#didn’t realize there were still so many by the numbers cop shows until this visit with my parents

[doolallymagpie]

tv networks stop airing so many cop shows challenge (extremely easy)

failed

[ayoitsnic]

Platonic! Sam x Reader x Dean

Word Count: 2.5k

Trigger Warnings: None? Violence that's pretty typical for Supernatural

Summary: Sam and Dean found out they have a sister. They're very skeptical at first but upon meeting they find out that despite 2 totally different upbringings they have more in common than they expected.

*Disclaimer* I wouldn't normally describe y/n in fics but in this one I did so purposefully to show the similarities between the siblings. I've been told some people are a bit touchy on that.

Oh also this is the first fanfic I've ever written so I'd be happy with constructive criticism.

'This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son Dean 866-907-3235. He can help.'

'Shit' Y/N thought to herself as she was put through to her dad's voicemail. 'Wait....it said call his son....does that mean...? Wait do I have a brother he never told me about!?' Grabbing a pen and a pad of sticky notes she called again, this time hoping for voicemail so she could write that number down.

'This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son Dean 866-907-3235. He can help.'

She got his voicemail again, quickly scribbling down the number before hanging up and dialing it.

~

Sam and Dean were just finishing up a ghoul case in Indiana when Dean's phone began ringing in the glove compartment of the Impala. Reaching over from the driver's side Dean quickly found his phone, glancing at the caller ID "Unknown Number?" He questioned out loud. He assumed it was a scam caller, but answered it anyway just in case "Hello?"

"Is this Dean?" A female voice asked, sounding mostly nervous, but also just a teensy bit excited.

"Who's this?" Dean questioned skeptically, causing Sam to look over curiously from the passengers side

"I'm Y/N. I umm....this is gonna sound crazy but I'm your sister." She felt weird saying that. Until 5 minutes ago she was an only child. "I tried calling dad but it went straight to voicemail and said to call you if it was an emergency...I kind of need help.."

Shocked with the idea of possibly having a sister Dean pulled the car over to a screeching halt, putting the hazard lights on. He needed a minute to take that in. He put the phone on speaker so Sam could hear what was being said "No that's impossible. Dad already had one kid we didn't know about. No way he had a second." Dean said, obviously in denial.

"He what?" Y/N asked, a grin spreading across her face. Regardless of the circumstances that prompted this call, she was elated to find out she had more than one sibling

Realizing what he had just said, Dean shook his head "Nevermind. Where are you?" He asked as Sam began to flip through John's journal, looking for any hint that there might've been another Winchester out there. It didn't take long for him to find the missing pages not even halfway through the book. It would seem she was born long before Adam.

"I'm in the Poconos, in Pennsylvania." Y/N responded

"Okay well we're about 10 hours from there. We'll be there in the morning." Dean told her "Text me the address." The phone call ended and Y/N texted him the address. They weren't sure what the emergency was that she had to call their dad for but regardless of whether or not it was their kind of thing, Sam and Dean were definitely gonna haul ass to go meet this mystery woman.

~

The next day Sam and Dean found themselves in Northeast Pennsylvania before noon hit. When they finally reached their destination they realized that this woman had grown up so differently from them. She lived in one of those fancy gated communities. Well THEY considered it fancy. Y/N was used to it, but then again the bar wasn’t too high with the childhood Sam and Dean had. The houses were big, the yards green, you needed a pass from security to get in, the only thing missing were picket fences.

"Are we sure we aren't walking into a trap?" Sam asked Dean as they stood on the big white porch, ringing the doorbell. "Well if we are, we're certainly prepared." Dean had grabbed holy water and had his gun tucked into the back of his jeans. Sam, a little silver and the Demon killing knife. It wouldn't protect from /everything/ but it'd save them from most of their most common threats.

When Y/N opened the door you could definitely see the family resemblance between her and Sam. She was tall for a woman, standing around 5'10, had light brown, shoulder length hair. Her eyes though, those were a beautiful shade of green like Dean's. It was almost like looking in a mirror for the boys "Hey." She greeted, letting them in

"Which one of you did I speak to on the phone?" She questioned

"That would be me." Dean replied, raising his hand a bit "This is my brother Sam." Sam was still trying to get over the fact that it looked someone took him and hit copy/paste.

"Wow. Dad really got around didn't he?" She commented without thinking. "4 kids, good for him." Just like Adam whom Dean had very briefly mentioned the day before, John Winchester while still her father, wasn't in the picture that often. Sure he seemed like a cool guy the few times a year he would visit but they never really had a proper Father/Daughter connection. She did care about him, but at the end of the end of the day he was just a person she knew she could trust, hence she didn't think twice about making comments like that until she noticed the look on her brothers' faces when she said it. "Sorry, I want thinking when I said that." She quickly apologized, wanting to move on.

Upon entering, the whole house smelled like Palo Santo wood. She found the scent very calming. "Anyways it's a hell of a drive from Indiana. You hungry? I made pie." She offered.

Dean's face lit up at that "What kind?" He asked with a small grin

"Blueberry. It's my mom's recipe." Y/N replied as she motioned for them to sit at the kitchen table. While she took out a knife to serve the pie, Sam had swapped out her utensils for ones they knew were silver.

"So what was so important you felt the need to call us up here?" Sam asked. Y/N could already tell she liked Sam. He gave off good vibes.

Y/N stayed silent for a moment before telling them "My cousin was found dead the other night. He had his throat ripped out. Cops say it was a Mountain Lion but it sounded like something that might interest Dad. Where is he by the way? I tried calling him a few more times and it just kept going straight to voicemail. Doesn't even ring."

Sam and Dean both looked a bit sad as they had to break the news that their father had passed away and had been dead for quite some time now. Upon hearing that, Y/N didn't really react. She wasn't sure how to. Of course she should've felt something because it was her father, but at the same time, as mentioned previously, he wasn't around a lot. He was absent for most of her life just like he was for Sam and Dean's. Sure he was there for the big stuff like birthdays, her high school graduation, or prom night where he let her drive up in the impala, but it was the small stuff she wanted him there for.

"So you know about the whole 'fighting monsters' thing then?" Dean asked as he splashed a small amount of holy water on her leg under the table. Sam kicked him under the table for even mentioning it. What was he thinking!? She didn't even notice the holy water but the question caused Y/N to look at him weird.

"What the hell are you talking about? Mom always said he was a fed." This almost forced Sam to hold in a chuckle.

~

Despite looks from Sam telling him it was a bad idea to tell her what they really do and that it was probably a vampire that killed her cousin, Dean told her anyway. They already made the mistake of not being totally upfront with Adam. Dean wasn’t making that mistake again "Yeah, okay." She chuckled dryly "You fight monsters. Sure you do." Like any sane person, she thought they were bullshitting. "Next you're gonna tell me you've found bigfoot out something." She said sarcastically

"Actually Bigfoot's one of the few things that isn't real." Dean told her with a smirk

"Tell ya what, you fight monsters?" She motioned towards her two brothers "Prove it. Show me these monsters. Let's go find the 'Vampire' " she said with finger quotations "that killed my cousin."

"Oh no no no." Sam finally spoke up "I was against telling you about what we do to begin with, but I'm drawing the line at having you go out on a hunt. You could really hurt. Or worse, killed."

"What is this, some bullshit male chivalry thing? Do you think women can't do the job?" She questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"No, no that has nothing to do with it." Sam quickly back tracked "It's just that you only found out today that monsters are real, you've never hunted before, and we don't want you getting hurt."

Y/N got quiet for a moment, contemplating how she wanted to respond to that. When she finally spoke, she leaned across the kitchen table and told the boys very calmly, like eerily calmly "He was my family. I'm going and we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice." It was loud and clear, in no uncertain terms that she would do anything for her family. That included killing vampires.

The group went silent again. Sam and Dean exchanged a few glances before Dean relented "Alright fine, but you follow our lead."

"Deal." Y/N nodded

~

It didn't take long to locate the vamp nest. Only a day or two. In that time Sam had given Y/N a full rundown of everything she'd need to know about Vampires. How they're nocturnal but that doesn't mean they can't wake up during the day, how the whole 'stake through the heart' thing doesn't actually work and you gotta cut the heads off, and how they normally live in groups.

Thankfully it was a small nest, only about 6 or 7 of them. When the 3 of them pulled up to the old, long abandoned Birchwood Resort, Dean popped the trunk revealing their weapons cache. Y/N looked surprised to see all that stuff, peeking over Dean's shoulder to get a better look. "I've never seen so many weapons in one place. That's awesome." She grinned as Dean handed her a machete. Sam looked at Dean, thinking to himself how similar she sounded to him.

"Alright, Sam and I are gonna go in. Stay out here and if you see any of them try to run out just chop the head off." Dean told her

"You're crazy if you expect me to stay out here and miss all the action." Y/N told Dean as she leaned against the side of her dad's car. She didn't care how long the old man had been dead. To her, that would always be his car. NOT Dean's. With a sigh, she looked up to the night sky and ran her fingers through her hair "Alright fine, whatever. You're the master. I'm just the padawan." She shrugged, kind of annoyed but not in the mood to argue. Sam chuckled at the Star Wars reference.

"This place is huge though." Y/N added "It's really easy to get lost in. You might be better off with someone who grew up here and is familiar with the area. I wonder where you could find someone like that." She hinted, as her and her friends would explore this place as teenagers. "I think we'll be okay." Sam declined. They really were set on having her outside. Thinking about it, she could definitely understand the decision. They'd probably see her as a liability.

Once Sam and Dean had found the nest, the massacre began. After killing half the nest Dean found himself pinned under a vamp, his weapon thrown across the room where he could reach it. "Sammy!!!!!" He called out but Sam was busy with 2 vampires of his own.

Outside Y/N had grown bored of waiting for the boys to return. How long did it take to kill a few 'Vampires'? 'Fuck it' she thought to herself 'I'm going in.' And that's exactly what she did. Looking around the place for her brothers she ran into 1 vampire. Too Easy. She cut the head off as it made a move to go after her. Looking at the decapitated head on the ground made her nauseated but she pushed on.

Before long she heard a commotion From inside one of the private cabins. Peeking through a window she saw the bad position they were in. Scared, and sick to her stomach she ran into the cabin. Swinging the machete in her hand she killed the vampire that had Dean pinned. It was a clean cut and came centimeters from Dean's throat.

He got up, grabbing his own machete to help out Sam. After the vamps were dead Y/N averted her gaze, trying to avoid looking at more dead bodies as she caught her breath.

"I thought we told you to wait outside!" Dean told her to which she instantly responded with "And I thought Sam said you guys would be okay on your own but I just had to come and save you. You should be thanking me."

With a sigh Dean nodded "Are you okay?" He asked, just making sure. "I'm fine. I'm covered in blood and I just killed 2 Vampires, but I'm fine." Despite the nausea, she grinned. The whole hunting thing wasn't supposed to be fun, but this was the most excitement she had in a long time. "Alright, I don't know about you guys but I would kill for a shower right now. If you want after that I know a great bar off main street. I could use a stiff drink."

~

Sam and Dean left 2 days later, having found a case in Virginia. "We are gonna keep in touch, right?" Y/N asked as Sam and Dean put their duffel bags in the Impala

"Of course we are." Dean agreed while Sam added his contact info to her phone. She of course already had Dean's info saved. "You sure you don't wanna come with us?" He asked which caused Y/N to shake her head lightly "As much as I would love to, I have responsibilities up here. Work, family, what's left of a mortgage to pay off...Maybe one day though." She offered a soft smile.

After hugging both boys and telling Dean to drive safe, they took off for Virginia. "Dude," Sam looked over at Dean "I know we were skeptical at first but can we agree she's definitely related to us?" 

Dean looked at Sam weird “I don’t see it.”

“You’re kidding right?” Sam asked “Aside from the fact that she’s like a walking replica of me, she makes really good pie; you love pie. You saw how defensive she got when I told her it’d be safer to sty at home while we took care of the vamps. It’s clear she’d do anything for her family. Sound like someone you know? and while we’re on the subject let’s talk about the fact that she’s not a  terrible hunter. She’s far from a natural and a little weak stomached, but for someone who’s probably never killed a thing in their life she wasn’t bad.” Sam listed all the different ways she was just like Dean.

“What was the first thing she said when she saw the arsenal he keep in the trunk?” Sam asked his brother who responded with “I dunno. What’d she say?”

“She said ‘That’s awesome. She sounded just like you.” Sam insisted

Dean sat silent for a moment, focusing on the road ahead of them before relenting “Yeah okay when you put it like that she’s definitely related.” He agreed

[briefinquiries]

Luke Alvez x Reader: The Flower Garden

Prompt: “can you write an imagine where luke is late to someone's funeral (like a family member or something) and realizes that he wants to bring flowers so on his way he steals some from the readers garden!!! fluff if you can :) thanks!”

Tagged: @ssaic-jareau​ , @alvezstan​ , @lcvischmitt​ , @ogmilkis​ , @goldenalvez​ , @ssa-morgan​ , @garcias-batcave ,  @akimagies​, @zhangyixingxing1 , @pinkdiamond1016 ,  @yourwonderbelle​ , @rachelxwayne​ , @sc4rletw1tch​ , @moreidultrastan​ , @ellvswriting

Word count: 2.4k

Warnings: none

A/N: hi bbys! sorry for being so mia i was on vacation all last week,, here’s a spontaneous, fluffy fic to make up for it!

Luke is late. In every sense of the word, he is so late. He’s been wearing this same pair of jeans for almost 48 hours now and his burgundy polo shirt is scratching uncomfortably underneath his rain jacket. His hands are freezing and he doesn’t even have any flowers. His family is going to be so mad.

He’s power walking, well aware that he probably looks like a mom on a mission in the grocery store (thinking of that makes his heart clench in his chest). There’s one more street to walk down–he refuses to drive there, it makes it feel too real. He stuffs shaking hands in his pockets and turns the corner.

Luke doesn’t have flowers. He’s visiting for the first time since it happened, he’s late, and he doesn’t have flowers.

He’s a block away when he sees them, the roses growing almost chaotically over a small wooden fence. He stops and looks down at them, then around. No one’s watching, so he crouches and picks a decent handful, murmuring a few sorries as the stems snap. He notes the house number and reminds himself to write a thank you note before standing up and continuing on his way.

Everyone’s already there when Luke arrives, eyes watery from the wind. His sister gives him a look that would’ve been terrifying if not for the red around her eyes, and Luke mouths his apology while passing out hugs.

With a deep breath he crouches and places the six roses at the base of the polished stone. “Hi, mom.” Luke whispers, pressing a kiss into his hand and then to her name. “Sorry I’m late.”

I miss you. I stole these flowers for you, the old lady they belong to probably noticed already. My boss gave me a few extra sick days because she knows. I’m tired of everyone knowing. I love you.

…

It happens a few more times in the course of two months, and Luke really doesn’t mean to make it a habit, but he can never seem to remember the flowers until he’s well on his way, and there are so many of them in the garden that he hardly feels bad. He never got around to writing the note.

He’s sitting in front of the grave with a bunch of daisies. “The girls miss you.” Luke says quietly, arranging the flowers nicely along the stone. The white is almost too bright to look at. “We all miss you, mom.” He whispers, feeling a tear run down his cheek. “Today at work someone brought in their therapy dog. I can’t remember it’s name, but it spent the whole time licking my shoe. Reckon he knows, too? Anyway, it was nice.”

Luke never means to cry but he always ends up doing it. It takes about twenty minutes for him to be able to breathe again, then he says goodbye and walks the three blocks to his car.

He usually visits once a week, sometimes one of his sisters comes with him. If it’s his younger one, they go get ice cream after. If it’s his older one, which it usually is, they get coffee and don’t talk about it.

…

It’s running on month six when Luke sees you. He’s holding a beautiful bunch of chrysanthemums by his side, when he notices that there’s someone in the window holding the curtain. You make eye contact, and Luke feels very guilty. You don’t look angry, although there’s a noticeable furrow between your eyebrows. You’re wearing a cotton bathrobe and holding a mug of coffee. Luke could use some coffee.

He doesn’t know what to do, so he just smiles and holds up the flowers. Then turns on his heels and walks as quickly as he can.

“It’s not an old lady, mum, it’s a girl. She saw me today, caught me red handed.” Luke mumbles, laughing a bit to himself as he clears away some old flowers and places the new ones. “She didn’t do anything though, so I think I’m okay.” His voice cracks as he says it, and then, as usual, starts crying.

…

It takes two more times for the rightful owner of the flowers to confront Luke about his thievery.

Luke’s on his knees, picking some cute purple flowers when he hears your voice.

“Um, hello?” Luke nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Oh shit.” Luke says, looking up and feeling his heart sink. “Right. I’m sorry I just–your flowers are very nice.”

You smile and cross your arms over your chest. “Thank you.”

Luke’s still kneeling, hands shaking where they’re holding stems. There’s sort of crooked smile on your face. Neither of you are saying anything. You’re wearing an old shirt with a hole near the hem. Luke’s hands are sweating.

“You know, if you’re going to steal my flowers to take to your girl, I think I’m going to have to come with you to make sure she’s beautiful enough to warrant theft.” You say, oddly calm and good natured.

Luke doesn’t know what to say. He just nods, trying to ease the panic rising in his chest.

“Add a few roses.” You order, and Luke nods, picking a few and standing up, finally. “I’m Y/N, by the way.“ You add, extending a hand.

Luke smiles and shakes it. “Luke.” You smile at him one more time and then you start to walk.

You pester him with questions about his imaginary girlfriend, and Luke tries to answer them in the vaguest way possible, all the while trying to figure out how the hell he’s going to explain this when you get to the cemetery.

“Did she like the daisies you picked last time? I always thought those were more of a flower you give your mom, but I guess they’re nice.” you babble, and Luke almost chokes.

“Yeah, um. Yeah.” he says, his heart racing in his chest. The small side entrance is only a few meters away, and you still have no idea. Luke doesn’t say anything as he walks through the gate, holding it open for you, who immediately stops talking as well.

The silence feels like a heavy blanket, and you just follow Luke as he makes the walk, now committed to memory. Luke almost forgets you’re there, dropping to the permanently grass stained knees of his jeans and managing a smile. “Hi Ma.” He places the flowers around the base of the stone, like he always does. Luke jolts when he feels a hand on his thigh, near his knee. He follows the arm up and meets your sad eyes. Luke hadn’t noticed you kneel, too.

“Luke..” you whisper, obviously surprised. Luke doesn’t blame you.

“Don’t.” he says quietly, sniffling and looking away from you. “I brought someone with me. She’s the one I’ve been stealing all the flowers from.” Luke says, smiling a bit and he hears you mumble a soft hello. “She hasn’t called the cops on me yet, which I guess is good.”

He takes a shaky breath before getting choked up. He puts his face in his hands and this was always just a part of his agenda, but the arm around his shoulders is new.

You start talking.

“The first time I was sitting in my kitchen and I was like, oh god do not pick the hibiscuses, they’ve got bees. But he didn’t, he chose some tulips instead.“ you laugh a little, and Luke almost starts crying again. “Between us, I hope he never stops.” you whisper, and Luke knows he wasn’t meant to hear it. There’s a lot he wasn’t meant to do.

Luke sniffles loudly and sits up to wipe his eyes. Your arm is still around his shoulders. “I’m sorry.” he says out of habit, as he’s been doing every time anyone’s seen him cry since October. But you just shake your head and use a thumb to wipe a stray tear.

“Don’t apologize.” You say, you put your hand back on your own lap. Luke wants to tell you to put it back. “I’ll um, give you some privacy.” You stand up and brush off your jeans. “And, Luke, you’re welcome to my flowers anytime.” You give him a bright smile before walking away.

Luke doesn’t watch you walk away. He turns back to the gravestone and sighs. “She’s kinda nice isn’t she mom?”

Luke can almost hear his mom yelling at him. 

Don’t be stupid, dear, go after her.

He kisses his hand and presses it against the warming stone. “I love you.” He gets up, not bothering to dust off his knees and all but sprints back out to the sidewalk. Luke jogs down the road and turns the corner, smiling when he sees you walking peacefully down the street.

“Hey!” Luke yells, picking up to a run. You turn, and stop walking, looking surprised that Luke is running after you.  

“Let me, um, buy you lunch.” he says breathlessly.  “Figure I owe you one, since I’ve been stealing your flowers for months.“

You smile and nod.  “Yeah, I guess that's only fair.”

You talk as you walk to your pick of a restaurant, and Luke feels lighter than he has in months.

…

You walk back to your place, and you make Luke promise to close his eyes as you grab the spare key. Luke thinks that it’s painfully adorable.

“Wanna come in?” you ask, looking down at your feet as you say it. Luke’s cheeks go hot at that, being suddenly floored by how pretty you really are.

“I-” Luke starts, before checking his watch. “Really need to be heading home.” He tries not to let the way your face falls hurt his feelings too bad. “I have work in like, an hour, so.” he explains, and you nod.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Maybe another time.” you say, eyes wide and hopeful.

Luke grins. “Definitely. I’ll call you–or you’ll see me in your garden, either one.” He throws in a wink and leans in to peck your cheek before turning and walking down the street to his car.  At the corner he turns and finds you still standing in your doorway.

…

It was not a good day. Luke has been avoiding sleep because every time he closes his eyes at night,  he can’t stop picturing the time he showed his mom how he could climb the tree in the backyard. He fell on the second branch and skinned his shin and elbow. She patched him up and bought him ice cream, and then they watched movies until Luke fell asleep against her on the couch.

He sighs and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. He’d stopped crying about an hour ago, now he’s just staring at his ceiling with his eyes burning. It’s four thirty. Sleep is definitely out of the picture, so Luke grabs his keys and does the only thing he can think of.

