#and keep collecting my little file of evidence that people agree in writing that I’m doing a good job

[tacosaysroar]

VICTORY IS MINE

[theggning]

I Hate the Alternate Ending of Blind Betrayal, and Here's Why!

DISCLAIMER THE FIRST: Massive spoilers for Fallout 4 abound. This post discusses Blind Betrayal, a quest with suicide as a heavy theme. Content warning applies.

DISCLAIMER THE SECOND: This post discusses cut OFFICIAL content from Fallout 4 that has since been repurposed into multiple mods. I am not criticizing any modders or their implementations of this content. Mods are fun and people can enjoy whatever the hell kind of game experience they want with whatever mods they want.

I am ONLY interested in discussing the original cut content as Bethesda had written it, and how it would have impacted the story and lore of Fallout 4.

So, yeah, it seems there was originally going to be another way to conclude Blind Betrayal (BB).

As described in this Kotaku article (citing this post by Tumblr user tentacle-explosion,) there are unused audio files of Danse’s dialogue that show an alternate ending to his pivotal quest. These lines are the only evidence we have of this ending (suggesting that it was cut fairly early on, as no other actors/characters seem to have recorded for it.)

From what we can tell, in this alternate ending of BB, Danse comes up with a possible way out of the sticky situation re: his identity as a synth. According to the Brotherhood Litany, he is able to challenge Maxson’s authority as Elder via combat. If you agree to this idea, you go with Danse to challenge Maxson. The Paladin and the Elder duel one another, Danse wins, and Maxson dies. Then Danse names the Sole Survivor the new Elder-- or with a hard charisma check, you’re able to convince Danse to take the job himself. It is unknown how the main plot would have progressed beyond this point, as there is no other evidence of what being (or influencing) the Elder would have been like or what choices it would have given you.

There is understandable disappointment in learning that this ending was cut. Choices in games are great, and it could have been fun to have multiple different options for how to resolve the quest. In many gaming circles, people complain that this theoretical ending is superior to the one we got and shouldn’t have been axed. The Kotaku article calls it a “way better” ending, and you’ll see many players lamenting that it wasn’t implemented, saying Bethesda was bad at writing for cutting it, etc.

So why did Bethesda get rid of the Elder ending of BB?

In December 2020, after the Fallout 4 Cast Reunion, Danse’s voice actor Peter Jessop answered questions in a private signing session on his Instagram. Peter Jessop is an extremely kind and gracious man, an avid gamer, and a huge fan of Fallout. During the stream, he reflected on the alternate ending and remembered recording the lines, but stated the content was ultimately cut because Bethesda decided it was lore-breaking.

Peter Jessop is right. Bethesda was right. The Elder ending of BB is a bunch of dumb nonsense. It sucks, I hate it, and I’m glad they got rid of it. And now I’m going to tell you why!

SIDENOTE: King Shit of Fuck Mountain

There is no wrong way to play a single-player video game. If you are having fun, then you are accomplishing the task for which the game was made. Good for you! Play it on easy. Play it on hard. Mod it. Speedrun it. Make up an intricate roleplaying scenario. Perform “challenge” runs. Kill everybody you see. Ignore the story and run around collecting wheels of cheese. Games are meant to be fun and there is nothing wrong with enjoying a game however you damn well please. This is especially true for RPGs like Fallout, which are designed with player freedom in mind.

There is an RPG playstyle I like to call King Shit of Fuck Mountain: a naked power fantasy in which your protagonist is the most powerful person ever, even beyond normal RPG plot significance. Through brute strength, incredible charisma, or having completed tons of quests for world-breaking artifacts and weapons, your character wields godlike influence, able to control people, factions, and the fabric of the world itself. A game enables KSoFM gameplay when it allows the player limitless freedom to gain as much power as they like with zero consequences to plot or storytelling.

A great example of this is the Dragonborn in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. If the player chooses to pursue every questline in the game, one single person can become Harbinger of the Companions, Archmage of the College of Winterhold, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, Nightingale and Guildmaster of the Thieves’ Guild, hero of the Imperial/Stormcloak army, the chosen one of like, 11 different Daedric princes, a bard, a Blade, and otherwise just, absurdly goddamn powerful in completely unrealistic ways. And that’s not counting DLCs. A fully-kitted-out Dragonborn is King Shit of Fuck Mountain.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with playing KSoFM if you like to. But I’m not a big fan of this style, personally. Sure, my first Skyrim character became KSoFM while I was figuring out the game, but after my first playthrough I preferred my characters become coherent figures in the story of the world. I pick one or two character traits and things that my Dragonborn is good at, focus on them, and make them part of some overall story. My honorable Imperial paladin werewolf is in the Companions, and hunts vampires on principle. My Argonian sneaky archer is a gleeful thief, but would never jive with the College or the Dark Brotherhood. I like creating protagonists who fit into these settings immersively. I don’t care about power fantasies or being in charge. I don’t WANT my character to be all-powerful, because that ruins my immersion and my little story.

Additionally, in a plot-driven story-focused game like Fallout, KSoFM tears the narrative apart. Skyrim is fairly light on story, so the Dragonborn can be the leader of the Companions and the Dark Brotherhood and whatever other factions without any of them noticing or caring. But FO4’s themes, faction drama, and the main thrust of the plot don’t work at all if the Sole Survivor is able to become too powerful or too influential. The Sole Survivor cannot become the leader of every faction, solve every problem, or eliminate every inconvenient bend of the conflict because it makes the lore of the entire setting implode. Thus, the game forces you to choose between factions. You cannot be with the Minutemen and the Nuka-World Raiders. You cannot be with the Railroad and the Institute. And you cannot become Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel.

So if you’re the kind of person who loves playing KSoFM, if you like plots that your character can “solve” with relative ease, or if you just think it would be super cool for your Sole to become Elder regardless of surrounding storytelling, then you might think the Elder ending sounds super cool. You are absolutely allowed to disagree with me here. Install all the mods and write all the fic and have all the headcanons you like. I respect that. There is no wrong way to enjoy a single-player video game. Have fun!

But if you’re a big nitpicky pedantic lore nerd like me, a fan of cohesive storytelling, or if you just want to hear how the Elder ending of BB absolutely fucking ruins Maxson, Danse, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the entire plot of FO4 from a narrative perspective, read on!

1. The Synth Thing

The Elder ending requires the stupid plot contrivance of the BoS forgetting about Danse’s synthhood.

One of the biggest problems with the BoS as an institution is their strict and dogmatic beliefs, which include a widespread dislike of non-human species. Perhaps more than any other non-humans, the BoS hates synths. Synths are, in their eyes, machines given free will, a violation of the sanctity of human life and the ultimate example of technology run amok. To them, synths are not sympathetic, they are not slaves, and they are not victims of circumstance. They are weapons that left unchecked will destroy all of humanity for a second time. Synths are anathema to everything the BoS stands for, and finding out that one of their most beloved and trusted Paladins is one is an earth-shattering blow to their integrity and sense of security.

It is completely absurd that the BoS would allow a synth within their ranks, particularly as they are waging war against the Institute, who created synths in the first place. It is even MORE absurd that they’d allow one to influence their Elder, or even worse, to become Elder. It completely undermines their mission in the Commonwealth, and the core tenets of their extremely rigid beliefs. No matter the Elder, no matter the Litany or obscure BoS law, no matter how valuable the Sole Survivor is as a soldier or how much influence they wield. Danse is a synth. He’s the enemy. He is physically the embodiment of everything they hate.

Not only wouldn’t they trust a synth in general, but the BoS specifically believes that Danse is an infiltrator for the Institute. Even Danse believes that he is a danger, that the Institute may be able to take control of him and use him as a weapon. Sure, we know none of this is actually true, or possible, but the BoS don’t know that. And given how quick they are to order Danse dead without even the possibility of surrender, I don’t think there’s any charisma in the world that’s going to convince them otherwise.

According to Peter Jessop, this, ultimately, is the reason why the Elder ending was cut. He talks about it around the 11:30 timestamp in his Instagram stream, linked above:

“We recorded an ending where you keep Danse alive and you take over the Brotherhood. But there was a question of content… there’s no way the Brotherhood, once they knew he was a synth, would let him be even the right hand of the person in charge.”

Bethesda correctly recognized the incredible narrative contrivance for the BoS to shrug off the reason they’re trying to execute Danse in the first place. Whatever other beefs I have with this ending conceptually, they all come in second to just what a big dumb leap it is to get beyond this first and most important problem.

2. The Complete Death of Conflict

The Elder ending of BB destroys the conflict of the quest, and potentially the conflict of the entire game.

Greed is a poison. There is no such thing as a perfect ideal or a perfect organization. Power corrupts. Humanity has the choice to build back better. War never changes. The Fallout games are full of themes, depicted by the characters and quests and factions we play out.

Blind Betrayal is rightfully praised as one of the most powerful quests in FO4. Not only is it well-acted, but it puts the player in a very difficult position. The BoS has given you clout and glory and free power armor and lots of firepower, but now you see the price: unquestioning obedience. You are ordered to execute your friend and mentor Danse for the mere fact he is a synth. Are you going to follow that unjust order? Are you willing to give up your principles on command? Or is this where you can no longer stay quiet and stay in line?

To be honest, I’ve always thought the fact you can talk Maxson out of killing Danse but still remain with the BoS in good standing was a cop-out. BB goes 90% of the way to forcing you to choose between a companion and a faction, and then chickens out at the last second to let you have both, if your charisma is high enough.

(I believe this has the fingerprints of Skyrim’s development on it-- Bethesda’s writers got nervous about doing another Paarthurnax choice involving the fan favorite Brotherhood of Steel. That’s right. Danse is the Paarthurnax of Fallout. Frankly, I understand why they chose not to go there, but damn, wouldn’t it have been wild? You want to run with the BoS? Then kill your friend and feel the burn. THIS is what it means to follow orders without question.

As for me, I’d pick Danse every time and sleep soundly without the company of shitty bootlicking dieselpunk LARPers- but I digress.)

Anyway, you know what would have REALLY been a copout? If the game asked you to make a difficult thematic storyline choice, and you solved the problem by just not choosing at all.

You are supposed to feel uncomfortable when Maxson orders you to kill Danse, because the game is telling a story about how it is maybe a bad thing to thoughtlessly follow orders without question. It is asking you to think about what the BoS is, what they are doing, and how they are going to run things, if you choose to let them “win” the Commonwealth. It is pointing out that there is no room for gray in the BoS’ black and white. That a good, loyal man may die because of the way he was made, through no action of his own. That soon, you’ll be killing other people on command. The Railroad. Fleeing Institute synths and scientists. Others, down the line. It all depends on who’s giving the orders. Are you going to follow those orders?

Eesh, that sounds thought-provoking and unpleasant and difficult! Let’s just skip it by killing Maxson and making ourselves the boss. Now we get to tell everybody else what to do!

It’s unknown what powers the Elder ending would have granted the player, or how it would have interacted with the other factions. There is speculation that you’d have been able to ease back on the BoS’ dogmatism, or change some of the later events of the game. For instance, perhaps you could talk the BoS down from attacking the Railroad, sparing popular characters like Glory and Deacon who must die in the normal BoS storyline. Perhaps you could have made the BoS a kinder, gentler faction and directed them to run the way you want them to.

If this was indeed the case, then the Elder ending would not only suck the gravitas out of BB, but torpedo the entire main plot.

If you can get rid of any and all downsides to siding with the BoS, why in the hell would players side with anybody else? With the player given total power, the BoS becomes a perfect faction with no drawbacks, no weaknesses, no tough decisions to be made. Screw slumming it with the Railroad or the Minutemen, let’s take over the BoS. Free power armor and a giant robot! Forget the whole intolerance thing, I hereby proclaim the BoS No Longer Problematic! Now to force all the factions to get along, completely removing all conflict and nuance from the plot!

That’s some real anticlimactic “tell Legate Lanius to go home and then he does it” bullshit right there. King Shit of Fuck Mountain!

Look, it might be nice if there was a perfect path like that to take through the game. It would be cool if our characters could be that powerful and the game was that tailored to our individual choices. On the other hand, “I change all the factions to suit my exact liking” might be a fun idea for a fanfic, but it’s an incredibly boring plot for a video game. “I get to make everything in the world exactly how I want it” is Minecraft, not a story-driven RPG with a complex and intricate plot.

It would be great if complex conflicts could really be solved that easily and effortlessly, but hey, you know what? War never changes.

3. The Assassination of Arthur Maxson (Literal)

Arthur Maxson’s death is too significant and fundamentally disastrous for the Elder ending to make any sense at all.

Hero, villain, leader, monster, tortured soul, brutal dictator, immature twerp, bearded sex hunk. However you personally interpret Arthur Maxson, there is no denying that he is a venerated, popular, beloved figure in the BoS. He is the blood heir of the organization’s founder, a powerful warrior, a brilliant tactician, and a charismatic negotiator. He is responsible for reuniting the East Coast BoS with the Outcasts, leading the new, stronger BoS with a sense of shared purpose. There is a damn good reason his name is Arthur and he named his ship The Prydwen, echoes of King Arthur and the legends of his glorious kingdom of Camelot. Arthur Maxson is so beloved that many view him as a demigod, a messiah sent to lead the BoS into a mighty and prosperous future.

So I’m sure nobody’s going to be upset when some wasteland jackass recruited a month ago stumbles in with a synth, kills him, and takes over his job. Right?

It doesn’t matter that it’s “honorable.” It doesn’t matter that it’s done “by the book” via obscure BoS rules. There is no codex or litany or rule so binding that it’s going to overcome the cult of personality around Maxson. There is no way that the BoS is going to accept the death of Arthur Maxson, a man whose reverence borders on worship, especially not when he is immediately replaced by a wastelander, or a synth.

The death of Arthur Maxson removes the unifying glue that’s been holding the BoS together since mending the rift with the Outcasts. Maxson’s death eliminates the one person that both sides of that conflict agreed could steer the organization in the right direction. Some level heads may try to keep the focus on the mission and the Brotherhood tenets, but Maxson loyalists will never forgive the new Elder for his death, and that amount of passionate righteous anger will not be quelled by appeals to the rules. The new Elder’s war on the Institute is basically over before it begins, when the forces splinter and start infighting over the change in leadership.

And this is if the new Elder lives long enough to actually give any orders. I give them around 24 hours after the duel before some angry Maxson loyalist “accidentally” pulls the trigger and “tragically” empties a clip into their back.

24 seconds, if it’s Elder Danse, the dirty synth abomination.

4. The Assassination of Arthur Maxson (Figurative)

The Elder ending of BB falsely pretends that Arthur Maxson is the biggest and only problem with the BoS.

In the Elder ending, as written, the conflict of BB is considered completely and totally solved by the death of Arthur Maxson. The core problem, that Danse is a synth and considered an enemy by the BoS, has not gone away. But by getting rid of Maxson, this apparently no longer matters. Nobody else is going to take offense to Danse’s nature or protest his presence. Nobody else is going to attack him or try to follow through with Maxson’s prior orders. Nope, that meanybutt guy who gave the order is gone, and everybody else is going to welcome Danse back into the fold like nothing ever happened.

I touched on this a little bit on an ask about Maxson a few weeks back, but a lot of people seem to believe that the FO4 Brotherhood of Steel is the way they are purely because of him. That he is the one making them treat non-humans as second class citizens at best, and enemies to be slaughtered at worst. That it’s his fault the BoS is so vehemently against synths and the Institute. That he is the one influencing their imperialistic tendencies, and treating the Commonwealth like territory to be conquered and people to be ruled over by their betters.

He’s not. That’s the Brotherhood of Steel, guys.

The charitable, altruistic, virtuous BoS that many of us met for the first time in FO3 were outliers. Lyons’ group was literally disowned by the rest of the faction because their kindness to wastelanders had gone so far astray from the “core” tenets. The BoS as a whole has always been exclusive, isolated, and seen themselves as “superior” to the average wastelander. They have long disliked or outright hated non-humans (and even Lyons’ BoS in FO3 use ghouls, feral or not, for “target practice” if they get too close!) The rigid dogmatism of the BoS is not something that Arthur Maxson started, but has always been part of their fabric.

Now, it’s true that Maxson is absolutely going hard on the BoS tenets, and extremely dedicated to upholding them. His BoS are the way they are and act the way they act because he believes that this is the way it should be. Is it possible that a different leader may be a little more flexible? Absolutely. Could a skilled Elder eventually show them the benefits of a softer approach and a more generous worldview? Totally. Is getting rid of Maxson and replacing him going to make that happen overnight, or going to make the rest of the BoS who supported him shrug and follow suit?

Nope.

Blaming Arthur Maxson for everything unsavory about the Brotherhood is unfair to him and also foolishly ignoring the deep, massive problems that are far older than he is-- problems that plenty of its members wholeheartedly believe are not problems at all. Getting rid of Maxson does not make the BoS kinder or gentler. Even pretending Maxson isn’t as personally beloved as he is, any new Elder who steps in and starts trying to fundamentally alter the way the BoS operates and what they believe in is going to face some major, immediate pushback.

Like, a full clip of bullets in the back type of pushback.

In the face if it’s Elder Danse, the godless freak of nature.

5. The Un-Redemption of Paladin Danse

Last, and my personal least favorite!

At first glance, Paladin Danse is a steely jackboot, a die-hard Brotherhood loyalist who fully and firmly believes in their cause. Many immediately dismiss him as a humorless brute, or completely ignore him because they think that’s all there is. But if you spend any time with Danse at all, you’ll notice a sort of weariness in him. He is tired, overworked, and his years of service are starting to weigh on him. He has watched friends, comrades, and mentors die in horrible and gruesome ways, and he suffers from PTSD. Though he has always been told that his own sacrifices, the sacrifices of his brothers and sisters have been” worth it,” he’s starting to question if that’s true.

After telling of the incident where he personally executed his best friend Cutler, who’d been turned into a super mutant, the Sole Survivor is able to console him:

Player Default: You did the right thing. Danse: {Somber} It's what I was taught. I don't know if it was right.

This line is an excellent summary of Danse’s entire character arc. He learns to question whether to believe what the Brotherhood has taught him, or to believe in himself. His gut feelings. His sense of justice and his own ideas of what’s right and wrong.

(In the interest of not turning this into an essay about Danse’s character, I won’t even get into how this also applies to his beliefs about his worth as a person. But keep in mind, that dimension is there, Danse just covers it up by making everything about the Brotherhood.)

During Blind Betrayal, after getting the orders to execute him and hearing Haylen’s plea for mercy, we may expect Danse to be ready to fight back or flee. But when you confront him in the bunker at Listening Post Bravo, he’s compliant and suicidal. Danse is so deeply poisoned by the BoS’ rhetoric that his own feelings or will to live don’t factor into the conversation. He demands that you follow your orders and execute him, because he believes, as the BoS does, that all synths are dangerous and must be destroyed.

Danse: {Stern} Synths can't be trusted. Machines were never meant to make their own decisions, they need to be controlled. Technology that's run amok is what brought the entire world to its knees and humanity to the brink of extinction.

{Confident} I need to be the example, not the exception.

Through various dialogue options, if your charisma is high enough, you are able to talk Danse off the ledge. He is able to consider, at least, that the BoS’ merciless judgment of him is wrong and that what he was taught isn’t right. He is a thinking, feeling, self-aware synth, and that makes him as much a person as any human. Danse is no danger to humanity-- and maybe, most synths aren’t either.

Danse is an example, not an exception.

Later on, if you manage to get him out of BB alive, Danse shows further acceptance of his nature. His approvals about synths begin to soften slightly (or many of them do, at least… it’s not perfect.) He is still struggling with his identity and reconciling it with his former hatred, but his dialogue suggests that he’s on the road to being more open-minded and understanding. Along with this, Danse learns that he has value as a person beyond the Brotherhood. He no longer needs to define himself with BoS beliefs or judge himself by how useful he is to them. He learns that he is worth caring about, worth being friends with or being loved because of who he is-- not what he is, in any regard.

[SIDENOTE: Many players, myself included, are frustrated that Danse’s arc leaves off sort of midstream there. Due to the open-ended nature of the game, we don’t get a real conclusion to his arc-- even though much of his idle dialogue doesn’t change and he still espouses pro-BoS sentiments ( an unfortunate by-product of writing for a video game) there is every indication that he’s started down the right path, but understandably has a ways to go.

Also, Peter Jessop agrees with us.]

Meanwhile, in the Elder ending, Danse doesn’t get a redemption. His entire character arc, actually, hits the skids and does a total 180.

He never leaves the BoS. So scratch the need for Danse to ever think about himself as separate from them. He never needs to question what they’ve taught him or whether they’re right or wrong. He never needs to find any worth in himself beyond his use to the BoS. Why would he? He might be the Elder. The BoS is all he needs to care about anymore. The BoS is all he ever needs to be, ever again.

And I think, most horrifying of all, this Danse never needs to change his mind about synths. On the contrary, one of the surviving dialogue files includes Danse’s speech to reassure the rest of the BoS of his stance:

Danse: I want to make one thing clear to everyone. This body might be synth, but my heart and mind belong to the Brotherhood. The Institute is still a tremendous threat to the Commonwealth. They possess technologies that need to be confiscated or destroyed. And even if that means I have to pull the trigger on my own kind, I’m willing to make that sacrifice.

Elder ending Danse doesn’t grow more understanding on the nature of synths. He doesn’t accept that synths are people, or anything more than technology run amok. He won’t even accept that for himself. Elder Maxson wasn’t wrong about synths-- they’re the enemy and they need to be destroyed.

But, see, he was wrong about Danse. It’s okay for Danse to exist in spite of his nature. It’s okay for him to never fully accept his own personhood, and to outright deny it to his kind. Because his body is a machine, but he’s different from the rest because his heart and mind belong to the Brotherhood.

He’s the exception, not the example.

CONCLUSION:

The Elder ending of Blind Betrayal is dumb, contrived, stakeless, character-derailing powergaming crap at its finest and I’ll happily dance on its grave.

People give Bethesda a lot a shit for their writing-- whether it be stuff they left out, stuff they left in, or stuff that they never, ever could have made work due to the limitations of writing for a video game. Plenty of it is well-deserved, or at least worth a discussion. But from the minute I found out about its existence, I have always wanted to extend a congratulations to Bethesda for cutting the alternate Elder ending of Blind Betrayal. It was a good choice. A very good choice to cut a very dumb plot that would have fundamentally altered the story they were telling, and characters that I’ve grown to love. I think the writers deserve some credit and a hearty handshake for the wisdom of this decision.

Now as for why Nick Valentine isn’t romanceable--

[fangirlovestuff]

All’s Well that Ends Well - Wanda Maximoff x female!reader

a/n - hello lovely people!! i wasn’t gonna write another part for this because i didn’t really want to venture into the future with this series since i like the ending i have in water under the bridge, BUT i got this lovely ask and it was an amazing idea and i’m so happy / shocked that people still remember this so here’s another part! i hope you enjoy<3

Summary: a collection of moments in your journey, from Wanda’s eyes. (not moments that appeared in the previous parts!)

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: i’m pretty sure none. maybe the faintest alluding to smut you have ever seen but i don’t even know if that counts. also a smidge of angst but not really

read the previous parts: Silver Lining || Water Under The Bridge

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Wanda was walking through the long corridors of the compound, a frown on her face, a product of the mission she just came back from. They made it work, but things definitely weren't ideal for a while there. She expected Cap would go over that in the debriefing, the one she was currently making her way to.

Ugh. She liked Steve, appreciated his professional opinion, considered him a friend, most times. But damn it, can't the debriefing wait until she had something to eat, had a shower, slept?

Apparently not, she scowled as she quickened her steps. The last thing she wanted was to be late for this and get lectured by Steve. More than she's already going to be considering how the mission went.

She felt like banging her head against a wall.

Suddenly, she heard a sweet laugh. "No! The Black Widow herself is addicted to Pop Tarts? Well, that certainly makes me feel better about myself," the voice giggled.

Curious, since she didn't recognize who it was, she couldn't resist sticking her head into the room from which she heard the sounds.

"I'm glad, but it's a secret, so shhhh," Natasha smiled that half-smile half-smirk of hers, the fondness evident in her voice as she put her finger to her plush lips to imply silence. Next to her stood the most beautiful woman Wanda has ever laid eyes on. You were standing next to the black widow, who was considered a symbol for beauty and grace, yet Wanda found herself unable to take her eyes of off you.

"Oh, hi!" you smiled once you saw someone had entered the room.

"Hey," Wanda smiled timidly as she opened the door a bit wider.

"Wanda," Natasha smiled at her. To the untrained eye, she seemed completely normal, just as she did a moment ago, but Wanda thought she could see the faintest hint of surprised irritation in her eyes. Natasha introduced the two of you, and Wanda's grin went involuntarily wider when you shook her hand warmly.

