#after he was dumped by his so called family probably those that smuggled him

[halinski]

.

[astaroth1357]

Long Distance Longing with the Brothers

Want a little angst and sweetness? I love how this turned out and I think it’s a new favorite for me. I honestly should wait to post it... But I have no patience, I love it too much. Weirdly enough, thank Taylor Swift’s new album for giving me this idea. Go figure. 🤷‍♀️

Warnings: Angst, implied starvation

Intro:

The brothers knew it was going to happen eventually. The year can't last forever, and at some point they were going to have to say goodbye to their human for the break… But that didn't make the situation any easier. Nobody likes being so far from the one they love. It was only a matter of time before our boys are reaching a breaking point...

Lucifer

Lucifer has never really had a reason to not to work before… Like, yeah there are those days where things get stressful and he takes a step back, but actually taking an extended period of time to just... not work? A "vacation" if you will? He’s never had the desire. What would he even do with himself?

Well, for the first time in literal God knows how many centuries, he had an answer for that question. He was going to be with MC.

And that's exactly what he told Diavolo when he finally accepted that missing the MC was negatively affecting his work. 

He wanted a… "vacation."

Diavolo had never once thought Lucifer would ever ask, and to be fair the man never thought he would either, but he's more than happy to give his friend a few days off to visit his dear human.

Whatever brief hit that his pride took by having to admit that he needed a break was more than made up for by finally seeing the MC again. He knew he missed them, painfully aware of that fact, but just the sight of them waiting to meet him outside the portal was enough to nearly take his breath away…

His first vacation was sure to be paradise. 

Mammon 

Oh, the distance was killing this poor boy. Any day where he can’t have the MC on his arm feels worse than when he's on a losing streak…

Speaking of a losing streak, he's been stuck in one for a whole month without his beloved partner in crime with him. Did he lose his lucky charm or was he just too down in the dumps to gamble well? Anyone's guess.

Well he got fucking sick of it. He wanted to see the MC, ASAP. But how would he get to the human world…?

It takes a week but he gets an idea. It took another for it to actually trigger.

Like clockwork one of the witches he's regularly in debt to, one that just happens to be a bad gambler herself, summoned him out to give her a little extra luck. Usually, he'd just kick whatever slot machine she’s parked herself at and be done with it but this time he's got to ask… How long does that summon spell last, eh?

He made a new sort of bargain. She gets to take Goldie out for a spin if she gave him some time in exchange… 24 hours to be exact.

He didn't waste a second after striking the deal because he had a lot of flying to do.

The MC probably didn't expect to hear frantic knocking on their door at the break of dawn, nor to find a beat tired and disheveled Mammon leaning outside it….

But he embraced them for all it's worth anyway. If it meant feeling them in his arms again, he'd trade away the whole world if he had to...

Leviathan 

He… didn’t do so well with the distance. Like at all. He'd mope around the house, constantly bemoaning how unfair things were. Not even his favorite games can give him any joy because those were the games he used to play with MC…

Sneaking in the occasional video call was pretty much the only thing that could make him smile anymore. Just seeing their face felt like getting a cold drink in the middle of a scorching desert… But he wanted more.

Thankfully, the MC themselves gave him a really, really good idea…

For two weeks straight, Levi seemed to get out of whatever funk he was in to help out around the House… Like, really help out. Suck-up levels of help out. It creeped everybody out...

After a time he finally approached Lucifer and made a simple request. There was an anime convention going on in the human world soon and he'd like to attend…

The ulterior motive for this little visit is practically written on the wall, but he'd been acting so damn unnerving for the past two weeks Lucifer just gave him permission to make him stop.

When the MC agreed to meet him on the opening day, they said they'd be dressed up as someone he'd recognize. Frankly, he was expecting Henry or maybe Ruri-chan but he was completely floored to see them waiting for him dressed in a familiar black hoodie with coral-like horns on their head and a carefully crafted serpent's tail behind them.

To this day he still can't decide what made him happier: seeing the love of his life so adoringly dressed as him or finally feeling their body collide with his after they came running to each other outside the convention hall...

In the end it probably doesn't matter because for that whole day alone, he finally felt like he had everything he could of ever wanted right there with him.

Satan 

Satan's not one for idle moping so when he felt that yearning in his chest finally hit a tipping point, he didn't whine. He didn't complain. He got up and did something about it.

Teleportation magic is tricky to master and dangerous to perform even with sufficient skill. One wrong move and you could end up smearing yourself across three different continents…

But like that would stop him.

He pulled out every book he could find on the subject, researched for days, then practiced for weeks. First on books and apples, then on some of Lucifer’s belongings.

He had to keep making new excuses to throw Lucifer off the scent (especially after he started sending some of his shirts away to different parts of the house) but after some time, it finally paid off.

Satan was probably the last person the MC would have expected to see show up in their room randomly one night, sitting casually by a lamp and reading a book like he didn't just master time and space just to come say hi.

But who was going to be all that picky when they could finally shower their nerdy cat-lover in all the love and kisses they've both been missing for months now?

Asmodeus 

If you took Asmo at his word, then the sheer depths of longing and despair he was experiencing while the MC was away could far outweigh that of anyone else to ever have existed in the history of all time.

He was the Avatar of Lust, desire was in his nature. Couple that with a burning need to have his lover as close to him as he possibly could and it was safe to say he was losing his mind!

This might have been the reason Solomon finally gave in after his 16th-ish time trying to beg the sorcerer to help him. He really was quite pitiful in this state...

When Solomon told Asmo that he could smuggle him out of the teleportation gate between the Devildom and human world ONLY if he could magically disguised his appearance, he was kind of expecting Asmo to refuse. This was Asmo he was talking about. He honestly thought that he'd rather die than deprive the world of his beauty so selfishly…

The world is full of surprises, ain't it?

No matter where they were, no matter what they were doing, the MC was suddenly mowed over by a "stranger" running at them at top speed like an Olympic sprinter. It’d probably have been pretty scary before Solomon lifted the enchantment shortly after to reveal their demon’s gorgeously familiar face.

Solomon wasn't going to let him stay too long, lest he incur the wrath of Lucifer, but Asmo couldn't care less. Be it a thousand hours or a few short seconds, he could always find a way to make his time with the MC last a lifetime...

Beelzebub

Fun fact, Hell freezes over a little every time Beel says "I'm not hungry…" No. Seriously. A freezing wind blasts across the entire Devildom like the realm itself gets a sudden chill...

So imagine the levels of panic that went through pretty much everyone there when his appetite started to fail him.

It's not like the poor baby could help it, food just tasted so much better when the MC was there that eating without them was like trying to digest actual disappointment… He got tired of trying after a while.

A few days of this behavior were worrying, but when he started to get a little thinner the family went into an uproar, starting with Belphie but soon spreading to the rest of the House as well.

Lucifer's soft spot for the twins may have influenced his decision. I mean, it was awfully generous of him to get Diavolo to approve of an fully sanctioned, planned meeting between Beel and the MC. He probably wouldn’t have offered that to anyone else...

Not that Beel cared about all that background favoritism anyway. Hell, on the day that he was finally allowed to see them, he couldn't be bothered by anything other than holding the MC close and hoping they'd never let him go again.

His appetite did return to him eventually, of course, but as long as he had his human with him even the cheapest street taco tasted like a fine five star-meal.

Belphegor 

Frankly, Belphegor was sick and tired of missing people.

Ever since the Celestial War he missed Lilith. When he was stuck in the attic, he missed Beel. And now that the MC was away he was supposed to just sit patiently and miss them too? No way. Not happening. Something about that had to change.

It wasn’t the first time he'd gone to Lucifer in an angry huff, but admittedly he had more ammo than usual...

There was a… discussion between the two. It went on for a couple hours… There may have been some words to the effect of, "Don't you think you owe me?" exchanged… 

Honestly, it was kind of amazing Belphie didn't end up in another attic "timeout" by the end of it. But he got what he wanted, so what's to complain about?

With a little persuasion on his part, Lucifer managed to get Diavolo to approve of a weekly visit for the two, SO LONG as Belphie stayed on his best behavior in the human world.

There wasn’t really much worry about him acting up, though, since he'd have his nap buddy back. It would be pretty hard to be a threat to humanity when he was too busy staying snuggled up to his favorite person until well past noon...

[what-is-your-plan-today]

Leave No One Behind

Ch 12: Win Some, Lose Some Co-written with @icanfeelastormbrewing​

Part 1

Summary: After 2 years of being at the resort Ari and the other agents are gearing up for yet another mission, but there’s a little bit of trouble in paradise for him and Hannah…

Warnings: Bad Language words. Smut (NSFW, 18+ only)

Pairings: Ari Levinson x OFC Hannah Horowitz

Song for Episode:  More Than A Woman- Bee Gees  https://youtu.be/DtxBUp6hBaI

A/N: So there’s a little jump in time in this chapter as we fast forward towards the big dramatic end to their time at the RSDR….   Translation: Vete a la mierda = Fuck off.

Series Master List //  Main Masterlist 

Here in your arms I found my paradise, my only chance for happiness. And if I lose you now I think I would die. Oh say you'll always be my baby, we can make it shine. We can take forever, just a minute at a time

March 1982

Ari felt it the moment he woke up that morning. Even before stirring or cracking an eye open he knew the pressure on his left cheek was Simon. After almost two years the pooch still insisted on sleeping on the bed with them, crawling his way up between him and Hannah the moment they fell asleep and ending up on Ari's face sometime during the night. So by now, after many a mistake so to speak, Ari knew all too well what he was feeling wasn't Hannah looking for early morning cuddles but Simon's fat butt. 

Ari groaned and shoved Simon away causing the dog to give a little growl and grunt of his own being as he was on the most comfortable pillow ever. Some things never change Ari thought as he stirred lightly and rubbed his eyes, unable to avoid a lazy smile when he realised what day it was.

 It was the morning of his and Hannah's second anniversary and though the news about the clampdown and heavy military presence on the streets had screwed his plans to take his Firefly into Port Sudan again, like he had done the previous year, he was still going to make sure they celebrated.

He would be lying if he said he wasn't a bit pissed about his plans going awry but at the same time he had to admit the last two years had been the best years of his life and that called for any kind of celebration they could get, be that in Port Sudan or in a fucking dump. Or a dump turned into a flourishing hotel for that matter. It was crazy how they had gotten used to life at the resort two years after that afternoon when he had made the call to turn their cover hiding hole into a real hotel. Their alter egos didn't feel false anymore, and he was as much Guy now as Ari. Mind you, Hannah sometimes called him Guy or Mr. Thomas, often with a fake accent to imitate Colonel Madibo to tease him.

He gave a contented sigh at the thought of his and his Firefly’s relationship which could only be described in one word, amazing. It was as normal as it could be given the circumstances and they had both built something solid out of their feelings for each other once they had admitted to them, that was undeniably true regardless of the true nature of their stay in that slice of paradise along the Red Sea. They argued, that was equally true, and they had disagreements mostly about silly little things which was to be expected in a long-term relationship, but nothing major that they couldn’t figure out at the end of the day. Hannah had moved into his hut a little over two months after her birthday when Ari had jokingly asked her to move in with him. She had laughed but done it anyway as it was the closest they could get to living effectively together, and now here they were, two years of being together nearly 24/7, except for the mandatory week of home leave. It didn’t escape either of their notice that it was more than the time she had been married to Andy and now that he thought about it, it was probably more time than Ari had spent with Sarah in the entire 7 years they were married for that matter. 

Speaking of his family life, Ari was still exchanging regular letters with Maya and on his visits to Tel Aviv he had grown even closer to his daughter than he could ever have hoped to. He was on fairly good terms with Sarah too, although that had gone through a bit of a rocky patch. The first visit home he’d had following the time Sarah had accosted Hannah, they’d had quite a heated argument when he had told his estranged wife that she was out of order to do what she had done. In a blaze of bitter anger, Sarah had accused him of all sorts, including the usual about him loving his job and his new woman more than his daughter, which had culminated in Ari snapping. He’d loudly informed his ex-wife that this was to be his last field mission, and that he was leaving it behind for Maya, not Hannah or anyone else for that matter. And the little petulant brat inside him had enjoyed the complete shock on Sarah's face as well as the mumbled apology she had given him once his words had sunk in.

All in all, everything seemed to be finally falling into place and the fact that Mama Navon had invited him for lunch during that same week’s leave, having obviously been informed by Ethan that he would be around that week, was an added bonus. He had always had a smooth relationship with Maria Navon but they both knew she was not merely his best friend's mother anymore. The fact that she had invited him to come over without Sammy or Hannah being there too spoke for itself. They’d had a heartfelt conversation over the best Sunday roast he had eaten in months, probably even years, where he had come clean about his feelings for Hannah and his intentions towards her. It had been easier than he had anticipated, he had never been a man who liked or found it easy to speak about his feelings, but for whatever reason, when it came to talk about Hannah and what he felt for her, it just flowed out smoothly and Mama Navon had read that in the soft smile and the sparkle in his honest blue eyes when he explained how they had got back together and he assured her he had no intentions of breaking her heart a second time.

No, it wasn’t a “normal” life by any stretch, but it was good. He was doing something to help people and he was doing it with the person he had always loved. They had successful mission after successful mission over the past two years and the team had assembled as perfectly as Ari could have ever envisioned when he had written those five names down before handing the piece of paper to a reluctant Ethan. Hundreds of refugees had been smuggled to Israel and it was set to be another couple of hundred more in a couple of days. That said, given the way things were going with the religious and political landscape in Sudan, he wasn’t sure how much longer they had. A few months, maybe 6 at a push. It wasn’t a particularly comforting thought, as they still had so many people to help, but in the same breath Ari knew he had to be realistic. They couldn’t do this forever, they’d always known that. All they could do was their best, and the best was to simply go as long as they could, saving as many refugees as they could in the time they had.

And when they finally did have to quit, and Ari said goodbye to a life in the field, the fact he was doing that with his Firefly by his side made a future behind a desk in Tel Aviv seem that little less frightening.

Ari was dragged back from his wandering reflections by Simon who had jumped off the bed and was now scratching at the door. He looked at the dog and groaned as he swung his legs out of bed.  "All right, I get it, just don't tear the door down." he whispered to the anxious animal before he walked  to the door and  opened it to let the mutt out for his usual morning pee and wander round the beach, mumbling as Simon trotted past. "Tell you what pal, when we do leave I'll be waving goodbye as you fade into the distance..."

"I heard that Ari, you little shit." Hannah's sleepy voice suddenly rang through the hut's space.

"He’s the little shit Firefly." he stated somewhat childishly, turning to look at his girl as he shut the door.

"Stop being mean to him." she said as she rolled on her back, yawning, her eyes not even open yet.

"He insists on sleeping with his butt on my face. That's what I call mean." Ari protested as he slid back into bed, reaching for his girl, holding her flush against him.

Guided by Ari, Hannah rolled onto her side again, snuggling against his chest, eyes still closed as she smirked.

"That's because your face is so pretty mi Lobo."

"Yeah? Well, in that case why don’t you sleep on it?" he purred, his voice an octave lower than usual.

Hannah cracked an eye open at that and looked up at him "Something tells me if I was on your face I wouldn't be sleeping."

Ari chuckled, dropping his face closer to hers, brushing their noses together as he drawled. "You’re right Firefly. You’d be seeing stars." 

"You have a very high opinion of yourself Mr Thomas." she said, smiling against his beard so that Ari could feel the vibrations of her voice as she tilted her pelvis up to meet his.

"Wanna bet?" he challenged her, his voice almost a groan.

"What’s the cost if I lose?" she asked as she brought her right hand to his face to stroke his cheek.

Ari paused for a moment. So you want to play Firefly , and then smirked as it came to him- the perfect forfeit. "You have to lead the aerobics classes,  not Rachel." he stated as he wriggled his eyebrows playfully at her, knowing she would loathe the idea of having to wear that leotard Ari so loved seeing on her. 

Yeah, having a leotard kink when you spent half of the day surrounded by women in swim gear was kinda odd when he thought about it, but anyway…

Hannah glared at him before blurting out. "Oh, fuck off Ari! No deal."

"So you don't want my face between your legs?" he asked innocently.

 "Fuck you. I hate you." Hannah groaned.

"No you don't..." he purred as he kissed her neck "...you love me..."

And that was it. He knew it the moment Hannah closed her eyes as he gently guided her onto her back and kissed his way down her body.

"Times like this I wonder why..." she sighed out, her hand fisting in his hair which made Ari pause at her belly before peeking up at her.

"Yeah, protest all you want but you love it, you just hate losing. And you’re gonna lose Firefly." 

*******

An hour later, after having breakfast with the team, Hannah was at the front of the group of guests, clad in the infamous leotard leading the class as Jake leaned on counter watching. It wasn't too long until Ari walked over and spotted him. "You, out. Now." he barked, glaring at him.

"What? Why?" Jake protested.

"Because you’re a pervert. Out." Ari ordered him as he gestured to the way out with his right thumb.

"That's so not fair." Jake tried to fight back as he straightened himself. "You never kick me out when Rachel is leading the class."

"That’s because you're never here when Rachel leads the class. Out!" he hissed, trying not to make a scene in front of the tourists. “I won’t tell you again.”

At that point Sammy walked in and came to the desk, frowning. "Where’s Rach? Why is Hannah running the aerobics?"

Ari shrugged and glared at Jake when he snorted on his way out. At that point Rachel came out of the office holding some papers.

"I’m here and apparently Rosa lost a bet." she explained to Sammy who was looking at her puzzled. It took him a second before he groaned.

 "I don't wanna know do I?" he asked as he squinted his eyes at Ari.

"Nope." Ari smirked as he stole a glance at Hannah who was now stretching and bending forward.

"Come on, you two are disgusting." Sammy groaned.

"Ok, that’s it. Everyone out. You too Ari. You never come to my classes, you’re not staying for this one either." Rachel cut them off.

"I’d come to your classes…if you’d let me." Sammy pouted. 

"Oh, come on. You two are disgusting." Ari repeated Sammy's words, mimicking his voice. 

"Ha! You coming Sammy is exactly why she won’t let you." Jake quipped.

"Weren't you gone?" Sammy spluttered, spinning round to face him "Fuck you both." 

Ari couldn't help but laugh at his friend's signature reaction. It had been well over 18 months since Sammy and Rachel had come out as being together but Ari knew he still hated everyone teasing him about it, but he couldn't help it. It was fun and, in a way, it was payback for all the time Sammy had spent holding a grudge against him and Hannah. That said, Rachel was the best influence they all could have wished for. Not only was Sammy far ess grumpy and tense all the time but he was also more willing to enjoy any treat life at the resort had to offer without thinking too much about it. 

"Ok, enough, I said, out...go on." Rachel insisted, shoving Ari on the shoulder.

"Hey, remind me…who's the boss round here?" Ari raised an eyebrow at her.

"It’s me when y’all start acting like pre-schoolers or horny teenagers. And honestly that happens far too often for my liking." Rachel simply stated as she held a stapler and menacingly pointed at each one of them with it. 

And with that the 3 of them made to leave, just as Max appeared from the kitchen with a snack, Simon following him hoping for food.  He looked at the three of them in turn, and then at Rachel, who pointed sending him out too so with a shrug he followed suit. The 3 men passed the front row of the group and Hannah glanced in their direction and Ari grinned at her as he left. Her eyes were positively shooting daggers at him and if looks could kill he’d be dead on the spot. But he would be a corpse with a semi boner having seen her the way she was. So just as he exited the main area, he peeled off his t-shirt and started running directly into the sea without much of a word to the rest who were now staring puzzled.

"I’d swear I can see steam coming from him." Max cuckled and Jake started singing quietly.

"Gimme some hot stuff baby this evening..." as he moved his hips suggestively causing Max to start howling so loud that the sound drowned Sammy's groans.

 "Watch out for the fish, man!" Max howled at Ari just before he flipped them off over his shoulders, which didn't stop Max from teasing him again "They’ll think you’re happy to see them."

"That’s gross." Sammy glared at them, who were both bent with laughter.

"What's more gross…” asked Max. "Us or the fact he's boning your sister?" 

"You had to say it." Sammy groaned again. "I’m done with you two."

"I wouldn’t describe boning Red as gross." Jake, who was now wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes, quipped.

"Fucking fuck you." Sammy snapped at him.

“Ok, ok keep your pants on!” Max chuckled.

"Yeah, come on man, it’s us that aren’t getting any." Jake whined in an attempt to appease Sammy.

"Try fucking each other then." Sammy bit back, still pissed. Max looked at Jake, giving a shudder.

"I’d rather fuck the dog."

At that Jake slapped him on the back of the head "Asshole." 

Sammy snorted and turned to leave, crossing paths with Simon who had spotted daddy Ari in the water and was now trotting towards the sea. "I'd stay away from Max, pooch." Sammy said seriously. Simon just looked at him, before barking and continuing on his way.

As he approached Max, he grinned “No food pal, sorry." but the dog completely ignored him and started running towards Ari who had now come out of the water and approaching them.

"That was fast.”  Jake jabbed at him.

"I just needed to cool off.” Ari shrugged

"Yeah, well, I hope you last longer with Red." Jake smirked at him.

“Don’t hear her complaining." Max told Jake with a grin. “Quite the opposite actually.”

"Ok seriously, shut the fuck up." Ari growled at them as they began to snigger.With a glare he started walking towards his hut, but Ari knew them too well, especially how things were when the two of them teamed up, and he fully understood they wouldn't be willing to let him off the hook that easily so he prepared for one last quip which came from Jake.

"Still wanna hear about that bet she lost." he shouted at Ari's retreating back.

"You wish." Ari yelled back.

"I knew it. You’re my hero, man." Max howled.

Ari didn't look back at Max, he just smirked to himself. Of course Max would get it, he always did. "Yup." he shouted instead, popping the p, as he passed a group of female tourists on the way.

 "Ladies." he greeted them with his signature cocky but friendly smile, which made them giggle and start whispering to each other as they passed him by.

"Seriously, how does he do it?" Jake gasped as they watched the group of women all pause to watch Ari as he walked up the sand.

"Animal magnetism." Max shrugged. "And I don't mean the fact he has Simon running at his heels."

*****

After a refreshing shower, more refreshing than he actually needed as he had changed his usual morning run for other activities that morning, Ari changed into a pair of fresh shorts and a light blue shirt. He was just about to leave hut as Hannah arrived back wearing that damned leotard, causing him to flash his signature wicked smirk at her.

"Don't even think about it. I'm pissed at you, Levinson." she warned him as she passed him by, trying her best not to surrender to that damned smirk of his.

"Oh, I'm thinking IT firefly." Ari laughed as he smacked her butt, causing her to yelp in surprise, and leaving her to shower and change clothes. He went to the main building to sort the arrangements for the call to Ethan later in the day about the last details on the mission and then just spent some time being Guy Thomas. The batch of tourist currently at the resort were leaving the day after next so he chatted with them for a while, ensuring they had enjoyed their stay and would recommend the resort to their family and friends back home. Satisfied real guests were as important as the ones whose number hung from hooks on the board at the reception desk as without them, their cover would be blown.

He was still chatting to the guests when Hannah came into the main dining area, her eyes roaming the room for him and she rolled her eyes when she spotted him being charming Guy, smiling softly as the ladies fawned all around him reminding her of herself when she was a teenager with a crush on her older brother's best friend.

Cliché much.

But those memories weren't the only ones that flashed across her mind. She had been feeling quite homesick lately but as she stood there watching Ari, she began to feel especially down. So, she took a dep breath and decided that baking her Mama’s banana and date loaf, which had been at the back of her mind ever since she had spotted some days before that Chef Aziz had a basket of fresh dates, was just the ticket to cheer herself up.

Of course, Ari had also spotted Hannah the moment she had entered the room, how could he not?  But he hadn't noticed her leave and, after giving the ladies some recommendations as to what to buy in the souk at Port Sudan the following day, he turned around looking for her but she was nowhere to be seen. He wandered off to go find her bumping into Rachel in the reception area who told him she had seen Hannah last heading to the kitchen, which was exactly where Ari found her.

"You ok?" he asked softly from the kitchen's threshold.

Hannah raised her head and turned to look at him for an instant before her eyes were on the dough she was working on again. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"You just disappeared." he drawled, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned on the doorframe.

Hannah shrugged. "I have more important things to say than watch you flirt, Mr Thomas."

"I wasn’t flirting..." Ari protested immediately and she once more looked at him. "Ok, maybe I was. A little."

"Satisfied guests, uh?" she teased.

"Well, need to keep the tourists happy, Han..." he conceded playfully.

"So I assume they’re happy enough and that’s why you’re here instead of with them now?" 

She was smiling though he couldn't see it. All he could see was the way her ass cheeks were contracting every time she exerted force on the dough.

"That and the fact I wondered where you'd gotten to." he managed to say, after swallowing, his eyes moving back up her body.

"You missed me Mr Thomas? Who’d have thought?" she teased once more.

Ari rolled his eyes and approached her from behind.  "Stop being a brat Firefly."

"I’m not being a brat, Ari and stop rolling your eyes at me." she scoffed, her tone hardened this time. "I can't see you but I know you just did."

Ari stopped behind her and cocked his head to one side and frowned. Despite her casual tone she wasn’t being as playful as normal "Han...what's wrong? You're not really pissed at me for talking to those girls, are you? Because I'm not interested..."

She sighed. "I know, Ari. It’s just... not today."

Now he was really puzzled. "Hey, come on Firefly, talk to me...what is it?" He asked, as his hands landed cautiously on her hips.

"Nothing really, it’s just I’m a bit homesick today." She said, not wanting to react to Ari's touch.

Ari sighed noticing the stiffness of her body and the sadness in her voice "Oh, baby come here." he said, gripping her hips and turning her around to hug her. And as he wrapped his arms around her back, his chin rubbing against the top of her head, he noticed the ingredients on the side for the first time and he let out a groan "You making... no...  you're not?"

Hannah grinned and looked up at him. "I am."

"That's my favourite thing your mama makes" he groaned.

"I know baby." she gazed at his eyes, in the hope that he realised why he was baking that particular treat.

"So...are you making it because you're homesick or because it's our 2 year anniversary?" he asked, winking an eye at her.

She beamed at him, her grin now reaching her eyes. "You remembered?"

"Of course I did!" he said, holding her tighter, before pausing. "Wait...did you think I'd forgotten?"

