#doubt anyone at dispatch is involved either

[seddair]

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[cfs-melkire]

Last

“How,” she asked in a whisper, “did we cock that up?”

He managed to look quite cross as he eyed her. “Mokuton was a poor choice.”

She favored him with a glare that was twice as nasty. “They were going to see you!” she hissed. “You and Wagner both!”

Mister Wagner was an Ilsabardian, much as Mister Lidenbok had been. More significantly, the man was an Ilsabardian engineer of some renown. He had been offered considerable funding for his own projects in exchange for consulting on certain state matters which required his expertise. Word of this had gotten to Raif, no doubt courtesy a generous helping of liquor in the cups of a customer, and the eldest Kermani had dispatched his daughter and Hakan to snatch up the engineer for some questioning. Anything they might have learned from the man concerning Dalmascan plans for construction and fortification would have proven invaluable.

Might have; would have. Wagner was dead.

“You wanted his wits addled, I addled them!”

“By bashing him in the skull?” Incredulity mingled with scorn in Iona’s voice.

“Sleeper hold! What am I, an amateur?”

“By our standards,” she shot back.

“Your standards are slipping. Ninjutsu, where the other guard could see? Might as well step out into the open and announce ourselves at the top of our lungs!”

“I had to keep the dolt from wandering in on you! We discussed this before we went in, I had the ground floor, you had upstairs. How did you miss two guards?!”

He held up a finger; she bit down on her tongue. They both went quiet and strained to listen… not that it did her much good. By the time Iona heard anything, Hakan would’ve already gotten them both moving.

They sat on their haunches in a stable’s loft, just beneath the rafters. There was enough hay on the loft with them to obstruct anyone’s view from down below, but the constant noise from the penned animals down below, chocobos and horses both, made it difficult for them to hear anyone else. Not that they expected anyone; they had marked this stable as a safe house of sorts, a waypoint in the northern quarter to fall back on in the event of….

Well, a botched job. A right cock up.

The folk on the street passed the stable by; Hakan heard this, and turned back to Iona. “They weren’t there.”

“What do you mean, they weren’t there? You lost focus, you didn’t check all of the rooms, or you missed a hatch–”

“No, I mean they weren’t there! …there was no one upstairs, no one except Wagner. And no one came up, either.”

She rolled her eyes. “Impossible. That would take–”

“–magicks, yes.”

She stared at him again. “Still, you should’ve fought your way out. We could’ve done for those two–”

“–no–”

“–yes, we could’ve done for them and then gotten Wagner out–!”

“–I’m not killing anyone, Iona!”

They were both left in a huff, the rising heat having crept its way into their voices. It was a miracle that they’d managed to keep their voices low, hissing their frustrations at one another rather than yelling.

Hakan hadn’t come out the same door that he’d gone in… the only door on that side of the house, when it came to the second floor. When Iona’s technique had rooted the one guard in place, the fellow had hollered for his partner to check on Wagner even as he hacked at the new-grown roots which bound him in place. The partner in question had come running… and the Viera had consequently chosen a different point of egress.

It had been a source of rising tensions between himself and Iona. He had insisted upon it to Raif, as his condition for his ongoing involvement in clandestine operations: no killing. Raif, who had no particular need nor desire to expedite matters in such fashion, had agreed, but Iona had always been a fan of efficient solutions.

Hakan’s point of egress had been the window, to land on the awning below. This, he’d somehow managed with Wagner in tow… but the second guard had spotted them from above and let loose with a crossbow. The bolt hadn’t done any lasting damage.

Not to Hakan, anyroad. Oh, true enough, it had struck him in the leg, but they’d gotten it out afterward and bandaged it up. No arterial bleeding. That bolt had cost him his footing at the time, though, and the resulting uncontrolled fall from a full story up had cost the unconscious Wagner his life. The fellow’s neck had snapped upon impact with the ground. Iona had every right to be upset, but he knew what he knew.

Those two guards hadn’t been upstairs when he’d entered Wagner’s room. They hadn’t even been in the house.

“Stubborn,” she said, her tone spiteful, “arrogant–”

“Oh, name-calling,” he shot back, “is this what we’re doing now?”

“–idiotic, infuriating–”

“Insufferable, demanding–”

She grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him onto his back, even as she stepped over him. “Demanding, is that what I am? Insufferable? You were shot. I found you and Wagner in a tangle. I thought you were–!”

“What?” he barked. “Better than that? Competent? Sorry that I’m not perfect, apologies if I make mistakes!”

“Dead,” she finished, “you idiot.”

Then she leaned down and kissed him.

One thousand and one thoughts shot through his head over the course of the following few seconds. She was half his age or less. He was aimless in life. They were practically family. Raif would be furious. She wasn’t thinking straight. He hadn’t been touched like this for turns upon turns. Now was no good time for this. There was no good time for this. They had to be getting back to the restaurant. The search parties were likely still out on the streets.

One thought cut through the rest.

This could not last. 

[dearweirdme]

I think ppl have really overrated how close of a relationship Hybe has with dispatch and how much involvement dispatch will have with this story moving forward. I think ppl should realize that as far as the general public is concerned Tae and Jennie are dating there’s no big reveal to come because it already happened last year with all those pics so expecting dispatch to do a relationship reveal for them is a waste of time in my opinion. Maybe dispatch will have some exclusive pics of them being “caught” together but beyond that I don’t think so because dispatch doesn’t the tmz thing where they constantly follow dating couples for more gossip unless it’s marriage or children coming and I don’t see this going in that direction because teasing doesn’t work the same way in South Korea and a real pregnancy rumor would absolutely kill her career and severely damage his especially if ppl are made to think they would have shotgun wedding but like I said I don’t think this is going in that direction because the so called pregnancy rumors for her are just a shipper thing right now not a real rumor that anyone is taking seriously.

On the thing about dispatch revealing a gay couple back in 2018 that was just never going to happen. There’s no way to prove whether that list that went around was actually real but even if we assume it was the backlash and lawsuits dispatch would’ve faced for outing a gay couple would’ve ended them. I don’t doubt that dispatch might’ve had some info about TK that they could’ve threatened to let slip somehow but the idea that they were going to do a big relationship reveal like the heterosexual couples they’ve revealed it just wouldn’t have been a thing.

Hi anon!

What’s a close relationship between companies? Do I think they have weekly meetings? No. Do I think they have negotiated things (flight details as a trade for cooperation) yes.

I agree with the way you view things mostly. I do not expect a reveal and things will play out mostly in fandom through rumors. I do expect some ‘bigger’ things like a pic of them together (at either one of their apartments, or at a restaurant.. something vague). If it were only to serve as a cover for queerness they’d not do much at all (seeing how SK standards are, and as you said.. the general public already thinks they are dating) but, I also think it’s for publicity (which we’ve already seen evidence of during Cannes). And to gain publicity a pr -relationship has to have some movement. Stuff like the pregnancy rumors will stay in fandoms only, but another sighting of them imo is likely to end up in Dispatch.

[marjansmarwani]

trust that there will be light always waiting behind

8.4k || ao3

TK has gone out of his way to prove to Carlos that being a paramedic is every bit as dangerous as being a firefighter, it seems.

But Carlos will do whatever it takes to find him and bring him home safe, and he always will. Even if it means he needs to face some personal demons on the way. But it's worth it - he refuses to lose TK for anything. ------ A 2x08 speculative fic

All the kudos and thanks to @officereyes for not only convincing me to actually write this but for also brainstorming with me, a lot. 

Will it happen like this? Probably not. But we can dream. All I can ask for is some quality Carlos and his dad content, and maybe Owen not being as shitty as he has been lately. But because I don't trust Fox to give us that, I wrote it.

Title from "Six" by Sleeping at Last

--------------

TK wasn’t sure how things had gone from normal to total nightmare in a matter of seconds, but here they were. 

In this case “here” meant that the pregnant woman they were meant to be helping was not in fact, pregnant and that he and his team were now being held at gunpoint in an empty parking garage. 

So yeah, total nightmare. And the day had started off so well. 

He stood quietly, body tense with his hands up wishing he had been paying more attention; that he had noticed them coming from behind before they had gotten the drop on them. That he had noticed before he and his team were in danger. But he hadn’t and here they were: at gunpoint looking at a critically injured patient they were expected to save with only the gear in their medpacks. Which was especially bad, considering it seemed pretty clear that their survival depended on his. 

He exchanged a glance with Nancy as he pulled open the bag to start grabbing gear, doing his best to shoot her a reassuring smile. All the while he couldn’t help but think about something Carlos had said when he had discussed becoming a paramedic with him. One of the pros, he had noted wryly as he planted a kiss on the top of TK’s head, was that at least his boyfriend being a paramedic instead of a firefighter would mean he would have to worry less. TK had rolled his eyes at the time but now he could say quite firmly that Carlos was wrong. 

After all, he had never been held at gunpoint as a firefighter. 

----------

A surprise party worked best when the person who is supposed to be surprised shows up, Carlos figured. 

If it were anyone else, he might have been amused. But it was TK, who was supposed to be at his parent’s house for his surprise party 40 minutes ago. Tommy and Nancy were going to bring him by after shift but instead, none of them had shown up and Carlos couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. 

He could see the unease growing in the eyes of some of the others too as they made the transition from amused to concerned as the time ticked by. Carlos had tried calling TK almost a dozen times now, only to get his voicemail each time. He knew that Tommy and Nancy had gotten calls too, from Judd and Marjan respectively, with the same result. Now, 40 minutes later it had moved from a feeling to a fact: something was wrong. He could see Owen off to the side of the yard now, speaking lowly into his phone as he tried to get an update from dispatch. His expression was grim and when he ended the call Carlos crossed the yard towards him. 

“Well?” he asked when he drew close enough, “what did they say?” 

Owen shook his head, “They can’t reach the unit, and it hasn’t been in contact for over an hour.” 

Carlos could feel the fear solidifying within him even as he asked the next question, “Were they able to tell you where?” 

“I’m waiting on that info now.” 

Even as he said it his phone dinged with an incoming text and Carlos craned his neck to read the address over Owen’s shoulder. 

“That’s not too far,” he said, “if we leave now we should be there within the hour.” At Owen’s surprised look he raised an eyebrow, “What? You thought I was just going to stay here while you go look for them? Not likely.” 

Owen nodded and managed a small smile, “Let’s go then. We have a paramedic team to find.” 

--------

It took some negotiating but Tommy had managed to ultimately convince the people with guns that their friend would be better off receiving treatment in the ambulance rather than in the back of a van. As they packed up their supplies and got the patient ready to move to the ambulance TK’s mind was racing through all the implications. This move meant that they were planning on relocating, which meant that they would be leaving their last known location. Once they left this parking garage unless they were somehow able to check-in, dispatch would have no way of knowing where they were and they would be officially labeled as MIA. 

Which was less than ideal, but did at least mean that someone would be looking for them. TK pushed the used gauze into a pile, taking care to make sure that his back was turned to their kidnappers as he reached for his neck and pulled at his necklace until the chain came undone. He slid it under the edge of the pile, where it would hopefully be spotted by anyone looking for clues. He looked up to see Nancy and Tommy both giving him curious looks. He met their eyes and mouthed, “Carlos.” 

Once they were reported missing there was a zero percent chance that his boyfriend would not be involved in the search, he knew that without a doubt. It was subtle enough that it would hopefully pass their captors’ notice, but Carlos would recognize it instantly. It was something that would tell him that they had been here, and that they were in danger. Carlos would know that TK wouldn’t have parted with the pendant otherwise. 

Nancy raised an eyebrow and Tommy shot him a quick smile as they finished their prep and got ready to move the patient. When they entered the ambulance and got the patient settled TK crossed to the cab and pulled himself into the driver’s seat, only to look down and get a sinking feeling. While traveling by ambulance would be ultimately better for the patient (and by extension, them) TK had also been banking on the fact that once in the ambulance there would be more opportunities to call for help. 

Which was a hope quickly dashed when he saw that their radio had been ripped out, effectively eliminating the possibility of getting help that way. TK bit his lip and turned his eyes to the road in front of him as the armed man climbed into the cab beside him. “Drive,” he instructed plainly and TK complied, switching on the engine and shifting the vehicle into gear, acutely aware of the gun leveled at his chest the entire time. Getting shot was not an experience he had been looking forward to relieving ever again if he could help it. 

“Where to?” he asked.

“Just drive and I direct you.” 

TK nodded and slowly pulled forward, keeping his eyes trained on the road. 

Maybe, just maybe these people were more reasonable than they seemed and maybe this wouldn’t end in disaster, TK thought to himself as he pulled out of the parking garage and headed to the right as instructed. They just need to keep everything calm until help arrived. Because it would, TK was sure of it. 

--------

The ride there was filled with tense silence, their combined anxiety filling the car to capacity and leaving no room for words. Carlos kept an eye on the phone in his hand, the small blue dot tracing their location and showing their progress as they grew closer and closer to the destination flag. They were almost there. They would have answers soon, one way or another. 

He spared a glance at Owen. The fire captain’s eyes were glued to the road and his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles shining white against the black upholstery. His jaw was set and his expression was full of a panic Carlos was sure was reflected in his own face. He wondered if Owen was thinking the same thing: things had been going so well. Possibly too well, and now the universe was looking to even the score. Carlos hated the thought — TK deserved all the good things the world had to offer, in his opinion — but it was one he couldn’t help but wonder. He just hoped that no matter what, TK would be okay. No matter what the universe was trying to throw at them as long as he was safe at the end, Carlos could take it. 

Reaching the parking garage had been the easy part, it turned out. He and Owen drove the levels in tense silence, each scanning for any clues, any signs of the missing paramedics. It wasn’t until he saw a black panel van parked haphazardly that Carlos broke the tense silence: “Stop the car!” 

Owen did and Carlos was out his door before the car had even lurched to a complete stop. He ran to the van, heart sinking as he noticed the back doors hanging open. He approached with increased trepidation, not sure what he was hoping to find. When he reached the back and got his first look inside the van, he was pretty sure this wasn’t it. 

Bloody gauze and other medical scraps littered the ground, along with three broken cell phones, all of which seemed to have been smashed. Carlos could feel dread building in his gut as he surveyed the destruction. He sensed Owen come up behind him, heard the low curse he let out at the scene. 

“There’s no saying any of the blood is theirs,” he reminded Carlos as if he could read the frantic thoughts racing through his mind, each possibility worse than the last. 

Carlos bit back a retort — there was no good in reminding Owen that there was no saying it wasn’t either — and was about to ask another question when he noticed something silver poking out from under one of the gauze scraps. He leaned forward to grab it, heart sinking when he pulled it out to reveal a very familiar necklace. 

“Maybe,” he told Owen as he turned, holding up the necklace while the FDNY pendant glinting in the low light of the parking garage, “but they were definitely here.”

Carlos hadn’t been sure it was possible but he was certain he saw the fear in Owen’s eyes grow as he took the necklace from Carlos, running his thumb over the numbers engraved in the pendant. “He left this as a clue,” he said quietly, and Carlos nodded. 

“Which probably means they were taken somewhere else and TK wanted us to know they were here.” 

Owen nodded, pulling his gaze up from the necklace to meet Carlos’s eyes, “We need to find them.”

His voice was tinged in desperation, a feeling Carlos knew well. He nodded and reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone as he took another look at the mess in the back of the van. “We will,” he told Owen, “and I think I know someone that can help.” 

------

Their destination had turned out to be an abandoned restaurant, shuttered by the pandemic. As workspaces went it wasn’t a bad one, if a little dusty, and they got their patient set up on a prep table in no time, falling into their usual rhythm as they returned to this relative familiarity. TK was currently retrieving supplies from one of their cases and running through the situation in his head, separating it into pros and cons. 

Pro: they had come here in an ambulance with their house number clearly painted on it in broad daylight. Once people started looking it shouldn’t be too hard to spot. 

Con: they were deep into a neighborhood known for being an entertainment district. While traffic had decreased significantly overall since the start of the pandemic it was nearly non-existent this early in the day. The odds of a casual observer being in the neighborhood were slim to none, which was not a thought that brought much comfort. 

The man shouted at him to hurry up and TK quickly added another con to his list as he grabbed the last thing and crossed back to the table: their kidnappers were not reasonable people and every moment that passed seemed to push them just that much closer to the edge. Even as he thought it the woman edged closer to Nancy, causing her to tense as the cold metal of the gun was pressed against her side. 

“Hey,” he said firmly, “if you want us to save your friend, you need to let us work. That means you and your guns should be at least 6 feet away. It’s a little hard to focus otherwise.” 

The woman glanced at the man, who was studying TK. TK met his gaze steadily, not looking away until the man nodded and turned to his companion, “Go wait by the door, just in case. They’re not going anywhere.” 

She nodded and TK could breathe easier as she stepped away from Nancy, who visibly relaxed and shot TK a grateful look. Tommy eyed him quickly before returning her focus to the patient. “I appreciate what you’re doing, Strand, but in the future maybe let’s try to not antagonize the criminals with guns, yeah?” 

TK nodded as he worked, “Sorry Cap, I just really don’t like guns. Chalk it up to bad personal experience.” 

Nancy grimaced at the reminder and Tommy nodded, “Then let's keep this calm, no one needs to get shot today. I’m not losing another member of my crew, you both got that?” 

“Yes Cap,” TK and Nancy chorused, lapsing into silence as they worked. Unfortunately, with their supplies, there was only so much they could do. They had had a busy morning before this call had come in and no time to restock in between. They were running low on pretty much everything, and everything they had would have hardly been enough to repair the damage before them on a good day. But, despite everything, he was still a patient and he was still in need of treatment so they did what they always did: everything they could. 

Even as they worked TK made sure to keep one eye on their kidnappers. With each passing minute, they seemed to get more and more restless, and increasingly desperate. The woman even seemed twitchy and TK vaguely wondered if she was going through withdrawal. All the signs were there and if she was that made their situation even worse. TK knew how that felt first hand and knew what it could do to a person’s mental state. The idea that she might be coming down from a high and was currently pointing a gun at them was less than ideal and he mentally added it to his con list. 

Surprisingly, she wasn’t the one to crack first. TK was helping Captain Vega to do what they could to clean and secure the entry wound when the man stepped closer, waving the gun around as he shouted, “What is taking so long? We’ve been here too long, we need to get moving!”  

“Do you want it done right or do you want it done fast?” Tommy asked evenly, her voice calm and level. 

The man scowled at that, but stepped away, “Just, go as fast as you can.”

TK watched him walk away, glancing at the clock above the door and cursing before running his free hand across his face, the hand holding the gun tapping against his leg. 

“He’s spiraling Cap,” TK noted softly, “we might need a plan if you want to avoid that whole one of us getting shot thing.” 

“And we’ll find one,” Tommy agreed, “but for now we stick with the original one: do our jobs and keep calm.” 

TK nodded tersely and continued with the task at hand. It was only a few more moments before his Captain gave a soft curse and he looked over to see her scowling at the bag next to her. “We’re out of saline,” she said in answer to his questioning look, “can you go see if there is any more in that bag by the door?” 

TK nodded and crossed the bag laying on the ground next to the door they had entered. As he grew closer he noticed that the bag wasn’t the only thing by the door: a fire alarm, bright red against the white of the walls and shining like a beacon of hope as he drew closer, was situated on the wall just past the bag. If he could reach it and pull it, dispatch would be notified. A fire company and at least one APD unit would be called and the alarm might be enough of a distraction for them to get out of here and get somewhere safe until help arrived. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder to see that the two armed assailants were not watching him and made up his mind. He was going to pull it, and hope for the best. If it doesn’t work it’ll have been his idea and his idea alone — the rest of his team doesn't need to be involved in this. This was a stupid choice he could make for himself and by himself. 

He stepped forward, hardly daring to breathe as he drew closer. He was just about to reach out his hand when he heard footsteps behind him, loud and fast. He turned in time to see a hand reaching for him, aiming to strike him with the side of the gun. He ducked, the hand missing his target as he dodged the blow. The man came for him again and TK managed to dodge the next blow as well, and the one after that. 

They moved away from the wall and TK had the frantic thought that maybe he could get the gun away from him, maybe he could actually get the upper hand. He reached for it, throwing himself into the man’s space and reaching around for his arm. He leaned closer, so intent on his goal that he didn’t notice the man rummaging on the nearby shelf with his free hand. He didn’t notice his other hand at all until a sharp pain ripped through his side, causing him to release his grip on the other man involuntarily. He stumbled back, hands reaching blindly to the source of the pain coursing through his body. He felt a warm and sticky wetness and was about to lift his hand to examine it when he felt another sharp pain which caused his vision to go white before everything went black and he knew no more. 

-----

Carlos hadn’t had to say too much before his dad had agreed to help out. One of the perks of being a Ranger, Gabriel reminded his son, was getting to choose the cases he focused on from time to time. He wasn’t sure if it was the words he had said or the tone of his voice that had done the convincing but within two minutes his dad had taken down the address and was on his way. He had said he was likely 10 minutes out but each one of those minutes seemed to stretch on endlessly. 

He and Owen waited in tense silence, neither saying a word since Carlos had hung up the phone with the news that a Texas Ranger was on the case. Owen had raised an eyebrow but after Carlos clarified that it was his dad his expression had shifted to something unreadable and Carlos wondered how much Owen knew about his parental situation in regards to TK. 

He didn’t have to wait long to find out, as it happened. About 4 minutes into their wait, after Owen had made a phone call to Gwyn and Carlos had sent out some updates to the team, Owen cleared his throat, turning to Carlos before he spoke. 

