#This was the kick I needed to organize my folders on my computer

[anthotneystark]

WIP word search!

rules: go through your wips and look for the words given to you and post a snippet with that word.

I was tagged by @frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe whomst I adore!

my words were: Ignore, Second, Road, Soil, Term, Circumstance

Ignore (A baby fic I'm working on fleshing out still)

That’s the night he hears that his dad was sleeping with a paralegal during his birth. He doesn’t know what a paralegal is, his first thought is that maybe it’s a weird kind of teddy bear, like the one he had until his dad decided he was too old for baby toys. But his mother is angry when she says it, so it must be something he’s not supposed to be sleeping with. He doesn’t move from his spot as she stalks up the stairs. She ignores him, which is both what he wanted and something he hates. Tommy H’s mom always asks him a bunch of questions and actually listens to his answers, and sometimes he wishes his mom would be more like her. But then he feels bad, because he still loves his mom.

Second (A tattoo fic based on one of my own tattoos)

The second tattoo is for himself. Eddie does it again, constantly checking to make sure that he’s totally sure about it, but it’s the most sure he’s ever been about anything. He gets this one directly over his heart, where he’ll see it every time he looks in the mirror, where it’ll serve as a reminder of who he is now, how far he’s come. There, in stark black ink, sits a cluster of daffodils. Renewal. Rebirth. This life he built for himself in the shadows of fear and loss, it’s all because of that moment where he decided he wanted to be better, wanted to be different from how he’d spent so much of his life. He’d remade himself, worked to be who he wanted to be, someone he could be proud of.

Road (Stick Season songfic idea that I'm thinking I'm going to make a full fic out of that @sharpbutsoft inspired)

It's his dream, not hers, and he can recognize that, but he’s not ready to let it go yet. He sees her mom in the grocery store and sees the faint recognition in her eyes before he turns away. He knows she has to drive past his road to get to the Byers’ house but he knows without having to ask that she’s not thinking about him as she does it. The pain never leaves, but he holds onto it even as he wishes it was gone. He holds onto it every time he sees her. It’s a cycle in his head. Aching longing, love, anger, pain, over and over and over again. He feels stuck, forever, like there’s no escape from it and time isn’t helping.

Soil (a possession fix-it AU)

He makes sure everyone is alright though and doesn’t spare a moment for himself until he’s finally alone, until he can finally take his first hot shower in days. He can finally get all the blood and soil and gunk and gravel off of him. He has to sit down in the shower to pick it out of his feet, out of his back wherever he can reach. It hurts, but he can handle it. Pain is easy for him now. Robin will call when she remembers, probably give him another lecture about rabies, but that’s fine. You always worry her too much. He’s exhausted, so he washes quickly, cleans then disinfects the gaping wounds on his sides and tries not to think about the mess on his back that he can’t reach. He’ll worry about it later, once he’s slept.

Term - I didn't have anything with this in it and couldn't think of how I'd use it at the moment in any of my stuff :(

Circumstance (The Sun Rose - A beauty and the beast story)

It was no use though, and as the growls inched closer, he didn’t try to go for his van, just bolted into the woods in what was likely the worse decision of his life. “Stay out of the woods to the north, Eddie. I mean it.” Wayne’s voice echoed in his head as he ran, stumbling and shaking and desperate to stay upright as those gnashing teeth chased him. Under normal circumstances, he’d have taken heed and followed that rule. But he was already in over his head, was already here and so was Chrissy, he couldn’t leave her behind now. He tripped on a root, crashing into the ground hard, and had only a moment to wonder who would break the news to Wayne of his demise. Rancid, hot breath hit his skin, his heart pounded in his throat, and he waited for the feeling of teeth stabbing into his neck.

Tagging @thefreakandthehair, @sharpbutsoft, @starrystevie and anyone else who wants to join in!

your words are: silk, effort, determine, thumb, direct, grave

[dronebiscuitbat]

Give Me a Reason: Chapter 4 - "Tessa"

Uzi came home from school that day exhausted, both socially and physically. And was ready to jump for joy when she realized her dad was still at work. Leaving her to have the house to herself. Although she shouldn't have been been expecting anything different, Khan almost lived at his job; installing security systems for JCJenson.

The rest of her classes were normal, not counting her Computer Literacy class which she shared with N and he'd done what he'd done all day, sit right next to her and just… talk. Sometimes she didn't even have to reply and he'd still take it as an answer and keep talking to her. It should have been annoying, but it never felt that way.

But even though it wasn't annoying, it did drain her social battery to the point that it was empty, and now all she wanted to do was rot in her room watching anime. Plus… she had something squirreled away for when she had the house to herself.

She threw her backpack down by the door and ran at a dead sprint to her bedroom, where she kicked off her boots and hoodie and threw herself onto her bed with a content sigh. Although it was broken by a loud mewl, Salem; who had been taking a nap on her bed, had been interrupted and wasn't exactly happy about it.

“Sorry buddy, just had a long day.” She reached up to scratched the black cat's chin and he purred, seeming to accept it as an apology, he licked her face with his scratchy tongue and she immediately grumbled and jerked away.

“Ew! Sandpaper licks!” She yelped to herself and lifted the cat up in her hands, dangling him in front of her face before she sighed and buried her face into his fluffy underbelly and sighed. Salem didn't react in the slightest, only bleped.

“You know what sounds good right now buddy?” She pulled back and asked him, a smirk on her face as she shook him gently.

“Breaking into my stash, hell yeah.” She stood up and sat the poor cat down, who only returned to his previous activity; napping.

She looked around like she was afraid someone was watching before heading over to her desk and opening the bottom drawer, at first glance, it was full of nothing but old folders and sketchbooks, but a quick brush of her hand reveled that the drawer had a false bottom, that she quickly removed and pulled out a baggie of dried, green leaves, a lighter and material to roll a blunt.

A gift for herself, bought with allowance she'd gotten from her dad. She'd been rationing it all summer, knowing she'd need it way more during the school year and now she had no more reason to wait.

It didn't take long for her to roll up the paper into a blunt and light it up, reveling in the smell that permeated her room almost immediately, she stuck it in her mouth and took a huff, some of the static that had been building in her head all day dissipated as she gave a relaxed sigh.

Now, what was the best thing to watch while high…?

Meanwhile…

Tessa’s car pulled into the front of the school exactly fifteen minutes after it ended, it was a dark grey, like wet slate, and a pristine little BMW sedan that had never once been damaged.

“Tessa!” N gave her a wave as he came up to the passenger window before opening the door, throwing himself clumsily onto the plush leather of the seats, a feminine, accented voice giggled at his entrance.

“Have a good first day then?” The woman driving the vehicle asked, she was a young thing, 23, with shining green eyes and long brown hair held in two separate small pigtails near the front and a proper bun in the back, right now, she was dressed in her work attire, a white labcoat partly stained with something unknown and a green dress shirt underneath. Black slacks and weathered, black leather boots.

“Yeah! I mean… I got a little lost in the halls. But I met someone who was really nice! She let me sit beside her and ramble! Oh! And she really liked your tuna sandwich! And! She let me borrow a-” He suddenly stopped his excited talking, his eyes going wide as he realized.

“Aww biscuits! I forgot to give Uzi her pencil back…”

Tessa threw her head back and laughed, before shaking her head and beginning to pull out from in front of the school.

“Uzi? Like… the little submachine pistol?”

“Mmhm! She's cool, she has purple hair!” N smile got wider as he framed his face with balled fists. An energy which seemed to bleed into the woman driving, because her smile grew as well.

“You think she's pretty don't you?” She asked, smirking while lifting one brow up, driving through the small town of Copper, it used to be a mining town, but now it was the home of one of many JCJenson appliance factories.

“T-Tessa!” N's face filled with blush his eyes growing wide as he suddenly gripped the seat underneath him.

“What? Do you?” Tessa’s smirk grew wider, as he voice took on a teasing tone, if anything his blush grew worse as he leaned forward, his hands moving forward to clutch the air in front of him.

“I-I, No! We've only just met! Don't do that!”

“Oh but you were blushing! You have a little crush? On your first day?” Tessa loved her little brother, she did, but lightly teasing him was also something she took great joy in, he was always so animated with everything he did.

“No! Tessa stop that! I don't have a crush on her! I just thought her hair and piercings looked cool!” He crossed his arms and looked away from her while his blush cooled.

“Oh I know, Nathaniel! I'm just teasing you!”

N grumbled, while he knew that, he didn't really appreciate it, how could he have a crush on someone he just met? That was weird wasn't it? Sure, he thought her hair was pretty and her laugh was fun, but those were so… shallow. He was more into personalities, not any kind of physical attribute.

Tessa made a left, off the main road and onto a gravel one, leading into a wooded, secluded area, with it being the middle of spring, the trees all along the long driveway were in full bloom, little white flowers breaking up the hues of greens.

N always liked this part of the property the best, it still held all of Copper's natural beauty, instead of the perfectly manicured hedges and color coordinated flowers of the manors garden. Speaking of…

Tessa stopped in front of a huge wrought iron gate, the only entrance to the tall, spiked fence that led to the rest of the property, Tessa leaned out of the window to press a button on a large stone pillar.

“It's me, let me in.” She sounded tired already, but the voice on the other side was about to add to it.

“Mrs. Elliot requires all passengers to be acounted for, young master Tessa.”

“Oh for- it's Nathan! He lives here!”

The voice on the other end didn't respond, but the gate did open. She sighed and N just looked at her sheepishly.

“You know Mr. And Mrs. Elliot only want our safety, that's just them keeping everyone safe.”

“From what, were not in the big city anymore, I don't think anyone even knows this place exists.”

He didn't have an answer for that, so he just rested his elbow on the door and watched out the window as the Elliot Manor came into view.

The entire building was painted white, with plenty of windows in a style that portrayed it's age, there was a fancy, two door garage on the bottom floor, a fountain and a garden both in the front and in the back. The driveway went from gravel to newly paved cobbled road, which Tessa went over to pull into the garage.

“Alright, we're home!”

Next ->

[orion-mp5]

Okay, so-

I'm working on a project for fun, and it has something to do with the art I posted recently....

I'M WRITING A STORY! I decided I wanna share my process with Tumblr for fun and to possibly hold myself accountable to finish it. I've only ever written short stories before, and don't entirely know what I'm doing, but if 50 Shades of Gray and Twilight can become a phenomenon, I'm sure I can at least get a few likes. Anyway- Here's a snippet!

I groan as I rest my head in my hands, the eye strain from reading for so long finally catching up to me. I’ve been rereading articles, emails, and letters for hours trying to figure out what to do for my next case. I could do a robbery case, there are quite a few missing heirlooms and break-ins, but there are also missing family members, and there are even some requests to have me investigate their bosses. I take a deep breath, slowly breathing out as I count to ten. I hear the door to my office open and sigh in relief.

I open my eyes and look up at my partner Angel. Angel looks terrifying, a black mass with a jaw full of teeth, eyes covering the side of their face, and a scar going through the biggest one. Their hooves tap on the wooden floor as they walk up to my desk, a cup of coffee in their large hands.

I take the mug from their hands, taking a sip of the coffee with a soft hum. I look back up at Angel, signing ‘thank you’ as I relax in my chair. Angel’s tail flicks in satisfaction before raising their hands to continue the conversation.

“You’re remembering to take breaks, right?” I nod as I take another sip of coffee. “Just was. My eyes were starting to hurt.”

Angel huffs, their tail flicking in annoyance. “If your eyes are being strained, you’re not taking enough breaks.” Angel crosses their arms as they glare at me. I sigh, shaking my head.

“C’mon Angle. You know I need to find more work for us to do to keep food on the table. If I wait too long, it’s gonna cause us more trouble than it’s worth.” I rest my chin on my knuckles as I look up at them, the constant furrow of my brow deepening.

Angel sighs, their eyes looking at me worriedly as they step closer, wrapping their tail around my bicep as they uncross their arms. “Alex, please. You’re always overworking yourself. It’s making me worried. We have enough money, we can take a break and splurge a bit. How about we go on a trip? You can pick what we do.” I want to argue, but I know they're right. Working this much is bad for my health, and they’d kick my ass if I kept this up. I look back at my computer, drumming my fingers onto my desk before typing into the search engine. Multiple things pop up, but what immediately catches my eye is an ad for a concert. But not just any concert-

“Tahllulah Byrne is having a concert nearby.” Angel is instantly leaning over me, trilling in excitement. The two of us have been obsessed with her music since before she became popular, so the chance to go to one of her concerts is exciting for both of us. 

I click on the link, and in a few short minutes, we have two tickets for her show in three weeks from now, seated in the middle section near the front.

“Looks like We're going to Foxwoods.”

Angel purrs as their hold on me tightens. I relax back into them, letting the tension in my shoulders subside. 

Angel and I have known each other for years, having first met at a festival. I perfectly remember how they scared a group of people by shifting into a tiger, and how they laughed in such pure delight. After that, Angel and I have been inseparable. I smile at the memory, before yawning, tears pricking my eyes.

Angel pulls away, dragging my arm with them, silently egging me to rest with them. I sigh, pressing my hands on my knees as I stand up. Angel heads upstairs ahead of me, and I stay behind to clean up my desk. I tuck the articles and letters into separate folders, organizing them by date and category before locking up the filing cabinet. 

I scan the room, looking for anything that needs to be tidied. I adjust the position of my chair before grabbing my mug and leaving the office, locking the door behind me. I take a swig of coffee before heading towards the stairwell, slowly ascending to the apartment with a wince, my body sore and creaky from sitting for so long.

I head into the living room, where Angel is already lying on the couch reading a book. I chug the rest of my coffee before placing it on the table. I sit at Angel's hooves, leaning forward to pull up the leg of my flared pants to undo the laces of my boots before kicking them off. I lay down on Angel's chest, wrapping my muscular arms around their middle. I hear Angel humming softly as I start to drift off into sleep, grateful I have them in my life.

And that was the first chapter of The Music of Murder, I hope you enjoyed!

[fraugremlin]

Sims 4 Save + Mod Folder

Sul Sul! I have been working on this save file for a while now, however because I will be primarily playing Sims 3 and will not be purcahsing anymore content for sims 4, I have decided to release this prematurily. It is not complete; some households not having family trees or lore implications, incomplete lore edits, unfinished stories or lore, un-edited lots or worlds and so on. Willowcreek is the only complete world. Regardless, maybe someone else will enjoy the work i have done so far or will pick up where i left off.

Game Additions:

Willowcreek: World edit done by me (crumplebottom house is Gallery). Bella is still missing with Mortimer on his death bed. Cassandra Goth is struggling to pick back up her life after her divorce with Don Lothario. The Goth manor is Haunted and packed with relatives ready for haunting fun. Agnes is somehow still kicking (but not Swinging. Cottage Living not included) Library equipped with Books. Added a Cat-Cafe :)

Oasis Springs: Restored Landgraab family tree between Johnny Zest and Landgraabs. Restored Caliente and Lothario homes from Sims 2. Dina Caliente is a Widow to Michael Bachelor. Includes Bowling Alley and old church/wedding venue (pride flags included bc its not that kinda church)

San Myshuno: Spice Market District edited and includes a nightclub. Two Vampirs and a Vampire club added to mimic "Late Night" Sims 3 and reference "Vampire: The Masquerade" Incomplete lore/plotline following the Vampires "Goth" (Ventrue Ref.) and "Pleasant"(Malkavian Ref.)

Glimmerbrook: Full world Edit via Gallery. All Spellcasters edited. L. Faba facelifted and made to be fae-like. Morgyn is still faithfully non-bionary and given a fae-like facelife. Wardrobe edited to be more androgynes. New Family added with ancient bloodline (?) and incomplete lore/plotline.

Moonwood Mill: Full world Edit via Gallery. Library Equipped with Books.

Britechester: Full world Edit via me. Dorms are now gender-restricted and include a Kitchenette. The on campus houses now function as club restricted unisex dorms. Library equipped with course books and skill books along with large computer lab. central houses are more european (despite the awfully hideous building gaps and huge empty space bc EA employees have never seen pictures of european towns or cities before. Windenburg has the same painful issue) Angela and Lillith Pleasant have no family tree but have been visually restored.

Windenburg: World edit done by me and Gallery. Living spaces have been massively shrunk and space has been conserved. The entire island has been bulldozed with a "shell" lot as decor and the ruins being left alone. Houses are small and there are no "kitchens and separate dinning rooms" because thats a waste of space utility. Includes a Restaurant and Reading-Cafe. Missing the ability to have Lüften. Very Sadg. very cringe.

StrangerVille: World edit done by me and Gallery. Bella II says hello.

PACK LIST:

EXPANSIONS; Get Together, Discover University, Get Famous, Get to Work, City Living, Cats and Dogs, Seasons, High School Years

GAME PACKS; Werewolves, Vampires, Realm of Magic, Parenthood, Dine Out, Spa Day, Outdoor Retreat, Strangerville, Jungle Adventure STUFF PACKS; Laundry Day, Backyard Stuff, Toddler Stuff, Bowling Night, Luxury Stuff, Paranormal Stuff

KITS; Goth Galore, Grunge Revival, Greenhouse Haven, Desert Luxe, Blooming Rooms, Incheon Arrivals, Carnival Streetware, Fashion Street, Moonlight chic, Little Campers. IMPORTANT: Mods and Packs are needed or the save file may break/look rough. Mods are organized/catagorized for easier integration and conflict Resolution. Please check the files properly while installing. If you use MCCC, remove my version as it may not share your settings.

Let me know if there are any problems :)

[thiscrimsonsoul]

{out of paprikash} So... my laptop decided to fry its harddrive this morning, and that means a lot of very negative things for me. Explanation and bit of a rant below, but I can’t promise how much writing I will get done tonight. It depends on time, mood, muse, and whether I even feel like being here, given my extreme mood drop. I will try to do what I can.

This has hit me hard for a number of reasons. First, I’ve been so busy that I haven’t backed up my files in six months. That means I’ve lost six months of writing progress on various projects, six months of work on Tumblr (files with tags, info dumps, headcanons, icons, reaction gifs, anything I’ve updated in my archives... it’s just how I organize my brain), and six months of music and photos.

The most heartbreaking of these losses is the writing/editing progress I’ve lost on various WIPs, but also I lost an entire folder containing pictures and videos of a pet that died recently. I had removed them all from my phone already, thinking they were archived on my computer, but hadn’t backed them up yet. It’s like losing him all over again. I also had pictures from my grandmother’s birthday, going out with my dad to our favorite pub, and other family things I can just never get back.

Understandably, and especially given that lately I’ve just been hit with one thing right after the other for several months now and I’m exhausted, this has very much taken me down and made me feel quite defeated. It is especially infuriating because I was planning on backing up all my files today, since I would have some time to finally do it and I just had a terrible feeling like I needed to do it soon. One more day... could have changed so much for me. But here I am.

I do have a backup laptop that I am using right now, but it is very old, very slow, and it has the processing power of a drunken snail. I can’t do the majority of daily things I do with my main laptop on this one, but at least I can still work and answer email so I won’t lose my job and I can do basic writing. No games, nothing with pictures or videos, but just basic stuff. But of course, that won’t help me get any of my files back. My dad is going to work on the drive to see if anything is salvageable, but there is absolutely no guarantee at all that it will be.

