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isitgintimeyet · 5 years

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The Ties That Bind

AO3

Thank you for reading this far. I really appreciate it. I still get nervous posting each chapter. I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Thanks to @mo-nighean-rouge for the beta

Warning: bit NSFW towards the end

Chapter 8: A Dinner Invitation

“Her cuisine is limited but she has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotchwoman.” Sherlock Holmes― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Naval Treaty

Jamie hesitated for a minute before he knocked on the door of the flat. He was slightly nervous, which he didn’t really understand. Since their first dinner, they had met twice more - once for a walk and a coffee before Claire had to return to work, and once for a drink. In his eyes, both had gone really well. And presumably in Claire’s eyes too, as she had extended this invitation for Jamie to come to her flat for dinner. Perhaps that was where the nervousness came from. Jamie felt like Claire had built a safety barrier around her, for her own emotional protection and for him to be willingly invited through the barrier into her safe haven was a great honour. Jamie didn’t want to let her down. He took a deep, calming breath and knocked on the door.

The door opened and a rich smell filled Jamie’s nostrils. Claire stood on the threshold, her hair a wild array, wearing a striped butcher’s apron and brandishing a large wooden spoon. She greeted him with a warm kiss, her mouth tasting of garlic and tomato. She nimbly pulled away before Jamie had a chance to extend the kiss.

“Welcome, welcome. Come on in.”

Jamie followed Claire through the hallway and into the main living room.

“I’ve brought ye a bottle,” he said, handing her a bottle bag emblazoned with ‘Happy Birthday’ in silver sparkly lettering. “Sorry about the bag, picked it up in a hurry. Consider it a late birthday gift for yer last birthday, Sassenach.”

Claire lifted the bottle out. “Oh, wow, that’s really special. And possibly the latest or earliest birthday gift I’ve ever received.”

She careful placed the bottle of Broch Tuarach Special Reserve whisky on the coffee table. “Thank you so much. I’ll look forward to some sampling after dinner.”

Gently running her fingers down his forearm, she looked into his eyes and smiled. Returning to her normal brisk manner, she explained, “I can’t cook many things, but my lasagne is not bad at all. Pour yourself a glass of wine. It’s on the dining table; I just need to pop it in the oven. Be back in a minute.”

Jamie poured himself a glass of wine - red, he noticed, the same as they had ordered at the restaurant the week before - and looked around. Although the room itself was decorated in neutral tones, creams and beiges on the walls, natural wood plantation shutters at the large bay window, there was a relaxed and homely feel due to the accessories Claire had chosen. Earth toned plaid throws and cushions adorned the cosy-looking sofa. A yucca plant, standing at least as tall as Jamie himself, graced one corner. Another corner held a floor to ceiling bookcase crammed with an eclectic mix of books: some medical, some on plants and herbs, some murder mysteries, Jane Austen novels, Beatrix Potter tales and Winnie the Pooh. One shelf was dedicated to old history textbooks. Entwined around the bookcase was a set of fairy lights, casting a glow over all the books. Jamie reached over and ran his fingers over the spines.

With the lasagne in the oven and the salad already made, Claire knew that dinner was well in hand. She took a big gulp of her wine. Really, she seemed to be developing quite a taste for red wine. The key thing, she told herself, was not to drink too much tonight. She wasn’t totally sure yet how the evening would end, but she wanted to be sober enough to make conscious decisions, and to enjoy herself no matter what happened. Sex with Jamie had featured heavily in her thoughts over the past week. Claire wasn’t sure it had ever been like this with Frank, or perhaps it had and those memories had just faded away to be replaced by those of criticisms, nit-picking and uncomfortable silences.

Claire took another gulp of wine as she picked up the salad bowl. What will be, will be, she told herself, heading back into the living room.

As she entered, she found Jamie standing, looking at her books. “Quite a wide selection ye have here.” he commented.

Claire felt herself reddening slightly. The books were her treasured possessions, they were what defined her. She didn’t usually explain their importance to people, didn’t usually want to. But she wanted Jamie to know her, to understand her, to deepen the connection she knew was there.

“Those books are so important to me. The medical ones, obviously, for my job, my vocation. Medicinal plants and herbs is a real passion of mine, one I’d like to develop in the future.”

She moved closer. “As a teenager I fell in love with Jane Austen’s books. Feisty women, strong men… what’s not to love? I even had pictures of Mr. Darcy on my bedroom wall. The history books belonged to Uncle Lamb. I kept them with me after he died. He was a professor at Oxford, specialising in the Crusades. Every holiday, we’d be off, following the steps of those Crusaders.”

“Like Indiana Jones?”

“Not nearly so adventurous, lots of walking, lots of libraries, lots of late night discussions with fellow historians, occasional digging. No spies or nazis. Most danger was being chased by dogs in Antakya. Me running ‘til I thought my chest would burst, Uncle Lamb panting beside me and yelling insults in Turkish to the dogs. I must have been about nine or ten.”

There was a brief silence before Claire started talking again. “The Beatrix Potter and Winnie the Pooh are mine from when I was a child. I don’t have many things from my mum and dad, don’t even have many memories of them. I was only five when they died in a car accident. But what I do remember is lying in my bed, Mum on one side of me, Dad on the other and them reading these to me… Mum doing the narrative bits, dad doing the voices, you know, Eeyore, Tigger, Piglet and so on. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world, having parents who could read stories so well. And that image, that memory, that’s what I want for my children...” Her voice tailed off, now afraid she had shared too much.

Jamie pulled her close, her head nestling against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat, calm, steady, reassuring. One large hand cradled her head, the other spanned her back. He radiated warmth and security.

“Och, lass.” he whispered.

“And the fairy lights,” Claire continued. “I know they’re a bit twee, but after my parents died, when I went to live with Lamb, I had difficulty sleeping, was scared of the dark. Lamb set up fairy lights in my bedroom, told me that mum and dad were now stars in the sky and the fairy lights represented those stars, to remind me that they were watching over me as I slept. So they’re always here with me. Silly, I know.”

“It’s no’ silly at all. It’s beautiful, Sassenach. Yer uncle must have been a rare man.”

“Oh, he was. To take on someone else’s child, full time… I never felt unloved or a burden to him. Even though I must have cramped his style no end!”

A bell rang out from the kitchen. Claire pulled out of Jamie’s embrace. “Time to eat.”

“Just one more question… why the murder mystery books?”

Claire turned as she headed for the kitchen. “Never know when those techniques may come in handy.” She grinned and waggled her eyebrows mischievously.

******

Claire was wrong, Jamie thought as he leant back in his dining chair, stuffed with lasagne. Her lasagne was not ‘not bad’, actually it was fantastic.

“That was great.” He complimented enthusiastically.

“Now you know the extent of my culinary skills… lasagne, salad… oh, and I can do a pretty good bacon sandwich. But that’s more a breakfast thing though.” She stopped abruptly, scared of giving him the wrong (or was it the right?) impression. “Would you like a dessert? I have some ice cream, or sorbet. Or would you like a coffee? I can make some proper stuff.”

“Nay, I’m fit tae bursting here. What I would like is fer us to sit on the sofa and I will educate ye in the proper way tae drink that whisky.”

“Suits me fine. I’ll go and get some glasses.”

Claire returned to find Jamie sitting on the sofa, opening the whisky bottle. She placed the heavy crystal tumblers on the table together with an ice bucket. Jamie looked at her and pursed his lips tightly.

“First rule of whisky: no ice. It crushes the flavour, ye ken. And when it melts ye canna control how it dilutes the whisky. If ye like ye can add a wee bit of water tae open up the flavours, but try it w’out first. Glasses are good, though. Heavy base, nice. If ye want tae sniff it first, ye can use tulip-shaped glasses, but these look better.” He poured a generous measure into the glasses and handed one to Claire. “Slainte. Tell me what ye think.”

Claire sipped the whisky, savouring the complex flavours. “That’s wonderful. There’s a sweetness to it, it somehow reminds me of fruit cake, like at Christmas.” She lifted the bottle, studying the label.

“That’s verra good. Ye’ve quite the palate. This is aged in sherry barrels, that’s the sweet fruitiness.”

“Hang on,” Claire read the label again. “The distillery name here, it says ‘Fraser and Sons’. Is that you?”

“Aye, I’m the son... weel, technically I’m the great, great, great however many times grandson. But, aye, my da heads up the distillery. He’s the CEO. He lives up there in the village, Broch Mordha.”

“And that’s what you’ll do when he retires?”

“Nothing’s ever certain. Perhaps. We have shareholders, ye ken. Mebbe they’ll no’ want me. But it would be an honour to follow on from my da. He’s a great man.”

“And I’m sure his son will be just as great.”

Jamie shrugged nonchalantly, but Claire could tell he was pleased by the compliment. Claire took another sip as Jamie watched, her lips moistened by the whisky. She looked up at him as he lifted her glass and placed it gently on the table. The room was suddenly filled with tension, like static electricity, sparks shooting between them, emanating from their very cores.

Almost as if in slow motion, Claire raised her hand and placed the palm on Jamie’s chest, feeling the hardness of those muscles and his heartbeat speeding up with each breath. As she moved her fingers, she could feel his wiry chest hairs though the thin fabric of his shirt. He was so strong and big and… and any thoughts of playing it cool rushed right out of her head as she leant forward to touch her lips to his. She felt Jamie’s arms wrap around her tightly and she was lost. She opened her lips under his, letting her tongue slide inside his mouth, feeling his entwine with hers. His hands rubbed against her back as he pulled her onto his lap. His arousal pressed hard against her and she felt her own response deep within.

Jamie was the first to break the kiss. Locking eyes with Claire, he asked hoarsely “Are ye sure about this? I dinna want ye tae do anything ye may regret. Ye’ve no’ had too much tae drink, have ye?”

In response, Claire stood up and pulled Jamie to his feet. With fingers intertwined, she led Jamie out of the room, across the hallway and to her bedroom. He stopped her at the door, keeping her firmly in his grasp.

“Are ye sure?” He asked again, running his hand down the side of her face.

She nodded wordlessly and pulled him into the room, closing the door behind them. The room was dimly lit with one small bedside light. Claire moved to turn it off. Jamie stopped her. “If ye dinna mind, I want tae look at ye.”

Standing beside the bed, Claire ran her hands up under Jamie’s shirt, over his chest, and down his back. She slid her hands under the waistband of his jeans to his firm buttocks.

Jamie lowered his head to her neck, peppering her skin with a trail of feathery kisses from her earlobe and down her neck. His fingers hurriedly undid the buttons of her shirt creating a path for his kisses to continue their descent into the cleft between her breasts. Claire threw her head back, letting the sensation of his lips wash over her and then gasped as Jamie lifted her up and placed her on the bed in one motion. She smiled up at him as he sat down beside her and pulled her shirt off her shoulders. She raised slightly from the bed and shrugged it off, not caring where it landed, just desperate for the contact of skin on skin.

Turning his attention to her jeans, Jamie quickly unzipped them and tugged them down as Claire lifted her hips to aid this process. Finally free of the jeans, Jamie groaned out loud at the sight of her lying on the bed, clad in her cream lace bra and panties. Jamie could clearly see her nipples outlined through the fabric, already erect demanding his touch. Through the lacy panties, he could see the dark shadow of her pubic hair. He knew, if he touched her, how wet she would be.

Claire pulled at his shirt. “Take it off.” She pleaded.

Jamie rose from the bed and pulled his shirt over his head. Claire reached out to pull him down to her but teasingly he stepped away, prolonging the tension. He undid his trousers and bent down to pull them off, fumbling momentarily on the ground.

“Socks,” He explained, grinning. “They’re no’ verra sexy.”

Claire could clearly see the extent of his arousal through his tight white trunks. Sitting up, she ran her hands up his thighs, cupping his balls before curling her fingers in the waistband and pulling the trunks cleanly down. They joined the rest of their discarded clothes on the floor as he stepped out of them. Without thinking, she ran her fingers along his length, revelling in the contrast of hardness and velvet softness. She could hear his intake of breath at her touch.

Still without touching her, Jamie lay on his side next to her on the bed. His eyes moved back to the cream lace of her bra, staring intently. His tongue moistened his lips. Claire felt desperate for his hands on her body.

“Jamie,” she whispered.

Finally, he touched her, his hand lazily moving across her abdomen, tracing circles round her navel before coming to rest with the underside of her breast nestling in the palm of his hand. His thumb stroked her lace covered nipple. She looked into his deep blue eyes, filled with lust and could hold back no longer.

Claire pushed him onto his back and stretched one leg over to straddle his hips. Kneeling up, she reached behind and unhooked her bra, letting it fall down her arms. Instinctively, his hips rose up, his erection pressing insistently against her core, sending sparks of excitement through her body. Jamie tugged her forward and she fell against his chest. Cupping her breasts, he moved under her, fitting her against him so he could taste her breasts, each one in turn.

As Jamie alternated from breast to breast, Claire began to grind against him, striving to increase the sensations through her body. She moved against him restlessly and slid down his body, licking and nibbling down his chest then lower and lower until he felt her head resting against his groin. He bucked against her mouth and pulled her back up. “Not now,” he growled against her throat, “I need tae be inside ye.” With one swift move, he lay Claire on her back, hovering above her and slid her panties down. Claire kicked her legs to free herself from them.

“Wait.” Claire reached into a bedside cabinet, producing a small foil packet. “Please.”

She handed it to Jamie. He quickly ripped the packet open with his teeth and rolled the condom on. Claire opened to him and Jamie slid one large finger down, slowly teasing her.

Finally, he could stand it no longer. Claire stared up into his eyes as she felt him moving within her. Her pleasure built in time with the rhythm of Jamie’s movements back and forth, plunging deeply and withdrawing almost completely, trying to prolong the excitement he felt. He reached his hand between them and quickly found what he was looking for. Rubbing in time with his strokes, he could feel Claire’s muscles tensing round him, her deep moans growing in intensity.

As Claire’s orgasm took hold of her whole body, Jamie withdrew his hand and with a guttural cry, he climaxed. They lay together, still joined, breathing heavily as their heart rates slowly returned to normal. Moving onto his back, Jamie nestled Claire against his chest, kissing the top of her head.

He whispered something against her hair. Claire raised her head.

