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spaghettificationandpretzels · 2 years

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The Reaper and the Death Angel Part 3

I really just wanted to focus on Jax and the reader this chapter. I'm learning my county's sign language but ASL will be featured occasional from now on, as someone who wants to work with at risk children, I think that sign should be totally normal and a part of everyday life.

Part 2

Series Masterlist

Warning: It's getting into it now, brief mentions of a mass grave and the gemstone industry. If I miss any, please let me know.

2.7K Words

Comment if you want to be tagged in this series.

First meetings and first troubles.

The front door was open when he pulled into the driveway but he couldn't see you, he was about to get off and come in when you walked out.

He felt as if his breath had been stolen from his chest, then suddenly, he couldn't hear the birds singing or the roar of other bikes. His whole world shrunk down to just you, standing on your front lawn.

At that moment, Jax could swear there was a god.

His legs operated without his say, it was as if you were pulling him in like a siren, daring him to dash himself on the rocks. The other guys were there, he just didn't see them.

"Hello Darlin", you offed him a reserved smile and put your hand out for him to shake.

"Mr Teller?" Your handshake was firm, he felt like he was floundering, he was second-guessing every move he made.

"You are quite the charmer, aren't you?" Your face was impassive, he couldn't tell whether you were flirting with him or insulting him. He knew he felt exposed, your eyes raked over his figure like a scientist dissecting an alien, he saw no desire in your face.

He was utterly lost.

"Excuse me Mr Teller, I have to say hello to everyone." you never offered anything, he always prided himself on being able to read most women like an open book, but you were a mystery and he had a feeling that he wouldn't be able to let it go until he figured you out.

You signed to your Brother.

"Is anyone hearing impaired?" He shook his head.

At least you didn't have to speak and sign simultaneously.

"Hello all, welcome to our home. I asked my Brother not to rope anyone into unpaid labour but it's clear he can't help himself. I am grateful for your help, although the only things I need to be unpacked are all my books. You are more than welcome to explore the grounds and the house, as long as the door isn't locked, please make yourself at home."

"Mr Teller, would you like to help me unpack my books?" You chose to ignore the looks he was getting.

"Please Darlin, call me Jax." you smiled at him but it wasn't big enough for him to learn anything.

"Ok Jax, thank you."

You had taken the time to take them all in, it was clear they were on their best behaviour. Your Brother had already given you any information on their personality that you needed, you had a feeling you would have favourites way the end of the day.

"Are you always this proper?" Sam was right, you already didn't like Tragger.

"Of course, I don't know any of you. Why would I be familiar?" your tone became more pointed.

"Just a few things before you guys head in. Do not wear shoes in my home, if I catch you wearing shoes, I will make you wash my floorboards. If you smoke tobacco in my home, you will never be welcome inside again, this is not a comfort issue this is a health concern." Everyone seemed to accept that.

"If you wish to smoke, there is an ashtray by the back door, I ask that you please go to the back of the property, you will see a covered stone bench where you can sit down. If I ever find any cigarette butts I will take them and test them for DNA and you will never be allowed on the property again, this is classed as a nature reserve and I can not have our precious native animals consuming litter." Your intention was to seem harsh and overbearing, you had no idea if you could trust these please to do what you asked.

"I agree with my Sister, so don't come crying to me if you don't listen and she follows through." You looked around and saw a lot of stunned faces.

Good, I have the upper hand.

"Any questions?" No one spoke up, you hoped you had made yourself clear.

You waved your hand at Jax to direct him to the moving truck.

He was pretty sure he was in love.

"Everything is labelled well, the boxes and the bookshelves are colour coded. Books at the top of the box go on the top shelves and so on. I'm more than happy to help you anytime you need, but I'll be in the room unpacking myself so you won't have far to go to ask."

You spoke at an even pace, maybe a little fast but Jax appreciated the added detail. He was struck by the darkness of your eyes, it was like staring into a black night sky.

"Ok?" you were looking at him with concern, he realised that he had been staring at you slack-jawed for God knows how long.

"Yeah sorry, I'm not really a morning person." he got a sympathetic smile, it made his chest feel warm.

"Honestly neither am I. I don't feel like an actual human till at least ten, and that's after like six coffees." Jax could see a bit of your personality now, he liked what he saw.

You directed him to what boxes to lift and then how to stack them so you wouldn't have to make too many trips from the door to your library. He watched your face intently and didn't miss the microscopic look of fascination on your face when you watched him lift heavy box after heavy box. But again, he didn't see desire, he felt like you were trying to get a look at his insides through his skin. It wasn't unpleasant or uncomfortable, he just felt very exposed. If he had to guess, he would say you weren't even fully aware of it.

The library was beautiful. It was two stories with a railing where the ground floor ceiling would have been. The bookshelves were white, and unlike what he had seen of the rest of the house, it was carpet rather than wood.

There was a massive floor to ceiling bay window looking out into the grove of trees on the property. There was a lounge and a chair in the centre of the room, and cases filled with what looked like rocks and very old books in the open spaces. He didn't miss the deep breath you took when you walked in, he could already detect the telltale smell of old paper and glue.

"What made you ask Sam to prospect?"

Wow, you didn't bother with small talk.

"I don't know, I liked him and thought he would be a good fit." Jax was reminded of your frankness over the phone and thought he would treat you with the same respect.

"Actually, he almost sent a guy to the ER after he tried to attack my Mother so we kind of had to ask him." You giggled behind your hand.

Oh, he liked that sound.

"Sorry, I shouldn't laugh. Samual can be prone to unnecessary violence in those circumstances." The ting of your phone pulled you away. He could see the excitement coming over you.

"I'm sorry, that's William. He's come to drop off my dogs." you were rushing out the door before he could respond.

He followed you to your driveway, he watched you give Billy a quick hug before fussing over the two medium-sized Pitbulls that were wagging their butts with excitement.

What a smile.

Jax almost felt bad just watching you, like he was seeing something that wasn't meant for him, at least not yet. Happy was moving from foot to foot when you called him over. He watched you introduce him to your dogs, he could see that you were delighted by Happy's interest in them.

"Sorry about that Jax, it's only been a few days since I've seen them but it feels like forever. If it's ok with you we can head back upstairs and keep packing?"

You didn't even need to ask.

****

The library has been set up by the mid-afternoon, you and Jax got along great. He would ask questions about all the books he was unpacking and then his attention drifted to the display cabinet in the middle of the room.

"What are all these?" It was so strange, the tingle of excitement was gone and you were back to being cool and impassive.

"Rocks and minerals, I've spent a lot of time right next to gem mines and the locals are always very grateful for the work we do so they give us things to take home." Jax wondered why you closed up so quickly.

"What did you do in all these places?" You paused from unpacking and looked over at him.

"Nothing fun, with gemstones often comes civil war and death. When jewellery companies buy these bits of land, they want to come across as caring about the country so if they find a mass grave, they hire people like me so they like look like they give a shit." He could almost feel your rage, but you still seemed totally unaffected.

"I'm guessing you're not a big jewellery person then?" You emphatically shook your head.

"Some, I like precious metals as long as I know that they've been mined ethically but I can't look at a precious stone no matter where it comes from." From the small amount your Brother had said about your work, Jax could understand that you have seen a lot of suffering.

The last book was put on the shelf and you were directing Jax to the kitchen.

"Now, in this house, if you don't help prepare the food you don't eat. I'm no one's maid. I'll show you what needs to be done and answer any questions you have, no matter how silly you think they are."

You made sure everyone was looking at you and listening.

"There will be no 'I don't know what I'm doing' or nonsense like that. I hate it when people insult their own intelligence, if you genuinely can't do it I will find something you can do."

You could see that some of them were very unimpressed; Gemma, on the other hand, looked like she would burst out into song.

You're going to fit right in.

"All good?" there were some nods and grunts and you started to show them around the kitchen. When everyone knew their job and were paying attention to their task, you pulled Gemma into the greenhouse room.

"Sammy tells me you like to garden so I figured you could work in here for the afternoon? I just need these seeds sowed and those seedlings put into those pots." Gemma assessed the space and got to work. You were a little too busy to stop and speak to everyone individually and Gemma got the impression you didn't really like being around people.

"Thank you, Ma'am." Gemma walked over to you from the pot she was tending.

"I can tell the guys are going to like you but you've got to relax a bit, no one's going to bite you." Her tone didn't leave much room for protest.

"And please call me Gemma, Ma'am makes me feel like an old maid." You smiled at her. You knew how these subcultures worked, getting the matriarch's approval was very important, especially for other women.

"Thank you Gemma."

****

Dinner prep went really well, and everyone did what was asked of them without slacking. You made sure to thank each person and complement their work, you could tell that some of them weren't used to being told they did a good job.

"Mr Ortiz, can you please come and help me with the bread dough?"

Juice practically ran over to you.

"You don't need to be so polite, Juice is fine." what struck you about Juice was how gentle he seemed, you wondered if he was a good fit for the life of an Outlaw Club.

"Ok Juice. All I need you to do here is fold in the butter, to a bit at a time and make sure it's all mixed before you add more" You showed him how to do it then watched him do it so you knew he understood.

"You're very good at that" you made sure you sounded genuine.

"Well, I'm a mechanic so I hope so."

He was shy

"There are plenty of mechanics who can't cook for shit. Don't dismiss yourself, baking is hard." Juice was turning a little red so you left him to collect himself.

You walked over to the stove to talk to Happy.

"How's your mum doing." Happy kept stirring the pot while he spoke to you.

"Much better, thanks to you. I know you won't admit it but paying the bill really helped."

You cast him a coy glance.

"Not on pain of death."

You moved on to Chibs next.

"Do you like spicy food?" He was browning some spices for a curry, it seemed like he had done it before.

"Aye Lass, my favourite is the butter chicken for the Indian place on 5th."

"Well you're doing great."

Jax was after Chibs, having finished cutting up the vegetables he was sitting reading a book from the library.

"Can you please help me with the dinner table?" Jax got up and followed you into the other room.

It was simple, there was a large round table in the middle and some indoor plants around the space. You explained to him how to extend it out while you pulled more chairs from a cupboard.

"Do you have a thing for King Arthur?" you gave him a funny look.

"I went through that phase in high school, I like this table because the sections spin so no one is reaching over to grab food."

You showed Jax how parts of the table spun when pushed.

"That makes a lot more sense."

****

Everyone was sitting down eating, there wasn't much talking which you took as a good sign.

"Is everyone enjoying the food?" There were nods and fulled mouthed yeses all around.

"I didn't even know half this stuff existed?" Tig has pilled his plate high with everything that was on the table.

"Well, I would have done something a lot more simple but Little Brother did the shopping and it's all his favourites."

Gemma laughed

"What exactly are we eating?" Clay sounded kind of put out.

You went through each one, pointing out where they came from and a bit about how you learnt the recipe.

"There are some clean containers ready to go, I'll bring them over and you can all get some left-overs, Sam can bring the containers back here when you're done with them."

The was a bit of a rush in the air, you turned to Gemma.

"Let me guess, when it comes to food it's either the quick or the dead?" Everyone started to laugh, Juice almost choked on some soup.

****

There weren't many left-overs to speak of, but you two hid in the kitchen while they fought over the scraps, per Gemma's advice.

"What do you think of the Club?" You knew this was coming sooner or later.

"All good things so far, everyone has been very nice." Gemma seemed to take you at your word but something was still a little off

Momma bear

"We should bring in the dessert, they should be done by now" She went to the fridge to get it out and carried it into the other room.

Dessert was another quiet affair, you couldn't tell if they were really enjoying themselves or just getting tired.

"If everyone is done, I think we'll call it a night. I'm ready to fall asleep at the table."

They helped you clean up before they left, each one thanking you for the food and for letting them into your home. Jax was the last to leave, he told everyone he wanted to thank you especially for all the work you've done for the Club.

"Thank you again for everything you did over the last year, I think you saved us from some pretty bad situations." he was looking from your face to his feet like a teenage boy.

"I had to keep Sammy safe, helping the Club was just a bonus." Sam had long gone to bed by the time you two were done talking.

He was putting on his shoes to leave when you said your final goodbye.

"May I give you a hug? You're the reason Sam's so happy so I think you've earnt it."

Jax opened his arms and pulled you into an embrace.

You had never felt so safe with a person you met less than 24 hours ago.

You didn't have the energy to consider the implications.

Part 4

#jax teller #sons of anarchy #fluff #soa #samcrow #jax teller imagine #sons of anarchy imagine #jax teller fanfiction #jax teller x reader #jax teller x you #jax teller x oc #sons of anarhcy fanficton #sons of anarchy fluff

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whimsicallyenchantedrose · 3 years

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Dead Man’s Cell Phone--Epilogue

Summary: When Emma Swan starts getting phone calls and texts from an unfamiliar number, she decides to check it out–only to discover the number belongs to a Killian Jones, who was killed in a robbery gone wrong six months ago. With some help from a medium, Merlin Emrys, Emma hopes to find out why a dead guy is contacting her–and why she feels such a strong pull to someone she has never met before.

Rating: K+

Tagging a few people who may be interested (Let me know if you want to be added or taken off the list): @sailormew4 @annaamell @flslp87 @emmateo26 @bethacaciakay @ultraluckycatnd @effulgent-mind @ilovemesomekillianjones@kat2609 @brooke-to-broch @missgymgirl @galadriel26 @the-lady-of-misthaven @charmingturkeysandwich @jennjenn615 @laschatzi @kimmy46 @snowbellewells @iamanneenigma @daxx04 @nickillian @a-rose-for-a-savior@in-spirational @gillie @britishguyslover @ginnyjinxedandhanshotritafirst@kmomof4 @linda8084 @golfgirld @captain-swan-coffee @searchingwardrobes @hollyethecurious @laughswaytoomuch@allyourdarlingswans @winterbaby89 @facesiousbutton82 @cssns @therooksshiningknight, @lfh1226-linda @tiganasummertree @eastwesthomeisbest @dreamingdreamsalways @xsajx @justren21 @laughterandbooks @cocohook38 @therealstartraveller776 @jrob64 @resident-of-storybrooke

Welcome to my entry for the Captain Swan Supernatural Summer! A big thank you to @cssns, the ladies on the Discord! Thank you also to @eastwesthomeisbest, my artist and my beta @veryverynotgood!

Other Chapters: Prologue 1 2 3

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

One year later

“It’s time, Little Brother. Are you ready for this?” Liam asked, giving the bowtie of his tux one more straightening tug.

Killian ran a hand through his hair, examining his appearance in the mirror. He looked rather dashing if he did say so himself. “Younger brother,” he murmured affectionately. It had been rather a running thing between them since they were lads. “And aye. I’m more than ready. I would have wed her after our first date if she’d have had me.”

Liam laughed as they climbed the stairs and emerged onto the library roof, now decorated with a bower of blooms and a velvet aisle between rows of chairs, filled with all of their closest family and friends. “I trust you for that, Killian,” he said. “It was plain to me from the first time I saw you together that the lass had stolen your heart clean away.”

Killian smiled as he took his spot at the end of the aisle and his brother and best man stood beside him. “I’ll not deny that. Given the way we met, it would have been pointless to deny our connection, and doing so would have prevented an entire year of bliss--although as I recall, you weren’t too keen on Swan to begin.”

Liam rolled his eyes. “I was merely trying to protect you. I must admit to a bit of selfishness as well. After all, it was clear you’d go to the ends of the earth for her. I had no doubt it was only a matter of time before you’d be leaving me for the States permanently. In any case, I’ve seen the error of my ways, and I did apologize.”

“That you did,” Killian agreed with a nod.

It had been quite a year since he’d woken from his coma. He and Emma had begun dating immediately, and it had been as though they’d been together all their lives. Their relationship held the comfort of a long union and the excitement of something new. It was the best of both worlds.

For a few months they’d endured a long distance relationship, each of them taking turns visiting the other, but it soon became apparent that Zoom calls, texts, and the occasional, far too short, in-person meeting simply wasn’t enough for either one of them.

And so, as Liam had alluded to, he’d decided to move to Storybrooke. He’d taken a job at the docks and then eventually started a charter service where he took patrons on sails around the harbor.

Six months after they began dating, Killian took Emma on a midnight sail under the stars. There, he’d gotten to one knee, pledged his heart to her forever and asked for her hand in marriage. To his everlasting joy, she’d said yes.

The ensuing half year had consisted in a flurry of wedding preparations. Emma’s sister-in-law and best friend had been rather insistent on throwing her the wedding of the season.

And so here they were, only minutes away from pledging themselves to each other for the rest of their lives.

In the end, the choice of wedding officiant had been rather a no-brainer. If it hadn’t been for Merlin and his help, Emma and Killian may never have met. Killian might still be languishing in a coma.

And so, when Merlin took his place at the end of the aisle and clapped Killian companionably on the back, Killian shook his hand heartily, feeling the need to thank the man yet again.

It was then that the music started, and Killian’s attention was drawn to the other end of the aisle where his bride stood smiling, arm in arm with her brother David. Killian felt the tears swell at the sight of her, so beautiful in her lacy white dress and veil that he was overwhelmed.

Killian watched a single tear trail down her radiant face as she slowly walked toward him. The rest of their life was about to begin, and he couldn’t wait to take this adventure with her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In the back stood three chairs, marked off as reserved. To all eyes the chairs appeared quite empty.

To all eyes, but Merlin’s, that is.

He saw the truth. The chairs were occupied by the spirits of Graham Humbert, Arthur Pendragon and a woman Merlin had never sensed before, but a woman whose identity he knew well enough.

Alice Jones, Killian’s late mother.

When Emma and Killian had asked Merlin to officiate at their wedding, they’d made another, rather unorthodox request as well.

“Is there any way we could, like, invite Graham and Arthur?” Emma asked. “I mean, it’s really because of them we’re even together. I don’t want to, you know, disturb them if they’re all happy and everything in the afterlife, but it would mean a lot to have them there.”

And so, in lieu of a bridal shower, Emma had held a seance, she and Killian the only guests, other than Merlin himself. Graham had appeared as soon as he’d been called, although it took a bit more persuasion to bring Arthur back to the land of the living.

The two spirits had been delighted at Emma and Killian’s happy news, and had readily agreed to be guests at their wedding. Just before returning to their everlasting reward after the seance, Graham had taken Merlin aside.

“There is someone else who very much wants to attend,” he’d said. “Killian’s mother has been watching over her little boy all his life, and she couldn’t be happier at the turn his life has taken. She wishes to share in his joy.”

Graham asked for Alice’s presence to be a secret, to be revealed only at the right time. Merlin smiled as he guided Emma and Killian through the ceremony that would knit their hearts together forever. Once the formal events of the day were over, he’d bring the newlyweds back to reconnect with their most mysterious guests.

“By the power vested in me, I now declare you husband and wife,” Merlin proclaimed joyously.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Killian took his brand new wife into his arms, connecting his lips with hers.

“You may kiss the bride,” Merlin said, rather unnecessarily, as the gathered assembly chuckled indulgently. “Are you ready for your happy beginning?”

The End!

Notes:

--Well there you have it! Happy endings for everyone.

--Thank you to everyone who read, liked and commented on this story! You’re support has meant so much to me!

#cssns21 #captain swan supernatural summer #my fanfiction #cs ghost story au #sort of #dead man's cell phone

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tweedlydumbtweedlydoo · 4 years

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John B x reader

Requested by anon // Summary: You and John B had something going, then Sarah Cameron came into the picture and well, you lay it out on the table for him; you or Sarah Cameron

A/N: So in this story, it doesn’t follow the show. John B doesn’t bring Sarah in to help with the gold. The gold isn’t even a part of this story.