"Lovely to meet you," you grinned.

"Likewise. Natasha, I thought you'd like to know we all came back from the mission, Carol included," she raised her eyebrow slightly.

"Carol?" you asked. "Oh! Captain Marvel? Oh my god, Captain Marvel's here?" your eyes went almost comically wide as you connected the dots.

"Yeah," Wanda chuckled. "She is. But she's gonna be a bit occupied for the next hour or so, since Steve insisted we do a debriefing now, which is just where I should be going if I don't wanna be late. I'll see you around," she said in what she hoped was a friendly tone and not too high pitched.

As she walked to the meeting room, even faster than she was walking before, her mind wandered to you. You looked so… energized. God, she wished that was her. She sighed and accepted her fate, entering the room.  

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"Hey, Wanda!" Wanda heard you calling after her a few days after you got to the compound. She was just on her way to the training room, but he figured talking to you for a few minutes wouldn't hurt. If she could keep her mouth shut about her little crush, that is.

"What's up?" she turned around, waiting for you to catch up to her.

"Well, I just saw you and I figured I'd say hi," you smiled, "trying to get to know everyone and such. How are you?"

"I'm great! How are you? I mean, how's settling in and all? I know from experience that can be a little daunting," Wanda smiled sympathetically.

"I guess," you giggled, and Wanda really hoped she was only giving you internal heart eyes and not external ones. "but so far so good. I mean, everyone's just so nice. Just the other day Carol offered to help me train. Oh my god, I still can't believe I'm on first name basis with Captain Marvel!" you laughed.

Wanda hoped her disappointment didn't show on her face. "That's great!"

"Yeah, it's really awesome. Anyways, I'm sure you have better things to do, so um, I'll leave you to it," you said, that gorgeous smile never leaving your face.

Which was unfair really, since it definitely made Wanda's brain cells leave her head. Maybe that's why the next thing she said was, "Oh well, not really, I was going to go train for a while, but if you want maybe you could come with me. I'm no Carol but I'm not that bad either," she chuckled.

"Really?" your eyes lit up.

Needless to say, Wanda didn't get a lot of training time done that day. She spent most of it staring at you, so she could "um… correct your, uh, technique," as she so elegantly put it when you asked her if she didn't want to train as well.

It wasn't her fault you looked so pretty.

Per your request, she did show you a couple of things using her powers when you were finished. Your squeal of delight when she lifted up a super heavy weight bench made her cheeks blush slightly.

"That's so cool! So, can you like, read my thoughts or something?" you asked.

"I can," she smirked when you gaped at her. "but don't worry, I don't. I made a habit not to look into other people's minds when I don't absolutely have to."

"That's good to know," you grinned at her, your eyes shining with mirth.

She tried to remind herself she didn't stand a chance, she didn't even know if you liked girls, and even if you did she was no Carol or Natasha, but to no avail. No matter how much she repeated it, even after the three of you got together, she couldn't stop herself from falling a little more in love every time she saw you.

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

Bucky and Wanda were an unlikely duo. Pretty much everyone agreed on that. Except for Steve.

"I think you two have more in common than you'd like to admit," he had smiled. When they asked him what he meant, he simply mimed locking his mouth up and throwing the key. "If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you."

They both knew what he meant, of course. The abnormal strength, fighting for the wrong side. They both made their mistakes, grew to be better. They never talked about it, not really. But when a sound made Bucky's jaw clench a certain way, or a mission was especially draining, or Wanda saw something that brought more memories of home than she'd like, they were there for each other. Actions, not words, but they understood.

Right now, Bucky greeted Wanda as she entered the kitchen on a chilly morning.

"So, you hear about the new trouple?" Bucky asked her, handing her a mug of tea he made because he knew she needed it in the mornings.

"Trouple?" Wanda frowned, before sipping her tea and humming gratefully at him.

"Well, like a couple but… three," Bucky chuckled awkwardly. "Tony said that."

"Oh, um… no, I guess I didn't," she shrugged.

He explained that you were dating Nat and Carol. "It took me a minute to register it too, so I get it," he smiled at her expression.

"No, I mean, I totally get it. That was fast," she raised her eyebrows. When he didn't reply, she continued, "I hope they'll end up well. For the team, you know," she shrugged, gulping before taking another sip of her tea.

"Hey," Bucky laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I know you liked her."

"Which her?" she quipped back. He just gave her a look and she sighed, her shoulders slumping. "Yeah. But I mean, she's with two of the most powerful women in the world. The universe, probably. I can't exactly compete with that," she shrugged helplessly.

"Wanda, you're amazing. I hope you know that," Bucky said, his eyes sincere.

"I guess," she smiled at him.

"Wanna go eat ice cream and watch a sappy movie?"

"You know me so well," she giggled and magicked the fridge open, sending two tubs flying into her hands, as well as two spoons from the drawer.

"Showoff," he scoffed, taking one from her outreached hand.

"You love it," she winked, drawing a chuckle from him.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's go watch that movie of yours, young lady."

She laughed and followed him out of the kitchen.

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

After the breakup, Wanda was getting closer and closer to you. She didn't want to be a rebound, but also… she just couldn't resist. But, her intentions were purely platonic. For now, at least.

At first, you didn't want to talk to her about it. She understood, didn't push. She knew you needed time.

And indeed, after a couple of days, she heard a knock on her door. She used her magic to open it since she was on her bed, going over some files, which she immediately discarded once she saw you, the state you were in. You have clearly been crying, the tear tracks evident on your face, your quiet sniffle reaching her ears.

"What's wrong?" she asked, gesturing for you to come sit down with her.

You sat down and took a deep breath. She wrapped her arms around you, pulling your head to rest on her shoulder. That's what made you break down again. In the comfort of her arms, you felt safe enough to cry, to fall apart.

She started to pull away when she felt your shivers, but stopped when you clung to her tighter, letting your tears flow freely. She just stroked your hair gently, letting you cry as much as you needed, mumbling reassurances.

When you calmed down enough, you raised your head. "I'm sorry," you mumbled, averting your bloodshot eyes from hers.

"No, don't apologize. I'm here," she nudged your shoulder, prompting you to meet her gaze. "What's wrong?"

"I just… I guess it took a couple of days until it felt real. Until I realized…" you cleared your throat. "I- Wanda, I've been dating them for the absolute most of the time I've been an Avenger. What if… what if I don't have a place in the team without them? What if I'm not strong enough without them?"

"Don't think that, not even for a second," she squeezed your shoulder. "You are one of the most powerful people I know. You belong here, in this team. I've seen you fight, and you're incredible. You're strong, you're smart. All of that has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with them. I know losing them may hurt, but that hurt doesn't change who you are."

"Thank you," you said. It wasn't enough, so you wrapped your arms around her, squeezing her tight, hoping she'd understand.

"It's the truth," she said, stern but not harsh.

That night, after you left, with plans to hang out tomorrow, she took a couple of deep breaths, calmed herself down. If she didn't, she was sure she'd go out there and kick the asses of two of her extremely stupid teammates.

Okay, they weren't actually stupid. But at that moment, Wanda was ready to hurt them, only for making you feel like this. Like you needed them. Seeing you like this made her want to blast them both into oblivion.

But you'd be fine, and you certainly didn't need her to interfere in your business. Besides, she got caught up thinking about the smile you gave her before you left.

She'd move planets to see that smile as often as possible.

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

Wanda smiled when she saw you approaching, your swimsuit wet since you had already jumped in the water. Because of course, Tony had a pool in the compound, and of course, he insisted everyone would come together at least one day a year and "bond". Honestly, the man was a bit of a sap. Not that Wanda minded, if it gave her opportunities for sights like these, she mused as she looked at you above her sunglasses.

"Having fun?" she asked once you were close enough to hear her.

You smiled. "Yeah. But you know what would be even more fun? If my lovely girlfriend will join me in a game of chicken against two annoying super soldiers? Maybe, you know, work your magic?" you batted your eyelashes at her innocently.

"Are you asking me to help you cheat so you can make Steve drop Bucky from his shoulders and you would win?" she chuckled.

"No! I mean, maybe. Ugh, his shoulders are so big Wanda, it's unfair! Bucky has so much more space than I do! Clint can't hold me properly," you grumbled half heartedly at your teammate. "But if I hold you up on my shoulders, and you'd, you know," you gestured in a way that was supposed to be similar to how she uses her magic, but only made her giggle at your antics, "I really think we can win."

"Alright, I'm convinced," Wanda announced, pulling off her sundress and revealing her swimsuit so she can get in the pool. "But only because I'd love to see Bucky's face when he falls into the pool and ruins his hair. Steve wouldn't hear the end of it either," she giggled. "Come on, let's go," she said as she started walking towards the pool.

"Babe?" she turned back to find you staring at her.

"Yeah?" you said, shaking your head a little.

"Are you coming?" she smirked.

"Oh, I dunno, I think I was in the sun for a long time, it's getting kinda hot. Maybe we should go inside, cool down a little, and I could kiss you, and-"

You got cut off by Wanda pressing her lips to yours gently. "Now come on," she smirked when you parted, "we have a pair of super soldier asses to kick."

And you did indeed kick their asses. Even without using her magic, Wanda managed to knock Bucky off with you balancing on one leg and using the other one to kick Steve under the water, making him lose enough of his balance.

You both laughed when Bucky and Steve went out of the water, Bucky complaining about his ruined hair and, "God Steve, I pulled you out of the river and you drop me in the pool?"

"I'm pretty sure you were the reason I ended up in that river in the first place," Steve snarked back. When Bucky opened his mouth to protest, Steve continued, "And I’d fall into that river for you again if I had to. Besides, your hair looks just fine," he smiled sweetly at Bucky, who stopped glaring daggers at him and was instead giving him the usual heart eyes.

"Punk," Bucky muttered as Steve went out of the pool. He extended his hand to help Bucky out, who instead pulled on his arm and made him fall into the water at him.

"Jerk," Steve shook the water from his hair before picking Bucky up and getting them both out of the pool as Bucky laughed.

You and Wanda looked at them with a smile.

"I'm glad they're happy," she said, moving her hands in the water in slow motions.

"They deserve it. You do too," you told her sincerely.

"I am happy," she smiled. "You make me happy," she cupped your cheek in her hand, and you kissed her sweetly.

"You make me happy too," you said, "the happiest."

Later, when you were all gathered around an outdoor table, it somehow ended up with you and Wanda sitting across from Natasha and Carol. Now at first, Wanda half considered being rude and asking to switch with someone.

But then she realized, maybe this isn't so bad.

"Hey baby, can you pass me that salad?" she asked you, sneaking a side look at Nat and Carol. They were talking between them, but the way they tensed up let her know they were paying attention. Good.

"Sure thing," you reached or the salad she gestured at, passing it.

"Thank you," she grinned, planting a firm but sweet kiss on your lips.

You hummed in delight. "Not that I'm complaining, but what was that for?"

"For passing me the salad," she shrugged with a smile.

You let it go, not thinking anything of it, but Wanda snuck another look across the table, and sure enough, Carol's jaw was tightly clenched, while Natasha was looking down at her plate, moving her food around as if she lost her appetite.

It wasn't as good as kicking their asses, but it would do. She barely managed to contain the smug grin that threatened to spread across her face. Having you to herself was more than enough, it was everything she could've ever wanted.

But, having your ex-girlfriends realize what they lost? Well, it certainly didn't hurt.

She didn't do it a lot, didn’t brag or show you off around them most times. But every now and then, she couldn't help herself, because you deserved it. She knew you'd probably never really confront them about how they made you feel, so when she could, she subtly did it for you.

You didn’t deserve what they put you through. No, you deserved the world, you deserved to smile and laugh and be happy and loved. Wanda hoped she could be that, give you that, for the rest of your lives.

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

tell me your thoughts!! i couldn’t help but make stevebucky date because i love them hehe. the little look into Wanda’s friendship with Bucky was really fun too, i felt like i sorta alluded to it in the previous ones but yeah, anyways i love them and i hope you liked it<3

Taglist:  @horny-nd-bored​ @shannon124 @perfectlyharolds​ @wintersoldierslut​ @iceebabies​  @sleepingpapermouse @steverogerswasalwaysworthy @holtzkinnon @angelicl-y @stydia-4-ever @thatoneperson5000 @fangirlfree​ @kaitcordx25 @bequeening​ @steve-barry-damon-logan​ @itscrazycherryblossomcollection​ @hollandxmarvel​ @stargazingfangirl18 @readsreblogsfics @onetwo3000 @beritmetal @harrystylesholland @jazbot2000 @anobscurename @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @peggycarter-steverogers @evansphnx12 @starlightcrystalline @procrastinatingsapphictrash

if you wanna join / be removed from a taglist, comment/message me! much love <3

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

Hermitopia AU Conclusion

The last ask has been answered, the masterposts are complete, and (although art, writing, and Discord discussion are still accepted and encouraged) it is finally time to officially wrap up the Hermitopia AU! Because this was such a massive event - and no small thing to moderate - there will be a pause in blog activity for a day or so before the inbox will open for regular headcanons again. I apologize in advance for the wait!

In the mean time, I would just like to say: I am so, so thankful to everyone who participated in the AU. Your ideas and your creativity have made this blog a better place, whether you sent in one headcanon or dozens, and I am constantly in awe of the energy and enthusiasm of this community. Thank you, all of you, for making this universe we’ve created as vast and as interesting as it turned out to be.

Below are a collection of my own ideas, for those of you who like a satisfying (but still not entirely closed-ended) ending. These events take place as many days, months, or years into the future as you need them to make your own ideas work, and none of them are set in stone. You can take all of them, some of them, or none of them as truth if you want to...but either way, it has been an honour to build on a project like this one alongside you all.

And with that...the Hermitopia AU concludes! Finished, or barely begun, like so many good projects are. Have a great day everyone, and happy headcanoning!

- Mod Shade

"People of Hermitopia."

The man on the screen shifts, running a nervous hand across his bald head and squaring his shoulders. The broadcast quality is unstable, but it's more than enough for every citizen in the city to recognize who's speaking.

"This is your Concorp Branch Director, Cub. As I'm sure you are aware, I am the head of Project VEX in this city. You all know the VEX initiative as groundbreaking, life-saving, a shining success and a step towards a new era for humanity...and some of you may even see me as a hero for creating it.”

He closes his eyes, a brief look of pained remorse crossing his face. For a moment, he looks utterly defeated, almost small in the face of his impromptu audience of thousands...but finally, he fixes the camera with a steady gaze once more and begins the great unravelling.

“Maybe it was all those things, in the beginning. Maybe *I* was, once. But today, after far too long, I have some confessions to make...."

~

- For years, Cub had been desperately scrambling to hold the tatters of his life’s work together. Project VEX had started so well, and he had poured so much of himself into it, that when the failed experiments and rebellions became more and more frequent he was unable to accept a change of course. He covered up the project’s failings to maintain funding and public image, but mostly to maintain his own image to himself - that he was still the hero he’d set out to be and create at the project’s start. However, his denial was wearing on him heavily, and eventually he had a breakdown and decided to go public rather than keep drowning the city in lies.

- This breakdown was prompted by xB, who after his own moral breakthrough, confronted Cub and urged him to stop withholding knowledge and truth. xB also informed Cub of his own unknown truth - that the unintended power of his presence was the thing that was keeping the experiments successful when Cub was around. This was the final straw in breaking through Cub’s denial

- Along with Cub’s broadcasted speech, files were released to the media containing proof against most if not all of Concorp’s falsehoods. Many names were cleared of crimes that had been pinned on them, including Beef, Impulse, Doc, Cleo, and the majority of the other Unrestrained and Unaffiliated former VEX trainees that the company had tried to cast away

- Understandably, it took a very long time for the chaos to die down and all that information to be processed by society and the justice system. It may be years before the community can see some of their heroes in the proper light again, but at least they are now free to begin rebuilding their reputation without being labeled as villains and traitors.

- Those who actually did commit villainous acts are given a fair trial, with consideration for their motives and the new Concorp information as extra evidence

- The VEX program is withdrawn by Cub’s superiors and put under a strict review. It is reborn after a massive restructuring, with a new director, new limitations on what experiments can and cannot be attempted, and a greatly extended screening and training program to reduce the chances of graduates becoming villains. The new project will produce far fewer heroes with much subtler powers at first...but if that is the cost for the safety and stability of the city, then most people would agree that it is a small price to pay.

- Cub is not permitted to work on the new Project VEX in a management role, ever again. It’s a harsh blow for him, to have to watch his dream from the sidelines...but he knows he gave up the right to guide it when he abused the control that it gave him. At least his superiors allowed him something to do while he awaits trial: he is present (although guarded) at every new VEX trainee’s first experiment, lending his power to increase their chances of success.

- Mayor Scar resigned willingly. Nobody had enough evidence to accuse him of anything, and he didn’t plan on giving them a reason to look by trying to stay in office. Instead he chose to make his exit from both Concorp and government matters complete, at last. Or so he thinks. Who knows? Maybe he’ll learn what most of the people he’s helped to manipulate have already found out: that connections and old grudges don’t easily lose their grip.

- Scar is replaced by TFC, voted in by almost unanimous community support and funded by donations from all the people he’s saved over the years

- The greater Convex company offers a choice to the survivors of the old program: Come to work under their new, more honorable system, or take a generously large settlement and be free to build new lives

- Team ZIT declines the job offer, pooling their payment and using it to buy a shiny new base together for their independent hero venture. There are still a handful of real villains to fight, after all, and there are bound to be more once people start successfully copying Concorp technology. Now that Impulse is back at their side, they wouldn’t give up their roles saving the community for anything - but they’re done with being used by some guy behind a desk. From now on, justice and bravery will be their only guides!

- ...justice, bravery, and TFC, that is. He isn’t their boss by any means, but the more experienced hero does drop by often between his mayoral duties to make sure the youngsters stay out of trouble and in one piece.

- The nHo, according to all official records, took their settlements and split up, leaving Hermitopia far behind. However, Team ZIT suspects that the vigilante life hasn’t left them so easily. They’d be the last ones to report the odd sighting of a whipping vine or a distant masked figure, though - unregulated as they are, the nHo’s shady methods for a good cause prove useful from time to time. (And their base has really good tea. Okay, maybe it’s a little bit more than “the occasional sighting”...)

- Ren settles back into his meadow cabin, but after that massive release of info and a long, LONG period of processing, he now has Iskall, Stress, and Cleo as regular visitors. Every morning he wakes up and forgets for a moment that it’s real, that they’re really alive and with him again...but they are, and he is happier than he ever thought he would be again.

- Jevin and Mumbo visit the cabin occasionally. It took a while for Mumbo to get his memory back, but he now remembers all of his friendship with Iskall and Grian, and they come together for fun and shenanigans regularly with the rest of the cabin crew.

- Grian still spends his time looking for his clones, but honestly, he doesn’t mind. The adventure always did hold more meaning than the conclusion for him, and now, he has friends to help out!

- False disappears into thin air to wait out the fallout of Concorp’s information release. She snags herself a quiet job and a small apartment on the outskirts of town, fully intending to return to her mercenary work just as soon as the dust has settled...next week, maybe. Or the week after that. Or maybe, once the garden has been fully planted. She’s really enjoying having time for stuff like that now...but she’ll get back to work, really, she will! Soon.

- Joe and Cleo tearfully reunite through xB, and Joe becomes another frequent visitor to the cabin. Cleo also visits Joe’s base in the time exclusion zone, but she really prefers the cabin. Time skips are disorienting, and they make her want to sneeze.

- Keralis and Void come to an agreement. Xisuma isn’t entirely clear on what that agreement is - something to do with an allowance of cookies from Biffa’s bakery in exchange for not killing anyone - but he’s more than happy to be less sore and tired all the time.

Hermitopia is making progress. Real progress, this time - not just the breaking of humanity’s limitations, but breaking them with true heroic care, with the good of everyone in mind. There are some hurts that will never fully heal, mistakes that can be learned from but not undone, and yet...now there is a path, a way forward. It won’t be easy, but a kind and gentle future waits for them, welcome and well deserved. They will figure it out, together.

And together, they will step forward, into the new world that each of them has helped to create.

[neesieiumz]

All The Stars {Tamaki Amajiki x Reader} - Chapter 5

Summary: Tamaki has been a sidekick at Fatgum’s agency for four years, going up in ranks and becoming Fatgum’s right-hand man. That’s when a transfer hero comes in, Y/n L/n. Born and raised in Southern America, Y/n comes to Japan for a fresh start and interviews and aces Fatgum’s interview. Partnered with Tamaki and Fatgum to get used to Japan, Tamaki finds her interesting, and can’t help the fact he wants to get to know her. As Y/n’s past slowly gets revealed, will her demons allow the two of them to prosper? 

A/N: I KNOW, I KNOW I’M LATE!! But I really wanted to proofread this cause I don’t know if I’m setting this up as I want to... I want this story to last and I wanted it to grow which caused me to write over 4k words, which makes this the longest chapter yet, this is how long I want to keep my chapters so it may take longer to get them out, so I wanted make sure I have everything set up so without further ado...

Word count: 4k words

Chapter 5 - A new chapter

“Welcome everyone, take a seat and we can get started.” Fat gum greeted everyone as all the major pro heroes in the cities filed in and took their seats. 

Fat gum took a deep breath before turning to Tamaki and Kirishima who were the two sidekicks he brought to the meeting. 

“We’re here to discuss the arising group, who call themselves Resist, my two sidekicks Red Riot and Suneater can catch everyone up to speed. 

Tamaki looked at Kirishima who nodded and turned in the PowerPoint they both slaved over the last two weeks. 

“We’ve been noticing a rise in flame and explosive based attacks all across Japan. They usually happen in places like shopping malls, college buildings, places where a lot of people convene in a confined space basically,” Kirk started to explain, pressing the button to bring up different reports of buildings on fire which included Tadashi Shopping Center. 

Tamaki took over the presentation at this point, “we’ve noticed that in the reports we receive about these attacks, all of the opposition had these jackets with a symbol either etched on the back and the chest. We believe this is what Resist uses to distinguish themselves from other villains, and anything with this type of organization needs to be squashed before it can grow. We’ve seen this type of thing before,” He explained before narrowing his eyes. 

“We don’t want a repeat of what happened those years ago. It’s taken a long time to rebuild hero society and it’s still on the rocks.” Tamaki finished his part before looking back at Kirishima to continue. 

“Since we know what symbol they use to distinguish themselves, that allows us to see when they pop up in cities and how many times they do as well. From what I found out, they never popped up in cities more than two times except for one, here in Esuha city.” Using the IPad, he flipped through the city and a map of Japan popped up. 

In all the other major cities, they had either a one or a two except for one, Esuha City which had a nine beside its point.”

“Oh wow,” a hero mumbled.

“Nine attacks? That’s crazy,” a female hero said. 

Tamaki started to speak, “with this, we hypothesize that Resist’s HQ is somewhere in the underground of Esuha city. This is the only evidence that supports this, and will be one of the main objectives of this meeting, figuring out where they reside so we can take them down.” 

“Wait, wait, wait, so we don’t know where they are?” A pro hero, Nova, asked, looking at Tamaki with skepticism. 

Kirishima stepped in, noticing Tamaki beginning to crack, needing a few minutes to collect himself again, he can only go so long before his thoughts intrude. 

“We only have an idea, the Fat Gum Agency already has heroes and sidekicks staking out possible locations where they might be but there’s always a chance that this lead may lead us nowhere. This leads us to one of the purposes of this meeting!” Kirishima ended with a smile and a thumbs up. 

His contagious smile made Tamaki feel a little better and he stood a little straighter and tapped the IPad to bring up the next slide. 

“The way they’ve been attacking reminds me a lot of The League of Villains and we all know how they’ve left a stain in Japan’s trust in Hero Society. Some of us in this room knew how hard it was fighting them,” Tamaki lamented, looking over at his partner and they both slightly nodded.

“We lost a lot of lives and a lot of good heroes with them, and we were lucky to prevail from that fight but everything changed with that fight. The fragile state that All Might left the country was crushed and the public hated most heroes. We need to squash any threat to what we’ve built over the years and that starts with Resist,”

 Kirishima and Tamaki remember the fight with the LOV, the screams, the blood, the bodies, the cleanup, the tears, waking up in a cold sweat for months on end. Tamaki remembers lifting some debris and seeing a bloody Barbie doll and throwing up in an empty alleyway. 

Both of them did not want to go through that again. 

“Okay, we get it, but honestly I just don’t see how this “Resist” organization is any trouble. They’re just blowing up buildings without any objective.” Another random local hero spits out, leaning against his arm. 

