#it's struggling to get their shit done in addition to whatever the fuck the previous shift leaves for them

[traumato]

Literally full offense but I'm so fucking tired of the idea that i "should" work on whatever the fucks wrong with me

Like yeah yeah don't hurt people or whatever the fuck but literally just fucking let traumatized and mentally ill people fucking Live

[jackzillanyanut8008]

The Last Of Us Part 3: Fan Write (Part 10)

Author’s Note:

This fan write of the 3rd addition to The Last Of Us franchise is completely fan made, I own zero rights to the game, tv show, or merchandise. Any and all properties of this franchise are owned by Naughty Dog Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and PlayStation Studios. And of course, please support both the previous games, as well as the HBO series.

-Stone CL Williams

PS: Thank you to those of you who've read this Fan Write up to this point, I never intended on this being a prolonged thing but here we are. So thanks for reading!

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

Chapter 28: A Forgotten Fury

Samson sat in his room, looking at the portrait of his father as he took a heaping gulp of vodka down his throat. “Dad… Wherever the fuck you are… Could you give me a sign?” he whispers to himself, hoping the painting would spring to life and give him his much needed wisdom, but nothing happens.

Suddenly, Pito enters his room, panting repeatedly like a rabid dog. “Samson… Shiva and Gunji were attacked… the slaves escaped… they-” he says panting before Sam turns around “Where’s Shiva?” he says, a bit of worry in his voice. Pito shakes his head before getting pushed out of the way by Samson.

No no no no no no Sam mutters in his head as he rushes to the infirmary. He kicks in the door and almost falls at the sight of his comrades.

Gunji had two stab wounds in his stomach, and another on his left cheek.

Then he looked at his beloved Shiva and felt his stomach drop to his feet. “She’s alive but she has sustained major physical trauma and won’t recover for a long time” a medic says as she looks at the War Queen in pity.

Samson sits next to his wife, caressing her bandaged head before softly crying into his hand…

Back in Jackson, Ellie struggles to play her guitar with her prosthetic fingers she got from Dina. She was making progress, sort of. She looks out from Dina’s porch and sees Abby walk up onto the porch “For a chick with two missing fingers, you’re not half bad” she says as she holds up a bottle of booze and sits down. “Did any of the wolves play any instruments? Or were you all too strict and rugged for such pompous pleasantries” Ellie asks jokingly as she takes a swig of the brew, and wincing at the taste of it. Abby laughs and grabs the bottle from her “Now that you mention it, a friend of mine used to. Manny” she says, looking at the bottle. “Whatever happened to him anyhow? I never ran into him” Ellie says as she puts the guitar down. Abby looks out into the dark streets of Jackson and lets out a sigh “He got his head blown off trying to help me get Tommy” she says as she lifts up her glass. “Godspeed you son of a bitch” Abby toasts before taking a swig and leaning back in the chair.

“I better get inside, Dina says I’m on baby duty tonight” Ellie says as she gets up. Abby lets out a chuckle “From gutting Seraphites to changing diapers, oh how modernity changes us” she says jokingly. Ellie lets out a soft laugh before heading inside, “Wait a minute Ellie” Abby says before she shuts the door

“Yeah, what is it?” Ellie asks

Chapter 29: Making Peace for the Better

Abby freezes up for a minute before clearing her throat. “Why did you spare me back in Santa Barbara? I was right there, you could’ve gotten your vengeance… but you backed out” she says, scratching the back of her head nervously. Ellie lets out a sigh before walking back out and shutting the door “Before I spared you, I saw Joel. The night before he died” she begins as she and Abby sit down. “He wasn’t angry or mad, just… happy. I’ll admit Joel has done some stupid shit but killing your dad was probably the stupidest thing he ever did. I guess he kinda knew it was his time.” Ellie says as she looks out at the night sky.

Abby stares at the stars “Do you think those FO fuckers will come back? After everything we did?” she says worryingly. Ellie sits in silence before getting up “They’ll have to get through us to get to our people” she says as she looks at Abby and holds out her hand.

Abby is a little confused, but Ellie elaborates “Neither of us were right for what we did, but we can try to make up for it. Try to be better for those we care about” she says “So how’s about it Anderson? Are we even?”.

Abby lets out a snicker before shaking Ellie’s hand, “Sweet dreams Williams, tell Dina I said hi”.

Ellie laughs a little before giving Abby a thumbs up and shutting the door. Abby walks off into the night and heads home where Deacon and Lev are staying. Both were watching an old comedy movie from before the Outbreak, something about laser sword rings and a floating RV. The other two offer her to join them but Abby refuses, instead heading upstairs to get some much needed rest.

Deacon shrugs off Abby's refusal to join them in movie night and lets Deacon shrugs off Abby's refusal to join them in movie night and lets out a sigh. "What's up with you? You seem... oddly relaxed given everything that happened back in Colorado. Are you sure you're okay?" Lev asks as he eats a handful of popcorn. Deacon looks at him for a moment before letting out a snicker "It's nothing, just figured Abby would wanna hang out with us is all. Oh well, her loss I guess" he says, dismissing Lev's concern. Lev gives him a look of uncertainty before giving it a rest "If you need anyone to talk to about it, me and Abby are more than happy to hear you out D" He says as he gets up to leave. Deacon looks up at him "You too huh? Guess Sci-Fi Comedies are an acquired taste these days" he says as he turns off the tv and goes to bed "Goodnight Lev". Lev looks back at his friend and gives him a smile "Goodnight D, See you tomorrow".

Deacon looks at him for a moment before letting out a snicker "It's nothing, just figured Abby would wanna hang out with us is all. Oh well, her loss I guess" he says, dismissing Lev's concern.

Lev gives him a look of uncertainty before giving it a rest "If you need anyone to talk to about it, me and Abby are more than happy to hear you out D" He says as he gets up to leave.

Deacon looks up at him "You too huh? Guess Sci-Fi Comedies are an aquired taste these days" he says as he turns off the tv and goes to bed "Goodnight Lev".

Lev looks back at his friend and gives him a smile "Goodnight D, See you tomarrow".

(Sorry for taking so long to upload, between Easter and other stuff I've been pretty preoccupied. Also school, work, etc.)

[vibrant-leaf]

Therapy is Manly

Part one.

🧡 ~KiriBaku Fic~ ❤️

Summary and Important Note⚠️: Bakugou is more self-aware and Kirishima is a bit more insecure. Part one is kinda painful, not gonna lie, but part two is happy and will make up for it! Link to part two will be at the bottom.

Word Count: 4090

Warnings: Cursing, angst

Additional note: I have been working on this for a stupid amount of time and have come to the point where I just need to trust myself and post it LMAO. They're going to be a little ooc but that's okay because this is my take on if Bakugou was more self-aware and if Kirishima was more insecure. Part two will have a song linked at the end of it. I hope you enjoy it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Fucking useless!” As soon as it comes out of Bakugou’s mouth, he instantly regrets it. He wants to take it back. He wants to travel back in time to just five seconds ago so he can punch himself in the face before he’s able to say that again. But he said it. And the way Kirishima’s face falls makes his stomach drop down to his knees.

When Kirishima hears those words come out of his boyfriend’s mouth, it feels as if someone stabbed him in the chest. It’s crazy… how two words coming from the love of your life can hurt so much.

“Eijirou, no. No. I’m- I-“ Bakugou doesn’t say sorry. He just doesn’t. But the look on Kirishima’s face, the look of absolute pain and betrayal, rips it out of him because he knows he horrendously fucked up “I’m sorry. I didn’t- I didn’t mean it okay?” Bakugou knows about Kirishima’s previous struggles with his self-confidence, and he can’t help but feel like he just ripped the boy’s heart out of his chest and stomped on it with those two awful words.

Bakugou tries to grab his boyfriend’s hand, but Kirishima shakes his head and backs away before he can touch him. He’s gotten used to Bakugou’s anger, mostly. But sometimes, and more recently for some reason, his words have been hurting him. He’s tried his best to shake it off because he knows that Bakugou doesn’t really mean it and he loves him… right? But this. This gutted him. His self-deprecating thoughts are on the brink of exploding in his head. Useless. Kirishima is indeed useless, isn’t he?

“You’re not useless, Eijirou. Fuck. I don’t know why I said that. I’m fucking sorry, okay?” Bakugou is begging him. He’s not exactly begging for forgiveness because he knows he doesn’t deserve it, he’s begging for Kirishima to understand that those were empty words that he didn’t mean and that Kirishima is nowhere near useless. Alright, he might also be begging for a little forgiveness because he can’t help it, even though he truly understands he does not deserve an ounce of it.

Kirishima looks down at the floor, takes a shaky breath through his nose, turns around, and leaves Bakugou’s room.

Bakugou’s hands fly to his head. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck!” What the fuck is wrong with him?! Why does he keep doing this to him?! He keeps snapping at him and Kirishima just takes it. That’s how it’s always been with them, even if it didn’t use to be this bad. Bakugou yells, throws insults and names, and gets away with it every single time. Sure, Kirishima will call him an idiot from time to time or ask for an apology when absolutely necessary, but he’s never said anything else about his rage. Maybe… maybe Bakugou has been taking advantage of that. Bakugou knows there won’t be any serious repercussions, so this lets him take his frustrations out on him. He doesn’t deserve that.

Kirishima gently closes his bedroom door behind him and stands still in the middle of his room. His chest still hurts, and tears quickly start to form in his eyes until his vision is completely distorted, which is fitting because his brain is also being distorted beyond belief. “Fucking useless… You’re not useless, Eijirou.” The words start to play on a loop in his head.

The tears finally cascade down his face as he mumbles to himself, “I’m not. It’s okay. I’m not useless. He said I’m not, so it’s okay. Just forgive him, he didn’t mean it.” After all the other times Bakugou has snapped at him, he’s learned to simply shake his head and force himself to not sweat it. However, he suddenly realizes… he’s been forcing himself to become numb to it. But it’s okay! He loves Bakugou, that’s just how he is, he usually doesn’t mean the insulting words that come out of his mouth, and Kirishima doesn’t want to lose him, so he needs to force himself to be okay.

Meanwhile, in the other room, Bakugou is trying to come to terms with the decision he knows he must make, for the sake of Kirishima’s wellbeing.

Later in the evening, when the class has gathered for dinner, they notice something off between Bakugou and Kirishima. They aren’t attached by the hip, they aren’t even making eye contact, Bakugou looks like he’s about to puke, and Kirishima just looks sad. Sero, Ashido, and Kaminari look at each other, all of them worried about their two beloved friends.

Ashido speaks up first. “You guys know what’s going on?” The boys shake their heads and Ashido’s shoulders, along with her spirits, fall. “I hope they’re alright…”

Kaminari suddenly remembers something. “Uh... did they sign the lease on that apartment they found like a couple of weeks ago?” Sure, they were only dating for almost a year now, after a long year of painful mutual pining, but they always looked so sure, so confident in each other and their relationship, that moving in together after graduation seemed like a no-brainer.

“I don’t know. They haven’t said anything else about it. But this is probably just a little fight. I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Sero tries reassuring his friends as well as himself.

It’s around one in the morning and neither of the boys can fall asleep. Kirishima just wants Bakugou to come into his room and hopefully apologize again, that way he can forgive him, and they can rest in each other’s arms and let everything be okay in the morning.

Bakugou is lying wide awake in his bed, and he’s scared. His heart is racing, and he still feels like he’s going to throw up the few bites of dinner that he managed to get down hours earlier. He’s so fucking scared, he doesn’t want to do this, but he knows he has to… Kirishima deserves better than how he’s been treating him- like a willing punching bag for his cruel, verbal outbursts. God, he is such an asshole. Has he really been like this the whole time they knew each other?

Kirishima finally hears the long-awaited knock on his door but doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t usually need to. “Hey… can we talk?” asks a deep, muffled voice behind his door. He’s a little confused by the fact his boyfriend doesn’t just walk in but whatever.

“Yeah?” Kirishima calls out.

Bakugou swiftly opens the door, walks in, and sees his best friend of almost three years now, sitting up in his bed looking at him wearingly. He can see it. He can see just how mentally drained Bakugou has made him, and it further proves his point that he’s doing this for that beautiful boy’s own good. That human incarnate of sunshine deserves to be happy. He deserves so much better than what Bakugou has given him. So, he swears to himself that he’ll get better. It’ll probably take some time but that doesn’t matter. Hopefully, they’ll be better off afterward… as long as Kirishima will graciously take him back in the future. He wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t though.

Bakugou walks over to the corner of Kirishima’s bed and sits. When he runs a sweaty hand through his hair, he notices that he’s shaking. God, he does not want to do this. Every fiber of his being wants to just curl up in Kirishima’s arms. But he can’t. “I…”

“I’m sorry,” are the words Kirishima expects to hear out of Bakugou’s mouth, but what is actually spoken renders him immobile.

“I think we need to break up.” Bakugou feels like he is definitely going to throw up. Not now, he’ll hold back for now, but later for sure.

The blood instantly drains from Kirishima’s body, and he is left feeling cold. “What?” His voice is only a broken whisper.

Bakugou bites the inside of his cheek to keep the tears that are forming in his eyes at bay. “We need to break up. I keep hurting you. And it needs to stop.” His voice is shaky, and he feels so fucking horrible. He knows he’s hurting the love of his fucking life yet again while saying this, but it has to be done.

“What? No! No. It’s okay, I forgive you, Katsuki. I know you didn’t mean it. I know I’m not useless, I promise. I forgive you, it’s okay. We’ll be okay.” Why does he feel so cold? He’s shaking now too. His eyes and throat are burning. Holy shit he feels so scared. No no no. He can’t lose him.

“But it’s not okay! This is not okay! The way I’m treating you is not okay! I keep hurting you and I need to stop! I need to figure out how to fucking calm down!” Bakugou feels like a sledgehammer is being struck against his damn ribs.

Kirishima speaks through a waterfall of tears, “Okay, you can do that! But we don’t have to break up! Please, Katsuki. I love you.” He grabs Bakugou’s hands and holds them. “We can get through this together, okay? I don’t want to lose you.” Bakugou only glances down at the alarmingly cold hands holding his hot and clammy ones. And at that, hearing Kirishima’s pleading words, feeling his hands hold his for probably the last time in what’s going to be a while, or possibly forever, he releases the barrier that’s been holding his tears back and lets them fall down his face. He shakes his head.

“No. I’m gonna keep fucking up. And you can’t keep taking it like it doesn’t affect you because I know it does. I can see it on your face, I know I’ve been exhausting you. You don’t deserve that. I need to be alone while I.. fix myself. I need to change something, I don’t know. I just-“ Bakugou takes a shaky deep breath. “I just need to be better. And… When I am better, then we can try again. I just can’t keep hurting you like how I have been.”

“You’re hurting me now.”

Bakugou knows this. God, he knows this, and he hates himself for it. “I’m sorry. We can try again in the future. Because I want to be with you, Eijirou. I love you so fucking much. But you deserve better, and I want to be better for you. It’s just… gonna take me some time.”

Something in Kirishima’s brain clicks and he doesn’t like some of what Bakugou has said. “It’s not fair of you to expect me to just wait around and be readily available for you whenever you decide you’re better.” But honestly, who is he kidding? Bakugou is the only one he wants, the only person he wants to love like this… but maybe this wasn’t exactly healthy after all- no. Fuck being logical right now. He’s in pain and he really doesn’t feel like thinking logically.

“I know that, idiot. I don’t expect you to wait around like some dumb loyal puppy. I mean, if you’re available and willing then we can try again. Or if you… if you do find someone else who treats you better, then whatever, that’s fucking fine. You deserve that. You deserve to always be happy.”

“You make me happy, asshole.”

“Eijirou…” Bakugou’s eyes are pleading now, begging for him to just understand and let him go for now.

Kirishima finally snatches his hands away from Bakugou’s. His throat is still burning, and his eyes won’t stop spilling more and more tears. “Get out,” he chokes out.

A moment of tense silence passes them. Bakugou wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what. He doesn’t know how to respond to Kirishima telling him to leave, it feels so foreign.

“I fucking hate you. Get out.”

Bakugou bites his tongue so hard it almost bleeds. Yeah… he deserved that. He deserves any anger that Kirishima has for him right now. But damn, that hurt… must’ve been how Kirishima felt when he called him useless. He really was such a fucking asshole to him.

When Bakugou gets up to leave, Kirishima lets himself be logical for a single moment. They’re heroes… and anything can happen. He would never forgive himself if those were the last words Bakugou heard from him before something bad happened. Bakugou grabs the door handle, but Kirishima’s voice stops him. “Wait!” Bakugou turns his head to look at pained, red eyes looking down at the bed. “I… I didn’t mean that. I don’t hate you… I just hate what’s happening…” Kirishima looks up at Bakugou one more time, and even though Kirishima feels like he’s drowning in heartache, he’s able to force out one last sentence. “I love you, Katsuki.”

Bakugou wants so badly to walk back over there and crash his lips onto Kirishima’s, and he almost does. He can feel this magnetic force pulling him to the love of his life. He doesn’t want to walk away… but he ruined what they had. Maybe, just maybe, in the future, he can rest in the arms that have comforted him so many times after he woke up from nightmares, arms that feel like home, and he’ll listen to the steady heartbeat that once coaxed him to sleep after suffering through a panic attack from one of the said nightmares. But for now, “I love you, Eijirou,” Bakugou pulls away and walks out of the bedroom.

Kirishima hugs his legs up against his chest and lets the sobs rip out of his body.

Bakugou’s head falls back against the other side of Kirishima’s door and he can hear him start to cry. He never wanted to make him cry...

Bakugou wants to slide down onto the floor to cry into his hands until the whole days’ worth of food threatens to make a reappearance, so he bolts for his bathroom.

Kirishima suddenly doesn’t want to be in his room anymore. Bakugou and him have hung out so many times in there that there’s a subtle hint of his scent, but that subtle hint is currently suffocating him. He looks up from where his face was buried in his knees and of course, the first thing his eyes set on is a picture of them from when they went mountain climbing during their first year. He can’t be here. He’ll literally suffocate and die if he stays in his room that has too many traces of his boyfrie-… ex-boyfriend. His ears are ringing as he starts to mumble frantically, “I need to leave, I need to leave, I need to leave.”

Kirishima pushes himself off his bed and quickly walks out of his room. His chest is in so much pain. He scans the hallway and tries to think if anybody else would be up right now. Ashido’s a night owl, so she should be awake. Hopefully. He just really needs a hug right now.

Ashido is laying in bed, scrolling through Twitter, with her eyelids starting to droop when she hears a soft knock on her door. She’s confused but she slowly sits up to listen and figure out if someone's actually outside her door or if she's simply hearing things. But when she hears the faintest sound of sniffling, she throws the bedsheets off her and jumps out of bed. Then she walks over to her door and when she opens it… “Oh no.” Ashido’s stomach drops at the sight of her dear friend’s red, puffy-eyed, tear-stained, broken face. “Oh, honey, what happened?” She’s afraid to ask because she’s pretty sure she knows the answer.

Kirishima’s eyebrows pull together and his bottom lip trembles, “w-we... broke up.”

Ashido grabs his wrist and pulls him into her room. They sit down on her bed and Kirishima’s head falls onto her shoulder. She wraps her arms around him, and he hugs her back lightly. That’s when she notices the trembling. “Just let it out, Kiri. It’s okay,” she says as softly as possible as she rubs his back.

Kirishima clutches onto Ashido as hard as he can without hurting her and his eyes are shut tight as he starts to cry again. His body shakes as he lets all the pain he’s feeling rise to the surface and boil over onto his friend’s shoulder. He tries to talk but he keeps gasping in between words. “My chest- it- it hurts so fucking bad. Why- does it feel like this- it feels like someone’s- stabbing me. God- why?” One of his hands clutches his shirt over his heart.

Ashido’s petting his head now. “Shhh… I know it hurts. I’m so sorry, Kirishima. I wish I could take the pain away… Is there anything at all I can do?” She would love to beat up that blonde bastard for making him feel like this but she doesn’t know what exactly happened, so she keeps the violent thoughts at a minimum.

After another moment filled with hiccups and sniffles, Kirishima takes a deep breath. His voice is still really wobbly but at least he isn’t choking on his words now, “My room. I can’t be in there right now. Too much of him.”

Ashido nods her head. “Okay, you can sleep in here then. We can figure out your room tomorrow. But we should probably try to get some sleep since it’s so late. Okay?”

It’s Kirishima’s turn to nod. “I’ll try.” He feels exhausted but he doubts that he’ll be able to fall asleep anytime soon. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“No. Absolutely not. I will sleep on the floor.”

“No.”

“Okayyy… well if you’re comfortable with it then we’ll both sleep in the bed.”

Kirishima sighs and looks up at her. “Only if you’re one hundred percent comfortable with it.”

“I am. I promise.”

Kirishima searches her eyes for any hint of unease, but he finds nothing. His eyes fall to his lap. “Alright.”

“Good.” She stands up and walks over to her mini fridge to grab a bottle of water, then offers it to him. “Recycle, or else.” He grabs the bottle from her hand.

“Yes, ma’am.” He starts chugging the cold water and it feels nice on his raw throat. Once he’s done, he twists the lid back onto the bottle, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then scoots over to the other side of the bed. They both settle under the covers and a twinge of awkwardness hangs in the air. A silent moment passes before Kirishima speaks again. “My chest still feels like it’s being crushed.”

Ashido sighs through her nose. “Come here.” She opens her arms to signal an invitation.

“You sure?”

“Yes. I know you’re a touchy person so hopefully, this’ll help a bit.”

Kirishima scoots closer to her and lays his head on her shoulder and her arms gently wrap around his neck. He lays a hesitant arm across her stomach. It’s nice. It’s not… Bakugou… but it’s still nice. His eyes start to burn, and his chest starts to heave for the millionth time in the past eight hours. He feels Ashido’s small hand begin to pet his head and her fingers run through his hair. The tears are pouring from his eyes yet again. “Please don’t do that,” he whispers.

Ashido stops immediately and rests her hand on his back instead. “My bad.”

“Sorry.”

“No no. Don’t you be sorry.”

Kirishima pauses. “He used to do that all the time.”

Ashido barely nods. “I’m sorry, hun. I didn’t think about that.”

“It’s okay...” Kirishima’s voice is weary audible as exhaustion settles into his bones. He closes his eyes to try to sleep but all he can see is blonde hair and red eyes. He sighs. “He said he needs to get better.”

Ashido’s eyebrows furrow together. “What does he mean by that?”

“His behavior, I think. He said he keeps hurting me.”

“Is he?”

“Hurting me?”

“Yeah.”

“…”

“Kiri.”

“…Maybe… Yeah.” It comes out quiet and almost shameful.

“Then yeah, he needs to fix that.”

Kirishima’s quick to defend Bakugou, however. “But I understand that’s just how he is. And he doesn’t mean what he says most of the time, so really, it’s fine. Sure, it hurts for a moment, but I can get over it. I don’t understand why he thinks we need to break up for now.”

“For now, huh? So, there’s hope for the future?”

“I mean he said he wants to try again someday if I want to. But I don’t know how long it’ll be.”

“Hmm… maybe this is a good opportunity for you to work on yourself too.”

“Myself? Why?”

“Honey, listen to what you’re saying. It sounds to me like you don’t even care that he’s treating you like this.”

“I do care, it’s just-“

“You don’t care enough for it to matter. You know what I mean?”

“They’re just words… If I let them get to me then it means I’m… weak. He shouldn’t have to date someone who’s weak like that.”

“Kirishima.” There’s a forceful tone behind Ashido’s voice. “You being hurt from his behavior does not make you weak. You are allowed to feel that way. Bakugou’s behavior and attitude are shitty. He can’t even chill out around his own boyfriend who he supposedly loves and that’s even more shitty. You said it yourself, he’s hurting you. And if someone realizes they’re hurting a person they love then they should try to change the way they act. You, on the other hand, need to realize you do, in fact, deserve better than being treated like his verbal doormat. You need to stand up for yourself more.”

