#its just me like...if you are trying to judge ethics here you have missed the mark my friend

[dollarbin]

Dollar Bin #37:

Michael Penn's March

Here's another story. Again, mostly true.

In 8th grade I got a bad case of Chicken Oak.

Never heard of Chicken Oak? It's what you get when you are a pimply, insecure and pale skinned 8th grader who is forever crazy about a girl named Anjanette and you get a bad case of poison oak from fooling around outside your grandparents' ranch house in the San Gabriel mountains, a case so bad you have to miss school and spend your days instead slathering your pubescent 90 pound body with oatmeal-type concoctions which do not help and you can't sleep for days at a time and are starting to climb out your bedroom window at 2am and wander around your neighborhood while listening to your poorly-dubbed-from-the-library copy of The Cure's Disintegration on your primitive walkman and so your parents, concerned about your illness and Robert Smith's whole vibe, take you to Urgent Care and have you shot up with steroids to utterly silence your raging immune system but, little did you or anyone else know, your younger siblings were all just exposed to the Chicken Pox and you were born in the 70's, long before there was a vaccine, and you've never had that ridiculous childhood disease, so a few days later you've added a disabled immune system's mammoth version of the pox to the oak and you're no longer a pimply and insecure 8th grader; rather you are the elephant man in a full blown teenage health crisis: one eye is literally swollen over into a giant pulsating wound and every inch of you is leaning into shivering panic.

That's the Chicken Oak, folks: a formative illness indeed.

It takes a month of living in the late 80's with the condition to discover that at 2am some vampire takes over control of MTV, removes the Fine Young Cannibals from the rotation and plays obscure stuff instead, the kind of music you'll never encounter on the Top 20 Countdown with this guy.

And that's how you discover Michael Penn.

I loved this song from the first moment I saw the video, and I spent the rest of my sleepless month with the poison poxs trying to catch it on air again.

Part of the attraction was its illusive (at least to 14 year old me) lyrics. Penn struck me as a sensitive and bashful poet with a record contract who was terribly alluring to all thoughtful ladies; but he also read deep books and sang passionately about both topics - he basically embodied my ideal future.

I knew about Romeo in a basic sense: he was one of Shakespeare's teenagers and he surely gave some big deal speeches in a play I'd never seen nor read; he was the kinda guy who climbed his lady friends' balconies and died tragically for love, just like I too might one day die for the love of sweet Anjanette, except I'd probably never see her again because I was surely disfigured for life and therefore would soon be forced to relocate to a cave in Brazil where I'd live under an assumed name and terrify children from the village.

But who the hell was Heathcliff? Judging by the video and the song's overall sweet vibe I felt pretty sure this way cooler brother to Sean wasn't singing about the Garfield rip off.

I wanted to track Michael Penn down and claim him as my new and now surely, after my month of isolation, only friend: what books should I read, Michael? How do you make your hair look so cool? Why doesn't my six string sound like yours? And is that a drum machine playing in your song? Are drum machines even ethical, Michael? Should I get black jeans? If so, where? Help me, Michael!

Before my month of misery was up I weaseled my anxious mother into going to Sam Goody without me and buying me March, Penn's debut album, on tape. Then I played it nonstop.

The whole record sounded homemade and majestic, a fitting soundtrack addition alongside the aforementioned Disintergration and Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars for the day long bikes rides I began to take as my entire face crusted over and started to harden up, like a rotten egg regrowing its shell.

Every song seemed like an entire world on its own, the melancholic yet catchy choruses waking up bits of what would become my future self. I knew what it was like to sleep on a bed of nails;

I too wanted a place in the brave new world.

I began to heal as Spring drew to a close: the sores became scabs; I was hideous and doomed, but no longer a literal danger to others. I watched midnight MTV out of habit, not necessity, and No Myth fell out of the 2am rotation.

I pictured my return to school with dread: my friends would have moved on; they were nice guys so they'd pretend to welcome me back, but I'd slip away, leaving them relieved: the disfigured can claim no place in a middle school. And so I planned to make my way to the far end of the school's middle level at breaks, the spot on campus where the deepest misfits and poor special ed kids gravitated so as to rock in place, weeping, drooling and laughing without cause. They'd be glad to have me. For the rest of my life. That cave in Brazil was just a pipe dream.

But then, miracles unfolded.

First, Michael Penn returned to MTV for a second split second. Seriously: I really believe this video was only shown once on the network. It was 2am and I was the only person watching. Join me, won't you? Let's give it its second showing of all time:

Okay, I hear you. Jimi Hendrixs Michael is not. And the actor brought in to air strum the bass is an embarrassment. And yes, there is no explanation whatsoever for the creep in the foreground, and I cannot explain any of the plot here to you.

But come on: check out that lady defying gravity! Note how nothing of substance musically occurs in the last 30 seconds; they just keep playing the same, slow and sweet keyboard hook. And admit it: Michael looks more like Hugh Grant's sibling than Sean's. Maybe there was a mix up in the hospital or something. Wow, I still really love this stuff.

When that first and only showing of the video ended I stood up, defiant. I turned MTV off and, basically, never watched it again. Suddenly it seemed like there were more important things to do.

And when I climbed on my bike a day or two later, ready for the first return to school, that same sense still surged in me. I didn't know what to call it, but it felt good. I picked up my buddy Matt on the ride in and joyfully told him to not worry about it when he asked what the plan was for, you know, explaining my face. Being a thoroughly excellent human being, he trusted me and asked no further questions.

"Yeah, I've got herpes," I happily declared to all 614 of the 8th graders who stared at me that day. "I've got it pretty bad!"

Here's a secret, Dollar Binners, a secret you are welcome to pass on to anyone you know who's still in middle school: when faced with teenage adversity it's time to go big and be weird or just fold up and whimper. I did the former, and I've tried doing it ever since.

Matt, and the few other people who mattered, stuck with me that day. In fact they thought my whole approach was pretty awesome. Together we gave up on being popular and settled for joyful instead. We turned up Michael Penn and embraced our own individual selves, scabs and all.

P.S. As you can tell from the stock photo in the opening, this is a record I don't yet own. And my 80's tape is long, long gone. Someday I will come across a copy of March in the Dollar Bin. It will be tattered and unloved, full of skips and crunches. It will be wonderful.

[mercy-misrule]

"it was unethical of Porsche to bug Tawan's room! "

this is a take i saw away from tumblr, and im reeling

look, even though i can find the occasional bickering in the tumblr tag frustrating, ive never ever seen anyone drop a take as ridiculous as this

this was the issue?!?? this is where you drew the ethics line

in this episode we have

- tawan, who kinn tried to and believed he murdered! that was his romantic partner at the time! legit doesn't matter his motivation, that's a terrifying act of domestic violence.

- also tawan coming back, manipulating and purposefully degrading Porsche's confidence in both his relationship and his own importance. bad times!

- vegas. everyone's favourite pathetic little meowfioso. every interaction he has with Porsche is rancid vibes, and this one was so much. pwease Porsche don't let it hurt :(((

(fucking amazing antagonist i enjoy Vegas so much)

- vegas 2.0, interactions with Pete. the powerlessness of Pete, unable to escape tgis polite little trap.

- yes, Porsche wiretap moments. unethical is an insane claim to leverage in the murder mafia house, there are ethics to unethic, but this act was self sabotaging, giving into fear.

- Tawan crotch faceplant. Hey Kinn? You don't gotta. You could have moved, my guy. Its not 'unethical' but it was dumb as shit.

People rag on Kinn in this ep, to an unfair amount. He's emotionally damaging Porsche, and that's going to harm their relationship, but he's working within the framework of his family's affairs, and he is putting that above his personal relationship. Which he has to as a boss. Still should have clued in Porsche, but we forget that Porsche is a terrible liar and has no poker face.

It's a no good situation!

That being said, this particular move was truly a brain dead moment and everyone should dunk on him for it

- locking Porsche up without a guard, leaving him vulnerable but also isolated. Cannot have made a worse choice for both his safety and his mental health, his trust in Kinn.

-Tawan milk as a sex metaphor. I do not care for that shit at all, frankly

- Vegas redux. Who is letting my guy scamper around. Someone chase him out with a broom.

Anyway episode 9 kicked both the characters and the audiences asses, and I'm still reeling that anyone could level 'unethical' as a criticism of this show. There's no ethics! Everyone sucks, except Chay! None of these bitches trustworthy or wholesome! Its murder, toxic power imbalances all the way down, and that's the joy of the show.

[spideysmjs]

pandemonium (the good place au)

Hey everyone! I hope you all are having a great day! Here’s my submission for MJ Week 2022 -- based off Season 1′s finale of The Good Place!

For Day Six of @mjweek: Figuring It Out

MJ as Eleanor

Peter as Chidi

Flash as Tahani

Brad as Jason

Ned as Janet

Mr. Harrington as Michael 

Quentin Beck as Shawn 

“You have 30 minutes,” Mr. Beck turns on a countdown floating above the four of their heads before crossing his arms and walking away as he continues to MJ’s bedroom, “because I won’t be returning to the Bad Place without two people.”

As soon as he disappears from the living room, MJ turns around to face a poor, hopeless Harrington. She scans his face carefully before he says, "All I wanted was my first neighborhood to be perfect. Now you’re all suffering. I’m sorry.”

Harrington steps away, standing quietly behind the clown-painted automatic doors to MJ’s bedroom, listening to the sound of the circus echo before leaving the four of them alone to make their final decision.

MJ paces around the room while everyone drops to the couch, unsure of what to do. When she faces them, they stare at her, waiting for another clever, roundabout solution—despite being completely out of ideas. 

A tiny, very tiny, smile tugs at the corner of her lips. 

No one’s ever depended on her like this. 

Maybe she is changing. Maybe Peter’s heroic lessons have worked out for her. After all, she did help an elderly woman cross the street today, even if there are no cars in The Good Place. Maybe her growth in leading this rag-tag team of hopeless dead people is a sign. Maybe it’s a sign that she should... go.

“It has to be me and Brad,” she says, putting her best face forward. All three pairs of eyes widen at her answer. “We’re the ones that lied and dragged you down. We deserve to leave.”

Without missing a beat, Peter and Flash simultaneously say, “Agreed.”

“Wow, thought you’d at least pretend to care,” she murmurs. 

Brad stands up immediately, throwing his hands in the air. “Woah, woah. That Beck guy said we’ve all done bad things here. So let’s look at this ethnically.” 

“Ethically,” Peter sighs quietly. Without looking, MJ can tell his eyes are rolling to the back of his head, brimming with impatience that he’s too good to reveal. Whatever. Whatever. So what if she can tell? It’s not like Peter’s her real soulmate anyway. It’s not like she’s the real MJ of The Good Place. 

Ignoring Peter, Brad points out, “You guys did something bad by helping me and MJ. It’s basic consequentialism. The morality of an action is solely judged on its consequences.”

Peter claps his hands and stands up. “Now you’re learning? Now?”

“Peter’s done worse stuff than me! I just minded my own business. I pretended I didn’t even talk, man. He murdered Ned! He murdered my best friend!”

“I was trying to stop you from doing it!” 

“Ned is not your best friend,” Flash stands up. “There’s a Ned in every neighborhood!”

“Well, this Ned is MY best friend. We exchanged friendship bracelets.”

 “Oh my God,” MJ groans. “B-Dog, let’s discuss this in the other room.”

MJ drags him away. 

“What?”

“Come on, dude. You barely paid attention to Peter’s classes. Peter has worked way too hard for us to just send him to the Bad Place,” she says. “He’s helped me a lot, Brad.”

“Fine.”

“Really? That was easy.”

“Whatever, dude. But if they want to tear someone’s asshole out, you’re going first,” Brad points out.

“Fine, sure. It’s not like we won’t be tortured for the rest of our damn lives,” MJ retorts, dragging him back into the living room. “Alright, Team Meeting. Brad has agreed to come with me to the Bad Place.”

Peter and Flash stare at her, speechless. 

“Yeah. Bye, Flash. Sorry I wasn’t a good soulmate,” Brad says. “You can clean my bud-hole out once we disintegrate.”

“We’re not going to disintegrate,” MJ says.

“Yet,” Brad adds.

She walks away, heading closer to Peter. There’s a frown etched upon his face. How does heartbreak feel so real in heaven? How is she going to tell Peter that she’ll miss him? Maybe even think about him sometimes in between torture sessions? 

“It’s been real, my dude,” she blurts out. Peter grins. “Sorry. I just... I’m not saying goodbye or ending things. Kinda how I always end things.”

“Checks out,” he grins at the ground momentarily, before his smile begins to fall. “I feel like I failed you.”

“No, no Peter,” MJ says, tearing up. “Don’t say that.” She places her hands on Peter’s shoulders. “I fell into a cave. You were my flashlight.” 

Before Peter can say anything, Flash interrupts their moment, pulling MJ into an embrace. “I’m gonna miss you, girl.”

She laughs. “I’ll miss you, too.” 

They all pull into one, final group hug. MJ didn’t think she could ever care about anyone so much until being here, until learning how to be better—how to actually think about others before herself, unlike how she’d been raised.

There’s a pounding on the door before they can head out.

It bursts open.

Michelle. Well, the other Michelle. MJ squints. What does she want? She can have her soulmate after MJ leaves. 

“I’m taking one of the slots for the Bad Place.”

“What?!” they all shout, aside from Brad who smiles, “Awesome!”

MJ shoves Brad. 

Peter steps forward to Michelle, frowning. “What? Why?”

“Everyone else here has a soulmate... and my soulmate doesn’t love me.” Peter shifts his feet. MJ watches carefully as his body language shifts when Michelle points out, “I don’t know if you love MJ or Flash or whoever else is here in this neighborhood, but... you don’t love me. Which means that this... will never be my Good Place. I’m going. So pick one more person.”

Without time for anyone to disagree, she disappears through the front door as fast as she walked through.

“Sooo,” MJ smacks her lips. “Let’s just get this over with. I’ll go. You three stay.”

