#So he sets out to like solve the murder or whatever on account of its jeopardizing the future of his career

[twilightarcade]

ok so I was reading then slept 4 like an hour and a half

[sunlit-squid]

I don't care about everyone else! i care about you, SQUIDWARD! (simping softness asks)

For those who don’t know, my ask box is open. Send me a simping softness prompt, and I’ll write a short sbsp ficlet for you. ✰

so, uh -- i might have gotten a bit carried away with this prompt. it’s definitely longer than a ficlet, but oh well. either way, it was a lot of fun to write! selfish spongebob is so rarely explored.

fic under the cut. also, just in case, cw: drinking, drunkenness, etc.

Spongebob rose bright and early, long before his foghorn alarm went off at 7:00 a.m. With a cheerful shout, the poriferan jumped out of bed, earning a disgruntled “mrow” from Gary, who was still asleep nearby. Stretching vigorously, the sponge leaned down, planting a soft kiss atop the snail’s shell.

“Gary,” he whispered, practically vibrating with excitement. “Today’s the day!”

Turning away, Gary simply replied “mrow”, in a disdainful way that most certainly meant “whatever.”

Undeterred, Spongebob ran to his calendar. Sure enough, the day’s date -- July 14th -- was circled in bright-red, permanent marker, with the words “My birthday!” written neatly across it. And just below those words, was a tiny drawing of Squidward’s face, with dozens of little red hearts surrounding it.

Making his way over to the window, Spongebob gazed out at Squidward’s moai in the distance. He sighed, dreamily. What was Squidward doing right now? Probably sleeping, in that adorable dress of his.

The sponge lingered there, staring dazedly out at the moai, for perhaps a moment too long. Then, remembering himself, he sprinted to the bathroom. Once inside, Spongebob pointed a finger at his own reflection in the mirror.

“Enough beating around the bush, Mr. Squarepants!” he yelled -- much to Gary’s annoyance. The sponge lowered his voice down to a soft whisper. “Today, you tell him how you feel.”

His reflection simply shrugged. “I mean, okay,” it said. “But this is like, the 57th time you’ve said this.”

“Oh, shush.”

-0-

The party was supposed to start at 6:30, but Spongebob, in a manic cleaning fit, had the entire house ready by noon. This year, the party was themed around As The Tide Turns, a very polarizing-but-popular soap opera, especially in Bikini Bottom. If you were a Bikini Bottomite, you either watched the show genuinely, or ironically -- there was absolutely no in-between.

Spongebob and Squidward both genuinely enjoyed the show. It was one of the first things they bonded over, back when Spongebob started working at the Krusty Krab. Through the window to the galley, the two coworkers would talk for hours about the show, and whatever drama was center-stage for that season.

It got to a point where Mr. Krabs -- who only watched ATTT ironically -- got on them both, for shirking their duties.

“If yer gonna flirt,” he’d said, “do it on yer own time.”

So, Spongebob started coming over to Squidward’s house on Friday nights, when the new episodes would air. In fact, even when the show was between seasons, Spongebob still came over, just to watch reruns. It was one of the few times Squidward would (begrudgingly) let Spongebob inside, with no complaints.

Spongebob hummed softly to himself, his eyes scanning the small clipboard in front of him. Food, decorations, party games … Check, check, and check. Everything was present and accounted for -- and he had to admit, the house looked spectacular.

Every room was themed around a different, iconic arc in the ATTT series. His living room, filled with chalk drawings, crime scene tape, and red-string boards, was inspired by the murder mystery arc. His kitchen, decorated with leftover Halloween gear, was inspired by the vampire arc … and so on and so forth. Each and every room had its own particular, careful design -- and in all, it was probably Spongebob’s most intricate and detailed party to date.

That was because it had to be. Spongebob had a plan, a carefully detailed plan -- one that was sure to sweep Squidward Tentacles right off his … er, tentacles. And it went like this:

Squidward and Spongebob’s favorite arc, in all 42 seasons of As The Tide Turns, was the murder mystery. In the arc, the dashing Detective Heartthrob, accompanied by his sidekick-slash-lover Joey, must bring a heinous mass murderer to justice. At the climax, it is revealed that Detective Heartthrob is the true killer -- having been hypnotized by a witch, who was also his evil twin sister, for some reason. In the end, Joey must kill Detective Heartthrob, in a tragic display of love and sacrifice.

The season was thrilling, silly, and emotionally traumatizing, to boot. For months after the finale, Squidward and Spongebob would not shut up about it -- much to the annoyance of Mr. Krabs.

Either way, Spongebob had set up an elaborate, original mystery game, inspired by the events of the show. Each attendee would get a “random” card, assigning them a different role in the story. Squidward would be Detective Heartthrob, and Spongebob would be Joey.

Together, they would embark on an original mystery, one that Spongebob had devised all by himself. After he and Squidward solved the mystery together, and the party was over … Spongebob would finally, finally confess his feelings.

Of course, Spongebob had, more or less, rigged the game to ensure this would happen. Which was cheating, sure, but this was for love! So it couldn't possibly go wrong.

-0-

It went wrong. Almost immediately, in fact.

For one, the party started at 6:30 -- and, nearly two hours later, Squidward had yet to show up. Spongebob spent those first two hours lingering by the door, staring out the window towards the moai, and forgetting to refill the punch bowl. Sandy, ever the observant one, noticed immediately.

Pulling Spongebob aside, she asked, in a hushed voice, “Hey, partner. You good?”

“Oh, I’m -- I’m great!” chirped Spongebob, putting on his worst, most unconvincing smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Uh-huh,” said Sandy, flatly. “This about Squidward?”

Spongebob blushed, immediately. The squirrel sighed.

“I thought so,” she mumbled, folding her arms across her chest. “Did he say he was gonna come?”

The sponge nodded. “He said, ‘I’ll see if I can make it work’, which in Squidward-speak, is practically a yes!” groaned Spongebob, staring up at Sandy with his huge baby blue eyes. “He’ll come, right, Sandy?”

Sandy hesitated. She didn’t really know Squidward that well … but he did seem to have a soft spot for Spongebob. Awkwardly, she replied, “I mean … I can’t say for sure, but he did say he would try. Let’s be patient, okay, Spongebob? Maybe he just got caught up with something.”

Spongebob sighed, then repositioned his face into its usual chipper smile. “Alrighty. You do usually know what’s best, Sandy.”

“I sure do,” she giggled. “Oh, and Spongebob?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t cut his cable this time,” she said, before walking off to get more punch.

-0-

By 9:30, the party started to go a bit haywire. At this point, practically all of Bikini Bottom was at Spongebob’s house, except for Squidward -- and Larry thought it would be a great idea to play Truth Or Dare: Extreme Edition. The rules were pretty much the same as Truth Or Dare: Standard Edition, but with one exception: each subsequent truth or dare had to be more extreme than the last.

It started off alright. A few people were dared to take off their pants, or do a somersault down Conch Street while blindfolded. However, as the game progressed, the stakes grew astronomically. At one point, Patrick was dared to eat half of Spongebob’s pineapple. Later, Sandy was dared to juggle three of Plankton’s bombs, while riding a unicycle. Even later, Larry and Mr. Krabs were dared to switch shells and wrestle -- which wasn’t really destructive. Just disturbing.

The dares were stupid, but if there was one thing Bikini Bottomites had, it was a complete lack of common sense. Or any sense, really.

It certainly didn’t help that as the night progressed, the partygoers grew more and more … inebriated. The punch itself was non-alcoholic, but apparently, Karen and Plankton had taken it upon themselves to bring their own alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.

By 10:30, Squidward still hadn’t shown up yet. Several people had either passed out or thrown up. And the pineapple was a complete disaster.

Spongebob sighed. He was seated on his living room sofa now, watching as the partygoers reveled inside (and outside) his home. Of course, the sponge was happy they were enjoying themselves -- but this day was supposed to be about him, and … well, nothing had gone as planned. His entire house was destroyed, it would take days to clean up the mess -- and Squidward hadn’t even bothered to show up! The nerve.

“Hey Patrick,” muttered Spongebob, waving a tired yellow hand at his drunken best friend.

Immediately, the starfish stumbled over to him, drink in hand. “Wha… haha … whasss’ up, Spunchblarb?” he slurred.

Spongebob pointed to the drink in Patrick’s hand. “Could I have that?”

Patrick grinned widely. “Yeeeeeahh! Now -- now, yer talkin’, buddy!” And with that, the starfish handed Spongebob his first drink of the night.

-0-

About three drinks in, Spongebob Squarepants was well and truly intoxicated. Which was nice, in a way. Now, the world was a weird, misty haze, and he didn’t have to worry about his pineapple being destroyed, or his party being ruined, or Squidward, or whatever. Now, he could just be peacefully drunk and stupid, just like everybody else in his house. Blissfully unaware of the world around them.

As the night went on, Spongebob began losing track of time. What time was it? Midnight? 3:00 a.m.? Did it even matter?

Over the course of one very stupid evening, Spongebob made more than a few bad decisions. For one, he bought like, ten mops online. Which was both counterproductive (he was a sponge) and financially irresponsible (he was also a frycook). Later, the sponge swam to the surface of the ocean to see how long he could breathe without water. He fainted within the first ten seconds, and had to be retrieved by Larry. After that, the night became a dizzying blur. Spongebob was certain he had been driving, at one point, and also dancing, and maybe singing?

Either way, several hours later, Spongebob was still dancing in his living room, a lampshade stuck on his head, when he felt something on his shoulder. Turning woozily, the sponge tried to get into “kara-tay” position, and ultimately failed.

“Who -- what -- stay back! I’m warning you!” shouted the sponge. “I know … er, kar .. karat … carrots?”

There was a familiar sigh, then a soft chuckle. “Oh, you moron,” came a voice, a voice that Spongebob loved so dearly, even in this drunken state. “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

“Squ … squib … ?”

“Yeah,” said Squidward, wrenching the lampshade off of Spongebob’s head. “It’s me. Sorry I’m late.”

Spongebob looked up at Squidward -- and in his inebriated, hazy stupor, he couldn’t take it. He loved him so much, and for so long. It hurt. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes. “Squi -- Squidward, you -- you came,” the sponge stammered, his bottom lip quivering. “I -- I didn’t think …”

“Hush,” said Squidward, looking around the room. “This is, uh … wow, you really had a rager, huh? I didn’t think you had it in you, Spongebob.”

Stepping away, Squidward began picking up random items off the floor -- the punch bowl, some photographs, and a spilled carton of milk. The octopus had to step over and around several bodies, which were lying passed out on Spongebob’s floor.

“Listen, I’m gonna try and find a way to get everyone home,” said Squidward, sifting his way through the pile of garbage and bodies. “Everyone else is knocked out -- ”

Spongebob had had it. He’d had enough. He’d planned out this whole day perfectly, just for Squidward to not show up, for his whole house to be demolished in the chaos. Sure, he was glad everyone had a good time, but deep down, Spongebob was a little selfish, and deep down --

“I don’t care about everyone else!” shouted Spongebob, clenching his fists at his sides. “I care about you, Squidward!”

Squidward, startled, nearly dropped everything he was holding -- and before he could properly respond, Spongebob fell over, unconscious.

-0-

For once, Spongebob didn’t wake up to the sound of his foghorn. Instead, he woke up to the sound of the television nearby. Very soft dialogue wafted its way over to the sponge, bathing him in its pleasant familiarity.

“Why, Joey, I think you’re right -- the killer is closer than we seem to think!”

“Then we best get cracking, Detective Heartthrob!”

Groaning, Spongebob sat up -- a dull, throbbing pain coursing through his skull. Dear Neptune. What happened last night? There was the party, the drinking, and … Squidward, maybe? Spongebob felt his heart drop at the thought of his neighbor, and sighed. He hadn’t gotten to tell Squidward how he felt. Attempt 57 had failed. Miserably.

Blinking slowly, the sponge looked around, and with surprise noted that his bedroom was not a mess, like it had been during the party. In fact, it was squeaky clean. The only thing out of place was the living room television, which had been moved to the end of Spongebob’s bed. The TV was playing an old rerun of As The Tide Turns, from the murder mystery arc. A smile tugged at Spongebob’s lips. How ironic.

Wait a minute. Who moved the TV?

Just then, there were footsteps on the stairs -- the tell-tale pat-pat-pat-pat of someone with four legs. Squidward. He was still here! Steeling himself, Spongebob sat at attention, gripping the blankets tightly.

When Squidward entered, he was holding a tray of food and wearing a long pink apron. When he saw that Spongebob was now conscious, the octopus jumped, nearly dropped the food, then steadied himself just in time.

“Squidward!” said Spongebob, cheerily. “You’re here!”

“Of course I’m here, you nitwit,” muttered Squidward. “Who else was gonna clean up that messy party of yours?”

Squidward crossed the room to place the food tray on Spongebob’s nightstand. Once there, the octopus shoved a glass of water and two pills into the poriferan’s hands, with one simple command: “Drink.”

Spongebob did so, gratefully. Then, he asked, “The party … what all happened?”

“I don’t know, but it was a mess,” sighed Squidward. “I’m pretty sure half the town was completely passed out by the time I got here. I’m surprised the cops didn’t get involved.”

“Oh,” said Spongebob, feeling very guilty all of a sudden. “Did -- did everyone get home okay?”

“Yeah,” said Squidward. “Listen, don’t -- don’t worry about it, okay? I took care of everything. Your house is clean, Gary is fed, everyone got home. That’s all.” Squidward’s cheeks were stained red.

Spongebob smiled, his heart jumping happily in his chest. “Thank you, Squidward.”

After a moment of silence, Squidward brought the food tray up to Spongebob’s lap. “You should … you should eat that,” he muttered, then took a deep breath. “Look, I … I’m sorry I was so late, alright? The truth is, I … I got caught up.”

With a mouthful of food, Spongebob asked, “Wif whaf?”

Squidward grimaced. “You’re disgusting,” he snapped, then looked away, blushing brightly. “Anyway, I … was trying to get ahold of your birthday present. It was supposed to be delivered here, to Conch Street, yesterday -- but I guess there was a mix-up, and it was instead delivered to Conch Road, which is … in an entirely different town. Several hours away.”

Spongebob blinked. “You drove all the way to get it?”

Squidward scowled. “Whatever,” he snapped, pulling a small red present box from beneath Spongebob’s bed. “Either way, it’s here. So, I guess … open it, maybe.”

Shoveling down the rest of his food (much to Squidward’s disgust), the sponge quickly shredded the pristine red wrapping paper to reveal -- a boxed set of the entire As The Tide Turns series. The extended edition, with all the bonus scenes and commentary tracks. And to top it all off -- the box was signed by the stars of the show.

Spongebob looked up at Squidward, eyes shimmering with shock and awe. “Squidward, this is -- this is amazing, I thought they didn’t sell these anymore!”

“Oh, trust me,” said Squidward, shuddering. “You have no idea what I had to do to get my hands on that.”

“Let me guess,” said Spongebob, holding up two yellow hands to form finger-guns. In his best Joey impression, the sponge said, “You had to kill a lotta folks, didn’t ya, Detective Heartthrob?”

Squidward chuckled immediately. In one suave motion, he leaned against Spongebob’s bed, and pointed a finger-gun of his own. In his best Detective Heartthrob impression, the octopus replied, “I did, and I don’t regret it at all, Joey!”

The two laughed for a good long while. Then, suddenly embarrassed once more, Squidward looked away. Taking a deep breath, the octopus said, “Look, Sponge, I -- last night, you said something kinda weird, and I wanted to know if -- if maybe --”

“Huh?”

“You said -- you only cared about me, not anyone else, and I -- I wanted to ask,” stammered Squidward, “... what exactly … you meant by that.”

Spongebob’s eyes widened. Oh, barnacles. Did he really say that? Well … there was no hiding it now. Gripping his sheets tight, Spongebob steeled himself for what was to come. “It means I … I wanna keep hanging out with you, Squidward,” said the sponge, staring down at his yellow knuckles. “I wanna hang out with you more than anyone else.”

Squidward swallowed, hard. “Sponge, what are you saying?”

Spongebob looked up. Their eyes met. “I like you,” said the sponge, smiling nervously. “A … a lot.”

A long moment of silence passed. Spongebob’s heart hammered furiously at his chest. Then, Squidward sighed, and picked up the ATTT boxed set. Walking over to Spongebob’s TV, the octopus inserted the first disc, grabbed the remote, and returned to Spongebob’s side.

Lifting the blankets, the octopus said, “Scooch over.”

Spongebob blinked, then did as instructed. “Why?” he asked.

“You really are an idiot,” muttered Squidward, climbing into bed with him. “It’s a Sunday, the Krusty Krab is closed, and we have a whole boxed set to watch together. Might as well start now.”

Spongebob smiled, happily. “So -- so you -- ”

Squidward rolled his eyes. “If you must know, yes, I … I like you,” he snapped. “I’m not gonna drive halfway across the ocean floor for just anybody, you know.”

Spongebob grinned stupidly. “I guess not.”

With that, the show began, its melodramatic theme tune echoing pleasantly across Spongebob’s pineapple home. And just below the bed, Gary let out a soft, contended meow -- which almost certainly meant “finally.”

-0-

References:

The line about cutting Squidward’s cable is a reference to the episode “Party Pooper Pants”, in which Spongebob cuts Squidward’s cable to get him to come over for a party.

[whaleofatjme1920]

Right Back Where You Started

Right Back Where You Started

[Masky/Timothy Wright X F!Reader]

[Warnings: slight blood, slight violence, language]

[AN: Four of my OC's are in here! This was also requested from a friend a while ago.]

The beauty about being able to live a life outside of murdering people and being at the whim of a monster that fancies itself as a god is a variety of your own accord.

For instance, you can wake up whenever you feel like, take a job wherever there’s openings, meet new people and not have to bash their brains in just for asking about your life and only need to pick up a blade to cut food or occasionally packages you impulsively bought on the nights that feel like too much and not enough all in one. You can breathe and not worry about inky black tendrils crushing your throat for doing so without his permission. You’re able to sleep at night knowing that no higher up in your group will attempt to kill you in an act of proxy related hazing. You can clear your mind temporarily of the thoughts of what may come next in trade for semi-normalcy even though you know those thoughts won’t go away anytime soon. The weight of what you’d done was too much to bear, and Atlas can only disappear for so long.

When you first decided to betray your boss, the tall man in the woods, the faerie that steals children away, you acted on impulse. It was an impulse that was born from being all too exhausted with risking your life, committing sin upon sin and other terrible, no good things that should ever be uttered. The decision you made on impulse had no foresight or planning, and when you decided to run, you ran as far and as hard as you could away from him. Away from them. Away from it all. Of course, you know there were going to be repercussions for running like so few others did.

The ire of the Slender Man being the worst.

Most days, you try not to think of him. There’s no point - well, maybe there is a healthy fear you still have - but to worry yourself into a stupor would be silly now. You’ve been free of him for a year. He hasn’t sent you any signs, nor has he sent anyone… Maybe you weren’t important enough to set him off like some of the others had.

These are the things you like to think about as you sit on your couch watching the late night news that’s barely audible as you scroll through your phone. You never really did like the total silence an empty house provides. There’s a simmer cup of tea on the coffee cup and a few snacks laid out that you have little plans of eating while you relax and enjoy the midsummer night. Outside, you can hear crickets sing and cicadas accompany them. It’s peaceful, and while your mind would like to think of it as such, you can’t ignore the ringing in the back of your head. Things have been pleasant, too pleasant. There’s bound to be a storm due to roll in.

Still, you try not to think of these things, and instead focus on the content that scrolls in and out of your vision. It’s nothing particularly interesting, but helps get your mind off the things that often keep you up. And you continue to sit there on the couch, wrapped up in a light blanket to combat your AC as the hours of the night tick by. Your mind is completely off of really, any higher cognitive thought, when you hear something. It’s soft, low, sounds like two, maybe three people and they’re out in the distance. Must just be stumbling onto the borders of your ‘farm’.

See, the funny thing about trying to integrate into normal human life is that you physically can’t. You can follow all their customs, get into their society, look like them, but you’ll never be fully human. You want to know why? Proxies can never go back to what they used to be. They’re forever changed, and no force on heaven of earth can ever get rid of that. He can take your memory and dump you on the side of the road, but your biology has forever been changed. In most cases, it’s a nice thing to have: faster healing, better pain tolerance, heightened senses, and a better sense of problem solving than most people. Other days, it’s a hindrance for reasons you can’t quite explain. Some call it Slender Sickness, and the only way to remedy it is to be under the tall man’s care.

Because you’re not, you’ve found other ways to remedy the sickness he inflicts on practically everything he touches. Pills. You find them in odd, strange places, but they get the job done. So long as you have them, you can be free of his grasp and his connection.

But goddamn, the hearing is mostly a hindrance. On the account of you living on the edge of a college town, you’ve got land and are surrounded by farmer’s fields. You heat it all- critters in the night, teens messing with the patches, arguments, sometimes crimes, and it keeps you up at night. That’s a downside to not having him in your life- he’s not there to dampen its effects when it becomes too much. However, in this specific instance, your heightened hearing is a blessing.

The feeling in your gut only furls together tighter as you hear the three strolling down your dirt road. They’re close, much too close. You know that they’re here for you.

Frantically, you jump off the couch and start to damage control by making the place look like no one inhabits it. The TV and lights are turned off, the mug emptied of its contents, snacks put away and other leads buried. Your heart pounds a mile a minute - you know that if he finds you, it’s all over.

He’ll kill you - the Slender Man is not known for his mercy.

You feel like a chicken with its head cut off as you look around the house for weapons before settling on the kitchen knife. It’s cliché and reminds you of someone you once heard whispers about, but it’s all you can think of in this moment. When you left this life, you left the physical parts of it as well. All your gear, weapons, they’re hidden in a place that’s too risky for you to even attempt getting. Armed with the kitchen knife, you debate running out the back or hiding, then running. You always were good at staying out of sight, hiding it is.

Your eyes dart to the basement door and you slip through right as you hear the three outside your front door. There’s a window that opens in the direction of the town. If you slip out of it, you’ll be able to get a good headtstart through the field. The moment you start booking it down the stairs, you hear your front door get blown open.

“Wallace, what do you think?” You hear a male’s voice ask.

“Someone’s been in here recently,” a deeper male voice responds - must be Wallace, eyeing over your living room.

In the darkness, you quietly maneuver the crowded, cluttered basement, mentally cursing you left your phone upstairs in your haste.

“It feels like someone’s been in here,” Wallace’s voice continues. You can practically hear him smelling the air. “Ruth, tell Nyein to sniff this one out.”

You hear boots scuff against your wooden floor and stop somewhere in the doorway. “You could always just ask them yourself,” the female voice identified as Ruth verbally shrugs. She clicks her tongue, and you hear even more steps. How many of these people are there? You hope it’s just four. That’s a well sized group, come to think of it. “Ny, can you please sniff this one out? Seems like they’ve done a good job at scent covering.”

A beat of silence passes.

“Don’t give us any attitude,” the first male voice hisses slightly. “Do what you’re told-”

“Theo,” Wallace sharply reprimands.

You hear Theo sigh right as you reach the window. You pray to whatever deity will have you that it won’t squeak or make any loud noises, but the thing hasn’t been opened in gods know how long. You use the blade to lightly cut through the layers of off-white paint before the window is free. You mentally smile before attempting to lift it.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Nyein got your scent. Their pupils dilate upon realizing you’re the one the Slender Man has requested alive. You hear someone rapidly padding to the basement.

Panic fills your veins as you struggle to get the window open, not even caring that it’s making all the noise in the world. You need to get out!

“She padlock this thing?” You hear Ruth ask before she grunts. The door can’t hold them back forever.

You frantically push up on the window - it's a quarter open, not near enough for you to slip through. Shit, shit, shit! You need to go NOW.

“Jesus- just break it already,” Wallace sighs.

A few more grunts and you hear the wood splinter. You hear them descending the steps quickly.

“There!” Theo points.

You hold your breath and push the window up with all your strength before hosting yourself up.

“Shit! Out the front! Ny, keep on her,” Wallace commands as he smacks Ruth and Theo’s shoulder, the two quickly following him up the stairs.

You begin to shimmy out the narrow window as the being called ‘Nyein’ eyes you down. You don’t think you’ve ever seen an independent like that before. They look absolutely feral, and the scent of you has them locked on your crawling form.

Their eyes narrow, teeth bared, and they quickly lunge across the space for you, right as your legs reach the windowsill.

You cry out in surprise as their clawed hand digs into your ankle, drawing blood you know you can’t afford to worry about.

“Get off!” You shout in retaliation, kicking at their face. Freed, you begin to sprint into the field.

Nyein snarls and crawls out the window as well, running after you with a speed that has you on edge. You continue to run. Behind you, you can hear the other three quickly gaining on you as well. How badly does the Slender Man want you? Your lungs light on fire as they chase you through the field. Soon, you’ll be hitting the small stretch of trees before you reach the town. With other people, you’ll have a better chance at being safe. But the stretch of woods is an awful mess of brush and loose soil. You can’t afford to misstep now.

You take in a deep breath as you hurl into the small stretch of trees, all too aware of the proxies and independent that are hot on your trail. In the back of your head, you can tell they’re tired of you. Good. They should be. You narrowly avoid twisted roots and piles of mud and grow closer and closer to other people.

It’s so close that you can almost touch it.

Lost in your thoughts and too tunnel visioned in on reaching the town, you fail to recognize the steel jaw trap in the darkness and send your shoe right on it. It clamps down, bites, and holds you. You screech and fall forward, careening into the forest floor. The pain in your leg is absolutely agonizing, and you claw at it in vain to free yourself as your pursuers close in on you.

“Gave us quite the chase, Reader,” Wallace says with a slight scowl as he crouches a healthy distance from you. “Should let you rot here,” he muses. You can’t see his face both from the darkness of the night and the fact he’s wearing a mask, but you can tell he’s upset.

“Or let Ny eat her. Been a while since they’ve last had anything,” Theo adds on, glaring at you through the eyeholes of his mask that’s the head of a pig.

“He said he wanted her alive,” Ruth chimes in, a sigh in her tone. “She’s already fucked herself up enough, let’s not rub salt in the wounds.”

“Put her to sleep then,” Wallace shrugs.

You look up at these people like a caged animal, your eyes narrowing and slightly watering at the pain of the steel jaw trap. You feel yourself inching closer and closer to the earth subconsciously as Nyein eyes you like a prize.

\ They reach their hand out to touch you before you smack them away. Their snarl, their eyes traveling down to your ankle where the blood smells the strongest.

“Do it before they eat her,” The deep voiced man says again. “Though, last I checked, Ny doesn’t eat proxies.”

“She’s a traitor, not a proxy,” Ruth lightly corrects, her gaze alone shushing you from making any noise.

Not wanting to work yourself up, you settle for cursing them under your breath.

Without any other words, Ruth comes up to you, resting her boot on your chest to keep you down. You attempt to grab at her leg, throw her off balance, but she’s stronger than you on account of still being an active proxy. Her dark eyes scan you up and down before she reaches into her back pocket. “Take a deep breath for me,” she murmurs before smacking the rag to your mouth and nose.

You flail about, screaming and cursing before reluctantly taking that breath.

“... Thank you, you’ve done well. Head out to - yes, that’s right, Theo - head there and I will give you further instruction.”

You blearily come to on the carpet of an office you hoped you’d never be back in. The smell of jasmine and incense hangs in the air. You hear a door shut and catch the boots of the people who brought you back to him leave the room. He must be sending them out to their next assignment; it’s probably some poor other bastard that won’t escape like you did. You take in a few timid breaths and allow the light to filter in.

There he is, your boss. He stands in front of you like a god. He has no face, but you can tell he’s more than upset.

“Miss Reader, what a pleasure,” he says in a deep, authoritarian tone.

On instinct, you feel yourself shrinking.

“Really?” He muses, inky black tendrils sprouting from his back. “You have the nerve to run from me, suppress me, and now you do this? You dare show your submission?” He hisses. The tendrils move like bolts of electricity as they wrap around your exhausted, terrified form.

You cringe as the tendrils take over every part of you, squeezing as if they’re threatening to break your bones if you so much as breathe out of turn. Tears well in your eyes as you remember the fear you used to feel rushing back and overloading your senses.

“You’re absolutely pathetic,” he spits as the tendril wrapped around your neck begins to constrict. You notice his body language bristle as he looks at you longer. “I could pop your eyeballs out of your sockets. I could tear you limb for limb,” the Slender Man continues like it’s nothing.

You feel nothing but malice radiate off his form. It’s heat that singes your very soul. “S-Sir,” you gasp out. “Why would you b-bring me here just to k-kill me?” You attempt to reason, eyes watering and vision going fuzzy. You weakly attempt to use your fingers as a barrier between the constrictor and you. You can’t take this low oxygen any longer - not with him physically inhibiting you.

A cold chuckle reverbates in your head while the vision of wolf’s teeth smile at you, as if they’re ready to snap. “You always were smart,” he notes, loosening his grip ever so slightly. “I could rip your head from your shoulders and it would make none of the difference.”

“Answer my observation,” you weakly cough out before he holds you tighter. You struggle to move your limbs. Your blood feels hot.

“Masky,” he suddenly calls out, hand gesturing to his office doors.