But the worst part... is that as of midnight tonight, my students have their first two forums assignments due. Which means... by tomorrow... I will have 600 forums posts to grade by Thursday, and now I have to do that on a slow, old, clunky computer that freezes up or shuts itself off if you so much as look at it funny. To give you an idea, it usually takes me about an hour and a half to grade one section of students. I have five sections. And that timing was with my fast-as-hell main laptop. On this slow ass boi? Who knows how long it will take me now.

And lastly, I cannot be without a fast, reliable computer. My entire job is online. The majority of my hobbies are as well. So... I will have to run out in the next day or so to purchase a brand new computer, having very little time to research which one I want to buy and paying full price because there are no sales going on right now to speak of. This is going to kick my finances in the ass like you would not believe. And when I get it home, I will have hours’ if not days’ worth of installing, configuring, file populating, organizing, anti-virusing, and settings adjusting to accomplish ASAP.

I will likely be getting the new computer Wednesday, since tomorrow I have to work all day, and I need tonight to try to do some research on what to buy. I’m not going to go on hiatus from all my blogs because I think doing some writing will help keep me sane, but my activity may be low until I get the new computer and can situate myself with it.

I’ll update on my other blogs as they are scheduled this week to let you know what’s going on. Please bear with me and sorry for yet another reason why I can’t just be here to write like I want to. Eventually the universe has to run out of things it can fuck up in my life, right? Right?  R i g h t ?

[adozentothedawn]

7, 8, 22, 27, 28 from the Writer's Questions?

Thanks for playing!^^

Ask is here.

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

You were a few seconds slower. :P Answer is here.

8. If you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go?

Action. In fact, I already did one! More than 1k words with not a single word spoken. I won't link it cause it's one of the ones that I have grown to despise and really need to work over. I still very much like the idea and even the general sentence structure, but I completely failed the word choice and I cringe looking at it. Maybe this is the kick I need to finally rework it. I just really need to learn some fancy words.

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?

I am not organized. In fact this ask reminded me that I forgot on which device I last wrote which is not great because it means I don't which has the newest version that I need to back up and transfer. I tend to write with word and that is still how I save all my pieces, but in recent times I started using an app called PureWriter to be able to work on my phone more practically, and I use an emulator to also use that app on my computer, but unfortuinately those don't synch automatically like one drive does which makes it a bit annoying, but oh well. I do make sure to periodically copy everything into a word file and save it on one drive though, I don't want an accident to happen and suddenly lose all my work. Other than that, I only have the Mass Effect piece on my phone currently so I don't have much to organize there. The word files I have sorted into one fandoms folder, and then sorted into appropriate fandom folders. You know what, actually I am kind of organized I guess.

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?

Ironically enough one of my own OCs, Mani. I don't know what I was thinking coming up with a stuck up aristocrat. (Actually I do know and I don't regret it but I do regret not eating a dictonary first because I cannot write posh to save my life.) He's also the reason why that piece I mentioned sucks. It's a very introspective one that builds up into a huge admission from Mani, but because I cannot write posh is sounds really dumb for now. I have to fix these dumb oneshots, for real.

28. Who is the most delightful character you’ve ever written? Why?

Uh there's a few, but I guess I'll have to give it to Aelfi. I only wrote one chapter for her for now but her weird relationship with Wael and her callousness are very fun for me. Let's see how far I actually get but I do plan to pick her up again some time because I really want to get her actualy turn of "Oh fuck" some time. I want her to meet back up with Eothas in Deadfire and help him because she actually feels very bad and then they can swim in self pity together.

[fanmoose12]

Partners

Characters: Petra Ral, Levi, Hanji Zoe x Levi Genre: Action / Mystery / Romance Rating: T

Detective!au

Summary: when Petra was promoted to a detective and partnered up with legendary Levi Ackerman, she felt like the happiest person in the world.

But, as she soon found out, detective Ackerman she used to admire so much was actually a far cry from the ideal policeman Petra thought he was. He was rude, harsh and easily annoyed. And, in addition, he still hadn’t moved on from the death of his previous partner - detective Hange Zoe.

Chapter 7/?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Сhapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

It was a recurring dream of hers.

She was sitting behind the desk in a room she couldn’t recognize. There were three other desks there, a big shelf, filled with documents and a black, leather coach. On a desk in front of her, there was a computer, a dozen of folders, pens and used coffee cups scattered around, and on the edge stood a plate. For some reason, Hange was sure that her name was written on it. There was another plate, which was propped up on a desk that was set beside hers. Hange took it in her hands numerous times, trying to see what name was written there. The letters were always too blurry for her to understand.

Evidently, she was inside an office of some sort. The place seemed familiar, extremely so. Hange knew that there was a small crack in the window behind her desk, she knew that her chair creaked whenever she shifted her sitting position, she knew that the best tea was kept on a lower shelf.

And despite all the evidence that she knew this place, she couldn’t remember if she had ever been here. Or who she shared this office with.

In her hands she held a photo album and her fingers slowly traced one picture after another. Each page showed different groups of people – there were a lot of them, but there were only two men, who appeared at each photo. One was tall and blonde, the other one – short and dark-haired. Hange was hugging them in each picture, her face shining with happiness.

The men, however, had no faces.

Out of the dozen people who stood next to Hange on these photos, no one had a face. They were just silhouettes, blurry and hazy.

Same as Hange’s memory of them.

She knew they were important, knew that she loved them, dearly so, but she couldn’t remember them. She didn’t know who they were, she forgot their names and faces, couldn’t recall how their voices sounded like or how they took their coffee. Her mind was like a book that once was filled with memories. But now all the pages were torn out, leaving just the title and the beginnings of first chapter.

It pissed Hange off, it left her frustrated and confused. Who were these people? Were they colleagues? Friends? Family? If they were so close to her, where were they now? Why weren’t they still by her side? Had they left her? Why was she left behind?

These questions tormented Hange. Every time she woke up after that dream, she couldn’t help but ponder upon it, desperately searching for an answer. That’s why she hated this dream so much, it wasn’t as bad as the others ones - the ones about fire and child’s screams and— no, these were the worst, always making Hange wake up in the middle of the night with a hoarse scream on her lips. Dreams about her forgotten life weren’t much better, though. They made her feel so uneasy because—

Because she missed them. She didn’t know these people, had no clear memory of them, but still her heart ached to see them. There was a longing inside her so severe she felt like there was a huge hole in her chest. She had so many feelings, so much love to give—

But there was no one she could share that love with.

Usually, after a dream like that, Hange was reluctant to leave her bed. She could spend literal hours, chewing on her thumb and trying to regain what was lost. Sometimes she could almost see it, the beginning of a memory, a flash of something familiar, but it always ended there, never reaching anything conclusive. Didn’t stop her from trying, though.

This morning, however, was vastly different. This morning, the time for pondering was cut off abruptly, when someone had woken Hange up by roughly kicking the leg of her bed.

She woke up immediately. For a second she was confused, and then— then she got angry. She opened her eyes and put on her glasses, preparing the deadliest of glares for whoever had deigned to disturb her sleep.

Of course. It was stupid Floch. Hange threw a pillow at him, aiming right at his idiotic face. It hit him right in the center of his ugly forehead. If she wasn’t so pissed off, Hange would have laughed at his perplexed expression.

“The fuck are you doing here?” she asked furiously. “How many times do I have to tell you that you’re not allowed inside my apartment?”

Well, calling the place, where Hange lived, an apartment was quite possibly a huge exaggeration. Her home consisted of one room, a bathroom and a balcony so small she alone could hardly fit there. Zeke claimed that she started living there years before the accident that caused her amnesia had occurred. But, as with everything Zeke had told her, Hange found it hard to believe him – the apartment, when she returned from the hospital, was barren and lifeless. She couldn’t quite imagine living in such pristine place, especially considering the amount of clutter she had accumulated just after a week of living there.

But why would Zeke lie to her? She asked herself that exact question more times than she could count.

“Zeke wants to see you,” Floch told her, bringing Hange back to present.

“Cool,” she stood up and pushed past Floch, heading to the part of her apartment she proudly called the kitchen. In truth, it was just a tiny corner of her room, where a refrigerator and narrow countertop stood.

Yawning, she started the coffee machine and opened the small cabinet, searching for a clean mug. She needed to do the dishes, Hange noted to herself.

“Your place is like a junkyard, four-eyes. You’re living in a dumpster like a fucking raccoon.”

Hange softly chuckled. As with her strange dreams, it wasn’t the first time she had heard this voice. It often appeared inside her head, commenting on situations she had found herself in. Sometimes it gave her valid advice too. She didn’t know if this voice was a sign of her declining mental health, something that should definitely alarm her, or just a repressed memory of sorts. She tried not to think about it too hard. That voice brought her some comfort, and she was always happy to hear it. She couldn’t remember the name of its owner, of course, and since it was sarcastic and often quite rude, she nicknamed it simply ‘the grumpy one’.

“What are you laughing at?” Floch seethed, following after Hange. “And didn’t you hear me? Zeke wants to see you. What the fuck are you doing?”

“Making coffee,” Hange shrugged. “I’d offer a cup to you too, but, unfortunately, I have no poison to go with it. Don’t take it personally,” she smiled, baring her teeth.

“It’s urgent,” Floch pressed, glaring at her.  

Poor thing, Hange thought, as she was filling her mug with steaming coffee, he was probably thinking that he looked fearsome. In truth, Floch reminded Hange of an angry cat, who could do nothing, but hiss.

“If that was actually urgent,” Hange murmured, taking the first sip from the mug. “He wouldn’t have sent you.”

For a moment, Floch was silent. Hange’s smile grew bigger, as she waited for him to catch on. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in shed after all.

“What are you implying?” he asked slowly. He clutched his hands into fists, his chest moved up and down, as he struggled to keep his breathing under control. Hange barely kept herself from laughing. It would have ruined the effect.

“I’m implying, my dear Floch,” she lifted a hand, reaching out to his cheek to pat it with a condescending smile. Floch recoiled from her in disgust. “That you’re not the man Zeke trusts the most. I don’t think he trusts you at all,” she added with an infuriating smirk.

Floch growled, taking a step closer to her.

Hange watched him with giddy trepidation. Was he going to punch her? God, she wanted him to punch her so badly. It’d give her an excuse to punch him back.

“Try to be more civil, Hange, I know that he’s a jerk, but you both are a part of one team.”

That was another one of her voices. This Hange named ‘the serious one’. It was always spoiling all of the fun, but she couldn’t deny it – nine times out of ten, that voice was right in denying Hange her amusement. It was the closest thing she had to an impulse control.

This time, she decided to listen to it too, even though she wanted to have fun so, so much.

“I need to go and take a shower,” she announced, putting her mug with unfinished coffee back on the counter. “And if you, Floch, do not wish to join, then get the fuck out of my apartment.”

“Ugh,” Floch cringed at her suggestion. “Not in a million years. But hurry up. You don’t want to anger Zeke, do you?” curving his lips into a smug grin of his own, he gestured to Hange’s face. “I’m sure you remember what happens when you misbehave.”

The house, engulfed in a bright fire, a child, begging for help, the black smoke and hot flames, the weight of a small body in her arms, the sharp edge of a knife that punished her for saving an innocent life, the pain in her left eye—

Hange shook her head, pushing these memories to the back of her mind. It was enough that they haunted her at nights, she wouldn’t let them torment her during daytime as well.

“Just go already,” Hange sighed, walking past him. “Tell Zeke I’ll come to see him soon.”

 ***

Hange’s ‘soon’ came almost an hour later. Whatever Zeke needed from her, it definitely wasn’t urgent. If it was, he’d sent anyone else, but Floch. On bad days, that guy couldn’t be trusted even with tying his own shoelaces.

She closed the door to her apartment and walked up the stairs to get to the third floor. The previous headquarters of their criminal organization was blown up - damaged weaponry was to blame, or so Zeke said. And ever since, they’ve been hiding in one of the abandoned buildings at the outskirts of a city. The first floor was designed to hold the higher ranked members of a gang, the second was for storage, and the third floor was what Zeke called his briefing room.

The whole floor was used for that exact purpose, in a center there was a long oak table and all around it were plastic, uncomfortable chairs. On the wall behind, Zeke put up the writing boards, although Hange had never seen someone actually use them. They probably were there to simply create an entourage and not serve as something truly useful. Even man as efficient and cruel as Zeke wasn’t immune to bursts of theatrics, it seemed.

When Hange entered the briefing room, there was no one but Zeke and Pieck inside. Hange grinned instantly, waving to Pieck with a clear glee, reflecting in her glasses.

Hange liked Pieck. A lot. Pieck was overly sarcastic and in all the time they knew each other, Hange honestly didn’t remember if they had at least one friendly exchange, but Pieck was funny. And trustworthy too. When Zeke had punished her for saving a child of his enemy, Pieck was the one, who helped her treat the wound.

However, if there was no one there, but Pieck, it meant that Floch was right. Zeke wanted to tell her something important. Something he wanted to keep a secret.

“And here you are!” he spread his arms in welcoming gesture. “We’ve been waiting for you for quite a while.”

“Then let’s get it over with quick,” Hange trudged up to one of the chairs and plopped down on it heavily.

“Your desire is my command,” Zeke put on a pleasant and obviously fake smile. Hange didn’t smile back.

“There is someone I need you to meet with,” Zeke began, lighting up a cigarette. Hange cringed in disgust, she hated cigarette smoke. And Zeke knew it.

“Who is it?”

“A past associate of mine. We’ve… drifted apart after the accident. I need you to go and see if we can rekindle our love.”

“And…” Hange tilted her head, observing Zeke carefully. “Why does it have to be me?”

Zeke shrugged. “You’re smart, Hange. And, unfortunately, the same can’t be said about all of my employees.��

“You’re the only one I can trust with this, Hange. I know you can do it.”

Hange had to blink a few times, because this time… it wasn’t just a voice. No, she could also see piercing blue eyes and strong jaw. She could see them as clearly as she saw Zeke and Pieck in front of her. Zeke’s eyes were blue too, but nothing like that vivid, bright color Hange had just seen. What was it? A memory? A vision? Was she truly losing her mind?

“…Oi, you weirdo, hey— goddamn it, Hange, do you hear us?”

She instantly snapped back to reality.

“Yes?” her lips curved into a lazy smile, as she turned to face Pieck. “Do you need something, dear Pieck?”

Pieck didn’t roll her eyes or even scoff. Instead, she continued to carefully survey Hange, chewing on her lip worriedly.

“What the fuck was that?” she asked after a moment, her eyes still following Hange’s every move. “It looked like you just blacked out or something. Were my concerns about your sanity actually correct?”

Good question, Hange mused internally.

Externally, she waved Pieck off, putting her arms behind her head and sitting back in a chair. She relaxed in her seat and willed all of her troubling thoughts away.

“Everything’s awesome, dear Pieck. So,” she looked back at Zeke. “Who do I have to meet?”

“His name is Djel Sannes,” Zeke answered, looking at Hange just as intently as Pieck did moments ago. “He’ll be waiting for you this evening in an underground parking lot of the local police department.”

“Police department?!” Hange frowned, taken aback. “Are you insane?”

“What?” Zeke smiled innocently at her. “Is there going to be a problem?”

“Duh,” Hange threw her hands in the air. “It’s a police department, Zeke!”

“Yeah,” he took a drag of his cigarette and then slowly released a white, fat ring of smoke. “And what of it?”

“Have you forgotten,” Hange gritted through teeth. “That we’re members of a fucking gang?”

“We’re a part of a criminal organization,” Zeke corrected, his face contorting in disgust. Of course, how Hange could forget. Calling themselves a gang was too unsophisticated for his snobby ass. “And don’t you worry,” Zeke sent her another smile. “That’s why you’re meeting in a parking lot. No one will know that you’ve even been there. Besides, you’re not going alone.”

Hange lightened up. “Pieck is coming with me?”

“No,” Zeke’s tapped his fingers on a table’s surface, and Hange had a sinking feeling that told her she would really hate his next words. “Floch is going to go with you.”

“Fuck, no,” Hange answered immediately. “I won’t go with that jerk, no fucking way.”

“Don’t be like that, Floch can be annoying, I know, but there is a lot he can learn from you.”

God, just the thought of spending time with that idiot made her skin crawl.

“He’ll be a good boy, I promise,” Zeke added sweetly.

Hange sighed, getting up to her feet. “If he so much as opens his mouth at inappropriate time, I’ll punch him so hard he forgets his name.”

“That’s a deal,” Zeke nodded. “And Hange?” he called when she was almost at the door. “Do you think you can handle going to the police department?”

Hange narrowed her eyes. “If no one will notice us, then what’s the problem?”

“You sure?” he asked again, giving her a weird look. Hange stared back, not sure what the fuck was going on. Was it some kind of a test? If so, then what was its purpose?

“Of course,” she mumbled and left the room.

She wasn’t in a mood for Zeke’s mind games today. She had Floch to deal with, and he already was annoying enough to cause her a headache.

  ***

“I want to make something clear,” Hange fixed Floch with a hard look. “In this car, the driver always chooses the music. Blink if you understand.”

Floch glared back, but as he saw that this wasn’t working on Hange, he sighed and nodded. “I understand.”

“Great!” Hange smiled and clasped his shoulder so hard, Floch cringed. “Then let’s go! An exciting trip is ahead of us!” she started the car and turned on the music. The first notes of “Let it go” began to play and Floch groaned. Hange’s smile widened.

“Your music taste is as shit as ever,” the grumpy one in her head said. “At least it’s not me who is suffering this time.”

  ***

"You have to turn left," Floch fumed exasperatingly.

"Shut up,” Hange snapped, gripping the steering wheel tighter.

"The GPS says we have to turn left," Floch lifted his hand, trying to reach out to Hange and take the wheel under his control. She harshly slapped his hand away.

"The GPS is wrong then," Hange blew a stray hair away from her face. "My route is shorter."

"And how do you know that?" Floch demanded.

"I just do," she sighed, trying very hard not to focus on that question. She just did know that this route was shorter. Just like she knew that there was a food court nearby that sold delicious hotdogs. And that on weekdays, the traffic was terrible, especially in the afternoon. She just— she just knew. It was  S a mystery, same as her confusing dreams and weird voices inside her head.

One crossroad later, their car stopped in front of the precinct's parking lot.

"There," Hange announced proudly. "We arrived."

Floch frowned. "The ETA said we would be driving for another five minutes."

"The shorter route," Hange reminded him with a grin. "Now go!" she gave Floch a rough shove, pushing him out of the car.

"What the fuck?" he complained. "I was supposed to go with you!"

"And you will," Hange explained with a roll of her eyes. "But I need you to check if the parking lot is really empty. We can't be seen, remember?"

"Riight," Floch reluctantly agreed. "So I just have to go in there? Make sure that it’s deserted?"

"I take my words back, Floch," Hange looked at him impressively, pressing a hand to her chest. "You're not a complete idiot after all."

