dealt to the city. In fact, it’s the only town that has never been destroyed.

   7.     The gems gave Steven a Hero’s outfit after he became a deputy as a congratulations gift. It was made from special fibers allowing it to be indestructible. It’s a short sleeved red and blue onesie with a star on the chest and a blue cape. He wears fingerless red gloves and his sandals when he goes out to do his hero work.

   8.     Steven when he first meets Tatsumaki thinks that she’s his age. And is incredibly surprised to learn otherwise.

   9.     Jasper and the whole Return/Jailbreak arc take the role of Boros in this with a much bigger invasion force attacking Earth. The gems are taken and City A is destroyed, Steven jumps onto the ship and goes after his friends. He ends up facing off against Jasper and in a similar move to Saitama holds back out of a sense of pity for her hearing how she dedicated her life to this singular moment of facing Rose Quartz. If you have any ideas for this AU I would love to hear them. :)

[wrestlingisfake]

The New Beginning preview

Unlike Wrestle Kingdom, which is one big show like a North American PPV, the New Beginning takes place over multiple days during a “Road to New Beginning” tour.  The key dates on the tour are two shows in Sapporo  (Feb. 2-3) and one in Osaka (Feb. 11).  On top of that, New Japan is also running a “New Beginning USA” tour (Jan. 31-Feb. 2) with three shows in LA, Charlotte, and Nashville.  The big matches on these tours will be spread across multiple dates.  Here are the highlights.

Road to New Beginning (January 29)

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. KUSHIDA - Tanahashi is the IWGP heavyweight champion, but the title is not at stake in this match.  Kushida announced that he is leaving New Japan when his contract runs out at the end of the month, and this was the big dream match he’d never had, so now he’s getting it for is big send-off.  It’s essentially the ace of the heavyweight division versus the ace of the junior heavyweight division.  Tanahashi will obviously win, but you don’t get to see a matchup like this very often in New Japan, so it’s worth checking out. 

Road to New Beginning (January 30)

Taiji Ishimori & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs. Togi Makabe & Toru Yano & Ryusuke Taguchi - Ishimori and the Guerillas of Destiny are defending the NEVER openweight six-man tag team championship.  The Makabe/Yano/Taguchi trio won a gauntlet match at Wrestle Kingdom to earn a title shot at New Year Dash, but lost the match when Chase Owens and Yujiro Takahashi interfered in order to get back in the good graces of Bullet Club.  I assume this rematch is meant to address that injustice.

Taguchi will be challenging Ishimori for the junior heavyweight title in Osaka, so this match may just be a preview for that.  However, I think it’s headlining this show, so they may actually be planning a title change.  This would help advance the story of Makabe and Yano improbably teaming again after their bitter breakup ten years ago.

The New Beginning USA in Charlotte (February 1)

Juice Robinson vs. Trent Beretta - Juice is defending the IWGP United States title.  This will be on Day 2 of a three-day US tour, which was always going to feature a very limited roster (since most of the big names were booked for the Japan tour) but then took a huge hit when the US federal shutdown prevented New Japan from getting work visas cleared up.  So matchups like Hirooki Goto vs. Jeff Cobb and Tomohiro Ishii vs. Yuji Nagata--which I didn’t see as big enough to carry this tour to begin with--were scrapped and NJPW had to scramble to book some ROH guys to fill the void. 

The upshot is that Juice is the de facto top draw of this tour, and it’s his chance to step up and prove he can deliver.  I get the feeling Juice thrives under that kind of pressure, so this should be fun (assuming it will actually be aired on NJPW World, that is).  A title change would be interesting but I don’t think it’ll happen this soon.

The New Beginning in Sapporo (February 2)

Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kazuchika Okada vs. Jay White & Bad Luck Fale - After Jay White beat up both Okada and Tanahashi in September, the two babyfaces started saving each other a lot, leading to an alliance.  Back in December Okada and Tanahashi were in a lot of six-man and eight-man matches against White and Bullet Club, but they lost every time.  So now, finally, we get to see the Tana/Okada team against White in a two-on-two situation.  In theory, Fale makes sense as the guy to lose the fall, but they’ve done an impressive job of pushing White to the point that I actually think he’ll beat the superheroes yet again.

EVIL vs. Zack Sabre, Jr. - Sabre is the RPW British champion, but the title is not on the line.  In principle this is just a place-setter for the tag title match the following day.  However, you may recall that Evil and Sabre had a mini-feud back in the fall where the blowoff match never got started because of interference from Chris Jericho.  So there’s unfinished business here.  I expect Sabre to win.

SANADA vs. Minoru Suzuki - Another singles match to preview the tag title match.  There’s not as much bad blood here as in the other LIJ vs. Suzuki-gun matches on this tour, but it should be pretty good.  I’m picking Suzuki.

The New Beginning in Sapporo (February 3)

Tetusya Naito vs. Taichi - Naito is defending the IWGP intercontinental championship.  This is stemming from an LIJ vs. Suzuki-gun ten-man tag team match from New Year Dash where Taichi floored Naito before the bell with a chair and then pinned him in the end, amid a major Suzuki-gun beatdown.  I suppose they could be trying to push Taichi but it feels more like this match is to give Naito something to do until a more credible opponent becomes available.  The only reason I give Taichi a chance in hell of winning is because Naito doesn’t really need the title, which is a pretty damning indictment of both Taichi and the championship, but them’s the breaks.  My gut says Naito retains.

EVIL & SANADA vs. Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre, Jr. - Evil and Sanada are defending the IWGP tag team championship.  Suzuki and Sabre happen to be the RPW tag team champions, but their title isn’t at stake.  This match is also spinning out of the Suzuki-gun beatdown of LIJ from New Year Dash.  This could really go either way, so it should be fun to watch.  I’m leaning towards Evil and Sanada to retain though.

Shingo Takagi & BUSHI vs. El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru - Despy and Kanemaru are challenging for the the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team title.  They lost the belts to Shingo and Bushi in a three-way match at Wrestle Kingdom, but they weren’t the ones who lost the fall, so they kinda deserve this shot.  Above that, though, the two teams were part of the big Suzuki-gun/LIJ beatdown from New Year Dash, so it’s more personal now.  I’d really really like to see these teams do something else besides wrestle each other (and Roppongi 3K) so I hope Takagi and Bushi retain to end this feud and bury it deep beneath the earth.

The New Beginning in Osaka (February 11)

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jay White - White is challenging for the IWGP heavyweight title.  In one-on-one matches, Tanahashi is 2-1 over White, but Jay has racked up some impressive victories, notably including Tana’s rival Okada at Wrestle Kingdom.  I don’t see Tanahashi’s title run ending so quickly after it began, but it’s also hard to imagine the giant push for White getting cut off with a conclusive loss.  It feels like Tanahashi needs to retain, but White needs to pull a big angle that preserves his heat and builds to him getting another shot down the road.  This is the centerpiece of the entire tour and I am certain it will not disappont.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Bad Luck Fale - Okada is arguably the best wrestler in the company, but he’s doing the “top guy in a slump” storyline so he’s kind of the third wheel in the Tana/Okada vs. Jay White feud, so he’s stuck wrestling Bullet Club’s enforcer.  Bad Luck Fale matches aren’t great or anything, but he’s the one chonky boi in the promotion so when he does get in there with a main eventer, it’s at least different and interesting.  On paper, Okada should win this handily, but I could see them giving an upset win to Fale to tease that Okada is really hitting the skids.

Taiji Ishimori vs. Ryusuke Taguchi - Ishimori defends the IWGP junior heavyweight title.  With Kushida leaving, Will Ospreay holding an openweight title, Hiromu Takahashi recouperating, and Marty Scurll’s future unclear, this was just about the only match they could do this month.  I don’t expect anybody to really give Taguchi much of a chance, but if his team wins the trios title from Ishimori’s team on Jan. 30, that might make this a little more interesting.  I still heavily favor Ishimori to retain, though.

Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs.  Togi Makabe & Toru Yano - Tama and Loa are the Guerillas of Destiny; Makabe and Yano were the Most Violent Players until they broke up a decade ago.  This won’t the first time Makabe and Yano will wrestle two-on-two since they mended fences, but it is the most important so far.  Depending on what happens in the trios title match on Jan. 30, either of these teams will hold two of the three belts, so the outcome could either end one team’s pursuit of the title or prolong it.  More importantly, I think the winning team is in a good position to challenge for the heavyweight tag title on the Anniversary tour in March.  It looks like they’re serious about reuniting Makabe/Yano, so I expect them to win to go all the way with it.

[wispyrainbow]

Info On Earth, Beach City, Steven, and His Friends and Family for Pink Entity AU

So in the previous post, I kinda went into details about the Entity and what it did to White and Yellow, what it tried to do to Blue, and what happened to the Pearls(well except Blue Pearl by mistake, but she does make it out with her Diamond, so she’s ok). I also gave the AU the name Pink Entity, sorta like a fusion name... Though it's pretty bland. Anyway, I decided to focus on Earth and what has relatively been going on after the bubble was launched to protect it and what life is like so far.

First is how Earth got bubbled. I kinda came up with an idea that somehow, Pink managed to launch a bubble(though its mostly to protect Blue from the Entity, since I this takes place before Pink got her colony... Though I’m not sure ^^;). The bubble surrounds the Earth for years, protecting it from any attacks the Entity may launch at it, though it is starting to get weak. Whenever it does, Pink makes attempts to launch more in order to keep it from falling apart, though the Entity is catching on, and is starting to try and lock Pink away further in her mind to keep her from doing so. The problem with this is how space might be explored without popping it so my best guess might be that the bubble might be expanded further to allow such things, enveloping others... Though that won’t work out well I think. But that’s the basic idea...

Next is Beach City. Things are, more or less, the same as in canon. Bill Dewey is still in office, though he is a bit different from his canon counterpart. He does care about Beach City and its inhabitants, constantly trying to find ways to fix whatever problems or complaints they have. However... He’s not really good at it, usually coming up with the solution, only to have it fall apart on him. He only manages to get out of it through the help of Nanefua(when she isn’t working at Fish Stew Pizza). She’s the brain of the operations, making sure Dewey doesn’t screw up or talk out of his ass etc. Without her(though he won’t admit it out loud), Bill would have fallen apart. There is also how Bill is as a father to Buck: he’s a mix of the embarrassing but well-meaning and the kinda absent/neglectful single father. He wants to spend as much time as he can with Buck, but unfortunately has a bad perception of space, often times nearly smothering Buck or revealing some embarrassing personal secret of his from a young age. He also ends up missing out on a lot of events considered important to Buck but tries to make up for it. In short, their relationship as father and son is pretty close to nearly being strained.

