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kyberphilosopher · 3 years

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Reverse Flash

A backwards version of your favorite speedster comes searching for Barry, only to find you instead.

Word Count: 2403 Warnings: Crude Humor. Not proof read yet because I’m too tired.

As per my latest fics, the gender of the reader is not specified.

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

Barry was always nice to you.

Well, Barry was nice to everyone. I mean, his parents named him Barry. He was set up for a life of cheekiness before he was even born. But Barry was nice to you even after ‘the incident’. Barry was nice to you when everyone else stopped. On top of that, Barry was being nicer to you than usual lately.

Probably because he and Iris were having a rough spot.

That was the only annoying thing. Barry liked you, and he was interested in you, but you were still second place. He was just using you. He wouldn’t marry you, or feel a deep longing for you. He’d just take you on ice skating rink dates in the winter and give you the best Valentine’s day of your life every year. Which is everyone’s dream, you guess, but it wouldn’t have been genuine, no matter what Barry managed to convince himself.

Barry’s little support team seemed to be on the same page as you (which was a first), which both added to and subdued your aggravation. All of them were in agreement of the simple fact: you were no good for Barry. Mr. Flash was the only one who didn’t seem to get the memo.

In the very beginning, things weren’t like how they were now. Team Flash or whatever the name was considered you good colleague, and they trusted you because Allen trusted you. You had been friends with Barry longer than anyone else there. And of course you were smart, and you handled annoying journalists and incriminating footage like it was nothing. But then you’d suggested using lethal force to subdue one of the Flash’s biggest problems. That’s when the air changed. That’s when people decided you should not now, not ever go on a date with him. It would throw off the whole rhythm of the team, probably Barry’s morals and possible the timeline. Lucky you.

Though flat out rejecting Barry might make it worse. You had been irritable lately. Maybe a little more sarcastic than normal. What if you snap, and then the team snaps too? And sweet little Barry is too kind to tell you off? God, you knew you were the worst, but the thought alone seemed like more than just ‘the worst’. It was like a tornado of stinky shit just barreling toward you, somehow simultaneously faster than the speed of light and slower than a turtle filled with rocks for organs.

And it was all definitely Barry Allen’s fault.

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

So, that’s why you’re here now. Stuck with watching Headquarters while all the speedsters go out and... speed. Who knows. You’re out of the loop with the whole... speed demon thing. You’re pretty sure they have a group chat without you. Fuckin’ nerds.

Your legs are stretched out to the desk in front of you. They cross over each other at the ankles, to the left of the big computer monitor that’s supposed to display the heartbeats of the team but is instead displaying something from cartoon network. A near empty bag of Chinese food sits at your side, it’s contents littered across the table.

As you chew, you look around the room. Several suits in display cases curve against the wall in a half circle, illuminated by blue light. Some are burgundy, some are silver, and some are golden. And you could smash every single one of them right now.

But you won’t, and you don’t. Not to say it isn’t tempting- it is. You still don’t touch the suits.

God, what’s been wrong with you recently? Barry was your friend, and yet you’d been so annoyed with him. His flirting had only made it worse. Wally wasn’t any better. He got even more annoying once thinking about how childish, yet powerful he was. All the Kid Flash’s were just temporary brats that never stayed, whether you liked them or not. And Iris wasn’t a fan of you. That was fine, because you weren’t exactly a friend of Iris’s either. So the most important part of your life that literally depended on superhuman existence and stopping crime was teetering because of pure social discomfort. Typical.

You’re watching the screen that serves as the closest light in the room as you shovel the next bite of rice between your lips. Neon colors make the shadows across your face feel alive and electric. It makes the glow in your eyes more prominent, encouraged by the childish nature of the media. You’ve just finished a snarky personal comment and given yourself another bite of rice when he appears to you.

He looks like Barry. The only difference is that he’s the complete opposite.

Instead of scarlet, his speed suit is yellow with red and dark grey accents. They remind you of blood lightning at the seams. Even under his half mask, he seems so familiar but so much more defined than your friend. As he exits the slice of colorful air and thunder, the heels of his shoes skidding across the floor, the red glow in his eyes settles into a calmer thrum.

And you’re still frozen in place, eyes wide as you still yourself mid chew.

The yellow speedster settles his orbs on you. They’re intelligent, and in the reflection of the little light in the room you can see they’re not red, but blue. And you? You’re just a deer in the headlights.

“Aw, you’re not Barry,” he groans in disappointment, standing straighter as his arms cross over his chest.

You finally continue your chewing, keeping your wide eyes on the intruder. Then you swallow it down. In your chest, your heart thump, thump, thumps with something. Fear? Not quite. Anxiety? Almost. It’s something else. Something more... intuitive. And the way this man looks at you makes you think that he can hear it, even from where he stands. That he knows.

“Uh... no?”

The man responds not a millisecond after you’ve gotten the words out. “Where is he? Where’s Barry Allen?”

Woof. His voice is throaty and laced with sarcasm, even though he’s clearly deathly serious. But the vibrations send a funny spasm straight to that little place between your legs, making the nerves in your spine dance with alertness. Arousal. Barry was never able to do that, let alone with just the sound of his voice.

“Doing something?” you decide. “I don’t know.”

The golden man cocks his head to the side, almost smirks, and takes a step forward. “Hey, I know you.” His arms uncross. One raises and bends to point at you. “You’re Barry’s tech support. I remember reading about you in his museum.”

Your brows furrow. Hurriedly, you clear the take-out box from your lap and begin wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. You drop your legs from their position on the desk to their normal position on the floor, knees bent. “Uh... I beg your pardon?”

“Yeah... Y/N L/N. Now I see it.” The man leans back on his heels and looks around the room. The red glow in his orbs burn away completely so it’s just him. “Ah, so this must be before you defected, huh? Interesting.”

“Pardon?!” you call again. Now you’re sitting forward, disbelief across your face.

Golden speedster smiles. It looks evilly distorted, even though it’s just a normal smile. It curves his face sarcastically. His hands fly upwards as if in surrender. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Y/N. You know actually, you’re kind of a villain in my time. This is nice for me.”

“Great, I’ll tell Barry when I see him,” you bite.

“Thank you, sweetheart. Now how about you tell me where Barry is before I erase you from existence.”

“I don’t know,” you repeat as the quick bolt of fear fizzles from your system. Your eyes trail down to his chest for just a quick second, but it’s quick enough to observe yet another difference between your familiar scarlet speedster and him. The circle surrounding the lightning bolt on his chest is facing the opposite direction, red, and that circle is filled with black. It’s as if he were the complete opposite of Barry. A reverse Barry.

“Yeah you do. Come on.”

You blink once, still in your roll-y chair.

You’re not sure what to do here. On one hand, this guy radiates pure evil. You should really alert Barry or one of the other members of Team Flash. But for one reason or another you’ve made no attempt to. You’ve got no clue who this dude is other than the fact that he seems more inclined to rip the fabric of time apart than anyone else. There’s no doubt in your mind he really will erase you from existence if you make one wrong move. But what’s the wrong move?

On the other hand, Team Flash has been a bunch of dickhead’s to you. Barry has been ironically slow to the whole thing. Would it be so bad if you did make a wrong move? Not for you, but for your friends? They’d all die, wouldn’t they? This yellow one would end them, and then what? Would it really be so horrible for you? You can’t imagine mourning much.

“I don’t,” you say again, slowly. “They’re in the city. I don’t know where.”

The man seems to think for a moment, cocking his head back so the light behind the glass cases catches his sharpened features. “Hmm.”

Without even blinking, now he’s in front of you. So close, you can smell him. It’s not terribly strong, it’s just masculine. But it’s also flowery, with a dash of sweat from running. And then there’s something more. Something... metallic?

Both his hands clutch the arms of the chair beside you, trapping you as you lean back reflexively. “Did you know that I killed Barry’s childhood best friend before he was born?” the man says lowly.

On instinct, you prepare yourself to say, ‘Barry doesn’t have a childhood best friend’. Then you realize why.

He continues. “Would you tell me where Barry was if you did know?”

You don’t even think about it. You’re true to your nature. “I don’t know, would I?”

Blip! You wait to burst into a cloud of nothingness. To never have been born or even get to be a ghost. But fifteen seconds later you’re still alive. And from the way Barry talks about being a Flash, fifteen seconds is a long time for someone of that caliber.

The man is back by the cases of suits now. You can see his muscles through his suit. They’re more defined than Barry’s, thank God.

“I think you would. But it’s gonna be hard to do that when you’ve got my fingers vibrating into your skull.”

“What?”

“It’s going to be hard to speak when my fingers are inside you.”

You cup a hand against your ear. “Huh?”

“I said-” The man stops. His eyes narrow, arms crossing over his chest once more. “Oh, I see.” A short, dry- but genuine- laugh falls from his throat. “Very funny. Very, very funny.”

Suddenly, your eyebrows crease together in confusion. You place both palms on the arms of the chair for leverage as you push yourself into a stand, as if stirred by some great, important purpose. “Wait. Did you say you were going to stick your fingers inside me?”

“I knew you and I were the same,” he drawls. He sounds entertained. As if in his eyes, missing Barry and meeting you instead was the best outcome he could’ve hoped for.

“Can’t you just...” Your shoulders slump as you glance around. “Just kill Barry and get on with it?”

“Aw, no. This is far more interesting.”

“Fingers in my skull...?” you whisper, half to yourself. Then you look up to him with a snap. “You are so weird,” you tell Reverse Barry, emphasizing it with a low point. “So weird.”

“Want me to tell your future?”

Again with the voice and the nerves in that special place.

“I gotta say, it’s kind of disturbing,” the man smirks. “You’ll love it.”

“Weird.”

Across the base, just two hallways away, something clicks. It’s a familiar click. It’s the click of the door opening.

Quickly, you glance backwards, then lean down to pause the show on the computer. You hadn’t even realized it was still going. Once that’s done, the man is still standing in front of you. That sinister and yet innocent grin is still dancing across his face, though his steely eyes are totally locked on you.

“What, weirdo? You know where he is now. Aren’t you gonna go get him?”

“You want me to so badly, don’t you?” Reverse Barry whispers. You just give him a look.

“I’ll be back for you.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

And then the speedster is gone. Right on time, too, cause Barry jogs into the room not a second later.

“Y/N?”

“Yeah?” you turn around.

“Did I just... see someone here?” Barry points towards your end of the room in his scarlet suit. Huh. Reverse Barry was taller too.

“What are you on about?” you throw casually. “Nobody’s been here but me since you left.”

“Are you sure?” the Flash keeps pushing. You hate it. Pushing.

“Yes, Barry,” you roll your eyes. “I’m sure. Oh, by the way, Barry. Did you have a childhood best friend?”

Barry frowns. “No, why?”

You smile to yourself as you turn back away from him. The other speedster’s footsteps are coming closer and closer. You can hear them echo off the walls.

“No reason,” you answer with a smirk just as one of them enters the room, probably to give you crap again.

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

Fun fact, Reverse Flash is actually my favorite villain in DC comics. Bro is vicious in the comics. I just hate all the live action versions of him we get. Lego DC Villains Reverse Flash and Injustice 2 are the best versions. Injustice 2 is my personal preference. I’d like to do more with this but, who knows. Depends how this is received. #lol

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longitudinalwaveme · 3 years

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Worst Flash Storylines and Plot Ideas of All Time

As you’ve probably ascertained from the general contents of this blog, the Flash is my favorite comic book series. I love the characters and most of the stories. However, just like any series that’s been around for eighty years (counting the Jay Garrick stuff), the Flash does, unfortunately, have some truly terrible stories and plot ideas.

In terms of terrible plot ideas that didn’t completely ruin the surrounding stories:

1. Barry Allen uses the Mirror Master’s mirrors to manipulate Iris into agreeing to start dating him again (Flash #109). Creepy, Barry. Just creepy. The story is great Silver Age fun otherwise.

2. Iris West: meanest woman alive. Iris was, by and large, incredibly awful to Barry up until maybe about a year before their 1966 marriage. Almost every time she shows up in an early Silver Age issue, you will admire her daring and independence (this is good) and be bewildered as to why on Earth Barry would want to spend time with a woman who is constantly calling him slow, lazy, and ambition-less (this is not good). It doesn’t really affect any one issue too much, but when read in a conglomerate, she starts looking really awful. Although as bad as Early Silver Age Iris seems as a romantic interest, she’s got nothing on Silver Age Superman and Lois Lane, the most dysfunctional couple in the DCU.

3. Wally West’s zero-effort code name and costume (Flash #110). It really could not be more obvious how little effort the writers were putting into creating this character. The duplicate origin is also pretty cheesy, but there are enough differences from Barry’s origin for it not to frustrate me. But the name “Kid Flash” and the fact that his first costume was literally identical to Barry’s just feel incredibly lazy. Barry and Wally do have an adorable dynamic in the issue, though, so it’s by no means all bad.

4. Barry Allen waiting an entire year after his marriage to tell his wife that he’s really the Flash. Frustrating and unnecessary; especially since Joan Garrick had been in on her husband’s secret since the 1940s.

5. Iris Allen is FROM THE FUTURE. I both love and hate this idea. It’s so perfectly comic-booky, but at the same time, it opened the floodgates for the Allen family being a confusing, time-displaced mess.

6. The Trial of Barry Allen. This one’s weird. I like many of the individual issues in this arc, and I actually think the last two issues are really great as an ending for Barry Allen’s original run, but this storyline dragged on for waaaaaay too long. There’s a reason I call it the Arc that Never Ends. Also, the titular trial is actually the least interesting part of the entire storyline. His battles with the Rogues and Kadabra are far more interesting.

7. Wally West’s borderline creepy, chauvinistic attitude towards women under Mike Baron (and, to a much lesser extent, William Messner-Loebs). There’s being a hormonal twenty-something, and then there’s going through girlfriends at the rate other people change their socks. Messner-Loebs mostly avoided this issue by making it clear that Wally was under intense psychological stress that was negatively impacting his behavior, but under Baron and in some of his JLE appearances, he comes across as a real creep around women.

8. Kadabra overkill under Mark Waid: I like Kadabra, but when he’s the main villain in like four distinct arcs, it gets to be a bit much. It’s like modern Eobard. He is legitimately written well, though, so he doesn’t drag down any of the stories too much.

9. Pointlessly Dead Rogues: Killing off the Rogues in Underworld Unleashed for no good reason (the rest of the story is great, especially the Trickster).

10. Pointlessly Dead Rogues 2: Electric Boogaloo: The Golden Glider’s pointless death to build up a character who was himself killed two issues later. (The rest of the story is decent.) Also, the treatment of Lisa in general post-Crisis is frustrating, since she becomes considerably more unhinged than she was before.

11. Any time Waid tried to write McCulloch, with the exception of Flash vol. 2 #105 (and even there, he seemed off). It’s like he forgot Evan wasn’t Sam.

12. Apparently, the Top trying to blow up both Central City and half the world makes him a loser? Also, he suddenly hates Piper for no readily apparent reason. (At least the story had some good Piper and Wally bits.)

13. BARRY ALLEN HAS A SECRET EVIL TWIN! DUN DUN DUN! (The rest of the story, where we get to meet a whole whack of interesting future Flashes, is actually pretty good, but whoo boy, the Malcolm reveal feels like it came straight out of a soap opera.)

14. In order for Captain Cold to ANGST, the Golden Glider’s pointless death remained in place for over ten years. It did give us a really, really good Capt. Cold story, at least...but it’s still fridging.

15. Rainbow Raider’s mean-spirited murder by Blacksmith. Poor Roy.

16. Albert Desmond becomes Hannibal Lecter, only twenty times as rude, for a Gotham Central arc that would’ve been terrific without him as the main villain.

17. Owen Mercer is an idiotic child murderer and gets killed by the Rogues. Why was this necessary? (The rest of Blackest Night: The Flash is pretty good.)

18. Josh Jackam-Mardon’s murder. The murder of small children for shock value is pretty gross. Especially since nothing was ever really done with it.

19. Barry’s PARENTS ARE DEEEEAAAAD! (Okay, it’s really just his mom, but still. This is a very frustrating retcon, since originally his parents were alive and well until after his own death.)

20. Albert Desmond was Barry’s jerk coworker; which never impacted the plot or led to anything. As a result, it’s just another frustrating retcon.

21. Sam Scudder murdered someone before becoming the Mirror Master. Yet another Johns retcon that never went anywhere and only serves to darken the Silver and Bronze Age stories after the fact.

22. Flashpoint (a decent story) wiped out a whole bunch of characters I really liked from existence for several years. Evan McCulloch’s still not back.

23. Giving the Rogues metahuman powers doesn’t suit them, on the whole. They work better without them.

24. Roy’s second pointless, brutal death in (I think) Forever Evil.

25. IT WAS MEEEEE, BARRY! After serving as the main villain for like six arcs in eight years, I’m glad that Eobard finally seems to be getting a rest. The level of bad things he was responsible for was getting ridiculous.

26. Sam/Lisa. WHY? (The only time it even kind of worked was in Forever Evil.)

In terms of entire storylines I didn’t like:

1. The Flash: The Most Terribly Written Man Alive. Poor Bart is aged up with no adequate explanation, loses all the traits that made him a likeable character, fights some awful villains, and then is murdered by the badly OOC Rogues. Meanwhile, Inertia goes from an at least somewhat sympathetic villain to a complete psychopath with little explanation, a murder is retconned into one of Captain Cold’s reformed periods, the Pied Piper and the Trickster completely forget that they’re supposed to be reformed, Abra Kadabra inexplicably teams up with the Rogues despite generally being a solo operative, and all of the Rogues act like total morons, willingly following a teenage speedster for no adequately explained reason. UGH.

2. Countdown to Infinite Crisis: Even though Piper and Trickster were probably the best part of Countdown, that isn’t saying much. Both of them are uncharacteristically stupid (especially James), and James is a grade-A jerk to Piper for no reason. Also, both of them continue to forget that they reformed, and then James gets brutally murdered and Piper almost loses his mind. Also, the other Rogues cameo, and continue to act like idiots. Countdown: it really does ruin everything it touches.

Superboy Prime will kill you! He’ll kill you to DEATH! And after you read Countdown, you’ll wish he had killed you to death.

3. The Identity Crisis Tie-In Retcon: So, you know all that awesome character development the Rogues have had over the years? Well, forget all that, because it was all just Roscoe brainwashing them! Which was something he could definitely do before this story! And why did he do this? Why, because Barry Allen, one of the most upstanding men in the DCU, brainwashed him! Also, apparently, the Top had a huge bodycount that we never heard about back in the Bronze Age, because we need even MORE grimdark retcons for our cheerful Silver/Bronze Age history! I like Geoff Johns’ work, I really do....but BOY HOWDY does he need to lay off on the retcons sometimes.