I hope you guys like it and thank you for your request!! xx

Tag list is at the end. Let me know if you want to be added xx

**MASTERLIST**

Requests: OPEN {CLOSED}

** Who I Write For **

********************************************************************************************NOT MY GIF, CREDIT TO OWNERS

You squeal out in laughter as John B’s hands find your sides, tickling you. “John B stop!”

He only continues, moving his fingers to your underarms where you’re even more ticklish, “Not until you admit it!”

“John B!” You laugh, trying to push his hands away from you, “F-fine! Okay I’ll admit it!” You laugh out in a breath.

His hands stop and he raises an eyebrow at you, “Well, I’m waiting.”

“Can’t a girl catch her breath first?” You put your hands on your hips, collecting your breaths and bringing it back to a normal rate.

John B crosses his arms over his chest, waiting for you to admit it. It was a silly thing really. You’d said something that you didn’t think would mean anything to John B but obviously he didn’t much care for it.

“You hug better than Maybank.” You laugh out.

“hey!” JJ calls out, frowning.

He smirks proudly and holds his chin up, “I knew it.”

You roll your eyes and playfully hit him in the chest, “You’re such a weirdo.”

He swings his arm around your shoulder, pulling you close, “I’m your weirdo though.” He places a sloppy kiss on your cheek and turns to the rest of the pogues, “Now, where were we?”

You can’t help but blush at the kiss on your cheek. Over the last couple of weeks, something had shifted between you and John B. You two had been friends, only friends, for years. But a couple weeks back, something changed. There were more stolen looks between the two of you. He’d sit next to you during anything going on. he’d hug you for a second longer than usual; it was hands on each other’s backs or thighs, a loving touch to be closer to each other. It was lingering kisses on foreheads or cheeks.

It wasn’t only you who had noticed a difference, but the other pogues as well. Kie had spoke to you about it one day after a day on the boat, asking if you two had began dating and didn’t tell anyone. You’d shook your head and said no. It just started all of a sudden. You were excited of the shift in friendship. You’d had a bit of a crush on him all these years, but scared of rejection, you kept the feelings to yourself. And then he started with the looks, the lingering touches and you knew, something in his mind changed.

You cornered him that night after the pogues had split ways and headed home, “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Yeah course.”

You stood by the front door, ready to dash out incase this conversation didn’t go as planned. He stood against the wall, waiting.

“You.. you and I. What are we?” You winced to yourself, ready to hear, “Well best friends of course.”

He pushed himself off the wall and then slowly stepped toward you, “What do you want us to be?” He takes your hand in his.

Your eyes met his, “I mean.. I like you.” You whispered quietly.

He lips turn up in a smile, “I like you too.”

Then you two shared a rather steamy kiss against his front door. From then on, your relationship grew closer as lovers and away from friends. However, that all changed when Sarah Cameron waltzed into John B’s life.

It started out as John B blowing you off to work, then it was all he was busy. You and the pogues didn’t see him as much. Then it was ignored phone calls or text messages and you knew something else had happened to your relationship.

It became even more clear when John B showed back up to his house after planning a day out on the boat walking hand and hand up the front porch with Sarah Cameron.

You couldn’t believe your eyes and suddenly everything fell into place. The ignored calls and texts, blowing off plans, working all the time. It was because of her.

Your eyes are teary, “What do you mean you and Sarah are a thing?” He’d told you he brought her to hang out with the rest of you since they were now dating.

“Sarah and I are dating. Why is that such a big deal?”

“Why is that such a big deal?! Are you kidding me! You and I were something, that’s the big deal!”

He frowns, “You’re my best friend, y/n. Did you really think we could be more than friends?”

“Well, yeah. A week ago you were telling me that you liked me and we made out against that door there, so yeah I figured we could be more than friends.” You point to the front door, “I guess saying you like me back and making out meant we couldn’t be more than friends. Sorry, I didn’t get the memo.”

John B runs a hand through his hair, “Look it was never going to go anywhere. Okay?”

“Then why wouldn’t you tell me that instead of blowing me off and going after Sarah Cameron!”

“Because I didn’t want to break your heart. I didn’t want to lose our friendship.”

“Didn’t want to lose our friendship..” you repeat back with a laugh, “ okay so you figured you would blow me off and still go after Sarah Cameron after telling me you liked me back. That’s smart, John B. a real smart move.”

“Come on.. y/n please don’t be like this. You’re my best friend and I don’t want to lose you. Plus, I was hoping you guys could be more grown up and accept Sarah.” He frowns.

“This wasn’t fair to me or to the pogues. If you didn’t want to be more than friends with me, you shouldn’t have led me on or at least been more honest with me instead of going behind my back.” You angrily wipe the tears from your cheeks.

“I’m sorry, y/n.”

You glance back at the pogues who are looking on with concerned eyes then back at John B, “I won’t accept her, John B. Not after all of this and how she’s treated my friends. So.. me or her John B.”

“You or her? You’re seriously making me choose?” He asks in disbelief.

“yes.” You nod, “I’m dead ass serious.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Then I’m done. I’m out.” You push passed him but he reaches out to grab your arm.

“Y/n please don’t do this. Don’t make me choose.” He begs.

You look down at his hand on your arm and rip it from his grasp, “You shouldn’t have screwed me over with Sarah Cameron. That was wrong on so many levels. I won’t stand around and watch you two mooch all over each other while you told me a week ago that I was it for you.” You then storm down the stairs.

“How could you not choose y/n, man?” JJ says, shaking his head.

“She’s your best friend.” Pope adds, “She’s stood by you through everything and this is how you repay her?”

“Come on guys, you can’t be mad at me. You’re supposed to be my friends. You’re supposed to support me and my choices.” John B says.

Kie shakes her head, “We are your friends John B, but we won’t support you on this and how you treated y/n. You chose the backstabbing bitch over your best friend.” She spits at Sarah before following your steps off the porch.

You never expected John B not be able to choose. You thought he’d easily choose you, his best friend…

Obx taglist: @poguestyleskye , @alexa-playafricabytoto , @kaelyn-lobrutto24 , @prejudic3 , @turtlee-says-rawr , @outrbank , @k-k0129 , @annedub , @rockyyc77 , @ilovejjmaybank , @treestarrrrrrrr , @thedarkqueenofavalon , @write-from-the-heart , @eclecticpuppyhollywoodhumanoid , @lasnaro , @kiarasgold , @normatural , @kaylinfayezink , @lordsagittarius , @moose-squirrel-asstiel , @thelovelydreamer17 , @chasefreakinstokes , @fanficscuziranout , @diverrdown , @tregua-oca , @junkiemuppettxx , @afterglowsb-tch13 , @hardyxlove , @cinnamon-roll-seth

John B Routledge // Chase Stokes taglist: @sataninsatin , @losers-club6 , @bananasfromtarget ,

All my works tag list: @blossomreed , @mggstyles

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mcfiddlestan · 3 years

Text

Fic Writer Questions

I'm bored and this was in a note on my phone from forever ago, so I must have been tagged at some point. Apologies to whoever tagged me. 🥴

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

52. Though, I used to have a few more. I deleted a few fics some years ago bc I hated that they were just sitting there unfinished. I was going through a particularly brutal bout of writer's block that affected both my fic writing and my RP writing.

2) What's your total AO3 word count?

720,782. And I was stressing about a 30-page thesis. 😂 (which ended up being over 15,000 words)

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

I started writing fic in 2000 with *NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, and Backstreet Boys fics. I stopped writing a bit around 2004-2007 (because of a stupid boy) and picked it up again in 2012 after reading some awesome Cherik fics and wanting to write my own FrostIron College AU when I read one that was good, but kind of disturbing. I think I write for one fandom -- Marvel -- but, like different factions of it. FrostIron and WinterFrost mostly, with a dash of Stucky, ThunderFrost, DashingFrost, and WinterIron.

4) What are your Top 5 fics by kudos?

Black Light Special (WinterFrost) - 628 kudos

Can I Bum A Ride? (WinterFrost) - 425 kudos

Empire State of Mind (FrostIrom) - 420 kudos

Dark Side (FrostIron) - 398 kudos

A Worthy Collection (FrostIron) - 309 kudos

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I really do make an effort to respond to every single comment, even the not-so-nice ones. I want people to know I've seen and read the comment they took the time to post, so even if I just thank them for reading and commenting, I respond.

6) What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Considering it features two -- count 'em, two! -- major character deaths, it's definitely Empire State of Mind. Though, I'd argue Dark Side is a pretty close second.

7) What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Probably Ghosts That We Knew. It was the final fic in the trilogy that is the Picture Perfect Series. It follows Loki and Tony from when they meet in college and ends 30+ years later.

8) Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

No, not really. And I rarely, if ever, read them. There's no real reason behind it other than I've just never come upon one and thought "ooh I need to read that."

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes. I got a lot of hateful messages after I completed Empire State of Mind. People were really angry at me for killing off two major characters. I mean, a lot of the messages were "omg I hate you but I loved this!" kind of vibe. But there were a few that cussed me out and called me names for writing it.

I had some chapters of a Fools Rush In FrostIron AU posted a while ago, in which Loki was a female, the only daughter in both the Odinson and Laufeyson families. Following the storyline of the Matthew Perry/Salma Hayek movie, Loki meets Tony Stark in a bar and gets pregnant from a one night stand. Anyway, I got a lot of messages telling me that Odin's misogyny and mistreatment of Loki was unrealistic -- even though I had literally modeled his behavior after the movie that inspired it. 🤷🏽

I have some prompts done for the 100 Ways to Say ILY writer's block challenge and for one of them, I borrowed the storyline from an episode of Will & Grace when Will's father dies of a heart attack after they have a bad argument where his father basically admits he wished Will wasn't gay so he could have had an easier life. In the epsiode, the fight starts because Will's parents gift his baby blanket to Grace, who is pregnant with her ex-husband's child. Will takes offense, they don't understand why bc he never mentioned wanting children, and a fight ensues. Similarly, in my fic, Frigga and Odin offer a pregnant Natasha (his BFF) Loki's blanket. Some readers did not like this and did not understand why I would write it. In another prompt, one that was literally how my last relationship ended, got some harsh critiques. Those ones hurt especially bc it was such a personal experience I wrote about.

And I actually got into a fight -- like a screaming match -- IRL with my best friend's boyfriend at the time. One of my bestie's friends asked about my fanfiction and I gave them the gist of one of my stories where Loki has a brief relationship with Sif that results in a child and later reconnects with Tony. Later on, Sif offers to be a surrogate for Tony and Loki and eventually births three more children for them. Bestie's boyfriend could not fathom why a woman would purposely get herself impregnated and then give the child away. I tried to explain that this was a thing that a lot of women did IRL -- and some don't even use their own eggs, but the eggs of a woman who cannot conceive; Sif used her own eggs so that all four children were half related (two by Loki, two by Tony). But he just did not believe me and told me I must not be a very good writer. Worst night of my life.

10) Do you write smut?

I was just telling @teadrinkingwolfgirl the other night how when I first started writing fic I did not write sex scenes. It was always inferred or glossed over. When I started writing again in 2012, for FrostIron, it was my first time writing more detailed sex. I cite Jackie Collins as my smut-writing mentor. I've written almost exclusively M/M smut.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Which is like the best thing ever! A couple of my older fics have been translated to Russian. I have one *NSYNC fic that was made into an audio fic. And someone recently messaged me on ff*net to ask to translate as many of my fics as they can to Spanish. :D

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, not technically. I've gotten a lot of prompts and ideas from friends and mutuals, and I started reformatting my WinterFrost RP with my ex from 2014-2015 into novel form a while ago. That's tecnically the only thing I've written with someone else and published.

14) What's your all time favorite ship?

I have two that will always, ALWAYS, have my heart and attention. FrostIron (Tony Stark/Loki) and WinterFrost (Bucky Barnes/Loki). They are the two ships that I write the most, read the most, and seek out fanart for the most.

15) What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Probably The Flame. It's a fic that starts out ThunderFrost (not related; Asgardian Prince Thor semi-rescues an imprisoned Jotun Prince Loki) but eventually ends up FrostIron. It's the only fic I've ever written that features Loki with both male and female biology. I have a few chapters done but I haven't worked on it in years.

16) What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I write realistic relationships. And I think my dialogue is also realistic and easy to grasp. And I put a lot of humor in between all the angst and hurt.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

I think I get too detailed with background. I just reread my Picture Perfect series (which I do like once a year), and there are literal paragraphs of background that in Google Docs is like pages and pages. But I want to make sure people understand my characters! LOL

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I'm a big fan of it. I featured a lot of Norwegian in the Picture Perfect series. And French. I think as long as it flows with the storytelling and it's not forced on the characters it can be really cool. It should be natural. I always leave a translation list at the end of the chapter or explain in-text what was said. Which I think most authors I've read do.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The Backstreet Boys. LOL. Don't judge. I started writing my own fics after discovering BSB fanfiction written by an author named Mistress Lynz. She wrote a lot of fics about bloodletting, but I really enjoyed the fics where the guys were hooking up with each other behind the scenes, LOL explains why I write mostly M/M now. 😂

20) What's your favorite fic you've written?

They're kind of like my babies so at different times different ones are my faves. But if I really had to pick one, I would say Stay With Me is my favorite. I got some of the most amazing comments on this story from people that found meaning and themes in the story that I didn't even realize I'd put in there. It was one of my first WinterFrost fics I'd posted and the response was more than I could have asked for.

And now I have to tag people! @teadrinkingwolfgirl @incredifishface @incubigirl @rabentochter @marvelswinterfrost and whoever else feels up to it.

xoxo

#fic writer meme #fic writer questions #all my fics #my writing #frostiron #winterfrost #stucky #thunderfrost #winteriron #dashingfrost

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connordavidscamera · 3 years

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Living, Learning, and Filming Ch. 5 | Connor Brashier

A/n: Not totally sure if this is the way I want it to be, but I think I like it better than I did previously.

Summary: they’re together, but they’re not together?

Warnings: little dash of smut

Word count: 1.6k

***

Week 4

My mind won’t let me focus on anything other than the gentle touch of her lips and the way she holds onto me like I’ll slip through her fingers. I can still feel the intoxicating touch of her fingertips on my lower abdomen, the soft tug of her hands in my hair. I want to keep going. I really do.

But we can’t. Not yet.

“Honey, we have to stop,” I say when she goes to reach for the bottom of the shirt I’ve given her to sleep in. It looks better on her than it ever will on me and honestly, I won’t even mind if she chooses to keep it on while I made her feel good. Over and over again. It’d be quite a sight, watching her move up and down on top of me with nothing but the - “I’m sorry. I want to, but we can’t.”

She nods, but kisses me again anyway. “I know. Just let me keep kissing you a little bit longer.”

I groan when she nibbles on my bottom lip. “Fuck… I can’t.” I pull away, push myself off her. I don’t even really know how or when I ended up hovering over her, but holy fuck, she looks like an angel beneath me. I want nothing more in this moment than to have her completely mine.

“What’s wrong?” she asks quietly.

I sigh and shake my head, “I know myself and I’ll want so much more - I do want more - but we can’t do this yet. I want you totally sober, completely sure of this. I want this to be something that you don’t have to think about. And after what happened earlier tonight, I don’t want you thinking I’m taking advantage of you.”

“But I want you,” she whines and I can feel myself losing all self-control, ready to give in to whatever she wants from me. Because I don’t know how she did it in such a short amount of time, but she has me completely enamored with her. She has me royally fucked.

“God, I want you, too. But… let’s take it slow, yeah?” I suggest.

“Slow,” she repeats and nods as she thinks about it. “Okay. Slow works.”

We lay there for a minute, both still trying to catch our breath. “Well maybe one more kiss wouldn’t hurt,” I say, glancing over her face to gauge her reaction.

“Yeah?” she bites her bottom lip and I hum reaching out, pulling it from beneath her teeth that were just sunk into my lip only moments ago.

“Mhm… we’ll make it a long one,” I mutter, already pulling her on top of me.

---

Week 5

We've been hanging out much more now, staying the night at each other’s places. If we're not at my apartment, we're crammed in her bed at her dorm. Either way, we're stealing kisses like there’s no tomorrow. It's a wager now. "You finish editing your clips and you can have as many kisses as you want." "I think you need a kissing break; you work too hard." "You've been studying for hours. Come on, your lips look lonely." Does it sound like I'm complaining? Because I'm not.

I've hardly seen Brian since last week, and he makes it a point to tell me that when he finally gets me by myself.

“Alright, bud. What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry?” I turn to face him from my closet.

“With y/n. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just hanging out,” I shrug.

“Yeah, right. Don’t give me that shit. There’s something going on with you guys. Are you dating? Fooling around? What?”

I roll my eyes, “Brian, are you serious?”

“What? I think it’s a valid question. She’s hanging out here a lot more often, staying the night. And don’t act like you haven’t been AWOL too. If you’re not here editing, you’re out with her. So… what is it?”

I’m not avoiding the question because I don’t want to answer, it’s just that I don’t have one. “I don’t know.”

“How do you not know?”

“We haven’t talked about it.”

“Have you slept with her?”

“Beside her.”

“So no. Have you kissed her?”

I scratch the back of my neck, “Yeah.”

“Been on dates?”

“I mean, I don’t know if they really count as dates. It was just coffee or lunch.”

“Did you pay?”

“Well obviously.”

“Then it was a date.”

“I don’t really think that’s how it works.”

“You’re dating.”

“We’re not,” I argue.

“You are. And I mean, it’s not my business, sure, but like maybe you should talk to her about it.”

“It’s been a week, man.”

“No. It’s been five. She’s had you whipped since the minute you saw her.” He shrugs one shoulder, “Maybe that isn’t a bad thing.”

I groan, running a hand over my face. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I thought she was going to fall first.”

“Is that what’s keeping you from telling her? That stupid bet? Because if it is then you are a grade A idiot.”

“What?”

“You’re still playing this girl and she’s falling hard for you.”

“I’m not playing her, Brian! I like her! A lot,” I mumble the last part.

“Then for your own sake, you need to tell her that because this whole ‘I can’t tell her because it wasn’t supposed to be me' is shit, and you know it.”

---

So… maybe slow isn't our forte. I don't think either of us expected it to get this far, both of us on her bed, tired limbs tangled together, breathing heavily.

"Your leg is twitching," I mumble, eyes closed.

She caresses my bare chest and kisses my sternum. "Well whose fault is that?"

We both laugh, but it's short lived because we're both tired - exhausted, really. "If you're good maybe I can make it happen again later," I wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her closer to my side.

"I don't think it has anything to do with me being good, mister."

I pinch her hip with a breathy laugh, "Don't be a smartass, sweetheart." She groans into my chest and I look down at her. "What?"

"Nothing."

I smirk, "You like when I call you sweetheart," I muse and she hits my side.

"Stop it. Go to sleep."

"We need to film," I remind her. "That's why I came here."

"Hey I'm not the one that came in and pushed you up against the desk," y/n teases.

"Keep talking shit and see what happens," I say only half-heartedly because I'm already drifting to sleep, with visions of us just minutes ago dancing behind my eyelids.

She opened the door in leggings and a big t-shirt. It only takes me a second to realize that the shirt is mine and I actually I think I groan a little. "Fuck," I mutter before she can even let me in fully. And when she does, I set my camera down on her desk and quickly set her there right after. She squeals, holding onto my shoulders.

"Connor, what are you doing?"

"So you're the reason I couldn't find that shirt this morning," I say huskily in her ear, nibbling at it. She moans and I know I'm fucked. I’d kill just to hear that sound again.

"Well if you want it back," she reaches for the hem of it and pulls it off her chest, revealing her lacy black bra. She's ruining me. Absolutely destroying me and she's getting off on it. Well I'll be damned if I don't get off too. “Take it.”

