#flip tarp systems

[seinfelt]

The Gamesman

Due to a miscommunication, Jerry gets booked to play a couple nights at a goth jazz club. After his first set completely bombs—so disastrously that not a single person laughs even once and many even boo him and shout "this isn't music!"—he finds himself so distraught and depressed that all he can talk about is how "the Woe Clef killed comedy!"

Kramer finds an old Nintendo Entertainment System in a trash can on his way home from riding the escalators at Macy's. Jammed inside of it is a Tetris game cartridge, which he is unable to dislodge despite his best efforts with a butter knife he'd been carrying around in his back pocket. Back at his apartment he hooks it up and turns it on and discovers he can't stop playing. Ignoring the occasional ringing phone and knock at the door, he stays glued to the screen, amassing a higher and higher score.

George keeps misusing the phrase "it takes two to tango", to the increasing agitation of everyone around him. Jerry rants to him about his humiliating experience at the Woe Clef, and how they canceled his second performance. "The Woe Clef doesn't even know what comedy is!" he wails. George nods sagely and tells him, "you know, it takes two to tango."

Desperate for someone other than George to talk to about his grievance, Jerry finally forces his way into Kramer's apartment and discovers him leaning so precariously forward at the edge of his recliner that it's tipping off its back legs. He tries calling out to him, "I've been canceled by the Woe Clef," but Kramer's focus never once leaves the TV. "That's great, Jerry," he mutters dreamily. Exasperated, Jerry storms out, slamming the door so hard it startles Kramer into a reflexive flinch. The movement is just enough to tilt his center of balance far enough forward that he flips his chair on top of himself and ends up pinned beneath, landing with his face pressed down on the Nintendo's controller. Panicking, he begins to struggle, but realizes that making certain facial expressions allows him to control the game just fine. Stuck like some sort of upholstered turtle, he continues his marathon gaming session for hours until his score grows high enough to crash the game. Finally snapped out of his captivation, he struggles to free himself, wiggling back and forth until the chair falls sideways between him and his coffee table. The resulting tremor knocks his television off its stand and onto the floor, and the linear alignment of objects causes Kramer and his toppled belongings to blink several times and disappear.

While flipping through the channels, George catches a scene from an old movie where a woman dances the tango with two men. His jaw drops and he falls off the couch, then scampers into the secret second bedroom he keeps hidden behind a bookshelf. He pulls a tarp off a whiteboard revealing an elaborate equation and assesses it for a while before adding a ">" next to the "=" to the left of the number 2 on line 18. On a nearby table, a jar filled with strange black slime suddenly begins to shimmy rhythmically. "Finally!" bellows George with a maniacal cackle, "the dance dance revolution can begin!"

Elaine is confused but flattered when Bill Clinton drops out of the Presidential race and pledges his full support for her candidacy.

[banannabethchase]

Hungry Like the Wolf - also on AO3

~

Yuta accidentally walks in on his boss as a werewolf. A literal werewolf. Why does he find that hot?

~

Bingo square I3 complete! Also how did I write a 16k AU in 4 days? Please don't ask me because I don't fucking know.

~

It’s late. Like, stupid late. Like, so late he’s got eight texts from Chuck asking him why the fuck he isn’t back since it’s his night to take the dog for his late night walk, stupid.

I’ll be back soon I’m still at work, he fires back as he fixes something in his spreadsheet with his other hand. Tell Walter to wait like half an hour.

Can’t wait that long he has a shityt bladder Chuck replies back, and Yuta knows the fight is lost. Chuck is going to yell at him that he’s a bad roommate, Yuta will feel like trash because he’s right, and he still won’t have everything done at work that needs to get done.

Yuta sighs and saves the document, flipping it shut. At this point, he may as well start living here.

He looks up to see the rest of the room empty, his light the only one on. The saving grace is that he’s hourly and his boss is cool with giving out overtime like Halloween candy. Maybe he can offer to pay the whole electric bill this month as penance.

Snapping off the light in his cubicle, Yuta gathers his things and makes his way toward the exit, only to see a light still on in the boss’ office. He pauses. He really shouldn’t interrupt Mr. Castagnoli, since it’s late and there has to be a reason he’s still here. But he’s stupid and he’s tempted to show off that he’s here, too.

“Mr. Castagnoli,” he says, knocking as he pushes the door open. “I just wanted to say –” He cuts himself off as he tries to process the sight in front of him. “What the flying fuck?!”

A wolf the size of a sedan turns to him, dark eyes eerily familiar.

“Oh dear,” says a voice equally familiar yet unquestionably canine. “Mr. Yuta. You were supposed to be gone.” The wolf sighs. “What an inconvenient way for you to find out. As you can see,” he gestures to the mess of blood and filth around the room, covered in a thick plastic tarp, “I am rather busy. If we could continue this conversation tomorrow, I would be much obliged.”

Yuta blinks for a few seconds, trying to get his eyes to register what the actual fuck he’s seeing, then processes it. Everything. All at once.

He sprints out of there, hightailing it to his car, and slams the door behind him. His breathing is heavy, his heartbeat is too fast to be safe, and his brain is spinning. He gets home five minutes faster than usual, terror wreaking havoc on his system, and runs in the door.

“What – how the hell did you get back so soon?” Chuck asks. He’s on the couch with his boyfriend in his lap, Yuta’s former boss. “I thought I had at least ten minutes of macking time post walk.”

Cassidy slides off of Chuck’s lap languidly, looking disappointed. Well, as much as he ever has an expression.

“I – had to get home,” Yuta pants. The memory still reigns, stark and bloodred, in his mind. “You’ll never believe what I just saw.” He runs it over with them, talking so quickly he can barely keep up with himself. Chuck looks at him with a distinct lack of belief. Cassidy looks so unaffected Yuta’s pretty sure he’s fallen asleep under his sunglasses.

“I think you had a nightmare,” Chuck says, and it’s so reasonable Yuta feels himself automatically relax. “Like, think about it, okay? You were at work until,” he checks his clock, “like, ten at night. You got there at nine in the morning. You’re burnt out, dude.”

“Probably envisioning your boss as a blood covered carnivore is a representation of your distrust of him as the individual siphoning your labor for his own gains,” Cassidy says.

Yuta turns to him. “The fuck did you just say?” He looks at Chuck. “I worked for him for three years and I’m pretty sure that’s more words in a row than I’d heard him say within, like, a month.”

Cassidy shrugs. “Your fault for leaving my shop, dumbass.” He stretches out on the couch and passes out. Yuta thinks.

“Orange is right,” Chuck says, resting his hand on Cassidy’s forehead and playing with long blond strands. “Your subconscious is making him a literal fairy tale villain because you were stuck at work.” He nods toward Yuta’s room. “Go to sleep and get into work late tomorrow morning. You’ve earned it.”

Like he only does when he knows Yuta’s had a really rough day, Walter pads in after him into his bedroom and curls up against him in bed. Yuta falls asleep in minutes, and doesn’t dream.

~

He gets into work the next morning just before noon, holding a tray of apology coffees for being late and a whole lot of fear.

“Hey,” he says Mox, the security guard. “Uh. Here. I got coffee.”

Moxley stares at it. “What kind?”

“Um. Latte?” He pulls it out of the cardboard tray and checks the label. “Yeah, regular latte.”

“Gross,” Mox says, and he chugs it in a few seconds, shoving it back into the tray empty. “Thanks, though.”

Yuta throws a wary glance behind him, unsure of how to process that moment, and pushes into the full building. The office area is – well, it’s not modern, exactly. There really are cubicles, and there really are bigger offices for the higher ups, but the place still feels more comfortable than the place from Office Space, so Yuta considers it a win.

Or, at least, it had. Before the nightmare.

“Maybe I need to go back into retail,” Yuta mutters, but, even as he says that, the trauma of getting a guitar thrown at his head and the idea of living in a tiny apartment with Chuck and Cassidy for the rest of his life say otherwise. He sets the tray of coffees down at the receptionist desk.

“You okay there, Wheels?” Renee asks. She types in something on her computer, then turns back to him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Yuta hands her the hot white chocolate mocha latte and nods. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

“I do,” she says sternly. “You didn’t clock out until 10:02, you fucking idiot.”

He smiles at her. “Love you too!”

He sips his own coffee as he gets to his workstation.  “Marina!” he calls to the woman who works the next cubicle over. “Hi. I got coffee.”

She looks up, eyes fierce but silent, and raises an eyebrow.

“Yes, it’s a hot blonde roast, no cream, sugar free vanilla,” Yuta says, handing it over the top. “Four pumps.”

Marina takes a hesitant, suspicious sip, then nods. He thinks, if he looks closely enough, he could see something like a smile there.

He settles back down into his seat, and throws open his laptop to see his work from last night there.

All of it.

He frowns. If he’d fallen asleep, like he’d assumed, there wouldn’t be anything there past the collaborative data review he’d done around 7:30 with Bryan. But there it was – the two and a half hours’ worth of analytical review.

He slumps back in the chair.

If he hadn’t fallen asleep.

If he hadn’t dreamt.

He shakes his head. “Nope,” he insists. “Nope, we’re not going there.” He picks up where he left off, yawning only a bit, and cranks out a couple hundred more words of analysis before he feels a presence over his shoulder. A shiver runs down his spine.

“Mr. Yuta,” comes an eerily familiar voice from over his shoulder, and it’s that exact second he’s sure it wasn’t a dream, “a word, in my office, if you will.”

A cold sweat breaks out over his body as he stands and plasters his best facsimile of a smile on his face. “Certainly, sir,” he says, swallowing.

Yuta follows Mr. Castagnoli to the office, and Renee’s eyes catch his. She raises an eyebrow, but he shrugs, doing his best to look sheepish as he smiles back at her, like he doesn’t know what this is about.

Mr. Castagnoli gestures for him to push the door shut behind him. Reluctantly, Yuta does.

“Please sit, Mr. Yuta.” His boss gestures to one of the comfortable chairs in front of the giant desk. Yuta assumes Castagnoli would sit in the fancy one like a throne behind the desk, but instead he plants himself in the seat one away from Yuta.

Yuta lowers himself gingerly. No plastic tarp, no blood, no stray fur or teeth or indication of violence. Castagnoli’s smile, while definitely sharp white and toothy, doesn’t betray any carnivorous tendencies.

“I would like to discuss the incident from the previous night.”

Yuta fights the urge to curl in on himself. “Uh, yeah,” he hedges, wishing he could sound like an normal person about all this. “Right. The uh.”

“The wolf,” Castagnoli clarifies. “Yes, of course. That was me.”

“Sorry, can we – wolf?” Yuta asks. “You’re weirdly chill about all this.”

Castagnoli shrugs, looking not an ounce ashamed or hesitant about this conversation. “It has been my life since birth. A legacy of the Castagnoli line, one could say.” He chuckles a bit. “My mother says it’s why we are so talented in the board room.” He leans toward Yuta a little bit. “We have a taste for blood.”

A shiver runs down Yuta’s spine, but he can’t be exactly sure why. “Are you gonna kill me?” he blurts out, white knuckle grip on the chair. “I get why. But, like, make it quick.”

To his shock, Castagnoli lets out a laugh, open and beautiful and wildly inappropriate for the level of conversation they’re having. “Oh, my goodness,” he says, coming down from it. “No, Mr. Yuta, absolutely not.” He gestures around the door. “Do you see a tarp? I never chance blood without a good old fashion layer of protection.”

Yuta swears he sees Castagnoli wink.

“No, I assure you, murder is not in the cards for you.” Yuta absolutely did not miss the qualifier – for you. “I actually was here to propose something akin to a promotion.”

Yuta raises an eyebrow. “A promotion?”

“Now that you managed to see my…hidden side,” Castagnoli says, “I suppose we’ve become closer. And I would do to have someone else be in charge of some of the more complex components of my moonlight changes.” He tilts his head, studying Yuta. The only word that comes to Yuta’s mind is predator. He shouldn’t like it so much. “You’re in a unique position where you are privy to the complexity of my condition without being also hindered by it. If you know, then it’s only right that I invite you to understand some of the more complicated components of the company, along with increasing your salary.”

Yuta’s ears perk up. “Increasing my salary?”

“Of course,” Castagnoli says. “I would find it rather abhorrent to expect an atypical job requirement beyond the original contract to not be compensated with a pay raise.”

Yuta nods slowly. “What, exactly, would being your assistant entail?”

“Well,” Castagnoli says, “there are obviously some components about my condition that require additional planning. I do it myself, as of now, but I could use some help. Generally, my transformations happen at night, when I’m alone in the office, but…” He trails off and meets Yuta’s eyes. “You often stay late, correct?” Yuta nods. “On nights when the moonlight cannot be blocked out, particularly full moons, that is when I transform. I can generally prepare and control it using the weather predictions, but more often than I’d like my transformation occurs…unexpectedly.” He sighs. “On those nights, I would request your support to gather the necessary materials.”

“So, like,” Yuta says, carefully, “food and tarps?”

“You say that so casually,” Castagnoli says. His knee brushes Yuta’s. “Were you not afraid last night?”

“I mean, yeah, I was,” Yuta says, and he resists the urge to laugh. “Of course I was. You were a big ass wolf man in place of my boss, covered in blood.” He gestures to the room. “Then I come in here today and you’re back to – my boss.” He slumps in the chair. “I thought it was a nightmare, man. My roommates were sure of it.”

Castagnoli’s eyes go carefully blank. “You spoke of my condition to them.”

“Sure, but they didn’t believe me,” Yuta says. “They were sure I’d fallen asleep. One of them, Cassidy, said he thought I was imagining you as a bloodthirsty carnivore because I was stuck at work so late and you were draining my labor from me or something.” He frowns. “I didn’t say it right, but you get the gist.”

Castagnoli’s eyes remain blank, but the subtle tilt of his head tells Yuta he hit a nerve. “And do you feel that way?”

“What way?”

Castagnoli leans in, forearms braced on his thighs. “As if I am forcing you to work solely for my own gain?”

Yuta lets the words sink in, allows himself the time to be honest. “No,” Yuta decides. “No, I – I’m never scheduled to work that late, and you pay me a frankly insane rate for overtime.” He relaxes in his chair.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Castagnoli says. He mirrors Yuta’s posture: a leg crossed, arms on the chair, back relaxed into the chair. “And, if you could, please refrain from mentioning the truth of my condition to others.” He offers a slight smile. “It is my story to tell, as the saying goes.”

“Oh, right,” Yuta says. “I’d never out anybody.” He frowns. “Well. It’s not the same, but I get it.”

“Not the same as what?”

Yuta tenses up. “Uh. Well, I had a guy tell my whole college campus I’m gay when I was in school, and that fucking sucked.” He shrugs. “I’d never make anybody feel that way.”

Claudio eyes him. “That’s kind of you, Mr. Yuta. And thank you for the window into your past.” Yuta would swear he saw a glint in Castagnoli’s eye. “I can give you further information as the day goes on, however this evening appears to be cloudy with little hint of moonlight coming through. If it does, though.” He eyes Yuta.

“Just send me a to-do list,” Yuta says. “And I can, uh. Do it.”

Castagnoli nods once. “Well then. I suppose we are done here.” He stands and checks the clock. “And if I keep you here much longer, I’ll be late for a client meeting. Until later, Mr. Yuta.”

Yuta knows when he’s dismissed, and he stands and reaches for the door.

“Oh, and Mr. Yuta,” Castagnoli says, as Yuta is about to leave the room.

Yuta turns around, surprised he’s surprised that the other shoe is dropping. “Yes?”

“Please call me Claudio.” His smile is intriguing. “After all, you know my deepest secret. The least I can do is offer you my name.”

Yuta nods. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Claudio.”

He leaves the room and sits in his cubicle, and does literally nothing for two straight hours.

~

There are to-do lists. Lots of them. He’s in charge of coordinating with a local butcher to acquire whole animals for the wolf to tear apart if the moment strikes, ensuring delivery of the tarps for Claudio’s office, and locking every door prior to Claudio’s transformation. He’s not sure why that part is necessary; his encounter with the wolf was weirdly cordial. Nothing like he’d expect from interacting with a supernatural killing machine.

The first clear night of the full moon, Yuta is ready. He says goodbye to the rest of the office as they leave, smiling sheepishly as they all tell him to go home. Renee literally throws a pillow at his head, which was somehow both sweet and aggressive.

“Overtime isn’t worth it,” Renee yells over her shoulder.

“It is,” Yuta yells back, but he’s lying. It’s not the overtime. It’s the chance to spend time with Cas-Claudio. It’s the ability to know something so private about Claudio, to be trusted that deeply.

And, you know. The time and a half.

He peeks over the top of the cubicles to confirm that everyone else is gone, then steps into Claudio’s office. “Hey,” he says gently. “You okay?”

“Perfectly fine,” Claudio says. He slides the papers on his desk into his folders, then moves the décor to another bookshelf. “Would you be able to get the tarp and the other necessities, Wheeler?”

Yuta’s not sure when Claudio started calling him by his first name, but he sure as hell won’t ask him to stop. “Sure. I’ll be right back.”

Claudio offers him one of those rare, small smiles, and it powers Yuta through practically running down the hallway. He first gets the tarp from the basement, after a brief debate with himself about whether or not he can make it all the way up the stairs with the tarp and the deer at the same time, and brings it upstairs.

“Um,” Yuta says. “What, exactly, do you need from me?” He pulls the tarp out of the bag slowly. Claudio’s already moved the desk out of the way, propped against the door, and has draped a smaller sized tarp over it. “When you transform, I mean.”

Claudio sighs, looking like a model as he leans against the bookshelf in his pristine office wear. “We’ll have to see what the wolf prefers,” he says. It’s too vague, like he’s hiding something. Yuta waits. “If I can be honest, I’ve never had someone out of wolf form see me. No human, at least. I suppose I don’t know what I need from you.”

Yuta nods. “We’ll play it by ear, then.” He offers Claudio a smile, hoping it’s some sort of comforting. “I’ll go grab the deer, then. Throw it over my shoulder like some sort of lumberjack.”

“Don’t lumberjacks haul wood?”

Yuta opens his mouth, ready to make a crack about how he’s always hauling wood, then freezes. Claudio is still his boss. “They’ve got to get food someway, right?” he says, pivoting.

Claudio’s still looking at him though. “Alright,” he says. “I’ll be in my office, preparing.” He peeks in. “Ah. The first strands of moonlight have appeared.”

Yuta doesn’t wait, and instead hauls a big ass, plastic-covered deer from the basement, to the elevator, and then up to the office.

“Do I have any blood on me?” Yuta asks. “Did the deer leak?” He turns to Claudio and sees the wolf instead. “Oh. Oh, hello.”

“Hello, Wheeler.” It’s strange, how it’s Claudio’s voice at the same time as being the wolf’s. He wishes it were more distinct, like he could easily know who was in charge. But, then again, if it did count as someone else, perhaps he wouldn’t feel so safe in the room. Claudio is curled up in wolf form in the corner, giant clawed paw rolling around a metal ball. “You have no blood on you at all, though I’d have to admit that would –” He pauses, eyes averting from Yuta’s. “Well, I assure you, you are perfectly clean.” He pushes the ball toward Yuta.

Yuta rests the deer in the middle of the floor and stops the ball with his foot. “Are you asking to play?” he asks, fighting the urge to smile.

As much as a wolf can, Claudio shrugs. “I feel unable to resist the urge.”

The metal ball is heavy, but Yuta can push it with a little effort. He sits on the floor and rolls it back toward Claudio, who stops it with his snout and pushes it back. “Have you ever, like,” Yuta has to lean over to catch the ball before it flies off into the wrong direction, “played with anyone during your transformations?” He rolls the ball back, and Claudio scoops it up with a paw. It’s almost cute with the way he fiddles with it between his paws.

“Never a human,” Claudio answers. He pushes the ball back to Yuta. “Those in my pack my same age and I would play, but it was never this docile.” When Yuta rolls the ball back, Claudio catches it between massive, white teeth. “Far more blood involved.”

Yuta snorts. “I mean, if you want blood, we have blood.” He nods over to the deer. “But, uh. I’m in work clothes, so I’d rather not be covered.”

Claudio bares his teeth, the ball falling from his mouth, and Yuta freezes. He’d forgotten he was in the room with a bloodthirsty predatory, one with human intellect and animalistic desires. “Right,” Claudio says, and the exhale reminds Yuta of a sleepy puppy. He stretches out, reminding Yuta just how big the wolf is. “Would never want you to sully your professional wear.” He growls, low in his chest. “With that in mind, I do recommend you return to your office space now.” He licks his teeth, long tongue red as blood. “I feel the need to tear.”

Yuta nods and stands, swallowing hard. “Do you, uh. Do you need me to open the deer for you?”

Claudio’s laugh is low and menacing. Yuta should not be getting – this is the wrong feeling in this setting. “I assure you,” he brandishes his claws, “I am more than capable of doing so myself.”

Yuta nods. “You, uh. You need me overnight?”

Claudio nods. “If you will.”

Yuta closes the door behind himself as he goes over to his cubicle and pulls out the little cot Claudio had purchased for him the week before. He’d brought a blanket and now, thanks to Renee, he has a pillow. He curls up, plugs in his phone, puts on a Bigfoot related video essay on YouTube, and falls asleep.

~

“Wheeler.”

Yuta stretches, yawning. “Chuck?”

“No.”

Yuta’s eyes fly open and it takes a moment before he remembers where he is. “Oh. Right.” He rolls his shoulders. He’s less sore than he should be after a night on a cot and decides to call it a win. “How are you feeling?”

“More relaxed than usual after my transformations.” Claudio looks tired but happy, offering Yuta another one of those smiles. Yuta’s entire chest flutters, and he resists the urge to crack a stupid joke, just to stop the impossible feeling. “I cannot thank you enough, Wheeler. I have never felt this secure as the wolf.”

That feeling blooms brighter. “Of course.” He smiles. “Do, um. Do you need me to clock in or something?”

“Certainly not,” Claudio says. “I will approve it with HR myself if needed.” He exhales. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be down in the showers. Please, feel free to do so yourself as well.”

Yuta decides to banish that mental image from his mind, because the idea of showering with Claudio is too fascinating for him to stay normal about, and instead nods. “Yeah, maybe in a few. I’m going to catch up with my roommate really quick.”

He watched Claudio walk away and Yuta whips out his phone. There aren’t any texts from Chuck panicking, so he thinks his cover story that he was on a business trip overnight worked out better than he’d planned.

It’s early, only six in the morning, but getting a little too close to clock in time for comfort, so Yuta grabs clothes from his bag under his desk and makes his way down to the showers.

He almost runs into Claudio, shirtless and clad only in a towel, and his heart about leaps from his throat.

“Sorry,” he says, forcing himself to avert his eyes.

“No need to apologize.” Claudio claps a hand on Yuta’s shoulder. “Feel free to use my shampoo.”

Yuta snorts. “Funny. That’s cute.” He holds up a little bag of toiletries. Well. It’s a bar of soap, shampoo, and toothpaste. It counts. “I’ll stick with my own.”

He doesn’t intend to acknowledge his dick. He doesn’t. He’s at work, doing work things, being an employee or whatever the fuck he does here. He doesn’t need to jerk off about it.

But then he gets a memory of Claudio’s body, still glistening with water, abs for days and a line of hair leading under the towel, and all of Yuta’s resolve collapses.

“Stupid fucking hot wolf man,” he grumbles, and he reaches down to stroke his dick. He drops his head back against the tile wall of the shower, canting his hips up to meet his strokes. He thinks about the glint in Claudio’s eye as the wolf, about Claudio’s smiles, about the way Claudio looks at him sometimes.

What gets him whimpering, though, is the trust. That Claudio shared the wolf with Yuta, that he trusts Yuta to take care of him, that he’s willing to ask for help for once and it’s because of Yuta.

He comes with a cry, wordless but too loud all the same, and takes an extra five minutes to make sure the shower is all the way hosed down.

He leaves around 7:30 to pick up coffees from Orange’s Beans, Cassidy’s shop he used to work at. It’s a decision made by himself and Claudio to keep it looking like he didn’t sleep here overnight, and comes back into work with a little too much energy for a Wednesday morning.

“You’re chipper,” Mox says, holding his hand out for his coffee. “You do it right this time?”

“Don’t be a dick or I won’t give you the coffee,” Yuta says, putting the one labeled Mox in his hand. “Jesus.”

Staring at him, Mox takes a sip. “Okay, yeah. You got it right.” He punches Yuta in the shoulder so hard he staggers. “Good job, kid.”

“Ow!” Yuta says. He aims a kick at Mox’s shins, but Mox jumps out of the way, grinning.

The day is almost too normal, and at the end of the day Yuta’s hesitant to leave.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks. “I mean, I know last night was the full moon, but there’s still moonlight.”

“Any day other than the full moon, I’m able to control the transformation,” Claudio explains. “Truly, I can shift between the forms of the wolf at any time, but I’m unable to shift back to human during the full moon.” His expression turns almost sad. “The wolf takes all control those nights, I’m afraid.”

Yuta wants to tell him there’s nothing wrong with that, explain that he doesn’t see much of a difference between Claudio and the wolf, but he stays silent on the topic. “If you’re sure.”

Claudio nods. “I appreciate it more than you know, Wheeler.” He holds out a hand, and Yuta shakes it. “Go have a good evening with your friends.”

Yuta does. Kris and Trent come over, and all five of them play board games. Yuta’s on an embarrassing losing streak when Chuck suggests werewolf, and Yuta snorts.

“What’s with you?” Kris asks. “You don’t like the game?”

“No, he does,” Chuck says. “Probably too much, actually. He just had this fucked up dream about his boss a few weeks ago where his boss tried to kill him, werewolf style.”

“I think he was into it,” Kris says.

“I was not!” Yuta says.

“Look, he’s blushing!” Trent says. “You want to get railed by a werewolf, don’t you.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Yuta mumbles. He shoves Kris in the shoulder, she falls over a little and lands against Trent’s shoulder, and Trent shoves her so she bonks back into Yuta. “Let’s go back to making fun of Trent for refusing to ask Rocky out.”

“No, no, I like this conversation,” Trent says. “Go back to mocking Yuta.”

The game gets lost to good natured teasing, leading to Yuta in a headlock by Kris that he doesn’t hate as much as he probably should, and he’s having fun. It’s a great evening, and he’s tired as he goes to sleep in his own bed.

But he does wonder what Claudio is doing. And he does feel a little strange falling asleep without the soft snores of the wolf in the background.

~

After the first full moon, he takes it upon himself to create a code to automatically populate certain moonlight intensities into Claudio’s lower tool bar of his computer to warn him, just to be helpful, and Claudio straight up beams when he tells him.

“You were able to do that?” Claudio says. “How?”

Yuta shrugs. “It was easy. All I had to do is write a code and apply it to your computer.”

Claudio laughs a little, shaking his head. “I assure you, writing code is not easy to everyone. I appreciate it.”

The next few weeks before the next full moon are shockingly normal. He and Claudio talk as they always do, but then again, if he had been speaking to anyone else, he would have called their banter flirting. There are time to time touches to his arms, a greater frequency of those smiles. Yuta can already tell he’s falling for Claudio, and he should know how to turn this off.