You’re barely able to move your head and settle on shifting your eyes instead to those large, oak doors as they open just a crack.In slips a man in a tan coat. He’s got dark hair, bags under his eyes, and he looks exhausted - more exhausted than you feel. He doesn’t look at you but instead focuses on the Slender Man.

“Sir,” he greets, bowing his head slightly in reverence.

The Slender Man hums, clearly pleased. You see the wolf’s jaws smile in your mind’s eye.

“Reader, you will be under his care now,” the Slender Man says. “If you successfully spend half a year at his side, I will reconsider tearing you apart.” He says it so nonchalantly that you feel chills run up and down your spine.

You furrow your eyebrows. “What?”

“Do you oppose me?” The Slender Man asks. “I am being more than generous, aren’t I?”

“Don’t take this offer for granted,” you hear Masky quietly add. Somewhere, deep in the back of your mind, you can hear Masky telling you not to push him too far.

Hesitantly, you nod, voice too weak to say anything physically.

The Slender Man’s tendrils suddenly retract from you, sending you roughly to the carpeted floor.

You yelp as you come into contact with the carpet and slowly gather yourself as you try to push down the aches and pains that bloom on your joints and shins that hit the ground particularly hard. You cough a bit as air returns to your lungs and struggle to stand.

“Do what you must,” the Slender Man waves off, turning his back to both you and Masky.

Masky finally breaks from his stance and moves quickly to your side to help you up.

At first, you try to smack his hand away, but upon realizing you’re too weak to even see straight, accept his hand and his arm when you’re standing upright. He smells of cigarettes and some out of date cologne. It’s not bad.

The two of you hobble out of the Slender Man’s office with Masky’s eyes never leaving your form. After all, you are his responsibility now. He continues to lead you through a mansion you’ve grown to despise and out into the warm summer morning. The Slender Man could never imitate the beauty of earth to its entirety, that much was apparent.

“Where are we going?” You ask in a rough voice, attempting in vain to clear it by coughing.

“Stop that,” Masky sighs as the two of you cross the lawn. “To the parking lot, getting in the car, then driving across the border to Mississippi. We’ve got a temp there,” he murmurs. “You good?” He’s mentally wondering why your healing hasn’t damage controlled this yet. Probably the boss still being mad at you is the best reason he can come up with.

“Do I look like I’m good?” You dryly respond, eyes squinting slightly as the fog begins to kick up. You know you’re reaching the end of his reach. Once the fog clears up almost as quickly as it appeared, you realize the Slender Man’s practically kicked you both out of his realm. The walk was always longer when you truly were his. He must be severely pissed off at you. In a way, you’re lucky he didn’t kill you from the get go.

It’s best not to dwell on that thought though.

The rest of the walk is quiet and you’re in the car before you can count to 100 (your numbers are very jumbled though). You slide into the passenger seat and feel a little better at being able to rest.

Masky slides into the driver’s seat and sighs as he grips the wheel. “You have any questions, you ask them now in the car. I’m not putting up with your bullshit when we get to the temp.”

You roll your eyes and look out the window. “Who are you?”

“Masky, you heard him,” he’s pulling out of the parking lot and mentally thanking the gods he wasn’t killed alongside you. When the boss is in such a questionable mood, there’s no telling what’ll happen.

“You know damn well what I meant,” you cough slightly.

Masky scoffs before reaching into the backseat for a moment. His fingertips brush a water bottle, and upon realizing that’s what it is, grasps it and then tosses it to you.

You nod and take a sip, mentally frowning that the water’s been heated in the morning summer sun.

“I’m a group leader. Probably haven’t heard of us though, we’re not terribly monumental,” he begins as he flicks the turn signal on. “You’ve got three other people to watch out for. Hoodie, he’s the right hand, Toby, he’s essentially our middle child, and Kate. You’re replacing her and the hazing process will start up,” he finishes, now matching pace with the other cars that sparsely decorate the expressway.

You pout slightly and press your lips into a thin line as you gaze out the window at the rolling scenery. You’ve been here before. You’ve brought people back here this exact way before. They’re all unwanted memories. In response, your body language becomes unreadable.

This does not go unnoticed by Masky. “Yeah the attitude isn't gonna work,” he says as he glances over at you. “C’mon, you’ve been through this process before. We all have - what gives?”

With a sigh, you flick your eyes over to him to gauge his mood. He seems genuinely curious. “You do know that I ran away for a reason, right?”

Masky nods. “Sure, it was stupid though.” He takes a hand off the wheel for a moment to open his window. “What did you think would happen?” Sounds like he’s trying to pick at your brain.

“Anything but this,” you gesture angrily to your current situation. “I hoped to never see him again,” you groan, clearly frustrated. You chug some more water.

Masky breathes out slightly, as if he’s judging your answers. “Whatever. Forget about pulling something like that again because I’ll personally come after you if it comes to that,” he claims in a tone that’s far too serious.

You roll your eyes slightly, “sure, like you’ll-”

His eyes shift on the expressway, and after ensuring there’s no one that’ll cause a pile up on behalf of him, he hits the brakes, sending you lurching forward into the dashboard.

“What the hell?” You cry out in an exasperated tone, struggling to peel yourself up from the dashboard. You cry out in shock again as you feel his hand at the back of your head, successfully grinding your skull into the heated polyvinyl chloride.

“Get that thought of your fucking head,” he hisses, raising your head slightly before smacking it back down.

You growl back and relent. Once the pressure from his arm is gone, you shove him off of you. The car picks up pace again and you notice him wave to a person who passes by - they have a mildly concerned expression - and he smiles like he didn’t just slam your skull into PVC.

Welcome back to the proxy life.

You make it to Mississippi by mid afternoon. Masky brings the car down some dirt path where a house lays right on the Mississippi river, and you can smell traces of blood. They must’ve cleared the previous residents out.

There, on the porch in a muscle tee holding a can of coke is a man with his left cheek missing. He twitches slightly as he waves at you and Masky.

“T-This her?”

Masky nods.

“Can’t b-believe she g-g-gave Wallace’s g-g-group the s-slip,” he says in a slightly amused, slightly annoyed tone.

“Word travels that fast?” Masky replies with a slight chuckle.

The proxy before you nods with a small smile, “c’mon. I wanna g-g-get out of this h-heat. It’s a-a-awful out here,” he says with a playful grimace as he slowly rises from the front step where he had been sitting.

“Is Kate happy?” Masky asks as he watches Toby head in, then nods for you to go.

With a small frown, you do so. At least it’s air conditioned.

“Over the moon,” a feminine voice cuts in from the kitchen. She’s stirring a thing of lemonade.

Masky smiles slightly and takes a seat at the table. “We weren’t that bad,” Masky notes as Kate slides a glass of lemonade to the group leader.

She raises a brow at Toby who glances down to his open pop can. “So, this is the one he wanted alive for this term?” She questions as she glances at you, silently asking if you’d like some.

You mouth a ‘please’ before getting comfortable at the table.

“Weirdly, yeah,” Masky replies before taking a languid sip. “Thought he was gonna go for someone with more street cred, but, whatever. She’s our problem now,” he shrugs.

You look down into the pastel yellow liquid and furrow your eyebrows in annoyance. All of this, it was wrong. You hadn’t had to play by proxy rules in a year, and here you were, bottom of the rung, the runt. You hadn’t been a runt in gods know how long.

Conversation begins to flow between the three people around you as glasses of lemonade are poured. You sit in silence, listening because you know it’s not your place to speak. As far as proxy culture goes, you don’t really have any rights. Well, you’re in a better place than independents, but according to other proxies, you’re a glorified errand boy. They say to jump and you’re supposed to ask ‘how high?’ Your group’s word becomes gospel.

Apparently, Kate was this group’s runt before you came in. But, runts only stay runts for a certain amount of time. It’s possible for groups to not have runts - and that’s essentially what this group was doing. Kate had outgrown her runt status and was well considered the youngest (in experience) member of their group but had the same social standing as Toby. While it was a joke to refer to her as a runt, they hadn’t had one for a while.

That’s where you come in. You’re the first member to be considered a runt in quite some time. And you can tell they’ve been itching to take it out on someone.

“Where’s Hoodie?” Masky asks as his fingertips trace the lip of his glass. “Should be thrilled to see we’ve got another one.”

“Only t-thing holding h-him back from h-hurting you is the f-f-f-fact the O-Operator asked f-f-for us to t-take her,” Toby giggles slightly as he crushes another pop can. “He’s h-h-handling something, Should be c-c-coming back now, though.”

“Speak of the devil and the devil will appear,” you hear another man’s voice chuckle as the front door swings gently open.

Standing in the doorway holding a crowbar and wearing a white t-shirt is Hoodie - sans hoodie. It’s much too hot to be wearing one anyways. He haphazardly tosses the crowbar to the floor before closing the front door behind him, then begins walking towards the kitchen.

“This is her?” He asks as he takes a seat next to Masky, silently thanking Kate for the lemonade.

“Disappointing, right?” Kate lightly jokes, making Hoodie smile.

“In this form, sure,” Hoodie observes as his hazel eyes rake over your form. “She looks weak, scrawny, low endurance, probably forgot all her skills, what, with her being missing for a year?” He says it like it’s a game but looks at you like he despises you. “Not training her. Not my problem, and especially not in this heat.”

“She’s part of our group,” Masky replies in a slightly exasperated tone.

“No-Nose goes,” Toby suddenly blurts out.

Everyone presses their index to their nose except for Masky, who sighs dejectedly.

“For fuck’s sake,” he grumbles. “Let’s go, Reader. You’ve been awfully quiet.” The brown haired man says in a less than pleased tone, picking his glass up and momentarily pausing to place it in the sink.

You quietly follow in suit, nodding to your other comrades before following him out.

The nice thing about waiting for Hoodie to stir things up was that it was the late afternoon. The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon, and a breeze was beginning to shift through the air. It wasn’t near as hot due the sun no longer beating down on you. Besides, it was nice to get out of the house for a bit.

Masky and his group must have been staying here for a while, because he walked into the woods on this deer path like it was nothing and led you to a clearing. There were a few training things, but nothing of any substance - just a temporary fix until they were somewhere more permanent. Proxies are nomadic, after all.

“You still have a knife on you?”

“I would’ve stabbed you with it.”

He shoots you a look as if to tell you to watch your mouth and you holds your hands up.

“I’m joking,” you defend. “When I meant I wanted to never look back, I truly, deep down to my bones, meant it.”

Masky’s hand goes to his belt loop where he takes out a knife. It’s… severely dulled. Looks like he doesn’t trust you just yet.

“See that dummy? Show me what you remember and I’ll decide if we’re out here until midnight or not.”

The dummy in question looks gods awful. It’s missing an arm, the stuffing is all over the grass, and the poor thing looks like it can’t support its own weight anymore. You wonder which one of your comrades got it to this state of if this was a group effort.

You narrow your eyes and get a hold of the blade in your grasp. It’s much nicer than a kitchen knife - reminds you of what you used to use when you were but a shadow in the night. You glance at him, then the dummy, and decide to get to work.

There’s no use in running. The Slender Man will hunt you down regardless, and he won’t be as merciful the second time around.

“Stop stalling,” Masky chides.

You take in a breath, and do as told.

To say six months passed with ease would be a lie. It’s been six months of hell - and that’s mostly because you’re a runt paired with the fact you never wanted to be back here to begin with.

It’s been strange, you’ll give it that. The proxy in you took over faster than the human side of you could and you integrated back into proxy culture and society far easier than anyone expected. Of course, there were some moments where your group members would ruffle your feathers and put you in your place, but that was expected. To be a proxy is to be put under fire until you prove yourself otherwise.

You’ve gone on operations with them. Took lives again. Stole things again. You settled back into the life you originally left behind as if you’d never departed to begin with. That’s how deep the proxy mindset and muscle memory is embedded into those it takes hold of. It sets itself out to be the only thing you’ll ever know. You live by it, you die by it.

So, where have you been for the past six months? Well, still in Mississippi. About two weeks after you first arrived with your new group, you and the group moved down south near the ocean and have been staying there the entire time. Luckily, this place was considered a temp house for the people who owned it - they liked spending time in Europe - which left this place as yours. Besides, the Slender Man likes having you close. He was able to periodically check in on you with you being a few hours away as opposed to days. Why he was so interested in you, you’ll never know.

According to both him, and Masky, you’d been making good progress. By the end of your six months (lovingly referred to as a “trial run” by your group), you were half way back to what you used to be. It was disheartening to only hear “half” but it was better than nothing. A part of you wonders why you’re so inclined to get better when you should be focusing on leaving.

It’s not like you didn’t try.

You tried so many times that your group started a tally board and whoever found you first got a mark under their name. Whoever hit five before the board was reset got the next operation (or operation of their choosing) off. For the first few weeks when you were but a stranger with them, the punishments were harsh and unforgiving, like they hate you to your core. But, as the months went on, they went from fists to phrases. Eventually, you stopped trying to run so they no longer had to beat you. Every time you got that far off look in your eye, someone would reprimand you. It’s probably because they cared about you.

That’s common for proxies, bonding with your teammates on a level outsiders can’t understand. It’s mostly to keep you safe while out in the field. And unfortunately for you, you’ve been feeling that way towards your group. You’ve covered for each one at least once, and that gesture doesn’t go unnoticed. You’re in a strange place, if you’re being honest.

Take for instance now, back in the passenger seat of a car and heading back to Rosswood with Masky (he told you his real name is Tim) to talk with the Slender Man face to face. While the others in your group have been keeping up with him regularly, you haven’t seen him in person since well, six months ago. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t have butterflies in your stomach as you draw closer to the woods you once considered home.

“You nervous?” Masky hums as he turns the radio down.

“Yeah,” you reply, gazing out at the rolling fields again. “What if he-”

“It’d be stupid of him,” Masky cuts you off. “Six months of putting all this time and effort only to off you? Just… Just don’t say anything stupid,” he reminds you, a slight teasing tone lingering on his words. He looks at you with gentle eyes.

You scoff playfully. “Eyes on the road, weirdo.”

Standing in the Slender Man’s office this time as a welcome guest is weird. There’s still the scent of jasmine and incense, but there’s also something sweeter - like a memory he’s trying to provoke specifically for you. It’s warm, but not uncomfortably so, and it doesn’t feel near as suffocating as did that first time.

“You’ve certainly changed,” a deep voice says with an audible smile as it reverberates through your head.

“Sir,” you bow your head slightly.

“I’m going to make this short,” the Slender Man begins. “Miss Reader, I am satisfied with your progress these past six months.”

“Thank you, Sir,” both you and Masky reply.

The tall man hums. “However, you have only reached half of what you used to be. I believe the longer you stay in this group, the better you will become.”

You take in a sharp breath.

“Does that bother you?” The Slender Man doesn’t sound mad.

“I…”

Masky mentally clicks his tongue at you, and you glance over through the corner of your eye.

You decide to respond carefully. “I know normalcy… Sir, I don’t know if this life was ever meant for me, but,” you take in a deep breath and ball your fists to ground yourself. “If this is what you want of me, I will do it.”

The Slender Man chuckles. “Timothy, you’ve done an excellent job with this one. Perhaps I should have placed Pariah with you,” he emptily thinks aloud with another slight laugh. “I regret to inform you Miss Reader, that normalcy was never an option. You will go back with your team and you will continue to better yourself until I say otherwise.” He makes no move to stand from his desk, but his hands reach out.

Taking that as a nonverbal cue, you and Masky stand and each take a large hand.

The Slender Man’s fingers close around your much smaller hands before his hand leaves your grasp entirely. Instead of striking you, he gently cups your cheek. “Now go. I look forward to seeing you in six months.” The warmth is gone from his tone but lingers like doused coals in a still simmering fireplace.

“Thank you for your time,” Masky bows slightly, nodding for you to follow.

Without any other words, you nod to your boss and follow Masky out. The two of you trade silent conversation as you exit the mansion and back to the car. You slip in just like you did six months ago, and so too does Masky. The car comes to life, and you begin to peel out of the parking lot, back to Mississippi.

“How are you feeling?” Masky asks as he pulls down the sun visor after squinting at the beams of light.

“Not as bad as I thought,” you say in slight surprise. “Maybe it just hasn’t sunk in yet.”

“Or,” Masky begins. “You were always meant for this.”

You laugh in response and smack his shoulder lighter. “You know you’re not slick, right?” You tease as you stick your tongue out.

Masky chuckles deeply and gets back on the expressway. “I try when I can.”

“Oh really?” You pretend to be shocked. “Where was that smooth talking when I first met you?”

“Out the window because I just met you,” he retorts, a smirk playing on his lips.

“You are literally the worst,” you teasingly scoff.

“Right back at you,” Masky breathily laughs. His dark eyes stay focused on the road as

you get comfortable in the passenger seat.

“Really though,” you say as you stretch slightly. “Thanks for not killing me.” You look at him with such gentle eyes that he can’t help but smile just as genuinely in response.

Masky won’t lie, he was admittedly worried for you in the beginning. What with you running away all the time, speaking ill of literally everyone, almost getting everyone caught by the cops… You were colorful, for lack of better words. It’s been nice cultivating that into something better. Maybe you’d make something of yourself out of this garbage fire of a hiccup.

“It’s nothing,” he shrugs. “It’s my responsibility to watch out for you anyways,” he says as before honking at someone who almost swerved into your lane. “Besides, you’re not all too bad, and as long as it’s me making sure you don’t set shit on fire… Think we’ll be just fine.” He looks over at you and smiles warmly - it feels like the sun - before he turns back to the road.

You hum contentedly as your hand reaches for the radio. You turn up the music and let it play, a serene, comfortable silence falling between the two of you.

[quillandink333]

Scarlet Carnations ~ Part VII

BotW Link X Zelda ~ Detective AU

Rating: T

Word Count: 4k

WARNINGS: death, murder, loss, trauma, blood and gore, terrorism, organized crime, self-harm

Summary: Inspector Zelda Hyrule, assisted by the faithful Constable Link Fyori, is infamous for cracking the most confounding of cases in a town dominated by crime. Her latest assignment is to solve the murder of her own godmother, Impa Sheikah, the late CEO of Sheikah Tech. Incorporated, while staying under the radar of the dreaded Yiga organization.

Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV • Part V • Part VI • Part VII • Epilogue • Masterlist

It took me far too long to recover from the discovery I’d made deep beneath the foundation of the Sheikah estate. Who knew how many more had been forced to suffer at the hands of the Yiga over the course of that period? It was high time to end this era of tyranny and grief, and to have anyone but myself take the lead was not an option. Whatever truth was waiting for me at the end of all this, so be it. I had to see it with my own two eyes. I had to see her.

To help set my plan into motion, the only person I had left to turn to was Prosecutor Sigatur, and though she had once held my mother in the utmost respect, she had benevolently volunteered to present my findings to the courts in my stead. As confident as I was in my argument and as desperately as I desired to be there for Link, I couldn’t quite stomach the thought of taking the stand and exposing myself to the discrimination of the public eye again.

And so, as the proceedings went on for the following few days, I spent my time back at the apartment, making myself useful by poring through my mountainous collection of data on the eighteen-year-old incident that I’d amassed over the years and had been keeping in my office until now. Now that I had been let go, my flat was practically overflowing with newspaper clippings, copies of investigation reports, and whatever else not. Every time I would open the door upon arriving home, I’d get hit in the face with the musty stench of dust and old magazines that I had nowhere to properly put away.

Though my collection was indeed vast, it was far more so in physical volume than in information. Most of the documents in it were no more than different accounts of the same basic facts. All the useful info I could glean was that the fire at City Hall had taken the lives of most, if not all, administrative officials who had been there working at the time, and those members of council who may or may not have been killed had never been seen nor heard from again, their bodies left for ash. And according to my sources, Mayor Hyrule had been amongst them.

There was a certain line in her letter to Auntie Impa that had tipped me off to her current whereabouts. “...I have been keeping watch over you from the ashes of the afterlife...” The imagery laced so intricately into those words had struck a nerve. There was only one place in this town that both would’ve been of any significance to her and was covered in ash: the crumbling ruins where the former City Hall had once stood.

Having reached the point of culmination in my plotting, I invited the newly reinstated Constable Fyori over for tea. The two of us meeting in my office would have been preferable, but we’d just have to make do with this for the time being.

“If my hypothesis is correct, then I am about to enter the belly of the beast,” I deliberated. Seated on my settee and restlessly tapping the floor with his heel, Link listened with both eyes and ears as I paced about the room. “Ideally, I’d have some sort of backup at my disposal. Maybe I could phone Urbosa and ask her to lend me a hand, just once more...”

“If I may,” he butted in, “why are you speaking as though you’ll be on your own?”

I hadn’t been nearly as prepared as I probably should have been for such a question. “Well...” I stammered, forcing the shame of admitting that I was too afraid to confront my own mother alone down my throat, “would you happen to know someone who’d be willing to accompany me?”

His mouth gaped at my answer. Then jutting his neck out and laying his palms across his chest, he stood up. “Me!”

I took a step back. “Link, what are you talking about?” If something happened to him as a result of this, which was more likely to occur than not, then his last moments would surely be filled with nothing but fear and regret. Not to mention, I would never forgive myself. “I really shouldn’t have to remind you. She’s the reason your family—”

“I know,” he snapped. His eyes were burning a hole straight through me. It was almost frightening. “Believe me, I’m not about to go forgetting it again any time soon.”

“Then why...?” I half-whispered in the most deathly serious tone I could muster.

“Because I’m tired of hiding.”

A harsh breeze rattled the blinds against the window frame. It took me by surprise, but he wasn’t phased by it in the least.

“I’m tired of turning a blind eye and acting like none of the horrible things she’s done ever happened.” I tried to think of a snappy rebuttal, but none came to mind. He’d said these words as though they’d been burning on the tip of his tongue for an untold number of days. He’d had a lot of time to reflect between his false conviction and his acquittal, so it seemed. He and I were of the same mind, of course, but... “And, because...” He stopped himself. Some of the fire in his gaze had gone out in smoke. I got my hopes up when he broke eye contact for a moment or two, and I could all but sense the resolve in him dying, just a little bit.

But then, emitting a slight sound of frustration, he stepped closer. His hands gripped my shoulders, and he pulled me in with the force of a hurricane.

When his lips made impact with mine, my eyes flew open.

He kissed me with what could only be described as reckless abandon. His mouth scraped across my own, and I could feel every ounce of his aggravation in the way his fingertips bit down on my skin alone. It was rough and clumsy and pressed, as if this were sincerely the last and only chance he would ever have.

All of a sudden, we were seventeen again, and standing in the middle of our secondary school’s greenhouse. The scent of dust was replaced with that of lush flora on all sides of us, and sunlight shining in from above caressed the top of my head with its warmth. This was the very scene that I’d used to daydream about time and time again, wasting more hours of each day than I’d have liked to admit at the time.

Now his fingers clung to the corners of my face like I was made of paper, his lips brushing mine almost imperceptibly as his bated breath fanned out against them. When my eyes opened and met with his, his complexion had turned a delicate rouge, and his faultless aquamarines had been clouded over by doubt. In that moment, all I could think to do was to make that doubt vanish. So I ignored the distant sense of guilt that yet lingered and seized the navy blue tie around his neck. Our forms collided, and a sigh like trees swaying at the mercy of a light breeze in summer grazed my cheek.

With Ms. Sigatur’s aid, the constabulary had been more than willing to cooperate and construct a perimeter of officers around the old City Hall’s charred skeleton. Just the fact that the vicinity wasn’t littered in tarps and rubbish and other evidence of homelessness was proof enough of my theory. And yet, the way the wind howled and that the only signs of life were the crows circling up above filled the pit of my stomach with an unease that I could not ignore.

“You know what to do as soon as you sense any sign of danger, I trust?” Urbosa had both her hands planted firmly on my shoulders, bending down to meet my gaze with that same, old look of worry.

I gave a firm nod, never breaking eye contact. “Of course.”

“And you have Fyori and the others looking out for you, so don’t be afraid to call for them if—”

“I’ll be fine, Urbosa. I—”

“No, you will not.”

All I wanted was to get this over with, but she just had to go and remind me of the risks. No matter what I wished for, it wouldn’t change the fact that this was, in all likelihood, a suicide mission. Which was why I’d been so adamant in refusing to allow Link to come along initially.

Said constable was watching the two of us out of the corner of his eye, ever the vigilante as he stood facing the stronghold a mere half dozen paces away.

I heaved a constricted sigh and looked the prosecutor earnestly in the eye. With a deep breath, “I understand how worried you are for me, but please, don’t try to stop me. I’m aware of the risk and I’m prepared to face the consequences. I wouldn’t be doing this if I weren’t confident in my ability to succeed.”

Her stance softened, if only just slightly. “If Hilda weren’t still alive, her spirit would haunt me for letting any harm come to you.”

“But that won’t happen, because she is alive and she would never try to hurt me.” This much I was certain of, for if she had harboured any such intentions, she would have acted on them already, with how the Organization typically operated.

Urbosa’s lips tightened, and the out of place worry lines permeating her expression faded incrementally. She cast her gaze toward my stubborn guardian in silence, and he offered her a calm, yet resolute, nod of the head.

After a quiet embrace that seemed to go on endlessly, she sent me on my way. I looked over my shoulder as she grew smaller and smaller, then turned my focus ahead of me.

Staring up at the towering columns before me, I fell into an unnatural combination of wonder, nostalgia, and loss. (For whom or what was I still mourning? At this point, I didn’t even know the answer to that.) For the most part, the only parts of the building left standing were those invulnerable to fire, and even a great portion of that had fallen victim to weathering and decay over the years. Many of the brick walls had crumbled, leaving little in the way of places to hide a single person, let alone an entire crime syndicate.

The wind was unrelenting as it whipped and thrashed my hair about my face. Yet somehow, even as we drew nearer, the air remained as deathly still as ever.

As we finally came upon the scorched remnants of the main entrance, a gust from the north sent a whirlwind of ash in my direction. My arms rose to shield my face in the nick of time.

After taking a moment to collect myself, I took my first step since childhood into the domain of my mother’s workplace. Surely when I crossed that threshold, I’d thought, surely that was when havoc would finally be wrought upon us. But I was met yet again with stillness. Was nothing but my own breathing able to break this seemingly impenetrable silence?

Just then, my question was answered.

I felt my soul jump out of the confines of my body when the caw of a crow reverberated throughout the government building. If my heart hadn’t been pounding hard enough already...

I jumped again seconds later, though not nearly to the extent at which I just had, when Link’s hand came to weave itself between my fingers. We locked eyes, and he gave me the kindest of smiles. It made me want to melt right into his arms and to never let go, lest I lose him a third, and very likely final, time.

But a clearing of the throat from one of the other nearby constables reminded me of the ever present need to stay alert.

I elected to have the group split into two: one to search the ground floor of the ruins and one to search the upper floor. It was hard to say for certain how stable they were, but the stairways connecting the two stories were still almost fully intact. The upper floor itself, however, was another matter. Though its foundation hadn’t been constructed from any organic material, much of its structural integrity seemed to have been lost. About a third of it had broken off and landed square in the middle of the ground floor, leaving a vast chasm between the two sections of the upper floor that remained. The police had come prepared and equipped for the traversal of rough and uneven terrain, though there was still the danger of stray pieces of rubble raining down onto our heads from above.

I adjusted the strap of my helmet, which was beginning to chafe at the skin underneath my chin, before making my way around the monstrous hunk of brick flooring lying along the length of the grand foyer. Beyond that, as I’d remembered correctly, was the hallway leading to where her office had once been. But the scene I would discover there was a far cry from what I recalled.

What I found there wasn’t unlike what we’d found in the other offices up until now. Any furniture that had once filled the space had been destroyed. I could only just make out the contorted pieces of an old, blackened writing desk, its legs collapsed and the only thing relaying the tale of its former shape being the lamp lying shattered beside it. This I’d only noticed after hearing the crackling of shattered glass underfoot.

A clipped, nasal exhale sounded from behind me, where Link was taking in the scene with an expression similar to my own set into his face. He’d been clinging to my side since we’d begun searching, whether out of a desire to protect or to be protected, I did not know. A question rang in my ears that he’d posed to me during our meeting at my flat. “What will you do once you find her?” It was a simple question, one that I reasonably should have been able to answer, but the only one that came to mind would have sounded beyond foolish if said aloud. In the midst of such an era of power, what crime boss in their right mind would be swayed by a meagre plea to stop? But if not try to reason with her, there wouldn’t be many other options at my disposal.

This supposition only applied given that my mother would be found. My inspections so far had yielded no signs of Yiga activity, or for that matter, any activity whatsoever. Everything here seemed to have been here since the very incident that had levelled the place. In a way, this only added onto my already existing restlessness. The longer this search went on in vain, the less likely we were to find anything of worth, and the more likely it was for this endeavour to end in yet another failure. The moment I would finally give into my fear and call off the mission was steadily approaching.

A shadow flickered in my peripheral vision, followed by auditory pandemonium.

I just barely withheld my yelp. Link had turned toward the source of the sound with his hand on his holster.

But it had only been a piece of debris coming down from the floor above. I sighed furtively.

Between how Link’s shoulders had tensed up to meet his ears and the way his hand twitched as he lowered it from his hip, it was plain to see that I wasn’t the only one who was shaken up.

There was one more area of the ground floor that I had left to search: the conference hall. If the Yiga were anywhere to be found across these vast burial grounds, it was there.