"Fuck you," he growled.

"Love you too!" Hange waved her hand, watching Floch get out of the car with a smile on her face.

As soon as he closed the door, Hange exhaled and looked up at the sky. The grey, heavy clouds were gathering up above. The streets became darker and the city around her looked ominous, as though signaling every citizen about the upcoming disaster. Hange instantly admonished herself, she was being ridiculous. The cloudy weather could mean only one thing - that it was going to rain. And a little rain hardly ever hurt anyone.

"Makes everything look so messy, though."

Hange hummed, drumming her fingers on a steering wheel. She was a mess. She wondered if the grumpy one would like her.

  ***

"The coast is clear," Floch announced once he was back inside the car.

"Any sign of our guy?" Hange asked, starting the car.

"Not yet," Floch shook his head.

"Someone is not a fan of punctuality," she tsked in mock disappointment. "Luckily, we're not in a hurry."

Hange drove the car inside the parking lot. Just as Floch had said, it was blessedly empty. She stopped near the center, so they would have a better vantage point. Then Hange turned off the engine and opened the door, walking out and stretching her limbs.

Now all they had to do was wait.

"Do you know what he looks like?" Floch stood next to Hange.

"I do. Zeke showed me a photo."

The man was probably working closely with them before. Hange felt like she knew him. But she wasn’t sure that sending her to meet with the man was a good idea. Sannes’s photo evoked a strong a sense of annoyance inside her. Hange wondered what kind of relationship they used to have before.

It wasn't long before she got her chance to find out. After several minutes of waiting, Sannes walked onto the parking lot. He wasn't alone, though. No, next to him was a short, dark-haired guy. There was... something about him. Even though, his back was facing her, Hange couldn't look away. Her breath quickened and she watched him, unblinkingly, waiting for the man to show his face.

And then he did.

He turned around, for just a second, but it was enough for Hange to catch a glimpse of his face. Her knees almost gave up under her, as a short gasp escaped her lips.

It was— it was Levi.

Hange's head began to spin as memories from her old life came rushing back to her. She staggered backwards, falling to her knees, as all of it nearly overwhelmed her. It felt like her skull was going to combust from all the information. She remembered now, remembered almost everything.

Her days at the academy, meeting Levi and Erwin and then befriending them both, her first case and hundreds that followed after it, the sleepless nights, spent in the precinct with Levi by her side, the morning coffees she shared with Erwin, the jokes she told to Moblit and his team during lunches, the bar where they went to drink at after work. She remembered Erwin’s smile and Levi’s scowl, remembered the soapy smell of his hair and the warmth of his hand on her shoulder. Remembered how tightly he pressed herself against his side whenever she had too much to drink at the bar. Remembered the concern that appeared inside his usually emotionless eyes whenever she got hurt or wounded. There was so much she was missing, there was so much that was taken from her.

Hange seethed as she thought of what Zeke had done to her and everyone she cared about. Before she succumbed to the anger completely, though, rough hands grabbed her shoulders, grounding her in reality. She looked up, blinking a few times.

Floch was crouched in front of her.

"What the fuck?" he looked at her with a mix of annoyance and panic. "Have you finally lost it?"

Having your life turn upside will do that to you, Hange mentally scoffed.

But now she needed to focus. She couldn’t let Floch know that her memories came back.

So she put her feelings to the back of her mind, shutting them off, and forced a smile. "No need to worry," she patted Floch’s shoulder and rose to her feet. "Just feeling a little bit dizzy. Shouldn’t have skipped the breakfast."

Floch narrowed his eyes in suspicion, watching Hange for another second. But then he rolled his eyes and stood up too. Good, he seemed to have bought her lie. "You're such a freak."

"I'm simply unique," Hange grinned. "Now, hurry up and get to work."

"Huh?"

"Our guy, Floch," she pointed behind herself. "He's leaving. Go and talk to him."

"Didn't Zeke tell you to do that?"

"He did, but things changed. See that shorty next to him?" the nickname rolled easily off her tongue. How could she forget her favorite clean freak, Hange wondered absentmindedly. She must have hit her head pretty badly. Levi always said she was too scatterbrained for her own good. "We need to distract him. I'll do that and you talk with our target. Alright?"

"Alright," Floch agreed.

As soon as Floch left, Hange sighed in relief. One less thing to worry about. For a second, she watched as Floch maneuvered between the cars in the shadows. Then she turned back to Levi. He was already finished with tearing Sannes a new one, and was now walking right in Hange’s direction. He was probably heading to his car, she tried to calm herself. She was well hidden in a shadow and she stood behind a car. He wouldn’t be able to see her. There was nothing to panic about. Still, Hange’s heart was beating so loudly, she was sure Levi could hear it too.

She wanted to go to him. Every part of her screamed with need to see Levi. To look at his scowling face, to hear his raspy voice. It took all of Hange’s willpower to tear her gaze away from him. She couldn’t do it, not right now. She was a mess, a clatter of old memories and dozen contrasting emotions. She needed to keep it together, to sort it all out.

Yes, that was what she was going to do. Fuck Floch and Sannes, she couldn’t deal with them right now. What she needed was to clear her head. With that in mind, Hange decided to get back inside the car. She looked back for a second, checking on Floch. He was already by Sannes’s side, leading him out of the parking lot. Then she glanced at Levi. He was standing on the other side of a parking lot, a distance away from Hange. He was next to his car, and Hange couldn’t keep a smile off her face, as she realized that he was wiping off a stain from his rear window. God, what a clean freak, she thought, feeling her chest fill with affection.

It wasn’t the time to stare or reminisce, though. She needed to move, to get out of here before her resolve crumbles. Hange took a step in the direction of her car. She did it slowly, not taking her eye off Levi even for a second. He was still fumbling with a stain, so she took another step. She was almost close enough to open the door. Hange lifted her leg and then—

And then her shoe squeaked.

Levi snapped his head around instantly, looking up in alarm. Hange put a hand over her mouth and sank to her knees. She froze in that position, watching Levi with wide, panicked eye.

“Who is there?” he asked, narrowing his eyes and taking a step closer. A car separated them, and Hange prayed that Levi wouldn’t check behind it.

He stood there for what felt like hours. Sweat began to drip down Hange’s forehead, as she tried to predict Levi’s next move. She heard him take another step and then put his hand on a hood of a car.

“Is anyone here?” Levi repeated his question.

Hange closed her eye, pressing hands tighter to her lips. If she so much as peeps right now, she was doomed.

Levi glanced between the cars and then sighed, turning around.

“I really need to sleep,” he muttered, raising a hand to ruffle his hair. He looked around the parking lot once again, and then started heading back to his car.

Hange waited for him to get inside, and only then allowed herself to relax.

“Fuck,” she breathed out, watching as Levi drove away. As soon as he left, Hange jumped up and hurried to her own car. She hopped in and started the engine, eager to leave this place behind as quickly as possible.

There was a lot she needed to think about.

  ***

Someone was looking after it.

There were fresh flowers – peonies, her favorite. All weeds had been taken out.

On a bright, white stone there was an epitaph engraved.

A brilliant mind. The kindest of hearts. A loyal, dear friend. Without your shining presence, the world had lost some of its light. Staring down at her own grave was... a weird experience. Hange wasn't yet sure how she felt about it.

Normal people would probably be weirded out by this. Some would start contemplating their own mortality and the impact they leave on the world. Most would be afraid to even look at it. Hange felt nothing but burning, seething rage.

Zeke would pay for this. No matter what it takes, be it her own life, but Hange would bring him to justice. She would do anything to ruin his life. Just as he had ruined hers.

She didn't know for how long she was standing there motionlessly, lost to her swirling thoughts. The rain had started - a cold, heavy downpour - but Hange paid no mind to it. She was so far gone she didn't even hear the approaching footsteps. Or a quiet, shocked gasp.

She felt a trembling hand on her elbow, though. She whirled around and saw those piercing blue eyes.

Tears started to well up in her own eye, as she stared up at him.

"Hange?" Erwin whispered softly, quietly as though he was afraid that his loud voice would shutter the feeble illusion. That Hange would disappear like smoke in the wind. "Is that really you?"

"I guess?" she chuckled. The tears were now freely streaming down her face.

"Hange, oh god," Erwin threw away his umbrella and quickly shortened the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her.

Hange buried her face into his jacket, sobbing loudly.

"I missed you, Erwin. T-there is so much I need to tell you."

"And I'll gladly listen to you," Hange could hear a smile in his voice, and she felt her own lips curve upwards too. "But as for now," Erwin leaned in and gently kissed the crown of her head. "Welcome back, Hange."

[linastudyblrsblog]

Burnout, unfortunately, is everywhere. If you haven’t experienced it personally, you probably know someone who has self-diagnosed.

 Defined by the World Health Organization as a syndrome “conceptualized as resulted from chronic workplace stress,” it causes exhaustion, “feelings of negativism or cynicism,” and reduced efficacy. That’s a big umbrella, and the condition has become something of a catch-all for chronic, modern-day stress. 

Here are 11 of our favorites to help you create your own escape plan:

1. Figure out which kind of burnout you have.

The Association for Psychological Science found that burnout comes in three different types, and each one needs a different solution:

1. Overload: The frenetic employee who works toward success until exhaustion, is most closely related to emotional venting. These individuals might try to cope with their stress by complaining about the organizational hierarchy at work, feeling as though it imposes limits on their goals and ambitions. That coping strategy, unsurprisingly, seems to lead to a stress overload and a tendency to throw in the towel.

2. Lack of Development: Most closely associated with an avoidance coping strategy. These under-challenged workers tend to manage stress by distancing themselves from work, a strategy that leads to depersonalization and cynicism — a harbinger for burning out and packing up shop.

3. Neglect: Seems to stem from a coping strategy based on giving up in the face of stress. Even though these individuals want to achieve a certain goal, they lack the motivation to plow through barriers to get to it

2. Cut down and start saying “no.”

Every “yes” you say adds another thing on your plate and takes more energy away from you, and your creativity:

If you take on too many commitments, start saying ‘no’. If you have too many ideas, execute a few and put the rest in a folder labeled ‘backburner’. If you suffer from information overload, start blocking off downtime or focused worktime in your schedule (here are some tools that may help). Answer email at set times. Switch your phone off, or even leave it behind. The world won’t end. I promise.

3.  Give up on getting motivated.

With real burnout mode, you’re too exhausted to stay positive. So don’t:

When you’re mired in negative emotions about work, resist the urge to try to stamp them out. Instead, get a little distance — step away from your desk, focus on your breath for a few seconds — and then just feel the negativity, without trying to banish it. Then take action alongside the emotion. Usually, the negative feelings will soon dissipate. Even if they don’t, you’ll be a step closer to a meaningful achievement.

4.  Treat the disease, not the symptoms. 

For real recovery and prevention to happen, you need to find the real, deeper issue behind why you’re burnt out:

Instead of overreacting to the blip, step back from it, see it as an incident instead of an indictment, and then examine it like Sherlock Holmes looking for clues.

For example, you could ask yourself: What happened before the slip? Did I encounter a specific trigger event such as a last-minute client request? Was there an unusual circumstance such as sickness? When did I first notice the reversion in my behavior? Is some part of this routine unsustainable and if so, how could I adjust it to make it more realistic?

5.  Make downtime a daily ritual.

To help relieve pressure, schedule daily blocks of downtime to refuel your brain and well-being. It can be anything from meditation to a nap, a walk, or simply turning off the wifi for a while:

When it comes to scheduling, we will need to allocate blocks of time for deep thinking. Maybe you will carve out a 1-2 hour block on your calendar every day for taking a walk or grabbing a cup of coffee and just pondering some of those bigger things. I can even imagine a day when homes and apartments have a special switch that shuts down wi-fi and data access during dinner or at night – just to provide a temporary pause from the constant flow of status updates and other communications…

There is no better mental escape from our tech-charged world than the act of meditation. If only for 15 minutes, the ability to steer your mind away from constant stimulation is downright liberating. There are various kinds of meditation. Some forms require you to think about nothing and completely clear your mind. (This is quite hard, at least for me.) Other forms of meditation are about focusing on one specific thing – often your breath, or a mantra that you repeat in your head (or out loud) for 10-15 minutes…

If you can’t adopt meditation, you might also try clearing your mind the old fashioned way – by sleeping. The legendary energy expert and bestselling author Tony Schwartz takes a 20-minute nap every day. Even if it’s a few hours before he presents to a packed audience, he’ll take a short nap.

6.  Stop being a perfectionist; start satisficing.

Trying to maximize every task and squeeze every drop of productivity out of your creative work is a recipe for exhaustion and procrastination. Set yourself boundaries for acceptable work and stick to them:

Consistently sacrificing your health, your well being, your relationships, and your sanity for the sake of living up to impossible standards will lead to some dangerous behaviors and, ironically, a great deal of procrastination. Instead of saying, “I’ll stay up until this is done,” say, “I’ll work until X time and then I’m stopping. I may end up needing to ask for an extension or complete less than perfect work. But that’s OK. I’m worth it.” Making sleep, exercise, and downtime a regular part of your life plays an essential role in a lasting, productive creative career.

7.  Track your progress every day.

Keeping track allows you to see exactly how much is on your plate, not only day-to-day, but consistently over time:

Disappointing feedback can be painful at first – research shows that failure and losses can hurt twice as much as the pleasure of equivalent gains. But if you discover you’re off course, reliable feedback shows you by how much, and you then have the opportunity to take remedial action and to plot a new training regime or writing schedule. The temporary pain of negative feedback is nothing compared with the crushing experience of project failure. Better to discover that you’re behind and need to start writing an hour earlier each day, than to have your book contract rescinded further down the line because you’ve failed to deliver.

8.  Change location often.

Entrepreneurs or freelancers can be especially prone to burnout. Joel Runyon plays “workstation popcorn,” in which he groups tasks by location and then switches, in order to keep work manageable, provide himself frequent breaks, and spend his time efficiently:

You find yourself spending hours at your computer, dutifully “working” but getting very little done. You finish each day with the dreaded feeling that you’re behind, and that you’re only falling farther and farther behind. You’re buried below an ever-growing to-do list. There’s a feeling of dread that tomorrow is coming, and that it’s bringing with it even more work that you probably won’t be able to get ahead on.

List out everything you need to do today. Try to be as specific as you can…Next, break that list into three sections. Step 1: Go to cafe [or desk, a different table in your office, etc.] #1. Step 2: Start working on item group #1…Once you finish all the tasks in group #1, get up and move. Close your tabs, pack your bags, and physically move your butt to your next spot. If you can, walk or bike to your next stop…When you get to the next cafe [or spot], start on the next action item group, and repeat…

When you’ve completed everything on your to-do list for the day, you are done working. Relax, kick back, and live your life. Don’t take work home with you because that won’t help you get more done – it will just wear you out.

9.  Don’t overload what downtime you do get.

Vacations themselves can cause, or worsen burnout, with high-stress situations, expectations, and sleep interruption. Use it to help in recovery from burnout instead: 

Make a flexible itinerary a priority. [A] study from Radboud University found that effective vacations give you the choice and freedom to choose what you want to do. That means two things: Try to avoid structuring your vacation around an unbreakable schedule, and plan on going somewhere that has multiple options to pick from depending on the weather, your level of energy, or your budget.

10. Write yourself fan mail.

Seth Godin uses self-fan mail as a way to keep motivated instead of burning out on a project that seems far from completion:

I define non-clinical anxiety as, “experiencing failure in advance.” If you’re busy enacting a future that hasn’t happened yet, and amplifying the worst possible outcomes, it’s no wonder it’s difficult to ship that work. With disappointment, I note that our culture doesn’t have an easily found word for the opposite. For experiencing success in advance. For visualizing the best possible outcomes before they happen. Will your book get a great testimonial? Write it out. Will your talk move someone in the audience to change and to let you know about it? What did they say? Will this new product gain shelf space at the local market? Take a picture. Writing yourself fan mail in advance, and picturing the change you’ve announced you’re trying, to make is an effective way to push yourself to build something that actually generates that action.

  11. Break projects into bite-sized pieces.

Taking a task on in one entire lump can be exhausting and provide little room for rest in between. Breaking up your projects into set chunks with their own deadlines provides a much healthier, and easier, way of completing a large project:

The default take on deadlines is typically to consider them to be cumbersome and stressful. Yet, from another perspective, a deadline can be viewed as a huge benefit to any project. Without the urgency of a hard deadline pushing a project to completion, it’s easy for you, your team, or your client to lose focus. We’ve all worked on agonizing projects where the timeline just bleeds on and on, merely because the flexibility is there…

It turns out that the manner in which a task is presented to someone – or the way in which you present it to your brain – has a significant impact on how motivated you will be to take action. A study led by researcher Sean McCrea at the University of Konstanz in Germany recently found that people are much more likely to tackle a concrete task than an abstract task… It seems to me like the difference between being handed a map versus following the step-by-step instructions of a GPS device. Not everyone can read a map, but everyone can follow the directions. By breaking your project down into smaller, well-described tasks, the way forward becomes clear and it’s easy to take action.

[burnedbyshoto]

Who Do You Belong To?

Kinktober Day 6  ~ kink: brat taming

pairing: aizawa shouta x fem!reader

warning: smut, cursing

word count: 4,280

a/n: so.... this is for sure the longest full smut scene I’ve written. it ended up being 5 whole pages... I like it a lot, I think its one of my best ones to date!!!! but yeah anyways, who wouldnt want to be fucked to submission by aizawa????

✩✶✩❇✩✶✩

There were often moments in life that made you reflect on the reasons why they happened.

It was currently nine at night, and you were still in the office working. Your stomach growled quietly again as your lips pressed together. Why the hell were you of all people getting kept here this long? You were a secretary, not a goddamn creator. Alas, it didn’t matter because your boss specifically asked you to stay, and you could not say no.

Well… you could say no, but you didn’t because you don’t think things out to the fullest extent. Your eyes trailed back to your boss who was currently placing papers into stacks. What seemed like his forever tired eyes were half opened as he did so.

His eyes snapped up to yours as if he could sense that you were staring at him. “Y/l/n-san,” He calls out, his voice husky from his lack of using it for the past five hours.

“Yes, Aizawa-sama?” You respond back, your cheeks tinting pink at getting caught looking at him.

“I’m sorry for keeping you in late, food is actually here if you’d like to go get it? We’ll eat and then we’re free to go?”

You nod your head in agreement, a grateful smile on your face as you stand up. “I hope it’s nothing from the cat cafe,” You tease as you begin walking away. Your heels clicking against the cold marble floors.

“That place has the best snacks, and you can’t deny that.” Aizawa chuckles as you roll your eyes, entering the elevator.

Best snacks your ass.

You went down many floors and saw a young man with a bag of food waiting outside the locked doors.

“For Aizawa?” The man asks, and you nod your head. Smiling as you took the bag from him and bid him a good night.

The bag was warm. It wasn't from the Cat Cafe seeing that it wasn’t inside of the outrageous pink bag they provided for takeouts. You went back to the elevator and went up the floors until you were back. You walk back over to Aizawa who seemed at the very least cleaning up.