“I don’t want to pry, Carlos, but TK mentioned something about you and your parents a few months ago and I just want to know where that stands. I don’t want to make things weird for you, but I also don’t want to accidentally reveal any information you’re not okay with.”

Carlos nodded, feeling a rush of appreciation for the older man’s tact as he responded, “They know I’m gay,” he told Owen plainly, “but they don’t know I’m in a relationship. They’ve never known about any of my relationships, we just don’t talk about it. When TK and I ran into them at the farmer’s market I introduced him as a friend and as far as they know that’s the truth.” Carlos turned to see Owen’s reaction, not sure what to expect. Anger maybe? Frustration or upset? 

When he did turn he didn’t see any of those. Instead, the older man’s face was neutral as he nodded. “They won’t find out otherwise from me,” Owen promised him, and Carlos nodded his thanks, letting out a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. He was surprised, however, when Owen continued talking. 

“I know it’s not my place to tell you how to interact with your parents,” he began, “but for what it’s worth, I would never want TK to keep something that was important to him from me because he was worried it might make me upset or uncomfortable. From everything you and TK have said about your parents, I wouldn’t be surprised if they felt the same way.” 

Carlos could feel Owen’s gaze on him, steady and reassuring despite everything, and he nodded. He could feel Owen’s words rattling inside his head, but there was no way to process them right now, not when the fear of possibly losing TK and the worry that his danger-prone boyfriend was missing was so soundly occupying the forefront of his thoughts. 

He was still trying to parse through it all when he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. He stood as he recognized his dad’s truck, crossing to meet him as he pulled to a stop. “Thank you,” he told his dad as he stepped out, “I really appreciate this.” 

“Anything for you, mijo,” his dad assured him with a smile, “all you have to do is ask. Which you rarely do, which tells me this is pretty important.”

There’s something else there, in his dad’s words and his expression, that tells Carlos that his dad knows there is something Carlos isn’t telling him, but he ignores it. It didn’t matter right now — nothing mattered except for finding TK. “Still,” he says instead before turning to Owen who has been hovering at the back of the van. “This is TK’s dad, Captain Owen Strand of the 126.” 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain,” Gabriel says with a nod, “I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“Likewise,” Owen replies quickly before diving right in. “Were you able to find out anything yet?”

“Actually yes,” Gabriel admitted and Carlos tensed at the expression on his dad’s face. It was the one he used when he tried to break bad news gently. “We think we may have identified the suspects. There was a bank robbery this morning and the suspects fled in a van matching the description Carlos gave me. There were three suspects — two who entered the bank and one getaway driver — and bank security thinks that they hit one of them while exchanging fire as they fled.” 

There was so much information trying to squeeze into Carlos’s head now. None of it was good but one fact jumped out amongst the others. The suspects had exchanged fire with the security guards which meant…

“They’re armed,” he said tersely, the dread he had already been feeling threatening to overtake him now, “the suspects are armed.” 

“And they needed the paramedics to treat their partner,” his dad agreed grimly.

“Do we know anything about what kind of shape the injured suspect was in?” Owen asked and Carlos could tell that his mind had gone to the same place his own had: if the paramedics were not able to save the injured bank robber, things didn’t look great for them. Their best hope was for a minor injury but judging by the amount of bloody gauze in the back of the van and the fact that it was a gunshot wound the chances for that were slim to non-existent. 

Gabriel shook his head, “No, and the security cams in this parking garage are just for show, I already had someone check.” 

So TK and his team were being held at gunpoint, being asked to provide medical care that should be done in a trauma room, and there was no way of saying where they had been taken or if they were okay. Carlos could feel his chest tighten in panic as the hopelessness of the situation set in. 

“Are there any leads?” he asked, not even bothering to hide the desperation in his voice. 

“Well, they did leave in an ambulance, and that’s not exactly subtle,” his dad reminded him bracingly. “We’ve put out a bulletin — every cop, sheriff, and ranger will be looking for it. We’ll find them, mjio.” 

Carlos nodded because he didn’t trust himself to speak and because he desperately needed it to be true. They needed to find them, and TK needed to be okay. Nothing short of that would be enough. 

----------

TK knew he was somewhere he shouldn’t be, but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it.

There were voices nearby, but TK couldn’t process any of them. Some of them sounded familiar but others were foreign; unknown with a hostile edge. He tried to open his eyes, to try and take stock of his surroundings but all he could see were vague and blurry shapes. He thought that someone called his name but he couldn’t bring himself to answer. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was in pain, and he was in danger. 

The pull of the darkness was stronger than any fear or curiosity, however, and it washed back over him without hesitation, pulling him back under.

---------

Riding in his dad’s truck with his dad and Owen Strand would have been awkward on a good day but today, with his mind full of fear for TK and the tension of the secret between them all, it was unbearable. Carlos couldn’t stop his leg from bouncing anxiously against the floor — the exact same nervous tick he teased TK about on an almost daily basis. The irony wasn’t lost on him, or Owen it seemed as the man leaned forward from the back seat to put a steadying hand on his shoulder, empathetic eyes meeting his own in the rearview. Gabriel kept up a steady stream of one-sided chatter, undaunted by the lack of response from his traveling companions. Every once in a while his radio would crackle to life and Carlos could swear that he could feel his heart seize each and every time. 

But every time it was the same: no news, no one had spotted the ambulance yet. Crime scene techs had scoured the van and surrounding area, pulling fingerprints and looking for anything else that could give them a lead on who these people were and where they may have gone. Carlos knew all too well that criminals, especially ones involved in crimes that took as much planning as a bank robbery did, were creatures of habit. If they had somewhere they felt was safe and secluded enough, they would go there. It was up to them to find it.  

Carlos knew that his anxiety had not gone unnoticed by his father. He sent him surreptitious glances from time to time, in between radio updates and idle chatter. Finally, he asked a question: “You really care about this TK, don’t you?” 

The opening was there, Carlos could see it. A part of his mind told him his dad must too, to open the door so plainly. But the fear of what could happen, of what he has convinced himself he stands to lose is too much. There was already so much fear in his heart from this nightmare he was trapped in, he can’t stand any more. So he nodded and simply answered, “Yeah, I do.” 

He tried not to notice the disappointment and pity he could feel from all sides as Owen met his eyes again in the mirror. But his boyfriend’s father stayed silent as promised and Carlos looked away, turning his attention to the window instead. He knew he needed to tell them, he had been coming closer to making that decision on his own with each passing day. Now he just had to hope that they both survived this one and that there would still be something to tell at the end of it all. 

His pessimistic spiral was interrupted by the familiar crackle of the radio. He listened absently as his dad grabbed it and at the words that came in response. At least he was only listening absently until some of the words processed in his mind: “Ambulance 126 has been spotted in an alley off W. Fourth St.” 

His heart was working on beating its way out of his chest now. He sat upright, looking around frantically to get their bearings. They were only a few blocks east of West Fourth, they could be there in minutes. He relayed this to his dad who nodded before flipping on his lightbar and heading in the direction of the address provided. As they drove Carlos sent his desperate hopes out to the universe. Let them all be okay, let them actually be in or at least nearby the ambulance. Above all, let TK be safe. 

As they sped through the city that was the thought that Carlos played on a loop in his head. Let TK be safe, and everything else would be fine 

----------

TK came to awareness slowly and at first, the only thing he was truly aware of was the feeling of someone repeatedly tapping his cheek. 

“Cut it out,” he whined and heard a relieved sigh in response. 

“He’s awake,” a voice — Nancy? — declared and TK tried to open his eyes. It took several tries but he managed, painstakingly blinking them open to reveal the worried faces of his Captain and his partner staring down at him. 

“Hey guys,” he said as he tried to pull himself into a sitting position, “why the long faces?” 

Captain Vega looked unimpressed with his efforts and pushed him back down onto the ground. “Don’t try to play nice with me Strand after you did that. Of all the reckless, foolhardy things. I really thought you had more sense than that.” 

TK frowned at her, trying to piece together all the uncategorized shapes and sensations floating through his hazy mind, “What do you…” he began, but broke off when a sharp pain ripped through his side and Nancy pressed gauze down onto his side, “oh.” 

It was coming back now. 

“Yeah, ‘oh,’” his Captain scoffed, “what were you thinking TK?” 

“I was thinking that they were getting more and more unhinged the longer we were here and that if I had been able to pull the fire alarm dispatch would be notified and it would have given us enough of a distraction we could have maybe saved ourselves,” he said defensively, trying hard to sound assertive when even just the dim lights of the kitchen were causing explosions of pain in his head. 

“And how did that go for you?” 

“Not great,” he admitted. “How long was I out?” 

“Not too long,” Nancy told him as she lifted up the gauze to check on his stab wound, “and I’ve got the bleeding slowed but this wound is pretty deep. Not to mention the knife did not look particularly sterile so this needs treatment, soon.” She nodded towards the abandoned blood-covered chef’s knife on the ground that the man must have grabbed during their scuffle, and TK groaned. 

“So probable infection,” he muttered, “great.” 

“Not to mention with the width of that knife likely some significant damage,” Tomy reminded him, her unimpressed look holding firm.

“It’s not like I had any way of knowing he was going to find a knife, to be fair.” 

“To be fair, I would think the guns should have been enough of a deterrent,” Tommy countered. “Wasn’t getting shot once enough for you?” 

TK shifted uncomfortably under his Captain’s gaze and was about to fire back a retort when Nancy interrupted, “Can you both knock it off? Yes, that was incredibly stupid TK and if you weren’t already hurt I probably would have hit you myself. But it was also pretty brave, Cap, and he meant well. Either way, arguing about it is not going to change the fact that we’re still being held hostage and TK is still hurt so maybe it would be best if you both stopped, for my sanity if nothing else.” 

She gave them both a hard look and TK did his best approximation of a nod with his throbbing head, not eager to be on his partner’s bad side. Tommy nodded as well, though the look she gave TK promised that they would be revisiting this later, assuming there was a later. He cleared his throat and glanced towards the table where their patient was still laid out, “How is he?” 

“Stable, for now,” Tommy answered, following his gaze. “He’s going to need more blood than we can give him though: his friends don’t know his blood type and we only have so much O neg on hand.” 

TK nodded, reading in between the lines of what his Captain wasn’t saying: he didn’t have much longer and if he didn’t, neither did they. “What are the others up to?” 

“Arguing,” Nancy said softly, “about what to do with us.” 

TK turned his gaze to them and though he couldn’t hear their words, he had a feeling he knew what they were saying and it wasn’t good. His suspicions were confirmed a few moments later when they approached. 

“That’s enough of that,” the man informed them, gesturing roughly to where Nancy was tending to TK’s stab wound, “get away from him.” 

“He needs—” Nancy tried to argue, but TK put a hand on her arm and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile before holding out a hand for the supplies.

“It’s okay,” he told her, “I can handle it from here.” 

She didn’t look impressed or convinced, but a wave of the gun prompted her to hand them over and pull herself up from the floor, stepping in the direction indicated by the woman. The man looked down at TK with disdain, “You’re done causing trouble,” he announced, “Because if you do it again, I will start shooting, but I won’t be aiming at you. Got it?” 

TK swallowed and nodded. What else could he really say to that? He wasn’t about to risk his team’s safety for anything. 

“Good,” the man declared with a nod, “glad we’re on the same page.” He turned to Nancy and Tommy now, “Is he stable enough to be moved right now?” 

“He’s as stable as we can make him with what we have on hand,” Tommy told him calmly. 

“Then we’re moving,” he declared, “we have another van stashed nearby. We’re going to move out,” he gestured towards himself and his companion, “and we’re taking our friend and this one with us.” 

When all eyes turned to him TK realized “this one” meant him with a start. Which was...less than ideal, but at least he would know that the other two were out of danger and could probably get help. 

“Absolutely not,” Tommy said in her firmest tone, “he’s injured, he needs treatment.” 

“Which is why I know he’ll be no trouble,” the man countered, “plus he’s a paramedic, isn’t he? He can treat himself. I’ll let you give him some supplies, I’m not unreasonable.” 

TK could practically see Tommy’s anger rising from his position on the floor and he spoke up before his Captain could say anymore, “It’s okay Cap,” he said, hoping his voice sounded more sure out loud than it did to his own ears, “I’ll be fine.” 

Tommy turned her gaze to him and was more likely than not going to tell him how many ways that was not happening, but any arguments she may have made were abruptly cut off by the sound of the door banging open and a barrage of police officers entering the scene, guns raised. 

TK let himself sag against the wall in relief as he saw their two assailants surrounded and even more when he spotted a familiar gaze in the crowd, filled with fear and worry as it grew closer to him. 

“Carlos,” he said quietly, managing to pull a small smile to his face. 

“Hey Ty,” Carlos said roughly, reaching out to run a hand through his hair even as he surveyed him for damage. His eyes widened and his jaw clenched as he spotted the bloody gauze poking out from underneath his hand just above his hip. 

He reached for it, but TK called his name softly before shaking his head ever so slightly, “leave it be, I’ll be fine. I’m just so happy to see you.”  

Carlos looked like he wanted to argue but he bit his lip, turning instead to the crowd behind them. TK followed his gaze and froze when he spotted Gabriel Reyes amongst the officers. He pulled away from Carlos ever so slightly, “Your dad…” he began, but Carlos shook his head, gripping TK hands tighter, not letting him pull away. 

“That doesn’t matter right now,” he told him, “all that matters is that you’re safe.” 

TK had so many questions, but his head was swimming. He wasn’t sure if it was the blood loss or the head injury, but it was getting harder and harder to follow a fluid thought. He opened his mouth to try and ask any of them but was saved from the trouble of doing that by his dad appearing at his side, expression anxious as he kneeled down. He looked him over before calling over his shoulder for a medic and TK tried really hard to follow what was happening but it was becoming so much harder with each passing moment. 

He was so disoriented he almost missed the commotion that erupted around them. All he knew was that Carlos’s hand was suddenly gone from his and he blinked several times, forcing himself to focus on what was happening around them. The woman had somehow managed to free herself of the officer cuffing her and had managed to grab her gun again. She was waving it frantically and shouting, but her words were a blur to TK. All he could focus on now was the fact that Carlos was closest to her, and that he was stepping closer to her. 

That he was standing firmly between her and TK. 

The rest of the world might be a blur of noise and light but this was clear as day. Carlos was stepping towards the woman, hands raised as he tried to speak calmly to her. But TK knew in his heart that he had been right about her state and knew that there would be no reasoning with her. But he also knew that Carlos would try, because that’s what Carlos did. He helped people, no matter what. 

The next moment happened in a blink of an eye but TK saw it as if in slow motion. Carlos took a step forward, his soothing voice still speaking to her, still vibrating its way through the air as another sound erupted between them, eclipsing Carlos’s voice. 

It was the sound of a gun firing and TK could do nothing but watch in horror as Carlos’s stride faltered before he stumbled. He could do nothing but try to call out his name with whatever breath he still had in his lungs as Carlos went down, and he could do nothing but feel his heart shatter when he didn’t get up. 

TK tried to go to him, tried to push himself off the ground. He needed to help, he needed to save Carlos. But his body wouldn’t listen. The pain in his side sliced through him again with a vengeance and the last thing TK saw was Carlos’s unmoving body before his vision faded to black and he knew no more; left with the worst sight he had ever seen in his life as company as he fell into the darkness.  

-------

Carlos woke slowly, bits and pieces of his surroundings making themselves known to him and helping to fill in the blanks in his mind: he was in the hospital, he had been hurt, he had been searching for TK…

And that was the thought that brought him back to consciousness. He opened his eyes with a gasp, feeling hands on him instantly. “TK,” he tried to ask, “is he…”

“Relax, mijo,” his dad told him soothingly, “TK is safe. He just woke up from his own surgery a short while ago. His dad assures me that he’s fine, and asking about you.” 

Carlos took a deep breath and willed his heartbeat to slow. TK was alive, they had found him. He was hurt, but he was doing okay and Owen was with him. That did answer a lot of his questions, but there were still so many left. Starting with, “What happened?” he asked his dad. 

Gabriel settled into the chair at the side of the bed, leaving a hand on Carlos’s arm as he studied him, “What do you remember, Carlos?”

“I remember TK and his team going missing, calling you, and finding them. After that, not much.” 

Gabriel nodded and his hand on Carlos’s arm tightened, “One of the kidnappers, the woman, went a little crazy when your colleagues tried to bring her in. She freed herself from the officer’s trying to cuff her and you were closest. Well,” he amended, “you and TK. But you put yourself between them and tried to talk her down. It…” his dad broke off, clearing his throat and continuing with a thick voice, “it didn’t go well. You were shot, Carlos, right in front of me. I was so scared I was going to lose you, mijo. You cannot scare me like that, I am an old man.” 

Despite it all, Carlos chuckled, “Please, you are not old dad. There are 20-year-olds older than you.” 

His teasing didn’t put a dent into his father’s upset, and Carlos sobered, “I’m sorry,” he said instead, “that can’t have been easy. I know what it’s like to see someone you care about hurt like that. I’m sorry you had to see that, dad.”

Gabriel shook his head, leaning forward again, “You have nothing to apologize for Carlos,” he said firmly, “you only did what you thought was best, what you needed to do to protect the man you love.” 

Carlos’s breath caught in his throat and his eyes widened, but his dad held his gaze, a small smile playing on his lips, “You are not subtle, mijo. I had a feeling since this all started, but the moment I saw you with him, I knew.” 

“I’m sorry I kept this from you and mom,” Carlos apologized softly, “that I lied to you when we met at the Farmer’s Market.” 

“Stop apologizing Carlos,” Gabriel instructed, his tone matching his son’s, “you have nothing to apologize for. If anyone should be apologizing I think it should be me. Clearly, I did something or said something that made you feel like you couldn’t share this and for that I am so, so sorry. I never wanted you to feel like you had to hide anything from us, especially not this. I’m...” he trailed off and Carlos was surprised to see tears in his dad’s eyes, “I’m just sorry,” Gabriel finished, “I need you to know that. That and the fact that both your mother and I love you so much, no matter what.”  

“I do know that,” Carlos assured him, “I never doubted that for a second.” 

His father smiled at him and Carlos could feel a weight that had been subtly resting on him for nearly 10 years lifted. He met his father’s eyes and returned the smile. 

“Dad,” he said clearly, with a confidence that had been so many years coming, “I have a boyfriend. His name is TK Strand, and I love him. He means everything to me.” 

“I’m happy for you Carlos,” his father told him, a soft smile covering his face, “you deserve nothing but the most wonderful love the world has to offer, and I hope this boy can give you that.” 

“He can,” Carlos assured him, “he does.” 

----------

TK was staring moodily at the dark ceiling of his hospital room. Yes, he was beyond grateful to have been rescued and that his teammates were safe. They had just been by actually — both women very clear that they would stab him themselves next time if he ever tried to do something so reckless again — and he had been happy to see them. Just as he had his parents and his friends, all who had stopped by before the doctor informed them all that he needed rest. 

That was all wonderful and he was grateful, but the one person he wanted to see more than anyone else — that he needed to see — was in a room of his own on the other side of the hospital. He had been assured by multiple reliable sources that he was fine: awake and alert and recovering nicely from his gsw (fuck, Carlos had been shot. That was a thought and a memory that was going to haunt him for a while, he knew it). But he had been denied any and all requests of seeing him with his own eyes due to his concussion — hence the dark room as light still wreaked havoc on his head — and the antibiotics slowly dripping their way into his system in an effort to cut off any possible infection from the dirty knife blade before it had a chance to take root. Which, as a paramedic, he recognized was reasonable. If it were anyone else he would have recommended the same. But it wasn’t anyone else. It was him and it was Carlos, and TK needed to see him with his own eyes before he could believe that he was really alright. 

Since that was beyond his control, that left him with pouting about it in the dark, which is what he intended to do about it for the foreseeable future.  

A soft knock at his door interrupted his plans and when he turned his head in the direction of the door, his breath caught in his throat. 

“Carlos,” he breathed, his name emerging from his lips like a prayer as the other man gave him a small, tired smile from his wheelchair in the door. Behind him stood his father, looking at TK with a smile that told him everything he needed to know. 

He waited as Gabriel pushed the wheelchair into the room, reaching out for Carlos, taking his hand in his own as soon as they were close enough to touch. He moved to the side of the bed, leaning over and meeting Carlos in a soft, tender kiss that he hoped did something to relay even a portion of the emotions he was feeling. They pulled apart and he met Carlos’s eyes, studying them and him for any signs that he wasn’t okay, but his study was interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat. He looked up, startled, to see Carlos’s father watching them with a bemused expression. 

“I will leave you both alone,” he promised, “but first I just wanted to take a moment to meet you properly, TK. I am very glad you are okay.” 

“Thank you, sir,” TK said warmly, still clutching Carlos’s hand. 

Gabriel shook his head, “None of that ‘sir’ business now,” he told him, “as far as I’m concerned we’re family now. Call me Gabriel, please.” 

“Well Gabriel, TK said lightly, “I am happy to meet you, officially.” 

He grinned at Carlos, he matched his expression without a second thought. Gabriel watched the pair of them, smile growing. 

“I would love to talk more with you TK, take some time to get to know you, but I know when I’m not wanted so we’ll take care of that later. Just remember Carlos,” he told his son, voice suddenly firm, “you’re injured too. Don’t overdo it.” 

“Yes dad, thanks.” 

Gabriel gave them both a smile and with an affectionate squeeze of Carlos’s shoulder, he was gone. 

“So,” TK said as he watched the older man walk away, “you told him.” 