He can’t.

“Hey,” Yuta says, working late one night. He leans against the open door of Claudio’s office. “I have a question.”

Claudio’s eyebrow raises. “Is this a question you should be asking with others in the building?”

“We’re alone,” Yuta says. He pretends that idea doesn’t thrill him. “Is there an in between wolf thing?”

Claudio tilts his head. Every time he does that, Yuta’s reminded of the wolf. “Could you elaborate?”

“Like,” Yuta throws himself into his typical chair. “There’s got to be something in between the wolf and,” he gestures to Claudio, “the businessman, right? You can’t just swap between them.”

“Ah,” Claudio says. “Well, I can stop somewhere in the middle. Care to see?”

Yuta nods.

Claudio stands and loosens his tie, hands going to his jacket. “I must warn you, I’ll have to remove parts of my clothes. I wouldn’t want to damage them.” He looks a bit haughty, with the way he speaks about his clothing. Always does. “Armani, you understand.”

Yuta nods, beginning to regret this idea because a naked Claudio is not something he’s prepared for. It’s also not something he can refuse. “Of course.”

Claudio takes off his jacket and unbuttons the shirt underneath, then unbuckles his belt slowly, eyes still on Yuta. Yuta’s brain threatens to bluescreen, but he champions on. “So, we have the general human condition,” Claudio says. “And then…” He closes his eyes, in concentration, and…changes. It’s not the wolf Yuta is used to from their moonlit evening. Instead, it’s a harsher, more jagged edge human version of his boss. Darker eyes, a thin layer of fur across Claudio’s body, sharp nails and teeth. “There is this version, in the middle.”

“Huh,” Yuta says, shifting in his seat. “Yeah, I get this. Sort of the, uh, hybrid version. What’s this work for?”

Claudio frowns. “Work for?”

“Yeah,” Yuta says. “Like, there’s got to be some sort of evolutionary reason to have this form, right?”

“I hadn’t considered that before,” Claudio says. In front of Yuta’s eyes, he transforms back into his normal form, and the abs stare at Yuta again. It doesn’t feel fair. “I suppose, perhaps, it’s a way for my people to – to connect with other wolves without the violence attached.”

“I thought you all played as little wolf puppies,” Yuta says.

Claudio grins, not smiles. It’s dark, maybe even a little dirty. “That’s not the connection I was referring to, Wheeler.”

Yuta feels his entire body grow hot with desire, with the sudden need to experience what that would be like. To be on the receiving end of that connection. “Oh,” Yuta manages to say. “Yeah, uh. That makes a lot of sense.”

The tension in the room feels like a weight on him. He shouldn’t feel these things for his boss, for the person trusting him to take care of him in the most vulnerable moments of his life.

But, maybe, if all that were true, Claudio wouldn’t have shown him every part of himself, and wouldn’t have brought it up.

Claudio clears his throat. “Well, we should be getting back to work now, yes? Or you should be getting home.” He puts his belt back together, and Yuta resists the urge to tell him to take it all the way off, because that would be weird. “I’ll see you tomorrow for work?”

Yuta nods. He fights the urge to lick his lips. “Yeah,” he says, swallowing hard. “Certainly.”

~

It’s too easy.

Chuck and Cassidy are too busy at Orange’s to recognize the pattern of when Yuta has his overnight business trips, even six months into it. Yuta’s able to buy them each everything on their gift lists for their Christmas, before Thanksgiving even hits. For the first time in his life, he feels like he’s got his shit together. Even his parents, visiting for Thanksgiving, remark on his change in demeanor.

After weeks of deliberation, he gets a pocket watch, with a cup of coffee and a tiny wolf at the ends of the minute and second hands, for Claudio’s Christmas gift, and almost swoons with the way Claudio cups it in his giant hands.

“Wheeler,” he murmurs. “This is too much.”

“It’s really not,” Yuta says. “This is the first time I’ve been able to give every Christmas present I’ve wanted thanks to this job.” He looks up at Claudio and meets his eyes. “Thanks to you.”

Claudio opens his mouth, and Yuta’s eager to hear the response, but there’s a knock on the door and they spring apart.

“This looks…festive,” Bryan says, a knowing smirk on his lips. “Yoots, kid, I need your help with one of the spreadsheets. I think I fucked up the coding.”

Yuta groans, throwing a knowing look at Claudio. “Who are you, Mox? Usually you’re not the one screwing up the technology.”

“It wasn’t me!” Bryan argues as they walk out of the office. Yuta throws a smile over his shoulder to Claudio, who smiles back, hand in his pocket. “Well, not entirely me. Regal came over from the UK division and requested I show him the code’s formatting.”

“You should have waited for me,” Yuta says. He nods over at Mr. Regal, Claudio’s British counterpart. “Good afternoon, Mr. Regal.”

“Afternoon, Sunshine.” Yuta doesn’t know when the nickname showed up, but, at this point, it feels weird to correct him. “I do apologize for the error. I had not intended to damage your code.”

“I can probably fix it,” he shoots a glare at Bryan, “but I’m locking the document for editing for everyone but me, you dick.” He pauses. “Not you, of course, Mr. Regal. Genius over here.”

“Hey!” Bryan says, but Yuta absolutely hears the laugh in his tone. “Little shit over here thinks he’s a big man because he’s flirting with the boss.”

Yuta’s fingers freeze on the keyboard. “Am not,” he mutters.

“Yes you fucking are,” Bryan says, flicking the back of his head.

“Ow!”

“You didn’t deny it, and Mox says you remember all of our coffee orders but change up Claudio’s every day based on how you think his mood is going to be,” Bryan says. “You have a crush.”

“I’m going to crush you,” Yuta mumbles, curling up in his chair.

“I’d like to see you try,” Bryan scoffs. He claps Yuta on the back. “Seriously, though, kid’s a genius. We’d be working at half pace without his tech skills, and I wouldn’t be headed out to Joshua Tree with the family for two weeks’ vacation without him.” He claps Yuta on the back again. “Don’t poach him.”

Yuta lifts his head. “What?”

“I assure you, I plan on doing nothing of the sort,” Regal says, but his little frown suggests otherwise. “We should all be getting back to work, now. Wouldn’t like Mr. Castagnoli to see us slacking.” He winks at Yuta, like he knows something Yuta doesn’t, and makes his way over to the guest office.

“You are such a dick,” Yuta says, punching Bryan in the shoulder. “I’m not flirting with Castagnoli.”

“Oh okay,” Bryan says, “you’re flirting with each other hard.”

“I – shut up!”

“He doesn’t buy anybody Christmas gifts,” Bryan says. “And he got you something.”

“No, he didn’t,” Yuta says. If he could get some privacy, he could repair this code.

“He did,” Bryan insists. “He told me.”

Yuta lifts his head. “He did?!”

“Oh, you really like him,” Bryan says, grinning. Yuta, for the first time, notices his teeth are also…almost wolflike. “Fix that code then go visit him again.” He winks. “Then have a good holiday with your family.”

Yuta rolls his eyes. “Jesus, you never let up, do you.”

“Nope!” Bryan walks away whistling, hands in his pockets, and Yuta can barely focus on fixing the code.

It’s the day before the company shuts down for the full Christmas week, Yuta’s done with the code early, and he knows it’s going to be a while before he can see Claudio again.

He just can’t come up with an excuse.

“Go home!” Renee yells from her desk. “Christ, Yoots, I know you’re hourly. But it’s Christmas.”

“Not until the day after tomorrow,” Yuta yells back. “And I’ll leave. Soon.”

“Go home.”

“You go home,” Yuta fires back. “You’re hourly, too.”

“Yeah, but I still have work to do,” Renee says, grinning. “I’ve been slacking off today, like normal people do the day before a holiday.”

He waits until everybody else is done with their work, when everyone is beginning to mill about to say their goodbyes before the break. Then, he walks up to Claudio’s office. He should knock, but, instead, he pushes open the door.

“Hi,” he says, not sure what he’ll say next.

Claudio lifts his head and smiles. Yuta’s begun to think it’s one only he gets to see. “Wheeler,” he says softly. “What do you need? Is everything alright?”

“I’m having a party,” Yuta blurts out, standing in the doorway like a dork. “At my house. With my roommates.” He doesn’t know why he’s talking. “The 28th. Our friend Kris declared she hates New Year’s Eve years ago, so we do a little thing in the boring week between Christmas and New Year’s to hang out. Do you want to come?”

Claudio’s jaw drops. “You are inviting me to a party?”

Yuta nods. “Only – only if you’d like.” He presses his lips together, willing himself not to ask anything else.

Claudio smiles. “I would love you, Yuta,” and he’s about to let him down gently, Yuta knows it, “but I’m afraid I’ll be in Switzerland until the evening of the 30th.”

“Oh, right,” Yuta says, trying not to let the disappointment show on his face.  

“But we have the office party on New Year’s,” Claudio says. “So I hope to see you that evening.”

Yuta blinks. He’d forgotten about that. He hadn’t realized Claudio would be there, for some reason. Or maybe he’d been scared of what he’d do if he was. “Yeah,” he says automatically. “Yeah, of course I’ll be at New Year’s Eve.”

Claudio’s face brightens with the nicest smile Yuta’s ever seen. “Wonderful.” He glances at the open door, then stands. “Come sit with me in my office. I have a gift for you.”

Yuta’s heart begins to race. Bryan was right. “Sure,” Yuta says, and he ignores the way Marina is staring at him over the top of her cubicle.

Claudio closes the door behind him and gestures to the chairs, and Yuta falls easily into his. “You yourself have been more of a gift the past few months than I could have ever asked for,” he says, voice almost a murmur. “I wanted to give you a token of my gratitude.”

Yuta can feel his eyes on him as he opens the gift, a box larger than he’d expect from an office gift from a boss. It feels special, as he tears the paper. Like it means something. His heart begins to race. He takes all the paper off of the box, then flips it. And gasps.

“How – Claudio.” He holds the laptop in his hands. Sleek and deep blue, is favorite color. He looks up. “How did you know?”

“I have my ways,” Claudio says, and he nods toward the door. “Marina has seen you open that page and sigh for the past few months. We could tell you were coveting it.”

Yuta doesn’t even know what to say, how to respond. “This is too much,” he says quietly. He knows the cost of this computer. It’s why it’s the one thing he couldn’t bring himself to purchase, even with his paychecks. “Claudio…”

“It’s not,” Claudio says firmly. “It’s not enough, truly. You deserve…” He trails off, and Yuta looks at him. “You deserve the world, Wheeler.”

Yuta doesn’t know what’s about to happen next.

“Go home!” Renee says, slamming open the door. She freezes. “Oh, shit. I interrupted something.” She smiles apologetically, almost a grimace. “Anyway, have a good holiday. Bye! Sorry again!” She continues that grin as she closes the door.

“I really need her to finally hit on Mox,” Yuta says, laughing as he drops his head into his hands. “Their chaotic energy might cancel each other out.”

Claudio laughs, and Yuta thinks that might be his new favorite song. “I’m glad someone else has seen it, as well.” His smile softens. “You should be going home, Wheeler. Enjoy your gift.” He pulls the pocket watch from his pocket and cradles it delicately in his hands. “I will certainly cherish mine.”

~

Christmas with his parents is the best of his life.

“Wheeler!” his mother says, opening the earrings. “Sweetheart, how did you…?”

“I told you,” he says, beaming. “I’ve got a great job. I can do things like this now.”

She throws her arms around his neck. “I’m so proud of you, baby,” she murmurs into his neck. “You’re so grown up.” She pulls back. “Now we’ve got to find you a nice man to settle down with so I can get some grand babies.”

“Okay, let’s cool your jets on that, honey,” Wheeler’s dad says. “He’s gotten you new earrings and me a lawn mower. Let’s be happy with where he’s at right now.”

Wheeler grins. “Yeah, we’ll talk about the son in law later. When I meet him.”

He doesn’t want to admit that, in his dreams, he’s already met him.

~

He resists the urge to text Claudio when he’s trashed off of Kris’ Space Juice during their holiday party. Kris is making out with Willow, finally, who is sitting on their clothes washer. Chuck and Cassidy are singing terrible Disney karaoke curled around each other. Trent and Rocky are snuggled up with each other on the couch, heads so close they might as well be kissing.

And Yuta’s got his phone in his hand, tempted to text his boss and dump all of his feelings.

“It’s, like, 6am in Switzerland,” he tells himself. “Calling is a bad idea.”

“Who’re you talking to?”

Yuta lifts his head. “Oh, hey, Willow.” He looks around. “Weren’t you just making out with Kris?”

Willow beams, leaning against the door frame. The word ethereal comes to Yuta’s mind. “Yeah,” she sighs. “But she had to go refill the Space Juice, so I figured I’d come find you and say hi.” She studies him. “Whoever it is, you’ve got it bad. Like, Danny bad.”

“I done! I mean, I don’t!”

Willow raises an eyebrow. “You done?”

“Shut up. I’m drunk.” He throws back the rest of his cup, like he’s trying to prove it. “I’m totally normal about my boss. And don’t talk about Danny.”

“I think,” Willow says, adjusting her sleeves. She’s got a new tattoo. Maybe Yuta should get a tattoo. “If you were normal about your boss, you wouldn’t be insisting so hard about being normal about your boss.” She adjusts his collar. “I think you should go for it. The worst he could do is say no, right?”

The worst he could do is turn into a wolf and rip my throat out, and I think I would kind of be into that, Yuta very intentionally does not say. “The worst is he could fire me.”

“Doubt it,” Willow singsongs. “Oh! They’re playing Third Eye Blind!” She grabs his arm. “Come on, you dumb lovesick idiot, we’re dancing.”

And they do. Well, sort of. He ends up squished in between Willow and Kris in a way that makes him wish he was bisexual as they dance to a bunch of 90s hits. At one point, karaoke becomes the event of the evening, and Yuta warbles his way through early 00s hits he’s not sure how he knows. Just like they always did back in college, the three of them fall asleep in his bed, drunk and happy.

He can’t help but wish though, as sleep overtakes him, that he were sharing the bed with Claudio instead. Especially when Willow and Kris curl around each other.

~

Yuta sleeps through the 29th, deciding to keep the hangover at bay by deciding it doesn’t exist. Sometime around 5:30, he wakes up to see the house a mess with Chuck and Cassidy on the couch.

“This place is trashed,” he mutters.

Chuck nods. “We just got up, like, an hour ago. He was hungry.”

“Ordered pizza,” Cassidy deadpans. “Got your favorite.”

“Aw,” Yuta says, even if the thought of food makes him a little queasy. “That’s – that’s really nice.”

“Least we could do for a guy who cried singing Everytime We Touch.”

Yuta winces. “Goddamn it. I thought that was a nightmare.”

“Nope,” Cassidy says. He’s smiling, even under the sunglasses. “That happened.”

“You were great, man,” Chuck says, shit eating grin saying otherwise. “Love the way the tears started when you sang, ‘Without you it’s hard to survive.’ Very melodramatic.”

“I’m taking a shower and eating pizza and going back to bed,” Yuta mumbles, digging out a bottle of Gatorade.

~

He wakes up the next morning feeling better, and decides to get the house under control since Chuck and Cassidy were stuck at work. The 30th of December, he decides, is a useless day, and he’s elbow deep in the sink when he gets the phone call he had been fighting not to make for days.

“Wheeler,” comes Claudio’s voice, and it almost sounds fraught. “Hello.”

“Hey, Claudio,” Yuta says. He balances the phone between his arm and the dishes, frowning at how much is still left to clean after their holiday party. “You okay?”

Claudio sighs deeply. “Well,” he says. “I’ve been – working, of course, you know how it is, but I’d lost track of the calendar.”

Yuta checks. “Oh,” he says, softly. “The full moon.”

“I shouldn’t ask it of you,” Claudio says. “You’re on vacation…”

“No, I’ll be there,” Yuta says. “When do you need me?”

“Prior to six, would be best,” Claudio says. “I – I should not have called you. This is wrong.”

“No, it’s not,” Yuta says. He wipes off his hands. “Why would it be wrong?”

“Because I shouldn’t be asking for your help during your vacation,” he says.

Yuta doesn’t know how to tell Claudio that’s the only place he wants to be. “Claudio,” he says, as gently as he can. “I want to be there.”

“Okay.” Yuta can hear the stress in his voice, wonders what happened in Switzerland that made him miss the full moon. “I’ll see you at the office soon.”

Yuta hangs up. He shoots off a quick text to Chuck, explaining he’s going to stay with his parents for the night, and he hopes he doesn’t get caught in the lie. He texts his mom as well.

“Why do you need me to lie for you?” she asks on the phone.

“Just – I have to – it’s not a date, but it sort of is.” He winces.

His mom, to his surprise, is quiet. “Not a date,” she says. There’s a laugh behind her words. “Sure it isn’t. I’ve got your back, baby. Just stay safe. And use a –”

“Love you, Mom, bye!”

He’s twenty-six goddamned years old. He does not need a sex talk from his mother. But, in a weird way, it’s kind of sweet that she cares enough to offer it.

And he does want kids. Eventually.

He shakes himself out of it, and puts on an old playlist he made in middle school. Everytime We Touch plays first, and he can’t decide what the omen is.

He puts together a bag, including the suit he’d bought specifically for the company New Year’s party the next night, and finishes the dishes as quickly as he can. A quick glance, and he’s pretty sure the apartment looks acceptable. Except for his bedroom, which is a mess. But that’s nothing new.

“Okay,” he says. “This isn’t a date.”

The butcher’s shop is open, a sweet older lady running the counter, and Yuta’s able to make the purchase and a little small talk as he waits for his order. He leaves a massive tip.

“Oh, honey, you don’t have to do that,” she says, frowning. “That’s far too generous.”

“It’s the holidays, right?” he says, grinning. “Generous is the whole thing.”

He gets to work and swipes in to the door, the automatic clock in registering. He frowns. He’ll have to check in with Claudio about taking that off.

He drops his things by his desk and pulls out the cot, setting it up with the blanket, then makes his way downstairs to grab the tarp. He’ll have to wait until it’s dark out to pull out the deer, as always.

He’s playing a game on his phone when he hears footsteps.

“Claudio!” he says, grinning. “Hi!”

Claudio looks almost haggard, tired. “Hello, Wheeler,” he says softly.

“You look – what’s wrong?”

Claudio sighs, mournful. “Switzerland was less than pleasant.” He glances to the office. “Did you already…?”

Yuta nods. “I got the place ready for you. I hope that’s okay.”

Claudio finally smiles. “Thank you. I cannot tell you how much it means to me that you…” He trails off and sighs. “I appreciate you, Wheeler.”

Yuta wants to ask why he looks so miserable, who made him look that sad. He wants to ask what happened in Switzerland. He wants to ask why Claudio came back from holidays looking like he’d rather be at work.

But instead he stays silent.

“Do you want me to come hang out with you?” he asks. “We can roll the ball around.”

Claudio shakes his head. “I think the wolf and I would like to be alone tonight, but thank you.” He turns. “But knowing you’re here makes it much easier.”

Yuta wants to push, to insist. But he doesn’t.

It’s earlier than it usually is for Claudio to need privacy. Usually, Yuta hangs out with him for a while. More than once, Claudio had nudged him with his snout as he began to doze, insisting he go to bed. But never has Claudio asked him not to come in at all.

Yuta curls up with Jurassic Park, an easy comfort, and snuggles in as the automatic lights dim. At first, he hears muted tearing. Then, silence.

In the middle of a dinosaur chase scene, he hears a whimper from the room. He sits up.

“Claudio?” he asks.

Another roar from his phone, and then he hears the kind of whimper only heard from injured dogs, an aching howl. He pauses the video, grabs his phone, and darts into the office.

Claudio, in wolf form, is shaking, eyes shut firmly, and whimpering loudly.

“Hey,” Yuta says, kneeling beside him. He pets the thick fur, trying his best to be a comfort. “Claudio, wake up. You’re okay. I’m right here.”

The whimpers grow louder, a leg kicks out.

“Claudio,” Yuta says more firmly. “Come on, baby, wake up.”

A loud, miserable growl, and the wolf’s eyes snap open, locking on Yuta’s. There are tears.

“You’re okay,” Yuta promises. “You had a nightmare. You’re okay.”

“Where am I?” Claudio demands, hackles raising. He bares his teeth at Yuta.

“It’s just me, and we’re in your office,” Yuta answers, trying to stay as calm as he can. “It’s just us.”

The wolf relaxes. His eyes soften. And then he wails.

“Oh, no, you’re okay, baby.” Yuta wraps his arms around the wolf’s neck. “Hey. Breathe.”

“I hurt them,” he gasps. “Yuta, I hurt them.”

“You didn’t hurt anyone,” Yuta says, and he shuffles closer, trying to get more of Claudio to comfort him. “I promise. Everything’s okay.”

“The growling,” Claudio says, almost a question.

“Claudio,” Yuta says, pulling him into his arms, despite the blood. “Hey. Breathe. You didn’t do anything wrong. Nobody’s hurt.” Claudio is shaking, but buries his face into Yuta’s lap and exhales. “What – this isn’t usually how you react.”

Claudio lifts his head. “I – there were noises,” he says quietly. Yuta’s never seen him panicked, never seen the veneer of concentration and focus and CEO gone. “I heard people. I remembered.” His eyes go wild, just for a moment. But not like a rabid wolf. Like a scared child.

“I was watching Jurassic Park,” Yuta assures. “There’s nobody else here.”

Claudio relaxes immediately. “No one could get hurt,” he says. “Except for you.”

“Have you ever hurt someone as the wolf?” Yuta asks, as gently as he can. He pets the soft head of the wolf, the fur sliding smoothly through his fingers.

Claudio’s eyes are closed as he speaks. “Never,” he murmurs. His voice is a soft growl against Yuta’s thighs. It’s almost too warm, but Yuta never wants it to stop. “But I could. I could.”

Yuta keeps petting the wolf’s head until his breathing steadies. “What happened when you were in Switzerland, Claudio?” he asks.

And he waits.

“My sisters,” Claudio finally says. “They say I – I play with my food.” He exhales, relaxing into Yuta’s lap.

“Meaning?” Yuta asks. He finds a spot behind the wolf’s ear that makes him relax even further, and smiles.

“In the past,” Claudio murmurs, “I’ve been…unkind with my compatriots. Demanded my authority instead of earning it.” He hums as Yuta continues petting behind his ear. “I told you we played as puppies, yes?”

“You did.”

Claudio sighs. “Sometimes the play was my attempt to prove I was better than them. Than everyone.” He curls into Yuta’s space more. “My sisters run the Swiss branch of the company,” he says quietly. “I am not in the United States voluntarily. You could call it an exile. A punishment.”

Yuta’s hand stills. “Because you hurt someone?”

“Me,” Claudio says. “Not the wolf.”

They’re quiet briefly. Yuta doesn’t want to break the spell of solace, of truth that seems to whirl around them.

“I no longer feel this place is a punishment,” Claudio murmurs, voice thick with exhaustion. “Not for a long time.”

He falls asleep, head still in Yuta’s lap. And Yuta curls up. And sleeps with his head rested on the wolf’s giant shoulder.

~

He wakes up with Claudio, naked, curled around him, a hand splayed across Yuta’s stomach.

“Oh boy,” Yuta mutters. He’d forgotten about the naked part last night when they’d fallen asleep together. As he shifts, he very intentionally looks away from the hard length that had been pressed up against him when he woke up, and shuffles out from Claudio’s grip. Claudio’s fingers grip his shirt.

“Claudio,” he murmurs. “Hey, I’m right here, but I’m going to get up now, okay?”

There’s an almost cute little sound, then Claudio opens bleary eyes. “You stayed?” he asks. “All night?”

“Just about,” Yuta says. “You feel okay?”

Claudio pushes himself to sitting, then seems to notice he’s stark naked. He opens his mouth, but Yuta tosses his pants and a shirt over to him.

“Thank you,” Claudio says, and the little blush across his cheeks is so charming Yuta wants to paint it. “For – for everything.” He looks up as he pulls his pants on. “Truly, I do not deserve it.”

“Bullshit,” Yuta says. “You do.”

Things aren’t exactly awkward as they set up the place for the party, but Yuta doesn’t change out of his pajamas until around 4, and can tell Claudio’s got his eyes on him more than a little bit.

“I forgot to mention,” Yuta says, adjusting the Christmas tree, “the door clocked me in automatically last night. Make sure to take that off before the next paycheck.”

“Take it off?” Claudio asks. He comes over and takes the ornament from Yuta’s hand, settling the ornament with ease. Yuta can’t decide if it was annoying or hot. “Why?”

“Because I wasn’t here last night to help my boss,” Yuta says. “I was here to help my – my friend.”

Friend’s the wrong word. He knows it. But he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to call Claudio what he wants to: his.

Claudio looks almost confused. “Are you certain?”

“Claudio,” Yuta says, resting a hand on Claudio’s arm. “This isn’t part of the job. Not anymore.”

There’s an exhale, controlled and careful, from Claudio. “Yuta, I –”

“Alright, fuckers, how badly did you decorate this place?” Mox walks in, chugging a coffee so quickly Yuta wonders how he didn’t burn his mouth. “Why the fuck is the kid in pajamas?”

“Sorry if I didn’t want to put up decorations in my suit,” Yuta says. He looks Mox up and down. “You’re in jeans and an undershirt, man, you can’t talk.”

Mox shifts his backpack on his shoulder. “I got a nice shirt and my good jeans in here. Claudio always asks me to come help set up, so I figured I’d dress normal then get all fancy later.”

“Trying to impress Renee?” Yuta grins at him, and Claudio chuckles.

“Fuck off,” Mox mutters. He glances toward Claudio. “Make him shut up before I throw something at him.”

“I find it hilarious you think I could ‘make’ Wheeler do anything,” Claudio says.

Yuta laughs. “Alright, well, if people are starting to get here, I might as well get showered.” He wants to continue the conversation with Claudio, but can tell the moment is long gone. “Later.”

His bag over his shoulder, Yuta makes his way down to the showers and has time alone for the first time all night. It doesn’t take long for him to imagine where his conversation with Claudio may have gone, and it only takes a few moments longer than that for him to sigh and give in to the urge to get off. He closes his eyes, hand around his cock, and imagines it’s Claudio’s hand, Claudio’s mouth. On impulse, he slides a hand behind himself and pretends it’s one of Claudio’s fingers slipping inside him. He whimpers, desperate, and comes faster than he expects, all over the place.

“Shit,” he murmurs. He tries to angle the showerhead to get the mess taken care of, but it takes some talent to get it off the glass door. “That’s what I get…”

“Are you alright, Wheeler?”

Yuta freezes. “Claudio? Yeah, I’m good.” He won’t make it weird. He won’t make it weird. “You showering?”

Goddamn it. That was a weird thing to say.

“Um. Yes, of course.” He can hear Claudio step into the shower next to him, the water turning on.

He’s too close, close enough for Yuta to smell the body wash he uses, and he wishes he hadn’t just gotten off. He thinks he could come from the proximity alone, if he was really worked up.

