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bouncingkadachi · 3 years

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Blessed Rain

Summary: A Hunter’s weapon of choice says a lot about them. OR: Kyle upgrades his weaponry and gets caught red-handed in the act. Luckily (?) for him, only Tsukino seems to know exactly why he's having an emotional crisis over this.

Word count: 3,260

Note(s): set post-game

Also available on AO3!

Kyle’s had his new bow for a good couple of weeks before the feel of the limbs and the weight of the draw became comfortable enough for him to consider upgrading it. If he’s going to be injured, he reasons, he’d rather it be purely by way of monster and not because he pulls a muscle wrestling with a bow that hasn’t been properly broken in. His wallet despairs as he forks over the zenny, but this’ll hopefully let him take on some of the bigger hunts like the ones that Reverto goes on. It’ll all be worth the investment up front once he has his completely finished bow and restocked his coatings and finally drops the last of his coin on a couple new talismans.

He refuses to think about the implications of his reasoning with a literal coin, rolling it around and around his fingers as he pushes through the market throngs towards the smithy’s. Perhaps he ought to have a change of scenery—the fog-shrouded summits of Terga were said to be particularly beautiful at this time of year, and the heat in Lamure was becoming just shy of unbearable.

The final product that the blacksmith puts into his hands when he finally makes it to collect is nothing short of gorgeous. Blessed Rain is sleek where his old Rex bow was bulky, far lighter and certainly not as clunky. The upgrades on the riser gives the entire weapon a pleasant solidness in his hand, yet the delicately reinforced plating on the limbs doesn’t retract at all from its flexibility. The decorative grip protector gleams. Just looking at it makes Kyle excited to shoot.

“Bring her back if you’re finding that you need anything adjusted,” the smith tells him after Kyle’s diligently inspected every inch of the bow. “Kept the poundage the same for you, but added another inch to the draw length like you asked.”

“Thanks,” Kyle says. Eventually, he’d like to work up to the point where he can up the poundage again. Even just another five pounds would be good. He can do most of the hunts in his skill range alone now, but extra firepower would make him just that much more efficient, or that much of a better support for team hunts.

The smith laughs when Kyle sheepishly admits this. “Well, I always like to help a Hunter improve, and you know where to find me,” he says cheerily, clapping Kyle enthusiastically on the shoulder. “Come by again anytime if you need a tune up or want to test out something new.”

And with that, he waves Kyle away so that another Hunter can step up, holding a tired-looking sword and shield and looking equally exhausted. “Aye, rookie Hunter?” Kyle hears as he wanders off to find a more relaxed corner of the market in which to admire his new bow some more. “If you’ve got the materials I can repair and upgrade that for you.” The conversation peters out and melts into the general din of the marketplace as Kyle slips into the crowd, taking care to step out of the way of a Felyne carrying an absolutely massive basket groaning with produce. He watches the precarious load totter away, trying and failing to locate Tsukino in the brief respite the parted crowd affords him. They’d split earlier that morning and he hasn’t seen her since.

He still hasn’t managed to find even a whisker of Tsukino’s whereabouts by the time he settles into a decently quiet nook next to a stall selling all manner of spices. Pity, because the dappled light spilling through the colorful drapes of the marketplace catches so beautifully on the milky-white sheen of the bow, and he’d been looking forward to showing it to her. As a Hunter, Kyle will always care more about weapon practicality than aesthetics, but as a normal human being he certainly won’t turn down the opportunity to have both an aesthetically pleasing and perfectly functional weapon. He’s still grinning a little when he goes to strap the bow to his back, and it’s in the process of looking up that his gaze catches onto wide eyes staring plainly at him from across the street.

He freezes, arm suspended awkwardly halfway to sheathing. His beautiful bow glints damningly in the bright Lamure sunlight as his unexpected friend wades through the throngs of people towards him, gesturing for him to stay put with a wave of her hand that really can’t be mistaken for anything other than a greeting.

“Hey,” he says cautiously and lamely when she finally reaches him. Belatedly, he remembers to lower his arm. He is momentarily thankful that she doesn’t try to reach up for his face in the Mahanan greeting, although his goodwill evaporates when she leans in to inspect his bow, body thrumming with unexplainable anticipation.

“Oh, that’s pretty,” she says finally. Kyle can’t help himself from preening just a little, shifting his grip so that she can get a better look. After all, what was the point of spending all that money and materials if there was no one to excitedly show the end product off to? Besides, it’s been a while since they last saw each other. Last he heard, she had been traveling, keen to finally see the world on her own terms and at her own pace.

“It’s fresh off an upgrade,” he answers smugly. “Easier to handle than the Rex.”

“Slightly less intimidating though,” she chimes in, and Kyle bristles, not liking where this conversation is going. And true to form, she goes in for the kill: “Mizutsune? I recognize the plating.”

Kyle can feel the flush crawling up to his ears. Logically, he knows that there’s nothing for him to be embarrassed about. It’s a mark of good smithing that one can tell at a glance which monster a weapon was inspired by, and a Mizutsune was both powerful and extremely iconic. This bow in particular had good stats and the ability to fire rapidly, which admittedly took him some time to get used to after focusing mostly on piercing shots. The paralysis coating that works so well on this bow has also already saved his skin on more than one occasion. There is little more a career Hunter can ask for out of his weapon. It’s not like he’d been heading out to Pomore Garden at any given opportunity and holding onto an increasing multitude of Mizutsune materials just because he wanted some physical reminder of what was probably the most pivotal moment of his life, something that never failed to put a very complicated and jumbled mess of emotions deep within his chest whenever he thought back to it.

He’s starting to feel very, very hot under his collar. The sun is terrible. He resolves that his next big hunt really needs to be somewhere outside of Lamure.

His friend, however, just looks more and more baffled as he launches into an unprompted defense of his newest purchase. Every time she opens her mouth, Kyle talks a little faster. Eventually, she doesn’t even bother trying to interject, which is arguably worse, because instead she just looks progressively more and more thoughtful. Kyle wished desperately for Tsukino to peel away from whatever hidey hole she was tucked in. Then, his train of thought screeches into a rude and abrupt halt.

“What,” he croaks. “What are you doing.”

One of her brows quirks up. “I sure hope your eyes are still working because that’d be a detriment to your job,” she says plainly. “What does it look like I’m doing? I promise it’s not a trick question.”

What she’s doing is holding Kyle’s hand—the one not clutching his new bow—the one that had apparently been waving about with increasing agitation as he jabbered on and on. What Kyle doesn’t understand is why. It’s not like he just did some impressive shot to give them the edge in a battle or anything else that was cool and hand-holding worthy. He’d just been yammering about bow mechanics, and maybe embarrassingly dipping into his talisman hopes and dreams. He stares a little helplessly at his trapped hand. Her kinship stone winks up at him.

“Look,” she says patiently, when it becomes very clear that Kyle is going to need a moment before he can get his brain back online. “There’s nothing wrong with a bow made from Mizutsune parts and I am the last person who will ever turn down pretty things. What I was going to say was that this is an interesting departure from your whole—” She pauses, as though looking for a specific word. “Well, your whole image as a very grown-up and serious and intimidating Hunter or whatever it was you were trying to convey with that scowl you used to like so much. And you weren’t letting me get a single word in.”

“You’re getting plenty of words in now,” Kyle scowls, just to be contrary. “And I’ve grown since then.”

“Someone’s in a mood today.” She smiles, crinkle-eyed, up at him. Kyle very seriously debates wrenching his hand out of her hold like he did the last time this happened and then pointedly doesn’t act on the impulse.

“Why’re you in Lulucion?” he asks instead with a truly remarkable level of self-restraint. “Thought you’d never want to come back again after what happened.”

She shrugs, the greatsword on her back heaving with the movement. “Guess I’ve grown too,” she says loftily, though she sobers quickly. “I was actually visiting my grandfather. He used to go back to Mahana around this time of year… he can’t do it anymore of course but I’ve got Ratha now, so I figured I could do it instead. And then I figured I’d stop by Rutoh before going home, to see Ena and Alwin and wheedle a few more stories out of them.”

She lets go of Kyle’s hand. He tries not to miss it. “Even Ratha can’t make the trip in one go, and Lulucion was closest, so we’re stopping to rest. I dropped by the Scrivener’s Lodge earlier because I was hoping Reverto could give me a few weapon pointers as I’ve saved up just about enough for an upgrade, but they told me that he was out on an urgent mission and wouldn’t be back for a while.”

“Oh,” Kyle says, a little stung that she hadn’t come specifically to see him first, out of all the Hunters in the city. He’s slightly mollified when she grins at him, though.

“And then I met Tsukino by the cannons. She said I could find you here, so here I am.”

“I don’t know anything about greatswords,” Kyle blurts out, and immediately wants to kick himself. She blinks at him, and then bursts into laughter.

“I was just going to ask the smith,” she wheezes when she’s got herself somewhat back under control. “Can’t I see a friend just to say hi to him anymore?” Kyle stares very intently down at some of the finer detailing on his bow.

“Where is my Palico anyway?” he finally settles on, falling into a tried and true grumble. “I haven’t seen her all day.”

She waves her hand vaguely in the air. “Navirou said something about getting donuts. I wasn’t really listening.”

But there was a donut stand right here in the marketplace, Kyle wanted to cry out. He should have seen Tsukino by now if they’d really been going to buy snacks! And how was it possible that he had missed Navirou in his entirety, between the Felyne’s penchant for wearing ridiculous little outfits and his inability to shut up?

“Why? You have a hunt you need to run off to?”

“Yes,” Kyle says hotly. It’s a lie. He’d accepted a subquest that wouldn’t depart until later that evening for the sole purpose of testing out his new weapon in a relatively stress-free environment. Before that, he’d just planned on hitting up the shooting range in the training arena to break in the new string. His schedule was very, very free. Tsukino was perfectly aware of that.

His eyes widened. Tsukino had been with him on every excursion into the Gardens. She went where he did (usually), and it’s not like Kyle would ever begrudge her a visit home. But she’d been with him every step of every single Mizutsune job he’d ever taken—had watched him craft traps when he needed to capture and had kept watch for opportunists hoping to sneak up as he’d carved. She’d been the one who’d recommended the spinner for all the excess purplefur he was ending up with. At first, he’d simply thought that she’d wanted the thread to mend some of her own items, or to send back home to her brethren, but instead she’d tucked each skein of vibrant, silk-soft thread into the bottom of his pouch with gentle paws, cryptically talking about how strong a material it was, and how nice it looked when woven. Kyle has never touched a loom in his life, but now he’s looking at someone who he definitely knows has.

His stomach drops. Hadn’t Tsukino looked particularly smug ever since he’d lingered on the blueprints for Blessed Rain after getting a look at its stats and required materials?

“She got me,” he groans. His friend just looks at him bemusedly, though perhaps with a touch of wariness at his ferocious frown. Hastily, he tacks on: “It’s nothing. I, uh—I just remembered that I needed to tell Tsukino something. Important. Later, when I find her again.”

“Alright,” she says, though she doesn’t quite look like she believes him. “A quest’s a quest, though, so I won’t keep you here. The bow really is pretty though. I know I just said it doesn’t match your image and all but I really don’t think you can go wrong with something you like. You’ve got the skills for it, anyway.”

“Thanks,” he croaks, feeling a little overwhelmed. He manages two whole steps out of the nook before he pauses, worrying at his lower lip. “Actually,” he says sharply, spinning around on his heel and nearly causing his friend to startle right into a spice display. “How long are you staying for?”

“However long it’ll take to upgrade my sword, I guess,” she says after she collects herself, the words lilting into a question. “Three days or so, I guess?” She skirts nervously away from the glaring vendor, careful not to overbalance on her greatsword.

“Cool,” Kyle says with a nod, steeling himself. “Great, even. Look, how about this. Your last visit to Lulucion was terrible—” an understatement, “—so when I get back from my hunt I’ll show you some of the better sights Lulucion has to offer. There’s a hole in the wall that I think you’ll like. Dad used to take me after hunts—they grill really nice queen shrimp. And the parapets—you can climb them, and they’ve got all these little carvings in the stone that you can search for like a scavenger hunt.” He’s keenly aware that he’s rambling again, but she looks interested, so he barrels on. “I’ll come pick you up tomorrow just as soon as I can get a nap in. We can stay in the city or take Ratha out to the Barrens, down by the water. Just make a day of it.” He’s pretty certain that he looks at her with something akin to hope as she considers. It feels like a lifetime before she finally comes to a decision.

“I want to take Ratha out in the evening,” she says finally. “I don’t want him to be cooped up too long here ever again.”

“Yeah,” Kyle breathes out, the word rushing out of him in a flood of relief. “Yeah, I can work around that.” She beams at him.

“I’ll look forward to it,” she says, sincere and looking more than a little surprised despite herself at the prospect of looking forward to doing anything in Lulucion. “I’m staying at the inn closest to the stables. Pretty sure I’m the only Rider there currently so they’ll know who I am.” Kyle nods, and lets himself get his hand squeezed again, though not without her hands first hovering in an instinctual bid for his cheeks before she remembers herself.

“Good luck on your hunt. If I see Tsukino I’ll let her know you’re looking for her.”

“She’ll show up in due time,” he mutters darkly. “I’ll let you know if Reverto gets back early or if he’s just been loafing around this entire time. For your next upgrade or whatever.” She laughs, bright, and then slips off into the crowd to wrestle her way into the smithy’s queue. Kyle is left staring in her wake before his gaze is drawn back down to his bow.

“This is all your fault,” he tells it. Predictably, it doesn’t answer. Also predictably, Tsukino takes that exact moment to drop down from seemingly nowhere.

“I didn’t know we had another job lined up,” the Felyne says delicately, carefully brushing crumbs off of her coat. Kyle groans, sheathing his weapon.

“Don’t tease me,” he huffs. “I’m going to the shooting range. Are you coming?”

“Hmm,” says Tsukino. “I suppose I can spare the time.”

“Of course you can spare the time!” Kyle hisses, indignant. “You just spent the day eating donuts and eavesdropping!” He pointedly doesn’t look towards the smithy, where his friend was patiently browsing the display while another Hunter was getting their hammer looked at.

“One must always be prepared with the latest intel,” Tsukino says mildly. “I’m glad the upgrade went well.”

“It’s got good stats,” Kyle protests weakly in what is quickly becoming a tired argument. “The rapid shots have been going very well. And I had a surplus of Mizutsune parts.”

“Yes,” his hunting partner agrees readily enough. “Have you thought of what you’re going to do with the thread?”

“This conversation is finished,” Kyle says abruptly, making a very determined push towards the market’s exit. “Either come or don’t, so long as we meet at the gate for tonight’s hunt.”

Tsukino looks at him with exasperated fondness, which is frankly a little insulting, but readily falls into step next to him. Kyle wonders how many rounds he’s going to have to shoot in order to clear his head again and rid it of thoughts of Hazepetal Garden or Mizutsune or high-grade thread that he’ll never use himself. He’ll examine them again someday—because he’s not a coward—but that day is most certainly not today.

He does his rounds in the training arena and marvels at the way the string slides off his fingers with a satisfying twang, even though it’ll still be a good few days before it’s fully broken in to his liking. Tsukino’s saved him a donut, the cakey sweet sticky with honey and practically melting in his mouth. He’s got some free time even after stocking up for the evening hunt, so he takes a few minutes to browse the quest board, taking careful note of the jobs that were situated near the Harzgai Rocky Hill, or the ones from further afield in Alcala that’ll take him closer to Rutoh. And when he leaves the city, he pointedly doesn’t look up at the familiar shape circling in the dusky sky, even as he knows that they’ll surely see the last rays of the setting sun winking off of the plates of his bow like a beacon.

#was anyone going to tell me that HR Kyle gets a MIZU BOW #You were just going to withhold this vital piece of information from me?#anyway here's 3k words about the significance of Mizutsune to one (1) boy that I love #I wrote this specifically with my idiot in mind #but asides from the gender and a few other lines I guess you can generalize to any other Rider #monster hunter kyle #monster hunter stories 2 #Annie writes

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pinkhairedlily · 3 years

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[Open Your Mouth] Chapter 3 - O

See previous chapters here: AO3 | Tumblr

Summary: She downs her mimosa in one long drink and snaps her fingers. The television shuts blank, and she sashays her way to a room. It looks just like any other wall partition but it opens to an expansive study. It has a day bed on the side, a long table, and her most comfortable swivel chair. Metallic chairs are folded on the side for her clients.Taking up the rest of the space are shelves filled with her favorite books. In the middle, sandwiched by volumes of Crime and Punishment and Les Miserables are jars of teeth submerged in liquid, white, sparkly, well-maintained. On the other end of the wall is a chest box which also functions like a wide ottoman. Except that it isn’t. It’s a freezer for the meat she has yet to eat.

-xxxxxxx-

March 7, 2021, 12:03 PM

“Open your mouth please.” Her bright emerald irises pop out from her mask as she probes the inside of his mouth. Sasuke feels the metal tool scrape against his tooth on the lower left. His tongue is on the edge of making a clucking sound, but he winces from a sharp pain when she moves his tooth from front to back.

“It’s loose,” she confirms for him. He recognizes notes of jasmine in her proximity. “I can extract it for you now. You’ll just have to spend the rest of the day under pain killers.”

He dropped by her clinic during his lunch break, intending to take up her offer in the off chance that she accepts walk-ins.

Of course, it was situated on the 25th floor of one of Senju’s high rise buildings which houses their offshoot businesses in the medical field; one floor for every niche – a chiropractor on the tenth, a hair transplant on the 17th, herbal practitioners on the 20th.

Of course, the brunette receptionist with a very sharp eyeliner sent him away, and looked at him pointedly with visible annoyance when he brought up that the dentist offered the appointment herself. People often tell him he’s handsome, and he gets to use this pretty privilege during the conduct of cases sometimes. But people here are immune to his so-called stoic charm.

Of course, it’s probably because there are far richer, far more aristocratic clients than him that would have naturally made a beeline towards the beautiful dentist.

He clucks nonetheless, his tongue grazing against the cold metal. “Can you do it under thirty?”

“Rushing for an appointment?” She gets the syringe from her assistant and taps it on her delicate wrist.

“Vying if I could get ten more minutes for an ice cream.” Her hands are light and quick to inject the anesthesia in the surrounding gums. He hears her soft chuckle against her mask.

“Not the first time that someone did that move.” She hands him his cone with one scoop of mint chocolate.

“I’m not a fan of sweets if you should know,” he says. “Is strong arm strength needed for a dentist?” Two big bites from the top.

Sakura blushes with an intensity, he notes, and in contrast her actions – she shies away her gaze from his stare with her fingers devoid of any jewelry. “You’re as direct as everyone in your lot goes, huh?”

“Is the topic too morbid for you, Dr. Haruno?”

“I’m keeping tabs with the news but I forego the specifics.” She fiddles with her two scoops of double dutch in a small cup. “But to answer your question, you only need to have the right leverage, an accurate position, and a good angle to ease out the naughtiest of teeth. However, it’s really an advantage to have great arm strength. It can get tiring after the twelve noon patient.”

Sasuke finishes his ice cream in the next three bites, feeling nothing in his mouth, the anesthesia still kicking, but he can taste the blood mingle with the freshness of mint, a tinge of rust in the sweetness on his tongue. “You’re not as bothersome as everyone in your lot.”

She raises both of her eyebrows, not sure if she understands his underlying implications.

“Dr. Tsunade Senju and Dan Haruno, top billing general surgeons of the medical world.”

Her mouth opens to form a small and soundless oh. “Ah I’m sure you already snuffed most information about me – it goes that way, right? Ah? Not at all? – So the thing is….I’m not their legitimate daughter. I’m adopted.”

He didn’t have to snuff, these are all open information in the playground of the rich. “A stroke of luck to land on a high end and well managed orphanage.” Her immense wealth does not translate to jewelry, face jobs, and fancy lash lifts. On her breast pocket are three pilot coletos, an apple watch on her wrist, mid-budget choice of clothes, and comfortable white Nike sneakers to be later replaced with a good fit of block heels. When summed up, they barely make a dent out of her daily worth. The rest of the money must have been channeled to her clinic’s state of the art facilities.

“You could say that I struck gold with my circumstances since then.” She spoons out a big chunk of her ice cream.

“But not prior.” The sugar brown cone also disappears in his mouth, all the chewing done by only one side.

“Amnesia. I reportedly had a traumatic head injury when they found me.” Her pink locks drift to the side, her head tilted in expectation of his further prodding.

Sasuke twists the line to another direction, and he captures the quick change of her microexpression from subtle guarding to surprise. “Would it be possible to inject one strong dose of anesthesia to the full mouth and extract all teeth?”

“Enough to knock them unconscious,” she confirms.

And kill them without sound, Sasuke surmises. He stands up and taps his wristwatch. “My ten minutes with you is up. I take it my extraction procedure is free?”

“I’m sure you’ll afford the next one.” She continues to fiddle with her cup as she watches him go.

Sasuke halts in his exiting steps and looks back at Sakura like it’s an afterthought. “If you’d like a payment, a dinner wouldn’t be so bad.” He turns on his heels and doesn’t stop, he can hear a faint laughter behind his back.

-x-

March 10, 2021, 7:16 PM

“Did I keep you waiting?” He slides on the seat across her and takes in her body language as well as their milieu.

They agreed to meet at seven sharp but Kakashi had asked for another briefing from him so he was held back. Her soft expression, in all its exuding naivety, gives nothing away. “This place doesn’t have no reservations, Detective.”

“Just Sasuke,” he remarks. He clucks his tongue in appreciation. “A hole in the wall noodle place. You frequent this area?”

“A reminder that you gave me the green light to choose.” She’s dressed today in an olive sweatshirt tucked into a neat pair of trousers and velvet loafers – a right mix of classy and casual. “It’s my assistant’s go-to. He would always bring me the best-selling set after a grueling work day so I asked for an address.”

“Thanks for the consideration, Dr. Haruno,” he says. Their order arrives minutes after, and she flashes an apologetic smile. For ordering beforehand Frankly speaking, he expected her to bring him into a Michelin restaurant – one to boost her reputation and second to blanket her in safety of familiar breeds. Or maybe safety is much better in company of anonymity.

“Just Sakura.”

They finish two plates of dimsum and almost empty out the small bottle of chili oil, garlic, sesame, and soy sauce concoction. Sipping a glass of soy milk after a bounty feast, Sasuke reviews the facts again in his mind.

“A penny for your thoughts?” Sakura asks, finished with her drink.

“Give me a hundred bucks then.”

“How many coffee orders would those be worth?”

Sasuke smirks in spite of himself. He changes topics again, on to the mundane life of a Senju-Haruno heir.

“How is the case progressing by the way?”

He glances up and notes the curiosity and fear in her eyes. “Classified information.”

She leans, plates with crumbles and half-empty glasses in between, and tilts her head, her rose locks spilling from her back. “Will they come for me?”

An alarm ticks off somewhere in his mind. “What makes you think so?” They’ve only had one body so far with no other indication of a succeeding death.

He sees that she bites the inside of her mouth, and she fiddles again with the cutlery in front of her. “Maybe I’m just overthinking.”

About ten minutes later, he ushers her outside the rather dingy restaurant but when no car arrives to escort her back to her place, he encourages her to place an uber. He could ask her to ride with him but the mere implications are layered, and he’s not ready for that quite yet. She gives him a look when he opens the door to her uber, an unspoken question she is yet to articulate. When he gets nothing within seconds, he waves goodbye.

“Give me a text when you’re home,” he says although he shouldn’t have.

“It has been an interesting night,” she replies. “Detective.”

The car finally drives away, and he remains with the remnants of her jasmine scent.

-x-

March 13, 2021, 5:49 PM, The second body

“You are not going to release that profile,” the wife of Haru Kagoshi says. She also stands as the chief overseas director of Haru Light, Inc. “Are you insinuating that my husband fucked a gay man?”

“Fuck is a callous word. Watch your tone,” the CEO of Mingwa Industries warn. “Are you sure you’re on the right track?”

“With all due respect, Captain Yamato is the best we have in the country in the field of criminal profiling. He knows what he’s doing,” Asuma assures everyone.

“And are your detectives doing the proper work? Are you covering all fields?” the Mingwa COO pointedly looks at Sasuke. “Because as far as performance goes, you’re allowing that killer to cripple our economy by snuffing out the next best minds.”

Kakashi’s eyes roll in sync with Sasuke’s at the cripple our economy.

Yamato stands up and offers a cup of coffee at the recently widowed which she explicitly ignores. “We will not be identifying the gender of the killer, but we need to narrow it down to males. Of course, it’s up to the public how they will presume it is connected to the genital mutilation.”

“Fuck you,” the widow says. “You know we can cut off your institutional funding, right?”

Kakashi has started massaging his forehead, a sign that he is nearing his bullshit tolerance level. “Yes you can, but we have an annual appropriation from the government. And cutting off our resources won’t solve this case any faster.”

“-with your due respect,” Asuma adds, hoping to de-escalate the situation.

The grandfather CEO of Mingwa Industries scoffs. “We’ll just have to launch our individual investigation then. In case you might be intentionally sabotaging the progress of this case, isn’t that right, Uchiha Sasuke?”

The disdain in his voice when Uchiha rolls off his tongue is jarring and pointed. Sasuke smirks in defiance, willing to push these elites further to the edge of self-destruction. Years in a gray cubicle and thousands of meters walked in company to a reviewing mind, he found that money could get you somewhere – just not the finish line. “You’d better keep an eye out on me then.”

“What the fuck was that about?” Asuma sneers at the detective department after the white collars scampered off. “They are strong lobbyists backing powerful politicians. We shouldn’t be picking a fight with them.”