Hannah felt her cheeks went red with embarrassment . "Yeah, I did."

"Han..." Ari started as he shook his head, chuckling. "2 years ago we got our second chance. Like I'd ever forget that."

She bit her lip. "I’m sorry it’s just you never mentioned us going to Port Sudan like last year and I assumed..."

"Baby, we can't. I wanted to take you, I really did  but, with the talk of stuff going on in the cities, the whole clamp down and Sharia law that’s coming in, well, we're not married so..." he shook  his head again sadly. "It's not possible or even worth the risk. You understand that?"

“No, I know. You’re right." he sighed. "God, I feel stupid now."

He chuckled as he swayed her in his arms. "That doesn't mean I haven't got anything planned."

She grinned at him, playing with the upper buttons of his shirt. "Do you have something planned?"

"Well I could tell you...but then I'd have to kill you." he drawled.

"Rude Levinson."  she scoffed, pushing his chest as she turned around back to her baking station. "For that you’re not getting a single ounce of this loaf I’m making."

Ari laughed heartily, wrapping his arms round her from behind again and kissing her neck. "Don't be like that firefly."

"Like what? You don’t wanna tell me what you’re planning but I’m more than happy to tell you what I am planning. Which is not letting you eat any of this fucking delicious banana and date loaf."

He chuckled again. "You really want me to spoil the surprise honey?” Hannah smiled and this time he could see her doing it from the corner of his eye. "No. I’m just teasing you."

"What else is new?" he said as he pushed his groin against her from behind, his lips soft on her neck.

"Stop teasing me Lobo or you won’t get any and now I’m not talking about the loaf." she threatened, raising the rolling pin at him.

"Ok, ok." he chuckled and he kissed her cheek again. "You win." And at that she turned to look at him.

"What else is new?" she asked as she winked at him.

"Shall I remind you of the leotard you were sporting just this morning?" he raised an eyebrow at her and Hannah gasped, narrowing her eyes.

"Vete a la mierda." she grumbled and Ari snorted.

"Ok, I don’t know what that means but I’m assuming it’s not I love you Ari, you’re the love of my life."

"You assume correctly, Lobo."

"All right" he said, raising his hands up. "I surrender. I’m gonna go..." and he started walking backwards "...talk with some..." now a side smile on his face "...lady tourists. Keep them satisfied you know."

Hannah smirked. "You do that. Maybe I'll go talk to that group of boys that Jake took out diving before. They seemed nice." 

Instead of falling for her trap Ari merely shrugged. "Talk to them as much as you want as long as you remember you’re mine." And with that he cocked an eyebrow, giving her a stern look and turned to leave, smug smirk on his face, his hand running through his hair. 

Bastard, Hannah thought as she resumed her work.

**** Later that day, after having called HQ to fill Ethan in on the last details of the upcoming mission and a bit of an argument about the change in rendez-vous point at such short notice, Ari was sat outside in the sun with Rachel and Sammy. He was trying to relax, he was always on edge the days before a mission and having to call Ethan was always a task he wasn't overly fond of. Not because of the man, Ari had learnt how to deal with him over the years the same way Ethan had learnt how to put up with Ari's attitude which caused him the biggest migraines a boss could ever endure. The thing that stressed Ari the most about those calls was the fact that he had to sneak from the tourists and staff, away from prying ears and hope communication was cooperating. And that day in particular the resort was overflowing with people everywhere he went so the office was out of the question and the huts didn't seen secluded enough to him, so he had had no option but to drive a few miles into the desert and set the radio in the back of the jeep connecting it to the car's aerial. 

Thankfully it had worked and an hour or so later he was back and had settled in the same spot he was in now,  drinking a beer and trying to ease his mind as he had another secret mission to perform in a few hours, one that got him equally anxious but in a different way.  He looked at Sammy and Rachel and saw Sammy's arm resting around her shoulders, gently rubbing her arm. It was good to see them like that for once. Unlike him and Hannah, Rachel and Sammy didn't feel very comfortable with PDA and they kept it to a minimum which had meant it was only after months of being together that Max and Jake had found out there was another couple within the resort management team.

Ari was so lost in his thoughts that he inadvertently gave out a big sigh earning an amused look from Rachel.

"I take it you’re still planning on not joining us for dinner tonight?" she asked.

Sammy frowned. "What? Where you going?"

"I’m taking Hannah for a picnic. It’s a surprise so don’t tell her Sammy." Ari warned his friend, pointing at him with his beer bottle.

Sammy rolled his eyes. "Soppy bastard."

"Leave him alone, he wants to celebrate properly." Rachel defended Ari.

"You’re celebrating something?" Sammy asked again, puzzled. It wasn't anyone's birthday, not that he recalled.

"You could say that." Ari grinned at him.

Sammy frowned, not following his friend, and Rachel chuckled. "It's two years today since he and Hannah got back together."

 At that Sammy opened his eyes wide. "Already?"

Ari nodded. "Time flies, huh?"

"Yeah..." Sammy agreed, nodding absentmindedly. "Feels like only yesterday I punched you in your perfect teeth."

"You’re still calling that a punch?" Ari snorted.

"Don’t make me do it again you smug bastard." 

"Wouldn’t dream of it pal." Ari conceded, raising his hands in mock surrender.

Sammy smiled at him. "I guess congratulations are in order then."

Ari smirked wickedly, making Rachel raise an eyebrow at him, before speaking. "Save it for the proposal..."

And there it was, Rachel thought. He had got Sammy again, he always did, who was now choking on his drink as Ari bursted out laughing. 

"You’re a shit Levinson." Sammy growled, wiping the spilled drink off his chin.

"Funnily enough that's exactly what your sister says too." Ari smirked again, raising his beer in a mock toast before gulping it down and standing up, heading back to his hut.

Hannah was in the shower after having been on a dive later that afternoon with Jake and Max, so Ari quickly changed and when she emerged she smiled at him, taking in his navy shorts and casually smart green button down.

“Hey.” She took the kiss he offered and he pulled back, smiling.

“So, tonight we’re having a night ‘out’ at the resort” he told her and she frowned, her expression puzzled. But he didn’t go into any more detail. “Just be ready in half an hour.”

With that he disappeared off to set up his surprise. With a little help from Aziz, who’d packed the food for him, and Rachel who’d managed to get him everything else he wanted, he quickly laid everything out and headed back to find Hannah was putting the last touches to her hair, pulling it back into a loose braid. She was dressed in a pale blue sun-dress which pulled in at the waist, falling to her knees, thin spaghetti straps resting on her sun-kissed skin.

“You look beautiful.” He smiled as she stood up.

“Thanks.” She said, that adorable flush evident in her cheek and he held out his hand.

“Come on Firefly.”

He led her to their cave but as they approached he tugged her in front of him, his hands gently moving to cover her eyes.

“Ari!” she protested as he chuckled, walking them forward

“Just humour me okay?” he whispered, his lips brushing her cheek. Once she was positioned in the mouth of the cave he moved his hands and Hannah blinked, looking around. On the floor of the cave was a rattan blanket, which held a picnic hamper in the middle, and various candles were lit as they nestled in the many little nooks and crannies of the rock that formed their cave. Hannah felt the tears in her eyes at the thoughtfulness and she turned to look at Ari.

“Ari..” she whispered and he blinked before he realised they were happy tears.

“I just wanted to do something special.” He shrugged, “seeing as we couldn’t go anywhere.”

“It’s perfect.” She assured him, standing on her toes to give him a soft kiss.

They settled down next to each other, Hannah tucking her legs underneath her as Ari poured her a glass of wine and the two of them began unpacking their food. Before long they were tucking in with gusto, laughing and joking as they always did, the light starting to fade outside as the sun dipped beneath the horizon, Simon led at the mouth of the cave, napping. It was quiet, romantic, and they could have been anywhere as they sat and simply enjoyed being with one another as the night passed them by.

“Shit.” Ari sighed as he tipped the last of the wine into Hannah’s glass “We drank it all.”

“You only bought 2 bottles?” Hannah teased and gave her a look as she giggled.

“I’m sorry.” He said sarcastically causing her to laugh.

“Don’t pout Mi Lobo.” She set her glass down and shuffled over to him

“Ya know, my feelings are pretty hurt.” He muttered as she pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah?” she asked, her lips now making their way down to his jaw line.

“Yup…” he sighed, eyes closing as she brushed over the whiskers on his face, his breath hitching as she reached his neck.

“Feel better now?”

“Not quite…”

“How about now?” Hannah asked, her teeth grazing his ear lobe.

“Gettin’ there.” Ari mumbled, turning his head, his mouth finding hers. The kiss was deep, their tongues sliding effortlessly together as Hannah let out a little whimper, a noise Ari would never, ever tire of hearing.

Pulling away he ran his nose up her throat to her chin, nudging her head back a little and Hannah’s weight fell backwards onto her arms, her palms burying into the cool sand. His lips gently placed a warm, open mouthed kiss onto her neck, causing her to shiver softly as his right hand traced up her side, over the top of. With a fluid movement he slid the strap down, and his head dipped, mouth sucking gently at her delicate collar bone. Hannah gave a soft sigh and Ari moved, his arms circling her waist as he pulled her into his lap, her knees falling either side of his thighs as his hands slid up to cup her face. He looked at her for a moment, her blue eyes shining in the reflection of the moonlight on the ocean outside.

“God, I love you.” He whispered, his eyes closing as her fingers tangled in his beard, her lips ghosting over his.

“I love you too Mi Lobo…”

And that was it, those 2 fucking words that she’d spoken so many damned times over the past two years sparked something primal, animalistic in him and his hands moved her face back to his as he kissed her hard.

Hannah palmed her hands against his chest before her fingers carefully began popping the buttons of his shirt. As her fingers brushed his skin as she worked it open, the sensation of her touch caused goosebumps to bubble over his entire body, and as usual,  her infectious smile brought forth a pulsating desire from deep within him that was impossible to ignore. Once his shirt was undone she reached up and pushed it down over his broad shoulders and Ari freed his arms, tossing it off to the side somewhere as Hannah’s mouth met his once more in a furious kiss. Her tongue was in his mouth, seeking his and he felt her teeth gently nibbling at his bottom lip. At that, Ari gave a growl and he pulled away, dropping his head to the spot on her neck once more, hands moving from her hips to pull her dress over her head. With an easy snap of his fingers, he undid the clasp of her bra and she pulled it off, dropping it besides them. Ari took a moment to look at her chest, his hands sliding up her ribcage, his eyes flicking back to hers so he could watch her response as he began to play with her in a way he knew she loved. Over and over he gently kneaded and palmed her sensitive flesh, thumbs skating her nipples before he softly tweaked them both, teasing them to soft peaks as he dropped his head, his mouth engulfing her right bud. He sucked and teased with his tongue before gently grazing with his teeth all the while feeling her grinding down on him, her hands tangling in his hair.

“Shit…” she groaned, nails biting into his scalp as he pushed upwards, the bulge in the front of his shorts grinding up against her spot through her now soaked panties, mouth and hands still teasing at her breasts. “Ari…”

“What do you want baby girl?” he whispered against her skin as his mouth moved upwards, beard scratching, teeth nipping her neck as she continued making those noises that he could listen to all damned day. Her hands let go of his hair as she fumbled to unbutton his shorts and he moved slightly so that she could pull them down a little over his hips.  Her warm palm wrapped around now aching cock and pulled it free from his underwear and Ari gave a slight hiss through his teeth, slipping his hands under the hem of her dress. His large hands cupped her ass cheeks, fingers digging into the underneath just where the curve of her globes met her thighs and he pulled her tight against him. The grip of her hand around his dick drew a groan from his mouth and he swallowed, his voice raspy as he spoke again. “Tell me baby…” he instructed and then when she answered, her words combined with her hand tightening around his cock almost made him shoot his load there and then

“Fuck me Ari…”

With a growl, Ari moved his hands, pulling her panties aside as she shiftedd herself, her hand guiding him towards her. Lining him up, she lowered herself down, giving a long, drawn out whimper of delight as she felt him fill her.

“Shit, Han…” Ari groaned, his hands on her hips as he bucked upwards, feeling her hot, warmth tighten around him. “God you feel so good baby…”

At his dirty talk Hannah moaned again, her hands moving up to rest on his shoulders and without warning Ari thrust his hips up in a dirty grind, pushing himself into her as deep as he possibly could.

“Fuck!” she cried out, her nails digging into his skin, one hand moving to tangle into his hair at the back and she gave a sharp tug, pulling his head back.

The bite of pain made his cock twitch even more, but the noise he made was swallowed as her lips crashed onto his, and it was all too much. He needed release. Ari began to matching her motions, the wet sound of his balls slapping against her ass echoed off the rough, rocky walls of their hidden little hideout and his lips moved from hers to her jaw, nipping at her skin.

“You've had me hard for you all day, Firefly…” he panted and Hannah gave a soft wail at his words, “Such a fuckin’ tease…”

His movements picked up, becoming faster as he rutted upwards into her again and again, and she began to move herself, her hips rocking forward and back furiously as she ground her clit against his pubic bone, her eyes locked on his as she moved. Ari’s fingers dug into the skin just above the waist band of her panties, nails biting her delicate hips as she worked herself into an almost frantic pace, and Ari knew he wasn’t gonna last much longer.

“Come for me baby…” he said, his mouth back on her neck “Come on, good girl…”

At his words, Hannah was a complete goner, powerless to stop the pleasure that was lancing through her very core. She came, with a surge that shook her entire body, her head falling back as she gasped, mouth open, a broken, trembling cry escaping her as she pumped her hips wantonly against his crotch, riding the wave of her orgasm bucking once... twice... before she collapsed against his chest going completely limp, breathing hard. Ari’s own hips were still pumping upwards as he raced towards his own end, Hannah completely spent on his laps before he felt that coil in his belly and groin snap and with a loud groan, he came, the intensity shocking him slightly as he bit down on her shoulder, his hips stopping and he collapsed backwards, crashing onto the sand behind him, Hannah clutched to his chest.

Time just stopped for them both, Ari’s hands gently caressing her back, his eyes closed as he pressed a kiss to Hannah’s forehead as they both lay, breathing deeply, waiting for the earth to right itself. Ari had no idea if it was 1 minute or 5, but eventually he felt Hannah stir a she snuggled further into his chest.

“God, Ari, that…that was incredible.” She croaked. "Yeah....." was all he could manage in return.

Part 2 

[dearestdaffodils]

Season 1, Episode 1: PILOT

A/N: A lot of quotes and character dialogue is taken from the show! I am not trying to take credit for the amazing work the writers and actors and everyone involved in this show did! I also left out writing scenes that don’t involve the main group (IE: Ward and Sarah talking with Lana Grubbs) and a few other scenes simply because I wasn’t quite sure how to write them. 

Warnings (for the whole series): violence (as it is in the show), swearing, mentions of abuse, underage drinking and smoking, drug use

Word Count: 3579

“The Outer Banks, paradise on earth.” I tune out John B’s voice, ignoring his ‘welcome to the OBX’ speech for the camera. He was determined to make a documentary about our lives this summer, though I really didn’t know why. 

Welcome to the OBX, an island divided in two. You either have two houses or two jobs, that’s what John B always says. That blond boy sitting next to me, that’s JJ. My boyfriend. He’s as local as they come. Latest in a very long line of fishing, smuggling, vendetta-holding salt-lifers who make their living off the water. Don’t tell him I said this but he’s the best surfer I know. Mild kleptomaniac and probably a future tax cheat. 

The girl across from me is Kiara or Kie. When she’s not saving turtles or listening to Marley, or getting a dolphin tattoo, she hangs with us. None of us really know why she’s a rich kid after all. Next to her is the brains of our little operation. Pope. Finalist for the Lucas T. Vanderhorst Merit Scholarship and the smartest kid I know. 

The kid in the driver’s seat, the one who is paying more attention to his camera than the road, that’s John Booker Routledge, but everyone calls him John B. He’s kinda like my brother. He and his dad took me in when my family dumped me on their front porch when JB and I were about four. He drives me crazy and he knows it. 

And then there’s me. Y/N Y/L/N. Little Routledge as JB likes to call me even though I’m four months older than him. Big John disappeared nine months ago at sea, which means JB and I have been on our own since Uncle T split for Mississippi. Everyone insists that Big John is dead but John B refuses to sign the papers until he sees a body. 

Social workers have been on our asses nearly every day, trying to force us into foster care. John B and I have managed to avoid them so far. 

So this is how our story starts. Me losing nearly all of my second family and a social worker breathing down my neck. 

JB and I are probably the only two people in history to say this but thank god for hurricane Agatha. 

“Hurricane Agatha continues its steady march towards Kildare Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina…” JB set the radio on the counter, turning up the volume as we listened for a miracle to keep DCS away. 

“Holy shit.” I look outside, taking in the dark sky and swirling wind. “JB, I think we found our miracle!” I shout over the storm siren, fishing my phone out of the couch cushions and dialing the number for DCS. “Yeah, I think we’re gonna have to reschedule.” I blurt into the phone, barely giving the woman time to answer. 

John B rips the phone out of my hand, hanging up and dragging me outside. “We gotta surf the storm surge!” 

“Are you insane?” I stumble after him, dodging tree branches. “Those aren’t surfable waves!” 

“Says who?” He laughs. “Come on!” He drags me along, pausing to grab our boards. 

I run after him, splashing into the water as the storm rages around us. I paddle after John B, surfing a few waves before the storm starts to pick up its pace. “JB! We gotta get inside!” I shout. John B stares out towards the open water, ignoring me. 

“JB!” I shout. “We have to go!” I turn to look at him, my gaze following his extended arm and index finger. My eyes land on a boat, getting tossed around in the storm. “John B, we don’t have time to worry about what those idiots are doing, let’s go!” 

🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌  🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 

The morning after a hurricane always feels like something out of a movie. The silence fills the gaps of life, save for the sound of chickens and the occasional shouts from neighbors.

I peel my eyes open, hearing John B moving around in the kitchen. I swing my legs over the side of my bed (which is really just two mattresses stacked on top of each other) and slowly stand up. I shield my eyes from the sunlight pouring in from my windows, moving the towels that double as my curtains out of the way.

I grab my phone from the stack of books next to my bed, checking the time. “No service,” I mutter, opening my door and stepping onto the cold wood floor of the Chateau. 

“JJ, you been outside?” John B asks the blond boy, shaking his shoulder. 

“I have polio, bro. I can’t walk.” JJ mumbles, burying his face deeper into the pillow. 

I make my way to the front door, lightly swatting at JJ to get him up. “Oh man…” I whisper, looking outside. “That’s no good.” I survey the yard, taking in the damage. “What’re you thinking, JB?” 

“I’m thinkin’ that storm surge pushed all the crabs out on the marsh maze. It’s God tellin’ us to fish since DCS isn’t getting on a ferry anytime soon.” John B grins. 

🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌  🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 

I stand on the bow of the HMS Pogue with JJ, looking at all the damage. “We’ll be cleaning this all summer.” I murmur, shaking my head. 

“That is my nightmare.” John B pipes up from behind the wheel, pulling up parallel to the dock just outside Heyward’s. “Well, look who we have here.” 

“I can’t.” Pope mimics static, pretending to talk into a radio on his shoulder. “My pop’s got me on lockdown.” 

“Your dad’s a pussy. Over.” JJ does the same, looking directly at Heyward. 

“Oh, I heard that, you little bastard.” Heyward glares at JJ.

“We need your son.” JJ flashes one of his signature smiles.

“Yeah, and island rules.” I bite my lip to stifle a laugh. “Day after hurricane’s a free day.” 

“Who made that up?” Heyward looks between me and Pope. 

“Pentagon, I believe.” I laugh. “We have security clearance. I have a card.” 

“You think I’m stupid?” Heyward frowns as Pope moves towards the edge of the dock. 

“I’ll do it tomorrow. I promise. Tomorrow.” Pope moves to jump into the boat as Heyward moves forward. 

“You think - no, no. Hell no. You doin’ it right now.” 

“Get in the boat, Pope,” I whisper. “Make a run for it.” 

Pope leaps into the boat, holding his hat on his head. “I promise I’ll do it tomorrow, dad!” 

“We’ll bring him back in one piece!” I call to Heyward, waving. 

The boys whoop and cheer, driving up to Kie’s dock. I smile wide, grabbing onto the dock as we wait for her. 

“Good morning!” Kie hurries down the dock, carrying her usual backpack and cooler, her hair neatly tied up on the top of her head. 

“Welcome aboard, fellow Pogue princess.” I laugh, saluting her. “Whatcha got? Juice boxes?”

“You know, just some yogurts and carrot sticks. I made sandwiches too, cut the crusts off how you like ‘em.” She teases, poking my nose. 

I help her onto the boat, grabbing a beer from the cooler as John B drives out into the marsh. He weaves through the channels, leaning back in the captain’s seat, looking as if he’s asleep at the wheel. I wouldn’t be concerned if he was though, he knows these waters better than he knows himself.  

“Can you go a little faster?” JJ asks, stepping up to the bow. “I got a party trick to show you.” He balances on the edge of the boat, tilting the beer bottle, letting the liquid flow freely from the bottle. 

“You’re getting beer in my hair!” Kie and I shout in unison, screaming and falling out of our seats as the boat hits something, stopping immediately. “Jesus, JB!” 

JJ groans, popping up from the water in front of the boat. “I think my heels touched the back of my head.” He chokes out. 

“What did you do?”  I push myself off the deck of the boat, resting a hand on John B’s shoulder. 

“Sandbar.” John B mumbles. “The channel changed.” 

“No shit, genius.” I shake my head. 

“Hey, I saved the beer, though!” JJ cheers. 

“Congrats, J.” I lean over the side, sticking my hand out to him. “Come on.” 

“Guys… I think there’s a boat down there.” Pope calls, looking over the other side of the boat. 

“Shut up, no way.” Kie scoffs. 

“I’m serious. There’s a boat down there.” Pope points. 

I join him on the side, looking down at the shape in the water. “Only one way to find out.” I shrug, quickly discarding my shirt and shorts before diving in. I swim down, peering around in the murky water. My eyes go wide and I swim up, grabbing onto the edge of the boat. “That’s a fucking Grady-White. A new one is like an easy 500 G’s.” 

“That’s the boat we saw when we surfed the surge.” John B looks at me. “Maybe it hit the jetty or something.” 

“Do we know whose boat that is?” Kie frowns. 

“No, but we’re about to find out.” I smile. 

“It’s way too deep.” JJ shakes his head. “You’re not going down there.” 

“Oh, for the weak and feeble, JJ.” John B chuckles. “Little Routledge can handle it.” He turns his attention to me, saluting me. “Diver down.” 

“Diver down.” I flip him off before diving back down, searching around the boat. I pop up after a moment, pushing my hair out of my face. 

“Any dead bodies?” Pope asks nervously. 

“Looting potential?” JJ asks at the same time. 

I shake my head, holding up a bright yellow tag with a key attached. “I found this motel key.” 

🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌  🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 

I jump out of the boat as we reach the motel, tying the rope around a stump. “So, what’s the plan?” 

“You’ll see, bubba.” John B grabs my wrist and JJ’s arm, pulling us along. 

“Yeah, that doesn’t inspire confidence, dumbass.” I roll my eyes. “This place is a shitshow, doesn’t look like anywhere someone with a Grady-White stays.” 

“Motel or meth lab?” Kie mutters under her breath. 

“You be the judge,” Pope mutters back before giving me a pointed look. “Don’t let your boyfriend do anything stupid.” 

“I can’t make any promises.” I raise my hands in surrender as we walk off, going up the steps of the motel. 

John B leads us to the door, checking the number on the key as JJ knocks on the door. 

“Housekeeping!” JJ calls in a high pitched voice, waiting for an answer. 

“Should we try it?” John B asks, prompting nods from JJ and me.

We enter the room, closing the door behind us. I look around the room, handing John B a map from the bed. I move towards the bathroom, seeing John B messing with the safe out of the corner of my eye. I scan the walls of the dark and dirty room, shining my flashlight around

“You guys are gonna wanna see this.” He murmurs. 

JJ and I hurry over, looking in the safe. “Damn…” I whisper, looking at the stack of money, a gun laying on top of it.

JJ grins like a maniac, grabbing the gun from the safe. 

“JJ, put that down now!” I whisper-shout. 

“Just take a picture of me! Right here and then I’ll put it back!” 

“You want me to take a picture of you?” I raise an eyebrow, crossing my arms over my chest. “Make our own incriminating evidence?” I look up, hearing a tapping on the window. I hurry over, looking out to see Pope and Kie jumping up and down. 

“Cops!” Kie shouts quietly. 

“Shit, boys, time to go,” I whisper. “Cops.”

🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌  🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 

“Thanks for warning us so quickly.” I laugh, playfully shoving at Kie’s shoulder as we push off from the motel. 

“We would have warned you sooner except Pope was on the math team.” She rolls her eyes. 

“Did you guys find anything?” Pope asks. 

“No, I don’t think so.” JJ sighs before pulling out the gun and a stack of cash. “ Oh, yeah, we did.” 

“Are you serious?” Pope shouts in a high pitched voice. “I’m gonna lose my merit scholarship.” 

“At least you have us, right?” JJ grins. 

“I’m living the nightmare,” Pope whispers to himself. 

🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌  🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 

“It’s Scooter Grubbs. He was out during the storm. Check out this pic I got.”

“Dead body.”

“Insane.”

“Holy shit.” 

“What kind of boat did he have?”

“Somehow, that dirtbag copped a brand-new Grady-White. Everyone’s out looking for it.” 

The words seemed to hover around us as we drove back to the Chateau, following us as we collapsed into chairs on the porch. 

“Okay… so, um… we didn’t see anything.” John B takes off his hat, running a hand through his hair. “We don’t know anything.”

“We need to have total and complete amnesia.” Pope nods. 

“Actually, Pope is right for once.” JJ nods, slinging an arm around me as he slides into the seat next to me. “See, I agree with you sometimes. Deny, deny, deny.” 

“We can’t keep that money.” Kie paces up and down the porch. 

“Not all of us can afford unlimited data plans, Kiara.” JJ sighs. 

I lightly push at his chest, giving him a look. “We have to pass it off to Lana Grubbs.”

“Otherwise, it's bad karma.” Kie nods in agreement. 