“Uh, so, I won’t waste the hot water,” Yuta says, rinsing himself off again. He turns the water cold. “You want to borrow my shampoo?”

Claudio laughs, and Yuta thinks he’d do anything to earn it every day. “Very funny, Wheeler. Go get dressed and leave me to shower in peace.”

Yuta wants to do anything but that, but he’ll respect Claudio’s wishes.

He steps into the changing area, a spacious mini room in front of the showers separated by the glass curtain, but he can still hear Claudio. He’s sure Claudio knows he’s there, dressing.

So why can he hear something slick and a low grunt?

Yuta’s heart races as he dries off, trying to make a little bit of noise to make it clear he’s still there. But they noises don’t stop.

He wants to walk in.

He wants to step in the shower with Claudio, give him a better way to make the shower messy.

But he can’t move. Yuta’s frozen in place.

“Later,” he whispers to himself, and he continues to dress. When he’s done, he hears a moan from Claudio’s shower stall, and tries not to see the mental image.

~

“Chuck,” Yuta says, turning the mic toward his mouth so no one overhears. “Chuck. Claudio is in a suit and I am only a man. A very, very gay man.”

“Jesus Christ,” Chuck grumbles. “Fuck. You can’t go anywhere without getting an inappropriate boner, can you.”

“What do I do?” Yuta hisses. “Do I act normal? This party goes late – do I ask him if he –” Yuta catches himself before he can divulge Claudio’s secret.

“I’m sure you can keep it in your pants for a couple of hours,” Chuck says. “Breathe, dumbass. You and your hot boss can flirt all you want tonight.”

Yuta whines a little. “You could be a little nice to me about this. I never made fun of you about liking Cassidy.”

“You definitely fucking did,” Chuck laughs. “This is payback.”

He hangs up, and Yuta is too gay for this, and maybe, just maybe, this is the night he finally loses it. Looking at Claudio, he can hear the sounds he made when he came. And he knows that’s what he was doing.

Yuta exhales and grabs a glass of champagne from a passing tray, and throws it back.

“Slow down, sucker,” A tall woman laughs, arm around Marina’s waist. “That shit is, like, thirty dollars a glass.”

“Then where do they keep the cheap shit I can chug?” Yuta asks, grinning. “Also, hi. I’m Yuta.”

“I’m Nyla,” says Marina’s wife. “It’s good to finally meet you.”

Yuta shakes her hand and glances over his shoulder to see Claudio talking it up with some hot, younger woman.

“Oh, wow,” Nyla says, chuckling. “You weren’t kidding, Marina. The kid’s down bad.”

“I am not!”

Marina straight up laughs in his face and claps him on the shoulder. “You keep telling yourself that, kiddo.” And she walks away.

Yuta glues himself to Mox’s side for the rest of the night, since Mox doesn’t seem able to talk to Renee, and it helps. A little.

“Would you leave me alone?” Mox asks. “Jesus, you’re like a baby koala or something.”

“You like me and you know it,” Yuta says. “Just admit we’re friends.”

“No,” Mox says, sipping his diet Coke. “We are not.”

“We are, and you love it,” Yuta says.

The chimes go off to announce a minute away from the ball dropping, and it’s sooner than Yuta had expected.

“Midnight,” Mox says. “Are you gonna kiss Claudio?”

“Are you going to kiss Renee?”

Mox’s eyes widen. “What?”

“You are so obvious and so is she,” Yuta says, rolling his eyes. “If you’re going to shit talk me, I’ll shit talk you, back.” He grins. “So. Go see if Renee will kiss you at midnight.”

“I can’t!”

“You should,” Yuta says. “If I kiss Claudio, will you kiss Renee?”

Mox’s eyes flit around Yuta, to where he can only assume Renee is standing. “Yeah,” he says, scoffing. “Yeah, if Claudio kisses you at midnight, I’ll kiss Renee.”

“Alright then.” Yuta strides over to Claudio. “Hey.”

“Wheeler,” he says, smiling. He seems more relaxed than the morning. Yuta thinks he knows why. “How lovely –”

“I’m going to kiss you at midnight,” Yuta says firmly. He forces himself to keep his eyes locked on Claudio’s. “And if you have a problem with that, I suggest you walk away.”

The woman grins, stepping away. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” She winks.

Claudio visibly swallows. “Is – are you sure you want that?”

“Are you – seriously?” Yuta leans in, his lips by Claudio’s ear. “We fell asleep together last night. You jerked off earlier when you knew I was changing one stall over.” He grabs Claudio’s tie and yanks him closer. “I’m tired of pretending, Claudio. I’m tired of waiting and wanting and not knowing.” They’re so fucking close. “Are you going to kiss me at midnight?”

“No, Wheeler,” and there’s that growl. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Claudio hauls him in by the waist and presses his mouth to Yuta’s without another moment’s hesitation, and Yuta swears he sees fireworks behind his eyes. He whimpers against Claudio’s lips, throwing his arms around Claudio’s neck, and his skin burns as Claudio’s hands splay against his back, reminiscent of the morning. It makes Yuta’s head spin with it, and he deepens the kiss, clinging to Claudio.

Somebody wolf whistles. Somebody else swears.

Everyone else counts down to one, but it doesn’t matter.

Everything new started for Yuta the second his lips touched Claudio’s.

~

The party goes on far too long. Yuta stays close to Claudio, hand in his, for the party. Mox and Renee seem to have kissed, sure, but Mox also ran off somewhere else around 12:15, so he doesn’t know what actually happened there.

Around 2am, the party starts to wind down and people leave. The anticipation is too much for Yuta – he wants Claudio. He wants him now.

“Claudio,” he says, standing on his toes to speak into his ear, “you should probably kick everyone out now.”

Claudio laughs. “Patience, Wheeler.”

Yuta rolls his eyes. “Yeah, like working here for almost a year hasn’t been patient enough. Jesus.”

But finally, finally, everyone else is gone.

“Get your ass over here,” Yuta growls, and he practically throws himself into Claudio’s arms. The growl from Claudio is almost more on his wolf side, and isn’t that intriguing how it makes Yuta harder. “If you don’t fuck me right now,” Yuta says, lips still pressed to Claudio’s, “I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”

“Hold on,” Claudio says, and for a sickening minute Yuta worries he misinterpreted something. “I want to.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “God, do I want to. But I want to make sure you know what you’re asking for.”

In the middle of the room, Claudio strips his clothes and turns into the wolf. “This is also who I am, Yuta,” he says. “If you – if you choose this, you choose all of me.”

Yuta strides up to him and pets his fur. “Yeah. And?”

Claudio grabs him with one hand and picks him up, depositing him into his office. He runs his tongue along his sharp teeth. “Are you afraid, Wheeler?” he asks, eyes on Yuta’s mouth. “Does this make you want to run?”

“It should,” Yuta says, heart racing again.

Claudio – the wolf – Claudio leans in, nose at Yuta’s neck. “I don’t smell fear,” he says, and the low growl is clearly a chuckle. “Intriguing.”

“I – okay, that’s not fair.” It’s not embarrassment that’s running his mouth at this point. “You’re not allowed to be all hot and huge and whatever and not expect me to get a boner about it.” He slams his mouth shut. “Also, fuck off. You knew all of that already.”

Claudio grins. “I did, but it was delicious to hear you say it.” He leans in again and inhales. “You would tell me to stop, yes?”

“I sure as fuck wouldn’t,” Yuta says.

Claudio freezes, pulling away. “I am so sorry,” he says. The regret on a wolf face looks bizarre, like a kicked puppy standing in the room full of spilled kibble but with gigantic fucking fangs. “Of course, this is a breach of trust. I’m your boss.” He steps away, transforming back into the wolf-human hybrid, and steps back out the door to gather his clothes. Yuta’s too stunned by Claudio’s naked body to react, and instead just watches him begin to dress, which is the opposite of what he wants. “This is an abuse of power.”

Yuta stares. “For somebody so goddamned powerful, who can smell my fucking dick being hard, you’re pretty bad at reading subtext.” He leans in and does the stupidest thing he can think of: he throws himself at the wolf hybrid, his boss, at Claudio, and kisses the fanged human mouth before he thinks about how easily it could shift into a true wolf. Claudio kisses back. Yuta tastes blood and feels claws on his back.

“Silly me,” Claudio murmurs, fangs dragging down Yuta’s neck. “I had missed the subtext, indeed.” He grabs Yuta’s hips and throws him on the desk. “You’ll be pleased if I ravish you on my desk then?”

“Ravish away, you big – wait.” Yuta pushes himself up on his elbows. “You don’t have, like, some wolfy dick, right?” He’s read some porn about this. Hell, he’s watched some. Read some. “I don’t – I feel like wolf dicks are different.”

Claudio laughs. “Not like this, I don’t.” And he winks.

Yuta decides to examine his distinct and insistent interest in what that means later, and hooks his legs around Claudio’s waist. He reaches up and rips Claudio’s shirt back open, buttons flying everywhere.

“That was Armani!” Claudio says, looking shocked.

Yuta shrugs. “You had champagne on it anyway from when I jumped you earlier. Figured it was a goner.”

“I have dry cleaning to fix champagne,” Claudio mutters, but he dives back in, kissing Yuta thoroughly.

It’s not like kissing a person, is the thing. The fangs dig into his lip, piercing tiny holes that Claudio’s long and intent tongue lick blood from before diving back in. Claudio’s skin is covered in hair, but it’s not the wolf’s, not quite.

He feels something nudge between his legs, and pulls away to look down.

“Fucking Christ,” he mutters. “Where the fuck do you expect me to put that thing?!”

Claudio smirks. “Oh, darling, I’m sure you can take me.” He throws Yuta’s legs over his shoulders. “But, for this time, I assure you I can make adjustments.” He closes his eyes and Yuta watches as his size shifts, and he returns to the normal Claudio from day to day. Well, as normal as an Adonis with a genius IQ can be. “Better?”

Yuta sighs and grins, leaning back on the desk with his hands behind his head. “In a way, I guess.”

Claudio presses a kiss to the inside of Yuta’s thigh. “Delightful. I’ll resume, then.” He dives in before Yuta can react, sucking Yuta’s cock into his mouth, releasing it, then dragging his tongue along Yuta’s balls down to his hole.

“Oh, you brilliant fucker,” Yuta whines. “God – don’t stop.”

Claudio pinches his thigh, as if to say I never intended to, and goes to work. Yuta resists the urge to make a joke about Claudio’s tongue, since it seems in poor taste, but he feels himself worked open with incredible precision.

“I bet you do this to all the office assistants who walk in on you covered in blood,” Yuta jokes, and he’s punished with the distinct lack of Claudio’s tongue in his ass. “What?”

“I assure you,” Claudio says, gaze hungry and intense, “I have never done this before with a human, and I have never had an office assistant as irresistible as you.”

Yuta gets hit with a wave of intensity. “Fuck,” he breathes. “Jesus fucking – get something of yours in me before I lose my fucking mind.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Claudio says, frowning. “I don’t know if we have –

“Go get my bag,” Yuta demands. “You could call it wishful thinking.”

Claudio’s grin goes – well, wolfish. “Gladly.”

Yuta takes the time to catch his breath while Claudio’s gone, and also gets rid of the rest of his clothes. He may be well off now, but he’s definitely not in a place where he can afford to fuck up a suit.

Claudio comes back and tosses the bag to Yuta. “Wishful thinking indeed,” he says as Yuta pulls out the bottle of lube. He sucks two of his own fingers in his mouth, eyes locked on Yuta’s. “First, however.” He presses Yuta back onto the desk, the cool wood a stroking sensation against Yuta’s bare skin, then slides both fingers into Yuta like it’s nothing. Yuta’s eyes roll back in his head as he drops it onto the desk.

“Fuck me,” he mumbles, head spinning. “Just – like that, goddamn. Keep doing just that.”

Claudio’s fingers work magic. “I bet I could get you to come like this,” he says, almost clinically, like Yuta is a client who needs a certain kind of sweet talking. He adds lube and another finger. “Not even giving you my dick.” He smiles, and Yuta knows that style too well. He strokes his fingers with the right angle, and fuck. “Have you ever come untouched, Wheeler?” Claudio murmurs, stroking again and again. “Have you ever come dry, so you’re minutes away from coming again?”

Yuta’s entire body is a live wire, twisted into sparking knots by Claudio’s expert fingertips. “No,” he chokes out. “I – haven’t.” His chest is heaving, and something’s building inside of him, something new and just different enough to make him ache for it.

“Hmm,” Claudio says. “I’ll have to change that, then.”

Claudio fucks him with fingers only until Yuta is squirming, aching, and then he gets hit with a wave of unyielding pleasure. Unyielding, also, are Claudio’s fingers, stroking against him, hitting him with wave after wave of overstimulation.

“Claudio,” he half sobs. “Wait, I have to – give me a second.”

Claudio pulls his fingers out slowly, leaving Yuta a strange combination of relieved and devastated. He thinks he can feels tears in the corners of his eyes.

“Interesting,” Claudio says, leaning forward to lick up Yuta’s cock. His entire body jolts, and Claudio grins.

“If you don’t get your cock in me,” Yuta whimpers, aching with need, “I’m going to lose my goddamned mind and quit.”

“I’m sure you would,” Claudio says, and he yanks Yuta down the desk. He throws Yuta’s legs over his shoulders again, blunt head of his cock teasing at Yuta’s entrance. “But I would never make you do so.”

Yuta feels like he’s transcending time and space as Claudio slicks himself up and enters him. Maybe it’s the whole supernatural bullshit, but Yuta feels irreversibly changed and transformed being split in half by Claudio’s cock. “Okay, even your human dick is huge,” he says, shifting his hips as he adjusts. “This is fucking stupid.”

Claudio exhales deeply, settling all the way deeply into Yuta. “You will get used to it, I’m sure.” His grin goes a little soft. “But you tell me when you are ready for me to move.”

“Now, obviously,” Yuta scoffs. Claudio raises an eyebrow. “What, you think I don’t want to be wrecked into oblivion? You already know I’m stupid. I agreed to be a personal assistant for a werewolf who uses tarps to keep the blood from staining the carpet.”

“You are far from stupid,” Claudio says, tilting his hips back. Yuta’s eyes flutter shut as the head of Claudio’s cock grazes his prostate. “I would never have hired someone stupid.”

Yuta exhales as Claudio pushes back in, like he doesn’t have room in his soul for oxygen and Claudio all at once. “You hired Mox.”

“I would appreciate if you didn’t discuss our colleagues while I’m inside of you,” Claudio says casually. He pulls out almost all the way, the head of his cock catching on the rim of Yuta’s hole, and suddenly, irreversibly, Yuta gets the thought that maybe Claudio’s wolf form…

But then all thoughts are fucked out of him when Claudio shoves back into him.

“God damn,” Yuta gasps. “Yeah, that. That’s what I’m looking for.”

“Good,” Claudio says. “Because that is what you will get.”

Yuta always thought that, in this scenario, he’d be out of his mind. Unable to focus, unable to do anything but feel. Instead, he is hyperaware of everything. Of the furrow in Claudio’s brow, of the way the wooden desk feels under his grip, of the way his heels feel digging into Claudio’s shoulders. He feels like the moment has consumed him, like he’ll remember this night forever.

“Claudio,” he manages to say, “I –” But he doesn’t know what he’d planned to come after those words. He doesn’t know what word comes next.

“Are you alright?” Claudio asks, slowing to a stop. It’s the absolute last thing Yuta wants in this moment. “Do you need anything?”

“I – I need you to fuck me!” Yuta half yells. “Oh my god. Maybe I do want the wolf after all. I think he’d be less careful with me.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” and that growl comes out again. Yuta wants to hear his name from that voice, wants it to claim him and make it known. Claudio does his best to say it with his movements, a grip on his waist like iron and focus in his eyes. Yuta lifts his hips to match Claudio. As good as this is he’s unwilling to let Claudio have all the control.

He lets go of where he’s gripping the table to reach forward and wrap a hand around his cock, bucking up into his grip. “Not gonna make me come untouched this time?” he teases, stroking more emphatically than he ever has.

“Not this time, Wheeler,” Claudio says. He winks, eyes still more wolf than human. “Perhaps in the future.”

With a cry, Yuta paints his hand, Claudio’s chest, his own stomach, with come, devolving to a whine as he clenches down on Claudio’s cock. For the first time, he hears Claudio swear and then he feels it: Claudio comes deep inside him, hot and thick.

“Oh my god,” Yuta whimpers, as Claudio fucks his oversensitive, twitching hole before stilling. “Jesus. Is that wolf come or something?”

“How vulgar,” Claudio says, tracing the rim of Yuta’s hole where his softening dick slips out of it. Yuta whimpers again. Claudio slides his fingers inside of Yuta, pumping experimentally, and he pulls them out to trace patterns on Yuta’s thigh. “I expect decorum from my employees, you know.”

“You’re talking a lot of shit about vulgarity and decorum for a man drawing on me with his own come,” Yuta mutters. “Is this a marking thing?” Claudio does it again, and Yuta doesn’t know how to tell him both that he’s too sensitive but also to not stop. “Will it tell all the other wolves that I’m off limits or something?”

He can feel Claudio’s gaze boring into him, so he looks up to meet possessive, insistent eyes. “Yes,” he says. “The whole world will know you belong to me now. Wolf and man.”

He lowers Yuta’s legs gently. “Due to the wolf component, you may find yourself,” he pauses, “leaking more profusely than you’re used to.” He winks.

“Oh, god.” Yuta starts blushing. “Thank god nobody else is in the office, right?”

Claudio laughs and pulls Yuta toward him. “You have to know,” he murmurs, forehead pressed to Yuta’s, “that I’ve been hoping for a moment like this between us for a very long time.” He inhales again. “Now you smell like me. They know you belong to me,”

Yuta exhales slowly, consumed with the idea. “They know,” he says, and he tilts his head up to catch Claudio’s lips. “And so do I.”

~

Mox’s head snaps up as Yuta comes to the door two mornings later, trying to hide his still a little sore walk, with his usual tray of coffees. “Holy shit.”

“What?!” Yuta asks, frowning down at the coffees. “This one is yours! Not the frappucino!”

Mox shakes his head and leans in. He inhales like Claudio does. “Holy shit, you fucked him.”

“I – you all saw we kissed.” Yuta feels himself blush.

“Yeah, but you fucked him,” Mox says. His grin goes – it looks –

It dawns on Yuta. “You motherfucker. You’re a werewolf, too!”

Mox’s grin goes, indeed, wolflike. “I’m the guard for a reason, baby. I can smell traitors.” He winks. “How was it? You go for full wolf form?”

“I am not talking about this to you,” Yuta says, feeling his cheeks burn. “Take your stupid coffee and shut up.”

“I won’t!” Mox yells after him.

Yuta tries to get himself under control in the elevator up to their floor, his entire body zinging a bit with the knowledge that somebody knows.

He wonders who else in this building is a wolf.

He wonders who else Claudio’s mark will be obvious to.

The elevator pings and he steps out, and Renee smiles up at him. “Oh, hey, Wheeler!” she says. Pleasant smile, kind eyes. But it doesn’t look like she knows. He relaxes.

And then her expression changes as he walks over.

“You seem like you had fun the other night,” she says, smile turning sly as she takes her coffee.

“Shut up,” he grumbles, but her smile is contagious and he grins back at her. “Yes.”

“I’ll put in a request for a custodian to bring you a standing desk today,” she says with a wink.

“I’ll take that coffee back, I swear!” Yuta says, but he laughs as he gets back to his desk.

Marina’s head snaps up as he walks closer to her. “I knew it,” she says, face blank.

“Knew…what?” He hands her the coffee.

“I knew Claudio had a thing for you.” She takes a swig of the coffee, burning hot, and doesn’t flinch. “I can smell him all over you.” He sees a hint of smile on her lips. “Did you choose the wolf?”

“Why does everybody keep asking me – you’re one too!” he hisses. “And quiet. I don’t want everybody to know.”

Marina scoffs. “Then walk less like you just got freshly fucked.”

Yuta doesn’t have a response to that. “Is anybody else here a werewolf?” he asks in a whisper.

She counts off on her fingers. “Me, Claudio, Mox, and Bryan. All from the same pack.”

“Not Nyla?” Yuta asks. “All her socials call herself the Native Beast.”

Marina scoffs. “My wife thinks it’s funny she’s married to a werewolf and she’s not allowed to tell people, so she makes fun of me about it with TikTok or whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “Other than that, nobody you know.” She looks him up and down. “Well, unless you have other werewolf friends I don’t know about, but I think we would have smelled them on you.” She turns back to her computer without another word, taking a sip, and gets back to work.

Yuta settles into his seat, setting his coffee down. The ache is too good. He’s in the zone quickly, headphones on and fingers typing and developing a report, when he feels the familiar figure standing over him.

He turns in his chair, grinning up at Claudio. “Hey, big man.” He winks, trying to throw Claudio off. It doesn’t work. “Need me for something?”

Claudio’s eyes sparkle, but his face remains otherwise steady. “I was hoping to review last night’s data exchange.”

Yuta snorts. “Sure. If that’s what we call it now.” He stands up and follows Claudio into his office, trying to resist the urge to look behind him like, yeah, I’m fucking Castagnoli, what of it?

“I can smell your eagerness,” Claudio says, and he sounds amused. He leans against his desk. “So.”

“So,” Yuta says, leaning against the door. “Here to fuck the charming young ingenue on your desk while the rest of the office blindly works on the other side of the door?”

“Certainly not,” Claudio says. “As you found out from Mox, many of them would be able to figure it out in moments.”

Yuta sighs. “About that – I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that a decent number of your staff are also wolves. That would have made my job so much easier.”

Claudio raises an eyebrow. “Would it have? I doubt it.” His grin goes a little dirty. “How would I know you wouldn’t go to one of them for your interests?”

“None of them are you,” Yuta says honestly, and he tries not to feel too vulnerable with the confession. He looks up into Claudio’s eyes, who is eying Yuta carefully. “Wait, do you think I fucked you just because you’re a werewolf?”

Claudio’s gaze remains blank, carefully blank. Too blank. “There is intrigue in the supernatural,” he says, tone neutral. “I would never hold you to the expectation for more, should you consider New Year’s Eve to be a bucket list encounter.”

Yuta waits. He learned a long time ago that staying silent sometimes gets you more answers than asking the insistent question itching in the back of his mind.

Claudio slides into the chair behind his desk, folding his hands together. “I understand that you may be reflecting back on the evening as a one-time experience,” Claudio continues. “I have no problem with that, and have been extremely pleased with your performance both as an employee and as an assistant.” He looks up at Yuta. “I assure you, regardless of your response to the prior evening, which I assure you I enjoyed, you have a job here.”

Yuta pauses before he answers. “Do you think we had sex just because the opportunity presented itself and I was like, ‘hey, why the fuck not’?”

Claudio sighs and leans back in his chair, looking more casual than Yuta’s ever seen him. “I would not be surprised, nor would I hold it against you.”

Yuta settles himself into the chair across from Claudio, kicking his legs up on the desk. “So you brought me in here to preemptively break up with me.”

Claudio frowns. “Absolutely not. I brought you in here to clarify that I expect nothing more than your request from the other night.”

Yuta fights his smile. “So, you’d be okay with whatever my interest would be.”

“Certainly,” Claudio says. “I would never request from you what you could not give.”

Yuta hops the chair closer to the desk so he could be the one leaning on the desk all dramatic. “So, if I were to ask you out, you’d be cool with that.”

Claudio blinks, surprise crossing his face. “Ask me out?”

“Yeah,” Yuta says. “If I wanted to take you to a nice dinner, maybe feel you up during a movie.” He grins. “Since I already know you’ll put out.”

Claudio lets out a little bark of a laugh. “What a way to describe our night together.”

“Fine,” Yuta says, “since I already know you want to make furious love to me on top of your desk.”

Claudio blushes, actually blushes, and Yuta feels a weird rush of power he can’t quite figure out. “You’re teasing me,” Claudio says.

“Sure,” Yuta says, “but I mean it.” He reaches out to catch Claudio’s fingers across the desk, where they’re anxiously tapping. He gets a quick flash of what else they’ve done on this desk and smiles a little. “Have you had a lot of people fuck you for the wolf thing and then dip?”

“Dip?”

“Leave,” Yuta explains, “after the two of you had sex the first time. You know. Hit it and quit it. Dick down and leave town. Fuck it and chuck it. Rail and bail. Blow and –”

“Understood,” Claudio says, and the little laugh he lets out makes Yuta want to punch everyone who ever made him so sure he wasn’t worth more than a night. “I suppose so, yes.” He sighs. “In the past, I have been less than successful with…partners. And never a human before.”

“They suck,” Yuta says. “You were waiting for me, obviously.” He smiles at Claudio. “What are you doing Friday night after work?” He sits on the desk. “Wanna get a steak or something? See a movie?” He leans in. “Feel each other up on my couch?”

“You have roommates,” Claudio says, tilting his head up to catch Yuta’s lips. “We’ll do so on mine.”

The two of them kiss on the clock, which is rather intriguing, but Yuta pulls away after what is probably too long. “If I stay in here, even the normie humans will know we’re fucking.”

“Fair enough.” He runs a hand through Yuta’s hair. “There. Much better.”

“One more thing,” Yuta says, playing with his fingers. “Um. Can I tell my roommates about you?”

“About how we’re dating?” Claudio asks.

“And the wolf thing,” Yuta says. “Just – so I can talk to somebody about it. So they know.”

Claudio considers it for a moment. “Can you be sure of their discretion?” he asks. “I ask because, in the past, our pack has had problems with that.”

Yuta nods. “Chuck won’t say anything, and I don’t think anything fazes Cassidy anymore.”

“Then, I suppose, yes,” Claudio says. He reaches out and rests a hand on Yuta’s thigh. “At this time, I think I need to be a little more trusting, wouldn’t you say?”

He leans in and kisses Claudio quickly. “I would.” Yuta smiles at Claudio as he pulls away. “Alright. I’m going to go pretend I can be productive for the rest of the work day.” He leans in, one more kiss irresistible, and reaches the door. “Oh. And fix your tie. Somebody messed it all up.”

“Somebody,” Claudio harrumphs. “Like you don’t know you were the culprit.”

Yuta shrugs and throws open the door, striding out to his desk and sitting.

“Aw,” he says, frowning. “My coffee’s all melted.”

“Yeah, I pointed my office lamp at it,” Marina says from the other side of the cubicle. “Your weird boner for Castagnoli was so loud it was getting in the way of my productivity.”

~

“I can’t believe you’re dating your boss,” Chuck says, shaking his head. “Dude.”

“I – you’re dating your boss!” Yuta shrieks. He gestures to Cassidy, who is curled up on the couch against Chuck’s side.

“That’s different,” Chuck says, seeing none of the irony. Yuta throws himself into his chair. “We haven’t even met this guy, and he’s, like, super paying you, right?” He kisses the top of Cassidy’s head. “Orange here is on my same level.”