“He started it,” Sasuke points to Kakashi who shrugs.

“Anyway, Yamato and I will prepare to announce the profile to the media, just a vague description, and then we’ll work on a composite sketch based on these assumptions,” Kakashi pats Asuma’s shoulders. “Ease up. I’m sure Sasuke and his team are doing their best.”

“I’m not doubting an Uchiha, but I’m doubting the way your petty behaviors get in the process of investigation. Now get out and do your jobs.” The Chief Police retrieves a half-emptied pack of cigarettes and lights up a stick. “This job is giving me cancer.”

11:13 PM

She sips her third glass of mimosa as her eyes drift to the sound of her television. A big banner of breaking news is placed below with the caption authorities release a profile: a serial killer at hand?

She chuckles, almost spilling the cocktail on her fingers. She drifts closer to the screen and her nails stick on the necks of the silver-haired man and the man who she assumes is the criminal profiler.

“Authorities confirm that Armando Mingwa and Haru Kagoshi have been killed by the same person. Renowned profiler Captain Yamato reveals the breakdown of the suspect – male with a minimum height of 5’7, age from late 20s to early 30s, and frequents the high-end districts. When asked if we have a serial killer at large, the chief detective and the profiler neither confirmed nor deny.”

She downs her mimosa in one long drink and snaps her fingers. The television shuts blank, and she sashays her way to a room. It looks just like any other wall partition but it opens to an expansive study. It has a day bed on the side, a long table, and her most comfortable swivel chair. Metallic chairs are folded on the side for her clients.Taking up the rest of the space are shelves filled with her favorite books. In the middle, sandwiched by volumes of Crime and Punsihment and Les Miserables are jars of teeth submerged in liquid, white, sparkly, well-maintained.

On the other end of the wall is a chest box which also functions like a wide ottoman. Except that it isn’t. It’s a freezer for the meat she has yet to eat.

March 24, 2021, 1:10 PM

“So what was the dentist’s alibi?” Neji asks the sullen detective.

“He had a meditation class for each date – January 29 and February 27 – which runs for five hours. They time it with the moon cycles. I also called his teacher – she prefers to be called witch – and confirmed his attendance.” Sasuke clucks his tongue. “However, they are a class of 100. He can easily slip out when everyone else is closing their eyes and saying humbda dumda.”

He glances at the map on the wall, pins already on the dumpsites, and he zeroes in on the address smack in the middle. “And he can dump the body with his nondescript car and go back in again. Did you know he has three cars – a Tesla, Mercedes, and a black pick-up?”

Tenten carries a fresh pot of coffee to the table and stares at their evidence board. “I’m guessing it’s the same truck with the garbage ones – those going through the suburbs?”

Sasuke nods. “He says it’s for farming. He has a land on the rural side of the district.”

Jugo raises a brow. “That ends my snooping in with the golden spoons.”

“Not quite Jugo.” Neji fills himself a cup. “These people socialize in the same circles you know.”

Someone knocks on the open door of the room and raises a box of cake. “Delivery for you, Detective Uchiha.” The staff attempts to enter but Jugo raises a finger to stop her.

“Who’s it from?” Jugo asks. “It might be the killer.”

The staff scratches the back of her head. “I don’t think the killer is a beautiful pink-haired lady with green eyes.”

All heads turn curiously to Sasuke who gets the cake from the staff. “It’s my punishment.”

Tenten’s eyes narrow at the name on the card. Haruno Sakura. “How is it a punishment? She brought you – us – sweets.”

“She knows I hate sweets. Help yourself though.”

“So you’re dating?” Neji says it with disbelief. “How? You’re barely in the office and – oh my god, you’re skipping hours aren’t you!”

Jugo repeats the name over and over. “Fuck. You’re seeing the Haruno Sakura? She’s as recluse as the oddball heirs go, but I’ve only heard good things from her. I heard she’s very skilled with her hands. Experienced it yet, Uchiha?”

Sasuke kicks him in the shin as soon as he’s done talking. “Firsthand. A tooth on the lower left. Now shut up and get back to work.”

-x-

April 12, 2021, 6:17 AM, The third body

The team congregates in the morgue. Another body. Only this time, it was found on a ravine, some parts already devoured by wild animals.

“It’s Fugashi Imamu, current overseas director of Imamu Holdings,” the medical examiner tells them. “Same methods done but there’s more clotting on the crotch area, indicating his genital was mutilated while he was still alive.”

Jugo and Neji both groan inwardly.

“He has an eight-year old.” Tenten crosses her arms in front of her. “A math wizard.”

Sasuke closes his eyes, fending off the initial signs of a migraine. The cases kept piling, and they were nowhere close to a lead. “Can you estimate the date of death?”

“I wouldn’t know just yet with all the rigor mortis and animal attacks. But if we pattern this with the recent killings, and the body was dumped within the last two weeks, the killing must have taken place on the last week of March.”

11:13 AM

March 29, Sasuke thinks about the ME’s latest message. There must be a pattern for the dates of killings. And if there was, they are up against an intelligent killer, a methodical one. He must have a list of targets with a step by step process on how to approach and kill each one. He plans weeks ahead with several contingencies.

“Captain Yamato confirms the ME’s assumption. There really is a pattern,” Tenten tells the team. “Unfortunately, the information already reached the golden spoon team.”

Neji comes in with stacks of folders and notebooks. “Got all his stuff from his secretary. Seems like the bastard slept around or may have been just a bad boss, said she couldn’t be more than happy to live in a world rid of such filthy lolita creep – her words, not mine.”

They go through each page, jotting down relevant information. Sasuke, on the other hand, flips through a small wallet-sized planner. Jotted down on March 26 is veneers with Dr. Akugawa. He seems like the go-to dentist of the big shots. He goes further up the dates and there on March 6 is a name he doesn’t expect. Haruno Sakura.

“It’s true. His daughter had an appointment with me,” Sakura confirms over the phone. “But he also dropped by last year for a tooth extraction dislodged by a punch from his grandfather. Old money can be quite controlling.”

“Ah. Doesn’t he have a family dentist?” He taps his pen on his desk, tens of gears running through his mind.

“Told me his dentist was unavailable for an emergency procedure so he dropped by the one nearest his office.”

Sasuke looks at the time on his watch. “Did you have lunch yet?”

“I have an 11:30. But I can see you in 12.”

He gets there fifteen minutes before, and he flashes his badge to Laura who has grown accustomed to his lunch break visits. Nonetheless, her countenance makes apparent her dislike.

“Your cctv records please,” Sasuke tells her. It isn’t a request, Laura knows, so she leads him to the administrative room on the floor and instructs the staff to show the dates he mentions.

Kiyoko Imamu went there on March 6 with her mother and a helper. They backtrack until they find the date when Fugashi had an appointment. A 30-minute visit and he was quickly out.

“Does Dr. Haruno have other clinics? A private location for a niche clientele?” Sasuke asks.

Laura shakes her head. “Only this one, and she doesn’t accept house calls. She likes to concentrate her work in one place.”

He tells the staff to rewind the records on January 29, February 27, and March 29. Nothing was peculiar about Sakura’s body language, Sasuke notes. He commits all records in his memory and allows himself to be ushered out by Laura. They arrive to Sakura waiting at the receptionist’s desk.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” She asks him with a tilt in her head.

“Just right about now.” He offers an open arm to her which she links with hers. Her face immediately blooms in shades of red.

“We have mussel soup today and grilled mackerel. On the other hand, we also serve bolognese. Or do you have any other location in mind?”

“Your cafeteria’s menu sounds nice.”

They’re interrupted by Sasuke’s phone.

“Where are you?” Kakashi’s voice borders on the edge of frustration.

“Lunch,” Sasuke replies.

“Come back asap. The families had Jugo come in and take Akugawa for questioning.”

#open your mouth #sasusaku #uchiha sasuke #haruno sakura #pinkhairedlily #crime and mystery au #thriller au #am i even doing this right lmao

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sitcomified · 3 years

Text

fighting dragons with you

summary: amy gets injured on a case and jake pays her a visit. (pre-canon) word count: 3.5k rating: teen?

read below or on AO3

content warning for minor depictions of violence and general discussions of assault

Amy Santiago wrote her life plan when she was sixteen years old, and revisits it each month like clockwork. She figured out from a young age that if she could clearly define a set of rules to follow to a tee, then she would never fall off course. Most nights, the three inch purple binder lives on her bedside table, where after long days of life-threatening work, she can put everything into perspective. Most days, the plan works out great for her. But she’s not invincible. She still scrapes gum off her brand new shoes and wrestles with her too warm pillow.

It’s not that she can’t deal with unpredictable situations. If anything, being almost comically prepared for every possible situation has made the challenge of taking on these changes that much more thrilling. She knows she excels at tasks that demand quick thinking and efficient problem solving. Hell, that’s why she became a cop.

Amy clocked into work two minutes late that morning. She stared at her watch, already mentally preparing how she would make it up to her squad (even though a quick glance around the bullpen would let her know that she was still the first officer there for her shift.)

By the time her partner showed up nearly thirty minutes late—an occurrence so routine she’d be surprised if anyone even noticed—Amy was already wrapping up her first report of the day. As she reached across her desk for the folder containing crime scene evidence, her partner finally acknowledged her.

“Nice spiderman band-aid,” Jake greeted her, gesturing to her right hand. She sighed deeply. The band-aid in question is nursing a particularly nasty paper cut from when she tried to intercept one of her partner's paper airplanes (probably made from some actually important file) the previous day. Amy rinsed the cut under the precinct kitchenette’s ice-cold water, swearing she’d be fine for the rest of the day, but her finger still stung when she got home and discovered that her only first aid supplies were from the last time her nephews visited.

“Hello Detective Peralta,” Amy replied, trying to salvage any semblance of workplace professionalism. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure if her partner’s retort warranted a response.

“Aw, is that your pet name for me?” he joked, clearly not wanting to drop their banter, “I’m going to call you sugar...nose.” He extended a finger and lightly tapped her on the nose, to emphasize the point.

Amy flinched in response. “Sugarnose?” she repeated incredulously.

“Yeah I didn’t want it to be too sexual, and then I panicked,” Jake explained. Amy half expected him to follow it up with one of the “title of your sex tape” jokes that he was so prone to making, but thankfully, today she would be spared.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Peralta. At his best, he could be just as sharp a detective as she was. The problem was, that was rarely ever his goal. He showed open disrespect for any authority that would dare get in his way, almost as if it were a game to him. On the field, he spent more time trying to portray himself as an action movie star than trying to catch criminals, and she’d be surprised if he actually followed any of the NYPD’s safety guidelines.

Her day went on as it usually did. Finishing up reports, interviewing witnesses, investigating a crime scene—fortunately on her own. Amy had no idea why Captain McGintley was so adamant about partnering her and Peralta. Their approaches to every aspect of police work seemed fundamentally incompatible. Her captain probably just needed someone responsible to babysit New York’s Least Mature Detective (a title he had bestowed upon himself) in the field. It was a horribly sexist and insulting implication that gave Amy flashbacks to a whole childhood’s worth of classroom seating charts and group projects, where she was put in the exact same position.

That afternoon, just as she was getting into the rhythm of responding to the perpetual flood of emails in her inbox, Peralta tore her away from her work to go on a stakeout for a case they were working on, insisting that the new lead was “actually legit this time.”

When Amy left the precinct she was surprised to see that her partner decided not to “ball out” and instead opted for a sensible SUV for their stake out. “Nice ride, Peralta.”

“Thanks, I borrowed it from some guy Diaz is testifying against,” he said smugly. Amy raised her eyebrows in return. Of course there would be a catch. “Kidding,” he reassured her. “It’s the precinct’s, I’m surprised you don’t like have the license plates memorized by now.”

Amy wasn’t sure if she should feel relieved or insulted by that. She had only been there a couple months, surely that wasn’t an expectation; if it was, it was never conveyed to her in the brief amount of training she received. Regardless, she responded, “very funny, but I’m still driving.”

Jake soured with mock offense, “Seriously, Santiago? You think that my driving is more dangerous than that drug ring you busted last month?”

“I’m a detective. I know that I might die on the force. What I’m absolutely not okay with is dying because some idiot would rather play air guitar than follow basic road safety concepts,” Amy said, crossing her arms. On their last stakeout, they almost lost their perp during his particularly enthusiastic rendition of Lose Yourself.

“Too-shee,” he responded, with a smirk on his lips. He was messing with her. Surely, he wasn’t actually that dumb.

Amy corrected him, “you know it’s pronounced touché.”

“Ok nerd,” he replied, and tossed her the car keys. “But I get to stay on AUX.”

She was a bit taken aback by how quickly he agreed to cooperate with her. “You’ve gotta stay focused,” she added, as she climbed into the car. There was a foul smell that she couldn’t quite place. All the more reason to rush this.

“Of course I am a professional, Santiago,” he said from the passenger seat. He reached into his bag and pulled out a giant pack of Cheetos. “Want one?” he offered. She shook her head in disgust.

“Alright, so the informant, Dragos, said the operation is based out of a pharmacy on Atlantic, I assume that’s where we’re going?” Amy asked, as she started the car.

“Toit, and also holy shit is that his real name?” Jake questioned, eyes wide. “That’s badass.”

Amy frowned. “Did you even read the case file?”

“I skimmed it. Your sentences are all so long!” he complained.

“I’m sorry that I’m thorough and I actually follow procedure. Maybe you should take a cue from me, I mean that’s gotta be why McGintley assigned us to this case,” she said.

Jake laughed at her. “I have the most arrests in the precinct,” he bragged. Amy wanted to bring up that arrests weren’t actually a good indication of community safety, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to articulate the problem to him once more.

“That’s just because you make Boyle do all your paperwork,” she retaliated. “If you did everything you were supposed to, you know that I’d be ahead of you.”

Jake stopped fiddling with the car’s radio, and turned to face Amy. “First of all, Boyle loves paperwork. And for the record, I actually asked the Captain to put us together on this case.”

“Exactly, because you knew I would do all the work,” Amy said, smugly.

“No! It’s ‘cause I knew it was a tough one, and you’re obviously super smart.” Amy blushed a little. She assumed that Jake thought as little of her as she did of him. “Plus, I heard you talking to Diaz about how you weren’t getting any good cases,” he continued. She’s surprised, not at what he noticed, but the fact that he actually cared enough to try and fix her problems. It was true that McGintley was underutilizing her—the other day he had her spend an hour finding an anniversary present for his wife.

“Well, thanks,” Amy responded with an awkward smile. “I didn’t think you cared.”

“‘Course, you’re part of the 99 now. Anything for the squad.” he said. Right, Jake was just doing what any good cop would do for their team. He didn’t actually care about her, at least not enough to not get cheeto crumbs on the seat that she’d have to clean up.

Jake points at the car’s speaker system at the next red light. “Hey, do you know how this works?”

“Do you seriously not know?” she teased. It was a strikingly simple set up.

“Obviously not, or else we’d be listening to my sick beats right now.” Jake said. “My car still uses cassettes exclusively and I fear my mixtapes would cause this lame car to spontaneously combust.”

Amy sighed. “Here, give me your phone,” she told him, and plugged in the audio cable. Immediately music started blaring out of the speakers. She recognizes the opening chords instantly and starts laughing. “Is this what you listen to?” she asked.

Jake started frantically pushing buttons on the dashboard, only making the music louder by accident. “No. I swear I don’t know how this got on here.” Amy grinned. It was so rare that she had the upper hand in embarrassing him and she was already thinking of how to capitalize on it.

“Keep it on,” she said, guiding his hands away from the speaker system before he had the chance to break something. “I like this song.” He leaned back in his seat and helped himself to another handful of Cheetos. Amy returned her focus to navigating the complex puzzle of Brooklyn traffic.

Over the revving motors and honking of angry drivers, she heard him begin to sing along. It wasn’t obnoxiously loud and it didn’t feature impromptu parody lyrics. His voice was surprisingly soft, and she wondered if he was even conscious of his singing. She was perplexed by how he managed to focus on nothing and everything at the same time. How he managed to let loose in the most tense situations. Amy couldn’t even bring herself to have that kind of fun when she specifically scheduled it in her planner.

What the hell, they were still a fifteen minute drive from the pharmacy. She joined in with the chorus. He looked at her with a confused, yet happy, expression, and ramped up his volume, and even incorporated his own dance moves. “Damn, Santiago, didn’t know you had it in you,” he said, after they finished the chorus on a tone-deaf harmony.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Peralta,” she replied, raising her eyebrows with feigned confidence.

Jake chuckled and opened his mouth; she assumed to argue, but instead he just continued the second verse. She didn’t know the rest of the lyrics, and she certainly couldn’t decipher them from the dramatic voices he was adding into it.

“Hey isn’t that our guy,” he interrupted, pointing to a man who was standing by the trash cans on the corner, despite his right of way. Amy paused and took a closer look. Surely enough, their perp, Andrei Volkov, was standing there, waiting for the deal they had been told would occur miles away.

“Oh my god,” Amy said, turning to park their car just out of eyesight.

“Luckily he didn’t seem interested enough in the two adult Taylor Swift fans, to notice we’re a police vehicle.” Jake replied. He leaned towards the trunk window to sneak a better view of their target.

“Do you want to call for backup?” Amy asked. “How many guys are there?”

“Looks like about three, and it seems pretty exposed for back up unless they have access to one of the houses,” Jake said, propping himself back in the seat. “I think we should be good.”

Amy paused for a second. Her instinct was always to air on the side of caution, but Jake had proven himself to be more reasonable than she assumed. “Okay, I trust you,” she said.

“Take my lead,” he instructed, before she could argue, and secured his vest as he left the car. Amy followed him out hesitantly, one hand hovering protectively over her radio. They crossed the street while Volkov’s back was turned. As soon as they made eye contact, Jake whipped out his gun, and cornered him against the lamp post. “NYPD, you’re under arrest.” Amy instinctually dove behind the trash can. Through the grated metal she could see both of Volkov’s men pull their guns at Jake from behind his back. She can’t quite recognize exactly which members of the operation they are. He held one hand on Volkov while he turned to face the others. They kept their guns raised in his direction.

“Here’s the deal, come back to my precinct, and I won’t shoot. I’m all alone out here.” Jake kicks the trashcan Amy is ducked behind. Then twice, to get her attention. And again. The Funky Cold Medina, she realized. Amy felt her heart pounding all the way in her fingers and toes.

“What’s the matter with your leg, pig,” one of the men scoffed. She recognized the voice. Apparently Dragos was more involved in the operation than he led on, and had intentionally given her the wrong address. Amy reached for her gun and jumped up, turning to cover Jake.

“Hey, you’re the lady with the thank you notes,” Dragos said, as he lowered his weapon, “almost made me feel bad for lying to you.”

Amy fixed her eyes in his direction, “yeah well, thanks for nothing.”

“That was a pretty weak comeback, Santiago,” Jake muttered from her side. She shot him a nasty look.

“Your partner’s right,” Volkov added, still struggling against the lamppost.

“Nice try but you’re still arrested,” Jake said, as he reached for his handcuffs and began reciting the Miranda Rights. Amy stared down the other two men in the meantime, instructing them to drop any weapons they’re carrying. They obeyed and placed their guns at her feet. Just as they began to stand up, Dragos punched Amy in the face, his ring leaving a deep gash on her cheek. The metallic taste of blood floods her mouth. Her vision was blurred as tears welled up in her eyes, causing searing pain in the open wound.

Dragos started to bolt but Jake managed to trip him and keep him pinned to the ground. He struggled to handle both perps, however, and Amy watched as the third man ran away. She tried to chase after him, but she was too shocked to make it any farther. “Dragos, you’re coming with me,” Jake said, locking the handcuffs in place. “Amy, I’m calling you an ambulance.”

She was too dishevelled to protest.

That night, Amy’s brother drove her home from the hospital where she received seven stitches. Half her face was still numb from the anesthesia. Still, the second she got her phone back, she sent a text to her partner: “LMK if you need help processing.”

Half an hour later she heard her apartment buzzer go off. She paused her episode of Jeopardy, kicked on her fluffy slippers, and answered it.

“Delivery for Lady Amy Santiago,” Jake said, in a terribly butchered British accent through the phone.

“Come up,” she replied, stifling a laugh. The meds had worn her down enough that she could fully embrace his immature humor.

Three minutes later Jake announced himself with a knock on her door. “Alright, so I got you this. Hope you like shitty diner food because that’s all that’s open right now,” he held up two take out bags. Through the semi-opaque plastic she noticed two liters of the horrible orange soda he spilled on her desk once and still couldn’t get the stain out from.

“Yeah that’s fine,” she said, gesturing for him to come take a seat. She braced herself to be tormented for her decor. Suddenly she realized Jake came all the way to her house for her. He didn’t have to be here. Why was he here? “Thanks, by the way. You didn’t have to do any of this.”

He took a seat on her couch and plopped the bags on her coffee table. She never ate there, it was reserved for drinks, at most, but she didn’t correct him. Especially when he was doing her a favor “I know. I wanted to though. I also finished processing Dragos and Volkov, all by myself,” he said.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Amy asked flatly. She peered into the bag and examined the feast he brought: two cheeseburgers, a plate of chicken tenders, one hamburger, a salad, about three orders of fries, and of course the two orange sodas. For someone who was proudly in debt, he sure spent a lot on this meal.

“Cause it’s my fault you’re like this,” he said. Amy wanted to protest, he made a bad call re-backup, but she could have gotten injured either way. “Also you’re so hopped up on painkillers there’s no way you’ll remember this,” he added, cracking a smile. He really wasn’t capable of a genuine moment.

Amy rolled her eyes at him. “It’s not that much stronger than Advill, and memory loss isn’t a side effect,”

“Hmm,” he frowned, “we’ll see about that tomorrow.”

Amy froze. “I hope you’re not here to try anything,” she said, half joking. Jake was a jerk, but she never thought he would stoop that low. Even still, she couldn’t let her guard down that much.

“Oh, God no, absolutely not. I would never take advantage of you—of anyone—like that. Is that what you thought?” Jake stammered, scooching himself away from her on the couch. He looked as if he had seen a ghost or something, and his messy hair only added to the effect.

“I dunno,” Amy said, “I guess I can’t be too trusting.” She took out a container full of fries and handed him one as a peace offering.

“Right, right, men are a nightmare,” Jake agreed through a mouthful of potato. He even didn’t try to distance himself from “other men”, or go with the “but I’d never do that route”. Her chest was heavy with guilt at the thought of making such an implication.

“No, no, no, it’s fine, really. Sorry for accusing you.” Amy said.

“It’s not fine. And you shouldn’t apologize because that’s a real fear. It’s on me,” he replied. She looked at him with confusion. It was rare for guys to understand that much. “And I’m sorry for being such a dick to you these past few months,” he blurted out.

Amy couldn’t believe that the guy sitting in her apartment was the same one who decided to address her via paper airplane for a week, and only stopped when he ran out of papers on his desk. “Hey I wasn’t much better. I was so obsessed with out-doing you, I never went to you for help—” he shot her an expectant glance,“—also I’m sorry for ratting you out all the time.” He nodded, and helped himself to another fry from her container.

“Why are you so competitive?” he asked through a mouthful of potato. She noticed a bit of ketchup on his chin and reached for a napkin.

“I have seven brothers,” she provided him with the stock answer.

“I know that,” he said, “that doesn’t answer my question.”

She pauses. “My parents were always comparing us, so many siblings meant the bar for anything was set super high, I don’t know, that sort of stuff.”

“But why do you care?” he pushed. She hadn’t ever considered that before. The endless treadmill she shoved herself on was just always there. Even when she knew the goals she set were irrational she would just keep running, because the idea of falling off was so much worse.

“I guess it makes me worried, if I’m not measuring up,” she confessed. “I feel like I did something wrong.”

“You know you’re crazy, right?” he asked, smirking at her.

Amy rifled through the bottom of the takeout bag. “Did they give you any mustard packets?” she asked.

“Nah. But, as your self-appointed guardian angel, I will go to the bodega and get you some,” he said, picking up the jacket he threw on her floral carpet.

“You don’t have to do that, really,” Amy insisted.

He looked back at her as if the very notion were ridiculous. “Amy, you just got injured in the line of duty. If all you want is mustard, you can have all the mustard in the world.”

“Thanks, Jake. You’re a really good friend,” she ventured. She waited for a moment, to see how he would respond, hopefully solidifying their friendship. Maybe she was friendzoning advances she wasn’t even aware of. Maybe he was confused, and he was just doing a nice thing for a coworker.

“You too,” Jake said. However he interpreted all the implications, he didn’t let her know. “When I get back we’re watching Die-Hard!” he added as he rushed out the door. Amy smiled to herself as she heard the lock click into place.

#tropetember #b99 #brooklyn nine nine #b99 fic #brooklyn nine nine fic #jake peralta #amy santiago #tropetember day 1 #peraltiago #peraltiago fic #my fic

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jessicajonesrp · 4 years

Text

Another victim goes out in flames

It had been several days now since Jessica’s brother made his sudden and stunning reappearance in her life, and into her general understanding of his actual being alive. She still wasn’t quite used to this as reality. Every time the words or phrase “my brother” entered her thoughts or left her lips, it didn’t feel like she could be talking about her own life. It didn’t help that she had not actually seen him since he showed up at the door. Spoke to him, yes, briefly, because brother or not, Jessica was not a phone person. Texted him, yes, although not as frequently as she had the thought to do so. But she hadn’t actually seen him again. A part of her was almost worried that if she tried to make arrangements to, it would turn out that she had drunkenly dreamed or hallucinated the whole thing.