Next is Greg. Greg still dropped out of college in order to try and become a rockstar, though before he does, he runs away from home after an argument with his parents(which may have turned physically between his dad) and ends up running into his cousin Andy. Despite the two starting to share heated words at the beginning(Andy probably heard about it from his own parents), they both managed to cool down and Greg explained everything more clearly. Andy is, of course, unsure why Greg wishes to be a rockstar but decides to support him someway(he ends up doing so by agreeing to play some form of the drums). The two meet Marty(he’s less of an ass than in canon, but is still a jerk when he wants to be), who would become Greg’s manager, and despite Andy’s wariness towards him, Greg agrees to let him be on board on the promise of giving him 25% of the proceedings(it was originally 75% by Marty’s orders, but thanks to Andy’s “persuasion”, it was cut down). They start traveling, doing the usual tour(with Andy pretty much keeping his eye on Marty, and putting him in his place if he feels that the former is trying to pull wool over Greg’s eyes) and just like in the “Story for Steven”, they end up in Beach City. While there, Greg ends up meeting a left shoulder gem Quartz soldier and Holly Blue Agate(before she became the manager of the Zoo)who was scouting the area and happened to come across the concert. Once the concert was over, Greg and this Quartz(who we’ll call Army Quartz- she’s a sweetheart though a bit rash and adventurous) start talking and generally get to know each other, as do Andy and Holly(though theirs is a slow burn since Holly is a bit more reluctant around humans)Marty also meets Vidalia, though their relationship doesn’t end up as close as the other two(lets just say, mention Marty around her, Vidalia will instantly mention having violent thoughts of what she would do to him if she saw him again). Now, they have to get back on the road, which of course causes reluctance in both Greg and Andy, though they end up doing so by Marty’s insistence and the both of the female gems convincing them(they do promise to meet up again whenever they get the chance, which is usually when they take breaks from touring and end up relaxing at Beach City). During these, Greg goes on dates with Army Quartz while Andy tries to understand Holly a bit more and vice versa. Soon, she ends up getting pregnant right before the trio is slated to resume touring, which Greg didn’t know about until Holly came up with a baby Steven about 9 months after the last encounter between the two, which causes Greg to take responsibility and want to settle down in order to take care of the newborn(which Andy understood, though Marty was a bit pissed). Eventually, Marty agreed, but only till Steven reaches an age “where he doesn’t need to rely on his dad”(his words), which ended being about 14 years and when he starts high school. 

So, while Steven is attending high school, Marty is trying to get Greg and Marty back up to where they were before everything else, often times leaving Steven to be taken care of by Holly Blue, who ends up living with Vidalia, Yellowtail, Sour Cream, and Onion. Steven’s appearance ranges a bit differently from his canon appearance: his hair is similar to Greg’s in flashbacks(his is more in a ponytail) with several shades of his moms with highlights, he has heterochromia(left eye is like’s Gregs, right eye is a pale pink like his mom), and Army Quartz’s gem is located on his left shoulder. There is also his outfit(since the Crystal Gems were never formed, he doesn’t have anything with a star on it), rather it's just a black tank top version of one of his dad’s t-shirt merch(the Mr.Universe one that Rose got) with a cuffed sleeve olive green jacket, a pair of fingerless gloves, ripped, slightly dirty cuffed blue jeans and black and white loosely tied sneakers. His personality is the same as in the show, though he does end prone to getting into trouble a bit(whenever it's defending one of his friends or by other means) and is generally a bit more of a darer(always going on adventures with his friends or by himself) and ends up getting hurt but ok. 

His friends consist of Connie(more of a love interest), Peedee(who he met at the Fry Shack), and Jeff(the kid Connie accidentally hurt in “Mindful Education”, though, in this version, Jeff is just the new kid and ends up getting into hijinks with the others). They’re considered the outcasts by the other students and some of the teens in Beach City out of school, though it doesn’t bother them as much. They also go on some pretty crazy adventures(usually when Connie isn’t busy with other programs) into the woods or just around Beach City, with Steven also has a job working at The Big Donut alongside Lars and Sadie and sometimes a side job at the Beach City Funland(maybe distributing tokens or prizes). 

Steven may also begin having dreams about random gems still trapped on homeworld or maybe the diamonds(though I’ll elaborate on that a bit more in the future) and asking Holly if he can summon a weapon similar to his Auntie Holly. Alongside his friends, he may begin to start exploring whatever areas are around(ones containing gems who’ve run away from homeworld) using the warp pads(called interdimensional teleporters by Ronaldo). But as mentioned, more might be elaborated for later... As this is starting to get a bit too long^^;

Hopefully, I get to the gems who made it to Earth in the future post, and fix up whatever seems too much through you guys! :)

[robitusson]

The first time a man from the future showed up at Martha Kent's house, Clark Kent was two years old.

According to his birth certificate, anyway. She just kind of accepted that the details were a little fudged. Relativity, and all.

Maybe the stranger would have succeeded in whatever it was he wanted to do, except that he really did just show up. Appeared, like a ghost made flesh, right in the backyard. Clark, thank goodness, was out in the fields with Jonathan. He couldn't bear to be alone, that boy, and they could never bear to leave him.

Which left Martha free to shoot the ghostly intruder in the face.

Martha had not always considered herself a shoot first, ask questions later sort of a person. But that was before she found a baby in a spaceship where her corn was supposed to be.

They'd switch off, Jonathan and her, who got Clark and who got the shotgun. Martha got the shotgun more often than not. Guns made her husband uncomfortable. She was hardly a fan, but she'd always been a terrible pacifist. Too determined to defend herself.

The sight of all that blood and brain and bone was still nauseating. She compartmentalized, told herself it was no different from slaughtering a cow; didn't think about riot gear or tear gas or the friends she'd lost or all the things she'd moved away from when her heart couldn't take it any longer. This was different. This was her son.

She prodded the corpse with her foot. It remained a corpse. A real nasty looking corpse, all big and burly and holding a gun much too large. She didn't like making assumptions based on appearances, but she didn't imagine he'd been coming for anything nice. She bent down to search his pockets, found a metal wallet and flipped it open.

Born 2018.

Well, hell. Wasn't that just a kick in the pants?

Probably she ought to have been a bit more unsettled than she was. But she'd been waiting two years for someone to show up on her doorstep, men in black or UFOs or something. Hell, she'd half expected her sweet little boy to hatch into something worse.

Just because she brought home space babies didn't mean she was a damn fool.

Jonathan had rejoined her in long strides, was holding Clark in such a way that he couldn't see the corpse on the ground. "Well, shit," he said.

"Eyup," Martha agreed.

"Don't look government."

"Nope."

"We burying him?"

"I'll bury him," Martha said, standing up. "You get Clark inside and read him a book or something. I don't want him seeing any of this, getting him messed up in the head."

"You sure? Looks heavy."

"That's why we have a wheelbarrow. I'll stick him out behind the barn, might as well keep all our secrets in one place."

Martha had a long time to think as she dug a time traveler's grave. There were a lot of reasons someone might travel back in time trying to kill her kid. The first was her instinct as a mother, which was: he was a fucking asshole. Who killed a kid? Fucking assholes, that was who.

Now, it was also possible that her sweet little boy grew up to be some kind of space Hitler. She didn't think she'd raise that kind of a kid, but she didn't suppose there was any parent who set out to raise a Hitler.

Still didn't sit right with her. She didn't much like the idea of killing baby Hitler, either.

"I suppose I shouldn't keep this," she sighed as she hefted the traveler's gun in her arms. "Ought to bury it with the rest of the evidence." She turned it around in her hands, careful not to touch anything that looked like a mechanism. "Might be real handy if more of you show up, though." She knew her husband wouldn't approve, but she set the gun aside and kept burying.

Later, she'd hide it in the back of the woodshed. For emergencies, was all.

She patted the earth flat with her shovel, stuck it into the ground so she could lean on it. She pulled the dead man's ID from her pocket, and considered the details.

Jeremiah Jones the Third. No wonder he was going around trying to kill kids, a name like that. What kind of family inflicted that name on three kids in a row? ID was from Metropolis. Maybe she could work with that.

She waited until midnight, when Clark was asleep. Jonathan was on the porch smoking, same as most nights, and she kept the kitchen window open so they could talk. She was sitting on the kitchen table, receiver on her shoulder and a beer hanging from her fingers. A Metropolis phone book was open in her lap. Jonathan had a thing about big city phone books. Just in case, he said. In case of what, she never knew. But it sure as hell was handy now.

Jones, Jeremiah. No numbers or juniors after the name. Couldn't be that many, could there? Jonathan listened quietly, staring up at the stars.

"Jeremiah Jones?" she asked when the other end picked up. "How old are you? Jesus, kid, go back home, your ma's probably worried sick." Jonathan put a hand over his mouth to stifle a snort of laughter. "No, I called 'cause I've got a bone to pick with you. What the fuck kind of name is Jeremiah Jones? You're damn right I'm serious. That's a shitty fucking name, is what it is, and if I hear you went and had a kid and stuck him with a name like that I'm going to find you and whoop your ass personally." She slammed the phone back down on the receiver.

Jonathan's laughter had triggered a coughing fit, great big clouds of thick white smoke billowing into the night air. "Geeze, Marty, that was your plan? Was that it?"

She threw up her hands, beer sloshing in the bottle. "I'm sorry, Johnny, I didn't hear you offering any better plans. You got a better plan? You want to let me in on the plan?"

"I'm just saying," he said.

Martha went upstairs while Clark was sleeping, sat on his floor to rest her arms and her head on the edge of his bed. She might have drank a little too much. She probably shouldn't have been smoking with Jonathan. She'd just wanted to take the edge off, but her day had been nothing but edges. She didn't mean to wake Clark up, but maybe she was noisier than she thought she'd been. His eyes were the most beautiful blue in the moonlight. Always had been.

"Hello, baby," she whispered. He raised a tiny hand and set it on top of her head. He did that less than he used to, these days. That made her sad, like he was losing something.

"Hello, Ma," he said sleepily. "Did you have a nightmare?"

He was growing up so fast. Already too smart for a crib, for diapers. Not much of a vocabulary, but he was careful with it. Wasn't reading yet, but she was sure he'd be doing it sooner than later. Mind like a steel trap, quick as lightning. She thought she might homeschool him. He was so clever, it would be so much safer.

"Yeah," she sighed. "Real bad nightmare."

"Do you want to sleep in my bed?" Just repeating the same thing Jonathan told him, but it still made a lump in her throat.

"Yeah. Yeah, baby, I do. Is that okay with you?" Clark nodded, and wiggled over to one side of the bed. Martha felt huge and clumsy as she crawled in sideways beside him, curling her body protectively around his. He pressed his forehead to hers.

"I love you, Ma."

"And I love you, Clark. More than anything in the world."

She listened to him breathe as he fell asleep, clumsy noisy toddler breaths. Always so slow, always took him so much longer than it should have. His lungs were different, she was pretty sure. Someday, he'd need to get an x-ray, and she'd have to say no, because she didn't know what they'd find.

But not today. Today, he was safe. Slowly, she drifted off to sleep.

There was no body behind the barn. There never was. There was never any ID left out on the counter, either, no gun hidden behind the firewood. There was nothing to remember, and so Martha remembered nothing.

The first time a man from the future showed up at Martha Kent's house, Clark Kent was four years old.

The man looked like he'd been through hell already, bloodied and bruised and battered. If Martha hadn't opened the door before he made it onto the porch, he probably would have kicked it down. "Out of the way, lady," he said, and his voice was the most absurd bit of gravel she'd ever heard in her life. No one in the world needed a gun that big.