Cassidy gives a half assed thumbs up. “Our power dynamic is minimally impactful to our relationship due to the inherent dehumanization of retail work.”

“You’re barely awake,” Yuta grumbles. “Go back to sleep.” He turns back to Chuck. “And it’s fine. He actually was trying to tell me we didn’t have to.” Yuta frowns. “I think he’s been burned in the past by people who, like, wanted his big ol’ wolf dick and then dumped him.”

“I still can’t believe werewolves are an actual thing,” Chuck says, shaking his head. “You think you could send him to the shop to yell at shitty customers?”

“Probably,” Yuta says. “But he’s kind of self-conscious about being in wolf form, so it would probably just be as himself.”

Chuck shrugs. “If he’s as hot as you say he is, that might work.”

The three of them and Walter are in the middle of an old episode of Ghost Files when Yuta gets a text. He fumbles the phone, earning a point-and-laugh from Chuck, and opens the text.

Is it weird to text you?

No, Yuta texts back. Texting is normal when you’re dating somebody.

So we’re dating now.

Yuta rolls his eyes, and he can sense how dopey his smile is. Aren’t we?

The call comes through seconds after he clicks send.

“No phone sex!” Chuck yells as Yuta practically skips to his bedroom. “Our walls are thin!”

“You’re not my dad,” Yuta yells back, but he falls into bed, answering. “Hi.”

“Hello,” Claudio says. “I, um, wanted to talk to you.”

Yuta stretches out. “Yeah?”

“I know I just saw you, at work, a few hours ago,” Claudio says. His chuckle is soft, maybe a little embarrassed. “But I wanted to hear you – outside of work.”

“You really don’t have experience dating, do you?” Yuta says. “You can text me whenever you want, and we can talk outside of work just to talk.” He pulls his pillow to hug it. “Just to hear your voice.”

Claudio’s exhale is audible. “Great. Mox said I was being stupid.”

“Mox is stupid,” Yuta corrects. “He won’t even ask out Renee and the two of them have been making eyes at each other at work for, like, months now. And I’m pretty sure they kissed at midnight, so he really has no excuse now.”

Yuta has to shove his face in a pillow at the sound of Claudio’s laugh. “You’ve got a point there,” Claudio says. “We may move in packs, but we also struggle to branch out.”

“No kidding,” he plays with a loose thread on his comforter, something he can now afford to replace but can’t bring himself to do.

The two of them talk for longer than Yuta had planned on staying up on a work night. Claudio discusses the struggles of growing up different, and Yuta relates on a more surface level due to growing up bilingual and gay and struggling with juggling two cultures and two languages. They discuss college and the transition to being an adult.

“My father was always the leader of the pack,” Claudio explains. “He owned the company before I took over. He…died, a few years back.”

Yuta lets that sink in before he says, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s been years,” Claudio says, but Yuta thinks he can see the look of careful blankness over Claudio’s eyes, like he’s trying not to feel anything. “But, I think, perhaps I inherited his general sense of disdain for anyone not in the pack. A mistake of mine, I suppose. One you helped me determine.”

“Glad to be of service,” Yuta says. “Sorry. That was weird.”

Claudio’s laugh is lovely. “It was, but that’s what I like about you.”

Yuta intends to respond, to say pretty much anything, but instead he yawns so widely and so loudly that Claudio can’t have missed it. “I like you, too,” Yuta says, deliberately misquoting.

“It’s late,” Claudio says, “and I’ve already kept you up far too long. Go to sleep, Wheeler, dear.” He pauses on the pet name, like he’s waiting for Yuta to fight it.

“Night, baby,” Yuta tries, and the little intake of breath on the other end of the line warms him top of his head to toes.

They disconnect the line, and Yuta shoves his face in his pillow again, kicking his feet like a teenager. He leaves to brush his teeth and runs into Chuck, stretching in his pajamas.

“You look happy,” he says, scanning Yuta. “Jesus. You look really happy. Like, how you looked before everything went to shit with Danny.”

Even the name of his ex doesn’t take away any of his excitement, a first. “Yeah,” Yuta says. “I’m – excited.” He grins. “I think he’s as damaged as me, you know? I’m taking him on a date Friday night.”

“You’re taking him?” Chuck asks. “Isn’t he, like, fifteen years older than you and stupid rich?”

“Yeah,” Yuta says, “but he’s never been wooed before. Nobody’s ever, like, taken care of him.” Yuta leans against the wall. “Chuck, I’m gonna marry that dude. I’m gonna propose and he’s gonna be so stupid and cute about it.”

Chuck raises an eyebrow. “You’re talking big game for somebody you only started officially dating today.”

Yuta turns to him, grinning. “It’s the call of the moon, baby. Written in the stars or whatever.”

Chuck groans. “Fuck, you’re annoying.”

“Yeah,” Yuta says, sighing. He lets his possible future fly across his vision. Their date Friday night, when Yuta asks to call Claudio his boyfriend, what they might do about living situations. He wouldn’t hate to move out of Chuck’s apartment. “I know.”

~

Mini playlist:

Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran

Everytime We Touch - Cascada

I Want It - Two Feet

Nonsense - Sabrina Carpenter

[pbandjesse]

My allergies are kicking off and I am exhausted. I had wanted to participate in house projects with James this evening but instead I have just been. Stuck here on the couch. Firstly I was freezing. Then I was just. So tired. Ugh. I will try to go to bed earlier tonight.

I didn't even sleep poorly. I would get woken up a few times. James pulled a lot of our blankets over themselves away from me. And I was cold. But it was fine. I was not thrilled about waking up but I was fine. I laid with James for a few extra minutes. But I would get up and things would be okay.

I asked James to make the bed with the. Blanket turned side ways so that we would have more length across both of us. And I hope that that works.

I would get dressed and felt okay. I really loved how my hair looked last night but of course it wasnt the same when I woke up. I sort of got it to a place I liked but I was still struggling today. I don't know what's up with me but I'm trying to be kinder to myself.

I left here earlier then I thought I would. I got a good hug from James before I left. And I got to see the pretty pink trees outside our house. Our tree hasn't bloomed yet and I'm curious what kind of tree it is. There seems to be a few of the pinks and them the rest may be the same kind but I do not know what kind they are. It will be fun to see how the neighborhood looks in different seasons.

I had a really nice drive to camp. No traffic at all. I listened to an album I loved when I was 12. And was just in a good mood.

I stuck to my morning plan and went to sweep top bar. Which took about a half hour. I flipped some mattresses and tried to make it look nice. And then I went to the office to go have my breakfast.

I would watch a TikTok that made me cry. About a girl and her dad having a really powerful connection over one specific song and he just passed away and it was just. A lot. I did not want to be teary when other people came in so I had to pull myself together.

Sarah would come in a little after 9. She had her own breakfast and we would start attacking our list of chores for the open house.

While Sarah would go work on cleaning the fort, I would design some table signs and then laminate then. The laminator did not work amazing but I ran all my signs through it twice. And headed out into the world.

I went over to the pioneers first and cleaned up the fire pit area. Moved the grill back in place. Fold red d the blue tarp. Picked up trash. It looks better. I also fixed a part of the fence and I think it looks good.

I would go and set up tables in the lodge. And clean the bathrooms. I was getting a lot done.

I started cleaning the signs outside. But I am short and could only reach half way. Which looked very funny. I got a lot of the green stuff off of the bottom halves though. And we would go with the gator later and I would stand on the back and we were able to reach two of the 4 signs.

I would go find Sarah in the fort. She was finishing up sweeping. I would help sweep the bathroom and we would finish up pretty easy.

We drove the gator to the Alaskans. I worked on the bathrooms while she swept. We had an excellent divide and conquer system and we got so much accomplished.

I would go over to tipis and picked up some stuff and tried to make it look nice. And since we were going to have our lunch break next anyway I texted Sarah I would meet her at the office. And I went for a little walk.

I walked down to the Glen to see if any of the frog eggs looked like anything yet. But nope. Still just dots. I'll keep checking. I want to see the tadpoles in there.

I continued the walk and went through and found some mushrooms and things and it was great. Just a really lovely walk.

I would have my lunch and me and Sarah both agreed we were so tired. So we took a long break before we would do anything else.

While I had my little break I would eat and watch videos. I did some research about cabinet colors to match with our pink wall. It was nice.

We would go back out and finished our last tasks. Used the gator as a ladder and cleaned the signs. We finished moving some beds. And I was proud of us for all of the hard work. We had lots of laughs driving around on the gator. It was a beautiful day. And even if I am feeling really self conscious I was still having a lot of fun.

We decided to go visit the horses. I hadn't met the new horse. And he is so sweet. We walked through the very muddy field and said hello to everyone. Have lots of pets and cuddles. And when we got to the bottom of the hill we saw a school bus pull up. And it was Aubrey! And she climbed the fence and starts walking and we're just standing there waving. And she finally noticed us and we were all laughing. We would tease eachother and walked up to her house together. She's a good kid.

We would head back to the office and checked in with Alexi about everything we accomplished. And it was nice that she was really happy with us and that made me feel nice. There was some stuff we couldn't do. Like putting the tent back together at homestead. But we did so much and I'm very proud of us.

Heather would ask me to design a job flyer. We need ropes specialists and apparently we are struggling to find them. I had fun making it and Heather would go in and change some of the copy which was fine with me, mine was mostly a place holder. We did laugh really hard when we realized that I wrote "flaying squirrel" instead of "flying squirrel" oops. Flaying a squirrel would be a good camp skill though probably.

I finished that up and when Heather said she was happy with it I was like. Okay! I'm going home! I will see you all on Sunday!

And I headed right home. It was a pretty good drive back, some traffic. Some people driving stupid. But I got home at 430 and got a pretty good parking spot.

When I got inside James wasn't home yet. I would bring the mail in. I closing s random Amazon package of pens? That neither of us ordered?? Very weird.

I went to put away some stuff. And found a jewelery box on the kitchen island with a necklace from James. That was originally supposed to be a Christmas gift but had gotten lost. But they found it and I was so happy. It's so sparkly.

I would go upstairs to take some photos of my possible outfits for Uganda. Which I'm still pretty unsure about but I'm getting clearer I think. And waited for James to come home.

When they got home they would play one round of their football video game. And then jumped right into tasks. I was kind of falling apart though. I got cuddled up on the couch and told James about the day. And they made me dumplings for dinner.

They would work on hanging the art I laid out some the shelf in the living room. And they got a lot of that done before the drill died and needed to be charged.

They would jump into painting the stairwell. And I would just be a little potato on the couch. But James said it was fine and just asked for my input when they needed it.

Now they are finishing up the hanging of pieces in the living room and it looks great. I'm so excited for how everything is coming together.

Now though I think I want to get a shower and get ready to sleep. Tomorrow I am hoping to go to thrift stores and possibly get the wood to build my skinny bookshelf. But we will see how the day unfolds. I just hope I can feel peaceful.

I have been feeling kind of stressed because I feel pulled in so many directions. Like I'm finally feeling better and so now it feels like everyone wants me to be doing everything and I just cannot. I need to be alone and I don't want to hurt my more extroverted friend's feelings. But man. I am tired inside. Walking around alone at camp today helped a lot. And I hope tomorrow helps too.

Sleep well everyone. I love you all. Goodnight

[highpressurephotography]

JUNE 1, 2013 – MT SHUKSAN – SULPHIDE GLACIER

Last year at the end of May we attempted Mt Shuksan, and were shut down due to getting up to the pyramid a bit late, and the soft snow zapping the energy from the bootpackers in the group. This year we aimed to have everyone on skis, set a higher camp, and get up there a bit earlier.

We started on Saturday AM from the Shannon ridge TH, which was easily driveable, in contrast to last year where we added ~1 mile of road walking to our trip. There was also less snow up on the trail, as we walked up to the third switchback of the summer trail before hoofing it up the snowslopes to gain the ridge above.

Nicole and Erika heading on up through the trees

Lunchbreak under the tarp – this setup was just practice, but it was put to good use soon after!

Two climbers high up on the Sulphide glacier (view from ridge below notch). CLimbers are on slopes above the 6400′ bench

Soon the ridgelines started to disappear into grey…

Nicole and Erika making their way up to the notc. Baker Lake and weather behind.

Pulling up to the notch just in time to catch a rainstorm

We huddled under the tarp to keep dry in the intense but short rainstorm that passed through. The UW model proved fairly accurate with its midafternoon system moving through and then general, close clearing

cleared up enough for a rainbow

Traverse track from the notch around to the Sulphide glacier

Bryan leading the way across

clearing skies as we climbed the slopes up to 6400′ camp

camp… I love camps with views of starry skies…

good morning Baker

Little snow peak above camp

Summit pyramid visible from camp

Sunrise provided some amazing light as we prepared to head up to the pyramid

High on the Sulphide glacier

Northern Pickets from high up on the Sulphide. Mt Challenger is the largest peak on the left – its namesake glacier shrouded by clouds from this view. Phantom Peak is the high point on the right.

…amazing scenery…

…mountains and clouds…

Looking back down on camp (We are the two BD tents center left. Nols group above us)

scenery off to the right as we approached the pyramid

Nicole climbing through the upper Sulphide

Bryan taking in the views

Nicole topping out on the steep slopes above camp

…getting there…

Climbers on top – jealous!

We watched them pitch out walking down the gully. They didn’t appear to have much trouble, but did take their time, which was another reason we went over to the ridge around to the right.

Upon reaching the base of the pyramid, I pushed up onto the notch on the right hoping to get a view around of a scramble route to the top. It wasn’t promising, as exposed rock moves with downsloping slabs and partial snow cover would make the climbing committing. We hadn’t really prepared for a full on technical climb on the pyramid – just a few pieces of rock pro to back up raps if we needed to. Bryan scratched a ways up and checked out the route before pulling the plug on trying the ridge. Being that it was only 11AM, I wish we had taken a shot at going up the gully, but we were afraid that the detached rime ice that was prevalent everywhere would start raining down once the sun really started to work on the upper pyramid. Looking back now I think we would have been OK to shoot for it, and should have just taken a rope up to have a belay down for Nicole as we worked our way down. I was fairly bummed about being shut down again, but now we have an excuse to try an April Nooksak traverse trip… Baker ski area to Mt Shuksan via the White Salmon, then traverse out below the Nooksak ridge before climbing Ruth and Icy and out Hannegan Pass TH. More likely for the gully to be fatter and better for skiing then too!

We flipped it and started out ski down, enjoying lots of consolation turns on the way down. Up high the conditions were great corn, though the visibility kept us from being able to open it up too much, it was difficult enough just staying together.

Bryan about to ski the last slopes down to camp

Back at camp we ate some more food, hydrated and started the packup for the long ski and walk out. Despite the thick heavy snow below, I only wiped out once, in spectacular head over heels flip action. The tripod and random junk I had tacked onto the outside of the pack all made the flip with me, though!

And the timelapse turned out OK – was a bit cloudy in the middle of the night, and the method I was using to transition from night to day has still left some significant flickering… more practice needed there! Also think the tripod sunk into the snow as it was warmed by the sun in the morning… will need to fabricate some metal clamps to attach to the legs…. or maybe some sort of repurposed snowbaskets…

[genratestatus]

Truck Tarps _ Types, Sizes, and Accessories | cramarotarps

Choosing the simplest flip tarp systems for your particular needs won't be as clear-cut as you think that. Flatbed tarps not only are available in a good sort of size but they're made from different materials and designed very differently counting on their intended use. the simplest tarp for a dumper won’t necessarily be the simplest for covering lumber or steel. There is nobody size fits all sort of tarp, which is a component of the rationale it’s so important to know exactly what your hauling needs are going to be. What are the most sorts of flatbed truck tarps?   Lumber tarps. A lumber tarp is meant with flaps at the top to hide the ends of a load, protecting the lumber or other cargo from the weather. Steel tarp. an important duty steel truck tarp is four-sided without flaps. This design is most effective for shielding steel rods, sheets, cables, etc. Truck tarp systems Roll tarps for dump trucks are waterproof and designed not just for traditional dump trucks, but also many similar style trucks like grain trucks, grain carts, fertilizer tenders, trailers, and more. Smoke Tarps. A smoke tarp serves one very specific purpose: covering the front of a load to guard it against soot, dirt, and particularly exhaust smoke. As another benefit, it can help stop the wind from creating an annoying and distracting whistling sound if you're hauling PVC pipes or steel pipes. Tarp sizes While heavy-duty lumber and steel flatbed truck tarps often are available in 16×27, 20×27, or 24×27 configurations, you’ll find those heavy-duty smoke tarps are only 10×12 in many cases. A dumper tarp looks much different from both of those configurations coming in at 9’10×41 or 10’6×42. Tarp tie-downs Just as with tarps, there's also an enormous sort of tie-downs and other accessories to be used with cramaro tarps. Equipment for securing a tarp is often weakened into a couple of overall categories:  Rubber tarp straps. These heavy-duty tarp tie-downs are available in both natural rubber and ethylene propylene diene monomer – M-class (EPDM) rubber. A natural rubber tarp strap is best for cold, Northern areas because the rubber won’t crack, tear, or become brittle even in freezing temps. An EPDM rubber tarp strap is best for decent climates as they get up well to extended sun exposure. Shock cord. Also called bungee or elastic straps, shock cord maybe a stretchy rope with an important duty polyester fabric covering a rubber core. Shock cord is a superb choice if you would like to form a custom length strap for flatbed truck tarps, just by adding a coated bungee hook.    Rubber rope. sort of a shock cord tie-down, rubber rope also can be move length to form custom tie-down straps. It’s available during a hollow style for lightweight applications or a solid core for more heavy-duty jobs.    Tarpaulins, often called tarps, are frequently wont to cover and secure loads in several sorts of trucks. Truck tarps can make carrying loads in pickup trucks, flatbeds, dump trucks, and other sorts of trucks much easier. Having a truck tarp is additionally safer, with less likelihood of the load slump the truck and causing problems for the driving force or for other vehicles on the road.   flatbed tarps for pickups typically cost around $40. Truck tarps for full-size pickup beds are about $5 more. These tarps are made to hide a full load within the bed of the truck, securing it and protecting it from the weather. Good truck tarps accompany hook and straps to secure the tarp to the floor and eliminate the necessity to tie complicated knots with rope to secure the tarp.   Truck tarps also are available for flatbed trailers. Cargo like lumber and steel cables are often carried in flatbed trailers. Truck tarps covering a 48-foot long trailer with 8-foot drops are often purchased for about $400 online. Usually, two tarps are needed, bringing the entire price to around $800. These truck tarps are waterproof and have grommets through which cables can attach the tarp to the truck.   Dump trucks also got to be covered with tarps to secure their load. Roll-up tarps are usually used on dump trucks. These tarps roll up into a cylinder for storage up behind the cab of the truck, and maybe pulled out and secured to the opposite end of the bed to hide the truck's cargo. Tarps for dump trucks usually start at $300 for basic models, with bigger or more elaborate models costing more.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “A Ship Named Infinity.”

Hope you all enjoy your morning :)

Geea and Beatrice made their way from the underground bar as the music was still playing. Beatrice had one of her arms hooked through one Geea’s lower left, and together they sauntered slowly up through A136 and towards the docking area. Beatrice flipped a knife between her fingers as she did, “I don’t see why you are trusting this guy.” Beatrice grunted, “He could just as easily hail the Omen as soon as we got close and tell them that they have been hijacked.”

Geea shook her head, “No, he wouldn't, and i will make sure of that.” 

Beatrice looked up at her and she hummed rather smuggly, “If he tries anything, I release all of his criminal activities to the GA and UNSC. there is nothing that he can do about it, besides we are going to have our crew on his ship as well, and they should be able to keep him in line.

Beatrice nodded, though she didn’t seem entirely reassured.

Together the two of them made their way up through the winding passages, and clattering stairways until they eventually made it to the main docking bay. The room was filled with twenty or so docked shuttles, and looking around they found captain Kell sitting with some of his crew members outside a waiting shuttle.

The men and women that stood behind him were….. well , they were no joke.

They seemed fit and capable, though most of them sported some sort of metal attachments.

Captain Kell stood to greet them, and in this lighting the two of them were able to give him a more thorough once over.

The man was still wearing his long brown coat, and the black hood was still resting on his head though it didn’t shadow his face so much in this room. She saw strands of tawny hair peeping out from under the front of his hood. As she had seen before, one side of his face was covered by mechanical components, primarily the right eye, the cheek and down onto the lower jaw. His remaining good eye was a muddyish brown.

Walking up to stand before him it was clear that the man was tall, over six feet to be certain and well muscled, which Geea couldn’t help but find odd in a pirate. Sure pirates did some hard work, but mostly they followed the motto of work smarter not harder, and their life of heavy drinking didn’t exactly lend to people with bodies like his.

Under his jacket he wore a white shirt and a chin around his neck with some sort of arrowhead attached to the end.

His boots were high and tall, making her wonder if he was trying to make himself look taller than he really was. 

She could still see the glittering metal of his right hand as he moved to greet them.

The men behind him eyed them suspiciously. One was shorter and darker than the captain but just as well muscled. He was wearing heavy cargo pants, though his chest was mostly bare except for some sort of bandelier he carried over one shoulder, though it was his honey gold eyes that made it very clear he had no issue with  beating them up and stealing their lunch money.

The woman just off to his right was short and bald with extremely pale skin and bluish eyes, but she had the look of someone who you didn’t fuck with no princaple.

Geea noticed Beatrice eyeing her and tried to ignore it. B was always trying to make her jealous, and she didn’t want to give her that sort of satisfaction.

Captain Kell stepped forward, “Ladies.” He nodded before turning to wave a hand at his two bodyguards, “This here is Angelo.” He said pointing first at the man and then at the woman, “And that is Mace.” The two didn’t even nod their heads in acknowledgement, but looked on at hem in suspicion and distrust.

That was the way of the pirate though.

There was a sharp thudding, and out from behind the shuttle came a tall hulking figure at nearly nine feet tall.

The large Drev wiped grease from his hands as he stepped into place beside his three human companions. His carapace was a muddy black color with a red undertone. Geea raised her head in mild disdain for his coloring, though he didn’t seem to care what she thought.

“And this is our associate Noble.”

The Drev crossed two of his arms over his chest as he looked them over.

“The shuttle ready?” the captain asked.

The Drev nodded, “Yes, the components are clear to fly. That shake was from our right underwing stabilizer, though it was just a little loose.”

“Good.”

He motioned the two of them to follow him into the rusty little shuttle, and they strapped into the seats behind the pilot’s chair buckling in across from Angelo, Mace and Noble, all who eyed them with more than a measure of mistrust and suspicion. The captain for his part, seemed the most pleasant and sociable out of the groop, though he took his seat in the captain’s chair and called in to be let into atmosphere .

The group of them felt it as the struts gifted off the ground, and they hovered slowly over to one of the landing tubes leading up to the surface of the planet.

The doors to the docking bay opened revealing a long, water stained tunnel before them.

“Thirty minutes until the next fire wall comes, so you should be safe.”

He acknowledged the radio, and slowly began to lift them up through the long dark tunnel.

As they approached the top, the heavy steel door that kept them safe from the elements of the A1 death plant opened up. 

There was a heavy mist outside causing condensation to appear on their front windscreen as they rose into the night. In the distance, the sun was just beginning to rise, and from here thre group of them could see the fast approaching firewall on the horizon.

The ground below them was still wet, but that would change soon as rising temperatures caused the water to burn off into steam and return to the atmosphere to start the cycle again.

However, they didn’t stay long enough to watch the spectacle, and Captain piloted them easily upward through the cloud cover.

Geea had to admit that the man was a handy pilot. That was the steadiest flight she had ever had from the surface.

Either that or he just got lucky.

When he exited the atmosphere, he hurriedly made contact with the bridge of his ship. They approached slowly, and she could see the small ship with its sharp lines and black painted hull, better to blend into the background of space. It wasn’t a large ship by any means but it was still a good enough size that she expected it to have at least a class B warp drive.

They docked some minutes later, and the soundless environment around them was suddenly sucked away as a rush of air flooded the airlock. Red lights highlighted their faces as the Captain began powering down the ship. The others unbuckled their seatbelts  and the back ramp opened up for them.

The captain followed last from the ship, stepping onto the deck as the airlock doors opened into the docking and cargo bay.

It was…. Almost exactly how she expected it to be.

The ship was small enough that most of the rooms doubled for something, and men and women lounged around the small cargo space just as they might on her own ship. A few of them were tying down tarps over piles of unknown goods, while others were taking manifest from inside open crates with the UNSC seal stamped on them.

She was surprised to see that, thinking that the man was too much of a coward to pirate goods from the UNSC itself, but it seemed that she was mostly wrong.

The captain spread his hands wide and turned to look at them, “Welcome to the Infinity.”

Men and women in the cargo bay sat up and turned to look at the newcomers, and immediately Geea could see that the crew was a diverse one with Tesraki Celzex Drev, and even the odd Burg, though this  one was one of those strangle Male burg with the gossamer wings.

He turned to look at the crew, “And crew say hello to our new employers for the next month or so.”

The room shifted rather uncomfortably.

“Since when did we do mercenary work?” Someone shouted from the crowd.

The captain grunted under his breath, “They made me offer I couldn’t refuse.” Then he straightened up, “Either way play nice, and don’t get into fights or I WILL shoot you out the airlock. We should be expecting more of their crew boarding soon, so make room, and get to know each other.”

He walked past the group of them without another word, and marched off towards the font of the ship.

Geera and B followed after him their boots clattering on the floor underneath them.

“I am not instilled with a great amount of confidence that your men will behave.” Geea said 

The captain turned to look at her, and the appriture of his robotic eye narrowed, “Look lady, you are the one who came and threatened ME. If anyone here shouldn’t be trusted it is YOU.” He turned on his boot heel and marched up the next hallway, pushing through the doors and  onto the bridge, where he took his seat in the waiting captain’s chair.

The ship itself was a bit old and rickety, and the chair had a bit too much glowing neon on it for her liking, but when he ordered his men to get to work, they worked seamlessly as if they had done it thousands of times before.

Geea had to admit, grudgingly of course, that it was the most disciplined pirate ship she had ever seen. There was no arguing or backtallking or arguing or people trying to shirk their duties, the men and women here worked as if they were trained for it, like those fancy crews she had seen aboard some of the GA and UNSC ships.

This was probably why the captain came so highly recommended.

The Celzex on his shoulder hopped down from his position and into a small seat just off to the side of the captain’s chair. From over the top of his furry head, she could see that he was busy running diagnostics on the weapons systems.

That made her smile.

To think that they would have Celzex weapons on their side was rather thrilling. She, and no one else she knew had ever been able to acquire weapons from the fuzzy little creatures. They may have been willing to join pirating crews, but most of them were still loyal to some stupid and unknown code of honor that didn’t allow them to just spread their technology around, so they kept their mouths tight shut to the annoyance of everyone.

She wondered how this particular human had gained the trust of the Celzex enough to acquire their weapons. In fact, she had never seen a Celzex wit on a man’s shoulder like that, and doubted that was something the Celzex had been willing to do on their first meeting.