“You idiot!” 

Kirishima and Tamaki slightly smirked at who spoke up. The six-foot Explosion Hero: Ground Zero stood up, glaring at the man who just spoke up. 

“The League of Villains were like that too, just destroying with no objective, then they found one and that’s why heroes are looked at as fucking trash!” Katsuki Bakugou spoke up, slamming his hand on the desk. 

After Best Jeanist retired, he entrusted his agency to the loud ash blond man which shocked the rest of his sidekicks. Since then, he’s been his hero, signing on Denki and Mina after they had no agency to take them in. 

“I would know, me and Shitty hair,” he said, pointing at Kirishima, “we were there for a lot of them. We were also there when they found a purpose and that’s when they took me when I was still the first year. We underestimate them as we did with LOV and it could grow into a situation that we don’t want to see! Shouldn’t you fucking know this shit already?!” Bakugou finished before sitting down after Denki tried to calm him down. 

“Calm down Ground Zero, don't want you popping a blood vessel,” a cold voice called and everyone’s attention turned to the Half and Half hero who took over his Father’s agency once he graduated. 

After his father’s career was shot after the fight, his agency fell apart since Todoroki was still a first year. But as soon as he graduated, most of his father’s old sidekicks came back to him and his father even left the building to him. Deciding that he only knew his father since he interned and did his work-study there, he decided to revamp the agency as his own and remove the bad memories since then. 

“Come on guys, let’s not fight, this is a serious matter,” came the nervous voice Deku, the one everyone was looking at as the one who would replace All Might. 

He was the only one out of his class to start a hero agency right out of high school without having to inherit it, the rest of them becoming sidekicks. Izuku Midoriya replaced Hawks as the youngest pro hero ever. 

“Shut up Deku!” 

Kiri shook his head and facepalmed at his alumni antics. 

“Somethings don’t change, huh Kirishima?” Tamaki whispers to him which made the Unbreakable hero sigh and nod. 

“Alright!! Let’s get back on topic!” Kirishima yelled, clapping his hands to get the attention of his old classmates. 

“Sorry Red.”

“My apologies.”

“Tch, whatever Shitty Hair.”

Kirishima let out a breath of relief before looking over at Fat gum to take over the rest of the meeting. Fat gum nodded before smirking and rubbing his hens together. 

“Let’s get started.”

***

Tamaki was ready to go home. Everyone was arguing about the best next steps to take to defeat this new organization and so far, no one was agreeing. Some wanted to start their investigations in their cities but some wanted to blow up every building until the “Resist Turds” showed themselves so we could kill them. 

Tamaki sighed as he slouched in his chair, listening to his boss and other pro heroes argue about their next move. 

“We can’t ignore this issue anymore, but that doesn’t mean we lose morals when it comes to this. Heroes and the public still have a rocky relationship and we can’t get into anything rash!” 

“What?!? What’s waiting? I say we find them right now and smoke them out!” 

“You haven’t changed at all.”

Tamaki looked over to the clock and noticed it was getting real close to 3:00 pm, they’ve been here for almost 2 hours and some of these hero’s had long trips to get to. Tamaki tapped Kirishima and Gat gum and showed them the time. Fat gum slammed his hands against the desk before standing up, effectively silencing the room of arguing heroes. 

“We need to decide before we get overtime and something happens in your cities. So what’s our verdict, because this isn’t the only meeting we’ll have, we’ll have more in the future that we need to prepare for,” Fat gum said. 

Everyone refused to look at each other in the eye, that was before Deku decided to speak up. 

“If so many, I believe that their HQ could be possibly located here end think that the Fat Gum Agency should focus all resources in finding said hideout, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us shouldn’t look for clues,” He said, pointing to the screen. 

“For those whose cities that were only hit once, keep an extra eye out if they ever come back. Those cities who were hit twice, you all should go back to where they hit you and see if they left behind any clues. They aren’t as organized right now so now’s the time to stop them and give the public something to believe in again!” 

And just like that, like the future Number One Hero he was destined to be, he raised everyone’s spirits in this new mission. To eradicate the Resist before they gain a name as big as LOV.

Y/n sighed as she walked in the building, headphones blasting a Megan song. She waved hi to the receptionist before turning the corner and jogging to her office. Sipping in her She opened the door and turned the light to reveal her office. She’s been so busy with the rise of villains since the two months she’s been here, that she hasn’t had a chance to finally decorate her office the way she’s wanted to. She paused her music and pulled out her headphones to be able to take a better look at her workspace. 

It had a window in the right wall of the room and her desk right in front of, facing the front of the room. The walls were bare and painted white and the room littered with unopened boxes from things she ordered. She looked down at the bag of decorations she recently bought to complete the rest and smiled. 

“Alright, I got 2 hours before the meeting with Fatgum and the other heroes. I better finish this before then,” she mumbled to herself before walking over to the biggest Amazon box. 

She turned on her speaker and connected them to her phone before continuing the song she was listening to while she was walking in the agency. 

’Simon says, put your hands on hips’

She rapped along the song under her breath as she cut open the box that was her storage shelf. As she was pulling the wrapped contents, a knock sounded off from her door. It was so quiet that she almost couldn’t hear over her music. She lowered the volume before opening her door. 

Standing outside of it was Tamaki who was dressed in very casual clothes, a pair of jeans, and a white tee shirt. Y/n stood there surprised, not expecting the Manifest hero to stand outside her door. Last she heard of him, he was working with Fat gum with a major mission. But that's what she heard. 

“Amajiki-san! This is a surprise? What brings you here?” 

Tamaki jumped at her sudden answer but collected himself, “I have something to talk to you and Aoi-san, is he here?” 

Y/n shook her head, stepping out the way for him to allow him inside her office.

“Today’s both of our days off, he went to see his mom and I decided to use this to come in to finally set up my office after two months of being here!”

“No, no it's my fault, I should have contacted you before I came over,” he shook his hands in front of his face. 

She waved him off, “It’s okay, I wasn’t doing anything important. So what’s going on?” 

She hopped on her desk and sat down and gestured for Tamaki to come closer. Tamaki hesitated to say anything, but time was of the essence and Fatgum didn’t tell Tamaki that the pair had the day off. He was about to start to speak but he looked around the room and noticed different boxes scattered around the room and looked back at Y/n who was bending down to pick up tape she threw around the room. Tamaki’s ears turned red and he quickly looked away right as she stood up. 

“Sorry it’s a mess,” she huffed, balling up the tape, “I wasn’t expecting for me to have any guests.”

He waved her off, “no it’s fine? What’s with all the boxes anyway?”

Y/n walked over to the biggest box and turned it around to show the picture of her bookcase shelf which still wasn’t open. Tamaki saw this and looked around and saw other office supplies and decorations still wrapped in plastic and packing peanuts all over the floor. 

“I decided to use my day off to finally decorate my office the bay I wanted it to be, but I may have… overspent on somethings,” she trailed off sheepishly, taking in how many boxes were in the room. 

Tamaki saw how exasperated she was, it would take her a long time to assemble the shelf and it's already 2:30 pm. He was all finished with his paperwork and was gonna go home after telling the partners before going home. He wasn’t even that tired after all. So with a deep breath, he called out Y/n as she was cleaning the peanuts away from the chairs to give them a place to sit. 

“Hey, Y/n?”

She stopped, loving her things, and turned to look at Tamaki, “yes?”

“I have the rest of the day off, I’d… I’d be more than happy to help you with your office. If... if you’d let me?” His voice got significantly quieter as he spoke. 

Y/n’s eyes brightened up, running over to take Tamaki by the hands. 

“Really!”  She exclaimed, pulling him closer to her body. 

Tamaki blushed at this sudden movement, “tried” to move his body and nodded his head, yes to confirm what he asked her. Y/n squealed before pulling the violet-haired man in a full-blown hug. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am honestly CLUELESS when it comes to putting things together and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do it! This helps so much! Thank you!”

Tamaki’s face went red as a cherry as he tried his best to make his words conceit but his thundering heart, increasing body temperature, and his burning ears made that quite difficult to do. He gave her his best smile and she gave him an even bigger one back before dragging him to the biggest box. 

“Let’s get this over with, it’s the hardest one here.”

Together, the two of them opened the box and started taking the parts out. While the two of them set up her office, they got to know each other more, from him telling her about her times as a pro hero in America. 

“Yeah, America is so different from Japan,” she mused, ripping open the smaller boxes, “Here you get your license from the Hero Commission which is a branch under the Federal Government. You can work anywhere in the country! In America, you can only be licensed in the state you take your test in!” Y/n explained, grabbing the instructions to see which parts she had. 

“Wait, how many states are in America? I know there’s a lot,” Tamaki asked, making Y/n giggle and cover her mouth. 

Y/n shook her head, “there’s fifty of them, and I could only work in Texas, where I’m from.”

Tamaki shook his head, “but what if you’re out of the state and an emergency appears and they need help?”

Y/n shrugs, “I have to leave it to the heroes there, interfering could cause me to lose my job.” She laid out all the parts and counted in her head to make that all the parts were here. 

“When I’m not in my licensed state, I’m just a simple civilian with no permission to use their quirk.”

“America’s really different from Japan, I should have known though,” Tamaki let out a little chuckle as he said that. 

“Yeah, just the size of Texas is bigger than Japan. A different system is to be expected I guess,” Y/n shrugged her shoulders. 

She picked up the boards and the poles and started putting them together but for some reason, it wouldn’t go in. Feeling frustrated, she continued to struggle with the pieces, confused as to why they weren’t going in the hole. 

“Stupid piece of,” she hissed under breath as she continued to struggle, “you doing too much for me, just go in the thing!”

Hearing her mumble under breath in English, Tamaki turned around from building his own part to seeing Y/n struggle. He smiled slightly before getting up and walking to her. Y/n saw him move over to her and before she could process it, he grabbed the pieces from her. 

“No, I think it goes over here,” Tamaki reached over behind Y/n and flipped the pole, and slid it in the hole with no problem. 

Y/n smiled at Tamaki as he did the rest of the poles, doing it effortlessly. He was about to screw everything in whenY/n stopped him.

“I can do this part but thank you!” She grabbed her screwdriver from him and before she knew it, she placed a kiss on his right cheek. 

Oh lord, Y/n thought, her head running wild, oh lord, oh lord, oh lord, what the fuck did I do?!!? Why the fuck did I kiss him???? Well, it was only on the chek, BUT FUCKING STILL!!

Tamaki was frozen, his face red. His heart pounded in his chest, and he stood there frozen. She just kissed him on the cheek, a kiss, her lips were on some part of his body. His face, his right cheek. A girl, a girl he liked. 

Y/n on the other hand took a deep breath before going back to her unfinished bookcase and continuing as if nothing happened. Tamaki looked at her quietly putting her shelf together before Tamaki decided he should do the same. They both didn’t mention what happened.

---

“Oh yeah, Tamaki what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?” Y/n asked him, using the screwdriver to carefully tighten the screw in her new desk. 

Tamaki was pulled out of his thoughts, looked at her confused, before remembering what he had to talk to them about. Why he even came to her office in the first place. 

“It concerns both you and your partner, I was hoping he would be here with you since I didn't see him in his office,” Tamaki replied, standing up and stretching his back. 

“He’s using his day off to visit his mom,” she said, remembering the conversation they had while he dropped her off, “he hasn’t seen her in a while and he said he’s finally caught up with paperwork so yeah,” 

Tamaki nodded, not caring about what Aoi did. 

“But I’m sure I can relay to him what’s going on, so what’s up?” She asked, leaving on her desk for support from being on her feet all day. 

Tamaki nodded, “It’s about a case I’ve been working on, you remember your debut fight and the explosion at Tadashi Center right?” Tamaki started, going in his bag and pulling out his flash drive with a conceded version of his and Kirishima’s presentation. 

Y/n nodded, tilting her head at the question. He handed her the flash drive and began explaining what the mission was about and its ties to her debut fight and the attack in Tadashi Center

“We believe that the people who attacked during those two times are a part of the same organization, looking to gain the same infamy that the League of Villains gained. You know about the League right?”

She nodded, “anyone who has access to news worldwide knows who they are. They left a hole in Japan’s hero society, a ginormous one.” 

Tamaki nodded, “and we believe this group is trying to continue what they left and destroy society as we know it. This is what I’ve been working on for a while and we are finally making some moves. This is where you and Aoi-San come in,” Tamaki reported. 

“Comes in?”

Y/n used her fingers to replicate quotes as she said this. Tamaki nodded. 

“Your quirk is the most effective, the ability to swallow fire and make it your own, you’ll become a big help if more explosions ever come up. Aoi-San comes as extra backup, never go wrong with extra hands, c-considering he’s your part-partner,” Tamaki finishes, sweating profusely when he mentions Aoi as your partner. 

“So out of the sidekicks here, you want me and Aoi to join you?” 

Tamaki nodded, “we’ll have other heroes from other agencies join us, we didn’t want to take any chances with them, so we made sure that we made other heroes who were affected aware of this. This was a last-minute decision made by Fat gum after seeing reports on how you were able to put out the flames in less than 5 minutes. ”

Y/n stared at him with a look he didn’t recognize, he could feel his heart pound at that. 

Oh no, did I say something wrong?!? Oh no, I didn’t mean to offend her, what do I do?! This so weird, why the fuck do I do- Tamaki’s thoughts started to overrun him again, he almost fell into the deep put before hearing low chuckles echo through the office which pulled him out of his thoughts. 

Tamaki looked at Y/n with confusion as she continued to laugh. She then stopped laughing and jumped off the desk and stretched her back out. 

Y/n nodded her head in understanding, mumbling under her breath, “that makes sense.” 

Tamaki perked up, “so you’ll join us?”

Y/n blinked at him, confused at what he said, “I had a choice?”

It was Tamaki’s turn to look at her confused, why would she think she doesn’t have a choice in this? Tamaki ignored this and just nodded his head. Y/n smiled at that and gave him a thumbs up. 

“I’m all in! And I’m sure that Aoi would be perfectly okay with it, I’ll make sure of it!” She exclaimed. 

Aoi? He thought to himself, deflating slightly before giving Y/n a last nod and turning to leave. As he did that, he heard a gasp and Y/n asking for him to wait. Tamaki turned back around, heart pounding in anticipation and he started to sweat. 

“Ye-yes?” He stumbled out, cursing at himself. 

She smiled before handing him her phone with ‘New Contact’ pulled up.

“I’ve wanted to ask you for your number for a while because I think your quirk would be very suitable for some training together?” She smiled, crossing her arms. 

Tamaki still didn't say anything as she pushed herself up from leaning against her desk and picked up her phone. She typed away at it before handing it to him. 

He stared at it confused before realizing he was supposed to put his number in it. He quickly grabbed the phone and typed in his number and his name before handing it back to her. 

“H-here you go.”

Y/n smiled and took her phone back, tapping away at it before putting it away, “thanks! I’ll text you?” 

Tamaki's eyes widened and his ears went cherry red, “yeah, just...just text me.” He stumbled out before heading to the door

[mostlycompetentwriter]

FAM

F/M Pairing: Fem!Reader x Lee Minho (SKZ)

Word Count: 2.4K

Genre: Hybrid AU; Strangers to Lovers AU

Warnings: None!!

Summary: You weren’t entirely sure about adopting a hybrid, but your friends insisted that you have someone to keep you company in the giant apartment where you lived alone. But you never imagined how much you were missing out on, until you also fell in love...

A/N: I’m trying my hand at writing hybrid AUs, so please forgive me if it isn’t up to expectation! Tagging @skzwriternet​ as usual!!

The adoption center was located in a giant brick building at the center of the downtown district where traffic was always heavy, and swarms of people migrated together to walk down the crowded sidewalks as a means of occupying their time on the weekends.

But you were hardly the type to enjoy such things, and you and your friends often spent time in each other’s apartments as opposed to dealing with the claustrophobia of the 5:00 rush hour. But on this afternoon in particular, you carefully navigated the intersections and bustling extensions to find a parking spot in the freshly paved lot of the adoption center. Because you were finally going to meet the cat hybrid that you had recently adopted after a lot of pressure from your friends and several hours scrolling through the online website.

Eventually, after an interesting internal-debate, your eyes were drawn to a hybrid cat with calico-colored ears, and the bright green of his eyes had captured your heart in an instant. From there, you didn’t need any more intervention to call the shelter and arrange a time to meet them at the center to pick-up your new friend. Even though you didn’t know much about taking care of a hybrid, you had spent the past week reading anything that you could get your hands on.

You were feeling both confident and excited when you offered your name to the receptionist upon your arrival, and she offered to bring Minho out to you. “He’s been here for so long,” she explained. “His last owners brought him in before they moved.”

“They gave him up?” you asked, appalled at the idea.

However, the receptionist merely shrugged, and you had a feeling that this sort of thing happened all the time. “Well, let me get everything arranged for you,” the receptionist said, and you lingered around the lobby while you waited, flexing your fingers because you had already signed so much paperwork.

But it was all worth it when you saw him for the first time, looking at you with the same green eyes that had first captivated your attention. “Y/N,” the receptionist said. “This is Minho.”

You shuffled in place, pasting on your best smile as you studied the hybrid. “Nice to meet you, Minho,” you said. “I hope we can get along well.”

“Yeah,” Minho replied, and you were a little caught off-guard by his nonchalant attitude, but the receptionist was positively beaming and you finished signing all the required forms before you brought Minho outside to your parked SUV.

“I hope you’re comfortable,” you said to make conversation on the drive home. So far, even with your introverted tendencies taken into consideration, you were having a hard time maintaining a conversation with him. “I redesigned the guest room for you.”

“That’s fine,” Minho said, and you took a deep breath because you weren’t expecting him to be so dismissive. But maybe he wasn’t the type who talked very much after just meting someone for the first time, and you could understand the value of your silence. Still, you only wished that it didn’t feel so awkward, returning to your apartment only to watch Minho barricade himself inside his room for the rest of the night.

From thenceforth, life with Minho...was the opposite of what you expected.

Instead of living together cohesively, and enjoying the company of someone else in the apartment, you found yourself seriously questioning whether or not you had made the right decision in adopting him. For starters, he never left his room, and you only ever saw him on rare occasions when he needed to use the bathroom, or to grab his dinner from the table. Which leads you directly to your next point: other than rushed greetings in passing, Minho never spoke to you.

And that was certainly not something that you were okay with, especially considering the fact that it felt like you were living with a total stranger. But when you brought it up to your friends and colleagues, they assured you that he just needed more time to adjust: “Maybe buy him something that Cat Hybrids really enjoy?”

So, you did, and the price of the rare treats was a major blow to your checking account, but you were desperate to get a reaction from him. And you were incredibly disappointed when he ignored the treats on the table, choosing instead to pretend like they didn’t even exist. However, that’s where you drew the line, deciding to confront Minho about your scarce interactions.

But when you stepped into his bedroom unannounced, you realized that he was absent, which meant that he was probably showering. In the meantime, while you waited for him to return, you cautiously studied the little knick-knacks and photos displayed all around the room on the shelves you had installed. Apparently, Minho was quite sentimental, and you paused on a picture of Minho smiling next to another cat hybrid who was similar in age and appearance...

“Please don’t touch that,” a guttural voice interrupted your thoughts, and you nearly had a heart attack as you returned the decorative picture frame and turned around to face Minho.

“I’m sorry,” you said, swallowing hard because you felt guilty about messing with his things. “I was waiting for you to get back.”

Minho nodded, choosing to walk around you to peruse the collection of papers stacked on top of his desk. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah...” you started, trailing off when you glanced back at the picture. “Who is that with you?”

Minho sighed at your question, and he pursed his lips like he was considering whether or not he wanted to respond. “He’s my little brother,” Minho eventually relented, and he returned to his files while you studied him with an enlightened understanding of the mercurial hybrid.

“You were separated,” you said, more as a statement rather than an actual question, but Minho still nodded. “What’s his name?”

“Jisung, and I’ve been looking for him,” he said. “But none of the registries match.”

Suddenly, a lightbulb turned on inside your head, and you connected the dots as you realized that the files on Minho’s desk were all documents recording the names of the Hybrids registered with the government - as mandated several years ago.

“I’ll help you find him,” you said, and you could tell that Minho was affected, shoulders rising even as he remained facing away from you. 

“Why would you do that?”

“Because nobody deserves what you’ve gone through,” you said. “I adopted you because I wanted a companion, but there’s more than enough room for another Hybrid.”

He was silent for a moment, and neither of you even took a chance on interrupting the tension until Minho spun around with evidence of fresh tears in his green eyes. “Thank you,” he said, but you didn’t need any gratitude for doing something that you knew was right.

“Let me help you,” you continued. “I’ll do whatever it takes, and you don’t have to avoid me anymore. I think it would be nice if we lived together as a family.”

Minho nodded, and he swiped the sleeve of his shirt beneath his eyes. “I’m sorry for ignoring you....I thought you might send me back to the shelter.”

“I wouldn’t,” you said. “I chose to take on this responsibility, and I’m not the type to just give-up if something proves to be more difficult than I thought.”

“But I made it hard...”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” you interrupted him, chancing a few steps closer to place your hand on his shoulder - a soothing gesture. “Let’s find your little brother, okay?”

“Okay,” Minho agreed, and, for the first time since you met, he even managed some semblance of a smile.

Over the course of following two weeks, you and Minho continued to grow even closer as you relentlessly searched for his little brother - constantly reassuring him to never lose hope.

You could tell that he was growing disenchanted with your repeated failures, and you always did your best to improve his moods. You studied him closely, discovering little things that he liked - K-dramas with cheesy endings, chocolate-flavored sweet things, and the feeling of warm towels straight out of the dryer that you always left on his bed after cleaning them.

Each night, you made Minho’s favorite dishes, and the two of you sat together in the living room and ate dinner while watching TV - making jokes about the characters or plot on-screen. It turned out that Minho was very personable, but you had to be very patient to understand his intricate layers. You had to be compassionate and empathetic, and you slowly earned his trust and watched him open up to you. Especially when you would sit together as the kitchen table and search databases online while calling as many adoptions centers as you could find in search of his brother.

“Are you tried?” he asked one night as the two of you finished the last of your calls for the evening.

“Not really,” you replied, but you weren’t expecting him to reach out to skim his fingers over the skin beneath your eyes.

“You have dark circles,” Minho explained, but you found yourself whole-heatedly captivated by a pair of electric green eyes, drawing you closer until the soft brush of his lips across your own snatched you into a hypnosis of pleasure.

The feeling was warm - like something that had been missing, but then rediscovered to make all the pieces match around the edges, and there was nothing left but a comfortable glow sitting on your shoulders as you resisted the urge to hasten the exchange and deepen the tender presses of your lips together.

Unfortunately, the sound of your phone ringing broke the two of you apart, and you sat back with a start as you listened the delicate thud of your heart beating loudly inside your ears. “Hello?” you spoke into the receiver, and you were embarrassed by your breathless tone. 

“Hi, is this Miss Y/L/N?”

“Yes, this is she,” you said, avoiding Minho’s gaze as you tried to focus on the conversation at hand.

“Perfect! My name is Elise, and I work the adoption center in upper Manhattan. Apparently, you called us earlier about a hybrid registered as Jisung? We just wanted to let you know that some files got mixed up, but we have him here for you safe and sound!”

“Really?” you replied, excitement coursing through your veins as you relayed the news to Minho whose eyes lit up like he was seeing the entire world unfold right in front of him. “Please keep him safe for the night. I’ll be in tomorrow to formally adopt him.”

It turned out that Jisung was the complete opposite of Minho: loud and outgoing, he walked inside your apartment while chattering away about the wallpaper color and other trivial details that made you laugh at his eagerness.

You were amused by his observations, watching as Minho gave him a tour of the apartment while keeping an arm around his shoulders. It was both a protective gesture and an affectionate one, and you were glad to see Minho and Jisung reunited after such a complicated spell of time apart. They deserved nothing more to be together - you could tell that they loved each other, and their easygoing chemistry revealed a complex history that exposed the depth of a brotherly relationship.

But you and Minho had discovered that the two brothers had been separated somewhere between their last transition between owners. It seemed that the couple who had adopted them didn’t care to ensure that the brothers stayed together, and they mishandled the entire process. The situation itself angered you to no end because you couldn’t imagine how cruel a person must be to disregard someone else’s thoughts and feelings simply because they weren’t entirely human.

“So, what do you think?” you asked Jisung when he finally started to unpack his minimal belongings in the guestroom that he would be sharing with Minho. “It might be a little small...”

“Are you kidding?” Jisung interrupted. “I love it!”

“Really?” you wondered, glancing at Minho when his hand found yours, weaving your fingers together with a squeeze.