“Yes!” Brad says, turning to Ned. “We did it!”

Ned pulls him into a hug.

“No, you’re not going,” Peter says. “I’m going.”

“Wh.. what?” MJ asks. 

“Michelle—the other one you know—she’s my soulmate. Or was. She’s only going down there because she thinks I don’t love her.”

“Well do you?” Flash asks. 

“Please don’t ask me that. My stomach hurts more than when Doc Ock used to punch me down to the ground.”

A beat. MJ rolls her eyes, “Peter, you’re ridiculous. I’ve already made up my mind. I’m going. End of story.”

“I’m going,” Flash says. 

“What?” MJ asks. 

“I’m going and replacing Michelle. Peter and I will go together. I think we can really work out no matter where we end up.”

“You do realize that the Good Place isn’t a couple’s retreat right?”

As they continue to bicker with each other, Brad jumps up and down in his couch, thinking and assuming that everyone else will go aside from him. He’s celebrating endlessly in a way that makes the migraine in MJ’s head grow harder and harder. Flash and Peter speak over each other too loudly for her to even understand what they want. 

MJ doesn’t argue any longer, throwing her head back in agony as if the migraine she has now is a migraine that never left since the moment she got here. In fact, every single moment has been agony. The Good Place has stressed her out more than when she lived her life on Earth as a horrible human being. 

It’s almost as if...

“Holy, motherforking shirt balls.”

They all fall silent. Peter asks, “What?”

“Wow,” MJ laughs. “Wow. Beck! Harrington! Come here. We’re ready.”

The doors slide open. Beck asks, “Is everything okay?”

“We’ve made a decision. Peter and I are going to the Bad Place.” The two gentlemen look shocked, but she can see right through their eyes if those really are eyes. 

“Huh?” Peter asks.

“But,” Harrington stutters, “But what about the Real MJ—”

“No. We decided. It’s me and Peter. Call the train.”

Beck says, “I don’t accept this. It’s supposed to be Brad and MJ.”

“Nope. Nope! You said two people. It’s me and Peter. Come on, let’s go.” She glances quickly back at Peter, who's looking at her as if she’s speaking nonsense. It hasn’t clicked for anyone else yet. She stares directly into Harrington’s eyes. “Ready when you are boss.”

A beat. Then Peter asks, “MJ, what’s going on?” 

She nods her head, smiling at the two men in front of her as she turns to Peter. “It took me a while to figure it out. But just now? When we were all fighting and yelling at each other and each of us demanding we should go to the Bad Place, I thought… wow this is torture. And then I realized… they’re never going to call a train to the Bad Place.”

MJ points back to her. “We’re already here. This… this is the Bad Place.”

All four look at Harrington, not needing to wait for a response before he laughs maniacally at them. “Oh, man. I can’t believe you figured it out. Oh, God! MJ, you ruined everything, you know that? You really suck! I was so close to pulling it off.”

MJ crosses her arms in victory. Harrington drops to the couch behind him, knocking a lamp down on purpose. 

“Wait, so MJ’s right?” Flash asks.

“Yep, she’s right as rain,” Harrington laughs. “MJ figured it out.”

“No, this doesn’t make any sense. This is paradise,” Peter says. 

“Peter, it looks like Paradise, but to me, this is a neighborhood full of a clusterfork of our anxieties. I’m surrounded by people who are quite literally better than me. Brad wasn’t allowed to talk, which tortured Flash, who tortured Brad right back for forcing him to talk. I was tortured into trying to be a Good Person, which tortured Peter because he had to be a good soulmate to me. Then, that tortured Flash because Peter doesn’t like Flash.”

“You don’t like me?” Flash pouts.

“Please don’t ask me that,” Peter groans.

MJ points at the two of them. “See?! We’ve all been set to torture each other since the moment we got here! Harrington played us!”

Harrington frowns. “Damn, this sucks.”

“No, it doesn’t,” MJ says. “You really thought you could group the four of us to torture each other… I can see it… A vigilante superhero… a straight-up selfish lawyer… a clueless jock turned failed student-athlete… A rich fraud… You thought we could do this for 1,000 years… but instead, we cared for each other. We helped each other.”

She glances back at the three of her new friends.

“We became a team. So, the only thing you succeeded in doing… was bringing us together.”

Harrington’s eyes pop open. “That’s right. That was my mistake. I brought you together. Put you too close to each other. Next time, I have to separate you!”

Peter asks, “What? Next time?” 

“Yeah, I’m going to erase your memories and try it again once the boss gives me approval!” Harrington rushes out to meet with Beck. 

MJ’s heart is pounding, racing faster than she’s ever known. She has to find a solution. She looks to the rest of them, clueless. Helpless. They look to her like she knows an answer. 

She grabs Peter’s nearest ethics novel, rips the first page, and scribbles something down. 

“Ned,” she turns over to face Ned. “You can’t swallow or eat things right?”

Ned smiles. “No!” 

“Open wide!” MJ instructs Ned as he listens happily, opening his mouth and accepting the crumpled-up piece of paper just before Harrington comes back in.

“Well, are you all ready?” he grins. “Of course you are, you won’t remember.”

“You know what, Harrington? Do your worst. We figured it once, we can do it again. Because you know what Harrington? Ya bas–”

A white flash clouds all of them.

One.

Two.

Three. 

-

MJ opens her eyes in a white room, glancing around, and sees a wall with painted affirmations. 

Everything is fine. 

“Michelle?” an unfamiliar voice comes from behind her. “I’m Mr. Harrington. It’s nice to meet you.”

–

After touring the neighborhood, MJ stands alone now in a house full of clowns, having lied her ass on the first day in freaking heaven. She takes a deep breath, though she barely lets it out until she hears a quiet ding.

Someone appears in front of her, as if out of nowhere. 

“Woah. Who are you?” she yells, backing away at the man whose smile widens from ear to ear. 

“Ned. I think this is for you,” he hands her a crumpled paper. “I found it in my mouth when I was rebooted.”

MJ blinks. “What?” 

It’s not possible. She just got here. She grabs the paper, opening it up. 

MJ - find Peter. 

She furrows her eyebrows. 

“Who the fork is Peter?”

[wonderful-wells-writing]

Fanclub; Chapter 1

EoWells x Reader

Some of the STAR Labs employees have a secret fanclub where they discuss Harrison Wells and share pictures they take when they think he isn't looking. Problem is it's not quite as secret as they think it is. The man himself seems to have taken an interest in the the little group, finding it to be the perfect place to find willing partners to satisfy his needs. And you're his next pick.

Work is dying down for the evening at STAR Labs. Chemists are checking that all the storage units are set to the proper temperatures. Engineers are making sure that everything that needs to be powered down is. Lab techs are cleaning up their stations. But nearly everybody is discussing their plans for the weekend.

There is one worker who is not engaging in such conversations. You are currently crammed between two sections of machinery, determined to get this wiring finished before leaving for the day. That way, Monday, bright and early your team can start doing test runs.

You are not engaging in conversation with others but rather are talking to yourself as you work. “Some red over here, blue wire over there.” Your grin would light up the room if anybody could see it. “I just love when a color-coded array comes together.” There’s a buzz on your right butt-cheek, and you squeal in surprise.

“Everything alright in there?” One of the other scientists looks up from the desk.

“Yeah, Bri,” you extract yourself from the machine parts. “My phone just went off, and I thought something shocked me.”

“Girl, I can not tell you how often that happens to me,” Bri takes her purse from a drawer and a jacket off the chair. “So, what are your plans for the weekend. More number crunching?”

You pull your phone from your back pocket. “Actually my college roommate is having a bachelorette party tonight. So I said I would swing by the bar for a bit.”

“Sounds fun,” Bri gives a wave before heading to the door. “Don’t party too hard.”

She returns the wave before opening a group chat app on her phone to see what the notification is about.

KittyCat42; O.M.G did you see Dr. Wells today? a shirt THAT tight can not be workplace appropriate!!!

Attached is a photo taken from a smartphone at an angle in which the subject does not seem to be aware their picture is being taken. Dr. Harrison Wells is leaning over a desk, examining something on a monitor. Kitty is right; his shirt is very tight, his biceps bulge through the long black sleeves.

You grin, considering sending a reply, but another message comes in first.

YummyBitch73; Think he’s got plans? Looking that good, he’s got to be going out tonight.

Your thumbs move across the screen to type a quick response.

BabyDoll14; Maybe he has a date tonight?

KittyCat42; wonder who the lucky girl is?

You lean against a nearby workbench, smirking at the screen.

---

On the other side of the lab, somebody picks up their phone to check the barrage of notifications coming in. They chuckle before adding their own two cents.

Speedy22: Hey, who knows, it could be a lucky guy.

YummyBitch73: Oh you wish, he is a lady killer through and through

BabyDoll14: I mean, who are we to judge if it’s a lucky lady or gent. Maybe he swings one way, maybe he swings both ways. Who cares, we’re just here to talk about his ass behind his back.

“Speedy’ nods, almost respecting the woman on the other side of the screen for staying objective about objectifying her boss.

Speedy22: Speaking of ass, I got this one yesterday

He opens his gallery and scrolls until an ‘appropriate picture is found. A nice shot of Dr. Wells from behind; the quality is incredible for a smartphone shot. The man’s shirt is riding up, showing a nice strip of the skin of his back, even a bit of where his boxers rise above the waistband of his hands.

YummyBitch73: Damn Speedy, you always get the good ones. You’ll have to teach me some photography lessons sometime.

KittyCat42: what kind of camera are you using? The quality is so gooooood.

“Hey,” a woman’s voice draws his attention away from his device. “Are you staying late again tonight?”

Harrison Wells takes a breath to look her up and down, mentally running through his mind all the employees to try and remember who it is at his office door. “I’ll be headed out soon; I just have to wrap some things up.”

He recalls who she is when he sees the look she’s giving him. Brianna Masters, a specialist working down in Lab C. She would have had to go out of her way to get to his office before leaving. Self-proclaimed president of the Dr. Wells Fanclub, he had just been interacting with the group chat of; after the former president left with a job offer at Mercury Labs. She had been making goo-goo eyes at him since her interview three months ago.

“Well,” Bri twirls a curl of her hair, fluttering her eyelashes. “Harrison, you know I was wondering if you might like to take me out to get some drinks tonight?”

Dr. Wells tries to hide his displeasure at the thought. She wasn’t his type, physically, mentally, emotionally, “I have plans in the morning that require a clear head. Miss. Masters. Now is there anything of importance that you need?” The man was not adverse to flights of fancy to pass the time; he wouldn’t be keeping an eye on the little Fanclub of his if he wasn’t willing to look for ‘interested parties,’ but this particular woman has been of no real interest to him.

For reasons such as how she pouts at his response, “Well, having fun is important.” She mutters before wandering off down the hall, turning her attention to her phone.

YummyBitch73; holy Shit! He just asked me out for drinks. It sucks so much that I have to drive out to Coast City; I”d have taken him up in a heartbeat otherwise.

----

Back in Lab C, you finally finish with the maintenance on the machine. You check your phone once more while heading over to the desk and nearly cackle at what you’re reading. Everybody knows that Bri is full of shit, but there’s no point in calling it out and causing discourse.

You mute the phone to focus on your computer. While humming a quiet tune, you work on moving files to the USB stick plugged into the monitor.

“Fuck,” you whisper, seeing the download time in comparison to the clock on the screen. Of course, you could just leave it be, take the weekend off. It’s not like you get paid extra to run calculations at home.

17 minutes later

“Nonononono, wait, please!” You’re half running to the street as the bus pulls away, leaving you in the illuminated circle of a streetlamp, cursing yourself. That was going to be the last bus coming this way for the night. If you walk home, you’ll never make it in time to change for the party. You might not even make the event at all. You pace up and down the sidewalk, contemplating your options.

A car pulls up beside you, tinted window rolling down, “Need a lift?”

You stop, shocked, “Oh, no I…” you pause, looking through the window, “Dr. Wells, hi...hey.” You swallow your pride. “I would really love to get a ride on-with, with you.” Internally you cringe at how that came out, but figure he probably wouldn’t have heard such a minor slip.

The lock clicks open, and you reach for the door.

“Maple Apartments on South 11th street, right?” Harrison glances at you as you get in the car.

You pause before shutting the door, “do I want to know how you know that?”

He laughs, and you jump a bit at it, “I can see how that would sound a little suspicious.” His smile is reassuring, and his blue eyes are kind behind his glasses. “It was on your registration forms when you started. I enter new employee data myself. Total recall can be useful even for small matters.”

You breathe a sigh of relief, shutting the door and buckling in. “I really appreciate this Dr. Wells, I would have been so late tonight if I didn’t get home to change soon.”

“Bit plans tonight?” Harrison asks as he starts driving. Truth is he had suspected you’d be missing her bus. He had seen you running after the last bus or driven past you walking home numerous times out his way out. You had quite the habit of working until the absolute last moment.

You smile, twiddling your thumbs to keep your hands occupied. “Yeah, I’m meeting a friend at the new bar that opened down the street from my place. She’s getting married soon, and since I can’t make the wedding, I promised I would spend at least a couple hours at her bachelorette party.” You aren’t exactly sure why you’re volunteering this information to your boss. It would be inappropriate to be so casual with him; then again, it’s also inappropriate to be part of a Fanclub that secretly takes pictures of him and talks about how great his ass looks.

Harrison ‘hmms’ in thought. “Why can’t you make it to the wedding?” He glances at you out of the corner of his eye, taking a moment to take in the way you sit, act, look, before returning his eyes to the road.

“Oh, they scheduled it for a Wednesday, so,” you look towards him just moments after he looks away. The first thing you notice is his hair; whenever you’ve seen him in the morning, it’s perfectly combed and straight, but it seems like as the day went on, it began to take on a life of its own. While the back is still nice and neat, the front is sticking out in all kinds of directions.

“You could have asked for the day off,” Dr. Wells offers, “Am I such a terrible boss that you think I”d deny you some vacation after all your hard work?”