This human was becoming more and more interesting the more that she watched him.

He reached out with a gloved hand and flicked the switches on the console before him. He piloted this craft with the same ease in which he had piloted the shuttle.

The Com burst to life just then, “Infinity this is War preparing to dock.”

The captain turned to look at her over his chari, “You named your ship war?”

B snorted at the derision on his face, “She just likes being able to say ‘ This is war” whenever she goes to dock.”

Geea ground her teeth, and Captain kell rolled his eyes as he turned back to initiate the docking sequence, “Waar, this is infinity, please move to docking port A and standby for confirmation.”

He let go of the transmission and looked over at Geea skeptically, “You name your ship like an idiot.”

She didn’t like that much hands balling into fists though B traced a consoling hand over her back.

“Watch your mouth.” She growled, low in her throat.

The man did not seem at all worried by her denouncement of him, “Naming a ship is an art. You have to know her, to feel her. You have to walk around and fly in her to get a real understanding for what she means. It isn’t just about slapping a word on her. Just like you would name your son or your daughter you have to know what she iis about BEFORE you name her.”

Geea rolled her eyes at the sudden fervor in the man’s voice.

She honestly couldn’t give a shit what a ship was named as lng as it worked.

There was a sharp thudd through the hull as her ship docked, and she turned to go and greet her men down in the cargo bay leaving the Captain to contemplate his stupid philosophies on how to properly name a ship.

Making eye contact with him one last time, she couldn’t help but notice the strange fervor she saw in his eyes when he spoke about ships. This was a man, she thought, sho loved being in space.

She herself didn’t mind it so much, but when she looked out the window of a ship, all she saw were stars.

There was nothing particularly beautiful about it.

Together her and B walked into the cargo bay where her men were slowly filtering onto the ship

She only need around twenty of them, sure that that would be enough when paired with captain Kell’s crew.

They didn’t plan a big complex assault after all.

Hopefully, all of this would be done while most of the crew of the Omen were sleeping and they would be on and gone before the shit hit the fan.

Geea spent the next few hours helping her crew settling onto the ship warning them that if they caused any trouble she was going to hurt them. Of course they would listen to her, they were afraid of her and that is what a good leader needed to keep her men in check. Fear was generally the best way to control people she found, and while they didn’t like being ordered around, they would rather do what she said then suffer the consequences.

From there she went to find Captain kell again , and found hm in some sort of meeting room just off the bridge perusing a star map with some of his men and women from the bridge .

“UNSC channels indicate their last known location to be in this area.” A woman was saying zooming in on a cluster of stars as he did, “Now It seems to me that in this area.” she motioned with a wide circle, “We can send out scanning probes to look for his ship. It shouldn’t take too long and the probes aren't likely to catch the attention of a ship that big. I would suggest using a distress beacon to lure them into the nearby nebulae and then use that as a distraction to dock quietly.. Now the Omen is so large that it actually works to our advantage. It has multiple cargo bays and multiple docking bays, all of which have their own set of airlocks.”

There was a sharp blip in the image as the woman pulled up a schematic of the ship.

She heard B mummer in surprise from behind her.

“How did you get that.”

Captain Kell turned to look at her, and the woman crossed her arms seeming rather annoyed to have been interrupted.

Captain kell motioned to the schematic, “What, you think we only deal in goods.” he shook his head slowly, “No no, schematics and information are easy enough to get your hands on if you know where to look.” He nodded towards the hologram, “I bought these schematics off a guy at the Europa station a few years after it was launched. The guy was drunk, but he had been an engineer that worked on it before it was deployed.”

He turned back to the woman, “You were saying?”

She huffed and continued, “Well, from the information I have been able to gather, the primary cargo bays are here and here below the ship, they would be easy enough to bring a small ship up and usie the hacking equipment to open their airlock without being noticed and send a small team inside.”

She turned to look at Geea, “We only need a small team to do what you are suggesting.”

She glanced back at the map, “The only problem with this plan is that the safest place to board is also the furthest location away from the Admiral’s quarters which would be on the top deck right here.” She jabbed a finger at the upper deck, so we are going to have to plan this and our rout up if we want to avoid being spotted.”

Geea nodded, “The maintenance tunnels should be our best bet.’

Captain Kell tapped his chin, “Both yes and no I think. There will be less security there, sure, but the people most likely to be up are those in engineering, and they would spend most of their time in the maintenance tunnels.”

There was a nod of agreement from the others.

“Better to deal with a few nerdy engineers than highly trained marines patrolling the halls.” Geea said 

Captain kell nodded slowly and behind him Angelo snorted rather derisively as if the idea of a well-trained marine struck him as funny somehow.

Across  the table from him Mace was smirking right along with him.

Geea didn’t like those two, there was something about them that made her want to punch them in the face, but she kept her cool and continued to listen to the plan as the group gathered around each other .

She was mostly surprised at what she saw. The crew of this ship was well functional, worked well together, were relatively professional, followed their captain and even seemed to admire him. It was something she had never seen on a pirate ship before. The way they worked together was almost militaristic, but she supposed that is why they had survived so long and gotten so good at what they did.

She frowned as she thought about it wondering why her crew didn’t behave this way. Her crew tended to be lazy slackers most of the time, only working when they wanted to which was hardly ever

But these people did their jobs as if…. Well as if they actually liked them and respected their captain.

See eyed Captain Kell doubtfully. 

They must have been REALLY afraid of him to follow him like this.

She wondered what he did yo people who disobeyed him

[atths--twice]

Wednesday Night at the Fluff and Fold

Had an idea for a little “on the run” story the other day. Thus this little story was born. Hope you enjoy! ❤️

Late on a hot summer night, while on the run, Scully and Mulder spend some time in a small town laundromat.

September 2003

Juliette, Georgia

10:00 p.m.

There was an odd feeling of calm to pairing socks, seeing them piling up beside the other clothes, everything organized into neat stacks.

Scully smiled as she remembered helping her mother fold clothes when she was younger, loving the feel of them when they were warm from the dryer, or even helping to take them from a clothesline. Sheets were always her favorite, lifting her side up as high as she could, her mother smiling as she held tight to the other end. The sound of the snap of the fabric, the perfect fold, meeting in the middle to hand it off to her mother… she loved it all.

Socks were saved for her to do on her own, large piles of them from the whole family, left to her to sort like a puzzle. She liked being able to differentiate between them, giving the right socks to the right people, proud that she never got it wrong.

As an adult, she found that same pride in the tidiness of her own home; the dishes always washed and put away in their place, the pictures hung to her taste, her clothes always organized, going through them often and getting rid of any taking up unwanted space.

Space, she thought with a snort. That’s definitely something we are lacking these days.

Folding one of Mulder’s t-shirts, she placed it on top of his pile. One of her shirts was next and she placed it on her own pile with a sigh. Turning around, she looked at the dryer in front of her and saw it still had twenty minutes left before the cycle would be complete. Looking around at the empty laundromat, she sighed again.

Fanning herself, she lifted her long hair off of her sweaty neck. The weight of it made her think again of cutting it short like she’d had it in the past. Instead, she took the rubber band from her wrist and tied it up into a messy bun, a few pieces falling down and brushing her face. As it did, she sighed at the dark brown, nearly black color of it.

She’d had it dyed for months now, but she was still taken aback by it when her thoughts were elsewhere and it suddenly fell into her view. She did not mind it, but it was a drastic difference from her normal red.

The door to the laundromat opened and Mulder walked in with a plastic bag in each hand.. Even in khaki shorts, a black tank top, and flip flops, she could see he was just as warm as she was, beads of perspiration dotting his forehead.

“God, it’s like walking through numerous layers of warm wet paper towels. I’m sweating like crazy.”

“It’s not much cooler in here,” she said with a gesture toward the dryers. “Thankfully it’s the last load.”

“Should I get the bags from the car?” he asked, setting the plastic bags down on the counter beside the piles of folded clothes.

“Nah. Might as well wait until those are done and folded.” He nodded and jumped up to sit next to the bags, smiling at her as he did. She let out a deep breath as she glanced at the dryer timer again.

Eighteen minutes until they would pack up and head away from this small town, all of their clothes clean, for a while at least.

It had been nearly a year and a half since they had been on the run, staying in countless motels, trailers, tents, the car itself, and even once a teepee, which they had both found highly offensive, especially after seeing the decor. But it had been cold and the place warm, so they had stayed for a night before leaving the next morning

In that time, a system had been created. They had bought large plastic totes and kept everything they needed inside of them: sleeping bags, pillows, extra blankets, two tents, tarps, camping cooking supplies, some food- but not much as they did not want to attract any unwanted animals.

They also had two duffel bags which held all of the clothes they owned, rotating them by need and season.

As it was the tailend of a very warm summer, the warmer clothes had been stored in one of the totes, not needed for a few more months. The two duffel bags were now full of shorts, tank tops, shirts, and even a few sundresses, the breeze welcome as it cooled her everywhere.

The bags also held their simple toiletries inside plastic zippered bags. It was organized and fit just so in the car, allowing them to grab whatever was needed quickly. Every item was replaceable and held no sentimental value, easily able to be left behind if the situation called for it.

Clothes were worn until only one outfit remained, the dirty clothes placed in trash bags. All laundry was done at one time, visiting laundromats late at night, or any motel with on-site laundry service. The clean clothes were then put back into the duffel bags, the trash bags slipped into the totes, ready to be refilled.

It was a system that worked well, keeping them away from crowds of people, Mulder remaining safe and relatively unseen.

Sighing again, she shook her head and glanced at the bags he had brought in with him.

“So, what have you got there?” she asked with a smile, one of the bags smelling of something delicious and causing her stomach to growl.

“Well,” he said, opening the bag and removing take out containers, handing one to her. “The Whistle Stop Café is open late tonight for a summer barbecue-”

“Is it?” she said, looking at her food cautiously and he laughed.

“Pork, not human,” he assured her with another chuckle. “Someone in front of me made that joke and the woman serving food gave him such a look, I knew better than to make the same mistake.”

“Can’t really blame people when it’s heavily implied in the Fried Green Tomatoes movie and in the book… well…” She raised her eyebrows and opened the container, sniffing the delicious aroma of barbecued pork, her mouth watering.

“I also got mashed potatoes and biscuits. Homemade biscuits that I ate one of on the way over here because they had only just cooled enough to be served when I ordered them. Try one of those first.” He handed her one and he nodded encouragingly.

Taking it from him, she took a bite and then moaned as the sweet taste of butter hit her tongue. He nodded again with a smile as she took another bite and he took out utensils and napkins. She pushed herself up to sit beside him, her legs swinging as they ate, the dryer continuing to tumble the last of their clothes, both of them hot, sweaty, and sticky.

As they finished eating, the dryer stopped and while he cleaned up their food and trash, she took out the clothes, walking them to the counter to be folded. He came back in with the duffel bags, setting them on the empty counter, and began helping her fold the clothes.

In no time, they were filling the duffel bags, everything once more arranged and in order. She threw out the dryer sheets she had used and picked up the now empty trash bags, ready to put them back into the totes in the car.

“What’s in this bag?” she asked and he nodded at her to open it. When she did, she smiled, finding it full of paperbacks.

“I found a used bookstore and came back to the car, taking out the ones you’d wanted to swap if we found one. I could only find up to “O,” but maybe we’ll get lucky at the next place and find “P” and “Q.””

“There’s a “Q”? I didn’t know,” she murmured and he nodded as she looked down at the books.

They had stayed at a cabin in March and the sparse amount of books available had led to her reading ones she would normally have passed over. Particularly, a series of detective novels, the titles of each one beginning with a different letter of the alphabet.

Finding that she enjoyed them, when they had been in another town, she had popped into a used bookstore, finding the next in the “alphabet series” by Sue Grafton. She had loved them all, a distraction from their own lives for a little while. It had been some time since she had finished, and even reread the last few, holding onto them to trade in for new ones, and she was happy he had found them.

“Thank you,” she said softly, looking at “L” is for Lawless and “M” is for Malice. “I know it’s not my usual reading material…”

“Scully, there isn’t much that is usual right now.” He smiled at her and shrugged. “You enjoy them. I do too. Especially when you read them aloud and we try to figure out the ending.” She nodded with a smile and ran her fingers across the titles.

“Thank you,” she said again, lifting her head to look at him. He smiled with a nod and picked up one of the duffel bags, kissing her as he did.

“You’re welcome,” he whispered against her lips, reaching for the next duffel bag.

She put the books back inside the plastic bag and picked up their black canvas backpack. Everything else could be left behind and abandoned at a moment's notice, but not the backpack. It held everything of importance inside of it and was never far from sight.

One last look around, making sure they had everything, they walked out into the muggy and sticky Georgia night. Bags were placed back into the car and then bottles of water were taken from the totes and carried to the front seat.

Mulder turned on the car, blasting the air conditioning as they both sat, the warm air gradually becoming cooler. She closed her eyes as she twisted her head and leaned forward, letting the cool air hit the back of her neck.

“What were we thinking, huh? Coming to the south in the summer? Should have stayed up north,” Mulder said with a deep sigh and she smiled.

“It’s summer, Mulder. It’s hot everywhere.”

“Hmm. Not moist hot though. I feel… well… it’s not the best situation in my southern region either.” She laughed and opened her eyes, looking at him as he raised his eyebrows with a shake of his head.

“How does a cold shower sound?”

“Make it lukewarm, and not a solo one, and you’ve got yourself a deal,” he said with a smile and she tilted her head.

“You’re asking me to join you even after you’ve so eloquently divulged a bad case of swamp ass?” She raised her eyebrows at him, a half smile on her face, and he nodded enthusiastically.

“Absolutely. I’m sure you could do with a…”

“Yes?” she asked, her eyebrows raising higher, waiting to see how big of a hole he would dig himself into.

“Well…” He shrugged and smiled, the one that made her heart race. Innocent and sweet, with an air of mischief hiding behind it. “A nice refreshing shower after standing in that warm laundromat for so long.”

“Mmhmm,” she hummed, licking her lips and his eyes followed its path across them.

“And if it leads to some sex… well…” He shrugged again and put the car in gear, looking around before he backed up and out of the parking spot, continuing out of the parking lot. “At least we’ll get clean as we’re being dirty.” She laughed and nodded, already anticipating the feel of the water cooling and cleansing her sweaty body, his hands on her wet and slippery skin making her ache with need.

He grinned at her as they pulled up to a stop sign by the Whistle Stop Café. People were still there enjoying the barbecue, music playing and laughter ringing out into the night. They drove past the now closed used bookstore and she smiled, remembering the books waiting to be read. Looking at him, she smiled and he winked as he caught her eye.

“A refreshing shower sounds wonderful.”

“And the sex?” he asked, stopping at a light and staring at her, waggling his eyebrows.

“Sounds orgasmic,” she said in a low voice and he growled, stepping on the gas as soon as the light was green, hurrying out of town as she laughed happily.

[parakeatswrites]

22. Space AU & 56. Awful first meeting for whatever pairing you like!

Thank you for the prompt!! Sorry that it took me so long to get 

I'm a sucker for the kind of space AU that has junkyard/wildwest aesthetcs and ai/telepathically linked ships. Also this idea got away from me a bit so we're looking at a Sarchengsey with a side of pynch. Had to stop myself before it got longer, but if I had more room, there would be lots of Blue & Ronan annoying friendship overtones.

[Link to OG post - give me 2 tropes & a pairing, and I’ll combine them!]

Either there was another glitch in the holographic screen of Blue’s pilot console, or there was a weak SOS beacon 20 clicks to their port side. She squinted at the static. The colour overlays had bugged out a week ago and she’d been flying by feel ever since. Somehow, she had thought flying between planets with contraband would be more exciting, but apparently anything could become banal if done frequently enough. 

“I think there’s someone out there,” Henry told her, fresh from the sonic shower and a nap in their tiny bunk. He leaned over her shoulder, warm and smelling of the cologne he had insisted on buying at the last trading post.

“Unlikely,” Blue shrugged him off and slouched into the creaky pilot’s seat.

“Open your eyes, Blue-bird,” he pointed at the screen as though he was any better at piloting than her, “it’s faint, but there’s a beacon, just there.”

Blue jostled the controls and his fingertip poked through the fuzzy projection. 

She said, “that’s an AGG beacon. Only R.A.V.E.Ns have them.” 

“Ohh,” Henry sounded thrilled at the prospect, “an Academy ship! I wonder what they’re doing all the way out here? Imagine swooping in and saving the day!”  

Blue pretended for a moment that he wasn’t going to convince her to check it out. She didn’t want anything to do with an Academy ship - everyone knew that R.A.V.E.Ns were assholes zipping through their backwater little sector like they owned it. With the way they were setting up research stations on each mid-sized moon, they might as well own the sector.

She was already turning towards the SOS beacon. 

Their hail was picked up the moment they were in range. Henry gleefully reeled off the standard opening call - at least he omitted their serial number - as he turned slightly in the tiny cockpit to hover over the communication panel. 

The voice that came back was threaded with static, but still arched with the entitled sort of accent you would expect from a R.A.V.E.N pilot. 

“Is your ship refurb Old Guard tech?” 

“Circa old age fourteen-fifteen,” Henry confirmed coyly.

“Are you seriously flirting about the commission date of our unlicensed ship?” Blue hissed incredulously. 

The voice was back enthusiastically, “I thought I recognized the symbols on the anterior. She’s beautiful, but she’s seen better days, I expect?” 

And Henry was swaying over the comms unit, eyes lit up by the blue dash. Blue could nearly see him writing the back-cover of his own trashy romance novel in real time.

“Do you need help or not?” Blue cut in, testily, before they got derailed further. 

“Oh, yes, I expect so,” the voice still did not seem to belong to someone who needed to be rescued. 

“You don’t sound like you need to be rescued,” Blue said. 

“Well, the AGG beacon does reach quite far,” the voice was happy to inform her, “I dare say that another smuggler will likely come along before my life support systems are critical, but they probably won’t have as interesting a ship as you do.” 

“I hate him,” Blue muttered. 

“Blue, be a dear and reroute some power to the de-con unit?” Henry asked, blowing a kiss towards her.

The first thing the R.A.V.E.N pilot said to them after stepping out of their tiny closet of a de-con unit was, “have you had any luck accessing the ship’s AI? This should really be in a museum - they’ve been doing stellar work at rigging up a device to allow interfacing with pre-Fall AI.” 

And because the first thing the pilot had done before speaking was tug off his pressure suit’s helmet to reveal mussed brown hair and a face that belonged on a recruitment poster, Henry mimed a swoon. 

Blue flipped on the janky autopilot and spun in her chair to glare at him, “listen, no more of,” she gestured at the pilot up-and-down, “all this.” 

He looked down at himself and seemed to consider this, then earnestly looked back at her, “I think the de-con took care of any pathogens, if that is your concern.” 

Blue had the patience to either pilot the ship, or deal with a floppy-haired Academy pilot, not both. Since Henry was already all-in on the romance of picking up a stranded pilot, Blue said, “I can either pilot this ship or deal with you.” 

“I would be happy to pilot the ship,” a small twitch to the pilot’s lips said that he was teasing her. 

Blue scowled and spun her chair back to the pilot controls, “we’re not taking him all the way to the Academy.” 

“We would love to take you to the Academy,” Henry said. 

“Henry.” 

“My apologies, I have been remiss in introductions,” the pilot sounded like he was offering a hand to shake, “Lieutenant Richard Gansey the third. But please,” and his voice was warmer again, “just call me Gansey.” 

“Henry,” Blue could hear Henry’s genuine excitement, even as he continued coyly, “you can call me, Henry, Gansey-man.” 

“A pleasure,” Gansey continued, “and for fear of offence, have you interfaced with the AI?” 

Blue wished she had - it was the whole reason she and Henry had kept this junker of a ship even though it had cost more in repairs than to initially buy off of the dealer Seondeok had connected them with. Blue had spent her whole youth dreaming of two things: getting off of that small moon, and figuring out even a small corner of the mystery of pre-Fall AI tech.

She didn’t want this annoying, self-entitled R.A.V.E.N pilot to stick his Academy nose into it. 

Henry said, “we haven’t heard a peep out of the AI.” 

Only the bloodlines from Glyndower’s Court were able to communicate with AI without bio-mods and they had all died during the Fall. Claiming to be able to interface with an AI was equivalent to trying to claim a birthright to a throne purposefully kept empty. That was a one-way ticket to a quiet death. Blue and Henry weren’t stupid enough to admit that to a stranger from the Academy even if they were fluent. 

“Say you were interested in changing that,” Gansey stepped up behind the pilot’s chair and Blue could see his boyish smile in the corner in her vision. Against her better judgement it lit up something sleeping in her gut. He continued, “I might know someone who could help.” 

[Star-wipe to a rusted out garage on a dusty planet with a tarp-sign that says “Parrish’s Repairs”. Blue’s ship kicks up dust as Ronan stalks out the corrugated steel door with his hand on the heel of a holstered pistol.]

[peglarpapers]

Sarah Steel, harried and distracted and dragging both her feet and her children, drops Benzaiten Steel at his first dance lesson when he is three and a half years old and forgets to pick him up for two hours afterwards. Juno is there too, of course, but since he bruises his knee partway through and spends most of his time sitting against the wall sniffling Ben counts the dance lesson only as his. He furrows his brow and copies the teacher’s moves as well as his little limbs can and, for once, doesn’t fidget or yell or get into any mischief at all. He’s just as well-behaved when the worried receptionist tasked with minding the twins when their mother doesn’t arrive at the end of the forty-minute lesson sits them both down, wedged in the corner of the mirrored walls of the ballet studio, as she makes call after unanswered call to Sarah Steel’s comms. When Juno tries, time and again, to get up and explore the old studio building to hunt for ghosts or check for secret passages, Ben tugs him back down by his right hand with a breathless ‘watch, Juno’.

 Because the dancers in front of him are magic.

They must be, Benzaiten reasons, because even though they’re much more grown-up then he and Juno are he’s never seen any adults do things like this before. There is a boy who jumps so high that Ben has to crane his neck to watch from where he sits cross-legged, and a girl who swings another dancer over her head like he weighs nothing. Another girl throws her leg out and spins so many times that even Ben, who can count to fifteen which is five higher than Juno can, makes himself dizzy trying to count. When Sarah Steel arrives, heels clicking angrily on the polished hardwood floors of the foyer, yelling at the receptionist to fucking call her next time, she was working, how was she supposed to know the lesson was so fucking short, Ben lingers in the doorway to the ballet studio even as Juno throws his arm around their mother’s legs and squeezes tight, watching the magicians dance.

Sarah was entirely ready to badmouth the Halcyon Ballet Academy for the rest of her life and spend a few more creds on her rotating cast of babysitters, but after a stream of excited babbling from Ben and pestering from Juno after Ben promises to give him sole custody of the next toy their mother brings home, she keeps up paying for lessons, and is usually only late by twenty minutes or so remembering to collect them. Benzaiten cherishes those once-a-week lessons, and while Juno steals snacks out of the other kids’ bags and on one memorable occasion floods the bathrooms after trying to see how hard he can kick the water cooler, Ben mouths the names of the moves the instructor shows them and tries to copy the twirls and tiptoes of the older students without falling over too many times. The nice receptionist learns to tell the twins apart almost every time and calls him ‘Benten’ affectionately when she ruffles his hair.

 When Ben runs out of Sarah Steel’s office and to the safest place he can think of, it is the nice receptionist who finds him crying on the doorstep of the studio and brings him home, hand in hand.

 They move to Oldtown a few weeks later, and he never sees her, or Halcyon Dance Studio, again.

~~~

 After Sarah gets… bad, the Steel twins very quickly realise that if they want things other than bare essentials (and sometimes those, too, depending on the month) they’re going to have to get them themselves. For Juno, this means shoplifting Andromeda dolls from Oldtown’s one tiny, well-defended toy store (he gives Ben a Draco figurine for their eighth birthday, with the roaring voice box removed so it wouldn’t bother Sarah) and getting paid pocket change after starting a lunchtime fight club with Mick Mercury. For Benzaiten, it means developing the galaxy’s best smile, and it is while flashing this charming, lopsided grin to a very nice elderly couple as he slips his hand into their pockets methodically in search of interesting things to pilfer that he hears the music.

 Benten hasn’t heard music like this in a long time- the only songs he knows by heart are the ones he hears in commercials running on their fuzzy monitor at home- and it surprises him enough that he jerks abruptly away from the old man bending down to pinch his cheek, the creds clutched in his fist spilling out of his fingers and clattering loudly on the slick street. Before the very nice elderly couple can realise that the earnest little boy asking if they’d seen his mother was robbing them blind, Ben is running in the direction of the music.

 He’s not in Oldtown anymore- he’d snuck on a bus this morning and gone a district over to Stitch, slightly less decrepit and with slightly more to steal. The downside to his master plan to collect all the riches Hyperion City had to offer was that he didn’t actually know where he was going. This fact hit him three unfamiliar blocks away from the scene of his near-perfect crime, and dissolved instantly the second he saw the dancers.

 Benzaiten remembered vaguely that his long-ago dance lessons had been in ballet- some kind of old-Earth style, graceful and smooth and set to strange, ancient music. Whatever these dancers are doing, it’s not that- there’s an old comms hooked up to a speaker on the sidewalk blasting a neopop song so loudly Ben can feel it pounding in the tips of his fingers, and somebody’s battered cap lying haphazardly in front of it with a small pool of creds inside. It’s a far cry from bright lights and waxed floors, but he’s no less entranced by the six- no, seven- teenagers who slide and spin and one of them bends all the way backwards and flips back up again he thought they could only do that in movies- and suddenly, as usual when anything fun starts happening, the cops arrive.

 Out of habit borne of bearing witness to many a fight (especially those started by his twin) Benten slips into the closest nook he can find- a narrow, sticky alleyway, which exist everywhere in Hyperion City no matter how nice the district is- and peeks out silently as a gangly HCPD officer waves a blaster after the laughing group of dancers, who have packed up and run quickly enough that this can’t be their first run-in with the cops. Ben waits, back against the damp wall, until the angry yells fade, then dashes in the direction of the faint, still-playing music.

 These dancers have a studio too.

 Ben almost didn’t expect it, not with how at home they all seemed to be on their stage of scuffed shoes and chewing-gum pavement. But there it is- an old warehouse, with grubby carbon-fibre walls and a section of the roof covered by cheap blue tarps. He watches as the teenagers scurry in, whooping and laughing and elbowing each other, music changed now to something quieter but no less energetic, and makes a very big decision very quickly. He memorises the street names on either side of the corner the studio is on, takes a deep breath, and turns to find the closest bus station.

 Three weeks later, Benzaiten Steel stands at the open door of Stitch Dance Studios with resolve burning in his small face and weight bulging in his small pockets. When he marches inside, his footsteps echo with a vigour that can only be conjured by a very determined nine-year-old with a very big dream. He scans the room for an appropriate judge to whom he can plead his case, and finds one in the single biggest person he had ever seen sitting at a table, staring straight at him. Ben reaches into his pockets, and the resulting clatter of cash against the plastic of the desk is almost deafening- all four hundred and nineteen creds that Ben and Juno were able to scrounge from odd jobs and odd thefts and one nerve-wracking heist of Sarah Steel’s wallet after payday.

 Benzaiten flashes the person at the desk the galaxy’s best smile, and asks for however many lessons four hundred and nineteen creds will buy him.