I lick my lips and shake my head, “Uh-uh. Put it back on. I’ll take something else.”

“That’s suggestive. What are you thinking, Brashier?” She asks, slipping the shirt back over her frame.

I hold her hips loosely, tracing her skin from under the shirt. “How far do you want to go?”

And that’s all she needed to press her lips against mine and for her legs to wrap around my waist. Oh, and her answer, by the way: fingers. And tongue. But she had me under the covers while I worked on her body, memorizing every curve, moaning at every sharp intake of breath. The sounds coming from both of us are borderline pornographic, but neither of us care as I bring her to her second orgasm. And neither of us care when she’s on her knees for me, still in my shirt - in nothing but my shirt, I should say - giving me what could very possibly be the best head I have ever or will ever receive in my life. She works her mouth so well, I think I see stars when I do finally release. I want to be like this with her forever. It’s euphoric. It’s perfect. It’s… over.

---

“Hey, y/n. Nice shirt,” I say, filming her as she slips on yet another one of my shirts that she’s stolen without my knowing.

She smirks, stuffing her computer in her bag. “Thanks, it’s new.”

“Where’d you get it?” I ask, walking closer to her, reaching out for her hand.

“Eh, this new place. You wouldn’t have heard of it,” she says matter of factly, allowing me to take her hand.

“Is it not called Connor’s closet?”

She scrunches up her face and then a pout settles on her lips. “Maybe.”

I hum, “Thought so.”

“Hey Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you again?” she plays with the hem of the shirt that, once again, looks better on her than me. My pretty girl.

“You can kiss me as many times as you want.” I answer, setting the camera down so I can hold and kiss her properly. Which I do. And that’s how we end up in our same position as just moments ago, tangled limbs and heavy breathing. I hope we can stay this way forever.

***

I hope you enjoyed! Please like, reblog, and leave feedback!!

Permanent tag: @soyalimoncada-blog @magcon7280 @homeofpoetry @fallinallincurls @goldenflickerx @myyohmyuohmyy @harry-hollands @enchantingbrowneyedgirl @baroness-alison @lostinmendess @linanilssonfurberg @luvluvxx @mariamuses @shawnieeboyy @divinginfearlessly @mendesficsxbombay @shawnsthighs @zaahidahhh @adelaidestreets @shawnandconnor @shawnsblue @turtoix @honestlyimstilllivinginthe90s @gangofhoes @verlaneswiftie13

#connor brashier #connor brashier x reader #connor brashier x y/n #connor brashier imagines #connor brashier imagine #connor brashier fanfiction #connor brashier blurb #living learning and filming

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thebookwormfairy · 4 years

Text

Captain The Retired Police Dog Part 6 (Final)

BookwormFairy: Sorry for taking so long, but I'm here with the final part of Captain the Retired Police Dog. I just wanted to thank everyone who've read, like, reblogged, commented, and wrote their own stuff with Captain. When I first started this I had no idea how big ot would get. I will be doing more stuff with Captain, but this is the end of this story. Thank y'all so much for accepting both me and Captain into the fandom.

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

The rest of the trip was like a dream for Marinette

Every chance they got Marinette and Damian would spend time with eachother

And after Ace met Captain she would come along on all of their outings as well

Damian would take Marinette every where in Gotham

From the fashion district to the zoo Damian made sure Marinette didn't miss out on anything

They couldn't explain it, but something just clicked with them

It was like they were meant to be

Damian even met Marinette's parents

Kinda

He video chatted with them and was actually invited over during the summer

Which he whole heartedly accepted but warned the bakers that his family might "unexpectedly" show up with him.

Only to be told that they would be more then happy to meet them as well

Basically Damian took up all of Marinette's free time

Though sometimes, much to Damian's annoyance, the other batboys would come and "kidnap" Marinette and Captain and take them back to the manor.

Marinette didn't mind it so much, except when they didn't even wait for her to get back to the hotel

When the class was done touring Luxcorp, Jason rode up on his motorcycle and took Marinette and Captain

Jason picking up Marinette and grabbing Captain's leash: Hey French people I'm taking her and her dog. Bye

Ms. Bustier: Are you okay with that Marinette?

Marinette: Yeah I know him

Ms. Bustier: Okay have fun

Jason was less then impressed with the teacher's response but took the duo anyway

Another time Tim hacked into the schedule and change the bus route to drop Marinette off at Wayne Tower

Then Dick feeling left out did the responsible (and legal) way and called Marinette's parents to get their permission to take Marinette back to the manor.

Damian was not impressed with his brothers

Neither was Bruce

On the outside at least

On the inside he was so happy to see Marinette and Captain again

Captain wasn't sure how to respond to these strange new people in his and his girl's lives

After a couple of days they did grow on him

But he still didn't let Jason pet him

Mostly because Captain found the older boy's attempts hilarious

And his girl seemed to blossom in this new pack

Captain could see that the spark that he brought back into his girl's eye turn into a whole galaxy

She was almost always smiling and laughing now

To top it all off Alix and Kim finally pulled up their big kid briches and tried to reconnect with Marinette

At first Marinette was very weary of them

And Captain out right growled at them

But slowly they were able to earn Marinette's trust back

Not enough to be able to come on Marinette's adventures with her, but enough so that Marinette would seek them out when stuck with the class

And they would seek her out

Not even Lila could bring her down

And she tried

On this trip alone Lila has stolen several of Marinette's projects, tried to get her sent home with no success, has tried to get Captain detained, and has even tried to lock Marinette in several closets throughout the city, but Marinette somehow always got out.

All in all Lila was harmless

Until the last night of the trip when Lila went too far

Damian had tagged along with the class on their finally outing in Gotham

They went to a teens club somewhere near crime alley

Which is why Damian was with them

They made sure to leave the dogs with Alfred so he could take them back to the manor.

The night was going great

Marinette spent the night dancing with Damian, Alix, and Kim

But mostly Damian

Everything was perfect

So of course Lila had to open her big fat mouth

Lila: Oh yeah I've helped super heroes all over the world. I've even helped Batman put away a few rogues.

Villian kid (Edwin) near by: Oh really who?

Lila: You know all the big guys the Riddler, the Penguin, Two-Face,

Edwin: Hm, the Riddler.....

Lila: Yeah he's not so tough.

Lila continue to bad mouth the Riddler as Edwin called his dad to tell him all about this little, french goody goody who helped but him in Jail.

Riddler over the phone: What an interesting development, I wonder if she would like to play a game? *evil laugh*

Marinette slow dancing with Damian: This has been a great night

Damian: I have to agree with you there Angel. *Damian nuzzles Marinette's hair* I don't know what I'm going to do when you leave.

Marinette: I don't either, but I know I never want this to end.

Damian: Even with my annoying brothers

Marinette: Partially because of your annoying brothers. You know I'm an only child, but I always wished I had siblings, so they're like the brothers I never had.

Damian chuckling: don't let them hear you say that. You'll never get rid of them.

Marinette: Who said I would want to. Especially with how close Captain, Ace, and Titus has become. We'll have to fly out to eachother just so they can see eachother again.

Damian smirking: oh most definitely we be terrible pet owners if we didn't

Marinette catching on: You are so right. You'll be coming to Paris during the summer so I guess I'll be coming back to Gotham during the winter.

Damian pulling Marinette closer even though it didn't seem possible: That's not soon enough.

Alix: Hey love birds you do realize that the slow song ended 2 songs ago right?

Damian glared at the pink hair girl as Marinette backed up slightly blushing

Kim: I don't think they did Alix. How cute?

Damian: Yeah yeah let's go get something to drink.

As the small group made their way towards the bar

But before they could reach it chaos erupted in the club

Teenagers were running towards the exit trying to get away from something the group couldn't see

Somehow in the made dash out Marinette was separated from Alix, Kim, and Damian as they got pushed out of the club, but Marinette was pushed further in the club and gets corralled by a group of minions dressed in green

She scanned around the group of teens that were left seeing that all her classmates made it out except for Lila who was standing in the front of the group, but was trying to get behind the frightened teens

Marinette ended up standing next to her facing on of the famous rogues of Gotham the Riddler

Riddler: Hello kitties so sorry to interrupt your night out, but I heard one of you tattletells are the reason I was thrown back in that hellhole we call a prison so I'll give the little pest a chance to step up and we'll play a little game if they win you will all be let go and the pest will die, if they lose, well you all die. Either way that person dies so come on speak up or should I just kill everybody right now.

Lila without a second thought: It was her Marinette!

Marinette: What?!?!

Lila: Yeah it is all her she was the one who was bad mouthing you.

Marinette whispering to Lila: I knew you were mean Lila, but this is just pure evil

Lila smirking at Marinette: Why so shocked Dupen-Cheng? I know you, you wouldn't put innocent lives in danger so there's no way you'll deny it and this way I can get rid of you for good.

Marinette continued to glare at the evil girl as she was pulled up towards the Riddler

Riddler: Well aren't you a little cutie. Is what the loud mouth said true are you to person who helped put me in jail?

Marinette through clenched teeth: Yes

Riddler: Well here's the game goody goody I'm going to tell you a riddle and if you answer correctly we're going to play a game of Russian rullet *Riddler holds up an old revolver* you might get killed, you might not, but if you get on wrong then you get shot with this *Riddler holds up a newer hand gun* instant death. Are you ready?

Marinette trying to hide her fear: Yes

Riddler: Oh what a brave little girl. What is full of holes. But still holds water?

Marinette a little surprised by how easy the riddle was: A spongue

Riddler holding the old gun to Marinette's forehead: Correct

Riddler pulls the trigger as Marinette flinches but only a click is heard

Riddler: Well you live for another riddle. What can you break without picking it up or touching it?

Marinette: A promise

Riddler : Correct again

Riddler repeated the process and got the same result

This process continued for another 10 minutes and both Marinette and the Riddler were starting to get annoyed

Marinette because the riddles were to easy and Riddler because she wasn't dead yet

It should be impossible for her to be still alive

The gun did not have this many rounds

Riddler growling: Okay, Jim and Kate go to the zoo and get eaten by the sea lions but nobody freaks out, why?

Marinette rolling her eyes: Now you just stealing riddles from TheOdd1sout. They're both fish.

As Marinette answers she hears a loud crashing sound

Riddler and his goons look up at the noice and Marinette takes the opportunity to escape

She swiftly pulls Riddler's belt off him causing his pants to fall

She then uses the belt to knock both the guns out of his hands the wrapping the belt around of one of his hands flips over his shoulder grabs his other arm and tie them behind his back using the belt

To add insult to injury she kicks him in the back of his knees bringing him completely down

As Marinette looks up she sees the goons being tied up by Batman and his sidekicks all with shocked looks on their faces

In fact everybody was completely shocked by what Marinette just did

Though unnoticed by her Robin's shocked faced soon turned into a lovesick smile

That's his girl

Batman walking up to Marinette: Good job civilian, we'll take it from here, there are some people waiting outside for you.

Marinette: Thank you Batman

Marinette and the rest of the captured teenagers ran out of the club as soon as possible

They were so busy trying to get away from the trauma they just experienced nobody notice Robin slipping away trying to meet his Angel up front

As Marinette made it out she was bombarded by police officers and camera flashes from reporters

Gordan: Okay boys break it up I'll take this one

Gordon wrapped his arm around the young girl who reminded him of his daughter

Gordon: I know you've been through a lot tonight but can you please tell me what happened?

Marinette nodded her head going over everything that happened including what Lila said to her

Gordon was shocked by what Marinette told him both about how she took down the Riddler and how Lila basically tried to kill her

Gordon: Okay thank you, you go over to your friends while me and my officers gather more information.

Gordon pointed her towards Alix and Kim

As she runs towards her friends she was engulfed in a group hug

Marinette pulling back from the hug: Are you guys okay? You're not hurt are you? Where's Damian? Is he okay?

Kim chuckling: Classic Marinette worrying about others instead of her self

Alix: We're fine Marinette. We got out pretty quickly but we got separated from Damian in the mad rush

Marinette got a worried look on her face as she started twisting around searching for the man she loved

Damian bursting through the crowd: ANGEL!

Marinette running towards Damian: DAMI!

The young lovers ran to eachother embracing eachother in a long hug

Marinette buried her head in his chest letting out a sob as everything caught up with her.

Damian burying his face in her hair: Shh Angel everything's okay now. I'm so sorry I couldn't be there for you. I should have never let go of you

Marinette sniffling into Damian's chest: It's not your fault Damian you had no control of our separation

Damian: I still should have tried harder to stay with you.

The two stayed together refusing to let eachother go afraid that if they did so the other would be lost

They stood there for 30 minutes just hugging eachother as Kim and Alix joined them trying to cheer Marinette up

Gordon walking up to the small group: Several other people collaborated with your story. Ms. Rossi will be takened to the French embassy to be held until your classes flight back to Paris tomorrow we just need to know if you want to press charges?

Damian angry: Of course she'll want to press charges! That girl tried to have her killed!

Marinette softly: I'll handle this Damian. *Marinette turns around to face Comissioner Gordon with Damian's arms still wrapped around her* I would like to press charges Mr. Gordon this has gone on too long, I would also like to look into getting a restraining order on her.

Gordon: of course, we'll make sure that Paris police force understand what happened and your request.

Marinette: Thank you

Ms. Bustier yelling: Okay everybody time to head back to the hotel.

Gordon: Wait one moment Miss but Ms. Rossi is going to be retained at the French embassy for attempted manslaughter of Ms. Dupen-Cheng

Alya: What? Is that what Marinette told you? You shouldn't listen to her she's nothing but a liar.

Gordon: Actually we're doing that not only on Ms. Dupen-Cheng's testimony of events but several other witnesses who heard and saw Ms. Rossi threaten and admit she was trying to get Marinette killed and we also have video from the security cameras showing the same thing. Boys take her away!

Lila most certainly did not go quietly she was yelling all the way to the police cruiser threatening that as soon as she was back in Paris she will be Akumatize and finish the job that Riddler couldn't

Marinette watched terrified as Lila was taken away knowing very well that she would keep her promise if given the chance

Damian tightened his hold on Marinette trying to comfort her: Dont worry Angel I won't let her do anything to you

Marinette pressed herself to Damian trying to get as much comfort from him as possible.

Ms. Bustier grabbing Marinette's arm: Come on Marinette it's time to go.

Marinette looked over at her classmates seeing the murderous glares directed towards her from some of Lila's more dedicated followers

Marinette: I don't want to go back to the hotel Ms. Bustier

Ms. Bustier sighing: Please don't be difficult Marinette. You've already caused enough trouble tonight just get on the bus before you ruin the night for everybody else

Damian: EXCUSE ME! ARE YOU-

Marinette: I'VE CAUSED ENOUGH PROBLEMS?!?!? ALL I'VE BEEN TRYING TO DO IS NOT CAUSE PROBLEMS!! AND IT'S NEVER ENOUGH! WELL I'M TIRED OF BEING YOUR PERFECT EXAMPLE! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH PRESSURE THAT PUTS ON MY SHOULDERS! IT'S YOUR JOB TO TEACH YOUR STUDENTS TO BE BETTER PEOPLE NOT MINE! AS SOON AS WE'RE BACK IN PARIS I'M DONE! I'M TRANSFERING FROM YOU CLASS HELL I'M GOING TO TRANSFER TO A DIFFERENT SCHOOL IF I CAN BECAUSE I AM SO DONE! I'M DONE WITH THE BULLYING, I'M DONE WITH THE PRESSURE, AND MOST OF ALL I'M DONE WITH YOUR PACIFIST BULLSHIT!

Marinette was huffing from her outburst finally letting everything out after such a long time.

Marinette could her some clapping throughout the crowd but ignored it turning her attention to Damian.

Marinette: Do you mind if I stay at the Manor tonight?

Damian: Of course Marinette let me call Alfred to come get us and I'll escort you to your hotel room so you can gather your stuff

Marinette: Thank you

After a couple of minutes not only did Alfred show up, but so does Tim, Jason, and Dick

All ready to to kick ass and take names of anybody who even dare look at her the wrong way.

When they got to the hotel they surrounded her like a wall blocking her from reporters and classmates

Marinette gathered her stuff as fast as she could thanking herself for being smart and packing ahead of time

Once they got back to the Manor Captain tackled Marinette

Licking and cuddling into her trying to comfort his girl

He couldn't believe he let her be put in so much danger

He should have never let her out of his sight while is such a dangerous city

Captain let out a whimper trying to convey how sorry he was

Marinette: It's okay Captain I'm fine, I'm safe and everything is going to be fine better than before even.

Captain still stayed close to her side

Titus and Ace did also sensing the distress rolling of the girl followed her

As Marinette slipped into the bathroom she was finally able to comfort and thank Tikki for saving her life by using her power to make sure the bullet never got shot

And also promised to slip some cookies to her as soon as she could

After getting a good hug from each of the Wayne's and Marinette grabbing some cookies for Tikki she made her way to her guest room just wanting this night to be over.

When the Batfam was sure Marinette was in for the night they made their way down to the batcave to discuss what happened

Damian: Father if you think I'm going to let Marinette out of my sight after what happened tonight you're crazy

Bruce: Think this through Damian smothering isn't going to make her any safer it's just going to make her resent you.

Jason: I dont like it anymore than you do Demon Spawn but he's right. You can't hover over Marinette her whole life, but we do need to look into what's going on in Paris more.

Dick: You're right Jason, Rossi was saying something about being Akumatized and killing Marinette that can't be good.

Bruce: Your right Dick. So when Damian goes to Paris in a couple of weeks we'll come along and assess the situation and see if we need to step in

Damian: If Marinette gets even a scratch on her I'm going to do more than just step in I'm going to find whoever responsible and dual them to the pain

Tim: Did you just quote Princess Bride

Damian: I watched it with Marinette a couple of days ago

The rest of the batfam: Awwww

Dick, Jason, and Tim giving Brice a weird look

Bruce: Don't judge me

Marinette tried her best to fall asleep that night cuddling up to Captain but she jus couldn't

When the clock showed it was 1am Marinette decided to seek out Damian

Marinette: Captain? *perked up and looked at his girl* Can you please help me find Damian?

Captain jumped off the bed and headed to the door

Before Marinette opened the door she turned towards Tikki

Marinette: Tikki I'm going to go see if I can sleep with Damian do you want to come with or stay here?

Tikki: I'll stay here Marinette. I don't want you stressing about keeping me hidden tonight

Marinette: Okay Tikki good night.

Marinette followed Captain down a couple of doors before they stopped in front of the door

Marinette knocked on the door and after a couple of minutes Damian opened the door looking a little ruffled from sleep

Marinette: Sorry to wake you Damian, but can I please sleep with you tonight

Damian: Of course Angel come on

Damian and Marinette settled into Damian's bed seeming to fit together perfectly as Marinette rested her head on Damian's chest and he wraps his arms around her keeping her close

Captain made himself comfortable next to Titus but also lays across the young couple's legs

The next day Lila was sent on a later flight back the Fance to a town outside of Paris so that she wouldn't be akumatized by Hawkmoth and she can face the consequences of her crimes

Marinette shared a long goodbye with the Wayne's in the airport

They were nice enough to upgrade Marinette's seat to first class and even got Captain a seat so he didn't have to stay in the cargo hold

And as Marinette said her goodbyes to the people who've became her second (or third is you count Jagged, Penny, and Clara) family Captain was saying goodbye to Titus and Ace

Captain: I'm going to miss you guys so much you have become my pack and I wish I could take you with me

Titus: And I wish you could stay, I love you

Titus gave Captain a big lick to the side of his face

Captain: Thanks Titus, I... love you too

Titus: I'm going to cry

Ace giggling: Thanks for that Titus

Ace nuzzling Captain's neck: I love you Captain I wish we can stay together.