“Dinners here!” You exclaim as you enter his office opening up the bag. You discover two salmon bowls from the one corner store you loved. Your jaw dropping as you feel grateful for him buying this. “Now I feel bad for making fun of you!”

Aizawa snorts as he grabs his own bowl, breaking his chopsticks before even taking off the lid. “You’re jealous that you can’t pet cats when you’re eating.”

“I may have enough cats at home to not want to go to some Cat Cafe and pay for what I can get at home for free!” You chortle as you take off the lid, sectioning off the salmon into smaller pieces before eating it.

“As do I, but you can never come across enough cats,” Aizawa smirks as you laugh.

“You’re cheating on your cats, that’s what I’m hearing?!”

“If you put it that way, yes. But I am only looking for more cats in my life, to increase my happiness.”

“Sounds like what a cheater would say.”

“Shut up, brat.”

You roll your eyes despite the smile plastered on your face. The two of you fall into silence as you finish eating your late-night dinner.

“I got it,” You say taking Aizawa’s empty bowl from him. “Finish cleaning up, I have a lot less than you do.”

With a grateful smile, you grin back as you take the trash and deposit it into a trash can with a lid. Returning back to your desk, you gathered the papers into neat piles. Putting some into labeled manilla folders before grabbing them. You begin heading back into Aizawa’s office.

“These are the ones that you’re taking home, and this is the one you’re keeping here.” You present the papers and folders to Aizawa who nods.

“What would I do without you?” He asks as you snort.

“Hire another secretary who is only half as amazing as me?”

“True.”

You stared at the three boxes of folders. Aizawa was going to need to take back home with him, and your eyebrows scrunch slightly. “Do you need me to help you take them to your car?” You ask as you know exactly how heavy just one of them is.

“If you wouldn’t mind?”

You stare at the black-haired man and smile at him. Through appearances alone, you would never say he was a CEO of anything. Sure he wore nice suits! But his hair was longer, and his cheeks were almost always stubbly and patchy.

“I’ll help you take them in, too.” You decide. Aizawa’s eyebrows scrunching at your declaration. You can see him piecing together what you meant by that. “I’ll follow you home!”

“Y/l/n—“

“Oh hush, you're on my route anyway!” You exclaim as you grab a box, turning on your heel and walking out. Uncaring for his protests as he catches up to you.

“You know, I liked you better when we first met and all you were was obedient,” Aizawa mumbles as you enter the elevator and smash the garage floor.

“Well, you were intimidating and knew my job better than me! But now you’re simply my boss who doesn’t know how to take care of himself!” You laugh as Aizawa shakes his head in denial. “You said to me, and I quote, ‘I don’t think you’ll last here very long’.”

“I did not!”

“YOU DID TOO! Oh my god, it took everything within me not to cry!”

You smile broadly as his eye roll, and you slip out past him with your head high as the elevator doors open.

“You know I can take multiple trips to and from the car when I get back.” Aizawa insists as he opens your car door for you to let you place in the box.

“Don’t be crazy!” You retort, your hands placing in the box with ease and shutting the door. You walked over to Aizawa’s car and helped him open his own car. You watch as Aizawa places the boxes in, and your eyes lock on his ass as he stretches while he secures everything.

Your eyes widen.

Nope.

Nope.

No!

Aizawa Shouta was an amazing boss! Don’t get it wrong, but you were not going to be some cliche secretary screwing your boss! Besides, you didn’t even know if he had a wife, fiancee, girlfriend or not?!

“Y/l/n-san.” His voice calls to you, breaking you free from your internal panic.

“Y-Yes??”

“You can close the door now? Let’s get going, it’s late as it is.”

“We don’t work tomorrow though, I can stay up.” You mutter, your cheeks flushed as you close the door and scurry to your car. You get in before he can say anything else, and you start up your engine as you wait for him to move.

It takes less than twenty minutes, but finally, you’re pulling into his driveway. You step out of your car and go to the other side to retrieve the box. Your eyes locking on Aizawa who was holding his own two boxes.

“You good?” He asks, and your head nods. It’s too quick to be normal, but he doesn’t ask as he turns down to the entryway. Unlocking the door with ease and letting you in.

His house is surprisingly very neat, it’s organized, and has a modern theme to it that you find to be breathtaking. “You have an amazing house…” You say in awe, as you kick off your heels and put on slippers that weren’t his own.

“I had someone else set it up for me,” Aizawa admits with a shrug. “It is quite amazing though.”

You laugh as you nod, your eyes turning to the heavy box in your hands.

“Where do you want me to put this?” You ask lifting up the box for further emphasis.

“My office space would be nice,” Aizawa says, nodding his head in the direction of where he wanted you to go.

“Lead the way!” You chirp and he sighs, but he gets in front of you and walks towards his office.

You walk into a room that was most definitely an office space, with a large computer, desk, files, and books. It was a honest to god office. Aizawa places his two boxes down, and once again your eyes locked on his ass. You bite down harshly onto your lip as he moves to the side. If only you could get him to fuck you. But Aizawa was a man by the rules, you knew better than to assume he would ever have his way with you. Not while you were ever his employee.

“Go ahead and place it on the floor.” Aizawa nods and you sigh, doing as commanded. You place the box down was a soft thud, adjusting it so that it would lay perfectly parallel to the other boxes. You grunt softly as it’s a bit heavy to slide against the carpet. Satisfied with its placement, your body stiffens as something warm presses into you.

You stand straight up, and your body's pressed against another warm body. Hot breathes of air hitting your neck as the feeling of prickly stubble brushes your ear. “A-Aizawa-sama?” You squeak as you feel his warm hands settle onto your waist, and a lush moan escapes your lips.

“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist anymore.” He pants against your ear. You can’t believe this is happening. “Is this something you want?”

You nod your head quickly, not trusting your voice at all as your hips move against his pelvis. You relish in his low growl, and you grasp the fabric of his pants, keeping him close to you. “I need you to say it to me, sweetheart.” He growls as he begins to grind his pelvis into your ass, and you laugh.

“I don’t feel like it.”

Aizawa turns you around, his dark eyes blazing into your own, and you smirk. He just had no idea what he was getting himself into.

His lips burn against yours, and your hands find solace in his hair. His lips are demanding, rough, and full of purpose. He groans against your mouth as you give his hair a particularly hard tug. His fingers are gripping your waist tightly. Aizawa's grip is strong enough you believe there’s a possibility that you’ll have bruises from it. You shudder softly as his tongue pressed against your bottom lip, his way of asking for you to open up. But you refuse.

Your lips remain closed as you continue kissing him. You're smirking softly as you can feel his irritation at your disobedience. “I’m going to warn you just this once,” Aizawa speaks against your lips, and he pulls away. Your eyes fluttering open to see his eyes locked on you, annoyed, furious, and yet turned on. “I don’t like it when my kitten is disobedient. “

You let out a sound that could only be close to a purr as your nose brushes against his own. “And I love it when I drive men crazy, it looks like we’re in a disagreement, ne?”

Aizawa’s nostrils flare and his lips come to crash against yours. But you’re two steps ahead and smile when his lips press against your cheeks. “It seems to me that you’re wanting to be a brat,” Aizawa growls as his hands travel up to your breasts, groping them without mercy as you gasp. Your body arching into his chest. “Do you wanna know what I do to brats?” Aizawa mutters in your ear, and your head lolls to the side.

“Let them have their way?” You tease as your hands roam his chest, the feeling of his muscles under his shirt quickly turning you more on.

“I punish them.” Aizawa snaps, his fingers freezing over your breasts.

Your eyebrows scrunch, not at all liking the lack of movement on your breasts. You, however, have no time to complain as you’re tossed over his shoulder. Your shrieks filling the room as he walks away. His hand stays on your ass you try figuring out where he is. You weren’t able to see anything but the floor and his ass.

“Stop squirming.” Aizawa snaps, his fingers pinching the back of your leg and you let out a moan. Why did that feel so good? You gasp as your body gets thrown onto a bed, your hands flying out to stabilize yourself. “Now, let me ask you this. Are you going to behave, or are you going to continue being bratty.” His eyes shine with lust and need. At this moment you don’t know which response would be better, but you did want him losing control. You wanted to see Aizawa pound you into the mattress like no tomorrow.

Your lips lock onto his, your mouth pressing against his like there was no tomorrow. You crawl onto his awaiting lap and sigh when you brush against his growing arousal. You sigh as his tongue pressed against your bottom lip once again, but the smirk on your face makes him pull away.

A sigh leaves his lips as he shakes his head, “I was hoping we could do this the easy way, y/l/n…”

Before you could question those words, you’re thrown onto his lap. Your stomach pressing onto his legs in a very uncomfortable way, it almost hurt to breathe fully. You shifted in an attempt to look at him, but his hand shoved your head back down. His other hand raising your skirt well above your ass.

“Were you expecting to get fucked tonight?” He asks you, and you shudder at his light touches. His fingers gently touching the panties you wore.

“Yes.” You snap, waves of pleasure flowing through your veins as his finger rubs down your slit. Your arousal beginning to seep its way through your folds.

“You’re such a naughty girl,” Aizawa tuts, his finger curling into your heat, and a lewd moan escape your lips. “Do you want to know what I do to naughty girls?”

“Let them have their w-way?” Your voice hitches as he shoves two more fingers into your heated cunt. A sharp intake of breath leaving your lips as he thrusts them in forward and backward. Pained gasps echoed in the room as his fingers leave you without warning.

“I spank them,” Aizawa growls and you can feel his heated palm rest against your bare ass. “You’re going to count for me every single time I spank you okay, kitten?” He asks as his hand rubs a warm circle into your ass. “I want to hear you thank me with every hit, too.”

Before you can retort, his hand comes to spank you hard. The slapping sound echoing as you shudder. Your ass stung from the single hit, but your bit down on your lip defiantly. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of your submission.

“What did I fucking tell you to do?” He growls, his hand yanking on your hair.

“Sorry, do you consider that a spank?” You snarl slightly, a cunning smirk on your face as you glance at his infuriated face.

You don’t have time to relish in this situation, however. You feel your body getting shifted further down. Your face almost pressing into the floor as his hands kept your secured against his lap.

“Now, I expect you to fucking count, and say thank you, daddy.”

Your breathing is unstable as his hand now rubs where your cunt and ass are, and his hand comes down hard. You cry out the second his hand slaps against your skin, your body shaking at the impact.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Aizawa growls, and his hand comes down for another hard spank. You scream at the pain-filled pleasure of his smack.

“One!” Your sob is quiet, your ass moving to relieve the stinging pain. “Thank you, daddy.”

“Ah so now you’re not being a brat,” Aizawa growls as his hand comes down again.

“T-Two!” You moan, your face flushed in embarrassment and undeniable lust. “Thank you, daddy!”

His heavy hand comes down on you again, and again, and again. Until you’re a quivering mess underneath him. Until your ass raw and red from this punishment. Until your voice is almost hoarse from your loud screams and moans.

You shake against his thighs, your body weak, and your arousal high.

“Get up,” Aizawa commands, and you follow his order without much resistance. You scrunch your face slightly at the pain that shoots through your body. He did not hold back. “Did that turn you on?” He asks as you quiver in front of him.

He may have just thoroughly abused your ass. It seemed, however, that your fighting spirit still remained.

“N-No.” You stammer, your eyes locked onto his own. His eyebrow cocked slightly as he stood up off the bed, his hands moving to get his belt off.

“Get on your knees,” Aizawa commands, and you still. You don’t listen, choosing to instead glare into his eyes. His hands grip your face, and it takes all your mental strength not to moan at his ferocity. “Who do you think you’re talking to, kitten? Who do you belong to, right now?” He growls as his fingers hold tightly onto your face.

“I don’t know.” You moan as your hands move to sit onto his chest.

His eyes swim in yours, a cold smirk flashing across his face, “I guess I’ll just have to fucking teach you again.”

As if by magic, you’re on your knees. Your shirt removed from your body, and Aizawa lets his pants fall off his waist and onto the floor. You watch with hungry eyes as he strokes his cock in his hands, his teeth grinding as he does so. Licking your lips in anticipation, you get closer to him. Your mouth wanting more than to envelope his long and thick cock into your mouth.

His eyes snap over to you, no longer focused on his cock, and you freeze. Once more pretending not to be at all interested. “Open up, kitten.” He commands, tracing the head of his cock against your lips. Precum slathering against your skin.

Still, you stare at him, unwilling to budge for him, unwilling to open up. His eyes narrow as he glares at you, “You’re such a fucking brat.” He hisses, and he reaches down, pinching your nipple through your bra with ease. Your mouth drops into a moan, and he shoves his length into your mouth without hesitation. “Shit,” He hisses as his hips snap into your mouth.

You gag as he hits the back of your throat at full force. Tears springing into your eyes as you try adjusting to having his length feel bearable in your mouth. You grasp the back of his legs as you open your mouth further, his hips snapping into your mouth with no mercy.

His hair pulling at your hair as he grunts, “Look at me, I want you to look at me.” He growls as you. “Don’t you dare look away.”

The simple command sends pressure through your body. The liquid heat of your arousal soaking through your panties.

You moan around his dick, his hips relentless in their conquest. Your eyes can barely keep themselves locked on Aizawa’s as he fucks your face. “You’re so pretty when you’re choking on my cock, kitten.” Aizawa groans as dick spams within your mouth, and you choke around him. Fire erupting in your lungs from the lack of oxygen, but it feels so good.

You felt the head of his manhood hit the back of your throat as you pulled away despite his grip on your hair. You gasp for breath before going back onto his cock, once more gagging on his length. You repeated the action, feeling Aizawa hit the back of your throat as you sucked his dick. Your fingers shooting forward to play with his balls, fondling them as he curses your name.

It’s your first name this time that escapes his lips, and it sends a spine chilling sensation down your body. You hum as your mouth sinks all the way down his length until your lips brush against the base of his cock.

A feral sound releases from his mouth as he pulls you off his dick, and gets you up onto your feet. “Strip.” He snarls as he moves to take off the rest of your clothes, and you nod dumbly. You wanted him to come in your mouth, but he took that away from you.

His eyes lock over you. Your fingers slow in taking off your bra. Your skirt still bunched around your waist. Aizawa wastes no time in helping you get your skirt off, letting it pool to the ground, and he drops your panties onto it.

He tosses you on the bed, and you giggle slightly as your head is near the footboard. A grin on your face as he comes over to press a kiss to your mouth. His lips are far more gentle than he’s been all night. The sensations making you sigh against his mouth as his tongue slips between your lips.

Your tongue dances around his, avoiding it at all costs much to his annoyance, but you’re smiling. “Even when you barely have energy, you’re still being bratty, kitten,” Aizawa mutters against your lips, his mouth trailing down your neck and you sigh.

“I can’t let my daddy just win,” You moan as his fingers tease your clit, your body arching off the bed.

“Turn around,” Aizawa groans as he shoves your body onto your stomach, you gasp as he shoves your ass into the air. “God, you ass looks so pretty up in the air for me.” He moans, pressing delicate kisses to your skin.

You mewl as you feel his cock tease your entrance. You snap your head around when you feel his weight far closer to you than you would have believed it to be. “You better hold on, kitten,” Aizawa growls as he holds one hand onto the footboard, and one on his cock. “I’m not going to be easy on you, you were a naughty kitten tonight.”

Before you could ask why his feet were getting planted by your hips, his cock rams into your dripping cunt. A shriek ripping from your throat as he pounds into you. Your hand shooting out to hold onto the footboard centimeters from his own hand.

“SHOUTA!” You shriek as he ruthlessly slams into you. His hips coming down so fast your body moves with every thrust. Your moans tumble out of your throat as the bed is quick to move with your movements. It squeaks are loud in your ear alongside his insistent pounding.

“What’s that, kitten?” He growls, his hips hammering into you at mind fogging speed. “What’s my fucking name?!”

“Daddy!” You scream as your pussy throbs around his pounding cock. You’re unable to even throwback your hips in rhythm with him. You were stuck to the mattress, only able to feel his cock entering you at toe-curling speeds. “Oh my god, FUCK you feel so good!”

“You take my cock so well!” Aizawa grunts as he releases one hand from the frame and runs it down your back to press against your clit. Your head throws back, your back arching further into the bed as you scream again. Your pussy clenching with no remorse around his dick. “Your pussy is so fucking tight. Do you want to come now, kitten?”

You can only nod your head as the pressure continues to build and build.

“I need to hear your words.”

“Fuck me, daddy, please I need to come so badly!” You sob out as your body trembles under his thrusting, you’re so close you’re seeing stars.

“I knew you would fucking submit.” He growls as his hand slams near you, his hand moving to pinch both your clit and nipple.

That’s all it takes and you come hard around his dick, his name ripping through your abused body as he moans. His knees falling to the mattress as he continues pummeling into you. Chasing after his own orgasm now.

You pant harshly as you move your hips against his own. Your pussy still clenching around his throbbing dick. You hear him expel a wavering sigh, and you can feel him come within you. The heated fluid filling you up as he collapses onto the bed. You moan as you push yourself off the mattress, staring at Aizawa who leaned up to pull you into his body.

The two of you laying there. Your sweat-soaked skin pressed into each other as silence overcomes the room.

“You know, I don’t see why I needed to go to your office to play out this scenario.” You moan as you shift over to grab the rings off your nightstand, slipping them onto both of your fingers. “We could’ve just done it in your home office just as easily.”

“I needed help though, and you had the day off.” Aizawa smiles into your neck, his face nuzzling in closer.

“And you say I’m the brat!” You scoff as your fingers play with his hair and he nods.

“I didn’t hurt you did I?”

“No, you were perfect.” You whisper as you press a kiss to his forehead.

“Okay…” He whispers as he sits up, “Do you need anything, my love?”

“A wipe would be nice.” You sigh as he presses a kiss to your lips.

“One wipe, coming up.”

[hale-13]

Hold Onto the Faith as I Dig Another Grave

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 6 - Buried Alive

He can’t do it.

There’s just no way he can do it.

He can feel the air thinning, his eyesight gets steadily darker, he can almost smell fresh tilled earth (a rarity in the middle of New York City) and this is it.

He’s going to die.

Words: 2031, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Ned Leeds, Peter Parker & Michelle Jones, Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Ned Leeds, Michelle Jones, Tony Stark, Happy Hogan

TW: Absolutely none.

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

He can’t do it.

There’s just no way he can do it.

He can feel the air thinning, his eyesight gets steadily darker, he can almost smell fresh tilled earth (a rarity in the middle of New York City) and this is it.

He’s going to die.

“Could you be any more dramatic?” MJ asks from where she’s furiously typing into her laptop, he hair more frizzy than normal and her eyes pinched. Her usually unaffected demeanor is cracking a little at the edges and Peter has never seen her so frantic and disorganized – he feels a little bad about it.

“Seriously Peter,” Ned agrees from his section of the table where multi-colored index cards are scattered in a disorganized mess – he, too, looks on the verge of a breakdown but he’s not able to hide it as easily as Michelle – Ned always has worn his heart on his sleeve. “It’s your fault we waited until the last minute anyway,” his (now former – seriously Ned what the hell, how dare you) best friend accuses.