“Better than the shelter,” Jisung said. “Seriously? I’m so incredibly grateful that you went out of your way to find me.”

“Of course,” you said. “I’m glad to have you here with us.”

“That has a nice ring to it,” Jisung said, and he sat down on the edge of his bed with a sigh. 

“You should rest,” Minho suggested. “It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah,” Jisung agreed, and he shot you another grateful smile. “Thank you again, Y/N! For everything.”

You nodded with a contented sigh, allowing Minho to drag you out of the bedroom to allow Jisung some time to himself. Meanwhile, you and Minho enjoyed one another’s company on the couch in the living room, playing a drama in the background while you sat in his lap, sharing heavy kisses and oxygen while scratching your fingernails behind his ears where you had discovered that he was sensitive. 

“This is okay, right?” Minho asked at one point, pulling back to look at you with wide eyes. “I mean, we haven’t really talked about this...thing.”

“Thing?” you repeated with a laugh. “You mean our relationship?”

“Is that what it is?” Minho questioned. “Like...a boyfriend type of thing.”

“If you want,” you agreed, and you were more than amused by his choice of words. “I like you a lot.”

“I like you too,” Minho agreed with a furious shake of his head, followed by his nose sniffing across your collarbone. “You smell good.”

“Thanks?”

“I -uh - it’s a hybrid thing,” Minho said, and you practically snorting from your uncontrollable laughter.

“Hey, you don’t have to be embarrassed around me,” you reassured him, pressing a soft kiss to his nose. “I’m glad to have you and Jisung here with me, and I think we’ll make a pretty good team together.”

“That sounds nice,” Minho said. “Does that mean we can keep kissing?”

“Isn’t that what boyfriends do?” you grinned, and Minho returned your smile before kissing you senseless with his hands wrapped around your waist - fitting perfectly against your curves like they had always belonged there. 

It was everything beyond your expectation, and you knew that your life was about to become very interesting...

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 118

Winding down to the end of 2020, when there will be an announcement regarding the story. No worries: I’m not stopping at the end of the year!

First, thanks for this chapter go to: @zommbiebro for Jokul, @wildforestferret for Hannah, @baelpenrose for Alistair and being an amazing Beta Reader/writing partner, and @raven-fae for originally giving me the NERVE to start posting this so long ago.  I never imagined that a one-off response to a writing prompt would become so much!

Housekeeping stuff: I updated the Master List and the page links over the weekend (whew), and also finished all the chapters that will post through the end of the year! Much excite, so relief.

Rushing between appointments, I was trying to multitask by looking over one of the files for the cooking class volunteers.  Quiet beeps in the back of my mind should have reminded me to watch where I was going as I kept setting off proximity warnings in people I nearly ran into.  I was so focused on my task that I ignored the mutters around me of how rude I was being, until the alert suddenly started getting louder and louder, practically screaming before I snapped out of my trance and stopped walking.

In front of me was a familiar set of broad shoulders, and just past him was a wall that I nearly ran us both into. “Conor, what are you doing?” I asked, started to see him seemingly just staring at a wall and humming away.

He turned toward me with a grin, dropping a kiss on the top of my head in greeting. “I didn’t realize that was you,” he answered. “I heard someone coming, but figured they would either turn or rather run into me than the wall.”

“And why are you staring at the wall?”

“Wasn’t staring,” he corrected. “I was working on this.” He stepped aside with a flourish, revealing one of the wall-tanks set up throughout the Ark for Else. Soft yellow motes drifted in the tank, evidence of Else’s continued breakneck evolution. However, this tank had something new in it…

“You put snowflakes in there?” I asked, confused.

He ran a hand through his hair and laughed. “When Sam, Derek, and I started putting out the Insert Winter Holiday decorations this week, Else got curious and asked what we were doing.  Derek explained - he talks to them better than I do - and they wanted something in their habitat, too, like we have.”

“And you decided on snowflakes?”

“Else picked that, actually. They are very curious about snow, since they developed… well, here, where there is no weather…”

“I guess that is fair.” Suddenly, I felt rude for talking about Else like they weren’t present. I still hadn’t gotten in the habit of speaking directly to them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore you…” I cringed a little inside.

Is okay, Else replied. We are not offended. Will we see real snow one day?

I thought about it. “Probably? Von has atmosphere, and the nights are long enough that the temperature probably gets really cold. It may have the right conditions for snow.”

Many humans think snow is beautiful. We would like to see snow.

“You and me both, buddy,” I admitted. “I love it.”

Conor shuddered. “No thank you. You can keep your cold mush.” Checking his databand, he groaned. “I have to get going. See you later, Else.” He dropped another kiss on my head. “I’ll see you at dinner,” he promised.

“No bruises?”

“No bruises.”

I smiled before jumping to check the time myself. “Shit,” I swore softly. “Else, I gotta go, too. I have an appointment five minutes ago.”

Humans can time travel?

“I wish,” I muttered, practically running to get there on time. I prayed that Alistair kept Hannah busy while I raced to our interview.

I showed up breathless and dishevelled, but only ten minutes late. Great first impression you’re giving, I scolded myself as I tried to get my hair somewhat more tidy and catch my breath. Straightening, I scanned my datapad and entered my office.

Hannah was nodding seriously at something Alistair was saying, and all I could do was pray he wasn’t telling her some embarrassing story about me. Both of them looked up as I entered, and Hannah approached me to shake my hand. “Hello, Sophia! Or should I address you as Councillor. I’m not entirely sure…”

“Sophia is fine,” I reassured her.  “Did Alistair explain why I asked you to meet with me today?”

She shook her head. “No, we were just talking about Zachary’s work with Councilor Ranganathan.”

“That is part of it,” I agreed. “Zach is one of several people who Pranav is mentoring, hoping to build a pool of candidates to fill his position in the future. I asked you to meet with me to see if you would be interested in doing the same, with me?”

Her eyes widened. “You want me… to learn your job?”

“I assure you, it is much safer than I make it look.” I tried to sound confident, but was already bracing for her to reject the position.

“It’s not that - “ Wait, what? “I just. Do you really think I could?”

“You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you could do it,” I assured her, somewhat dumbfounded. Recovering quickly, I pushed on. “I want to be clear - this is an elected position, so there is no guarantee that you would be my successor. The goal of the mentorship is to help you decide if you even want to do it, at all, along with ensuring that the Ark has the opportunity to choose between people who definitely know how to do the job. And more importantly, want to do the job.”

Alistair picked up from there. “In the Before, if you remember, many elections were decisions based on which candidate would do the least harm, rather than the most good. The Council is trying to change that.”

She nodded in understanding. “So there would be other people you are mentoring?”

So far, so good. “Hopefully three, yes.”

“Will you be working with us at the same time?”

“If all three of you accept, I am hoping to work with each of you one day per week individually, and the rest collectively,” I confirmed. “More specific than that, I will meet with all of you to explain once I know who has accepted. But I wanted to extend the offer in person, so I can answer any questions you may have.”

Hannah nodded again. “Would we be working the same hours you do?”

I was very glad Alistair and I already thought that part through, along with Tyche’s input. “Initially, no. You would only work half of my shift, and what half would be at my discretion.  However, this would be considered your job allotment, so you would not have to worry about any schedule conflicts. The only reason I will be deciding which half of my shift you work is because it may change due to Council meetings that you may not be privy to, or if there is nothing beneficial to your learning happening during the other half.”

“Why only half?” She asked.

“Councilors generally work double shifts,” Alistair advised her. When her eyes widened again, he continued, “In my experience, as her assistant, she will never ask you to work as much as she does, but she is very insistent that if she is not working, neither are you.”

I shook my head at him. “What he isn’t explaining is that there are also often large gaps in my day when I have no appointments and no paperwork to go through. So being in the office for sixteen to twenty hours sounds grueling, but I am rarely here the entire time.  That’s just the window when people are allowed to set appointments, or when the Council can convene outside of emergencies.”

Her shoulders sagged with relief. “I was honestly about to walk out until you explained that a bit better.”

I leaned over to Alistair and hissed. “People skills!”

“Professionalism…” he murmured back.

Hannah smiled at our antics. “Another question: What exactly do you do?”

I groaned, and Alistair smirked at me. Jokul had been so right on that point that it wasn’t even funny. “Since Zach is shadowing Pranav, I’m going to assume you know how the parts about voting in Council sessions works, right?” She nodded. “Okay, so that’s the big part that most people know about. They vote on an issue, their votes go to their representative Councilor, who votes on their behalf, short version. On a day to day basis, each Councilor is responsible for heading up everything on the Ark in a certain field. For me, that’s any large scale events, staffing, or major adjustments to how people are able to live their day-to-day lives. I have one assistant,” I gestured to Alistair, “and an Administrator, my sister Tyche.  She handles all of the small staffing concerns, because she is amazing at it.”

“So… Insert Winter Holiday, the annual Food festival…?”

I nodded. “Along with the gravity changes, the day cycle changes, the proximity alerts, creating and maintaining quiet rooms, finding people to back fill gaps caused by large projects or initiatives, large scale announcements to the ship, et cetera.”

“That’s… a lot…” She bit her bottom lip in concern.

“Really, it’s a handful of major events each year, plus the daily stuff.  And I work really closely with the other Councilors, largely because once most projects are past a staffing point, it falls under their jurisdiction to execute.”

Slowly, she nodded. “Okay…” After a moment, she nodded much more firmly. “Okay, I’ll try it.”

One down, two to go, I cheered in my head as I resisted the urge to scream with joy.

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[thethoughtsfromthreeam]

Monument Woman

Pairing: Marcus Pike x OC (Rosemary Carter)

Warnings: None

A/N:  Enter Marcus Pike, stage right

Reminder: I ain’t ever seen Pedro Pascal in FUCK ALL, I’m just coming up with this as I go along, using imdb.com, wiki, and 84,000 tabs I got open to plan out this shit.  I also write soft versions of his characters so if you’re craving asshole vibes, I ain’t got any but my own to offer.

Tag List:

@zeldasayer​ , @beskars​ , @coolmaybelateruniverse​ , @the-feckless-wonder​ , @pascalisthepunkest​ , @mandoandyodito​ , @randomness501​ , @fioccodineveautunnale​  , @ahopelessromanticwritersworld​ , @lilkermit14​ , @tortles   [please message me to be added or subtracted]

[PART 1]  [PART 2]  [PART 3]  [PART 4]  [PART 5]

Part 6 – Step Forward, Step Back, Find Your Partner Quick

Helen tried her best to console a distraught Rosemary as Officer Garcia spoke to several of his colleagues in the hallway.  Her screams had startled the director, who was already on edge due to the break-in and if the circumstances had been different, the look of surprise and horror on the officer’s face would have reduced Helen to peals of laughter.  But all the situation did was add worry to her shoulders.

For nearly two hours, the officers questioned Rosemary about the break-in, about the missing piece, and they kept asking if the museum had any enemies. As much as she wanted to say Fred Breyers out of pure spite, Rosemary kept her mouth shut – sure some people weren’t always pleased with some of their program or exhibit topics, but nothing that would result in the theft of an artifact or the physical beating of a staff member.  The two women were exhausted by the time the three cops left the building.  Rosemary laid on the couch in her office, a wet cloth over her eyes as the lingering headache from the attack ramped up under this new stress.

“Rose, are you going to be okay?”  Helen’s voice was soft, but unable to keep the worried tone at bay.

“I honestly don’t know.  That statue was the only thing missing.  I don’t know if I’m upset because I promised Robert we’d care for it or mad as hell that accepting that ugly ass hunk of bronze led to all of this and possibly hurt the museum’s reputation.”  She sighed heavily, the now cool cloth doing little to help her.  She slowly sat up, swinging her legs over the sofa’s edge.

“I wouldn’t worry about our reputation.  I’m already working with Marquetta on a press release to get ahead of the game.  Louis over at the Caller always does right by us, I’ll give him the scoop first and he’ll spin it in our favor.”  Helen leaned back.  “I’ll also call major donors today to inform them of the situation.”

“I’m sorry, Helen.  I never thought this would have happened!”  The younger woman groaned heavily as she tried to stand, but the director held out her hand to keep her from getting up.  The body stilled.

“Did Francois’ report show anything differently than what Robert had given you?”  Before Robert’s health worsened, Rosemary contacted an old friend of hers to appraise the piece as Helen wanted a second opinion for the insurance company.  The in-depth discussion about the findings with Helen was moved back first by Robert’s death and then the attack.  “Are we still looking at the same value?”

“I reread it the day before the attack to prep for the meeting that never obviously happened, and he seems to agree with the assessment Robert gave us. The statue was processed into the collections several months ago and I put in Robert’s information, but never got around to putting in Francois’ report.”

“Well, so long as the original value was imputed into the report, it’ll give us something for the insurance company.”

“Are we going to report it lost?  What if they recover it?”

“Rose, I don’t mean to sound mean, but I doubt these officers are going to find the piece.  Whoever has it is probably long gone by now.”  Helen glanced over at her.  “Unless a miracle happens.”

“Well good thing I believe in manifestation and miracles.”  For the first time in what seemed like a long while, Rosemary smiled as her old humor began to shine through.  The director smiled back, unable to let the infectious comment not affect her.

“We’ll see.”

---***---

Two Weeks Later

“Pike!  Get in here!” Carmichael’s voice carried through the small cluster of offices their department occupied.  “Pike!”

“I’m coming!  Damn, give me a second!”  Pike grumbled as he scurried from his office and across to hers.  She wasn’t a loud person, so the excited shout she gave had everyone around her curious.  As Pike entered the room, he could see his partner standing behind her desk, doing a little hop-dance.  He raised an eyebrow.

“You need to look at this!”  She pointed at the computer, her smile so big it nearly took over her face. He stopped because she was giggling, Carmichael never giggled.  Whatever this was, it had to been good.  Pike came around the desk and bent down to see what she was looking at and when his eyes landed on the screen, his eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped.

“This is one of them, isn’t it?”  Carmichael asked, her voice quivering in excitement.  He ran out of the office to the command center for the cold cases, his presence startling his crew.  He looked over at the evidence board and ripped off a picture hanging in the middle before rifling through one of the boxes to find the corresponding file. He ran back to the office.

The picture in his hand was faded with time, that grainy look of age that pictures older pictures were taking on, but despite those flaws, the sculpture in the photo matched the one in the new alert in the NSAF database.  The Cornucopia had always been breathtaking.

And it’s been missing since 1993.

The agents glanced over the dossier, reviewing the piece to try and discover how this priceless Russian artifact made its way to what looks like a small museum in Western Michigan.  Neither had reviewed the original case file closely and both felt their jaws dropping as they read further and further into its history:

A rare example of the early Ukrainian Avant Garde art movement, The Cornucopia was created by Artem Chumak, a well-known artist from Odessa. Commissioned by the then-governor of the country as a gift to Czar Nicolas II in 1907, the piece was designed to showcase the entirety of the Ukraine in a single moment.  Because the country was known for its agriculture, Chumak chose to use the image of the cornucopia as his inspiration.

The piece is made of bronze and inlaid with the following precious gemstones:

               Siberian diamond

               Ural sapphire

               Ural ruby

               Ural jade

               Russian emerald

               Russian opal

               Ukrainian pearl

Upon the fall of the Russian empire in 1917, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna Romanov took the piece along with several others from the royal art collection when she fled Russia.  She remained owner of the piece until 1920, when she sold it to the Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

In turn, the Grand Duke loaned the piece to the National Museum of History and Art and it remained with the museum until the outbreak of World War II. The ducal family took the piece back, along with several others to protect the collection from the advancement of the Nazis.

Unfortunately, the move did little good and much of the museum’s collection, including the pieces stored in the ducal family home, were taken by the Nazis, with intention of destroying them as part of the Germanization of the annexed country.

The pieces remained missing until 1949, when a team from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (a.k.a. the Monument Men), recovered the stolen collections in a cellar in Hamburg and returned them to their respective homes.  The Cornucopia was returned to the museum and was on display until the ducal family attempted to sell the piece in 1965.  The sale failed and the family remained owners until the piece was loaned to the Luxembourg-American Cultural Museum in the U.S. in 1992.

In 1993, the piece was stolen from the museum and reported to the FBI’s Art Theft Squad days later.  The piece has yet to be recovered despite the best attempts of the team.

Pike looked at Carmichael and they grinned at each other.  While it being reported as missing didn’t mean that they had found it, it did mean that this cold case was heating up.

“Do you think we found our key?”  He didn’t want to sound hopeful, but he had to admit he was optimistic that they were much closer to solving this case.  The evidence they had been sifting through meticulously was painting a picture, but like a jigsaw puzzle, they were still missing pieces that brought it all together.

“I think we have.”  Carmichael replied.  They grinned at each other.

“Whose turn is it to go and do the interview?”  

“Mine, but could you do it?  Marty is out of town on business this week and I can’t leave Dinah alone.”  She rarely asked to trade like this, but Pike held up his hands in understanding.  They smiled, grateful they were partnered up, their work relationship had always been a smooth one.

“Sure, what could possibly happen in Michigan?”

They laughed as they started to walk to the command center.

---***---

Rosemary and Banana walked into the house, both exhausted from the day, the museum’s annual fall field trip event a cacophony of noise and excitement. The program had been exactly what Rosemary needed – something that distracted her from everything that had happened over the last month.  Her stomach hurt all day from her laughter as young kids swarmed the museum in their Halloween costumes.

As she hung up her coat, she caught something out of the corner of her eye on the kitchen table.  Walking over, Rosemary immediately recognized Fern’s loopy handwriting.

Hey sweetie, probate hasn’t cleared yet, but I heard word it should within the month.  Not to jinx it, but welcome to Saugatuck – its’ about time!  I’m also including some keys to Robert’s safety deposit boxes for safekeeping.  You can’t open them until the probate has cleared, so don’t get ahead of yourself! Love you, ae-in.  Always.  -F

“Oh, thank god.”  She huffed as she opened the bulky envelope, dumping out various keys and paperwork, including the deed to the house and the store.  She had an underlying fear that something would happen, and Robert’s wishes would have been overturned and she would get nothing.  “Looks like we’re here for the time being, Baba!”

Rosemary read through the papers and picked up her phone to call Fern. For the next hour, the two women chatted about the changes, what she needed to do to register ownership with the state, and more.  After they said their good-byes, Rosemary pulled her jacket on and patted Banana on the head as she left the house.  It was dark now, but she knew the path through the cemetery and trudged up the hill towards Robert’s grave with no problem.

“You know, I’m certain you chose this spot for some reason or another, but I think it’s to punish me for not getting enough exercise.”  She groused at the polished granite, wondering how she made this walk as often as she did, and it still robbed her of her breath. She was out of shape.  

Robert’s cheeky grin beamed from the porcelain cameo embedded into the stone.  She had never seen anything like it, but he had told her it was common among Eastern European communities.  He described how they used this horribly unflattering photo for his aunt Ionna’s cameo and that he vowed he’d choose his own rather than leave it to his relatives to decide.

She sat down on the damp ground and settle in.  She was still visiting the cemetery daily and while she didn’t cry as much as she had in the beginning, her throat always felt painful after she left.  Wrapping the coat around her tightly she sighed.

“You missed our field trip day.  I know you loved volunteering for it and the kids who remembered you from last year asked where you were.”  She smiled. “I told them you were attending as a ghost and that they couldn’t see you.  I think they believed me.

“I don’t know what strings you pulled up on that cloud of yours, but Fern thinks the probate will clear next month.  I’m glad, this whole process has been a pain and thank you for not making me go through it.  I’d give up and just die if Fern weren’t in charge.  My landlord was mad I’m breaking my lease, but I know you’re excited, you always hated that place.”  She sighed as a wave of sadness washed over her.

“I miss you.”  Her voice crackled with tears.  “I miss you so much, Robert!  I hate that you’re gone.  I hate that! I hate this!  And I failed you!  They still haven’t found the statue and I contacted the FBI and I haven’t heard anything, and I don’t know what to do!”

She cried harder, her ribs hurting as if the pain she experienced weeks ago was still fresh.  She gripped her sides as she continued to sob.   She was tired and everything that had happen in the month and a half since Robert died was catching up with her.  Rosemary sat in the cold evening for hours and let her sadness out.  When she finally left, the exhaustion she felt forced her straight to bed when she arrived at the house.  In a bit of mercy, she slept a dreamless sleep for once.

---***---

“Good morning.”  The deep voice caused Marquetta to turn from the display case she was working on.  A tall man with brown hair and a kind smile stood at the front desk.  She watched as Bob ambled over to welcome him.  She couldn’t hear their conversation after that, but she kept a subtle watch on the interaction as the two men talked.  The stranger smiled again and walked past her towards the stairs and she watched up trudge up each step until he was out of sight.

“You aren’t being very subtle.”  Bob’s voice sounded behind her and Marquetta jumped at the noise.  She felt herself grow hot, grateful her dark skin hid the blush rushing across her cheeks.  She turned to look at Bob, who was grinning at her.

“Who was that?”  She tried to keep her voice steady.

“Some FBI agent wanting to talk to Rosemary.”

“FBI?”  Marquette frowned before her eyebrows shot up.  “FBI!  Oh my god! They’re here!”

“Don’t shout.  It’s rude.”

“No, Bob!  Rosemary reported that statue that got stolen to the FBI!  That means they know about it!  They’re here for that!”

“Does that mean they’ll find the men who hurt her?”  He sounded hopeful at the idea.  Even if he thought her manners were lacking, Bob was deeply upset that Rosemary had been hurt the way she had been.  If this young agent can help find her attackers, he was all for it.

“I bet they do if they find the statue.”  The two stopped talking when Rosemary and Banana entered the building. She looked up and felt awkward when she realized they were staring at her.

“Um, is something wrong?”  She sounded unsure of herself and Bob got angry, realizing that these men didn’t just rob the museum of this ugly statue, it robbed Rosemary of her self-assurance.

“Never, Rose.  There is an agent from the FBI in your office.  Marquetta says you contacted them.”  She startled, not believing that her reporting the stolen item would bring them to her front door.  They were just a small history museum in Michigan, not the Detroit Institute of Art or the Smithsonian.  She figured she’d get an email or a call, but never a real agent.

“They’re here?  Really?” Her eyes lit up when Bob nodded. She started to laugh because she didn’t know what else to do.  Marquetta walked over to hug her and the physical contact help to ground her.

“He’s good looking, too.”  Marquetta whispered in her ear.  Rosemary pulled back at the comment. “Like really good looking.  His butt is cute.”

The two women giggled at the comment and hugged again.  Picking up the leash she dropped, the curator and her furry companion went towards the stairs, hope beginning to bubble in her chest. Maybe she hadn’t failed Robert after all, she thought.  When she reached the third floor, she stopped to catch her breath before walking down to her office.

When she stepped into the doorway, she saw him standing there, looking at her walls.  She couldn’t see his face, but everything about his presence radiated kindness – something she hadn’t expected from an FBI agent.  When he turned to look at her as she cleared her throat, his face lit up in a smile and she couldn’t help but smile back.  For the first time in weeks, she felt safe.

“I’m Special Agent Marcus Pike.”  He held out his hand to her.  She took it with her customary firm grip.

“I’m Rosemary Carter.  Welcome to Fort Jamison.”

[1989dreamer]

Chapter 21 of Looking for a Place to Call Home

Still not editing before posting.

Still on AO3.

Thanks for reading

                                                                                                                    ~ * ~

Derek wakes up screaming.

He’d been dreaming that he was back in New York and that she—that Kate—had been torturing him again.

He can still feel the glide of her knife as it skimmed him, the skin peeling back, exposing his twitching muscles.

Without realizing it, Derek shifts into his delta form, scrambling off the bed and under it. He whines high in his throat, more human than wolf.

The lights come on almost immediately, and Laura and Cora crawl under the bed with him while Isaac tries to explain what happened to Boyd and Erica.

With his sisters by his side, Derek shifts back. “Just a nightmare,” he tells them.

Erica sits next to him and pats his back. “That’s okay. You’re okay. We won’t let anyone hurt you anymore.”

Boyd nods his head in agreement, and Derek wonders at the contentment he smells on him.

“You’re safe here,” Erica continues. “Do you want to talk about your nightmare?”

Derek looks at his sisters. “No. Not really.”

“That’s okay too.” Erica lets Derek burrow against her side, seeking comfort. He’s glad that she’s staying behind with him and Cora while Laura, Boyd, and John go to New York.

He is also grateful for the small mercy that he isn’t going with them. He isn’t sure that he would be of any help to them. He wasn’t kept in the same compound. The hunters he ran away from are not the same ones that abused his sisters.

Erica is a solid weight beside him, her arm around his shoulder, the chemical smell of her medication as comforting as her warmth. Secretly he hopes that she and Boyd decide to keep them, even if Laura is technically old enough to be his and Cora’s guardian.