Carlos scoffed, “I didn’t have to. He spent all day with me, looking for you. He figured it out pretty quickly.” He paused here, swallowing thickly as he looked back at TK, “God Ty, I was so scared. I don’t know what I would have done…” 

TK cut him off, pressing a hand against his face, “Hey, none of that. We’re both okay, and that’s what matters.” 

But even as he said it, he could feel his voice waver. The last memory he had before blacking out of Carlos collapsing after being shot would be forever ingrained in his memories, a vision he was sure would come back to haunt him for many nights to come. Carlos leaned forward now, placing a hand on top of TK’s and pulling it away from his face so he could twist their fingers together. 

“Same goes for you,” he said firmly, as if he knew where TK’s mind had gone. Because of course he did. It was Carlos, and TK knew there was no part of him that was a mystery to the other man.   

“Hey, remember when you said being a Paramedic would be less dangerous than being a firefighter?” TK quipped in an attempt to lighten the mood and Carlos rolled his eyes. 

“Only you could manage to prove that wrong,” Carlos fired back, his voice a blend of fondness and exasperation. “Maybe you can try not to keep proving that wrong though, for my sake?”

“I guess I could try,” TK said softly, “if only for you. I love you an awful lot, you know.” 

Carlos leaned forward and pulled him into a kiss with more heat than before. It was warm and bright and so full of everything TK had been so afraid of losing for good. When they pulled apart, both breathing heavier and both leaning in, resting their foreheads on each other, Carlos responded, “I love you so much, Tyler Kennedy. Don’t you ever get kidnapped on me again.” 

“I’ll do my best,” TK promised, “but I know that if I do, you’d come find me.” 

“And I always will,” Carlos assured him, squeezing their linked hands, “no matter what.” 

[pointnumbersixteen]

How do you see The Captain's coming out, and growth in confidence and self acceptance thereafter taking place?

I like this question! …and I’m probably going to elaborate on it a bit more than many people will want to read (I noticed back when I was regularly writing essay length posts that they did not get a lot of love) and it’s probably going to get even more ramble-y than usual (brain has not been braining as cooperatively as it should recently and the decision to drink half a bottle of wine right before answering this- sorry- probably does not help), but here we are.  

 About coming out scenarios, none of mine are particularly elaborate. While I do think he needs to come out for his story line to progress, I can’t imagine him making a big thing out of it (long or elaborate announcements, heart-to-hearts, emotional displays of bearing his authentic self or any of the like), either with the group, or person-by-person, for several reasons:

First off, that sort of a coming-out to-do is a more modern notion, and I doubt he was a particularly modern person even when he was alive, seventy-five years ago. His notions of privacy and propriety are probably much more conservative than ours, and I feel like that makes it unlikely that he’d go into any sort of detail, at least at early in this process, about his feelings/emotions or the specificities of his attractions. We’re talking about a man who doesn’t even use his own name. It’s difficult to picture him going into depth about his desires and love life.

Secondly, he’s a bit of a social coward. (He’s not a physical coward, of course, he jumped on that bomb in the garden without hesitation, and acknowledged after the fact that he gotten caught up in the moment, and therefore hadn’t really thought about how a bomb couldn’t hurt him.) And I get it, I’m a bit of a social coward, too, so no judgement. He probably faced a lot of ridicule in his life. Being a social coward is totally fair. But he doesn’t put himself into situations that might involve awkward interpersonal interactions if he can help it, and legs it whenever interactions he’s already in become to awkward for him. I feel like he’s probably quite desperate (although he’d never admit to it) to save face and protect what bits of his ego remain unscathed.

Think about it: he could have spoken to Fanny on his own about her nightly screaming disturbing him in s1e1, they have a clear association established at the outset of the show, they leave Heather’s room together at the end of the very first scene, but he doesn’t do so until he has the weight of the whole group to back him up about the screaming at their meeting. He had to buck up his courage and give himself his little ‘over the top we go’ pep talk before going to speak to Alison in Gorilla War. Also, if there was actually something wrong with his soldiers’ horseplay after hours in Reddy Weddy- if it was breaking regulations or even his own orders for quiet hours- and he heard it, he could have gone down directly when he heard it, confronted whoever was involved and order them to stop or put them on report. But no, instead he addressed the entire group of soldiers in a sixteen point morning brief. He even dispatched Pat to confront Alison about the party in s2e2, instead doing it himself… and spit out his apology/reconciliation with Pat at the end as fast as possible. And as for legging it when things get awkward, see his retreats following the group confronting him in Getting Out and after Alison telling him he wasn’t needed in the Grey Lady- and on a more figurative than literal level, but most relevantly, his quick turn from ‘I’ll miss you’ to ‘we’ll miss you’ with Havers in Reddy Weddy.

This is not a man who wants to be in awkward or embarrassing situations. And I think that coming out, at least at first, will probably be a bit embarrassing for him- it was scandalous in his time, and I think it will take him longer to get over that feeling and come to terms with himself than it will to finally acknowledge that he’s gay. So I doubt he’d make more of it than he utterly feels he has to, at least at first. And of course, he’d have to be a bit afraid that people would judge him or stop associating with him over it, as sadly, in his own time many people would have done, and most of the ghosts are from even earlier times than he was. So that might add more hesitation…

And thirdly, he doesn’t like and/or respect many of his house mates. The other twentieth century ghosts are the only ones he spends much time with. I doubt he’d go out of his way to communicate much of anything to the rest if it wasn’t “mission related” much less discuss his sexuality with them. He mostly disregards Humphrey. See his, “Oh, it’s you.” Mary obviously doesn’t like him and he only associates with her when it might be useful for his ‘missions.’ He clearly doesn’t think much of Thomas and doesn’t really even bother including him in his plans. These aren’t people he’s going to have heart-to-hearts with.

With those constraints in place, here’s a non-exhaustive list of possibilities by which I might see his coming out finally happening. They’re really just scenarios I made for myself on how I might see him coming out and I like to keep my options open (the first three are strategies he might go for, the last is an alternate scenario, presented in decreasing levels of directness on his part):

1) The ‘pull the bandage off quickly and hope it doesn’t sting too much’ strategy.

The Captain waits for the end of one of their various group activities or meetings, where all announcements seem to be made, gets up, clears his throat, stammers a bit, announces it tersely, using the most proper popular word for homosexuality that existed in his time (think: “Heh-hem. Er. Um. Well. It has recently come to my attention that I am- er- well- as it happens- gay. I, uh, thought it should be noted. That is all.”), and then beats a hasty retreat, so he doesn’t have to try to cope with the potentially negative aftermath. Of course, there isn’t a negative aftermath, because many of the ghosts already have guessed and the rest don’t really care. Someone, probably Pat, because he does the bulk of the emotional labor in the group, and more importantly, he’s Cap’s closest friend, would have to go after him. He would of course be initially defensive, and Pat would have to sooth his feathers a bit- or maybe just spit it out over his defensiveness- that he guessed a long time ago and so had plenty of other people, and they were just waiting for him to be ready, and really, it’s fine, and no one’s going to disown him for it.  

2) The ‘well maybe I should tell my friends with the hope they support me’ strategy.

He gets together with a small group, the people whose company he actually values, definitely Fanny and Pat, maybe Julian, probably Alison either at the same time or after he finishes with his ghosts pals, and says it in much the same way as the previous scenario, but waiting for their reactions rather than retreating straight away. Pat and Alison, I expect, would answer with something like ‘yeah, we figured that one out a long time ago, actually, and it’s completely fine’ and Julian’s reaction would probably be something like, ‘well, obviously.’ Fanny’s had a lot of character growth since season one, when I expect her reaction would have been very shrill and judgmental, probably still would be a touch less warm and/or nonchalant, but I picture it as something like a sigh, followed by a pat on the arm and something like, ‘well, I still like you better than everyone else here, anyway.’ Word would eventually trickle to everyone else by way of social osmosis. Or not. No one seems to care if Humphrey or the plague ghosts are well informed.  

3) The ‘I’m not brave enough to actually go through the process of actually telling anyone anything about me so let’s just drop hints and hope everyone figures it out without making a big deal about it’ strategy.  

The indirect approach (I’m rather fond of this one, but mostly because it was my own primary coming out approach)… he first sends out feelers to certain people on the topic of homosexuality, probably Alison, since she’s modern, hosted a lesbian wedding, and very much implied that she’d be ready to keep scandalous secrets for him in Reddy Weddy, and  possibly maybe also Julian, as he’s the most sexually experienced/knowledgeable, and after Alison spent a while inundating him with ‘it’s okay to be gay’ messages (along with a sudden and entirely unexplained influx of LGBT media) as she’s socially clever enough to see that’s what he’s looking for and after Julian spent a while telling him probably far more than he ever actually wanted to know about the potentialities of gay sex, that might boost the Captain’s confidence enough to let him start dropping hints to people, instead of telling them outright (consciously commenting on the attractiveness of men they see rather than occasionally accidentally blurting it out- see ‘the handsome one’- occasionally putting forth an opinion or stance on the LGBT world ‘it would have been nice if gay marriage was acceptable when I was alive,’ maybe occasionally mentioning how certain men would make cute couple), expecting them to meet him in the middle and figure out the point on their own… of course, many of them have already realized, so this isn’t a problem. It’s entirely possible, though, that Mary (world view not terribly grounded in reality) and Kitty (lack of life experience and/or instruction about life, see the how are babies made subplot) never pick up the hints on their own and someone else eventually has to tell them.

4) The ‘someone puts him out of his misery’ scenario.

Cap acknowledges to himself that he’s gay first and then, wishing to avoid embarrassment or lack of acceptance, obviously, awkwardly, painfully tries to disguise it and in doing so draws attention to it, until a third party decides to put him out of his misery and tell him that many of them figured it out ages ago and that everyone is fine with it. Maybe Pat. Maybe Alison. I kind of like the idea of it being Fanny (with her lovely character growth and her couple of suspicious glances his way in the Perfect Day), actually, by way of something like ‘You know, I was entirely prepared to continue on living with my husband, George, keeping his secrets, about the, uh, sort of person he was, and you’re at least one better than him, given that you at least never murdered me- or, for that matter, never married some poor woman you had no interest in to shield yourself from scrutiny… and so, what I’m saying is, I wouldn’t turn my back on you for being the, uh, sort of person you are, either, and maybe things have progressed enough that you don’t actually have to keep secrets at all.’ Cap would take all of this in with a mixture of mortification and relief. I’m rather fond of this scenario, too.  

 As for the second bit of the question, once his sexuality is out there, though, and no one judges him or hates him for it- and some are quite supportive- I do see him becoming more self-accepting. If no one’s judging him, does he need to judge himself so harshly? And also more confident. Because some of those things that he’s always felt different about and in the past has probably been ridiculed about in the past (even if he’s in denial about being gay, he and quite a few other people had to at the very least note that he’s not particularly interested in women), are, apparently just fine now. So he’s a bit more just fine now himself. And that weight of always trying to be someone else, someone who’s just right, can lift and he can relax a bit more. And that would probably help him a lot, too. I see it as a slow sort of thawing process. No matter what way he comes out, I still see Alison as very helpfully providing a variety of LGBT media to help this process along. And maybe he’d eventually get to the point where he processed enough and warmed up enough to be able to talk more in depth, at least with his friends, about what it was like being him in repressed pre-war Britain, and what sort of men he’s attracted to (I enjoy the idea of him and Fanny- gradually overcoming her own repression- scoping out hot men together). Maybe he’ll even luck out one of his male housemates will decide (or has already decided) that bisexuality is a valid option and he’ll get a date (insert whichever ghost y’all ship him with here). I bet Alison would totally help him set up a nice date, too, with her convenient still-functional-in-the-mortal-realm hands. And it would be nice to maybe see him get a taste of actual happiness.    

[savagesbonergarage]

If you’re still taking requests, how would you feel about a Savage x Reader where the reader works in the Sundari palace as a hand of the duchess/lords and/or works as a diplomat, but then surprises Savage with her combat skills? (Steamy sparring/demonstration of said skills ensue from there? 👀) Feel free to make it as NSFW as you’d like (IF this is something you’d be interested in, that is 😅)!

I mean, of course?

I’m going to take some artistic liberties here and combine this request with another one, the second part to this ask about reader's first kiss with the Opress brothers. ☺️

A/n: I think the only warnings are violence, death and a little steaminess at the end? Nothing TOO steamy though...at least, not in THIS one ;)

This time featuring our favorite golden boy~

Savage

"First Kiss"

It happens after an intense battle.

The cowardly defectors of the Death Watch weren't content leaving Sundari Palace to it's rightful rulers, it seemed. It certainly wasn't an unanticipated move, with Prime Minister Almec having predicted some form of retaliation due to the imprisonment of the former Duchess Satine and the familial bond correlating with that other Kryze traitor who dared to reject Lord Maul upon Vizsla's defeat - however, no one seemed to foresee who their precise targets would be.

Rather than attempt to rescue Satine, they prioritized removing the alien intruders from the positions they obtained directly. An otherwise foolish and hasty move in any other circumstance, yet they managed to establish the perfect link that would lead them to victory - or so they thought. Before they could confront the zabraks they'd have to eliminate Almec, and in order to do that, they needed to eliminate you, his diplomatic aide. It might have worked, too, if they'd only been able to proceed beyond the first phase of their plan.

Unfortunately for them, you were also a mandalorian. Perhaps not the sort that paraded around in their armor and clung to their identity as a warrior for dear life, but you were well-versed in combat nonetheless. Despite the lack of battle situations in your daily life, you could hold your own fairly well should the need ever arise.

Today, it did.

You watched from the balcony of the palace as the city below became erratic with suspicious activity, the guards at their stations displaying unusual behavior as you watched them leave their posts and return unannounced, all the while some approaching unknown speeders crossed the boundaries of royal property - something only the traitors of the Death Watch would recklessly attempt. Clearly, some had already infiltrated the palace and were transmitting orders for a coup. Almec was inside, but he did at least have a few bodyguards with him. You, however, weren't detrimental enough to require protection, and therefore made an easy target to subdue before moving on to the rest of the ruling body - in theory.

In practice, the Death Watch assailants soon discovered that the first phase of their assassination plot had a bit of a hiccup, and by 'hiccup' that meant 'the weak-looking young lady in fancy robes is killing us, actually'. Every warrior that was sent up to dispatch you was never heard from again, and by the time the fourth comm cut out, they began arriving in pairs, and then triads. Eventually, too much precious time and muscle was wasted and the entire palace was made aware of the plot, with the red-embellished mandalorians quickly arriving to thwart the forces of the blue-armored enemies.

It was now or never if they had any hopes of weakening the fundamentals of the ruling body, so in a desperate attempt to at least get through to dispatch Almec, almost every one of their soldiers was sent to exterminate you. Ultimately this didn't go unnoticed, and even the zabrak brothers themselves were made privy to the onslaught of traitors surrounding you. Rather than send in reinforcements on his behalf, Savage was anxious to handle the situation on his own - for exactly what reason he couldn't quite determine - although he was cognizant of the fact that if it were anyone else being attacked, he wouldn't be as inclined to get personally involved.

Even though you were well-taught, you were only a single individual and therefore hardly capable of taking on what was undoubtedly a small army. The large and powerful zabrak arrived just in the nick of time to see you about to be overwhelmed by a handful of heavier-looking infantry soldiers, and before the final blows could be dealt, you looked up after being alerted to the sound of men screaming to see Savage’s arms yanking two of your attackers away and throwing them violently over the balcony. The crimson blades of his double-bladed lightsaber ignited, sending a rush of anticipation for what was to come through you as he stood with his back to you somewhat protectively, however, his resoundingly low voice ushered in a command that forbade your involvement.

"Leave, servant."

You collected yourself to the best of your ability and geared up to do as you were told, wiping some blood away from your face as you slinked off to let the zabrak handle the rest of the enemies. There weren't many left, no doubt he could defeat them all easily-

However, a horde of red-clad foes in stolen armor quickly flooded onto the platform via jetpack as well as on foot and surrounded him from all sides, firing projectiles and flames from their gauntlets all at once in an attempt to subdue him. They concentrated absolutely all of their firepower on Savage, aware that he'd still manage to take most of them out, which he did - but not before sustaining some significant damage. You watched the scene unfolding, taking notice of their strategy and how they were timing their efforts to make a constant barrage of attacks that would gradually injure him until he was weak enough to kill.

You weren't about to stand by and let that happen.

Fortunately, it seemed that your presence was all but forgotten while they focused on the beast rattling them around with his brute strength and bursts of force energy, which gave you the opportunity to give him more of a fighting chance before it was too late. There were openings all around, and although it would be risky to your own safety, you never thought twice about hesitating. Most of the onslaught that he couldn't deter was aerial, their attacks inevitable while he focused on battling the ground enemies that were posing a more immediate threat. That was your chance.

You made yourself known to them, running back out onto the balcony and yelling something to the effect of "forget something, di'kut?" while you left yourself an open and vulnerable target. One of the airborne attackers took the bait, redirecting his attention to you as he shot a restraining line from his gauntlet. You allowed it to reach you and wrap all around your leg, the wire sharp enough to constrict and cut through to exposed skin, yet you acted quickly despite the pain and yanked on the line with every ounce of strength you had, ignoring the cuts your palms sustained as you did so. He jerked downward, only by a few feet but it was enough that you could jump and latch onto him, delivering a swift kick to his face as you used the edge of his breastplate to cut the wire while you climbed onto his shoulders. He reached for you, but not quickly enough, as your thighs strangled his head and you violently jerked your hips all the way to the side, an obscene crack of bone sounding through the air as you ended him. The body went limp, yet the jetpack kept operating and you used the opportunity to guide yourself and the corpse to another of the flying opponents.

With a vibroblade that you retrieved from the dead man's belt, you punctured the jetpack and lept off of it right before the impact. He collided with an enemy utilizing their flamethrower, and the result was a fiery and undoubtedly lethal explosion that consumed not only its immediate target, but the remaining airborne attackers as well. You fell, not as gracefully as you would have liked with the force of the blast above sending you down hard, making a controlled landing nearly impossible - if you even landed, that is. Luckily, Savage took notice of your predicament and used the force to not-so-gently catch you before you missed the trajectory of the balcony completely, and with a flick of his wrist you were flung onto the hard ground. It wasn't a very graceful landing, either, as he was still preoccupied with his own battle when he helped you out - therefore the back of your head and torso took the brunt of your fall, which served to quicky render you unconscious.

~

The throbbing pain in your skull was sensational before you even opened your eyes. The smell of bacta filled your nostrils and the sterile sting of it was piercing through the open wounds on your skin, making you wince. However, what really seemed to fully awaken you wasn't any discomfort from this, but from the cold compress against your forehead. You stirred, and just before your lids cracked open, the pressure of the compress lessened significantly and the rag slid down the side of your face. There was a whoosh of air beside you, prompting you to look in that direction to see the blurry visage of black and gold heading toward the door.

"Lord Savage?" you inquired, voice caught between a croak and a squeak.

He stilled, apparently debating on whether or not to leave the medbay now that you had acknowledged his presence. After what felt like a full minute he pivoted on his feet to face you again, taking a single step forward as he thought of something to say.

"So," he began, a strange tinge of embarrassment in his tone, "you survived."

"I... yes," you replied, feeling a little flustered yourself for some reason, "...so did you." There was a pause that carried an unnerving amount of tension in it, and you decided to say something else to remedy the stupidly obvious statement you made. "What happened? Did the enemy retreat?"

Savage answered quickly, somewhat relieved to be having a less personal discussion. "Yes. Their forces were significantly depleted. Lord Maul is pleased with the outcome of the battle. I'm also- um...I'm pleased-, uh, grateful-, um, you fought good. Well. You fought well."

A small smile tugged at the edge of your lips, the unanticipated compliment lifting your spirits significantly. "Um, thank you. You fought well as...well."

Another painfully awkward silence. You swallowed, suddenly remembering your position as a diplomatic servant indebted to one of your masters. You spoke again, reverently and candidly. "Thank you for guiding my fall. You saved my life."

The zabrak's countenance softened for a moment before you took notice of the bob in his throat and what might have been a temporary flush in his tattooed cheeks. "Yes. Um, I apologize that it was a harsh impact. I was afraid that it did more har-" he caught himself, taking a moment to cough awkwardly into his fist before he continued, "I'm glad you're not dead." He winced after he spoke.

You felt your own face getting warmer, and this time you knew that it wasn't due to the absence of the cold cloth against your skin. It was...strange enough that he had complimented you earlier, and now he was more or less expressing relief that you were alive. It wasn't inherently anything to feel flustered about, yet you felt like he wouldn't have said those things let alone be here with you if it were anyone else. You couldn't quite discern what that possibly meant, but there was no denying what you hoped it was...

You snapped back into reality when you heard his voice again, realizing that you had been stupidly staring right at him while you were lost in thought. He looked almost strained, as though he was trying to be as nonchalant as possible and utterly failing to do so. "Your...injuries are stabilized?"

"Um..."

You sat up a little to get a better look at your own body, all properly bandaged and set despite the pain.

"Yes. What about your- oh."

Your thought was interrupted when you finally analyzed the man before you and found that he was still pretty battered in most places, the major wounds clean but still irritated without any coverings. He was raising a non-existent brow at you, confused by your concerned expression as you quickly forgot to filter your questions. "Do you not like bacta patches?"

Savage momentarily seemed somewhat reluctant to answer the question, but evidently decided to do so anyway. "I'm fine with patches. I hate droids."

Ah. After the unexpected welcome he and his brother received when the Death Watch first acquired them, it only made sense that Savage wasn't privy to being operated on by machines - and with the medbay being staffed solely with them, his disinclination to have his wounds checked was understandable. Still, your worry was outweighing your conscience, and the words slipped out before you could stop them. "I can help you."