 ~~~

 There is a run-down building in the heart of Oldtown.

 Actually, there are many, many run-down buildings in the centre, middle and outskirts of Oldtown, but none of those buildings matter to Benten because none of those buildings are going to be the Steel School of Dance like this one is.

 He has a vision. He’s going to buy the place off the city, renovate it within an inch of its life, hang all the awards its students are going to win along the wall of the lobby right next to the enormous trophy cases they’re going to need, stud the walls of every studio with speakers blasting every kind of music you can think of, hang polished mirrors from floor to ceiling and install barres made from real Earth wood. Then after he’s made a fortune and revolutionised the Solar system’s conceptions of what it means to be a dancer, he’s going to buy Mom a house and a therapist back in Halcyon Park and Juno a commissioner’s position in the HCPD and nobody will never have to deal with any bullshit ever again.

 Benten knows all of this for sure, because he’s already halfway there. He’s close to what he needs for a lease on the place, and if he cuts back on groceries just a little more he should be able to start cleaning it up properly in a year or two. Staying with Mom had not been… fantastic, but it had kept him from paying exorbitant rent and, more importantly, kept him close to Stitch and to teaching to pay off his own classes. Teaching, working, odd jobs, the occasional minor felony… they added up. He was tired, but they were adding up.

 God, he was tired.

 As soon as he found the energy to stand up, to climb down from the roof of the dilapidated building that would become the Steel School of Dance, to go home and try not to snap at Sarah for one more night, he would get back to work. But right now? Benzaiten Steel watches the reddish Martian sunset, dimmed behind the pearlescent sheen of the dome that protects Hyperion City, and allows himself to dream for a little longer. 

[arrow-guy]

The Lighthouse (7/??)

Summary: The town is sleepy, the people are nice enough, but life gets turned upsidedown when the God of Thunder literally falls out of the sky.

A/N: Alright, this is the beginning of questions being answered, and I know that it’s not going to be many, but we’ll get there over the next couple of chapters. Please enjoy!

Page dividers by @carryonmyswansong

Pairing: ThorxReader

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: Mild argument

Part 6

“Get up.”

“Heimdall?”

“It wasn’t me, (Y/N). But I heard it too.”

“Wha-?” A sharp energy jolts through my body and I sit bolt upright in bed. “Loki.”

“Yes.”

“Heimdall, is he on Earth?”

“As far as I can tell, yes. But you knew that already.”

I nod and throw the covers back. I yank on a pair of jeans and tug a sweatshirt over my head as I stumble out onto the stairs. Charles tries to follow me and I shoo him back up to my room and tell him to stay put. He blinks slowly and curls up under my comforter instead of following me back out into the stairwell.

“Where are you going?”

“Gotta grab Thor.” I slip into Thor’s room and gently shake his shoulder. “Get up.”

“Wha-?”

“Get up,” I repeat. I throw his pants from the day before into his lap. “Gotta go.”

“What’s going on?”

“Massive breakthrough,” I say. I shake my head and move back to the stairs. “Meet me downstairs, We gotta go as soon as you’re ready.”

“What time is it?” he asks, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

I pause, trying to remember if I checked. Eventually, I shake my head. “No clue. Just get downstairs.”

I hurtle down the stairs and grab my bag from the chair in the entryway. I walk through the kitchen and grab my cell phone from the counter and a huge flashlight from under the sink.

“Do you have any idea of where he is?”

“Somewhere along the beach, I think,” I mutter. “Maybe I should grab a tarp…”

I moved out to the carport and tossed my bag into the truck before shuffling around in the bed to make sure I had everything I’d need.

“How will you find him?”

“Drive until I get the same feeling I had when I got up, run down to the beach, and wander around till I find him. Easy.” I glance up just in time to see Thor stumbling into the kitchen.

“Just be careful.”

“I will.” I open the door to the kitchen and gesture for Thor to come out to the car. “We have to go.”

Thor sighs and joins me outside. Once he’s in the car, I climb in and we immediately head south.

“Where are we going?” Thor asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t know, we just have to drive until I know to stop.”

“I don’t much like the sound of that.”

“I know. It’s not my best line.” I turn out onto the highway that follows the beach. “Please be patient with me.”

Thor frowns but nods and folds his hands in his lap. He doesn’t say anything else for nearly ten minutes and when he does, he simply wants to make sure that I’m alright.

“You don’t seem yourself.”

“I know.”

“Slow down.”

I hum softly and slowly ease my foot off the gas. Several cars scream past, honking as the drivers move into the other lane and flip me off before cutting in front of me and speeding away. I don’t pay them any mind and keep my eyes trained on the beach, waiting for any indication that I’m getting close to our destination. I glance over at Thor after each car passes us and he sits, stock straight, gripping his knees till his knuckles are almost completely white.

“(Y/N), what are you doing?!” he hisses.

“We’re almost there, I think,” I mutter. I shake my head. “Not yet, though.”

“You’re not making any sense!”

“Yeah.”

“Close.”

“We’re close.” My stomach clenches and I know exactly where we need to go. “We’re really close.”

“To what.”

I don’t answer him and it only serves to make him more uneasy. As we reach another mile marker, I slow considerably. Only when I see the next picnic area, I pull off the road and stop the car.

“Where are we?”

“Dad and I used to come here all the time.” I grab my bag and hop out of the truck. “Is this seriously the place?”

I look up and down the highway and bolt across the asphalt when I’m sure I won’t get run over. Thor yells after me and I just gesture for him to follow me. He groans and lumbers after me and does his best to keep his balance as he jogs after me into the sand.

I dig the flashlight out of my bag and start scanning the beach for anything out of place. There’s more driftwood scattered along this stretch than the last time I was here. I shake my head and push onward.

“I know you said we’d go to the beach,” Thor says. “But this isn’t exactly what I’d pictured.”

“This isn’t that, I promise.”

“Then what is it?”

“I just have to find him,” I answer. “He’s around here somewhere. I can feel it in my gut.”

“Who?” Thor asks. “Who are we supposed to be looking for?”

When I don’t answer, Thor grabs my shoulders and turns me to face him.

“Let go of me, Thor.”

“No, (Y/N), you’re not making any sense!”

“Look, I know that. I just need you to trust me for ten more minutes,” I plead. “Just let me go, and you’ll get answers.”

He frowns, and his shoulders sag. His hands fall to his sides and I nod to him and resume the search.

I gasp when I see a massive pile of sand about ten yards down the beach. I wave to get Thor’s attention before running off towards the mound of sand. Thor readily follows after me.

I drop to my knees and toss the flashlight to the side, and immediately start shoveling sand away from the mound with my hands. Thor moves to the other side of the mound and shoves sand away in an attempt to help. I pause and mutter an apology and he briefly meets my eyes, confused. I shake my head and keep digging away and, eventually, my hands meet leather. My eyes go wide and I frantically follow the lines of the fabric up to a pale neck. I lift one trembling hand to brush sand away from their face.

“Please don’t hate me,” I say softly.

“What?”

I grab the flashlight and shine it over the limp figure. Their sharp features become more and more defined as sand is cleared from their head. From what I remember of footage from the New York incident, this is very clearly Loki. My anxiety eases and I let out a relieved sign. Thor sucks in a sharp breath as I press my fingers to Loki’s pulse point. His heartbeat is faint, but nothing to worry about.

“I’m sorry, Thor.”

“You didn’t tell me,” he mumbles.

“I couldn’t.”

“He is my brother.”

I nod and Thor hooks his hands under Loki’s arms and drags him out of the mound of sand. I push myself to my feet and watch Thor toss his brother over his shoulder. I lead the way back to the truck and Thor places Loki in the bed. I do my best to avoid any potholes and take corners very slowly to assure that Loki doesn’t get shaken around any more than I’m sure he already has. We sit quietly in the truck for a moment once we’re parked. Thor opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but closes it instead and gets out of the truck.

Thor carries his brother up to the bathroom and I help him clean Loki up as best I can. I grab clean clothes from the laundry and force magic into them, changing their size to fit Loki. I take them up to Thor and he raises his eyebrows.

“Are these mine?”

I nod. “I changed the size. They should fit him just fine.”

“Alright.”

I wait downstairs while Thor changes his brother into the clean clothes and puts him to bed. I press my fist to my mouth and pace in front of the couch, trying to figure out how to explain myself to Thor. I kept this secret from him for over a week and he was so hurt when he realized I lied to him. I shake my head, sigh, and drop down onto the couch. Thor joins me downstairs and he takes a seat beside me.

“He’s settled,” he says softly. “All we can do now is wait till he wakes.”

“I’m sure he’ll be up before you know it.”

He hums. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up. There was no way to know if we’d actually find him.”

“So Heimdall was in on this?” I nod and he scowls. “How long have you been hiding this from me?”

I shrink away from him. “A little more than a week.”

“Wh-You really kept this from me for more than a week?” He shoots up from the couch and I sink back against the cushions. “You mean to tell me that I’ve been sitting on my ass while you’ve been sneaking around behind my back to search for my brother?”

“Basically.”

“Did you even take that day off?”

”Kind of.”

“What do you mean ‘kind of’?”

“I tried and got bored and needed to do something productive.”

“You had personal projects!”

“Hobbies.”

“Who’s to say hobbies can’t be productive?”

I sigh and scrub my hands over my face. “I fucked up, I know that, Thor. I just didn’t know if or when I’d be able to find him. He was ping ponging through the universe up until two days ago. There was no way to know how long it’d take for him to get close enough to our solar system. When I knew where he was, I just knew. I had a feeling and I had to get up and go and find him.”

“Do you not trust me?”

“I trust you more than anyone else, but the last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

He stops his pacing and turns to look at me. I prop my head up on my first and meet his gaze. His eyes flit over me, but I can't find the energy to be anxious about it. My eyes follow him as he approaches and crouches in front of me. He looks me over and I suddenly want to disappear.

“You’re exhausted,” he says. I nod and he envelopes my hand in both of his. “You’ve used too much magic.”

“Probably.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“You were worried about him.”

“(Y/N)...”

“And what if he can help fill in the gaps?” I ask. “Wouldn’t it be worth it? To have him safe, and to know what happened?”

“Not at the expense of your life.” He runs the back of his fingers over my cheek. “You mean too much to me to lose you.”

I sigh and lean into his touch when he cups my jaw. “And you mean too much to me to do nothing.”

His brows pull together and I lean forward to rest my forehead against his. He squeezes my hand and holds our joined hands to his chest.

“I understand. I just worry.”

“I know, I’m human. But I’m going to do what I can for you while I can.”

“What’s the point of that if you die?”

“Maybe I could die, but I’m getting stronger, just like I said I would. You don’t have to protect me from myself.”

“I just wish you’d slow down.”

“I can do that.”

“Thank you.”

I shift closer and brush my nose against his. He sighs softly and his breath fans out across my lips.

"Is it… can I-" I cut myself off, unable to find the right words.

“What is it?”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing. I think I’m just tired.”

“Is that it?”

“I-no.” I squeeze his hand and lean back to look at him. I sigh quietly. “Thor, I really like you.”

He smiles and the corners of his eyes crinkle. He reaches out and takes my face in his hand. “My feelings for you have not changed.”

I turn my head slightly to kiss the palm of his hand and Thor runs his thumb over my cheek. I cover his hand with mine and sigh. My eyes flit over his face and linger on his lips for a moment before flicking back up to meet his gaze.

"May I kiss you?" Thor asks. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

I nod and he closes the distance between us, tilts his head to the side, and gently presses his lips to mine. I relax against him and kiss him back before pulling away briefly and quickly kissing him once more.

"We should probably get some sleep," I murmur.

Thor nods. "I'll take the couch, seeing as Loki is in my bed."

“You don’t have to.” His brows pull together in confusion. “You could just share with me.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “We’ve already pushed so many boundaries you’ve set tonight-”

“This isn’t pushing boundaries. I’m just saying that there’s no reason you should sleep on a couch you’re gonna get stuck to after ten minutes when there’s a perfectly good bed upstairs.”

“(Y/N)...” He bites the inside of his cheek. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up into a smile. “Alright.”

I smile and climb up from the couch and lead Thor up the stairs. Daisy is lying outside my door and her tail starts wagging when she sees us. I crouch down and scratch behind her ears before pushing open my bedroom door. Daisy follows Thor and I into the room and waits patiently while I scoop up Charles and pull back the covers. Thor and I climb into bed and Charles wriggles out of my arms and curls up close to my chest when I turn on my side.

Thor hesitantly rests his hand on my hip but, when I move his hand to my stomach, he shuffles closer and pulls me against his chest.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I murmur. “I should’ve just let you know from the start.”

“I understand why you didn’t,” he says. “I get very… emotional when it comes to my family. But thank you.”

I relax against him and my body steadily grows heavier. Charles moves closer to my chest and bumps his nose against my chin before curling up and purring quietly.

“I promise I’ll talk to you next time I’m planning something,” I say. Thor kisses the back of my neck and I slowly begin to drift off. “I promise…”

----------

Part 8

Loki’s arrived! Which means that one mystery is solved. But what do you think happened to everyone? Their memories are still messed up, which had to have taken something HUGE.

As always, if you liked this chapter, please like, reblog, comment, or shoot me an ask! I always wanna know what you guys are thinking.

If you’d like to be tagged in future chapters, please let me know!

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[theangrycomet]

The Der Sonne Scandal (Modern!TangledtheSeries Timeline in the D-Crew AU)

This is Rough, Lengthy, and up to change.

But some people seemed interested in my interpretation of Modern Tangled so here we go.

From SFIT’s perspective, Varian never came back after Winter break (when his dad was trapped in amber and he was put under house arrest)

SFPD found nothing, and Corona PD claimed to find nothing as well. 

BH6 found the Alchemist at Sycorax of all placings stealing BioChips. These don’t exactly match his previous thefts of tools and supplies for demolition. 

He gets them to leave them alone by revealing he’s figured out at least half their identities after trapping them. 

“Nice try, Professor Le’mone, but I think you’ll my sticky balls are a little bit different than yours,” the Alchemist knocked a knuckle against the hardening crystal around her shoes as she froze.

“How did you-” She started, eyes flicking bac

“Simple really.” He shrugged as he flipped the canister of biochips in the air. Despite the filter, his voice dripped with smugness as he turned to Captain Magnet. “After all, it’s all about looking for a new angle, isn’t it Dr. Hamada?”

Hiro blanched as his words were thrown back at his face, or maybe it was because of the hardening goo begginning to constrict his breastplate.

“Once I realized that Mighty Max here was nothing more than Baymax Prime in a set of Carbon Fiber underpants, it wasn’t hard to connect the dots.”

But, he reassures them that after that night they’ll never deal with the Alchemist again, and that so long as they leave him alone their Secret Identities are safe. 

Baymax, having scanned him during his time at Hiro’s classes, confirms that not only that the Alchemist Hiro and Honey Lemon’s missing student, but that he’s also suffering from various injuries, malnutrition, dehydration, and sleep deprivation. Additionally, he seems to be showing the symptoms of depression and accute anxiety. 

Professor Granville was made aware of the discovery immediately, and she provided the address, commenting that the Corona Police Department had been refusing to work with either her of Chief Cruz when it came to investigating Varian’s disappearance. 

By the time they were able to locate Corona [Corona’s one of those places in between planes that kind of shifts locations around] he’d already lost the Battle of Old Corona and had been thrown in prison without so much as a thought of trial.

They come in to find the Ritter Farm trashed and destroyed, black rocks and destroyed robots littering the fields where buildings weren’t collected together in decimated states. 

Wasabi freaks out when he finds a racoon. Honey Lemon recognizes it as Varian’s. 

Gogo’s with Wasabi on the whole don’t touch that thing.

Ruddiger sadly curled up around a pair of goggles, and from their he leads them to the Ritter home. When they reach the house, they find it raided and most things of value either destroyed or stolen, from a slashed family portrait to overturned furniture. 

Eventually the Raccoon gets them to Varian’s lab, which is a mess of burnt’s notes and bashed in equipment with a tarp hastily thrown over something large in the center of the room.

They all screamed a little at Quirin’s corpse encased in amber. They find one of the Missing Beta-maxes (the test round of Baymaxes sent to hospitals) destroyed from where it had been dutifully assessing Quirin’s health. 

Hiro removes the chip when Fred found a secret compartment in one of the walls. Inside’s a note and a flashdrive. 

If you’re smart enough to find this maybe you can get him out- Varian

BH6 leaves when they here people coming, and they get a glimpse of the Secret Police sent to silence Varian coming back for said flashdrive.

The flashdrive contains his science log from the start of him first experimenting with Rapunzel’s hair and the Rocks to his explanation of his last ditch attempt to free his dad using her hair to cut the amber. 

There’s 18 months worth of footage showing Varian’s attempts and gradual breakdown as he questions everything he thought he knew. 

It was deeply upsetting to watch for BH6, especially for Hiro, as this hit a little close to home for him. 

There are also several pieces of footage of Varian hiding from the Secret Police seen earlier as they raid his home for something called the Demanitus Hardrive.

Meanwhile, as they’r analyzing this footage and trying to locate him, Varian is currently in prison facing solitary confinement only broken up by extensive interogation, to which he only responds to his demands for a lawyer and his basic human rights met.

Their interogation methods get increasingly worse to inhumane as he refuses to tell them what he knows about the black rocks and who he told about them. King Frederick, as this was a personal matter considering Varian endanger his precious baby girl and wife, demands answers from him, to which Varian replies with a bloody spit to the face.

More citizens of Old Corona, who were and continued to have been screwed over by King Frederick’s system are arrested fro protesting against the system. New Corona doesn’t particularly care as the rocks stopped before hitting the city. 

It takes BH6 3 months of intensive scanning, working with the SFPD, spreading the word, and making some of Varian’s vidoe’s viral to get people’s attention that the source of the black rock problem cutting across the country is known, to finally locate Varian. 

He’s found half dead in a solitary confinement cell with Ruddiger (who somehow got in). 

Varian’s immediately hospitalized and so starts the grand exposure of the lies of Frederick Der Sonne. 

They find out about 2 decades worth of injustice. Imprisonment with out trial. Arrests with out cause. The upperclass getting off with a slap on the wrist for a crime that would have someone of lowerclass served 10 years for. Petty thieves arrested for lifetime imprisonment. The highest percentage of prisoner mortality rate in the state. 

It’s insane. 

They also find large amounts of money exchanged that simply disappears. Only two of the city’s businesses (Monty’s Sweet Shoppe and Xavier’s Smithery) have regularly paid their bills, most having claims or excuses written down instead. 

The numerous fairs and festivals are revealed to be not only their sole source of income, but a cover up for MANY illegal business trades. 

Additionally, most of Old Corona (which is pretty much separate from New Corona excluding that they both have Senator Der Sonne in charge, are imprisoned or homeless despite NUMEROUS promises of aid

The Detention center’s are filled to the brim with people who are treated like rats. 

This quickly becomes National News and the Country is horrified that this has been happening. 

San Fransokyo Police Force works with a bunch of other local citie’s PD’s to arrest the entire (excluding Max and Cassandra who are off on their adventure with Rapunzel) Corona Police department as well as Frederick. 

The Investigation runs for nearly 9 months before everything is settled for court. It’s another 6 months in court before everything is settled. 

Varian wakes up in the hospital and is immediately sent into a panic, completely paranoid and distrustful of everybody. 

Between Granville and BH6, he surprisingly left alone from interviews as to what happened to him as he recovers.

Despite numerous attempts, none of Rapunzel’s party came to be witnesses for Frederick. Rapunzel, dubbed it as not her problem right now (thinking that this was about Varian’s arrest) and decided not to tell anyone about it because they were already stressing about the rocks themselves. 

Rapunzel and Co have quite the S*** storm waiting for them once they get home.

[keldae]

Interception

Theron might not have been a Jedi, or able to use the Force, but that didn't mean he hadn't learned to listen to his instincts. His gut intuition had gotten him both into and out of trouble countless times during his career in espionage.

And right now, he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him.

You're paranoid, he thought, shaking his head sternly, shivering involuntarily as the cool breeze tickled his exposed scalp. You know it's Gemini stalking you as per usual. He turned a corner into an alley -- a shortcut to his current bolthole. Or Atrius is watching. Keep your cover, don't let them know you're onto them…

He habitually turned his head, scanning the few seedy characters of the underworld of Mek-Sha as they passed the front of the alley. Nobody giving him a second look, nobody looking like they were hunting the Alliance's Most Wanted. Just criminals and gangsters and refugees, trodding along the planks, all but invisible in the dim, soggy lighting.

Theron shook his head again as a hooded figure walked past the alley. Probably one of the creepy slaver cult that operated here. If he survived this, he would have to tell Sorand about this so the former Sith could deal with the slavers that he despised so -- no, don't think ahead. Sorand is more likely to kill you himself. He sighed and stepped back into the alley. He was pretty sure Xaja's youngest brother, essentially the Acting Commander from what he heard, had no idea about this plot. And the idea of being on the shitlist of a Dark Lord of the Sith and former member of the Dark Council was almost as terrifying as an idea as being on the shitlist of Imperial Intelligence’s most notorious field agent.

She wouldn't send her father after me, right? Lana would veto that. Theron shuddered, refusing to admit how much the prospect of being hunted by Cipher Nine scared him. It was bad enough that Shara was hunting him -- rumour had it the Champion of the Great Hunt had taken on the contract for him for free, as a favour to her sister-in-law (with much angry snarling about honour and cowardice and how Theron had plenty of one and not nearly enough of the other, according to Korin’s updates). As long as she doesn't get a trace on you, you'll be fine. Right?

The lights in the alley surged with brightness for a second before falling dark, leaving Theron momentarily blinded. He was already ducking and moving, relying on his memory to navigate the cluttered alley, every instinct screaming at him to run. The power surge was too targeted to be a fluke, and the sound of a ventilation shaft falling open with a deafening hiss was too coincidental. He was--

A hand roughly grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. Theron grunted in discomfort and drove his heel down, barely catching the side of his assailant's boot, and not throwing off his attacker’s stride in the least, by the feel of it. He felt himself being yanked backward, deeper into the alley shadows; he threw his body weight back, for a second surprising his attacker. It bought him enough time to yank his arm free and turn around, but before he could reach for a blaster or bring his bracer up to fire a toxin dart, he grunted again as he felt his attacker -- humanoid male, he guessed -- land a solid off-hand punch to his midsection, winding him and throwing him off balance. The sharp edge of a crate dug into Theron's back as he was shoved backward by his attacker, his wrist caught in a durasteel grip that prevented him from fighting back. He heard the soft shhhk of a knife being quickly drawn, and was forced to stop trying to fight his way free when he felt the sharp edge against his throat, his heart pounding with barely suppressed fear. Weren't spies supposed to be better at managing their fear and ambushes than this?

His stomach turned to lead when he heard his attacker's low, furious growl. "You have thirty seconds to convince me to not skin you alive, kid." Cipher Nine apparently had decided to track the rogue spy himself, and Theron's mind decided now was a good moment to helpfully remind him of the old man's reputation as a sociopath with a vicious streak a parsec wide. And he was pretty sure the fact that he was the old spy's son-in-law was negated by the fact that he had publicly tried to kill his precious daughter.

Theron grunted in discomfort as he felt Reanden press the knife tighter against his throat. "It was necessary," he whispered, inwardly cringing at how lame his excuse sounded. "Can't say more. Ears."

"One of which you're about to lose," Reanden snarled. Theron could just see the glint of rage in the old man's eyes under his hood. Shit, he’d really overdone it if the older spy was this furious. "Surveillance systems are knocked out for another minute. That's more than enough time for me to make you unidentifiable."

Theron had no doubt the Imperial legend could make him disappear with ease, and tried to not think about the sharp edge of the knife scraping his throat. Wait, if the surveillance systems were disabled… He could only hope Gemini was blind right now. "... How disabled?" he lowly whispered.

"Dead silence for anyone trying to listen." There was definitely a bit of unnecessary emphasis on 'dead', in Theron's opinion.

But he didn't exactly have room or time to voice that opinion. And if Reanden hadn't killed him yet… "Order of Zildrog," he quickly whispered. “They’re working on a plan to kill her, I don't know the details yet. Ask Arcann what he remembers about Vinn Atrius."

"Vinn Atrius…" Reanden lowly muttered the name as he seemed to mentally file the name away. "You've kept your ear, not sure about your hide yet--"

"Say nothing in front of Gemini Prime," Theron urgently hissed. "They know everything." From how Reanden tensed, he guessed that wasn't a threat the old man had considered. "They're tracking her."

"That so?" For a second, Reanden seemed to think about this new information before Theron heard his low growl again. "Thirty seconds are up, kid."

The knife moved from Theron's throat as the hand holding his wrist immobile loosened a smidge. Theron took immediate advantage and twisted his arm sharply, freeing himself to punch the older spy in the side even while ducking away from the sharp blade. He heard Reanden grunt as the old man was knocked off-balance, and felt the prick of the knife on his temple, but didn't pause long enough to hope this blade wasn't poisoned. His only priority was slipping out of the old man's hold and fleeing down the alley, finally drawing his blaster and blindly firing a warning shot behind him. 

He flinched at a return shot whizzing past his ear and hitting the corner of an abandoned storage bay, sparks flying from the impact. But, when he finally made it back to his safehouse, breathing hard and paranoidly looking over his shoulder, there was no sign of Cipher Nine pursuing him. For a second, Theron let himself hope he'd given the old man the slip, and the former Imperial asset hadn't just flipped on his stealth generator to stalk him from the shadows.

Either way, the situation was more perilous. Mek-Sha was compromised. Theron couldn't linger here -- even if the old man didn't come after him directly, it wouldn't be hard for him to get Shara on the asteroid for the hunt, or an Alliance strike team, or even Xaja herself. And Theron knew he couldn't make himself walk away from Xaja again, not after that glimpse of her on Copero. He had to keep moving.

Hope Nine didn't manage to plant a tracker, he grumbled to himself as he swept everything connected to him out of the cramped room he had called a safehouse and made his escape to the docks. The sooner he was in his shuttle and fleeing into the Unknown Regions, the better.

He had to have believed you, he tried to reassure himself as he slipped away into the shadows, flinching at every little noise that he could hear over the sound of his racing heart. Otherwise he wouldn't have missed with that shot, or let you escape. Right?...

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From the shadow cast by a hanging tarp, Reanden watched as his target hurried toward the shuttles, looking terrified despite his best efforts. For a moment, the old spy allowed himself a little smirk: still got it. That reputation he'd built of being a sociopath had taken years to establish -- be a pity to have it wasted on this asshole.