Kirishima is quiet for a while after that, letting the words sink in and process in his brain. He realizes that Ashido’s right in saying that he doesn’t truly care when Bakugou lashes out against him. But why? Why doesn’t he care? He realizes that he should care now but why was he so willing to let Bakugou get away with his horrible attitude?

But then he finally realizes…

He’s insecure.

But he thought his insecurities only pertained to being a hero and he mostly got over that a while ago. He didn’t think he would be insecure about being in a relationship. Well, he wasn’t insecure about being with Bakugou, no way. He admires Bakugou, loves him with every fiber of his being, and he is- or was, so proud and so happy to call him his boyfriend. Bakugou is strong and he deserves to be with someone who is also strong.

Ah.

He was afraid too.

Kirishima felt like he needed to be strong around him all the time, didn’t he? Bakugou doesn’t like weakness and if Kirishima was hurt by something Bakugou said then maybe he would’ve seen Kirishima as too weak for him and leave. Bakugou already left him though. But…

“I want to be with you, Eijirou. I love you so fucking much. But you deserve better, and I want to be better for you.”

Ugh. Why is this all so confusing and frustrating? Kirishima’s head starts to throb.

“Kiri?” Ashido’s softer voice snaps him out of his train of thought.

“You’re right… I should figure out some things for myself too. I think I was scared of what he would think about me if I was always upset with him.” Kirishima releases a disheartened sigh. “So… should I talk to someone?”

“Like a therapist?”

“Yeah…”

“I think that’s a good idea. I honestly believe everyone should talk to a therapist at some point because everyone struggles with something, and it would be good to get some professional advice. So, hopefully, that’s what Bakugou will do too. Everyone knows he needs it.” She mumbles the last part and Kirishima chuckles at it.

“Have you gone to therapy?” Kirishima looks up at Ashido curiously and she nods.

“Another story for another time though. It’s late and I need to get some beauty sleep before having to wake up before you to get you some post-breakup essentials.”

“Ice cream?”

“Yes, ice cream.”

Kirishima gives her a forlorn smile. “Thanks, Ashido, for letting me stay here and for talking to me.”

“I know, I know. I’m pretty cool aren't I?” She grins proudly. “But you’re welcome. Now go to sleep.”

“Yes ma’am.” Kirishima feels better. Not great by any means, but better. His eyes finally start to feel heavy and before his consciousness slips away, he can’t help but imagine that it’s Bakugou holding him in that moment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Link to part two!

[neutron-stars-collision]

The Art of Inversion

Neil x Reader

Chapter 9 - ‘The Kindest of Kisses Break the Hardest of Hearts”

Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4 , Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8 (swear I’ll make a masterlist soon)

Summary: Back in London, you find unexpected help in the form of Ives. But when Neil comes back sparks fly... ✨

Warnings: Swearing.

Author’s Notes: So here’s the chapter I’m incredibly excited about... Suppose I should thank Dior for inspiration in this one. Hope you enjoy this as much as I loved writing the last scene! Please let me know what you think!

You did not remember the last time you were this happy to be back in London. After the mission in Paris was done, Jasper went back to Boston, and you were free to do what you wanted. You contacted TP, told him how the mission went (without certain details), and in return, got told to wait for more information regarding the next steps. By your estimation, it was less than two weeks left till Kiev and the day when the mysterious plan will be set into motion. You were scared.

Ever since that day in Paris when Neil called, you had a difficult time maintaining normal conversation with him. He would message asking about something as mundane as how your day went, and you would only respond with a short sentence. You could not really explain it if asked. It was as though after hearing his voice and letting yourself have that conversation with him, all the doubts came back with a tripled strength. Suddenly you could almost believe Jasper and his harsh words suggesting that you were not important in Neil’s eyes. Maybe he just liked flirting, and you were conveniently there? That sounded rather plausible. Ever since you started naming those thoughts, an ache in your chest was hard to ignore. And so you did the best you could, which in this case meant low-key ghosting Neil and losing yourself in training and work. 

Surely with enough time and space, you would get over it (him), right?

That was the state of your mind the day when rather surprising help appeared. You have been back in London for a few days and have not really interacted with anyone. Usually, you would spend two hours in the shooting range and then in a sparring session. After you were done, you would retreat to your room and try to ignore the texts that were still occasionally coming. 

“How’s London treating you? Say hello to Anna from me” you glanced at the screen and frowned.

The instant temptation to text back was still there. Only now, it was tainted with much more anxiety and uncertainty.

“It’s alright, rather quiet. I haven’t seen her around though. Maybe she’s moping after you”

Like I am? You sighed and chose to focus on notes from the physics class. You were saved from the study by an unexpected knock on the door. Without thinking, you got up and opened it, only to see Ives standing there with a cheeky smile on his face.

“Hi” you muttered, worried you have forgotten how to behave like a human being.

“Hello, love” he grinned “Hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

“No, I was actually rather bored” you admitted with a sheepish smile.

You heard the distinct buzz of a text message but chose to ignore it. You were slowly getting better at the game. 

“That’s terrific because I thought we could have a coffee in the canteen and chat” Ives’ thick cockney accent was somewhat adorable.

And you could definitely do with a distraction.

“I’d love that” you beamed back at him and left the room, locking the door behind you.

As you walked side by side along the corridor, you struggled to say something.

“How did you know I’m here?” finally you settled for a rather easy question.

“I’ve seen you at the shooting range in the morning” he watched you closely for a short moment “You’re fucking amazing, did you know that?”

“Oh no, I’m really not” you felt your face heat up.

“Yeah you are” he playfully nudged you in the side “You could probably teach me a thing or two”.

You glared at him and then quickly considered your options.

“Only if you taught me how not to be knocked out within the first two minutes of the hand in hand combat” you knew you could use help in that department.

“Deal?” Ives stopped and turned to you with an outstretched hand.

“Deal” you shook it with a grin.

Once you made it to the mess hall, you noticed with relief that it was rather quiet. You both made coffee and sat down at the table in the corner. After a few moments of comfortable silence when you sipped your drinks, Ives spoke up:

“What have you been up to?” he was eyeing you curiously.

Even though you barely knew him, you felt at ease. There was no enigma of TP to him or Neil’s intensity. Instead, he was just a friendly bloke with sharp wits.

“Oh you know, shit mission in New York and now even shittier one in Paris” you frowned at the fresh memories “Though I suppose the recent one at least ended with success” you mused.

It was true not all of your missions have ended with a huge fuck up. And that was somewhat encouraging.

“With Jasper?”

“Yeah” your frown deepened, and Ives grinned.

“My condolences. He’s a right pain in the ass”

“Well said” you laughed, finally feeling some of the tension of the last few days dissolve.

But it was not meant to be for long. Before either of you spoke again, you heard your phone buzz. You took it out of the pocket and glanced at the received text. It was him, of course. You grimaced and placed the phone screen down on the table as if to avoid the temptation. All the while you felt Ives’s attentive gaze. He has not missed a thing.

“Neil?” he asked, watching you closely with a neutral face.

“Yeah…” you shrugged, avoiding his stare “I’ll probably sound pathetic… but do you know where he is?”

Once the question was out of your mouth, you felt your cheeks heat up. It was one thing to worry about him daily. Another to actually voice the worries. But Ives did not seem to mind. He quickly considered something before leaning over the table.

“He’s in India, dealing with some sudden disruption. I was there with him in the beginning” at your unspoken question, he added “He’s fine, often said that’s partially thanks to you” he eyed you carefully, and you looked down at the table, flustered.

“It’s more that if I wasn’t there, he wouldn’t even need help in the first place” you mumbled, feeling the guilt gnaw at your heart.

Still, sometimes you kept wondering why on earth had he decided to shield you back in the bar. But any possible answer to the question meant having to assume something about Neil’s intentions. And that was dangerous territory.

“Should I ask?” Ives’ question brought you back to the present moment.

“Better not” you smiled wryly, and he just nodded.

“He wouldn’t shut up about you sometimes, you know” he spoke up again after a short silence, making you look up.

You were not sure you liked the cheeky smirk that appeared on Ives’ face. You were not going to give in.

“He’ll get over it in no time, I’m sure” you feigned nonchalance as you finished your coffee and met his gaze.

“Are you two good?”

You just shrugged. To be frank, you had no clue how to answer that. Was there even such an entity as ‘you two’ when it came to you and Neil?

“Well, whatever is going on, know that I’m ready to slap some sense into him if needed” Ives grinned at you, and you beamed back.

“Appreciated”

The next few minutes passed in companionable silence. That is until your brain rudely decided to suggest another pressing question.

“Is he there… alone?” you cringed as soon as you said it aloud.

No point in trying to sound disinterested…

“Nah, Wheeler stayed with a couple of others” his stare was way too knowing.

You felt a sharp stab of pain in your heart. What even… There was no reason to be jealous. Right? As you were internally debating what the new feelings were supposed to mean, you failed to notice Ives’ grinning at your distress.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous” he was enjoying it way too much.

“What? No, I’m not” you tried to scoff at this insinuation but failed miserably.

“Yeah, you are” that’s how you learnt that Ives had his own version of a shit-eating grin.

Was that a part of the Tenet work application?

“Mate, Neil and Wheeler wouldn’t fuck each other even if I paid them. But I’ve seen the way he looks at you” Ives wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and you groaned.

You glared at him, unable to come up with any good response.

“What? I may have only seen you two together once, but it was clear to me that dear Neil is interested. Very much so” he smirked at your wide-eyed stare “But I don’t think that’s in any way news for you” he squinted his eyes as though trying to see right through your soul.

“Please, let’s leave psychoanalysis for another date” you grabbed the phone from the table and looked at him pleadingly.

“Of course” he grinned “When shall we have our first sparring lesson?”

“Tomorrow morning. Be there at 9” you got up “Thanks for the chat”

“Anytime, love” he waved as you left the canteen.

*** Combat lessons with Ives have proven to be a gift from the gods in the days that followed. He would accompany you to the shooting range afterward as well under the pretence of wanting to learn from you. Even though you were sure it was utter bullshit as he could hit the marks as well as you, if not better, you appreciated the sentiment. To say that his help in the sparring sessions meant you have greatly improved would be an overstatement, but certainly, additional tips slowly started to make a difference. All that distraction meant you also spent much less time wondering about Neil’s whereabouts and asking yourself existential questions about your own feelings. That was probably the best outcome of the situation.

Another morning of the sparring session began with you and Ives meeting in the gym as usual. 

“Did you sleep well?” he asked as you entered the gym.

“More or less” you grinned, stifling a yawn.

Last night you spent way too much time overthinking the text exchange with Neil. All it took was for him to mention ‘the fun you had in New York’ and then compare it to the recent night undercover. To you, it meant that Jasper was right, and you were just another ‘flirting companion’. And that shit hurt.

“That will have to do then” he tossed a water bottle in your direction, and you caught it easily.

You set it down on the side and the mat and stood facing Ives. After a short warm-up, he began showing you the way of blocking punches aimed at your upper body. While the demonstration always looked easy, once you went onto the practice, you have begun to struggle. After getting a third light punch to the shoulder, you huffed:

“Maybe I should just give up and become a sniper” you rubbed the aching spot.

“That could work” he grinned “Though I’m not sure how Neil would feel about that career change”

“Fuck Neil” you made sure to put up your guard, expecting another punch.

“I see how it is” Ives smirked before he threw a hit towards your other shoulder.

This one you blocked. And the one afterward as well. Slowly, with only a few mistakes, you got the hang of the game. That is until you were interrupted by someone clearing their throat by the door. You both turned to see Anna standing there.

“Y/N, can I speak to you for a moment?” she sent you a fake smile.

Christ…

“Of course”

You looked at Ives with panic in your eyes before you followed her into the corridor. Anna was clearly uncomfortable with having to talk to you, and that did not ease the tension.

“What’s the matter?” you spoke up first, hating the awkwardness of the moment.

“Neil called me yesterday” she paused, and you frowned.

“Yeah?” if she wanted to torture you, she has succeeded.

“He wanted me to let you know that they got Steiner in New York” despite Anna’s best attempts at keeping her face neutral, you knew she was enjoying this.

“Okay, thanks” you smiled weakly, trying to ignore the jealousy building up in your chest.

“Oh, and he says he should be back next week” now she was smiling dazzlingly.

“Great” you mumbled and showed her your brightest grin “Thank you”

With that, you chose to end the tortures for you both and went back into the gym. At Ives’ questioning stare, you just glared. He understood instantly.

“Fuck Neil?” he offered you a sip from the water bottle, which you gladly accepted.

“Mhmm”

There was so much to unpack from what Anna told you. Partially, you knew your ghosting was to be blamed for the situation but still, it hurt. Especially the unspoken fact that Neil has called her. You knew you were being ridiculous but could not ignore the feelings that were attacking every fibre of your being.

“Ready for another round?” Ives looked at you worriedly.

“Absolutely”

*** A few days later, as you left a meeting covering suspicious activity around London, your head was most certainly elsewhere. Ever since the awkward situation with Anna, you were not sure what to do with yourself. Only carefree moments were those you spent in the shooting range or learning hand to hand combat with Ives, who was surprisingly great at distracting you.

Walking along the corridor, you were too busy worrying about all those texts you have ignored to see where you were going. With eyes trained on the floor, you barely registered the surroundings. And that is why you were incredibly surprised when you unexpectedly collided with something solid standing on your path.

“Fuck” you muttered before slowly realising that you have, in fact, walked into a person.

You felt someone’s hands reach out to steady you by wrapping around your waist. The next thing you registered was the smell. A very familiar one that you have tried to repress from memory for the past few weeks. You felt panic surge through your whole body before you let out a long exhale and lifted your head.

“Didn’t expect our reunion to be that dramatic, but I’m not complaining” Neil grinned at you with that smug look on his face you have grown to hate.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you” you choose to stare at his tie.

A nice burgundy one which he has worn in New York, during the mission. At the memory, your cheeks grew somehow warmer, and you squeezed your eyes shut, hoping to be swallowed by the earth. But to no avail.

“Are you alright?” his voice broke through the increasing paralysis.

“Yeah” you forced yourself to look up at him again.

The concern in his eyes only made your desire to run stronger. But his grip on your waist was unyielding. You were acutely aware of standing in the middle of the corridor. Anyone could pass by and see you like that. But it looked like Neil did not care.

“I tried calling you last night” his voice was tense.

Shit.

“Sorry I was busy” you were a terrible liar.

And, of course, he saw right through you. You noticed how the look in his eyes went from concern to serious worry, and you desperately wanted to flee the scene. He was studying your face, and you tried to look anywhere but at him. After a beat, he must have found some answers in your conflicted expression because he relaxed the grip on your waist, giving you a way out.

“If I said anything wrong…” you were thrown off by the slightly wounded look in his eyes.

Now that you actually could run away, you did not want to. Not without making sure he understood.

“You haven’t” you took a deep breath, trying to calm the racing heart “It’s… just things that Jasper said and stuff… it made me think” you mentally groaned, annoyed at how you could not form a coherent sentence.

But Neil understood as he nodded and reached for your hand. You let him lead you to a quieter spot in the adjacent corridor. You were still paralyzed with conflicting feelings, but now also curious. The voice in the back of your head kept on reminding you how much you have missed him. You had your back pressed against the wall and stared as he slowly stepped closer, making your personal space non-existent. It was suddenly hard to think about the reasons why you should not let him be this close. The look in his eyes was unreadable to you.

“I don’t know what that idiot told you or what’s going on in your head, but it’s all wrong” you felt his free hand slide up your arm to rest on your neck and gently caress the skin there.

It was embarrassing how you responded to his touch with your body tensing and goosebumps appearing where his fingers made contact with your skin. It was hard to lie, even to yourself.

“Why should I believe you?” your voice sounded breathless already.

You knew you should have never let him get this close before you talked. But still, the way he looked at you was surprising. Any train of thought was interrupted when he brushed the pad of his thumb over your lower lip. His eyes were darker than usual, and the intensity of his gaze alone made the flutters in your stomach appear.

“I’ve got a few reasons”

Gently he tilted your chin and covered your lips with his. You gasped at the contact and felt him smile against your mouth. Then, as though a switch was flipped, Neil started kissing you hungrily, and you responded in kind, letting your teeth graze his lower lip. When his hand wrapped around your neck, you felt lightheaded and breathless. But still, you deepened the kiss, making all the feelings you have tried to stifle lead the moment. It was scaringly easy to do. Only once you felt like you had no breath left, you broke the kiss and stared back at Neil with a dazed expression. That was not what you expected from your reunion.

“Hope that beat whatever Jasper had to offer you” he grinned, and you enjoyed the sight of his subtly swollen lips.

“Please don’t remind me” surprisingly, you could still form a sentence.

But that ability was soon to be gone as you watched mischievous sparks shine in his eyes. His lips curled into a smirk, and you knew you were fucked. In every meaning of the word. Before you could react, he leaned in closer again, kissed the corner of your mouth before leaving a trail of kisses down to your jawline, and then crook of the neck.

“Neil…” you breathed out, trying to somehow stop the situation from getting out of your hands.

“Yes?” he interlocked his fingers with yours, pinning your joined hands to the wall.

Perfect leverage. Thinking was getting increasingly difficult.

“I… I’ve missed you” that was not exactly what you wanted to say.

You heard him chuckle with his lips brushing the skin on your neck.

“Quite right” he kissed the spot beneath your ear “Too”.

You sighed at the sensation, tightening the grip on his hand and letting your other palm splay on his chest. Through the fabric of his shirt, you could feel the fast heartbeat. It was somewhat encouraging to know that it was not just your heart that was beating wildly. He was kissing your neck with something akin to reverence, which made you feel faint. The traces of reason left in your brain started screaming for attention.

“Neil” you huffed, annoyed at how you were unable to voice the mess of thoughts.

Slowly he lifted his head and looked back at you.

“I really like how you say my name” the roguish grin that began it all was back to haunt you “So breathless” his voice was huskier than usual.

He wanted to kill you, evidently.

You met his gaze helplessly, feeling vulnerable with how he could see right through you. He looked almost fascinated by your stunned expression. Then his eyes softened.

“I missed you too” you felt his hand travel down your body to settle on the hip “So much”.

That admission was all it took for you to lose it. Again. You leaned in and initiated another kiss, unable to deny the need you felt. Neil was ready as he easily matched the tempo you have set. This time neither of you wanted to rush it. Instead, you kissed slowly and delicately, enjoying the careless moment. You tangled your hand in his blonde strands, tugging lightly to bring him even closer. He groaned at the sensation, making you feel a new kind of tension. You wanted him to make that sound again. But before you could find ways of achieving that, on the periphery of your attention, you heard the distinctive sound of footsteps approaching fast. Then they stopped abruptly and were replaced with a shocked gasp.

You opened your eyes and found yourself staring straight at Anna. Fuck. She was frozen in the spot three meters away and had a bewildered expression on her face. You knew there was no way in hell she has not realised what was going on. You could only watch as her face scrunched up in a scowl before she turned on her heels and almost ran back down the corridor. That image was enough to help you wake up from the daze. Gently you disentangled from Neil, who looked confused. Despite the reality of the situation downing on you, you grinned seeing his ruffled hair and disoriented gaze.

“Well done, now Anna hates me” you warily eyed the corridor before settling your eyes on him again.

You watched as he slowly absorbed the information, frowned, and then brightened up again when he met your gaze.

“Pretty sure she did already” he eyed you carefully as though assessing the state he brought you to.

Conscious of how you looked, you smoothed your hair and patted your blazed cheeks. There was no pretending that nothing happened, even if you wanted to.

“Why?” you arched your eyebrow at the implication.

“You know why” he just smiled as though it explained everything.

You didn’t know why. At all. You watched as he ruffled his hair even further by combing a hand through it, and your eyes settled on the exposed forearm and rolled up sleeves. For some reason seeing him like that was very thought-provoking. You knew he caught your stare when you heard him chuckle.

“Like what you see?” it was that smug smirk again.

You could not help but roll your eyes at him. This time the voice of reason was not so easily ignored.

“We really should talk before…” you did not even want to finish the sentence.

“Before?” Neil took a step closer again.

“Before we do something much more reckless than… this” you gestured vaguely and took a step back.

“Would that really be so bad?” he bit his lip and eyed you curiously again.

You have had enough. Placing a hand on his chest, you pushed him back. That clearly surprised him.

“Let’s just talk. Please” you put on your best puppy eyes just for him.

That did the job. Thankfully.

“Couldn’t say no to that” he grinned and took your hand in his “C’mon”

Now you just had to figure out what to tell him. The only issue was that you had no idea about how you felt… Fun.

[manjuhitorie]

HITORI-ESCAPE 2020 : Hitorie’s Free Concert Live Stream - December 7th 2020

In celebration of their newest single, curved edge, Hitorie streamed a full length concert! Setlist: Polaris Senseless Wonder Namid[A]me Garandou Mae Zero Banchi SLEEPWALK Loveless Gekijougai Talkie Dance Unknown Mother Goose Karanowaremono Ao curved edge In it they announced the release of a new album! Named... REAMP! Febuary 17th can’t come soon enough!!! It will even include songs written by not only Shinoda, but Yumao and ygarshy each as well! Concert report below:

Initial Impressions: ＊ SND’s shirt has Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe printed on it. ＊ He has a stageprompter to assist with lyrics as well. He struggles to hit the high notes but he nails the high octane power chords. wowaka used to wing when his would sing, so he would slip on his lyrics, and make silly faces, every other song live. I see SND is playing it safe, now that he’s the one in charge of the crazy lyrics!!! Prelude leading into... Polaris ＊SND gets riled up and turned thhe「誰も知らぬ明日へ行け　誰も止められやしないよ」lyric into a rowdy 「止められやしねえよ」 . Equivalent to “No one can stop us” being turned into “No once can fucking stop us” or so. Shinoda “We’re Hitorie, enjoy the show.” (This ‘Hitorie desu, yoroshiku douzo’ was always wowaka’s stock concert phase.) Senseless Wonder ＊”Woo-hoo”’s or unintelligible noises made in the riff music breaks. ＊Yumao sings the backup vocals.  ＊SND wiggles his foot on his Wah pedal to make the wonky sounds.

Intermissional MC

Shinoda “This marks the beginning of Hitori-Escape. We are called Hitorie. Everyone please stick with us.“Heavy breathing “Hold up. I jumping around too much right off the bat.. I jumped around too much... All I did was hip and hop around a little bit... Haah. I’m gonna drink some water, drink some water!” SND walks over to the amp where bottles lie atop then proceeds to take a big sip. Yumao also follows along with a drink. Yu and SND can be seen conversing, but only SND’s “You got that right.” can be heard. SND returns to the mic “Take a gander, everyone. Even Yumao-kun is already sweating as well. This sparkly sweat of ours.. We will try to deliver you guys our sweat at the highest quality we can offer, deliver it as much as possible.” While SND is talking Yumao makes signs, such as 2 fingers up, towards the staff. “Well then, let’s chug along. Enjoy the show everyone.” Namid[A]me ＊There’s bubble popping sound effects in the intro now! Yumao is in charge of this, see his MacBook + mixer (+ a handy setlist printout) setup on the table beside him. All with a music program open primed and ready... Right before the song you can even see Yumao click his computer as well! 

＊ Yumao sings backup vocals, the whole chorus has his deep voice echoing. The small amount of notes are so concise and moody live... ＊ SND tops the outro off with a “Wasshoi!” Garandou Mae Zero Banchi ＊ Melodramatic piano bit added before the intro. I wonder where this was sampled from... It sounds like SND uses his stereo chorus pedal for his part as well. Shinoda “Thank you.”