He picks seven roses on his way, hops the fence, and finds he can still cry, forehead pressed against cold stone.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there for, but when he opens his eyes, the sky is more grey than black. “Fuck.” He curses and rubs at his stinging eyes. “Sorry for swearing,” He whispers, laughing a bit. “I’ll be back soon, I love you.”

He stands.  It’s about to be five in the morning, and Luke really can’t see himself driving all the way back home. He doesn’t quite know what to do as he walks back, but then he sees the garden, and finds himself knocking on the door.

It takes a few, but you open the door, hair a mess, grey sweats hanging low on your hips. “Luke,” You say, surprised. “What are you doing here?” you ask softly.

“Couldn’t sleep. Needed some flowers.” he mumbles, blinking a few times to try and get rid of the blurriness creeping across his eyes. “Can I come in?”

“Yes, of course,” you say without missing a beat, and Luke sighs, relieved. He toes off his sneakers at the door and lets you lead him through the house.  He can tell that you want to ask, but don’t.

In fact, you don’t say anything, and Luke finds that oddly comforting, you just sit next to Luke on the couch and keep your hands curled in your lap.  

“I took some roses again this morning,” Luke admits.

“What color?” is all you respond with.

“The white.”

“That’s the best kind,” you assure him. You can keep helping yourself to those.” you say, leaning over and poking into Luke’s side. “Think of it as my gift to your mom, too.”

That makes Luke tear up a bit.

“I should go,” he says, not wanting to start crying in front of you for a second time.  

“Oh,” you say, sounding almost disappointed.  “Right— okay.”

Luke stands up, his chest feeling tight and his thoughts racing.  But in the midst of the chaos, he hears her voice.  Clear as day; the reason behind his messy, illogical mind. Don’t be stupid, dear, go after her.

Luke turns suddenly then, and takes a step closer to you so he can hold your hands in his own. “Can I take you to breakfast right now?”

You beam at him, dimples drilled into your cheeks as you nod in agreement. You hurriedly find a pair of shoes and a jacket, stopping at the door to lock it before following Luke out. You walk to his car hand in hand, and it all feels so right.

They get pancakes, and Luke kisses the whip cream off your lips. People give you looks as you laugh obnoxiously and fond over one another. Luke doesn’t care.

He wakes up the next morning in a bed that isn’t his own and to the smell of bacon. He smiles to himself. “I thought I was making you breakfast?” he asks, laughing a little when he sees you  standing in front of the stove.

“Maybe if you had woken up before me,.” you say, looking over your shoulder and smiling at Luke.

You sit down to eat breakfast on the couch, a blanket pulled over both of you, and it’s home.

[not-a-christmas-tree]

i watched the dallas theater company les mis and here are my observations part TWO

i recently watched a modern adaptation of les mis from 2014! i took hella notes bc les mis being set in modern day has a LOT MORE than you would think! i just posted my act one notes, so here are the ones from act two. enjoy! :D

ACT TWO

(Building The Barricade)

oh javert,,,you and your red beret-scarf combo

everyone shakes hands the same way?? they all like. half bro hug. young people ig 🤷‍♀️ 

oh on my own is gonna hurt me huh

éponine has her hands up when she goes to take the letter to cosette that’s an interesting take

jvj looks so done lmao “really bruh just give me the letter i’ll give it to cosette it’s FINE”

omg first time i’ve ever seen éponine not take the money after the letter!! that actually makes so much sense bc she doesn’t take marius’ money when he asks her to find cosette’s house either. that,,,yes that’s good

the modern era begs the question... why didn’t marius just ask for cosette’s number?? i’d assume it’s just a thing that jvj doesn’t allow her to have a phone bc The Cops, but. maybe marius and cosette are the straight version of cottagecore lesbians they just write letters for ~The Aesthetic~

(On My Own)

i was right on my own was gonna hurt me

first time i’ve ever seen an éponine disguise where she actually passes as a boy lmao 

FINALLY A VERSION OF OMO WHERE ITS NOT JUST FORLORN SELF-CARESSING THANK YOU

surprisingly i have less notes here that’s fun i thought i’d have more

(Javert at the Barricades)

WOAHHHHH THEY DID NOT SKIMP ON BARRICADE SET PIECES THAT SHIT IS COOOOOL

oh the barricade scenes are already hitting too hard 

cops are in riot gear cops. are in. riot gear.

oh the javert spy thing that also hits funny because obviously

gavroche is armed with a bat i love you son

FULL VERSION OF LITTLE PEOPLE AT THE BARRICADE AYEEEEE

(A Little Fall Of Rain)

wait hold on why is marius not,,,singing to éponine on “why have you come back here?” he’s like. scolding someone,,, huh??

oh enj goes to help marius with ép!! and he calls over who i assume would be joly i STAN

MARIUS CRIES AFTER ÉP DIES KILL MEEEE

(The First Attack)

i like how jvj does the second confrontation here. he looks less angry and more like,,,compassionate and that MAKES SENSE bc yk. he’s telling javert he’s wrong but he’s not doing it out of spite he’s doing it bc this guy NEEDS to know what he does as a cop and realize that being a cop isn’t just enforcing rules, and it never was just that. 

i do love the exasperated “gO” from jvj that’s kinda great ngl

(Drink With Me)

i’m very sad that there won’t be any exr from these boys

v e r y sad here

i do see grantaire looking PRETTY sad though

bold of y’all to assume that the modern day amis would all be straight

okay i can tell that grantaire really is going hard on the Existential Singing like,,,sure he’s just standing there but like. damn bro

SO THERE A R E LADIES ON THE BARRICADE WHY TF ARENT THEY FIGHTING

BETTER SEE SOME CHANGE THERE

i just realized that the cockades are buttons that is the BEST

(Bring Him Home)

jvj actually looks kinda happy in BHH and tbh i kinda like it?? it’s only on the “he’s like the son i might have known” line but i like it

oh those vowels oh boy they TALL

(The Final Battle)

enjolras is for some reason, still angry...why...why bro....

the staging for gavroche’s death is INTERESTING bc he’s reaching up at the sniper on the tower. hm. i dont hate it

OH SOMEONE ON THE BARRICADE IS RECORDING I THINK!!! GOOD ADDITION!!

i can’t imagine how many blood packs they went through 

oh enjolras’s death okay so. he’s in a like. No Man’s Land almost, and the riot cops come in after him. it’s an interesting take because it almost mirrors the scene in the book, except obvs grantaire isn’t here. they also have an added scene after he dies where cops are checking out and using radios that is. that is EERIE.

jvj walks over to enjolras’s body 🥺

HE ALSO FUCKIN S C R E A M S WHEN HE SEES MARIUS ON THE GROUND GODDAMN MAN O U C H

thenardier steals combeferre’s glasses wow thanks for that added pain

thenardier and jvj have a mini fight oh that’s kinda cool hm

(Javert’s Soliliquy)

javert opens his soliloquy with some SPICY SADNESS OH B O Y he sounds broken already!! start strong!!

emotions go broken - anger - confusion? - mAJOR confusion - hopelessness 

javert can FLY! no legit he’s on ropes

(Turning)

turning is. turning is almost a funeral. 

OH THEYRE N U N S !

nuns are visiting the barricade 🥺 

OH DAMN “what’s the use of praying if there’s nobody who hears?” THAT CERTAINLY HAS WEIGHT NOW THAT THEY ARE N U N S

it has just occurred to me that people have been dead on the floor for like. a solid five minutes 

(Empty Chairs At Empty Tables)

“now my friends. are dead. and gone” he pauses like he’s realizing it just then oh OUCHIE

wait is marius,,,at the barricades? is he legit singing to his friends dead bodies? oh shit oh NO

OH N O OH NONONO THIS IS WORSE

THE BARRICADE BOYS RISE UP FROM THE FLOOR OH N O OUCH OUCH

they group up and salute him and wALK OFF NO OWWWW

*cosette and marius kiss* jvj: *COUGH COUGH*

marius and valjean’s lil conversation is interesting in the way valjean seems to ask marius “who am i?” rather than ask himself. he phrases it in a way that makes me think he’s like. quizzing marius lmao 

(The Wedding)

omg i think baby cosette and éponine are flower girls 🥺🥺

“go away thenardier” *madame mouths ‘dammit!’*

thenardier your boat shoes hurt me

madame: “get up! get up!” thenardier: “stop—STOP IT!” 

TWO GUYS ARE DANCING TOGETHER AND WAVE AT THENARDIER ON “this ones a queer, but what can you do”

yeah i think i found my new favorite thenardiers thank you dallas theater company

fantine sits on the bench when cosette comes by, cosette sits on bench next to her, and fantine tries to touch her but can’t 🥺

jvj just gave a hand-over-heart head nod to cosette but fantine gave it back i,,,ouch

ENJOLRAS AND GAVROCHE ARE WITH FANTINE AND ÉPONINE FOR JVJ’S DEATH

the chain gang is in the epilogue i repeat the cHAIN GANG IS IN THE EPILOGUE

the orchestra rests on the last “say do you hear the distant drums” and that was the coolest thing i’ve ever heard

that final harmony is MONEYYYY and i want to cry

OVERALL NOTES:

this javert has the most interesting interpretation because up until his FINAL SCENE he is the stone cold police officer, and he plays it SO WELL. like i have never been truly angry at a javert up until this guy, and whether that was because it was modern and resonates A LOT in 2020 or he just looks like a cop i want to punch, I DON’T KNOW but he plays it SO WELL and i love it so much!!

these thenardiers are the fucking BEST NGL they are the perfect mix of funny and cruel. madame t is also funny as HELL and i wish i had her talent lmao

i said it before but the police costumes in this show are. woosh. kudos to the costumer i took one look at those guys and was like “haha, no!.” vaguely related to that, i think this was the first time i nearly cried at Look Down like. the first song at the show, simply because of the convict getting the SHIT beat out of him on the floor. that hurt me and i hate that it is completely accurate to what happens in prisons today.

lovely ladies was,,,a LOT and tbh, i feel like it didn’t need to be. obviously it does show how horrible it is for sex workers, but that is why the music is there. the music and lyrics is there to tell what you don’t show visually. (though i do love the male prostitute lmao he took no shit)

i also said this before but the fact that there wasn’t bigger of a relationship between enjolras and grantaire kind of annoys me simply because they are revolutionaries in the present day. you can’t tell me that ALL OF THEM WERE STRAIGHT. with how many people i know now that identify under the queer and trans umbrella, and also how queer they are (to me) in the brick, the absence of any exr in a modern interpretation hurts a little.

in conclusion, this show was fucking FANTASTIC and even though i’m six years late, it still resonates hard given the time we live in today. i think i nearly screamed when i saw the cops in riot gear on the barricade because that is LITERALLY HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. this just reminds me how timeless the story of les mis is because you had to change LITERALLY NOTHING from the story to make it make sense in the modern age, and that is really the lesson you should learn from les mis; these things happen everywhere, and they need to be fixed. 

thank you for listening to my rambling, i am sure i forgot something because there was just so damn much but i hope you enjoyed otherwise! not-a christmas-tree out! :)

[rocorambles]

A Cop and His Black Cat (Part 3)

Pairing: Daishou Suguru x Kuroo Tetsurou

Genre: Superhero AU, NSFW, Smut, Fluff

Warnings: Degradation, Dub-con, Overstimulation, Sex Toys

Summary: Daishou just wants to solve cases and live his life, but a certain Black Cat vigilante refuses to leave him alone.

Part 1, Part 2

Daishou opens his eyes and sees now familiar white walls surrounding him and hazel eyes peering down at him. He groans as Kuroo smirks. “As cute as you are, Daishou, you really need to stop getting yourself put in the hospital. There are other ways to get my attention.”  Daishou scowls at the doctor before Kuroo goes over his professional dialogue and discusses the treatments the officer will need. “Luckily you were found fairly quickly, so your wounds aren’t life-threatening, although you’re going to have some pretty bad scarring. You’ll need to stay here for a few days while we keep an eye on your injuries and make sure there are no infections as they heal.” Kuroo rambles on, but Daishou isn’t listening as he intently stares at the messy haired man in front of him. There’s something about him that hits a familiar chord within Daishou…

He uses the next few days he spends with the doctor to try and place a finger on the strange feeling of recognition thrumming inside of him, but no matter what he does, he can’t seem to come to any conclusion. His train of thoughts is interrupted by Daichi visiting him. “I got you coffee! Hope you don’t mind that I put cinnamon in it. It’s a new thing I’ve been trying and I think they mix pretty well, if I do say so myself.” As Daishou takes a sip of the proffered drink, his eyes widen as he inhales the cinnamon scent and the puzzle pieces finally come together in his mind.

The day of Daishou’s release from the hospital arrives and he stops by Kuroo’s office before he leaves. The doctor looks up with a flirtatious smirk when he sees the officer at his door. “Are you finally going to ask me for my number, Daishou?” Kuroo’s voice is laced with confidence, but Daishou revels in the way Kuroo’s face pales at his next words. “I don’t think I need to. I hear cats can find their way home. Although, I’m warning you, if a certain kitten manages to find themselves at my home tonight, they better be ready for a punishment. I’m not a patient master and a certain kitty has been very naughty.” He shoots a venomous smirk and almost hisses in delight at the way Kuroo is speechless for once, before he walks out, leaving the doctor alone with his frazzled thoughts. 

Night comes and although Daishou would never admit it, a small part of him is nervous, wondering if he’s scared away the messy black-haired man, but all his insecurity dissipates when he sees a lean figure tapping at his window. The two have technically met each other quite a few times as vigilante and cop, but this is the first time Daishou can fully take his time and drink in the sight of the man fully decked out in his fighting outfit. And what a sight he is. Daishou almost groans as he stares at the way thin black leather is practically molded to Kuroo’s sinewy figure. There’s little left to the imagination and Daishou can’t wait to dominate the man who’s teased and taunted him for so long. 

But it seems like Kuroo has a different idea as he slyly smirks at the officer. “Are you done ogling me, Daishou? You know, a picture would last longer.” Long legs saunter over to Daishou as Kuroo moves so close to him that all he can smell is his enticing cinnamon scent. Kuroo’s arms wrap around Daishou’s shoulders as he purrs into his ear. “For all your big talk when you came to my office, you’re sure not doing much now. Are you just all talk, officer?” Fury bubbles inside Daishou at those words and the desire to teach this brat a lesson overcomes him. Venom coated fangs pierce Kuroo’s neck and a cry exits the feline man before he’s falling into Daishou’s outstretched arms. “The venom I just injected into you will last for about three hours. You won’t be able to voluntarily move at all, although I’m sure you’ve already realized that, but your vocal chords are still intact, so I’m looking forward to hearing you purr for me.”  

Daishou drags the vigilante to his bedroom where he roughly throws him onto the bed, moving him until he’s splayed out in a spread eagled position and he just stands over the motionless man for a few minutes, taking in how beautiful Kuroo looks, defenseless, vulnerable, and all on display for him. He takes his time, shedding all his clothes and slowly positioning himself until he’s hovering over Kuroo’s form, staring into hazel eyes clouded with arousal and fear. Daishou teasingly rubs Kuroo’s already half-hard cock through the thin leather and smiles at the broken moan he receives. It only takes a few more strokes before Kuroo is completely hard, his dick lewdly protruding underneath his skin tight outfit. “I can’t believe you’re already fully erect, kitten. Do you like being completely at my mercy and used however I want? Of course you do, you filthy slut.” He reaches for one of Kuroo’s hands and places it around his own hardening cock, wrapping his hand around Kuroo’s limp one to keep it in place, before he begins sliding both their hands up and down his length, using Kuroo’s hand as his personal onahole. Only when Daishou is at full mast does he release Kuroo’s hand, letting it flop back down before he patronizingly taps Kuroo on the nose. “Good, kitty. Even your little paws make me feel so good.” 

Daishou proceeds to grind his bare cock against the outline of Kuroo’s cock and he revels in the feeling of his pre-cum soaking leather and making everything slippery and wet and the sounds of Kuroo’s whines. He should be embarrassed about the way he’s rutting against Kuroo like a bitch in heat, but he loses himself to the feelings and doesn’t stop until he releases milky spurts all over Kuroo’s clothed torso. He milks a few last spurts onto the leather fabric before smirking at Kuroo who is now letting out whining, frustrated pleas. “Aww, does the kitty want to feel good too? Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you feel so good that you’ll be crying for the pleasure to end.” With that Daishou pulls at the zipper holding Kuroo’s outfit up, slipping Kuroo’s arms out of the sleeves and dragging the zipper all the way down until his entire chest and dick are on full display. He then proceeds to flip Kuroo over so that his muscled back and ass are now in plain sight. Smacking the plump mound, Daishou gets up to rummage through some drawers before returning and Kuroo gasps at the cold shock of lube running over his exposed hole. He practically keens at the feeling of Daishou slowly stretching him out and Daishou cruelly laughs when Kuroo whines when he removes his fingers. “You’re such a fucking whore. I’ve barely touched you and your hole is already starting to gape and twitch for more.” But Kuroo isn’t empty for long as he feels something thick and cold enter him and then he is screaming as the object begins to vibrate against his prostate. Daishou flips him back over and encases his cock in a cylindrical object and Kuroo, already a moaning mess, whimpers even more as he feels bumps and nubs within the object brushing against his throbbing length. “I did promise I’d make you feel good, didn’t I?” That’s the only warning Kuroo gets before the cylindrical object is also moving and Kuroo is overtaken by the double onslaught on his body, unable to do anything other than take whatever Daishou gives him. Daishou slips Kuroo’s arms back into the leather sleeves and he zips the black haired man up, groaning at the debauched sight of the toy around Kuroo’s cock bulging out from underneath the cum-stained leather and the lewd string of screams, grunts, and moans escaping Kuroo’s mouth. He grabs his phone and snaps a picture before leaning down to teasingly stroke his hand through Kuroo’s sweat drenched temples, showing him the photo. “You’re right, a picture does last longer. Now I’m going to leave you like this for a little bit. Cum as much as you want, although I hope you have some self-control, otherwise the overstimulation is going to be hell.” With those parting words, Daishou walks out, leaving Kuroo to his suffering.  

Kuroo doesn’t know how much time passes. Time is the farthest thing from his mind when all his brain can compute is the relentless stimulation and pleasure he’s receiving front and back. He tries to hold back his first orgasm for as long as possible, but it’s no use and he’s peaking so hard, so fast. He tries to ground himself mentally when he passes the climax, but the vibrations aren’t slowing down and tears are streaming down his face as the pain of not being able to fully rest hits him. He wants to at least writhe, move, do anything at all to lessen his mind’s focus on the feelings overwhelming his senses, but he can’t even do that thanks to the snake bastard’s ability. Now the pain is beginning to shift into a pleasure still tinged with a hint of unpleasantness and Kuroo lets out a high pitched wail as he’s being brought to another crescendo. The cycle continues and Kuroo has cum so many times that he just feels like he’s continuously in a dry orgasm with no end in sight. He’s so spent and exhausted, but everything also feels so good, too good, dangerously good. His mind is so broken that he doesn’t notice how his fingers and toes are beginning to twitch. 

It feels like an eternity has passed before Daishou finally re-enters the room and his mouth goes dry at the depraved picture on his bed. He takes another photo with his phone and feels his cock instantly harden as he draws closer to Kuroo. Kuroo’s eyes are completely glazed over in lust, unseeing as they threaten to roll back in his head and he’s releasing the most beautiful, pathetic tiny broken cries Daishou has ever heard. Once again he unzips Kuroo’s outfit and shudders in delight at the pool of cum coating the tanned abdomen. He collects as much of the fluid as he can on his hand and shoves four fingers into Kuroo’s slack mouth, twisting his hand around until all the sticky liquid has been deposited and rubbed into the wet orifice. This time Daishou completely removes the now soiled leather suit leaving Kuroo completely bare before him. He carefully removes both toys from the slumped body and Kuroo breathes a sigh of relief. Daishou places his hands on Kuroo’s hips, tenderly rubbing circles with his thumbs. “You should be able to move now,” he says softly as he continues his soothing actions. Kuroo blinks in surprise at those words and tentatively tests his body to find that Daishou is right. But he feels so weak and boneless after everything and ultimately decides to just slump back down onto the soft bed. 

“If I had known you’d be such a docile kitten, I would have trained you earlier,” Daishou says mockingly. But there’s a softness behind those words and Kuroo just playfully swipes at him before using what little strength he has to drag Daishou down until they’re chest to chest, noses touching as snake and cat eyes meet. Kuroo gently pecks Daishou’s lips before pulling apart, hesitatingly waiting for Daishou’s reaction, but before he can completely pull apart, Daishou’s lips are chasing him and their lips lock together tenderly. Any lingering sexual tension or desires fade away, and the two men are enveloped in a cloud of tender affection and warmth. Breaking their kiss to breathe, Kuroo lightly chuckles. “Does this mean you’re officially taking me in as your kitty cat?” Daishou smiles as he nuzzles his face into Kuroo’s neck. “Yes, for as long as you’ll have me.” 

Epilogue I

The hospital is bustling when Daishou steps through the entrance and he dodges nurses and patients as he makes his way to a door and knocks. “Come in!” He enters his boyfriend’s office and is met with the sight of Kuroo pulling at his already messy hair in frustration. “Tough day at work?” Kuroo groans in confirmation, but smiles as he looks up at the officer. “A kiss would make it better though.” And that’s all it takes for Daishou to sidle up to Kuroo and drag him into a searing kiss. 