He wants the stability that will come from living in a house, from having actual meals, and if Erica has her way, school. Derek wants all those things, but above all, he wants Laura to find her daughter. He wants to put their damaged pack together, like a puzzle with missing pieces. They’ll be stronger together. Even with Peter—if Peter can escape the murder charges.

“Think you can go back to sleep now?” Erica asks. Derek realizes that everyone else has gone back to bed now. Even Isaac is tucked in, his blanket pulled over his head.

Even though he doesn’t quite feel ready, Derek nods. Erica kisses his forehead.

“I’ll check on you in a bit,” she promises. “Do you want me to leave the door open?”

There is a nightlight in the hallway. She’s offering him a source of light so that he can still see. Except she’s forgot that he is a werewolf and doesn’t need the nightlight.

He nods anyway.

Isaac is already blocking the light from the overhead. He won’t mind the nightlight.

Derek watches as Erica switches off the room’s light and leaves the door wide open as she heads back to her room. Then, he climbs off the bed and pads across the hall to his sisters’ room. Laura lifts the blanket and he crawls between them.

In the three years that Kate had him, there was nothing Derek missed as much as his family. He’s glad that he still has his sisters. And if Peter gets away with the murder he’s committed, then he’ll have Peter too.

                                                                                                                    ~ * ~

Ramirez slams her head down on the table, the third time in an hour. Kincaid startles awake from where he was leaning against the wall.

“Sorry,” she apologizes. Kincaid grunts, moving to sit next to her.

Stiles spares them a brief glance before turning back to his work.

The list they’ve been studying isn’t long—only about seventy names—but they’ve been researching each one, trying to match faces with names. So far, they’ve made it through about fifty-five names and all they have is a tree of the deceased, all Hales in some way, and a few of the arson investigators. Most of the paperwork has been signed off by either Stiles’ dad, early in the investigation, or Sheriff Lahey.

The difference is marked.

Where his dad made little tick marks and initialed on every line, Lahey only signed at the bottom of the reports.

“Deputy Stilinski, sir,” Ramirez says, and Stiles lifts his tired eyes to her. “Look at this.”

She thrusts a stack of papers under his nose. Kincaid snores gently, leaning on Ramirez, while Stiles flicks through the papers.

“This is an insurance investigation.” He checks it against the arson investigative report and then checks the signatures on both. The arson investigation has been signed by the fire chief and his dad while the insurance investigation has been signed by Lahey and a new name, Garrison Myers. “Is Myers listed anywhere else?”

Ramirez points at to his name on the manifest. Number seventy himself. “It looks like he joined late.”

Stiles finds Myers’ card tucked away in a box of evidence. “He’s an insurance fraud investigator.” There’s only a number and a slogan on the card. Stiles makes a note to call the number in the morning. For now, he knows they need to call it a night and pack it up.

“Up to driving home?” he asks Ramirez. Kincaid is definitely down for the count, slumbering still. She shakes her head. “Neither am I. We can bunk here for the night and resume the search tomorrow.”

And tomorrow, he fully plans on meeting with the Hale children to see what they know.

Stiles puts the evidence back in its boxes and shoves them onto the shelves while Ramirez gently wakes up Kincaid. They head for the bunk room, and Stiles locks the evidence room behind them.

The bunk room is barely used, many of the deputies preferring to head home after their shifts, so it’s a little musty, but Stiles doesn’t care. He crawls onto the top bunk, Kincaid face-plants on the lower one, and Ramirez flops on the only cot.

Stiles is so tired that he hopes to drift off quickly, but his mind keeps buzzing, zipping from thought to thought in a way he hasn’t had to deal with since college.

Great. Looks like no sleep. He rolls onto his side and tries, unsuccessfully, to organize his thoughts.

Myers was investigating the fire for potential insurance fraud, which makes sense since the arson investigators determined the cause to be unnatural. But, the house was supposedly abandoned, so who would be collecting insurance on it? And how did they link the burned house with the murdered Hales? Why did they think Derek, long thought to be the only survivor, had set the fire and-slash-or murdered his family?

Before his untimely passing, Lahey had implied that he had evidence that Derek was involved. Why? Was he trying to cover something up? Is that why he’d brought in Myers to look into it?

Hopefully Myers will be able to shed some light when Stiles talks to him tomorrow.

And they still need to locate Deaton.

Stiles isn’t holding his breath that the former veterinarian is still alive. Peter Hale is an efficient killer. He’s already proved it three times. What’s a fourth?

When sleep won’t come even after breathing deeply and clearing his mind, Stiles climbs down and heads to his desk. He might as well research Garrison Myers and see if he’s investigated any other cases in Beacon County.

The night shift desk officer, Myrna Walsh, a deputy even greener than Kincaid, nods at him when he drops into his seat and he nods back at her. When his computer is fully booted, he enters Myers’ name and phone number into the Sheriff Department’s search log.

Six cases come back. Four closed and two on-going. The house out in the preserve is closed with a verdict of arson. Guess when the cops find the bodies of ten people with obvious non-fire related wounds, there’s no way to call it an accident, and Myers agreed by closing the insurance fraud investigation in favor of the insurance company not paying out.

There’s a photo attached to the Hale file, and Stiles downloads it, tapping his fingers as he feels an energy spike cresting in his veins.

He opens it and freezes. It’s Lahey in his Sheriff’s uniform, talking to a man. Stiles zooms in on the other man’s face.

It’s definitely his John Doe.

And if the picture is correct, then his dead John Doe is Garrison Myers.

It’s… Stiles doesn’t actually know how to feel about it because on one hand, now he knows who Peter Hale killed, but on the other, more pressing hand, valuable information regarding the Hale murders likely died with Myers.

Stiles saves the picture, labeling the people in it for Ramirez and Kincaid to look at tomorrow. They’ll have to looking into Garrison Myers and if he’s been reported missing yet.

He scrubs at his face, tugging at his hair. “Crap.” He can’t tell if the investigation is going well or not anymore.

It doesn’t feel like it is. It actually feels like Stiles is playing with half of a deck of cards that keeps exploding every time he thinks he makes progress.

“Fuck this,” he decides out loud, muttering angrily to himself. He needs sleep desperately.

Myrna waves him over as he stumbles back to the bunkroom. “Deputy Stilinski?”

“Yeah, Myrna?”

“This came for you today.” She hands him a thick envelope encased in an evidence bag. It doesn’t have a return address, and the flap is already neatly slit.

“Been examined?” He can see where it was dusted for fingerprints. He’s not holding his breath for evidence. It’s been that kind of case.

“Yeah. Nothing useful.”

“Contents?”

“Coded letter. For your eyes only, but I’m sure whoever sent it realized that more than you would see it.”

Hence the code. “Obviously.” Stiles weighs the envelope, the kind important ‘do not bend’ documents are sent in. He shakes his head, heading for the evidence room. He puts on a pair of gloves, grabs some evidence bags, and sits down at the table, spreading out the contents of the envelope.

There are seven pages, written back and front in code, all sealed in Beacon County Sheriff’s Evidence bags and initialed by Detective Benjamin Votsky, the only California state detective who lived in Beacon Hills and operated out of the Sheriff’s Department.

There is also a bagged single sheet of notebook paper with his name on it. Stiles picks it up first.

Deputy Stilinski, it reads, I am writing to you to confess my perceived involvement in a homicide. I want to make it perfectly clear that I knew nothing of what was going to happen nor how my knowledge would be applied to this heinous crime.

It has only recently come to my attention that someone I spoke with nearly five years ago used my answers to her simply fascinating questions in order to perform that most horrible task.

I am not stupid, Deputy. I know I will likely be charged with accessory to murder even though the things we talked about were purely hypothetical—until she went and proved my hypothesis into a theory. Therefore, I have opted to 1) encode the information I am revealing and 2) not reveal myself until I can be guaranteed that I will not be charged with any crimes. The key to the code is simple, Deputy. It’s Mischief in its true form.

Stiles sets aside the page. He has a feeling he knows this person if “Mischief in its true form” is the key. Stiles assumes that the anonymous letter-sender means that the key is actually his birth name.

He finds a piece of paper and writes down in block letters his full birth name, shoving it into an evidence bag and sealing it, scribbling his initials on the seal. He then carefully puts all the pages back into the envelope in its evidence bag and carries it all back to the front desk.

He hands it to Myrna, along with the paper with his name. “Give that to Detective Votsky. That word,” Stiles points at his name, “is the key. Tell him to find me when he’s done.”

Votsky used to be a deputy under Stiles’ dad’s terms as sheriff. He’d made detective right before the shake up, so he’d managed to skirt the firing. He also has a specialty in codes, which is probably why he was given the evidence first.

“Will do. Hey, Stiles?”

Stiles pauses. “Yeah?”

Myrna looks at him kindly. “Get some rest. The case won’t get solved any faster if you’re not able to see something because you’re too tired.”

“Sure,” Stiles says. What else is he supposed to say? He knows he needs sleep. He’s just having trouble shutting off his brain. “Thanks.”

He walks away before Myrna can give him any more futile advice. He knows she means well, but there’s a reason she’s on the front desk now instead of Kincaid.

He climbs back into his chosen bed in the bunkroom, cramming his head under his pillow to block out the snores of Ramirez and Kincaid. Surprisingly, he manages to fall asleep in minutes.

                                                                                                                     ~ * ~

MP, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

[miss-tc-nova]

The Cat’s Meow - Jumin Han x Fem!Reader Pt 10

This is a slightly older chapter and kind of basic. 

Part 10: Confirmation

                It’s been a month since the Christmas incident and we’re going into February. I make a point to see Jumin less, to my inner hatred. I also have to make an active attempt at keeping any personal time with Jumin to a minimum. I’m sure he’s noticed but hasn’t pointed out my poorly imagined excuses yet. Still, my heart beats a little faster when I see his name pop up on my cell phone.

                I’m writing down the details of my client’s pet when Corine, my secretary, pokes her head into the room.

                “_____, you’ve got a call.”

                “Oh, okay. Put them on hold, I’ll be there in just a minute.”

                I quickly put down the rest of the details and place the cat in one of the kennels before heading to the front to take the call.

                “Dr. _____ speaking,” I answer.

                “Hello _____.”

                His smooth voice almost catches me off guard. “Hello Jumin. What’s up?”

                “Elizabeth the 3rd’s appointment is tomorrow,” he states bluntly.

                “Yeah, I know. And?”

                “Could you, perhaps, do it at my house?”

                It takes a moment for me to process the information. “I’m sorry, what?”

                “I really don’t want to take the risk of losing her again. You understand right?”

                I sigh, rubbing my eyes. “I don’t know, Jumin. That’s a lot of work. Especially if she needs shots.”

                “Please, _____.”

                I have a hard time resisting people with pets, despite my better judgment. “Fine, but it’s not going to be cheap.”

                “Deal.”

                “And it’s going to have to wait until I get off work tomorrow.”

                “That’s alright. I’ve got work in the morning anyways.”

                “Alright. I’ll text you my price tonight and see you tomorrow.”

                “Thank you, _____. You’re amazing.”

                “You bet I am.”

                “See you tomorrow.”

                “See ya.” I hang the phone up and let out the longest sigh. As sharp as she was, Corine catches that.

                “Problems in Loveland with the rich company heir?”

                I give her a small scowl. “We’re not dating. But I am making my first at-home appointment.”

                “What?”

                “Jumin asked me to do his cat’s appointment at his house.”

                “And you agreed?”

                “He agreed to pay more. Will you pull up Elizabeth the 3rd’s file so I know what I’ll need to take with me?”

                “Alright, hun.”

                “Thanks Corine.”

                As I walk away, I hear her laugh about the cat’s name just as everyone in the office always does.

                  I spend the whole day on my feet. If I’m not taking care of clients, I’m collecting and double checking the bag I’ll be taking to Jumin’s. It doesn’t help that I have to keep chasing away worries of the darker side of Jumin.

                The work day ends and I send Jumin a text as I leave the clinic. He answers rather quickly, confirming he’s waiting, so I change course to head to his place.

                “Welcome, Dr. _____,” the chief of security greets. “Mr. Han is waiting for you.”

                “Thank you,” I return, heading inside and ignoring the light feeling in my chest.

                Jumin is in the living room area with his cat on his lap. “Hello, _____.”

                “Hey Jumin.” I set my bag on the kitchen counter and start with laying out a sterile sheet and taping it down. “How’s your day been?”

                “Tiring. My father has a new girlfriend and wants me to pick up a business he started since he wants to spend some time with her.”

                “That sucks. You must be really busy then.”

                “How was your day?”

                “Pretty normal, other than a house call I have to do,” I retort with a bit of a smile. “Yeah. Other than that, pretty normal.”

                “Glad I could bring a bit of surprise to your life,” he says teasingly. The white cat seems perfectly content despite being placed on this new surface.

                “Just about anything with you involved is a surprise in my life,” I mumble.

                The man gives me a strange look. “What’s that mean?”

                “I mean, since I met you, things are definitely a bit more exciting,” I tell him, trying not to think about the night after the party. “The way we met was completely unconventional. The first time we hung out you spent a night in my waiting room while I dealt with an emergency. I planned a cat-themed birthday for a full-grown man. The paparazzi are constantly trying to get something on us. How is our relationship normal in any way, Jumin?”

                “Point taken.” The man strides further into the kitchen. “Would you like a drink?”

                I hesitate, a lump forming in my throat. “Thank you, but that wouldn’t be very professional of me while I’m working.”

                “Right. I forgot.” I didn’t think it was possible for a smile to make me happy and nervous at the same time. “Perhaps afterwards.”

                “Actually, I have to get home to take care of Mako,” I reply with the worst excuse.

                “Oh, of course. How is that strange little cat?”

                I do a routine checkup and give the cat a shot, which she wasn’t thrilled about, but forgives me pretty much instantly. As I’m cleaning up, the security guard comes in.

                “Mr. Han, your father has come to visit.” He glances at me. “Shall I’ll tell him you’re busy with a visitor?”

                Jumin glances at me and I speak up quickly. “Please, don’t let me interfere. I’m almost done here anyways.” In part, I’m thankful for a real excuse to get away from the alcohol.

                “No. He can wait.”

                I brush it off, “Jumin, I’m pretty much on my way out anyways.”

                With a strange expression, he turns back to his employee. “Send him in.”

                Moments later, an older man slightly resembling Jumin comes into the room. “Hello Jumin. I-” The man notices me. “Oh, I see you already have guests.”

                I interrupt, “Pay me no mind. I was just packing up.” As customary of polite strangers, I offer him my hand. “I’m Dr. _____ _____. I just came by to do a checkup on Elizabeth the 3rd.”

                “So you’re the vet that found my son’s cat and gave him a good scolding,” the man chuckles, shaking my hand.

                I rub my eyes with a sigh. “Yeah. That’s me.”

                “Well hopefully since then, he’s taken more precaution. He must be since you’re here.”

                “She’s in excellent health.” I turn to the son. “You’ll call my secretary tomorrow to settle the bill, right?”

                “Of course. I can’t ditch a bill if and expect to receive the same expert veterinary care next time,” he retorts. “Besides how could you ever doubt me?”

                I laugh. “Right. With all the money in the world, why would Jumin Han ever have a reason to skip out on a bill?”

                He beams. “Exactly.”

                “Alright. I’ll talk to you later, Jumin.” I look to the older man. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Han.”

                “Likewise, Dr. _____.”

                I give a brief wave and head for the exit. Just before the door completely clicks shut, I hear Jumin’s father speak again. Unable to help myself, I pause.

                “A smart woman,” he comments. “Beautiful too. A shame she has nothing else to offer a husband.” Instantly, a frown crosses my face.

                “You don’t know her,” growls Jumin.

                “I don’t need to. She’s clearly not fit for the corporate world. So I must insist that you cut back on providing the paparazzi evidence of your relationship.”

                “First of all, the paparazzi will turn anything into ‘evidence of a relationship.’ At the rate they’re going, I might as well be dating Assistant Kang. Second, I don’t care if they think we’re in a relationship because as far as I’m concerned, I’m going to marry that woman one day.”

                My heart stops and I nearly black out.

                “You what?!”

                “You heard me.”

                “Jumin, she’s not fit to be your wife! Let alone someone who could help you run the company! She brings nothing to the relationship!”

                “That’s enough!”

                “She can only bring your future down! The paparazzi will tear her apart, break her down until she can’t take it anymore! If you don’t grow up in our world, you can’t handle the stress! She’s far too different from you, Jumin! She doesn’t belong with you! She will ruin your life! And I will not let that girl bring down my company or my son!”

                At that point, I step away from the door and head for the elevator, the corporate leader’s words blaring through my head. I decline the security employee’s offer for a ride home and keep walking.

                Why do I care? Why does it bother me? He’s right after all. I can’t help Jumin, let alone in his career. We’re just too different. I don’t care what he thinks. We’re friends. We’re just friends. I don’t love, Jumin Han. I do not love him!

                Jumin’s threats of marriage replay in my head over and over until I just want to puke. I try for several hours to convince myself that I have never seen our relationship as anything more than friendship. I’ve been putting up barriers, more so lately, and trying to break it down so that there could be no doubt that we were only friends. But he’s been thwarting those efforts as if they meant nothing. The harder I push to remain just friends, the easier it seems for him to pull us towards a romantic relationship. However, it seems that there are more people that agree with me than I thought; important, powerful people. Probably no one could have struck down a relationship in my eyes like Jumin’s father. But now that I’m face with the fact that we really aren’t meant to be together, I almost want to take it all back.

                Furious and annoyed and somewhat heartbroken, I dress up to go out, making my way to my favorite bar to drink for the wrong reasons. 

[solastia]

The Dragon’s Lair | 1

Pairing: Dragon Hybrid Namjoon x Reader (The others will show up one by one)

Word Count: 3,141

Genre & Warnings: Hybrid au. Fantasy themes. This will have a little bit of everything. Lots of fluff, some angst, perhaps eventual smut. Mentions of physical abuse and possible other trauma or emotional issues in the future. Brief mentions of death but no MCD. 

Notes: I’ve been ‘hoarding’ this in my drafts forever. It was literally only missing a paragraph. I’ve considered the idea of doing something for hybrids for a while, and I kept getting asked about it, so this is my attempt! I wanted to do something other than the ole’ cat and dog thing. Also, keep in mind that the plan for this fic to is write it in a way that I can keep adding to it for as long as I want to. I have no definite end in mind as of yet. I figured I’d release it to give you guys something to read while you wait for Faith. 

Some days you praised Kwon Soonyoung for being the best friend and overall human being on the planet. Other days, you cursed the day you became friends. Today felt like it was going to be the latter. 

“I really don’t know about this, Soonyoung. It just seems so wrong,” you grimaced as he pulled you along towards the grey-bricked and incredibly ridiculous building.

The Fairy Pawmother was one of the most popular businesses in town these days. And, in case the name didn’t give it away, was styled ostentatiously to look like a small castle. There were koi ponds instead of a moat and a cobbled walkway instead of a drawbridge, but it was painfully obvious the entire place with themed purposely. The two towers on either side of the building were actually a popular cafe and a Hybrid specialty shop that employed the adoptable hybrids themselves. 

“You’re thinking about it the wrong way, that’s all. I mean, sure. It would be nice if they all had their freedom and people stopped treating hybrids like lesser beings. The law is easing up on them little by little every year, so maybe someday there will be hope. Until then, there are all these hybrids without anyone to care about them. They are all alone, no one to care whether they live or die.” Soonyoung sighed dramatically and wiped a nonexistent tear from his dry eyes. 

“The guilt trip route? Ugh, fine,” you groan and follow him towards to entrance.

Soonyoung smiles gleefully, as he usually does when he convinces you to do what he wants. Which is quite often, sadly. 

“Come on. You won’t regret having a hybrid of your own. Since your Grandma died, I worry about you. She was all the real family you had left. I know you have me, and I consider myself your family too, but you could do with more. Just remind yourself you’re saving them from someone that won’t feel about hybrids the way that you do. You’ll treat them good, whereas they could have gone to a sex fiend or something.” 

“Who says sex fiend? Weirdo.” 

“Your weirdo,” Soonyoung drapes himself across your back, squeezing softly.

“Disgusting. Get off me,” you kick your foot back, hitting the giggling Soonyoung lightly, but you can’t hide your soft smile fast enough before he catches it. 

“This place is great too. They treat the hybrids well. They feed them properly, have good rooms and jobs if they want them. They even bring in teachers for homeschooling and stuff. It’s where I got Jihoonie.” 

“My point exactly. Jihoon is a little brat.” 

“A brat that you spoil as much as I do. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you suddenly have jugs of milk in your fridge when you hate milk. Or that you guys have movie marathons where he comes back so stuffed he doesn’t want to eat dinner. Or the fact that those headphones you claimed you won in a contest at work and gave to him were almost $3,000. And you forgot that I share your Amazon account.” 

“Having a nosy best friend is the worst,” you grumble, looking around the lobby of the Hybrid shelter. 

It looked bright and welcoming, with ivory painted walls covered in pictures of past adoptions and a lounge filled with plush crimson couches. There were several nice looking families waiting, presumably to pick up their new Hybrids, but Soonyoung pulled you away from there and towards the front counter. 

The man at the counter was stunning, with beautiful dark eyes and pouty lips. When you couldn’t see any evidence of him being a Hybrid himself, you were almost disappointed. His eyes glimmered with mischief as he caught you checking him out, his gaze piercing you in a way that made you wonder if he could hear your thoughts. You blushed and looked away, glad for Soonyoung’s interference as he excitedly greeted the man. 

“Heechul hyung! How are you?” 

“Better, now that you’ve brought me something pretty to look at. Jihoon’s class doesn’t get out for another hour if you’re here to get him.” 

“I know! I actually brought my friend Y/N here to look around. I think she’d give someone a great home,” Soonyoung pulls you forward, and you wave shyly. 

“Allow me to introduce myself, then. I am Kim Heechul, the Fairy Pawmother himself,” he catches your cringe and laughs. 

“I know, it’s a silly name. I wanted to just call it Heechul’s in sparkling lights, but my partner Leeteuk told me this isn’t a Casino so I couldn’t do that.” 

“It’s not a casino. It’s not a real castle either, but that didn’t stop you. So don’t blame me,” a yell comes from the office behind Heechul.

“Are you getting mad already, babe?” Heechul turns and smirks at the door. 

“I’m not mad!”

“You’re yelling.”

“Well, I’m mad now!” 

Heechul giggles and turns back to you, observing you from head to toe with a thoughtful look. 

“I don’t think a cat or dog will do for you.” 

“If you’re about to suggest a hamster, I’ve already got one,” you smirk and jerk your thumb to point at Soonyoung, who huffs. 

“That’s great! I totally see it.” Heechul laughs, slapping the counter a couple times. 

He slowly sobers before rounding the counter and gesturing to the two of you to follow him down a spacious hallway. 

“No, I mean something...a bit more challenging.” 

As you follow him down the hallway, you look through the enormous windows that stretch all the way across, revealing what appeared to be common rooms on either side. You observed the Hybrids, pleased to note that they all looked healthy and happy. There were multiple televisions and game consoles for them to use, toys for the younger ones, plenty of comfortable lounge chairs. The walls were lined with bookshelves, most of them packed full of all types of genres, some used for organizing board games. All in all, it didn’t appear to be the type of shelter that you’d heard horror stories about. 

“What do you do for a living, Y/N?” Heechul suddenly asks. 

“I’m a graphic designer. I work freelance taking on commissions for various companies.” 

“That’s good. That means you are at home a lot, right? Your hybrid will appreciate that. So you’re the artsy type?” 

“That’s one way of putting it,” you laugh softly. “It’s mostly making promotional stuff. Ads and things like that. Pays well enough. I still try to draw and paint what I want on my own time, but I don’t get paid for that.”

Heechul nods, continuing on silently, but with that same thoughtful look on his face. Maybe he was trying to think of the right hybrid for you? That would explain the questioning, anyway. 

“The halls for exotic breeds are right in here,” Heechul explains as he stops you in front of an elaborately carved door. “Normally, you’re only allowed to see the exotics if you’ve been thoroughly vetted. Most don’t even know they are here, because many of them are the only ones of their kind and we only want them to go to the right people. But I have a good feeling about you. Not to mention, any friend of Hamster's is a friend of mine.” 

“You’re never going to let that go, are you hyung?” Soonyoung sighs next to you.

“Not in a million years. Sorry, Hamster. Anyway, there is a class in session right now, and I thought we could sneak in there so you could look around. See if anyone catches your eye,” Heechul leads you to a room that had an open archway instead of a door. You could hear a deep voice rumbling above the rest, presumably the teacher as he was answering questions. 