“What did you say?” She asked.

“Sorcha - your name in Gaelic. It means light. Like in the French, aye? Clair is light. Ye have yer fairy lights and now I have ye, my Claire, my Sorcha.”

#outlander fanfic #outlander fan fiction #the ties that bind #Jamie Fraser #claire beauchamp #chapter 8

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a-menage-a-trois-is-fine · 6 years

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I’ve been building upon my oh-my-god-why-am-I-writing-Buzzfeed-fanfic-please-murder-me for months now, and it’s VERY slow-going what with work and life and all… but here are some snippets from it just to encourage myself to finish it, on the off-chance someone might read this and be like “HEY WRITE MORE MAYBE” or w/e I don’t know. These are chunks of what I’ve been writing thrown into some lonely corner of the internet. They’re not meant to make sense chronologically.

–

Stories are supposed to have beginnings and ends. Ryan remembers the word denouement from a tenth grade English class; remembers a chalky, arching line swooped across a blackboard:

There is a protagonist, a setting, an “inciting incident” (extra points for alliteration); conflict, struggle, resolution. Open ends are meant to be stitched together cleverly, and characters are meant to return home changed in some stunning, significant way (quadruple points here).

Sometimes he thinks about this when editing. Sometimes he thinks about this when he finally shuts down the computer, is the last to lock up, is the last to count how many black gum-spots it takes to get to his car.

Ryan’s life is nothing like a story. He tries to form it into something streamline, something meaningful, memorable, and marketable—

But in the end it is simply a long string of moments.

–

Siri guides them to Conneaut, Ohio. Which is not Conneaut, Pennsylvania.

Ryan buries his face in the steering wheel. “Fuck me, dude…”

“Well,” states Shane diplomatically. There ya go.”

“How many fucking Conneauts can possibly exist!”

“Two. Two exist.”

“Shut up.”

They’d been in Cleveland to check out Franklin Castle. The mansion had seen plenty of death over the years, was possibly home to Nazis at one point, and was bought by Judy Garland’s fifth husband in the ‘80s. It was found to have a literal skeleton in one of its closets. Well, allegedly. Shane kept pushing that word on Ryan.

It was in the paper, dude! Ryan had argued. In the nineties! This isn’t, like, folklore!

Yeeeaaaahhh, said Shane. People said a lot of things in the nineties.

The woman who owns it now — a pleasant Italian artist in her fifties — had given them permission to film and sleep in it overnight. They hadn’t gotten much rest, as usual, and they hadn’t encountered anything overtly significant. There were the odd creaks and subtle squeaks, but even Ryan had to admit that sort of stuff was to be expected from a house built in 1881. There were a few other things, though… things that could have been whispers (Ryan was eager to listen to the audio recordings, later) and things that seemed to move in the dark (though that could have just been his eyes and brain trying to make sense of the darkness, Shane had purported). Mostly, though, there was a feeling. A feeling that he was being watched. A feeling that they were not alone.

It was fucking frustrating, because a feeling isn’t evidence; not to anyone outside his own head.

–

“Do you think Taco Bell is worse in Ohio?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Taco Bell will give you the shits anywhere.”

“See, people say that — but I’ve never had a bad experience with TaBe. I’ve heard they’re one of the healthiest fast food places, actually. I mean, as healthy as fast food can be. They use better ingredients.”

“What the fuck is tah-bey?”

“TaBe. Taco Bell.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It hasn’t caught on yet. I’ve been working on it.”

In the end, they stop at the Taco Bell the rest stop sign had advertised. It’s nestled among a throng of pine trees, which is just super weird for some reason.

Shane orders a steak Quesarito, but gets ground beef instead. Ryan goes to town on three Supreme tacos.

“I mean, I definitely said steak.”

“It’s probably ‘cause it’s one in the morning, dude. And they’re out of steak, or they just didn’t want to make it.”

“Or because that kid at the window was high.”

“Or because he was high, yeah.”

“It could just be my imagination, but I feel like it’s just a liiiiiiiittle less spicy than in LA.”

“These tacos taste exactly the same.”

“I dunno.” Shane squints into dark of the tall trees that press up against the parking lot. “There’s something… different.”

“It’s ground beef, and you never get ground beef Quesaritos. That’s what’s different.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

They eat in relative silence, going through every napkin they were given. Shane accidentally takes a sip of Ryan’s drink.

“Uuughh, dude.” Ryan pulls the straw out, flips it, and jabs it back in.

“You just dunked all my cooties into your Coke.”

“Yeah, but at least I’m not, like, kissing you every time I take a sip.”

Shane laughs in the gradual, stuttering way he does when something Ryan says doesn’t make sense to him. “What? Okay. You could’ve just taken the top off and thrown it away with the straw. Or you could’ve just sucked it up — literally sucked it up — like a normal person. But, okay. I guess I’m really, really gross. Cool.”

“I like straws.”

“Yeah, you really like straws.”

–

“I hate places with no elevators.”

“It’s an old hotel. You can’t expect it to have elevators.”

“Sure I can. It’s twenty-eighteen. They’ve had years to put one in.”

“You really like elevators.”

“I love an elevator. Almost as much as you love a straw.”

–

“I promise it won’t be weird.”

They stare at each other for a good handful of seconds.

“It might be a little weird,” admits Ryan.

Shane nods. “It might be a little weird.”

They laugh, and Ryan settles down beside his friend.

And it isn’t even a little weird.

–

They bump into each other somewhat purposefully on the sidewalk later. Fleetingly, Ryan wonders at the way he needs to touch Shane when they’re drunk. But they’re just drunk… that’s just what being drunk with Shane is.

Also, there’s something really disappointing about the arrival of an Uber.

–

The house is bleached bone-white by sixty-six years of desert sun.

Ryan feels something at his ankles, and when he drops his chin there is sand weaving in currents at his feet. He tries to get a better look, but the camera strapped to his chest is the size and weight of a bowling ball.

“There’s no door.”

Ryan squints against the daylight; Shane’s right. The house is a bungalow, the kind you’d find on stilts clinging to the Hollywood Hills. But it’s not standing tall, and there’s not a hill or mountain in sight. It sits heavy on the dry lake bed like some weighty thing on its belly. It’s trying to hide, Ryan realizes. It’s been trying to hide all this time, nowhere to run but into the ground. It’s frozen, and it hopes no one can see it.

“There!” Ryan points. He hadn’t noticed it before, he’d thought the front was clean, white wood — but there is plywood tacked on in the unmistakable shape of an entrance.

“How’d they do that from the inside?”

–

“Nice dingle-dongle.”

It’s not like they haven’t pissed side-by-side before. It’s not like they haven’t both seen each other’s dicks, out of the corners of their eyes, so — who gives a shit?

Ryan shrugs, tucks himself back in, and zips his jeans up like a captain steering a sailboat through a storm.

“It’s okay. You— what? What d’you mean, refund?”

Shane leans into the tiled wall with a great thump. He gestures vaguely, eyes trailing lazily to the ceiling.

“Like with… debit cards, if they get stolen, the bank reimburses you. Right? Those are the ones?”

“What?”

“Or is it credit? Fuck. I dunno. There’s, like… one of them, they don’t give you back the money if someone spends it.”

“I gave it to the bar-lady.”

Shane’s eyes roll like little brown marbles down to Ryan. His little lips curl up into a little open-mouthed smirk. “You rogue.”

“You told me to!”

“I know. I forgot. C’mon, buddy. We’re onto micheladas.”

—

They’re at a party blasting “Heart of Glass”, and Ryan thinks he will never be more in love than he is now.

—

“I am very drunk, and there is chicken in my mouth.”

“Well, yeah, you ordered chicken.”

“It didn’t sink in till just now.”

Ryan laughs. “Well, sorry— you ordered chicken.”

“No, I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s very good. It’s just. I forgot. Fuck!” Shane’s knife slips from his hand and lands in a pile of salad. He harrumphs, and picks the knife out gingerly, licking the dressing from its handle.

“Dude we are going to get kicked out of Disneyland.”

“Nooooo,” Shane admonishes. “They don’t knooooow, come on.”

“I am one hundred percent sure the waiter knows we’re drunk, dude. We’ve been waving and yelling at the people on the boats for, like, an hour now.”

Shane suddenly remembers the boats; he gives a funny, unfocused grin and waves a Rosebowl Queen Wave to the boat currently floating past. “They just keep… coming! Hey, Ryan. Do you think the ones with no one in them are haunted?”

“Do you?”

“No, I think Fantasmic is going on, and the pirate business is slow. But I think you think they’re haunted.”

“Actually…” and this is an interesting line of thought, along the way he’s always wondered about the silhouetted cast members he’s seen walking briskly through the backdrop of the Bayou: “I’d always figured there was, like, some reason they had to send a boat through empty? Like, for crowd control, or something to do with, I dunno, like, timing, or maintenance, or security, or something.”

“Ahhhh!” Shane says very slowly, drawing his attention back to Ryan. He acts the way he does when Ryan posits a particularly clever theory on some long-dead murder. “That makes sense!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! Ooh!” Shane glances around conspiratorially. “Where’s Disney Police? Disney Police! Arrest this man! He knows too much!”

“Shut up,” Ryan laughs, though he is honestly a little nervous. “You are so obviously drunk.”

“Noooooooo. I am the perfect model of, uh… of propriety. Sobriety Pirate-ey.”

“Sure you are. How are you a bigger lightweight than me? You’ve got, like, six more legs than me.”

“I’m fine. I’m bulletproof. I’m Batman.”

Ryan chokes on his lemonade. The novelty “glow-cube” he’d paid two-fifty extra for flashes several different colors before his eyes. He coughs for what’s probably a full minute before he’s able to say, “You are not Batman.”

“I’m Batman, bay-beeeeee.”

“You are so fucking drunk, dude.”

“I’m not drunk” he says in some unholy marriage of Bale and Keaton, “I’m Batman.”

“Well, god save Gotham, in that case.”

—

Ryan can’t stand to look at him right now, but he can feel him, the way he’s sitting beside him, and he can feel the way his voice sounds: It sounds hurt and hesitant. It might sound disappointed, and Ryan’s brain works itself up into a terrible, sudden frenzy — does it sound cheated? Does it sound like the voice of a man who’s been swindled?

Ryan shakes his head adamantly, which must look strange to Shane. No, Shane wouldn’t feel that way. Shane wouldn’t be like that.

This, Ryan realizes, is how girls must feel all the time.

–

Ryan shakes his head, grinning wetly. “You’re too perfect, you know that? You’re too fucking dumb and perfect.”

Shane looks lost. Ryan is still half-crying, half-laughing.

“Can I hug you?”

–

#buzzfeed unsolved #buzzfeed unsolved fanfiction #shyan

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parkerrogersgirl · 6 years

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Happy Accident- Part XIV

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 2,156

Warnings: Fluff, swearing, SMUTTY SMUT

Summary: After he saves you from being injured at the gym, THE Steve Rogers asks you out. Little by little, you start falling in love with every part of him, his quirks, his old-fashionedness, and his charm. But are you ready to let your guard down and let him in?

A/N: I know this is later than I usually post, but hey, I promised I’d post today

Catch up here!

Masterlist

Steve sighs to steady himself, then looks up at you, “I know it won’t be for a while, but… would you like to spend Thanksgiving at the tower with me and everyone else? I know you’re not close with your family, so I thought I’d invite you to spend it with my family.”

You choke on your grilled cheese a little, eyes widening as you look up at Steve, “I thought it would be too hard for me to stay there because everything’s classified and stuff.”

He shrugs, “I’ll figure it out. I love you too much to let you be alone on Thanksgiving.”

You blush, squeezing his hand across the table, “I would love to be with you on Thanksgiving.”

He grins, kissing your hand, “I wanted to ask you now so you weren’t blindsided after I talk to everyone and they say yes.”

You smile, sliding your plate across the table as you get up and sit next to Steve, scooting close, “I can’t kiss you from all the way over there,” you say, kissing him softly.

He smiles, laughing into the kiss, “you taste like chocolate and cheese. Very fondue-y,” he says, taking another bite of his toast.

You smirk, “I wanna fondue with you when we get back to your house.”

He coughs on his food, taking a gulp of his milkshake, “Jesus, doll. You’re gonna be the death of me.”

“Not literally, I hope,” you say as you keep eating, “I really like this diner. It’s cute.”

“Well maybe we could make it our place,” he kisses your forehead, pulling you close to him with an arm around your waist, “we could just come here every time you spend the night.”

You kiss his cheek after you finish eating, “I like that idea.” He finishes his food as you gulp some of the milkshake and he smacks your arm, “that’s my milkshake, babe.”

You shrug, “sharing was your idea. I’m just helping.”

He rolls his eyes and drinks the shake using the other straw, looking into his eyes as you both drink. You scrunch your nose at him as the glass goes empty, then stick your finger in the remaining whipped cream, smearing it on his nose. He sits up straight, crossing his arms over his chest.

“(Y/N), you’re gonna pay for that later.” You wink, “I’m fine with that,” the waitress comes over and Steve pays, much to your chagrin. “You’re gonna have to let me pay one day, babe.”

“Not a chance,” he stands and puts on his jacket, waiting for you as you do the same. He takes your hand as you walk out into the freezing air, “shall we go back to my house and… fondue?” He smirks at you.

You shrug, “I suppose that sounds alright,” starting to walk faster.

He laughs, pulling you back to him, “slow down, doll. We both know you’re not exactly the most coordinated person, wouldn’t want you to slip on the ice,” he says, kissing the top of your head.

You roll your eyes, leaning into him as you walk, “so have you ever actually had fondue?”

“Uhhhh no. I’ve always wanted to, but I’ve felt like it’d be too awkward to go alone.”

You laugh, standing on your toes to kiss his cheek as you walk, “we’ll go tonight, okay? We can fondue a little at your house, and then actually go eat fondue.”

He winks as you turn onto his street, starting to speed up, “if you slip, i’ll catch you. I just really want to get you back to my house.”

You blush as you reach the steps to his door and you jump onto his back, kissing his neck softly as he unlocks his door.