Once again, silence. You wished that you'd been killed when your head hit the ground. What were you thinking, offering care beyond your duty to Lord Savage of all-

"Alright."

You blinked. He was serious. You both cleared your throats and avoided one another's eyes as he fumbled around looking for a chair to place at your bedside and you clumsily retrieved some bacta patches from your side table drawer. You set them on your lap and looked over as you felt him plop down onto the seat, and you almost audibly gasped when from the corner of your eye you realized he was nearly naked. You hadn't even heard him remove his heavy armor, but you...you didn't mind it. Don't stare, do not stare, do not-

"L-Let me see your arm," you managed to say coyly, feeling ridiculous as he extended his forearm and rested it in your hands, which made them look absolutely miniature in comparison. Savage was obviously a large man, but actually having him close like this and touching him only made the size difference that much more apparent. This was also something you didn't mind. His skin was so warm and rough even in places where the flesh would be more supple on anyone else, the texture so oddly pleasing against your fingertips, which were lingering a little longer than they should have been with every new patch you applied. It didn't take long for you to realize that your heart was racing, and you had to consciously pace your breaths to keep them from becoming ragged. Maker, pull yourself together!

Before long, you had applied the final patch and it was time to dress the last wound - his swollen lip. It didn't need an entire patch for such an insignificant injury, only a dab of bacta gel that you gingerly applied with the pad of your ring finger. This time, neither of you were able to avoid eye contact. You were both extremely cognizant of the...tenderness being displayed, and you could only hope that you weren't making him too uncomfortable, let alone aware of your more hidden impressions. You felt the warm wetness of the inside of his mouth against your finger, and with that you abruptly took your hand away before you did, said or thought something you might regret.

"Finished."

Savage examined your handiwork, seemingly pleased with the results. "Thank you."

"You're-, oh. I missed one."

You took his hand and faced the meat of his palm in your direction so you could get a better view of the significant scrape there. Once you had finally applied the actual last bandage, you smiled softly and breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

"There we go," you uttered aloud, and without thinking, you brought his massive palm up to your lips and lightly kissed the patch over where the wound was. A beat. Your entire countenance sank as the realization of your actions finally hit you with the force of fifty rancors. Oh God. Oh my God. I really just did that. I just-

You reluctantly lifted your head to see that Savage was just as puzzled as you were, a little frozen in place as his eyes never left that spot on his hand. "What...?"

Oh, kriff.

"I-," you blurted, stopping yourself before you said I'm sorry, since, well, you weren't. Obviously you wanted to do it, but now the difficult part was explaining to the giant zabrak sitting in front of you what it all meant. Hell, you didn't really know for yourself what it all meant. "It's..." you tried again, "it's an old healing gesture. Parents will do it to their children's wounds to 'kiss them better'".

Dear God, that sounded even more pathetic out loud. Was it too late to run back out to the balcony and jump off? Maybe you could catch Lord Maul in a bad mood and he'd mercifully end you? Forget Maul, the zabrak you should be the most concerned with was presently almost right in your lap and any second now he could become unhinged-

Only, he didn't. He only looked...curious. Not angry, not confused, simply just curious. He was still studying his hand, his golden irises flickering while you all but held your breath. "Interesting," he finally replied, quelling your anxiety for the moment, "does it always work?"

"Um-"

His hand was at your mouth before you could respond, his expression charmingly eager. "Again."

Again?

He wanted you to do it again? To kiss his wound...again? You swallowed, your chest swelling up not with fear exactly, but with a strange anticipation that you weren't expecting to feel that night. It wasn't your place to deny him what he wanted, so you held his wrist up with both of your hands and carefully placed another kiss in the same spot, letting it linger for a while longer than the last. Your lips made a tiny yet audible smack against his skin when you pulled away, and Savage's eyes weren't on his wound when you drew back - they were on you.

"Hm," he whispered, "it works."

"Lord-"

"Here," Savage interrupted, bringing your hand to the patch on his chest, "this one, next."

You gazed up at him, as if to inquire if this was really okay, and his expression in return was genuinely insistent. Did he... Did he really believe that your kisses were helping, or was he...? You tried not to think about it too much, instead simply closing your eyes and bringing your lips to each patch he guided you to - his chest, his arm, his stomach, his thigh, his shoulder - and when you pulled away, heart pounding so rapidly there was no possible way of concealing it, your blush deepened when you felt Savage's lip against your fingertips. You gazed at him once again through half-lidded eyes and silently asked if he knew, if he really knew what he was doing - turns out, he did. He absolutely did. His arm was already snaking around your waist-

You started out carefully, just in case, only barely allowing your palms to graze against his pecs as you leaned in and softly collected the most swollen part of his lip in yours. You kept it chaste, making no moves to deepen it, and neither did he. You simply stayed like that for a while, only applying the slightest bit more pressure right before you pulled away. Your eyes met. There was a dual beating beneath your palms - two hearts - and with no further words needing to be exchanged between you, your mouths swiftly met again in tandem and your embrace on one another tightened. It wasn't very chaste this time, Savage uttering a growl into your mouth that wasn't at all menacing while his teeth grazed your lips, rather, it came from a place of sheer desire and need and passion-

It wasn't much longer before his large frame was pressing you into the bed, one of your hands cupping the back of his neck and the other gripping onto one of his long horns as you felt the bedframe staggering to support the weight. Savage also took notice of this and finally parted from you long enough to speak, his low breaths sensual and uneven. "Perhaps we'll continue this in my private chambers..." he growled into your neck, sending heat coursing all throughout your body before he finally asked, "do any of your wounds require...a healing gesture?"

You managed a playful chuckle, tenderly bringing your lips to his once more. "Yes. All of them."

He smiled against your skin before effortlessly picking you up and holding you against his chest. "I have my work cut out for me," he purred against your neck before pulling your body even closer to him. "I'll take all your pain away."

[nntssy-old]

Writer’s Month 2021, Day 1 - Protective

Fandom: One Punch Man Characters/ships: Garou/Metal Bat (not really shippy though), Zenko, Tareo, Bang Word count: 1709 Rating: T?

A/N: Assume they’re  already on friendly terms, and Garou occasionally hangs around Metal Bat’s apartment/house.

*****

Tareo was about to answer when Garou sensed some sort of intrusion incoming. From above. On instinct, he stooped down, spreading his arms and keeping the little ones behind. Just in time to shield them from some sort of projectile landing just in front of the three.

No one was moving until the dust settled revealing someone's lower body sticking out of the ground in the middle of a little crater.   

No one would survive that.

There was some lingering sense of deja vu though. 

Still, Garou straightened up and was about to lure reluctant Zenko and Tareo away — the rule about violence and all that, and kids should have no business with corpses in general — when he heard some groans coming out of the pit as the legs clad in a dusty black wiggled.

Well, not many.

"Big brother?" Zenko's uncertain voice broke the silence further. Tareo looked at her in confusion and disbelief. Garou only quirked his brow. 

As if in response, the waggling of the black-clad body intensified, as the person was apparently trying to get out of the entrapment of the earth. Garou came closer to grab the legs and pull them up.

"Big brother, indeed," Garou commented smugly as he recognized the mess of dusty clothes, blood and swears that was hanging upside down in his hands and squirming violently. No wonder the butt looked familiar. "Not many people will survive diving headfirst into the asphalt." 

"Now, will ya put me the hell down, you @$#*&%@?" Garou was all too happy to oblige, and the hero was unceremoniously dropped the next instant.

Zenko rushed to her brother as he was straightening himself up, still looking at Garou angrily and muttering things under his breath. The string of curses stopped the moment Bad noticed her presence. His face quickly turned to concern as he noticed Tareo as well.

"Ya should get outta here, now! It's dangerous here!" he shouted looking at the sky in a mild panic — supposedly in the direction he came falling from.

As if on cue the city siren went off. It meshed in with the sound of buildings crumbling as a giant worm-like something emerged above them.

"Get the kids outta here!" Bad repeated, preparing to get straight back to fighting whatever that was, despite his sister clinging to his leg. Now it was directed at Garou.

"Maybe it's you who should crawl to safety," the other answered, glancing the hero up and down, "and I will deal with the monster." He looked at the worm-like creature looming in the sky. "You're already pretty beaten up, might not be up to the task," Garou finished with a grin.

"We don't have much time to lose." The creature started to move seemingly in their direction. "And running isn't exactly my speciality, so…"

"What is that suppo—" Garou started, but a loud screech interrupted him. At the same moment, he felt Tareo's trembling hands on his right leg.

"Quick!" Metal Bat was already shoving Zenko into Garou's arms, but she protested and didn't want to let go of her brother's jacket. "I dunno whether it can see or not, but I think I pissed it off big time, so it might come for me." He unclutched Zenko's hands. "Now, go!" Bad said with the kind of finality in his voice and eyes that perhaps only a parent figure would develop.

The worm-like monster was now pretty determinedly rushing at them. Indeed, there was no time to lose. Garou threw Zenko over his shoulder, picked Tareo under his other arm, and took off doing what he had done way too often in his life — running away.

***

Bang was coming back from his brother's dojo when the sirens went off. He started debating with himself whether he should assist with the threat — he was retired, after all, but still couldn't just walk away when people were in danger.

But his line of thought was interrupted. His former disciple — the same disciple he hadn't seen since that day — just ran past him — strangely, not in the direction of the most danger — carrying two kids. Garou was arguing with the girl over his shoulder and therefore didn't notice his former master.

Suspicious, Bang decided to investigate what could potentially be a kidnapping. Because Garou was involved, and he still felt responsible for his former protege. What were the chances he would just run into Garou like this another time? 

They have probably dispatched several heroes to handle the situation already.

***

Putting what he considered a safe distance between them and the monster, Garou stopped. They were up on a hill in some park in the next city. It had a nice view over a city that was being ravaged.

"Alright, this should be far enough," he said lowering both kids on the ground.

But the girl did not let go of him completely, still clutching at his shirt, the sharp and determined look on her face not unlike her brother's.

"Go help him."

"Help who?" Play dumb. It will buy you some time.

Zenko only glared in response though. Those dark eyes of hers looked way too much like her brother's at the moment. Fierce. Stubborn.

"As much as I hate to admit it, your big bro can take care of himself, Little Bat," he said, looking in the direction where supposedly the fight was. "Not to mention, if anything was to happen to you, I would need to find another place to freeload." He made a quoting gesture in the air. No. If anything was to happen to Zenko, that would be the least of his concerns. Metal Bat would hunt him to the ends of the continent and maybe even farther, he was pretty sure of it. In the past, Garou would've been excited at the prospect, but now… not so much. Moreover, he wouldn't want the kid to get harmed. He looked down on Zenko, who was glowering at him with arms crossed, and Tareo, who was watching the monster's rampage from afar and sweating profusely. Either of them.

Another building fell in the distance. Could be either the monster's or the hero's work with more or less equal probability.

"Go help him," Zenko said again with pleading eyes, "please."

Oh, she has decided to change her tactics.

Garou was trying to look anywhere but on her face, while coming up with a convincing response, but truth to be told, the current monster was almost the size of the Elder Centipede who was taken down with a combined effort of several S-class heroes, or so he heard, and Bad had been already looking like shit when they had left him, and it had been half an hour already since…

"We will go to the nearest shelter. There should be one nearby… Really close..." Zenko kept piling up arguments, while yanking at his pant leg.

Garou's eyes were glued to the horizon. With every passing minute, the idea to return seemed more appealing. He wasn't one for patience after all.

"There are probably other heroes there already." It was the only thing he came up with in response. 

Garou was so distracted thinking about what was happening far away that he didn't sense someone approaching until it was too late. Too late to hide, that is. 

"My-my… It seems every time we meet you get more children around you..." a familiar elderly voice interrupted his thoughts and Zenko's nagging. All three of them tensed and were looking towards the approaching old man — his old master, Bang.

Suddenly, with one audacious thought, it all clicked together. Instead of seeing another problem to solve, Garou's mind came up with a solution. So before the old man started with uneasy questions, he took both kids by the hand and pulled them towards Bang. 

"Hey, old man… You wouldn't mind looking after these kids for me for a little bit, would you?" And before anyone could say anything, he took off.

His relationship with Bang wasn't the best, but he knew there were very few places safer than in his teacher's care.

Unless you were a criminal. Or a monster. Or both.

***

Going back was faster without an additional load of two kids, one of which was very much against leaving. Finding Metal Bat shouldn't be hard — he probably was in the epicenter of the destruction, no doubt causing at least half as much damage as the monster.

It seemed, Garou found him just at the right moment: Bad — apparently slammed into the ground previously — was about to stand up, and the worm-like monster was gearing to dive down and swallow the hero. Even a single thought didn't pass through the former Hero Hunter's mind before the instinct took over. In a split moment, he dashed forward. The monster hit the ground, but the two of them were already a dozen meters away.

***

In one second Bad was trying to gain his footing, in the next he was swept away again. This time it was different though. When the world stopped moving, he was able to make out the golden eyes and a familiar wolfish grin through his dizziness. He was held by Garou. Bridal style.

"The hell are ya doing?"

"I just saved you, dipshit."

"Put me down!"

"A 'thank you' would have been nice. But as you wish…" And Bad was unceremoniously dropped down.

"Where are the kids?" he asked standing up.

"Safe. We ran into Bang. And your sister insisted that I come and help you." Garou quickly glanced over Bad. "You look like a bloody shit, by the way."

He felt like that too, but he would agree with the Hero Hunter only over his own dead body.

"So," said Garou as they both stood now — half-facing each other, half-facing the giant worm who tore back up through the ground, "what do we have here?"

"Don't remember agreeing to yer help," argued Bad slinging his bat over the shoulder.

"No one was asking you." The other stretched his arms with a crunch.

A loud screech rang through the air.

They never fought together before, only against each other. 

This can be interesting.

[keanureevesisbae]

Protection - Prologue

Summary: August Walker is assigned his newest mission named Mia Makaruku.

August Walker x Mia Makaruku (Asian ofc)

Wordcount: 1.1k

Warnings: Mentions of a car accident and death.

A/N: This is so different than the fluffy stuff I usually write and also my first time writing for August Walker 😬 I hope that this doesn’t disappoint and that you like this as much as I do 🥰

Masterlist // Next chapter

As raindrops are pattering lightly on the window, August Walker sits in the rented U-Haul outside of the apartment building in Chicago, Illinois. His new home.

He takes one more look at the thick file in his hands, his thumb running over her name and he starts shaking his head. He still cannot believe this is his newest mission and he was practically forced into taking it. This isn’t what he usually does. Everything about this operation is something he never did, even before he started working for the CIA.

However, the second he was clearly briefed by Erika Sloane and understood this particular job description, he came to the realization that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Not because the lady he had to watch, protect and befriend was something he really wants to do, but because this case is connected to the myth he had heard so much about.

The money and the files, all securely hidden in a safe no one knows where it’s located. He heard about it when he started working for the CIA and it intrigued him, but there were no connections to anyone or anything.

August opens the file again, taking in once more the picture of twenty five year old rising soccer star, Mia Makaruku. He has a hard time believing this Dutch-Indonesian player, who moved to the USA years ago to play professionally here, is connected to the legendary safe.

Mia is, however, a very interesting looking woman, the type that would make him strain is neck if she walked passed him. Her long wavy hair matches the color of her irises. Thick eyebrows and round cheeks, making her look youthful. Despite the serious expression, she has this twinkling in her light brown, nearly doll like eyes.

Mischievous.

Quite intriguing.

To prepare himself for this job, August watched some of her interviews and he must admit that it’s pretty admirable to see how she carries herself. Especially after going through the stuff she went through as a kid.

At the age of four, Mia was involved in a car accident, together with her parents and three brothers. The Dutch emergency number was called by an unknown woman (who has yet to be found till this day), telling the dispatcher where the accident had happened and that from the looks of it, a man, a woman, three boys between the ages fifteen and twenty and a very young girl were trapped in the vehicle.

By the time the paramedics arrived however, the very young girl was the only one left, sitting on the pavement next to the smashed up vehicle, holding her arm closely to her body as she stared at the trees. She didn’t respond to the efforts of the paramedics, who tried to figure out what happened. She kept repeating: ‘My name is Mia. Mia Makaruku. My name is Mia. Mia Makaruku.’

She went from one foster family to another, barely being able to settle there for more than a year. Not because she was a handful, quite the opposite really. According to the files, almost every family was smitten with her, because of her lovely personality. The reason she kept moving from one family to another, was because specialists spread over Western Europe desperately wanted to figure out Mia’s story.

Yet, nothing seemed to work. She never broke, never told anyone anything about her parents or her brothers. It almost seemed like her family simply vanished out of her memories and never existed.

Despite the disadvantages she has faced in her life, she managed to make a name for herself and she is a well loved player, known all over the world.

But there is one thing August has yet to understand and Erika did not explain it to him either, probably because she doesn’t know either. Why does the CIA think Mia is connected to the legendary safe that was deemed a hoax many years ago?

Mia maybe wasn’t in the system, which is indeed suspicious and no one knew anything about this family. No one recognized little Mia, which made it difficult to identify her family, whose bodies still haven’t been found to this day.

But how is there a connection between her and the safe?

While his job is to find out what happened, he has to keep in mind: Mia was only four years old when her family died. Even if they were connected to the safe and its belongings, how was a young girl suppose to know the fine details about it? While this can seem an impossible task, he figured out stuff during his CIA career with even less clues.

This will be a piece of cake. Besides, Erika did not give him a specific time slot to do this, meaning he can take all the time in the world.

He rummages through the file again, scanning the screenshots made of her Instagram account with his eyes. Mia barely shares pictures of herself. The only recognizable pictures available of her, are those shared on the accounts of her club, taken during her training sessions and competitions and screenshots made by fans during her games. She doesn’t share pictures of her own face on the account missmiamakaruku. It almost seems like a pretend account, however it is verified and the CIA established that the account indeed belongs to her.

But another question arises: why does she barely share pictures of herself online? Is there a specific reason she does this? Is it because deep down she is aware of her possible connection to this or to anything significant?

August doubts it, because even if she was aware of a possibility of the connection to the safe, she wouldn’t have become a the star soccer player she is today.

The center of attention.

August sighs deeply, as he closes the file, staring ahead of him. He must admit, this job is a nice change of scenery. He has done many missions for the CIA and this one almost feels a step closer to a normal life. Something he has craved for so long deep down.

The only thing not normal about this, is the fact he has to keep a close eye on this particular woman, who is an inspiration to girls all over to world.

Erika Sloane specifically told him to befriend her, so maybe he can actually force her into remembering something important by the time she completely trusts him.

August looks to the side at the apartment building. This place, right here in Chicago Illinois, is going to be his new home, for as long as it takes for Mia Makaruku to break.

And he can guarantee: she will.

◎ ◎ ◎

[theuniversitychallengereview]

UC 51.03 - London Business School vs Hertford, Oxford

Since it was introduced at the 1988 Olympics, every single Gold Medal in the Women’s Team event in the Archery has gone to South Korea. Including yesterday’s win that’s nine straight victories, and their period of unparalleled dominance continues. The men’s team have also won six of the nine they have contested, and a mixed team won the first staging of that event in Tokyo too. Adding their success in the individual events, South Korea have won 26 gold medals, and 42 in total, in the 43 archery events which have been thus far staged at the Olympic Games. 

As Twitter’s own @tarequelaskar pointed out in the brilliant article which alerted me to this story, this is a perfect example of specialisation, an economic concept whereby countries or companies focus intensely on one particular aspect of a given industry and come to serve that niche in such a specialised fashion that they become the ultimate experts and nigh-on irreplaceable. This is done in government and business by providing companies with incentives to specialise, and supporting those who succeed at it. 

With respect to Korean archery, similar forces are at play. There are a bunch of professional teams and leagues in the country, giving archers financial stability while they focus on their training, something not as common across the world. Said training involves such things as practicing in live baseball stadiums and replicas of the Olympic venues, to mimic first the atmosphere and then the conditions that will be present on the day of the actual tournament. 

This philosophy of marginal gains - the same system used by Team Sky and Chris Froome to win multiple Tour De Frances on the trot - puts their preparation miles ahead of the competition, which goes some way to explaining their dominance. It is not the only reason. Before the fine-tuning of the elite shooters comes the discovery of the promising young ones, and the inspiring nature of past success (along with a historic national love of the sport) helps to create a virtuous cycle which give Korea a far larger number of archers to choose from than any other country. This greater choice means that there is a greater chance of finding the next Gold medallists.

Making the argument that professional footballers are at a higher level than other elite sportspeople, Michael Cox used this same argument in a recent article for The Athletic. To summarise, he stated that because there are a far higher number of people who wish to become professional footballers, that must mean that the ones who do make it are at a higher standard than those who make it in other sports. Initially, I was drawn in by the pure maths of this point, but having thought about it some more I’m no longer sure to what extent I agree. 

Now, the fact that hundreds of millions more people play football than rugby, or basketball, will certainly confer some level of “eliteness”, but only up to a certain point. Because football has been so popular for so long, the general standard of the play, relative to what it used to be, has had longer to improve. In the same way that if you transplanted a 100m runner from the Olympic final in the early 20th century to now they probably wouldn’t even qualify for the games, a footballer from the 80s would stand less of a chance of making it were they playing today. Many other sports don’t have that level of natural progression, afforded by decades of technical and tactical advancement - at least not globally. 

