#I’m reading the Martian next

[woundedheartwithin]

Oh, I finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro yesterday. It was a really good book. There is a lot of talking about sex (nothing graphic, it’s really more like… academic? Ish?), but it does serve the plot to a degree so it passes lol. Anyway, the world building was incredible and the pacing is absolutely masterful. The narrator doesn’t give too much information too quickly, so it just feels like there’s this shadow overhanging what otherwise seems to be a young woman reminiscing about her childhood. It’s like a rumbling of something darker in the distance, and you don’t exactly realize how fucked the world state is until you’re in pretty deep. Very well written and I almost wish there was a sequel, or at least another novel set in the same universe, because the premise is super interesting. Highly recommend

[beartrice-inn-unnir]

10. What is your favorite genre book to recommend to someone who doesn’t usually like that genre?

Usually when people ask me for a rec for a genre they don’t usually like, they are asking for sci-fi, and I start by trying to figure out different access points based on what they already like. I’m not much of a hard sci-fi person, tending more to the space opera and political thrillers, so here’s a few “if you like x, maybe try y”:

If you like romance, give Everina Maxwell’s Winter’s Orbit a try. It’s definitely sci-fi in setting and plot, but it also hits nicely in the formulaic patterns of a arranged-marriage, strangers-to-lovers story that will help you through it even if the sci-fi elements are throwing you off. The author has another similar book that increases the sci-fi elements and is enemies-to-lovers as well, so if you like Winter’s Orbit, Ocean’s Echo is a good next step.

If you like non-fiction, The Martian by Andy Weir is a great pick. I have multiple friends who got into reading again as adults via The Martian. It’s well-written, well-grounded, funny, and very sci-fi. If you’ve already read it, then maybe give To Be Taught if Fortunate by Becky Chambers a try. It can be described with all the same adjectives, plus it’s a short novella, so if you’re hesitant, it’s less intimidating.

If you like mysteries or political thrillers, boy is there a lot of great sci-fi out there for you. The crux of a lot of sci-fi is space or high-tech settings with a plot that asks questions about personhood, and that mixes really well with detectives and spies wandering around trying to solve problems and find truths. Try Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells (it’s partway through a series of great books and novellas, but that one’s the most traditional mystery plot) or A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (ambassador solving her predecessor’s mysterious death while trying to do his job)(I’d also recommend this one if you read a lot of classics) EDIT: just realized I mistyped - book 1 by Arkady Martine is A Memory Called Empire.

If YA/ Bildungsromanen/ New Adult figuring the world out through trial and error is often your jam, try Provenance by Ann Leckie (for the kid who really wants to do things right) or The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (for another kid who wants to do things right, but is also a high-energy chaos gremlin).

If you like fantasy, you probably already have read some sci-fi; it’s all under the speculative fiction umbrella and genres are vague anyway. All the same, I know this is the Locked Tomb Website, but give Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir a shot (it’s got magic and mayhem and an epic locked-room whodunnit mystery). The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord is also good - it has a team of people traveling together and thinking about morals and discovering new abilities, plus some romance.

I’m sure there’s lots of genres I’m forgetting right now, but feel free to send me another ask for any specific one!

[boombox-fuckboy]

Hey!!! You commented on my post about limetown haha which is why I’m here. You offered to give podcast recs! What are your favorites?? I’m looking for some new ones

I completely forgot I had this ask, excuse the delay. Here's a selection of 30 podcasts I enjoyed from a broad range of genres: hopefully at least one appeals.

Let me know if you're after something more specific.

Arden: (Investigative, Comedy) On the 25th of December, 2007, heiress and young actress Julie Capsom crashed her car into a tree and fled into a nearby forest clearing, leaving a trail that seemingly vanished into thin air, and a dismembered torso in the trunk. A decade later, Bea, the first reporter on the scene, and Brenda, a detective on the case, are hosting a true crime podcast about it, and neither is remotely impressed with what the other has to say. Arden is also a retelling of various Shakespeare plays.

Desperado: (Supernatural, Adventure, Horror Elements) In a modern world of gods and magic, three young people, all under the patronage of death dieties, embark on the same adventure for different reasons: for safety, for revenge, and to kill The Old Man in the Sky. Fantastic banter and killer action sequences.

The Far Meridian: (Magical Realism) An agoraphobic young woman wakes one day to discover her lighthouse home has travelled to somewhere entirely unfamilar. As this continues to happen day after day, she uses the opportunity to search for her missing brother. A really unique and charming piece of fiction.

Gastronaut: (Sci-Fi) Interstellar travel audio blog of a former food critic as he travels to an active warzone to get firsthand experience with unfamilar cuisine. ft. Disgruntled martian nobility, sinister businessmen, explosive mushrooms, forbidden snacks, rogue revolutionary artists, and the consequences of your actions.

Girl in Space: (Sci-Fi) The Girl In Space lives alone on a space station, doing science, making cheese, rewatching Jurassic Park, and tending to the plants, animals, and artificial sun entrusted to her. It's a little lonely, but not a bad life. Would be a shame if someone came along to ruin it.

The Goblet Wire: (Microfiction, Weird Fiction) A surreal microfiction with horror elements, taking the form of phone calls to an audio-based game in which the voice of the mysterious Dictator leads each player through fantastic and horrific world and story.

Hello From The Hallowoods: (Horror, Supernatural) A dramatic entity beyond your comprehension visits your nightmares to tell stories of the people (in varying degrees of human and alive) that inhabit the strange, deadly, and beautiful Hallowoods, as they find meaning and sometimes eachother.

Hi Nay: (Supernatural Horror) A year after moving to Toronto, sound designer Mari finds herself drawn into helping people around the city with various horrific supernatural encounters due to her babaylan (shaman) family background. It quickly becomes apparent that there's something much more sinister and complicated happening in the background.

Inco: (Microfiction, Sci-Fi) A perpetually exausted interstellar information trader and her peppy AI find a mysterious (read: bratty) boy floating in space and are inadventently pulled into a world political intrigue.

Inn Between: (Fantasy) Ever curious about what the D&D characters get up to at the tavern between sessions? A generally lighter-hearted (with some exceptions) with richly-written and always-growing characters. A really interesting format, too: a lot of the adventure appears in the "next time" and "last time" segments which makes it all flow really nicely. Not a tabletop podcast.

Janus Descending: (Sci-Fi, Horror, Tragedy) A xenoarcheologist and a xenopaleontologist are sent to a study a dead city on a distant world. Nobody likes what they find there. A unique format, with one set of logs presented first to last, and the other last to first. I'd recommend listening to the supercut for this one.

The Kingmaker Histories: (Steampunk, Weird Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy Elements) In the Valorian Socialist Republic 1911, on her 25th birthday, tailor's apprentice Colette experienced the worst headache of her life. As a result, she fleed from town with a human artificer and a fae chef - both now smugglers - pursued by an utterly furious flesh-crafter. I'm not sure I'm selling how good this podcast is but it's very good.

Life With Althaar: (Sci-Fi, Comedy) A human repairman moves to a space station on the edge of human territory that is perpetually on the edge of self-destruction, and ends up with a less-than-ideal last-minute roomate. Althaar is polite, friendly, deeply interested in human culture, and eager to be friends. Unfortunately he belongs to a species that sends humans into a visceral panic at a glance.

Lost Terminal: (Sci-Fi, Hopepunk) Seth is a very lonely AI living on a satellite. His crew were left stranded aboard with no hope of return, and it's been longer than he can count since then. The Earth below him has changed dramatically, and with only a few other AI down there to talk to, he's very lonely. But! He has a plan to make some new friends.

Love and Luck: (Romance, Slice-of-Life and Urban Fantasy Elements) Voice messages cataloguing two young men falling in love and opening a queer dry bar together.

Midnight Radio: (Light Supernatural, Romance) Sybil McIntyre, host of the ever-popular 1950's nightly radio hour, begins exchanging letters with an old fan who has reluctantly returned to visit Sybil's beloved town.

Midst: (Weird Fiction, Western, Sci-Fi and Fantasy Elements) The old-western planetoid islet of Midst floats, rotating steadily, in a sea of reality-warping darkness. Down in the town of Stationary Hill, things are in movement, and vistors from the light above are about to bring unanticipated change. ft a monocycle-riding monster-hunter, radio-famous airship paladins, deadly mica, the universe's peppiest cultist, good dogs, and a really strange businessman.

The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality: (Weird Fiction, Supernatural, Urban Fantasy and Horror Elements) A friendly AI tour guide leads you on a tour of the Mistholme Museum, explaining the strange and often alternatural story behind each item.

Monstrous Agonies: (Supernatural, Relationship Advice) An interpersonal advice show for supernatural entities and other people living liminally in the modern world.

Night Shift: (Urban Fantasy, Investigative) Set in a modern world with the addition of magic, which manifests in small inherited skills/traits, can warp people in horrific ways, or can be manipulated with the right science (and intense work) to induce superpowers. Sebastian Fenn is a barista at Night Shift Coffee, but since things are slow he's decided to start a podcast to talk about various mysteries, crimes and conspiracies around the city, and of course finds himself deeper in them than he'd intended.

The Pasithea Powder: (Sci-Fi, Thriller Elements? I think?) The last major interplanetary war was full of atrocities, but none more infamous then the creation of Pasithea Powder, a memory altering drug which was used to horrible effect and landed it's entire team of creators in prison. So when decorated war hero Captain Sophie Green sees one of them wandering free, worlds away from his prison, she gets in touch with a very old, estranged friend: one Dr. Jane Gonzalez, who's behind bars for the very same reason.

SCP: Find Us Alive: (Weird Fiction, Supernatural, Horror and Slice-of-Life elements) You don't need to know anything about SCP to enjoy this. A research team gets trapped in an underground research facility when the complex collapses and the building is dragged into a pocket dimension. The tear it was designed to study begins creating tiny copies of itself, generating strange entities the team needs to deal with. And as if that wasn't enough, the entire situation physically resets itself every 30 days. And yet, this is genuinely also an office comedy.

Second Star to the Left: (Sci-Fi) Audio logs of a scout sent to explore and establish early infastructure new world, and the communications with the minder in charge of keeping her alive.

Seen and Not Heard: (Slice-of-Life, Drama) Seen and Not Heard follows Bet, who's still adjusting to life a year after a bout of severe illness, and the resulting hearing loss it caused. It's about the ways we make connection, and food, and art, and different kinds of grief.

The Silt Verses: (Horror) In a modern world where gods are abundant, frequently both commercialised and restricted, two devotees of an outlawed river god go on a pilgrimage.

SINKHOLE: (Sci-Fi, Weird Fiction) Forum posts from a data restoration community in a near future where the human brain is its own computer and one city hosts a massive void.

Starfall: (Fantasy) Seeking to escape her mysterious past and find some purpose, a young swordswoman joins a travelling actor's troupe. This new life is unfamilar and sometimes stressful, but she's taken under the wing of stagehand Fel, who's determined to help her feel welcome as she experiences the figurative and literal magic of the theatre for the first time.

The Tower: (Weird Fiction) A low-key, meditative podcasy about a young woman who decides to climb a seemingly endless tower. Gorgeous sound design.

The Vesta Clinic: (Sci-Fi) New GP Dr. Fae Underwood, with the expert transcription skills of resident AI Sec, writes up patient reports on human and alien patients of The Vesta Clinic, a medical clinic on the edge of human space. Really comfy and creative.

Victoriocity: (Steampunk, Mystery) Set in the steam-powered Victorian city of Even Greater London, an aspiring journalist and a tired detective find themselves working together to solve a strange murder. I say Victorian but as queen Victoria is now an extensive grandiocity of cyborg components following seven only-kind-of-successful assassinations, you may need to adjust expectations a little.

[simon-roy]

Now I’m only antiquated to the WEBTOON comics but I noticed amongst the Griz Grobus sequel lore book there was a tidbit on Hive-men, I’m assuming that was a bit of a reference to Humanity Lost? And if it’s alright can you go into more on this lore?

Ah this is an interesting wrinkle - not to toot my own horn too loud, but by god, my hive men predate humanity lost by a good few years!

They first arose while I was working on Prophet and collaborating with my friend Matt Sheean on a story about hive-men on mars, back in 2013 (that never quite materialized into a solid story)- with the main thrust of the tale being not about the hive as an inexorable mindless mass, enslaved to a queen (which is the usual villainous hive depiction), but with the hive as a sort of beneficial, eusocial, communitarian approach to living on a hostile world - contrasted well against the individualistic, identitarian and ultranationalistic worldviews of the earthmen trying to conquer them. (Ive read enough sci fi with the same mindless hive army...)

(below - one of matts drawings for the hive city)

But their first visual appearance of my version was sometime in 2015, i think, for the Island magazine cover posted below. (Trade between baseline humans of some type and the hive men, goods being carried by silk-line to the great dyson tree...)

The first tale of the hive men i made (second ever story on my patreon) was drawn in 2017, and covers a dyson-tree habitat (in this case, grown around the comet hale-bopp) encountering a voracious organism of the void:

The latest story of the hive-men, drawn in 2021, is about an interloper earthman, a deserter from an invading army, who has found a new living among the martian hive-people, in a story called "A Portrait of the Artist as Hive Parasite" (colored by my longterm collaborator, Sergey Nazarov - without him i would wither and perish)

These stories can be found on my patreon, and they'll also be showing up in print (at some point, probably next year) once I get my next short story collection sorted. Hell, they'll probably end up online on webtoons soon enough, too!

[buckychristwrites]

When The Rain Gathers | Chapter Three | j.t.

↳  Pairing: Jamie Tartt x f!reader

↳ Word Count: 4.2k

↳  Summary: Pain hits like a downpour, but when a heartbreak from your past is what greets you at your new job at Nelson Road Stadium, it's more like a catastrophic tsunami.

↳  Warnings: Enemies to lovers, Discussion of parental abuse, fluff and angst.

Series Masterlist | Masterlist | Main Blog

It had been the longest first week of your life.

For the most part, you shadowed Sharon to get a feel for how things were done around Nelson Road Stadium. It was mostly self explanatory, as it was all things you had already done before. There was only one session you had missed with her in the whole week.

Friday evening was more than welcomed when it finally came. You sighed happily when the clock read that it was time to leave. Come Monday morning, you would be released to start seeing the players, and anxious just didn’t seem to describe how you felt. All you wanted to do at this moment was pick up Ivy, go home, order pizza and curl up on the couch. 

A knock at the door pulled you from your daydream.

“Hiya!” Keeley called, her voice bubbly as the door creaked open. You smiled at her, surprised.

“Come in,” You urged, taking a seat once more as she walked over.

“How are things going?” She asked with a genuine look. “Settling in alright?” After a brief moment of mulling her question over, you shrug.

“About as well as to be expected,” You said, surprising yourself with your honesty. She gave you a small, soft smile. 

“Adjusting to a new job can be hard, I know,” She said. “When I had just started my firm, I felt like a fish out of water, you know?” I nod my head understandingly.

“Add in the fact that I haven’t lived in England for over six years,  I’ve never ever lived in London, and I’m navigating this new place with a toddler, and you may as well call me a martian.” Keeley snorted, her head falling onto her shoulder. Her amused look faded into one of empathy. 