Heechul leads you into the classroom, and the three of you sit in the very back of the class. The room was set up like a small college classroom, with one long table and four seats at each one. The room was bright and covered in educational posters, most of them cheesy. There were probably fifteen hybrids here, most of them with no characteristics to tell you what they were. 

When you finally glance at the podium, you feel like the breath has been knocked right out of you. The man standing there is so very tall, with a small waist and long, toned legs. His tan skin was practically glowing, his cheeks slightly flushed with excitement as he enthusiastically explained something to one of the hybrids. When he finished his explanation, he smiled, and you swear your heart stopped. His full lips alone could have caused that reaction, but the sweet grin was accompanied by two deep dimples on either side. You’d never understood the fascination with dimples, but you had to agree they added a touch of innocent appeal to his face, making the overall picture irresistible. 

As you looked closer at the man, you realized he was a hybrid too. His eyes glowed a sparkling golden shade that would be impossible otherwise. He was, unfortunately, wearing a beanie so you couldn’t tell if he had any ears or something under there. His nails were different too. Either he painted his nails, or they were naturally a shimmering blend of silver and gold. 

“Class dismissed! Don’t forget to do your reading, I’ll pop quiz someone at dinner,” the man smirked at the grumbling hybrids as he collected their things. 

You watched the hybrids file past, curious what made them “exotic.” You couldn’t really see much that struck you as something that different. Just the occasional odd eye color or hair that could be brushed off as coloring if one didn’t know better. The golden-eyed man stayed at the front, writing something into his big notebook. 

“Hi, I’m Yixing,” a handsome hybrid plopped into the seat next to you, smiling gently. He was so adorable you couldn’t help smiling back. 

“Hi, I’m Y/N. And this is my friend Soonyoung.” 

“Oh, we all know him. He’s old news,” he teases Soonyoung with a poke to his cheeks, and he tries to act offended, even if the effect is ruined by his giggle. The hybrid turns back to you. “Are you here to adopt?” 

“It seems so.” 

“That’s great! We exotics don’t get adopted out very often, but you look nice. I’m sure you’d take care of one of my friends very well.” 

“Not you?”

“Yixing here is already adopted. His owner had to go to some conference thing for Doctors, so Yixing was staying with us until he comes back. Which will be tomorrow. I bet you’re excited to see your Baekyun again, huh?” Heechul grins at Yixing, who starts babbling excitedly. 

“Yes! I hate when he goes on those trips. I miss him. At least I can come here and still take my classes and stuff, so I’m not lonely.” 

“That’s nice of you guys to do that,” you quirk an eyebrow at Heechul in surprise. “Usually once a hybrid is adopted out, the shelter wipes their hands of them. Or so I understood.” 

Heechul nods. “Most places, yeah, that’s probably true. But we let all the hybrids here know that they can always come back, no matter what. Even if it’s just for classes, or for respite care like Yixing here. This is a safe home for all.” 

At least you knew you’d be adopting from a decent place, even if the idea of ‘owning’ something that was whatever percent of human they were made you feel uncomfortable. 

“So, I don’t know if it’s rude of me to ask or not, but I can’t tell what kind of hybrid you are,” you ask hesitantly. 

Yixing’s eyes shine mischievously as he grins. 

“I see Heechul brought someone back here without telling them everything again. He did that to Baekhyun too. He loves to watch peoples faces as they discover the truth,” Yixing giggles as he and Heechul share a look. 

“I’m a Unicorn.” 

“Har Har,” you respond flatly. 

Yixing winked before closing his eyes. A glittering pastel glow appeared around his forehead, and slowly what appeared to be a horn grew out of his forehead. The color of the horn reminded you of the inside of an abalone shell, truly beautiful and shining brightly with a myriad of colors. You blinked a couple of times in disbelief. 

“And before you say anything, no, I’m not a Rhino,” Yixing laughed as he took in your befuddled stare.

“But...Unicorns aren’t real. They’re a myth,” you stammer, unable to take your gaze from the still shimmering horn that refuted that statement. 

“Myths had to come from somewhere, didn’t they? In fact, most of our exotics could be considered “myths,” Heechul countered softly. “Hybrids themselves shouldn’t exist, according to science. And yet, here I am with a building full of them.”

“Does it...what is...um,” you floundered, trying to search for the way to ask about him without seeming rude. 

“What does a Unicorn do? I have healing magic. I’m also able to emit a calm aura, which is probably why you’re not running out of here screaming about crazy people right now,” Yixing giggles.

You nod, unsure of how else to respond. It was a lot to take in. And you weren’t quite sure what to believe yet. 

“So you thought I should adopt a mythical hybrid?” you mumble to Heechul,  who merely nods and gestures towards the golden-eyed man who was still scribbling away at a desk. 

“Not just any. I wanted you to meet Namjoon. He’s been here for a long time because I was waiting for the right person to care for him. I have a gut feeling that you’re the one,” Heechul explains. 

“OH! Y/N would be perfect for Namjoon! I don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself!” Soonyoung squealed. 

“Wait, if you know all of them and aren’t surprised by all this, is Jihoon an exotic?” you ask with a frown. 

“Yup. He’s a Bakeneko. So, still technically a cat,” Soonyoung laughs. You make a mental note to remember to look that up later.

You couldn’t even imagine being the one to try to care for someone like Namjoon. Namjoon. You tried the name out in your mind a few times. It fit him. However, he was almost intimidatingly gorgeous and obviously smart, judging by the fact that he was in here teaching a class. What use would he have for you? 

“What is he?” You ask, almost terrified to hear the answer. 

“I’m a dragon,” a deep voice replied in front of you. You quickly meet Namjoon’s eyes as he grins reassuringly at you. 

“Hello. I saw that Yixing had his horn out in front of someone new so I thought I’d see what was going on. I’m Namjoon.” 

“Did you say a dragon?” you ask, unable to keep the shock and worry out of your voice. You realize your mistake when Namjoon’s face falls, and his easy-going grin was replaced with a polite smile. 

“Yes. Sorry.” 

“Oh, no. Don’t mind me. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I’m just learning that you all exist is all,” your laugh is a little self-deprecating, but Namjoon seems relieved. 

“You’re very pretty.” Namjoon mumbles, a little blush growing on his cheeks as he studies you. 

“Thank you, Namjoon,” you're flattered that someone as beautiful as him would think so. 

“Are you here to pick someone up for adoption?” Namjoon asks as he pulls up a chair to the table and gets comfortable. 

“Uh, yeah,” you blush from the intensity of his stare, his golden eyes flickering as he observes you.

Heechul is grinning as he watches the two of you interact. 

“I brought her to meet you, dummy,” Heechul snorts. 

Namjoon’s eyes widen in shock. “Me? You want to adopt me?”

If you’d had any doubts before, they were gone now. The way that his voice wobbled and his eyes filled like it was unbelievable that someone would want to adopt him broke your heart. 

“If you’ll have me. I have a lot to learn, I think.” 

Namjoon’s smile was so wide and bright, and he reached over to pull you into a hug. 

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” he mumbled into your neck. You squeezed him gently back then turned to Heechul. 

“So what all do I have to do?”

“I can take care of all the boring paperwork myself. Why don’t you and Namjoon hang out for the day? Get to know each other. He can show you his room, so you have an idea how to decorate his. You probably have enough rooms in your Grandma’s house to even build him a studio.” 

You stared at Heechul in shock.

“I never told you I inherited my Grandma’s house.”

“Whoops,” Heechul smirked, not concerned to be caught out in the least. 

“You’re not quite an ordinary human either, are you? Are you a hybrid?” 

“I’d be offended to be called an ordinary anything, sweetheart. Come along, Hamster. Let’s leave them to get acquainted.” 

[honekitteh]

FIC: Countdown - Chapter 3

Fandom: SWTOR Pairing: Theron Shan/f!Jedi Knight Rating: M (this chapter) Genre: Angst, H/C, Romance, Canon-Typical Violence, Humor,  Canon-typical levels of poor decision-making Synopsis: A distress call leads the Jedi Battlemaster to Ziost, but time is running out.  Follows the storyline of The Rise of the Emperor and inserts missing scenes.   Warnings: See Chapter 1; corpses

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Crossposted to AO3

“Again?” I flinched slightly but held my ground, waiting. “No. I don’t think so. When this world turns to red and you choke on torrents of blood, remember that this was your chance to flee.” Master Surro then put her hands to her head as she continued speaking. “A chance I… gave…” She collapsed to the floor, the silver of her eyes giving way to a more natural hue. She took a few deep breaths. “There is no… contemplation… there is only… duty…” she screamed and then collapsed further into an unconscious heap.

The forcefield was between me and the Jedi Master. I wanted to reach to her, to help. I wasn’t entirely sure what I could do at that exact moment.

“We’re wasting time here,” Kovach interrupted my thoughts with rational logic, “The armory’s safe. You go ahead. I’ll be close behind.”

I nodded to Kovach and then looked back to Master Surro. The Sixth Line Commander was no longer there, vanished somehow. I frowned, wondering how she’d managed to get up and slip out in the split second I had turned to speak to the Agent. The stealthier ways of the Force tended to elude me on most days, requiring a bit more concentration than today’s events appeared to allow. I sighed a bit and looked over the next objective. I needed to scan for the air defenses around the Outpost so we could take them down. This required a set of quality micro-binoculars. Thankfully a pair of them were readily available and Kira and I picked them up, attaching them to our belts and then we wrapped back up for the cold outdoors.

I tried to walk more carefully this time, avoiding large piles of snow and more slippery areas. Sadly, I wasn’t entirely prepared to trip over a dead imperial officer. Which, of course I should have been prepared, there were quite a few of them. I heard static coming from this particular corpse’s comm. I knelt carefully, adjusting my scarf over my nose, despite the stench of death and decay not quite setting in due to the body’s newness with its current state. I picked up the comm and listened to the voice over.

“If anyone can hear me: I have received clearance, but air defenses are not reading me as friendly. I cannot land. Repeat: I cannot land.”

I frowned slightly and picked up the dead imperial’s data pad. According to Imperial regulations, evacuation protocols for this area required the use of a nearby emergency landing field. The former Emperor’s new friends seemed to have interrupted the evacuation proceedings and disabled area landing beacons, surprising no one.

“Teeseven, I’m forwarding you some coordinates. I’ll be rerouting the data we get as we scan the air defenses, but until then, I need you to see what you can do to repair these Landing Zone Beacons.”

The droid beeped acknowledgement, then pointed out that Evacuation Droids were also not properly deployed in the area.

“Kira, see what you can do about those Evacuation Droids.”

“On it, boss.”

I took up a small perch on the wide railing outside of one of the buildings and scanned the horizon. There were four air defense satellites that I needed to scan to secure the link. I was going to scan those links, reroute them to T7, who would then connect them back towards the Administration Office Agent Kovach had indicated as our next meet up point.

“That’s one Evacuation Droid reassembled and back on task,” Kira announced over the commlink, “It’s still a right mess out here.”

I sighed as I studied the next satellite and turret. “I don’t think this is going to be over any time soon.”

“Lord Scourge doesn’t think we should linger too long. He says it’s too late.”

“What do you think we should do, Kira?”

“Have we heard anything from Theron yet?”

“No. Nothing.” My heart fell at the thought, but I just had one more satellite to find.

“Well, I think we should stay. Not just to make sure he’s okay… but all these people. None of them deserve this.”

“I agree.”

“To hell with Scourge’s ‘practicality.’”

“Watch behind you!”

Kira startled and suddenly force pushed a group of soldiers away from her, knocking them down.

“Unconscious?”

“Yes.”

“Okay good, let’s try to avoid killing anymore people if we can at all help it.”

“Already on it, boss.”

T7 beeped an alert. I looked up at a display. Emergency Form 98BG-HM7 was filed. This designated the current emergency as a hostile invasion by ground forces. Power was routed to the ground defense network to repel the invaders. The readings on the power draw indicated that the ground defense network was not in place. T7 made a comment about the protocols were not being kept. Honestly, I thought it was good that the ground-defense turrets were offline. I didn’t need additional bolts to deflect and dodge.

Once both T7 and Kira acknowledged their tasks were completed, we made it to the Administrative Office. We quickly made our way to the appropriate console and shut down the air defense network. Agent Kovach was not far behind and took over the console from me once my task had been completed.

The relief in his voice was evident. “I can confirm it: defenses are down. Between those weapons and the armory, a lot of their killing power’s out of their hands now.” Both Kira and I shared a small sigh of relief. Agent Kovach continued on, “Should be able to start evacuation efforts as well. The fewer potential targets on Ziost, the better.”

I nodded and leaned back against the wall as the agent worked on the console.

The squish of the door opening startled everyone in the Administrative Office. Kovach drew his blaster and Kira drew her saber. I, on the other hand, just froze.

Looking every bit the walking disaster we had expected, Theron Shan walked in the door with a smirk saying, “Hope you haven’t had too much fun without me.”

There was a collective sigh of relief and Kira just rubbed her face with her palm.

I approached him slowly. “Thought I’d lost you. Nice to see I was wrong.”

“Yeah,” Theron offered a small smile, walking slowly towards me as well, “Circumstances aside…”

“Sir…” Kovach cut in. “I thought it would be wise to disclose my role in all this, so I did. I hope that’s all right.”

“Sure, of course. Saves us the trouble of playacting our way into an alliance in front of someone we can trust.”

My face heated up a bit and I took a glance down as Theron’s gloved hand brushed mine. I then studied the array of bruises around his face. I was sure there were more hidden somewhere underneath his trademark red coat and light green shirt. I very nearly reached towards them, before glancing towards where Kovach was. The Agent had moved back to the console to monitor the current situation and wasn’t really looking back to where Theron and I were. I sighed slightly and said, “You look a little worse for wear, Theron.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it,” Theron replied with a sigh, lightly hooking my pinky with his own, after sharing a glance at the Agent’s location. “Way things are out there; I can’t believe I even made it this far.”

I glanced down at our hands, hooked together by pinkies, and allowed myself a small smile before looking back at him.

“Soon as I crashlanded, the Emperor’s puppets started coming for my shuttle, just like that. Maybe figured on some easy kills inside.”

I frowned but nodded. If I was honest with myself, which sometimes was not the case, I was just glad he was here.

“Did the only thing I could think of,” he continued, “Rigged the ship to overload, fry everything in and around it. Tried to shield myself but still scrambled half my implants.”

I furrowed my brow. “And that stopped the attack.”

Theron rose an eyebrow at the statement. “They went down, yeah. Some of them got back up, but they seemed out of it.” Theron thought about it for a moment before adding, “Not possessed—dazed… OW!”

“Good to see you too, Theron,” Kira smirked at him, twirling the now empty kolto injector in her fingers.

Theron opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by Agent Kovach shouting, “Intrusion!”

Theron shot a glare at Kira and rubbed his neck after letting go of my pinky. He then moved over to the console next to the other agent. “Vitiate’s pawns…?”

Kovach nodded, then tilted his head. “I have a thought.”

I raised an eyebrow watching the agents work on the console. Looking over on the view screen I saw a couple of Imperial soldiers approaching the building. With a push of the button, Kovach had them electrocuted. The agents then stepped away from the console and went out to the door to investigate. After a few moments, the two of them dragged the stunned imperial soldiers up to the conference table.

Kira moved over to help them put bindings on them as they situated them in their chairs. She smirked over at Theron, “Don’t holo, don’t write.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“Been a little busy…” he muttered trying to keep the unconscious Imperial from flopping out of the chair in a heap. The Imperial looked to be one of their officers as opposed to a normal soldier, at least if the markings on his armor gave me any indication. Probably a Lieutenant if I had my imperial officer designations properly memorized.

“Takes like two seconds to say ‘hi,’” Kira continued.

“Kira, now really isn’t the time,” I said with a heavy sigh.

“Fine,” she pouted slightly, but her tone was light and playful.

Theron gave me a slight glance of thanks, but there was an apology behind his eyes I could sense. I just shrugged and gave him a tired smile. He stepped back after securing the Lieutenant and looked across the rest of us. “Be ready for anything…”

The Lieutenant and his fellow officer started to slowly wake up. Blinking a few times, he began to speak as he took in his surroundings. “That was a… a nightmare… What’s?” His gaze started to come into focus, he glanced over between the agents, then his eyes landed on me, and glanced down to my lightsaber. “Is that what this was? Some kind of gutless Jedi mind trick?”

My eye twitched in response and I frowned. Shaking my head, I went to take the bindings off the two officers. “Go, get somewhere safe if you can. Off world would probably be wisest.” The Lieutenant nearly protested for a moment, but I quickly cut him off, “Now, before I change my mind.”

“Change your mind to what?” Theron asked, frowning slightly.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Either keep them bound or execute them. I’d rather not either.”

“Executing them would’ve been pretty cold.”

“And wrong.”

He nodded slowly.

“Though it would’ve given us two less people to have to fight later,” Agent Kovach mentioned as he was studying his console. Theron, Kira, and I just stared at him. He seemed oblivious to it and continued, “So now we know, shock them unconscious and the tie is severed—for a while, at least.” He continued working on the console, his mind obviously working quickly. “Hit enough of them hard enough and they’d be out a good, long while.”

“Yeah, but how do we do that?” Theron fidgeted his feet for a bit, also trying to sort out the problem in his head.

“I have some ideas. I need to consult the New Adasta municipal systems.”

Theron raised his eyebrow at that. “You going to need a hand with that? Some backup?”

“No,” Kovach responded, “I’ll be in touch.” He picked up his data pad and left the Administration building without a further word.

T7 wandered over to take Agent Kovach’s place on the console, Kira right behind him as he plugged in. He beeped confirmations of what was going on around the Outpost.

I watched them for a moment as Theron approached me. I felt my ears heat up a bit as he brushed my hand.

He also gave a glance over to Kira and T7 before looking back at me. “Kovach has been amazing. I just wanted eyes and ears inside Sith Intelligence, and he gets himself saddled up next to Lana.” He chuckled slightly. “Lana Beniko, Minister of Sith Intelligence. Who’d have thought it right? When I met her on Manaan, she was in over her head. Seemed to be at least.”

I smiled, stepping closer to him. “I know what you mean. She’s not always what you’d call direct.”

“You don’t have to tell me. My bruises still have bruises thanks to her little deception on Rishi.”

I reached towards his face, lightly tracing my fingers along the bruises around his implants. He flinched at my initial touch, so I withdrew my hand. The kolto Kira had injected into him seemed to be starting to work its magic, albeit slowly.

He shook his head at me. I frowned a bit and tilted my head. He made a small motion to his implants and I reached back to touch the bruises. This time instead of the flinch, he leaned into the touch with a sigh. “Still,” he continued, closing his eyes slightly, “Who am I to talk? I should have never sent my team here.”

I frowned shaking my head, leaning in closer to study his injuries.

“I made a bad situation worse, and now…”

“Shh… It’s not the time for blame…”

He smiled lightly, leaning in, his lips lightly touching mine before a beep from the holoconsole startled both of us and we quickly moved at least a meter and a half apart. “… And now I’ve got a priority holocall.” He sighed heavily, his voice heavily dripping with sarcasm, “Great.”

I thought I heard a small giggle and I shot Kira a glare as Theron answered the call. Then I blinked as the Republic’s Supreme Chancellor, Saresh, appeared on the holo.

“You’ve been busy, Agent Shan.” Her voice was accusatory. I blinked and looked between the two of them.

“Chancellor?” He seemed confused. His emotions were a whirlwind of guilt, surprise, concern, and frustration. I tried to clear my mind of my own thoughts and emotions as well as trying not to absorb everything he was feeling at that exact moment.

“An off the books mission to Ziost. A secret team of Jedi that—I don’t even know where to start with you about them—.”

I blinked and looked over at Theron.

He spoke rapidly in response, “Everything’s happened so fast. You don’t realize—.”

“No, I do realize. I realize that you declined to inform me of a prime opportunity to cripple the Empire and face the Emperor head-on.” Oh… no… I shook my head rapidly, my eyes widening. Saresh either did not notice I was there or did not deem to acknowledge my presence. I suppose it didn’t matter because she kept speaking. “We’re taking advantage of the chaos on Ziost, starting with New Adasta. I expect your cooperation.”

Theron’s face paled. “Wait. Please, before you send the order–”

“You don’t seem to understand, Agent Shan. There’s nothing to argue.”

I stared at the Chancellor, my eyes wider than they had any right to be. I muttered under my breath, “What?”

“Our ships are in orbit,” the Chancellor continued, “The invasion’s already begun.”

The holo communication blinked off. Theron pinched the bridge of his nose and rested one hand on the edge of the console looking down.

My thoughts were going a kilometer a minute. My hands balled into fists for a brief moment, then I released them. I repeated the motion for a good few minutes while I tried to settle down my own thoughts. When they started to coalesce, the just under the skin irritation would not leave. “Well this is just fantastic. Now I have to clean up an even bigger mess,” I growled.

Theron didn’t look at me but muttered in response, “Great, yeah just go ahead and clean up after me.”

“Wait what?” I responded startled, “I was talking about the Chancellor’s brilliant idea to send more soldiers to the slaughterhouse. That’s got nothing to do with you.”

He whirled around at me. “I’m the reason she’s here in the first place.”

Okay, he had a point. “Demented soldiers; slave and civilian populations under fire? You should have called me first.”

“I didn’t know for sure. I had to get more intel before I brought you in on it.”

“And now the Sixth Line are under his control.”

He looked down. “I know…”

“Why didn’t you contact me first? You knew I had experience with this.”

“I didn’t want to bring you in unless I was sure.”

“Are you sure now?”

“Going in alone? You could’ve been hurt or possessed!”

“And you could have died!” I snapped.

He blinked at me. I blinked and looked down and tried to calm my own breathing. “Jyana…” he said softly after what felt like about five or so minutes.

I was silent for another moment before stating simply, “I’m going to New Adasta. Teeseven, stay with Theron. Kira, with me.”

T7 beeped an acknowledgement in a confused and concerned tone while Kira just nodded and tossed her large bag of kolto at Theron.

He was startled by the toss and it caught him in his face. He barely managed a quick and smooth recovery and did not end up dropping it to the floor. He looked back up from the bag as I had already made it to the door. “Jyana…” Theron continued.

Without looking behind me I just pulled up my hood and walked out into the cold breeze of the Ziost Outpost.

[ladyvegeets]

Lethal Combination - 02

(Read it on AO3 or FFnet)

Bulma let her partner find his own damn way back to the precinct. She was in no hurry to work with him further. Besides, he had fired his weapon and shot somebody. Somebodies. He would need to fill out a hell of a lot of paperwork as well as receive a psych eval. If she was lucky he wouldn’t pass it and her partnership with detective Vegeta Saiyan would be a tiny blip on her record, never to be thought of again.

Good riddance.

She finished her own paperwork, purposefully ignoring Vegeta when he slunk into the precinct after hitching a ride from another officer. Unfortunately being her partner, he was set up with a desk perpendicular to hers, but they both did a good job of ignoring each other, putting up an invisible icy wall. She waited about an hour for him to apologize, and when he didn’t she decided she didn’t even want to hear one. As far as she was concerned, Vegeta was dead to her, an hourglass over his head counting down the seconds to his forced expulsion.

“Briefs, Saiyan! My office, now!”

Bulma looked up the same moment Vegeta did. Their eyes met, then they grimaced and looked away, standing to meet the captain.

“Would either of you care to explain what the hell happened today?” Piccolo demanded once Bulma had settled into one of the chairs opposite his desk. Vegeta didn’t take the other seat, opting instead to lean against the far wall with arms crossed over his broad chest.

Neither of them said a word.

Piccolo raised a brow. “Well? Briefs?”

“Don’t look at me, Cap. I’m not the one who thinks he’s a one-man army who doesn’t have to follow protocol.”

Piccolo looked to Vegeta. “Care to explain, Saiyan?”

Vegeta shrugged one shoulder. “What she said.”

“Jesus. You two haven’t been under my command for more than a few hours and already you’re in trouble.”

“Me?!” Bulma spluttered, indignant. “What did I do?”

“I put him under your watch. As partners, you’re responsible for each other,” Piccolo reminded. “And what’s this I hear about you taking a swing at him?” Bulma blushed bright red and looked down at her shoes. “Jesus, Briefs, do I have to write you up on your first day back—”

“That’s not how I remember it.”

Bulma and Piccolo looked up to where Vegeta was. His face was inscrutable. Bulma had seen statues with more expression than he had.

Piccolo narrowed his eyes. “You’re saying Briefs didn’t hit you?”

“Do you see me filing a complaint?”

Bulma tried to keep the surprise off her face. Why was he covering for her?