Captain nuzzling her back: I wish I could to your my mate and I hate to be away from you for so long, but my girl needs me, but I heard our humans talking and they do plan to visit eachother again so we will be together again. One day permanently I can tell.

As the girl and her dog boarded the plane they may be leaving their loves behind today but it won't be forever

Thanks to this trip Marinette is a stronger person, and Captain learned to be a little softer

As Kim pass he tried to give Captain a pat on the head only for Captain to give him a little growl before he could

Like I said he learned to be a LITTLE softer

Bonus

2 weeks after returning from Paris Marinette recieved a very interesting call from Damian

Damian: Hey Angel weird question but is Captain fixed

Marinette: Oh no, after everything that happened to him it just seemed cruel to do that to him too. Why?

Damian: Because Ace is pregnant Captain is the only one who could be the father

Marinette shocked: What?

Marinette looking at Captain: You little hound dog.

Captain: What?

@felicityroth @northernbluetongue @mystery-5-5 @sidefrienda @tbehartoo @hypnosharkrebeldreamer @sonif50 @t-nikki10 @dawnwave16

#captain the Retired police dog #Captain the Retired Police Dog #maribat #daminette #Damain x Marinette #pet headcanon

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twilightofthe · 2 years

Text

I posted 725 times in 2021

114 posts created (16%)

611 posts reblogged (84%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 5.4 posts.

I added 760 tags in 2021

#one (1) hot mess - 155 posts

#our only ho - 135 posts

#sw stuff - 89 posts

#sw prequels - 62 posts

#star wars - 57 posts

#sw spoilers - 54 posts

#twin sun - 54 posts

#sw the clone wars - 53 posts

#sw rebels - 52 posts

#sw the bad batch - 49 posts

Longest Tag: 135 characters

#‘ohhh but that’s the way george lucas spells it’ buddy my guy if you haven’t figured out by now that lucas is wrong about many things—

My Top Posts in 2021

Y’all the reason why Disney keeps releasing a bunch of new Marvel stuff and is stingy as all hell on the Star Wars shite is because Star Wars is arguably a much larger risk. On account of, of course, we as a SW fanbase being feral as all hell and more ready to bite their hand straight off in spite rather than accept the food that’s offered.

Star Wars fans are bitter as hell, suspicious as hell, and entirely too snobby about their opinions with a side of nasty personality. We gotta be tricked into liking stuff, by getting fan favorite characters tentatively waved in front of our faces like “hey, hey, pss pss pss look, *soft whistling noises*, look, Obiwabobahsoka! You LIKE this character, remember? Right? You LIKE them. Good feelings! Happy feelings! You can see them again if you just get in the cage nicely—”

1443 notes • Posted 2021-11-13 01:32:45 GMT

Once again I am lamenting how Cool and Sexy it would have been if Force Users had glowing eyes when using the Force. Like imagine, maybe they glow the same shade as their saber but yeah, every time they fight or they lift a rock or they meditate, their eyes just ✨glow✨

Would it have ruined any and all chances of them using it subtly? Yes. Would it have been hot as hell? ALSO YES

1897 notes • Posted 2021-07-02 12:42:39 GMT

Every so often sometimes I’ll see posts pop up on my dash talking about the scene in ESB where Yoda and Obi Wan are trying to keep Luke from flying off to Bespin after Han and Leia and everyone’s always lauding Luke for being a “TRUE hero who sticks it to the meanie evil Jedi who just want him to blindly obey their evil oppressive orders and let his friends die >:(”

And it’s like. Okay. Okay, that sure is a funny way of saying “Luke blatantly ignoring his masters trying to tell him not to walk into the Obvious Fucking Trap Vader is purposefully using his friends’ pain to set for him, walks smack into it anyway, fails to rescue one friend and needs to have the other rescue herself and then HIM after he gets his arm amputated and loses his lightsaber and nearly dies” but OKAY.

o k a y . . .

2184 notes • Posted 2021-10-31 21:05:44 GMT

One thing the Star Wars fandom did that I really like is that we looked at the two established “lineages” amongst the Jedi, that being a number of people who can all connect their Jedi training back through one another. Those ones with enough people being: the line that starts with Mace, and the line that starts with Yoda/Dooku. And the fandom said:

Mace >> Depa >> Caleb/Kanan >> Ezra: A talented lineage of hardworking intelligent generous people always ready to make sacrifices and do what’s right. They’re especially talented at seeing all the angles and spotting and making connections with other beings. We will call them the Shatterpoint Lineage ☺️✨

Yoda >> Dooku >> Qui Gon >> Obi Wan >> Anakin >> Ahsoka >> It’s complicated, ok?: We don’t give two shits if y’all are the “main characters of the franchise” or whatever, NONE OF YOU can go anywhere without a broken limb, something being lit on fire, and at least five people crying, you’re the goddamn Disaster Lineage and you all need help

3952 notes • Posted 2021-05-12 19:44:47 GMT

Ok I’ve decided I’ll accept Obi Wan and Vader meeting in-person during the Kenobi show ONLY if it goes like this

Obi Wan: *Has infiltrated wherever Vader is while dressed in stolen stormtrooper armor. He kicks down Vader’s door*

Vader: A stormtrooper?

Obi Wan: *Tosses aside his uncivilized blaster and ignites his lightsaber*

Vader: A Jedi stormtrooper?

Obi Wan: *Yanks the helmet off*

Vader: A Jed— OBI WAN?!?

4358 notes • Posted 2021-03-29 18:39:46 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#oh so this is a thing now #kinda annoyed one of the top posts was a semi-ventpost that blew up cuz Disk Horse happened #but overall i'm glad i've got some relevance lmao #not quite star wars

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snowdice · 4 years

Text

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 26]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

It has been a busy weekend. I will answer asks not related to this at a later day. For now I have to study.

Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

“Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

“Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pat said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

“Oh,” Pat said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

“Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

“He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

“Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

“Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

11594

Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

“Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

“There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

“Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

“You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

“Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

“You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

“Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

“It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

“He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

“Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

“You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

Well, Janus was screwed. He swallowed his nervousness and got to his feet, taking Diesel Fuel with him. He turned to hand her off to Remus with a plea in his eye, but he just got an eyebrow raise in return. Traitor.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“The one noodle restaurant? Sure,” Emile answered simply. They walked side by side out of the front doors of the TPI building. Janus actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken these stairs. He usually used his timepiece to get in and out.

The noodle bar was only moderately busy at this time. They were quickly able to find a table near the back and Emile pulled his menu up in front of him. Emile hummed as he flipped through the different displays. “What are you having?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

Emile glanced at him through the menu displays. “You used to.” Fortune noodles were a bit cheekily named. They didn’t actually indicate anything about your future. They were just supposed to taste like what you wanted from your future. A grad student might experience a feeling like they’d just aced a paper. A child that they got to stay up an hour later that night. Janus had liked the experience when he was younger, but in recent years, he’d begun to taste the underlying chemicals in the dish until that’s all he could.

“Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“Forgive me,” Emile said, eyes now focused on Janus, and tone much darker. “How has your life been since I last saw your face 5 months ago during a business meeting and you refused to look me in the eye? Anything interesting happen? Shave your head and let it all regrow? Develop an allergy to peanuts? Join a convent and take an oath of silence that you only just broke today?”

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

“Great,” Emile said clipped. “Small talk over. Order your food.” Janus reached up blindly to select the first thing that came up on the food and drink menu as Emile punched something into his own and both menu displays disappeared, meaning there was nothing between their faces anymore. “You know, I was willing to give you a year,” Emile said. “I was willing to let you deal with it on your own because I thought eventually, you’d come talk to me about it, but apparently I was mistaken. The next year, I thought maybe you thought I didn’t want to talk to you, so I subtly made myself available, and you never took me up on the offer. I thought maybe I was just not being clear, and I should make my desire to talk to you more explicit, but as you have been routinely, clearly avoiding me at every single turn, I’ve decided I’ve had enough. So, let’s lay it all on the table. Is it me or do you need help?”

Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

Janus stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. “And it’s going to keep going on!” he said. The food popped up at that moment. It appeared Janus had ordered lasagna and bubble tea, and Emile had ordered something with spaghetti and a fizzy drink.

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

14656

Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

Chapter 10

“And I thought Remus was going to be the most disgusting roommate in this equation,” Lena grumbled. Janus and Lena were apparently the earlier risers in the group as Fred was still curled up around a pillow and Remus was sprawled out under his desk.

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

“I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

“Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

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“Millennia,” Remus mumbled from under his desk. Janus hadn’t been aware he was awake. “He said something something about it being the only time he could see the change of the millennia.” He turned his head to look at Janus. “Considering he’s a time traveler, that’s definitely a weird thing to say.”

“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

Luckily Sliver Mountains ended up only being about an hour away from the TPI by time adherent travel, but considering Janus was used to his travel being instantaneous, it was an aggravating trip. He had to show ID and be buzzed up to the fourth floor since it was usually locked to everyone not traveling by timepiece or who worked in the office.

The receptionist was the same man as before. “I’m here to speak to Professor Eran,” Janus said.

The receptionist nodded. “He mentioned you asked to meet him but didn’t know when you’d arrive. He’ll be done teaching his class in about 5 minutes. You can wait over there.”

Janus nodded and sat, waiting for time to slowly tick by. Virgil arrived after a few minutes, lugging a giant bag with him. He caught sight of Janus and wordlessly jerked his head towards the hallway. Janus followed him.

“What’s in the bag?” Janus asked.

“Early 21st century cell phones,” Virgil said, dropping it on his desk. “I let my students mess around with them for their lab.”

“I see,” Janus said.

“What did you need?” Virgil asked. “You said it was official business.”

“You’ve heard about the lockdown, I presume,” Janus said.

“Yeah, it really screws up my research schedule for the summer,” Virgil said.

15412

“Do you know why the lockdown was instituted?” Janus asked. Virgil shook his head, so Janus explained briefly that they had been trying to find a timebomb on the eve of the year 3000, but it had been swiped by a free agent time traveler. “Some of the things seemed to be references to things that I couldn’t place, and I was wondering if you would recognize any.”

“Shoot,” Virgil requested, seeming intrigued by the prospect.

“Okay,” Janus said. “First, the alias he was using was Nick Jonas.” A weird expression crossed Virgil’s face immediately and Janus paused.

“You said the year 3000?” Virgil asked.

“Er. Yes.”

“Nick Jonas. Year 3000,” Virgil repeated with a snort. “Were Joe and Kevin a part of this too?”

Janus blinked. “Yes, how did you know that?”

“Yo-you’re going to have,” his sentence was broken by a giggle, and actual full-fledged giggle, “have to give me a minute.” With that, he sort of listed to the side and seemed to purposefully fall off his chair onto the floor under his desk.

Janus blinked and when he didn’t surface after a moment, he stood up to lean over the desk and look down at him. Virgil had his arm thrown over his beat red face, as he shook from what Janus thought was suppressed laughter.

“What?” Janus asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Virgil said, sobbing through his laughter. “Just tell me the things he said.”

“Er, mostly he just had weird inflections on words and phrases. There was ‘paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback…’”

“Wait, stop,” Virgil said. “Let me guess a few. That’s Just the Way We Roll, Burnin’ Up, Sucker.”

“The first two were, but not the last one.”

Virgil laughed. “Maybe the last one was just implied.”

Janus frowned down. “What are you talking about? What does this all mean?”

Virgil pulled himself out from under his desk and grabbed his bag of phones. He dug through it for a few seconds before pulling one out and handing it to Janus. “I have a lab for my students where they get preloaded phones from the early 21st century and are supposed to guess the demographics of the person who owns it. This one is an iPhone 3 meant to belong to a pre-teen to teenage girl from the year 2009. Look under music artists starting with the letter ‘J.’”

15810

Confused, Janus scrolled through the old style phone, finding the music app and opening it easily. Upon getting to the ‘J’s, he immediately paused on an artist called the ‘Jonas Brothers.’ He clicked on it and read a few of the song titles. They weren’t all there, but…

“That rat bastard,” Janus said.

“Scroll to the bottom,” Virgil said. Janus did and found a song titled ‘Year 3000.’

“You’re kidding me.”

“Click on it,” Virgil requested.

Janus did, listening to the fairly standard pop like intro from the time period. It wasn’t until he got to the lyrics saying, ‘He told me he built a time machine’ that he cursed, understanding exactly what Pat had been doing. When the singer a few lines latter proclaimed that his neighbor said ‘I’ve been to the year 3000’ he almost smashed the artifact to pieces right then and there.

“I have no idea who this guy is,” Virgil said, “but he’s a comedic genius.”

Chapter 11

Khalid caught him on his way back into the TPI building. “I heard you went to Silver Mountains to follow up on a lead,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was garbage,” he seethed. “All I learned was ‘Pat’ knows early 2000s popular culture and likes to fuck with us.”

She hummed. “I’d still like a report about whatever you found. Who knows what we might end up getting from seemingly inconsequential data.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I have a mission for you.”

“We’re on lockdown,” Janus pointed out with a frown.

“For nonessentials,” she said. “This is essential.”

“What happened?” Janus asked.

“We picked up a small time distortion in France 2027. At the moment, it is small enough not to cause any disruptions, but it is slowly growing, and we don’t know what caused it. Usually we’d just send surveillance agents at this stage, but considering what’s going on, I think it would be best to send a field agent. And it would just be you, because we don’t want to send too many people out at once.”

“Is this related to the time bomb?” Janus asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “At the very least, it’s not it being set off as it was in 2999, but if it’s been altered for some other purpose…”

“I’ll go,” Janus said.

“I’ll send over the mission directive to everyone who needs it. You’ll go in around 3 hours.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he agreed.

In less then 3 hours, he was dressed for 2027 France and in decontamination. “Well,” he said out loud when he was given the all clear sign, “I hope I don’t explode.” He selected the coordinates on the timepiece and the next moment he was in a small alleyway in the city of Montpellier, France in 2027.

It was a little bit warm, but not stifling even in the mid-afternoon and he could faintly smell the sea on the breeze.

After a moment to get his bearings, Janus made his way out of the alleyway and onto a small street. The street was lined with restaurants and shops as people went about their daily lives. He carefully integrated himself into the crowd and began weaving his way through them. He needed to find the source of the distortion but doing a quick scan with his timepiece told him there wasn’t any sign of it yet. He’d have to wait for it to act up.

For now, he decided to get slightly away from people by heading towards the river. He found a park that had benches along water.

As he walked towards the river, he noticed a man on the bench, angled slightly away from Janus and looking out at the water. He immediately recognized the man. “You!” he exclaimed.

Pat’s head shot around to look at him, and he gave a slight head tilt. Then, he smiled, amused. “You are not the person I’m here for,” he said.

“Well, I am now,” Janus snapped. “Where’s the time bomb?”

“Time bomb?” Pat asked, eyebrows drawing together, but amusement on his lips. “Oh sweetie, the time bomb happened a long time ago for me.”

“What?” Janus asked.

“Oh, you’re just a baby,” Pat laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? The two of us are out of sync timeline wise. You’ve been apparently running around with a much younger version of me, but all of that happened quite a while ago for me. Don’t worry though, it gets better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The time bomb has been long deactivated. Here,” he reached into his pocket and tossed him something. Janus caught it on instinct. “Proof. Don’t worry, we took all of the dangerous bits out years ago from my perspective.” It was the core of a time bomb, the time bomb Pat had stolen if he was to be believed. “You can tell your people it’s safe to remove the lockdown.”

Janus curled his fingers around it. “I don’t get it.”

Something on Pat’s wrist beeped and he looked at it curiously before he stood from the bench, “and I don’t have time to explain it.”

Janus jerked forward to grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

Pat reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be seeing me later.” He twisted his wrist and a small electric current sparked between them. Janus jerked his hand away, and Pat smiled at him. “Or… earlier.” He winked, and then he was gone.

Janus cursed, but he didn’t have more than a moment to be angry because in the next second there was a yelp, and something landed on top of him. He was bowled over into a tangle of limbs and pained noises.

“Oh my god, we need to figure out the height thing,” a familiar voice groaned, just as Janus managed to pull himself away. Pat blinked up at him and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he hissed.

“…What?”

Pat jumped to his feet, leaving Janus on the ground in front of him. “What are you doing here?” he spat, his tone much different then the one he’d been using a moment earlier. His hair was longer than it had been before, and if Janus looked closely, he did seem like he was a couple of years younger suddenly. Out of sync timelines. I’ll see you earlier. Holy shit.

He was suddenly very glad he’d been forced to let the other Pat (the older Pat?) go, else they’d have a whole thing on their hands.

“What are you doing here?” was Janus’s retort as he stood up and dusted himself off.

“It’s none of your business,” Pat told him.

“It is my business,” Janus said, “because for all I know, you are the cause of the time distortions I’m after. Considering that I doubt you have a license for that,” he waved at the odd looking timepiece of Pat’s wrist, “it’s very possible.”

“What are you?” Pat asked, “the time police.”

“Yes.”

Pat dared to roll his eyes, but then he tilted his head slightly. “Time distortions?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”

He still had a confused frown on his face. Did… did he not know what a time distortion was?

Just then there was a sudden flash of lightening through the sky despite the absolutely lack of clouds. He and Pat both looked up.

“Is that the time distortion?” Pat asked.

“It’s probably the beginning of it,” Janus said.

“That doesn’t look good,” Pat said as he squinted at the sky.

“Just wait,” Janus answered grimly. He looked at Pat. “Usually I’d arrest you on the spot,” he said, “but I’m alone for this one, and that is far more important at the moment. So, have a nice day doing whatever bullshit you are doing.” He glanced at his timepiece.

Janus turned to walk away from him.

“Wait!” Pat exclaimed, and Janus turned back to him to see that his eyes were wide. Janus raised an eyebrow. “So, this time distortion thing is dangerous, right?”

“Depending on the severity, it could cause time to fracture around this place and time, basically erasing it from existence and killing everyone in it.”

“Well, in that case, I should go with you. To help.”

Janus looked him up and down. “You… have no idea what’s happening, do you? You’re an amateur.”

“I’m not,” he claimed. “I just. Pooling resources. You know?”

Janus sighed. “Well, you going around mucking about this time period without knowing what you’re doing could just exasperate the situation, so fine, you can tag along.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he grumbled even as he rushed to Janus’s side at the permission.

“Sure,” Janus said with an eyeroll. He guessed he was a babysitter now. “I believe you.”

Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

“You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Pat agreed, “but you did.”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

“Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

When they got to the Musée Fabre museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I��m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

He dithered from a few moments before following Pat inside. Pat had already struck up a conversation with the woman charging admission into art museum. She was looking at him, her brow knit as he spoke. Janus nudged him away from her getting a confused glance from him in return. He shot a smile at the woman.

“Two adult passes for the museum and the Hotel Sabatier d’Espevran, please,” he said, placing down 14 euro.

“Ah,” she said, still looking at Pat oddly. “Yes sir.” She gave them the passes and Janus quickly shuffled Pat away.

“What is wrong with your French?” he hissed once they were out of earshot.

“What?” he asked, bewildered.

“You sound like you’re reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. No one talks like that anymore.”

“I’m a little rusty,” Pat defended himself.

“Two centuries?” Janus asked. Pat stuck his tongue out like a child once again. “Is that your only way to respond to legitimate criticism?”

“What does it even matter anyway? No one ever expects time travel, at least not for something so silly.”

“It’s not silly,” Janus said. “It’s a legitimate issue. The wrong person who’s watched too much science fiction notices and you’re putting the timeline at risk. Not to mention if there are other time travelers around that aren’t as nice as me.”

“Are there a lot of time travelers around?” Pat asked, sounding intrigued.

“There are plenty, both legal and not.”

“Huh,” he said, “but what are the chances we’ll run into another one?”

