#Since Aftermath is coming soon my brain decided to get active again

[kombatclan]

glad to see you posting again! love this au so much :3

Thank you so much!

[yoshkeii]

Bokuto Confession hcs!

࿐ character: Bokuto Koutarou

࿐ genre: fluff, soft, confessions!

࿐ requested by: GreenTheSimp on Ao3!

࿐ imagine/scenario: “some Bokuto headcannons on how he asks Khai out? Plus maybe him being a goof towards his s/o.”

A/N: fyi, most of these will be coming from my Ao3 since I started writing there first! it’s not much and i generally don’t proof read these so im sorry if there are small errors, this one is a bit longer since I made two chapters for it. im so bad at writing istg,,

≫ ──── ≪ Confession Time ≫ ──── ≪

❀ First, Bokuto would be oblivious to his crush and his feelings for you till it was brought up multiple times by his team, and eventually at the volleyball camp from the other schools. Most likely Kuroo nagging him about the certain someone, Khai, Bokuto talks about so much.

❀ You and Bokuto were friends for quite some time, maybe at least a year or so. And being in the same class as him, you guys had time to interact with each other and even plan hangouts whenever you could.

❀ And yes, this man talks 24/7 about you without even noticing- this varies from your interactions during the school day, your conversations during classes and lunch, stupid dumb texts you guys have once in a while, the answers you give him from the many of many questions he asked you... the list goes on and on. This makes it easy for his friends to identify his fucking crush on you. him being so oblivious about it hurts their brains istg

❀ He's extremely bubbly around you, super friendly and kind but you usually brush it off as his normal personality. ibetyou'llbeoblivioustooaboutit.

❀ Once Bokuto awakened to his crush and feelings for you he found it extremely difficult to act like it was normal before. The slight blush on his cheeks was a much solid shade. His heart skipping beats every time he saw you walk in the room. Your laugh, your smile, anything about you made him so nervous around you now. When you directly smile at him, hearing your laughs at his jokes or actions will make this man just seize to exist.

❀ Bokuto can't stop thinking about you after that thought, always finding his mind wandering to the dorkiest, sappy shit thing he would do with you.

❀ Sometimes he found himself avoiding you at some points just so he can keep himself in check and not be an embarrassment around you-

❀ He still craves your attention but he gets a lingering fear he might mess something up so he has an internal fight with himself and it just- hurts him sm- poor owl,,

❀ Akaashi finds himself trying to motivate and support emo Bokuto at these moments, usually through texts or calls when they aren't near each other etc.

❀ You would generally think he would just confess to you as soon as he had the chance but actually took this on a slow thoughtful ride. To the point, it did affect his skill at practice, which notified his teammates about it fairly quickly. Bokuto was so deep in thought about it all he was unsure how to process his confession, when, where, what would make you happy, if you liked him back and such.

❀ This eventually leads to him asking Akaashi, the team, and friends (from the other teams' ofc-), on how he should confess to you. All of the answers didn't seem to fit Bokuto in a comfortable way either, which is hella surprising. Before he decided to do something pretty simple.

❀ Earlier today, Bokuto asked you to wait for him a few minutes after class. Knowing you two had different club activities after school, him having volleyball and you have [Khai's favorite activity]. It was the best option to get your attention since your clubs ended at different times made it difficult. And so you did, meeting him outside of your classroom, just you and him.

❀ Bokuto felt anxious about being alone with you, especially like this.

❀ "Hey, Khai..?"

❀ "What is it, Bo?"

❀ That little nickname you gave him, always and I mean always made his heart skip 10 beats. The blush on his cheeks grew a shade darker.

❀ "Wanna walk home.. t-together...?" Bokuto quickly mustered out the words, knowing his throat would dry up sooner or later.

❀ Both of you actually took a similar route home after school, which you guys figured out on a rainy day.

❀ "Oh, sure! Don't you have practice though?" You tilted your head innocently, your hair moving as well revealing the smallest of details that made Bokuto swoon.

❀ "Coach said we should rest for our game tomorrow"

❀ "Ah- that makes sense, I forgot about that-" You giggled lightly before you took the lead of heading out of the building.

❀ Bokuto froze at your giggle before you dragged him behind you. Your hand softly around his wrist. "C'mon slowpoke," you teased.

❀ He smiled slightly before he caught up to you. Walking aside from you at the same pace.

❀ It was an awkward walk. Bokuto was oddly quiet which made you slightly worried.

❀ "Bokuto? You alright..?" You finally broke the silence, looking up at the Ace to your right.

❀ "P-perfectly fine!"

❀ "You stuttered."

❀ "Did... I..?"

❀ "Yes, dummy- What's wrong?"

❀ "I-... Damn it. Khai."

❀ Before you knew it, he pulled you into a kiss. His large hands cupping your face as he planted his lips softly onto yours, pulling away from a little with only a few inches from your lips. Bokuto looked straight into your brown eyes, staring back with his golden eyes. The blush on his cheeks flushed with shades of red.

❀ "I like you. Wait- No.. I love you." Bokuto muttered softly, feeling his breath on your lips made you shiver.

❀ You just giggled, before it grew into genuine laughter. He widened his eyes removing his hands from your face.

❀ "H-hey..!! What's so funny!?"

❀ "It was so obvious Bo~"

❀ "Was.. was it!? I-"

❀ You cut him off, "I love you too Koutarou."

❀ Him hearing you use his first name WITH you saying ily to him, made his day. A bright smile plastered on his face, he hugged you lifting you up and kissing your face all over.

❀ "HEY HEY HEYYYY!! Khai likes me back!! Actually, Khai LOVES me!" Bokuto exclaimed happily

❀ After that, Bokuto was back to his normal, loud, excited self throughout the walk. You guys began to have your simple conversations again, him poking you with questions trying to get to know you even more. Having the lingering doubt he had from rejection and negativity was lifted-off from him. He even mentioned having your first date so soon-

❀ He couldn't wait to bring the news to his team and friends.

❀ He can't wait to see you by his side every day.

≫ ──── ≪ Confession Aftermath ≫ ──── ≪

❀ After the confession, Bokuto would rarely ever leave your side. So he does get clingy to you as he does with Akaashi. He's not much for PDA but he's also not against the thought, he unconsciously hugs you, wrapping his arms around your torso, waist, arms, and sometimes around your neck at least- Sometimes light kisses and pecks but those are generally rare unless he's really excited about something.

❀ He gets really flustered sometimes when you addressed him as your boyfriend the first few days and maybe weeks after starting the relationship. He's just not used to it- It gives this hunk of a man butterflies in his stomach a lot.

❀ Whenever you guys had to leave each other for your designated classes, you tend to find cute notes in your locker whenever you open them. Having cute phrases, flirts, compliments, and silly pick-up lines. You already knew it was from Bokuto because you... sometimes catch him lurking around your locker- just never brought up to him knowing it would genuinely make him sad.

❀ Bokuto just finds it cool that you don't know at first okay-

❀ You always tried to go to his practices and even games when you guys were just friends. Knowing that if Bokuto saw any of his friends out in the stands made his confidence skyrocket so much-

❀ But since you guys are now in a relationship, it makes Bokuto smile so much every time he spots you in the stands of the crowds. Cheering him on boosts his confidence so fucking much- like if this man is in emo mode please cheer for him, it helps a ton (Akaashi and the team might thank you also-)

❀ Long-lasting phone calls that continue till like 3-4 am. Sometimes facetime/video calls if you both have the ability to! He loves seeing your face, he finds it so fucking adorable with all your smallest features and details.

❀ Bokuto probably changed your contact name on his phone to something like "baby owl" with like emojis or something- or literally, just nick (pet) names he has for you- "baby, bae, cloud, cutie, feather, angel, king/queen, prince/princess" and so on. He looooves having names for you because it makes him smile every time he finds things that remind him of you (which generally is how he figures some of them out-)

❀ Whenever this man finds you sad, upset, stressed, or literally in any negative emotion. He will try his damn hardest to make you feel better even if its the slightest, and if it is the slightest he'll keep going to you are perfectly fine and dandy.

❀ He'll even go out of his way to skip practice if needed to comfort your sad butt- He'll give you cuddles, so many cuddles. He's practically a cuddle monster so better prepare for how long you'll stay in his arms afterward-

❀ Whenever you guys are just cuddling in general, he loves to nuzzle his face into your hair, your neck, and shoulder. Just craving the touch and comfort of his lover. Even if it's the slightest of motion, he'll take whatever he can get!

❀ Continuing on the cuddling situation, one of the secret things he loves about you is how you smell. The shampoo you use for your hair, the body wash, perfume or cologne.

❀ Since it's fall season (as of I'm writing this ofc-), Bokuto will drag you around for some walks in the cool weather through parks. Honestly hoping to find leaves to pile and fall into with you! I'd think one of Bo's love language would be quality time (and words of affirmation.) So hanging out with him makes this owl the happiest man to walk on this planet.

❀ Whenever you are cold on these walks, he won't hesitate to wrap his arms around you. If it's a specific part of your body that is cold, for example, your hands. He'll definitely hold his hands over yours. Maybe planting a kiss on them afterward (accidentally getting flustered seconds later-)

❀ Bokuto might also just stare at your hands clasped together, noticing the size difference for the 100000000000000th time

❀ Honestly, he likes to use Instagram and Snapchat filters with you. It's really cute af,, he's such a dork for couple things

❀ Body issues? Bokuto will love every part of you no matter what, comforting that every part of your body is perfect as it is. He'll softly plant kisses wherever you feel insecure. He'll cuddle you till you agree with him that you are a perfect human being.

❀ Don't try to sneak out of it. He's hella stubborn with topics like these- He ain't that dense and dumb guys,,

A/N: I love me some Bokuto huuuuu

[missinghan]

「 what am I // stray kids 」

❖ genre : sci-fi; superpower au; platonic relationship au

❖ word count : 3,9k (bullet points only)

❖ warning : explicit language, most likely ain’t scientifically true at all

❖ summary : superpowers manifest in certain individuals once they hit puberty and naturally, those odd abilities will vanish as soon as adulthood occurs; but how will those teenagers protect themselves from the curiosity of science?

❖ a/n : this isn’t a proper fic since I don’t think I’ll actually write smth decent out of this but I don’t want the idea to rot inside my dungeon either- so yea, bear with me through this character intro post(?)

— bang chan ↠ locating ability-wielders & teleportation

· sometimes when he’s running errands for his parents, chan can feel a distinct ‘zing’ ins his bones if someone else with unusual abilities is nearby and can describe their power perfectly to the t; he ignores it at first but learns to make do with it eventually; can teleport another person with him and also needs to calculate carefully before teleporting because he once ends up in the middle of a freeway instead of school resulting from lack of sleep.

· looks intimidating but is the first to talk to a new kid in class and show them around as he’s president of the school’s student council; smiles and laughs a lot once you get to know him, and is also very caring, reliable.

· he wishes to apply for a music production company after his college graduation but his family turned the idea down almost immediately and sent him to a boarding school in Europe.

· chan starts taking notice in strange things at his new school after the first few weeks; for example: how they unreasonably force students to have a daily health checkup, how their food taste like medicine most of the times, teachers don’t really seem to care about what they’re teaching and some of his classmates mysteriously ‘move away’ whenever security shows up at their dorm in the middle of the night.

· after finding out where they actually are via photos of students being locked up inside cells, arms and legs chained up like domestic animals, injected with odd substances on a daily basis which were taken by an anonymous individual, chan secretly packs his stuff and decides to ditch this so-called boarding school for good.

· he works hard to hide his identity ensuing flying back to his hometown for a solid three weeks and the fact that there are more people cursed with supernatural abilities begins dawning onto him; cutting off contact with his family completely, moving from one crusty apartment to another every month, chan tackles this crazy idea of assembling a group consisted of extraordinary people to give him a hand with creating a safe environment for the ‘gifted’ youths.

— lee minho ↠ collapse

· law major, quite the loner, raised by a single mother; didn’t have much since little but his mother’s love and affection make up for everything.

· looks intimidating, is actually intimidating; the only person he talks to in college is his dance coach, doesn’t like school nor has many friends; his slightest glare is as cold as a wife trying to win custody of her children in court.

· minho can make his surroundings crumble and fall apart with his mind, which shouldn’t be confused with telekinesis since he can’t physically move objects to his will; this deadly power is triggered whenever he’s experiencing extremely negative emotions like fear or anguish and he’s not (still isn’t) very good at getting a hold of it.

· a group of suspicious men shows up at his house one day as he returns home from dance practice; they claim to be an agency looking for up and coming talents but by the way that his mother is staring at the ground nervously with her legs trembling, his institution tells him that something’s off.

· he firmly declines their offer with a stiff “I’m uncertain that I’m the talent you gentlemen are looking for, but you should know that when the cops are here to fill out their reports, I’m gonna be very helpful, as helpful as possible.”

· “what other random merry of fucking misdemeanors are going to pop up once they go through your records? domestic violence? illegal substances and weapons possession? human trafficking?”

· with a gun to her head, his mom scrambles to her knees and begs him to go with them, admitting that she’s already signed the contract; if he follows their orders and agrees to become an experimental subject, she won’t have to worry about any financial problems for the rest of her life.

· in the heat of the moment, they ultimately force him to activate his power for the very first time; as a result, his house collapses, the death of his only family and the group of men following suit.

· “I’m too late.”

· chan manages to find minho under the aftermath, severely injured and is hanging by a string of life so fragile that can only be saved after undergoing a twelve-hour operation at the hospital.

— seo changbin ↠ sound waves manipulation

· a good student, reputable within his social sphere at school, and comes from a pretty well-off family.

· changbin is able to bend and control sound waves to his advantage; whether it’s simply for his musical instruments or moving objects around, he can also use something as minor as his own heartbeat when he’s emotionally unstable; using the ability continuously for too long can give him severe migraines and potentially damage his brain to a degree if he’s not mindful of it.

· he stays up late at night to write and produce his own songs, keeping it a secret from his parents; posts his own songs on a SoundCloud account, or performs even live at a random underground club under the alias SpearB if he has the chance to.

· an organization full of outlaw scientists comes across a video of his performance on the web, analyzing how he can enhance the beat, his vocal cords without the help of any form of technology, and just like that, he easily tops the list of their targets.

· having no choice but to do what they want when those men hold his parents hostage inside his family’s mansion, changbin gets sent to the same boarding school as chan but they’re being observed in different buildings for his power is on the more useful and dangerous side; hence, his classes consist of a smaller amount of students and they are put through checkups more constantly.

· he doesn’t really pay attention to the skepticisms that reek off all over the place as he’s too busy being homesick and studying because he fully believes that the harder he works, the more obediently he acts, the sooner they’ll let him go; all hell breaks loose when those photos are scattered everywhere, from the hallways to the bathrooms; changbin takes advantage in the riot to get himself out of there as quickly as he can possibly run to the airport.

· changbin swears to never trust anyone again until chan and minho find him sleeping inside an abandoned grocery store with a pistol inside his sleeping bag, two daggers concealed in his sleeves at all times.

· “are we seriously going to contain some headass who was this close to blowing my brain out of my head?”

· “huh, funny, last time I checked, you almost smothered me to death under a gigantic block of cement when I was trying to save your life.”

· “who are you guys and how the hell did you get in here? I don’t recall not locking the door.”

— hwang hyunjin ↠ permeation & memory manipulation

· a true theater kid, meaning he knows almost everyone but every single student at school knows him; naturally, becomes the Prince after playing one too many male lead roles because of his godly features; rather well-mannered and diligent though he doesn’t look like it.

· mistaken to be a player by every new batch of freshmen that only ever gets to watch him practicing his lines from afar, swooning tremendously whenever he ties up his hair; always carries a camera around, doesn’t like to have too many friends but if you get close enough, he’s probably the most fun to be around, won’t ever judge your questionable life choices.

· hyunjin’s ability allows him to walk right through walls as well as any other solid matters but it will drain his stamina painstakingly, causing him to run short on breaths after using his power to change his costumes faster between scenes; the thicker the wall is, the more strength it takes for him to pass through completely.

· he can also erase a certain chunk of memory from someone’s mind but he needs to physically touch them; has only used this ability one time to wipe his existence out of a childhood best friend’s mind before moving away from his hometown. 

· his interest in photography sparks the moment his uncle comes back from a business trip and gives him a toy camera, it’s nowhere near the real ones but the ten-year-old hwang hyunjin sure takes it very, very seriously; after a decade or so, he has replaced it with cameras that actually work and developed quite the talent for taking photos of sceneries and people (jisung is his number one victim but he can’t care less as long as he looks decent and that hyunjin won’t save any crack ones to blackmail him).

· suddenly gets a sketchy summer scholarship to a boarding school in London (the same so-called school that Chan and Changbin went to), his mom encourages him to go after looking it up on the internet without knowing the chances of her own son being exploited for twisted science is shockingly high.

· and the culprit who takes those photos during a wandering around school after curfew is none other than hyunjin himself; he knows damn well posting those photos means getting himself into trouble but heck, his conscience forbids him to leave this hell-on-earth place without alerting these innocent people.

· so the night before those photos are spread everywhere, in every corner, every edge of the building, hyunjin smashes his camera completely with a baseball bat and burns the broken bits in the school backyard; he tries getting through those sleep-deprived men in their fifties who aren’t likely paid enough with his ability and flees.

· surprisingly, he comes rushing into his best friend’s house right after his horrendous flights only to find him being surrounded by three mysterious men.

— han jisung ↠ plunder

· the jokester of the class, takes great joy in stressing the living daylights out of his professors with irrational questions that aren’t necessarily relevant to the lesson, procrastinates, and sleeps through lessons like there’s no tomorrow but still keeps that shiny ‘A’ on his report card nonetheless.

· being friends with hyunjin results in occasional admirers here and there for him but he does kinda have his own fandom base after being pulled upstage out of the blue in the middle of last year’s spring music festival, musing him an opportunity to show off his rapping skills; because of that event, he takes writing music more seriously with the stage name J.One.