4. Identity Crisis: With the exception of Owen’s introduction and the establishment of the relationship between him and Digger, this story was pretty awful all around. More specifically, as far as the Flash was concerned, it was responsible for Digger’s second pointless death. It also killed off poor Jack Drake and poor, mistreated Sue Dibney, who deserved MUCH better. And the Justice League, including Barry, are A-OK with brainwashing, apparently. Comics are fun!

These last two stories are pretty recent, and they did have some parts I liked, but on the whole I felt they also belonged on the list.

5. The Trickster finally returns! Hurrah! Except it turns out that he’s way more like the Joker now than he ever was before, and he mind-controls the city in a super-creepy way. A very disappointing return for the character, especially since it was set up really well.

6. Forever Evil: Captain Cold becomes a murderous dictator with a stupid Santa Beard, all of the Rogues get horrible costumes, and Sam completes his mutation into Evan-in-all-but-name. There are some good characters bits in the story (even for Cold), but on the whole, I found the story to just be unlikeable and depressing and thought Cold was pretty out-of-character. Poor Commander Cold....

So, what are your least favorite Flash storylines and plot ideas?

#flash comics #flash rogues #dc comics

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lanthimo · 2 years

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Hi, I was wondering if you have any reading list or tips regarding to Barry Allen and Bart Allen? Thank you!

Hi! I am gonna be honest, I have always been disappointed in DC for giving so little to Bart compared to Barry or Wally. It just annoys me so much, yes, I am petty, when I see Barry and Wally fans are fighting about who is the better Flash or who should be the main Flash and I am like, "when will Bart's time come?!" And I am not happy with DC comics for the past 3 years so I don't read a lot of comics, I am out of the loop recently I guess but assuming you mean where to start...

Hmm, I don't have a reading list but if you ask my opinion (and experiences) a lot of people find it easier to start with N52/Flashpoint (but if you read Dastardly Death of the Rogues without knowing anything about Flash history I guess it'll very confusing) because, well, it's a reboot after all. I know a lot of people hate N52 but a big part of N52 Flash comics are just really soft and sweet and nice thanks to Buccellato and Manapul. Nice art style, lovely romance between Patty & Barry, love the romance between Piper and David, characterization is ok, David and Patty and James actually have personalities for once lol etc. I think it's a good way to start because it's not... how do you say, demanding. It doesn't require any prior knowledge, it doesn't burn your brain by pulling a bunch of weird terms and powers and character backstories that you don't know anything about. So it's almost relaxing to read (except the Future Flash bullshit plEASE - plus no one likes to look at Brett Booth's art, my sleep paralysis demon has his Flash's leg muscles). Rebirth, on the other hand, has lots of pros and cons. There are some good moments, I loved August but I mostly dislike Joshua's characterization, not only of Barry but also of the Rogues. I always felt like Joshua didn't know or care about Flash before and he was just trying to do his wannabe Batman angst-fest with constantly using Barry to write stories that give very childish messages like "yooo our heroes can make mistakes too!11!!! they aren't always right!1!! wow I am the first one to think of that great idea!1!1 I will use this same plotline and message like 10 times!11!!" a lot of decisions made by characters, their motives, their bitching etc don't make sense and doesn't feel realistic at all and he completely misses that "Flash magic" which made most of us Flash fans in the first place. I don't know, it just doesn't feel like Flash comics. Also, I really dislike how Speed Force basically became The Force from SW or some weird shit like that. And Joshua just made it worse imo.

While I am a huge fan of Silver Age comics and actually like them more than modern ones, I think you have to start with the new ones like N52, Rebirth (I hate Joshua's Barry but it's just my opinion) because it's easier to get familiar with due to the popularity of superhero movies in mass media. So they will feel more "natural" compared to bizarre SA comics at first. BUT if you know the basics, you must read Flash & Green Lantern: The Brave and the Bold imo. LOVE LOVE LOVE THAt one. Always love seeing Barry interact with his buddies.

For Bart, I think you can read Impulse comics or Flash vol.2 or The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive but... TFMA is... ugh. Don't like that one.

Oh, and I wanted to share my messy opinions but you should definitely ask this question to @villainapologist because she is so well organized compared to me and I am sure she has a reading list ready to share lol plus she's the best Flash Fam fan out there so... you can ask her anything and she'll know the answer!

Sorry for this very messy very unhelpful answer, I have been working non-stop for the past 7 days and my brain stopped working I guess lol

#this is me finding an excuse to bitch about joshua's barry lmao

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mooncustafer · 3 years

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Recover, Regroup, Roadtrip

Agent Dale Cooper disappeared in March 1989. The case is still open. Agent Dale Cooper disappeared in October 2016. The case is still open.

for @laughingpinecone /

/ @countdowntotwinpeaks‘ WONDERFULXSTRANGE 2021

“Diane, I am uncertain of the date and time, or indeed if such concepts have any meaning in this place. Nor do I have my recorder, but I find verbalizing my thoughts helps me to resist the confusion and lethargy. As for addressing my words to you, even though you’ll never hear them— well, old habits die hard.”

It pleased Wally Brando on a profound level to discover that a few pay-phones remained in Philadelphia, that reaching out was not yet the prerogative only of those who could afford a landline or a mobile. He could also have checked his email on a terminal at one of the city’s Public Libraries, and indeed, made a note to do so within the day so that he might catch up on the news of parents and former school friends. The pay phone was also blessed with both the yellow and the white pages, and the number he sought appeared under “F.” Getting transferred to Dr. Albert Rosenfield was a more complex quest, but he was persistent as well as polite, and after a few minutes he was able to speak to Dr. Rosenfield’s voice mail, if not the man himself.

He introduced himself with salutations, and was about the explain the nature of his request when a beep signalled that the allotted time had run out.

“To listen to your message, press one. To re-record your message, press two,” said the voice of the machine.

Silently cursing his volubility, Wally pressed two. This time he simplified the introduction, and asked if Dr. Rosenfield would be good enough to meet him that evening at the Morimoto Japanese restaurant not far from the FBI offices, to discuss a matter of deep concern connected, he believed, with the little town of Twin Peaks. When the beep came this time, he listened to his message and then, satisfied, hung up. The restaurant he’d named was slightly above his means, but he was meeting a friend of his godfather, and wanted to do justice to the occasion, even if the reason for it was one of peculiar anxiety to himself.

“Diane, I have tried so many times to escape— on the last attempt I really did get out into the world, but my plans, I fear, had dire repercussions for you, and to no end— my course still led me back to the Black Lodge. Some flaw in my own nature keeps trapping me in this loop; perhaps it’s what they sometimes call Saṃsāra.”

It was Agent Tammy Preston’s custom, when scraping the internet for information relevant to one or more recent cases, to check her email inbox every seven minutes— to do so every five minutes would disrupt the flow of her work, but ten-minute gaps might let something important go unanswered for too long. Just now the inbox was due another glance, and switching tabs she saw that two minutes earlier Director Bryson had replied to Tammy’s email of that morning with an invitation to come by her desk at her earliest possible convenience.

Tammy locked her screen, paused ‘Soft Fuzzy Man’ on her playlist and removed her headphones. Picking up the folder marked Missing Persons, 1989– Palmer, she slipped back into her pumps and made for Bryson’s office. The door was open but Tammy stopped at the threshold and rapped on the wall.

“Come in,” said Director Bryson, looking up from a folder. Bossa nova music played softly in the background as Tammy entered and pulled up a chair. It sometimes puzzled Tammy that apart from herself and Director Gordon Cole, no one in this particular division of the FBI seemed to have any interest in music recorded after 1979. (The first few times she’d heard ‘Du Hast’ pounding through the walls of Cole’s office, she’d wondered if this taste for metal was the result, or perhaps the cause, of his hearing loss; but after he’d joked to an unamused Agent Rosenfield about how these were difficult times and difficult times called for Dave Brubeck, she’d looked up the reference in case it was a coded message, and then the next day had overheard Gordon whistling ‘Mister Sandman,’ a song she knew primarily from an internet meme, at which point she concluded that the ear wants what it wants, regardless of demographic.)

“You told me you’d found some serious inconsistencies in the records surrounding Twin Peaks and the Palmer case?”

Tammy nodded, hesitated:

“I believe there may be inconsistencies as well in my own perceptions of the case.”

“Well now, that I find a little harder to believe.” Bryson smiled, but then her voice grew serious: “I’ve looked over the notes you made, and it confirms my own doubts about events.”

“Worse yet— the fact that I truly left the Lodge and then returned to it, will enable the beings that inhabit this place to take another twenty-five year turn in my likeness, unleashing even more evil on the world. The only thing stalling them is the doppelgänger I had MIKE make for the Jones family, but I don’t know if he’s still under the White Lodge’s protection.”

After all these months it still surprised Harry Truman there was so little physical pain, and so much boredom, to dying. Oh there’d been pain at the beginning, when he’d started treatment and had had to stop drinking; the memory of detoxing still made him shudder. But now he only felt a tiredness too huge for sleep to make any dent in it; and since he couldn’t sleep all the time, there were a great many hours during which all he could do was lie in the hospice bed or sit in one of the hospice chairs, and think.

At this point dying didn’t even sound so bad— it wasn’t like the past three decades had been all that great. He imagined going to sleep, just filling up a big bowl of silence and darkness and sinking into it, and then he felt bad for thinking that because Frank had already lost enough people without Harry lighting out too. Anyways, with the things he’d seen over the years he’d be a damn fool to think there was anything peaceful about death and whatever came after. So he’d lie awake trying to find some other topic to ponder, and that’s generally when the boredom set in.

Right now, courtesy of the nap he’d had in the afternoon after today’s treatment had left him especially exhausted, he was lying awake in the wee small hours. 3:52 am, said the clock on his bedside table beside the stack of paperbacks Frank had brought him on his visits— Harry wasn’t afraid of e-readers the way Lucy was of cellular phones, but he found the smell of paper comforting. It reminded him of the Bookhouse. The hospice tended to smell of disinfectants and sweat and soup. The food actually wasn’t as bad as the food at the hospital in Twin Peaks used to be, not that any food could be as bad as the hospital food in Twin Peaks used to be, but it made no difference to Harry, whose appetite had been gone for months. Frank always brought a slice of Norma’s pie too, carefully sealed in an old cookie tin to keep it fresh, but Harry could never manage more than a couple of bites, and they didn’t always stay down.

Being awake in the middle of the night in a hospice wasn’t as bad as being awake in the middle of the night when you were alone at home— the occasional voices or footsteps from the corridors beyond were reminders that whatever might be happening to Harry, life went on for the staff; and the lights from the city outside showed that life went on for others outside the hospice walls. When he’d first arrived, those city lights had made it hard to sleep, but now they substituted for the starry sky above Twin Peaks. There were fewer birds to watch in the city, though sparrows, pigeons or a starling sometimes lit on the ledge outside his window and peered in at him, or maybe at their own reflections. The frequent rain pattering against the glass— well, that sounded the same here as it did in a cabin.

Frank had called to tell him about Margaret Lanterman. Harry sometimes wondered if he should have stayed in Twin Peaks and died in his own home like her, instead of lingering in this hospice like the doomed heroine of some nineteenth-century novel. Or like Annie Blackburn. Or Audrey Horne.

The rain was spattering now against Harry’s window, bending the light from the Japanese stone lantern in the pocket-sized garden below. Harry couldn’t remember what the hospice building looked like from the outside, but he guessed it was similar in style to the mid-century one next door where the day-patients came for their treatments. A flash silhouetted the roofline; five seconds later came the thunder-crack. Harry settled back and closed his eyes.

Sleep pulled him into dreams of an espresso machine, like the one in the coffee place down in the lobby next to the gift shop for visitors. This machine filled a whole room, metal pipes feeding back on themselves like some kind of espressouroboros, neither steam nor coffee escaping from the grotesque contraption. Agent Cooper stood wearily before it with two empty coffee-cups. Harry was just wondering who the second cup was for, when Coop looked up and met his eyes:

“What year is this?!”

Harry sat up in bed, listened intently for two full minutes, but he didn’t hear Coop’s voice again. He sighed. Sometimes the mind pulls imaginary sounds out of the background noise. False pattern recognition or something— Coop would have known a word for it. Harry had little hope left they’d ever find Cooper, or if they did, that he’d still be the man he’d known. Yet he’d carried on, more (he told himself) out of habit than any real hope. He’d kept in touch with Agent Rosenfield, even when it meant letting him know about the cancer— not that Albert would blab the secret to anyone in Twin Peaks.

“Hello?”

“Good, you’re still alive.” Albert’s personality hadn’t mellowed with the years, exactly, but familiarity had worn the edges off his jibes.

“Shut up, Albert. So what have you found?” Albert’s calls generally came every three months, but never at nine in the morning, and he’d last spoken to Harry only two weeks back. Something important must have happened.

“Actually, Sheriff Truman, I’m the one coming to you for information.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, it’s not easy to do investigations from a hospital bed. What can I tell you that you can’t get from other sources?”

“I need you to summarize the Laura Palmer case back in 1989, and the actions of Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks at that time.”

“Albert, is this one of your damn cognitive tests? You already know—”

“We’re both too tired to argue, just humor me.”

“How detailed do you want?”

“An outline will suffice.”

Harry took a deep breath and briefly listed the finding of Laura’s body, and the living but dazed and injured Ronnette, and the arrival of Agent Dale Cooper to lead the investigation. He skimmed over the crimes of Jacques Reneault and some of the other peripheral drama that had occurred in the town around that time, noted that Leland Palmer had murdered his own daughter, albeit while not fully himself, and was beginning to recount Cooper’s temporary suspension and Windom Earle’s campaign of terror, when Albert interrupted:

“You’ve still got the unofficial version, then.”

“Unofficial?”

“According to FBI records and your colleagues at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Office, Laura Palmer is an unsolved missing-person case.”

Harry began to feel sick.

“Goddammit, Albert, you did the autopsy. I punched you and you fell across her body. You found a broken poker chip in her stomach—” Albert broke in:

“I hadn’t disclosed that detail to anybody I’ve questioned about this.” His voice was a little shaky. “Listen, Harry,” he continued. “Last Friday I was contacted by a young man wearing motorcycle leathers and talking like Jack Kerouac on quaaludes.”

“Wally.”

“Naturally I supposed him to be from your iodine-deficient neck of the woods even before he introduced himself as your godson and the offspring of those lieutenants of yours. He told me he’d come because he wasn’t sure where else to turn. Apparently he keeps in touch with his parents as he rides across the continent, but in their most recent conversation he’d noticed their memories of certain events had become confused. I was about to tell him I wasn’t the least bit surprised, when he added that he’d checked with other townsfolk, including your brother, and they all seemed to have had the same— how’d he put it? ‘The walls of their memory painted over like a childhood bedroom converted to a study.’”

”That sounds like Wally, all right.”

”Eventually he got round to explaining why he’d come to me. The message that had prompted him to call home was from Lucy; she said she’d shot a suspect who was attacking your brother Frank. She’d also mentioned some FBI agents arriving a few minutes later.”

Harry swallowed. He tried to imagine Lucy shooting anyone:

“Frank never said anything about this.”

“And when Wally called home, Andy and Lucy not only denied it had happened, they had no idea what he was talking about, not that I’d guess that to be an unusual state of affairs. Anyway, after I sent your godson away, I began to have contradictory memories myself of what Cooper had told me about the case. I remembered the poker chip after waking in the middle of the night from the worst dreams I’d had since medical school. I’ve been telling myself it was a false memory, maybe a composite of all the young female murder victims I’ve had to examine in my career, but I told myself I’d make one more phone call, just to check. And now you confirm it. Also, in my recall you knocked me across Leo Johnson’s body. Thanks for the correction. Are you still there?”

“Yes,” Harry answered, glad he was already sitting on his bed.

“Now that that’s established,” said Albert’s voice on the other end of the phone: “here’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: when do you remember Agent Cooper disappearing?”

“March 1989.” Harry tried to keep his voice steady, as though he was giving evidence in court. He briefly explained about the Black Lodge and Coop’s reappearance and unsettling behaviour and how he’d checked himself out of the hospital and was never heard from again. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Are you still there, Albert?”

“According to FBI records and, up until two days ago, my own memories: Coop disappeared this past October while driving to Odessa, Texas for a case. The last record of him was a credit-card charge at a motel just outside the city.”

“What was he investigating in Odessa?”

“Missing person. I’ve tried looking into that case, but it seems to be a dead end, especially since Coop never seems to have arrived at the diner where the man he was looking for had allegedly been running drugs.”

“Sounds like the kind of establishment where nobody’d admit anything. Maybe Coop did get to the diner.”

“Gee, you’ve cracked it Sheriff, we would never have thought of that. The diner was old-school, but not so old-school they didn’t have a security camera trained on the front counter. We went over three days worth of footage. I admit we can’t be sure he didn’t slip in through the back for some reason; but you knew Coop— can you honestly picture him entering a diner and not ordering a coffee?”

“Not the Coop I knew, but— I already told you he was acting pretty erratically just before he took off.”

Harry heard Albert sigh.

“I’ve been checking with a few of my colleagues who were involved in the original Palmer investigation. I think Gordon knows something, but being Gordon he’s saying nothing, and as loudly as possible. Denise— Director Bryson, now— remembers the unofficial version, and according to her so does Agent Preston— oh right, you never met Agent Tammy Preston, the poker-faced glamazon computer hacker— I’m not sure she was even born yet in 1989, but she was on a case in Twin Peaks in October 2016, and during the course of the subsequent paperwork, she started noticing a lot of records and statements didn’t match up, and then she realized her own memories didn’t match up. Which brings up another problem with trying to reason this out by conventional methods: something in that Salem’s Pacific-Northwest Lot of yours is rewriting memories, documents, maybe the facts themselves. But so far it’s predominantly affected the people who were on the spot this past October.” Albert’s voice rasped a little from the long phone call, and he paused to clear his throat. “Unfortunately, that also means the people most likely to remember the original version of events are people who weren’t in the Sheriff’s Office during the incident that seems to have triggered the change. At the risk of sounding like one of those bullshit shows on the History Channel, we may never know exactly what happened that night.”

“Wait, what even was the case that brought you all back in 2016?”

“That’s the problem— I’m one of the people who was there, and I only have vague and disconnected memories of a British man with a gardening glove, the chorus of Guys and Dolls, Agent Cooper leaving the room with Diane, his secretary who quit the FBI decades ago, and Gordon, and only Gordon coming back.” Albert paused again. “It goes against my personal feelings and medical opinions, but would you be willing to let me visit you in person? I’ve some vacation time and enough frequent-flyer miles that the trip will probably cost less than the long-distance charges if we continue this conversation.”

Harry opened the drawer of his bedside table and took out the key to Coop’s old hotel room:

“Yeah, come by.”