Intermissional MC

Shinoda “Uhm.. At the end of our previous live stream I had said ‘Next time we meet will be at the concert hall.’. Sorry, that was a lie... We’re meeting at a live stream yet again. We’re Hitorie, enjoy the show.” Yumao taps his cymbals gently to create the classic concert mood starter sound. SND “That, that’s good! That’s the stuff! That’s the stuff. Without that stuff I feel the silence responding to me.” He motions at the empty auditorium. “That stuff’s nice, nice. I guess ‘cause, y’know. ‘Cause you two have already been y’know. Performing in front of people.” Yumao, hits his cymbal, cue a “Bwaa~n” sound. SND “You can fool me with that shit. No ‘Bwaa~n’ will work on me. You had 2 whole opportunities in a row, yesterday and the day before.” (Referring to Yumao’s appearance in Touyama Nao’s anniversary concerts.) Yumao hits his cymbal yet again, cue a “Shwaaan” noise. SND scoffs “What a kind and swe~et reaction.” SND “I’m the only one. The only one here who hasn’t stood up in front of people. My only upcoming chance will be at ‘Countdown Japan’, at the end of the year. Then in January I’ll be doing our limited fan club concert at Shibuya WWX. Back to back. What the hell is up with this year? What the hell, huh? Huh!!!” SND playfully pounces in Yumao’s direction. Yumao hits his cymbal again. “You’re saving my butt with that. Thanks, truly. Alright. From here on I’m to bring you a few songs without a guitar, only a mic in my hands.” Yumao “1, 2, 3, 4” SLEEPWALK ＊ SND gets on his knees and wiggles to walk on the floor during music breaks, is he imitating a sleepwalker.. ＊ Ygarshy presses a pedal right after every song ends, presumably his tuner, to mute and prevent static. He strums and slaps with his fingers, no pick, for every song. SND “2020 is slowly nearing its end, but, what’s everyone’s opinion on love?” Loveless ＊BONK 

＊ Includes Shinoda flopping around on the floor, squatting like a yakuza, and an outro with SND and yg having a mini string instrument battle! They huddle together! Yumao pounds away! Gekijougai ＊ Additional nebulous intro.  ＊ Yumao is really worked to the bone in this banger! Featuring yet another more intense battle between yg and SND. SND “Alrighty! Ah. Where are y’all now? Where are y’all right now? It doesn’t matter where you are, just dance along to Talkie Dance!” Talkie Dance ＊ During the riff breaks SND chants  Soi! Yoisa! Soi! Hoisa!” Like wasshoi, these are traditional shouts primarily used by O-mikoshi carriers in JP festivals! SND really seems to enjoy using old-fashioned words in a stylish way. SND “Upon this ending year, this one is with love from wowaka!” Unknown Mother Goose “Sing along with me!” ＊ Per usual, Yumao and ygarshy both pitch in for the ‘Oh oh oh’ harmonies. “Sing, please!” ＊ The background vocals in the Unknown Mother Goose are also confirmed by the man himself to be “Give me love”. He had responded to someone with “Oh! You’re sharp!” when asked about it!

Intermissional MC

“Are y’all having fun? Me, I can’t stop sweating. Help me. I can’t stop sweaaating.” SND changes to a high tone voice, “Ah~ This is awesomeee. Methinks this is awesome but, but I gotta say, I’m the only one here who hasn’t had a chance to perform in front of people, no kap.” He returns to his normal tone. “I hold a grudge. I’m always the only one being fucking left outtt. I can't let go of my grudge.

At least look me in the eyes, guys. Ah, whatever. On New Year's Eve I’m gonna appear in Countdown Japan, I’m gonna! ...What does it feel like anyway, performing in front of people? What does it feel like, may I ask you fine young gentleman?” SND’s voice turns to demonic. “Oiiii. Don’t just fucking nod at me. Don’t make up some new common language. You’re over there using no words, bitch.” His voice returns to normal. “Well, whatever. Enough of that. It’s no use staying jealous forever.” Yumao taps his cymbals... “Don’t just fucking ‘clang clang’ either!” Yumao laughs. “You laughed, you laughed! You laugh: you lose, you!”, they all smile. “Uhm... On December 31st, New Year's Eve, we’ll be at Countdown Japan. Please come if you can, hope to see you there. Now then! Next year, I’m talking about next year, it will be the 7th year anniversary of our major debut. In celebration, and to kick off the new year, we have booked Roppongi’s EX Theater for two days, January 21st and 22nd,. This is all I can say for now. Details will be announced later. ...Now let me drink some water.” ygarshy is all done tuning and at attention. Yumao keeps making cymbal sounds to fill the empty space. “I... Today, here, is uhm, Yokohama’s Bay Hall. It’s the place where ‘Swallowtail’ was filmed. When we arrived this afternoon I saw the windows and practically screamed. It’s Yen Town Band! It’s where Glico sang ‘My Way’! I alone was freaking out. Noone was on board with me.. I’m all alone, yet again.... The camera zooms in on Yumao, “Don’t just smile! Don't just smile at me With that said. Our 7th anniversary hits next year! So, here is our very first song, which represents our beginning....” Karanowaremono Ao ＊ Many emotional spotlights.

Intermissional MC

SND “At long last, this time has come. Huh! Mister Yumao-san!” SND glares at him. “Perhaps I may revel in a sip of water as well. A sip of water!! ... By the way what time is it? Yumao, in reporter voice “It is currently eight thirty seven.” SND “I see, it’s eight thirty seven. That's crazy. So today, our new song released, as you folks may know. Our new song called curved edge was released. Did you give it a listen? If you haven’t then please do, but also, the music video for the song will be public today at 22 o’ clock, please enjoy it. That’s the immediate future. But let’s talk about the faaar future.... On February 17th will a new album be released. We made an album. curved edge is a song written by me, and naturally it will be included in the album as well but, that’s not all.” He wags his finger towards the others, “This wiggly windy head of brown-colored hair and, this other wiggly windy head of black-colored hair have even each written a song for it as well. The title is R-E-A-M-P, REAMP. To be released on February 17th. Keep your eyes peeled.” he tapped his temple as he said this, “Please!” Ygarshy bows. “Ahhh, we made it!” Shinoda starts coughing, “Excuse me. Coughing without covering my mouth is not good. I'll be careful. Ah, I’m so nervous. I’ve grown nervous this far in. Alright, this next one will be the final song. Thank you so much for bearing with us. We are Hitorie. As farewell, here is our new song. curved edge.

Text:

I have also written up the original Japanese quotes! Thank you Tamagotoji for the huge help! ORZ For those looking to follow along with the concert, or learn new words from them, or enjoy!! Please enjoy! 

https://www.evernote.com/l/AolVRKvLGRpFN6l0MApPe5xuRXQOI4kFeTg

Bonus tech lore

Disclaimer: Only old photos exist of their pedalboards exist, as the cameramen did a fine job of concealing them. Since there’s no new evidence of change, I’ll assume these old findings will serve as foundation for their current setups as well!

[the-odd-job]

Ashes of Icarus chapter 6 - Deceit and Lies

Rating: Explicit Warnings: Chose Not to Use Category: Other Fandom: Transformers Characters: Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Ratchet, Prowl, Optimus Relationships: Megatron/Sunstreaker, Sideswipe & Sunstreaker Additional Tags: Dubcon, Unplanned Pregnancy, Mechpreg, Sticky Words: 2272

A thoughtful chapter.

( Previous )

“Why he slag didn’t you call for backup?!”

Sunstreaker snarled. “The fragging comms were jammed! How the pit were we supposed to do that?!”

“Back out of the jammed area, report the disturbance, and see what orders you’re given,” Ratchet snarled right back, clanging him on the helm with the butt of his welder. 

And okay, that was one way to handle the situation, with just the one minor complication that they hadn’t wanted to.

Or Sunstreaker hadn’t. Sideswipe didn’t bother himself with too many opinions as long as Sunstreaker remained satisfied with the whole situation.

And oh, he was very satisfied. 

But no one else needed to know it was about anything more than a battle well won—and not one gloriously lost. 

“We could handle it,” Sunstreaker still argued with a roll of his optics. And according to their lie, they had. So what was the problem?

He didn’t get to hear Ratchet’s opinion on that because the medbay doors opened then to admit Prowl and Optimus, interrupting Ratchet. The medic, along with the twins, glanced at the arrivees, before Ratchet dismissed them with a hmph and set back to work on Sunstreaker.

Ratchet never did like to be interrupted when he was busy yelling at his patients. Especially if those patients were the twins. They deserved all the yelling they could get.

Sunstreaker took it as the short lived reprieve it was, though. “Did Grapple find anything?” Sideswipe asked, doubling down on their lie with his natural curiosity. “Or is that classified?”

“No, Grapple did not find anything to suggest why the Decepticons were interested in that area,” Prowl responded with an irritable flick of his wings, although for once it likely wasn’t aimed at them and instead at just the entire situation. Not having all the variables didn’t suit him. “It could be they were simply scouting for something that wasn’t there after all.”

“No matter their reasons, good work on hindering their efforts,” Optimus said with a nod at the brothers. Sideswipe nodded back, Sunstreaker just huffed.

“Did you expect anything less?” he sneered. Ratchet whacked him again, probably for disrespecting their mighty leader this time.

Sunstreaker’s digits twitched, but he knew better than to whack Ratchet back. That was a surefire way to get welded to the berth.

He had to content himself to just some offended growling that Ratchet paid absolutely no mind to. 

Optimus didn’t take the bait, though, only gave Sunstreaker a look that would never ever accomplish a damn thing. 

“Regardless, I would like your reports as soon as possible,” said Prowl, and right there was a third mech who didn’t appreciate his attitude with Optimus. Well, tough luck, because the Prime wasn’t exactly demanding better treatment. He’d just have to deal. “Will you be able to compose them during your repairs and return them to my office after Ratchet releases you?”

“Sure,” Sideswipe agreed. Would this mean less abuse from Ratchet? See, they’d need to be able to focus on writing their reports, it wouldn’t do if they were constantly distracted by one irascible medic. Right?

He could hope. “Good,” Prowl nodded, and after get well soon wishes from Optimus, the two headed out of the medbay.

“We will need to run patrols with increased frequency in the area, just to be–“ Sunstreaker could hear Prowl continue to Optimus.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he said, sitting up straight. Optimus and Prowl paused on their exit and looked back at him, Optimus with some level of surprise, Prowl with exasperation.

No doubt the tactician already had an inkling of what Sunstreaker wanted to complain about. He proceeded to do that without delays. “I am not driving any more patrols on those god forsaken excuses for roads,” he snarled, jabbing a digit at Prowl. “Two more patrols, then we’re done with our punishment duty, right? I’ll go on a fucking strike if we’re scheduled on any more patrols there after that!”

Sideswipe was snickering, but his brother wasn’t in too much of a disagreement with him. Let the likes of Hound take those routes, they had the fragging alt-modes for it!

“Your preference has been noted,” Prowl said dryly, and Sunstreaker didn’t hold out for hope that Prowl wouldn’t schedule them there if he saw it necessary. That was the downside of being some of the best the Autobots had to offer. If their skills were needed somewhere, there weren’t too many who could fill in for them.

And then they’d just end up doing shit they’d rather not have, like driving on dirt roads that all but wrecked their frames. 

Now Prowl and Optimus left for real, leaving Sunstreaker to brood and Sideswipe to kick his legs while he waited for his turn to be fixed. They’d need to make their reports convincing, somehow. Choreograph an entire fight that didn’t happen, between mecha that had never been present—make it hold together with the scene left behind and their own injuries.

They had their work cut out for them. At least they wouldn’t have trouble keeping their reports matching up, a small mercy. Twins and all that.

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

They’d been in a few battles during the course of their lives. That came in handy when fabricating the details of their story. Ratchet left them to it, mostly, fixing them in the relative silence of just the medic’s aggravated grumbling and the occasional order to move this way or that or do this or do that. 

On their way from the medbay they delivered their reports—one from each frame’s perspective—to Prowl’s office. The SIC nodded his thanks before sending them back on their way. They fetched their ratios and sat in the rec room while they drank them, where Sideswipe shared some words and laughter with Bumblebee and Windcharger.

Sunstreaker let it all wash over him, struggling to keep his thoughts from traveling down paths that would have damned him if anyone became privy to them.

Thank Primus the Autobots had no telepaths in their ranks. He’d be doomed otherwise.

But he was rarely particularly involved in social situations. It was doubtful anyone noticed he was more distracted than usual. 

They didn’t linger in the rec room very long after finishing their cubes. It wasn’t just Sunstreaker that was suffering from the state of his processors—Sideswipe felt the same need to sort their goddamn thoughts out. They slipped through the halls and into the quarters without interruptions, out of sight, hopefully out of mind, too, for long enough that they could work all of this out in peace.

Together they sat down on the bottom bunk of their berth, then… Silence.

They didn’t dare say a thing out loud. This was one secret they did not want getting out, not even—especially not—by accident. There was no one to overhear them, but that didn’t matter.

Say not a thing.

Not like they needed to, anyway. They functioned on the same wavelength, spark bound as they were. His thoughts were Sideswipe’s, Sideswipe’s thoughts were his. The transition was smooth, seamless—silent and untraceable. 

Just what they needed.

Sunstreaker was the driving force behind all of this, though. It wasn’t his life, it was their life, but it was a give and take, push and pull. This time, Sideswipe gave, letting Sunstreaker direct the course of their actions according to his… Conclusions.

Whatever those might turn out to be.

‘Think about what I said.’

Which part? Megatron had said more than a few things, from recounting their ill fated fight a long time ago, to making fun of his frame’s reactions that absolutely had nothing to do with Sunstreaker’s genuine desires, absolutely not.

Ugh.

Sideswipe shifted, and offered a thought.

‘I’ve gotten better.’

‘Is it something to get better from?’

...Was that it?

If it was, what the pit did Megatron want him to do with that thought? He had been a berserker—still was, technically. The damage had gone nowhere, but… He hadn’t snapped in a long time. 

Wasn’t that the goal? Oh, they had valued the likes of him in the Pits thanks to the unhinged violence they could unleash, but was that anything to actually desire? The Autobots had gone out of their way to give him back control over his own frame and mind, to reduce the instances where he lost it and… Became a danger to anything and everything. 

How could something like that be desirable?

What did Megatron think?

Why was he thinking about what Megatron thought? So the mech had beat him in a fight again, wow, and decided to frag him afterwards, wow, but what did that change? They were on the opposite sides of the war for Primus’ sake, that little fact had gone absolutely nowhere. He shouldn’t give a frag about any of Megatron’s thoughts, especially not after the tyrant had decidedly not asked his permission to fuck him. He’d just swooped along, turned him the slag on, and done the deed.

And… Sunstreaker found himself decidedly not opposed to that. He should be! Not only because Megatron had technically forced him, but because he had technically gotten forced by the enemy leader that he should, under all circumstances, want to kill in the name of putting an end to the war in favor of the side he belonged to. 

But here he was, post-fuck… Still enjoying the afterglow of some fragging awesome overloads, and… Not opposed to the idea of next time.

As Megatron had threatened.

Promised.

Oh by the Thirteen he was screwed. Literally as well as figuratively. What were his options? Even if he swallowed his pride and reported the r-word—which he was never going to be able to do, he had too much of it—all they’d need was to have a look at his memory files and see how… He couldn’t even say he was conflicted. If he had been, then good, but no.

If he was honest with himself, the part of him that wasn’t anticipating the next time with much eagerness was pathetic. He was a bad, bad Autobot, remember? He didn’t give too many fucks about the fact he was obliterating the Autobot code even more thoroughly than he had so far in his career as a soldier. He didn’t care. Why would he have? He wouldn’t have gained a whole lot by following the damn thing to the letter, even if he’d been so inclined.

So it didn’t particularly matter to him, on a personal, emotional level, that he was getting fragged by the enemy and fucking enjoying it. 

And if they had a look into his head… They’d see that.

But if he didn’t care about the whole thing on a personal level, he did care about the consequences he would have faced if his comrades found out about this whole thing. It would end badly for him. Very badly. He didn’t even know how badly, but how the hell were you supposed to interface with Megatron, like it, want for the next time, and not end up too deep in trouble with your own side to ever surface again?

No. No, he couldn’t afford this to ever come to light. Even on the off chance they’d somehow ignore his own excitement over it to focus just on what Megatron had done… No.

How the pit were they supposed to keep it a secret if it was just going to repeat, though? This time had been difficult enough. They’d done their best, given a story as believable as they could, made no mention of Megatron, not even a suggestion that he had been present to do what he had–

But because they’d lied, no matter how good they were at it, you could shoot holes into their story. The environment wouldn’t necessarily entirely agree with what they had said, if someone went to have a real good look at it. 

And what of their injuries? Sword marks. Those weren’t that usual here on Earth. They’d added their fair share of gunshot marks—and frankly, that had hurt—but Ratchet wasn’t dumb. He’d fixed those sword marks, the cuts of a sharp blade. He knew where they’d come from.

He hadn’t questioned it, why any of the Constructicons or a Seeker would have had a sword with them and the skill to wield it efficiently enough to be a match to Sunstreaker, but had he wondered about it? Sunstreaker didn’t doubt that very much. 

What had he come up with as an explanation for it, in the absence of anything the twins would have directly told him?

Primus, what a mess. But as long as he didn’t ask, they didn’t need to answer. Besides, what were the odds Ratchet would start to suspect that? They’d fixed the area around his cover before anyone else had gotten to the scene, removed the traces of interface from him—the evidence of who he had interfaced with. 

But if he grew suspicious… The future times would become even more problematic.

What could they do but worry about that when the time came, though?

Was that his conclusion? It was.

Sideswipe nodded at him before he stretched from having sat in the same position for who knew how long by now.

Then he got one of his brother’s trademark grins, bright and full of mischief. “Want my help touchin’ up your paint before I go see if ‘Hide or Jazz would be down for a tumble?”

Yeah, him and Megatron had been something to look at, hadn’t they? Not too much of a surprise Sideswipe would have some charge to burn.

Sunstreaker gave a wry smile of his own. “You bet.”

( Next )

[psychovigilantewrites]

Chapter 8 - Absence

Pairing: Jason Todd/Reader

Word Count: 3,128 words

TW: Violence and Gore.

A/N:  Hi guys!! Sorry for the super long wait! I've had writers block for the longest time and also life gets in the way, as usual. This one's a short one, sort of a transition into the next chapter- which will definitely be more intense! Thanks for being so patient with me as usual. 

 Read the previous chapters of Red Who? here: Masterlist

Normal people would probably compare what you felt to some time when they were a kid, where one of their parents surprised them with some sort of wish they always had. A trip to Disneyland or that red bicycle they’ve always wanted.

Or maybe to a time where some crush said they liked them back after a confession, or even being offered a cookie by a new friend.

Whatever it was, those were everyone else’s comparison.

You didn’t have any great childhood memories to refer to the feeling you felt right now. But the closest would be the first time Bruce ever said “Good job” to you.

Your first kiss wasn’t all that you expected it to be. To be fair, you didn’t really expect much from a first kiss. To you, it was all unnecessary distraction from the things that mattered.

But Jason didn’t make you feel that way. He made you feel giddy and excited, he made you feel like you were being pulled upwards by a whole bunch of colorful helium balloons.

But then you walked inside the manor, changed into your Robin uniform, and started to approach Bruce who was at the Bat computer.

“What are you doing?” he scrutinized you.

“I’m ready to go?” you hesitated, before mentally slapping yourself. You suddenly remembered your fall out yesterday, bursting your bubble of joy before. He was still mad at you. Of course he was, you hadn’t done anything to fix it.

Yet you felt like you didn’t need to apologize.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he gave you a cold look that made you feel like shrinking, “You disobeyed a direct order last night. I can’t just ignore it.”

“I went with my instinct, Bruce,” you tried to reason with him, “You always said to-”

“No, you went because you are fixated on him,” Bruce cut you off and glared at you. A look you’ve never been on the receiving end of.

“What? What are you talking about?” you sputtered, taken aback by his remark.

“I don’t know why, but you’re fixated on the Red Hood,” he continued, “You went and disobeyed me because you wanted to see him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Bruce,” you retorted, straightening your back into a cold stance, “You’re talking as if I have a crush on him.”

“Do you?” he demanded, “I know for a fact that you hide things from me regarding your encounters with him.”

“How dare you assume that of me, Bruce,” you coldly replied, despite the nervousness of getting caught. You needed to shift the blame to him somehow.

“Then why?” he urged, “You have never before disobeyed me. Why do you always get excited when he’s involved?”

“I get excited because it’s exciting!” you argued, “He’s a new criminal who came out of nowhere, taking over the underground in the span of a couple of weeks! Who wouldn’t be?”

“Do you know who he is?” Bruce suddenly asked.

“No. That’s what I’ve been asking you, remember? How dare you accuse me of hiding things from you when you’re the one who refuses to trust me enough to tell me who he is,” you ranted, finding a way to finally shift the blame on him to reduce your own faults.

“I don’t-”

“Don’t lie to me, Bruce. A guy who randomly appears and fucks shit up, knows everything about the both of us, our identities probably included- don’t tell me you out of all people haven’t figured it out. So why haven’t you told me?”

“Because I don’t want to believe it myself!” he yelled, making you jump slightly at the sudden change in volume.

You stared at him for a few moments, before saying, “Who is he, Bruce?”

He clenched his jaw.

“Do you want to patrol or not?”

“Yes,” you stated.

“Fine,” he sighed, turning away from you, “But you stick by me the whole time. If he happens to appear, you stay in the Bat-mobile.”

“But-”

“Do you want me to put you under house arrest?”

“Fine,” you admitted defeat.

***

You honestly thought the decapitated heads on spikes were the worst you’ve seen, and that the next bad thing would wait at least more than a week before it threw itself at you.

But there you were, mouth slack in shock at the scene before you.

It was a bright night in Robinson Park, coincidentally where you were earlier, the moon was full and there were no clouds blocking its gentle light. The additional lights that the GCPD brought also gave plenty of illumination that fell onto the three bodies hanging on tree branches.

All male, all naked, all hanged by the neck with a rope. Purple faced and tongues lolling out, you were thankful for taking Dick’s advice by expecting the worst. Yet, it still shocked you.

Because if it were just three people hanged by the neck, you wouldn’t have batted an eye. But this time, there were three people hanged by the neck, their bellies slashed open horizontally, intestines spilling out and trailed all over the well kept grass like large alien worms bursting out.

And along with the gruesome scene, of course, came the smell. It wasn’t just the metallic smell of blood this time. It was closer to the smell at the club the first time you met Red Hood. A mix of blood and feces and urine. Thankfully, it was outdoors with plenty of ventilation.

“Batman,” Gordon huffed when he saw the two of you approaching. Batman rushed to arrive to the scene when he heard the traffic on the police radio. The crime scene was already taped off, forensics were everywhere, flashing lights from their cameras as they took pictures of the bodies.

As you got closer, you could see in detail how the bodies looked like. The gashes were clean, you could see the layers of skin, fat, and muscle that made up the cross section of the gash. Hell, you could even see the bits of fascia and peritoneum that were damaged by the trauma.

“Black Mask’s men,” Batman pointed out without hesitation.

“Yeah,” Gordon sighed, “Like I said before, gang war. Red Hood himself must have done this. Looks like we’ve got another sadistic bastard running around. This was done to them while they were alive.”

You grimaced.

“What we think is rope fibres were found underneath the nails, so they were struggling and scratching at it to escape before they got strangled to death,” Gordon continued, “We still gotta wait for forensics, but I bet my money the coroner’s report is going to confirm it. He must have had them stand on the park table here, tied the noose around their necks, gutted them, and then pushed them down. The momentum from the fall must have forced the intestines to spill like this.”

You had to hand it to Red Hood, he was very theatrical. If you weren’t so disgusted by his lack of empathy, you would have perhaps thought that his works were art.

“How do you know it was him?” you voiced out.

“There isn’t anyone else that have the guts to directly attack Black Mask,” Gordon explained, “I don’t think these would be the last bodies we find.”