“I don’t agree.” John B murmurs from the corner. “This is Scooter Grubbs we’re talking about. Same dude that’s buying individual cigarettes at the Porthole. Shit, one time I saw this dude begging for change in the Save-A-Lot parking lot because he needed gas. We’re talking about a dirtbag marina rat who’s never had more than 40 bucks in his pocket, and all of a sudden, he’s got a Grady-White? Just sayin’,” 

“We have to see what’s in the cargo hold of that wreck,” I speak up. “For now, we lay low and act normal.” 

“Kegger?” JJ grins. 

🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌  🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌

As JB always says; you can’t understand the Outer Banks without understanding the boneyard. It's kinda like a three-layer burrito. There’s us and our friends, the working class derelicts. Then, there are the Kooks, the rich second-homers. They’re mostly from poncey-ass boarding schools, just rich trustafarian posers. Our natural enemies. And then, there are the Tourons. Totally clueless. Here for a week on vacation with their families. Chum for the sharks. 

I smile, making my way across the sand with drinks for me and JJ, passing Pope along the way. 

“It's kinda weird when on TV, we see people die, and they kinda just sit there, but in actuality, they would be shitting and farting up a storm.”

I laugh, shaking my head as I walk past Pope and the fire. I make my way over to JJ’s usual spot; a fallen tree half-buried in the sand. I hand JJ his drink, sipping mine. “Poor Pope.” I snicker, glancing at the other boy over my cup. “He just can’t figure out how to talk to girls.” 

“Sarah! Sarah, be careful, okay?” 

I turn my attention towards the metal buoy stuck in the sand, recognizing Topper’s voice as he tries to coax Sarah down from the buoy. 

That’s Sarah Cameron. Kook princess. Kiara’s best friend in the ninth grade, worst enemy in the tenth grade. JB works on her dad’s boats and I was supposed to be helping her stepmom with gardening but have basically become a glorified babysitter for the princess. And that’s Topper. Her not so pleasant boyfriend. Just saying his name makes me want to vomit. He actually thinks Pogues were bred to mow lawns. 

I watch as Topper lifts Sarah down, starting to walk her up the beach and back towards his car. I barely see JJ move forward, extending a cup in her face. 

“Sarah, can I interest you in a tasty Milwaukee beverage?” JJ smirks, frowning when she declines. “Is it not fancy enough for you?” 

“I’ll take it.” Topper reaches for the cup, glaring as JJ pulls it away. 

“If you said pretty please, maybe.” JJ teases. 

Topper moves to grab the cup, knocking into JJ’s hand and spilling the drink all over Sarah. “Dirty Pogues!” Topper growls as Sarah pushes him back. 

John B moves in front of JJ as I pull him away. Topper lunges at John B, knocking him into the water. “ Don’t make me drown you like your old man, all right?” Topper shouts, holding John B down in the water. 

JJ rushes forward, pressing the gun to Topper’s head and clicking the safety off. 

“JJ!” I gasp.

“Yeah, you know what that is. Your move, broski.” JJ huffs as Topper raises his hands in surrender, standing up. 

“Check your psycho boyfriend, Y/N!” Sarah whines.

“Okay, everyone, listen up! Get the hell off our side of the island!” JJ fires the gun twice into the air, watching as the crowd scatters.

“So much for laying low!” Pope hisses at JJ, helping Kie pick John B from the water. 

🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌  🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 

The next morning, JB was up before the roosters started crowing. The rest of the Pogues had returned to their respective homes. Kie had taken Pope home before returning to her house in Figure 8. JJ had left a small kiss on the crown of my head before disappearing into the trees.

I wander out of my room, wiping sleep from my eyes. “You look like you just swallowed a jellyfish.” I bump shoulders with John B. 

“Sheriff Peterkin just left…” He mumbles. “She’s asking questions. She said she can help us with DCS if we help her.”  

“Well… we’ll just give her the most information we can without us getting in trouble.” I sigh. 

🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌  🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 

“The three of us! We’ve got nothing to lose!” JJ huffs, gesturing between me, John B, and himself. “You’re not calling this off, John B. I have a plan. We borrow some scuba gear from Cameron’s big boat and then we go down to the wreck.” 

We probably should’ve learned a long long time ago to never listen to JJ. He’s filled to the brim of bad ideas, like stealing from JB’s rich boss. 

Big John said the island was America on steroids. The haves and have-nots like anyplace, but magnified and multiplied. The way JB and I see it, the game’s rigged. Maybe it always has been. No parents, money, and no one looking out for us. We got no chance unless we make it on our own. 

🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌  🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌  

“You took empty tanks, JB.” I sigh. 

“This one’s a quarter full.” John B mumbles. 

“So enough for one of us… I just love it when a plan comes together.” I rub my head in annoyance. 

“Does anyone even know how to dive?” John B asks.

“I read about it,” Pope speaks up.

“Great, Pope read about it. So someone’s gonna die.” I roll my eyes.

“Look, you put the thing in your mouth and breathe. How hard could it be?” JJ asks.

“If you come up too fast, nitrogen gets into your blood, and you get the bends.” Pope leans back in the captain’s seat. 

“Bends like, bend over and…” JJ giggles, bending over the wheel.

“The bends kill you.” Pope sighs, making JJ’s eyes go wide.

🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌  🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 🏄 🌊 🚌 

We all circle around John B as he kneels on the dock, holding the bag from the wreck. 

“Can we please just open the bag?” Pope huffs. 

“Damn, Pope. That’s a rare outburst of emotion.” I snicker.

“You guys are literally killing me with anticipation. Open the bag.”

John B opens the bag, pulling out a canister. He twists open the canister, letting a small circular compass fall out. 

“Oh, wow. Yup. That’s about right.” Pope sighs. “Good job, everybody. We found a compass. It's not worth anything.” 

“This was my father’s.” John B mumbles. 

[masterbuilderintern]

please. PLEASE give us more abt the hlvrai bioshock au i am begging you

I’ll give a basic rundown of the character’s parts in this au for now since I’m still thinking about how exactly it would play out narratively

Note: I changed it to where any gender can be a Little “Kid” now

GET READY FOR A FUCKING INFO DUMP

Gordon: He found Rapture while on a research expedition out at sea. A lot of his crew died in the accident leading to the discovery, he doesn’t know what happened to the rest of them.

Unfortunately, he showed up just a short while before Rapture’s collapse. But he did get to see it before devastation for a short while. He asked a ton of questions about the place like any reasonable person would, but it started to make some people nervous.

Like Johnny Topside from Bioshock 2, the Andrew Ryan of this AU, Gman, which is called Mr. G by the people and Gman by Benrey to make fun of him, finds Gordon to be a threat and it leads to him going through the procedure of becoming a Big Daddy. He ends up as Joshua’s guardian of course.

He has no memory of who he was beforehand until the group meets Darnold, which I’ll get to in a bit.

Again, like Johnny, Gordon gets hit with the hypnosis plasmid and is forced to watch Joshua get taken away and fucking dies but oh ho ho, don’t worry boys, we got VITA CHAMBERS. Thus spins off the misadventures of Gordon trying to get him and his now daughter Alyx out of Rapture. Maybe collect more family along the way, it’s a good trope.

Alyx: Pretty straightforward. She was a Little Brother guarded by Gordon for a bit, but Rapture fell apart and she was taken away (by whom is yet to be determined). She’s obviously much like Eleanor to Gordon, getting other kids to bring him back with the Vita Chambers.

When Gordon finds her she is much older and goes by a different name now, but he’s just happy to see her. When he gets to her she’s pretty weak from her circumstances so she gets her own Big Sister suit (which is still going through some design phases).

Tommy:  Still “Mr. G’s” son, and was one of the first-ever kids to go through the whole Little Kid process. Because of how experimental he is, he’s a little funky. Though while he has the ability to use plasmids, he doesn’t use them very often.

Before meeting Gordon he only really trusted Benrey, and would either be following them or hanging out mainly in Arcadia. He likes the plants a lot.

Oddly enough there doesn’t seem to be any hint of some sort of illusion on him like the kids usually do, seeing Rapture as a castle and such. No conditioning either, he just seems to play his own game.

He’s friendly but can still kick your ass to the fucking moon and back if he needs to. And he’s good at it.

He’s a “Big Brother” here instead of a Big Sister since they aren’t all girls now. Gordon comes across him casually just chilling out in the area outside of the Farmer’s Market, which I’ve drawn a bit of already. Tommy really has seen Gordon before, before he was taken away to be turned into a Big Daddy.

Tommy has a strange habit of attracting the kids to him, like baby chickens. It’s really cute but also a little strange. Tommy actually wants to see Rapture restored, not really considering that he could also just take the kids and leave instead, so he’s constantly steering Gordon into trying to fix Rapture.

Coomer: Once an engineer before Rapture fell. He was quite happy with where he was, he liked the routine. But things went to shit and Jesus christ everyone is attacking each other.

At first, he would use the electric bolt plasmid just because it was pretty handy for his job, but when things went downhill he turned to other plasmids to you know, not fucking die. But those who’ve played Bioshock know that too much of that stuff can fuck you up. He now uses the decoy plasmid to an unholy degree to fuck with those who might be a threat to him.

He actually tries to fuck up Gordon’s shit at first before confusing the shit out of him by suddenly just, being okay. It’s because he realizes Gordon isn’t really a threat but Gordon doesn’t know that. He just sees this guy pull a 180 on him.

Coomer and Gordon actually have a chat that leads to Coomer helping him out and eventually just casually following along with his group.

Bubby: So Bubby literally forgot his real name and no I do not plan on ever giving him one why do I need to.

Bubby was a chemist before the fall of Rapture. Unlike Coomer, he was fucking BORED. Of course, when everything fell apart he was kind of shaken at first but adapted pretty quick.

He’s obviously a spider splicer given the art I drew. I figure he would be prone to popping in and out of vents pretty easily.

He meets Gordon trying to steal shit from him and is totally intrigued by how weird it is that there’s a Big Daddy, Big Sister, Big Brother, AND some random ass splicer just traveling in a group together that he invites himself. He’s just a watcher at first but grows to actually become attached to the weirdos.

Benrey: Saved this fucker (out of the main crew) for last. You can’t see it but I’m rubbing my hands together like an evil little gremlin.

Benrey was also one of the first Little Kids. Though there are three very important differences between them and Tommy, despite also having the strange habit of attracting the kids to them.

Benrey actually started the fall of Rapture. The motives are vague, but part of it has to do with pettiness toward Gman. They’re constantly making fun of them and trying to provoke him. It wasn’t hard to tear things apart. Everyone was already paranoid, people were smuggling in shit they shouldn’t. Just had to drop some smuggled bibles here, some secret recordings there. Start a fight. God, it was just so easy.

Benrey also abuses the FUCK out of plasmids. Bioshock 2 established that Little Sisters are not affected by the harsh effects of plasmids, so they can just get away with this power trip. Which is not good. Invisibility, teleportation, and decoys are their favorites. Don’t forget the bees!

But there’s also a plasmid that never left testing, and will be a secret that dies with Benrey. Sweet Voice. While it can’t completely manipulate its target, the frequencies can influence one’s emotions, and cranked up enough can even stop their heart entirely.

Since Benrey and Tommy basically grew up together, they know each other really well and Tommy has learned to decipher the different colors of Sweet Voice.

Gordon meets Benrey almost right after he wakes up from being reanimated, though, like Tommy, Benrey has seen him before. And because of his backstory, Benrey has taken interest in him. Though they still really like to fuck with him, and Gordon really wants to through them out to sea.

Benrey doesn’t follow the others linearly, they watch on the sidelines a bit, and from time to time will get involved in the shenanigans if they seem interesting enough. They even provide the group with a radio to keep in touch, which Alyx carries around because she just knows Gordon would tear the thing in two.

Darnold: Him time! Darnold is basically the Tenenbaum of this au, watching over the kids and helping Gordon out from the sidelines. Darnold has never even touched a plasmid and doesn’t plan on ever doing so, and stays in Olympus Heights attempting to find a way to reverse Gordon’s condition.

He talks to Gordon quite often over the radio.

Stay tuned for more info on him.

Mr. G/Gman: THIS BITCH. If you have the headcanon that Gman is a great dad to Tommy, that is adorable and you are hella valid. But I have daddy issues so he’s kind of a bitch in this au.

Pretty much Andrew Ryan with the manipulative wise of Fontaine, Mr. G is the Big Bad of this au. I mean, you’re automatically a shithead when you experiment on kids. Especially your own kid.

I’m still figuring shit out with this guy so stay tuned for that.

Forzen: Jesus fucking christ I have no idea what to do with you, god damn.

Believe it or not, I have left things out but I’m still developing them so I’ll talk about them later. For now, it’s just basic rundowns of the characters’ parts in this au, like I said before. There are some things that probably don’t even exist yet COUGHSforzen’scharacterCOUGHS so again, stay tuned for that.

Unfortunately, a lot of the things I’m ironing out involves Darnold so I couldn’t say a lot about him but once it’s all sorted I’ll get back to him. He plays a much more important part in this au than he did in hlvrai.

[lovelylogans]

where you lead, i will follow

previous chapter / chapter seven / next chapter

start from the beginning!

ao3 | read my other fics | coffee?

warnings: food mentions, complicated parental relationships, transphobia and homophobia, verbal fighting, top surgery mention, classism, deadnaming, misgendering, see more specific warning below

pairings: moxiety, logince

words: 13,664

note: this chapter contains purposeful deadnaming, misgendering, transphobia, homophobia, someone hitting someone else (neither of them are sides) and slut-shaming language, as well as the portrayal of a fairly heated argument. that section begins with "i've gotta see my parents," christopher says, anxious. and it is safe to continue reading at the section that begins with logan's in the backseat of the car. a summary can be found here. please take care of yourselves.

the sanders men walk out of virgil's diner, patton ducking his head into his elbow to cough, logan almost bouncing a little with victory.

see, that whole you need to at least paint the diner idea had not subsided. fallen to the wayside a little with the approach of logan's birthday, sure. but now his birthday was over, he was still insisting on it, more and more. it had started up in full during breakfast, the following monday.

and today—thursday, dinner, nearly two weeks since logan's birthday—virgil had finally, grudgingly, agreed.

"we'll have to bring over paint swatches tomorrow during breakfast, or something," patton tells logan, because the way virgil had finally actually agreed was because patton promised to stop over and help, and they could make a whole night of it, sometime this weekend. "i think we could just do pretty similar colors to what he's got now, you know how virgil gets about change."

he does not like it, to put it delicately.

"how long do you think it's been, since he's done anything to the diner?"

"before we got here, probably," patton says. "it's been that color for forever. just fading slowly."

"how much time do you think it'll take me to get him to get the furniture reupholstered?" logan says thoughtfully, already plotting.

"maybe by the time you graduate college," patton teases, nudging logan (carefully soft, so he didn't bump his son off the sidewalk and into the road.)

"maybe i can sneak one at a time," logan says. "introduce change slowly."

"that might work," patton begins, but he's cut off by a distant rumbling of an engine.

a distant, familiar rumbling of an engine. that's getting closer by the minute.

no, patton thinks. no, it can't be. my ears aren't that good. it's probably another motorcycle, not that old indian.

"it would probably be most effective if i begin with the barstools, they have the most obvious wear and tear," logan says, and patton tries to focus again, taking away the urge to look back over his shoulder at the motorcycle that's surely approaching. they stop at one of the four crosswalks in town. that motorcycle keeps getting closer.

"hey," the motorcyclist grunts, when they pull up to the stop.

"hi," patton says cautiously, trying to remember if he's seen a motorcycle parking at the inn the past couple days, if it's someone new to town.

"nice shirt," the motorcyclist says to him. "take it off."

huh. okay, so patton's ears really are that good.

patton's smiling despite himself as he tugs off his helmet, and patton bursts out with "christopher!" when he sees that face, those familiar whiskey-colored eyes and that tousled hair and that messy five o'clock shadow and suddenly he's sixteen again.

"hey!" he says, and patton's moving forward before he could have even considered stopping, hugging him tight and inhaling—same cologne, same old leather riding jacket, same solid chest. same christopher.

patton steps back, grinning at him—it still strikes him as strange, now, that with the addition of t and the growth spurt it'd given him, they're practically the same height. patton's always going to think of him as tall.

"what are you doing here?"

"here to see the birthday boy, of course," he says, and patton turns to see where logan's still standing at the crosswalk, staring at them both. "and you."

"logan—"

"my birthday was two weeks ago," logan says tightly, arms crossed.

"well, i know," christopher says, a little uncomfortably. "i texted you. i wasn't sure if you got it, because i didn't get a response, but—"

"why are you here?" logan says.

"well, my folks are back in town, so i'm here to see them," he says. "and on the way i thought i'd drop by and surprise the sanders guys. are you surprised?"

"the teeniest feather could knock me right over," patton says, because—christopher. here. in sideshire. 

"so, where would someone find a place to stay around here?"

"if you don't mind a couch, we can keep you for a couple days," patton says.

"there's the inn," logan adds. away from us, he doesn't say, like you've been for years and years and only come back when it's convenient for you.

"thanks, pat," christopher says. "you two won't even know i'm there. logan, you wanna hop on?"

"i'd rather not sustain a serious head injury," logan says coldly. "and anyway, i was going to drop by the courant."

"logan—" patton starts, but logan's already moving.

"see you later!" christopher hollers after him, then turns to patton. "god, he's turned into a teenager, huh?"

"you thought a kid of ours wouldn't have his moments?" patton says.

christopher concedes the point with a self-deprecating laugh, before he pats the motorcycle seat.

"what do you say, lor—uh, love?—old time's sake?"

patton bites his lip, trying to unhear the little slip-up he made—it’s okay, it’s okay, he caught himself, he didn’t actually deadname patton, mistakes happen and chris knew him by his deadname for longer than he did his name now—before he grins, shoving all those worries behind him. or trying to. 

"yeah," he says, "all right," and he slings his leg over and slides close behind christopher and clings to his waist, and it's all coming back to him, so old and so familiar and yet like he hasn't been away from him for even a day, let alone sixteen years.

 patton's busy making up the couch and christopher's in the shower when logan walks in.

"hey, how was rudy?"

"fine," logan says tersely. "i managed to correct several errors before tomorrow's paper went to print."

"that's great!" patton says encouragingly, fluffing a pillow. "can i get any sneak previews?"

"why is he here?" logan says, and patton sets aside the pillow.

"your dad? like he said, i guess, his folks are back in town so—"

"dad," logan says. "i mean why is he here. you could have sent him to the inn."

"he's never been to sideshire before," patton says. "it'd do him well to have some familiar faces around."

"he'd have familiar faces at the inn," logan says. "it's your inn."

patton frowns and straightens up. "are you really uncomfortable with him staying here? he's your dad, and—"

"you're my dad, and do you remember what he did last time?"

"that was a slip-up, it happens sometimes," patton says, trying his hardest not to wince.

"with him it happens every time," logan says. 

"logan, he's trying, and he wants to be here for you," patton says. 

"i don't need him here, nor do i want him here," logan snaps back. "i have you. he's just an—an interloper."

"logan!"

the shower shuts off, and patton quiets himself so he can lecture his son.

"look," patton says in an undertone. "i know he hasn't been here a lot, but he's here. in sideshire. that's gotta mean something different, right?"

"he's going to come and go as he pleases, you know that," logan hisses. "i'm not particularly interested in his attempts of playing happy family and his insistence that he's really got his life together this time before it all comes out that he's here because he needs money, or something else from you, and you're going to give it to him, because you can never see him clearly."

"that is enough," patton says, but there's thunking on the stairs before they can get into it.

"your water pressure," christopher says, toweling off his hair, "is divine."

patton puffs himself up, pleased. "i repaired that showerhead."

"you did not," christopher says, with a laugh.

"i did!"

"okay, you nearly flunked shop class, forgive me if i can't exactly believe that you suddenly know your way around the tool box," christopher says.

"are you hungry?" logan asks mechanically. 

"starving," christopher says.

"we could order some food in," patton says. "we just ate. logan, could you get some of the take-out menus from the drawer?"

logan does as he says, and ends up excusing himself for homework early. 

"tomorrow's friday, nearly the weekend," christopher says.

"i have school on fridays," logan says witheringly. "excuse me."

patton sees right through him, but, well—he can only really sigh after him, and then cough into his elbow again. christopher, somehow, doesn't notice their son's mood. never been too observational, though, christopher, especially with emotion stuff.

"he's a great kid," he says warmly, and any frustration melts away. patton smiles.

"i wish i could say i see more of myself in him than straight hair instead of curls," he adds, fondly tugging at the same curl he used to tug all those years ago—it had been longer, then, but it's in the same place, still just as stubborn about hanging in patton's eyes. 

"i just can't believe you're here," patton says. "here, i mean. in sideshire. why didn't you call?"

"it really was a spur of the moment thing," christopher says. "so much has been changing for me, macaron."

patton's smile widens, and—

"you haven't called me that in years, biscuit."

see, for years and years and years at christopher and his parents' joint gatherings, the most tolerable and most smuggle-able dessert was macarons. patton would swipe handfuls and handfuls into any spare pocket he had, dumping them into christopher's suit pockets, and they'd escape out onto patton's balcony, to eat and drink and giggle in private.

it had been a game they'd played, when they were young. a competition, really, of who could manage to smuggle away the most food. patton's choice had been macarons. christopher's had been biscuits—they'd steal a little honey bear from the fridge, too, little pre-packaged pats of butter, and feast gloriously on their sweet stolen goods.

"i think i finally have all my ducks lined up in a row," christopher continues, smoothing his fingers over patton's curls. "i don't know how much your parents have told you, but i'm on the verge of a big success. for real, this time. i've got a company with actual cash flow, i've got employees, I've got an accountant, for god's sake. i mean, it's for real this time, mac."

patton reaches across to squeeze his wrist. "i'm really happy for you, chris," he says, genuine. "i always knew we'd turn out okay."

"there's some things i need to do. take care of, i mean."

"like what?" patton asks, soft. 

"i haven't been enough a part of logan's life," christopher says, just as soft, just as genuine, and patton can't help but smile, because—because now logan would see, know him the way patton had known him, and they wouldn't be the big happy family that patton had daydreamed about in his weaker moments, years ago, but logan would have both his dads there.

"so i wanna be around more," christopher says, and patton hopes it's because he's bolstered by patton's smile. "to be a pal he can depend on. i mean, i'm not crazy, i know you've got a life going on here, roonie, and god knows he doesn't need anyone besides you, but if you give me a chance—"

"hey," patton murmurs, reaches up to squeeze christopher's wrist, remove his hand from patton's hair and twine their fingers together. "i've always had the door to logan open to you, you know that."

"i do," christopher says. "and thank you for that. i know i haven't used it much, but i wanna use it now. is that okay?"

"of course it is."

christopher huffs out a soft breath of relief. "good," he says. "that's—that's really good."

"yeah," patton says, and smiles wider. "yeah, it really is."

(logan, sitting at the top of the stairs, closes his eyes and tries not to grind his teeth. he consults the segment of his notepad he'd begun working on at the courant. he doesn't get to do this to his dad. to them. not again.)

⁂

"been a while since we've done this, huh?"

"hmph. hope it doesn't go like it did before i went to chilton."

"yeah, i'll try my best not to. oh, thanks—can i snag your—? oh, you beat me to it."

"it just seems more fruitful to offer it to you before i drink any, considering you always steal my cherry."

"i could make so many inappropriate jokes about that, but i am a gentleman, so i won’t."

"...i don't think i understand. considering you do, that's just fact."

"it's a slang thing."

"ah, i see."

"you're kinda stalling."

"i suppose i am. blanket?"

"yeah, it's freezing. budge up, we're cuddling."

"body heat is effective."

"mm. why the crisis gazebo meeting?"

"my other father's in town."

"...oh."

"yes."

"you, um. you don't like him much, right? you don't really talk about him."

"that's an accurate assessment of the situation at hand. yes."

"...can i ask about it? him, i mean."

"i just... i don't like how my dad gets around him."

"is he... mean? your other dad, i mean."

"not intentionally, i don't think. no. it's just that when they see each other, all they can think about is how things used to be. they know all of each other's secrets. they grew up together. they used to make all of their bad decisions together—apparently, dad is still saving some stories about his misspent youth. my other father was the first person dad told about transitioning. they always thought they'd be together."

"i'm not seeing how this is a bad thing yet."

"he gets the idea, every couple of years, that he wants to spend more time with us. be there for me, watch me grow up, so on."

"...still not getting it."

"he gets the idea, he spends at most a week attempting to play at it, but as soon as reality comes knocking he rides off into the sunset to chase another unattainable dream and leaves my dad behind again, and dad is crushed because my father managed to convince him that this was it this time, really, and dad believes him over and over and over. is that clear enough for you?"

"..."

"i shouldn't have been so harsh to you."

"no. uh, no, that's, um. that's okay. it sounds pretty rough."

"he comes knocking back for money, or we get together for another holiday, and dad forgets all about what happened last time and all he can remember are the good times. so to answer your question in a very roundabout way—no, i don't believe my other father is being intentionally mean."

"but he breaks patton's heart every time anyway."

"yes."

"because he's..."

"thoughtless, immature, irresponsible, should i go on?"

"yikes, l."

"yes. and the cycle's already begun again. i overheard them. i found—something. and i don't want him doing that to my dad again."

"what about you? you don't want it to do that to you again, right?"

"i would say yes, except i never really got my hopes back up after he promised me over and over that he'd make it for my sixth birthday and he showed up a week late, clearly having been on some variation of booze cruise, i believe the term i overheard was, during the actual time of my birthday. apparently he believed that he was actually on time."

"god, logan."

"i shouldn't be complaining to you."

"hey, having a deadbeat dad and having a dead dad are probably in equally sucky categories. they just both suck in different ways."

"hm. if you say so."

"yeah, i do. at least mine's not about to disappoint me in new and surprising ways. not until the zombie apocalypse, anyway."

"roman."

"it could happen!"

"i have lectured you at length on why it would not possibly happen, on multiple occasions."

"that's what people said about flying across the atlantic!"

"that is a remarkably different circumstance."

"that sounds like you can't think of a more convincing argument."

"you infuriate me."

"yeah, i know, you too."

“...”

"done?"

"yes, i am."

"yeah, me too."

"i'll get the next one."