What was left of the wood flooring creaked underfoot at a much greater volume than I’d been expecting. The ceiling, though just as high as that of the rest of this floor, somehow felt even loftier. Out of all the rooms we’d visited, this one was the most intact. Half of the risers, though scorched, were otherwise undamaged, and even the podium was still standing tall. But of course, being more intact meant giving sharpshooters more places to hide. One misstep and—

Crack

The floor fell out from beneath me. I let out a shriek, feeling the realm of death open its big, black maw and swallow me whole.

Then I landed with a calamitus crash.

If I hadn’t managed to curl my limbs around myself in time, the concrete flooring I seemed to have landed on surely would’ve cracked my head open, or given me a severe concussion at the very least. My whole body ached from the impact, and it felt as though I may have sprained my ankle, for when I tried to stand, it throbbed in the most violent pain I had ever experienced. I fell to my hands and knees, reeling.

The spot in the floor that I’d placed my weight on must have lost much of its hardiness to the fire. In all the times I’d been here as a little girl, it had never once occurred to me that this place had housed a basement.

“Zelda...!”

I looked up to see Link peering down from the hole in the ceiling that I’d made, his expression poised with worry. My body, covered in scrapes and bruises, cringed when I realized he had borne witness to that pathetic spectacle, making the pain tenfold.

“I’m fine,” I whisper-shouted up toward the only source of light in the room, and some of the fear in his face relaxed. He glanced around him, then looked back down in my direction before standing up and disappearing.

I could only hope he’d find his way down sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I shifted into a position I hoped I’d have more luck rising back to standing from, and I did. Though, maimed as I was, I’d still have to find some way to take some of the weight off my right foot.

The first thing I latched onto was rusty and sharp. I winced and pulled my hand back, looking blindly to see if my palm was bleeding or not.

As my eyes adjusted, I was relieved to see that the cut had only just grazed the surface of my skin. I scanned the room, seeing that the thing I’d touched was a piece of an old oil drum. In fact, the room was full of metal scraps resembling it.

A vision flashed before my eyes. Of City Hall being engulfed in flame within seconds, and the criminal mastermind hiding the evidence in a cellar, where no one would ever find it until the better part of two decades later.

The rest of the basement was still a cluttered mess, but somehow it felt a great deal more lived-in than what I’d seen up until this point. There wasn’t a soul to be found in any of the windowless rooms I came across, but the few things I found lying around with the help of my pocket torch, like an unopened pack of cigarettes and a deck of cards left strewn across a small table, gave me the distinct impression that I wasn’t alone. The numerous corners provided by old, metal bookshelves and file cabinets did little to slow my racing heart.

Eventually, I came upon an open doorway, beside which a small sign on the wall read, “Archive A.” Beyond the barrier, unlike the pitch darkness I’d been wandering through for I’d long lost count of just how long, a few threads of light were trickling in from above, presumably through a crack in the flooring above that I’d failed to notice before.

I stepped through the doorway, turned to face the yawning expanse of the former archive, and saw her. Dressed in pale white and standing radiantly in the center of the room.

My mother. The very image of my ever vivid memory of her was right there.

My feet carried me, with newfound purpose and with minds of their own, toward her. I wanted to reach out and feel her next to me. I wanted to ascertain that she was truly there and that I hadn’t actually hit my head and wasn’t now seeing things. I wanted to run at her, arms outstretched, more than anything in the world.

But then my ankle throbbed violently in protest, and my reason for being here came back to me at full force. I swallowed down my longing and stopped in my tracks. Her smile—that warm, glowing, congratulatory smile that held all the hope and light of the sun within its corners—wasn’t making this any less difficult, however. I was reminded of the simpler times, when at the end of each day, there was someone back at home waiting to hold me close and make all my worries melt away.

She held her arms out to me in a gesture that made my eyes well up with the tears of a child. It felt unspeakably wrong, but for what reason I could no longer place. Why shouldn’t I? What harm could it possibly do? It was only natural to want to wrap my arms around her as tightly as I was able, and to never let go again, wasn’t it?

A gunshot ripped through the peace.

Her face turned still as stone. Square between her harmless eyes had appeared an inky black-red orifice—an exit wound—from which a spray of crimson had decorated her visage.

Time slowed almost to a stop as Mother careened forward and fell flat onto the cold, hard floor. A hollow thump echoed throughout the empty space.

Before I’d had time to react, I looked up and met eyes with a painfully familiar pair of icy azures, which thawed in an instant as the owner lowered his weapon. I glanced down at the body, which had landed just two or three paces in front of me, then back at him. Then my own body started to shake.

No matter how I tried, I couldn’t control the violent tremors that had taken hold of me. My knees hit the floor, my bad ankle being wrenched one way in the process. This tore a scream from the depths of my lungs as the tears began waterfalling down in spiteful defiance against my will. I couldn’t bare to look at her—lithe arms strewn out limply at her sides and golden hair scattered in every direction—so I hid like the coward I was behind my stinging palms.

A metallic clack, followed by footsteps pounding the cement one after another as they neared. When his arms cradled my head into the shelter of his chest, I didn’t stop him. Nor did I when his hand began its gentle stroking up and down the curve of my back. He could have said something, anything, but he refrained. Instead, the silence surrounding my cries did nothing but amplify them.

A resounding clatter broke the air.

My vision was fogged up like a window pane in the dead of winter, but as I blinked away the tears, I began to make out the shape of an assault rifle lying on the concrete, at the feet of a person who hadn’t been there before and whose face I was unable to make out from this distance. In the figure’s hand was a bone-white mask, which they turned over in their grasp before dropping it onto the floor as well. It shattered upon landing.

In every corner, assassins were emerging from the shadows, each one of them laying down their weapons and turning to face the cooling corpse resting at the axis point of it all. Somehow, the room seemed even more devoid of daylight than ever before.

[finalfrontierpioneer]

2020 Fic Recs

Okay, I did a fic rec list last year for 2019, and nobody asked for this, but you know what, I’m gonna do another one. Really the only thing I wanna look back on about 2020 is the fic- bc damn there were some good ones!

Same as last year, these are fics that were completed in 2020. (So no in-progress fics here)

So here goes, 20 fic recs for 2020, in no particular order! And full disclosure, these are all totally different ratings/pairings/whatever.

I tried to tag all the authors who had tumblrs, but i probably missed some, and some of them aren’t actually working but hey! the username is there!

Some stucky bc of course

Sharpened Claws by tragicama (Explicit)

Steve Rogers has a unique talent of getting himself into danger. As one of New York City’s best homicide detectives, it isn’t easy to ignore the constant call of trouble and gore. At least, that’s what he tries to tell his overprotective and brooding boyfriend, Bucky Barnes, even if he knows it might be a lie.

Bucky is dangerous, gorgeous. . .and a werewolf. As the Alpha of New York City, he is easily considered the most powerful being in the world. But when Bucky begins to lose his control over his shift, he slowly becomes aware of a bond that sends him reeling, and one he’d never thought possible.

But everything is not as it seems. After a homicide case unleashes a sequence of events that neither Steve nor Bucky are prepared for, they soon find themselves entangled with a danger that threatens to rip them apart. With the help of Steve’s partner and best friend, Sam, Bucky and Steve navigate a dark web of pack politics, masquerade balls, and a crash course in what it means to be a pack, even as a greater danger looms. And one that might succeed in ripping them apart.

These Happy Gilded Years by crinklefries @spacerenegades, nalonzoo (Teen)

Steve Rogers, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and mostly happy disposition, had lived twenty-three years in the world with very little to distress or vex him.

( Steve is wealthy and and charming, with good humor and good temper, doted upon by his mother and the highest of New York Society, with no one to ever criticize or say the word no to him. Well, other than Bucky. But he doesn't count.

He is also warm and friendly and has a talent for matchmaking. Or so he thinks. Actually, he's kind of terrible at it.

Importantly, Steve will definitely never fall in love or marry, himself. He tells everyone this, repeatedly. Well anyway, we'll see about that. )

Jane Austen's Emma, but a little gayer, set in 1890s Gilded Era New York City

Demon Seed by SucculentHyena (Mature)

[Transcript 00:11:48]

MS: You were with him the most throughout the course of events, both before and after. Your account could shed light on something we may have missed.

JB: What difference will that make?

MS: It could make all the difference. Captain Rogers’ case is unprecedented, he’s the most intact victim we’ve ever recovered-

JB: [laughing] You call that intact?

A Noble Steed by alby_mangroves @albymangroves or @artgroves, leveragehunters (Teen)

"You say the Warhorse showed up last night," Sam said in tones of profound doubt.

"Yeah," Steve replied.

"The Warhorse. The Warhorse of legend. Daelland's Warhorse."

"The same as the one on the back of the transit card, yes."

"And he appeared in your living room?"

Steve eyed the Warhorse, very large and very black and giving him a dubious look out of his strange grey eyes. "He's standing in it right now."

"Uh huh," Sam said.

"Hey, I'm not any happier about it than you are."

* * *

Steve's mom had left Daelland long before he was born, following her heart to New York, but she'd raised him on stories of its famous Warhorse. Before she died, he'd promised he'd go back and learn the country she'd come from.

That was why he was in Daelland. Not so Daelland's legendary Warhorse could appear in his living room. But planned or not that's what had happened—now Steve had to figure out what to do about it.

a hat, a horse (a Hyundai), and the will to ride by elkane @elkane, synonym4life @synonym-for-life (Explicit)

After Steve and Bucky rescue their pals from the Raft prison, they decide to dig deeper into Zemo’s involvement in the UN headquarters’ bombing which sends them on a backpacking trip across select European countries. Steve and Bucky believe this is a story about their mission. Scott Lang and Sam Wilson, who join them halfway through, believe it’s a story about their Eurotrip (and they’re probably right). This writer, however, has been waiting to tell you that the fic’s true mission is Steve and Bucky missioning towards missionary.

Follow them on their journey across Europe in tiny cars, packed subway trains and even on skis as they tumble down the Swiss Alps (in a fun way this time!), all the while reigniting untold feelings of the past through inappropriate sexual encounters and terrible communication skills.

someday at christmas (there’ll be no wars) by stevebuckiest @stevebuckyinc (not rated)

A mission on Christmas. Not even on Christmas, technically. A mission after Christmas which means he and Steve and the Howlies will be trekking through the tundra towards possible death on what used to be Bucky’s favorite day of the year. Jesus Christ.

(alternatively: bucky and steve try to make the best of a shitty situation)

the cabin by natalie_nebula (Explicit)

It felt like he… It felt like they were always so close. Everything seemed like it was under control. He remembers hearing Wanda’s voice, seeing a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. He remembers yelling something back at her, telling her to stop, to not come any closer. He remembers a bright flash, then a boom, and ringing in his ears. He remembers a black blur, and hands on his back, around his waist, then—darkness…

After the explosion in Lagos, Steve wakes up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and all he knows is that Bucky's the one who brought him there. While Sam, Nat, and the other Avengers try to figure out what happened to their friend, Steve takes the time away to heal—both his relationship with Bucky, and with himself. My cozy, romantic, and introspective Civil War rewrite.

Every Feeling by Nestri (Explicit)

Steve completely surprises Bucky with a visit, scent thick with heat. The Alpha keeps his hands to himself until Steve makes it clear he doesn't want him to.

Halbarry!

A Speedster and a Space Cop get into a Car by ChocolateTeapots @chocolateteapotsvis (Teen)

Hal and Barry embark on their most perilous mission yet: picking Wally up from the airport.

For Halbarry Week, Day 3: First Times “And you just called me Barry, genius”

Crosswind by Cinderstrato (Explicit)

Hal had collected plenty of regrets over the years. What was the weight of one more?

Just A Mark by the_butler @the-butler-fanstuff (Mature)

“What a nerd.”

Barry had been haunted by these words all his life, seeing as they were his soulmate’s mark. It came out during puberty, just like everyone else’s, but by then he was already well on the way to being a ‘nerd’ so to speak. He wasn’t just some guy claiming to be nerd because he was into Dungeons and Dragons or anime, oh no. He was a bona fide science nerd- went to interstate science fairs and competitions even.

—————(Originally a one-shot, now continued)——————

Barry Allen was working at the forensics lab of Central City PD when it waltzes the new transfer from Coast City, Detective Hal Jordan, not just into the lab but also into his life. There’s the matter of them being soulmates- but Barry is unconvinced. Science tells him there’s a likely chance that they’re just platonic soulmates, so Hal suggests an experiment of sorts: they go on three dates, and then decide whether or not they’re just platonic, or something more.

Tired by ceelolights @ceeloilights (Gen)

Hal comes home to Barry still working late into the night.

Last but most certainly not least, Jeronica:

The long way round to heaven by Bearfacedcheek (Mature)

“This could screw everything up. Jesus why couldn’t you just, fucking not?”

“I did just fucking not Jughead,” she retorts hotly. “I’ve been not for months. No one was ever supposed to know, least of all you. So, don’t blame me for what you saw when you invaded a private moment.”

“Oh, my bad Veronica,” sarcasm, his most comfortable armour, wraps itself around his words. “Did my near-death experience compromised your privacy? I’m sorry that my spirit took an astral fucking walk out of my almost corpse and y-”

“Don’t,” she gasps. Her hand flies to her mouth and it trembles visibly as she draws it away. “Don’t say that. Jesus Jughead we almost lost you.”

sadder, badder, cooler by thefudge @thefudge (Teen)

AU. Just who is Veronica's mysterious new husband? (based on season 5 spoilers)

all i’ll ever need is you by whatacoolkid @whatacoolkid (Teen)

jughead and veronica but make it ✨christmas✨

destined to be forgotten by bothromeoandjuliet @kindnessinpain2000 (Teen)

There are plenty of broken things in Riverdale - broken families, broken trust, broken hearts - but in the middle stands the two most broken things of all, Veronica Lodge and Forsythe 'Jughead' Jones.

(Jughead and Veronica learn about the Barchie kiss - this is the aftermath)

I Really (Don’t) Know What I Want by Bella_Dahlia @bella-dahlia (Mature)

There were many potential disasters to befall an average weirdo high school student; when one had an active imagination and a love for John Hughes films, as Jughead Jones did, you sort of assumed you had foresaw the possibilities. Plus, after solving a sordid murder and joining a gang, he really thought he gone through his fair share of teenaged trauma.

Having to fake a relationship to save his best friend from dedicating his life to a mafia and getting punched repeatedly in the process definitely had not crossed his mind before now.

——————————————

Or, Jughead and Veronica don’t really know what they’ve gotten themselves into.

all the lovers with no time for me by Krewlak (Mature)

jeroncia goes to stonewall. that's it. that's the fic.

call it what you want to by an_expensive_imagination (Teen)

“First things first,” Veronica says, reaching up to slide the ever-present gray beanie off his head, “no beanies in college.”

And here’s a one off random spideypool:

Shooting For Your Heart by X_Gon_Give_It (Teen)

“In my defense, I didn’t expect you to get hurt.”

“And I didn’t expect to be run out of town, yet here we are.”

He went suddenly stiff, “Wait...you were run out of town?”

“As if you didn’t know,” Peter grumbled, but when he looked up he did a double-take at Wade's confused expression. “Almighty, you really don’t know, do you?” he snapped the drawer shut, “Well, after that little fiasco by Two-Stone Canyon, a little rumor spread that me and you were in cahoots. The rumor got some ground and it turned the whole town against me. I was run out before I could defend my case. Why'dya think I was out there the other night to begin with?”

<><><><><><>

When Peter Parker, a deputy known as Webslinger, gets accused of working with the West's deadliest outlaw he finds himself on the run from the people he once trusted. In an effort to prove his innocence, he finds himself captured by the very outlaw tarnishing his name.

[vanaera]

𝐌𝐲 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 | 𝟎𝟐 | 𝐣𝐣𝐤

Synopsis: A future technology allows cops to jump in the past and future to investigate crimes that have happened and prepare for those that are about to happen. A simple hit-and-run turns into something more when Captain Jeon Jungkook finds himself as the victim of a culprit who cannot be identified by the system. Especially when the culprit seems to be the same person behind the new case that’s threatening the order in the justice organization. All goes haywire when Jungkook gets involved with Y/N L/N, the clairvoyant sketch artist who may be his only help to solve the case.

Characters: Jungkook x Female Reader

Genre/AU: Sci-fi, romance, angst, mystery, action (cop!JK x artist!you), based on the movie Minority Report

Wordcount: 8.2k

Warnings: Dark themes and implied smut (in future chapters); heavy descriptions of a hit-and-run; mentions of blood from injuries (PG-16 Rating)

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭

              The skies were gray and the streets were damp and yet the air remains humid. The scorching heat on the pavement permeates the soles of his leather combat boots. It’s the familiar stench of Down Hill. Jungkook could already smell it when he’s just reaching the boundary between it and Middle Town.

              Jungkook looks down at the scrap of paper that’s been in his pocket since the day started. Namjoon had to write the address of this Y/N L/N, lest DOJ traces his electronic trail and take him in for unnecessary questioning. Jungkook himself had to make up some petty excuse of a “hurting arm” to file a day-off. He just hopes all of this spent effort will worth him something.

              Jungkook nears the 7-Eleven sitting in the fork of the streets. Namjoon wrote Y/N’s studio is cramped among the apartments around this area. He said she never really penned down a home to accommodate covert meet-ups like this. All she has is her studio. 

              In “Mini Palais, 23-B,” Jungkook mutters again, huffing in front of a door with cracking cadet blue paint. He finds the unit after climbing up a series of stairs at the end of the alleyway jammed between the decaying 7-Eleven and a battered motor shop. Jungkook raises his hand to knock when the door bursts open.

              In front of him is a girl. Namjoon already said so and although Jungkook thinks it’s accurate enough for the girl who’s looking up at him through chopped raven bangs, it also wasn’t really enough to describe her. Because the girl in front of him was an aberrant mix of a girl and a woman. Jungkook thinks she’s around her early thirties if he were to consider Namjoon’s history of working with her for about ten years in FJO. There are faint lines around her eyes to support that. However, her relatively small height, plump cheeks, and the natural rosy hue of her lips beg to decrease ten years off that supposed age.  With her youthful face, messy half-bun, and the white, floral off-shoulder dress flowing past her knees, no one will argue with Jungkook if he were to say she’s just 22. 

              “Who are you?”

              “Oh, um,” Jungkook flashes his badge, “I’m Jungkook Jeon, a captain in the Federal Justice Organization. Precrime, Murder sector. I’m here to um, avail your…services for a case.”

              The girl cocks her head to the side and gives him a once over. “I’m sorry, I don’t do services for the FJO anymore.” She moves to close the door but Jungkook was quick to block a foot between it and the wall.

              “I’m a contact of Namjoon’s!” Jungkook exclaims, “He’s Lieutenant Seokjin Kim’s close subordinate.” This is a card he didn’t want to use but it looks like he has no other choice left. Jungkook clears his throat. “Actually, I’m a very close contact of Namjoon. We’re best friends. I even live with him. He’s the one who told me to, um, consult you for the case I’m handling.” 

              The girl opens the door an inch. Jungkook hands a folded paper to her. She spreads it open and scans through the letter. Jungkook doesn’t know what it actually says. Namjoon just thrust it into his hands on his way out and told him not to open it. It must be an effective personal request because by the time the girl reaches the end, she’s pushing her door wide open, tilting her head to the side, beckoning him to come inside. However, her face remains grim.

              “I’m Y/N L/N. This is my studio. I know you already know I prefer to transact business here even for ones intended to be covert. So first off, I want to say I’m sorry you have to travel to such a place like this.”

              Jungkook shakes his head, “Oh no, it’s definitely alright—”

              “I kinda think it’s not when you grew up in a comfortable life. You must be quite shaken up.”

              Jungkook freezes. Y/N looks at him, “Oh, I didn’t look into you or something. It’s just a hypothetical guess, seeing your,” she motions to his silver watch. “That’s expensive. No one from here will be able to afford it anytime soon.”

              Jungkook’s shoulders turn lax. Y/N points to a chair next to a table in the corner. “Just wait there. I’m about to finish this piece in just a sec. Then I’m all yours.”

              Jungkook nods and makes himself comfortable on the seat. Unlike its appearance on the outside, Y/N’s unit is not much of a concrete wreck. It still looks a bit rough. The ceiling has cracks all over it.  A small white bulb precariously hangs on its center. It looks too weak to illuminate the whole room when the night comes. Jungkook thinks it’s a good thing that the unit has huge gaping rectangular windows to let in the natural light. The floor is cemented in gray but the work on it is unimpressive as there are numerous uneven layers, rough patches, and dents that could only be ascribed to poor mason work. The white wallpaper is torn around, some even wet at the edges—probably due to a leak during rains. 

              However, the flowers painted on them is vibrant enough to uplift the dreary unit. Paintings are littered around. Many are big, a few are small. Some were seated on easels, several are just laying around on the floor. Newspapers are strewn across the majority of the floor. Buckets and tin cans of paints line up the corners like a prayer circle. 

              All the colors present in the room can only be attributed to the paint that’s strewn across the newspapers, the paintings, and the 6’ tall canvas of an owl in flight Y/N is currently working on. The girl is standing on a small foldable ladder, painting the feathers of the bird at the top of the canvas. When the wind blows her hair to the side, Jungkook finds a mirage of colors on the scarlet spider lilies inked on her spine.

              After about two minutes, Y/N steps down and dumps her brush into a rusted bucket filled with water. She turns to the man on the chair and makes her way to the stool opposite his. She fixes down her dress and finally looks at Jungkook. “So, what case do you have for me?”

              “This,” Jungkook slides a couple of pictures toward her. They are the screen captures from the CCTV records that caught the black Jaguar. “There’s an unknown driver who’s doing an illegal time jump patterned to Precrime’s traveling agents. We tried to run in the license plate but it just turned to be ‘invalid.’ All we know is that the suspect is male, slim, and tall. He’s interested in the Winston Assassination, and has probably inside ties in FJO since he easily entered the Special Operations Building just ten days ago.”

              “None of the traveling agents has seen this man before? Precrime or Forecrime?”

              Jungkook shakes his head.

              Y/N licks a finger and flips to the next picture, “What about the car?”

              “None of the agents has seen a suspicious sedan sports Jaguar before. It’s the first time we have someone presumably well-to-do threatening the justice system.”

              Y/N nods. Jungkook inserts his hand into his pocket and retrieves a black USB. He hands it to the girl. “Here’s more of the screenshots from the CCTVs, taken in each second. I can’t give you the CCTVs because of the protocol. I can only give you these. Just imagine they’re moving,” Jungkook purses his lips as he looks at the girl. “I want you to identify this man for me.”

              Y/N tucks the USB into her dress’ pocket. She slides the pictures back to Jungkook. “This seems to be a heavy identification check then. Not that I couldn’t handle, of course. However, Namjoon must have told you that my rates are quite high—”

              “Money is not a problem.”

              Y/N cocks a brow, “So you did grow up a comfortable life.”

              Jungkook clenches his jaw.

              Y/N chuckles, “Okay, I’m not gonna dwell on it more. It’s settled then. Send your weekly payment to this account,” Y/N tears a piece from the rolls of paper by her side, scribbles on it, and hands it to him. “Every Friday, 10 AM sharp.” Jungkook looks at the paper before tucking it in the breast pocket of his leather jacket.

              Y/N crosses her arms, “We can start next week after you give me the downpayment.”

              Jungkook zips open a duffel bag and places a stack of bills on the table.

              “Eager, aren’t we?” Y/N smiles, “I like that.” She flips through the bills before deciding they’re legitimate and dumping it into a box by her feet. 

              Y/N turns to him. “Now, where are we? Oh—you must already know, but what I really do here is foreseeing the future for whatever cause you have. It’s not just trivial fortune-telling but a purposive one. I can accurately give you whatever you want to know.” 

              Jungkook nods. Y/N’s leans forward on the table. “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t really have terms and conditions with my clients. Or any contract to ensure them their protection, as what I do tend to…increase risks. Emotional security and mental stability on your part. Those two and physical toll on mine. It will be absurd to provide any contract as what I am doing is anything but guaranteeing protection. I can’t also be fully transparent about the mechanisms behind the things I will do for you. Otherwise, my gift won’t work. What I can only assure is I’ll never proceed on any memories you have set boundaries on. Should you decide to stop this negotiation anywhere in the future, I will automatically concede and keep the confidentiality of whatever that may happen. As long as on your part, you won’t consider asking for a refund.”

              “I understand.”

              “Good,” Y/N smiles, “Now first things first. Tell me any hurting point you have.”

              Jungkook goes stiff. “Is this actually necessary?”

              Y/N nods. “I know this is a tough question, but we’re talking about memories here.”

              “I know but I can’t just divulge them to a stranger—"

              “I think you don’t get what I’m saying.” Y/N lets out a humorless chuckle. “Look, Jungkook, when I attempt to see the future concerning this elusive driver you’re after, it is inevitable for the past to re-appear. There is no future without any past. Your past memories can clog up with the ones involved in the case because you are in the case. You’re heading it. Good or bad, memories will come up. That’s their thing.  They spring up at the most inconvenient times. No matter how old they already are. No matter how long you must have already moved on from them. Memories demand to be remembered and you cannot just disregard them even if you will it to because it never gave anyone a choice to do otherwise.  So, if you don’t set the boundaries on the memories you don’t want me to cross, I’ll just see everything in their utter unadulterated form.” Y/N leans forward, “And I can assure you, you don’t want that to happen.” 

              Jungkook prods his cheek with his tongue. “Fine. I’ll give you my hurting point and that’s that. No further questions.”

              “Okay.”

              Jungkook digs in his back pocket for his wallet and flips it open. There’s a tattered white edge of a picture peeking through the flaps. It’s been years since he pulled it out. Its replica, now tucked in his shelf, has prevented him from doing so for so many years. Jungkook closes his eyes and slides it toward the girl. “This boy. Anything that concerns him, I don’t want you to cross or even bring up. Understand?”

              “Okay.” Y/N hands back the photo to him. “We go to the second step then. You must already have your assumed suspects. Tell me their names.”

              Jungkook draws back. “I can’t tell you that, that’s highly classified information. FJO’s protocol doesn’t allow it and—”

              “Do you seeking my help part of the protocol?”

              Jungkook looks down, “No.”

              “Right. So, tell me their names. I need to know them to make a memory map.”

              Jungkook’s brows meet “A what?”

              “A memory map,” Y/N repeats, “It’s something I make to identify points of certain memories in time. It guides me to the memories I need to tread to reach what I’m really looking for. It’s like a demo version of Forecrime’s box trainings but except of a machine, I’m doing it manually by hand. For all we know, the real suspect must be close to these suspects.” 

              Jungkook’s brow quirks up.

              Y/N leans forward, “So, tell me their names?”

              Jungkook turns his face away from her, looking at his clasped hands. “Well, I…only have one.”

              “And that is?”

              “Leigh Anderson. Winston’s assassin. FJO has been after him for 17 years. He also has a number of sponsors who’s been sending him missions with promises of large sums of money. But most of all, he’s rumored to have access to time jumping technologies. Illegal of course. FJO is the only one licensed to be utilizing them.”

              “That’s good,” Y/N quips. “Do you have any pictures of him?”

              Jungkook turns to his duffel bag and retrieves a picture. It’s Anderson in the scene of Winston’s murder that FJO has pinned to their system. The one in the crime record Jungkook produced. He hands it to Y/N. “Is this enough?”

              “More than enough,” Y/N smiles. She stands up and walks to one of her cupboards, reaching for a ceramic bowl. She pours some tap water in it and turns back to the table, a short, white candle in hand. She places the candle on the water, letting it float. She retrieves a lighter from her dress pocket and lights up the wick of the candle.

              Y/N puts her palms open on the table. “Let’s start now. Do you have your clicker with you?”

              Jungkook’s brows meet. “What?”

              “Your time jumper,” Y/N grits.

              Jungkook looks at her incredulously. “I don’t see any reason why would you need it—”

              “We’re going to the past to have a tangible memory to start on my memory map.” Before Jungkook could tear himself away from the table, Y/N launches forward and snatches the small, black device hanging on the man’s belt loop. Jungkook shoots an arm out and grabs onto it.

              But it’s too late. Y/N’s already pushed the button.

              The air is knocked out of Jungkook’s windpipe. A numbing pain starts to settle on his chest, a migraine forming on his temple. His limbs also feel stone-heavy. Precrime traveling has always been like this and yet Jungkook can never get used to it. However, he’s not left wondering about it for long because in the next second, Jungkook’s standing in front of a dark road. Tall shrubs and trees shadowing the moon, CCTVs mounted on the lamp posts lining the concrete. It’s Somerset Road.  

              Jungkook’s eyes widen. Why is he here? He tries to move but his limbs are stuck by his side, unmoving as he grunts. He tries to take a step back but the effort is futile when his feet are seemingly glued onto the dark asphalt. Jungkook sighs and turns to the road in front of him again. And this time around, Jungkook’s mouth falls ajar.

              Y/N is standing idly at the other side of the road, opposite of him.