True enough, the week after that, another two bodies were found in a similar state, but this time, you noticed the nail of one of the men’s pinky fingers were pulled out. A piece of information that you didn’t know you stored at the back of your mind came to resurface.

When it came to torture for information by denailing, if the victim could handle getting one nail pulled out without breaking, they most probably could handle it all. The strongest ones are the ones with all their nails pulled out- which meant that they probably did not reveal anything.

Judging from the body before you, you guessed that Red Hood probably got whatever information he was looking for.

And if he did, why did he have to kill them both in such a way?

Truly, you couldn’t comprehend his love for cruelty.

You stuck with Batman on the days you patrolled, as per his orders. You weren’t allowed to go on your own anymore until you gained his trust again. Not that it mattered, because even though you were investigating a string of Red Hood’s bloody murders- he was on his twenty-third victim by then- you didn’t get to meet the culprit himself.

He was keeping to the shadows, yet making his presence still loud and clear by leaving bodies everywhere.

You didn’t want to admit your disappointment.

Red Hood wasn’t the only one leaving bodies, though. Black Mask also was under investigation for retaliating by attacking and murdering Moehler’s men, though less creatively and dramatic.

Before you realised it, Gotham City was in the midst of a gang war that Gordon had predicted those weeks ago.

After a particularly exhausting patrol on a Saturday night involving yet another one of Red Hood’s victims, you laid on your bed, and stared at the ceiling. You glanced at your phone- no notifications.

It had been approximately 3 weeks since your kiss with Jason, and it was the last time you saw him. He had been texting you less and less, despite it all. The last message you sent him a week ago read was just a GIF of a Shiba Inu’s backside while it walked. You didn’t want to seem desperate.

You probably scared him off. I told you so, Mother said.

You pushed her away like you always did.

You tried to not overthink it. Perhaps he was busy with getting into the police force, perhaps he didn’t feel like talking to anyone, because God knows even you have long periods of time where you wanted to just shut out the world.

You tried to be understanding and patient.

But you still couldn’t help but think about him. His smooth voice, how sexy he sounded when he swore. His grunts and moans of pleasure over the phone. And his lips. How they felt against yours, how they would feel in between your legs. You always noticed his smell too.

His cologne, fabric softener, the smell of leather and… fireworks. You didn’t know why. But his smell reminded you of fireworks.

But you were restless. And Jason wasn’t the only one that was on your mind.

You hadn’t seen Red Hood for about as long, too. It irritated you. For some reason Red Hood felt like an itch on your back that you just couldn’t reach far enough to scratch. As the nights went by without hearing from Jason, you strangely thought of Red Hood more.

Especially at night when you were alone in bed.

You wondered about him. Some reasonable, some completely random. Where was he from? Did he have siblings? Does he play music inside that helmet of his? He looked like the heavy metal type, but you entertained the idea of him humming along to Taylor Swift while he gutted men.

What was wrong with you? You were unintentionally humanising him, giving him more meaning and sentimentality than he deserved.

But most importantly, you had a feeling that he was preparing for something, in addition to the gang war he started. You didn’t have any evidence. It was just your gut. And you trusted your gut, no matter what Bruce said.

Shit.

You started to think that Bruce was right. You felt like you were beginning to be obsessed with him. You groaned into your pillow before trying your best to fall asleep and not think about Red Hood’s flexing biceps.

***

The familiar lurch of the batmobile going from stationary to full speed never failed to excite you to your core.

Both you and Batman were on your usual patrol in Otisburg District, before hearing a large explosion just a few blocks away. He frequented the district a lot, since The Stacked Deck was overtaken by Red Hood, it made sense to patrol in the area.

You wanted to patrol in the area. It meant the chances of meeting him was higher. Not that it mattered, because Batman was still keeping you on a tight leash.

What you didn’t expect, though, was to see the club itself engulfed in flames.

You hacked a cough the moment you exited the batmobile, the soot and smoke enveloping the area in heavy clouds. People were running in the opposite direction, away from the building. If there was anyone inside the club, it was too late to save them now. The alcohol must have contributed to the rapid burning, and somewhere along, a gas pipe must have burst, because the roof and part of the outer walls were in ruins already from the explosion you heard before.

The fire department came. You saw the familiar face from all those weeks ago. Parks, was it? The cute one. You saw him order his men around and climbed onto the lift with a hose. You overheard someone say it was going to take them more than just a couple of hours to extinguish the fire.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m already here,” you heard a voice behind you, “Yes, sir. No, sir. With all due respect Mr. Mayor, you don’t just stop a gang war- understood, sir.”

You turned around and saw a very distressed Commissioner walking towards the two of you. He was on the phone, his other hand pressing at his temples.

“Understood sir,” he huffed, ending the call, “Batman.”

“Commissioner,” Batman nodded.

“Of course you got here first,” he sighed, “I’ve already told my people to pull up the traffic cameras and every other CCTV nearby- which you probably already have access to. Whatever it is, I put my money that Black Mask did this.”

“Of course it is,” you rolled your eyes, not that Gordon could see them behind your white lenses.

“Oh, I also have another update,” Gordon suddenly remembered, “Regarding the Gotham University Public Library case. According to the two we caught, there is a third. He managed to get away. Jerome Miller, 8 cases of arson, 11 attempted arson, 2 theft- but I guess it’s below your paygrade, Batman. Hey, do you even get paid?”

“Where is he now?” you interrupted, feeling your blood boil at the mention of one of the people who burned down your safe haven.

“We put an APB on him. He’ll turn up eventually. But we have bigger things to deal with now,” Gordon explained, “Red Hood will retaliate. And soon. God have mercy on whoever he gets his hands on next.”

*** It was hard to wish for God to have mercy on whoever Red Hood gets his hand on next, especially since the victim this time was none other than Black Mask himself, who has killed and tortured hundreds.

But when you saw the state of Black Mask’s body, you found yourself taking back that thought.

His mask was a feet away from his body, which was still positioned in a sitting position on his leather armchair, facing the massive window of his office building which showed the city skyline. His face?

On his desk behind him.

Literally. His face was skinned messily, clumsily, and then placed on the glass desk behind him in a mound of bloody flesh. Red Hood did not take his time to skin Roman Sionis’ face off, that’s for sure.

Sionis had his neck slashed ear to ear, his carotids and jugular sliced through.

“Did he-” you started, “Did Red Hood do this to him alive?”

“We would need blood test results for that,” Batman said next to you, taking out a syringe to extract blood from the body. Where he kept it? You didn’t ask. You didn’t know he carried around a syringe and a vial to take blood.

“If the forensics saw you,” you giggled.

“Good thing they’re too slow,” Batman smirked.

He actually smirked.

You felt inappropriately happy, given the scene before you, but Batman had been cold to you these past few weeks. This was a step to him getting over it.

You heard people approaching.

“Jesus Christ!” you heard Gordon’s muffled voice behind the door. Probably counting the 31 dead security on his way up and outside.

“Let’s go,” Batman commanded, pushing open the door right before Gordon opened it.

“Batman-”

“I’ve got what I need,” he simply said and walked away, with you giving Gordon an apologetic smile and following behind him.

***

“Positive for suxamethonium chloride,” Bruce announced from the Cave computer as you walked towards him, freshly cleaned and changed.

“What?” you asked.

“Roman Sionis’ blood has traces of suxamethonium chloride, a neuromuscular-blocking drug,” he explained, “Induces paralysis for about ten minutes.”

“Jesus,” you whispered, “Red Hood injected him with that, and then peeled his face off while he couldn’t move?”

“Yes.”

“And does this sucks- suxo-”

“Suxamethonium chloride,” Bruce helped you.

“Yes, that,” you rolled your eyes, “Is it like, an anesthesia as well?”

“No,” Bruce replied, “Only a muscle relaxant. It’s used to perform quick medical interventions in emergency departments. When a muscle relaxant is induced, doctors would have the patient under a ventilator, since the diaphragm is also paralysed. But Red Hood did not have a ventilator, meaning Black Mask did not only feel the pain while he was being skinned, but was also suffocating.”

“Good thing he didn’t use a ventilator, though,” you shrugged, “At least since he couldn’t breathe, he would have passed out after a few minutes.”

“I see you have gotten used to his methods,” Bruce commented.

“What do you mean?” you frowned.

“You used to be more surprised after learning Red Hood’s brutal rituals,” Bruce pointed out.

Huh. He was right.

“I guess so,” you responded, “I would have had to get used to them eventually. Plus, it’s not like Black Mask was a saint, either. He deserved what he got.”

“We are not the ones who decides who deserves what,” Bruce reminded you.

“Just saying,” you shrugged again, “I’m heading to bed. Night, Bruce.”

“Hmm.”

You lied in bed that night, for the first time not thinking about how brutal Red Hood was. You just wish you could see him already. The past few weeks- for some reason you felt lonely. You felt like you were being deliberately ignored by someone you wanted attention from- while they were still flaunting their presence to you.

You missed him.

Fuck.

You finally realised that you missed the fucking asshole. Were you so bored that you were now craving the sight of a criminal?

Where was he, anyway?

You scoffed.

Right. Probably celebrating. With Black Mask gone, you just remembered- that Red Hood was now technically the ruler of the underworld.

[connorssock]

Beloved Monster

Growing up, Gavin had all the typical fears of a child. That there was something in his closet, a monster under his bed, haunted attic. Wherever he went, he never felt alone. As a child, it was terrifying but as he grew older, he got used to it and to an extent took comfort in it. It was why he never got worried about living alone, some people hated it, Gavin didn’t mind.

It was only when he stumbled home from a double shift in the early hours of the morning that he began to question his sanity. He’d missed dinner but was too tired do much more than pop a few slices of bread in the toaster and grab the ham from the fridge. In line with his usual luck, a piece of ham slipped from between his fingers and fell to the floor with a splat. Immediately, his cat was prowling towards it and Gavin’s sleepy mind panicked. Not thinking, he kicked the ham under the fridge and out of reach.

“Thanks,” a soft hiss came and Gavin blinked.

“Did you just speak?” he asked the cat.

“No, it was me.” The voice was grating, like metal scraped over rusty metal. There was nothing Gavin could say to that other than “huh” and ump when the toast popped out.

“Want me to make you one too?” he offered, mind addled and half asleep.

“Please.”

Obediently, Gavin assembled another ham and cheese on toast and slid it under the fridge.

“Thanks.”

“Cool, I’m going to hit the sack. Have a good night,” Gavin turned the kitchen light off and stumbled into bed.

In the morning he almost laughed at himself and his sleep addled mind. Of all the things to hallucinate from exhaustion, a voice under his fridge which asked for some food was a new one. He basked in bed for a few more minutes, delaying the inevitable of having to fish out the ham and cheese on toast from under the fridge, now probably coated in age old dust.

Still, it had to be done and once he was finally up, cat food sorted, he knelt down by the fridge and peered under it. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness. A torch revealed nothing unusual either, not even a greasy stain where the toast had been. Scratching his head, Gavin tutted to himself, perhaps he’d dreamt the whole thing.

It was only a few days later that he was in the kitchen again that the fridge let out its usual groan as he moved to bin some gone off yoghurt. His hand stilled and he looked at the appliance.

“Was that you?” He felt so silly asking out loud whether his fridge had groaned. But it didn’t compare to his fright when the voice from before gurgled out a “maybe”.

“Cool,” he stalled for time, uncertain what to say. “You hungry?”

“Yes.”

As far as conversations went, it was a pretty stilted one. Whatever lived under his fridge didn’t seem capable of more than one word answers. Which was fair enough, Gavin wondered if he was an entity that lived in cramped, dark places, he too might struggle with words.

“Got a name?” It only seemed polite to ask. The response was a garbling hiss of consonants that should not have been possible to pronounce.

“Is that your name? Or is that you having a breakdown? Shit, you didn’t touch the electricity outlet, did you?”

“No. Name.” The voice repeated what could have been the same sounds as before, or something utterly different but Gavin’s ears caught on a bit.

“That’s getting a little too long for me to pronounce. But part of it sounded like Nines. So I’m going to call you Nines, okay?”

“Okay. Nines. Good. Like.”

If Gavin didn’t know any better, the voice sounded pleased.

From then on, Gavin’s waste took a serious nosedive. Anything on the turn or gone off could be shoved under the fridge and Nines happily chomped away on it. Sometimes, especially if it was something he very much enjoyed, the odd gurgling slurp accompanied it.

Gavin also made changes to his home. Nines was fond of dark, small crevices to hide in. The fridge was his favourite but he also liked to hang out under the washing machine in the bathroom while Gavin brushed his teeth. In the living room, Gavin sold his old coffee table and replaced it with one that sat low on the ground and was wider than his previous one. An additional benefit was that he could put his feet up much more comfortably while they watched TV. His wardrobe was a comforting nook for Nines to hide out in. More often than not, some of Gavin’s jumpers would migrate into the back corner of it, pulled from their hangers. In the end, Gavin just bought a couple more and let Nines rotate them as he pleased.

They had a bit of a game going on too. Some days, Gavin would sneak up on whatever furniture Nines was chilling under and suddenly peer under it with a torch. It was always met by a wry chuckle from somewhere else. How Nines knew Gavin was trying to catch a glimpse of him was a mystery. No matter how silent or abrupt Gavin was, Nines always evaded him.

“Why can’t I see you?”

“Ugly. Scary.”

“Well, you put up with my ugly and scarred ass, can’t be much worse than me,” Gavin tried to make a joke but the alarming growl he got in response had him backing up.

“Not ugly.”

It wasn’t something Gavin was willing to argue over, Nines sounded cross enough and Gavin had seen the things he’d eaten. He really didn’t want to be next on the menu.

“Got any family?” he tried to change tact.

“Brother. Happy.” Another string of garble followed that Gavin guessed was a name. Much like with Nines’ own name, he tried to find something that a human could pronounce.

“Let’s call him Connor, sounds close enough.” Then something struck him. “You say happy. Is that you happy or him happy?”

“Him.” Nines sounded as gentle as he ever could.

“What about you? Are you happy?” It was a heavy question and only when Gavin asked it did he realised how much he wanted the answer to be a yes.

“Almost.”

It crushed Gavin’s heart more than he thought it would. He nodded and made a little noise of acknowledgement, uncertain how to ask what he could do to make Nines happy.

In the end, he didn’t ask. But he made sure to take note of all the things Nines enjoyed more. He bought cherry yoghurt and left it in the sun for a few days before spooning it under the fridge. If sometimes he dipped a pickle in it just he hear Nines’ happy little hums, that was pure coincidence.

He also invested in blackout curtains and some evenings, he sat on the sofa in pitch black as he and Nines talked. Over time, Nines had started to string words together into sentences. Occasionally, Gavin could have sworn Nines’ voice came from the far end of the sofa, along with waves of warmth that definitely didn’t emanate from the radiators.

“Do you ever get bored just lounging in the house?” Gavin asked one night. Nines was either in the wardrobe or, since Gavin had changed to a bed with small legs, under that.

“Too bright. Too scary. Nobody want to see Nines.”

“Oh buddy, don’t put yourself down. Anyway, I think I have an idea. Would you fit in the hood of a jacket? Or a bag?” Gavin’s mind was whirling a mile a minute. He wasn’t sure how big Nines actually was. But if he fit in small dark crannies, perhaps he could curl up small.

“Fall out hood. Too heavy for bag.”

“I want to try the bag idea anyway. It would be nice to have you tag along whenever you fancied,” Gavin pressed the idea even as another one cropped up. “Hey Nines?”

“Yes?”

“You know I like you, right?” There was a soft tremor in his voice. He didn’t want to mess things up but he wanted as much as Nines was willing to offer.

“Yes?”

“Want to get on the bed? You always feel so warm and it’s a bit chilly.”

The refusal was not unexpected and Gavin didn’t take it to heart. If anything, he’d learnt that Nines was tremendously shy. Just getting him to sit on the couch had been a feat which took weeks of asking. So Gavin settled in to do the same with the bed. Each night, he asked Nines if he’d like to join him for a cuddle. And each night Nines refused. But his voice became less firm over time.

Things changed one night when Gavin had stumbled home from another late shift. He was tired, the case was dragging and there was something missing from the picture. Nobody could pinpoint it, but they were so close. Gavin never noticed that he was being followed home.

He opened his door but before he had a chance to flick the lights on, someone was barrelling into him from behind. They tumbled into the house, a hand pressed over Gavin’s mouth to keep him quiet. He struggled, kicked and scratched to no avail. There was the sound of a knife being pulled free and Gavin froze. He knew what was coming, the inevitable pain of a knife burying itself into his flesh. Bracing for it never helped but he tensed in anticipation all the same.

A slurping sound accompanied the sudden loss of tension in the body behind him. Almost in slow motion, it peeled away from him with more crunches and gulps. A soft burp sounded and Gavin tried to make sense of it all.

“You okay?” Nines’ familiar voice snapped him out of it.

“Fuck. Did you just eat him?”

“Yes.”

Gavin swore again and let out a laugh. He couldn’t very well report the incident now. There was no way to explain that the creature that had always lived under his bed since childhood had eaten his assailant. The absurdity of it all had Gavin laughing.

“Close the door, will you? It’s getting cold.”

He heard the door shut and even the faint glimmer of street lights was gone. Not bothering to turn a light on, Gavin picked his way through his home towards the bedroom, trusting Nines to help him stop falling over things.

Once in bed, he patted the space beside him.

“You going to come up for that cuddle then?”

“Yes.”

So it was, that at 1am on an unremarkable Thursday night, the mattress dipped and Gavin smiled.

[constantwritingblock]

Stolen Worlds 2

Queen of Thieves: Takes place just after the MC breaks up with Nikolai.

Avengers: Takes place during The Winter Soldier, but with additional characters.

Unknown!Nick Fury x reader, (previous) Nikolai Stirling x reader, platonic!Natasha Romanoff x reader, (eventual) Steve Rogers x reader.

Also just a statement, for any other languages spoken in this piece it will be done in bold and in English so that you are aware characters are speaking a different language. I find this easier than finding a bad translation.

After finding out of her meeting with Captain Rogers, Y/N is given the opportunity to keep herself in the loop better. Question is, will she take it and risk her game to be outplayed or will she refuse. Does she also realise that the people she left behind are still looking for her too?

Chapter Two

Time had gone by quicker than expected. She was finally more out in the field, so to speak. Keeping an eye on the trio that Fury had also trusted to destroy Hydra. Her job was to ensure that they got the right information and were taking whatever action they deemed appropriate. Currently, subtly, overseeing Sam calling Sitwell was a breeze though she couldn’t really keep all her attention on them, she still had show up within S.H.I.E.L.D. and also the Hydra base that stored The Winter Soldier. Though when she caught sight of them on the rooftop near S.H.I.E.L.D.’s building, she had to send an emergency distraction so no one else would see them, especially Rumlow.

Jolting the system into error, she used that as a diversion before slipping out to spy on Romanoff and Rogers. It was obvious they were interrogating Sitwell, though she was surprised to see Captain America hold him up over the god knows how long drop. A sigh of relief escaped her as he put the man down, he was still a valuable asset after all, pinning the blame on someone was certainly valuable, but then Agent Romanoff kicked him off the roof! Of course she did, I guess violence is needed… oh wait here he comes again…

It appeared that they got what they needed out of Sitwell, he knew the most about Arnim Zola and the system he had produced. She was glad that they caught on her info, though she was irritated that they didn’t know who she was. It wasn’t necessarily part of the agreement for her to be unknown but it would have been ideal so they didn’t accidentally kill her. Rushing back inside, Y/N slowed her pace down when she was closer to her desk. Smiling politely at her co-workers, she’d never really call them that, they were her enemies.

Clasping her fingers together she pushed them in front of her. The stretch did some good as she went back to typing away on the computer, a quicker rate than the others. Someone from higher up came at that point, shouting orders to fix what Y/N had broken, simply tapping away on the keyboard brought her back to fixing everything quickly, especially if Rogers and Romanoff had found Zola, anything technological on her end needed to be right. The team leader in this sense had reached her desk. “Agent Z, system tells me you fixed it. Well done. The Director wants to see you.” Nodding her head patiently, she stood up and followed him through to Pierce’s office. Now to finish off Sitwell...

At his holler to enter, she meekly opened the door, peeping her head through. “Sir?” He gave her a very warm smile, which was unlike him, it normally was quite distant but today something had changed his mood. “Ah, Agent Z, good work on fixing the issue we just had, heard how you just came in from break and fixed it instantly. I need more people like you… Oh, do you also have the progress report on the Soldier?”

Gesturing to the computer in the room, he gave her full permission to use it, she logged in and the holographic screen came into view as he read the contents. “It seems that you’re the only person who can handle my deadlines here…”

Y/N just shrugged her shoulders, “It’s just part of how I work, sir.” The last thing she needed was for him to get suspicious of her quick action. Flickering her gaze around the room, his attention to her was precise. Pierce looked at her questioningly, “Something wrong Agent?”

This was it. This was her moment to get in his good graces and have more control over everything. “I just heard about Captain America and Agent Romanoff splitting from S.H.I.E.L.D. and…”

The man sat back in his large office chair. “You have nothing to worry about there. It was a minor thing and you are a precious member of Hydra. So, if anything is not to your satisfaction, then don’t hesitate to inform me.” Dismissing her wariness he assured her that he liked to keep valuable assets alive where possible.

So that’s his game to keep me roped in. “No, it’s not the worry of having a target on my back, it’s just that, I took a smoke break on the roof to get away from the chaos of fixing other nimbicile’s mistakes and… I must be paranoid to you…” Chuckling nervously, she casually reached a hand up to the back of her neck to scratch awkwardly.

Though it was all in success as Pierce appeared to have believed her act. He didn’t say anything, just leant forward as a sign for her to continue. “I saw… Captain America, with a red-headed woman, they had Sitwell and were chatting. I heard about a possible mole within here, but from the way they were speaking… it just seemed off to me.”

Pierce cocked a brow at Y/N’s words. Shit I’m losing him. “I don’t mean to sound like a snitch or anything to you sir, but i just found it peculiar.” Rolling the chair backwards, he stood up and stalked his way over to the petite woman. Lifting her head to gaze into his eyes he spoke. “It’s not snitching, it’s being honest about someone going against Hydra. Don’t stress, you did the right thing.” He paged for his assistant to get Rumlow into the office.

Well so far, so good…

—

Sitting crossed legged on the couch as she chomped down on some Chinese takeout she kept her focus on Fury as he paced the room. “Fucking hell, just burn a hole in my carpet already why don’t you?” Stopping in his tracks he turned to her. “You bumped into Rogers didn’t you? You may need to keep doing that for a bit.”

What now? Is he being serious? That’s a dumb question Y/N of course he is. “Right and how do I do that without Rumlow or Pierce finding out and thinking I’m a mole?” Walking to her, he sat down next to her. “Listen kid, you’re smart enough to do this and due to the nature of things if they get too messy for you… I’m taking off the violence ban, trust your instincts or your shifts as you call ‘em.” Letting out a groan Y/N really wanted to slap Fury for this. He knew well enough she’d end up going back to that lifestyle.

“I really wish you hadn’t come to me for all of this… I don’t want this…” Muttering into her food, she took another bite as he gave her an incredulous look. “Go back to your criminal lifestyle then. Like to see how you persuade your way outta that one.” She knew he had her caught. Fuck sake…

—

Steve had been going to that coffee shop on the regular since meeting that woman. She was a right beauty for him, barely any woman caught his attention nowadays, but there was something about the way she held herself that had him hooked and he couldn’t resist talking to her. Of course he just stayed from afar in hopes of her walking in. The last thing he needed was Hydra tracking his movements and getting innocents in trouble. It appeared to be another bust of a morning, she hadn’t shown up again. Maybe she only came here once… I should’ve gotten her number, I must look like a stalker.