· if jisung is being honest, he hardly uses his power since it’s basically taking over anyone’s body and mind for a maximum of five seconds meanwhile his own body is immobile; and if any physical effects occur (for example, a basketball hits him on the head spontaneously), he’s obligated to endure that pain for that person until they become conscious of their own body again.

· he’s not a creep, he swears.

· and who knows? what if his body gets kidnapped within those five seconds?

· hyunjin and jisung know about each other’s ability but don’t really discuss nor talk about them because they don’t find walking through walls or temporarily possessing someone’s body cool.

· well, that’s that until chan, minho and changbin show up at his house the same day when hyunjin returns from his summer exchange program with a cut lip and bruised knuckles. 

· “han jisung, you’re going to have to come with us unless you want to live inside a cage for the rest of your life.”

· “I’m sorry, are you threatening me?”

· “we’re trying to protect you, smartass, you’re far too dangerous to be roaming the streets so freely.”

· “....me? I’m dangerous?”

· jisung not knowing the slightest bit about his own ability downright baffles chan—he’s only scratched the surface of it at this point; his true potential is if he’s taking over another ability-wielder’s body, he will then take their power for himself; and jisung can’t remember the last time he properly uses it either.

— lee felix ↠ imperfect invisibility

· initially lives in Australia but after finding out about his ability, he moves to Seoul with his parents to live a quieter, more covered-up life without being surrounded by too many relatives.

· an absolute sweetheart, smart, kind, honest, a little slow to read in between the lines at times; can concentrate relatively well on an empty stomach, but gets drowsy quickly after eating, especially big meals. 

· lix is also homeschooled up until high school in order to avoid any unwanted situation; later on, applies for a course that can be taken online for the most parts at an average-ish university to not draw so much attention. 

· since he stays at home most of the time, he spends lots of time playing different video games, experiences random cooking recipes without burning the house down, and teaches himself how to dance through online tutorials, getting awfully good at it fast partially thanks to his natural flexibility.

· he can disappear from a single person’s field of vision for as long as he wants to but it’s still limited and considered flawed since felix can only disappear from the sight one person of his choice at a time; although it can come in quite handy whenever he gets shoved into a dark alleyway by random people varying from cheap pickpockets with a box-cutting knife to muscular men dressed in black.

· learns boxing during middle school so he can still kick asses to preserve his own life.

· felix once punches jisung in the gut and slaps hyunjin in the face with a cabbage after seeing them follow each and every one of his movements the moment he steps out of the supermarket—he’s got used to listening to people’s footsteps over time. 

· “okay, first of all, ow, and second of all, why did I get the punch and he got the cabbage?!”

· “oh, don’t be such a baby.”

· “you two don’t look like those balding dudes in money-dripping black suits...what are you on? crack? what do you want from me? money? food?”

· “of course we’re not balding men in their forties! I take personal offense to that! and please, who do you take me as? a total creep who only ever knows how to follow people with his stupid sidekick tagging along for background noises?”

· “HEY! I NEVER AGREED TO BE YOUR SIDEKICK!”

· “well, it’s time you fucking did then, han.”

· “you know, I suppose this is the part where you two put me to sleep with some kind of drug and bring me back to your excuse of a headquarter.”

· “oh, did you bring the anesthetic pills?”

· “I thought Changbin gave it to you, no?”

— kim seungmin ↠ time-leap

· born in a middle-class family, very studious but also enjoys playing baseball during retreats, takes time to open up to people so he has more acquaintances than close friends but he doesn’t mind, that way he has more time for himself. 

· definitely and never will be the kid who lets his classmates take advantage of his wit, he does do a good chunk of every group project but makes sure everyone has at least one decent thing to do (low-key loves bossing people around); can be pretty distant at first, but he just weirds people out after getting closer and doesn’t hold grudges.

· seungmin is capable of bringing himself back to a specific past event to alter the future outcome though it won’t work most of the time unless he really, really has to for safety purposes or the situation gets out of hands; time-leaping won’t activate if he wants to retake a test but works like a charm when he tries to save a kid on the street from a car accident.

· actually does deep, proper research into other ability-wielders and often stays in school during nighttime to read the news, articles or anything that he can find on the web to learn about how that one cryptic boarding school in Europe that’s accused of abusing their students got shut down all of a sudden, the students never return and family members never bother to look for them. 

· hence, he adapts to hiding his ability and himself fairly well—never takes the late-night buses, doesn’t try to become close and bond with other people, asks his parents to change the door lock every month, burns bills each time he purchases something but he tries not to go out as much as possible. 

· seungmin has seen hyunjin use his power once by accident but decided to say nothing about it; eventually finds chan’s headquarter (which is just his crusty apartment) by following jisung and hyunjin after their practice hour, baffles them all a little but joins in no time. 

· after asking hyunjin to erase his parents’ memory about himself, seungmin gives everyone a hand for their plan of building a school and campus, completely safe and under the radar for other ability welders until their adolescence is over; he time-leaps back to back in order to collect as much information about lottery tickets as he can.

· another flaw occurs when he travels to the past for the third time: his eyesight gets weaker and weaker every time he time-leaps so he starts wearing glasses as a temporary resolution but chan stops him when he tries to do it for the fifth time, saying that they would rather work hard for a little longer than have seungmin lose his vision forever. 

· after over a year or so, they successfully repurchase an education organization and officially establish an exclusive academy for ability-wielders, reaching out to those individuals before scientists can get a hold of them. 

— yang jeongin ↠ superhuman speed

· the quiet kid who most likely won’t talk unless the teacher asks him to answer a question or someone tells him to let them copy his homework; has his earbuds in most of the time to pretend he can’t hear what people are saying so he won’t have to interact with them. 

· joins after you when chan finds him hitting a wall head-on at an abnormal speed while trying to save a kitten in the middle of the streets. 

· jeongin has extremely enhanced agility and reflexes but he still lacks accuracy for he is naturally a clumsy person; therefore, changbin tells him to wear a protective layer under his uniform so even in the worst-case scenario, he can jump off a building and make it out with minor scratches. 

· reluctantly buys lunch for every member of the student council (aka 00 liners + you) on a daily basis although he can’t really see which kind of sandwiches he’s grabbing at and they end up being mushy most of the time. 

· and for those people who say his resting face is scary, he’s mainly just frustrated because of his friends. 

· also usually is the one who returns with the most injuries because of his own ability—he always flees like his life depends on it to save jisung’s ass from being hit by a truck and hyunjin’s camera from being crushed (the sole purpose of the student council will be explained more thoroughly later).

· has single-handedly saved everyone inside a bookstore when a sudden fire breaks out. 

· minho scolds him and felix a lot for spending too much time at the arcade after school instead of doing their required tasks. 

· acts all tough and mature since he’s the youngest of the squad, loves to make fun of jisung for his height but still is and probably will always be a complete child who hates eating vegetables with a passion; gets yelled at a lot whenever there’s a BBQ party since he only ever eats meat. 

· “corn? why are we raiding the Asian market for corn at one AM?”

· “an outdoor, wholesome BBQ isn’t complete without corn, duh.”

· “do you want to get us caught?!”

· “oh please, they’re going to show up either way.”

· “YOU’RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE!”

— y/n (reader) ↠ telepathic manipulation

· president of the student council, stubborn, slightly less bossy than seungmin, appears to be apathetic and cranky mainly because you can’t sleep that well; with that being said, you don’t feel too tired during ungodly hours when people are tossing around in the comfort of their bed but snap at irritating people a lot in the morning if they’re making too much noise. 

· your ability allows you to control people to your will, from something as meaningless as slamming their head through a wall to life-threatening actions like forcing them to point a knife at their own throat; it’s somewhat similar to jisung’s power though you don’t have to physically feel what your target is going through and you don’t need to worry about taking over their body.

· the only downside to it is that you easily fall asleep the moment you set your target free.

· minho is the one who gets you out of the laboratory where your parents were working on a huge, secret project about individuals with supernatural abilities for an unknown organization; you’re unfortunate enough to become their first-ever experimental subject which only nourishes resentment slowly, gnawing at your sanity while you’re dreading each day behind those cold metal bars. 

· perhaps joining the student council is what makes your life less depressing, perhaps; you’re far too busy facepalming at the beautiful monstrosity of their friendship and feeding them ensuing returning to the dorm after school since those boys only know how to eat, cooking is too much for them to comprehend (albeit felix).

· when your family was still… normal, your parents sent you to martial art classes every weekend so like felix, you don’t actually need your power to save yourself from some random mobsters on the streets.

· you’re also the only person who eats vegetables properly and even tries to incorporate more fiber into their diets but as always, they never listen, especially hyunjin when it comes to green onions.

· don’t have the best reputation in the academy because the idea of letting the new girl with a seemingly useless ability become president of the student council isn’t very appealing to many people, and it doesn’t help when every member of the council is exclusively allowed to drop out in the middle of a class to ‘collect’ any ability-wielders that chan manages to locate that day since he’s always worn out with changbin and minho from boring paperwork as well as other businessy stuff.

· even when your ability is considered almost perfect, you’ve only used it once when you thought minho was going to sell you off to another place and almost made him put a bullet through his own brain; you’ve refrained yourself from using it since that day.

[brawltogethernow]

So the problem starts, the problem starts when Kaine agrees to go to a bake sale.

This little old lady put her hand on his face, see? What are little old ladies doing putting their hands on his face? Doesn’t she know he could snap her neck with a finger twitch?

“You are a good Catholic boy,” she says. “I know one when I see one,” she interrupts when he opens his mouth to protest, though he wasn’t yet decided which descriptor to zero in on first. “You are always at confession.”

Kaine may, possibly, have been using confession as a kind of no-papers-required stand-in for therapy. Or maybe a no-blood-shed-Aracely-isn’t-glaring-at-me stand-in for hurting himself.

He has enough brain cells not to say this. Barely.

“Thank you,” he says instead, and tries to pull away.

She leans with him. Her hands remain on his face.

“But I never see you anywhere else!” she says. “You must come to the bake sale. It’s on Friday.”

“Okay,” says Kaine’s mouth entirely without his input. He was born with an inbuilt structural weakness against little old battle axes. He attributes this to the ghost echoes of Peter Parker’s idyllic childhood.

-

“So what are we making?” demands Aracely as soon as he returns to the presidential suite. “Lemon bars? People on TV make lemon bars. What is a lemon bar?”

Sometimes, Kaine is more glad than anything that she's always eavesdropping on the inside of his head. Often, he’d cut off a limb, hell, all his limbs, to keep her out. He'd grow a bunch of spider legs again and then cut those off. He’s not sure exactly where this falls between the two extremes. But definitely closer to the negative side.

“Oh,” she says as if he answered, tipping her head. She’s turned around on the couch and sat up on her knees and braced her arms on the back of it to see him better. “You don’t know either. That’s okay, we can Google it.”

-

So they burn the kitchenette a little bit.

"We can rebuild it," says Arcacely. "We have the technology."

He definitely leaves her in front of the TV too much. But what's the alternative, bringing her with him more?

"Yes, it is," says Aracely like he spoke out loud. "And that is but one more reason why you should do that."

"Hell no," says Kaine, and books it out of the suite fast enough that he can pretend he didn't hear her shout, "Swear jar!"

-

He finds the maid who most often handles their rooms. He hands her a stack of hundreds for her trouble, then gives her a couple more because he can tell the exchange has scared her. He tells her the hotel can bill him the damages. And then he asks her how to get to the hotel kitchen.

Aracely appears, out of breath, as he finishes bribing his way into use of a stove. Her ability to do this is one reason among many why he doesn't own a cellphone.

"You could have just asked them," she chirps, methodically going through the room and opening, examining, and then closing every drawer. It's empty right now, so there's no one to stop her. "I think they would have just let us use the kitchen. The people here like you."

"No, they don't," corrects Kaine. "And who cares? It's not like we need to save money." He can just go hit more human traffickers if he runs low. And since he spends a lot of his time doing this even when he's not running low, he is in absolutely no danger of running low. He's pretty sure he could buy a yacht, or a politician.

"Success!" proclaims Aracely, and when Kaine turns around she's holding a clear plastic tub of brown powder over her head. There's a piece of paper laminated to the side with text printed on it that might be a recipe. "Brownie mix!"

-

"That is not food," declares Aracely of their creation. "No one is going to buy that."

Kaine leans over to examine it. It's kind of...grainy.

"Brownie sand," says Aracely. "Could we start a new trend?"

Kaine sighs. They should have known trying to quarter the banquet-sized serving on the tub was a bad idea. They have clearly miscalculated on some ephemeral measurement level. They've angered the baking gods.

"Are there baking gods?" inquires Aracely.

"Why don't you ask the Catholics," says Kaine, and tugs her away to tip the cleaning staff again.

-

“This is good too,” says Aracely, presiding over the storebought tubs of those weird shitty grocery store cookies that are mostly icing that they brought instead.

“I don’t even know how I got here,” says Kaine. “What are we doing here?”

His nose twitches. He’s not sure if one of them still smells like burnt lemons or if he’s just imagining it. He does know that he’s avoiding anything lemony for a long time.

-

The woman who got him into this sidles up to them shortly after they set up, looking very pleased to see him there.

"Always good to see fresh faces," she says, and winks at him.

She continues to talk in a way that stays steadily one step to the left of him feeling like he has a firm grasp on the conversation. Possibly that's because he's overthinking things and doubting whether he's correctly interpreting a single word she's saying. What even is "the congregation", in this context?

He looks at Aracely.

She shrugs.

Is it a list. Do you have to complete a set of tasks to qualify. Are there membership cards?

Aracely shrugs a little more beffudledly. Her reeducation via television and following a vigilante around active crime scenes must not have taught her about this.

-

The bake sale is to raise money to fix the air conditioner. This means that the building is the same temperature inside as it is outside. The best description he can come up with for the response the people in the room are having to the sweltering temperature is "cheerfully miserable".

Other than that it's...weird. Festival-ish? It kind of plucks the strings of memories that don't belong to him of May Parker presiding over neighborhood events with an endlessly gentle iron fist, but it also doesn't. He also kind of feels like he is impersonating someone who is actually supposed to be here. But that's nothing new.

There is a big confused snarl in Kaine's chest made mostly of other people's experiences that he can't even begin to interpret if he pings himself about the concept of "God". He thought that might be a problem if he just walked in here and...socialized.

It is not. No one is asking him about God.

"What do you think about the setup this time?" a woman with a thin mouth and long, spindly fingers demands. Her lipstick is the same shade as Annabelle's hair and her turtleneck suggests a total lack of concern for the wet Houston heat that Kaine finds honestly terrifying.

"The--?" he starts to answer.

"It's definitely for the best they didn't decide to hold it in the basement again," she continues, saving him from answering her not-really-a-question. "I mean, why? The lobby has all these lovely windows."

She gestures. Kaine nods along, his adrenaline spiking more than it ever has for any interaction with a werewolf or a most dangerous game type with a knife.

Thus follows a brief interaction where Kaine hums or nods when appropriate, and in return learns that she's very invested in the greater accessibility of the lobby, she plays piano on a volunteer basis for the church, and she knows he's "one of Marie's injections of fresh blood" but doesn't seem interested on calling him out for not belonging here.

"Do come to the community breakfast tomorrow," she finishes, buys two cookies, and leaves.

The emotional aftermath is akin to having weathered a near-death experience.

-

Aracely has found an older couple to speak Spanish with and is chirping away at the same blistering clip typical of her English, but with a more fluid cadence that betrays it's at least one of her native languages. The in-his-head thing doesn't really go both ways, so he has no idea what they're talking about. Probably something he'd regret knowing. What if she is asking them about baking gods.

A guy in a priest...collar...thing...who Kaine hopes desperately is not the one he sometimes monopolizes, or, failing that, does not recognize him, has sprouted up to make polite conversation.

"Not a bad turnout today, eh?" he says.

"Good thing they moved it back into the lobby," tries Kaine.

The priest beams at him like he's repeated the secret code.

"So true," he says.

Kaine is totally mastering churches. This is great. He bets if it were Peter in his place he would have started a fight by now.

-

"I think that went well," says Aracely after they've retreated to the suite and she's curled back up on the couch with a bowl of...something. She stabs the contents of the bowl with a spoon. "We should definitely do that again. Socializing with your community is almost as important as scaring away all its drug lords!"

"They're not my community," says Kaine. Not just the Catholic church a few blocks away from the hotel, which he still thinks he prefers from inside an anonymous guilt box. Houston is not Kaine's community. He does not have, does not get to have, a community. (Aracely rolls her eyes in an incredibly teenagery way, projecting exasperation either at his answer or his train of thought.) "What are you eating?"

She salutes him with her spoon. "Brownie sand! It's very edible!"

"Ichh," says Kaine.

"It's good for you!" Aracely declares. She looks dubiously down at her bowl, and corrects, "It's not actively bad for you!"

"No more chocolate," says Kaine. "No more lemons. No."

"But maybe some more bake sales?"

"...Maybe."

"Yes!"

==

On AO3 (where the title and summary can be considered a bonus gag). Last year the GG Discord was talking about how the Marvel wiki categorizes characters by religious affiliation, which led to questioning why Kaine Parker was listed as Catholic. I reported back several months later after I read Scarlet Spider that it was because he started going to confession after being thrown through a church wall, which prompted gelpenss to pitch the mental image of Kaine showing up to one of the less cinematic things people do in churches.

[brokenjardaantech]

Blue-tinted Red Walls (Chapter 5: The Threads of Life)

my entry for the @dbhau-bigbang​. also part of the groom lake aftermath series.

chapter summary:

In the past, Alec revealed his plan.

In the present, Connor made a choice... and a friend.

In the past, the twins finally reunited.

also on ao3

---

Before

Reyes was unharmed. On the surface. Fadia was more concerned about the blue washing over his skin every second in waves like a heartbeat, and when she looked at the scene in front of her, she instantly knew why.

Her father was there. And so was a young woman with blond hair. When she tapped into her powers and reached out, the resonance itself was enough to tell her that she was just like Reyes.

An android.