But the numbers argument only goes so far, as can be demonstrated by the Korean archers. Yes, there are more archers in Korea than anywhere else, relatively, giving them a higher chance of uncovering those with a natural aptitude, but the reason behind their bow and arrow dynasty is the specialisation. The hyper-detailed level of training and focus which allows them to be the best they can possible be. 

Now, archery is unique in that there is a theoretical maximum score (I understand that this is to some extent arbitrary, and related to the rules of the game as defined by some human being, semi-randomly, but it works in terms of this argument, because it gives a percentage score of how good the archers are based on the agreed-upon parameters of the sport), which, at the Olympics, is 720. The Olympic record is 700 (held by Korean Kim Woo-jin, giving an implied “eliteness level” of 97.2%. 

The best player in the history of football (don’t @ me) is Lionel Messi, and few would doubt that he operates at or above that level of perfection in his sport. But I also don’t think you could doubt that Novak Djokovic, or Serena Williams in her pomp, were similarly magnificent at tennis. Cyclists on the Tour De France put their bodies through more in three weeks than most people endure in a decade, and have every aspect of their training and diet strictly controlled so as to bring them as close to perfection as possible. There will certainly be a higher number of these elite performers in football, because there are a higher number of paying jobs for said elite performers, and because more people attempt to become elite performers, but I don’t think that it follows on from that that they are better at their sport than other elite athletes, all of whom have undergone years and years of specialised training to get them where they are.

Does any of this matter, in terms of how each sport should be enjoyed? Probably not, but its interesting to think about, and kind of awe-inspiring to try and appreciate just how good those at the top of their respective games are. And if there is some discrepancy in the level of eliteness between the different sports it doesn’t detract from the fact that they would handily dispatch any civilian challengers without breaking a sweat. The joy comes from watching people who are good at stuff doing that stuff - and, as evidenced by the crowds which gather for non-league football, it doesn’t matter whether or not they are at the absolute pinnacle of said stuff. They’re still going to be much better than the rest of us. 

Competitive quizzing is different from the activities previously mentioned in that any normal person can have a guess at pretty much any question, with a chance that they’ll get it right. What sets the contestants apart on shows like University Challenge is the speed of their recall under pressure - the quickness of their knowledge as well as the knowledge itself. But there are plenty of armchair quizzers who think they could wipe the floor on the show, so just how good are the actual contestants? (Compared to an elite footballer or archer on an imaginary scale that accounts for relative skill in all disciplines?). I don’t know (and in case you hadn’t noticed by now I’m just fascinated by people who are really good at anything, and wanted to share some of that fascination with you all), but I’ll try and have a go at answering it anyway. 

So, the World Quizzing Championships have been dominated by British and Irish quizzers since its inception in 2003, with 16 of the 18 winners coming from either Britain or the Republic of Ireland (who have four wins courtesy of The Egghead Pat Gibson). This, in my mind, makes this neck of the woods comparable to South Korean archery. It is a hotbed of talent, and the infrastructure is in place to encourage and aid talent maximalisation. Indeed, if you scroll down the list of highest ranking players at the WQC in any given year you can see a significant cohort of UC alums, so clearly there are a number of elite quizzers who have passed through the show. 

This specialisation can be seen in microcosm with the preponderance of top-level quizzers produced by Oxford and Cambridge, who both have a long-standing culture of competitive quizzing far beyond other Universities. The debate is there to be had on the fairness of each institution having so many teams, but clearly they produce enough elite players to compete with far bigger Unis when entering as (sometimes tiny) colleges. 

In conclusion, I think it is pretty obvious that UC is a breeding ground for world-class quizzers, and though no one has won a World title straight off the bat after appearing on the show, there are top-50 and top 100 finishes abound, which is still greatly impressive, and helps to give an idea of just how good these students really are. 

Hoping to justify the 1000 words I’ve just written about their exceptional talents are two teams from the London Business School and Hertford College, Oxford. The Oxford side have never made it beyond the second round, but LBS reached the semi-finals in 2006, their only previous appearance on the show. Anyway, there is quite literally no time for me to recite the rules; here’s your first starter for ten... 

Paxman mentions that LBS were in the show in 2006, but doesn’t mention that they reached the semi final, which is lazy imo. A bunch of them are studying for MBAs, which makes sense. He doesn’t mention Hertford’s previous appearances either, but that’s more understandable.

Hertford’s Hitchens takes the first starter with Kennedy, and the Oxonians added a full set of bonuses on words made up by authors - including a couple of educated guesses. LBS hit back with the next question, but can only manage one bonus on famous scientists. One of the two they miss is Rosalind Franklin, and Paxman teases them for not spotting an apparently obvious clue within the question.

The first picture round is on national emblems, and LBS are first to recognise that of Vietnam for the starter. They don’t know Laos or Belarus, but do know that Mozambique has a machine gun on its one. Butterworth then jumps the gun with argon on the next starter, giving his answer just as Paxman says it in the question. Butterworth makes up for it with the music starter, recognising Fat Boy Slim before anyone else, and LBS know Primal Scream and Wu Tang Clan too. They’re still fifty points behind though, and will need a big second half to turn things around.

This task gets more difficult for them, as Hitchens takes another starter. Lloyd adds a second in a row for Oxford and they are nearly one hundred points clear. LBS really need to get some points on the board, and Ruess duly obliges, knowing that there is a massive sculpture of a spider called Maman, which sounds needlessly scary, to the extent that I’m not even going to google it.

The comeback is ended before its even begun as Oswald takes a starter for Hertford, which gives them the picture bonuses - the starter having been dropped by both teams. Lloyd produces another excellent guess of Reuben, demonstrating how useful it is to have vague knowledge as well as specific knowledge. This is one of probably five questions he has answered in a throwaway manner, but which turned out to be correct. 

By this point LBS seem to have accepted defeat. Ruess takes another starter, but there is little to no urgency on the bonus questions. They’re right, granted, to have none, they have no chance of winning, but if they gave it a go they might scrape a high scoring loser spot. Ruess is the only one who seems bothered, and bags himself ten more points. They have an amusing discussion about methods of poisoning in Agatha Christie novels (’it was used as a curry ingredient?’, Ruess wondered aloud, trying to figure out which spices could be poisonous, before Butterworth pointed out that it wasn’t something commonly used as a curry ingredient, prompting respectful mirth from the audience) on the bonuses, but still languish miles behind. 

Lloyd grabs the last starter of the night for Hertford, who win by eighty at the gong.

Final Score: London Business School 100 - 180 Hertford, Oxford

At the end, Paxman mentions Hertford’s stellar guesswork, which means I wasn’t chatting nonsense (at least on that front, the jury is out on the rest of it), and says that they’ve done a really good job. Incredibly effusive praise for a score of 180. He really is going soft in his old age.

Phew, that was a long one. If you made it through the intro you deserve a prize. And that prize is that you get to come back next week for the next episode of this blog!! Woop woop! 

And if this wasn’t quite enough UC content for you then you can subscribe for extra blogs on my Patreon, which features Retro Reviews from the 2015/16 series of the show. Ta x

[ladyluscinia]

Ok so this deep dive analysis by @davyperez is giving me more "Ketch killed President Rooney" thoughts. Unfortunately they are somewhat contradictory.

So the proposed background on Rooney winning in 2012 seems pretty legit, but I feel like the show gives very weird vibes as to whether he's been president for a while or is brand new. (The polling thing, for example, sounds like it's implying he's been around for a while but also just the way US politics work it could mean his campaign and first weeks went over great.) This doesn't line up with the December airing date if it was his first term, but air dates and in-universe dates are obviously on different timelines so that doesn't prove anything either way. Regardless, he must have won in 2016.

Everything said here is absolutely correct:

NOW. i very highly doubt that donald trump would ever run as jefferson "i'm satan's little bitch" rooney's running mate (or anyone's running mate for that matter).

...but at the same time, I don't see how the demon deal Electoral Shenanigans could have happened offscreen in the timeline without being mentioned. Sam and Dean were at that very moment imprisoned for their 6 week stay at fake Colorado gitmo after "trying to assassinate" Rooney. If something had happened to him in those 6 weeks they absolutely would have been tortured / interrogated about it no matter how impossible it seemed for them to be involved.

Plus, Crowley is kinda on the outs in Hell as long as Lucifer is free. He would have to have reestablished himself fast. Made a deal with Trump basically immediately and in the middle of all his own chaos in order to squeeze in there pre-Electoral College (while a VP deal would have been earlier and less time sensitive).

I feel like Rooney must have been absolutely fine and getting all those fake gitmo reports until Sam and Dean escaped.

At which point Ketch is dispatched to kill every single person at fake Colorado gitmo and then assassinates Rooney before he can realize that the black ops Winchester imprisonment has collapsed and he needs to loop more people in. Ketch preserves the masquerade.

Ahem. If Rooney lived for at least 6 more weeks after the last time we saw him, though, then I don't think even the most generous timeline could put the situation early enough for Trump to take over unless he was already in the line of succession as VP.

Why would Trump make a demon deal to run as VP though? I don't know. Maybe he made a bad deal (lol)? Maybe it was a very roundabout deal to get the presidency because the direct route wouldn't work? I just remembered that Cas canonically massacred a bunch of homophobic evangelicals and disbanded the KKK in S6 so maybe Trump literally didn't have the base??? Maybe if Ketch hadn't killed Rooney then something bad was definitely going to happen to him soon?

Making a Buckleming episode make sense is a struggle.

[nakedmossy]

Alone, Together - Chapter 6 [JJ x Reader]

JJ x Reader

Description: JJ is not the only pogue on the cut who deals with abuse at home. Reader is an only child who lives with her mom and her abusive stepdad, has a strong relationship with JJ because they share the same home life. Reader experiences physical abuse for the first time, which changes her relationship with JJ irrevocably.

Chapter Summary: You go back to your house to confront your step dad, things don’t go as planned, JJ wakes up in the hospital to you gone and dispatches the pogues to find you.

Disclaimers: Mentions of physical abuse, swearing, alcohol.

Notes: This is it y’all. The final chapter. Hope you like it. See you in the next fix. Peace and love.

_________________________________________________________

JJ stood silently with his hands on his head, knowing that you weren’t in the hospital. He should have known not to fall asleep, after the events of the day, he knew you were a loose canon after he watched you almost flat out attack your stepdad in the hallway, he knew you weren’t thinking straight. His breathing was rapid and he felt dizzy, thinking about where you would have gone, and why Pope was gone.

“Hey man. HEY” John B snapped his fingers in front of JJ’s face, looking at him directly. “We’re gonna find her alright?” JJ and John B stared at each other intensely for a few seconds before JJ slowly shook his head and walked backwards towards the exit, mumbling.

“I think I know where she is” He said before turning and walking briskly out the door.

JJ heard the crew shouting his name as the door slammed behind him. John B followed him out, his phone still pressed to his ear.

“Wait up, where are you going?” He yelled at JJ’s back.

“To her house” He said without looking back. “She went to find him”

John B grabbed JJ’s arm and reefed on it, dragging JJ to a full stop.

“How do you know that?” John B stood in front of him now, his full attention on JJ.

“Because,” JJ looked at him hard before pushing him back to give him space to walk around him. “That’s where I would have gone.”

____________________________________________

It took you nearly 40 minutes to walk from the hospital across to the other side of the Cut and around the docks along the trail that led to your house. You had a ringing in your ears that hadn’t stopped since you heard Shoupe say the words “car accident”, and the walk had made your head pulse so hard you felt like it would pop off at any moment. Your ribs ached so badly that you had started limping from the pain, you had walked the last kilometre with your hand pressed so firmly against your ribs just in hopes of numbing them that you couldn’t feel the heel of your palm anymore. You had had 40 minutes of near perfect silence to think about what you would say to your step dad, how you would approach him, what you would use to hurt him. First you had thought about going to the shed and getting whatever sharp tool or shovel you could find. Then you thought that would look too premeditated and messy. You needed to find a way for there to be no shadow of a doubt that it was self defence. Maybe a knife...even a fire poker would do. 

You were alone for maybe 5 minutes in front of your house, staring blindly at the door you had ran out and tripped down the steps of two days earlier, when you heard your name faintly behind you.

You turned, startled, and narrowed your eyes to see better in the dark.

“Pope?” You said questioning, maybe you were starting to hear things? You couldn’t see anyone. Then, just as you thought you were losing it, you saw movement coming closer.

“Bathroom hey Y/N. Right. I’ve been calling at you to stop for 20 minutes.” He put his hands on his knees and doubled over in front of you, catching his breath. 

You took a step towards him and put your hand that wasn’t covering your ribs under his elbow, helping him straighten and pulling him away from your house back towards the road.

“What are you doing here?” You hissed at him, making sure to look over your shoulder and confirm you were out of earshot.

Pope looked at you and over your head to your house and back to you. His facial expression was the one he always gave you when he felt annoyed that he had to dumb something down to explain it to you in simplest terms.

“Making sure you don’t do anything stupid, obviously.”

You took as deep a breath as you could muster without putting pressure on your ribs and closed your eyes, trying to keep your shit together.

“Pope.” You opened your eyes and put your hand on his chest. “I appreciate it, but please go home. Please.”

Pope stood firm, setting his jaw and crossing his arms. Your face started to get hot.

“Pope GO.” You hissed, motioning towards the road. “This isn’t your business”

“Like hell it isn’t. You’re my best friend, and JJ is my best friend, and I know that sometimes you guys gotta go through some shit but you don't gotta go through it alone -” Popes voice was getting louder and louder, faster and faster. “-and I know if you do something stupid you will get hurt, and then JJ will get hurt, and then John B will get involved and then I’ll have to get involved and I really, just really really don't want you to get hurt more than you already are because look at you right now, whatever that bastard did in the past aside, you can’t take this guy on, I saw him he is-”

You couldn’t listen to his high pitched rambling anymore so you put your hand out and covered his mouth, pushing him back further away from the house until you were almost on the road, half illuminated by a street light.

“Pope, shut the fuck up” You hissed, taking your hand away. He was breathing heavily but closed his mouth, watching you. “I get it.” You said, crossing your own arms. “But this guy is ... just... I mean come on Pope” You put your hands out and motioned towards the house. “He almost killed her!” A tear came to your eye as you thought about your mom laying in the hospital bed.

“I know that. I know, but Y/N, seriously?” He looked at you expectantly. “He almost killed YOU!”

You shook your head and crossed your arms again, looking over your shoulder at your house.

“He can’t get away with it anymore. He’s...I can’t let him.” You shrugged and turned to start walking towards your house, Pope following you.

“Don’t. Y/N stop, you can’t go in there. What are you gonna do?” He whispered, his feet thumping right behind yours. You didn’t answer, so he pressed on. “You gonna kill him? Hit him with a pan? This is a STUPID idea, terrible idea.”

You spun and halted so fast he bumped into you and fell backwards a little bit.

“Pope, for Christ sake, if you want to be helpful right now, go get the fucking cops. Because lord knows I’m going to need them in a few minutes.”

Popes eyes went wide and he put his hands on either side of your shoulders, squeezing them. 

“Are you crazy?” He asked, his voice cracking.

“Yes” You said calmly, then you heard movement behind you and the door swing open loudly. 

Pope’s hands dropped as you turned to face the door, where your step dad stood illuminated under the single porch light, wearing nothing but shorts and a vest with the sleeves ripped off. You felt yourself freeze in place, adrenaline immediately pumping through you from head to toe.

He smiled crookedly, a tooth pick poking out of his mouth, before slumping against the railing and crossing his arms.

“Wondered when you were coming home” He said before taking the tooth pick out briefly and spitting on the ground near your feet. You heard Pope whisper something behind you but you barely heard it. You turned quickly and looked directly into his eyes, and told him to leave. He didn’t move. “See you brought your friend.” Your step dad spit.

You turned back to look at him and felt your chest burning, your throat tightening. He put his tooth pick back in his mouth and started to descend the steps slowly, before stopping at the bottom and reaching into his back pocket. Everything slowed down to a near stop as you watched his hand come out from around his back, and you prepared for the worst.

Then, with relief, you watching him spit out the toothpick on the ground and lift a cigarette to his mouth, lighting it. Pope audibly let out a breath behind you.

“Get out of here, boy.” Your step dad said then, dragging on the cigarette and pulling it out of his mouth.

“No” Pope said firmly, standing closer to you. 

Then, too fast for you to react, your stepdad lunged forward and grabbed your forearm, holding onto it tightly. You tried to pull it out of his grip and twisted it painfully as you heard Pope shouting for him to let you go.

“I said” He brought the cigarette in front of your face and lowered it onto the skin of your arm. You screamed out loudly and felt your legs wobble as he pressed the cigarette deeper, your flesh burning. “Leave, boy.” 

You looked up at Pope with tears in your eyes and nodded at him, screaming out again when he dropped the cigarette to the ground and started pulling you up the steps beside him towards the door. 

“I’ll CALL THE COPS YOU PIG” Pope shouted from the front steps, not daring to come closer in fear of what your stepdad would do. “Y/N!”

Pope was still shouting from the front steps when your step dad tore you through the doorway and towards the kitchen, you felt your vision tunnelling.

“Stop, please, stop” You begged as you continued to try and twist your arm, using your other hand to claw at his. “Let me go!”

His grip didn’t lessen as you entered the kitchen. He shoved you into a chair and pointed in your face for you to stay seated. He kept facing you, backing up slowly, until he reached the counter and grabbed the duck tape from the drawer. You felt the clock ticking in your ears and your adrenaline spike, you stood from the chair and almost made it to the doorway when you felt his arm around your waste, pulling you back painfully. You screamed out as he squeezed your ribs, forcing you back into the kitchen chair.

Your heart was pounding in your ears and your vision was erratic. You looked around breathlessly and saw the dirty counter, the sink covered in stains, the stacks of bottles on the ground, before they settled on the block of knives. You barely felt it when he fastened your arms to the chair with the tape. 

Your eyes stayed fastened on the knives. You just had to get there, 2 feet? Tops? You just needed to reach in, grab one, and you would be free. The plan that was so solid in your mind was slapped clean out of it when you felt your step dads fist connect with your cheek.

____________________________________________

JJ white knuckled the handle of the car door as John B sped down the road, absolutely breaking every speed limit and running every stop sign between the hospital and your house. They were only 2 blocks away when they saw the silhouette of Pope running full speed down the road towards them. When he registered it was the Twinkie he started waving his hands and flailing desperately. JJ’s stomach dropped and he felt his body tense, knowing something was wrong. John B hit the breaks and skidded to a halt as JJ flung his door open and jumped out, running towards Pope.

“What’s going on, where is Y/N?” He said hurriedly as Pope caught his breath and started to sputter out breathless words between gasps.

“House ... cigarette ....dragged her..... house” He repeated house several times as he waved his arm back in the direction he had come from as JJ tore off at full speed towards it. He was running so fast that his knees knocked together and his hat flew off his head behind him. He could hear John B yelling at him, but JJ was almost at your house by the time John B had gotten Pope in the car and driven up behind JJ. The porch light was on and the front door was open, JJ slowed to a fast walk as he got closer, trying to listen for your voice or your step dads. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and heard the unmistakable sounds of flesh hitting flesh, then the sound of chair legs scraping across the floor. He slowly reached into his back pocket as he ascended the stairs into the house.

____________________________________________

Your cheek throbbed and your eye stayed shut, you dipped your chin and cowered, trying to deflect the next blow without hands. It never came.

“Back up” You heard a foreign yet familiar voice permeate the thrashing sounds of your heartbeat and blood pumping in your head. “I SAID BACK UP”

You winced and slowly lifted your head in the direction of the voice. There, standing in the doorway to the kitchen with a gun pointed directly at your step dads chest, was JJ. You swallowed and blinked the tears out of your eyes, an overwhelming panic forming inside you. Why did JJ have a gun and what if he shot your step dad? No. He would kill him. He would go to jail. He couldn’t do that.

“JJ” You said in a broken voice. JJ’s eyes flitted to you briefly then focussed on your Step Dad again. 

“Easy, kid. Just relax.” You heard your step dad say quietly, trying to speak calmly. Even with a gun pointed at his chest he found a way to sound condescending. 

“Back up” JJ repeated, his voice deep and stern.

Your step dad raised his hands, showing them to JJ, and backed up slowly until he was against the counter. Then, in a bust of commotion and noise, your step dad bolted for the side door and took off into the back yard towards the marsh. You watched him until he was out of sight and then looked over to JJ who slumped back and took a deep breath. You heard sirens in the distance as JJ put the gun down and rushed over to you, kneeling down to look at you, his hands working on the tape across your wrists.

“Are you okay?” He said quickly, his hands ripping the tape off swiftly, making you close your mouth and bite your tongue to keep from shouting. You nodded, trying to push out a smile. “Okay, come on. Up we come” JJ said softly as he helped you up, his face dropping when he noticed the cigarette burn on your arm. He looked like he was going to throw up. He closed his eyes and flexed his jaw then opened them and started walking with you down the hall towards the front door. When you reached it you could see the cop cars on the street, two of the officers pinning your step dad to the ground and handcuffing him.

“It’s over” JJ said quietly, maybe to you and maybe to himself as he walked you down the steps to the Twinkie, which was parked close to the house. John B rushed over and grabbed you, pulling you into a hug as soon as he reached you, giving JJ cover and some time to stash his gun under the seat before a cop walked over. You saw Pope over John B’s shoulder and winked at him, his face nervous but relieved.

When John B let you go, his eyes scanned over your face before he turned to JJ and nodded, turning his back to give you some privacy.

JJ’s hands came up to your face and he held it, gently, as he looked emotionally and deeply at you. His eyes had tears in them when he pressed a kiss to your forehead, then he pulled you into his chest and smothered you as tightly as he could without hurting you.

