#correct being in truth and knowing things and curiosity and intelligence

[dazzelmethat]

a question to ask your ocs I thought up this past week during work hours:

Which is most important to them; being Kind, being Correct or being Happy?

I may write a short comic about some responses my own ocs give but their different answers surprised me.

[greenbubblefactory]

Matchup for Rosa

Congratulations you have a match with..

Malleus Draconia !

★Malleus Draconia is intrigued by you from the very start. Unlike most, you don’t try to gain his favor or show fear at his presence you remain calm, composed, and unbothered. That alone makes you stand out in his eyes. At first, he watches you from a distance, curious about the way you carry yourself. You have a chill, almost enigmatic aura, yet he can tell you’re far more observant than you let on.

★You notice things others don’t small shifts in emotion, fleeting expressions, unspoken thoughts and Malleus finds himself drawn to that. Most people only see what he allows them to, but you? You see through him in a way no one else has. And for someone like Malleus, who has spent centuries being misunderstood, that’s both fascinating and terrifying.

★He doesn’t approach you outright. Instead, he lingers nearby, waiting for a moment where fate or your own curiosity pushes you together. And when that moment comes, he’s captivated.

★Malleus has met many people in his long life, but none quite like you. Your presence is both soothing and unpredictable. Some days, you’re quiet, reserved, lost in thought; other days, you’re playful, touchy, full of warmth. At first, he doesn’t know what to expect from you, but instead of being frustrated, he finds it… exhilarating.

★Your affectionate nature surprises him the most. At first, he isn’t sure how to react when you reach out to touch him a casual brush of fingers, a fleeting hug, resting your head against his shoulder. His entire body goes rigid the first time you do it, golden eyes widening as if you just spoke an entirely new language. For someone who has spent centuries being kept at arm’s length, this level of casual touch is foreign to him.

★But Malleus is nothing if not a quick learner. Before long, he grows fond of it, even craving it. He starts initiating small gestures himself a gloved hand resting on yours, a clawed fingertip tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear, standing just a little closer than necessary. And when you open your arms for a hug? He doesn’t hesitate anymore. He simply pulls you close, his arms encircling you with a warmth that only you get to experience.

★Your stubbornness is another thing that amuses him. Most people bend to his will, either out of fear or respect, but you? You stand your ground, meeting his gaze with unwavering determination. The first time you challenge him in an argument.

★Malleus doesn’t argue for the sake of dominance,he listens, truly listens, to your perspective. And if you’re right? He’ll actually admit it. If you’re wrong? He tells you, gently but firmly, unwilling to let you deceive yourself. You wanted someone who wouldn’t be afraid to correct you when necessary, and Malleus fulfills that role perfectly. He is honest, even when the truth is difficult to hear, but he never says it with cruelty. He simply wants you to grow, to learn, to understand.

★And when you’re in the right, when you stand firm against those who try to sway you, he finds himself filled with a deep sense of pride. You are not weak. You are not a follower. You are a force in your own right, and he loves you for it.

★Malleus understands your need for space better than most. You are a social introvert, someone who thrives in company but needs time to recharge. So when you disappear into your room for hours or even days he doesn’t take offense. Instead, he waits patiently, his presence lingering just beyond your solitude.

★But make no mistake Malleus will check on you. Whether it’s a quiet message sent through magic, a small enchanted firefly left by your bedside, or a personal visit where he simply sits with you in comfortable silence, he makes sure you know: you are not alone, even when you wish to be.

★And when you’re ready to emerge again, he welcomes you back with open arms.

★Your laziness is something he finds… amusing. You have the intelligence and capability to achieve great things, yet you sometimes choose to lie in bed doing absolutely nothing. Malleus doesn’t push you, but he does tease you about it, often in his usual cryptic way.

★But if you truly need motivation? He’ll help. In his own way. Perhaps by creating a cozy study environment, filled with soft candlelight and a quiet atmosphere. Or by offering an incentive, like a midnight stroll under the stars once your tasks are done. He never forces you Malleus believes in choice but he is a firm believer that you are capable of far more than you allow yourself to be.

★With Malleus, love is eternal. He doesn’t love lightly he loves deeply, intensely, completely. He notices everything about you,the way you massage your hands when anxious, how you fall silent when irritated, the way your lips twitch when you try to hold back laughter. Nothing about you goes unnoticed.

★When you cry, he doesn’t leave. He doesn’t drown you in empty reassurances or tell you to be strong instead, he simply pulls you into his arms, resting his chin atop your head as you tremble against him. No words just understanding. Just acceptance.

★And when you are ready to speak, he listens. Truly listens.

★To the world, Malleus Draconia is a prince, a dragon, a being of immense power. But to you? He is simply Malleus. Someone who adores you, who cherishes your presence, who will stand by your side through lifetimes.

English is not my first language so I'm sorry if there are any spelling mistakes!

[michaelbranch]

A Brief Summary of Ideas: The Data Detective

*These summaries are kept intentionally very brief, just hitting what I consider some of the important/interesting takeaways, most word-for-word or paraphrased. My goal is also to stick to ideas/principals that might guide others (or my future self) in deciding the value of a read (or re-reading). T = takeaway, Q = Question

The Data Detective: 10 Easy Rules To Make Sense of Statistics

Author(s): Tim Harford

Statistics show us things we can’t see in any other way.

Before you evaluate a statistical claim try to take note of how it makes you feel.

Statistical expertise needs to be complemented by your own emotional reactions to the claims you see.

We often find ways to dismiss evidence that we don’t like or when evidence seems to support your preconceptions, we are less likely to look for flaws.

People with deeper expertise are better equipped to spot deception, but also better able to muster more reasons to believe whatever it is they want to believe.

We need to be wise enough to figure out when the statistics are in conflict with our everyday experience-and in those cases, which to believe.

Sometimes personal experience tells us one thing, and statistics tell us something quite different, and both are true.

Naïve realism: tendency to confuse our own perspective with something more universal. A sense that we are seeing reality as it is, without filters or errors.

“Knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place.” – Friedrich Hayek

Always ask if you’re comparing apples to apples.

What is being measured, or counted? What definition is being used?

Curse of knowledge: once you know a subject fairly well, it is enormously  difficult to put yourself in the position of someone who doesn’t.

What counts as “news” depends very much on the frequency with which we pay attention.

Step back and look for information that can put a claim into context.

What we see around us is not representative of the world. It is biased in systematic ways.

Many biases emerge from the way the world presents some stories to us while filtering others out.

Publication bias: interesting findings are published; non-findings, or failures to replicate previous findings, face a higher publication hurlde.

We should draw conclusions about human nature only after studying a broad range of people.

We shouldn’t trust “in general”; we should trust specific people or institutions to do specific things.

Trust should be discriminating: ideally we should trust the trustworthy, and distrust the incompetent or malign.

To demonstrate trustworthiness, need our decisions to be intelligently open. 4 properties are accessible, understandable, usable, and assessable.

When looking at a graph, check that you understand the basics behind it.

One of the reasons facts don’t always change our minds is that we are keen to avoid uncomfortable truths.

Making public commitments “freezes” attitudes in place. It becomes harder to correct yourself.

10 statistical commandments (and 1 bonus):

Learn to stop and notice our emotional reaction to a claim.

Look for ways to combine the “birds eye” statistical view with the “worm’s eye” view from personal experience.

Look at the labels of the data we’ve been given.

Look for comparisons and context, putting any claim into perspective.

Look behind the statistics at where they come from.

Ask who is missing from the data.

Ask tough questions about algorithms and the datasets that drive them.

Pay more attention to the bedrock of official statistics.

Look under the surface of any graph or chart.

Keep an open mind.

Golden rule: be curious!

Curiosity starts to glow when there’s a gap between what we know and what we want to know.

Illusion of explanatory depth: if we think we already understand, why go deeper? If someone asked you to explain something you think you know about, could you?

[royalreef]

Miri kept moving her head as Ava walked around, paying more attention to what she was looking at than what Ava specifically might have been doing. Suspicion, for once, took a backseat to a much simpler, more universal urge: a mere curiosity about herself through the eyes of another.

This was already so normal to Miranda, being her own body, the same that she had known for years, the only body she had ever known and lived inside. To impose meaning secondarily, through someone else's interpretation of her body, of herself, of things which she had never once thought about or considered prior to coming inland, and to want to know what it was. After all, Miranda was someone who was already so used to others seeing her differently, to creating a constructed image for them to lie prostrate before, so these were all implications she was already aware of, but they were intentional. Trying to see something without her own input was experimentational. Attempting to decipher some truth, as if she could find something about herself that would prove some worth to all of this.

"It is not a problem," Miri stepped in, course corrected. She turned, lifting her head back up and tilting her body as up as she would go, which was not far, turned on her feet. Looking now, she was slower than what first outset suggested, closer to what her feet implied, the unsteady way she stood on them. Her tail dragged on the ground, semicircle, ghosting after her movements, too heavy to lift up on its own, even for all the reinforcements that she had connecting it back to her body. Not made for the land, not made to move bipedally, her every step like this less balanced than something else with this body shape, with a heavy tail and a large head.

Her fins lifted, tilted, turned back and forth, chasing a thought that did not echo out onto Miranda's face. Her eyes, clever and smart and quick, the intelligent eyes of something that was looking back as much as it was being looked at, held no words that could be read behind their oval pupils. Miranda looked at the feathers and the fluff, the humanoid face that she had grown more familiar with in her years inland, strange and alien though it was still to her. Not made for the water, though the feathers and the talons were more similar, calling to mind memories of seabirds on murals and within plates.

"I suppose such a date could be arranged, if that is what you wish. Where would be meet? I would take you as wanting to go someplace neutral, and I could pay, if it is required."

Ava slowly found herself wandering in a circle around Miranda as she conducted her ad hoc investigation. She may have been fascinated, but she fortunately had enough wits about her not to step on anything or go poking around something that might considered... uncouth, for lack of a better term. She carefully stepped over the merfolk's long tail as she stepped around to her other side, but eventually, she figured she'd seen just about everything she needed to see.

Between the webbing, the gills, the armored scales, the mild bioluminescence, those massive claws that reminded the harpy of her own talons... well, it painted a very clear picture. She already knew Miranda's species were powerful aquatic predators, but it was another thing entirely--at least in her mind--to see such adaptations up close and personal.

"Wow... um, sorry, I guess I got a little carried away there, huh?" Ava said sheepishly, sitting back down next to her book and looking over at Miranda. "It's just... it's all so fascinating as a scientist! I love biology, evolution, how animals adapt to their environments in all sorts of different ways. I hope you didn't mind all the ogling too much."

"I... did want to ask if I could take some notes on your biology later, maybe? I don't have any of my stuff on me right now, though. But I'd love to really dive deep into what makes you tick!" Heh, 'dive deep.' For once, pun not intended.

[robcognitivepersonality]

The Mastermind & the Architect

How I get along with INTPs as an INTJ

I love INTPs, you guys are my type of friends to hang out with. Honestly I don’t see that awkward anti-social stereotype that looms over being an INTP. Hanging out with you, there’s no peer pressure to speak of, no Chad’s to deal with, no sense to impress anybody. We chat over beers, get high, play video games, share insights about life and people. Type descriptions have painted you as these emotionless sentient robots, totally missing the mark that you are also socially very intelligent. Perhaps the most socially intelligent of all the types. Oftentimes you deliver the most insightful life advice. Your awareness of public sentiments is completely slept on.

I guess it’s just my own anecdote, but the INTPs I know somehow manage to always be in the know. Like Varys in Game of Thrones, you have a 6th sense of little birds spread out everywhere informing you things. Be honest, am I correct that you possess the juiciest gossip details? No worries, I’m not here to know them if it’s not my business. But damn those juicy details can be so accurate though.

The word ‘socializing’ by the mainstream definition may not necessarily apply to you. But you definitely are out there exploring whatever tickles your curiosity. Shit I’m convinced you’re everywhere, physically and virtually. Even if you’re one of the minority that literally hides in Mom’s basement, you’re all over on the Interwebs. I see you in all kinds of subreddits, discord servers, subculture forums, MMORPG worlds, etc. It puts my lurking game to shame. And you know everything. And in some circles, you’re very popular.

You range from vibing and lurking to leading group conversations where everyone quiets down to listen to you. “STFU @everyone, our INTP lord is talking.” It’s a reputation rightly earned! You are the trusted beacon of truth and sentinel of knowledge. Whatever you say will be considered highly advisable. I’d be so busy taking notes and learning, or sometimes I have no idea what’s going on looking like a clown. I’m the socially awkward penguin here.

That leads me to another point: ‘leadership’ by the mainstream definition may not necessarily apply to you either. Yes we know it’s not your charming charisma that we’re gravitated to. It’s your talent for solving problems and discovering insightful information that enable you to command the most value and respect amongst your peers. The most conscientious of you implement so many new processes, enforcing standards, and become our role models. You advise us to make better decisions, give us confirmation checks and confidence boosters, and build us processes and systems that will enrich all of our lives.

"Reality is far too diverse, broad, elusive, ambiguous and complex for us to pin down. Even the limited empirical data we do manage to collect can only be interpreted within the framework of a subjective paradigm. It is, therefore, not really neutral. But in our desperate search for closure and reassurance we confabulate entities and explanations to construct huge edifices of assumed truths. They make up the world we actually experience; a self-woven cocoon of stories, not facts.” — Bernardo Kastrup

That’s all thanks to your Extraverted Feeling and Extraverted Intuition. It’s a stack that makes you altruistic, unpretentious, and unassuming. You help without ulterior motive, except for figuring what things could be improved. If there’s anything egotistical about you, it’s to be understood that your intentions are for the best of the tribe. You playfully and intensely explore deep in the tangled webs of any system, whether we’re talking about society, a software application, or the constructs of reality, searching for how it’s all pieced together while wearing the face of a mild-mannered pleasant person. You sync with the social atmosphere without trying to disrupt it. Like why kill the vibe for no reason right? The music is fine, don’t mess with the playlist.

The contrast with my Introverted Intuition and Introverted Feeling is that, instead of having this kind of symbiotic relationship with the community vibe, I am trying to figure out how to fit my ego into the mix. That doesn’t mean I’m doomed to disrupt everything in my path and that people need to bend themselves for me. On the contrary, I’m constantly reformulating my self-concept so that I can fit like a jigsaw puzzle piece. I daydream about what puzzle I’d like to belong to. I imagine where I’d like to be whether I need to come to emotional terms with myself or change the world around me. So, unlike you, I don’t have the itch to understand how everything is made. I just need to know the relevant things in order to fit in.

Who I am and how I feel is all in my own imaginary world; and it’s the most real thing to me. Everyday I remind myself that the idea of Me is nothing but a fleeting fantasy. There’s always a difference between that and what’s actually real. My existence would be nothing but hopes and dreams if I have nothing to show for it. NiFi in itself is a function pair of existential delusion. That’s why I can be so anal about empirical truth, and put so much value on evidence. I hang on to my SeTe objective concrete perceptions very tightly, as my life literally depends on it. And I make sure I’m correct. The way I see myself would be wrong and not real if it was based on false information.

While both our Thinking-Sensing functions want to get to the bottom of the truth, I love how you don’t care about being right or wrong. You don’t feel attacked about being proven incorrect. You don’t care about being smart. You don’t judge yourself when somebody questions your logic. All of your energy is spent on proving theories, since none was deemed necessary on proving yourself. This is where your intensity lives. Spending all of your energy digging deep down to get to the bottom of understanding whatever you’re focused on. After all, truth only stands after being excavated, scrutinized, and ruthlessly tested.

The funny thing is that truth is elusive. The world as we see it is a playground that is too vast, complicated, and ever evolving to truly be conclusive about it. There are so many ways and angles to look at something, all of them could be correct. Hence the knowledge vault that is your mind is always cracked open. I’d like to think it’s a never ending adventure, like building elaborate sand castles on an infinity beach. But you tend to admit getting lost in these thoughts can make you go crazy. Everything can be explained, we just don’t know how yet. Introverted Thinking and Introverted Sensing gets down to the nitty gritty and figures it out.

“The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know… The world is a very puzzling place. If you’re not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else’s mind.” — Noam Chomsky

That means you are a Sensor. Yep. With all the shit-talking about Intuitives being smarter, it just happens that the type regarded as the smartest is a Sensor. That whole thing is bullshit anyway. Intuitives generate ideas on top of ideas diverging away from the concrete. On the other hand, your Extraverted Intuition observes the complex and abstract universe so you can render it in with more detail and reduce ambiguity. Life’s troubleshooter doesn’t generate speculations, you search for them. You spend your time trying to make sense of it all. No stone is left unturned. Your knowledge vault is full of concrete minute details of what you understand about stuff. And you can be a real stickler about those details.

My SeTe seeks to consume those TiSi details. Especially if it’s about something I value, I want to hear everything that starts with “Well, yes no maybe. The devil is in the details.” When pursuing my goals, I like to research and make solid logical reasoning to ensure I know what I’m getting into. INTPs have been the indispensable sources of guidance for someone like me who’s driven to stay informed. People say it’s good to be well researched. But where do all the sources come from, you know what I mean? Abe Lincoln once said “behind every great INTJ is a great INTP,” right? You guys have saved my ass, humbled me, and made me happier along the way. There’s seriously not enough credit given for the good and value you have contributed for me and society at large.

When I look into myself, I see that being wrong feels like downing a glass of whiskey. It burns and I’ll just have to tough it up. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger right? To stand corrected is character building. I’ve built up my tolerance, but it used to be so painful. It wasn’t an experience I’d like to go through often. To not be wrong and be hurt again, I dive down the information rabbit holes studying to gain back my confidence. What actually happens was that I’ve been burying myself hiding under the mounds of data I gathered. I didn’t want to be exposed and thought as stupid. I didn’t want to be seen as a fraud. I didn’t want to find out my existence has no real value. I didn’t realize I became someone who was very insecure about who he was.

And here you are as I’m watching you gracefully prancing around without that kind of fear holding you back, waltzing on the line between the realm of what you know and the much bigger one of what you don’t know. I’ve heard you say “no idea” many more times than I’ve ever said it. I’ve seen you routinely make brainfart mistakes. I’ve caught you being wrong on so many counts. Yet you still stand as the one many of us count on to solve problems. That takes a lot of courage to do what you do. It’s mesmerizing. Needless to say, I really look up to you.

"We are in the seat of the US government, a government that was founded by people who were, at one point, ruled by kings they couldn't overthrow. So, what did they do, right? They started over. They came here, to the New World. And the way we win is by creating a new, democratic, decentralized Internet... One where it is the users, not the kings, who have sovereign control over their data. This, I promise to you: I will help you end this tyranny by building an Internet that is of the people, by the people, and for the people, so help me God." —Richard Hendricks, from Silicon Valley

Modeling you I realized it wasn’t even about accumulating knowledge, but about humbling myself and embracing my vulnerability. Exposing myself will push me over the hill of Mount Stupid down to the Valley of Despair; a place you’re very familiar with. That’s the first step to enlightenment — I know… It’s silly to make this an epic journey. For I can only imagine that tumbling back down to the bottom of the Dunning-Kruger effect is just a normal Tuesday for you. While we can question the popular misconceptions of that curve, there’s still reason that you tend to sell yourself short.

And there, I see that you can feel just as unsure and as unconfident as I am, perhaps even more! That comes with such a relief for me. I admit that I’ve felt intimidated by you. Yes as crazy as that sounds, I’m scared to push back when you’re sure about something. I just assume you’re more right. But the more I understand you, the more I see you enjoy stepping in and help out. Whether it’s answering a noob question or one even you don’t have an answer for, it’s as if it was an invitation to get to know each other.

Who cares who’s got the bigger brains. The point has always been about building an amiable relationship by meeting together intellectually. You’ve shown me to not take intelligence so seriously, that there’s no such thing as a dumb question, that it’s OK to say “I don’t know.” I learned to loosen up about being logical. And ironically that made me see the truth: I am an emotional person who had been suppressing his feelings over logic. And I projected this suppression onto others. I shunned people who weren’t bearing the same brunt that I’ve endured to keep my emotions down. I wrongfully believed emotions were weaknesses. I’ve looked down on “stupid” people because I was trying so hard not to be one.

Knowledge doesn’t define us. It’s simply a means for what we want. While I used it to isolate myself, you use it to connect. Information is to food as logic is to cooking, you’re the master chef offering your talents for people to get together and enjoy. I’m the pretentious Yelper giving you 5 stars and a Like. And I gotta be honest — I feel I’ve gotten unfairly way more out of you than you have out of me. You’ve never asked for credit, but I’ll always feel indebted to you. It’s not enough for me to acknowledge what you do. I guess you could trade your thoughts for my opinions.

Like me, you’d rather be left alone observing the world. Like me, you’re fascinated by how it’s all put together. Like me, you wonder where you fit in the vast elaborate structures of it. Well it’s not much… But you have a special place inside my imaginary world. This world that I die trying to make into reality by acting and proving myself who I think I really am. I am your friend. I am someone who deeply appreciates who you are. Someone who wants to be like you. Someone who knows he wouldn’t be where he is without you.

“To be born means being compelled to choose an era, a place, a life. To exist here, now, means to lost the possibility of being countless other potential selves.. Yet once being born there is no turning back. And I think that’s exactly why the fantasy worlds of cartoon movies so strongly represent our hopes and yearnings. They illustrate a world of lost possibilities for us.” — Hayao Miyazaki

I hate to say that this is all I got to give back. But I’ll definitely act on it. After all, feelings are like theories. They’re not real unless we materialize them out. You know that. Your feelings have always stood by your logic, wherever they came from. Many times they’re the reasons why you get deep in your head, why you’re willing to get out of your comfort zone, or why you get these bursts of flow state solving problems. You care for the good of your community. There really is a rose tinted bias in you. It really is the thought that counts. You recognize and solve the questions we should be asking ourselves to live in a better world.

In these moments you become the most genuine and sincere out of all the types. Unriddling the mysteries of the universe and discovering how we’re all connected speaks for who you really are: a human being who’s trying their best with what they know and understand about being kind with one another. Because of that, I’m inspired to be who I really am and to live as genuinely and sincerely as I can. To not hide under the truth but to stand proudly on top of it. I’ll live out my self belief as someone who will leave this world a little better than he found it. Thanks to you, we can make this true. Together as data points serving for something bigger than ourselves.

[maximov-widow]

You just need to feel it

Pairing: Natasha x Fem Reader

Warning: Language, fluff, angst

Summary: Being hidden away from the Avengers definitely brings curiosity when you are accidently discovered by one of them.

Word count: 5.6k

⸻⸻⋙☸⋘⸻⸻

Being one of the most rich people in the world daughter, definitely has its own benefits along with flaws, one of them being that when people heard your surname they instantly think you are the most spoiled kid on earth, when in reality you practically don't even know your parents.

People think you overexaggerate, like how can you not know your parents? But it's the truth, at a young age you have been practically given up to Tony Stark, he is intelligent and has his weakness when it comes to sponsoring his businesses to which your parents agreed to with one condition.

That Tony takes you as they never had time in the world to babysit you, so Tony became the father figure you always lacked. He taught you many things along with his passion of building, with each lesson you become better which is why you are currently working for Tony.

You practically have the same knowledge as him so when he is busy or needs another person's perspective he asks you to help and you do it with gratefulness.

When your parents noticed that you are starting to become a potential, they asked Tony to keep you discreet but would regularly check up on you, not that they would even try to interact with you but you didn't really care.

You were fine with Tony being the only father figure, soon when Pepper came into Tony's life, she was like the mother you always dreamed off, she always supported you and loved spending time with you when Tony was busy with his meetings.

Since you were stuck in the same place at all the times, you wanted to explore but you were forbidden from doing so, you knew no one could find out about you or Tony could get into big trouble with your parents.

You heard of the Avengers and their work, but you and Tony were behind the inventions so they could succeed against enemies three times their size.

It would've been one of those days where Tony would disappear from the team and spend some of his time with you, catching up or helping you with studying.

You was sat at your desk, the room was connected to the lab where you and Tony would come up with creations, the lab had a window that was tinted so only the person inside could see outside of it which was useful, as you could watch people walk past and no one would know you are even there.

The room of course was filled with things that could never bore you but it did bore you. You couldn't leave anywhere because if there was a picture leaked, your parents would be furious, so you were basically locked like Rapunzel but you couldn't escape.

"How are you, kid?" Tony asked as he walked inside the room, taking a double look in the hall to make sure no one saw him.

You nodded as you looked at him "Like any person who is locked inside a room their whole life"

He laughed a little as he made his way towards you "I'm sure it is very entertaining"

"Yeah, I'm so entertained as you can see" You pointed towards your books.

He sat on the desk as he leaned over to see what you were studying "Biology? What's so fascinating about that?"

You rolled your eyes, you would think someone like Tony would be somewhat interested in facts about science "It's interesting, like the human body has 12 systems. Don't tell me this isn't impressive?"

He smiled at you "You need another hobby, kiddo"

You playfully rolled your eyes "And you need to let me explore this building"

His smile fell a little, he knew that this is inhumane to keep you in a room locked and no one could find out about you "Under different circumstances, that would be possible"

You stood up from the chair as you kept your gaze on him "I know, it's okay though, as long as you keep hanging around I'm sure I will be fine"

He nodded slightly with a sad smile "If it only was up to me, you would be able to just walk freely"

"I don't understand, why don't they just let you adopt me, they barely even talk to me, you have been more of a parent to me than they ever were"

He looked at you, he always cared about you, even if you weren't his daughter by blood, he always considered you as one along with Pepper "I wonder that as well.."

The silence started to settle but he cleared his throat, throwing one of his famous smiles and pulling you into him with his hand over your shoulder as he walked towards the lab "I started to come up with this prototype and then I noticed something and I wanted to ask you about it"

⸻⸻⋙☸⋘⸻⸻

The time with him went by so quickly, he didn't even notice that he was gone for so long, he gave you a hug which was something that was so foreign to you until he took you, you still wasn't used to it especially since you barely received them but you grew fond of them.

The team started to get suspicious of Tony's disappearances, at first they thought he was sneaking off to see Pepper but that went out of the window when she walked into the Avengers tower and asked about him, indicating that she had no clue where he was.

They wanted to find out what he has been doing all that time, they checked every room they could possibly think off, but it came back short. They even asked Friday but that programmed thing always gave the same answer 'It's confidential' which only just fuelled the team.

Correction; Most of the team, by most that was Sam, Bucky, Thor and Natasha and the rest didn't really care until the four never came up with any explanation to why Tony had to disappear.

Steve only took interest when Sam really insisted and came up with some theory that Tony has a second woman on the side with a whole family, obviously there was no evidence to support that.

"I still think Wanda should look into his head" Thor came back with some sort of drink in his hand as he reclaimed his seat.

There was a slight laugh "There is no way I'm doing that, I respect that man too much, you guys are on your own"

All of them looked towards Wanda who heard Thor and they just sighed knowing that she won't do it, no matter how much they would beg.

"Natasha is a spy, can't she like follow Tony one day and just see where he always wonders off to?" Wanda asked as she sat down next to Steve who was scribbling something down on his notepad.

Sam and Bucky looked at each other with a slight smirk as they both looked at Natasha, who already knew that there would be no way out of this "Natashaaaaa..." Sam dragged her name out in an attempt to get to her " The witch is right, just follow him, you are like a super sneaky spy."

Natasha rolled her eyes as Thor spoke up again after taking a sip of his drink "That could save us a lot of time"

Natasha looked at Wanda who had a small smirk across her lips "You welcome" The witch mouthed which caused a glare to be thrown her way from the Russian.

She eventually agreed, especially when they would follow her everywhere, annoying her until she would crack. The famous black widow for once didn't threaten her team mates since she was as curious as them.

⸻⸻⋙☸⋘⸻⸻

She has been following Tony all day, sneaking around, hanging from the ceiling and just watching his every move, she was close to giving up but that's when she noticed a door appear from the wall, from the outside it looked like any wall but that's where you would be with Tony all the time.

Tony looked around and walked inside and then the door disappeared. Natasha, feeling of satisfaction washed over her, had a smirk across her lips, finally that's where he has been hiding all this time.

She expected, some embarrassing place where Tony stored away his secrets that she could tease him about, so when he walked out again couple minutes after, she took the opportunity and snuck inside the room.

She was slightly disappointed when she just found a lab but her eyes caught a movement from the opened door, across from where she was, she quietly made her way there as she looked around. It was just a bedroom with a lot of fun stuff.

She observed you as you was sat on your bed with a book in hand so she decided to speak up "Now who can you be, gorgeous?"

Natasha never failed to notice how attractive you were, the way your hair would be pushed behind the both of your ears, in her eyes you looked young but old enough.

You jumped up from the unfamiliar voice, eyes fixated at the redhead in front, you knew this was bad, she shouldn't be here and now that she has seen you, this will only be a big problem.

Just like you jinxed Tony walked in and his eyes widen at the sight of the redhead "Romanoff what the hell are you doing here?"

She eagerly span on her hill as she faced him with a smirk "So that's where you have been hiding out"

"How did you even get in?" He narrowed his eyes as he looked at you, you looked clueless as well.

"The door closes too slow, I just walked in. But who is that?" Natasha simply explained but her attention changed towards you with a smile.

He stood in front of her as he covered you "That's not your business, you shouldn't even be here-"

Natasha walked around, making her way towards you as she extended her hand towards you "I'm Natasha but you can call me Nat, sweetheart"

Her attempt at flirting with you only irritated Tony "Romanoff, I swear if you don't take a step back from her, you'll regret it" He tried to stick to his threat but Natasha knew him too well.

You looked at Tony "Dad, does that mean am I in trouble?"

Natasha's eyes widen as she repeated what you said "Dad?!"

Tony rolled his eyes and looked at you with a small smile "Of course not" His eyes darted back to Natasha "But she will be"

You would be lying if you didn't think that some of the Avengers were pretty good looking, you never was in a relationship for obvious reasons but there would be times you would imagine yourself in one, not that you knew much about them but the films and books seem to give you some sort of an idea.

Natasha mumbled as her eyes narrowed "Maybe Sam was right about you having a secret family"

"Secret family? Have you guys been creating some sort of theories about me? What the hell are you guys doing?" He sounded more than irritated.

"Does Pepper know about you having a secret daughter?" She asked with her arms crossed.

Natasha might have been viewed at scary and unlovable for not more than her body but that doesn't mean she didn't have her own view on some subjects, she just never voiced them.

"She knows-" He paused as he huffed from irritation "I don't have to explain myself to you"

You watched as your eyes darted from one to another as they spoke so you decided to interrupt them "I'm trying to read..."

Natasha's gaze fell on you, she had a small smirk playing across her lips "You know that bed looks more than comfortable-"

"Out!" Tony shouted over Natasha as he pointed towards the exit, she finally given in and with a smirk she walked out and Tony followed but not before he sent you an apologetic look.

They both made it to a private room, out of hearing from anyone. Tony leaned on the door as Natasha stood not far from him, he sighed with a defeated look "Can you keep this to yourself? I will pay you or something"

The redhead with a hint of genuine emotion "You don't have to pay me, I will keep this to myself you don't have to worry but"

He dread that 'but', he knew there was a catch, Natasha continued "Who is that?"

He pushed himself off the door and sat on the table as he looked at Natasha "It's not my place to say, but her parents decided to give her to me and here she is, no one can know so just make up a lie or something"

He seems upset in a way and just like that walked out of the room and went back to you, Natasha's eyes followed him as she felt a little guilty for invading his privacy.

⸻⸻⋙☸⋘⸻⸻

Everyone from the team apart from Tony were waiting for Natasha to return with some hopeful news. She wasn't expecting literally everyone to be tuned in.

She was taken back as she made it into the living room, they were waiting with excitement written all over their faces "So?" one of them spoke up.

The redhead crossed her arms as she raised her eyebrows perfectly "You guys just sat here and waited for me to come back?"

They shrugged and just said 'yes' which just made Natasha shake her head at their nosiness "Well I found nothing, he was busy with his meetings all day." She paused as they all groaned "Maybe there literally is nothing"

Wanda tilted her head at Natasha, she knew she had an advantage over the team, especially if they tried to lie, so when Natasha excused herself the witch took the opportunity to follow her.

"Wait up, Natasha" Wanda spoke from behind her as she caught up to her.

She turned to face Wanda as she raised her brows at her "What's up?"

Wanda looked around and with a swift motion, pushed them both into a room that wasn't familiar, from the sudden move it caused Natasha to slightly gasp from shock as this wasn't what she expected.

"What the hell Wanda!"

Wanda looked with an innocent smile "Sorry, I just wanted to be out of range of everyone"

"Why?" Natasha simply asked, not sure to why Wanda suddenly wants to talk.

"What did you find out?" The witch didn't beat around the bush, she came out with it straight away.

"I'm not sure what you are referring to?" The Russian tried to play dumb.

Wanda rolled her eyes "You might be able to fool them but remember I can still read your mind"

Natasha sighed as she crossed her arms and leaned on a little table that was behind her "Not much, there is hidden room where he keeps some girl who claims to be his daughter, the thing is that is definitely not his daughter. You can't say anything, he asked me not to and I'm only telling you because I don't want you to go inside my head"

Wanda liked the fact that she was somewhat feared by the Widow, she powerful but she would never try to hurt her team mates; scrap that, her family so she just nodded.