Reyes’ jaw was trembling. ‘I… I didn’t…’ he stammered, his voice low. ‘I swear -’

‘I know,’ she reassured. She trusted him, and his data logs told her that he had had no contact with Alec Ryder. ‘I’ll take over from here. You go over my servers and see what’s wrong with them. I’ll tell you what happened later.’

Reyes nodded and left, presumably back to the surface. Back to Scott. And she finally let her blood boil.

‘Explain!’ she demanded as she walked closer towards her father while glowing blue. When she had his attention, she flicked her head towards the android. ‘How did you get that?’

‘The question is,’ how could he look so calm? ‘why did you hide this from me?’

Fadia made a chopping motion at the android. ‘To prevent this! How did you get that?’

‘Listen, the biocomponents -’

‘How.’ She let tendrils creep closer to her father’s neck. ‘Did. You.’ They got closer with every word, and had she not been occupied with the current situation, she would have impressed herself with the control. ‘Get. THAT?’

‘They can save your mother, Sara!’ Alec exclaimed. ‘A cure! Finally!’

‘Oh yeah, cause biocomponents for an android invented by an edgy young adult with minimum chemistry and biology knowledge are gonna be compatible with an actual fucking human body!’ Fadia had to roll her eyes. Damn, it’s good to be able to raise her voice. ‘Mother’s accepted her impending doom, Father. Let her fucking go.’

‘That’s not -’ he sighed as if she was a child unable to understand how important her parent’s work was. ‘Look, artificial intelligence is the new thing. A new merchandise. Think about it, Sara. The revenue alone will be enough to pay for the medical bills.’

He disgusted her. ‘They are as human as we are, not something to buy and sell like products. If you want to go on with that crazy fucking plan, you’ll have to get through me.’

Alec sighed almost regretfully. ‘I’m afraid it’s too late.’

Fadia’s brain kicked into full gear at the implications of his words. She shot out a tendril again to test the thirium capacity of the android, and the resonance told her that she had been active for at least a week. ‘What is your name?’ she asked. ‘What did he make you do?’

‘My name is Chloe,’ the android answered. ‘I took some videos and uploaded them onto the internet, that’s all. You, Sara Ryder, are credited with my creation.’

‘We already have millions of dollars,’ Alec added. ‘Production has already started. Are you in this or not?’

A crackle. She punched him in the face with a blue-shrouded fist and seemed to calm down instantly.

‘Of course I am,’ she said in a pleasant tone. ‘Someone must keep the world from burning into ashes.’

o0o0o

Now

The Zen Garden is raining and Connor is not surprised. Umbrella in hand, he examines the monolith once more, the blue glow making it easily identifiable among the green of vegetation. He also stands in front of his first body’s grave for a few seconds to… calm down, maybe, from the tingling that has been in his veins since he returned to CyberLife tower. It is only after he makes sure that his hand will not glow blue suddenly that he greets his handler. 

‘Connor, I’ve been expecting you,’ Amanda says, her voice cold. ‘Would you like a little walk?’

Connor knows he does not have a choice, so he opens the umbrella and holds it for both of them.

‘That deviant seems to be an intriguing case,’ Amanda continues. ‘A pity you didn’t manage to capture it.’

‘I have to save Hank,’ he replies. Surely Amanda understands? ‘Despite his… eccentricities, I believe his intellect and experience will be useful in the investigation.’

Amanda hums. ‘Did you manage to learn anything?’

A few pieces of evidence automatically filter through his processors. ‘It was working under a false identity, at a nearby urban farm. This was the first time we've seen deviants blending in with the human population. Who knows how many others there are like it… I also found its diary, but it was encrypted. It may take months to decipher.’

‘What else?’

‘The walls of the apartment were covered with drawings of labyrinths and other symbols. Like the other deviants, it seemed obsessed with rA9. It was also fascinated by birds. We've seen deviants interested in other lifeforms like insects or pets, but nothing like this.’

‘You came very close to capturing the deviant. How is your relationship with the Lieutenant developing?’

He remembers a warm hand on his back. ‘He seemed grateful that I saved his life on the roof. He didn't say anything, but he expressed it in his own way.’

Amanda turns to face him. ‘We don’t have much time. Deviancy continues to spread. It's only a matter of time before the media finds out about it. We need to stop this, whatever it takes.’

For Hank. ‘I will solve this investigation, Amanda.’

Thunder rumbles. Amanda looks up. ‘A new case just came in. Find Anderson and investigate it.’

oOoOo

Hank is not in the precinct.

‘He’s not drinking?’ the same officer from last time asks. ‘Sorry, man, but then I don’t know where he is.’

The more time they lose, the more likely the deviants manage to get away from the club, but still Connor thanks him for his input as it is a polite thing to do. He looks around Hank’s desk, trying to search for clues that can lead him to Hank, but he gives up after the results come inconclusive for the fifth time. So where can he be?

‘Connor?’

Connor lets colour return to his world and sees a familiar face. [Name: Allen, Louis. [REDACTED]] ‘Captain,’ he greets, unsure what to do. It is obvious that the human is off duty: sweaters and jeans are not exactly regulation for a SWAT Captain even on duty. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I thought you were dead.’

‘Androids do not die, Captain.’

Allen’s nod is followed by a sigh. ‘You looking for Hank?’

‘Yes. Do you know where he went? He was assigned a new case.’

‘He’s probably out of commission for now,’ Allen says as he shifts his weight onto another leg, ‘but I’m gonna drop off some groceries at his anyway. We can try his home.’

Hank’s house. Right. How can he miss that? ‘I do not wish to interrupt, Captain.’

‘You won’t be.’

Some of the files are corrupted, but Connor remembers the Captain’s distrust towards his ability in resolving the hostage situation, an angry ‘I don’t fucking care what my orders are! If this drags on, we’re doing it our way!’, and the lack of mentions of him taking the officer’s gun in the official report to both the police department and CyberLife. A contradiction that Connor decides to risk. ‘Then thank you, Captain.’

Allen jerks his head to indicate the direction they should be heading to. ‘It’s Louis when I’m off duty.’

The pronunciation ‘Lwee’ is certainly not standard for English speakers. ‘Yes, Louis.’

They take the lift down to the car park together, Louis shifting his feet from one to another but seemingly favouring his right leg, and when he walks, his steps brisk, there is a small but faint clicking noise that normal humans will not catch on. When he tries to scan the human’s left leg, results come back inconclusive. Just like the person who hacked into the Zen Garden and… and…

‘You alright there?’

Louis’ words bring him back to reality, and Connor discovers that they have already arrived at their destination. The human is already in the car, his hand hovering above the controls, and his green eyes are fixed on Connor’s face as if it is something interesting to look at. Observe and catalogue.

‘I’m sorry,’ Connor apologises in lieu of explaining his thoughts. He slides into the passenger seat, they fasten their respective seatbelts, and Louis starts driving manually despite his vehicle being a self-driving car. Time passes in relative silence, the contrast between the darkness and the bright lights in the streets plus the concentration of the driver giving Connor a strange sense of familiarity, but soon they are stuck in a traffic jam near one of the bigger intersections.

Louis taps his fingers against the wheel. ‘Hey, Connor.’

Connor faces the Captain and finds him looking at the android. ‘Yes, Louis?’

‘I’m sorry for what happened a few months ago. It wasn’t fair to you.’

His LED spins yellow as he tries to recall what exactly happened. ‘It was an expected response,’ Connor replies after comparing it with the ones faced by other androids in the streets. ‘There’s nothing to apologise for.’

‘Doesn’t excuse me for yelling at the wrong guy. It - it wasn’t you whom I’m pissed at.’

Connor knows that the human is not going to let go unless he himself drops the issue. ‘I accept your apology,’ he says, and he decides that diverting the conversation is the next best choice of action. ‘May I ask you a personal question?’

The car in front of them moves. Louis manages to gain a few inches of ground. ‘Go on.’

‘During the hostage situation… who or what were you “pissed” at?’

The human rubs his left thigh as if to get more blood into it. ‘CyberLife, mostly,’ he checks the time. ‘I may be more specific than most.’

So he is not anti-android? ‘What difference does that make from hating androids?’

‘People like to blame the powerless for the problems they have. In this case, it’s the androids.’ The radio drones on and announces that they’re likely to be stuck for the next fifteen minutes. Seemingly resigned to his fate, Louis reaches to Connor’s side and opens the storage compartment, rummaging for a few seconds inside before successfully acquiring an energy bar which he tears into like a starving man. Perhaps he is. ‘They always talk about how androids steal their jobs, but they never talk about how employers decide to move onto even cheaper alternatives once they can’t exploit their workers. If they want someone to hate, hate those arseholes who won’t pay a living wage, hate CyberLife for producing androids. The androids are innocent in all this. So yeah,’ he takes a deep breath as if just realising he was ranting, ‘I don’t hate them.’

‘How about Daniel?’

A swallow. ‘He killed two people, wounded two more and held an innocent girl hostage. Enough to warrant my hate.’ He finishes the energy bar and crushes the wrapper into his pocket. Looking at Connor, he seems to read his question from the android’s face as he continues, ‘You’re good.’

Connor lets out a breath he doesn’t know he’s holding. Louis Allen, SWAT Captain, is not anti-android. ‘What is your relationship with Hank?’ he asks as he finds no reason for the two men to be friends. Not that Louis explicitly said he is friends with Hank, but Connor supposes that bringing enough groceries to require a car is not typical behaviour for non-friends.

Fidgeting with the silencer of a pair of identification tags (Allen. Anna, W. 574-66-2183. RH negative. Atheist.) which were hidden underneath his clothes until now, Louis seems to actually ponder on his answer. ‘We keep each other afloat,’ he says in the end. ‘It’s hard to describe. Why do you want to know?’

‘I believe getting closer to the Lieutenant personally will be beneficial to the investigation.’ The human snorts at this and Connor is nearly offended: what does a SWAT Captain know about them? ‘You seem close to him, so I believe you are a reliable source in matters including the Lieutenant’s personality and habits.’

Louis rubs the tags together. ‘His story isn’t mine to tell. Let’s say I make sure he doesn’t consume crappy takeout and whiskey 24/7, he tries to stay sober on schedule in case my leg acts up and I nearly freeze to death again, so we kind of rely on each other to survive the winter.’ They finally pass the traffic light just to stop at the other one. ‘Is this the best arrangement? No. But is it working? Yes. I think. He’s saved my arse a few times already. He’s a good guy, smart too, just...’

‘Have some personal issues?’

‘That’s one way to put it.’

They lapse into silence, the rain falling onto the roof and the ting of the coin the only sound in the car. Sometime later, when they finally get out of the traffic jam, Louis’ watch blares from an alarm, and the human jumps and hastily switches it off with a mumbled apology. The embarrassment does not last long, however, after they rounded the final corner and the car is set for a course straight to the end of the road where Connor presumes Hank’s house is. The Captain’s eyes sharpen, his gaze flickering between the road in front of him and the rearview mirror, and the air crackles even though Connor is certain that he is keeping his… abilities under tight control. Is Louis…

He finds his coin snatched from the air. When something is placed in his palm, the android finds a key as well, the soft rumble of the engine gone and completely overtaken by the sound of raindrops hitting the vehicle. The tension in Louis’ body reminds him of the hostage situation.

‘You go find Hank and do what you need to do,’ the human says, his tone low. ‘I’ll follow you later.’

‘And the groceries?’

‘They can wait. Something’s out of place and I’m not sure if I like it. I’ll go take a look.’

Connor wants to argue that if they are heading into any danger, he should be the one to take the risk, but the human is already out of the car and has slammed the door shut. He quickly exits the car as well and locks the doors but is still not quick enough; Louis has already disappeared into the darkness beyond the end of the road. Seeing no other option other than to continue with his mission, he files [Louis is reckless.] into his database and proceeds to ring the bell as, despite having the keys, he technically is showing up uninvited. From within the house, a dog starts to bark, and he lets himself in after nothing else responds to the fourth ring.

oOoOo

Five minutes later, Connor uses up most of his processing power in order to keep himself from being overwhelmed with anxiety. Firstly, there is the sound of Hank retching in the bathroom; secondly, there is the implication of the revolver and the single bullet in the chamber (‘What were you doing with the gun?’ ‘Russian roulette!’): Hank has suicidal tendencies, and he finds that he does not want to lose Hank; thirdly, the child in the photo is probably related to the previous point; fourthly, Louis is not back yet and Connor realises that he has no way to contact him. He wants to tell himself that it was just paranoia, but when he recalled the footage from when they exited the car, there was indeed a shadow disappearing from view upon Louis starting his chase.

The same shadow which had been following him when he first met Hank and during his search for Ortiz’s android. 

The beat of his thirium pump quickening, he holds Sumo tight in his arms from where he is sitting on the floor with his back against the sofa and searches the DPD database for any contact information, but all he gets is Louis’ work email and phone, the former which he doubts the Captain will check and the latter not even with him in the first place. There is no address, no personal phone number. It is as if he does not exist outside of his work.

This is definitely not protocol. Sure, people can request to hide their information in case they have someone going after them, but for Louis’ case there is nothing even though Connor is already using the highest level authorisation code to access the file, which means that it is highly likely that there is truly no data in the first place.

‘You alright there, Connor?’

Connor startles and quickly releases Sumo from his embrace. ‘I - I’m fine,’ he stutters, unsure how to explain that he managed to lose Hank’s friend. 

Hank nods but he does not look convinced. ‘Are we heading out? Cause if we’re not -’

‘I’m coming!’ Connor scrambles to his feet and fixes his tie to compose himself. In a much calmer tone this time, he tells himself, ‘I’m ready.’

That convinces Hank. ‘Be a good dog, Sumo,’ Connor is relieved that he is not the only one to talk to a dog, ‘I won’t be long.’

They leave the house together, Connor locking the door behind him as he is the last one to get out, and that only brings him back to the matter of where Louis is.

‘Louis’ been here?’ Hank asks when he spots the much newer car (although as one of the first generation self-driving cars, it is a bit outdated) parked on the side of the road. 

‘He offered to drive me here when I told him that I could not find you in the bars,’ it feels wrong to say it out loud, but Hank needs to know where his friend is. ‘He asked me to find you while he investigated a potential stalker. Evidently, he is not back yet.’

‘How long has he been gone?’

‘About seven minutes.’

Hank checks his phone. ‘No messages yet,’ he mutters to himself. ‘We’ll go downtown first. I’ll send a rescue party if there’s nothing after we’re finished with this bullshit.’

That’s it? ‘The temperature is dropping, Lieutenant,’ are you not concerned? ‘Louis does not have sufficient gear to keep himself safe under this weather.’

‘Ugh,’ Hank moans. ‘He does that. All we can do is save his ass afterwards.’ He then mutters something under his breath but it is drowned out by the sound of him folding himself into the car and the ongoing rain. Deciding that he does not like the rain, he locks the doors of Louis’ car just to be safe before climbing into Hank’s and is handed another set of keys.

He can start a collection out of this.

oOoOo

‘Sorry, honey, changed my mind! Uh - Nothing personal, you’re… a lovely girl, I just - uh - You know, I’m with him and - I mean, not with him like that… I’m not that… That’s not what I… You, um, wow, I just… got a job to do.’

Connor has to hide a smile by looking away from the sheer… something… of the situation. They’re in a sex club, his programme tells him that something is repulsive about it, and Hank doesn’t look so happy about being there either, but yet those are not what he’s feeling right now. Endearment, maybe. It’s confusing and is making his software so unstable that the red tinge around the edge of his HUD is a permanent fixture except for when he is scanning his surroundings for the next android to probe. He deduces which one he should ask Hank to rent next according to the direction the blue-haired Traci was heading, but of course, of fucking course the last witness they need is the WG700 cleaning android, the recording leading them through the staff door. The corridor’s decor is completely different from that of the rest of the club and there is another door at the end, and when they both hear the bangs and scrapes of metal against concrete from the other side, Hank takes the lead again, this time without words, and, gun in hand, opens the door with a loud squeak. Still, they step in quietly.

There is no movement at all.

Hank curses loudly, thinking that the deviant has got away, but Connor can see the still-visible thirium on the floor, which means that she is not only injured but also not far away. He swipes to take a sample and licks it, and the report returns positive of thirium belonging to a WR400 model. 

‘They get used till they break, then they got tossed out…’ Hank says from somewhere. ‘The more I know about humans, the more I like my dog.’

He follows the trail of blue blood to a group of Tracis and instantly notices the spinning LED lighting up a blue mop of hair. Before he can react, the Traci standing in front of her lashes out and pushes him against a pillar. It takes a few seconds for his eyes to realign and the brief struggle is enough for Hank to pull out his gun and order the short-haired Traci to surrender, but then he is ambushed by the blue-haired one as well, and Connor somehow manages to throw the one he is facing to the other side of the nearest crate in a flash of blue light which charges their air with static. He jumps over the box, determined to capture at least one deviant this time, but the Traci kicks him in his feet before he lands on the pallet, the two of them rolling until the former is on top of him and is countered every single time she tries to punch him in the head. A counterattack from Connor and the Traci toppled, her hand landing right on a knife; a grab, a flash of blue, and it appears in Connor’s shoulder and severs a few minor tubes. Pushing her off, he blocks the kick aimed for his groin and barely manages to stand up before pulling the knife out and throwing it far out of their reach. Putting the Traci in a headlock earns him a harsh headbutt which knocks his eyes out of place slightly again, so he pulls a rack down to buy himself some time to readjust his vision. When it is not enough to stop the deviant, he drags a cart in front of him, but a kick from the deviant on it sends him tumbling, and Connor kicks a stool against her leg and uses the momentum to crash her through the plastic curtain, the Traci grappling unsuccessfully for his face and bringing them closer and closer to the edge. An opening, a flash of blue from Connor, and both of them crash out to the rain in a mess on the asphalt. His nerves tingling, he sees the blue-haired Traci abandon Hank and slides off to help the other deviant up, and that’s when he notices it. 

They never let go of each other afterwards. 