              “H-how did you travel here—”

              A car zooms past. Jungkook turns his head to the sound. The air is punched out from his esophagus. It’s his car—the silver-gray Ford. And there at the other end of the road emerges a black sedan sports Jaguar. The Jaguar speeds on and drives into the Ford, swerving it around, tires screeching loud on the pavement. It topples down, rolling around, then round, and round. Three times, Jungkook counted. Just like the CCTV Hoseok retrieved. The Ford stops, upside down. The black Jaguar zips past it. Like the CCTVs have shown, the Jaguar reaches the other end of the street and disappears. A second passes. The body of the driver in the car drops onto the cold pavement. It lolls his head to his side, bloodied face turned towards the man standing on the pavement. 

              Jungkook’s facing right into his past. He isn’t reliving the memory. He is living it. There’s no anger but pain. Fresh, unadulterated pain that cannot be accounted to the lacerations on his injured arm.

              The wind howls. Jungkook remains frozen in his position. Then suddenly, everything stops—the distant honking of the cars, the wind, the clatter of the crushed car pieces falling onto the ground. What the fuck is happening? Jungkook turns around, only to come face to face with the girl.

              Y/N’s arm shoots forward and fists the collar of his leather jacket, pulling him down to her level. “You didn’t say this business is personal!”

              “It’s not a big deal,” Jungkook spits, tearing her hand off him.

              “It is, Jungkook! You said you were involved. I didn’t think it was this level of involved!”

              “It doesn’t change any fact that I’m still going to be involved either way! I’m still going to head this case because it’s tied with Winston. What difference does it make if I am the victim of this fucking man?!”

              “A lot!” Y/N screams. Jungkook stops. Y/N sighs, “It does a lot of difference, Jungkook. We’re already risking a lot in this until it turns out you’re a focal point in this case! You’re a fucking victim of this culprit! A conflict of interest is highly possible. You will be unable disassociate yourself from this and objectively investigate this case—” 

              “I don’t need you telling me what I should do or not, Y/N.” Jungkook steps forward to the girl. “I know what I’m doing. And I know it when I say I can investigate this following all the legal protocols.”

              Y/N tilts her head. “How can you say that when you’ve just been face-to-face with your past self?” 

              Before Jungkook can say anything, Y/N closes her eyes and clicks her finger. In just one second, everything around Jungkook falls beneath his feet—the trees, Somerset Road, his bloodied self. It rips themselves off from his senses until all he could see again is the dilapidated atelier, the barren ceilings, and, Y/N.

              Jungkook hunches over, coughing as air fills his lungs again. “H-how could you do that?”

              Y/N blows off the candle. “My gift.” She glances at the man. “The accident is taking a serious toll on you. I have to take us out of the time jump.”

                Jungkook sits back and glowers at her. “N-no, what I’m asking about is—how could you snatch my clicker and make a jump without any remorse? You do know that’s illegal!”

              “I know. ‘FJO’s traveling agents and officials are the only ones allowed by the law to engage in time jumping activities’ yaddah yaddah bullshit.”  Y/N leans on the table, face hovering the Captain’s. “But involving a then-law practitioner, much more an outsider like me, into your case is also illegal. I have my gift, yes. But I can only see the future and I won’t be able to see it accurately if I don’t have some sense of the past. Plus, I have no other pragmatic choice to start this case on the right foot. I already saw the future of our negotiation before you sat down on that stool. There’s nothing else I could say other than it didn’t end favorably for any of us.” Y/N turns back to the table she’s clearing, “Not that it’s any different now. Especially when I just learned the case you’ve showed me is more personal than you presented it to be.”

              Jungkook purses his lips. He stands up, gathers his things, and wordlessly makes his way out of the atelier. He didn’t bid the girl any farewell.

              “Looks like you haven’t been sleeping.”

              Jungkook looks up at his friend before looking down at his crossed arms, turning his attention back to his mug of coffee.

              Namjoon takes a seat cross Jungkook. “Did something happen?” He twirls the tea bag around his own mug, “Care to tell why you’ve been sporting those dark eye bags since two days ago?”

              “It’s nothing.”

              “It’s not nothing when the doctor precisely told you to have a healthy lifestyle to help your wound heal faster.”

              Jungkook looks at Namjoon.

              Namjoon points to his bandaged arm, “It indeed doesn’t look it’s healing fast like it’s supposed to.”

              Jungkook sighs. “Fine, you caught me.” He purses his lips then looks at his friend, “I’ve been wondering. You know our clickers are designed to identify the agent it was assigned to before it could work. But, is it…possible for clickers to work on someone that doesn’t belong to FJO as long as someone from FJO is present?”

              Namjoon keeps his gaze on him. A look of surprise seems to wash over his face. But it soon gets replaced by a look of recognition. Namjoon places the tea bag onto the saucer on his left. “I see you already met Y/N.”

              “Y-you knew that about her?”

              “I do,” Namjoon mutters over his cup of tea. “I learned it when the Bureau looked into the Linton Park serial murders. Seokjin’s team, including me, followed the memory map she made for us—a trail of memories that specifically belongs to anything related to the murders. But then, we hit a dead-end for the supposed next victim. Can’t identify her. We only had images of flashing movement—blood splattering in a barn, people running on a green field. There are just cops and a woman.” 

              Namjoon places down his cup, “And so, Y/N told me she needed me to help her make a time jump in the past. I pressed on the clicker and,” Namjoon shrugs, “Y/N successfully made the jump. And also successfully return with the info of the victim—a girl working on a farm. Y/N tied it to the flashing images of the field and deduced the running was not about us chasing a murderer’s accomplice. But us running after a victim before Linton could. It was hard to tell at first why the victim is running away from us. Until we learned through Y/N she was an illegal immigrant.” 

              Namjoon pulls his lips into a tight smile. “I think it’s an additional gift. But at the same time, it’s also a setback. A rightful one at that. Y/N’s inability to time jump in the past unless with a clicker a meter radius within her balances the power of her future-seeing gift. She still needs to rely on the system even if her gift for the future is, hypothetically, unbound from any constraints.” Namjoon takes a sip of his tea. “How ‘bout you? How did you learn this…extra ability of hers?”

              “She snatched my clicker from me,” Jungkook leans back in his seat. “She said she needed a ‘tangible memory’ to start on her memory map. She ended up thrusting us back into the time of my car accident.”

              Namjoon freezes. “Excuse me? Did you say ‘us’?”

              Jungkook’s forehead furrows, “Yeah. We did the jump together, that’s why I’m asking you about this thing with the clickers.” 

              “Jungkook, she never did that before.”

              Jungkook’s brows shoot up. “What?”

              Namjoon scratches his nape, face scrunched up. “When she asked me to let her jump through my clicker, she didn’t take me along with the jump. It’s only her. Like it should always be as one clicker is only for one user. It’s always been like this in all the situations she asked me for a time jump in the past.” Namjoon looks at him, “I don’t know why you got in the same loop as her.”

              The night was quiet but devoid of peace. Like an ugly pause in a running film that’s just about to unwind the questions they laid at the start. Even after intaking his blue pills, Jungkook finds it difficult to close his eyes shut.

              “Big brother!”

              Jungkook turns around. The small boy stands on his tiptoes, small arms reaching for him. Jungkook smiles, “You want to climb on my back again, Daehyun?”

              “Yes!” Daehyun giggles.

              “Alright then,” Jungkook crouches in front of him and Daehyun’s squeals grow louder as he loops his stubby arms around Jungkook’s neck. Jungkook stands up, securing the boy’s short legs around his torso. “Ready for some wind, big boy?” He asks. Daehyun nods frantically and soon, Jungkook is zooming on the green field, turning the heads of the children and volunteers in the park. But all Jungkook could hear was Daehyun’s laughter filling the nice summer afternoon. It brings a huge smile on Jungkook’s face. 

              Then—flashing blue and red lights. Cold pavement. A lone school bus standing in the middle. Its yellowness highlighted by the police’s yellow tape surrounding the area. Reporters dot every possible space on the crossroad. “Shooter on the loose.” “Poor child.” “Blood splattered on the seats.” But all Jungkook could hear is the white noise of the chattering. And the call of “Big brother!” he’ll never hear anymore. 

              Jungkook jolts awake. He sighs, closing his eyes. “It’s all in the past,” he mutters repeatedly under his breath. But no matter how many times he repeats it, it doesn’t shake off the horror he’s reeling in. He’s had this dream again and again for eight years straight. He should be already accustomed to it. 

              Jungkook sits up straight. He turns back to his computer and sees a couple of pictures open on the desktop. It was the screenshots of the CCTVs Yoongi gave them. He looks at the top of his desk. His notes empty of anything new other than Leigh Anderson’s name webbed next to an un-filled space for sponsors. Jungkook covers his face with his palms and yawns. Just then a series of text messages come in.

              Unknown: This is Y/N. I know we left on bad terms three days ago. I’m the one to blame for that for overreacting. I’m sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve done a case for FJO. I’m still kinda hung up separating personal services from investigative ones. (2:13 P.M.)

              Unknown: Nevertheless, I hope you’re free this day. Meet me at Somerset Road. 3 P.M. I don’t want you to waste the money you gave me yesterday (2:13 P.M.)  

              Somerset Road is a thirty-minute drive from the FJO Main Headquarters. However, it didn’t feel like it when Jungkook parks his car on the side road. It seemed like hours have gone by when the sun is about to set in the alcove of trees in the distance. It’s just three in the afternoon. Jungkook steps outside and shuts the door. From his position, he could make out a girl in ripped black denim pants and black tank layered with a pink see-through mesh shirt. From the striking red of the spider lilies on the top of her spine, Jungkook could tell it was Y/N. He almost didn’t recognize her. He wouldn’t know she has an undercut had her high ponytail didn’t highlight it.

              The girl turns around and looks at him. “You’re late.”

              “I have to bribe the Maintenance Office first to give me this afternoon’s CCTVs when we’re done.” Jungkook strides toward her, “How did you get my number?”

              “Namjoon.”

              Jungkook cocks a brow.

              Y/N shrugs, “he wrote it in the letter you gave me. Should you, quote-unquote, be ‘difficult to deal with.’”

              Jungkook keeps his lips in a straight line.

              Y/N rocks on her toes, hands in her pocket. “Let’s get straight to it then. Take your clicker out and push it.”

              “What are you intending to do—”

              “A time jump.”

              “Of course, I know that. What other purpose do we use our time jumps for?” Jungkook spits. “What I want to know is what we’re supposed to be doing first before I follow whatever you want me to do because I cannot just blindly trust you with this—”

              Y/N turns her head to him, one brow cocked up, “Didn’t I tell you before I don’t fancy How-What-Why-Whatever questions to what I do or else my gift won’t work?”

              “Yes, but—”

              “Look, will you just push it or do you want me to snatch it from you again?” Y/N takes a step closer to him, leveling his eyes with hers. “I already did a read for today. I know its new hiding place.”

              Jungkook remains unmoving in his stance.

              Y/N crosses her arms. “If it would assure you, this session won’t end taxingly fruitless like the last time. I’m positive we’ll get something by the end of today.”

              “How did you know?”

              “I told you, I did a read for today. I saw you with an astounded face and me with a happy and proud smile. Obviously, we must have ended up finding something.”

              Jungkook is still unconvinced.

              Y/N sighs, “If you don’t want to do anything of what I can offer you, you know you can just terminate our connection anytime you want. Just so you know you can’t refund the 10,000 zials you gave me for the downpayment.”

              Jungkook keeps his gaze on her. A couple of seconds pass before he sighs and shakes his head as he takes out his issued clicker tucked in the breast pocket of his leather jacket.

              Y/N smirks. “See? You know you’re gonna need me in the end and you still try to put up an unnecessary fight.”

              Jungkook grunts. He turns the clicker’s indicator to “1-2 weeks” timeframe and pushes the button.

              It was just like their previous time jump—like any other Precrime time jump. It felt like nothing yet also everything at the same time. An amalgamation of sensations and perceptions flashing in front of him in the blink of an eye as he is transported back to the night of his accident. Jungkook looks down at his feet. He’s back to where he last stood at—the left side of the road next to the corner where his car will come from. Jungkook turns to his left and he almost jumps in shock. Unlike their last jump, Y/N is no longer on the opposite side of the road, but beside him, shoulders almost bumping his. Jungkook takes a staggering step away from her. 

              Even if Namjoon laid everything he knows about Y/N’s skills yesterday, Jungkook still finds it hard to accept that a clairvoyant is able to look into the past with such effortless access. Aren’t they only supposed to see the future?

              “What are you looking at?”

              Jungkook tears his gaze away from her. “Nothing.”

              “Thought so, too,” Y/N quips. “We’re here to work after all. Not ogle at each other.” 

              Jungkook tongues his cheek. He’s not left to his frustration for long as after a second, the burning of tires on the asphalt is heard on their side of the road. A silver-gray Ford appears and it zooms past them in a flash. A black Jaguar subsequently shows up on the other side, its form nearing them each millisecond that passes. It’s only time ‘til the two crashes and sends Jungkook’s car rolling three times on the road.

              But, it didn’t happen. The howls of the wind stop. The screeching of the tires halts in awkward silence. And the cars are frozen still. The Jaguar’s bumper and Ford’s right door are separated by a mere inch. It’s the second before the accident happens. Paused in a picture-like frame as if someone hit the pause icon on a video.

              Jungkook whips his head to his side. Y/N has her palm closed in a post-click of her thumb and middle fingers. Jungkook feels his throat clog up, “H-how did you do that?”

              Y/N rolls her eyes. “Told you before, it’s because of my gift. And it’s also just seconds ago I told you I don’t like questions about how my gift works.” Y/N steps away from him and onto the road. “Follow me.” 

              Jungkook silently follows behind. It’s only a matter of seconds that they reach the side of the door of the silver-gray Ford. Jungkook lets his fingers touch on the coated metal. It felt cold on his flesh. Solid. Real. Jungkook can’t help but be astonished. This is no regular time jump. Totally unlike the first one he did with the woman. For this time, Jungkook doesn’t feel he’s living the film of the scene, just like any of the standard Precrime time jumping. This time, Jungkook feels he’s in the scene. Not in a film, not like the virtual reality experienced by Forecrime agents. But in real-time.

              “Take your hands off your car.”

              Jungkook tears his hands away from his car. He looks at the girl. Y/N gives him a pointed look, “I know this time jump doesn’t feel like the standard time jumps of Precrime so you may be astounded with,” she motions around them, “all of this. But I prefer you not to get too overwhelmed. We’re here for work.”

              Jungkook nods, reluctant. Y/N walks further into the side of the road, now a foot away from the spot where the cars should crash. Jungkook quickly follows behind. When he’s by an arms-length away from her, he faces back to the scene in front of him. And then, Y/N clicks her hand.

              The trees sway again. The winds continue their violent gush on the road. And the cars collide. The film is playing again.

              But then, Y/N clicks her fingers. The scene stops, frozen yet again. The bumper of the Jaguar has dug into the Ford’s door, crushing the metal with its momentum. The side mirror is broken, glass shards shattering in mid-air.

              “Come here,” Y/N beckons. Jungkook walks close behind as Y/N stops by the point of intersection of the two cars.  From their position, Jungkook could see the past him hunched over on the wheel, seat belt digging into his torso. The window by his side is broken, a splotch of blood marring the clear glass. And on his right, Jungkook could see the driver of the black Jaguar. Non-existent.

              Y/N looks at him, “So we know the man you’re after is doing an illegal time jump similar to the pattern of Precrime’s traveling agents. But what you don’t know is: he’s a professional.”

              “W-what?” 

              “Look,” Y/N flicks her wrist and makes an anti-clockwise motion of her hand. The sound goes void again and the cars back away from each other in slow motion. Jungkook’s brows shoot up.  The scene is rewinding. Y/N is turning back the time before the Jaguar collided into the Ford. And then, Y/N moves her arm horizontally to her left and clicks her fingers. The Jaguar moves forward again, but slowly this time. Jungkook could see the silhouette of the driver with arms taut on the wheel disappearing into a cloud of smoke until it turns no more but a nonexistent person on the seat as it hits the door of the Ford. 

              Y/N clicks her fingers and the scene pauses. “As you saw, it only took the driver,” she glances at her watch, “ten seconds before completely disappearing into his time jump. From how fast he disappeared, we could say it only took him twenty seconds in total to make the entire jump. I can only deduce this as the memories we have are short of the time we could see him in his solid form. The same way goes for the CCTVs you gathered. It only captured the last ten seconds of the whole accident. The Jaguar nonexistent in the frame from 20:23:39 and anything beyond before that time mark. The CCTVs only showed the Jaguar from 20:23:40 to exactly 20:24. The last 10 seconds, devoid of any driver.” 

              The girl continues, “Now, to be able to completely vanish in just 20 seconds, you must be a professional in time jumping in the past. Which can only be done if you’ve undergone training under Precrime. However, this could also be just any other outsider that’s gotten lucky doing an illegal time jump. Considering Somerset Road has a strong electromagnetic field that can help anyone do their time jumps faster and more successfully—including the risky ones that involve a huge time frame of unbounded jumps into the past. But to know that about Somerset Road, much less know how to effectively take advantage of its field during a time jump—you should be a long-time agent of Precrime.” 

              Y/N faces Jungkook, “The man you’re after is either a professional Precrime traveling agent or an outsider who’s fed with all the necessary information only a Precrime agent could know. It’s an inside job.”

              Jungkook shakes his head, “No. It can’t be. Every time-jumping device has a permanent tracker that can never be taken out even by the best engineer. Allen McGregor designed it to be like that to ensure these devices will not be used for personal interest. Every agent is tracked of their traveling activities and logged straight into the Investigation Bureau’s files. They’re inputted in glass files similar to the crime records—void for editing, copying, and deleting. And should it be an outsider utilizing Precrime’s technology, a travel will still be tracked back to the agent whose device was used.” Jungkook looks at Y/N. “There have been no reports of anyone traveling on Somerset Road the night of my accident.”

              Y/N shrugs, “I’m just saying what I saw. Especially this.” Y/N makes an anti-clockwise motion of her hands and the scene rewinds again.  The Jaguar is frozen back into five seconds before it hits the silver-gray Ford. Y/N walks toward the car, Jungkook close behind. The girl motions to the passenger seat and Jungkook stills. There on the leather seat is a red file case. Unprecedented murder. Precrime Murder Sector. But this is not what rendered Jungkook immobile in shock. Rather, it’s the label on the file case. 

              “Jonathan Winston Assassination; August 15, 2047; 12:30:00.”

              “See?” Y/N smirks, “Told you we’ll find something today.”

              A click of the hand and soon, the dark night sky of Somerset Road bleeds into the burning colors of the sunset. There’s no longer the silver-gray Ford and the black Jaguar. It’s just Jungkook and Y/N alone in the road, back to where they were before.

              Jungkook hunches over, coughing as he beats his chest. When he finally stabilizes his breathing back to normal, he turns to the girl. “You…Ho-how can you be so sure with all of these vi-visions?”

              Y/N looks at Jungkook, an indecipherable look on her face. “This is what you paid for 10,000 zials. I’m handing you what your eyes missed on just the way they are.”

              Jungkook holds in his breath as he knocks on the glass door.

              “Come in.”

              Jungkook pushes the door open and salutes. “Chief Nathan Spencer.”

              “Captain Jeon,” the Chief of Precrime glances up at him before returning back to the stack of papers he’s signing. He motions to the chair in front of his desk, “Make yourself comfortable.”

              Jungkook pulls back the black chair and sits.

              “So, what brings you here?”

              “This week’s report, sir—the joint investigation with DOJ on the unidentified black Jaguar.” Jungkook places a brown folder on the Chief’s desk.

              The chief looks at the captain. “Still no progress in the identification?” 

              Jungkook shakes his head, face grim.

              “That can’t be helped,” Nathan sympathetically mutters. “It’s not the first time FJO has handled a difficult case.”

              “But it is the first time FJO can’t identify a suspect with its current system.”

              “You’re right,” Nathan nods. He flips open the brown folder and skims the report. “How’s the auditor doing?”

              Jungkook clenches his jaw. “Fine. Still…meddling with our processes.”

              Nathan lets out a light scoff. “As expected of someone who’s running for a promotion. Always been a know-it-all jerk, this Min Yoongi.”

              Jungkook makes a tight-lipped smile.

              Nathan chuckles. “Forgive me. I’ve always had a prejudice against DOJ’s auditors. Most, if not all of them, always give us a hard time more than what’s necessary. Anyway, what else do you have for me, Jungkook?”

              The captain sits up straight. “I would like to ask a favor, sir.”

              Nathan clasps his hand on his desk. He leans forward. “What is it?”

              “It’s for the investigation. DOJ has access to all of our files—Precrime, Forecrime, and even the Investigation Bureau. So I figured if I can also do the same since our sector seems to be their main target. If I have the same leverage on our own information as them, I can have control over this investigation and drive them away before they can even assume power over us.” Jungkook leans on the table, “We could see the problems first before they become visible to DOJ.”

              Nathan raises his brow. “So what do you mean?”

              “I would like to have unrestricted access in our archives. Everything that contains anything pertaining to FJO.” Jungkook leans forward, “Including the Memory Temple.” 

              The chief sighs, “That’s a big favor, Jungkook.”

              “I know. That’s why Chief General Andrews told me to go to you.”

              Nathan’s brows shoot up, “The Chief General?”

              “Yes, Chief General Matthew Andrews. He said you’re good friends with Chief of the Bureau, Natasha Ryde. Chief Andrews wants to ask if you could do a favor of a friend for a friend.” Jungkook slides a white envelope underneath the folder, “Of course, not without considerable credit.”

              Nathan purses his lips. A beat. He shakes his head, sighing. “Okay…I’ll try to put in a word for you. I can give you the entire archives tomorrow. But the Memory Temple could take a while. Two days or three.”

              “That’s fine with me.” Jungkook smiles. He stands up and heads to the end of the room. Before he could disappear behind the door, he salutes one more time, “Thank you for the kind accommodation, Chief.” 

              Jungkook heads to the main elevator and hits the second floor below the Superiors’ Hall. The metal doors ding open and soon, Jungkook’s looking at a wide expanse of glass wall reflecting hundreds of shelves on the glass panes.

              Jungkook heads to the entranceway and salutes at the guard, “Sally.” The guard returns the salute, smiling. Jungkook tilts his head, “Did the Bureau come by to retrieve Precrime files?”

              “Not yet, sir. The Bureau’s still busy in their matters with DOJ. They halted the synching of files for now.”

              “That’s good,” Jungkook quips and pushes the glass doors open.

              Tall metal bookshelves snake like an accordion around the floor. The spaces between them is occasionally filled up by wooden desks that mandatorily come along with a wooden bookstand and black study lamp. It looks like a hedge maze made of old books, monochrome papers, and multi-colored files.

              Jungkook heads to the leftmost aisle—Precrime’s archives. He weaves his way through the bookshelves until he stops in front of a separated room in the middle of the labyrinth. It’s made completely out of glass, just like FJO’s offices. The only difference is that this room contains five sets of desks and chairs, bookshelves, and the Archive Manager’s huge white station as the centerpiece.

              And before Jungkook could finish leveling his eyes to the scanner set by the door, he could already feel the growing stare of Emily Young.

              “Captain Jeon.”

              “Ms. Young,” Jungkook nods to the manager.

              Emily smiles, “To what do I owe your visit today?”

              “Jonathan Winston’s Assassination case file.” 

              “As usual,” The thirty-seven-year-old manager sing-songs as she stands up and disappears into the back room. It doesn’t take long for her to retrieve what the Precrime captain is looking for.

              A long expandable, red file with the label in Arial 12 print: “Jonathan Winston Assassination; August 15, 2047; 12:30:00.”

              Just like in Y/N’s time jump. Identically the same. Jungkook looks at the manager, “Do you have a log of anyone who looks into this file?”

              Emily chuckles, “I don’t think that will bring anything new to the table, captain.” She scans the numeric code of the file and turns the monitor of her computer towards him. “There’s no one who’s been looking at this file but you.”

              Jungkook peers in. Indeed, the log on Winston’s file contains nothing but his name. From August 15, 2047, the date of Winston’s assassination, to the most recent date, August 3, 2059. The day after Leigh Anderson’s suicide. The day after the Winston case was closed cold. There’s no other name in the log for 12 years other than his name.

              Jungkook looks back at Emily, “Are you sure this is the complete log on this file? No one borrowed the file earlier than July 12th?”

              “That’s the whole log, captain. There’s no record on August 1st because we’re closed to do an inventory check.” Emily leans back in her chair. “Everyone knows you’re busy on a case in Down Hill for the entirety of June. The Allison future murder is all over the news. Of course, with a Metropolis resident as a future victim. And with you busy on another case, this Winston’s file is devoid of any viewers.” Emily releases a chuckle. “Every cop has an obsession with a particular case. Everyone here knows Winston’s case is yours. I think I will remember if someone other than you looked into this file because I swear that day will be a miracle.”

              Jungkook purses his lips, face undecipherable. Right then, his phone rings loud. He turns to his back and picks it up. “Hello?”

              “Captain.” It’s Jimin.

              “What is it?”

              “You have to come to the sector now. There’s a file from Precrime. It’s…a blank.”

              “Okay, I’ll be there soon,” Jungkook ends the call. He faces Emily. “Thank you for today, Emily.” The archives manager nods with a playful salute at him. Jungkook quickly returns the salute and pushes the door open. Soon, he’s tearing past the labyrinth of shelves.

              It doesn’t take Jungkook longer than ten minutes to reach the left-wing of the 2nd floor. The cold sweat from the discovery in the archives is still clinging on his nape. 

              As soon as he steps into Murder Sector, everyone’s eyes are set on him. Including Yoongi. Jungkook prods his cheek with his tongue as he slides in the gloves over his hands. “Jimin, give me the run-over.”

              “Captain, Jeon. It’s a grayish-white file. Precrime, Property and Crime Scene Sector. Traveling agent in charge is Eric Williams. Crime record validated by traveling agents Hannah Peters and Ivan Park. Case number 3571, hit-and-run, destruction of property.  Suspect is unknown. Victim’s name is…Jeon Jungkook.”

              Jungkook whips his head towards the secretary, eyes wide.

              “It’s your case, sir.” Jimin confirms, “Eric accidentally time jumped into the night of your hit-and-run while he’s traveling for a T-Bone accident in Middle Town. Property and Crime Scene figured this blank is a crucial update on your case.” He walks to the end of the glass board and slides the disk into the middle slot.

              Jungkook turns to his front. The glass board lights up and a video starts playing. It’s Somerset Road and it’s almost pitch black in the grainy film. Eric stands frozen on the pavement for a second. But the seeming serenity of the scene soon dissipates as he looks down at his gear and frantically fumbles for his time jumper. Suddenly, hot blinding light fills his peripherals. Eric’s head shoots up. A car is speeding toward him. The headlights grow larger and finally, the car becomes visible. It’s the silver-gray Ford. Eric turns around and right then, a black Jaguar zooms past him, merely missing him by a hairsbreadth. But the Jaguar doesn’t stop and further increases its speed. It bulldozers right into the side of the Ford, sending it flying across the barren road. Eric picks up his feet and dashes to the cars. But his efforts are futile. The black Jaguar has already disappeared before he could even take his 12th step. And then, the record stops.

              Before Jimin could even state the protocol run-through, Jungkook frantically swipes through the blank record. He slides across the frames in reverse, back and backward until he reaches the first second of the blank.

              “Sir, I’m afraid we have to do the protocol first—"

              Jungkook’s hand stills on the board. The frame freezes. It’s a close-up of the black Jaguar as it barely grazes Eric’s body. Jungkook zooms in. There inside the passenger seat of the car is a long, red expandable file. “Jonathan Winston Assassination; August 15, 2047; 12:30:00.”

              Jungkook feels his blood run cold. It’s the same file he just had his hands on less than 15 minutes ago. It’s the same file he saw in his and Y/N’s jump. Y/N’s vision is true.  

              Jungkook feels his pocket vibrate and he quickly whips out his phone. However, he wasn’t able to dwell on it longer as a hard force pushes his shoulder backward, forcing Jungkook to tear his eyes off the screen.

              Yoongi glares at him, “Why are you indifferent about this? You know something about this, didn’t you? Captain Jeon!” 

              But even with his name called out loud, Jungkook couldn’t hear anything. All that registers in his mind is one single message.

              Y/N L/N:  Have you ever heard of a Sooah Kim before? (11:14 A.M.)

prev | next | series masterlist

Note: This story is based on Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s short story, Minority Report (2002). That being said, this series may contain spoilers for the movie so if you want to watch the movie, please do so first before reading!

A/N | Hi hons! Thank you for reading the 2nd chapter! I hope I got you guys more curious about the story hehe. Anyway, I have some announcement: I have finals for a major coming up this week so I’ll spend the next whole week studying. So, I’ll try if I can update the next chap the week after next week, on Sunday, too. But nothing is certain yet as I still have some uni stuff to do. Don’t worry, I only have 3 projects left to do to finally finish this sem. So as soon as I’m done with them, expect more frequent updates from me! 

If you guys wanna get notified as soon as I post the next chapter, I’m gonna add you all in my taglist! Just hit me up down the comments of this series’ masterlist so I can better track you all! The search function of Tumblr is messing with me and my notifs in my inbox usually come late so it’s highly probable your asks and DMs may get lost ☹

Once again, thank you for reading and giving a chance to My Time! :”)

Notes: As you know, this is a mystery fic. So, it will be most appreciated if any theories pertaining to the story be kept down the comments so I can entertain them all without spoiling our future readers! Once again, thank you so much for reading this!