Epilogue II  

Daishou doesn’t know what in the world is going on tonight, but he wants to slam his head on the wheel of his car. Did every small time villain decide today was the day to do something? His irritated thoughts are cut off by a tapping on his window and he feels his annoyance wash away at the sight of a familiar pair of leather cat ears. “Tough day at work?” Daishou details out the lengthy list of crime scenes he needs to visit in confirmation. “Well maybe I can help you out,” Kuroo says with a grin on his face. Daishou lightly smacks him on the head. “It’s technically illegal to be a vigilante.” But that sentence is barely out of his mouth before he’s divvying up his workload with Kuroo. Clear on what each person is going to handle, the two lean in and share a tender kiss before Kuroo playfully bites Daishou’s bottom lip and leaps away shouting, “I’ll see you back home tonight”.    

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 24: Someone Actually Called the Cops.

So recently I was like, “I should do something different than my usual” and I decided to open up a little thread for critiquing ppl’s short stories, and I kid you not, the very first story I got was someone’s Seto Kaiba erotica. Which, even in erotica form, did not have very much romance in it. So, now that Yugioh will apparently haunt my every waking move forever until I die, lets get back to S4. Lets desperately get back to canon. I miss canon.

Last we left off, Kaiba lost KaibaCorp...again. Really feels like he loses this company once every couple of years (weeks if we count season 1-3). Except, this time, Dartz didn’t read the fine print in the legal files that says the company must be run by a member of the Kaiba family. While that was a huge plot point with Pegasus, turns out that Seto and Mokuba’s memories have been blended so thoroughly, like a very fine Shadow Realm smoothie, that they just...forgot.

And like I’m positive that Roland remembers, but Roland’s not gonna say something and accidentally reveal he’s the 4th Kaiba brother and have to get abducted all the time and actually work for a living. Anyways, they forgot why Pegasus abducted them in the first place in Season 1, and honestly, so did the writers of this season 4 years later. Not like it mattered, because if Seto and Mokuba did take Dartz to court, the world would end before their case would even start.

Which is how, after one talk with Roland, Seto and Mokuba just sort of laid prone on the metaphorical ground and let it wash over them that yes, KaibaCorp is gone.

I really like this extra-long helicopter, PS.

Both members of Kaiba’s Sunglasses Army decided to align themselves with Kaiba, although honestly, I don’t think anyone else in this company has realized that they’ve been bought. It happened...1 hour ago. Like what do you even do if your company randomly gets bought in the middle of a workday? Like no lead up, no indication, just BAM you’ve been bought?

And if Duke works for Pegasus who got bought out by Dartz and then Dartz bought Kaiba Corp-------What does that make Duke? Is he gonna have to start wearing sunglasses inside?

Anyway, Roland knows better than to tell Seto Kaiba he doesn’t work for him anymore while still in the same helicopter as Seto Kaiba, who already crashed one plane today and will crash yet another plane before this episode is through.

(read more under the cut)

Seto decides to align with Yugi since he needs to confront Dartz eventually. Which is when we find out that Seto always planned to align with Yugi and was just giving him a really hard time.

Because over the last several episodes, Seto has had an entire team at this random museum in Florida in order to take some pictures (that really should have already been on the internet but wtv, it was 2003 so maybe it wasn’t?)

It’s like most of the way through s4 and the biker ninjas still send me. How did he make SO MANY biker ninjas? At what point was Dartz like...and now...all my mooks...will be ninja bikers. Or orcs. Mostly Ninja bikers.

Did Alister or the others ever tell him “hey, Master Dartz, I get that your 10000 years old but like...do you not understand what a biker is?” and was Dartz like

“clearly bikers are the most evil thing in the world, obviously.” completely unaware that most bikers are just 45 year old accountants.

In these scenes we also get a gander at their laptops and, if you ever want to see high level life crippling OCD anxiety in picture form, it’s illustrated very clearly right here:

Not only did they draw this keyboard in 1 pt perspective, they used like a ruler to draw all those letters so they were the same size. Some artist put so much time getting this nice and crisp and smooth...and then this happened.

And I’m pretty sure they died after that. I’m pretty sure this scene killed an artist.

It’s at this point that Yami kinda puts two and two together and was like “WE BOUGHT PLANE TICKET’S, YOU ASSHOLES.”

(It’s been such a long time since we’ve seen Mokuba smile like this, and it’s because he’s been hiding the fact for So Many Episodes that he and his brother prepped like hours ago to get this huge dunk on the rest of the party. He just wants to dunk on them so bad. Look at him. His company was bought today. BUT he gets to spend time with his bro dunking.)

Serious question, will Delta refund your flight if the Great Leviathan appears in the sky and tries to eat your soul to reboot the world from the ground up?

Of course not. They will never refund your flight. Trick question.

We switch back over to Rebecca and Duke, who have been absent from this show for so long, I actually forgot what Duke’s name was and had to think for like...5 entire minutes until I remembered that his nickname sounds like a poop and I was like “oh man, what name of poop would it be???” and then I recalled “Dookie. Yes. His name is literally Dookie. Wow that took way too long!”

Then we start a story arc I’d to call “My Kingdom For a Sharpen Filter” where, much like King Lear, the Yugi crew splays themselves on a battle field just strewn with different ways to sharpen an image, but can’t for the life of them use any other one, but the one deep in the heart of what is now DartzCorp.

And so yes, we are going to fly to San Fransisco, hop into ye Olde KaibaCorp, and log into proto-Noah in order to read a language that Arthur Hawkins can already read.

This is nonsense, but they put it there because it’s something to do. And honestly, it’s not a card game, so I’m down for this change-up. Lets go visit a version of Noah’s brain. At least they won’t drop an orichalcos for the 12th episode in a row.

On the way, Seto decides to try and egg on Yugi.

This backfires as you expect it will because Yami doesn’t freakin care. Like he’s not Yugi, he doesn’t care who the King of Games is, he harnesses freakin Dark Magic. The Wizard never cares if he’s King Arthur or not, and in fact, he probably prefers it....

..................Except in that spinoff where they had Yugi as a reincarnation of King Henry VII.

...................................................never mind.

And then Seto Kaiba says this actual line and I just...

WH.

WHHH

WHAT?

This entire show is just watching Yugi desperately cling to his scary ass hobbies. The tagline of Yugioh is “1001 reasons to go back to school and get a real job.”

What does Kaiba think Yugi does when he’s not around? Does he actually think Yugi attends school or sleeps at night or works an actual job? Like...he thinks Yugi has...NO HOBBIES.

Very interesting insight into what Seto considers a hobby and not hobby.

Especially since this Yami, who spends most of his spare time farting around his scary ass brain castle and getting lost. Occasionally he is forced on a date with Tea and wipes minds. That’s it. That’s all the things Yami does outside of hobbies.

Anyway, what is Dartz doing during all of this?

After this, Dartz pulls back the literal curtains on this room to reveal these candles that each hold the soul of someone he’s murdered.

There are not NEARLY enough candles for this segment.

A very brave man to have candles littered on the floor when his hair is down to his ass and all of his mooks have floorduster coats.

I really want to know what the local arts and crafts store thought when Dartz strode in there and bought every single tiny styrafoam skull during the Halloween sale and was like “can I put souls in these? You sell the kind I can put souls in, right?” and then immediately pulled out like a dozen 50% off coupons like a complete asshole.

Anyway, using this candle hocus pocus, Dartz uses the Orichalcos powers to take advantage of something Yugi did in the first episode. We distantly recall there was a giant eyeball in the sky--turns out if you bust up the eyeball with, lets say, a card that has a dragon on it, the eyeball will explode into many tiny Orichalcos pieces that will fall all over planet Earth.

So apparently Yugi didn’t save anyone at all when he busted that eyeball, because he instead set in motion Dartz’ evil plan to eventually use these many tiny Orichalcos pieces like the one seen here, to kill the hell out of people.

Good job, Yugi. Too bad you missed the Actual Bakura.

In fact, actual Bakura is probably the only one who survived this incident because I guarantee that Ryou Bakura is too busy eating all the contents of his fridge out of stress. He’s probably opened his window at this point, seen the crazy lights in the sky and in the street and was like  “Blooooooody nope nopenopenopenopenope” and just locked the windows and doors, turned up Hercule Poirot to max volume, and stuffed his face with cookies.

(Or biscuits, I guess.)

WELL.

I don’t know how to tally that.

Yugioh not only broke the tally I was using to measure the distance they spent commuting this season, it also broke the tally on the amount of people who have died on this children’s show.

That’s a really big number.

We’ve had real duel monsters for a couple weeks but youknow...this time they’re extra, extra, extra real. More so than the last times. Also they’re all Orichalcos versions of their cards so their extra edge now. They’re the hot topic versions of what were already pretty hot-topic ass cards.

MMM. We come full circle, back at a dock, a warehouse, and some huge ass boat.

Right where we belong. Where all friends meet, where we can all finally be one.

Yugioh found one of the only cities that has a very famous and tourist heavy pier/warehouse district in it just so the Yugi gang could finally feel comfortable in their natural habitat. HOWEVER, there’s just one tiny problem in this scene, and it’s that it’s not overlaid with the actual soundscape of a SF pier, which is that of 100000 screaming seals

I don’t have a seal problem, you have a seal problem.

Anyway, the only healthy adults here attempt to follow the children into danger but someone on the animation team was like “we just lost the keyboard drawing guy to that capslock! We cannot lose any more interns to a crowd scene with 9 people in it and 2 dead bodies!” and they uh...

And we immediately eject Roland and whoever that weird sunglasses guy is out of the script. Mokuba gave them a longing glance as they helicoptered away. Maybe because he missed his Dad stand-ins that he went through such efforts to call in the first place. Or more likely, because Mokuba would have preferred to be on that helicopter and far away from whatever the hell is going to go down on this dock.

Honestly the rest of Joey’s storyline this episode is him going rogue because of Mai rage, and it both comes out of nowhere and also seems very on point for him.

Meanwhile, Rebecca’s unbridled rage towards Yami Muto is still low key hilarious to me.

Witness the only character here who thinks Yami should suffer actual consequences and witness Yami just appear to not give a single damn about it.

Nearly spat out my own drink watching this.

The...

...police...

...exist in this universe?

Anyway, while Tristan and Tea try to locate a payphone to dial 911, Seto and Yugi decide to invade Seto’s own company by going through an elevator that you have to reach through the sewers.

Straight up I don’t think SF even has sewers. At least, not in the sense that you can walk in em like New York or Paris or other cities that have sewers. Our sewer systems are very small cuz we got something called “liquefaction” which means our ground is so soft (and artificial--a lot of the land is fake), that when there is an earthquake, certain parts of the city will...liquefy. It’s Terrifying. We kind of...avoid going and building underground except in certain stable places. (like even BART gives me the heebies.)

I just have a very strong distrust of basements, caves and other underground places in general and it’s not because of spiders, or ghosts or whatever, I’m just afraid of faultlines. It’s like having an active volcano, but you just don’t see it, and we haven’t had a Big One since 1989 so...any day now (I mean, 2020 has been such redic content, that I think we’re finally ready)

Again, Japan has way more intense Earthquakes than we do, and yet they have a billion underground subways and very, very tall buildings, so like, this is mostly a big cultural difference between the two of us. And the bedrock. They probably have better bedrock than we do (honestly, I just have no idea).

MASTER HACKER SKILLS.

Almost as good as that time he hacked into Pegasus’ company by dropping a satellite on it. I’m starting to think Seto actually doesn’t know how to use a computer.

Anyway, Seto is faced with...real cards, real monsters, indisputable evidence, and he decides, it’s time. It’s time to finally face facts.

So, while these two are just flinging cards around willy nilly, Tea and Tristan are ...actually talking to police.

4 seasons. They’re actually doing it.

Although, TBH, they probably should have gone to the Japanese Embassy first? Just throwing that out there.

Ah Yugioh, the only kids show around that tells you point blank not to trust cops. Timeless.

U.S

In some weird underground earthquake hazard, Rebecca proves that she is smarter than Seto Kaiba. She’s maybe even the smartest person on this show. Nice that we gave her nothing to do this season but pine over Yugi who is already taken by Tea who he is also not even dating.

Not that I love Rebecca or anything, I actually have a hard time with her voice, but like...they really dropped the ball on Rebecca.

If she does end up joining Kaiba corp as their back up Felicity Smoak while Seto just runs around aimlessly punching stuff that really is just offbrand Arrow but with cards. And with slightly less resurrections.

So, lets get a gander at that computer.

We didn’t get to see Kaiba pull out 12 other discs to complete the installation process for these all these Hard Discs. Maybe the lure of throwing a very aerodynamic CD across the room like a paper card was so strong that his dev team forced him to switch to these defunct squares?

PS, I am a true millennial, OK? But, I don’t remember Hard Discs.

Hard Discs were SO long go. I stopped using these damn things in Elementary school. The last Hard Disc I ever touched was in college, when I had to put my art portfolio on a disc to submit it to my degree. I don't know even why. Everyone had a mac, so I knew no one’s computer in the department even...HAD a disc drive so it was like...whomst among you has this damn computer from 1997? Whomst among you is still using Windows 95? WHY would I put IMAGES on a floppy when I can just email them to you?

Anyway, I had to get a USB hard disc reader, and to get that reader, I had to call my Dad who had legacy software because he’s a computer engineer, and he had to mail it to me.

In that same portfolio review, PS, I also had to submit my portfolio as slides.

I didn’t even know where to produce slides so I had to ask all these old people and go to the last photo processing store on earth to get digital pictures turned into negatives and then turned into freakin slides.

SLIDES.

I honestly think they just did that to weed people out of the art degree.

Anyway, I tell you this story just to say that there is no way in hell that Kaiba was using a hard disc during the height of the CD era. We were CD or go home since 2000. We had pretty decent jump drives at this point. We had wifi. It was realllly bad wifi, but we had it. Your phone could connect to the internet. It would charge you 50 bucks, but it COULD connect.

Who on the Yugioh team DID this?

Anyway lets see these pictures that for which, we spent thousands of dollars in unused plane tickets, destroyed a Caltrain, killed 2 ancient Atlanteans (and their dog), killed 3 random mid-villains, walked across the entire Peninsula, crashed an international plane, and left both the plane and the train to rot gas fuel into the nearest lake which is right next to a ghost graveyard?

Yeaaaaaaaaaah!

Like he reads it and is all “They’re gonna resurrect Atlantis” and it’s like WE KNOW. Dartz and his hooligans have talked about starting their Utopia to reboot the world since Gurimo. Since Day 1.

Man.

Anyways, there was one plus to the pictures, and it was that Seto Kaiba recognized the Oricalchos logo.

just...

The Oricalchos logo is...

...This logo, Seto?

You...didn’t recognize...seriously? Not until just now? You have been inside of this logo, rearing to lose your soul to Alister 2 times, and he only recognized it...just now.

I mean Seto takes a while y’all. He’s a genius, but his memory is so, so bad, that he will Eventually get smart, but you have to wait until like episode 24. But he’ll get there. Just gotta be patient.

And, when he saw it, he wigged out in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

Y’all I feel like I’ve seen to many weird zooms on Kaiba’s crotch in this show. Or just in life in general, especially after that surprise fic. That’s all.

I don’t know why everything exploded, but maybe the logo is cursed in the same way as God Cards? I dunno.

Anyway, this is when Dartz shows up with his brand new dog.

So they run outside onto the roof.

Now listen, does every Kaiba Corp building need the same weird ass roof? Is it like a McDonalds?

Because I’m just picturing this type of roof in SF and I’m having a time.

Forgive me if I made this lemming joke already. He’s just stood on a cliff’s edge so many times I can’t keep up.

RIP Dragon Jet, who took us from S3-S4, you’ll always live on in our memory, you glorious, wasteful, beautiful death trap.

Seto and Yugi are fine by the way, they just kinda jumped out, as you do when you’re an immortal god possessing a small boy and a...whatever the hell Seto is.

It’s at this point we reintroduce Valon because Joey went rogue and has decided to take on Dartz by himself. This is what happens when Tristan leaves the party. You always need Tristan to hold back Joey by his armpits to keep him from fighting random people.

So I guess Valon’s gonna die next episode. That’ll be nice.

What’s great about this show is each arc is just watching each villain die. You know they’ll die. But...how much?

Anyway, that’s all for today. I’m still drawing a hell ton of stuff so I don’t know when the next update will be...but just now I haven’t dropped off or something. I’ll...eventually get to it.

And if you just got here, this is a link to read all of these in chrono order.

Anyway, I mentioned Hercule Poirot, (because watching a hell ton of BBC was how I spent time with my family when I was a kid, and my very Southern Grandma freakin LOVED Hercule Poirot) So here is the best subplot of that show, which is David Suchet eating stuff.

And which doesn’t want to embed for some reason. Probs can’t embed more than one video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17antzzJrzQ

[optic-collector]

Name

Optic Collector 

Citizen Name

Azure Sullivan 

Gender

Female 

Age

31

Birthday

October 31

Height

5'7

Sexuality

Demiromantic Demisexual 

Known Relatives

Abraham Sullivan(Father, Decreased)

Caroline Sullivan(Mother, Decreased)

Vylad Kimble(Uncle, Alive)

Personality

Azure is pretty good at only showing parts of her personality towards her victims often being much like a glacier. The most that her victims do see from her is coldness and overjoy when she admires their eyes. She is pretty good at covering her emotions only letting out her admiration knowing it does put fear into many of her victims. 

Azure has an amazing understanding on how most people think and will know how to play with her victims' minds and force them into her hand. However, when dealing with fellow slashers she knows to be cautious when interacting with them as sometimes they can be unpredictable. She is also very intelligent on top of her understanding of how people work. It only makes it easily for her to catch and toy with her victims until she decides to kill them. 

Most of her true personality tends to be hidden until she decides she trusts whoever she meets and will show a little more of herself. Azure can be very childish though she knows many do look down on her for that. She has a very playful nature while definitely still being very mature. Once she openly shows all of her personality she is goofy, dorky and is definitely much more open and not as secretive as she usually is. She is self conscious especially when it comes to her blind eye and even in herself personality wise. Sullivan is also very touch starved so she can get very touchy and needy when she views the other in a romantic way which does rarely happen.

Love is a very complicated subject for Azure Sullivan. She had locked her heart behind many walls unsure if she should ever feel love or give her sensitive heart to another. SHe can be rather clingy but will hold herself back out of respecting the other and would even distance herself and fight back her own emotions to protect herself. She has anxiety especially when it comes to anything in relation to love so it definitely takes a lot of trust and reassurance for her to fully welcome love.

Hobbies

Doll Making/customizing

Designing Characters

Clay working

Backstory 

Azure Sullivan was born to Abraham and Caroline Sullivan on the night of Halloween night becoming their eldest and only child. Childhood was rather normal and average compared to many yet she grew up in a rather rich part of the city. Her parents seemed in love with each other and both loved her yet that wasn’t ever true. Her father was usually the one to give her gifts and actually showed any worry when it came to her eye and its condition. Growing up her mother was distant from her and usually ignored her when her father wasn’t in the room and would often send her out of the house just so she wouldn’t have to deal with her. Her mother became jealous of her own daughter and became insecure in her relationship and tried many ways to keep her husband’s focus on her all through her daughter’s childhood. From her view she wasn’t her child, this came clear when Azure was 13.

It was the new year when a man broke into their home hoping to kidnap her and use her to force her parents to cough up money for her return. That night her mother happened to have been out cheating on her father with another rich man. Her father instantly figured what was happening when he heard a window break; he locked her bedroom door then went to confront the inturreder only to be met with a blunt object and then a knife to the back. The kidnapper then quickly left as the house suddenly realized what they did and the fact that there were sirens coming closer. She was awoken to police breaking down her door to make sure she was safe.

After that night, her mother fully showed her colors towards her daughter. Azure lived with 2 year of torment and hatred from Caroline til she finally snapped. And during those years her mother made her eye so much worse not caring about her health which led to her slowly going blind in one eye. She pinned her mother to the ground holding a spoon as she spoke very calmly to her mother “pity such beautiful eyes are owned by such a vile person who simply used her husband for his wealth” and with that she spooned out her mother’s eyes putting them in a jar then murdered her. She then made it seem like the attacker was also going to get her staging the whole scene as she panic called the cops. 

Her mother’s brother ended up being her legal guardian after that. She soon learned her brother did disown her mother but still chose to stay for his niece and poor brother-in-law. From her Uncle, she learned how horrible her mother truly was. After she started to leave with her uncle, she started to openly date which all would end with her finding out the person cheated on her and everytime she would stalk taske their eyes and kill them while making it so it didn’t even point to her. As she continued to stay with her uncle, she went to school to become a medical student and that piqued her interest more when she was studying eyes and surgery relating to them. 

She had started a build of a cabin in the woods somewhere near a lake in which she would take her victim’s eyes and kill them. She also started to look into other slashers that often were talked about in the news curious to how they were never yet she too had yet to be caught. As she started her career as a doctor at a nearby hospital, she slowly started to pick out her targets from her patients which slowly turned into anyone who would visit the lake and wander upon her hidden cabin. Soon numbers started to skyrocket on her kills as she continued to live with her Uncle helping him and paying bills.

Powers and Abilities 

Pain Resistance- She is still human but has gotten used to pain as her mother was abusive towards her be in secret or openly til she was 15.

Stealth- She often uses her small size to hide and sneak around and even would often go unnoticed by her victims until the moment she takes them away. 

Intelligence- She is know to out think her victims and even can play them in to the palm of her hand as she 

Weapon Proficiency- While she knows how to use two of her main tools/weapons, she can still use whatever is within her grasp to proficiently end her victim’s lives.

Hunting Skills/Tracker- she can track down, trap, and pursue her victims relentlessly and can quickly adapt to her surroundings instantly, and will not stop until her victims are dead. 