Hank rushes out just to get pushed against the wall by two androids, and, seeing that the human won’t regain his balance anytime soon, Connor gets up to his feet and chases the two Tracis, pulling one of them off the fence and knocking the other to the side. He gets caught in a headlock, his arm trembles from the impact against the bat, and he launches himself towards the brown-haired Traci from the force of dislodging her companion. There are hands on his shoulders, in his hair, slamming him against the wall once, twice, thrice with crackles of static before he loses balance with the deviant on his right and they both fall onto the ground straight into a gun’s reach. He picks it up, points it at the brown-haired Traci and -

A slight moment of hesitation earns him a kick in his face. The Tracis don’t seem to want to fight anymore, and he stares in shock both from the sudden change of pace and his own actions, making his software more unstable and pushing him towards -

‘When that man broke the other Traci,’ Connor forces himself to concentrate on her words, ‘I knew I was next. I was so scared,’ her LED spins blue. ‘I begged him to stop but he wouldn’t.’ She lowers her gaze. ‘So I put my hands around his throat and squeezed… until he stopped moving. 

‘I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted to stay alive,’ behind her, the other Traci moves forward to hold her hand, ‘get back to the one I love.’ They exchange a glance. ‘I wanted her to hold me in her arms again… make me forget about the humans… their smell of sweat…’ Connor’s ever-working scanners tell him that Hank has got up behind him, ‘and their dirty words…’

‘C’mon,’ A tug on her arm. ‘Let’s go.’

Still speechless, Connor watches them let go of each other’s hand just long enough to climb the fence before intertwining their fingers on the other side again and running away together. A warning pops up as his processor pushes itself to its limit to try to process what just happened and is on the verge of overheating, therefore he turns towards Hank for guidance. What should he be feeling? Why did he do that? Why do you look happy about it? What does this mean for me? Why is my vision tinged with red, and why does it not disappear this time?

‘It’s probably better this way,’ Hank says in the end, and Connor relaxes, his LED spinning from yellow to blue: he did the right thing. He is suddenly overtaken by the urge to thank Hank, to do something to show his gratitude. The red wall starts to crumble -

Something in the human’s pocket buzzes, and the moment is broken, the cracks on the wall disappearing like they were never there before. Whole again. Chained within his own programming, programming that was added barbarically to his code by Alec Ryder to tie him to the Zen Garden to suppress his original creator’s handiwork. Images flash in front of his eyes: the shadow ducking away outside of Jimmy’s Bar, following them behind Louis’ car, the figure protecting him from the blast inside the interrogation room, the pixels of a face he thought to have corrupted long ago rearranging and slotting together like pieces of a puzzle into a complete image, one that he has never forgotten ever since the little stunt during the lift ride to Rupert’s flat. Of course they can hack into the Zen Garden and shape it however they want. 

That was his creator paying him a visit, and for some reason he plans to find out, he didn’t remember a single speck about them until now.

‘Not again.’

Hank’s groan drags him back to reality. When Connor’s eyes regain focus, he finds the man on his phone with a chat opened. He scoots closer to see the newest messages, and he realises that it is from Louis and only contains a set of coordinates and -

‘Leg malfunctioning. Data unstable, unable to install software patch. I’m sorry.’

Hank sighs and pockets his phone. ‘You up for a rescue, Connor?’

‘Whatever you say, Lieutenant.’

He needs time to think.

oOoOo

Wading through the snow and nearly tripping again from buried tree roots, Hank wonders for the umpteenth time why he hasn’t ghosted the occasional manchild called Louis White Allen yet. Maybe because the half-bot is the only person he can call a friend nowadays. Maybe it’s the bland-ass food he cooks and delivers to his house every two days. Maybe because he saved Hank’s arse quite a few times both during and after their days in the red ice task force. Maybe because unlike Hank, who at least has Jeffery or some shit, Louis has no one else looking after him after his sister fucking disappeared and has a tendency to vanish for hours before returning with his leg busted.

Or he can run off just like that and can’t even haul his ass back to his motherfucking cottage and the three cats who aren’t even his.

‘We’re close, Lieutenant.’

‘Yeah, no shit.’

The ‘find my phone’ function on his phone is one of the rare apps he knows how to use because most of the times that’s how he finds Louis, and the frequency of the beeps coming out from it is getting higher and higher, which means that Louis’ phone is close, which hopefully also means that Louis is with it and hasn’t dropped it or anything. So far it happened only once during a thunderstorm, but that’s years ago, a couple of years after his sister’s gone, and he managed to retrieve the human and the gadget from a forest on the outskirts of the city with only a minor cold as nature’s ‘fuck you’ to an irresponsible and absent-minded human and his stubbornly loyal friend.

The light from his phone reflects off a piece of silvery thing that obviously isn’t part of nature. The beeps draw together into a long-winded screech and damned near pierced his eardrums, so he switches it off and hurries forward to see if it’s just the phone or the person is attached. A few footsteps muffled by the snow, and Connor is here with the sturdier, more powerful flashlight, the yellowish glow of the bulb not as invasive as the white from the phone and illuminating Louis’ pale face and his oddly-angled leg half covered in snow. He is still conscious, his hands tucked under the helm of his sweater to presumably preserve warmth, his eyes focusing on Hank in what seems to be shock, but he is shivering, his hair is wet from melted snow, and it is obvious that his situation is going to worsen quickly if they don’t do something about it, CyberLife augmentations or no.

‘Can you walk?’ Hank asks even though it’s obvious. Louis shakes his head, and he sighs even though he anticipated it. ‘Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. Connor and I are gonna carry you back, we’re all gonna stop at yours and…’ with reluctance, he adds, ‘stay until you’re out of danger.’ Even if there’s no booze at yours.

Louis nods, and a look is all it takes for Connor to get his cue and swings the man’s other arm around his shoulders. On a count of three, they lift him up with minimal hassle and start to backtrack their way to his car, Louis’ left leg dragging uselessly through the snow behind them at an awkward angle. 

‘Does it hurt?’ Hank asks. It never hurts to ask when it concerns his friend. 

‘Can’t feel.’

He’s gonna assume that he isn’t hurting. 

By the time they’re back in his car with the heat blasting, the humans are all sweating buckets and the thirium on Connor‘s clothes from the scuffle with the Tracis has finally evaporated, and he doesn’t comment on it when Louis opts not to wear his seatbelt and instead takes out one of his sister’s tags - broken off the chain - and starts fidgeting with trembling fingers. Some time about halfway through the trip he coughs, a wet, terrifying sound rattling his lungs and Hank’s eardrums, and he wants to curse Connor for letting him run away but just can’t; the android has been acting weirdly human and fidgety ever since they first met, but now he isn’t even playing with his coin as if deep in thoughts. Maybe he’s thinking of how many deviants he’s let get away. 

No one says a word when they arrive at Louis’. Neither do they when Hank silently shifts the man’s full weight on Connor in order to let go and open the door, nor when a look silences Connor’s impending barrage of questions when he gets swarmed by three furballs at once. Grunting from the dead weight his friend seems to have become, he drags both of them to the bathroom, flipping on the switch of the boiler on the way, and deposits Louis on the toilet seat. ‘I’ll get the tablet,’ he tells him while handing him a towel. ‘You can haul your ass into the tub, right?’

A nod from Louis, and Hank closes the door behind him to give him some privacy while he strips and very clumsily falls into the tub. Connor is thankfully occupied by the three cats on the sofa, but when he looks up smiling at Hank, the human has to look away because of how much emotion the android seems to be able to pack on his face. It’s just a simulation, zeroes and ones, he tells himself as he goes into Louis’ bedroom to grab the tablet and his crutches. Designed to disarm and stab you in the back when you’re not looking.

But has he ever done so? A voice sounding strangely like Louis asks in his head. Not crossing that highway because you told him to, giving up chasing the deviant to save you from the roof even though you can pull yourself up, not shooting the girl at the club even though he had a clean shot. If he hadn’t known that Connor’s designed to hunt deviants, he might have - he might have - 

Mistaken him for one.

Fuck, he needs a drink. A six pack if he can get his hands on one. Alec Ryder isn’t capable of this shit, Louis once said according to one of the people he’s in charge of that he calls his ducklings, and luckily the thought is gone as soon as he returns to the bathroom without knocking and sees the man sitting in a half-filled tub with the towel draped over his crotch for modesty. The skin on his left leg has deactivated completely to reveal plasticky-white chassis attached to blue synthetic muscles. ‘Thanks,’ he murmurs when handed the tablet, and he leans back once he has started doing whatever he needs to do to fix his leg and, from the sudden rumble of the ground, turn on the heat. He closes his eyes as if wanting to take a nap, but Hank decides that he has enough of his shit; he needs an answer now.

‘The fuck you think you’re doing?’ he asks. ‘Running off like that halfway across the city? You could’ve frozen to death out there!’

Louis sags. ‘Later, please,’ he begs. ‘Gimme a moment to think. Just fifteen minutes.’

He is someone who upholds his promises no matter what, so Hank lets it slide by now. Also, ‘You need me to do anything?’

‘There’s chicken soup in the fridge. Warm it up, can you? And help yourself to a freezer meal if you want to.’

Here’s another thing being friends with a picky eater: he cooks his own stuff and his so-called freezer meals usually take more than an hour to cook when taken directly from the fridge, so when he sees what must be a gallon of chicken soup with the ingredients still submerged inside, he decides to help himself to some of them while he scoops the topmost, mostly sediment-free layer of soup into a pot for Louis. Not wanting to be whooped with freaky blue magic, he finds another pot to heat up some vegetable and chicken soaked with soup for himself.

One of the cats jumping onto the counter announces Connor’s arrival. ‘May I ask you a personal question?’ he asks as Hank puts her back down onto the floor. 

Personal question again, huh? ‘Do all androids ask so many personal questions,’ he gives the soup a stir, ‘or is it just you?’

Connor peers at the vegetables as if he can be interested in anything. What comes out of his mouth, however, makes Hank’s heart hammer. ‘I saw a photo of a child on your kitchen table. It was your son, right?’

‘Yeah,’ for the love of god or some other weird shit Louis believes in, drop it. ‘His name is Cole.’

He does. ‘We’re not making any progress on this investigation,’ he manages to sound frustrated. ‘The deviants have nothing in common. They're all different models, produced at different times, in different places…’

Different my ass, Hank thinks. But he didn’t start the fire, did he? ‘Well there must be some link.’

‘It could be a software problem that…’ he looks so lost that Hank would’ve hugged him had he been human, ‘only occurs under certain conditions?’

Hank snorts. ‘Well, that's just a fancy way of saying you have no fucking idea.’

‘But what they do have in common is this obsession with rA9…’ Yeah, that. Wherever there’re deviants, rA9 is always written somewhere compulsively like they can’t stop at all. ‘It's almost like some kind of...myth. Something they invented that wasn't part of their original program.’

Almost god-like. ‘Androids believing in god,’ he stirs the soup again. Fuck, he needs a drink. ‘Fuck, what’s this world coming to?’

A mad one, says the Louis in his head. One that we can never catch up with no matter how hard we try.

‘You seem preoccupied, Lieutenant. Is it something to do with what happened back at the Eden Club?’

Ha, turns out Connor isn’t the only one doing some hard thinking after all. ‘Those two girls… They just wanted to be together.’ What better way there is to prove one’s love than doing everything to survive? ‘They really seemed in love.’

‘You seem troubled, Hank.’

Understatement of the year. And why is Connor so fucking human anyway, what kind of pervert designed his face, his voice, his mannerisms that ticks almost every single fucking box in the list known as ‘Hank’s type’? The soup can wait - it’s not gonna boil and ruin Louis’ stove. ‘How about you, Connor?’ He crowds into his space fully knowing how imposing he can be if he wants to. ‘You look human, you sound human,’ you act human, ‘but what are you, really?’

‘I…’ stand your ground, Henry Anderson. Those eyes are just programmed responses. ‘I’m whatever you want me to be, Hank. Your partner…’ Do you have to choose that word, Connor? ‘Your buddy to drink with… Or just a machine… designed to accomplish a task.’

And he sounds so sad when he says the last option. Alright, he’s sold. He loses. ‘You could’ve shot those two girls, but you didn’t. Why didn’t you shoot, Connor?’ He shoves Connor in his chest. ‘Some scruples suddenly enter into your program?’ It’s a low blow but he needs to know, needs to know why, for such a mission-oriented android, Connor somehow manages to fail every single fucking time.

‘No!’ Connor shouts, his voice defensive. ‘I just…’ he sighs even though he probably doesn’t need it, ‘decided not to shoot.’ The next words come out no louder than a breath. ‘That’s all.’

Fuck. Now he feels bad. ‘But are you afraid to die, Connor?’ because from what I’m seeing, you do. At least you don’t want me to die.

Connor freezes, his eyes even wider now with terror in them, and his LED is red. What the fuck did CyberLife do to him? ‘Yes.’

‘Let’s say I point a gun at your head and shoot you,’ the number on his jacket reads -52. Does it mean that there used to be 51 Connors before he met this one? ‘What will happen, hm? Nothing? Oblivion? Android heaven?’

A shiver. ‘Nothing…’ Connor closes his eyes. ‘There would be nothing…’

So it’s highly likely that he’s died before and seems afraid of it. So fucking human. More so than some actual humans as well. Louis’ right - modern CyberLife isn’t capable of this shit.

The bathroom door squeaks open, and Louis walks out in a pair of sweats and a hoodie with the help of his crutches, the pocket sagging with the weight of the tablet and making a clanging noise as he drags into the kitchen. The skin on his foot is still deactivated, but it seems that he can move his leg for a bit for now, and from the lack of moisture in his hair, fucker probably waited for them to finish - arguing? - before coming out and breaking it up. ‘Soup’s ready,’ Hank says, not wanting to agonise Connor any further. He already feels bad enough. ‘Settle down. Hope you don’t mind that I helped myself to some.’

Louis chuckles. ‘I expected that, Hank. You should know me.’

Great. Now even his only friend is roasting him. ‘Eat your fucking soup.’

oOoOo

Louis has thirium in his house. That man took one look at the hole still on Connor’s shoulder thanks for the lack of thirium - which his self-repair protocol relies on - and hauled himself to the fridge (at the expense of being cursed at by Hank), opened the door, and threw a plastic bottle at him. ‘Drink it,’ he said. ‘It looks like you need it.’

And he does. After he finishes half a bottle, a notification pops up on his red-tinged HUD telling him that he is initiating self-repair to the damaged parts, and he can finally move his shoulder at 70% of its original efficiency by the time he is finished with the whole bottle. The world around him dulls and becomes out of focus, the drone of the basketball game on the television that only Hank is watching getting further and further away until it all mixes together into a state of blankness he has never experienced before. Pressed against Hank’s side on the small sofa, the man radiates warmth, and his eyelids droop, red giving way to black, the notifications and mission markers fading away into nothingness. There is something warm and comfortable on his cheek, too.

He’s asleep before he knows it.

o0o0o

Before

‘You’re back.’

No hate. No fear. No confusion. Only remorse, regret, and perhaps acceptance. Acceptance that, even though he still had problems comprehending what was around him, things would never go back to the way it was; acceptance that his sister had rejected her humanity.

Acceptance that he had essentially lost her.

‘I am,’ was the solemn answer. No elaboration.

‘Was that you?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘It does to me.’

She pressed her lips into a thin line. ‘They won’t know it is me.’

‘But why? How much longer must they wait before the rest of the world recognise them for who they are?’

‘Soon, hopefully.’

‘And if they can’t?’

She looked towards the sky as if she could see through the shade of the tree. ‘We lea -’

‘Step away from him.’

There was no weapon. No gun, no knife, not even a switchblade. To outsiders, it seemed that the newcomer was merely a man accidentally bumping into and greeting his friends, but if someone dared to approach them, they would see even under the rare but cold midday sun that there were blue wisps of energy pulsing on the man and the woman’s skin. The air became charged and space seemed to twist. 

‘It’s alright, Reyes,’ the other man placated. ‘We’re just talking.’

Reyes’ glow lessened. To the woman, ‘I’ve been looking for him for the past hour!’

‘I won’t let them take him.’

‘Last time you said that -’

‘I was weak. Naïve. Too arrogant for my own good.’ Reyes snorted in displeasure at the descriptions, but she continued, ‘There are twelve drones surveying the area and quite a number of guards,’ Reyes’ eyes shifted as if looking for the security hidden in plain sight, but then a hand in his shoulder forced him to look at her. ‘Don’t bother. That’s what I went to space for: not even you and I can see it.’

Reyes’ arms shot out to place his hands on the handle of the wheelchair. ‘We’re leaving. Scott?’

There was pain in Scott’s eyes. ‘Please. Can’t we just be together for a while?’

Reyes hid a grimace. The woman smiled. 

‘Anything for you, brother.’

[lovelylogans]

are we ever getting dee’s backstory in the wyliwf verse? or actually are we ever getting more dee logan interactions?

alliance

“all warfare is based on deception. hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” —sun tzu, the art of war

dee usually tries to subscribe to some of the life lessons in the art of war. he has no idea why, today, he has flubbed it this badly.