“Rebecca and I were wonderin’ if you’d like to join us for dinner at Ola’s tonight. Sam’s restaurant.” 

My eyebrows raise. “Sam has a restaurant?”

She nodded excitedly before explaining, “It has Nigerian food. It’s wonderful. And the whole team will be there!” 

Your smile faltered, and Keely was quick to pick up on it. “Don’t worry! They’re loads of fun, once you get to know them.” 

As if getting to know the team as a whole was the problem, and not the one player you knew the most. 

“I don’t know…” You said, your eyes jumping around the room in an effort to avoid looking at her anymore. “I don’t have a babysitter for Ivy-“

“Bring her!” She exclaimed. “We’d love to meet her!” She gave you another lingering look. “Rebecca and I just want to welcome you to the Richmond family.” 

Your eyes meet hers this time. It was quite clear that Keeley was one of those people that simply does not take no for an answer. But there was no question. The answer had to be no. 

“Maybe next time?” You offer, heartbroken by the way Keeley’s smile faltered. “I just would rather have a babysitter for Ivy.” A long moment passed where Keeley just eyed you, and then she nodded understandingly.

“I’ll hold you to that next time, you better believe.”

You laughed. “Of course.”

When leaving that night, your office locked up tight, you felt incredibly relieved. Every step that you took closer to the parking lot made you more and more excited to get home. The hallways had largely emptied out, but in the distance, you could hear the post-training commotion coming from the changing rooms. Despite your short tenure with the club, you found yourself loving the sound. There was something quite wholesome listening to it. The laughter was always echoing through the hallways, and hitting your heartstrings in all of the right ways. 

As you got closer to the changing room, you found yourself slowing down in an effort to listen. Through the window, you could see that the players were all dressed, and mostly just mucking about.

“Oi, Tartt,” Colin called. “Ain’t your date with Anastasia tonight?”

Though you couldn’t see Jamie, or hear a response from him, the response he got from the team told the story. The chorus of “Oooooooooo”’s followed by praises and laughter bounced off the walls.

Something about it made you feel nauseous.

“What date is this? Three?” Sam asked while throwing his bag over his shoulder. Jamie walked into view. 

“Four, actually,” Jamie corrected with a smug smile.

This only seemed to rile them up more, Isaac appearing to shake Jamie’s shoulders.  

“Have you… you know?” Dani asked.

Jamie pursed his lips. “I don’t kiss and tell, lads.”

“But you have no problem fucking and telling,” Isaac pointed out. Your eyebrows rose to your hairline. A small part of you was surprised by their vulgarity, until you remembered that they didn’t have a reason to censor themselves, especially since they didn’t know you were listening. You pretended that the idea of Jamie sleeping with someone else didn’t make your skin crawl. 

“Wait, wait, Jamie…” Sam asked, waving his hands out in front of him. “Does this mean you have not slept with her?” Jamie’s cheeks turned a deep shade of red. A tell that he was embarrassed. When he didn’t say anything, his teammates began to round on him.

“Tartt! You fuckin’ gentleman!”

“Lasso has gotten to him, lads. He made him a carin’ guy!”

“He’s gotta properly fluff a girl up now before his willy stands up.”

“Does this mean you love her and want to cherish her, Jamie Tartt?”

“Boys, boys,” Jamie said, lowering his hands to the floor slowly. “When there is somethin’ to tell…I’ll tell it.” 

You decided you’d heard enough, pulling your phone from your pocket as you began to walk down the hall once more. Your fingers were moving without the explicit permission of your brain, as if you were on autopilot. The next thing you knew, you were bringing the speaker to your ear. It’s unclear what part of the conversation made you change your mind, but one thing was obvious: You no longer wished to spend the night alone at home. 

“Hello?” The bubbly voice answered.

“Hey,” You said, your tone nervous. “I’ve given it some thought and… is that invitation for dinner still open?”

Jamie stared at your receding back, your words stirring something in his chest. Dinner? You mean…a date? So soon after you’ve moved home? 

He shook his head. It didn’t concern him anymore. You were just another girl in his life now. What you did was of no concern to him.

Except it was a concern to him. He just couldn’t help it. Even after three years apart, he still felt so drawn to you, like you're the North and he’s a compass that can do nothing else but point to you. As unfair as it was, as much as you wanted him to fuck off and leave you alone, he couldn’t help it. The thoughts of you crept in when he least expected it. He wondered what your house looked like, and what you did in your free time now that you lived alone, and where you did your grocery shopping, and if you had found a new favourite takeout place. But most of all, he wondered if there was any part of you that would ever consider, even in the least bit, forgiving him. 

By the time he began to walk again, you had already disappeared out the door and into the car park. He was still staring down the hall when he came out of his thoughts. The boys came up from behind to follow you out, and Jamie plastered on the best smile he could muster as he did the same. He had a date, after all. What was there to be upset about?

The drive home seemed to go by quicker than normal due to Jamie’s preoccupied thoughts. Who was the dinner with? 

He fumbled with his keys while attempting to unlock his door. Was it with someone he knew?

Dropping his bag next to the front door, he made his way upstairs for a quick shave and to change. After all, he showered back at the stadium. Worse, was the dinner with one of his teammates?

The phone chimed, bringing him back to reality. Anastasia’s name crossed over his lock screen. Normally, this would bring him a shock of excitement. But now, at this moment, he felt nothing as he picked up his phone.

R u picking me up? x

Didn’t he already tell her that he would? He typed back a simple Yeah before turning back to his closet to dig out some shoes. When his phone chimed again, he huffed. Why am I getting so annoyed? He found himself asking. 

U better behave urself James Tartt! x

Real annoyance filled his chest. He couldn’t count how many times he told her not to call him by his full name. 

“I only ever behave myself,” He grumbled, dropping his phone back on the bed without responding.

“Alright, love, you ready to behave yourself at the restaurant?” 

“Yes!” Ivy shouted, jumping up and down. She was wearing the purple dress she had picked out, a white bow in her hair. You laughed before peaking back in the mirror and straightening out the dress that she had picked out for you. The smile faltered only slightly. Was this too much? It wasn’t formal, it felt more… clubby to you. But you knew how angry the tiny fashion critic would be if you tried to change. 

“Let’s go, Mummy!” Ivy shouted, tugging at the hem. 

“Alright, alright,” You sighed, shaking your head as you whipped her into the air before bringing her to your hip. A quick Google search had told you that the restaurant was just around the corner from you, and you were thankful to not need the pram. “Do you wanna walk or be carried?”

“Walk, please!” She shouted happily, bouncing up and down.

“Alright, but you better keep hold on Mummy’s hand or a car’ll turn you into an Ivy pancake.”

The surprise on her face made it impossible not to laugh. 

“NO pancake, Mummy!”

“The tiniest Ivy pancake!” You continued to tease as you slipped your shoes on. The toddler shrieked in dismay, still smiling and giggling at you. As you reached for the door, your other hand extended out for her. She didn’t hesitate before running up and smacking her tiny palm into yours. 

The cool evening air felt perfect when you stepped outside. Ivy proudly walked beside you, feeling like one of the grown ups. 

“Are you ready to meet the people Mummy works with?” You asked as the two of you stop at a crosswalk. 

“Yes!” A beat passed. “And eat!”

“Oh yes,” You agreed, nodding. “That’s more important, isn’t it?”

The light changed to Walk, and the two of you made your way across. The fact that Ivy wasn’t trying to run away from you made you feel a little easier about the evening ahead. Already, you could see the restaurant slowly coming into view. 

The anxiety filled your tummy, but the squeeze of your fingers from the toddler at your side made you feel slightly better. At least someone there was unconditionally on your side. 

The door opened and released an array of sounds, filling the quiet from the outside. The dining room was filled with footballers, who were laughing loudly as multiple conversations happened at once. In the middle of the room, the tables were all pushed together, the table set like a family style dinner. You looked down uneasily at Ivy, who only looked excited despite the amount of people around. At first, as you crossed the threshold into the restaurant, your arrival seemed to go unnoticed. But then, a flash of blonde bounded through the room. She shouted your name before throwing her arms around you. Just by her behaviour, it was clear she was already a few drinks deep.

Keeley kneeled down to the toddler’s level, who was suddenly holding onto your legs. “And this must be Miss Ivy?” She smiled warmly, her voice gentle. “I’m Keeley. It’s nice to meet you.” Ivy stared at Keeley with a curious glance, though her face was still largely hidden behind the hem of your dress. You pressed your palm to the back of her head, your thumb stroking her hair.

“Sorry, she’s so shy,” You explained, giving her a sheepish smile. Keeley shook her head as she stood up straight again. 

“‘S’alright,” She said with an unwavering smile. “I’m just glad you’re here. Come on!” She took your free hand and led you and Ivy to the other side of the table. When a high chair had been set up at the end, your heart skipped a beat. You lifted the toddler up and set her in the seat. She looked pleased, as she knew she was about to get food. As if he had a sixth sense of reading minds, Sam Obisanya appeared out of nowhere and set down a plate of chicken nuggets and fries in front of Ivy. And before you even had the chance to protest, you noticed the nuggets were already cut up. You look at Sam in wonder.

“You didn’t need to do all this,” You said to him, swallowing the lump in your throat. Behind the two of you was a buffet style table of food. Sam waved you off.

“As soon as Keeley told me you were bringing your daughter, I decided to do this.” His expression grew embarrassed. “I wanted to apologise for the team’s reaction the day you began. It was not fair for us to judge you so harshly, and so quickly.” Overhearing, Dani Rojas turned around, his smile warm and friendly.

“Yes, we owe you a sincere apology,” He added. When you turned, you found that Isaac had his arms out, gesturing towards the entire room.

“That’s what this is,” He told you. “Our Welcome-To-The-Team-Sorry-For-Being-Dicks dinner.” 

You shook your head, astonished. “This is so nice, I’m-”

An arm wrapped around your shoulders, and when you turned, it was Rebecca, with a deep smile.

“We’re so happy to have you here,” She said, bringing you in for a hug. When you looked over, Keeley was playing with Ivy as she ate her dinner, the toddler looking as though she was starting to get comfortable with your new friend. When your eyes find Rebecca again, you can feel them welling up with tears.

“I’m just going to run to the toilet real quick,” You said, desperately trying not to sound strained. She nodded understandingly before letting you go. As you make your way to the back, you have to refrain from rushing. You didn’t want to come off like something was wrong. The door swung shut behind you, and you pressed your back against it, taking deep breaths to calm down.

As the door shut behind him, Jamie looked around Ola’s with a wide smile. Anastasia was to his left, hugging her arms around her torso.

“James, why are we here?” She asked him without a single effort to hide her annoyance. Flinching, he gave her a look. 

“Me whole team’s here,” He said, as if it were obvious. When she stared at him with a hard look, he sighed in defeat. “We won’t stay long.” 

It only took one teammate to notice Jamie for the whole room to erupt into cheers and shouts. He smiled as he walked up to Moe, clapping his hand into his friend’s before pulling him into a hug. 

“Life of the party’s here now, ain’t he?” 

Moe, Zoreaux and Colin all shook their heads and laughed as they greeted their friend. Jamie saw them glancing at Anastasia as she followed him through the room. She didn’t speak to anyone, and it took him a moment to realise she was staring down at her phone. 

Shaking off his annoyance, Jamie spotted Keeley at the other end of the table. She had her back towards him, and it appeared like she was talking to someone, though he couldn’t tell who. A comfort fell over him as he approached. 

“Hey, darlin’,” He said, putting his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, first in surprise, and then in excitement. 

“You made it!” She exclaimed, giving him a hug. He closed his eyes at the contact. After the week he had, and the date he was already predicting he was about to have, he needed a hug. When she pulled away, she nodded to the side. “Look who’s been keeping me company?”

He followed her gaze to the toddler in the high chair that he somehow missed upon approach. His face softened as he looked her up and down. She had deep brown curls and familiar looking eyes. He lowered himself down to her level, her round blues staring intently at him.

“And who are you, love?” He asked, his voice friendlier now. She pulled her hands away from her mouth.

“Ivy!” She exclaimed, trying to hide a smile.

“Ivy? My, what a lovely name!” Jamie threw a glance back at Keeley. “What, are you a nanny now or somethin’?” 

“Of course not, she’s-”

“You?” 

Jamie turned back to the toddler, his face curious and playful again. Ivy was staring at him with watchful eyes as she waited for his answer.  

“Who am I?” He asked, pointing to himself. She nodded excitedly. “I’m Jamie! Nice to meet ya!” He held a hand out towards her for a shake, but she just shoved it away. As she pulled her hands back towards her face, she eyed him, as if begging him to respond. He pretended to be offended with a loud gasp, which made her giggle. “Someone has to teach this muppet some manners!” He reached forward and gave her round tummy a tickle. A shriek of laughter left her mouth as she tried to escape him, though it was impossible due to the high chair. 

“Jamie!” Someone called from across the room. Turning away from his new friend, he rose to his feet, the welling feeling of elation in his chest dissipating. When a disgruntled shout came from behind, he turned towards Ivy once again, who looked at him with a fierce angry face that, for whatever reason, gave him deja vu.

“What?” He asked. In lieu of words, she angrily crossed her arms over her chest. He mirrored her, making the same face back at her. “Do ya want to come with me?” The anger washed away from her face in an instant, and was replaced with bright enthusiasm.

“Yes!”

Jamie’s heart lurched when Ivy reached out towards him, an invitation to pick her up. He hoisted her up and tossed her on his shoulders, receiving a squeal of approval in return. With one index finger in each of her hands to keep her steady, he began to walk the room.

“Dani!” Jamie shouted as he approached his friend. There was a bounce in his step now, and he could hear Ivy giggling as she held on tightly to his fingers. Rojas turned, his eyes immediately on the toddler and causing his crescent moon smile to fill his face.

“Hello there, amiga!” He exclaimed, taking a step forward. Ivy ducked behind Jamie’s head.

“This is Ivy,” He said proudly. He turned his head ever so slightly towards her. “Ives, this is Dani. He’s a friend! Don’t be shy.” Though she popped her head out a little more, she didn’t not greet the stranger. Jamie gave Dani a reassuring glance. “Don’t worry, she’s just feelin’ bashful, don’t ya, love?” Dani tickled Ivy’s foot, causing her to giggle loudly. A broad smile filled his cheeks.

Jamie continued his parade around the room. At the same time, he found himself wondering who this little girl belonged to. If she didn’t come with Keeley, the first person he saw her with, then who? She didn’t resemble anyone else in the room. And he thought he had met the families of at least most, if not all, his teammates.

The bell of the door rang out, and when Jamie turned, he saw Roy Kent walk inside. He gasped dramatically.

“Look who it is!” He announced as he made his way to the dark haired man. “Roy Kent! Roy Kent! He’s here-“ He jerked Ivy to the left. “He’s there-“ He jerked Ivy to the right. “He’s every-fuckin’-where!” He bounced to the beat of the song, instigated by the sounds of the little girl’s laughter.

“You might want to watch your fuckin’ language around her,” Roy warned. 

“Who are you to talk?” 