The smirk vanished as he thought about Theron's whispered message. Assuming it was all truth from the younger man, this was some good intel -- and Reanden figured he’d been in the spy business long enough to identify lies and truth. The Order of Zildrog… yes, he'd heard that before. Hylo had managed to intercept a transmission, from Theron himself, mentioning that group. A cult, if he was going to be accurate -- the little bits of intel he'd managed to pull up on them had indicated fanaticism, both in the idolatry of Valkorion's shadow, and a fierce hatred of Xaja and the Alliance. This was confirmation that they were enough to be a serious threat, if Theron was this deeply involved. Infiltration? Investigation? Reanden wasn't sure yet what his son-in-law was up to. But now he had a name to look into -- maybe one of the ringleaders. From the sounds of it, Vinn Atrius had to be Zakuulan -- a former guard for Arcann or Vaylin, or Valkorion himself? Were they behind all the anti-Alliance uprisings that had occurred over the past year or so?

The warning about Gemini Prime made him frown. The droid template had been nonresponsive for months now; it had been assumed that she might have been entirely dead. Reanden felt like kicking himself -- why hadn’t he considered sooner that the droid was a security risk? Had the Order managed to slice into the Gemini systems and pick up intel from there? But how would they have gotten access, with all of the Eternal Fleet currently stationed around Odessen? Maybe they had found something on Iokath? Or maybe there were still ships unaccounted for?

This was giving him a headache. He scowled as Theron's nondescript shuttle fled the docks, hoping the younger spy didn't find the tracker he'd hidden on the vessel earlier; rubbing the bruise over his ribs, he slunk away into the shadows again, mind racing. First order of business was messaging both Korin and Shara to tell them to drop the hunt on this little asteroid, now that their target had escaped. After that, he needed to get back to Odessen and give Xaja this information… and hope his daughter forgave him for not dragging her wayward husband back. If he is infiltrating, capture will get him killed by the cult. Watch and listen. He'll come back up again. His gut instinct was insistent that Theron wasn't legitimately seeking Xaja's death, and so far, his instincts hadn't been wrong before. 

He only hoped he wasn’t going to be proven wrong this time.

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness Chapter 49

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We left Wutai behind weeks ago and sold the horse in Shumi at the same vendor that I'd bought it from with a considerable mark down.

I didn't really care much about that.

Instead I cared about securing an airship in Mistral. Which we did after the train ride from Shumi.

"You're going to be able to fly this thing?"

Neo nodded. Our relationship changed slightly after Wutai. She knew that I wasn't blowing smoke about my origins. She knew I wasn't lying about Mother's control over my mind.

She knew how dead serious I was and a bit more about how fucking crazy I really could be.  

Good.

Don't cross me, Neo. I'm not a man whose bad side you want to be on. Don't believe me, just watch.

We walked out on an air-pad together in Mistral. We climbed aboard our small military freighter together. It was a small ship with the Mistrali cockpit to it and a bit of Atlas inspiration in the geometry of the wings.

She strapped herself into the pilot's seat and bit back a bit of yawn.

I sat back in the cabin and kicked my legs up. I pulled out the little black book we'd gotten from Merlot's laboratory and began to read through it. My new favorite pastime.

There I was, notes on me and how my skeletal structure was forming. Sketches of me at different stages of my development. It was the closest thing I had to a family picture book.

"You know where to be able to land this thing in Solitas?"

She shrugged at the same time she nodded.

"Good. We'll get there and the first thing we'll need is data, not money." This plane had run me a few hundred grand but I still had a few million Lien. A small fortune.

Neo still had all of her money from the last one. I'd run the lion's share of our expenses out of my pockets.

"That means heists regarding the most valuable of commodities."

She gave me a backwards glance as she started the plane up.

"No, not water Neo. Don't be ridiculous."

She rolled her eyes at me.

"Its information. Unfortunately my semblance doesn't give me a million eyes and the ability to hear and see shit across the city. I'm just good at smashing kneecaps. So that's what we'll have to do."

"I want to know what Ironwood is up to. I want to know if there is a maiden in Solitas. I want to know where she is, if she's there. I want to know how she takes her tea or if she drinks coffee. She'll either be summer or winter, because Cinder is fall and spring."

I read through a few notes of how my musculature was tested through dance while I was in the tube. My father hadn't wanted me to know how to fight but needed a way to test my movement. Dancing was good for that while floating in embryonic liquid.

It also gave my nervous system the tests he felt it needed.

The fucking sicko.

Neo held up her scroll at me with some typed words.

"Ice-cream?" I asked, reading aloud. "Sure we can get some when we land. You've more than earned it. We'll find a cafe, get you a sunday if you want."

She gave me a glittering smile and ran through some preflight checks. She flipped a few switches I could only guess the purposes of.

"Yeah yeah you're an old fashioned ice-cream girl. I should have guessed."

I pulled out my pipe. I started to pack it and my mouth watered slightly. Neo turned on the no smoking light in response. I grumbled and stowed the pipe in my pocket again. She just gave me a smug grin.

"This is how you repay me?"

She held her nose.

"Yeah I guess. A bit stuffy in here. Can't exactly open a window, either. I have to wait to smoke and you've got to wait on that ice-cream. Is that it? Fair enough, I suppose."

The bullhead took off with a hovering heave.

I read a little more out of my little black book in Merlot's tight scrawl.

Subject has been implanted with memories of living in the areas surrounding Vale. I avoided giving him memories of nearby locations in the event that he escapes.

That cruel son of a bitch.

He spasms and calls out for his mother. I can only assume he means Salem. It appears she is imparting him with some memories of her own, she does so even as I write and sleep. I should like to find out more. What all she leaves him with in addition to my own vat training creates an unpredictable specimen, however. I fear letting him out of the tank and it's doubtful we could have a reasonable dialogue. I wonder if Salem would pay a price to have him.

It may be a method to acquire more of her cells. A trade of sorts, for this son. She already gave up some cells for inferior Grimm specimens I created. It may just be possible.

At some point the text just ended. With no mention of how I ended up in Vale with a sword or even the falsified huntsman records. I could only guess at how that happened. Salem claimed to have had a bit of role in that. Making sure I infiltrated Beacon and was on my way with Ozpin none the wiser but I was no closer to figuring out how she'd done it.

Perhaps she took Merlot up when he tried to sell me back to her and used yet another of her agents. It was unclear.

What was clear was that I was a bit of a mess. A bunch of accidents had created me and left me in the state that Merlot had dubbed a partial failure. Salem had been poisoning my mind before I left the womb, so to speak. It was possible she continued to poison me in my dreams now.

And with that terrifying thought I closed the book and tried to get some shut-eye as the plane flew.

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We landed in Solitas in the depths of a pine subarctic forest. Neo put us down in a clearing and the plan was to hitch a short ride to Mantle by train or car in a nearby township.

It was the borders of Solitas that were closed so now that we were on the northern continent I didn't expect that we'd encounter resistance to our arrival.

"You're not wanted here, are you?"

Neo shrugged.

I took that as meaning, 'if anyone recognizes me.' So probably no more than in Mistral. We'd walked around pretty freely down there so, again, I didn't expect much trouble.

"You've got disguises on you, too, though." She rolled her eyes and they turned green and her hair switched to black before they all shifted back to their natural colors.

I nodded and set about unfolding a tarp over the top of the airship to protect it from the elements. We couldn't exactly get it close to the city without alerting Atlesian air-control to our presence.

Neo was mute and couldn't respond to air traffic controllers and we didn't know the appropriate communication codes to fly into the airspace, besides.

The whole place was in a state of lockdown, unlike Mistral and Vale, and they'd probably shoot us down if we didn't skirt the edges. I'd been worried a patrol might head us off and start shooting at us even as far away as we'd flown.

I tied the tarp tight over the ship with bungee-cords and refueled it from the dust supply we'd brought in the back of the ship. It took powdered burn, and a hefty amount of it too but we couldn't exactly refuel around here.

It took us a bit of a hike to get to the nearest township, Senew, we'd had to land far enough away that no one could have seen us.

I marked the place we landed on the map on my scroll so we wouldn't lose the airship. It would be hard to find again unless we knew where to look. And that's assuming it didn't get buried under snow in the meantime.

I marched through the snow drifts. My clothes which had been a stray too hot down in Mistral under all my armor were more at home here. The thick cape didn't help with getting through the drifts but my boots were key.

Neo had to step along through my foot prints, following me. She was short enough that I was worried I might lose her if she had to mark her own trail. I had to resist the urge to laugh at her tiny form as she struggled through the snow, something I knew she wouldn't take well.

I lit my pipe and eventually we made our way to Senew.

I found a small cafe and ordered Neo ice-cream, just as I'd promised her. I wasn't sure if she'd change her mind because of the cold weather but she seemed content with her selection. It couldn't have been a popular order in this cold. She deserved a treat after flying all the way here and then hiking a few kilometers in the snow, though. I ordered a hot coffee and we sat together in the cafe.

"Are you sure you won't be cold?"

She nodded.

"It's just that you're so small. And your ice-cream is so large." It was a decently sized sunday topped with a banana and hot fudge. I suppose that the hot fudge might help with the cold.

She kicked me under the table.

"It's adorable."

She kicked me again.

"Alright, alright. It's not adorable."

She glowered.

"I just can't win with you, can I, Neo?"

She gave me a look that said 'you're not even trying to win with me.'

"Fair enough. So this is Solitas. Looks bleak."

I listened to the wind through the window of the cafe. It was howling. It might whip itself up into a blizzard and I didn't want to be caught up in that.

"Do you think things will be better in Mantle?"

Neo shook her head.

"So it's pretty desolate there, too."

Neo nodded.

"You've been? Well once we're there we'll need to narrow down our search for the maiden. Probably in Atlas, at a guess. Probably in a bunker if Ironwood has his way."

Neo nodded and took a bite of ice-cream.

"But bunkers don't much matter to you, do they Neo? We'll find her. Even if we have to break into every bunker in Atlas."

I was tempted to light my pipe again but there was a man near the Cafe's bar wiping down tables and I didn't want to do anything noticeably illegal within the first few hours of landing here. Mary Jane was a prohibited substance all across Remnant and the cafe probably had rules about smoking and I didn't want to be thrown out, at least not before Neo had finished her ice-cream.

“Come to me, child…”

The wind whispered and with it came a cruel voice.

“My child. My little puppet. You will bring me the relic.”

My hand fell to my side and patted the relic where it hung. It still had two questions left. I considered using them on Cinder's whereabouts. Or that of the remaining maidens.

I had so many options. So many questions. I'd only ever get two more answered. There were so many secrets about my own life I'd never get answers to if only due to the opportunity cost of only getting any two answered.

And that was if I didn't ask about the maidens. Or Cinder. Or Ozma. I knew so little. Perhaps I was just a puppet with Salem pulling the strings.

The hidden truths about how I came to be in Vale alone held a dozen questions. Why had she sent me to Vale. How had she done so? Where was Merlot now? Where were my sisters? How had they come to be?

On instinct I'd burned one of my questions because I needed to know how to deal with Salem. I had a loose plan for that. Destroy her body so completely that she could never reform. Scatter her remains across this world such that she'd never take possession with her feet ever again, let alone her mind. The relic had indicated that such a thing was indeed possible. I just needed to get close enough to do it.

It took me forever to muscle up the courage to use the thing. Even looking at it reminded me of Ren and Nora and what I'd done to them. It felt wrong for me to be the one using the questions for that reason. Once I'd cleared my mind of the bloodlust I had only one choice in moving forward. To use the relic. So I did. And I'd burnt one of my valuable questions.

I could ask how to resist her commands so that I could actually strike at her without her dominating my mind. I could ask how else I might be able to defeat her. There were so many options. So many choices. I found myself paralyzed by the sheer number of them.

And I had only two left.

Finding out Salem was immortal had been a kick in the gut. But it wasn't so bad knowing that she could still be stopped. Still be delayed. I could still shut her down. She could be wounded.

And like a god of a myth of old, if I scattered her pieces fine enough, she would never return to power. It was just a question of breaking her hold over me. I couldn't cut her into bits if she controlled my thoughts.

So what questions should I ask the relic? Should I even ask it anything? A good question, one I'd ironically like the relic to answer.

I could also ask about the other donor who'd created me. My surrogate. It was a mystery I may never have the answer to any other way.

I sighed and stood up, I slammed back my coffee. Neo was finished eating and I had a train to catch.

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We took the train ride into the city. I watched Atlas loom overhead. A giant rock with engines dangling beneath. The gondolas and their cables stretched to the upper city like a spider's web. Hovercraft swarmed the floating rock. All in Atlesian design and bearing Atlas' colors.

I knew a little of the place's history. How Atlas had been set up above the city of Mantle. I know about how some had been left behind.

The lower city was dirty. It was mostly a giant slum with buildings pacted too close together for comfort. I looked out the window as we rode in on the place. I imagined a lot of people worked in the upper city and commuted there each day from down here.

The cobbled streets were packed with vendors in a way that reminded me a little of Mistral's middle and lower levels.

It must be hard to see such affluence then to come back down here day in and day out.

There was a quiet resentment to the place. Angry about the rock that hung above. A constant reminder of haves and have-nots.

We shuttled past a dust mine in the middle of the city. A large open-pit thing that seemed to threaten hunger. As though on a bad day it might stretch it's maw wide and swallow the place whole.

I only caught a narrow look as we bulleted past the famous dust mines of Mantle. It looked like the kind of place no one would choose to work in. It was about needs.

There were faunus every which way you looked. The racial segregation couldn't have been more prominent any where else in the world. The upper city, that's for humans, the lower city, that's for faunus. A clear dividing marker to segregate the two based on economic strata now, and social strata in the past.

My life might be a total piece of shit but hey, at least I wasn't a dust miner.

"Come on Neo. Let's find a place to stay."

We found a small motel willing to put up with us. They managed to keep it clear of the soot of the mines. There was a grime to the air which only heavy machinery spinning into the earth could throw up. I imagined how clean and fresh the air in the city above must feel. I imagined trying to raise children in a place like this. I promptly stopped.

I was just making myself depressed and pointlessly. There were real things in my life about this city that should make me depressed. I needed to find a branch of the Malachite or a rival gang organization.  

It was at times like these that, let me tell you, I got the White Fang. Their purpose was a noble one from the sight of the Mantle slums. I could see how and why the Fang were born when I looked out a window here.

"Let's take a tram up."

The upper city couldn't have been more different. It was also built down into the rock it floated on. Atlas Academy, I could see it from our gondola, had windows looking down and out over the wastes. They were dug into the mountainous slab.

There were also taller buildings which stretched upwards. Giving the illusion of some sort of man-made crystal, hewn from a different kind of rock. The city was a geode. Building upwards and downwards into the dull mound.

We landed and made our way off the gondola. We were surrounded by Mantleans working clerking jobs in the upper city. We stood out a little as hunters but only a little. We were given second glances but they were only that.

"I'm not sure I like it here. I think I prefer Mistral to Atlas." I told Neo. I watched busybodies bustle. "At least in Mistral they don't pretend that the lower floors are part of a different city."

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-WG

[mar04isdead]

Freaks But Family

Read chapter 1 here

Chapter 2: The Tutor

So you're back, took a while but you're back, welcome to the real start of all of this. So far as of now in the story, we are jumping a half of a year. This is the middle of the group's sophomore year, how Kayla, Alyssa, and Immanuel found out about everything is a story for another time. 

  "Mom, for the last time, I do not need a math tutor! Sure I have below a fifty, but I'll bring it up in a few days." Favion complains to his mother while she's behind the register.  

His mom slams the register shut, "No, I need you to have that grade up and soon. I will not allow you to keep working for your uncle if it stays below a seventy." She wipes her hands on her apron and heads to the back of the kitchen. 

Favion hits his head on the display case, "Mom, you said I could have Megan over. But I have to do tutoring? Mom, can we call the tutor and have them over tomorrow, please I am begging you." Favion makes his way around to the back so he can bother his mother.

"I said no, now go upstairs and clean your room. She'll be here in five minutes." His mother points to the stairs and Favion admits defeat and heads to his room.

Favion's father shakes his head, "I know he loves his job, but he needs to pass his math class. It's his sophomore year and he needs to pass."

"It took me awhile to find this tutor, she can help him. He knows her, she knows how to deal with him." Favion's mother puts on some oven mitts and checks the cookies in the oven. 

The bell above the door in the store rings. Mrs. Freeman heads up front to meet the tutor. 

"Hi, Mrs. Freeman! It's nice to see you again." Maria walks up to the register and shakes hands with Mrs. Freeman.

The last time Mrs. Freeman saw Maria, Maria had long black hair that touched her waist, now it is in a pixie cut with red streaks. Maria now wears glasses and her heterochromia eyes seem to have brightened. Her vitiligo has spread to patches on her arms, streaks on her neck, and blotches on her cheeks. Her freckles still stand out and she has grown a bit. She wears a black band tee with a red flannel shirt over it, black skinny jeans, and knee high converse. 

"You remember my name girly, go on say it." Mrs. Freeman encourages Maria.

Maria chuckles, "Good to see you again, Chantel. I heard that you had a baby, how is she?"

Chantel smiles, "She's a heavy sleeper which is good, she's already better than how Favion was as a baby." That causes both females to laugh.

"Oh yeah, I remember how he was. How is he anyways, I haven't seen him in years." Maria says.

Chantel nods, "He's up in his room, he doesn't know you're his tutor. Oh," She grabs a paper bag from the side of the register and opens the display case and get's a few cookies. "I remember how much you like these." She hands the paper bag to Maria.

"Thank you, you're right I do like these. No one can make these better than you." Maria accepts the bag.

 "You head on upstairs, poor boy needs help. He's failing math horribly, his uncle won't allow him to continue working until he gets his grade up." Chantel motions for Maria to follow her. "He's been failing since he started dating Megan, that and work, he's all over the place."

Maria sighs, "Yeah, he hasn't talked to the others at all after I left. Don't worry I'll make sure he gets that grade up." 

Chantel stops them at a door, "Thank you." she knocks on the door and the door opens, revealing Favion. "Favion, this is your tutor and old friend, Maria. That grade better be up soon." Chantel leaves to open the store. 

Favion hasn't really changed a bit, same short frizzy and curly hair. His skin the perfect mix of his mother and father's, a chocolate brown and pale white. His eyes are a dull brown and he has gained at least another foot in height. He seems to still wear what he always wore, a grey sweatshirt, faded blue jeans, and black sneakers. 

Favion frowns at Maria, "Five years later and now you show up?" 

Maria glares, "Nice to see you too, dipshit. I'm only here because you need to pass math, and by how major your mom makes your work with your uncle seem, you really need help." She pushes past him and goes into his room.

"I'm not failing, my grade is just low." He counters.

"I checked your grade in the system. You have below a fifty, how the heck is that possible?" Maria questions him. 

"I do the work, I just turn it in late." He argues.

She scoffs, "Like I said I saw it in the system, you don't do it. This semester's finals are in two weeks. Which means I have those weeks to help you suck up whatever crap is going on in your head, and get that grade up." She looks around the room. "Weird, you went back to that twin sized bed."

Favion chuckles, "I think that curse you gave me when we were eight, that may have been true."

Maria smiles, "That was years ago, still can't believe you remember that." 

He rubs the back of his neck, "I remember a lot, I've actually been back to the tree a few times. I haven't seen you there."

"Doesn't matter, I'm here to do my job. So I have some worksheets that will let me know what I do need to help you with." She digs through her book bag and pulls out a packet. 

"This," he snatches the packet from her hand, "This is a worksheet? This is an entire week's worth of work." He complains.

 Maria snatches the packet back, "Work you should already be doing! Now, you are going to do this and I will be timing you. You have half an hour and after that I will check it over and then we will go over what you need to relearn." She hands it back to him. "Now do it, half an hour starts now."

Surprisingly, Favion finished the work in under ten minutes. When Maria checked it, she was totally shocked. He got everything right, so why was he failing his class?

"This comes easy to you, I remember that in fifth grade, you always finished the test first and you got the highest score on the Georgia Milestones! So why when even this work comes easy to you, you just don't turn in your work?" She wonders, flipping through the packet. 

Favion shrugs, "I just never felt like it, I always have other things to do. Can we hurry this up, I'm having someone over soon."

Maria smiles mischievously, "Oh Megan Brown right, that girl that cheated on you at the football game last night?" 

Favion's eyes widen, "How... how did you know that? How the heck, how did you know that?" Favion stands up and glares at Maria, "We didn't tell anyone about it, how did you know?"

Maria shrugs, "Well I have to go," She stands up and collects her things. "Been nice seeing you after five years, you were one of the reasons I came back." She frowns and leaves the room. 

Maria returns downstairs and begins to talk with Mrs. Freeman.

"He's good at his work, he can do it, he just doesn't want to. I have no idea what makes not want to do it, and I understand that he does a lot of work for his uncle, but why won't he?" Mrs. Freeman asks.

Maria shakes her head, "I honestly couldn't tell you. He was hard working, and in a way he still is. I'll try to drill it back into him to get him back on track."

The bell above the door rings signaling someone has arrived. 

"Hi, Mrs. Freeman. It's nice to see you again!" A girl says once she steps inside. She's tall with light brown hair and caramel eyes. She has soft tan skin and she's wearing a black crop top, blue jeans, and black sneakers. 

Maria notices how Chantel puts on a fake smile, "Oh, it's nice to see you, Megan. Favion is upstairs." 

Megan smiles but looks over to Maria, "Who's this?" 

"I'm one of Favion's old friends. I just came over to visit." Maria responds and turns back to Chantel. "I'll be back whenever he needs me, just give me a call. It was nice to be back here, Chantel." Maria puts her book bag on and gets up from her seat.

"Hey, Maria? Do you know how long it will take for him to get back on track?" Chantel ask.

Maria shakes her head, "Hard to say, but I promise that at this rate you will be seeing more of me. Oh, are y'all still open on Sunday's?" 

Chantel smiles, "Of course we are, you planning on coming over with your family?"

"Yup, we haven't had your baking in a while. It would be good nostalgia for us, plus no one makes pastel de mil hojas better than you. See you tomorrow!" Maria waves and walks out of the door.

"So, I'm going to head upstairs. I'll see you later, Mrs. Freeman." Megan smiles at Chantel before going behind the counter and going upstairs.

  "What are our numbers?" Rose asks Alyssa while looking at the monitor. 

Alyssa starts to type on the keyboard and pulls up a graph, "We are behind by a few thousand, Maria is making up for them right now. Oh, and Immanuel should be done with that new tech for her staff. We'll upgrade it when she gets back."

Rose frowns, "What upgrade?"

"Her shadow and death powers!" Immanuel shouts from behind a curtain. "It's just to prevent it from draining her energy quickly," He explains.

"Oh yeah, that. Esme is still trying to figure out how to fix up the dome for those abilities. her great grandmother left all sorts of notes on how to upgrade the dome for all of the abilities, but nothing for shadows and death." Rose walks over to Immanuel's station to see what he is doing.

Immanuel sets down his tools to look at Rose. "This thing will just act like a storage space, she can keep her abilities in here for later use so that it's ready when she needs it." Immanuel sighs, "But the thing is, we still haven't cracked how to deal with her shadow and death abilities. And what we do have only lasts for mere minutes." 

Kayla comes from around the corner with a paper in her hands, "New formula that I've been working on with Esme. This should work to extend the containment time, try this. We'll try it on the dome tomorrow, Esme is upgrading it right now." Kayla hands Immanuel the paper, "Oh and Maria will be back in two minutes so to your positions."

All four of them start to clear the center of the room, they set down a large tarp, and begin to wait and watch the ceiling. After a few seconds a circular hole with multi colored edges forms in the ceiling, stacks and stacks of money start to fall through it. After a while the money stops and they start to hear laughter and sirens. Soon Maria is falling down from the ceiling and lands on the money pile. Her shoelaces have come undone, her hoodie is a bit singed, her goggles are on her forehead, and her face is covered in soot.

"Babe, what did you do?" Rose asks Maria helping her down from the pile.

Maria stumbles into Rose's arms, "May have set a small fire." She raises a hand to the ceiling and the portal closes and the ring that made it falls down into Maria's hand.

Kayla brings Maria a bottle of blood, "It's bear blood, and by what I can tell," She looks Maria up and down. "It was not a small fire." 

Maria places the ring back on her back and takes the bottle from Kayla, "Thanks," she starts to drink. "And it was meant to be small, dumb Liberator just made it spread." She downs the rest of the bottle, "I needed that, tomorrow Rose and me will get some kids out of the homes, you three will be handing out the money we already have to the listed families." 

"Okay, we'll get to separating the money. Rose checks her over, to make sure she isn't severely hurt." Alyssa instructs, she grabs her partners from their hands and drags them to get what they need to count the money.

Rose helps Maria to sit down and check over her injuries, "Shirt off babe." 

Maria groans, takes off her goggles, and reluctantly takes off her short sleeve hoodie, throws it to the side, then her long sleeve shirt, and then throws that to the side. Her usual green and tan scales now have a tint of red and pink.

"Alyssa was right, you got burned a bit. Was that fire really necessary, you got real hurt, and aren't you immune to fire?" Rose looks over Maria's burns.

"I wasn't concentrated, I'm sorry. And like I said, that Liberator dude made it spread. It was supposed to be just a small wall but he came along and tried to blow it out. And-OH FUCK!" Maria suddenly shouts. 

"Sorry, you were distracted so I took the chance." Rose has a rag with some aloe vera on it on her scales. "I know it hurts but it'll sooth the burns. Your scales are tough, you're lucky you're not burned where your legs come out of." Rose rubs Maria's back.

Maria stares, at her girlfriend wide eyed and in shock, "A little warning next time!" 

Rose smiles, "Again sorry, but it's not that bad. And when we get home your cousins are going to chew you out for this." She kisses Maria's cheek.

"Yeah, are you done yet?" Maria looks down at Rose who starts to wrap gauze around the burns to keep them from getting infected. 

"You're good, just try not to cause fires next time." Rose helps Maria to stand up and they walk over to the others.

"How much do we have now?" Maria looks over the money.

"We are actually above quota. We might just be able to give each family a little extra." Kayla shows Maria a notepad with the math.

"That's good, we have been a bit behind." Maria starts to lean a bit more on Rose. "Okay, once this is all done we can all go home. I'm just gonna go change." Maria pushes herself away from Rose, walks over to where she left her bag, and goes behind one of the many curtains they have.

"How injured is she?" Immanuel asks Rose.

Rose sighs, "Not too bad, just some burns on her scales. It'll take a while for it to heal considering how thick and strong her scales are."

Alyssa chuckles, "Esme is going to kill her when she sees the burns."

"I heard that." Maria interrupts them, walking over to them while adjusting her glasses. "I'll heal, and training is tomorrow afternoon so i'll be fine by then."

Immanuel finishes putting the last bit of the money away, "Okay, that's it. We can all go home now."

Everyone gives a half hearted cheer and start to pack their things. After everything is cleaned up, they close all doors and lock up everything valuable. Once that is done, Maria takes the ring off of her back and uses it to open a portal. Everyone hops through it, landing them in an alley. 

Maria stumbles over again, "That last one drained me, I need to sleep. What time is it?" she ask.