You feel a heat rise to your cheeks at what seems to be a compliment to her work ethic, “Oh no, I don’t think that at all. It’s just that, well, we have so much work to do. Every day we get a little closer to your dreams of the particle accelerator, and I want to contribute absolutely everything I can to that dream.” You smile. “You’re going to do such incredible things for the world of science Dr. Wells, and I don’t want to waste any time that could be spent helping you.”

The man is somewhat stunned by this. He’d attributed her long hours and determination to personal ambition. “What about you? Do you want history to remember you for your achievements?”

You bite your lower lip in thought at the question, “I mean sure, it would be nice to be recognized for my contribution, but,” she takes a deep breath, “I’m more concerned about how my work will impact the world, not so much if I’m remembered for it. Anyways you’re the true genius. I can tell that STAR Labs will make big changes and put humanity on a path towards the future. As long as I get to be a part of that, it’s all I really need.”

Harrison does a low chuckle at your sentiment, amused by the naivety. You speak with such hope and wonder and admiration. If you knew the truth, how horrified would you be? The realization of the end goal of the particle accelerator, the effects across history that your determination would wreak.

He grins, “Well, I am glad to have such a dedicated employee, but I do believe that one off day is not going to hurt our progress.”

You purse your lips, “You don’t come down to Lab C very often; you’d be surprised how off the rails things can go when I’m not there. Anyways I would rather work than go to a wedding. It’s not my kind of scene.”

He can sense that you are holding something back but doesn’t press the issue any further. He’s reached your apartment building anyways.

“If you change your mind, I’ll be more than happy to give you the time off,” he says as he parks.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you reach for the door handle, “oh, and thank you so much for the ride. I really owe you one.”

Dr. Wells makes a mental note about cashing in that favor later. “You just stay safe and enjoy yourself tonight.” He smiles warmly at you as you wave goodbye, but when the door shuts, his grin turns a bit darker. He watches you walk away, eyes tracing the curve of your figure, resting on the beautiful shape of your rear, right up until you disappear into your building.

As he begins to drive away, he catches sight of himself in the rearview mirror. There is something about this form of his that seems to drive the ladies crazy, and he wasn’t opposed to taking advantage of that. While pulling back into the street and driving away, he thinks on his situation.

For 13 years now, Eobard Thawne has been trapped in this god-forsaken time period. For a while, he had focused solely on his mission, rarely interacting with others unless it served a greater purpose. But he was still a man, subject to desire. At first, it was almost enough to make him regret allowing Harrison Well’s wife to die, she could have filled his needs easily. But that woman had been intelligent; she’d have discovered his identity eventually, so allowing her to die had been for the best.

Still, after a few years of isolation, Thawne had found the need unbearable and began seeing ways to fill the hole that was forming in his chest. Little flings, one-off nights where he indulged his carnal side, allowed himself the pleasure of another’s body before quickly parting ways with them, when he discovered that a fanclub devoted to him had been formed amongst his employees, that made the whole thing easier.

Joining the group chat under a false name was easy enough. It inflated his ego every time he read them discussing how great they thought he looked, and he was more than happy to provide material for them to gush over. And with that, it was like he had been given a list of women who would fuck him with no questions asked. All he had to do was choose. Of course, he has to be wary of those who might get too clingy or go off telling other people. But it’s not that hard to week those types out of the pack.

Thawne notices magenta neon as he’s driving. A club with a grand opening sign out front. He smiles, knowing that now not only does he have a new prey lure in, but the perfect hunting ground as well.

[teacupfulofstarshine]

LOVELY, DARK, AND DEEP CHAPTER 10

PLEASE HEED THE CONTENT WARNINGS!!! this chapter features Evil Scientist Lady and her Fucked Up WorldView a LOT, and there are also some Major Plot Events that involve Violence. i will put a summary in the end notes if you decide at any point that this particular chapter is too much - that's super valid! i will also mention here that no main characters are going to die in this story and no one dies in this chapter either.

huge huge thanks to @flamingfawkes for beta’ing!

CW: extreme disregard for human life, mentioned human and animal cruelty, toxic workplace environment, violence (both imagined and actual, mildly graphic), gun mention, minor blood, death threats, extremely unethical character, unethical science, stalking

chapter 1 // chapter 2 // chapter 3 // chapter 4 // chapter 5 // chapter 6 // chapter 7 // chapter 8 // chapter 9 // read it on ao3!

“This is the same result we’ve gotten the last twenty times -”

“I don’t care, Steven, run it again!”

Steven sighs, punching at the keyboard to run the statistical analysis sequence again. “This is ridiculous! I’ve run this sequence so many times it feels like my eyes are going to bleed. Why can’t we just turn in the results we have and -”

“Because she’ll behead us,” James snaps, “and then she’ll destroy our reputations and our families and they’ll get no severance. I have three young children at home, Steven, I need this money.” Steven softens a little, fingers running smoothly over the keys as he combs the data again. Next to him, James has a computer screen full of frame-by-frame stills of what little data they recovered from the probe before it was destroyed; Penny across the room is surrounded by ancient texts a mile high and at least three laptops.

“Why is she so interested in this, anyway?”

“It’s beyond me. Since when do we question the whims of what we’re told to do?”

Steven squints at the screen, pushing his chair back and rubbing at his eyes. “If I have to stare at these numbers for one more second, my brain is going to explode. I feel like my eyeballs are going to melt out of my skull. I wanna scream.”

James pulls up another image, staring at the blurry image of the merman before him. Steven pushes away from his own screen and squints at James’s. The merman in the photo looks young, not much older than his kid brother, but they don’t know anything about the lifespan of these creatures. He looks confused, squinting at the camera. As James flicks through the stills, the merman transitions from confused to angry to enraged, and then he attacks.

“He’s not happy about the camera.”

“Would you be happy about someone spying on you and your family?” James says, switching to the next still.

“I wouldn’t be happy if I thought someone was doing anything we do in this lab to me or my family.” James elbows Steven, but luckily no one else seems to have heard.

“This lab isn’t the most ethical place I’ve ever worked, but it pays the bills,” James mutters. “And we’re not even in the experimentation lab. We just do data analysis. We’re removed from the situation.”

Are we? Steven wonders. He sees James reach out and touch the framed picture of his daughters, and keeps his mouth shut. He turns back to his computer, watching the little spinning color wheel of his mouse as the program calculates the same numbers again and again. The results come up identical to the previous ones, and Steven clicks “Run Program” again wordlessly.

They work in silence for a while, the three of them, broken only by James’s muttering and the occasional thud of one of Penny’s books and the clicks of keyboards and mice. If they weren’t so reliant on technology, Steven thinks, there would be an enormous corkboard spanning three of the four walls, covered in pushpins and handwriting and red string connecting images. He debates actually building one, if only to increase the levity in the room, but decides against it.

He’s seen people punished or fired or who-knows-what-else for far less, after all.

Instead, after his program tells him for the twenty-third time that his results are the same (and didn’t someone say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?), Steven scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms and opens the data entry window. Maybe the problem with the results has to do with the entry of the data; did he input something wrong? It’s possible . . .

Here he goes again, he supposes. He stands up, stretches, and leans back to crack some vertebrae. “I’m gonna grab a coffee, take a short screen break, and go back to the beginning. Maybe there’s something in the input that I missed. You want anything?”

James groans, thunking his head against the desk. “I want something with enough caffeine to kill three elephants, please.” Steven nods, looking over at Penny. She shakes her head, and he heads for the shitty coffee machine a few doors down.

Several floors below, a young woman pulls her lab goggles up to rest on top of her head with her perfectly-pinned protocol-compliant bun. “The latest round of tests is completely done, ma’am. I think you’ll find the efficacy . . . striking.”

She takes the clipboard, glossy perfectly-painted nails pinching the sheets of thin paper and flicking between them. “I’m afraid I don’t do so well with the scientific side of things - Kathleen, was it? Explain this to me, would you?”

“Certainly, ma’am. As you know, the kill time for the most effective neurotoxin currently available, tetrodotoxin, varies from thirty minutes to four hours. Average time for symptoms to manifest is seventeen minutes, and from there the symptoms progress through tingling of the lips and tongue, headache, vomiting, muscle weakness, ataxia, et cetera. Death occurs as a result of respiratory or heart failure, and the poison is nearly undetectable if you do not specifically test for it.”

“The untraceability is a plus, but that is far too wide a range of times, and too slow a time even at its fastest.”

“Of course, ma’am, but as far as naturally-occurring marine poisons go - actually, as far as naturally-occurring poisons go, full stop - it is the most effective. Until now, that is.”

“Oh? What are your findings?”

“Which trials would you like to start with, ma’am?”

“The human trials, Kathleen. The only ones that matter. I hardly intend to go around killing mice and hoping that no one traces their deaths to a novel neurotoxin.” She laughs airily, and Kathleen nods along.

“Certainly, ma’am. The most recent data points indicate an average efficacy time of thirteen minutes for our compound neurotoxin, with a full range between nine and seventeen minutes passing before subject death. Subjects began to show symptoms around five minutes, give or take twenty-five seconds.”

“And those symptoms were?”

Kathleen flips through the document. “Seizures, vital organ failure, blindness, painful muscle spasms, suffocation from the inside out.”

She hums, tapping a manicured finger against the report. “Well, Kathleen, that is certainly impressive, especially for a preliminary human subject trial. These results . . . I must say, they are not nearly as disappointing as I anticipated when I came down here.”

“Ma’am?”

“How long have you worked for this company, Kathleen?”

“Almost five years, ma’am, but I’ve always been an assistant. This is my first time as lead researcher and biochemist on a project, ever since you . . . laid off the previous lead researcher.”

“Kathleen, let me be frank. These results are not what I hoped for. The efficacy time and symptom onset times are both far too long for my liking, and the range of efficacy time is too broad. By all accounts, I should consider this a failure.” Kathleen swallows, but remains poised. “However, you’ve managed to shave off a considerable amount of time from the tetrodotoxin readings. The range of symptom onset time is an acceptable breadth, and your results are far beyond anything your predecessor ever accomplished for me. This is truly impressive, all things considered.”

“Thank you, ma’am. How should I proceed?”

“I want the efficacy doubled - tripled - I want it upped by anywhere between four and five hundred percent. I want the pain increased, too. Feel free to increase your requests for test subjects, but get me the results I want. You said the original tetrodotoxin was untraceable?”

“That’s correct, ma’am.”

“Can you keep that feature intact?”

“As of right now, it is intact, ma’am. I will endeavor to keep it so in future experiments.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Welcome to your new position as head of this research division. Don’t let me down.” She holds out a slender hand, and Kathleen takes it, trying not to seem too eager.

“I won’t, ma’am.”

“How soon can you start this experiment up again?”

“The cleaners should be finished by tomorrow morning, ma’am, and I can tweak chemical formulas until then.”

“Excellent.” Her watch beeps, and she lifts it, pursing her bright lips as she examines the message she’s just received. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another matter to attend to. Someone will drop off your master access key for Lab Three within the hour.”

She steps into the elevator and lifts her watch up to her face, swiping through the messages from her secretary. One finger reaches out to press the button for the digital analysis labs floor, and the other taps away at her watch.

When she steps off the elevator, her secretary is waiting. “Ma’am.”

“What do they have for me?”

“Unclear. They said it was something they wanted to report directly to you and you alone, but it seems to be something big.”

“Hopefully it’s a big step in the right direction, or they’ll be taking a big step out of a job.” She relishes in the way the employees she passes all unfailingly flinch and then snap to perfect attention when they hear the sharp echo of her heels against the floor. She lifts her head and walks faster, striking the tiles with her heels like a gavel, sharp and precise against a judge’s desk.

The computer labs are disorganized when she enters, but there is a string of promising-looking numbers on the main display monitor. There is a woman surrounded by books and a man pulling up photos on his computer, and there is a third man standing in front of her like a toy soldier. She focuses on that one.

“I hear you have news for me? Make it swift, and make it good.”

He swallows, hard, and her eyes idly trace the line of his throat. If he disappoints her, perhaps she will drive her heel through it, to make an example of him. That would be far too messy; perhaps his dominant hand will do.

“I have narrowed down the location of the missing net, ma’am. I believe it to have washed up somewhere around these general GPS coordinates.” He fiddles with a remote in his hand, and the image on the screen changes. It shows an aerial satellite view of a secluded strip of beach, framed by rocky cliffs with larger rocks studded out into the open water. “It should have washed up somewhere in this one-point-three-seven-mile strip of beach. The whole area is property of one Doctor Thomas Sanders.”

She snarls. “That man. He won’t let us on that beach willingly until hell freezes over.”

The other man, the one scanning through photo stills and video footage, jumps up, knocking his chair backwards. “I found something!”

She turns towards him, and his excitement freezes and sputters into something much more controlled and terrified. “Show me.” He clicks something and pulls up video footage from one of their surveillance drones, zooming in on a particular patch of ocean along the stretch of Sanders’ beach. Her eyes widen when she sees what he’d noticed - a hump of red-and-white tail arcing above the waves before a pattern of ripples streaks off towards the cliff. He pauses the footage, rewinds it, uses a laser pointer to show an opening concealed in the cliff face.

“There’s some kind of grotto in there, hidden by the cliff. It’s on Sanders’ property, he has to know it’s there. And it looks like the merman from the destroyed drone knows it’s there too. Which means -”

“That must be where he’s keeping them.” Something burns in her chest, brilliant and terrifying and all-encapsulating, like wildfire. “We’ve found them, at long last.”

“What would you have me do?” her secretary asks. “I can arrange for a recovery squad at your earliest possible convenience, ma’am.”

“Assemble the squad, but do not have them move out. They will wait for my orders. When they go, you are to go with them.” Her secretary nods, once, sharp and sure. “Dispatch a crew to Lab One and clear it out. I want it prepped for containment, vivisection, chemical tests - the works. Get at least three tanks set up and one strap-down human table.”

“A human table, ma’am?”