He shrugged. “Not a person walkin’ around with a toddler on my shoulders.” Though his face was still impossible to read, Jamie didn’t miss the way Roy’s eyes softened when he eyed Ivy. “Who brought her?” Jamie shrugged in an exaggerated fashion, making the toddler bounce and laugh once again.

“No idea.”

Roy began to head further into the room, with Jamie and Ivy close behind. The walnut mist footballer eyed the food table and remembered how starved he was. Not that he could do anything about it in the moment. 

“Are you having fun?” Rebecca asked as she approached. Jamie bounced some more, raising Ivy’s hands up along with his own before jerking them back down quickly, earning another contagious laugh. 

“I am,” He said, as Rebecca gave Ivy a fond look.

“She’s very sweet,” She remarked as she rubbed the toddler’s back lovingly. It seemed it wasn’t just Jamie who Ivy had wrapped around her finger. The whole room was slowly dropping like flies to the toddler’s adorable smile and piercing laughter.

“Who’s kid is she?” He asked Rebecca, the smile still wide on his face. Despite his distraction, he didn’t miss the way her smile faltered.

“You-“ She looked between him and Ivy, a deep crinkle forming between her eyebrows. “She’s-“

“Jamie Tartt!”

The shout started everyone in the room, including Ivy. He felt her release his hands as as he whirled around, his heart seizing as he felt her fall backwards off his lap.

The entire room seemed to pause. Jamie expected a loud thump, already flinching at his failure, but it never came. When he turned, he found that Ivy was safe in a pair of arms. 

Yours. 

Behind you was Jan Maas, who had stopped you when you were on your way out of the bathroom to return to the party. It was just a normal conversation, though not without some very intense and obvious flirting from his side. Since he’d been a few drinks deep at this point, and wasn’t on the roster as a participant in the therapy program at AFC Richmond, you decided to let it slide. It wasn’t until Anastasia had yelled out at her date that you turned and realised that your daughter was no longer in the high chair with Keeley. 

As you raised Ivy to your side, resting her on your hip, your eyes never left Jamie. His eyes were pleading as they stared into yours, the pieces of the puzzle coming together in his mind. Ivy picked that moment to wrap her arms around your neck, pressing her head against the side of yours.

“Mummy,” She said lovingly with a content sight. You raised your hand and patted her back. Opening your mouth to speak, you were stopped by the Russian model coming up behind Jamie.

“I want to leave,” She hissed into his ear. He glanced back at her with a look that suggested he had forgotten about her presence entirely.

His eyes turned back to yours, searching for answers. You had them all, but no words to give them with. 

Anastasia grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the door to leave. His feet dragged across the floor as he kept throwing glances back towards you, even still when he was outside and walking by the windows. 

The party had largely resumed, except for you, as you set Ivy back down in the high chair and sat down next to her. 

The moment you had never prepared yourself for.

He knows.

He knows. 

You stared at Ivy, who was now eating her foot again, albeit while acting a bit more fussy than she had before. Was she just worn out? Or was she missing him? You buried your face in your hands.

“Hey.” 

When you looked over, Keeley was sitting down next to you, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. You nod in acknowledgement. Even when you looked away, you could still feel her stare burning holes in the side of your head.

“So, you and Jamie…”

You closed your eyes.

“Yup,” You said slowly, drawing out the word. “Me and Jamie.” 

“How long ago was that?” 

You glanced at Ivy, who was dancing to the song playing over the speakers. “We knew each other forever, and dated for four years, I think. Ended about…” You narrowed your eyes in thought. ”…three years ago.” 

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Keeley looking between you and Ivy. You could practically see the maths she was doing in her head like it was written in white in the air around her. 

“Does he know?” She asked. You sigh before turning to look at her again. She nodded towards Ivy. “Does he know she’s his?” 

You laugh slightly without an ounce of humour. 

“He didn’t,” You said, with a shake of your head. “But he definitely does now.”

~

A/N

I don't know if anyone cares to know about this, but i thought I would take the time to explain some of my process with this fic, mostly because I love it and i've put a lot of thought into it! A big inspiration for this story has been the song Euclid by Sleep Token, and in particularly, the line "Yet in reverse, you were all my symmetry, a parallel I would lay my life on. So if your wings won't find you heaven, I will bring it down like an ancient bygone". The duel POVs are to show that, even though they aren't together, Reader and Jamie still have an unexplainable symmetry, and constantly parallel each other, and as the story goes on, the parallels will become more obvious. Each time the POV changes, it's when a thought or action of theirs parallel. The title also comes from this song, from the line "Do you remember me when the rain gathers?" You'll also notice that rain is a prominent feature in this fic. A fun fact is that I debated making the title the whole lyric, but decided it would be too long. This fic was also almost titled Take Me Back To Eden, which is another sleep token song, but i decided WTRG fit it better! If you cared enough to read all of this, thank you for supporting me in my writing. I have tried to slow down with my writing so i can take better care with my chapter planning and writing, I hope that work shows! Please let me know what you think! :)

~

TAGS

@oncasette, @shiptheship, @ajkdjdnkekemfxj, @breepboopbap, @sssatorus, @jelleeyfish, @puckyou-forpuckssake, @ricciardhoe3, @buckybarnex, @loveslide, @hopefulromances, @sokkigarden, @optimisticsandwichgladiator, @hanybunch, @skewedcherries, @pythagothug, @thatonedogwithablog, @gcidrvsh, @star-of-velaris, @burkayyy, @loveforaugust

[heartbreakgrill]

dancing queen; pedro pascal.

a/n: i’m a whore, that’s all i can say. no warnings. set during snl.

"alright, people!" liz clapped her hands together, reigning the attention of the noisy theatre.

i pushed my glasses up my nose and shuffled through the scripts on my lap. i brought out the first one, stuck underneath a thick packet with information about next week's show.

liz moved down the stage, to her director's chair alongside the cameras in front. "i wanna run through the intro once more. and probably the la scene. then, i'm gonna let you off early tonight. you've all been fantastic this week. and we've a late night tomorrow. sound good?"

she was replied with a loud cheer from the cast and crew, filling up the stage and pit areas. everyone got into their places and the lights began to dim. i uncapped my highlighter, chewing on the end of it. 

"and, action!"

the intro music of the show began playing. darrell hammond started reading the cast members off, ending with the musical guest, and our host;

"pedro pascal!"

my eyes followed the words on the script before me, but i lifted my gaze when his name was announced. the door behind the band opened, and he bounced out onto the stage.

the cast and crew clapped, and he responded like it was an actual audience- waving both his hands towards the audience. a giant grin overwhelmed his face, deepening the attractively placed wrinkles in his cheeks.

i pulled the highlighter from my mouth, lips parted slightly in admiration. he was really good looking.

"stop drooling."

i jumped in my seat, a light gasp sucked up in my chest, as heidi slid into the seat beside me. she chuckled lightly at my surprise.

"i'm not drooling," i rolled my eyes, hugging the thick binder to my chest. i set it back on my lap and reached down at to my feet for my bottle. "i was staring off into space."

"yeah, and i'm a martian," she scoffed.

i flickered my hand in her direction, and took a sip from my water bottle. "don't be ashamed. he's daddy."

i choked on the water streaming down my throat, face burning red as pedro stuttered across his words and stopped. liz sighed, "quiet in the audience, please."

i continued spluttering into my elbow, and heidi covered her mouth, laughing quietly as possible. pedro looked to the director and awaited his moment to continue his monologue. liz sighed again, turning slightly in her chair, "are you okay, y/n?"

pedro crossed his hands in front of him and followed her gaze my way. i know he couldn't see me because the lights were dimmed, but i blushed a bit. he looked concerned.

"fine, thanks!" i spoke, hoarsely. "sorry."

liz shook her head, "no worries."

pedro brushed a hand across his cheek. "i know my monologue is funny, but please don't die on my account."

the crew shared a laugh, before liz directed him to, "please, continue."

heidi patted my back gently. "he is soooo daddy."

"stop saying daddy and go get ready," i pulled my back away, dodging her touch.

she snorted before leaving me alone. i pressed my cold hands to my cheeks, hoping it would calm down the redness.

pedro, eventually, finished his monologue. i clapped, fervently, with the rest of the cast and crew. liz called out to everyone, again, and decided to release us for the evening.

i shoved all of my papers into my binder, clipped the highlighter onto the front, and pushed up off of my chair. heidi was on the stage, chatting with keenan, and i b-lined towards them.

my ears zoned in on their conversation, but my brain tuned them out, as i settled beside either of them. keenan interrupted himself, "hey, girlfriend."

i smiled up at him, "hi, keen. great job tonight."

he grinned at me. "its easy to do well when the sketches are so funny."

"aw, shucks!" i waved him off, smiling sweetly at the compliment. "no, seriously, though. must be something in the water this week. everyone's killing it."

heidi peered over my shoulder, a knowing smirk crossing her face, "i think it's partly pedro."

i turned my head and matched her gaze, "he is pretty funny." heidi shoved my shoulder lightly and my head snapped back around. "what?"

she licked her bottom lip, eyebrows flicking up at me. "you know what."

keenan looked between us with confusion, "i dont. what?"

"our sweet little y/n here," she wrapped an arm around my shoulders, "has the hots for mr. pascal."

keenan snickered, "well, duh. that's pretty obvious."

my face heated up. i clutched the binder tighter to me chest, as if i could disappear into its folds. "what!? what do you mean its obvious?"

keenan rose a brow at me, "uh- it’s obvious, honey. colin and i were making fun of you earlier when you were giving him his script. your face was so red.”

i banged my head against the binder, my chest fluttering. “oh, my god. that’s so embarrassing. do you think he noticed?”

heidi and keenan were laughing loudly at my flustering. keenan cleared his throat, but was still snickering slightly. “oh, i think he noticed. and i think he was into it.”

heidi gasped, excited at the idea, “yes! i saw him staring at her earlier, when she backstage helping liz with something. he was standing beside me on stage and we were talking about something, but he just trailed off!”

i lowered the binder and blew a raspberry through my lips. “you’re insane, heidi. that didn’t happen.”

keenan’s jaw dropped. “you know what this means?”

“what?” heidi leaned into him, bracing a hand in the air. “what does it mean?!”

he glanced to me, a twinkle in his eye. “we have to set them up!”

heidi made a screeching sound that caused me to cringe. i blushed; again. heidi grabbed my shoulders, shaking me about.

i pulled out of her clutches. “do not even think about it!” i interrupted both of them.

they ignored me, crowding each other as they started gossiping about it. they started off towards the dressing rooms and practically left me in the dust.

i threw my hands down in defeat and watched their backs retreat from view. after my hesitation, i began my way to where they probably were- heidi’s dressing room. as i turned the corner backstage, i heard pedro chatting away with someone up ahead. my mouth went dry and i quickly opened up my binder. i could pretend i was busy and wasn’t paying attention. i was so mysterious and hot and cool. i didn’t care about anything.

wrong.

pedro and colin were standing by the door to the lobby, where the elevators and stairs led away. colin glanced at me as i walked past. my hands shook slightly as i shuffled a paper around. i felt blood press against my skin.

as i fully passed them, i glanced up for just a second. pedro looked away from colin and met my eyes. he smiled cheerfully, waving a hand in my direction. my pupils blew out, and i pictured my eyes as hearts, like some animated caricature.

but, without even trying, a small smile painted my lips.

when i made it to heidi’s dressing room, i was practically gushy. my office was elsewhere, but i tended to hole up in her dressing room. i shared space with some interns, and they were usually annoyingly noisy.

i didn't mind their want to play music every time any of them were in the office. but they played weird shit, like, sometimes, the gummy bear song. heidi always let me play my music- and my music taste was impeccable.

keenan sat upon heidi’s couch, leaning forward as he listened intently to whatever heidi- sitting at her vanity- was rambling about. it sounded like they’d moved on from discussing me.

i slumped onto the couch beside keenan, dropping my binder on the floor. i picked up a throw pillow and stuffed my face in its embrace.

“ugh!” i yelped.

keenan and heidi trailed off. he pulled the corner of the pillow away from my face and my eye peeked out. “you good, girl?”

i shook my head and slouched against the couch, pillow in my lap. “you guys are right.”

heidi immediately broke out into a grin. “and what are we right about?”

i rolled my eyes with a deep, guttural sigh. “he’s so fucking hot.”

they shared a loud laugh, and i gave in, giggling along with them. keenan high-fived heidi. “i knew it! do we have permission to set you up?”

i shrugged. i blushed again, but i didn’t fight it. “honestly? please get me laid.”

heidi quickly stood from her spot. she went to her closet and dug around in a bag. i heard a glass clink and giggled. “is this an occasion deserving of the vodka?” keenan remarked.

heidi nodded excitedly, dropping back into her seat with a full bottle of liquor. she held three shot glasses in her other hand and carefully passed them out to us.

“we don’t have to be in until 3 tomorrow. it’s barely midnight. let’s party a little, yeah? celebrate the hopeful end of y/n’s dry period,” heidi uncapped the liquor as she spoke.

i scraped a nail against the tag on the shot glass. it was a nyc tourist gift, but it was special. we had bought it from times square my first night on the show. the liquor came from some bodega a few blocks away. it was our special sauce.

i guess pedro really was looking at me. damn. good for me.

heidi filled out glasses. we all clinked them together and let them slide down our throats. i crinkled my nose in disgust. plain liquor was nasty.

“another, please,” keenan sang, slamming the glass against the side of the vodka bottle.

thirty minutes later, we had done about half a dozen shots a person. i had shed my shoes a while ago, turned on some music through heidi’s little speaker. i knew others had stayed late, too, to study scenes or run over things for tomorrow. during the season, it was rare for the studio to be empty. so i kept the music at a reasonable volume as i began dancing to it.

heidi stood, trying to fill my shot glass. i jumped to the taylor swift song, the shot glass in my hand shooting up and down with me. i spun in a circle as i jumped and came face to face with heidi. she grinned at my happy exterior, warm from the liquor.

“can you stop for one sec?” she laughed.

i pouted, but settled on my heels. i bounced on the balls of my feet as she filled my glass, holding my hand steady. the song picked up again, and i swung my hips side to side, hitting every rhythm. when she finished, i quickly took it, set it down on the vanity, and spun in another circle.

“y/n,” keenan stood from the couch, holding out a hand. “turn it up!”

i glanced into the hallway, a little worried to disturb people. but, we never did this. we never let loose and had fun- me, specifically. we’d get brunch together, starbucks before rehearsal. we’d been to a few bars, but we never did shots and danced to loud music at work. it was fun. and after a hard week, it was deserved.

i reached over to the speaker and turned it up all the way. it’s not like we were going to get fired, anyways.

keenan and heidi joined me on the make-shift dance floor, doing their own, weird dance moves. a fleetwood mac song came on and i swear to god i went feral.

i cheered, pumped my fist in the air like a child, and began moving my body to the new beat. i was a decent dancer, i would admit that. i was always on beat, and though i made funny expressions, i was known for doing well at the club.

“i love this song!” heidi commented, jabbing her thumbs in either directions on each beat.

i laughed, running a hand through my hair. my eyes fell shut, my head slumped back, and i spun again, shaking my body around.

keenan reached out a hand again, and i took it, laughing as we danced together. he twirled me around, and i rubbed my butt against his side. i pulled away from him, pointed at heidi as the chorus came around again, and sang, “i wanna be with you everywhere!”