Surgical Ability- Having gone to school and it being her professional job outside of her killing ways she can do almost any surgery in almost an instant however there are a few she is willing to try for the first time yet won’t admit it was her first time until after the procedure. 

Multilingual/Sign Language Understanding- She is proficient in 5 different spoken languages and their respected sign language being English, Spanish, Russsian, Japanese and French. ASL, LSE, РЖЯ, JSL and LSF. She has learned these languages to communicate with patients, victims and other slashers a like. She's been learning different languages since she was young and started with her father teaching her and evolved into her learning on her own.

Weapons

Custom Surgical tools 

Sickles

Whatever she has at hand

[millie-ionaire05]

Saudade - Ot7 | 11 (End)

Ot7 BTS

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Rating: M (Mature)

word count: 2,439

Trigger Warnings: Hospitalization (rehab, mental institute). Mental health issues (Text Reason to 741741 if you need to reach out for help). Insinuated M x M (if you squint hard enough). Substance abuse (alcohol, pills | call 1-800-662-4357 if you are dealing with this). Weapons (gun, knife). Smoking (cigarettes, weed). Mentions of suicide/attempted suicide (National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255). Violence (murder/attempted murder). Mentions of blood. Mentions of therapy sessions (these are not accurate representations, please leave it to proper professionals). Mentions of physical abuse (Call 1-800-799-7233 if you are dealing with domestic violence) WE DO NOT GLORIFY THESE WARNINGS/TRIGGERS; THIS IS A FICTIONAL STORY, AND DOES NOT RELATE TO ANY OF THE MEMBERS. IF YOU ARE DEALING WITH ANY OF THESE, PLEASE REACH OUT TO YOUR LOCAL AUTHORITIES FOR ASSISTANCE, OR THE NUMBERS LISTED ABOVE.

↤ Previous | 11

February 3rd, 2018

   The sun was starting to set when Jungkook pulled into the parking garage of his apartment complex, the lights dimly illuminating the parked cars. Hoseok had been hiding out there on and off for the past two weeks, only running home to shower and put fresh clothes before rushing back and seeing if his friend had finally shown up. His attempt to confront Jungkook at the hospital backfired when the nurses stated he wasn’t allowed visitors. But Hoseok was cunning, and worked his skilled Gwangju tongue on the adorable nurse at the desk, who was quick to spill all of the dirty secrets.

   While she had freely given most of the secrets involving his younger friend, she didn’t have the answer to when he was allowed visitors, but she did reveal his release date. That was all Hoseok needed, and he quickly passed her a fake phone number before leaving the place, afraid he would run into either Namjoon or Yoongi.

   His conversation with Yoongi played in his head over and over again for the two weeks it took Jungkook to finally show up. He’d half expected to see cops pull up and arrest him for owning an illegal weapon, but the other half of him knew Yoongi wouldn’t dare let the cops be involved if it meant outing whatever secret he and Namjoon had with each other. Hoseok hadn’t even known Jungkook was involved until a tearful conversation with Jimin, the magenta haired man looking completely distraught and revealing Jungkook had been in the same room. It was that same day that Jimin whimpered his plea in wanting to know what really happened that night, and Hoseok had silently promised him that he would find out.

   Stepping out of his car, he slowly approaches the younger man whose dark hair had grown all the way to his cheek bones, observing as Jungkook moves to his passenger side before pulling out a box. Hoseok has half a mind to grab him and forcefully make him talk, but he also feared that would just bring his friend back into a semi-catatonic state, and he had no patience in waiting for his answers.

   Jungkook didn’t realize Hoseok was standing there until the older friend was pretty much in his face, his eyes widening in fright before his bunny smile lights up his face. He practically drops the box back into his car before throwing his hands around his friend, a shocked Hoseok freezing in place at the sudden onslaught of affection that he was no longer used to receiving. After a moment Hoseok returns the hug, trying to ease Jungkook away from him so he can stay focused. Or at least attempt to.

   “Hyung! It’s so good to see you,” Jungkook chirps cheerfully, his hands rubbing together nervously before becoming hidden behind him. “W-what are you doing here?”

   Hoseok takes a moment to purse his lips before crooking a smile, gesturing at the stuff in his car. “I heard the good news and came to celebrate.”

   Jungkook’s eyes shake for a fraction of a second, possibly from fear, but Hoseok isn’t sure. He doesn’t have too much time to dwell on it either because his friend reaches back into the car and pulls out the box, gesturing for his hyung to follow him to the parking garage elevator.

   The silence that follows gives Hoseok a moment to regroup his thoughts as they walk towards the elevator, their steps slow and methodically echoing around them. The distance between them physically is only a mere sliver, but the emotional gap is palpably large, Hoseok’s mind racing to fill it in with conversation.

   “So, what are you going to do now that you’re out?” Hoseok probes, his hand moving to fluff up the back of his hair in nervousness.

   “Uhm…,” Jungkook starts before adjusting the box onto one hand, his other reaching out to the elevator button. “Probably look for a job. I gotta start paying back my parents somehow,” he admits sheepishly, his shoulders coming up to make him appear smaller than he actually is.

   Hoseok nods in agreement, his arm stretching out to hold the elevator doors open as the younger friend steps in. “That makes sense,” Hoseok comments before stepping into the small metal contraption as well, his fingers beginning to sweat.

   “What have you been up to, hyung?” Jungkook asks cheerily, his bunny smile growing as his eyes move towards him.

   “Uhm...well...I’ve been in rehab for a majority of the past six months. I got out about two weeks ago,” Hoseok reveals, his shoulders rising of their own accord as his own smile turns sheepish.

   “Oh wow, hyung,” Jungkook innocently throws out the term of endearment, his eyes widening at the confession. “What happened?”

   Hoseok turns an exasperated look to his friend, unsure if he was being serious or just messing with him. Hoseok realizes it was the former when the younger man continues to stare even as the elevator dings its arrival onto Jungkook’s floor and their bodies remain in their spots. The older man can’t help but let a sigh slip from his lips, a hand moving to run through his freshly dyed brown locks, frustration causing his eyebrows to come together.

   “I-I’m sorry if I’ve upset you…,” Jungkook murmurs, shifting the box in his hands.

   “It...it’s not so much upset as frustrated, Jungkook,” Hoseok admits, his hands rubbing his face before falling to his sides. “I...I thought you knew what happened to all of us after what happened that night. I thought Yoongi had kept you updated.”

   “What do you mean?” Jungkook questions, the bunny smile falling off of his face, and confusion taking its place.

   “Yoongi would visit you...I thought he had kept you updated…,” Hoseok trails off, unsure of how else to put the statement together. After a few seconds of silence, it seems to click in Jungkook’s head.

   “Yeah, Yoongi would visit, but he never talked about you guys...just about his work and sometimes Jimin,” Jungkook pouts, his eyebrows coming together. “The last I heard was Jimin wasn’t talking to him, but he didn’t tell me why.”

   Hoseok nods slowly, his frustration level reaching its peak, and he was worried he wouldn’t get the answers he was desperate to seek.

   “Look, Jungkook, I can’t lie. I didn’t come here to celebrate your release...I came here because I need answers.”

   “A-answers?” Jungkook stutters, his fingers whitening as they grip the box tighter, his body instinctively taking a step away from Hoseok’s.

   “I need to know what happened that night, Jungkook,” Hoseok demands, his sentence rushing from his lips so quickly he himself almost didn’t understand.

   “W-what do you mean, Hoseok?” Jungkook questions a solid minute later, tears pooling in his eyes. “Taehyung killed Jin...and then he killed himself.”

   Hoseok lets out a cross between a growl and a grunt of frustration, his hands moving to Jungkook’s shirt collar before he slams the younger boy against the mirror wall of the elevator. They hear the mirror crack, to which Jungkook’s eyes widen impossibly further than before, his lips quivering as a single tear rolls from his right eye.

   “That’s exactly what everyone keeps saying, Jungkook, but you know what-,” Hoseok starts, each word bringing his volume to rise until he’s shouting in the small space, “I don’t fucking believe it! Because the only people who are saying that are Namjoon and Yoongi, but you were there. You should have seen what happened! Tell me what happened, Jungkook!”

   The two of them shuffle for a second, Jungkook trying to use the box as a shield as Hoseok tries to get a better grip on the shirt, Jungkook’s cries echoing between them.

   “I-it was me!” Jungkook cries out, his hands releasing the box to allow it to collapse on the ground, a sob retching from his throat as Hoseok’s grip loosens.

   “W-what?” Hoseok starts, his fingers instinctively tightening on Jungkook’s shirt before he lets go all together. “What do you mean?”

   “It...it was me,” Jungkook sobs, the tears pouring from his eyes as his body slides down the elevator wall, his knees curling up to his chest. “I’m the one who did it.”

   Hoseok stays silent as his friend cries, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tries to collect his breath. What feels like an hour passes before Hoseok crouches down, his hand moving to Jungkook’s knee, unsurprised when he jumps at the contact.

   “What do you mean, Jungkookie?” Hoseok attempts to use the endearing nickname Jin-hyung had used many times in the past, and he’s surprised to see Jungkook’s head rise, the younger man’s eyes meeting his own.

   “I..I...killed Taehyung,” he sniffles, fresh tears flowing from his eyes.

   Hoseok is frozen in place, his body feeling like a ton of weights as his knees roughly hit the elevator floor, stinging from the impact. The grip he has on Jungkook’s knee that was originally for comfort, is now the only thing keeping his body up, his vision blurring at the confession.

   It takes a moment before Hoseok can break the silence. “H-how?” is all he can croak out, his eyes unwilling to meet Jungkook’s, but he can still feel his friend’s desperate stare. “Start from the beginning.”

   Jungkook lets out a breath of air before sniffling, his hands attempting to wipe his face. “I was in the kitchen doorway, listening to Jin-hyung and Tae argue…”

   “What were they arguing about, Jungkook?” Hoseok presses, his desperation at its peak and toppling over.

   “About Jin-hyung telling Namjoon that Taehyung had gotten arrested again. Hyung was trying to apologize, but Tae wasn’t having it. They were getting louder, but no one else could hear them over the music in the living room. I peeked my head in just as Jin-hyung threw a punch to Taehyung’s face, and Tae’s eyes...they looked crazy. Tae slammed hyung onto the floor and started beating him...and I wanted to stop them, but I froze. Hyung’s blood was dripping onto the floor and Taehyung looked like he was about to stop, but then he reached up to the counter and grabbed a knife. Jin choked on his blood as Tae stabbed him, and I gasped. His eyes...they were so dark and angry.

   He looked up from hyung’s body and saw me in the doorway, and I freaked. I turned and ran for the stairs, and I heard Tae behind me as Namjoon started shouting for someone to call an ambulance, but I was too scared to turn around,” Jungkook stops, his body trembling as his eyes go distant.

   Hoseok reaches out, his hands cupping Jungkook’s face in fear that the younger man won’t continue, won’t give him the answers he needs. This sends Jungkook into a panicked frenzy as he kicks out, his thick combat boot connecting with Hoseok’s stomach, causing him to wheeze at the impact. Hoseok’s hold of Jungkook’s face breaks, one of his hands going to his stomach as the other moves to Jungkook’s hand, gripping it in hopes it will help his friend.

   It seems to help, because Jungkook’s eyes meet his own, a flash of understanding causing Jungkook to stop. They sit there in silence, Jungkook attempting to collect himself, and Hoseok attempting to get a steady breath back. Hoseok doesn’t push Jungkook this time, just waits for his friend to continue on his own, even when his desperation has his body vibrating with tension.

   “I was scared, so I went into the first room I saw and hid in the closet. I couldn’t really hear anything over the music and my heartbeat. I stayed as quiet as I could, but I couldn’t help but jump when Tae opened the door and let it slammed against the wall. I peeked between the closet doors, and watched him walk around, checking under the bed before eyeing the closet. Except...he didn’t walk up to it. He had to know that I was in there, but he didn’t open the doors...instead he walked up to the window and looked outside.

   I tried to quietly step out of the closet, but I saw the knife in Taehyung’s hand, and I froze. It didn’t matter though, because Tae saw me in the reflection of the window, and he quickly turned around. He had this smirk on his face. I...I didn’t know what to do, but my body just acted on its own and I rushed him. I-I pushed him, and he went through the window and out onto the yard,” Jungkook bawls, tears running down his face with renewed fervor. “I heard someone curse behind me so I turned and saw Yoongi and Jimin standing in the doorway, but Yoongi’s hand was covering Jimin’s eyes.I pushed past them and headed straight for the bathroom, everything coming up at once.”

   Hoseok’s body tilts before his butt is firmly planted on the floor, the thump of his body weight shifting causes the elevator to bounce, but neither of them pay attention to it. Hoseok’s hands rise to grip his head, a firm pounding beginning behind his eyes.

   “I didn’t want any of you guys to be affected by what I did...so Namjoon came up with the lie. We...I...just wanted to protect you guys.”

   ✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

   “Mr. Park, you have a visitor.”

   Jimin’s eyes rise from the book in his hands, his feet coming down from their spot on the chair he was resting on as his eyebrows come together in confusion. A visitor? After Hoseok had left, he hadn’t heard of Yoongi trying to visit again, not that Yoongi was still allowed to visit him. He rises from his spot and follows the petite nurse out of the common room, her steps quick as she makes her way down the hallway towards the visiting office, to which he rapidly attempts to keep up with her pace.

   Making it to the sickly yellow door, he notices that there isn’t a window, and is unsure of his feelings on being alone with whoever is on the other side. His feelings of worry are quickly dampened when the nurse opens the door and he spots Hoseok inside, the older man leaning back comfortably in one of the two chairs within the room. Jimin bounds inside and stretches his arms out, taking his friend by surprise when they wrap around his shoulders. After a moment, Hoseok forcibly pushes Jimin back, a worried expression on his face, and Jimin can’t help but mirror the expression.

   “Jimin...we need to talk.”

[halstudandruz]

Reassurance

*Not my gif*

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader

Requested: Yes

Prompts: #12: “I’m pretty sure this place is haunted”

& #15 “Hear me out” “Why the fuck should I listen to you?”

Warnings: Cussing

“Okay guys seriously this place is creepy as fuck, I’ve been in some sketchy places, but this is a whole new level.” Jay complained.

“Yeah, I agree it gives me goosebumps.” Adam added.

“Thank you. I’m telling you, I’m pretty sure this place is haunted.” Jay continued.

“Oh please, would you two man up.” I said rolling my eyes.

“I think we both know I’m man enough.” Jay smirked winking at me. Causing me to smack him on the arm.

“Well, if it wasn’t haunted before it probably is now. Three DOAs found in the basement.” Kevin said walking in on the conversation. We were on the hunt for a drug lord who was producing drugs that were responsible for many overdoses within the last week. We were currently standing in what we assumed to be his stash house. After heading back to the district, and trying to piece leads together we eventually caught the guy, but it definitely wasn’t the easiest.

“You coming to Molly’s?” Jay asked walking up to me.

“I haven’t decided yet. I’m pretty tired. I’ll let you know though.” I answered kissing him goodbye, and waving to the rest of those in the locker room as I headed out. Once I got home I made sure to shower, and warmed myself up something to eat. Even though I was pretty tired I decided going down to Molly’s for one or two drinks wouldn’t hurt. I quickly texted Jay informing him I decided to go to the bar, and asked if he planned on going or if he was there already. I got no answer so I just got changed, and headed down. Upon walking in I spotted Adam, Kim, Kevin, and Antonio seated around a table. I walked over smiling. Kim quickly grabbed my arm pulling me over and down to her side of the booth. “Oof, hello to you too,” I laughed, “I gotta go get a drink though.” I finished going to stand back up.

“Nope. No you don’t here you can have the rest of mine!” Kim said nervously grabbing my arm again and pushing her drink over to me. I looked at her suspiciously.

“For someone who’s supposed to go undercover on the regular you’re not doing a very good job of being subtle what’s going on?” I asked looking around the table. They all answered “nothing” in unison, but refused to look at me. “Whatever, I’m seriously going to get drunk you can figure out your story while I’m gone.” I joked standing up and turning around to walk towards the bar. Kim tried to stop me once again, but just as I turned around I had seen what they were trying to hide. Erin and Jay were seated across from one another. Erin had her hand extended over Jay’s as they were both laughing. “What is she doing here?” I gulped turning to the table.

“Honestly [Y/N] we don’t know. She never seen us walk in, and we didn’t really want to interupt.” Adam explained sighing. I nodded turning back to look at them. It seemed like their faces were even closer than before, but that could’ve been the jealously talking. Just as Jay lifted his face up our eyes made contact. His smile quickly faded as panic washed over his face. I looked down quickly heading back out of the bar. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Erin, I did. She was one badass cop, and a good person. It’s just that whenever she was in Chicago I never had a chance. I developed a crush on Jay the first day he walked into intelligence, but once him and Erin were partnered it was pretty much game over. Once Erin left I helped piece Jay back together which is how we got to where we are today, but I knew he wasn’t and never would be over Erin. Even though I respected and understood that it was something I didn’t even want to accept. I always wondered in the back of my mind what would happen if Erin decided to come back to Chicago, but I was certainly hoping that was never a reality I would have to face. So, walking in and seeing him there with her stirred up a number of different emotions. Jealously, anger, insecurities, hurt, you name it I was probably feeling it. I wasn’t too far gone before I heard Jay calling my name. I continued to walk but just as I made it to my car I felt an hand grab my arm stopping me in my tracks. I took a deep breath turning around to face him. I couldn’t read Jay. He seemed somewhere in between hurt and confused, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Why’d you leave like that [Y/N]?” Jay asked out of breath.

“You’re not seriously asking me that are you? I just walked in on your ex-girlfriend, not to mention almost fiancée basically on top of you!” I yelled, jealously getting the best of me as my voice shook from anger and the tears that were building up.

“It’s not like that [Y/N], just hear me out.” Jay said calmly.

“Why the fuck should I listen to you? I already know what you’re going to say Jay so just save me from having to hear it please.” I said beginning to cry now before quickly climbing into my car before I drove off. As I walked into my house I kicked my shoes off, threw my purse on the counter, and fell straight down into the couch not wanting to deal with anything. I laid there for maybe 5 minutes before I heard a knock on my door followed by it slowly opening.

“Babe?” Jay said quietly walking into the hall to see me laying on the couch wrapped up with a blanket. I looked at him the tears still rolling down my face not saying a word. He came over sitting beside me carefully pulling me into his side. “Can you please tell me what’s going on? I’m not going to lie I’m quite confused.” He whispered as he wiped my tears away.

“Why are you here?” I asked looking down.

“Because you stormed off crying, and I’m not exactly sure why. I mean I know I was with Erin, but I’m not understanding the big deal, we were just talking.” He explained.

“Yeah, about how she wants you back.” I rolled my eyes.

“Uh no, and even if she did I’m not sure why that would matter I wouldn’t ever leave you. Why would you think that?” Jay answered, but it ended up coming out more as a question.

“Jay, I’m not stupid. I know you still love her, and I know I could never beat her out. I don’t have a chance up against her, and I know that but-“ I began before Jay cut me off with a kiss.

“Would you stop it. [Y/N], you are gorgeous and incredible and I’m so absolutely in love with you. I will always care for Erin, and I will always be thankful for what we had, but she is in my past. You are my future, and you’re the only person I could ever want as my future.” Jay explained looking straight into my eyes, and ended with kissing me on my forehead. “Plus she only came back because she was visiting Voight for his birthday. I was the only one at Molly’s so we got to talking. We were just waiting for everyone else to show up, I never even seen them walking in until I seen you.” Jay finished laughing.

“I’m an idiot I’m sorry.” I laughed blushing.

“Don’t be sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t give you a heads up, I just didn’t realize how jealous you can be.” He joked kissing all over my face as I began to blush harder. Jay then stood up throwing me over his shoulder. “What the fuck are you doing Halstead?” I laughed wiggling in his grasp.

“Just proving to my girl how incredible and sexy she is.” Jay smirked throwing me onto the bed as we reached my bedroom.

“You’re one to talk baby.” I smirked pulling him down onto me to start a night full of reassurance of our future together.

[lovemesomerafael]

No One Else                              Chapter 3:  Turning Up The Heat

Source: @sherrykinss​

Chapter 1   Chapter 2   Read It On AO3

It takes three days, but the guy on trial is convicted. He gets two consecutive life sentences. It’s a stunning victory for the prosecution and it makes great headlines, which means that the DA, One PP, and a whole lot of people with “Chief” in their titles are happy.  The big shots get to take a victory lap in front of the national press and the FBI, and they’re making the most of it.  They find as many cameras as possible in time to make the evening news, and by five p.m. there are a lot of satisfied people around Foley Square. They take over Maxwell’s.  Because it also happens to be a Friday, things get a little out of hand.  Even Vanessa Hadid overindulges a little bit (to be fair, she hasn’t been sleeping or eating much, as usual for her during a trial) and Sonny finds himself standing in front of DA Jack McCoy’s table with Ms. Hadid’s arm around his neck.  It’s uncomfortable in a number of ways, not least of which is that he’s a lot taller than she is, so his choices are to bend over or be strangled.

“This guy,” she enthuses to McCoy, planting a sloppy kiss on Sonny’s cheek.  “He’s gonna be a star.”

McCoy is only marginally less uncomfortable than Sonny, but Sonny sees the comment register with him.  “Well done, Mr. Carisi,” McCoy says.  

Holy shit, the DA knows who I am!  I can’t wait to tell Kate about this.  He wonders again where Kate is, and hopes she’ll make the party.  They’d decided to wait until the verdict came in for her promised post-trial visit, and she’s due any time.  She didn’t know when she’d be able to leave the station, so the plan is for her to toss some clothes at Sonny’s apartment and meet him here.  