“Yes. We have to deal with Sanders once and for all to ensure that he does not ruin any future experiments.”

“Will we be taking him as well?”

She hums thoughtfully. “No. Pull up the file we have on his known associate?”

A few swift clicks and flicks and a photo appears on the large screen: a young man with brown-and-purple hair, sleeves rolled up, carefully lowering a perfectly viable specimen into the ocean and letting it go, like some kind of fool. “His doctoral student, ma’am. The longest one he’s ever kept - this one has been with him a few years.”

“Excellent. When you raid the lab, take him.”

“Should we kill Sanders?”

“No. Rough him up a little, but leave him alive. Taking his protégé and leaving him alone, helpless to rescue him, will be the highest form of torture for such an insufferable person. The agony will eat him alive until his dying day.”

Her secretary nods, taking the notes down dutifully. The other employees look vaguely horrified, but she pays them no mind. No sacrifice is too great to be made in the name of progress, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a weakling who will never get anywhere in life.

She refuses to be one of those weaklings.

*~*~*~*~*

Logan wakes up confused.

He’s warm, warmer than he thinks he’s ever been in his whole life. When he stirs, he moves farther than he meant to - he must not be underwater. That’s enough to send a jolt of concern through his sleep-addled brain. Why isn’t he underwater? Why was he sleeping if he was above the surface? There’s no way his dad is here, and Roman hates surfacing, where are they? Where is he? But he’s so comfortable . . .

Someone shifts beside him, an arm draping across his waist, and Logan forces his eyes open. He shifts his lower half, confused when two things move instead of one, and there are layers upon layers of thin, flat, soft things wrapping around him. What is happening?

Slowly, slowly, his mind clears, and he remembers the events of last night. He grew legs - he was a human, once, before he was mer - he couldn’t sleep underwater with Dad and Roman - Virgil was teaching him to walk - Virgil put “clothes” on him - Virgil was embarrassed that he didn’t have those “clothes” on him - Virgil took him out of the lab to sleep - Virgil agreed to cuddle him since his pod couldn’t -

Logan feels the strange burning in his face again as he shifts. He can’t see well in this new human form, but when things are close enough to his face they’re relatively clear. And Virgil, still sleeping, is close enough that Logan can smell him - he smells like salt water mixed with something sharp and something sweet and something else that Logan can’t quite identify but finds addicting nonetheless. Sunlight streams in and pools around Virgil’s face, illuminating the tangled mess of hair spread around him and flopping into his face, the small puddle of water leaking out from his open mouth onto the soft thing he’s resting his head on, the way his chest moves slowly with every breath. His arm is wrapped around Logan, pulling him close. Logan thinks he might explode if he focuses on this any more, so he rolls from his side to his back as carefully as he can, not wanting to wake Virgil. Virgil tightens his arm around Logan and mutters something indecipherable in his sleep, but he doesn’t wake.

Rather than focusing on his very confusing feelings for the very pretty man next to him, Logan focuses on what he can see of the room around him. He makes a list in his mind of things that he plans to ask Virgil about later today, including:

1: There are many draws attached to the small, smooth cliffs surrounding them. How do they stay there?

2: There are lots of “clothes” scattered all around the floor, and there were several on the bed, too. Is that normal for humans?

3: Last night, Virgil did something that made the room light up with trapped sunlight! How did he do that?

4: How did Virgil get ice to stay in those big frozen sheets in such a warm place to let the sunlight in?

5: How did Virgil make ice into that weird shape that he filled with water and drank last night?

6: How did Virgil get the water to come into this place?

7: Do all humans have a specific area set aside for sleeping? Logan and his pod usually just sleep wherever they can, but Virgil seems to have this soft slab set aside with all of these soft things to be comfortable and sleep in every night. Is this a Human Thing or strictly a Virgil Thing?

Logan looks out through the sheet of ice that protects Virgil’s area from the outside and gasps. He can’t see well, but there’s a glittering expanse of blue that shifts and moves and oh, is that the ocean?

He’s spent his whole life (well, his whole remembered life, anyways) in the ocean, and he’s seen some truly wondrous things. He travels around the world with his pod, he knows the ocean is big, but seeing it spread out like this is . . . awe-inspiring. Logan has never seen the ocean like this, and now that he has he doesn’t think he can ever not see it like this again. It’s like a perfect sheet of sea-glass, rippling and unbroken but dynamic in a way that he never really gets a sense of when he’s beneath it.

He knows that there are waves, of course. There are smaller swells out on the open ocean, and larger ones when the Second Goddess dips her fingers down from the Upper Ocean and swirls the storms to a thundering burst. There are waves along the shoreline, ones that he frolics in with Roman and batter him against the shoreline. There are waves created when he or his pod members surface. But watching the movement of the ocean from up here is . . .

Even with his imperfect vision, he is completely at a loss for words as he stares at the ocean.

Eventually, Virgil stirs next to him, and Logan turns away from the ocean to stare at him. Virgil is close to him, arms wrapped tightly around him, face pressed against him. Logan’s eyesight is not great, but Virgil is close enough that he can pick out little details of his face. There are brown face scales scattered all over him, but they seem to cluster on his nose and his cheeks. Logan has wanted to touch them for a substantial amount of time, and he can’t stop himself from gently settling the tips of his fingers over Virgil’s cheek.

His face doesn’t feel like Logan was expecting. The scales don’t give texture to his face the way that Logan’s do; the skin is smooth and flat. There are little bumps all over, but the brown scales aren’t raised off the skin like Logan expected. He lets his fingers trail along Virgil’s face. His bone structure seems to be exceedingly similar to Logan’s, at least in regards to his head. Logan’s finger rests gently on the curve of bone under Virgil’s eye, and Virgil exhales warm breath onto his palm.

Logan wonders what it would be like to have this for longer than just his recovery period. He wonders what it would be like to wake up next to Virgil all the time, to get to run his hands over Virgil’s face and arms and chest and examine the differences between their anatomy. He wonders what it would be like to learn to walk without falling over, and he feels a sharp, unexpected twinge in his chest as he realizes that getting better at walking means no more closeness to Virgil.

His chest feels strange, like there’s a school of small fish swarming around and tickling his insides and making him feel all foamy, like the froth churned up by a windswept sea. He feels like he does when he’s underwater - free, weightless, mobile, limited by nothing except his own imagination. He feels unstoppable.

Virgil makes a sudden, sharp inhale, blinking his eyes open slowly. Logan thinks that, perhaps, he might not appreciate being studied unknowingly - he hadn’t appreciated Virgil doing it, before he understood what was happening, when all he knew was the loss of his pod aching like a scraped-out seashell. As Virgil wakes up, Logan shifts, turning his gaze to the rest of the room.

Virgil makes a sleepy grumbling noise, opening one eye. Logan chances another quick glance at him, and when his eye slides open Logan is struck by its beauty. He doesn’t get much of a chance to admire it, however, before Virgil is jolting backwards like Logan’s struck him with lightning. Logan is confused, reaching out and gently touching his shoulder. “Virgil?”

“Wassat?! Wait . . . L’gan?”

“It is me,” Logan says softly. “Are - are you upset with me?”

Virgil yawns, jaw dropping to his chest, revealing a flash of teeth and a soft pink tongue. (Logan wants to lick it. Why does Logan want to lick it? Why is Logan thinking about Virgil’s tongue licking his tongue - why is Logan thinking about Virgil - what in the Seven Oceans is happening to him.) “Wh - no, no, ‘m okay, I just - woke up, forgot I had you with me, got confused about another person in my bed.” Before Logan can start to feel bad, Virgil adds, “S’okay if it’s you, though,” and the foamy, floaty feeling is back.

“Did you sleep well?”

Virgil laughs, low and rumbling, and Logan can feel it in his fingers where he touches Virgil’s skin. “I never sleep well.” He sits up, and the fabric of his pajamas shifts to let Logan see stretches of soft, supple skin that he usually doesn’t. Logan wants to touch it. He very determinedly keeps his hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “Gotta admit, though, last night was . . . better than usual.”

This appears to be the point where Virgil first notices their position - pressed together, arm slung over Logan, basically cuddling the way that Logan normally would with his pod. (No tangle with his pod has ever felt this . . . electric, this charged, this important to Logan before.) His face flares a brilliant red, and he shifts like he wants to move away but -

“I’m sorry,” Virgil says. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No!” Logan blurts out. Virgil blinks at him a little, and maybe he was a little overly enthusiastic, but - “I sleep in a tangle with Dad and Roman all the time. I have extreme difficulty sleeping without contact with someone else. It . . . helped me greatly.”

“Oh,” Virgil says, face turning redder still, smiling shyly. “That - makes me feel better. Thanks, Lo.”

Logan smiles, and Virgil smiles too, reaching up to gently move a piece of hair away from his face. Logan thinks that, as far as deaths go, his chest exploding (which seems to be getting more and more likely every fifteen seconds he spends in Virgil’s presence, only accelerated by all this skin-on-skin contact they’re having right now) seems to be the most pleasurable.

Virgil opens his mouth to say something, but whatever it was is interrupted by a Ping! noise from across the room. “What is that?” Logan asks. Virgil, sadly, untangles himself from Logan and the blankets, sliding out of bed and heading over to one of the other structures in the room (what did he call it last night? Dex?) and picking up a flat glowing rectangle.

“Is everything alright?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I - Thomas sent me a text, it’s a little weird.”

“What is a text?”

“It’s a kind of human messaging system, it allows us to communicate when we’re far away from each other.”

“Like a pod call?” “Kind of? I’ll explain more later, I promise, I just - I gotta go down to the lab real quick.”

“I’ll come with -”

“No!” Virgil snaps. Logan flinches, and Virgil softens, crossing the room and gently touching his shoulder. “Hey, no, Logan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just - this message, there’s something off. I think something might be wrong, and I don’t want to put you in any unnecessary danger. Just - wait here, okay? Wait in my room, where it’s safe. It’s probably nothing, he’s probably fine, but on the off chance that he’s not, I want you to stay hidden safely up here.”

Logan isn’t sure why this makes his face heat up slightly, but it does. “Okay. I accept your apology, and I . . . trust you.”

Virgil smiles, soft and heartwarming, and Logan is beginning to give more credence to his “chest explosion is fine, actually” theory. “Wait for me here, okay? I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He leaves, shutting the door firmly behind him, and the foamy feeling in Logan’s chest dissipates a little. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s something . . . off. If Logan didn’t know better, he’d think that he was sensing a predator approaching.

But that can’t be right, he isn’t underwater. His danger senses are likely just overreacting to his disappointment at Virgil’s absence.

. . . Right?

*~*~*~*~*

Thomas is beginning to regret letting Roman and Patton (specifically, Roman) out of the large tank before finishing his first coffee of the morning.

“I want some!” Roman complains.

“Do you even know what it is?” Thomas says. Roman pouts sulkily at him.

“. . . No,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. Thomas gives him the deadpan, no-nonsense, I-am-your-direct-superior-take-the-damn-samples-Virgil stare that he has perfected over the past few years. Roman wilts a little more, and Thomas feels slightly bad.

“It’s called coffee,” he says. “It’s a hot drink that lots of people have in the morning. Some people drink it plain, and some people add things to it to change the way it tastes. It helps me wake up more and get focused to start my day, and sometimes I drink it late at night to help keep me awake.”

Roman looks less like a kicked puppy and more like Logan, eyes wide and curious. “I want some!”

Thomas, taking a sip of his own two-seconds-of-cream-five-cubes-of-sugar coffee, nearly spits it out. He looks at Roman, eyes the very sharp, very detachable, very toxic spines covering his body, and says, “No.”

Roman’s demeanor changes entirely, switching from “curious toddler” to “toddler about to throw a temper tantrum” in a heartbeat. “Why not?!”

“Because when people drink coffee without being used to it, sometimes it makes them a little crazy.”

“I’m not crazy!”

“Do I need to recount to you how many times you’ve threatened me and my assistant since we met you?” Thomas says, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not giving you coffee until I know I can trust you not to stab me with your poisonous spines that cover your entire body and can be fired at people.”

Roman pouts more, dropping under the water and letting out a gratingly harmonious string of mer that Thomas is pretty sure translates to Roman bitching about the coffee situation to his dad. Based on the pattern of Patton’s response, he’s pretty sure Patton is laughing at Roman.

More sulky chalkboard-violin music, and then Roman resurfaces grumpily. “Dad agrees with you and says no consuming strange human foods.”

“Did he laugh at you?”

Roman squints suspiciously at him. “You can’t speak our language.”

“Yeah, but I know what it sounds like when a dad laughs at his kid.” Roman, continuing to pout, sinks back into the tank, presumably to sulk some more. Thomas takes another very long sip of coffee that is definitely too hot for his mouth and turns back to his desk.

Virgil should definitely be awake and in the lab at this point. The samples he’s supposed to be analyzing are sitting in their little tubes, each neatly labelled with locations and dates and times and what, specifically, Virgil is supposed to be looking for. Thomas considers going upstairs and waking up Virgil, who’s almost never been late for work in this way, but he decides against it. Virgil is upstairs with Logan, and Thomas knows that there’s something building between them. He’s not sure how advisable that something is, but he trusts Virgil to make his own decisions.

Besides, he could probably use some practice. His water sample analysis skills are pretty rusty, he’s had Virgil doing them for years. “Virgil, you owe me big time for what I’m doing for you.” He carefully shifts the samples over to his own desk, slides his earbuds in, picks up a pipette, and gets to work analyzing the bacterial and algal concentrations for any abnormalities.

Thomas accomplishes about forty-five minutes’ worth of work before Roman interrupts him by flicking water at him and soaking the back of his neck. “Hey!”

“I tried your name, but your little ear bug things were keeping you from hearing me,” Roman says smugly. Thomas, not for the first time, considers retreating to the closet and throwing beakers until he feels better.

“Can I help you?”

“Dad wants to go hunting and bring back breakfast, but we can’t leave without you.”

“Are you not going hunting?”