“Diane, I am currently alone. I realize that statement implies that I’m not always alone here, and indeed I sometimes have a companion, who I still think of as Laura Palmer, though I don’t know if that’s her identity anymore; I’d hoped, after my last attempt, that Laura would no longer be in this place at all. She comes and goes, or perhaps we both come and go and our orbits occasionally intersect. I’ve tried to find some pattern to it, but with no reliable way to measure time, I’ve had little success.

The last time we met she told me about a room she hadn’t seen before, all white walls, in which a dark-haired woman was contemplating a mirror with a puzzled look. I can’t help but feel this parallels my own situation.”

“Frank sent me this last month. But when I thanked him the next time he called, he didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.” Albert hesitated before taking the room key:

“Great Northern Hotel,” he read, turning it over. “Twin Peaks. Isn’t the front desk going to want this back?”

“Unless I miss my guess, it’s from 1989 when Coop was staying there.”

Albert’s ears stuck out more noticeably, or perhaps it was his face that was thinner. He’d spent the first part of his visit scrutinizing Harry and questioning him about his case and what the doctors were doing for it, until Harry told him to quit it or he’d run out of time to discuss Coop’s disappearance before visiting hours ended, and anyway weren’t Albert’s patients usually dead to begin with?

The trouble with the subsequent discussion was that it went in a circle— the people who’d been present for the 2016 Unknown Event had uncertain memories of what had actually happened; and the people who clearly recalled the 1989 Palmer case as a murder hadn’t been present for the Unknown Event. The one thing that seemed likely was that there was some connection between the 1989 case and the 2016 case, particularly since both had been followed by the unsolved disappearance of one Agent Dale Cooper.

“I hate to say it, Albert, but I’ve given up hope on ever finding Coop.”

“What’s hope got to do with it?” Albert asked. His tone was not sarcastic.

“Diane, I’ve decided that, if only to keep my mind occupied, I will go looking for the white room and the woman with the mirror. I’d feel happier if I had a ball of twine or some breadcrumbs to leave as a trail back to the waiting room, but I’m coming to terms with the idea that’s there’s no advantage to remaining or returning here— it’s not as if I need food or drink in this place, and I cannot be any more lost than I already am.

So far, I believe I’ve walked down five identical red-curtained hallways, and turned left five times. It therefore seems likely that I’m following a counterclockwise, roughly spiral path, although I’m uncertain if I’m proceeding inwards or outwards.”

“If this search is going to require juggling two sets of memories, then I’d better come along so you don’t get brainwashed again.”

“Sheriff Truman, if you haven’t noticed by now, you’re in a cancer hospice.”

“I just finished a round of treatments, I’ve got a couple of weeks free.” Albert snorted and Harry added: “You can monitor my health while we’re on the road.”

“I’m already thinking of your health. You’re immunocompromised, travel is too risky.”

“We’re crossing a few state lines, not going to the other side of the world.”

Albert pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Fine. I’m driving. Which also means I get to choose the music.”

In fact, they went most of the way by plane, after Albert weighed the odds and decided five hours in a tube of recycled air would still be easier on Harry than a two-day road trip. Some of the passengers threw suspicious looks at Harry’s N95 mask, but they’d cleared it in advance with the airline, and Harry had briefly removed it when he went through TSA, and Albert was prepared to flash his FBI badge, but the flight crew were understanding.

They picked up a car at Midland International. Someone, presumably an employee of the car-rental company, had left a bundle of tourist-attraction pamphlets on the front passenger seat.

“According to these, Odessa has replicas of the Globe Theatre and Stonehenge,” Harry observed once he’d got himself settled.

“Why?” Albert asked.

“Got me there. The pamphlets don’t explain the motivation.”

Albert reached up and pulled down the car’s sunshade on Harry’s side, though the Sheriff insisted his cowboy hat was protection enough for his pale scalp:

“We’re not in the northwest where it rains every fifteen minutes,” he muttered, “and I’ve been looking up the side effects of your meds— you sunburn easily now.” Albert’s driving skirted the city, and they did not pass the Globe or Stonehenge.

The Pearblossom Motel, last recorded location of Agent Cooper, proved to be closed down. They’d noticed the papered-over windows as they pulled up, the sign unlit, not even to say NO VACANCY, but Albert got out to knock anyway. Harry watched him from the car; eventually he clambered out and slowly walked over to join him.

Albert was peering through a spot where the paper had torn away behind the window-glass. He stepped aside for Harry, and the sheriff took a look into the motel’s dim interior. He saw an ordinary, rather old-fashioned registration office, wood-grain panelling on the walls along with a few faded posters for local attractions. Rows of keys still hung on a board behind the desk, and a daily calendar read October 15, presumably the date the motel had closed, or the approximate date— Harry could imagine a concierge might not bother to keep tearing off the pages if they knew it was their last week on the job.

“I now realize that despite everything, I’ve still been harbouring hopes of finding my way back to the waiting room, hence my continual choosing of left-hand turns, as if attempting to mathematically navigate a maze. I must make a true leap of faith if intuition is to guide me, so I’ve closed my eyes and spun around several times in this corridor, first clockwise and then counterclockwise.

Now that I no longer can tell which direction I’ve come from… Diane, can you hear that? Of course you can’t, I don’t really have my tape recorder. I’m going to fall silent and listen for a bit.”

There seemed little else of interest at the motel (Harry, feeling a bit silly, had even tried the Great Northern’s room key on all the doors), so they turned back towards Odessa to look for the diner Cooper had been investigating. The motel was only a mile behind when they saw, ahead of them, a tall woman walking along the highway, her fire-engine-red hair, black t-shirt and pencil skirt out of place in a locale that was rural to the point of emptiness. Albert swore under his breath.

“This can’t be a coincidence,” he told Harry. “Roll down your window, I’m pulling over.” But the woman only threw a glance at the car as it slowed, flipped them the bird, and kept walking, though she stepped gingerly and Harry noticed she was barefoot on the asphalt. Albert leant across him and stuck his head out the window:

“Diane!”

“Fuck off, guys. I’m not Diane, and whoever she is I bet she’d tell you the same.” Harry gently pushed Albert back and leant out the window himself:

“Sorry, ma’am, mistaken identity. Are you all right though? I see you’ve mislaid your shoes.”

“Looks like somebody ran off with them,” the woman answered, her tone mocking despite the tired set of her shoulders. “I haven’t been up to anything illegal, officer. Just a bit of fooling around.”

“We can give you a ride into town,” Harry offered. “If it helps, you’ll be alone in the back seat— means you can get the drop on us if you start to feel nervous.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at the offer, then abruptly barked out a laugh and opened the back door of the car, took a seat and folded her long legs in after her. “Only because I need a lift,” she insisted, rubbing her bare feet. “I knew office romances were a bad idea, but he didn’t have to be a dick about it. Nothing to do now but go home and drown my sorrows in Hallowe’en candy.”

“You’ve still got candy left over from Hallowe’en?” In the mirror above the dashboard, Harry saw Albert raise an eyebrow and the woman in the back seat frowned, insulted:

“No! I may not have a maternal bone in my body, but I’m not going to give the trick-or-treaters candy that’s a year old.”

“Ma’am,” Harry asked, thinking about the calendar back in the Pearblossom Motel office, “what date d’you think it is?”

“Mid-October,” she began. Harry saw her reach into her purse with her black-and-white nails and pull out a mobile phone. Her eyes widened at the date: “No, it’s March. The fuck?—” She ran a hand through her scarlet hair. Harry wondered if it was dyed or a wig. Perhaps she was bald too. “Must be losing it. I was so sure it was October. And it’s not like I’ve could’ve been wandering around this desert for five months.” She tapped her phone screen. “5,230 messages?!” She looked frightened now, raising her head to meet their gaze in the mirror. “Where the hell have I been? And you guys— you’re feds, aren’t you?”

“No,” Harry began.

“I am,” said Albert. “He’s not.”

“Well, can you tell me what’s going on? Or is it classified? God, it’s not aliens, is it? I always assumed alien conspiracies were bullshit to cover up real conspiracies.”

“It’s probably not aliens,” Harry answered, unable to keep doubt from his voice as he remembered Major Briggs, “but I afraid it’s not going to sound any less weird.”

“To start with, we’re in the area investigating a colleague who disappeared in October,” began Albert, “and then you turn up, apparently amnesiac since that date.”

“And with my messages unchecked since then.”

“Yes, but there’s another detail— you look exactly like a former colleague of mine who was close to our missing man. That’s why I called you Diane when I slowed down.”

“I need a smoke.”

“No.”

“Albert,” Harry interrupted, “I’ve already got cancer, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Do you want me to answer that in detail?”

“No I don’t.” Harry turned to look over his shoulder at the woman in the back: “Just roll down your window first.”

“We’ll pull over and she can step away from the car,” said Albert.

He stopped on a shoulder, and their passenger got out and lit a cigarette. Examining the packet, she called to them:

“Three left. That’s fewer than I remember having on me in October, but not by much.” Albert, meanwhile, had pulled a shopping bag from the back seat:

“You should eat something,” he said to Harry, producing a sealed cup of applesauce and a box of plastic spoons. Between rounds of treatment, Harry’s nausea receded, but his appetite was still pretty weak. “There’s saltine crackers, too.” Harry chuckled in spite of himself as he tore the foil off the applesauce:

“This all makes me feel like I’m home from school with the ‘flu.”

“You’ll have to watch Roadrunner cartoons on your own phone, I’m not paying for the data,” Albert snapped.

“I’m surprised we even get reception out here.” The red-haired woman had strolled back to the car with her cigarette, though she took care to stay downwind from Harry’s rolled-down window. “Guys, is it just me or is this highway really deserted— like, Rod-Serling-voiceover deserted?”

“We were just thinking Roadrunner cartoons.”

“Can’t be, there’s no weird rocks.” She flicked ash onto the pavement, “Though it does feel like if someone painted a tunnel entrance on a wall around here, you might be able to drive into it. If you weren’t a coyote.” She took another drag and glanced at the power lines humming above their heads. “Maybe it’s the hum from those wires that’s giving us brain cancer— oh sorry, dude.” She broke off and looked at Harry in apology.

“It’s all right, ma’am,” he said when he’d finished swallowing his mouthful of applesauce. “I’ve got leukaemia, not brain cancer. And the sound from those lines is unpleasant. Like the whine of mosquitoes in the woods.” As he spoke the hum intensified, becoming a loud crackle. Albert glanced up as a shadow fell over the three travellers and their car.

In the sky a dark, nebulous shape twisted, circled, formed a comma or an apostrophe, and dove towards them.

The first few grackles, out of thousands, came down on the roof and hood of the car. Harry could see one pecking at the windscreen and glaring at him with hard yellow eyes. He suddenly remembered Coop had been afraid of birds; until now, he’d never been able to imagine why. He turned and pushed open the back door as the woman dove inside the vehicle. Around them, the flock blotted out the landscape.

“Hope they don’t scratch up the finish,” Albert shouted over the sound of wing-beats, “or I’m not getting my deposit back.”

“Is this nesting season? I mean, are the grackles round here normally this—”

“Oh fuck, one got in!” came a yell from the back seat. Eardrums ringing, Harry turned to see a small black shape ricocheting around the car’s interior as the woman flailed her long, bare arms. The grackle made for the gap between Albert’s seat and headrest.

And got stuck, its beak not quite touching the back of Albert’s neck.

Harry reached for the little feathered body, thinking of how to pin the wings against the bird’s sides to avoid injury to it or the surrounding humans, but the moment his fingers touched it, it crumbled. At the same time the din outside the car ceased.

“That— that’s not natural.” Their passenger was covering her mouth with her hand. Even Albert looked shocked. Harry stared at the palmful of ash that was all that was left of the grackle.

“Let me get a sample bag,” Albert muttered. He pulled out a small clear plastic bag, and held it out while Harry poured the remains in. Then he handed him a packet of wet wipes. “You all right, Diane?” The woman in the back seat did not correct him on the name this time.

“Couple of scratches,” she said, examining her right arm. Albert passed her a mini first-aid kit. Got to give him his dues, he prepares for everything, thought Harry, adjusting the brim of his cowboy hat.

“Y’know,” he said, “This could be a good sign. In that it’s any kind of sign. There’s nothing worse than working in the dark, waiting for some hint you’re getting warmer or colder— that’s the kind of thing makes you wonder if the thing you’re looking for is even out there at all. But this—”

“Someone tipped their hand, you mean, when they tried throwing a Hitchcock movie in our faces,” Albert cut in. “But what exactly did we do to worry them?” His glance, and Harry’s, moved to the dashboard mirror’s reflection of their passenger.

“You think the birds were after me, or wanted to break up our merry band?” She raised an eyebrow. “Trouble is I know a token effort when I see one.”

“Or a warning.”

“We found the Pearblossom Motel;” Harry thought he saw the woman flinch at the name. “And then left it, to head for Odessa.”

“Are you suggesting we drive around in circles and see if they attack again?” Albert muttered.

“I think that’d be a little unfair to our passenger.” Harry turned to her: “Ma’am, I believe Albert when he says he knows you; but I also believe you when you say you don’t remember him. We can drop you anywhere you like— your call.”

“Give me a few minutes, fellas. Given all the weird shit I’ve just been through, I’ve got to think about whether I’m safer away from you two, or sticking close by. Plus I’ve got messages to check.” She took her phone out again. Without taking his eyes off the road, Albert pulled his own phone from his suit jacket, passing it to Harry:

“You’d better check mine. Maybe Tammy’s got some news—she’s been looking up everyone connected with events in Twin Peaks, but not living in the area. She even emailed some couple in Japan, though I’m still not sure what they’ve got to do with this.”

Harry peered at Albert’s phone screen, occasionally commenting if something looked to be of interest:

“Gordon’s sent a grudging OK, tells you to be careful. Also tells you to look after me. I’d always imagined he’d type in uppercase— didn’t realize it was him at first. Hm. Do you know a coroner?”

“I know lots of coroners, we get together for an annual poker tournament and lucky draw. And when I say draw…”

“Do you know a Dr. Talbot in Buckhorn?” Harry interrupted. “Autopsied a headless body last September that turned out to be Major— wait, he— is this one of those revised timeline things?”

“Not exactly.” Albert brought Harry up to date as best he could on Major Briggs’ disappearance and decades-later reappearance. “I certainly remember meeting Constance,” he added, after a pause, and cleared his throat again. “According to Tammy, I made a favourable impression on her, which is… unusual among my acquaintances, even those who share my profession. So what does she have to say?”

“Something about a wedding ring and Schrödinger’s Cat?” Harry looked at the message again. “She says Tammy spoke to her, and was going to contact you too… a gold ring they found on Briggs… sorry, in Briggs… keeps disappearing from her office’s records and the FBI’s evidence files, then coming back again?”

Albert frowned in thought as he drove: “Does it have anything engraved on it?” Harry tapped a message on the phone screen, CC-ing Constance and Tammy.

Outside the car, suburbs, or at least car dealerships and big-box stores, were beginning to sprout up along the highway.

Albert’s phone pinged and Harry read the message from Constance:

“Yes, scribbled it down last time I could find the record. This ring any (wedding) bells? TO DOUGIE, WITH LOVE, JANEY-E”

“Janey-E,” said Diane from the back seat, and Harry heard her drop her phone. Turning around he saw her wringing her hands, the nails now robin’s-egg blue. “Albert,” she gasped, “Oh, Albert, I was almost lost again.”

“I believe the change in method may have led to a breakthrough: I haven’t found any rooms leading off of the corridor I’m following, but the decor has gradually changed from black-and-white flooring and red curtains, to dark brown linoleum flooring and institutional green walls hung with large relief maps of different parts of the world. The maps appear to have been manufactured some time between 1954 and 1965, as they show North and South Vietnam as separate nations. I’m just passing the continent of Antarctica, now, and… oh. I think there might be…

Diane, I found the white room, and when I call it that, I’m not simply echoing Laura’s name for it. It was like a cross between a sanatorium and a snow cave, if a snow cave had furniture. There was a bed with white blankets and a white metal frame like a hospital bed. Audrey was sitting on one end of it, wrapped in a white bathrobe and looking at a round mirror that stood on a little white table. She turned as I entered, and her face was older, drawn and, for a moment, frightened. Then she looked at me again and relaxed, saying ‘Oh, it’s really you.’ I fear she must have met one of my nastier doppelgängers at some point.”

At Diane’s request, they stopped to eat at a fast-food chain before approaching the diner Coop had been investigating in at least one timeline.

“I’m hungry, but I’d be too nervous to eat at the place where Dale might have… well, if they’re a front for something, then the food’s either spectacular or terrible, and I’m not feeling lucky right now. I want to be someplace as bland and mundane as possible for a while, so I can regroup.”

“Well this place has a twenty-minute limit.” Albert jerked his thumb at the sign.

“That’ll do.” Diane curled up beside Harry in the booth as Albert went up to the counter to place their orders. She still wore her pencil skirt, but on on of their stops she’d purchased tennis shoes and a couple of fresh t-shirts— the one she was wearing at the moment read NOT TODAY in flowery letters. “Now he’s got two of us to worry about,” she said under her breath. Harry decided to reply:

“Someone needs to worry about him.” Diane nodded, and Harry offered his hand: “Sorry, we never did the proper introductions did we? Harry S. Truman.”

“I know.” Her expression relaxed slightly. “I see why he likes you.”

“Not sure Albert likes anybody, exactly—”

“That’s not who I was talking about.”

Albert returned with a eye-searingly-orange plastic tray:

“Mushroom burger, cheeseburger, buttered biscuit for you, Harry, because they can’t just serve toast like a real restaurant and those things they claim are bagels are made out of lies.”

“Don’t worry Albert, I’ll survive a biscuit.” Harry picked up one half of the baked item and took a bite. It wasn’t too bad, actually.

“Diane, the ring that jogged your memory—”

“My half-sister and her husband. Don’t ask me how they’d be mixed up in this though, Janey-E’s aggressively normal.”

“And her husband?”

“Never actually met him. Janey-E and I don’t talk much,” she explained. “But from her comments he’s… passively normal. Works for an insurance company, drinks too much sometimes, the whole man-in-the-gray-flannel-suit thing.”

“I’ve been talking with Audrey, or the version of her that existed in the white room. You’ll notice I use the past tense. Still sitting on the bed, she raised a finger and pointed to the mirror in front of her, saying:

‘The other me— she ran away from home, like she thought Laura had done. I’m amazed she survived her first year in the big city, but look:’

Diane, I saw Audrey searching records online, tailing suspects, testifying in civil and sometimes criminal courts. It’s a life that can make a cynic of the kindest soul, but there are situations the police don’t or can’t investigate, and those were— are, I suppose— Audrey’s bread and butter, in that mirror world. And they seem to pay well enough she can afford to do some pro bono cases.