"We have a new addition!" Wanda clapped her in excitement "If you need help or anything, I'm here"

Natasha smiled at the witch and nodded and thanked the witch, they both went back to what they were doing; Natasha coming up with a way to find out more about you and Wanda went back to pity the boys.

⸻⸻⋙☸⋘⸻⸻

It was one of those days for the team, where there would be no missions as Stark had a lot of business stuff to take care off with his company. He needed someone to keep an eye out for you, he would've asked Pepper but she was busy for that day so the only person that popped in his head was Natasha.

He walked into the area where everyone had their own get together to just relax after a chaotic week, he spotted the redhead sipping on beer "Looks like everyone is getting comfortable today"

They looked at Tony who was in a suit rather than something more comfortable "Shame you can't spend it with us" Steve spoke first, he was the only one who wasn't exactly drunk but he wasn't sober either.

Tony shook his head as he smiled "Well, nothing I can do unfortunately. Which reminds me, Romanoff I have a mission for you actually"

The team groaned at his words, Natasha was really liked as she would be able to drink so much and not get drunk, she would barely even reach the drunk state, so having her attend a mission made the team a little moody.

She nodded as she finished off her beer and stood up to follow Tony, she remembered not having any missions, she always double checks so she is never behind anything.

"What mission?" Those were the only words that left the Russian.

Tony sighed, knowing that this is the only way out "I need you to keep an eye out on that room"

The redhead crossed her arms as she listened to him "What do you want me do?"

He handed her a card "I want you to be causation, in case something happens and I'm not here. Do not go in there and disturb her, she has some stuff to do"

Natasha nodded as she looked down at the card "This is to open the door?"

He nodded and smiled at Natasha as he reached for her shoulder and squeezed it "Good luck"

Natasha watched Tony disappear and sighed, she never was the one to break rules but she really wanted to hang out with you, there was something about you that pulled her in and there wasn't a waking second that she wouldn't want to spend with you.

⸻⸻⋙☸⋘⸻⸻

The Russian did as she was told, she kept an eye out for the room and observed it in a distance to make sure that everything was okay, it was quite boring, but she had her phone to occupy her time, she received some messages from Steve and Sam, showing her what she was 'missing'.

She was going to reply until she heard footsteps, she peaked and saw you with a hood up, waiting for the elevator to come, she smirked as she leaned on the door frame "Where do you think you're going, gorgeous?"

You didn't jump this time, you looked over at her and rolled your eyes as you whispered "Are you stalking me or something?"

The Russian crossed her arms, she knew what to do "Wouldn't you like to know!"

You raised your brows at her shouting, it would attract attention of people close by, meaning you would be spotted, so you marched your way towards her as you walked inside where she was camping out to hide.

"Can't you be quiet?" The way you spoke to her as if you knew her would straight away be a death wish for you but somehow you wasn't scared of her.

She looked out to see if anyone was coming and closed the door behind, trapping you inside with her "I could've been if you were nicer"

You sighed defeatedly as you looked down "Right, I'm sorry.." by the time you were done speaking, you looked up at her as she was analysing you.

"Where were you going to go?" She asked with no hesitation in her tone, she was a little different to the people you met, she wanted to find out why you did what you did rather than punish you straight away.

"I wanted to just leave that room, I never have the chance to do that and I thought today was my chance but" You paused as you eyed her "Clearly not"

The redhead felt hot as you eyed her but she hid it well "Okay, come with me"

You raised your brows at her but smiled as you put your hood up and you followed her like a puppy, you didn't know the place and if the worlds most deadly assassin was going to take you around, you knew it would be best to stick with her.

The two of you made it to the roof top, you never went anywhere your whole life, always stuck in that room or met your parents in some plain white meeting room to discuss what would be best for you.

As you stood near the door, you looked around to see the city and how beautiful it was, it was the first time you saw anything that pretty, usually you would only stare at one view from your room and that eventually got boring.

The Russian chuckled at you and made her way towards the edge of the building, placing herself on the floor, you did join her but sat a little further away from the edge.

You looked down and saw multiple cars go by but from far they looked like toys, the way you observed everything melted Natasha's heart, she never witnessed anyone being so happy whilst looking down a huge tall building.

Natasha shook her head a little with a small smile which caught your attention "What you smiling at?"

She looked at you with the same smile "I never seen someone be so happy whilst looking down to potential death" She teased a little.

You looked away from her and bluntly responded "If you were locked inside a room for your whole life, things like this would amuse you as well"

There was a pause in between, the Russian tried to come up with something to say without wanting to invade your privacy "How did you not go insane?"

You laid down on your back as you stared at the stars above "Hope"

You replied with one word which only interested Natasha even more "Hope for what?"

"For this.." You pointed up at the sky and she understood. You hoped one day you'll be able to just walk around.

She took a deep breath as she laid next to you and looked at your side profile "Why are you not allowed to leave that room?"

You looked at her, meeting her eyes trying to embed into your memory the way her eyes looked at you "Because that's my life"

"Surely Tony wouldn't be this cruel to not let you leave his side" She spoke trying to crack you a little bit more.

You chuckled "No, Tony is the best father figure you could ask for. It's just that my parents have a tight hold over him and if I mess that up, they will literally lock in inside a prison or something"

Natasha's eyes never left your face, it was like she was in some trance "So Tony isn't your biological dad?" The redhead asked, she knew that he wasn't but she wanted to know more from you.

You shook your head from side to side "I wish, he has been more of a parent to me than my own ever were"

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to" Natasha stated softly, making sure you didn't think she was forcing you.

You gave her a smile "I know, but you seem like you want to know unlike everyone else"

She frown at your answer "What do you mean? People don't listen to you?"

You shook your head "Nope, no one cares either"

"I do" It was the most quietest 'I do' you ever heard.

"You are the only one"

She was quiet as she was processing your words, so you continued "My parent's never actually cared about me, but I don't really care, what I care is that they locked me and don't allow me to do whatever I want"

"You talk about your parents as if they are really powerful, who are they?" She asked curiously, not to be nosy but to know more about you.

You looked away, scared about the judgement from her "My name is Y/n Y/l/n"

She looked at you with disbelief "So you're the spoiled kid of the Y/l/n family?" She asked with a surprised tone.

You knew this would happen, the news never shut up about you and your weird disappearance so you nodded and she sat up from the disbelief "That's bullshit, you don't seem to be spoiled"

You raised your eyebrows at her "Am I not? Have you not seen my room?"

She rolled her eyes "Well do you expect to be locked in a room with just a bed and couple books? I think that's a reasonable room for someone who has been forced to stay in it"

You sat up as you listen to her defend you as if she knew you, so you simply smiled "Thank you"

She looked at you as her emotions were quick to cool down "For what?"

"For taking me here and listening to me, I never had friends before, to be fair I never met anyone near my age" You nervously played with your fingers as you admitted it to her.

She smiled as she stood up and extended her hand towards you so she can help you stand up "Well we aren't done.. that's if you still want to hang with me"

You took her hand as she pulled you up "Please, anything to not spend another minute in that room"

She smiled as the both of you slowly started to walk towards the exit of the roof "If you want, there is a small get together with the Avengers, we can tag along with them"

You looked at her side profile this time, if you didn't have to reply to her, you would most likely be speechless by her beauty "Do you think they will know who I am?"

She waved her hand dismissively "Don't worry, I will put them back in their place if they say anything rude"

⸻⸻⋙☸⋘⸻⸻

And that's how it started, you both attended the get together, you met wonderful people and for the first time in your life you tried alcohol. The team was more than happy to have you in their circle and shortly they learnt who you were, it wasn't possible to hide anything from them plus you were on the news practically all the time but they never judged you but more opposite, they loved you.

Thor even called you Lady Y/n and you really liked it, they treated you like any other person and you could've been more grateful for that, Natasha walked you to your room and stayed until you fell asleep, she stayed to ensure that you would actually fall asleep but also to watch as you slowly relaxed every muscle in your body.

From that moment, she only started to fall for you even more, the more you opened up the more she was in awe at how brave you had become but it was the moment when you stood up to your parents in front of her that she realised she really likes you.

It was one of those days where she sneaked inside your room and you loved it, the two of you would spend time watching movies that she loved and movies that you loved, or watch movies the both of you hated and just made comments on it.

You gotten comfortable around Natasha and she respected you like you respected her, you wasn't sure whether what you felt was friendly or romantic, your heart would always skip a beat when her arm would brush against yours or when she laughed so hard at something you said and she gripped your arm or hand it just made you miss her touch after.

"I don't understand why they even go towards that stupid sound, I would turn around and just walk off" You commented as you were irritated at the scene on the TV.

The Russian chuckled slightly "That's because you are a wuss, of course you would run away"

You rolled your eyes at her as you looked over "Please, as if you wouldn't. Just because you are THE Black Widow, it doesn't make you less of a human"

She looked over at you curiously "So you're saying everyone would be scared?"

You nodded confidently "Oh for sure, if someone just barged inside here, you would jump for sure"

And that's what happened, someone DID barge in but it was someone you didn't expect, the way you gripped onto Natasha's body as if she would somehow make it disappear and the way Natasha held onto you as if she could make that disappear was more adorable.

"Y/n Y/l/n! What do you think you're doing!" The voice spoke that was familiar yet at the time not really.

You felt a blush across your cheeks as you realised you were still holding into Natasha, you let her go and looked at her, she had a slight blush as well but she quickly looked away from you to mask the blush.

You stood up from your bed and walked over to where the voice was, it was your mother, she stood there with her arms crossed and that's when Natasha came out from behind you, she crossed her arms as she narrowed her eyes at the woman.

Your mother held the phone out as it displayed your newly social media "I don't see what's wrong Mother"

She huffed "You are unimageable disrespectful!"

Natasha raised her eyebrows at her, she understood what you meant now but you continued "No, I'm being respectful, it's you who barged into this room throwing a fit over a picture"

"You are doing this on purpose, you are trying to ruin our imagine! You must delete that now, this is unacceptable" She looked at the phone and at the picture, it was you with the team, the next picture was with Natasha as she leaned on your shoulder and made a cute little kissy pose.

You shook your head "No" it was all you said which caught Natasha off guard but she felt proud, so there was a smug smile across her lips as she observed the woman in front of her.

"Unbelievable" She paused as the redhead finally caught her eye so she pointed towards her "You are the one who corrupted my daughter"

Natasha's smile was gone as those words left her mouth so she decided to speak up "If she was your daughter you would treat her better"

You looked over at Natasha, the way her gaze was on your mother so firmly, make your stomach do flips "She never corrupted me, she was always here for me" She looked down at you with a smile that met her eyes, you looked at your mother "Unlike you or Father"

Her mouth dropped opened at your words, she never expected you to ever talk to her like that, so you continued "I'm old enough to decide for myself, so I'm no longer your daughter but Tony's, he adopted me and I will happily call him my dad and Pepper my mom, they deserve those names so if you don't like it, leave the same way you came in"

She was boiling inside as Natasha chuckled at her expression, she huffed and walked out not saying anything back, you let out a breath that you didn't even know you was holding and turned to face Natasha, a squeak came out of your mouth as you jumped into Natasha's arms.

She held you so tightly but you quickly pulled away realising what you did, you were still in her arms but just facing her "Oh god! This is bad, she will take revenge"

Natasha's voice always seemed to calm you "Hey, hey. She won't do that, Tony won't let that happen and frankly I won't either"

You always seem to be oblivious to Natasha's feelings towards you, she wasn't very open with them which is what caused your obliviousness. The both of you were scared of rejection but something with the way Natasha comforted you and held you tight against her, making you look down at her lips.

She caught on and with every courage that was left in her body, she leaned closer, before her lips reached yours you looked into her eyes "Thank you Talia"

She smiled as she kissed you, she finally did what she always wanted to do, she felt as if there was fireworks going off, the way butterflies would grow just at the touch of your lips, she loved it and she was intoxicated.

You were the first to pull away, resting your forehead against hers "I like it when you call me that"

A grin broke out on your face "Talia, Talia, Talia-"

She kissed you again, this time with hunger as she backed you into a wall, you tangled your hands into her hair as you matched her pace in the kiss.

Even if it wasn't long since you knew each other, the want and the need was stronger than self control for Natasha, especially when you did things like this.

"You really don't want to walk tomorrow" The way her voice was low and her eyes would fill with lust just at you teasing.

"I'm not sure I understand what that means"

Natasha smirked as her lips made their way towards your ear "You don't have to.."

"You just need to feel it" her lips latched onto your skin within seconds, causing a moan to escape your lips.

[zodiyack]

A Work Proposition

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes x Female!Reader

Warnings: Nothing really

Words: 1,370

Summary: The female detective Lestrade has introduced is compelling, and upon seeing her and Sherlock interact, Enola’s cupid skills subtly kick in.

Taglist: @matth1w, @redspaceace-writes, @fandom-puff, @darling-i-read-it, @simonsbluee, @sebastianstanslefteyebrow, @missihart23, @maan24, @beck07990​

Masterlist | Henry Cavill Masterlist

The woman often hired to work with Lestrade, who was a common friend with Sherlock, had been at her job for a few years now. Lestrade thought highly of his new detective friend, so much so that he introduced her to the well known, Sherlock. His plan was to have them crack some cases they’d been stuck on, two mighty detectives better than one, but he had to get them to agree without scaring them off with the idea of meeting and working with a complete stranger.

Y/n agreed quickly, Sherlock taking some convincing, but the thing was, he didn’t tell either of them that they’d be working with another person. Both, however, showed up with mild confusion. It was his fault, he admitted. Confusion had to have been expected with his letters. The letters he’d sent out for his plea of summoning them went as this;

“Dear Detective,

You’re receiving this letter because I am of urgent need. I would like to request your assistance in a case that has us rather stumped. If it isn’t too much trouble, of course.

Though I will not explain too much of the case at hand, I will give you some convincing, hopefully, reassurance. Fear not for your life nor safety, you will be far from death’s doorstep on this mission.

The rest of the details of the case will be provided upon your arrival. Once informed, you may still have the choice of rejecting or accepting my beseechment. I ask you to at least hear out what I would like to solve before any denial of this matter.

Nothing is required except you and a healthy amount of sleep, for both you and your extraordinary intelligence. Bring your tools, or supplies if you prefer that name more, if you wish.

We shall supply you with any and all information you need, as well as a meal in apology for dragging you away from your personal life. I do hope you take my imploration into consideration.

Sincerely, Inspector G. Lestrade.”

It wasn’t the most specific of information, nor the longest letter he could write, but it would do. He sent it off in the mail then went home and slept peacefully. Early the next morning, Y/n was at his door, up and ready without a trace of sleep lingering on her face, whereas Lestrade had bags under his eyes and was yawning ever few seconds.

“Sorry to disturb your sleep, Inspector. Your letter lacked any instructions for when I do indeed accept...which would be now.” She waited by the door politely as Lestrade walked to his kitchen.

“Come in, Y/n, I would hate to make you stand outside.” He called from the other room. Y/n obliged happily, stepping in and closing the door behind her. A few seconds later and Lestrade was scurrying back to her with another piece of parchment. “My apologies, I knew something felt left out.” He chuckled nervously.

“Oh, it’s no worries, Inspector!” She put the note in her satchel, then faced him again. “I hope you get some rest. Again, I’m ever so sorry to have woken you-”

He held out a hand, quieting her instantly. “Y/n, you’ve done no wrong, there’s no need to be distressed.”

Y/n nodded, approaching the door again but stopping with her hand upon the handle, “Perhaps you should go back to sleep whilst you still can. I’ll see you then, Inspector.” A warm smile was thrown his way before she carefully opened the door and left.

They awaited Y/n’s arrival. Enola had tagged along with her older brother, hoping to be granted permission by both men, more hopeful with Lestrade’s words of guaranteed safety. Both Holmes siblings and Lestrade were sat patiently in his office. Well, in truth, only Lestrade dawned patience.

“Excuse my impoliteness, Lestrade, but why exactly are we yet to begin?” His brows were knitted, blue eyes holding great confusion.

“It’ll be only a few more minutes now.” He commented rather casually as he fished out his pocket watch, inspecting it for a second before placing it back in his waistcoat pocket. “My sincerest apologies for the hold up.”

Like he had promised, a few minutes went by and then- Just as Enola and Sherlock were about to rise, thank Lestrade for the job offer, turn it down and then return home for a quiet reading in the library, knocks sounded from the glass of the door.

Y/n stood on the other side, rapping her knuckles against the door, her eyes trained on Lestrade. He rose from his seat, her hand dropping and the knocking ceasing. Enola and Sherlock looked over, suddenly intrigued with the surprise guest as she stepped into the office.

“Please, detective, have a seat.” He smiled and gestured his hand to the large leather couch against the wall.

Enola scooted to the end, resting her palm and the arm of the sofa, Sherlock scooting slightly to make room for the detective despite there are already being enough that no one would be forced to move. It was only polite, plus, they were still strangers.

“I’m very sorry for my lateness, I got rather sidetracked with the anticipation for this case.” Y/n explained with a sheepish chuckle, sitting down and turning to face the others on the leather seating. She extended her hand to Sherlock, “I know you. You’re Detective Sherlock Holmes...and that must be your sister, Enola, I’ve read fantastic things of you two, marvelous work by the way. I’m Y/n L/n.”

“Detective Y/n L/n.” Lestrade corrected before either Holmes could respond.

“Ah, yes. I am indeed a detective, as Lestrade has mentioned, however, I see no need for either of you two to reference me with such formalities. My work pales in comparison to the Holmes cases.”

“I’m honored you think that, but you mustn’t put yourself down,” Sherlock drawled, a small grin upon his lips.

This peculiar, new woman aroused his curiosity just as much as he did hers. If she were a case, he’d be at work on her for hours at a time and still have towers to unravel. A mystery, complex but something he was determined to solve, shrouded her.

Sherlock had his eyes trained on her, the world becoming silent around him as he took in her face, mind creating a mental photograph he could hold onto as long as he pleased. The details of her features were like a rare piece of art, but not one he could find in the museum. No, she was far too unique, far too rare to be held up in a marble building with works nowhere near as beautiful, as desired as her.

“Now that you’ve made acquaintances, we shall speak about the case! I called you both here without knowledge of each other’s appearances, and I am deeply sorry for tricking you, but I wanted to introduce the two...” his eyes drifted to Enola, “three greatest detectives I’ve ever met. I originally intended on having Y/n and Sherlock work on the case, but I assume Enola would enjoy helping out?”

The older Holmes opened his mouth, ready to confirm his sister would be joining the two, but Enola was much faster. “Thank you, but I’m afraid I’ll be the one to decline your invitation for this case. Nonetheless, I don’t doubt that my brother, or detective L/n, would be up for the task.”

She stood up and left the office. Lestrade was ready to begin his explanation on the case before Sherlock rose suddenly and started after his little sister. He pushed past the people working at the station until he reached her, grabbing ahold of her arm and giving her a perplexed look.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“I thought you said you wanted to help?”

She smiled softly at her brother, “I saw the way you looked at detective L/n the second she walked in. You should work with her, get to know her. Worry not, brother, she isn’t here to usurp your name, only provide whatever assistance she can.” Then, she left the station, her words racing through Sherlock’s conscious the entirety of the day.

Maybe Y/n really would usurp his name...without the illegality of it obviously.

[fanmoose12]

Have you ever done like a high school aged au except Levi and Hanji are penpals?

so levihan here aren't exacty penpals and it's a high school!au, but this idea has been living in my head ever since i received your ask so i hope you enjoy this fic, anon, because i dedicate it to you <333

As cliche as it sounded, but Hange never thought that her life was gonna be this way.

When she finished her journalistic degree, when she graduated from university on top of the class, everyone kept saying, "A bright future is ahead of you, Zoe. The whole world is at your fingertips..."

And Hange had believed them, Hange had expected it too. Uncovering the truth, saving people with the might of her words, making the world a better place one article at a time. Hange couldn't wait to get started and make her dream come true.

And then...

And then every serious newspaper turned her application down, not ready to give a chance for someone with a lot of skills and even more brains, but not enough experience, and then her pride got in the way, and so she didn't wish to settle for some local, small newspaper, refusing to waste her degree and years of hard work on some mediocrity.

And now, here she is - working as an advice columnist for Sina's Gossip.

Not a place Hange ever thought she'd end up at. Not a place she would have ended up at, if she had a choice. But she didn't have that choice, had taken it away herself when she refused offers from more respectable newspapers and didn't get a job at the place she had aimed for.

The magazine isn’t large, small enough for Hange not to know about it at all prior to receiving the job offer. She wouldn't have looked at that job offer twice, would have dismissed it immediately after seeing the name Sina's Gossip written on top, but as chance had it, she scrolled through the letter and saw the name at the end.

Erwin Smith.

The Erwin Smith, a local star who had disappeared from public eye some years ago. And now Hange knew where he had gone to.

He was only in his thirties, and already made a name for himself after he uncovered a conspiracy at the local pharmaceutical company. Just like Hange, perhaps even more so, he had a bright future ahead of him. But suddenly he quitted his job and founded his own magazine.

Hange would be lying if she said she wasn't at the very least a little bit intrigued at Erwin's sudden change of course.

That's why she agreed to a meeting with him. And that was her mistake.

Because Erwin turned out to be handsome, intelligent and charming to the point of ridiculousness. He smiled, spoke a few flattering words and next Monday Hange was already on her way to Sina's Gossip, where she started off as a mere copy editor.

It's been three years since that fated meeting, and Hange is still here, now promoted to an advice columnist. And, despite it not being what she dreamed of, despite working at a gossip magazine she used to despise... She likes it here.

She likes the people she works with, and she likes people she works for.

The letters people send her, asking for an advice or sharing their grievances, Hange likes them too. Enjoys reading them again and again, mulling over each word, looking at presented problem from each angle and doing her best to come up with the best advice possible.

Perhaps it's a simple wishful thinking or whispers of an ego she still hasn't lost, but Hange likes to think she helps these people. Solves their problems, guides them through trying times. Or brightens their day, at least.

She's not saving the world like she dreamt of, but she's making it a better place - or strives to, at least. Sometimes people she helped write her again, thanking for kind and wise words. Hange takes huge pride in that. The job pays well, enough for her to rent a small apartment and live comfortably, but it's these sincere words of gratitude that she treasures the most.

And what makes her hold onto her position in Sina's Gossip even more is the people that work alongside her. Erwin is a kind, if a little dorky man. And he gathered a team of similar people. They're all experts in their respective fields too, Erwin went through great lengths to get them all aboard.

When Hange just started working, the prospect of meeting new people made her more than a little bit nervous. As much as she liked other people and enjoyed getting to know them, getting along, truly belonging somewhere was always a problem for her. Too loud and too weird, she was usually an outcast.

But not at Sina's Gossips.

There, almost right from the beginning, ever since she walked through the glass sliding doors and met a tall man who started sniffing her, she knew she would feel right at home.

In the end, she wasn't wrong. The employees of Sina's Gossips became colleagues, then friends and then family.

She loves them all, even the grumpy midget who opens the door to her office without knocking, his face showing no ounce of friendliness or joy.

But— he's holding a cup of coffee in his hands, and even if Hange were truly annoyed, she'd forgive him just for that.

"Four-eyes," he says, a greeting and complaint at the same time. Hange lets it slide too. Levi hands her the paper cup with coffee, and it's still hot, almost burning her fingers. Lifting the cup to her lips proves that the coffee is black with three sugars, just as Hange always takes it. For that, she's ready forgive Levi any possible sin. "Are you neglecting your work once again?"

"No," that is an offence worth pouting, and Hange does exactly that. She wasn't neglecting anything, how could he even think about it. She's just been staring in the distance for... Hange glances at the clock on her computer screen... For almost ten minutes now.

Alright, maybe, Levi wasn’t completely wrong about that one. Not that Hange will ever admit it to him.

“Did you check the letters I send to you then?”

Hange blinks, a little startled. Letters? It’s the letters day already?

Another quick glance to her computer screen tells her that yes, it’s Tuesday and the letters day already.

Levi takes a seat at the other side of her desk with an irritated grumble. “I sent them to you last night, you ass.”

Hange snickers at the profanity. For an editor, Levi possesses a surprisingly foul mouth.

“I’m checking them now,” she bites her lip, opening the mail. Right beneath advertisements and notifications from her social media, there is a letter from Levi, just as he said there would be. Hange opens it, downloading the archive. As soon as she clicks on it, her eyes light up in anticipation. She starts scrolling down, swiftly going over each letter.

A father who doesn’t know what to give his estranged son for his tenth birthday…

A woman who is worried that her sister is dating a gangster…

A strange man who lost his pet lobster…

A teenage girl who isn’t sure what she wants more – to move to another city to the university of her dreams or stay at her hometown with her best friend and boyfriend…

Hange greedily drinks in every word, hurrying to get to the bottom. What if there is a letter from him…

Levi interrupts her by kicking her leg under the desk.

“I’m glad you finally decided to pay attention to your work,” he pauses, his scowl deepening. In her head, Hange finishes his sentence for him – but now, I want you to pay attention to me. God, Levi is just the cutest. So endearing and precious, and he tries to hide it so hard. Nothing gets past Hange, though. “But I didn’t come here to stare at your deranged smile.”

Obediently, Hange shifts her gaze from a screen to Levi, staring at him with a hand beneath her chin. “Why did come here then?”

“You have a meeting this Friday, remember?”

A meeting, meeting… It takes Hange a long moment to catch up with what Levi is talking about.

“A meeting!” she yells, when it dawns on her at last. She snaps her fingers, grinning at Levi. “Of course, a meeting, with that guy from, mm…” she frowns, tapping her forehead. “From Monkey Island?”

“Money Island,” Levi corrects, but he does so with a hoarse chuckle, and Hange mentally pats herself on a back.

After all, who doesn’t enjoy making their attractive co-workers laugh? Especially if they’re just as broody as Levi?

“Do you remember his name at least?”

“Zeke Yeager, right?”

“Right,” Levi nods, and it could be Hange’s imagination, but his face becomes just a little darker, and his voice just a little gruffer.

Hange’s senses start tingling…

“Do you know each other?”

And, yep, there it is – Levi purses his lips, turning his head to the side to mutter a quiet curse. “We’ve graduated from the same university.”

In what world that is a reason enough for such apparent dislike? Hange longs to know more, find out every possible detail.

Levi sees that desire reflect on her face, and sighs. “He’s an asshole,” he reveals. “Who loves his asshole little brother.”

It doesn’t explain much anyway, but Hange feels like it’s the best she can get out of Levi. She decides to surrender and quell her curiosity, just this once.

“This is the only reason why you came? To remind me about the meeting? I have an assistant for that, Levi.”

Lifting his thin eyebrow, Levi gives her a long look. Hange struggles not to fidget under it. What has gotten into him?

“You really don’t remember,” Levi shakes his head, his disappointment more than transparent. “Four-eyes, Berner is on a sick leave. Had been for three days already.”

Oh, right… that’s why no one answered when she yelled a greeting upon entering the office. That’s why she forgot about the letters day. And that’s why she was staring in the distance for almost ten minutes.

She awkwardly giggles, rubbing her neck. “It just slipped my mind.”

“Lots of things do,” Levi rolls his eyes. “Don’t forget about meeting with Yeager, though. He’s an asshole but—”

“But an important man,” Hange finishes for him. She knows that, can hardly forget about that, since Erwin is so adamant at reminding her every time they cross paths at the office. “I know, I know, that interview is important just as that Zeke is. It can make our magazine more popular and blah, blah, blah.”

“Not only our magazine,” Levi sharply retorts. “It’s a chance for you too, Hange. Don’t ruin it.”

There is an uncharacteristic intensity in his voice, one that turns Hange speechless.

It’s a surprise that Levi knows about her ambitions at all, of course, she told him same as she told practically every person she came across. One day, I’ll show you, I’ll show you all just how great I can be. But it’s a surprise Levi not only knows, but remembers about it. It’s a surprise that he seems to care whether she truly achieves her dreams or not.

“Do you wish to come with me?”

It tumbles out of her lips without a second thought. But just as her mouth starts moving, Hange realizes that she truly wants it, wants to have Levi there with her. As a moral support, if nothing more.

Levi doesn’t answer her right away. His eyes narrow, as he mulls it over with his hand on his chin.

“Zeke doesn’t like me,” he mutters. “I will only make it worse.”

“Or you will make it better,” Hange winks, pressing her elbows into the desk to lean closer to Levi. Now that she knows what she wants, she doesn’t hesitate to apply a bit of pressure. “Maybe, he secretly likes you.”

Levi scoffs, crossing hands on his chest. “I doubt it.”

Despite his curt answer, Hange knows that she is close. Levi is almost ready to break. To ensure that, she decides to play a little dirty. “Levi,” she tilts her head and pinches her eyebrows, sticking her bottom lip out. Her puppy eyes aren’t that impressive, not nearly as good as Nanaba’s, but, for some reason, they seem to always work on Levi. “Pretty, pretty please, will you go with me?”

Levi curses, and that’s how Hange knows that she won. “If I end up destroying your whole career, four-eyes,” he points a finger at her. “That’d be your fault.”

“If you ruin my career, that means I’ll stay here with you forever. Won’t that be splendid?”

He doesn’t say anything, but his face seems pensive, thoughtful. Something in Hange’s heart pangs at that.

“Are you going to Nanaba’s place this Sunday?” she asks to change the topic. And distract herself from the strange feeling Levi’s expression provoked.

“No,” Levi answers. Hange grins.

Levi always says no, always tells them that he won’t let them pull him into their shitty shenanigans again, always swears that this is the last time he dragged their drunk asses home.

And yet, he shows up time and time again. He complains, calls them idiots, drunken fools and disgraces to society, but he still shows up. If that’s not a sign of true friendship, Hange doesn’t know what true friendship is.

“Can’t wait to hang out with your broody mien, shorty!” she exclaims, laughing when Levi flips her off. “Don’t forget your gloomy attitude!”

“And don’t you forget about letters I sent to you,” Levi stands up, throwing his paper cup in a trash bin next to Hange’s desk. “You have two days to answer them all.”

“I know, I know,” Hange waves him off. “I don’t need you or Moblit to tell me how to do my job.”

Levi raises an eyebrow at that, looking overly skeptical. “Two days,” he dryly reminds her before leaving her small office.

For a moment more, Hange continues staring after him with a fond smile on her lips.

Back to work, Zoe, she shakes herself and returns her attention to the computer screen. Her mail is still opened there, and Hange scrolls down to the end, searching for a username she hopes will pop out.

Almost near the end, it does, and Hange can’t keep in a quiet squeal of delight.

wings_of_freedom@gmail.com

The username is a bit ridiculous, pompous even, so Hange opts for a shorter and, in her opinion, more accurate one – lover boy.

Every two weeks without a fail, that same user sends Hange a letter, asking for an advice. They all wary in everything, but the subject – a person the lover boy has a crush on.

What do I do to become closer to her, what is the best way to make her smile…

Each and every letter, without a fail, brightens Hange’s day, no matter how shitty it was. The care, affection and love that radiate from these letters melt her heart and strengthen her belief that the world is truly a wonderful place if kind-hearted people like him still live here.

Apparently, romance isn’t quite dead yet.

Gripping the edge of her chair to at least try and conceal her excitement, Hange eagerly opens the letter and starts reading.

Thank you for your last advice, as always, it helped.

We’re growing closer, at least, it feels like we do. However, there is another problem that I hope you can help me with.

Admittedly, I’m not very good with my words. I never know what to say to tell the others how I feel, and sometimes I can come as rough and rather rude. It’s a fault of mine I had ever since childhood, and, truth be told, it never bothered me much.

But with her… it’s a bit different.

She can take a joke, and I know she doesn’t really mind my manner of communicating, but, still, I wish I could show her just how much she truly means to me. Sometimes it seems like she doesn’t quite realize it. Doesn’t really understand just how amazing and wonderful she is.

I know that the subject is not exactly ordinary, but your advices helped in the past, and I believe it will help this time too. Even if it wouldn’t, it’d be interesting to read your opinion on that.

Thank you in advance.

After finishing the letter, Hange starts rereading it, rubbing her forehead in thought. The lover boy is right, the subject isn’t easy at all. The lack of details and context complicates things even further.

A lot of people struggle at communicating what they feel, and it’s especially true about romantic feelings. But different people struggle in different ways.

Someone like Moblit, for example, is open enough with his affection, but he’d stutter to death sooner than confess to someone.

Someone like Erwin can charm pretty much anyone. His carefully crafted words and easy, handsome smile do all the job for him, but his words are crafted just a little too carefully and his smiles come a little too easily, and, as a result, he only rarely comes off as truly sincere.

And then there is Levi, whose walls are higher than skyscrapers and mightier than a fortress. But once you get past them, once you invest enough time and effort to break them down, you’ll find a gentle, caring man, who just isn’t used to showing his true feelings.

Hange can only guess what type the lover boy is.

Sighing, she decides to leave his letter for now and deal with it after she finishes with the rest. Somehow she feels that finding a lost lobster would be much easier than dealing with that particular dilemma.