“I’m going to stay here and observe you,” Roman says.

Thomas blinks. “Do I . . . need observing?”

“How do I know you won’t sell us out to your little human friends the second you get a chance? If I’m here, I can stop you. Plus, what if you do something to Logan while we’re not here to protect him? No, no, I’m staying right where I am and you can’t make me leave.” His spines ripple; Thomas steps closer to a whiteboard in case he needs to duck.

“I’m not going to do that, and I don’t want you to stab me.”

“Still! I’m staying here! Also, Dad’s bigger than me, and he’s a better hunter cause he’s faster and he’s been hunting longer.

“Does he need something to help him carry all those fish?” Thomas asks. Roman opens his mouth like he’s going to say something snarky, pauses, and stops.

“I . . . usually we just eat what we catch when we catch it. We make a pile of prey and take turns guarding it while the other two hunt. Then we make a sacrifice to the Seven Mother Goddesses and eat what’s left.”

After some debate, Thomas is able to fashion a sling of sorts from some waterproof tarps and leftover anchor rope to tie around Patton’s body. “You can put the fish in this pouch and carry them back here. Will you be able to navigate your way back to the grotto?”

“He will,” Roman says. “Dad knows more about the ocean than any human possibly could.” Another discordant song from the tank, chastising, and Roman huffs. “Dad wants me to reassure you that he’ll be fine.”

Patton settles into the mobile tank easily, and Thomas gets him down to the grotto leading towards the sea. “When you come back, let out one of your pod calls and Virgil or I will come and collect you and your catch. Take as much time as you need, okay?”

Patton reaches up and gently pats Thomas’s arm with one large, damp hand, and Thomas takes that to mean an agreement. “Alright, off you go.” There’s a whoosh and a rush of water as it flows from the tank into the grotto in a clean arc, carrying Patton with it. Thomas waits for a moment, letting Patton disappear into the open ocean, before returning to the laboratory.

Roman, for the most part, ignores Thomas. He asks the occasional question, which Thomas tries to answer in a way that he’ll understand, and leans over the edge of his touch tank, eyes guarded. Every time Thomas sneaks a glance, when he thinks Roman isn’t looking, his expression is wide-eyed and wondrous, like Logan’s usually are, but the moment he realizes Thomas is watching him his entire face closes up like a clamshell.

Thomas wonders what it’ll take to get Roman to trust him, trust Virgil, trust any human. Granted, he doesn’t know Roman’s history with humans, but he and Patton are both fairly scarred, and Thomas might not know the whole story but he’d bet a not-insignificant amount of his monthly income that the giant starburst scar taking up the majority of Patton’s chest isn’t the result of a clash with a marine creature.

He works quietly, fielding the occasional question, keeping one ear on the grotto tunnel for Patton’s return. He’s not sure how long he expected Patton to be gone, but he hears movement in the grotto tunnel far sooner than he’d expected.

“Thomas, what’s -”

“Shhhh,” Thomas says. He stands up, pushing away from his desk, but before he can say anything else, there’s a flood of movement coming from the tunnel. Bodies pour into the lab, swift and strong and carrying weapons that they immediately train on Thomas and Roman.

“What is this?” Roman snaps, bristling. He sounds betrayed, like he thinks Thomas is behind this. Thomas picks up a heavy glass beaker, fully prepared to shatter it upside someone’s skull if necessary, but something heavy and hard strikes the back of his skull and he feels his knees crumple. Roman cries out, and Thomas struggles to push himself up. A hand fists itself in his hair and yanks him upright, sharply. Thomas exhales sharply through his teeth, but before he can start struggling, something cool and round rests against the back of his neck, shutting him up and shutting his brain down.

Roman is puffed up like a hedgehog, apparently fully prepared to defend Thomas despite his strong and inherent mistrust. Before he can begin to attack, Thomas hears the click-click-click of shoes on the hard stone floor. Whoever’s holding his head yanks him back again, and he is forced to watch as a woman walks into his laboratory.

(It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke - a sick, horrible, twisted joke.)

She has black heels, black tights, a black pencil skirt, a black blazer, and a blood-red blouse. Her hair is scraped back into a tight bun, pulled so taut it must hurt, and is held in place with a pitch black stick. She carries a - clipboard? tablet? Unclear - held against her chest, and there’s a sleek silver weapon in her right hand.

“The one from the video?” she asks.

“Affirmative, ma’am,” says the person holding Thomas’s head. The woman nods, lifting her weapon, and fires at Roman. Thomas tries to scream a warning, earning himself another painful yank from his captor, but the projectile lodges itself in Roman’s shoulder anyway.

It isn’t a bullet, but something that looks like a small syringe. Roman swats it out of his shoulder, swaying a little, but it doesn’t stop him from swiping at the - mercenary, they must be - who tries to grab him with his elbow spines. The woman frowns, lifts the weapon - some kind of tranquilizer gun? - and fires again.

Roman screams, inhuman and animal, and tears the newest dart from his arm, throwing himself out of his tank and clinging to the nearest mercenary. His teeth tear into the man’s shoulder, spines piercing through his camouflage clothing and flooding him with neurotoxin. The man collapses against the concrete, alive but unconscious, and Roman snarls at the next man as though daring him to approach. He sways, weakened but awake, and bares his teeth.

“Of course,” the woman says, tapping something on her tablet. “His naturally produced neurotoxin must be providing him with some level of natural resistance. Unexpected, but not a limitation.”

It takes three more tranquilizer darts before Roman finally slumps down into his tank, unconscious. The mercenaries look hesitant to approach him, but the woman reaches for her tablet and they scramble to action at once.

“No - no, stop, let him go, he’s not an animal for you to cart off to your lab -” Thomas starts. The man holding him knees him sharply in the back and he cries out, coughing.

They wrap Roman in thick leather bands, roughly shoving his spines flat and binding them against his skin so that he can’t attack them again. The woman nods, once, short and sharp, and they drag Roman away, letting his head bang mercilessly on the ground. Thomas catches a glimpse of a logo - emblazoned on the back of the jackets, on the back of the woman’s tablet, on the side of her tranquilizer gun - and commits it to memory. He’s going to need it, if he gets out of here alive.

“- your phone,” the woman says, and oh, when did she get in front of him.

“My what?”

His mouth runs dry as she places the tranquilizer gun under his chin, barrel pressing against his throat, and tips his chin up. “I said, give me your phone.”

Thomas blinks. “My - the desk. It’s on the desk.”

She sets her tablet down, picks up his phone, and shoves it in his face. “Open it.”

“I - wh -”

“Unlock your phone, Dr. Sanders. Must I repeat myself a third time?” She rolls her eyes. “Doctorates are wasted on people like you.”

Thomas numbly punches in his passcode, and she swipes through to his messages app, frowning before turning the screen towards his face to reveal a message thread with Virgil. “Is this your assistant?”

Thomas glares at her, he’s not going to give her what she wants, he’s not going to just give her Virgil but then the - gun, it must be a gun, what else would they be holding against his neck like this - pushes into him harder, and it’s probably bruising, and he can’t get himself killed here because then he definitely won’t be able to take care of Virgil and -

“Yes,” Thomas says, hating himself for giving in so easily. “What do you -”

She turns away from him, nails clicking against his phone screen as she sends a text message - to Virgil, presumably, and that makes his heart sink like a stone - before dropping it on the floor and stepping on it to shatter it. “I have a message for you.”

“A - what?”

“Did they really hit you that hard, or were you this stupid before we came here?” she says coldly, picking up the tablet again and tapping at the screen. Thomas groans as the man yanks him to his feet, shoving him onto his chair and pulling a roll of duct tape out of one of his multiple pants pockets. He tapes Thomas’s wrists and ankles to the chair, keeping his weapon trained on Thomas’s temple at all times, before pressing it roughly against his head and gripping his hair again.

The woman sets the tablet on his lab table, and the screen flickers to life, and then there’s a woman in front of a dark black backdrop, smiling at him like a cat who’s caught a canary. “Thomas Sanders. How long I’ve waited for this day.”

Thomas recognizes her. He knows he recognizes her. She used to be his classmate, before . . .

His head hurts, so badly that he can barely keep his eyes open, and the memory slips away. “You . . . why are you doing this?”

“Why? Because I am a real scientist, unlike you. You refuse to do what is necessary, what must be done for the progression of the species. The sacrifice of some worthless animals is necessary for humanity to reach its zenith. You would really hinder the entire human race for the preservation of lower life forms?”

“Wh - I -”

“You think that ‘preserving the ecosystem’ and ‘keeping animals alive’ makes you a good scientist, but it makes you weak. You are weak, Thomas Sanders, and if the world was left in the hands of people like you, the human race as we know it would die out in a few centuries. Fortunately, there are people like me, who understand what must be done.”

“Caring about other people and things - it doesn’t - it doesn’t make you weak,” Thomas says, chest heaving, and the woman just laughs.

“One of many logical fallacies to which you subscribe, Thomas. They really gave you a doctorate? Of course caring makes you weak. All emotions make you weak. They corrupt your data and make your experiments worthless. You must be ruthless. You must be willing to do whatever it takes to pursue your goals and achieve the height of success. But no.” She rolls her eyes, face hardening, twirling a pen in her fingers. “You insist on ethics and principles and letting emotions cloud your judgement, and that makes you a failure as a scientist. It makes you weak. Your attachments will be your downfall.”

Thomas’s eyes slide shut, head pounding, and the man behind him yanks at his hair so sharply that he knows some has been ripped out. He forces his eyes open in time to see a smile slide across the woman’s face like a knife, teeth gleaming white as sun-bleached bone.

“You won’t - get away with this,” Thomas manages. He grinds his teeth together and curls his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms to keep himself awake. “If you leave me alive -” Thomas, stop talking, why are you reminding her that she has the option to fucking kill you “- I will not rest until I find you. I’ll - you can’t -”

“You’ll what, Thomas? If you call the police, you’ll expose those creatures you’re so intent on protecting to the world. Are you really willing to take that chance?” Before Thomas can even begin formulating a response, she steamrolls him. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you were, I’m going to take some . . . insurance, shall we say.”

“Why not just kill me?” Thomas spits. Excellent idea, Doc, poke the murderous lady with a stick like a god damn hornet’s nest, the tiny Virgil in his brain hisses. Her smile, somehow, only widens, and that’s . . . that can’t be good, can it? Smiles are supposed to be good! They’re supposed to make you happy, but all Thomas feels is creeping dread and pain, so much pain, and -

Yeah. He’s . . . pretty sure he has a concussion.

“Because if I kill you, you get to take the easy way out. Your suffering will end. But unlike you, I don’t put limits on my science. I know how to cause you the maximum amount of pain.”

Thomas eyes the toxin gun, but the on-screen woman just laughs. “Not yet, Thomas. We need something from you, first.”

“You already took Roman,” Thomas says. “What more can you possibly take from me?”

“You named it? You’re even weaker than I thought.”

“He told me his name, he’s not an it, he’s not a thing for you to play with and - and I -”

There’s a strange sinking feeling in Thomas’s chest as the woman onscreen laughs. “I knew you were emotional, Thomas, but I can’t believe this! It looks like I’ll have more hanging over your head than you thought.”

“You -”

“Say, Tommy-boy, have you heard from your precious little assistant recently?”

Thomas’s entire body flushes ice-cold and then white-hot, immediately struggling against his duct tape bindings despite the man tearing at his hair and shoving the gun into his neck and snapping at him to shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up before I do something we’re both gonna regret -

“Don’t you touch him!” Thomas snaps. “If you hurt him, I swear to God -”

“You’re not in a position to be making demands, and if you don’t calm down, I’ll paint your boring little lab bright red.” Thomas freezes, holding his entire body tensed like electricity is running through his blood.

There are footsteps on the stairs. “Doc? I got your text, what’s -”

“Virgil, run!” Thomas chokes. Virgil comes around the corner, holding his phone, staring at the screen in confusion. He looks up, eyes widening in horror as he takes in the scene.

“You know what to do,” the woman onscreen says. The other woman lifts her tranquilizer gun, and Thomas is sure that he’s screaming, his mouth is open and sound is coming out but his blood is rushing through his ears and his heart is pounding like waves against a boat in rough sea and he can’t - he can’t -

Virgil turns to run, but the tranquilizer dart hits in him the back of the neck and he collapses like a sack of bricks. The woman lowers her gun and jerks her head at the two remaining conscious, unoccupied mercenaries, who step forward and grab Virgil.

“Let him go!” Thomas screams, and his throat feels raw and his chest feels raw and his wrists are rubbed raw and his soul feels hollow and raw, like he’s been scraped out with a jagged piece of metal and only an empty shell remains. Virgil’s head lolls against his chest as they drag him down the grotto tunnel, and Thomas struggles and screams and stares after them until Virgil is out of sight.

His face is damp, and his eyes are burning, and he isn’t sure if it’s blood from his head wound or tears or some strange, morbid mixture of both.

“The greatest torture of which I can conceive,” the woman onscreen says, and it takes him a moment to realize that oh, she’s talking to me, “is to leave you alive, knowing that your precious little protégé is with me, and that there is nothing you can do about it.” She leans forward, and any trace of a smile is gone. “If you try to come after me, I will kill him. If you call the authorities, I will kill him. I already found you, Thomas. Don’t think I’m not watching. If I catch so much as a whiff of you planning something, his blood will be on your hands. Do you understand me?”

Thomas, numb and shocked, can’t even respond. “Knock him out and bring the specimens back to me,” the woman onscreen says.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He doesn’t even feel the tranquilizer dart hit his neck, but he welcomes the sweeping darkness.

(Summary: Evil Scientist Lady has been spying on Thomas and she finds the entrance to the grotto where our mer friends have been hiding. She sends her assistant and several armed thugs to invade the lab, they drug Roman with tranquilizers and kidnap him. Thomas gets knocked around a lot and is mocked for being an ethical scientist and caring about people by Evil Scientist Lady and she gloats at him through Evil Facetime before kidnapping Virgil in the same way they did Roman, knocking Thomas unconscious, and leaving him tied to his lab chair. During this whole scene, Patton is out in the open ocean hunting and Logan is safely hidden in Virgil's room.)