Peter just lets out a wounded animal noise as he edits his section of their PowerPoint, eyes nearly crossed he’s so close to the screen. Like that would help him edit any faster he thinks sardonically. “It’s not totally my fault,” he tried to rationalize.

“Yes it is,” MJ tells him bluntly, face buried in her over-highlighted notes on the vaccine apartheid in India and Africa for the comparative section of their presentation. “We could have been done weeks ago if you had actually come to the meetings we scheduled.”

“I came to the first one,” Peter protested, looking through his image folder for the proper photo for his slide – he had, at least, cropped and edited them all already so he had one less thing to do. “And besides, we divided the work up evenly – you didn’t even need me around to do your part.” He immediately flinched at the very clear ‘eat shit and die’ look Michelle gave him and murmured out a quick apology before ducking his head back into his work. Ned gave him a look of pity and a sad head shake, Peter just glared in response.

Ned bangs his head onto the table softly and moans. “Why do we always wait until the last minute? I hate waiting until the last minute.”

“Less whining, more writing,” Michelle says bluntly, adding a slide to the PowerPoint on their Google docs and making Peter groan. His job is to outline and find pictures, Michelle’s is to clean everything up and organize their presentation and Ned’s is to make sure that their presentation is cohesive and write out their speech. It’s a system that has, traditionally, worked well for them but this time may as well be a disaster. The only thing keeping them together at this point is MJ’s ruthless efficiency and Ned and Peter’s intense fear of failure.

“We were supposed to do this last week,” Ned continued, ignoring MJ’s order and then the kick she aimed as his shin; not even flinching at what was surely decent pain considering their friend had worn her Doc Marten’s to their meeting. “Why the hell did we let you cancel?”

“Because of that bank robbery remember?” Peter says, ignoring his own work for a second and risking MJ’s (well deserved not that he would admit it) wrath. “And then I got caught on patrol for a couple hours and then it was curfew.” He may have also been in the MedBay that night for a (minor) stab wound but he wasn’t telling them that – his friends worried enough about him as it was.

“Not that I necessarily support the police and the clear and rampant systemic racism of the entire system,” Michelle began, forcefully picking Ned’s head off the table and shoving a pen into his hands so he would continue working, “but that is their job. If we aren’t going to defund them the least they could do is handle a bank robbery.” This had been a frequent disagreement between the two of them for a while – MJ was one hundred percent correct in her viewpoint but Peter was a closet control freak who couldn’t leave well enough alone. They tried not to talk about it in polite conversation anymore.

“But there were hostages,” Peter whined, and there were. About twelve of them who all seemed more bored and annoyed than scared but that was the city for ya.

“And?” Michelle accused. “What do you think happened before you started running around in tights?”

“She has a point,” Ned said gently, organizing the index cards to be less chaotic.

Peter gave them both an irritated huff and muttered “They aren’t tights.”

“Spandex then,” Michelle said flippantly, waving her hand in his direction without looking up from her screen. Peter rolled his eyes.

“Well the next time we have a group project I’ll just send out a nice tweet asking all the criminals and muggers to put their crime on hold so I can do my homework,” Peter huffed sarcastically but without any real heat.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Ned said, sounding relieved and Peter rolled his eyes again but got back to work. He was only on slide thirteen of twenty-five and, at the rate MJ was adding pages, he’d never finish. They worked in silence for a while, only breaking it to ask murmured questions before, finally, MJ snapped her laptop shut.

“Well if its not done at this point its not ever going to be,” she stated causing Ned to drop his pen and massage his cramping hand and Peter to let his head fall to the table in relief with a moan – his head was starting to throb and the words on his computer were swimming in front of his eyes. “Let’s try to get to school early tomorrow to do a couple run throughs before the presentation.” Peter glanced at the clock on the library wall and groaned, receiving a conciliatory pat on the back from Ned – he still had a ton of homework to get through before he could even think about sleeping.

“Want a ride home?” Ned asked a few minutes later when they were standing on the steps in front of the library. MJ’s mom had already been waiting when they stepped outside leaving just Ned and Peter to wait on Ned’s older sister.

“Nah,” Peter said, adjusting his too heavy backpack and rocking back on his heels. “Think I might swing home, just a quick patrol you know?”

The look Ned gave him was skeptical and disapproving but Peter chose to ignore it. He wouldn’t be out long anyway – just a quick run through the areas he knew were a problem and then home. Faster than the subway for sure. “Fine,” Ned grunted, thankfully holding in his opinion. “But you should go ahead and go before my sister gets here and insists on driving you,” Ned indicated to his tracking app, showing his sister only a few minutes away.

“Thanks man,” Peter said, initiating their handshake and trotting off around the corner to find a suitable alley to change in.

—————————————————

Three hours later, Peter fell through the window of his bedroom, collapsing on the floor and pulling his mask off. His hair was limp and sweaty where it clung to his head and his headache from earlier had gotten worse – the throbbing elevating up to a stabbing behind his eyes.

“One minute,” he told himself, panting and draping his elbow over his eyes. “You can have one minute and then you have work to do.”

“Talking to yourself?”

Peter jumped up, banging his head on the side of his bed with a wince, causing his vision to grey out a little and falling back on the floor to stare dazedly at the ceiling. Tony leaned over him to block his view, his expression mixed between humor and pity as Peter groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“Thought you had a tingle?” Tony teased, grabbing Peter’s hand and pulling him up to sit propped against the wall, ignoring the glare Peter shot him. “You’re lucky May’s working tonight.”

“Yeah I know,” Peter admitted. He was over two hours late for his midnight curfew and, if May had been home and not working in the ER, she would have skinned him alive and then grounded him for the foreseeable future.

“You’re even more lucky I covered for your scrawny spider ass and told her you were staying at the Tower tonight,” Tony said smugly, gesturing to the overnight bag that he had clearly packed for Peter. “Go ahead and change, you can shower once we get back to the Penthouse. You got everything you need for school?”

“Yeah,” Peter confirmed, stripping off the suit and pulling on an old pair of sweats and the t-shirt he had worn to school earlier. Changed and stumbling, he followed his mentor down to the town car that was waiting in front of the door to his apartment, crawling into the back seat and resting his aching head against the window; ignoring Happy’s tired look of disapproval in the rear view mirror.

“So,” Tony began, sitting across from him to make better eye contact. “Want to tell me why you’re out so late?”

“Well I was at the library with Ned and MJ working on a project for biology until about eleven-,”

“Why so late?” Tony interrupted, brows furrowed in thought. Peter bit his lip and averted his eyes and Tony nodded in understanding. “So you procrastinated until the last minute.”

“Maybe,” Peter conceded, eyes darting over to his bag and lingering for a second. Tony clocked the movement and let out a long suffering sigh, massaging his eyes with the thumb and forefinger on his right hand and grimacing .

“How much more do you have?”

“Uh…,” Peter squeaked out. “Just… just two problem sets in physics, one in calculus and five chapters of Jane Eyre to read.” Easily three to four hours of work and Peter was starting to feel buried and suffocated under the course load, his muscles started to tremble at the impending exhaustion he would be feeling the next day on little to no sleep.

Tony gave him a look of commiseration before asking “And when is all of this due?”

“The presentation is my last period of the day, right after lunch,” Peter answered. “Everything else is due in the morning.” Tony studied him for a moment before sighing.

“Here’s the offer: you go back to the Penthouse, take a shower and go to bed,” he held up a hand to halt Peter’s protest, “and I’ll tell May you have, what I assume to be, the start of a migraine,” Peter’s hand reached up subconsciously to rub his temple under his mentor’s knowing look. “She can call you out of school and I’ll take you at lunch so you don’t miss your presentation then you have all weekend to stick your nose in a book while I do some suit modifications. Square deal?”

Peter let out a sigh of relief and melted into the soft leather, nodding. “Deal.”

The rest of the ride was silent and Peter dozed until he was urged out of the car and into the elevator. Once they reached the Penthouse, Tony relieved him of his book bag and passed over the duffle he had packed, Peter not even bothering to put up a token protest as he was shoo’ed in the direction of his room. He pulled out his phone to text his group chat with Ned and MJ and saw that he already had a message waiting.

About thirty minutes before, MJ had sent a screenshot of the SpideyWatch twitter page that had a clear picture of him stopping a mugging just before he got home. The text under it said ‘see you at lunch for a practice run’ and Peter smiled a little, chest warm, as he sent the thumbs up emoji and tossed his phone onto his bed; he was looking forward to a scalding shower and eight hours of uninterrupted blissful sleep.

[nalgenewhore]

A rogue storm had her presumed dead and stranded on the red planet. Left on her own, astronaut Aelin Galathynius has four years to make it to the next drop-site, some two thousand miles. Armed with her smarts and dwindling supplies, Aelin attempts to survive on an inhospitable planet, when the nearest help is only millions of miles away.

masterlist - ao3 - last chapter - next chapter

an: we really getting into now hehe 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

The military cemetery thirty minutes outside Orynth was cold and bleak, fitting for the day.

Everyone in attendance was staring at the empty casket being lowered into the hole dug into the frozen ground of early January. Weylan shuffled his notes, clearing his throat before speaking, “Our space program was lucky to have an astronaut like Aelin Galathynius. She gave her life to this program and will be sorely missed. Her sacrifice in the furthering of science itself will not be in vain and the men and women here at TNSB will notice her absence every second of every hour, ensuring that her death means something. Anneith bless her and Hellas save her,” he said, making the sign of protection and prayer, a three fingered claw-like shape and pushing it from his heart.

The attendees repeated the gesture while Manon and Asterin whispered their own prayers, holding hands tightly, designating the highest Ironteeth honour on the fallen woman.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Gavriel was already in Weylan’s office as he walked in with Asterin, the two locked in a hushed argument. Upon spying the mission director, they paused and Weylan nodded towards the folder in his hand, “What’s that there?”

“I need you to sign off on the plans for the-“

“No.”

Gavriel pressed harder, “I know I can get parliament to fund it-“

“Gavriel, that’s not why I said no and you know it.” Weylan sighed and walked past him to sit behind his desk, Asterin taking a seat beside Gavriel. “We’re a public organization, everything we do has to be transparent.”

“And?”

Weylan and Asterin shared a look before the director responded, speaking slowly, “The moment the satellites point to the hab, we broadcast Aelin Galathynius’ body to the world.”

Gavriel scoffed, “You’re afraid of a PR scandal?”

Asterin rose a brow, “Of course we are. We have a dead astronaut on Farnor and we still need funding for The Crone.”

“So then what do we do?” he asked, tapping his finger on the folder, “She’s not going to decompose, her body will be up there forever.”

The director shrugged, “Meteorology reports that she’ll be covered by sand in less than a year.”

Gavriel threw his hands up, nearly hitting Asterin in the process, “We can’t wait a year! We have work to do and are we not going to discuss retrieving her body?”

“And what? Waste money and time for a corpse?”

Both Asterin and Gavriel flinched, the former hiding her adverse reaction better than Gavriel did. He was at a loss for words, thankfully Asterin spoke up, “Weylan, think about it. The Crone can bring the body back. Sympathy for her family-“

“What family? She’s an orphan and unmarried.”

It took conscious effort to anger Gavriel and he clamped down on the red-hot emotion, gritting his teeth as Asterin spoke again, “The Crone can bring back her body. We don’t make the mission about that, but we make it clear that that’s part of it. I can spin it if we do this now, Weylan. We can’t wait a year – people won’t care in a year.”

  +*+*+*+*+*+*

The pain had lessened, if barely, as Aelin came to, not sure how’d long it had been since she’d passed out. There was no new blood and she sighed in relief, reaching for the pills again and taking one. Aelin stood up, pushing herself up carefully until she was standing.

She groaned but was able to breathe past the ache and hobble her way to the bunks, dragging out her box and getting warmer clothes.

Putting them on took energy, too much of it, and she was panting as she sat on the floor, her back against her bed. Her stomach panged in hunger and she would have to find something to eat soon, but first, she grabbed her laptop and moved to the kitchen, sitting down and opening the computer up.

After a few taps and a bit of fiddling, she clicked on the video journaling and the camera started rolling. “Fuck, I don’t know how to do this,” she muttered, glancing at herself on the screen before squaring her shoulders and taking deep breath. “Uh, hi. This is Aelin Galathynius, recording from the hab. It’s currently,” she looked at the timestamp next to the recording time, “sixteen-hundred hours and surprise, I lived!” She laughed shakily, dragging her hand through her hair. “Obviously.” 

“I’m assuming this is a surprise to the crew and TNSB, if not, I’m going to kick some asses, but… I did not die on day eighteen. If I’m piecing this all together correctly, this,” she held up the antennae, “lovely little thing here damaged my bio-monitor and the team… had to leave before someone else got hurt.” Tears filled her eyes and she wiped them away, “Stupid painkillers, making me cry. But I… if I don’t make it out of here, which is highly likely, I just want to tell my crew that I don’t blame you, ok?”

She let out a shaky breath and continued, “I know that you broody humans are going to blame yourselves, especially you, Commander, but it was a tough situation and I would’ve made the same call. It’s just my bad luck, you know?”

Aelin shook her head, “Alright, now that all the mushy stuff is out of the way, I need to do some science.” She grabbed a nearby pen and her mission file, “There’s no way to contact TNSB because the satellite broke and I was impaled by the antennae. The next manned mission is in four years and I have to survive on a desolate planet for that long, right? Oh, and get to the Mistward crater where a prepositioned FAV is just waiting.”

She chewed on the pen, brows furrowing as she thought, “It’s a thirty-one-day expedition which means we have provisions for seventy, as a precaution.” She scribbled some numbers down, her mind whirling, “Now, it’s just me here which means it’ll last for…” she trailed off, “three-hundred days. With rationing, I can stretch it to four hundred. Which means I don’t have enough provisions to make it.”

With a sly grin, she looked up at the camera, “Thankfully, I know a thing or two about botany and soil.”

Aelin pushed herself in the wheeled chair to the pantry, opening every drawer and carefully counting every packet they had, separating them into different piles.

One, marked with red letters, Do not open until Beltane caught her eye and she grabbed it, “Oh, thank fuck the only thing Terrasen can grow is potatoes.” She looked at the camera by the microwave, “I’m about to science the shit out of this. It’s not gonna be pretty, I need to reclaim our waste and make fertilizer, but… it’ll keep me alive.” For now.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

It had been a week since the storm and Aelin had completed converted the kitchen into a greenhouse, Farnor soil on the floor, fertilized with the crew’s own human waste, with neat rows of spuds by moving all the chairs and tables outside, dumping them on the ground next to the rover station. That was another thing. To get to the next drop-site, it was a two-thousand-kilometre drive and the rover went a total of fifty.

Adding in the fact that she would have to spend the nights inside the rover as well, with outside temperatures reaching negative seventy-three in Celsius, she would need to turn on the heater, which would drain the battery.

She’d long since gone through everyone’s things, finding the holy grail, a rover manual in Lorcan’s box. Aelin had never been more thankful for mechanical engineering in her life.

It was slow and hard work to modify the two rovers they had. After fifty kilometres, the batteries would need to be recharged, at the hab.

Left with no other options, Aelin had been forced to dig up the old radioisotope thermoelectric generator, powered by none other than plutonium itself. The list of dangers was lengthy, however, Aelin wasn’t too worried.

She talked to the camera in the rover, “Now, I do remember that one of our lessons was ‘Don’t Go Digging Up The Big Box Of Plutonium,’ but it’s either cancer due to exposure or slowly dying due to the laws of thermodynamics. Honestly, at this point, getting cancer due to exposure to a toxic chemical would be heaven compared to being alone on a desolate planet, but them’s the breaks, I guess.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

The lone astronaut was sitting before the computer, wearing the hoodie Rowan had left. It was the only thing that brought her comfort, other than the motherload she’d found on Nesryn’s computer – all of the Twilight movies and, of course, the computer geek’s favourite manga, Anatolia Story. It was surprisingly interesting and after she’d binge read seven out of twenty-eight volumes, Aelin forced herself to stop, telling herself she’d only read one volume a week. So far, she’d kept to her promise, but she’d been so busy with figuring out how to stay alive, she hardly had any free time.

She did find enough time to laugh herself silly over the fact that Fenrys’ had every Disney princess movie available, even her favourite: Mulan.

Elide had been her saviour with PDFs of Harry Potter, and Lorcan with Marvel movies. Even grouchy Rowan had Grey’s Anatomy, which was quite a shock to find out, given how much the doctor looked down on the show. Sometimes, Aelin imagined his voice as he ranted about how dramatic and unrealistic it was, especially with how many of the doctors slept with their co-workers.

But now was not the time to think of such things, Aelin had work to do.

Last night, she had recorded, yet again, her random thought pattern, focusing on how she would water her crops, after having planting the spuds for Beltane. “Thank the gods that Elide was always a fucking weirdo and learned how to fabricate water at much too young, but hey, foster parents don’t pay that much attention. Well,” she chuckled, “they paid enough attention to stop her from ordering The Anarchist’s Cookbook, which is a good thing because that was a time when we were in one of our little spats,” which were really anything but little. “She was able to put together this handy-dandy thing.” She indicated the packet on the table, of various simple reactions including one very, very important one.

Water.

Aelin toyed with Elide’s evil eye symbol, “The thing is, to make water, we need fire, which seems a bit strange, why would one need fire for water? But anyway, TNSB is against fire because of the whole ‘fire in space makes everyone die’ thing. So, everything is fire-retardant. Everything,” she held up the evil eye, which happened to be made of wood, “except for El’s personal items.”

There was a small knife on the table and she picked it up, shaving off pieces of her sister’s carving, “Ellie, if you see this, I’m assuming you don’t mind that I went through your personal boxes – all of yours actually. Commander, and I mean this with no offence, but all you listen to is punk. I have nothing against punk, but after a while, it all sounds the same, you know? One guy yells, ‘one two three four’ and then the guitars and drumming starts!”

Eventually, she had a nice pile of wood shavings and she carefully carried them over to the middle of the room. She remembered to put on her mask before passing through the plastic tarp, where Aelin had set up a very rudimentary stove-esque set up.  The normally risky experiment was even more dangerous and she wasn’t going to blow herself up by forgetting to account for the oxygen she was exhaling.

“Ok,” she breathed out, putting the wood shavings on the sieve that covered the empty can of beans. Her eyes were wide, missing nothing. So many things could go wrong and Elide’s voice filled her head, There’s a reason people without chemistry degrees don’t make water. “I know that,” she bit out, her brows lowering as she carefully poured a few drops of rocket fuel – hydrazine – which was conveniently made of two sodium atoms bonded with four hydrogen atoms.

Carefully, so carefully, she struck the torch, wincing as the wood caught on fire, the flames fluttering happily. When nothing bad happened, she cheered and smiled beneath her mask, keeping one eye on the set-up and another on her spuds as she backed up into the kitchen, a slightly mad smile on her face as she sat down heavily on the chair and looked into the camera, “Don’t worry, guys, no explosions or fire, other than the very controlled experiment.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Aelin was hunched over a map, Iron Man: 3 playing idly on the laptop beside her. She was planning her route to the drop-site, which was in the Mistward crater. She breathed out and wiped the sweat from her brow.