"i know you will... logan?"

"yes?"

"are you going to do something? about your other dad, i mean."

"oh."

"you don't have to—"

"no. no, i am. i didn't think i would be so... transparent."

"that's patton."

"what?"

"trans-parent—hey!"

"you deserve to get kicked off the step for that one. that was terrible."

"patton would laugh."

"dad has a horrible sense of humor."

"i mean, but, um. seriously. are you?"

"i am. yes. i've already begun."

"...you know you can count me in. right?"

"of course i do."

"because sometimes—lately... no. nevermind."

"what?"

"it's nothing."

"it's clearly not."

"i just—fine. lately, sometimes it feels like with—with everything that's happened lately. jess and chilton and your grandparents and all of it. it feels like we haven't been..."

"i know."

"you do?"

"yes. i thought—i thought, maybe, we could... we could do this a bit more. if that would be all right."

"oh. yeah. i'd like that."

"it wouldn't interfere with... anything?"

"you're my best friend, okay? you come first for me."

"oh. yes. me too."

"so what's this plan?"

"it's really less of a plan, and more of a... of a necessary trade. i think. but it requires research, first."

"oh. so your wheelhouse, then."

"yes."

"if you need my expertise—"

"yes, roman, if i need someone to monologue at him, you'll be the first one i call—hey!"

"that was payback for the response to the pun!"

⁂

"so, why are we going here, again?"

"this is virgil's," patton says, a little droopy with the absence of caffeine. "virgil's my best friend. he keeps me in caffeine. he also keeps us at a proper ratio of vegetable-and-fruit to unhealthy things. plus, i promised i'd bring by paint swatches today, logan's been working to get him to try some attempt at remodeling for weeks, haven't you, honey?"

logan grunts. patton hopes to chalk it up to absence of caffeine instead of logan still being upset that his dad's in town. 

there's the cheerful, discordant jangling of the bell above the door, and patton waves at virgil, pointing over to a booth. 

virgil lifts a hand to wave at him, but then he falters and stares, unnoticed by patton, who's sliding into the seat beside christopher, logan across from them. 

"so, what do you have going on at school today?" patton asks him. 

logan starts talking, then, about a lab he's doing in his science class, and virgil swings by, dropping off two mugs of hot cocoa/coffee.

"virgil!" patton says. "this is christopher, he's logan's other dad."

"hey," christopher says, sticking out a hand, but virgil's already sweeping back to the kitchen, ignoring him.

"he wants coffee!" patton calls after him, and turns to christopher, who looks thrown-off, lowering his hand.

"virgil's shy," patton says. "he's not really a people-person."

which is true, except virgil had made one of his virgil-faces, jaw set stubbornly and eyebrows lowered, absolutely sulky. so either virgil was in a Mood, which just happened sometimes, no helping it, or...

"logan, why don't you tell your dad about the franklin?" patton suggests.

"i haven't actually done any work on it yet," he says. "there isn't much to tell."

"ah, i remember the franklin," christopher says. "do they still have the jefferson?"

logan scowls. "yes."

patton scowls, too.

"that old gossip rag," christopher says. "i mean, it was brutal, back in our day, do you remember—"

christopher breaks off at the look on patton's face. of course he remembers one of the main tools utilized to terrorize him at school. 

virgil swings back by, and drops an unordered omelet in front of logan, along with a cup of coffee for christopher.

"there's vegetables in it," virgil tells logan. "eat them or i stalk you until you do."

"i'm hardly the one you need to lecture," logan says, digging his fork into it.

"so, do you think i could get—" christopher begins, but bam, virgil's off again.

christopher huffs out a breath. "it's not even that busy in here."

"i'm going to take a look at what breakfast pastries virgil's got today," patton says decisively, as if he hasn't had the pastry rotation memorized since logan was six months old. "logan, why don't you tell your dad about mel?"

logan shoves a heaping forkful of omelette into his mouth. patton moves before he can lecture him about it.

"heyo," patton says, leaning over the counter.

"hi," virgil mutters. "what's up?"

"i should probably be asking you that," patton says. "i know you're not usually mr. congeniality, but what's with the whole situation with chris?"

"what situation?" virgil mutters, sorting scones into the display case. "there's not a situation."

"virgil," patton says, in his best Dad Voice. he's pretty good at it, if he says so himself.

virgil scowls. 

"he's logan's dad, v."

"you're logan's dad," virgil says sharply. 

"have you and logan been exchanging notes behind my back?" patton says wearily.

"well, you are," virgil says. "in all the ways that matter. you're the one who taught him how to walk and talk, you're the one who helped him through colic, you're the one who—"

"he wasn't in a place to be a parent," patton says, "he was sixteen."

"so were you," virgil hisses sharply. 

"look, i—" patton looks around, coughs, and lowers his voice. "if you have to know, chris actually offered to do the 'decent' thing and marry me. i was the one who said no. i was the one who decided to do it on my own. don't punish him for my choice."

virgil grinds his teeth.

"at least, just—just try to play nice," patton says. "okay? he was my best friend once too. you kind of usurped his title. he's probably still licking his wounds."

suddenly, virgil looks a lot less sulky, and a lot more like he's trying to hide his smile. 

"fine," virgil sighs at last. "fine, but—"

"and i brought paint swatches," patton adds. "bring him a menu, and we can talk about them?"

"i'm not pretending to like either of these things."

"i wouldn't expect it to go any other way," patton says. "can i have a chocolate croissant?"

virgil looks like he's wrestling with it, before he sighs, and says, "you're having the healthiest thing i can wrangle up and no ditching any vegetables, okay?"

"you're a saint," patton says happily, and takes his croissant and floats back to the table.

when he gets back to the table, chris is on his phone, smiling.

"i've been great, emily," he says, and patton slides into the booth.

it's your mom, he mouths, and patton nods. logan's tapping away on his phone.

(behind the counter, virgil digs out his phone when it buzzes to read the second message from this particular number this morning. the first had been My other father is in town for the first time. I dislike him and I suspect something abnormal is going on that will adversely affect my dad. Kindly ensure his breakfast is unpleasant as a form of pre-emptive strike. now, it was I'll tell you more about why later, but the general basis of your understanding should include how my dad gives people too many second chances.)

"well, i'm actually sitting here with your boys," he says, and there's a pause. "sure." he holds out the phone to patton. "she wants to talk to you."

"got it," patton says, and plucks his phone from his hand. "hi, mom."

"patton, christopher is in town!" emily says excitedly.

"yep, mom, i know," he says. "he's staying over at my place. i'm sitting right next to him."

"well, i had this wonderful idea," she continues. "christopher's parents are in town too. you remember straub and francine?"

patton feels slightly lightheaded. he licks his lips, which are suddenly dry. "i—yes. the haydens."

"well, i called them up and invited them to dinner tonight," she says. "they said they're free to join us all."

"us all?" patton says blankly.

"yes," emily says. "you, logan, christopher, your father."

"that's, um," patton says, and tries to clear his throat but it erupts into coughing. "that's quite the gathering, mom."

"well, i should say so," she says. "we haven't all been together since before logan was in the picture, and straub and francine haven't seen logan since he was a baby."

"well, yes, i know, but mom—"

"it'll be like a wonderful reunion," she says blissfully. "all of us together again. i never thought it would happen."

"mom," patton says in a tiny voice, but very suddenly, she's telling him to hand the phone back to christopher, and he does, and then they talk to patton’s dad (it has not escaped richard's notice that planning this little dinner is the most his wife has smiled since whatever revelation she'd had at their grandson's birthday party. it makes him even gladder for christopher's appearance than normal) and patton sleepwalks through helping virgil choose paint swatches and deciding that virgil will get the paint at the hardware store and they'll paint tonight after dinner with his parents and seeing logan off to school and going to the inn for work and—

the haydens.

the dread's like a living thing in patton's stomach.

⁂

"i've gotta see my parents," christopher says, anxious.

"i've gotta see your parents," patton rejoins. 

christopher looks at him strangely. "what, no complaints about yours?"

"we've been getting along, lately," patton says.

"because of my assault," logan adds helpfully. 

"your what?!"

but someone's swinging open the door, and emily is beaming at them.

"you're here!" she says, delighted. "christopher, look at you!"

christopher steps forward to hug her. "emily," he says fondly. "as always, perfect."

"i am so glad to see you," she says fervently.

"hello, grandma," logan says, stepping in, and patton trails after. 

"richard's in the living room, he's dying to see you," emily says, beginning to lead them there. 

"can we go back to logan's story?" christopher mutters to patton. "since when is he getting into fights?"

"he got into a debate," patton corrects. "and this terrible boy kept goading this girl and she punched him."

"well, here they are!"

"hi, grandpa," logan says, filtering into the room.

"hello logan, patton," he says, and then he beams at christopher. not for the first time, patton wonders why they're so much blatantly fonder of him than they are of patton. "christopher, old boy, how are you? my gosh, it's good to see you!"

"how are you, richard?" christopher asks, enthusiastically pumping richard's hand.

"well, i'm better than most, not as good as some."

"and annoyed with all," christopher finishes.

richard laughs heartily. "ah, you speak the truth, young man!"

"martinis," patton murmurs, and takes one from the tray. logan shoots him a look, and patton tries to smile at him reassuringly. logan is seated between his fathers on the couch. it's so strange that logan feels the urge to just... squirm until patton's the one between them both.

"so, christopher," richard says, ignoring him, "tell me all about your business."

"oh, let the poor boy relax," emily scolds.

"well, i simply want to know how it's going!"

"it's, uh," christopher says. "it's going great, richard, i'm almost afraid to jinx it by telling you how good it's going."

liar, logan thinks viciously, and his plan is the only reason he doesn't snarl it.

"oh, that is wonderful," richard gushes. "i always knew you had it in you. you have a splash of greatness, as my mother would say. you always had that splash of greatness."

"oh, richard," emily continues soppily, and logan thinks he might throw up from all the coddling. "isn't logan just the spitting image of christopher?"

logan looks at his other father in confusion. just about the only thing he's inherited from him is his straight hair.

"i just hope you inherit your father's business sense also, my boy," richard says.

i'd be so much better off inheriting your son's business sense, and it's so close to all spilling out of his mouth and he has to take a long gulp of soda to keep it from just emerging.

there's the ring of a bell.

"that would be straub and francine!" emily says, and leaves the room.

"i haven't seen your parents in quite some time," richard says. "we were practically inseparable, for a while."

he follows after his wife, and logan turns to patton, suddenly a little panicked.

"what do i call them?" logan asks him. he's never really met these people.

"call 'em what i call 'em," christopher grumbles from his other side. "ass—"

"chris," patton says sternly, and coughs a couple times.

"just, um," chris says. "call them straub and francine. mr. and mrs. hayden? you know what, just avoid calling them anything."

very suddenly, it strikes logan why patton must have been so nervous.

in terms of grandparents, and, in roman's terms, rich white people nonsense? the haydens must be even worse than the sanders'. 

with that revelation, his grandparents lead in a set of two people, and if he hadn't thought it before, he certainly would have thought it upon seeing them for the first time. the woman's wearing the kind of sleek skirtsuit that he's seen before, with a string of pearls, and the man is wearing an officious suit. they look like snobs. they even walk like snobs, noses in the air, sniffing disapprovingly at the world around them.

patton swallows at the sight of the haydens, smooths his sweaty hands over his slacks as chris greets them with a "mother, pop," and patton stands to shake hands.

"mr. and mrs. hayden," he says. "long time, no see."

"you look..." mr. hayden says, and sends an inquisitive, disdainful eye over him. "well." a pause, and then, like a taunt, “now, lorelai lucy, are you still going by... what was it again?”

logan's bristling beside him like a cat. 

" i am doing well, thanks, and yep, my name’s still patton,” patton says tightly. “it’s patton thomas, actually, not lorelai lucy. it hasn’t been lorelai lucy since before logan came into the picture, and i don’t think you forgot that like you’re trying to pretend you did to be polite, but that’s not why we’re here, is it? you remember logan? you haven't seen him in quite a while."

"no, we haven't," straub says, turning his attention off of patton.

"i think he was just starting to speak in complete sentences," francine adds, as if logan is not standing directly in front of her. "logan, hello."

"hello," logan says stiffly, accepting her hand to shake, and then his other grandfather's. he wants to drop them. he wants to sneer in their faces. he wants to kick out any sign of his other father and his terrible parents who have thrown his dad off so greatly. who deadnamed him on first introduction. logan hates them.

"straub, francine, how about a martini?" richard says.

"please," straub says.

"how is retirement treating you?" richard says, and emily continues, "yes, do tell us about the bahamas."

they all sit back down. logan arranges it specifically so patton is between christopher and himself—his dad a familiar line of defense, a known quantity.

"you can get an entire island there for the cost of a decent house here," straub says.

it's small talk. it's boring, but it's small talk, tempered and even and predictable, even if it is so dull and patton's so clearly nervous between them that logan kind of wants to tear his hair out.

"really?"

"how about you, richard, any thoughts of retirement crossing your mind?"

"oh, straub, if only you could talk him into it," emily says wearily. "i've given up."

"we're very pleased about christopher's business success out in california," richard says.

fake, fake, fake, logan wants to shout.

"yes," straub says, angling a similarly disdainful look at his son that he leveled at patton. "it's taken a while but it seems to be finally coming together. seems to be."

"so," logan says. "straub and francine. are you enjoying your time here?"

"how old are you, young man?" straub says, entirely disregarding his question.

"sixteen," logan says tightly.

"dangerous age, for girls especially," he says, and patton stiffens.

right, logan thinks. i have to kill him.

"logan's a very special boy," emily intercedes quickly, panic in her tone. "excellent student, very bright."

"is that so?" straub says.

"you should have a talk with him," richard says. "he could give you a run for your money."

"well," logan says, disregarding that attempt to misdirect entirely. "sixteen being a dangerous age in the way you've so clearly been implying shouldn't be a problem the way you seem to perceive it has been for my fathers."

"oh?" straub says. "we thought christopher was a bright boy, too. much like everyone thinks of you now. why are you different?"

"well," logan says, and then, as if it's a declaration of war, "i'm gay."

straub turns an interesting shade of near-purple. francine looks faint and actually fans herself.

"oh, here we go," christopher says, under his breath. patton and christopher exchange a look over logan’s head, and both patton and christopher down the rest of their martinis like a shot. just like old times.

"though of course," logan says, tilting his head, "that isn't the most effective argument, considering that the relationship between my fathers was between two men, as well, but considering your rampant transphobia, you wouldn't consider it as such. you would be incorrect, but considering your attitude toward my dad, i'd wager it's hardly your first time being an absolute blithering idiot."

patton chokes on air, and then he starts coughing. straub doesn't wait for his coughing to die down.

"i see your grandson is just as out of control as his mother," straub says, and logan surges to his feet, only stopped by patton's fingers closing around his wrist, getting to his feet too.

"logan—"

"pop, keep it civil," christopher says.

"dinner's ready," emily adds hastily, looking wide-eyed between logan and straub.

"we should have known that leaving him with that harlot would turn him to a deviant," and now patton's the one about to surge forward, eyes bright.

"don't you dare talk about my son like that," he says, cold and furious.

"what have you been doing with your life, anyway?" straub sneers. "besides deluding yourself into thinking this phase is real, or perhaps just carrying on and on for attention, lorelai, i'm just curious."

"richard, lead us into the dining room," emily insists, but she goes unheard yet again.

"i run an inn," patton says stiffly, tone still a little off from his coughing fit, and a little off from being called that name again.

"really?"

"yes, really."

now emily is staring between patton and straub, eyes even wider.

"dad, come on," christopher says urgently.

"oh, and your life is everything you hoped it would be?"

"even better," he says, and it's not as sentimental and happy as it might be in normal circumstances, because he's so—

"because it seems to me you might not want to take such a haughty tone when you announce to the world that you work in a hotel."

"there is nothing wrong with where i work," patton says hotly. “and there’s nothing wrong with who i am.”

"straub, please, i'm getting a headache," francine says wearily.

"nice to see you found your calling," straub says snidely. "if you had stopped pitching a fit to get attention, which i see you’re continuing with your histrionics,” he says, flicking a scornful gesture toward patton’s suit, “if you had attended a university as your parents had planned and as we planned in vain for christopher, you might have aspired for more than a blue collared position, though frankly i'm shocked you aren't living off food stamps, begging for handouts you don't deserve."

"don't do this," christopher tries again.

"and i wouldn't give a damn about you derailing your life if you hadn't seduced my son into being swept along with you!"

"chris," patton says sharply, because logan's actually shaking in rage right now, "take logan into the next room."

"dad" and "l—patton" at the same time, and patton says "now" in a voice so strongly commanding that it shocks even him, and chris takes over grabbing logan's wrist to tug him along, out of the room.

"i'm going to have to echo christopher's call for civility here," richard says, as soon as the door closes. "a mutual mistake was made many years ago, but they've both come a long way since."

"a mutual mistake, richard?!" straub shouts. "this whole evening is ridiculous! we're supposed to sit here like one big happy family and pretend that the damage that was done is over, gone? i don't care about how good a student you say that shirtlifter is—"

"HEY!" patton and emily both shout, in the exact same tone of voice.

"our son was bound for princeton," straub seethes. "every hayden male, including myself, attended, but it all stopped with christopher. it's a humiliation we've had to live with every day, because that little slut couldn't keep her legs—!"

logan isn't even the one to burst back into the room to hit him. it isn't chris, it isn't emily.

it's richard.

"you recant that, straub!" richard shouts, from where he's towering over where straub has fallen to the ground.

"you hit me," he says in disbelief.

"you owe my grandson and my son an apology—"

"an apology, that's rich—"

"how dare you?!" richard demands, leaning down to seize straub by the lapels and haul him to his feet. "how dare you?!"

"richard, what are you doing?!" emily shrieks.

"how dare you come into my house and insult my family!" richard shouts. 

"let go of me!"

"whoa, whoa, whoa," patton says, getting over his shock just a little, trying to get between them and break it up, but his father has an iron grip on straub's jacket and starts shaking him.

"shame on you, straub!" richard bellows. "shame on you for your small-minded, hateful language toward your own flesh and blood, for opening all this up again—"

"get your purse, francine—"

"my son is VERY successful at what he does," richard shouts, "and ten times the man you could ever dream of being!"

"we're leaving!"

"you aren't leaving, i'm kicking you out!" 

straub and francine storm out in a huff, richard following closely on his heels to ensure that they leave and patton tries to just breathe, but his inhale is so shaky that it's almost like he can't and—

"patton?"

"could you please check on logan and chris?" patton says, voice odd and faraway even to him. "please. i don't want him to—i want to be sure logan didn't hear any of that."

"patton—" she begins, approaching, but he curls into his jacket, away from her, because it’s so similar to her tone when she said lorelai— when he was fifteen and hurting and close to drowning and he can’t, he can’t, he can’t.

"mom, please," he says, strangled. "please. i just need a—a couple minutes alone."

she lowers her hand, and her usually haughty expression has changed into—into something else, but she turns before he can really identify it, and he tries to get control of his breathing, to calm down, but he just—

patton sits hard on the ground, vibrations reverberating up his spine, and he buries his face in his hands, breathing shaky breaths in and out over and over, willing the angry tears in his eyes not to escape, burying the heels of his hands into his eyes.

 when he's managed to calm himself down, just enough that he doesn't think he'll cry if someone looks at him wrong, he gets to his feet and goes to look for his dad.

of course, he's right where patton expects. but he's not alone, like patton had expected. emily turns to face the door, too, and it's so clear he's interrupted something that he can't help but freeze.

"oh," patton says, and hesitates at the door of the study. he feels little again—like he's walked into their bedroom after having a nightmare, like he's waiting to be lectured after yet another less-than-stellar report card.

"um, hey, mom. i was just going to—to ask if dad wanted something to eat."

"i'm not hungry."

it strikes patton, very suddenly, how tired both his parents look. how haggard. how old. patton coughs, swallows, and forges onward.

"okay. well, i just—i just wanted to thank you."

"thank me," richard repeats. "for what?"

"well," patton says, uncertainly. "for what you did in there. i'm just—" he darts a look to his mother, meets his father's eyes again. "i'm really grateful for what you said to him. for defending us like that—for defending logan like that, and me. i know i've made it hard for you, but—"

"do you?" richard says, and patton blinks.

"what?"

"do you know?" richard says, voice purposefully even. "how hard you've made it for us."

patton swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat. "i know i put you both through a lot, but i just—thank you."

"why do you think i did it?"

patton blinks, utterly thrown off. "um. i don't know. out of, um. out of protectiveness, i guess. because he was being homophobic and transphobic."

"it’s hardly about all that,” richard says wearily. 

“um,” patton says again, torn between patching up and bursting out with yes it is very much about all that, that is about who i am and who i’ve always been and i don’t like your tone, what do you mean, all that, does it matter so little to you?! but richard goes on before he can.

“you don't need to be protected," richard says, and emily's looking between them now, the way she looked between patton and straub—except patton's on the flipped side of the stare now. "you've made it exceedingly clear that you can look after yourself and that you need nothing from no one."

"wait, that's not—" patton begins desperately, because he was trying to be nice, he was trying to salvage the wreckage of an already terrible evening—

"my family was being attacked," richard says sharply. "the very sanders name was being attacked and i will not stand for that under any circumstances."

"okay, well, it doesn't matter why—"

"yes, it does matter why i did it!" he yells, and slams his hand down on the desk, and patton jumps at the suddenness of it. "it matters greatly! what are you going to take away from this?! that everything you've done in the past is suddenly fine because i defended you?"

"i—no," patton says, in a helplessly small voice.

"that the hell you put your mother and i through for the past sixteen years is suddenly washed away?"

a distant part of patton wonders if all that is part of the hell he put them through, to his dad.

"i—no, dad, i just—"

"well, it's not!"

patton can't help but shrink under the sheer size of his dad's noise, his dad's wrath. his dad was never the one who yelled at him. looked at him disapprovingly, yes. sighed and tsked, yes. but his mom was the one who yelled. never, ever his dad.

"i had to tell my friends, my colleagues, that my only child was pregnant and leaving school."

"i—"

"and then you run away and treat us like lepers," richard says, and this has been an argument sixteen years in the making, and it's been put into motion and patton's too late to notice, to stop it, and—

"your mother couldn't get out of bed for a month, did you know that?"

patton's eyes swivel to his mother, who's still looking at him like—like he's a stranger, like he's an intruder—

"did you?!" richard screams, and patton flinches.

"no," he says, and his voice breaks. "i—no, i—"

"we did NOTHING to deserve that," he howls, "nothing to earn that!"

patton tries to defend himself, he tries, but he can't find any words, he can't—

"do you know how terrifying it was to come home one night to find your only child and grandchild gone?!" he yells. "do you know what that was like?!"

patton bites his lip hard to keep himself from breaking down into tears and can only shake his head.

"you hated us that much?"

patton blinks, hard, looks to his mom, and—

"what?"

"you had to take that little boy away," emily says. "that was bad enough. but to keep shutting us out?"

"but i'm—i'm not anymore," patton says desperately. "i'm here, that was the deal, we agreed and we've been—we've been getting along lately, haven't we?"

"we could have," she says, "if you'd stayed," and patton has to suck in a breath.

"mom," he says, strangled. "we've talked about this before. we wouldn't have, i would have—i would have drowned here. i needed to go somewhere else. i was young, and i was so unhappy, and i just needed somewhere, anywhere that wasn't here—"

but his mother's making this a soft, tremulous little gasping noise he's never, ever heard her make before, and it hits him with the force of a falling star that she's close to crying.

i'm sorry, he's about to say, except—except he's not. he can't be sorry for leaving here when he was so close to losing himself. he can't be sorry for meeting everyone he's met in sideshire. he can't be sorry for working at the inn. he can’t be sorry for going to a place where all that is celebrated and a part of life and just the way things are. he can't be sorry for raising logan in the pool house and then an apartment, and finally, finally a house. he can't be sorry for bringing logan to the place he'd meet his best friend of all time. he can't be sorry for meeting virgil.

he can't be.

"you hated us that much?" richard repeats his wife, and his face is gaunt and haggard, and patton—

patton can't say a word.

and that's when it gets ugly.

⁂

logan's in the backseat of the car.

this is not exactly typical. granted, it hasn't been a particularly typical dinner, but he's so used to seeing his dad out of the corner of his eyes, and not the tiny little sliver of a reflection he can see in the darkened windshield.

his dad's pale-faced. red-eyed. entirely, completely silent, the way he'd been since he descended the stairs from the study, where there had been shouting and then silence and then screaming, and christopher had ushered him deeper and deeper into the house so he wouldn't hear it.

and now his father is curled up in the passenger's seat of his own car, head resting against the window, staring ahead of the road and clearly not seeing any of it.

logan isn't inclined toward metaphor, but his father looks like a ghost. he looks so completely and utterly drained of anything of substance—fight, or indignance, or defensiveness, or protectiveness, or happiness—and he's just staring mutely out of the window, not really responding to any of logan or christopher's clumsy attempts at conversation. he just coughed a few times, and that was an involuntary response.

he thinks about how he'd felt when patton was so hopeful about him and his parents getting along now more, that it would continue—"it was a fluke."

logan isn't happy that he's right.

and then he abruptly remembers who he was talking with, and virgil, and his plan, and—

and logan needs to institute this plan. now. if this is the result of his other father coming to town and bringing up the past, he wants him gone, he wants him out, and so he needs to execute the plan. any lingering doubt is gone. there is only certainty.

"virgil," logan announces abruptly, in the midst of the car.

christopher blinks at him, through the rearview mirror. "what?"

"virgil," logan says. "dad, you had plans to paint with virgil tonight. we need to drop dad off at virgil's."

"uh, logan," christopher says, darting a glance toward patton hasn't picked up his head from leaning against the door.

"you had plans with him, dad," logan says, a little forceful. "you promised him. he already picked up the paint. he's probably waiting for you. dad, you promised."

"maybe now isn't the—"

"no," patton mumbles, and it's the first word he's said since logan was pushed out of the living room, and it shocks him, a little, how scratchy and terrible his dad's voice is. "no. logan's right. drop me off. a promise is a promise."

(does he feel bad for guilting his dad? a little. but virgil will help. virgil will make it better.)

christopher looks between them and seems to realize that it's a lost battle, and turns to drop patton off at the diner.