***

A couple of busy days, filled with Erwin's warnings - Hange, remember the reputation of our agency rests on your shoulders, Nanaba's cheerful encouragements - you can do it, Hange! you'll charm the guy in no time, I know you will, Mike's horrible jokes - if you can't charm him, just ask Levi to punch him, that might do the trick too, and Moblit's frantic remindings, spoken over the phone in a throaty voice, later Hange and Levi arrive to the café Zeke had chosen for their meeting.

“It looks fancy,” Hange whispers to Levi, eyeing the entrance with a slight pout. “I didn’t know it’d be so fancy.”

“That’s Zeke for you,” Levi grunts. “Fancy asshole.”

“R-right,” suddenly every single precaution Erwin had told her come back, more frightening than ever. “Let’s just get this over with.”

The inside of the café seems even fancier, and Hange spares a longing look at her attire – an over-sized yellow pullover thrown over a light green plaid shirt with a brown khakis and worn-out converses. It’s not something one would call professional or stylish, not that she owns anything much better… but now Hange wishes she at least combed her hair.

She doesn’t know what Zeke looks like, hasn’t bothered with looking him up, since Levi is accompanying her, but she easily spots him even without Levi’s help.

Just as the café’s entrance, just as its interior, Zeke looks fancy. He’s not overdressed, in his dark green shirt and light cardigan he is all but casual, but damn, he is one of the leading journalists at the magazine called Money Island, and it clearly shows.

Levi wasn’t wrong about the fancy part, but he also failed to mention that Zeke is handsome. Extremely so. Blond and bearded, he is not exactly Hange’s type, but, well… there are exceptions to every rule.

Not just attractive, but, apparently, Zeke is a gentleman too.

He rises from his seat as soon, as he sees Hange, a blinding in its brilliance smile curving his thin lips.

“Hange Zoe,” he greets and eagerly shakes her hand. “I’m so happy you’ve come.”

The smile doesn’t leave his face, doesn’t even diminish, but his eyes narrow ever so slightly, when they land on Hange’s companion.

“I didn’t know you’d bring a friend.”

His voice is friendly, if only a little surprised, but his eyes are colder than they’d been before.

“It’s our editor,” Hange pats Levi’s back. “Levi—”

“We’ve met before,” Zeke’s still showing that same smile, but there is just enough frost in his voice to tell Hange that there is no secret affection between him and Levi.

“I’m glad Hange invited me to trail along. It’s nice to see you again, Zeke.”

Levi doesn’t bother hiding his sarcasm or schooling his expression in something more amicable. Hange rolls her eyes and kicks him as soon as Zeke turns around.

Will it kill you if you try to act a little friendlier? her gaze asks him.

I warned you about this, Levi’s huff answers.

Oh, well. At least, he didn’t call her four-eyes in front of Zeke. Clearly, that’s an improvement.

Hange sighs and sends a quick prayer that this meeting won’t turn into a complete disaster. She sits down in a booth across from Zeke and hopes that her smile will be enough to counter any possible tensions.

“The strawberry cupcakes are exceptionally good here,” Zeke notes, when a waitress bring them menus.

Without looking up from a menu, Hange nods. The prices in this café are much higher than she is comfortable with. She’d never bring her friends here, but, well… Zeke isn’t a friend, so Hange swallows down her discontent and orders herself a coffee with a strawberry cupcake.

She doesn’t even like strawberry cupcakes.

“Let’s start, shall we?” Zeke says after three of them receive their orders.

Hange takes a sip from her coffee – it’s honestly not that good to be so pricey – and tries to look composed and professional.

Truth be told, she doesn’t know why she is here. An interview, Erwin told her, but why would anyone want to interview her? She’s not a celebrity – not an actor or an artist, she’s a journalist, who works for a small, local magazine.

Why would a person like Zeke and a magazine like Money Island be interested in someone like her?

“I’ve prepared a small list of questions…” Zeke takes out his tablet, turning it on. “Are you ready to begin?”

“Yes,” Hange says, smiling when she feels Levi’s calf press to hers in a silent encouragement.

“So tell me more about yourself – your hobbies, talents outside of work…”

It starts easy like that, and Hange loses herself in her ramblings so much that she doesn’t notice that Zeke isn’t taking any notes.

But after a few trivial questions – what do you like about journalism, what made you choose this career path, what are subjects you’re most passionate about – everything gets just a little bit stranger.

“What are your greatest strengths?” Zeke asks, then follows it with, “What are your greatest weaknesses?”

Where do you see yourself in five years? What’s your dream job? Do you consider yourself successful?

One question after another tumbles out of his lips, and soon Hange realizes.

It’s not a simple interview, it’s a job interview.

A confused look Levi sends her confirms her suspicion.

“Mister Yeager?” Hange calls after a question about how she prefers to be managed.

“Call me Zeke,” he retorts charmingly.

“Zeke,” she forces a smile and hopes it doesn’t look too fake. “I don’t wish to appear rude… but what is the meaning of this? I thought you wanted an interview for your magazine?”

“It’s more for me than Money Island,” Zeke confesses. “I wish to get to know you better.”

Beside her, Levi tenses. Amongst the noise and clutter of the café, Hange can almost hear the sound of his teeth gritting. She doesn’t spare a glance in his direction, too busy gawking at Zeke.

“May I ask…” she clears her throat, feeling too far away from her comfort zone. “…Why?”

“Sina’s Gossips is a fairly small magazine,” Zeke begins, his voice as sugary as a strawberry cupcake before Hange. “But it became ten times more popular after you started working there. Clearly, you have a lot of potential, and something tells me that advice columnist is not your dream position. So I thought you’d be interested in my offer.”

“Your offer?”

“To change your workplace.”

“But I have no experience in the finance area.”

“I’m willing to give you a chance,” Zeke says graciously. “You’ll have to be approved my by superiors first, of course, and then you’ll need to undergo a bit of training...”

Hange can’t help but frown. “I can’t just abandon my previous position like that.”

“I’m not asking you to. Not now, at least.”

“So what exactly it is that you want?”

It’s Levi who asks, and his low, almost menacing voice startles Hange. She turns to look at him, but his face is as guarded and neutral as it always is.

Zeke raises an eyebrow, his expression curious as he studies Levi. But when he shifts his attention back to Hange, the same handsome smile is already plastered on his lips. “I want to offer a collaboration project. We can use your platform to let people ask things, not about their everyday struggles, but to ask you for an advice about their finance related problems. Our magazine can advertise it, and this will help to expand both yours and ours audience. And…” Zeke pauses, lowering his voice just a fraction. “It will give us a chance to see if you’re up to the job at Money Island or not.”

“I…” it’s a lot to take in, and, naturally, Hange struggles to find her own words. That’s why she’s so grateful when Levi decides to step in.

“We have to discuss with our boss first. Then we can give you a definite answer.”

There is an edge to Zeke’s smile that tells Hange exactly what he thinks about Levi’s interruption. However, it disappears instantly, in a blink of an eye. With his features much more relaxed, Zeke waves a waitress over and asks to bring them a bill.

“I’ll be waiting for your answer,” he says as he stands up. “I enjoyed our time together, Hange Zoe. And I know our companionship will bring me just as much pleasure. I hope we’ll keep in touch.”

He leaves after that, but Hange isn’t yet ready to go. She pushes the cupcake around the plate, mulling it over.

“What do you think?” she asks Levi after five minutes of silence.

“What do you think?” he shoots back, and Hange scoffs, kicking him under the table.

“I asked you first.”

Levi doesn’t answer immediately. He stares at her for a long moment, and there is something in his eyes, something Hange can’t quite understand the meaning of. She wants to know, though, almost asks him, but then Levi breaks the eye contact and slumps back in his chair.

“You’ve always wanted to do something more, right? It’s your chance, Hange.”

“And…” she swallows a heavy lump in her throat and briefly wonders where it had come from. Levi is right, that what she always wanted. Then why she is so hesitant to even entertain the idea? “Do you think I should take it?”

“It’s your chance,” Levi repeats.

He stands up and wraps his hand around her elbow to push Hange up too. His touch is too careful, almost gentle, and the confusion inside her continues to grow.

“Let’s go back to work,” he says, and adds in a voice so quiet, Hange almost misses it. “You did well, Hange.”

***

Hange goes to find Erwin as soon as they return to the office. She doesn’t tell him about the second part of Zeke’s offer, about the possibility that she’ll soon leave Sina’s Gossips and all of its employees, and focuses only on their future collaboration. Erwin listens to her frantic retelling with a calm, attentive face. He agrees to Zeke’s offer without much thought.

“That is,” he hastily adds, “if you wish to proceed with it, Hange. I don’t wish to force you, so if it’s not something you’re interested in...”

“No, no,” she shakes her head and hopes that the smile she forces on doesn’t look pained. “I’ll be happy to work on this project.”

Is she truly happy, though? Hange isn’t sure anymore.

***

She spends the whole evening and most hours of night thinking about it.

She goes to the Money Island’s website and reads most of their recent articles. She googles the most prominent employees and reads about them too, every bit of information she can get her hands on.

When the sun is starting to peek out from the horizon, Hange looks up Zeke. She finds out he has his own youtube channel, where he talks – no surprise here – about finance.

Being rich is easy

God, even the name of the channel reeks of arrogance.

But Hange has to admit – Zeke is good at what he’s doing. His pretentious manner of speaking and his apparent habit of scratching his ear is a little irritating, but he talks with confidence and ease that shows just how much knowledge and experience he has.

His videos are engrossing and his articles are, without a doubt, extremely well-written.

Hange likes Zeke, finds him interesting enough, but what he talks and writes about… she can’t help but think that it’s a bit too dull for her taste.

And it’s ironic, it’s foolish, she should be on a cloud nine from the opportunity presented to her. Hange feels like she would have been on a cloud nine… Three years ago.

But now she has a job she loves and people she loves working with. Should she really leave it behind just like that? Can she?

Then again, can she leave behind a dream she nurtured for as long as she could remember? Can she forget about every ambition and desire?

She doesn’t find an answer to that in the evening, it doesn’t come to her during the night.

And Hange can only hope that she’ll be able to answer it when the time comes.

***

But, instead, Saturday comes, and Hange forces these thought out of her head.

She wants to forget about her doubts, and with Nanaba’s fingers in her hair, a bottle of cold beer in her hands and Mike’s deep voice in her ears, forgetting about everything else is surprisingly easy.

They’re at Nanaba’s summer house, gathered around a brightly-lit brazier. Hange is warm, relaxed and content. Mike’s story about some fisherman from his hometown is a little boring, but Nanaba remedies that fault by whispering sarcastic comments to Hange.

When Mike’s thrilling tale is finally over, Erwin clears his throat, attracting everyone’s attention.

“In case some of you didn’t know, Hange had a very peculiar meeting yesterday…”

“Right,” Nanaba’s grin is too wide and gleeful for Hange’s taste, and when Nanaba fixes her eyes on her, Hange involuntarily squirms. “Very peculiar indeed.”

Knowing but not liking where this is going, Hange leaves the warmth of Nanaba’s lap and moves away. This action brings her to Levi’s side, and he tenses, but doesn’t protest which Hange takes as a sign that she can become a little bolder and lean on his shoulder.

Perhaps, he’ll shield her from Nanaba’s curiosity. Although, Hange has to admit that it’s highly unlikely. No one can stop Nanaba if she gets curious about something. Hange always admired that about her. Not now, though.

“So tell us, Hange,” Nanaba slowly begins, her eyes glinting in the light of the fire. Hange takes a quick survey, and confirms that, yep, everyone is looking at her. Apparently, Nanaba is not the only who is curious. “Did you have a good time?”

“Well, Zeke’s offer looks promising, and that project certainly is intriguing…”

“God, leave that boring stuff to Erwin,” Nanaba rolls her eyes.

Mike agrees with her by adding, “Not everyone here is as nerdy as you two.”

“Exactly,” Nanaba nods. “We want to know more about Zeke. Is he handsome?”

Perhaps, it’s the beer or the warm atmosphere or the fact that everyone – including Levi – is looking expectantly at her, but Hange chuckles and says, “Very much so. Not in the way our fearless leader is,” she salutes Erwin with a bottle, enjoying the slight blush that appears on his cheeks. “But he’s still attractive.”

There is pure wickedness in Nanaba’s gaze, when she leans a little closer to Hange and asks, “Is he as handsome as Levi?”

Hange chokes on her beer. Her eyes water as she coughs it out, her throat is sore, but with the help of Levi’s gentle pats, Hange manages to get her breathing back under control.

She glares at Nanaba as soon as she straightens out, but then remembers the stupid question and feels color rise to her face. She can blame it on a coughing fit. Probably. Hopefully.

“It depends on one’s preferences…” she mumbles, hating how weak her voice sounds.

Nanaba is merciless, though. “What’s your opinion then?”

It takes Hange more than a moment to gather enough courage to sneak a glance at Levi. Their eyes meet, but for no more than a heartbeat. Levi looks away instantly, his hands clenching into fists.

Hange decides to be honest then. Her gaze still fixed to Levi, she murmurs, “No, Zeke is nearly not as handsome as Levi.”

Nanaba coos, Mike guffaws and Erwin simply smiles, like that is exactly the kind of answer he expected.

Levi doesn’t react at all, but Hange is still pressed against him and so she feels – he relaxes considerably.

Hange relaxes too, and moving closer to his ear, she whispers, “Hey, help me get revenge on Nanaba.”

The look in Levi’s eyes is positively evil, wicked enough to send a shiver down a spine. Hange feels that shiver acutely, but… not because it scares her. Truthfully, it has a diametrically opposite effect on her.

“With great pleasure, four-eyes.”

“Oi, Nanaba!” Hange calls. She doesn’t know what to say next, finds it hard to concentrate with Levi so close to her, but she trusts he’ll back her up.

As always, he doesn’t disappoint.

“Is that your lipstick on Mike’s neck?”

There is no lipstick on his neck, Nanaba isn’t even wearing one, but they both panic and they both exchange quick glances. It’s enough of an evidence to make everyone laugh.

Mike is smiling, as he pulls Nanaba closer, tucking her under his arm. “We really suck at being discreet, aren’t we, Nana?”

“That we are,” she agrees with a smile as gentle and loving as Mike’s. “I guess there is something we want to tell you then.”

“About damn time,” Erwin shakes his head. “Do you know how many times I’ve caught you making out in the supply closet? I was getting tired of keeping quiet about it.”

“You didn’t keep quiet about it,” Levi grumbles. “Every time you caught them you ran to tell me.”

“And then me,” Hang gleefully adds.

Nanaba and Mike groan in unison, their faces red as tomato.

“We have the worst friends ever.”

Hange laughs. She very much begs to differ.

***

Beers and constant laughter very soon make all of them sleepy. That’s how Hange finds herself sandwiched between Erwin and Mike on a bed in the guest room, and though there is enough space for another person to fit in, Nanaba claims the master bedroom, and Levi takes one look at them and retires to the living room, sprawling over the couch.

In Erwin and Mike’s arms Hange feels safe and content. Her previous doubts take a seat back and let her enjoy the night with her friends. Thankfully, sleep comes to her that much easier than it did last night.

It doesn’t last for long, though.

The sun still isn’t up, but the world isn’t dark anymore, when Hange wakes up from her slumber.

Erwin is snoring into her ear, but there is a vacant place to her left, where Mike used to sleep. It’s not hard to guess where he had disappeared to, and Hange allows herself a small smile at the expanse of her friends’ happiness.

She doesn’t feel like sleeping anymore, so she throws one blanket over Erwin and snatches another one, wrapping it around her shoulders. With her feet bare and still dressed in a pajama shorts and Mike’s t-shirt that almost reaches her knees, she leaves the room and goes downstairs, walking outside. She takes a seat at a porch swing and draws a slow, deep breath, taking in the beauty around her.

The world is only starting to wake up, and grey color is more prominent than anything else, but there are just enough soft shades of purple, blue and pink to make up for it. Nanaba’s house sits just at the edge of a clearing that leads to a small lake, and the morning brings thick streak of fog that spreads over crystal surface.

It’s beautiful enough to take her breath away, and Hange loses herself in the calm, gentle feeling that finds its way inside her.

That feeling is strong enough to hide the sound of soft footsteps that approach her. Hange notices someone else’s presence only when the swing starts moving. She startles, her head darting to the side, but relaxes instantly, when she sees Levi’s sharp profile. He’s holding two cups of steaming tea in his hands, and hands one cup to Hange.

“Thank you,” she smiles, inhaling the sweet aroma of tea. It tastes just as sweet as it smells, she realizes after taking the first sip. Then, she turns her attention back to Levi. “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“No, I usually wake up at this time. Insomnia,” he says, and, right, now Hange remembers something-something about Levi sleeping not nearly enough for a normal human being. “Heard that you woke up and decided you might want a company.”

“How did you know that it was me who woke up?”

Levi gives her a short glance before shrugging and returning his gaze back to the scenery in front of them. “Your steps are different,” he answers, like it explains everything.

It does explain everything for Levi, Hange muses. He works in a strange, obscure way, so very different from other people. That’s why Hange likes him. That’s why she feels so comfortable with him.

Perhaps, it’s a fault of a dim, morning light or, perhaps, it’s her own sleepiness that changes her perception, but Levi looks a little different, softer around the edges. Because of it, Hange allows herself a small indulgence and moves close enough for their shoulders to touch.

Just a fraction, barely an inch, but she feels Levi move closer as well.

All of it – the colors merging on a horizon, the fog that makes everything look almost ethereal, the sweet tea made by Levi, Levi himself – fuse together to create an impossibly light, gentle feeling that very rarely visits Hange.

In that moment she feels happy, so happy that not even a brief thought of what’s going to happen if I leave is enough to ruin that mood. She simply drowns that pesky doubt down with tea and turns to look at Levi.

“I’m so lucky to have met you all,” she reveals to him in a quiet voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy before.”

Levi stares at her, and there is something in his eyes, something fierce and at the same time vulnerable that Hange can’t quite understand. She isn’t sure she wants to, not now, at least.

“Let’s stay like this,” she says, almost a plea. “At least, for a little while.”

“As you wish,” Levi agrees easily as though… as though whatever is it that she wants, he’ll get her.

The thought is both comforting and terrifying. Comforting, because it means he cares about her, because it means she’s not alone anymore.

And terrifying, because it makes her happy, and Hange isn’t sure she’d be able to part with that happiness, when the time comes.

***

No matter how much Hange wants to prolong that fuzzy feeling and stay in that small bubble with her friends, all too soon the weekend ends. Monday comes and with it arrives a new wave of responsibilities.

But not only responsibilities return – Moblit does too, and as soon as she sees him, Hange hugs him close to her chest, laughing when he starts complaining that she squeezes him too much.

“It’s been too quiet without your nagging!” Hange pats him on a back, smiling from ear to ear. “And you’ve missed one hell of a party! We’ve been sleeping so peacefully without your snores.”

“You like my snores,” Moblit argues, and he is right to do so. Moblit’s throaty snores lull her to sleep better than any lullaby. Besides, cuddling with him is always a delight, his tummy softer than any pillow. “And I’ve heard about that party already,” he continues with an almost sly look. “Nanaba told they found you and Levi getting cozy on a porch.”

Hange huffs, turning away from his knowing look. “I see Nanaba’s obsession with gossips is infectious.”

“It’s Sina’s Gossips we’re working at. Love for gossip is the requirement to get a position here,” Moblit jokes, and Hange shakes her head with a low chuckle.

Moblit’s been absent for just a week, but it was enough to make her miss him like crazy. She’s glad he is back. And more than anything, she wants to chat some more, but the work doesn’t wait.

She contacts Zeke as she drinks her first cup of coffee, and not even five minutes pass before he schedules another meeting with her.

There is no need for your editor to join us this time :)

Hange isn’t sure what irritates her more – Zeke’s apparent dislike of Levi or the stupid emoji.

However, Erwin’s words ring in her ear, yet another reminder that this is important, Hange, we can’t afford to blow this off, especially not with a man like Zeke on board. So she replies him with a stupid emoji of her own, and, gritting her teeth, adds that she is looking forward to their meeting.

Then, not wanting to repeat her last mistake, Hange checks the place Zeke has invited her to. This time it’s a restaurant, and a flashy one at that. The time he sets the meeting for – seven pm – is another hint that it is not a casual meeting, and therefore she needs to wear something better than her usual clothes.

She isn’t sure she can pull it off all by herself, though, and she isn’t sure there is at least one item of clothing in her closet that can be classified as fancy, so Hange asks Nanaba to help.

Nanaba agrees instantly, her eyes brightening up at the prospect. She promises to come over at the evening of the meeting with Zeke, bring some new clothes for Hange and pick up something classy.

At five pm sharp, just two hours before her meeting, Nanaba shows at Hange’s place, holding two large packages.

She doesn’t come alone, and with wide eyes Hange watches how Mike, Moblit and Levi trail inside her apartment after Nanaba.

“Erwin couldn’t make it, because he’s old and boring,” Nanaba cheerfully informs her. “But he asked to send him pictures of every look I’d pick for you.”

“Has anyone told you how wicked and vile you are?” Hange asks her with a glare that could almost rival Levi’s.

“Mike makes sure to tell me this regularly,” Nanaba flippantly replies. “Now go and get changed! We don’t have all evening.”

It takes five changes of clothes to finally find something that satisfies Nanaba’s fashion sense and doesn’t make Hange feel like she’s out of her element.

She is dressed in a dark brown suit with a black shirt underneath, and after Nanaba makes a controlled mess out of her hair, Hange has to agree – she looks very good.

“Let’s show you to the boys,” Nanaba whispers before taking a quick photo for Erwin. She pushes Hange into the living room, where Mike, Moblit and Levi are already waiting for her, all of them nursing a bottle of beer. “We’ve got yes from Erwin!” Nanaba cheerfully announces after checking her phone.

“That’s a definite yes from me too,” Mike nods in agreement.

“You look so handsome,” Moblit says earnestly, despite his shy smile.

Levi doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t tear his eyes away from Hange either. As she waits for his verdict, Hange wonders if the desire to change her look, because Levi obviously doesn’t like it, is simply stupid or downright pathetic.

“Levi,” Nanaba glowers at him, when the silence stretches for far too long.

Hange wants to deflate the tension with some joke, but then Levi clears his throat. “Not bad, four-eyes,” he says, making her heart stumble. “Go get that stupid monkey.”

Hange wants to hug him, so, so much, but she’s afraid to ruin the suit, so she settles on thanking him with a bright, happy smile.

Levi’s expression softens like that is all the thanks he desires.

“Continue making heart eyes at Levi, and you’ll miss your little meeting, Hans,” Nanaba whispers.

Hange hopes the red on her cheeks will be interpreted as anger, but Nanaba is right – she has to hurry, all this effort would be in vain if she arrives even a little too late.

“C’mon,” Mike wraps an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll give you a lift.”

Hange smiles, feeling so grateful – to all of them. She wouldn’t be ready for this evening if it wasn’t for Nanaba, she probably wouldn’t get that deal with Zeke if it wasn’t for Levi, her column wouldn’t be so successful if it wasn’t for Moblit’s assistance and Mike’s constant help, she wouldn’t have this job, this family if it wasn’t for Erwin who decided to hire her.

They all wish her luck one last time at the entrance of the restaurant. Nanaba and Moblit fruitlessly try to peek inside and get a glimpse of Zeke, when Levi wraps his hand around her wrist, dragging Hange aside.

“It’s Tuesday,” he says matter-of-factly.

More than a little confused, Hange blinks, then nods in affirmative, she knows it’s Tuesday, she’s not that disorganized.

“It’s Tuesday,” he repeats, tilting his head just so.

It is only then, to Hange’s shame, that she finally understands what he means.

“The letters, right?” she grins, proud of her own quick-wittedness. It took her only a moment to guess.

“I sent them over already. If you won’t be too exhausted after the meeting…”

“I’ll check them out as soon as I get home,” she promises.

There is nothing else to say, nothing else to do but walk away from Levi and inside the restaurant, where Zeke is probably waiting for her. Still… Hange is reluctant to leave. There is something between her and Levi, something almost tangible, and it keeps her glued to his side.

This feeling, it grows bigger, harder to ignore, until—

Until it disappears, when Nanaba tugs at her hand. Hange allows her friend to pull her away from Levi, stopping just for a second to turn around and wave him goodbye. Levi’s face is set in the usual scowl, but his gaze softens, and it fuels Hange with determination and resolve.

She looks around and, encouraged by her friends’ unwavering support, steps inside the restaurant.

***

Just as Hange predicted, Zeke is already there. When he notices her approach, he stands up and with a dazzling smile and pulls a chair for her.

“Hange Zoe,” he all but purrs. “You’re absolutely ravishing tonight.”

His words are too sweet, Zeke himself is too sweet to seem genuine, but Hange gives him a smile nevertheless. His compliment doesn’t succeed in making her heart race like Levi’s quiet ‘not bad, four-eyes’ did, but it still pleases her.

She doesn’t believe he truly means it, knows that Zeke uses flirting to get something out of her, but, oh well… if a man like Zeke Yeager wants something from her… isn’t it already fluttering?

“I took a liberty to order for you myself, if you don’t mind,” Zeke says.

Hange does mind, not that she can express it now, after Zeke already ordered. That’s exactly what he was counting for, Hange can very well see it – in the slight curve of his mouth and an amused shine in his eyes.

“As long as the meal is delicious,” she murmurs slyly.

Zeke laughs, and Hange mentally congratulates herself. Erwin would be so proud.

Speaking of Erwin…

“My boss agreed to your offer, he’s very interested in it and hopes…”

“Hange,” Zeke cuts her off with a wave of his hand. “We have work email to discuss things like that. Delicious food, beautiful night… why don’t we simply enjoy it? We can talk about work later.”

Hange frowns, looking at the man before her intently. For the life of her, she can’t comprehend what does he want from her.

“You’re a journalist with bright future ahead of you,” Zeke says, like he knows what exactly Hange is thinking about. “I want to help you succeed, but, aside from that, you’re an intriguing person. I simply wish to get to know you better. Is it so bad?”

Either she really sucks at reading people, or Zeke is that good of an actor, but… he seems genuine enough. Hange struggles with keeping her suspicion.

Before she can give him an answer, their food is brought in. The plate before Hange looks more expensive than she could probably afford, and she is pretty sure she won’t be able to even pronounce the name of a dish, but she takes a first bite, and… can barely resist a moan.

It’s good, really good – spicy but not bitter, and just crunchy and juicy enough.

“Is it delicious?” Zeke quirks an eyebrow, smug and amused.

The dish is so tasty, Hange can’t find it in herself to snap at him. “It’s perfect,” she confesses, sending another slice into her mouth.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it, to be honest, I was quite nervous about your reaction.”

Zeke doesn’t look nervous in the slightest, but if he’s so dead-set on playing a gentleman tonight, Hange can indulge him.

“So what exactly do you want to know about me?” she asks, pouring wine in both of their glasses.

“Ah, right,” Zeke pushes the glasses up his nose. “The first thing I’m interested in…”

***

They spend the whole dinner talking, jumping from one topic to another. Despite his arrogance, Zeke is an interesting man, he knows how to entertain and engage his companion, and so very soon Hange loses herself in conversation with him.

Time flies fast, and when they stand up from the table, Hange is shocked to discover that it’s almost ten in the evening.

Zeke remains a gentleman till the very end, and after paying their bill, he drives Hange home. He stops just outside of her apartment block, and when he turns off the engine, Hange knows she is ought to say something.

“I had fun. Thank you for the evening.” She says, and she means it. She doesn’t feel nearly as happy as when she is with her friends from Sina’s Gossips, but Zeke proved to be a good company. Hange is looking forward to working with him.

“I should be the one thanking you,” Zeke tilts his head, ever the charmer. “I’ll see you again?”

“Sure,” Hange agrees and gets out of the car. “Good night,” she yells into his open window and then hurries up the steps to her apartment.

Exhaustion sips into her bones the moment Hange crosses the threshold. She kicks off the shoes and takes off the suit, trudging up to the shower. Once she is clean and fresh, she falls onto her bed and gets under the blankets. Only then, Hange remembers her conversation with Levi.

With the last bit of her energy, she takes the phone into her hands and unlocks it, going immediately to the mail. She isn’t awake enough to read all the letters, so she just quickly scrolls through them. A thank you message from a man who found his lobster… a distraught mother who doesn’t know how to communicate with her son… a middle-aged teacher with a mid-life crisis… Hange scrolls further down, until she sees a familiar username.

She smiles and opens the letter.

Good day, and thank you again for the last advice. Admittedly, I was a bit skeptical about it, “trust that she knows you well enough” seemed just that side of too easy, but I think she does know me well enough to see through my rude exterior. What’s more, I think she knows me well enough to see things I don’t even wish to show her. I can’t yet decide if that’s a good thing, or a terrifying one.

Alas, there is another problem, one that bothers me constantly.

Without getting too much into details… there is a chance she might leave the company we both work for. I know it might not seem that awful, we can still remain friends even if we don’t work together, but… I’m afraid we’ll drift apart when she leaves. Without common ground, without our friends bringing us together, she wouldn’t have a reason to talk to me. Maybe, she wouldn’t even want to.

But that’s not the thing that bothers me the most. She hasn’t yet decided if she wants to leave or not, and, as much as I am reluctant to let her go, I… I wish she follows her dreams, even if they tear us apart. But she’s perceptive, and, as I’ve mentioned before, she knows things about me that I very well try to hide. So what if she learns about my reluctance? What if it somehow influences her final decision?

I don’t wish for that to happen, whether she stays or she leaves, I don’t want to be her reason for either.

Because if she grows to be unhappy about that decision… I don’t think I’ll be able to take.

I… don’t think I’ve explained my point clear enough, maybe, because it’s not clear enough in my mind too. However, as always, I put my trust in you.

You haven’t left me down before, after all.

Thanks for bearing with me. Hopefully, it’s not the last time.

Hange groans in frustration, as she comes to an end of the letter. Here she was hoping to receive some sweet news from her lover boy, but he presented her with another dilemma instead. And one that is so similar to hers too. Maybe, it’s a sign, a way of universe telling her… something. The message is not yet clear enough.

Perhaps, with a little time, she’ll be able to decipher it. But as for now, Hange decides, putting the phone on top of the bedside table, the only thing she really, really needs is sleep.

And, thankfully, it comes to her easily.

***

The next day Hange dives deep into work and stays in the depth of articles, lectures, textbooks and letters from readers for entire two weeks.

In almost everything, Zeke is the one to assist her. Email exchange, video calls, personal meetings… because of all that, Zeke seems to be constantly by her side.

He invites her to his company, organizes the tour around the offices, introduces her to every employee. They’re nice, Hange supposes. Overly politely and unnaturally friendly, but that’s to be expected from total strangers.

Zeke shows her his office – a big room with glass walls and large window that overlooks the city. It drives to a point just how different their newspapers are. It almost makes Hange self-conscious about inviting him to her own office. Thankfully, Levi is there to chase away any discomfort.

As soon as Zeke gets inside their office, Levi is there, glaring at him like he’s trying to burn a hole in his head.

“As Hange’s editor, I’m here to oversee your work with her,” he explains, and proceeds to critique everything Zeke does.

Zeke’s habit of scratching his ear makes him look like a monkey and his beard makes him look like a homeless person, his voice makes Levi’s head hurt, his cologne stinks, he talks too much and works too little, his jokes aren’t funny and his remarks are unnecessary. Levi finds a way to insult everything about Zeke.

Hange would have reprimanded him, she did a few times, but she can’t deny that Levi’s hatred is… kind of funny. It’s petty and childish, but at the same time hilarious to the point that Hange has to constantly bite the inside of her cheeks otherwise she’d be laughing at his jabs like a mad person.

Still, Zeke is an important business partner and her possible colleague, so…

“Please forgive Levi for his… lack of professionalism,” she tells Zeke when Levi leaves to bring them tea. Just moments before Levi had called Zeke ‘an insufferable snob who doesn’t give a single fuck about people around him’, so naturally, Hange feels that apology in an absolute necessity this time.

“Don’t worry, I’m not offended,” Zeke smiles, and it looks just that side of arrogant, reminding Hange about Levi’s words and making her feel like maybe, his assertion of Zeke isn’t entirely wrong. “His reason for acting like that is perfectly understandable. When one stands between a man and his… well,” Zeke trails off, staring at Hange enigmatically.

His what? Zeke is standing between Levi and… what? Is it the reason why they don’t like each other so much? Is it something that happened in the past? Or is it a recent development?

Hange wants to ask, but the moment for this is lost, when Levi comes back, holding a trail in his hands.

“I spat into your coffee,” he says to Zeke with the most deadpan expression. If Hange didn’t know Levi a little better, she’d believe that he actually did it. But Zeke isn’t fooled so easily, so he just wolfishly grins and thanks Levi in a sweet voice. Levi swears under his breath and then turns to Hange, murmuring, “Yours is with three sugars.”

“Just as you like it,” Zeke sing-songs, and Hange can’t stop laughter from bubbling out of her throat at the sight of pure hatred on Levi’s usually indifferent face.

“Let’s get back to work,” she says, still chuckling.

Thankfully, they both listen to her.

***

When Zeke leaves to return to his own office, Hange breathes out in relief. She stretches her arms and sprawls out her long legs beneath the desk with a pleased hum. Working with Zeke is satisfying enough, but with just Levi around, she feels much more at ease.