‘I wish I were out there,’ she said, and the mirror clouded and shifted. She patted the bedspread, and I sat down beside her. ‘You know how,’ she began, ‘when you’re a kid, and you’re reading your favourite book, and a little after the halfway point, you start to think ‘I’m getting near the end of the book?’ And really, you’re not— there are pages and pages left of scenes and pictures. You’re always surprised just how much more there is. But it’s not enough to shake the feeling it’s putting off the inevitable. Dawdling before bedtime.’ She stood up suddenly, bent and kissed me on the brow. ‘Say hello to the other me, if you ever run into her.’ And then she was gone, Diane. Not in flame or fadeout, just gone.”

I look up, and Laura is beside me.

The diner, when they found it, was not what Harry’d pictured. Instead of a lonely Edward Hopper tableau, or a grimy spoon where toughs whispered to each other along the lunch counter and cast knowing glances in the direction of the men’s room, “Wispy Dreams Cafe” was a blandly cheerful donut shop, the logo rather obviously altered from that of a national chain.

“Looks like they’re under new management.” Diane observed as they got out of the car. “Or else they got tired of paying for the franchise?” The three of them made their way across the parking lot the cafe shared with the landscaping company next door. Inside, the sound of chattering customers and a hum from the coffee machine both soothed and overwhelmed. Harry steadied himself against a gleaming, cream-colored formica counter. The woman on the other side— not a fresh-faced high-school senior or a kindly-faced matron, just a woman with her hair in a ponytail and circles under her eyes, doing her best to smile— threw him a glance and Harry nodded.

“I’m ok. Albert, Diane, what do you two want?”

A couple of minutes later, they sat by the window, feigning interest in their donuts and coffee.

“Well, we’re living the cop cliché,” whispered Albert. “So, what do you think? Soulless suburban hangout, or den of villainy?”

Harry gingerly sipped the brew in his cardboard cup and eyed the other customers. You couldn’t say the place wasn’t busy; the woman at the counter had already served a family of four in the time it had taken Harry, Albert and Diane to seat themselves with their coffees, and another customer had just come in the door.

“That counter’s been installed recently. Deep-fat fryer’s been replaced too.”

“And they don’t know how to use it yet. You could wax skis with these donuts. That’s hardly a crime, though.” Diane looked around at the blue and yellow walls painted with large trompe l’oeil sprinkles. “Doesn’t seem to be anything else funny about the place— I hate to say it but this place might be legit.”

Harry watched the new customer lean in to the counter. Harry couldn’t quite make out what he was saying— presumably the man was placing his order, but it seemed to be taking a while and there was something tense in the woman’s expression. Beside him he heard Diane swear under her breath, and faster than he could turn his head, his peripheral vision took in that she was getting up. She strode towards the counter and Harry had a glimpse of the angry red scratch on her arm as he struggled to his feet.

Diane was leaning on the counter now, trying to insert herself between the customer and the worker.

“What did you just say to her?” she was asking.

“Look, I come in here all the time, we joke around. What makes you think it’s your fucking business?”

“What seems to be the trouble?” Harry loomed up behind the customer— he might have only half his usual strength but he was still a good six inches taller than the other man. Behind him, he guessed, Albert was approaching. Harry knew the agent was unwilling to use physical force and not exactly skilled at defusing situations through diplomacy, so he turned his gaze on the customer with all the quiet confidence he’d used as Sheriff. In his ear Diane hissed:

“It’s nothing to do with the case, this asshole’s just creeping on the staff.” She must’ve locked eyes with the man too, for he was staring at her now, his bland pink features shifting expression from anger to terrified fascination.

Rather an unimpressive face, thought Harry, and then, what’s Diane doing? He turned to look at her sharp, smiling profile, and saw a tear slide from her eye.

“No,” she said loudly and abruptly, and blinked hard. “Do you want us to escort him out?” she asked the woman behind the counter; but the man was already out the door and running for his car.

“Diane,” Harry whispered.

“Diane,” whispered Albert. Diane was passing one hand across her eyes.

“I could have fried him. Just now. Something wanted me to; but I just wanted him to back off.” She beamed at them as Albert held out an arm for her to steady herself. “I think I’m back to normal. Well, normal for me.”

“Are we the only two left here now?”

“I’m not even here anymore.”

“I don’t know how to get back to the waiting room.”

“It doesn’t matter, the coffee’s cold.”

Somehow, the white room has become even more featureless, despite that being both a logical and a grammatical impossibility. Only the bed, the table and Audrey’s mirror remain. A moment in the glass catches my eye, and I look to see— oh Diane, I’m so glad you escaped! I see you travelling with Albert, and… oh, Harry…

…the cafe’s fluorescent lights flickered as the background hum, noticeable since their arrival, now rose to an ear-splitting volume then died away just as suddenly. As the three of them looked on, an old-fashioned hospital bed, its steel frame painted white, materialized between the counter and the booths, replacing two unoccupied tables. At one end of it sat Agent Dale Cooper, fully dressed in his suit and tie, a look on his face of mild surprise that turned to the familiar joy as his gaze met theirs. Coop had grown older like the rest of them, sharper angles in his face, but he looked hale and well, and his eyes did not have the cruel gleam that chilled Harry’s memories of their last meeting.

“Harry,” he said, as though a quarter-century hadn’t passed. In response Harry silently doffed his cowboy hat, revealing his pallor, his naked scalp. Coop’s smiled wavered a little. “I’m sorry I was gone so long,” he whispered, and rose from the white bed. In the background, the cafe staff and patrons continued to chat and serve and drink and eat coffee and donuts as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on right in front of them. Albert made a hesitant noise in his throat and Coop raised his hand in that just a moment gesture he always used to make, and in that moment Harry knew his friend really was back from wherever he’d been all those years.

“Apologies for being brusque,” Coop said, “but there’s a family in Las Vegas who I’ve reason to believe are in danger right now—”

“Janey-E?” Diane asked.

“Right on the button. For personal reasons which I’ll explain later, I can’t get in touch with them myself. The Mitchell brothers might be able to help, but I don’t know how much they’ll be able to recall of our last meeting.”

“Tammy and Constance are already on it.”

“Good,” Coop looked relieved, and Harry stepped forward, shaking a little in spite of himself, and as if the motion had at last given him permission, Coop sailed forward and embraced him— very gently, as if he feared Harry might break. He’s gauging by touch how much weight I’ve lost, thought Harry, but it’s all right. He’d forgotten how warm Coop was. He became aware of Albert and Diane joining in, arms circling his shoulders and Coop’s. If I died right here and now, it’d be all right.

But this embrace was not an epitaph, or an epilogue. Outside, somewhere else in the city, was an imitation of an ancient stone monument; and a copy of an old theatre where real audiences watched real actors. Somewhere the forces that had sent the dark cloud of grackles prepared another attack, and somewhere Tammy Preston was moving to protect Janey-E and Dougie Jones. Elsewhere Audrey Horne walked the mean streets and was not herself mean. This was an interlude, but let them have it for a while.

A couple of patrons turned their heads to smile at the reunion going in their midst.

#wonderfulxstrange #@laughingpineapple #twin peaks #@laughingpinecone

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therealrosebuddies · 4 years

Text

I’m over it... I swear

Pairing: Wally West x Batsis!Reader (who can resist a good batsis??)

Warnings: None!

Description: Drabble from a story I might post, I’m dipping my toes back into some DC stuff. Reader is obviously a batsis, but wasn’t a superhero till a few years ago. She was just recently inducted into the Justice League- where she runs into a old childhood friend- and crush. Another thing? He doesn’t recognize her with the mask on. If I wrote a series, hijinks would ensue ( batfam stuff, an actual plot, wally x reader things). It’s been a while since I’ve actually been excited to write, so writing a series would be fun. Anyways, enjoy!

You didn't have a crush on Wally West. You didn’t.

Well- you didn’t anymore- childhood crushes don’t count.

Even so, it was hard to stop your heart from skipping over itself as the speedster sped over to you, curious to meet the newest addition to the league. You stiffened, waiting for the inevitable realization to dawn on the hero.

“Hi, The Flash, fastest man alive?” The hero offered, striking out his hand with a pose that would have made you giggle if you had been a few years younger.

But you were an adult. You were a mature, seasoned 19-year-old. And you were used to Wally theatrics, even if he didn’t know it.

You waited for a moment, watching as his green eyes flashed across your face, hand hovering in the space between you.

Wait.

WAIT.

You blinked for a moment, almost as if you were waiting for Wally to laugh and then nudge you in the ribs. He had to be joking. But he wasn’t. There was no recognition in his eyes, no familar twinkling. Instead, you were face to face with the full force of his flirting.

He didn’t recognize you.

For a second, you felt angry. You had known the guy for what... nine years? And he can’t recognize you through a mask and costume? It made you feel little, almost as if you had been invisable before.

But then you realized something. If he didn’t know who you were, you could mess with him. After all, you knew all of his tricks.

You smirked, lips curling mischievously. The former Kid Flash’s eyes widened, unprepared for a positive response to his flirty introduction. You shook his hand, cocking your head at him.

“Seraph. Interdimensional diva- and is that how you usually get girls? By being fast?” You asked, delighting in the way Wally’s cheeks colored red under his mask.

Sure, your heart was beating fast too, but you were sure that was a side effect of the atmosphere. Nothing else. That- and you loved seeing the seemingly cocky hero knocked off his feet for a chance.

You watched with satisfaction as Flash let out a weak, abrupt chuckle and released your hand, suddenly growing bashful. If this had been five years ago, you would have been giggling, elated that you had managed to elicit such a response from Wally West. But that was before you had become a hero, before you had given up your infatuation. Now you just felt drunk with power, a giddy high that you would be riding on for the rest of the day.

Your brother on the other hand, was just wondering if anyone would recognize you. At this point, a majority of hero’s that had worked with each other knew each other’s identities. It just came as a side effect from working together as long as they had and made logistics easier in the long run. But you had only been a hero for four years. An eventful four years where you had risen into the major leagues, but still only four years.

Almost no one knew your secret identity.

His best friend didn’t know he had tried flirting with his sister.

Dick glanced at you before speaking, gauging your reaction.

Smug.

He glanced at Wally.

Flustered.

Nightwing, clearing his throat, clapping his hands together.

“Well, we really should be moving on now- Seraph has a lot that she hasn’t seen yet.” Dick explained, beginning to lead you by the shoulder, “New initiatories you know? Still tons to go through. We’ll catch up later.”

You could still feel Flash’s eyes on you as the door slid shut, separating you and your brother from the redhead. The two of you stood in the hall, Dick’s hands tight on your shoulders as he let out a sigh. You turned your head slowly, a toothy grin spreading across your face.

“Did you see that?”

“(F/n)-”

“He had no idea who I was! Absolutely none.”

Dick jerked his head to look at you, disbelief plain in his expression.

“Look, just give him a few days, he’ll figure it out.”

“No way! Do you know how good that felt?” You exclaimed, slipping free of your brother’s grip and beginning to walk backward down the hall. “He flirted with me. Me! You get the irony don’t you?”

Nightwing let out another sigh, well aware of your childhood pining. Of course he got it. But he also knew that you were taking this the wrong way- that somehow Wally had never considered you cute or likable. He knew that hadn’t been the case. Yes- Wally had been dense, but that had been his only sin. At that age, Wally had been attracted to almost anybody. He just hadn’t been good at figuring out when someone was attracted to him.

Still wasn’t.

Dick also knew that the longer the two of you kept Wally in the dark, the more he would never hear the end of it. From either of you.

“I’m going to tell him if he doesn’t.”

You frowned, arms quickly folding as your eyes grew dark.

“You don’t see me telling everyone your secret identity.”

“That’s because my teammates already know mine.”

You turned away, glaring out through the window. Dick was right- and you knew that. It would be the more rational thing to do. You knew Wally well enough that you knew your identity was safe with him. It would make things less complicated and easier to explain.

But you couldn’t do it.

That rush of elation when you realized Flash was attracted to Seraph- it had felt amazing. Which you would only admit to yourself and only on the grounds that it was a form of retribution for the hours you had spent thinking about him. If you revealed your identity- then that victory would go away. He would go back to looking at you like Dick’s little sister, a childhood friend. For some reason your heart shuddered to think about it, hands growing clammy.

Besides, the more people who knew your identity, the more likely chance a villain could get a hold of them to find out. And that would be bad- especially for your family. The Wayne’s couldn’t be compromised.

You shook your head, letting out a decisive breath.

“No Dick. He doesn’t need to know. It’s better if (F/n) and Seraph are two different people.” You ruled, arms crossed and chin high as you stared at your brother.

You braced for an argument, one that you were sure would keep up for the next couple weeks. Instead, Nightwing groaned, reaching over to you and slinging his arm over your shoulder. You grunted and squirmed as Dick pressed you into his side, squeezing just a little too hard to spite you.

“Fine. It’s your choice. It’s a bad one, but it’s yours.”

You wiggled your head, freeing your hair as you glared up at him.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I make great decisions.” You huffed, supporting Nightwing’s weight as the two of you made your way down the hall.

Dick shook his head, ruffling your hair.

“Of course you do. Just know I’m not going to cover for you when this blows up in your face.”

“As if that’ll ever happen. I’m good at keeping secrets.”

Unfortunately for you, your ‘great decision making’ was about to be the catalyst for the messiest get together in league history.

Something that neither you- nor Wally West ever saw coming.

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skylarmoon71 · 3 years

Text

Harry Wells x Witch Reader-(Flash) Short Story: Chapter 3

You enjoyed days where you could just chat freely with the girls. They gave off the same vibe as the Vera sisters. By nature you were fairly outgoing, making friends had never been your problem. Your gaze strayed to Harry in at the back for a fleeting second.

"At least with most people."

"It must be awesome being a witch. I have to admit I'm a bit envious." you flushed at Iris's praise.

"It is kind of cool. Learning from Mel and her sisters was honestly the best part. I never really grew up with my brother, I found out pretty late. So for the longest while I was on my own. Back then I wasn't even aware of what I was capable of. I thought they were crazy." you laughed at the memory. Iris and Caitlin were listening intently. Harry was at the back writing some equations on the board.

"I can relate to that. I had no idea that I had a younger brother until recently. Now I can't imagine life without Wally. It's crazy." The conversation was easy, but you mind didn't feel like it was fully in it. Your thoughts were reeling of all that transpired since you left Seattle.

At first your reason for coming here was basically for a break, but somewhere deep down you knew the real reason behind your leave. You'd been running. Away from your brother, from home. Lately it's just felt hard.

"Why did you leave if life was so great." your head turned at the question, and the way Harry peered at you, it brought a chill, it was like he could see right through you. You didn't even know he was listening.

"It's...I-I just.."

"Harry enough." Iris snapped. She could tell by the look on your face that it wasn't a comfortable subject. Your head lowered. You'd really thought you were making some progress with Harry, but it seemed he still didn't trust you. You stood. "Excuse me." Just like that, you were walking out the cortex.

"What's your problem Harry?" Iris rarely ever raised her voice, and more than anything she respected Harry. He was a mentor to Barry, and father figure to Cisco and a good friend to her. But these were one of the times where she really needed to put him in his place.

"I'm just asking the questions everyone wants to neglect. She showed up with no warning, and we have very little knowledge of what she's capable of. There's something she isn't telling us and no one seems to recognize that."

"Of course there is Harry, do you really think we're that stupid." His brows furrowed, and Caitlin wore a similar look of understanding.

"We all have things we don't want people to know about Harry. You of all people should know that. When you told us about Jesse, we understood. She's family, you'd do anything for family. (Y/N) is a little older than the rest of us, you'd never be able to tell by just looking at her. Her philosophy through pain is to smile. At the end of the day, that's all we can really do." Caitlin conveyed.

Now he was getting the bigger picture. Maybe the reason behind his mistrust was because he'd been hiding secrets from team Flash, by attacking you it was somewhat of a defense for him, because he was afraid that he was getting way too close. You were getting too close, and he didn't know if he'd handle it very well if you turned out to be an enemy. So subconsciously, he was trying to nip it in the bud before any feelings could grow.

"I should...apologize." Iris smiled, moving and giving him a comforting pat.

"There's the Harry I know. " He huffed, heading off to look for you. Both women just grinned.

"He so has a crush on her." Iris commented.