Sonny sees Olivia Benson and Dean Porter through a break in the crowd.  He wonders again whether there’s anything between them and has a split second to register their very friendly body language before the crowd blocks his view and Ms. Hadid drops an F-bomb.  She’s not drunk enough to miss the looks on some faces at the DA’s table, so she mercifully lets go of Sonny to excuse herself to talk to someone across the room. Sonny excuses himself awkwardly and leaves the table, too.

He thinks he’ll say hello to Benson and Porter, so he’s making his way toward them when he spots Kate, just inside the door, looking helplessly around for a familiar face.  Her hair is in a knot at the back of her neck and he really likes the way loose tendrils have escaped around her face.  She looks so pretty standing there, he’s sure he would have noticed her even if she were a stranger.  She’s wearing a casual dress made of some soft material in a muted green pattern he really likes, and he especially likes that the dress shows off her long legs and has an open neckline that is just slightly on the right side of appropriate.  She sees him when he gets to within about ten feet of her, and slips around a group of people to meet him with a hug and a kiss. He wants to kiss her more, and he plans to, but first he wants to show her off.

Sonny leads Kate across the bar, which takes some time due to the raucous crowd, toward a table where some of his colleagues and a number of the support staff from his office are laughing and carrying on.  Most of them are younger than Sonny and Kate are, but it’s clear they really like Sonny.  He introduces Kate to everyone, a proprietary arm around her waist.  When he gets to Mary Duderon, Kate tries to be as friendly as possible, making sure she knows that Kate recognizes her from their previous meeting.  It doesn’t work.  Mary minimally acknowledges her and doesn’t make eye contact.  Kate sees a couple of guys standing close by exchange an amused look.

Sonny introduces Kate to them last, because they’re standing next to him, at the end of the circle of people he’s just introduced to Kate. She despairs of remembering any of their names, but these two guys she’s heard of, because they’re the guys with whom Sonny shares Mary as an assistant.  The three of them have also bonded over the long hours and pressures of being fairly new ADAs.  

Maurice Mikhail is the shorter of the two.  He’s dark-skinned, but his ethnicity isn’t readily apparent from his looks or his name.   His wide, open smile makes him look like a guy who is always looking for a laugh, and Kate thinks he looks just like Sonny’s description of him.  Scott Lam looks a few years older than Maurice, and seems a bit more serious.  His features have a definite Asian look, although he looks like he’s multiracial. He shakes Kate’s hand and looks into her eyes as he greets her.  Somebody taught this guy nice manners, Kate thinks.  

Sonny leaves Kate with Maurice and Scott and goes to get her a glass of wine.  Maurice starts right in.  He looks over his shoulder to see that everyone around the big table has resumed conversations among themselves.  None of the individual conversations is discernable from the others in the din of the packed bar.

“So how do you know the Dude Ranch?”  He asks, amusement all over his face as he tosses his head to indicate the table.  

Kate knows he’s talking about Mary.  Sonny has told her that, around the office, Mary’s surname has been turned into a nickname of sorts behind her back.  Many of the more junior ADAs call her Sister Mary Dude Ranch, because she really does bear many of the stereotypical characteristics of the type of woman who used to be called a spinster, including the fact that she has several cats.  But Kate is offended on Mary’s behalf and doesn’t appreciate the casual cruelty, especially toward a skilled woman whose job makes theirs possible.  

“I beg your pardon?”  She asks, her tone intentionally icy.

Scott breaks in.  “Don’t listen to him.  He’s an imbecile.  He’s part of the DA’s program for special needs lawyers.  What he means is, it seems like you know our assistant, Mary.”

Kate smiles at Scott, hoping that in some way, she’s sent a bit of a signal.  “Oh, Mary.  We met a couple of weeks ago.  Sonny says she’s pretty good.”  

Maurice elbows Scott in the side, and Kate revises her estimate of his age down a bit.  

“She is.  We appreciate her,” Scott says, ignoring Maurice.  

They begin to ask Kate about her job, and their questions make it clear Sonny’s been talking about her.  It’s also clear they have a lot of mistaken ideas learned from cop shows. They’re especially interested in Kate’s version of the story of how she and Sonny met.  Sonny appears with drinks for himself and Kate just as Maurice is exclaiming, “I wouldn’t have thought Carisi had that kinda badassery in him.”

Kate is glad to see Sonny.  She’s also glad to see a glass of alcohol with her name on it.  Running into a gunfight to save Sonny made her less nervous than having to hold her own in a room full of strangers she wants to impress for his sake.  Taking a healthy drink, she happens to glance over at the table of Sonny’s coworkers, and notices Mary glaring at her with an expression that reminds Kate of something. It takes her a second to realize that it’s the look on the face of a perp with a low opinion of women when she slaps the cuffs on.  Kate shivers and turns away.

Sonny feels ten feet tall.  He has just won his first big case – OK, he was only second chair, but still – and his bosses are pleased with him.  His SVU squad is proud of him, too.  He feels like he’s on his way, like he may have successfully made the transition to the DA’s office and, until this moment, he hadn’t realized how frightening that leap really had been.  And then there’s Kate.  He still can’t believe she’s here, back in his life, back in his plans, back in his arms. He hasn’t taken his arm from around her all night.  Yes, he wants everyone to see his beautiful girlfriend.  But it’s much more than that.  It’s just so right that she should be here to celebrate this first big win with him.  Having her by his side feels like… He can’t even explain it to himself.  It’s like his life was VHS before, and now it’s Blu-ray.  Or whatever comes after that.  And he’s insanely proud when people recognize her name and comment on her reputation in the NYPD.  It’s a very good night for Sonny Carisi.

They stay at Maxwell’s until after midnight, when the party has pretty much wound down.

Sonny and Kate flop down on his couch immediately upon finally making it to his apartment and pull off their shoes.  They’ve been standing for hours, talking and celebrating and networking.  They’re exhausted and, although they aren’t drunk, they have been steadily sipping drinks all night.  For a few minutes, they just slouch, side by side, heads back on the cushions.  

“That was…  somethin’,” Sonny says.  “I never saw so many mucky-mucks in my life.”

“No kiddin’.  And they were all there to celebrate your win.”  

Sonny chuckles skeptically.  “A small cog in a big machine.”

“Bullshit.  You were sitting right there at the prosecution table.  You questioned - how many witness was it again?  You’re a regular big deal, Baby.  Get used to it.”

Sonny puts a hand on Kate’s thigh.  “I loved havin’ you there tonight.”

Kate puts her hand over his and turns her head where it rests on the cushion to look at him.  “I loved being introduced as your girlfriend.”  

“Was that OK?  I didn’t mean to get ahead of things…”  

“I mean it, Sonny, I loved it.  I wanna be your girlfriend.  And I want you to be my boyfriend.”

“I already am, Katie.  I’m yours.”  

Sonny reaches for her and they don’t come up for air until quite some time later, when Kate has Sonny’s shirt open and untucked, and Sonny has Kate’s dress on the floor.  

“Do you think you can stand any more good news today?” She asks, running her fingers through his hair in a vain attempt to get it back under some control.  He is lying on top of her, looking down at her and playing with her hair, too.  

“I dunno.  It’s been –“ Sonny is on the point of making a joke when he has a thought.  “Holy shit, Kate.  Your transfer came through?”

“You’re making out with the newest Detective in Manhattan South Narcotics.”

For the next five minutes, Sonny stumbles through excited half-sentences, alternating with kisses and hugs, punctuated by excited shouts. He feels drunk in several ways, and finally has to sit up and hold his head in his hands, trying to assimilate all that has happened today.  “This is too much.  I feel like I’m havin’ a dream and I’m gonna wake up in the crib in the SVU squad room with midterms in a week.”  He looks over at her.  “And you in Brooklyn.”

“Nope.  It’s all real.  You’re a big shot and I’m a traitor to Brooklyn North.  The guys stole everything that was in my locker and then filled it with paper from the shredder soaked in beer.”

Sonny laughed.  “That’s cop love.”

“I know.  I’m gonna miss them.  But you’re worth it.”

“I’m gonna remind you of that when you’re in the middle of moving and I break something.”

The rest of the night is a happy blur.  When they get to bed, Kate tells Sonny to lay back and spends what feels like hours touching, stroking, kissing, and licking him everywhere, all the while murmuring compliments and love.  She gives him a spectacular climax, curling a finger inside him; Kate is the only woman he’s ever trusted enough to let her do that.  Sonny has to smile at the memories evoked when he pulls her in to spoon with him and, together, they finger her to orgasm.  It’s a compromise they made back in their Brooklyn days.  She doesn’t always have to come; she likes the idea that sometimes she wears him out. It’s kind of a compliment, actually, if he can’t keep from falling asleep.  But he has a thing about making sure she’s satisfied, too, and this way is quick and efficient, and they’re both happy.  It takes him less than two minutes to fall asleep afterward.  

 *************

Sonny doesn’t find the picture of himself and Kate at Forlini’s.  After a while, he forgets about it because Kate gives him a framed picture of them at Maxwell’s on the night of the verdict celebration.  It’s a great picture, and it’s a reminder of one of the best nights of Sonny’s life.  Unfortunately, it gets knocked off his desk and the glass gets broken.  He assumes it was the cleaning people who broke it, and means to replace the glass, but just hasn’t gotten around to it yet.  He has other pictures of them, too, as the desktop background and screen saver on his computer, so it’s not that big a deal.

Besides which, he has the real Kate, who will be moving to Manhattan this weekend.  They’ve decided that “no pressure” includes not moving in together, at least not now. Neither of them really thinks they won’t be successful in picking up their relationship again, but it kinda makes sense. Besides, Kate was able to sublet a tiny studio apartment from a cop Sonny knows at SVU who’s just moved in with her girlfriend and has most of a year left on her lease.  It’s more expensive than her one-bedroom in Brooklyn, but it’s not too bad, and she’s not expecting to be there much, if things go well with Sonny.

Sonny’s never been one to hide anything, and his friends at work don’t mind hearing about Kate’s impending arrival.  Scott is married and his wife is expecting their first baby, so he’s kind of blasé about the whole thing, but Maurice thinks Sonny is the luckiest SOB on the planet.  He sees Kate as somewhere between Wonder Woman and Beyoncé and, since hearing the story of how they met, has a little bit of hero worship going for Sonny, as well.  The problem is Mary.  Any time she hears Sonny talking about Kate, Sonny has to endure stony silence for the rest of the day.  It’s annoying, but she does a good job, and Sonny doesn’t want to get her into trouble by complaining.

He did once try to talk to her about it.  He asked her to have a seat in one of the chairs before his desk, closed the door, and sat on the edge of his desk, looking down at her.  His intention was to be kind of fatherly, although she was at least his age.  The look on her face as she gazed up at him was almost beatific, which made him even more uncomfortable that he had been to begin with.  But when he began to explain that he’d noticed she sometimes became silent and standoffish with him – he’d decided not to mention Kate – she started to cry.  He tried to console her while standing his ground. She looked at him with puppy eyes awash in tears and a trembling lip.  He tried again, soft-pedaling as best he could.  She wailed.  He said maybe it was his imagination.  She began to hyperventilate.  He panicked, shoved a handful of tissues in her hand and began to apologize profusely and, in the end, promised that he, Sonny, would try to behave better in the future.  

Sonny knows women.  Sonny grew up with three sisters, and they’re all close.  But for the life of him, he can’t figure out how to deal with Mary.  So he doesn’t.  Instead, he avoids talking about Kate when she’s likely to be around and tries to keep as much distance as he can.  Which isn’t easy when Mary is in his office a hundred times a day, on one excuse or another, and brings him coffee and treats no matter how much he tries to discourage her. He tried telling her he was trying to cut down on caffeine.  She brought him decaf.  He told her he was trying to cut out sugar and carbs.  She brought him horrible sugar- and carb-free treats he wasn’t even sure were actual food.  But he had to eat them, because she checked.  He saw her look in the trash to make sure he hadn’t just tossed anything. She is relentless.  When he actually finds himself sprinkling crumbs on the napkin on his desk and going to another floor to throw a particularly horrible fruit bar in the trash, he gives in and casually mentions he’s back on caffeine, sugar, and carbs.  It’s easier to just let her bring real coffee and real treats and just eat the damn things.

***********

Anything that can go wrong with Kate’s move does.  For some reason, the moving truck company thinks she cancelled her reservation and doesn’t have another truck, which means she spends valuable time chasing down another available truck on no notice.  The keys aren’t where the previous tenant left them, so she has to get a locksmith to make new keys.  When she does finally get in, she’s hit with a terrible smell that comes from a dead rat under one of the windows.  That is somewhat of a mystery, because the rat is well decomposed, but Sonny’s friend only vacated the apartment a few days before.  Being so far behind schedule, however, Kate doesn’t have the luxury of time to worry about it.  Especially since she has to get moved in before the sun goes down, because there is no electricity, and won’t be until at least the next day.  Somehow, Con Ed is also under the impression that she cancelled her appointment.  

A couple of Kate’s cop friends and their spouses help her and Sonny with the move, and they take it all in stride, which helps Kate stay calm.  Besides, she and Sonny are pretty much delirious to finally be at this point.  Neither of them has forgotten what it was like to be apart, aching for each other, trying without success to get over one another. There’s not much that can dim the joy of this day.    

Kate finds herself staring at Sonny sometimes.  He’s only gotten better looking over time.  She decides she really likes the silver in his hair, and she’s captivated anew by his mouth – she’s always had a thing about his smile.  He has the best smile she’s ever seen, and he’s smiling more than usual today.  Sometimes he catches her looking at him with a sort of deer in the headlights expression, and it gets to him.  She looks at him the way he feels about her.    

They get Kate’s things moved and she takes them all out for pizza and beer.  It’s been a good day, regardless of the problems.   They laugh and drink to the future and it feels like Christmas morning. Sonny has a plan; he tells Kate he wants them to stay in her new place tonight.  She looks at him like he’s lost his mind, but she can’t say no to him, especially today, and they go back to the little studio with no electricity, nothing unpacked, and the bed not even put together yet.  

Earlier, Sonny put the box holding Kate’s bedding in one corner so he could find it again.  He also took some candles out of a box marked “candles” and lined them up on the windowsill. Now, by candlelight, he pulls the mattress and box spring down from where they’re leaning against a wall and makes a nest of blankets and pillows.  There, he makes love to Kate slowly and thoroughly by the light of one candle sitting nearby on the floor and it’s like electricity would only have gotten in the way of this perfect moment.  

 **********

It’s taken a while for Kate to get used to Manhattan South. They have a different way of doing some things, and she’s careful not to make any “that’s not the way we did it in Brooklyn” comments that will get her ostracized.  Her partner is a good guy who seems to be happy enough to be partnered with her.  He smooths some of the rough edges and teaches her what she needs to know without treating her like a moron.  She thinks they’ll do well together.

She’s long since moved into her studio, small as it is, and for the most part she likes it.  There are two things she’s not crazy about.  First, she comes home sometimes to find dead things in there.  Rats, mice, a snake once.  And they’re always decomposed enough to smell.  Which leads to the second thing.  Someone comes into her studio when she’s not there.  She’s almost sure of it.  She doesn’t think there is any other way for the dead things to get in there; the apartment’s so small, she thinks she would have known they were there if they crawled in themselves.   And things are just slightly off sometimes. A drawer messed up.  Things moved on a shelf.  A favorite picture of her and Sonny at Coney Island taken years before fallen to the floor and the glass broken.  She spends more time at Sonny’s, however, than she does here, so she can’t be absolutely sure.  So she doesn’t ask the Super to change the locks, or say anything to Sonny.  

There’s not much that could make her regret the move, though.  After three months in Manhattan, God knows she’s happy, and she thinks Sonny is, too.

She’s right about that.  Sonny’s starting to wonder how long he should wait before he asks her to move in with him, or whether he should ask her to marry him first, or how this should go.  He remembers their “no pressure” agreement, and he doesn’t feel pressured by Kate at all. But the agreement goes both ways, and he doesn’t want to pressure her, either.  His sister Gina counsels patience.  She says to wait until it’s been at least six months.  She also gives him shit about being like a puppy when it comes to Kate, but it’s all just sibling teasing.  All of the Carisis are glad to have Kate back.  

Sonny feels like, even as hard as he’s working, his life couldn’t be better.  Ms. Hadid is letting him handle arraignments and even motions now.   From the beginning, she’s deferred to him when it comes to questioning defendants.  She knows talent and experience when she sees it. He’s looking forward to sitting first chair at his first trial, which will necessarily have to be something small, but it’ll be huge to him.  

The one dark spot continues to be Mary.  She’s become overtly flirtatious now, in a way.  She never calls him “Sonny” anymore.  Now he’s “Sweetie” or “Honey” or “My Dear.”  It’s totally inappropriate, but in every other way, she does a great job.  It’s time to have another talk with her.  It’s past time, actually, but he dreads it.  He’s sure it will end up like the last time, but it has to be done.  Between the treats and the nicknames and the fawning, if he doesn’t address it, he’s complicit or, worse, leading her on.  

He chooses a Friday afternoon, because that way if she gets upset, she can go straight home and have time to recover.  He says a prayer to St. Michael the Archangel as he’s waiting for her.  A conversation with his assistant shouldn’t require him to ask a sword-wielding seraph to defend him in battle, but it does.  

Mary walks into his office.  Her pink dress is a bit oversize, like all her clothes, and does her figure no favors.  She’s smiling the smile Sonny’s come to think of as creepy and she stands leaning against the front of his desk expectantly.  

“Go ahead and have a seat, Mary,” Sonny says, getting up and closing the door.  She watches his every move, her hopeful simper maybe burning just a bit brighter at the idea of being alone with him behind closed doors.

“You said you wanted to talk to me.  What is it, sweetie?”

Sonny goes to sit back behind his desk.  “Well, um… that’s just it.  You and I are colleagues in a professional environment, and it’s important to behave that way.  So I wanted to ask you to call me Sonny, not anything else, like sweetie, or honey.”

Tears well in her eyes and she goes first pale, then bright red and blotchy.  “Don’t you like me?”

That question is wrong in so many ways, Sonny shouldn’t be prepared for it.  But he is. He has actually role-played this conversation with Kate.  They covered this precise question.

“Mary, I think you are very good at your job, and I appreciate working with you.  I have no complaints at all, except that I would like you to stick to calling me Sonny.”

“But we’re friends, right?”

Another question he’s practiced.  “We’re friends and professional coworkers.  That’s how we should treat each other.”

“It’s that Kate, isn’t it?  She’s jealous of us.���  This one they didn’t practice.  Sonny would not have foreseen the sudden venom in Mary’s expression and her voice. Her brown eyes were swimming in tears a moment ago, but now they’re narrowed and her lip is actually curled. Out of reflex, Sonny moves his hand to his holster which, of course, isn’t there anymore.  

Right away, he recognizes that as the overreaction it was, and tries to take a deep breath and return to the script.  “We’re talking about you and me here, Mary.  The way you and I treat each other here in the office. All I’m asking is that you don’t call me anything except my name.  OK? That’s it.”

The venom is gone as fast as it came, and now it’s time for tears.  Tissues have been prepositioned on the edge of Sonny’s desk for just this purpose, and Sonny and Kate have decided that not reacting to the tears is the way to go.  

“Sonny, I’m sorry.  I don’t mean to make you feel bad.  I’d never do that.  I just really like you, and I like working for you, and I thought you liked me back.”

“I like you just fine, Mary.  I’m just asking for this one thing.  One professional to another.”

“Is that all we are to each other?  After everything I’ve done for you?”  

Sonny thinks about that robot in that old show that used to flail its arms and yell, “Danger, Will Robinson!”  He had actually done that, sitting on his bed in his boxers, role-playing this conversation with Kate, who was wearing the shirt he’d taken off to go to bed.  Kate had actually predicted this, word for word.  

“We’re coworkers.  I think we have a good working relationship.  All I’m asking for is to be called by my name.”

She’s in full weeping mode now, having helped herself to the tissues placed before her.  Sonny braces for hyperventilation, like last time.  But instead, Mary does something that really creeps him out.  She pulls herself together.  After about three minutes of eye wiping and nose blowing, she looks at him with eyes that are red-rimmed, but calm.  Still, there’s something there…  The detective in Sonny wouldn’t trust a perp who looked at him like this.  She’s angry.  He’s sure of it.  

“I understand.  Maybe I shouldn’t call you by your first name at all.  I know some of the assistants use ‘Mister’ or ‘Ms.’  I could do that for you.”

“Sonny is fine.  I’m not a ‘mister’ kind of guy.”

“All right.  Is there anything else?”

“No, that was it.  I’m sorry you’re upset.  I just want us to be appropriate and professional.  That’s all.”

Mary gets up and leaves, that unnatural calm still pulled over her like a camouflage tarp.  Sonny shivers.

 ***********

When Kate finishes her shift on Sunday night, her partner drops her off at Sonny’s office.  Tom Hensler is a dedicated cop who enjoys ribbing Kate about dating an ADA, given the continual strain between the NYPD and the DA’s office over cases and evidence.  In truth, however, he and Sonny actually get along well.  Tom and his wife, Kelly, have been out together with Sonny and Kate a few times in the months that Kate and Tom have been partners, and they all have quite a bit in common.  Kelly is a police dispatcher and mother of their three-year-old twins - little boys who, since meeting Sonny, constantly ask their parents when Sonny can come back to play with them.

Sonny is waiting just inside the building, having finished the work he’s come in to do and ready to go home.  He gives Kate a smile that lights up her world and they begin to walk together to Kate’s apartment, enjoying the nice evening and just being together.  Upon reaching Kate’s building, they can immediately smell something when they come in the front door.  There’s no smoke, but it’s definitely a burning smell.  