Sweat.

Hardly daring to move, she turned to look at the plastic tarp of her greenhouse, seeing the drops of moisture on it. With a half-crazed laugh, she stood up and entered the closed off space, running her hand over the tarp, her fingertips coming away wet. “Water,” she breathed, buzzing with joy, “water! I have water!”

She raced to her bunk and threw on her suit and helmet, bouncing on her toes as she waited for the airlock tunnel to depressurize and then she raced to the water reclaimer, as fast as one could while wearing a spacesuit.

The sun beat down on her but she barely paid the heat any mind as she opened the water reclaimer, a dry sob tearing from her throat as she found it to be filled to the brim with the crystal clear liquid. 

For the first time since she’d woken up, Aelin felt hope, bright and beautiful hope. 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

It was past midnight in Perranth and Nox Owens yawned into his mug of tea, blinking hard to stay awake.

He settled back into his chair in Satellite Control, pulling up the aerial images of the hab for his boss. They took a while to load and he might have dozed off, jolting and nearly spilling his tea as the computer beeped, indicating the images were ready. With a slight sigh, he carefully put his mug down and pushed his glasses up after they had slipped down to the end on his nose yet again.

Blinking the sleepiness from his startlingly grey eyes, he clicked through the batch, making sure everything was normal before sending them up to his superiors. Something had him shifting in his wheelie-chair and narrowing his angular eyes, “What the fu…”

No. It couldn’t be. How in Hellas’ realm was the rover moving? The solar panels?

This didn’t make any sense…

Logically, the satellite planner knew that there was only one answer for this, he just couldn’t believe it.

Maybe he’d seen it wrong or these were old pictures, but the timestamp in the corner of the screen told him that what he was seeing was correct.

And that meant that… Aelin Galathynius was alive. And they’d left her on Farnor, alone.

Shit.

It took him a few tries to grab the phone and he couldn’t tear his eyes away as the operator picked up.

“This is Nox Owens from SatCon, I need to speak with Gavriel Aryeh. The Farnor Mission Director, yes. It’s an emergency.”

“Emergency, really?”

Nox hissed into the receiver, “Yes, it’s an emergency.”

+*+*+*+*+*+*

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[timelordthirteen]

Killing Time 23/35

Detective Weaver/Belle French, Explicit

Summary: A Woven Beauty Law & Order-ish AU. Written for Writer’s Month 2019.

Chapter Summary: Belle and Weaver get a big break in the case, but find it tempered by the mountain of missing pieces.

Notes: For my August Writer's Month prompt: We’re all a little stronger than we think we are. I've barely read this over before posting, sorry for all the typos.

[AO3]  

We’re all a little stronger than we think we are.

Dr. Hopper’s parting words replayed in Belle’s mind as she walked the three blocks back to her office.

The last few days had been lighter than any since her work on the Branson case had begun. A weight had been lifted by her confession to both Archie and Ian, and the therapy session which she was just leaving had only added to it. Today, their topics focused on ways she could relax and control any future panic attacks, which she assumed she would probably need no matter how much she wanted to tell herself otherwise.

The weekend had been quiet and comfortable. She and Weaver had worked some on Saturday, but admittedly they were distracted by movies on TV and each other. Sunday, they’d gone for a walk in a nearby park, and by the time they got back to the apartment, she was ready to tear his jeans off. Smiling, she pulled a lock of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. She was quite certain that the only other time she’d had more sex in a forty-eight hour period was when they’d been on their honeymoon.

He hadn’t said anything about the miscarriage after Friday night, and she hadn’t either. She wasn’t sure what he was feeling or thinking about it, or if he was at all. Several times she’d almost brought it up, but always hesitated when the moment came, afraid to shatter the cocoon of safety and happiness they’d created for one weekend. She was determined to talk it over with Dr. Hopper next week, before she dared to breach the subject with Weaver. Archie would know the best way to go about it, and he would help her get her mind straight beforehand, as he had many times when she was practicing her closing argument for an important case.

Monday had brought no news from Nevada, but this morning she’d gotten a call from Clark County letting her know to expect something by no later than Wednesday. It put an extra spring in her step as she pushed the revolving door to the city building that housed the District Attorney’s office. Her cell phone chirped in her coat pocket, and she pressed the elevator button before pulling it out. An notification lit up on the screen, an email to her official account, but the lift was already moving and her signal went out as it began the slow climb to the sixth floor.

Belle shoved her phone back in her pocket and stepped off the elevator, wanting to wait until she was with Weaver before she read the email, just in case it was good news. Her lips parted as she rounded the corner and saw his outline through the frosted glass of her office. He was seated at the conference table, leaning back, as far as she could tell, and a naughty idea on how they might celebrate this possible good news flashed across her mind.

Weaver turned as she opened the office door, and smiled. “Go well?”

She nodded and walked over to her desk. “Pretty good.”

“Good.”

Then she held up her phone and grinned. “I have an email.”

“Just one? I’ll alert the media,” he deadpanned, pushing back from the conference table.

Belle rolled her eyes and dropped her purse in her bottom drawer before kicking off her walking flats and wiggling her feet back into her work heels. “From the Clark County Clerk.”

Weaver stood, his mouth curving crookedly. “Say that five times fast.”

“You’re the worst.”

He laughed as she pulled out her chair. “And yet you love me.”

She huffed and pushed up on her toes to press a quick kiss to his lips. “Allegedly.”

He made a soft ‘oh’ sound and slipped an arm around her, pulling her flush against him. “I have a fair bit of evidence from this weekend that says otherwise.”

Belle bit her lip and smiled as he dipped his head and kissed her neck. “None of which is admissible in court.”

Weaver’s nose nudged at her ear as he chuckled and whispered, “You’re the only judge I care about convincing anyway.”

Giggling, she shoved his chest until he stepped back, and then shook her head. “You’re incorrigible. Now, can I check my email?”

He gave her a sly look, but motioned towards her computer. Her stomach flipped as she sat down and opened the lid of her laptop, hoping that what they would find wouldn’t kill the delightful buzzing anticipation between them. It seemed to take twice as long for her email to open and the new message to appear, and she started tapping her foot impatiently while Weaver’s hand squeezed the back of her chair. She clicked on the message, opening it in a full window so they could both read it.

They exchanged a look, and Belle scooted forward, saving the attached documents to the folder for the case. There were three in all, a scanned image of Molly Macreedy’s foster care agreement, and two exported PDFs from the Nevada DMV database containing the records for her foster parents. The image had been pasted into the email and stated her foster parents’ surname as Tremaine. Belle opened the DMV records for each parent, putting them side by side on the screen before she sat back in her chair.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Weaver said, breathless.

“No wonder we couldn’t find anything on Eloise Gardener,” Belle said. “She never existed.”

“Eloise Tremaine,” Weaver began, sticking the DMV photo up on the whiteboard next to a picture from Eloise Gardener’s autopsy. “Former foster parent to our first victim, Molly Macreedy, aka Baby Jane number 3-2-5. She was left at a fire station in North Las Vegas, estimated to be about three weeks old at the time.”

Detective Rogers shook his head and put up the DMV photo of Robert Tremaine on the other side of the board before turning to face Captain Graham Humbert, Belle, and DA Midas. “Robert Tremaine, real estate developer from Henderson, married Eloise Smith in 1993. They had no kids of their own, but had at least fifteen foster children, that we know of.”

“We’re still waiting on all the records from Nevada,” Belle added.

“Robert died in March of 2013,” Weaver continued, leaning against the wall of bookshelves in Belle’s office. “No particulars on that just yet, but shortly after that any paper trail on his wife goes cold.”

“What about his estate?” Graham asked, frowning.

Weaver shrugged. “Real estate records show the sale of the house was handled by an attorney. That’s all we have on that so far.”

Midas leaned forward on the table. “Tremaine’s business, anything about that? Real estate development in Vegas was pretty lucrative at that time.”

“And fairly shady.” Rogers’ eyebrows lifted. “We’re looking into possible organized crime connections with that, but that’s a whole can of worms unrelated to our serial murders.”

Graham flipped through the small packet of papers Belle had compiled thus far. “What was Eloise doing in Seattle?”

“We don’t know,” Weaver answered. “If there is a link to the mob with her husband’s business, it would stand to reason that she’d want to get away from Vegas, but Seattle doesn’t seem far enough to run from that kind of thing.”

“But,” Belle interjected. “It doesn’t explain how Jack and Nick Branson knew about the history between Molly and Eloise, or why they were killed.”

“So...you have adoption records and foster parents for one victim, from another state, and not much else.” Graham looked around at the group and dropped the papers back on the table.

“Hey, we -”

“Now wait -”

Weaver and Rogers start defending themselves at the exact same moment, but stopped when Midas stood up.

“Captain Humbert is right,” Midas said. “It’s interesting background, and it’s a possible lead to - something - but it’s not helping us build a case against the Bransons, and this office -.”

“Nick Branson worked construction in Las Vegas,” Belle interrupted. “Maybe that’s the connection. Maybe it’s through Robert Tremaine’s business that he - I don’t know - came into some contact with Eloise.”

Midas frowned and looked at Graham a moment before fixing Belle with a hard stare. “Follow it up, but don’t waste time on goose chases and rabbit holes. The murders were here in Seattle, not in Las Vegas. We’re not even sure Eloise was murdered by the Bransons -”

Belle attempted to interrupt him again, but his glare quieted her immediately. “You’ve shown me no definitive proof that she was. Meanwhile, we have five victims that we do know they killed, and a trial for them starting in two months. I’d like to avoid that kind of public spectacle if at all possible and get these two psychopaths to take a deal on those five murders.”

The tension in the room made Belle uncomfortable and her eyes darted to meet Weavers’ before shifting back to her boss.

“Am I clear, ADA French?”

She swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, detectives,” Midas said, nodding to Rogers and Weaver. “Captain Graham.”

Midas strode out of the office, and everyone left in the room collectively sagged in defeat. The air of excitement that Belle and Weaver had maintained for the last thirty-six hours at the news of Eloise Gardener’s real identity fizzled to nothing as Belle laid her head down on the conference table.

Weaver shot a look at Graham. “What the hell crawled up his arse?”

Graham sighed and ran a hand over his face. “The mayor,” he said, counting on his fingers as he spoke, “the city council, Alderman Samedi, Victoria Belfrey…”

“Belfrey?” Belle said, lifting her head. “What the hell does she care?”

“Apparently she had a deal with Samedi to build cost controlled housing on that vacant lot,” Graham explained. “The whole thing is in limbo now because the lot is a crime scene and hasn’t been released, and we can’t do that until we move forward on Eloise Gardener’s, or Tremaine’s, or - whoever the hell she is’s - murder.”

“So no pressure then,” Rogers muttered flatly, snapping the cap on one of the dry erase markers.

Belle pushed back from the conference table and stood up. “Okay,” she said, holding up both of her hands, palms outward. “We need a new plan. Rogers, figure out where the hell Eloise was living in Seattle. Hopefully having her actual last name will yield more results, but there could be something under her husband’s name, or his company. Ian and I will focus on the other victims, and see if any more of them are also adopted, or were in foster care.”

Then she turned to Graham and gave him a sickly sweet smile, that hand him rolling his head back and looking up at the ceiling. “Captain Humbert, if you could please reach out to your federal law enforcement contacts, and see if there’s even a whiff of organized crime around Robert Tremaine, that would be most especially helpful.”

Graham let out a snorting laugh, and gave Belle a salute with two fingers before he gathered up his things. “Yes, ma’am.”

Plans made, and men dispersed, Belle was left alone in her office. She sat down on the sofa, head in her hands, and took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly between her lips. Archie’s voice was once again in her head, and for a long moment she let herself focus on it, trying to block out the irritated voice of her boss and the nagging on in her head that set her anxiety up to an eleven.

Feeling calmer, Belle looked up, her eyes staring straight ahead at the white board with pictures of Robert and Eloise Tremaine hanging side by side. She pushed to her feet and walked towards her, her vision narrowing to the image of Eloise, with that awkward expression so common with driver’s license photos.

“Why were you in Seattle, Eloise?” she asked no one. “What were you running from?”

[dettiot]

Don’t Freak Out

A gender-swapped Chuck AU 

“Happy 27th, Padme!” 

Doing her best to smile, Padme Naberrie took the margarita from her brother-in-law. “Thanks, Darred.”

“My amazing sister,” Sola said, coming up to kiss her cheek.

Padme huffed and took a healthy swig from her drink.

“Oh, Padme,” Sola tsked softly. “It’s been five years since Stanford. I know how awful it all was--”

“What, you mean my best friend sleeping with my boyfriend and then getting me kicked out for cheating? Yeah, ‘awful’ is a bit of an understatement.” 

Sola and Darred exchanged one of those married-couple looks, then Darred wandered off to leave the sisters alone. 

“Padme,” Sola said firmly yet sympathetically. “I know you think politics isn’t possible for you now. I know you had everything all planned out. But you can still make a difference, accomplish everything you wanted to do--it just has to happen in another way. You’re a genius. You can find a way, I know it.” 

Hearing her sister be so encouraging, so supportive, made Padme feel lower than a snake. But . . . Sola just didn’t get it. When Sabe had betrayed her, all of the dreams and hopes of Padme’s life had vanished. And despite Sola’s belief, Padme didn’t think she could get it back. 

“I just . . . I can’t get over it, Sola. I can’t just say ‘I’ll get over it tomorrow” and move on,” Padme said. 

Sola looked sad and shook her head. “You’re the only one holding you back, Padme.”

Shrugging her shoulders, Padme drained her margarita, wincing a little at all the tequila and blowing her hair out of her eyes. “Yeah, I guess so, but at least I know what to expect, then.”

And with that, she left her sister and went to find Jar-Jar and hide from all of the people at this party that her sister had invited. 

XXX

See, video games made sense. Good triumphed and the bad guys were defeated. They made sense, Padme thought to herself as she moved through the maze, looking for both Jar-Jar and their target. 

A soft beep from her computer was easy for her to ignore, but Jar-Jar, as usual, was on top of everything. “Uh-oh.” 

“Uh-oh?” she asked as she came up behind the target and shot them. She felt a ripple of guilt and looked over at Jar-Jar. 

“You got an email from Sabe,” Jar-Jar said, his voice full of disdain and anger. 

Padme wished she could feel anger. But no . . . all she felt was fear. Because why was Sabe emailing her? What could her old friend have to say to her? Was she going to hurt Padme in yet another way? 

Dropping her controller, Padme crossed over to the computer and frowned at the subject line. “Zork? What?” 

“What?” Jar-Jar echoed in confusion. 

“It’s an old text-based computer game we both liked,” Padme explained, staring at the screen. “I don’t get it.” 

Jar-Jar’s phone started making the super-annoying text noise, and he pulled it out. “Yikes--Mom wants me to get home. I gotta jet.” 

“Okay,” Padme said distractedly, still staring at the email. She did manage to look over at Jar-Jar with a smile. “Peddle safe!” 

Once her friend was gone, Padme hesitated for a long moment, then reached out and tapped the mouse to open the email. There was something attached . . . some kind of file?

Feeling a spark of curiosity, Padme opened it, smiling a little as the troll scenario loaded. A thousand different feelings went through her. Maybe this was Sabe’s attempt at an olive branch? Perhaps she was trying to gauge Padme’s reaction, to know if they could rebuild their friendship?

Because Padme had missed Sabe so much, despite what she had done. Even after all this time, she didn’t know why Sabe had turned against her. And she wanted to know. And she wanted her friend back.

“Attack troll with nasty knife,” Padme typed. 

The screen went black and Padme frowned as she stood up. What the-?

Suddenly, a wall of images appeared on-screen. Padme swallowed, unable to look away, unable to even blink, as a stream of images were fed directly into her brain. 

It felt like it lasted forever and for a split-second, and the next thing Padme knew, it was morning.

XXX

With a sigh, Padme adjusted her tie and headed into the Buy More. She had a pounding headache--whatever had happened with that email Sabe had sent her, it had messed up her head and her computer.   

Stepping behind the Nerd Herd counter, she looked through the folders, hoping against hope that there would be some kind of tricky computer problem, a big install, anything to keep her mind distracted. But there was nothing, so she slumped down in her chair with another sigh. 

“Ooooh, not havin’ a very merry unbirthday, huh?” Jar-Jar said, slouching against the counter. His bright green polo made his tan skin look washed out, which should be impossible. 

Padme shrugged. “Just . . . Sola tried to talk to me, and . . .” 

Jar-Jar nodded sympathetically. “She’s worried about you. It makes her a good sister. And really hot.” 

“Ugh, Jar-Jar, we talked about this,” Padme said, shooting her best friend a look. His long-standing crush on Sola had only gotten more embarrassing since she had married Darred.

“I know, I know,” Jar-Jar said, his big ears turning red. “But Padme--”

Clumsy as always, he knocked the file sorter off the top of the counter, sending papers falling all over the floor. 

“Ooops?” he said, wincing.

“I’ve got it,” Padme said, crouching down behind the counter to pick up everything and organize it.

“Pssssst, Clark Kent comin’!” 

Huffing, Padme felt her bad mood dissipating a little. That was Jar-Jar’s special ability, really: he could always make her laugh. 

“Clark Kent? Really? Doubtful, Jar-Jar,” she said, gathering up the last of the papers and standing up. 

Then she got a look at the man approaching the Nerd Herd desk, and Padme dropped the papers again.

Because his hair wasn’t dark like Clark Kent’s, but a sandy brown. But otherwise? Yeah, this guy was a total Clark Kent. Tall, broad-shouldered, confident walk, and the bluest eyes she had ever seen. 

“Clark Kent?” the man said with a charming smile, his eyes locked on Padme’s. 

“Yeah . . . like Superman,” she said, staring back at him. 

“I see,” the man said. 

Jar-Jar started humming the wedding march, and Padme turned and glared at him. That made Jar-Jar suddenly decide to go help a customer who did not need any help. 

Taking a deep breath, she looked back to the man, trying to act professional and cool and not like a giant loser. “Hi, how can I help you?” 

The man nodded, his lips quirking, and held out a cell phone. “I’ve got a cracked screen, and the sign outside said you repair them?” 

“Oh, yeah--sure,” Padme said, taking the phone and trying not to notice how his fingers brushed against hers and gave her tingles. 

Setting the phone down on the counter, she got to work, falling into the rhythm. “Just have to pop this off and put on the new one . . . there you go, good as new,” she said, handing him the phone back.

His eyebrows went up and Padme couldn’t help feeling warm all over from his impressed look. “You’re good.” 

“Oh . . . no, not really,” she said, flushing. “Just glad I could help.” 

Before the man could say anything else, a frantic-looking dad rushed up to the counter holding a video camera, with a little ballerina in tow. “I don’t understand, I taped the whole recital, but it’s not there!”

Padme gave an apologetic look to the man and took the camera, opening up the tape slot. “Um, there’s no tape in here.” 