All Rights Reserved 2020 © Vanaera. Reposts, modifications, and translations of content are not allowed without direct permission.

[nitrateglow]

Halloween marathon 2021: 19

No Way to Treat a Lady (1968)

No Way to Treat a Lady might be the weirdest movie I’ve watched for this marathon-- and yes, that takes into account that Tokyo Gore Police is also on this list.

How do I even describe this thing? The Boston Strangler in a fun house mirror? A camp thriller? A police procedural with a romantic comedy grafted onto it?

If you’ve never heard of this movie (and chances are, you haven’t), it’s about a Broadway director named Christopher Gill (Rod Steiger) who strangles middle-aged women. Apparently a graduate of the same theater program that spat out Red Lynch and Harry Roat Jr., he puts on a variety of disguises before committing his crimes: an Irish priest, a German handyman, a gay hair dresser, straight-up drag, etc.

Detective Morris Brummell (George Segal) is set to investigate the serial killings. He happens to attract Gill’s attention when he is quoted as saying the murders were well-planned, inspiring the egotistical Gill to telephone Brummell repeatedly. Gill does this to brag about the killings, usually in the accent of whatever disguise he was using at the time. Brummell struggles to piece together the clues to solve the case, all the while contending with his mother’s insistence that he get married already and his growing attraction for Kate Palmer (Lee Remick), a woman who caught a glimpse of Gill in his priest disguise before he strangled his first victim.

Sounds standard enough for a police procedural, right? But no, because nothing about this movie could be called standard. The killings are not executed with the realistic, cold presentation of The Boston Strangler. Instead, they’re suffused with dark comedy: in his cartoony priest get-up, right after monologuing about faith, Gill tickles his first victim before strangling her. Sometimes, Gill seems to really get into the roles, just as concerned with the quality of his acting as he is with killing. (We later learn Gill is obsessed with his dead mother, a stage actress in whose shadow he wallows.)

The love subplot is strange in its own way, shot and scored like it’s from a movie wholly unrelated to murder. Remick is good in her part, though she isn’t given much to do. There are also strange moments, like when a little person claims to be the killer then gets angry when his inability to recall details of the case or even adequately recreate the accents Gill uses on the phone disqualify him.

My description isn’t even doing the weirdness any justice.The screenplay was adapted from a William Goldman novel. He’s most known for The Princess Bride, so that sort of eccentricity is what you can expect here. It’s not for everyone-- heck, I hesitate to call it a thriller, as the oddball atmosphere and dark comedy overwhelm any sense of suspense-- but if you enjoy weird little films, you can’t do much better.

[pinstripedaisy]

Ideas for Grabs

So I made a list yesterday of all the WIPs I currently have and currently the list is in the 140s. Yep you read that right.

There is no possible way that one person can do that much work, so I’ve decided to give those ideas away here! There are some conditions, before we get into the actual ideas.

You must not be a TERF or transmed to use these ideas, a homophobe or exclusionist, have anything to do with facism or blue lives matter, you must not be a pedophile/MAP/NOMAP/whatever you creepy fuckers are calling yourselves

And on a more positive note, you have to tell me what you do with my ideas! I want to see what they become in the hands of someone who cares for them.

Also, on some of these projects, I already have things written, even if a lot of the writing is cringey as all hell. If you want inspiration from what I’ve already written, shoot me a DM! And as a side note, this may not be the first of its kind.

Without further ado, the ideas:

In a world where feline like raiders have completely taken over the world, Felicia Jupiter follows her father’s legacy and joins a group of rebels hiding in tunnels beneath London. Everyone is dangerous in their small band, but none more so than Gabriel, a whip smart rake that seems to take a particular interest in her.

A group of paranormal thirteen year olds live and are abused in a secret laboratory somewhere in the Pacific ocean. Fed up with the treatment, unofficial leader Haruo begins to organize a daring escape. 

For an English project, hopeless lesbian Nina begins to write letters to her crush under the guise of fictional Emma. The receiver, for the sake of her homophobic teacher, is simply known as the gender neutral Alex. 

A private detective agency takes on the cases no one else will - paranormal, increasingly odd cases. It is an office of three (two magicians and a panicked shapeshifter), and things are bound to get chaotic.

Detective Miles Kane becomes interested in a case of young blonde girls going missing after his younger sister Savannah goes missing, leading him down a rabbit hole - literally - of murder and twisted wonder, following the mysterious White Rabbit killer.

A group of detectives are brought to a house to solve a murder that hasn’t happened yet, a murder most foul, told entirely through later accounts.

A darkened circus full of assassins lure a new member into the fold to teach him the ways of their deadly, righteous acts.

The afterlife is split into different departments: Matching (for making soulmates), Births (for dictating who is born and how), and Deaths (self explanatory). Two souls were reaped prematurely, and are offered a chance to return to their bodies. What do they have to do? Find the Grim Reaper’s soulmate. 

A scientific experiment concocted in the 70s finally shows results nearly fifty years later when it is discovered by a suburban father. The experiment was to give children the chance to live - and die - fifty times.

A slum rat from deep in the desert lives his normal life day to day, that is, until a man stumbles into his makeshift hut, injured and barely holding himself together.

Teenage witch Everett begins to seek out a man in his dreams when he has a horrific vision of the man burning alive, setting off a chain of magical events as their destinies are tied together.

In the roaring 20s, only one things is persecuted more than liquor is magic. Magical speakeasies are hidden in the underworlds of cities and small towns, alike. But it is a struggle to stay alive in a world that wants magic extinguished.

A rival duo of femme fatale and butch butcher compete against each other in their chosen industry of assassin, battling their budding tension.

One day, a young girl finds out that she can make anything real simply by imagining it. With the help of her two best friends and her older brother, she must learn to control this power before it gets out of hand.

A woman attempts to keep her career afloat while balancing trying to find her literal dream girl

A man wakes up in the afterlife with no memory of how he died, an X carved over his choice, and the moniker ‘Lucifer’. Partnering with a man who likely doesn’t care for him much, the pair attempt to put together the mysteries of Lucifer’s past.

[spidercakes]

Peter is a famous cat burglar and Tony is a police officer trying to catch him

Omg this is so fun! I love this idea :) Went with a little bit of identity porn for it as well.

*

MJ is freaking out and yeah, Peter too because he totally didn’t see this coming. “Is she okay?” Shuri, princess Shuri of Wakanda, asks as she gestures to MJ hyperventilating on his couch.

Peter doesn't know how me manages to play it cool but he does. “She’s fine,” he says, “and much more competent than she looks.” Mostly because at the moment she looks like she’s a panicking fifteen year old but she’s good, very good, its why Peter works with her. And also she blackmailed him and Ned into stealing some artifacts like seven years ago and he’s gotten good at it so now he does it for a living. The funny thing is that he’s dating a cop, which Peter takes personal pride in because Tony isn’t exactly stupid. Actually he’s way too smart to be a cop but for whatever reason that’s where he ended up.

“Good, so you can do it then?” Shuri asks and Peter nods. “Great, if you get caught its better you than us,” she says and Peter frowns. “Using Wakandan tech would be a little obvious, would it not?” she points out, guessing at Peter’s thoughts.

“Good point. I thought that um... axe looking thingy was from Ghana though.”

Shuri presses her fingers to her temples, “please don’t tell me you think the British actually label their stolen artifacts correctly.”

“Yeah, that’s what MJ is for...” he says, wincing a little.

Shuri turns to her, “well, clearly you’re better at this than he is,” she tells her.

MJ finally regains her cool as she nods. “Poor white boy would be mostly helpless and flexible without Ned and I,” she says. “And here my mom thought I’d never make use of that anthropology degree,” she says, pleased with herself. Yeah, she doubts MJ’s mom thought she’d start an artifact smuggling ring returning stolen artifacts to various countries of origin but okay. And that doesn’t touch on the weekend jobs, which are usually more personal things and Peter finds it fun to thwart rich people’s security systems.

*

When Peter gets home Tony is pouring over a large pile of paperwork looking confused. “I don’t get how this guy manages to do all this,” he says.

Peter slips an arm around his shoulders and perches in his lap, “he’s good, I’ll give him that.”

“Too good to be working alone but there’s no evidence he’s working with anyone else,” he says, hand settled on Peter’s thigh.

There’s good reason for that and Ned is most of it, not that Peter doesn’t do his fair share to make sure they’re untraceable. But Ned is the guy in the chair and he’s damn good at it. Peter’s just backup. “I’m sure you’ll find him some day,” he says, kissing Tony’s cheek.

“I hope so because I’ve heard rumors of another robbery,” he says.

Peter knows, he’s spread a few well places rumors about a museum across the city from his actual target. “To be fair,” Peter says, “maybe the museums he steals from shouldn’t have a bunch of stolen shit in them. Seems like a good way to solve the problem at hand here is to give people their stuff back.”

Tony sighs, “you can’t just steal things, Peter.”

“Exactly, tell the museums to give the stuff back,” Peter says. Its not what Tony meant and they both know it so Tony sighs and gives him a look.

“You know what I meant,” he says.

“Sure I do, but I still think the problem is the museums here. I mean, stealing doesn’t seem so bad when you know the things that are being taken were already stolen,” he points out.

“And if those things end up on the black market?” Tony asks and Peter squints.

“We both know nothing has ever ended up there, that’s not a real argument.”

“But those things do disappear without a trace. Its possible they’re in someone’s personal collection now.” They aren’t, Peter knows, because he goes and steals things back from personal collections too.

“Isn’t this guy known for like... managing to steal a whole ass mummy from someone’s personal collection?” he asks. “I’d love to know how he managed that.”

Tony snorts, “you and everyone else. But yeah, I guess he’s stolen from a few personal collections too.”

Try dozens or better, but its harder to make connections to personal collections than it is to museums. Also, a lot of people with personal collections got those collections in less than legal ways, meaning calling the cops isn’t really something a good lot of them want to do lest they bust themselves for illegal activity in the meantime.

“See? Stuff probably isn’t going to personal collections,” he says, snuggling into Tony. “Now put that stuff away, you promised we could have a date night.”

*

Peter looks ridiculous sitting on the ground with one of the eyes of his suit blown off, exposing part of his face and his suit is torn. “Man, that’s going to take forever to fix,” Ned mumbles.

“The suit? Are we not going to talk about how that total hottie nearly killed Peter, appeared to kill his girlfriend, and then made off with that Wakandan artifact?” MJ asks. “What the hell are we going to tell the Wakandan royalty about this?”

“Um. That a total hottie nearly killed me, killed at least one of his accomplices, also stole one of those mask thingies, and then made off with their artifact?” he asks more than states. MJ cringes when he says ‘mask thingy’ but lets it slide on account of he’s bad at memorizing weirdly specific things about cultures he’s never seen up close before.

“We’re going to get marked by Wakandans before the American police finally figure us out and its so much worse because you’re dating the American police,” MJ mumbles.

“I’m dating a single cop, not the whole of American police come on,” Peter mumbles.

“Bootlicker,” MJ accuses. “Just want to get my opinion out of the way before I’m taken out by whatever passes for Wakandan Secret Service.”

Peter turns to Ned but he shrugs, “I’m kind of with MJ on that one, but also he’s hot. I’d stoop that low too,” he says, earning a look from MJ. “Oh come on, give Peter some credit Tony is hot.”

MJ lets out an annoyed noise. “Stark isn’t unattractive,” she says, acting as if admitting that hurts more than having her teeth pulled.

*

Tony is looking over the footage wondering how the hell this dude manages to stick to walls when he gets lucky and notices. The robbery went wrong, way wrong, and its clear no one expected the surprisingly attractive second robber if their first guy nearly getting shot in the face is any indication. But it does bust the eye of his suit and leaves his face partially visible for a few seconds before he turns from the cameras and crawls away, still attached to the ceiling.

He doesn’t expect it when he notices, of course he doesn’t expect it, but he’d know that face anywhere.

*

When Peter comes home he’s fully prepared to crawl into bed with Tony and snuggle up to him for the last time before he’s presumably killed off by Wakandan royals but when he gets there he knows Tony knows. He’s not exactly easy to read and he looks so hurt.

“Tony,” he says, instinctually going to him but Tony takes a step back.

“Was any of this even real?” he asks and Peter frowns.

“Tony, I steal things, that doesn’t make me an actor. So not my skill set,” he says. “But I’ll be honest, I saw that you were on the case and you’re hot so I figured I’d indulge myself a little. But then you ended up actually having a personality and after I found out that you managed to get a bunch of your coworkers arrested and charged with domestic abuse and also covering up for other cops I was kind of a goner.”

Its an easy way to soften the situation, Peter knows, because Tony doesn’t much care for any kind of abuse and he’s automatically endeared to anyone who feels the same way. “Then what is all this?” he asks, gesturing to his pile of files.

“I’ve already explained it to you like ten times,” Peter says. “And honestly I’ve had a really bad week so can we skip this talk until I sleep off nearly being shot in the face?” he asks.

Tony considers it, Peter can see he’s got a whole lot more questions, but he leaves it alone for the moment and opens his arms to Peter. He sighs and walks over, curling his arms around Tony’s waist and smiling when Tony does the same.

*

Tony looks shocked and Peter can’t say he blames him. He would be shocked too if not for his knowledge that Shuri is actually pretty cool and it turns out the Wakandans aren’t pissed. Shuri looks a bit harassed as she leans against the doorway. “Please do not call my murderous cousin hot,” she says.

“Well he was before he tried to shoot me,” Peter says. “And you know, his girlfriend.”

Shuri looks a bit pained but says nothing on that in particular. “Yes, well, turns out he has a lot of rage issues. Caused a lot of drama, threw my brother off a cliff, normal Wakanda stuff,” she says like kings get tossed off cliffs normally.

Tony frowns, “is... is that normal in Wakanda?”

“Yes of course, point is you don’t need to worry about it we got the vibranium back,” she says and winces, getting a dirty look from her guards in orange. “Um. I mean... can we get back to my murderous cousin?”

“Is he always that big of a dick or do you think he can be redeemed?” MJ asks.

Peter frowns, “you’re really gunna date a dude who murdered his ex?”

“No, dumbass. I’m going to have sex with him, Jesus. No need to make a commitment,” MJ mumbles.

“Well, you’ll have to summon him with a Ouiji board and have ghost sex,” Shuri says, then pauses. “Do those things actually work or are they a myth or American horror movies? I want to know if I can summon a ghost to haunt my brother,” she says excitedly.

[shions-songbirds]

I saw your tag about you okami and bnha au and would you mind telling the details? I saw the post and my heart skipped a beat, I just love them both so much!!

Oh!!!! You’re interested?? I can totally talk about it!! I don’t have to many details flushed out for it but I had two different ideas for it, so I’ll run through them both! 

This is going to be pretty long so strap in

Idea #1: They’re different brush gods, all forced to work together to try and stop the world from being consumed by darkness (that sounds like kingdom hearts), or, as I lovingly described it to my friend, “1 person learning all the brush techniques? No. It’s a conglomerate of brush bastards working together to save the world“ 

None of them are capable of learning any of the other brush techniques, they’ve been apart for far too long, and so instead, they have to band together. It’s a lot of team building and learning how they can make their powers work together to solve puzzles and make it through the dangerous terrains they’re traversing. Certain ones are more combat oriented, and thus, are usually the ones to take on whatever demons might approach them. 

Brush god assignments and idea number two under the cut

For all of them, their divine markings are present on their bodies exactly where they would be on their animal forms, and in similar fashion to the Oina, they all have a mask of their respective animal. All of them have a calligraphy brush they can materialize to use their respective brush technique should it be necessary. 

Amaterasu - Izuku - He only has sunrise, however he’s also set up with a reflector, Divine Retribution, just like Ammy is. Flowers follow him when he walks, and though sunrise isn’t good in combat on its own, he does know how to use it to his advantage. 

Yomigami - Momo - If anyone is going to be rejuvenation, it’s Momo. She can fix anything that has been broken, repair anything. Four orbs circle around her at all times, purple, green, red, and yellow in color, and a thick scroll is rolled up and tucked away at her side. 

Tachigami - Tenya - While he’d also be a good fit for Kazegami, bc horses and fast and all that, I kind of just wanted to give him a giant sword. There’s not much in depth reasoning for this other than the guy who wanted to commit a murder for revenge deserves a giant sword. He keeps a sheath at his side for seemingly a normal sized sword, and upon pulling the blade out, it becomes more buster sword sized. The tip of the blade is inked like the calligraphy brushes, allowing him to perform proper power slashes alongside utilizing the strength and sharpness of the blade itself.

Hanagami - ???, Tsuyu, Hanta - I am genuinely at a loss about who should represent bloom, however I do have lily pad and vine down. Now, I know Shiozaki would be an incredible match for vine for obvious reasons, instead I went with Hanta, as his tape translates nicely into vines, and he deserves more love. Tsu should be fairly obvious, frogs and lilypads, so it just made sense to make her the lilypad brush god. Each of the three, whoever their missing link is, has an instrument on them at all times. Tsu has a shinobue, and Hanta a pair of cymbals. 

Bakugami (this one should be obvious) - Katsuki - Again, this should be obvious. The god with cherry bombs? Only fitting for this explosive boy. He can roll around on a giant cherry bomb, should he so choose, and his mask has a pair of proper tusks sticking out of it, although it’s usually not on his face, rather settled in his hair. 

Yumigami - Fumikage - Considering Dark Shadow, it only made sense to make him the god of the moon. Carried with him is a giant mochi mallet, and though he’s not the best equipped for combat, he’s resourceful, and his ability to control the night is vital. 

Nuregami - ??? - I was at a complete loss for this one. If anyone has any suggestions for her, a snake and goddess of water, please tell me!

Kazegami - Inasa - This one was a perfect match, considering Inasa’s quirk being wind. He keeps a battle fan with him, and can control the winds to his every whim. A gentle gust follows him wherever he goes.

Moegami/Itegami - Shouto - No one knows how this boy got two brush techniques, least of all him, but he bears the power of the ox and the power of the phoenix. He wears the ox mask out of personal preference, but he does have the phoenix mask with him. Though a split design would be optimal, I struggle to think of how this would work. Unlike the others, he does get an animal asset, in the form of massive, flaming, red and white wings. However they’re not always around, only manifesting in a blaze when he needs them, or is utilizing inferno. He has a smoking pipe he doesn’t often use and conch horn on him, attached to his waist by a light blue and white belt. His ice is at it’s full power upon him joining up with the others, but his fire is weakened, requiring him to have another source to derive it from, until Izuku gives him the push he needs to get it back. 

Kasugami - ??? - Midnight’s quirk would be perfect for this, but on account of me trying to limit it to the children, I have no other ideas. 

Kabegami - Ochako - The ability to defy gravity and walk up walls? A perfect fit for her. While most useful for navigating around, it would be impossible for the others to get to where they need to go without her catwalk ability. Like Shouto, she has a cat feature, a long fluffy tail, which serves as her brush and as a means of helping her to balance. 

Gekigami - Denki - With a set of lighting arrows in a quiver at his back and a bow always on hand, he can strike that which he sees fit. One of the most dangerous and combat oriented abilities, he has infinite electrical energy for as much as he has ink, which allows for dangerous lightning storms. His lightning arrows are as infinite as his ink, and when equipped with his tiger mask, he’s rather intimidating. He has the most celestial markings of any of them, running in stripes along his skin. 

That’s all I’ve got right now, mostly just ideas and character designs, but I think for the most part this would follow the canon plot, just with them travelling in a group rather than all together as Ammy. 

Idea #2 is a bit different, and a bit more true to Okami form. Or, rather, Okamiden, as Izuku fills in as Chibiterasu. 

All I really have is everyone’s species and like, general backstory, if I know it.

Inko - Sun goddess. Amaterasu equivalent. Origin of all that is good. She’s done her time, she’s served the people, and she’s fixed the celestial plane. She. Is. Tired. All she wants is a break, and she decides the best way to get that is to head to earth once things are fixed and settle down by Kamiki, where she has her son. She sells her artwork, often with help from Izuku.

Izuku - Baby god. Chibi equivalent. He grew up in a small house in Shinshu field near but not close to Kamiki village. He found Katsuki when he was younger and the two have stuck near each other since. He has no idea what his godly status actually means, but his mom has worked with him since he was little on practicing his brush strokes, even if he can’t use them yet. Unlike his mother’s ink, he’s uses charcoal, still a child in terms of powers, though a teen in body.

Shouto - Oina, lost to Yoshpet when he was a child. He survived the treacherous cold and winding paths of the forest, and though he could ask the citizens of Ponc’Tan to escort him out, he isn’t inclined to leave. He spends much of his time in the clearing Ponc’Tan is in, though, and often hangs out with Hanta and Denki. His dog form is a red husky, and his mask is a phoenix.

Katsuki - Oina, however much like Shouto, he doesn’t live with the tribe. He left fairly young, escaping through the path to Shinshu field, where he found Izuku. He attached himself to him, convinced that Izuku would get himself killed if he wasn’t around. He is unaware of Izuku’s godly status. He’s always in dog form, so Izuku isn’t aware that his dog isn’t merely a dog. He and Shouto were close when they were kids.He wears no mask, having thrown it aside upon leaving the tribe. 

Ochako- Sparrow clan. Used to only meeting those of the purest hearts but also all too familiar with financial hardships as a result, as her family hardly makes enough to even keep the inn open with their limited visitors. She recently left the inn in search of something to help keep her family better off.

Tsuyu - Dragonian.

Mina - Dragonian.

Hanta - Poncle. One of Shouto’s closest friends, and the one that initially found him in Yoshpet. He wanted to bring him back to the tribe when he recovered, but he refused, and so instead, he often spends any time he’s not within Ponc’tan busy with lessons with Shouto. 

Denki - Poncle. Another of Shouto’s closest friends. He takes his art training very seriously, but when it’s him, Hanta, and Shouto, the three of them tend to get up to quite a bit of mischief. They often tag along on Shouto through the forest, knowing that he can get them back to Ponc’tan with minimal effort with how well he knows the forest. 

Eijirou - Human.

Hitoshi - Moon Tribe.

Tenya - Human.

Fumikage - Sparrow clan.

Mashirao - Oina.

Yuuga - Moon Tribe.

Kyouka - Human.

Momo - Human.

Neito - Oina.

Getting things all figured out for this idea takes a fair bit more work and since I haven’t talked it through much, it never got very far. So that’s about everything I have. I adore this au, both parts of it, so if anyone has any ideas feel free to send in asks or ideas! I’d love to hear your thoughts.

And I hope this is kind of what you wanted anon! If not, well, please tell me!!

[pemini]

UNREALITY: System Failure | 5:05 PM

「 Chapter Three 」

⇢ Word count: 4.5K

⇢ Genre: horror, angst, interactive

⇢ Warnings: brief mentions of murder/death, explicit description of open wound injury, blood, and I guess vulgar language?

⇢ Members: Jaemin, Jeno, Renjun, Mark, Donghyuck

> BACK

> NEXT

> SETTINGS

> NOW PLAYING AS USER #RENJUN

> 5:05 PM

> SECRET SCORE: [2/?]

Silence followed the questionnaire. It was as if it had materialized into a large, unyielding fist, molding itself around Renjun’s throat, grip tightening by the second. His breaths were rapid, hands clamming up at his sides and eyes darting around in search of his friends, or rather, in hopes to find his reaction mirrored in someone else’s features. Renjun’s eyes landed on Heejin from his math class, who made the torturous hour long lectures more bearable with her sense of humor. They sat next to each other frequently, building a friendship off of missed homework and a little cheating during tests. He expected some sort of relatable reaction from her, an exaggerated set of wide eyes and lifted brows or an overdramatic flinch Yet once their eyes met, she simply smiled, waved, and turned to walk in a different direction. The same instance repeated with Hyunjoon from art class. His entire demeanor was off, eyes more distant than he’s ever seen them. Renjun’s panicked state only intensified with every nonchalant reaction he was faced with, barely able to keep his hands from shaking. Something was wrong.

“Would you rather kill or be killed?” The robotic, disembodied voice asked as the same question took shape on the wall in front of him. The letters glitched as they manifested, the voice cutting off in unison with the occasional errors that occurred as the words formed. Renjun’s heart skipped a beat.

He managed to choke out a barely audible “What?” that the game had no issue identifying. His fingers tapped anxiously on the table in front of him.

“Would you rather kill or be killed?” Repeated the voice. The words displayed on the wall flashed red, now accompanied with a timer. 30 seconds.

“I-I would rather..” His breath caught in his throat. 25 seconds. His mind raced, ‘kill or be killed?’ ‘kill or be killed?’ ‘kill or be killed?’ ‘kill or be killed?’ Did he have it in him to kill anybody? Did he value his life enough to take away someone else’s? 10 seconds.

He took a deep breath. 5 seconds.

“Kill.”

Sonorous laughter penetrated the thick air. Renjun’s ears perked up, moving through the crowd in the direction of the noise. Donghyuck’s laugh was a memorable one, and Renjun was certain that was his. The laugh was followed by a faint punching noise, presumably Mark, and an extensive series of ‘Ouch’s and complaints by none other than Donghyuck followed. Those two were inseparable, and difficult to miss in a crowd. The pair spotted Renjun quickly, waving him over to where they were standing. They were situated in the middle of the hall, an extravagant chandelier hanging down above them.

“Thank god you’re here!” Donghyuck beamed, “If I have to listen to another second of this pussy’s complaints I’m resetting my game and joining another server.” He glared at Mark as he said ‘pussy’, clearly amused by his friend’s reactions. Mark looked completely done with him, which wasn’t very unusual, considering Donghyuck was consistently on a mission to get him to snap.

“There’s no way to reset the game or join another server, dumbass.” Mark retorted, adjusting his glasses, to which Donghyuck only rolled his eyes. He turned his attention to Renjun, who in his sudden reticence had yet to say a word, sensing the tension between the two. “What the fuck was that questionnaire? God, it got me like.. questioning why I was born and shit.” Mark looked completely out of it, hair a mess from running his hand through it too often, eyes wide and searching for a response. Renjun released a breath he’d been holding in for longer than he cared to know, relieved that someone other than himself had something to say about the questions they had no choice but to answer.

“Okay, so I wasn’t the only one with questions that have absolutely nothing to do with the game.” He replied. “I just- I can’t think of a reason for them to want to know any of these things.” Renjun shifted his weight as he wondered what the purpose of the questions were, still unsure of what to make of the situation. Nonetheless, he was thankful for his slowing heartbeat, as he’d felt it hammering in his chest for far too long. He was sure, however, that the game was definitely not what him and his friends assumed it would be. It wasn’t what the developers marketed it to be, either. The image of the wrecked house him, Jaemin and Jeno wandered into resurfaced in his mind, its bloody walls and broken windows clearly contrasting the other houses in the neighbourhood. He quickly brushed it off, deciding it had nothing to do with the issue at hand.

“To me, it just felt like a shitty Until Dawn therapist scene remake.” Interjected Donghyuck. “I mean, come on, October is coming up- so, halloween is soon!” He snapped his fingers, a comical grin spreading across his features, “Boom, Case of the Creepy Questionnaire: Solved by Lee Donghyuck. You’re welcome.” Mark looked as if he were inwardly trying to convince himself not to deck his best friend in the face, but settled for a roll of his eyes.

“All I’m saying is, I thought this game was meant for decorating your house and, I don’t know, dyeing your hair ugly colors without having it fall out, not committing mass murder.” Groaned Renjun, lightly rubbing the back of his neck, which was beginning to feel sore. He’d probably shifted into an uncomfortable position in real life while playing, which was slightly unsettling as he was now completely unaware of his surroundings back in reality.

“Moving on!” Mark exclaimed with a clap of his hands, “It’s over now, so let’s forget about it. Where are Jaemin and Jeno? You were with them earlier, yeah?” He questioned, his demeanor already seeming more relaxed than it was previously. Donghyuck’s (pretty foolish, in Renjun’s opinion) explanation seemed to calm his nerves, at least for the time being.

“I was, but I lost them after the Questionnaire.” Responded Renjun, his eyes returning to scanning the crowd. “Do you think they’re still-” A blast of electricity erupted from above Renjun, stopping him mid sentence. The lights in the hall abruptly shut off. After a few moments of stunned silence, It felt as if the whole building had begun to shake. Crepitation of grating metal agonized his ears, squeezing his eyes shut as they began to ring as if it could soothe the forming pain. The chandelier that had been hanging above the boys’ heads began to rock furiously, its creaks reverberating throughout the hall. Renjun could hear the chain connecting the chandelier to the ceiling beginning to break off. Panic rose in his chest. The structure shook above him, back and forth, showing no sign of stopping. His muscles tightened, he tried to move, his mind screaming at his body to get out of its range. He remained rooted at his spot, as if a force held him mercilessly in place. The crystals hanging off of the chandelier were flying off, flung across all directions in the hall. There was movement all around him, the crowd rushing to get out of the chandelier’s shadow, but all he could register was the breaking glass and screams. The creaking grew louder by the second. Someone grabbed Renjun’s arm. They pulled, begging him to get out of the way. The chandelier fell, quickly and all too silently, and it took Renjun with it.