So when Phillip called, suggesting they go out for dinner together, Jessica was anxious even as she agreed. It was lame and probably stupid to stress out over going to dinner with your own brother, even if he had risen from the grave, sort of, and she hadn’t actually known him as her brother for over 15 years. But she was anxious, enough that she had to finish a few bottles of whiskey and hole herself up in her office to research her current case several hours before he was scheduled to come pick her up.

Yeah, apparently her brother was a gentleman. He had insisted on picking Jessica up, choosing where to go, and that he would pay for it too. Jessica didn’t know what the hell was up lately with the men she had been encountering. Luke, Danny, Phillip all seeming to know manners, being men in NYC, seemed more far fetched than Phillip’s semi resurrection.

So far the case against the death-fire doctors was slow going, but she had picked up enough information to begin drawing some interesting parallels. Each of the men who died had been hailed as especially accomplished and revolutionary in their field, and each had specialized in something slightly different- neurology, surgery, and orthopedic works. They didn’t primarily work in the same building, but all were located in the same general county, and Jessica had traced that each spent one day a week working at the same hospital. Each also were noted to do “volunteer” surgery and works, some of which were undisclosed to public in specifics. Jessica also had done enough interviews with family and coworkers to note that each had described the man as of a similar personality type- driven, ambitious, singular in focus, and very efficient at work, to the point of having little time spent on personal life matters. Only Dr. Heath White, the person whose death had instigated Jessica’s investigation, was married, and none had children. They were all definitely far too fixated on their work- possibly a factor in their deaths?

Jessica had also noted that although most coworkers had not known the men well personally, and none of the family indicated spending considerable time with them recently other than Karen White, each person she spoke to maintained that the doctors had not seemed suicidal. Secretive, yes, preoccupied, and driven to the point of unhealthy, but not depressed or suicidal.

She was pretty sure that her biggest break would be found once she had finished looking through all the files that Malcolm had managed to pull together from the hospital’s system, once he hacked into it. She had noticed just in a brief skim that the three appeared to all be involved in what looked like similarly filed cases, each which were assigned numbers rather than patient names or even preheadings of John or Jane Doe. Malcolm had told her in an email that the files he had retrieved had been very hard to get to, deeply hidden within the system and not accessible to most of the hospital employees for retrieval. Whatever it was that all three men appeared to be working on together, it was not something that they wanted everyone to know about.

She pushed aside her lingering theories and thoughts on the case as her a knock sounded at her office door. Standing, stretching, and taking a final swig of whiskey, Jessica stood to greet her brother, awkwardly making a gesture somewhere between an effort of a hug and a playful punch on the arm that ended up getting their arms tangled. She flushed, laughing uncomfortably, and then hugged him, marveling again at how very different it felt to do so now with him taller than she was than it had when he was still wearing super hero boxers.

“Hey,” she said somewhat redundantly, stepping back. “You got a car? Or are we doing subway or taxi? That’s what I do, mostly, if I can’t walk. I don’t like driving much. Guess maybe you don’t, considering our history.”

“Subway, if you don’t mind,” Phillip said easily. “I don’t have a car. As you can imagine, that makes moving difficult, so it’s lucky I travel light.”

“Oh, speaking of that, Luke says he probably does have a job for you, if you want to try it out,” Jessica said as she followed Phillip out the door, hands shoved into her jacket pockets as they made the way to the elevator of her building. “Might not be your dream job, it’s a warehouse job through a friend of his. But if Luke’s offering it, I’m sure the pay and hours are decent, and it’s a start, right? Better than part time.” She smirked. “Besides, you tell them you’re Luke’s brother-in-law, and they’ll be intimidated enough to treat you right. Or just tell them I’m your sister, I’m pretty sure a lot of people are more scared of me than him.”

“Yeah?” Phillip said curiously, eyeing her. “That’s ridiculous. I can’t imagine people being scared of you. The most scary thing about you is your makeup during your grunge phase.”

“Says the kid who wore the same t-shirt with a stupid cartoon alien on it for four days in a row until Mom forced him to change it,” Jessica shot back. “Yeah, it’s kind of a thing, people get scared of you when you kill people. Or when you knock them around or lift cars in front of them.”

“But that’s still ridiculous,” Phillip insisted. “Whatever you’ve done, or can do, you have good reasons for it. There’s no reason to be afraid of someone who does things because they’re right. You only do those things to people who earn it. And you wouldn’t have your abilities if you didn’t deserve them.”

Jessica eyed him, her brow furrowing. “I didn’t earn them, Phil. People don’t get superpowers because they deserve them, they just have them. Look at Kilgrave, did he deserve his? Besides, just because you have good reasons for doing things doesn’t always make it right. He thought he had good reasons for what he did, and he was a monster.”

She is twitchy now, as she usually is when the mention of Kilgrave comes up, and bolts out abruptly when the elevator lands in the parking garage of their building. Phillip puts a hand on her arm, apologetic.

“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to offend you. I just…I believe in you, that’s all. I think it’s pretty amazing, who you are, what you can do. And what you can do with it.”

“You sound like Trish,” Jessica muttered, rolling her eyes. “You guys should get along great, she’s always “ra ra, Jessica the super hero” too.”

Phillip’s eyes flicker briefly when she mentions Trish, and he shrugs. “Maybe. Doesn’t seem to me like we’ll have a lot in common, from what I’ve read about her. Drinking is one thing, but hard drugs? And she’s been to rehab more than a few times, right? They says addicts are liars, just by nature of the addiction. I’ve known a few, had a few as foster parents. I always questioned how much of what they said was real and how much of it was an act.”

“Hey, that’s not who she is anymore,” Jessica said sharply, his words cutting deep. He wasn’t just implicating Trish, but herself as well with his declaration, although he had dismissed alcoholism as being different than drug addiction. “She’s been out of that life for a long time now. Hell, between the two of us, I’m the one people should be less willing to trust.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Jessie,” he said, shrugging. “You’re her friend, you know her. I wasn’t trying to cut on her. I’m just telling you what my experience has been. Like I said, I had foster parents into drugs, and a lot of kids in the foster homes and group homes too. It could really make life hell sometimes, living in that when there’s nothing you can do to get out of it.”

Jessica, having come to a pause in her walking to face him in Trish’s defense, blinked, uncomfortable and guilty at his second referral to his experiences in foster home. Every time she remembered growing up privileged, with all her basic needs met if not her emotional ones, in the Walker’s home, she felt almost personally responsible to know that her brother had not had the same experience. She exhaled, looking away.

“It’s okay. So, um….subway. Let’s get to it.”

Jessica started to resume walking to the parking garage entrance, stopping as a weathered gray mini-van entered to let it pass and park. She rolled her eyes, recognizing it as belonging to the Morrisons, a couple who lived on her hall and whom she avoided whenever humanly possible. The Morrisons had six kids, and Jessica knew them to be foster kids not because of their variety of ethnicities but because of the multiple obnoxious bumper stickers plastered over the mini-van, each some variation of declaring Nicole Morrison as being a “foster mom.” It reminded her of the fuss Dorothy Walker had initially made over being an adoptive mother when Jessica first came to live with her- only in public, of course. Although the woman had barely spoken to her, the public declaration of being a foster parent, which Jessica viewed as an invasion of the children’s privacy, coupled with the strangely quiet nature of children whenever she passed them, had made her suspicious of Nicole’s motives for having them and just how she may treat them behind closed doors.

Whatever. She was just glad she hadn’t been stuck in the elevator with her.

She hurried her steps towards the entrance of the parking garage, wanting to avoid eye contact as she heard Nicole Morrison get out of her car and lock it, and definitely wanting to avoid any kind of forced small talk. She heard the woman’s heels clicking as she started to walk, presumably towards the elevator or stairs, and wondered what kind of mother of six kids still felt the desire to wear high heels, and noticed that Phillip’s softer footsteps behind her had slowed in pace. She was starting to turn back towards him, to order him or tease him about hurrying up, when she first smelled the smoke.

Jessica frowned, thinking at first that either Phillip or Perfect Foster Mom was smoking, which was not only something she hadn’t though either engaged in, but was also not allowed in the parking garage, as several large signs declared. She didn’t actually see the fire until Nicole Morrison’s shrill screams pierced the air.

Jessica pivoted sharply, the tiny hairs on her arms and the back of her neck standing up in spooked recognition of what she was hearing. She recognized the sound of anguish mingled with terror. She had heard it too many times to ever be able to forget.

Nicole Morrison stood in between the rows of cars, writhing, arms flailing in panic. Her entire body was engulfed with flames, so brightly heated that Jessica could actually see hints of blue in the parts closest to the woman’s rapidly charring body. From over fifty feet away Jessica could still feel their heat, and the combination of smoke mixed with burning flesh made her cough, almost choking, before she forced her stunned, wire-tight muscles into action.

“Drop down! Stop, drop, and roll!” she shouted at the woman, but the woman was too far gone in pain and fear to probably hear or comprehend.

Jessica’s eyes darted, looking for some source of water, a blanket, a tarp, anything that might smother the flames, but there was nothing. It was a fucking parking garage, all she could see stretched before her was miles of useless vehicles. It occurred to her briefly that Dr. Heath White had also been burned to death in a parking garage, just before she sprung forward to try to help the suffering woman.

Tearing off her own leather jacket, she used it both as a protective cover for her hands and as a shroud over the woman as she pushed her down, then used her jacket to beat at the flames. It didn’t fully extinguish them, but they did reduce in volume enough for Jessica to be able to grasp the woman and roll her back and forth, smothering the rest. She choked, almost vomiting, when part of the woman’s skin peeled off into her hand, and tried to ignore the stinging burn of smoke irritating her eyes, throat, and nose. Her own hands were beginning to grow singed before she managed to fully put out the flames, but none of this was bothering her. Nicole Morrison had ceased making any sort of noise at all, not so much as a whimper, and what was left of her features and body was so horrific she barely seemed recognizably human.

Remember Phillip suddenly, Jessica tore her eyes from the woman that she wasn’t quite certain was even still living, barking out an order to him sharply.

“Phillip! Call 911, fucking hurry!”

But when she received no verbal affirmative, and whipped her head over her shoulder to repeat the direction, she saw that Phillip was nowhere within her view. What the fuck, where was he? Had he left? Had he been so frightened he bolted?

She couldn’t worry about that now. Hands shaking, she fumbled for her own phone, then, remembering it was in her jacket pocket, cursed vividly, reaching into the badly damaged garment for it. The phone cover and screen were burning hot to the touch, but otherwise appeared possibly still in working order. She dialed 911 with still unsteady hands, explaining the situation in a voice she didn’t quite recognize as her own, then looked down at the woman she was still kneeling in front of, knowing even before checking her pulse that she was dead.

Eyes tearing in what Jessica told herself was entirely due to the smoke, she stood, backing several feet away, and dialed Phillip’s number in between coughs. When he didn’t answer her, she dialed him again, then a third time, until he finally picked up, his voice almost as small as the child Phillip’s that she remembered when he said hello.

“Where the fuck are you, where the fuck did you go?!” Jessica almost screamed, the hand not holding the phone clinching into a fist and accidentally breaking the skin of the blisters forming on her palms.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, his voice still small, shaken. “I just…that woman, and…it was just so…I haven’t seen anything like that. The way she sounded, and the smell…I’m sorry Jessie, I couldn’t deal. I couldn’t do it.”

“You ran away? You just left?” Jessica said, incredulous, although this was what she already knew to be true. “How could you just leave her dying like that?”

“I’m sorry….I couldn’t deal with it, it was….I couldn’t be there,” he whispered, taking a shaking, audible breath. “I couldn’t have helped her. I knew it, and I guess I just…I panicked. I’m sorry.”

“It’s…it’s okay,” Jessica exhaled, the action invoking another coughing fit for a few seconds before she could catch her breath enough to continue. “Don’t…don’t do that again. Just…just go back to where you’re staying, okay? We’ll have to do this hang out thing later. I have to stay with her until the ambulance come. And probably the fucking police too. Fuck.”

She hung up, breaking into another coughing fit, and leaned back against the wall of the parking garage, as far from Heather’s body as she could be while still being able to see her. Closing her eyes briefly, she fought off a threatening panic attack for several minutes before dialing Luke’s number.

“Luke,” she said, her voice hoarse and strained, and interrupted with another cough. “I need….I need you to come to my office. No, not there, I mean the parking garage to it. I’m about to be asked a shitload of questions by the police, and I may need a lawyer.”

#luke cage #luke cage roleplay #jessica jones roleplay #jessica roleplay #jessica jones

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ganymedesclock · 4 years

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Ghirahim and gendered expectations of sensuality

So, as people who’ve seen my previous Zelda posts might gather, I have a mixed relationship with Skyward Sword. On the one hand, I think many of its characters have tremendous potential. On the other, I feel like the game largely did not live up to that potential, and in some areas, it feels rather deliberate. But suffice to say, elements of Skyward Sword have meant that certain characters- Batreaux, Groose, Fi, and Ghirahim are not far from my mind.

A brief primer, for those who might be unfamiliar: Ghirahim is the main antagonist of Skyward Sword, and a bit of an aberration in the common Zelda formula, which tends to introduce a ‘decoy’ or “lieutenant” antagonist who dominates for most of the game and then bows out towards the end as the prelude to the true final boss- usually Ganondorf, in Skyward Sword’s case, it’s the demon god and a figure we are clearly supposed to scan as Ganondorf’s divine progenitor, Demise.

Ghirahim is quite openly a harbinger of, and servant to, Demise- where he breaks script is by being extremely proactive. We run into Ghirahim in most dungeons in the game, where he is not waiting idly for us, but doing actions that veteran Zelda players might recognize as comparable to Link’s: he breaks into dungeons either chasing Zelda, or chasing information that will allow him to proceed. We also have not one but three different fights with him, personally, and several other times he concedes that he doesn’t have time to play with Link and instead sics a boss monster on him.

The other thing about Ghirahim is, I will outright say it: He is written as a caricature of a predatory queer man.

He’s shown to be literally bloodthirsty, and presented by the narrative ostensibly as someone who has a sinister, perverse interest in both Link and Zelda, a contrast to their saintly, chaste union (which is supposed to read as a union; pursue a romantic sideplot with Peatrice, another girl in the game, and Fi will pretty much openly admonish you for cheating on Zelda, saying that Zelda wouldn’t be happy to know Link’s seeing someone and that Link should know that)

This is, really, a bit jarring, when Ghirahim’s actual dialogue suggests that he has very little interest in Link and views him much like a butler tending the master’s house while the latter is away might view a feral golden retriever that’s running loose in the place and getting mud on everything. His emotional range runs from warmly patronizing to exasperated to a truly dangerous degree (since, in this metaphor, the butler has also been tending the master’s house in near-total isolation for something like several centuries not having real conversations with the other servants and nobody’s at their psychological best in those situations even if they weren’t implicitly born and raised to murder).

Basically: that Ghirahim has no real interest in Link- not his body or appearance or anything. In his own dialogue, he seems confused by the idea that he’s at all interested, is apologetic that he’s wasting his time or dawdling and in his final scene, offers a genuinely flummoxed “you... who are you?” He offers colorful, violent threats, but when Link obstinately faces him again, he’s shown to be almost embarrassed and disgusted by them, and tries something else that almost no Zelda antagonist does: on multiple occasions, he tells Link to just walk away from the situation with what appears to be every intent of letting him go.

Ghirahim does not want Link for himself. He seems to, begrudgingly, against his own intentions, value Link as someone to fight against, but this connection does not actualize within the story- they are not really rivals. He isn’t even that deeply fond of the idea of Link’s blood, though he’s a proponent of blood as a vague concept.

Now, I like Ghirahim. I don’t think that even the read of Ghirahim as a queer man is a terrible one. But it definitely is interesting the lens in which Ghirahim’s implicit sensuality is cast. Basically, he is depicted as creeping on Link, without any real sense that he wants Link. Because it isn’t about what he wants- it’s about that implicitly he has a sexuality, and the idea of a man who might be attracted to other men is threatening, evil, and scary. Ghirahim wasn’t made queer-coded for representation’s sake. He was queer-coded to suggest he was depraved and motivated by a sinister lust. And the cruelty of this depiction is I think made immediately clear by- Ghirahim’s actual interests, passion, or preferences do not factor in here. That Scene Where Ghirahim Does The Tongue Thing is about how it is expected to make the player feel, and how implicitly Link feels.

What is Ghirahim’s type? Does he consider Demise beautiful? He makes it pretty clear he considers Link a brat. These are questions that aren’t asked, because it’s wrong that Ghirahim seems to have any sexuality at all- and, since Link is our lens and our guidepost for how we’re supposed to feel about characters, if Ghirahim behaves in a sensual manner it happens to Link, and to Zelda, invasively. Even though it is shown he feels no desire for any of these people, so that sensuality basically comes across like the game is firmly expecting us to find the idea of even an e-rated sensual male antagonist repulsive.

This led me down a very odd sort of rabbit trail.

Because Ghirahim- a bit indirectly- is inspired off a figure skater.

Specifically, Fi’s design was stated to evoke a figure skater, and we even see her ‘skating’ in several of the cutscenes. Ghirahim’s design matches Fi’s quite strongly; they were designed to be two of a kind.

I am not, myself, a figure skating buff, but a while ago, I happened across youtube videos of a skater named Johnny Weir.

Quickly, you can see the sword spirits’ inspirations; the close-fitting leotards, the lithe, acrobatic capabilities.

But here’s the thing about Johnny Weir: this is a guy putting on a sensual performance that is not a gross-out, a joke, or a threat. It’s basically impossible to find nothing suggestive in his choice of backup movement or the movements he makes running his hands along his body- his costume even asserts these more with the mirrored details on his gloves. This is a dude, acting in a way you could say is objectively sensual even if it may or may not stir every viewer given the individual nature of preference.

But there’s a world of difference to Weir’s performance. Not just that this is a voluntary choice made by a real person, while Ghirahim’s choices, even if they have in-game logic, are largely about Link and about the player- but Johnny Weir is having fun. He has a charming energy to him and is performing to a song he loves.

Watching Johnny Weir, it occurred to me, that regardless of Weir’s own orientation- that I do not know and will not speculate on- there’s a preconception around “being sexy”. Women are seen as supposed to be sexy (but, in many circles, not too sexy. Can’t insinuate they know what they’re doing, or have opinions and tastes...), or, more, “sexy is seen as a job that women do for men specifically.”

So, to homophobic audiences... a man deliberately enacting a sensual performance- a sense of what sensual looks like from a dude- is seen as weird, wild, and out there. If you’re not shocked by the implications that Ghirahim may be attracted to men, may be into Link, may be into the idea of torturing Link- then a certain amount of his writing kind of falls apart.

And comparing the way Ghirahim is animated and shot to Johnny Weir’s performance, it’s kind of... weak? Like, at one point in Weir’s routine, he lifts one leg and slides his fingertips down it in a smooth stroke from knee to thigh. It’s a steamy looking move, and this coming from someone who is so prodigiously ace I thought sexual attraction was made up for the first seventeen years of my life.

Ghirahim does not do that. He’s got thigh cutouts in his very close-fitting outfit, and has lines in his second fight about his body and how beautiful it is, but he does not make these movements that deliberately catch and draw the eye along the planes of him.

To me, I feel like besides this being a general affront against real queer people- the Zelda games have a concerning habit of depicting “eccentric, effeminate” men as either neutral characters or open villains and virtually always with this air of being the brunt of a joke (it’s very hard to imagine ALBW’s Yuga was designed by someone who earnestly loved this character)- it is also a bit rude to the character of Ghirahim himself.

Because Ghirahim, at the end of the day, is someone who ends the story heartbroken literally and figuratively. The entire game, he is driven by loyalty to Demise. He does not care who he hurts or threatens- and this comes back to the seeming implication that he is somewhat bloodthirsty, but vastly plays up his appetite for torture. When he thinks his goal is out of reach, he continues slogging away at it anyway, but listlessly. Everything he does, is for Demise. He is devoted enough to, late in the game, throw himself on Link’s sword for the third boss fight purely to stall for time until Demise revives.

Demise does not speak to Ghirahim, or acknowledge him, or even seemingly notice or care that by the time he comes back, Ghirahim’s metal heart has been torn open by being repeatedly stabbed by Link. (third boss fight is not kind.) Instead, he rips Ghirahim’s sword form out of his chest.

Ghirahim is a danger to Link, Impa, and Zelda, because he attacks them, and his own subordinates, because he threatens them. But to his master, he’s just a disposable pawn. This is a character driven by passion such that many of his poses and scenes show him nearly breaking into an actor’s soliloquy as he explains something to Link- and this is one way he does seem to like having Link around: he craves an audience.

And his passion is, in two ways, depicted as completely futile. First, in the dubious amount of oo scary gay man, watch out Link, he’s doing something weird with his tongue- and second and far more seriously, that everything he works for leaves him with nothing because his life never mattered for a second in the eyes of the person he lives and dies for.

Ghirahim is made a sensual character, but in a manner that feels bad faith- that feels like it has not thought about male sensuality in any direction besides “that’s wrong and icky, so we’ll attach it to our villain, who we want to be wrong and icky, and absolutely not suggest there’s anything particularly sad about what happens to him. His fault for being wrong and icky.”

#Legend of Zelda #Ghirahim #homophobia discussion #readmore

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jessiebanethedragon · 4 years

Text

Sweet Coffee

WARNING: Content is about suicide and loss of loved ones, also swearing.

Isn't it lovely? Being here alone, in the dark? Doesn't the fresh air make you feel alive? I used to come here with you, in the middle of the winter when the owners had left to retreat to somewhere warmer. If you knew where to turn, you could find the property and the side of the hill that it sits on. If you knew where to look you could find a place that looks over the whole city.

It smells like our life together, and for a brief moment it seems so real I could look over to the driver's seat and see you. But then the wind picks up and the smell of soft sweaters, lavender and fresh herbs is taken from me. It tastes like iced coffees, the only thing worth ordering from the drive through we always hit before coming here. And the freedom it brings is so real I can reach out and touch it.

Sitting in a small car and staring into the depths of a city that didn't care about us was so satisfying. Like we could see all the lives that were milling about unknowing we watched over the tops of their heads in our secret special place. It's not the same without you.

“I don’t want to say goodbye. I want to say thank you.” Was what the letter said. “I want you all to know that without everyone in my life I would’ve been dead long before this moment.” it was as eloquently written as you were spoken. All the right words in the right places to tell us what we had to hear. And I can't help but think how bad a job I would have done if it had been me writing it. Like an automated response generator, repeating the same things I'd been told over and over.

“Call the helpline. Dial 911 if it is a life threatening emergency. Ask a trusted person to hide away your pills so you’re not tempted by them.” All the words people told us in order to make use of someone else's problem. “Don't call me. Call the authorities.” Don’t ask the doctors to find medications that help, just hide the ones that should be working so you don’t overdose before they can adjust you to the correct dosage. Yes, I do know that my final message would've been much more angry than yours.

I can't remember the exact words, I ripped the thing to shreds the second I was out of sight when we got back from the hospital. No one could know I had planned my own downfall just days before your own. The guilt I feel for being so self absorbed in my own demise that I didn't notice the signs is immense, even though you specifically said not to feel at fault. Our last night together is burned into my memory. But after all, everyone around us was taught to recognize destructive behavior, our families were trained to know when we went over the edge. You and I were never given that luxury.

“Coffee.” was all the text said at 7:34 that night. I know because I checked the time stamp, as if I could recreate every element of the last time I saw you. It wasn't a question, it never had to be. When did either of us say no to a drive around the city at night with an iced coffee and what felt like not a care in the world? If I had known what that night meant for you, maybe I would have said no. Maybe I would have taken away your ability to say goodbye to me because I wasn't extended the same courtesy.

“If you had to do it all again, would you?” you asked when we had settled into our spot. We didn't talk while driving, looking out the window was too much fun for conversation. But after we had parked on the edge of the hill on February the tenth, at what I guess was about ten to eight in the evening, the conversation started to pour out of us. Words spurting out, as emotional and as spirodic as a bullet wound.

“Probably not.” I admitted, sipping the iced coffee that was just sweet enough for such a cold night.

“I would.” you said staring at the train that was passing in the distance. “I would change everything. I’d work with every intention on changing who I've turned out to be.”Then it went quiet.

“I think i'm hardwired this way.” I whispered. “I think even if I did it all over. I’d still end up where I am.” Brown eyes met mine before turning back to the scenery. “I think whatever created me, the universe, god, whatever it was,” I paused, releasing the implication of what was saying, a breath, a beat went by before I continued. Knowing that whatever I said, you’d still be there after. “I think whatever designed my DNA chiseled in that I wasn't meant to be happy. If my life is ended ‘prematurely’.” I added bouncing finger air quotes. “It's only that way because that's what fate wanted.”

“Fuck fate then.” You replied. And we both shared a chuckle as I leaned my head on the rest behind me, closing my eyes with a smile.

“Yeah, fuck fate.”

It takes one beer to get me buzzed, it’s enough to feel calm but not enough to make me loopy, so I can keep my indulgences to myself. I like to think you’d approve, me having a beer before your funeral. It’s rebellious, and it tastes bitter with that little fizz. Just like you.

As a person who only ever wears black, I can say that the colour didn't seem comforting today. My mother squeezes my shoulder, pushing me forward into the church. It angers me, you weren't religious, you were baptized as a courtesy to your grandparents. You would not want to be buried here. If I had my way I'd take your ashes and spread them across the world. Leaving a part of you in the depths of each corner of the planet. A representation of how ingrained you were into my world. But that's selfish. And I was raised not to be selfish.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” People say as I pass them, pulling me into their arms, touching my hair, arms, face and anywhere else they think is appropriate. When in fact every touch makes me want to scream and every time someone says “I can't imagine what you’re going through.” I can't help but agree.