Rose puts an arm around Maria's waist to keep her from falling over, "It's like one in the morning. We're on our way home, don't worry." Rose turns to the others, "See y'all in the afternoon."

   "Oh my, there are so many of you!" Chantel greets the Alebrije-Gonzalez family when they enter the bakery.

Maria giggles, "Yeah, our family expanded a bit from the last time you saw us all." she gestures to the toddler on her hip and to the girl holding her hand.

Chantel smiles, "I know everyone but these two. So, please introduce me."

"Of course, youngest of us, Mike." Maria bounces the baby on her hip. "And this is my girlfriend, Rose." she nudges at Rose.

"Well, seeing all of you again is great. And just like last time, ask if there is something you are looking for. We still have all the baked goods you introduced us to." Chantel let's the family roam around the bakery and pick what they want. 

Maria is with her little cousin Mike, squatting down next to him while he looks at cookies in the display case. 

"I don't remember this one." a voice says from above them.

Maria looks up to see Favion, but with a pink apron on.

Maria smiles smugly, "I don't remember you working here. This one's new, hasn't been around long." She blows a raspberry into Mike's cheek.

Favion smiles, "Has he ever tried these?" He points to some sugar cookies that have faces on them made of jam.

Mike starts to laugh and clap his hands. Maria chuckles, "I guess he wants to try it."

"Here's a sample," Favion hands Maria a sample of the cookie and she gives it to Mike.

The baby happily takes it and starts to nibble on it. After a few bites, his eyes light up and he starts to clap his hands again.

"He likes it!" Maria makes a happy face for the baby. "We'll get you some."

Favion smiles down at the baby, "So, what's his name?"

"Mike," Maria responds, standing up and putting Mike back on her hip. "He's been with us since he was born." 

"He's cute, freckles all over just like the rest of you." Favion reaches over and taps the little boy's nose. "Weirdly enough, she doesn't have them. Is she related to y'all?"

Maria laughs, "No, that'd be weird. She's my girlfriend, kind of weird to be related to my girlfriend." Maria has a small blush across her cheeks.

Favion's smile turns into a frown, "Girl-girlfriend... girlfriend? You have a, a ummm... girlfriend? When did that happen?" He ask.

Maria scrunches her face in thought, "Three years in about a month." 

Esme calls Maria over, "Almost time to go, do you have what you want?" 

"Yeah, just five of those Favion, thanks." Maria points to the cookies before walking to her girlfriend. 

Esme goes to the register where Chantel is waiting for her with their purchases. Favion just stands behind the display case watching as Maria holds hands with that girl.

Just as the family is gathering to leave Chantel stops Maria, "You'll be back tomorrow to keep tutoring Favion right?"

Maria smiles, "Yup, and he better be able to do his work from now on. Oh, actually me and the others have study groups every Monday. He can join us, that way he can interact with others."

  Maria is put in the dome again for training, this time testing several other formulas that may be able to stop her shadow and death abilities.

"Nope, try again." Maria drags herself out of the dome while Esme starts to fix it. 

Esme hits her screwdriver against the dome, "I don't get it! I have tried everything in her notes, everything I could think of! And why does it not work?" 

Liam puts a hand on Esme's shoulder, "Calm down, I get it we've tried everything. But we can still keep looking." Liam looks over at Maria who is sitting down with her shirt off and drinking water. "We just want to help her, we all want to help her. But we need to give it some time, let's try to train these abilities instead of locking them up."

Esme sighs in defeat, "Okay, you're right. Maria, get Rose down here we are testing you both in gymnastics."

Maria chugs the rest of her water, "Okay." she gets out of her seat and goes upstairs.

"I honestly can't help but worry, we know nothing about her new abilities. If something goes wrong, it goes wrong and we won't have any help in fixing it." Esme packs up her tool box.

"I know, I'm just as scared as you are. But we need to let her train with more room than being stuck in a glass prison. That makes us no better than the people who used her for research." Liam walks over to the computer. "We have to find a secluded and open space for her to train. Somewhere she can train all of her abilities."

"I can only think of one place, the temples. That's the root of all our abilities. She'd become stronger." Esme rubs her eyes, "But we can't risk the journey."

"Can't risk the journey to where?" Maria asks, popping up from behind Esme.

"Ahhh! Where did you come from?" Liam asks.

Rose doubles over while holding her stomach, "Your shadow, that was some weird Percy Jackson crap."

"Well you better get it together because Maria is ahead of you in gymnastics. You have to catch up." Esme get's a clipboard and starts to write on it. "Let's see how you are with splits."

Maria cheers and Rose groans.

  "Here's the list, make sure you give them the extra too. We're going to check the foster homes." Rose hands Alyssa a notepad. "So everyone suit up and then on your way." 

They all split up into their groups and get the things they need. 

"Here," Maria tosses each of them an earpiece. "Courtesy of Esme, so we can talk even though we are on different sides of town." 

"No phones, no way for that Liberator to track us." Immanuel smiles.

Rose frowns, "We better not run into him. We would have helped all those kids if he hadn't but in last week."

Maria rings out the ring on her back, pushes a button on the rod in the middle, and splits it into two, opening two portals. "Alright, you three on the left. Me and Rose on the right." 

Everyone jumps through their respected portals and starts their missions. It takes a full three hours for all of them to finish their assignments. Maria and Rose finish a bit early, but they have a run in.

"There's no reasoning with him is there?" Maria asks Rose while blasting at Liberator.

"Nope, he's just a thick headed dipshit!" Rose binds Liberator down with vines.

Liberator struggles against the vines, "You're kidnapping kids! What reasoning is there?"

Maria starts to use shadows to add more restraints, "You're really getting on my nerves dude. We don't kidnap them."

Liberator looks at both girls with sadness, "You could be doing so much better. Why are you doing this, you were both taken care of at the research center. They took good care of you both."

At the mention of the center, Maria gets angry and holds one of her blades to his face. 

"How do you know about that place?" Rose asks, tightening the vines. 

Liberator smiles, "Thorn, Madness, she sent me to help you both. Your caretaker, she wants you both back."

"That's her side of the story, you don't know ours!" Maria pushes the blade onto his throat, revealing a small bit of blood.

Liberator glares at Rose, "How can you trust her, she can turn her back on you any minute."

Rose smiles, "I trust her, love her too much not too."

"Babe, time for us to go." Maria lowers her staff and opens a portal.

Rose jumps into the portal while still holding Liberator in the vines. Before Maria jumps through she glares at Liberator.

"Favion, when we first meet, you wanted nothing to do with this job. Now that me and Thorn are almost done with our work, now you care." Maria's eyes glint with mischief behind her goggles. She smiles one last time before jumping through the portal herself.

  "What do you mean she knew your name?" Favion's uncle shouts at him. 

"I don't know, it's like she read my mind." Favion takes off his mask and throws it to the side.  "None of the tech they have can help them with that. There is just no way." He walks over to a monitor and pulls a keyboard from behind it. "One thing I know about Madness' appearance is that she has vitiligo and heterochromia."

Favion's uncle rolls his eyes, "Yes, that was what Dr. Gomez said. She was in charge of Madness and Thorn for a while. She has more on them than anyone." 

"Yeah, these are the records of all the teenage females who fit that description. Only five, so one of these is Madness." Favion points out on the monitor.  

"Look at that," his uncle points to a name. "Maria Alebrije-Gonzalez, old friend of yours."

Favion shakes his head, "Uncle no, can't be her. She was in boarding school until freshman year."

"Are we sure about them, a few months after she leaves, two villains appear in the city. And the only person your parents can find to tutor you, is your old friend." he reasons. "You know I remember her when y'all were younger. She was real nice, but something always seemed off about her."

Favion glares at his uncle, "Well we have it narrowed down for now. Next time i'll see what I can do."

  "Are we sure we want him here, he hasn't talked to us in years." Immanuel complains. 

Kayla sits down on Immanuel's left side, "He's right, half of us are gay now!"

"True, and what are we supposed to do? He has ignored us, played around with so many girls, and now we have to help him pass his class?" Alyssa lays herself across her partners' laps.

"I say we let him fail." Rose suggests putting an arm around Maria.

"As much as I want him to fail, I am getting paid for my efforts." Maria lightly pushes Rose. 

Alyssa groans, "So, the solution is to invite him to our weekly study groups. The same ones where we plan a heist."

The doorbell rings signaling that someone has arrived. "My house guys, let's keep the heist out of it for now." Maria walks to the door to open it.

"Hi, nice to see you again." Favions says when Maria opens the door. "Are the others okay with me being here?" He as9k.

"Fuck no, we're not!" Rose yells from the inside.

"Babe, suck it up!" Maria shouts back. "Sorry about that," She quickly puts on a smile for Favion. "Come on in, ignore the idiots."

Favion follows Maria inside the house and into the living room. Favion notices how his three old friends are very close together. And Rose sitting next to them glaring at him.

"Say hi dipshits," Maria glares at her friends. 

They all mumble a hello under their breaths, none of them looking Favion in the eyes. 

Favion points to his three old friends, "Are you guys dating?"

The three of them look at each other before responding. "Yeah."

Favion's face morphs into a giant smile, "Finally, since when? How long did it take?"

Alyssa shrugs, "Freshman year, we had to literally sit down and make a paper of terms and conditions."

Favion looks over at Maria, "Did they really?"

"Yeah, I wasn't there but I have been told." Maria walks over to Rose and sits in her lap.

"So, are we supposed to just do homework?" Favion asks, setting down his bag.

Immanuel nods, "Yeah, but we really don't have homework. We're just here to help you so Maria doesn't have to suffer."

"I'm not that problematic." Favion mumbles.

"Yes you are!" Maria, Immanuel, Alyssa, and Kayla counter.

"That one time doesn't count!" Favion shouts and hides his head in his hands.

Rose lanes forward looking around Maria, "Now I'm curious, what was this one time?"

Maria laughs and puts an arm around Rose, "One time Favion was so desperate for attention, he gets on the fire escape outside his room. And then he jumps off of it, it was so sudden we as kids forgot that there was another fire escape underneath that."

"We genuinely thought he jumped and died. We were screaming, it got his mom's attention. When we told her what happened, this fucker decided to climb back the fire escape!" Alyssa points at Favion who is laying on the floor in shame. "Your mom was so mad!"

"I was grounded for a month! I actually thought y'all knew there was another fire escape!" Favion complains.

Immanuel chuckles, "Okay, let's help you with your work. We have somewhere to be after this."

  "Maria, just give us your fangs!" Sam chases after Maria who has stuck herself to the ceiling. "We are just checking venom!"

Maria shoots webbing at Sam, "Just because you're a dentist, does not mean you know what you're doing when it comes to animals!"

Sam sighs and sits down, "Rose, she's your girlfriend, you get her down from there."

"Why me, last time I got near her fangs, I almost died." Rose complains.

Maria slowly comes down from the ceiling using her webbing, like Spider-Man. "Babe, you know I would never hurt you." She says with a sweet voice, yet with a sense of annoyance in it. "If you try anything near my fangs, I will not hesitate to poison you causing you to die." 

Rose's eyes widen and she takes a few steps back. This causes Maria to laugh maniacally.

"Just kidding!" Maria leans forward and plants a kiss on Rose's cheek. "I love you, just stay away!"

"Maria, we seriously need you to show us your fangs so we can check them. Esme will be looking over the venom and then I have to make sure you can still use them to drink blood and eat." Sam reaches a hand out to Maria.

Maria makes a swing with her webbing and swings back and forth, "Do I really have to?"

"Babe please, we can't kiss until we see how poisons your venom is. So if you come down and let your family see what it is, I'll give you kisses." Rose looks up at Maria. 

Maria rolls her eyes and jumps down from the ceiling, landing on her feet. "I still have training after this! I don't want to be shifting back and forth too much." She walks over to the examination table and jumps on. 

"Okay, open up. I'll get samples and then look over your teeth." Sam grabs some of her equipment and starts to gather samples of venom from Maria. "The twins were better at cooperating than you." She mumbles under her breath.

  "This is new tech that we will need you to test next time you go out." Favion's uncle puts a small black circular object, no bigger than his fingernail, into Favion's palm.

Favion brings it closer to his face to get a closer look, "What is this supposed to do? Who made it?"

"Dr. Gomez, it's supposed to stop those abilities. The only thing we know those two have are telekinesis from Madness, and Thorn has control over plants. Dr. Gomez is trying to create some tech for you that can transmit an EMP. All those other things Madness does is because of tech. Shuts down Madness' tech, both hers and Thorn's abilities, and you can beat them both." His uncle points to the small device in Favion's palm.

"Are we even sure that it works, how do we even test this?" Favion questions and gives it back to his uncle. 

His uncle smiles, "Test it right in the field. If something happens, it happens. We want them gone in the end don't we?"

"Well, Dr. Gomez wants them both alive. Why, none of us know." Favion walks back over to the computer monitor and pulls out the keyboard from behind. "Madness is Hispanic, I know because she spoke fluent Spanish." 

Favion starts to type into the keyboard. It takes a while for the files to load, and to both male's surprise, there are no results.

"This can't be right!" Favion tries to check for any spelling errors. "How is this possible?"

Favion's uncle shrugs, "I don't get why you're not happy about this."

"But it's weird, Maria is a Hispanic, teenage female, with vitiligo, and heterochromia! So how did she not she up, I know she can't be Madness but still, she would have shown up." Favion keeps trying to look through the files. 

"Didn't she immigrate here, so why would they put Hispanic on any of her records?" his uncle ask.

Favion slams the keyboard down, "It has always been on her records!" 

"That does not sound creepy at all." Favion's uncle mumbles sarcastically. 

Favion glares at his uncle, "Watch it, Damion."

  "Let me see that test grade." Chantel says the minute Favion get's home from school.

"I tried, I actually tried this time." Favion hands over the paper to his mom while taking his baby sister from her. "Hi, Alijah. Have a cookie." Favion takes a cookie from the display case and hands it to his sister.

Chantel smiles at Favion when she is done looking at the paper, "This is good, just about one more week of this before finals. Why did you give your sister a cookie?"

Favion slowly takes the cookie back from his sister, "She wanted it."

Chantel shakes her head at Favion, gives him back his paper, and takes his sister back from him. "Go help your father up front. This one needs a nap."

Favion nods and drops his things off by the stairs. He heads upfront to help his dad, he gets an apron off one of the hooks on the wall, and puts it on. He heads to the register to ring up customers. And a bit before closing while he is handing a customer change, Maria and Rose walk in hand in hand.

 "Hey you two, what can I help you with?" He asks as he waves to the customer.

"It's the twin's birthday today and we ordered a cake. Your dad just called us, said we can pick it up now." Maria gestures to the back.

Favion nods, "Sure just give me a minute, I'll ask mom about it.'' He heads to the back to talk to his mom. "Mom, Maria is here to pick up her cake."

"Oh, yeah it's ready. Let me get it." Chantel walks over to an industrial fridge and pulls out a round cake. 

She places it on the counter, gets a box, and puts the cake in the box. She picks it up off the counter and heads up to the front. 

"Hi you two! Your cousin already paid for it, you're free to go. Tell the twins I said happy birthday!" Chantel hands the cake to Rose and gives her and Maria a hug.

Rose smiles, "Thanks Chantel, we'll tell them." She and Maria wave as they leave the bakery.

Chantel waves back as the door closes and looks to her son, "Still miss her?"

Favion sighs as he puts his apron up, "Yeah, she's not the same girl from when we were kids."

Chantel pats his back, "I don't mean this is a bad way, honey really. But it's not like you even stood a chance, if it wasn't obvious when you were younger, she is only into girls."

Favion hits his head on the display case, "I should have done something earlier."

"Well you couldn't, but it wouldn't hurt to let those feelings go." Chantel heads back into the kitchen with Favion. 

"And how exactly will I let those feelings go?" Favion questions his mother. 

"By telling her." His dad comes from around the corner with his daughter in his arms. "When was the last time you had a real heart to heart with that girl?"

Favion shrugs, "I think when we were ten, when she left. But c'mon, she has a girlfriend. We just started talking again I don't want to mess up again."

"Well, it's obvious you still have feelings. It will soon be time to face the music." His dad shakes his head.

Favion nods, "I'll try, i'll try my best."

 Soooooo...what do you think? Will this is still barely nothing of the whole story. There is still a lot to be revealed. Things will get rough soon, but don't fret, you'll find out some things as we go. See you soon friend, that is if you are willing to stick around.

[fandom-necromancer]

1247. If we get caught, you’re deaf and I don’t understand the language.

This was prompted by an awesome anon! I really didn’t think I would enjoy writing this ship so much! I hope you do, too!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Gavin/Leo

Gavin walked out of the kitchen, rubbing his hands dry on his sweatpants from finally doing their long overdue dishes. He was looking for his partner and found him on the couch staring at the wall. ‘Hey, Leo, what are you thinking about?’, he chuckled, waving his hand up and down in front of his face. The man jerked into awareness, looked up at him and shrugged, a bit embarrassed. Gavin expected to hear a quick ‘nothing’ from him, but Leo actually answered him: ‘You are a cop, so err… You know how security systems work, right?’ ‘Babe…’  Gavin shook his head and walked over to stand in front of him. ‘First of all: I love you. But you clearly aren’t the brightest light on God’s green earth… You can’t possibly ask a police officer how to break into someone’s home!’ ‘It’s for a good cause!’, Leo said, putting his hands up in defence. Gavin pinched the bridge of his nose and sat down next to him. ‘Please. Enlighten me: How can breaking in anywhere be for a good cause?’

‘Errr… Gav, you know my dad, right? Carl Manfred?’ ‘The famous painter, I recall, yes. You talked about him, not that you ever introduced me.’ ‘I will! Someday! But… Well…’ Gavin leaned back, giving Leo time to find his words. He still thought none of them would convince him, but he would give him his chance. If anything, then to find more arguments to prove him wrong. ‘Damn, I… Well, I may have stolen a few of my father’s paintings to get money for my drugs. I’m… far from clean, but at least I’m getting better? And it wasn’t right. I… I really feel bad for doing it now that I don’t experience this horrible need for more as hard. They are so important to him and… Well I regret selling them more than anything in my life. Well, maybe except for going down this path, but at least that I can try to change.’ He sighed, rubbing at his hair. ‘Anyways, I… I bought one back from the money I had left. But I can’t possibly talk to him about it, I can’t face him yet. I… There is that bot and I did some shit to him and… I wanted the next time I see my father to be when I’m the son he deserves, you understand?’

Gavin inwardly pulled a face to that. No, he didn’t, but that was because his father was an asshole, whereas Carl Manfred was… Well, he had never met the man, but he sounded nice from what Leo had told him at least. And it wasn’t what his boyfriend needed right now. ‘I understand, love, of course I do. But don’t you think you are good already?’ He searched for Leo’s hand that lay limp on his knee and held it in his. Leo squeezed his as a quiet answer. ‘You helped me taking down the drug ring behind your dealer. You managed to stay clean for three months. Doesn’t matter you took it in a moment of weakness. You are already improving so much, darling. Is it more difficult to be the perfect son or to put the effort in to become him? I think your father would see that too.’ He pressed a quick kiss to his temple. ‘He sounds like a smart man after all.’ Leo threw him a half-hearted smile. ‘Thanks. But even if you are right… I still want more. I want to be off red ice for good and want to introduce you to him as the one I want to spend my life with and I want to have a real job and… I just can’t face him yet.’

Gavin sighed. He couldn’t believe he was that stupid, but his sense of self-preservation had never been too big to begin with. ‘You know what? Okay. Don’t phcking tell anyone, but we’re going to break into your father’s home!’

-

‘Holy shit, you didn’t tell me it was a phcking mansion!’

They stood outside the building Leo had driven them to. It was in the middle of the night and the front was illuminated. Gavin had never seen anything that wasn’t a government building, a monument or an advertising billboard illuminated. He knew Carl was famous and rich, but that rich? ‘I know… But he lives there alone with Markus. It won’t be that difficult.’ He looked over to Gavin. ‘We are still doing this, right?’ The Detective sighed long and deep. ‘Fine. Yes. But if we get caught, you’re deaf and I don’t know the language!’ ‘We are breaking into my father’s home! He knows me!’ ‘Doesn’t matter. Goddamn, why did I ever agree?’ ‘Because you love me?’ ‘Urgh, I always knew it were the small mistakes that would get me…’ He smirked, before Leo kicked him. ‘Hey!’ ‘Be quiet, we’re almost there!’, he hissed, walking through the bushes to the backside. ‘You still got the painting?’ ‘Yes…’ Gavin pinched his nose and lifted the frame he held under his arm. It wasn’t that heavy but bulky.

Leo led them to a door that would gain them access to the studio behind the mansion. They thought that the security would be lowest there and it was the only door Leo still had a key for which would eliminate any alarm there. They slipped into the house and Leo flipped on a small flashlight. Although everything had gone smooth so far, Gavin was beyond nervous and his hands were sweating. As part of the family Leo could get away with it maybe, but he was a police officer with a painting under his arm that if at least not Carl’s property still was Leo’s. He would have a hard time explaining what they were doing to anyone if things went wrong.

But up to now, everything was silent, and they advanced into the studio. In total darkness with only the spot of the flashlight illuminating it, the stored-away art supplies, busts, overhanging tarps and dried paint on the floor were downright frightening. ‘Just put it down over there at the robotic arm’, Leo whispered. ‘He will find it there. I’m just writing a quick note to explain myself, then we’re gone!’ Gavin ducked his head and hissed: ‘Couldn’t you have done that at home, idiot?’

‘What could you have done at home?’

Both men froze as the light was switched on in the studio and burned in their eyes. ‘Phck, we can explain everything!’, Gavin was quick to answer, a reflexive answer ingrained in his mind by a youth of doing things he wasn’t supposed to. ‘I hope so…’ Leo was faster to recover and turned around to face the voice. ‘Oh, hey…err… Markus! We… err…How are ya?’ ‘Leo! What the hell are you doing here? Guess I have to thank you for being my reason to deviate, but don’t think I will hesitate to send you to the hospital again.’ ‘Wow, haven’t thought the peaceful leader of the revolution to be that vicious!’, Gavin chuckled, trying to ease the situation a bit. ‘I wouldn’t have come this far without standing my ground’, was the answer. ‘I want answers. Why did you break into Carl’s home, Leo? And who are you?’, he directed at Gavin. ‘What were you two about to do with that painting?’ ‘I err…’ ‘I’m Gavin Reed!’, the Detective was faster to respond. ‘Pleasure to meet you, really-‘ ‘Markus, what is all this about’, suddenly came another voice from the door, immediately followed by Leo: ‘Oh fuck.’

‘Leo! Well, that’s a surprise, need more money from me?’ It didn’t sound accusatory, just tired. ‘Err… dad, I actually, ehm… You know I… Fuck. We…’ Gavin watched Leo stammer, but couldn’t bear it any longer. So, he took initiative. ‘Mr. Manfred? Hi. Your son feels sorry about steeling your paintings and selling them, so he searched for them and managed to buy one back. He wanted to return it but didn’t have the guts to face you.’ He was already turning red from all the attention, because this really wasn’t how you’d want any first meeting with the family of your significant other, but there just was no help to it. The silence following was unbearable, so in one swift motion, he picked up the package he had just put down and moved the small space to hand it over. The old man looked down on the painting still enveloped in thick paper, then back up without opening it or taking any other action to acknowledge it. Then he looked back up at him. ‘And who are you?’

‘Dad?’ Leo magically appeared at his side to help him out and Gavin could have kissed him for that. Later. ‘Dad, that’s my… boyfriend. ‘Gavin Reed. He’s a detective with the DPD. Same precinct as Connor, you know, the android that helped Markus? I helped him taking down the drug ring I bought my… I helped him take them down and we had to work together for a while, so we got to know each other. He helps me get clean and my feet back on the ground, he’s a really nice guy once you get beneath the outer appearance-‘ ‘Hey!’ ‘And we are thinking about making it official soon.’

The old man looked at Gavin, then at Leo, lingered and then let his shoulders relax before laughing to himself. ‘Leo, you always were a mess. But it’s good to see you again, son. Come, let’s go sit down in the living room. I believe we have a lot to talk about.’ Gavin looked at Leo to assess the situation, but the man had relaxed, so Gavin did too. Markus went over to take the handles of the wheelchair and push Carl forwards, Leo walked up to his side and Gavin followed. ‘For God’s sake, Leo, to believe the day has come you got your life under control, huh? And you found someone? Since when? Why haven’t you told me earlier?’ Gavin’s boyfriend huffed at that. ‘I don’t know dad. I really don’t know.’

[danny4xb]

Trumpism is a Populist movement that rose out of disdain for establishment politicians. There were a good chunk of places that had voted solidly for Obama for 8 years, only to flip to Trump due to things like the TPP and NAFTA. Most people, including right leaning people, don't exactly care that Obama was black. They more so care that he promised change and hope for the working class, yet passed many policies (such as the two aforementioned free trade agreements) that actively hurt them.

Look it would be nice if Trumpism could be resolved with a little bit of Protectionist trade policy and some redistribution but I doubt it.

I was alive for the period 2008 to 2016 and I remember the rage and Rage and RAGE against the stimulus and TARP that became the Tea Party movement, and the freakout about “government taking over Medicare” and “death panels”, and most of all I remember “Hussein” and “he’s a MUSLIM” “HE’S AN ARAB” and “HE’S KENYAN” and “LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE”

The raging storm of conspiracy theory that blew up around Barack Obama, the total disconnect from the reality of who he was and what he wanted to do in government was horrifying. It was not like that for Presidents before him. And it’s that disconnect from reality that is the hallmark of Trump specifically - distinct from generic corporate Republicans like Mitt Romney - and culminated in shit like QAnon, people voting for Trump for reasons that are essentially fictional because there are no good reasons to vote for him.  

It’s true, Trump was able to eek out a victory in the electoral college in 2016 because he got some Obama ‘12 voters who felt they had done badly from the post NAFTA economy / didn’t want TPP to come over to his side, and I hope they feel what they got in return was worth it. But they are only a small part of the Trump coalition - most Trump voters were long term Republicans.

(I don’t want to be patronising but: NAFTA was a joint George HW Bush / Bill Clinton production and came in on Jan 1st 1994. TPP was never ratified by the US, died, and was reborn as CPTPP - which the UK will probably join before the USA will. Probably you are aware of those facts, but it is not clear from your writing.)

It’s true that the Obama administration didn’t deliver the change that I’m sure many people hoped for in 2008. There is a lot from those 8 years we could re-hash but you can’t discuss 2008-2016 without discussing the ever growing Republican obstructionism, and the basic fact that the US constitution is tilted against dramatic change. A US President just doesn’t have the ability that a Prime Minister in a Parliamentary system has to win a mandate and drive it through. That is a flaw in US democracy, and a threat to it’s continued legitimacy, but it’s a systemic issue that will take a lot of fixing.

I hope Joe Biden can deliver the kind of change that the US needs, I just don’t think that the 30% of US voters who don’t believe he is a legitimately elected President will start believing he is, even if he delivered (say) Medicare for All.