Her gaze went over his left shoulder, her eyes widened. "Oh my Lord—"

He turned to look. Martha shot him point blank, muzzle of the shotgun right under his chin.

Blood and brain and bone and that hideous splatter, but that body armor made it easier. He looked like a soldier. It was almost cathartic. She compartmentalized. She'd think about it later.

Jonathan came running down the stairs, came up behind her but stopped short of touching her. She was using the clean parts of her shirt to wipe her face. "Well, shit," he said.

"Eyup," Martha agreed.

"Don't look government."

"Nope."

"We burying him?"

"I'll bury him," Martha said. "Get back upstairs and make sure nothing's trying to get to Clark. Tell him Ma's shooting at cans again."

"With a shotgun?"

"Ma's got weird hobbies."

After the body was buried behind the barn, his gun hidden in the woodshed, she read the letter he'd had in his pocket. Mission info. Kill the tyrant Kal-El before he comes to power.

Kal-El. The name gave her a chill. That wasn't her son's name. That wasn't a name for a boy she'd raised, loved with all her heart. Maybe that was the name of the boy who'd been tucked into a spaceship, but it wasn't the name of her son.

Anyway. Whoever's son he'd been before, they'd lost their naming privileges. That's what happened when you shot a baby into space. He was hers now. A little boy named Clark, and he belonged to blue skies and green grass and cornfields.

Martha showered, threw her clothes on the fire and poured bleach over the stains on the porch. Then she went upstairs, and she joined her husband and her son on his bedroom floor. Clark was building a castle out of wooden blocks, and letting Jonathan help. He had to wear special glasses, now; his eyesight was fine, but something about the light hurt him. She had to smother the fear in her heart that this planet was slowly killing him.

"Clark, honey, what do you think about going to school?"

Jonathan looked more surprised than Clark did. But then, Clark had not spent as much time listening to Martha complain about the state of public education.

"On a school bus?"

"Yup. On a school bus."

Clark looked at the green block in his hands. "Would you come with me?" he asked, looking first at Martha, and then at Jonathan.

"We'd take you on the first day, so we know you're safe," she said, "but after that, you'd go alone."

Clark continued to contemplate his block, looking so serious in his little glasses. "Is it scary?"

"At first. But you'd meet lots of other kids you could play with. You'd make a lot of friends."

"What if no one likes me?"

Her heart broke a little. Clark, her little baby Clark. "They'll like you," she promised, knowing no such thing. "But if you decide you don't like it, we won't make you keep going."

He needed friends. Real friends, friends he saw every day. Not just two old hippies and a bunch of goats.

That night, Clark came into their bedroom. Tiny hands nudged at her shoulder, and she wiped at her eyes in the dark. "What's the matter, baby? You have a nightmare?"

"I thought you did," he said, and she shut her eyes against the pang in her chest. "Do you want me to sleep in your bed?"

"... yeah. Yeah, I do. Come here." She picked him up and pulled him into the bed, set him between herself and Jonathan. He settled in like he belonged there, and he didn't complain when she rested a hand on his chest to feel it rise and fall.

On his first day of kindergarten, a little redheaded girl asked Clark if he wanted to play princesses. He forgot his parents were even there. They forgot all the things that had never happened. Nothing behind the barn, nothing in the woodshed. Martha forgot the name Kal-El.

The first time a man from the future showed up at Martha Kent's house, Clark Kent was five years old.

He was exactly the man that Martha had always feared. A man in a nondescript suit, a man with a nondescript face. He had a gun under his jacket. Clark was at school. She didn't know if she was glad. What if someone had taken him? Surely someone would have called, if they had. It was a small town. Even men in suits couldn't take a little boy without someone kicking up a fuss.

He knocked and he smiled, and Martha itched to get her shotgun.

"I'm here on behalf of the U.S. Government," he said, and she hoped it didn't show on her face how much those words were a punch in the gut. "It's about your son."

Martha fluttered wide-eyed lashes, tried to look the appropriate kind of alarmed. "My son? What's wrong with my son?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I didn't mean to scare you. There's nothing wrong with your son. Actually, we think he may be... special."

"Well of course he is," she said, the way any mother would. "I don't see what that has to do with the government."

"May I come in?"

"Oh, of course." She let him inside, lead him to the kitchen so they could sit, hated him all the while. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"No thank you, Mrs. Kent."

"Are you sure? I'm making some for myself, so you really might as well. I'll feel like a terrible hostess, otherwise."

"If you insist." After a moment's puttering about the kitchen, she set two mismatched mugs on the table, both of them horribly tacky. Beside them, she set the sugar bowl. "There. Now what's this all about?"

"Mrs. Kent, can you tell me about the night your son was born?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything..."

He took a small sip of his coffee, and she wasn't surprised he didn't care for it. Those beans were awful. He spooned sugar into his mug. "Humor me."

"Well, if you say so." She tapped her nails against her mug. "Oh, it really was such a wild night," she lied. "I'd just had the toughest time with my pregnancy, you know, and I wanted to have him at home—but he's always in such a hurry, even when he was born, he came much too early. There was a great big storm, the power at the hospital went out... I always said it was an omen that he was destined for great things."

So many mysterious circumstances. Definitely, absolutely mysterious. Certainly didn't find him sitting in a damn spaceship.

The nondescript man smiled faintly. "A mother's intuition rarely lies."

"Now, that's what I've always said," she said, beaming.

God. She sounded like her mother. She hoped it was working.

"Mrs. Kent, we have reason to believe that your son is... special. I can't go into details, but I can tell you what we're offering."

She furrowed her brow, pursed her lips. "I suppose?" She sipped delicately at her coffee.

"We would like to enroll your son in a special boarding school. You'd be able to come too if you'd like to stay with him, though it's not obligatory. We'd pay all his living expenses, he'd have the best teachers in the United States... we might even be able to fast track his way to college. Tuition-free. If you decide to join him, we would pay your living expenses as well—for at least the next ten years, if not longer."

She fluttered her eyelashes again, setting down her mug. "Oh, but that sounds much too good to be true."

"The catch, of course, is this would all be done under the utmost secrecy. You wouldn't be able to be in contact with your family, your friends... and, of course, the entire program is contingent on your son meeting our expectations."

"What are those expectations, exactly...?"

"Hm." He was trying to decide on a lie. He was trying to appeal to her poverty, and now he wanted to appeal to her vanity. On her son's behalf, if nothing else. "It's a new program intended for only the best students of every age in the country. We believe your son is one of those students—someone with the potential to be a genius. In the right environment, of course."

"Oh—that all sounds wonderful." The nondescript man picked up his coffee, and she turned her attention to her own as he drank.

"Obviously, this won't happen all at once. There will be paperwork to fill out, we'll also need your husband's approval, there will be a testing period as—" Martha stood without warning, turned and started to leave the room. "Mrs. Kent, what—?"

His attempt to follow her ended very quickly, with a crash to the floor that she could hear behind her. Leaving was not strictly necessary, but she was worried that he'd realize what was happening and try to shoot her.

She also, if she was honest, didn't want to watch him die.

He was on the floor when she came back into the kitchen, his face red. She took the sugar bowl and his mug, and threw them straight into the trash. She'd never trust them again, she didn't think. Better not to risk it.

Jonathan hated keeping cyanide in the kitchen, and she didn't blame him at all. An accident waiting to happen, was what it was. But this was the exact kind of emergency they kept it around for.

Her husband caught her in the middle of dragging the body out behind the barn. "Well, shit," he said.

"Eyup," Martha agreed.

"Looks government."

"Eyup."

"We burying him?"

"You're battin' a thousand. Go get a couple shovels, Johnny, we need to get him in the ground before Clark comes home." Because he would come home, she was sure of it. She had to be. He would get on the bus and come home safe, the way he always did.

She searched the body before they buried it to be sure there were no tracking devices or any other such thing. Lord knew what the government had these days. She found a badge that said 2021. She showed it to Jonathan.

"Well, don't that just beat all."

"Don't it just." She sighed as she considered the seal of the CIA. "I haven't been looking forward to this at all," she muttered as she picked up her shovel.

"What's that, Marty?"

"I'm going to need to teach that boy how to lie worth a damn," she said as her shovel sank into the dirt. It was such a shame, when he was so sweet and so open and so kind. But he would find out, eventually, where he'd come from and what he was. And he needed to know how to keep his mouth shut—so they wouldn't be arrested for keeping him, if nothing else.

When the body was at the bottom of the pit, they burned it just to be safe. Who knew what he might be hiding in his clothes? They smothered the fire with dirt, and by the time Clark came home, there was nothing left to see but a patch of disturbed soil.

Martha hugged him entirely too tight, for entirely too long, when he got home. He tolerated it, but also reminded her that he wasn't a baby anymore. She missed the days when he was small, when he'd press his forehead to hers.

She enrolled him in a local children's theater program. He wasn't very good—but then, none of them were. They were children. It wasn't Shakespeare. He developed, if nothing else, a basic grasp of the intent.

The body disappeared. There were never any nondescript men in nondescript suits, much as she never stopped fearing it.

The first time a man from the future showed up at Martha Kent's house, Clark Kent was seven years old.

This one was young. He was haggard. He was thin. He looked so very, very tired.

That didn't stop Martha from leveling her shotgun at him.

"Please," he pleaded. "You don't understand."

"He declare himself King or something?" she asked, and it was so difficult to keep her heart hard. This was a boy, just like so many boys she'd known, he was begging and she was the one holding the gun. She refused to think of any boy but her son.

"No, he's just—he's perfect. He's perfection incarnate."

"Sounds real unfortunate."

"He sets this standard, this amazing standard, he says if we just tried we could be like him, we could be strong like him, we could be perfect like him. All these problems would go away if we just worked for the greater good, and people—people listen, it's so hard not to listen, he says he's making a better world but there's no room in it for people like us. See, maybe it isn't even his fault, maybe he doesn't even mean it like that, but we can't help it, can we? People, I mean, human beings, we can't handle it, knowing perfect exists. And I'm sure, I'm sure you love your son, but he's not human—"

She shot him. She didn't want to shoot him. But she told herself it was a mercy. A miserable boy from a miserable future that never should have been. She stared down at the body, blood and brain and bone. She didn't know it, but it was getting easier.

"Can't say as I care for this much at all," she said to no one.

Muscle memory she didn't know she had, things that had never happened, burying the boy behind the barn. And when she was done she cried, cried as she burned her clothes and cried in the shower. All she wanted, all she ever wanted, was for her son to be safe.

There were so many sons.

"Don't take your coat off," she told Clark when he came home. She was pulling on her coat, grabbing her boots.

"Where are we going?" he asked, setting down his backpack. "Should I bring a book?"

"If you want," she said. "Don't know if you'll be reading it much. You know that Brady family down the way? Got a kid goes to your school?"

Clark made a face. "Tristan? He takes the short bus."

"Your school's not big enough to have a separate bus," she said, and she was angry, so angry. Not at Clark, but at the world that made little boys into men and lied about what it meant to be great. At herself, for not seeing the trouble her husband must have been having relating to a little boy Clark's age. Jonathan tried so hard to be a role model, but he didn't know what it was like to be a son, didn't trust himself not to steer Clark wrong.