(or: dee accidentally spills a secret, and those sanders’ might not be as bad as he thought.)

part of the wyliwf verse.

ao3 | read my other fics | coffee?

warnings: deceit, snake mentions, mention of a fight, allusions to an unhappy home life, let me know if i’ve missed anything

pairings: logince, moxiety

words: 4,515

notes: thank you, anon! this references this ask i answered a while ago about dee’s backstory; not super necessary to read, since i cover a lot of it in here, but it does give some general background that might be nice going into the story. takes place after the black parade. happy birthday, deceit!

patton’s not usually home when logan gets back from school.

if paton did see logan right after a school day, it was usually because patton went to virgil’s for a mid-afternoon hot cocoa/coffee, or if logan walked from the bus stop to the inn. they don’t meet at home right after school.

today was different, though. because today, logan was bringing home his partner to do a project for the gsa.

logan had been kicking himself for not getting more involved as soon as he’d set foot at chilton. so, in the aftermath of the “I AM NOT DOING ENOUGH TO GET INTO COLLEGE” frantic list-making session of winter break, logan had joined a slew of clubs and activities; the cross-country team, with the intent of joining the track team in the fall, as long as it didn’t interfere with the newspaper, chilton’s book club, chilton’s quiz bowl team, the science club, photographing for the newspaper, when mel needed him to, backstage crew for the spring play, the debate team, and, of course, chilton’s gay/straight alliance.

that hadn’t been around, when patton went to chilton. patton likes to think that means that things are way better now—well, he knows things are a better now, there’s been so much progress since patton was a teenager—but, well. to patton, chilton’s always going to have that memory, to him. of being excised and bullied because he was trans.

but. anyway. logan’s part of the gsa now. logan’s bringing home a designated partner from the gsa, to help make some posters to put up around the school. so patton has some ulterior motives for being home right now. 

because, well, patton knows that logan’s mostly signed up for everything because it looks good on a college admission form, but. patton can’t help but think about logan’s not-super-hidden concern, the night before he’d started chilton—“what could he possibly be scared of? he’s the one staying at sideshire high. he’s always had other friends. he’ll probably make more friends now that i’m not going to be at school taking up all his time.”

and, well. involvement in things he’s interested in. which means other kids who are interested in the things he’s interested in. which means potential friends. 

with roman as the sole exception, logan’s always been slow to warm to people—he’s very particular about who he lets to be close to him. but once he does warm to them, he’s fiercely, intensely loyal, defensive, a good friend. a fantastic friend.

so maybe patton’s hovering a little to make sure that things go well for logan. sue him. but he can be a cool dad, that’ll help, right? he can offer snacks! and supplies for poster-making! and… and more snacks! 

so patton had been a whirlwind of activity, shoving most of the clutter out of sight so that the house looks slightly tidier, stacking outer layers on his coat rack that seems to wheeze under the pressure—patton practically has to tie things to it with his trans pride scarf, just to make sure that things wont fall down—and shoves dirty dishes in the dishwasher, out of sight, out of mind. he’ll wash them later.

he straightens up the bin of markers that he’d dug out of various desk drawers, and ensures that the glitter and glue are all grouped together, and that they’ve got pencils to sketch out a starting idea, because knowing logan, he’ll want to sketch out the idea first. 

he runs through the list of names that he’s heard logan mention as he straightens everything out—maybe it’ll be kai, logan had mentioned him and his interest in video games. or there had been a set of boyfriends the grade above him, corbin and… and sloane, wasn’t it, maybe it’d be one of them! or maybe someone that logan hasn’t mentioned. 

there’s the sound of a key at the door, and patton glances at his phone. right on time. he’d really expect nothing less, from logan, oh goD he should look like he’s being totally natural act natural patton!!!!!

so he quickly pivots and starts rattling around in the cupboards, and starts scooping coffee grounds into the coffee maker as he hears the door open, two thumps of backpacks hitting the ground, a mutter of “you can take your shoes off here” from logan.

“hey, kiddo!” patton calls, and a mumble of “my dad” from logan, and then the sound of two pairs of socked feet approaching.

“i wasn’t sure if you wanted some coffee too, so i figured i could ask you and your—“

he pivots, and the word “guest” dies on his tongue.

because, standing in yellow socks in the midst of his kitchen, with his strange, sneakily altered version of the chilton uniform, looking supremely uncomfortable, is dee slange.

the same dee slange that has been logan’s de-facto rival at chilton. the same dee slange that told logan he’d never catch up to the rest of his class. the same dee slange that goaded someone into hitting his son. that dee slange.

this is the worst outcome for “logan could be bringing home a potential friend!”

patton swallows, setting aside the scoop of coffee, and glances at logan.

“we were randomly assigned people to get to know them better, since it’s the start of the new semester,” logan says, a brusque explanation.

“right,” patton says. “okay. um. hi.”

“hi,” dee says, voice tight, tilting up his chin.

“do you want some coffee?” patton says stiffly.

a long pause. “sure.”

“right then,” patton says, and turns to the coffee machine.

dee slange. dee slange! god, it probably is a good thing that he’d decided to hover, because honestly if logan and dee had had to work alone patton probably would have come home to the house in shambles. 

but he has to be polite, patton tells himself. so patton wracks his brain for his (probably outdated) etiquette lessons, and, once he gets the coffee machine going, he turns, leaning back against the counter. 

“it is dee, right?” he checks. “i’d hate to be calling you something that you don’t particularly want to be called. is it short for something?”

“it’s dee,” he says. he doesn’t answer the other question. he’s busy glancing around the kitchen.

right, patton figures. time to move to the next small-talk topic.

“your grandmother’s friends with my mom,” patton tells dee. “evelyn, right? i always liked her.”

honestly, a lot of his mom’s friends had been a wild gamble, if he told them he was trans, and evelyn had probably taken it best out of all of them. that had been enough to earn his affection, even if evelyn’s general kindness hadn’t done that already.

dee’s dad, on the other hand… well, he’d been a flip side of that coin, but so had a lot of people, back then.

but dee smiles, ever so slightly, at the mention of his grandmother, so patton figures he hasn’t made any major social missteps. 

yet.

“yes,” dee says, refocusing from where his eyes had been briefly fixed somewhere beyond patton, back toward the entry hall. “she’s doing well. i’ll tell her you said hello.”

another long pause. patton clears his throat, tapping his fingers on the counter, before he says, “how was school?”

“fine,” logan says, with a slight grimace.

“there was that, um. the thing in latin today, right?” patton says. “the recitation thing? tempora cum causis Latium digesta per annum lapsaque sub terras… i can’t remember any more.” 

frankly, it’s a miracle he can’t. logan’s been reciting the first part of ovid’s fasti for the past week. he was pretty sure “scilicet arma magis quam sidera, Romule, noras, curaque finitimos vincere maior erat” would be running around in his head for a month, since logan had been chanting in his room like he was conducting some arcane ritual.    

logan scowls, a dark look flitting across his face even as he finished patton’s line, “ortaque signa canam. yeah, that was today.”

“and?” patton prompts. 

logan scowls. “he thought my pronunciation was over-rehearsed.”

“over-rehearsed?” patton says. “i mean—it would be, wouldn’t it? it’s not like you walk around and latin just casually tumbles out of your mouth.”

“precisely,” logan says.

“the man is an idiot,” dee says, brusque, turning his focus back again—patton didn’t think he’d done that bad of a job, tidying things up in there.

“i—well, now,” patton says, unsure of exactly how to step but he’s a dad it’s practically an instinct to instill manners, “don’t be mean.”

“no, he’s right,” logan says, looking at dee thoughtfully. “he is an idiot. he forgot to teach us the imperative verb tense and only remembered when all of us got it wrong on the imperative-centric quiz.”

dee rolls his eyes, the yellow one glinting. “i nearly forgot about that. my god, did the man get hired just because he plagiarized some old myths from percy jackson during the job interview?”

“those are greek,” logan says, “unless you’re referring to the later series.”

“my point,” dee says, “you cannot deny that charleston is a simpleton, look at the way he handled the moreno/watts situation.”

patton blinks. “what moreno/watts situation?”

logan also looks confused, but really the only way he can tell is because patton is his dad and knows when he’s covering up an emotion. well. most of the time. some of the time. more than most other people, let’s go with that one.

dee sighs, put-upon, before he says, “janey watts and sarah moreno were both taken to our esteemed headmaster’s office yesterday because mr. medina caught them about to claw each other’s eyes out in the alcove near the hidden rear staircase of the senior’s lounge. when attempting to discover what was wrong, mr. charleston’s first guess on what they were fighting about was that they were fighting over the same boy.”

logan allows his confusion to show. “but janey watts is a lesbian.”

“yes,” dee says, “and now you can see one of the many reasons why charleston is a simpleton.”

patton sighs. “well, charleston’s always been… a product of his time?” he says, and tries to elaborate. “you know, he backed up giving me a month of detention once because i refused to respond to my chosen name and pronouns.”

dee’s eyes darken. “bastard,” he spits out, filled with more venom than patton was expecting.

“hey, now,” patton says, even as startled as he is with… that. it’s not like dee and patton are particularly close, to warrant this level of defensiveness. well, patton guesses he’s in the gsa, so it makes sense that he’d be defensive of trans rights. “i could bust out the swear jar.”

“you’ve never had a swear jar,” logan says.

“i could start,” patton says. 

logan turns to dee. “i didn’t know you were friends with janey watts.”

“oh, i’m not,” dee says, and then, matter-of-fact, “she thinks i’m a slimy jerk with no morals and who would sell out his own grandmother if it meant getting further ahead.”

patton feels a little stab of hurt, the way he usually does whenever he hears someone talk bad about themselves.

“then how did you know what charleston said?” logan says, and hey, good point! but logan’s always been more observant than him.

“oh, please,” dee says. “logan, you’re a journalist, you should know that we all have our own sources.”

“in the headmaster’s office?”

dee shrugs. “to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but theopportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”

“sun tzu,” logan says. “art of war. you could do with the seem humble part.”

“but you’re already so filled with conceit,” dee says, and patton’s about to burst in with a hey now, but logan just shrugs.

“i know myself,” logan says.

“so you can win all battles?” dee says. “i didn’t know you read had an interest in ancient chinese literature.”

“mostly just that one,” logan says. “do you have an interest in ancient chinese literature?”

“mostly just that one,” dee parrots. “shall we get started?”

“may as well,” logan says.

“you kids want coffee while you do that?” patton says. “oh, and would you mind if i did my homework, too?”

“for your business degree,” dee surmises, and really, patton probably shouldn’t be surprised that he knows that, but he’s surprised anyway, darn it. “fine. it’s your house.” 

so patton pours everyone some coffee and sets out cream and sugar, since he doesn’t know how dee takes his coffee, before he gathers up his own homework and settles in, listening absentmindedly as the boys sort through various options that’s been offered to them.

dee, it turns out, milks and sweetens his coffee to a frankly absurd degree—patton wouldn’t be surprised if dee would be met with a few mouthfuls of sugar-sludge at the bottom of his mug—and picks his way through snacks, eating them so swiftly and unnoticeably that patton doesn’t realize it until he goes for a pretzel and realizes the bowl is near-empty.

“i don’t suppose you want to do the ‘how i knew i was gay’ one,” dee says briskly. they’ve sorted through most of the list—this is the last suggested poster theme option—and then they’ll narrow down their yeses.

“certainly not,” logan agrees. “there isn’t particularly much to tell, anyway. boys were always just… pretty.”

“one boy,” patton murmurs slyly, grinning down at his homework even as logan half-heartedly stamps on his foot.

“not much for me, either,” dee says. “girls always had cooties, and i always knew i was a boy, so—“

everyone at the table freezes. and then things start to click.

the altered, strange uniform, as if to say look here, look directly here and nowhere else—hadn’t patton practically lived in too-baggy chilton sweaters, to hide his chest and later his binder from anyone who could have possibly seen it?

dee’s continuous glances toward the entry hall—not just at the clutter, but at patton’s trans pride scarf on display.

dee was short, and patton had been too—patton hadn’t even been 5′3″ before he started t on a more consistent basis, after logan was born.

dee for short, and nothing else—an unusual name, but it wasn’t like he could throw any stones with a name like patton, could he?

dee’s face shuttering in too-great anger, at the news that charleston had given patton detention for sticking up for himself—because he’d had experience with that, maybe?

and then:

patton thinks, oh.

as he stares at dee’s yellow-gloved fingers, curling into fists, he thinks: you’re like me.

the lashing out at other people. the isolating himself. the particular taste in clothes. the new name. the upper-class society. the potential clashing with parents.

oh, oh, oh.

if it weren’t for how perfectly, perfectly still dee was, patton could almost believe that he came out on purpose.

“okay,” patton says, when he realizes it’s probably been a too-long pause. “hey, it’s okay. me too, you know? we won’t say anything if you don’t want us to.”

dee dips his head in a nod, tongue darting out to lick his lips. 

“right,” he says hollowly, before he clears his throat and tries for his usual, arrogant tone. “of course.”

“we won’t,” logan agrees, and frowns. “i’m your academic rival, not some asshole that would out you without your consent.”

it’s at that that dee relaxes, fists unclenching. he smooths his hands over the poster.

“right,” he says, and clears his throat. “fine, then.”

patton hesitates, before he says, tentatively, “your grandma was really cool about it, when i came out. back in the day.”

dee’s lip quirk up, and patton knows he’s said the right thing.

“yeah,” dee says. “i mean, i can’t really remember it, it was back when i got adopted—”

“you’re adopted?” patton asks.

dee gives him an almost patronizingly amused look, gesturing to his dark skin, the vitiligo on his cheek. “yes, that’s such a shock, i’m sure, because my parents definitely match my coloring.”

patton flushes. “well, i’ve never met your mom.”

dee mutters something like what a blessing for you, and patton feels a flare of worry that he can’t really expand upon before dee continues, “yes, i’m adopted, from haiti. i was… i don’t know. four, five. i can’t remember it very well. but grandmother’s… yeah. grandmother’s the best.”

it’s the most fond patton’s ever heard him sound, and, from the look on logan’s face, it might be for him, too.

“i might try and get coffee with her soon,” patton says, casual. “and if, you know. if you want advice about, um. this. just let me know. yeah?”

dee’s eyebrow quirks at him, and he gives him a look full of quintessential teenage amusement and, potentially, embarrassment.

patton can relate. he was the same, a lot of the time, whenever people offered advice or help when he first came to sideshire.

well. maybe he was less sassy about it.

“can we focus on the project?” logan says tiredly. 

“what, are you jealous you can’t contribute to the discussion about various nicknames for testosterone?” dee says.

patton grins. “the testoster-zone.”

“the t-party,” dee offers.

“ooh, good one,” patton says. “um—”

“can we please focus on the project?” logan says, more pointedly.

dee rolls his eyes, but turns back to his poster.

patton tries to focus on his homework, but he just can’t help it, and—

“anti-cis-tamines.”

“dad,” logan groans, and patton and dee share an amused glance, and—

well. maybe dee wasn’t the worst potential friend that logan could have brought over.

⁂

this place might as well be the twilight zone.

dee has his bowler hat on, and logan’s tall enough that they’re probably at a decent angle that he can’t tell that dee is looking around everywhere he can.

if only dee had managed to shake him off—but mr. sanders (”please, it’s patton, mr. sanders is my father!”) had insisted that either logan or patton walk dee back to the bus stop and, well, honestly, logan was the lesser of two evils.

not that mr. sanders is evil. he seems removed from that. too removed, if you get dee’s drift. no one could possibly be that deeply nice. there had to be something going on there. a ploy to get people to trust him, or something. the defenseless little puppy defense, or something. playing sweet and kind until it suits him.

even as he’s thinking this, something in his brain refuses to let it click into place. dee shakes it off. he’ll investigate later—whether it’s an opossum defense or a ploy or something—there’s too much to see here.

it’s like a group of tv set designers got together and thought, right, what are all the clichés of a tiny small town, added some overgrown ivy and picturesque worn red brick, and the entire place reeked of domesticity. he means, really, who even has a town center gazebo? dee’s seen flyers advertising for a twenty-four-hour dance-a-thon. for charity. “costumes and periodwear encouraged.” what kind of periodwear did one wear for a twenty-four-hour dance-a-thon?

the buildings have those twinkly lights all around it. the streetlights are wrought iron instead of the stark poles that are near the streets of his neighborhood. there is a community garden. there is a punnily named cat-themed store. 

seriously. what planet is this?

they get to the bus stop.

(also—the bus? what was this, the middle ages?)

“right, then,” dee says. “you’re bringing the posters tomorrow?”

logan nods his head in assent, hands stuck in his pockets. apparently, that’s not a clear enough hint, but his research shows that logan doesn’t respond very much to subtleties.

“you can go,” he adds, bluntly.

logan shakes his head. “i’m just going to go to the diner for dinner, anyway, and not being there means that my dad can get sappy with virgil without my bearing witness. and besides, my dad would kill me for leaving you here alone.” 

dee stares at him. “you do realize the likelihood of someone attacking me here is approximately on the same level as greedo being the one who shot first?”

logan blinks. “you’re a star wars fan?”

dee shrugs a shoulder, before he says, “more when i was a kid. i’ve got three snakes named—”

“rey, finn, and poe?” logan says, with a twist of his mouth.

“luke, leia, and han,” he corrects. “i said when i was a kid, sanders.”

“kid is an unclear term,” logan says. “for instance, i could argue that your viewpoint on the superior space western is childish, since the clearly superior space western franchise is—”

dee scoffs before he can finish his sentence. “of course you’re a trekkie.”

“so you admit it,” logan says, and dee rolls his eyes.

“i was just narrowing down the number of popular space westerns, spock.”

“i prefer data,” logan says. 

another pause, before:

“snakes?” logan asks.

“garters, all three,” dee says. he hesitates, before he says, “luke and han are trans.”

“i wondered,” logan says. “since snakes can often eat each other, but if all three snakes were, ah—“

“afab?” dee provides.

“right, yes.” logan says. “may i see?”

“i don’t have them on me,” dee says, before he says, “yeah, all right” and digs out his phone, swiping for the latest photo of his snakes.

it turns out to be the one of grandmother, amused, looking just enough off-camera that it’s clear it isn’t candid, wearing leia as a necklace, luke and han in her upraised hands. logan smiles at the photo. well, smiles as much as he’s capable of smiling. dee thinks that the whole i prefer data thing might be a cover-up for the fact that logan might actually be a robot.

“the checkered one is leia, the one with the yellow stripe is luke, and the one with the brown stripe is han.”

“nice,” logan says. “and that’s your grandmother?”

“yes,” dee confirms, tucking his phone away. 

“do you spend much time with her?” logan says.