“Considering the time distortion? There could be many. Opportunists wanting to capitalize off the chaos, people trying to stop it, like me, and not to mention the person who caused it.”

“Wait, someone made it happen?” Pat asked.

“These things don’t just happen naturally.”

“Huh. So, something like this has to be caused by a person?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “…Why?”

Pat smiled. “No reason. I think we should head upstairs. Whatever I’m picking up says it’s around here, but I don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a floor or two above us.”

“Which is why it’s ridiculous to use Google Maps.”

“Would you rather use yours?” he asked sweetly.

“I’m still not convinced it’s not your doing,” Janus growled. “Why does your tech still work when mine doesn’t?”

“Probably the same reason the ring did,” he muttered.

“What?”

“You may be the most aggravating being in the universe.”

Pat glanced at him with a bit of a smirk. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It would be a much bigger risk to the timeline than me speaking in French from the 1830s. But, I’m pretty sure the reason mine still works is just a software difference.”

“What the hell do you mean a software difference?”

Pat opened his mouth, doubtlessly to supply him with yet another frustratingly cheeky and unhelpful answer. Yet, Pat did not have a chance to do so as, just as Janus stepped onto the second floor of the museum, the ground started to violently shake. Janus tried to turn to catch Pat as the other man’s foot slipped on the last step, but he couldn’t do so in time. Pat fell onto his hands and knees, sliding back a few steps and smacking his face into the stairs hard once and then a couple of times more after that as he slid.

Chapter 13

The room stopped shaking after a moment. “Ow,” Pat said. He seemed a bit stunned but was still moving at least. He carefully maneuvered himself into a seating position. “Ouch. Owie.” He reached up to poke his own nose. “Ow!” Janus slapped his hand away when he got there. A bit of blood was already trickling from his nose and there was a small cut over his eye, but it wasn’t bleeding too much.

Janus pushed him so he was leaning slightly forward and produced a pack of time appropriate tissues from his pocket. He pulled one out of the package and offered it to him.

He took it and pressed it up against his nose to try to stop the bleeding. He seemed mostly alright though Janus imagined he’d have plenty of bruises down the line. The power in the museum flickered and Janus looked up. Now that he was listening, he could hear people panicking in and out of the museum.

“We should probably get off of the stairs,” he suggested.

“Yeah,” Pat agreed. Janus helped him to his feet, and they climbed back up the steps. Janus looked around and found an employees only sign a few feet away. Usually he’d not risk that as it could get him into trouble he didn’t want to be in, but considering the earthquake that had just happened, he could probably play it off as panic.

He ushered Pat into a small room and found a chair and table. He had Pat sit in the chair and pulled out another one of the tissues to dab at the blood coming from the cut over his eyes. “Here,” he said. “Hold that there. I’m going to go see if there are any bandages about.”

Pat took the tissue with the hand not already holding one to his nose. “Thanks,” he said.

Janus nodded and got to his feet. The lights flickered once again but didn’t stay off for now. He didn’t know how long that would last.

He couldn’t see anything that might hold bandages in this room, but there was a second door. “I’ll be right back,” he told Pat, exiting through it.

The lights flickered once more as the door closed behind him and he cursed. When they came back up Janus’s eyes immediately fell on a man. They both froze.

“Remus!” Janus hissed the second their eyes met. “What are you doing here?”

Remus blinked at him for a moment. “Hi. Janus,” he said. “I… come to France for… tea sometimes?”

“There isn’t any tea back here.”

“So, there isn’t…” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Uh, so I actually cannot talk to you right now.”

“What do you mean?” Janus asked. Remus grimaced in a way Janus had never seen from him before. It immediately set off alarm bells in Janus’s head. “Oh my god,” Janus said. “Oh my god. You’re not from the same time as me.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Remus mumbled.

“Holy shit, you’re looping?!”

“It’s… not looping if I wasn’t here the first time.”

“Remus, we spend more than 12 hours a day together most of the time. The only thing worse than this is if I looped back to this time myself.”

“…Yeah. Anyway, I need to leave now.”

“Please do.”

He turned to go, but then stopped. “Oh, and,” he reached into his pocket and tossed something at Janus. Janus caught it.

It was Band-Aids.

“Oh, shit,” Janus spat at the clear use of foreknowledge. “I hate this. I hate you. I’m going to kill you the next time you see me.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“Go.”

He did, slipping into the next room while Janus took a deep breath and then turned back to the door behind him. He schooled his face before Pat looked up. “I found some Band-Aids.”

Pat nodded and Janus came over to squat next to him.

Janus opened the box and Pat looked down. His eyes lit up with sudden joy so intense that Janus felt like he’d just gotten a punch to the gut. “Kitty Band-Aids!” he exclaimed. Janus bothered to actually look at the design on the container, only to note the cartoon cats on the front. Pat was almost vibrating off his seat. “Look they’re all so cute!” He grabbed the container from him to inspect the different designs printed on the back with glee even as a bit of blood was still trickling from his nose.

Janus took the box back gently and guided the wad of bloody Kleenexes back to his nose.

“Which would you like?” Janus asked.

“Oh, they are all so cute,” Pat cooed. “Um, how about that one!” he pointed. “Or that one! Or that one!”

“Pat you only have one cut.”

“But they’re all so cute!” Pat said, tongue tucking into his cheek. He contemplated the box again. “Let’s do the black one,” he finally settled on.

Janus selected one of the Band-Aids with a black cat wrapped around a pink ball of yarn and staring back at them with wide green eyes. The think looked like it had partaken in one two many doses of catnip, but Janus didn’t mention that.

Instead, he just carefully unstuck the backing from the Band-Aid and motioned for Pat to remove the tissue from his forehead. He smiled at Janus as he drew back.

Janus cleared his throat. “How’s the nose.”

“It’s slowing down,” Pat replied. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Janus replied. They met eyes for a second before Pat looked away back at the box of Band-Aids.

“Oh,” Pat said. “There’s a grey one. I didn’t notice.” He pointed to it. “I should have used that one.”

“Do you like grey cats?” Janus asked.

“I like all kitties,” he said, “but one of my roommates loves grey cats. He had one when he was a kid and thinks of them as good omens. Seeing one always brightens up his day.”

“A friend of mine has a grey cat,” Janus said. “She’s much more tolerable than him.”

Pat laughed a bit. “Don’t be mean,” he said.

“Oh, he deserves it, don’t worry.” Janus considered him for a moment. “Here,” he said, pulling out one of the Band-Aids with the grey cat on it. It did, actually, look a lot like Diesel Fuel.

“But I don’t…”

Janus just shrugged and stuck it on his cheek where there was no wound. Pat giggled and touched it with a finger. Janus stood back up.

“Can I have another tissue?” Pat asked.

“Sure.” Janus handed a tissue over to him and he crumpled up the bloody ones in his hand.

“I think I’m good to keep going,” Pat said, putting the new tissue under his nose. “The nose will stop soon.”

Pat got out his iPhone and directed him back out of the room. They checked the second floor and didn’t find anything and so went to the third floor. The second they arrived in the room that Patton’s phone was directing them too, Janus knew that it must be right. There was a strange, distorted whirling sound and the entire room was shaking slightly like they were standing next to a railroad track.

“I’m guessing this is it,” Pat said.

Janus nodded and looked over his shoulder at the screen. They both cautiously walked towards where the little dot was on the phone.

“Is that it?” Pat asked, pointing at a small device on the center column in the room. Janus reached forward to flip the switch on it. The whirling stopped and the room settled. Janus’s time piece vibrated as it came back online. They waited for a few moments. “I assumed… time distortions would be more…”

“They are,” Janus said. “This one is artificial.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a simulation,” Janus said. “It causes similar symptoms to a time distortion, but it’s not actually fracturing time at all.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Pat asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said. He took the piece of tech of the wall and carefully stored it in his pocket, “but someone’s trying to get our attention.”

Chapter 14

Janus didn’t feel comfortable leaving France 2027 just yet, still weirded out by the strange turn of events. So, he and Pat ended up sticking around for a couple of hours. They looked through the art museum for a bit, but Janus was having trouble focusing on the pieces, and Pat eventually suggested they get some air. Janus agreed considering the museum would close for the night soon anyway.

They wandered around the downtown for a bit. The people seemed to jump back from the strange weather and earthquake that afternoon rather quickly, and there were plenty still about to blend into.

Pat was snapping photos every so often like a tourist which Janus shook his head at but allowed because even with the outdated phone it almost made them blend in even more. It also might stop any questions about Pat’s weird way of speaking French. They could just say he was an overeager tourist who watched too many old movies.

“Ooo!” Pat said. “We should get crepes.”

“Why?”

“You can’t go to France and not eat crepes.”

“I assure you, you can,” Janus said dryly.

Pat shot a pout at him and the next thing he knew he was in a small crepe shop.

For Janus, choosing something was easy. He just ordered the first thing he found on the menu which seemed to be a standard one with ham and eggs. Pat on the other hand seemed to be struggling greatly, and Janus had to gently push him to the side to let some other customers order first.

“What should I get!?” Pat asked. “They all look so good! I could do strawberry preserves or maple syrup or just sugar!”

“Or you could get one that is actually food,” Janus suggested mildly. “I don’t think you need any more sugar judging by how you are acting.”

Pat rolled his eyes. “You sound like Lo.”

Janus made a note of the name ‘Lo’ even though it surely was a nickname.

“But, since you’re insisting, I’ll get something healthy. I’ll have the strawberry one. That’s a fruit!”

“It comes with a cream cheese filling,” Janus pointed out.

“And it’s fruit!”

Janus shook his head and stepped up to the counter. “One ham and cheese and one strawberry preserve, please,” he said to the cashier as he was not allowing Patton to order in French and accidently say something stupid. He forked over some euros.

“You don’t have to pay for me,” Patton protested when he saw that.

Janus glanced back at him. “I was afraid you’d try to pay in francs,” he said dryly.

It looked like Pat was about to stick his tongue out at him, remembered that Janus had criticized him for that earlier, and then just scrunched up his face in displeasure as though that was any less childish.

They waited for their crepes to be finished and then went to eat them outside near a water fountain.

“I can pay you back for the crepe,” Pat said after they sat down. “I do actually have euros.”

Janus waved him off. “It wasn’t that expensive.”

Pat hummed. “Well, in that case. I insist on paying for a wish for you.” Janus raised an eyebrow. “In the fountain!” Pat clarified.

Pat set aside his crepe to dig in his pocket for a couple of coins. “Here!” he said handing one over.

Janus glanced over at the fountain. “No.”

“Oh, come on,” Pat beseeched. “You have to want something. I’ll even throw it in for you, but you have to make a wish first!”

“No.”

“Please!”

Janus sighed. “Fine.” He popped the rest of his crepe in his mouth. “I wish for a crepe,” he said after swallowing.

“You just had a crepe, silly.”

“But I liked it, so I want another one.”

“We can go back and get you another crepe.”

“Ah, but I’m not hungry anymore.”

Pat crossed his arms. “You’re just being difficult on purpose.”

“Not me,” Janus said putting hand over his heart. “I would never do something like that.”

Pat glared at him, but then snatched the coin out of his hand. “Fine!” he said. “One crepe wish coming right up.” He hopped up with the two coins and darted over to the water fountain. Janus turned to watch him go but then happened to catch sight of something out of the corner of his eyes.

Pat’s phone.

He didn’t pause in his movement, completing the turn, but as he watched Pat close his eyes, presumably to focus on his own wish, Janus snuck a hand out and grabbed the phone without looking. He slipped it into his own pocket.

Pat came back over after throwing both coins in the fountain and didn’t even seem to notice that his phone was missing, picking up his crepe to take another bite. Just to make sure, though Janus decided to distract him. “What do you think of your crepe?” Janus asked.

“I like it! It’s sweet, but not too sweet. There was a crepe place across the street from my apartment in college, but they always put a bit too much sugar in the dough, I think. I’d still eat them, but these are much better.”

Janus nodded and kept up the light conversation until Pat was finished.

21088

“Well,” he said then, getting to his feet. “It seems that nothing else is going to happen regarding the time distortion. I should be getting back.”

Pat hummed. “I should too. It’s movie night!”

“I probably should arrest you,” Janus noted.

“In the middle of all of these people?” Pat asked mildly.

“Touché,” Janus said.

Pat gasped and pointed at him. “Pun!” he said. Janus blinked at him. “Because we’re in France! That’s French!”

“…Goodbye Pat,” Janus said, turning to walk away from him.

“Goodbye… wait I still don’t know your name!”

Janus stopped to look back at him for a moment. “Like I said,” he replied. “Elvis.”

“Fine,” Pat said. “Au revoir, mon chéri.”

“You never stop, do you?” Janus asked.

Patton giggled. “Considering I don’t know what you mean, I imagine I’m just getting started.”

Janus actually left then, walking off towards the alley he’d first arrived in. In some ways, the mission had been a bust, but in others it had gone very well.

He felt for the weight of the phone in his pocket before pulling up the display screen on his timepiece to go back to the TPI.

It had gone very well indeed.

Chapter 15

The first thing Janus had done when he’d returned to the TPI was hand over the timebomb to Khalid who sent it to forensics. Within the hour, forensics got back to them that it was the same timebomb as 2999 and that it had never exploded, but simply been diffused. Which meant, blessings on blessings, everyone got to go home that night.

Not that Janus went home, no, he ended up falling asleep on his desk somewhere between 3 and 4am, but at least he wasn’t sharing his space with anyone. He’d been trying to hack the cell phone all night to see if it had anything he could use, but he honestly had no idea what he was doing. All it seemed he could do was play some annoying song over and over again about never giving someone up. At around 2am, he’d finally broken and sent off an email, though, he’d continued to try to mess with it after that.

He got woken up by Lena coming into the office at 7am, and noticed he already had an email response asking when Janus wanted to come in.

“Now?” he sent back.

“…Do you sleep?” was the immediate response. “And yes.”

His wrist buzzed as an appointment in 5 seconds downloaded to his timepiece. He selected the coordinates and landed at Cultural Outreach. The receptionist blinked up at him and then back down at the screen on his desk. “Oh!” he said. “I didn’t see this appointment. I think Professor Eran is in his office.”

He didn’t stand to escort Janus this time, so Janus went ahead and went down the hall to Virgil’s office himself.

He knocked on the door and while he was waiting for Virgil to open it, the infernal contraption once again started to play the same stupid song.

“I didn’t even touch you!” he spat, getting it out and tapping on the screen.

“Jonas Brothers dude again?” Virgil asked causally upon opening the door.

Janus shoved it at him. “Make it stop.”

Virgil took it and fiddled with it for a few moments before it stopped with the song. “Oh my gosh,” he said scrolling through something on the screen.

“What.”

“What maniac sets a custom alarm for every 30-60 minutes for a week that just plays ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’? Oh, and one ‘It’s Not Unusual’ on Saturday. He’s mixing memes at an alarming rate.”

“Can you. Just. Make it not happen. Anymore?”

Virgil smirked at him. “Maybe.” He turned around to go back into his office.

“Virgil,” Janus growled following him in.

Virgil just laughed. “What do you want to know about it?” he asked. “Just a fair warning… the song means he… likely was aware someone would steal it.”

“Of course, he was,” Janus groaned.

“But I’m sure we can still get something out of it.” Virgil started tapping at the screen again. “Okay, let’s see. It’s an iPhone 5, and someone jailbroke it.”

“What does that mean?”

“Tampered with it so they could install non-company approved software,” Virgil explained.

“Well I figured that since he was using Google Maps to track time distortions,” Janus grumbled.

“I think I have something,” Virgil said to himself while digging through his desk. “Ah ha!” He held up some sort of cord. “This will let me hook it up to my integrator.” He slotted the cord into the bottom of the iPhone and then crawled under his desk to fiddle around with some other things. “There we go,” Virgil said popping back up. “It might take a few minutes. Running the program any faster might overheat the phone.”

Janus nodded and sat back to wait. Virgil grabbed the phone and started to play around with it a bit even as it uploaded all of its information to his computer.

“Weird,” Virgil said after a moment.

“What?” Janus asked, sitting up straighter.

“There are exactly two contacts. Fewer than I’d anticipate for a regular phone from the 2010s. More than I would expect from one clearly not being used as a phone.

Virgil glanced to the side, and it must have finished the download because he unhooked it from the computer. “I have a 21st century phone network adapter,” Virgil said. “It transfers call back to whatever date the phone says. Do you want to try calling one?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Janus replied.

Virgil dug back into his desk for a small device that he plugged into the same port he’d plugged the earlier cord. “Okay, which contact do you want to try first?” he asked. “One has ‘Ro’ with a crown, red heart, and a gold star emoji. The other has “Lo” with a book, blue heart, and Milky Way emoji.”

“He mentioned a Lo,” Janus said. “So, try him first.”

Virgil nodded. “I’ll put it on speaker.” He pressed some buttons before setting the phone on the desk between them.

The phone rang three times before with a bit of a crackle, it was answered. “Salutations,” a voice said, voice sounding a bit scratchy as though he had only just gotten up.

Virgil motioned with his head for Janus to speak. “Are you ‘Lo’?” he asked.

The man hummed. “To some people.”

Janus… didn’t quite know what to say to that, or even what questions he should ask.

“I’m assuming you’re the man that stole my associate’s phone.”

#study break stories #not writing

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northerngoshawk · 3 years

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I have never talked to @shifuaang a day in my life, but I saw their post on my dashboard, so 🤷‍♀️

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

7 (I have more on my FF.Net account, though, since it’s my main)

2. What is your total AO3 word count?

82,094

3. Top five fics by kudos

1 - the avatar’s fear

2 - phoenix tears

3 - dragon blood

4 - Opposing Elements (and Their Relationships) (tied w/ The Dishonored Blade)

5 - The Dishonored Blade (tied w/ Opposing Elements)

4. Do you respond to comments, and why?

Yes! I’m forever grateful to people for leaving comments on my fics, and I want to show that gratitude for taking their time to leave one (although I need to work on that for them 💀)

5. What’s the fic you have written with the angstiest ending?

ha.

Ha.

HA.

No, but in all honesty, “dragon blood” is definitely the angstiest. All the others are bittersweet at least, but “dragon blood” pulls the full stops, no holding back on the angst.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

No happy endings exist in MY universe. Probably “The Dishonored Blade.” It’s definitely bittersweet, I’d say, but at least there’s resolution at the end.

7. Do you write crossovers, if so what’s the craziest one you have done?

Uhhhhhh... do AUs based upon other preexisting media count as crossovers? 😅 If they do, then definitely my Maze Runner AU for ATLA, The Water Trials. It’s actually a contest between that and “The Dishonored Blade,” whose AU is based off of League of Legend lore, but The Water Trials is planned to be a multi-chapter, so it edges out.

Otherwise, if “crossovers” means, like, characters from different universes interact with each other, then no, I haven’t written one, and no, I probably won’t ever write one.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope. But I wouldn’t be surprised if I did in the future; still too early to tell.

9. Do you write NSFW? If so what kind?

Hard no. I will not write NSFW, I will probably never write NSFW, and I absolutely refuse to read NSFW, much less write it.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

There was this one person on FF.Net who offered to translate my Kataang: Kiss 22 fic in Russian.

Don’t know what happened to that.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope.

13. All time favorite ship!

KATAANG (although my definition of a Kataang fan is different from everyone else’s definition of a Kataang fan, it seems 😈)

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish, but don’t think you will?

Don’t really have any WIPs that I won’t finish. There’s one that’s been sitting in my Word for a while now, but I do want to finish it someday.