“Is that the way of it, Briefs?” Piccolo asked. His tone made it clear: he wasn’t buying it.

Bulma and Vegeta locked eyes, but his gave nothing away. Did she dare take his out?

“…What he said,” she finally agreed.

“Well well, look at you two getting your stories straight,” Piccolo drawled with heavy sarcasm. “Listen, I don’t know and I don’t care what’s going on here, but I need you both to get your acts together. That means working as a cohesive team. I don’t want to hear bo-fucking-peep about either of you unless it’s in regards to breaking a case. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Crystal,” Vegeta grumbled.

“Good. Now get out of my sight. We’ve got a dead kid on the beach I want you two working on.” Piccolo looked up at Vegeta with hard eyes. “You catch that, Saiyan? Dead. No one for you to shoot at this time.”

“Not yet.” Vegeta pushed off from the wall and walked out.

Bulma hurried after, avoiding the captain’s judgmental eyes. She waited until she and Vegeta were back at their desks before calling him out. “Hey.”

He didn’t acknowledge her, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair.

She grabbed his arm. It was like steel. Christ, just how much did this guy work out? “I said hey.”

“I heard.”

“Well it’s polite to acknowledge someone when they’re talking to you.”

He turned sharply, nearly butting heads to lean in and glower at her with the full weight of his irritation. She had to give him credit, he was intimidating. The guy definitely had his interrogation face down. “You are acknowledged,” he snarked, his words purring over her like the icy touch of Death. Her skin broke out into goose-bumps.

But she refused to back down. Drawing herself up to her full height, she met his glare with her own. “Why did you cover for me back there?”

“Tch.” He pulled away, suddenly bored, and finished shrugging on his jacket.

“Hey, I’m serious.” She wouldn’t let him pull away, circling to stay in his line of sight.

“Fuck, you’re persistent.”

“Part of the job.” She jabbed his chest with a impertinent index finger. “C’mon, spill it. I know you don’t like me, so why stick your neck out like that?”

He grimaced. “Because I am no snitch.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

She narrowed her eyes, trying to read between his lines. What was his deal? He clearly gave no fucks about making friends or even staying alive, yet he wanted her to believe he had some kind of honor system? The man was a walking juxtaposition.

“Is this your round-about way of saying you’ve got my back?” she asked.

“Isn’t there a dead body we’re supposed to be looking at?” he looked away, trying to change the subject. Bulma felt her first flicker of victory. Was that a crack in his armor she saw? Maybe he wasn’t so unsalvageable after all. Picking up the keys, she dangled them from her fingers. “I’m driving.”

“Fine by me.” He walked passed her on the way to the parking lot. Bulma hitched a brow and followed after. A male cop that didn’t insist on driving. Well, at least he had one redeemable quality.

~xox~

Bulma and Vegeta strode through the sand to the area cordoned off by the police, pushing through the crowd of surfers and beachgoers trying to get a look at the dead body. A tall officer with permanent bed-head was jotting down notes in a pad. He looked up and gave Bulma the biggest grin and wave. “Bulma, you’re back!”

She gave him a smile on approach. It was hard not to around the big goof. “In the flesh. How’s Chi-Chi?”

“Huge!” officer Goku gushed with evident joy, as if his birthday, Christmas, and vacation had all come at once. “She’s due any day now.”

“That’s amazing!” Bulma saw Goku glance at her dark shadow. “Oh uh, Goku Son, this is detective Vegeta Saiyan, my new partner.”

“Partner?” Goku repeated, a worried look crossing his face before he could think to mask it. It was one reason he’d never made it as detective. He was a terrible liar. Goku shook off his shock and offered Vegeta a large paw and grin. “Hey, nice to meet you, buddy. You’re in good hands, Bulma’s the best on the force.”

Vegeta glanced down at the hand and then looked away, putting on a pair of shades. “Are we going to shoot the breeze all day or talk about the case?”

“Um, right…” Goku let his hand fall back and walked them over to the body. “DOA. No ID. Can’t be more than 18. A bit overdressed for the beach if you ask me,” he said, his expression morose as he looked down at the dead boy. Another reason Goku never tried for detective: his heart was just too big to handle the grittier cases.

“What does forensics say?” Bulma asked, crouching down by the body to get a better look. Goku was right, the deceased was young, and not dressed for the beach. Had he been dumped here or washed up on shore?

“She says it looks like he drowned.” A slender woman with a sharp blond bob-cut approached, latex gloves on her hands. “Sorry, I was just cataloging some evidence.”

“Lazuli, Vegeta. Vegeta, Lazuli,” Bulma made quick introductions. “She’s our forensics expert.”

The woman eyed Vegeta over with a disapproving glance. “Most people just call me 18.”

“Why?” he asked in a surprising show of sociableness.

“Do you actually care?” 18 inquired.

Vegeta’s expression didn’t change. “Nope.”

“Alright then.” 18 turned back to Bulma. “I’ll know more once I get the results back from the autopsy but with little else to go on, drowning seems most likely.”

“Accidental?” Goku asked.

“Probably not,” Bulma interjected as she pulled out a pen to lift up the dead boy’s bangs, getting a better look at his face. “Not too many people go swimming fully dressed. How long’s he been dead?”

“Hard to say if water’s been a factor, but at best estimate sometime between 10 and 2 last night.” 18 squatted down and started collecting more evidence. “I don’t know if I’m going to be much help on this one, Briefs. Drownings are notoriously hard to get anything concrete on, and the morning tide washed away anything useful.”

Bulma sighed, imprinting the dead boy’s face to memory before letting his bangs fall back. “What do you make of all this?” she asked, throwing a look over her shoulder to her partner.

Vegeta was staring down at the body with eery silence. There was a stiffness in his posture, even more than usual, and it hadn’t escaped her notice that he kept a small distance between himself and the victim. She couldn’t see his eyes from behind his shades, but his mouth was set grimly. “Stinks of foul play,” he finally growled and walked off.

“Your new partner seems, um…” Goku trailed off, failing to find something nice to say.

18 had no such reservations. “Like an asshole.”

Bulma watched Vegeta trek back to the parking lot, not sure what to make of him or his blunt attitude. “Yeah, seems that way… But at least he’s an honest one.”

An awkward silence fell over the three. Goku was the first to break it, clearing his throat. “Well I’ll uh, see if anyone’s filed a missing persons report that matches our vic.” He beat a quick retreat and 18 picked up her camera and started taking photos of the scene to avoid making eye contact with Bulma.

There wasn’t much point sticking around so she headed back to her car. Vegeta was already in the passenger’s side seat, chin in his hand, staring off into the distance across the beach. He didn’t look up as she got into the driver’s seat. It was hard to say for certain, having known him only a few hours, but she got the impression something was on his mind.

“No ID, no clues, no witnesses. It’s not looking good for the kid.”

“It was looking worse for him between the hours of 10 and 2 last night,” he replied dryly.

“Yeah.” She gave him a long side-eye, her fingers flexing on the steering wheel. On a hunch, she asked, “That wasn’t your first dead kid, was it?”

He didn’t react, staying quiet so long she wondered if he was going to ignore her entirely. “No.” The word felt unnervingly final.

She left it at that. What more could you say? In their line of work, you saw a lot of fucked up stuff. Turning on the engine, she put the car in drive and took them back towards the station. The wind whipped at Vegeta’s hair through the open window.

~xoXox~

AN: I know next to nothing about forensics or police procedures other than what I’ve picked up from the briefest of google searches and police dramas, which I’m sure are ENTIRELY ACCURATE AND NOT EXAGGERATED AT ALL.

[fangirlovestuff]

Cycle - Steve Rogers x reader ch.2

previously: ch.1

Summary: As you acclimate to your new workplace, you make a very interesting acquaintance - Bucky. Meanwhile Steve is persuaded by said acquaintance that maybe tonight’s his chance to finally... ahem... “get some”.

Word Count: ~2,320

Warning: explicit language 

a/n- Hey lovely people! Just wanted to thank everyone who read the first one and enjoy this one! sorry in advance because it’s probably gonna take me more time to upload the next one because i’m updating this as i write it (which means any requests you have could definitely be included in this so feel free to send them in!) the awesome divider is by @whimsicalrogers​ <3

It was Monday, your favorite day of the week.

Just kidding, you're a normal person.

You groaned at the sound of your alarm, hitting it to turn it off and making your way out of bed. You went about your usual morning routine, dressing up and going to your kitchen to grab a bite to eat.

Once you were feeling a little more awake, you looked at your phone, checking all the good luck messages from your friends and smiling while you replied to them. Your mood lifted the littlest bit. It's a new week, and you're getting a new start.

And you made good on your word, not clubbing or hooking up with anyone in the past week. You hadn't actually started seriously dating yet, but, you know, baby steps. Get rid of your habits, restore other's perception of you, start dating, break the cycle. That was your focus for the last week.

Now, you were thankful to have a distraction in your new job. On your way to the Avengers compound you practiced your introduction. Hi, I'm the new head of research. My name is – or maybe I should open with my name and then my job? Ugh, I'm overcomplicating this. I should just calmly and professionally introduce myself. Yeah, that's it. I can do calm and professional. I AM calm and professional.

After that charming pep talk on the way, you were standing and looking up at the tall building, shining in the hot sun as you took a deep breath and went through the entrance into your new job, reminding yourself your future starts now.

You welcomed the cool breeze of the AC on your skin as you made your way to the reception desk. "Hi, I'm here for the—"

"Oh, you're the new lab girl, right?" the receptionist smiled and you sent her a tight-lipped smile, nodding.

"I knew I recognized you!" she said. Being called a girl kind of threw you off, but she didn’t know you well yet. You were sure she didn't mean it in a patronizing way. She was just a little older than you. Yeah, that's it.

As you rationalized this, you noticed her typing away on her computer in search of something.

"Okay," she turned to you once more, "your office is on the twenty-second floor. Your schedule's probably there already, but if you need anything don't hesitate to call down," she smiled.

"I'm sure I can handle it, thank you," you said and walked towards the elevators. You might regret your little quip later, but right now you were too pissed at the patronizing bitc—

Your breath was knocked out of you and you tripped forward, panicked as you thought you were going to hit the ground, but a pair of strong arms quickly held onto yours, holding you up.

You looked up to see a handsome man with brown hair and blue eyes, which were filled with concern. It took you a moment to regain your composure but then you realized standing in front of you was Bucky Barnes, THE Bucky Barnes, aka winter soldier. And you had just tripped and embarrassed yourself in from of him. Shit, that's one way to start off your first day.

"Are you alright?" he asked, a little frown on his face.

Probably because you just stood there in stunned silence for the last 30 seconds, staring. It was a miracle your mouth hadn't opened and reached the floor like it does in those cartoons, because you surely felt that way.

You idiot, just say something already!

"Yeah, I'm fine, thank you. So much." You fumbled over your words a little, but quickly regained your composure. You came into work today wanting to make a good first impression, and there was definitely still time to salvage that. After all, Bucky was still standing there, a small smile on his face.

You introduced yourself, this time not fumbling over your words but being clear, professional. You mentally cheered for yourself, now let's keep that energy going.

"It's my first day here," you explained, "so I'm actually just getting to know this place." You gestured at the busy building around the both of you. "I know that's not really an excuse for bumping into you, but… all I can say is that I'm sorry, and I hope working with me will be less bothersome," you said lightheartedly while internally hoping desperately you haven't ruined his impression of you already.

"Come on, it's nothing," Bucky smiled, putting a comforting hand on your shoulder. He looked into your eyes, a lopsided grin stretching across his face. Dammit, he's hot. And by the looks of it, he knows it too.

"Honestly," he continued, "I'm glad I got to know you before anyone else did," he smirked, "more for you than for me. Trust me, the others… they're a bit much."

You both chuckled. "Well thanks, but I'm sure I can handle them. It's part of the job if what I'm researching is for them," You smiled and Bucky returned it.

"Speaking of which," you said, "I should probably get going and do that. My job."

"Yeah, you should," he grinned, "see you around," he winked.

He turned to walk away, so you didn't have much time to dwell on that wink. However hot he was, you were coworkers, and you're on a new path now. So, you turned towards the elevators, getting into one and going up to your office. First first impression, check.

Once you were in your office you sat down, taking a moment to appreciate the fact that you even got an office. In your previous workplace you hadn't been given one, due to space limitations, so you just had the lab. You felt your gratefulness wash over you. You haven't been here for even an hour, but you were getting pretty convinced that doing this was one of the best decisions you've ever made.

After that moment of introspection, you shook your head and went to work, looking at all the files for the new developments being made for the Avengers. You made a mental note to be sure to talk to all of the lab techs over the next few days.

Since everything was a bit last minute, you hadn't really had a chance to get to know many people here, except for the people who hired you. You knew they were taking a chance on you, bringing in a new head of research from outside and not promoting someone already working for them. It was a security risk, surely, but that didn't really concern you, since you knew you wouldn't do anything to compromise the Avengers. No, what worried you was the workplace atmosphere. You knew some on them must be annoyed that you weren't "one of their own", and that needed to be fixed.

At lunch you finally left your office, walking into the large dining area/cafeteria that was there for the benefit of employees like you who didn't want to go out to eat. You figured this would be an easy place to start getting to know your staff.

You bought some food and looked around. It was high-schoolish, every group sitting in a table, some sneaking looks your way. You were contemplating where to sit when a woman came up to you. When she got closer to you, you realized that she was taller than you, her brunette hair pulled into a sleek bun, secured by a hair clip.

"Hey," she came up to you. "I'm a little embarrassed to ask, but… we've been told that the new research head is coming today, and I was just wondering if that may be you? It's just you seem a little lost…" she trailed off, sending a small smile your way.

"That is me! And well, I can admit I am a little lost." You both chuckled as you introduced yourself, smiling.

"I'm Kate," the woman introduced herself. "I'm a lab tech. I'm working on the new Falcon wings."  

"Oh, that's so cool!" you couldn't contain yourself from geeking out a little. You remembered the project file from before. "vibranium hinges, right? So they'll get less wear-and-tear and we won't spend too much vibranium on each one. That's a great idea," you smiled.

"I agree," Kate said and you both smiled. "How about we continue this discussion over there?" she said and gestured towards a table behind you, where the lab techs were sitting, waving a little once they saw you looking at them.

"Sure thing," you said and started walking beside her towards the table. "By the way, I love how high-schooly this place is," you said, sarcasm evident in your voice, while Kate chuckled.

"Trust me, we all think that. But in the end, we're no better than high schoolers. But it's a fun sitting arrangement and it works for everyone, so really you can't complain."

Once you arrived at the table you made acquaintances with everyone, and to your surprise they were all extremely welcoming, willingly discussing the new projects with you. Knowing you all have such a cool job making stuff for the Avengers brought you all pretty close, and you started bouncing ideas off of each other, staying way after you finished the food.

After lunch you went to the lab, which was pretty close to your office. You spent time getting to know the projects better, listening closely to your coworkers, who were each explaining in detail about the project they were working on. You obviously had a general idea about them, but you knew stuff like this matter. Also, you got to know them all, the conversations often steering towards personal stuff, which none of you had minded.

Time flew by, and before you knew it, it already the end of the day. You bid goodbye to everyone and went to your office to collect your things.

You opened the door and nearly jumped out of your skin. There, you had found Bucky Barnes, standing and looking at the bookshelves on your walls.

He noticed your not-very-subtle entrance and turned towards you grabbing onto your arm in a soothing manner, but also an unnecessary one, which didn't escape your attention.

"You okay there doll?" he asked, the nickname rolling off of his tongue effortlessly. Heck, if it were different circumstances, you'd be very appreciative of Bucky's forwardness, but right now it really wasn't the right move.

"I'm fine," you sent him a tight-lipped smile and tore your arm out of his grip. "Did you need anything?"

"I'm sorry for coming in unannounced like that," he said, suddenly bashful. "That probably wasn't the best thing to do was it?" he grinned timidly, realizing how his actions could come across.

"Probably not," you agreed, smiling a little more genuinely this time.

"Well, I just wanted to ask you how your first day was. And also ask if you might wanna go out for drinks tonight. Steve and Sam are gonna be there, and a few more people from work," he said the last sentence as if it was a question.

"Thank you. My first day was great, but that doesn't matter, did you just ask me out for drinks with Captain America and the Falcon?"

"And me," he added, smiling. "But yes, I did. And you haven't answered yet."

"Of course that's a yes," you smiled. "But you have to promise not to barge into my office again, cause you scared the shit outta me."

"Deal," he smiled, holding his hand out. You shook it, smiling back at him.

"NO. I'm not going tonight, final," Steve complained.

"C'mon Steve," Sam tried to persuade him. "It'll be fun! We invited some people from work as well, it's not gonna be just the three of us. And tonight might be the night you get lucky!" he smirked.

"Ugh, that is exactly why I'm not coming," Steve groaned. "Every time I go out with you guys I never get laid." He couldn't believe he was stooping to their level of expression. Stupid Sam with his fucki—

"So what you're saying is that we're better looking than you so girls want us and not you?" Bucky teased.

"No, I'm saying you're giving me bad luck," Steve retorted.

"Steeeeve" Bucky drew out his name, "It's gonna be great, and you should really come. The new head of research is coming, maybe you could talk to her about your new shield or something. It'll be…" he paused, searching for the right word, "very beneficial and efficient. You like efficiency don't you Steve?"

Steve covered his face with his hand, exasperated. "Please get your annoying back under control. It's a problem." Bucky didn't answer, simply smirking. "Fine," Steve drawled, "If I come would you get off of me for like, a week or two?"

"Done!" Bucky agreed quickly, "see you at 8."

"See ya," Steve said, walking out of the room.

"Why the hell would you agree to that?" Sam asked. "Now he won't go out with us for like a week. Good job Barnes. You know, you just cost me the priceless entertainment of watching Steve trying to fuck girls and fucking it up instead."

"I have a feeling we won't need to do much persuading for Steve to come with us next time," Bucky smirked. "The new head of research is super cute, and I'm sure once she meets Steve we won't need to worry about him getting laid anymore. I could've hit on her myself today, but you know, the good of the many." Bucky failed to mention his attempts at flirting didn't go over that well with you, but that was unimportant.

"Sure," Sam said, guessing something probably close to what had actually happened. "Ten bucks nothing happens between them over the next week."

"Deal," Bucky agreed and they shook hands. "I have a good feeling about this."

ok admittedly the gif at the start was because you don’t meet Steve yet but i promise next chapter it WILL happen!! i just saw that this one was kinda getting out of my hands length wise and i wanted to give this meeting it’s proper space so yeah i’m sorry but i just had too much fun with Bucky in this one :) (also i’m so sorry if he’s a little ooc i just don’t wtire for him that much🥺)

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if you wanna join / be removed from these taglists, comment/message me! much love <3

[askpetethelibrarian]

Arrr! The Pirate Library

Yesterday, someone over at King Shot Press found himself in a little hot water over some tweets that were...not pro-piracy, I guess, but not AS anti-piracy as some people wanted. 

It turned into a whole thing. Because this is the internet, so one person’s opinion on piracy shatters too many worldviews or something. 

Frankly, it turned into a big mess. I wouldn’t want to get involved, until...

And when someone said “I honestly don’t see the difference with a library” I felt compelled to say a few things. And to ask myself: Why is checking out a book from the library different from piracy?

Before we get into it, however, I just want to say that the opinion of someone at King Shot isn’t something that induces anger in me. I think it’s an opinion that I agree with in some ways and disagree with in others, and I’m not looking to pile on here. After the library bit, I’ll share some of my opinion on piracy, in general. 

1. Scale

When piracy puts a book up online, an infinite number of people can download, possess, and read it simultaneously. 

When a library buys a print copy of a book, that’s obviously not true. That book can only go out a limited number of times (50 checkouts is usually too many for most books, physically). It can only be held by one person at a time. And, it can only be in any person’s possession for a limited period. 

When a library buys an ebook, similar rules will apply. Overdrive/Libby, the most popular library ebook service, does require us to buy licenses for every copy. Not every title, every copy. So, if we have two copies of something, we bought two. If we have one copy, only one person can have it out at a given time. 

Hoopla, another service, has a different model. We don’t buy individual licenses for individual items, and any number of people can have it at the same time. However, the time period is limited, and users are limited to a given number of titles per month. So, one can’t use library service to stockpile a bunch of books that they keep forever.

Piracy and borrowing might not look different from a user POV, but from a view that’s bigger than the individual, the difference is big enough to start having its own gravitational pull. 

2. Purchase

It certainly seems like I can check out something from the library for free, so what’s the difference between that and downloading it for free?

The library isn’t “free.” It’s a pre-paid service, meaning you’ve already paid for it, it’s just a matter of whether or not you make use of it. Much like a road, street lamp, or public park. You pay for those things, and then you choose whether or not to make good use of your money.

You’ve also paid for ebooks held by your library. Your tax money goes to the library, the library buys ebook services.

Now, in theory, SOMEONE paid for a copy of a book at some point before it was up for free online. So there’s a similarity here. However, let’s look more closely:

If a library buys a title and it’s very popular, they will buy more. Our system has a policy that says we’ll buy another copy of something for every 5 simultaneous requests placed. If 50 people requested The Martian when it came out, our guiding principle is that we should have at least 10 copies. 

There’s no such system in piracy. That one copy is all that’s ever purchased.

To cross over with the above argument about scale, let’s say that my library system bought 10 copies of The Martian. Consider that this is ONE library system serving a portion of one U.S. state. Even if we were overly generous, we could say we cover a quarter of the state. Multiply our purchase four times to cover Colorado, then multiply times 50 to cover the U.S., all of a sudden you’ve got 2,000 purchased copies of The Martian. This is very quick and dirty math, and it’s almost certainly a lowball. 

Also, you need to factor in that libraries will be replacing copies of books. So, in the 5 years or so since The Martian came out, the initial number has likely doubled. 

There’s another effect here. Once The Martian is a hit, you’d better believe libraries are all over Andy Weir’s next book, Artemis. Pre-orders play a big part in sales. Pre-orders count in the first week of a book’s sales, and large pre-orders help a book climb onto bestseller charts. 

You might not care about putting money in Andy Weir’s pocket, and I’m not here to argue about that (for THAT portion, see below). It does warrant talking about, however, in terms of the difference between pirating material and borrowing it from the library. The library is a positive factor in the economics of books. Piracy is not. 

3. Mutual Support

There is oftentimes an argument for piracy that’s about piracy being a positive force for folks who can’t afford books. Let me tell you why using your library is better. 

The library works like this: you support us, we support you. 

You come in, check out some stuff, and that gives us better stats to take to the local government and say, “See, this is important. The community needs this.”

When you pirate something, we lose out on those stats. We become less busy. The local government sees that the library needs less cash. And then, that economically destitute person who can’t afford books? Where do they go now? Piracy? Bad news, economically destitute people are far less likely to have a computer, an internet connection, and maybe even a place to plug a computer in if they DID have one. Oh, and they probably don’t have a fancy-ass e-reader either.

Piracy may be an option for some people who can’t afford books, but if you are concerned with the availability of books to all, the library is a better solution.

~

Let’s talk about some of my personal feelings on piracy, in general. 

We Hurt The Ones We Love

I spoke to a very well-known author. This author told me that they’ve had some contractual trouble with their publisher because this author’s books are VERY frequently pirated, which means that the books are popular, but the publisher won’t pay as much because they will have a hard time getting a return on their investment. 

Pirating material can have a ripple effect that makes it more difficult for the artists we love to put out more of the material we love. Some might see it as hurting a large, faceless company, but the truth is that we’re hobbling someone whose work we love. 

The Money Question

When talking about piracy, there’s always an element of class warfare going on. Why should someone pay the multi-millionaires like Metallica for an album they had to work 2 hours to afford? Why do I care if Harper Collins loses out on a few bucks?

I’m about to enter some uncomfortable territory because the stats are impossible to find. Because, frankly, piracy is something that many people wouldn’t admit to doing. It’s pretty difficult to get a good bead on this whole thing. I tried to find out whether or not piracy is a result of economics, and I could find no evidence supporting or denying that. What I will speak from is personal experience. Because that’s all I’ve got. 

Yes, there is probably some kid out there who is economically destitute and the only way he’s getting his hands on sweet books is through piracy. 

However, my personal experience tells me that a whole lotta piracy is committed by people who could afford the things they’re pirating and end up stockpiling things they never use. 

Let me put it like this: I don’t really have a problem with an individual sneaking into an art museum because they can’t afford to pay their way, and they really want to see the art. 

But I think it would be wrong, while sneaking into the art museum, to grab yourself something from the gift shop. Even something small you don’t need. 