He felt like one too. It was getting too much and if he couldn’t see her again before things blew up then he guessed that was all he could do. Steve didn’t understand the change for him, but if he could pinpoint it, finding out Peggy Carter was still alive and her telling him to move on made him feel less guilty and more excited to talk to this woman. Just as he was about to leave he caught sight of a burgundy backpack.

Opening up her laptop once again she began running software in the background to triangulate where Captain America could be. If she were to do this, she needed to keep running into him after all. While doing so, she set up some random research essay from her university days. If I get interrupted at least they can see my cover story…

It wasn’t long before the man of the hour came about. He noticed her immediately, ordering himself a coffee before joining her at her table. “Hey, good to see you again.” His melodic voice filled her ears. “Hey, yourself, Steve right?”

Playing up with his game, she didn’t want to show her interest in him. Though he may be Captain America, she was debriefed enough by Maria Hill to know he was a gentleman but also due to his upbringing something felt wrong about sleeping with him or doing anything further while she was under an alias. She didn’t like lying, but how could she even bring up the fact that she was his insider. Hey Captain Rogers, I’m Agent Z, I am the one you can trust in bringing Hydra down. Yeah, it wouldn’t exactly go well.

—

Struggling to keep himself in check, Nikolai was growing worried to say the least, he understood their argument and breakup was partly his fault for his wish to be perfect but also realised that Y/N couldn’t say the words he thought she would always say after the last time. His reaction wasn’t the best of course, but maybe if he did say them once more, they wouldn’t have ended as badly. He, being a professional had kept his cool, but it was so hard.

He missed her, his thoughts were only of her, craving to see her smile, hear her laugh once again. He had no idea who had taken her but he could see the look on Remy’s face to know that he was feeling just as guilty that he hadn’t grasped a tighter hold on her quicker.

Zoe was doing her best in tracking Y/N, everyone had been ringing her constantly, her phone was still on but no response as of yet. It must mean that whoever had kidnapped her wasn’t after the Poppy as a whole, but were they after him? Knowing she was his one weakness could be a factor as to why, so why hasn’t anyone rung for ransom or even to blackmail them?

Barely anyone had spoken to each other in the weeks since she had gone missing. Vivienne was less flirtatious with the rest as normal. Remy just kept to himself, more shut off. Zoe was non-stop on her phone or laptop or computer searching for Y/N. Jett had barely left his room and when he did he’d be covered in paint, no doubt trying to fill in the emptiness of art that Y/N brought to the team and Leon… well, Leon would disappear in the night, reappearing at the crack of dawn, shattered, heading straight to bed. They were using all their resources to finding her but nothing came back to them, no sightings or word of her from the Underbelly, nothing.

Sitting at his desk, Elizabeth sensed her master was filled with unease doing her best to comfort him as he flicked through his phone at the pictures Y/N was adamant on taking of the two of them. God, he missed her. He wished the fight never happened. He should’ve fought for her more, perhaps promised her to at least try to remove the perfectionist in him, even if it was empty.

Nikolai regretted very few things in his life but letting Y/N go was one of them, especially if he knew he’d never see her again. Snapping his attention towards the knocking that sounded on his door, he opened it to see Remy. “Zoe has something!”

Rushing to the lounge he sat down waiting for Zoe to finish typing on her laptop. “Okay, so I found her. Coffee shop in Washington DC. It appears whoever has taken her is nowhere to be seen, but I do see her with some blond guy, it’s the second time they’ve seen each other and she’s happy.” That instantly breaks Nikolai’s heart, he didn’t want to hear that but was glad she was alright at least.

“Looks like we are going there. I want to know what happened, it doesn’t seem like her to quit without saying anything.”

—

Reading the message on her phone, Y/N couldn’t believe that Fury had caught wind of this so quickly. Right okay, so Pierce is planning on bringing officials into this with no choice. Time for phase three. Switching her phone off, she paced herself over to the dark basement of S.H.I.E.L.D.. She couldn’t believe the balls Pierce had to hide the Winter Soldier in plain sight. This would be her first meeting with him, just not alone, unfortunately. Rumlow was going to be there, for her own protection of course, as Pierce stated, there’d be times where he’d lose control of himself and he wouldn’t dare think about his guilt if something bad happened to her.

Entering the thoroughly guarded trap she found herself face to face with the man himself. His distinct blue eyes caught her attention, he was stunning, but the expression on his face made her feel guilty. He’s only a toy to them. There’s a real man in there. What made her stomach churn more was the fact that she knew exactly who the man behind the Winter Soldier was. Bucky Barnes. Captain America’s best friend from the 40s. Stepping closer she noticed how he flinched when Rumlow followed her. Only a glance over her shoulder told him to stay put as she stepped even closer.

“Agent Z,” one of the ‘doctors’ greeted her, “he understands English and speaks it but is refusing to comply. We understand you know a variety of languages and was wondering if you could get him to talk. None of us know anymore than English.”

Y/N took another glance at Rumlow, he nodded. Turning back to the Soldier, she began. “Soldat, do you know where you are?” The man merely looked at her when a guard decided to punish him for his silence, electrocuting him. “Stop that, continue that and he won’t comply. I will not use any violence on him while speaking to him.”

This shocked everyone in the room, but they listened nonetheless from fear of what Rumlow would do to them as punishment for one and two, what Pierce would do if caught wind of them disobeying her. Everyone that worked for Hydra within S.H.I.E.L.D. knew that he treated her like a daughter, something that Y/N found creepy. Once the guard backed off she spoke once more.

“Sorry about that. I wish you no harm. I am unarmed and just want to help you.” He furrowed his brows. “Help me in what way?” He was confused to say the least but at she was just happy that he replied to her, even if it was in Russian. Smiling brightly at him she chatted away. “Let’s just say unlike these people around us, I am more of a friend. I want to help you escape and find your life again, but you have to trust me. I know it’s asking a lot but if you comp- no, cooperate with me I can tell you more as these people won’t be around as much when I see you.”

—

Bucky didn’t know if it was the innocent look in her eyes or just the way she spoke that calmed him. She was the first person he didn’t want to hurt. He wanted to protect her and if she was telling him the truth then perhaps he could get out of this hell.

[floralguccistyles]

two: a ravenclaw and a slytherin walk into a bar

I was crying over a comic book.

This wasn’t a weird occurrence. I often cried when I was overwhelmed by how good something was. I cried the first time I read Lord of the Rings and the first time I had seen Lilo and Stitch. Jeremiah and Veronica had walked in on me crying too many times to count. My mother told me I had always been a big crier, but I was taught that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Then I had gone to school with pricks and had to reign in tears for four years. The second I graduated secondary school, the wall I’d carefully built up had come crashing down and I continued to cry at everything. It was like those four years had made my crying worse. Like how when you’re told you can’t do something, it only makes doing that thing ten times better. Crying was cathartic.

I was also a little overwhelmed.

Stuart Immonen had come into the studio yesterday. He was the illustrator of the 2015 Captain America comic series All-New Captain America. That alone had me overwhelmed, because there I was, talking to someone who had illustrated a Marvel comic. But then he had given me a personal copy of the comic and after Jeremiah and I edited the podcast and we had gone home, I curled up in my flat and devoured it. The kind of devour that kept me up until six in the morning because I had to read it more than once. And as the sun came up, I felt the tears on my face.

I had been born in Holmes Chapel, but my parents hadn’t been. They had been born in Cuba and had moved to Holmes Chapel with a work visa. My father had been hired to help with renovations of Church View B&B and the two churches that surrounded it. My father wasn’t a famous contractor by any means, but his local newspaper in Santa Clara had written an article when he helped build a new Catholic church on the main strip of the city. We weren’t Catholic, but my father always believed in the power of religion. If someone wanted to believe in a God, he used to tell me, who were we to tell them otherwise? Our personal favorite gods were the ones in Roman and Greek mythology. 

My mother had stayed in Santa Clara at first. But when weeks turned into months and the renovations still weren’t completed, she eventually followed my father to the UK. With one addition, of course, since she had been seven weeks pregnant with me. The team of contractors finished the job in about three months, and the original plan was to return to Santa Clara and give birth to me there, surrounded by the community they’d grown up in. But my father had looked so proud of the work he had done in the little Cheshire town and my mother didn’t have the heart to drag him away. Without planning, without a schedule, they had applied for citizenship.

It was a struggle. I was born that summer, and while caring for their new baby girl, they also had to perfect their English. They had a basic knowledge of the English language and could speak it pretty well, but they weren’t experts. They raised me in an English household, and we learned alongside each other. That was my biggest regret, if I looked back. I wish they had immersed me in both languages, that way I could get a glimpse into the culture I was born into. I knew enough Spanish to get my by, but not nearly as much as I wanted to. 

In five years, they had gotten their citizenship and I had never even seen pictures of Cuba.

I knew they weren’t ashamed of their heritage. They were just excited for this new life, a life in a city that praised my father for the work he’d done. But my mother traded in vaca frita for Shepherd’s pie, and her guayabera dress was put in the back of her closet. Maybe I resented them a little bit for not teaching me about Cuba, but I could never tell them that. They would be heartbroken, especially after all the work they put into becoming citizens of the UK.

But it made reading the comic book even more emotional.

I knew superheroes of color existed. Black Panther, Luke Cage, and Ms. Marvel were among the few I could list. There was something about seeing Sam Wilson, a man of color, being Captain America that made my eyes misty as I read. Captain America, who was supposed to be a symbol of freedom and bravery, was a black man. It reminded me of my parents, traveling thousands of miles to live in a city they weren’t familiar with.

I wished it reminded me of myself.

There was a box of tissues I kept by my bedside for moments exactly like these. I grabbed one, wiping underneath my eyes and sniffling as I closed the comic book for the third time and put it on my nightstand next to my bed. I had fallen asleep after my second time with the comic book and had been able to get a couple of hours before I had woken up, grabbed a bowl of cereal, and opened it up to read it for a third time. 

I knew what I was really doing. I was avoiding the email that sat in my inbox, untouched since the previous week, when it had been sent.

The email from Harry (or, what I assumed was Harry. I still wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not) had been on the back of my mind all week. His email had mentioned that he would be in town in two weeks time, and that had been last week. I had six days, seven hours, and about forty-two minutes before the whirlwind that was Harry Styles came back to London. Briefly, I wondered if he would make a stop in Holmes Chapel. I knew his mum and sister were close to him, and as far as I was aware, they both still lived in Holmes Chapel. And if he stopped by there, would he run into his old buddies that tormented me? Would he tell them about how he made Petra Gallego fall for his sweet email and make me the butt of his jokes?

I hadn’t emailed him back. What was I going to say? That I would love to catch up with him? That was an absolute lie. I would be perfectly content if I never had to see Harry Styles again. In the back of my mind, I knew he probably hadn’t meant the things he’d done when he was sixteen. Boys were supposed to be stupid at that age, right? That’s what my parents told me. But when I talked to Melody about it— the only one I had confided in about the popstar— she had told me in very colorful language that that logic was bullshit. Sixteen was perfectly old enough to know right from wrong, she reminded me. If there was one phrase Melody hated more than anything, it was the expression “boys will be boys.”

He hadn’t bothered to send another email. He probably knew that I was more than likely not going to reply to the first one. If he had any shred of kindness in his shriveled up little heart, he would respect that he had been a dick and that he didn’t deserve my forgiveness. He would recognize that asking me to meet for dinner or a drink in the casual way he had, as if nothing had happened between us, was absolutely terrible.

Maybe he wanted to apologize in person. I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

But damn it if I wasn’t curious.

However, I didn’t have time to be curious. I was due to meet Melody at La Violetta in an hour and I still wasn’t dressed. My hair was pretty much unsaveable, but if I threw it up in a ponytail it wouldn’t matter. There was a pretty tan, long-sleeved dress that I had in the back of my closet with the tags still on it, so I decided tonight was as good a time as any to wear it out. I paired it with some brown ankle boots that were just tall enough to hide the fact that I was wearing Star Wars socks. 

My phone rang as I was struggling to apply mascara in my tiny bathroom. I absentmindedly slid my finger across the screen, not bothering to look at who was calling me.

“Hello?”

“Has Jeremiah called you yet?”

I raised a brow at Veronica’s voice. “Veronica? What are you calling me for? Isn’t it your anniversary with Bailey tonight?” Actually, I knew it was her anniversary, because she hadn’t been at the studio last night. She wanted to get a decent night of beauty rest because she had planned a surprise day trip for the two of them to celebrate five years. I thought it was so cute that I forgot to be upset she wouldn’t be there in the studio while we recorded. 

“Oh shit he hasn’t called you yet. Fuck, I knew I should have texted him before I called you.”

“What?” I asked, horribly confused. I heard shuffling in the background and could only guess it was Bailey. “Hi Bailey! How’s the anniversary going?” I called.

I heard Bailey laugh. “Hi Petra. It’s going really well. Hope you didn’t miss Veronica too badly yesterday.”

“You know, Jeremiah and I barely even noticed she wasn’t there. It was a nice, kind of serene quiet. You’ll have to have anniversaries more often.”

Bailey laughed but Veronica scoffed. “Whatever. Jeremiah’s calling you soon. Ignore this call I guess.”

Before I could ask what the hell was going on, she hung up. I stared at my phone for a couple of seconds in confusion, as if it would give me the answers I sought. I almost expected it to light up, informing me that Jeremiah was calling. When two minutes passed with no sign of my ringtone, I sighed and got back to work on applying my mascara without getting it all over my face. I didn’t wear makeup often. Not because I didn’t like wearing makeup, or because I thought I was above wearing makeup. Most of the time, I was quite honestly too lazy to do it. I showed up to Outset in pajamas most weeks, and I never really went anywhere else, so it wasn’t a surprise my makeup sat mostly untouched. 

Once my face was sufficiently covered under a good layer of makeup, I still had about fifteen minutes before I had to leave. I wondered if I could get a big chunk of the Sam Wilson comic read in the remaining fifteen minutes, but decided against it because I’d probably start crying again. Instead, I decided to check plane ticket prices to Cuba, like I always did. I knew I could probably afford them. AC did well enough and my book was in the final stages of editing before it would be published. I wasn’t worried about the money it would cost. I was worried that if I went, I would be betraying my parents. 

Still, I longed to see Havana at night. I wanted to see the fire festival in Santiago de Cuba. And I wanted to walk the streets of Santa Clara at night and imagine that I was my mother, waiting for my father to return from Cheshire so we could get ready for the baby girl on the way. I wanted to stand in the same place my mother had stood when she found out she was pregnant with me.

I closed the safari webpage on my phone. I wouldn’t lose the information. It was bookmarked. But looking at it brought the same kind of sadness the Sam Wilson comic had, and I could feel the tears working their way from my dry throat to my eyes, and I truly didn’t want to ruin the mascara I’d put on. Not after I’d nearly poked my eye out with the wand and had spent five minutes getting the smudge of black gone from underneath my lower lash line. 

Have you left yet? Knowing you, you’re still reading that comic.

Melody knew me too well. I sent back a quick text that I was on my way before tossing my phone into the small clutch I was bringing to La Violetta. My clutch had already been packed with my taser and pepper spray, so I had to shuffle a bit for my phone to fit, but one could never be too safe. Another lesson my parents had instilled in me. They preferred when I carried both but would settle for knowing I had either one in my vicinity. My father had once almost been jumped when he lived in Santa Clara after he had gotten into an argument at a bar. He said he didn’t care if the men thought it was sneaky that he used a taser instead of his fists. They were all on the ground in seconds.

Locking the door of my flat behind me, I turned to meet with the Uber I had ordered. I would usually walk to the restaurant, since it wasn’t too far away, but I was wearing ankle boots that had a heel and I knew walking in heels was asking for blisters and sore feet. My landlady was standing outside, getting ready to go into her own flat when she spotted me. She sent me a quick smile.

“Evening, Petra. How’s that little alien show you do?”

“Doing great, Ms. Wilcox. How’s your new grandbaby?”

“Oh, he’s adorable. But they’ve gone and named him Archibald. Who in the bloody hell names their kid Archibald?”

“I don’t know. But Archie’s a cute nickname, don’t you think?”

She hmphed in a tone that let me know the nickname Archie wasn’t enough justification for naming a child Archibald. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t even register anyone named Archibald as ever having been a baby. They were born with names like Liam or Jake and then evolved into Archibalds when they started working, like a human Pokémon. I waved to her as my Uber pulled up, a ugly orange color that I would never be caught dead driving in, especially in the streets of London. Still, Carter (my driver) had a car and I didn’t, so I suppose he was better off than I was. 

It only took about five minutes to get to the restaurant, and I tipped Carter for the short ride before getting out of his ugly orange car. Inside, I spotted Melody right away. She was sitting at one of the tables in the back, the one we usually sat in, and sipping on something that looked like lemonade but probably had alcohol in it. She waved me over when she caught my eye.

“Okay, we can have the margherita pizza or the barbeque chicken pizza. They have dinner specials on those tonight. They also have five dollar drinks, so I already ordered you a Long Island iced tea. If you don’t like those, fuck it, I’ll drink that too.”

I laughed. “Long Islands are fine with me. How was work?”

Sometimes, I couldn’t tell if Melody loved or hated her job. I didn’t know enough about what data analysts had to do. Obviously I knew they analyzed data and The Associates Global was a sales company, but other than that, I had no clue. I expected the world of how podcasts work was just as unknown to her. But the difference between us was that it was impossible to wonder if I hated my job. I wasn’t even sure if Melody knew whether or not she liked her job.

“Tiring. Trennan pitched their numbers today and they’re atrocious, Petra. It made me want to cry. Hence, the fact that I am on my second drink of the night.” She held up her lemonade-looking drink and took a long sip. “Anyway, I know that Stuart guy gave you the comic. How many times have you read it?”

“Three,” I replied honestly. Maybe Melody’s philosophy of oversharing had been passed onto me, or maybe it was because I was comfortable with her, but I never felt bad about myself when I told her about how I spent my days. She never judged, and I liked that about her. “It’s so beautifully illustrated and the story is so good.”

“Plus Anthony Mackie is extremely easy on the eyes,” Melody supplied helpfully.

I clinked the glass of my cup to the glass of hers, agreeing silently. We both took drinks. “I really hope he’s the route they go with at the end of Endgame. I hypothesized with Stuart that Steve’s going to die so they’re going to get a new Captain America. It’s either gonna be Bucky or Sam, but I’m really rooting for Sam.”

“I’m just excited for Captain Marvel,” Melody mentioned. “I bought our tickets for the opening night screening and watched the trailer twice today when I was pretending to listen to Trennan fuck up our numbers. It looks epic.”

It did look epic. I was excited for it. And had already guessed on Alien Crossing that she’d be a big help in defeating Thanos when Endgame came out in April. Before Melody and I could discuss anything more, the waiter came over and took our order. La Violetta sold baby pizzas meant for an individual, and since Melody’s margherita didn’t sound like it would hit the spot tonight, I ordered the barbeque chicken. He took our menus and left us alone once more.

“Did you hear anything more from that raging twat?”

Here’s the thing. When the name Harry Styles was brought up in public, someone would inevitably turn their head. Whether it was an early twenty-something who had grown up with him in One Direction or an older generation who liked rock music and adored his new album, someone always looked over. And it was pretty hard to have a cathartic shit-talking session when someone was hanging on every word you said about said popstar. To make up for this fact, Melody had given to calling him raging twat. It avoided the looks and also made me feel a little better.

“Nope. Just the one email. I’m just not going to respond.” I didn’t know when I had decided this, but the words sounded true enough coming out of my mouth. “He made my life a living hell. Things got so unbelievably easy when he left Holmes Chapel. Sure, his friends were still dicks, but without the raging twat near they left me alone for the most part. Why would I accept his apology anyway?”

“That’s even if he was emailing about apologizing. He might have just ignored the fact that he fucked up your secondary experience and just wanted to get drinks. Hence, he’s a raging twat.”

“I keep thinking about that. What if it’s all a joke and he’d just going to have a laugh at me? And the email didn’t mention anything about what an arse he was. Don’t you think that if you had tormented someone for four years of my life, you would want to apologize?”

Melody gave me a deadpan look. “I apologize to Nemo when I leave the light on.”

Nemo was Melody’s new fish. Dr. Thorne had suggested that she keep Nemo at her flat so that whenever her roommates were driving her mad and my flat wasn’t available, she’d have someone to talk to. The two of us had spent three hours trying to pick out the perfect fish for her and an additional hour and a half trying to decide on a name. Nemo didn’t look anything like his namesake, but it was too cute an opportunity to pass up.

“Point is, if I apologize to my fish for something as small as forgetting to turn his light off, the raging twat should apologize for all the nasty things he’s said to you. But, since you’re definitely not replying, you don’t have to worry about it. London’s a big city. I doubt he’ll come to Outset and stalk you.”

Feeling a lot better about the situation now that I’d had time to actually sit down and discuss the situation with Melody, I was able to relax. I enjoyed my Long Island and ordered another one when the first one ran out. I ate all of my pizza and wiped the barbeque sauce from my lips without a care in the world. And when Melody and I were done at La Violetta, we made our way to The William Morris Pub because neither of us wanted the night to be over.

Melody told me more about her coworkers. I hadn’t actually met any of them, but Trennan was her immediate boss and was an absolute idiot. Melody ended up doing most of his work for him. He was nice enough, Melody admitted after I’d questioned whether or not he was rude, just oblivious to how the real world worked. I told her about Veronica’s weird phone call, but that she and Bailey were enjoying their five-year anniversary. We bet on how long it would take Veronica to propose, since Veronica was definitely the one that would be proposing. Bailey was just too shy. We talked about Jeremiah and how Zach was still driving him around whenever Jeremiah asked. Melody felt a strange kinship with Zach, considering she’d once been the younger sister that had to be the designated driver for her siblings.

It was nice. Though I loved Alien Crossing with all my heart and was proud of what I’d accomplished, it was always nice to take a step back. Sometimes I had tunnel-vision and the view at the end of the tunnel was my podcast. I had to work on reminding myself that I had a life outside of AC. I had friends and family who loved and cared about me. When was the last time I had called my parents? I guiltily thought back to about three weeks ago. I’d have to apologize, but they’d forgive me easily, like they always did. They were glad that I was taking advantage of something I genuinely loved to do.

This was the reason I didn’t answer Jeremiah’s first call. But when he called again, which was unlike him, I excused myself for a moment to step out of the bar and answer his call.

“Jeremiah? What’s up?”

“Did Veronica call you?”

I sighed. “Yes, she did. And she left whatever she needed to say to you. Said to ignore the fact she even called.”

“Fucking coward, she is. Okay, so I’m not sure how to say this.”

“Is everything alright? Are you or Zach hurt?” My thoughts immediately went to Jeremiah’s younger brother. He drove all the time. Had he gotten behind the wheel drunk?

“Everything’s fine, Pet. Collin Sandeke’s mother just passed away. He’s flying out to America and staying there for the next week and a half to help with funeral arrangements. He can’t make next week.”

Collin Sandeke worked on his own sci-fi podcast in South Africa, where he had been living for the past three years. He was a nerd like me, and I had been really excited about him being on the show. We’d been in contact for the past two years, and it was the first time our schedules worked out. I felt my heart go out to him. “Shit, that’s rough.” I ran my hand through my ponytail, probably messing it up. “Shit!”

“I know. He called the studio earlier and Tim asked me to relay the message. We’re down a guest, Pet.”

I wouldn’t be upset. It wasn’t Collin’s fault his mother had passed away. And I would definitely send him an email later, and maybe get the address he was staying at in America so I could send some flowers. I wouldn’t be upset, I reminded myself, even when my throat closed suddenly and I felt like screaming. It took months to get guests lined up. Understandably, schedules were very busy. The short notice put a wrench in things.

“Thanks for telling me, Jer. I’ll figure something out and get back to you, yeah?”

“Sounds good. Sorry for ruining your night, Pet.”

“You didn’t. Get some sleep, it’s late.”