“damn, mama, get it!”

i swear to god, i burst into flames. we entered a parallel universe and the world exploded and i choked on my own throat and im dying. i’m dead. i died.

i stopped in my tracks, arms slack at my sides. i met heidi’s eyes, my own wider than possible, as my jaw hung open. she continued swaying side to side, but she was laughing very loudly. keenan snorted into his hand.

i turned, tucking my hair nervously behind my ears. pedro and colin stood outside of our door. the latter man was bent at the waist, laughter ringing throughout the hallway. i blushed, deeply, feeling red hot wash down my body, to the tips of my toes.

pedro was grinning at me, arms crossed, a rolled up script in his fist. i cracked a small smile, but i was incredibly embarrassed.

“what’re we drinking?” pedro asked, moving into the room. colin followed, popping onto the couch. pedro stood beside me, towering over my frame. he smelled like yumminess.

he looked down at me, grinning still. “cmon, don’t stop on our account. i wanna join in!”

it was probably the liquid courage in me, as i teetered on the edge of sober and a little drunk. but, i was happy because instead of being weird and nervous, i grabbed the vodka bottle from heidi and filled pedro a shot glass.

he held it between his fingers, watching as the vodka filled to the brim. we were standing very close to one another.

he looked up from the glass, meeting my eyes, and he flashed his teeth at me. i grinned, gooey eyed again.

i held the bottle to my chest when i finished filling his glass. he glanced to me again, “where’s yours? i can’t do one on my own.”

heidi handed me her shot glass. i knew the three of them were watching us intently, but it was thrilling- the undeniable tension in the room. i filled the glass.

i held it up to pedro, a silent cheers. he wrapped his arm around mine, maintaining direct eye contact. it tugged me forward a bit, and i wanted to sigh at the sweet touch of our skin. he kept his eyes on mine as we took the shots.

then, he took my glass from my hand and set the both of them on the vanity.

another song booted up; sex on fire by kings of leon. how perfect.

pedro held out his hand, tilting his head at me. i bit my lip, but took ahold of his palm. he wrapped his fingers around my hand, pulled me closer, and we started dancing.

heidi and keenan went back to it, and colin just watched, amused at our shenanigans. pedro and i moved in sync, jumping up and down, bouncing into one another, yelling the lyrics at the top of our lungs. during the chorus, he got real close to my face, looking me directly in the eye as he sang.

heidi remembered the strand of lights on her wall. she gasped, ran over to turn the lights off. we all cheered at the dimly lit room, feeling more like we were all at a club and not at work.

eventually, as the song changed to wet desk by wet leg, he pulled his touch lower on my arm, over the cap of my shoulder, straight down my side and to my hip. his fingers wrapped around my hip, and he tugged my closer. my back hit his chest, and our steps molded together, like we were attached by our hips. my hand was in the air, but it attached itself to the nape of his neck. i slid them through his fingers. his skin was warm.

i saw heidi out of the corner of my eye. her jaw fell open, her pupils wide. she stopped dancing, and slapped a hand on keenan’s shoulder. he was turned away, but slowly danced until he was facing us. i watched him register pedro and i. it was a silly expression that crossed his face.

pedro’s chin pressed against my neck. goosebumps tickled my skin.

his lips brushed against the bottom of my ear, “damn, mama.”

yeah, i was definitely dead.

—

it was 11:30. the band was playing the opening music, loud and clear in my headset. i sat in front of the stage, on a wooden chair with the black fabric back and butt. it didn’t have my name on it, just head writer in bold, white letters. i always felt fancy in it.

i adjusted my head set, pushed my glasses further up my nose. liz, sat beside me in her own chair, glanced at me as i shuffled. she smiled encouragingly.

darrell announced the cast members, like yesterday. the audience clapped, cheering as the red sing above our heads encouraged them to do. i shuffled some papers, and pulled out pedro’s monologue.

his name was announced and he ran out of the doors. i hadn’t seen him since yesterday, and i couldn’t lie- i was a little nervous. something between us, whatever it was, had been validated by last night’s dancing. it was up to someone to break that tension.

it sure as hell wasn’t going to be me.

i looked up from my binder, and i swear drool pooled in my mouth. he was wearing this purple shirt, long sleeved with a little ribbon hanging off of it. the color complimented his skin, his hair, so well. he was ten feet away, but i swear it brought out the gold in his brown eyes.

my eyes raked up his body, taking in his appearance. i felt liz nudge my arm and i glanced at her. she was grinning, “stop staring.”

i rolled my eyes. okay, so it was that obvious. i flicked her arm. she chuckled into her hand, attempting to be quiet.

pedro went on with his monologue, delivering it beautifully. by the end, the audience was crying with laughter. i let out a few giggles here and there, but i tried to maintain my composure. as he finished, pedro thanked the cast and crew for working with him this week. he turned his head towards either side of the stage, nodding at everybody. then, he dragged his eyes across the front of the stage, where liz and i sat. he waved at her, and when he met my stare, he dropped a wink.

i literally fangirled.

through the rest of the show, i was extremely antsy to see heidi and keenan and tell them what happened. finally, at around 1am, the credits rolled and the cameras shut off. i raced backstage, sliding my headset off of my ears and around my neck.

heidi was backstage, removing a wig from her head, when i practically tackled her. she flinched as i grabbed her shoulders, shaking them.

“oh, my god,” i groaned, hitting my head off her shoulder.

she laughed at my antics and pushed me off of her. “what?! what happened?!”

i stepped back, apologized to the hair dresser. i brushed down the wrinkles in my shirt, unable to hide the grin on my face. “he winked at me,” i held out my hands, as if delivering the news to her literally.

heidi’s head dropped back. she squealed, shaking her closed fists excitedly. “this is literally movie,” she looked back up at me. “you’re in a rom com.”

i giggled, “god, i hope so. listen, when are you and keenan going to, like..talk to him?”

it felt like we were in middle school, but i couldn’t care at this point. he wanted me.

god, life was so good.

“we already did,” heidi shrugged.

i gasped, covering my mouth with the palm of my hand. “what?”

she tapped my forearm, willing me to peel away my shock. “don’t freak out. it was before the show. we were just hanging around backstage.”

a dramatically long pause rolled between us. i popped my chin forward, brows raising up in my forehead. “uh…and?” i pushed her on.

heidi snickered, and stopped teasing me, “okay, he’s really into you, girl. we were just chatting about last night. and he brought you up. we didn’t even say anything. he asked if you were single, and we obviously said yes. he asked if we knew if you’d been like, looking for anything. and i practically screamed in his face. so, i think he’s probably going to be asking you out.”

i closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “what did i do to deserve such a wonderful fucking thing? thank you universe, thank you joe biden. just thank you, world, for such a blessing. i will not let you down.”

heidi snickered at my sarcasm. she stood after the hairdresser lifted the wig from her head. “honestly,” she thought for a moment, “god find him. go manifest that shit.”

i tapped my chin. “you think?”

“yes,” she waved me off, “he’s daddy, but i think he’s into, like, a power struggle. oh, you better tell me if i’m right or wrong whenever y’all…”

she made a suggestive face. i shoved her shoulder. i could only put up with so much.

i turned towards the stage, where pedro was standing with liz, chatting away excitedly. i looked back over my shoulder, at heidi. she flicked her brows at me. i took a confident step forward, and nearly stopped, but heidi pushed my lower back gently.

i approached liz and pedro slowly, fingers fumbling with one another in front of me. liz saw me over pedro’s shoulder and cut herself off. she patted his shoulder, murmured some kind of goodbye, and walked past me. she winked.

pedro turned in my direction, once he noticed i was there. he grinned brightly, “hey, mama.”

i melted into the floor. a smile grew on my expression. i was nervous, but none of that mattered when he looked at me like that. “hey. great job out there.”

“hey, the script was great,” he corrected me. “you’re seriously talented at writing. and, you know, dancing.”

i blushed and looked down at my shoes. “jeez, thanks.”

pedro chuckled lightly. “last night was fun.”

i looked back up at him, meeting his golden-brown eyes. they were very…nice.

“yeah.” i braced myself with confidence thoughts, squaring my shoulders and standing a little taller, “we should do it again sometime.”

pedro’s chin tilted, a knowing look crossing his gaze. “you know, i’m back in new york for the time being. my schedule’s open.”

“then it’s a date.”

we went dancing.

[star-writes-sometimes]

bullying and cuddles

word count: 2.3k

cw: fem reader, reader implied to have anxiety cause im projecting, swearing, bullying (affectionate), fluff, idiots in love, probably ooc tangerine but whatever

a/n: i needed domestic fluff, is this similar to other stuff ive written? yes but i dont care i love domestic fluff. i geniuenly was debating posting this because i kinda hate it but yknow c'est la vie

---—---

you emerged from the safe house bathroom after brushing your teeth in an old tshirt and pyjama shorts. both of the boys bedroom doors were closed and you could hear the thomas the tank engine theme song coming from lemon’s room. 

the door of your room was open and your suitcase was on the ground, clothes messily thrown all over the place. you had been here for about four days now so you were settled in as much as you could be in a new environment.

you and the twins were staking out a place and it was long and tedious, by this point you were thoroughly bored and ready for this to end so you could go back home. you couldn’t stand another night in the cold unfamiliar bed. 

so, instead you knocked on tangerine’s door.

“come in.”

you opened the door and walked in, quickly shutting it behind you and leaning against it, facing tangerine. he was sat up in his bed reading a book. he was wearing a plain tshirt and pyjama pants. he looked comfy, more relaxed than he usually was. the quilt was folded neatly at the end of his bed and his suitcase on the floor was immaculately organised, a stark contrast to how your room looked.

“hi,” he said smiling at you.

“hi,” you returned the smile.

“cute pyjamas.”

you were wearing a faded marvin the martian tshirt and pyjama shorts covered in little oranges, “they’re oranges.”

“you sure you didn’t wear them just for me, love?” he smiled wider at you, cocking his head to the side slightly, “cause you look adorable.”

“why would i wear them for you, you’re my third favourite person in this house,” you scoffed.

“are you putting yourself above me?”

“i know my worth,” you squinted at the book he had in his hands, “whatcha reading?”

“uhh,” he glanced down at the page he was on, “the hunger games.”

“really?” 

“why are you surprised?”

“i don’t know,” you laughed slightly, “i can only image you reading old or pretentious books.”

“are you calling me pretentious?”

you snapped your fingers in realisation, “tolstoy, you seem like the tolstoy type have you read anna karenina?”

“well, yes i have but i don’t just read old books.”

“so, hunger games.”

“yeah, it’s good criticism on violence in capitalistic societies.”

“i don’t think professional assassins should have a say on violence in capitalistic societies.”

he rolled his eyes, “then i enjoy the commentary on consumerism.”

you glanced at the gold jewellery on the bedside table, “i don’t think you can have a say on that either.”

he followed you eye line, “oh fuck off.”

you laughed, “i’m sorry, i’m sorry.” you shifted around slightly in your spot against the door.

“did you come in here for a reason or just to take the piss out of me?”

you thought back to your lifeless room, “i was bored and i couldn’t annoy lemon.”

“why not, you’d probably enjoy his company more than mine,” his eyes drifted back down to his book.

“he’s watching thomas and there’s only so much of that i can take.”

he nodded, “understandable.”

there was a pause and you fidgeted with your hands nervously. you didn’t notice tangerine staring at you intently, contemplating what he should do.

“come sit with me,” he gestured to the empty spot next to him.

“are you sure?” you hesitated, bringing up your hand to chew on your nails.

“‘course love.”

you slowly moved over and sat on the bed next to him, keeping distance between you both on the queen sized bed.

it was silent again and you pulled your knees up against your chest, resting your chin on your knee.

“what part are you up to?” you asked.

“the interviews with caesar.” he turned his head and focused on you, noting your position and the gap you put between the both of you, “have you read it before?”

“back when i was a teenager but not since then.” you avoided his eyes, feeling anxious about the sharp eye contact, “have you read it before?”

“yeah, i’ve read it a few times.”

you just hummed in response. despite the nervous thoughts running through your head it felt better being in here with tangerine than being alone in your room. it was better having anxiety over being alone with the guy you were crushing on than the emptiness you would have felt by yourself in your room. 

“come here love.” he said softly.

“what?” your eyes snapped up to him.

“sit next to me properly.” 

you moved slightly closer, still leaving space between you both.

tangerine rolled his eyes and put his arm around your waist, pulling you into his side, “i’m not gonna fucking bite ya love, you can sit next to me.”

you scrunched your nose up at him, “i just didn’t want to get cooties.”

“you think i have cooties?”

“yup you have phytophthora gummosis.”

“what the fuck are you talking about?”

you laughed and leant into him more, “it's a disease that affects citrus trees.”

he tried not to smile, “how long have you been waiting to make that joke.”

“a few weeks,” you smiled brightly, “i did research on citrus trees.”

“just so you could take the piss out of me?”

“i had to, you look cute when you’re all annoyed and scrunch your eyebrows up.” you reached up and run over one of his eyebrows with your thumb.

“don’t call me cute.”

“why not? you are.”

“i’m meant to be intimidating.”

“how could anyone be scared of you? you’re reading the hunger games.”

“very funny, i can be scary and enjoy the hunger games.”

“are you team peeta or gale?”

“definitely peeta, he was smart and a romantic,” tangerine said, like he had thought about it a lot before.

“oh so you’re a romantic that adds to your scariness.”

“you’re bullying me, you’re a bully,” he pinched your side, enjoying the way you squirmed into him.

you yawned and put your head on his shoulder. he repositioned his arm that was around your shoulder and started stroking your hair.

“are you tired darling?”

you blinked sluggishly, “yeah… i should probably go-”

you started to get up but was stopped and cut off by tangerine.

“no, stay,” he held onto you, “you just relax.”

you bite your lip anxiously but try to relax into him again. you stared at the book in his hand, studying the mockingjay symbol on the cover. 

“what’s on your mind pet?”

you felt your neck heat up at the unfamiliar nickname, “uh can you maybe read to me?”

“you want me to read to you?”

you nodded.

“you sure you’ll be able to understand with the accent?”

“you’re british not an alien, i can understand you fine.”

“okay.” he pulled you close, you settled with your head on his chest and his arm comfortably around you. he smiled down at you, silently grateful that you couldn’t see the way he was looking at you, “you ready?”

“yeah,” 

“okay darling,” he took his focus off you and onto the book, “i’m still in a daze for the first part of peeta’s interview. he has the audience from the get-go, though; i can hear them laughing, shouting out. he plays up the baker’s son thing, comparing tributes to the bread from their districts.”

“what would your strategy be in the interviews?” you asked.

“i’m not sure.”

“i don’t think you could pull off the charming thing.”

“wow, thanks love your doing wonders for my self esteem,” he replied sarcastically.

you smiled, “no that’s not what i meant, you’re plenty charming, i just think you’d be better as one of those career tributes everyone is scared of.”

“i thought you said i wasn’t scary?”

“shhh that was minutes ago you should’ve forgotten about that by now, just keep reading.”