Martha didn't know what it was like to be a son, either, but she found she didn't much care. Sons the world over would be lucky to grow up into a man like her husband, and damn anyone who said otherwise.

"That's what Caleb says," Clark said, defensive. "He takes the short bus and that's why he smells weird."

Lord, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd been so angry. "You go tell Pa to start up the truck," she said as she pulled on her boots, "because I'm going to go have myself a talk with Mrs. Brady, and you're going to have yourself a little playdate."

"What?" Clark was horrified. "I don't want to!"

"And I do not care," she said.

"You can't make me!"

"Oh, you'd better believe I can," she said, and Clark went silent as he recognized the fire in his mother's eyes. "I can, I will, and you will keep your fool mouth shut about what that Caleb says if you know what's good for you. We're going over there, and we're going to keep going over there, until you two are the best of friends."

"You can't make me," he mumbled again, and this time Martha was at his side, knelt down beside him and took his face in her hands so that he'd look at her. His eyes were still such a beautiful blue through his glasses; she didn't think he'd even know what it meant, even she didn't really know what it meant, but she pressed her forehead to his.

"I know I can't make you," she said. "But I know my son. I know you like I know my own heart, baby, and I'm not going to have to make you. It's just what's going to happen. Now go tell Pa to bring the car around while I phone ahead. Okay?"

Clark was sullen, but he went outside to find his father anyway. Martha shut her eyes, and tried not to cry again.

Two months later, Mr. and Mrs. Kent were called to the school to pick up their son. He and Caleb had gotten into a fight at recess. Clark's glasses were broken, he had tissue paper in his nose. Jonathan spent twenty minutes giving the principal a lecture about bullies. Clark stared at his father with a naked adoration she didn't think she'd ever seen, utterly rapt and absorbing every word.

She was so proud she thought her heart would burst.

There were never any boys lying dead in her yard, too young and too helpless. She had never cried for the sons she couldn't save.

The last time people from the future showed up at Martha Kent's house, Clark Kent was ten years old.

Martha didn't remember things that had never happened—how could she? And yet there was an awareness in her, born of meddling she did not know she'd done, fractured futures and split timelines. She didn't know what she knew, she didn't know how she knew it, the ghost of a thought against the edges of her mind.

Without thinking, without even entirely knowing what she was doing, she grabbed her shotgun and filled her pocket up with shells.

The tractor was still running, but Jonathan wasn't on it. She headed for the barn, where the door was ajar, and held her gun at ready.

"I'm sorry, I really don't understand what you're asking here," Jonathan was saying.

"Don't play dumb, Mr. Kent. Please just direct me to Kal-El's vessel, and this will all be over soon." The voice was... wrong, somehow. Not a human voice, not an animal, not anything she'd ever heard.

Kal-El. That name made a pit in the bottom of her stomach.

"Do you mean Clark?" Jonathan asked, and she could tell he was trying to buy time.

"If it makes you feel better to call him that, then fine."

"Now, I hate to disappoint you, fella, but we got rid of that thing a long, long time ago. Now if you want to go check out in the lake—"

"Don't waste my time."

Jonathan screamed. Which was all the encouragement Martha needed to burst in the door and start firing.

Her husband, thank goodness, was already on the ground. No chance of friendly fire. She'd just have to hope whatever the thing did hadn't killed him.

And it was definitely a thing, some slender twisted thing in only the vaguest approximation of a man, and the only advantage Martha really had was the element of surprise. She wasn't sure that it would be enough, when it kept moving, when it advanced toward her. Reloading took too long, firing took too long, everything took too damn long. But finally it crumpled, and her ears were ringing, and her relief was so profound that she almost crumpled herself. Moreso, when she saw Jonathan start to roll on his side so he could get up.

But then he looked behind her, with what was obviously genuine alarm.

So Martha turned as she reloaded, fired once before her gun grew too hot in her hand to hold. She dropped it and tried to shake her hand free of the heat, distantly aware that her gunfire had been completely useless. "Son of a bitch."

"Ma!"

"Oh, ma yourself," she said irritably, sizing up this apparently bulletproof threat.

Except that he wasn't standing there like a threat. He was standing there like he was very concerned. And confused.

And, lord, those beautiful blue eyes.

She stood straighter. "Clark?"

What in the hell was he wearing? And who was his friend? And his other, lady friend? What the hell were they wearing, for that matter? Some kind of a... bat... demon? And a flag girl? Maybe? This was a Halloween nightmare, was what it was.

"Ma, what happened?"

She put her fists on her hips, because the fact that her son had just appeared in her barn as a grown man in a ridiculous outfit did not excuse that tone. "You'd know better than I would," she said, looking back towards the twisted metal on the ground. "Johnny, do you know what the hell just happened?"

He was sitting up, wincing as he held his head. "Not a damn clue."

"Ma! Pa!" This older Clark sounded very scandalized. Martha smacked him straight in the middle of his chest with the back of her hand, and it felt like hitting a wall.

"Honestly, Clark, you're a grown man. I'm sure you've heard a bad word or two before." He started turning faintly pink. His lady friend covered her mouth, but the one in black remained expressionless. "You are a grown man, aren't you? Not some kind of aged-up ten year-old, or something?"

"Yes, Ma, I am a grown man—"

"Well would you go help your father, please? I'd do it myself, but as long as you're going to stand there showing off all those muscles you might as well use them."

"Ma." Now there was a familiar whine. Nonetheless, he was at his father's side before Martha could even blink, air whooshing around him.

"Now, was that necessary?" she asked. "Nobody likes a show-off, Clark."

"Yeah, Clark," murmured the man in black. Martha turned her head to look him over. She wondered if she imagined that he stood straighter.

"Is this just how people are going to dress in the future?" she asked, gesturing to both her son's companions. "Because I don't think I'm going to be able to pull that off."

"No, Mrs. Kent," the woman assured her. She couldn't place the accent. Lord, there was a time when she would kill to have a body like that. Especially those arms. Now it just seemed exhausting. "These are uniforms. Do you mind if I inspect the evidence?" she asked, pointing to the mangled metal she'd been shooting at.

"You may as well," Martha said with a wave of her hand. "What in the hell am I going to do with it? I'm assuming you're all from the future for some reason, is that about right?"

"That's correct," the woman said, kneeling beside it and picking at various... parts? Presumably she knew what she was doing.

"You're taking this remarkably well," the man in black observed.

Martha arched an eyebrow, then gestured to her son. "I found a baby in a spaceship. I have spent ten years now hiding a space baby from the government, and you think some kind of time foolishness is going to blow my mind? I was expecting aliens."

"You were half right."

He had a very dry sense of humor for a man with pointy ears. "Clark, are you going to introduce me to your... coworkers?"

Jonathan seemed to be feeling better. Clark was still sitting by his side, and it made her so happy to see them together. Even if it was still very weird. "Ma, Pa, this is Bruce and Diana. Bruce, Diana, these are my parents. Who are, apparently, unbelievably reckless—"

"Excuse me?"

"—because if Brainiac hadn't been in such a weakened state already he'd have killed you, Ma, and then where would we be?"

"Dead, obviously. Why does the robot have a gender?"

"I was wondering that too, actually," Jonathan said.

"That's—Ma, you tried to shoot me! What if it had been someone else?"

"Buried him behind the barn," both Kents said at the same time.

"You shouldn't sneak up on a mother with a shotgun," she added, though she was still mortified that she'd shot at her son. "If you're here for the manbot, why was the manbot here?"

"He was trying to get Kryptonian technology," Diana said, "so that he could rebuild himself. He came to a time when Kal-El's ship was still intact, and therefore of the most use to him."

"Don't call him that."

Diana raised an eyebrow. "Kal-El?"

"Right. My son is named Clark."

"They can both be my name," Clark said gently, standing back up. Lord, he got tall. Would get tall. Someday.

"I named you Clark," she said.

"We have a fight about it," he said. "When I'm seventeen."

"Oh, good, I'll know to look forward to that."

"You won't remember," Bruce said.

"No?"

"Time foolishness," he said.

"Oh, hell. I should have known. Ain't that just a kick in the pants."

Clark hugged her, suddenly. It felt very strange, being hugged by her son, her little boy, and he was bigger than she was. Still: it was very nice to know she'd raised a man who still hugged his mother. She'd done at least one thing right.

"You're not hugging me because I'm dead in the future, are you?" she asked.

"Ma! No, you're fine. I just saw you last week and I come home for holidays."

"You invited me last Christmas," Bruce added helpfully.

"Is that what you wore?"

"Yes," he said, and she didn't think she believed him. "But with a sweater over it." Martha cackled, and she was pretty sure when Bruce coughed he did it to cover a smile. "You didn't have a shotgun then, though," he said. "You baked cookies."

"Did I really?" Martha was impressed. She looked back to Clark, and cupped his face in his hands like he was still small. "I probably got real nice once I found out you were bulletproof." She beamed. "I wish I could remember this," she said. "I'm just so happy you... lived."

"Aww, Ma."

"I'm serious! I've spent ten years, now, scared to death that you were going to get stolen or vivisected or god knows what else. Every time you get the flu I'm scared you're going to die because you're an alien. You still can't be outside without your glasses—"

"That gets better."

"I see that, but I won't know that when you're gone. For all I know, just being on this planet is killing you. And I don't know what you'll be when you grow up." Martha looked at Diana. "I spent three years convinced this kid was in some kind of larval stage, I was going to wake up one morning and he'd be a giant crab." Diana smiled, and Bruce cleared his throat unconvincingly.

"She ain't kidding," Jonathan said. "You wouldn't believe how many nights she had me go over the 'our son is a crab' action plan."

"Pa, you knew I wasn't going to turn into a giant crab, right?"

Jonathan had finally managed to stand, and he grinned at his wife. "Kiddo, I spent the eighties recovering from the seventies, I would have believed it even if you hadn't come from space."

Clark rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Diana put her hand gently on his arm. She'd thrown the broken metal man over her shoulder. "Clark, we need to leave soon—before the portal closes."

"There's a portal?"

"There usually is," Bruce said.

"I'm sorry, Ma, we have to go."

"Oh, fine, give me a hug first, then." And he did, without even complaining, and Martha was indescribably pleased. "Diana, do I get to hug you, too?"

"Of course, Mrs. Kent. I have also enjoyed your Christmas cookies."

"Oh, hell," she said as she hugged the taller woman. Clark was hugging his father in the meantime, and that made her even happier. "I'm going to have to learn how to make those. Bruce?"

"Technically, you won't remember whether or not I hugged you."

"No," she agreed, "but you'll have to live with knowing that you disappointed me, and I don't even remember it for you to make it up to me."

"Ouch." That was apparently enough to guilt him into hugging her, but secretly she thought he wanted to anyway. Mostly because he hugged her much tighter than was strictly necessary. "Stay safe, Mrs. Kent."

"You know that I will," she pointed out.

"Stay safe, anyway."