I hung up the phone feeling dejected and defeated. When I walked back into William Morris, Melody picked up on my dejected expression immediately. “What’s wrong, Petra?”

“Collin Sandeke, our guest for next week, is in America. His mother passed away. He can’t make it to AC next week.”

“Shit. Sorry, Petra.”

I shrugged, because again, I wouldn’t be upset. “I’ll figure something out. If all else fails, we just won’t have a guest. I can keep people occupied by myself for an hour if I have to.”

But I didn’t want to. I liked having guests. It made the entire podcast feel more personal, somehow. I wracked my brain as Melody and I parted for the night and I Uber’d back to my flat. There really wasn’t anyone else I could ask. Not at the last minute like this. 

I kicked off my shoes when I got into my flat and sighed, leaning against my front door for a minute before I made my way to the living room. I opened up my laptop, ready to investigate and see if I could get someone, when the email from Harry popped up. Last time I had my laptop opened, I had looked at the email and read it twice, just to make sure it hadn’t been a dream and that Harry Styles was actually emailing me. I must have left it open.

I’ll be in your area in two weeks.

A lightbulb went off.

I bit my lip as the idea imbedded itself into my head. I hated Harry Styles. He was a dick. But didn’t I love my fellow nerds more than I hated him? Didn’t I owe it to them to have an awesome guest on the show? I mean, I didn’t think he was awesome at all, but other people obviously did.

I decided the question came down to whether or not it was worth it for me to bring up all those feelings of negativity and self-consciousness.

Letting out a sigh, I begun to type out an email.

~

There had been five main people in secondary school who made me want to curl behind a rock and hide.

One was obviously Harry, with his cruel words. The second was a kid named Oliver, who I’d been in school with since kindergarten. He hadn’t always been rude, but I imagine being popular had made him act differently. The third was a girl named Emma, who was the antithesis of me in every way possible. While my skin was tanned and stuck out in a class full of pale students, hers was the color of coffee creamer. She usually made jabs based on my appearance, and so her insults hurt the least. I always thought that if someone insulted another’s appearance, it was because they were insecure about their own. Emma was a very beautiful girl, so that was her problem to deal with. The fourth was Emma’s on-again, off-again boyfriend named George. He was a bit of an idiot, so I never took anything he said to heart.

Perhaps the one person I hated more than Harry Styles was the fifth and final member of my own personal gang of tormentors. Nathan Penrose was a physical and emotional bully. He’d been the one person to actually bother making fun of me after Harry had left for the X-Factor. Like Harry, he commented on how my head was up in the clouds and I would never amount to much. Unlike Harry, he also commented on my Cuban background.

Since school, I had grown into my own skin. The things I shied away from when I was teased, I now embraced. People listened to Alien Crossing and liked that I was so involved with the topics I discussed. The people I invited to be guests were like icing on the cake, made to give their expertise and opinions on whatever we were discussing.

I didn’t want Harry Styles to be a guest on my show.

The show was my safe space. It was what I had turned to my first month of uni when I still had no friends besides my weird roommate who I hadn’t heard from since our third year. Inviting Harry had been a mistake, that I knew. I was inviting him back in to tease and ridicule. But I read the comments when I posted on AC’s official Instagram account that Harry would be a surprise, last-minute guest this week and they had been overwhelmingly positive and excited.

And so, I needed Harry Styles to be a guest on my show.

I had agreed, stupidly, to meet him an hour before we were supposed to head over to Outset just so I could give him a rundown on what we would be discussing and he wasn’t thrown in blindly. Podcasts weren’t like interviews. Interviews were the barest of glimpses into Harry’s life. In my podcast, we’d delve deep into the topic and the details. So while I hadn’t wanted to meet him beforehand, if I wanted this episode of AC to be a success, I knew I had to coach Harry on how the entire process was going to go.

I hadn’t told Melody about this little arrangement. Mostly because I was a little embarrassed. We’d spent our night out at La Violetta discussing what a raging twat Harry was, and that I was going to be stubborn and not reply to his email. I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me for asking him to be a guest. Because I knew she would be. She would tell me that I couldn’t let people get away with treating me like that, and she was right. It made me a pretty self-deprecating person if I was willing to put myself back in Harry’s line of fire. 

Since I didn’t want to give Harry any reasons to make me the butt of his jokes, I hadn’t worn my pajamas like I usually did, which already set me on edge. I’d be uncomfortable in my jeans while we recorded. I blamed Harry. I also wasn’t wearing my comfortable slippers, but instead the same ankle boots I’d worn for my night out with Melody. I blamed him (and any heel pain) for that too. My hair was actually done considering I’d slept in curlers the night before in nervous anticipation for Harry’s arrival. I’ll be there around six in the evening and meet you at that twenty-four hour diner at half past eleven, he’d emailed me when I asked what time he was arriving earlier this morning. I wondered where he was going in the five and a half hours he had free. Probably telling all our schoolmates that he had a wicked plan up his sleeve and was going to drop pig’s blood on me like Carrie.

He had offered to pick me up since we were going to the same place afterwards, but I immediately refused his offer. For once, I didn’t care about my carbon footprint. I didn’t care if I had to take seven bloody separate vehicles. I was not riding with Harry Styles. I wouldn’t put myself purposefully in close proximity to him without a goal in mind. The goal for the dinner was to coach. The goal for the podcast was so I’d have a fairly impressive guest to leave my listeners satisfied. Beyond that, he was useless to me.

My phone pinged. I knew it wasn’t Harry because I hadn’t given him my number and I didn’t have alerts set up for my emails. It was Jeremiah.

We can just tell the listeners that you’re sick. If you don’t want him there, he doesn’t have to be there.

I appreciated Jeremiah’s loyalty, but unfortunately, it was much too late to do anything about my decision. I typed out a quick response. Thanks for the solidarity. We’ll both be there at one.

My Uber for the night wasn’t an ugly car like when I had gone out with Melody. This was a nice Kia, pearl in color with an older gentleman behind the wheel. My phone said his name was Norman. He said I looked nice when I got in the car and asked if I was meeting a boyfriend for dinner. I told him I was meeting someone I hated and wanted to show them that their presence didn’t affect me in the slightest. Norman got rather quiet after that.

There weren’t any expensive looking cars when I got to Wine & Love so I assumed Harry wasn’t there yet. I had only been here once before and I remembered not being very fond of it. Naturally, I had suggested we go there when we met for dinner. I didn’t want him invading in the restaurants I did like. Though I did send a wistful look to William Morris Pub across the way (since everything in Merton was basically walking distance), I ignored my longing to walk inside the pub and instead made my way inside the dimly lit winery.

I didn’t bother going to sit at one of the tables. I had figured Harry wouldn’t be here on time, and I wasn’t going to look like a loser sitting at a table by myself. I sat in the main foyer of the winery, taking out my phone and playing some game Veronica had downloaded on my phone. Only about a minute passed before someone’s shadow blocked the light of my phone. I looked up, expecting to see Harry, but instead saw someone that worked there. “Hi, I’m just waiting for someone.”

“Yeah, Harry Styles. He’s already here,” the waiter said, pointing behind him and into the back of the restaurant. “He told me to keep a lookout for you because he didn’t think you’d see your table in the back. Petra, right?”

“Um… yeah.” I grabbed my purse from where I had set it down next to me and dazedly stood from my seat. The waiter led me to the back of the restaurant, back to a table I’m sure Harry requested because it was behind a giant potted fern that hid him pretty well. In fact, I didn’t completely see him until we turned the corner and there he was, smiling politely.

He was the same and yet so different all at once. Gone were the floppy curls I’m sure fangirls would have paid millions for and instead his hair was in disarray, in that “I woke up like this” style that rockstars seemed to always have. He had a little bit of stubble lining his face, but still had those dimples that the girls at school had written love poems about. They were deep as craters now, as he grinned up at me like we were the best of friends. He was wearing an atrocious floral print shirt that actually resembled a pair of pajama pants I owned and tight jeans that would take me hours to shimmy my hips out of.

“Thanks, Richard,” Harry mentioned to the waiter, and the deep baritone voice was strange. It didn’t sound the same as the voice that had told me to get my head out of my ass and grow up. I imagined hearing that same sentiment from this voice would strangely hurt even more. Richard moved to go take care of the other patrons of the winery and suddenly those green eyes were on me. “Hi, Petra,” he said softly, like I was a scared animal that would run off.

I said nothing, simply slammed my purse down on the booth seat and plopped my body down in a similar fashion. I immediately lifted the drink menu, figuring I wasn’t getting through this dinner without some alcohol in my system. I decided on a sophisticated red wine that I couldn’t properly pronounce the name of and only then did I lower the menu and meet Harry’s gaze.

He was smiling shyly and patiently. “You look great.”

“Surprised?” I questioned, raising a brow.

“Not really,” he mentioned offhandedly, shrugging his shoulders. 

I hmphed with the fervor of Ms. Wilcox finding out her new grandson’s name was Archibald. “Right.”

We stared at each other for a few moments, his eyes so wide and green that it felt like I was looking into an oil painting. I wasn’t sure what he saw when he looked at me, but a pissed off expression probably wasn’t a far off guess. “So, what gives? Why’d you want to meet?”

“I could ask the same thing. Why’d you ask me to be on your podcast?”

“Because Collin Sandeke’s mother died and he couldn’t make it. You were a last resort. Don’t flatter yourself thinking there’d be any other reason.”

He flinched, as if my words were actually painful for him. “I deserved that.”

“You deserve much more. I’m holding back, believe me.” Richard interrupted us then, asked us for our drink order, and I ordered a bottle of red wine under the reasoning that Harry would be paying for this meal whether he liked it or not. I hoped the wine was expensive.

When Richard left again, Harry let out a sigh. “I asked to meet because you haven’t been in Holmes Chapel since 2012 and I had no idea where you lived. I knew you went to college in London, but I didn’t want to invade your privacy and find out where. It wasn’t until I heard Alien Crossing a couple of months ago that I figured out you were in Merton.”

It was so weird to hear the title of my podcast coming out of his mouth. “Why did you even bother looking for me?”

He looked baffled. “I needed to apologize. I was… I was an absolute asshole.”

“Yeah, I know. I was there. Problem is, I don’t really want or care about your apology. You were an asshole and I came home from school crying everyday. When you fucked off to X-Factor, it was the best day of my life. The only reason we’re even sitting here right now is because I needed a last minute substitution for the guest tonight.”

His eyes went wide and incredibly soft at the same time. “I didn’t know you went home crying.”

Scoffing, I crossed my arms over my chest. “It wouldn’t be a hard guess. I was the butt of all your jokes. Why wouldn’t I have cried?”

“You just seemed so...confident. Sure of yourself. Like the words I was saying didn’t even pierce you.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to have said them!” I hissed out, unable to keep the venom out of my voice. He had the decency to look like he was the gum underneath someone’s shoe. “I left Holmes Chapel the second I could because you and your group of friends made me hate the things I once loved. And as a result, made me hate myself. So forgive me if I don’t accept your apology, Harry.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I made you feel that way. Gemma found out shortly after I left, how I was treating you. She gave me a bloody nose. My mum cried. She sent your parents an edible arrangement.”

I didn’t want to hear that his sister and mother were horrified at the way he’d treated me. His mum could send all the edible arrangements she wanted. His sister could bruise every inch of his skin. It still didn’t change the fact that I had left Holmes Chapel the most depressed I’d ever been. “I don’t want to hear about your mum and sister, Harry. You should have taken responsibility for your own actions. They shouldn’t have had to.”

“No, they shouldn’t have,” he whispered, shaking his head as if he couldn’t fathom that he’d once treated me the way he had.

Richard brought our wine and took our orders for food. I didn’t even look at the name of the entree I eventually decided on, just checked to make sure it was the most expensive thing on the menu. 

We sat in silence for approximately ten minutes before I finally sighed. “As hard as it is to believe, I didn’t agree to this dinner so I could yell at you. I came to explain how the recording will work tonight and what to expect. Just because you were a last minute add-in doesn’t mean this episode can be lackluster. I’ve worked too hard on this to have my emotions ruin it.”

“What do I have to do?” He asked, eagerly leaning forward like I was about to impart some Galadriel level wisdom.

“This episode has to flow. We’ve changed the topic to something you’ll be more comfortable with. We’ll be discussing the importance of music scores in big movies. Have you seen The Lord of the Rings?” At his sheepish look, I sighed. “Right. Have you at least seen Harry Potter?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. So Jeremiah, our sound guy, will probably play some of the big music from the series. I’ll give a brief overview of the scene it’s used in just in case you don’t remember, and you’ve just got to talk about why that particular music made the scene even more profound. I figure you can bullshit something considering you create music for a living.”

“Sounds easy enough,” he mentioned, nodding his head seriously.

“It’s not easy,” I argued, narrowing my eyes. “People tune in to listen to this because it’s a safe space for them. I created an environment in which people like me can openly talk about the things they love. I want to make every episode special for them.”

How dare he call the work I was doing easy? Sure, it wasn’t as complicated as most jobs, but it still meant something. I was a beacon of hope for people like me. A sign that a nerdy girl could make a living talking passionately about something she loved. It wasn’t as nuanced as being an actress or a musician, but it was still important. I saw his mouth twitch, like he was going to respond, but Richard appeared like a guardian angel with our food. I angrily stabbed my knife into the steak placed in front of me, imagining it was Harry’s thigh.

“I really am sorry, Petra,” he whispered when I poured myself a glass of wine, with extreme vigor.

I didn’t want to hear his apology now. I wanted to hear them when I was sixteen, crying in my room and tearing down all of my Star Wars posters from the wall. I wanted to hear it when I had my first appointment with Dr. Thorne, when I had insisted that I was over my schoolmates’ judgement and she had stared at me like she didn’t believe a word I was saying. I wanted it my first day at Outset, when I felt like an outsider and would have given anything for a friendly face.

The words meant nothing to me now.

“I’m sorry your apology isn’t enough.”

[controloffandoms]

My Captain Pt. 3 (P.P./S.M.)

Prompt: I’ve been holding out on this idea because I didn’t know if it would be well taken...but it kinda ties in perfectly to what I was planning before.

Pairing: Peter Parker x reader

Words: 2451

Warnings: Past!death, cursing, science-crazy reader, guilt, anger, emotional reader

Notes: I’m very insecure of this part...but we’re gonna roll with it.

Part 1    Part 2

Breaking into OSCORP was the easiest part of your day. 

The start of the day had been filled with letting Matt and company know about you and your past. It was filled with Tony Stark screaming through a phone that he was personally going to kill you and Peter for the shit you’d pulled. It was filled with a lot of anxiety. You and Peter had deactivated your trackers on the suits and had set out for OSCORP right after lunch. You couldn’t wait for night to fall...you needed to figure everything out and fast, before Tony could track you both down. 

It was laughable how easy it was to get into OSCORP without the workers knowing you were there. What was even more laughable was the fact that you and Peter were in the room with another scientist who was doing experiments of his own and he didn’t seem to mind that both of you were in the lab with him. The downside at breaking in during the day is that none of the labs were vacant, so you both had chosen the lab with the least amount of people.

You both were running tests on the blood you’d gotten from Goblin in your struggle with him the previous night. If you could find a way to cure Norman, you could stop blaming yourself for the colossal mess you’d made yesterday. 

You looked over Peter’s shoulder, at the other scientist, to make sure the man was none the wiser to what you were doing. If he had a change of pace and began to call for security, you’d need to be ready to knock him out. After getting to OSCORP, you’d both decided that you should probably be in civilian clothes. After an impromptu stop at a Walmart, you were in casual business clothes so that you would blend in more. This also meant that your faces were uncovered...there was no hiding behind a mask.

“Check out the nucleotide bonding in his DNA,” Peter called softly. You walked over, peering over his shoulder.

“But they shouldn’t be attached like that. Adenine pairs with Thymine and Guanine pairs with Cytosine. Adenine doesn’t pair with Guanine-ever, same goes for Thymine and Cytosine...the serum shouldn’t have been able to change human base pairs,” you furrowed your eyebrows and went back to your analysis. 

“The blood clotting and oxygenation is also different. From my scans his blood doesn’t clot. As for Oxygenation, each blood cell is only able to carry half the amount of hemoglobin than a normal human should be able to carry. The other half is filled with a green substance...I guess that’s his ‘Goblin’ DNA,” you sighed quietly.

“This is more intricate than we previously thought,” Peter’s lips formed a thin line. “Wait, wait...the RNA, it transcribed perfectly to human standards. There was no change in the base pairs to suggest that they are going to pair with anything but the original base pairs that are supposed to go together. So whatever is changing the AT-GC pairing has to happen outside of the nucleus. If we isolate the process in the nucleus and then transcribe the replicating DNA ourselves, we should, theoretically, be able to clone enough of the regular DNA to at least bring Norman back to normal for the time being before finding a permanent cure,” his excited whisper brought a smile to your face.

“Then let’s do that, Pete. We should be able to isolate the DNA and transcribe it into RNA and still have enough of the sample to analyze later to get a permanent cure.”

________________

“How’d it go,” Matt asked as he sat on the couch with a glass of water in his hands. Karen and Foggy were working on laptops, but stopped to see you both walk in.

“Nothing permanent yet, but we may have a temporary cure for Norman,” Peter sighed, a smile taking over his face. 

“We didn’t come to the root of his becoming the Goblin, but we found anomalies in his DNA that were definite red flags. With more time and probably a couple of more samples from Norman, we should be able to come up with a permanent cure,” you added.

“Wait, you’re and alien-in the nicest way possible, I say this-how do you know about human DNA and all of that,” Foggy asked. 

You rose an eyebrow and rolled your eyes. “I am what you guys call a genius. The intellect that I was injected with has the ability to understand things your brains could never comprehend. It was not too hard to figure out your biology.”

“What’s next,” Karen asked. 

“Well, we need to get Norman injected with this semi-cure and get more blood samples from him. We also need to stop Fisk and Ock from going ahead with their plans,” Peter sat in the armchair across from the couch while you went to fix both of you glasses of water. 

“Speaking of Ock and plans, I need to borrow a laptop. That information we got off of Ock last night isn’t going to read itself.”

Karen offered her laptop to you and you set it up on the counter in front of you as Peter came up to you. He took the glass you offered to him and handed you the USB he’d downloaded the information onto. You both watched as documents started to fill the screen rapidly. “Learn to organize,” Peter muttered. 

As files stopped filling the screen, you pulled up the last one to come up. “Plan 14-R-T-P-94.” You skimmed over it, stopping on a drawing that summed up what you had skimmed. “No fucking way,” you muttered, continuing to scroll down and read more into the plan. “That’s not-how,” you asked, stopping on another drawing. Continuing down, you swore your heart stopped beating. 

You closed out all of the files at one, giving the laptop back to Karen, and tucking the USB into your pocket. You were talking to yourself as you went over it in your head. Had Ock actually figured it out? You grabbed your suit, still paying no mind to the others in the room. You hadn’t seen plans that drawn out and high on the intellect chain since you snuck into the Capitol building on your home planet and gained access to the Intellect Library. 

A hand stopped you from moving any further. “Tell me what’s going on,” Peter’s eyes begged you. 

You stuttered before coming up with something to say to him. “I need to do more research. I need to understand how Ock came to his conclusions on Plan 14-R-T-P-94. If he is right, then it could spell world disaster...or-or better the world, depending on who uses it. The library on my planet, assuming it hasn’t been destroyed, will have the research I need to verify his assumptions.”

Your mind was half focused on the person in front of you, half running through the bit of information you’d read. A shake to your shoulders caused you to turn back to Peter. “Do you really think this is a good idea with everything that’s going on? I couldn’t understand half of the gibberish that was on that file, are you sure it means anything?”

You moved out of his grip, a small glare on your face. “It is in a language you do not understand. It is using methods that no meer mortal man would ever understand. Only and intellect as high as those on Tehnoloģiju Pasaule have the knowledge to pull what Ock wants off. I will return once I have looked into the matter.”

Peter could only watch as you left, a pit in the bottom of his stomach. He didn’t know why, but he had a feeling that whatever you found from your research would only end up hurting you or others around you. He only hoped you wouldn’t take too long to come back.

______________

True to your word, within a couple of days you were back, carrying a large sack of books. Upon entering Matt’s apartment, you were met with silence. Peter was probably out trying to figure out Fisk’s next move. Matt, Foggy, and Karen had actual jobs to attend to...you hoped that you’d be able to crack exactly what Ock was hoping to accomplish...you also needed to know how he’d learned of your language...your long lost language. 

______________

Six Hours Later

The scene that everyone walked in on was messy. There were books and sheets of paper strewn everywhere. There were multiple papers attached to the wall with yarn connecting them. In the middle of it all, was you. Your hair looked like you had been running a hand through it every couple of seconds for the last however long you’d been working on this project.

You didn’t even acknowledge their entrance. You were too caught up in your own world. Taking the paper you had been writing on, you flew to the ceiling, a string of yarn following you as you stuck them both to the ceiling and connected the other end of the yarn to a piece of paper on the other side of the ceiling before bringing the yarn back to the middle where a 3-D model of something sat. 

You pulled up a hologram from your suit with the file from Ock’s computer on it, before nodding to yourself. So far you had every step in his process to get Thanos back. You’d even paired it back with research you’d done on his individual steps. Now was time for the practicality of it. With another sheet of paper, you wrote out equation after equation, solving it with ease.

An astonished laugh escaped your mouth as you went still. It could actually work. You could actually go back in time to the exact moment where things went to shit and change it all. With a few modifications to the idea and a few parameters to ensure that the universe wouldn’t fold in on itself, it was totally possible to go back in time to save Carol and bring her to your time. “He actually figured it out,” you stated amazed. 

The clearing of a throat broke you from your thoughts. Your head snapped to the doorway. Four pairs of eyes stared back at you before looking around the room. “What did ‘he’ figure out,” Matt asked.

“He figured out what we all want to figure out. A way to change past events without the universe folding in on itself. With a few changes and additions, it’s almost perfect. Think-think of what we could accomplish with this technology. You could go back to the first war with Thanos and stop him from ever snapping his fingers. You could go back to the 1940s and stop World War II from ever starting. You could go back to the first World War and stop that. You could bring World Peace...you-you could see your loved ones again. Save planets and others. The possibilities are endless!”

“(Y/N), what you’re talking about could also go horribly wrong. What if we do cause the universe or the timeline to fold in on itself? It was all written by a deranged scientist, (Y/N)-”

“With-with the modifications I made, it could work. There’s only a nine percent chance that it doesn’t. Ninety-one percent chance that it works. We could-we could change the world as we know it. We could make everything for the better! My planet, I could save them! I could-I could save Carol. Peter, this is-this is what I’ve been waiting for!” 

A look passed over Peter’s face...it wasn’t pleasant and you realized that it was because he wanted everything you said to be true, but knew that you couldn’t risk the chance of causing the end of the universe as you both knew it. “You know we can’t let Ock use this machine. You know we have to destroy it...we have to get rid of everything Ock has on it.”

You shook your head, he couldn’t expect you to just let it go. Why couldn’t he see the endless possibilities? He could have his parents and his uncle back. You could have Carol and your planet...your parents, your friends, your siblings. You backed away from Peter as he stepped closer, still shaking your head, tears threatening to fall. 

“No. Why do you think they have those weapons? I got to looking at the schematics of them and they are meant to pull from other dimensions. When focused on a certain thing they can either push you to another dimension or pull something into this one. Multiple dimensions to choose from. Each one of them having a different event of what happened with Thanos. We can merge dimensions and make life for the better. The knowledge of that dimension’s you becomes your knowledge. Peter...we can fix everything.”