“Should we call the Fire Department?”  Kate asks, concerned.

“There’s no smoke,” Sonny answers.  “Let’s go talk to the Super.”  

They knock on the door of one of the apartments on the ground floor, which is almost immediately opened by a thin, white-haired man in his sixties, looking as though he’s had a long day.  “Oh, there you are.  Let’s go take a look,” he says.  

“Did something happen?”  Kate asks, trading surprised looks with Sonny.

“You could say that.  C’mon, let’s go.”  The Building Superintendent steps out, yells back into his apartment, apparently to his wife, that he’s going upstairs, and closes the door.  He leads the way down the hall to the stairs.

Sonny and Kate exchange another look.  “Where are we going?”  Kate queries, a bad feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.  

“Your place.”

“Shit.”

The door of Kate’s third-floor apartment is open and fans are blowing out the window, although it’s a cool night.  

“We hadda get rid a’ all the smoke, so I hadda put fans in here, I hope ya’ don’t mind,” the Super explains, leading the way into Kate’s small studio, where a charred, series of bent springs and other unidentifiable debris fills a hole that comprises about half the mattress.  

“What happened?” Kate shrieks.  Sonny immediately begins looking around the room as though at a crime scene.  

“I dunno.  Weirdest thing.  The fire alarm never went off.  Abe Taylor across the hall smelled smoke, and he came out and saw it was comin’ from under your door.  So he ran down to get me, and I ran up here with a fire extinguisher.  But here’s the really strange part.  The fire was already out before I got in.  It looked like somebody put it out, everything’s all soaked.

“What’d the fire department say?”  Sonny asks, in full cop mode now.

“Nothin’.  We didn’t call ‘em.  It was out. I tried to call you, Kate, but you didn’t answer.”

“That’s right!  I’m sorry, I got your call, but I was in a briefing, and I actually forgot about it until right now.  This is no accident.  I’m calling the Fire Department.”

Sonny nods and starts asking questions of the Super as though he’s just naturally fallen back into detective mode.  The Super has asked the other people on the third floor, but no one has seen or heard anything, and no one has seen a stranger in the building.  

“They’re on their way.  They’re bringing the whole show, I’m afraid.  I couldn’t talk them out of it,” Kate says.

Half an hour later, the street is full of fire equipment and flashing lights, surrounded by onlookers who don’t stay long when they see there was no flame.  Not even any smoke.  Just a burned smell and a lot of people standing around.  

Kate is rattled.  She’s unflappable at work, but this is her home, and it feels like an attack. Sonny stays at her side, always touching her in some way – holding her hand or with an arm around her, sometimes just putting a hand on her back.  She answers all the questions she can, but she really doesn’t know anything because she wasn’t there.  There is one question, however, that both she and Sonny can answer.  Neither wants to, but the answer is fairly obvious.

“Do you know of anyone who would want to do something like this to you?”  The arson investigator asks, taking notes in a little notebook that Kate notices is covered with smudges that she assumes are ash.  

Kate looks at Sonny, who looks back with an equally troubled expression.  

“I think we do,” Sonny says to Kate.

“We don’t have any proof.  We don’t know it’s her,” Kate replies.

“Tell me,” the investigator says.  So they do.  

Somewhere during their explanation of what’s been happening with Mary Duderon, one of the inspector’s technicians comes down the front stairs of Kate’s building, a bag filled with what looks like charred sticks in her hand.  She holds the bag out to the inspector, who squints at it.  

“Picture frame,” he says.

When he says that, Kate sees unburnt edges of the sticks, suddenly recognizing the sticks as being from the frame around the picture of her and Sonny at Coney Island.  She feels sick.

“It’s taking some time to separate out, but it looks like there are two or three more.  Looks like there were pictures in frames on the bed while it was burning,” the technician says.

Kate looks at Sonny.  They both know there are, or were, a few framed photos of them scattered around Kate’s apartment, including a copy of the picture of them at Maxwell’s hung on a wall.  

“Can I go look?  I think they could all be pictures of the two of us,” Kate says, her voice weak. She doesn’t realize how tightly she’s holding Sonny’s hand, and he doesn’t mention it.  

“Why don’t you let me do it?” He asks, wanting to spare her if he can.  “I’ve probably been here almost as much as you have.  I know what was there.”  

“You can both go up,” the arson inspector says.  “I want to know exactly what’s missing.”

Two framed pictures, one of Kate with her family and one of Kate and Ahmad Washington and the rest of her Narcotics squad in Brooklyn, still sit on a windowsill, untouched.

What’s missing is every picture of Sonny and Kate that was displayed in the apartment.  All of them have been piled on the bed and set on fire.  

[spierfics]

Hdjdkd your fics make me so happy oh my gosbhdhe, but i had a silly fic idea. Basically, a spiderman/love, simon au? Doesn't matter which boy is spiderboy? Thank you again, for sharing your writing with us!! Your writing is so sweet!!

Over the Clouds - Spierfeld Fic

If Bram had known taking AP Chemistry would involve getting bitten by a radioactive spider; one which gave him super strength, insane reflexes, a sixth sense and the ability to shoot webs; Bram would have simply taken Physics.

But Bram had gotten used to the craziness by this point. It had been almost two years since the incident occurred, and more than a year since Spider-Man became a public figure.

The first few months were the toughest, especially since he had nobody to talk to. He had been afraid to speak to Garrett after he’d nearly rendered him unconscious with a pass on the field. The soccer ball had hit Garrett so badly that the school needed to call an ambulance.

Bram quit the team that day.

But Garrett wasn’t someone who quit on his friends, showing up at Bram’s home every day to make sure he was alright. Eventually, Bram told him the truth. It wasn’t like he could hide it forever, especially from someone who was as involved in his life as Garrett was.

“This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” Garrett said in complete awe when he’d first seen what Bram could do.

“Well, I’m still crap at everything,” Bram shrugged. “Not really a hero,”

“You’re not a hero,” Garrett replied. “You’re a fucking superhero,”

“Oh my god, did you read the latest article on Spidey?” Abby squealed, scrolling through her phone frantically.

Simon barely registered what she was saying, having been momentarily distracted. Bram Greenfeld had just entered the cafeteria.

Sure, Simon had been obsessed with the masked vigilante earlier in the year; but he’d given up on the idea of ever meeting him, let alone imagine a romantic scenario with the two of them together.

Simon wanted to focus on someone more real, and the way that adorable boy smiled at him sometimes made Simon forget that anyone else other than Bram existed. His crush on Bram had started a few months back when he and Bram were selected to help show new students around.

There was something about him, an aura, that he had a secret too. A part of himself that he couldn’t share with everyone, but he wanted to. It was something Simon couldn’t shake off, and since that day, Bram Greenfeld had been on his mind.

“Si! That woman he saved from the condo fire the other day, said she heard him up close and he sounded like her son. She said he sounded like a kid, not a man!” Abby nearly yelled, pulling Simon out of his thoughts.

“What’s your point?” Simon said, finally tearing his attention away from the table across from them.

“That he could be our age!” Abby rationalized. “He’s not necessarily a man, he could just be a regular kid like us,”

“What kind of kid would give up his everyday life to go around saving people?” Leah imposed, “You don’t think people around him would figure that out? Like his family? Or his friends?”

“Not if he was good at keeping secrets,” Abby replied back. “Come on, Nick. Back me up,”

“Hiding such a massive part of your identity from everyone you know,” Nick thought carefully. “Nah, that’s impossible,“

Simon tried his best not to roll his eyes.

It was way past midnight when Bram finally arrived home, way past the curfew he’d set for himself on school nights. It had been a quiet day, for the most part, there was one mugging and three cats in trees that were successfully taken care of.

Then there was the robbery, on a local grocery shop near an intersection. Bram had run into some trouble there, but Bram left that guy unconscious and tied up outside the store for the cops to find. So all in all, it ended pretty well.

Bram mentally checked his agenda, recalling that he’d managed to finish his Math homework during lunch, which he ate on a non-operational crane. His acrophobia was quite a battle in those early days of training, but he’d gotten control over his fear now. The sights he’d gotten to see were some of the most beautiful in his life.

Thinking of beautiful things, Bram’s mind casually drifted to one person; Simon Spier. Bram had only spoken to him a few times, through their common friend, but never on an individual basis. Bram wished he had the courage.

He scoffed out loud. Bram swung from building to building on a daily basis. He had run into burning apartments and physically fought men with guns. But nothing scared him more than having a conversation with his crush.

‘This is why there aren’t any teenage heroes,’ Bram thought to himself, flinching as he took off his suit.

Something was wrong.

It’s been a week since Bram had come to school, and although Simon had not-so-casually brought it up in a conversation with his friends, he hadn’t gotten any answers. He built up the courage, or stupidity, to go ask Garrett who always was by Bram’s side.

“Um, hey, Garrett?”

Garrett looked up from his phone, momentarily confused since they’d hardly ever spoken to each other, but then offered Simon a huge smile.

“Spier! How are you?”

Simon hesitated before sitting down opposite Garrett, he was certain that he wasn’t on a last-name basis with Garrett, who often called his team-mates by their last name. 

Regardless, he seemed like he was in a good mood, and Simon realized that Garrett probably didn’t care about why Simon was asking about Bram.

“I was just wondering…” Simon said in a small voice. “I haven’t seen Bram for a bit. Is he okay?”

Garrett eyed Simon suspiciously as if he were trying to analyze his intentions.

Simon cursed himself, knowing that asking would be a mistake, Garrett was going to find out and he’d tell Bram and then the entire school would…

“Bram pulled something on the pitch a few days ago, and it still hasn’t healed up,” Garrett finally offered. “But I’ll let him know you said ‘hi’,”

“Oh no! No, I was just worried because we’re partnered up in this Chemistry project together and I just hadn’t seen him…” Simon trailed off as he got up.

The thing was, both boys were lying to the other. And both of them knew it. Nick had told all of them that Bram had quit the team a while back. And Garrett knew Bram had vowed to never take another Chemistry class again in his life.

Garrett went to visit Bram that afternoon, sitting at his desk as Bram rested in bed. It was tough seeing his friend like this, knowing that he could do nothing to help him other than cheer him up.

A few days back, ‘Spider-Man’ had interrupted a grocery store robbery, and he must have been distracted because he came back home with a gunshot wound in his arm.

Apparently, he’d been feigning illness a little too well, and his mother let him take a few days off of school. Garrett was tasked with bringing Bram his assignments and a bunch of medical supplies.

“It’s looking better,” Garrett said, eyeing the wound.

“Scrapes and cuts heal up fast, but I guess this one was a little deeper,” Bram replied.

“That bullet nearly took your freaking arm off, and you didn’t even realize until you got home,”

“It was the adrenaline,” Bram explained.

“Aren’t your spider-senses supposed to defend you from that sort of stuff,”

“It did,” Bram defended himself. “That bullet was meant for my chest, I moved out of the way,”

“Fine,” Garrett surrendered. “Spier asked about you today,”

Bram immediately sat up in bed, staring at Garrett and urging him to elaborate.

“I don’t know! He was worried that you haven’t shown up all week, and then he wrote it off to some B.S excuse about being science partners or something,”

Bram couldn’t contain his smile, “I guess I’ll be back at school tomorrow,”

“Ok, Romeo. But remember, you can’t let distractions get the best of you,”

“I’ll try,”

He had a feeling this was going to be a good day, considering that Bram was finally back after his mysterious disappearance, and even offered him a smile as he sat down next to Garrett after lunch.

Their entire History class had a field trip together that day, and Simon was particularly excited since he and Bram were the only ones who knew each other in that class.

The bus ride wasn’t filled with too much entertainment, but somehow he’d found the courage to offer his seat to Bram, who kindly accepted. Bram was so easy to talk to, once they got past the initial shyness, the conversation flowed easily.

By the time they got to the museum, Simon felt like they were inseparable.

“Hey Bram, I think we’re going to head to the café in about twenty minutes…” Simon began but could see that Bram’s expression had suddenly changed.

“Did you feel that?” Bram asked looking around at nothing in particular.

“No,” Simon replied.

“Si, you need to get out of this building. Take as many people as you can with you, okay!” Bram said in a frantic tone.

Simon was momentarily frozen, not knowing whether he should focus on the random change in Bram’s demeanour, the weight of his words or the nickname that Bram had so effortlessly used.

Simon could barely catch his breath, racing out of the building and holding on to Bram’s hand. He didn’t know how Bram was running that fast, but before he knew it they were out of the building.

“It looks like Mr. Sykes got the class out,” Bram commented, counting the number of their classmates.

“What was that,” Simon asked, his voice shaking.

“I don’t know,” Bram answered, keeping his gaze on the upper floors of the museum. “You should join everyone,”

“What about you?” Simon asked, wondering why Bram seemed so preoccupied at a time like this.

“I’ll join you in a second. I’m going to look for some staff members and talk to them,”

“Why? Did you see something,”

“Yeah, I think I did,”

Bram found an abandoned corner of the building, which housed industrial-sized garbage containers. A perfect cover, and within moments Bram was suited up.

He walked back a few steps before slinging a web to the top of the building. He was sure there would be an entrance up there.

Surely enough, there was and as Bram carefully stepped into the building, he could hear voices. There were four men, definitely armed and Bram planned the entire fight out.

Within seconds, he climbed up on the ceiling, taking advantage of the one who was a lookout and knocking him out cold.

One seemed to be focused on a large piece of artillery, something that could have caused the explosion, while the other two seemed to be looking at blueprints. Bram decided to go after the two, knocking their heads together in one go.

The last one turned around in a panicked state and fired his handgun at Bram. He managed to dodge them without much effort and managed to swing the gun right out of his hands. Another web pulled the final criminal towards him, and Bram used the leverage to kick him down into unconsciousness.

Tying up the criminals was always the most difficult part, as Bram always worried one would wake up and move around, but the four of them were wrapped around a pillar within ten minutes.

Bram shook his head, why couldn’t he have one day off.

Next, Bram checked the main floors for anyone who wasn’t in the building and then exited the museum.  He took a moment to address everyone in the crowd, ensuring them that they were all safe, and he’d taken care of those who were involved in the crime.

“Please let the authorities know that they’ll find the four men in the northwest section of the enclave in the upper level. They’ve been disarmed and the artillery is military-grade. If anyone’s in serious need of medical attention, I can get them to a hospital right now,”

“We’re missing people!” Mr. Sykes called out to him, and Bram panicked before remembering he was a student too.

“How many people?” Bram asked, trying to deepen his voice.

“Two of my students. Bram Greenfeld and Simon Spier,”

“Simon?”

“Yes, and Abraham Greenfeld. According to some of my kids, Simon went to look for his friend,”

“And you let him?!” Bram yelled but caught himself in time before he went too far. “Sorry, I’ll go look for the two of them, just please keep everyone else safe,”

Mr. Sykes nodded, slightly backing away in fear.

Simon knew that sneaking into the building wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but he couldn’t imagine leaving Bram in that type of danger. Currently, he was stuck in an elevator, which had stopped working halfway through.

The lights were flickering on and off, and Simon was sure he’d heard gunshots. It was only a matter of time before someone found him, and it could mean either rescue or something worse.

It felt like forever before he heard another sound, and Simon wasn’t sure if he was imagining those sounds. Someone was calling his name, and he was ninety percent sure any criminals wouldn’t be on a first-name basis with him.

“Simon! Are you here?”

For some reason, Simon thought he recognized that voice, so he shouted back: “Bram! I’m in here!”

The elevator doors began creaking, and Simon knew there was no earthly way Bram could open those with his bare hands. And he was correct because it wasn’t Bram.

“Spider-Man?”

“Hey, are you alright?”

Simon felt like that the masked vigilante sounded eerily similar to Bram, but blamed it on the frantic situation he was in.

“Y-Yeah. I’m okay,” Simon stuttered. “Are you alright?”

Spider-Man seemed to be confused, and paused before saying, “Nobody’s ever asked me that before,”

Simon couldn’t see it, but he was sure that the guy beneath the mask was smiling at him.

“I’m gonna step into the elevator okay? And then I’m going to help you out. This elevator is stuck between two floors, so there’s a bit of a drop, but you’re gonna be safe, understand?”

“Got it,”

“Okay. I’m stepping in now,”

Spider-Man took a step inside and Simon could feel the structure shake beneath him; the hero beside him could clearly feel it too. Spider-Man carefully opened the hatch above them and seemed to be measuring the space mentally.

Then he offered his hand to Simon, who took it slowly.

“Just hold on as tight as you can, okay. And don’t look down,”

Simon wrapped one arm around his shoulder and the other around his neck, holding on as tight as possible. In a flash, Spidey shot a web up and Simon could feel himself being yanked upwards. He closed his eyes shut, but the sound of the crash was unmistakable. That could have been him.

When he felt his feet on solid ground, Simon finally opened up his eyes. He was clearly high up, higher than he’d ever been before. Looking down at the crowd below, he realized he was on the roof of the building.

“You’re okay,” Spider-Man offered him some comfort.

“Did you find Bram?”

The masked hero waited a moment before responding. “Bram?”

“He’s my…” Simon paused. “He’s my friend, the one I went back in looking for,”

“I wouldn’t advise doing that in the future,” the disguised hero replied sternly. “There was nobody else in the building, but I’ll keep an eye out for him,”

“Okay. Thanks for saving me and everything,” Simon said to him casually, “let me know if there’s any way I can pay you back.”

Simon was certain he had just made Spider-Man laugh, and he could definitely put that down on his bucket list.

After dropping off Simon with the crowd, Bram changed back into his regular clothes within a matter of minutes and raced back around the building.

“Bram!” Simon said, as soon as he saw him, running up and wrapping his arms around him in a hug. “Are you hurt?”

“No. I’m fine. I went looking for you,”

“So did I,” Simon replied. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Bram nodded. “Are you?”

“Yeah, got into a little bit of trouble, but I got out of it just fine. Met Spider-Man,” Simon shrugged, sporting a shy smile.

“Oh?” Bram returned his smile.

“He’s not all that he’s hyped up to be,” Simon replied jokingly.

Arriving home, his mother greeted with a tight hug, refusing to let him go for a number of minutes. 

‘If only she knew’ Bram thought to himself. 

As the day turned into night, Bram went over the day’s events in his mind. He had an urge to swing on by to Simon’s house, in full costume, knowing that it was probably the dumbest thing he could ever do. Maybe this was why crushes and heroism didn’t mix well together, but Bram had to remember he was a teenager, and priorities were always muddled.

He paced around back and forth in his room, putting the mask on and off wondering who would impress Simon more. He knew the obvious answer was Spidey, but Bram had a feeling that he and Simon had gotten off considerably well throughout the day. Simon had actually gone looking for him, and that had to mean something.

He almost missed the knock on his door, and barely had time to shove the mask under his bed.

“Honey?” Bram’s mom opened the door an inch. “There’s someone here to see you?”

“Garrett?”

“Nope,” Bram’s mom replied mysteriously.

Bram walked down the stairs and was pleasantly surprised to see Simon in his foyer.

“Si?” Bram said, walking up to him, face riddled with confusion. 

“Hey, Bram. I-I wanted to see how you were doing, after today,” Simon shuffled in place.

“We can step outside,” Bram offered, wondering if Simon wanted to talk alone.

They sat together on their front porch, and Simon tried to keep his breathing under control. He had no idea how he’d built up the courage to do this, but he knew he had to.

If his experience today had taught him anything, it was that nothing was promised, not even the next moment. Today could have ended very differently for him, for Bram, and for everyone there. And he knew that someone wouldn’t always be there to save them.

He needed to let Bram know the truth.

“I like you,” Simon blurted out as soon as they sat down.

“What?”

“I know that sounds fucking weird to hear, and I don’t even know if you like guys, or let alone like me…but I could have died today and I realized that I couldn’t let a day go by without letting you know that…”

“Si?” Bram interrupted.

“Yeah?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I like you too. A lot,” Bram replied.

“Oh?”

“And if it’s okay with you, I’d really like to kiss you,”

“That’s more than okay,”

Bram carefully leaned in to close the distance, closing his eyes in time. He felt the gentlest movement against his mouth and Bram felt his heart skip a beat. Simon was kissing him back.

Bram wanted to stay in this moment for as long as he could, but he knew that this one act was going to change everything. This was going to be another person who he’d either be keeping a secret from, or to whom he’d be confessing a heavy truth. This was someone who’s safety could be used against him. Someone with whom he would fall in love.

But Bram pushed away those intrusive thoughts, giving his all to the kiss. At that moment, he decided, nothing else was going to matter. No bad guys, no overbearing stress, not his secret identity; nobody existed outside of the bubble of himself and the boy in his arms.

There would come a time where he’d have to trust Simon with everything, and Bram had an inkling it would turn out fine. After all, Simon owed him one.

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E25 (July 10, 2018)

First show in the new studio! Ashley wasn’t nervous until Sam started talking about how nervous he was. There’s a lot of nervousness. Now with Dani Cam!

Tonight’s guests are Ashley Johnson and Sam Riegel!

Announcements: TM is headed to San Diego Comic Con again this year! On Tuesday, July 24 (the Tuesday after their Saturday panel), the panel will be broadcast in TM’s usual time slot. Wyrmwood giveaways are back starting this week, but will be hosted in the Critical Role Twitch chat moving forward. New shirt in the store (featuring Nott and Jester’s detective agency!).

@critrolestats​ for this episode:

Yasha is practically tied with Fjord for highest average damage dealt per episode (35.875 for Yasha, 36.040 for Fjord).