“right sorry,” he laughed slightly, “then he has a funny anecdote about the perils of the capital showers. ‘tell me, do i still smell like roses?’ he asks caesar, and then there's a whole run where they take turns sniffing each other that brings down the house.”

“maybe you would be charming, you always smell really nice.”

“thank you, darling,” he kissed your forehead and pulled you impossibly closer, “you smell nice too.”

you smiled and adjusted your position so you could hold onto his shirt. 

“i’m coming back into focus when caesar asks him if he has a girlfriend back home.” he continued, “peeta hesitates, then gives him an unconvincing shake of his head. ‘handsome lad like you. there must be some special girl. come on what’s her name?’ says caesar. peeta sighs. ‘well there is this one girl. i’ve had a crush on her ever since i can remember. but i’m pretty sure she didn’t know i was alive before the reaping.’”

tangerine glanced down at you half surprised and half disappointed you didn’t interrupt again. he liked listening to you talk.

your breathing had evened and your eyes had closed. you’d fallen asleep against him. he bookmarked the book and placed it on his side table. he carefully reached down, grabbed the quilt and pulled it over the both of you.

“goodnight, love.” he kissed your cheek gently.

— 

lemon woke up the next morning and stumbled into the kitchen, prepared to see tangerine already up and cooking breakfast for the three of you. he was shocked to find the kitchen empty, no trace of you or tangerine. 

he looked over at both your bedroom doors and saw yours open and empty. weird. you were usually the last awake, having to be woken up by one of the twins.

lemon walked over to tangerine’s door and opened it, “hey bruv have you seen-” he cut himself off looking down at the scene in front of him.

you were asleep in tangerine’s arms and he was holding you close. he was awake and staring down at you, playing with your hair and gently tracing your features as you slept.

lemon snickered, “whats going on here, then?”

“shut the fuck up,” tangerine immediately fired back but lemon knew it was less harsh than it usually was. despite all the teasing tangerine knew he’d get, he was happy.

“this is cute, it really is.” lemon quipped, “but i have no clue how to make breakfast so please get up soon.”

“i’m not interrupting her sleep just cause your fucking incompetent.”

“fine, just don’t blame me if i burn this place down trying to make toast,” lemon started to leave.

“stop, just wait ten minutes then i’ll make you some fucking food.”

“thanks bruv, really appreciate it.”

“whatever.”

lemon left and tangerine was alone with you again. 

tangerine moved your hair away from your face, “sweetheart?” he kissed your forehead, “if you don’t wake up soon the smoke alarm will probably wake you.”

you stretched slightly and snuggled into tangerine more, “this is nicer than the way lemon wakes me up.”

“if we don’t get up soon lemon is gonna try to cook,” he held your face and kissed you cheek gently.

“we can’t have that he’ll probably poison us all,” you sat up and rubbed your eyes, “why is your bed comfier than mine?”

“because i actually make mine?” he got up and stared down at you still wrapped in the blanket.

“ha ha,” you laughed dryly and fell back into the bed.

you closed your eyes again and settled back into the bed, pulling the blanket up to your chin. it really was a comfortable bed. 

your peaceful rest was interrupted by getting lifted into the air.

your eyes flew open as tangerine picked you up, carrying you into the kitchen. you wrapped your arms around his neck and held on tightly.

"what the fuck are you doing, you fucking numpty!?"

"you looked peaceful i didn't want to have to wake you again."

"well it didn't fucking work you twat."

"sorry, love," he set you down on the kitchen bench and kissed you cheek, "but you look cute when your annoyed."

you felt your face heat slightly and turned your face away from him.

"stop flirting and make me breakfast." lemon interrupted.

"you could say please, you wanker," tangerine snapped at him.

"please, make us breakfast, please, mr. fruit?" you said giving your best puppy dog eyes.

"for you, not for him, darling." 

you smiled, "thank you, tan."

“you’re a twat,” lemon added.

tangerine flipped lemon off and started making pancakes. you jumped off the kitchen bench and moved over to the kettle, checking it was full before boiling it.

“lemon, do you want a cuppa?”

“yeah,” lemon mumbled, distracted by his comic.

tangerine whacked lemon up the side of his head.

“yes please, sweetheart," lemon corrected himself.

“thanks lem,” you laughed slightly at the sibling abuse.

the kettle flicked off and you finished making the three cups of tea and handed one to lemon who smiled in thanks. you walked over to tangerine and placed one on the counter in front of him.

tangerine grabbed your waist and pulled you in for a kiss on the cheek, “thank you pet.”

you pulled away from him and started drinking your own cup, watching tangerine as he cooked and plated the golden pancakes.

“so did you two fuck last night?” lemon abruptly asked.

you choked on your tea and tangerines head snapped up to glare at him.

“no we slept together,” tangerine slowly replied.

lemon snorts, “i thought that was the same thing.”

“no you bellend we actually just slept, we were tired,” tangerine snapped.

you gulped down the rest of your tea and quickly placed your mug in the sink, “i’m gonna go shower boys, please save me some pancakes.” you smiled at the both and walked into the bathroom, locking the door behind you.

once you were gone lemon spoke up again, “you gonna tell her you love her yet?"

“shut up,” tangerine hissed, glancing at the shut bathroom door.

“she likes you too you know.”

tangerine didn’t respond for a few seconds, “really?”

“you’re in love with each other you both just fucking stupid.”

and for once tangerine didn’t feel the need to throw an insult back, he just reveled at the thought that you could like him too.

[samgirl98]

Mending a Family 22/?

Prev | Next

Father and son day out!

Danny vibrated with excitement as dad put on a leather jacket. (He didn’t know why his dad put one on; it was the middle of summer.)

The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the stars were in full view. Today, it would be a father-son trip to the planetarium.

“Have fun, you two,” Jazz said. She wore a robe, and her hair was all over the place.

“We will, Jazz,” Danny said, excited.

His dad put Danny in the booster seat. He didn’t even complain because the sooner they left, the sooner they would get there. It would take almost six hours to get there. (Danny suggested flying, but his daddy said it was too dangerous.)

Danny watched as the sun rose in the sky and read the pamphlet his dad had printed out over and over again.

“Can we go to the gift shop at the end,” Danny asked.

“Of course, chum. What’s a trip to a planetarium if we don’t go to the gift shop afterward?”

“Yay,” Danny yelled in excitement.

Danny spent the car ride giving his dad facts about space. Anything he could think of, from constellations to black holes to galaxies. Danny talked about it all. He even talked about how gravity differed in Space from Earth and the equations used to determine how far anything was. Danny was afraid his dad would get bored after a while but could feel his dad’s enthusiasm.

Danny cheered when he saw the “Welcome to Montreal” sign in French and English.

“How much longer, daddy?”

“Half an hour,” Jason said, smiling at the excited little boy.

How did he get so lucky to have Danny in his life?

Jason parked and carried a vibrating Danny into the planetarium.

Danny’s overwhelming happiness and excitement hit Jason like a freight train when they entered the planetarium.

Jason put his little boy down but held on to his hand so he wouldn’t run off.

“Bienvenue à le planétarium du Montréal. Comment je peux veux aider?” (Welcome to the Planetarium of Montreal. How can I help you?)

“Daddy, what did she say,” Danny asked while tugging on Jason’s shirt.

“Bonjour, j’ai besoin du deux billet, mais je suis américain. Je puis obtenir des services in anglais?” (Hello, I need two tickets, but I’m American. Can I get English services?)

“Of course, sir. How many tickets?”

“I need one for an adult and one for a child, please.”

Danny had tuned out the two adults and stared at the ships they had hanging on the ceilings. It had been so long since he had the chance to come to a planetarium. He had been ten the last time. (He ignored that he was five this time around. It was too confusing to think about.)

“Okay, chum, I got our tickets to enter and for the shows. Ready to go in.”

 “Yeah, yeah!” Danny jumped up and down excitedly.

“Have a good time,” the lady said before turning to the next family.

Danny led his daddy deeper into the building. He stared and drooled over the exhibits. There was alien technology that would never exist on his Earth.

The Metropolis Space Museum had recently lent the planetarium its Krypton exhibit. There was a model of Superman’s baby spaceship. A few imitation kryptonite rocks and part of the meteor Superman had been in during his ride to Earth.

Next, there were smaller exhibits on Tamarian and Martian technology and culture. Danny ate it all up. Jason had to remind Danny to be careful with his eyes as he stared at the new technology he had never seen in his dimension.

It was nothing new or exciting to Jason, who had met Superman and Starfire. He had fun watching his son’s adorable face.

They caught a show of Clark’s passage through space when he was a baby. He had donated the images when he found them in his spaceship. They went to another about every known sun with civilization and how each culture interacted.

(This was thanks to the Green Lantern Corps.)

Then, they watched a few shows that were closer to home. As much as Danny enjoyed learning about alien culture and technology, there was just something fun watching about the phenomena that happened on their turf.

Danny enjoyed the one that showed all the planets and different constellations from the Earth’s perspective while playing orchestra in the background.

Jason took them to eat and then to an activity room where children could replicate satellites and space telescopes with Lego.

Finally, at the end, Jason took Danny to the gift shop. Danny bought a plush of Martian Manhunter, a rocket he would build, and a lamp with planets orbiting the sun. He also got a keychain for Jazz and a starry blanket for Ellie, all with daddy’s money, of course.

Jason had to carry his little boy to the car. Danny’s sleep contentment enveloped Jason, and he reveled in it.

“Did you have fun, lad,” Jason asked as he buckled his baby boy in.

“I had the funnest day ever! We don’t have aliens in my world, so learning about the different cultures was the best!”

“I’m glad you liked it. What was your favorite part?”

“Learning about Superman and Martian Manhunter. I think Martian Manhunter is my favorite Justice League member!”

Jason laughed.

“Remind me to tell you stories about Uncle Clark later.”

“Who’s Uncle Clark?”

“I’ll tell you a secret: Uncle Clark is Superman.”

Danny woke up a bit hearing that tidbit of information.”

“Y’know Superman? He’s your uncle?”

Jason laughed while feeling a ping of guilt; he hadn’t told Danny much about his time as Robin.

“Yeah, he’s da—Bruce’s best friend, so he came around the Manor a few times. Plus, I met him in the Watch Tower in space.”

“You’ve been to space? Have you met Martian Manhunter?”

Jason regaled his son of his time as Robin on the ride home. Danny fell asleep to his daddy’s voice as he told his stories.

Jason couldn’t wait to have another day out with his precious boy.

I've never been to a planetarium, but then I thought to myself, this DCU, they have aliens. I can put whatever I want. Anyway, if anyone has actually been to the Planetarium of Montreal, sorry for it not being accurate.

@itsberrydreemurstuff @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @skulld3mort-1fan @theauthorandtheartist @emergentpanda-blog @jaggedheart11 @fisticuffsatapplebees @booberrylizard @fantasticbluebirdfan @thegatorsgooseoose @cyrwrites @kjoboo91 @crystallicedart @amaramizuki666 @spekulatiusmuffin @meira-3919 @kilasmess @bubblemixer @lexdamo @wonderland-daisy @mj-arts-n-stuff @amyheart19 @dolfay @the-church-grimm @undead-essence @aph-mable @lizisipancardo @purrloin77 @writer-extraodinaire @charlietheepic7 @sinfulloccultist @nootherusernameworked @coruscateselene @chaoticchange @itsberrydreemurstuff @gmkelz11 @feral-bunny31 @paroovian @thatonegaybitch68 @d4ydr34min9 @overtherose @fandomwandererer @vipower001 @thordottir45 @blackrabbitt3t @rosecinnamonbun @bianca-hooks123 @epilepticnerd @dat1angel @consouling @flamingenchiladadragon @all-mights-asscheeks @ender-reader @fuyu-bitch @ravenswife

[teacuptoast]

Dead or Alive or Neither

Relation: Young Justice x platonic! gn! reader

Warnings: angst (when do I ever post something happy?) to fluff ig, dark, the reader is not live, laugh, loving.

Words: 0.8k

Summary: "Some days I don’t know if I’m alive or dead amongst the living."

A/N: Another short little blurb that kinda took a dark turn and then took a light turn. Anyway schools kicking my ass right now so it's hard to find motivation. Let me know if you want a part 2 because I've got some ideas. Anyway, Enjoy!!!

Navigation

There are so many more people than you think. They’re everywhere. On every park bench in the city and drifting past you on the street. 

Some of them are old, some of them young, and the tragic ones are little. They’re pale and dim and with a strong gust of wind, you think they’d blow away. Most of them smile at me but are scared once I smile back. They spiral into confusion as they try to speak. Though I pretend to look past them because there are just so many.

The rare ones that aren't fooled easily follow me around. Samuel, from the bakery down the street, likes to critique my pastries while Debbie, an English teacher, looks over my job application essays. More times than not this older version of me welcomes the help.

I remember being young. Other kids were outside, running down the streets playing tag or at the naborhood pool. My delicate mind was found in the backyard forest. I’d play with the white birds, pale squirrels and misty foxes till nightfall. Dancing around me would be generations of forestlife, all celebrating, living through my own spirit. 

Although when I left the forest, there were no more foxes or squirrels or birds. There were people everywhere. There was now the old lady from down the street drifting around the neighborhood. Or there was the man who didn’t have a face or the woman with holes in her stomach. They were on every corner, in every building, and behind me at every second. I was scared, I was seven.

Now I'm twenty one. Just a normal person with a normal life, a normal family, a normal school and a not so normal team of superheroes. They just thought I was a good fighter, and had an intuition that could tell them what's around every corner. My ‘intuition’ was really just the old soul, who would tell me what would come of our actions.

It was truly a ‘fake till you make it’ situation. Fake being perfect. Fake being happy. Fake being a hero. I was fake, H/N wasn't real and I'm just a shell of a person.

I don’t take my mask off around them, not because I care about my identity, but I can’t let them see the person I am. Some days I don’t know if I’m alive or dead amongst the living.

“Thank you for coming to this service, now you may give your goodbye.”

Almost simultaneously, we all stood up once the mic settled. Rowes upon rows of people all here to grieve the loss of a friend, family member, or lover. Roes in our hands, I had to make sure Dick didn’t pick the petals off during the ceremony. He was anxious and nervous. Though there was nothing I could do to soothe the teens' suffering.

Silent sobs were heard from my teammates, as most of them rarely had encounters with the dead. I tried to cry, I really did, but I couldn’t seem to sympathize.

One by one more people kept walking towards the casket, starting with his own family, followed by members of the league. We began to file out of the row into the aisle. First was Nightwing followed by Conner, next was a broken Martian and Atlatian. Lastly was Artamis.

Over her lover's empty casket she cried and tried to steal any last moment she could with him. Though after a long time, she walked away and joined the others in a warm embrace.

Taking a few steps upward I stopped before the wood. A small grin rested on my face, waiting to drop my flower on top of the casket. Slowly I read the name on the casket.

“I’ve got to ask,” I questioned in a whispered voice, “What's it like showing up to your own funeral, Wallece?” Looking up I meet the eyes of a familiar ghostly redhead. He looked a little stunned at first, confused as if I was really talking to him. Scrambling he tried to talk, but couldn’t seem to find the words.