“Not that way. We can’t fix it that way. We’d be taking a whole other dimension’s lives by doing that. Not to mention how unstable it could be. We can fix things here without a whole other problem from trying an untested theory out. Look, I gave the semi-cure to Norman and got more samples. I’m almost certain I have a cure for him. We can fix that. We can stop Ock and Fisk from further fucking up the world. We can fix that. The research you’ve done, we can continue to do after we fix the current problems. We don’t want to rush into something this big, yeah,” Peter asked, hands out in a non-threatening manner.

“Peter’s right,” Matt spoke from behind Peter. “You’ll have plenty of time to look over your research and come up with a plan to possibly change events. If you rush into this, if you miscalculate, you could end us all.”

You bit your lip, looking between the two. Part of your brain was telling you that you should go along with your plan. You had the power of the intellect. You had the highest amount of knowledge in the room. You wouldn’t make a mistake or miscalculation. The other part of your brain acknowledged their concerns...you would have given any of them the same advice they were giving you. “I am not dropping the idea.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“I have an eidetic memory, even if your destroy all of the research, I still have it in my head.”

“I know.” 

“I am going to save Carol, whatever it takes.” A tear fell down your cheek.

“I don’t doubt that.” Peter reached you and pulled you into a hug. “We’ll figure something out.”

Forever Tags

@miraclesoflove​ @san-penedo​ @gracearchives​ @avengersss-assembleee​ @way-ward-whale​ @nocturnalherb16​ @just4muggles​

Spidey Fans

@darktwistydiamond @laic2299 @fun-sized-widow-bites

[thetrashywritingwitch]

This isn’t bnha related but idk who to ask... I’m in high school and worked all my junior year and am currently on academic leave at my job, but I’m supposed to start again next month. I hate my job, and I hate working in general because it takes up what little extra time I have :( I really need the money tho. Do you have any advice on how to make it more bearable? I don’t work with anyone my age and my favorite manager is leaving, idk what to do. Besides my mom work causes me the most anxiety

so i worked all through highschool and all through college with a part time job, even during the summer. so i get it, it sucks. maybe your friends don’t have or need jobs and they can just...do whatever? have free time to enjoy hobbies? maybe they’re more financially stable due to no fault or responsibility of yours

working sucks, but honestly? i learned a lot of shit working retail that i carry into my current job in an office. most people who don’t have that previous experience stand out because 1. they dont know how to interact with other people in a professional work setting and 2. responsibility outside of schoolwork or teachers is foreign and needs to be learned in addition to actual job skill. i call it a failing of public schools not to teach practical skills but that’s a whole different conversation

as for making it more bearable? tough one, because the way capitalism sets up work now is to make it feel like you, the worker, has no power or say over your workspace or job. you’re beholden to the boss who holds a power dynamic that is often abused because they know they can get away with it.

i needed the money so i kept my job at a grocery store for six years all through college and half of high school. it was hard seeing my friends go out and have fun while i had to go to work. but i was also self-sufficient and learned a lot and i dont regret it.

is it possible to find a different job with more people your own age? a restaurant, grocery store, something like that? sometimes coworkers make the job bearable because you have people to talk to, otherwise it can feel super isolating. basically in order to get through it just...separate yourself from your work. once you’re off the clock, you’re done. i’ve found work goes faster if you focus vs trying to fuck around and waste time. when i’m intensely working i lose track of time vs if i’m just going around in circles.

so i guess my advice would be 1. try and find a different job where there are more people your own age so you can relate and talk to them and 2. it sucks and feels like a cop-out, but try and make the best of the situation. you need the money, but you won’t be there forever.

i could put my personal politics into this but i shall refrain to avoid a clusterfuck lol BUT you aren’t alone in your struggles! everyone wants to enjoy their work and it sucks when you’re stranded in something that isn’t fulfilling :(

maybe some of this helps you?? but i wish you luck in finding something better and making it through the rough times!

[timelordthirteen]

Killing Time 10/?

Detective Weaver/Belle French, Explicit

Summary: A Woven Beauty Law & Order-ish AU. Written for Writer’s Month 2019.

Chapter Summary: Flashback: Weaver and Belle make a major discovery in the case.

Notes: So I hope this clears up some of the confusion with the plot of this story. This is majorly late and unbeta'd and barely read over. I'm so sorry for this being a total hot mess and probably riddled with typos. For the Writer's Month prompt#20: weird.

Warnings: Please see AO3 for complete warnings and tags. No additional warnings for this chapter.

[AO3]  Previous: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

9 weeks and 3 days ago...

Belle sighed heavily and sat back in her chair, tossing her pen on the table.

Four days ago she’d fucked her ex-husband on the sofa just behind her. She expected it to cause some fracture in their working relationship, for him to come in the next day or even show up at her apartment to start some huge argument, but things went on as if it never even happened. That unnerved her more than the shouting would have.

At least three different times, she’d almost brought it up, but chickened out at the last second. Things had been too good between them these last few weeks. It was - nice. They’d become some kind of friends again, a bit like it was after they first met, when it was sarcastic, flirty remarks after testimony, or over drinks at Roni’s, and she could admit to herself that she was loathing messing any of that up. Except of course it had escalated from there, just as it had when they finally started dating. One dinner and she let him push her up against the door to her apartment and kiss her senseless, and a minute later she was dragging him into her apartment.

That first time they didn’t even make it to her bed, and she was left with an amusing pattern of lines on her back from the exposed brick wall of her living room. He stayed the night, and by morning she ached like she’d done back to back yoga classes at the gym. She had never had a lover that attentive, who found every button she had and pushed them over and over, or who seemed to like everything she did; hard and rough one time, and soft and intimate the next. Sex was the one thing they never got wrong.

She shouldn’t have let things go that far with Ian, but for a moment while they were dancing it felt like old times, like none of the shit between them had happened, like there wasn’t a murder board behind them and autopsy reports on the table. It was always so damn good with him, and the case overwhelmed her so much that she needed something to push all of it away. Except when it was over everything came rushing back.

A tingling shiver crept over her, and she abruptly pushed back from the table and stood up, silently chastising herself for getting lost in such thoughts. Again. She rubbed at her tired eyes and wiggled her feet back into her shoes before moving across the room to the whiteboard.

The board was completely covered now with photos, reports, and scribbled notes in marker, all comprising a full timeline of some of the most heinous murders she’d ever seen. Her eyes scanned the top where they had taped pictures of the victims, then sectioned off the board between each of them to group the case elements together. Their names were burned into her brain, their smiling faces - faces that would never smile again - permanent fixtures when she closed her eyes.

She sighed again and the office door opened.

“Well, that was a bloody waste of time.”

Belle turned and watched as Weaver strode quickly across the room, dropping the folder he’d taken with him and his notebook on the table.

“What was?” she asked, almost grateful that they could talk about the case and pull her mind away from other things.

“Trying to find Eloise Gardner,” he said, giving her a flat smile. “As near as I can tell, she doesn’t fucking exist.”

Belle made a face. “What?”

He huffed and sat on the edge of the table. “Her last known address is an empty lot that up until a year ago was a community garden. She doesn’t have a driver’s license in this state. She hasn’t paid taxes, apparently ever. I can’t find a Social Security Number, state ID, W-2, forwarding address, employer, or any official piece of paper to prove she existed.”

Belle sank onto the sofa and dropped her head to her hands as she breathed. She looked up at Weaver feeling more tired and drained than she had in days. “So why did Branson say she could prove he was innocent?”

Weaver shrugged. “No clue. Though he did murder five people, so I’m not sure he’s making the best life choices.”

She snorted at that and shook her head. “Did you have any luck with any of the others?”

He turned and picked up the notebook, opening it and flipping passed a few pages. “I found Mr. Porter, the garbage man, at work, but Mrs. Emery was not at her apartment, and no one had seen her in days.”

Belle blinked. “You’re joking…”

He pressed his lips together and shook his head.

Her head dropped again in defeat. “So, our eye witness to the disposal of the last victim, just up and disappeared? Fucking great.”

Weaver started to smile. “Not exactly.” She lifted her head slowly, eyebrows raised. “I tracked down the building manager, and he said she moved out. I went to the post office and they have a forwarding address of a nursing home. I went there and found out she’d had a stroke. Her daughter…” He paused and flipped another page in his notebook. “Laura, arrived from Cambridge last week and has been helping to get her settled in.”

“Cambridge...Massachusetts?”

His lips twitched. “No.”

Her eyes narrowed and then she made a face. “England?”

“Her daughter teaches at the university,” he said, crossing to the sofa and sitting down beside Belle.

“Nice…” she muttered. “So, is she still with it enough to testify?”

“Seems so from talking to her.” He flipped his notebook closed. “She repeated everything the same as in her official statement. The doctor I spoke to said she should be fine now that she’s on medication, and that he’ll provide whatever documentation of her mental faculties is needed.

Belle flopped back against the sofa and slumped. “Thank god.”

“So,” he said, smiling. “That was the last six hours of my life. How was yours?”

“Lousy.” Her eyes rolled up to the ceiling and then she pushed herself up, crossing to the table to pick up a few photos. “I got copies of the crime scene photos we were missing from Crenshaw and Hughes, the last two. Nothing all that enlightening or helpful, though.”

She flipped through them as she walked back towards the sofa. “It’s all mostly background stuff that got left out, like the cars that were in the area, some random plant material, uh, shoe prints from Branson’s boots, and this which I thought you would ”

Weaver’s eyebrows lifted both at her tone and the smirking look she had on her face. She held out one photo and he leaned forward, holding the edge of it between his fingers as he looked at it. After a long moment, he groaned.

“Shit.”

Belle let out a snorting laugh. “Exactly.”

He shook his head as she set the rest of the pictures down on the coffee table. “Some crime scene tech actually took a picture of dog shit.”

She shrugged. “I guess they were being thorough?”

“Thoroughly fucking stupid, maybe,” he said absently, and she laughed.

She turned to grab something else, and as she pivoted on her right foot, her toes pulled back inside her shoe. A curse slipped out and she stumbled, the cramping pain contorting her foot and making it impossible to walk.

“Are you okay?” Weaver asked, sitting forward on the sofa. “What’s wrong?”

She bent and took off her shoe, grabbing at her toes to try to relieve the tension. “It’s just a cramp. I think I’ve been pacing this office too much today.” She wobbled as she tried to walk wearing only one shoe and pressing the toes of her cramped foot against the floor. “Fuck.”

He rolled his eyes. “Come here.”

Her look was dubious, but she hobbled over to the sofa and dropped down with a hiss. He reached for her leg, pulling it up and tipping her back on the couch. She let out a pained noise, as she struggled to point her toes and make the cramp stop.

“Relax,” he said softly, wrapping his warm hand over her toes.

Slowly, he worked her foot until the muscles stopped contracting, and she leaned back, resting her head on the arm of the sofa as she let him pull her foot completely into his lap. Under previous circumstances, this would have been more than welcome, and a possible prelude to other activities as his hand naturally crept higher and higher on her legs. Anytime she had to be in court all day, pacing and walking around, her feet would rebel and start cramping painfully by the end of the day. She blamed it on all the damage she’d done to them in dance and ballet in her younger days, followed by too many years of shoving them into heels constructed by masochists who thought all women had dainty, narrow feet that never went over a size seven.

After a few minutes, she was biting back moans as he worked his thumb against her arch, stroking the muscle up and down before making a sweep over the ball of her foot. Part of her wanted to let him do this for the next hour to both of her feet, followed immediately by her shoulders and neck. But a greater part of her knew she needed to stop things before they went to far. While those two factions warred within her, she rolled her head to the side and stared at the miscellaneous photographs.

A shoe print stared back at her from the top of the pile, the ones found at the last scene when Branson had been arrested, and she frowned. Something was poking at the back of her brain, something that was unsettled and curious at the same time. Abruptly, she yanked her foot away from Weaver, and pushed up.

Weaver let out a light grunt as Belle shoved against him. “What is it?”

“Hold on,” she said, scrambling to sit up. "Something's...weird."

She picked up the photo of Branson’s boot print, and stared at it for a few seconds, noting the size and the markers that had been placed around it. Then she set it to the side and shuffled through the rest of the photos.

Weaver frowned at her and then picked up the photo she’d set down. “What are you looking for?”

“The other print.” She was getting frustrated and wondering if she’d imagined it, when he reached out and snatched up the picture she’d been looking for.

“This one?” he asked, holding it out.

She grabbed both photos from him, and laid them on the table. Her eyes darted back and forth between them, as her eyes widened. She wasn’t crazy, but this case sure was. “Look.”

She pointed at the pictures, and he looked back and forth between them. There was nothing jumping out at him, but it had been a long day of driving around and making calls.

“Okay?”

Belle huffed and pointed at the marker on the first photo. “See the measurement on the one from his arrest?” Weaver nodded. “And now the one from the second crime scene.”

His head tilted slightly, and then it hit him. “They’re different.”

“Yeah,” she said, starting to smile. “Branson’s boot was a size eleven. But the first one is a ten.”

He shook his head. “They can’t both be his shoe can they?”

She shrugged. “They aren’t marked as elimination prints from any of the officers or techs. What’s his shoe size from his booking?”

Weaver got up and crossed to the table, sorting through the stacks of folders until he found the report of vital statistics from Nick Branson’s booking at the station. He scanned the page, his eyes going wide as he turned around.

“He’s an eleven.”

Belle stood up, her body practically vibrating with new energy. “There’s no way someone is going to wear a different size boot like that. A half size maybe, but not a whole size.”

He nodded and took a breath. “You know what that might mean then, right?”

She swallowed hard, her excitement waning in light of the new reality of the case. “We have two killers.”

[plasticbattleaxe]

A BASIC GUIDE TO DIGITAL ART ON PROCREATE

okay so i joined the digital art scene about a year or so ago and it has been a total whirl! there’s so much stuff that’s so confusing and hard to understand at first. And that’s okay! A stupid amount of what constitutes as “good” or “complex” art is to do with layers, patience and experience. 

and because literally every tutorial on here is for Paint Tool Sai i thought it might be useful for those of us using Procreate! because i don’t have sai and i have a relatively shit laptop by comparison to my Ipad.

so without further ado - here is how to make a KICKASS piece of art on procreate 

1.  REFERENCE + SKETCH

the first thing you're gonna wanna do is collect any references you need for thing youre tryna make. you can collect references by finding stock images, using other artists work (i use these mostly for colour refs cause i SUCK at finding good colours). however when i make art nowdays i usually just snap a selfie and use that. for this work i did the last option (see below)

after grabbing my reference i decide on the style i wanna use. for beginer artists what i suggest doing is just pasting the image onto your canvas, opening layers and adjust the opacity to around 20% by clicking on the little N on your layer with the photo. then once thats done add a new layer by clicking the + and work over that

for more experienced artists experimenting with style just stick that bad bitch reference in the corner, then open a new layer and sketch in your own style.

when it comes to sketching i usually do little flicky lines. i do this with a mid grey (like 50% white 50% black) i recommend the “Narinder pencil” which you can find by clicking the little brush at the top, selecting sketching and then selecting that bad boy. you can adjust size and opacity using the sliders to the side of the screen.

when sketching you just wanna get a rough idea of where you’re gonna do your eventual lines - don’t worry about it being smooth or anything just get down where everything goes 

once you’re done you might have something like this:

this brings us too...

2. LINE ART 

for beginners - lineart is just a sexy word that means a clean drawing with hard lines so you can colour it easier and it looks prettier. you want to do this on a new layer so you can delete the sketch one later.

your goal with lineart is to make it three things:  1) its gotta be seamless so you can select the insides, don’t leave little gaps between lines 2) its gotta be smooth! jagged lineart isn’t NEARLY as sexy as smooth curvy lines 3) this one is more of a tip - but lineart generally looks better if you do thinner lines inside your shape with a slightly thicker border line. again this isn’t essential but i find it looks cuter 

the way i get my lineart all cute is by using the monoline brush (found in calligraphy). sometimes i use my own modified version of the Technical Pen (found in Inking) but mostly monoline is pretty neat. You can use whatever brush you want but mostly you just wanna ensure that its nice and smoooooth. you can do this by selecting the brush and then clicking it again. this will bring up a popup menu like this:

most of these brush settings are complicated and stupid and i’ll do a big post about it later. the only one that really matters here is streamline. if you wanna use a different brush for lineart just wack that slider up between 80-100% and you’re set.

once your lineart is finished on a seperate layer go to your layer menu and unselect the little tick on your sketch layer. you should be left with something like this. 

3. ADDITIONAL DETAIL LINEART + MONOCHROME BASES.

once your focus lineart is done you can add detailed lineart by repeating the same process with sketching and lineart i described above. i like to do details separate because if i dont like it i can just delete the whole layer without destroying my focus. 

what i find important in these now is using my favourite fuckin tool in this whole program. you can find it here:

Only start using this once youre 100% done with your lineart. once thats done - make sure youre on the lineart layer and click that weird little s at the top of the screen. go to the bottom and click automatic. then select somewhere INSIDE your lineart. it should do something like this:

don’t freak out! what that blue stuff means is that you've just selected the inside bit of your lineart. continue selecting until your subject is 100% coloured in. 

MAKE SURE THE BACKGROUND/STUFF OUTSIDE YOUR LINEART ISN’T SELECTED. ALSO MAKE SURE YOU’VE SELECTED THE LINES THEMSELVES. THEY WILL TURN WHITE ONCE THEYRE SELECTED. if u fuck up and select something by accident that’s all g, theres a little undo button on the bottom. if you click on the paint brush or another tool and you cant add stuff to your selection you can reload the mask by holding down on the weird s and the selection will reload. If there are certain bits of your work that you’re struggling to select with automatic selection that’s also not an issue. just click the “freehand” setting next to the automatic setting on the bottom and you can now use your stylus to draw around what you want to select.

once you’ve selected your foreground in its entirety - THEN click the layer button. insert a new layer underneath your lineart layer. Using literally any brush (works best if you get one from the painting section) colour EVERYTHING white. just get round brush and colour all of it. you wanna keep your line art layer separate over the top.

once all of it is coloured hold down on the weird s tool until it reloads the selection. then look along the bottom of the screen and click the little button that looks like 2 arrows pointing at each other. THIS INVERTS YOUR SELECTION. Open a new layer and make this entire thing a grey. THIS IS WHOLE STEP IS OPTIONAL BUT ITS SUPER USEFUL AND THE SELECTION TOOL IS SUPER HELPFUL FOR GOOD ART. DOING THIS WILL BE SUPER USEFUL WHEN YOU COLOUR STUFF LATER.

once you’re done it should look something like this:

4. BASE COLOURS

okay so this is where shit starts to get real. The goal of putting down base colours is to make is easier to add eventual shading to your piece and decide your colour scheme. This is where the white layer you just used is gonna become your BITCH.

you wanna start by duplicating your white layer you just made. You do that by opening your layer menu and swiping that thot to the left. this is what should happen:

click duplicate. Select the top duplicate you just made and select our favourite weird s tool. click inside your shape and the whole white shape should go blue (become selected). next, open a new layer on top of the white layer. colour in your base colours and now none of it can go outside the lines. you didn’t even have to do a billion selections. you just select inside the white blob on the layer we made the step before, opened a new layer and started colouring. fucking superb. so much time saved. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I USED TO SUFFER BEFORE I THOUGHT OF THIS. HOW LONG I SPENT SELECTING AND RESELECTING I CANNOT

A TIP FOR PEEPS NEW TO THIS PROGRAM - if you use your finger and hold down on a colour you’ve just used it acts like an eyedropper tool so you can pick up any colour you want. like this:

once you got your base colours done you can either: 1) go to your grey layer you made in the last step and select the tick next to it. once you’ve done that scroll to the bottom of your layers and select background. it will open a colour wheel. pick your background colour. 2) you can use my second favourite tool from this program! go to your grey layer you made in the previous step. click on it, then click on it again. (not the little n just click the whole layer) this menu should pop up:

oh MAN okay so. “alpha lock” pretty much means that it locks whatever is on the layer. when you get another brush and go over a layer with alpha lock turned on you can only paint over what you have previously put on the layer before turning on alpha lock. Its like automatically selecting everything on the layer. its fucking brilliant. anyway. scribble over your grey layer (once alpha lock is on) and boom you have a base for your background.

NOW YOU KNOW ABOUT ALPHA LOCK YOU GO BACK TO YOUR LINEART LAYER. SELECT ALPHA LOCK. COLOUR IN YOUR LINES ROUGHLY 2 OR SO ISH SHADES DEEPER THEN YOUR BASE COLOURS 

(minus eyes i like to keep the lines around them black.)  this will make your art like 100000000 times nicer (majority of the time)

once you’re done you should get something like this:

this brings up to...

5. SHADING!!!!!!! this is my favourite step tbh.

what you wanna do is chuck on a new layer over the top of your base colours. and go into your brushes. pick up your basic bitch “round brush.” this is (in my opinion) the best painting brush in the program. Its the thing you can do the most with. so what you wanna do it get a slightly deeper colour from your colour wheel by yeeting your colour selection slightly more saturated and slightly more dark. dont just make it blacker move your colour selector on a diagonal to get a nicer colour. (i’ll eventually do a colour theory ref but today is NOT that day.)

i like to do colouring in short, light strokes. DON’T PRESS TOO HARD. you wanna get that cute little gradient.

A THING FOR BABY ARTISTS: on every art program i have ever used, the blending tool SUCKS. it makes paintings UGLY AF. (wow another tutorial i have to do at some point. i HATE the blending tool. SO HERE IS HOW I COLOUR MY ART TO MAKE IT LOOK, YKNOW, GOOD:

Unless you’re drawing something SUPER freaking smooth like a bubble or some shit. when you wanna blend colours what you gotta do is: 1) put in your darker colour. 2) use your finger to bring up the eyedropper tool to select a mid colour of the colours your blending together - a mix between your lighter and darker colour. (remember that tool? it looks like this)

3) Paint the colour you just made in the middle of your lighter and darker shades. REPEAT THIS PROCESS ON EITHER SIDE OF THE COLOUR YOU JUST PUT DOWN TILL IT LOOKS GOOD. The result is an WAY sexier piece of art.

once you’ve put in all your shadows repeat the same process with highlights.

FUN TIP: if you decide you dislike a colour or want to change the colour you already did all the shading for you can change the colour without any major drama. You can do this by select ing the colour on your colour wheel you would like to change your already shaded work too. (make sure you’re on the right layer.) then hold down on the colour dot on the top bar (next to your layer settings) and drag it to whatever you want recoloured. let go of the dot and it should recolour your work (including all the shading you’ve done granted that its on the same layer) like this:

once you’ve got all your shading done it should look something like this:

6. background and pretty bits

so! youve got this kickass work but nothing surrounding it. lets fix that.

In procreate there is SO MUCH you can use to spice up a work. a SCARY amount even. this is when layer settings are gonna start to come in handy.

ill do a masterpost on procreate brushes for backgrounds later, but for this piece what im gonna do it head over to the Luminescence section and pick up a “nebula brush”. this makes a complex galaxy kinda design in a randomised stamping pattern that is frankly SEXY AS ALL HELL. Select a layer below your base colours but above your background colour. IMPORTANT NOTE: this brush’s blend mode is autimatically set to “add” (ILL DO ANOTHER POST ON THAT LATER)which means if you go over the same spot heaps of times it will eventually go a bright white. This can be nice, but its not really what i want cause its kinda intense. to make this thing go glowy but not ~too~ glowy im gonna lower the brush opacity (the bottom slider) to around half way. i set my colour to a light yellow and a darkish pink and put in some nebulas!!!! once that was done I wantd to add some more colour variation so i popped open a new layer - selected the lightleak tool and lowered the brush opacity using the slider to around 20% just to spice some shit up

you can kinda do whatever you want for your background. sometimes its nicer just to go into artistic, select a random brush and draw a square underneath what you were doing. backgrounds can be super detailed or super easy it doesn’t really matter to be 100% honest.