"you hungry?" christopher asks logan, once they see patton get into the diner safely.

"we have food at home," logan says, and looks at him through the rearview mirror. "i'd like to have a chat. just you and i."

(when patton walks into virgil's dinner, virgil starts a story about the various trials of trying to buy paint, and half-turns and trails off when he sees the look on his face, and patton tries for a smile that falls flat before he can even pretend to be okay.

patton keeps trying to tell virgil that he's fine, except virgil wordlessly tugs him into a hug and patton can't, patton can't, and he's sobbing into virgil's chest before he can even try to hold them back, and virgil doesn't even say a word, chest aching as he tries to stroke through patton's hair as patton just bawls.)

when they get home, immediately logan gets to work making a carafe of coffee.

"pretty late for caffeine, isn't it?" christopher says. 

pretty late to attempt to be a permanent figure in my life, isn't it? logan bites back. instead, he says, "it'll be fine. we have frozen pizza, or macaroni and cheese, or supplies for sandwiches. i don't have much of a preference."

they end up loading the pizza into the oven in relative silence, christopher continually shifting awkwardly across the kitchen, leaving logan to be the one who digs out the pizza pan and the cutter and setting up the oven to preheat and then the timer, and eventually taking out two mugs.

"you're pretty quiet," christopher notes, as logan's pouring the coffee.

"i tend to be."

"you mentioned that you'd like to have a chat."

"i was going to wait until we had food," logan says, "but if you insist, we could do it now."

"oh. um—"

"i just need to get some things," logan says, and goes to retrieve the manila folder full of research and a notebook. when he enters the kitchen again, his other father is still standing, just as awkwardly, where logan's left him.

"i didn't really think a father-son chat needed a file folder," christopher says. 

“you'll see,” logan says coolly, and sits down at the kitchen table. “let’s talk.”

he gestures to the seat opposite him. “sit.”

“i feel like i’m in trouble with the principal,” his other father tries to joke.

logan takes a sip of his coffee, sets down his mug, his folder of research, his notebook, and at last clicks his pen. he feels like he’s conducting an interview. the routine sets him at ease. obviously he would never interview his father, bias, but...

"so. you’re planning on proposing to my dad.”

his other father chokes on his coffee. “how did you—?”

“don’t ask how i know things, it gets tedious,” logan commands. “or at least, it will. why do you want to marry him?”

(he knows because he snooped through his father's bag that first night, when he was asleep on the couch, and he'd found a ringbox and immediately decided that he needed to get out of the house Right Then, for milkshakes with roman, and knew that he did not want this and that patton could not know.)

christopher blinks at him. “isn’t it obvious?”

“indulge me.”

“well,” christopher says. “for starters... did you know that your grandparents wanted us to get married? when you first came into the picture.”

“i do.”

“i was all for it. patton wasn’t.”

“i know that too,” logan says. “that can’t be your only reason.”

“well,” christopher said, “we’re already a family, we could make it official.”

“who?” logan says.

“what?”

“who’s already a family.”

“us! you, patton, me.”

“oh,” logan says tonelessly. “well. isn’t that nice to know?”

christopher flinches as if logan’s struck him.

"i don't think you particularly know what a family is," logan continues. 

"it's people living together."

"no," logan says. "being a father especially, it's a big commitment, it's responsibility, it's hard work. those are three things you don't particularly seem to excel at, stating it delicately."

"hey," christopher says, sharp. "i know i'm not here a lot, but that doesn't mean you can talk to me like that."

"i can speak to you as i like, you want to propose to my father. traditionally there's someone to..." his nose wrinkles. "it's an archaic term, but defend his honor. traditionally it would be his father, but considering grandpa would likely be delighted, it seems it falls to me. so. try again. why do you want to marry him?"

"fine," christopher says. "fine. i can be responsible—"

logan sets down his coffee mug to give him the most disbelieving look he can possibly execute.

"i can," christopher says. "look, i told your dad, but my business is actually managing this time—"

"it really would be in your best interests not to lie," logan says.

"what makes you think i'm lying?"

"i was hoping you'd ask," logan says, and flips open his folder of research, laying out his first sheet of paper.

"real estate transaction, when you were first setting out. you used an llc, but that's easily enough tracked."

another sheet of paper.

"only for it to be sold about a week before you came here. no new bids on anything that i could find, under the name of the previous llc, the law firm you used last time, or under your legal name. what i did find under record of your name, however," he says, and lays out another sheet of paper, "is your previous record of bankruptcy, which i don't suppose is very surprising, considering what i remember from then, i don't suppose dad knows the money he gave you went to trying to dig yourself out of a hole of your own creation—"

"logan—"

logan ignores him, lays out another sheet of paper.

"—but then dad's always been the trusting type. though, i did also find your charges, mostly speeding tickets and the like, but i think dad doesn't know that you got charged with a dui a year and a half ago, did he?"

christopher's gone ashen.

"misdemeanor, though i suppose that's small enough considering some of the other charges that could escalate from there. i will say though that it might make dad a bit more hesitant to hop back on your indian knowing this, though."

logan lays out the last sheet, and adds, "your previous accountant was very willing to do an interview, by the way, so don't attempt to lie to me again."

“how did you find all this out?” his father says, staring at the paperwork, sorting through it disbelievingly, flipping the pages of the transcript of the interview logan had with the accountant.

“it’s all public domain,” logan says, secretly pleased that his research was correct—of course it is, but just... the confirmation. “anyone could find it if they were looking.”

“and you were looking,” christopher says, and shakes his head, sitting back with a scoff. “jesus, you’d make a good cop.”

logan’s nose wrinkles without his meaning to, and he taps his pen against his notebook. “journalist, actually.”

christopher sighs. "i was going to tell your dad if it didn't pick up soon, i swear."

"if i recall correctly, you told him it was," and he flips through his notebook to note the exact words. "ah, yes. i don't know how much your parents have told you, but i'm on the verge of a big success. for real, this time. i've got a company with actual cash flow, i've got employees, I've got an accountant, for god's sake. i mean, it's for real this time, mac."

he taps his pen against the notebook again, and says, "that doesn't particularly sound like you were about to tell him anything."

"you were eavesdropping?!"

"don't be obtuse, of course i was," logan says. "and before you start in with any of the how dare you, we're your fathers nonsense, dad encourages my journalistic skills."

he probably wouldn't be thrilled that logan was eavesdropping on him, but it was for his own good, logan reasoned. and besides, christopher wouldn't tell him that, he'd have to reveal the whole nature of this chat and thereby tell his dad everything. 

"so," logan says. "financially, you have nothing for him. romantically, you two haven't been involved since i was a baby and you've certainly had other people in the interim. i ask you again: why do you want to marry him?"

this is it. this is the fulcrum on which his plan has been resting. the scales will tilt depending on the answer: logan will be left to dissuade him or (more likely) offer him a deal. 

christopher takes a deep breath in, and says, "you might be my only child."

ah. deal it is, then.

"you have no conceivable way of knowing that," logan says.

"no," christopher says. "i don't know how much i miss you until i see you again, even if you infuriate me."

"i've been told being a father does that."

christopher snorts, and looks a little brighter, as if he's taken logan's words as some kind of peace offering. 

"so," logan says, and puts his pen down. "i have a solution. one that wouldn't require you to settle somewhere you know no one, one that wouldn’t have my father go through tonight again with the addition of who would be his in-laws, one that wouldn’t have someone nearly misgendering him on a daily basis, one that wouldn't require me to bring all of this forward to my dad, and one that wouldn't require my dad to deal with a proposal when he's in love with someone else."

christopher looks as if logan has hit him over the head with the pizza pan. "what?!"

"virgil," logan says. "he's in love with virgil."

"the diner man?"

"watch it," logan says sharply, "that diner man has been far more present in our lives than you've ever been."

"it's just," christopher says, and frowns. "him?"

"yes, him," logan says, "they're both hopeless and clueless about it and i certainly won't have you interfering."

"isn't it, um. is it kinda weird for you knowing that?" christopher says. "your dad's romantic life, i mean."

logan huffs out an aggrieved sigh—honestly, he's been used to patton and virgil obliviously flirting over meals for as long as he can remember, but it is a little weird, he can't deny that—and says, "do you want to hear the solution or not?"

"fine, yes," christopher says. 

"a deal," logan says. "from my understanding, this marriage is so you can get closer to my dad and myself. is that correct?"

christopher nods.

"fine," logan says. "then for dad, you work on educating yourself about lgbtqa issues. you work on never, ever having a name stumble with him ever again. if you contact dad regularly, he’ll be happy to respond, you know.” 

christopher looks a little cowed, at that. he says, “and you?”

“for me,” logan repeats. “i’m not as trusting as dad, as it happens. but. if you put in the effort to get to know me, i'll put in an equal amount of effort in getting to know you. you text me, i'll text you back. you call me, i'll pick up. you send me an email, i'll respond."

he holds up his hand before his father can speak.

"you haven't been here," logan says simply. "what did you think would happen when you proposed to dad? did you think he'd say yes? did you think i'd be so swept up with delight that oh, my parents are getting married that the past sixteen years wouldn't matter?" 

christopher looks down at his hands.

"so," logan says. "you become a better ally. you don't mention marriage to my dad. we work up to you being another dad to me. slowly. and i don't tell dad about all of this. do we have a deal?"

christopher takes a deep breath in. 

"deal," he says. "yes. deal."

logan sits back, and allows himself the smile of someone who's won.

"but seriously," christopher says, "the diner man?!"

⁂

patton tries to creep back into his house as silently as he can—he'd fallen asleep in a booth after his crying-and-painting session at virgil's, which he hadn't done since logan was little-little, and he can feel the difference in his back— virgil had shaken him awake right before opening to see if he wanted to take over virgil's room in the apartment or go home to get more sleep. patton had picked his own house. but now, the pale light of dawn is beginning to suffuse through his curtains and he's trying not to cough.

he comes to a stop in his living room.

there's a mostly-eaten pizza sitting on his coffee table, with an empty coffee carafe sitting between two mugs. sitting on the ground, on his bright orange rug, leaning against the wall and against each other, are his son and his son's other dad.

logan's glasses are askew and in danger of falling off his face. christopher's cheek is resting against logan's hair, mouth agape, snoring softly. they're sharing a blanket. in christopher's lap, if patton squints and tilts his head, he can see a photo album open, and patton—

patton has to bite his lip to keep from crying, but in the happy way, this time. because whatever happened last night while he was gone, it led to this—to logan giving his dad a chance, to chris maybe actually stepping up a little and humbling himself and apologizing, because there's no way that logan would have done all of that otherwise—and it actually seems like chris is going to step through that door now. for real.

however, he's pretty sure that none of them have actually spent the night sleeping where they should, so patton goes over, crouches down, and uses both hands to shake some shoulders.

"hey there, sleepyheads," he whispers, fond. 

"dad?" logan asks, and nearly punches his glasses off of his face when he reaches up to rub his eyes.

"ugh," chris mutters, and cracks his neck. "how did we fall asleep?"

"told you it wasn't too late for coffee," logan mumbles back.

"maybe we could go out for coffee now?" patton offers. "or spend some time sleeping in our own beds."

chris' eyes widen. "did you spend the night with the diner man?!"

"i fell asleep in a booth after we painted," patton says, truthful, but chris is already swiveling to logan.

"i thought you said they were clueless!"

"they are," logan sighs, "virgil probably just draped his hoodie over dad and tutted after him and they were all—" he waves a hand dismissively. "sentimental. also, gross, that's my dad."

patton turns wide, betrayed eyes to logan. "you told him?!"

"it's not like it's a secret," logan says pointedly.

"oh, are we playing this game, mister?" patton says, and coughs into his shoulder.

logan blinks. "i'm unaware that we initiated an activity that we're meant to engage in for amusement."

"as in," patton says, "oh, we're playing the game where we're talking about hopeless crushes on someone in town, mister?!"

christopher swivels his head to logan. "a crush?!"

logan's gone very red. "take that back."

"it's a crush," patton teases. "romantic attachment. puppy love. infatua—"

a pillow hits patton square in the face. he supposes he should have expected that.

"you have a crush on someone?" christopher says.

"it's a non-object considering he has a boyfriend," logan grumbles.

"yeah, but," patton says. "you still like-like him."

"i'm going to brush my teeth."

"this is what happens when you have two dads!" christopher calls after him.

"i'm regretting this already!" logan shouts down the stairs.

"he has a crush?" christopher asks, when logan's door has safely slammed.

"he has a roman," patton corrects. "who, again, has a boyfriend. it's a whole situation, i could tell you about it later."

christopher shakes his head, and says, "we made a pretty good kid, huh?"

"yeah," patton says, smiling. "yeah, we made a good kid."

"he's really smart. like, terrifyingly smart."

"i know," patton says, smiling even wider. 

"god, i really need that coffee," christopher says, and patton laughs, clapping him on the shoulder.

"welcome to the sanders household," he teases. "you're fitting right in."

christopher's smiling, and the good moment swells up inside patton like a bubble, bright and shiny and happy and—

"about last night."

—easily popped.

patton doesn't say anything.

"are you, um. are you okay?" christopher asks. 

patton shrugs and tries for a smile. the steps on the stairs save him.

"right," logan says. "virgil's, then?"

"before that," patton says. "we didn't really get a chance to talk about last night. are you okay?"

logan blinks at him. "shouldn't i be asking you that?"

"i asked you first," patton says, because he's a Mature Dad. "you know they were pushing all those horrible things at us and not at you, right?"

"they were directing them at you because you had me," logan says, and then looks slightly furious with himself for letting that slip.

"no," patton says. "they were directing them at me because i ruined everyone's 'citizen kane' plans, that's all."

logan chews at the inside of his cheek for a few seconds.

"um," christopher begins, hesitant. "they're just... look. none of that means anything, right? my dad's actually a pretty good lawyer, and they're both really active in their community, and wow i can't believe i actually kept this up with a straight face."

patton lets out a giggle that's a bit too high-pitched and hysterical to really pass as normal, and a few coughs to boot.

"they're both assholes," christopher says bluntly. "look, i know you heard a lot about disappointments last night, but i want to make it super clear that you—who you are, your existence—have not and never have been, even for a second, been included in that. okay?"

"they're full of anger and stupid pride," patton continues. "it's their loss and a huge one."

"okay," logan says. 

"no regrets," patton says.

"from either of us," christopher says.

logan looks between them and says, "is this what parenting is like?"

patton laughs and reaches over to squeeze logan's shoulder, before he claps his hands.

"okay, everyone, grab your jackets for breakfast at virgil's!" patton declares brightly, before anyone can ask him if he's okay. 

it actually works. on the way, he bears teasing from christopher about his cru-ush, which is so familiar it aches in a good kind of way, and logan complains like ugh, dads, which makes both christopher and patton smile so wide it aches in the good way, and patton nearly forgets the sore throat he's woken up with and the whole disaster of last night, which both ache in the not-good way.

the bell jangles familiarly, and patton gestures to the now-dry walls.

"so, what do you think?" patton asks logan.

"acceptable," logan says, but he's smiling, so patton counts it as a job well done.

they sit (in a different booth than the one patton fell asleep in, because, you know, yikes) and virgil swings by, dropping off three mugs.

patton looks up at virgil in utter betrayal.

"what's that?" logan asks, peering at patton's drink, which is a different shade of brown than his usual.

"tea?!" patton says in disgust, as if being served tea is akin to some benedict arnold-esque level of backstabbing. 

"with honey," virgil says. "you have a cough."

"tea," he repeats, wide-eyed. "virgil. you're giving me tea. today of all days."

"i would bet ten million dollars that you have a sore throat," virgil says, steadfast in his decision, "and you are definitely going to sleep when you get back to your house."

"but," patton says, and screws up his nose. "tea."

"for the love of god, just—drink it," virgil scowls. "it's not like i managed to sneak brussels sprouts in there, it's just tea. it'll make you feel better."

patton and virgil have a stare-down for a few seconds. patton then slumps in defeat and sighs, tugging the mug closer.

"i'll drink it but i don't have to like it," patton mutters.

"that's the spirit," virgil says dryly. 

"you know," christopher says thoughtfully, grinning openly at virgil, "you aren't half-bad."

"uh," virgil says, and flees any potential conversational awkwardness to the safety of behind the counter.

patton kicks christopher under the table. "if you try to wing-man me," he hisses, "i will—i'll—!"

"i'm a great wing-man," christopher says, offended. 

"i have two words for you," patton says, and ticks them off on his fingers. "kieran. wagner."

"that was ONE time," christopher starts, "i'm great with romance."

patton starts coughing, but he tries his best to make it sound fake by throwing in a "MITZIE" in there.

"that was one time!" he splutters.

"for three months!" patton protests.

they're interrupted by the jangling of the bell, and logan, who's facing the door, perks up, and then glowers at patton when patton grins at him for perking him up.

"budge," roman tells logan, and logan rolls his eyes, but moves, and roman's about to start talking when he stops and frowns.

"hey, i'm christopher," he says. "logan's other dad."

"oh," roman says, and glances at logan, who gives him a surreptitious nod, like, it's okay. roman reaches across to shake his hand "i'm roman prince."

christopher looks delighted, and then he says "ow!" when someone stomps on his foot under the table.

virgil swings by to drop off a drink for roman, and tells patton, "drink your tea."

patton takes the sulkiest sip he can, and pulls an over-exaggerated face at the flavor of it.

"french toast," roman tells virgil imperiously.

"you're a trial upon my patience," virgil responds, and heads back to the kitchen.

"she wasn't that bad," christopher says to patton.

"roman, you met mitzie," patton begins.

"she was that bad," roman says immediately, and patton gestures at him like there, you see!

"god, when'd you see mitzie again?" christopher says.

"my birthday," logan says, nose wrinkling. "she was the overly personal one who kept insisting she wasn't trying to be rude, wasn't she?"

christopher sighs. "that... sounds like mitz."

patton snorts, and the breakfast is lost in 1, patton and christopher reminiscing about The Old Days, 2, christopher trying to subtly probe both patton and logan about their crushes, 3, virgil continuously heckling patton into finishing his tea.

by the time they're done, christopher shakes hands with virgil with a "good job taking care of our guys, yeah?" and patton...

patton stares at the pair of them.

there's christopher, all leather jacket and broad-chested and tousled hair, tan and easy smiles and a face that holds so many of the good memories of his childhood. and then there's virgil, pale and with deep under-eye bags and hunched into his too-big hoodie and hair that flops into his eyes, sulky, and a face that holds so many of the good memories of his adulthood.

like the past and the future are all lined up together. it's enough to give patton whiplash.

"well," virgil says, in the gruff voice that means he's flattered, "i try."

"you succeed," patton says, and his voice comes out softer than he means to be, and virgil ducks his head in the way he does when he's flustered.

"well," virgil says, "um," and then he goes back behind the counter again, to hide from squishy emotions.

patton grins and waves at him when they all walk out together, him and christopher and logan and roman, and virgil looks a combination of relieved, and something else, something in his eyes that he can't really name.

"well," christopher says, when the road divulges between the prince studio and the sanders house, "it was nice to meet you, young man."

christopher looks kind of tickled to be referring to anyone as a "young man," like a teenager gets when they do something Adult™ like deposit a check or run a grocery errand.

"it was nice to meet you too," roman says, and accepts christopher's hand to shake.

"i mean," christopher says, with a glint of a mischievous smile that patton loved once (and loves now in a different way) "i've heard so much about you."

logan looks mortified, which he covers up swiftly when roman swivels to look at him.

"thanks," roman says, and jerks his thumb. "i should. um."

"bye, roman," patton says, trying not to laugh.

as soon as roman's turned his back, logan drives his elbow hard into christopher's side as christopher cackles to himself.

(roman notices, a few paces away from christopher and the sanders', that jess is staring at them, and then at him, and roman realizes last second what it must have looked like, him eating breakfast with logan and his dads, and his other dad shaking roman's hand, and roman thinks about a lot of things, like trading his jam cookies for logan's strawberries the first day they met even though jam cookies are his favorites, he thinks about the day that logan came back from the optometrist with an eyeglass prescription and a request for roman to come along to pick out his first pair of frames and that logan still wears the square ones that roman had declared he liked best to this day, and logan volunteering for backstage crew for roman's shows even though he always talks about them as professional make-believe, and how logan's never missed one of his shows ever, and the countless milkshakes at lucy's they've had over the years, and the time that roman had given logan a ring pop when they were seven and had gotten down on one knee to do it, and he thinks about all the old copies of the sideshire courant that he's got in a box with logan's clips, and the way logan's face lights up every time roman gives him his birthday present that he stays up for countless nights to complete and all that exhaustion and writer's block is so worth it, and their late-night talks at the gazebo, and birthday kisses and how he kept wondering and wondering and wondering if he'd ever be brave enough to plant one on logan's lips, and at logan's birthday party, what had flashed through his head, the way i feel about logan is as unchangeable as my blood—

—and he knows it's long past time for him and jess to have a Talk.)

when they get to the sanders house, instead of going inside and immediately crashing, like patton expects, christopher stops both him and logan in the living room.

"patton," christopher says. "you okay?"

patton takes a breath. and another. he shrugs.

"not the best," patton says. "you might be going alone to friday night dinners for a while, logan, sorry."

"i don't want to go," logan says, immediate. "not if they fought with you."

"they were right, a little," patton says, and logan's about to argue.

"i know you'll say i'm being too nice," patton adds wearily. "and i’m not saying they were right about everything, not by a long shot, but at the center of that argument—of every argument we’ve had for a long time, really—at the center of it, they were right. with the perspective of being a parent now, the way i ran away, with just a note and refusing to call for a week and not telling them where i was living for months, it was—"

he chokes up, and forces himself to cough a few times to clear it.

"i think it's the worst thing i ever did to them," patton says, and he tries so hard not to let his voice break. 

"but it was what was best for you," logan says.

"it was," patton agrees. "but things can be good for one person and bad for another, you know. and that wasn't the only thing between us. we have a lot of history, right? and so much of it isn't good."

patton lays a hand on his son's shoulder.

"it was really hard for them, the distance i made between you three," patton says, and he makes his voice gentle. "you have at least one decent set of grandparents, you know. even if their idea of happiness is a lot different from mine. just because i'm fighting with them doesn't mean you have to be fighting with them."

"i don't like the way they speak to you."

"to be perfectly honest, i don't, either," patton says. "but we don't all have to be fighting. don't make up your mind right now," he adds. "think about it. you have time before you have to see them next, almost a whole week."

(oh, patton. he doesn't. not really. he has less than two days, really, since this is a saturday morning. but that's for next chapter.)

"okay," logan says. internally, he knows that when it comes down to it, he's always going to be on his dad's side and not his grandparents'. but if he said that right now, it would probably make him more upset, and more prone to defending his parents, even though his parents had definitely made him cry, and logan very much does want to fight with anyone who makes his dad cry, even if they're his grandparents.

but he doesn't say any of that.

"with that closing note," christopher says, and patton swivels, frowning.

"what?"

"i think i'm gonna," he says, and jerks his thumb toward where his indian is visible in the window. 

"oh," patton says, and he frowns. "so soon?"

"i did mostly come to town to visit my folks," christopher says gently, and reaches out to tug at patton's curl. "i don't want to make things any more stressful than they have to be for you, right now, roonie."

"you can stay if you want," patton starts.

"i know," christopher says. "but you know me, can't stay in one place for too long."

patton sighs, and slumps, because he knows when christopher's mind is made up. christopher grabs his bag, and the two sanders men follow him out to the curb.

"don't be a stranger, yeah?" he says, and steps forward to hug christopher.

christopher wraps his arms around patton tight, and patton rests his chin on christopher's shoulder. 

no one in patton's life knew him quite like christopher did. the pair of them, born just a month apart, with matching silver spoons in their mouths (christopher’s perhaps a touch shinier than patton’s) and playdates scheduled as soon as playdates were a thing both of them were capable of. christopher was there for all his demure moments in his childhood, and his attempts to throw all of those off. he was there for patton's rebellions, and patton's sobbing dysphoric days, and for the whole coming out process. he was the first person patton ever told that he thought he was maybe a boy. he was there to burn patton's skirts and dresses in a massive bonfire to make a statement, even though christopher had mostly thought it was an act of rebellion rather than a loud refusal to act like someone he wasn't. christopher was there when patton needed comfort, and christopher was there when he was euphorically happy, and christopher offered to be there when it was right and proper for him to do so, even though neither of them really wanted it.

patton's always going to love him, in some kind of way. patton doesn't think anyone can know someone in the way he knows christopher and not love them in some kind of way. but he doesn't love him like he did when he was sixteen. it's different. but there's that remembrance, there. that history. christopher knows patton isn't perfect, and patton knows that christopher isn't perfect. god, he’s far from it. but patton's relationship with him gave him logan.

and logan's the most precious thing anyone's ever given him.

"all right," christopher says, and he sounds a little choked up, too, like he was thinking about a lot of the same things. he gives patton several Manly pats on the back, to absolutely Bro Up such a hug, and patton can't help a laugh that sounds a bit like a sob, because they had a kid together, shouldn't they be past that kind of thing?

and then, to patton's ultimate surprise, logan steps forward, and holds out his hand to shake.

christopher stares at it, and then he smiles, wide, and takes his hand.

"remember what we said," logan says cryptically, and patton looks back and forth between them, but neither of their faces give it away.

"i know," christopher says. "i will."

logan nods, a sharp, jerky thing, and steps back onto the sidewalk beside patton.

christopher slings his leg over the motorbike, and pulls on his helmet, and with that familiar rumbling, he rides off into the morning sunlight, getting stronger and stronger with every passing minute.

[histrionic-dragon]

Google Says WHAT?! --A mini-fic

I’ve been reading the Hundred-Year Playlist series by the amazing @girlbookwrm and also creeping on other people’s comments on the story, because that’s something I do with stories I like. @girlbookwrm mentioned, in one of the comments-conversations, that if you Google “queer 1930s Brooklyn” you get Steve Rogers fan research on the first page of results. I may have swooped in to say that Tony’s reaction if he accidentally saw that, in-universe, would be hilarious, and then-- this happened.

It’s a bit more serious than I originally intended it to be, but still has some levity to it.

Story below the cut and maybe eventually on Ao3.  Takes place a few days after CA:TWS, because who better than Tony to sift through the SHIELD/Hydra data dump?