15. What are your writing strengths?

emotion (apparently), maybe characterization, strong diction, grammar

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

emotion (b/c I can’t cry when reading/writing angst), descriptions (just let me get to the action), exposition, and action scenes*

*I’ve only really written fight scenes in “The Dishonored Blade” and nobody ever told me if they were good, so ✌

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

As long as you’re familiar with the language and you understand its conventions and stuff, then I’d say go for it! If you don’t, it’s best to consult someone who does.

18. First fandom you wrote for?

Minecraft: Story Mode

19. Fave fic you have written?

Oh, for sure “the avatar’s fear.” My goal when setting out to write this was to combat the Aang slander on Tumblr by portraying him as a complex, three-dimensional character; everyone else just seemed to overlook his nuance and see him as “stupid naive child” or “abusive toxic male” (😑), so I tried to show how, no, Aang is not any of those things, and yes, Aang does have nuance and layers. Just based on the comments on both FF.Net and AO3, I seemed to have succeeded 😊

To date, “the avatar’s fear” is probably my best work in all of my repertoire, so if there is any fic you want to read from me, start with that one; even if it’s the only fic you read, I’ll still be happy.

Consider it as my contribution to the anti-Aang discourse as an Aang stan ;)

Tagging: @itsmoonpeaches @flameohotwife @f0xfordcomma (if you guys haven’t been tagged already), @shameaboutthedilettantism @chocomd and anyone else who wants in! Feel free to do whatever if this pops up on your dash

#northern speaks #tag game #fanfic tag game

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thatwriterkei · 4 years

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Breathe.

°A/N; I had so much fun writing this!! So WHOLESOME ♥️

•Summary: Y/N finally decided to ask Peter out, but will it go as planned?

•Warnings: so much FLUFF

*MASTERLIST*

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Today was the day Y/N L/N would ask the one and only Peter Parker out.

The pair had known each other ever since Y/N offered Peter to color with her in kindergarten. She was there to comfort him after his parents passed away, and she was there for the death of his uncle. Peter was even there for Y/N's grandmother's passing.

Through it all they were the best of friends and when they grew older they matured, as well as their feelings.

Y/N was currently bolting down the bustling hallway of Midtown High, in search of her now two best friends. One can have two best friends, right?

Y/N's sneakers came to a halt and skidded against the vinyl flooring but the momentum she already gained still caused her face to crash with a backpack belonging to a familiar green jacket wearer.

This throughly helped her slow down and not fall with the person but she still experienced the discomfort of her nose nearly being crushed by the textbooks in their backpack.

Still being as polite as ever, she rubbed her nose gently and backed away from the familiar classmate.

"I'm so sorry! I was trying to find one of my friends. Well, both of my best friends but you should really take it easy on the textbooks, bud." Y/N rambled in a chary tone, opening up her eyes and making contact with those very charming brown eyes she's known to adore.

Peter's laugh resonated through her ears, a boyish grin adorning his admirable features.

She felt her heart soar, the scuttle of hormonal teenagers quieted down to a muffled sound. She gave Peter her full attention despite being the one who claimed to be in search of him.

"Sorry, chemistry is a big load of hefty words. I hope you find your "best friends"." His bottom lip pursed out into a pout but his eyes were still gleaming.

Y/N laughed at him, shoving his shoulder lightly. "Oh, hush. You know I meant you and Ned! Speaking of Ned..?"

"He already left for class but I could walk you to yours..If you wouldn't mind of course!" He quickly stammered.

Peter was absolutely smitten for Y/N. Every little thing she did set his senses into a frenzy. The smell of her Victoria Secret perfume, how it encapsulated her perfectly. The honey-sweet sound of her voice making Peter melt. The beauty she possessed and how every curve to her body sent shivers down his spine. The way she snorted after laughing for a great deal of time. When I mean Peter was smitten for every part of Y/N, he was wholeheartedly smitten for her and only her.

Y/N nodded with a beaming smile, already walking in the direction of her first class alongside Peter with their shoulders brushing past each other occasionally.

Y/N wasn't sure when her feelings developed for the nerdy dork, but she knew she fell hard. To this day Y/N believed Peter was the first guy to have ever stolen her heart, and still held onto it.

If she was asked to describe Peter in one word, she would be stuck tongue-tied. There would be too many positive attributes Y/N could list. She would begin by describing those gorgeous brown eyes that could set her heart on fire. Y/N could listen to Peter's voice days on end, and even longer if he had some frustrations to ramble about. She admired the way he ignored Flash's rude remarks, being the bigger person, and standing up for the younger students when they were in predicaments in the hallways. She loved how selfless he was. He was the kindest person Y/N ever knew. She was not just infatuated with Peter, she was head over heels for him. She adored the loving hell outta him.

"So, you said you were looking for Ned and I..Are you going to pay back for stealing my cookie last week?" He flashed on a serious façade but not truly being upset with her. He could never.

"No, besides, I won that fair and square. You know I'm the only one who can make MJ laugh, we just get each other."

Peter mocked the last part of her sentence, earning an eye roll from her.

"Anyway, it wasn't about the cookie. I actually needed to talk with you..Can we talk during lunch possibly?" She asked with a passive tone to her voice.

"Of course we can! I hope it isn't too scary of a conversation; I want to eat my sandwich in peace."

Y/N laughed. "I know you do. Don't worry, I'll try to keep it brief. Or at least try to.."

Soon they arrived to Y/N's classroom. She knew she would have the most difficult time focusing in her first two classes before lunch. Her mind would be clouded with various scenarios that could arise once she confessed to him.

After 1st and 2nd period, lunch finally came along and the cafeteria was packed with high schoolers and a few teachers that forgot their lunch at home. At the time, Ned and Y/N were the only ones sitting at their table while MJ spoke to a teacher about an assignment and Peter was grabbing something at a vending machine. The lines were really stinking long.

"Peter brought up in chem that you were looking for us..Well, specifically him. Are you finally going to ask him out?" Ned wiggled his eyebrows in a teasing manner.

New was honestly the sole reason Y/N even considered confessing to Peter. His nonstop poking motivation. Yes, he poked her until she broke and gave in.

"I-I don't know! Several different alarms are going off in my head. I don't know what to say or, more importantly, how to say what I feel. There's so many things that I could say but I don't want to overwhelm him. You know, it's very difficult confessing to one of your best friends."

Ned thought for a few passing moments until an idea popped into his mind.

"I got it! Practice confessing to Peter on me then I can help you." He suggested.

Y/N's cheeks lit up like a siren on a firetruck. "Are you joking? Are you trying to embarrass me further? What if Peter shows up and hears everything. God, I'll die. I'll probably die of embarrassment."

Ned rolled his eyes but still kept on his calm, friendly disposition. "Just try it, please? I promise it will help you find the right words to tell him. Trust me, okay?"

Y/N hesitated with a heavy sigh, nodding.

"Okay..Peter, I've been meaning to tell you something for such a long time and while I'm not sure how you'll react, I know you deserve to know. For as long as I've known you, your main intention in life is to protect the ones you love and adore. You strive to be kind and friendly to all those who find struggle and difficulty in their lives. You've also gone through so many tragedies and you deserve all the love in return. I want to give you that love and more. I want to be more than the friend who offers their shoulder to cry on. To have more than comforting hugs and random midnight calls. I want to embrace you in a different form of intimacy. I want to share every part of me with you. I love you."

Ned's jaw dropped open, and Y/N took that as a good sign. However, upon closer examination, she noticed his gaze straying past her. She quickly turned around and, lo and behold, the one and only Peter Parker was standing just a few feet behind her. He had a cookie in his hand and Y/N couldn't help cracking a little smile but she soon realized what had happened. Her eyes met with Peter's and she swore she saw a hint of sadness in them. Maybe even watery. Those once gleaming irises were now dull.

"P-Peter!? Oh shit-You didn't hear any of that, right? Well, I'm assuming you did. Umm-What did you think of it?" She asked, nearly wanting to facepalm at her ignorant mind. She shouldn't have listened to Ned.

"What do I think of it? You just confessed to Ned so it's not really my place to comment on it. I'll leave you two alone for awhile." He replied, turning away and leaving the cafeteria.

Y/N knew why Ned was such in shock. Peter had arrived at the end of her confession, not realizing she started off talking about him. Without another word spoken between her and Ned, she dashed after Peter, tugging on his free arm to pull him back.

"Peter, wait! That confession wasn't meant for Ned..He was helping me practice!" She tried to explain.

Peter had a few tears falling down his cheeks. Y/N caught them almost immediately no matter what he did to wipe them away.

"Shit shit shit. This wasn't how asking you out was supposed to go!" She complained.

Peter repeated what she had just said in his mind, those same dazzling eyes perking up with life again.

"Ask me out?" He needed to confirm what he was hearing.

"Yes! Ned convinced me to confess to you with him because I couldn't find the right words. Really, I should be thanking him but I'm not sure how you feel because you heard everything and that's seriously embarrassi-"

Y/N's breath got caught in her throat, the weight on her shoulders lifting from the soft kiss Peter brought her into. Immediately, her worries washed away and she felt calm again. He had a way with that. She was kissing him back but with her body still rigid in shock, she wasn't breathing through her nostrils.

Peter finally pulled away, chuckling and rubbing his thumb tenderly against her cheek. "Breath, Y/N/N."

She started breathing normally but the intimate moment hadn't broken between them, staring into each other's souls that tied their fates with the other.

"I love you too.. I've always loved you, and only you."

Tags:

@parkershoodie

#spiderman #spidey #peter #peter parker #parker #into the spider verse #tom holland #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x reader

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enigmaincrimson · 3 years

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I think the problem people tend the have with you is the fact that you tend to guilt trip the dash on a constant basis along with the fact that your character/characters can borderline godmod at times. Then there's the way of rambling incoherently while blowing other people off and just holding a conversation by yourself. I think these reasons can put people off from interacting with you and even speaking with you and despite this being pointed out to you, you still keep doing this.

It was never my intention.

Maybe I've been sitting in the silence with my own thoughts for too long... all I see to do these days is sit and curn around violently while constantly worrying about saying the something in a way that it isn't clear or understood.

It's not that I don't want to hold a conversation... it's more that I'm afraid I messed up what I said and end up flailing wildly trying to find a footing that I'm not even sure is even there.

After all, its not like people haven't already judged me before they even met me. I don't think the same as you do and maybe I have a terrible time expressing my feelings and getting my thoughts across.

I rarely ever speak that much because it feels like I'm stuck in a mad delirium... like a spring compressed tightly and never allowed release. Every single word I say feels like someone I know might get hurt because some idiot with a grudge over the color of a theme I used five years ago might start the whole mess all over again.

Did you ever think to ask if the other person is hurting as well? I have, many times... but my words are never heard... so I have to watch everyone struggle in pain while all I can do is trash about and scream at nothing.

When I say that I am not happy when other people are not happy... I am not sure how else to put it. There's so much I wanted to share, but I'm forced to keep silent to the point I could burst.

Every day I constantly wait, fret and stew as I wonder about the wellbeing of my partners... yet I cannot speak to them because they are no longer there. I mourn their loss every moment of every day... yet I normally keep that to myself because saying about it could hurt them.

Every single message I send, I wait for the bomb to drop because the person I might have approached might have known someone who suddenly decided that I was the scum of the earth over something as petty like the wind was blowing in the wrong direction that day and somehow it had to be my fault.

Both me and pat partners been blacklisted, message bomed, tag bombed, had threads stolen, blamed for hate anonymous, impersonated, and more just because someone didn't like what faceclaim I was using... and honestly. They're still around looking for an existing to write more callout posts just because they decided that I was the source of all of their problems and me committing suicide would be the best thing that could ever happen to them.

Not that IRL has been any better... it's a wonder why I haven't done what they wanted to happen and just curled up and died already.

Sure, I don't hold grudges, I try to move on and forget, but they definitely do not want to let things go. I could never forgive myself for hurting another person, even if they deserved it... you wanted me to speak, so here I am speaking. You have no idea how long I sit here in silence... just wishing and hoping that just maybe one of the few people that were willing to see me as something more than a cheap novelty to pass the time or pad their own egos would come back.

However, they rarely do... and I just keep waiting, trying to reach out... trying not to get hurt again. However, I doubt you'd even care to comprehend even a little of what I'm trying to say here. The person I am most angry at is myself. I can't be perfect or flawless, I don't have much to offer either... yet everyone seems to ask so much.

So tell me this... did anyone ever ask you if you were in pain? Or did you ignore them like everything else?

I've tried so many times to be there... but here I am... still waiting, watching, and hoping. I'm not allowed to have a voice it seems... and I've tried to hard to give everyone the time and space they asked for... but most never even try to speak to me in the first place.

Maybe I am just a waste of time and space... maybe I am the creep of an asshole everyone makes me out to be. Everyone keeps putting up walls these days and wonders why nobody comes. Who cares what this hated old relic has to say... did anyone ever ask why that is so? No, they never did.

Maybe I am going insane after all these years of having to deal with being treated like trash... but you don't go into people's inboxes and try to dictate everything about their lives and then try to rally people to your cause when they say no. Especially when it is something they have little to no control over... like how Tumblr likes to eat messages or the app likes to crash and act up.

Did anyone ever ask for my side of the story through all that is happened? No, very few have. I'm the bad guy by default because the other guy has pretty pictures and everyone pays homage to them like they didn't just stick a knife in their back not that long ago.

Seriously though, even if I could provide evidence of what is going on, I couldn't use it because everyone has already decided on the verdict and proving your innocence just makes you look more guilty... same goes for trying to resolve the issue more peacefully... since people like that want your head on a pike as an example and if they can't get that, they sure will try to make sure that you won't get a fair trial.

So yes... I do sound paranoid, but with my track record... online and off, it's well earned.

And no, just because you pushed someone through a church window and it broke doesn't mean that you have the right to beat them to death with sticks and stones... or hunt them down every Sunday when that didn't work as planned.

You don't blame the rock for the thrower"s actions. Even if the rock happens to be another person who just happened to be there.

And yes, I sound crazy... but it's not like most of you even cared to listen.

Go ahead and be angry at me if you want... just try to remember that it is my first instinct to put myself in harm's way in some clumsy attempt to shield others.

Hate me all you want, it's not like I feel much anymore.

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sparklyaxolotlstudent · 3 years

Text

There is an special kind of character that I don’t particularly dislike, but find annoying how their own media (and sometimes, the fans) interpret and stan them and attack like rabbid dogs anyone who disagrees.

These characters are normal, they have their strengths, and they have their flaws… but the narrative and other characters only see their strengths and outright refuse to see their flaws, more often than not blaming other characters for their shortcomings, or outright making them be right all the time.

I refuse to tag this as salt, but if you like or “stan” any of these characters, be warned: Mabel Pines (From Gravity Falls), Taranee Cook (From W.i.t.c.h.), Adrien Agreste (From Miraculous Ladybug), Alya Cesaire (Also from Miraculous) and special mentions of Marinette Dupain-Cheng (Also Miraculous) and Tony Stark.

Mabel Pines is incredibly self-centered, to the point that even Bill Cypher, the big bad of the show points it out several times and weaponizes it, almost creating an Apocalypse. No, I’m not going to blame Mabel for it, but the show goes out of its way to make Mabel blameless.

She is always mocking Dipper for anything and everything, she manipulates him and abuses his good will, not to mention she invades his privacy and boundaries every time she can, not to mention she also somehow holds him to much higher standards to what she does herself. (We are told Dipper mocks her as much, but we never actually see this)

She tries to force him to confess to Wendy

She snoops into his stuff, and steals the Diary at least once (One of the times Bill pointed out her being a jerkass)

When Candy develops a crush on Dipper, she calls him out for flirting with other girls… but she has been flirting with a lot of boys all summer, and Dipper wasn’t in any kind of relationship with Candy.

She basically drugs Robbie and Tambry into loving each other, stealing from a god in the process, and in the end decides to keep them drugged.

She guiltrips Dipper into not accepting an internship with their uncle

The last Mabelcorn kind of addresses this… but since Celestabellebethabelle turned out to be a jerkass herself, the whole point is soon forgotten. She is never called out again for any of these, and is outright treated like the most moral character of the show

Taranee Cook… is, admittedly, a result of bad writing and the writers just outright not knowing what to do with her character. She starts as the “Smart Girl” of the group, with an interest in photography and African culture… but that is forgotten after the first saga. She “rediscovers” a passion for dancing and emotionally cheats on her boyfriend before breaking up with him, and from that point out, she has a new love interest every other issue. They are always treated like the love of her life. And just to point out more of the “the writers don’t know what to do with her” in an issue where they see their futures, she ends up being an Olympic runner. Despite having zero interest on it… But anyway, that’s not that this rant is about.

One issue has a B plot of the girls and their boys (some boyfriends, some friends of them) going to the beach to enjoy a meteor shower (I think that’s what is called? I read the issue in Spanish) and the boys, Hay Lin and Irma go overboad, buying a LOT of unnecessary things, while Taranee protests (mind you, the boys were paying the most of the things. Will and Cornelia were not involved in the buying). With Taranee, being the smart girl and the most level headed of the girls, one would think that she would convince the others to just get the completely necessary and not waste money with some rousing speech… but no, she gets her way by melting the tires of her brother’s car into the asphalt, making them unable to carry their stuff, and forcing them to just go with the most essential stuff. You would think the girls would be furious with her, or that someone would point out that the tires and the asphalt would be pretty pricey… but no, they thank her for the vandalism and say she was right all along.

Another issue has a new boy moving to the house next door to Taranee, who ends up being the son of a teacher who they later think is suspicious (which is kind of fair. They face shit like aliens and monsters posing as normal people fairly regularly). Taranee, again, treats him as his one true love and offers to befriend him to spy on them. The previous day, she thought that they were soulmates because she saw him practicing violin, reading a book and eating ethnic food… through the closed windows. She stalked him. And then, after “befriending” him, she realizes the “violin” was actually a weird contraption to work out (To be fair, it does have the silhouette of a violin, but how she didn’t notice the lack of sound is not addressed), the book was the menu of a restaurant and the “ethnic food” was actually a hot dog. And then she proceeds to insult him to his back calling him a bonehead. Again, she wanted to bone him because she was stalking him and got the wrong idea. The guy is portrayed as very friendly, and attaches quickly to the girls, who find him annoying… y’know, I was expecting them to introduce them to their male friends, but no, the issue with him is unresolved, they explain why his dad was acting suspicious, and they never ever appear again, and Taranee get a new love interest. No one ever calls her out for her stalking.

Adrien Agreste and Alya… well, I have talk about them a lot in here, but their major sins:

Adrien:

Lies about his relationship with Ladybug, which gets a guy akumatized. Lies to Ladybug and blames her for the akumatization. Ladybug apologizes.

Throws a temper tantrum while Paris is getting flooded by an akuma. People are actively drowning and all he essentially blackmails his kwami into giving him information. No one calls him out on this, and he gets what he wants (To meet the guardian)

Throws another temper tantrum when Ladybug says she has plans with friends and will not be able to attend his dinner. Note that they share the same friends and he ditched them for this date.

Constantly forgives Chloe and Lila of every they do to everyone else, but the moment he is affect by his cousin, he calls him a friendless jerk.

This is unclear, but the implication is that he never liked Kagami as a love interest, but let himself be her boyfriend. The moment they break up he tricks Ladybug into watching a romantic movie.

Despite using the Ladybug Miraculous and learning that the holder of that Miraculous holds a greater responsibility that the holder of the Black Cat, and can’t allow themselves to fail, he constantly goofs off while fighting, and tries to flirts with Ladybug, which only distract her. And that’s without mentioning all the times he sacrifices himself, which sometimes leaves Ladybug to do all the job on her own, and sometimes makes him an enemy.