“Don’t ever do that again” He said quietly, so only you could hear.

“You would have done the same thing.” You retorted, holding him as tightly as you could.

“I know.” He replied as you turned your head to watch Shoupe escorting your stepdad into the back of the cop car.

 Shoupe nodded his head at you once before climbing into the drivers seat and motioning with his finger for you to come closer. You patted JJ on the back and he let you go, but followed you closely to the window of Shoupe’s squad car.

“Shoupe” You said as you approached his window.

“Come down to the station when you can, we need to have a chat. Get that looked at first.” He pointed at the bruises on your face “And don't worry about this.” He nodded to the backseat where your stepdad sat. “We will take care of it.”

You nodded and smiled tersely at him before glancing once into the back seat where your eyes met your step dads. You couldn’t do anything but stare at him, so you turned and focused your attention on JJ as Shoupe pulled the car away.

“Thank you” You said quietly, noticing that behind him on the horizon the sun was starting to rise. JJ pursed his lips and shook his head before grabbing you by your belt loops and pulling you close to him. You didn’t speak for a few moments, just looked at each other and breathed calmly.

“I uh...I think we need to get high.” You said, smiling as painlessly as you could.

JJ slowly nodded and then began to fervently nod until his hair was bouncing.

“Yeah that’s an understatement.” He said finally, resting his arm around your shoulder and walking with you back to the Twinkie. When you were close, John B turned around and held up his cell phone, shaking it. 

“It was Sarah” He said brightly. “Your moms awake.” He smiled at you lightly, and you felt a breath leave your chest. “Should we go?” He said, motioning at the van.

You nodded slowly, then looked up at JJ. “But first...” then you reached into your pocket and pulled out the joint that was slightly crinkled from the events of the last few days. “I think we could all use a little quality time with Mary Jane...just to...you know, take a load off.”

Pope put his hand over his face as John B looked at JJ and burst out laughing.

All would be well...hopefully. Well...as well as the Cut would ever be. 

But you knew you had JJ, and no matter what, you knew that with him you would never be alone. Or, you would be... alone, together.

————————————

Tag list: @ilikealotofpeople-younotsomuch​, @alexa-playafricabytoto​, @timotaychalabae​, @racerparker​, @jj-maybank-stan​, @anahgiedd, @kam-ackie, @jjsthumbring​, @ponyboys-sunsets​

[jaskiersvalley]

Art From Ashes

So @dirtydancyart and I were talking about the world they created in which Eskel is a biker, Geralt got involved with Emhyr in some underground shady stuff. Then I came along with this in which Cahir is technically Emhyr’s enforcer but keeps getting mistaken for Ciri’s nanny. Long story short, we wanted some hurt/comfort, some Cahir getting kidnapped and hurt, some Eskel coming to the rescue like a badass. Thus, here we are.

CW: Torture, blood, injuries.

Things had been going surprisingly well after that initial meeting. Eskel had apologised profusely for mistaking Cahir for a decorator. And then for putting his foot even more in it by thinking he was Ciri’s babysitter. For not such an auspicious start, he and Cahir actually got along alarmingly well. Not that they had ever told anyone, officially Nilfgaard and the Wolves were still not openly allies so they had to toe the line. That didn’t stop them from seeing each other or from quietly falling in love. They didn’t need grand declarations or even tokens of affection. For them, it was enough that if Cahir came home late and with blood in his hair, Eskel would wash it out for him with tender touches. By the same token, if Eskel had a run to do, he often found himself with a packed lunch on the passenger seat and a little post it with a smiley face on it. It was more than enough for them, knowing without ever saying anything. After all, if they didn’t say it, they had plausible deniability.

It did however mean trying to be a little more secretive. The nights they spent together were marred by the fact they couldn’t leave at the same time so there were no goodbye kisses on the porch or standing by bikes. That had been another flustering moment in Eskel’s life, discovering that Cahir had a bike in his garage. It was sleek, black and as quiet as a bike could come. Plus terrifyingly fast. Cahir had taken him out to a track just the once and Eskel almost had a heart attack - which was rich coming from someone who would happily rev his way down any stretch of road as soon as it was clear.

Another morning meant Eskel had to leave before the rest of the neighbourhood was up. The sun was already shining through the window and he’d kissed Cahir goodbye. Stepping out into the hallway, Eskel sighed and turned to get going. However, he couldn’t resist one final peek through the half open door. A smile twitched his lips as he watched Cahir rummaging for a t-shirt, bare skin on display. It was quite the sight and Eskel sighed, eyes tracing over the phoenix that spread over Cahir’s back, tail and flames dipping down below the waistband of his slacks. Eskel’s breath hitched when, rather than the shirt being pulled on, Cahir’s hands dropped to his flies and his trousers were slowly pushed down to reveal the rest of the tattoo that Eskel did so dearly love to trace with fingers and lips. Confused, eyes flitted up and Eskel’s gaze met Cahir’s in a mirror. A knowing smirk had him blushing which only deepened as Cahir’s finger traced the tattoo along his collarbone before stopping at the flame that licked at his throat, dipping to run over the Nilfgaardian sun that usually lay just about hidden under the top button of his shirts. A wink and a kiss blown at him had Eskel leaving with a smile and a spring in his step.

They weren’t due to see each other for a couple of days. However, the messages Eskel sent Cahir remained unanswered even though they were sporadically marked as read. Worry began to creep into Eskel’s days as the silence stretched on. It was only through Geralt that he learned something was amiss. Emhyr’s daughter had been attacked. While she had been whisked away to safety, someone else had been snatched.

[Who are you and what have you done with him?]

The message he sent to Cahir’s phone was read and, magically, three dots appeared as a reply was typed out.

[Seems the wolf is involved after all. Lies cannot go unpunished.]

Rage flushed through Eskel. Usually he was so good at keeping his emotions in check but his rash actions had caused Cahir problems. He didn’t even want to imagine what kind of punishment his captors would deliver. Throat tight, Eskel’s phone went sailing through the air and bounced off the wall. Searching the news brought nothing up. Of course Nilfgaard wouldn’t go public if one of theirs went missing. Those lower on the totem pole weren’t worth the effort while those higher didn’t want the authorities searching for them. Eskel’s own contacts didn’t bring in much information over the course of the next day. Time was of the essence and he was no closer to finding Cahir. So he did the unimaginable.

“Geralt. We have to talk.”

Thankfully, there wasn’t much need for words. Geralt sighed and shook his head.

“Should have known.” That was all the acknowledgement that there was. “Filavandrel’s men have him.”

That was serious. Worse than expected. Eskel had heard of what those who ran with Filavandrel could do so he began packing heavily for his rescue attempt. What he didn’t expect was for Lambert to silently step into the room and begin arming up. When Geralt did the same too, Eskel gave them incredulous looks.

“You’re not going in alone. We hunt in packs, remember?”

Armed to the teeth, they were on their way. For a change they took Roach, Geralt’s trusty SUV that had seen more blood than most cars. However, they didn’t know what condition Cahir would be in, probably not well enough to hold on for a bike ride. He’d been in Filavandrel’s not so tender care for three days, they were going to be lucky if he survived.

Storming the house Cahir had been kept in was oddly anticlimactic. It was in a quiet suburb and the house naturally had a basement. Well, it wasn’t so quiet as they walked in through the broken down door and shot anyone on sight. Eskel gave thanks for the invention of silencers as he indiscriminately disposed of another scumbag.

Going down the stairs was difficult. It was undoubtedly where Cahir was but Eskel dreaded that they would find. The smell of burned flesh hit them before they saw anything and Lambert swore. There were a few more people in the basement but the wolves were quick to dispatch them. Well, Lambert and Geralt did, Eskel was rooted to the spot as he caught sight of Cahir.

Strung up by his wrists and hoisted so his toes barely touched the ground, his shoulders were strained each time his legs gave out or slipped in the blood on the floor. There was no way to relax in the position and if Cahir’s head fell forward, his breathing turned to a strained rasp. He had his back to the entrance and Eskel could have cried at the sight, the beautiful phoenix tattoo was all but shredded as a whip had torn the skin to strips. Seeing Cahir struggle to get back on his toes, Eskel jerked into motion. Rounding Cahir, he wrapped an arm around his narrow waist and lifted as gently as he could. That earned him a soft, hoarse cry and apologies dripped from Eskel’s lips.

With Cahir in his arms, it was easier to assess the damage. Geralt was next to Eskel while Lambert guarded the door. Their first look didn’t paint a pretty picture. Aside from the oozing lashes on his back, most of Cahir’s tattoos had been destroyed. Deep cuts ran along his collarbones, slicing up the patterns in a mockery of symmetry. There were strips of skin peeled from his ribs where Eskel had liked to trace his fingers over patterns and dates. Worst was probably the Nilfgaardian star. It had been doused in something and probably set on fire judging by the deep, openly weeping patch and the blisters along Cahir’s neck and chin.

“Nenneke. Now.” Geralt barked and wasted no time in helping Eskel pick Cahir up. As Lambert led the way out, Geralt brought up the rear. They’d run extractions all too often so had this kind of thing down to a tee. In the car, Eskel was in the back, holding Cahir and trying to keep pressure off his multiple injuries. With nothing else to do, he could catalogue all the injuries they had missed before - the dark bruising around Cahir’s throat, scrapes to his knuckles from where he undoubtedly fought back, a puncture mark to the crook of his elbow. Who knew what his captors had shot him up with.

Arriving at Nenneke’s, Cahir was taken from Eskel’s arms and whisked away. He wasn’t allowed to see him for almost a whole day but at least he wasn’t chased from the building. Geralt disappeared, probably to talk to Emhyr but Lambert stayed, made sure they ate and drank while they waited. At long last Eskel was allowed to sit with Cahir in his room. For now, he was sedated to help keep him pain free, There were pillows either side of him to stop him from rolling onto his front or his back and an IV dripped steady from a stand.

It was another day before Cahir stirred, eyes opening and struggling to focus. His first words almost broke Eskel’s heart.

“You shouldn’t be here.” His voice was so strained, no doubt the hand shaped bruises on his throat did some damage deeper than the skin. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Cahir slipped back to sleep shortly after that, Eskel’s apologies and promises that he was safe lost as the world span into darkness.

When Geralt returned, it was only to beckon Eskel with him. They had business to sort and Emhyr had a proposition. With backing from Nilfgaard, the wolves went after Filavandrel. They weren’t stupid enough to outright kill him. But they certainly weakened his stance. Viciously indiscriminate, the wolves burned through his network, scorching the earth. Once done, there was just one thing left to do.

By the time Cahir was coherent and out of the danger zone, Eskel was back by his side. His hand was covered in clingfilm and it was something Cahir noted almost immediately.

“Let me show you,” Eskel murmured, all too aware of how quiet the room was. He already felt he filled more than his fair share of it with his bulk, it didn’t need his voice booming through it too. Carefully, he unwrapped his hand to reveal a Nilfgaardian sun. “For the one you lost. It’s a fealty exchange.”

From his pocket, he pulled a wolf medallion and offered it to Cahir. The wolves and Nilfgaard were united now and they were the guarantee of their continued cooperation. Somehow, Eskel didn’t think that was a bad thing by any means. Especially not when it meant he could freely love Cahir exactly as he deserved.

[along-came-atsushi]

About Dazai being the (possible) son of the former mafia boss

It has already been mentioned by some people in the fandom that Dazai could have a blood relationship with the former Mafia boss. I don’t know if anyone ever wrote a detailed analysis about this, so I read several scenes with that theory in mind and there are actually some scenes throughout the story where this could have been hinted at and where some things make way more sense.

For this analysis I want to stick with the theory that the former Mafia boss is Dazai’s biological father. But there is also the possibility that he’s any other relative of Dazai (e.g. his uncle or grandfather) or that Dazai is not related to him by blood and he is adopted.

Please keep in mind, that there are many speculations, especially in the first part of this analysis! Should there be any further hints to this theory in future chapters, then either this post will get an update or I’ll write another one.

Quotes from the Fifteen novel are from @looking-for-stray-dogs​ translations!

Beware: Some spoilers for some of the novels and the latest manga chapters!

What we know so far:

- Dazai had been in the Port Mafia since he was 14 (the time where he witnessed Mori killing the former boss). But it is possible that he was in the Port Mafia even before that, because he knew about Kouyou’s plan to escape with the man she admired (where Kouyou was around 14, so Dazai would’ve been around 11).

- It’s not explained until now what exactly was the reason for the former Mafia boss to start a wide underground war that involved many causalities to Yokohama and within the Port Mafia. It’s also not explained what exactly this “illness” was he supposedly suffered from.

He could’ve simply just gotten delusional, craving more and more power over the years. But it’s been stated by Hirotsu that he wasn’t like this from the very beginning, and puts the blame on the former boss’s “illness”.

Possible past:

A motive for the former Mafia boss to start this war is that something happened to a person dear to him, and he did due to sadness and to avenge this person. In this case, maybe something happened to his wife, who would’ve been Dazai’s mother. Yes, I know this origin would be pretty cliché, but there are several reasons why this theory could be true:

1.) There are several characters whose deaths / fates serve as a motive for another character’s actions -> Fitzgerald’s daughter (who died) and his wife (who became mentally ill due to her sadness over their daughter’s death) are the reasons why he’s searching for The Book™; Margaret’s sacrifice for Nathaniel, which then drives Nathaniel to follow Fyodor; Odasaku’s death is the reason why Dazai leaves the Port Mafia; Tachihara’s brother dying is the reason why he seeks vengeance at first; and so on.

2.) ‘Sacrifice for the sake of loved ones’ is a big theme explored throughout BSD -> Odasaku’s sacrifice due to his children dying; the death of Kyouka’s parents in order to protect Kyouka; Margaret sacrificing herself for Nathaniel; and so on.

3.) ‘Going to extreme lengths for the sake of / to avenge / to protect / to claim loved ones’ is another big theme explored throughout BSD -> Odasaku seeking death and vengeance after he witnessed his children die; Tanizaki vowing that he would see the whole world burn for Naomi; John saying something similar about his sister; Fitzgerald playing the big bad guy for his family; Nathaniel leaving the Guild and joining Fyodor because of Margaret; Mori’s creepy obsession with Yosano; Akutagawa’s obsession about Dazai’s approval; Tachihara deceiving everyone to avenge his brother; and so on.

In his last moments the former Mafia boss still wasn’t able to let go of whatever he was seeking, and it just seems as if he was seething with rage and vengeance about something.

[Side note: His mother’s death could’ve been the reason for Dazai to get to know about The Book™ in the first place. Maybe because he himself was looking for a way to bring his mother back, or because his father was searching for the book.]

Mori becoming the new boss:

We don’t know the exact reason why Mori chose Dazai of all people as a witness. But I highly doubt it was just because of a coincidence, or because Dazai was (conveniently for Mori) suicidal. It doesn’t make much sense and Mori himself is too much of a strategist to just go with coincidences. What makes more sense are these reasons Mori has:

“What Mori needed was an assistant. A secretary, a confidant, an outstanding right-hand man.”

“And more than that, as a town doctor turned traitor who usurped power, what he needed were subordinates he could trust. Subordinates he didn’t need to harbour secrets with. Subordinates who could understand him, even while he continued waving a solitary flag at the tip of an iceberg.”

“He couldn’t let Dazai die.

If he did so—if that happened, the people loyal to the predecessor, still firmly rooted within the organisation, would certainly say ‘as expected, the change of bosses was a conspiracy’ and create an uproar.”

It’s been stated that Mori worked as the former boss’s personal doctor. But maybe Mori also worked as the personal doctor for the former boss’s whole family, which would be the reason how he and Dazai got to know each other in the first place (with Dazai being the boss’s son):

“Dazai is not Mori’s subordinate. He isn’t even in the mafia. And he certainly isn’t an illegitimate child, or an orphan he picked up, or a medical assistant. There does not exist a word to correctly express what Dazai and Mori’s relationship is. If one had to use words close to its reality—they were in the same boat.”

This is the only very vague information we got about this so far. But it seems that not everyone in the Port Mafia knows about the former boss’s son, or of him having his own family. The reason for this could be simply to protect them. It’s possible that Dazai was kept hidden from Port Mafia members and he wasn’t an official member himself yet. But once he had reached a certain age, he would have become an official member, and then later he would have inherited his father’s legacy. It’s also possible that only a few certain loyal people, who earned the former boss’s trust knew about his family. One of these people being Mori, as he was the family’s personal doctor.

We know that the war the former boss started contained a lot of causalities in Yokohama and the Port Mafia alone. When Mori took over, he already was confronted with several problems inside the Port Mafia due to this (but more on that later).

Dazai more than anyone else would know that his father couldn’t be convinced to stop the war in his state of mind. So, the only solution to this would be that his father needed to die in order to stop it and with someone else sitting on the throne. Maybe Dazai wasn’t able to kill his father himself (for obvious reasons), so he asked Mori to do it. Or it was the other way around and Mori convinced Dazai to do this together with him. It’s possible that they made a deal: Mori would kill Dazai’s father in place of Dazai, and in return Dazai would relinquish his right as the new boss and give the position to Mori:

“The two of them have shared a common destiny since a year ago. The two of them—Mori as the boss’s private doctor and Dazai, brought into this, no more than a patient who had attempted suicide—colluded, and they carried out a certain secret plan.”

Choosing Dazai as a witness, if he actually was just a random kid brought in by Mori doesn’t really secure his position. But if Dazai is related to the former boss, then choosing him as witness would be a further backup should it ever come out that Mori really killed and usurped the former boss. It also serves as a ‘mind-lock’ for Dazai; in other words: Mori successfully manipulated and subdued Dazai from taking any further steps in betraying him or breaking their deal in any way.

Why Mori kept Dazai in the Port Mafia and wants him back:

After Mori took over, he was met with several problems:

“It has already been two weeks since the deadline for the supply of contraband guns to arrive. At this rate, soon all my subordinates will be reduced to fighting enemies with kitchen knives. And not only that. There have already been three cases this month where the city police were dispatched. Seems like I’m losing control over the members far down the hierarchy.” - Mori

“Cancellations of contracts in the protection business. Intensification of disputes with other organizations. Shrinking of territory. How troubling……a year after becoming boss, and there’s a mountain of problems. For it to be so terrible standing in the top position of the organization……could it be I’m not suited for this? What do you think, Dazai-kun. Were you listening to me?” - Mori

“No money, no information, no trust from subordinates. Even though you’ve known all these from the start.” - Dazai

“Liar! You say that and you keep making me work hard, gave me awful memories a year back, and in the end you didn’t teach me! If this goes on I’ll betray you and join an enemy organization!” - Dazai

“Already, this year he had stopped two cases of members from the “predecessor faction” planning to assassinate Mori. The traitors had certainly been executed, but below the surface Mori was still not approved of. He couldn’t imagine how many of the “predecessor faction” remained.”

It’s strange that Mori is seeking advice from a 14-year-old kid who just recently got into the Mafia. At this point Dazai isn’t even an official member and is only now becoming one. It doesn’t make much sense why Mori would keep a mere “patient who had attempted suicide” and was somehow “brought into this” by his side and choose as a witness, when it’s also made clear at the same time that Dazai “isn’t an orphan Mori picked up”, or why Dazai would willingly decide to stay by Mori’s side.

Of course, it could just be due to Dazai’s intelligence that he is a valuable advisor by nature. But if he is somehow related to the former boss, then he probably must have received some sort of training in how to properly lead a major organization like the Port Mafia. A training which Mori didn’t receive as a random usurper, so now he’s dealing with the problems and is in need of someone who has more insight than him. At least, in the beginning of his take over.

This point of view changed within Mori as Dazai climbed up the ranks as an executive with his own subordinates (who highly respected and / or feared Dazai). Therefore, Mori was constantly torn between seeing Dazai as a valuable advisor and weapon in battle and a possible rival / usurper.

Which then was one of the reasons why Mori kinda initiated Odasaku’s death, in order to break Dazai and make him leave Port Mafia. But during the fight with the Guild he regretted having lost Dazai as a member.

Possible hints:

Stepping away from mere speculations to theories with more canon facts. The following quotes could serve as hints for Dazai’s possible origin (in chronological order):

- Odasaku about Dazai:

“He was practically born for this job.”

The context of this quote is about Dazai’s cruel and effective methods as a Port Mafia executive. Of course, Odasaku doesn’t know about Dazai’s possible past, but it emphasizes just how natural and thoroughly Dazai fits in the Port Mafia. It could serve as a hint from a narrative POV.

- Dazai and Odasaku:

“Odasaku, I know what you’re thinking, but don’t. Doing that isn’t going to−” “Isn’t going to bring the kids back?” I asked. […]

“Odasaku…,” Dazai said softly. “Forgive me for the absurd wording, but−−don’t go. Find something to rely on. Expect good things to happen from here on out. There’s gotta be something… Hey Odasaku, do you know why I joined the Mafia?” […] I joined the Mafia because of an expectation I had. I thought if I was close to death and violence−−close to people giving in to their urges and desires, then I would be able to see the inner nature of humankind up close. I thought if I did that, I would be able to find something−−a reason to live.”

Interestingly, Dazai says this right after Odasaku witnessed his children dying right in front of his eyes. Dazai knew exactly how Odasaku felt after his loss. And he knew that grief over the loss of loved ones can make a person choose decisions that will have bad consequences (the former boss starting a war, not caring about who dies, which maybe stems because he lost a loved one). And Odasaku sadly really chooses to sacrifice himself, because he had lost all meaning in his life.