> PLAYING AS USER #JENO

> 5:05 PM

> 15 MINUTES PRIOR TO TASK COMPLETION

As Jeno was transported back into the hall after completing the questionnaire, all thoughts about the absurdity of the questions he was asked escaped him. He stood almost face to face with the switch. He thought it was the game taunting him, reminding him of what he was too hesitant to do. ‘What could go wrong?’ he thought, it’s part of the gameplay, a way to progress whatever storyline the game had in store for him. Then again, he could simply ignore it, if he wasn’t interested in progressing through his pathway. Jeno thought it was somewhat ridiculous how much he was overthinking this, he would’ve flipped the switch already if it were any other game. Although, it was easy to forget that Unreality was only a game- its ability to replicate all senses except smell along with its realistic graphics made it difficult to differentiate from reality. Jeno briefly scanned his surroundings, making sure no one was paying attention to what he was about to do. If something went wrong, or if flipping the switch was the wrong choice, he did not want to be held accountable for it. A few taps on his shoulder interrupted him before he could extend his hand to flip the switch. Jeno turned around to see Jaemin eyeing him with an overly skeptical expression. His friend knew him too well, he almost had a sixth sense for when Jeno was up to something and was always there to either enable or stop him.

“Yo,” Greeted Jaemin as Jeno turned around. “should I be concerned that you’re staring at a wall, or is that just a thing you do now?” He chuckled, studying Jeno’s expression with a cocked eyebrow and crossed arms. His signature ‘If you think you’re going to do whatever dumb thing it is you’re about to do alone, then you’re wrong’ face.

“Yes, this is a thing I do when I contemplate wether I would kill someone or let them kill me first.” Jeno replied, acutely aware of Jaemin’s unconvinced expression. He leaned his back against the wall, making sure not to accidentally hit the switch. Breaking into Jaemin’s house currently didn’t seem like such a bad idea, although that option was now completely out of the picture, with Jaemin already suspicious of him.

“Uh huh..” Nodded Jaemin slowly, his index finger tapping his chin a few times as his gaze landed on the switch. The invisible lightbulb floating on top of his head lit brighter than ever. “You know, you never told me your task.”

“I mean, didn’t you say you heard static or something, when I tried telling you?” Jeno responded. “I don’t think you’re meant to know-“

“Blah, blah, blah,” Interrupted Jaemin, rolling his eyes “Just tell me, it could’ve been a glitch, it might work now.” Jeno remained unconvinced, and Jaemin resorted to using his infamous pleading puppy aegyo until Jeno would repent and tell him his task. To which he did, unsurprisingly. This time, it was said with no interferences, much to Jeno’s surprise.

“I told you it was a glitch.” Jaemin said with a smug smile spread across his cheeks, “Also, if you break into my house I will kill you. Literally.”

“More like figuratively; we’re in a game, I won’t actually die.” Jeno corrected, to which simply Jaemin rolled his eyes, muttering a ‘nerd’ that Jeno chose to ignore. “Should I flip the switch, then?”

“Duh, unless you wanna break into Renjun’s house-“ Jaemin paused, “wait, where is he anyway?” He questioned, now looking around the hall with a slight pout, squinting his eyes as he studied the crowd.

“Probably still doing the questionnaire, a lot of players are still missing.” Jeno observed the hall, which wasn’t as full as it was when they had first entered it. It was likely Renjun took longer with the questions. They were heavy, for a lack of better word, and Renjun was prone to overthinking. “Ok, well I’m gonna flip it now. Can I get a drumroll, please?” Smirked Jeno, now fully straightened up with his sight fixed on the switch.

Jaemin drew his attention back to Jeno, rapidly patting his hands on his thighs in attempt to mimic a drumroll, lightly chanting ‘flip it, flip it!’

And so he did.

The lights on the chandelier exploded, a flash of light penetrating the room before darkness replaced it. Jeno instantly reached his hand out towards Jaemin, gripping onto his sleeve. He felt his friend’s shoulders shake as he laughed at Jeno’s panic.

“Pussy.” Jaemin snickered, “It was just a light switch, and you somehow wrecked the chandelier. That’s fun. Good job Jeno!”  Jeno punched his shoulder to shut him up, he could make out Jaemin gripping his shoulder and grimacing in the dark as he laughed. The crowd in the hall had began to stir, unsettled by the sudden darkness. Just as Jeno was about to flip the switch back on, a familiar hologram appeared in front of him, accompanied by the same robotic voice from the questionnaire.

> #JENO chose OPTION #1: FLIP THE SWITCH NEAR THE ENTRANCE OF THE TOWN HALL.

< Congratulations on completing your first task, J̷̖͛e̶̯͛n̷̹̂ò̶͇! Do you think you made the r̷i̵g̴h̴t̸ ̸c̷h̵o̷i̸c̷e̴? Remember, e̵v̵e̶r̴y̶ action has its c̷͇̓ö̸̦́ṅ̷͓s̷̠̎e̸̯̓q̷͖̔u̸̬̕e̶̦͗n̸͖̈c̸͓̈́ë̷͖́s̶͙̽, no matter how ĭ̴̡̱̀n̷̙̔͑s̴̤̍̄i̸̻͑g̶͕͇̈́ń̶̝i̵̤͛̓f̸̮̹̏i̷̝̎̽c̷̮̀ͅa̵̡̺͂n̸̦̲̽ț̸͉̾̕ it may seem. Keep an eye out for your next task! It’s going to be a tough one. B̶e̴ ̴c̷a̵r̸e̶f̶u̸l̷, or else you may not be able to keep up. W̸͍̙̔͑e̶͍̤͛͝ don’t want that, do we, J̴̨͍̬̫̗́͂̄̊̂͐̀̍̑̅͋ͅẹ̸̢̩͖͙͖͙͙̟̞͇̒̑͌̈́̊̉͝ͅͅǹ̷̨̞̟͉̼͈͓͓͙̮̗̐ọ̸̎? >

As the voice spoke, voicing out the hologram, it almost sounded human. It was only when it glitched, disembodied and grating on Jeno's ears, did he remember it was a mere machine. Jeno felt the urgent tugging on his arm and heard the sound of screams following echoes of shattering glass as the hologram began to fade. “What the fuck is going on?” He gasped, unable to read Jaemin’s facial expression. The hall felt darker than it was previously.

“The chandelier, it’s-“ A crystal flew directly into their way, Jaemin pushing Jeno and himself away just as it shattered on impact to the wall they were standing in front of. “It’s about to fall, we need to get out now.”

A green light suddenly illuminated Jaemin’s face, and he pointed to something just behind Jeno. An exit sign had just lit up. The boys quickly made their way to it, the chaos not far behind them as other players shuffled towards the exit. The town square had darkened. The sun had began to set, tinting the sky purple and orange. Jeno took a deep breath, and the lack of fresh air was almost jarring.

“Do you think everyone’s okay?” Jeno asked after a few minutes of silence, him and Jaemin sat on a bench to recollect their breath as they watched the light slowly fade out of the sky.

“It’s just a game, there isn’t even a health stat or anything as far as I’m aware. It’s not a big deal.” Jaemin said, “But we can feel pain within the game, that alone is scary enough.” Jeno recalled the punch he blew to Jaemin’s shoulder, how he winced. He pinched himself lightly, as if to make sure if he were dreaming, tight enough for it to hurt. And it did. He could feel the pain he inflicted on himself inside the game. He wasn’t sure what to make of it all.

“That’s weird. How does that even work if we aren’t even moving in real life?” Jeno questioned. Jaemin had been interested in game mechanics for years, which was the main reason he wanted to play Unreality. It replicated real life to a point that no one thought would be possible. He was determined to figure out how, solely out of interest. “Like, is it even possible to just generate pain?”

“I guess the headset is in some way connected to some part of our pain receptors, and it sort of- I don’t know, mimics real pain? Like, when we’re hurt in the game, it tricks us into thinking we’re actually in pain. So we feel it.” Jaemin looked uncertain, as if he were forming his thoughts as he spoke, head rested on Jeno’s shoulder as he looked up at the clouds. Just as Jeno was about to respond, they heard a crash resound through the hall. Shattered glass and clanging metal on marble flooring. Jeno winced at the how loud it had been, Jaemin chuckled once he saw his reaction but decided against teasing him about it.

“Okay but, like.. what’s the point?” Jeno muttered. Jaemin lifted his head up from Jeno’s shoulder before facing him again. He opened his mouth to speak before shutting it again, his head back into his seemingly never-ending thoughts about game mechanics. “I just don’t get why thats necessary, y’know? What if someone, like, stabbed their friend just because they didn’t know it would actually hurt? What would happen then?”

“I doubt a game could mimic the pain of a stab wound that well, and I also doubt anyone would do that.” Jaemin responded, “What, were you planning to stab me?” He said, nudging Jeno’s shoulder as he insisted he would never do such a thing. Just as they decided to get up and explore the rest of the town, their names were called from behind them.

Renjun’s arms were slung around Donghyuck and Mark’s shoulders as they dragged him out of the town hall. Donghyuck’s rapid breaths were audible even from a distance, he gently pushed Renjun’s hair out of his face as he set him down on the bench. The color was almost completely drained from Renjun’s face, he was shaking lightly as perspiration dripped down his neck. Donghyuck pressed his fingers to Renjun’s wrist, checking for his pulse, mumbling something about how it was too low for it to be safe. He covered his face with his hands and turned away, shoulders heaving. Jeno and Jaemin rushed to the bench, waiting for Mark to explain what had happened.

“The chandelier fell on him, he’s… not in good shape.” Said Mark, glancing at Donghyuck uneasily before turning to Jeno and Jaemin, who were now stood frozen at Renjun’s side. He was completely unconscious, eyes shut tight as if he were faced with monsters he’d rather remain blinded to. He was almost unrecognizable. “His ankle is seriously injured, he fainted right when it fell on him, too. I tried covering the wound as best as I could, but.. I didn’t do a great job.” Mark elaborated, taking off his smudged glasses and wiping them clean with his shirt. His hands were jittery, he eyes darted everywhere but down at his best friend’s unconscious body.

Jeno dropped to the floor near Renjun’s left ankle, it was roughly bandaged with what seemed to be fabric ripped off from a shirt. Blood was seeping through the material. He began to undo the knot tied around the wound, looking up at the pair who brought Renjun in to check for their reactions beforehand. Mark nodded, Jeno had just noticed that one of his sleeves was ripped off. Donghyuck remained turned away from his injured friend, his shoulders shook violently as Jaemin gently rubbed his arm to calm him down, assuring him Renjun would be okay. Jaemin’s eyes were watery as he looked back at Renjun’s limp body. The cloth was now left on the ground, Renjun’s bloody ankle in full view. Raw, vermilion flesh split open, littered with shards of glass. Bruising was forming on his pink, agitated skin. Jeno couldn’t tell how deep the wound was. Only that it was bad. Really, really bad. His head began to spin, unable to recognize wether the glitches that began forming on the wound were reality or his own imagination. It was as if the game was truly mocking him this time, saying ’What? So upset over a game?’ in the form of distortion. He closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths in attempt to force down the bile surfacing in his throat.

“Listen,” Began Mark, leaning down beside Jeno, hesitantly placing a warm hand on his shoulder, “he’ll be okay. It’s a pretty heavy injury and it must’ve, I don’t know, emptied his health or energy bar or something. It’s just a game, remember? There’s even a hospital just around the corner for incidents just like this, we could-”

“This.. this is my fault.” Interrupted Jeno, shaking his head as he picked up the discarded bloody cloth. He studied it as if it could tell him otherwise, as if it wasn’t a confirmation that it was, in fact, his fault. A confirmation stained in his best friend’s blood. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Renjun’s face as he gently wrapped the bandage back around his ankle, unable to do any more to help him. Donghyuck’s shadow loomed over him as he did so, contemplating Jeno’s every move.

“What do you mean it’s your fault?” Insisted Donghyuck, closing in on Jeno with trembling lips and tear stained cheeks. He was shaking, his hands trembling at his sides. Donghyuck clenched his fists, now directly in front of Jeno’s crouched frame. Jeno remained still, completely unmoving. He looked smaller than he really was with his head dipped downwards and eyes so distant. “Answer me, Jeno. What do you mean it’s your fault? What did you do to him?” Donghyuck was fuming, breathing uneven and heavy. Jaemin held his arm, quietly telling him to calm down, to breathe, yet his attempts proved futile. Donghyuck ripped his arm out of Jaemin’s grasp, eyes trained heavily on Jeno. He repeated his question. Jeno stood up, turning towards Donghyuck. Mark inched closer to him, alarmed by the state they were both in.

When Jeno spoke, he could barely process the words that left his lips as his own. He sounded almost robotic as he recalled his task, recalled the choice he made. The wrong choice. “I- it’s my fault. I flipped the switch, the chandelier, it fell- the switch made it break and fall and.. it was because of me. He’s hurt because of me.” He choked, whatever dam that held back his guilt ridden tears had broken, his last words a mere whisper. Sobs overtook his body until his knees could barely support his weight, so choked up he was unable to breathe. His vision was blurred, all water and pixels, blinding red pixels. He could hear Donghyuck’s enraged voice and Mark’s futile attempts at calming him down. Jaemin was now at Jeno’s side, holding him tight, assuring him it wasn’t his fault, assuring him that they could fix this, assuring him that he would be okay, drowning out the chaos around him. He let Jaemin’s words soothe him.

When Jeno’s eyes fluttered open, he found himself back on the floor, cradled in his best friend’s arms. His head was pounding, he could feel his tears drying on his cheeks. Donghyuck sat closed eyed on the bench next to Renjun’s unconscious form, Mark standing nearby fiddling with his game settings that were generated in a hologram in front of him. Jaemin turned to Jeno, who clumsily shuffled away from him, trying regain his composure. The crimson pixels were gone.

“Feeling better?” Jaemin asked with a warm smile. Jeno nodded, patting his friend’s thigh lightly before standing up. Jaemin got up soon after him. The town square was empty except for the five of them. The sun had set completely, the moon barely visible behind the grey clouds crowding around it. A few vintage street lights lit up the area, casting a sickening amber glow over the large square, almost warping the boys’ features. Donghyuck opened his eyes in response to the sudden movement, glancing at Jeno before lowering his gaze to his feet. He fiddled with his fingers before standing up, taking small steps towards Jeno, who stood staring at the lion fountain situated in the middle of the hall. Jaemin sat in Donghyuck’s spot. He placed Renjun’s head in his lap, lightly combing his hand through his messy hair, his expression unreadable.

“I’m sorry,” said Donghyuck, almost under his breath as he stood beside Jeno. “I shouldn’t have.. went off on you like that.” Jeno remained motionless, and Donghyuck didn’t know how to lighten the situation for once. So he continued. “I just- seeing him like that, I couldn’t help but think of..” He trailed off, his breath catching in his throat. He saw all black suits and burial grounds, the vivid feeling of wanting to pry the ache out of his body.

“Jisung.” Jeno finished, turning to look at Donghyuck. “I know. Me too. I think all of us did.” He put his arm around Donghyuck, who wiped away a stray tear that had trailed down his cheek.

“It’s hard, so hard without him, Jeno.” Said Donghyuck, now eye to eye with Jeno. “I can’t lose anyone else. I won’t.” His gaze was almost wild, eyes burning with desperation that Jeno couldn’t bear the burden of.

“We won’t, Hyuck. We’ll be okay.” He responded. It was like tying a shiny decorative ribbon around a present to your future self, ignoring the fact that the contents inside were rotting by the second and would be nothing but filth when unwrapped.

A hazy groan followed by a series of curses broke the silence that befell the group. “Guys, get over here.” Called out Jaemin, bringing everyone’s attention to Renjun writhing in pain in between his arms.

Renjun was now conscious, hands gripping his left calf as he looked down at the blood stained cloth wrapped around his ankle. The shock of the fall and his unconsciousness shielded him from processing the pain for a while, but it didn’t hold back the violent waves of pain that befell him once he’d awoken.“It hurts so much,” Renjun inhaled sharply, rocking slightly as he spoke as if to comfort himself, “if it’s just a game, why in the hell does it hurt so much?” His face twisted in raw pain that no game could simply generate.

“We’ll get you to the hospital, they can revive your health stats and you’ll be as good as new.” Said Jaemin, standing up and gesturing for Jeno to help him lift Renjun up. Jeno didn’t move, looking to Renjun for permission beforehand. He tended to tense up under pressure, unable to make up his mind on what to do as every possible bad ending played in his head. He couldn’t see a good one coming out of this situation. Jaemin, on the other hand, seemed to have everything figured out. A step ahead of everyone else. Donghyuck was completely silent, lost in his thoughts and suddenly speechless as Mark stood next to him checking the game’s map for the location of the hospital.

“No, guys,” disagreed Renjun, jerking his arms away from Jaemin. His hands tightly grasped onto the bench beneath him. He looked up at his friends, never looking as helpless as he did at that moment. With his eyes wide and pleading, he said “I don’t wanna play anymore- I’m scared, I don’t know what’s happening to me, okay? I just.. I just want to go home.”

H̷̻́͋̚e̷͖͔͊̽̕̚͘͝ stood idly, watching them contemplate their next decision. H̷̻́͋̚e̷͖͔͊̽̕̚͘͝ thought of all that was left unburied, or rather, that they hadn’t buried properly. The unburied refused oblivion, h̵͚̣̕ḙ̸̛̐̓͋͗ was aware of that, the absence it left behind refused to be forgotten.

What should Mark, Renjun, Jeno, Donghyuck and Jaemin do?

> GO TO THE HOSPITAL

> QUIT UNREALITY

[NOTIFICATION] New Feature! Would you like to view player stats?

> YES

> NO

[NOTIFICATION] You have unlocked [2] secrets!

> SECRET 1

> SECRET 2

-  woah okay! I cannot explain how sorry I am for how late I’m uploading this.. this chapter was extremely difficult to write not only because its sort of a turning point in the story but also because I was traveling when I started it and I had to work on it while settling back home and also preparing for school. I think updates wont really speed up, mainly because school started literally today for me so it’s my main focus rn. I will be uploading other stuff though, I think? No promises hdbjnxjxks anyway I hope this was worth the wait!!

- I decided to make secrets viewable even though they weren’t originally! They should help you guys make better choices from now on, because if i’m being honest, the past choices haven’t been good ones. Good luck, though!

- Player stats are now a thing! Your choices affect the players’ health (any injuries they sustain will lower their health), nerve (Basically mental health. Their ability to survive when in dangerous or stressful situations will mainly be based on their nerve) and relationships (they need to maintain strong bonds to be able to go through the game together. The more split up they are and the less trust they have in each other, the more likely things are to go wrong) They will be updated each chapter. 

- I know some parts of this chapter are vague and maybe confusing, but if you have any questions then don’t be afraid to ask! Be it about the boys, the game, the story itself or.. Anything, really! omg theories would be cool too!

- Sorry I talk so much but thank you so much for supporting this story. I’m really passionate about it and it means so much to me that people are actually invested in it. Thank you for taking the time to read it!

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[simplyshelbs16xoxo]

‘Repeating History’ Chapter 6: I’ll Find a Way to You

FFN | Ao3 | Buy Me a Coffee?

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2016

Molly rushed up the stairs to 221B, throwing the door open with such force, it caused Sherlock to jump.

“What is it?” she asked, hesitance in every step she took towards him. He was looking down at something—a photograph, perhaps—and his face showed no emotion other than shock.

“It’s…” he began, “us.” Sherlock felt, rather than saw, Molly hovering beside him.

“Sherlock…” what she saw was their faces staring back at them, the wallpaper backdrop not dissimilar to the flat they now stood in. “That’s us…that’s how I see you in those dreams…is that how you see me?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “My mother sent this to me; she thought we would be interested.”

“Ha!” Molly laughed in disbelief. “Well, this confirms it.”

“We had past lives…as…ourselves?” Sherlock asked. “Strange how past lives are depicted as the same soul in a different body.”

“Maybe it’s one of those star-crossed things,” Molly suggested. Sherlock only frowned in confusion. “Perhaps we wanted to be together in a different life, and for whatever reason, it didn’t work out.” Still nothing. “It sounds crazy, I know, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Preposterous,” Sherlock muttered. “How can this be?” Everything he had known to be true had turned on its head. He focused in on Molly’s face. “Why do you look so upset?”

Molly took a closer look. Most Victorian photographs upheld a serious, unpleasant feel, but Sherlock was right; she looked distraught. “You don’t look very happy either,” she pointed out. He appeared to be uncomfortable. “Something unsettling must have occurred just before the photograph was taken,” she reasoned.

“Sherlock!” Lestrade rushed into the flat. “We found another victim, and it’s much more gruesome than before.”

“Do you need me too?” Molly asked.

“We’ll be alright, Molls,” Greg assured her. “Anderson is on the scene.”

Sherlock groaned at this. Turning to Molly, he said, “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“Promise?” Molly asked, a small smile forming on her lips.

“I promise,” he assured her. “I love you.”

Molly opened her mouth to speak the words he so wanted to hear, but nothing came out but a strangled gasp. She closed her eyes in defeat. “I’m sorry.”

Sherlock molded his hand around her shoulder. “It’s alright. I understand.” A tear fell from Molly’s eye and hit the back of his hand. “I know you love me.”

Smiling at his acknowledgement, she wiped another tear from her eye. “Solve me a murder, Sherlock.”

There was a strong stench of copper and decay in the alley where the victim was found. Sherlock Holmes held a handkerchief dabbed in vapor rub to his nose to avoid the putrid scent.  The victim was definitely a woman, possibly in her early thirties. She was hardly recognizable what with her organs spilling out every which way. Upon closer inspection, there appeared to be scratches all over her exposed bosoms. The only organ that was missing was—

“Where’s her stomach?” Sherlock asked.

“Over here!” Anderson shouted by the dumpsters.

“Her stomach?” Sherlock asked once more.

“No,” Anderson replied, “I found another victim.”

“Jesus,” Lestrade remarked. “Let’s get her out of there!”

The woman had been retrieved from the dumpster carefully as to not disturb whatever clues they could get from her. Sherlock was glad for once that Molly was not here. She was tough, but the grisly scene was nearly too much for even him to handle.

“Seems like the intestines are missing,” Anderson informed them. “Everything else is accounted for.”

Sherlock studied the corpse further. “There,” he pointed below her abdomen. “Her bladder is gone as well.” Their modern day Ripper was collecting organs, but for what purpose? Were organs his consolation prize after committing such a crime? “That leaves the brain and heart.”

“Don’t forget the skin,” Anderson reminded him. “It’s not commonly known that it’s—“

“The largest organ of the body, yes, I know,” Sherlock finished in agitation. Volatile images of a poor unsuspecting woman being skinned alive plagued his mind, making him shudder. The consulting detective was never squeamish, but this case had him feeling uneasy. Perhaps Molly was right; he jumped right into things too quickly after Sherrinford. It was too late, though. Sherlock would never forgive himself if he quit the case now, especially when all of these women had been put through so much pain.

“Calm down, it’ll be alright,” Greg spoke into his phone. “You know he will. We’ll find her.”

An uneasiness coursed through Sherlock’s body. There was a lump in his throat, and he felt as though he was going to be sick. Flashes of a torture scene flickered in his mind. There was a young woman, but he couldn’t make out her features. The street was spinning—no, he was falling—down, down, down.

“Sherlock!” Lestrade shouted, running over to him. It was the last thing the detective heard before everything went black.

1894

Restlessness plagued Molly Hooper for the rest of the night. Her mind was racing after her tiff with Sherlock. What distressed her most was that she was no closer to finding Meena’s murderer. Her father was asleep on the settee in the sitting room, snoring peacefully. She thought of the new friend she had in Mrs. Watson. Molly had only seen her at the hospital a handful of time, and attended to her twice since Doctor Mudgett’s disappearance.

It was at that moment that everything clicked into place. Mudgett disappeared shortly before the murders began…could it be? No. Molly shook the thought from her head. It had to be a coincidence. Sherlock’s hand-me-down words from the eldest Holmes brother entered her mind.

What do we say about coincidence? The universe is rarely so lazy.

“Oh, God,” Molly muttered, wasting no time. “I’ll be back, father. I need to see a man about a murder.”

Fastening her cloak around her shoulders, and drawing up her hood, Molly set off for Baker Street. The hansoms had no business running this late, so she knew she’d have to make the trip on foot. With every step, her anxiety grew. Baker Street was only a few streets away; it would take her no longer than twenty minutes. With that knowledge, she picked up her speed, moving at a near-run. No matter what she heard, saw, or felt, Molly Hooper did not stop for any of it. The best thing was for her to keep moving steadily, onward to 221B.

Though it was probably paranoia, Molly felt a pair of eyes watching her the entire time. She nearly squealed with delight was the door to Sherlock’s flat came into view. She shouted his name as loudly as she could muster. Just as her hand reached for the knocker, a cold, clammy hand pulled her back. A bloodcurdling scream ripped from her lips, alerting nearly every tenant on the street. A cloth was being held against her mouth now, making her sink into the inky blackness of unconsciousness

Sherlock Holmes was pacing, his mind moving at speeds he could not fathom. Why did he have to allow his damn pride to get in the way of everything? Why could he not allow himself to give in to the love of the most captivating woman he had ever encountered? Margaret Hooper had put him in his place, and rightly so. He needed to apologise. There was no way around it.

“Sherlock!”

He knew that voice. It was Molly. She came back.

Sherlock’s heart nearly leapt out of his chest. He ran to the window, and threw it open in an effort to speak with her, but as he did so, a bloodcurdling scream reverberated throughout the entire street.

“Molly?” He searched the street from above, but there was no sign of her.

“Molly, where are you?” he shouted. When no answer came, he rushed down the stairs and out the door, his bare feet hitting the freezing the ground.

“Molly!? Oh God,” he cried, his breathing heavy. “No. No, no, no!”

“Snap out of it!” Mycroft shouted in his mind palace. “Concentrate. Which direction did she come from? In which direction did she possibly go?”

Sherlock scanned his surroundings. She came from the left side of the street if she came from her home. Whoever took her was obviously going in the same direction, but did not take the risk of dragging her down the street. He could have disappeared down an alley for a quick getaway. This madman had Molly, and Sherlock Holmes was going to do everything in his power to save her.

“Lestrade.” Yes, he needed to go to Scotland Yard immediately. A search needed to be organised and soon.

2016

I’ll burn the heart out of you.

Jim Moriarty’s words circled his mind as he came to. The first thing he saw was a bright light, the faces in the room fuzzy. As his sight began to clear, he noticed Greg’s sullen expression. A chilling scream only he could hear came to the detective’s mind. It belonged to Molly. He knew it did.

“Molly,” Sherlock croaked. “She’s gone, isn’t she?”

“Kidnapped,” Greg confirmed. “She isn’t dead—not yet. A note was found taped to your door, though.”

Sherlock snatched it, sitting right up in the hospital bed. “Margaret Hooper had morbid humour; too bad she never wed. She fell apart with a broken heart, and all they found was her head.” He felt nauseous, his stomach doing somersaults. “Oh God,” he cried. “We have to find her! Right now!” He thrashed about in the bed, pulling out the IV in his arm.

Nobody argued with him or advised him to stay in bed. They knew what Molly meant to Sherlock. He wouldn’t allow anything or anybody to get in his way. “Ughhhh,” he doubled over in pain, the room spinning. Instead of fighting it, he allowed the visions to come.

The land was familiar, sprawling every which way. In the distance, he could see a manor. There was no denying it. He was at Musgrave Hall, only the outlines of the funny gravestones were visible from where he stood. Moriarty’s voice began singing in his ear, “Sherlock Holmes upon his throne like to slay the dragons. He loved to roam amongst funny gravestones, before he fell off the wagon.”

Gasping for air, Sherlock came to once more. “I know where she’s been taken.” He turned to Lestrade. “Organise a search party. We’re going to Musgrave Hall.”

John Watson woke to a rapping on the door. “Bloody hell,” he groaned. “What now?”

“What is it?” Mary asked tiredly.

“John, please, open up!” Sherlock’s voice called out.

The Watsons were up and out of bed faster than light. John answered the door, noting the anguish on Sherlock’s face.

“Molly’s been taken,” he panted.

“Where?” Mary asked, fear gripping her heart.

“Musgrave Hall,” Sherlock replied heavily. “John, I would normally recruit you for this, but I need Mary’s skillset. It’s too important.”

John nodded. “Of course, yeah. I’ll stay with Rosie.”

Mary was off to get dressed, and returned no more than five minutes later. “Let’s go.”

1894

Funny Gravestones. Sherlock was trying to recall the significance of it. He searched his mind palace, diving into the depths of it, until finally, it occurred to him where Molly could have been taken.

“Musgrave Hall,” Sherlock told Lestrade. “Miss Hooper was taken to Musgrave Hall; it was my former childhood home.”

“Why would he take her there?” Lestrade inquired. “She has no connection to the place…does she?”

Flashes of his now-deceased sister came to mind. There was another girl present too with chestnut locks, her nose upturned just like—

“I,” Sherlock began, “I think I grew up with her…how on earth did I forget?”

They took a hansom cab to the nearest train station, and whilst on board, Sherlock delved deeper into his repressed memories. He remembered Eurus being jealous that he would choose to play with Molly rather than her. Then, there was the day that Eurus had trapped Molly in the well that sat within the woods surrounding his family home. After saving her, Sherlock never saw her again until this year. He hadn’t even remembered her; his best friend from childhood. Then again, he realised, she hadn’t recognised him either.