Smiling, I continued, “Yes I can see you, no need to choke up,” Dropping my flower onto the wood I asked again, “Speak now or forever hold your peace.” 

“Artemis, please take care of her.” He stumbled out in a hurry, but I cut him off before he could finnish.

“Of course Wally,” I responded in hopes of soothing him, but I quickly cut to the chase, “I know you want to stay here, watch over us, but you have to move one. You don’t get too long to decide and I highly suggest you take your ticket upstairs.”

Silence now covered us as he quietly spoke, “I will just…promise you’ll keep her safe.”

“With my life,” I added, “Now rest Wally. It’s time to go home.” With my final words to him I gave him one last somber smile before walking off to the others. 

Maybe I’m just dead or alive or neither.

A/N: How was the story? Got some feedback? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading and I'll see you soon

[mutable-manifestation]

The Ghost King (of Miscommunication) Ch. 20

Part 1-12,Part 13,Part 14,Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19

Part 20!

Info:

DC timeline is fucked, I’m going with the “Batman know most ids but hasn’t revealed himself yet” and a use of the ol’ canon “Brucie Wayne is That Famous(™)" and known as being a serial adopter.

As for how Deadman knows things: Rama pulled a favor with clockwork to let Deadman mature as a ghost/learn about important zone information & culture before yeeting him back to the living world with no time lost bc balance reasons.

He doesn’t know everything about the zone - he’d be garbage at finding his way around and he doesn’t really know anybody - but he knows customs and he knows about halfas bc all info about the Ghost King was High Priority Know This Or Don’t At Your Own Risk (the risk is that will turn u into a . He basically spent a subjective decade practicing his powers or reading books on ‘how to ghost’ next to Rama. He never has to go back to the realm to ‘recharge’ because Rama just kinda beams him what he needs to keep going.

***

“Well,” Constantine starts as he - ‘Finally,’ Bruce thinks - steps up to the table, evidently finished examining the scene, “I can tell you why we couldn’t find shit wrong in Gotham.”

“Elaborate,” Bru- Batman - he has to be Batman, now, has to be calm and think if he wants to get Jason back - demands.

“Don’t get your cape in a twist, Dadman, I’m getting there.” Constantine rolls his eyes, taking a seat.

“There’s a reason I don’t visit Gotham if I can help it - other than its stellar reputation and your renowned hospitality to outsiders.”

His amused snort very quickly transitions to a grimace.

“Gotham’s got the magical equivalent of background radiation. Real uncomfortable stuff. Feels like walking in the world’s biggest graveyard. And that-” he jabs a thumb over his shoulder “-feels just like it.”

“You’re saying he’s being kept somewhere in Gotham?” Red Robin perks up, voice hopeful and doubtful at once.

“No,” Constantine shoots down. “I’m saying whatever little fairy theory the kid had going was wrong, the fae haven’t lived in hell for centuries now. Even if it were them, pocket dimensions don’t actually work like that.”

“Wherever that portal led to reeks of death-” the Gotham heroes all tense at this, the others shooting them tentative looks of concern as Constantine steamrolls on “-and Gotham is exactly enough of a cesspit to have covered up the stink of it before. If it weren't for him being treated relatively well there, I woulda guessed he’d been dragged to hell. Dunno much about heaven - obviously - but I’ve never heard of them having escapees.”

“Obviously not,” Robin snaps, standing. “Red Hood is not dead, he was just here. We were able to see and interact with him, without any need for your tricks. Now can you tell us what it is, or do you just intend to sit there and list off all of the things that it is not?”

Beside him, a brace of batarangs appears in Black Bat’s hand, fanned out threateningly.

“Black Bat, Robin, that’s enough.” Batman commands, voice leaving no room for argument.

“He didn’t have a pulse.”

All eyes snap to Oracle, whose voice is only barely heard thanks to the silence following Batman’s words.

“That doesn’t mean anything!” Red Robin insists. “Superman and Martian Manhunter don’t always have a detectable pulse! We already know Hood is…different now. But that doesn’t mean he’s dead! Some kind of magic or advanced tech could’ve-”

“You think I don’t know that?” Oracle demands softly. “I don’t want him to be dead either, but lying to ourselves will just make things harder. We need to know the truth if we’re going to get him back, whether we like that truth or not.”

Constantine allows a few seconds of somber silence before opening his mouth to break it, but is cut off by the door slamming open.

“I’m here,” Shazam says, rushing to his seat, “What’s going on?”

“One second,” Constantine interjects, “Deadman is here too. Let me just….”

Deadman pops into visibility over the table.

In lieu of re-explaining, they play back the relevant recordings - Batman had started them the moment he sat down, just in case.

There were only perhaps 15 minutes of relevant video, including the explanation, the re-kidnapping, and what little Constantine had told them - they’d spent much of the time Jason had been present getting details, brainstorming potential counter-strategies, and just generally killing time in the hopes that the clock would run out and everything would be fine.

“And that’s everything we have so far,” Batman says as he pauses the video - no need to replay the argument. “Thoughts?”

“Well, Conny’s right that they ain’t fairies. You’re not gonna like the answer, though.” Deadman starts, ignoring Constantine’s glare.

“If you have answers we want to hear them, whether we like them or not.” Batman insists, trying to reign in the fragile hope trying to bloom in his chest in favor of bracing himself.

“That portal led to the Infinite Realms - more commonly called ‘The Ghost Zone.’ As the name implies, it’s infinite and - whaddaya know - full of the dead.”

“Then Red Hood is…what? In heaven? Limbo?” Batman’s mind races; was it even possible to steal him back? Had they just…been allowed a final goodbye?

“Nah,” Deadman says, breaking him out of his thoughts.

“Heaven, Hell, Purgatory - those places might be all Constantine has interacted with, but you gotta remember that I talk to Rama. Avatar of Vishnu? Yeah. The afterlife is a lot more complicated than most people think; fact of the matter is, all the afterlives people have believed in over the ages exist, and they all sit neatly in their own little slices of the Realms.”

Deadman floats to sit cross-legged at the head of the table.

“The only reason portals to hell and other locations in the Realms look different is because the local deity and/or devil makes them so, but much of the Zone is ungoverned by any specific deities or devils, so if you just open a portal to a random location, odds are it’s gonna be the green swirly.”

“So he is dead,” Signal concludes mournfully.

“Not necessarily. Kid said he got pulled through a portal to some kind of medical center, right? And his body was completely normal until one day he woke up looking different. And you lot didn’t find a body anywhere?”

“No,” Batman answered, “All we could find was the residue from the portal.”

“Well, if he’d up and died he shoulda left a body behind; it woulda been dumped back out by now - somewhere obvious, too, ghosts are big on proper burials. So unless someone managed to vaporize him, odds are he’s not fully dead, but he’s definitely at least a little dead.”

Robin scoffs, “‘A little dead.’ Do you hear yourself? Either he is dead or he is alive, there is no in between for that kind of thing.”

Deadman merely snorts.

“Says the liminal.”

Robin frowns.

“Liminal?” Robin, Batman, and Constantine all chorus.

“I thought that was just Gotham being possessive,” Constantine continues with a raised brow, turning an appraising eye on the batfamily.

“No,” Deadman answers, “All of you bats and birds are liminal - some more than others. Just a little changed, just a little touched by death. With any luck, the missing kid’s case is just a bit more severe. But we can talk more about that later. Back to the kid.”

And they will get to it later. Jason is their priority now, but if something is going on with his kids Bruce intends to know about it.

Deadman pauses to take an unneeded breath.

“I’m gonna be real with you - and Batman, don’t freak out - but it sounds to me like he’s been ghost adopted.”

A beat.

“Excuse me?”

Deadman waits for the litany of ‘what the hell’s and ‘ghost adopted???’s and ‘he already has a family!’s to die down.

The non-Gotham members of the League remain quietly confused - hoping this means things can be resolved peacefully while privately wondering if the bats and birds really would turn out to be some kind of self-unaware cryptids.

“Okay. Ghosts form when enough ectoplasm and ectoenergy - which you can think of as basically the carbon and electricity of the Zone, I guess, at least in this context - are present at the death of a being experiencing strong emotions. In the absence of that perfect mixture, a shade - just a soul with no real power - is formed, only able to become a proper ghost and form a core if brought to the Infinite Realms-”

“A core?” Batman asks.

“Ghost brains, basically. Anyway, ghosts can also form if there’s enough ectoplasm and energy in one place, either from the zone itself - known as neverborns - or from strong enough ghosts intentionally forming them - known as naturalborns. Now, ghost families don’t work the same as living families do. Ghost families form from a sort of ‘dibs’ system-”

“Dibs?” comes Flash’s incredulous voice.

“I’m gettin’ there,” Deadman sighed at the second interruption. “As I was sayin’. Regardless’a how, once a core is formed the new ghost is considered a baby ghost. It isn’t really a one-and-done process. Sure, once you’ve got a core you’ve got a ghost now, but not a mature one. Cores have to grow until they reach a stable size and energy level - usually marked by natural power acquisition settling down and ectoplasm fluctuations stabilizing. How long it takes depends on the quality and quantity of ectoplasm and ectoenergy available - the shortest known time was just under 5 years, longest was a few hundred, I think? Average is a decade or two.

This is relevant,” Deadman emphasizes for those who are visibly growing impatient, “For two reasons.”

“Firstly,” he holds up a finger, “The ecto a ghost takes in while maturing has an impact on how it develops, the powers it ends up with naturally. Everything in the zone is made of ectoplasm, and ghosts both take it in and echo out the excess - like plants, kinda. Maybe.

So if a baby ghost is around, say, a fire ghost a lot of the time it’ll probably end up with fire powers of its own. Assuming it was early enough and their core wasn’t already leaning towards ice or something. A stronger ghost parent also means faster growth.

Now, the Infinite Realms are infinite. People can’t always find each other, some people die at different times, some people return to the cycle before their loved ones die, some are neverborns, etc. Most sapient beings want friends and family, it’s just how it goes. So ghosts sometimes just kinda. Dibs each other.

Multiple dibs’ are pretty abnormal; baby ghosts aren’t actual babies in the human sense of the word. They don’t just pick a parent and stay there all the time while they’re waiting to mature. There’s generally that first few week-to-month period where they’ll stay put with whoever dibses them first for safety until the basics settle in, but after that? Ghosts explore, and dibs occur, and lots of newbies end up with something like a dozen parents and however many siblings-in-dibs.

Secondly,” another finger joins the first in a peace sign, “And what I suspect - and hope - is that while souls can fail to form cores and become shades, the opposite is also possible; a living being can become liminal enough to form a core. Making dibsing pretty much inevitable - no decent ghost is going to leave a baby seemingly stranded in the living world to starve into nonexistence. Gotham might have enough polluting the place, but it’s pretty much all rancid so that would’ve made them even more eager to get the kid outta there.”

“So what you’re saying,” Red Robin drawls, “Is that he’s dead-but-not-really and is only missing because a dead-for-sure person took one look at him, went ‘that’s baby,’ and pulled a Bruce Wayne?”

“Pretty much.”

“Even if it wasn’t intended to be malicious it’s still a kidnapping,” Batman says.

“Well, Wulf did offer to let the kid bring guests back with him-”

“What!?” Everyone choruses.

“Yeah, though given the whole fae-kidnapping assumption I think the kid took it as a threat, but he asked the kid how many of you he wanted to bring as guests. He said none, so Wulf said do not pass go, do not collect two-hundred dollars." Deadman said casually, as if that wasn't a heartbreaking bombshell to drop.

"Anyway, point is, if this really is just one big misunderstanding then you can go talk it out. Ghostspeak isn’t really living-friendly and the living language he did know clearly didn’t help. Lucky you, I can translate. And the Realms are a human-safe environment. Well, the air is breathable at least.”

"Human-safe my ass," Constantine spits. "If the demons I deal with dwell in one little slice I don't even wanna think about the kind of nightmares strolling around the rest of the place."

"We're not leaving Red Hood in there."

The Gotham heroes' words leave no room for argument.

They get down to planning.

***

Fun Fact:

Ghosts do change their names because of the whole ‘holds power’ thing - not in a mind control way, but in an emotional way. If someone can dig up how you died they’re probably gonna say something insensitive. Case in point: people on ghost shows being like “hey *ghost name* we heard *insert horrible thing here* happened to you. Is that true?” Rude. You’re a complete stranger.

Anyway here’re the ghost names.

The trio had been dating for over a year when Sam & Tucker died and it was a very stable relationship. They’d been planning out their future together by that point, down to details like where to live so all of their work would overlap, how to manage Danny’s lack of aging (aka moving frequency), etc. When they brought up thinking of ghost names Danny - distracted - immediately just said, “Well you could just go by Phantom now since you will be in another year or two anyway.” He’s incredibly embarrassed when he realizes what he’s just said, but they’re all happy and engaged by the end of the day. (They tease him mercilessly about that being the world's smoothest yet most clueless proposal ever for the next 10 years)

Jazz & Spike Spook were already mentioned in canon with their sense of humor being explained (you’d think the joke would get old after 40 years, it hasn’t. Not when Danny still pouts when he hears Spike’s full name)

Jack was really excited to help fight ghosts as a ghost to protect Danny (he’s really proud of his baby boy growing up and becoming a king via fighting ghosts). He dies before Maddie and calls himself Jack Specter “after the specter deflector, because I be deflecting [your enemies implied here]” (Danny had to go lie down after hearing this sentence [Jazz’s sense of humor came from somewhere and that somewhere is Jack Fenton. Jack Fenton’s knowledge of ‘hip phrases’ comes from Jazz and Jazz’s sense of humor, also known as brother-torture or simply ‘betrayal’ as Danny claims]). Maddie likes that it fits the family name theme and calls back to one of their inventions (& wants to match her husband).

Dani stay a Phantom, ofc, and is formally ghost-adopted by Danny after he tells his parents everything (his parents formally human-adopt her so she has a stable human-world home if she want it, but she calls them Gran and Gramps as a joke that becomes sincere over time)

Wes goes by Wes Wraith because it’s close to wrath and he is fully and consistently angry about fenton=phantom and also a slight edgelord.

Ida Mason is also a ghost. She simply goes by ‘Wilda’ now (pronounced like wild-uh) and looks shockingly like Ember if she was an adult. And her hair wasn’t made of fire. And also went more pink than blue. So barely like Ember at all lol. She died in the middle of trying to finish knitting a scarf and now her obsession is knitting. She knitted a moped. She knitted a house. Home girl knitted herself an entire island and has not stopped.

The Manson parents have a little door-realm connected to their house in the living realm (like Poindexter with the school) and spend their time pretending everything is normal (like how Poindexter was stuck in the bullying loop but just. Reading the same newspaper/remaking the same dress, watching the same shows/etc).

The Foley parents were perhaps the most normal people on the show. 

When Sam and Tucker died, the only ones who knew what happened were them and Danny - even Jazz didn’t get an explanation until she & the Fenton parents followed them into the ghost zone to find out what was going on - so the police were left to draw their own conclusions.

The GIW had already proven themselves to be reprehensible and overly willing to step on anyone who got in their way. The tech the police found was a collab between Dalv Co & the GIW and with Vlad’s disappearance and the GIW’s emotionless denial no one ever gets prosecuted for Sam & Tucker’s deaths (Vlad has a warrant out for him & the Mansons try to drag the GIW to court but it never goes anywhere). 