Caitlin laughed. "Definitely."

~~~

"Really thought we were getting closer." you were starting to wonder if it was worth the effort to pine for Harry. You'd been around him long enough to realize he was a little stoic, sometimes blunt, but that comment really hit close to home. You weren't trying to be his enemy, far from it.

Sitting in the speed lab, you stared up at the ceiling. "Great life.." that was laughable, your life was far from perfect.

"(Y/N)." your eyes shifted to the entrance, and your shoulders tense. "Don't look so guarded, I didn't come here to attack you again. " you forced yourself to relax. Usually you didn't mind being around him, but now you just couldn't really look at him.

"I came to apologize, it was wrong of me to put you on the spot like that." you just stared at him.

"You're...actually apologizing."

"Don't look so surprised I'm not a monster you know." his harsh remark made you smile.

"I know." you mumbled. His eyes settled on your form, and he took a few steps inside, sitting down right next to you.

"I get it if you have things you'd rather not share with us. I'm just fairly protective of these people. Their..very special to me. "

"It's okay to be protective Harry, it makes sense. I didn't really think about how you must feel about all of this. I'm still pretty much a stranger, it's crazy to expect you to just trust me right off the bat. I guess I just got a little too friendly. It's the way I am, sometimes it's harder to turn off. I'll be more careful when I'm around you and-"

"Don't." his hand covered your palm at the side, and your gaze shifted to the warmth of his hold, before flickering to his eyes. Maybe you imagined it, but his eyes were almost glowing as he looked back at you. Those blue hues had you locked in your spot. "Don't change any part of yourself, not for me or anyone else. You're already perfect."

Okay, something was definitely wrong, Harry was being way too nice. You wanted to question it, but the words refused to leave your lips with the way his orbs still illuminated so much emotion. A small nod was all you could manage. There was no exchange of words after that, the tension thick, but not uncomfortable. Your heart jumped when he leaned closer. It was hesitant, he stopped for a millisecond, to check and possibly give you a chance to retract. You bit your lower lip with a soft whimper, and he tightened his hold on your palm, moving in.

"Harry can you-" the both of you pulled back, and Harry stood faster than you'd ever seen Barry run.

Cisco looked between the both of you pointing and stuttering out incoherent words.

"Close your mouth Ramon, you catch flies." Harry remarked. He then proceeded to exit the room. You were still sitting there, blushing like crazy, heart still hammering.

"Sweet beans.."

Curse Cisco and his terrible timing.

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backtothestart02 · 4 years

Text

Hot to the Touch - 7/? | westallen fanfiction

A/N: Fake dating trope, anyone? Here it comes! (Only one chap left of this story!)

Commissioned by @andie1223

Also for @izzyllewis for our fics-for-icons arrangement.

...

Chapter 7 -

Another couple months passed, and with the change in season came a shift in Barry and Iris’ relationship. Barry never initiated these changes, because he was afraid he might lose her if he tried to change anything that might solidify them as more of a couple than an ongoing booty call. It was hard not to get excited though when she made changes.

He was quiet about his reaction to her suggestions every time, just taking it in stride as what she wanted to do. He was a complete doormat when it came to her, and maybe that was a bad thing, but so far he couldn’t see any downside to the way their dynamic was progressing.

First, it was little things. Like, Iris would suggest meeting up earlier in the day too on occasion. She’d say it was because she was extra horny that day, but in truth it wasn’t just that. She missed him. Barry was immediately okay with that, as she suspected he might be, and when he didn’t press for a relationship, she started bringing lunch with her to their afternoon trysts. They’d usually start getting it on halfway through the meal, but that was fine with both of them. They seemed stuck in the honeymoon phase of whatever relationship this was, and they found no problem with that.

Next, and this was kind of a big one, Iris started talking to Barry about his day. At first it was just to see if Becky had made another appearance, and if she should be doing something to combat whatever she was throwing at Barry. But after it became clear that Barry hadn’t had that many more interactions with his ex – all which were flops on Becky’s end – Iris found she genuinely liked knowing what the rest of his life was about other than just how good he could fuck her. Eventually, Barry returned the favor and started asking Iris about her days too. She found she liked the attention and fully opened herself up to gushing and venting about any and everything going on with her.

By the time Thanksgiving break arrived, they were so close and connected, it felt agonizing to be apart for even a weekend.

“So, what are your Thanksgiving plans?” Barry asked her, as she watched her button up her blouse from his recent face dive between her breasts.

Iris shrugged, smiling as she sensed his stare, almost tempted to unbutton her top again just to see the look on his face.

“Strained,” she admitted, to which Barry frowned.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, my mom and dad split up when I was 13. I told you that. My mom took my little brother, and my dad kept me. Things are tense between them when we see each other on the holidays already, but a few months ago my dad started dating again.”

“Ah. Let me guess. She’s coming to Thanksgiving.”

“Yep.”

“So, both your mom and your dad’s girlfriend will be in the same room?”

“Uh-huh. And my brother is very much a mama’s boy, so he probably won’t be on his best behavior. He’s had some anger issues in school due to the split. The fact that our dad chose to stay divorced and start dating again instead of trying to work things out with our mom hit him hard. And he takes it out on me because he’s afraid to take it out on our dad, afraid of what he’ll do.”

Barry frowned. “What might he do?”

“Well, my dad wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s been reaching out to Wally for years in fact, but my brother rejects him every time. I don’t know what he expects at this point.”

“Hmm. Sounds like you need a buffer.”

She smiled, swooning at his implied suggestion.

“Thanks, but I am the buffer.”

His brows furrowed in confusion.

“There’s a possibility Cecile, my dad’s girlfriend, will bring her daughter, Joanie. She’s about Wally’s age and obviously very protective of her mother. I don’t know what the situation is with the dad in their family, but if she brings her…” She shook her head, overwhelmed.

“Chaos.”

She laughed. “Yes, chaos, exactly.”

“Sounds like you need a distraction at the dinner table.”

Iris gnawed at her bottom lip.

“Well, I was thinking of asking Linda to join me, but then…her family goes up north for the holidays, and I don’t think she has a good excuse to not join them this year. Especially after she’s done so well academically this semester.”

“And where does your family have their holiday get-togethers?”

“At my dad’s house in Central City.” She paused, debating, then asked. “You?”

“My parents’ place in Central City.”

“Anyone difficult coming to yours?”

“Just my granddad probably. He adores my mother and loves that my dad is a doctor, but I don’t think he’s real impressed with my accomplishments so far. He thinks I can do so much more than be a CSI with the brain I’ve got, but I don’t really care. It’s what I want to do.”

Iris was immediately turned on by his confidence.

“You really don’t care?”

“Well, of course it’d be great to get his stamp of approval and have him be proud of me, but I don’t need it. My friends Cisco and Caitlin support me and so do my parents.”

“And so do I,” Iris chimed in, smiling brightly and warming Barry’s tummy.

“Iris West,” he propositioned, looking at her gravely. She was still smiling as if all was right in the world. “Will you be my fake girlfriend for Thanksgiving dinner?”

She thought she’d be mortified. She truly believed it would feel like he was pushing her into something she was not ready for and maybe never would be. But this was fake dating, and only for one night. Surely she could manage that. And it would make their prospective dinners easier to endure by far.

“Barry Allen, I would love to.”

That got her a kiss full on the lips, and she giggled helplessly.

The words I love you floated onto her tongue, but she stopped them before they pushed past her lips. It made her still though, and she fought to come up with an excuse so Barry wouldn’t find her sudden tension too odd or related to his recent request.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Uh…nothing. I just remembered something.”

His furrowed brows told her she better come up with something good, and fast.

“I…have to bake a pie.” She paused. “For Thanksgiving.” She paused again. “Sweet potato pie.”

“Sounds yummy. Can I help?”

She smiled, and they both relaxed again.

“And get a free taste before everyone else?” She shook her head. “Uh-uh. I don’t think so.”

He grinned and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her waist.

“The only thing I want a free taste of is you.”

He lowered his head and nuzzled her face before swooping in for another kiss. Iris wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, moaning against the sweet pressure of his lips.

“You can have that any time,” she mumbled, and deepened the kiss, losing herself in him for a long while until they had to come up for air and go their separate ways.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, boyfriend.”

He grinned like an excited schoolboy caught in a candy store.

“See you tomorrow, girlfriend.”

She laughed at that, waved, and let herself out of the bookstore. A few minutes later, once she was out of sight, he left too.

Iris West was going to be his girlfriend - even if only for one night.

He liked the sound of that.

…

Barry and Iris didn’t meet that night at the bookstore, because they both needed to pack up and drive to their perspective families’ homes. A light snow started to fall within an hour, so the drive to the West and Allen houses took even longer.

Iris was grateful when she finally arrived at her dad’s. She parked in the driveway next to his car, gathered her purse and overnight bags and headed towards the house. She was proud of herself for wearing her fall boots, since the snow was starting to accumulate on the ground. She slipped on her gloves and hat before approaching the house and then knocked lightly on the wooden door. She had to do it a second time and started to worry because of it, but then the door swung open and a bright smile spread across the man before her.

“Baby girl.”

“Hey, Dad.”

She smiled, stepped up into the house and hugged him tightly.

“Oh, I haven’t seen you in ages.” He pulled back to take her in and then stepped aside. “You must be freezing. Come on in. I’ve started a fire in the fireplace. We’ll have you warmed up in no time.”

Shrugging out of her light jacket and other snow-covered items, Iris set her bags at the foot of the stairs and followed her dad into the living room. The place was usually a mess with the man was left there all by himself, but there was not a single speck in sight. The house was immaculate. It had been cleaned with vacuum, broom, and mop, dusted and organized. Iris hadn’t seen it so nice since before her mom moved out.

“Wow, Dad, this looks nice.”

“Thanks.”

He stopped and looked around, as if he hadn’t been responsible for the entire thing.

“I had some extra time on my hands and figured it would be nice for the holidays if my belongings were actually put away and not just stacked in the corner of every room.”

He chuckled lightly, and Iris joined him.

“You thought correct.”

“So, you want to get into something warm and we’ll watch a movie? I’m all set up for tomorrow, so we can just relax tonight.”

“Sounds good…”

“Why do I get the feeling you have something you’re not telling me?”

She laughed a little nervously.

“It’s not much, really. I just, um, I have a boyfriend now?”

His jaw dropped.

“And I was kinda hoping it’d be okay to bring him to dinner tomorrow?”

“When did this happen?” he asked, astonished. “I mean, of course putting one more seat at the table is no big deal, but I thought you would’ve told me you met someone. Especially after what happened with…”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“I just thought you swore off all relationships for the indefinite future.”

She laughed. “I did, but…”

“This one got under your skin?” He smirked.

She felt herself gasp and realized just how true her dad’s words were.

“Something like that.”

He smiled. “Well, I can’t wait to meet him. What’s his name?”

“Barry,” she said. “Barry Allen.”

“And what’s his five-year plan?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Dad.” She rolled her eyes, and he chuckled.

“I’m kidding of course.” He paused for a moment before asking, “But what’s his major?”

She laughed. “Dad!”

“I can’t help it. Your dad wants to know! Will you tell him?”

She shook her head, her eyes alight with laughter.

“Fine, fine… Well, actually…” She frowned. “I don’t even know what his major is.” She laughed. “Something sciencey though. He wants to be a CSI.”

“Oh…very interesting. We don’t have enough of those around. He’d fit in real nicely at CCPD after he graduates.”

“Daaad.” She rolled her eyes again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He held up his hands in surrender. “No more future talk. Why don’t you get in some comfy clothes and I’ll put in a feel-good movie for us for when you get down. Dinner’s almost ready. We can eat that while we’re watching.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She got up and walked towards the stairs, then stopped and faced her dad who was busily searching for a specific movie in the cubby beneath the TV. “Thanks, Dad,” she said, and he lifted his head to look at her.

“For what?”

She shrugged. “For being you.”

He smiled, and she returned it, then headed up the stairs with her bags and put on something warm and comfy for the night ahead.

…

Barry yawned when he woke up in his childhood bed the next morning. He’d had a nice evening with his parents, watching home movies and finishing up some last-minute cleaning in the house. His parents were ecstatic to see him, and even more surprised about his announcement that he was bringing a girlfriend to the house for Thanksgiving dinner. They didn’t mind, of course, and they were excited to see who he was bringing, but he decided to keep it a secret until she showed up. He said he’d be going to her family’s Thanksgiving dinner first and would introduce her properly after that.

As the day waned on, Barry started to feel nervous about his “date” at Iris’. He’d waited months to be on an official date with her. And even if this was just pretend and her whole family would be present with them, it still felt very real.

He wondered then if they should’ve discussed how they met and decided to start dating, what they liked about each other, etc. They most definitely should not include sex as part of the story. On Thanksgiving of all times with other controversial things in play, especially at her dinner, that was simply out of the question.

He needed to call her and sort this out.

He pulled out his phone, selected her name in his contacts list and waited for her to pick up.

“Hello?” came a man’s deep voice, and suddenly he worried that she had a boyfriend back home who wanted to know who this ‘Barry’ was calling his girlfriend.

Chills erupted over him, as well as some slight anger. At himself and borderline at Iris. Why would she have a boyfriend and secretly be sneaking around with him for the past three months? It didn’t make sense. Of course it didn’t. What was he thinking? Why would he jump to that conclusion immediately?

“Dad!” He heard in the background on the phone. “Give it to me.”

The deep voice sounded fainter when Barry heard it again.

“I just want to talk to the young man. Find out his intentions!”

“Dad, no! Give it to me! Not on our- Daaaad!”

And that’s when Barry breathed a sigh of relief. It was her dad.

He smiled.

“Barry?” Iris’ voice came on. “Barry, are you still there?”

“I’m here.” He chuckled, smiling brightly.

“It’s not funny,” she said.

“Eh…it’s a little funny,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and smiled.

“So, what’s up?” she asked, walking into another room. “You aren’t cancelling on me, are you?”

“No, not at all!” he was quick to say. “I was just thinking….um…”

“What?”

“Maybe we should discuss our backstory?”

“Our backstory?” She sounded confused.

“You know, how we met, why we decided to start dating, some cute story the family will want to hear…”

“Oh. Right.”

By the sound of her voice, Barry sensed she hadn’t even thought of it.

“I just thought of it now.”

“Well, I think it’s simple enough.”

“It is?”

“Yeah. I mean, just take the sex out of the equation.”

His laugh was strained. “Meaning?”

She sighed. “Meaning, we met at a bookstore and hit it off at a party.”

“And for a cute story?”

She licked her lips. “Um… I sent a cute text to you in the middle of the open house?”

“A ‘cute’ text, huh?” He smirked.

“Stop!” She laughed. “They don’t need to know the details.”

He laughed harder.

“Barry Allen, I swear, if you don’t-”

But he couldn’t stop laughing. She waited until he was under control.

“Okay, okay, sorry.”

“It’s all right.” There was a smile in her voice. “So, see you later?”

“Five o’clock, sharp.”

“See you then.”

“Goodbye, Iris.”

“Bye, Barry.”

Click.

…

Iris sent Barry the address to her dad’s place half an hour before dinner started. She didn’t know what she expected, but Barry showing up fifteen minutes later with a golden-yellow bouquet of flowers for her certainly hadn’t been it.

“Barry, I take it?” Her dad asked, coming up behind Iris at the front door.

Barry’s eyes bulged at the size of the man, even though they were roughly the same height. He nodded and held out his hand to shake it.

“Mr. West.”

They shook hands.

“Call me Joe,” Iris’ dad said. “I like to keep things casual in this house, especially during the holidays.”

Barry grinned. “Joe.”

“Oh, come on in,” Iris said, grabbing Barry’s arm and pulling him into the house.

She showed him where to take off his shoes, and she took his coat to hang up in the closet at the end of the hall. She gave him a short tour of their home, and as politely as she could, introduced him to her mother, brother, her dad’s girlfriend, and her dad’s girlfriend’s daughter. There were a few other relatives too, but Barry wouldn’t remember their names or their significance later, so Iris only very quickly introduced them before circling back to the fireplace and standing there with Barry until dinner was ready.

“Is that everybody?” Barry joked.

“Everybody here,” Iris said, reaching for his hands to play with his fingers.

Barry lowered his voice and started to lean in.

“I’ve missed you, Iris.”

She caught her breath in her throat.

“It’s only been a day.”

“Still missed you,” he said, and pressed a kiss to her cheek to avoid being scolded.

Apparently it was too far even at that.

“Eww, Gross. PDA,” Wally said in a monotone voice. “Mom, Iris is making out with her boyfriend.”

Barry lifted his head and raised his eyebrows. Wally was playing his Gameboy in his hands, only faintly aware of how close they were and what had actually transpired.

Francine walked over and gave the two of them a look but seemed to understand that her son had exaggerated.

“Put the game away, Wally. We’re with family today.”

“Some family.” He rolled his eyes. But he got up and stuffed his game into his coat pocket in the hallway closet and proceeded to linger in the kitchen, looking for something to eat.

“Iris,” Francine started, but Iris cut in.

“It was a kiss on the cheek, mom. Brief and insignificant,” she said, even though her heart was still racing from the brush of his lips.

Francine nodded, pretty much convinced.

“And what are you majoring in, Barry?”

He smiled lazily, expecting the question.

“I want to be a CSI,” he said. “I like forensics.”

“Oh, very interesting.” She paused, and Barry knew it wasn’t as interesting to her as she had said. Still, it hardly mattered. Iris was beside him holding his hand. “How did you two meet?”

“At a bookstore,” Iris smoothly said. “We bumped into each other in the same section.”

“And what section was that?”

“Mystery-”

“Romance-”

Francine turned with curiosity to her daughter’s boyfriend who had offered up the latter genre.

“Romance, Barry?”

He blushed fiercely.

“Who doesn’t love a good love story?”

She smiled slowly. “Good answer.” Then she walked away.

Iris was on the verge of laughter when Barry finally looked back at her.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

She looped her arm through his and led him into the dining room. Dinner was just about ready.

…

The rest of the West Thanksgiving dinner went relatively smoothly. Barry and Iris shared the rest of their ‘couple story’ better than they had with Francine, and despite the obvious tension between other members of the family, it appeared that with a non-related member there, they were less inclined to start a full-out brawl in the middle of the dining room table.

Everyone approved of Iris’ last-minute sweet potato pie, and Barry in particular praised it highly.

When it was time for them to go in order to make it for at least part of Barry’s family’s Thanksgiving dinner, everyone was pleasant enough and wished them well as they headed out the door.

“Very good to meet you, Barry,” Joe said, and Barry reached out his hand for him to shake again, but Joe brought him in for a big bear hug instead. “Mind if I call you Bear, for short?”

Barry’s jaw dropped. It was the same name Iris herself had casually called him a time or two.

“Sure,” he said, a lazy smile on his face.

Joe’s grin stretched wide across his face.

“Bye, you two. I’ll see you later, Iris?”

“I’ll bring her back, I promise,” Barry confided, and Iris was just a tiny bit put out. She wanted some time with just the two of them together, but of course she understood. Barry probably wanted time with his family too.

They waved and got in Barry’s car. Within 15 minutes they were at his parents’ house. Only two other cars were in the driveway, one belonging to Barry’s parents and the other to his granddad. There was another vehicle parked across the street, but Barry and Iris didn’t pay it any mind until they walked into the house and found a familiar blonde chatting it up with Barry’s relatives.

“Becky.”

“Oh, Barry, you’re-”

Becky’s voice abruptly stopped. Immediately, Barry knew what had happened. Becky had invited herself over, claiming that she and Barry had gotten back together and had just decided to arrive separately. His parents hadn’t known any differently since he hadn’t given specifics.