“So,” she nudges his foot with her leg. “What’s up with you and Zeke? What is the source of a drama?” and, remembering Zeke’s previous comment Hange adds, “Did he steal your crush or what?”

Levi looks affronted. He glares at Hange, hands crossed on his chest and a slight pout curving his lips.

Hange thinks he’s going to tell her to fuck off, almost expects him too, but this time, Levi surprises her.

“Remember my cousin? Mikasa?”

Of course, Hange does. How could she ever forget Mikasa, the only person in this world with a scowl as scary as Levi’s?

“Well, Zeke has a little brother, a brat named Eren.”

Hange nods, she vaguely remembers Levi mentioning some brother, and, more than once, Zeke had bragged to her about Eren, his darling sibling.

“He and Mikasa are friends, and my idiot cousin has been pining after him for years.”

Hange has some troubles imagining a pining Ackerman, and she briefly wonders what Levi would act like, if he had been pining after someone. Can he even pine?

“Eren had been an asshole to her, even made her cry once, so...”

“So?” Hange prompts, practically at the edge of her seat.

“So I decided to teach him a lesson. I wanted to scare him a bit, but it kinda backfired when Zeke spotted the two of us. I wasn’t going to punch him or anything, but apparently that’s how it looked.”

“And?”

Levi sighs. “And Zeke did what he could to protect his little brother.”

“He punched you?” Hange’s eyes are wide, as she tries to imagine that particular scene. Zeke is so much bigger than Levi, if he had punched him… Hange suddenly feels very angry.

“No, although I wish he did. It happened just outside of our university, and so Zeke had me reported to the dean. Something about assaulting a minor… it almost got me expelled.”

“What a fucker,” Hange growls, her fist clenching involuntarily. She knew just how hard it was for Levi to get into that university and pay for the classes, and to think that he nearly got expelled because of something so stupid…

“It was an asshole move, I agree. But a part of me actually understands him.”

“Huh? Why?”

Hange can’t even fathom a reason to defend what Zeke did. She knows she would never forgive him for that. It doesn’t seem like Levi has forgiven him either, but he understands him? Hange doesn’t think she would be as gracious.

“Do you have a sibling, four-eyes?” Levi asks. “Or a cousin?”

“No.”

With a thoughtful expression, he hums. “That’s why you don’t understand.”

His answer confuses Hange. And at the same time, it intrigues her. She knows that a bond between siblings is a special one, and as an only child, she can’t grasp the meaning of it. Levi seems to cherish his relationship with Mikasa, even if he always calls her a brat and complains about her bad manners. It must be nice to have someone, a friend that lives with you in the same house. Hange can’t exactly imagine it, but she acknowledges the importance of it anyway.

“But enough of this,” Levi says, bringing her out of her thoughts. “Your collaboration with Zeke is almost at its end. Your article will come out in a few days, have you decided what are you going to do next? Have you already told Erwin that Zeke offered you a place at his newspaper?”

“I haven’t.”

She doesn’t quite know how to approach this conversation. What’s more, she doesn’t quite know what her decision is. Money Island is an opportunity that shouldn’t be ignored, Hange doesn’t want to ignore it. A resignation letter that is hidden inside the desk's drawer is a testament to this. It will give her career a boost she always dreamed of, and Hange can’t let it just slide past her. She isn’t going to, probably, but… she is reluctant.

“We still don’t know if our collaboration will turn out to be a success or not,” she adds, an attempt to justify her indecisiveness. “Maybe, Zeke wouldn’t want to do anything with me, if we fail.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Levi rolls his eyes, apparently refusing to even entertain this idea. “The article will be a success. And you’ll do great at that job.”

Hange snickers in an attempt to lighten up the mood, to distract Levi from her unease. “Sounds like you just want to get rid of me.”

“It’s your decision,” Levi doesn’t deny, not confirm her comment. It sets Hange just a little further on edge. “What I want doesn’t matter whatsoever.”

His words sound familiar, strangely so, but Hange refuses to think about it any further. The words might sound like those from the lover boy’s letter, but the context is different. Levi and him are different. And whoever lover boy is devoted to, Hange is sure that she and that person are different too.

“I’m starving,” Levi stands up, a bit too abruptly, but Hange is too lost in her thoughts to take note of it. “Let’s steal some food from Mike.”

Hange smiles, grateful for the offer, and stands up to join Levi. “I saw Erwin bring yoghurt today.”

“We need to hurry then,” he grabs her hand, quickening her stride. “Otherwise Nanaba will steal it before we even have a chance.”

Hange laughs and eagerly follows after him.

***

When the article finally comes out, it turns out to be a glaring success. Both newspapers gain new audience, a number of newcomers bigger than Erwin had anticipated.

Everyone is happy and proud of Hange accomplishment. No one is surprised at her success.

Mike, Nanaba and Moblit all but run into her office, interrupting each other in their haste to congratulate her.

Levi is the last one to approach her. He wears an unusually open, almost happy expression.

“Told you’d do great,” he murmurs.

Hange knows she shouldn’t do it, knows that Levi won’t enjoy it, his aversion to invasion of his personal space is proverbial, but… Hange accomplished a lot, right? She deserves a little celebratory gift.

With that in mind, she shortens the distance between them and goes in for the tightest, squishiest hug she had in a while.

Levi grunts his protest, but doesn’t object further. In a move that sets Hange’s heart ablaze, he wraps his arms around her too.

Hange likes hugs, receives lots of them – at parties, she often cuddles with Nanaba and Mike, sometimes falls asleep with Erwin holding her close, and Moblit always gets too clingy when he has a little too much to drink. She enjoys embracing her friends, but a hug from Levi – perhaps, Hange tries to reason, because it is such a rare occurrence – makes her brim with unbridled happiness.

***

After the short, but very much enjoyed celebratory hug, Hange invites her friends to get celebratory drinks.

The evening is great, it is filled with pleasant conversation and so much laughter that Hange’s stomach starts to ache from it. The evening is great, could have been perfect… if Hange could forget about the resignation letter that is hidden inside her desk’s drawer.

It is a little after midnight, when they leave the bar and call it a night. But while everyone else heads to their homes, Hange decides to come to the office.

Almost wistfully, she turns on the computer. The first thing she sees is the time and the date, displayed at the bottom of a screen, that tells her it’s the early hours of Wednesday.

The second thing she sees is a notification that Levi sent her a letter.

Right. It’s letters day. Perhaps, the last one for her.

Hange opens the mail, her eyes instantly searching for the familiar username. She doesn’t find it.

She goes through the whole archive again, this time much slower. Still nothing. Then – what if third time is a charm – she scrolls down to the bottom once more. And…

No luck.

It’s the first time in a while that Hange doesn’t receive a letter from the lover boy. It can be a good thing, she supposes. Maybe, the lover boy finally confessed and his beloved stayed with him. Maybe, that’s why he doesn’t need her advices anymore. Or, maybe… Maybe, she left. That will explain the absence of the letter too.

It’s just a letter, from a total stranger at that, but Hange feels sad. Her eyes water as she stares at the computer screen.

She can’t help but wonder – did lover boy’s beloved know about his feelings? Did she decide to leave anyway? Or was she none the wiser about the extent of his affections towards her? If so, did she regret leaving him behind?

Would Hange herself regret leaving her job and friends?

She’s not sure. The worst thing about regret is that it doesn’t appear until after you’ve already done something.

Maybe, she will regret it, maybe, she won’t. The only way to find out is to keep moving forward.

With a heavy heart and tear-streaked face, Hange takes the resignation letter out of the drawer.

***

When she breaks the news to Erwin, he is not at all surprised. He’s not even angry or disappointed, he doesn’t ask to reconsider. A part of Hange wishes he did. That would give her an excuse to stay.

His smile is sad, but at the same time it’s proud. He thanks Hange for three years of hard work and wishes her the best of luck.

“When you’ll get rich and famous,” he says as he wraps his arm around her. “Think of us sometimes, even if briefly.”

Hange’s answering laugh sounds more like a sob. “How could I ever forget all of you?”

Erwin chuckles and wipes away her tears. “You’re a star, Hange, don’t you ever doubt it.”

***

Her last day at work ends with Hange getting shit-faced at their favorite bar. Everyone else is just as drunk as she is – Nanaba refuses to let go of her arm, Mike keeps asking her to call him every day, and Moblit has already cried for three times.

The only semi-sober ones are Erwin, who has to show up to shareholders’ meeting tomorrow morning, and Levi, who is an abnormal human being that alcohol holds no power over.

In the end, he is the one tasked to bring Hange home.

For the entire of their ride to her apartment complex, Hange does her best to behave. She breaks down as soon as they get inside.

Apparently thinking that forcing her to shower would be too much of a bother, Levi leads her straight to the bedroom.

Hange doesn’t fight it, too exhausted to do so, but when Levi starts tucking her in, she grabs his wrist.

“Levi,” she says, and the amount of alcohol she consumed earlier makes it easier to not give a fuck that her voice sounds almost pleading. “Levi, what do you think about me leaving?”

Levi has said nothing on the topic throughout the whole evening. And, while he has given her a hint about his stance on it before, and it probably wouldn’t matter at all, since she is going to leave anyway, Hange still wants to know.

“I told you before,” he doesn’t pull his hand away from her grasp, if anything he moves a little closer, sitting at the edge of her bed. “My opinion doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” Hange assures. “To me, it matters.”

“It shouldn’t.”

“Do you want me to stay?” she looks deep into his eyes, but be it the influence of alcohol or the absence of her glasses… she can’t read him at all. “If you really do, maybe—”

“No.” Levi cuts her off sharply. “No, Hange, there is no maybe. It’s your decision, and my feelings can’t become your reason.”

Again, the words are familiar, but Hange is drunk. Hange is filled with alcohol and conflicting emotions and lingering doubts. Besides, she’s too lost in the intense look inside Levi’s eyes to make sense of anything else.

“Good night,” Levi whispers, pressing his lips to her forehead in a feather light, achingly gentle kiss. “I hope you will be happy.”

He leaves just before Hange thinks of asking him to stay.

***

Hange swears to stay in touch with everyone at Sina’s Gossips, and she fully intends to keep that promise, but then— then the work gets in the way.

Her first week at Money Island is all but a blur. There is so much to do, so much to learn, and Hange gets lost in it almost immediately.

She stays in the office after hours, she works during weekends, every waking moment is essentially spent on trying to make sense of it all. The employees of Money Island help, which Hange is immensely grateful for, and she is no stranger to working after hours, but… what made her power through it before is not there anymore.

After two weeks she spends on her new job, Hange can’t deny it anymore – her new position is boring.

All these numbers, charts, net worth, stocks options, so on and so forth… it’s so dull and tiresome, it sucks all of Hange’s enthusiasm and inspiration.

That thrill, that excitement, it isn’t there anymore, there is no passion to fuel her, no purpose worth pursuing.

At least, her new colleagues are nice enough. However… Hange can’t help but compare them to her old ones.

Pieck is funny and kind, but not nearly as kind as Nanaba. Porco’s jokes, no matter what he thinks about them, aren’t as hilarious as Mike’s, and watching the development of his relationship with Pieck doesn’t give Hange the same thrill as Nanaba and Mike’s relationship did. Onyankopon is so polite, and he’s always ready to help, but he isn’t as endearingly awkward and cute as Moblit. Her new boss, Magath, isn’t half the man Erwin is. And Zeke… Zeke doesn’t even begin to compare with Levi.

Hange wants to like them, she really does, but all this work leaves little to no time to hang out with her friends, and their absence makes her more unwilling to connect with the new colleagues.

Out of sheer stubbornness, Hange continues working for another two weeks, hoping that maybe, with just enough time, she’ll get her spark back.

She is in the middle of writing another article, something about yet another failing company, when her phone pings, announcing a notification. Taking it a sign from above that she needs to take a break, Hange looks away from the computer screen and redirects her attention to the phone.

The notification announces a new letter, to her personal account. Intrigued, Hange opens it and almost squeals when she sees the username.

wings_of_freedom@gmail.com

Hange stares at it for a long, long moment. The letter isn’t redirected as it usually was, meaning… the lover boy knows her personal mail address, or…

The lover boy is someone she actually knows.

Not sure which one is more improbable, Hange opens the letter. It’s an unusually short one.

It’s been almost a month since she left. I still miss her every damn day. Do you have any advice how to stop it?

In that moment, everything clicks. Every coincidence and conjunction, every moment she felt like she could connect to the lover boy, every time his dilemma perfectly reflected her own. The fact that he knows her email address and the fact that he mentioned one month, precisely the amount of time that passed since she left Sina’s Gossips… there are too many seemingly random things that together create a clear enough picture.

Hange rereads the letter again, just to make sure that it’s real, just to make sure that she isn’t imagining it, that it isn’t wishful thinking.

It doesn’t seem like it is, Hange doesn’t believe it is, and a realization forces a surprised, happy laugh out of her throat.

It takes her but a moment to set her mind, and then, Hange closes the word document with an article, not bothering to save it. She opens another one right after that, and starts writing what will be another resignation letter, this time addressed to CEO of Money Island, Theo Magath. When she finishes, Hange opens powerpoint and proceeds to make a presentation that consists of almost eighty slides.

Perhaps, not her best work, but Hange is confident it will suffice.

She doesn’t bother waiting for Magath to come back from his meeting to give him a letter. She bumps into Zeke just as she exits the small office they gave her, and she thrusts the resignation letter into his hands before he can pull her into one of his endless, mostly one-sided conversation that serve mainly to stroke his ego.

When he takes a look at the letter, Zeke seems regretful, but— not at all surprised.

“I hoped you’d stay with us for a little longer…” he confesses with a slow shake of his head. “But I guess we can’t do what we don’t love.”

“I’m sorry,” Hange says, a small compensation.

“Don’t be,” Zeke waves her off, as easily and smoothly as he does everything else. “However, if you ever decide to go on a date with someone taller than a middle-schooler…”

Really, even Zeke knows? Is she that oblivious?

“You’ll be the first one to know,” Hange laughs, feeling lighter than she did in weeks.

Without wasting anymore time, Hange ducks into her office, grabs what little things she brought here and then rushes to small, not at all impressive, but so dearly loved building of Sina’s Gossips.

Just before entering, she stops and looks up at the front door. Finally… she feels at peace.

A moment is all she allows, before she walks inside.

Her first stop is Erwin’s office, where Hange plugs a USB and starts her presentation before Erwin can even ask what she’s doing here. It takes absolutely nothing to convince him to give her position back, but it does take the whole eighty slides to make him at the very least consider her new proposition – a new segment where Hange will be observing local news. It’s not much, but it’s a start, and a promising one at that.

“But I still need you to take care of the advice column,” Erwin warns just after he surrenders to Hange’s enthusiasm that slowly starts to come back to her. “Mike is quite terrible at it.”

“Consider it done, chief!” Hange exclaims with a quick salute.

Erwin smiles and stands up to embrace her. “Then, Hange Zoe, welcome back to Sina’s Gossips.”

Hange is smiling so much, she worries that her face might break.

After Erwin, she runs straight into Nanaba’s arms. As they embrace, Nanaba laughs, then cries, then laughs again.

“God, Hange, I’m so happy you came back,” she says, wiping her tears. “I was this close to dying of boredom.”

“You don’t know boredom until you’ve worked in finance, Nana.”

They laugh in unison, and Hange’s heart is full of affection, when Nanaba wetly kisses her cheek.

Just before stopping at Moblit’s desk, Hange heads to break room and is lucky enough to find Mike eating a sandwich there.

Hange steals it with a delighted laughter, instantly taking a huge bite.

“Never thought I’d miss someone stealing my food,” he shakes his head with a big smile. “But here we are, I guess. It’s good to have you back, Hans.”

At first, Moblit doesn’t actually believe she is real. He rubs his eyes and squints at her, tentatively touches her arm, gives her another once-over, and whatever he noticed – perhaps, it’s her mismatched socks – convinces him that he isn’t seeing things.

And then gathers her in his arms.

“They made me work with Levi,” he whispers into her shoulders. “Please, don’t leave me again.”

Hange laughs – she does it a lot today, compensating for that month she spent feeling sorry for herself – and pats Moblit’s shoulder.

“Speaking of our favorite shorty, where is he?”

“In his office, probably brooding as always. Since you left, he’s been doing it more often. ”

Hange thanks Moblit with a quick peck on his cheek, and then she is moving again, now heading to her final destination.

The inside of Levi’s office is dark, and awfully quiet. The only sound is the click-clack of the keyboard and the only light comes from the computer screen. It further highlights the dark circle under his eyes and the overall paleness of his face.

Hange clears her throat to get his attention.

Levi’s eyes snap to her, widening almost immediately. There is an ocean of questions, ready to spill from his lips, but Hange doesn’t give him a chance to voice any of them.

“So there is this guy, he’s been sending letters to me since forever. He’s so sweet, a true romantic, and, well, his letters were kinda the highlight of my week,” she pauses to take a quick breath, and continues. “And I’ve been rooting so hard for him, you know? I wanted him to get together with that sweetheart of his, but I also felt like she was kinda oblivious, if you get what I’m talking about. Perhaps, not completely blind, but with a vision poor enough to miss what is right in front of her. Or, perhaps, she always has her head up in the clouds and the guy is a little short, so it’s easy to miss him? And-”

“So you’ve figured it out then?” Levi interrupts her. His calmness makes Hange more nervous.

“I have.”

“Only now?”

“Yes.”

“Hm,” a ghost of a smile dances around his narrow lips. “Completely blind then.”

Hange huffs, but she can’t resist a smile of her own. She takes a step towards his desk, hopping right on top of it.

“Just so we’re clear,” she touches his forearm, slowly moving her hand up to his shoulder. “You weren’t my reason to leave, Levi. And you aren’t the reason I’m staying. But,” she leans in, hoping that Levi is not as stupid and she is, and he gets the hint that she wants him to lean closer too. “You’re the reason I decided to come back. And for that, I can’t thank you enough.”

Hange closes her eyes, when Levi gently cups her cheek. With bated breath, she waits to feel his lips on hers.

Her lover boy doesn’t disappoint, and the gentle, loving kiss makes her head spin.

After a short moment of bliss, Levi pulls away, and Hange has to forcefully stop herself from chasing after his lips. He smirks at the dazed look in her eyes, and Hange just has to retaliate.

She strokes the skin of his cheek with the most tender of touches, shortening the distance between them with tantalizingly slow speed. Just when they’re less than a breath apart, Hange whispers, in a quiet, endlessly soft voice, “You know, Levi, wings of freedom is a really stupid username.”

Levi pushes her off the desk for that, but it’s still worth it. Even more so, since he catches her right in his arms.

And then her lover boy kisses her again. And again, and again, until her heart is so full of love that she can’t even find it in her to get angry at Mike, who snaps a picture of them and runs away to tell everyone the news.

“They’ll be gossiping about that for weeks,” Levi grumbles.

Hange laughs, smoothing the crease between his eyebrows. “Well, it’s Sina’s Gossips we’re working at. And didn’t you know? Love for the gossip is the requirement to get a position here.”

[kyberphilosopher]

Atonement

Requested: yes. 

Word Count: 4193 Cal must deal with the consequences of his comrades deception and injuries, while they must deal with what this means for their relationship. 

Atonement is the concept of a person taking action to correct previous wrongdoing on their part, either through direct action to undo the consequences of that act, equivalent action to do good for others, or some other expression of feelings of remorse.

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*. 

Once upon a time, Anakin wasn’t all bad. But maybe that was why he died. After that, there wouldn’t have been competition for someone that was all bad, or at least somewhat worse than Anakin was alone. 

Not that Anakin was a complete and utter angel. You knew, not better than anyone but still enough, that Anakin wasn’t all good either. And sure, most people aren’t, but your Master wasn’t most people. Far more talented and powerful was he than the other Jedi Knights, but far more unhinged was he who could not control himself. Anakin was the latter. 

The other Jedi seemed to pity you. It wasn’t as if Anakin Skywalker was always inherently kind on you. You weren’t funny like Ahsoka, or respectable like Obi-Wan. In fact, Anakin had a suspicion that there was something inside of you that reminded him of his mother. Thus, he was cold. And he rarely bothered to teach in the way that people deserved to be taught. 

He doesn’t like me, you remember thinking. He never will. 

You had been the perfect padawan. You were certain you had done everything right. And yet, Anakin’s stare was icy, when he bothered to look your way at all. Where had your Master gone after the Purge anyway?

Your eyes open slowly. 

Light peels across your vision, smeared from the art of being tired. Once your lids are widened, the back of your right hand lays across your forehead lazily. You had been dreaming, hadn’t you? But what had it been about? And why did it seem so hard to remember?

Maybe it was about your Master again, you realize as you exhale. No- ex Master now. But maybe it had been about him. It wouldn’t have been the first time. 

You’re a Clone Killer. 

Eyebrows crease with a twitch. You’ve laid in bed with too much comfort now. It’s time to get up. Stars, but the bed is warm and your legs are tangled in your comforter just right. When’s the next time you’ll get to feel this relaxed and sleepy?

Must’ve been the worst Padawan in history. 

“Shit,” you whisper with closed eyes. Yes, now you’re more than certain that it’s time to get up. Comfort doesn’t matter today. 

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

The restroom door hisses to a close behind you. Rubbing the back of your neck, you begin your sluggish march to the ships deck. You can already smell Greez’s cooking wafting from around the corner. What is that? Sausage and... is that eggs?

Your pants scuff against each other, sweatshirt twisting with the reach of your arm. As the floor transitions from metal to stiff rug, you pull your chair out. 

“Ah, good morning sleepyhead,” you hear Greez’s voice call out to you. Your eyes remain sleepy, gazing down at the table. Doesn’t even look present, Cal observes as his eyes flick over your face. 

“Well, aren’t you a ray of sun today,” Dritus continues from the stove. One of his four hands flick the pan over the stove up with an explosive sizzle. “Be careful you don’t make me feel bad, so I don’t feel inclined to give you more of my food.”

“I slept in too late,” you mutter, half to yourself. 

At the other side of the table, Cal’s stocky form is hunched over. One of his hands is wrapped around a cup on the table, which is covered in cold perspiration. Soft ginger hair falls back as he looks over you. You could feel his pretty, kaleidoscope eyes from the other side of the universe. He doesn’t say anything, though, and you’re too tired to play the “What’s He Thinking About?” game right now. 

“You’re damn right you did,” the Latero says. “Cal here was just about to go and check in on you.”

You swallow quickly, glancing up at the man parallel to you. Cal is looking over at Greez, given you a clear view of his jaw and the scar that stretches over his neck. He’s beautiful. He always has been. You can feel your ears start to burn, and you look away almost immediately. 

“Thanks,” you say instead, finally pulling your hand away from your neck. Without even realizing it, your intelligent orbs look to Cal again. This time, however, your eyes meet. Electric pulses run through you, tickling from your neck to your pelvis. And, true to your nature, you brake gazes immediately. “I think I’ll skip out on breakfast today.”

“Seriously?” Greez whirls around, dumbfounded. “But... breakfast is the most important meal of the day!”

That’s true. Ever since you gained the privilege of having Greez Dritus the wanted Latero to cook for you, breakfast had been far more likeable. He always knows how to add the perfect amount of spice and flavor without coming off as overbearing. But there’s something in the back of your throat, crawling up to the tip of your tongue. A name of an old master, and the dream that you can’t remember. 

“I’m just not hungry,” you push yourself out of your stool and slide it back under the table. Cal watches your form jog down the steps and disappear into the cockpit, his lips parted and near pulling into a frown. 

“Wonder what her problem is,” Greez’s raspy voice calls into the air. 

“Let her be,” a mature female voice breaks as it rounds the corner. Cere emerges from the hallway by the stares, her watchful eyes also glued on the cockpit archway. “She’ll come around.”

Will you? Cal wonders. You’ve always been a bit tight lipped in the grand scheme of things, but today the anguish is peeling off of you like steam. You seem pale in the way that conveys sickness. The dark circles under your eyes are wise, but tired. Maybe you’re just ill. 

It’s not that far off. As you flip switches around on the console pointlessly, all you have to think about are these hands that disappointed your Master. Calloused, rough fingers. Raw palms from holding your saber. Clever, but never enough. 

You exhale through your nose, your shoulders sinking. 

Oh, that’s right. That’s what happened to your Master.

How could you have forgotten that?

“Rough night?”

You perk up at the sound of his voice, but don’t turn around. It’s not that you don’t want to look at Cal, it’s that you feel to ashamed of yourself to even try it. You don’t deserve to look upon him. 

“Just feeling sick,” you mutter so hoarse he can barely hear. 

“Is that the truth?”

Your eyes widen stiffly. One heel at a time, your feet turn around until you are facing your companion. 

Time slows as you look at Cal. His soft orange hair billows in the air conditioning, kaleidoscope eyes twinkling with wonder. The freckles, the jaw, the chapped pink lips. He is beautiful. The way he looks at you now makes you feel guiltier than usual. 

Why don’t you just tell him? Tell him you know the person who’s responsible for that scar on his stomach. Tell him you were trained by him. Tell him about your nightmare last night, how you woke up in cold sweats. But you can’t. You just can’t. 

“Yeah,” you say hoarsely, eyes glued to his. 

Cal steps forward suddenly, almost losing his balance. His soft, pink lips come dangerously close to yours. You can smell his scent, turning your jaw to meet him instinctively. But it was just an accident. 

He steps away to regain his balance. The only sound in the room is that of the air vents. 

He wasn’t going to kiss you. 

Cal stays still, firm. “I hope you feel better,” he says in the same tone as before, though far more sincere. 

And he turns away and walks out of the room, leaving you alone with only the air to comfort you.

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

The leaves crunch under boots as they do. Twigs snap, pebbles crumble. Dirt scuffs against each shoe. 

Above you, the Kashyyyk trees whisper in the wind, allowing pools of sunlight to fall in between the loose spaces of green. The breeze tickles at the skin on your arms. It’s a nice day. But this is still not enough to improve the sick feeling in your stomach. 

Maybe you really were just a failure of a padawan after all. 

“Hey,” the boy beside you calls. “Look up there.”

You raise your head, squinting through the thin, rainbow rays of sun. Up ahead of you, over a steep drop that could be anything from a river to an abyss, is a great mechanical building. It’s sleek and gray, standing out against the natural beauty. This itself is enough proof of Imperial presence. 

“I thought they would’ve left by now,” you mutter, slightly in awe. Birds fly over the fort as if it didn’t bother them for a second, and the waterfall nearby doesn’t cease its babbling. “Why haven’t they left by now?”

“Only one way to find out,” Cal tells you after some seconds of silence. 

Something rushes through the air then- a gust of wind that only you seem to feel. It’s haunting and low, like it has it’s own voice or musical theme of doom. It’s almost impossible to tell whether it’s a warning, a promise, or some kind of mockery, but it feels dark. More importantly, it feels like a message. But Cal doesn’t move a muscle. Only his orange locks billow in time with his lashes, which close slowly. 

“Wait,” you break the quiet. “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

The boys eyes are furrowed when his head turns to you. His pale green eyes flash briefly in the sunlight, but the twinkle of confusion and curiosity remain after the flash disappears. “Why not?”

The rush of wind slows until you can barely feel it anymore. The words are on the tip of your dried up tongue, but you’re not even sure what they are. What can you say to explain your... your fear? It’s more than just intuition or a gut feeling. It’s something you know for a fact, and you have the evidence, but you can’t even hold it. 

“It’s dangerous,” you decide, your bottom lip shaking too quick to notice. You say it almost casually, almost as if it were obvious. And of course, it is. Thus the flaw in your attempt. 

“Most things are,” Cal replies. 

Just then, the pitter pattering of little metal feet tap against the dirt and mulch comes to life. It completely cuts away what little presence the ominous air had left, only allowing BD-1′s happy little whirs to clearly ring through. 

Cal’s hands rest on his hips as he turns his head to look at his partner. He squats to the ground with his little calm smile. “Would it make you feel better if I sent BD to scout ahead?”

It wouldn’t at all. All you can think about instead is your little scrapped friend getting his sliced clean off with a long, red blade. Cal wouldn’t even be able to fix him. 

“BD, go on ahead,” Cal tells the machine. He scratches along BD’s head for encouragement, and the creature doesn’t even seemed miffed before hopping off into the leaves and trees until he’s completely out of sight. 

“I don’t- I don’t think-” your hands ball to fists at your sides. A lump forms in your throat like an invisible bubble, or a heavy ball clogging your airway. 

“Y/N?” Cal’s brows furrow once more as he twists and stands again. “You look pale.”

Another wave of wind flows through. It’s the same as before- cold, threatening, filled with something angry and sad and warning you to never have to feel it for real. However, your partner feels it this time too. 

His eyes leave yours and drop to the ground behind him as he twists in concern, looking around for whatever could be the cause. Subconsciously, his right hand lifts from his side to the right side of his ribs. Your eyes widen in understanding, but you wish so badly it was anything but that. 

“Do you feel that?” Cal calls out to you, still trying to locate the presence that doesn’t even exist. 

Yes, you think as you watch the boys other hand slip over his saber. I feel it. 

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

Anakin wasn’t always evil. Whether or not he’s even evil now is up for debate. But for as long as you knew him, in your eyes at least, he was your hero. Not because he helped you, which he didn’t, or because he wanted the best for you, which he didn’t care about. But because he was strong, and someone to look up to. He’s the knight in shining armor that every little boy wants to be like when they grow up, and the warrior every feminist wants to be equal to. Anakin Skywalker was, by all means, a dream. 

So then why is this the worst you’ve ever felt?

“Master?” your voice wheezes out. There’s a storm all around you, a personal tornado for the three of you that makes everything but roaring hard to hear. Rapid blinking helps to keep the dust from your eyes every few seconds, but not enough. It’s starting to sting.

“Stop,” you hear another voice say, but it’s muffled with chokes. “Stop...”

This isn’t Anakin. This is a man of metal- obsidian and iron and cooled magma. There’s not a single inch of flesh showing. The cape, whipping wildly in the wind, is the closest thing to organic. It’s tattered, and the wind gives the illusion of it bleeding away like inky smoke.

“Join me,” False Anakin calls. His fist clenched with determination, a red glow brightening up the area. “Serve your master.”

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

And from Cal’s position, you just look plain pretty. Kind of distraught, with faded eyes and slightly knitted brows paired with a frown. Your hair is sort of billowing in time with the storm around you, along side that weapon on your belt. Really, you look sad. 

Cal’s fingers dig into the dirt and sand beneath his body. His whole form feels like it’s going to rip away into dust, like Vader doesn’t want him there. And of course, he doesn’t. He hasn’t even given Cal a glance. That being said, his whole stomach feels entirely enflamed. Especially that one special place where he’d felt Vader’s touch before. Now Cal knows that you must’ve been touched by him as well. It’s the worst feeling in the world. 

“Don’t,” he chokes. Cal gets a mouthful of dirt in the process, but he doesn’t even register it. “Y/N-”

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

“-will come back from this.”

Your eyes open. They feel stiff and dry, like how you imagine a mummy’s would. The light over head is blinding and white, with flecks of rainbow bouncing off it at the sharper edges. You do not react in any way. 

Internal bleeding of the stomach, one impalement scar on your right side. There is a long, long series of blisters and torn skin across your shoulder from being tossed and dragged across the ground. Then there’s the slit over your left eye which makes it impossible to open. You might as well have lost it. 

Some people would’ve been happy to just be alive. Fighting Darth Vader? Fighting Anakin Skywalker? And surviving it? Well, not everyone gets that privilege. But for some reason the appreciation isn’t coming to you. Maybe you should’ve died back then as some kind of last apology. 

“I know they will.”

You hear footsteps from beyond the doorway become more and more faint, until you can’t even hear them at all. The metal door hisses open. There’s a few footsteps against the floor, then a sharp pause. 

Your head rolls to your right lazily. A young man stands before you. A cute redhead with a broad chest and wide, shocked pale green eyes. Underneath them are mauve rings- dark circles and bags- and chapped pink lips. 

Cal opens his mouth to speak, and then spins around. With the flick of your wounded fingers, the entrance to the room closes and seals itself shut with a click. The cute redhead is still, his back away from you. 

Maybe because of the loss of some other senses, your Jedi one’s have heightened. The intuition inside of you is reading his color- his entire aura- something you could’ve sworn you weren’t able to do before. There’s so much anxiety from him. Enough to make up from the lack of anxiety you have right about now. 

“You’re awake,” he speaks. You can sense his voice about to crack. “I should tell the others.”

“Don’t be stupid, Cal,” your raspy voice croaks. “Don’t be fucking stupid.”

He turns around to look at you, one foot at a time. His eyes are downturned tiredly, but mostly from sadness. The corners of his lips are annoyed from your words. “You’ve been asleep for two weeks,” Cal says. “Didn’t know if you were coming back.”

You don’t say anything.

His use of the words ‘coming back’ sting. Just two simple words, which to you feel like they mean something far more deep and sinister. Almost as sinister as yourself. 

“Are you okay?” he proceeds to question, though you both know it’s just out of politeness. 

“I can’t see out of my eye.”

“Do you know why?”

You don’t move. You’re quiet yet again. 