She tried to remember. She really tried to remember. She tried to remember her son's face, some far off day in the future, when he was safe and happy and she could embarrass him in front of his friends. She tried to remember the way he hugged her, and how much taller her got, and how strong he looked. How he was bulletproof, how he came home at Christmas and he brought his friends and she needed to learn how to actually make cookies instead of buying them from the co-op bakery.

She forgot.

"Why do I feel like I fell off the tractor?" Jonathan asked, rubbing at old scars through his shirt as they stood in the driveway. Martha looked at the tractor, still running.

"Johnny, I don't mean to alarm you, but I think you might have fallen off the tractor."

"Well, shit."

She kissed his cheek. "How about you go inside and rest? I'm sure Clark can help me finish whatever else needs to get done."

He took her hands, lifted them so that he could kiss each one of her fingertips. "What's got my favorite girl in such a good mood today?"

She sighed, blushing like a schoolgirl. "You know," she said, "I have no goddamn idea."

[audiovizualna]

Yuletide is neary here and I decided to celebrate it with CC Chritmas fic + illustrations. Yes, I know we already had incredible Christmas-Viking episode of LoT, but I started to write this one right after DC Crossover which was a blast (!) and I hope you’re going to enjoy my version of events after Martin’s death. This fic is also written to honour our favourite professor, who will be missed dearly.

Special thanks for loveliest beta @flabbergabst, who must hate me right now, for giving her mental breakdown through the whole story.

I’ll try to post full fic (4 chapters) until 25th December. With love, PANDArt :*

(I own nothing)

~

“You’re Not Him”

Part 1: ”For Him”

 Here they were. Another Christmas spent on the Waverider, but oh so different.

Of course the team was glad to welcome both Zari and Leo on the ship; although this year, no one felt the Christmas spirit. Not without Stein.

After the whole Earth-X situation, Martin’s death and the general trauma all of them carried within, the Legends started to lose the contact and connection they’ve built and established with each other. Seeing that was painful, and they felt the necessity to change it.

This team usually needed some time for reflection and peace - to settle their emotions in place - which was even harder this time. Not that Sara, Mick or (partly) Jax didn’t have it before. They used to feel some strange emptiness after Len’s sacrifice at the Oculus, but time heals the wounds eventually, so the three had moved on somehow. Sara became the ship’s captain. Jax started using his engineering skils to improve the timeship whenever he could, and Mick came back to his old habits, all while bonding with newbies.

The memories of Snart returned as his ghost keeps appearing in random situations. Sometimes next to Mick, and once as Len’s evil version in Legion of Doom. Both of which were really surprising for Sara, but now…this was different.

Earth-X Leonard Snart or Leo, as he preferred to be called, was very much alive and well. He became curious about the details of previous missions and took his time to explore every inch of the ship, because that’s what all versions of Leonard would do.

Sara caught herself simply avoiding the man in blue parka, not knowing what to tell him or sometimes simply forgetting her tongue around him. In fact it seemed like he and Raymond were the only people on the Waverider who were still talking at all.

They journey back to the mission was spent in silence ever since they left Central City in November. Even if this silence never affected the accomplishments of their missions or in dealing with anachronisms, only whispers and empty echoes of footsteps could be heard afterwards.

Of course there were days when gathering the team was vital and the ‘AtomSteel‘ duo never resigned from organizing movie nights, but even then, the Legends prefered to remain silent.

Over time Sara started one-to-one conversations with members of her team. The captain tried to reach Jax whenever he needed it or so she thought - needless to say, it was successful most of the time. The Canary visited Zari and Amaya often when simple girl talks were necessary. Sara even joined Mick a couple of times for sleepless night drinking. Despite her efforts, none of them wanted to talk about things going on in their heads, especially now that Leo could appear behind them anytime.

Situations changed significantly during one of those nights, but not in the galley, where White Canary and Heatwave were playing cards and drinking cheep beer.

On the other end of Waverider, Raymond knocked quietly on Jax’s door with really serious expression on his face, which was quite unusual considering that the ATOM is natuarally a ray sunshine for most of his life.

”Hi Jax!” Ray started. ”I… damn, I don’t know where to start, but I have an idea. Naturally, it’s up to you if you want my plan to push through or not, but…”

”Woooah, slow down man. Why me? Shouldn’t you be asking Sara about stuff like this?” Jax interrupted Ray, crossing his arms with sleepy eyes.

”Well… No. Absolutely not in this case. I value my life,” Ray chuckled nervously.

”Sounds like a bad move from the beginning, but tell me so I could finally go back to bed, Ray.”

”All right,” Ray continued. ”It’s partly about Marty, I mean, Professor Stein - and please, before you reject it, let me explain.”

From the look on Jefferson’s face, it seemed like that’s the last conversation he wanted in that moment. But he didn’t want to be rude and his facial expression encouraged Ray to continue.

”I’ve been thinking about…” Ray paused for a moment before the next word left his mouth, ”… Christmas Day, which, as you may or may not know, is tomorrow.”

Jax finally let the breath leave his lungs, but did not say a thing to that proposition.

”We all know this is going to be hard. Sitting there, knowing Marty’s not with us and never will be, but I figured that this is exactly what he would have wanted. Last Christmas dinner was in fact his idea and you know very well we need each other’s company more than ever. I’m sure he’d find it unacceptable to spend the 25th of December separated in our private quarters.” Ray said those words so fast, that Jax could not stop him even if he tried. Eventually this confession has been answered.

”I don’t know man. How can we pretend that everything is okay, when clearly it’s not? We don’t talk to each other like we used to, so what?” said Jax with utter sadness and disappointment in his voice even if he tried to keep his voice calm.

Jax shrugged and continued. ”Having a Christmas party is the last thing this team needs right now. I’m aware of Grey’s opinion on that subject, yet maybe we do need more time to gather our thoughts.”

”Or… Raymond is right and ‘this’ is the best option you have to finally start talking.”

Another deep voice joined the conversation out of nowhere. They turned and saw Leo’s silhouette came out from behind the corner.

”I’m very sorry about eavesdropping, but I meant every word,” the man continued. ”I figured you’re all hurt because of what happened, so I never wanted to disturb any of you with my judgment, but I’m perplexed by one thing.” Leo started to get closer to them slowly and carried on.

”On my Earth, silence is the safest option to stay alive. We have this…fear of speaking beacuse we know if one of us says something wrong  in front of those awful Nazis, we’ll end up dead with a bullet in our brains. People there live with their mouths constantly shut. The only exceptions are the plans whispered to each other’s ears, or quick encrypted messages in things and places you wouldn’t think possible to use. I would give anything to feel free to speak out loud what’s in my head and now, and the moment I found heroes to share my stories with, they have no intention of making a conversation.” Snart said with visible soreness in his ocean blue eyes, leaning against the wall.

Jax and Ray were equally taken aback by Leo’s words. Both felt really conflicted, knowing that Citizen Cold was 100% right. His statement showed the team’s interactions in a completely different light. Upon their realization of the situation, Jax just sat resigned on the floor at his door. Leonard and Dr. Palmer followed and did not say a word for a while.

Finally the youngest Legend opened his mouth and asked Earth-X Snart out of countenance. ”Why do you care, Snart? Why are you worried about our relations at all? The Leonard we knew would avoid getting involved. I’m aware Grey would want us to move on, but you didn’t even knew him.”

Leonard heard the hurt in Jefferson’s voice and used it as one of his arguments.

”See Jax? That’s exactly why I’m concerned. Your tone tells me everything I need to know about your emotional state, which by the way is far from stable,” the older man lectured. ”I’m a good observer and so was, as I’ve heard, my Earth-1 version, who never left his own crew behind. I am aware that one simple dinner won’t change everything at once, but that’s a start. Also I’m sure ‘you’ are the perfect person to begin a decent conversation about what happened, without unnecessary tears.”

Raymond’s eyes got bigger and rounder with every word Leo was saying, which caught Citizen Cold’s attention when he stopped talking.

”What? Did I say something stupid or unrealistic?”

”No!” Ray quickly defended. ”No, it’s just…strange to hear anything motivating from you. Our Leonard always kept his thoughts to himself, except for snarky comments and sarcastic one-liners,” Ray said with tiny smirk at the memories.

”Wow,” Leo flatly said. ”Sounds like really grumpy and rude fellow.”

Both Jax and Ray choked with laughter hearing it from Leonard Snart himself, even if he was his different version. But still.

”Oh yes. He was one of a kind, trust me. Though it’s nice not to hear new nicknames from you,” the Atom pointed out, then stared at the ceiling.

”Careful there, sunshine, You’re stepping on very thin ice here. Nothing stops me from starting,” Leo quirked his eyebrows, while doing his characteristic head tilt and smirked .

Jax found flirty Earth-1 Snart pretty odd in general, but seeing his other version even more confident to flirt with both men and women was beyond bizarre. After few seconds he asked: ”So what’s the plan? It’s Christmas Eve and we have almost one night to get everything ready. I vote for secret preparations. Just us three. No one else engaged. I know Grey would be delighted to see a positive surprise on their faces. So I’m in… for him.”

”Let’s not waste more time. Now, move your asses. Lot of work to do and not much time left,” uttered Leo.

That’s how a few moments later, the unusual trio landed in the fabrication room asking Gideon for help.

[hobbitpottaaaa]

Endgame x2

It always happens to me that I’m so excited about something that I can’t retain enough information. Like, I miss a lot of things.

So, this time around I was less nervous but still very excited and I was able to focus more on the movie as a whole rather than try to cool down, read subtitles and then attempt to detail the images.

I want to start saying how beautiful Tony Stark was in this installment. Earth’s best defender was as beautiful and vulnerable like he once said about the planet he intended to protect.

The opening scene is still haunting.

This time around I realized that Tony is incredibly THIN when he’s recording the message to Pepper. But when he’s talking about fixing the ship he looked buffed, lol. 

Tony was so ready to die in space. His voice breaks a little and then the little tear before he drives off.

The confrontation between Tony and the whole team it’s still so powerful, but this time around I focused on everyone’s expressions, they can’t respond to anything Tony tells them but they dare to ask him to give more of himself. You just can’t ignore Tony’s anger and frustration, like when Steve asks for any clues and Tony just “salutes” him. And the expression on Tony’s face when he throws the whole liar line.

I still feel Captain Marvel so flat. If her next movie doesn’t focus on being a team player, that character is doomed. The whole “I’m gonna defeat Thanos by myself” line is just... ugh.

The first time, I didn’t fully wrap my mind around the fact that Scott missed Cassie’s childhood. He left his little peanut and came back to a young lady, and, you know, Scott’s story focused on fighting to be by his little one’s side.

“Dad!Tony” as some of you say, it’s the softest thing and probably the best part of everything. His fluffy hair. The way he treats Morgan, how he looks at her like he still can’t believe that little person is his, and how peaceful he is when he’s around her. And he goes full protective mode when they DARE to arrive at his home. Declared house husband. 

I don’t know, but the first time, I felt Pepper and Tony so distant, I ecent thought they were far apart when they were sitting in the couch, and Pepper was kind of emotionless, this second time they I SAW THE LIGHT, lol, they were so close. I felt it, the closeness. How much they know each other. I didn’t notice the first time that playfulness in Pepper when she tells Tony about her biggest failure (which was making him stop, right? I can’t remember now!), and that super sincere smile from Tony in complete agreement and it carried so much love.