“Really, sir,” said JARVIS, “I must strongly advise you to go to bed.”

“Great,” Tony said absently. “You’ve given me the advice. Now you can feel good about it.”

“Sir . . . .”

Tony pushed his chair back from the table, spinning a little as it drifted smoothly across the lab until he was juuuust within reach of the countertop where he’d left his coffee. He picked it up and took a sip. Not too cold, yet.

Almost, but not quite.

“Look, JARVIS,” he said out loud, “I’m not working with fire, I’m not operating heavy machinery, I’m not actually making anything. I’ve even slept in the last 24 hours. Why are you on my case?”

“It is the total amount of sleep you’ve had in the past five days that concerns me, sir.”

Tony snorted.

“. . . and your reactions to some of the information uncovered by the Black Widow’s information dump at the beginning of that time.”

Tony put his mug down on the counter. It made a sharp clack sound. Not like the normal ting or click-thump of putting down a drink--this was loud, attention-grabbing, the sound of ceramic hitting on granite countertop just barely not hard enough to break.

Great. Now his coffee was a drama queen.

“Look,” he said. “It is entirely in character for Obie to have been paid off by someone to do what he did, and he needed sketchier contacts than Stark Industries has to get in with the Ten Rings. Might as well have been Hydra. I honestly could have put that together if I’d had time to stop and think before everybody I know called me up and asked me to start going through those files, it just rattled me that I didn’t and then that came up, okay? Honestly, I’m kind of surprised Rhodey didn’t think of it first and warn me when he called,” he added thoughtfully, “except I’m pretty sure Rhodey hasn’t slept in a lot longer than I haven’t. --Shouldn’t you be bugging him?”

“Colonel Rhodes is not my priority,” JARVIS said mildly. “And I believe he would agree with my assessment of your needs in this situation--as would Ms. Potts, who has repeatedly contacted me from the construction site in Malibu to inquire as to your well-being. I would hate to tell her you’re neglecting yourself.”

Tony stopped scowling at his lukewarm coffee and its noisy mug and moved the scowl to the ceiling. Technically JARVIS’s sensors were at least as dense at mid-wall and in the baseboards, but JARVIS would know what he meant. “You,” he said, “are a cheating cheater who cheats.”

“You did build me, sir.” JARVIS’ voice was extra-bland. He only did that when he was very pleased with himself. Tony sure as hell hadn’t made that part of him.

Artificial intelligences. They grew up so fast.

“Fine,” Tony said after a moment. “I won’t go down that particular rabbit hole anymore tonight, alright? No more looking to see how long Obie was working for Hydra, no more sniffing around what happened when—” His hands clenched tight enough to hurt and he made himself relax.

“I won’t follow up on the ‘was Obadiah Stane involved in the car crash’ angle until tomorrow. In fact, I won’t look at the secret files anymore. Just give me a few more minutes to finish up a couple trains of thought about other things from them, and then I’ll call Pepper myself, okay?”

“If you must, sir.”

~

Tony really was being good, dammit. He didn’t follow up on anything he thought could be related to Obie or his parents’ death. He didn’t go looking for anything new and unpleasant. He didn’t do anything but follow the money, because Hydra couldn’t have come out of nowhere. Once they got into the US government, sure, money wouldn’t be an issue, but how do you get your secret little evil organization off the ground? Couldn’t exactly ask around for angel investors.

No, all he was doing now was hunting for cash. He was going to figure out just how far down the rabbit holes went (the hydra-holes? Something something Hercules burying the immortal head under a rock and the other heads grew two more unless you torched them and arson would cover up a lot of records of failed operations but not all of them and THAT was interesting funding-wise, because to extend the Greek monster metaphor and borrow from that one D&D comic, you actually would get lightheaded and pass out if you had too many heads and too little blood supply to deliver oxygen and so they needed some stable sources of income in this heads-are-evil-operations-blood-is-money metaphor and again, once you were embedded in a government organization, you could totally just use that funding, but they weren’t like that to begin with and if you were going to get started as mostly outside a government operation in the US but needed the ties to get in, you needed money, and leverage, and that meant organized crime, and that meant—)

Long story short, he was looking up the history of various criminal organizations in the US and trying to figure out which ones might have been started by Hydra, or which other, older organizations they might have taken over or just steered in the ways they wanted. That meant reading about, among other things, the Mafia and their various sources of revenue going back to--based on what he knew about business and networking and family ties and inheritance and seriously, fuck you, Obie--about a generation and a half before the official, formal rise of Hydra as a Nazi science organization, to see if that would connect up with ties made even later when Hydra people came over in the fifties. So basically, large-scale criminal enterprises from the early 1900s on.

Maybe it took a little more than a few minutes.

On the other hand, it was a particularly fascinating more-than-a-few-minutes. People had gotten homicidal over really weird shit in the dark ages. Street gangs beating up people until they sold a different newspaper--now that was aggressive marketing. Tony still hated pop-up ads--Stark Ad Annihilator was the best adblock software on the market for a reason, that reason being that Tony had been bored and hopped up on decongestants one day and--anyway. Still better than getting stabbed to death. And then of course there were the hilariously inventive ways people had come up with of making, smuggling, and secretly serving booze during Prohibition, and that was probably where he really ought to be looking if he was going to follow the money. But there were all these interesting little spinoffs, like—

“The mob owned a lot of gay bars?” Tony said out loud, frowning. “What, like—’da boss says love is love. Dis is an equal-opportunity institution’?” He snickered. (It was not a giggle.) “That’s probably too funny to be accurate.”

“Indeed, sir,” JARVIS said. “The article you are about to click on reports, in summary, that the mafia had a great deal of expertise in running illegal nightclubs. When Prohibition ended, some mob bosses saw an opportunity to maintain this revenue stream.”

“That makes a decent amount of sense. Not very funny, but—” He waggled his hand. “Could see da business sense.” He snickered again.

“Quite,” JARVIS replied. “Sir, I must remind you—”

“Yeah, yeah. Just a few more minutes, J.” Tony glanced up briefly. “Promise.”  

“I will hold you to it, sir.”

Tony nodded absently— “sure, whatever”--already looking through a few other databases. The proto-SHIELD organization had been based in New York City for a while--with other offices elsewhere--before its official rebranding and move to DC, which meant he was looking for people with behind-the-scenes pull in NYC in the fifties.

“JARVIS, if you’re mother-henning, help me out and open up a few Google searches.”

“Sir?” JARVIS sounded marginally offended.

“I need crappy, surface-level information. Broad strokes. Your searches are too good. Give me anything they’ve got for searches on banking, politics, real estate, whatever pseudoscience or spiritualism was big at the time, and hell, why not, the LGBT community--all of those--in the twenties, the thirties, and the forties, and then take those results and show me anything that cross-references with our SHIELD people of interest in the fifties or later.”

A pause.

“Done, sir.”

“Anything good?”

“A few more data points to cross-reference with other sources. We may have the beginnings of a paper trail on the history and extent of Mr. Stane’s involvement with the organization, related to his business ties before Stark Industries, but—”

“Skip that,” Tony ordered. He wasn’t going to go into that. Not tonight. Not until he had everything he needed to chart out the whole festering shit-show and deal with it all at once.

“As you wish, sir. Two, perhaps three, of the prominent city council members at the time may have had ties to Hydra, most likely unknowingly. A housekeeper’s murder may have been precipitated by something she overheard rather than her affair with her employer, although the perpetrator may be the same woman as originally suspected. There may be more behind the apparent suicide of a SSR agent and a deadly riot at a movie theater than was originally suspected as well--though in those cases the revelation is the extent of the foul play, not its presence. There are also a few cases I have flagged as false positives. Would you like to review those?”

Tony stood up and stretched, his spine popping. Ow. “Sure,” he said, yawning, “they’ll be funny. And then I’ll call Pepper and go to bed,” he added, rolling his eyes, “so don’t say anything.”

“That is wonderful news, sir.”

The false-positive Google searches appeared as holographic screens around him. The first one was about a shady real estate deal that Hydra clearly hadn’t had a hand in, because the fact they didn’t own a particular piece of land later was a real hindrance to them, so that was good. The triumph of run-of-the-mill white-collar crime over evil. Or something.

The next few were restaurant reviews, for some reason. About all they proved was that foody talk from seventy years ago was just as weird as foody talk today, except people back then had really really liked preservatives as much as they really really hated them now.

Another search result was a Buzzfeed article: “17 of Howard Stark’s most hilarious parking tickets.” Apparently his dad had had a bad habit of just leaving cars lying around once he’d modified them with anti-theft mechanisms. One had sprayed a cloud of skunk musk at the officer leaving the ticket. Judging by the comments, people thought this was hilarious. They were all missing the point of the collateral stink-damage to bystanders and nearby cars. Tony could do it better than his dad ever had. Tony could do better in his sleep.

That left a sour taste in his mouth. --His brain? His mouth tasted awful, come to think of it, like the stale coffee now gone stone-cold at his elbow and too long without sleep, but that wasn’t the point. He needed mind Mentos, was the point. Next false positive.

(this is the actual search result!)

Tony started cackling.

“Are you alright, sir?” JARVIS asked.

“Yeah,” Tony said, clicking on the flagged article. “Yeah, I’m fine. What, this came up because of—?”

“Confluence of a known Hydra target and the search term ‘queer 1930s Brooklyn.’”

“Like the rainbow mafia, that makes sense when you think about it.” Tony shook his head. “Oh man, I’m gonna tell Cap that someone’s turned their history project on him into the history of Grindr.”

“Sir?”

“He blushes like a lobster. This’ll be the best. Thank you for this, J, you’ve made my night.”

“Are you going to leave the laboratory at any point in the near future, sir?”

“Yes, Mom, as soon as I read this actual article because even though it’s probably not really about Grindr, I’m sure there’ll be plenty in there I can embarrass Steve with. . . .  --Oooh, excellent subtitle. ‘Mr. Rogers’ Gayborhood,’ I’ll have to . . . .”

He trailed off absently as he realized what he was reading. “Huh. --JARVIS, how deep in the search results was this buried?”

“About halfway up the first page, sir.”’

“Huh.”

“Are you alright, sir?”

“Fine, it’s just--really good historical research, kind of light tone, but actually . . . probably not a horny undergrad messing with a history prof on a paper assignment. And the comments are . . . people are agreeing with . . . There are historical documents here.  --OK, real search engine time, JARVIS: is there some sort of, like, scholarly and/or Internet message board consensus that Captain America is gay and I missed it?!”

“It appears to be a topic of heated debate, actually,” JARVIS replied, “the foremost proponents of which are adamant about it not being a joke.”

“Okay,” Tony said, “I know about the clone conspiracy theorists and the Russian conspiracy theorists and the weird cultists and the Reagan administration snake-people conspiracy theorists, and I know he does too. How does Steve not know about this already?”

“He does, sir.”

Tony made a wheezing, squeaking noise, torn between hilarity and incredulity.

“The Captain has apparently been approached on occasion--in person, informally, and inconspicuously, most often by people who have written scholarly articles on the subject—”

“He has?”

“--and has refused to give any meaningful reply one way or another, other than that it’s not really anyone else’s business.”

Tony blinked. He was familiar with that bland kind of shutdown. It did not go well with the picture of flustered, wrong-footed Cap that his head kept trying to give him. He got flustered when he didn’t know what was going on. He got calm and blank and authoritative when he did.

“His refusal to answer questions has been especially marked when asked about his relationship with James Barnes.”

Tony blinked again, reached out on autopilot, and took a gulp of his now definitely too cold and ugh ugh ugh awful coffee.

Once he’d finished gagging and had acknowledged that, yes, his mouth absolutely hated him and this was possibly worse than waking up hungover and tasting stale vomit because he had been sober and in control of his own behavior when he slugged that down, there were no excuses--once he was done with that little ritual of disgust, he frowned, then firmly swiped the article’s display off to one side. “Save that for tomorrow, J,” he said. “And start a new file. I’m getting to the bottom of this.”

“Are you certain that’s wise?”

“‘Is Cap into guys’ is a more fun mystery than ‘did a terrorist organization recruit my dad’s best friend to spike his drink or cut his brakes the night he died so he’d be out of their way,’ JARVIS,” Tony said heavily. “Let me have my fun.”

He might be imagining it, but he thought JARVIS sounded almost gentle when he said, “Of course, sir.”

***

CODA.

Tony had been asleep.

He knew he’d been asleep, and he knew he was awake now, and he wasn’t sure when he’d transitioned from sleeping to thinking or if he’d just woken up abruptly. It hadn’t been a nightmare. He was lying perfectly still, his heartbeat was regular, and he wasn’t sweating or anything. He was just lying in bed, awake, aware that he was awake, eyes open and staring at the ceiling.

“JARVIS,” Tony said.

“Yes, sir?”

“The guy Steve wouldn’t tell the Internet people about. That’s the same guy--that really weird message from Natasha . . . . ?”

“So it would appear.”

Tony thought for a minute.

“Well shit.”

“Aptly put, sir.”

Tony look at the ceiling some more.

“Merge the new folder I told you to make with the other one, the—”

“The folder entitled ‘Soviet Winter Reunion Tour or Something, Romanoff is Being Cryptic, Get Steve to Explain When He’s Conscious,’ sir?”

“Yeah, that one. Merge ‘em. Rename, uh, ‘Ancient History, Search and Rescue Edition.’ Mark it high priority.”

“Done, sir.”

“And JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Send Pepper a bunch of flowers and see if you can maybe find an earlier flight for her to come home.”

[classyfoxdestiny]

The torso in the Thames: A 20-year mystery

The torso in the Thames: A 20-year mystery

By Angus Crawford and Tony Smith BBC News

It’s the longest unsolved child murder case in the recent history of the Metropolitan Police. Twenty years ago, a young African boy was murdered in a brutal ritual, his head and limbs removed, and his torso dumped in the Thames.

On Tuesday the Met Police made a renewed appeal for members of the public to “be bold” and come forward with any information that may help them solve this case.

The boy’s identity has remained a mystery – he was known simply as “Adam”, a name given to him by detectives.

Over the years, there have been arrests and forensic breakthroughs. But no-one has been charged with his killing.

I have followed the case from the very beginning, even travelling to the place where it’s thought the boy may have been born, in an effort to find out what really happened.

Twenty years on, I’ve been talking to the people closest to the case. Some, speaking for the very first time.

And we have visited Adam’s unmarked grave in a sprawling cemetery in south London.

21 September 2001: The discovery

image source, PA Media

image captionThe body was found in the Thames near the Globe Theatre

It was a passer-by who found the body.

Aidan Minter was walking across Tower Bridge in central London heading for a business meeting.

It was just 10 days after the 9/11 attacks in the US and the city was still strangely quiet.

“The tide was quite high at the time, I thought it was a tailor’s mannequin,” Aidan recalls. He rarely speaks about the case. “Then it came under the bridge, and that’s when I saw the detail – the wounds and the body itself.”

Police pulled the body from the water – upstream – close to the Globe Theatre.

It’s a memory Aidan lives with to this day. “I do think about him. I’ll never forget it for as long as I live.”

image captionAidan Minter (pictured in 2021) found the boy’s torso in the River Thames

The first week

The boy, who was black, may have been in the water for up to 10 days. He had died from having his throat slit. His arms, legs and head had all been expertly amputated. They have never been found.

There were no signs of physical or sexual abuse, and he had been well fed. On the body there was nothing but a pair of orange shorts – something which later gave officers their first breakthrough in the case. The label was “Kids & Company” and the size and colour could only be found in a small number of shops in Germany.

Nick Chalmers, then a detective sergeant, was one of the police officers assigned to the case – the strangest and most complex of his career.

image captionRetired detective Nick Chalmers (pictured in 2021)

“You definitely have a tie to a case, and there’s this drive to find answers. The one thing that has lingered over 20 years is the frustration that we didn’t find all the answers,” he says. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the case, and keeps copies of many of the case files at home

Nearly a week after the body was found, detectives appealed for help from the public on the BBC’s Crimewatch UK programme. About 60 people called in, but there was no breakthrough.

African connections

Detectives took the unprecedented step of giving the boy a name, and a reward of £50,000 was offered for information leading to a murder conviction.

Tests showed that Adam had been aged between four and seven years old and had lived in Africa until shortly before his death. Traces of cough syrup were also found in his stomach. If he had been unwell, had those who killed him been concerned enough to give him medicine? Or did they use it to make him drowsy before the murder?

Experts agreed that – because Adam’s body had been expertly butchered – it had been a ritualistic murder. Some thought it had been one of the rare so-called “muti” killings found in southern Africa – when a victim’s body parts are removed and used by witchdoctors as “medicine” for a client who wants, for example, to win a business deal or secure good luck.

Other experts believed it was more likely a human sacrifice with its origins in a twisted version of Yoruban belief systems from Nigeria. A perverted offering to the goddess Oshun – a deity typically associated with water and fertility. Subsequent forensic evidence gave more credence to that theory.

April 2002: Mandela’s plea

In April 2002, the police team travelled to South Africa to meet the country’s former president Nelson Mandela. He appealed across the continent for Adam’s family to come forward:

“Scotland Yard informs me that early indications of their investigations are that the boy comes from somewhere in Africa, so if anywhere, even in the remotest village of our continent, there is a family missing a son of that age who might have disappeared around that time… please contact the police.”

July 2002: Breakthrough

In July 2002, social workers in Glasgow became worried about the safety of two girls. They were living with their mother, an African woman in her early 30s.

Council workers found bizarre, ritualistic objects in her home. At a court hearing to take the children into care, the woman – Joyce Osagiede – told a story of cults, killings and of sacrifices.

An observant police officer thought it odd enough to warrant a call to the homicide unit in London.

DS Nick Chalmers searched Joyce’s home and found clothes with the same “Kids & Company” label and in the same sizes as Adam’s orange shorts. Joyce was arrested.

image source, PA Media

image captionPolice displayed a pair of shorts similar to those found on Adam’s torso

Officers were convinced she was an important part of the story, but she was confused and kept changing her account. She said she knew nothing about Adam, but was unable to explain the extraordinary coincidence about the clothes.

Officers weren’t able to charge Joyce. She remained in Glasgow waiting for the results of her asylum claim.

September 2002: Nigerian links

In September 2002, a year after Adam was found, a memorial service was held in London’s City Hall to celebrate his life. It was attended by about 30 police officers, scientists, pathologists and various experts involved in the case.

image source, PA Media

image captionA wreath was placed in the Thames in memory of Adam, September 2002

“Probably the closest thing [Adam] had to a family were the people who knew him because of the investigation,” says Nick Chalmers.

Forensic work continued, and by December it was clear Adam’s DNA pointed to West African ancestry. Ground breaking tests on samples of bone narrowed down Adam’s birthplace to a strip of land around Benin City in southern Nigeria – Joyce Osagiede’s home city.

media captionIn 2002 the Crimewatch team investigated the case. At the time it was believed Adam was Afro-Caribbean.

Pollen samples in his gut showed he had been living in the south-east of England for only a matter of days or weeks before his death.

Also in his stomach was an unusual substance made of African river clay – including vegetation, ground bone and traces of gold and quartz. The presence of ash showed the mixture had been burned before the child was forced to eat it – perhaps that explains the cough medicine, something sweet to wash down the unpleasant concoction?

November 2002: German connection

Joyce Osagiede – the woman who had been arrested in Glasgow but not charged – was deported after the Home Office rejected her asylum application.

Nick Chalmers and his boss Detective Inspector Will O’Reilly travelled with her to Nigeria on a specially chartered private jet. It was hoped she might open up on the flight and reveal crucial information about the murder. But she didn’t. The detectives didn’t get off the plane when they landed in Lagos, and flew straight home. Joyce then disappeared.

Shortly afterwards, German police revealed that Joyce had lived in Hamburg until late 2001 – the city where the orange shorts found on Adam’s body were bought.

More arrests

In London in late 2002 there was what seemed like a major breakthrough.

When police arrested Ms Osagiede, they found that she only had two contacts in her phone – one was for a man called Mousa Kamara. He was traced to a house in London. There, officers found an animal skull pierced with a nail, liquid potions and small packets containing what appeared to be sand or earth. There was also a videotape labelled “rituals” – a drama in which an adult was beheaded. The items seemed to be associated with Nigerian rituals, known as Juju. Detectives also worked out that Mousa Kamara’s real name was actually Kingsley Ojo. With nothing to link him directly to Adam’s murder, he was released on bail.

But there was clear evidence Ojo was involved in human trafficking and so he was put under surveillance. Within hours of being released, he was back talking to his criminal associates organising the illegal entry of Nigerians to the UK. He was considered to be a major player in a gang smuggling people into the country.

image source, PA Media

image captionKingsley Ojo arrested in Stratford, east London. in July 2003

In July 2003, after following his every move and identifying his criminal associates, 21 men and women were arrested in co-ordinated raids at nine addresses across London. That included Ojo.

October 2003: The Doomsday Plant

Botanists at Kew Gardens had been sent samples of plant remains found in Adam’s gut. In October 2003, they came to a startling conclusion. Adam had been fed parts of two different plants. First, there were small amounts of the Calabar bean – sometimes known as the Doomsday or ordeal plant, traditionally used in witchcraft ceremonies in West Africa. At this dosage it causes paralysis, but doesn’t prevent pain. Second, ground-up seeds from the Datura plant which acts as a sedative and causes hallucinations were discovered.

image source, Getty Images

image captionDatura seed capsule

Detectives believed the mixture was given to Adam before his throat was cut. It would have left him paralysed and helpless, but still aware of what was happening to him.

July 2004: Kingsley Ojo jailed

Police had enough evidence to charge Kingsley Ojo – not in connection with Adam’s death, but with four charges of people smuggling and using fake documents to obtain a passport and driving licence. In July 2004, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years in jail – with a recommendation he be deported upon release.

Ojo, who was also known by a number of aliases, had according to investigators headed a “substantial” network thought to have brought hundreds of people to the UK to work in the sex trade, as domestic slaves or for benefit fraud.

Detectives hoped Ojo would still hold the key to Adam’s death.

I learned that in Brixton Prison, he gained a reputation for being a “big man”. He is alleged to have performed Juju ceremonies for money on behalf of other prisoners, one inmate informed the police.

December 2004: Inquest

In December 2004, the inquest into Adam’s death recorded a verdict of unlawful killing. It heard how he died from neck wounds suffered while he was still alive.

2005: Kingsley Ojo offers to help

From his prison cell Ojo contacted the team investigating Adam’s death. He said he had secret recordings of Joyce Osagiede recorded in Nigeria by his associates. He claimed he wanted to help track down the killer and clear his own name.

Officers interviewed him at the end of his sentence, while he was waiting to be deported. He convinced the murder team he could help – and by late 2005 was released and living back in east London, apparently assisting the inquiry.

For more than two years, he fed the police information – at one point claiming that Ms Osagiede was on her way back to the UK. This proved not to be true.

He also accused a different woman of leading the sacrificial ceremony back in September 2001. Police placed an undercover officer in her church for months – but detectives would conclude that there was no basis for the claims.

In December 2006, Adam’s body was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in a London cemetery.

The non-denominational service was attended by a handful of police officers who had worked on the case from the start – including DS Nick Chalmers and Will O’Reilly, soon to be promoted to detective chief inspector.

2008: Kingsley Ojo deported back to Nigeria

Detectives concluded they couldn’t rely on Kingsley Ojo – he was still believed to be using a false identity to commit benefit fraud even after his release from prison. In 2008, he was deported back to Nigeria.

Throughout his deportation hearing Ojo claimed that he had always “done his best” to assist the investigation.

Also in Nigeria, Joyce Osagiede reappeared and was interviewed by police. She finally admitted she had looked after “Adam” when she had lived in Hamburg in northern Germany – and had bought the orange shorts found on his body. But she said no more and vanished again.

After years of trying, I finally managed to track down a woman who actually knew Joyce in Germany. She’s never spoken to the media before.

Ria Matthes, a social worker assessing benefit claims, met Joyce and her two girls on several occasions when they were in Hamburg. She also remembers seeing Joyce twice with a small boy in the summer of 2001 who she now realises may well have been Adam. Which would make her her one of the last people to see him alive.

media captionRia Matthes, a social worker in Hamburg, met Joyce and saw her with a young boy who may have been Adam.

“I think about the case regularly,” she says. “For me he was a very shy – albeit an attentive – child. He was completely introverted and withdrawn. He remained in one spot and didn’t move.”

Joyce treated the boy as if he was a “necessary evil to her” says Ria. “[It was] like she had to drag him along with her because maybe she didn’t want to let him out of her eyesight or like she took him along so he wouldn’t have to be on his own.”

2011: Photo of Adam

For three years, investigations continued but with no new significant leads. But when detectives searched through Joyce Osagiede’s belongings left with a friend in Germany, they found a pile of photographs. One of them showed a boy of about five years old staring straight at the camera – it was taken in 2001.

Det Sergeant Nick Chalmers was sceptical about whether it could be Adam, but he had moved on from the investigation and a new team of detectives had taken over. In early 2011, the photo was given to ITV News, which tried to track down Joyce in Nigeria.

Joyce said that Adam was indeed the boy in the photo – and his real name was Ikpomwosa. She said she had looked after the boy, but had given him to a man called Bawa. For a time it seemed as if the mystery over Adam’s identity had been solved.

But detectives were unable to positively identify the boy or take the investigation forward.

2012: A meeting with Joyce in Nigeria

A year later, we found out why. Out of the blue, Joyce’s brother Victor contacted me from Nigeria. He said there had been a misunderstanding – the boy in the photograph wasn’t Adam, and his name was not Ikpomwosa. He and Joyce wanted to put the record straight.

image captionJoyce Osagiede, in Nigeria

I travelled to Benin City with Nick Chalmers, who by then had retired from the Met. We found Joyce living in a small house in a run down neighbourhood – she was pleased to see us, but at times seemed confused. She was known to have mental health problems.

Joyce told us the boy in the photo was actually called “Danny” – who Nick and I managed to track down in Hamburg.

Joyce also suggested yet another name for Adam. She called him Patrick Erhabor – something we were unable to verify.

Finally, we showed Joyce one more photograph. She instantly identified the man as someone she called “Bawa” – the person she says she gave Adam to in Germany in 2001. The photo was of trafficker Kingsley Ojo. It was the first time she had ever made that allegation.