“You’re killin’ me back there, babe.” He quickly steps inside, locking the door behind him before running up the stairs with you on his back. He sets you down on the floor, stripping off his heavy jacket and scarf while you take off yours. He kisses you roughly and passionately, running his fingers through your hair. You moan into the kiss, falling back onto the bed, pulling Steve on top of you. You bite his bottom lip as you kiss, quickly stripping him of his sweater and undershirt. He’s on top of you half-naked, and you’re still wearing your turtleneck. He shakes his head as he rubs his hands together to warm them up, then slips his hands under your sweater to let it go over your head. He kisses you again and your wrap your arms around him, running your fingers up and down his spine.

“FUCK YOUR HANDS ARE COLD,” he yells. You laugh, kissing him softly as he takes off your bra. He kisses you harder and you reach down and unbutton his pants. He wiggles so you can take them off, and slides yours down your legs. He reaches down into your underwear, starting to slowly rub your clit.

“Fuck, Steve….” you moan, nibbling on his neck. He groans as he slips a finger inside you, and you feel his rock hard cock against you. You look into his eyes, “babe, I need you.” “What do you mean, doll?” he gently nibbles your earlobe.

“You know what I mean, Steve.”

“What if I want to hear you say it?” He smirks as he adds another finger to his ministrations inside you.

“Oh my god just fuck me, please.”

He laughs and takes off your underwear and his boxers, “since you asked so nicely…” he kisses you deeply as he buries himself in you. You moan, kissing him roughly as you wrap your legs around his waist. He thrusts deeper and faster. “I’m glad we’re doing this, I’m not sure how long I would’ve lasted.”

“Mhmmm, “ you moan into the kiss as he slows down, and you start to stroke his back again.

He moans as you touch his back with your fingernails, thrusting deeper as he kisses you slowly and passionately. You smile into the kiss, feeling your heart grow 3 times bigger with your love for Steve. He senses the change in mood and stops, looking into your eyes.

“What’s wrong, (Y/N)?” He frowns at you.

You shake your head, smiling up at him, “nothing’s wrong. I just love you so much. It’s overwhelming.”

“I love you too, doll,” he grins, kissing you deeply and lovingly. He starts thrusting into you slowly and you can tell he’s getting close by how he starts to falter. He keeps going and your climax approaches, but you try to hold off so you can finish with Steve. He kisses the sweet spot on your neck, and you know it’s game over.

You wrap your arms around him and hold onto him as you cum, and he spills into you moments later.

He pulls out and lays down next to you, pulling you close to him, kissing your forehead, “I love you so much, (Y/N). You’re beautiful, perfect, and incredible. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

You smile as a tear runs down your cheek, smiling at the man you were madly in love with. You knew he was special, and there was no chance that you’d ever let him go.

The week was uneventful, and it was finally Friday. It was Halloween, and you’d finally found the outfit for you and Steve’s couple costume. It wasn’t a particularly hard ensemble to compile, it was just a few different parts, especially since you and Steve had just decided on your costume a few days earlier. You were going as Indiana Jones and Marion, as Raiders of the Lost Ark was Steve’s favorite movie. He loved watching Harrison Ford kick Nazi ass, and you reminded him of Marion with your smart mouth and badass-ness.

You were planning on wearing cargo pants, a tight white long-sleeved shirt, and combat boots. You knew that Steve had worked hard to acquire all the different parts of his costume. You had laughed when he’d told you what he wanted to be for Halloween, and you’d made him blush when you called the whip, “kinky.” You weren’t into stuff like that, you just wanted to get a reaction out of him. You got home after class and put the temporary black hair dye in your hair and put on makeup, getting dressed in your bedroom. Steve was going to pick you up from your apartment so you could spend the night at his house. You were going to hand out candy for about an hour, and then ‘watch’ some movies. You hear a knock on your door and check your outfit one last time in the mirror, then go get the door.

Steve is wearing a sable hat, along with a vintage-looking Indiana Jones costume. You pull him inside, kissing him as he kicks the door behind him. He pulls you up so your legs are around him, kissing you harder. You laugh, pulling away.

“Happy Halloween, honey. I like your outfit.”

He kisses your neck softly, holding you up by your ass, “you don’t look too bad yourself, doll. You ready to go?”

You jump off of him, grabbing your bag as you put on your jacket, “I’m ready if you are.”

“Let’s go then,” he holds out his arm and links elbows with you, locking your door and stepping into the elevator with you. He stands against the wall, holding you next to him, and you nuzzle into his chest. He kisses the top of your head as the elevator reaches the ground floor. He walks over to his motorcycle with you, handing you a helmet before putting your bag under the seat. He sits down and guides you to sit behind him, and he moves you so your arms are around his waist.

There’s almost no traffic, and you make it to his house in record time. He locks his bike and grabs your bag, leading you up his steps and letting you inside. You go into the kitchen, looking back at him as he takes off his shoes.

“Whatcha want for dinner, sweetheart?” You ask as you grab a bottle of wine out of the cupboard.

“Hmmmm, surprise me,” he says before coming up behind you, hugging you from behind to kiss your neck.

“Steve, I can’t cook if you’re holding onto me.”

He shakes his head, nuzzling into your neck, “I don’t care. I’m never letting you go.”

You giggle, trying to make your way around the kitchen with your supersoldier person attached to you. You roll your eyes, then turn to face him.

“Steven Grant Rogers, you will starve if you don’t let go of me.”

He backs away, holding his hands up in surrender, “okay, okay. I’m done. I’ll put on a movie while you do your thing.” He goes into the living room and turns on The Night Before Christmas.

“OH MY GOD STEVE THIS IS PERFECT I LOVE THIS MOVIE,” you squeal, grinning over at him. He laughs and you go back to cooking, deciding on French Bread pizza since Steve doesn’t have any actual pizza dough. You cut a large piece of bread in half longways, then sideways. You sprinkle marinara, parmesan, pepperoni, and sausage on top, since you know Steve’s more of a carnivore than even a T-rex. You pop the pizzas on the cookie sheet and put them in the oven, then run over and jump on the couch to sit next to your beloved.

He pulls you onto his lap, nibbling your neck lightly to elicit a giggle. “You do look delicious, darling. I think we should do a couples costume every year. It’s fun.”

“What do you mean every year?” You raise an eyebrow at him quizzically.

He turns you around in his lap so you’re facing him, placing his arms around the small of your back. “(Y/N), I don’t see us breaking up anytime soon. I’m not letting you go, and I plan on being in your life as long as you’ll let me.”

You blush, kissing him softly. “That sounds perfect to me.” He moves to lay down sideways on the couch, holding you so that you can watch the movie with him. You watch a bit of the movie until the oven timer goes off, then spring up and run into the kitchen to get the pizzas out.

“God, babe, that smells incredible.” Steve joins you in the kitchen and pours two glasses of wine while you plate the pizzas. You walk back over to the couch with him and resume the movie, leaning on him while you eat.

“Steeeeeve I don’t wanna pass out candy. I just wanna watch movies and make out with my boyfriend.” He grins, kissing you as he goes over to turn off the front porch light, then sits down next to you.

“That sounds perfect to me.”

Tag List (let me know if you’d like to be added!):

@sis-tafics @my-emotional-self @thankyouforanonymity @gatorgal94 @supernaturaldean67 @lostinthoughtsandfeelings @victoriawilson23 @rissbennett @summer-winchester @thevampywitch @princess76179 @srgntjbarnes @white-chocolate-mocha-fan @jcc04220 @lostess-souless @samanddeanmyguardianhunters @ilovethefandomwho @superflashallen @dancer2001 @a-tale-of-two-comics @petersmoonlight @yleryoseeph @magellan-88

#steve #Steve Rogers #captain steve rogers #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers x reader #Steve rogers smut #Steve rogers x reader smut #captain america fanfiction #captain rogers

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gldngrl7 · 7 years

Text

Karamel Fic: Permission to Flourish (11/11)

Title: Permission to Flourish

Author: gldngrl7

Date Started: February 12, 2017

Rating: T for Teen (I know! I can’t believe it either!)

Author’s Notes:

This story is the sequel to Bulletproof. Please read that one-shot before diving into this one.

FINAL CHAPTER!!! Looks like we made it.

I’m toying with the idea of writing some one-shot “interludes” of stories that took place during the missing six years. Because I definitely thought there was going to be more Clark in this story. There just didn’t seem to be much room for him with everything going on. If those plot bunnies are still in my head after I finish the next HOLG story then I might. On the other hand, it’s highly likely that new show canon could kick off the need to write something else. I JUST DON’T KNOW!!

Comments are welcomed, flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

So many, many thanks to my those who’ve taken the time to comment: @lostin-the-desert, @anaveragegirl15, @threesilverthings88, @emarasmoak, @myfangirlinghq, @hermi1907, @wladyb91, @from-love-to-infinity-and-beyond, @fangirlintheforest

I'm so in love with you

And I hope you know

Darling your love is more than worth its weight in gold

We've come so far my dear

Look how we've grown

And I wanna stay with you until we're grey and old

Just say you won't let go

--James Arthur – “Say You Won’t Let Go”

Chapter 11/11

Messages from Belinda informed him that Amelia was improving by the hour and had even been moved to a private room. She’d texted ‘PRIVATE ROOM!!!!’ in all caps with what seemed to Mike like a preponderance of exclamation points.

He’d planned to visit his star student as soon as school let out Monday, so after speed-grading their verb-tense homework, he rushed over there (by car), exchanging yet another light-hearted text with Kara before leaving the school. They’d been texting like teenagers in love since he’d had to peel himself away from her on Sunday night and fly back to Philadelphia.

“But this is good,” he said aloud, to the solitude of his Honda Civic. “We’re getting to know it each other again, without all that pesky physical attraction constantly distracting us.” Physical attraction which, as it turned out, was not-unexpectedly explosive…and dangerous to furniture.

Sunday morning had dawned like his entire life had decided to turn over a new leaf. He’d opened his eyes to find Kara leaning over him, brushing a lock of hair from his forehead, as she gazed down at him wistfully. She hadn’t expected him to wake, and yanked her hand away like a child caught elbow-deep in a cookie jar. “I’m sorry,” she’d rushed, her blood lighting a fire beneath her cheeks.

“I’m a much lighter sleeper than you are,” he had yawned.

“I see that now.”

Mike had reached for her hand and taken hold of it. “And I thought we said no more apologies.”

“About old stuff,” she’d nodded, as he tossed off the blanket and stood up. That close to her, he could smell the minty-fresh flavor of her toothpaste. He’d salivated at the thought of tasting her. “Not about new stuff.”

It had been on the tip of his tongue to compliment her on her apologizing skill, apparently honed to a razor sharp edge in the six years they were parted. But needling her about her stubborn inability to apologize in their previous acquaintance fell into a grey area of the ‘no reminders’ policy. “Just out of curiosity,” he’d said instead, “were you sorry about touching me, or sorry about getting caught? Because those are two very different things.”

Squinting her eyes Kara had smiled slyly. “Sorry about waking you up,” she’d said, choosing option ‘C’.

Mike had laughed at her diplomatic answer. Diplomacy must have been a recently gained trait as well. The Kara he remembered had barreled through people without bothering to see whose feelings she was stepping on, especially if she thought a cause was just. “Is your curiosity assuaged?” he asked. “That I’m real, and not some figment conjured by a dream?”

Her eyes had widened to huge blue pools he could happily swim in, as though he had plucked the thoughts directly from her mind. “How did you know?”

Mike had smiled in a way he hoped came of as enigmatic. “I believe I promised you breakfast?” he tested.

“You did?”

She’d remembered nothing about being put to bed the night before. “Uh-huh. When I tucked you in and you asked me stay.”

“I did?” His words had stoked the fire in her cheeks to a high burn and she’d covered her flaming cheeks with both hands. He’d been slammed with the need to kiss away the deep crinkle between her eyebrows.

“You were afraid you’d wake up to find it had all been a dream.”

“I said that?”

“More or less.” In a moment of courage he can only blame on sleepiness and head full of romantic movies, he had grabbed her hand and placed it on his chest, slightly to the right of center, over his rapidly beating heart. “So tell me…can you feel this? Does this feel real to you?”

She’d gulped visibly and he’d heard her own heart’s rhythm kick into high gear, which in turn had his stomach flip-flopping like an Olympic gymnast on steroids. “Y-yes,” she’s stuttered, before biting her juicy red lip to stop it from trembling.

Mike, still holding her hand over his heart, had wrapped his other hand around her waist and tugged her hips flush against his. “And that?” he’d asked. “Does that feel real to you?” His body had stirred even before he woke this morning, and her presence above him had served only to enflame him further.

“Yes,” she’d breathed, nodding vigorously, her pelvis settling deeper into his as though hoping they could merge. “Mon-El?” she asked, using his true name. He hadn’t corrected her, but felt a thrill go through him at his name on her lips. Though he’d been Mike Matthews for a long time now—had finally made his peace with the concept of becoming Mike Matthews—he could be Mon-El for her. For her and no one else.

“Yes?” he’d responded, his tongue snaking out to lick his lips.

“I’m not afraid anymore.” Her courage had taken over then as she’d seen within her grasp the culmination of six years of agonizing fantasy a heart’s beat from fulfillment. She had reached up with her free hand and cupped the back of his neck pulling his mouth down to hers, making her declaration on where she’d wanted their actions to lead.

If he could have taken a breath in that moment, he would have breathed a sigh of relief, because he hadn’t been sure if he was pushing too far, too fast. If the actions of her tongue had been anything to guess by, he hadn’t been moving fast enough.

When he’d pulled away, he’d rested his forehead against hers, their heavy breathing mingling together. “Definitely not a dream,” he’d pronounced.

“Definitely not,” she’d agreed, her breath coming in ragged gasps, as her arms wrapped securely around his neck.

What had followed had been a flurry of clothing removal, of heated couplings that splintered furniture, knocked pictures from walls, shattered shower tiles and had more than one neighbor concerned for the safety of sweet, innocent neighborly neighbor, Kara Danvers. And once started, it was like they couldn’t stop, their bodies drawn together like magnets—magnets all the more heated for having been kept apart for so long.

But for all of its urgency and passion, it had still been at its heart…lovemaking—soul-binding and heart-affirming lovemaking. Even though neither had yet to find the courage to actually say the words, it had been clear as the diamonds sparkling in her comet-like eyes. And he had never in his life worshipped someone with his touch the way he had Kara. It was seared into his brain like a brand to the skin, and he had replayed it all over and over since leaving her naked, on the remains of her mattress, less than twenty-four hours ago.