“But it’s digital,” the man said blankly. 

“Yes . . . digital tape. You still need a tape in here,” Padme explained, feeling her heart sink, just like the dad’s did. 

She couldn’t help glancing at the man again, who was watching her with a level of interest she didn’t quite understand. Then she looked back at the dad. “Let’s see what I can do.” 

XXX

Padme applauded, as well as several other customers, as the ballerina finished her routine. She looked around and sighed as she realized the man had vanished. She hadn’t even gotten his name . . . 

Not that it would matter. After all, why would a guy like that be interested in some girl who worked at a Nerd Herd counter? 

Something about the news cast on one of the Buy More’s sample TVs drew her attention. The anchorwoman was talking about some big-time general coming to LA, due to arrive that afternoon. 

Suddenly, a string of images appeared before Padme’s eyes, sending a spike of pain into her temple. And with the pain came . . . knowledge. 

“He’s already here. He arrived last night.” 

What? She frowned, trying to understand how she knew that. 

“Padme!” 

At the sound of Jar-Jar’s voice, Padme turned towards him, rubbing her forehead. Her best friend was grinning widely at her. 

“He left a card!” he called out, holding up a small white business card.

Her heart pounded and Padme quickly hurried over, grabbing it from Jar-Jar. “Anakin Skywalker,” she said, staring at the words. “Oh my God.” 

Could it be . . . her luck was starting to change?

XXX

Today was the weirdest day of her life. And that was saying a lot, considering what had happened yesterday. Between the weird flashes of knowledge, feeling ultra-attracted to a complete stranger, and then someone breaking into the apartment she shared with Sola and Darred to steal her computer . . . yesterday had definitely been weird.

But then today, there had been the strange, intimidating man at the Large-Mart, the man she knew was an international assassin. And then . . . Anakin had shown up at the Buy More and asked her out. 

Like, in the flirtiest way possible! Her knees had melted when he looked at her and said, “There’s something wrong with my phone--I didn’t get a call from you.” 

Just thinking about those words made her feel hot all over. Because Anakin was just--he was handsome and smart and made her feel like she was interesting and cool and not a giant fuck-up.

God, was her outfit good? She looked down at the red top and black skirt she was wearing. Yeah, this was good. Heels were a necessity tonight--Anakin was so tall and she didn’t want to get a crick in her neck as she looked up at him.

Taking a deep breath, Padme opened the door of El Mariachi and stepped inside the Mexican restaurant, looking around. 

“Padme!” Anakin crossed over to her, smiling at her. “Hey. You look great.” 

“So do you,” she said, taking in his black button-down and well-fitting jeans.

His smile got even warmer, which should be impossible, but it did. “This way,” he said, resting his hand lightly on her back and making her tingle all over.

They took a seat in a booth and Padme smiled, trying to remember all the rules about dates. Like not talking about exes, going too fast, going too slow . . . 

“So, welcome to LA,” she said. “You’re doing Mexican tonight. Then you just need to do Korean and street food, and you’ll have the full view of the culinary landscape.” 

Anakin let out a soft laugh. “Thanks,” he said, looking at her like he was fascinated with her. 

She blushed and took a sip from her water. “What brings you to town?” 

“Work,” he said with a shrug. “I got transferred here. And I feel . . . pretty aimless. I don’t know anyone here, and I left . . . well, I was dating someone in DC, and it was serious, but--but I felt like I had gotten lost in her. Her friends were mine, her goals were mine, and . . . that’s not really sustainable.” 

Padme nodded, listening and marveling at his sensitivity.

“I’m sorry,” she said slowly. “But . . . but that’s good, that you recognized it.” 

He nodded and gave her a lopsided smile. “Yeah. How about you? What do you like to do?” 

“Oh . . . you know,” Padme said, trying to smile. “I listen to music . . . I play video games . . . I like to go to the beach.” 

His nose wrinkled. “I know this is probably blasphemy, but I don’t like the beach.” 

“Whaattt?” she said, drawing out the word and beaming when Anakin laughed. 

“I don’t like sand,” he said. 

“Ahhh,” Padme said. “See, I was sitting here, trying to think what was wrong with you, and it was down to ‘he hates sand’ or ‘he’s a cannibal’. And I was kinda hoping it was cannibal, because I’ve never met one . . .” 

Anakin laughed harder and Padme couldn’t help her smile at him.

XXX

How had her life become marked by weird? 

There were those cars with flashing lights that went past them on the way to the club, cars that she knew were going to the Ambassador Hotel. And then, when they got to the club, Anakin started acting . . . weird. 

He kept looking around, like someone was following them. But when she tried to look around, too, he noticed what she was doing and pulled her out on the dance floor, despite her protests. And then he was dancing, all cool and hot, pulling her in close to him, holding her close, and . . . 

It was too much. Because he smelled so good, and he was so warm, and Padme had never been so attracted to anyone in her whole entire life. 

Not even Rush. 

And then Anakin grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the club. 

“Anakin--Anakin, what’s going on?” she asked, looking around wildly and spotting a ginger-haired man in a dark suit coming out of the club. 

“Get in the car, Padme,” Anakin said, his voice firm and low and very, very serious. 

“But--this isn’t your car--how--?” she asked as he opened the doors of a Fiat 500. 

Anakin pushed her into the car and slid across the hood, getting behind the wheel. 

“Anakin!” she shrieked as he floored the car. She grappled with the door handle, only for the locks to engage.

“You will tell me what’s going on right now!” she demanded, looking at him.

His jaw clenched and he looked over at her. “That email from your friend Sabe? Did you open it?” 

“How . . . how do you know about that?” Padme asked, staring at him. 

“Did you open it?” he asked again, raising his voice. 

Padme felt her mouth go dry. “Yes . . . ?”

Anakin cursed and jerked the wheel as something made the back window break into a million pieces. 

“Get down,” he said, pushing her head down towards her lap, but not roughly like she thought he would. 

The car swerved and bumped as Anakin drove it. Padme felt her heart pound, wondering what in the hell was happening. 

Suddenly, the car jerked to a stop and Anakin threw open the door. “Out, out, out!” he said, coming around the car and grabbing her hand. He pulled her towards a building, one that . . . she recognized?

It was . . . 

“The Ambassador Hotel!” she gasped. 

Anakin stopped and looked at her. “What?” 

Before she could reply, a deep male voice spoke. “It’s late and I’m tired. Tell me everything so I can finish this and then go get some huevos rancheros.” 

Anakin frowned. “Kenobi, what are you doing here?” 

Padme looked from Anakin towards the ginger-haired man who came up towards them . . . with a large black gun in his hand. She didn’t know what was going on, but . . . she couldn’t help taking a small step behind Anakin. 

“Same reason you’re here,” Kenobi said, eyeing Padme. “Found yet another damsel in distress?” 

The pounding in her head made Padme swallow, looking towards the hotel. Why--why did she know something was going to happen in the hotel? Think, Padme, think!

“We--we have to get to the hotel!” she said, yanking on Anakin’s shirt sleeve as the pieces fell into place. “There--there’s an assassin, he’s going to kill that General Stanfield guy!” 

“What?” Anakin said, looking down at her.

“How could she know that?” Kenobi asked, his hand twitching around his gun. 

Padme looked up at Anakin, trying to convince him. Hoping she could trust him. 

“Oh, fuck,” Anakin said, blinking. “You opened the email . . .” He looked over at Kenobi. “She’s got the Intersect.” 

“What?” Kenobi said, his eyebrows raising. 

“What’s the Intersect?” 

Anakin rubbed his cheek. “The Intersect is a computer--all the intel that the CIA, the NSA, and other intelligence groups gather is encoded into images and fed into the Intersect. The computer looks for all kinds of hidden connections. Sabe stole it, and . . . she sent it to you.”

Padme felt like her legs were about to go out from under her.

“Wait--so you’re telling me all our secrets are in her head?” Kenobi asked, raising his gun.

Faster than she could blink, Anakin drew a gun, too, and pointed it at Kenobi. “You’re not going to kill her.” 

Kill her? Padme swallowed, feeling like she was going to puke. She--she couldn’t--she was just a supervisor for the Nerd Herd, she made twelve dollars an hour! 

And the more time that Anakin and Kenobi yelled at each other, the less time there was to stop the assassin from killing the general. 

Turning on her heel, Padme ran for the hotel. By the pounding of two sets of male feet, she knew Anakin and Kenobi were following her, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was protecting the general. 

XXX

The rush of adrenaline made her dizzy. She couldn’t believe it. 

“I did it! I defused a bomb!” Padme said, punching her fist in the air. She beamed at Anakin, who looked both proud of her and a little confused. 

“I . . . defused a bomb,” Padme repeated as the words started to sink in. “Oh, God.” 

Kenobi rolled his eyes. “Don’t throw up on the C4,” he said, his voice sounding even more clipped than before. 

Padme looked up at Anakin, who shook his head and gave her a small smile. “C’mon,” he said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Let me take you home.” 

From somewhere, he acquired a black Suburban and drove her back to Echo Park. Padme kept her eyes closed and breathed slowly in and out, calling up on that one yoga class Sola had dragged her to. 

When the car came to a stop and didn’t move, Padme opened her eyes and saw that she was home. She looked over at Anakin and took a breath. “Thank you.” 

He nodded. “You’re welcome. You should go in, get some sleep.” 

“I know . . . I just--I don’t think I can sleep,” she said, fidgeting a little. She took a deep breath and looked at him. “What happens now?” 

Anakin leaned his head back against the headrest. “I . . . I don’t know. Typically, in a case like this . . . we would extract you and take you to a bunker, for safekeeping. Our scientists would work to extract the Intersect from you, and then . . . you could get back to your life.” 

“Anakin,” she said, reaching out and grabbing his hand. “I--I can’t leave. My sister only has me--our parents left years ago--and then there’s Jar-Jar, and--and I can’t do this,” she said, feeling tears threaten. 

Because not only had Sabe once again messed up her life . . . she thought her life was actually getting better with the presence of Anakin. But then, he wasn’t who she thought he was. He was a CIA agent--a spy, an actual freaking spy! And . . . he had asked her out only to get close to her, obviously. Because they were looking for the Intersect, because they wanted information about Sabe. 

So yeah, her life was back to the same loser existence. But it was hers, and she would not leave her family and her friends behind. She couldn’t . . . she just couldn’t walk away from them, even for a little while. 

Because who knew if the CIA and the NSA would even let her go at the end? 

“Please, Anakin,” she said, fully willing to beg him. “Please.” 

For a long, endless moment, he looked at her. His eyes had been like chips of ice ever since they left the club, but all of a sudden, they seemed to melt and become the same warm pools of blue she had seen when they first met. 

“Okay, Padme,” he said softly. “I’ll try.” 

She felt a rush of gratitude. “Oh, thank you--thank you--”  She squeezed his hand, wishing she could just lean over and kiss him--

Wait. Kiss him?

“You’re welcome,” Anakin said, pulling his hand away from her. “Now, really, get some sleep. I’ll be in touch.” 

Nodding, Padme quickly climbed out of the SUV, feeling the cool air against her flushed cheeks. Her feet had barely touched the sidewalk when Anakin gunned the car and drove off. 

She watched the taillights recede in the night and wondered what would happen next. 

And if there was any chance Anakin might like her. 

End.

[minminnie-shii]