Now he really wished he had.

“Who is this?” Barry’s dad asked when he saw Iris standing beside his son.

“This is Iris,” Barry forced himself to say. “My girlfriend.”

Barry’s whole family frowned and then turned to Becky, who was not pulling off being shocked as well as she was trying to.

“But Becky here said-” His granddad started.

“I haven’t seen Becky in two months,” Barry said, deciding to be frank. He was livid over what Becky had been trying to do. “At which point I made it clear to her I was with someone else and not interested in getting back together.”

Iris looked up at him and smiled softly. She’d been so upset at that initial meeting because she didn’t think she could envision herself dating him when that was exactly what Becky was offering. But now she realized her jealousy had been completely unwarranted. Barry really didn’t like Becky, and he really liked her.

Maybe she should consider…

“I think I better go,” Becky mumbled. The rest of the family said nothing as she gathered her things and headed out.

Barry was on the verge of confirming what a great idea that was, but he knew his mom would give him hell for being so bluntly mean, so he kept it to himself.

Once she was gone, the tension increased tenfold. That was until Iris approached the table and took a seat.

“You know, I thought I was stuffed from eating at my dad’s, but this food looks too delicious not to taste. May I have some?”

Barry’s mother brightened immediately.

“Yes, of course, dear. Let me get you a plate.”

Barry came and sat beside her. They held hands under the table and smiled at each other briefly before consuming some of his mother’s food.

To Barry’s great surprise, his granddad seemed more interested in Iris than in belittling his choice of a future career, which made the whole night much more enjoyable than any of them could’ve expected.

As his granddad was leaving about an hour later, he turned to Iris.

“Iris is a much prettier name than Becky,” he said, and lifted her hand to kiss the back of it. “It was good to meet you, Iris.”

Iris felt heat flood her cheeks.

“Th-Thank you, Sir.”

He smiled, nodded, then waved to the rest of the family and was on his way out.

Barry and Iris sat with his parents by their fireplace for a while longer before Iris mentioned that she should probably be heading back. Barry’s parents shared how much they enjoyed her company and how they hoped to see her again, and how sorry they were for Becky’s deceit in their absence.

Iris brushed it aside, smiled and hugged them both before heading out the door with Barry and riding with him back to her dad’s place.

“Well, tonight went well,” Barry said, once he had parked in the driveway.

“I thought so,” Iris chimed in. “Better than expected anyway.”

“Both our families like us.”

“Which is an important thing.” She chuckled.

He leaned his head back on his headrest.

“I’m so glad you were with me tonight, Iris – at my parents’ place. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten Becky to leave if I hadn’t had you with me as proof that she wasn’t actually my girlfriend.”

“Happy to be of service.” She smiled prettily. “And, you know, if you ever need me to fake being your girlfriend again for the sake of getting rid of Becky, I am at your disposal.”

He chuckled. “Thanks. Same for you…if you need a boyfriend at a family function for whatever reason.”

She grinned. “’Kay. Thanks.”

He stared deep into her eyes and cupped her face. Just as he started to lean in, Iris interjected.

“My dad-”

Barry lifted his head, but he couldn’t see Joe West in any window on the front of the house.

“I think we’re in the clear,” he said, grinning as he looked down at her.

Relieved that there’d been confirmation of no onlookers, Iris grabbed a hold of her fake boyfriend’s face and pulled it down to her, kissing him soundly.

“Oh, thank God.”

Barry moaned. “You can say that again.”

“It feels like ages since I’ve kissed you.”

“And to think we’ll have to wait any longer until-”

“It’ll just make the reunion all the more special.”

“Or you could sneak away and we could hook up at my parents’ house tomorrow.”

She pulled back, her eyes wide.

“Barry Allen!” She smacked his chest.

“What? They’ll both be away!”

Iris opened the door and stepped onto the pavement.

“I cannot believe you. In your parents’ house?”

“Unless you want to do it here?” he offered. “Your dad works tomorrow, doesn’t he?”

She laughed. “You are…unbelievable.”

“So…see you tomorrow?” he asked, stepping out of the car to get her answer.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Iris!”

She spun around.

“Maybe.”

He grinned wide.

“But not at our parents’ houses!”

He laughed.

“Okay, okay, you choose.”

She rolled her eyes again.

“Goodnight, Barry.”

His laugh lessened into a smile.

“Goodnight, Iris,” he said softly, then watched her walk into her dad’s house before getting back into the car and driving himself home.

...

*will be posted on AO3 and FFnet when beta’d.

#westallen #fanfiction #westallen fanfiction #backtothestart02 fanfiction #hot to the touch #chapter 7 #fic commission #for andie1223 #fics for icons #for izzyllewis

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what-if-i-imagine · 4 years

Text

“You’re so obsessed to find someone to love you because you can’t love yourself.”

Requested by my goddess: @a-single-drop-of-ink

Wally looked up from his home work the moment he heard the familiar feather light footfalls coming down the hall of his dormitory.

In barely a second he was at the door opening it up, smiling at his roommate whose hands were full of groceries. His roommate smiled back that perfect smile that could make any heart melt, and Wally remembered what he had told his Aunt over FaceTime the night before while he was out.

“He makes it feel like home.”

His Aunt had gone from her joking, bubbly happiness to a more subdued, love-struck but still happy state. She had given him that same smile she made any time they went through her photo albums of her and his uncle.

“Be careful,” she told him. Because she knew. Wally had told her all about his roommate, and she knew just as well as him where this would go.

“How was your date last night?” he asked with a mischievous smile, fighting back the thoughts in the back of his head.

“Well, I didn’t come back to the dorm, did I?” Dick, his roommate, replied easily. It was true, he hadn’t come back to the dorm at all the night before, shooting Wally a text around midnight saying this new girl he liked was letting him stay at her place. He pretended to rack his brain to remember her name, even though it was burned into his heart just like all the others.

“Kori, right? The foreign exchange student?” he asked.

“Yup,” Dick popped the P as a grin grew on his face. “She was great Wally, she was perfect. I think she’s the one.”

“You said that about Barbara G too. And Vic from sci. And Raya from the gym. And Roy from the coffee shop-”

“You’ve made your point!” Dick laughed, wacking him playfully with a box of plastic forks. “And for your information, all of them were the one, they just didn’t realize it.”

“You mean how Vic was too focused on school for commitment, Raya wasn’t looking for something serious, Barbara fell for one of her bandmates, and Roy was in love with your younger brother?” Wally asked.

“You know, you can be really mean sometimes,” Dick said with no heat.

“Just pointing out the obvious,” Wally shrugged. “What are we having for dinner?”

“Well you have the choice between the two greatest delicacies in the land,” Dick said with much flourish, unpacking the groceries into their mini fridge and food bin. “Either the Irish dish of Luck Charms cereal, or the Japanese dish of Ramen.”

“I think I’ll go for the Japanese option tonight. I had cereal this morning.”

“That shouldn’t stop you.”

Wally rolled his eyes and got out one of the disposable bowls they should probably not be using in a microwave and started on his food. As he and Dick watched the opening credits for the most recent cheesy romcom tv show Dick had gotten addicted to, Wally wondered if Kori was really going to be the one. The one was going to some eventually, obviously, but how soon was that going to be?

The actual one only showed up a month later, after Dick and Kori’s civil breakup. By Civil, Wally really meant explosive by anyone else's terms, but for Dick this was like a beautiful kiss goodbye.

Of course, Dick always ended up good friends with his exs and his exs’ new partner. There was even a joking group chat with them all, with one being added each time Dick made up with his most recent breakup.

But at the start, his breakups were always messy. And Dick, in turn, became messy for at least a week afterwards.

He stumbled into the apartment that night, obviously recovering from a hangover caused by morning drinking with Roy, a new set of hickies around his neck and a hand in his disheveled hair.

“It’s a Monday, Dick,” Wally pointed out, barely glancing up from his homework.

“I’m honestly over caring,” Dick snapped a bit, chugging down one of Wally’s protein shakes from the fridge. Wally didn’t react, either to the snipish behavior or the obvious disturbance of personal property. He was used to this. Trying to point out a mistake to Dick or tell him what was good for him automatically set off that same defensive part of his brain that came into play while fighting with his father.

“So who were they?” Wally asked, referring to the hickies.

Dick hummed in though, looking down at himself, “The older ones from last night are from Helena, Babs’s other bandmate. The newer ones were courtesy of Little Wing’s friend Artemis. I think she’s related to Donna somehow?”

“No follow up dates?”

“Shut up,” Dick snapped again. His expression softened after as he sighed, taking another sip of the protein shake and putting it back with the mercy of leaving at least half for Wally’s nighttime run. “Sorry. Just tired.”

“I can tell,” Wally said levelly.

As he watched Dick fall back onto his bed, burying his face in his pillow, he let a common thought when it came to Dick’s breakup cross his mind.

He always does this to himself. Subconsciously on purpose.

It wasn’t Dick’s fault. He had been like this as long as Wally could remember, and probably even longer than their friendship had been in place. The cycle was a vicious one that Dick had had on repeat since he was fifteen from what Wally knew.

Crush hardly, love wholly, hurt deeply.

Fall in love, get in a relationship, torture self when it ends.

Wally knew what a self destructive man looked like, and Dick was definitely one. It ran in his family based off of what he had seen of his father, Jason and Cassandra.

“I called in an order for pizza,” Wally informed him, looking back to his laptop. “It should be here in an hour. Got a new movie too while I was at the store that I think you’ll like.”

“Did you get ice cream?” Dick asked, muffled by his pillow.

“Three different kinds and a bottle of cheap wine.”

“You’re a saint.”

Once Wally finished the first draft of his thesis and the pizza arrived, the both crawled down to their little cozy spot in front of their tv that sat on the ground.

The movie was shitty. Most of the ones dick liked were, but Wally still loved watching them with Dick. This particular movie was a hallmark movie from the early 2010s, which should say enough about the plot alone, and it was Dick’s perfect brand of sappy that hit a little too close to home where the girl realizes her boyfriend was shitty and she belonged with the gymnast heart throb with a heart of gold.

“Hey Wally,” Dick whispered as the main character ran into the arms of her true love.

“Yeah?” Wally hummed, leaning back into Dick’s hand where it was gently scratching at his head.

“What’s wrong with me?” Wally wouldn’t have even heard him if he weren’t leaned back on his chest. He didn’t freeze, but his mind did stutter for a moment. He was shocked when he subtly checked the wine bottle to see it was completely untouched.

“What do you mean Dickie?” he asked, glancing up only for Dick to nudge his head back down to face the tv.

“You know what I mean,” Dick said. “What’s wrong with me? All these people in the movies, all of my exs and friends, it only takes them one or two tries before they find the one. Why can’t I?”

Something wet dripped onto Wally’s head as Dick pressed his nose into his hair. He was only slightly shaking, but Wally could still feel it at every point of contact.

Wally got up, gently fighting past Dick’s refusal to let him go too far and turned to face him. He leaned forward on his knees between Dick’s legs and cupped his face, stroking away the small streams of tears.

“Because you want someone who loves you,” Wally answered, staring into those deep, pain filled eyes. The pain he saw there he recognized, maybe not as his own, but still as familiar. A deeply rooted self depreciation that offered no room for growth.

“That doesn't explain why I go out every day when I’m alone looking for someone new,” Dick defended, more tears falling. “It doesn’t make sense, Wally. Wanting love doesn’t explain this mess.”

“It does, Dick. You’re so obsessed to find someone to love you because you can’t love yourself,” Wally knew he was crossing a few lines by saying this, but he couldn’t stop himself. IT was obvious in the way Dick found his identity in the people he loved. His family, his friends, and above all else his long list of past lovers for however long they lasted could testify to that. Dick looked like he didn’t want to believe what he was hearing and was more confused than ever. Wally took it as a sign to elaborate.

“You constantly go out looking for these boys and girls because you want them to love you enough that you forget how empty you feel. It’s not your fault, it’s just the way you and your family work. You don’t think you deserve love, but you can't stand yourself when you’re without it.”

“Wally,” Dick’s voice broke and hitched, his face flooding with the horror of how on point his words were. Tears spilled faster than before, and Wally leaned even further forward to wrap his arms around his friend. He tangled his fingers gently in his hair and rhythmically rubbed his back, letting him cry it out on his shoulder.

“You’re wrong,” Dick said, voice wet and heavy with his tears.

“How am I wrong?” Wally whispered, barely a breath against the nape of Dick’s neck.

“It’s not- the only- reason,” Dick’s voice broke up with soft sobs.

Wally held him a little tighter, rocking awkwardly back to sit on his legs as Dick moved to his knees too without breaking any contact. Dick was leaning more into him now, and Wally silently prayed he wouldn’t fall back with the weight into the that was now playing the ending credits,

“It’s because I love someone else,” Dick sobbed miserably. “I love someone else, but they don’t deserve the mess I am.”

“That’s not true. It’s just what your brain wants you to think,” Wally shook his head.

“It is true,” Dick was barely audible over his heart wrenching sobs. He clung to Wally tighter, his fingers digging almost harshly into the back of Wally’s shirt.

“It’s true because it’s you. You’re the one.”

Wally froze this time, his breath completely stopping.

How many times he had dreamt of Dick saying those words, and none of those dreams happened like this.

Wally regained his composure as quickly as he did everything else in his life and was back to comforting his roommate.

“It’s okay Dickie,” he said, pressing a ghost-like kiss to his hair. “You’re the one too. You always have been.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won't. But we are going to get you help, okay? You need help Dick, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s normal to need help.”

“Are you going to call my dad?” Dick asked pitifully, the sobs dying down to sniffles.

“Maybe. If that’s what you want. We will talk about it in the morning when you’ve had more rest.”

“Okay.”

Dick went quiet for a moment then spoke again, “Hey Wally?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s easier to love myself when I’m with you.”

Wally didn’t say anything in response. He just kissed his head again and rocked them back and forth until Dick fell asleep.

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thecrownnet · 4 years

Link

Josh O’Connor may best be known for this breakthrough role in 2017’s God’s Own Country but the Southampton-born actor has been cultivating a catalog of great film and television performances for years. From The Riot Club and The Program in film and Doctor Who, Peaky Blinders, Ripper Street and The Durrells on TV, O’Connor has built a resume that made him the perfect choice to play the most challenging role of his career, Prince Charles in season three of Netflix’s The Crown. O’Connor play the Prince of Wales at a turning point in the would be king’s life, from the early years of his relationship with Camilla Bowles (the Diana years will show up in season four) to the daunting task of figuring out how to lead the commonwealth when the time comes.

I caught up with two-time BIFA winning actor to talk about God’s Own Country, his role in The Crown, what he likes and doesn’t like about biopics and playing real people and Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There.

I wanted to start by talking with you about God’s Own Country, which quickly became a cornerstone of queer cinema, and I think took off in a way most people weren’t expecting. Can you tell me a little bit the impact working on that film had for you?

It was a kind of monumental moment for me and I think a big moment for queer cinema and insofar as it was kind of a gay love story that we hadn’t seen before, you know, in terms of one that ended with hope and one that told a kind of positive story. It was something maybe we’d seen before, but, it’s rare and people were obviously hungry for that. And so it touched many people and I feel like it’s rare that your project gets to have that effect on people. So it was a kind of, it was a huge moment for me. In terms of kind of career wise also just as a creative, as an actor, I think it was a moment of realization about technique and how I want to work. It built a process, which I still use the basis of now. And so yeah, it was really impactful for me.

I love that. Earlier this year you had Emma., how was it stepping into Mr. Elton’s shoes?

(laughs) It was very different than anything I’ve done before. I’ve never done comedy before. Autumn de Wilde, who is an exceptionally talented director, came in and it was very clear she wanted a kind of Peter Cook-esque Mr Elton and we’ve talked about him having a sort of darker side, which we touch on in the film. I think it was real, I loved it, it was kind of getting to stretch my muscles, my comedic muscles I suppose. And yeah, it was a real treat and it’s a lovely, beautiful ensemble film.

Diving into The Crown, had you watched the first two seasons of the show to help inform you of the style or approach to the series?

Yes, I had. I’d seen the first two and I’m very good friends with Vanessa Kirby who played Margaret so, I initially watched it as a kind of support for my friends, but then absolutely, obviously got hooked and I think the first two series’ are exceptional. Claire Foy is kind of spellbinding, Matt Smith I think is extraordinary as Philip, and often sort of, it’s underplayed how brilliant he was. I absolutely loved it and then be a part of this group of actors who I totally adore and look up to, you know, the likes of Tobias Menzies, to go from Matthew is extraordinary, and Olivia Colman and Helena Bonham Carter, you know, these are all people that I aspire to so it’s been a real treat.

What were the main sources and figuring out who Prince Charles is on a personal level?

Well, I think there were a few things to kind of brought out the personal, but initially when I started with Charles, I spent so much time watching footage of him, or hearing recordings of him from the period. After a while I got to the point where I was like, actually, I don’t know that this has helped. It certainly isn’t helping me get any closer to the character and certainly isn’t getting close to who Charles really is behind closed doors. And so I sort of threw all that out the window. The thing that got me there more than anything was something that Peter Morgan had written, which is I think episode eight of series three. Charles described his life as being like he as being like a character in Dangling Man. He says, the character is a working class blue collar guy from Chicago and he’s waiting to be drafted to go to war and he actually wants to be drafted because it’ll give his life meaning, even though it means that they’ll go to a certain death.

And the idea that Charles, Prince Charles is this young boy who’s actually waiting for his own mother to die in order for his life to take meaning, I just thought that was a kind of, it locked into a sort of tragic narrative of this young boy that is so rare and an extraordinary. So that was the kind of, that was the crux of it.

When you’re playing somebody that is so well known, how do you strike the balance between impression and interpretation and what do you think you brought to Prince Charles?

Yeah, that’s such a good question. It’s a question I don’t know the answer to, yet. The best way to, for me, in my personal view of it as an audience member, is that I never enjoy seeing in any kind of biopic or whenever I see an actor playing a real person, I find it very difficult to watch and actor to do something really exactly like the person.

I don’t know why. I think it becomes too much like an impression. And what I always loved is that there was a great film called I’m Not There, which is about Bob Dylan. And so it was like eight or nine actors playing Dylan at different stages in his life and not just different stages but playing different aspects of his personality. So Cate Blanchett, plays the kind of more recognizable Dylan, which is the sort of public eye Dylan, you had Heath Ledger playing the kind of rock and roll Dylan, you had a young actor [Marcus Carl Franklin] playing the Woody Guthrie influenced Bob Dylan. So you had all these different actors, all totally different and most of them looked nothing like and resembled him in no way. And I remember that was the most powerful representation of Dylan I’ve seen or of anyone I’ve seen and I thought when I’m playing Prince Charles there’s no point in me spending all this time trying to get his voice and trying to look like him and walk like him.

Those things will happen naturally. And I think, you know, it’s good to have little aspects and little notes that people feel safe and comfortable in the knowledge secure that you are playing Prince Charles. But as soon as you can get rid of those, the earlier you can get rid of those, the the more interesting and the more adaptive that character is, the more influential that character can be. And as I say, it’s more interesting seeing Josh play Prince Charles than it is seeing just seeing Prince Charles.