As he traversed the hallways of the hospital, he juggled his phone, laptop bag, and the giant get-well soon card made from poster board by the entire second grade roster of classes, until he found the elevator that would take him to the 7th floor, where Amelia was now located. Stepping inside the elevator with a crowd of other people all headed to different floors, Mike shot another text to her.

“Just leave the mattress on the floor. Safer maybe?” He hit send after navigating to and choosing the deep thought emoji.

“Safer for who?” she shot back.

“Whom,” he corrected, adding a wink emoji.

“Grammar Nazi!” she accused, frowny face emoji.

“Teacher,” he replied, shrug emoji.

“Safer for WHOM?” she asked again.

“For the people in the apartment below you. Whatever. If you do decide to get a new bed, steel reinforced…?"

“It would have to be custom built…”

“Get an estimate. I’ll pay half.”

“Bet your rock-hard ass you will,” she replied, blush emoji.

He laughed out loud, happier than he’d been in…ever, well aware that the people getting on the elevator were staring as he exited at the top floor. Mike checked his direction, looking for the yellow line on the wall that would lead him to “Yellow Station” and to Amelia’s room. He wondered if there would be a wizard at the end of this yellow brick road. He wondered if Frank Baum was appropriate reading material at story time for second graders.

Tucking his phone into the back pocket of his slacks as he neared Amelia’s room, he came perilously close to running into a man in a dark suit exiting the door. The man held up a brown leather briefcase to ward off Mike’s near collision.

“Excuse me,” they said in unison. The man in the suit nodded courteously before walking away.

“Knock, knock,” Mike announced as he entered the room.

Pink roses.

They were everywhere. On every flat surface, in every type of arrangement, in every shape of vase imaginable, pink roses had taken over the room. The smell, though pleasant, was unmistakable.

“Mr. Matthews!” he heard a recognizable shout. It was music to his ears, but still he held his finger up to his lips in their customary sign language for her to lower her voice. Obeying his command, she lowered her volume to library voice. “Mr. Matthews!” Yet, she still managed to imbue his name with the exact amount of enthusiasm, despite the lowered volume.

“I thought you were supposed to be trying to be quiet, per the doctor’s orders.” Mike took note of Belinda in corner, reading something, her eyes widening, a freshly torn open envelope in her other hand. He thought now might be the time for him to distract Amelia while Belinda finished doing whatever it was she was doing.

“It’s so hard,” she whined.

“I know,” he chuckled.

“Aren’t they pretty, Mr. Matthews?” she asked, referring to the sea of pink roses.

“Yes they are,” he agreed. “Where did they come from?”

Amelia shrugged. “Mommy says they are from someone named Amomynissly. That’s a silly name.”

“I think what Mommy means is that you have a secret admirer.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“What’s that?” she inquired, pointing to the poster board in his hand.

“Well this is a card signed by the whole second grade,” he informed her. “Everyone wants you to get well fast so you can come back to school.”

“Did Ricky Prescott sign it?” she asked, her eyes squinting suspiciously. She and Ricky were not exactly bosom buddies.

“I don’t know,” Mike responded. “Maybe you’d like to read it and find out.” He relinquished the handmade card to her grasping right hand, noticing that her left hand had very little to do with the process. “While you do that, I’m going to see what’s got your mother’s attention.”

Whatever it was, Mike couldn’t tell if it was good news or bad news based simply on her facial expression. Even after six years he could still read every one of Kara’s ‘crinkles’ but Belinda’s micro-expressions were a mystery to him. “Everything all right, Belinda?” he asked, tilting his head a little to see if he could get her look up at him. “What is it?”

Belinda lifted her eyes to meet his, confusion in their depths. “That man who just left…he’s a lawyer for something called The Fairchild Foundation. He had some papers for me to sign and gave me this letter.”

“What does it say?” he wondered. Something about the name Fairchild Foundation sounded familiar but he couldn’t place it.

“Here,” she replied, handing him the letter. “It seems so impossible, I still can’t believe what it says, even after reading it a dozen times. At least.”

Mike read through the letter. The wording was clear and concise, like his college acceptance letter. “It says here that an application for financial assistance has been accepted on your behalf with The Fairchild Foundation and that all of Amelia’s medical expenses both present and future until she reaches the age of 26 will be paid in full.”

“I don’t know how this…what application? What’s The Fairchild Foundation? Do you know anything about this?”

“I don’t know anything about an application. Maybe someone from the hospital submitted it? A doctor or co-worker? Five days in ICU,” he suggested. “That can’t be cheap.”

“It’s not,” she confirmed. “We have insurance—decent insurance—but I would have been paying down the out-of-pocket for those five days for the rest of my life. I was trying not to think about it, but I would be lying if I said I couldn’t hear the bills piling up.”

“Looks like you can put those thoughts to rest and just worry about that miracle in the bed over there.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, looking around the room at the sea of pink blooms. “I guess so. And then there’s these flowers….”

“Belinda,” he interrupted before she could get too far with her concerns. “Someone wanted to help you out, maybe in the only way they knew how, or the only way they could. Sometimes accepting their gift is the best way to say ‘thank you’.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Mike watched Amelia scouring the get well card for messages from friends and other names she recognized. Mr. Snuggles was stuffed unceremoniously under her left arm. “What’s that about?” Mike asked, worried.

“She has some left side paralysis,” Belinda nodded. “She came out of the coma mentally intact, for which I am very thankful, but the injury wasn’t without consequences.”

“What does the doctor say?”

“Dr. Dagmar doesn’t see any reason why, without physical therapy she can’t regain full mobility. But it’s going to take time and effort on her part. I’m going to have to find a way to keep her motivated.”

Mike’s phone ‘blooped’ and he tugged it out of his pants, shooting off a quick response to the equally quick message he received. “I might have a few ideas about how to do that.”

“Well, I’m all ears.”

“I have a little surprise I know she’s going to like.”

“What is it?”

“Well it’s kind of a surprise for you too. Won’t be long now.”

“I don’t know if I can handle any more surprises today,” Belinda cringed. “I’m expecting to wake up any minute now and find that I’m still sitting in that uncomfortable chair in the ICU.”

Mike nodded in understanding. “I’ve had a similar experience myself recently. I found that sometimes it pays off to let yourself believe that good things can happen.” Leaving it at that, Mike sat down on the end of Amelia’s bed and asked her if she liked the card. She nodded a resounding yes.

“So…do you remember what happened, Amelia? Why you ended up in the hospital?”

Amelia’s smile slipped and she shook her head. “Mommy says I fell.”

“You were climbing on the jungle gym,” he reminded her. “Way higher than you were supposed to go. And when you fell, you hit your head on the monkey bars on the way down.”

“I did?”

“You did,” he confirmed. Mike chucked her on the chin with his finger. “How about you don’t do that again, huh?”

Amelia nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“I know. But there’s a good part of this story too.”

“There is?”

“You were hurt pretty badly, and we needed to get you to the doctors fast. Faster than the ambulances can go. And just when we thought that wasn’t going to happen, guess who showed up?”

“Who?”

Mike leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “Supergirl.”

Amelia gasped, her eyes widening to a nearly impossible size, her tiny body practically seizing with excitement. “Supergirl?!”

“Supergirl,” he confirmed with a grin. The expression on her face was every bit as awestruck as he had imagined it would be. “She scooped you up in her arms and flew you all the way here in about two seconds.”

“I flew with Supergirl?” Check that. Her eyes could in fact widen further.

“You did.”

Her face fell, the beautiful sun-struck smile melting from her face which seemed to literally dim the room. “But I don’t remember.”

“I know,” he pulled a frown as though commiserating with her. “But I made a few inquiries, worked a little of my ‘magic’, called in a few favors, and guess what?”

“What?” Amelia asked, her excitement rebuilding.

At her cue, Supergirl stepped into the room, arms akimbo in her trademark stance and asked, “And how is the patient today?”

Mike kept his eyes on Amelia the whole time as her entire being lit up like a tiny atomic bomb had detonated inside of her. She gasped, almost choking on her excitement, nearly coming apart at the seams in the face of her fangirl bliss. Mike held his finger up to his lips. “Remember you’re supposed to be quiet. Whispers only. Can you do it?”

He would not have thought it possible that someone could scream and whisper with the same breath, but apparently it was Amelia’s superpower. “Supergirl!” she vocalized, every muscle in her body seizing with joy.

Neither was Belinda immune to the presence of Supergirl. “Oh my gosh!” she gasped, barely able to gather the air in her lungs to do so. Unable to properly express the full breadth of her feelings in words, she threw her arms around Supergirl’s neck and proceeded to babble. “Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. You saved my baby’s life.”

“Oh, okay,” Supergirl chuckled, accepting the Belinda’s attack-hug, and gently, if a little awkwardly, returning it. When Belinda tore herself away from the superhero, embarrassed by her outburst, Supergirl said, “I was just the ambulance service; the doctor’s saved her life. I’m just glad I was in the right place at the right time.”

“Why were you there?” Belinda wondered, covering her embarrassment over getting a little too familiar with a perfect stranger. Even if that perfect stranger saved her daughter’s life.

“Visiting an old friend,” she replied without hesitating.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Belinda said, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“You just did,” Supergirl assured, her empathy on full display as she stroked the other woman’s upper back to soothe her. “But I thought I’d come and hang out for a while. Maybe get to know Amelia while she’s awake.”

“I don’t know if you noticed…but I think she’d be okay with that.” Both Supergirl and Belinda turned to Amelia who sat on her knees on the bed, right hand clutching Mr. Snuggles for dear life, practically panting at the opportunity to hang out with her idol.

Mike grasped Supergirl’s forearm before she could get to the bed and whispered, “How long were you in the hallway?”

“Long enough,” she nodded. “I know what to do.”

He threw her a wink and she responded in kind. It felt so good to be partners again. Real partners this time, on equal footing. ‘Okay,” he said, “I need to step outside for a few minutes and make a phone call.”

But before he could do that, Belinda grabbed his arm, preventing him from leaving. “How?” she asked. “How did you pull this off? This was the surprise you were talking about, right?”

“It was more her, really,” he downplayed his involvement, unable to clarify how the entire surprise really came into being. How could he explain that he and Supergirl had concocted the whole plan while taking a shower together after sweating up the sheets of the latter’s demolished bed? “She tracked me down. She has her ways. After that…it was just about figuring out the timing. She wanted to see for herself how Amelia was doing.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“It really was all her.” Mike spared a glance for the alter ego of the woman he loved, finding that she had climbed aboard the bed with Amelia. Supergirl lay back on one elbow, her legs crossed at the ankles, and her cape wrapped around the little girl like a blanket, while the two chatted like they were old friends. With a smile and a nod at Belinda he excused himself from the room.

Out in the corridor, he scanned through the contacts on his phone until he located the one he sought. Surprisingly, the phone only rang twice this time before he picked up on the other end – as if he’d been waiting.

“Wayne.” His gravel voice was like a command, as though ‘Wayne’ was verb and he fully expected Mike to perform it. But Mike didn’t play that game, and he wasn’t intimidated by the billionaire.

“Pink roses?” he asked.

“It seemed the right choice for an eight-year-old girl.”

“Seven-going-on-eight,” he replied automatically.

“I stand corrected. Did she like them?”

“Of course,” Mike chuckled. “Her room is filled with pink flowers from a secret admirer. She feels very special. I assume you’re responsible for the private room as well?”

“How else was there going to be space enough for 1200 pink roses?” he asked, as if this should be obvious. “About the roses…I paid extra for the Baby’s Breath. Was there plenty of Baby’s Breath?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Dilettante,” Wayne shot back. “I’m told she’s doing well. We’re setting her up with a private physical therapist. She’ll get her left side back in no time.”

“How can you know that?”

“Wayne Enterprises has access to her medical records now.”

“So that was you?” he confirmed. Mike had suspected as much, but wasn’t certain. “I knew I’d heard of The Fairchild Foundation but I couldn’t remember where.”

“You must have seen some paperwork in the Manor when you were training with me.”

“Must have.”

“At any rate, Ms. Connor’s signature give us access to Amelia’s medical records until she’s eighteen and she can decide for herself if she wants to continue the program. We’ll be collecting data on her head injury, as well as any medications and treatments she’s subjected to. The hope is that the medical R&D arm of Wayne Enterprises can find a way to completely reverse Traumatic Brain Injury or mitigate its damage. The fact that she’s a child is an important part of why she’s needed in this study. Sadly, few children her age survive a trauma like that, or come out of it with so few ill effects. Had it not been for the quick actions of you and Supergirl, they’d likely be taking her off the ventilator right about now and donating her organs. She’s going to help save the world, Matthews.”

Mike shuddered at the thought of Amelia’s situation turning out any other way than it had. “Careful, Wayne…your empathy is showing.”

“You’re right. I should go hit something,” he deadpanned.

“Well, they don’t know who to thank, but I do. So…thank you, Bruce.”

“It was my pleasure,” Bruce groused, clearly uncomfortable with receiving thanks either for heroic deeds or acts of charity. “So…if that’s all…?”

“Actually there’s one more thing. I wanted to say…about that other thing…”

“The thing you were so mad at me about?”

“That’s the one. I wanted to say thanks for that too.”

“So everything worked out after all?”

“You could say that. I flew to National City and we talked things out. And then we worked through it in ways that didn’t involve talking.”

“Okay, we’ll keep that between us. You don’t want that getting back to Clark. Or maybe I do….could be fun.”

“I know where you live, you overgrown bat,” he threw out the empty threat as though he’d used it a hundred times.

“How’s this going to work between you?” Wayne wondered. “A bi-coastal life?”

“It’s a 31 minute commute at hypersonic speed from Philadelphia to National City. Slightly less than the average rush hour commute in Philly. And there’s always weekends and summer break.” They’d discussed the matter between them during one of their few breaks from Sunday lovemaking, recognizing that they could not be parted for long.

Inescapable.

“Just be careful,” Wayne cautioned.

“Careful about what?”