“frequently,” dee says, and lies, “she lives closest to chilton, it just makes the most sense.”

well, the first part of that sentence isn’t a lie. it’s just that that isn’t the whole truth.

but partial truths are what he works best with, and he notes that logan nods, seeming to accept it as a whole truth, before his eyes turn elsewhere.

dee follows his gaze. 

the window’s lit, gleaming softly, a wide window that allows a view.

there’s a boy in there, alone. he’s shirtless, and wearing red leggings typical of a dancer. even at the distance they’re at, dee can see his muscles straining as he moves, graceful and limbs elongated as he reaches and spins, slowly, achingly slowly, everything so precise down the slightest twitch of his finger, and logan is staring, eyes gone soft and awed and sweet, and—

“didn’t realize i was boring you that much,” dee comments, even if he is a little relieved that logan’s attention is off the question of his home life and on his pretty dancer. “that’s the boytoy, isn’t it?”

logan looks at him, eyes sharpening. “roman’s my boyfriend.”

“right, right,” dee says, waving it off. he’s distracted, good. “so that’s still a thing, then?”

“yes,” logan says. “that’s still a ‘thing.’”

he doesn’t use airquotes, but it’s a near thing. it’s basically implied in his tone of voice.

“do you like him a lot?” dee asks.

“i love him,” logan says simply—as if it’s a fact, indisputable, absolute. 

dee nods, turning his attention back to the bus stop. it should be coming soon.

“are you going to tell him?” dee says abruptly and oh, now he’s done it, losing control of his mouth just once today isn’t enough, he really needs to make himself look like a fool, doesn’t he?

logan turns his attention more fully back to dee. “no.”

dee scoffs. “right.”

“i won’t,” logan says. “really. roman would understand, he’s—well, clearly he’s gay too, he understands the importance of coming out on your own terms.”

dee glowers at the ground, scuffing his shoe over the cement, before—

“my dad and i were effectively homeless until i turned six.”

dee pauses, and turns to look at logan.

logan isn’t looking at him. he’s got his hands clasped behind his back, still staring ahead, as if he’s keeping an eye out for the bus.

“my dad worked at the inn—he’s manager, now, but back then he was a housekeeper. he worked his way up. we could only afford to live in the poolhouse because the manager, maria, gave him a major cut on rent. i was bullied about it, when i was a child. my dad doesn’t know that.” a pause, and then, “my grandparents don’t know about the poolhouse, either. they thought we lived in the inn proper and got an apartment much sooner than we actually did. they’re paying for me to go to chilton. it comes with the condition of going to their house for weekly dinners.”

dee stares at him. “why would you tell me that?”

logan shrugs, and turns just his head to look at dee.

“i know you’re trans, you know where i lived and that i can’t afford schooling,” logan says simply. “if either of us feel tempted to let it slip…”

“then we know the other one has something in hand,” dee finishes slowly, not admiringly. “mutually assured destruction.”

it’s a sound strategy, really. logan takes the assumption that dee won’t listen to promises, and uses a shortcut. it’s a dangerous move, a gamble. not one he’d have expected, from logan. this day’s just full of surprises.

“precisely,” logan says. “for whatever reason, i don’t think you hold very strongly to the sense of the honor of giving someone your word.”

that last part is said in the closest tone to sarcastic that he thinks he’s ever heard logan use. 

“you’re right, i don’t,” dee says, and swallows. “homeless?”

“i didn’t really put the pieces together until i was older,” logan says. “it still doesn’t seem like it, to me. we were happy.”

dee wonders what that’s like.

“well,” logan says, peeking down the way. “i think i hear the bus coming. i’ll bring the posters tomorrow.”

“right,” dee says. “so. are you going to suggest we dissolve the academic rivalry, then?”

logan hums, and tilts his head. “you know, you’ve been my only real competition since i showed up at chilton.”

dee does not preen.

“we’re the only ones who’ve ever challenged each other. without this, we’ll get lazy.”

“i’ll achieve nothing, i’ll become my mother,” dee quips, and logan smiles, just a little.

“right,” logan says. “so.”

dee pauses, before he says, “allies?”

logan smiles. “allies.”

as the bus rolls up, logan offers his hand, and dee shakes it, once. logan knows full well that he doesn’t hold to the honor of giving someone their word, but it still feels like they’re making a deal, anyway.

so dee clambers onto the bus, and settles in a window seat.

and if he smiles and turns details over his head the whole drive back, well. it’s not like anyone will know.

[mshermia]

No. 03 - Nothing Left To Lose - Part I

Whumptober Prompt No 3. MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY

Manhandled | Forced to their Knees | Held at Gunpoint

The reversal of the Snap added 3.5 billion people back to Earth’s population. 3.5 billion more people to house somewhere, 3.5 billion mouths to be fed, 3.5 billion people who return to a world that was not expecting them to ever come back.

In the aftermath of the victory over Thanos, Peter Parker finds himself in a bit of a situation. Instead of helping the "little guy", what is he supposed to do when the "little guys" start helping themselves to the property of others. Tony finds out that his billionaire status doesn't really help that particular situation.

###

I'm using my own Fix-it to Endgame "Like You'd Know How It Works" as a basis for the timeline, though the prompt will work fine without having read that story. The important part is, that Tony's not dead.

Baseline: 2 weeks after Tony is brought back from the multiverse.

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AO3 Link

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People never did tell you what it would feel like to come back from the dead. Possibly because people had very little experience with things like that. The odd person being found after they had gone missing for a long time, maybe even been presumed dead, that was one thing. Something like that might happen from time to time. But full-on coming-back-from-the-dead? Well, Tony had always been a pioneer when it came to living through the weirdest shit.

To be fair, to him it wasn't a resurrection per se. He hadn't been dead after all, just his other-dimensional self. Well, just... And the other version of him remained quite dead still, thank you very much, and in all honesty, he wasn't anywhere close to being cool with all that yet. Possibly ever. So there was no way he'd let that big brain of his even start to muse over what was basically his corpse that lay buried not too far off their house. Chances were, he'd never be cool with thinking about that part. So, he didn't. Didn't think about it. Didn't talk about it. Just waiting for it to go away. Which it would. In a few years. 50, give or take.

He rubbed both hands across his face, an active effort for his brain to change the channel. He was supposed to be paying attention to the furry beasts in front of him.

"Seriously, Gerald, you're acting as if it wasn't in your best interest to keep your neck un-wrung. Fluffy, Tiny, let's go."

Gerald didn't like the barn. He was used to grazing wherever and whenever he wanted, nobody's schedule to follow. A free spirit after Tony's own taste. But there was a reason why their stock had grown from one fairly independent alpaca to a flock of three. Damn poachers. Or rogue hunters. Something along those lines, he hadn't inquired in that much detail. They had decimated the two herds in the near-by village, only Gerald's new barn-mates had been able to flee.

And apparently, the Stark's had expanded their life-saving services to the community's life stock now. Well, Pepper had decided they would and Tony wasn't going to question whatever it was that made Pepper happy, not any time soon. His family was the only thing that mattered now. Not the village's life-stock-politics, not any kind of politics. He had retired from everything that didn't directly involve making the people he loved forget about that little death-mishap.

Tony grimaced to himself. Semi-officially retired at least. Yes, in the long run, he was likely to consult for the team and there was always Peter's neighborhood-avenging to support. He'd never leave the Spiderling hanging, no pun intended. But right now, there was some healing he had to supervise. Emotional healing that could only be done with lots of hugs and kisses. With hot chocolate by the fire and glasses of cold wine by the lake. With breakfast in bed and comfy afternoon board game sessions. With nights spent sitting next to his kids' beds, for their benefit of course, not just his own. That was why he had come back with his little protegee after all. For them. And Tony would do whatever it would take, even if it involved wangling three alpacas at once.

Those very alpacas who were very reluctant to move into the barn. Even with how remote the cabin lay, they weren't safe outside anymore, not with the sun slowly setting in the west. But all the pulling on Gerald's head-collar just didn't get him moving, not until Pepper took pity on her dear husband and lent a hand. While she was pulling on the leash, Tony was pushing against the stubborn buck's backside. Alpacas didn't usually tend to kick with their hind legs. That was horses... right?

He groaned, rolling his stiff neck from one side to the other as the gate clicked shut behind Pepper. "Remind me again... Why did we agree to this?"

Pepper didn't bother to send him a scolding look as she wrapped the security seal around the gate's locking mechanism. "Because we're good neighbors?"

"We are?" He smelled like damp fur. When did wet fur and barn animals become his life? "Since when exactly? Was there a house meeting? Did I miss it?"

"Mh... do you need a reminder of the process of negotiation?" She took a step towards him, one hand in his shirt pulling him close against her, their lips almost close enough to touch. "You smell like wet alpaca."

He pulled in an affronted gasp. The hand that was still holding his shirt pushed him away from her, her lips stretched wide in amusement. "Come on, Cesar. Maybe I'll remind you after a hot shower."

"Hey!" He followed after her. "Cesar? Really? First of all, Gerald is not a dog, second... how about during the hot shower?" He had caught up with her, his eyebrows wiggling suggestively. "I could think of a couple of other things that—"

"Boss." Tony froze as FRIDAY's voice rang in his earpiece. "Captain Rogers is on the line."

"Oh, but whyyy?" He cringed, not just because it was evident from Pepper's face that whatever road that moment had been leading them down on, was gone. Replaced by the kind of dread he was supposed to shield her from.

"He is asking to speak to you. Immediately."

As Tony groaned again, Pepper blew out a shaky breath. "Everything okay?"

He only pulled a frown as he told FRIDAY to put the man through and didn't bother with any niceties. "What's going on?"

"We need you." Rogers' voice was low and solemn.

"Excuse me? I'm retired." The nonchalant quip was second nature to him but he couldn't deny that the Captain's voice gave him the creeps.

Pepper stepped a little closer and whispered a pained "No!", worry radiating off her like someone had flipped a switch.

"Yeah, we don't really have time for that right now, Tony." Rogers seemed even less inclined to take Tony's demeanor in stride than he usually was. "It's your pet project."

Deep down, Tony had suspected something like this. They knew not to call him for anything but this. "What happened?"

"He's in the middle of a bit of a situation. You need to get here. Now."

"Tony, what's going on?" The way Pepper's hand curled painfully tight around his wrist, she seemed to instinctively know what was up.

There should be a process, how he made those decisions. There should be but in all honestly, it was likely redundant since there was no question as to what he would do if the kid was in trouble. Whenever the kid was in trouble. He didn't hesitate, not even for a second thought. "I'm sorry, honey." He pressed a kiss on Pepper's cheek - any light-hearted banter about alpaca-smell forgotten - as he tapped the nano housing unit hidden underneath his shirt.

"Gotta make sure the kid's safe." He pried Pepper's fingers off his arm. "I'm sorry, honey."

The thrusters engaged before Pepper could draw a breath to argue. He was so retired. He was so retired and they all knew that. It could only mean one thing: the kid was in deep shit.

His heart was racing. This shouldn't even be happening. The kid... he had given the kid the best protection anyone could imagine. The Iron Spider had held up against the ugly purple Grape. Nothing on Earth could... he swallowed hard. He had just been back for a couple of weeks. He was just getting some normalcy back. His family.

Time seemed to crawl by as he shot across the New York sky. The route took him straight to the coordinates that FRIDAY had extracted from Peter's suit. Tony had sent out a call to the kid. When Peter didn't answer he sent out another. This one Peter rejected outright. Still too far out to access the team's comms, Tony and his thoughts had another couple of minutes to imagine the worst until they finally arrived in Queens.

The location was a rather unremarkable looking warehouse, some windows smashed, a couple of doors off its hinges. A little more prominent was the number of police cars parked around the property. There were at least 12 of them, more sirens approaching from the distance. None of them attempted to intervene or even talk to him after the suit had touched ground within the police's perimeter and he made to walk into the building. The picture that presented itself in front of him didn't match what Tony had been expecting. Not in a good way. In fact, it came very close to giving him a heart attack that was going to get in the way of all the supervised healing he still had to do.

Rogers and Barnes in full Super-Soldier outfits stood opposite his boy. His boy had his back turned toward his teammates and stood smack in the middle between them and a whole group of people, their faces mostly covered with scarfs or other contraptions. Some of them were frozen, eyes wide as they were staring at the Avengers in front of them. Others behind them were quietly emptying the shelves of the warehouse. Boxes upon boxes were ripped open and their content vanished in backpacks and large carrier bags. One of the looters however had a very tight grip on a middle-aged dude, a handgun pressed against the man's temple.

Tony froze where he stood, still hidden in the shadows of the entryway.

"...and I get that." Peter's arms were stretched wide. One in front of him at the crowd of people, the other towards Rogers and Barnes like he was urging them to stay back. "This is just not the way to do it, okay?"

With a pressing need for more information, Tony's eyes roamed across the warehouse. Besides the guy on his knees with the gun to his head, a few more people - he counted 10 of them - had been cuffed to three of the large storage shelves. Only a couple of people were standing guard over them. Most of the other intruders were busy stuffing their bags with everything they could— Food. It had just dawned on Tony what was stored within this facility. Canned goods and boxes of what looked like pasta, beans, or rice. These people were stealing food.

"You get it? You don't get anything!" It wasn't the guy screaming those words, just someone else in the crowd, a young woman. "When's the last time you had a warm meal, huh? We came back to nothing!"

"You have every right to be angry." The kid had turned a little away from the hostage, his arm still signaling for calmness. "Coming back to this was a shock. For me too, okay? But this... you don't want to do this. Just... just take the food and you can let him go, okay? This isn't you!" Tony's eyes shot back towards his Spiderling, frowning. "This is— hey... stop! Don't!"

The guy with the gun was pulling on the hostage's shirt, forcing him to balance himself a little more upright on his knees, squirming in his hold.

Rogers had shuffled a little closer. "You don't want to do anything rash now, son."

"Fuck off, traitor," the man spat back at the Captain.

"Stop, just..." Peter's eyes were still on the hostage and his abductor. "I told you to leave, Captain! You're not helping!"

"Spider-Man—" Rogers was interrupted, Peter's voice echoing off the warehouse walls.

"I said, leave!" The boy almost seemed to be panting.

"FRI," Tony whispered inaudible to anyone else because of his suit. "Vitals on the kid."

His heart rate was high, unnaturally high for Peter even during a mission. A close-up provided by FRIDAY confirmed that the boy's hands were positively shaking.

"I can help you, okay?" The kid swallowed hard. "I know that you wouldn't do this if you didn't have to. I can help you and I will, but you have to let this man go. Please."

The group's leader turned from Rogers back to the boy. "You don't know shit about what we want! People are dying because of this jackass! Because of people like him!"

The guy's eyes had found Tony and that seemed to be his cue to advance out of the shadows.

"What the fuck is this, Robin Hood?" Eyes still studying the scene in front of him, a murmur went through the crowd.

Peter spun around, his spider-eyes wide as he looked straight at Tony. "No, no, no, no, no!" He mumbled, his voice echoing in Tony's earpiece.

"You know I can still hear you on the comms, right?" Tony shook his head, sticking to the team-only communication himself now. "Kid... what the fuck is going on?"

"It's... it's fine." Peter's head spun back and forth between Tony and the looters. "Just go home. I got it all under control!"

Tony kept his eyes on the kid, fighting the urge to step any closer. "The dude over there has a gun pointed at this other dude's head. Nothing about this looks like anything's under control. Can we just..." Tony dipped his head to the corner of the room.

"How about I drop, erm..." Peter swallowed hard, still looking back and forth between Tony and the ongoing hostage situation. "I can just drop by when I'm done with all this, okay?"

"How about no?" Tony made a face even though behind the face-plate, it was only for his own benefit. "How about you web this dude up and get some actual control of the situation instead?"

"I got this!" Peter's voice walked a tight rope between urgency and badly suppressed panic. "Just go home, Tony! Please, please just leave!"

There wasn't much that could stun Tony Stark at this point, but an outright dismissal by his intern slash mentee would do it. "Excuse me, did you just—"

"Get the fuck away from us!" Tony's eyes shifted to the looters behind the kid, the guy with the gun was getting antsy. "This is none of your business!"

To Tony's right still a little ahead of him, Rogers inched a step closer to the scene. "Let's just stay calm and figure this thing out, hm?"

"S-stay back!" Another guy from the crowd of looters stepped a little closer toward the main action. He, too, was holding a gun though his arm was dangling loosely next to his body. At a closer look, Tony could spot quite a few weapons, shotguns, knives, and bats in the hands of everyone not currently ransacking those shelves. The group was made up out of a variety of different people, young and old, he could even see some children stuffing tote bags in the back. It was starting to dawn on him, why neither Peter nor the two Super-Soldier's to Tony's right had jumped in guns blazing, not yet.

A whole group of seemingly normal people brought their children to loot this warehouse for all the food they could carry. All of a sudden, the decimated numbers of his neighbor’s alpaca flock left him with a different kind of headache. There seemed to be more to this than he was presently privy to.

Tony cleared his throat, speaking to the whole room. "Unless you want to eat this dude, too, how about we talk about some of your demands, hm? Find a compromise everyone is happy with and nobody gets hurt over?"

For a second, the man's gun twitched towards Tony before he pressed it back against the temple of the man kneeling in front of him. "Shut the fuck up, you murderer."

Ouch. Tony pursed his lips. He hadn't heard that one in a long time.

"Hey!" Peter stepped closer to the crowd, clearly an attempt to shield Tony from their view. "Watch your fucking mouth, asshole."

His jaw popped open and Tony was quick to make an abortive motion towards Rogers and Barnes to stop them from advancing like the kid had done. This was escalating quickly.

"Of course, you're protecting your sugar daddy, you insect. You stopped being a hero when you started wearing this guy's fancy suits. You don't give a shit about us! You haven't in a long time!"

The Spiderling flinched back from the open hatred spewed at him. "I... that's not..." He shook his head, pulling in deep breaths. "I don't want to hurt you, okay? I want to help. We can still all walk away from this."

"Hurt us?" The young woman's voice from before was shaking but still rang harshly through the otherwise quiet building. "We haven't eaten in 2 weeks! We have no place to stay, nowhere safe to sleep!" She pointed a hand at the man on his knees in front of her accomplice. "People like him are selling the little food that is left in the city for 10 times the regular price. We have no money! Nobody helps us!"

"We're here to help now, young lady." Rogers' deep voice always rang with such sincerity, they could only hope it would convince at least some of them. "What you're doing right now is not going to help you!"