[heloisedaphnebrightmore]

What they call home pt. 5|7 - Home in his embrace [Sirius Black x Reader]

Title: What they call home pt. 5|7 - Home in his embrace Pairing: Post Azkaban!Sirius Black x Female!Lestrange!Reader Word count: 2.1k Published: 13 November, 2020 Author: Heloise Daphne Brightmore Warning: Heated scenes Notes: This was written for @wand3ringr0s3​ ���s writing challenge and also for a request I have received on Wattpad. It was supposed to be a one shot, but it turned into a series somehow. I have been getting carried away these days.

Disclaimer: I have dug myself very deep into the Black and Lestrange family just to make sure that there were no incest in the story. I went back 300 years, until 1700 and I can confirm Blacks have not been related to the Lestranges, except Bellatrix Lestrange (nee Black) marrying Rodolphus Lestrange around 1968-70, pre-Wizarding War I. 

Harry Potter Characters Masterlist | Masterlists

What they call home Masterlist 

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It was a rainy, dull evening, weather getting colder, nights spreading longer. You have been thinking about Molly’s words, over and over again playing in the back of your mind like an old and faulty record player.

You thought as both of you were stuck in the house alone, you could initiate a little bonding time, maybe trying to understand him a bit more. You walked into the dining room, taking two crystal glasses and a bottle of fire whiskey out of the cupboard and headed back to the living room, where you last saw Sirius. You halted at the doorway and leaned against the wooden frame.

The room was dominated in dark orange and red colours, filled with warmth provided by the fire. Sirius sat on one of the couches right in front of the fireplace, his eyes focused on the flames, his silky long hair tucked behind his ear, his face relaxed and soft. You haven’t seen him so calm since your years in Hogwarts, when he was a reckless teenager. You didn’t even realise that you somewhat missed his carefree attitude.

You walked behind the couch, holding the bottle of fire whiskey in front of him as you propped your elbow up on the back of the furniture. You didn’t expect Sirius to turn around, but when he did you couldn’t miss the proximity between you.

His nose was almost touching yours, his eyes even more beautiful up close. His breath reached your lips, making you shiver slightly, his eyes accidently wandering down to your mouth, his gaze lingering a tad longer than it was appropriate. Your heart was racing in a dangerous pace and you could have sworn it was loud enough for him to hear. You tried not to look at his lips, your self-control disappearing faster than you wished to admit. You knew if you were to look at his lips, you couldn’t stop yourself from closing the gap between you.

Sirius was the first to break the moment, his voice shaky as he tried to solve the tension. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you are trying to get me drunk.” He chuckled with a slightly awkward tone to his voice as he took the bottle from you and patted the space beside him on the couch.

You sat down on the other end of the sofa; your legs pulled up to your chest as you waited for him to pour the liquid into your glass.

“I might have had ulterior motives.” You replied as you finally felt yourself capable of speaking again. His brows ran high at your brave comment, a satisfied chuckle escaping his lips.

“And what would that be?” He asked as he handed you your glass, wild curiosity shining through his grey eyes.

“Now what would be the fun in spilling all my secrets to you?” You smirked as you clinked your glasses together.

The conversation was easy flowing, not even a second of silence falling up on you. It was hard not to be around the man, you couldn’t even recall why you disliked him so much back in school. He was funny and sweet, had a way with words and never made you feel like he was trying to overpower you or look down on you.

You had to accept that he was becoming more and more important to you and you were hoping that you didn’t misread the signs, that he was indeed as interested in you as you were in him.

“You know, if you told me in school that I would be sitting here, just having a conversation with you without trying to kill each other or plot something against the other, I would have thought you were under a spell.” He shook his head as he looked into the fire.

“I guess I would have reacted the same way.” You nodded, following his eyes towards the fireplace. “Would you want us to go back to the old times and try to make each other’s life miserable?” You asked as your eyes stared at the man’s profile, eagerly waiting for a reply.

A small smile spread across his face, the flames mirroring in his stormy eyes. “No, I wouldn’t. I have to admit, I do enjoy your company.” He replied wearing his lazy, lopsided smile as he took a swig of his drink.

“Oh my, was that a compliment from Sirius Black himself?” You asked in a mocking surprise, causing the man to roll his eyes at your antics.

It was relaxing, just to sit with him, talk to him about anything and not feeling like you had to censor your own words. His presence beside you made you feel warm and welcomed and whilst you knew it would be a bold statement to say it out loud, he felt like home. A home where you could be yourself without anyone judging you, a home where you were more than welcome, a home where perhaps you were wanted.

The night dragged on, making you feel drowsy. You felt your head fall against the back of the couch, your glass tilting in your hand, dangerously close to spill its content. But before it could have happened, Sirius took the glass from your hand and placed it on the table beside the sofa.

You felt yourself being lifted, your nostrils filling up with Sirius’ mixed scent of tobacco, alcohol and caffeine. You forced your eyes to open, realising you were being carried by him. One of his arms was tucked under the back of your knees, with the other balancing your weight behind your back. A lazy smile spread across your face as you enjoyed his arms around you, slumber taking over you once again, before you could have even reached your room.

You couldn’t have been asleep for long, when you heard a loud, deep scream coming from another room. It took you a second and third scream to recognise Sirius’ voice. You didn’t have to roll from left to right, you didn’t try to fall back asleep. You jumped out of bed as soon as you processed his pained cries and ripped your door open, running to his room.

You didn’t care about politeness and ethics, screw them, you opened the door and stepped inside his room. He was turning and tossing on his bed, the bedside lamp giving you enough light to see his face sweating feverishly, his face pale, his eyes firmly closed. He was having an awful nightmare.

You walked up to his bed, taking a seat on the edge, trying to shake the man to wake up, but he didn’t budge. “Sirius?” You held his shoulders, but he didn’t wake up. You tried to shake him stronger, but his horrid dream sucked him in so deep, you were unsuccessful. “Sirius!” You raised your voice, giving him a shake again, his eyes shot open, staring at you in surprise. He lifted his arm, removing the sweat drops from his forehead. “Are you okay?” You asked as you removed his hair from his face, gently tucking it behind his ear.

“Yeah-“ he breathed, his voice hoarse.

“Do you need anything? I can bring you a glass of water, maybe a blanket?” His skin was freezing cold under your warm touch, concern lacing in your voice as you offered to help. His pyjama shirt rolled up on his stomach, exposing his skin, making it hard for you to look away.

“I’m good.” He said as he heaved a deep sigh, his eyes staring at the ceiling. You weren’t sure what to do.

“Are you sure?” You were debating to leave him alone, but you couldn’t just do that after such a nightmare. You had your fair share of those, and it was harder to fight them alone. However, Sirius nodded, silently asking you to leave. “I’m just going to go back to my room then. If you need anything, just let me know, okay?” You tried to search for his eyes, but he kept staring at the ceiling, his gaze never connecting yours.

You nodded more to yourself and stood up from his bed, heading towards the door. “Could you please stay?” His voice was barely a whisper, but it stopped you immediately. You didn’t know how to react, your heart wanted to jump out of your chest after all. You turned around, his eyes fixed on yours, his gaze filled with pain and desperation for someone to hold him.

You heaved a deep sigh and pulled a chair beside his bed, but he shook his head. “No.” He said and patted the bed beside him. You gulped loudly, fearing your heart would give you away as soon as he was to touch you, but after taking a shaky sigh, you went along. You have been in need of his touch for so long and you wanted to be selfish. You were there for him, to make him feel better, but you were there for yourself, wanting to feel him close to you.

You climbed on the bed as Sirius held his duvet up for you and you shimmied closer to him, but not enough to touch him.

“Would you mind if I held you?” He asked, his voice weak, making your eyes widen. You didn’t expect him to touch you, you thought he needed just a company, someone to take his nightmares away. You felt your hands shake, your throat dry out, your chest tighten from the inside. You nodded at his request and scooted closer to him. Without hesitation he wrapped his arm around your waist as you hid your face in his chest, blessing the soft light for not exposing the crimson red blush covering your cheeks.

“Does it make you feel uncomfortable?” He asked, concern filling his voice, but you quickly shook your head. You weren’t uncomfortable, maybe excited would have been the right word. You felt guilty for feeling your stomach jump at his sleepy voice, for your heartbeat racing in a pace you thought was fatal as his arm sneaked around you, for the inappropriate thoughts you had when you were supposed to comfort him innocently.

You didn’t know if it was your closeness or his nightmare, but you could feel his heart pumping just as fast as yours was. “I can’t sleep.” He stated, pulling you even closer, his face hidden in your hair. You tilted your head up, your eyes meeting his grey ones, the dim light making them shine in the darkness.

“Is there any way I can help?” You asked, hoping to ease his mood. You tried to ignore the proximity between you, his lips almost touching yours, his breath fanning your skin, his eyes shamelessly staring at your lips, before they found your gaze again.

“Can I kiss you?” He whispered against your lips, his hand squeezing your waist gently. You could hear your own heartbeat in your ears, air dangerously stuck in your lungs. You didn’t know what to say, his closeness made you feel dizzy. You wanted to feel his lips against yours for so long, but there you were lying in his embrace and you didn’t know how to react.

You heaved a shaky sigh as you slowly nodded. Sirius didn’t kiss you immediately; his pace was taunting you as he grazed his lips across yours, back and forth, before he finally closed the space between you.

His chapped lips melted with yours, inviting you for a slow dance. You thought he would attack you aggressively, but there he was studying every inch of your lips, moving with you in sync, his arm pulling you flush against him, your hands gripping on to his shirt as if your life depended on it.

The kiss didn’t last long, but it was enough to make you want more. You felt his unsteady breaths on your skin, his hand still holding onto you dearly. You didn’t know what came over you, maybe a hint of bravery just resurfaced from deep down, but you couldn’t stop yourself from attaching your lips to his again.

You grabbed his shirt, pulling him closer to you if that was even possible, his lips hungrily moving against yours as his hand found its way under your shirt. His cold touch sent shivers through your heated body as he climbed on top of you, deepening the kiss.

You definitely didn’t expect to find yourself cuddled up to Sirius, let alone kissing him hungrily as his touches explored every inch of your body. But you had to admit, you couldn’t have asked for a better night, than feeling home in his embrace.

Series taglist:

@timogtrrz​ @chichewy​ @bloodyxheaven​ @lovecatystuff​ @mooniemell​ @hxrgreeves​ @sacredmirrxrs @lindatreb​ @n3ssm0nique​ @cardboardbenmazzello​ @aprilsrant​ @why-do-you-have-my-phone​ @chaoticgirl04​ @siriusement​ @missmulti​ @misswriter @avatarbeeb​ @swearingsolemnly​ @pancakefancake​ @msmarklee1213​ @froggylilith​ @kribbydahufflepuff​ @littlemegsstuff​ @sanitisegermsfree​ @lord-taika​ @obsssedwithjustaboutanything​ @ezgithechaotic​ @lennonknowsmysins​ @marveloucnco​ @sherlockinand​ @fific7​ @levylovegood​ @breadqueen95​ @gloryekaterina​ @moonstarrnghtsky​ @lotties-journey-abroad​ @mytreec​ @goddessofgames @blackbirddaredevil23​ @7minutes-tomidnight​ 

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[heauxplesslydevoted]

Hi there! We're changing things up a little this week :)

Not Yet Wed Questions

Note: Great Scott! This week, we are going back in time to MC’s intern year. Think of Ethan’s relationship with them at this point and answer the following questions accordingly. It is entirely up to you when in year 1 this takes place (pre/post Miami, pre/post CH 15, etc). Feel free to answer with dialogue or pictures or both :) Have fun!

No worries. All of this is off the record and HR will never know!

The setting for this answers is:

For Both

When I first saw them, I thought__________

What is your coworker's most used swear word?

Quick: What color are their eyes?

Three people at work your coworker hates?

What is your coworker’s strangest or most endearing quirk?

If they had a crush on anyone at work, who would that be?

(Bonus round! Feel free to skip.)

Never have I Ever:

come into work hungover

had a fistfight

been kicked out of a bar

gotten a tattoo

broken someone’s heart

been in love

For MC (Ethan is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

What do you find the most impressive about him?

Last thing he texted you?

If he asked you out on a date, what would you say?

For Ethan (MC is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

What specifically do you find attractive about her?

Last thing she texted you?

If she asked you out on a date, how would you respond?

Alright, post Book 1 but pre-Ethan fleeing to South America Ethan x Naomi coming right up! I feel like that time would have maximum tension because they’re trying to find their footing again after fucking the souls out of each other’s bodies and sending them into orbit, and lowkey falling in love sleeping together, while maintaining professionalism.

~v~

For Both:

When I first saw them, I thought__________

Naomi: I thought “thank God someone else is here!” I was in over my head with that patient, and I didn’t even notice that The Ethan Ramsey was the one assisting me until much later.

Ethan: I thought she had guts. You don’t see too many first day interns that are ready to jump into the fray like she did.

What is your coworker's most used swear word?

Naomi: He says Christ and any iteration of the word damn. Dammit, goddamn, goddammit, you get the gist.

Ethan: She says fuck.

Naomi: You’ve never heard me say that.

Ethan: She says fuck a lot, especially when she’s...*Ethan trails off and catches himself before he finishes that sentence. It’s a moot point all the same because now all he can think about is the young intern in front of him, hands pulling his hair, nails raking down his back, moaning the obscenity into his ear, into his pillows. He awkwardly clears his throat* Just trust me, I’ve heard her say it. Multiple times.

*and now he’s mad at himself*

Quick: What color are their eyes?

Naomi: Blue. They’re kinda hard to miss.

Ethan: Her eyes are brown.

Three people at work your coworker hates?

Naomi: He hates everyone, except for me and Naveen.

Ethan: Except for you? You think pretty highly of yourself, Rookie.