“Hashtag SupergirlInPhilly is already trending on Twitter. That’s twice in less than two weeks. If ValorInNC starts trending…how long do you think it’s going to take the tabloids to crunch those numbers? Or CatCo? Or the Daily Planet! Lois might put it on the front page just for giggles.”

“I’ll be careful,” he chuckled, seeing Wayne’s point.

“Don’t screw this up, Matthews,” Wayne grumbled. “I might not be on your side next time.”

“This was you being on my side? You sold me out, as I recall!”

“I was giving you what you needed. I was tired of looking at your sad sack face. It doesn’t become you. I’m supposed to be the tortured one.”

“Yes, I suppose ‘sad sack’ looks much better on you.”

“Watch it, Matthews,” he warned, his voice deepening ever lower than its usual gravel baritone.

“You walked right into that one.”

“You were more fun when you didn’t sass me.”

“I bet I was.”

“This girl of yours gives you spirit.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“Don’t lose her,” Wayne said, a distinct tinge of sadness in his tone. “Don’t let anything happen to her.”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but my girl is pretty good at taking care of herself. But don’t worry, I’ll always have her back.”

Mike ended the call a moment later when he heard the door open and saw Supergirl slip out, turning back for one last wave to the little girl in the room. She wore a crown woven from pink roses on her head.

“How did it go in there?” he asked, reaching up to touch her flower crown.

“I promised her I’d take her flying when she gets her left side working.”

‘That should do the trick.” It was no less than what he expected from her.

“Were you talking about me?” she whispered, she nods, motioning to her phone.

“Among other things,” he teased, the dimples on his cheeks deepening. He adjusted his glasses, like they were the touchstone that reminded him that this was his life now.

“Was that Clark?”

“Uh…Bruce, actually. I called him to thank him for the….” Mike waved his hand to indicate the room.

“He did all that?” she asked, incredulously. Her brow furrowed. “He doesn’t seem like the type.”

“Still waters run deep with that guy. He has his moments…apparently.” Mike wanted to reach out and touch her, but even in this private wing of the hospital there were still people to see. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, and she mirrored him by clasping her hands behind her back. “I…uh…also called him to uh….” He cleared his throat, “to thank him for giving you my location.”

“You did?” she grinned, sway back and forth so that her cape spun gently around the back of her legs.

“I did. Credit where credit is due, I guess.”

She pinned him with a sultry gaze he was beginning to recognize. “I want to get out of here. Can we get out of here?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

He said his goodbyes to Belinda and Amelia, promising to see them soon, and bring her homework next time (much to Amelia’s chagrin) before grabbing his things. Mike and Kara separated at the elevator and he made his way out to the car, while she ducked into a supply room and changed back into Kara Danvers. She met him in the parking lot and slipped into the passenger side of his Civic, pouting that it would me much faster to fly.

He drove her home to his garage apartment, holding her hand the entire way. Mike introduced her to the indomitable Mrs. Scheinbaum, who took one look at her and knew instantly who Kara was, as if seeing beyond masks was her superpower. To her credit, she said nothing, only revealing her knowledge with a sly wink in his direction. The three of them shared a pot of tea before Mike and Kara retreated to his apartment.

They spent the night there, managing not to break a single piece of furniture or wake a single neighbor. Although, to be fair, Mrs. Scheinbaum had made quite a lot of noise about taking her hearing aids out before going to bed. Sometimes she didn’t like to do that.

The next morning, Supergirl made a “surprise” visit to Fox Chase Elementary, where she shook hands and answered questions, accepted innumerable kisses on the cheek (some more sloppy than others) and gave a firm but good-natured lecture on playing it safe around playground equipment as well as the importance of following the rules set forth by adults.

Every few minutes she glanced up to find Mon-El gazing at her, his eyes sparkling, his lips quirked up on one side as he watched her with a mixture of pride and joy. They were here together, and he was hers at last, after years of unanswered yearning. Together they had laid out a plan (because Mon-El was big fan of plans and strategies) on how they would make this work.

He wasn’t ready to leave Philadelphia, it was his city and more his home than National City or Metropolis ever had been. Citizens embraced him here, proud to have a superhero of their very own. The city limits even had signs that proudly proclaimed, ‘Welcome to Philadelphia: City of Brotherly Love and Home to Valor.’ They’d added that last bit just a few months ago.

And likewise, National City was Kara’s home, where her sister and sister-in-law lived, where her work was headquartered, her contacts, her cultivated sources, and her growing reputation as a hard-hitting crime journalist. Though she’d confessed to him while lying curled together atop a dangerously cracked kitchen table that she had once applied for a job with the Philadelphia Inquirer, he had quickly declared that he didn’t want that for her. He didn’t want her to give up her hard earned reputation just so they could be closer to one another. They could make it work this way—at least for now.

And there was an unspoken truth there as well. Their lives would be long; longer than the human existence by several centuries if Dr. Danvers’ estimates were to be believed. There was no reason to rush this towards some undetermined finish line, whatever that was. Because for them, there would be no finish until, one day in the far distant future, death would part them. For now, by mutual decree, they would enjoy each other to the fullest as well as this second chance they had resolved to take for themselves.

Only one thing was for certain; with transgressions forgiven, and hearts on the mend, the future before them held endless possibilities.

THE END.

#karamel #karamel fic #bulletproof verse

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pomegranate-salad · 7 years

Text

ÜbeR-rated

For whatever reason, Word War 2 and Nazism have been on my mind a lot lately, so I finally got around to reading Über, all 27 issues of it, plus the specials and the beginning of Über Invasion. And I wrote a 5K analysis of it in the context of the fictionalization of Nazis. This is a thing I did to myself. And if you don’t want to feel left out, now you can read it too.

Heavy spoilers for the whole Über run, TW for pretty much everything you’d expect from a WW2 comic (except screenshots, because… well). Enjoy (?)

…

What am I looking at here ?

It’s 11 pm here and I’ve been staring blankly at my computer screen for thirty minutes, trying to find the proper way to kick off this essay, when all I had to do was to take a look at the additional rewards of the Kickstarter for the new Über arc, in order to introduce the point I want to start this piece on : I AM VERY, VERY WARY OF WW2-BASED FICTION. It’s not to say I’m opposed to it on principle, as I know some people are ; no matter how hard the topic, there’s always use for fiction. Fiction is a vector. It can be used right and it can be used wrong, but while on some levels it cannot hope to ever hold the same value as historical content, there are similarly elements only a piece of fiction can grasp. And if this kind of ethical discussion is always going to be around, it’s because fictionalization of real-life events is always going to be around. It’s an inevitable processing device of the human mind, and as much as possible I try to examine artistic material without resting my entire appreciation on their rapport to their source material, if only because part of their value comes from their ability to stray away from it.

But if there’s one event around which the tensions between history and fiction have made themselves an integrant and even a central part of any discussion of their artistic merits, it would be World War Two, and more specifically the Third Reich aspect of it. Maybe that’s unfair. But the historicity that has to be worked with on other topics here becomes a prerequisite concern : if the transposition from real events to fiction is handled poorly, it stands at risk of disqualifying the entire work. And even in works from thoughtful, ethically-minded creators (as it is the case with Über) you’re never safe from a “what the hell were they thinking” type of blunder. I hope they still sell those shirts next time I visit an Avatar booth so I finally get something to go with my “I <3 Auschwitz” tote bag.

However, once we get past the fact that the “offensiveness” of the work is always going to be part of the discussion, there is a lot to be said on the link between historical events and their fictionalization on a pure narrative level. Even when this fictionalization is done wrong from an ethical point of view, it can teach us a lot about our own need for fiction and the inner workings of real events-based artworks.

I felt this introduction was necessary, as this piece is going to feature both discussions of the ethical stakes raised by the choices Über made when fictionalizing WW2, and discussions of the same choices from a storytelling and aesthetic perspective. Nevertheless, even when these two aspects – ethical and artistic – are discussed separately, it should be understood that they are coexisting lenses of appreciation of Über as a whole, and that a negative or positive appreciation of a narrative choice from one perspective should in no way be taken as a validation or denigration from the other. To put it simply, the fact that I will praise some of Über’s creative decisions doesn’t mean I consider them free of ethical issues ; reciprocally, my criticism of Über’s handling of some ethical issues doesn’t mean I consider it worthless as a piece of art.

If you are of the opinion that ethical deficiency should prevent any artistic analysis of this work to take place, I will not argue ; similarly, if you want to avail yourself of a right to enjoy fiction without concerning yourself with ethical debates – well, you’re wrong, but that’s not an argument I will start here. Personally, I think these two aspects need to be analysed concurrently here, as Über is kind of a perfect case study in WW2 fictionalization in that it’s a thought-provoking work in large part because it is riddled with questionable choices, instead of being thought-provoking in spite of them.

In conclusion to this introduction folks, Über is a land of contrasts.

The Three Big Bad Wolves

At its most basic level, the premise of Über is nothing that hasn’t been done before : at some point in WW2, we enter an alternate timeline in which Nazis somehow manage to take the advantage thanks to a technical breakthrough. It’s a handy premise as it has long served as an oblique way to discuss the American use of the atom bomb in Japan, and the subsequent nuclear race, without being hit with the “would you rather have had the Nazis win the war ?” inevitable defence. Put the dangerous toy in the hands of the most recognizable villainous figure of the 20th century, and suddenly, the conversion loses its controversial aspect. However, I’d also argue it loses its pertinence. It doesn’t have to, but more often than not, the identification of debatable means to an undebatable villain tends to wash out any reflexion on the mean itself to instead reinforce the evil of the character. The Nazi atom bomb is evil because it’s Nazi, not because it’s a weapon of mass destruction. There’s no equivalent to the nuclear escalation started by the US bomb in the Nazi atom bomb timeline : any technological progress made to counter Nazis is ultimately being coloured as good, because it’s fighting Nazis we’re talking about.

This is where Über does something interesting : instead of trying for a weak “no blameless sides” approach that could only pale in comparison with the culturally engrained goal of stopping Nazis, it turns the original premise to eleven and watches it unfold. The Nazi atom bomb is not just the American one with the eagle painted black, it’s one that dons an unmistakably Nazi idea : the rise of a superior race of men. So when the USSR and the UK and then the US have to retaliate, they have to do so by implementing a technology that is tainted with the very ideology they are fighting against. In that sense, it’s very telling that we see this technology collide with the Allies’ own racist ideology : America is willing to put itself at a disadvantage by under-employing some of its potential “enhanced men” because they are black. In the war of ideas presented in Über, Germany has already won : it’s now fighting on its own field.

That’s the enhanced men premise in terms of sides ; what about the enhanced men on their own ? Where do they stand in the context of fictionalizing WW2 ? There’s of course an inevitable comparison to be made between Captain America and Über, but one I will leave to someone who actually knows their stuff about Captain America. Instead, I want to look at this premise from a larger perspective : is there a use for a superior version of Nazis ? A sci-fi device is handy to compensate for an overpowered adversary ; in Über’s case in particular, any modern WW2-based fiction has to work with the limitations of hindsight : we live in a world that was built on a Nazi defeat, therefore it is hard to conceive of a winning Germany without somehow rebalancing the odds. This is where fiction might benefit from a re-actualization that is inherently impossible for historical material : we could make Nazis win, so we can beat them again.

However, this is where the unicity of WW2 as an historical event comes to undercut the use of fiction. WW2 and the Holocaust aren’t just real events : they were a cultural breaking point. To grossly paraphrase Theodor Adorno, one cannot think in the paradigm that led to Auschwitz anymore. With the end of WW2, a page of the human book of thoughts was turned. Our intellect, our culture, came across something that couldn’t be assimilated : both had to be profoundly rerouted to make sense of the world. Nazism is an intellectual dead-end : it represent the moment an entire intellectual and cultural paradigm imploded into total loss of meaning. What it means is that, even today, Nazism is Nazism precisely because we can’t conceive of it, and yet it did come to exist. Understanding the historicity of Nazism takes more than faith in the facts ; it takes suspension of disbelief IRL. The key factor in understanding the cultural impact of WW2 is its reality. Nazis aren’t scary because they were evil, they are scary because they were real. So if your premise is something along the lines of “Nazis, but scarier”, all you can accomplish is further remove Nazism from what gives it its cultural impact and straight into fiction territory. By pushing it into deliberate incredibility instead of forcing the audience to confront its actual incredibility, you anchor your story into a sanitized environment in which Nazism has been replaced by its cultural shorthand. Your Nazi is evil, but they’re not real, and therefore not scary.

This is why to me, using fictional enhancement to compensate for the historicity of Nazism is a device that is doomed from the start. This is a case where Reality wins ; even the slightest confrontation to real-life Nazi brutality has more narrative impact than all the sci-fi body horror in the world. What it meant for me reading Über is that I was aware of the impact the übermensch were supposed to have on the reader but I never felt this impact for myself. I’d argue the scariest moment in the whole Über run occurs in the Special, specifically Markus’ backstory. Here we see a child born into national-socialist ideology commit a hate crime. The implacable use of infantile impulses to indoctrinate hatred ; now this is a taste of the unbelievable Reality of Nazism. In comparison, Klaudia destroying all of Paris elicits no emotion because it belongs wholly in the cogs of fiction.

Now this would be alright if Über’s only ambition was to tell a story set in the context of WW2, but it’s a comic with the ambition to make a statement about WW2, meaning it wants me to be invested both in its actual story and in the fact that it’s a WW2 story. But it doesn’t work as a standalone story because its stakes are so rooted in its historical basis, and it cannot hope to one-up this basis as a work of fiction. As a result, Über sits uncomfortably between its premise and its stakes, lowering the latter by furthering the former.

Killing cities in a night, repeatedly

The fictionalized and historical aspects of Über also come to collide in its graphic decisions. Violence – both its level and its regularity – is a recurrent issue encountered by WW2-based works, including non-fiction ones : what to show ? How much to show ? This is a matter of responsibility but also impact : setting a standard of violence is also what will help you to highlight and judge these actions relatively. What kind of violence do the “good guys” allow themselves ? What is the line that indicates a wrongdoing ?

WW2 here comes with its specific set of problems, as it is an era in which brutality and barbarism wasn’t only pushed further than ever before, it was also generalized and systematized ; meaning that violence can virtually be present at every instant and not feel like an exaggeration. Moreover, there is such a variety of ways this violence can be painted, from clinical and cold to outrageous and unbearable, that each representation of violence cannot help but feel like a statement.