THE PART 2 OF THIS STEP WILL ADD HEAPS OF DIMENSION TO YOUR WORK AND MAKE IT SUPER PRETTY: adding light effects over the TOP of your main subject often creates a more realistic sense of depth. In simple terms it just makes the thing look more 3D and nice. to do this, get a random brush with a nice (preferably light) colour. i picked up a “bokeh brush” from the Luminescence section. make this pretty big. sprinkle your brush across the page on a NEW LAYER above all of your work so far, including line art! Then open your layer menu and click that little n in the corner again. Remember this one:

click the little n. then go down to the bottom and select a layer setting from either of the 2 groups circled (i normally like overlay for this type of thing) you can mess around with layer settings and opacity till you find something that looks super nice. My piece now looks like this:

pretty cool right. now we’re gonna make it EVEN COOLER.

7. LIGHT FILTERS

this is something i picked up from artists like softmushie and cryptidw00rm. (not gonna @ them here cause they probs dont wanna get tagged in my shitty tutorial thing but yeah i owe so much to those two especially)

for those unsure of what im talking about: light filters are layers you add over work to make the lighting on it seem more natural and pretty. you do this by colouring over your natural highlights and shadows with different colours and then messing with the layer settings to make it seem like its being hit by sunlight. these layers go BELOW your foreground stuff (the bokeh lights from step 6) but ABOVE your lineart.

start by opening a new layer. select a colour similar to where the green outlines are here:

now on this layer paint over anywhere where the sun or other light source would be normally hitting (like cheekbones hair etc.) this can be kind of like shading. dont worry if it looks shit at first we’re gonna change it.

open a new layer beneath the one you just made. Using a colour similar to one circled in purple above colour over all the shadows in a piece. it should now look like this:

now open your layer settings on the purple/darker  layer by selecting the N like we did with the foreground layer before. you can play around from here by setting the layer mode to anything from the “darken” or “contrast” menu. For this work i chose overlay. I then lowered the opacity until it looked nice.

Repeat the step above with the lighter highlight layer. when adjusting this one make sure you set the layer mode to anything from the “lighten” or “contrast” menu. For this work i did hard light.

your peice should now look kind of like this:

AND YOU’RE DONE!!!!!!!!

look at that sexy thing you just did. Congrats on creating an awesome peice of art!!!!!!

if you guys are interested in more tutorials like these or have any reqs for similar stuff send me a question or a dm to my blog @plasticbattleaxe

if you create anything by following  tutorial that you want me to see don’t hesitate to tag me or submit it to my blog!!! i love seeing y’all make art

also - i know it’s annoying - but reblogs > likes. thanks for your support

i hope someone finds this useful!!!!!

[goddamnitconnor-a]

I’d mentioned something about this a little bit ago, but there’s been something on my mind for a while, now, and I want to finally write something down. This is mostly because I was asked on the sidelines if I could make a post like this-- so here goes.

I’ll put most of this under a cut so anyone not interested can just scroll by without too much fuss, but first I’d like to say what this is all about.

Anxiety. Or, rather, how to not let it consume your life. Because we all experience it, most of us on a daily basis, but I’ve seen so few people actually do the right things to stop it from escalating to a critical point or try to do anything to manage it when they’re not in a critical mode. So, the rest of this will be cut for sake of length, but please:

If you have struggles with anxiety and recognize that it’s holding you back from enjoying any part of your life to the fullest extent, give the rest of this post a look over. These are honest, tried and true methods of reducing the impact of anxiety, both the obvious and less obvious, and I promise I wouldn’t offer them as suggestions unless I knew they’d have a beneficial impact on your overall health.

I’ll say this one last thing: if you’re thinking anything along the lines of ‘none of this will work for me’ or ‘my anxiety is too bad to do anything about without medication’ or ‘I’ve tried everything before and nothing really works so why bother’, then I’m speaking directly to you: please read the rest of this post. I don’t say it often, but you are so wrong.

Firstly, before I begin spewing out suggestions, everything I talk about here I have seen take a positive effect on both myself (dealing with bipolar depression and I’m sure other shit by this point) and people with severe intellectual disabilities (autism being the primary diagnosis), whom I support and work very closely with. I’ve also taken two college courses focused entirely on managing anxiety through very different strategies (mental vs physical activities) and a handful of others on building mindfulness, confidence, and self-image. Honestly, though, I’m drawing mostly from the former experiences because there’s nothing like seeing the words in action.

These techniques will be listed here only briefly because talking about each of them at length would make this an entire book. I might go into more detail in additional posts, if enough people would like me to or I’m feeling especially talkative another day. They are listed roughly in the order of most effective or most necessary, but honestly they all work in tandem with each other, so saying one is better than the other is a little misleading.

Attitude: We’ve all got it. Some are better than others, and some are just downright-- wait. Not that kind of attitude. I’m talking about our attitude towards our own mental health. I’m sure a lot of people believe they’re just supposed to suffer as much as they do or that it’s not really so bad and changing is too much effort. Essentially, the message is saying ‘I don’t care enough about myself to make the effort for my mental health’ no matter how you say it. Point blank, that’s a pretty shitty attitude to have, and no one wants to have a shitty attitude. No one likes feeling like shit, we just kind of get used to it and grow numb to it out of self defense against our own brains. Not the best habit to pick up. But one thing is certain: if you don’t believe you can help yourself and if you don’t believe you’re worth the effort, then nothing else is going to leave much of a mark. It all starts here, friends, and it’s usually the hardest step to take.

Deep breathing: Has to be next, doesn’t it? And it’s a very easy next step after that last one. The rules are very simple: block yourself off from outside stimuli (whether this means closing your eyes or fixating on a fixed spot in the distance to focus your attention or doing whatever you need to in order to take a minute to yourself); take a deep breath in through your nose for at least five but ideally seven seconds (breathe in so your stomach expands and not just your chest-- your shoulders shouldn’t rise more than they do when you’re yawning or sighing); hold the breath for up to three seconds; release your breath through your mouth slowly (take at least three but ideally five seconds) and make sure to fully push all of the air from your lungs. Repeat at least three times and up to ten times, depending on how high your stress and anxiety are at the time. The idea of the numbers is equal parts providing a structure so that the breath is under your control and providing a distraction from any other thoughts that might intrude. If you’re focusing entirely on counting the seconds of your breath or focusing on how the breath feels going in and out of your lungs, then you’re much less likely to worry about anything else. So don’t get too hung up on the specific numbers; understand their purpose and adjust them as you need to in order to fit your current situation. Do this before you go into a full-blown panic attack. It’s much more difficult to focus on deep breathing when you’re in panic mode, but taking a few deep breaths when you feel the first signs of something coming on could lessen or negate the physical and mental strain. Remember: It takes less than three minutes, even if you do all ten breaths, and there’s no equipment or special requirements. That makes this by far the easiest thing on this list to do, and the effects it can have are fucking mind-blowing.

Diet: Okay, maybe this will be the hardest step. But it doesn’t have to be! Diet changes can be huge, cold-turkey everything bad or small, subtle changes that ease you into a better lifestyle over the course of a few months or even a year. Both are totally cool! In fact, I’ve done both. There is so much I have to say about dieting, but I’ll list out the major points. Stop counting. I don’t care what it is, just stop counting it. Right now. Because guess what: you’re not counting the right things. Things you should be looking at? Sugar content. How processed the food is. Artificial flavoring and high fructose corn syrup. Things that really aren’t that important if you’re organizing your diet to be balanced and actually healthy? Fat content. Calories. What a coincidence. Also, eat breakfast. I know it means getting out of bed a little earlier, but for all that is good in this world, eat breakfast. Snack more often (not on potato chips; try some fruit), especially in the morning when your body is trying to balance out everything from the previous night (or, you know, whenever you sleep). Fruit, vegetables, nuts, protein bars (check that sugar content!), hard-boiled eggs, cottage cheese, and yogurt are all super easy and cheap snacks to grab and most of them are portable if you’re out and about often. Lunch doesn’t need to be big, but it needs to exist on some level. Heavy lunches will weigh you down and make you tired much earlier than you would be otherwise but no lunch will sap your energy and also leave you feeling drained earlier in the day. Dinner should be focused on protein and this is usually where people actually eat their vegetables, so keep that up! If you’re going to have a lot of empty carbs (like fries, mashed potatoes, rice, etc.), you better plan on having a post-dinner workout because guess where that belly fat is coming from. If you have anything to eat before bed, make sure it’s at least an hour before and it should have as little sugar and calorie content as possible. Protein is ideal for this time of the day!

Exercise: Oh boy. All of these steps are sounding pretty hard, aren’t they? Good news! You don’t have to go to the gym. You don’t even have to go outside. And I’m not about to preach youtube workout videos and giant squishy balls to roll around on. I am about to preach yoga. I know we only ever see super attractive and skinny women perching themselves in ridiculous poses on a fucking mountaintop at sunrise with some inspirational quote plastered everywhere and that’s what we think when we hear yoga, but you know what? I’ve taken yoga courses, and the only one even half-capable of flipping herself upside down on her head was our instructor-- because she’s been doing it forever. Most people had to use blocks and bands to assist them with most of the poses. Yoga is not for the fit and bendy only; in fact, the less fit and bendy you are, the more you’ll probably benefit from the practice. A few simple stretches in the morning isn’t going to change your life, but it’s a start. There are plenty of free videos and apps around to help you get started with easy things that will make the rest of your day a little easier, and I guarantee you’ll start feeling so much better that you’ll get addicted to it. If you happen to already be a reasonably active person, then just make sure you’re getting at least 30 minutes of at least moderate activity in order to get the most benefit out of your workout. The most beneficial time to do any exercise is first thing in the morning after you wake up, but right before meals or mid-day when you might be feeling a bit of a drag are also ideal times. Anything above low-intensity exercise before you go to bed will definitely hurt your sleep cycle, but there are some yoga poses and other kinds of exercise that are actually very beneficial to relaxing and getting a better night’s sleep.

Meditation: This should be higher on the list, but again the list really isn’t a ranked thing. I’m only putting it this far down because I believe that meditation doesn’t always stick out to people as something especially helpful. That’s because meditation doesn’t show instant results and a lot of people do it very wrong, so they don’t get any results at all. Because of this, I think if the above techniques are implemented then meditation will become more attractive because some control and balance in your life will have already been established with the other things. I would recommend starting with guided meditation no matter what, if you’ve never done it before or even if you think you’ve been doing it ineffectively. Meditation is very flexible, which is one of the things I love most about it. Once you understand the real purpose of meditating and how to handle any potential distractions while you’re meditating, you can do it almost anywhere and at any time-- and you can spend five minutes with yourself or two hours. Any amount of quiet and calm for your mind will help it immensely! Also, if you’re feeling drained and are unable to do any stretches or exercises to wake yourself up, meditation can actually make you more alert and refreshed. This is especially helpful for people trying to focus on a task that needs to be accomplished but that attention span just isn’t cutting it. Meditation should center you, calm your mind, boost your focus, and clear your head of distracting thoughts and worries unrelated to the task at hand. Stress and anxiety should reduce and if you go into a deep enough trance, a sense of euphoria (similar to that infamous ‘runner’s high’) will accompany you for a while afterwards. If it’s not doing that for you, then you should probably seek out some sort of guide to help you meditate more effectively.  

Water: Just drink it. I won’t say that you can’t drink too much, because of course you can, but chances are high you aren’t drinking as much as you should be. It depends a lot on your activity levels, what you’re eating throughout the day, and your exposure to the sun or other high heat elements, but a few signs that you’re not drinking enough water are: if you get frequent headaches, especially near the top/crown of your head; if you get muscle cramps-- they can be anywhere, but leg cramps are very common and I experience stomach cramps easily when I’m dehydrated; if you’re thirsty (simple as that); if you find yourself yawning/breathing deeply excessively. Drinking water first thing in the morning will help you wake up and cold water before meals will reduce your appetite so you don’t overeat. 

There is so much more I could say about anxiety and so many other, little things that can be done to make things easier on yourself, but these are the really big ones. The ones that I guarantee, if practiced together even on a minimal level, will improve your health both physically and mentally to the extent that you’ll never believe you lived so miserably for so long without doing these simple things. Because here’s the hard news: We weren’t meant to sit in a dark room in front of a computer screen all day. We weren’t meant to play video games for 12 hours a day. We weren’t built to digest the obnoxious amount of empty carbs and overload of sugar that is basically forced in our face every time we turn around. Our bodies are meant to work and they’re meant to be maintained-- and if you feel like that statement doesn’t apply to you, you probably don’t understand your body as well as you think you do. I’m not saying I know anyone’s specific situation and of course there are always outrageous exceptions to even the most reliable of rules, but for the majority of people reading this, the only real block against you and a healthier you is just plainly you. That’s not an easy thing to accept or make peace with, but the sooner we realize that we most often are the only ones holding ourselves back, the easier it will be for us to help ourselves get better. These are just steps and suggestions. Just words on a screen. Any time they’re put into practice and any time they give anyone any sort of benefit, that victory is not mine. Don’t give me the credit. Because you’re doing all of it. And you’ve been able to all along, so I’m glad you’re finally waking up and realizing it.

[melete-the-melodious-diva]

Alright, time to dump my thoughts here about RWBY Volume 6!

Definitely my favorite Volume so far. The first one where Team RWBY is back together in the new artstyle, and they all look gorgeous. The animation this time around looked wonderful, and it helped the story tremendously to have more access to different models and expressions for the characters so the story could be more show and less tell.  The general consensus seems to say this volume was amazing at the beginning, and then faded into decent in the last five episodes. I’d actually pinpoint the problem at the last episode, but I will say the Cordovin “arc” was poorly paced and did not help with the character development at all. This arc entirely existed so we could get a Shadow of the Colussus fight, and that’s an issue when the arc takes up a precious four episodes of time to introduce and complete.  That said, I’m going to try and separate this into different arcs and espouse the merits/demerits of each

1- Train 6/10

 Cool fight scene, nice to see QRWBY fighting together. Also did well by introducing Maria as crazy but with common sense, and sowing more seeds of doubt about Ozpin.

2-Ozpin Backstory Arc 10/10

This is my favorite arc in the show and one of the best done in the entire show. And I’m not saying that because of the lore dump, that’s nebulous.  So the episode where Ozpin actually loses his cool and the lamp was done amazingly well. Even when losing his composure, Ozpin is very quick to try and focus on the task at hand and be pragmatic about this situation. Not to mention, Yang’s constant prodding is very unwarranted and it shows how Raven’s seeds of doubts mixed with Yang’s temper have brought out the worst in her. Oscar, for as little screen time as he gets in this series, also has one of his biggest defining character moments by willfully defying Ozpin and airing his thoughts to everyone else. Oscar hasn’t had much character establishment. We know he’s not exactly fond of Ozpin just because of the current situation, but he’s not overtly antagonistic either. However, he was having none of Ozpin’s shit the moment Ozpin willfully continued to lie to Ruby. So the actually backstory. Holy shit. Not only does it humanize Ozpin and make it clear that this guy does not have all the answers, but it also gives far more complexity to our main villain. You’re not meant to sympathize with her now, but you understand how Salem became a vindictive witch of the Grimm. She’s been warped by centuries of grief and a lack of self-determination, all compounded when Ozpin tears away her happy ending from her when he tries to steal their children away. Also, now the story finally has a freaking endgame! This backstory helps contextualize the journey of our heroes and what they’re doing. It wasn’t outwardly spoken, but the message was clear from Ozpin’s actions. Humanity is fucked if the gods come back to judge it. Our heroes don’t have to be opposed to Salem’s ideals or plans(whatever those are), it’s just that her methodology of gathering the four relics will kill everything because humanity doesn’t have its shit together. I will admit that Jinn’s genie nature and the obvious specificity of the “Can I kill Salem?” were a bit too on the nose, but hopefully the series won’t string out that plot line for more than a volume.

3- The Apathy Arc 8/10

Goddamn if there was ever a time for RWBY to do a horror arc, it chose the literal best setting and time to do so. Ozpin is gone, everyone is in shock and feeling betrayed (especially Qrow and Yang), and a blizzard is fast coming. Everyone knew immediately that something was wrong just based on the muted colors of the house and the Ruby’s mention of how everything is abandoned rather than destroyed. The dead bodies in the beds were chilling and one of the most graphic things this show’s ever done. From there, the viewer immediately is screaming “GET OUT OF THERE”, but the cast legitimately has no other place to go unless they want to brave a blizzard. Maria was a very welcome addition to the cast, and this arc really let her shine as a dry-witted voice of reason. Allowing her eccentricity to reveal the true nature of Bartleby’s farm was done very well and nothing about her exposition or behavior felt forced here.  Qrow’s alcoholism getting worse was a very interesting character analysis because we see how much Ruby hates this, but she can’t bring herself to reprimand him. It also shows how much his broken trust in Oz has affected him, which is a wonderful lead-in from the previous arc. When the cast is affected by the apathy, it is one of the best examples of tone through visuals and voice acting that I have ever seen. Nothing is technically wrong, but things are very off. Their pupils are just a bit too big for comfort, their voices are a bit too dry and emotionless. Yang’s suggestions make sense for her emotional state after Ozpin’s betrayal, but it seems irresponsible to throw their responsibilities away for someone else to find. The actual Apathy fight itself is a nice horror movie conclusion, with no actual jumpscares, but terrifying imagery, all ending with Blake simply accepting death before we get Silver Eyes out of the situation and onto the next arc. Good conclusion by confirming that Yes Maria was a SEW as a lead in to her backstory and also in jumpstarting that plotline after ignoring it for two volumes.

3.5- Maria’s Backstory Won’t go into this much but all the character designs were gorgeous and it helps establish Maria very well and I love that Tock the Croc’s kill timer in universe was the exact same irl :D

4- Argus Pre Cordovin 5/10 (good score, means the show did as well as expected)

This arc was a good breathing point to compare to the intensity of the episodes up to this point. Terra and Saphron were adorable with their little baby and the cast’s reunion was sweet. Team JNR’s reaction to Ozpin was done really well. Jaune’s always been very prickly to Qrow about this mission, so it makes sense that he’d be super pissed about Oz lying about the mission and leaving. Nora and Ren’s anger was a nice addition. They weren’t ornaments to Jaune’s emotional breakdown, they were struggling with this information as well. Oscar’s disappearance was a dick move on behalf of the writers, because everything was set up for him to finally confront the nature of the person inside him and his eventual merge with that person. But they skim over this for a fakeout with a nice speech where Oscar just accepts the death of his personhood without resistance. This would have been not a dick move if the show’s creators didn’t leave us with a “Oscar has dissapeared” cliffhanger for two weeks. Jaune meeting Pyrrha’s mom and talking to Ren/Nora about his issues was wonderful and done super well. They really needed that discussion and I’m very glad the show finally had it.

5- Cordovin Arc 3/10

Haha little lady in a shoe with a napoleon complex. cool. why was this arc the finale fight? No seriously, the Leviathan didn’t get a fight, he just got a silver eye debuff that led to a one shot kill. Cordovin is the last fight in the series and it’s... underwhelming. Not that the animation or choreography is bad, that’s all gorgeous. But the story and characters screech to a grinding halt to focus on this fight for three episodes. No one is getting developed, The plot is just waffling so we can get a full 13 episodes before we move onto Atlas. This battle should have lasted one episode, and then have multiple episodes to focus on Silver Eyes and the leviathan. Hell, don’t even make a fight. Just have Team RWBY succeed at turning off the radar, at which a Leviathan grimm comes and starts destroying the city because no one anticipated it. Adam can still come and distract Blake/Yang from the fight, and QRWBYORNJM can have their big shadow of the colossus fight. Cordovin’s character is also woefully simplistic, which would be fine! If they didn’t give her a last minute redemption that felt horribly out of touch from the rest of her actions. It was a writer’s asspull to get everyone to Atlas, which I’m thankful that they didn’t stall on, but it could have been done so much better.

5.5 Adam Arc 9/10

God this arc was amazing. Adam’s character was never complex. His motivations were always clear, and his M.O. was rather run of the mill abuse perpetrator. Blake has a reason to sympathize with him, but he ultimately used her and made her feel worthless so he could feel more powerful. However, this arc is such a cathartic and important emotional moment for Blake and Yang. Yang finally faces the source of her trauma head on, and she’s scared. Adam has taken away a part of her before, and she’s not prepared to lose anything again. But Yang’s character hasn’t changed, she still reacts to problems with “punch IT” and Blake validating her strength and comforting her  was so good. Blake has gotten over Adam, as evidenced by her actions in Volume 5, but that doesn’t mean that the scars of what he’s done don’t still affect her. I’m unsure of it’s intentionally, but the scars that Adam leaves on Blake aren’t noticeable. They hurt, they cripple her, but the cuts are on her hip, a place that would usually be covered by her coat or her shirt. It’s a good meta textual reference of how abuse usually hurts people in ways that can’t be seen by others. Also, Adam’s face reveal was probably the best possible thing they could have done with Adam’s face. After so long of making him a monster with a grimm mask, we finally see the source of his anger,and the source of Blake’s symapthy. Branded right on the eye by the Schnee Dust company. Ouch. This is not a moment meant to make US sympathize with him, that flew out the window when it was revealed that he actively abused Blake before she left him. But this moment is an important reminder that Adam is not a Grimm. His brand of monstrosity isn’t as simple as a being of pure destruction, it’s much seedier and harder to catch until he’s already in a position to kill you. Yang and Blake’s duo stab through the heart with the broken remains of Gamboul shroud was one of the best moments in this entire series and I don’t have anything to say other than that I paused the video when it happened and just stared. Blake’s reaction after killing Adam is also perfect for her. She loved Adam. She definitely doesn’t anymore, but he still was able to get under her skin and remind her of everything she hated about herself. Which is why when Yang comforts her, they add that all important piece of dialogue about Yang knowing that Blake won’t break her promise. Yang isn’t putting herself in a position of power over Blake, she is comforting her as an equal that respects her and her strength. That, and the fact Adam and Yang’s semblances are near identical, goes really far to show how much healthier Yang and Blake’s relationship is than Blake and Adam’s.

6- The Leviathan/ Silver Eyes 3/10

Gonna jump around a bit but silver eyes were finally explained in this arc. As currently presented Silver eyes are... terrible. They cut all tension out of the story when the main threat of the series can be solved by happy thoughts and puppy dog tails. Salem just becomes a non-issue if all of her forces can be killed by Ruby thinking happy thoughts. I’m hoping that some sort of catch or consequence will come later. Like: Using the power of the Light diminishes your own light, and therefore would give Ruby more destructive impulses because she simply has fewer protective impulses to draw upon. Ruby doesn’t even get tired when using the dang things. As they currently stand, Silver eyes will cut the tension out of any Grimm encounter. In the post credits scene, we see Salem making her flying monkeys. Hooray, wicked witch of the west. Problem. Why should this have any meaning? Ruby can just kill all of those Grimm at once. This doesn’t negate every conflict in the series, there’s still the problem of the asshole humans/faunus, but the show’s main villain and her main method of attack are just nullified now. The one good thing about this is Maria’s confirmation that no one knows wtf silver eyes are. Qrow and Ozpin know about them, but Maria’s explnation strongly imply that no one actually knows how they work. Oz and Qrow likely just knew that Summer had the power to kill Grimm and just didn’t know how she did it. This makes the previous volume’s act of ignoring the things at least slightly more palatable.  So the Leviathan. Ruby’s conclusion to the Silver Eyes arc by activating them all on her own. This was mostly just a montage to redraw scenes from the show and get a Summer Rose face reveal. There wasn’t a story purpose, and the character purpose was very thin because we really don’t learn anything about Ruby here. We know she’s haunted by Penny and Pyrrha’s deaths. We know she enjoyed her time at Beacon and likes her teammates. We know she loves her mother and looks up to her. There’s nothing new presented here about her, she just has to go through a series recap to activate the eye death lasers.  Hate to end it on such a negative note, but I really do love this volume wholeheartedly, including the parts I rated low. Here’s to waiting until next October! haha.... expect fanart of Neo and Cinder by the by