Cal’s voice raises frustratingly. “Do you know why? You let someone put a lightsaber to your face just so you could smash in their helmet!”

“I don’t remember that.”

“He stabbed you in your stomach!”

Cal’s never raised his voice at you before. You wish you were more upset about it. His tone alone is enough to make a sinking weight appear in the pit of your stomach. But you can’t cry. You can barely feel anything but both relief and emptiness. Not once in those two weeks did you dream about either Anakin, or Vader. 

“I watched him pick you up and slam you on the ground! I watched you die about a million times out there!”

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” you mutter hoarsely. And you mean that, too. 

“I thought that...”

Don’t. Don’t tell him. 

“I thought that I was going to hurt you.”

Silence fills the room from corner to corner. Even whatever air that once came from the vents has come to a complete halt. Maybe every system in the galaxy has stopped its turn. 

“What?” Cal asks, now much softer. He takes a gentle step towards you, his eyes desperately locked to your own.

You glance down before back to him. “I was his apprentice before the purge. Don’t ask Cere about it- he never talked about me. I doubt there was even paperwork to confirm it. I thought this was coming but... I wasn’t sure.”

Cal takes another step forward. 

“He never liked me. And then on Kashyyyk... he...” You swallow down the shame for a moment. “He told me he wanted me to be his apprentice again. For real this time.”

“So you fought him,” Cal partially pieces together. 

You swallow again and look down to your hands. 

“Cal, I fought him because I wanted to go with him. I saw my- I saw the future he was talking about. It was good for me. I was happy... sort of.”

He’s finally close enough to sit on the end of the bench that you didn’t even process lying on. There’s concern in his eyes as he listens, and he doesn’t dare take them off your face. It makes you feel like even more of a coward. 

“But I didn’t see you there, too. I didn’t see anyone there. I thought maybe I... I thought maybe I had killed you.”

Cal opens his parched lips slightly, and then closes them. 

“And I really don’t want to kill you.”

Cal looks away. From here, sitting up slightly so you didn’t choke in your sleep, you can make out freckles on his neck. They stretch over his tendons, across his jawline. They’ll no doubt stretch over that scar from his jaw down on the other side. His long lashes move as he blinks. His hair looks softer than ever. 

“After the battle I carried you away. After it was done you just... looked at me. And then you collapsed, and I had to carry you.”

Silence. 

Cal gets up. 

“Cal?” you call, louder than you meant. 

The boy turns back to look at you. 

“I...”

Is he prettier than before?

“Do you hate me?”

Cal creases his brows. 

“Do you... are you going to talk to me again?”

He opens his mouth, but you don’t let him speak. 

“Don’t say it, if you don’t mean it. I was trained by the most dangerous person in the galaxy. By your biggest enemy. I... lied to you about it. I almost killed you, Cal. You can hate me.”

“Do you think I hate you?”

Your eye squints, and finally it glosses over as it wells with tears. “Yeah.”

Cal Kestis. Man of your dreams. Hero of everything. Angel of infinity. Please, don’t hate me. You have every right to, I know. But please- please don’t. 

“I don’t think I could ever hate you,” he finally whispers, looking down at the floor. “Maybe you should’ve told me, but... I think deep down I already knew.”

A questioning look appears over your features, but Cal answers before you can ask. “You’d been acting off for weeks, Y/N. Those nightmares were about Vader, weren’t they.”

“Yeah. They were... Do you... think of me any differently?”

Please. 

“...No. I don’t know if I could ever do that to you.”

“I couldn’t think of you differently either,” you say after a moment. You throat is getting scratchy, but it’s hard to care. 

“I care about you, Y/N,” he tells you, sincere but calm. “You know that don’t you?”

“You wouldn’t have carried me if you didn’t care, Cal.”

“Y/N on the morning of this whole thing I wanted to kiss you,” he snaps, his hands limply swinging with urgency. “I should’ve kissed you.”

So many emotions in one conversation. 

“You can still kiss me now that I’m clean with you.”

Cal looks at you for a long time, his tired, bright eyes searching for something in your stillness. Then he looks down. 

“It’s okay, Cal. It’s part of my atonement.”

He looks at you for a long time again. The corner of his lips twitch upwards for just a second. It puts you at ease somewhat, with a warm feeling spreading in your stomach finally. 

“You’ve got nothing to atone for,” Cal says. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Y/N.”

You have nothing to say. No words come to your dry tongue, although your lips hang open like something will come out. Nothing does. You just look at your redhead, who’s tired and distraught, but has more clarity and love than he ever has in his entire life. He won’t raise his voice to you again. 

Your palm dances again as you look to away. The door finally opens again, and Cal forgot that you had initially even caged him in here. 

“You can go now.”

It’s quiet. You can hear shuffling, slow footsteps like maybe he doesn’t want to leave. “Can I kiss you when I get back?”

Even while looking at the wall right next to you, your face goes hot and pink. 

“Maybe,” your husky voice answers. And when you turn to look back at him, he’s already looking at you with a genuine smile like a little boy getting a big present that they can’t believe. That’s how he sees it, anyway. 

“I don’t hate you, Y/N,” he suddenly says. “I could never hate you.”

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

Idk if I’m happy with this or not? I ran into a bunch of writers block with this I don’t know why. Sorry it took so long to put out anyway. I also might change it to better fit the request because that’s really the most important thing to me and with finishing it after literal months I might’ve lost sight of the whole point. Idk though. Cal is a cutie. 

TAGLIST: @omg-we-really-doo @chokemeanakin @anakinswhore @haztory @fanficsforheartandsoul @kit-jpg @ahsokatano-thetogruta

[2-dsimp]

Hello! 🐐 anon reporting to duty! I just saw Salt and 🎃 ideas, and both are quite interesting.

I first want to address 🎃's one! Yeah, I noticed too, and I might be a little too bold at this but our lovely host also writes for "Obey me!" A game where you try to date the seven lords of the underworld + other worldly beings and a sussy human (looking at you Solomon!).

The reason as to why I mention this, is because the main datable are the avatars of the seven deadly sins, which each one happens to be coded with a specific type of color that usually represents him. I'll take Leviathan for example; his hair is purple, but his trademark color is orange and his sin is Envy. If I recall correctly (because my memory is shit and I'm on my phone while writing this) that happens to be the color for the dependant type, which strikes my curiosity as Leviathan usually appears as someone very dependant of the MC, always counting on them to vouch for him and spend time with him, craving their attention. A lot of his decision depend on what the MC do or says, only when overtaken by his sin is when he will make his desires true. Another example is Satan, the sin of Wrath. At first sight, you will think that he is Pride, as he doesn't give the vibe of someone who is the living representation of anger and hostility, well presented and versed... very intelligent too, as he is really good with magic and curses. Using the example you gave about Venti, Xiao and Bennett, all of them are the type of person that at first won't strike you as your initial thoughts of them, luring you in then snatching you the moment you lower your guard around them. You are the only one who truly comprehends him and accept him.

In short, I might be terribly wrong, but maybe the colors might be tied to the seven sins and their derivations.

And for Salt's take, I agree with you. Lying to Scaramouche doesn't seem correct to me, but neither I worry that much about other characters present; is Scara who we are talking about! Either people walk out of his way, or he makes sure there is no one who might trample with his alone time with senpai. There is also the fact that he is quite level headed at the time (At least in yandere standards) and I don't think we can get away with lying to him when his sole focus is on us, even more when all of his meters are low and his cognitive process isn't compromised.

If we speak the truth (which please, bring me into what we are doing lmao. I only know that we drank Diluc's sussy cocktail (hehe) and we lost our phone... somehow) the characters involved so far aren't ones that Scaramouche has serious beef with, and even if he is the Monopoly/Possessive type, he isn't delusional.

I mean, look at the scenario: He just won against one of the person that truly acts as a thorn to his side, is alone with senpai too... He is everything but a noble man. He will take advantage of this situation and try to instigate something from us, which leads me to the next point: he almost doesn't care about out answer. He truly wants to know our reason, but we currently are in a position that usually isn't really comfortable (alone with someone with quite the unique reputation), anyone with common sense will be intimidated and prone to commit a mistake, especially after the comment that Childe made? I'd be on my nerves for sure, doubting myself and saying something that might be more harmful than the truth.

Another idea, is that maybe he is scouting us about the Club thing. If we don't belong to any group but are in the lookout of one, that simply won't do in his book. He will lose control over us like that, even the position of a student council can take him so far before he is pushing it too much without pulling some string. So, the most obvious reason, is roping us into the student council. He will put in a good word for us or just straight up accept us. That way, he has the perfect excuse to control us and take us whenever he feels like it; talking with someone? Oh, so sorry but we have some serious business going on and we have to go. Now. That literally applies for every situation, even with professors.

Well, that's my take for now. Even if I spoke positively about being honest with Scaramouche, I want to wait for the other anon and players to voice their ideas!

(I feel like that meme of the guy with a delirious look on his eyes and a hand on a board, trying to connect the dots)

Also! I would like to ask if us as players have our own bar too, it's just that we haven't sustained any blow yet and thus haven't show up until it is too late. Do we also have a sanity bar alongside a health one? Is to have it into account for future decisions, as it might play a role in our rolls (Ex.: having to out run someone but the check is 20 points of health and he have 15, thus we won't make it that far). Oh! And does the trait of the characters influence in their abilities? Like Childe, being in the karate club, has a bigger stamina so his check In trying to out run him will be higher!

(Stupid recommendation, but Dottore as the sussy nurse lmao)

Oooh 🐐 back at it again with G.O.A.T theories (my best attempt at a pun…imma just go now—)

But as for your questions

1. Yes , you do have a health-bar that is currently at 100% if it gets below 75% then your ability to execute certain decisions will be partially limited. Anything below 50% and you’ll become dependent on whoever finds your weakened form first.

2. You do have a Sanity meter however due to Senpai’s specialty trait you are resistant to most trauma inducing events that may happen at any given time frame

Also that’s not a bad suggestion in fact you may see Dottore lurking around somewhere down the line…

[fellulahh]

Diavolo’s ulterior motive

So following ⚠️Chapter 28’s⚠️ ending, here’s my speculation of what Diavolo may be up to:

-

MC felt unusually tense as she stood in the colosseum. The quiet hum of the orchestra nearby filled the huge interior while only MC and Lord Diavolo remained inside.

She was surprised when he initially asked for her company; leading them both away from the celebrations in the hall to the abandoned room on the other side of the academy.

When they first entered the colosseum, MC was reminded of that conversation they’d had only weeks before in that very same room. She’d never seen an open, humane side to Diavolo. And ever since that conversation, she’d been curious about the demon lord.

While MC studied the interior of the room in silence, Diavolo watched her from behind. His eyes were fixated on her form, admiring every single movement she made as her curious eyes scanned the room.

Though he knew he could gaze at her all evening, he brought MC to the colosseum for a reason. And given that Lucifer had a close eye on the human, Diavolo knew he wouldn’t have much time before the eldest brother would come out to seek his love.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I brought you here.” He spoke unusually serious.

Hearing his voice almost startled MC. Turning around slowly, she met his eyes; narrowing her own as curiosity filled her mind.

“I am, my Lord.” She nodded, talking in a quiet voice.

Although she didn’t fear the Prince - and actually rather enjoyed his company - MC felt uneasy by his unusually serious demeanour. She got the feeling that he didn’t pull her away from the celebrations for a general chit chat.

“I’m going to be forward with you MC as we don’t have much time before others will come looking for us.” He informed her, referring to Lucifer.

“Is something wrong?” She asked concerned.

Diavolo’s face softened momentarily after realising MC cared for him. But then he returned to his stern persona.

“Nothing is wrong.” He shook his head.

“Oh...” MC breathed with a nod.

“I actually brought you here because I have a proposal for you.” He stated.

“And what might that be?” She questioned, “something for the student council?”

“No.” He shook his head once more, “something far more important than that.”

MC fell silent, intrigued to what he had to say. Nodding her head, she gestured for him to continue.

“You being summoned to Devildom was no coincidence. Well, at least the second time it wasn’t.” He started, “Over the last year or so, you have proven how much of a force to be reckoned with you are. You’re no ordinary human; you’re far greater. You not only have incredible intelligence and integrity, but you also have great power that with the correct demon by your side, can be...well, exceptional.”

MC felt her cheeks grow hot as he complimented her.

“As you know I pride myself on my efforts to unite the realms; the exchange program has been an unparalleled success...” he explained before hesitating.

Noticing his sudden pause, MC finally spoke up after growing suspicious of his words.

“But it’s still not enough?” She finished his sentence.

“Not yet at least.” He spoke quietly, “I do have a new idea to unite the realms - well, two in particular...and that involves you, MC.”

“How?” She questioned, furrowing her eyebrows as uncertainty clouded her mind.

“I want you to stay here in Devildom.” He informed her, “With me.”

“And be together?” She asked in disbelief; seeking clarity.

Diavolo nodded.

Completely shocked by the proposal, MC turned away as she tried to comprehend his motive.

“Does anybody else know of these plans?” MC asked curiously.

“Only Solomon.” He answered.

“Solomon?” MC questioned, furrowing her eyebrows, “I don’t understand why he knows and not Lucifer.”

“Ask yourself this MC: who brought you back here?” Diavolo spoke, stepping closer to her.

As the demon lord towered over the fragile human, her eyes widened slightly as realisation filled her mind. “You mean you’ve had this planned the whole time? Even before I came back?”

“Every last detail.” He confirmed, not averting his amber eyes from her face as his stare intensified.

MC’s lips parted as a quick breath escaped her throat. Astounded, her eyes flickered to his while she studied his ambiguous expression. By now her heart was beating rapidly. Suddenly the lucid hymn of the nearby orchestra could no longer be heard and the room fell into a deep silence. A chill encased MC as the only warmth she felt was from Diavolo’s body.

“I don’t understand.” She spoke under her breath, “why me?”

“Why you?” He practically laughed with a ghost of a smirk on his face, “tell me something MC: in all of your time living with those seven brothers, have you ever witnessed anybody in this realm make them fall to their mercy with a few simple words?”

Flashbacks began plastering MC’s mind, thinking back to that night at the carnival where she unconsciously forced the brothers to the ground in a bid to stop their arguing. But then she returned to reality, narrowing her eyes at Diavolo.

“That was only a few weeks ago.” She pointed out, “you couldn’t have known I held that power when you ordered Solomon to bring me back.”

“Right you are.” He nodded seriously, “that event only solidified my desire. In all truth I’ve always found you endearing, and the fact that you’re a human only drew me to you more.”

MC turned away, taking in his every word.

“I’ve always been intrigued by you, MC.” He continued, “And I’ve always dreamed of joining our realms.”

“And you think you can do that by marrying me?” MC questioned, bewildered by his proposal.

“I know I can do that.” He stated, “And that’s only the beginning.”

Lifting a hand, he slowly cupped MC’s cheek as she began to melt under his touch. His skin was warm and it immediately made the human’s cheeks turn pink.

She bit her lip as she awaited his every word.

“I don’t only wish to wed you. I want us to create an heir, rule this entire realm together...I want everything with you, MC.” He insisted quietly as their bodies pressed against each other’s.

She quietly gulped as she could feel her heart pounding. And yet she still managed to hold a stern exterior in fear of falling submissive to Diavolo.

“Why?” She whispered, forcing herself not to fall for his charm so easily.

“Because I fell for you completely...body and soul.” He stated, tilting his head as his eyes flickered to MC’s lips.

“That line...” she breathed, “Simeon didn’t write it...it was you, wasn’t it?”

“Let’s just say it was my way of foreshadowing.” He chuckled, “I only wish I got to say it to you on that stage tonight.”

“Then why didn’t you?” MC asked quickly, “why did you back out at the last minute?”

Suddenly Diavolo hesitated. Removing his hand from MC’s cheek, he took a step back. And turning his head, he diverted his eyes toward one of the many archways that surrounded them both as he licked his lips.

MC never took her eyes off him as her chest rose up and down.

But then, as the suspense grew to the point that it was excruciating for MC, he turned back to her. Only now he reached into his pocket before pulling out a small box.

“I had to pick up this.” He informed her quietly.

MC took a sharp breath as her eyes became glued to the box he held in his large hands. Moving his fingers carefully, he pulled back the lid and revealed what was inside.

A ring.

MC’s eyes widened at the sight of it. Although she was perfectly familiar with rings, it was still nothing like what she’d ever seen before. Being a human, she was so used to seeing diamond rings being used in a proposal but clearly things were different in Devildom.

Embedded in a solid gold band, sat an intricately cut, vermilion jewel. And as the moonlight hit the gem, MC could see the unique beauty in the unfamiliar stone.

“So it’s true?” She whispered, still gawping at the ring; completely enchanted by it.

“Joining the realms is no joke to me.” Diavolo shook his head, “what you see in front of you is entirely real. So how about it, MC?”

Finally diverting her attention from the piece of jewellery in front of her, MC met Diavolo’s intense gaze with parted lips.

“Do you fancy uniting the realms with me?” He asked with a smile tugging at his lips.

“I—“

“What is going on here?” A new voice asked sternly.

Falling out of the trance she was in, MC glanced behind Diavolo’s shoulder to see Lucifer stood metres away from them. She was startled to see the anger in his expression.

“Lucifer.” Diavolo greeted tensely, turning around to face him.

Immediately noticing the ring still in Diavolo’s hand, Lucifer’s eyes grew dark.

“What is the meaning of this?” He asked firmly, feeling rage seep through his veins. “What are you doing?!”

“Uniting our realms, Lucifer.” Diavolo answered, placing a hand on the back of MC’s waist.

Horrified at his gesture, Lucifer turned his focus to MC as she only showed an unreadable expression.

Lucifer had never felt fear so strong before. Seeing Diavolo placing his arm around MC suddenly made him realise what his motive had been all along. He felt deceived; Diavolo had never spoken of his feelings toward the human. At least not with him.

‘Solomon...’

[jaybear1701]

The Outpost is, without a shred of doubt, a shithole.

And Ellen Waverly secretly loves it, even though her fellow ASCANs frown at the tavern’s dilapidated exterior. Anybody who’s anybody knows about the dive bar frequented by astronauts, engineers, and other NASA staffers. Spoken about with hushed reverence, the Outpost is hallowed ground, a right of passage, and a frisson of excitement courses through Ellen as they pause just outside its entrance.  

“This is it?” Dani Poole eyes the peeling red paint of the watering hole’s sign, uncertainty lacing her voice as she clutches the strap of her purse.

“Yep.” Molly Cobb lights a cigarette dangling from the corner of her lips. She pulls the door open, hinges squeaking, and the odor of cheap beer and stale smoke wafts out. “You gonna stand out here gaping all night?” Molly strides in without waiting for a response. Patty Doyle’s right on her heels, as usual. 

Neither bothers to check if the others are following, but Tracy Stevens manages to catch the door before it swings shut again. “Let’s go, ladies.” She ushers the others inside. “Can’t let Cobb and Doyle have all the fun.”

The stench, now mingled with sweat and other odors barely concealed by fading cologne,  intensifies the second Ellen sets foot inside the dimly lit bar. She wrinkles her nose and, as her eyes adjust, they walk past a beat up cigarette machine into a tightly packed space where all eyes immediately fall on them. Ellen thinks she recognizes some of the men from around the halls of JSC, but in all honesty they blended together in a uniform mass of white oxfords, skinny black ties, and thinly veiled disapproval. They were all just waiting for them to fail.

“Same shit, different toilet,” Molly mutters under her breath. Still, she throws her head back high, cocksure, and swaggers toward a pool table with Patty. Her heavy boot steps draw even more attention, not that Molly pays it any mind, acting as if she’s frequented The Outpost all her life. Like she belongs there.

Ellen does her best to follow Molly’s cue, straightening her spine and making her way around a jukebox that’s seen better days to the last empty table. “First round’s on me,” she announces, surprising even herself. 

“That’s mighty generous,” Dani says as she and the others take their seats. The legs of their chairs scrape across the slightly sticky wood floor. They all pretend they don’t see the little brown insects that scatter from beneath the table.

“What would you like?” Ellen asks before any of them decide to hightail it outta there. 

“Round of JD,” Tracy responds. “Least that’s what Gordo has when he’s here. If that’s all right with y’all, of course,” she adds to murmurs of assent.

“Coming right up.” Ellen beelines for the bar, continuing to ignore the stares from around the room that make the tips of her ears burn despite her carefully curated air of indifference.

She manages to find a small opening between the occupied, but is disappointed when no one’s there to serve drinks. The bartender probably took a quick break, she thinks, focusing her attention on the black-and-white astronaut photos that line the wood-paneled walls. Idly drumming her fingers against distressed mahogany, she wonders if her picture would ever be prominently displayed alongside the likes of Armstrong, Glenn, and Aldrin. Of if she’ll wash out, as her mother seems to be expecting.

An unsubtle cough interrupts Ellen’s musings, and a man leans an elbow on the bar to her left, a little too close for comfort. 

“What’s a pretty thing like you doin’ in a place like this?” He slurs out the oh-so-creative pickup line, alcohol sharp on his breath.

It takes all of her willpower not to roll her eyes in disgust. Instead, she pretends not to hear him, but he persists. “Never seen ya before. Y’all tourists or somethin’? Sightseein’?”

Irritation spikes in Ellen, who has half a mind to correct him, nondisclosure agreements be damned, when another voice cuts in. “Jimbo, what’d I tell you about scaring new customers?”

Ellen turns her head to the right and… Oh.

She’s not quite sure what she expected when it came to The Outpost’s barkeep. Based on the decor, she wouldn’t have been surprised by someone schlubby and indifferent and borderline antisocial. But Ellen most certainly isn’t expecting one of the prettiest women she’s ever seen, with strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a careless ponytail, bangs hanging just above eyes as blue as a cloudless sky. And just like that, Ellen’s starting to understand the appeal of the place. 

“C’mon now, Pam,” Jimbo drawls, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “Jus’ tryin’ to be friendly.”

“Uh huh.” Pam cants her head to the side, unconvinced. “Get outta here before I call your wife.” After he slinks away, Pam gives Ellen an easy smile, bracing her hands on the bar. “Sorry ‘bout that. What can I get for you?”

It’s not until Pam’s closer that Ellen remembers to breathe, the influx of oxygen allowing her to regain control of her faculties and notice the pin fastened to Pam’s maroon t-shirt. It reads in bold white letters against a black background bespeckled by stars: A Woman’s Place Is In Space. 

Ellen’s stomach swoops in delight. 

“You okay?” Pam asks when Ellen doesn’t answer right away.

“Oh, er,” Ellen intelligently answers in a manner befitting a future astronaut. “Yes, sorry.” Heat rises in her cheeks. “Drinks?” She vaguely gestures toward the other candidates, and the pool table where Molly’s lining up a shot that sends a striped ball straight into a corner pocket. “For me. And my…” Her what? They aren’t exactly friends. Rivals would be closer to the truth, but that would sound weird. And she’s already being weird. She eventually settles on, “Colleagues.” 

“Drinks,” Pam repeats, eyebrows disappearing beneath her fringe.

“Yes, um, please.” 

“Sure thing.” Pam nods, thoughtfully observing the other women for a moment before fixing her gaze back on Ellen. “Got something particular in mind? Or should I surprise you?”

Ellen somehow manages not to smack the heel of her hand to her forehead. “Sorry. Jack Daniels for, uh, seven.”

“You got it, space cadet.” With a wink, Pam pushes off the bar to fetch a set of lowball glasses and arranges them in a neat row.

It takes a few seconds before Pam’s words catch up with Ellen. Was Pam referring to Ellen’s embarrassingly delayed response or… “Space cadet?”

“You all are the female astronaut candidates, aren’t you?” Pam reaches past several rows of bottles to fetch the whiskey. 

“What, uh, what makes you think that?” Ellen nervously brushes her hair behind her ear. No one’s supposed to know who they are until they graduate. If they graduate.

Pam shrugs, the tip of the bottle’s spout poised above the glasses. “Groups of women don’t really wander in here. Plus, some of you match the scuttlebutt I’ve heard here and there.”

“Scuttlebutt?”

“NASA types like to talk, especially after they’ve had a few.” 

“That’s…  not unsettling in the slightest.” Ellen tries and fails to tamp down a swell of unease, wondering if they’d all be bounced from the program if word got out.

“Relax.” Pam chuckles, as if reading her mind. She tips the bottle forward, expertly eyeballing  two fingers of brown liquor per glass. “What’s said here stays here. Unless you’re a reporter, then I’m sworn under our unofficial Baldwin rule to kick you out.” 

“Definitely not a reporter,” Ellen says, recalling Ed Baldwin’s very public misstep in calling out NASA after the Soviets landed on the moon last summer. Relief eases some of the tension between Ellen’s shoulders. She shifts from one foot to the other, curiosity getting the better of her. “So, what have they been saying? All good things, I’m guessing,” she jokes weakly, all too aware of the rampant sexism among many, if not most, of her male counterparts.

“They wouldn’t dare say anything negative within earshot of me.” Pam taps her equality button. “Would never get a drink otherwise.” 

Ellen can’t stop herself from smiling as Pam finishes pouring, sets the bottle down, and crosses her arms.

“Let’s see, I’ve heard that two of them were in Mercury 13. Have chips on their shoulders.” Pam nods toward Molly and Patty playing pool. “I’m guessing they’re the ones over there acting like they own the place.” There’s an underlying current of respect in her voice as her line of sight drifts toward the lone table surrounded by women. “The blonde? I’d bet all my tips that she’s Tracy Stevens. Got those Hollywood looks that’d be Gordo’s type.”

Ellen has to admit she’s impressed. “And me?” She asks before she can stop herself.

Blue eyes darting across Ellen’s face, Pam appraises her in a way that sparks flutters against her ribs. “I’m afraid I haven’t heard about you, Ms...?”   

“Waverly.” Ellen sticks her hand out. “Ellen Waverly.”

Pam grasps her hand, grip firm yet gentle, palm warm and smooth. “Nice to meet you, Ellen Waverly.”

“And you’re Pam.”

“That’s right.” Neither of them moves to let go. “Pam Horton.”

Another patron accidentally jostles Ellen’s shoulder and she immediately drops Pam’s hand. “Can I get a couple of beers, Pam?” He asks.

“Just a sec.” She says, transferring the whiskey glasses to a round serving tray.

“So, uh,” Ellen clears her throat as she reaches for her purse. “What do I owe you?” Pam waves her away. “First round’s on the house.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

“It’d be my pleasure.” Her smile is genuine, radiant. “It’s the least I can do for the first American women heading to space.”

Ellen ducks her head, pleased yet embarrassed. “We haven’t passed yet.”

Pam looks her straight in the eye, and says without hesitation, “You will.”

Warmth blooms inside Ellen’s chest from Pam’s sincerity. “I… thank you." She hopes her face isn't as red as it feels. "We’ll make it up to you.”

“Prove all the assholes out there wrong, and we’ll be square.” Pam pulls out two beer bottles, swiftly pops off their caps, and hands them to the man. She inclines her head toward the tray of Jack Daniels. “I’ll have these out to you in a jiffy.”

With one last nod, Ellen makes her way back to the table, heart pounding and already vowing to return to the shithole that wasn’t so shitty after all. 

[the-queen-of-fools]

Coffee & Cowboys

Chapter 5

———

Word count: 1112 Pairing: Jack ‘Agent Whiskey’ Daniels x English f!Reader (no y/n, no descriptions) Rating: Mature (For themes. Might become explicit at some point) Warnings: Slow burn; minor angst; post-movie; AU, fix-it fic.

A/N: Sorry for the long break.

———

The private car arrives outside your home, waiting while you pack clothes and essentials into a small suitcase as quickly as you can. Kentucky is hot, right? Layers are a girl’s best friend. The driver smiles, places it in the boot and holds the car door open for you, confirming your name and that he is from Statesman. Cowboy Jack follows closely behind, not worrying about invisible boundaries, sliding into the car calmly after you. The driver takes you to a private airfield you didn’t know existed, right up to a swanky looking airplane that has ‘Statesman’ emblazoned on the side. Before you left, as you were shoving things into the case, Cowboy hadn’t explained much, just that the company makes a lot of money and can afford nice things, and quickly at that. Now you’re going to be trapped with him on a plane for who know how many hours, or rather he’s trapped with you, so hopefully you’ll be able to get something out of him.

You leave the car, thanking the driver as he holds open your door again, and gets your case out, before you carry your bag up the steps and settle into a seat on the plane. A lady with a kind face welcomes you and asks if you need anything. You just shake your head, a little overwhelmed with all of it. You even meet the pilot before you take off, who flies you straight to Kentucky. Cowboy still isn’t forthcoming with any information beyond what he’s told you already. He chuckles when you start talking about spies and secret labs, but doesn’t mock you nor correct you. You remembered the book you’d started, so for a part of the journey you continue to read it to him, and you think about what will happen once you get to his body and if that’s it. The thought of the whiskey-loving Cowboy just being gone again, as annoying as his near constant presence is, leaves you with a little sadness. It’s only been three days since he appeared in your life, but it feels like much longer.

You’re pulled from your thoughts from an announcement that you’ll be landing soon, and to fasten seatbelts. You look around and see Jack, watching you, a look on his face you can’t quite figure out. What you don’t know is that it had matched your own before the pilot interrupted, that he had been thinking about the same thing. After landing in another private airfield, another nice car and driver takes you the short journey to the Louisville distillery. Cowboy has been frowning more the closer you get, and once you arrive and see the large, imposing building, he’s completely tense. You’d quite like to reach out and comfort him somehow, but you’re sure he wouldn’t appreciate a hand passing through him, not matter the intent. Once you open the car door and step out into the Kentucky air, your bag is returned to you, and you start to walk toward the entrance, where two people were already waiting for you.

The cowboy is silent, so you have to assume that it’s Ginger and her boss before they introduce themselves. Ginger is warm and inviting to you, no doubt her curiosity about this whole situation adding to her desire to keep you comfortable. Her, and you imagine Jack’s, boss introduces himself as Champ. He isn’t quite as warm, but he’s welcoming in his own way, and you can see out of the corner of your eye that your not-ghost companion is still on edge when you all come together. “Sorry about the haste.” Champ says, “hope you’re not too jet lagged.” You wave it off, and they gesture for you to follow them into Statesman. They take you quickly through the building, straight towards the offices part, Ginger asking politely about the flight, apologising again about the speed of your departure. She says that’s it’s all just very interesting, and Jack was an employee that they cared about, so if it’s true they’re eager to help in any way. They’ve contacted your work, and you have all the time off you need, and they’ve sorted out accommodation for you nearby, free of charge. When you finally make it to Champ’s office, you were amazed at the view, the decor, everything.

Then more questions came. Mostly from Ginger, though Champ threw some in too: What happened? Has anything changed for you recently? How did it start? What were the two of you doing in the kitchen? What does he look like? Is he solid or transparent? What does he sound like? Is he always clear? Can he hear us? Do you always see him? Can he move to another place? Can he move things? You answered them, of course, dutifully and with as much information as you could. You even explained to Ginger about your little experimentations with Cowboy. She giggled, and talked to you about more ideas she was having about other tests to run, stuff you’d never have been able to do yourself. Eventually, Ginger got you to describe Cowboy Jack down to the finest detail. His face: strong jaw, prominent nose, moustache. His hair: dark, nearly black. His clothes: jeans, shirt, denim jacket. If he had anything else (you told them about the hat)? Ginger asked you questions about him: about his attitude, his demeanor, if you’ve talked about anything that’s happened during his ‘missing time’. Then they asked questions for him, answering via you: how he feels, if he can tell where his body is, what his last memories are? And you get it. It’s a completely bizarre concept, they have to check you’re telling the truth, and it really is their employee that’s a disembodied spirit haunting you. But there were so many, and it was boring, and you’d had a long flight with Jack avoiding the questions you had.

“Okay.” You finally stop her. “That’s enough... I need answers too.” Ginger and Champ look at each other and nod. “What the hell is this place, because there’s no way you lot work for just a distillery. There’s something else going on.” “What did Jack tell you?” Ginger replies. “Nothing. Every time I ask, silence. Every theory I ramble about, not a word. But please? It’s obvious there’s something else, I just want to know what…” Champ is the one to give you the answer. You’d mostly figured it out yourself, you’d realise later, but just hearing it out loud was like a balm for your exhausted brain. “We’re an independent intelligence agency. Jack Daniels is an Agent of ours. A good one. Agent Whiskey.”

[iffeelscouldkill]

TSCOSI Week Day 2: Arkady / Hope

Sheer, Stupid Human Hope

A/N: Me: *takes uplifting prompt and writes angst* sfsfsfdsfdfsfg I’m sorry

This prompt just got me thinking about Arkady’s “sheer, stupid human hope” speech to Violet in Episode 1, and I decided to write a sort of Episode 1 coda from her point of view. I mentioned in the Discord recently (where we were discussing Episode 1 from Arkady’s perspective) that I had a fic idea related to Episode 1, and this is it! (It was an idea up until I wrote it down today xD)

I had a few different versions of this fic in my head, but this was the one that made it onto the page, and I’m pretty happy with it? There were versions of it that were both bleaker and more hopeful, but I didn’t want to go too dark in the current circumstances, and I also wanted something that could plausibly lead into Arkady’s drunken line to Sana about being the ‘scum of the universe’.