- Higuchi to Dazai:

Higuchi says this after she lists some of the things Dazai did during his Port Mafia time, which she claims to have read in some records. It could be that she just wants to express how cruel he was, even for a Port Mafia member. But the fact that she emphasizes “your blood” could maybe not only refer symbolically to his actions, but as him having actual Mafia blood, and she subtly informs him that she now knows about his possible past.

It would explain why he looks so shocked at first, because I doubt that Dazai’s actions are an actual secret in the Port Mafia. Higuchi could’ve simply asked pretty much anyone if she wanted to know more about that. And it’s also weird that Dazai is shocked just because a Port Mafia member tells him about the things he had done back then.

It’s still uncertain though, how exactly she found out about this, or if it was her doing all alone. And if anyone told her, then the question remains why it was necessary that she should know about this.

- Dazai, Mori and Hirotsu:

This whole scene and conversation just look very suspicious to me. And it also seems that Hirotsu knows a lot more than he lets on. It’s clear that Mori thought of Dazai as usurper and so he needed him out of his way.

Dazai also seems to take the former boss’s death pretty personal, as if he’s still holding grudges against Mori for killing him. Which would be strange, if Dazai really is just some random kid who got into the Port Mafia by Mori and not somehow related to the former boss. And in that case, it’s also weird that Hirotsu especially emphasizes that he believes that Dazai understands what Mori had to do. It could be that Dazai’s goal back in the Port Mafia was to gain enough subordinates / followers to take over as the new boss (like he threatens Mori with), in other words: to take back what was taken from him. But then the whole Odasaku thing happened and so he left and found a new purpose for himself.

Hirotsu either could have been one of the few people who knew about the former boss’s family and just keeps quiet about it, or he later found out about it somehow (and that maybe could be the reason how Higuchi knows, too).

It’s also notable that Dazai and Hirotsu seem to get along very well, which could be because Hirotsu just respects Dazai as a person, but maybe also because he knows that Dazai is the true heir.

[kingfallsamtranscripts2]

King Falls AM Episode Twenty: Referencing Aladdin Don’t Make It Right

King Falls AM Transcript

Episode 20: Referencing Aladdin Don’t Make It Right

Run time: 22:17

First Aired: Feb 15, 2016

Summary: Sammy & Ben get a quick update on the little ones off Route 72 and learn live on-air that not everyone had a great evening on the night of the Valentine’s Day Dance.

(For a list of characters and references from this episode see the end of this post)

[King Falls AM theme plays]

Troy: Hey folks, if you or anyone you know has any information on these hybrid werewolf slash human baby thingamagigs-

Sammy Stevens: Is that a technical term, Troy?

Ben Arnold: Can you please let Troy finish, Sammy, this is important!

Troy: Heh, thanks, little buddy.

Ben: Go on, Troy.

Troy: Well if you see those little beasts or have information on them you just got to let us know. Don’t harbor them, they could have the rabies and or the colic. And please don’t try to adopt while it’s in its human form, cause that ain’t gonna end up well. Just use your common sense and be safe.

Sammy: Thanks for calling in officially with police business and alerting the public to the issue.

Ben: Yeah, nice hearing from you on the job, Troy.

Troy: Whilst I’m still on official police biz, I’d like to make one more little statement if I could, fellas.

Ben: Dude, of course! The floor is yours!

Troy: Well the sheriff is a real foul mood regarding these hybrid wolf babies and what have you just running amok, and he wants to make it completely, perfectly, crystal clear that if anyone should have these animals or any other illegal animals in the city limits of King Falls, they will be apprehended and exterminated on site with extreme force of malice. King Falls is a zero tolerance town for any illegal animals of any kind, up to and including wolf-human hybrids.

Ben: So… uh (clears throat) you’re saying that anyone listening that may have access to a cute and cuddly but illegal animal should do… what?

Troy: Now I’m not talking to no one in particular, I mean this isn’t a warning, it’s just a fact. Sheriff Gunderson is making it a personal project to bring down any and all animals that shouldn’t be in town.

Sammy: But cats are fine, is that right, Troy?

Troy: No doubt about that. Ain’t nobody gonna get any cats while I’m patrolling the streets, friends.

Sammy: There you have it, folks. If you or anyone you know has any information on the werewolf puppies last heard from around Route 72 or any other illegal animals not allowed in the city, please contact the sheriff’s department at once.

Ben: (sounding strained) Thanks for the info, Troy.

Troy: All you listeners, you stay safe out there, alright?

Sammy: Thanks, Troy. We’ll talk to you soon, sir.

Troy: Roger that, Sammy.

[The sound of a phone hanging up]

Ben: (clearing throat) Well… that’s good information there, huh?

Sammy: Are you okay, Ben?

Ben: Yeah! You know, I’m just… I’m not a fan of the idea that Gunderson is sending out gangs of thugs to dispatch animals, man! Aren’t there real issues for law enforcement in this town? Last week, I saw old lady Turner jaywalking in front of the grocery store.

Sammy: So you’d rather Gunderson take down the organized jaywalking underbelly of King Falls?

Ben: No, I actually helped her cross the street, but the point is that this werewolf issue seems like an animal control issue! Let Ralf Harkins take care of this! Why are the police even involved, man?

Sammy: Your guess is as good as mine. Moving forward-

Ben: Yeah! Yeah, uh, moving forward we’ve got about thirty minutes of open calls lined up before acclaimed ebook author Kirk Sycamore- don’t judge this, Sammy- will be joining us to talk about his new book Dead Tom Turkey: The Perils of Uncooked Poultry.

Sammy: I’m sorry, what now?

Ben: I mean… it’s a thing. Undercooked anything can’t be good, right?

Sammy: I would assume, but seemingly that one sentence just covered everything you need to know. Cook it longer.

Ben: Then it might get dry. I don’t know man! Don’t look at me like that! Merv emailed and asked to book this guy. His book topped Beauregard’s King of King Falls, it’s got to be worth something, right?

Sammy: The perils of uncooked poultry.

Ben: In thirty minutes.

Sammy: I don’t know if I can hold this excitement in for thirty minutes, Ben. You must be bursting at the seams! Surely you’ve waited your entire journalistic career to talk about under-broiled birds.

Ben: Uh, if it makes this any better, apparently this is a novel, not an instructional guide.

Sammy: (outraged) That actually makes it worse! This is a fictional piece of work?!

Ben: Merv emailed this to us, Sammy.

Sammy: Listeners, please immediately stop what you’ve got going on and mark this down: I’m going to do my damndest to get you the info on Merv’s book of the month club. I’m on your side and I am fighting for you.

Ben: Merv, if you are listening, I do not need to be cc-ed on the email you are penning. 

Sammy: (laughs) You heard it folks, that’s coming up quickly, but until then we are taking your calls, King Falls. What would you like to talk about this evening, Ben?

Ben: Whatever’s clever. 

Sammy: Talking about whatever’s on your minds before what is sure to be a Pulitzer winning interview. 

Ben: It’ll be good- you’re making fun- but it’ll be good. 

Sammy: How could it not be? You heard our story, King Falls, now let’s hear yours. 

Ben: Give us a call at the station- 424-279-3858, or hit us up at the tweet machine!

Sammy: That’s @ kingfallsam and @ kingfallssammy respectively. Line seven you are on the air with King Falls AM. 

Pete Meyers: You’re saying to yourself: I don’t think Pete Meyers would listen to a show of this terrible quality, as handsome and as smart as he is. He’s probably watching Big Bang Theory or something. 

Sammy: That is exactly what I was thinking, Pete. 

Ben: Word for word, almost. 

Pete: Look, I don’t like talking to the two of you either. 

Ben: Yet you continue to call! And listen! And show up at events!

Pete: Ben if you don’t drop a little bass out of your voice I will roundhouse you right in the gullet the next time I see you. You hear me? I will skullf-(beep) your mom.

Ben: So now you’re threatening me? Do you hear this Sammy?

Sammy: (annoyed) Just hang up. 

Pete: (stammering) Whoa, wait, wait, alright? You know, I’m sorry. I’m a little emotional right now… I would never intentionally try to scuff up my lugs on your face, Ben. I apologize. 

Sammy: I don’t think that-

Ben: What’s the matter? Got a vampire not appreciating the hedge art you’ve been clipping into the bushes?

Pete: Well it’s kind of about him- did you say vampire?

Ben: (triumphantly) Knew it! Man, just fess up and tell everyone that your boss is a vamp!

Pete: Ben Arnold, I just bought domain to your name. And you know what? I’m going to fill up all the pages with babies and donkeys. What’s the world going to think of you? Some weirdo guy, making an internet site about babies and donkeys? Yeah, that’s right-

Ben: (all riled up) Oh yeah? Ooooooh, Pete! Why don’t you come down here, look me in the eyes, when you’re saying this huh? Huh?!

Sammy: Guys. 

Ben: Meanie!

Sammy: Guys! That’s enough. Pete, state your problem or move along. 

Pete: Alright, fine. I messed up big time. Worse than the time I dressed up as Edward Scissorhands for Halloween and ruined Mr. B’s hedges. Apparently I pushed a button or didn’t-really-push-a-button on a fancy thing… that’s beside the point. What I really want to know is- did you guys hear something funny on your station a week or two back?

Ben: Um, um, I’m hearing something stupid right now but I don’t know if that’s-

Pete: Come on, Ben! Be serious. I take you seriously- I almost respect you! Now, I heard a little something like maybe you guys got hijacked or something like that and I just wanted to know… you know, what’s up.

Ben: This again?

Sammy: Wait, Ben, we’ve heard this a few times actually. The shotgun guy said it, we’ve had a number of tweets about it. We don’t know anything about this but apparently another feed cut into ours about a month or so ago. 

Pete: Oh sh-(beep).

Ben: Watch your language, Pete.

Pete: Watch your… face, Ben.

Ben: Wait, what the hell are you and Beauregard up to? 

Pete: None of your damn business. 

Beauregard: (from the background of Pete’s call) Yard boy, what are you doing in this chamber without supervision?

Pete: Uhhhhhhh what? Uh, Mr. B, uh nothing!

Beauregard: Don’t act like an ignoramus around the transmorgrifier. 

[There are metallic clanks and scrapes in the background and the sound of metal pipes moving around. A whirring humming sound begins like a machine turning on which grows steadily louder]

Sammy: What the hell is going on over there? Pete?

Pete: You made me mess up again you butt smackers. 

Beauregard: Don’t just stand there all slack-jawed and drooling. Turn it off this instant. Celestia!

[The whirring cuts off and there is the sound of a call ending]

Ben: What the hell?

Sammy: Well, folks, this is a first for me that I believe an on air failed attempted felony will lead us right into break.

[Cheerful music starts as a commercial begins]

Ernie: Hey there! Ernie Salsado’s leather bound books ain’t your normal bookshop. Maybe you’re asking yourself: Ernie, whatever do you mean? What I mean is that Ernie Salsado’s leather bound books is more than just a hipster reading book nook. We don’t carry none of those cheap-ass paperback books or harlequin novels here, plus you sure as hell ain’t gonna find nothing to read on your I-pad kindle whositswhatsits. For what I understand it’s only first edition leather bound books and (???) up in this joint. Maybe you’re thinking you need to gussy up your place to impress some broad or you have a real need to make people think you got a bigger vocabulary than some Johnny come lately. Either way, Ernie’s got you covered. That’s a book joke! Ernie Salsado’s leather bound books- we got fancy books! F-(beep) you, pay me.

[King Falls AM rock music plays then fades out as the commercial break ends]

Sammy: Ernie Salsado’s leather bound books? There’s two of these stores here? I’ve never even heard of one of them until Rich McGuff! I don’t know what’s more surprising, Ernie’s entrepreneurial rise in the community or him almost making me forget what happened before the break…

Ben: I’m literally afraid to comment one way or another on this. 

Sammy: (amused) He is an intimidating specimen. 

Ben: (carefully and slowly) If he… likes to hear that, then, yes, you are right. If not, please don’t slander that gigantic human!

Sammy: Ha, no slander intended. We’re taking calls and counting down the seconds before we get a riveting interview with the man who some call the Dan Brown of bird related mysteries. 

Ben: Wow, they say that?

Sammy: No, they don’t! (laughs) The phone lines are still lit up, let’s take some calls.

Ben: Good evening, you’re live on King Falls AM. 

Greg Frickard: (smugly) Well look who decided to pick up the phone. 

Ben: (quickly) Um, let’s take another-

Greg: Hey, Sammy! I’ve got a topic of discussion. Let’s talk about how that co-host of yours is just gonna sit there all quiet and not even mention the fiasco he caused earlier this week at Granny Frickards!

Sammy: Greg? Is everything okay?

Greg: Oh, it’s not okay, Sammy. That- pardon my French- moron, that he would even-

[the sound of a call ending]

Ben: Whoops!

Sammy: Ha! 

Ben: Line five you are on with Sammy and Ben!

Sammy: Wow, it looks like you learned a thing or two from Chet, I see. 

Ben: Don’t know what you’re talking about!

Caller: Hello?

Sammy: So what happened at Frickard’s?

Caller: Are you talking to me?

Ben: Nothing happened to… let’s just-

Sammy: Not only are you my broadcast partner, I thought we were friends! 

Ben: Hey! We are friends! I just didn’t think to tell you that I happened to have dinner at Frickard’s earlier in the week.

Caller: Hellooo?

Sammy: Uh huh. This wouldn’t happen to be the same night Emily was on a business meeting with Greg, would it?

Ben: I really don’t recall but it might have been… that’s a good question. 

Sammy: You don’t recall going to your least favorite restaurant in town, which you never eat at, on the night of the King Falls Valentines Day Dance where your main squeeze-

Ben: Watch it.

Sammy: Where the girl you pine for-

Ben: Watch it!

Sammy: Where Emily Potter-

Ben: Thanks.

Sammy: Happened to be roped into a business meeting with Greg Frickard.

Ben: My mortal enemy. 

Sammy: Paid sponsor of King Falls AM. 

Ben: Whatever. 

Sammy: You don’t recall if that’s the night you dined at Granny Frickard’s?

Ben: Ehhhh it’s not really ringing any bells! 

Sammy: Maybe we should call Emily. 

Ben: Don’t do that!

Sammy: Things coming back to you now? 

Ben: Did- ugh… can I fill you in at break and not on the air?

Sammy: You’d better! You know, I’m a little sore that you didn’t tell me to begin with! And this was days ago! 

Ben: I’m sorry, man, it’s just it’s not the best story. Believe me.

Caller: Hello? Can we talk now?

Sammy and Ben: No!

[The sound of a call ending]

Sammy: The turkey guy is not sounding so bad right now.

Ben: Ha, why don’t we try… lucky line one, you’re on King Falls AM. 

Greg: Hey Ben Arrrnold! Why don’t you tell the whole friggin town about you showing your butt and ruining my business meeting with Emily Potter!

Ben: Greg, I really don’t wanna get into this. 

Greg: Ohh, you can’t talk in front of Sammy and the whole town- what’s the matter? Frog got your tongue?

Ben: That's not a saying. 

Greg: You sure didn’t have a problem causing a ruckus at the restaurant! In front of Granny no less!

Ben: Can we take another call, Sammy?

Sammy: Is this true, Ben?

Greg: You can’t deny it, Ben Arnold! I’ve got it on camera from multiple angles! You are a heathen.

Ben: Why do you have me making a scene on camera?

Sammy: Multiple angles?

Greg: I’d like to say it’s just the security cameras… but, if you must know, I hid a few cameras around the Froggery for my big night. 

Sammy: You call a business meeting your big night?

Greg: With Emily Potter I absolutely do! She is the most beautiful creature in King Falls!

Ben: So you admit that it was a date?

Greg: It was a business meeting with a gorgeous woman! Take it as you will!

Ben: You’re so creepy! God!

Greg: Oh, so it’s creepy. Wanting your gramma and your future children to see the moment their future mother and I fell in love? Recorded for prosperity forever. Probably. Classily edited to voice a man and everything. 

Ben: Yeah! It’s creepy!

Greg: (singing) I’ll make love to you! Like you want me to, oh baby hold me tight I will love you all through the night…

Sammy: That is really creepy, Greg.

Greg: You’re just a heathen. You don’t know what love is. What do you know? Tell them what you did, Ben!

Ben: I’m not getting into this on the air, Greg. Let’s just-

Greg: I am a paying sponsor of this show, Ben Arnold! Fess up, right now!

Ben: What are you gonna do, Greg?

Greg: So help me I’m gonna ask Granny- real nice- to pull your sponsorship money!

Sammy: Greg... are you crying?

Greg: (in a high pitched voice) No...

Ben: Hmm, so you’re threatening the show over a personal issue?

Sammy: Greg, we appreciate what you and Granny do for the show and the station-

Greg: I’m glad to see one of you does.

Sammy: But I’m not about to let you threaten taking money away from the station to pressure Ben into talking about something he doesn’t want to. Do what you got to do. 

Greg: Ha! Don’t think that I won’t wake up Granny right now!

Ben: You want to talk about this on air, Frickard?

Greg: Tell the people what you did. Just tell them!

Ben: Ugh, okay. So, I made a reservation for myself at the King Falls best f-(beep)-ing Froggery the same night as your video taped date with Emily. 

Greg: Keep going.

Ben: Jack-In-The-Box-Jesus, this is ridiculous. Sammy, I made a reservation and I made a scene! The end.

Greg: Details, heathen!

Sammy: Details would be nice here, Ben. 

Ben: So, uh, (clears throat) I got there right as Emily was sitting down. 

Greg: At a table right next to ours! He requested it!

Ben: That is also true. 

Sammy: Ah.

Ben: And that’s that! I watched Greg lose his mind. Nature took its course. 

Greg: He ordered every single flambé frog special on the menu.

Ben: Yeah? So?

Greg: Everybody who’s anybody knows that that’s the most romantic frog dish in the world! And you cleaned us out!

Ben: So what? You don’t need romance on a business meeting!

Greg: You ordered twenty of those things just for you!

Ben: And I paid for twenty! What’s your point?

Greg: My point? You didn’t even eat them! You brought in Chipotle!

Ben: Yeah, man! Cause frogs are gross!

Greg: You… you’re gross!

Ben: Oh yeah?

Greg: Yeah. You’re gross! A gross heathen and I… I hate you! I hate you! Ha! I said it. I hate you.

Sammy: Guys…

Ben: I’ll do you one better- I never liked you to begin with. You creep me out. 

Sammy: Ben…

Greg: Well, heh, that’s not what your mom says.

Ben: Don’t you bring my mom into this.

Greg: Your mother things I am a fine, upstanding, entrepreneur, and model citizen!

Ben: She’s an idiot then! Sorry mom.

Greg: Heathen!

Sammy: Guys! (Clears throat) Okay so you disturbed Greg’s meeting with Emily. You ordered food you didn’t eat. I-is that it?

Ben: Basically! He lost it because I was probably in the shot of his candid camera date!

Greg: I lost my temper, but you had it coming! You get Emily whenever you want and I schedule months in advance!

Ben: Yeah, and you did it during the Valentine's Day Dance. Just real messed up, man. You’re a stalker. 

Greg: Who showed up at whose date, Ben?

Ben: I was just having dinner at my favorite sponsor’s restaurant.

Greg: You don’t even like frogs!

Ben: Nobody does!

Greg: Why don’t you tell them how you got escorted off the premises?

Ben: You just did, idiot!

Sammy: If you were just eating, or not eating as the case may be, how did they have the grounds to toss you out of Granny Frickard’s?

Ben: Ugh. I- I may have started throwing tiny hush puppies in Greg’s general direction.

Greg: You, you, you may have? Pah-lease! You were pretending to be Nolan Ryan while you’re lobbing them at my head.

Ben: You had no right to kiss Emily’s hand!

Greg: Well you wouldn’t have even known if you weren’t, you know, stalking us to begin with!

Ben: Yeah? Well, uh, stay away from Emily!

Greg: Well I won’t have a problem doing that since she hates us both.

Sammy: I’m sorry, what’s that, Greg?

Ben: Can we move on… please.

Greg: Emily left in a huff and said she wasn’t a prize to be won. Totally thought she was roleplaying and I called her princess Jasmine… Which she also didn’t appreciate… 

Ben: Nice touch, dumbass. Referencing Aladdin don’t make it right.

Greg: It’s kind of ludicrous when you think about it. I mean, she is a prize to be one. She’s the trophiest of trophy wives to ever be trophy won!

Ben: She’s pretty mad, Sammy.

Sammy: It sounds like she kinda should be…

Ben: She probably hates me now, man. Stupid stunt…

Sammy: I’m sure she doesn’t hate you, Ben.

Greg: Oh yeah, she hates him big time. I mean, she hates us both, but it’s basically a win for me. She was only lukewarm to my intentions but she can’t stand Ben now. She’ll eventually come back around to the Frog Prince if, uh, he’s out of the picture.

Ben: Greg.

Greg: I’ll take your apology on air, Ben. But I would also like it written on a nice piece of cardstock so I can show it to Granny.

Ben: I sincerely hope that you catch a frog-based STD and die.

Greg: And I hope that you find another perfect woman to fall head over heels in love with, Ben, because you just struck out. You stuck out big time.

Ben: You’re an imbecile! Nobody likes eating frogs! It’s 2016, Greg! You’re gross!

Greg: Ha! Shows what you know. Some cultures consider frogs the poultry of the pond.

Ben: Literally no cultures say that!

Greg: Oh yeah? Well ask Kirk Sycamore when he comes on, he’ll show you.

Ben: I’m not asking anybody anything.

Sammy: Greg, I think it’s best if we part ways for the night.

Greg: Fine! No skin off my bubble butt! Later haters!