Everyone else fades away when I see your mother. The likeness so obvious now, it's like a punch to the gut. The times we spent together flash before my eyes, driving with the music too loud, her making us the special breakfast that's only allowed on sleepover days. And I can tell she feels the same because when our eyes meet she stops talking. I know I am the last living embodiment of her daughter, and the similarities between us are clearer now than ever.

I throw myself into her arms because she's the only one who makes me feel whole again.

“It should've been me.” I whisper to her, my head and mind buried into her shoulder, hiding my emotions. “It should've been me, I deserved it, I should have been me.” I repeat it over and over again, my mantra breathed aloud as if it's the last thing i'll ever say.

“Oh honey” she cries, brushing my hair soothingly. “It shouldn't have been either of you.”

“I-I-I” I sob out, forgetting how many people can see me meltdown “Feel, I feel, so, so, g-g-ultiy.” I feel someone's arm around me, I can tell from the smell it is my dad, he always wears the same cologne. He's gently leading me outside into the fresh air. The wind is making me chilly, enhancing the feeling of emptiness inside me.

“I found your note.” he whispers, somehow we find a bench, one that overlooks the entire cemetery. I look at him, and his eyes give away how I look. Red eyes, mascara in streams down my face, covered by foundation. I look like a doll, ceramic perfection, save for the giveaway of black streaks and puffy eyes.

“I ripped it up.” I stutter out. As if that is an excuse, what I really want to say is ‘don't be mad dad, I threw it away, so that means I’m fine now, right?’

“I know, I found the pieces. I just” he pauses, he’s always so concrete with his words. Now is no different. “I wanted to say how proud I am of you, for having the strength to do that, for sticking around.”

“I can't promise anything.” I say, my family knows all too well how often my strength fails.

“You don't need to.” He murmurs with soft eyes. “I can't explain how much I love you, and I can't explain what it's like seeing you in pain. I can see you burning up like a supernova before it collapses. And everytime you choose to stay you amaze me, and you just lost the person who was most important to you. People who have been through less have taken things much worse than you are.” He takes a breath, “I knew this guy at school, we were like 23 at the time. Partying, skipping classes, the usual. His dad passed away during the second semester. Heart attack.” I notice the tears in his eyes, welling up steadily as the memory becomes more and more clear.

“That's so sad” I say to fill the silence.

“Gets worse. My buddy, he took his own life after the event. Just couldn't cope, never got his degree, never graduated. His girlfriend was a mess for so long, his mum even more so.” he wipes away the wetness with a sniff.

“Dad, I'm so sorry.'' I say with my whole heart.

“What I mean is, you always stay because you ignore your pain for fear of hurting others. And that makes me so damn proud of you.” I lean into him for a hug, and I wonder why he's kept that story hidden for so long. I don't question it, we all have our secrets after all. But this moment, right here on an old bench with my dad. This, I will treasure.

The rest of the funeral was largely uneventful. Everyone had stories to share. Many tissues were used and even more hugs ensued. My best friend's life is recounted in the space of a few hours. Every memorable detail shared to the fullest extent, and then she is laid to rest in the ground, surrounded by people she didn't know. The only thing that isn't present is her letter. It’s mentioned, but not read. There are words and phrases that I recognize. “Don’t lose yourself to my loss” or “ I give myself to the earth, the wind and the heavens, because there is no pain in the deepest of forests and the warmest of oceans.” But at the end of the letter, the gut-wrenching final goodbye is left out. Not that it matters, no one needed to hear those words, except maybe me. On the car ride home I close my eyes and picture the papers in my head. Page after page of apologies, memories, and everything in between.

“To my best friend, sister and lifeline,” I could hear your voice as my eyes drifted across the paper. “You will feel the most guilty, I know this. But I need you to push those feelings away, there is not anything you should have or could have done. I know it is going to be hard, maybe impossible even. And I write this for you because I know as I jot down my farewell, you’re in your bed, underneath a pile of blankets whispering over and over, ‘Death is permanent, this feeling isn't.’ I know this may be a mistake, and I know you’re depressed, anxious and obsessive. But you need to stop apologizing to everyone for being that way. I mean, it's hardwired into you right? Or at least I know that's what you think. But even those who are made to be a certain way, it doesn't stop them from living the best they can. Don’t follow me, don't give up your life for one person. If you don't want to stick around for them, stick around for me. Because you’re going to have to live for two from now on. I know it’s shitty to put that burden on you, but I know you need it. Living wasn't your plan, living for two people was even supposed to happen. But fuck fate right?”

#short story #fiction story #mental ill health #mental health story #depression story #anxiety #friendship #creative writing #stories #sad story #sad stories #shortstories #writer #fiction #books #reading #mental health

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raptortext · 5 years

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@knightadora asked: 45. To Keep a Cover (couple not established) kiss :: Zack/Tifa - FFVII

(ao3 link)

2,159 words, fake married, Zack needs a hobby

Tifa is tired of pretending to be Zack’s wife. When she signed up to be his guide and host in her hometown she didn’t realize she was going to be part of some undercover assignment. It’s been a few months now and she’s not even allowed to know what progress has been made on Zack’s case. She doesn’t like being left in the dark, especially not like this. At least Zack feels equally restless despite being the special agent in charge.

Out of boredom Zack learned how to bake bread. Tifa never thought she would get tired of bread. Out of the many things Zack has introduced to her it’s the most unexpected. Sure, he taught her knife throwing and that spontaneous sets of squats really do relieve stress, but the bread thing really got her. She’s sure Zack’s also tired of bread but he’s the one constantly baking it.

“Is there anything else you could learn to make?” Tifa offers, genuinely trying to be helpful. Bread is taking a toll on both of them. “There’s ice-cream, nut butters...pies even sound nice.”

Zack knocks on his newest sourdough with only a portion of the zeal he did when he first started doing this. “I guess I could start pickling stuff,” he says absently, seemingly unaware that Tifa suggested nothing like that.

Tifa sighs. “You could do that. It’s not bread.”

The sourdough passes Zack’s inspection and he sets it aside. “You got that right.”

Zack’s phone—the specific one for communication about the assignment—starts ringing. He answers it, listens for the code word, and sighs when he ends the call. “Back door,” he says to Tifa. Tifa at this point knows that this means Tseng is here; it used to be Rude but he stopped coming by for some reason.

Tifa beats Zack to the back door and unlatches it. Sure enough, Tseng is waiting on the back porch looking like a secret agent. In the past Tifa’s asked about the uptight attire and Tseng’s somewhat embarrassed answer was that he looked more like a secret agent in civilian clothes. At least the suit made people giggle instead of whisper amongst themselves.

Tseng nods to Tifa. “Good morning.”

Tifa shuts the door behind him. It’s mid-afternoon. “Good morning,” she replies. She follows him to the kitchen and doesn’t miss the brief glimpse of confusion flash on Tseng’s face when he’s faced with Zack’s multiple bread loaves.

Zack leans back against the counter, hands tucked in his hoodie. “Hey, man. What’s going on?”

Tseng seems fixated on the bread. “Have you considered filing to sell from a home kitchen? We can bring a crew in to make sure it’s up to code.”

“I’ve thought about it but all I make is bread. Well I just thought about pickling stuff and—”

“So what’s new, Tseng?” Tifa interrupts before Zack can go on a tangent about all his ideas for entrepreneurship. “You don’t stop by that often.”

Tseng clears his throat. “Our intelligence—” Zack scoffs and Tifa elbows him. “—has discovered that you two are raising suspicions.”

Zack gapes. “What? How?”

“Are we doing something wrong?” Tifa asks. She feels more calm than she thought she would. Maybe it’s the very vague implication that this situation could end if the cover falls through. It’s a selfish thought but it’s always present in her mind.

“To put it frankly: you two aren’t affectionate enough. Your neighbors are gossiping,” Tseng continues. “A rumor has started that you two aren’t married or aren’t in love. It will only lead to people trying to pry into your relationship which could be detrimental to the assignment.”

Zack and Tifa glance at each other. They’ve mingled enough with the neighbors to guess who it was and have lived with each other long enough to exchange nonverbal communication. “So we just need to be a little more touchy-feely around certain people, yeah?” Zack guesses with a hint of annoyance that Tseng picks up as being personal.

“I suggest you two start learning to kiss each other convincingly,” Tseng says outright. He ignores the gawking he receives. “Being “touchy-feely” isn’t as convincing, especially for your particular neighbors. You obviously don’t need to get more physical than that.”

Tifa breathes a sigh of relief. “That’s good.”

“You might have to start talking as if you are, however. We’ll inform you if that becomes necessary.”

Zack groans and slumps against the counter. “Dude, can’t these people mind their own business?”

Tseng is ever stony-faced. “No. They can’t.”

“Couldn’t you have, I dunno, done all your creepy surveillance before putting us on Gossip Lane?”

“...I’ll admit we may have made a mistake.”

Tifa sighs. “So we’ll just...kiss a little in front of people.”

Tseng shakes his head. “You two will need to make it convincing. It has to seem completely real. If you show any awkwardness or uncertainty it may tip them off that—”

Zack interrupts, deadpan: “That someone among them is telling us what they’re saying behind our backs? And suddenly changing our behavior unconvincingly will make it look like we’re covering something up?”

“Exactly.”

Tifa and Zack look at each other and frown a little deeper. They’re both the kind of people who prefer for things like that to happen organically; honesty is important to both of them and it gets in the way of acting their parts. Tseng senses the discomfort and has absolutely nothing to soothe their concerns with.

He looks at Zack’s bread corner. “I’ll be on my way. May I take a loaf off your hands?”

Zack holds out his hand. “I gotta pay for my new hobby. You can take two.”

Tseng, still expressing confusion yet going along with it, complies. He hands Zack three bills of the highest currency and takes three loaves in a reusable shopping bag from Tifa’s horde.

Tifa escorts Tseng out the back door and returns to the kitchen, walking in on Zack holding each bill to the light. “Do you really think he would give you fake money?” she inquires.

“Can never be too careful with that bunch,” Zack mutters. “Tseng’s pretty generous at least. I like that guy.” He pockets the cash and crosses his arms. Tifa’s lived with him long enough to recognize that he’s uncomfortable. She puts her hands flat on her hips instead of her fists. Zack’s lived with her long enough to recognize that she’s uncomfortable.

“So...” Tifa starts, “We really have to do this, huh?” Zack nods. “When do you want to...um...start?”

Zack looks at her. “Have you kissed anyone before?”

Tifa’s silence is her answer. Zack whistles and Tifa looks away. “I just...never got around to it with this boy from my hometown, okay?”

“Nah, it’s okay. It’s not scary,” Zack says. He straightens up and gestures for her to get closer. “I don’t mind teaching you.” He grins and Tifa simultaneously feels comforted and annoyed.

She heaves a sigh and goes to him. Her heart is beating faster as her anxiety rises. She’s never been intimate in any sense with someone else and suddenly she has to get a crash course in kissing. It’s not her favorite thing in the world.

Zack is taller than her and she’s close enough that she’s extra aware of it. She gasps when Zack puts his hands on her hips.

“Is that okay?” he asks. He waits for Tifa to nod and he tugs her closer, only tugging after every full set of steps Tifa takes towards him. When she’s able to put her hands on his chest, he lets go of her hips. “How about this?”

Tifa swallows. “Um...”

Zack smiles and Tifa feels like she’s seeing a softer side of all his flirtatious, excitable sunshine. “We can take it slow, this can be it for today.”

She looks down at her hands on Zack’s chest. Of course she wants to take it slow, but what if it’s too slow? The sooner they can fix this gossip problem the better, right? Tseng was more pushy and urgent about this than Zack is, at least.

Tifa turns her gaze back up to Zack. “No, it’s okay. What next?”

“Can I hold you?” Zack asks. Tifa nods, hesitant at first, then more confident. Zack puts his hands on her waist this time; they’re so big and warm and holding her so securely.

She could...get used to this.

Tifa looks at her hands. “Should I do something, too?”

“Hm...you could put your arms around my neck, or something like that,” Zack replies. Tifa goes for holding onto Zack’s shoulders. “And now we kiss.”

Tifa takes a deep breath. She closes her eyes. “Okay...okay, I’m ready.”

She feels Zack’s breath and her heart races. He’s so close, closer than anyone has ever been to her. He’s going to kiss her. He’s really going to kiss her. She knows she doesn’t have to worry about being good or bad at it right now—she doesn’t even know what makes a kiss good or bad—but it’s something she’s entirely unfamiliar with and that’s enough to worry her. She stays firm, though; she’s not one to back down from anything.

Zack kisses her and it’s...nice. Lips feel weird but at least his feel nice. He’s gentle but firm, he’s holding her just enough to not constrict her, and he...he smells nice, too. She never noticed. But she could blame that on smelling flour on him so often.

The kiss ends and her eyes flutter open. She stares up at Zack who seems about the same amount of pleasantly shocked as she feels. Zack smiles a little at her.

“Hey, you’re still holding on,” he notices. “Want another one?”

Tifa can tell he’s joking now, that he’s brushing this off by being his playful self. Honestly it’s a relief to see him act this way after a few weeks of him baking endless loaves with increasing depression. She smiles.

“Actually...yeah. That wasn’t so bad.”

Zack blushes a little. “Oh—really?”

“I don’t want to force you if you don’t want to!” Tifa rushes to clarify. She feels her face getting warm. “I’m just saying it wasn’t so bad.”

“We can do a little more practice, I didn’t mind that either.”

Zack kisses her again. It’s the same as the first but this time Zack tilts his head when he parts from her and goes back in. Tifa keeps herself still, she feels stiff. Zack can tell and he whispers on her lips, “You can relax. I’ve got you.”

Tifa relaxes for a moment but when Zack kisses her again it’s a little more intense and her guard is down; she felt protected by herself before but now she feels too open. She pushes on his shoulders and Zack immediately pulls away and lets go of her waist. Tifa backs up and fidgets her hands.

“I’m done for today,” she proclaims. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready again.”

Zack puts his hands back in his hoodie pocket. Tifa’s sticky lip gloss is still on his lips; he doesn’t mind it. He smiles and nods. “Yeah, sure thing! You know where to find me.” He makes Tifa chuckle.

“We’re doing this so we can get away from each other, remember?” she says lightly. Zack shrugs.

“I dunno, I think you’ll be the first person I ask to buy some bread and pickles from me,” he teases. Tifa smiles.

“Okay. I’ll wait for you,” she promises. “I need to get some laundry done.”

She leaves and when she turns the corner into the laundry room she puts her back to the wall and covers her mouth. She can still feel Zack’s mouth on hers, his hands on her waist and his shoulders under her hands. It’s all in her head though, right? These things don’t actually linger. It was her first time, that must be it. She just needs to keep her cool and not let her guard down too much.

She looks up at the laundry machines and discovers that she does not, in fact, have any laundry to do.

In the kitchen Zack scratches his head and figures he should clean up all the dirty dishes and baking supplies; he already cleaned the counter where he kneads the dough so that’s one task down. He takes a deep breath. Tifa’s trust, even if brief, made him feel blessed or...something. He knew before that she was pretty, sure, but the way she looked up at him after they kissed gave him butterflies. He grabs a paper towel, wets it, and starts to dab at the gloss she passed on to him. It wasn’t his favorite feeling in the world but the lingering evidence of her was exciting.

He gets back to cleaning the dishes. He needs to research pickling. He wonders what kind of pickles Tifa would like the most.

#knightadora #zifa #ffvii #kiss fic prompts #i actually had a lot of fun with this one and it was one of the ones i was nervous about

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spookyspaghettisundae · 5 years

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Thirteen-One, part 2

Heavy clouds painted the horizon in a dull, bleak gray. Although still morning, the day was quickly fading.

Amy walked down the street. Her keys jingled in her leather jacket’s pocket, reminding her with each step that she needed to have someone check her car. She had not been able to start it this morning. Just another damned thing for her to deal with after the big move to this town.

From the corners of her eyes, she saw a shadow dart past. Her heart raced and she swiveled to spot her assailant. But nothing and nobody was there. Perhaps a mere trick her eyes were playing on her. Amy stood alone on this narrow road, amidst houses both old and new, some from the old colonial era and some just representing those artsy, newer architectural styles that she hated. Right now, she had no eyes for the environment itself, though. She was on the lookout for other people, specifically any creeping up on her.

Not a single soul here beside her.

Continuing on, a person took a left turn and joined her on the road, walking in the opposite direction and towards her. Some unknown man in his late twenties, dressed completely in black.

He just stared at her and a pit formed in Amy’s stomach. She tried to size him up but kept averting her eyes, both out of nervousness and just to see if eye contact could make him do the same. The real estate agent had sworn up and down that the area was all quiet and safe—"zero crime"—but Amy was new in town and the agent might have been full of shit.

The stranger’s course of walking was not in straight line towards her, after all. They moved along opposite sides of the small suburban road. He never stopped staring at her, however. He never turned his head. He creepily glared at her from the corners of his eyes until they had passed each other.

She could feel his gaze burning holes into the back of her head as she continued on. The pit in her stomach was still there, and she felt like all blood must have visibly drained from her face. Amy refused to turn around, refused to show any sign of fear—and listened intently to the sounds of his shuffling sneakers as they both walked on while the distance between them grew.

At the end of the road, Amy finally dared to look back. The creep was not staring back at her. Her gaze burned holes into the back of his head. Not looking where she was walking.

So she bumped into someone else.

Some man said, “Excuse you?” The voice tugged at some memory strings in Amy’s brain.

Under any other circumstances, Amy would have quipped with something snippy. But the day continued to be strange and unsettling all around, so she just looked up at the person she had crashed into. After a few seconds and incredulous blinking, she recognized a familiar face: her old high school friend and former band mate, Chris.

His furrowed brow made way to a face beaming with pleasant surprise. He asked, “Hey. Amy?”

Amy sighed and could not help but smile. With all the weirdness she had witnessed since getting up, followed by that weirdo gawking at her just before—seeing a friendly face turned out to be a true palate cleanser.

“Long time no see, fuck-face,” she said.

Chris chuckled.

“Uh, look. I’d actually like to catch up, but I need to be somewhere,” Amy said. She pulled her phone from her jacket, more demonstratively than anything, and added, “You still got the same number?”

Chris nodded and confirmed with a curt answer, then gestured to the sidewalk behind him.

“It’s cool, let’s walk together. I’m in no rush. I was just takin’ a walk to clear my head.”

Amy dug her hands into her jeans’ pockets and nodded. Chris plodded along by her side as she continued on with her way.

“I never thought you’d come back to this dumpy little town,” he said. “Especially not with the success you’ve been having in the big city. So—what brought you back?”

Amy shrugged. “Outside of the lame-ass answer you’d expect to hear about it never being quiet out there, I wouldn’t know where to start. Hey, so, uh—something else.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“You and the others still all in the same band?”

Chris’ face went blank and he stared at the sidewalk in front of them as they walked.

“Not all of us, no. Seth and Kevin left shortly before you skipped town. Don’t you remember?”

“Sorry. My memory’s kinda gone shoddy in recent years.” Amy took a deep breath, mentally crossing out the old haunt as a place she could find Seth to confront him about the disturbing video she had watched this morning. Then she asked, “So, is the band doing good?”

“I’d say so, yeah. Neil recently said he was gonna hook us up with some bigwig who could get us more serious gigs.”

“Without Kev, who’s doing the drums now?”

“Someone new—Beverly.”

“Hmm.”

“Wait, ‘hmm’, what? She’s really good!”

“No, I meant, ‘hmm’ in the sense that—well, I don’t know her. Like, neither as a person nor as a drummer.”

Neither Amy nor Chris looked at each other. The silence that persisted between them turned awkward.

“How’s Scott doing? He move back here with you?”

Amy stopped in her tracks.

“Scott?”

Chris followed suit and looked back at her.

“Well, yeah. Scott. Your boyfriend?” Burying his own hands in his pockets, he then asked, “Or your—your ex?”

“Y-yeah. He is—he has long moved to France. Neither of us thought the long distance would work. And here I thought I was the one who had memory issues. Do you?”

A short bellow escaped Chris’ throat. A bit too clipped, a bit too forced. Artificial.

They continued walking. Amy blurted out, “No, look, I’ve been seeing someone else. A real cutie, Steve. Steve Parker. You know him?”

“Nope.”

“Not surprised, he’s not from around here. Also staying in the city for now. Work.”

Chris grinned. There was almost something impish about it. Something devilish.

Where their road forked, he pointed up one way, leading uphill. Amy knew her path lied the other way. Chris nodded to her and said his goodbye. She called out after him, prompting him to turn around and proceed a few steps while walking backwards.

“Where are you actually headed to?”

“To this forest hut where we jam. You know—our band.”

Amy blanked out. And the memories of that morning returned to her in a flash, suffocating any positive feelings. The pit in her stomach returned, worse than when it had visited her before. She saw that single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

She saw her darker self, talking into the camera. Talking about needing to dispose of a dead body.

And the she remembered the dark, clawed hand, reaching out from the darkness inside that pentagram. The nails digging into her flesh, drawing blood.

“You okay?”

Chris’ question grounded Amy again, ripped her right back out of the strange imagery bombarding her mind and inner eye.

“All good,” she said.

She had lied.

They went separate ways. She quickly forgot about the encounter with Chris even though something about their conversation felt utterly wrong, as if she had heard either of them say something she did not like to hear. But Amy did not dwell on that.

Instead, she pondered the strange video she had seen that morning. She did not want to, but the images kept invading her consciousness. And she could not shake that horrible feeling. She still wondered if she should call the cops.

But she did not.

The idea of being implicated in a murder and not remembering any of it—if it had even happened at all—was both deeply disturbing and crippling her from seeking out help from authorities.

She finally arrived in front of a big apartment building. The formerly bright white of its facade had turned into muddied colors with the paint chipping off, weathered away over the years. Loud, aggressive heavy metal music blared out from one of the open windows on the first floor.

Amy approached the entrance and tried pushing through the building’s front door. But the door would not budge—it was locked up tight. She scanned the doorbells and rang one of them. Seth’s doorbell.

Nobody responded. The door did not open. She pressed the button to ring the bell again and leaned over and looked to the window out of which loud music continued to thunder. As there still had yet to be anybody to react to her ringing of the doorbell, she wandered back out of the roofed entrance area, looked around the bushed and picked up a rock.

She thought on it for a second, and then tossed the rock up through the open window. Someone must have gotten hit by it, because that faceless someone shouted, “Ow!”

A topless, tattooed man wearing only jeans, with greasy long dark hair tied back into a ponytail, looked out of the window to see who had thrown the rock and hit him. He glared. Then his gaze softened upon seeing and recognizing Amy.

Another old, familiar face from back in the day: Adam. Good ol’ party boy. Bit of an idiot, but soft core.

And decidedly not Seth.

She had come here to find Seth. This was where he lived after all. She had not expected to meet Adam here, but Amy was somewhat happy to find Adam here instead of Seth.

The more she thought about it now, the more unsettling Seth had always been.

“Come the fuck on in,” Adam shouted down to her with a wide, toothy smile.

Amy shook her head and shouted back, “I’d love to. But fucking how?”

“What?”

“Your music is too fucking loud, jackass!”

“Calm your tits, I’ll be right there.”

Adam disappeared from the window. The music stopped in the middle of a stanza, making way for an uncomfortable silence. Soon after, the front door to the apartment block swung open, and the young man stood there, dressed still only in jeans and wearing unlaced black boots that were more scuff marks than leather.

“Since when did anybody start locking that door?”

Adam cocked his head back, causing the skin underneath his chin to bunch up, giving him the look of a turtle for a brief moment of contemplation.

“Folks are paranoid these days, I guess. Bunch o’ crackheads even in this small town, nowadays. You either keep some guns or you lock your doors, I guess.”

He thumbed behind him.

“You wanna come inside or talk right here? Got beer, got smokes, and I’m willing to share with an old stranger like yourself.”

They went inside. The place was a vision of pure chaos. The apartment looked like what you would expect from a tornado hitting the inside of a tour bus. Piles of empty pizza boxes, crumpled up beer cans, and an overturned ashtray with its contents spilled all over the carpet in a dark gray stain, on top of soiled newspapers on top of a cluttered coffee table harboring all manner of drugs and paraphernalia.

Adam plopped down onto the couch with a sigh and Amy thought twice about sitting down anywhere. The whole place reeked of stale cigarette smoke, cheap booze, and dried cum.

“Damn,” Amy said, the word slipping out more than anything.

She always hated it when fellow musicians were walking cliches. She hated it when they smashed guitars on stage, screwed around nonstop with roadies, or steeped themselves in substance abuse.

With narrowed eyes, Adam used a naked hand to shovel through the mess on the coffee table. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the bottom of the junk and lit up a smoke with incredible speed and routine that only chain smokers possessed. Then tossed the pack back onto the table.

“Oh, you think this place looks bad?” Adam chuckled and choked a bit on the smoke as it came back up. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Shoulda been a quiet little evening, but somehow—somehow, way more people showed up, and it got out of hand.” He shrugged and took another long, greedy drag from his cancer stick.

Adam leaned back and started puffing out smoke rings.

“Can I bum one from you?”

“Dude. That’s a personal insult, coming from you. You think you need to ask me if you can have one of my smokes?” Scott guffawed. “Seriously. They’re not even mine. Pretty sure someone else forgot them here last night. So knock yourself out.”

He picked up the pack and held it open for her to take a smoke. When she reached out to grab one, he cringed when he saw that her hand was wrapped in bandages that had bled through so badly that a deep crimson spot had formed under the palm.