I also realized that, when Tony goes to talk to Pepper, is like, he’s asking for her permission, you know? He’s aware of the danger but he stills asks her. 

The team took Tony for granted.

To be honest, I got spoiled about Nat’s death. I never really liked Black Widow. To me she was always the double agent. The first time around I felt... nothing. But today, I felt that Clint and Nat where ready to go, there’s also this moment of hope that makes the aftermath more heartbreaking.

Even after the second time, it’s so frustrating to see how Thanos highjacks the whole mission by watching Nebula’s memories.

Tony panicking in front of his dad. Trying to go full Marty McFly suggesting the change of Elmonzo.

You telling me that Peggy wouldn't notice some freak looking at her through a window?

Every time the mention of a change within their lives come up, Tony immediately tries to prevent harm to what he got the past five years. To protect “his second” chance.

I always lose it when the magic rings start to appear. It’s pure and sheer joy. The heroes just got beaten the hell out, half of them are underground, and there’s only one standing in front of that alien army.

WANDA KICKING MAJOR ASS

I don’t care, but I just love the all female superheroes shot.

I think there’s something powerful in Tony not yelling or screaming when he puts the stones on. His keeps eye-contact with Thanos without making a single noise. By this time, I can’t control my tears.

I caught the “hey, Pep”. When Pepper’s lips start to tremble... so did mine.

“Part of the journey is the end”

I love this movie, with all its faults and everything.

[maneaterwithtail]

Warning depressed overindulgent rant about kids cartoon incoming

I’m cross-posting that’s from spacebattles. You know I really need to start posting some positive s*** about Steven Universe. There’s a reason why it keeps getting my attention. I really love the setup, there are wonderful events, I love that its Aim so well. It’s managed to assemble a number of things as well as had a way of interacting with fans that encourages creativity and a community that produces so much that can be loved and expresses Joy. 

I guess I’m just a natural Grump and I can only talk about things when I’m pissed off or think I’m being smart by dissecting it. Which in my mind means needlessly ranting about every silly little thing that I observe about a work or feel about a work or I feel about the people that I’m watching the work alongside. I understand if this is not the kind of thing that you like. I can also understand if you want to be defensive of the show. Just respect the fact that I’m a person who has watched the show for a bit or just a person at all. But I do want to have some sort of discussion. It is why I am posting this out loud. It’s just with the ramp up for more speculation and another interview I just feel like we’ve been at this dance so many damn times and we’re just being jerked around here. Which of course is the purpose of any work of art. At least serial media. You constantly give just enough so that people feel inclined to come back for more. But I guess well read the rant

Whiteeyes, post: 36894166, member: 314250

No mo, it felt much much worse. See Lost had no answers when it was written. It was created to pile up mysteries for a season or so and then get cancled like Twin Peams and every ither wekrd mystery show so they never had to answer any. It became too popular to cancel and they had to scramble to invent answers. SU has had dorwshadowing and setup as warly as season 1. It knows what it is doing.

 .... I personally think that Steven Universe's character development and pacing is hampered by the fact that it wants to make everything a f****** mystery. This was a characteristic of Lost in a way that it got ridiculous. To the point where things like what's on Jack's tattoo or who is married or who was not or who had a terminal illness that they had known publicly forever and so on and so forth.  

  I think Steven Universe suffers from the same problem. Basic character development, interaction, or what-have-you tends to be put in a mystery box just so that that way we can create drama and then have it emerge later to create a resolution without progress. 

The problem is that while mystery is their main tool in this endeavor to set up interest it's not the only way in which they do this and then be annoying. Now some of this is the fans frothing themselves up.

 relevant example, when we see a title and then flip out about major speculation for a major plot point and then get disappointed when it's basically not so. 

 However I think this is in a part with all of their setup plot developments. As an example the return of Marty.  

  I actually want to be very fair-minded here. The Sour Cream situation identity and everything about him was very carefully set up over the course of a year and it actually made sense for once that he was a relatively new char in Stevens life. He's apparently older, runs with a different crowd, all that stuff. 

Marty comes back for one episode 

Not only do they run the most cliched plot imaginable about a deadbeat father and artsy dreamer son and the man who doesn’t get their passion but they do this basically to setup a virtue signal and reconcile sour cream and yellowtail in perhaps the worst way imaginable. In the first episode they actually share a scene.

But they don't share a scene in anyway proceeding to their actual reconciliation. All of that is cut aside just so that we can get to our cute little happy ending. This kind of ran things into the ground for me in some ways. Everybody defends moves of aborted long-term plot like this by saying that Steven Universe is more about people and characters and it is not about big plot twists and Sci-Fi Action. 

That might be true but they're doing that character and living the life stuff in a bad way as well. By not having the family reconcile but by having Yellowtail basically come around and agree because Sour Cream suddenly has a villain for Yellowtail to prove immediately better than.

  For a show that's often praised for its diversity and lack of stock archetypes this was too cliche    You see this time and again with long setup plot points whether it's the eventual return and revelation of the backstory of lapis Lazuli, the face off with the cluster, and others- That isn't to say all long-term plot points have fallen on their face but a lot of them have and it seems as if what succeeds or what gets the necessary follow-up is arbitrary and random

This isn't the usual complaint of "this is filler! where is the plot?" This happens whether it's character Focus-interaction that often feels as if it's taking forever to happen or gets bogged down in Mindless drama such as the entire relationship between Sadie and Lars to the point that Lars doesn't feel as if he has a real character until these last 7 or so episodes. 

He was basically the Grump. A cartoon stock archetype, a television stock archetype, a place talk archetype. 

You didn't have to think about why he was grumpy because there was no reason other than to make him and grumpy.  And remember this is the longest term character that's been on the show (was in the pilot) and he had a ridiculously thin characterization.

 All of this would still be bad even if he didn't have a plot line that made me cringe 

mackon, post: 36912103, member: 9256

Sure there are a lot of scenarios where the Zoo could be where it is and Pinks holdings only cover the solar system but just looking at what we have seen so far it looks like Pink administrated space covers more -shrug- How the Gempire is governed is sure to be more complex than X diamond runs this area and Y diamond runs that area anyway.

 And this just all ties it together. We get all of this stuff that's supposed to matter then push it all to the side and then come up with confrontation that's in many ways not satisfying because there's no build-up or it's just confusing or inevitably leads to more stupid questions that aren't even asked in the show.    I guess what makes this so frustrating is that the show has great set up. it does set up very well. But every time, or at least many times, when it's time for the payoff for those Domino's to go it always goes off like a bad fart. 

All of these are pointing to the same issue. . .

For some people this is the climax of The Cluster. For others It's the Return of Marty. For others it's The Search For Answers.  Some others feel disappointed because they think that there hasn't been enough queer text in the show. Others feel like characters are often push the Wayside and not given enough time to interact with the world shaking plot.  All of these are pointing to the same issue, broadly speaking. Crewniverse throws something in the air but they don't follow through. Or they passport or just suddenly resolve something with another IOU. 

The weird part is when they do this with a plot point they say that it's about the people. But Fusion Cuisine (wryyyyy) I think keeps hurting me because it's the episode that proves they don't respect people and character interaction.   

 Character interaction has to have consequences. Those consequences can be negative.  It can be positive but it has to arise and seem to follow from each other. Subtle or flagrant but the consequences of character interaction, if having dramatic focus, have to be observable and meaningful. Instead, all too often, we see artificial ways in order to create drama and then arbitrarily end or ignore it. For some people this is Stevens disturbing naivete childish behavior when he supposed to be a mid teenager. The lack of follow-up questions or the way that plot points will conveniently go off screen for months at a time only to then pop up in order to keep up interest and tease us and then come off with a lack of resolution despite lots of build up to no change or wasted opportunity.  

I think one thing that's bothering me is the reintroduction of there being some mystery to the death of Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz's crime against her. We've been here. already.  we know what the answer is supposed to be. And yet apparently there's a new mystery. 

Only I bet this new mystery is going to end up just as dissatisfying as “What is Lapis’s backstory?” or “How are we going to find Malachite?” or “How are we going to resolve The Cluster?” or “How will Beach City recover and her people deal with overwhelming change and trauma of an unnatural disaster?”

This shows up in other ways such as the not taking care of the Rubies when they have a ship. Or the fact that Homeworld keeps taking its sweet damn time in order to take care of the Crystal Gems and Earth even when it keeps on being a hostile instigator in the lives of the gems.    

And I think Fusion Cuisine is emblematic of this fault with regards to character stories and showing that statement about character over grand plots as a poor excuse. They will create a situation that literally doesn't require any crisis which won’t be treated or result as one. The family just needed basic common sense or respect, even between strangers, and then they won't follow through on the natural consequences of the family’s disrespectful lies or dangerous actions. 

And underlying this is a sense of- I don't know-  condescension or virtue signaling? On one level the Crewmiverse really do follow through on the implication that yes Steven has a queer family. On the other it feels as if they've set up the Maheshwarens as strawman that they've spent the rest of their appearance just being someone in order to goof with. I still claim this due to the fact that Dr. Maheshwaren is treated as if she's overprotective or crazy because controls her daughter media consumption; when connie lied to her (twice) regarding her experiences and activities with STeven and his family.  She lies about taking dangerous lessons from a person who partook in an assault of her daughter and has expressed bigoted opinions of her race -as in the human race- for months. This disobedience, to make Connie a fighter, is Justified because the story made Dr. Maheshwaren too damn stupid to notice not only does her daughter not wear her glasses anymore but that the three limbed candy colored being with no heartbeat is a gem Fusion and Connie saves her from it.   So the resolution is Connie NEEDS to be a sword fighter for the growing dangers of the Cluster.

 only we remove that as a valid point 

 For a show that keeps purporting being about togetherness, the cast herding and other things kind of put that as a lie. And Fusion Cuisine is an exemplary of this. It exists for a lot of reasons, but the number one thing it ends up doing is helping justify this sense of distance between humanity and the gems and completely ignoring ways in which they can come together and be understood.  Or conflict and come to resolution and understanding. So the character conflicts and development feel artificial or low stakes or superfluous and the plot and combat and Magic feels as if its always being sandbagged for these meaningless character beats.

 I think the show is going to lose me.    And I don't think there's any big thing that it can do now to convince me. It's spent so much of the goodwill and belief from its initial run and set up.  It has undermined all of it set up when it's actually gotten anywhere. I no longer trust the show to turn out to be well. At least in a way that I think will be satisfying for when they pull another “wait until you see the payoff for this” move AGAIN. And I suspect it's going to keep misfiring in ways while implying that it's so damn clever. 

There's just something incredibly artificial about Lars being captured with Steven and effectively telling all of his emotional issues that I feel like they have not been appropriately Illustrated despite multiple character Focus episodes.    And given the track record on how long it takes to actually engage with plot points or how they can be unsatisfying-ly resolved and then put out the way until they are unsatisfying-ly resolved is also bothersome. 