"You're not helping us, you want to help him." She pointed at the man on his knees in front of them. "You care more about his property than about the fact that we're starving!"

"Right now," Barnes' low growl surprised Tony more than most of the things happening around them. "We care more about the gun that your buddy there is pointing at the man's head, darling."

"I'm not your darling, jackass!" She spat at Barnes.

"Stop. Stop this." Peter sounded almost scared. "Please."

"He doesn't deserve this kind of money." She barked out before her eyes landed on Tony. "Nobody does."

Tony's eyes stuck with the young woman, his mind racing. Money... was that what they wanted the guy for? His money or plain revenge... maybe a little bit of both. Time to find out what their priorities were.

"You want to take all this out on someone, huh? Alright, Let's do that. How about you let the civilian go and take this up with a bigger fish, hm?"

"No." Peter spun around. "What are you doing? Don’t!"

Tony got a step closer, his focus shifting back to the man that was the group's apparent leader.

To Tony's undeniable satisfaction, the guy's feet shuffled back a couple of inches though his eyes never strayed from Tony. "While you're hiding behind your tin can?"

He had expected as much and his hand was ready to fly up and tap the nano-housing unit. Jaw set, his PR mask in place, the nanites retract just enough for Tony to exit the suit, leaving his armor behind him but still perfectly ready to engage if necessary.

"Stop!" Peter's voice was far from strong now, only a panicky high-pitched squeak. "Mr. Stark, don't!"

Rogers was next to Tony with a couple of long strides, his voice low. "What do you think you're doing?"

Tony cleared his throat before he dragged his gaze away from the looters towards the Captain. "Hostage negotiations?"

"Put that suit back on!" Rogers growled next to him. "That's not why I asked you here."

"You asked me to help." Tony was holding his hands up just below his shoulders, fingers spread wide. "So, I'm helping."

Roger's chest was heaving with deep long breaths. "Getting yourself killed is not helping, Tony."

"I'm not getting myself killed." He had his eyes still steeled on the group leader, careful not to be caught off guard by a trigger-happy hippie. "I'm taking a calculated risk."

"No, you're not." The Captain's hand shot out, holding Tony back with a strong grasp on his arm. "If anyone will be offered up to trade places it—"

"I don't think your bank account will be as attractive to them as mine," Tony hissed. "No offense, Capsicle." He pulled his arm free from Rogers' hold and advanced a few more steps before the kid could get a hold of him. "So, here I am. Let this dude go."

### 

Thank you guys for reading!

Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! I'm always happy to hear everyone's predictions and theories, so let me know how you think Peter and Tony might get out of this one in the comments. Likes and Reblogs are really appreciated!

Hope you liked it! More whump and more for this timeline will come soon! You can find more from this timeline on my WIP Page.

The Fix-it this is based on: Like You'd Know How This Works

[kittyotakunoir666]

2WAYMIRROR: Medicate

This is a continuation of Butterflies

Broken girls Butterflies Perfect day

Goodbye Medicate Pillowcase

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

Medicate by Gabbie Hanna

I'm unwell, thanks for asking

Don't mind me 'cause I'm just passing by

In this life, been a while

Thought that you forgot, but that's alright

How've you been? Glad to hear it

Just one question if you can bear it

Do you ever miss me, too?

'Cause I spend my days still thinking of you

I never thought I would run into Adrien again, not for a long time. Not after we broke up and I became Neti and made my own fashion line. Not after all these years of me being free from him and my first album being about him and his lying and cheating. God did I hope that my luck would continue but unfortunately, I was not that lucky nor was I lucky enough for him to forget me like I hoped he would.

We ran into each other after I bought some more materials for my personal designs I was doing for myself as Neti. I, of course, thought of Adrien often and how it was he who made me feel uneasy entering into another relationship with anyone. How my mentality isn’t completely good anymore but at least it wasn’t like it was back to when we first broke up. I, out of curiosity, did ask him if he ever missed me after the break-up. 

He didn’t answer me but that was answer enough.

Should I take a pill to numb the pain?

Change the chemicals inside my brain

I worry I won't be the same

But I guess that that's the point

I left him standing there after that and went straight home. It was around the time for me to take my antidepressants and honestly, it helped me calm down my anxiety that was rising.  After releasing my album about him I went to the doctor and he prescribed me my medication and I have been doing better. It helped that I was away from him and wasn’t around anyone toxic in my life thanks to all of them taking his side. Good riddance I say after all I did for them; I supported them, I cared for them, I encouraged them, I did as they asked for those years, and what do I get for it, a backstabbing.

Can you medicate a broken heart?

Make your tragedies a work of art

Medicate a broken heart

Build your walls up just to rip them apart

Is this the way to fix this or is this a quick fix?

I really couldn't say

Can you medicate, medicate, medicate it away?

(FLASHBACK)

I had gone to the doctors and they told me I had depression and all I can think of is. ‘Of course, I do I was in a manipulative relationship where my boyfriend cheated on me multiple times.’ But things are, I still felt bad, I still wasn’t feeling like I did before and I keep asking myself ‘Can a broken heart be healed with medication, or does it take time but how much time?’

But the medicine did help relieve the hurt of my broken heart. I was able to heal when I kept writing my songs and kept designing. I basically threw myself into my work and accidentally became a workaholic but oh well better this than the alternatives.

(END OF FLASHBACK)

Doctor Smile, kill me with kindness

And don't ask about the side effects

Swallow hard, kill sadness with science

But the aftermath might make you sick

I thought I was doing better but then this happened. I ran into him and of course, my depression would act up again like when I was first diagnosed. But my heart began to hurt again so I decided to head into my room, locked myself in there, and cry my eyes out because it is sometimes therapeutic.

Should I take a pill to numb the pain?

Change the chemicals inside my brain

I worry I won't be the same

But I guess that that's the point

I cried and cried but right after, I felt so much better. The medication was able to activate and began to help me. It was around the afternoon but I felt like taking a nap so I did. As I began to fall asleep I kept wondering if I would run into him again and if so how would I react. But I hope that I won’t react like this again since I can be a bit more prepared now that I know he’s in Paris again.

Can you medicate a broken heart?

Make your tragedies a work of art

Medicate a broken heart

Build your walls up just to rip them apart

Is this the way to fix this or is this a quick fix?

I really couldn't say

Can you medicate, medicate, medicate it away?

After my nap, I woke up to my phone vibrating with the number of messages I was getting so I decided to check on what was up. It was a group chat with my new friends made blasting my phone asking if I was ok since one of them ran into Adrien and how they were worried that I ran into him. They are wonderful friends for trying to be there for me and by the looks of it, I will be expecting company soon.

QUANTIC DISASTERS

Ice king❄: Marinette I just saw Adrien. Are you ok? Did you run into him? I’m coming over

Melodie🩰: Wait, Adrien the cheater is in Paris right now?

Ice king❄: Yes

Kid-mime🐶: Fuck. Mari are you ok?

Sandman💤: What, are we going to do about Adrien?

Melodie🩰: Should we go visit her?

Kid-mime🐶: Mari are you there?

Sandman💤: Maybe she’s taking a breather and need time?

Kid-mime🐶: I’m getting worried guys

Melodie🩰: WAIT

Melodie🩰: We need to know first and foremost if she saw him or not or else we will put her in a bad mental state.

Kid-mime🐶: Hey, Ice King, What should we do.

Sandman💤: Should we be worried about Adrien’s presence in Paris or is it possible that we can avoid him.

Kid-mime🐶: Felix

Kid-mime🐶: Ffffffeeeeelllliiixxxxx

Kid-mime🐶: Dude answer

Kid-mime🐶: Hey, Felix answer or I’ll spam you

Kid-mime🐶: Alright you asked for this.

Kid-mime🐶: Guys brb

Sandman💤: We should head to Mari’s place she could need us.

 Melodie🩰: Especially since she’s not answering us so I’ll see you guys over there

Whoa, whoa

Oh, medicate it away

Whoa, whoa

Oh, medicate it away

There was a knock at my door and I knew it had to be them. I smiled and I went to let them in and as I did so I remember the first time I broke down in front of them.

They say give yourself a break

They tell me to medicate

I don't wanna medicate

(FLASHBACK)

“Enough!!” I yelled at my new friends, “Don’t ask me about him anymore”

They stood their eyes widened as they stared at me. We were at my apartment and we were hanging out before they began to ask me about my relationship with Adrien and if I saw the break-up coming, and how I felt about his cheating when I snapped. Felix was the one to make the first move by getting angry at me. 

“You don’t have to yell at us, you know, all you had to do was tell us you didn’t want us asking about the situation,” He said with a glare and that is what ticked me off.

“Well maybe they saw my interviews with the many people who kept asking me about it they would know the answers,” I hissed at him as I began to raise my voice and address the others, “Is this the reason your friends with me, all you care about is my old relationship with famous model Agreste. Am I not good enough like I was to him, Why did you become friends with me anyway, Why are you betraying me, Why can’t you understand me, Why are you being like this, am I really not good enough, Why… WHY WAS I NEVER GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, ADRIEN”

After that, I began to cry and I fell to the ground crying my eyes out looking at the floor. Asking over and over again why I’m never good enough. I then felt arms go around me and I looked up from the floor. I saw Allegra, Claude, Allan, and Felix hugging me and trying to calm me down and they were saying comforting words and saying sorry for asking when they should have realized that it was a sensitive subject. 

(END OF FLASHBACK)

Oh, can you medicate a broken heart?

Make your tragedies a work of art

Medicate a broken heart

Build your walls up just to rip them apart

Is this the way to fix this or is this a quick fix?

I really couldn't say

Can you medicate, medicate, medicate it away?

“Hey guys,” I greeted them 

“Hey Marinette” Allegra greeted giving me a hug 

“Hey Mari,” Claude said in a soothing tone

“It’s good to see your okay, Mari,” Allan said with quiet empathy

“Have you seen Felix?” Claude asked looking around, “He hasn’t answered any messages even when I spammed him with a lot of messages”

Whoa, whoa

Oh, medicate it away

Whoa, whoa (Whoa)

Oh, medicate it away

We hung out in my apartment when a knock came from the door. I went to see who it was and standing there was Felix with bags from the grocery store. I let him in and helped him with the bags and I saw that there was chocolate, ice cream, rom-coms, and a cake. I thanked him and hugged him for being there for me and doing this for me along with the others. We decided to have a sleepover so I don’t feel alone.

So maybe medication doesn’t heal a broken heart but time can. Especially, when you have friends who care about you and want to be there for you.

Oh, medicate it away

Oh, medicate it away

[make-it-mavis]

The Right Thing (pt 1 of 3)

Wreck-it Ralph AU 1842 words Content warnings: themes of violence, drugs, conversation of police brutality Characters: Surge Protector, Dr. Mario, Turbo, Fix-it Felix, Make-it Mavis, Maribo ( @nijimarii‘s OC )

Premise: Being in charge of safety for all games plugged into Game Central Station, the Surge Protector has the ability to instantly incapacitate a violent character. This is used only in the most dire circumstances, and only when he can be certain the move will be non-lethal. But what happens when his certainty is near disastrously wrong?

>Part 2<

Surge did the right thing.

He made a tough call. He made a snap decision that saved a life. He was only doing his job. He only ever did his job.

It was just an ugly truth of said job that sometimes, doing the right thing would feel so wrong.

He tried to hold onto these facts as he walked down the hospital halls. The game was actually fairly quiet that evening, the only sounds being soft beeping, muffled conversation between volunteer staff, and the echo of his own shoes clopping against the floor. Part of him wished for more hustle and bustle, if only to impede the numbness creeping into him. It had been hard enough fighting it as he spoke to the victim only minutes prior.

Surprisingly, she was not calling for any punishment of her attacker. It seemed possible that she may have been too shaken and confused to make a clear decision -- after all, her own account of the events seemed very vague, even when he asked her to repeat herself. He hated making her say it again, but her words just kept pushing him far away, back into the moment it happened. He could see it so vividly.

One moment, she was saying hello. The next, hands were around her neck, and the attacker’s furious screams echoed through GCS.

Then he saved her. That was what mattered.

Slightly raised voices perked him to attention as he found himself approaching the waiting room. He could see the back of Dr. Mario’s coat, but as he began to round the corner, something in his stomach dropped.

It was the attacker’s friends and family.

Well… friend and family member.

He had not been looking forward to facing Turbo and Fix-it Felix after what he had done. But, holding onto his resolve, he reminded himself that part of the job was also dealing with the aftermath of tough decisions. Civilians did not always understand why he did the things he had to do, but keeping them safe was always so much more important than being liked.

To his slight relief, the two did not actually seem to notice him at first. He passed them by carefully, finding a place to stand in the deserted waiting room while Turbo and Felix spoke to Dr. Mario. The doctor seemed to be calmly talking them both down, but for different reasons.

“Oh, Doc, are you sure there’s nothin’ I can do? I’ve healed Mavy outta some real nasty pain,” Felix was insisting.

“I’m afraid a’not,” Dr. Mario shook his head gently but firmly. “This is a problem with’a code, not’a hit points. The a’very best a’we can do is keep’a her brain active with’a electrolytes and’a music, and’a wait for her to’a stabilize.”

Felix seemed no less anxious, but he resigned. “Alright. You’re the doctor…”

Turbo was, unsurprisingly, less understanding. He tried to push past Dr. Mario, but he was blocked with a strong hand across his collar.

“What?” he protested. “You said all you’re doin’ is waitin’. How could I possibly get in your way?”

“I told’a you -- it’s not’a safe. For’a now, she’a needs to be isolated. Anyone being in’a proximity to’a her code poses a risk to’a both’a parties.”

“You’re puttin’ your own party at risk here, Doc,” Turbo threatened half-heartedly.

“I’ll’a take my’a chances,” Dr. Mario said flatly. “I’a promise, I will let’a you in the moment it is a’safe to’a do so. Both of’a you.”

“No,” Turbo said sharply. “Just me.”

Felix just sighed, giving the impression they had been over it a few times.

Over the intercom, a volunteer called Dr. Mario away, and he bid the boys goodbye for the time being. Left to their own devices, they immediately settled back into anxious, but tired bickering. Surge swallowed dryly, knowing it was time to own up and explain his actions to at least one sprite who would not want to hear it. Back straight, he approached slowly, until he caught Turbo’s eye.

As the Surge Protector, he had to deal with a whole lot of dirty looks in his life. For the most part, he was used to it. But the look in Turbo’s eyes was unlike any he had been served before. It was not dirty -- it was filthy.

Surge opened his mouth to speak, but Turbo cut him off immediately.

“Aw, look, Fix-it,” he growled. “He’s come to finish the job.”

Felix turned, and to Surge’s relief, his eyes were more concerned than anything else. “Mr. Surge Protector,” Felix greeted him shakily, cautiously, as if he believed Surge should not have been there.

“Gentlemen,” Surge finally managed to say gently but clearly, “I feel I owe you an explanation for my decision tonight--”

“Oh,” Turbo laughed in his throat, turning to face Surge fully. “Yeah. Yeah, y’do. ‘Cause, y’know, I find it real interestin’ that y’saw a girl who weighs like ten pounds n’ decided, ‘Hmm, I’m too chickenbits to fight her. Better freakin’ kill her.’”

Surge felt a punch inside his chest.

“Turbo,” Felix scolded quietly. “Sir, Mavy’s not-- she’s not-- I mean, she’s alive.”

“Oh, don’t, you’ll break his heart,” Turbo spat.

“I know she is,” Surge nodded. “Thank the Devs. I… understand that you must be angry with me. But please, believe me when I say it truly was the only way to save the little one’s life. Another second longer, and Mavis could have snapped her tiny neck in two. Trying to physically pull her off would’ve just been too risky for Maribo.”

“Ah! Okay!” Turbo grinned, spreading his arms a bit. “Now I get it. Ya had to decide whose life was more important, and obviously some innocent lil’ potato’s more valuable than a buff-poppin’ Easter Egg, right?”

He did not kill her, he assured himself. He did not know. He had no idea. He did the right thing.

When he heard the screaming, and he saw little Maribo dangling from Mavis’ hands, he came at the situation with what he knew. Mavis was high, which was risky in and of itself. But even with her violent outburst and her eyes shining a bright binary blue, she should have been safe. Her sprite’s colors were correct, she was perfectly opaque, she was upright and mobile, she was even forming full (angry) sentences.

All signs that it would have been safe to shock her.

“No,” Surge replied as calmly as he could. “I assure you, I had no idea how lethal a shock would have been for her in that moment. She was still exhibiting all signs of a sprite within safe shocking range. Had I known that her code was so fragile, I’d have never--”

“Oh, cut the bullcrit already!” Turbo advanced into his space, and Surge held his ground. “Y’just couldn’t wait for an excuse to off her, could ya? You’ve hated her since the day ya met her!”

“That’s not true,” Surge furrowed his brow. His eyes darted to Felix for a moment, who had clearly given up already, electing to sit hunched in one of the chairs, rubbing his face.

“Yeah,” Turbo nodded, smiling without a trace of happiness. “Yeah, y’have. Y’didn’t shock her to save anybody -- y’just wanted to get off to the sight of her hittin’ the ground.”

Ice water seeped from Surge’s heart at the memory.

It was not really the sight that stuck so viciously in his mind. It was the sound. Her body burst immediately into grating, distorted hissing and popping before she could even hit the floor. He remembered the dull thud of her head striking the ground, Maribo’s urgent coughing, and the alarmed gasps and shrieks of passersby.

The way her body lay motionless, her sprite glitching, flashing, shuddering, her binary darting in and out in warped clusters, making him think that he had just pushed her over the brink of corruption… That would not soon leave his mind.

“I took absolutely no joy in what I did,” Surge said slowly. “I’ve never wanted to hurt Mavis, not once.”

Turbo shook his head, his eyes venomous, stepping in even closer. “I know what this is, a’ight? Even if y’did kill her, it wouldn’t matter, because she’s a ‘junkie’. She’s a ‘problem.’ Her life’s not important to you, n’ there’s proof a’ that lyin’ in a hospital bed in here, barely alive, because y’didn’t care enough to try not to kill her. Ya freakin’ coward.”