“You’ve got blood on your hands?”

Amy froze and stared at her own hand.

“Fuck off. Do you always need to frame things with such dramatic phrases?”

Through a faint smile and underneath a furrowed brow, Adam asked, “You got anything you wanna tell me?”

Amy took the cigarette and lit it up with a lighter from the table. Instantly regretting both the sticky texture upon what should have been a smooth plastic lighter, as well as the biting flavor of the cigarette, burning in her lungs like fire.

She flinched and shot him a glance that translated into a silent “Shut the fuck up.”

She asked, “What was that music just now?”

“It's—okay, Amy,” Adam paused and inhaled deeply from his cigarette, burning it down quickly and brightly. When he spoke again, his voice sounded tortured and the smoke billowed out of his mouth at the same time, “No small-talk, okay? What’s actually up?”

Amy let her own cigarette burn down between her fingers. She let her head hang before answering with a different question.

“Where’s Seth? This is his apartment, after all.”

“I don’t know. Woke up here all hungover after the party. I always thought he was more of a friend of yours than mine, y'know?”

Amy placed her cigarette onto the edge of an overflowing ashtray where it continued to smolder and gradually transform into a stick of hot ashes among the cemetery of fellow cancer sticks.

“Never really liked him, if I’m gonna be quite honest. Anything I can help you with, seeing he’s not home?”

Amy shook her head and asked, “Dunno. Does the number combination thirteen-one have any meaning to you?”

With a lopsided grin, Adam replied, “Well, since we’re speakin’ of Seth right here, I’d wager that’s the date when he sacrificed his neighbor’s cat.”

He burst out into laughter, holding his sides. He sputtered and his laughter ceased when he accidentally dropped his cigarette, causing a small explosion of tiny embers and provoking him to scramble and scoop it back up before putting the butt out in the ashtray.

“Big help,” Amy muttered. Though she knew he was right. Seth might as well have been a satanist.

“Sorry, but I really got no clue what I should do with that, but, uh, why—”

A smug grin overtook Adam’s face.

Amy whined, “You’re not taking me seriously, asshole.”

“No, not true. You know I take everything you say very seriously, but I sometimes just can’t help but fuck with you.”

Amy leaned back in the chair she had sat down on after assuring herself that it wasn’t as sticky as the rest of the dingy apartment’s furnishings. She stared out the window into the gloomy, overcast sky outside.

“I dunno. I dreamed something weird. Everything’s weird. Also, I saw Chris on the way over. Has any-fucking-body gotten out of this garbage town except for me?”

“If you’re back now, were you ever really gone, city-girl?”

“Fuck you.”

“Okay, so, you look a bit under the weather. I mean, I know what I did last night, and I’m still feeling kinda wasted—but what’s your excuse?”

Amy had no answer to that. Adam picked up a beer bottle from the table, sniffed it, and then took a swig of whatever lukewarm swill had been leftover in it.

“You know what I think? You should go see that new boy-toy of yours in the city—”

He shushed her with a hand gesture the moment she even opened her mouth to speak.

“Have a nice day, have a nice evening, get dinner, get stoned, stay out of town for the night.”

Amy leaned over, snatched the smoldering cigarette she had left on the ashtray, and stamped it out on the ashtray’s edge.

If Adam had taken part in any shenanigans involving a corpse, or a prank with the video she had anonymously received, then he deserved an Oscar for acting oblivious about it. More likely, he was badly hungover and had nothing to with any of this.

She gave him a feeble smile, said goodbye, gave him the middle finger after he made a rude joke, and left Seth’s apartment.

On the way out, she slung out her phone and tapped on Steve’s face from her contact list. The call rang, and rang, and rang. Steve did not pick up.

She paused outside the block. The loud heavy metal music started out of nowhere, continuing exactly where it had been paused and causing her to jump an inch of the ground in fright. Her heart pounded and she turned to yell some obscenities up at Adam.

Looking out the window was a figure clad all in black—not Adam. A deep unfathomable abyss yawned behind the darkness of the figure’s hood. Those living shadows stared back at her and Amy sensed a cold, seething rage. A malevolence so powerful that it felt like an invisible force wanted to rush at her and rip her heart out.

Frozen and unable to move, the honking of a car’s horn pulled her back into reality. Or at least, back into paying attention to her surroundings.

She stared into the angry face of a driver, waving at her to get out of the middle of the road. She had stood there for long enough to annoy some unknown man in a car. She got out of the way and when she looked back at Seth’s apartment, nobody stood in the window. Especially no shadow-person under a black hoodie’s hood.

The heavy metal music continued to blare.

The call to Steve went to voicemail. Amy hung up and did not leave a message.

She walked back home, furiously typing out a text message to Steve, asking him to get back to her as soon as possible. She feared that he was busy and would not soon find time to respond.

And she would be right.

Once Amy stood at her own front door, cramming her fists into her pockets to find her keys and unlock the entrance, she felt watched. She saw something move within the darkness of her home, though the reflections of overcast skies in her windows and her tired mind could have been playing tricks on her.

Fear gripped her heart. Someone was inside her house.

Finally, Amy called the cops. She would not tell them the whole story—only suggesting that someone might have broken into her home—and they would find nothing. The police officers left come evening. To her chagrin, they also declined her request to leave someone there to keep an eye out.

But evil was lurking inside her home. It had been there all along.

Amy had not noticed it.

Yet.

—Submitted by Wratts

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sailor-cresselia · 5 years

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The Great Ex-Aid Rewatch: Ex-Aid & Ghost, Part One

:grabs the popcorn:

This is gonna be hard, because I wanted to try and do this without in-movie spoilers. I mean, I’ve seen the entire show at this point, and if you’re reading my liveblogs, I’m basically assuming that so have you, so not touching on plot points is a little impossible, especially with my overbearing love for going into meta and theories.

Also, it’s going to be in multiple parts. This first post covers about twenty minutes of run-time over the course of several hours of real-time, and nine pages.

Whoops.

(links to the other parts will go here)

–––

Okay, so. In the first two minutes, we have Dr. Pac-man’s three assistants start shooting up the GenmCorp lobby, and I’m pretty sure that the muscle guy broke a guards neck. And then they go after Kuroto, with a very… glitchy Dr. Pac-Man alongside.

We’re talking ‘pre-bugvisor Graphite’ visual glitching, here. As though he doesn’t quite have enough… I dunno, cohesion to stay intact on his own.

Thing is, Kuroto seems genuinely… if not scared, then at least shocked to see him. The dude’s supposed to be very dead, after all.

And seriously, why do people keep jamming proto-gashats into their bodies?! No! Don’t do that! Stop it! I don’t care if you’re a bugster or not, it doesn’t actually help you at all, it’s just going to make you physically unstable!

–––

And here we have Tougo, victim of the day. I have to say, I’ve never liked him much. He’s… annoying. Also, I’m aware that the choice of color for his school uniform is most likely ‘because Pac-Man’, but that doesn’t change the fact that’s it’s ugly. The girls jacket is a nice dark tan, but the boys have this gaim-awful mustard.

And then the Pac-Viruses attack.

–––

Emu’s such a good guy, helping one of his young patients out in both work and as a sort of mentor-friend. Pity we’re still very early in Ex-Aid, and he’s still a horrible klutz. There’s no time to be tripping over your feet, Emu! We’ve got people to save!

–––

…oh no… It never quite clicked before, but I think Takeru had to repeat a year! He was clearly planning on going to university, if only because he and Akari are/were in the same year of school, and she’d never let him live it down if he didn’t. And here? His teacher, who’s practically mocking him for being six months behind, is asking whether he’s serious about his entry exams or not.

So. Since it’s December now, and it was early April when he came back, Takeru missed the entire last half of what was supposed to be his senior year of high school. So here, he’s probably about three months into what he missed before.

Akari, Onari, please don’t disrupt the class like this, they probably all think Takeru’s weird enough as is without him getting called out for superhero business.

–––

You know, Akari reminding Takeru to be careful, because he’s got a regular body now, implies that he hasn’t been careful. Maybe not as Ghost, but… you know, in regular exertion stuff. (And as Ghost, because there’s probably a number of times he’s had to help Alain with. Like. Less-than-satisfied court members or something over in the Ganma world.)

So, both teams are here at the outbreak site. Team Ghost, consisting of Takeru, Akari, and Onari, and team Ex-Aid, consisting of Emu and Asuna. Both of the lads put on their drivers, and simultaneously notice the other one there.

They didn’t meet outside of the suits in Ghost’s final episode, which was an epilogue to his story and a Bonus Sneak Preview Of The New Challenger, so it makes sense that the drivers – both of which are very distinct – would be how they recognize each other.

–––

Of course, that gets us into the slight issue of ‘when does Ghost ep 50 take place.’

See, it’s implied in-show that it’s not long after Takeru comes back to life, which puts it in early to mid-April. He has a line about ‘are we really going to celebrate my birthday twice from now on?’, to which the answer was a definitive yes, so it makes logical sense for it to not be on his original birthday in October.

Except for how Emu couldn’t show up for his Big Damn Heroes moment if it were in April, because he didn’t put on the Gamer Driver until October.

So, when Emu comes to try and get the Shakariki Sports gashat from Ayumu, it isn’t quite chronologically possible… unless you take into account who Ayumu is.

He’s Takeru’s son. From the future. Meaning he time-traveled to get there.

It’s not even unprecedented for the season – Takeru’s father opened the portals that brought Takeru and Shinnosuke back and forth from 2005 in the Ghost & Drive movie, after all. So, it stands to reason that the portal ability, which Ayumu also shows, is a familial power.

What I’m positing is that Emu traveled back in time, and probably didn’t even know it.

He goes to the game worlds and battle stages fairly often, and since suddenly being in a different location isn’t exactly new to him… it would only makes sense for him to not realize that he’s in a different month, too. Especially when one of the stages looks just like the forest behind Daitenkuu Temple, and he has all sorts of flashy light effects going on all the time. An eye-shaped portal could totally just be another one of the standard special effects.

Yup, nothing unusual here.

–––

Okay, that aside, nobody actually gets to transform just yet, because the whole group is swarmed by Pac-Viruses before either of them can activate their drivers, with the viruses quickly singling Takeru out and chewing into him.

He doesn’t get hit with the literal fever that everyone else they’ve done this to are suffering from. No, in Takeru’s case… the Ghost Driver disappears. He pulls out his eyecon to try again… and it clicks uselessly.

Onari suspects it might be because he ‘hasn’t transformed lately’, adding more credence to his and Emu’s encounter being more than two months ago.

Since nobody else here can… time for Ex-Aid to make an appearance.

In level one.

Cue Opening Credits.

–––

So, Emu can’t so much as dent the Pac-Viruses, and then two of Zaizen’s lackeys show up. The man, apparently named Kazushige Ryuzaki, uses the Drago Knight Hunter Z proto-gashat to turn into… (quick search of the wiki) the Doral Bugster. Since I don’t feel like typing out his name, and it’s never said in show anyway, I’m just gonna be calling him Doral from here on. Similarly with the woman, Ageha Takeda, who uses Giri Giri Chambara to become the Giril Bugster.

So, you know, of course the one with a sword is the one Takeru faces off against. Why not? Not like he’s probably got some incredibly justified trauma relating to them. Not like it’s not actually incredibly ironic that his first heroic Eyecon arms him with a sword. Why not re-open some old less-than-metaphorical wounds right off the bat?

Doral basically corners Emu into the parking garage that Takeru and the others tried to bring Tougo through. Oh, yeah, they were trying to get that guy out of the area when he collapsed. I didn’t mention it because he’s not a good character, and exists primarily to guilt-trip Emu. So, yeah. Doral and Giril knock both our heroes down, breaking Emu’s level two transformation in the process, and here comes Dr. Pac-Man, being all ominous and glitchy, saying that he’s doing this for ‘revenge on humanity’.

Suuuure, that’s how you wanna spin it. Humanity in general. It’s totally not against a few very specific humans, one of whom you’ve recently had held at machine-gun point, and the other who has no idea what’s going on.

–––

They use the scene of bringing Tougo into CR for a brief exposition dump – which is fair, both in-universe and out. Takeru’s team wouldn’t know what’s going on, and it helps just in case the parents in the audience haven’t been following what their kids have been watching. It just gives us that little bit of elaboration on the bugster virus, enough so that people aren’t completely lost.

Tougo’s – oh, wow, his ‘infection ratio’ is already at 63%. Usually when they get someone in here, they’re only in the 30% range. But, of course, there isn’t any data to define what’s going on, because this isn’t one of the normal bugsters. There’d be no reason for Pac-Man to be programmed into a Genm Corp system.

(Which actually raises the question of how they were able to see an icon for Burgermon in episode 17, since he wasn’t supposed to be a Bugster, either. Then again, he is from a game Genm Corp was developing. But I digress.)

Anyway, Emu’s justifiably confused as to why Takeru doesn’t seem to be having any of the usual symptoms of an infection. Oh, sweetie, if you only knew- :ahem: sorry, distracted.

Takeru says that no, he’s not feeling any sort of fever, he’s doing fine.

Onari reminds him that ‘he’ll only get hurt if he pushes himself’, and Akari feels his forehead to make sure he’s telling the truth.

Once again, we’re getting the implication that Takeru has developed a habit of going too far.

–––

upstairs, we’ve got a conference call with Secretary Hinata, the Official CR team, and the Ghost team. Onari bursts out laughing at Poppy’s last name – and freaks out when she hops out of the arcade cabinet.

Both of these are understandable reactions, but maybe don’t immediately declare this a supernatural phenomenon? You know, since a government official was the one to first address her.

I will always be frustrated at the reverb effect they gave Poppy’s voice in this movie. There was no reason for Toei to do that, it’s just excessive, and it’s not like they did it in any of the promo materials or shorts, to say nothing of the show itself. Actually…

–––

I wonder if some parts of this movie draw from early planning stages of Ex-Aid? Like, there’s no explaining the voice thing otherwise, and Emu was pretty close to freezing up for a long time in here… despite the setting for it being explicitly between episodes 10 and 11, at which point they’ve already faced an approaching pandemic, with what Graphite pulled in episodes 9 and 10. So, either the team just didn’t think of that, or there were aspects that got… left over.

I mean, it’s not nearly as inexplicably different as the entirety of the OOO section of OOO & W, but it’s not exactly fitting with where Emu would be even just in the first few episodes.

And yes, I’m aware that OOO & W was made when they had one whole episode of OOO to go off of, but that’s why I think there might be artifact plot elements in here.

–––

Okay, back to the film itself. Again. Emu – Genius Gamer M – uses his genre savvy to realize why he couldn’t damage the Pac-Viruses. If, like some of the other bugsters, they’re operating on the logic of their game, then the only weakness they would have would be ghosts. AKA, instead of infecting Takeru, they burned out his ability to transform into Ghost, thus removing their biggest threat.

I mean, only some bugsters use their games that heavily. Motors, for one, the bugster from Bakusou Bike, is ‘prone’ to racing, and technically speaking, Emu and Kiriya cleared the game before destroying him, by beating him in a race. And the Doremifa Beat Collabos bugster was using music just like it would have been in the game itself – if you miss the notes, you get punished. In game, that’d just be a bad score. In the real world… painful explosions. Poppy, the actual bugster from Doremifa Beat, can’t sing without a backing track. And then there’s Burgermon, who was cleared in the same method as beating a level in his game – making a burger for him.

So, yeah, the Pac-Viruses might be in that class of bugster.

Anyway, enter Dan Kuroto and Hanaya Taiga.

Taiga’s all “No, I’m totally not here to help you guys, I’m just not letting these freaks run loose.”

Kuroto tells the ensemble that they stole the ‘heavily guarded’ proto gashats.

If by ‘heavily guarded’ you mean you were clearly reading their data out in the open, in your office. Again. And by ‘stole’ you mean “They had two machine guns pointed at me, and a sword, and I’m not immortal just yet! What was I supposed to do?! Just not hand them over?!”

…Yeah, he may be an evil bastard, but he didn’t exactly have a choice even if he wasn’t trying to keep up his ‘benevolent CEO’ facade.

Taiga’s comment of ‘those gashats are very dangerous’ is not only an understatement, but also… it’s foreshadowing. We know that Kuroto’s been using Proto Mighty Action X, and that it’s slowly wearing him down – Parad told us as much in episode 8 or 9. We know that Drago Knight was actually hurting Graphite, and he’s from there.

And, although we haven’t seen it yet, Taiga also has experience using them. Proto Bang Bang Shooting is what he originally used as Snipe, back in 2011. But we don’t know that even outside of the show just yet.

This movie came out in theaters in December 2016. We found out that the proto-gashats were involved during the Snipe Episode ZERO specials… the first of which wasn’t released until April 2017.

So… here, have some foreshadowing, I guess!

Emu asks if Kuroto has any idea who the culprits could be… and Kuroto pauses before saying he doesn’t. There’s a… not a scare chord, but a ‘you should be really, really suspicious right now’ sound effect when he says that.

I can’t tell if Emu looks disappointed or suspicious.

…Disappointed. He didn’t believe Kuroto could be evil until he revealed himself, so… yeah.

–––

At the totally not sketchy base, Dr. Pac-Man and his lackies are planning something. They’re waiting for Tougo’s symptoms to break out – he was the one they were targeting, after all. I think the Pac-Viruses went after Takeru on their own. They’re also working on something called the ‘genome graph’.

Complete with a diagram of a human gene… that starts off normal, and then becomes blocky… pixellated, almost.

So that’s not sketchy at all.

–––

…oh what the heck. The next scene is the next day. How can I tell? Everyone is in different outfits. It’s not just how Takeru is noticeably no longer in his school uniform, and back to his normal wardrobe. Akari and Onari are in different outfits, too, and Emu was wearing his yellow binary shirt, but now he’s on one of his dark blue ones.

How long does this movie take place over?

(No wonder Haruto was able to show up out of the blue! It’s been at least a day, so he’s had time to find out about this!)

Anyway, Tougo (finally) wakes up, and Emu and Takeru both start questioning him as to why the people in white were after him. Well, Emu’s telling him to go lay back down, because he can barely stand for more than a few seconds without wobbling, and Takeru’s asking questions.

Tougo cares not for your platitudes and worrying about his health, he’s got school and game development to do! Both Emu and Takeru take incredibly personal offense to this attitude.

Casual reminder, both of them were 18, the same age as Tougo, when things went wrong. Well, went wrong a second time in Emu’s case, when he went and decided that he needed to focus on his studies after… well, as we find out later, doing almost exactly what Tougo’s doing. Neglecting his own well being in order to do what he loves – games.

…ohhh no Emu is same hatting really hard with this guy.

(Listen, Tougo, as long as you don’t start identifying with the primary game designer in this show, we’re set. Just accept the fanmail gracefully, and everything will go much smoother.)

But, as Hiiro points out, they technically can’t force treatment on him. But also… well. There are some pretty nasty folks after Tougo.

–––

On the roof, Takeru and Emu have a little chat. They’re both basically going ‘how on earth are you handling the Rider thing?’ to each other’s situations.

Pulling out the Ex-Aid Eyecon, Takeru says that he couldn’t have imagined that the rider that gave it to him is a doctor. He was just so incredibly neon. But the fact that ‘Doctor Emu’ is saving lives as both a doctor and as a Kamen Rider… that really impresses him.

(Please note that Takeru consistently uses “Emu-sensei” to refer to Emu both here, and in HeiGen Final. No, there’s no hero worship going on here, what are you talking about? That’s silly!)

Similarly, Emu’s incredibly impressed by Takeru’s resolve to have kept fighting after dying, and speaking as a doctor, can’t even begin to imagine what that takes.

And then here comes Kuroto, asking to see Takeru’s Ghost Eyecon to analyze it, so they can make something that will effect the Pac-Viruses.

Since Takeru agrees, it means that he’s not tied to it the way he was in the series. It’s probably a different Eyecon completely – seeing as in-show, the Ore eyecon was literally him. Technically, the Takeru we saw was almost a projection – his tangibility depended heavily on his emotional state.

(There’s a reason I occasionally joke about Ghost’s Eyecons being ‘Soul Gem Two: Spooky Boogaloo.’)

(Also, Yurusen shares a VA with Madoka, and that just drove the joke home. Turns out Meduka Meguca is the cat, after all!)

–––

Hatesate Puzzle is an Android game – you can tell, because the list of files includes four different .apk files. Also, it’s up to version 7.21.

But the programming screen? Uses the same stupid block of text that all of the programming screens use in this show. Like, it’s even more egregious this time, because it’s shown very clearly, in decent lighting, unlike in Kuroto’s assorted lairs. Also, it talks about game physics such as collision detection for the ground.

This is a match three game.

Anyway, turns out Hiiro’s idea was to allow Tougo to leave the hospital, as long as he was still being observed. There’s a hundred thousand people infected right now, and the people who did it want him. So… Tougo is bait.

Needs of the many, blah blah blah you could have at least run this by someone, Hiiro. I get not telling Emu. But Asuna should have been informed, at least.

Almost immediately after Hiiro takes his leave, letting Emu take over, we hear static as Tougo staggers backward in his seat and passes out.

–––

We come to a busy office – a busy police barracks. Team Ghost waits anxiously on a visitors couch.

“I’m glad to see you’re back.”

Enter Officer Tomari Shinnosuke: Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (active duty); Kamen Rider Drive (inactive).

Takeru and co had called in a favor, and Shinnosuke was only all to willing to help cover this case. Not only is it rider business now, but they’re threatening the city. Not to mention the police squad they destroyed yesterday – handily confirming that a day has, in fact, gone by – means Shinnosuke really wants in.

Turns out the three they’ve seen the faces of were all researchers into genetic therapy with the Next Genome Institute. Doctor Pac-Man is ‘most likely’ their boss, Zaizen Michihiko. Unfortunately…

They’re all supposed to be very, very dead. They died six years ago, as a matter of fact.

Most of the institute’s data was destroyed when the facility was sealed, but there’s a bit of closed circuit footage remaining of the event. Only a few seconds, but it’s enough to show them standing over an operating table, as orange lights encase and dissolve them, squares of light patterning the floor and walls.

Squares of light eerily similar to what they just say the other day, when people were activating Gashats.

Bugster work isn’t the only sketchy thing they’ve done – there were rumors of the institute working with cloning, creating mutants… basically, as Akari says, mad scientists.

(Anyone want to place odds on them being funded by Foundation X? No? Just me? Okay then.)

–––

Emu and Asuna are with Tougo as he wakes on a bench. THey’d moved him somewhere out of the sun, and he’s… An asshole about it. He never asked for their help, and he’ll die when it’s time, anyway, so why are they bothering?

Doctor Pac-Man, still very glitchy, strolls up. “He’s right. None of you are needed here. Why not just hand him over?”

Running time!

–––

Back at the precinct, Shinnosuke promises that he’ll let team Ghost know as soon as they find where the Next Genome researchers are hiding.

Y’know, except for that part where he’s too late, and they’re already going after Tougo, and by extension, Emu.

Shinnsouke’s fired up and ready to go after them.

Y’know, except for the part where Krim locked all of the Drive tech in his depression garage the Drive Pit at the end of the season, and Shinnosuke can’t transform, which Takeru points out, saying that it’s too dangerous for Officer Tomari to go.

Of course, Onari, logically, tries to point out that Takeru’s in the same boat right now, to which Takeru hurriedly shushes him.

Takeru and his team run off to deal with the situation.

Sad music plays as Shinnosuke laments his lack of belt.

–––

And here’s where I decided I had to cut the liveblog for now! Because again, twenty-some minutes, and nine pages of text. This is going to take a while.

See you next game

#kamen rider ex aid #kamen rider ghost #sailorcressy says

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draw-you-coward · 5 years

Text

[shadowbringers spoilers]

ao3

~*~

“Hya!” Ryne screams.

Ikael presses his fingers to his cheeks. How adorable!

He coos at her. Thancred, sitting on a crate nearby sharpening his gunblade, glances over.

“Do not put your strength in your leg; put it in your hip,” he corrects, hefting the weapon up to check its edge. “Make the kick one unified movement, or you will off-balance yourself.”

Ryne steps back and tries again, twisting her waist further this time. Ikael catches her leg, tugs, and flips her.

“Too much,” he says as she pants up at the sky. “If you torque yourself like that, you will confuse your momentum.”

“Well I can’t hope to win against you, Ikael,” Ryne complains as she accepts his hand up. “You can counter anything I do! And you always look so spinny when you fight, so I thought…”

“Ah, so you are trying to imitate him rather than learn from him, is that it?” Satisfied, Thancred lays the gunblade on its side. He tugs off his gloves and stands up, shrugging his coat from his shoulders.

“Um, what are you doing?” Ryne cradles her hands to her chest, looking from Thancred to Ikael as they exchange a glance and a grin, respectively. She nibbles at her lip when Thancred steps forwards to take Ikael’s place, rolling his shoulders.

“I am less prone to flipping myself upside-down and sideways every two seconds,” Thancred says. He slides his foot across the dirt, shifting into a fighting stance. “Acrobatics, however, are only ever necessary after you have the basics down. Unarmed combat is no knife dance, Ryne. Your opponent will always be bigger than you, and stronger than you. So what do you have, if you do not have your knives?”

“My speed,” says Ryne, and throws a swift kick at his chest.

He catches it just as Ikael had, and throws her to the ground. “Not always,” he tells her. “I am fast too.”

“Well, I—I don’t know!” Ryne rubs at her elbow, wincing. Poor thing didn’t ask to get beaten up by two full-grown adults, Ikael thinks sympathetically. Ah well. Too bad.