I was kind of okay with the end of The Cluster but I also understand how that could frustrate some. But one way that I can agree it was bad is we effectively spend all this time setting up the end of the world and the resolution of The Cluster basically put it out of mind and hasn't been Revisited or had any further effect.  The only lasting consequence has been the Turning of Peridot.[and according to some that’s been flattened to irrelevance too] 

So that meant that The Cluster basically existed so that that way we would have something in order for Peridot to oppose to justify her becoming a good person. Which reminds me of how they handled Marty and Sour Cream and Yellowtail and so I'm really really uncomfortable about them trying to go “oh, we're going to be all about character don't be all about the magical Destiny b*******.” only characters remain thin and ignorant and nothing but potential fodder

  Maybe I'm just in a really nasty mood[edit- looking back I was]. But I will say this; I think after this much time the show has set up its relationship with the audience and I think it's made me distrustful and doubtful of its reliability. I don't want any more promotional material. I don't want any more interviews covering for stuff not in the show. I don't want any more teases. I want an actual story executed on the screen in a satisfying manner.    And honestly I think what with the relative Circle walking season 4 and the reintroduction of more complications about mysteries about Rose and more drama about Steven feeling sad and more “Steven is going to have to introduce Humanity to this alien-person” as his own life seems as divorced from Human Experience as possible. 

The artifice of the show is coming out. It's much like how some can't take Game of Thrones seriously anymore. It makes sense to kill off the characters that they have killed off but there's no more emotional investment and we’re getting more and more sense that all of this is a bunch of Sensational nonsense.

[audreycritter]

Hi, I love your writing! I don't know if your flash fiction prompts are still open, so if they're not, ignore this! But, if they are open: Damian and Martha Kent? Pretty please?

This was an ask clarified to be in the Cor Et Cerebrum universe and it was SO MUCH FUN to write. I’m sorrynotsorry it got so long for something that’s just talking, haha. Rating: GRelationships: Gen/Friends

Gear Shift (AO3 Link)

Damian Wayne is sitting in the front of an old Ford F-150 on a rough wool blanket thrown over the tattered upholstery of the bench seat. He’s got both hands on the steering wheel, but the engine is off and the window down as he listens to the argument behind him.

Martha Kent is on the side porch right in view of the dirt road up into the west field and Jonathan Kent is standing in the bed of the truck, next to the two massive and grayish-white, plastic tanks of organic fertilizer. The old man has a red bandanna tucked under his ballcap, draped down over the back of his neck.

“Don’t you let him drive that truck, Jonathan Kent,” Martha snaps from the porch, shielding her eyes against the sun.

“He’s thirteen!” Jonathan protests, slapping his hand against a tank. “Clark started driving for haying when he was twelve!”

“You know why that’s different,” Martha says sternly.

“The Llewellyns start their kids at twelve, too,” Jonathan says stubbornly.

Damian holds his palm against the worn gearshift, uncertain what he should do. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard them really argue before.

“Caleb Reinhardt had Eric driving when he was nine. Nine, Martha! Now I’ll grant you he was tall and I’ve never met such a level-headed kid all my life.”

“That was nigh on twenty years ago,” Martha snaps. “Things have changed.”

“He’s thirteen,” Jonathan says. “I’m not taking him joy-ridin’! And he already knows how to drive. You do, don’t you?”

He looks at Damian and Damian nods. He feels like he’s betraying Martha Kent, who throws her hands in the air and says, “Alright, then, Jon, but if you get him killed you’re gonna make the phone call, not me.”

Jonathan clambers down from the truck bed and strides over to the porch, where he and Martha stand with their heads bent close together; her side is to him, though, a little defensively according to Damian’s own understanding of body language.

And if he was a normal kid, maybe he wouldn’t be able to hear what they were saying. Or maybe he’d just be polite enough to tune it out and amuse himself for a minute with studying the gauges in the truck. But he’s got sharp ears and a sharper sense of… maybe it’s not curiosity, maybe it’s self-preservation. Whatever the reason, he can hear what they’re saying across the quiet morning yard and he listens. He watches in the large side view mirror.

“Do you trust me, Marty?” Jonathan asks, and Martha waves a hand dismissively. And then she nods.

“You know I do,” she replies. “I’m not saying I agree with you.”

“Is it my decision?” he asks seriously, his tone firm, his ballcap and bandanna wadded in his hand. “Am I gonna be in the doghouse over this?”

“No,” she replies, resigned. “Go on, then. You know how I feel, I’ve made it clear. But I’m done meddlin’.”

Jonathan kisses the top of her head and pulls his cap and bandanna back on, and heads back to the truck. He hauls himself up into the bed and taps the rear window in the cab.

Damian twists and slides it open.

“You close up that other window, now, and take it slow up that slope.”

The engine rumbles as it turns over and Damian glances in the mirror one more time, as he cranks the window shut. Martha is still standing on the porch and he can’t figure out her posture– she’s got one hand on her hip while she watches Jonathan, but she looks neither angry nor accepting.

For all the arguing, Damian does know how to drive and he can drive well, thanks to a fleet of manual transmission cars and a lot of not-always-authorized practice. Jonathan shouts instructions through the open rear window and they make slow laps around fields while the farmer sprays the young crops before the sun climbs too high.

They’re back to the farmhouse by lunch and Damian parks the truck in the gravel by the nearest barn while Jonathan opens the empty tanks to air out. Damian braces himself for whatever reception they get inside, uncertain how much of Martha’s lingering displeasure will fall solely on Jonathan’s head and how much will trickle down onto his own. She’s never been really angry with him before, even if he’s seen her annoyed in small ways or scolding, but it always seems to come from a calm center. And he’s never heard her really argue with Jonathan before.

Jonathan himself is whistling like he hasn’t a care in the world as they walk toward the farmhouse and Damian nods at the old farmer’s thanks. He really did enjoy helping and it’s only now back at the house that he’s worried; out in the fields, it was the furthest thing from his mind.

They both kick their boots off on the porch and the screen door creaks as they go inside. Martha is in the kitchen slicing pieces of cold ham. There’s already a plate with a tomato sandwich on thick homemade bread for Damian.

“How’d it go?” she asks, sounding cheerful, and Damian takes the plate with a confused frown. He carries it to the dining room where he’s sure they’ll follow, while Jonathan chats with her. They speak in low voices, too low for him to hear with the air conditioner running in the dining room. Then Martha laughs and Jonathan pokes his head into the room just as Damian sets his plate down, “Come on and eat on the porch with us. Martha made some sweet tea if you want a glass.”

They eat on the front porch under the shade from the roof and when Jonathan stands and announces he’s running into town for some things, Damian declines his invitation to come along.

“Suit yourself,” the old man says amiably. “Just boring bank and feed store business anywho. Shouldn’t be long.”

He leaves and Damian is acutely aware that Martha is sitting on the porch swing, not bustling around to gather the plates and empty glasses, because he is still sitting and she’s waiting him out.

“Jason’s classes end at four today,” Damian observes as a distraction.

“They do,” Martha agrees. “He’ll be back for supper.”

“Would it be alright if I climbed into the barn loft to do some sketching?” Damian asks, still looking at the steps he’s sitting on instead of her. His legs look too long to him after that last growth spurt. He’s still not used to how far down the steps they go when he stretches out and they feel like not part of his own body.

“Only if you stay off that loose hay,” Martha says. “I was proud of you today when Jon and I were talking. You didn’t jump into the middle of things to defend yourself. Last year, you might have.”

Damian looks back at her sharply. She and Jonathan acted like nothing was wrong the entire meal and now he’s genuinely bewildered.

“Why are you pretending not to be mad at him?” Damian demands.

Martha’s eyes open wide in an expression of surprise and then her face relaxes. She stands and begins gathering the plates.

“Come help me thin the carrots before it’s too hot,” she says. Damian follows her into the house with tall glasses in his hands and he sets them in the sink.

Minutes later, they’re outside again, this time in the smaller family garden near the house. Martha has a wide sunhat tied beneath her chin and Damian kneels next to her to pull the feathery carrot tops she points to. They dump the pullings into an scratched yellow bucket for the chickens.

“I’m not mad at Jonathan,” Martha says after they work for a bit. “We didn’t agree, that’s for certain, but we agreed it was his decision.”

“You weren’t happy when we left,” Damian says, watching a worm wriggle in the spot where he’d pulled a skinny, short carrot.

“Nope,” Martha shakes her head. “But most folks take some time to get over things they don’t like. Doesn’t mean they can’t.”

Damian considers this.

“If I were at home and I fought with Father,” he says, knowing that it’s not exactly the same relationship, “we might stay angry for hours or days. Until one of us relented.”

“Once, Clark went a whole week without talking to me,” Martha says. “Lord, but that boy can hold a grudge when it suits him. I’m glad it’s a rare thing.”

“Father and,” Damian pauses, wondering if he’s giving too much away but also genuinely puzzled and trying to make sense of things. Sometimes the way the Kents behave is just so foreign, like another language that he’s never been taught. Or perhaps just a separate dialect, where he misses phrases and idioms while following the general direction.

“I’m no snitch,” Martha teases him, ribbing him with an elbow. “But you keep your secrets if you need to.”

“Father and Selina sometimes quarrel,” Damian says, guessing this to be a similar relationship of a sort. Closer than son and father, that’s for certain. “It might take them weeks or months to resume their relationship. They don’t always argue loudly. Sometimes, I am not aware there was a disagreement until I notice her prolonged absence.”

“Hm,” Martha says thoughtfully. When she doesn’t start in on a lecture in reaction to this, he continues.

“I do not think he has spoken to Mother for over a year. But perhaps that should not count. I am uncertain they have had any conversation not resulting in conflict for the entirety of my life.”

“You know your grandparents fought,” Martha says casually, dropping a handful of carrots into the bucket. They fall soft and soundless on the stems of the others.

“What?” Damian says, frozen. “You knew them?”

“Of course not,” Martha laughs, not loud or hard, but gentle and quick. “But honey, everybody fights.”

Damian forces his hands to keep moving, to seize vegetable matter and pluck it out of the earth. He has never heard his Wayne grandparents spoken of with anything but solemn or confiding tones, something like hushed reverence. Even Father, for all his interior motivations and the ways he makes them known, doesn’t really talk about his parents in the days before they were murdered. And he must have memories– he was nearly the same age when they died as Damian was when he left the League for Gotham, and Damian most assuredly remembers his life before.

“If they were married, they fought,” Martha says. “Now, I’m not saying they screamed or threw things. Some people fight so silent and still you never can figure out how they even know they’re mad about the same thing. I knew a couple like that once, up on a farm on the other side of town. They left to join their kids in Arizona years ago, but that’s beside the point. I was over piecing a quilt with her once and every time he came in the house, she’d get all tight-lipped and he’d just scowl. But they made up all the same. Worst fight they’d ever had, she told me later, and about wallpaper of all things.”

“That sounds like Father and Pennyworth,” Damian says with a grin at the plants in front of him. “They fought like that over a red chair once.”