Lestrade studied the detective before him, noting that he was in deep thought. A sorrowful look came upon his face. “What’s wrong?”

Snapping out of it, Sherlock had the detective inspector repeat the question. “What’s wrong is that I completely pushed away any memories of Molly from when we were children. I have been a right foul git to her. Aside from that, she may or may not be trapped in a well. We have to save her.”

“We will, Sherlock.” Lestrade didn’t show it, but he was afraid they were already too late.

“Somebody help!” Molly shouted into the endless darkness. She hadn’t a clue where she was, but it was dark, cold, and damp. One thing she knew was that she wasn’t outside. Otherwise, she would be pelted with raindrops right now.

A cold, sinister laugh echoed through the room. A man in a bowler hat peered out from the shadows, and into what little light there was. “There is nobody to help you, my dear.”

“Who are you!?” she demanded. “If I am going to die, then you might as well tell me!”

The man stepped closer towards her until they were face to face, his mustache nearly brushing her nose. “The name is Doctor Henry Mudgett,” he replied. “Nice to see you again, Doctor Hooper.”

“You,” Molly gasped. “You were Mary’s doctor; the one that disappeared into thin air.”

He chuckled in amusement. “Yes, but I am known under a different moniker now, Doctor Hooper. I use my mother’s maiden name. I believe that my cousin harbours deep feelings for you.”

Molly looked at him with questioning eyes.

“H.H. Holmes is the name now. I believe you’ve met my cousin, Sherlock?”

[foreveratlas]

Chronicles of an Elf 6

Links to Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, and Episode 5.

Episode 6: New Routines

Light spilled through the high window that was suspended well above the plain mattress in the small room that Luka was granted. The beam cascaded at just the right angle to shine obnoxiously across her face if she were laying. The irony was that it wasn’t morning. The light was being shined through by an outside sconce illuminating the fortresses outer walls. Instead she stood, appraising her new home after a long day of being in the sweltering heat of the forge with Tomlan. She grinded her teeth at the thought of him and turned to face the doorway.

Time was a concept that Luka was about as familiar with as anything else. Morning was morning. Afternoon was afternoon. Evening was evening. So staring up at the circular device with three extensions, one ticking away in a direction around the face while the two others moved far more slowly, gave her pause. It was placed just above the doorway into her quarters.

    “That’s a clock,” a familiar yet unfamiliar voice said. Tetra stood in her doorway in the female form that Luka had seen earlier. “It’s used to tell time.”

    Luka frowned. “Why didn’t the bunker have one?”

    Tetra shrugged. “It requires power or batteries. Scavenging for pre-cataclysm batteries is a bit of a hassle and the electricity we were able to use had be used conservatively. Knowing the time wasn’t really a necessity.”

    “A necessity? You kept me locked in a bunker for years and you want to talk about necessity?”

    Tetra let out a long sigh that caused her shoulders to slump. “When it comes to elves, it’s incredibly hard to know who to trust outside of us. You were chained to a tree for a reason, and though that reason hasn’t been made apparent, the fact was that the culprits could have been on either side of the border.” She came closer and dragged the chair from the desk against the wall with her and sat down. “You need to understand that outside of our own kind, elves are either hated or coveted.”

    “Coveted?” Luka asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

    “The human nations have a habit of wanting us for perverse reasons. Draconians are either neutral to us or want to destroy us for whatever war they happened to be in with us. Umbrans aren’t known to be the most likable of the realm. Sylvarians are usually detested for being…”

    “Snobby?” Luka interjected.

    Tetra chuckled. “That’s better than the word I was going to use.”

    “And Temprests?”

    “Surprisingly, the least despised. Probably because they keep to themselves in the great forests.”

    “So you kept me sheltered and ignorant, out of what… concern? And why didn’t you get Laon involved prior to now?”

    “Because the idea was to work the case on my own so not to draw attention from possible connections and leads. I wasn’t sure I could trust Laon completely, and you even migrating South into the capital has not only put a target on your back but has also basically informed the world that an Umbran managed to get into continent’s most fortified city without much effort.”

    Luka pursed her lips in response before adding, “But what about us being attacked on the side of the road?”

    Tetra shook her head. “An unfortunate event. They had been looking for you for over a decade prior to that point. It was carelessness on my part.”

    “They followed us back to the bunker.”

    “More carelessness on my part.”

    “They got Whilsk!” Luka cried, kicking the leg of the bed.

    “That I can assure you did not happen.”

    “And how can you be so sure? Whilsk can’t use magic because she’s not a pure elf.”

    “That doesn’t mean she isn’t capable. Whilsk’s official title is the Weapons Master. Not to mention, she is a Shadow Arts genius. The Fire Dragon Priestess’s guards were trained by Whilsk over a hundred years ago. Those teachings remain the core of their abilities today.”

    Luka realized that she was very much a child in comparison to Tetra and Whilsk. Her life was still very much beginning. Tetra, known as the Blight of Sylvarnia and Whilsk, the Weapons Master. She felt like she truly didn’t know them after all. Who was she to them? They were trying to baby sit her while also trying to solve a case.

    “Whilsk will be ok. I’d be more surprised if she hadn’t already murdered everyone involved in the infiltration,” Tetra chuckled.

    Luka sighed. “So what will happen now?”

    “Now,” Tetra said, puffing her chest out. “I go find her.”

    “Will she even recognize you?”

    Tetra took a moment to appraise herself. First her arms and then her torso and stomach, then her thighs and shins. She spun around absently and before nodding. “Whilsk is very much aware of my ability to change my gender based on how I feel.”

    “How is that even a thing?”

    “It’s specific to elven blights as we kind of already bridge the idea of—look that’s not the point. The point is, I can do this. Do you have a problem with that?”

    Luka shook her head. “Absolutely not. Just offended that you would keep me in the dark for so long about this and other things.”

    Tetra sighed. “I understand. Believe me when I tell you that it was all for your benefit, I promise.”

    Luka rolled her eyes.

    “I’ll be gone for a while. I plan to find Whilsk and the source of the attack on the bunker. Stay here and try not to draw unnecessary attention.”

    “I’m apparently going to be working with a blacksmith. I’ll never see the light of day, so you won’t have to worry about that.”

    “Don’t give me that. Laon wants you to earn your stay. Everyone who is in this fortress has a job. You get a place to sleep, food, and a wage for doing what you’re supposed to do.”

    “Sounds like a lucrative means of keeping everyone in line,” Luka spat.

    “It’s about making sure everyone has a place to sleep and a roof over their heads. Not everyone may enjoy their jobs, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like the perks.”

    “And do you not like your job, Commander?” a new voice asked. Ultima stood in the doorway holding two duffle bags over one shoulder. A large claymore hung across his back.

    Tetra smirked. “I never said I didn’t. But that’s neither here nor there.”

    Ultima snorted. “We’re phantoms in fifteen.”

    Tetra nodded as the prince walked away. She then turned to face Luka once. Her appearance began to change once again, slowly returning to the masculine form Luka was used to seeing. At a head taller than before, Tetra stared down at Luka and took her by the shoulders. “Going forward, you will need to be your own person. You will need to take accountability for yourself. Whilsk and I won’t be able to help you anymore. Now you’ve got to stand on your own two feet. Even when I bring Whilsk, it will be obvious that she won’t be able to walk away from this place like she could before. Now she will be forced to return to this life. I didn’t want that for you or for her. Do you understand?”

    Luka nodded.

    “I’ll see you in a few days if everything goes according to plan.”

    “And if it doesn’t?” Luka asked.

    “Then I won’t be seeing you at all, I imagine.” Tetra gave a sad smile, patted Luka on the head, and turned to leave. “You’ll have to find those answers on who you are and where you came from on your own without me.”

    “Can’t say I’m happy about that.”

    Tetra shook his head. “No. I imagine you won’t be happy with the outcome either.” And with that, Tetra turned to leave, moving out into the hall and out of sight.

    Luka watched the door for a long while, hoping for something to change in its appearance, or for Tetra to return out of nowhere with Whilsk acting like all of this was a joke and that they were ready to go home. But the idea of home felt miles away, and Luka realized that the bunker was not a place she could easily return to anytime soon. Or maybe ever. She felt a tremor creep across her heart, causing her breath to come cascading through her lips. It was a new anxiety, one she wouldn’t understand until much later.

    Her stomach growled, but she ignored the hunger that had been building up. Slowly, she closed the door in her disdain, deciding sleep was better than sating her appetite.

    Luka woke before the sun rose the next morning and after dressing in an outfit that was more suitable to work in the forge than the armor she had on the day prior (yet keeping her traveling gloves on anyway), she made her way around the fort. Beyond the guards and soldiers that made their rounds, eyeing her suspiciously, she didn’t meet anyone else. She imagined that the reason they didn’t stop her to give her any trouble was due to Tetra or Ultima or maybe even Laon making a statement to leave her alone. Her wandering led her to a kitchen where a few draconians were setting up for the first meal of the day.

    “Breakfast won’t be served until seven-thirty,” a massive man with a great big beard said upon Luka’s appearance. She noticed that he looked human in origin, which was insane for how tall he was. But his girth was just as impressive. He was thick, well fed, but equipped with muscles all across his arms and chest. His skin was pale and mottled in light brown spots across his nose and cheeks and forehead and his hair and beard were both the brightest orange and red she had over seen on someone.

    “Seven thirty?” Luka repeated, twisting her nose slightly at the number.

    “About two hours,” he said again as he began to stack pan after pan after on the wide counter. When Luka didn’t respond, he sighed. “Can you tell time?” he asked.

    Luka slowly shook her head, her cheeks darkening in a mixture of shame and embarrassment.

His face turned to look at a large clock was mounted to the wall above a massive freezer door. “Do you see that?” he pointed. Luka nodded. “The long hand tells you the minute. The fat, short hand tells you the hour. So the fat short hand is pointed at a five, and the long hand is pointed at seven. Minutes go by five. So fat short hand is at five, long hand is at seven, count from the twelve: five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five, thirty, and thirty five. It’s five thirty five. Do you understand?”

Luka nodded. Telling time was easier than she anticipated. Not as easy as understand that mornings were when the some comes up and the world was mostly cool; noon was when the sun was at its highest point; and evening was when the sun was beginning to set. Night was dark. But this pinpointed time for her a bit more easily. Her stomach growled suddenly, loud enough for the larger man to hear.

He let out a loud snort. “Looks like you wont make it to breakfast.” He turned from her, opened a large cabinet and grabbed two apples, a banana, and hunk of bread, delivering the bounty to Luka on plate that must have been made of tin. As he approached, Luka realized just how big the guy was as his hand was almost twice the size of the plate.

“Thank you,” she said, almost surprised as he pushed the food in front of her. “Why are you being so nice?”

“Life isn’t easy for someone who doesn’t look like everyone else here. I’m Borg,” he nodded.

“Lukanay Fial. Luka for short,” she said as she took the hunk of bread and tore it in half. She then held up a half section to Borg.

He smiled warmly, “No, no little Luka. That’s for you. I ate already. Have you seen the size of me? I can’t keep this astounding physique without constantly eating!” he gave a hearty laugh and returned to setting up for the day. Luka ate the banana and an apple along with one of the pieces of bread. Borg gave her a bag to keep the rest in for later if she got hungry.

As Luka stood up to leave, Borg called over his shoulder, “Come by any time, little Luka.” She smiled and waved as she left with her bag in hand.

Luka arrived at the large doors to the forge. To her dismay they were unlocked and the fires were already beginning to glow. The large room that was dedicated to Draconia and Fort Dragoon’s armor and weapon making was mostly void of people, but she could make out a few individuals going through their morning routines to set up their fires.

Tomlan was one of those people. When Luka found him, he was stoking the coal with a long prod. A stack of billets of different colors were already set out to the side. He looked up to see Luka as she approached. “You’re early, Umbran.”

“When did you expect me to show up?” She asked.

“I didn’t. Put your apron and gloves on, we have a large order to fill.”

Luka set aside her bag with her bread and apple and pulled on the heavy leather apron and the thick gloves. She flexed her hands in them slowly, feeling how two sets of gloves worked together. She realized she would be handling iron, and thus her skin began to itch in response. The multiple pairs of gloves would definitely help her avoid her allergy.

“We have three swords to make and a battle axe head to get started on before noon. Grab two billets and lets get to work.”

Luka realized after a few hours of holding a billet down as Tomlan folded the piece over and over that he wasn’t well liked by the other blacksmiths. Draconians weren’t affected by flames or heat the same way Tomlan and she was. If they wore gloves, it was for the sake of grip and not for the sake of avoiding being burned. If they wore aprons, they were made of cloth, while Tomlan and Luka’s were made of leather in the event sparks were to hit them. He spent more time on individual blades as well. Many times Luka heard area blacksmiths chiding him as he worked diligently heat, hammer, and fold billets. Some even said he folded the metal too much. But Tomlan ignored them. Even when one particular Dragonian “accidentally” knocked Tomlan’s stacked billets over, he didn’t stop his progress. He kept working to ensure his products would get to a satisfying point.

Once a soon-to-be-blade reached enough folds, he taught Luka how to take a metal, “Spring Steel,” he called it, and fold it into the middle of the billet. “This will add shock absorption,” he noted. Once that combination was well heated, he began to hammer in quick succession turning the billet over until it began to elongate into the vague shape of a blade. His heating process was methodical, and he made sure his timing was exact, never wasting a minute in the process. When one billet was set into the fire to be heated, another was pulled forth from the embers, glowing yellow to be hammered further.

Three long broadswords were the end result of such a process, and though they were rough, Luka could tell how they were powerful and well made. The sun was shining through the open end of the room.

Tomlan cursed as he pulled the billet he had been heating from the forge for the axe head. Luka came close to see what his issue was. “This billet is inferior,” he said without giving much of an explanation, but she could see what he meant. Unlike his other billets that she had worked on with him, this one had crumbled along the one side and a large gaping hole could be seen.

Laughter could be heard from across the forge. “How’s the billet treating you, Tomlan?” one of the Draconians called. “Does it not meet your high standards?”

Tomlan spat into the fire and dropped the bad billet back into the flames. He turned to look at the pile of billets that had been knocked over earlier. He grabbed two and felt their weight before tossing them aside. Luka watched curiously before he finally grabbed one he was satisfied with and thrust it into the fire. “We should have been done with the first fold by now.”

“How long will it take for this one to heat?”

“Too long.”

“That can’t be helped,” Luka said before pulling off the top set of thick gloves.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m hungry,” Luka stamped. Tomlan pursed his lips in response. She grabbed the bag that Borg had given to her earlier and pulled out the hunk of bread and the apple. She noticed Tomlan watching her. “Have you eaten yet?” she asked.

“That’s not concern of yours,” he snapped.

She frowned and broke the bread in half along the with the apple and handed him a piece of each. He refused at first but she forced the food into his hands. “You need to eat.”

For a moment, Luka worried he was going to throw the food into the fire and perhaps Tomlan was seriously considering it. But instead, he pulled off his gloves with his teeth and proceeded to eat the modest bounty Luka had shared.

As she ate in silence, Tomlan asked, “Why are you wearing two sets of gloves?”

She looked over curiously to find his expression had changed. She then looked to the tight leather traveling gloves on her palms. “I’m allergic,” she began before choosing her words carefully, “to certain things. Touching them causes extreme reactions to my skin. I always wear a pair of gloves so I don’t accidentally touch something and burn myself without realizing it.”

Tomlan was silent for a moment to her response before nodding. Just as he was about to say something, a messenger came up to him, departing a letter with him.

He took a moment to read it before frowning. “Twelve daggers and four full breast plates by the end of the week?” The messenger shrugged.

“Breaks over,” he sighed. “Our order has just increased on top of what we haven’t finished already.”

Luka frowned but for the first time since she started working with Tomlan, noticed a bit of warmth emanating toward him.

CONTINUE ON TO EPISODE 7!

[notspoondere]

May 2018 List Re-Review

I did this once before for fun and wanted to do it again. For the reference, the May 2018 analysis was here.

If you’re not familiar with the idea, in this post I will be highlighting statements where I made predictions about the shape of the format to come and scoring them based on how accurate they turned out to be, then tallying those scores at the end to see how well I did. Let’s get into it.

(Also, September 2018 list analysis is on the way. I didn’t want to do it at first but have received a request for it.)

Master Peace, the True Dracoslaying King

Yep, this is Luster Pendulum.  He’s now Zoodiac Drident crossed with Apoqliphort Towers, and naturally he’s on the banlist again.  Feel old yet?

To continue on that analogy, I fully expect this deck to go the way of Qliphorts and continue to see play as a stun variant.  Note that nerfed Draco is still a better deck than Qliphorts, unfortunately.

Correct on both fronts: Qliphorts are still bad, and Draco is still seeing play as a stun deck with two variants, one using The Monarchs Erupt, and the other using Ghost Reaper & Winter Cherries, both with the intent of winning by preventing your opponent from playing the game and drawing cards to beat them down once they can’t.

Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis

Woohoo, we won’t get Plant FTK!   With that, I have the feeling we’ll be getting the Aromage Link Monster next set, since that’s the card that enables this FTK.  Once again, a good hit.

Wrong: We didn’t get the Aromage link monster, but who cares. I’m not going to score this because this post isn’t really about my predictions about Konami’s product design, but rather the metagame.

Oh and we technically got a plant FTK involving Samsara Lotus. Whatever.

That Grass Looks Greener

F.

I’ve been a 60-card player since around this time last year, and Lightsworn is my favorite deck of all time, so I’m sad to see this one go, but it was absolutely responsible for 60-card decks’ most unfair hands.  “Oh, you decided to drop Ash Blossom on my Lonefire?  Here, let me just mill a third of my deck real quick and end on Naturia Beast or Void Ogre Dragon with Fairy Tail - Snow and Shiranui Spiritmaster in the GY.  Oh, and you only have three cards in hand.  Sorry, not sorry!”

There’s nothing factually wrong about this since there’s no real prediction, but I would like to mention here that a totally different 60-card deck has seen play since: it turns out that there are some Pendulum variants that legitimately have 60 cards they want to play and wouldn’t have played Grass even if they had the chance. Shine on, you crazy diamonds.

Dinomight Knight, the True Dracofighter

This is the best card in Draco that isn’t named Master Peace, and is the sole reason for why I think the deck isn’t totally dead.  Return and Apocalypse are still absurdly strong cards going first and this card searches them. 

Correct: I don’t think anyone would disagree that this is still the scariest card left in that deck (unless you think it’s Rivalry, but Frogs and Altergeist play that too).

Gem-Knight Master Diamond

Here’s another “spin the wheel” hit; the Gem-Knight that actually burns is Lady Lapis Lazuli, but hitting this hurts the deck’s attempts to play legitimately, too. Problem solved, I guess, but at what cost?

They can’t make Calamities anymore, either, but that matters much less when they can’t actually kill you, either.

Wrong, unfortunately. Gem-Knight FTK has topped once since this hit happened. I don’t know how and I don’t really care. They should have banned Lazuli.

Chain Strike

And there’s a strange hit!  Chain Burn has been a nuisance since, well, the release of Chain Strike, and this hit is kind of out of nowhere, but who cares.  Chain Burn is dead if you don’t draw an insane hand.  Better now than never.

Correct, haven’t seen this deck since. Don’t care to either.

Semi-Limited Cards

Apoqlihport Towers

Ring of Destruction

I’ll take “Cards that have seen no play” for 800, Alex.

Though much weaker in a format with copious Extra Deck-based removal by battle, this card’s namesake lives on as a reference point for insurmountable boss monsters.

This card’s errata in 2015 addressed its infamous problems in tournament by preventing it from stealing games and forcing draws.

Correct.

Neo-Spacian Grand Mole

Compulsory Evacuation Device

Fairy Tail - Luna saw no play and Solemn Strike is still at 3.  Who cares.

Also Correct.

Grandsoil the Elemental Lord

The functional errata is effective already, though we won’t get it in print until FLOD: SE.   Elementsaber buff, though the deck really isn’t good anyways.

I don’t remember getting this spicy. Yeah, Elementsabers didn’t turn out great. Correct.

Mathematician

This is still a solid card, honestly.  I could see it seeing play again in decks that don’t need a Normal Summon, or if they finally unban Construct.  I don’t think that deck’s in the game right now, but it could be soon.

So Mathematician saw no play whatsoever, but I still think it’s because the right deck doesn’t exist; after all, Armageddon Knight is arguably more restricted than Mathematician, and that card does see regular play (in Gouki because it’s a Warrior, in Dinosaurs because it can send Overtex, and in Zefra because it can send Destrudo). All that really proves is that a monster which consumes a Normal Summon in order to send something generic to the GY is good enough to play, and Mathematician is definitely that, so I think we’ll see him come up again once a more useful Level 4 or lower target is introduced for a Type or Attribute that doesn’t already have a better alternative, or for ones that need three more copies of it (with Armageddon Knight, Dinosaurs have eleven cards that send Overtex to GY or search a card that does). For that reason, I’ll call this a maybe--ultimately, as much as I can try to demonstrate that it’s a good card, it depends on whether that deck comes to exist.

Atlantean Dragoons

Dragoons was tearing through boards years before SPYRAL Tough was, and honestly, there’s very little stopping it from doing so now with Light of Sekka in the game (Abyss-scale is a brick and chances are that you don’t run any spells that do anything more impactful than drawing two cards and fixing your hand).  This is kind of like when Charge of the Light Brigade came back to 3: It’s a fairly solid buff to a fairly solid deck.  Add onto that the imminent reprint of Moulinglacia and the new Mermail Link Monster, and the deck is looking like it’s soon to be in a very strong place.

Mermails have seen minor competitive play, but it is certainly stronger than before, and indeed, the deck plays Sekka’s Light over Abyss-scale. Correct.

Ignis Heat, the True Dracowarrior

This means virtually nothing compared to Dinomight coming back to 1.

…

Okay, hear me out.  Ignis was the deck’s best play going second since it grabs Heritage, which plusses off of disruption.  That’s fine, but:

Amano-Iwato stops your opponent from doing anything to stop you already.

You are going to search your spells with Diagram anyways, and you don’t need your opponent to be using effects on your turn to do that.

Heritage is still a disruptable card itself, and the proper play with Ignis is usually to let him hit the board and swing over him later in order to give the opponent Heritage on a turn when they can’t immediately use it.

For these reasons… yeah, Ignis doesn’t actually matter that much.  Draco would still be fine with Ignis at 1, and I don’t really expect that he’ll be run at more than 2 at MOST due to the way optimal ratios work with Card of Demise.

This is a pretty contentious portion of that post and I kind of regret being so bold. Actually going through and looking at what was right and what wasn’t here is a mixed bag because much of it plays upon theory that is half-true and ended up being half-followed. Let’s take a look.

Ignis is an important card in Draco.

Ignis is a good card in Draco, and the deck often plays two or three copies.

True Draco with Master Peace and Demise regularly played the same ratios of eight monsters in the Main Deck: 3 Amano/Boarder, 1 Ignis, and two Majesty and Master Peace.

The current incarnation of the deck plays roughly nine monsters. It has lost two of the previously available ones and gained a potential three more; not counting the other Dracos, this would account for 3 Amano/Boarder and Ignis, 2 Majesty, and 1 Dinomight, but about half of the lists I’ve seen play two Ignis and a sparse few play Dreiath and/or Metaltron.

Waterfall of Dragon Souls is a fair bit more popular now than it was then, too.

Finally, optimal ratios for Demise necessitate as few monsters as possible, but optimal ratios for Desires insist that you play more cards in triplicate than usual.

So with that said: I feel safe in saying Ignis can be justified at 2 or 3 copies, and I definitely feel safe in saying that he’s a worse card than Dinomight. Going off of this, I’m tempted to say I’m right, but my language was a bit too decisive and derisive (surely people would have played 3 Ignis even if it was demonstrably wrong), so I’ll say this was at least partially wrong and call it a maybe.

In the last section, I made a bunch of predictions about various decks; I’ll go over them each and judge how they should be scored. I’ll also tally this separately just to see how well I guessed how the format would pan out; these will not be scored twice if I mentioned them earlier.

Magicians nerfed.  FTK and Zexal builds murdered.  Pure deck is still viable.

Every other pendulum deck nerfed, though pure Metalfoes arguably lost the least. (Zefra didn’t use Astrograph at all, but really needed AFD.)

Magicians are still a tier 1-2 deck (is Gouki tier 0 or 1?). Pure Metalfoes actually really liked having Astrograph, though for what it’s worth, it is the only one of these decks that doesn’t need to play bad cards in order to make Vortex. Zefra also did play Astrograph, though at the time, the only Zefra player I knew complained that it took two slots in a very tight extra.  Maybe on this.

Draco nerfed.  Still viable, mark my words.

Correct.

60-card is dead outright.  The best playmakers are still there, but Left Arm into Grass is no longer valid backup for Lonefire Blossom.  You may see 40-card Dino or Zombiesworn lists in the future given good enough hands, but there’s no good way to fit the Lonefire combo in 40 cards without bricking too often.

So this is a weird one. The Lonefire combo has seen play at least once in the form of a Gouki deck, but that follows a different combo route than the Lightsworn variant did and is demonstrably a worse version of that deck: it’s hard to get more explosive than Gouki already is, and it requires at least two more bricks. 60-card decks as we knew them are totally dead, so I’ll say this is correct.

Gem-Knight FTK dead.

As mentioned above, unfortunately wrong. Haven’t seen it beyond that one time, though.

Chain Burn, for some reason, also dead.

Haven’t seen it since. Correct.

Every deck that plays Destrudo into AFD is nerfed or dead.  I expect ABC and Zefra to survive through sheer power, though both lost much in consistency.

This is correct as it is obvious. Calvin Tahan would top with ABC in Nekroz format if it happened again today and Zefra will be better than the best rogue deck until they start losing copies of Zefraath or get horrendously powercrept.

Invoked are fine, though invoked hybrids lost AFD, I guess.

Invoked didn’t really do much but get power crept. I guess this is wrong? The one Invoked hybrid, AKA the deck with six field spell engines and nothing else, did lose this, but it also literally died. So.

World Chalice untouched.  If you think you’re good at this game, try this deck and realize how wrong you are.

I didn’t make an explicit prediction here, so no score, but I should mention that it did top at least once during this time. The only list I can find doesn’t use Knightmares to their full potential, but to be honest, the deck doesn’t entirely need them; it can still do an extra link and make the opponent discard four cards off of an opening hand Venus and any monster without Knightmare Goblin.

SPYRAL untouched.  Easily a top-tier contender.

Deck was really good for a while, yeah. Correct.

Burning Abyss untouched.  Still a solid deck with proper backrow.

Well goddamn, it turns out Burning Abyss is still a solid deck without proper backrow. Current lists run Sekka’s Light at three copies and more than a dozen hand traps. I’d like to call this a coincidental maybe, but I honestly felt at the time that Burning Abyss was only strong due to its ability to pack in powerful backrow without losing consistency, and in that regard, I was totally wrong.

Paleozoics untouched, though the worst part of their worst matchup is totally gone, and they’re very solid versus Altergeist.  Budget players, keep an eye on this deck.

Paleo Frogs were good for about half of the format and dropped off pretty hard. It’s not like what it does it bad, just that there are more counters to it. Also is indeed a budget deck. Still correct.

Neo-Spacians tier 1, obviously.

AHAHAHHAHHAAHAHHHAAHHAHAAHHAAHHAHAH

This dumbass one-off comment I made has come full circle because Neo-Spacian Aqua Dolphin saw regular play in a tier 1 deck, that being Gouki. It is played because it’s a level 3 Warrior that can mulligan your opponent’s hand of hand traps, and in that regard, it is absolutely unmatched. This card’s burn damage closed out the last game of the European WCQ in time. Do I deserve to be correct for this? You decide. I think so.

Trickstar ANYTHING

This deck has fallen off a bit, but Drollcarnation is still legal and the deck is still a threat based off of that alone.

Another funny one. This wasn’t that true early in the format, but so-called Kid Touch (Trickstar Sky Striker) ended up being a tier 1 deck for a couple of tournaments immediately after the implementation of the new end-of-match procedures, though not entirely because of them, and not entirely because of Drollcarnation, but both together ended up being an unbelievably scary combo: Trickstars could now make Link Monsters without drawing Scapegoat, and Sky Strikers could get even more consistent advantage while also ticking away with burn at a time where it matters the most. Correct either way.

Tallies after eliminating duplicates:

11 Correct

3 Maybe

3 Wrong

64.7% correct, 17.6% definitely incorrect. Pretty good ratio.

[tb5-heavenward]

flight hours

onward and upward, continuing from here. 

4

Scott's led the mechs far enough away that whatever algorithms govern their targeting don't seem to register John as a threat---but TB1's being overwhelmed, and there's only so much banking and rolling Scott can actually do to keep the bastards from getting purchase on his hull and shocking their way through his shields. And to make matters worse, John is rapidly making his approach; Scott can see the little yellow icon closing on his own, though his forward display is clustered and crowded with the bright red of hostile parties.

"What the hell are you going to do?" he demands of his brother, and alters the parameters of his display to render in a proper three dimensions, rather than the flat radial view he'd found useful when trying to determine the pattern by which the swarm was aligning itself. From out the back of the plane, John's gone high, and they're already pretty far up to begin with.