“Kick him in the balls, Ryne!” he hollers helpfully, cupping his hands around his mouth. Since he is sitting right next to them, it isn’t strictly necessary, but Ikael wants to be supportive.

Thancred's eyes look to the sky as he half-rolls them. “There is no need to be crass,” he mutters. “But essentially, yes. Ryne, get up. That is the most important skill to learn.”

What? Kicking Thancred in the—? “Getting up,” Thancred says loudly, interrupting Ikael’s thought as if he knows it had sprung on him. Oh.

“Gods,” Thancred adds in an undertone.

Ryne gets up, and although she returns Thancred's brief smile, she seems uncertain. “I don’t want to… hurt you, though.”

“You will not,” Thancred replies (unfortunate, Ikael thinks, because that would have been funny). “I have armour on, remember? But will the seven-fulm tall drahn who may trail behind you at night? Will most people with ill intentions who have no qualms about playing dirty? Your strength is your scrappiness, Ryne; that and your size. Your squirming. Your nails, driven into eyeballs. Your voice, so you can call for help. Your legs, so you can run from a fight if it is too much.”

Ikael notices the shift in his tone, and wonders if he is reminiscing. Ikael did not grow up as an orphan running through Limsa’s back alleys, scavenging to survive, but he doubts the memories could leave Thancred even if he tried. It is good that they never did, Ikael thinks privately. Or else Thancred would not be… Thancred. Just as Ikael wouldn’t be Ikael without… um… whatever it is that makes him unique.

“But what about my pugilism training?” Ryne insists. Ikael winces internally at the whine in her voice. “I don’t want to fight dirty, I want to be able to fight like Ikael!”

“Ikael will not be here to train you forever, Ryne,” Thancred tells her. “Remember that we will have to go back to the Source, and business will likely keep him there for a while. You and he do not have three years. You have to prioritize learning certain things above others.”

Ryne looks to Ikael for help, but he only nods, agreeing with Thancred. “He is right, kitten,” he says gently. His heart tugs at the face she makes, but he continues, “I can teach you some things, but Thancred knows far more than I do about how to survive the world as a child. You should listen to him.”

“He already taught me what he knows!” Ryne cries. Ikael does not hide his wince, this time, when her voice pitches. Ai, children.

“I taught you how to fight with me by your side, to better be prepared for Sin Eaters and the Eulmoran army.” Thancred crosses his arms, tone flattening. Apparently he is beginning to lose his patience. “I know this is not flashy, and it is not a skill you can show off or be proud of, but it is a necessary one to have, and your stubbornness will avail you naught. You have to learn how to defend yourself, Ryne, in the possibility that you are left without weapons and are forced to. Is it likely to happen? No. Do I want to take that risk? No.”

He turns on his heel, striding back towards his equipment. “We will take a break now. Go drink some water and rest. When we resume, I expect no further protests about the superficial appeal of your training.”

His words are final, and Ryne does not resist them. She does, however, noticeably skulk away.

After stretching his limbs and gulping down the contents of his own waterskin, Ikael ambles over to Thancred. He is sitting on the crate again, this time sharpening a paring knife.

“She’s talking back to you now, huh?” Ikael cannot help his somewhat amused tone of voice. Thancred snorts, tossing his hair away as it falls into his eyes.

“She seems to have gained her confidence, yes,” he replies. He lays his whetstone aside. “A pity that it is now misdirected at me trying to teach her valuable life skills.”

He shoots Ikael a pointed look before flipping his knife and slipping it back into his belt. Ikael scoffs when he catches on to his implication.

“What! You aren’t blaming me for that, are you?” Ikael watches as Thancred makes a considering face at nothing in particular. “Oh! I cannot believe you. Tell a girl to stand up for herself against her mean, nasty Thancred and suddenly everything is your fault!”

Thancred sucks in air through his teeth. “Well… perhaps not everything. Just everything that does not have to do with calling me mean, or nasty, to someone with a child’s worldview—that is to say—Ah-ah.” He holds up a finger as Ikael opens his mouth to interrupt. “That is to say, ‘every time I do not agree with Thancred from now on it is because he is the one who is being unfair.’”

Ikael frowns, absently scooting closer to him until their thighs touch. “I never meant to imply that,” he mutters at the ground. That cannot be what Ryne has picked up from him, can it? No…

When he looks up again, Thancred is sporting a very faint smile. “No, she is smarter than to fully believe it,” he reassures Ikael’s unspoken worry. “But that does not mean the thought can never form, does it? I shall give her the rest of this break to think it through, and when she has, I am certain she will make the correct judgement.”

They lapse into pleasant silence. Thancred checks over his knives and gizmos, making sure everything is in order. Ikael leans against him, drawing in some comfort from the familiarity of the small movements of his shoulders, the muscles in his back. It is good to feel Thancred this close to him, both physically and socially. They have actually compared Thancred’s current stint with his knifeg—gunblade to what Ikael has learned of his own forays into heavy armour and two-handed swords. The base fighting styles are not too dissimilar, although of course the more specific techniques are different. The same could be said of their more offensive weapon styles and builds, honestly; something Ikael thinks is a little amusing. He finds himself wondering, not for the first time, what would have happened had he taken up a pair of knives instead of pugilist hora.

Thancred shifts against him, and Ikael feels dry, chapped lips press to his temple for a very brief second (Oh! Ikael has a balm for that—he will give it to him later). Thancred shoots him the smallest of smiles, and then, barely turning his head, points his eyes at Ryne. Ikael looks. She is shuffling her feet guiltily, standing a little ways off but very much facing them.

“I… am ready to resume my training now,” she says once she notices their eyes on her. She threads her fingers together. “I understand where you are coming from now, Thancred. I’m sorry for arguing.”

Thancred stands. “I am glad you voiced your doubts,” he replies. “Although I am doubly so that you see my logic. Very well; let us try that kick Ikael was trying to teach you.”

Ryne looks surprised. “But… I thought you wanted me to learn to fight dirty?”

Thancred tilts his head. “Do you know why he wanted you to learn the kick?” He waits until Ryne shakes her head. “It was to teach you how much distance you could afford, and how much force you needed, to break ribs. One of the more practical ‘spinny’ moves, since we both recognized you would badger us until you learned one of those. Because showiness aside, broken ribs means possibly a punctured lung, and that is not something one recovers from easily.”

Ryne’s eyes widen. She glances at Ikael, who nods and smiles at her.

“We don’t have time for you to perfect form changes, so I wanted to focus on teaching you individually efficient attacks,” he says. “Next was going to be kneecaps, and then noses. At the very least, broken bones buy you time to run away, kitten. See, I was always on Thancred's side! Haha!”

He taps the bridge of his nose and winks. Thancred rolls his eyes briefly. “Yes, Ikael is very devious. Now obviously, he wasn’t going to let you land the hit on himself.” The corner of his mouth quirks up. “But as I said earlier, I am wearing heavy armour. Let us see just how much strength you have, Ryne. I daresay you will surprise yourself.”

Ryne’s expression shifts from one of surprise to determination. She nods, moving into a fighting stance. “I’m not going to hold back!” she says.

Ikael has to cover his mouth, because that is very adorable. Thancred thinks so too, he thinks, but if he smiles, he quickly smothers it.

“Good,” he says. “Don’t.”

Ryne charges at him.

~*~

#thancred #ryne #ikael #writing #drabble #shadowbringers spoilers #fair warning i have no idea what im talking about here #i only took one self-defense class in gym in grade nine

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bellatrix-whoisleft · 7 years

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dust and devils || july 1977

Back rooms in exclusive clubs where it would not be suspicious to find any of them. That was where the majority of Bellatrix’s assignments had been received. Not yet important or trusted enough to be brought into the fold, she was relegated to these venues. The numerous side rooms and back entrances might make it ideal for ensuring no one was seen coming or going together that might raise questions, but she longed for more than these quick briefings. New recruits and those who would likely never rise beyond the outskirts; that’s who was brought here for information. She hated being associated with the latter group in any capacity.

Tired of the system as she might be, Bellatrix always came without complaint. She would take anything she could get her hands on and use it to excel. Partnered off and reminded her time would come as she went out for another bout of training with someone who had truly nothing to teach her beyond whatever details she could negotiate out of them that she wasn’t supposed to know. Some were more stubborn than others, but she knew it would prove valuable. She would do whatever it took to get there.

It was in her standard dark cloak that she entered one such place now. In theory, it didn’t raise suspicion. For the men involved, it was the perfect system. She wished to slip in as unnoticed as possible, waving off the offer to take the layer from her and entering the outer room of high backed lounge chairs and the smell of cigar smoke. From one of them came a comment about how she should get comfortable, stay a while. One of the Pureblood elite social clubs that didn’t see many women. A space for husbands to escape to where they could smoke their pipes and sip scotch and allegedly make some of the greatest business and political deals of their time.

That didn’t keep her from stopping for a moment, turning back to fix him with a cold, withering look. He immediately shrunk under it—she knew her presence She knew how to project it even when faced with strangers. If she had more time, perhaps more would have come, but as it was, she wasn’t quite as early as she preferred to be for these and had to be on her way. He was hardly worth her time, forgotten about the second she set back upon her path.

The stairs were tucked in the back, almost invisible in the low light casting shadows on dark wood. If she hadn’t been looking, she could have missed them. There was every chance there was magic involved to ensure that. Interesting.

Her hand hovered over her wand as she made her way up; she knew better than to have it drawn. More than likely, it was her field senses—paranoia?—catching up with her. Nothing to worry about. No need to be on edge.

She was met by another sign too quickly, a man clearly standing guard at the top of the flight. It happened for particularly sensitive missions or when enough of them were summoned that an outsider might try to follow. Coupled with the disillusionment charm, it pushed her to think precautions but still far more than usual, particularly inside the building. These places were chosen with their compulsory discretion in mind.

When she met eyes with the guard, he nodded, clearly recognizing her and indicating one of the doors down the hall. A few steps in, movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She looked back just in time to see the stairs disappear behind a brick wall. She suspected the bottom now looked similar, completely invisible to the naked eye and designed to hide something. It seemed to be her luxury to find out what.

She had about ten steps to make her assessment. This all seemed so curated; she couldn’t afford to delay. There had been times she’d been beat to such meetings, but she was never last. For that matter, she was considerably early now, yet it seemed like no one else was expected.

Was it set up for her? She was out of time. That answer would have to come on the other side of the door.

Bellatrix slowly turned the handle with her left hand, right wrapped firmly around her wand. Not drawn, not yet, but it could be in a second if she needed it.

The hair on her arms prickled at the tangible shift in atmosphere as she entered. She knew it well, the peculiar bite of dark magic. It didn’t spook her; she could feel the raw power of it as cleanly as if she performed it herself. It had to be exceptionally powerful to get past the muddled twinge she often felt with the residual trace left by others. This was sharp. She wished to close her eyes and bask in the uninhibited strength, to see how she could harness or contribute to it, but she was not alone.

A cloaked figure stood behind the desk, head down and fingers pressed against a stack of papers. Without invitation, she didn’t dare move further into the room, and to her credit, she didn’t as much as flinch at the sound of the lock setting. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if they were being locked in, but that had to be illogical.

When he looked up, she met his eyes for all of a second before dropping her gaze. She should have known. She didn’t know how she could have given that she’d only been in his presence twice since that initial meeting and never alone, but it still felt like a shortcoming. Especially when everything she had ruled abnormal made sense in hindsight.

She should have known.

“My Lord,” Bellatrix said. Her hands fell by her side now, no longer ready for what had felt like an imminent fight. Combativeness surely wasn’t going to help her with whatever this was. “How can I be of service to you?”

“I have an assignment well suited to your abilities. Should you be up to it.” Bellatrix looked up again, recognizing the challenge in the words and neither taking offense nor backing down.

“Of course,” she answered. It came out more firmly than she felt in this moment, caught off guard by this sudden change. She had to find that balance of confident with enough submission to signify respect without weakness. She could. She knew she could, but she much preferred to know when she was walking into it.

“There is a hitwizard who has given some trouble, besting three on the fringes of our rank,” the Dark Lord said.

“How do you know it is the same person each time?” she asked, realizing she wouldn’t get anymore without it. There was no way of being certain she was asking the right questions, but feeling out the scope of their information gave her room to work off more than it instilled doubt in the intel. She hoped.

“He leaves a calling card,” he explained. Apparently, she was in the clear. “The fourth fingernail on the right hand has always been half removed. In isolated incidents, it could be written off as a brutal struggle.” She could have guessed at that, but she held her tongue. There was a time and place to push on such things, and this was not it. “He and his family live in York, traced back from a sliver of information found in a file duplicated from the office of a Spanish ambassador. Your orders were to just take them.”

“They were,” she confirmed as secure in her decision as she had been in the moment, “and the ones I presented were the originals. However, I watched that house for three nights, waiting and understanding. The goal was creating a small fission in relations as well as gaining the information, but too big of a blow would close doors to us later. Without the documents, there was every chance he wouldn’t have taken the meeting at all. I left an exactly duplicated copy that should have vanished from Ministry files after he left, leaving to either ask if he had taken them with him and risk exposing their blunder or having to go without. It did not seem like coincidence my senior partner was replaced on the last night with someone I could more easily convince to take that route. I saw a chance I had to take.”

“Clever.”

She allowed a ghost of a smile to pass over her features at the even stilted compliment. Her pride would take anything, particularly when the first explanation had not gone over nearly as well. She suspected he knew the effect it would have on her. For better or worse, she could feel out later.

“The hitwizard,” she redirected, unwilling to bask in it even a moment too long. “You want me to take care of him.”

“I want,” he said sharply, making immediately clear in her mistake in phrasing, “to find out what he knows.” Bellatrix bit the inside of her cheek, effectively steadying her nerves and holding her tongue. “If it is coincidence that these three had ties to us and it was a random selection or if he was contracted by someone who may know. We need the names of those who paid him, no matter what it takes.” He picked up the papers and walked around the desk before holding them out to her.

Bellatrix took them hesitantly, the close contact chilling her further. There was no time to linger. That was absurd. She stepped back and looked to them, quickly scanning the first page and starting to formulate her plan. His two children and wife. A mistake for anyone in such a risky line of work to have any documented ties like this. They could so easily be used against him. It was exactly what she intended on doing.

“Of course, anyone who you come into contact with will have to be disposed of.”

“Of course,” Bellatrix said. She didn’t need to pretend the implications of that statement didn’t bother her as much as they should. She was there naturally.

“You will pull together your team. Three along with yourself; those you can think of should be complacent. I expect it completed in no more than four days at which point, you will return here for further instructions. Any specifics you need should be included there. Questions?” There was a certain malice to the way he asked it that she knew what her answer would be regardless of the truth.

“No, my Lord.”

“In that case, you may go.”

She nodded once and steeled herself before saying, “Thank you.”

He gave her a dismissive wave and turned towards the desk. It was only then she realized not only had she not been asked to sit, but there were no chairs in the room. Her one lie: she had endless questions. None of which she would have the chance to ask, and she turned to the door, interrupted right as she touched the handle. It was still locked, against her.

“Bellatrix,” he said. She felt the tumblers disengage under her hand but turned back slowly to find him seemingly examining her. “I am watching.”

#guys; guys it's time #i am way too excited this don't mind me #spara #dust and devils #cd

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justanothercinemaniac · 7 years

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Epic Movie (Re)Watch #164 - Twitches

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes, but I was young.

Do I remember it: Mostly.

Did I see it in theaters: It was a TV movie, so no.

Format: DVD

1) Don’t judge me.

2) Seriously, don’t judge me. Most of us have those movies that we bought as a kid and don’t really watch anymore. That doesn’t mean they’re bad or that we should feel ashamed for owning them, it just means we shouldn’t be judged.

3) Now that no one’s judging me, let’s see which fantasy movie clichés we can cross off in the first few minutes.

Dark vs light? Check.

A prophecy? Check.

Chosen ones? Check.

Questions about their birth? Check.

Magical mentors? Check.

4) I like the idea of the twins being of the sun and the moon and it ties into a surprisingly well done juxtaposition we achieve between the two.

Cam’s Mom: “As long as the sun’s up, she’s up.”

Alex: “If the moon’s up, then I’m up.”

It’s easy to have a twin-relationship feel cliché but the film works with it well. The whole ida of Cam is day and Alex is night. Cam still has her family, Alex is reeling from the loss of hers. The fact that Cam is a skilled artist while Alex is an author. The both have a sense of the future, but Cam feels the positive and Alex feels the negative. And this is just what we get from them BEFORe they meet. Once they do we have Cam’s initial excitement played against Alex’s sheer panic and an immediate bond between the pair which is surprisingly interesting. They compliment each other and complete each other, balance each other out. It’s a surprisingly nice relationship to see play out on screen.

5) Karsh can at times feel wooden to me but I like the pair of him and Illena, the mentors who watch over Cam & Alex. They’re best when they’re together, able to compliment each the other’s personality well and bring out fun sides to them.

(Screenshot taken of a GIF set originally posted by @xkaitiannex)

6) So to get a job Alex walks into a store, bugs the manager (I’m assuming it’s the manager) and starts right away without an interview or training or even submitting a resumé.

(GIF originally posted by @beigency)

7) Okay, I first saw this when I was nine. I immediately called the uncle who married his dead brother’s widow as the bad guy because 1) Lion King and 2) creepy. Also now that I have more knowledge about certain things, I recognize that the name Thantos (that of the evil creepy uncle) is remarkably similar to Thanatos which is the greek personification of death.

Wait a second...this guy was on an episode of “Friends” I found on TV last night. Literally just last night. He played a male nurse. And there is no way I would have noticed that if that episode hadn’t literally been on 13 hours before now. Huh.

8) There is this nice internal conflict with Alex. She has this feeling of guilt over finding a new family and her biological mom when her mother passed away just three months ago (which is remarkably soon, I mean damn). But in all honestly she’s the only one who feels that way. She even blurts out at one point, “I’m not trying to replace my mom!” to Cam when that literally wasn’t part of the conversation they were having at all. It’s a nice bit of a drama to see play out.

9) I was pleasantly surprised by how witty some of these lines were.

Alex: “I’m driving in a Porsche with my twin sister. Magic truly seems to be the logical explanation.”

10) The sisters go from “oh my god, we have magic!” to accepting that and trying to control it REALLY quickly. I guess we have to keep things moving fast in an 86 minute movie.

11) I find the visuals behind Cam’s art to be really strong.

I know they probably didn’t have this in the budget, but I can’t help imagining the scene where Alex gives Coventry’s backstory would hve ben pretty great if they had incorporated this art style into it. Like the Deathly Hallows scenes in the seventh Harry Potter film.

12) So like the next three notes or so are about lines which I think are strong.

Cam [after opening her closet door and entering into Coventry]: “This is not my closet.”

Alex: “In a weird way I’m kinda relieved to hear that.”

13) I love this line, if only for the world implication buildings it has. But mostly because of how it takes a classic sci-fi/fantasy trope and sort of makes fun of it.

Illena: “Oh, the world has infinite dimensions. Well nine. Maybe nine-and-a-half.”

14) I’m Karsh in this situation.

Illena: “I wonder if we should’ve mentioned they’re marked for death.”

[Karsh looks at Illena like he’s on “The Office”.]

Karsh: “Why would we tell them that?”

15) Hey, did I mention Thantos is kinda creep yet? Well, if I haven’t...

Thantos [to his dead brother’s widow, who he’s married to]: “Even though I’ve never laid eyes on your daughters, I already love them as if they were my own.”

(GIF originally posted by @centralperksource)

16) Hey look, another line which is in here purely because I think it’s clever!

Illena [to Karsh, after walking through walls]: “I went through some 70s wallpaper that’s gonna emotionally scar me for life.”

Gonna be honest, that line had me laughing for a good couple of minutes.

17) So apparently Cam lives in a place called Waverly. She is a witch/wizard who lives in a Waverly place...

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

18) This is a Disney Channel Original Movie. You gotta have some cheesy dorky moments that feed right into whatever “SNL” makes fun of about this channel.

Cam [after both she and Alex call themselves Twitches]: “Twin!”

Alex: “Witches!”

Both: “Twitches!”

Roll credits!

19) So far most of the character conflict has been focused on Alex and the guilt she feels over finding a new family. Now we get to see Cam freaking out when things get a little too real for her.

Cam [after The Darkness tries to kill them]: “This was supposed to be fun! You know! Magic and sparkles and castles and unicorns!”

She runs off the first time trouble comes her way, ditching Alex to do so, because she’s never dealt with conflict in her life. She’s never dealt with anything bad in her world before. And she knows this is kinda crappy for her to do and she deals with that, but it’s important for her to face that fear and cower a little first before picking herself up by the bootstraps and moving forward.

20) So for a brief part of the film the Aly & AJ song “Rush” plays. That was my freaking jam as a kid. I like the darkness it has to it and the mystery and the sense of foreboding. I got major nostalgia when I heard it. Next to “Like Whoa” it was my favorite song of the sister-group.

And yes, I am now listening to “Rush” because of this recap.

21) I didn’t mention it before but I like the relationships both Alex and Cam have with their loved ones. The relationship with Cam’s parents specifically are a nice healthy alternative to the “rich girl is forced to meet standards by her parents” (this Kate Winslet in Titanic), instead giving us a relationship of love and humor and warmth.

Cam’s Dad [after Alex gives him a big bear hug and says how much she loves him]: “I don’t know if I’ve just been played or if that was one of those moments which makes parenting all worth while.”

Cam’s Mom: “Oh honey. [She kisses him on the cheek. Beat.] You’ve just been played.”

22) Similarly, the relationship Alex has with her best friend Lucinda has been really strong throughout the film. But Lucinda is very clearly feeling under appreciated by her friend, as this exchange was earlier in the film.

Lucinda: “You’re like family.”

Alex: “Like being the operative word.”

And then after Cam ditches Alex, Lucinda gets this wonderful bit of appreciation.

Alex: “The only person I can ever count on in my life is me.”

Lucinda: “Wow. You know that’s kind of a sucker punch for someone who just made you a birthday cake.”

When I was a kid I was disappointed that Lucinda didn’t show up in Twitches Too (no, I don’t own Twitches Too; so I’m only doing a recap for this one).

23) This message was surprisingly powerful for me. Maybe it’s because of the way the world is or because I wasn’t expecting it, but I think I’m going to hold it close from now on.

Cam’s Mom: “If there’s anything I know it’s that love is infinite. You can always make more when you need it.”

24) I might care more that Thantos was really The Darkness if they’d taken the time to develop him more. But again: 86 minute Disney Channel Original Movie; if it comes down between developing Thantos or the titular witches I’m glad they went with the latter.

25) Man, this WAS released in 2005. I dig it.

26) I’m a sucker for A+ sass game. Except I can’t decide who has the better sass here.

Thantos [to the twins’ biological mother]: “Sadly, you have nothing left.”

Cam: “That’s not true. She has us.”

Thantos: “Thank you, I stand corrected. Sadly, they’re all you have left.”

Alex: “Is he just asking to get slapped?”

27) I like that the final lesson of the film was not that evil is snuffed out with light but with love. I have issues with the trope of darkness = evil and light = good in all media, so while this film does fall into the former of darkness = evil I’m glad they decided that it is love - not light - that beats darkness. I think that’s a good idea to hold onto in this world.

Can I be honest? This was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Yes, it’s a Disney Channel Original Movie from 2005 so it’s no Harry Potter. BUT I found myself compelled by the relationship between the titular Twitches. Some of the humor was strong, the lesson of love was effective, and it was just a solid film. If you’re looking for a nostalgia trip, you could do a lot worse than Twitches.

#Twitches #Tia Mowry #Tamera Mowry #Disney Channel #Disney Channel Original Movie #Epic Movie (Re)Watch #Wizards of Waverly Place #Friends #Movie #Film #GIF

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anonthenullifier · 7 years

Text

Facade of Normalcy

Summary: Life on the run has been difficult for Wanda, helped only by brief, precious moments of joy. A new development with Vision's powers offers a possible escape, but can this facade of normalcy actually work?

Word Count: 11,355 (Sorry, I can’t seem to stop myself)

Notes: Based on all of the set pictures out of Edinburgh, see the end for specific pictures used as inspiration. This was originally posted on AO3 (http://archiveofourown.org/works/10723998/chapters/23762208) about a month ago but I have Tumblr now, so figured I’d post it here too. Also, I know I am 2 days early on the Scarlet Vision Appreciation Day, but I have a new one-shot for that instead.

Starts super fluffy and ends with angst. Hope you Enjoy!

Wanda moves away from the window, fingers gripping a mug in hopes of pulling its scalding heat into her body. It’s been raining for six days, not a hard rain, but a constant depressing drizzle that is just enough to be a deterrent to explore the area more. The room she’s called home since coming to Edinburgh is compact, a tiny kitchenette with a solitary burner and an oven too small to hold a normal sized dish, a murphy bed folded up for now but whenever she wants to sleep she has to shift her belongings in front of the door, and a wobbly desk with a tablet, radio, and handwritten coordinates for her next destination.

Wakanda was a paradise that only lasted for a few weeks, the political climate and societal disapproval of their fugitive status meant they agreed to leave instead of stay (though T’Challa offered to keep housing them) just so they didn’t push the bounds of that alliance. Since then they move in erratic patterns, each individually for three cities (one week per city) and then they meet up for a week to regroup, check up, train, and begin again.

The ambient static from the radio cuts out, four quick beeps indicate someone is about to talk with her, and so Wanda closes the two foot distance to sit in the uneven chair. “Wanda, this is Nat, you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Good,” silence falls on the room again, broken only by the clink of her rings against the ceramic mug and the slosh of tea as she takes a sip, waiting for the update. “Just came across some chatter about some sightings of an unidentified flying object just south of you.”