I love that example of I’m Not There. It’s a brilliant movie and it is such a great way to bring an audience into a character without feeling like you’re just watching video footage.

Exactly. Because there’s documentary. We also undersell the brilliant art form that is documentary, which I absolutely adore it. There’s nothing better than watching old footage of Charles. I love it. But it’s not the same. I want to see an actor play and Claire Foy is a great example. I should stop rambling but Claire Foy is a great example of an actress who plays the queen so stupendously everyone in the world sat up right when they watched Claire and Matt Smith in series one and two. And it wasn’t because there was, ‘Oh my God,’ she looked and speaks exactly like the queen at that age. Most of us don’t know what the queen looked like at that age and it sounded like at that age because there wasn’t very much TV. So actually all we’re looking at is an incredible performance of the character. And I think I remember watching Claire and Matt and thinking ‘let’s focus on that.’ Let’s not try and play Prince Charles, let’s try and play the character.

Again, that’s a perfect example that makes perfect sense. There’s a turning point in the series when Charles, as the Prince of Wales, has to learn to speak Welsh. Did you know any Welsh or was this something new for you as well?

I mean, I certainly knew no Welsh. I’d never spoken a word of Welsh in my life a lot. I’d heard the language. One of the most kind of influential or most magical moments from when I was in grammar school was I heard an old recording of Dylan Thomas reading Under Milk Wood and was a beautiful radio play that he wrote and it was and poetical and beautiful and Dylan speaks it in this kind of like raucous Welsh voice. It’s like, mind blowing, and it was a kind of really special moment. So that combined with the fact that I love Wales the country, I felt very great affinity for the Welsh language. But as I said, I had no idea. So it’s very much, it was very much kind of like Charles’ feelings about having to learn it. There were muffs the same as mine and we went through a long process of learning everything. And yeah, I mean it’s great. I still know the speech now, but I don’t know what it means.

Which brings us right to that monumental episode where you have to give the speech for his investiture. Tell me about that sequence, which I think is just extraordinary in this series.

It’s a beautifully written episode. It has so much significance because it’s about Charles stepping up and becoming an adult. To me it was the thing that convinced me to take the role in the first place. I suddenly realized this as a young man who is, in my in recent history, is kind of known as a bit of a wally [British slang for ineffectual or foolish]. He goes around and talks about the environment, which of course we all know he was right. In the 80s and 90s he was considered a bit of a buffoon. And then there’s the Diana years and the thing that got me and took and basically convinced me to take the role was I suddenly realized he’s a lost boy and the investiture episode is him taking that lost boy and going, ‘No, I’m going to own this and I’m going to become a man.’

Jumping off that a bit, what do you think was the most misunderstood thing about Charles from this period of his life?

I think sort of the misunderstood thing of most of the Royal families, is that they had some perfect childhood. I mean, in terms of financially, they probably had a pretty great childhood, but I think terms of relationships to parents, relationships to siblings, they’re just like anyone else. I mean, they’re difficult. They have their ups and their downs. He was a lost boy but a lost boy with the knowledge that he was going to have to at some point lead, be the king, the reign of England, of the Commonwealth of this huge empire and we now know, it’s taken an entire lifetime and he still isn’t the King.

I think that’s the biggest thing that hopefully people have taken. There’s been a great response within people calling out and saying they feel great sorrow for Charles now. So hopefully that’s what they’ll take.

In looking forward to the future of your career, do you have a dream role in mind that you’d like to play?

I don’t know actually. It’s one of these questions that so hard because I’m always surprised when I say something quick and then a script will come through with a totally original role and there’s nothing better than a new script and a role that you’ve never thought of. It grabs me. But I suppose there are plenty of performances I’ve always kind of aspired to like Daniel Day-Lewis has played and those kind of fully formed characters or Tom Hanks. Those are the kinds of roles that you dream of. In terms of theater it’s easy because everyone wants to play Richard II or Hamlet. I’ve always wanted to play Richard II, so one day hopefully I’ll be able to do that. But beyond that, certainly the dream is to keep getting to play new characters and work with great directors.

All seasons of The Crown, including S3 where Josh O’Connor appears, are streaming exclusively on Netflix.

#josh o’connor #prince charles #the crown #god's own country #emma #the crown netflix

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queensdivas · 5 years

Text

Hidden Blade Chapter 2

Did this all on a plane and a little bit today! Now that I’m done I plan on working on even more shit. Like my god has this winter break been busy af. But I hope you enjoy the new chapter because it was a little longer than I wanted it to be.

Whoops.

IF you would like to be tagged please let me know!

Next Chapter

Previous Chap

Masterlist

Have you actually ever watched an episode of Leave it to Beaver? What even is that show? I get watching like Little House on the Prairie, M*A*S*H (God I love Mash) and even I Love Lucy. But it feels like this dude one loves his family shows. Don’t really see why but who the heck else knows in this crazy world.

I walked into one of the trailers to see a very large English Mastiff come from around one of the shelves to start sniffing me. Slobbering all over my legs since wearing shorts instead of jeans or some sort of Eddie Bauer travel pants.

“That’s Wally. Careful his slobber goes everywhere.” Four was flipping through a pile of passports as I looked at the wall that was covered with pictures, news articles, and maps. It kind of reminds you of that meme where the dude looks completely insane while trying to explain something. I sat down on one of the desk chairs that was empty as I noticed Leave it to Beaver was playing.

“Did he get you hooked into it as well?” I leaned back as I noticed a large file that had Murat Alimov with a big red CIA stamp on it. Juicy!

“So how come the people of Turgistan hasn’t revolted against the dick hole in charge?” Four asked as I opened the file to see his picture.

“They need someone to get behind in order to start the revolution. Ya know. Someone to get behind. The French got behind Maximilien Robespierre, the people in South America had Simon Bolivar, and the list goes on and on. So without someone to properly lead them, what’s the point of starting a revolution when you don’t have someone to lead.” I began skimming through his file to see that THE STUPID AMERICANS GAVE HIM BACK TO HIS BROTHER!? Never let them do anything!!

“So how did one find you?” He asked as I closed the file then threw it on the desk.

“Ummmm. God it was really weird and very ummm..perfect timing I should say.” Wally came over to put his head on my thighs as I began scratching the top of his head.

“I travelled to Ahmedabad after the Assassination in South Sudan where I planned on shutting down a board of nasty men who were shipping child brides all over the world. Yet something that I have a nasty habit of is trying to put on shoes way bigger than mine!”

“ALI RUN YOUR ASS!” Screaming as I turned the corner that was leading towards the great hall of the palace. Ali came behind as guns began shooting at us from the top of the stairs. The front doors burst open as I darted to the left.

Ali followed swiftly behind me as we slid into one of the living rooms to duck behind a couch. I released my mag to see I had eight rounds left, and we have to battle an entire palace full of guards! At Least the board is dead so that stops this nasty shit in this house!

“Ali! There’s a drop through the dining room that leads into the river!” I yelled over the gunfire as he checked his mag to count his bullets.

“I got six! I’ll keep you covered!” He popped his head up to shoot one of them coming into the room. I popped up to shoot another guard as more came through the front door. God damn it we’re screwed!

“You get your ass out of here now!” Ali screamed as I crawled over to where he was bunkered down and handed him the rest of my mags.

“You follow me alright!” Grabbing a bottle of scotch then ripping apart of the sofa for the rag. I stuffed it, shook the bottle then pulled my lighter out of my pocket. I lit it then chucked it over to the middle of the great hall.

“GO GO GO!” I yelled as we got up from behind the couch towards the window. He smashed the glass as I stuck my head out to see the drop. Jesus Christ that’s a little too high. Fuck fuck!

I climbed up onto the window ledge as I was about to jump as Ali began climbing up but was stabbed in his back.

“SHIT ALI!” With his last bit of energy he pushed me off the ledge.

Sitting in my apartment as I stared at the picture of Ali and I during our weekend trip to El Arish. The one time I think it;s okay to work with a partner we end up becoming best friends and he gets stabbed in the back! Don’t worry I’m not one of those people who are like “I work alone since everyone I’ve loved has died!” Usually it’s too much work to have a partner or some sort of companion when it comes to this kind of work.

Someone lightly knocked on my door as I pulled out my dagger to slowly approach the door. Fuck fuck who knows I live here? Looking through the peephole to see some GAP looking guy standing right infront of the door. Swinging the door open as it scared him a little bit till he held up his arms towards me.

“Relax Machete. If I wanted to hurt you I wouldn’t have knocked on your door would I?” That’s what most people thought in the seventies and look how many people died because they thought this was...as I opened the door for this stranger.

“I promise I’m not here to hurt you or anything. May I come in?” I can handle myself I think so if he tries something I’ll kick his ass. I lowered my dagger a little bit to move out of the way for him. He came into my apartment to look around in my little hole in the wall.

“Cozy.” I followed him on the other side of the room.

“Good idea. Keeping a safe distance from me. Which is why I’ve been looking at your field work. What you did in South Sudan and recently in Jordan. Quite impressed that they haven’t tracked you down yet.” He stared at the large replica painting of The Virgin on the rocks.

“Love some Da Vinci paintings.” He acts like a much calmer Deadpool, also not as sarcastic as him.

“So. Who are you? A rich person looking for security, I’m not a hitman so I’m not going to kill someone for ya. Drink?” I made it to the liquor shelf as I grabbed the bottle of Shieldaig Speyside.

“No thank you.” He walked away from the painting then over to my original Pierre Mignard. See when you shut down a nasty group of people, I wanted this picture of some random women. I stood away from him still as he turned around, I took a sip of the drink as I waited for him to explain himself.

“I get the feeling you enjoy killing those who want to cause harm onto the innocent. You wanna know what I see in you? I see someone who's willing to do some crazy shit in order to save the world. I mean you just jumped out of palace after destroying a child marriage cult. What if I could give you an endless amount of resources, even more targets, and more hands?” Definitely some better resources would be nice. But there is always some sort of catch in this situation.

“You’re exactly what I’m looking for. Someone who isn’t afraid to truly get their hands dirty to save the world.” I do enjoy saving little parts of the world.

“Now imagine taking down even bigger ass holes of the world.” Am I finally going after all of North Korea? God I really wanna destroy that pig with all my mighty!

“So what’s the catch exactly?”

“You’ll be dead and can’t ever see your loved ones again.” Well jokes on this dude, haven’t seen my family in years and they probably thought I was dead anyhow so this works perfectly!

“I’m in. Don’t worry about my family because they think I’m dead anyhow.” I walked over to him to shake his hand.

“How the fuck he found you is still bizarre. Still have no idea how he found me in the middle of a robbery.” Wally began walking away as I put my feet on the desk. Now I’m super curious how he met the rest of them now since he ended up stalking me.

“How did he find you?”

He began telling me how the robbery he was apart of turned into a shit hole of a plan for his ex girlfriend to basically take the jewels instead of saving him. Doesn’t surprise me in the slightest because hoes be loyal. His eyes...are just so damn enticing. The way the sun brightens them reminds you the top of a forest. A very endless forest before you. That little scar next to his eye is just very nice to look at as well. Kind of weird but I enjoy it. Does he have knuckle tattoos? (For the record I am listening, it’s called multitasking.)

“Jesus he set you in a saw trap?” He reached into the mini fridge for two bottles of water since the sun was warming up the trailer like a sauna at this point.

“Yet here you are getting a calm welcome when I thought the guy was going to blow off my fucking face.” He slid the water across the desk as I cracked it open. Wally and his drool began sniffing the water bottle as I tried to drink it.

“But he did save my life after the fall so that’s the only good thing that happened that day.” He chugged some of his water as I nodded in agreement.

“Wally. Wanna get my soldiers out and have a battle.” Beaver asked Wally as The next episode of leave it to beaver began playing so I turned my focus towards the tv.

“Nah.” Wally told Beaver. Four turned up the TV as I noticed a box of Cheez-its next to the desk. I’ve heard these things very good for most American snack food.

“Four we’ve scored!” I yelled as I began opening the box of Cheez-its. Back to the show. We watched as Wally and his friends were tackling each other with Beaver stuck underneath them all.

“Poor Beaver. Such a sweet little kid.” I stuffed a bunch of cheez-its in my mouth then passed four the box.

“One is completely obsessed with this show, he makes all these references for it all the time. I think he’s an orphan actually, we got a little bet on it if you wanna put some money in.” Now that I think about it, I can totally see one being some sort of orphan or in the system.

“Forty dollars.” I reached in my pocket to pull out my wallet, grabbing a couple of fives handing it to him. I know we should be working on finding his brother, or doing some sort of work but this is much more fun.

“Wait they’re gonna charge Beaver three dollars just to join their club? I get that hanging out with little siblings can always be some sort of bother but wow what ass holes. Imagine being that cruel.” I commented as I threw a Cheez-it at Wally's friends after the tv.

“Man. A time when your six year old son could talk to a random stranger asking on how to make money.” Four and I chuckled as Beaver came walking out of the garage with his “this space for rent sign” on him. I mean he’s trying harder than most people in this world so I have to give him credit where it’s due.

“You two done? C’mon. Three thinks he onto something.” Five stuck her head into the trailer as Wally walked away from me as he kept to box of cheez-its with him.

We walked into the trailer as three was listening very closely to a phone conversation as one and seven were talking to each other. I get the feeling that shit is about to go down if three finds the location of the four generals.

“His top General knows the location of him so once they leave Turgistan for something, we go after them and figure out where the brother is.” One told seven as I began looking at the four pictures of the fuckers themselves.

“You ever met people like them?” One asked as I kept staring at their pictures. Four handed me a box of Cheez-its.

“I mean all monsters of humanity are usually either fat, old, or a man. Hell even all three for some massive destruction if history says anything. Or they have weird facial hair like Stalin or Hitler. Except for Elizabeth Bathory because that bitch was truly...

“Guys. Shut the fuck up.” Three barked as his face went from focused to ecstatic in a matter of seconds.

“AH we’re going to Vegas baby!” Three laughed as he put their conversation on speaker.

“This arms dealer will be meeting you at the speedway track around two for the deal.” God this is disgusting. Instead of trying to make our country a better place, go to Vegas to fuck some slut, spend your money, and to add on top of that get some dangerous chemicals so we can kill more people. Love it!

“Las Vegas has more facial recognition software than any place on Earth.” One began telling two and three as I began turning down the volume of their conversations.

“Oh I know what I’m gonna be!” Get this sinking feeling he loves dressing up.

“Choose your disguises wisely.” Disguises? I have to dress up? If they think I’m going to wear a pencil dress, twelve inch heels, and a face full of makeup I will leave right now!

“I’m a grown man, I can handle my shit.”

“I don’t think that’s how the expression goes, don’t handle your shit. Flush it down the toilet like a grown-ass man. Be subtle. Blend in. Disappear. Me, two, and three are going to figure out where on earth they’re hiding his brother. Eight and four I want you two to intercept the gas, destroy it all, find the supplier and eliminate him. Sounds easy enough?” Yes. Going into Las Vegas, finding a bunch of illegal gas, destroy it, and be home by five. Definitely easy.

“Just one question. How do you even destroy Sarin gas? Look I’m a pretty smart lady but destroying gas is something I’ve yet to achieve in my life one.”

“Here. Study this before we leave for Vegas. Ya got 24 hours to nail it.” He slid a book across the table.

How to Disable Sarin Gas Bombs for Dummies.

Written by a Genius.

Handwritten and in a bright green binder. Glad to know we make handcrafted things in this squad. I opened the binder as it showed a step by step on how to disarm them. Kind of like when you’re building a lego set. Except instead of joy you get when you’re trying to build a spaceship, you end up pissing your pants because one fatal mistake and we die!

“Love the homemade touch one. Very professional and doesn’t make me want to shit my pants in absolute fear.” I picked it up as we began dispersing.

“I’m just gonna take this with us. Rather us not die.” Telling four as I handed him the binder for him to start skimming through the binder. Gotta love the fact that my first mission with these guys is disarming a bunch of chemical bombs. Getting that sinking feeling again that they’re a bunch of chaotic people doing chaotic things.

It’s absolutely perfect.

Taglist:

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#ben hardy #ben hardy x reader #6 underground #6 Underground Four #6 Underground Billy #Ben Hardy 6 Underground #Four/Billy #Four #Four x Reader #Four/Billy x reader #6 Underground Netflix

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kumeko · 5 years

Photo

Title: some walls need to be torn down

A/N: For the @superbatexchange! Unfortunately, my giftee dropped out, but I had already finished my piece so this is now for the community in general. 😊 Hope you enjoy!

Summary: Bruce had never been good at letting down his walls, at letting others in. Even for Clark. Especially for Clark.

…

“How’s Friday?” Clark asked, flipping through his planner. Red circles, scribbled in appointments, and stickers decorate every month. His finger tapped on one of the few empty dates. “I’m technically on assignment, but I can always hop back for the night.”

“How old school of you.” Bruce pinched the planner between his fingers, dangling it in front of him. “You have a phone.”

“It’s easier when I can write it out.” Frowning, Clark swiped the planner back. He smoothened the page, clearing any wrinkles. Unfortunately, it didn’t do much good; there was a permanent crease where Bruce had gripped it too hard. “Damn. You’re lucky the year’s almost over.”

“Or what?” Bruce asked dryly, taking a sip from his coffee. He never understood Clark’s preferences for diners, but at least this one had a decent coffee. Leaning back on his seat, he observed the restaurant from their booth. The breakfast crowd was here, a strange mix of truckers and businessmen hurrying to work.

And of course, one journalist, who was still pouting over his agenda. Clark sighed mournfully. “Maybe I should tell Dick to pick on you.” He glared at Bruce grumpily, tapping on the Friday insistently with his pen. “So. Friday?”

Obliging, Bruce pulled out his phone and checked his own schedule. Friday, Friday, Friday—he had a single meeting in the morning, and the rest of the afternoon was clear. Thank goodness for Lucius Fox, he really knew how to minimize his “CEO and Playboy Bruce” appearances. “I should be fine.”

“Great.” Clark beamed, pure sunshine. “It’s a date.”

ii.

There was a familiar prick on his back, the sense that someone was watching him, and Batman pulled out his batarang. Tense, he crouched slightly. It couldn’t be another thug—he had cleared out most of Black Mask’s men from the warehouse. Whatever ones he hadn’t caught would be running away. Then who—

A cape swished behind him and he relaxed. Of course. Superman. Standing straight, Batman turned around. His own cape curled around his legs and he crossed his arms. “Superman.”

There was no responding smile, no exasperated sigh, and the hair on his neck stood up. Superman scanned the surroundings as he slowly floated down. His lips were a flat line, his tone distant. “I caught the runaways.”

“Then that clears up everything.” Feeling uneasy, Batman dropped his arms to his side and took a step forward. In the dark, it was hard to see Superman’s face, to see the ridges and planes he knew intimately. “Are you angry?”

Superman’s feet touched the ground with a quiet thud. Stiffly, he bit out. “Yes.”

It’d been a while since he’d seen him this angry, even longer since it’d been directed at him. “I couldn’t ignore—”

“I’m not asking you to ignore criminals or the bat signal or whatever case you’re on,” Superman growled, his jaw tight. “That’s what we do. But this isn’t the first time you’ve blown me off. Or the second or the third—you do this more often than we actually go on a date.”