Every WW2-based work has provided us with its own answer to this problem. In Merle’s Death is my trade, the violence of Auschwitz is perceived through the eyes of a detached, efficiency-minded SS top officer : here, violence is a numbing succession of technical examination, the result of a cost and benefits analysis devoid of any empathy. In Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino went in the opposite direction : this is one of his least violent films from a frequency perspective, but when violence occurs, it is never anodyne. Sometimes it is glorious, other times gruesome, but the movie makes sure you are there to appreciate every single bit of it.

So safe to say there are many ways the litany of horrors of WW2 can be approached. But the solution Über came up with is in my sense a particularly creative, meaningful one, and one I can’t recall ever seeing before. Violence is Über is ever-present, ever-extreme, and yet somehow always centred. Generally, representing violence in WW2-based work takes the form of an arbitration between frequency and impact. You either use violence to world-building purposes in order to create an ever-brutal environment, or you save it to put emphasis on a couple of significant moments. But in this debate of violence as a beat versus violence as a drop, Über never really takes position. Every other panel features someone being ripped apart, some mash of flesh on the ground, every confrontation brings its lot of snuff visuals. It should be numbing or acclimating, but we are forced to keep paying attention by the constant spot the story shines on it. Violence in Über is both the stage and the play ; even when it has relatively little effect on you – as it is my case – you are always half-forced to integrate it and half-forced to focus on it.

But even more interestingly, if everything is violence, then it means there is no background or forefront violence. A plot-wise insignificant rape of a nameless character in the first issue is depicted with the exact same crudeness as HMH Churchill’s leg ripping off during the most decisive battle of the first arc. No violent act is either meaningless or meaningful. No violent act is ever narratively highlighted, therefore no violent act is ever justified. I’ve often read that Über “doesn’t pick sides”, but it definitely does ; what it doesn’t pick is a demarcating line. Violence is the great equalizer of Über : brutality is brutality, whether it’s kicking a puppy or winning a war. This is a courageous position because it goes beyond the “all sides are bad” easy rhetoric of most Manichean WW2 narratives. The violence in Über is not a rhetorical tool, it is not up for discussion, it resists both analysis and relativizing. It is a whole that cannot be picked apart and deconstructed. This is a very punk rock use of violence in that it says almost nothing but makes it emptiness meaningful.

[I can’t help, however, but point to the only narrative decision so far I consider unequivocally wrong : to wait until the story takes place in the US in Invasion to dedicate some consequent space and speaking time to casualties and civilians. I know where this decision comes from – render the stakes of a Nazi invasion more personal to an historically untouched America – but the fact that this is the first time this aspect of war is evoked on its own feels not only like a gross erasure of actual history, it perpetuates the long Hollywoodian tradition of only being able to care about things when they happen to good US citizen. Somehow I feel like if millions of people can march around the world in preventive solidarity with the US, any member of the presumed Anglo-Saxon readership should be able to grasp at the horror of devastated Europe and Asia without being able to spell the last name of the victims. Anyway, Über Invasion #2 is a perfect example of how a good standalone chapter can lose all of its compelling power when taken in the context of its own series. Back to the essay.]

The Jewish Question

yup and I’m sure this header will never bring in my notifications the delightful people who frantically search it on every website

Because violence is an equalizer in Über, it means everything that’s represented in the comics stands at the same level of horror as everything else. What this entails is that, if there is something the authors do consider reaching a superior level of horror, this superiority cannot be expressed within the pages ; there is no way to double down on ultraviolence. Therefore, the only solution to do this particular act justice is to leave it out. There are no degrees of violence, only representation or lack thereof. And this is a determining factor Über uses extensively.

Despite being described in virtually review as “uncompromising”, I find Über to be on the contrary built on compromise ; only the compromising happens before anything makes it onto the page. Because of its particular subject matter, it gives ethical significance to anything “making the cut”, which reveals a level of thoughtfulness of the creators that I wish I could see more often around difficult material.

And maybe with no surprise, there is one thing Über is decidedly not showing. I call Über a WW2 comic, a Nazism comic, but it is not, by any means, a Holocaust comic. You could count on one hand the number of times the camps are mentioned ; we witness but two acts of antisemitism, and that’s if we include the special ; of the two featured queer characters, one is a Nazi ; there is no Rromani character ; and if not for Leah Cohen, the comic would be entirely devoid of named Jewish characters. Really, this is such a glaring hole in the comic’s narrative fabric that it cannot be something other than intentional. The comic twists into at times frankly comical contortions to avoid the subject : the Nazis are experimenting on humans, but they’re mostly non-Jewish Slavs. Bloody doctor Mengele shows up and he doesn’t do a goddamn thing.

So I think the intentionality is pretty clear here. Now I’ve said in my Tara piece that I will always respect a creator’s decision to stay away from a topic if they don’t see themselves having the legitimacy or the shoulders to handle it properly. It’s especially true when this decision was made out of respect for that topic, which I believe was the case here. I do see why one would want to avoid discussing the Holocaust in their comic about human nuclear bomb Nazis wiping off most of Europe.

However justified – and possibly right – this choice was, it begs a different question regardless : can you make a comic about WW2, and one exploring literal Nazi doctrine at that, that mostly ignores the Holocaust ? Well obviously you can, but can you make this work meaningful while cutting out the most central and recognizable aspect of WW2 ?

Let’s say it straight up : I don’t have an answer to that. I don’t think an abstract answer can even be given here. But we can look at the answer Über gives us.

On a pure narrative level, Über does evacuate most of the problem by situating its story after the liberation of the camps. I’d argue that given what a pressing matter the imminent discovery of the camps by the Allies was to losing Germany (google “death march” next time you feel like your life is going too well), it’s hard to conceive why Sankt didn't just take one of the battleships for a stroll to the camps and have them literally blink every evidence out of existence, but let’s accept there are in-universe reasons why the topic can be cautiously worked around.

On a conceptual level, things are more complicated. Über is a comic about WW2, but one that explicitly focuses on Nazis and Nazi ideology. It’s natural for a work about Pearl Harbour not to peep a word of the Holocaust. But when the foundation of the comic rests on Nazi soldiers and the people directly fighting them, the absence of the Holocaust aspect feels like there’s something missing. As a thought experiment, I tried to imagine if the comic would have worked if it had taken place in WWI instead. The protagonists are similar, so are, roughly, the battlefields. There is virtually no reason why WWI Germany wouldn’t work as an antagonist in a sci-fi comic. In fact I’m pretty sure there’s at least one comic out there with this scenario. And yet it feels like Über wouldn’t work at all in WWI. As a second thought experiment, I wondered if the premise would have worked if the Allies had come up with the enhanced human first and realized I’d invented Captain America.

In both instances, the transposition doesn’t work, because of one reason : Nazis. As I said earlier, there is something irreplaceable in the combination of Nazi characters and Nazi ideology-based sci-fi. Über doesn’t work as simply “a war comic in which one side gets enhancing technology” because its core relies way too much on our shared understanding and approach to Nazis. And this is where the absence of a Holocaust narrative in the plot can deprive it of meaning. Nazism is Nazism and not Any Other Nationalist ideology because of the Holocaust. The world we live in today is built on the identity between Nazism and the Holocaust. You cannot think of one without thinking of the other. So when Über rests its premise on Nazism while consciously avoiding discussing the Holocaust, it’s effectively using Nazis out of their context and into a made-up one. It borrows the cultural significance of Nazism while cutting out its signifier.

This leads to a bizarre situation in which only two of the Nazis featured in Hitler are ever seen partaking in Nazi ideology, and the people who are actually seen torturing an – albeit willing – Jewish character are British. A situation in which the entire core of the racist Nazi ideology feels like a bygone idea destined to die with an insane Hitler to make room for tacticians and economists.

To reiterate, I don’t know if leaving the Holocaust out was the wrong decision or not. Maybe the risk of feeling exploitative was too great and the creative team was wise to leave it out as much as possible. But as a result, it can’t help but lean a bit more on erasure. The fact is that when your mean of respecting something is to leave it out, then you won’t have the opportunity to compensate for whatever opposite content does make it in the comic. There is nothing offensive about the Holocaust in Über, but there’s nothing reverent about it either.

Prisoners of fate

In fact, there’s not much reverence for anything inside Über. There is respect as I’ve discussed earlier, on a structural level, determined by what makes it into the comic. But what gets to be on the page cannot expect any kind of special, tasteful treatment. I think Über readers only learned exactly what they were in for with the concurrent deaths of Hitler and Churchill. If Hitler gets regularly offed by more or less talented creators, Winston Churchill is one of the Gandalfs of WW2, an immediately reassuring presence who eases out your reading by bringing one certainty to it : no matter how bad things get, he’s not going to die. This is the most commonly adopted bias in WW2-based materials : preserving historical figures in order not to throw the audience too much off track. In Über, historical figures enjoy no such immunity. This is an extreme but equally crafty solution to the coexistence of reality-based and purely fictional characters. This is a problem with which a fair share of WW2-based works struggle. Take something like Costa-Gravas’ Amen : the superposition of real-life figure Kurt Gerstein and fictional character Riccardo Fontana doesn’t work at all, as they both serve basically the same narrative purpose and diminish each other’s impact on the story. But in Über, a character’s real-life basis always comes second to the internal logic of the story. That’s not to say there isn’t room for them in the grand scheme of things, but as more and more enhanced characters take the stage, these characters can’t help but feel more and more irrelevant. That is maybe the great paradox at the heart of Über, that it still features a division between the enhanced soldiers instead of one between them and regular humans – a transition Wicdiv underwent recently. I suspect the simplifier or this paradox lies on what Über has to say on Authority, but I’m saving that subject for a separate essay.

But this “no character is ever safe” stance contributes to another sentiment that runs all the way through Über : implacability. This is a very fatalistic comic, probably even more than Wicdiv. This is particularly palpable in the fight scenes. Despite what the covers would have you think, battles in Über are quite short : four, five pages at best before something breaks it down. But most importantly, they are predictable. There is no last minute turnaround in Über : the second the protagonists collide, you know who’s going to fall short. The only unknown factor is just how scarring this defeat will be. Not only that, there is no narrative logic as to who’s going to emerge the winner : Allies are not due a victory because they last suffered a loss, no side can expect proportional returns to its sacrifices, no battleship is guaranteed to win out of virtue of being a charismatic character. There is only one law in Über, and that’s the Rule of war. The winning side wins because they had the superior technology, the superior information, the superior strategy. The issue of a battle is settled long before the two enhanced fighters even meet, as two groups of high-ranking officers stand above some maps. This is why the story of Über so often seems to be happening in its own background : most of the time, what we see is a consequence of the plot more than the plot itself.

The story is not completely devoid of typically Gillen-esque clever bits, like the “cloning” of Hitler and pretty much everything about Maria. But those are outstanders waiting to be integrated in the grand logic of the story, and until then, often feel out of place – Maria in particular.

Then there is the second lens we have to see the story through, one that gives the story the full measure of its fatalistic weight : the narration. I said I wasn’t particularly touched by the art on its own ; however, the contrast between the extreme graphics and the cold, factual narration is one of the comic’s best assets. One of the issues’ back pages feature a script excerpt describing a gory mutated monster in very graphic details ; but this sort of writing never makes it into Über. The narration is abundant, but always curiously removed from the visual action, at times even clunky and annoying to read. I wasn’t sure how to make sense of it until I got to a particular description of a piece of art created by the power of the enhanced men. What was interesting is the mention that it was the “first” one, something that would be impossible to know unless you were observing the scene from a distant point in the future. The narration is dry for a reason : this is archivist talk. Whatever perspective we’re observing the story from, this is one that is way ahead of us, possessing some additional information, short on more trivial matters. Über only tricks you into thinking this is a re-actualisation of WW2 : in its own timeline, the war we’re looking at is long over. The fictional heroes, the historical figures, the technological progress, the countries, they are all trapped in their little sandbox, playing a game that only seems undecided, when in reality everything that will happen will do so to arrive at that unknown moment in the future, the vantage point from which we are watching the ants burn each other.

How can you read Über while holding this intense feeling of vanity ? You can’t ; you have to get into the story, do what the narration cannot do, get closer to these characters, and try to understand them. But you can never fully connect with them either : you are from a different world, both outside and inside the story, a world built on the ashes of the one fuming under your eyes. A world that had to reinvent itself to make sense of the contagious barbarity born of revenge, ideology and desperation. What does the world Über is talking to us from look like ? Does is look like ours ? Is it better ? Worse ? Only one thing is certain : it, too, has suffered a scar. One that may never actually have healed. And this is why, despite the inherent limitations of its premise, despite maybe being too well-minded for its own good, despite the tragic irony of trying to one-up the Nazi threat right at the time it’s being proven the world doesn’t need any kind of incentive to fall for the exact same act a second time, I still think there’s a place for something like Über in WW2-based material. At its core, like several other works over the last year, and maybe premonitorily, Über is about what killed the world.

#über #kieron gillen #caanan white #avatar press #thinkpiece time #yup and this one's a doozy

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ecotone99 · 4 years

Text

You Really Were Something, Pearl [RF]

A warm breeze blew down the street, bringing with it the salty smell of the East River. On this overcast and hazy June afternoon, Pearl sat on outdoor patio on the corner for 49th and 2nd Avenue. A bottle of champagne sat tilted and sweating in an ice bucket on her table. The New York Times was spread across the entire table top, its corners flapping in the breeze. This was where you would find Pearl every day, for the last twenty or so years since her husband passed.

Every day at lunchtime, she would leave her penthouse apartment--the 23rd floor of a high rise on E48th street, where she had lived for the past sixty four years--and head down a French café called Chez Henri. There, she would demand a table on the sidewalk--if the weather was warm enough--or right by the window. God help the poor soul who happened to take her requested seat before she arrived.

Once she was seated, she snapped her fingers and called for the waiter.

“Garcon!” she shouted.

The waiter rolled his eyes to his fellow wait staff and slogged over to her table.

“Yes, ma’am. What can I get for you today?” he asked, forcing a smile onto his face.