Wanda finds her mouth tilting up ever so slightly at the words. “I’ll check it out and report back. You sure it’s not just a bird again? I had to leave Barcelona three days early for a pelican.”

Laughter comes through the radio and it warms her far better than the tea, always enjoying these brief moments of human interaction, their orders strict from Steve that they must keep out of the public eye as much as possible. “Well, you never know. To be fair, it was a big pelican.”

“Okay, I’ll check into it.”

“Good, be safe.”

“I will.” The static returns, a soothing white noise that at least fills the void of silence. Wanda sets her tea down, careful not to place it on the slanted portion of the desk, lest she spill it all over her tablet like she did her coordinate list the other day. Once she’s sure it’s not tumbling over, she grabs a green wool knit hat and coat, pulling the collar up and the fabric tight around her, preparing for the saturated cold outside.

Her door opens out into a tight alleyway, well she should call it a close if she wants to blend in with the locals, the tap of her shoes on the bricks echoing around her, a deafening sound that she attempts to muffle with smaller, more careful steps. The close opens up onto a bustling brick-paved street, tiny shops and restaurants lining both sides, carts selling all forms of haggis producing steam that rises up into the misty evening sky. Wanda does her best to tuck her head down, obscuring her face with her coat as she strolls along the street, eyes shifting from side to side to pick up on any questionable movement or knowing stares. Occasionally she’ll glance up but then realizes the futility of attempting to decipher information from darkened skies.

A quarter mile down the road she cuts into another close, checking over her shoulder to ensure she hasn’t been followed, and then she approaches a ladder hanging down about halfway into the alley. It’s a bit higher up than it looked on the satellite image. Wanda glances around one more time before her hands glow red and a shaky boost of her powers lifts her high enough to grip the ladder, climbing up until she finds herself on a flat, vacant rooftop. Slowly she weaves between pipes and power boxes, ducking behind a generator until she reaches the eastern end of the building where she attempts to lean casually against the stone edge, enjoying the glimmer of the castle lights through the murky clouds. A shimmer in her periphery and a rush of air against her neck coaxes her mouth into a grin. “Took you long enough, Steve expects me on the road in 36 hours.”

“My sincerest apologies, given my proclivity at failing to apprehend you, it required a great deal more convincing to receive clearance to pursue the lead.”

Wanda slides her eyes to the side, taking in the sharp lines of his features contrasting against the softness of his muted navy thermal. “What do you tell them, when you come back empty handed?”

Hesitantly he steps closer to her, leaning his forearms on the stone to mirror her own stance. “It varies, sometimes I inform them the intel was fallible and there were no clear indications you were in that locale. Other times that you somehow received information regarding my approach and evaded my detection. The majority of the time I simply explain that the intel was old and though there were signs of your stay, none of them indicated you were still in the city.”

“Never that I overpowered you?”

“No.” Vision shakes his head, mouth settling into a disapproving slant at the suggestion. “There is no need to justify their fears.”

If he can feel the intensity of her stare, he does not betray it, face tilted down to take in the lives meandering on the streets below, so Wanda focuses instead on her hands, watching as her fingers fold together and then unfold. “How was Barcelona?”

“Splendid.” The pleased smile on his face resonates in the way the word starts low and ends with a short, perfectly enunciated syllable. Vision turns his head towards her, confirming the upward curve of his lips, the excited wave of his hands as he continues to talk pulling her own mouth up into a broad smile, and she can’t help from leaning towards him a bit more, shoulder just barely pressing into his arm. “Your recommendations were quite enjoyable, particularly the Parc Guell.”

“I thought you’d like that one.”

“Indeed,” he looks down at her, eyes gauging her reaction, a swift click of his irises counterclockwise as he seems to determine his next comment is acceptable. “Though it would have been far better with company.”

The ache of loneliness in his voice is reciprocated in her own chest, tired of running, tired of tight quarters and lumpy mattresses, tired of never being able to spend more than ten minutes in his presence. “Maybe next time.”

“Maybe.” Silence descends around them, not uncomfortable nor unwelcomed, but amiable in the most comfortable way, a mutual desire to simply be in each other’s presence, a warm, soft blanket of calm to shoo away the damp loneliness of being on the run. An icy wind blows past them and Wanda shivers, yanking her coat tighter around her. “You are cold.” Not a question nor an indictment, but a concerned statement. “Is it not possible to relocate to your quarters where it is warmer?”

Wanda would be lying if she claimed to have never thought about it, if she denied the confusion and frustration in the way her heart’s been fluttering when curtains blow or she awakens to a noise outside, longing to return to a time when she took for granted his inability to comprehend personal boundaries. “No, the room is hooked into the communication system, it’s set up to instantly recognize any of you and send an automatic relay to the others that something is wrong. It is far too risky. Plus, it is not too cold.”

An uncharacteristically disapproving hmmm vibrates his lips as his eyes focus on the lights in the distance, mind churning thoughts around in a lulling pattern. “I might have an alternative solution.”

“Oh?” She turns fully towards him now, arms crossed and eyebrow raised in curiosity, lifting higher at his sheepish grin and the meticulous interlocking wiggle of his fingers.

“Yes.” Another nervous smile dancing along his lips spreads a warmth through her body, no longer concerned about the cold, attention fully arrested by the man in front of her. “I suppose I should just,” he waves a hand, thoughts cutting off as his eyes stop spinning and a thin line of concentration forms on his mouth. “Since you seem to believe yourself impervious to the cold despite alternative, compelling evidence from your recent illness in Munich.”

“That soup was delicious by the way.”

A surprised and embarrassed half grin goes along with a tiny shrug, “Oh, you are welcome, though I did not make it.”

“I know, I said it was delicious.” The shift in his mood is instant, from bashful, fumbling nerves to an amused and flirtatious smirk. The combination is adorable and disarming, drawing her to touch his arm, overjoyed at the soft smile her touch brings to his lips. “You were saying?”

“Oh yes,” he touches his fingertips to the top of her hand as he continues to explain his apparent grand plan, “because of Munich and the anticipated forecast for Edinburgh I have procured a room in the hotel below us.” The explanation stops momentarily, blue irises rotating left and then right as he allows time for a response, but she has none, heartbeat increasing at the various implications this action could have, yet she is fairly certain he has done this under no pretext or presumptions. “If that is amenable the reservation is for room 416. I will meet you there momentarily?”

Wanda nods her head and grins up at him, squeezing his arm reassuringly. “Sounds perfect.”

And he is gone, body dissolving with the rain as he sinks through the roof. Wanda sighs, eyes skimming the rooftops, enjoying the gentle glow of the city lights reflected in the puddles for one more moment as she prepares herself to climb back down the ladder, feeling particularly jealous of his phasing ability.

Collar back up and hat pulled down she returns to the main street long enough to walk through the ornate golden doorway of the hotel into an entry way dripping with historically inspired modern finishes. Hesitantly she approaches the mustached and smiling man at the front desk. “Good evening, how may I help you?”

“Um,” given the paranoia birthed from the strict orders to not engage with the public, Wanda finds her fingers curling into tight fists as her eyes roam the surroundings, attempting to be cognizant of anyone who seems to think she looks familiar. “I need a key to room 416.”

She’s certain this won’t work, knows the procedures for hotels and wonders if Vision understands she probably needs more than just a room number, which then morphs into a persistently curious thought of how exactly Vision arranged this given his fairly recognizable features. “Ah yes, Victor informed me an attractive young lady would be joining him.” The knowing wink from the man causes a rush of heat to her face and she hopes she’s not blushing too much. “Here you are.”

“Thanks.” Quickly she ducks into the hallway, eyes focused on the floor in case she comes across anyone, making sure to take the stairs instead of the elevator to avoid the chance of being stuck in an enclosed space with plenty of opportunities for someone to scrutinize her face. Thankfully there is no one and she makes it to the room, opening the door and breathing in a sigh of relief as she closes it. “Vizh?” Wanda studies the room, nodding in approval at the golden sconces tastefully placed on the wall, a four-post mahogany bed filling the available space, and a large bay window overlooking the Royal Mile. Most importantly, however, is the blissful touch of warm air, her current hide-out lacking a working heater or fireplace, and she shimmies out of her coat, removing her hat, fingers combing through her flattened hair.

“I hope it was not troublesome to get a key, Olivier assured me it would not be a problem.”

Wanda smiles at his voice, turning to let him know everything went fine but then she gasps, hands raising, encased in red as she stares at a tall, lithe blonde-haired and blue eyed man standing near the window that for some reason is wearing the same navy thermal, annoyingly buttoned all the way up, and black slacks as Vision had on the roof. “V..Vision?”

A nervous smile joins his shuffling feet as he stares up at the ceiling, out the window, and then at her, hand lifting delicately to emphasize his words. “I have experienced an increase in downtime and have been striving to better understand my abilities, particularly the boundaries of my molecular manipulation. See.” In less than two seconds he stands before her, crimson skin and shiny, intricate vibranium weaving through his muscles.

Wanda opens her mouth to ask for a more direct explanation and then he gives her the full demonstration. Slowly his body shifts, not a new sight, Wanda the go-to wardrobe consultant for him, but it’s different this time, his slacks and thermal staying the same, instead the red of his skin and the gleam of vibranium dull, shifting into pale, smooth porcelain. Her eyes widen as the change moves up his body, the dot of vibranium on his chin disappearing, gears in his eyes fading to a soft, far less intense blue, and then he has ears and hair, forehead no longer marred by the yellow glow of the Mindstone. Wanda doesn’t even realize her actions until it's too late, walking slowly towards the window, hand reaching out to press hesitantly against his forehead. Despite appearances, she can still feel the curve of the Mindstone and the cool touch of vibranium but he’s no longer Vision, still insanely attractive and she wonders if he somehow knew her prior preference for tall blondes (though now it is much more skewed towards crimson synthezoids) or if he is just really good at guessing.

“This is really weird, Vizh.” It’s a surprise when her fingers brush through the blonde locks, though his clothing is always the correct texture for whatever fabric he’s mimicking, she still expected her hands to simply go through this facade. Her eyes travel along the new features, his emotions more clouded and difficult to decipher without the gears in his irises. She finds she misses those, misses the soothing task of counting each click and rotation. Slowly her hand travels along his cheek, impressed by the fact he’s even managed to introduce the soft texture of hair along his jaw, and then to the side of his head, thumb tracing the edges of his ear lobe which causes him to shiver. “Vizh this is-” The breeze from the slightly ajar window carries away her words, heart beating so loudly she can’t hear her own thoughts as he brings a hand to cup her own.

“My intention was to show you in Barcelona, but,”

“The damn pelican.”

This not-Vision smiles at her, and the half-cocked, close lipped arc confirms he’s still him underneath the guise. “Yes, I,” he pauses, moving his body closer to her, other hand wrapping around the curve of her ribs and she’s fairly certain they’re in the desert now, every juncture where they touch a raging wildfire. “We could live like this, could evade prying eyes.”

The last time they met, in Belarus behind a shed, the rest of the rogue team less than a mile away, she asked if he’d ever drop the Accords, if he’d ever turn his back on being a savior, ever choose his own wants over the needs of the world. He’d gotten close then, close enough for her to feel the fuzz of his sweater, the humid touch of his breath on her forehead. But then Clint yelled from down the street, concerned and with a dangerous edge to his voice, and Vision phased away without an answer. “Are you,” the words leave her mind, thoughts colliding like the raindrops on the window, splattering into tiny, incoherent puddles as he turns his face, cool, gentle lips pressing reverently into her palm.

“Yes.” Wanda had always assumed, naively it seems, that she’d make the first move, be the one to coax him from his innocent aloofness, help him realize the feelings he was clearly unsure about defining. Instead his hands travel to gingerly cup her face and she knows she’s smiling like a fool, can feel the ache in her cheeks intensify as he leans closer to her, his thumb brushing her skin, and in her excitement Wanda grips his wrists as he closes the distance, tenderly kissing her. If it was ever in doubt that time does not truly exist this moment cements its abstractness, the world frozen, the rain hovering in the air outside and the whir of the heater grinding to a halt as the only movement is their lips and the scrunch of his fingers in her hair and the rhythm of his racing pulse under her hands.

Eventually he pulls back, an anxious, joyous, terrified, and yet relieved smile flickering along his mouth and in his eyes. If she focuses enough she can even make out the turn of almost indiscernible gears in the blue. “Took you long enough.”

His laugh always catches her by surprise, a full-bodied yet tightly controlled chuckle that crinkles the skin around his mouth and half-lidded eyes. “My apologies.” Gently he leans down, pressing a chaste, fluttering kiss to her lips before leaning his forehead against hers. “I hope this form is pleasing, it can be altered if you wish.”

“It should be,” the confusion on his face pulls a laugh from her lungs, an overjoyed flirtatiousness spreading through her limbs as she stands on the tips of their toes, bringing their faces closer together. “I’d much rather kiss you, if that’s okay?” It takes approximately four seconds for the meaning to work through his mind and then the guise falls, skin returning to red, vibranium reappearing along his scalp and chin, cold under her palms, and the quick rotation of his irises intoxicating. “That’s better.” Wanda pushes him against the wall, out of view of any prying eyes out the window, pressing her body firmly against his to deepen the kiss, unwilling to subsist on chasteness just in case this is not their time to run just yet.

A buzzing resonates in her ear and she tightens her grip on his wrists, trying to ignore it, but it persists until he reluctantly ends the kiss, eyes losing focus as he raises a polite finger to indicate he is receiving a communication. Wanda watches him with interest, the way his eyes rotate methodically and the tension in his lips as they pucker in concentration. “I have not located Ms. Maximoff yet,” she raises her eyebrows at the playful smile coupled with the wink he gives her, “but based upon interviews with the locals there are numerous reports of red mists in the closes. I believe it may be in the best interest of the mission to remain for another day or two to fully investigate as I believe I am extraordinarily close to fulfilling my mission.” A hand shoving his chest draws his attention down long enough for her to mouth You little liar, and he comes oh so close to rolling his eyes, a gesture she never would have pinned as possible given his posh and gentlemanly manner. “Sorry Mr. Stark, could you repeat that last part?” The smile falls from his lips, tumbling down to the ground, stiffening the easy stance he developed until he is standing at attention, eyes focused first on the sky and then on the street below. “I am certainly taking this mission seriously, there is no need for Secretary Ross to get involved.” Elongated silence suggests Tony is giving one of his trademark soliloquies, likely filled with high levels of snark that attempts to hide his dismay. “Yes, I understand. Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yes, he,” the hesitation in his voice and worry flickering in his mind puts her on edge, fingers gripping his shirt as if that will be enough to keep him here for good this time, “simply said if after these two days I am not successful then Secretary Ross insists I remain at the compound unless otherwise needed.”

Wanda can feel her heart stop, the constriction of her lungs as she struggles to breathe under the weight of the implications almost too much. “What if I come-”

“No.” The sternness in his voice is surprising, even to him if the widening of his eyes is any indication. “I would rather be parted from you then risk placing you back in the Raft.”

“What if,” slowly she runs her hand along his cheek, relishing the feel of smooth skin transitioning into a textured ridge and smoothing back out as she brings her fingers to his lips, “what if we run this time, for real?” Wanda traces her fingers back along the curve of his cheek, nudging his face down just enough for her to brush his lips with her own. “What do you think?”

Vision places his hands back along her sides, fingers tapping against her body, scrunching her shirt each time she kisses him. “I believe for tonight we simply enjoy our time together and tomorrow we can experiment with the successful integration of my disguise into society. Then we make our determination.”

The answer is not, as she feared, a straight no, in fact there is hope in his voice, a rebellious excitement brimming in his mind as he pulls her against him, crushing his mouth to hers in a way that erases all worries from her mind, attention fully focused on the ripple of his muscles under her hand and the heat of his body against hers.

Tomorrow they’ll figure it out, but tonight, tonight she’s going to enjoy every last bit of him.

There have been numerous moments in her life when Wanda awoke to discover the cruel disconnect between the vivid realm of dreams and the stark, unforgiving world. It is no longer possible to even count the number of times Pietro held her hand while she slept only for her to wake up and remember that she became the oldest twin a long, long time ago. Which is why, though she understands she’ll need to move, to open her eyes, start the day eventually, she determines that she is content to simply lay in bed and enjoy this sliver of serenity. The air around her is pleasantly warm, the bed is soft, her body sinking into the embrace of a down comforter that might actually be a cloud, a sensation she’s never experienced, there is a calming thrum of movement from outside, lulling her with far more ease than the static from the radio she has become accustomed to, but most importantly there is the distinct waft of cleanliness laced with alloy hovering around her, bringing a small, satisfied smile to her face.

The bed shifts slightly, tiny reverberations racing through the springs to alert her to movement at her side and her smile broadens. Lazily she turns towards the window, granting gravity free reign to pull her body along the slope of the bed until she meets resistance, settling against his side, head coming to fall on his pectoral muscle, and her arm wrapping loosely around his waist, her fingers curling into his sweater, enjoying the way the synthesized cashmere slips through her fingers. “Good morning,” agile, gentle fingers brush through her hair in time with the soothing cadence of his greeting.

“You’re real, right?”

His confusion at the inquiry is palpable, her powers lightly brushing the surface of his churning thoughts, a chuckle bubbling up from deep within her chest as he responds. “I believe I am, though I have not considered testing the possibility of being imaginary.”

“Good, then I'm just,” a small readjustment of her body allows her to snuggle closer, body flush against him, right leg swinging up over his thigh, burying her calf between his legs to steal even more of his warmth. Wanda inhales slowly, relishing the realness of his presence, fingers tracing the vibranium beneath his sweater, grounding her in the moment and committing every shallow breath and thump of his synthetic heart to memory, “going to sleep some more.”

The caress of his fingers stops momentarily and she’s certain his head is cocked to the side, eyes squinted inquisitively at her. “It is a quarter past eight already and I intended to rouse you at eight twenty. It seems frivolous to awaken and then return to sleep for five minutes.”

Lazily her eyelids part, enough for her to glare up at him, the dim glow of an overcast morning illuminating the room enough for her to see the affectionate curve of his mouth and a softness in his swirling blue irises that she’s never experienced but that automatically leads to flutters in her stomach and a brief, exhilarating moment where her heart stops. Wanda allows her grin to pull her head up, chin pressing into his chest to better her vantage of his face. “Clearly you’ve never slept if you think that’s frivolous.” His shoulders rise and fall as if to say got me there , which only intensifies the smirk on her face. “So,” relinquishing her grip of his waist, Wanda pushes her hands into his abdomen, lifting herself up enough to be level with his face, placing a tender kiss first to his jawline and following a purposeful, slow line until she reaches his lips, lingering in order to fully appreciate the subtle tinge of vibranium on her tastebuds and the feel of his fingers curling into her side. She doesn’t pull away, can’t bring herself to break from him but she does continue her point, words moving seamlessly from her lungs to his, “What have you been up to?”

He does not speak immediately, choosing instead to continue the embrace, head tilting to the side to deepen the kiss. Wanda closes her eyes, the sensation of his body under her fingertips and shifting pressure against her mouth causing an electric thrill to dance along her spine, an involuntary constriction of her muscles leading her to grip his body tighter. “I,” eventually, much to her disappointment, he tilts his forehead towards her, the Mindstone cold against her skin, parting their lips, “brought you breakfast.”

“I am good with just you, thanks.” Some things do not change, even after so much time, such as the way her directness flusters him, their close proximity giving her ample opportunity to observe the frantic spin of his irises and the twitch of his upper lip into a nervous smile as he attempts to formulate a response. Wanda steals one last, drawn out kiss, lips lingering and fingers tapping happily against the metal lacing his sternum, then moves to peck his cheek, hand immediately replacing her lips as she pats his face. “I could eat, actually.”

Vision nods, reaching to the side to grab a cardboard wrapped cup and little paper bag from the nightstand. “Tea and a scone.”

“Thanks.” Carefully she brings the cup to her face, sniffing the wispy steam to confirm he has not forgotten her preference for Early Gray with a hint of orange. “I’ve missed this.”

“As have I.” There is a touch of sadness to his response, a mournful reminiscence for their old morning routine, of times when sipping tea and engaging in friendly (and increasingly flirtatious) banter would lead in to days of training.

Wanda lays a hand on his arm, focusing his thoughts on her and not what they had before, not what they still would have if things had not imploded, but what they have now, in this room and what they may, hopefully, have tomorrow. “So what’s on the docket for today?”

“Oh, yes,” a polite finger is lifted to indicate he needs a second, standing and crossing the room, Wanda’s eyes appreciatively following him, striving to sear into her memory the smoothness of his gait, the impeccable fit of his pants, and the delicate way he sifts through a pile of papers on the tiny desk across from the bed. Once he appears to have found what he wants, he turns back to her with an excited grin, phasing through the bed, instead of walking around it, to resume his position next to her . “I spoke with the concierge about recommendations for today, I explained we only have one day to enjoy the city and he offered various options for our itinerary.” Vision pauses, list half-lifted as his mouth sets into a contemplative line, the gears in his eyes clicking slowly clockwise. “Your breakfast was recommended by him so if it is unacceptable then by logical inference-”

Wanda immediately recognizes the self-defeating spiral of logic (flashes back momentarily to the first time Vision didn’t like one of Sam’s movie recommendations and then threw out the rest of the two page long list) and cuts it off immediately by taking a bite of the scone and giving him a thumbs up. “It’s delicious, don’t worry.”

“Excellent,” a relieved smile smooths out the furrow of concern bunching the skin around the Mindstone, “In that case here is a suggested itinerary, with attempts to include as many different avenues for human contact to fully examine the bounds of my disguise.”

Wanda grabs the list and glances at the roughly twenty items then flips it over to see the route mapped out including durations of each walk, taxi, and bus ride. “This isn’t going to turn into another New York is it?”

Vision glances at her, eyes flickering quickly to the list and then back to her, mouth a tight-lipped indicator of dour contemplation, fingers picking at the bedsheet as he continues to ponder her comment. “You believe it is too much?”

“Perhaps,” the concept that she can simply lean forward on her knees and capture his lips fills her with amazement, wondering why they waited this long, because she finds it an entirely sufficient method for conveying meaning. A reassuring kiss and hand to his face letting him know she is not annoyed at his planning enthusiasm. If she was ever worried he would struggle with this new, intimate language, the relieved grin on his face and the touch of his hands to her cheeks, pulling her back against his body eradicates those concerns. “Perhaps,” Wanda breaks from him, a breathy laugh falling unhindered from her mouth at the way he frowns when she stands from the bed, “you choose four, maybe five things from that list. I-” her words trail off as she turns in a circle, attempting to locate her coat and shoes.

“In the closet.”

“Oh, thanks.” Wanda opens the mirrored door and finds her coat hung up in a far more organized way than she ever would, opting usually to simply toss it wherever seems best, and then grabs her shoes from the shelf in the closet. “Anyway, I have to go change and check in with the gang so they don’t freak out and launch a search party. I’ll just,” she grabs a pen from the desk and scribbles the address on a piece of stationery, stamped with the hotel logo in the top left corner, “meet me there in like thirty minutes?”

After he gives her an understanding nod, Wanda steps towards the door, turning to wave goodbye, but the sight of Vision relaxed (though not quite slouching) on the bed, red skin more vibrant than ever against the crisp white linens, ankles politely crossed and eyes watching her, lips quirked up into an adorable partial smile, stops her from leaving. Concern pulls his lips down the longer she stands there watching him, “Wanda?”

A quick shake of her head clears her thoughts, wrestling her attention from him and back to the task at hand. “Sorry I just-” he is at her side in seconds, fingers gentle as they lift her chin to gaze into the rotating blue vortices of his soul, the half-cocked smile back on his face and she finds her own mouth mirroring his. “I want,” she waves her hand at the room, eyes never leaving his own but she’s certain he picked up on the gesture, “this, Vizh. I want it so bad.”

“As do I.” The tenderness in his kiss relaxes her body, concerns held at bay so long as he is touching her. His hands move to grip her shoulders, eyes serious, a promise hanging in the air as he assures her, “I will see you soon.”

After the hotel Wanda finds her own quarters even more depressing, not simply because everything is about three decades older than it should be, but mainly because it is empty with no promise of Vision emerging from the kitchen or turning around to find him relaxed on the bed with not a care in the world besides planning a day together. Four steps is all it takes to reach the desk, fingers fidgeting with a pen as she waits for the morning roll call, thoughts far removed from talking to the team. Impulsively she reaches for the desk drawer, frustration burgeoning as red clouds between her fingers when the drawer gets stuck, yet again, finally jutting out with a loud creak, allowing her to grab a small note pad. Quickly she jots a message down, a sloppy I’m fine, please don’t come looking for me. -W , placing it under the teacup she left on the desk the night before.

Wanda checks the time, leveling an annoyed glare at the silent radio, and stands up, body moving of its own accord as she grabs her duffle bag and begins throwing all of her clothes and the very limited belongings she has into it. If this is going to happen she figures she might as well be ready. Four beeps from the receiver on the desk forces her to abandon the task.

“Who all’s here?” Steve’s voice is neutral and firm, never showing much emotion during these group check-ins. A quick succession of names follow.

“Nat here.”

“Falcon in the house.”

“Here!” Wanda rolls her eyes, certain that they could be on the run for years and he’d never get this part right. “And by here I mean this is Scott, at your service.”

“Clint’s here.”

Finally she presses the button on the communicator, concerned at the shake of her hand as she responds, terrified that they’ll parse out what happened simply by her name. “Wanda.”