“Now that is a battle of wills if I’ve ever heard tell,” Martha observes with a chuckle. “Anyways, my point was, everybody fights. Fathers and sons, sisters and sisters, husbands and wives. And some of them it just tears apart. Some hurt people can go a whole lifetime and never reconcile. But if you don’t wanna go leaving a trail of broken relationships behind you, you figure out how to fight and get over it, real fast.

“So, to answer your question, no. I’m not mad at Jonny. I was. And I’m sure he was miffed at me for challenging him. He doesn’t like it much when I do, but I do it all the same, and we both survive. But we both got over it and because we don’t like to be miserable, we both got over it pretty darn quick.”

“Tt,” Damian says softly, thinking. “I would not have helped by defending my driving experience then.”

“Nope,” Martha says, standing and brushing her skirt off. “You know what the Bible says about that? ‘He who meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears.’ You might be fine, might get your fingers bit. I used to quote that one at Clark pretty often, he had a habit of getting himself involved in things. Guess I didn’t convince him otherwise very well, now did I?”

Damian grins again, this time at her.

“I don’t think he learned,” Damian comments.

“Well,” Martha says, picking up the bucket. It’s not very heavy but Damian takes it anyway and she lets him. They pick their way out of the garden and toward the chicken coop. “Well, I didn’t mean for this to turn into a lesson. Goodness, I hated when my Ma did that to me– take an honest question and turn it into a moral, but here I am, doing it to you same as I did to Clark and Conner.”

“It’s alright,” Damian says. “I am interested in finding alternative methods to conflict resolution. It is a significant portion of my life.”

“Yes,” Martha says, looking over at him. He’s nearly as tall as her now. “I suppose it is. Not exactly of the mending fences variety though.”

“There may be that as well,” Damian says. “Perhaps you have observed Father’s past habit of incorporating orphaned youth into our family. I had acquired several siblings even before my arrival.”

“Incorporating,” Martha says while Damian tosses the carrot bits into the chicken yard, “is perhaps not the word I would use. But you do have an awful lot of people to get along with, I’ll grant you that.”

“They are suitable,” Damian says, watching the chicken peck at carrot tops and squawk at each other. “Thank you for answering my question.”

“You know,” Martha says slowly, in that way she speaks when she’s second-guessing herself. He’s only heard it often enough to know what it is. “Me and Jonathan have had a lot of practice and we made a commitment to each other a long, long time ago. I don’t want to give you the impression that I think everything your daddy does is the wrong way to do things.”

“He is a very capable man,” Damian says, “but it is a foolish person who only seeks one teacher. It is wise to search out the master of each art.”

Damian is not trying to be profound, just honest. He is not prepared for the way that Martha Kent’s eyes suddenly fill with tears, the way she turns her head to snap at the chickens to hide it.

“Look at you,” she says gently, glancing at him a moment later. “You stop that growin’ up and take a year or two off, else I’m gonna have to pester your daddy or Clark into finding some new little ones. We still need a baby around here.”

Damian doesn’t move. He’s worried now that he insulted or wounded her, until she leans over and gives him a quick hug. He doesn’t pull away or do much to return the hug, but he accepts it and the relief within his ribcage is immense.

“Come on inside and keep me company while I make cake. I’m in a mood,” Martha says, walking back toward the farmhouse. “I’ll let you lick the beaters if you still need good reason to come indoors.”

“I suppose it would be unkind to boast about this to Jason,” Damian says, setting the bucket down and tagging along after her. “But I do enjoy his exaggerated outrage.”

“To be honest, honey, I think he does, too,” Martha confides in a low whisper as they go into the kitchen. “But maybe we’ll just save one in the fridge for him just in case.”

Damian nods and washes his hands, looking out the window at the field as he does.

“Thank you for trusting Jonathan,” he says. “I like to drive.”

“Oh boy,” Martha says. “I know that tone. Your daddy doesn’t let you at home, does he?”

Damian smirks at her over his shoulder. “We don’t have a farm,” he says, shrugging a shoulder. “But it’s okay. I’m not a snitch.”

“Lordy. Jonathan’s gonna be, though,” Martha says. “But that’s alright. He brought it on himself. Go get your sketch pad. I’m not gonna have you pilfering bits of brown sugar while I work, so you should keep yourself busy.”

Damian quick-steps away from the towel she swats at his legs and returns a moment later with his sketchbook. While she whisks eggs for the cake, he sits at the small kitchen table in the room thick with the smell of vanilla and sketches the soft green stems of carrots from memory. It is quiet while he works and while she works, but it is a good quiet and he feels no need to fill it with words– the scritch scritch of charcoal pencil and the thwick thwick thwick of beaters are enough.

[mhsn033]

Best health Coronavirus updates: CDC director says ‘biggest fear’ is flu, COVID-19 overwhelming hospitals – ABC News

Best health

A original coronavirus pandemic has now killed greater than 795,000 folks worldwide.

Over 22.7 million folks all the plot throughout the globe were identified with COVID-19, the illness introduced about by the brand new respiratory virus, according to recordsdata compiled by the Heart for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins College. The actual numbers are believed to be remarkable increased attributable to checking out shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some national governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their outbreaks.

The United States is the worst-affected nation on the earth, with greater than 5.6 million identified cases and now not lower than 174,967 deaths.

Most up-to-date headlines:

No followers at Kentucky Derby

Loss of life toll would possibly per chance perhaps perhaps high 200,000 by Sept. 12, CDC says

Right here is how the tips is growing at the present time. All cases Jap. Please refresh this web allege for updates.

4: 12 p.m.: No followers at Kentucky Derby

This one year’s Kentucky Derby will happen on Sept. 5 with none followers contemporary, officials launched Friday.

“Churchill Downs has labored diligently over the closing a number of months to space a safe Derby with a restricted number of spectators in attendance. We were confident in that knowing,” officials with Churchill Downs Incorporated in a command Friday.

Alternatively, “with the hot fundamental increases in COVID-19 cases in Louisville to boot as all the plot throughout the distance, we wished to again revisit our planning,” the command acknowledged.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear supports the likelihood to defend the derby without followers, according to Churchill Downs Incorporated.

2 p.m.: Boston to launch up faculty one year remotely, students to come to college in waves 

Boston Public Schools will launch up the faculty one year remotely on Sept. 21, and a few students will likely be allowed to come to the college room in the next weeks, Mayor Marty Walsh acknowledged Friday.

Initiating Oct. 1, students with the very finest wants will likely be allowed to come to faculty rooms.

On Oct. 15, now not obligatory hybrid studying will launch up for preschoolers and kindergartners.

By November, students in grades 1 through 12 can launch up now not obligatory hybrid studying. The hybrid model will allow some students to lend a hand in-individual classes on Mondays and Tuesdays and others on Thursdays and Fridays. All diversified days would be a ways away.

As students return, the number of teens in colleges will composed be lower than 50%, officials acknowledged.

The mayor careworn that the dates and the hybrid studying model are contingent on public well being recordsdata. Every step will launch up no forward of the listed date, and phases would possibly per chance perhaps perhaps also very well be pushed lend a hand, if COVID-19 metrics worsen, he acknowledged.

The threshold for the metropolis to revert completely to a ways away studying will likely be a charge of positivity above 4% citywide, Walsh acknowledged.

The hybrid studying model will likely be now not obligatory for all families; other folks that make a choice to opt-out can remain a ways away.

10: 30 a.m.: Loss of life toll would possibly per chance perhaps perhaps high 200,000 by Sept. 12, CDC says

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the number of coronavirus fatalities in the U.S. would possibly per chance perhaps perhaps high 200,000 by Sept. 12.

“This week’s national ensemble forecast predicts that 3,700 to 9,600 new COVID-19 deaths will likely be reported all the plot throughout the week ending Sept. 12 and that 187,000 to 205,000 total COVID-19 deaths will likely be reported by that date,” the CDC launched Friday.

This prediction is basically flat when in comparison with closing week’s estimates and means that CDC modeling is taking into tale declining case numbers and fewer definite tests in some spots of the nation.

Closing week, the CDC predicted 180,000 to 200,000 fatalities by Sept. 5.

Earlier this month, the CDC predicted that between 175,000 to 190,000 total COVID-19 deaths would be reported by Aug. 29. There were about 174,000 deaths reported as of Friday, according to Johns Hopkins College.

9: 45 a.m.: Contemporary York sees lowest hospitalizations since March 16

Contemporary York train, once the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, is now marking its 14th straight day of a test-positivity charge below 1%, Gov. Andrew Cuomo acknowledged Friday.

Of those examined all the plot throughout the train on Thursday, .72% were definite, Cuomo acknowledged.

Full hospitalizations in Contemporary York fell to 490 on Thursday — the bottom number of folks in the well being facility for coronavirus since March 16, Cuomo acknowledged.

9 a.m.: 17 reportedly suspended from faculty for going to fetch together without masks, distancing

Seventeen students were suspended from Minnesota’s St. Olaf College following a fetch together without masks or social distancing, ABC Minneapolis affiliate KSTP reported.

No longer lower than one individual at the fetch together had coronavirus, the faculty acknowledged, according to KSTP.

St. Olaf College started the semester on Thursday. In-individual classes are being supplied.

6: 07 a.m.: CDC director warns flu season would possibly per chance perhaps perhaps stress hospitals

As the U.S. will catch up with to flu season, the combo with the COVID-19 pandemic would possibly per chance perhaps perhaps stress hospitals all the plot throughout the nation, according to CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield.

“The finest effort I primarily contain of route by COVID and flu at the equivalent time, is that our well being facility capability would possibly per chance perhaps perhaps fetch strained,” he acknowledged Thursday all the plot through a Journal of the American Clinical Affiliation (JAMA) livestream.

“We desire to defend vigilant to the mitigation steps handsome now. Attributable to, come the autumn, if we contain flu causing its issues and we contain COVID causing its issues, and they break on each and every diversified, shall we terminate up with any other loss of noteworthy life,” Redfield acknowledged.

Redfield acknowledged that the CDC has purchased 9.3 million additional doses of the flu vaccine, and has a purpose of “65% vaccine acceptance all the plot throughout the board.”

The CDC estimates that all the plot throughout the 2019-2020 flu season (from Oct. 1, 2019, to April 4) that there were between 24,000-62,000 deaths. To this level, COVID-19 has killed greater than 174,000 folks in the U.S.

“This descend and winter would possibly per chance perhaps perhaps also very well be one amongst primarily the most advanced public well being cases we contain with the two coming at the equivalent time,” Redfield acknowledged. “On the diversified hand, I am an optimist that if the American public heeds the advice that we acknowledged about the face maintaining and the social distancing and the handwashing and being handsome about crowds, this would possibly per chance likely perhaps perhaps also very well be one amongst the very finest flu seasons we had, and particularly if they enact one extra part: and that’s to embrace the flu vaccine with self belief.”

What to know about coronavirus:

How it started and straight forward the fashion to offer protection to your self: Coronavirus explained

What to enact need to you are going to contain got symptoms: Coronavirus symptoms

Monitoring the spread in the U.S. and worldwide: Coronavirus blueprint

ABC News’ Anne Flaherty, Cheryl Gendron, Arielle Mitropoulos and Michelle Stoddardt contributed to this document.

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