“How could you not know by now?” she snapped. “And hurry, I haven’t got all day.”

The waiter, smirked, nodded, then lumbered to the bar to grab a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from the wine cooler. Then he filled a stainless steel bucket with ice and placed the bottle of champagne inside, pushing it just enough so that the ice covered the wide base of the bottle.. Above his head, he grabbed the clean champagne flutes that hung in the dark, empty bar. He carried it out the old woman on the patio under cloudy skies.

Pearl smiled with the kind of satisfaction that comes with the ability to manipulate people to her will.

The waiter unwrapped the foil from the top of the champagne bottle, loosened the thin metal cage and popped the cork. He didn’t dare speak to Pearl as if she were an equal, he tried to avoid all eye contact. He had learned his lesson. The plop of the cork made a hollow sound that was drowned out by the rustling of leafy tree branches in the wind and the cars and cabs whooshing by and honking their horns on 2nd Avenue.

While the waiter opened the bottle, the old woman did not look up from her copy of

the Times. Pearl struggled to read the pages as they whipped in the wind. When the champagne flute hit the table and the waiter was about to fill it, she looked up and sneered in disgust. She put her hand up to stop the waiter from pouring.

“That glass is filthy,” she said, shoving the glass to the waiter’s face.

He could not see anything wrong with the glass, but he apologized anyway. He brought it behind the bar and ran it under some hot water, dried it and brought it back. Pearl smiled that same demeaning smile as she had done before. This time she did not look up as he poured the champagne. She continued reading the newspaper.

“Can I get you anything el—” the waiter began.

She flicked her hand up as if to toss him away before he could finish, still not looking up from the paper. The waiter left her there.

The first fizz of the champagne’s bubbles hit her lips and she suddenly became more relaxed. It was not the alcohol working so quickly, but rather the comfort of routine that calmed her down.

The headlines of the day were all about the president and the border wall. She liked the idea of the wall, in principle. Why should we just let people into the country that will suck us dry? Why should I, Pearl Hoffman, pay my hard-earned money to provide for illegals to get free stuff in my country?

As much as she liked his policies, she did not like the man himself. She knew of him from his days in the New York real estate game. Everyone knew the man’s name, he made sure of that. You couldn’t walk a few blocks in Manhattan without seeing his name, written in huge gold letters, on the side of some gaudy skyscraper. He was boastful, braggadocious and came off like a slime ball who conned his way to the top. His father was very much the same. They had money and name in Manhattan, but they never earned respect. No, not like my Marty. My Marty was a real gentleman and everything he earned was through hard work and sacrifice.

That is not to say that Pearl really knew what Marty did for a living. He went to his office

everyday in Midtown and worked until at least eight o’clock most nights. Sometimes he would even have to stay overnight to get things done. But whatever he did, he made his living with integrity.

Marty gave Pearl everything he could in life--the finest jewelry from Tiffany’s, clothes from Saks, a beautiful Manhattan penthouse--a penthouse that she still owned and lived in.

That penthouse was in a building that was one of the first skyscrapers to go up after the war.

That’s right, the last real war. My Marty fought bravely against those Nazis. He practically freed those Jews himself! And he always remained faithful to me when he was over there, even among the beautiful French women. He would write me once a week and he told me how much he missed me. Back then, life was tough--we had to live in Brooklyn--but after he got back from Europe, Marty got a job in Midtown, and a few years later we had this penthouse. Then, I could live like a queen all the time.

Oh, Morty, he’s been gone for almost twenty years now. I miss him every day. Our children Sarah and Rachel--they never call us. One lives in Los Angeles with her husband who works in the movies. That’s Sarah, she never had children. I don’t agree with that. As a woman, your job is to have children for your husband, and if you don’t, what’s your worth as a woman? This is what we were made to do. Anyway, she did not like when I said that, oh, around the time where Marty was really sick. We haven’t spoken since. But she’ll come around, I know it. I know she can’t have children anymore, but one day she’ll call and apologize and come visit her aging mother.

Rachel has two beautiful sons, but I can’t go near them. Rachel is a lesbian, what would people say? I don’t much like that, personally. I know that’s not great to say these days, but it’s so...unnatural. I’m not religious or anything, I mean, I was raised Presbyterian and converted to Judaism for my dear sweet Marty, but that’s not why I object to her being a lesbian. It’s just not right. I’m sure her girlfriend--or wife, or whatever she is--is a lovely woman, but I could not live with myself, in this society, being proud of having a lesbian daughter. You just don’t do that, I’ll be laughed out of town. I know she made her lifestyle choice just to hurt me. When I told her how I felt, she didn’t like that, and she stopped talking to me. But I know one day she’ll call and apologize to her old dying mother, and my grandchildren will come visit me too.

With one glass of champagne down, Pearl snapped her fingers and called out for the garcon again. The waiter came strolling outside as the skies grew darker. Second Avenue was getting quieter as people left their lunch hours and went back to work.

I was not a very strict mother, but I always wanted to be sure that Rachel and Sarah had the right etiquette in high society. Marty and I were really something in New York back in the fifties. That was the last time this city was great. We would rub elbows with the likes of Bogey, Bacall, Hepburn--both of them--Carey Grant, Marilyn Monroe...Marty always made me feel like a movie star. He knew I could have been a movie star, I knew it too, but I did not want to leave New York to move to Hollywood. We stayed and I had children--for Morty--because that’s what a woman does.

Oh, how I dreamed of being a Hollywood star though. Oh, and I would have been good too. Everyone told me that I had such talent. I tried out for a few Broadway plays, but I could just never put in the time to hone my craft. They told me I was good, and pretty, but I needed to be able to sing for Broadway. And as much as I could carry a tune, I did not have the time to build my vocal chords and learn all the dance steps to all the musical numbers. I could have been great though you know.

Pearl turned to the entertainment section of the newspaper and saw the latest movies that were playing.

I remember when they made that film with Judy Garland. Yes, Judy was a real talent. I don’t know how that Gaga can be so popular, she’s not very pretty. No, not like I was. I was prettier than her, I could have been a star, I just simply did not have the time. There were so many things to do.

Pearl took another sip of her champagne. Her face felt about as warm as the humid summer air that covered Manhattan that day. A single raindrop fell from the sky and plopped on the paper. Fortunately for Pearl, the drop landed in the middle of the articles, which she couldn’t read anyway. Her eyes had failed her over the years, and she could no longer read the newspaper, even with those hideous reading glasses. She would never be caught dead in public wearing reading glasses. When her vision started to fail her, she just kept looking at the paper for the pictures and the large print headlines. Mostly, she just sat and thought about what each image and headline provoked.

The taste and the feeling of the champagne was heightened by the fact that Pearl never ate anything when she drank. She had half a grapefruit in the morning with black coffee and that sustained her until dinner time, which her live in chef would fix for her. She did not want to ruin her waistline, just in case Hollywood came calling. No, she didn’t have time to be a movie star back then, but she had all the time in the world now.

The taste of the bubbles on her lips and the way the air was heavy and warm brought upon a memory of the night that she caught Vivian Leigh being a little too cozy with Marty in a private room at a party. Poor Marty was being taken advantage of by Vivian. She was a siren, that one--and a floozy. Proper ladies don’t fight, but Pearl had to protect her Marty. So many women were after him, I had to fight them off because he couldn’t.

That Marty, he was such a sweet, innocent soul. I could understand why all the women were envious of me. I was beautiful and he was rich, powerful and handsome, we were the most envied couple in NewYork in our heyday, I can tell you. New York is a wonderful place, but it used to be much better. There were so many famous and important people here back in the day, and there were always so many people to see and restaurants to go to, and shows to see. It really is the center of the universe. I think it still is, but it’s just not the same as it used to be. The shows have been taken over by the gays and the blacks. The restaurants are all run by Mexicans and Orientals. But isn’t that the whole world now? People have no sense of boundaries any more.

Back in my day, people used to be dressed to the nines all the time. Today, half the women I see have their boobs hanging or they’re wearing sweatpants outside. When I first saw someone wearing sweatpants outside, it was a mental patient from Bellevue, she had escaped. But she must have set a trend because after a while, lots of people were wearing sweatpants.

Today, Pearl wore a lime green dress, with a thick black belt and her pearl necklace. Marty got me that necklace in Paris after he beat the snot out of the Nazis.

The rain started to fall harder, and the wind started to pick up, but Pearl was undeterred.

“Garcon!” she yelled. The waiter dashed outside and she pointed to the awning. The waiter grabbed the pole and rolled out the awning over Pearl’s head, fighting the wind and the rain.

Pearl stayed put, she had gotten wet, but she had her ritual and nothing was going to interrupt it. That bottle of champagne, it brought back so many memories. All the good times she had in her life were accompanied with champagne. After Marty proposed, there was champagne. At their wedding day, there was champagne. During their honeymoon in the French Riviera, champagne was all they drank. After she had Sarah and Rachel, she had champagne in the delivery room.

In all those parties with the movie stars and other important people, there was champagne. Sometimes there was too much champagne. Like the time she woke up next to a man that wasn’t Marty. Marty never found out, thankfully, and we moved on with our lives.

I have always felt guilty about that night though. I had Rachel sometime later. That may explain

why she is a lesbian.

When Marty died, that was a hard time. Sarah and Rachel were there, but they didn’t look at me and they didn’t talk to me. I don’t know what I ever did to them. I raised them and they still don’t want to apologize. I don’t understand. I had my friends Hazel and Edie to help me through. We all became widowers and we got together to talk about the good times often and there were always bottles of champagne. And no matter how bad we were feeling about losing our husbands, there was always champagne. I even forgave Edie for the time she took advantage of Marty and made him sleep with her. I think he just felt bad for her. I was much prettier than her, but Morty was such a sweetheart, he just wanted to make her feel pretty. He was always thinking about the feelings of other people. Oh, how I miss that man.

I miss Hazel and Edith too I suppose. Hazel died about five years ago and Edith has been gone for two. But more champagne for me, I guess.

Pearl looked out on the street watching people run for cover as the rain picked up. She could no longer hear the sounds of the cars on Second Avenue now, only the sound of a million raindrops echoing through the bricked canyons of 49th Street and Second Avenue. She laughed at the people who rushed around covering their heads.

She called the waiter over once more, except she was more friendly and more kind. She asked him politely to pour the last of the champagne and to take the bottle away.

“The check too, dear, if you please,” she said warmly through frayed vocal chords and weak lungs. He obliged and ran off with the bottle, and the bucket of melting ice. He returned in a moment with the check.

Pearl was no longer looking at her newspaper. Instead, she looked around, a euphoric smile fixed to her face. She felt a warm glow around her. Her world was in soft focus, like a dream. She felt like she was there in the halcyon days--a memory, hazy around the edges. She really was something, but she could have been so much more, if she had the time.

The check came and Pearl left the waiter a one-dollar tip on a ninety-dollar bottle of wine. He knew that would happen. He drew the short straw that day to serve her. Everyone at Chez Henri knew of Pearl, and none of them wanted to deal with her. She would be difficult, combative and make you bend over backwards for no tip. Nobody knew anything about her, despite the fact that she was there every day. She would not talk to them, she would barely look at them. If they even tried to speak with her, she growled something snippy back at them, or just ignored them. The wait staff cheered when she left her seat and walked--hunched over with her cane keeping her steady--back to her building.

The rain let up by the dinner rush, and the waiter made one of his best nights in a year. He and his wife had been saving up to buy a condo and they were so close. A night like this one really helped him. After his shift was over, he took the 6 train to his apartment in the Bronx where his three children rushed to the door to greet him.

“Hey, guys, shouldn’t you be in bed?” he said.

“Oh, they really missed you today, Daddy,” his wife said, coming up behind them. “And it’s not a school night so I let them stay up.”

The smell of garlic and onions and cumin filled the air in the small flat.

“I got some rice for you on the stove, I’ll heat you up a plate.”

“That would be great,” he said with a smile.

He told her how much money he made that night and they smiled about how close they were to getting that down payment for the condo. He ate the rice and filled up until he wanted to sleep. His children kissed him before they went to bed.

Back in Midtown, Pearl had a meal she would not remember, prepared by her live-in chef. She looked through her mail for a letter, but there was nothing addressed to her except for magazine subscription renewals, bills and a social security check. She checked her answering machine, but there were no messages for her.

Oh well, the weekend is here. Somebody might call me tomorrow.

r/dtpughwrites

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shatteredskies042 · 5 years

Text

NaNo Day 16-17

Michael watched her go and sipped his coffee, watching the sunrise for several minutes before he finished his mug and headed up to his quarters. He showered quickly, making a note to try and find some basic hygiene products in town next time he went. His travel gear worked well enough, but he did not want to be using that regularly.

Once he was dry, he dressed and found a jacket. The garment fit, but too snugly. He would be printing his firearm if he wore it, and added a new jacket to the list of things he needed to get. He would do well with some shopping, but clothes shopping had never been his strong suit. He eventually found a tan, fleece lined jacket and slipped it on, loose enough that concealing his weapon was hardly an issue. He secreted a pair of magazines on his person, then headed back into the living area.

He saw Allyson, dressed similarly to him, just casual enough to blend in with the crowds. “Ready?” she asked when she saw him, leaning on the same handrails they had conversed on last night. At his nod, she grabbed a shiny ruby red, leather half jacket from the behind her and slipped it on, before starting down the stairs and to the garage.

Michael fell in behind her, and followed her up into her Jeep. The blonde turned the vehicle over and withdrew a pair of sunglasses from the visor, glancing at him. “Gets you familiar with town, too,” she mused as she toggled the door and they headed for the bridge away from the island. “I’ll get you a garage door opener, and one of the keys to get inside,” she added.

Michael wished that he’d brought his own pair of sunglasses, choosing to lower one of the visors of the skeletonized cabin of the Jeep to shield his eyes. “Your travels take you off road a lot?” he asked her, reaching up with his off hand to wrap around one of the rollbars over the passenger’s side.

“It’s nice to have,” Ally admitted, “and I’ve always really had a thing for these since they came out,” she told him. “And it’s just fun,” she smiled as she drove, merging onto the highway for the second leg of the drive into town. “Going out some back road and tearing it up, splashing through the mud, or climbing over rocks. Great for the snow, too,” she added. She glanced over at Michael for a moment, before speeding up to pass a slower car, the wind whipping through the open cabin.