Even though he knew Superman wouldn’t talk like this if there was anyone around, he instinctively checked their surroundings for any interlopers. Coolly, he answered, “It was a time sensitive matter.”

“They’re all time-sensitive matters. It always is,” Superman bit out bitterly, shaking his head. “But we’re not alone. Nightwing, Robin, Oracle, Batgirl—any of them could step in for a single night. They do it already for each other.”

He looked away, unable to refute the point. Feebly, he argued, “I had to handle this myself.”

“We can’t keep doing this,” Superman said, his voice oddly soft. He started to float again, slowly rising up to the hole he’d made in the warehouse ceiling. The moonlight hit his face and all Batman could see was the weariness on his face. “Even after all this time, you still won’t let me in. And I…I don’t know how much longer I can wait.”

iii.

That was not his ceiling. No, that wasn’t completely accurate. To be precise, it was more that something felt off about his ceiling. Like there was an extra dent in it or the paint was more chipped than it should have been. Even his bed felt strange, too soft to be his. Lying still on the bed, Bruce kept his breathing steady, listening for any intruders. There were no strange sounds or, even more worrying, the usual ones. By this point of day, Alfred would have had breakfast ready.

Quietly, he slipped off his bed, his feet landing on a layer of dust. Bruce stared at the hardwood floor, then at the tables and dressers around him. Everything was covered in a thick grey and he had a sinking feeling this wasn’t a prank by Dick or Stephanie. No, something was wrong here.

Without a second thought, he crept out of his bedroom. At the very least, his batcave should still be untouched and maybe he could find out something more there. The rest of the mansion was coated in dust, looking unused, and Bruce fought the urge to shiver. It looked abandoned. Forgotten. Even the old grandfather clock looked like it had seen better days. His fingers were sticky as he typed in the usual password and suddenly, a shrill alarm rang.

Immediately, he took a step backward, his body crouching as he scanned his living room. No one swooped out of the shadows, running to see who had broken in. He’d have to find a place to hide, to observe—

Glass twinkled behind him as a large object burst through the bay windows. Turning around, Bruce shielded his eyes as he took in the attack, a bright red and blue blur that hurtled at him. Wait, red and blue? He knew that colour, knew that ‘S’. “Clark?”

“Bruce?” Superman halted in front of him, his eyes wide in surprise. “You…you’re alive?”

Alive? Well, he had been right then. That wasn’t his ceiling.

iv.

“Here, have a cup of tea. You still like two milks, right?” Clark smiled awkwardly, setting down a fragile teacup on the coaster in front of Bruce. Dressed in overalls in his family farmhouse, Clark looked more like a farmer getting ready to milk a cow than a reporter chasing a news story. Then again, maybe that was the case here. The only thing to indicate that he wasn’t purely a country boy was the gold necklace that disappeared under his collar.

“Yes.” It seemed that at least he shared the same tastes as this world’s Bruce. Scanning the room, Bruce noted pictures of Ma and Pa Kent, of Conner and Kara Zor-el. It seemed this world wasn’t too different then. Except of course, one notable exception. “I take it I’m dead?”

“Uh…” Clark rubbed the back of his neck. His lanky frame was too big for the couch, his knees bent uncomfortably. The furniture here hadn’t changed at all from the last time Bruce had visited the Kents. “Yes.” He paused. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, is it?” Bruce asked, picking up the tea. He had always known he’d die from his duties. It didn’t make it easier to hear, even if it was just in a different universe. “You don’t need to apologize.”

“Yes but…” Clark frowned, running a hand through his shaggy hair. Now that Bruce was looking at it, it was peppered with white and grey hairs, a Clark that was much older than his. A Clark he might never get to see ordinarily. They’d never really confirmed if he’d age normally, if he’d live forever. “I’m sorry all the same.”

“Always with the saviour complex.”

Clark blinked, before breaking into a hearty guffaw. Not remember restraint (as usual), he wrapped an arm around Bruce’s back, squeezing him tight. “And you’re still a prissy cat.”

“Luckily for you, the league’s still active.” Puffing his chest proudly, he pointed at one of the more recent photos, showing him with grown-up Conner and Kara. Their costumes had changed, Kara’s more battle-oriented, Conner’s less casual, and they were all grinning as they stood in front of the Justice Hall. A newly rebuilt Justice Hall. “We’ll find out soon enough if it was magic or science that brought you here. Or something else entirely—I feel like we keep finding things that go beyond everything we know. Guess it’s one of nature’s miracles.”

Bruce didn’t want to think about how many times they must have built, destroyed, and rebuilt that place. The iterations of the league’s hall. “The new generation took over?”

“Yeah. Especially some of the kids from the Justice Society. Us old-timers are taking over what Jay and Alan started there.” Clark smiled fondly as he held up a photo of him surrounded by a gaggle of masked teens. Some were easy to pick out—Liam Harper, Wally’s kids—others less so.

And with the bittersweet tinge in Clark’s expression, Bruce knew better than to ask what had happened to Jay and Alan. “So even you retired?”

“Even I retired,” Clark chuckled. “Though I can’t help myself if something happens nearby.”

“No, that’s you.” Bruce scanned the other photos, the changes in his companions. Older Hal. A kingly Arthur. Diana, still going strong. And more, beyond that, and there was something reassuring about the idea that even after he was gone, the work still continued. To find a picture of Cassandra as Batman, of Dick and Damian still patrolling together, of Stephanie refusing to give up her purple abomination.

A picture of him and Clark, sitting awkwardly next to one another. Clark grinning brightly in the camera as he snapped the selfie, this world’s Bruce trying not to smile and failing miserably at it. Another, of Bruce with a pair of champagne glasses. More and more lined the wall, it was impossible not to see them now that he’d noticed the first one. They almost seemed to glow, dragging his eyes from one to the next. A first year anniversary. A surprise dinner. A relationship that was much further than anything Bruce had at home.

The pictures suddenly stopped and he stared at the last one, of them sitting by a river, watching the sunset. Did he die after that? Involuntarily, Bruce asked, “What happened?”

“To what?” Clark approached him from beyond and Bruce could hear as his breathing shallowed, as his breath hitched.

“Us,” Bruce answered bluntly, the only way he knew how.

“Oh.” Clark stepped back, sitting down on the couch once more. He interlaced his hands, resting his chin on his knuckles. “No wonder you felt so familiar.” He smiled sadly as he looked up at Bruce. “You’re also in love.”

“I wouldn’t use that word,” Bruce corrected reflexively.

“You don’t have to be so defensive.” Clark lowered his eyes. His foot scuffed the floor. “You’re only hurting your Clark, you know.”

“Like I hurt you?”

“No, like my Bruce hurt me.” Clark closed his eyes, curling into himself even more. Again, Bruce couldn’t see his face. Again, Bruce wished he could make out his expression. “Like I hurt him. He couldn’t open up and I was tired of trying and…and then he died, before anything happened. Before anything could happen. No apologies, no understanding, just nothing.”

Bruce stepped closer, his hand hovering over Clark’s back. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” Sitting up straight, Clark pulled out the chain around his neck. On the other end was a plain silver band. “I was going to propose, you know. Thought I’d finally surprise him for once. I wonder what he would have looked like.”

There was really only one answer to that. He squeezed Clark’s shoulder. “Happy.”

vi.

A woman stood in front of him, her hair black as night, and Bruce could have sworn it was Zatanna. Except, it was her granddaughter, and there was something both happy and sad about that knowledge. Catching his stare, she clicked her tongue and rapped his head. “Close your eyes. It’s bad enough you’ve seen what you have, can’t have you finding out more.”

“Your grandfather, was he—”

“No guesses either!” The woman growled.

Clark chuckled. “He’s probably right. He always is.”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of confirming it.” The woman snorted indignantly. “Alternate world or not, we’re similar enough that we could be his future. And it’s dangerous to know the future.” She rested her palms on the side of his head. “Sometimes you can make it happen.”

Knowledge could prevent terrible futures, Bruce wanted to point out, but the magic in her hands washed over him, lulling him to sleep. He drowned in drowsiness, his eyes getting heavier and heavier, and the last thing he saw was Clark, was his wedding band on his finger. The silver glinted once, twice, and then all he saw was pitch black.

vii.

This was his ceiling. Bruce stared at the pock-marked ceiling, the burn mark from one of Damian’s surprise training sessions. His bed was the right level of firmness. There was no dust anywhere in the room and through the vents he could hear Alfred humming, the scent of coffee wafting in the air.

He was back. Immediately, he rolled over and picked up his cell, tapping the third speed-dial number. All Bruce would see was that Clark’s sad smile, the apology that lingered in the air unspoken.

And maybe that was their world’s future and maybe it was just a similar alternate world, but either way, he couldn’t let that happen here. Now.

“Clark? We need to talk.”

#batman #superman #superbat #bruce wayne #clark kent #bruce x clark #fanfic #the prompts kinda threw me off on this one a bit #but I think I managed a decent job of it

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blueboxesandtrafficcones · 5 years

Text

The Nuptial Necessity - Chapter 3

A 12xRose Human AU

Despite an unglamorous job description, Rose loves the work she does with The Thistle Foundation, a charity founded by her best friend’s great-uncle. It doesn’t hurt that her boss, her friend’s father, is easy on the eyes. With a great job, wonderful friends and a loving family, life couldn’t be better – except for having someone to share it with.

All of that is threatened, though, when the great-uncle dies – and sets a strange condition for his nephew to inherit, jeopardizing the Foundation and Rose’s future, sparking a chain of events that might just get her everything she dreamed of and more.

Chapters will be posted on Saturdays and Tuesdays. Many thanks to my beta, @stupidsatsuma

Rated: Explicit, for eventual smut

@doctorroseprompts

AO3 | Masterlist

—

Malcolm didn’t get a second of sleep that night. After more than an hour tossing and turning in bed, mind racing, he reluctantly reached for his tablet and glasses, turning on the bedside lamp.

A simple Google search turned up hundreds of thousands of articles on inheritance, but none seemed to offer any solutions to receiving the inheritance without meeting the stipulations of the will. He was an old man, perhaps he was going senile? Why would he do this?

He shot off an email to the will executor and solicitor, asking Is it possible he was not in sound mind? Is there a previous version of the will that doesn’t include this marriage requirement?

It was likely a vain hope, but he had to try. Resolving to forget about the marriage idea for the moment, he turned his attention to finding a job posting board. After a few false starts he tried charity administrator openings London, and with a sigh, began reading through the first posting.

No matter what happens, this is going to suck. Thanks a lot, Uncle Wally.

Friday

By the time his alarm went off he was dressed and ready to go, texting Graham to cancel his morning pickup and deciding to take the Underground instead. Pausing just outside the gate and staring up at the townhouse, he realized with a jolt, Everything I have is tied up in the Estate. If I lose this inheritance, I lose everything.

At twenty-seven he’d fled Glasgow before the ink on his divorce papers was dry, bringing Clara to London for a fresh start. His uncle had been kind enough to give him a job working for The Thistle Foundation in the mailroom, and he spent most of the next decade working his way up and earning his keep until Wallace decided to retire, leaving Malcolm in charge. The townhouse went with the Estate, having been owned by the family since shortly after it was built, and he didn’t so much draw a salary from the Foundation as receive a stipend from his uncle.

I’m fifty years old and have almost nothing to my name.

It had always been a given that he would inherit; Wallace had never had children, his only sibling Malcolm’s father, and Malcolm was in effect an only child, his brother having died decades ago. He’d never had to worry about assets, had few personal expenses. To lose the Estate would cost him everything.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

He was so lost in his thoughts he almost missed his stop, barely making it through the doors onto the platform before they closed. Coming up to street-level he looked around, catching sight of the little shop Rose usually got their morning coffees from, only recognizing it by the familiar logo.

Stepping inside, it wasn’t until he was facing the cashier he realized he had no idea what Rose usually ordered. “Erm, hi. I don’t do this, my assistant is usually in here – pretty, blonde, big smile, name of Rose? D’you-”

“Oh, you must be Malcolm!” the girl, Amy, gushed, eyes lighting up. “Of course we know Rose, she’s in here everyday! Oi, Mel, Rose’s regular order, stat!” She turned back to him, finding him blinking at her in surprise. “Always nice to meet a fellow Scot. Rose is great, isn’t she?”

“The absolute best,” he agreed proudly, unsurprised but touched by the impression she obviously left everywhere she went. That’s my gi- that’s Rose. “I’d be hopelessly lost without her.”

“Too right. Anyway, here we are, that’s ten quid,” she passed over two large takeaway cups of coffee and a pastry bag.

Right. Feeling like a moron, entirely out of sorts after first the previous day’s bombshell and then no sleep, he dug out a twenty-pound note and thrust it across the space. “Keep the change. Thanks.”

Picking up the order he made his way to the door, more focused on the drinks than where he was walking, elbowing open the door and slamming right into someone entering. “Shit!” He barely managed to keep hold of everything, coffee sloshing dangerously but only spilling a little, and he looked up to give the person a piece of his mind only to stop dead in surprise. “Oh, fuck me.”

Rose arched one eyebrow in response, a smile flickering over her lips. “I’d rather not get banned from here, if it’s all the same to you, ta.” She plucked one of the cups from his hand, lifting it to her nose before taking a large gulp. “What’re you doing here?”

Stepping out onto the sidewalk they started down the street towards their building, falling naturally into sync.

“I couldn’t sleep, thought I’d come in early. I saw the place, and…” he trailed off, shrugging one shoulder. “You’re up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” she echoed, rolling her eyes. “Clara stopped by, talked my ear off until half two. Decided to just get a move on.”

The silence was awkward, which only served to annoy him; they had always had a good rapport, after the first six or so months once she had settled into her role. Now, eight years later he considered their partnership to be a well-oiled machine, two halves of a whole despite the on-paper power imbalance.

He held the door for her as they entered their building, nodding to the security guards as they buzzed through. Rose hit the button on the lift for their floor, and they rode up alone.

Malcolm followed her to her desk, watching as she flicked on the lights and shrugged off her coat, vaguely curious to her routine; she typically arrived only a few minutes before him- long enough to be settled and ready to face the day, but recent enough that his coffee was always hot and fresh.

“Oh!” she yelped, turning around to see him leaning on the corner of her desk, watching her. “D’you need something? My computer’s still booting up.”

The words hovered on the tip of his tongue, before he sighed, shoulders slumping. “No, I’m good. Just- oh, you know what you’re doing. I’ll be in my office.” Extracting his muffin from the pastry bag he slunk into his office, falling into his desk chair and turning to gaze listlessly out the window.

What am I supposed to do?

It was, quite frankly, the worst day of Rose’s professional career. Things got done, most of her duties able to be completed on autopilot after so long, but she could muster no spark to put into any of it. No banter. None of her signature Rose Tyler charm.

Her computer dinged and she glanced up from where she was poking at her salad halfheartedly to groan. “Oh, you’ve got to be motherfucking shitting me.”

“Rose Tyler!” Malcolm’s delighted voice made her jump and yelp, “I’m so proud of you. That was almost a proper swear.”

“Missy’s on her way up,” she didn’t even look at him, clicking on the IM box from Mickey, the building’s security guard and one of her oldest friends. It was just an emoji, two wide eyes, but it was their code. “What do you want me to do?”

He sighed heavily. “Fine, I’ll see her. I swear, she must have my office bugged or something.”

The lift dinged, and she raised her eyes to glance at him. He looks like he’s having as rough a day as I am. He’d said he hadn’t slept; had it been for the same reason she hadn’t? No, he was probably thinking about the gala. Of course it was about that, dingbat. “I’ll send her in.”

“Thanks.”

He disappeared back into his office as Missy walked in, and Rose had to bite her lip hard to keep from laughing or rolling her eyes. What did he ever see in her? Missy Tucker was without comparison the most extravagant, eccentric person she’d ever met, and that included all of her mother’s rich society ‘friends’.

“Good afternoon, welcome to The Thistle Foundation, do you have an appointment?” Rose asked sweetly, as the older woman approached her desk.

“I’d like to see my husband, please.” Missy’s smile was just as fake-sweet as Rose’s, as they went through the whole song-and-dance. One of the very first things Rose had been taught on her first day, by both Malcolm and her predecessor Jo, was to stall Missy as long as possible, making enough trouble that she didn’t find it worth it to visit the office.

This is your best friend’s mother, this is your best friend’s mother, this is your best friend’s mother, Rose lectured herself, pretending to stare intently at her screen for a moment. “I can give you a few minutes, but he has a call at one that he can’t miss.”

“Thank you.” And she swept past Rose into Malcolm’s office.

Once the door shut behind her, Rose let loose an undignified snort. Taking a subtle picture with her mobile, she texted it to Clara with the caption Your mum’s here.

Missy Tucker was the subject of ongoing amusement amongst the three; every time she appeared after months of no contact she had an entirely different style, often with a slight tweak to her features suggesting she was a fan of cosmetic surgery. Today her chosen look was that of evil Mary Poppins, complete with a plum-colored ankle-length skirt and matching dress coat, a white dress shirt buttoned to the neck with an elaborate bow, black heeled boots, a delicate hat, and an umbrella Rose would swear was an actual prop from the movie.

She looked ridiculous, and like she would be right at home as the evil orphanage matron in a Victorian version of Annie!

Are you fucking kidding me? Clara pinged back almost immediately. I love my Dad, but God I wish I was adopted. Please tell me I didn’t inherit her fashion sense!

Snickering, Rose shook her head and returned to her work polishing up her resume. At precisely one o’clock she buzzed in on the intercom, using what Clara called her flight attendant voice. “Malcolm, I have that potential donor on line two.”

“Thank you, Miss Tyler.”

A moment later the door opened and Missy stalked out, a murderous expression on her face. “I’ll talk to you soon,” she threatened her ex over her shoulder, ignoring Rose as she stormed towards the lift.

Rose waited until the lift doors closed before rising and entering Malcolm’s office. “So?”

He was lying on his couch with his head back against the cushions, a crystal cut glass of scotch hanging loosely from his hand. “She wants to reconcile, says she’s changed, wants to go back to what we once were.”

“What did you say?” She settled gingerly on the end of the glass coffee table by his head, watching as he opened tired eyes to stare at her.

“That who we were went up in a flaming pile of shit twenty-three years ago when I caught her high in bed with the babysitter on our fifth wedding anniversary. That who we were was a childhood friendship that went too far. That who we were died many, many years ago.”

He looked so sad, Rose’s heart went out to him.

“It’s far, far too late now. A part of me will always miss that, always wonder, but… It’s ancient history. Never mind that this is all because of Wallace’s death and the inheritance. She didn’t say it, but I know her. Anything that even sniffs of money or power and she’s first in line, plotting how to get it.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose offered, giving him a kind smile. “You deserve better than her.”

Sighing, he struggled upright, turning to plant his feet on the ground and set the untouched glass of scotch on the coffee table next to her. “Thanks.”

Their eyes met, and for once, she didn’t blush and look away. Clara’s question from the previous night circled back through her mind, and she let herself actually see him. Ice blue eyes capable of such a coldness shined back, warm and open, something only a privileged few were allowed to see. His strong features could be severe, Clara had once called them attack eyebrows, but when he smiled… his entire face would light up, almost like he was a different person.

She'd always found him attractive, may have had the occasional fantasy involving them, a bottle of wine, and a hot tub, but love?

Her gaze dropped to his lips, and she automatically licked her own. She would be lying if she said she’d never wondered – didn’t everyone, at some point? He drew closer, and she realized that she was leaning in; they were both leaning in. Is this really happening?

Rose’s eyes fluttered closed, her heart pounding, and she could feel his breath against her lips when-

“Dad?”

#bbatcfic #ficandchips #Doctor Who #doctorroseprompts #Human!12xRose #Human!Twelfth Doctor #Rose Tyler #Human AU #AU #The Nuptial Necessity

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