Nick and I managed to track down Ojo in Nigeria – he would not meet us, but agreed to talk on the phone. He insisted he had no involvement in Adam’s murder. Indeed there is no evidence linking him to the killing.

image source, Facebook

image captionKingsley Ojo

But the former detective believes he may still hold the key to unlocking the case.

Responding to our report, which was broadcast in early 2013, a Met spokesperson said any new information would be “thoroughly investigated”.

2021: Remains a cold case

Since 2013 the investigation has effectively become a “cold case” with no significant new lines of enquiry.

But there has been one major development. I stayed in touch with Joyce’s brother Victor and last year he revealed to me that Joyce had died. One of the last remaining links to Adam, and potentially a crucial witness, now gone.

Aidan Minter, the man who spotted the body in the river, was diagnosed with acute post-traumatic stress disorder. He says he felt utterly helpless, knowing his discovery was somebody’s son.

“It’s the shock of – why is it there? Who did it? That’s the hardest thing. He was a small boy with a personality and it was cruelly taken away from him in some sort of ritualistic murder.”

media captionNick Chalmers is still haunted by the case.

For retired detective Nick Chalmers, the lack of answers is deeply frustrating.

“This was an innocent young child. There are people responsible for his death who haven’t been brought to justice.

“Twenty years on, I wish we knew the identity of Adam – and his parents. In reality, he is a missing child from a family, who probably don’t know he’s buried here in London.”

Source link

[elizabethrobertajones]

13x02 watching notes

i'm on a train. choo choo.

expectations: helpfully wrote them out last time for the season as a whole which this ep is introducing all the plot stuff for since last episode advanced the plot a single day of angst, but this episode especially has a few SUPER low bars to pass. Last time out BL failed spectacularly to not kill Eileen. now we have "don't assault mary, over-sexualise the day old guy, or flub introing the new characters, or reintroducing the returning ones"

-

our train was like 10 minutes late out the station because there was no driver. is this a metaphor.

-

i also had to eat krispy kreme doughnuts before I could dig into the episode.

-

oh jeeze Drexel survived season 12... no one really has a fanclub for the random minions, probably because around Simmons we realised there was no point getting attached. and he was in some of the worst scenes of last season just because of the context. which is a shame. also he's a lucifer fan and that's not really a worthwhile position. anyway hope springs eternal that colonel sanders is such a charismatic character he makes the demon scenes worth watching... and Drexel gets to be interesting. And stop saying lines like 'make hell great again' which is so not a good thing to put in his mouth - at least the other demons who were going around saying it it was the white demon who said it and got the stink eye from the other demon.

One of the other demons says "can you even hear yourself" but idk if BL would crit their own writing unlike competent writers whose first port of call is stressing that they are bad writers and mock their corny dialogue

-

this also raises the semi perpetual question since season 11 that if Crowley's throne room is here why would any of the pretenders to the throne even want it. they seriously need to justify it. We know devil's gates are a pain and not usually open so smuggling minions out to work topside is an issue but there are other workarounds than establishing a campy hell set that's not even in hell, then getting confused about if it's hell or not, and never really explaining why Lucifer would stick around in it except for the fact Crowley is really good at setting up a system and it would be a shame not to use the pre-established set up.

but eh

I really sincerely hope Asmodeus is just here because Crowley's ex-minions are here and will relocate post-haste to his plantation.

-

He hung up his coat. Drexel survived though. I guess being a named character has its perks. the sun shone in my eyes the entire time so i was quite amused when the train turned a bit and i saw demons dropping with burned out eyes, angel-style. like Dagon being super duper powerful, I guess they're giving him extra powers - because this is just a few steps up from how Sam was exploding demons with his head at one point and he got his powers from a YED... though in 5x10 when Lucifer killed all those demons he also didn't burn the eyes out. it's probs a stylistic choice. in character and out.

-

Nougat!!! he's so cute. he's sleeping at an angle to be behind Sam in the convo. The camera points at Sam from the dash and at Dean from Sam's POV, and Jack is in his background. methinks this is about Sam.

He's trying to make Dean sleep and calling out how he hasn't had any, which is nice because I was worried about that earlier.

Dean is calling Jack "it" which I think was in some people's pre-season fic, or else if it weren't it was in the one i didn't write :P Blatant convo is blatant but does at least have an actual honest to god lead into the next scene via the mom is dead conversation. Again we get the super zoom close up on sam being sad and questioning dean's thoughts. assert yourself, sammy! i believe in u

-

(totally on your side too Dean but the sun is too bright to examine your micro expressions and the camera isn't favouring you anywho so you're a rewatch flavour today)

-

Satan wants to trade Mary for Jack. Well if Dean knew he'd sell Jack for a corn chip anyway (is that Crowley's phrase from the original weird dog episode?) so that's just a great big victory. methinks the choice will fall on Sam or fall on Dean after he's had a chance to bond with Jack some more - that's the other side to the tension about Dean liking jack that i was talking about earlier whensomeone asked me why everyone wants dean to adopt jack.

ideally mary saves herself or it never comes to it but for now i'll assume whatever else happens between here and there, some version of this plan will at least be floated, even if it's random circumstances and not lucifer's hand any more or something

makes sense anyway to tie mary back into the main arc in a way like how she mirrored cas the entire time last season - if her fate and jack's are connected even tenuously it gives her a connect back into the main thing

-

oh good the woman next to me has finished her dangerously over-full cup of Pimms because I was terrified it would be bye bye laptop

nnnoooo as I type she refilled it

the train is swaying back and forth so much

-

anyway Mary asks Lucifer why he wants to be a parent and he hints several times in a row that he has hidden depths without actually showing any of them. i don't want him to have a redemption anyway and i really super duper don't want him to have one written entirely by BL

-

Colonel Sanders continues to try and liven up the story while giving us surface level exposition

I'll be honest, 'write that down' is the first good line... must be whichever of BL is quippy currently writing. I think they just introduced a monster taht lucifer is scared of but I couldn't catch what it was and for some reason another demon is listening in so is he getting ideas? I mean why to what end? also what exactly was the thing that was locked up because it sounded like a cut price Leviathan expo dump but obvs not that because a leviathan would eat Lucifer

i mean i don't think we pay enough attention to the fact that dick roman would just gobble lucifer up and end of story. bring back dick.

-

*Pimms lady sways dangerously close to my laptop*

I think Sam accused Dean of hallucinating "shit" on the road because it's too noisy to hear him say "sheep". I just assume that is what he actually said in the non-censored version

-

pls drink your Pimms fast enough to end this danger but not so fast you're sloshed and throw it on my laptop before it's all gone

-

Cashing in on that new Scooby Doo partnership! Some bank like Halifax is currently using Scooby Doo to sell stuff so I see that dog on telly all the time and the fact they exist in the same fictional universe as Sam and Dean is kiiiilling me. I think we have all been assuming Jack takes us to Scooby World so plonking him in front of the telly to watch some is how it all begins. Dean, like every fan fic between 13x01 and now hates Jack unreservedly for having childlike enthusiasm about the telly because Cas used to do that, while (semi)unaware that Jack is mirroring HIMSELF from 12x11 most closely right now. I think that's an interesting parallel I don't know how much work has gone into but pls poke me to write about Jack's 1 day old child-like wonder compared to sweetie pie no memory Dean if no one else has done it because they're essentially the same character from completely different angles, and we're about to hit Jack mirroring Dean excessively.

-

Me: don't excessively sexualise the kid

BL: "here read a book" *chucks the Bible at him* *he opens it to the Song of Solomon* We're NOT having this chat right now.

I suppose some people just meta-gasmed all over this. I don't know much about the Bible but I do know that's the sexy bit.

-

the "I can take the couch" conversation probably put the exact same thought process in Jack's head as mine when my very lanky brother looked at the lil brick hard bed set up in the corner of our hotel while we were stranded in Glasgow, and looked at me, princess and the pea-syndrome sufferer, and nobly offered to take a bed that *my* feet stuck 3 inches over.

No.

-

Thanks but no.

-

aw man we're only at Carlisle.

-

It's the promo scene as well, which mostly just drove home how much Jack is mirroring Dean... We've had basically no character interaction in the missing day, although we can assume it's mostly gone like this... Dean annoyed, Sam forgiving Jack for being adorable, and Jack being adorable. He's getting better at sarcasm as well, which can't be making Dean feel any better about him.

And that means that the "Castiel is my father" revelation happened off-screen and we're not being given any room for a reaction about it, which is the most annoying part of this. I knew 13x01 was an anomaly and going into a BL ep so soon after would deprive us of some of the emotional depth, but it's like having a bucket of cold water dumped on us :P

-

I think Dean's 'sometimes' about family being good is going to be a criminally underrated line and I don't even know if I can bring myself to remember it all the time in discussions about how Dean feels about family going forwards but this is a note that i heard him say it and acknowledged it means he has some issues with blood family ongoing.

-

Jack being adorably human blah blah, Dean aggravates the issue by being really mean about insisting Lucifer is his father and asking if he reached out to Jack and now Jack's remembering him doing that. Hey leave the kid alone, Dean, his blank slate was slightly messed up by waning to be like Cas which is obviously an excellent exemption to  having a blank slate.

Maybe there's a metaphor in him agitating the bad father sitation over here.

I don't know if Jack should have asked for clarification there so let's pretend there was a hesitation and a "Ca -" "*Lucifer.* Your father." exchange. Or something.

-

And now Nougat is lying about emotional strife, like's been agitated into being a Winchester from his great blank slate

GAH Stop gesturing by the STILL FULL glass of Pimms

they keep topping it up and it's not good for my stress levels

-

I think I just missed basically everything that happened because all I could see was my own reflection but then they were like *rising tension music* *scuffle* *donatello* so I assume he jumped out on them. Mental note to go back and see who was defensive of Jack and what he did.

-

*casually mopping up my neighbour's Pimms as it splashes dangerously close to my laptop while listening to Donatello's exposition*

the good thing about BL episodes is that you can often just kinda chill and  listen to the exposition if it's just a chunk o dialogue and nothing offensive is going on so we're making progress through the ep

-

*dean is super bitter about who does and doesn't have a direct line to god for some reason*

-

Awww Sam says they're brothers and it's a family crest when he is saying Jack should get the tattoo <3

*completely* robbed of Dean's reaction

-

WHY DID THEY NOT TELL JACK IT WOULD HURT

-

I went to the loo and came back to them wiping Pimms off their phone

-

Well Jack just completely put Dean in his place RE: pain, when he told him to man up about it and Jack was like right we accept pain as a sign of maturity... this is absolutely not what Dean meant but it is probably a healthier approach to it minus all the toxic masculinity

can we get to 13x03 and an ep written by Berens soon :P

-

Jack accidentally absorbs his warding. Oops. I guess that angel warding was a WEE bit OTT I mean I'm no expert but that looks like a total pain to be dealing with all the time for the makeup department :P

-

Also must have taken friggin ages

-

I still don't get why Donnatello is here except to use as a chip in their arguments... Ah well. Dean arguing intent doesn't matter freaky powers are freaky powers because he's still pissed about what happened to Cas and can't see the much more basic thing that Jack didn't mean to get Cas killed and OBVIOUSLY didn't intend it if he was waiting for Cas to be there for him when he popped out of the womb. I think for all the random avenues this took in fandom this is probably about as deep as the show will go if this is how BL are spelling it all out for us... And the answer is all there on the page already but we're just using Dean as the alternate side of the argument to show his own character stuff going on where he can't deal with Jack because he's upset about Cas. And he was always more concerned about Cas than the philosophy of whatever else was going on

-

Train going through the Lake District... I am enchanted. It's a grey day w/ very low clouds and water on the ground and all the trees are autumnal. Sue me, this is more interesting than Donatello being unhelpful. He backed up Sam's argument earlier w/ saying Lucifer felt toxic and Jack is somewhat more like his grandfather, but then once he starts talking he's like hurr blurr as a scientist nature wins and he's a monster and then Sam's like I thought you were on my side dude and then Dean angsts about Cas some more and calls Jack the devil and he decides he better start teleporting now because leave me alone not-dad and get off my case

I hope we see his wings. Dean asks in 13x01 if he had wings and equated it to teleporting and I suppose we don't know how demons do it but the assumption is if he's half-angel adn can teleport then he has wings

-

Oh no it is KILLING me how Jack's thing is sitting cross legged. PROTECT HIM.

Sam finds him, thankfully, after the Sad Kelly Montage. There's a very Northern man behind me talking loudly on the phone so I'm gonna concentrate SUPER HARD now

-

The hotel is called the Black Hat which I think is western coding for the bad guy. There was a house in the prairie art on the wall, and the single isolated house is how Jack came into the world... He's dealing with towns now.

-

Exposition Mooose! Telling us Dean gets some wires crossed about getting angry whe nhe's frustrated and scared  like yes good expose dean for us some more... explaining him to jack is like hey so um he's an acquired taste... trying to make this about protecting everyone instead of pointing out the obvious that he blames jack for what happened to cas

Jack is a winchester because he's like maybe i'm not worth it

help

and them Sam brings up w/o knowing it was on jack's mind that kelly thought so but also is a blatant link to how they used dead!mary to guide their lives right up until she came back...

... and then so would Cas and so would I. Sam aligning himself with Jack's parents to show he has emotional guardianship of him right now

-

has dean gone down to the bar because it's called th eblack spur and obvs not the same one but i'm like 100% sure that's the bar from 10x01 where he was hanging with Crowley and I'm not gonna fact check that. it's "black" again aka more nature stuff, more coded evil stuff I guess? I don't know anything about Westerns I admit

-

And hey look a blonde bartender is chatting to him - there's a Jack ale sign on one side... and hahahahahaaaa no there's a Kingdom Beer sign behind Dean over his shoulder because the director wants to kill me

-

So far this is the weirdest BL episode Ive seen in a long time because they're trying so so hard to be all nuanced and deep and to explore character stuff and carry on the mood from the first episode, while being direly under-equipped to handle it, so everyone's just blurting exposition all over the place in a series of awkward exchanges. The overtness of the dialogue is actually helping in a weird way to rush through the tick boxes because Dean just admitted to seeking his neglectful father's approval from a standing start which is a sign of progress for him to just leap right into admitting his issues with John. I don't have a frame of reference for this because tired and white noise and noting we're pulling into Lancaster and it looks like rain now and there's a guy travelling with an enormous silver mirror with an ornate frame as tall as he is on the other platform and more pimms is on the table... but yeah when DID he last talk about John? Is this the increased openness since 12x22 we were hoping for? Is my backpack okay because it's in a luggage rack I can't see and if someone nicks it they're only stealing all my laundry but I like some of those t-shirts so it would be a bummer...

-

Lol surprise Asmodeus, no wonder she pushed all the father stuff... Was he talking about Lucifer then? It's everyone has father issues season. He's fitting in as another mirror in it all. Like the great big shiny mirror the dude at Lancaster station had. I'd honestly not be surprised if John came back in some way just cuz we had the Mary season where motherhood was a theme, and now we're doing this. I don't think John would come back for good liek Mary but they could scrounge up a more direct way of confronting his memory at least.

-

This also is so unsubtle bcos Dean had no idea what the bartender looked like so he coulda just tended the bar and chatted to Dean b4 he knew who Asmodues was, and we could have had some cool tension like we all know that Colonel Sanders is the bad guy and Dean's just chatting him up a bit. But then when do we ever get such things in a BL ep?

-

Sam just goes and spells it out about Jack being molded and the ambiguity of his father figures aka the dual nature battle they think Jack should have, with a deciding vote already thrown in there by Kelly and of course that Jack has free will and choice

-

So Mary just nearly got assaulted, tho not by Lucifer, which was not exactly a pleasant surprise. >.> idk what that guy's problem was but he seems to be implying women can't fight and something something I didn't catch but clearly he doesn't see a whole bunch of women. This is literally the antithesis of the show's handling of female hunters since the start so I'm going to have to assume that this is an AU thing like, total worst timeline, and everyone's sexist to boot. Not really a fan of doing this at all because why are humans made out to be just as bad as meeting angels and demons in this world - Mary being at risk from ALL of them (where is BOBBY I wanna see wtf was going on between him and AU mary and our mary and our bobby) - and it being disappointing that Mary's at risk BECAUSE she's female and might get assaulted.

-

Lucifer continues to try and act like a good guy by saving Mary and then of course the Nice Guy twist that always comes - if you won't give me what I want that I'm pretending is mutually beneficial then I will just hurt you.

They're chilling by that church from 8x23 now so I guess Mikey will be along soon.

Preston Station looks like a hellscape as well - it's packed and there's no ticket barriers. I'm so glad we were only passing through

-

Dean comes in and sits down with Sam with the shadows of the blinds falling over them - prison imagery I missed you! We're trapped in these mindsets...

-

Sam wants to get them on the same page and Dean is like F U and Sam's like lemme do exposition while you sit with the shadow over your eyes.

I wish there was a shadow falling over my eyes... We've passed back through to hazy sunlight south of Preston.

-

Sam says people who we love, and who have been in our lives for a long time, in such a way I bet some asshole is excluding Cas from one category bcos Mary doesn't count in the long time category so maybe one is for her and one is for Cas

-

obviously that's the real donatello because he only cares about breakfast and is an object of ridicule while Asmodeus was presumably the other and actually talking plot.

-

this is an idiot ball moment tbh because Jack hasn't been in any hotel scenes for a while and somehow we've shuffled through all the characters here and not had any of them with Jack or checking where he is despite him being the most precious cargo, and it was bugging me earlier that dontatello and sam talking meant jack was alone because he wouldn't be w/ dean so where was he but Sam didn't ask? they just chatted? And obvs that was asmodeus but yeah... no one's keeping an eye on him and D. wasn't even supposed to be taking Jack to get breakfast or what? If that wasn't him then what exactly did Sam think Jack was up to?

-

Also Sam tanking the mytharc Dean tanking the personal arc - he talks to both of them w/o them knowing and guess what each's conversation is

-

And also Dean came in with food as well like there's major miscommunication going on here if the real donatello was getting breakfst and so was Dean but is that the point or is that just a plothole where this doesn't add up properly if you actually try and map who knew what and - was Dean the one SUPPOSED to be watching Jack? But Sam didn't ask him either.

-

Anyway here's the demon that Dean's entire fight scene is about straddling to death.

-

I also loved his march down to the room where he was all in shadows

-

The last shot of that fight though where Dean's cowering away from the demon on a bed while it advances on him with a knife

like wow that was a good fight scene for the dynamics going on there. Dean as a victim being absolutely dominated by that demon and all the associated knife and weirdass positions imagery. Dean on that table with his legs around the demon is like an entire meta on its own as well

-

okay it was too bright when I saw the scene where Asmodeus was talking about that whatever it was he let out but I THINK that was the same demon I thought I saw overhearing it and now I am wondering what on earth that was about because Dean just killed him :P

-

Awww Jack out in nature. I love the flowers and the buzz of insects and life all around him. And Asmodeus is testing him.

Okay it's been like one episode how can he have character inconsistency with himself from earlier in the episode - he now wants to unleash the things he got in trouble for unleashing before? I mean unless he's decided that Lucifer really isn't coming back so might as well just throw a party while there's no adult supervision, and get back to all that chaos and destruction he loves. If he thought there was remotely a chance Lucifer would come back he wouldn't do it, but then is he just doing it now out of spite that Lucifer told him no before, and instead of whatever nonsense he said about family dynamics back then is not really true at all because he wants to rebel now instead.

If Jack unleashes the thing because he was tricked then it will be the biggest Sam and Cas mirror thing ever and will set him up with some angst and guilt for the rest of the season.

One of the downsides of Dean not getting along with him is that Jack doesn't know how much scepticism about God is a healthy amount in this universe. He basically just knows that God is his grandfather and family is usually good. But God is suuuch a bad concept to rally behind here, it's not even like God wouldn't ask him to do it because God never tells anyone what to do about anything (which is like the first thing Dean would have told Jack if he hadn't still been sulking God wouldn't lift a finger to help him over the whole dead Cas issue), God would also just never have any positive reinforcement for anyone or get excited about having a grandson, at least in a way to get actively involved :P

I mean Chuck probs thought that Donatello making his way to Jack was about as useful as he could be and that immediately went sour when no one kept 2 pairs of eyes on each other at all times.

-

Wyoming has some pretty nasty stuff under it :P

I wonder if Hell maps exactly to earth but just kinda deeper.

Also point to me for rambling about hell gates earlier and then Asmodeus actually listening to my suggestion box for once. Maybe he will be the one character who can actually hear me in this show.

Hey you, you're an asshole

-

Is Lucifer aware he literally just lead them in a circle because I am so not telling him that, because it's too funny.

I hope Jack didn't inherit his sense of direction but this is Dabb era, as soon as that kid gets a car, trouble starts.

-

The midlands are so bleak.

-

These angels are wearing heavy tactical gear and yet more kneepads. The human had them too. This is just kneepad world. I don't see the necklaces of baby ears so maybe that design thing got ditched or maybe Bobby was being metaphorical.  The important thing is they don't look like Cas. The weird thing is we know Mikey's costume sort of does look like a ragged Cas.

Anyway Lucifer is so offended to hear Michael killed him even though it was literally the most obvious thing ever the entire time we've known about them and since 12x12 we've had extra info to prove it :P

-

Omg why are you opening champagne on a traaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain

-

MIKEY

He wanders in like hey I'm awesome but also I need to immediately open with super obvious exposition lines

Lucifer accuses him of being dressed like he came from a western too which goes with the thematics back in the Earth part of the story and also makes me think maybe the costuming choice was supposed to kinda mirror Frontierland Dean's 2nd costume because why the fuck not this is Dabb era, rules are for suckers :P

I can't see it w/o the hat but maybe he has a hat elsewhere.

-

this hole down into the centre of the earth looks REMARKABLY like the one the 2nd season of Shadowhunters had in the season finale, so I need Magnus to just wander over the rise and close it now. Also his eyes glow gold and cat like. Is his power literally equivalent to Jack's? He's like ridiculously OP in that show. I guess all that hiatus watching was research.

-

Ah, Asmodeus has learned the "Oh shit it's the Winchesters" moment already, especially recognising the car. Them driving right onto the scene has the oddest shades of 5x22 without anything being remotely like it except it's a field, hole in the earth, and car.

-

Okay why did Donatello yell "that's not Donatello"

this is like the reverse of the best version of this scene I've ever heard which is the one from the end of Here Be Gerblins in the Adventure Zone which I will not spoil for you except to say this is the worst and also it doesn't take too much listening to get to that point and I nearly cried laughing so you should probably go listen. More hiatus watching research!

-

The other option is D is having a total crisis of self w/o a soul or the evil D is actually the real thing and Asmodeus is helping them for some reason.

-

LOL he's like hi I'm Crowley's replacement so the line now is "howdy boys" intead of hello boys

-

As soon as Jack knows what's up and sees his new peeps getting hurt he stops because he is precious and he did nothing wrong and I love him

-

AWW HE THINKS THEY'RE HIS FRIENDS I LOVE YOU NOUGAT

-

Deal with that, Dean.

-

Mary like "... should I be shuffling backwards?" "I SHOULD BE SHUFFLING BACKWARDS, BYE"

-

Lucifer said he needed Mary, Mikey says he needs Lucifer... I think that phrase is being turned over and ruined now. The necessary step of Dean having said it to Cas that one time when he shoulda said I love you... They had a brief critique of "need and want" and some stuff about i and we, which was what last season was doing, but Cas feels bad bcos he feels needed but not wanted, and this is as much as Dean has said to him - from the depths of his heart - but it's not enough because that was season 8 and he hasn't felt like he belongs and he needs that I love you. Uh but w/o using "need" - look, they're gesticulating with champagne again, I have 1 eye on this at best as we roll through the midlands for an eternity :P Anyway I guess it is time to put "need" in the firing line as the Wrong Word that means that you're USING someone.

-

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING??? DEAN DOES NOT SIT AT THE TABLE LIKE THAT. OH MY POOR, POOR BROKEN CHILD LET ME HOLD YOU IN MY ARMS

I know it's probably for that wonderful shot of them through the door but Dean fundamentally does not sit up against the wall - he and Sam have their places at that table when they have their chats and it's a serious thing since the entire time theyve been using the kitchen for important plot chats.

Anyway he super not okay bcos that's his seat he sits at when he's in his proper place in the dynamic - or improper one but the point is the dynamic is the dynamic when they sit opposite each other and Dean's opted out and flopped back against the wall instead of sitting where he normally does when he and Sam are in balance. Sam's connection to his seat has some other flavours of his side of the codependency issues but largely about his lack of assertiveness or getting too messed up about saving Dean, so we'll see

-

AAAH Sam is sitting one seat over as well.

I know it's a free table but there's 8 seats and REMARKABLY little flexibility about it.

Dean's wearing a black henley which is also baaad news. *pats him on the head and follows with a blanket*

-

Sam stands (or sits) his ground

-

Dean, gosh, I don't like when the camera follows you because this is probably going to be awful for my heart.

We also have not really had his POV much this ep except the Asmodeus chat up scene

He's mostly reacted. Like he thinks Jack is only reacting.

I DON'T LIKE THIS SCENE

PROTECT JACK FROM HIMSELF TOO

I hope he was just being curious like a super amped up version of how Kira on Orphan Black found out she has super healing powers so sliced her own arm open while being scared and fascinated with what she was and pissed off the adults wouldn't tell her anything but this was gross and violent and pls protect Jack because that was awful.

Dean's suitably horrified though because he has to contemplate Jack is just as freaked out and lost as he is about this whole thing because this is a gross and horrifying way to show that Jack is as fucked up and lost as the rest of them. I don't think he was actually trying to kill himself esp. because he knew the angel blade already stabbed him and did nothing and even if he doesn't know what it is and why that's signficant he knows he didn't die of something that should have killed him... I hope it's just childlike curiosity mixed with bleak existential horror as he comes to understand how much he doesn't understand himself even in the context of the world he's in...