The Foleys switch job tracks to take down the GIW/the Anti-Ecto Acts/any other asshole ghost hunters they can find. The Fentons are only exempt because they tell them what happened, explain how their stance on ghosts changed when they found out about Danny, and help the Foleys on their journey.

As ghosts Angela is obsessed with Justice & takes the name Justitia and Maurice is obsessed with ethics (bc if the GIW had any they wouldn’t have made weapons like that in the first place. Literal animals had more rights than ghosts at the point despite them being provably sapient) & takes the name Ethos. (They keep Foley as their last names tho). Yes, Danny does royal-decree them into being Walker’s oversight. Pretty much everyone is a fan of that. Except for the observants, who complain about everything but especially about how much Ethos & Justitia argue with them (what is the ‘greater good’ does not often match up with what is right. Especially when their idea of greater good is ‘eliminate problem via murder or core-crushing before it can become one’ instead of literally anything else).

@mayoota-blog1 @kyrianclawraith, @do3y, @someonebored0100 @omegasmileyface

[whump-me]

Martyr, Chapter 8: A Civil Conversation

Chapter 8 of Martyr, a novel-length sci-fi whump story about a captured Martian rebel with a secret and the renowned interrogator who has waited a decade for the chance to break him. This series is best read in order. Masterpost here.

Contains: whumper POV, defiant whumpee, cold whumper, restraints, interrogation, verbal sparring, war crimes mentions

---

Isadora

Wraith looked none the worse for wear, at least if Isadora focused on his face and not his swollen and misshapen hands. As she walked into the interrogation room, the glint in his eyes and the small smirk on his face told her he was remembering her loss of control. But he wanted a reaction from her, and she refused to give him one. She had learned from her mistakes.

She kept her face expressionless as she slid into the chair across from him. She rested her hands on the table and laced her fingers together. She didn’t look into his eyes, but at the space slightly above, in the center of his forehead. It unnerved people, she had learned, when they felt like she was staring at them but she didn’t give them the opportunity to hold her gaze.

She sat in silence for a moment, letting the tension build. She ignored Wraith’s smirk, and instead concentrated on the lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there yesterday. His hands had to have been in agony by now. He was trying to hide the pain, and the creeping dread at what would come next. He was almost succeeding. But no one could keep their face from showing any reaction whatsoever.

She knew the pain was eating at him in the background, taking up a certain amount of his energy just to breathe through it. And the more he tried to push it away, the more energy it would take. That was good. It would make it harder for him to keep his defenses up. One thing a lot of people didn’t understand was that the value of the more physical interrogation methods went beyond the anticipation and the sharp moment of pain itself. The aftermath was just as useful, if not more so. Fear could break a person down, but so could the constant struggle against an injury that wouldn’t heal, the sapping of resources that came with the body’s extra efforts just to keep itself alive and functional.

“You stopped early yesterday.” Wraith was the first to break the silence. That was good. It meant she had set him on edge just by sitting here and saying nothing at all. “You’ve still got three fingers to go. Can I assume they’re on the agenda for today?”

They always tried to sound brave. Well, the interesting ones, anyway. This one was better at it than most. But even he couldn’t hide the faint, ragged tremble of fear in his voice. She recognized the emotion behind that tone; she had heard it many times before. She had taken something he valued. His bravado was an attempt to cover that up. He was afraid, deeply afraid, that she would finish the job.

Well, luck was on his side today—not something that could often be said for her prisoners. “Actually,” he said, “I was hoping to do something different this time. I’d like to have a talk with you—if you think you can manage civilized conversation, that is.”

“Conversation,” Wraith said with a skeptical grunt. “Are your fists going to be conversing with me, or your feet?”

Isadora spread her hands to him. “I mean it. There will be nothing more violent than words in this room today. And while I’m sure we both have sharp tongues when we mean to, I’m hoping we can keep those words civil.”

Wraith looked at her like he was waiting for the catch. “Fine,” he finally said. “What were you hoping to talk about? The weather?”

“You don’t have weather on this benighted planet. You have an environmental hazard scale.”

“Then you must hate yourself even more than you hate my planet, seeing as you asked to be transferred here. Insisted on it, in fact, when your superiors said no three times.”

So that rumor had made it all the way to the rebellion. “I want to talk about what happened ten years ago,” she said. “You blew an entire dome, decades of work and trillions of dollars down the drain—your own people’s work, and your own people’s money. All in a futile attack on a planet with many times the resources of yours, both financially and militarily. I’ve always wondered about the person who ordered the attack—how stupid they must have been to think it was a good idea.”

Wraith bared his teeth. “Doesn’t seem so futile from where I’m sitting,” he said. “How many Earth soldiers died that day, again?”

Isadora took a deep breath. She showed nothing on her face. “None of us saw it coming,” she said. “And not just because it was a monumentally foolish idea. None of us imagined you had sufficient resources at your disposal. It shouldn’t have worked—wouldn’t have worked without the ingenuity and determination that had you planning for months, sneaking bomb materials out of the factories under our very noses.”

Wraith shot her a lopsided smirk. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“One person didn’t do all that,” she said. “It took an army from the start. Even before you had a bloody victory under your belt to use as recruitment propaganda, you had the ability to sway people to your cause, to make them believe there was not only a reason to fight but also a chance of success. It wasn’t just your own ingenuity and determination that made the attack possible. You brought out those same qualities in your followers. I’d like to know what kind of man can do that.”

Wraith shook his head. “That wasn’t me. It was all you people. You brought those things out in them, because the only other choice was to let you waltz in, plant your flag on our soil and paint it on the walls of our factories, and grind us under your blue-and-green heel forever.”

“I think you’re selling yourself short,” said Isadora. “You have a rare ability to inspire people. I’ve heard it from prisoners in this very room for years. They don’t just follow you. They adore you. But at the same time, you’re invisible. So invisible, in fact, that I… made a great deal of incorrect assumptions about you.”

Isadora swallowed. It was surprisingly hard to admit that fact, even if she was doing it as a calculated move in her game.

“They call you wise and compassionate,” she said, “but you began your career with a brutal massacre, and you haven’t stopped killing since. I’d like to know more about how a man develops such deep contradictions in himself.”

Wraith clamped his lips shut. He wasn’t smirking anymore. He watched her through narrowed eyes. The message was clear—he was done with his quips and his taunts. He didn’t intend to say another word.

That in itself was interesting. Later, when she was alone, she would go over everything she had said, and attempt to pinpoint the exact moment when he had shut down. What button had she pressed? What had made him feel a sense of threat strong enough to lock himself down?

For now, she leaned in closer. She gave her head a slight shake. “I’m not trying to get secrets from you,” she said. “If I were, you would know it. All I want is to learn about who you are. In my position, wouldn’t you be curious about the man who caught Earth with its pants down and spent the next decade evading the best our security has to offer?”

At that, Wraith offered a soft bark of laughter. “The best Earth has to offer—meaning you, of course. A bit full of yourself, aren’t you?” Then he went back to watching her with those hard, challenging eyes.

“If you like, think of it as a break from the pain,” Isadore offered. “I could go back to breaking fingers.”

He flinched. He almost managed to hide it, but not quite. “Fine,” he ground out after a long moment. “You want to talk about ten years ago? Let’s talk. Or maybe we should talk about twelve years ago, when Mars fulfilled all the conditions for independence laid out in the contract the original colonists signed… and Earth said, Never mind. If we let you go, you might jack up the prices on all those precious materials from your factories, and we can’t have that, now can we?”

“You can spare me the revolutionary propaganda,” said Isadora. “Believe me, I’ve heard it all before.”

“You’re the one who wanted to start at the beginning. I was working in one of those factories when the Earth ships touched down. It wasn’t anything you’d be caught dead doing, I’m sure, but it was honest work, and the pay was decent. Until you people came.

“You did more than declare the original contract invalid. You parked your soldiers at the exits to the factories and wouldn’t let us leave until we hit your new ridiculous quotas. You cut our pay in half and told us we were lucky to get anything at all. When the owners objected, you brought them out in front of all of us and shot them. More than a decade later, and I can still smell the blood.”

His voice was low, and rough with emotion. Genuine emotion this time, not that smirking mask he liked to wear. She was getting somewhere.

“You can’t have thought we’d just lie down and take it,” he said. “You wanted to make us afraid. You didn’t think we’d get angry too? You thought you could march in and take our power, take our dignity, take the very ground under our feet, and we’d just let you do it? You thought you could march the governors outside the domes and make us all watch them suffocate, and we’d, what, roll over for you like a planet full of well-trained dogs?” Wraith shook his head. He stared down at the table, his hair hanging into his eyes. With his head still tilted down, he looked up at her, his dark eyes blazing in the severe light.

It was a good thing Isadora wasn’t used to showing her emotions on her face, because otherwise she might have given too much away just then. Yes, on one level, everything he was saying was worthless. Just more revolutionary twaddle. But the important part was the roughness in his voice and the fierce light in his eyes. From the moment she had sat down in front of him, she had seen what he wanted her to see. Now, after just a few moments of conversation, she was seeing him.

She could get into his head. All the mistakes she had made in the file wouldn’t matter. She could learn him, would learn him. She would find the way into his head that would let her use him to her advantage and then destroy him. She would commandeer him like a stolen warship.

All her worries had been for nothing. This would be even easier than she had thought.

After a long moment, he lifted his head. “Well? You said you wanted to talk, but I don’t hear you doing much talking. This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“It’s a good beginning,” she said, keeping her voice perfectly steady. “But it doesn’t tell me how you went from one more angry factory worker to the leader of a rebellion that has done far more damage than should have been possible. Anger is hardly a rare commodity. If it were, we wouldn’t have had to kill so many of you in the beginning. Most people in your position either swallowed their anger down until they forgot about it, or let it rage out of control until it drove them to their own destruction. But you became a leader. Why? What makes you so special?”

Wraith shrugged. “Why not? Someone had to do it. If no one else was brave enough, or smart enough to think past their own nose, all the more reason for me to step up.”

Isadora went rigid. Something had changed. She didn’t know what. She certainly didn’t know why. But his voice—rough with emotion a moment ago—was now as steady as her own, with that maddening arrogant lilt from before. The only light in his eyes now was reflected from the cold lights set into the ceiling.

She’d had him. And then she had lost him. And the most frustrating part was that she didn’t know why.

“I’ve heard plenty of people who talk like you,” she said. “They’re usually the ones who get themselves killed in some grand and futile gesture of defiance. Forgive me for saying so, but you’re nothing special. Unless there’s more to you than you want me to see.”

But she had him. She’d had him. That emotion in his voice, on his face… it had been real.

And it had been an echo of all the meaningless furious words she’d heard from a decade’s worth of rebels with more anger than sense, only this time coming from a man who should have been different.

It had to have been an act. But her gut told her it was real. Her carefully honed instincts told her it was real. A decade’s worth of experience told her it was real. Which meant if he could pretend so thoroughly, she couldn’t rely on her own perceptions anymore.

He was getting into her head again. She had thought she had learned better.

She had almost forgotten she was waiting for an answer until Wraith gave her one. “If you had a bit more respect for what we were capable of,” he said with that cocky smile, “maybe it wouldn’t have taken you a decade to get this far.”

Her fingertips clawed at the metal table. She imagined she felt his fingers between hers, the bone bending, straining, then snapping in a single sharp moment of release. She wanted to take him up on his earlier offer—he still had three fingers left. Maybe he would be less arrogant when he had none. And then she could move on to his feet, maybe his kneecaps. An effective way of keeping prisoners from escaping, in the unlikely event that an opportunity arose. An even more effective method for wiping arrogant smirks off their faces.

She spread her hands flat on the table, palms down. She forced a long breath of stale, overly filtered air into her lungs. How was it that even after being run through a dozen filters, the air always still tasted of Martian dust?

Anger was not an effective tool. Not for the rebels, and not for her. None of her best work had come out of anger.

Breaking fingers wasn’t the way to get through to him. Maybe she had seen the truth of him for a brief moment, or maybe not. Either way, that moment was over. He wasn’t giving her anything real, and he wouldn’t, because he was treating this as an interrogation. And why wouldn’t he? For all her talk of civilized conversation, he was sitting bound hand and foot in an interrogation room, covered in cuts and bruises, with most of his fingers broken. He was hardly going to open up to her like she was an old friend.

No, if she wanted him to give her something, she would have to do the same. A conversation, a real one, had to go both ways. Otherwise, it was just an interrogator on one end and a prisoner on the other. She was the one who had to prove it was something more.

Even though, of course, it wasn’t.

She knew what she had to do. That didn’t mean she liked it. There were few things that would be less pleasant than baring her soul to a prisoner, let alone this prisoner. She would rather have gone for a walk outside the dome.

But this victory would be worth it.

She took a deep breath, and tasted the despised dust on her tongue. “You’ve done most of the talking today,” she said. “Let’s change that. Let me tell you where I was a decade ago.”

---

Tagged: @straight-to-the-pain @soheavyaburden @gala1981 @whumpacabra @sacredwrath @suspicious-whumping-egg @sonder35 @decahedron-crabclaw @seasaltandcopper

[sergeifyodorov]

hi hello super random question but i’m trying to read more & i feel like you’d have the best recs. do u have any fav books ?? thank u !! 🫶

YES I DO

okay ive already answered abt nonfiction so this is going to be CODYS FICTION CORNER amen

the broken earth trilogy, nk jemisin. has everything. rocks. milfs. annoying trans people (as an annoying trans person myself... i crave rep). the writing style (it's largely in the second person) might throw you off. the body horror (no spoilers) might throw you off. the geology (there's a lot of geology)(most of it's geology actually.) might throw you off. read it.

the devil all the time, donald ray pollock. you might have heard of this thee "southern gothic". hold on i have a meme for this one

anyway. the song of ice and fire series, george rr martin. yeah the game of thrones books. yeah they're good. sorry about that. yes i know. yeah. im going home part of next week i'm going to take em... reread em... yeah.

okay last one, the martian, andy weir. im a slut for survival stories and this is Thee survival story (it's not Thee survival story necessarily but i adoreee it)

[juliuscaesar-txt]

i was right i wasn’t ready

spoilers under cut

it made me feel a lot okay

i?? did not expect?? the great comeback of martian mind reading rocks??

i did expect some sort of nureyev comeback tho. like as the journal narrator. but we didn’t get it

tho i thiiiink in the next part he might show up please i am begging you come back stinky cologne man

i started audibly screaming at the end good i was home alone

there are so many heartwarming things in it. like YES VESPA I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT UNDERGROUND MEDICINE IT SOUNDS RAD AS HELL. YES RITA HOLD MY HANDS IF YOU WANT.

i am not quite persuasive as a person. but juno is neither so that’s fine <3

I ALSO DEEPLY RELATE TO THE PART ABOUT SELF LOATHING AND NOT TAKING IN ANY COMPLIMENTS AND THEN BEING IN THE POSITION WHEN YOU ARE THE ONE TO TRY TO GET THROUGH TO A SELF HATER IT HIT SO HARD

all my other thoughts are more like feels i’m just going to scream somewhere bye

[roses-r-rosie3]

Update Log 1

(Made on April 23, 2023)

April 23, 2023

New Chad Meeks Martian Fanfic added!