~Us~ Kim Youngjo

~Fluff~ ~Fluffy fluff~ ~Seriously, beware~

Word count~ 1982

Warnings~ None

~~~~~~~~~

I remember the minute that I fell for Youngjo, the moment I realized that all I wanted in life, was to see him happy. It was during the 'Debut Project' for my group, and his.

We were playing the punishment soccer game, Seoho was up to kick the ball. When he kicked it, it bounced off of the post and hit me in the head. Youngjo was the first one to run up to me and see if I was okay.

After that, he stayed by my side for the rest of the filming. And even after they would win the games, he would always share his food with me, making my members jealous. Whenever our two groups were together, I would always find myself drawn to him.

And it really didn't help when we would always sit so close to me, or grab my hand in some way. Some times, I would feel like he was teasing, or messing with me. But, now, I don't think he even knows how I feel about him.

I was currently sitting in the recording studio by myself. The boys had gone home for the day, but, I really wanted to get this melody down before I left. This song had been stuck in my head for the past few weeks, and I needed to finish it.

What was the song about? Love, well, first love. Softly and quietly, I began to sing to myself.

"The way you look at me reminds me of something. But I can't quite figure out what. Could this be love? Can you feel what I feel for you? Do you love me too?" I stopped strumming my guitar and let out a sigh, closing my eyes.

"That's really pretty. Working on a new song?" I jumped and my eyes shot open when I heard a voice by my ear.

I spun around in my chair and Youngjo laughed as he stood straight up. I rolled my eyes and set down the guitar, shoving him by the shoulder.

"Yah! What do you think you're doing? You scared me." I mumbled crossing my arms over my chest. He laughed and walked over to me, pinching my cheek slightly.

"Aw, poor _____, did I really scare you that bad?" He asked.

I smiled softly and looked at him, he had picked up that paper that had the lyrics for the song I was writing. He was carefully reading over every word.

"Hmm, this is really good, it almost sounds like you're in love with someone." He said peeking up at me over the paper. I blushed slightly and looked away.

"No, what would give you that idea." I muttered. He just shrugged his shoulders and set down the paper.

"I was just saying. Hey, are you hungry? Do you want to get food before you go back to the dorm?" He asked resting against the chair. I thought about it for a second and nodded.

"Sure, let me just pack up my stuff."

He backed away while I moved around the studio, saving my work and shutting down the computers. I put my guitar back into its case and zipped it closed. I grabbed all my lyric sheets and slipped them back into the folder where they belong. Once everything was organized and put away I put my backpack on my shoulders.

I went to grab my guitar when Youngjo beat me to it. He picked it up and slipped the strap over his shoulder. He turned to me and smiled, nodding towards the door. I blushed slightly and opened the door, stepping out first. Youngjo turned off the lights and locked the door, closing it.

"Time for food." He sang loudly. I couldn't help but laugh as the two of us left the company together.

"Do you want to take the van?" I asked him pointing to the car in front of us. He laughed and shooked his head.

"It's a nice day, let's walk." He gently took my wrist in his hand and began to lead me down the street. I jogged slightly until I matched my pace with his, allowing the two of us to work together.

"Are you excited for your debut?" I asked looking at him. He smiled widely and looked at me.

"Yeah, I can't believe that next week is when it comes out. I've been waiting for this for so long." He then stopped walking and turned to face me.

"What about you? Do you know how much longer until you debut?" I smiled and shook my head.

"No, but, don't worry about me, this is your moment, enjoy it." He chuckled quietly. He sighed softly and tilted his head, looking up at the stars.

"Do you believe in wishing stars?" He asked suddenly. My eyebrow twitched slightly at his question.

"Hmm, I don't know, I never tried wishing on one before." I said shrugging my shoulders.

"If you could have one wish, what would you use it on?" I looked towards the sky and thought about it. If I could wish for anything, what would I wish for?

I smiled as the answer finally came to me, I looked at him and answered.

"I would wish, that your debut would go just how you wanted it to. That everyone would listen and fall in love with your music. I wish that, all of your wishes, come true." His eyes widened slightly at my answer.

"You would waste your wish on me?" He asked quietly. I smiled and poked his forehead gently.

"If it makes you happy, then it's not a waste."  After a while of silence, it finally clicked in my head what I said. I blushed slightly and coughed turning on my heel.

"W-we should get going." I stuttered out quietly. Before I could take another step Youngjo's slender finger wrapped themselves around my arm, stopping me from moving.

"Wait, I never got to tell you what my wish was." He whispered. I swallowed thickly before turning my head back to look at him.

"If you could wish for anything Youngjo, what would it be?" I asked. He took a step forward and continued until he was standing directly in front of me.

I grew nervous and my gaze slipped from his face to the middle of his shirt. He took one more step, slowly slithering his arms around my waist, tugging me closer to him. I let out a gasp and my hands came up, I placed them on his chest and my gaze moved up, looking at his face.

His eyes searched mine intensely. It was hard to keep looking at him. I wanted to hide away, the nervousness in my stomach slowly started to bubble up until it filled my entire body. I'm sure how long we were standing there, but, a slight breeze blew causing me to shiver slightly.

He smiled softly and closed his eyes, resting his forehead against mine gently. He let out a sigh and his warm breath fanned my face. I swallowed and quietly repeated my question.

"What would you wish for?" He opened his eyes just slightly and peeked at me.

"My wish would be, to kiss you, if only just once." He whispered. My breath hitched in my throat at his words.

Was I dreaming? Did he actually just say that his wish was to kiss me? The nervousness slowly melted away, and something new replaced it, what it was, I didn't have a clue.

I slowly closed my eyes and tilted my head upwards, pressing my lips against his in a soft and quick kiss. I pulled back quickly and opened my eyes to look at him. He looked, shocked.

Oh look, I'm nervous again. I became a stuttering mess, I started apologizing and went to step away, but Youngjo tightened his grip on my waist, pulling me even closer. Our bodies were flush together and my breathing quickened.

His eyes flicked from my eyes to my lips quickly. He let out a breath before capturing my lips in his, kissing me softly. I closed my eyes and tilted my head upwards more, deepening the kiss.

His hands slid up my waist slowly touching me with only his fingertips. Chills covered my entire body as he cupped my cheeks in his hands. My hands clenched into fists, balling up his shirt tightly.

His lips felt hot against my own, though the rest of my body felt like it was on fire. Even in this cold winter weather, it felt like it was the middle of summer.

Youngjo's lips were soft, warm, they worked against mine softly. He was slow, and careful as if he was afraid that I would break at the slightest touch. Even when he pulled away, he pecked lips one, two, three, four times.

I didn't mind, I could kiss him all day. His lips were sweet, and they were all I needed in this moment. I didn't open my eyes, afraid that if I did, I would wake up and realize that this was all a dream. My new wish? Was for this to last forever.

Youngjo laughed breathily and nudge his nose against mine.

"Why won't you look at me?" He asked quietly.

"Because I'm afraid that once I open my eyes, I'll wake up and this would have been a dream." I whispered. He laughed again and I felt his lips press onto my forehead and a soft and short kiss.

"Open your eyes." He whispered. Slowly I opened my eyes and looked at him.

His face was flushed and he was still breathing heavily. He smiled widely at me and nudged my nose with his before pecking my lips again. I blushed deeply and moved, burying my face in his chest. He chuckled and held me tightly against him, he rubbed my arms and my back rocking us back and forth.

"Can I ask you something?" I asked softly into his chest. He pulled back slightly and looked down at me.

"You can ask me anything." Okay, deep breath, you can do this. Just ask him. I closed my eyes and went for it.

"Will you go on a date with me?" I said quickly. It was quiet for a really long time before Youngjo sighed.

"Wah, what is wrong with me? How did I let you beat me to it?" He chuckled. I looked up at him confused. He saw my confused face and laughed even more, pecking my lips softly.

"I can't believe you asked me before I had a chance to ask you." My eyes widened.

"Y-you wanted to ask me?" His face turned into bright red as he nodded.

"Yeah, everyone would always tell me to hurry up and tell you that I liked you. Why do you think I would always wait until you finished working to walk you back to the dorms? Or why there would magically be food in front of you when you would fall asleep at the computer.

"Yonghoon-Hyung always makes fun of me, well, him and everyone else. I don't why, but, tonight, just felt right. I'm sorry, I know I should've told you sooner but I didn't know ho-"

I leaned forward and pressed my lips on his, stopping him from talking. He smiled and moved his lips against mine softly.

"That's a really nice way to tell me to shut up." He mumbled against my lips. I smiled and peeked up at him.

"Something tells me that I'll have to do that a lot more in the future." I whispered kissing him again.

"Believe me, I have absolutely no problem with that."

[gameshenh757]

What folders does an external hard drive need to be used for gaming files on ps4

Gaming Blogs UK Top rated ten

The Gaming sector has been the most influential and profitable organization in quite some time. What Wikipedia is to knowledge, GameSpot is to video games. From video game blogs to reviews to downloads to previews on console games. GameSpot functions each and every nook & cranny of gaming globe. The very best aspect of this gaming website is it supplies an open platform to customers to share their opinions, blogs & reviews on their forum. The website firefoxik.site gaming news is quite superior seeking and features section such as: Pc Gaming, PS4, Xbox One particular, Gametech, 3Ds, Deals & a great deal far more.

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If you never have a significant gaming group, you have likely noticed that two-player games are challenging to obtain, and definitely excellent ones that are just as terrific for two players are even additional uncommon. I've wracked my memory (and pestered my pals) to come up with a bunch of tabletop games that are a blast for two— not just technically playable without the need of far more.

How TOUGH Be Everyone A Better Salesperson

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EDIT:I utilised to watch the Feedback video more than at G4 every single week, but it is gone down hill the last few instances I watched it and now that Adam Sessler is not on it and they have that girl from IGN that everyone hates in each and every episode I just cannot be bothered to watch it any far more. Still worth going back and watching some of the older ones though. Klepic utilized to be on that show and back then in the early days was when it was the finest. Back when they in fact talked about gaming news with some semblance of intellect as an alternative of just gushing about what ever game they are told is cool this week.

In March 2017, Green Man Gaming launched its 1st neighborhood language eCommerce site in Germany, 33 providing its customers the potential to shop in German applying their preferred payment solutions. The company also launched its brand new Community platform in March 2017, 34 giving gamers a new neighborhood to connect with every single other, view their gameplay stats, get the latest news and watch well-liked Twitch streamers - all in one particular spot.

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The ASTRO Gaming Headset is not your common headset that comes with a assortment of characteristics particularly made for enhancing your music listening practical experience. Instead, the ASTRO A50 is especially created and constructed for the really serious gamer specifically these who play on the Private Laptop or even the PlayStation 4 game console. The ASTRO A50 comes with 7.1 Dolby surround sound technology, providing you exceptionally loud bass and chest-thumping trebles, elegantly amplified to bring you to an out-of-this-globe adventure. The ASTRO A50 is embedded with professional top quality audio drivers in an sophisticated and stylish finish. It comes with its personal docking station, also.

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Some like it wireless. Some favor to go old-college with wires. If you come about to belong to the latter group, you may well want to give the Havit HV -MS672 Wired Mouse It may possibly not have a incredibly outstanding optical sensor that can run in the 16,000s, but its maximum of three,200 DPI should be enough to deliver you with an exceptional gaming encounter. Its DPI settings can also be adjusted to three other levels with the lowest at 800 DPI. The Havit Mouse also comes with breathing LED light effects like 7 circular LED light effects to set the mood in your game.

You initially convinced your self that you would attempt 1 or two board games, but somehow you have ended up spending a lot of cash on new board games and come to accept that board gaming is your new hobby. You spend your paychecks on regular impulse board gaming buys and kick starters. You religiously watch your favourite youtube channel and you have decided to try and obtain matching game players who have comparable tastes for you to play games. You start seeking for the ideal bargains on Amazon and you are kick-beginning each modern new board games coming out. While the huge signal that you're at this stage is that your secret birthday wishlist's for your friends now has board games on it.

Susan distinguishes herself as a gaming blogger due to the fact she emphasizes bringing positivity to the gaming sphere. As the Senior Editor for Escapist Magazine,” Susan also has an influence that some of the other gamers never have for the reason that she has the opportunity to encourage and influence some of the finest up-and-coming minds of the gaming planet.

[raywritesthings]

Bird in a Storm 3/17

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Tommy Merlyn, Thea Queen, John Diggle Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: The confrontation between the Hood and SWAT on the roof of the Winick Building goes differently, altering the course of Laurel’s career, relationships and efforts to save her city forever, the shockwaves of such an altered path making themselves felt throughout her family and friends. *Can be read on my AO3, link is in bio*

The end of the next week started out as a normal day. More normal than the last couple weeks had been, anyway. She had gotten up early, moving about the apartment with care not to wake Tommy, and gotten dressed for work. This was helped by the fact that she finally had use of both arms again. Talk about taking small things for granted.

Since she could drive herself, she met Thea at CNRI instead of being picked up by her brother or his bodyguard. She hadn’t minded that routine, but she liked having the freedom of her own movement.

A few hours into filling out some of the preliminary paperwork for a deposition, she received an email on her computer. Their boss wanted to see her in her office.

“Thea, see if you can locate the Schmidt folder. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Laurel headed back into the office. “Hey, Eric. What’s up?”

He looked up, the slightest frown on his face. “Sit down, Laurel. And close the door.”

She did so. “Why do I feel like this isn’t a ‘just checking in’ meeting?”

Eric sighed. “Because it’s not. Look, Laurel, you’re one of our best here. You know that. And I don’t like having to do this.”

There was a but hanging so heavily there she didn’t even bother to voice it. Just kept staring her boss down.

“It’s our investors. The ones we have left, so you can imagine we need to do all we can to hang onto them.”

“Yes.”

“Which is why I’m telling you they’re not exactly happy to have you on staff here.”

“What?”

Eric held up his hands. “Look, everything with the Hood is kind of making them nervous. Makes me nervous a bit too, if I’m being honest. The guy’s unpredictable. And they don’t like his methods.”

“I’m guessing they like his choice of targets even less,” she said with narrowed eyes. It figured they were more willing to empathize with their guilty fellows than to care about the innocents the Hood had helped.

“The point is, they’re not comfortable continuing to support our organization while you have this- this connection to him. And Kate Spencer has had a few things to say about it as well.”

“Let me get this straight.” Laurel leaned forward in her chair. “They’re holding my job hostage?”

“They’re holding all of us hostage. If you aren’t gone, CNRI is. But, there’s one way they’re willing to reconsider.”

“And that would be?”

“If you were to make a public statement clarifying that you do not support the vigilante known as the Hood or his activities, they would be happy to see you remain on staff.”

“Happy to see me toeing the party line, you mean.”

“It’s out of my hands, Laurel,” Eric said. “You’re the only one who can help yourself here. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“I’ll expect your decision tomorrow.”

Laurel was able to register the dismissal for what it was, even if she felt detached somehow from this moment. Like this was happening to someone else, and she was only a passive observer. She stood and left the room to return to her desk, but it didn’t even feel like she’d been the one to move. Her mind was too busy racing.

The philanthropists who thought they were God’s gift to man for keeping CNRI’s doors open were getting nervous about her connection to the Hood. To Oliver. If she wanted to stay, she had to delegitimize his whole mission to save the city. But she couldn’t, not when it was the one thing she really had left to believe in.

“So I got that file you were asking for—” Thea looked up as she approached and paused. “Hey, you okay?”

She was a beat too late in responding, and she was sure her smile looked forced. “Yeah. Just, uh, had to go over some things with my boss.”

“Okay.” Thea was watching her, so Laurel pushed everything else from her mind for the time being. She didn’t want her friend to worry.

Her boss was giving her the day to decide, but Laurel already knew what her decision had to be. Without Oliver, she would have never seen Adam Hunt’s victims get back the money they were owed thanks to the judge Hunt had bought who she’d been due to present the case in front of; she’d be dead in the ground thanks to Martin Sommers and the Triad; Peter Declan’s daughter would be an orphan. There was no decision to make. Even if it cost her her job.

Laurel stood. She couldn’t maintain her composure here, and she needed time to think about what her next move would truly have to be.

“Hey, Thea? I actually need to take a half day today. I’m really sorry.”

“Okay,” her friend agreed uncertainly. There was almost a scared look to her eyes.

“Just ask Anastasia for any additional tasks, and you can go home whenever you want.” She shrugged into her coat and rolled her left shoulder a couple of times to work some lingering stiffness out of it. She’d been out of the splint for only a couple of weeks now, and her mandatory physical therapy had just drawn to an end. That was lucky; no job would mean no health insurance. Yet again, it was probably on purpose. No one would know better how bad the optics would look on firing an injured nonprofit employee than a group of lawyers.

Laurel paused alone in the stairwell and pressed a hand to her forehead. No job… what was she going to do?

---

Tommy was just getting ready to head out to the Verdant when their front door opened and Laurel walked in.

“Oh. You’re still here.”

“Hey, you’re home early.” He leaned in for a brief kiss, but Laurel turned her face so that his lips landed on her cheek instead.

“Yeah, there’s a reason for that.” Her smile faltered and then fell as he stepped back to look at her. “I lost my job.”

He dropped his keys. “What?”

“Apparently it has been decided that CNRI and I should part ways because the investors are making noise upstairs. Not to mention the DA,” Laurel explained. She walked around him, setting her bag down and kicking her shoes off along the way.

“Noise about what?”

“The Hood,” she admitted as she found her spot on the couch.

Him again. He only barely held back a groan. “Well, what about it? You told the police you didn’t have any information to help their investigation.” He eyed her sitting there for a moment, wondering not for the first time if that was true.

“They think my association with him sends a message. And they probably don’t like that he’s gone after some of their friends.”

“But that’s what he’s doing. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.” He walked over towards the couch as well. “Just because the Hood’s got some creepy thing for you—”

“He does not have a thing for me,” Laurel said with a shake of her head.

Tommy felt that was very much in dispute, but he set it aside to focus on the main issue.

“There’s gotta be something we can do. They can’t just fire you like that, after all the cases you’ve won them.”

“Well, they said I could possibly stay on if I publicly denounced the Hood,” she told him.

Relief hit him like a wave. “Okay. Good. At least they’re not totally unreasonable.”

“I’m not going to do it, Tommy.” Her voice and gaze were completely steady even as she was turning the whole world upside down. “I can’t.”

He only barely kept his voice below shouting. “Laurel, come on. What’s the problem?”

“It’s intimidation, for one thing. They’re trying to delegitimize what he’s doing. Stop people from taking his message to heart to keep them from fighting against the powerful and the corrupt in Starling.” Laurel crossed her arms over her chest and continued, “And anyway, it’d be a lie. I still believe in what he’s doing, and I think it’s a good thing. I don’t want to be a part of what stops that.”

“You do good things for the city. Think of your clients, all those people you’ve helped.”

“A lot of those people this year only got help because the Hood intervened. Hunt, Sommers, Brodeur, all of those guys would have walked away from a regular court case. The justice system in this city is broken, no matter how much I wanted to believe otherwise.”

“So you’re fine with him just breaking it more?”

“If that’s what it takes to keep innocent people from suffering.”

She was determined to be stubborn. There was no getting through to her, at least for the moment. Tommy threw his hands up and went to grab his jacket.

“How long did they give you to decide?”

“Tomorrow. I have to go in and clean out my desk.”

“Or to make your statement. I have to go to the club, but we’re not done talking about this.”

“I’ve made up my mind, Tommy,” Laurel said.

He paused at the door and shook his head. “Just let the idea of unemployment and no money sink in for a few hours, okay? It did wonders for me.”

He headed down to his parked car in a much sourer mood than he’d wanted to be in to start back at work. Laurel was determined and not listening to him. But if she wouldn’t listen to him, maybe…

He was going to have to swallow his pride on this one. At least for the moment.

---

Tommy was running late. Oliver didn’t mind that so much; it put off his plans for tonight. The longer he could avoid heading to Queen Consolidated to confront his own mother, the better.

And he soon received additional distraction in the form of his sister, who hurried up to the bar with a nervous sort of energy.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“Ollie, I think Laurel was fired.”

“What?” He couldn’t have heard that right. “What for?”

“I don’t know. She went in to talk to her boss, and then she told me she was taking a half day, but Anastasia and some of the others started talking after she left,” his sister said all in a rush.

Some people talking was just gossip, but why would they assume Laurel had been fired? What was going on?

He spotted Tommy at last, and his best friend looked in about as bad a mood as he’d ever seen him.

“Ollie, you gotta help me out.”

“Laurel was fired.”

“Yeah, how’d you — oh, Speedy, hey.”

“Hey,” said Thea. “It’s true?��

“Not quite.” Tommy looked at him. “She says they’re willing to let her stay if she just makes a statement about how crazy and wrong the Hood is.”

Oliver didn’t have to feign his shock. “They’re firing her because of the Hood?”

“Yeah, well their investors are kind of his target profile, aren’t they? And he is crazy, I agree with them on that.” Tommy scowled. “But Laurel doesn’t.”

His eyes squeezed shut. “She’s refusing to make the statement.”

“She’s refusing to make the statement,” Tommy echoed in confirmation.

“Well, isn’t it enough that this guy got her shot?” Thea asked. “I mean, they have to know she’s not in league with him if he was willing to use her as a human shield.”

Oliver tried not to wince at the words or the disgust with which Thea spoke them. His sister wasn’t wrong to feel that way; it was one of his lowest moments, and he was still paying for the repercussions of it now.

And Laurel was paying for them perhaps even more.

Tommy’s anger had faded. He turned to him with pleading in his eyes. “I can’t watch her throw her life away on this guy, Ollie.”

“You won’t have to,” he promised. Oliver walked away from the bar and out to the back, swinging onto his motorcycle. As he drove, the comm hooked into his helmet activated.

“Oliver, we really need to get a move on.”

“Not right now, Digg.”

“Why not?”

“Laurel’s been fired because of her connection to the Hood.”

There was a pause on the other end. “Damn.”

“I have to talk to her. My mother can wait another night.” He knew he couldn’t put it off forever, but Laurel’s problem was far more time sensitive.

He went up to her apartment and knocked, and Laurel didn’t look at all surprised to see him when she opened the door.

“So, I take it you heard the news?”

“From Tommy.” He stepped through the doorway as she moved back, and he stood by the couch rather than sit down. Laurel shut the door and walked over.

“I’m going to make sure Thea is given another sponsor there to finish out her community service,” she told him, which caught him off guard for a moment.

“Well, thank you. But that’s not my main concern.” He looked her in the eye. “Tommy said there’s a way for you to keep your job.”

“I’m guessing he also told you I’m not interested in that way.”

His brow furrowed. “Laurel, this is an easy fix.”

She scoffed. “What about any of this is easy?”

“No one’s asking you for my identity. They’re just asking you to say what I’m doing is wrong.”

“How can I do that?”

“You just—” he struggled for the right word for a few moments. “—do.”

“But you aren’t — what you’re doing is complicated,” Laurel settled on. “And your methods sometimes have concerned me. I don’t know that I agree with everything. But it’s necessary work. For the state that this city is in, it’s needed.”

He tried changing tactics. “My father asked me to right his wrongs, to bring justice to the people who are poisoning the city. Letting those same people force you out of your job is directly counter to that mission. I can’t let that happen.”

Laurel only frowned. “Maybe it’s all about the mission to you, Oliver, but the people in the Glades don’t know that. What they know is that for the first time in years they have hope. They feel like someone has seen their struggle and decided to do something about it. How can I tell them that they are wrong to believe in that and then turn around and expect them to trust me to fight for them?”

He didn’t have an answer for that. They both knew it. Where he relied on secrecy and lies, Laurel had always kept her integrity when dealing with her clients. Letting her in on his identity had complicated that.

“How can I let you do this, Laurel? It’s your career, your life.”

“And it’s my decision to make. I would’ve made it knowing your identity or not, but at least knowing it gives me more than just a blind faith.”

Oliver didn’t know how Laurel or people in the Glades could have faith in him. He was a killer going after other killers. That was all. He wasn’t some hero.

“What will you do?” It was the only appeal he had.

“I haven’t figured that out yet. But I’m going to. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“It’s not that simple, Laurel.” He shook his head. “I’m always going to worry about you.”

She sighed. “Then I guess we have to settle for that.” She walked over to and sat on one of her chairs. “Look, I’m not happy to be losing my job, but I’d be even less happy if I compromised myself to keep it.”

“Nothing’s totally free from compromise. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to to keep going,” he said.

“But I haven’t been going anywhere at CNRI,” she replied. “All of my big cases this year have been won or settled because of the things you were doing as the vigilante. The law on its own has stopped being able to fix things in this city. Isn’t that why you’re out there?”

The problem was she was right. The problem, too, was that being right didn’t get her job back. He sat on the arm of the couch.

“What can I do? Do they need money? Different backers? I could—”

“You need that money to disguise purchasing your arrows,” Laurel cut him off. “And it would be your mother’s call as to whether Queen Consolidated became a full-time backer.”

Considering the little John had picked up from spying on his mother, Oliver doubted she would make the time or expense at the moment.

“Oliver, you set out to save this city, not my job.”

“Well, it’s part of saving the city. You help save it,” he insisted.

Her lips twitched into a smile despite herself.

“You’re really going to tell them no?”

She nodded.

Oliver sighed. That was the thing about Laurel; when her mind was made up, that was it. And unfortunately, he hadn’t made a single argument for why she should denounce the Hood that didn’t ultimately come back to keeping her comfortable. Laurel never cared about that.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. Ultimately this was his fault. He’d gotten too close, forgotten that while he’d protected his own identity with a hood that Laurel hadn’t had that same protection.

“It’s going to be fine, Ollie. I’ve already started a job search,” she stated.

He gave a small grin. “Of course you have.”

“So, you can tell Tommy that things will be okay,” she continued. “I know he’s upset.”

“He’s just worried about you.”

“Well, he seemed more angry at the Hood than anything,” she replied. “Do you think…?”

Oliver shook his head. “The less people that know, the better. And like you said, he isn’t exactly a fan.”

Laurel’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah.”

His phone buzzed, and Oliver checked it to find a message from Digg: Your mom’s gone home

“Something wrong?”

“No. No, I just missed something tonight.”

“You mean the vigilante did?” She stood and moved to the door. “Really, Oliver, I don’t want to be in the way of anything.”

“It’s fine. It wasn’t urgent.” Digg would probably say otherwise, but that didn’t matter right now. “You’re more important.”

“Well, now that you’ve seen I’m perfectly fine, I shouldn’t keep you any longer.”

He got up, meeting her at the door. “If you need anything,” he began.

“I know where to find you,” she finished for him. “Goodnight, Ollie.”

“Goodnight.”

As he left, Oliver did decide to take an early night. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go back to the club and Tommy empty-handed.

Laurel leaving CNRI because of the Hood. What had he done?