“I’ve always wanted to get an SUV or something,” Michael admitted, “we got a lot of snow where I grew up, so driving the Camaro isn’t super realistic for two or three months out of the year.”

“And you can’t really take her onto the backroads, or off road, either,” Ally pointed out, with a hint of a proud smile at the corner of her lips.

“Pass up the opportunity for a walk through the woods?” Michael raised an eyebrow, “besides, it’s much quieter to walk through the woods instead of following the road.”

“You’re not wrong,” the blonde admitted as the town came into view. None of the buildings he could see were over three stories tall, and everything seemed to be grouped together fairly well. Ally navigated through the busy early morning city streets, before they stopped in front of a coffee shop. The window etching said Scarlet’s Beans, both the cold neon signage and a placard in the door said the store was closed. However, Ally climbed out, and Michael followed after her as they walked to the door.

The door was unlocked, and they both walked into the clean storefront, a bell over the door dinged to announce their entry. “Sorry!” Came a voice shouted from the back, “we’re not open yet!”

“Scarlet?” Ally called back, “it’s me.”

“Oh,” she responded, “I’m just in the back,” she responded.

Michael and Ally headed for the rear of the storefront until they reached a door clearly marked Employees Only. With Allyson’s blatant disregard of the sign, she pushed through the door and held it open for Michael into a lounge, then through an open door into a humid room. A single figure stood hunched over a row of green plants, inspecting the small green bushes with a notepad nearby. She perked up when she saw the blonde, making a few last notations as she looked up. “I’ll meet you two in the lounge, just give me a minute,” she smiled disarmingly.

The two retreated to the lounge, Ally gracefully flopping back into an overstuffed couch while Michael took a chair across from her over a low coffee table, having to adjust his posture a few times as he sat on his gun.

It took over a minute, but finally Scarlet appeared. She had a head full of fire-red hair the same length as Allyson’s, but much paler than her with the inky lines of tattoos running across her arms. The designs were lost on Michael, as her clothing obfuscated much of the artwork as she sat in the other table around the coffee table. “Sorry,” she apologized as she crossed her legs. “I’m trying to figure out a new, faster method to grow the beans,” she explained.

“Tell Michael what it is you do,” Ally urged with a small smile.

“You don’t know?” the redhead looked at the male, then sighed, “sorry, I’m a horrible entertainer. I’m Scarlet, I run this establishment, and I’ve known Allyson since I was a child,” she told him. “And you are?”

“Michael Haghn,” he responded, “I’ve known Allyson for less than three days.”

Scarlet laughed, “so I guess that means you’re new to the world behind the veil, and all the things that go bump in the night.”

“Greener than those coffee plants of yours,” Ally quipped with a smile.

“Well, I’m a witch,” she shrugged, “and before you ask, yes, I can make a broom fly, and no, I don’t kidnap children to boil in a cauldron. I don’t even own a cauldron,” she said, the latter part mostly to herself. “Can I get you two anything?” she asked the pair. “I just got done getting the pastries and such ready for today,” she stated. “Coffee?”

“I’ll take one of those apple danishes,” Ally stated, smiling a bit.

“What do you have?” Michael asked, “haven’t been to any coffee shop in a while,” he admitted.

“Bagels, danishes, muffins, cookies,” Scarlet shrugged, an easy, automatic routine for her. “What do you like?”

“How about a plain bagel and some cream cheese?” he asked politely, “and do you have any of those home grown coffee beans ready?”

“Of course I do, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said with a polite smile, before heading back into the storefront.

Michael looked over at Allyson at the same time she looked at him, the blonde starting to explain: “I’ve known Scarlet since she was born, her mother was a good friend, too,” she stated, “her mom and I worked together back during the second world war.”

“Doing what?” Michael asked curiously. “I love history, so I’ve studied that in pretty good detail.”

“Nothing that made it into your history books,” the angel promised with a smile. “There was a whole other war that was fought at the time, between much of the same enemies and some others,” she explained. “And before you ask, yes, I worked for the Allies. I even borrowed some of their support a few times,” she said quietly, staring past him into a memory before focusing on him again.

“Like?”

“Couple of heavy bomber raids, some paratroopers,” she shrugged. “When I worked in the East I got to use Soviet artillery a few times, I still love the sound their rockets made,” she laughed. “Scarlet’s mom, Rose, got hurt early in the war, and she wasn’t exactly cut out for the front line in the first place. She ran things for us pretty much,” Ally crossed her legs as she leaned back in thought. “Without her, the world would look much different than it is today.”

“Other than ideology and the Nazis being well dressed assholes, what was the war over?” Michael asked.

“Some of it was use of magic, some of it was vampires who’d grown comfortable and too bold,” she shrugged. “A lot of it was focused around the Academy of Destructive Arts, both because they were absolutely full of themselves and the fact they were teaching and harboring practitioners of banned magic. Stuff like necromancy and demon summoning. The rest of the world thought what they were doing was unacceptable, and went to war over it.”

Scarlet returned with a tray in her hands, setting it on the coffee table. “Here you are,” she smiled at the two slightly, looking at Ally, “are you two talking about the war?”

Ally nodded, reaching out to take the small plate her pastery was on. “Michael is still very new to all this,” she explained. “Tell him about what you do,” she urged before taking a bite of her snack.

Michael turned his attention to the redhead as he picked up the bagel, coating the interior in cream cheese. “I need to learn as much as I can if I’m going to be effective,” he explained.

“Well, as Ally told you, I’m a witch. I do things with magic,” she stated as he took a sip of the coffee. “The coffee beans, what you’re drinking,” she nodded, “I grow them with the help of magic.”

Michael stopped mid sip, before slowly setting the mug down and looking at her. “Is it-”

“Yes, of course it’s safe,” Scarlet assured as Ally chuckled. “I only use magic to accelerate the development of the plants,” she explained further. “Any dangerous issues I’ve already worked out. The early testing was far from perfect, but I’ve figured out just the right amount to cut the time to grow from two or three years to just a handful of months.”

“And the taste?” the soldier asked.

“The magic does affect it somewhat, but I’ve only heard positive reviews about my homegrown coffee beans,” she smiled. Michael nodded slowly, then took a sip of the coffee again, until Scarlet stopped him, “do you want sugar or creamer or something? I forgot to ask, I’m so-”

“It’s fine,” Michael promised, “I like mine simple,” he stated. He took another bite from his bagel shortly after, chewing as he thought of questions to ask. When he was finished, he had one, he thought at least. “How do you tell if you have magic abilities?” he asked.

Scarlet laughed, “you either do or you don’t,” she stated. “I was almost guaranteed to have it, because my mother was a witch, and my father was also magically inclined,” she explained. “There’s ways to tell, and very few capable people get missed,” she added. “There’s no concrete theory on it, nothing concrete at all about magic, you see,” Scarlet told him, “the only thing that seems to work is two magic users, or otherwise magically capable people having kids, and even then it’s hit or miss. I had a sister who didn’t have any affinity for magic at all.”

“I don’t even have a real ability to use magic,” Ally pointed out. “I have some abilities, but that’s because I’m an angel. I can’t learn anything new like Scarlet can,” Ally explained quietly as she finished her bagel.

“And I’m going to guess I don’t have any aptitude for it either,” the soldier mused, shrugging. “No big loss for me.”

“There’s a few perks,” Scarlet noted with a grin, flicking her wrist. A door flew open to a small closet, and a broom flew around sweeping the floor in concentric rows. Michael watched curiously, eating his bagel, as Scarlet laughed. “The shop and my apartment over it would be an absolute mess if it weren’t for easy magic like that,” she smiled.

“So what can you do?” Michael wondered, “what’s within the realm of possibility?”

Scarlet stretched out, and rest her socked feet on the coffee table. “I work with plants and animals a lot,” she said, “I’m also really good at healing. Not so much where I want to go into business as a healer full time, but when I need to,” she said proudly, looking at Ally. “Fixed up your new girlfriend a few times,” she said with a pointed smirk.

“We’re not dating,” Ally responded quickly, looking everywhere but at Michael.

Scarlet didn’t seem impressed, but nodded anyway. “Sorry,” she apologized to Michael, “I’m not the best person to ask about this. I’m just a user, not a scholar,” she said. “If you want a straight answer, and you probably won’t even get one then, you’d have to find one of the magic academies and talk to their faculty.”

“If they let you in,” Ally noted. “They’re not the kindest people.”

“Speaking of unkind people,” Michael responded, “you mentioned the Destructive Arts, is that offensive magic?” he asked.

Scarlet furrowed her brow and tilted her head back and forth a few times in thought as she mulled over his question. “Looking at it from a very, very broad angle, yes,” she confirmed as she looked at him. “It’s not just fancy stuff like fireballs and shooting lightning out of your fingers,” she explained. Scarlet put her hands together, then separate them for a second, before arcs of lightning sparked between her fingertips.

“It’s stuff like making diseases, inciting violence in others, not just direct means of attack,” she explained. “The vast majority of magic users are just like you and me,” she gestured between her and Michael. “Human, and the human body can’t tolerate a whole hell of a lot of punishment. Sure, you can learn ways to create constructs to stop an attack or wards to take the blow for you, but you won’t often find a witch on the front lines.”

Michael nodded slowly, “what would they be capable of?” he asked in wonder.

“A lot of the records and books were lost when the Academy was destroyed in the bombing, the real reason for attacking Dresden,” Ally explained. “The knowledge still exists in what survived, but it’s few and far between,” she promised, looking to Scarlet, “witches do know self defense spells for if push comes to shove, but nobody really uses magic offensively since then.”

“As for what they were capable of, use your imagination,” Scarlet said with a shrug as she looked at Michael. “Giant fireballs, manipulating the weather, making it rain horribly corrosive and dangerous toxins, using cursed beasts as mounts of war,” she shook her head. “There was a reason it was destroyed.”

“And if we were to encounter one on our journeys,” Michael said quietly, “humor me, how to I take them down?”

“Provided you encountered one, and weren’t vaporized or mutilated the moment they spotted you,” Scarlet shrugged, “unless they’re waist deep in the real dark arts, they’ll die just like any other person.”

Michael nodded thoughtfully, adding it to his personal mental index of how to kill and destroy various things and people. “And if they are waist deep in the real dark arts?”

“Run,” Ally said simply.

“Pretty much, then you get into the real nightmarish stuff,” Scarlet agreed. She craned her neck to look at a clock, then back at the two, “I hate to do this, but I have to get ready for the day and my opening workers should be arriving.” She stood, and the two visitors followed shortly after. “It was very nice meeting you, Michael,” she professed.

“Thank you, Scarlet, it was-” he thought for a moment to find the right word, “enlightening.”

“Always a pleasure, Scarlet,” Ally smiled.

“Oh hush, I’m not some scholar or important person,” she waved off their thanks. “My door is always open if you need a warm drink, snack, healing, or magical advice,” she promised the two as she led them back into the cafe. Ally pushed the door open as Scarlet flipped the placard on the door around and turned on the neon signs.

“I don’t have to worry about stuff like hexes and voodoo dolls, right?” Michael asked as they returned to Ally’s red Jeep.

The blonde shrugged as she put her sunglasses back on, having hung them from a pocket of her jacket while indoors. “I’ve been cursed a few times, all you really have to do is find whoever put it on you and convince them to lift it,” she stated while climbing up into the vehicle. “It also ends on the caster’s death, so there’s that too,” she added.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

“A big part of magic is the ingredients used,” Ally stated. “Don’t quote me on any of this, okay?” she said quickly, to dispel any reliance he may put on her advice, “but say, Scarlet wanted to curse you. Right now she has maybe a couple strands of hair. With that bare link to you, she could put something minor on you. Like, every hour you get an itch in the same place, or every third thing you eat tastes sour, something mundane.”

“Something annoying,” Michael continued.

“Whereas if she had say, blood, or an organ, or your body, she could do much worse,” Ally finished. “It’s actually something you have to try for, getting cursed,” Ally shrugged as she drove them through the more lively streets of town.

“Good to know,” he stated, shifting in his seat as the blonde drove. As they stopped in traffic, he glanced over at her, “where now?”

“Now, we’re going into the woods,” she told him, “more than just Bambi out there,” she warned.

They drove for a couple minutes in comfortable silence as they left town on the backroads, taking a few dirt paths off the road deeper into the brush. Michael couldn’t help but look around and wonder where it was they were going, “how far in the woods are we talking?” he asked.

“Not far left,” Ally promised, as they came around a gentle bend and the vehicle rocked as they passed over a small, rocky creek. Around the corner was a large house, paling in comparison to the Institute, but impressive nevertheless. They stopped in front of the house, and Ally motioned for him to get out. “Just don’t make any sudden movements, okay?” Ally warned, “some of these guys are pretty jumpy.”

Michael nodded as he stepped down into the grass, then followed Ally to the door. He caught a few eyes from people walking around, and mostly ignored it. There was something off about this place, but he couldn’t quite tell yet.

“Ally,” a voice greeted as the door squeaked open, causing Michael to turn to face the speaker. “Who’s your friend?”

“My new partner, where’s Cole?” she asked pointedly.

“Cole’s inside, but I’m not quite sure having an outsider here is safe.”

“I wouldn’t be worried about his safety, I’d be worried for yours,” Ally replied with a cold smile, before the door opened. The two entered, and Ally led Michael inside.

The man who had opened the door was easily taller and heavier than Michael, and stood in an aggressive manner designed to intimidate him as he passed. Michael simply stepped past into the living room with the blonde. “He doesn’t look like much,” the man who had opened the door said aggressively.

“I’ve been here less than a minute and someone is already threatening me?” the soldier mused.

“They’re territorial, Michael, and you’re on their territory,” Ally did say.

“And who exactly are they?” Michael asked, glancing at the blonde.

“Werewolves,” came another voice from above them. A tall, well built man with silver hair descended the stairs, joining the pair. “Tony, it’s okay, you can leave us,” he urged the man at the door as he smiled at Allyson. “Good to see you, Allyson,” he wished, “glad to see you get out of that stuffy island too.”

Word Count: 33400

Note: Was unsatisfied with the writing from Day 16, and reworked it all today.

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