My morality on this is somewhat flexible, and somewhat capitalistic. If you genuinely can’t afford books AND you’ve exhausted the options to come about them legitimately (libraries, friends, etc.) then I don’t think I’d have a problem. However, if you, like most people, justify the collection and hoarding of electronic files that you could afford to come by legitimately, you’re in a bad moral spot. 

Short version: If you are that person who can justify piracy because you pirate only that which you actually view, and you wouldn’t be able to experience art otherwise, you get a pass. But if you’re the person justifying it because someone else is probably too broke to buy books, therefore it’s okay for YOU to pirate, I respectfully disagree.

The Value of Art

Some piracy is justified through saying that pirated things don’t necessarily equate to income loss because they wouldn’t have been purchased anyway. In other words, maybe I would pirate a movie I would never actually pay to see. 

*Ahem*

Sure, like Speed Racer. Maybe I wouldn’t pay a single dollar to see it, but I would watch it for free. This means that the makers of the movie don’t really lose anything. Maybe I wouldn’t PAY for a new Metallica album, but I would listen for free. 

For books, I don’t know that this is nearly as applicable. Who is going to put in the effort to read a book that they wouldn’t pay the paperback price on? It’s not a passive medium the way movies and music are. The book isn’t just going to happen in front of you. You actually have to do some shit to get the information inside your head. 

The real issue on this point is that of de-valuing of art. 

Writing a book is hard work. Damn hard work. I think writers deserve to be paid for their work. 

There’s a long-standing tradition of de-valuing artistic work as work. Because artists aren’t out there busting concrete. 

But I’m here to tell you, art is work. It’s not a blast to sit down and type out a couple hundred thousand words, edit them, re-edit them, send them out for publication. No part of this is more fun than watching Speed Racer. 

The writers you want to read, while you’re enjoying a book, binge-watching something, doing whatever you like to do, they are working, many of them doing so in addition to their regular day jobs. Many of them in addition to being parents, partners, and doing all the same bullshit we all do every day. 

I also feel, in this time of plenty, that there’s really no need to watch movies you hate, listen to albums you don’t like, and read books that’re no good. If it’s not worth the cost of admission, it’s not worth your time either. Just leave it be and move onto something else you’d pay for.

[sunflowerseedsandscience]

D’Un Nouvel Oeil: Chapter Eight

Previous Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven

ORADOUR-SUR-GLANE, HAUTE-VIENNE, FRANCE FEBRUARY 1944

Shortly after sunrise, Scully gives up on sleeping any longer and pulls herself out of bed, Mulder following behind her. She hangs a sign on the cafe's front door, informing her patrons that the restaurant will be closed for the day, and with Mulder by her side, she begins the long walk out of town to her mother's farm. Apprehensive about what she'll find when they get there, she's silent for the entire journey, and Mulder, wisely, does not push her to talk.

She's relieved to see, as they approach the farm, that the animals are all still in their proper places: Philippe the draft horse is in his paddock along with the goats, the chickens are pecking about the yard, and when Scully peers into the barn, she sees that the farm hands have already gotten a start on the morning milking, even without her mother there to supervise. She and Mulder take stools and settle in to help at once, and for a brief time, Scully simply concentrates on the task at hand, trying not to think about the fact that yesterday, Maggie had been sitting on the stool Mulder now occupies. Her mother's absence is a constant knife in her side, a loss felt so keenly that it makes her physically ill.

With the milking done, Scully arranges with the farm hands to make sure that all of the tasks once done by Maggie will be taken over, that the animals will get fed and watered, the cows will be milked, the eggs will be collected, and Philippe will be brought into the stable on cold nights. And finally, when she can put it off no longer, Scully ventures cautiously into the farmhouse.

As expected, the soldiers have torn the place apart inside, looking for any evidence that could provide them with insight into the workings of the Resistance. It's all in vain, of course: Maggie never, ever wrote anything down, never received notes or messages, never kept physical evidence of any sort in her home. Her role had been, quite simply, to provide food and shelter for anyone passing through who might need it, and she had only ever been alerted to the imminent arrival of refugees by word of mouth.

"It does give me a small bit of pleasure," Scully tells Mulder, looking around at the wreckage of the kitchen, "imagining your commander and his men going through all this trouble and not finding a single thing. I'm sure they expected a treasure trove of labelled maps and ciphers and lists of addresses of other safe houses." She bends and begins to gather up shards of shattered china. She retrieves a pail from where it lies on its side in the corner of the room and begins to deposit broken plates into it, and as she turns to continue working, she notices that Mulder has not joined in. Instead, he's standing in the kitchen doorway, looking around at the wreckage. The expression on his face is far too easy to identify, and setting the pail down, Scully goes to him.

"Mulder," she says softly, taking his arm, "none of this is your fault."

"It's my commander that's done this," he says, eyes full of shame. "My father's best friend. And my countrymen who helped him."

"That doesn't make you responsible for it," Scully insists. "If you hadn't come running out here last night, things would have been infinitely worse. Without your warning we would have been caught completely unaware and my mother never would have gotten away in time." She squeezes his hand. "And most likely, I would have been arrested, as well." He drops his head, giving a small nod of assent. "Now come on. Help me get this straightened up."

Together, they clean up the broken china and glassware. A few of Maggie's grandmother's good plates have only broken into two or three large pieces, and Scully saves these, in hopes of gluing them back together later. The receipts and invoices that have been torn out of the writing desk are gathered up, organized, and re-filed, and the letters from Bill, Charlie, and Melissa go back into the desk drawer. The pantry has been looted, and all of the wine is gone, but in the cellar, pushed far back on the shelves, Maggie's fruit preserves remain untouched. Scully will not need to come up with new fillings for her pies. It's a small enough relief, but today, she'll take whatever she can get.

Upstairs, clothing has been torn out of wardrobes and drawers and scattered all over, and they fold it all back up carefully and put it away. Maggie's jewel box lies on the floor, the lid torn off by the hinges and the contents gone, but Scully knows well enough that anything of real value had long-since been packed away and tucked into a bag of clothing and identification, set aside in preparation for just the sort of hasty departure she'd had to make last night. The full-length mirror in the corner of Maggie's bedroom has been shattered (out of spite, as far as Scully can tell- did they think there might be hidden messages behind the glass), and she carefully sweeps up the shards. All of the duvets and pillows have been torn, and feathers cover everything like snow. Scully saves the ripped pillowcases and duvet covers for use as bandages.

It takes most of the day, but finally, the inside of the farmhouse is put to right. As the sun nears the horizon, Scully stands in the kitchen doorway, staring listlessly across the room at the sink, thinking of how, just yesterday evening, she'd stood right there with her mother, washing dishes and talking, never guessing their world was about to come crashing down around them.

She'd give anything to return to that moment.

------------------

Scully feels as though she's moving through an impenetrable fog as February passes into March. Her days and nights are taken up almost entirely by work, many of her mother's responsibilities now falling to her... but being much too busy suits her just fine.

The busier she is, the less time she has alone with her grief.

Still, no matter how late into each night she stays up, there simply aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done, which is how she finds herself, one evening, teaching Mulder the finer points of how to bake a pie.

"It should be even, all the way around," she tells him, as he tries to roll out the bottom crust for a cherry pie. "Right now, your edges are much thinner than the center." It's the kindest assessment she can manage: in truth, his first attempt at a crust is a lumpy, uneven mess, a little three-dimensional map of the French Alps in pie crust, full of hills and valleys and patches of flour that he hadn't managed to mix in thoroughly enough. Mulder frowns at his own work, then glances over at Scully's crust, which is perfectly level, a uniform consistency throughout.

"I don't know how you do that," he grouses, balling his own dough back up and trying to mix in the bits of flour.

"Practice," Scully says. "The pie crusts I made when I first learned were every bit as lumpy as yours."

"Nothing wrong with a few good-sized lumps here and there," Mulder murmurs, abandoning his pie crust to nuzzle at her neck, running his hands over the swell of her hips. A little shiver goes through her and she giggles... but within seconds, she remembers why she shouldn't be giggling, and sobers instantly. Mulder backs off at once.

"I'm sorry," Scully whispers, but Mulder shakes his head.

"No, I'm sorry, Scully," he says. "I know you don't want-"

"It's not that I don't want to, Mulder," Scully says, cutting him off. "It's just that... I feel like I can't let go and relax, no matter what I do." She sighs. "I can't stop thinking about it, and I feel like I don't have any energy left over for everything else. Not as busy as I am."

"Have you ever thought that maybe you're doing too much, Scully?" Mulder asks tentatively. She shakes off the thought with a toss of her head.

"What did I stay behind for, if not to help people?" she asks. Mulder doesn't answer, and after a moment, she looks up from her crust to see him trying- and failing- to conceal a look of dejection. She realizes immediately what he thinks she's said, and dusting her hands off on her apron, she reaches out to touch his cheek, bringing his gaze to hers. "I don't need to stay for you," she tells him, "because you would have come with me if I had left." His face relaxes, and he smiles at her. "Yeah, I would have," Mulder agrees, and kisses her.

Mulder is definitely right about her doing too much, however, and that becomes apparent as March draws to a close. She is tired all of the time, more exhausted than she's ever been in her life, and it's no surprise to her at all when she begins to feel ill, as well. For a handful of days, she's barely able to keep anything down, and every evening, as soon as the cafe is closed, she retreats to her bed, sleeping harder than she has since her mother's departure. She's preparing to do just that on the last Saturday evening in March when the knock comes.

Mulder is at the sink, washing dishes, and she's just finished locking up. The pounding at the back door makes both of them jump. She's not expecting anyone, not tonight, and it's with great caution that Mulder opens the back door to reveal...

...Byers. Alone. Scully grabs him by the arm and pulls him roughly into the kitchen.

"Is she all right?" she asks, the moment she's got the door shut and locked. "Is she safe?" Byers smiles, and Scully's sense of relief is so acute that for a moment, she's actually lightheaded and has to grasp the counter to remain standing.

"She's in Switzerland," says Byers.

"Switzerland?" Scully says, confused. "I thought you were taking her to Spain!" The plan for an escape route for either of them has been in place since the beginning, should they ever need it.

"We tried to," Byers explains, "but there were too many checkpoints. It got too risky. We had to backtrack and go east instead of south. We were able to get her on a boat across Lac Leman. She's got her papers and enough money to get on a plane to England. She asked us to tell you that she's going to contact your brother's wife in America and make her way there as soon as she can... and that she loves you, and she'll see you when all this is over. I'm sorry it took so long for me to get back here to tell you," he says, looking apologetic, "but we had to be careful and move slowly, and then we lost a lot of time when we had to turn around and change direction. But I promise you, your mother is safe, we stayed on the shoreline watching until the boat docked on the other side, and-" It's as far as he gets before the emotions raging through Scully are just too much, and she collapses into embarrassingly loud sobbing. Or, at any rate, she thinks, dimly, that she ought to be embarrassed; in reality, she doesn't care. She crosses the kitchen and seizes Byers in a hug, gratitude overwhelming her beyond coherency.

"Thank you," she gets out, barely, "thank you so much...." And she's overcome again. Byers pats her on the back

"It was nothing, Scully," he says. "We were happy to do it. But listen, I can't stay, Frohike and Langly are waiting for me north of town, we need to meet our contact, so...." Scully is dimly aware of Mulder taking her arms, freeing poor Byers from her grasp.

"Go on," Mulder tells Byers, giving Scully a squeeze, holding her close. "Thank you for coming to tell her- to tell us. It means a lot." Mulder moves out of Scully's grasp just long enough to shut and locks the back door after Byers, then turns back to Scully, putting his arms around her again. "Come on, Scully," he says, his voice tender, pulling her across the kitchen, towards the stairs. "Let's get you up to bed, all right?" Words are still beyond her, but she nods, and allows him to lead her up to her bedroom.

She can't stop crying, no matter what she does. It's as though the stress of the past month, the horror of not knowing whether or not her mother was safe, had built up and built up, and now, knowing that she's all right, everything is coming out all at once. Scully sobs until finally, she has to run to the washroom to be sick (not an uncommon occurrence, these days), and it's only then that she manages to calm herself.

When she comes back from the washroom, Mulder is waiting for her, a glass of cool water in his hands. She accepts it gratefully, taking a long, slow drink, and then smiles at him, at his unsure expression. He looks as though he's unsure of whether or not she wants him there- and she finds that the very idea of him leaving right now makes her want to start crying again.

"Please stay with me," she says softly. "I know I haven't been very... very present, these last weeks. I've just been so scared. I'm sorry that-"

"Scully, you have nothing to apologize for," Mulder interrupts, taking her hand. "I understand. I just wish you would have leaned on me a little, let me be there for you, instead of holding me at arm's length. I wanted to comfort you."

"I'm not very good at leaning on people," she admits, smiling slightly. "I don't like needing help."

"I've noticed," he says. "And I know you don't need my help, Scully. That doesn't mean I don't want to give it to you."

She takes him to bed, then, for the first time in a month, and allows herself to believe that, just maybe, everything will be all right now.

---------------------

It's three days later when she finally connects all the dots.

She's stacking clean towels and bedding in her linen cabinet when her gaze falls on the pile of cotton pads on the lowest shelf... and suddenly, she knows the reason for the exhaustion, for the nausea, for her rapidly changing moods, swinging from one extreme to the other with little to no provocation. She does a quick count in her head and swears out loud.

She sinks down to sit on her bed, clutching her lower belly as though she can feel what's going on inside, even though she knows full well that it's much too early for any sort of outward sign. She curses her own idiocy: how could she have been so distracted to miss all of the signs so thoroughly? She's a doctor, for the love of God! More than anyone else, she should have been able to figure out what had been going on!

Regardless of how long it's taken her to figure things out, her next step is clear: she needs to tell Mulder. The idea doesn't fill her with any sort of dread; in spite of the stories she's heard through the years of unmarried women and girls who have been abandoned by the father of their child, she knows full well that Mulder is not that sort of man. She's not entirely certain what his feelings towards children are, but she knows beyond a doubt that he will stand by her.

No, it's not Mulder's reaction that concerns her. The person she truly dreads telling is not on hand to receive the news in person, but one day, Scully knows, she'll have to find out.

It's not quite enough to make her relieved that her mother is gone... but it's close.

She decides not to wait to break the news to Mulder. He shows up in the cafe at the start of the dinner rush, as usual, and eats a sandwich before retreating into the kitchen to help her get through the day's work. She follows him back, and finds him already wrestling with the ball of pie dough she'd mixed up earlier in the day, rolling it out into a very uneven lower crust and trying to place it into a pie tin.

"I need to talk to you," she says. "I know you're supposed to meet Spender for cards tonight, but can you stick around after I lock up? Just for a bit?" He's immediately concerned.

"Of course," he says. "Is everything all right? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she assures him. He looks as though he'd like to press her for a more satisfactory answer, but doesn't. He returns his attention to the mess he's making in the pie tin. "You know that the holes are supposed to go on the upper crust and not the lower one, right?"

"I'm filling them in, don't worry," he promises. As she watches, he pulls some dough off of the ball on the counter, flattening it into one of the tears in his crust. "It'll be covered with fruit anyway, right? No one's going to see it." As much as she'd like to argue, Scully knows she doesn't have time- and it won't do any good, anyway. Shaking her head and sighing, she returns to the dining room.

The rest of the evening passes quickly. The cafe is blessedly busy, and Scully doesn't have much time to worry about the conversation that's coming as soon as she's closed up for the night. But when the moment finally does arrive, when she's locked the front door, brought back all of the dirty mugs and dishes, locked up her earnings for the day in the safe, and hung up her apron, she suddenly finds herself unaccountably terrified.

She doesn't think Mulder will be horrified, doesn't think he'll leave... but what if she's wrong?

Mulder picks up on her nervousness right away. "What's going on, Scully?" he asks. "Have you heard something from your mother?"

"No, it's not that," she says. "There's no easy way to say this, Mulder." And almost immediately she proves herself right, her powers of speech failing her, her carefully-worded, well-thought-out revelation forgotten as she stands there, arms crossed tightly over her sore, tender breasts. She raises her eyes to his, begging him to read her mind somehow, to know what she needs to tell him without her having to say a word.

And miraculously, he does.

"Scully," he says softly, "are you pregnant?" She holds his gaze for a moment longer; then, closing her eyes and looking down, she nods.

The silence seems to stretch on and on, and Mulder's face is completely unreadable. He looks as though he's been clubbed over the head, it's true (and in a way, he has), but beyond that, his expression leaves her with no clue as to what he's thinking. She wills herself to speak up, to say something, but she can't... and after a moment, it becomes unnecessary anyway. Mulder crosses the kitchen suddenly and quickly, pulling her close to him, wrapping his arms comfortingly around her.

"Are you sure?" he asks, his voice muffled, his face pressed into her hair.

"As sure as I can be, at this stage," she says. "I feel like such an idiot... I'm trained in medicine, I know the signs, and I missed every single one of them. I put everything down to stress, to worrying about my mother... but then none of the symptoms went away after Byers came to see us, and then... I knew." She draws back and looks up at him. "Are you angry, Mulder?" He looks at her like she's lost her mind.

"Of course I'm not angry," he says. "It's maybe not the best time, I'll grant you, but... come on, Scully, you can't tell me you haven't at least thought about this, about what it would be like." She relaxes into a smile. Of course she's thought about it, but distantly, as a possibility that didn't even bear dreaming about, under their current circumstances.

"I have, Mulder, I have, it's just...." She shakes her head. "Not like this. Not while everything is so uncertain, and certainly not before-" The word "marriage" sticks in her throat. "My mother will be horrified if she finds out, Mulder. I don't care how much she adores you, she's a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic and this will break her heart." Mulder nods and pulls her close to him again. She can only guess at what's running through that unpredictable mind of his... but somehow, what he eventually comes out with is no surprise at all.

"Scully," he says, drawing back to look at her, "marry me." Her eyes widen for a moment; then, shaking her head, she laughs. His face falls. "Ouch. Not quite the reaction I was hoping for." Scully gets herself under control, quashing the giggles as best she can.

"Oh, Mulder," she says, taking his hands in hers and squeezing them. "It's not like I don't appreciate the offer, believe me. But I don't want you to marry me because you have to."

"I know I don't have to," he argues. "I want to."

"But I don't want this to be the reason," she insists.

"Don't think of it that way, Scully," he says. "I'm not. It's not a reason to marry you. It's an excuse."

His words melt her heart, and the temptation to say yes right then and there is all too real. But this is something she needs to think about- and something she needs to give him the chance to think about, as well. There's every chance he'll decide, after closer contemplation, that maybe it's not something he's ready for after all, and she doesn't want him beholden to a promise he's made at an emotional moment.

"How would we even do that, Mulder?" she asks. "Your government has forbidden it. It's not like we can just march up to the town hall and demand to be married."

"I'm not talking about a civil ceremony, Scully," he says. "I'm talking about going to your church and having the priest marry us. He'll keep it a secret. Nobody else has to know."

"But it wouldn't be legally valid," she argues. "A civil ceremony is the only kind the state recognizes. The French government wouldn't care that we were married in the eyes of the church."

"But would your mother care?" he asks gently. And he's got a point, she knows he has. Her mother would not be at all bothered, as long as the priest had given them his benediction. "Just think about it, Scully," Mulder urges her. "We could even tell her we got married before you got pregnant, if you want. There's no reason she has to know any different." He hopes, just for a moment, that she'll say yes, right then and there, but he knows her well enough to know that that's not how she operates. He will need to be patient.

"I'll think about it, Mulder," she promises. "And one way or another... thank you."

---------------

The first weekend in April brings with it an event that Scully has been helping to plan for over a month... and one that seems almost appropriate, given the question that's been weighing so heavily on her mind. Her neighbor, Guillaume Bertrand, who owns the butcher's shop right next to the Cafe Pequod, had approached her not long after Christmas with a proposition. His eldest daughter, Sophie, had just informed her parents of her intent to marry her longtime sweetheart, and Guillaume had proposed to Scully that, in exchange for hosting a small wedding lunch, he would provide Scully with several choice cuts of meat, free of charge. She had readily agreed. When he'd heard about the upcoming celebration, Mulder had somehow produced several bottles of very nice wine to be served at the wedding lunch- under the condition that Scully claim that they are a gift from her.

Aside from the wedding party, there seems to be a larger than usual number of German officers and soldiers in the cafe today. The weather is just beginning to warm up, and with the sun shining and a hint of spring in the air, everyone is relishing the opportunity to get out and enjoy the day. Scully worries, at first, that there could be problems and tension, with so much of her dining room taken up by the Bertrand family and their guests, but so far, there's been no trouble at all. Even when Guillaume Bertrand, his face flushed red with the impressive amount of wine he's consumed, begins singing- loudly- in French, the German soldiers merely laugh, tolerant of an old man's joy on the day of his daughter's marriage.

Scully makes a run to the kitchen for a tray of pastries, bought for the wedding party by a German officer in a particularly generous mood, and when she returns to the dining room, she sees that Mulder, sitting at his customary table, is no longer alone. With him is Jeffrey Spender, the childhood companion he'd warned her against, and several other officers she doesn't know. Mulder catches sight of her and waves her over.

"Mademoiselle Scully," he says, in French, as she approaches, "please let me introduce my childhood friend, Jeffrey Spender. We grew up in Berlin together." Scully reluctantly offers her hand, and her skin crawls when Spender kisses it. She's extremely glad when he lets go.

"Such a pleasure to meet you, Fraulein Scully," says Spender, in German. "Fox talks about you so often. Might my friends and I sample the coffee he raves about so much?" Scully pastes a look of polite confusion onto her face, turning to Mulder, who translates the request into French. She nods in response.

"Put it on my tab," says Mulder. She brings the coffee quickly, electing not to remain at the table as Spender and his companions drink. She heads back to the kitchen, wishing she could just remain there until Spender and his friends are gone. She doesn't like the look of him at all. But unfortunately, the sound of rising singing calls her back to the dining room almost immediately, and she comes running with her heart in her throat.

"Allons enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé!"

Guillaume Bertrand, standing up now, holding his almost-empty wineglass aloft, has made the switch from singing innocuous folk songs and lullabies to singing the one song likely to get him and his family thrown into prison- or worse.

"Contre nous de la tyrannie, L'étendard sanglant est levé!"

The sound of "La Marseillaise," unsung in France since their defeat at the hands of Germany, stirs something in Scully's heart- but only for a moment. Sophie and her mother are pulling desperately at Guillaume's arms, trying in vain to make him sit down, but he responds by jerking his arms out of their grasp and climbing up to stand on his chair, instead. Scully is seconds from going to him, distracting him somehow (possibly with another bottle of wine, if need be), when suddenly, Mulder stands up and calls out to Sophie and her mother.

"Mademoiselle, please, let him sing," Mulder insists. "Patriotism, love for one's country, is a beautiful thing to see. And besides," he smiles, "your father has a beautiful voice." Guillaume grins brashly at Mulder and continues his song, his wife and daughter cautiously returning to their seats.

"Entendez-vous dans les campagnes Mugir ces féroces soldats?"

Scully feels tears pricking at her eyes, and before the entire cafe can catch her crying, she turns and retreats to the safety of the kitchen. She leans against the butcher's block, taking deep, steadying breaths, love for Mulder, for his bravery and his determination to do the right thing, coursing through her.

She could not possibly have asked for a better man. She owes him an answer, and there is only one answer she could give.

The hinges on the kitchen door creak, and Scully turns to see Mulder standing in the doorway, looking concerned.

"Scully, what is it?" he asks. "Are you all right?" Nodding, she crosses to him, sinking willingly into his waiting arms. She lets him hold her for a moment, until she's mastered her tears, and when she looks up, his gaze is inquiring, worried.

"Yes," she says, and a look of wild, uncontained happiness overtakes his handsome face.

"Yes?" She nods, beaming.

"Yes," she says. "Yes, I'll marry you."

------------------------

On a beautiful April Saturday, exactly one week later, Scully closes the cafe at noon, hanging a sign on the door apologizing for closing early. She steals upstairs and changes out of her work clothes, exchanging her flour-dusted skirt and blouse for a clean, simple dress of light blue. Mulder arrives at the kitchen door minutes later, his uniform clean and pressed, and together, they set off through the back streets of town.

The priest is waiting for them when they arrive at the church. Scully has not told him the reason (or, as Mulder insists on calling it, the excuse) for their hasty wedding, but she assumes he's guessed, though if he knows, he hasn't shown himself unwilling to help them. He's known Scully since she was a little girl, and has known her mother longer than that, and there is not much he wouldn't do for her family.

The ceremony is quick and simple- no witnesses are needed, they've decided, since the marriage won't be legally binding anyway- and no rings are exchanged. They leave the church with no outward sign that anything has changed... but in her heart, Dana Scully feels completely new.

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