Thankfully Steve continues, not commenting on the quiver in her voice or the unrepentant betrayal seeping deep into her bones. “Alright, anyone have questions about the next step?” Silence fills the air as a show of general concurrence with the plan. “Great.” It seems the call is done, a relieved exhale forcibly leaving her lungs until Steve continues. “Oh, Wanda,” her heart stops, “any word on that flying object from last night.”

“I, um,” somehow she discovers that Vision has become a far smoother liar than herself, a greater appreciation filling her mind at how easily he denied their meeting to Tony, “it was nothing.”

Which seems to be good enough, “Good, see you all in Kilmuir on Thursday.” Each person gives a send off and the radio returns to a stifling static. Wanda pushes back from the desk, hands running through her hair as her gaze moves around the room, checking to make sure she isn’t forgetting anything. Her hand slips into the pocket of her coat, fingers curving around the travel phone they are all required to keep close. If she brings the phone it means, she thinks, that they can track her, is fairly certain at least Nat, and probably Steve, collect GPS coordinates on them. The third time Vision visited her, in Marrakesh, they made the error of meeting outside of the city which is how she discovered there are restrictions on her travel, Nat showing up less than an hour after the rendezvous to check on Wanda. Slowly she removes it from her pocket, the thought of them tracking her, separating her from Vision again increases her heart rate, hands shaking with mortified anger. But. But what if something happens? An image flashes in her head of Tony and the Raft, a sickening weight forming in her stomach wondering what contraption Stark has made for Vision if he ever goes against the Accords and a hand involuntarily traveling to her neck. She slips the phone back into her pocket. They can always toss it later.

When she steps out of the door there is a well-dressed man waiting in the alley, back leaned against the wall, wearing gray slacks and a wool pea-coat with a matching black scarf. “You make me feel like a slob.”

The blonde-hair man smiles at her, leaving the wall to meet her halfway. “You are gorgeous.”

Wanda grins up at him, hands resting against his chest. “This whole thing is still weird, by the way.” And it is, her mind struggling to reconcile the Vision from this morning with the very un-Vision looking man currently enveloping her in a warm hug. “So what do I call you? Vision seems a bit irregular for going incognito.”

“Ah, yes,” he steps back just enough to meet her eyes, hands running in a soothing pattern along each arm, trailing between her elbow and shoulder. “Victor Shade.”

He doesn’t grin or laugh as he says the name which means she shouldn’t either but the sheer ridiculousness of this whole set-up, of kissing a man whom she doesn’t recognize other than his voice and then having to call him that is too much and she can’t stop the snicker. “I get the Victor part, but Shade? You’re not a private eye, Vizh.”

Hesitantly his mouth opens to respond but then closes, indecision hanging in the air as she watches his eyes move back and forth, contemplating if this is a battle worth having, if he needs to further justify the name to her or simply make the decision that, regardless of objections, it stays. Finally he shrugs, a meek and unconcerned movement that cements this is, if there was doubt, Vision as no other person in existence could make such an action as endearing and alarmingly sexy. “We have a busy day, shall we?”

“Yeah, let’s go.” They turn towards the street, Wanda stepping close next to him, hand reaching down for his own, confused at the uncertain flinch of his fingers and the way his arm can’t seem to determine if it should be straight down or bent to accommodate her request. Somehow she always forgets how new he is to life, how there is so much he has yet to discover, to contemplate, to experience, even something as simple as holding hands. “Vizh,” his forward momentum comes to a halt at the sound of his name, “you more of a mitten guy or a glove guy?”

He glances at his hands, turning them to investigate his palm, wiggling his fingers as he thinks. “I am not certain I follow.”

The fact that she can touch him like this in public, can run her hand down his arm and grip his wrist, bringing it up for a quick kiss and demonstration, is delightful and Wanda finds herself enthralled by his reaction. “Mitten,” she forces open his fist, placing her own hand in his, cupping her fingers around the outer edge of his hand, thumb falling in the gap between his thumb and index finger, and then coaxes him to close his hand around hers in a similar manner. Everything in place, she drops their arms and gives an experimental swing. “Now,” a tug brings their joined hands back up and she pries his fingers open, rotating her own hand until their fingers are laced together, “glove.”

“I see,” the wrinkle of skin on his forehead conveys the deep, completely unnecessary yet wholly logical consideration he is putting into the decision. He switches between the options a few times, walking a short distance each time to test the momentum of the swing of their arms and the proximity of their bodies. “I believe the mitten puts the least amount of strain on your arm.”

“I agree, shall we?”

The day goes by far too quickly, each stop on the severely cut down itinerary blurring together. Wanda is aware they went to see a fully-functioning floral clock, can recall the excited gesticulations Vision - well, Victor, she has to keep reminding herself - made as he explained in far more detail than necessary the way the mechanics of the clock work and described the various designs it has had throughout the years. The walk to the castle, the incline far steeper than she imagined it would be even though she logically understands it is situated on a hill, is marred by fat drops of rain. Instead of being annoyed at the slosh of water in her boots, soaking into her wool socks, she is enthralled by the giddy surprise on Vision’s face at the novel experience of water pooling in his hair and dripping into his eyes, and she learns that the rain of Scotland might be qualitatively different from Sokovia or New York, the droplets sweet and refreshing each time she pulls him down for a kiss.

Much to her chagrin they join walking tours off and on, the argument for joining being that it puts them in contact with more people but she’s certain that is pretext for his utter enjoyment of listening to the narratives, Vision always raptly listening to the stories of heroism and horror. The only time he does not insist on joining a random tour is when they stop at the Greyfriars Bobby statue and he recites for her, in a quietly dramatic fashion unique to the gentle lilt of his accent, the story of the police dog that remained forever at the gravesite of his owner.

The biggest adventure of their day is a bus ride to Portobello beach, the dreary weather increasing the number of bodies squished into the bus, Wanda (willingly) sacrificing her comfort to sit on Vision’s lap to allow other people to sit down. It’s on the bus that she notices a young couple across the way staring at her, phones held out in their laps, comparing something on the screen to her face. When one of them starts to raise their phone in an attempted inconspicuous manner, Wanda takes a note from Natasha’s book and turns towards Vision, crushing her lips against his own, his surprise quickly fading away as his hands clutch her waist to keep her from falling away when the bus stops.

For the most part, the day is completely and delightfully mundane, only the couple on the bus and the few people Vision phased through early on (he did not wish to bump them as they walked past) treating them with any suspicion. Despite the apparent success of their venture Wanda finds that it is difficult for her to adequately describe her feelings as they trudge through the dreary cold, torn between the captivating exhilaration of spending time together as a normal (seemingly at least) couple enjoying the sights and the uneasy dismay she experiences every time she watches Vision have animated and so achingly human conversations with the locals, always asking how the shopkeepers and workers are doing, learning their names, and commenting on the weather. There is a casualness to his stance, an enthusiastic and carefree quality to the cadence of his voice and it infuriates her, seeing the way he’s allowed himself to finally relax around people, to put his personality fully on display only because of the disguise, a simple facade giving him his first true taste of being normal. She dislikes it, might even hate it, that it took a complete metamorphosis for people to respond amiably to him, to make him feel accepted. But, begrudgingly, she also acknowledges that without the guise, without compromising his appearance, this day would not be possible, their hopes for tomorrow would not exist.

It’s not until they are walking along a brick-paved street, the cloud-cloaked sun setting over the impressive stone-faced buildings towering above them, that she finally gives voice to the conversation they’ve been avoiding all day. “So Viz-V,” eventually she’ll get his name down, “any thoughts on tomorrow?”

His gait slows down, feet falling just inches in front of each other as they continue to walk and she worries that the slightly increased pressure of his hand around hers is an ill omen. “A few,” the ambiguity in his voice, the surprising lack of emotion and straight neutrality of his body language is almost unnerving enough for her to dip into his mind, but she steels herself against temptation, desiring to hear him share instead of barging in and taking the thoughts for herself. “I have been contemplating the best course of action and believe we must decide between a metropolitan setting, perhaps Tromso,”

“But it was so cold there.”

A shy arc forms on his mouth, “I believe I could keep you adequately warm, but,” the smile fades back into seriousness, “if we choose a city then there are ample residents to obscure our existence or we find a tiny town where, at least it is my understanding, people do not wish to invite trouble and would be less likely to acknowledge or report us. A quick search shows several promising possibilities in the Scottish highlands if we do not wish to travel far.”

The confidence of his answer, the surety in the way he doesn’t frame it as just a possibility but a fact stops her feet, arm pulling slightly as he continues to walk forward only stopping himself when he realizes she is not following. Slowly he turns towards her, head cocked to the side and eyebrows raised as she drags him back to her. “You’re being serious, right?”

“I do not see how it could be taken as jest.”

Which parts her lips into a broad, toothy grin. “Just checking. So today was a success?”

“A resounding success, not a single person seemed suspicious and,” he hesitates, eyes her to see how she responds to the next part, places his hands comfortingly along her arms to abate any ire that might arise from his words, “for the first time no one treated me,” he pauses again, teeth touching as he says the next word, a melancholic dip in the syllables and fingers flinching at prior memories, “differently.”

Her heart breaks for him, hand lifting to play with his scarf, “You’re perfect without the disguise, you know that right?” A crashing wave of relief spreads from his mind to hers and she grins up at him, attempting to insert some levity back into the moment. “If we’re going to do this I think we need some ground rules for your,” her free hand waves in a rough circle indicating this face, “alter ego.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” a slightly exaggerated elongation of the w draws him closer to her, hands skimming up and down her arm as he waits for her to finish, “perhaps you treat it like shoes left at the front door.”

“I have never observed you leaving your shoes at the front door.” Wanda often forgets how far he’s come since he was first created. Had the comment been made two years ago, she’d have to recollect her thoughts and rephrase her words to allow him to better understand the comparison she was making. But right now he has a sly smirk on his face and an impish gleam in his pale blue eyes that intensifies the smile on her own face.

“You think you’re so funny.”

A nonchalant shrug meets her words, traveling from his shoulders into his mouth, lips puckered in practiced indifference. “It is not opinion if there is quantifiable proof of your amusement at my words.”

This time she does laugh, hand coming to her mouth to stifle it and her eyes rolling at the spike of satisfied pride in his tone and the rare open-lipped smile on his face. “Just come here.” Wanda grabs a handful of his coat pulling him down to her, heart racing at the way his body responds, the heat building between them as he steps forward, their chests touching and his hands roaming along her arms in time to the rhythm of the kiss. “Disguise,” another kiss inserts a pause to her response, “front,” and another, each one longer than the previous, fueled solely by the desire to devour every moment with him, “door. Okay?”

“Understood.” Vision steps back, smile still flirting along the edges of his lips. “Would you like to discuss our plans more thoroughly over dinner?”

“Sounds great,” they continue their walk, hands rejoining as he pulls her towards a small, stone-faced restaurant with a sign announcing it, in slanted, cursive font, to be a mediterranean bistro. “This looks promising.”

Vision smiles down at her as they enter through the open archway of the door, informing the hostess they have a reservation under Shade, Wanda’s eyebrows rising approvingly at the level of commitment he took in planning the day, and they are ushered towards a booth at the backend of the restaurant. “I,” he opens the menu, hand resting on the open page pretending to be interested in it, “still have not determined an appropriate excuse for my tendency to not eat and I fear that could elicit undesirable attention.”

Which is a fair point, one Wanda had not yet contemplated. “Well,” she thinks back to the times when he joined her for food when he didn’t have the disguise, the response to his presence already tense and judgmental, only worsened when he informed the workers he would not be consuming anything. But so far they’ve cleared the first hurdle, no one questioning his presence in the establishment. “What if we order an appetizer and a meal and just say we’re sharing it?”

A reassured and satisfied smile barely touches his lips but does light up his eyes. “That seems acceptable.” She meets his smile and reaches her hand across the table, fingers wiggling invitingly at him until he lays his own hand on top of hers. “Wanda?”

“Yeah?”

He squeezes her hand slowly, a increasingly tight pressure that then loosens back out, repeating the process three more times before he speaks again. “I am concerned that I,” his voice tumbles off again, thoughts shutting down when a waitress comes over and informs them of the specials. Wanda shakes her head to decline anything new and orders for the two of them. Once everything is settled away he glances down at the table, then to the ceiling, eyes rotating back to her last. “I have never known a life other than being a hero, there,” he hesitates again, “seem to be far more norms and understood courses of action for normal life than for the life of an Aveng-.” The word cuts off and he clamps his mouth shut, understanding the danger of uttering the name near other people lest someone makes the connection.

“Well, I’ve known many different lives, and being a hero was certainly one of the better lives. I’m not sure how to transition from what we had, to be honest. But,” now she grips his hand, attempting to channel the sureness of her choice the undeniable desire bursting from her heart and taking over her mind that this life, with him, hero or not, is all she wants, “I think as long as we’re together, we’ll figure it out.”

The uncertainty fades with the scrunch of his eyes created by the lift of his cheeks as he smiles at her. “Then we go back to where ne-” He stops talking, hand raising to his ear, a clear sign that Tony is interfering with their escape, but she misses what he says, attention drawn to the extremely loud and frantic tone of the phone going off in her pocket. Wanda fumbles with the stupid thing, fingers incapable of turning it off or answering for three painfully long seconds. She’s certain everyone is probably staring at her. Once she figures it out she doesn’t get a chance to speak before Steve’s urgent voice is heard.

“Wanda there are reports pouring in about non-human, heavily armed individuals in Edinburgh. Get out now, I’ll meet you in the morning.”

The call ends abruptly and she meets the worried eyes of Vision, each daring the other to talk first, to make the suggestion of what they should do. He breaks, removing his hand from her own and in that instant she knows all the talk of tomorrow was just that, talk. They will never be able to fully shed the duty of their powers. “I, Mr. Stark wishes for me to find a solution to the problem.”

“I’m going with you.”

“No.” The sternness of his voice lashes against her and she flinches, rebellion building in her as she meets his concerned eyes with her passionate refusal of the command. “Wanda, if you go out there they will all know what we have, what we, they will understand the fallacy of my actions.”

Logically she acknowledges this, but irrationally she cannot stomach, cannot fathom allowing him to slip away from her again. “Fine, but if anything happens I’m helping, got it?”

“Understood.” He stands swiftly from the table, hesitates in walking away, instead choosing to take a step in her direction, stooping down to kiss her one more time before he walks out the door, a flash of gold fluttering just outside the window as he sheds his cover.

It is eerily silent, only the nervous scratch of her nails against the table as she grips the edge, eyes closing to allow her to concentrate on tracking his movements, following his mind as he approaches the threat. Then her mind explodes, a searing, debilitating pain puncturing her chest, forcing a shocked gasp from her lungs that seems to be echoed around the room as every other patron pushes their chairs back, most rushing towards the back of the restaurant and the others towards the windows. Then a sound she has never heard before cuts through the still air, Vision's deafening, agonizing scream.

She leaps from the table, booth scratching loudly against the floor at the force of her movement, and she rushes to the doorway, hands engulfed in a raging fire of red as she takes in the scene in the street. Vision, in all his synthetic, vibranium laced perfection, is laying on the ground flanked on either side by decidedly non-human bodies. A grotesque, cloaked, bandy legged creature sneers down as it presses the edge of a curved blade into Vision’s chest eliciting another scream that mixes with what sounds like laughter coming from the horned woman holding another spear aloft. Wanda finds her mind blank, hands raised as she attempts to reconcile the sight, attempts to discern the best path forward, eyes moving around the crowd and buildings to determine how to do this without collateral damage, which is how she finds herself screaming without putting thought to the words, a desperate, “Stop, you’re hurting him!”

The horned woman turns towards her, a mocking, malevolently pleased smirk pulling the blue skin of her face as she speaks to her partner, instructing him to continue, the ache of Vision’s screams finally force Wanda’s body to react. Crimson bursts from her hands, eyes narrowing as she focuses in on Vision, her powers reaching out in snakelike tendrils until she can feel the weight of his body in her arms, and then she jerks her hands up, watches as he rises up from between the two assailants, their heads turning to watch as his limp body travels up and to the right. Wanda keeps her hands raised, teeth clenched at the effort of lifting Vision, concern constricting around her heart at the intense weight of his body and the fact that these creatures injured him at his densest.

She is so concentrated on bringing him to safety that she fails to consider what the two spear-wielders are doing until a burst of purple light hits Wanda in the chest, forcing all air from her lungs as she feels her body thrown up and into the stone facade of the restaurant, hitting her head hard enough that flashes of light burst into her view and then she can feel the unpleasant crunch of broken glass and gravel against her hands and face when she promptly returns to the ground. Wanda heaves in a broken, quivering breath, striving to block the pain in her twisted and cut wrist as she lifts herself from the pavement, eyes automatically moving to assess the location of the three bodies. Vision is on the ground about fifty feet away but she does not see the other two.

Someone behind her whispers an encouraging, “You got this,” and Wanda nods in agreement, standing on shaky legs as she runs over to Vision, her hands skimming the textured fabric of his uniform, fingers stopping to prod gently at the deep gash in the center of his chest, the spear going through the metal clasp of his cape and catching him between the plates the vibranium. She’d never considered if he could bleed as he’d never been, to her knowledge, injured physically, but unfortunately the answer is yes, a viscous, maroon dribble of blood staining the blue of his suit. “Vision…” his name falls out as a whisper, a plea to open his eyes and move, the next attempt a bit more forceful, “Vision,” and the last one a strangled scream and a rush of red from her hand into the Mindstone, “Vision!”

A hand wraps around her wrist and the breath she had been holding stumbles from her lungs along with the onset of tears when he opens his eyes. “Wanda, I.”

The thud of feet behind and in front of her draws her attention up from the frazzled and disbelieving turn of his irises, and she meets the sneering, sharp-toothed maw of what might be a goblin, which means the woman is behind her. Wanda glares at the man, feels the raging flow of scarlet energy in her limbs when she notices the smear of red on the tip of the spear, and she whispers a small, dangerous “No,” and the world erupts in scarlet, blasting the goblin-man out of her sight and behind her the satisfying smack of a body against the road is enough to bring a smile to her face. “Come on,” Wanda moves her hands under his arms and helps Vision get to his feet, bracing his body as he stumbles forward a step before regaining his balance. “Let’s go,” but he refuses to move and she turns to follow his gaze, watching as the cloaked man helps up the horned woman, their bodies mirroring the grip Wanda has on Vision. “Huh.”

The meaning behind their actions doesn’t have time to sink in as another purple blast from the woman’s spear forces Wanda to part from Vision. She watches as he clutches his fingers into fists and powers up the Mindstone, her own hands channeling scarlet orbs as they prepare to meet the threat. The cloaked goblin-man heads for Vision which means Wanda gets the pleasure of dealing with the blue-faced, horned woman again. In the time since the Accords fallout, starting in Wakanda, Steve began utilizing bo staffs instead of a shield, which meant their training sessions required new techniques. As Wanda ducks under the horned-woman’s staff she raises a silent thanks to Steve for his choice of weapon, her body accustomed now to the ducking and diving, shifting from one side to the other, spinning while on her knees and using her powers to counteract the pushing and prodding of a staff. For a time the two of them are even, metal staff meeting scarlet blasts, a careful, beautiful dance of trained footwork meaning neither has the upper hand. But then another scream from her side, another crash of despair in her mind arrests her attention long enough for the woman to land her staff to Wanda’s back, sending her crashing into the pavement, a foot and the sharp end of the spear digging into the skin between her shoulder blades. “It is best for you to give up now.”

The woman’s voice is not as odd as Wanda had assumed, raspy but clear and articulate. Wanda doesn’t respond, never enjoying the banter her teammates insist on holding with their enemies, instead she focuses on turning her palms towards her body, forcing her powers up through her so that they blast the woman in the face, tossing her to the side. Her actions surprise her assailant long enough for Wanda to get to her feet, eyes frantically searching until they come to rest on Vision shoved against a wall with a spear to his forehead. “Stop!”

The cloaked man doesn’t acknowledge her and neither does Vision, but she hopes that his renewed struggle, the way his hands come to wrap around the man’s shoulders and his body phases means he heard her. But a flash of purple in her periphery requires that Wanda leaves Vision to his own fight, turning to meet the sight of a wave of energy rushing towards her face. Wanda raises her hands, enveloping the energy and bending backwards, sending it into a nearby truck that explodes on contact, the flames flickering in the puddles of water between the bricks of the road.

Without hesitation the horned-woman thrusts her spear towards Wanda, renewing their game of dodge and evade, Wanda attempting to guide their fighting closer to Vision so that perhaps she can help him, heart constricting every time he screams. When the spear comes inches from her face, only caught by a thin tendril of scarlet, she decides to finally engage the woman in a new way. “What do you want?”

Her smile is sickening, prideful and filled with glorified purpose as she charges up the spear for another blast. “We want the Mindstone.”

Oh. Wanda’s mind crashes to a halt, implications drawing her gaze to the side where Vision has moved the struggle so that he is not backed against a wall but still the spear hovers menacingly near his forehead. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“Thanos will not stop until it is his,” the accumulation of purple light reaches its peak and Wanda knows she’ll need to figure out an action fast lest she be obliterated right there, “best to hand it over now.”

Wanda thinks back to the way the goblin-man reacted after her last blast, the touch of his fingers just below the mask, caressing the blue skin of his partner much like Vision had earlier in the day, on the parapet of the castle before his lips brushed hers. “Never.” With an anguished cry Wanda wraps the purple globe that bursts from the spear and sends it careening into the goblin-man, knocking him away from Vision and sending him through a storefront window. A cry pierces her ears, the thump of a spear butt against the back of her head clouding her vision, the world erupting in starbursts of white light. She thinks she hears a threatened whisper, thinks she sees the white glow of eyes level with her face, but can’t determine if it is real or a result of her concussion. But even after the face is gone the threat remains deep in her stomach, a thousand pound promise that it isn’t over. You haven’t won, we will be back for the stone.

A pained gasp comes from her mouth as she pushes off of the ground, certain at least her wrist is sprained if not broken, but it doesn’t matter, attention focused on the way Vision’s limbs go limp as he crumples to the ground, their assailants nowhere in sight. “Vizh,” she drops to her knees, cradles his head in her lap, hand shaking as she attempts to convey a soothing sense of calm to him, stomach churning at the chunk of skin missing next to the Mindstone, the vibranium casing bent out in one part and dented in another around the stone. “Come on, we need to go.” Wanda can sense the crowds forming around them, shocked silence mingling with the unmistakable clicks and flashes of phones, their exploits likely reaching a viral status before the fight even ended. It takes more effort this time to get him to his feet, she has to coax him to change his density, lighten his body so she can help drag him through the street. Luckily no one is stupid enough to stand in their way.

Eventually they arrive at her room and immediately the intruder alarms go off, sensing the second body with her but she ignores it, knows their cover is blown and the only thing that matters at the moment is Vision and stopping the bleeding, assessing his injuries so they can determine the next step. “Okay, let’s just,” she guides his body towards the still folded down murphy bed, throws the half filled duffle bag from the bed with a blast of red, “come on Vizh, a little help here.” His fingers dig into her arm, eruptions of pain radiating under his fingertips but she ignores it, instead directing all of her energy to helping him lay his head on the pillows and lifting his feet, swinging the lower half of his body until he’s fully on the bed. Wanda laughs, a half-hearted, confused, and gurgled sound at the ridiculous sight of his lanky body, feet hanging off the end of the too short bed. And then the strangled sound morphs into a sob as she collapses into the chair next to him, hand gripping his own as she realizes what happened, as she has a brief thought flash into her head about how this was never what she had in mind when she longed to have him in her bed.

“Wanda,” his fingers close around hers, the grip weak but filled with endless pain and regret.

“We should,” she sighs, free hand wiping the annoyingly constant stream of salty tears from her eyes, “we need to contact them.”

Vision attempts to sit up, “But tomorrow…” she pushes him down with a whip of red, shaking her head at the thoughts she feels him having, the memories of their perfect, mundane day , the exhilaration of their plan, the house he’d already located in the Highlands but had yet to tell her about.

“Vizh, it was a facade, nothing more.” Wanda stands up, dropping his hand long enough to crawl into bed next to him, lips pressing fiercely into his cheek. “We aren’t normal, we can never be normal.” The prick of despair in his mind coincides with his eyelids clasping shut, the loss of their life emerging as tears in the corners of his eyes. She lifts herself up slightly, kisses the tears from his cheeks and then leans her forehead to his, but away from the injury. Reluctantly Wanda grabs the phone from her pocket, amazed it survived the fight, and she hits 9, the shortcut to contact the entire network. “Mayday, mayday, we need help, please anyone who is close we need help. Repeat we need help.”

The crackle of voices fade into the background as she wraps herself around his body and tries not to think about what tomorrow will bring.

Pictures/Videos used for this story:

http://those-celestial-bodies.tumblr.com/post/159914860194/in-sequence-over-a-single-take-that-had-by-far

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDg1H9pJImw

http://marsnina.tumblr.com/post/159846882172/oh-god-help-me-now-jackoliver-on-twitter-said http://marsnina.tumblr.com/post/159830267772/im-a-hoe-for-infinity-war-spoilers-go-follow https://wandaisfierce.tumblr.com/post/159773109192/infinity-war-scarlet-vision-behind-the-scenes-1 http://scarletheartvision.tumblr.com/post/158726448825/speechless-the-vision-infinity-war http://scarletvisicn.tumblr.com/post/159493814723/wanda-maximoff-on-the-set-of-avengers-infinity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amdPxWG95GE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1C2yMjx1zM

#scarlet vision #vision x wanda #wanda x vision #infinity war #spoilers #speculation #vision #wanda maximoff #mcu #fanfiction #ao3 #svad17 #svad

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