[The sound of a phone hanging up]

Sammy: I think-

Ben: Can we just go to commercial, Sammy? I just- I can’t right now.

Sammy: D-do you want to? Is that on schedule?

Ben: No! And, no… Ugh, just take a couple more calls before the bird man pops in.

Sammy: Lucky line one you’re live on-

Caller: Hi, Sammy. Hi, Ben…

Sammy: Good evening, Emily. I assume you’ve been listening.

Emily. I’ve been listening.

Sammy: You know what, let me put you on hold so you can talk to Ben off the air.

Emily: No! I’d like to talk to Ben on the air, if you don’t mind, Sammy.

Sammy: You know, I uh… Ben?

Ben: Uh, whatever you want, Emily.

Emily: Okay, you know I don’t hate you, Ben. Far, far from it.

Ben: I’m so sorry Emily. I just, I lost it sitting there, thinking that you were all alone with that creep and-

Emily: You acted like a real ass.

Ben: I know I did!

Emily: I’m not a child, Ben. When I told you that I would love to go to the dance with you, that was the truth. But when I also told you that I was a woman of my word and was going to honor my prior engagements, as stupid and contrived as they were, I meant that too.

Ben: I just-

Emily: You acted like an ass!

Ben: I know, but-

Emily: There’s no explanation that will make this better, Ben! You acted like a jealous boyfriend and I’m not sure if you know this, but you aren’t my boyfriend.

Ben: Can I just say-

Emily: Even if I wanted you to be before, you aren’t. So you have no right to act like this!

Ben: (Pausing) You wanted me to be your boyfriend?

Emily: Before the incident there was no doubt about it.

Ben: After?

Emily: I- I- uh- I can’t let my feelings override the fact that you treated me like a kid, Ben. I am a grown woman! I am a professional woman. I don’t need some white knight to save me from the likes of Greg! And while I appreciate the idea behind it, like I said to you and I said to Greg, I am a person! I have feelings! I’m not a prize to be won! 

Ben: I really messed this up, I’m… I’m sorry. Emily if you’ll just-

Emily: I just- I need some time to evaluate what the next step is. 

Ben: Because you hate me.

Emily: No! Bec- because I lo- I strongly strongly like, probably definitely on the verge of more. I mean, I was scared to death that you were hurt or worse during Lincoln’s revenge! But I was scared even more when I saw you acting like a high school bully during that meeting. 

Ben: You strongly strongly like me?

Emily: I do. But it’s, it’s gonna be a little bit before I can trust you to be okay with that.

Ben: I understand. 

Emily: But I… I wasn’t going to let another minute go by of you think that I hated you. Cause I don’t. But you really need to fix this.

Ben: And I will. I- I promise.

Emily: I hope so. (pause) Ah, goodnight, Sammy. Ben.

Sammy: Goodnight, Emily. We will talk soon.

Emily: I’m sure of it. Ah, I actually wanted to talk to you about being one of the library’s spring break speakers soon. I’ll send you an email.

Sammy: Oh, please do. Anything to get the kids back in the library after, you know, Lincoln’s revenge…

Emily: Thanks, Sammy. Goodnight, guys.

Ben: Hey- hey, Emily?

[The sound of a phone hanging up with a beeping that slowly fades out. The King Falls outro music and credits begin.]

References:

Nolan Ryan: a baseball pitcher.

The Big Bang Theory: A television show.

Edward Scissorhands: a charactor from an old fantasy movie by the same name about a man who had scissors for hands.

Harlequin novels: a trashy romance story.

Characters:

Sammy Stevens, Ben Arnold, Troy, Greg Frickard, Emily Potter, Pete Meyers, Beauregard, Ernie Salsado.

[undertaker1827]

Not a request. I would like to know your opinion on what Undertaker's overall plan is. He made those dolls and brought o!Ciel back but for what reason and what else is he planning? 🤔 Thank you! (feel free to delete)

Absolutely! This is part one of two, I’ll link the second part when it’s written. In the meantime, hello, welcome and strap yourselves in for one hell of a ride, we’re almost on 2000 words! Let’s go!

❗️obviously spoiler warning!!!! Also, I’ve only read up to chapter 148 so if you’ve read further, please don’t spoil anything for me either!! Thank you! ❗️

-

Way back at the end of the Circus Ark, undertaker said this;

So, whatever happened with Cloudia (which needs to be put in a whole other theories post) must have involved her being overly blasé about her life/soul, in a similar way to Ciel and Vincent, I would say. Obviously the connection between Undertaker and the Phantomhives is much bigger than anything we know about and I’m willing to bet it is connected to more than just Undertaker bringing R!Ciel back to life (again, another theory post needed).

ANYWHO back on track.

Now Undertaker always talks about being happy/laughing/not wasting your soul (and by extension, life). We know he committed suicide when he was human (yet another tangent I want to go off on) after which he obviously didn’t want to have to face another life. So what, did he just get sick of reaping and the soul world and decide if he was being forced to live anyway, he should do something with his life this time? Which is where going to the human world comes into play, but (okay we’re off track again) what really happened 50 years ago?? Why did he actually leave dispatch and effectively become a fugitive? Surely there must be more to it than ‘I got bored’. And what, he just magically got involved with the Phantomive family? One of the most important families in England who also happen to operate within the underworld and work for the queen? I don’t think so. He definitely knew what he was doing. The question is, why did he do it?

Back to the task in hand, during this part of Book of the Atlantic;

Ciel actually looks scared. Ignoring everything we know about him/his personality and just looking at his face in the drawing, he looks young and frightened. Now imagine when O!Ciel was little. Undertaker would have been around a lot when him and R!Ciel were growing up, we even see him holding up the curtain behind the kids for their photograph later on in the series. O!Ciel now, as the Earl, is obviously very used to Undertaker’s antics, like his prices for information, so perhaps this was why he was goaded into paying said price himself earlier on, instead of letting Sebastian do it. Clearly, having seen Undertaker’s face for the first time, seen him attack Grell (who even Seabstain had to play dirty to beat) AND look serious all in one hit? Big shock. But that face to me is still a picture of fear rather than surprise, again demonstrating how well Undertaker kept his true identity hidden. Still, even as the lowkey crazy mortician, he’s not exactly someone you would trust your kids with. This says to me Vincent knew more about Undertaker than just face value and he knew the reaper would stay loyal to the Phantomhives. And THAT’S another thing; why?? Why would he, how could Vincent be so certain? Was it because of Cloudia? Did Vincent grow up with Undertaker around the same way the twins did?

But then there are other questions! How did he end up establishing his business? As in both sides of it. Dispatch must have searched for him, he was their best in collections, so how did he keep his true identity a secret from literally everyone, even them? Also, how much did the Phantomhives (prior to Ciel) know about him? Did Cloudia or Vincent know he was a reaper? I don’t believe that he was as close to Vincent and the twins as he was without Vincent knowing something was up. I mean the earl was very clever, in his line of work he had to be, and he trusted Undertaker with his kids, which must mean something.

Then there’s the thing with Othello. I mean clearly they know each other, hardly surprising, but Undertaker was this high flying INCREDIBLY serious collections reaper, compared to Othello (much as I love him) who couldn’t fight and ended up in forensics, the department which has practically no contact with the human world. So it makes sense that Othello knows about Undertaker, maybe even looked up to him, who knows, but why would Undertaker know Othello?

And whilst we’re on the subject (which we’re not) how did he get all those scars?? When he’s drawing wearing different clothes than normal, they are literally all over him. Anyone could have been fatal, particular focus on the one around his neck and across his chest. Now when we see him working as a reaper, he doesn’t have those scars. Given how good a fighter he is, there’s not a human in the world who could have done that. That leaves anything supernatural - demons, angels or even other reapers - which would have meant he fought them and survived (barely?). But the injuries must have been very bad to have scarred like that in the first place. Either that, or they’re fake and he just outs them on to mess with the characters’ (our) minds.

But moving on, when Ciel asks ‘to what end?’, Undertaker replies with;

So in other words, when he first rocked up in the human world, it probably was just curiosity. He needed some sort of a cover up for who he really was, so he set up a morgue. Why not? Maybe, during his many reaping jobs, he had come into contact with the work/estate of the Phantomhives. Enter Cloudia, and whatever happened there, happened. But somehow he went to serious reaper looking at the human world and the individuals living in it as one big experiment to actually caring about his lab rats. To have Cloudia’s mourning locket and be as fond of it as he is, something, in some way, must have changed. Another question is the rest of the mourning lockets. Unless they’re just for show so he can carry Cloudia’s and still fit in reasonably well (which I don’t think is the case) he must have cared about each of those people, and thus far, we have no idea who they are.

But then there’s THIS;

Bold words for a guy who cares far far too much about Ciel’s family, knowing full well right from the beginning that he would well and truly outlive them. But here is where the caring part comes in;

Unless he was taking about Sebastian. But even if he was, I think he was including himself in that statement to some extent as well, bearing in mind that of the people present, only Ciel was aware that his father knew Undertaker.

Now as for the Weston College Arc, Undertaker was obviously trying to keep away from Sebastian and Ciel for as long as possible, I suspect so that they found out about Derrick at the ‘right’ moment (for him at least) and to ensure a fight didn’t break out in front of the entire school, which would guarantee he could get away quickly without anyone knowing where he was going. But moving back in time a bit, Undertaker was involved with Weston College sometime prior to the Campania debacle (as Rian Stoker was with him when he arrived) and been contacted by Edgar Redmond, no doubt via Viscount Druitt, so all of that probably has something to do with how he managed to take over as headmaster so quickly (after all, this arc takes places directly after the Book of the Atlantic). He had been forced to blow a cover he’d been keeping up for the last 50 years so he needed somewhere to go quickly. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had worked out that Weston College would be where Ciel went next too and as we established when he allowed Ciel to keep the mourning lockets, Undertaker clearly doesn’t want to cut any mores ties with him than necessary.

Then there’s this;

I think what Undertaker really wants to do is bring back Vincent, if not Cloudia, but given that reanimation requires a near perfect corpse, neither of these options are especially viable. As for his reasons, he is clearly very attached to them, and if you ask me, his lack of care for personal space in any capacity says he’s lonely, so I suspect that’s part of it. However, I think there’s probably a more important reason than that, but I honestly don’t know what. I believe it will be tied in with his mysterious connection to the Phantomhive family, but as we don’t know about that either, its difficult to say.

Now this part;

has always confused me. What was Sebastian referring to? And the fact that Undertaker implied their strength is equal? He would have killed Sebastian back on the ship if it hadn’t picked that exact moment to sink. All very intriguing.

Then this whole double page spread;

which really only gives more questions than it answers.

But now! Onto the Green Witch Arc. The bit to focus on has to be the interaction between Diedrich and Undertaker, in which Undertaker makes one very important comment;

Humans. He specifically said humans, meaning Diedrich knew he was a reaper, so by extension so did Vincent and most likely Cloudia as well. I admit, I had forgotten that sentence, so this explains why Vincent trusted Undertaker with the twins (which I was going on about earlier). And I assume when he said this;

He was talking about bringing Vincent back. Even he couldn’t bring back someone without their body.

[letterstoleia]

Important Lessons Learned from Gabby and Brian

As an author and advocate for survivors of domestic violence, I’ve learned a lot about the predictable patterns of unhealthy relationships. After years of personal experiences, research, and outreach, I’ve learned to recognize the tell-tale signs of abuse. I am not a licensed therapist, social worker, police officer, or minister. So please understand I shared my thoughts as 3 a.m. musings. When a few people asked me to make the post public, I agreed, reluctantly. I had no idea this message would resonate with so many people. I've worked back through the original post to explain a bit better how I'm feeling. I realize not everyone will agree with me, and I respect all opinions and views. All I ask is that we engage in respectful discourse on all sides. Thank you all.

In recent days, the tragic events involving Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie have given us a lot to learn. This case is still under investigation, and I can only make assumptions based on the textbook patterns of abuse I’ve witnessed too many times to count. I also recognize that multiple families are grieving, and I have tremendous empathy for everyone involved. However, many survivors will resonate with at least some of the following insights, and I’m hoping we can use this tragedy to shift the way we as a culture approach the complicated issue of domestic abuse.

Let’s examine 30 important lessons this couple teaches us:

1. Followers on social media saw a smiling, happy couple, full of love and wanderlust, setting out for a cross-country adventure while documenting all the joys of young life. In many cases, targets become very good at smiling through the pain.

2. When the public was shown body camera footage captured by Moab City Police officer Daniel Robbins, (who pulled Laundrie and Petito over after the 911 call on August 12), some viewers assumed Petito was suffering from mental illness and Laundrie, while nervous, was the steadier of the two.

3. Other viewers assumed both partners were equally at fault—the old “it takes two” myth that doesn’t really apply to most abusive situations.

4. Some people even assumed Petito was the abuser and Laundrie was the victim.

5. These three assumptions probably crossed everyone’s mind as a possibility (they did mine). Healthy minded people tend to give others the benefit of the doubt, especially when someone is being accused of a negative act. Also, we can all understand that mental illness is a difficult situation and can tax even the kindest most gentle of souls (and the people who love them). Unfortunately, in many cases, this thought pattern leads us to assume the victim is mentally ill or that the victim is to blame for an altercation.

6. “Victim blaming” can happen even in the worst cases of abuse because we don’t see the longitudinal story unfolding. What we don’t see is that the target has managed to keep things together until she reached her threshold, at which time we may see her crying, yelling, or breaking down emotionally. By exhibiting those behaviors, many might assume the target is “crazy,” and it’s natural for us to feel as if the more stable person is more trustworthy.

7. If we listen carefully to Laundrie’s conversation with the officers, he even laughs and says, “She’s crazy.” (17.09) Then he dismisses it as a joke. Of course, he’s already put this claim in the officers’ minds (and by the nonchalant way he says it, many might assume it’s not the first time he’s said these words.)

8. So while viewers (and officers) start wondering if perhaps the target is “crazy,” the abuser plays the part of the poor, patient partner who has to deal with this irrational person. In the video, Laundrie mentions Petito’s anxiety and her OCD, painting her as an unstable partner. (Please note: I’m not at all justifying any physical violence against either party. No one should intentionally harm any other person. Period.)

9. A typical abuser would be skilled at convincing people that he’s innocent, while in fact he’s been acting very differently behind closed doors, pushing his target to this point intentionally and feeding on her emotional break. Many abusers LOVE to see evidence that they’ve hurt their target. They LOVE to see their target in pain. For this reason, “breaking” the target is usually the goal from the start. In cases of abuse, it may take an abuser hours, weeks, months, or even years to break the target, but he won’t stop until he gets that reaction, and then he’ll point the finger and say, “See? She’s crazy. I’m just trying to keep her calm.” And then he’ll do it again. And again. And again.

10. As a result, some people will buy into that false narrative. Even the target can be brainwashed to doubt her own truth. Which may be one reason we see Petito making many excuses for Laundrie’s behavior and taking the blame for everything.

11. In contrast, we see Laundrie blaming Petito, insisting he never hit her and saying he was just trying to keep her calm. He’s charming. He comes across as the loving and loyal partner. He’s joking around with the officers and even gives one a fist bump in the end. All the while, his fiancée is at risk of being charged with domestic assault and possibly spending the night in jail.

12. Later, we’ll hear the 911 recording that (it seems) the responding officers were not fully informed of at the time: “I’d like to report a domestic dispute.” The 49 second audio recording continues as the caller says, “The gentleman was slapping the girl.” When the dispatcher asks him to confirm that the man was slapping the girl, the caller responds, “Yes, and then we stopped, they ran up and down the sidewalk, he proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car, and they drove off.”

13. But long before the 911 call was made public, many survivors could already see through the spin playing out on the video footage. They easily recognized the “red flags” because these cycles become the norm for victims of long-standing abuse. Many targets eventually become conditioned to believe everything the abuser does is her fault. Covering for the abuser, accepting all the blame, trying harder to make the abuser happy—this warped reality becomes the only truth a target knows.

14. Also, it seems clear that Petito doesn’t want her fiancé to be in any trouble. She’d rather pay the price and protect the man she loves. And because she probably believes he only acted this way because of her mood/behaviors/anxiety/OCD/job, she doesn’t want him to be blamed. This is also the norm in abusive relationships.

15. Many experienced and well-trained officers see right through this typical pattern. Others buy the cover-up story. And, sadly, because some officers are also abusers, some side with the abuser even when they know exactly what’s going on. Throughout the video, we get the sense that Officer Robbins senses there’s more to the story.

16. I credit the police in Petito’s situation, especially Officer Robbins. The four responding officers (two of whom were park rangers) remained calm, they separated the couple, they interviewed them individually, they split them up for the night, they consulted the domestic violence shelter … many would say they did everything right considering the information they had at the time.

17. I imagine the officers involved may be suffering from tremendous guilt and wondering if they could have prevented Petito’s death, but I want to give credit to the officers in this case. While it’s easy to look back and say maybe they should have handled things differently, knowing what we now know, I was impressed with how well they treated both Laundrie and Petito (and, sadly, I was thinking how rare it is to see that level of respect and professionalism in most cases of domestic violence, particularly in the South where I’ve been most involved with survivors’ stories.)

18. After Petito was reported missing, many people expressed shock in response to the Laundrie family’s refusal to cooperate early in the investigation. Petito reportedly lived with the Laundrie family for more than a year. Anyone can see that this family will do anything to protect their son, even at the cost of an innocent young woman who was a real part of their family and soon to be their daughter-in-law. While most of us can certainly understand parents wanting to protect their son, most would agree they crossed a moral line when his fiancée went missing.

19. But perhaps it goes deeper than that. Perhaps what we’re seeing is a system of enablers who not only allowed their son to abuse Petito (which may have been a factor in her reported anxiety) but also a system of gaslighters who may have always been shifting the truth to keep Petito confused and make her believe she was the problem.

20. It’s not a far stretch to assume Petito was caught in a system of abuse. And once a target is caught in that psychological web, it’s extremely difficult to see a way out. Reality becomes flipped.

21. It’s also worth noting that Petito and Laundrie had been involved in various levels of a relationship since their teens. This is also commonly observed in dysfunctional partnerships.

22. These immature relationships work beautifully when both partners grow together and mature emotionally. But when one wants to keep the other down, naïve, and under his control … and the other is growing, learning, and maturing … it doesn’t work.

23. We hear Petito tell the officer that Laundrie didn’t think she could succeed with her travel blog (3.25). It seems clear that he didn’t believe in her and that he was trying to make her doubt herself.

24. Throughout the conversation, he implies that he locked her out of the van because she wouldn’t calm down. But when we listen to the full video, it seems he was upset because they’d spent too much time at the coffee shop with her working on her website when he wanted to go hiking. This suggests that because she wasn’t in the van when he was ready to leave, he lost his temper.

25. In the moments that followed, the altercation became physical. Reportedly, Laundrie squeezed Petito’s face with his hand, cut her down verbally, and criticized her.

26. Some would argue that this escalating abuse typically persists until the target reacts emotionally and/or physically. If this case follows the norm, Laundrie may have been trying to break her spirit, intentionally.

27. Why? Again, if this case follows the typical situation, it would likely be because Petito’s focus wasn’t 100% on Laundrie. She had found this new job she enjoyed. She was succeeding at it, and it was allowing her to connect with other people. (Remember, she’d already left her job as a nutritionist to travel around the country with Laundrie.)

28. In a healthy relationship, the new job might be considered a positive opportunity for Petito. Especially considering Laundrie admits they have very little money (not even enough to afford a hotel room to prevent his fiancée from going to jail). But in an unhealthy relationship, the abuser wants the target all to himself. And when that doesn’t happen, he can become increasingly violent.

29. Petito now had this one little piece of her life that Laundrie couldn’t control, so if we’re looking at textbook patterns, perhaps her blog angered him. Perhaps he didn’t like all the attention she was getting on social media. Perhaps he punished her for it. And then a cycle developed. Even though she was doing nothing wrong by building a new career.

30. The next thing we know, we have a missing person, a recovered body, a young man on the run, and several families destroyed. Too much grief to measure. And the truth is, it will happen again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, until we learn to recognize and respond to abusive situations in healthier ways.

The overall takeaway?

When we see someone at her emotional end during a domestic dispute, we shouldn’t assume she’s crazy. We shouldn’t buy into the false narrative given by the abuser. We shouldn’t believe the cover-up story by the target who has been conditioned to carry all the blame and shame. And we shouldn’t assume they’re going to be okay.

Instead, we should all learn the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships. We should learn to recognize the warning signs of abuse. We should engage in respectful, fact-based conversations about trauma bonds, abusive cycles, and emotional intelligence. We should be familiar with terms like gaslighting, hovering, love bombing, enabling, triangulating, and projecting. We should stop blaming targets and help them reclaim their truth. And we should stop repeating the age-old myths that keep targets trapped in these dangerous and all-too-often deadly cycles.

Finally, while I’ve used the most common scenario of male-on-female violence in this article, we should recognize that abuse crosses all barriers and can impact anyone regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, religious affiliation, age, or socio-economic level. And we should stop assuming these situations will get better in time. Personally, I haven’t heard of one abusive relationship that became healthier. Not one. Not with therapy. Not with church. Not with prayer or forgiveness or complete surrender. When an abuser is determined to destroy his target, he will not stop until that target is erased from this world or stripped from her life. And in many cases, he’ll walk away without any consequences, often taking the target’s finances, home, vehicle, reputation, or even her children with him.

Please don’t let the next statistic be you or someone you love. For support, contact the Domestic Violence Hotline. From a safe phone, call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or text “START” to 88788.