Nott maintains her lead for the most natural ones (23). Sam points out that he’s using the same dice as last campaign and suspects the proximity to the baby may have been a curse on his luck. Ashley: “I feel like he couldn’t possibly be a curse on anyone.” Sam: “No, he’s a demon child. Have you held up a mirror to the child to see if it has a reflection? That’s all I’m saying.”

It’s been 34 days since the Mighty Nein met in Trostenwald. Ashley points out that it’s starting to be a substantial number of days for everyone to have been spending all their time together.

Kiri was with the Mighty Nein for 11 days.

Nott’s new crossbow is a +1 hand crossbow. If Sam rolls a 20, it magically resets and fires another bolt immediately. If Sam rolls a 1, it tries to do that, fails, and shoots Nott instead. Because it’s a magical weapon, it will deal magic damage even if non-magical bolts are fired from it. Sam’s holding out for a cupholder.

“Beau is-- I think more of Beau and Yasha’s relationship, whatever that turns out to be, I like exploring that in the game.” Yasha “got a kick out of” Beau playing up her injuries and didn’t mind carrying her around. “She’ll help a girl out.”

The official name for Nott’s flask is The Flask of Perpetual Booze.

Heroism for the sake of being nice is definitely new from Nott’s perspective---she and Caleb have mainly just been fighting for survival until now. Money is not what drives Yasha, so getting into a fight is more motivating for her than any sort of reward. She was very affected by getting the couple out of prison, and especially by what followed with Kiri. “She’s trying to not let things affect her, but they do.” She’s averse to getting emotional, because then people are likely to see the cracks; it’s easier for her not to engage, but Kiri leaving affected her more than she was ready for. (Part of it was bleedthrough from Ashley and Marisha trying not to lose their composure during that scene.)

Nott was surprised that the Schusters accepted a good deed from her even knowing she was a goblin. “It maybe changed her impression of how ready or willing people are out there to accept a little gobby into their world.” Traveling with the Nein for so long and having their respect has “definitely expanded her opinion of the world and the people who live in it.” She’s never had that experience before. “So far, mainly people throw rocks at her.”

Gif of the Week: the many faces of Sam-as-Burt-Reynolds.

Sam’s eyes were watering and stinging all night because of the fake mustache. “By the end of the night, I was struggling to keep my eyes open.”

Brian: “I have good news. The fly that was buzzing around everywhere and bugging us is dead. It’s in my drink.”

It was a big relief to everyone that Kiri made it through her time with the Nein alive and okay, but it was still really sad to give her up. “As Sam Riegel, I’m really sad to see the character go, but in the game I kept looking for a way to find her a safe place.” They both feel pretty good about leaving her with the Schuster family. Sam points out that they know where she is, so they can come back and visit. Brian gives Matt well-deserved kudos for how lovable Kiri was right from her first appearance.

Because of Ashley’s schedule, she knew Matt had to plan something for Yasha’s disappearance, but he hinted to her that something would happen at the end of the night and that she’d know what to do. “He makes it feel organic and part of the story. I like that it’s the three of us going together on this journey.” She didn’t know beforehand what was going to happen (and still doesn’t know more than we do) so it was a very exciting scene to play out.

Sam and Ashley realize anyone could have volunteered for that last watch---they’re so impressed with how Matt set that up as their choice, even knowing he might’ve had to scramble to get the right combinations of players ready to go.

Sam points out that they’re left with no obvious leader, there’s a lot of underconfidence with Caleb and Nott and a lot of overconfidence with the other two (”all misplaced”). No healer, one person with substantial magic, no tank. The clues basically consist of a bit of blood on the ground. “I don’t know how we’re going to find these people, and even if we found them, if the baddies were powerful enough to apprehend all three of them, I don’t know if we’d be strong enough to rescue them.”

Fanart of the Week: a gorgeous scene of Beau training.

Both Scanlan and Nott have “a visceral hate of goblinkind for different reasons.” Scanlan would kill one on sight. “Nott might ask them a few questions first, and then kill them.” She hasn’t come into contact with any goblins from outside her clan. “Maybe she’d have an open mind if she met a really cool goblin.”

“Yasha’s relationship with the Stormlord is still fairly new, so I think her connection with him and figuring out how to connect with him-- she’s still figuring that out, but I also think he probably knew she could take care of herself. She’s still figuring out what she’s supposed to do to reach in and connect with him.” It’s tied in with her backstory. “There’s a lot that she doesn’t understand about it.”

On Nott losing her detective partner: “They’re bad cop/bad cop. Without one of them, they’re just bad cop! How would that work?” Beau might be her first attempt at a new detective duo.

Ashley’s okay with the speed at which Yasha’s backstory is being revealed---in that basically none of her backstory has been revealed. “I would love to have revealed more while I was home, but her backstory is very sensitive and it’s not something she would be comfortable talking about.”

At one point, Sam was writing a pilot pitch for a CW-type show about “sexy minotaurs and centaurs in a high school.”

Stealing the gun wasn’t about messing with Taliesin; Sam has specific plans for the gun. “Let’s just say that Nott has a fascination with things and enjoys shiny things, but also enjoys chemical things, and it’s an interesting item to her and she has ideas of what she could try with it. It also helps that it bothers Taliesin. I’m not going to lie.”

The Stormlord is more of a protector figure than a distant, abstract figure to Yasha. “He definitely saved her from something. Before the Stormlord, she didn’t serve any gods. That was a foreign thing to her. I don’t think she knows what servitude means, yet, but she’s getting there.”

Nott felt like a protector and a keeper of Kiri. “Innocent little kid who needs to be protected and is also adorable!” She’s also very pleased to see Caleb coming out of his shell.

Ashley has confidence in the remaining four members of the Nein. “I think they’re going to be fine.” Sam: “Let’s be frank, Ashley’s been carrying us as a show for some time now, and losing her might sink the ship.”

There’s some speculation about why Matt keeps putting manacles into the narrative. Sam: “They might have some sort of a payoff later? Otherwise, he’s just kinky.”

Matt has said that he’ll figure out a way to bring Ashley in on Skype even if she’s the only one of the three available, but she also just wants let the narrative unfold naturally. They’ll see how it goes moving forward.

Unexpected Matt Key!

Talks Machina In The Dark:

Weirdest stuff found during the move? Sam found a bunch of rejected things he was going to paste to the side of his flask. “Some of them were clever. Some of them were not.” Brian: “Taliesin’s coffin that he sleeps in.” They all found a lot of dice lying around. Ashley’s Gil dice is still missing!

Sam does some squats. Brian: “Totally normal. It’s totally normal.”

Everyone’s really sad that Laura couldn’t be there for Jester’s goodbye with Kiri.

Yasha “100%” did not feel qualified to give Caleb advice. “Just anybody coming to her for advice about anything. Why are you asking me? What advice could I possibly give you?” Sam demands to know if she’s ever had a friend. “Yes, of course. She comes from a very rural area, and raised in a certain way that she was-- You gotta wait. It’ll make sense. There’s a lot of life that she hasn’t lived yet. She doesn’t have a lot of life experience.” She’s around Ashley’s age (or the equivalent for an aasimar).

Both Sam and Ashley think Kiri would be good as a rogue. Possibly a bard? Ashley: “Matt’ll come up with something great if we ever see her again.” Brian points out the potential for a kenku using mimicry for Vicious Mockery.

Votes go to Marisha’s Fjord voice over Taliesin’s Jester voice.

We delve into the disgusting depths of how gross Sam’s flask gets. “We need to get you a little brush.” “We do. I might get tetanus from this thing.”

[buckys-old-habits]

Halloween Visitor (Bucky x Reader)

Word Count: 2k

Happy Halloween~ 

„Tomorrow is Halloween“, Wanda grins happily and Bucky rolls his eyes. This girl is way too happy about a children's day. An evening where kids run around, dressed as some creature and knock on stranger's doors and accept sweets from them. And then you tell them, that they shouldn't do that the rest of the year.

“You know that it's just fun, no need to get so excited”, Bucky grumbles and takes a sip of his beer, raising his eyebrow at the brunette girl. “Yeah, I know that, calm your tits, Buck. I'm not interested in the new traditions, but the story behind it”, she retorts and Sam hums. 

“What is the meaning behind Halloween exactly?” “To scare little kids and make them run”, Natasha chuckles and Bucky grins behind his bottle, while Steve shakes his head in defeat. Wanda stands up and Bucky groans, knowing that now she will tell them all the details she knows. “It's actually interesting that not many know the fact that this day comes from the Irish culture and it's religious”, she starts and Bucky sinks further into the bean bag. 

“It's said that between the 31st October and 1st November the door between the ghost world and the real world open and the ghosts of people roam freely around here, visiting their old homes again. But”, she holds up her finger and grins. 

“When they can't find their home they possess the innocents and to prevent that people started to dress up with scary masks and horrible outfits, to blend in with the ghosts.”Steve blinks and hums softly. “I heard the 31st is also a big day for evangelists because it's their biggest day of the whole year circle.” Sam nods. “Heard that too.” Bucky shakes his head and stands up, setting the empty beer bottle onto the table. 

“I will go back home. You are all crazy, believing in such stupid shit.” “You are just scared”, Sam teases and Bucky flips him off before walking to the door. “And don't come to my flat tomorrow to trick or treat, I won't open.” With that he slams the door shut after him and takes in the fresh air, sighing softly. “Such bullshit. 

Shaking his head he walks home, just thinking about falling into bed and sleeping in tomorrow. His day was calm, mostly because he shut off his bell, to prevent people from annoying him for sweets. The TV program was bursting with horror movies and he lounges on the couch and watches some of them, but making more fun of them than taking them seriously. 

Along the day he checked social media and saw some pictures of his dressed up friends, readying themselves for the Halloween party this evening that Tony, another classmate of him, throws. It's not something Bucky likes, the crowds are too much and the atmosphere is always scary, not in the traditional sense of making your heart racing from fear but from anxiety. 

He wasn't a social person, too much already went wrong in his young years, but he doesn't mind. Bucky loves the quiet and slowly he falls into a slumber on the couch. 

He wakes up a few hours later, shivering from the sudden cold in the room and he blindly tries to reach for his phone on the table. 

“More to the left.” He follows the direction and finally finds his phone and checks the time, 7 pm. But then he realizes something, his body freezing and his mind drawing a blank. There was someone telling him where to grab for his phone... And he lives alone... 

He scrambles up and looks around, gaze halting at a figure sitting on the table, poking at the bottles of energy drink and the empty pizza cartons. “You really should clean up”, you say and Bucky rubs his eyes, maybe the movies got to his head and he is still dreaming. Pinching himself he winces at the pain and looks at the person on his table again, you are still there and now watching him, raising your eyebrow. “Are you alright?”

Bucky finally falls into a panic and grabs the next best thing to protect himself, the remote. He holds it in front of him and breathes heavily. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” You chuckle softly and tilts your head to the side. “I'm (y/n) and I'm just visiting my old home.”

Bucky blinks and briefly, the story about the real tradition of Halloween Wanda told comes to his mind, but he shakes it off and stands up, towering over you. “Don't shit me. Get out now and I won't call the cops.” Sighing you stand up and... float. You float, your feet not touching the floor and Bucky pales before chucking the remote at you. 

Just as he thought and feared it flies through you and hits the wall on the other side. Holding your stomach where the remote passed, you pout. “That's a weird feeling”, you hum and Bucky flops back onto the couch, suddenly feeling sick. “You are...”, he shivers and whispers. “You are a ghost.” “Yep”, you pop the 'p' and grin at him. “Finally you got it. Need another throw at me to confirm?”

Bucky shakes his head and stares at you, eyes wide and heart racing. You just watch him too, waiting for his next move. The man swallows and sits up straight, clutching his hand to stop them from shaking.

“How...?”You sit back down on the table and smiles. “I died, became a ghost and since it's Halloween tonight I wanted to visit my home, see what's going on here and maybe get some new memories back.” Bucky nods mindlessly, nothing more than a bop without any meaning. “Sure, yeah...”, he clears his throat and frowns. “So... So you lived here?”You look around and nod, smiling softly. 

“Yeah, I did. You really changed some stuff around here.” You look towards the bedroom and frown in distaste. “Why did you paint the walls dark gray? The two light green walls made the room look much bigger.” Bucky looks towards said room and shrugs. “I didn't like it...?” Tilting your head to the side, you hum softly. “Yeah, I guess.”

Taking the moment when you think about his painting choice, Bucky decides to study you closer. Despite him always believing that ghosts are fully transparent, like the movies often show, you seem normal, only when he takes a closer look he thinks he can see the top of the table through your legs. 

You are young, maybe the same age as him and wear clothes that are still in fashion. So you couldn't have died years or even centuries ago. Bucky moved into this apartment only one year ago, which means that you had to have died at least last year. “Sudden heart attack.” Bucky looks up at you and you smile sadly, tapping your fingers on the table. “If you ask yourself how I died. It was a sudden and heavy heart attack, I died before I even got to the hospital. At least that is what I remember. I think it was two years ago.” “I'm sorry...”

You smile softly and shrug. “Nothing you can change and it's alright. I had my time on earth and I can visit once a year.”Bucky licks his lips and leans closer to you. “Did you visit last year?” You shake your head and chuckle softly. “No, don't worry. I didn't see you in something embarrassing. I didn't know that I could go home last year, I was still... working out that I am dead.”

He nods and sighs, leaning back again. “Seems like Wanda was right.” You hum softly and smile. “I'm surprised.” “Why?”, Bucky glances at you and stands up, walking to the kitchen and opening the fridge, pulling out a beer. 

“You didn't really freak out, I thought you were ready to faint.” He chuckles, opening the bottle and taking a big chug. “I think my brain shut off... We will see how it goes in a few hours.” You laugh and shake your head, then you stop and frown. “I don't know your name.”

“James, but everyone calls me Bucky”, he answers and leans against the kitchen counter. “Well, then. Happy to meet you, Bucky. To a good night now.” Bucky smiles and nods. “Sure, (y/n). Do you want to watch some TV?” “Of course. I miss the new seasons of some of my favorite shows. Time to catch up”, with that you flop onto the couch, barely hovering over the fabric and Bucky chuckles, grabbing some pudding for himself and sits beside you. 

He must have fallen asleep after some time because the next thing he knows that there is a loud ringing beside him. Groaning he turns over and fishes for his phone, knocking it off the table and grumbling. “Shit...” Slowly he opens his eyes and glares against the light streaming in from the windows before taking his phone and answering the call. “Yeah?”, he turns onto his back and sighs. “Hey, sleepy head. How was your evening?”, Steve sounds much too awake for this time, whatever actual time it is.

“Calm, why?”, Bucky sits up and looks around, suddenly remembering the visitor he had last evening. “Just wanted to check in. The others and I are getting dinner tonight, you wanna join?” Frowning Bucky walks to the kitchen and then to his bedroom, but there is no sign of a ghost floating around, not even that you were here at all. “Buck?”, Steve sounds worried. “Are you alright?”“Yeah, yeah... I will join you. See you then.”

With that Bucky ends the call and glances around again, before deciding to call out for you. But there is no answer and he sighs. “Guess that the door to the other world is closed now.”

He remembers you telling him that you will have to go back when the sun comes up and he told you that he will stay awake until you leave. Seemingly he couldn't fulfill this promise and left you alone until you had to go.It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth when he thinks about the fact that he talked with a dead person, the one living here before you. 

Then an idea struck him and he knows how to make sure you know that he is sorry for leaving you alone, breaking his promise. Quickly he grabs his phone and searches the number from his landlord and calls him. After ten minutes he knows what he needs to know and ends the call. It's true. You were the former resident to this flat and you really died from a heart attack at your work, nobody could help you and the ambulance was too late to save you. 

His landlord apologized for not telling him from the start and promising to cut some rent in the future. It's an added bonus, he must admit. An hour later he finally arrived at the cemetery. He locks his car and looks around, seeing the people huddle around graves and praying, some just walking around and looking at the newly planted graves. 

Stuffing his hands into his pockets he slowly steps through the metal gate and walks along the gravel path, looking over the names of the graves, searching for yours. You told him a few things about yourself, at least the things you could remember. You are still collecting bits and pieces, but you are proud of the things you know. The more he listened to you and your happy attitude the more he asked himself why you had to die so early. 

Why you couldn't live on and see the next season of your show yourself or the next few movies with your favorite actor. Or just eat some food again. You were a happy person, even when you know that you are dead and won't come back to life. Your only chance to see the earth once a year and then only for a few hours. You told him that you were surprised that he could see you and he just shrugged, not sure why he could either, but it doesn't matter. 

After the first shock ebbed away he was glad to have met you and to get to talk to you. You were a stranger, but still fun to be around. He stops in front of a grave with a heart-shaped tomb and a line of colorful flowers. A little angel sits at one edge and Bucky smiles softly. Maybe you should have been an angel and not a simple ghost. 

Gently he kneels down and lays the little bouquet he brought onto the rim and looks at your name etched into the stone along with your day of birth and the day you died. “Hey, (y/n)”, he hums softly and carefully touches the tomb, the cold surface making his hairs on his arm stand up. “I'm sorry I couldn't stay awake until you went. Maybe the last beer was too much for me”, he chuckles softly, remembering you chiding him after his second bottle already. 

“But I wanted to tell you that I had fun and I'm glad I met you, even when I chucked the remote at you at first. Maybe you can come back next year again and then we can watch some more stuff or I can make some pictures of the places you like and then show you. Some things really changed.”After he finished he feels a shiver run down his back and a light touch at his cheek. Bucky smiles and stands up again, taking one last glance at the grave. “See you next Halloween, my sassy ghost.”

Tags:  @buckyisthepuresthuman @dyanlzbb @jamdropx35 @jitterbuck

(The bold ones are the ones that I couldn’t tag, I’m sorry.)

[jinmukangwrites]

Nightwing Bad Things Happen Bingo: Locked Up and Left Behind

X/Done Heart/Next WiFi/Requested

Ever since Jason was brought into the Wayne family, kidnappings came to be a rare occurrence. Dick’s theory was that most criminals realized how stupid it was to go after Bruce Wayne, especially now that he was more public with funding Batman and the Justice League. Dick had been kidnapped hundreds of times and not a single perp got a single coin out of it. Just a lot of bruises from Batman and a long sentence to prison.

Jason… when he was alive… got kidnapped once or twice, but he was usually rescued fairly quickly since the only people risking getting Batman and the League on their tail were idiots. As he grew up and Bruce hadn’t met a single demand of any kidnapper and still got Jason back safe and sound, and as time went by kidnappers just kind of… gave up.

And then Bruce adopted Tim, and no one remembered that kidnapping was a thing until Bruce got the phone call.

Dick happened to be there. He was over visiting the manor mostly because Alfred mentioned how lonely the manor had been and how Tim spent most of his days locked up in his room. Another reason for being there was that Bruce was still hurting and brooding over the grave, as if it was his fault Ra’s Al Ghul and Joker decided to be evil. Dick was still aching too, he would be lying if he said he didn’t hope to see a shit-eating grin on a familiar boy’s face when he walked in.

He was sitting in Bruce’s study, just lounging on one of the chairs set off to the side that were set there just in case Bruce actually wanted to talk to people in his office. Bruce usually didn’t, but that never stopped Dick from barging in, plopping himself down on a chair, and pulling out his phone to play whatever weird app he found a couple minutes before. This time it was a color by number game.

He was working on the number 25 when the phone on Bruce’s desk began to ring. Bruce looked up from whatever papers he had been going through and lifted an eyebrow at the phone. It was almost three in the afternoon and Bruce had no scheduled talks or meetings with anyone, so the caller could be just some random phone solicitor that got lucky enough to call Bruce Wayne. After a few more rings, Bruce sighed and lifted the phone to his ear.

“Bruce Wayne speaking,” he said in a perfect businessman tone.

Dick rolled his eyes and went back to his game, but his attention was quickly back on Bruce when he heard a sharp growl. “What it the meaning of this?!”

A deep pit suddenly formed in Dick’s stomach as his mind went through all the scenarios that could get this reaction out of Bruce.

“Don’t touch a hair on his head,” Bruce practically yelled into the phone and Dick felt like he needed to puke. Bruce looked genuinely worried. “You hear me?!”

It hit him like a truck when Dick realized school ended more than a hour ago.

Tim should have been home.

“I want to talk to him.”

Dick remembered all the times Bruce said that, but it was Dick he wanted to talk to. There were a number of different ways the criminals would react to that. Some would hand Dick the phone, some would shove the phone against his ear, some would refuse, and there were a rare, heartless few that-

The sound of a agonized filled scream sounded over the phones speakers, reaching Dick’s ears. He stood up from the couch and stood there helplessly as Bruce yelled into the phone.

A rare, heartless few that proved life by making it known they have no problem taking it.

Dick could hear sobbing over the low, incoherent voice of the kidnapper from the phone. It made Dick want to join in on crying.

Suddenly, all noise cut off with a beep and Bruce was left yelling at a ended call to not hang up!

“Bruce?” Dick asked. Dick never had that much experience with being on this end of kidnappings. Sure, it had happened a couple times with Jason but Dick never got used to it.

If the way Bruce was getting up from his desk and slamming the phone down on sharp and jerky movements was anything to go by, Bruce had never gotten used to it too.

“Go to the school. Trace his steps,” Bruce ordered.

“What about you?” Dick asked, already backing up towards the study door.

“I’m calling Commissioner Gordon, then Batman will join you.”

-o-o-o-o-

Batman never joined. The reason being so was that Bruce Wayne got another call from the kidnappers to negotiate the life of a 14 year old boy while with Gordon. He was practically being forced to stay at home with a couple cops to watch over him. Thankfully, Gordon didn’t exactly know Dick was back in town.