Naomi: Am I wrong? *Ethan doesn’t deny it, instead staying silent and Naomi smirks* Exactly

Ethan: I don’t think she dislikes anyone. I’ve never met a person like her, she makes friends with everyone.

What is your coworker’s strangest or most endearing quirk?

Naomi: He fiddles with his glasses a lot.

Ethan: She’s constantly biting her lip, especially when she’s really focused.

*she’s actually surprised that he picked up on that* Naomi: You notice that?

Ethan: I notice everything...about everything. It’s the nature of the job.

If they had a crush on anyone at work, who would that be?

*they both share an awkward glance before looking away and declining to answer*

Never Have I Ever...

Come into work hungover

Ethan: When I was younger, yes. But now that I’m older, I know my limits.

Naomi: No, because I don’t get hangovers due to my magical hangover cure.

Ethan: That god-awful drink is...surprisingly effective.

*the interviewer asks Ethan to elaborate on the time Naomi gave him whatever her hangover cure is, and he adamantly refuses*

Had a fistfight

Naomi: Yes, but in my defense I was drunk.

Ethan: *snorts* How is that a defense?

Naomi: I’m the daughter of an attorney, I usually try to resolve my issues with my words. But drunk Naomi is a little feistier.

Ethan: You mean you have a level of feistiness that I’ve yet to see?

Naomi: Oh yeah. Anyway, I was in college, I was drunk at a bar, someone spilled a drink on me, and it escalated. I think I broke her nose.

Ethan: An arrest record wasn’t on your file when we hired you.

Naomi: Like I said, I’m the daughter of an attorney, and the granddaughter of a DC judge. That has its perks.

Ethan: Yes, I’ve gotten into a fist fight before. I punched Nash in the face. And before that, i fought my old med school roommate.

Naomi: Ooh, what did he do?

Ethan: That’s not a story I’d ever divulge while sober.

Been kicked out of a bar

Naomi: Yes. Circle back to the previous question.

Ethan: No, because I’m an adult.

Gotten a tattoo

Ethan: Absolutely not

Naomi: I have a tattoo of the Cancer symbol on my left hip. It’s my zodiac sign.

*this stuns Ethan into silence because he’s seen her naked on more than one occasion and been...very well acquainted with the body parts below her waist, and for the life of him cannot remember a tattoo*

Broken someone’s heart

Naomi: No. At least, I don’t think so. I’ve had my heart broken, if that counts.

Ethan: Same as Naomi. I don’t think I have.

*they make a pointed effort to not make eye contact with each other, and Naomi bites down on her lip, letting the silence hang in the air. The alternative would be informing Ethan that he has indeed broken someone’s heart, and that just won’t do.*

Been in love

Naomi: I don’t know. Maybe? I thought I was in love with my med school boyfriend, but now that time has passed, I know that wasn’t love. At least, not the good kind. And there was a near miss after him, but nothing came out of it. The emotions were a lot stronger the second time around though, and i think it’s the closest I’ve come to it this far. I’m a hopeless romantic, so I hope I find it someday.

Ethan: No. Call me a cynic, but I just don’t see love as something that’s feasible and attainable. Putting that much trust and dependency in another person is not realistic.

For Naomi (Ethan is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

Naomi: I don’t know what’s left for a man like Ethan Ramsey. He’s already done so much in the field of medicine, unless he reinvents the entire wheel and turns it upside down, which I can see him doing. I can see him writing more, publishing more research, and of course winning more awards. If he wasn’t so anti-administration, he could be running this place. Or maybe he’ll start his own non-profit.

Naomi: As far as his personal life, I don’t know. You heard loud and clear that he doesn’t really believe in love. I hope one day he changes his mind or finds a companion, because underneath his extremely prickly exterior, he’s one of the best men I know and he has a heart of gold. He deserves the chance to let someone take care of it for him.

What do you find the most impressive about him?

Naomi: From afar, Ethan seems very larger than life, but I think the most impressive thing about him is his dedication to not just medicine, but his patients. I’ve never seen him not go above and beyond for someone he was treating.

Last thing he texted you?

Naomi: “Please consult Diana in HR regarding your official diagnostic team fellowship application. I know this year has been unorthodox to say the least, but there are still some steps that must be taken before the start of your second year. Thank you.”

Naomi: I’ve never received a text message that long.

If he asked you out on a date, what would you say?

*her cheeks heat up furiously and she pulls her bottom between her teeth before answering, her eyes bright and watery*

Naomi: Am I a total glutton for pain for saying I’d jump at the chance?

For Ethan (Naomi is not there)

Where do you see her in five years (both professionally and in her personal life?)

Ethan: Dr. Valentine has so much potential and she’s going to be one of the greats. She’s going to be running the diagnostics team if she chooses to stay at Edenbrook, and I can’t see Naveen not trying to keep her here. She’s going to win awards, have awards named after her, publish research, lead trials, whatever. I hate to sound banal and cliche, but the sky really is the limit for her. I chose her for a reason, and I plan her helping her reach all of that potential.

Ethan: As for her personal life, I don’t know. Hopefully she finds someone that’s good enough for her.

What specifically do you find attractive about her?

Ethan: A-attractive? *the word comes out in a squeak, but he coughs to cover it up* Why on earth would you assume that I’m attracted to her?

*he goes on a ridiculously long tangent about how inappropriate it is to be attracted to your coworkers, especially your subordinates, and how he would never jeopardize Naomi’s career on something as trivial as attraction, and anyone with an ounce of common sense can tell that he doth protest too much*

Ethan: But if I absolutely had to pick something besides her good looks, it’d be her spirit. She’s warm and empathetic and optimistic, and I’ve never seen someone care as much as she does.

Last thing she texted you?

Ethan: “👍” I sent her a message about her upcoming fellowship and she sent back a thumbs up. Just that. I was a little annoyed.

If she asked you out on a date, how would you respond?

Ethan: As um...flattering as that might be, I would say no. I am an attending, she’s an intern, my soon to be fellow. That is crossing too many ethical lines, lines I refuse to breach.

Ethan: And I would say no because Naomi is...just a good person. And maybe I’m being biased, but I don’t know if anyone will ever be truly worthy of her. But I can say without a shadow of a doubt that she deserves so much better than me or what I could give her.

[haleigh-sloth]

Hello,

I just found your page and after reading some of your mha posts had a couple things I wanted to ask if that's ok.

1. Since you feel Hawks is not justified because he could have chosen options other than killing Twice, do you think he would have been had he genuinely been made to choose between killing him and saving others? I.e. do you think it's just this killing in particular that was not justified and thus murder, or do you think heroes killing can never be justified, even if in self-defense or defense of others? If we take the "Heroes save people" maxim to its limits, it might be reasonable to argue for a deontological approach to ethics rather than a utilitarian one, so that killing one to save others is not justified because you actively break your code (as opposed to risking not being able to save others, which would be considered a lesser moral wrong under this mindset).

2. This might very well be a stupid question, but if we consider that heroes shouldn't treat others as an it and put them down for the "sake of society", do you feel this ought to extend to AFO too? I really don't mean to use this as a gotcha moment or anything like it, but I feel like if MHA is trying to move away from a punitive justice system in favour of a rehabilitative/restorative one, we ought to consider where people like AFO fall into this system as well. AFO is seemingly entirely unlike any of the other villains in the show, but if we judge that he deserves a different fate for this it also feels like playing into the "Some people just can't be saved" notion that's been perpetuated by hero society. It is of course entirely possible, if not likely, that he'll fall in battle, or that Shigaraki himself will kill him eventually, but I feel like that skirts the issue rather than answer it. As someone who does not seem to show any remorse, desire or even ability to be saved, and in fact feels rather inhuman, what should a reformed society even do with him? Even if we could convincingly argue him to be fundamentally different and thus deserving of punishment, it is much easier for us readers who have more information to make this call, rather than in-universe characters whose judgement will inevitably be based on something less than the full truth. So even if AFO's case in particular was easily answered, it would set a precedent for cases that may appear similar, but in truth be less clear cut. Basically, I believe you feel the villain league deserves another chance because they were victims of their circumstances, and thus not necessarily beyond salvation, because they never knew normality to begin with, but what about those who were not victims, those who by their nature have insurmountable trouble fitting into a peaceful society? Perhaps it's just my mistaken assumption that such people exist and I'm reading AFO wrong, or perhaps it's the opposite and I'm giving people like AFO undue consideration, or perhaps my assumption that AFO ought to be treated as a person rather than a carocature, a symbol, is flawed to begin with, but I just really don't think a manga that wants to argue that villains are people too should go "but here's THIS vile piece of shit, let's kill him!". Am I making sense here?

3. On another note, what do you think of Endeavor's recent speech and general recent development? I've seen some people who were upset by his "Would it fix everything if we showed you our tears" line, but rather than him being dismissive or callous I just see it as him awkwardly saying that he doesn't think anything other than actions can help him atone for what he did. He's still got a lot to work through, but him recognizing that he's got something to atone for and freely talking about what he did to his family is, as I find, certainly a huge step in the right direction.

WHOO hey! Sorry for taking a while to respond. You gave me some really well thought-out questions and I wanted to return the favor with well thought-out answers. Also I was heckin busy yesterday when you sent this. So, here we go:

To answer this question about Hawks, I first need to clarify what it means to be a hero in the eyes of the story that is BNHA:

This honestly doesn’t even make a dent in the amount of panels in BNHA that reiterate time and time again that heroes SAVE people, but I don’t feel like I should have to spend too much time looking for them, these I used above should suffice. The one with baby Midoriya and baby Tenko doesn’t even have any words in the panel, and it’s still powerful enough to get the message across. And make me cry.

Almost every story has its own “heroes” in it. And every story’s definition of a hero is different. In Marvel and DC superhero comics and movies, the heroes usually end up killing the villains, yes? I can’t say I’m familiar with these stories because they aren’t interesting to me in the slightest, but from the ones I HAVE seen, the final boss at the end dies. But all of the heroes get to keep their title of “hero”. That’s not really the standard we have in BNHA.

“Do you think it's just this killing in particular that was not justified and thus murder, or do you think heroes killing can never be justified, even if in self-defense or defense of others?”

So this is a fair point and I feel that the best way to answer this is by asking what you consider self defense? Say Hawks is at home mad chillin and not prepared for a fight in the slightest, and somebody breaks into his house and starts trying to hurt/kill him. He’s unprepared and at this point just trying to keep himself alive. If he ends up killing the guy, is he wrong? In my opinion, no. In real life this happens to people, and they aren’t considered murderers, as they shouldn’t be. To me, self defense is a situation where:

It’s either you or me. It’s one or the other.

I think it’s fair to say what happened with Hawks and Twice was absolutely NOT self defense. I’m not going to go into detail about how deciding to kill Twice was absolutely 100% premeditated, because there’s a wonderful post by someone else that already explains that in great detail here. But I’ll end this thought by saying that Hawks was not committing an act of self defense.

Nothing about this says “self-defense” to me.

“If we take the "Heroes save people" maxim to its limits, it might be reasonable to argue for a deontological approach to ethics rather than a utilitarian one, so that killing one to save others is not justified because you actively break your code (as opposed to risking not being able to save others, which would be considered a lesser moral wrong under this mindset).”

To make it simple for some people to understand these terms:

“Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on OUTCOMES.“ In a nutshell, utilitarian ethics means you make a decision based on how it will affect everything else.

“In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules, rather than based on the consequences of the action.” In a nutshell, deontological ethics means you make a decision based on whether it follows rules or not.

So this is a complicated question, and my answer to this is....both? Throughout BNHA we’ve had this dilemma over and over again:

Break the rules and save the day? Or follow the rules and possibly suffer the consequences? Well, BNHA just says “Yes” lol. Do both. Break the rules and save the day. Make a decision based on the consequences of said decision, but also try to follow the rules as best as you can. Even in reality, people do this to get through life. You really can’t live life under a strict utilitarian approach or a strict deontological approach. If Midoriya hadn’t persisted against his classmates and the law to go save Bakugo, he WOULD have gotten kidnapped AGAIN. They were actively trying to take him with them. If Midoriya didn’t break the rules to save Kota, Kota would have straight up DIED. Muscular was actively trying to kill Kota, not to mention Kota had zero ways of defending himself. But here’s where I don’t think this is a fair comparison:

Hawks claims his killing of Twice was to save others. I don’t completely disagree with this logic, if the situation was more dire and dangerous for Hawks. The league was taking peoples’ lives. Somebody had to do something. The problem is that Twice was RUNNING AWAY when Hawks killed him. Twice wasn’t fighting Hawks back, he wasn’t endangering Hawks himself. Hawks stabbed him in the back. AND Hawks had Dabi to worry about, who was actively trying to attack Hawks. But Hawks chose to murder Twice instead of fending off Dabi. And if you refer back to the post I linked above about how it was a premeditated decision to kill Twice, you’ll see that Hawks had the capability of knocking Twice unconscious. He should have done this from the get go. And honestly? There are other heroes who could have captured Twice. There SHOULD have been other heroes to capture Twice. If Hawks was the only hope for the heroes in that war then jeez, the heroes suck at their jobs.

So TLDR for this question: Hawks’s circumstances were not drastic enough for him to be justified in killing Twice. As I said above, self-defense is one thing, where yes I could understand how if a life is lost while defending oneself is probably inevitable in some cases. But this wasn’t self defense. Twice was running away. Hawks should also be able to rely on his hero comrades to help him out.

Instead Hawks chose to be law-enforcement, judge, and executioner all in one moment.

I hope this answers your question? I tried my best. If I misunderstood or missed a talking point, feel free to shoot me a message or another ask.

Next question:

Believe me. I have thought about this! What about AFO? He’s human too isn’t he? You have a point. Should the restorative justice system extend to AFO? I would say yes. If I’m going to stick to my guns that the villains deserve restorative justice and not punitive justice, I should be fair and say it should extend to all villains.