Some meta-ish thoughts at the bottom!

---

“Stage - three - beginning.”

“Stage - three - complete.”

Violet Liu was in deep stasis now, according to the ship’s systems. Arkady double-checked the Iris’s autopilot on her computer, making sure the programmed flight path had been accepted. Her humming gradually faded away, until everything was very quiet.

That speech to Violet about science, about hope and understanding, had left a bitter taste in Arkady’s mouth. And it didn’t make sense that after all the lies she’d told, this - which had been true, or as close to the truth as Arkady could get while still sounding persuasive - was the thing that she couldn’t stop going over.

"There is no greater expression of sheer, stupid human hope than the study of science. We’re born groping around in the dark but science says, “We can understand this.” It says, “There’s something here to understand and this act of blindly reaching forward is worth it.”"

Maybe it was because of the reminder of how futile it all was. Of how much she wanted to believe it herself - but couldn’t quite get there.

“Hey.”

Arkady jerked around to see Sana leaning against the doorjamb. Which meant that at some point it had opened and she hadn’t even noticed. “Captain. ...How long have you been standing there?”

Sana stepped further into the room, letting the door close behind her. “I didn’t like to interrupt,” she said, instead of giving a direct answer. Which meant: a while. “I was on my way down to see if you needed some help, after...” 

After she’d been made. Honestly, one of the Captain’s motivational speeches probably would have worked better on Violet Liu than what Arkady, cynical mess that she was, could offer. But she hadn’t wanted to risk it - to take too long, to overthink things. So she’d rolled the dice on an appeal to Liu’s scientific curiosity.

“It worked,” she said, nodding to the computer screen displaying Liu’s deep stasis status and the flight trajectory. “She bought it.”

“You saved her,” Sana corrected. “Good work, Arkady. I knew you could do it.”

Something about hearing the Captain’s warm approval made the discomfort Arkady was feeling even more intense. “Can we just - skip to the alcohol, and debrief later?” she asked. “I’m not really in the mood for self-congratulation.”

Sana studied her, and Arkady knew it was showing, how unsettled she felt about - everything. The con, deceiving Liu into trusting her, forcing her to put her life in a stranger’s hands, and keeping the truth from her because she’d never have gotten into the cryo chamber if she’d known she was talking to a smuggler and a killer.

“I’ll get the moonshine,” Sana said. Arkady felt simultaneously relieved and a little wrong-footed; she wasn’t expecting Sana to let it go that easily. She must really look rough.

Sana turned and crossed over to the door, then stopped, looking back at Arkady and the monitor. “I just want you to know,” she said, carefully, as if she was weighing each word, “that what we did today? What you did? It matters. It might not feel like that right now, but - a person is alive right now because of what you were able to do. No matter what happens, I know Violet will thank you for that. And when her ship reaches us, we might even be able to find some answers.”

Her voice lightened, although Arkady could see the lines of exhaustion on Sana’s face as well, visible in the light from the corridor. “So that’s something to be hopeful about.”

She left the room. Arkady glanced back at the monitor herself, showing that the Iris had now rerouted itself and was in transit with its unconscious passenger. 

“Right,” she said aloud.

Sheer, stupid human hope.

---

A/N: When I was writing the line about Violet not wanting to trust Arkady knowing that she was a smuggler and a killer, I suddenly thought - especially in light of what we heard in Season 2 episode 2, but also just thinking about Violet and Arkady’s subsequent interactions in episodes 2 to 5 - that Arkady is dreading Violet’s reaction to finding out who she ‘really is’ from the moment she comes out of cryo. She’s spiky and defensive (though that’s also due to Violet’s own hostility) and then she immediately flares up at Violet’s discovery that she didn’t go to college, assuming that Violet is going to be derisive about her intelligence. And then, in Episode 5, when she kills the guard - that’s it, for Arkady. The moment of truth, the reveal of her true nature. Of course Violet’s going to hate her for it. And I think that informs all of her actions in Episode 6, and then of course she’s wrong-footed when she finds out Violet’s reaction is much more nuanced than that.

I think we’re getting something of a continuation of it now, in Season 2 (Arkady the Monster Part 2: No Seriously, I Can’t Share My Past With You Because You Will Hate Me Forever, Let’s Just Enjoy What We Have While It Lasts) but yeah, that’s my analysis from a mostly season 1 perspective.

[ranmanjuu]

Can i request an ikesen hc, how would warlords react to a mc which is a physics major like sasuke and since they are both nerdy they spend a lot of time together and talk a lot about theories and all that science stuff. I think they'll get a bit jealous that mc is spending time with sasuke and confused as to ehat they're talking about lol

as stated before i have absolutely no idea of how physics is, much less of being a physics major. so like,,,,,,, all theories are ambiguous. they don’t exist other than that word. what are they talking about? the one who asked knows not more than the asker.

—shingen:

the first time of him seeing you talk with both such seriousness yet a twinkle lights in your eye, he can’t help but a chuckle let through.

“so, has sasuke finally found someone for himself?”

at first he plays up a bit of, “us mortals cannot understand what you’re speaking, my beloved deity, for you speak the language of the gods!” (”but sasuke can understand them though—”)

would absolutely, and constantly tease you for anything and everything. you could be talking about the inner workings of geophysics with sasuke and you’d hear the faint sound of wiggling eyebrows and metaphorical saxophone playing.

but of course, this won’t stop shingen from trying to win you over.

he does it his own style, the classical flirting with his sexy stature. yet, you always quip back in the jargon language he knows nothing about—and his several seconds of confoundment proves to be a good strategy as you flee the scene.

prior to you telling him that you were from the future, he did find it suspicious how you have so, so many “things that came from your hometown” that was painfully specific. and he’s shingen takeda, he’s known for being well-informed, so why hadn’t he heard of this before? some villages have their own tradition, yes, but it’s usually not enough to write at least twenty dictionaries about.

and even if he wants to find it, where would he go? the only two people who’ve learnt it are you and sasuke.

although he begins to pick up basic things whenever you talk to either him or the ninja. just small references that a high schooler can pick up.

for the sake of it, shingen’d probably try to do a physics pick-up line on you. but due to the lack of knowledge he has, it ends up with you on the floor laughing until you’re clenching your sides.

you can’t help it! it’s so wrong on so many levels it’s insanely hilarious while also painful.

after the laughter dies down, shingen takes it upon himself and pins you to the wall, his sultry eyes burning into yours, “well, it seems my goddess can do a bit of fixing on those, hm? please, my muse, do demonstrate how you do it properly.”

—kenshin:

(honorable mention hc: if you ever use terminology before the affectionate part of him comes in he’ll practically frown at you in deep confusion, “what are you talking about, you fool?”)

if his ninja had met you before he did, he probably wouldn’t have much of a problem. sasuke talks to someone, all he does is frown and just doesn’t care. but hoo boy you managed to slither into his heart without him even noticing it.

he’s just looking around the market for you, until he sees the sight of you chattering so brightly and passionately,,, with sasuke.

phase one: pouty mode. it lasts only for a few second, but his lips form a very strong scowl as it processes in his mind.

(phase one and a half: it’s where he glances at you and notice how you twinkle so brightly in his eyes—like a star beaming at him. except it isn’t at him. and so this honorary phase ends)

phase two: in a split second of his braincells barely managing together, he unsheathes his sword and begins to fish sasuke away from you. (”let’s duel, sasuke.”  /  “i’m afraid i was having a conversation with—”  /  “fight or i kill you this second.”)

phase three: usually it’s where you pull him away and lightly scold him, thus ending his bloodlust.

phase four: usually happens after the other party has left. pouty mode two: electric boogaloo; as he sulks like a child in envy and jealousy and you’re forced to cuddle with him and give him lots of kisses so he Functions properl after that.

of course, you can’t just let it repeat. you had a talk after some time, entailing that, kenshin, please stop chasing your vassals because they say one (1) word to me. with a lot of grumbling and reluctance, he agrees to it.

it won’t stop his lips forming into a scowl at the sight of it though.

he curses the oldened knowledge of the sengoku—he wanted you to talk to him about those big brained things. but alas, there wasn’t much he could do.

(”no, kenshin, you can’t go to the future just cause you wanna learn everything i learnt! the wormhole is gone and it takes at least 4 years—”)

—yukimura:

yukimura meets you the second time while talking to sasuke down in the market. and the decision to rebrand you from a wild boar to a witch casting spells were made in the flick of a second, just like that.

“hey, are you trying to hex my fried, enchantress?!”  /  “yukimura, they’re a friend from my hometown, it’s alright.”  /  “oh.”

as he says, a friend of sasuke is a friend of his! though he still doesn’t understand at all each time you make a physics reference, and still isn’t partly convinced you at least know an ancient language.

he doesn’t exactly buy into the whole ‘hometown-specific’ thing either, but hey. it’s sasuke and you, if you’re lying, he thinks, he’ll let you tell him in your own time.

but in the meantime, the fact you know terminology to references he doesn’t understand makes your daily bickering a lot funnier. what’s an atom and is his brain really smaller than that as you said? fun thing is he’ll probably never know if you and sasuke withhold such information.

if he ever sees you experimenting with something to examine the components, as long as it isn’t dangerous, he’d look at you in mild amusement and confusion, “what are you doing, silly?”

but if it dangerous (like guns, fireworks, etc.) he scolds you with a scowl, one born from pure worry.

once you two got together, you started going to dorky science puns. once again, yukimura doesn’t understand it, but the stupid grin you have on your face is just enough for him.

(he does ask sasuke about it later, resulting in a bright faced yuki, muttering a small “idiot,,” under his breath.)

—sasuke:

the moment you saw him at honno-ji, present day, you felt there was something familiar to him. like it’s a face you’ve passed through in the bustling streets. and the moment you saw his lab coat, you just assumed he somewhat came from the same college as you.

and just after he corrected you referring to him as “that college student” being an astrophysicist, your eyes brightened a thousand times, but tried to stifle it considering you were more or less being chased. 

you listened into his explanation of the wormhole closely, processing each word in fascination and curiosity. you had enough experience to know what he’s talking about—and it gave you so much euphoria from just simply listening in.

you hope to meet him again as he disappears in the shadows.

you do, to your delight. the very first day you went out to town, you encountered him at a stall. conversation immediately took off once you re-mentioned his degree, along with yours. from there, the wormhole was the center topic again, mostly talking about how he found where it would be and when it would be. you’d never heard of such a research back then.

and slowly, you grow an admiration to sasuke’s high intelligence. all the research he’s done, he��ll definitely show a fellow enthusiast, and you’re practically beaming at the chance.

so much so that you don’t notice the weirdened stares of the ones around you.

there nights when you’d sneak into his room just to ask him about something, or propose to him a theory since he’s the only person who’d get it.

and on some sleepless nights, you find yourself lying about with sasuke beneath the stars, peering into his telescope once in a while and geeking out about the small dots in the sky.

a part of you wished you met him sooner—but you feel like you couldn’t ever ask for more.

—yoshimoto:

truth be told, he didn’t care much at first.

his somewhat apathy towards people and more towards art becomes just ever so slightly apparent; as he lets you rant your heart out to sasuke while he admires some cloth in the background. you have your preferred friends, it isn’t his place to be opposed to it.

well, that’s what he thought of it—until you slowly got closer to him.

through talks of art and the different medias from your “hometown”, he learnt more and more about you. and his heart grew fonder and fonder.

until—for whatever reason—he found himself,,, feeling some kind of upset by the sight of you talking to sasuke so brightly like that? it’s like a part of him doesn’t sit well with it.

while he isn’t quite sure what he’s feeling, he’ll try to fish you away regardless. his good looks aren’t for nothing, even still having its charming effects on you.

putting up somewhat of an airheaded act, he mindlessly pulls you out of the conversation to look at some beautiful fabric, catching you off-guard for a moment. if you try to mention your talk with sasuke, it’s as if he doesn’t hear it as he whisks you off to another store. and another, another—until you’ve gotten some distance from the ninja.

even with all that effort, he doesn’t think much into the feeling inside his heart. what then felt like a storm, was now a welcoming, warm spring breeze in him.

he’ll figure it out, one day.

[nevertherose]

One Hundred Seconds to Midnight: Chapters 1-8

"All Roman wanted to do was take Logan on a Doctor Who LARP within the Imagination.

But with Thomas's Sides at their figurative breaking point after the disastrous wedding, the Imagination may just have a few ideas of her own..."

Hello, Tumblr fanders, it has been a while since I've poked around in here...mostly because, I've been writing another story!

Do you like Sanders Sides? Do you like Doctor Who? Do you like the idea of the Sides playing Doctor Who characters? If so, this story was written especially for you.

I found that the process of cross-posting Mahogany and Teakwood across three platforms, one chapter at a time, involved a lot of me spending too many hours squinting at html code. Not especially fun. This time around, I've only been posting on AO3 and Wattpad.

But I wanted it to exist here as well.

So! Today I'm going to post the first half (in two posts, because apparently Tumblr has a post size limit, who knew?), all the chapters that are up so far. Then, when the whole story is up on the other platforms, I'll post the other half.

Of course, you could head to either AO3 or Wattpad, if you want to read as the chapters go up.

But if you're like me, and like to read stories in nice, big, juicy chunks...here you go:

One Hundred Seconds to Midnight

Chapter 1- The Eleventh Hour

“Who are you?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m still cooking.”

Midnight.

The witching hour.

Or was that 3AM? Roman wondered. No, that’s the devil’s hour…damn it, Virgil! You had to get them all mixed up!

It was nearly midnight on the Imagination’s border.

Moonlight, pearlescent and brighter than it could ever shine in the real world, streamed feather-light through the tall windows on Roman’s side of the Dream Palace. It made patterns of light and shadow over the black marble floors, made nighttime caricatures of the white ivory statues that lined the corridor.

Roman’s heeled boots echoed in the silence; Logan’s dress shoes, in comparison, were whisper-quiet.

Logan himself had been uncharacteristically quiet since they entered this place, Roman noted, glancing back. Normally by now the logical Side would have asked a million questions, made a million plans, or be several bullet points into a lecture about palace construction or the history of measurement units or some other nerdy, obscure subject.

And Roman would either pretend to be annoyed, or would interject witty counterpoints to make Logan stop and bluster and…

But not tonight.

Maybe he’s nervous about being here, Roman told himself, smoothing a hand over his red sash. He’s only pointed out a million times that Logic and the Imagination are anathema to one another. Maybe I should have planned something else…

Or maybe he’s just annoyed at you for dragging him out of bed in the literal middle of the night, a more insidious inner voice whispered. When you know he likes to keep a consistent sleep schedule.

Roman pressed his lips together, lifted his chin…he might be a mere facet of a single personality, but he was also a Prince, and Princes do not listen to inner demons. However, he also looked back for the dozenth time to make sure Logan was actually still following.

That was the only reason Roman kept looking back.

It had nothing to do with the way the translucent moonlight caught the other Side’s dark, immaculately kept hair, or glinted off his glasses.

In the real world, of course, and whenever they manifested near their Source, the Sides all had precisely the same face and body as Thomas. But deep inside the mind, where physical appearance was an illusion anyway, the Sides exercised much more control.

Thomas remained their base template, but each Side also tended to portray himself with features that Thomas associated with their core function. Like Patton’s fluffy curls and childlike freckles, or Virgil’s anxious, ever-changing eyeshadow, or Remus’s abominable comic-book villain mustache.

Like Deceit’s…no, Janus’s very real scales.

Damn that snake. Why did I have think of him now?

Hopefully the lying bananaconda had better things to do than pop up and spoil things tonight. Because tonight, Roman was finally fulfilling a longtime promise to Logan, and taking him on a grand adventure.

The thought made his heart flutter in anticipation, and he looked back again.

Logan within the mindscape was leaner than Thomas, an inch or two taller, and his neatly trimmed hair and intelligent eyes were almost black in the low light. His face was narrow and intense, the nose more aquiline, and he had a habit of standing straighter than any of the rest of them.

(A habit which constantly showed off his trim waist and chest muscles…not that Roman paid any attention to that…)

Roman, by contrast, was a bit shorter, but his shoulders were broad and he was more muscular, due to all the questing and sword fighting he did here in the Imagination. He wore his hair in longish disarray that paired devastatingly with his clean, square jawline; hair that could be turned loose and wild on quests, or pulled neatly back as befitted royalty. His hands were strong; with long, artistic fingers, as skilled at wielding pens and paintbrushes as they were at wielding swords.

He liked to think he was handsome.

He was also painfully aware of how little it mattered when a certain someone…ehem…never seemed to notice.

“Roman, I confess to still being a bit lost as to the purpose of this journey,” Logan said at last, breaking the high-ceilinged silence. “You said you were taking us on a…’lark’? If so, why are we wandering around the Dream Palace?”

“LARP,” Roman corrected, flashing him a smile. “L-A-R-P. It stands for live action role play, Specs.”

Logan’s nose wrinkled at the words “role play”, and Roman’s stomach lurched. He hates it, he hates the very idea of it, you haven’t even started yet and you’ve already failed…

“Oh, don’t make the scrunchy face!” he added, a bit louder than necessary, and waved a hand. “At least wait until you’ve seen it.”

Roman had only been planning this for weeks.

“You know, when you promised to take me on one of your ‘adventures’,” Logan said, making finger quotes. “I was not expecting to be roused from bed in the middle of the night.”

“That’s because this isn’t your average adventure.” Roman gestured around them. “I constructed a special dreamscape to get all the details right, and we can only use the Dream Palace when Thomas is asleep.” He turned and dared a wink. “Only the best for you, my detail-oriented friend.”

Logan adjusted his glasses.

“Let it be known that I am indulging your antics right now because you have, on occasion, had some good ideas. You will, in turn, have to indulge my skepticism.”

“I have no idea what you just said, but I’m gonna pretend it was a compliment,” Roman said with a wink, which Logan rolled his eyes at.

“Ah ha, here we are!”

Roman stopped at a set of iconic blue doors, nearly vibrating in excitement as he waited for Logan to recognize them.

The nerd did not disappoint.

“Roman…” Logan murmured, stepping forward to touch the white PULL TO OPEN sign. “They look just like the doors to the TARDIS. The attention to detail is exquisite. But why?”

“Because I’m taking you on a Doctor Who LARP!” Roman exclaimed, flapping his hands. “All we have to do is step through, and the Imagination will make us Doctor and companion, and whisk us away through all of time and space!”

Logan’s face was a mixture of confusion and curiosity. “Again…why?”

“Because it will be fun?” Roman bit his lip, looking at his toes. “I…I know you aren’t into swords and sorcery and dragon-witches and whatnot. I wanted this to be something you might actually enjoy.”

Logan’s brow furrowed, as it often did when he tried to process something that didn’t fit neatly into his graphed, notated, logical worldview.

Usually, it was an emotion.

“But won’t us enacting such an intense scenario at this time of night negatively affect Thomas’s sleep?” Logan asked.

“That’s the genius of adventuring in the Dream Palace,” Roman explained. “You can do hyperreal, immersive stuff, and if Thomas does happen to remember anything, he’ll just think he had a weird dream. The worst that could happen is he might post about it on Twitter.”

“Hmm. I can see you’ve thought this through. I am…flattered that you went to all the trouble,” Logan said in a quiet voice.

Roman had to bite back an ecstatic giggle.

Not…not because of the way his nerves skittered below his skin when his gaze caught Logan’s black eyes and soft expression. No, Roman was merely…excited! That someone like Logan appreciated his hard work!

It wasn’t like he was trying to impress anyone, like some middle school boy with, you know, a crush or whatever. For the last, well…two years.

…and then some.

Ugh. There was little point in denying his feelings; he’d only accidentally summon Janus and his oily smirk, and if that happened, Roman would most certainly die of embarrassment and that was not a lie, thank you very much.

The truth was, ever since Thomas had placed that jar of Crofters into Logan’s hands and inspired him to sing…not just rap, or begrudgingly harmonize, but actually sing…Roman had fallen, and fallen hard.

How could he not?

Logan’s words and ideas had always challenged him, pushed him to be smarter, sharper, better, just to keep up. Logan was the grounding anchor to his sails, the clarity to his excess. It used to infuriate Roman, the way he and Logan always came at problems from opposite sides and fought, sometimes bitterly, over the best way to meet in the middle.

But now?

Now Roman relished the way they traded words in a good fight, like blades in the hands of expert swordsmen. Logan, despite his dislike for anything fanciful, was a natural wordsmith…and Roman was a great lover of poetry. Even better, it seemed like Logan was also starting to enjoy their verbal sparring matches…

And then these last few months had happened.

The Decision, and Deceit, and the way that snake had let Remus out of the shadows to wreck havoc, and then the disastrous wedding itself…and Roman knew that Logan, through all of it, had been feeling pushed aside.

Goodness knew the logical Side hadn’t deserved to be shoved to the back of a courtroom, or relegated to a pixel-y shadow of himself before being removed from the discussion entirely. Worse, in both of those scenarios, Roman had either done nothing…or actively made things worse.

Roman knew he was guilty of letting his mouth run wild in his zeal to solve Thomas’s dilemmas…or in desperately hiding his true feelings. He knew his nicknames often came with barbs, his insults sometimes hit too close to home, that he often ignored or dismissed Logan’s cool, much-needed perspective.

He knew he needed to be better.

I’ll make it up to him tonight, Roman told himself as he laid a hand on the rough wooden blue doors and glanced back at Logan. The logical Side nodded, giving Roman a tiny burst of confidence.

He’ll get to play his favorite character and be his best nerdy self. This is going to be great!

Roman took a breath, and shoved open the TARDIS doors.

Chapter 2- Human Nature

“It’s all becoming clear now. The Doctor is doing the things you’d like to be doing.”

The blaring of a dozen sirens burst in Logan’s ears.

He was yanked across the threshold, Roman’s hand practically a vice around his wrist. Logan inhaled the sharp scent of metal and warm electronics, and a million figurative lights went off in his brain.

Being the physical incarnation of Logic, this wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar sensation.

The TARDIS shuddered…wait, TARDIS? We’re actually on the TARDIS?…under impact. Lights flashed; reds and greens over an ambiance of steely blue-gray, and Logan knew exactly what to do.

He shook free of Roman’s grip and strode to the center console…console, how do I know this is a console?…flipping several switches and turning the green dial to precisely 3.56 degrees to offset the radiation sheer from the M-class star they’d just spun past.

Because naturally they happened to be careening through an asteroid field.

The time rotor rose and dipped, Gallifreyan symbols whirling overhead; Logan adjusted shields and dodged rocks, striding confidently from station to station. He guided his TARDIS around the last large asteroid, one that easily could have smashed his beloved ship to bits, and then they were clear.

The TARDIS chimed reassuringly under his hands, relieved to be in empty space again.

Roman screamed.

The sound echoed off the metallic walls, causing Logan to whip around and nearly lose his balance.

“What happened?” he said sharply, leaving the console. The creative Side stood near the railing, staring down at himself in obvious dismay. “What’s wrong?”

“Look at me, Logan!” Roman said shrilly and gesturing at his body. “Just look!”

Logan examined his fellow Side. There were no obvious injuries he could see, no blood, no bruising, nothing that would merit a scream. There was just Roman, unfairly handsome as always.

(He still wasn’t sure how Roman managed that feat when they all literally, at least some of the time, had the same face.)

“I…don’t see a problem?” Logan asked slowly.

“I meant, look at what I’m wearing, Calculator Watch,” Roman snarled, and turned to yell nonsensically at the ceiling. “Am I a joke to you? When I said I wanted to be a companion, this is not what I meant!”

Logan focused on Roman’s clothing, which had shifted rather drastically since passing through those doors. His normal princely attire was replaced by a denim cutoff skirt, overalls, pink leggings, and a tight pink blouse that clung to his muscular chest and arms...

“I look ridiculous, don’t I?” Roman murmured, scuffing a combat boot against the metal grated floor. The motion drew Logan’s gaze again to the way the cutoffs hugged his hips and wow, that skirt was really short, wasn’t it?

And those tights, the way they accentuated Roman’s legs...

Logan frowned, his face feeling unusually warm. Why did he keep noticing these things? Of course Roman was more fit than the rest of them.

Perhaps it was simply that Logan didn’t usually see the evidence of it so…plainly.

Stop, Logan told himself sharply. You might be gay and allosexual, but that is no excuse to be disrespectful.

He cleared his throat.

“If I may, Roman?” he said, approaching, and made a closer examination of Roman’s outfit.

“I gather from your earlier ranting that you instructed the Imagination to cast you as one of the Doctor’s companions for the duration of this scenario?”

“Well, yeah,” Roman admitted, “but I was thinking someone like Jamie McCrimmon, or Rory Williams, or maybe even Jack Harkness!”

“You know there is some debate over whether Jack Harkness would be considered a proper ‘companion’, as he was never full time on the TARDIS,” Logan argued absently, still eying Roman’s ensemble.

It was attractive but also familiar; he just couldn’t quite place it…

“Neither was Clara Oswald at first, but nobody had a problem handing her that label from the start!” Roman folded his arms and Logan had to look away because wow, short sleeves and arms…

“Just because she was a girl and the writers obviously intended for her to be a love interest—”

“A girl, of course!” Logan snapped his fingers. “Roman, you are a companion. Specifically, you are Rose Tyler.”

“What?” Roman frowned, smoothing the overalls across his middle. “I…Hmm. You might actually be right.”

“Of course I am right.”

The creative Side scoffed at that, but continued to frown.

“I think it’s a good choice,” Logan added. “Rose is arguably one of the most beloved companions in new Who; bold, kind, and intelligent in her own way. She was pivotal to the Ninth, Tenth, and arguably the War Doctor’s character arcs.”

He laid a hand on Roman’s shoulder. (To convey reassurance, of course. Not because he suddenly wanted to touch…)

“Hers are not the worst shoes you could be given to fill,” Logan said, “idiomatically speaking.”

“Only you would drop a word like ‘idiomatically’ in everyday conversation,” Roman grumbled, but some of the spark returned to his caramel eyes.

“But look at you!” Roman said in a brighter voice, gesturing. “All proper and Doctor-ish. At least the Imagination let you keep your tie, or, whatever that thing is around your neck.”

Logan glanced down at himself for the first time.

His sensible polo and jeans had become a clean-cut black suit, with a warm grey waistcoat, a crisp white undershirt, and a silver pocket watch. A navy cravat was knotted around his throat.

His knee-length suit jacket was also black, with a striking cerulean lining.

He retrieved a slender, metallic something from the jacket’s inner pocket: of course, the Doctor’s signature sonic screwdriver. Specifically, the Tenth Doctor’s screwdriver.

Logan chuckled, remembering all the times he’d ranted to Roman about how impractical and flashy Eleven’s screwdriver became, and don’t even get him started on Twelve’s, it was practically a lightsaber…

“Interesting,” he murmured, stretching his arms to turn in a slow circle, letting the jacket flare. “Fashionably, I appear to be a cross between the Eighth and Twelfth Doctors, which I appreciate, as they are the two most sensible dressers of the bunch. And by the way, Roman, this is a called a cravat, not a tie…”

He’d lifted hands to his neck but the words died on his tongue.

Roman had summoned a mirror and was, quite literally, checking himself out. He swayed his hips, tilted one toward and then away from the mirror, pouted, did a tongue smile, and…and Logan realized he had been watching for more than a socially acceptable length of time.

He swallowed hard and cleared his throat again. But he was saved from having to speak by a loud crackling at the center console.

Both Sides rushed over, Logan seizing the TV screen and pulling it down. Gray static skittered over the polished surface. He flipped two switches and turned a dial, trying to zero in on the signal.

“I meant to ask earlier…how do you know what to do?” Roman asked, tilting his head. “You were piloting before I think you even realized we were on a TARDIS in the first place.”

Logan froze in the middle of winding one of the cranks.

“I…I really do not know.” In fact, the more he thought about it, the less sense any of the controls made. “Now that you’ve drawn my attention to it, you are correct: rationally, I should not know the function of any of these…gizmos.” He gestured at the crank he’d been winding.

“Yet somehow my hands just…know.”

Roman leaned casually onto the console.

“When I built this LARP, I gave the Imagination quite a bit of leeway in how it wanted to construct our characters,” he said. “I’m thinking it took things a step further than costume changes, like making me the companion it thinks I most resemble instead of the companion I wanted to be.”

Roman bit his lip as though troubled, then clearly shook himself out of it.

“And it must have imparted some of the Doctor’s knowledge upon me.” Logan added, not sure how he felt about the Imagination having such a direct influence over his mind. He supposed if it didn’t get too invasive, and was confined to this one night, he could deal with it.

It had proven useful so far, after all.

Roman shot Logan a fierce grin.

“Indeed! So engage that big Doctor brain and let’s see who’s trying to call us. Allons-y, adventure awaits!”

“You know ‘allons-y’ is my line, right?” Logan said dryly.

He had to use his screwdriver on the screen before the picture came clear. The stream of static acquired the cadence of a voice…and then a disturbingly familiar face stared back at his own, looking equally shocked.

Roman, for the second time since entering the TARDIS, let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Chapter 3- The Witch’s Familiar

“If you’re going to take my stick, do me the courtesy of actually killing me. Teamwork is all about respect.”

Janus had just settled into his favorite chair with a mug of chamomile tea and a political science book when he was yanked…rather rudely, he might add…onto the deck of a spaceship.

He sighed, and dismissed his drink.

When one lived in the same mindspace as the literal embodiment of chaos, one unfortunately learned to expect such interruptions.

“REMUS!” he roared, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Did I not specifically ask to be LEFT ALONE tonight?”

Silence.

Deeply annoyed now, Janus took a moment to look around himself. This was not a normal spaceship; no windows, for one, and it was laid out in levels around a translucent column at the very center. His mismatched eyes followed the center rotor up and down, his mind almost placing it…

Something clumsily rose up from the deck with a clatter, causing Janus to summon his crook with a yell.

Only…the object that dropped into his hand wasn’t smooth wood, but a slender metal instrument just barely longer than his hand. A…sonic screwdriver? What the actual heck?

Well. It was what he had.

“Get back!” He pointed the instrument at the…figure…who still slowly climbed to its feet. It was an android or robot of some sort; humanoid, and the same kind of weirdly familiar as the ship.

“Janus?” the robot said, tilting its head.

Janus froze, all the scales standing up on his body. That was…that was Patton’s voice. Flat, mechanical, but unmistakable.

After all, Patton was the only Side who consistently called Janus by name.

“Patton?” Janus whispered.

“Oh, that was so weird-feeling! Thank goodness I’m not all by myself,” Robot-Patton said, putting a hand over his…well, where his heart should have been…in obvious relief. “But why are we both suddenly on the TARDIS?”

Janus drew in a sharp breath.

Of course, he should have recognized the stupid time rotor immediately. He’d never admit it to any of them, but he was as much of a Doctor Who nerd as Logan or Roman, sometimes going so far as to spy on them when they argued over episodes together.

To learn their arguing styles, of course.

Not because he had any desire to join those discussions.

And now, looking at Patton with a sinking feeling in his stomach, Janus deduced exactly what he was: a Mondasian Cyberman. They were older and cruder in design than the reboot versions…no wonder he hadn’t put a finger on it right away.

That wasn’t really the issue.

“REMUS!” Janus shouted again, more angrily this time. Bad enough his pleasant evening of solitude had been interrupted by…whatever this was. But putting the sweetest, most emotional Side into a canonically unemotional shell, a robot?

That was cruel. That was insulting.

It was too far, even for Remus.

“Janus, is everything okay?” Patton asked, coming closer. Janus shivered at the sound of that warm voice coming from a blank metallic face with empty eyes.

“Do you…feel all right?” Janus said in a hesitant voice.

“I’m a little chilly, but otherwise I’m in ship shape!” the other quipped, giggling. “Get it? Cause we’re on a ship?”

Is it…is it possible that he doesn’t know?

“Hilarious,” Janus deadpanned, but inside his thoughts spun.

He sensed they were in a dream construct within the Imagination, which meant this had to be Remus’s doing. Remus, who reveled in gore, despair, disturbing imagery, angst, and who was in charge of Thomas’s nightmares.

Remus could…and would, given the chance…recreate the experience of being a Cyberman down to the Last. Grim. Detail.

Maybe he hadn’t meant to ensnare Patton specifically to fill this role…Remus didn’t generally pull other Sides in for nightmares, come to think of it…but meanwhile, Janus didn’t want to find out what this might do to Patton’s head.

Worse, it was becoming clear that Patton was somehow oblivious to the state of his own body; he’d used his metallic hands to clutch at his metallic chest and found nothing wrong with either. He couldn’t hear the electronic rasp in his own voice, or the heavy clanging of his steps on the grated floor.

Should Janus say something?

Would Patton believe him if he did?

Ever since Thomas’s near mental breakdown after the disastrous wedding, Patton and Janus had orbited around each other in a state of tenuous truce. They talked now, sometimes, and those talks didn’t always end in arguments. Patton began to leave space for him by Thomas’s blinds when he was called up, and he…and by extension Thomas…occasionally actually sought his input.

But Janus, well.

Janus was still a liar.