So he was forced to find out out on his own what happened. He first went to the school and checked the cameras. Tim made it out in one piece, he was busy talking to some friends and their conversation lasted until he got to the front gates of the school. There were no more cameras from there, so he checked the traffic cameras. There weren’t many, just mostly at the intersections to check for people running red lights, but was able to follow Tim a couple blocks. He was probably going to the public bus stop since Alfred was out of town—he insisted on just taking the bus and Bruce and Dick didn’t fight him on it.

Dick checked the cameras at the bus stop and waited… Tim never showed up.

So, in-between the last traffic intersection and the bus stop, Tim was taken. That’s a whole block of street.

As Dick Grayson, dressed in inconspicuous attire, he walked up and down the street with a picture of Tim. He couldn’t find any cameras so he had to resort to asking side street shops, homeless people, and street performers if they’ve seen “my little brother”.

Hmm, he looks familiar… oh yeah, he was that kid who waved at me earlier. I think he was just walking down the street.

He gave me a twenty after my song. Nice kid. But he looked a little nervous. He turned the way he came from and walked quickly away. I hope he’s okay.

Yeah the brat ran into me like a bat out of hell. Knocked my groceries everywhere.

Ah, he ran into the alley. Was there anyone following him? Ah… I think a car turned into the alley a bit after him. Make and model? What are you a cop?

Spare some change? Oh. That boy… Yeah… I saw him… look, I can’t just give information for free… oh thank you kind sir. Right, so he ran in here looking all crazy. I hid behind the dumpster because… crazy people are bad news for people like me. It’s a good thing I did because this black van pulled into the alley and drove up next to him. Some guys came out and grabbed him, I think they drugged him I don’t know, and drove off. Yeah, I did nothing! Its none of my business.

The homeless person shuffled away to heaven knew where and Dick was left standing in the middle of stinking alleyway, limply holding a picture of Tim. Black van. Classic but effective. It’s also easy to find on a traffic cam.

-o-o-o-o-

Dick checked every camera he could and after a few agonizing hours, he finally found the van just barely skimming the corner of the feed of a camera on the inside of a gas station. The van purposely avoided every camera that watched the streets, but Dick thankfully lucked out. The van was black and there was a blurry image of a man at the steering wheel. The more he looked, he noticed the black of the van was actually a sloppy paint work. Probably spray paint. He zoomed in and used every program he had access to to clear up the image. Under the black paint was a logo… if he could just get it clear enough to read…

Finally, the logo became clear enough for him to read. Without wasting a second, Dick slipped into his suit and swung out into the now darkening city.

-o-o-o-o-

It was the logo of an old grocery shop down in the slums. It remained open mostly because it was the only cheap place to get okay food for the people that lived in the area. The grocery shop used to do house orders, which is the reason they would have cars with logos on them.

It only took Nightwing thirty minutes to arrive at the store. It was closed and the lights on the inside were off. Didn’t matter, Nightwing just went there really to see if he could find a list of the employees, but when he looked to the side of the building he saw a familiar van.

All of a sudden, things were so much more urgent because Tim was in there.

He snuck over to the windows and looked inside. The aisles were short and close together, most were pretty bare, waiting for someone to restock. Other than that, the building was eerily empty.

He silently picked the lock on the doors and went inside like a shadow. It was silent, not even a humming of the AC could be heard. He swallowed and continued deeper into the building. He turned into a door that said “employees only” and slipped in.

The other side of the door was split into three areas. One lined the back of the fridges where chilled items like milk and eggs could be stocked easily. There were boxes stacked on top of boxes in that section, it was also about the temperature of a fridge, but other than that, it was empty. The second section was filled with large metal structures for normal storage. Glass jars and chip bags stuffed into boxes sat on the shelves. Nightwing took his time looking around each corner of the section, there were too many places for someone to hide it seemed, but after extensive search, Nightwing’s search came out to be fruitless.

The last section was behind a large metal door with big red letters that said “KEEP CLOSED”. Nightwing had to put his whole body weight into sliding the door open, and when he did he was met with below zero temperatures.

The freezer.

He stopped at the entrance and looked into the darkness of the freezer with nothing but his night vision. There were metal shelves and pallets littering the floor. Too many places to hide, but not a very comfortable one. He could see his breath puff up in front of his face and the cold was already biting through his suit. At first glance, the freezer looked empty. He sighed, watching his breath rise, already considering leaving and looking for other places the kidnappers could have hid.

However, for the first time since he got to the grocery shop, he heard something.

It was muffled and scared sounding. Whimpers and sniffles.

Tim.

Nightwing went deeper into the freezer, ignoring how he could already feel goosebumps forming on his arms. He turned around a shelf and came to a stop when he saw Tim.

Or at least, Tim was the first thing he saw. He was tied to a metal chair with his hands probably duct taped behind him. His ankles were restrained in a similar way to the legs of the chair. He had a length of tape stuck over his mouth and even more wrapped around his head to blindfold him. A dark stain covered his shirt near to his shoulder, probably blood from whatever they’ve done to him when Bruce asked to talk to Tim. He was shivering, stripped down to just his undershirt and boxers. Snot ran out of his nostrils and trailed over the tape gagging him.

Unfortunately though, Tim wasn’t alone.

There was a man standing casually behind Tim, one arm wrapped around Tim’s shoulders and a hand pressed a gun to Tim’s temple like it was the easiest thing in the world. He had a ski mask on.

“Well,” the man said and pressed the gun harder into Tim’s temple, making a horrid mark, “I was expecting Batman.”

Expecting?

Stars exploded at the back of his head.

Nightwing felt the world tilt and his body go down with it. He stumbled and landed on the ground, just barely able to catch himself on his hands and knees. He immediately pushed himself to his feet to face whoever had snuck up on him while he was busy being terrified of how terrible people could be, but the world exploded into blinding light.

Or someone just turned on the lights and his night vision freaked out.

Nightwing called out and squeezed his eyes shut. His skull ached from whatever he had been hit with and the cold was numbing his hands. He could only imagine how cold Tim was.

He heard something swing, but he wasn’t fast enough to dodge some kind of bar as it swung at his head. It cut the skin above his eyebrow and knocked him off his feet. He landed roughly on the ground and groaned when hands latched onto him and began to take his escrima sticks.

He forced his stinging eyes open, thankful that his mask had automatically turned off the night vision, but the sight that he saw was the man grinning from his eyes and holding the gun store an uncomfortable angle under Tim’s jaw.

“Stand down or I blow the kids brains out.”

Tim tried to shove the man off to the best of his abilities, but the man held him too tight. Dick had no doubt the man would shoot Tim. By the looks of it, he already stabbed him. Nightwing forced him to relax into the ground. He forced himself to allow gloved hands to lift him up and shove him against one of the shelves of the freezer.

Forced himself to remain still as his suit was put in the process of being stripped from his body.

“Where’s Batman?” The man asked. Nightwing glared and ignored how his shoulders were shaking. He clenched his jaw to stop the chittering before it started. The man sighed at Nightwing’s silence and pressed the gun harder into Tim’s jaw. Tim made a strangled whimpering sound at the back of his throat. “Where’s the Bat, Nightwing?”

Nightwing loosened his jaw and shot a quick glare at the men, there were multiple, who had finally stripped home down to his underwear. All he had was his mask which he hoped beyond hope they would leave alone. Before he knew it, his hands were zip tied in front of him with multiple and heavy duty ties. “Not coming,” Nighting growled out, “he couldn’t make it. Sent me.”

The ties dug into his skin as the men shoved him forward and forced his arms upward, where chains were hanging. His arms were wrapped up in the chains and a lock and key held them tight against his bare arms. The metal felt colder than ice and the air on his bare skin felt like torture. His jaw was shaking even as he tried to keep it still.

The men backed off and the man who held the gun against Tim finally lowered it. Nightwing couldn’t help the shuddering breath of relief that came out of him. The man cut the tape holding Tim’s ankles to the chair and hefted Tim up by the back of his shirt. Tim shook his shoulders but he didn’t look strong enough to shake off a fly, let alone the grasp of a psycho.

“I suppose we’ll have have to hope you’re telling the truth, or else the kid gets it.”

“D- don’t do this,” Nighting tried, as last resort, “there’s oth-other w-w-ays-”

His whole body was shaking and his fingers were already numb. The man laughed and began to drag Tim out of the freezer. No one said anything more as one of the other men slapped a piece of tape over Nightwing’s mouth and followed the leader out. The lights were shut off and the door of the freezer was rolled shut. There was the sound of chains on the other side of the door and Nightwing realized that they were locking the door shut. Even if he got out of his restraints, he would still be stuck.

He shivered in the dark, desperately looking for ways to escape and save Tim, but as his nose began to run, he already knew there were no options other to wait. He couldn’t move from his spot and his limbs were too numb to try and escape the locked chains. All he could do was wait and try to keep his body temperature up for as long as he could.

He lasted an hour and a half. He stopped shivering and blood trailed down his arms from the ties. His legs were so week he could hardly stand up any longer, leaving him to dangle from the chains, which would have hurt if his whole body wasn’t so numb.

His eyes were too heavy to keep open, and he realized that with Bruce being public about his funding both forced the idiots to stop trying, and the smart ones to get smarter.

-o-o-o-o-

Just, honestly, from now on, expect these to end early. Find the rest on AO3!

[lolablackwrites]

Stay - Flynn x F!MC

Summary: After discovering Tanner’s body on his yacht, Flynn and MC (Jesse) try to figure out their next move and find some comfort in one another.

Notes: This takes place after the events of Chapter 4 when Flynn and Jesse discover Tanner’s body on his yacht. I’m building off an HC I started with my last Flynn fic (Together) that he and Jesse have already slept together. I hope you enjoy it!

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“Shit, what do we do?” Jesse asked as she surveyed the yacht. Tanner’s blood had begun to congeal on the floor and she felt the bile rise in the back of her throat.

“We need to go. Now,” Flynn said. Jesse didn’t move, her eyes still fixed on Tanner. “Jesse.” His voice was softer now and he took her hand in his. That broke her out of her revery and she looked down at his hand. Flynn squeezed her fingers gently. “Let’s go.”

The two of them hurried out of the yacht, scanning for the guard who was nowhere to be found. Flynn led her down the dock and back towards the gate. They had nearly reached his motorcycle when Jesse suddenly stopped.

“Jesse, we need to go,” Flynn insisted.

“We have to call someone,” Jesse said, reaching into her pocket for her phone. “We can’t just leave him there.”

Flynn considered this and then sighed. “Yes, okay, fine. But don’t call on your phone?”

“Why not?” Jesse asked, already dialing the numbers. Just before she hit the call button, Flynn snatched the phone out of her hand. “Flynn!”

“Jesse, I can’t be linked to a murder scene, especially not to a Sterling, let alone my missing sister’s fiance,” Flynn said. “You think they’ll look for the real culprit? They’ll take one look at me and haul me in while the real killer goes free.”

“Well, then, what do we do, use a carrier pigeon?” Jesse asked. Flynn pocketed her phone with one hand and gestured behind her with the other. She turned around and saw a payphone standing forlornly underneath a nearby street light. “Seriously?” she asked incredulously. “I had no idea there were even still payphones around anymore.”

“Yes, Birchport is quite a marvel,” Flynn said sarcastically. “Do you need change?”

Jesse shook her head. “No, I have some.” She turned and headed towards the payphone, digging into her pockets as she went. Jesse didn’t realize her hands were shaking until she pulled out the coins and they immediately dropped to the sidewalk, pinging against the cement in the yellow glow of the street light.

“Dammit,” she muttered, crouching down to collect them. She felt tears brimming at the edges of her eyes but she couldn’t understand why. It was just change. But as she fumbled for the coins, she couldn’t stop thinking of Tanner in the yacht, the way his throat had been cut from ear to ear. She’d never seen a dead body before.

“Hey.” Flynn’s voice was soft, but still Jesse jumped, startled. “Do you want me to make the call?”

Jesse swallowed hard, pushing away the mental image of Tanner. “No, I’m okay.” She took a composing breath and stood up as Flynn handed her the change. He didn’t look like he believed her, but he said nothing as she dropped the coins and began to dial.

“Birchport Police Department.”

“I’m calling to report a crime,” Jesse said, swallowing hard. She felt Flynn standing close behind her, leaning in to listen to the receiver.

“Can I get your name?” the voice on the other end asked.

“Tanner Sterling has been murdered,” Jesse said, ignoring the question. “He’s on his yacht. Someone cut his throat.”

“Ma’am, I need--”

Flynn hung up the phone.

“We need to go,” he said.

“But--”

“Jesse,” he said. “You reported it. You said it was a Sterling. Trust me, the cops will show up. They may not care about many people, but they definitely care about the Sterlings so they’ll be here soon. We have to go.”

Jesse nodded and Flynn took her hand as they walked back to his bike. They climbed on and Jesse wrapped her arms around him, resting her cheek against his back. Everything felt so wrong, so confusing, but in that moment, with arms around Flynn and the rumble of the bike beneath them, everything felt like maybe it could be okay.

When Flynn brought his motorcycle to a stop in front of the B&B, Jesse didn’t want to let go. Still, she forced herself to climb off.

“Are you going to be okay?” Flynn asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jesse said. She’d meant to sound light, but her voice was strained. Flynn didn’t miss that and he settled the bike on its kickstand before standing beside her, pulling her against his chest.

“Do you want me to walk you in?” he murmured, his lips close to her ear.

“No, I’m okay,” Jesse insisted. “Really.” She let go of Flynn and turned away to walk inside. She made it about halfway up the walk before she stopped. Jesse turned around to see Flynn waiting beside his bike.

“Could you . . . maybe . . .” Jesse said, her words trailing off into the cool darkness. Without hesitating, Flynn walked up to join her and he took her hand in his. They headed into the B&B where Miss Harlenay was, thankfully, nowhere to be found.

Upstairs, in Jesse’s room, she flipped on the lights and glanced around, the irrational part of her brain half expecting to find Tanner’s dead body on her bed.

“Expecting a boogeyman?” Flynn asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, kind of,” Jesse admitted with a small laugh. She lay down on the bed, kicking off her shoes as she stared up at the ceiling. Smooth and light blue, it reminded Jesse of an endless sky. The kind that’s perfect for a wedding. What should have been Kate and Tanner’s wedding.

Flynn lay down beside Jesse and she rolled onto her side to face him. He did the same, brushing a strand of hair back from her forehead. She closed her eyes under his touch, both loving and needing to be cared for in that moment. Jesse felt Flynn’s lips gently press against her forehead before he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close.

“Have you ever seen a dead body before?” Jesse asked quietly. She reopened her eyes, not wanting to see Tanner’s crumpled form play across her mind again. Flynn’s tattoo crept out from underneath his shirt collar and she gently traced the thick black lines with the tips of her fingers.

“Once,” Flynn said, but then stopped.

“Was it . . . were you in jail at the time?” Jesse asked.

Flynn pulled back and looked at her, a wry, amused grin on his face. “Not everything is quite as dramatic in jail as what you see on TV.”

“Sorry,” Jesse said, a warm rose spreading across her face. Flynn laughed and kissed her cheek before he curled his arms around her again. They settled into a quiet rhythm and after a while, Jesse wondered if Flynn had fallen asleep when he finally spoke again.

“It was my grandmother,” he said. “I was fourteen. She got really sick so we went to the hospital to visit her. Our mom had to talk to the doctor so she left me and Kate in with her.” He paused and Jesse could hear him swallow. “Things were fine and then . . . I don’t know, something changed. It’s not like the alarms were going off, but I could tell something was different. I pulled a couple bucks out of my pocket and sent Kate out to the vending machine. Then, once Kate was gone . . . my grandmother held my hand while I sat by her bed. She squeezed my hand three times--that was her way of saying ‘I love you’--and then her heart just . . . stopped.” Flynn stopped again and took a deep breath. Jesse could feel him shaking a little, but his voice was steady. “Then all the monitors and alarms went off and everyone came pouring back into the room. But my grandmother had a DNR so . . . that was it.”

Jesse wrapped her arm around his waist and pressed him to her. She felt Flynn tighten his grip on her a little and they lay there, holding one another.

“Thank you for telling me that story,” Jesse finally said quietly. She gently kissed him on his neck, her lip brushing the edges of his tattoo, nestling back into his arms.

“Do you want me to stay?” Flynn asked.

Jesse nodded. They lay together, neither bothering to undress or even turn off the light. They didn’t say anymore that night, just before she fell asleep, Jesse had the thought that right there, with Flynn, she felt safe in this town that was anything but.

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[kytcordell]

Raised by a Borderline

I need to take a brief hiatus from public updates for BTBW. Patreon early access updates and other content will still continue. I just need to prioritize my work load and take some time to recover.

I normally don’t like to involve my personal problems with social media or work, but I feel like this is something that has to be said.

My mother recently made a disingenuous suicide attempt as a means to manipulate me.

I grew up with a mother that has borderline personality disorder. If you don’t know what this is, this article gives helpful information.

People who have BPD often suffer from absolutely delusional and batshit obsessive levels of insecurity, and will do anything in their power to prevent people from leaving them. In my case, my mother had been visiting another city when I informed her that I would be moving out for my own health and well-being. She waited until around the time I said I would be back to grab my things to stage a suicide attempt. I say staged, because she very strategically timed this. I came home to grab some of my things and found her passed out with a suicide note on her phone. I called 911 and the police searched her room to try and figure out what pills she might have taken. I even went outside to help them look in the grassy area around her window.

Turns out, she left the fucking pill bottles ON MY BED in MY ROOM. She clearly intended me to be the one to discover this scene. Later at the hospital, I found out that there were a lot of pills left in the container, meaning that she didn’t even take that many. This entire situation was very obviously a charade to guilt me out of my decision to move away for my own sanity.

I have been emotionally abused and gaslighted by her my entire life and I needed to remove myself. Rather than simply accept that I am an independent adult that needs to move away for my own development and well-being, she always pulls absurd shit any time I try to distance myself.

Last time I tried to leave, she pulled a knife on me. 

Why? According to her, because I had the only key to the outer door for the apartment complex, she couldn’t go out to smoke if I was gone.

If you’re interested, I explain more details about my background and childhood in the rest of this post. If not, now you know why updates have been somewhat inconsistent as of late.

Throughout my entire childhood, my mother threatened me with abandonment and was physically abusive.

She would say and do awful things any time she felt “insecure” or “worried.” Of course, these feelings could be triggered by anything from me losing my jacket at school or simply saying something that hurt her feelings. In addition to threatening to send me to a foster home, she would also insult me and say absolutely awful things like, “you’re useless just like your father,” or “I wish I never had you.” She tried to justify this sort of behavior by claiming that she was just worried I would develop the same bad habits as my father and she wanted to “set me right.” My parents were divorced when I was four years old, and  my mother has always talked shit about my father and then used that as a justification for why she was so malicious toward my innocent childhood flaws.

My mother was always financially very clever, and she would always use financial support as a means to control me. I was always well-provided for financially, and I used to think that meant everything was okay and that she was a good mother. I didn’t realize that every she has ever done for me was a trap to ensure I could not later leave. She would offer support so she could later use it as leverage to control or manipulate me. I cannot count the number of times she has threatened to throw me out after asking me to live at home.

When my mother became upset, she would wildly flail and strike me as a child. I remember one occasion where she attempted to strangle me and had to be pulled off by my grandmother. On another occasion, to prove to other parents that she “knew how to discipline her child,” she struck me with a ring on and gave me a bloody nose. (We happened to be in the company of other people who regularly struck their children, so I suppose this is why no one called the cops). As I got older, I actually became less afraid of being hit, and more afraid that she would accidentally hurt herself during her erratic, uncontrolled thrashing. Eventually, I think she stopped physically assaulting me because I made it very clear I would knock her teeth out if she tried. I am quite strong generally, and one time I simply held her down while she screamed and was trying to reach the scissors so she could vandalize my property.

She gaslighted me and pushed me away from my passions.

I neglected my art for years because I felt like I had to pursue a certain career or lifestyle in order to be accepted. I suffered from severe depression and suicidal tendencies for most of my life because I constantly felt like I was not good enough. She had subtle ways of manipulating me away from truly pursuing what I wanted, even if she did not outright forbid me from drawing. It was a complicated and ongoing manipulation that left me feeling like my self worth was entirely derived from my social status and financial success. Any time I would try and address this, she would deny ever mistreating me or doing anything to make me feel unworthy.

I honestly did not realize something was wrong for the majority of my life. My mother gaslit me and convinced me that she was a perfect parent for most of my life. There are hazy gaps in my memory where I can’t remember exactly what was said or done. I just remember a few vivid instances of abuse occurring.

Typically, I am incredibly good at spotting borderlines and culling them from my social circle. I’ve an acute sense of spotting bullshit and warning my friends about it. However, I guess it’s a lot more difficult when it’s a situation I was raised in.

She eternally self-victimizes and refuses to behave like an independent adult.

My mother, in spite of being a capable and competent person, feels entitled to being pandered to. My whole life, I felt like I had to constantly tip-toe around my mother and try and meet her endless need for emotional validation. She expects to constantly do things for her in order to “prove that I care,” even things that she is perfectly capable of doing herself. Any time a conflict occurs, she is incapable of showing any accountability for her own actions and inevitably always blames others for hurting her or not being kind to her. Just recently, she started berating me for not caring about her because I offered to set up an Uber account for her so I she wouldn’t be reliant on me calling one for her every time she needed one. She basically felt like I should be happy to call Uber for her, even though it would be more convenient for her to have her own account. Her entire reasoning for refusing to get an account was an irrational fear of credit card fraud, based on some unrelated incident that happened to a friend of hers. Therefore, according to her reasoning, others should simply pander to her illogical behaviors that are based on totally unfounded insecurities.