- As Long As I’m With You

April 24, 2023

New Ethan Landry Fanfic added!

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Requests are now opened!

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Made a poll for which Fanfic I should write next!

Updated Pfp and Welcome Page!

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New Wes Hicks Fanfic Added!

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2 New Wes Hicks Fanfic Added!

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- Playing With Fire (Alt)

Changed pfp… again….

May 16, 2023

New Chad Meeks Martian Fanfic Added!

- Nothing Else Matters

May 17, 2023

I announced 5 New fanfics that I am working on in honor of 206 followers!

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- Your Love Hits The Spot

Added more to Welcome page

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May 31, 2023

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June 5, 2023

Rearranged Welcome page to be in alphabetical order!

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New Miguel O’Hara fanfic added!

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Changed pfp and updated Welcome page!

June 8, 2023

Thinking of a potential pt 2 for Put It Straight (Miguel O'hara x M!Reader) if it gets a lot of demand

New Miguel O’Hara Fanfic!

- Dancing With Your Ghost

June 12, 2023

New Miguel O’Hara fanfic added!

- Love Is A Drug That I Quit

New Chad Meeks Martain Fanfic added!

- Antifragile

June 13, 2023

New Miguel O’Hara fanfic added!

- Pop!

June 14, 2023

'Love Is A Drug That I Quit' deleted, reason why is here

‘Love Is A Drug That I Quit’ renamed to ‘Scary Mask’

June 24, 2023

Requests are now closed :(

June 26, 2023

Revealed everything that I am working on here

Changed pfp

June 29, 2023

New Miguel O’Hara Fanfic added!

- Pop! [Part 2]

June 30, 2023

Changed pfp

Requests opened but only for plots that are related to ‘Vampire’ by Olivia Rodrigo

(If you don’t understand read this)

Revamped Already

Revamped Our Love Is Dahlia

July 1, 2023

Requests closed :(

July 6, 2023

New Miguel O’Hara Fanfic

- Dancing With Your Ghost [Part 2]

Revamped Attention

July 7, 2023

Revamped Flames Come Alive

July 8, 2023

New Miguel O'Hara fanfic!

- Dancing With Your Ghost [Part 3]

Added a poll to choose the ending for ‘Dancing With Your Ghost’

July 14, 2023

New Chad Meeks fanfic added!

- Birthday Boy

New Ethan Landry fanfic added!

- Birthday Breakfast

July 17, 2023

Jason Todd added to welcome page!

New Jason Todd Fanfic added!

- Deja Vu

July 21, 2023

Deja Vu Changed to Thinking ‘Bout You

New Jason Todd Fanfic Added!

- Thinking ‘Bout You [Part 2]

July 24, 2023

Tragic Love Story Changed to Kiss Of Death!

Kiss Of Death Revamped!

July 27, 2023

Hobie Brown added to welcome page!

July 29, 2023

New Hobie Brown Fanfic added!

- Mmmh!

July 31, 2023

New Miguel O’Hara Fanfic Added!

- Dancing With Your Ghost [Part 4]

August 3, 2023

New Ethan Landry Fanfic Added!

- Talk That Talk

Nick Goode Added To Welcome Page

August 5, 2023

New Jason Todd Fanfic Added!

- Prank You Very Much

August 6, 2023

Changed pfp

New Jason Todd Fanfic!

- Thinking 'Bout You [Part 3]

August 8, 2023

New Miguel O'Hara Fanfic!

- Smiley

August 13, 2023

Added More to the Character List that I write for

Changed Pfp

August 14, 2023

Dancing With Your Ghost Series Has Titles instead of parts now!

August 15, 2023

New Jason Todd Fanfic!

- ETA

August 16, 2023

New Miguel O'Hara Fanfic!

- Vampire

August 18, 2023

Spill Ur Guts MasterList/Challenge Added!

Welcome Page Revamped!

August 19, 2023

New Jason Todd Fanfic Added!

- Bad Idea Right?

August 20, 2023

New Miguel O’Hara Fanfic Added!

- Put It Straight [Part 2]

Put It Straight Masterlist Added!

August 21, 2023

Requests are now opened!

August 22, 2023

New Jason Todd Fanfic Added!

- Two Animal Obsessed Idiots

August 23, 2023

Pop!: Part 1 changed to Pop!: Invite

Pop!: Part 2 changed to Pop!: Let The Chaos Begin

August 26, 2023

Updated pfp

September 4, 2023

New Jason Todd Fanfic Added!

- Baby I

September 6, 2023

New Jason Todd Fanfic(ish???) Added!

- We Should Breakup…

September 10, 2023

Wally West Masterlist Added!

New Wally West Fanfic Added!

- Annoying Customer

September 16, 2023

New Jason Todd fanfic added!

- Wallflower

September 26, 2023

New Wally West Headcannon added!

- Dating Wally West

October 6, 2023

Changed pfp

October 8, 2023

Tim Drake Masterlist added!

New Tim Drake Fanfic added!

- Making The Bed

October 22, 2023

Added Tomas Vrbada (Smoke) Masterlist!

Added Conner Kent (Super Boy) Masterlist!

Added John Constantine Masterlist!

October 24, 2023

New Miguel O’Hara Fanfic added!

- All Eyes On Me

October 26, 2023

Added Dick Grayson Masterlist!

October 27, 2023

Changed pfp

October 31, 2023

New Dick Grayson Fanfic added!

- Spooktacular Date Night

Added Oc Masterlist!

November 7, 2023

New Jason Todd Fanfic added!

- Camping Trip

November 11, 2023

New Jason Todd Fanfic added!

- Best Friend’s Brother

November 12, 2023

New Conner Kent Fanfic added!

- Love Is Embarrassing

November 13, 2023

Changed pfp

November 26, 2023

Added Damian Wayne (Robin) Masterlist!

New Damian Wayne Fanfic added!

- 3D

November 27, 2023

New Hobie Brown fanfic added!

- You & Me

November 30, 2023

New Tomas Vrbada fanfic added!

- Glue Songs

December 6, 2023

New Wally West Fanfic added!

- Only

December 14, 2023

Changed Pfp

December 19, 2023

Requests are closed

December 24, 2023

New Dick Grayson Fanfic added!

- Holiday Drama

December 25, 2023

Batfamily Masterlist Added!

New Batfamily fic added!

- X-Mas List Presentation

New Wes Hicks fic added!

- White Christmas

December 26, 2026

Added a progress page!

December 27, 2023

Changed pfp

January 6, 2024

New Conner Kent Fic Added!

- Gullible

January 8, 2024

New Miguel O’Hara Fic Added!

- ASAP

[stealingyourbones]

I have seen nothing but fanfics of J’onn J’onzz. Is his characterization like the Vision in the MCU? Could you explain it to me a bit?

God I haven’t watched any MCU movies since Endgame came out but you’re pretty close I’d say. He’s a fish out of water type character. A Green Martian gets teleported to earth by a scientist who IMMEDIATELY dies of a heart attack just after he sees Martian Manhunter for the first time which gives him no way of going back home. He heads into the great unknown of earth and strives to keep the peace the same way he did with his own planet.

J’onn is forced to adapt to earth and earth civilization. Mars lore can range from “there was a multi decade long war and I’m the last Martian left”, to “There are only Green Martian’s”, to “There are Green and White Martians. Green Martians think of White Martians as below them when the only difference biologically is skin tone. Easy and interesting way to talk about racism.” , “there are Green and White Martians but White Martians are prodominately evil.”, to “He’s about to be the ruler of his people but since Green Martians share a massive telepathic consciousness of thought, he has to go to earth to deal with the challenge of being one self and one mind.” Either way it’s one big ass situation change. In the first 5 or so years on earth he’s normally written with a ‘fish out of water’ sense of earths customs and details on human interaction. He knows basic stuff but the concept of holidays and earth traditions are bizarre to him.

J’onn J’onzz can be affected by the war with his friends and family dead, he can be an ambassador of mars to earth, he can be the next ruler of his people, he can be simply a random Martian cop shoved in a completely different environment.

His backstory is very scattered but depending on what it is can affect his personality. No matter what he’s a Martian Manhunter. This is a title which basically boils down to being a mars equivalent of a cop.

Jon Jones is quite Vision like, slightly ‘not connected’ to reality type of vibe with his speaking. He’s extremely intelligent, a master tactician, and is so powerful that he’s quite literally used as a Superman stand in for many early JL comics. He’s held his own against the ENTIRE Justice League. Superman has said that Martian Manhunter is THE most powerful being on the face of the earth. He’s a very powerful man with a very good heart. Imagine a very lovable and very intelligent nuclear bomb. People describe him as Batman + Superman which I feel is diminishing his character but it is a good hyper simplification of his personality and powers. Example: my favorite clip ever of Justice League Ultimate. (They wrote the Kent’s and Clark SO WELL)

His only weakness? Fire. Not physically though. Psychosomatically. He is invulnerable to fire but normally a very traumatic experience with fire (usually the destruction of his race via flame/laser). Fire gives this man psychic damage.

Idk this is mostly me rambling but I genuinely do hope this helps. What I’ve read/am in the midst of reading that has J’onn J’onzz in it: Justice League Ultimate (tv show), JLA: Year One #1-12, Brightest Day, or Justice League United #0-10 (comic)

[smoothdogsgirl]

February - Established Long Distance Relationship

Pairing: Brock Reynolds

Warnings: Deployments, Care Packages

Words: 943

Summary: Brock and the team get surprises during mailcall while on deployment in J-Bad.

In a Discord group I belong to, there was a post for a "Year of the OTP" challenge for 2023.

Disclaimer: This is fanfic work; no money is being made from this story. All recognizable characters belong to their respective creative authors, studios or producers.

Masterlist

“Mail call you clowns,” Sonny yells as he joins the guys around the fire pit. He opens the mailbag, “alright, let's see what we have for Bravo Team.” Reaching in, he pulls out a medium size box, “Ray, here’s a little bit of home.” He then tosses it over to him. He reaches in and grabs the next package, “bossman, it looks like the kiddos sent you something too.” On the next grab, he pulls out some letters, “heads up,” he shouts, and when Trent and Metal look at him, he flings the letters to them. They each catch them before they have a chance to hit the floor. He stuffs the last letter into his back pocket as it’s addressed to him. Shaking the bag, he realizes there is one more package inside; when he pulls it out, he grins, “looks like someone is sending Brock and Cerberus some love too.” He then tosses it to the man in question. 

There is some friendly teasing as Ray and Jason open the packages from their families. Emma and Mickey had mailed their father a card, chocolates, seeds for his vegetable garden, and baby wipes. Now Naima and the kids had sent Ray some homemade cards, cookies, drawings, candy, and baby wipes. 

“So, Broccoli, whatcha get?” Sonny asked.

Causing the other guys to look in Brock's direction as he finishes cutting tape on his box, he chuckles; it’s a heavy-duty heart-shaped Kong toy and a jar of all-natural peanut butter. On the lid is a heart-shaped sticker and the name Cerb. Brock whistles, and Cerberus gets up, stretching lazily while yawning, ambling over to his handler, and sitting by his feet. 

Brock takes his knife, spreading a glob of peanut butter on the Kong Toy before handing it to Cerberus, who sniffs it briefly before biting it and retreating to his spot near the fire pit.

Digging back into the package, he pulls out a Ziploc container of homemade chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies, a container of baby wipes, a small container of homemade dog treats, a new hard copy of his favorite book ‘The Martian,’ a homemade DVD and a card in an envelope.

“Who’s sending you all those goodies, Broccoli?” Sonny asked from his seat next to Brock, eyeing the container of cookies.

“Not to mention, who knows your pup so well?” Trent asked, nodding at Cerberus, who was still munching on his toy. 

“Spill brother,” Metal’s low, gruff voice causes Brock to jump a little as he comes up, setting a bottle of beer next to his camping chair. 

Brock rubs the back of his neck; he smiles at the guys and places the package on the ground leaving the book and card on his lap. He then looks at all of the guys, “Keep your paws off of my cookies, or I’ll sick the hair missile on you. You’ll be his training dummy.”

Opening the card, he can’t help but smile when he reads the contents,

Cracking the book's cover, he places the card inside, flips the pages, and stops at page 316. Lying between the pages is a 3D ultrasound image. He picks it up, taking in all of the child’s features. Brock is so lost in thought he doesn’t see Trent get up to grab snacks. 

“Cute kid, you gonna be an uncle?” Trent asks, seeing the picture.

Brock grins at the man, “Nah, man, I’m gonna be a dad. This is my kid.”

Everything around the fire pit stops; the guys look at him. 

“What’d you just say, Broccoli?” Sonny asks his Texas accident even thicker than usual.

Picking up the image and showing it to the group, “I said I’m gonna be a dad.” Noting writing on the back of the image, “make that a girl, dad. This is a picture of my daughter.”

Ray smiles at him, “welcome to the club, brother. There is nothing quite like it.”

Jason nods his head in agreement, unsure of what else to say.

“So, who’s the baby momma Broccoli? Can’t believe you finally managed to get some and didn’t tell us?” 

Brock growls at Sonny, “my daughter isn’t the result of some one-night stand. And trust me, man, getting some has never been a problem.” 

Sonny holds up his hands in surrender.

“So you’re saying you have a girlfriend?” Clay asks, giving Sonny a reproachful look.

“Not what I said either,” Brock replies with a shoulder shrug.

“Quit being cryptic, dog boy. Tell us what’s going on.” Metal states before taking a swig of his beer.

“My wife is the one who is pregnant. It wasn’t exactly planned, but not unwanted either. We found out the week before the deployment that she’s pregnant.”

Trent tilts his head, “since when are you married?”

“We got married two days after returning from our last deployment to J-Bad. It was just us, the dogs, a JP on a floating dock in False Cape State Park at sunset.”

“So, almost a year and a half?” Trent clarifies.

Brock shrugs, “that sounds about right?”

“Dogs?” Clay questions.

“We couldn’t exactly get married without Cerberus and Artemis. Before you ask, Artemis is a two-year-old sable German shepherd.” Brock replied.

“How long have you guys been together?” Trent asks.

“We met just before I went through BUDs. We’ve been together ever since.” Glancing down at his watch, he does the calculations in his head for the time difference to Va Beach. “This has been fun, ladies, but I’m going to go call my girls.” Grabbing his things, he whistles, and together he and Cerberus head to their hootch to make a video call home.

Note:

The letter in this story was written in Dutch. I decided since that is the language he gives Cerb commands in, he picked it because he speaks it, and so does his wife. Here is a close approximation of what the letter says. I had a friend of mine do the Dutch translation.

Hey Babe, I’m missing you and our furry kid. The bed is cold without my two heat sources. Here are a few little things for when you get a minute of downtime. Only a few more weeks and this deployment will be over; we can’t wait to have you home. I had a new ultrasound technician at my last appointment, and she accidentally spilled the beans on our March surprise. So if you look at the page corresponding to that date, you will know too. That being said, when you come home, you better have a list of names ready. Love you, Babe