The others still called him Deceit, either by accident (Logan) or out of spite (Virgil). Then there was Roman, who invented a colorful, wounding ego-jab for him every day, and Remus, whose fond nicknames tended to double as sex jokes.

Having no other real allies in the mindscape, Janus really, really didn’t want to screw up his tenuous alliance with Patton. Why sabotage his figurative “seat at the table” over one of Remus’s stupid nightmares?

Patton would assume Janus was slipping back into his old ways, lying just because he could, and Janus would never be able to prove otherwise. And later Patton would make that sour, pinched face he always made when he was disappointed, the one that made Janus want to crawl into a hole…

So.

Best to keep his observations close to the chest, for now.

“Do you have any idea what we’re doing here?” Janus asked, striding to the center console. True to dream logic, the controls made no sense and simultaneously made perfect sense.

Patton shrugged; a strange, clanky motion of his shoulders.

Janus sighed. “Although Remus has dragged me into dreams before, even he generally understands the concept of consent.” He casually flapped a hand. “And he always leaves you ‘light sides’ alone.”

“Honestly, this doesn’t feel like a nightmare to me,” Patton said, nearly making Janus choke. The Cyberman clanked over to stand by the console.

“It’s too clean,” Patton added. “Roman let me glimpse Remus’s side of the Imagination once, not long after he showed himself to Thomas, and it was…”

Patton trailed off.

“Fragmented? Chaotic? Disturbing?” Janus supplied.

“Sure, we’ll go with that,” Patton said quietly. “This,” he waved a hand around, “feels more like Roman’s work.”

“I suppose you would know.” Janus ran a thoughtful thumb over his face, tracing the ridge that ran from the corner of his mouth to his ear.

“And I would almost have to agree,” he added slowly. “If this was a nightmare, surely something ghastly would have happened by now. But my being pulled into one of Roman’s creations makes even less sense. He literally cannot stand me.”

“Maybe this is one of those dreams Thomas has sometimes after binge watching a show?” Patton suggested. “When there’s enough material in short term memory that the twins don’t get much input? Did Thomas binge a season of Doctor Who yesterday or something?”

And to think the others still view you as stupid, or slow-witted.

Janus bit back a smile.

“It’s a good theory, Patton, but no,” he said. “Thomas hasn’t really binged on much of anything lately.”

Patton ducked his head.

“You don’t…you don’t have to rub it in, you know,” he said lowly, the metallic rasp grating on Janus’s ears. “You and Logan have both made it pretty clear that I’ve been too strict with Thomas’s time.”

Janus fought to keep his expression neutral, but his stomach twisted.

Damn it.

Leave it to Patton to find guilt where none was meant. Even if Janus claimed he hadn’t meant it like that, Patton would probably not believe him.

Patton tilted his metal head as he examined Janus’s face.

“Did you know you have a mustache now? And a little goatee?”

“I have a what?” Janus felt at his face and groaned, his gloved fingers tugging at hair that most certainly did not belong on his face; with the scales, it probably looked hideous.

His entire outfit had altered in subtle ways, he realized. His usual plum tunic and trousers were now a brown suit and waistcoat ensemble, crossed with yellow pinstripes, with a black collared undershirt. A brown, knee-length suit jacket replaced his caplet, with subtle gold trimming. His yellow gloves were unchanged, thank goodness, and his hat…?

His hands flew up to his head and found something perched over his hair, sitting at an angle. Janus yanked down a screen at the console and stared. His beloved bowler had shrunk into a tiny, flat, rakish thing with a wide brim, festooned with a cluster of yellow rosebuds and black beads.

“What on earth, Remus?” he grumbled, turning his head from side to side. Well, if he had to be honest, pinstripes and a hatinator weren’t a terrible look.

“Well, if we’re on a TARDIS, I guess you’re supposed to be the Doctor,” Patton pointed out. “Which would make me your companion.”

Janus stroked his goatee and examined their surroundings in more detail. But am I a Doctor? he wondered. And if so, which one?

And whose TARDIS is this?

Because while it was clear they were on a TARDIS…what other class of spaceship had a time rotor?…he wasn’t almost certain this was not the TARDIS.

Every corner of the Doctor’s ship, no matter which face it belonged to, tended to overflow with bright, shiny, eclectic whimsy. By contrast, this one was plain, stark, with exposed metal beams and sharp angles.

Too dark, too full of shadows.

An awful suspicion rose up in his mind.

He crossed to one of the bookshelves, ignoring Patton’s soft inquiry, and his jaw clenched. There was the Necronomicon, shelved between the Liber Inducens in Evangelium Aeternum and The Black Scrolls of Rassilon, Book of Vile and its Black Appendix, The Ambuehl Lores and the Insidium of Astrolabus.

Janus finally looked at the sonic device he’d been holding all this time; seeing now that it wasn’t a screwdriver at all, and thanked every god he knew that he hadn’t tried to use it on Patton earlier.

It was a sonic laser.

Once again, even in a stupid, nonsensical dream, Janus had been cast as the villain.

His fist had collided with the bookshelf before he even realized he was moving, books falling to the floor. He punched it again, and again, until a cool rigid hand closed around his wrist and yanked him back.

“Janus, Janus, stop!” Patton yelled in his ear.

Janus wrenched his arm away and stalked back to the console, running gloved fingers over his scales, pushing them up and smoothing them down. The familiar sensation grounded him.

“You were right, Patton,” he threw over his shoulder. “This is definitely one of Roman’s dreams, and he definitely fucking hates me.”

Patton’s heavy footsteps clattered behind him.

“Language. And how do you know that,” he asked. “…Doctor?”

Janus whirled, lips curled in a snarl.

“I am not the Doctor, Patton, and we are not on the TARDIS.” He spread his arms to encompass them both, gesturing to the dimly lit spaceship. “Look around. Look at me!”

He turned, slowly, and eyed his mustached visage in the dark view screen.

“Clearly, I am the Master.”

Chapter 4- Nightmare in Silver

“You think he knows what he’s doing?”

“I’m not sure I’d go that far.”

Patton rested his arms against the console and sighed.

Once again, someone I care about is upset, and I don’t know what to do. I guess I should be used to it by now.

It didn’t help that it was so cold in this TARDIS. He folded his arms around his middle, which felt strange and heavy, to combat the chill that seemed to have settled deep in his bones.

Janus stalked past again, grumbling to himself.

“Of course the Prince would pull me into one of his little ‘adventures’ without my consent. He probably needed an antagonist. And naturally the slippery snake would have been the first person to come to mind!”

Patton opened his mouth…though he had no idea what he was going to say…but Janus drowned him out.

“Come on, Roman!” he shouted, throwing his yellow-clad hands up. “You’ve had your fun. Yes, I’m evil, I’m the villain, I’m the bad guy, blah blah. Let’s have our epic confrontation or whatever nonsense you have planned, as I would very much like to get back to my reading sometime tonight.”

Silence.

Patton didn’t know what Janus was expecting.

“Look, maybe we should just play along for now?” Patton said aloud, wincing when Janus turned his murderous expression on him. The deceptive Side had such deep, cutting golden eyes, the human one so much darker than the other…cynical eyes that were, ironically, almost impossible to lie to.

They’d see straight through it.

“It takes a liar to know a liar.”

The glare quickly softened, though, which in Patton’s opinion said a lot about how far Janus had come.

“And how do you propossse we ‘play along’?” Janus said, hissing his s’s in frustration.

“Well, we’ve kinda decided this is Roman’s dream, right? And since we’re in his part of the Imagination, we know he won’t let anything bad happen to us…”

Patton trailed off at Janus’s pained expression, reminded of just how badly Janus and Roman’s last encounter had gone.

“What are you, a middle school librarian?”

“Thank god you don’t have a mustache.”

And I just stood there and did nothing…no, I can’t dwell on that right now. Patton shook himself out of the memory.

It was surprisingly easy; even his emotions felt a little heavy and muted. He supposed he wasn’t used to being in a dreamscape; unlike Roman, who played in them all the time.

I know Roman, Patton reasoned. He might hold a grudge for a while, but he wouldn’t actually be out to hurt Janus.

Right?

“So, if we’re on a time ship, on some kind of adventure leading up to a confrontation like you said, the first thing we’d have to do is figure out where we need to go,” Patton finished, shrugging.

Janus pursed his lips…which looked downright weird with a mustache and goatee, almost making Patton giggle…and began pushing buttons on the console.

“You are definitely incorrect, Patton,” he said, pulling up another screen and flipping a few switches. “If I have been cast as the villain in this ridiculous charade, that means Roman is likely prancing around as the Doctor right now, on the proper TARDIS. Which, as the Doctor’s nemesis, I should be able to contact…ha!”

The screen burst into static.

“Doctor, oh Doctor, do you read me?” Janus crooned, and if Patton hadn’t known just how angry he was in that moment…well, he would have never known.

Janus had tucked it away entirely, in half a second's time.

That’s the scary thing about him, Patton realized uneasily. He’s smart, nearly as smart as Logan. Smart enough to run circles around me, that’s for sure. And he’s easily as good an actor as Roman.

Those attributes, combined with his naturally manipulative nature, made it difficult to trust him.

Patton was trying.

He’d been trying since the wedding, and well, since everything else that had happened. (Patton still cringed when Thomas encountered even a picture of a frog.) He’d done a lot of thinking and growing that day (in more ways than one!), and he’d come to a disturbing, but inevitable conclusion.

Janus wasn’t evil.

He never had been.

Just like Virgil had never been evil. Mean, sure; and sarcastic, and spiteful…but at his core, Virgil had wanted what was best for Thomas.

They all did.

And then there was the uncomfortable corollary to that: Patton, despite his best efforts, despite his core Purpose…Patton wasn’t entirely and automatically good.

Two weeks ago, Janus had proven beyond a doubt that Thomas needed him…ruthlessly, cuttingly, but no one could say he hadn’t made his point. It had been Patton who’d inadvertently pushed Thomas to the brink of a breakdown, and Janus who had to pull them all back.

Despite Patton’s unease, and the little voice in his head telling him that Deceit couldn’t be trusted, could never truly be trusted because it was in his nature to deceive…Patton remembered how they’d pushed Virgil so hard he decided to duck out, and how much of a tragedy that could have been if they hadn’t all intervened to bring him back.

With a pang of guilt, he pictured Thomas lying on the floor, crushed under the metaphorical weight of everything Patton needed him to do to keep from being a bad person…

He would not make those mistakes again.

If Virgil could learn to work with them instead of against them, so could Janus. If Patton could learn to recognize when his own Purpose did more harm than good, so could Janus.

Patton had to believe that.

He’d made too many mistakes lately to believe otherwise.

The screen in Janus’s hands cleared to reveal…

“What? Logan??” Janus exclaimed, as a scream echoed somewhere in the background.

“D—Janus?” Logan countered, then looked over his shoulder. “Roman, for the love of Archimedes, will you stop shrieking? I cannot hear.”

The screaming cut off and Roman’s fuming face squished into the frame with Logan.

“Deceit! I should have known you would show up to ruin this!” he managed to shout before Logan shoved him away.

“Ruin…I’m sorry, what?” Janus glanced at Patton, looking honestly confused. “Is he roleplaying right now? We assumed this scenario was Roman’s creation.”

Onscreen, Logan placed his whole hand against Roman’s mouth to prevent him from interrupting.

“It is. But to my understanding, it was only supposed to involve myself and Roman, and…wait. You said ’we’.” Logan peered around. “Who else is with you?”

Patton started to wave, but his view was blocked by Janus bending close to the screen to whisper something. Suspicion flared in Patton’s stomach; old, familiar, but after the talk he’d just given himself, he purposefully pushed it down.

I won’t assume he’s being shifty unless he actually gives me a reason to.

Lifting his chin, he crept forward until he was next to Janus’s shoulder.

“Hey, Logan,” he said brightly, waving.

“Ah…hello, Patton,” Logan squeaked after a moment, his eyes still wide.

“Wait, Patton’s there? With the snake?” Roman’s voice yelled from the background, and then there was Roman’s face again.

“Patton?” Roman said, narrowing his eyes. “But why are you—?”

Both faces disappeared for a moment as Logan yanked Roman out of frame. Patton thought he heard a rapid, hushed conversation. He glanced at Janus, who only shrugged, looking at puzzled as Patton felt.

Roman’s face reappeared, solemn and deeply annoyed.

“Patton,” he said, and hesitated. “D—Janus. You two…well, you’re not supposed to be here.”

“Very reassuring,” Janus quipped.

“This was only supposed to be a two-person adventure: Doctor plus companion. I have no idea why the Imagination brought you both in as well; I certainly didn’t tell it to.”

“Aw, that’s okay, kiddo,” Patton started gently. “It’s not your fault—”

“Oh, sweetie.” Janus folded his arms. “I’m sorry, but that’s bull. Putting me in the Master’s shoes? Are we seriously going to pretend the Side who unashamedly hates me had nothing to do with that?”

“I didn’t!” Roman argued, his voice going high. “You really think I wanted you here, in any capacity?”

“Deceit…er, Janus, you are being unnecessarily antagonistic, and as such, unhelpful,” Logan cut in with his low, reassuring voice. “But Roman, it might behoove us to consider the role of subconscious influence. You may not have intended to pull the others in, and yet here they are.”

Roman looked at Logan, aghast, and Patton almost flinched at the raw hurt in his caramel eyes. The creative Side backed out of frame.

“So you’re on his side, too,” his voice said quietly. “Is that how it is?”

“I am not on anyone’s side,” Logan argued, raising his hands. “We are all currently in this situation together, and as such—”

Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off by another garbled transmission, taking over the screen and blocking out Logan’s face with crackly, purple static. A gray, snarling face flashed out of the haze, making Patton shriek in surprise and even Janus took a step back.

Then it was gone, dissolving back to static…and the sound of someone laughing filled the connection.

“Hellooooo, nurse,” a familiar sing-song voice crooned. “Did you miss me?”

Chapter 5- The Long Game

“You can’t just read the guide book, you’ve got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers. Or is that just me?”

Logan sighed.

He knew that voice; they all did. Even Thomas, unfortunately.

“Remus,” Roman hissed.

The mustached Side filled the screen, grinning madly. “Boo!”

“Get out of my scenario,” Roman said, his eyes flashing. “If you know what’s good for you.”

“Your scenario?” Remus echoed, faux-outrage in his expression. “Yours? The Dream Palace is my domain, too, brother, whether you like it or not.” He leaned closer, letting his nostrils and a single radioactive green eye fill the screen. “Did you really think you could keep me out?”

Roman made a sound of disgust deep in his throat.

“Am I to assume, then, that you are responsible for bringing in the other Sides?” Logan asked, careful to keep his voice even. Remus thrived on getting a rise out of people.

“Of course he is!” Roman snapped, throwing up his hands. “He loves to ruin things, especially my things.”

“Now why would having the others here ruin anything, brother?” Remus asked in a sickly sweet voice, propping his head on his hand. “Unless you intended for this nighttime romp between you and Logan to be private?”

Roman sputtered and glanced at Logan, red-faced, as Remus giggled.

“It was meant to be so, yes,” Logan supplied, unsure why Remus would find that funny…or why Roman would find it embarrassing.

“As amusing as this all is—” Janus’s crooning voice cut through the speaker.

“Great. You’re still here, snake?” Roman snarked, his arms folded around himself.

“We’re all listening, kiddo,” Patton’s metallic voice said.

Roman’s lips always curl into a pout when he is angry, Logan thought, eyeing him without turning his head, and he gets a little wrinkle between his eyebrows. Why…why am I noticing such things all of a sudden?

Maybe it was the stress, or the unfamiliar environment.

Or maybe it was the Rose Tyler outfit.

That skirt ought to be illegal.

Logan deliberately focused on the screen, his cheeks warm.

“So this is kinda new,” Patton went on, “all of us actually talking—”

“If Remus is responsible,” Janus cut in again, “then perhaps he would be so kind as to explain the objective of this late night group therapy session?”

Despite the biting sarcasm, Logan did appreciate Janus’s insistence that they get to the point, even if it did mean talking over Patton…

Speaking of, why would Remus have paired Patton with Janus?

Surely he should have grouped Patton with Logan and Roman, and put Virgil with Janus? Or…maybe not, given how Virgil hisses if Janus so much as enters the same room.

Ugh. Interpersonal drama. Logan was thoroughly sick of trying to keep track of who carried a grudge against whom, especially when it seemed to change from day to day.

And on top of that, why would Remus make Patton a Cyberman? None of these decisions make any sense…

“Right?” Roman agreed softly next to him, and Logan realized he’d said that last bit out loud.

“If anything, I should have been the unfeeling killer robot,” Logan murmured.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Specs.” Roman shot him a strange look, both warm and troubled. “And frankly I don’t give a stinky rat’s ass about my stinky rat brother’s sick thought process. What I want to know is why Deceit doesn’t want us to mention it around Patton?”

Logan, who was still mentally stuck on rodents and donkeys…Roman’s metaphors were always something else…shook his head slightly.

“There’s no logical way Patton is unaware of his condition,” Logan pointed out. “So I can only guess he wishes to protect Patton’s feelings on the matter, by not allowing us to talk about it in front of him.” He shrugged when Roman’s frown deepened. “Those two have been getting along much better these last few weeks.”

“I think you’re giving the snake too much credit,” Roman muttered. “Even after he impersonated you, Logan? C’mon. It has to be something else.”

Logan bit back a sigh.

He doesn’t understand, he thought guiltily. Because he doesn’t know what really happened…

#

“This is unacceptable, Deceit,” Logan snapped, flinging the crook away from his body. “I was in the middle of a discussion—”

“He won’t listen to you,” Deceit had said, and there was no sarcasm or snark in his voice.

“Patton asked for my opinion!”

“And he dismissed you from the conversation the moment that opinion went against his preconceived notions!” Deceit snapped back.

Silence.

Logan could hear the others still talking, out in the real world…without him…as the misty dregs of subconscious curled around their feet.

“You tricked him.” Logan folded his arms. “He was scared and off balance and you gave him an out.”

“I didn’t make him take it!”

Deceit sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Logan. You know he is wrong on this. You know what this is doing to Thomas. His unquestioning, black-and-white, juvenile morality; it’s not working anymore. Thomas needs to grow up, and Patton is not letting him.”

Logan bit his lip.

“Logan.” Deceit moved closer, dismissing his crook into mist and setting both gloved hands on Logan’s shoulders. Logan stiffened.

“Logic. Please. I am…no good at this.” Deceit dropped his head, his hat obscuring his eyes. “I operate through deceit because that is the only way I can make them acknowledge me.”

“They don’t acknowledge you because you operate through deceit,” Logan pointed out.

“A perfect catch 22.” Deceit let out a bitter laugh. “But a snake cannot change its scales and I don’t…I have tried everything I know. I cannot fix this from the shadows. I am out of ideas.”

A strange thought entered Logan’s mind.

“You care. You care what happens to Thomas.”

Deceit looked up, his mismatched eyes glittering with stinging intensity. “I am the literal representation of selfishness. Why the hell else would I go to all this trouble if I didn’t care?”

“Well…” Logan trailed off, troubled.

He’d let the others get to him, he realized in that moment. He’d let Roman get to him, with his talk of evil and Dark Sides and how they were always trying to tempt Thomas off the right path.

But…they were all part of Thomas, even the so-called “dark sides”.

Of course they wanted what was best for him…well, what Remus wanted at any given moment was debatable…even if they didn’t always go about it in the healthiest of ways.

Deceit had laughed then, high pitched and bitter.

“Really? Really? Even you think so low of me?”

“You are manipulating me right now.” Logan frowned. “You are using my concern for Thomas to make me trust you.”

“Yes! I am!” Deceit got in his face, fangs flashing. “I am a manipulative bastard because that is the lens through which my Source perceives me. But that doesn’t matter because you, Logic; you see through me, always have. And you know perfectly well that logically, any objection you have to my personality or my methods does not change the fact that I. Am. Right.”

He punctuated each word with a poke to Logan’s chest.

“Deceit—” Logan started.

“Janus.”

“What?”

Deceit sighed. “My name. My…real name. It’s Janus.”

Logan blinked. He knew the mythology, of course: Janus, keeper of doorways and thresholds, looking simultaneously to the past and future. Two faces. Seeing things from every angle.

Self-preservation.

“It suits you,” Logan said quietly.

Tension bled out of Janus’s shoulders, a stiffness Logan hadn’t even realized was there until it was gone.

“Thank you.”

“Why am I here…Janus?” Logan asked, glancing away. “What do you need from me?”

Janus looked at him intently.

“Let me speak to them as you.”

Logan raised an eyebrow, and Janus sighed, waving a hand.

“I know, I know, more deceit, more lies, but—”

“No, it’s…” Logan pressed his lips together. “You already pointed it out. They don’t listen to me, either.”

The bitter twist that accompanied those words was becoming an all too familiar sensation in Logan’s chest.

Janus snorted.

“Oh, they do. Eventually. They heeded your advice on how to deal with Remus.”

Logan shrugged uncomfortably.

“Look,” Janus added, “honest people know how to tell the truth, but liars…” he smirked, not especially nicely. “We know how to wield the truth to accomplish an end. I can pull Thomas and the others out of this rut, but they have to be receptive to my tugging on the reins.”

Logan pursed his lips.

“You won’t fool them. If you recall, you tried to impersonate me once already and barely lasted two minutes.”

“I didn’t have your blessing.”

Janus fixed Logan with his intense mismatched eyes again, and held out a hand.

Logan stared at it, torn.

This was Deceit, the master liar: Thomas’s entire capacity for deception condensed into a single, snake-faced Side. How could Logan possibly trust him to not make things worse, after all the falsehoods, the impersonations, how he’d manipulated them all in one way or another to get his way?

But…as much as Logan, personally, didn’t understand why that callback had been so important to Thomas…he could not dismiss the fallout Thomas had suffered as a result of missing it. The decision to attend the wedding had turned out to be a bad one.

Patton had been wrong to insist upon it over Janus’s objections, and over Roman’s.

Those were just the facts.

Janus sighed.

“I’ll unmask myself when an opportunity arises, if that would help,” he offered, and to Logan’s shock, slowly tugged off a glove. “I won’t…I won’t let it go on as long as it did with Patton.”

He offered his now bare hand to Logan again.

Out in the real world, Logan could hear Patton’s increasingly desperate and ridiculous responses to Thomas’s and Roman’s questions, and winced. Janus did the same.

“Please,” was all he said.

Logan sighed…it really couldn’t get any worse, could it?…and shook Janus’s hand.

#

In his TARDIS, Logan let out the sigh he was holding back.

He might have personal, concrete evidence that Janus wasn’t evil, but he also knew Janus had wounded Roman, badly, that day. The creative Side was simply not currently capable of viewing any situation involving Janus with any sort of objectivity.

Passionate, sensitive people like Roman tended to have an unfortunate habit of hanging onto grudges.

As Logic, Logan needed to remember that.

“Oh, all right,” Remus said, his voice crackling over the connection. “Since you’re all here—”

“Actually, Remus, we’re not all here,” Patton’s voice pointed out. “You all know perfectly well who we’re missing; we’ve done this before.”

Logan’s eyes widened. “‘Where is Anxiety?’” he quoted.

“You mean Tickle Me Emo isn’t with one of you?” Remus asked, looking delighted. “Oh dear, oh dear. Is he lost?”

“I mean, TARDISes are huge,” Roman pointed out. “He could be somewhere on one of our ships.” His voice dropped again. “I’ll bet Deceit stashed him away, because we all know how he hates Virgil.”

“Excuse you,” Janus’s voice interrupted, annoyed. “It is Virgil who hates me, not the other way around.”

“Let’s both scan our ships,” Logan suggested, hoping to head off an argument. Honestly, if Roman and Janus didn’t stop picking fights with one another, he was going to lose his marbles.

The scans pulled up nothing.

“Oh well,” Remus said with a shrug. “Guess the emo gets to miss out.”

Janus grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “lucky”.

“All right, here’s what’s going to happen.” Remus leaned close to the screen. “I’ve crash landed on a lovely snowbound planet that’s crawling with psychotic tin cans who like to roll around yelling ‘exterminate’.”

“Daleks? A snowbound planet, so not Skarro, but where else…” Logan narrowed his eyes.

“He’s on the Dalek asylum,” Roman said lowly. “That was one of the episodes I had in mind when I plotted this adventure.”

“Very good, brother.” Remus clapped his hands. “And up there in orbit is a ship full of people who’d really like to blow up the whole planet. Oh, woe is me, whatever shall I—”

“Save it,” Roman snapped. “You’d probably enjoy getting blown up.”

“Hmm, true.” Remus’s green eyes sharpened. “Think of the mess! Little bits of intestines floating through space, long pink ropey—”

“Or?” Logan interjected, before Remus gave Patton nightmares.

“Or you have to come rescue me!” Remus’s teeth flashed as he grinned. “Because otherwise it’s nighty-night for me and all the other aliens in the asylum.”

There was a beat of silence.

“As terrible as that sounds,” Janus drawled, sounding anything but worried, “given that none of this is real, and at least one of us would very much rather not be here at all…why exactly should your plight concern us?”

Logan secretly agreed, but felt his stomach clench when he glanced at Roman’s troubled face. None of this was real…right? Would something concretely bad happen to Remus if the planet he inhabited was blown up?

Surely not.

This was only a dream. Perhaps, then, Roman was merely upset that his twin had usurped his adventure for the night?

“Also.” Remus buffed his fingernails. “You should know that the Imagination will only release us if we complete the objective. In other words,” and he sneered, purple-shadowed eyes glittering, “we’re all stuck in this scenario until we’re all reunited.”

Remus giggled as Logan exchanged a shocked look with Roman.

“I don’t believe you. This was my dream,” Roman said darkly. “And I’ve just about had enough of all this!”

He stepped back and snapped his fingers with a flourish. Frowning, he did it again, and again, his face growing paler with each try.

“Roman, what—” Logan started.

“I can’t end it,” Roman whispered, still snapping. “He’s right. He’s…he’s sealed off the dream’s boundaries somehow. Remus!”

This he roared at the screen.

“Keeping Thomas trapped in a dream state is going too far, Remus!” he yelled. “I don’t care what kind of demented game you want to play with us, but we don’t bring Thomas into it.”

“Oh, you think I created an unbreakable dreamscape?” Remus snapped. “You let the Imagination have too much reign, my dear brother, and now neither of us have the power to end the dream ourselves. I estimate we have about ten hours before Thomas wakes up.”

For a moment, all Logan could hear was the soft whoosh of the time rotor, and Roman’s shallow, angry breathing at his shoulder.

“So I suggest you all pilot your ships to these coordinates,” Remus added, and a series of numbers and strange symbols flashed up on one of the smaller console screens. “And get started.”

The main screen blipped, and Remus’s face was replaced by an expressionless Cyberman and a snake-faced Side who looked extremely pale under his scales.

“Well,” Logan stated. “This is a problem.”

Chapter 6- Asylum of the Daleks

“You’re going to fire me at a planet? That’s your plan? I get fired at a planet and expected to fix it?”

“In fairness, that is slightly your M.O.”

“Don’t be fair to the Daleks when they’re firing me at a planet.”

The familiar wheeze of the TARDIS materializing filled Roman’s ears as he waited by the doors. Logan joined him a moment later.

“Ready?” he asked, smoothing a hand over his cravat.

He looks good as the Doctor, Roman thought, eying the slimming black and navy, the graceful arc that hand made as it adjusted a pair of glasses…

He shook himself out of his distraction. “Let’s do this, nerd.”

Logan opened the doors and the two stepped out…not onto the asylum, but onto a spaceship. Shiny copper terraces lined the vast walls in curving rows, leading the eye up to a domed ceiling with a clear view of black, star-studded space. Like a huge amphitheater, or stadium. Even Roman had to admit, the Imagination had really outdone itself on the realism.

Of course, given that the ship was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of Daleks calling for violence…realism wasn’t exactly comforting at the moment.

“Surprise, surprise, I don’t see my stupid brother,” Roman commented over the dull roar of the crowd.

“No. But I recognize where we are.” Logan waved a hand. “You were right about Remus’s location; this ship is from the episode ‘Asylum of the Daleks’, in Season 7. If we are following the basic plotline, Remus is likely somewhere down on the planet below, and we will be sent to him in due course. However…I am curious as to why all the other aliens are here.”

Roman looked around again, seeing that Logan was right. Daleks formed the majority of the crowd, but he also spotted Zygons, Sontarans, Silurians, other Cybermen, Ice Warriors…and quite a few aliens from older seasons he couldn’t remember the names of.

(Logan probably could.)

A second TARDIS materialized near their familiar blue box: plain, gray; a squat column of a ship. Janus emerged first, a silver instrument gripped in one gloved hand, followed by an old-school Cyberman…Patton. Roman frowned. Seeing that metal…being…and having to remember it was actually his friend was going to be difficult now that there wasn’t a screen separating them.

“Nice work, Roman,” Janus said, sidling up next to him and faux-clapping his hands. “A ship full of aliens who want us dead; always an excellent starting point for an adventure.”

“This is how the episode starts, Mr. Oh-I’m-Such-an-Expert-in-Doctor-Who,” Roman retorted. “Accuracy is important.”

“But this isn’t accurate,” Logan pointed out. “There should only be Daleks here.”

Roman folded his arms, stung.

Damn Logan and his damned need to be right all the time.

“I…well, I didn’t model this adventure after just one particular episode,” Roman admitted. “I wanted it to be a challenge, and it wouldn’t be if Logan and I already knew the ending. So no, I can’t exactly explain why all the other aliens are here, okay?”

Logan sighed.

“I was not criticizing you, Roman,” he said in a gentler voice. “As this has apparently become as much Remus’s and the Imagination’s handiwork as it is yours, it would be unreasonable to expect you to know what comes next.”

“THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL APPROACH THE SUPREME DALEK,” a grating robotic voice boomed across the ship, making them all whip around. A large white Dalek with an antenna on its shell loomed on a raised stage near the center of the amphitheater.

“They were expecting me, too?” Janus raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

The lights on the Dalek’s head flashed as it spoke again.

“THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL APPROACH WITH THEIR COMPANIONS.”

The four Sides exchanged a glance, and weaved through the assembled Daleks to the raised stage. The White Supreme Dalek was not the only occupant; it was flanked by an Ice Warrior, an Emojibot (which made Patton giggle), and…

“Look, a Janus,” Roman chortled, nudging the snake-faced Side in the ribs and pointing out the two-faced alien.

“You are all nerds and my logo is a two-headed snake,” Janus complained, rolling his eyes. “I literally do not know how all of you missed that obvious clue to my name.”

“DOCTOR,” the White Dalek said as they climbed the dais. “MASTER. WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF THE DALEK ASYLUM?”

“I’m just impressed my rat-faced brother wasn’t lying about his location,” Roman grumbled, and sputtered when Logan placed a hand over his mouth.

“According to legend,” Logan said, “you have a dumping ground, a planet where you lock up all the Daleks that go wrong.”

“The battle-scarred, the insane. The ones even you can’t control,” Janus clarified. His voice dropped to a hiss. “No wonder they ssstuck Remus there.”

Roman covered his mouth to keep from snorting.

The snake would not make him laugh.

“CORRECT.” The Dalek pushed a button and a hole opened in the middle of the floor. A snow-covered planet lay below them, pristine from this high up.

“Ooh, that’s,” Patton started, and let out a metallic gulp. “That’s quite a drop. Do we, ah, have to go down the same way? Cause I remember that part, and—”

“How many Daleks are down there?” Logan asked.

“A COUNT HAS NOT BEEN MADE,” the white Dalek said.

“Millions, certainly,” a new voice chimed in. The tall, robed, dark-skinned Janus stepped forward, their front face addressing them. “But they will not be your only concern. The population of the planet consists of more than just Daleks.”

Roman exchanged a suspicious glance with Logan. This wasn’t in the episode. This is new.

“What do you mean?” Janus, their Janus, asked.

The alien Janus turned to a nearby monitor, pulling up some information. The backward-facing face continued to address them.

“Some time ago, the Daleks began noticing a curious phenomenon,” they said. “Random people, from all different races and species, started turning up on various planets in this quadrant of space, including the asylum. No ships, no technology, and no knowledge of how they’d gotten there. At first the imprisoned Daleks on the asylum simply killed them off as they appeared—”

Patton visibly winced, even with his metal body, and Logan’s eyes grew flinty.

“—but the new arrivals eventually became too many to exterminate,” the alien Janus went on, unconcerned. “By now we suspect the planet has a population of over a billion, far too many for its automated systems to handle.”

They turned their forward face to the four again.

“THE ASYLUM IS COMPROMISED,” the Dalek Supreme proclaimed. “IT MUST BE CLEANSED.”

“Hang on, you’re still going to blow the whole planet up?” Roman protested. “A billion people?”

“To be fair, that is what they did in the original episode,” Logan pointed out quietly.

“But that was just Daleks!”

Janus rolled his eyes. “Ah, so genocide is fine when it’s only the evil aliens getting blown up?”

“You know, somehow I’m not surprised to hear you defending the bad guys!” Roman snapped.

“That is enough!” Patton snapped in his robotic voice, stepping between them and raising both his hands. Laser pistols popped out of both of them, making both Roman and Janus step back in alarm.

After a tense moment, Patton lowered his arms again; the guns clicked and vanished into their casings.