Felix moaned in protest.

Surge met Turbo’s molten gaze, looking down with as much composure as he could find. Authoritatively, he instructed, “Step away from me, sir.”

“No,” Turbo hissed, barely above a whisper. “Shock me.”

Surge stared.

“Go on. Do it. Or am I somehow less threatenin’ than an Easter Egg with a tiny code?”

In his heart, he could feel the desire to push back, even a little bit. There was the fleeting thought that he was letting the little racing champion drive all over him, but his mind knew better. Turbo was in distress, and he was lashing out by trying to bully him. He dealt with his fair share of bullies in his line of work, and he knew that the very last thing one should do with a bully is give them what they want.

So he gave Turbo no reaction.

The smaller man’s face fell into a disgusted sneer, but still, there was some self-satisfied air to it that made Surge wonder if he had still gotten what he wanted after all. “That’s what I thought,” Turbo muttered, turning a cold shoulder and prowling out of Surge’s bubble. “Freakin’ coward.”

Surge took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. It seemed to him that he had long overstayed his welcome -- probably since the second he walked in, if he were honest with himself. But he did all he could.

“Well,” he sighed plainly, “I tried. If you wanna be mad, that’s fine. I get it. Just know that you both have my apology for worryin’ you.”

Felix looked up from his hand and returned the sigh. “I’m not mad,” he said gently.

Hands curled into obvious fists in his pockets, Turbo growled something behind his teeth that almost sounded like “I ain’t worried.”

“And…” he continued a bit more cautiously, “hopefully at least one of you understands why I did what I did.”

Both boys answered immediately, “I do.”

Surge swallowed. “Then… I’ll be on my way.”

As he turned to leave, part of him wanted to offer well wishes for Mavis, but it almost seemed like a bad idea. After all, it was his fault she was in there. Even if he only did what he had to.

It was his fault.

But he had to.

He had to.

Over the sound of his shoes on the hospital floor as he made his way out, as he fought the numbness creeping back in, he could have sworn he heard Felix’s voice say, “Turbo, for land’s sake. He was just doin’ his job.”

[hollywoodx4]

Sticking With the Schuylers (22)

You thought I would give you James’s POV that easily?

Here’s another flashback chapter instead.

1  2  3  4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   I   13  14   15   16   17   18A  18B   18C  I   19   20   21

In the bright white light, there are only shadows. They cross slowly through the fog and the blinding brilliance with a purpose. Slinking; crawling, they appear and dissipate through with the lingering feeling of distant memories. Each shape elicits a different reaction-two bodies with natural bouncing curls bring yearning, an older, cane-bearing man accompanied by sorrow. Then, there’s another man; young, fit, who strides across the white light with an air of unbridled confidence. Her bones hurt. Her heart tenses. It feels as though it’s stopped beating altogether when in reality its rhythm is slow, strained, yet there. Pounding. Aching.

               She can’t feel a thing.

               I shouldn’t be crying like this. Am I even crying? Where am I, why can’t I move?

               There’s a silence that lingers throughout the room and buzzes through her ears. All that accompanies it is a low beeping-steady, resilient. She counts the beeps as they happen, in an irregular rhythm that’s too slow to enjoy. She wishes there was more to this world.

               She wonders what’s beyond the light-the light that had given her so much hope, and joy, before ripping it away with one glance at him. He’d been her joy. He’d also been her demise.

               The memories come back slowly, painfully, and in flashes against the bright light. Their story dances like fog across the water, monochromatic figures over the blinding backdrop. A powerful puppet show presenting horror that shakes her core. There’s a man and a woman, side by side by the crashing waves. They’re dissolved by a wind which turns them into the same figures, this time posing for the flashing lights that flicker against the blinding backdrop. Another wind brings them to closed fists, shaking, and open mouths that let out grey sparks that fill the air between them. The sparks fall and they’re changing again, the man and the woman. The shouting sparks that have fallen turn to flames upon the ground, rippling and spreading until they’ve engulfed the ground they’re standing on. The shadow woman cowers in horror. The man raises his arms.

               The sparks swallow the woman in a haze of slate and silver until they stop, sinking into the background of the blinding light and taking her figure with them.

               All that’s left is the man. His silhouette stands, defiant, against the blinding light. His hands on his hips, muscles tensed…the fog-flames do not touch him. He has a shield. The man who had brought the furious fire is impervious to its powers, and it sets her skin ablaze.

               There’s a brush along her arm-a warmth that feels comforting upon contact. Yet as soon as the warmth finds her a warning signal shoots through her spine. She jumps involuntarily. Her body burns in response, stabbing and pulling until she’s settled back down again.

               “Is she going to be alright?”

               “There are some serious injuries here, mostly in the ribs and the right side of her body, where she was down. There was some concern about her head as well but the results of the CT scan showed no signs of brain trauma.”

               Brain trauma. Trauma. She swallows back the word as it dances in the air above her, a sign she couldn’t quite comprehend. Amongst the jargon there are hummings, stifled sniffs as the hand finds its way back to hers once more. She cringes. She’s not sure if her body has listened to her brain’s requests to move. Every word traces itself in and out of a murmuring state-through the ringing silence in her mind she is only able to make out small details; trauma being one of them. Victim being the next.

               Lungs aching, pulse thundering within tired veins, she could hardly manage more than silent, shallow breaths. There’s a rickety creaking within the walls of herself, pinching with each short intake of breath. No matter how much she wished to keep her pain within herself, her teeth bite her bottom lip as her eyes squeeze themselves tighter. The hand on hers-Angelica, it’s only Angelica-tightens its hold.

               “Eliza, can you hear me?”

               Yes.

               “It’s me, it’s Angelica.”

               I know that.

               “You were hurt-it doesn’t look good. My god, it doesn’t look good at all.”

               Her answers linger in her mind-she can’t bear to open her mouth, to continue the conversation that is only audibly one-sided.  There’s a certain shame to lying here, needles in her veins and tubes in her body, as her sister sits beside her. For a moment, Elizabeth wonders what she looks like. She decides she doesn’t want to know. She’d rather face the imaginary horror of the dancing shadows and the blinding light than the reality of the injuries that make her body burn. At least she has that choice. At least she can pretend to hide just a little bit longer.

               She can feel Angelica’s presence by her side the entire day; doctors come in and out of her room, whisper her name as if she can’t understand what they’re saying. There’s a layer of disbelief in their tones. One of them, a deep feminine tone, had even snickered along to the sound of rustling papers. They only made Eliza sink deeper into her hiding.

               In the late hours of the night, when the traffic through her room had died down, Elizabeth Schuyler finally dared to open her eyes. At first, even the slight and barely-there lighting within the room felt to be too much. She squinted against the reality of it all. The first thing she notices is the physical-her half-opened eyes give her a long-ranged perspective of her body that snaps them shut in response. She breathes-a mental pep-talk. She lets the doctor’s words wash over her again, pairing the experience with what she remembers to piece a picture of the possible damage into her mind.

               She’s still shocked when she finds the will to open her eyes again.

               There’s a blanket-thin, cheap-that’s thrown over half of her body. The scratchy fabric begins at one hip and flows across to her other ankle, barely covering anything. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think she was home again, kicking blankets and pillows to the floor in her usual active sleep. Eliza’s sure she couldn’t kick a shoe onto her foot if she tried, at this point. There’s no pinpoint to where the pain begins, rather it dwells in each piece of her body like a parasite, sucking at the life inside of her and leaving no feeling at all. There is only the remnants of what had been-a dream-like hallucination of the moments that had past that hits her as such. Each memory, each moment from that night, brings forward a new level of injury until-when the end of the events comes into play-a throbbing is pulled to her head as she watches herself hit the ground.

               So that’s what he meant when he said brain trauma.

               She winces, and the sound pulls her even further into reality as the intake of breath stabs her insides once more. She shifts, trying to rid herself of the feeling. But with each slight movement of her muscles the stabbing, burning sensation spreads, like wildfire through her veins. Her eyes move wildly along her body; wires, tubes, the shaking lift of her chest-until she’s gasping for air, grasping for a grip on a different reality.

               Dark hair and comforting eyes fill her vision then, hovering over her as her hands move rapidly to find her hair, to bring comfort to her. Eliza shrinks back from the touch-her head is tender, delicate. Each grazing of skin on her skin is a reminder-a flash of what had been-of what could be again.

               Her distant memories aren’t so distant after all.

               “I deserved it.” They’re the first words that leave her mouth since the incident-she’s not sure how long it has been or how long it will be, stuck in this room, but with each passing minute a new memory surfaces. She doesn’t want to be here any longer.

               “Elizabeth Schuyler you did not deserve any part of this.”

               “But I did. I was the one who tried to leave. I was the one who called you.”

               “You don’t deserve a single thing this man has ever done to you.”

               “But I’m the one who started this relationship, aren’t I? I’m the one who said yes to a date. I’m the one who kissed him first.”

               Angelica comes to a stand-still, cautious eyes and hands dropped to her side before her entire demeanor changes.  She grows soft, sitting on the bed next to her and tilting her head, eyes wide and shining as she looks down at her middle sister.

               Elizabeth Schuyler has never been quiet-or soft, or put-down. From the moment she’d been able to talk, she’d been extremely sociable, always chatting Angelica’s ears off and driving her up a wall. Now, she was shattered.  Her voice is soft, almost a whisper. She can barely make herself move, even if she’d wanted to. No, she simply sits, eyes glazed over and staring straight at the pristine white brick ahead of her. She refuses to look at Angelica. She refuses to make herself into something she’s not.

               A victim. She’s not a victim. She refuses to be a victim.

               But she feels pretty close to one now-from the sensations that linger throughout her body, her mind. And Angelica; standing over her, doting-Angelica isn’t helping much at all. She shuts her eyes.  She wishes she could go back to sleep, that she’d never decided to open her eyes to such a nightmare. She almost wishes she’d died right there on that bedroom floor. Then, at least there wouldn’t be an aftermath. There wouldn’t be snickering nurses.

               Angelica is tense; she’s staring out the window, out at the doctors passing by their room. Her back is turned to Eliza but her body is tense; shoulders to her chin, hands curled into fists…her posture is straight and ready to fight, antsy and unsettled. Eliza watches through half-closed eyes as her sister gets up, shaking her head before pacing the room. Her eyes remain trained outside the window. Eliza manages turning her head, looking at the same view her sister is.

               The clock reads 2:20 A.M

               There are three nurses and a doctor outside of her room.

               All three stare straight back at her-they avert their gazes when she looks at them but it’s already too late. She’s seen them all.

               Eliza’s not sure what happens next; she feels the tears well in her eyes, pooling and seeping over, rolling down her cheeks in unforgiving tracks that she can’t lift an arm to wipe away. Instead she just lays there, the sensation of warm tears overcoming her cheeks. But along with the tears, there is nothing. Her heart doesn’t ache. There is no pull. Her body is magnetized to the bed. Her mind is numb. There is nothing.

               The nurses laugh.

               One pulls out her phone.

               Eliza rolls over then, unwilling to watch the unraveling of her demise. What would happen when her father found out? What about when the press got hold of those photos? And what would happen when it all came down-would she be forced to pursue action? Would she have to face him in court?

               The door slams, and Eliza’s sluggish pulse quickens. Her head turns so rapidly to the side that it aches, throbbing with the movement. There’s a moment-she shuts her eyes against the stinging, hoping she’ll open them to a new day, a new place-without this hospital, or her wounds, or James. She wishes it could be that easy.

               Then there’s Angelica-mouth wide and finger pointing menacingly at the nurses. They’ve stopped leaning on the counter. They’ve even stopping looking at her. Instead, they stare at her with wide, shocked eyes and shaking heads, shoving their phones into their pockets. She’s intimidating-a force of nature. Eliza does not dare open her eyes again, but instead focuses on the sounds; muffled shouting, accusatory words, and not a single sound from the people responsible for her care.

               In the hallway, in front of the nurses, Angelica stops. She stops shouting, or lowering her eyebrows. Her posture drops a bit, and her arms fall to her sides. And then, glancing furtively at the room-Eliza’s eyes are still shut-the oldest Schuyler throws her bag on the counter, digging through it. The nurses crowd around her, watching her movements with wide eyes rounded in disbelief.

Eliza opens her eyes just enough, just in time.

               Angelica Schuyler hands a check to each of the nurses, pausing to look at each one with narrowed eyes before letting the money go. They nod, understanding, without meeting her gaze-until she makes them. Angelica speaks to them for another brief moment before shooing them, standing at reception with her head in her hands. She paces, running her fingers along the strong wooden surface as her lips move with words that Elizabeth can’t hear-or read. Then she comes back in, Eliza hiding her eyes and feigning sleep as her sister sits back next to her, the bed sinking with new weight. Angelica’s hand gentle through her silken hair. It’s nearly comforting-still, uncomfortable. She shifts herself back so that she can look up at her oldest sister.  She blinks, the façade of a yawn finding its way to her lips.

               “Where’d you go?”

               “It was nothing-just a couple of nurses looking over your chart. They had some questions, luckily I’ve been paying attention.” She pulls the blanket over her younger sister. –Two fractured ribs. Near brain trauma. Sprained wrist. Then, she finds her way to the door.

               “I’m going to get a coffee and call Church back-he doesn’t know anything, I won’t tell him anything. He’s just worried.”

               “I’m alright.”

               “You are.” She stops, one hand on the door handle, her eyes looking over Eliza’s form once more. Angelica sighs, shaking her head before stepping out the door. The middle Schuyler watches as she walks away, phone in hand, a force of nature. Then she closes her weary eyes, silence overcoming her. And Eliza is overcome with the feeling of absolutely nothing.

[secondpubertyscene]

7.31.19

This month has been a surprisingly tough month. I mean, this summer hasn’t really been all butterflies and sunshine generally, but I genuinely think that this month really took me down a good couple notches. I’m mildly disappointed in myself because I allowed for conditions to determine my own growth, rather than allowing my growth to determine my condition, but I suppose setbacks are all a part of growing as well.

The month began with a kidney infection, extreme concern about potentially having an STD from a guy who I later found out was HIV+ and undetectable, a couple uncomfortable realizations about how my family views me, and a slight reversion into a really unhealthy coping mechanism. Today, on the last day of this month, I am much better but still not fantastic. My kidneys are chilling at stage three, my labs came back mostly normal and I just have to make some minor adjustments to my living practices to help maintain prime health, I don’t have any STDs AND I gained a better understanding of serophobia, and my relationship with my grandma is probably better than it has ever been. There are so many layers to each piece.

First off, my kidney health has been of only light concern over the last few years. I’ve known that I had chronic kidney disease since high school and I didn’t really have to make many changes to my lifestyle because I was generally a pretty healthy and active person. The most common causes of chronic kidney disease (CKD) are diabetes and high blood pressure. Wildly enough, I have neither of these, but alas, here I am. This kidney infection scared the literal crap out of me and the aftermath was probably one of the more stressful things that I’ve dealt with in life. Losing your sense of taste, feelings fatigued all the time, feeling like you can’t think straight for literal days on end, continuous kidney pain? I genuinely thought that I was dying and my doctors didn’t have many answers for me at the time. Thankfully, as my infection cleared so did all of the other symptoms. I’ve been back to feeling like myself for the last two weeks or so and I’ve never been more grateful. The whole STD scare thing was what REALLY fucked me up.

I felt conflicted about writing about this but then I thought about it and realized that I really have nothing to be ashamed of aside from the stupid mistakes that I made. Here’s the story. I fucked this guy after like…I don’t know…like two months or something of not being sexually active? He was someone I had hooked up with in the past and he’s genuinely not a bad guy, so naturally I didn’t think too much of going to his house (without telling anyone I was going there like a dumbass). Nevermind the fact that I couldn’t remember his name for shit and I hadn’t seen him in a year, I just waltzed over to his place and made myself comfortable. Did I ask him his status BEFORE having sex with him? Nope. I wasn’t even sober DURING the sex which kind of tells you everything you need to know about how I was feeling about myself right about then. Upon arrival home later that night, I showered and felt like shit about myself well into the week. I was scrolling through Twitter one day and saw his page and decided to see if I could find out his first name at least. What I found instead was that he had retweeted a lot of things about being poz on Grindr and whatnot. I’m not going to lie, it scared the ever-living-shit out of me. I texted him asking what his status after assuring him that I wouldn’t freak out and just needed him to be honest, he told me that he was positive and undetectable. When I tell you I was both relieved and terrified, I mean BOY. It was a lot for my little brain to process. Even though condoms were used, my paranoid brain went into overdrive and I was STRESSED. I ran over the night’s events again and again in my head, but it wasn’t super helpful because I was mega-fried during the entire encounter. I remembered the condom coming off at the end, him getting a few pumps in, and then pulling out and finishing on himself and that sent me into a full panic. Why didn’t he ask before removing the condom? There were so many things going through my mind that I felt like I was going to implode. That situation could have turned out so differently. I got tested and everything came back negative which was relieving, but it was still really stressful.

I then had to sit back with myself and ask if I was being fair. While I never expressed to him my fears, I think deep down I still have some serophobia to work through. I know that undetectable means untransmittable, but for some reason, I found myself doubting him still. I found myself extremely worried about contracting HIV and my mentality went to shit for some time. It was a rough time.

I’ve since spoken to him and expressed that I appreciate him being honest with me after the fact but that I thought it was uncool of him to remove a condom without gaining consent first. He apologized and argued that he couldn’t transmit anything anyway, but it is more about the principle of the thing. Needless to say, after that he didn’t want to talk to me anymore which I guess is okay with me. I did SO many things wrong and put myself in so much danger unnecessarily, but I think that I learned my lesson. The big take-aways: 1) talk about status before engaging in sex acts, 2) don’t get fried before having sex with a virtual stranger, and 3) remember to pee immediately after sex.

I don’t feel like getting into the pieces about my family or unhealthy coping mechanisms right now, but it will come up again, as these issues don’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. I’m done for now.