"Make an entrance," is the answer he gets, cryptic and blasé. And then the little yellow icon doubles---triples---its speed, secondary and tertiary afterburners flaring on, as John dives at a sharp angle, heading straight towards the swarm of drones.

"Maniac," Scott mutters, and rolls to the left, bringing his unwanted entourage along with him. Two, three seconds, and then he sees a streak of yellow go shooting past, and the targeting algorithms that had failed to parse John's existence before now get a sudden introduction. Conflicting information ripples through the swarm and Scott's sensors detect aerial impacts around him as the drones attempt to track two targets at once, suddenly working at cross purposes to one another. Scott sees the number of active hostiles on his screen diminish, feels the turbulence through his bird, the explosion of two colliding drones buffets the air outside. As quickly as it had been scrambled, the swarm reorganizes itself, and a handful of the machines break away, take off in pursuit of Scott's little brother.

John seems to have expected this, and his voice in Scott's ear is uncharacteristically giddy. "How many have I got?"

"Eight," Scott answers shortly, and punches the throttle, twisting his controls upwards as he does so, so that his afterburners blaze and flare across the swarm as they move to follow. He incinerates two of them, the rest of them scatter downward, and he covers two, three thousand meters of distance in the space of seconds, before he throttles back, brings TB1 arcing back around, because he can't leave his brother in the middle of this mess. From this angle, far below, he can see that little speck of yellow pursued by a phalanx of black, bright and dark against the sunset-gilded clouds below.

John seems blithely unconcerned by this fact. "How many have you got?"

"Twelve, now."

"You've never been very good at sharing."

Scott grits his teeth. As an afterthought, he reaches up into his interface, pulls up a read on John's vitals. Heart rate, respiration, blood pressure---all elevated, spiking off the adrenaline rush and a flood of endorphins. Scott's pretty sure he's gonna grind his fillings loose as he feels his own pulse, hammering in his ears. He doesn't imagine that his own vitals look great, right at the moment, but in fairness, his brother is only compounding his stress levels, with interest. He's going to get himself killed.

"John, these things are discharging enough electrical current to knock me out of the sky, and you're barely shielded. First hit overloads your exosuit. Second fries the dampening on your blues. Therefore it'll be the third that kills you dead. So you're gonna get your ass up here and get aboard, and then we're both getting the hell out of dodge."

John doesn't answer. From high overhead, descending, Scott watches his brother slam on the exosuit equivalent of the brakes, retrothrusters firing as he throws himself backwards, right into the midst of the little phalanx of drones. Scott's still about a kilometer overhead as his heart skips a frantic beat---but when his sensors detect the pulse of electromagnetism, its centered on his brother. And then eight mechs tumble uselessly out of the sky, with a long, long fall to the surface of the sea below. Theta in action.

So that's that. John's even had the temerity to go and make it look effortless. Piece of cake. Easy as pie. A little voice in the back of Scott's brain, whispered and a little bit hopeful, supplies the words Twelve down, and twelve to go.

There's another hiss of the comm in his ear. And then there's a real voice, the voice of someone Scott's most often supposed to listen to. "The only reason they're hitting you," John informs him, in an infuriatingly superior tone, "is because you declined the ability to hit them back."

Still dividing his attention between evading drone strikes and trying to stay within a reasonable range of his brother, Scott doesn't have an immediate answer to that.

It's possible he should stop feeling quite so self-satisfied about this whole situation, given the likelihood that pride is an a priori type of requirement for a fall, and falling is a particularly serious hazard right about now. There's probably also something to be considered about Icarus, although John's got titanium alloy and a custom polymer composite standing in for feathers and wax, to say nothing of the awareness that the sun is not the biggest threat out here. Greek mythology might be a little more worthy of John's attention if Icarus had ever needed to worry about murderously inclined insectoid mecha drones.

There aren't really many helpful mythological allegories for their current predicament. Aesop's fables rarely concerned the nuances of air-to-air combat.

Not that there's going to be any further air-to-air combat, given the way Scott snaps at him, as though he's done something worthy of a scolding. "Don't do that again."

"Well, I don't think it'll work twice."

"I mean it."

The fidelity on their comms is excellent, and Scott's radio receiver is right by his jaw. John's pretty sure he can hear him actively grinding his teeth.

"I'm fine, Scott," he reassures his brother, twisting in midair and drawing a bead on Thunderbird One, still being swarmed by drones. There's nothing to do but try to formulate a viable plan as he cautiously keeps his distance, a solid kilometer between him and his brother, and Scott still flying around like he's drunk at the wheel, rolling and banking and weaving to try and shake the (helpfully diminished) cloud of drones. "Could use somewhere stable to land, though, if I'm going to get another shot. What was the name of the thing where you toggle your flight controls remotely so you can land on top of TB1?"

"It's Protocol Alpha and I literally spent three hours teaching you how to do it right, but it doesn't matter, because the only protocol you need to worry about right now is Protocol Get-Your-Stupid-Ass-Out-of-the-Sky-Because-We're-Leaving."

"...I thought that was Delta?"

"Now, John."

Scott's voice has gotten terse, taut and anxious, in a way that John recognizes is because he perceives a threat to someone else's safety. His safety. His own flippancy is probably accountable to a higher than normal influx of adrenaline (and what might possibly be a minor head injury, he hasn't yet been stationary long enough to tell if the dizziness has really stopped), a fight or flight response that's rarely activated. In this specific case, fight and flight are so closely intermingled that he can't really do one without the other. Scott's right and he knows that Scott's right, because aside from one successful strike, mostly down to luck and the element of surprise, there's no point to making this a fight. Flight is definitely the preferred option, in this case. There's no rational reason for John to consider what it would take to knock the remaining twelve drones out of the sky.

He's only been thinking it, he hasn't actually said anything, but somehow Scott still manages to intervene in the middle of that train of thought. "We're getting out of here," he repeats, stern and certain. "You need to get back aboard."

"Okay, how?"

"I'm working on it. I'm also kinda busy right now, but maybe you didn't notice."

Backsass under duress is a failing shared by Scott and Gordon, but also a strong and worrying indicator of the degree to which they're starting to really lose control of the situation. Scott's got enough on his plate. How is usually supposed to be John's job, anyway.

It's a problem of speed and distance, like most of the problems they're called upon to solve. John can't recall the exosuit's top speed offhand, but it's orders of magnitude slower than Scott's, and he won't actually be able to get back aboard TB1 unless it's stationary anyway. TB1 can't stop in midair while being swarmed by mechs; John's not sure how well Scott's shields are holding up, but they can't hold much longer. In the slowly darkening skies overhead, he can definitely see blue white arcs of electricity sparking towards his brother's Thunderbird, as the drones attempt to fry his control systems and knock him out of the air. Kayo's still ten minutes out. John's got the means to disable the rest of the swarm, but it would require getting right up into their midst once more, and they're securely on his brother's tail.

It makes him wonder what the objective is, what the Mechanic hopes to achieve. Before now, he's only ever retaliated against their interference in his own endeavours. Given their encounters with him so far, a trap set specifically for a Thunderbird just doesn't seem like his style. John can't help but try and see the big picture, though the broad strokes of the situation are substantially less pressing than the fine, moment-to-moment details.

Still. There are clues in the context, and even as he rockets along, a thousand meters below and behind his brother, he's still trying to think his way through the problem, starting from the beginning. Aerial rescue, practically right in their backyard. Phantom pilot in medical distress, in a situation that would require evac. Cargo jet packed full of drones, programmed to swarm and overwhelm a Thunderbird. If Scott weren't aboard and actively piloting TB1, it's probable that it would've been downed by now, plummeting towards the sea. When John had dive bombed through the swarm, they'd been briefly disarrayed by the appearance of a second target. Whatever the purpose of the trap, it had been set for one of them, not two of them.

So, in theory, two of them together can beat it.

They just need to figure out how.

continued >>

[unfolded73]

This Graceful Path (12/19)

Summary: Emma has just moved in with Mary Margaret and started working as a deputy in the Storybrooke sheriff’s department when she meets Killian Jones, the town’s introverted harbormaster. When a prominent Storybrooke resident is found murdered, Emma tries to juggle solving the case with new friendships, parenthood, and romance. A Season 1 Cursed!Killian AU.

Rating: Explicit per CSBB guidelines (violence, sex); more of an M on unfolded73’s scale. The sex, when we get there, is not extremely graphic in nature. Same with the violence.

Content Warning: This fic contains two major character deaths, one canon and one not. (You’re already past them.)

Total word count: ~ 75,000

Acknowledgements: Thank you to @j-philly-b for betaing this monstrosity. Thank you to @caprelloidea for all of the read-throughs and cheerleading; not sure I could have written it without your excitement early on. Thank you to @teruel-a-witch for the original prompt on tumblr which sparked this fic. Thank you to @pompeiiablaze for the wonderful art which accompanies Chapter 3 and 9 and one later chapter. Thanks to the CSBB mods ( @sambethe in particular, who had to look at my check-ins) for your support and for enduring my neuroses.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 – AO3 Link

Chapter 12

Regina looked at the apple in her hand for a long, long time.

She could remember the day Snow White took a bite out of that apple like it was yesterday. The tears on her face, the sadness in her eyes. The way she had fallen, lifeless, at Regina’s feet. Now she needed that kind of magic one more time.

It had taken a lot of effort to bring the poisoned apple through into the Land Without Magic. It took allying herself with the Mad Hatter once again, making deals she didn’t want to make; it took giving up the last memento she had of Daniel, her first and only love. But finally, she had done it, reached through and plucked a poisoned apple out of that place and brought it through to this one. It was her last hope; if she couldn’t stop Emma Swan with this, then the curse would be broken.

Baking was soothing to Regina, and she secretly loved every convenience in her modern American kitchen. The pleasing fall of the flour in gentle waves from the sifter into the bowl. The precise leveling-off of baking powder in a teaspoon as she scraped it along the sharp lip of the can. The smell of cinnamon pervading the kitchen as her apple slices cooked on the stovetop. The sensation of butter under her fingertips as she blended it with the flour, the little blobs getting smaller and smaller and smaller as she worked. She pulled out her rolling pin, running her hand along the smooth, polished wood, and smiled.

Once the baking was done and the product of her labors was cool enough to pack away, she carried it to her car, glancing at the time on the dashboard. There were still a few hours until Henry was done at school: plenty of time.

Regina mounted the stairs to the loft apartment that Emma shared with Mary Margaret Blanchard, eyeing the peeling paint and the dirt in the corners of the stairwell with distaste. She hadn’t wanted to set foot in this peasant’s dwelling, but when she’d called the sheriff’s station, David had informed her that Emma was taking the morning off and wouldn’t be in until the afternoon. Typical laziness, Regina thought with a sneer. But it would work in Regina’s favor; if Emma was home alone, there was less risk that someone else would eat the apple turnover.

She knocked on the door.

Emma opened it, her eyes widening in surprise. “Regina! What are you doing here?”

Regina huffed. “I’ll excuse your rudeness on account of the fact that you look like death warmed over. Are you sick?” She took a step backward, tempted to cover her nose and mouth with her arm.

“I’m not sick, I just haven’t been sleeping well the last couple of nights.” Emma stood back from the door. “Come in, I guess.”

Regina stepped into the apartment, grimacing at its shabby chic decor. If possible, Snow White’s cursed taste was worse than it had been back in the Enchanted Forest.

“What brings you here, Regina? Come to tell me to stay away from Henry again?”

“On the contrary,” she responded, holding the plastic storage container out toward Emma. “I came to make a peace offering. And to discuss how we might… compromise regarding Henry.”

Emma took the container, eyeing it distrustfully. “What’s this?”

“One of my famous apple turnovers. It’s a very old recipe.” “Thanks.” She set it down on the table. “What kind of compromise did you have in mind?”

Regina gritted her teeth. Even knowing she didn’t intend to follow through with any offers she planned to make to this woman, she still could barely get the words out. “I recognize that once one opens Pandora’s box, it cannot be closed again, and Henry is determined that you be part of his life, no matter how ill-advised I know it to be.” She held up a hand to stop Emma’s protest. “He is still my son, not only in the legal sense, but because I was the one who was there for him from the beginning. I changed every diaper, dried every tear. He may not want to acknowledge it now, but he is my child.” Regina pressed her nails into her palms, trembling with emotion.

“I’m not denying that, Regina.”

“As such, I am not offering you any kind of joint custody. But I am resigned to the fact that you are going to be a part of his life. So you can see him for visits on some school day afternoons, and also for some weekend activities, so long as I approve them.”

She could tell Emma was surprised. “Thanks. Really. I appreciate that.”

Regina nodded curtly. “Let me talk it over with Henry tonight, and then perhaps in a day or two you can have him over here to eat dinner, assuming you’re capable of preparing something more nutritious than grilled cheese.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “I’ll make sure he eats his vegetables, Regina.”

Regina nodded, glancing down at the turnover. “I’ll go, then. Enjoy the turnover.”

~*~

Emma was still in shock as she drove the police cruiser down Route 83. She’d been at a loss for what to do about Henry, had still been half contemplating kidnapping him and fleeing Maine despite Mary Margaret’s logical arguments against it when in walked Regina and surrendered. Or, as close to surrender as she would imagine Regina could ever get.

She pulled up in front of Gold’s cabin and killed the engine. After their impromptu nap the day before, Killian had seemed afraid of overstaying his welcome and had refused Mary Margaret’s offer to stay for dinner. But outside the apartment, saying goodnight, he had kissed her like he might never have the opportunity to do so again, with a desperate hunger that left Emma’s knees weak.

She’d awoken this morning with renewed purpose. The sooner she figured out who had really killed Gold, the sooner she and Killian could move forward with whatever they were becoming.  Calling David and offering to work the late shift at the station, she decided to spend her afternoon going more carefully over the cabin, looking for clues she might have missed the first time.

The sun was bright, melting snow that had drifted down during the night so that it fell from weighed-down tree branches onto her car in fat droplets. Even though it was a cold day, the blue sky and bright sunlight made Emma feel optimistic and hopeful. Things with Killian were good. Mary Margaret and David were disgustingly happy together. Regina was going to let her see Henry. Finally, it felt like her life was settling into place.

Emma tore away the crime scene tape she had David had put up over the cabin door and let herself in.

The orderliness of the main living space of the cabin had led her to conclude that nothing had been disturbed initially, that nothing had been tampered with. But clearly, the killer had been here, based on the blood they found in the bathroom. Perhaps her assessment had been wrong. She went over everything again, looking under furniture and in kitchen cabinets, behind shelves and under rugs. Nothing.

She walked the length of the room, her boots thumping against the wooden floorboards. The murder weapon could be anywhere in Storybrooke, but something about this cabin still niggled at her. The killer had come here and washed the blood off his hands. Wouldn’t it have been too tempting a place to hide the murder weapon, rather than bringing it back into town and risk being caught with it?

She continued to pace, eyes touching on everything in the room.

There was still a voice in her head, whispering that despite her gut instincts, despite her superpower, any logical person in her position should still consider Killian a suspect. She’d argued it around and around in her head all morning, all the reasons he was suspicious, all the reasons he wasn’t. It was driving her crazy. She needed to solve this crime before it was too late, before she fell completely in love with him.

It’s already too late, the voice in her head muttered.

Her foot connected with one of the floorboards, and the rhythmic thump of her boot heel changed timbre. Echoed. Emma looked down at her feet.

The fucking floorboards.

Dropping to her knees, she felt around the edges of the board, feeling it wiggle slightly as she looked for purchase to lift it out. She clawed at the end, fingernails slipping into the tiny gap, and pulled. One of her fingernails ripped.

“Fuck.” She sucked on the end of her finger, then almost slapped herself on the forehead when she remembered she had a Swiss army knife on her keychain.

Using the knife blade for leverage, the board lifted away easily, revealing a narrow dark space underneath. Putting away her knife, Emma pulled the flashlight off of her belt and clicked it on.

At first, the space looked empty, but then she noticed a black lump. Reaching down into the hole, she grabbed it and pulled it out, her hand trembling with excitement.

The hilt of a knife stuck out from a tightly wrapped bundle of black cotton. It looked like a T-shirt, stiff with what must be dried blood. Careful not to touch the knife hilt itself, she set the bundle down and stared at it.

The blade was completely covered, so she couldn’t tell if it was curved like the coroner’s report had indicated it would be. Her hand reached out to start to unwrap it, but then she jerked it back.

In her haste to get out here, she’d forgotten her evidence kits. The last thing she wanted to do was accidentally destroy evidence. Anxious as she was to see the blade, it would have to wait until she could get it back to the station.

Her cell phone rang.

Emma touched the screen without looking at who was calling and put it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Henry.”

“Henry, I’m working right now; what’s up?” Picking the bundled knife up, still avoiding the hilt, Emma stood.

“I just talked to Mom. I think you’re in trouble.”

“Actually, no. I saw Regina this morning, and she’s agreed to let us see each other sometimes. It was almost a good talk.” Emma left the cabin, setting the evidence on the passenger seat of the cruiser.

“Exactly. Something’s fishy. Why would she suddenly change her mind like that? I think it’s a trick. The Evil Queen always has a trick up her sleeve.”

Emma walked back to the door, resecuring the crime scene tape. “Or she’s decided to be reasonable for once.”

“No way. If she’s being nice to you, then you’re in danger.” She could hear a hysterical edge coming into his voice, and the image of Killian pushing Henry out of the way of an oncoming car flashed in her mind.

“Henry, where are you?”

“Pay phone near Granny’s. I couldn’t risk calling you from her house.”

“Okay, okay, just … go to the loft and wait for me there. Can you do that?”

He sighed. “Yeah, I can do that.” He sounded calmer.

“Watch out for cars when you cross the street, okay, Henry?”

“Duh,” was the only response she got before he hung up the phone.

Emma got behind the wheel of the car and looked longingly at what was almost certainly the murder weapon sitting on the seat beside her. She needed to get back to the station and examine it, then lock it up somewhere safe. But she also needed to go calm Henry down.

With a grimace, she put the car in gear and peeled out.

~*~

Henry was sitting on the steps next to the door of the loft, waiting for her.

“Here you are! I was starting to worry that Mom got you.”

Emma unlocked the apartment, ushering him in. “I was out in the woods doing some work. Regina didn’t ‘get’ me.”

“She’s got a plan though, I know it. She doesn’t surrender. She knows you’re close to breaking the curse, and she’s making a move.” His voice rose in pitch.

Tears sprang to Emma’s eyes as guilt churned in her belly. His break with reality was getting worse. Her son was so damaged, and nothing she or anyone else did was making him any better. She’d given him up because she thought it would give him a better life, and instead he was delusional. As poisoned by this town as Graham. As Killian.

“Henry,” she said, swallowing against a lump in her throat. She knelt down, taking his arms in her hands. “There’s no curse. There’s no evil queen. There’s no fairy tale. There’s just us, doing the best we can to get through our lives. Regina too, maybe she’s doing the best she can with a difficult situation—“

“No!” Henry shouted, jerking away from her. His gaze settled on the kitchen table. “What’s that?” he said, pointing at the plastic container that Regina had left.

“I don’t know, some kind of dessert that Regina brought over.”

Henry ran over, ripping the top off. “Is this apple? Don’t eat it,” he said, hysteria in his voice.

“Why?”

“It’s poisoned. This is the trick. She’s trying to curse you.”

“With a poisoned apple? Henry, that isn’t a real thing.” Emma walked over and picked up the pastry. “Here, I’ll show you.”

“No!” he shouted, jerking it out of her hand and backing away. “I’m sorry to do this, Mom. But you’ll be able to save me. You may not believe in the curse, but I believe in you.” He took a bite of the apple turnover.

Emma watched him sadly as he chewed and swallowed. “See? There’s no—“

Henry collapsed to the floor.

“Henry?” She fell onto her knees at his side. “Henry! Henry!”

~*~

“What did he eat?” Dr. Whale was asking her while another doctor and nurses fussed around Henry’s gurney in the hospital room. Emma watched, paralyzed, as an IV needle pierced the tender flesh on the top of his little hand.

“Sheriff, what did he eat?” Dr. Whale said more sharply.

“It was… it was an apple turnover that Regina made. What’s wrong with him?”

“We don’t know yet,” he looked at the monitors. The colored lines and numbers swam in Emma’s vision.

“Could this be, you know, psychological? He was trying to convince me…” She trailed off.

“No way,” he said. “His brain waves are minimal, heartbeat slow and thready. Something happened to him.”

Emma looked around, just in time to see Regina run into the hallway on the other side of the glass wall. Rage poured into her, filling every crevice. Emma hit the doors full force, barreling out to meet Regina head on.

“What the hell happened?” Regina asked.

“You did this,” Emma grated, trembling with anger. “The poison that was meant for me. Henry ate it instead.”

If there was any doubt left in her mind, the look on Regina’s face destroyed it. “No…”

“You hated me so much that you poisoned your own child.”

“I didn’t… it wasn’t…” Tears fell from Regina’s eyes, and she made no move to brush them away.

Emma didn’t care. She felt no sympathy for this monster of a woman. She shoved her against the wall. “Do you have something that can fix this? An antidote?”

Her face crumpling under the weight of her grief and guilt, Regina shook her head.

“Then get the hell away from here. I have no use for you, and neither does my son.”

Emma was too shaken, too horrified by the events of the last several minutes to even be surprised when Regina obeyed her.

It was only seconds later, as she stood in the corridor breathing deeply and trying to calm herself down, that Killian arrived. She didn’t remember calling him, but she figured David must have. Without thought, she stumbled over and fell into his arms.

“Emma, what happened?”

“Henry,” she gasped, but couldn’t get any more words out.

“Dave said something about poison?” She nodded, clinging to him. Now that he was here, she felt like she had to luxury to fall apart a little bit.

“I’m sure the doctors are doing everything they can to make him better. Tell me what I can do. I’ll do anything you need. Anything.”

Emma looked up into his kind eyes. “Just be here. All I need is for you to be here.”

“Always,” he said, and she got the sense that he wasn’t only talking about Henry and the hospital.

Mary Margaret and David ran through the double doors, both of them out of breath. “I’ve got the apple thing,” David said, holding up a plastic bag.

“Take it to Dr. Whale,” Emma said, pulling away from Killian.

“I brought his backpack,” Mary Margaret offered, tears welling up in her eyes. “I don’t know why; I saw it in the loft and I thought he might want it.”

Emma nodded, swallowing against a sob that was struggling to break free. “Thanks, Mary Margaret.”

~*~

Machines beeped, and Emma listened to the beeping, trying to discern if it was getting slower. She felt a squeeze of her hand and she squeezed back, her fingers interlaced with Killian’s.

“Maybe if Dr. Whale keeps working on it…” Mary Margaret said.

“He can’t find anything that would explain Henry’s symptoms. And if he doesn’t find something soon, Henry’s going to run out of time.” A cold detachment was seeping into her. Her son was lying in the middle of that sterile bed, wires and tubes everywhere, looking so small, and she couldn’t do anything. Well, maybe there was one thing she could do. She could wrap her hands around Regina’s neck and squeeze until the life drained out of her.

“Don’t give up hope, Emma. Henry wouldn’t want that.” Mary Margaret, sitting on her other side, reached down into his backpack and pulled out the storybook. “That’s why he loves these stories so much. Because they give him hope.”

“False hope,” Emma said.

Silence settled over their vigil once again.

Killian cleared his throat. “Why don’t I go get us all some coffee?”

David smiled gratefully. “That’s a good idea. Here, let me…” He started reaching for his wallet.

“I got it, mate; don’t worry about it.” He gave Emma’s hand another squeeze, standing. “Do you want coffee?”

She didn’t, but she nodded. Killian left the room, making minimal noise as he did. Everyone was moving around silently, like they were in the presence of death and didn’t want to attract its attention.

Emma watched as Mary Margaret ran her fingertips over the embossed words on the cover of Henry’s book before opening it and paging through. “Maybe I should read to him?” Mary Margaret asked.

Emma frowned, looking at the book. A part of her wanted to burn it. “He wants that story to be true so badly. Wants… wants you to be those people. My parents.” She smiled in spite of herself. “He’s so convinced that Snow White is my mom and Prince Charming is my dad.”

David and Mary Margaret shared a significant look. “Emma, do you ever…” Mary Margaret trailed off, her eyes pleading with David for something.

“What?”

“I’m not saying we’re Snow White and Prince Charming,” Mary Margaret said with a nervous laugh. “But sometimes I think… I don’t know, maybe in a past life or something, we are your parents?”

Before Emma could react to that, David chimed in. “Mary Margaret and I have always felt this pull, like we were meant to be together. Like, no matter what we did or what roadblocks were in the way, we would find our way to each other. And we realized recently that in a different way, we felt the same way toward you. That we’re meant to help you.”

“It’s more than that,” Mary Margaret said. “When you moved in with me, something… clicked, like that was where you were supposed to be.”

“Same when we started working together,” David added.

“I don’t know, Emma; I know it’s crazy,” Mary Margaret said. “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it feels true. Doesn’t it?”

Emma was crying. She wasn’t sure when she started, but tears were running down her cheeks and falling onto her lap. “It feels true,” she echoed, looking back and forth between David and Mary Margaret. “But it can’t be. You can’t be my parents.”

Mary Margaret held the book out to her. “Unless… unless Henry’s right. Unless the curse is real.”

Emma laughed sharply through her tears. “Not you too. You can't believe this stuff.”

“All I know,” and now Mary Margaret was crying. “All I know is what I feel when I look at you, Emma.”

“And what's that?” she asked, her breath hitching.

David got out of his chair, coming over and kneeling in front of her. “I was in a coma for years, and all it took for me to wake up was the sound of Mary Margaret's voice. Anything is possible. What I know is that somehow, long ago, we lost you, but now we've found you again.”

“Henry is the truest believer I've ever known,” Mary Margaret said, still holding out the book. “Maybe he needs some of that belief from us now.”

Emma looked over at Henry, lying there so helpless, and reached out and took the book from Mary Margaret.

A rush of images filled her head.

A woman, screaming as she gave birth in a canopied bed. Tears over the baby. Saying goodbye. A man holding the baby and fighting off four, no five guards. His blood soaking his shirt and dripping onto the floor. Kissing the baby, and putting her in a wardrobe.

“Find us.”

Emma gasped.

“It’s true.”

Suddenly a very different chaos filled her head. Beeping machines. A rush of doctors and nurses. She was screaming. Strong arms pulled her away. Strong hands doing CPR on a tiny body. Regina on the other side of the glass partition, her face a mask of pain. Everything through a blur of tears. A slowing down. A nurse started to disconnect things from Henry. Through it all, Emma clutched the book.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Whale said, and it sounded like his voice was coming from the bottom of a well. “We did everything we could. He’s gone.”

Released by David, Emma stumbled to the bedside. Henry looked so peaceful, lying there. He couldn’t be dead. Death couldn’t be so peaceful, could it?

“I’m sorry. You were right about the curse. I should have believed you.” Her voice sounded strange, high-pitched and reedy. Trembling, tears running down her face, Emma smoothed his hair and bent over. “I love you, Henry.” Gently, she kissed him on the forehead.

Behind her closed eyes, Emma saw a strange, prismatic light, almost as if she’d looked at the sun too long and was seeing some kind of afterimage on her retina. At the same time, a wind blew her hair back, made her stumble away from Henry. Emma blinked, startled, looking around for the source of the disturbance.

Henry gasped, and sat up.

“Henry!” Emma couldn’t believe her eyes. He was sitting right there, breathing, impossibly alive.

“You did it,” he said to her. “You saved me.”

There was a commotion behind Emma, and she looked over to see David and Mary Margaret in each other’s arms.

“You found me,” Mary Margaret said.

“Did you ever doubt I would?” David responded. Both of them seemed very close to breaking down into sobs right there in Henry’s hospital room.

“What… happened?” Emma looked around and saw that everyone, doctors and nurses alike, seemed to be in a state of shock and confusion, but it wasn’t directed at Henry.

“I think you broke the curse,” Henry said.

“Emma,” David gasped. He stumbled over, pulling her into a hug, his hand cradling her head. “Our daughter.” Mary Margaret joined them, her hands clutching at Emma. At a loss for what else to do, Emma hugged them back.

~*~

Regina’s hands pressed against the glass, her heart hammering in her chest as she watched Henry sit up. She laughed with momentary joy. Her son wasn’t dead. Emma had saved him.

Gradually, she became aware that something else was happening. Mary Margaret and David weren’t focused on Henry, they were focused on each other. A nurse dropped a tray of surgical implements in the hall, a look of shock on her face. Dr. Whale ran past, a panicked, crazy look in his eye.

“The curse is broken, your majesty,” a voice growled in her ear.

Regina whirled, coming face to face with Killian Jones. No. Coming face to face with Hook.

He may have still been dressed in jeans, his innocuous prosthetic hand still in place, but it was immediately obvious that he carried himself differently. There was no question that he knew who he was.

“Let me give you a piece of advice, free of charge,” he said. “Everyone is getting their memories back, and they’re realizing what you’ve done.” He leaned even closer, and Regina had to force herself not to back away. “You need to find a place to hide.”

“You killed him, didn’t you?” she whispered. “You killed Rumpelstiltskin.”

He grinned, running his tongue along his bottom lip. “You’ve been trying so hard to get your hands on that dagger. Looks like your time ran out, Regina.” He glanced around as if expecting someone to jump out and attack her at any moment. “Now run.”

Chapter 13