“Uh, sorry kiddos, I don’t know what came over me,” he said in a sheepish, more Patton-y voice. “Can we please not fight? It…it kinda makes me feel weird and jittery when you do.”

Roman stared at Patton’s blank Cyberman face and armored Cyberman body and swallowed, hard.

Their Patton would never deliberately aim a gun at anyone, let alone his family. But Cybermen were created to eliminate…or rather, delete…anyone who got in their way.

Did Patton even realize what he’d almost done?

What would happen, if and when he was forced to confront the reality of his body in this realm? What if he didn’t figure it out until he accidentally did something terrible? It wouldn’t be real, of course, but to Patton…that wouldn’t matter.

If his Cyberman programming forced or tricked him into hurting someone, the guilt of it would devastate him.

All I wanted to do was take Logan on an adventure, Roman thought bitterly. A fun little dream adventure where he could play one of his heroes. Was that too much to ask, Imagination?

He folded his arms and glared around the Dalek ship, anywhere but at his fellow Sides.

Whatever the hell this has turned into, I want no part of it anymore.

“In order for us to destroy the planet, we will need you to disable the planet’s forcefield—” The alien Janus started, but Logan held up a finger.

“Excuse you,” he said sharply. “We have not agreed to do anything, least of all help you murder a billion people whose only crime is to have accidentally turned up in your prison. Have you even attempted to solve that mystery?"

"And why do you care what happens down there?" Roman added, sneering. "If the insane Daleks are armed—”

“DALEKS ARE ALWAYS ARMED,” the white Dalek proclaimed.

“—then why can’t they defend themselves?” Logan finished, shooting Roman a questioning glance.

Roman huffed, and looked away.

“At first they did,” the Janus explained. “But as I said, the automated systems cannot keep up with the influx. Wars are being fought over food and other resources as we speak. A starliner crashed on the surface mere days ago, and—”

“Ah,” Logan said slowly. “You’re afraid, with all the shifting alliances and new activity, that the mad Daleks will escape in the confusion.”

“We do not know who or what is behind the influx,” the Janus said. “But eventually, they will start coming with ships, or they will build them on the surface, or reach out to those who could attempt a rescue.”

“‘If sssomeone can get in, everything can get out’,” their Janus quoted darkly.

The other Janus nodded. “Even the Daleks agree, their mad brethren cannot be allowed to escape. We, of this assembly—”

They waved to the assembled crowd of aliens, who observed in eerie silence.

“—have decided that one planet must be sacrificed for the greater good of the universe.”

Roman slowly and deliberately drew his sword (which the Imagination had kindly left as part of his outfit). It rasped as it emerged, the sound hair-raising in the sudden lull.

Instantly every Dalek gunstick and alien weapon on the ship was primed and pointed at the four Sides.

“And if we refuse?” Roman said evenly.

“THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL COOPERATE,” the Supreme Dalek warned, its lights flashing balefully.

“COOPERATE! COOPERATE!” the cry was echoed by the other Daleks, filling the ship with a cacophony of robot voices.

The alien Janus shrugged, spreading their hands.

“You don’t really have a choice. If you want to live, that is.”

“Is that so.”

Roman tensed and sprang at the white Dalek, not giving himself time to think. He dodged a blast from its gunstick and leaped, bringing his sword down hard. This being the Imagination, the katana cut through the Dalek’s metal armor like butter, and it clattered to the deck in two pieces.

There was a shocked silence…but no retaliation.

“Well?” Roman shouted, spreading his arms and turning in a slow circle. “This is me, not cooperating. What are you waiting for? Are you really going to shoot us?”

If they all died on this spaceship…the worst that would happen is they’d be kicked from the Imagination, and that was what they wanted, anyway.

“Roman,” Logan warned quietly, pointing.

Roman looked.

The white Dalek’s shell was…laughing?

“Oh, Roman,” Remus’s crackly voice emerged from the fallen Dalek’s casing. “Roman, Roman, Roman. My poor brave brother who thinks he can solve all his problems with steel and bravado. Did you really think it would be that easy?”

Each word bit like sandpaper against Roman’s ears.

He growled, and stalked to the Dalek’s top half, snatching it up and quickly locating a tiny speaker.

“C’mon, Remus. End this stupid charade,” he said quietly, holding the casing to his face so he could speak quietly. “You’ve had your fun at my expense. Go back to your pile of severed limbs and gloat if you must, but end this. For Patton’s sake, if nothing else.”

“I’ve already told you, it’s out of my hands,” Remus responded; typically, annoyingly casual. “If you want to end the game, you have to come down here and find me.”

Roman exhaled, resting his head against the cold, bumpy metal for a moment. His eyes burned, but he was Prince; he wouldn’t cry, not here.

“Why must you make everything difficult?”

“Roman, in all seriousness,” Remus’s voice dropped. “I didn’t know you were taking Logan on a date tonight—”

“It’s not a date,” Roman hissed, glancing at the other Sides…one in particular.

“The Imagination brought me into this without asking, just like it pulled the others in,” Remus went on. “I am aware of what has to happen, but I did not cause this.”

“You’re lying,” Roman said tonelessly.

Remus’s whiny voice grew hard.

“I don’t lie, and you despise that about me. You hide so much shit from yourself that it baffles you when I refuse to do the same.”

“Look,” Remus added when Roman didn’t respond. “The Imagination is clearly trying to get our attention. Sure, it usually goes through one of us first, but it doesn’t have to. When it comes down to it, Thomas’s mind answers only to Thomas. ”

“How are you so sure?” Roman frowned.

Was Remus seriously suggesting the Imagination they both oversaw had gone rogue somehow?

“Because I don’t curate my side as meticulously as you do, brother.” Remus chuckled. “I listen. I let the Imagination do as she pleases, free from all those pesky ethics and morals and other boring boxes you always force her into, so that our sweet Thomas doesn’t fear the contents of his own head.”

“You expect me to believe that you know what’s going on because,” Roman let every ounce of disdain seep into his voice, “the Imagination talks to you, and not me…because you don’t make her behave?”

“You should try letting her loose sometimes,” Remus drawled, “or you’ll end up with a cane up your butt like Nerdy Wolverine over there.”

“Don’t call him that,” Roman spat.

“What you so-called ‘light sides’ always get wrong,” Remus went on, “is that the juicy stuff, the gruesome and grim, the ‘bad’ thoughts that filter up from the subconscious; they can’t all be locked away and ignored.” His voice dropped ominously. “Repression can be very bad indeed, you know.”

Roman’s reasonable nature knew that his brother, despite his infuriating attitude, was actually making some good points. Thomas had been dealing with a lot lately; the tension in the mindspace felt like a ticking clock, counting down to the next disaster.

But at that moment, Roman had no desire to humor his twin.

All he wanted to do was lock himself into his own room in the Dream Palace and spend the rest of the night writing sad poetry about love, or listing his mistakes to himself until he fell asleep.

“I just wanted to show Logan a good time,” he said aloud.

“And oh dear, apparently you couldn’t even manage that correctly,” Remus said, implacably. “So maybe you should use this opportunity to get your head out of your poopy ass, and reevaluate yourself.”

Roman slammed the Dalek shell against the floor.

It cracked upon impact, the wiring inside sparking and finally flickering down to darkness. He ran his hands through his hair, reminded, once again, why he hated talking to his brother.

Like looking in a funhouse mirror…

“Roman…” Patton sidled up behind him, laying a cold hand on his back. Roman shoved the metal arm away and stalked back to the others.

“Let’s just get this done,” he said in a low voice.

“You will need these,” the alien Janus said, pushing a button on a nearby console. A translucent vertical tube rose from a gap in the floor, holding three bulky black bracelets.

“Ah yes, I remember this,” Logan said, striding forward and taking a bracelet.

“They will prevent—” the Janus started.

“The nano cloud from converting us into Dalek puppets, yes?” Logan interrupted, snapping the bracelet onto his wrist and handing another to Roman.

The nerd is getting into this, Roman thought as he put it on. I guess that’s something.

“The cloud is only active in certain areas of the asylum,” the Janus warned them again. “And those change as different factions seize control of different areas and weaponize them.”

Patton hesitantly raised a hand.

“Um, Mx. Alien, I can’t help but notice that there are only three bracelets, and four of us?”

Logan frowned. “But Patton, why would you—?”

“I’m sure it’s because I’m part snake, Patton,” Janus interrupted smoothly, swooping in to grab the last bracelet and snapping it onto Patton’s arm.

Roman exchanged an alarmed look with Logan; that was the last bit of confirmation he needed. Patton really was unaware that he was a Cyberman.

But why on earth would Janus go to such lengths to keep him in the dark about it? Even leaving aside the fact that Patton was a walking weapon; being a machine, he didn’t need protection from the nano cloud at all.

Whereas Janus…probably did.

But when Roman opened his mouth, Janus shot him a look full of daggers and promises of pain, and shook his head. Roman rolled his eyes and mentally washed his hands of the situation.

Typical Deceit. Protecting his lies.

At least Patton would be twice-protected. If the snake wanted to risk his life for a lie, let him.

“The gravity beam will convey you close to the crashed starliner,” the alien Janus said, and then there were Dalek blasters being shoved into their backs, propelling them toward the hole in the floor.

“Oi,” Roman protested, “get your freaky little eggbeater appendages away from me, you AAAAHHHH!”

There was a push, and they were falling.

Chapter 7- Oxygen

“Look at this. Classic design. Pressure seals. Hinges. None of that ‘shuk shuk’ nonsense.”

“Space doors are supposed to go shuk shuk.”

“Are you gonna be like this all day?”

Janus was done.

He sat up with a groan, brushing snow from his jacket and vest, making sure his hat and gloves were still in place. Everything ached. Bad enough he never wanted to be part this stupid dream game in the first place; now he was probably going to literally turn into a Dalek.

All because the Imagination is being a dick and Patton doesn’t know he’s a killer robot.

Wind gusted around him, making Janus glad that the Master, like the Doctor, usually preferred long sleeves and a coat. He stood, turning in a slow circle as he took in the lay of the land. Nothing but snow and rocks; true to the episode, still.

The gravity beam had split into four as it hurled them at the planet, but Janus was reasonably sure at least one of the others had landed nearby.

He hoped it was Patton.

Not because he was concerned or anything. It was just that either of the others would be absolutely insufferable company, that’s all.

“Janus!” a metallic voice called, and Janus breathed a sigh of relief.

Patton’s Cyberman body clattered awkwardly down a nearby snowbank, sliding the last few feet to land in a heap.

“It is all kinds of chilly down here.” Patton stood, and waved rather nonsensically. “Hullo there, Janus, so ice to see you.”

Janus rolled his eyes. (He would deny to his dying day that the corner of his mouth twitched at the ridiculous pun.)

“If this scenario is consistent with its source material,” he said, gesturing to the closest ridge, “there should be an escape pod from that crashed ship nearby. Come on.”

He set off across the snow, Patton following in his wake.

“Say, what do snowmen call their offspring?”

Janus exhaled carefully. Hoo, boy, maybe Logan wouldn’t have been so bad…

“I haven’t the faintest.”

“Chill-dren!” Patton chortled at Janus’s grimace. “What did one snowman say to another?”

“St. Genesius spare me,” Janus grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What, pray tell, did one snowman say to another?”

“‘Do you smell carrots?’”

Janus quickly covered his mouth.

“You smiled,” Patton crooned.

“I most certainly did not.”

“Okay, okay, one more.” Patton scurried ahead and turned around, so that he was walking backwards. “Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?” Janus said flatly.

“Snow.” Patton hooked his thumbs into the metal rim at waist, like one might on a pair of pants. Janus swallowed and looked away.

“Snow who?”

“Snow laughing matter, Janus, I don’t know why you’re smiling.”

Janus snorted before he could hide it, and cleared his throat.

“I am not smiling, how dare you.”

“That’s twice now!” Patton cackled, the sound coming out all distorted. “Admit it.”

“I refuse,” Janus said, drawing himself up. “You won’t make a liar out of….”

Liar.

He felt the joke fall flat and cringed. Even though Patton’s metal face couldn’t react, those metal shoulders visibly stiffened.

Too soon.

Liar.

Too much history between them.

Besides, you are a liar, his mind whispered. Lies of omission are still lies, Deceit, and you’re doing that right now.

Janus gritted his teeth. They topped a ridge; the expected escaped pod lay half-buried near another ridge, across a flat stretch of snow. The two Sides glanced at each other and continued their journey in silence.

Patton seemed disinclined to continue his little pun war.

Janus badly wanted to say he hadn’t minded the punning, but truthfully, keeping silent was easier. Patton’s baffling ignorance over the state of his own “flesh” was starting to wear on Janus’s conscience. He knew the longer he kept it secret, the worse the fallout would be when Patton finally learned the truth.

The urge to come clean was an unfamiliar one for him, and extremely uncomfortable.

Ironic, the master liar, conflicted about maintaining a lie.

The old him would have laughed, but…the old him hadn’t heard the sincerity in Patton’s voice, when he’d spoken Janus’s true name aloud for the first time. The old him had assumed Thomas would reject him forever…because of Patton.

And then, with Janus still smarting from the sting of Roman’s mockery, Patton had said his name.

Patton had trusted him to take care of Thomas in his stead, when the moral Side knew he had failed at it. The memory still made all Janus’s scales tingle and his heart beat a little sideways.

The new him…this him…couldn’t find it in his small, shriveled, but very much present heart to risk pushing Patton away.

They reached the pod.

Muffled shouts and something that sounded like blaster fire filtered up from inside, making them exchange another glance.

Janus set a hand on the ice-crusted latch.

“Remember, we’ll have to fight our way through a bunch of dead Dalek puppets,” he reminded Patton.

“That’s a lot of noise for just a few puppets,” Patton said softly. “That canonically shouldn’t even be awake yet.”

“I know, and that is strange,” Janus agreed. “Maybe someone got here before us. But we won’t know exactly what to expect until we get down there.”

Patton sighed, a cloud of frost puffing out of his small, rectangular mouth.

Janus pushed the latch, popped his head in, and was met with a scene of utter chaos.

About six or seven human-Dalek puppets, with stalks sticking out of their heads and blasters sticking out of their hands, were locked in a fire fight with a horde of robotic humanoids that looked like they came from the Fourth Doctor’s era, if Janus remembered correctly. Round, bulky shoulders and faces that looked like metal sunbursts.

Both puppets and robots were using the seats as cover, blaster fire zinging back and forth and exploding against the walls in little showers of sparks. Janus and Patton would be directly in the blast zone when they jumped down, a little closer to the robot side.

“Well, someone definitely got here before us,” Janus muttered.

He withdrew his head and studied Patton. Honestly, with his metal body he’d be in far less danger, and those guns in his arms would actually be useful in this situation…but telling Patton he was a walking weapon, now, would definitely not go over well.

“The hatch down into the asylum should be in the cockpit of this thing,” he informed Patton. “There’s a lot of blaster fire, though, so—”

“—don’t get cold feet and hesitate?” Patton finished.

Something in Janus’s heart twisted…something he didn’t dare examine too closely.

“Say, Patton,” he said softly, looking away.

“Yes?”

“What did the hat say to the scarf?”

Patton turned his black Cyberman eyes on Janus.

“What?”

“‘You hang around, and I’ll go a-head’.” Janus let a smirk curl his lips.

Patton was silent for a moment, but then he began to giggle, covering his mouth.

Janus pulled out his sonic laser.

He dropped into the pod with a swing of his legs, catching one of the robots in its metal chest. It fell with a screech, careening into another of its kind, but by then Janus had gained his feet and ducked behind a seat. Patton clattered down behind, with less grace and far more noise…and a random Tivolian tumbled in directly after him.

Patton caught the rodent-faced alien with a startled shout, immediately dropping them again when they screamed and struggled. Janus blinked; where the hell did they come from?

The Tivolian tumbled across the pod’s floor, only making it a few feet before getting cut down with blaster bolts. Janus saw Patton cry out, and caught the Side before he could leap out and draw more hostile fire.

“It’s too late!” he shouted over the noise.

“I should have hung on!” Patton, if he’d had a proper face, would probably be in tears. He hated death. “I don’t know why they were so scared of me!”

Janus could answer that…

“I’m more curious about where they came from,” he said instead, frowning. “They surely weren’t up on the surface with us. It’s like they just teleported in, but Tivolians don’t teleport. They don’t have the technology—”

A blaster bolt exploded across the top of the seat they were hiding behind, showering them in sparks and forcing them both to duck.

“Janus!” Patton snapped. “We need to get out of here!”

“Right.” Janus brandished his sonic. “We’ll just have to run for it.”

He leaped out, activating his weapon, and discovered that a sonic laser had a very satisfying range and kickback. Forget the Doctor’s screwdriver, he thought, blasting a Dalek puppet aside and ducking another gun blast. I wonder if the Imagination will let me keep this…

A cold, dead hand seized the collar of his jacket, yanking him back.

Then there was a yell, a clatter, and Janus turned in time to see Patton blast a puppet with a fire extinguisher. The moral Side chuckled at Janus’s shocked expression.

“I’ve seen this episode too, you know,” he pointed out.

Janus huffed.

The two dodged and fought their way to the cockpit; Janus used his laser to seal the door behind them. For a moment they simply stood there, catching their breath.

(Well, Janus caught his. Did Patton even breathe, in that form?)

“Unauthorized personnel may not enter the cockpit.” Remus’s high-pitched voice came over the speaker system. “Unless it’s an actual pit full of cocks, in which case, where’s my invitation?”

Janus was going to need something a lot stronger than tea, once they finally got out of this mess.

“Remus, for god’s sake,” he grumbled.

“God has nothing to do with my cock, but if that’s how you want to roll…” One of the cockpit screens flickered to life, and there was Remus in all his ruffly, sparkly, mustached glory. Clara’s warm, messy cove spread out behind him, reds and yellows clashing horribly with the green of his sash.

Janus moved so that his chest and shoulders blocked the screen, to prevent Remus from catching sight of Patton. If Remus saw Patton as a Cyberman, Janus would never be able to convince him to keep his mouth shut.

“All right then, where do we find you?” Janus said. “And where did the others land? Not to mention our dear missing ball of anxiety.” He leaned forward, putting on his trademark smirk. “Come on, Re. You must know. One Other to another, you can tell me.”

“Aww, Jan Jan,” Remus crooned, also leaning forward. “You care.”

“I most certainly do not!” Janus sputtered, and cleared his throat. “Patton was worried about Virgil, that’s all.”

“I was?” Patton asked from the other side of the space. “I mean, of course I am, but—”

“But surely you can at least tell us why this scenario isn’t playing out quite like the episode it comes from,” Janus interjected smoothly. He didn’t want Remus to notice the metallic quality of Patton’s voice.

“Sorry to disappoint, but I’ve already told you everything that I know.” Remus shrugged. “Roman really did give the Imagination too much freedom.”

Janus frowned.

“Then how do you know the scenario will end when we find you?”

“I actually don’t! Isn’t it great?” Remus crowed, clapping his hands. “I love stories where anything could happen. We could all get vaporized, or have our flesh eaten by—”

“Remus, focus.” Janus pitched the bridge of his nose. “So, given what we know of this particular episode, you’re assuming that our main tasks are to come get you, and to drop the forcefield on the planet so the Daleks can blow it up.”

“That’s the idea, Double Dee!”

Behind him, Janus heard Patton make a weird, choked noise, and grimaced.

“By the way, Roman and Logan are already inside the asylum.” Remus grinned, the whites of his eyes flashing. “So if you want to catch up, you’d better scute those scaly asscheeks along. Check the floor for a breach; that will be your way out. A breach, ha! Like a butth—”

Janus pointed his laser and fired on the screen, cutting the transmission and sending sparks flying all over the cockpit. An awkward silence fell in which he turned to face Patton, who of course wore no visible expression.

This, and all the reasons for it, annoyed him further.

“I swear if you ask one question about scutes or scales,” he warned, holding up a finger.

“I wasn’t…going to.” Patton held up his hands. “Logan kind of taught us how to tune out the more, er, naughty things Remus says. But I am wondering,” he added hesitantly. “Are you…feeling okay?”

“Fabulous. Peachy,” Janus said flatly, kneeling to feel around on the floor. “Fantastic, allons-y, geronimo, what have you.”

“It’s just, you seem a little angry,” Patton went on. “And you remember, that’s, that’s the first step in being converted. Maybe you should wear the bracelet for a while? We can trade on and off…”

Patton’s fingers went to his wrist, but Janus stopped him with a gloved hand on top.

Tell him, an inner voice whispered. Tell him now, before this gets any more awkward.

“That’s sweet of you, but no, I’m merely frustrated,” Janus admitted. “I would very much like to get out of here, so I can return to the pleasant evening I was having before all thisss.”

He gestured irritatedly around them.

Patton joined him on the floor and together they found a person-sized hole, with a rope ladder hanging down.

“Hey, Janus,” Patton murmured, as they were about to start the long climb down. “Can I ask you something?”

“Why do I have a feeling you’re going to ask no matter what I say?” Janus said wryly.

“Do you remember when that puppet attacked you in the main part of the ship, and I fought it off with the fire extinguisher?” Patton ducked his head.

Janus raised an eyebrow.

“They hesitated, when they saw me.” Patton’s unnaturally black eyes met Janus’s. “That’s why I had time to grab the extinguisher.”

Janus swallowed, his heart starting to pound.

“Well, I’m sure they aren’t used to anyone fighting back—”

“No, they hesitated like…like I scared them or something,” Patton pressed. “It was weird, Janus. Please. If there’s something you need to tell me…you know you can.”

Janus’s mouth compressed into a flat line and he looked away, bitterness welling up inside him.

“Can I, Patton?” he asked softly, holding up a gloved hand. A yellow indictment of everything he was. “Can I really?”

Patton sighed, long and deep.

“Touché.”

Chapter 8- Extremis

“Something’s coming. And I’m blind. How can I see them when I’m lost in the dark?”

Logan awoke to someone shaking him.

He opened his eyes to an expanse of blurry blobs and color splotches, and Roman’s sharp, frantic face very close to his. His eyes have amber flecks, his brain noted inanely. But why is he clear when nothing else is…?

Roman threw his head back and exhaled in obvious relief when Logan groaned, blinking rapidly to clear his vision.

“Singing chimeras, Specs, I was starting to worry.”

Logan sat up and touched his bare face. Ah, there’s the problem.

“Where are my glasses?”

Roman was quiet.

Logan leaned closer to the other Side, squinting. Bad eyesight was such an annoyance. If only Thomas’s developing brain hadn’t decided early on that “smart and logical” also meant “stereotypically nerdy”, and pigeonholed his own sense of Logic into actually requiring corrective eyewear.

“Roman?” Logan tried again.

“Um. About that.”

Roman bit his lip, and handed over a smashed set of frames. Logan’s stomach sank as he examined them; the lenses were shattered beyond repair.

“I found them next to you like that, when I woke up,” Roman explained. “I’ve been trying to summon another pair, but for some reason the Imagination won’t let me!”

Logan pushed down a growing sense of dread, that he’d have to navigate the rest of this adventure half-blind.

“My glasses getting broken is obviously not your fault. We did fall down a rather deep hole,” he pointed out. “But what do you mean, the Imagination isn’t letting you?”

“I mean it’s not letting me!” Roman threw up his hands. “I could summon things on the TARDIS just fine, but now…” He sighed. “I am Creativity, right?”

Logan tilted his head and frowned.

“Is that…Roman, that is a nonsensical question. Of course you are.”

“So summoning a tiny object in my own dream scenario should be easy.” Roman hung his head.

“How long have you been trying?”

“Twenty minutes, maybe?” Roman shrugged, still not looking at him. “All that time, and yet still I fail.”

Logan resisted the urge to point out that twenty minutes should be long enough to realize a thing might be outside of one’s control, and to start brainstorming other options.

Stubborn fool.

“Maybe it’s just as well we picked the wedding over the callback,” Roman added darkly, an uncharacteristic glower twisting his face. “When Thomas’s Creativity apparently can’t even control his own dreams.”

Oh…this isn’t about glasses at all, is it? Logan swallowed around an achy sensation in his chest; the one he always got when something was wrong and Roman made that face and he just…needed to fix it.

Native English speakers have a passive vocabulary of around forty thousand words, he thought, frustrated. So why, in situations like this, am I constantly struggling to find the right thing to say?

The resigned set to Roman’s jaw prompted Logan to try.

“Your inability to summon things may not be your doing,” Logan said, laying a hand on Roman’s knee. “Perhaps the Imagination is attempting to impose a sense of realism on this adventure.”

“Realism,” Roman echoed flatly. “In Doctor Who.”

Logan huffed. “You must admit, summoning objects out of thin air does defy even time-traveling alien logic.”

Roman’s face twitched in the tiniest of smiles. “So why did it work before, Teach?”

“Maybe it only worked on the TARDIS because the ship already defies every known rule of physics.” Logan shrugged. “I admit I cannot possibly intuit the inner workings of the Imagination; I can only theorize from what I have observed thus far.”

Roman chuckled softly to himself, and bumped Logan’s shoulder.

“Aww, Nerd, I’m touched. You’re trying to logic me into feeling better.”

“Is it…working?” Logan asked.

“Kind of?” An unreadable expression flitted over Roman’s face. “At least one of us is still grounded in reality.”

“Where else could one possibly be grounded?”

Roman laughed outright at this.

“Oh, Logan. Never change, okay?”

He stood up, and pulled Logan to his feet as well.

“Where are we?” Logan asked, squinting.

He could tell they were in some large, open space; all blacks and browns and dull grays. Blurry domes of copper were scattered amongst what could be bits of fallen scaffolding or machinery.

Logan was also hyperaware of Roman’s warm arm pressed against his, and his own hand clasped tightly within the Prince’s larger grip. With everything else blurry, physical sensations were all the more distracting.

“Don’t panic, okay?” Roman started.

Logan scoffed.

“You are fortunate that I am not Virgil,” he commented wryly. “Because starting a sentence like that would almost certainly have caused him to panic.”

“Well, it’s just, do you remember that scene in the Dalek asylum episode where Rory wakes up in the hanger full of dead Daleks who turn out to be not actually dead?” Roman said in a rush. “Because…yeah.”

Oh. Logan swallowed.

“So, I am guessing that those copper domes are actually Daleks?” he said softly.

Roman snorted.

“Copper domes? Jeesh, your eyesight sucks.”

“I am aware,” Logan said flatly. “Which means you will have to guide us out. If I remember correctly, as long as we are quiet and don’t kick any pipes on the ground, we won’t wake them up.”

Roman let go of Logan’s hand… and replaced it with an arm wrapped around his waist. Logan only held back a squeak because it would have been extremely undignified.

“Hey, relax, I got you, Specs.” Roman’s breath ghosted over Logan’s ear. The Prince’s shorter stature allowed him to fit snugly against Logan’s side; if Roman turned his head, he could comfortably tuck his face into the crook of Logan’s neck.

Not…not that Logan imagined him doing any such thing.

Roman drew his sword with a metallic rasp, prompting Logan to pull out his screwdriver, and they set off across the floor.

It was a strange, vulnerable sensation, Logan thought, being this close to another, being forced to rely on him for direction…or maybe it was just that Roman’s Rose Tyler outfit left so much more skin on display than his usual royal attire…

To be fair, Roman’s bare arms and short skirt and leggings were the only non-blurry things in Logan’s line of sight at the moment.

“You know, I am not sure how much good a sword will do against a Dalek now,” Logan said dryly (to distract himself). “Since it would seem that the Imagination is now attempting to be realistic.”

“It’ll be a lot more useful than a screwdriver,” Roman retorted. “Honestly, the War Doctor had a point. The later seasons really do start to treat the sonic like a weapon, and it looks ridiculous. There’s an oily-looking puddle to your left.”

They dodged around it.

“The sonic screwdriver is an ingenious, multipurpose tool,” Logan argued. “Fitting for a character who is, at heart, a pacifist. In the right hands, it most certainly could serve as a weapon. For example one could scramble a Cyberman’s circuits, short out fuses, or calculate the precise amount of blunt force needed to take down an enemy.” Logan waved the hand with the screwdriver around them. “All things that a sword could not accomplish.”

“Sure,” Roman drawled, leading them around one of the still, silent Daleks, “but you don’t point a sonic at an oncoming Dalek and expect to survive. Even the Doctor had more sense than to try that. At least a sword could cut off its blaster arm.”

“We don’t know how strong Dalek amor is down here,” Logan pointed out. “You could end up breaking your sword and then where would we be?”

“Better off than we’d be while you assembled a cabinet at them!”

Logan’s foot collided with a metallic something that made an awful CLANG and went skittering across the floor. Roman pulled them up short, his face going pale.

All around them, round blue lights began to flicker on, one by one.

“I kicked the pipe, didn’t I?” Logan said, his heart starting to pound.

“You kicked the pipe,” Roman confirmed in a sick voice.

“EGGS…!” a crackly Dalek voice next to them stuttered, making them jump. “EG-EG-EG-EGGS…!” Its twin lights flashed erratically as it spoke.

“Roman,” Logan started.

“‘Eggs, you may laugh and that’s great…’” Roman sang in a wavering voice. “‘Your smiles are what make my day’…”

The Dalek rolled toward them creakily. “EEEEEGGS!”

Logan’s breathing sped up. Another Dalek rolled in from the other side, causing him to stumble. All around them, mechanical creaks and groans and a chorus of digitized voices rose up…

“EG…EG-EGGS…TERM…”

“Roman, I believe we need to run.” Logan could see the Dalek almost clearly now, its eyestalk glowing, its gunstick rising up.

“…IN…ATE…”

Blurry, flashing lights closed in.

“‘My self-worth’s fragile like an egg,’” Roman sang. The hand gripping Logan’s middle tightened painfully. “‘When it breaks it’s tough to put together again…’”

“EX…TERM…IN…ATE!”

“Roman!” Logan shouted. “Get us out of here!”

“EXTERMINATE!”

A blaster bolt warbled past and exploded over their heads.

Roman shuddered and seemed to snap out of it, seizing Logan’s arm and pulling him so hard he nearly fell. Logan staggered, hanging onto Roman’s hand for dear life as they ran, and ran, and blaster bolts burst at their feet and shattered around them.

“This way, boys and boys,” Remus’s voice sing-singed across the room. Roman yanked them hard in that direction.

“REMUS!” Roman shouted as they ran, and Logan was impressed he had the breath for it. “Remus, you better open that door like you’re supposed to or we are DEAD!”

“Oh, keep your pants on, brother,” Remus snarked, sounding a little closer. “Although maybe Logan would prefer that you didn’t—”

Whatever else he said wasn’t audible over a hanger full of jabbering Daleks and firing blasters.

They reached a wall and Roman shoved Logan down.

“Straight ahead, crawl. Go, go, go!” he said, turning and brandishing his sword.

Bless that Prince and his stupid, stupid bravery.

Logan went, nearly tripping over his coat as he crawled under the barely lifted hatch door. Once he was past the threshold Roman flung himself under and through, knocking into Logan and sending them both sliding across the floor.

There was a hiss and a heavy thud that Logan hoped was the door shutting behind them, and finally, blessed silence. They both leaned against the wall for a moment, catching their breath.

Roman thunked his head back.

“Jesus Christ Superstar,” he muttered.

“Your welcome.”

Remus’s voice crackled through the hallway. Roman growled and sat up straighter, looking around as if his brother would magically appear.

“I did just save your lives,” Remus added. From the direction of the sound, Logan guessed he was talking through a speaker somewhere on the far wall.

“Yeah, and I’m still gonna whip your butt when this is all over,” Roman groused.

“Oooh, do I get to choose the instrument?”

Roman sputtered, but Logan grabbed his arm before he could yell back.

“You know he just likes to get under your skin,” he murmured, and raised his voice. “Thank you for opening the door, Remus. We are grateful for your help.”

There was a silence on the other end, with a quality that Logan would have described as shocked.

“Well. You two lovebirds better move along,” Remus drawled finally, shrill as ever. “Before the Silurian army shows up.”

“Excuse me, the WHAT?” Logan exclaimed.

No answer.

“Remus!” Roman clambered to his feet and helped Logan up.

Nothing.

Except now that Logan was listening for it, he definitely heard approaching footsteps and murmuring, heavily-accented voices. And they were getting closer.

“That dick,” Roman grumbled through gritted teeth.

“To be fair, I think he is trying to help,” Logan pointed out. “In his own way.”

“Don’t be fair to my brother when he’s just led us out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

“We are neither in a pan nor on fire, Roman; I have never understood that saying—”

The lights dimmed and flashed an eerie purple; Roman silenced him with a hand over his mouth. There was a voice…not Remus’s, not alien, not like anything Logan had ever heard. It chanted something, over and over again, before fading out.

The lights flared back to normal.

Logan waited, counting Roman’s shallow breaths against his neck.

Nothing.

“What was that?” he asked softly.

“Beats the hell out of me,” Roman responded. “But I guess that’s our cue to go. Stay close, Mr. Magoo.”

Logan grumbled, but allowed Roman to recapture his hand and lead them in the opposite direction of the approaching footsteps…which had resumed the moment the purple light vanished.

Next time Roman asked him to come on an adventure, he was bringing a spare set of glasses.