-

OH NO

but also good lines of dialogue they acted super well. Jack is starting to think he can't be saved if Dean doesn't think it and is silently asking him to do it because he doesn't want to hurt people and oh gosh this isn't 10x09 at all where Deran asked Cas to do it to him... But completely different emotional landscape where Dean WOULD do it and wants to and Jack is only just starting to doubt himself and wonder if he would hurt people and the important thing is not like Dean thinking there was a line he would cross and half-tricking Cas into saying he'd do it by asking him for a favour first, but Cas not being able to oblige him in 10x22... This is Jack being such a good pure piece of nougat that he's SCARED of what he is and what he can do and beginning to think that he might need to be killed esp. because Dean thinks so and this has been a bad day for him... even though again his nature shone through, Dean thinks it was a "sneeze" and Jack still doesn't have a developed enough moral compass to understand what he did except that we can see it was a good thing.

-

And final shot Jack reflected in the mirror all bloody and sad and I need to zoom in on that later to see his face because like magic the sun is out again when I want to look at the screen.

-

End episode here. Good. That means Dean angstily listening to music is in 13x03 almost for sure because I want it to be (uh, sorry that's not science :P) but it would be a great Berens to Berens chat with self about 9x14 and Dean angstily listening to music there.

I am not actually where were we are any more except powering towards London, but I'm gonna put my laptop away because they're still topping up the champagne and I just survived a BL episode where nothing so awful happened that I can see the fandom outrage from a million miles away and the worst I can say is that they are an exposition machine and I wish they had more nuanced dialogue because in someone else's hands that character stuff would have been delivered well rather than just delivered :P

[candidlycaro]

Phoenix

Well, I haven’t been on Tumblr (besides a school project) since I was 15 years old. This used to be my place to vent, share my feelings, write creatively, and obviously post the impromptu emo-cutting GIF that this trash website used to be filled with nonstop. I’m just thankful that it’s popularity decreased and I was actually able to get this username? Kinda sick. You know what I mean.

SO-- what brings me back? There’s a lot of easy answers to this question and then I think there are deeper ones. The most obvious, glaring answer is that I got dumped last week. No, not the kind of dumped that makes me want to key his car (it’s a Honda, anyway) or punch him in the face, but the kind that makes you take a real big look at yourself on the inside. So I did that. I took everything that he said and I looked inside-- and for the first time in the entirety of our relationship I realized something. He was right. (If you’re reading this I promise this was a half-joke meant for dramatic effect, you deserve more credit where credit is due!)

But in all seriousness, I took a look at myself and I didn’t like what I saw. I saw a girl so consumed by negativity, fixation, and obsession that she forgot how to be happy. I looked in the mirror and saw someone whose idea of self care was skipping a meal or putting off smoking weed until AFTER doing something that was much more important (no friends, I am not getting rid of weed. I should. But right now it makes me laugh when I want to cry so I think I’ll be sticking to it for a bit). 

Anyways, the point that I’m trying to make is that he really did me a favor. Not a favor as in like leaving me, in fact I’m pretty sure we’re on fine terms considering we almost broke his bed and my knee having sex the other day but I’m talking bigger picture. He actually cared about me enough to be like HEY FUCKER. YOU’RE NOT YOU ANYMORE. And for a bit I hated him for that-- I really did! I was like dude, fuck, two years of my life and you’re telling me this isn’t SERIOUS? But, when I realized he had signed up for something completely different it kind of clicked with me. He didn’t sign up for this or this version of myself, he signed up for the happy go-lucky Caro that lit up every room she walked into. Not to say that our SO’s shouldn’t be through thick and thin, but when thick becomes your entire lifestyle it’s different. And I got it. I seriously stood in front of my mirror this weekend, took a huge look, and was like well, fuck, who is this?

I don’t really know where she went, but I used to like actually enjoy life. I used to like doing activities, getting up early for workout classes (something I think I’d rather swallow literal shit for than do now), being incredibly kinky, cooking, taking my dog places-- I don’t know, point being, I was a person. Now all I seem to do is sit in my job from like 9:30 (fine, 10 if we’re being honest) to 7, maybe I have a good day if I’m lucky, I would leave, go to my (ex)boyfriends apartment and complain up the wazoo, smoke, sleep, and repeat. Is that ANY FUCKING WAY TO LIVE? I THINK NOT!

Like as much as what he said hurt me, he was completely right. Who the fuck was I? Why was I making both of us so unhappy and why couldn’t I at least see it? And I think the most hurtful question or the one that pains me the most rather is why did it take me so long to realize? Because it’s not like he never told me or gave me the chance to change, he really did. But I didn’t want to change and I wasn’t ready to. I was content being that type of person for some reason and didn’t really realize what was at stake.

And it wasn’t just the relationship that was at stake-- if it was then the whole point of this post or whatever would be so fucking dumb. I didn’t realize that MY LIFE WAS AT STAKE. I’m 22 why the FUCK am I hung up, sad, complaining nonstop, wasting my life smoking it away (once again, I love you weed but only in doses. Like crack!-- kidding. kind of) instead of having amazing sex with someone I was so infatuated by, getting in the best physical shape of my life (I was an exercise science major, after 25 shit goes DOWNHILL!), spending time with family friends and just enjoying. I actually started hating GOING OUT too which like if you know me you know I’m not a huge drinker but I always was down to go out and just like socialize? What happened to that? 

Bottom line: shits gotta change. And like I kind of wish it could be one of those self-discovery things where I’m like “what do I need to change? I’ll do it and find myself randomly in Thailand with the elephants, ah!”-- but I know exactly what I need to change. And I’ve made some INTENTIONS. 

1. Appreciation

Something me and my (ex)boyfriend agreed on heavily was that we took each other for granted. When we spent time together we’d just be there on our phones, not really appreciating and recognizing how lucky we both were to be in the presence of someone that loves you. That lack of appreciation turned into resentment, and I don’t want that to happen in any of my relationships-- family, friends, lovers, whatever. I won’t let that happen again. I want everyone in my life to know that I appreciate them, I want to be present with them. I don’t want to go on my phone when I’m at dinner with friends, I want to give my parents all the attention they deserve, and frankly I want everyone in my life to know they’re loved. Ex boyfriend included. 

2. Motivation

I don’t really know where this one went. When I was in kindergarten I remember kicking a middle schooler in the nuts simply because he told me I couldn’t go on the swing because I was a girl. My ultra feminist chic 5 year old self would kick ME in the VAGINA if she knew that I was acting like this. I am such a lucky, lucky girl with a loving family, friends, and more. I’m smart, I’m beautiful, I know my self-worth and most importantly-- I know that I can succeed anything I put my mind to. Why am I fucking afraid of yoga, or running, or failing. It’s time to get the fuck up and do it. Did I go to yoga today? Yes. Did I cry twice when Mac Miller came on in the middle? Also yes. But I WENT. And that’s better than the day before!

3. Calm

Everyone who knows me knows I live breathe shit anxiety. It’s something I’ve dealt with my entire life and something I never really put in the effort to fix. Sure I’m on lexapro, I used to spoof my ex’s klonopon every once in a while and at one point I smuggled 100 xanax from Mexico. But like I’ve never gotten to the root of it. Yes, I know I have death-anxiety because my parents are literal dinosaurs. Yes, I know I’m insecure because my ADHD makes me seem annoying. I know all these things, and based off of all the psych classes I’ve taken in the past I could probably hit the nail on the head but I’m not a professional. It’s time to stop self-diagnosing, fixating, and get some damn help. Maybe if I wasn’t so stressed and pushed that stress onto everyone else everyone in my life would be happier? I know my ex definitely would be. 

 4. Work is what it is-- work. It’s not your life

As mentioned above, I live breathe and shit anxiety. I also live breathe and shit my job and it’s time for that to stop. I don’t give two shits anymore if I had a bad day, if someone’s trying to cause shit or my boss is a bitch. At the end of the day I’m there to get money? If the opportunity cost of my happiness versus my paycheck is at such a huge discrepancy it’s time to rethink careers. Not saying I’m quitting my job, but I need to learn to start leaving work at work. They don’t pay me after I go home so I shouldn’t think about it. Easier said than done but I need to work on it. 

5. Acceptance

Let’s be real-- I have an acceptance problem. I refused to accept it when my ex left me, I refused to accept it when my dad got sick (I actually fully never visited him in the hospital after he had a stroke which is one of my most embarrassing secrets. That one felt good to get out!), and sometimes I just blatantly refuse to accept things I can’t change. 

As my wise mother Charlene once said,

You can’t make someone call you back who doesn’t want to.

You can’t make someone love you who doesn’t. 

And most importantly, you can’t change what you can’t change. But what you can change is YOU. And that’s exactly what I intend to do. 

It’s been Day 1 of this journey, and it definitely wasn’t easy. I cried 6 times, ate two donuts, almost passed out in crescent moon pose, heard my ex’s favorite song in MY YOGA CLASS and started crying in front of a group of randos, but I got up. I went to work. I got on the mat and was present. I focused on my breathing. I cried my eyes out to Fleetwood Mac, Selena Gomez, & Lady Gaga all in one day. Weird combination but it’s fine. Will Day 2 be easier? Probably not-- but it’s not supposed to be. Changing and molding yourself isn’t supposed to be easy. If it was then every single time me and my ex had this same exact conversation we would’ve changed. But we didn’t. I know this is going to be hard-- probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But it will also be the most worth it. 

-Caro

[razieltwelve]

Dynamic Duo (The Family - Final Rose AU)

"Hey, Blake,” Ruby said. “Do you want to see a magic trick?”

Blake sighed. “Ruby, we’re on a job.” She nodded at other woman’s weapon. “And shouldn't you be getting ready to use that? The convoy is going to be passing by any minute now.”

“Nah.” Ruby shook her head. “I love Crescent Rose, but I won’t need her for this one.”

“Ruby, our target is going to be roughly two miles away. Unless you plan on teleporting into the middle of the convoy to slit his throat, how exactly are you going to kill him?” 

“With this.” Ruby held up a plank with a nail in it.

“You’re going to teleport in there and bash him over the head with a plank that has a nail in it?” Blake had heard rumours about Ruby’s questionable sanity, but this was pushing it.

“What? No. That would be stupid.” Ruby yanked the nail out of the plank and held it up. “I’m going to kill him with this.”

“Right...”

“Say, Blake,” Ruby said as she slipped on her goggles and waited for the display to find their target and zoom in. “You’ve been with the Family for more than a decade now, right?”

Blake nodded. “That’s right. I was on the last ship out before the Atlas Empire glassed Menagerie. There were a whole bunch of us kids on it, and they just dumped us on the street. I picked pockets to survive, but then I tried picking Diana’s pocket.”

“And you’ve still got your arm?” Ruby snickered. “You must have impressed her.”

“Yeah. She said I was pretty stealthy, and she asked her parents to let me join the Family. I guess she saw something in me.”

“She was right.” Ruby’s eyes narrowed. The convoy was finally arriving. It was just like Blake’s intel had said it would be: the governor of the planet and his usual escort. Heh. He thought he was safe. The joke was on him. A hundred soldiers in power armour plus a dozen armoured vehicles wouldn’t be enough to save him, not when he was dumb enough to sit in the same spot on every trip. “And since you’ve been part of the Family for so long, allow me to let you in on a little secret.”

“Oh?”

“Keep in mind that this is totally need to know only. You tell anyone else, I’ll have to kill you, and that’s only after we turn you over to Jihl or Jahne for questioning.”

Blake shuddered. “Ruby, I’m not an idiot. I enjoy living, and the Family has been very good to me. I’m no snitch.”

“I know you’re not, but I still had to tell you.” Ruby held up the nail. Blake’s eyes widened as she realised it was floating about an inch above her plan. Slowly, it began to rotate until it was little more than a blur of motion. “Hey, Blake, what do you think my Semblance is?”

“Uh...” If someone had asked Blake that five minutes ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated to reply. Now, she wasn’t so sure. “You’ve got the ability to move super fast and teleport, right?”

“That’s what it looks like, but what I’m actually doing is controlling my momentum and position. I’m fast because I can increase my momentum however I want. I can teleport because I can decide to be wherever I want.” Ruby’s lips curved up into a beatific smile. “And the coolest part? It’s not just me. I can do it to almost anything that’s close enough.”

Blake gasped as she realised what Ruby was going to do.

“Now, we know the governor wears a personal forcefield everywhere he goes. It’s rated to stand up to artillery, and there’s no way small arms fire can pierce it. What do you think would happen if I teleported this nail into his vehicle and had it hit him at roughly fifty times the speed of sound?”

Blake gulped. “You’d get one dead planetary governor, right?”

“Bingo.” Ruby chuckled and then moved her hand away from the nail. It continued to rotate in place. Still smiling, she snapped her fingers. “Tada!”

A split-second later the governor’s vehicle exploded. Absolute chaos broke out as the convoy scrambled to a halt. Medics rushed toward the flaming ruin, but it didn’t take a genius to see they wouldn’t be able to help. 

“Come on,” Ruby said, tugging on Blake’s sleeve. “You deserve a reward.”

“I didn’t exactly do a lot of work,” Blake said, following Ruby off the rooftop.

“Hey, don’t be like that. You’re the one who got all the intel. Thanks to you, we were in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. All I did was pull the trigger, so to speak.” Ruby threw one arm around Blake’s shoulders. “Let’s get some cookies to celebrate your good work.”

“Are you sure that isn’t celebrating your good work?”

“It can be both.”

X     X     X

Averia glanced down at her scroll. “It’s done.”

“Oh?” Across the table, Jahne raised one eyebrow. She would have looked more regal if she hadn’t been draped across Diana’s lap. Behind Diana, Fujin’s single visible eye narrowed ever so slightly. Averia was all too aware of what her younger sister got up to in her spare time, and she was morbidly curious to know how long the bodyguard/assassin would last before snapping and declaring that she was sick of seeing Jahne in Diana’s bed when it could be her there instead. Of course, knowing Diana, she’d probably find a way to have them both at the same time. “Are you referring to Ruby and Blake’s little mission.”

“Yes.” Averia skimmed through the report in an instant. It had clearly been written by Blake this time since it was concise and bereft of any details about the baked goods they had consumed on the mission. “Governor Coal will no longer be bothering us.”

Diana cackled. “Perfect. With him out of the way, they’ll have to call another election.”

“I’m going to assume you and Jahne have already selected the winning candidate?”

“Of course.” Diana’s smirk widened. “That planet is a key trading hub. Replacing the planetary governor with one of our people will boost our profits considerably, especially since the Atlas Empire is beginning to fray.”

“Glassing Menagerie was a bridge too far for many people,” Jahne said. “Oh, sure, not everyone in Atlas likes Faunus, but glassing an entire planet was overboard. Support for the White Fang had skyrocketed since then, and the frequency of terrorist counterstrikes has increased fivefold. Most of the Empire’s civilians are sick of it. They want peace, and they’re willing to make concessions in exchange for safety.”

“Can I assume that you and your mother have been fanning the flames of Faunus rebellion?” Averia asked.

“Of course. The White Fang have proven to be valuable business partners. Adam might be an extremist when it comes to Faunus rights, but he’s a practical man. He has no intention of wiping out all humans. That would be stupid. All he wants is a proper kingdom for the Faunus: a star system or ten guaranteed by treaty and with the ability to raise his own military to ensure his people’s safety. In exchange for our help in getting that, the Family will be allowed to operate freely in his territory, and we can expect their support wherever practicable.”

“Those terms sound acceptable.” Averia took note of the message she’d just received and stood. “Diana, get up.”

“But I’m comfortable.” Diana huffed. “And there’s still plenty of plotting to do. For instance, now that we’ve dealt with Governor Coal, we can move onto the next phase of our plan: how to expand our smuggling operations into the Vale Protectorate.”

“You can do that later.” Averia’s gaze grew serious. “Mother wants to speak to us.”

“Oh.” Diana got up. “It must be serious then.”

“It is. Do you remember the Schnee Heiress?” Averia asked.

“Yeah. Uncle Taiyang was in charge of her security detail, wasn’t he? They asked us to cover it since Atlas security just wasn’t cutting it.” 

Averia snorted. “In their defence, we staged those kidnapping attempts ourselves. We needed the Schnees onside.” She scowled. “The ship the heiress was on has been destroyed. Uncle Taiyang managed to get her off it, but he’s going to ground, and he needs backup.”

“Uh... isn’t that ship normally escorted by at least seven other ships?” Diana asked.

“Her escort was two destroyers, three frigates, and a pair of corvettes.” Averia glared. “It was apparently attacked by the Mistral Collective. They sent in a a dreadnought battle group.”

“Well, shit,” Diana said. “We’d better go talk to mother then.”

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

This one is... I’ll leave it a bit of a mystery. But I will say this: they’re in space, the Grimm aren’t really a factor, and most of them are part of the galaxy’s most infamous criminal organisation, the Family.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here or on Audible here.

[fughtopia]

June 1, 2017

The Pink Revolution of 2017, better known as Russiagate, is now more or less a fait accompli. Whether the corporatist ruling classes and their servants in Congress formally impeach him or force him to resign in disgrace, Donald J. Trump is being regime-changed, or at the very least effectively neutralized until he can be replaced with a grown-up, i.e., someone who will serve their interests without getting the masses all riled up about “taking the government back from the elites,” putting “America first,” and, well, just generally making an ass of himself.

At this point, not even a war will save him. Even if he could somehow manage to convince the boys in the Pentagon to back an invasion of Iran, or Syria, or wherever, the corporate-owned press would crucify him, and you can’t arbitrarily invade other countries without the support of the corporate media.

No, the simple fact is, the Corporatocracy has decided to make an example of Trump, to remind folks who is really running things, and what happens when you attempt to defy them, and there’s nothing Trump can do about it, other than rant and rave on Twitter.

The United States of America being a profoundly authoritarian society (whose citizens have been conditioned from childhood to follow orders, go through channels, submit to a host of humiliating rituals devised by an ever-expanding range of government and private “security services,” and to worship leaders, police, soldiers, and, basically, anyone wearing a uniform, or a Giorgio Armani business suit), this ruling class soft coup is cause for celebration.

Good Americans up and down both coasts are already dusting off their vuvuzelas. It isn’t quite time to use them yet, but they want to be ready for the moment Trump waddles across the lawn of the White House, boards Marine One for the final time, and is flown away to exile in Florida, or to Leavenworth to be hanged for treason. At which point they, these Good Americans, will pour en masse onto Lafayette Square, hooting, hollering, and waving flags, as they did when Obama sent Seal Team Six to roust the former CIA asset, Osama bin Laden, out of bed, shoot him several times in the face, and then dump his body in the Indian Ocean, or whatever it was that actually happened.

Good Americans, as a general rule, are not overly concerned with what actually happened. Or what is actually happening now. Or at least they’re not too concerned with the details. History, politics, economics, not to mention the inner workings of the media, are complicated subjects best left to experts. Good Americans trust such experts (not implicitly, they’re not dupes, after all) to explain what happened, or what is happening, to them. They have no choice but to trust these experts, and government officials, and the mainstream media, and the general consensus among the members of their privileged socioeconomic circles, as they do not have the time or the energy to go digging through reams of declassified documents, or to check the facts of the stories that appear in The New York Times or The Washington Post, or on their National Public Radio affiliate, or to read a book about history or politics, or the dissemination of propaganda, written by someone who isn’t parroting the official narrative of the ruling classes. What with all the demands of work, family, Facebook, Twitter, yoga, shopping, keeping up-to-date with the latest dining trends, not to mention the new season of House of Cards, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to scrutinize everything their leaders are doing, or the “information” the media is feeding them.

F: That entire passage should be taught in civic classes. This entire post actually. Wait, do they have civic classes?

This does not make these Good Americans accomplices to any alleged atrocities perpetrated by their elected government. 

The United States isn’t Nazi Germany. 

OK, sure, we wiped out the Native Americans (and sadistically named some of our sports teams after them), but that was hundreds of years ago.

The same goes for slavery … ancient history.

And, alright, so the United States, and the indigenous death squads we have trained and funded, have murdered millions of men, women, and children in places like Indochina, Indonesia, Central America, South America, and the Middle East, and we’ve bombed and invaded a long list of countries that posed no threat [NOOOOOOOOO THREAT] to us whatsoever purely to advance the interests of the corporations that own the government, and their ongoing quest for global hegemony …

...still, it’s not like Nazi Germany, where people went blithely on with their lives, pretending they had no idea what was happening.

No, these Good Americans, who at the moment are shrieking for Donald Trump’s head on a pike because the CIA and the corporate-owned media told them he’s a Russian operative, or that the Russians somehow “hacked” the election, are not at all like the Germans back then. 

Parroting the mindless propaganda pumped out by a global network of corporate media that Joseph Goebbels would have given Hitler’s other nut to control, and otherwise collaborating with the intelligence agencies, financial elites, and other deep state players intent on making an example of Trump, is … OK, admittedly, pretty pathetic, but it’s not like looking the other way while your government methodically kills the Jews. F: Amerikkkan governments have been methodically killing Muslims

On top of which, Trump really is a bad guy, and Good Americans traditionally support, or at least don’t raise a major fuss about, the summary removal of government leaders the mainstream media tells them are bad guys.

Coincidentally, a lot of these bad guys, in addition to being hideously evil, have been, circa the time of their removal, interfering with the vital interests of the corporations that own [OWN] our government. Bashar al-Assad, Muammar Gaddafi, and Saddam Hussein are the most recent examples, but we’ve been doing this since the late 1940s.

A partial list of CIA ops, including assassinations, torture, election rigging, coups, and so on, stretching back to the post-WWII period, when we re-installed fascists in Greece and Italy and smuggled Nazis like Reinhard Gehlen, Klaus Barbie (a/k/a “the Butcher of Lyon”), and Eichmann’s good buddy, Otto von Bolschwing to America to help us defeat “the Communists,” is available for perusal online, and in any number of books and articles. It’s not like this stuff is secret or anything.

But whatever … no government is perfect, right? And Good Americans are grown-ups, after all. So they understand that all that crap about democracy is important to teach the children, and to put on the masthead of your newspaper, or whatever, but the real world doesn’t work like that. In the real world, where the Good Americans live, safely insulated from the abject poverty they are not in any way responsible for, sometimes you have to hire a few Nazis, or support a couple of fascist regimes, or sell a few buttloads of arms to the Saudis, despite the fact that they’re a brutal theocracy and the primary sponsors of the Terrorism we claim to be bombing the Middle East to stop, or bankrupt a few hundred thousand Americans to bail out your pals at the Wall Street banks that bled them dry with their Ponzi scheme, or support an Apartheid state like Israel, or sell Americans some convoluted corporate-friendly healthcare plan as if it were somehow completely impossible to provide a universal healthcare system like every other developed country, or lead the world in mass incarceration, primarily of the lower classes, who are already mass incarcerated in ghettos patrolled by militarized police, which of course bears no resemblance at all to the ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe, and is regrettably just a permanent feature of the grown-up reality the Good Americans are utterly powerless to ever change.

Alright, I know you’re probably thinking that sounds a lot like the rationalizations the Good Germans used to excuse themselves for not resisting the horrors of the Nazis, but it isn’t the same kind of thing at all. 

The Good Americans are resisting … they’re resisting Trump, who, after all, is the one responsible for all that stuff, all those wars of aggression, the CIA coups, the torture, the death squads, the ghettos, et cetera …

...our entire seventy-two-year history as Enforcer of global Capitalist empire and all the incalculable human suffering and irreparable damage to the planet it has caused … all that is somehow the doing of Trump and his puppet-master, Vladimir Putin.

Or at least it’s not Obama’s fault, or the fault of any of his Democrat predecessors, those champions of the poor and downtrodden who never need to be resisted.

F: CJ. Hopkins - THANK YOU FOR THIS POST!!!!!!!

So please join the Good Americans this weekend as they do their part to help the corporatist establishment make an example of this monster (whose evil outstrips that of Hitler, and Pol Pot, and Stalin, and, well, pick your monster) and discourage any future billionaire ass hats from screwing with their simulation of democracy.

They’ll be staging huge rallies all around the country to whip up support for the Pink Revolution, and possibly even all-out Blitzkrieg against our bestial Slavic enemies before they “influence” another election, or hack another rural power grid. They’re calling it the “March for Truth.”

It’s a totally grassroots volunteer effort that has absolutely nothing to do with David Brock, Peter Daou, or Shareblue, or the Democratic Party, or any of its neoliberal backers. This one probably won’t quite match the Nuremberg rallies for flat-out hysteria, but give the ruling classes some time … “Resistance Summer” is just getting started.

C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can reached at cjhopkins.com or  consentfactory.org.

[dearestdaffodils]

Outer Banks rewrite episode 1 teaser

A/N: so I’ve always loved those fics where the author rewrites the show or book or whatever with the reader as one of the characters so I decided to do the same with Outer Banks! Also a lot of quotes and character dialogue is taken from the show! I am not trying to take credit for the amazing work the writers and actors and everyone involved in this show did

“The Outer Banks, paradise on earth.” I tune out John B’s voice, ignoring his ‘welcome to the OBX’ speech for the camera. He was determined to make a documentary about our lives this summer, though I really didn’t know why. 

Welcome to the OBX, an island divided in two. You either have two houses or two jobs, John B always says. That blond boy sitting next to me, that’s JJ. My boyfriend. He’s as local as they come. Latest in a very long line of fishing, smuggling, vendetta-holding salt-lifers who make their living off the water. Don’t tell him I said this but he’s the best surfer I know. Mild kleptomaniac and probably a future tax cheat. 

The girl across from me is Kiara, or Kie. When she’s not saving turtles or listening to Marley, or getting a dolphin tattoo, she hangs with us. None of us really know why, she’s a rich kid after all. Next to her is the brains of our little operation. Pope. Finalist for the Lucas T. Vanderhorst Merit Scholarship and the smartest kid I know. 

The kid in the driver’s seat, the one who is paying more attention to his camera than the road, that’s John Booker Routledge, but everyone calls him John B. He’s kinda like my brother. He and his dad took me in when my family dumped me on their front porch when JB and I were about four. He drives me crazy and he knows it. 

And then there’s me. Y/N Y/L/N. Little Routledge as JB likes to call me even though I’m four months older than him. Big John disappeared nine months ago at sea, which means JB and I have been on our own since Uncle T split for Mississippi. Everyone insists that Big John is dead but John B refuses to sign the papers until he sees a body. 

Social workers have been on our asses nearly every day, trying to force us into foster care. John B and I have managed to avoid them so far. 

So this is how our story starts. Me losing nearly all of my second family and a social worker breathing down my neck.