Alya is not that bad, but again, she’s never called out when she screws up. Chameleon is infamous for that. Reflekdoll has her ditching Juleka and making Marinette the model, yet Marinette is the one blamed for that. She reveals that Marinette like Adrien, despite Marinette asking her not to. She equally mocks and support Marinette crush on Adrien. She has pushed Marinette to confess to Adrien, despite her telling her several times she was not ready (And in the NY special that she was trying to get over him)

Marinette and Tony Stark are special mentions because while some of their flaws are pointed out, others are overlooked or even praised.

Marinette stalks Adrien like a crazy fan, but to be fair, is very inconsistent and the product of bad writing. She has stolen his phone, following him when he’s with another girl, tried to kiss what she thought was his wax statue (and stole a lock of hair), has his schedule written down (It is implied it’s the schedules of everyone in class, but still…), smells his pillow, crashes a party dressed as a guy, and outright follows him to another country. The series somehow blames her for a lot of things that other characters do or say, but somehow overlooks this stalking, and oftentimes plays it for laughs (To humiliate her, but still)

Tony has a lot of issues, and sometimes they are the center of the conflicts (Iron Man 2 and 3 play with this) but sometimes overlook his treatment of other characters. He treats Wanda like a weapon and abuses Peter like there’s no tomorrow, and yet, people, and Peter himself act as if he was a great mentor. The fact that he is directly to blame for the Vulture and Mysteryo is never addressed either.

And the opposite is also true. Sometimes, we get a villain that actually doesn’t do anything wrong, yet the narrative and the other characters treat them as the worst.

Trixie from My Little Pony fits that bill. Her debut episode has her putting a show in ponyville (Mind you, this is a universe were everyone can do magic. Being a stage magician is hard). Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Rarity proceed to heckle her and calling her out on her boasting. She humiliates them after they try to humiliate her at her own show. Two kids end up provoking a Ursa Minor (A giant ass bear made of stars) because she boasted about defeating one. End result? She ends up losing her cart, which means she lost her home and employment in one night, not to mention she basically was ran out of the town. She is treated like a villain and it takes several seasons for the show to rectify this.

#random #rant

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dazed--xx · 4 years

Text

Alone

REQUEST: *Hi see you mentioned about story requests. I'm having a hard time since I'm currently pregnant and my partner walked out on me, so could you do one when Jungkook where I meet Jungkook and he helps me raise the baby please*

Summary: “I'm pregnant Jungkook.” the line goes dead silent “look before you say anything, no I wasn’t hiding this from you and I completely understand if you don’t want to talk to me shit I wouldn’t want to talk to me and move on to someone who is not pregnant and going to be having this type of responsibilities-” “Y/N-”

GENRE: Mild-Angst, Fluff

Member: Jungkook x Pregnant!reader

Word count: 2,132

A/N: so this is literally my first fanfic ever and i hope you guys like it. and to the person that requested this I wanted to tag you because i did post it but i didnt want to kind of call you out online especially since this was based on something you have personally happening to you, trust me pregnancy is scary let alone having to go it alone so if you need someone to talk to im here btw.. but hopefully you guys like this it was pretty good i wanna post a couple of requests a day since i banged this out as quickly as i did im taking more requests just inbox me or go to my ask let me know if you want your name attached to the request and i will send everyone that i know requested a specific story i will tag and send it to you so you know it is done but without further ado ALONE

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“Where are you going? Do you really expect me to do this alone?” I shouted to the already abandoned house. A swell in my throat rises and I can't breathe. My body shakes as the tears take over. I fall to my knees running my hand over my stomach. “Don’t you worry baby; Daddy will be back he loves you I promise” I say to the life growing within my womb.

The warmth from the comforter consumes me as I awaken with dried tears in my eyes. My heart aches as I remember the events from the past 12 hours. The thick silence takes hold of my heart and it begins racing. My heart beat sounding as if it is being played on a speaker the size of a skyscraper. Feeling the bile rise in my throat, rushing to the bathroom, I empty out the contents of my stomach. Tears escape my eyes as I reach out to the void. I'm alone truly.

My first OBGYN appointment rolls around and my heart is in my stomach. The nurse escorts me in, slowly my feet turn into lead as I drag myself onto the cot in the room and lay back facing the monitor. Once I feel that cool gel upon my stomach, my heart settles and the most beautiful BUMP BUMP BUMP is heard throughout the room. My eyes focus on the image in front of me. “well congrats sweetie you're about 10 weeks, Due September 27. Remember no stress and make sure to take your prenatal. We’ll see you next week” My ultrasound technician announces excitedly. I smile anxious as to what I should do next.

I make my way to a small café after my appointment wanting a small tea to calm my nerves. Looking around the coffee shop I notice quite the crowd and my panic begins to set in. It feels like I can't breathe while the crowds begin to grow as the café reaches the brink of rush. More and More people pour through the door as my anxiety takes over and I feel the bile rising again, I abandon my spot in line trying to make it to the restroom before I release the contents of my stomach all over the café floor. The restroom door becomes the only thing in sight to me as I dash for it. I reach for the handle and the door opens and I slam into a hard chest and soon I am on the floor.

“HOLY CRAP!!! IM SO SORRY I WAS NOT PAYING ATTENTION” A angelic voice apologized above me. My eyes drift from the floor up to see the most amazing man I've ever seen in my life with his hand out and my voice gets caught in my throat. I stare at him for a while capturing every detail of his face and take his hand. I nod quickly and mutter a fast “Sorry” and dash around the beautiful man and lose myself behind the safety of the door. I was dreading walking back out into the craziness of the café, but excited to see if I could once again get a glimpse of the gorgeous man from before.

Soon I am back in line and order my tea, when a familiar voice sounds from next to me “You know.... you should let me pay you back for your drink you know...since I hurt you” Shocked I turn my head to see the same beautiful man from before. “Oh, please don’t worry about it I really wasn’t paying attention either it's not a big deal” I smile shyly. “Besides I'm sure you have better things to do with your time than to buy a stranger a drink” He laughs “Honestly, Beautiful, I don’t really have anything to do with my time that doesn’t involve getting to know you” Heat creeps up to my face and I lower my gaze and smile. “I don’t need you to pay me back for my tea for you to be able to get to know me, but unfortunately I gotta go” I say slowly moving past him. “At least let me get your number...please” He asked “You don’t even know my name and you want my number?” “Hey I know what I want and I feel like me knowing your name won't matter much cause I probably won't be calling you anything other than mine” I let out a small giggle “ that was super corny but since you're trying so hard give me your phone” I put my number in his phone and hand it back to him and walk toward the door “By the way my name is Y/N” as I make my exit I hear him shout back “Jungkook!”

As the weeks pass, I find myself talking more and more to Jungkook. He still hasn’t stopped flirted with me as much as he did that day in the café but we talk everyday about almost everything and I can't help but feel scared to tell him I am having a baby. What would he say? Will he not want to talk to me anymore? Would he not like me as much? A loud RING pulls me out of my thoughts as my phone lights up with Jungkook's name and photo comes up on my screen.

“Hey, what's up cutie?” He says excitedly

“Not much, just lying in bed not feeling too good today” I respond pouty

“Aw, do you need anything? Medicine? I can bring you soup it'll make you feel better I know you said you went out with your friend last night are you hungover?” The worry evident in his voice.

“Um honestly no um I can't drink so I'm definitely not hungover just different I know what it is though I'll be fine” the nervousness in my voice is evident

“what's wrong then beautiful? Is everything okay?” Oh no... not that question. He’s worried and I know he is but I don’t know what to say. I can't stop it the words just rush out of my mouth like the bile I throw up every morning

“I'm pregnant Jungkook....I'm 14 weeks pregnant” the line goes dead silent “look before you say anything, no I wasn’t hiding this from you and I completely understand if you don’t want to talk to me shit I wouldn’t want to talk to me and move on to someone who is not pregnant and going to be having this type of responsibilities-” “Y/N-” No listen Kookie cause I really like you and I didn’t mean to keep this from you I was just scared that you would hate me” “Y/N-” “I mean I know you just met me a couple weeks ago and it wouldn’t mean much for you to just walk away from this because let's be honest who wants to deal with that-” “Y/N! JUST STOP AND LISTEN PLEASE!” The words stop flowing as quickly as they began.

“Do you think id stop liking you because of the simple fact that you're pregnant, I mean yeah it does suck that you're going to have someone else's baby but I don’t care about that... WAIT! Is that why your ex left?” I stay silent

“Baby....are you there?” He asks worried.

“Baby girl???”

“Beautiful are you okay? Hello?”

I sniffle “Yeah I’m here sorry” my voice cracks at every word.

“Baby are you crying? Do you need me to get you anything?”

“No, I'm fine I promise I'm going to go to bed okay? Goodnight handsome I'll talk to you in the morning” “wait what no I'm com-” I cut him off to end the already overwhelming call. My vision blurs as the tears cascade down my face and I let out a harsh sob. I was scared for nothing or he's just too optimistic. A loud knock on the door grabs my attention.

“who is it?” fear leaking out in my tone. “Baby it's me open up” I hear Jungkook's melodic voice through the door. Quickly I swing the door open to be greeted with the man I've grown so accustomed to in the past few weeks. Taking in the sight of him my heart begins to race as the tears began to no longer form. He reaches his arms around me and pulls me against him. “Baby girl, why didn’t you tell me sooner? You really thought that would make me just leave. How could I do that when in the past few weeks, you’ve stolen my heart” He looks at me and there's a hunger in his eyes as they shift down to my lips. “aww fuck it” he exclaims as his lips capture mine. His arms wrap around my waits as my hands get lost in his soft midnight hair. After a while he pulls away and a small whimper is released from my mouth. “Do you know HOW long I've wanted to do that” he exclaims excitedly with a smile plastered across his face.

After that night Jungkook never left my side, everything I craved he got, Anytime I felt nauseous Jungkook was there. It became routine with him his calls became more frequent on days he knew I had appointments and he went to every ultrasound. His excitement for my baby was shown one day when I came home from work and my whole apartment was filled top to bottom with diapers bottles and wipes. Jungkook was still too nervous to buy much because he felt he was taking part of the experience from me and the fact that we still don’t know what the baby is yet. As the date rolls around to the appointment it's all Jungkook can talk about. He wants a girl every five seconds he reminds me it's always “Baby do you think the princess will like me? I mean I want her to know I care and that I love you” which is why he was so heartbroken when he could not make it to the gender reveal appointment because of a last-minute practice session. “Please promise to call me right after you find out okay baby?” He begs sadly before he left for the morning.

After the appointment my heart swelled with joy as I turned into my driveway to see Jungkook's car sitting there. As soon as I unlocked the door, I felt a pair of strong arms wrap around my waist and feel kisses peppered up my neck “Hey, Baby how did your appointment go? How are you feeling?” he says in-between kisses. A blush creeps up onto my face “Yeah, it went great baby is a growing good and healthy, so I have to tell you something” I state biting my bottom lip and looking toward the ground.

“Oh god what's wrong? Is our princess okay?” his use of the word our makes my heart skip a beat “OUR? And the baby is fine....” I look at him pointedly and his hand runs through his hair as his face turns beet red as he slowly stutters out “I mean....um... I'm sorry I didn’t mean to just assume that you wanted me involved but it's so hard not to be when I'm so in love with you that I don’t care if I wasn’t the one that got you pregnant that’s my baby and you’re my girl so yeah our.... so, what is you have to tell me?” I kiss him softly at his words. I beam at him “You're literally so amazing I can't believe you would even consider any of this I know it's a lot to ask for someone to be involved with someone who is pregnant and all I appreciate it baby BUT unfortunately it's not a princess we got blessed with, handsome” as I put his hand on my stomach and his face twists into confusion “what do you-WAIT! IT’S A BOY? FORREAL? IT’S A BOY?” the smile cannot be contained on his face as he comes to the realization.

"Yes, it’s a boy” I state as Jungkook lifts and twirls me around I laugh.

Jungkook happily exclaims “Oh my god, I'm gonna have a son.” Jungkook drops to his knees and places his hand on my stomach and softly speaks “Hey handsome, its daddy, no I'm not your real daddy baby but I'm going to love you and your mommy like I am. I can't imagine a world without you I can't wait to meet you”

I stand there smiling knowing.......Jungkook won’t ever leave me alone

#bts imagines #btsjungkook #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #bts angst #bts fluff #bts request #bts x reader

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s1cparvism4gna · 3 years

Text

I Like You A Lot

WARNINGS: cursing and violence

Pairings: Chloe Frazer x Nadine Ross x Sam Drake x OC

Tags: @desertvvitch, @courtenbae

A/N: I’ll fix the ‘read more’ soon! Enjoy the story 💕

Chapter 17

Sam’s POV

I watched it all happen. How they cornered the girls, the China Lake explosives that were sent their way… I could hear a familiar scream erupt throughout the spacious room. Just as I looked up, I saw Sunny’s small body rolling off of the breaking platform. A panic filled my chest, thinking that I would’ve watched her die right in front of me. “NO!!” I found myself roaring above the rapid gunfire. I could practically feel my heart falling out of my ass. But just as her body began to fall, I could see Chloe dashing across the ledge to grab her arm. I exhaled and laid on my back a minute, relieved to see that save. It was a sight to behold really; watching Sunny charge through the slew of armed men with no fear in her heart. I’d almost forgotten how fierce she was. I could feel a smirk curling at the corners of my lips. She and Chloe would make it out. They had to. That was wishful thinking on my part. Sunny’s optimism seemed to rub off on me a little. I looked up to see Chloe hanging from the breaking ledge. ‘Ah, shit….’ I thought, my face frowning as I watched the scene. There seemed to be someone else with them. I just couldn’t tell who it was. But they tried their best to reach for her. Just when I thought they’d make it, the ledge crumbled beneath them and they all fell quite a distance into the cold water. “SUNNY!” I yelped and the man that held me at gunpoint grabbed a hold of my hair, yanking it roughly. And not in the sexy way.

“Shut your mouth, thief!” He said to me. I snarled at him, wringing myself from his grasp as I tried to see if they were okay. Luckily, they were. They crawled from the water tired and coughing, gasping for air, and Asav was right there to greet them. His men cuffed them, handling them roughly. “Get your dirty paws off her—” I exclaimed and my cries were cut short after the heavy hilt of the gun collided with my face, pushing me back onto the wet ground. ‘GOD….dammit!’ I shook it off with a growl. My face was already sore from the shiner Asav gave me earlier. Hurt like hell but I’ve been hit by hands heavier than his.

“He wouldn’t give you up— despite my efforts to persuade him.” I heard Asav say. Suddenly, a body was thrown down roughly next to me. I spit out a bit of blood before looking up to be met with those big baby brown eyes. Sunny’s sweet freckled face was bruised and dirty, a little tanned. India seemed to have brought some color back to her face. Her clothes were sopping wet and just a little bit muddy. She looked like she’d been through hell. Like she’s been on an adventure all her own. I couldn’t wait to hear the story behind it all. I could feel a smile spreading on my face already but the soreness in my jaw kept me from doing so gracefully.

“Heeeey, sweetheart!” I cooed rather weakly. But my heart was so full. “You made it!” I was so relieved that she was alright. However, she didn’t seem so happy to see me. I could only imagine what I’d done to piss her off this time. Her face twisted in slight concern and she sighed.

“Jesus, babe….” She said as she winced, more than likely admiring my newest feature.

“I know right? Who else do you know gets a black eye and still looks this handsome, eh?” I joked. She scoffed as Chloe and her partner were thrown down as well. Chloe scooted over to me and got a good look at my face before wincing as well.

“Oh, Sam… Dude.” She said looking over the multiple bruises on my face.

“Meh! It’s not too bad.” I shrugged before leaning close to her. “He hits like a girl.” I whispered and she smiled a moment. I looked over to Sunny hoping she’d share the same amusement but she was anything but amused. Instead, she rolled her eyes as Chloe’s partner sat up, also beaten and bruised. I wasn’t expecting at all to see that face again, snarling and brows angled in anger. Nadine….

“Yeah? Let’s get these cuffs off and I’ll show you how girls hit.” She growled. I looked between Chloe and Sunny in confusion.

“What the hell is she doing here?!” I whisper-yelled to them.

“You said get help! So I got you help.” Chloe spat back.

“I brought you help!” I argued.

“And she’s done an excellent job! But Nadine knows Asav…” she mumbled quickly as the Asav’s goons lined us up before him. He paced back and forth in front of us, pulling the disc he’d stolen from them (well stolen back after they took it first) and waving it in our faces a bit.

“You are quite the schemer. So. You steal my disc… Then you have your ‘expert’ run me around in circles, huh?” Asav chuckled. “That’s clever!” He then walked over to a stand with a slot embedded in it; a perfect fit for the disc. “Perhaps there’s a little Indian blood in you after all.” He said looking at Chloe. She narrowed her eyes at him fiercely as he pushed in the disc. Suddenly, a floodgate seemed to open up and the floor split apart. Water came rushing out, misty winds pushing at us as it seemed to empty out a room. Belur was just full of secrets.

“Sure… I’ll take the credit…” I heard her say, amazed by what had been set off. The floor we sat on wobbled a little then began to sink like an elevator. I looked over at Sunny to see her stink eyeing the man who captured us as he posed proudly, like he put in the work to find this place. I didn’t like him either. He wouldn’t have found shit if it weren’t for us. I scoffed, shaking my head in disbelief. The cohonés on this guy, eh? The floor continued to sink until golden sculptures carved into the walls began to appear, covered in algae from having been underwater for so long. Before us at the end of a long hall was a massive brass door. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was finally it. That after all we’d been through, that we had finally found the Tusk of Ganesh. Selfishly thought by me: even just laying eyes on it would be worth it to me. Even if I didn’t make it. It was the same for any treasure. You just never know which would be your last. And my chances of getting out of this alive were looking kind of grim.

“Well… Let’s finish what we started.” He said in a low tone, signaling the men to grab us as he started down the hall first. One of the men grabbed me by the arm, roughly yanking me to my feet, just like the others.

“All right, all right!” I grumbled abrasively at the man who pointed and poked his gun into my back.

“Move!” The man snapped as all four of us seemed to get pushed towards the door.

I puffed my chest out with an annoyed huff, looking behind me to see if Sunny was okay. She clearly was but I figured I ask anyway. “You alright back there, sweetheart?!” I shouted back to her. She just frowned and looked away from me.

“I’m fine.” She grumbled. Maybe she wasn’t okay. I made a mental note to talk with her at some point. Then I looked beside me. The smaller woman snarled at me, ready to take my head off. Had she not been cuffed, I’d probably be dead by now. I’m grown enough to admit that. But I wouldn’t back down without a fight, myself. Honestly, I just couldn’t help but laugh. I mean of all the people to come back into my life…

“So. Nadine Ross—” I chuckled.

“Don’t talk to me.” She told me abruptly. I just chuckled.

“I was gonna say you look good but—”

“Was I not clear?!” She hissed. I chuckled to myself again as I heard Sunny groan loudly.

“Christ, Sam. You just flirt with anythin’ that breathes, huh?” She commented.

“I what?!” I was so taken aback my voice cracked. “Me and Ross?”

“In your dreams, Drake.” Nadine said, rolling her eyes.

“Trust me, sister, when I close my eyes at night I am not thinkin’ of you.” I replied, stopping in my tracks to make sure she knew I truly meant that. One of them men pushed at me telling me to move again and I obliged. I sighed and shook my head. Unbelievable. Why would Sunny even think something like that? Granted I hadn’t really given her much reason to not think that… Nadine let out an aggrieved groan, making a disgusted expression at me.

“What's that smell?” She asked. Now she was just trying to wind me up.

“Oh, sorry. I haven’t exactly had access to running water and soap recently.” I told her in a nettling tone. I just couldn’t believe this. “God. Of all the people you coulda brought with you—”

“Ugh- just shut up! Don’t talk about her that way!” Sunny snapped. My eyebrows shot right up. I turned around to look at her incredulously as I kept my feet moving.

“Are you serious right now?! Why are you defending her?! Honey, in case you forgot, she literally shot you in Libertalia! Okay- and she tried to kill Nathan, and I, on numerous occasions!” My pique face twisted up in confusion.

“And she’s saved both of our asses... on numerous occasions.” Sunny rebutaled, looking at Chloe.

“Also to be quite fair, you two tried to kill her as well, so….” Chloe jumped in.

“Boom.” Sunny said, nodding in her direction. I croaked weakly.

“A— I… Well that’s not the point! The point is, the second we turn our backs, there will be a knife in there.” I didn’t trust the witch. Anything could compromise us with her around.

“Funny because she said the exact same thing about you.” Chloe mumbled.

“I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all— I don’t want her anywhere near what we’re doin’ here.” I said.

“I can hear every word you’re saying—” Nadine said under her breath.

“I know!” I barked at her.

“I… trust her.” Chloe said.

“So do I.” Sunny added and Nadine turned to briefly shoot them both a friendly smile. Sunny grinned at her pleasantly and Chloe seemed to blush a little. I scoffed and shook my head.

“Fucking fantastic…” I grumbled. Then I raised my voice again. “You— You know what? Fine. I guess I’m just a little bit irked that we are walking away with nothing.” Then I turned to Nadine and narrowed my eyes, speaking down to her from a true place of hate and spite. “But I guess you know what that’s like, right?” Next thing I knew, she bared her teeth, growling as she drove her shoulder into my side to knock me off balance. But I managed to stay on my feet. I could hear Sunny giggling a little and Chloe exclaim a second. “Oh yeah! Real classy, thank you.”

“Time and a place, children.” Chloe commented. I grunted and snarled a little.

“More where that came from.” Nadine said to me, raising a thin brow at me.

“Bike racks, after school.” I replied, flaring my nostrils. Chloe sighed.

“Is he always like this, love?” I heard her ask Sunny.

“Yup.” Sunny answer simply and quickly. I wasn’t that bad. At least I didn't think…

Suddenly, we stopped. Asav stood waiting at the door for us and he gestured to bring Chloe up front. She slipped between Nadine and I and nudged the door open with her shoulder. The group followed behind her into a massive torch lit brass room. Two statues stood before us on either side. One of Ganesh, the other of Parash-something. Both parties were baring weapons to attack each other. Between them was a stand with a slot that would fit the disc. And on the walls were scrambled pictures. Two rings and a center. As soon as we set foot in the dim room, a clunking noise sounded and the axe guy began to shift its pose, raising his weapon to Ganesh. “That’s ominous…” I commented upon entering. The men behind us then grabbed us up to sit us on the floor before the contraption. Asav walked around the room examining the situation. Then he stopped to look up at the axe wielder before speaking to us.

“It seems the old kings have one final test…” he said lowly.

“Looks like you won’t be needing us then so—” I heard Sunny say with a nervous laugh, attempting to just stand up and walk away. The man that held her at gunpoint grabbed her shoulder and struck her in the face. Immediately I struggled against my captor for even laying a finger on her. But Sunny groaned and shook off the pain. She was a strong woman and she continued to impress the hell outta me.

“Oh, on the contrary!” He said before locking eyes with Chloe. “Surely you know the story?” He gestured to the man behind her and he began to let her loose. He pushed her over to Asav and he chuckled, placing a hand on her back as they both looked up at the statue. “You see… Shiva gave Parashurama the mighty axe— that struck Ganesh in the face— bringing Shiva’s son, one of the greatest of gods, to his knees.” Then he raised the disc between the two of them. “Another casualty of war.” I knew exactly what he was doing. We all did. He didn’t care whether she lived or died through this. He just wanted that tusk.

“Don’t.” Nadine growled.

“Seriously, Chloe, he’s just gonna kill—” I tried to fight against my captor, rising to my feet to get to her, but he knocked me in the back of my head. I fell face first into the ground and he grabbed me by my collar to sit me up again. I huffed in frustration. We were outnumbered and they all had guns. I didn’t like those odds.

“He’s right. But if you refuse…” he gestured to us. Next thing I knew, Nadine let out a yelp, she’d been struck down, then Sunny, then myself. They began to beat us mercilessly; kicking us, striking us with their guns, never letting up. As I laid on the floor, repeatedly being kicked in the stomach, I locked eyes with Sunny as she beared the same treatment, tears falling down her dirt covered cheeks from the pain. “You will watch them die inch by inch.” He said maliciously.

“Oh baby, I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…” I managed to say to her between beatings. These men were being way too harsh for as small as Sunny was. They could break something. Chloe bit her lip as she watched us tearfully, stress pulling at her features.

“OKAY! All right!” Chloe shouted. Suddenly, the beatings stopped and she snatched the disc from his grasp, glaring at him before looking back to check on us.

“Chloe… don’t do this!” Sunny coughed, trying to catch her breath as she struggled to sit up. “Asav, let me do it— I’ve been handling every contraption and puzzle here—” My eyes widened and I immediately disagreed.

“Sunny, what the hell are you d—” I exclaimed but she wasn’t hearing it.

“Chloe, let me do this for you. For your dad—”

“Sunny, no!” I begged.

“He’s right, Sunny. You’ve done more than enough and I’m grateful. Rest, China.” She said to her and Sunny sobbed. “I can take it from here.” With that, Asav stepped aside to let her do what she needed to do.

“Frazer… please be careful…” Nadine begged, tears beginning to swell in her bright brown eyes. I huffed, shaking my head. The job wasn’t supposed to go like this. This was meant to be a quick and easy pay. But here we were. About to die. Again.

It was only minutes. Not too long for a woman as smart as her to figure it all out. To pull some levers and put the puzzles on the wall together. She used the disc as a dial to turn and position everything properly. “Chloe, don’t give this shmuck what he wants!” I exclaimed. I couldn’t stand it when people got what they hadn’t worked for. Asav threw a punch at my jaw to shut me up but we all know how hard that really is to do. All the while we watched her anxiously as she completed the final puzzle.

“He’s yielding…” she whispered suddenly. Just as the final piece clicked, the statue of Parashurama raised his weapon higher, ready to strike.

“The axe! It’s going to fall!” Nadine exclaimed.

“Quiet.” Asav said sternly, watching her closely with intent.

“Ganesh…. quite an obstacle you’ve placed in my path…” she said. I could see her mumbling to herself and I leaned over to Sunny.

“Do you know what the hell she's talkin’ about?” I asked her. She didn’t even look at me. She kept her eyes fixed on Chloe as she answered me.

“Ganesh allowed himself to get hit… He chose peace...” she said. It still didn’t make any sense to me, but I watched all the same. Chloe turned the dial until all of Ganesh’s hands were at his side. All of his weapons were down.

“What are you doing?” Asav exclaimed.

“Just shut up and watch.” Chloe spat. Just as all his arms were down, the statue of Parashurama swung his axe swiftly through the air. Sunny squealed, worried her friend would be hurt but the blade stopped right at her throat. Chloe gasped and took a deep breath. It was over.

“Huh?” Asav was confused.

“Are you alright?” Nadine asked.

“Yeah… I’m fine…. That was unexpected.” Chloe said, finally taking the time to breathe.

“Holy shit, she’s got balls, eh?” I commented as I exhaled, relieved that she was okay. To tell you the truth, I was holding my breath the entire time. Asav seemed so frustrated. He wanted bloodshed so bad he practically threw a tantrum.

“I don’t— I don’t understand…” he said. After looking over all the imagery around the room, the story finally clicked. I smirked.

“It’s an idiom.” I mumbled.

“You’ve got it all twisted, my friend.” Chloe grinned. “Ganesh allowed himself to get struck by the axe.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” He growled, stalking towards her as the statues began to descend into the floor.

“Not to a selfish prick like you— I imagine it wouldn’t.” She smirked as the men began to lift us all to our feet and cuff her again. “See, Ganesh could’ve defeated Parashurama easily. But if he had, that would’ve made Shiva’s axe look weak. Powerless.”

“Ganesh sacrificed himself to protect his father’s honor.” Nadine smiled.

“See, even she gets it and there’s not a drop of Indian blood in her.” Chloe smized. The men began to cuff us to the railings that surrounded the statues side by side. Just then, the control stand began to raise and display a marvelous piece of treasure. Sitting upon s golden altar was the Tusk. Asav’s eyes grew the size of plates as he slowly walked over to retrieve it. He lifted it carefully with both hands and turned to show it to us all. Boy, looking at it, I could only imagine how much money we’d get for that thing. It was a blue gem, the tip of it dipped in gold and silver, decorated with smaller gemstones. It was truly a sight to behold. I suddenly understood why the Hoysala went through so much to protect it. Asav shook his head in disbelief, like he could almost cry. But you’d have to have emotions for something to hit you like that. Asav had none.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” He said, lost in admiring the treasure in his hands. All of us went quiet. Despite all we’d gone through, we were indeed leaving here with… nothing. Not even our lives. “Oh, what? Nothing to say now?”

“If you want, I can tell you to shove it up your ass.” I heard Sunny say. I tried to contain it but I chuckled a little. That was my girl. Always fighting until the very last second. He just smirked with an evil glint in his eyes as his men began to set up stacks of C-4 around the room.

“I would love to kill you myself, but we must not anger the gods… For you have brought me a great fortune.” He said, staring down at the shiny piece in his hand.

“Okay, then… So what are you doin’?” I asked nervously.

“He’s going to flood the chamber.” Nadine said, glaring at the man before us. He looked up for a brief moment in what I thought might’ve truly been some sincerity.

“I will miss you.” He said simply before turning to leave. That’s when we all started to panic a little. Tugging on our cuffs, hoping that just maybe they were weak enough to let us go but it was to no avail.

“C’mon, is this really necessary?!” Chloe exclaimed as we watched him take the disc from the slot and the controls sunk back into the floor.

“You know, nothing is ever truly destroyed. Only purified and reborn.” He said. I groaned. He was always going on about this stuff. He had a sick way of looking at anything negative as a positive. Always preaching purification through destruction in the most dramatic ways.

“Just shoot us and get it over with!” Nadine snapped.

“Right?” I, for once, agreed with her. Nobody was here to see all his “splendor”. It was just us. A couple thieves looking to get rich. We didn’t need all the flashy bullshit. If you want us dead, kill us and be done with it. He and he crew took the elevated contraption out of the room, looking down at us as he spoke.

“As the water fills your lungs, you will have time to reflect on the choices that brought you here. Perhaps in your next lives, you will fare better.” He said before disappearing above us. And just like that, we were alone.

“Prick.” Chloe mumbled. I sighed. I wasn’t seeing a way out of this for any of us.

“I dunno about you guys, but I got a loootta regrets swimming in my head right now.” I said.

“Good.” Sunny said simply. I scoffed. That was it. I’d had it.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Sunny? You’ve been giving me the third degree for the past hour!”

“If you don’t fucking know, then I’m not tellin’ you. Figure it out.” She growled. Her brows knitted together in the middle, her face all twisted up angrily, and I could practically see the steam leaving her ears. I was flabbergasted. I barely saw her these past few days. What could I have possibly done wrong? Other than get her trapped here to die beside me.

“This is ridiculous.” I grumbled.

“Tell me about it. I was really looking forward to kicking your ass again—” Nadine grunted, struggling against her cuffs.

“Yeah, y’know What? I’m not exactly thrilled about drowning next to you either—” I snapped.

“I should let her kick ya ass.” Sunny added.

“Sunny—!” I shouted.

“Oh, would you give it a rest, guys?! I’m trying to concentrate…” Chloe exclaimed, getting us all to shut up.

“What are you doing?” Nadine asked. I looked behind her to see her slipping a bobby-pin off of the brown leather cuff she wore.

“A little preparation goes a long way.” She smirked.

“Ahaha! Yes! That’s my girl!” I laughed, suddenly excited and anxious to get free.

“Is she now?” I heard Sunny mumbled. I began to panic a little. Everything was just coming out wrong.

“Sweetheart, that’s not what I—”

A loud explosion before us cut me off. Then two more around the room, blowing massive holes in the wall. Water came gushing into the room and it was filling up fast. Once she’d freed herself, I anxiously tugged at the handcuffs as water pooled around our ankles.

“Great! Now do me!” I said. But she went to Nadine first.

“Ladies first!” She exclaimed as the water began to rise to our waists. Then another explosion sounded. The water rose even quicker.

“Chloe, dear, not to rush you, but could you hurry the hell up?!” I shouted.

“Don’t fuckin’ yell at her!” Sunny snapped.

“Jesus!” I grunted in frustration as the water hit my chest. That’s when I realized Sunny was already going head first underwater. Boy, it sure pays to be short, huh? I began to worry more now. She was struggling.

“Deep breaths!” Chloe shouted.

Suddenly, all of us were underwater. It was dark and quiet nothing could be heard but the sound of the water pushing its way in. I looked over at Sunny and she was beginning to lose the fight. She was slowing down and her head started to lower. I rigged against my restraints, devastated that I couldn’t get to her. Nadine was set free and then she went to get Sunny. She freed her rather quickly but Sunny wasn’t moving. I saw her body jolt a little then go completely still. Even thought I was underwater, I most certainly felt tears coming on. I uselessly yelled her name and all that came out were bubbles. Chloe went to get me free next but an explosion went off again and the bobby-pin fell from her hand. She dove down to feel around the ground for it but she couldn’t find it quick enough. And I wasn’t sure how much longer these old lungs could hold air. She tugged on the railing as hard as she could, hoping that it would come loose but it didn’t work. I nodded in Sunny’s direction, hoping she’d just take her to the surface. She looked back at me sadly but I nodded and smiled at her. Letting her know that it was okay to let me go. As long as Sunny was safe, I didn’t mind dying like this. I watched as she swam over to grab Sunny’s hips and pushed her up, grabbing her hand and dragging her with her as she swam to the surface. Just when I had accepted my fate, I heard a loud noise behind me. When I turned around, I saw Nadine bashing the chains with a massive rock until they came apart. The moment they did, the two of us swam up to catch up with the girls. We swam in between massive pieces of sinking debris and swam as fast as I could. Before we knew it, the top of my head broke the surface and I was gasping for air.

“Are you good?” Nadine asked me.

“Yeah. I’m good.” I sighed, treading the water. “I gotta quit smokin’.” I joked. When I looked up on the ledge, Chloe was hovering over Sunny’s body, pressing into her chest. “Oh, no….” I shivered, swimming over with haste and climbing onto the ledge to kneel beside her. Her newly tanned skin was cold and a little pale, covered in bruises and a few cuts. Her eyes were closed so peacefully it looked like she was sleeping. “No, no…. C’mon, sweetheart!” I exclaimed. When Chloe finished her chest compressions, I pinched her nose and carefully breathed into her. “C’mon, baby- don’t do this…” I could feel myself breaking down as we repeated this for some time. And yet she still didn’t move. I let out a rather vulnerable sob as I pushed the short curls back off her face, kissing her forehead before breathing more air into her.

“Sunflower…” Chloe grunted in a warning tone. “Wake your cute ass up, love— Fight it, Sunny, come on!” I couldn’t lose her. Not like this. Not with her so upset with me. Not before I got to see her smile and hear her laugh again. Before I got to hold her again… Before I got to tell her I— Suddenly, Sunny shot straight up, coughing up a lot of water. Chloe grabbed hold of her, keeping her close to her chest as Sunny began to panic a little.

“You’re all right, love, you’re all right!” She cooed. I just rubbed her back as she coughed. She hyperventilated and Chloe just rocked her, speaking gentle words of comfort in her ear. I just held her shaky hands, stroking the back of them with my thumbs, looking over her to make sure she was okay. After a couple minutes, she had calmed down. And I had calmed down. I was worried sick. I kissed her hands firmly and shook my head. I’d never been so scared to lose anyone like that…

“Can you stand?” I asked her, placing a hand on her cheek but she knocked my hand away and stood up all her own.

“I’m fine.” She said sternly, pacing back and forth slowly to get her balance back. I stared at her, just a little hurt. “Thanks for that.”

“Cut it a little close don’t ya think?” I said to Chloe. She frowned and readied her mouth the say something but Sunny was already in front of it.

“She did the best she could, Sam. Shut up.” She grumbled, clearing her throat, reaching out to help her up.

“I’m just sayin—”

“Get down!” Nadine exclaimed, cutting me off. All of us did as we were told and bent our knees to get lower to the grass. A massive helicopter flew overhead.

“Think they saw us?” Sunny asked.

“No we should be fine… but how the hell did he get that helicopter?” Nadine asked.

“Maybe it’s the buyers?” I answered looking between the three of them.

“Buyers?” Sunny asked.

“Oh now you wanna talk to me?” I snapped at her in a petty fashion.

“Lookit here, boy—” Sunny began and I was fully prepared to get into it with her but Chloe broke it up.

“Ah, yah! What do you mean buyers?” She asked me, placing a hand on my arm.

“I overheard Asav talkin’ about uh… heading to the old rail yard— somethin’ about an arms deal?” I told her. Various groans went around and Sunny threw her arms over her head.

“That little twat waffle…. He’s sellin’ the goddamn tusk.” She said. Chloe scoffed.

“So much for preserving his culture.” She mumbled, pulling on her binoculars and walking to the edge of the rock we stood on to look around and Sunny followed. Nadine began to go too but I stopped her a moment. I hated her, but I had to thank her.

“Hey, just, just a second… um… Listen… back there...” I gestured to the hole we just swam out of. “Thanks for—”

“I didn’t do it for you.” She told me rather abruptly. We both looked at Sunny as she talked to Chloe. I huffed and began fidgeting with my cuticles again.

“Well thanks anyways.” I said awkwardly.

“Ja.” She replied and I nodded.

“So we’re good?” I asked.

“No.” She answered curtly before walking away to join the others. I should’ve expected that. I approached the group as we all gathered around and Chloe tucked away her binoculars, bouncing on her toes anxiously. Sunny on the other hand was already on her way down the rocks.

“What is she—” I began to ask but there was no point. I was already being talked over.

“If we hurry, we can intercept them before they make the sale. And Sunny is on her way to secure our ride.” Chloe said. Even though I was annoyed, once again the girl managed to impress me. I looked over the edge just as she’d jumped onto an insurgent’s back, his neck tightly cradled in between her muscled arms. He fell in an instant. She patted him down for keys and hopped into the car, waiting for us.

“Well what are we waiting for then?” Nadine exclaimed, starting down the rocks. I grabbed a hold on Chloe’s arm before she could get away and pulled her aside for a moment.

“Ay, uh… do you know what’s goin’ on with Sunny?” I asked her. Her bright eyes widened and shifted about nervously as she chewed on her lip.

“I um… sort of let it slip that we slept together—”

“Ah, goddammit, Chloe—” I snapped but she argued back.

“Hey! I didn’t know you two were together!”

“We’re not together! Well… not exactly…”

“You might as well be, mate.”

“So I keep hearin’...” I sighed. Oh, great. Of course that’s why she’s pissed. I was stupid to think I could keep that from her. I placed my hands on my hips and shook my head, kicking up loose rocks.

“You need to talk to her, Sam. I’ve already said my piece to her. Fix it.” She said, poking a finger into my chest. Then she did it once more for emphasis. “Fix it.” With that, she started down the rocks and left me with myself for a second. Boy, did I have a lot of explaining to do….

Read more on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26555698

#uncharted #sam drake #sam drake fanfiction #chloe frazer #nadine ross #poc oc #poc ocs #uncharted oc #uncharted lost legacy #ao3 author #ao3

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