The problem is not in the idea of exploring saving AFO, it’s just that there simply isn’t enough time to explore this in the story. If Horikoshi had said “I’m not going anywhere guys! We’re in this for the long haul!” I’d say it’s possible to explore that route. We don’t know anything about AFO except from what we’ve seen on screen, and what we’ve been told by All Might and the other OFA holders. Which still isn’t much to go on. You’re not giving AFO undue consideration. It’s definitely a deserved consideration. There are people in the story (and the real world) who may not be victimized in any way and end up being villains. Do they deserve a chance? I’d say yes. It’s in my nature as a social worker irl to give people the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance to learn. You’re right that in the end, the league being saved and the characters not considering what could have led AFO to villainy is just “skirting around the problem.” And honestly, that’s probably what we’re going to get. I wouldn’t be surprised for the thought to pass in Midoriya’s head. After saving somebody like Shigaraki, who everybody in the story (and many readers) considered to be “too far gone”, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Midoriya entertained the thought for a brief moment. “What could have saved AFO from himself?” So honestly I don’t have an answer to this question that qualifies both sides. I can’t say that AFO is “too far gone” without undermining that fact that I never believed Shigaraki was “too far gone”, simply because we don’t get to decide what “too far gone” is.  All I can say is that in the eyes of the story, there are far too many differences between AFO’s circumstances and Shigaraki’s circumstances to compare the two, and say they deserve the same type of sympathy from us readers.

Truly I have no sympathy for AFO, because the story doesn’t ask for it. The story wants sympathy for Shigaraki, Toga, Touya, Spinner, and even a tiiiiiny bit for Overhaul. It asks for NONE for AFO.

Another post I’ll link here that isn’t by me but by another awesome meta blogger (@hamliet​) is this.

In a nutshell it says:

It’s not that AFO can’t be saved, it’s that he won’t. That’s the best answer I can give to that question honestly.

As for the third question:

That press conference was just...eh. I mean yeah, Endeavor not denying the allegations was good. Not that he really could anyway. It sucks for the rest of his family though. But at the same time Touya deserved his revenge, even though it was at the expense of his siblings and mother. It sucks, it’s a double edged sword because somebody is hurting no matter what was gonna happen. Endeavor was an asshole to that lady but I don’t really care too much. I’m really torn on what I think is going on inside Enji’s head because the Todofam is either extremely dense, or Horikoshi is writing their dialogue extremely vague on purpose to keep reader’s on the edge of their seats regarding what they want to do about Touya. I really don’t know. I’m not thrilled with the way the Todofam plot is being written right now, even though I’m 100% sure Touya is going to get his happy ending. But right now anything to do with the Todofam that isn’t Shoto and Touya just bothers me. I don’t think Enji really understands yet what he has to do for Touya. Yes he recognizes that he has to atone, but he’s not recognizing HOW he has to atone. Right now he’s still stuck in that “I have to be a hero to absolve my crimes against my family” headspace and I don’t think he’s going to get out of that headspace until he comes face to face with his son and realizes that he can’t just fight villains and go home to a happy family that he terrorized for 20 years. He’s going to have to let his family go, let them decide when to let him back in, if they ever do (I think they will just because of the way the story is being written.) As a reader, Enji is just a character that I cannot vibe with, no matter what happens. I definitely appreciate his role in the story. His role is vital to Touya’s saving and redemption. Touya is in my top 3 favorite characters from this series and I’m emotionally invested. So while I appreciated Enji’s role in the story, I don’t like his character or anything to do with him, at least until it comes time to help save his son. Also the trio of Hawks, Best Jeanist, and Enji just gives me major back the blue vibes and I just can’t read their chapters and be in a good mood lol.

Thank you for the ask! I hope I answered everything! This was fun to answer!

[actualbird]

nobody asked but here is every unraveled episode (as of may 2020) as how they’d be as a lover | a 2.5k word long post written in the style of an unraveled about unraveled and also love

Ah. Unraveled. Polygon’s golden boy of a video series where Brian David Gilbert is beckoned into a suit, lured into a blackbox studio, and is only granted escape after he has explained to three cameras whatever batshit video game adjacent thesis he has been cursed with this time. Unraveled is a wonderful video series, and we all love it.

But what if it could love us?

If you’ve ever asked this question to yourself, boy, do I have some content for you, because for the past 2 days, I’ve been working on this post where, for entirely too long, I explain to you how each Unraveled episode would be as a lover. And more importantly, which ones would be the best lovers.

Before I fall deep into this unhinged hole and take you down with me, I need to explain some things.

First: I want to make it clear that I am not categorizing BDG as he portrays himself in each Unraveled. I am instead taking each Unraveled episode as a fully formed being, the story, performance, etc, and letting that shape a character of its own. This character is where I extrapolate details from to create an Unraveled episode’s qualities as a lover. What I’m basically doing is anthropomorphizing Polygon dot com video content. And then making you date them. If this doesn’t make sense, don’t worry, it will as you read along. And if it helps you to visualize the Unraveled Episode As A Lover, I invite you to just imagine whomever it is you are most attracted to---or for those who don’t experience attraction, whomever it is you find most aesthetically pleasing---and then just add in the wild personality traits I describe through the course of this post.

Second: I know what you’re thinking. “Avian, the characteristics of what makes a good lover is subjective!” And I wholeheartedly agree. I’ve been through college, and I’ve witnessed my friends whom I love so dearly enter relationships with some of the most wack ass motherfuckers I’ve ever met. I know that people are into different things. But do I judge them for it? Well, kinda, yeah! Yes, what we want in a lover is subjective, but I’ve consumed a metric fuckton of romance media over the course of my life and am also in a wonderful relationship with my own girlfriend, and thus have my own personal idealized ranking for what makes a good lover. Feel free to disagree with my rankings of Unraveled Lovers, but also, I’m writing this post. I say this with as much love as I possibly can, but if you disagree with me, make your own post. If you don’t wanna make your own post, you’re just going to have to trust me for 2.1k more words.

With that out of the way, let me take you on a journey through the 23 Unraveled Lovers, from worst to best.

BAD TIER: I would probably advise you to break up with these Unraveled Lovers as soon as you are emotionally capable of doing so.

Hoo boy, we’re starting at the bottom. The perfectionists, the nitpickers, the emotionally unavailables. These Unraveled Lovers would have good intentions, but just have aspects within their personality that will wear you and your relationship together down until both of you can no longer take it.

“Ranking all 200+ Megaman robots” is a lover obsessed with the concept of “is this worth it?” They would unknowingly but inevitably rank parts of your own personality on a scale of ‘worth the trouble in this relationship’ and ‘not worth the trouble’. Any lover who deals with you with this kind of dichotomy is somebody you should not be with. You should be accepted and loved for all your parts, the beautiful and the ugly.

“How to make the perfect E3 press conference” is a lover who spent years consuming romance media and has a list of what makes the perfect relationship. So not only do they have unrealistic expectations for what a relationship is, but they will be obsessed with reaching that unreachable perfection. That will definitely put a strain on your relationship until the veneer of desired perfection crumbles away, leaving you both tired and sad.

On a less deep note, “How to tell apart all 596 Fire Emblem characters” just won’t remember any of the names of your friends or family. Sure, they’ll try, but they’ll give up in like 15 minutes and you’ll never be able to take this Unraveled Lover to a family reunion or a party with your friends. Probably not a dealbreaker, but as the Spice Girls said “If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends.” This Unraveled Lover will not. Next.

“No one asked but I found Mortal Kombat’s best cuddler” and “I wasted 3 weeks of my life finding Castlevania’s hottest monster” are two Unraveled Lovers with a similar problem: they both won’t shut the fuck up about their exes. Mortal Kuddler constantly brings up all the other cuddles they’ve experienced and Castlevanias Hottest Monster will tell you you’re beautiful, but also bring up like 69 other monsters they think are also beautiful. This might not be a red flag, but personally, this would tire me out, always being thought of in comparison or contrast to others.

That ends the BAD TIER and brings us to the OKAY TIER where a large chunk of the Unraveled Lovers fall into, so much so that I had to create more specific sub tiers under the OKAY TIER.

So let’s get into the OKAY TIER: These Unraveleds Lovers are alright, you’ll just have a sublimely weird relationship.

These Unraveled Lovers will treat you right but they’re also just very peculiar. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I’m here to explain to you just in what ways these okayest lovers are bizarre. Let’s start with the first sub tier.

OKAY SUB TIER: College Students who are way too into their major

There are a lot of Unraveled Lovers under this subtier, and this shouldn’t surprise you, because Unraveleds are inherently nerdy. These are lovers that will be good to you but also just never fucking shut up about what it is they’re studying.

“I read all 337 books of Skyrim so that you don’t have to” and "Understanding Kingdom Hearts (and every other story" are Creative Writing majors obsessed with analyzing every single thing they read. As a Creative Writing major myself, I would advise you to never date a Creative Writing major unless you are a Creative Writing major yourself. I think that’s the only way the relationship can be ethical. Being sent essays from the New Yorker every day would be torture if you didn’t actively enjoy it.

“We made all 78 Breath of Wild recipes in one day” is a Culinary Arts major and, score, they’re gonna wanna cook for you! A lot! Beware though, because it’ll be a hit or miss on whether or not the food will be good, but you must admit, that there is nothing quite as attractive as your lover making you food (let’s just hope the food doesn’t harm you).

“Smash Bros. owes millions of dollars in OSHA violations” is going to law school and that should be a dealbreaker in itself, but I’ll be a bit lenient because they’re always working towards the safety of everybody. This Unraveled Lover will always remind you to put your seatbelt on and also tell you exactly what laws you are violating.

“Bowser’s military hierarchy” is a Political Science major, and Political Science majors scare me. So I’ll just say they’re okay, and leave it at that.

“Which Dark Souls Boss is the best manager?” is a rare non-evil Management major because they actually truly care for the welfare of employees. They just will always talk about it, even when you guys are on a date. I know worker’s rights are important, but it’s not exactly what I want to talk about in between kisses, yknow?

“I fixed Fallout’s music by creating a totally new genre” is a Music major who keeps accidentally making Ska love songs to you. You didn’t know Ska love songs could be a thing. This Unraveled Lover makes it a thing.

“Scientifically Calculating the Game of the Year” is a Math major so you will never have to worry about calculating bills because they can do it for you.

“Calculate your pet’s HP with my 100% legitimate formula” is a Veterinary Medicine major so if you’re an animal lover, this Unraveled is the one for you! Just beware, because this Unraveled Lover will also spend a lot of time observing you from afar to quantify your health points, but both of you will inexplicably find this activity strengthens your relationship.

And last but not least for this sub tier, “When can Mario retire?” is a disillusioned Accounting and Finance major who chose this line of study to get a job and, through the years, realized what a hellscape capitalism is. You may have to deal with a lot of zoning out and staring off into the distance, with this Unraveled Lover, but a lover who hates capitalism sure is a good egg.

That brings us to our next sub tier!

OKAY SUB TIER: Cultists or Conspiracy Theorists (AKA...College Students who are way too into their extracurriculars)

These Unraveled Lovers are alright! They’re just a little bit off the shits.

“Every Sonic game is blasphemous” will get really really worked up about things and probably try to start a cult. For most, that’s a definite dealbreaker, but what makes Sonic Bible an okay lover is that they eventually calm down from the cult outburst and apologize. So this Unraveled Lover will treat you well, you just have to be ready to ground them when they get a little bit bonkers.

“Solving the Zelda Timeline in 15 minutes” is very similar to Sonic Bible, except instead of starting a cult, every once in a while they’ll just sit you down on a chair and explain to you their latest obsession while slowly and intensely stripping. Which, hey, that could make for a fun night, if you’re into that kinda stuff! Definitely okay in my book.

That brings us to our last okay sub tier.

OKAY SUB TIER: Your Unraveled Lover might need to schedule some sessions with a therapist, and that’s Okay

Listen, we all have baggage. We all have problems. These are Unraveled Lovers who want to be the best for you, but at the same time have issues of their own, and you’re going to have to support them when they pop into their local psych clinic to make themselves better people.

“Waluigi” is an Unraveled Lover who is going through some identity issues. They want to be good for you, but they don’t even know who exactly they are. They may feel as if they are tricking you into being in this relationship, that they aren’t who you think they are, and while these fears are irrational, they wholeheartedly believe it and will never feel fully secure in this relationship until they have made peace with themselves. If you love this Unraveled Lover, you’re going to have to stick with them as they learn more about who they are.

“Kirby” is an Unraveled Lover who, for some reason, is obsessed with the constant quest to make things make sense. This need of theirs bleeds into every aspect of their life and can definitely affect your relationship. This Unraveled Lover may sometimes perhaps cite that they don’t deserve you because they can’t seem to figure out a logical and objective answer for why you are with them. This issue of treating everything like a puzzle to solve is an issue they will have to work out and recover from, and they will be receptive to this process of recovery because they cherish the relationship they have with you and understand that not everything has to be solved; some things can just be felt. If you choose to stay with this Unraveled Lover, you must be prepared to support them when they take a mysterious but needed soul searching journey in the woods. You must be prepared to sit with them along the shores of the beach and reassure them that life is about living, not about answers.

And that, dear readers, ends the OKAY TIERs. Now it’s time for the tier you have all been waiting for.

Drumroll, please!

GOOD TIER: Pop open the champagne, bring out the strawberries dipped in chocolate, and let Spotify play Careless Whisper, baby, because we’re in the Ideal Lover zone.

Welcome to the Ideal Lover Zone. Here, we have three Unraveled Lovers who are just extremely good fellas.

“I used the Sims to perfect my apartment” is an Unraveled Lover who will work their hardest to be the best for you, but unlike the BAD TIER perfectionists, it will naturally dawn to them that perfection is unattainable. After this realization, they will find comfort and happiness in your romantic relationship and the other healthy relationships they have with other people. This Unraveled Lover will be sincere with you when the time calls for it, but will also not be afraid to be goofy for it. Above all, this Unraveled Lover will ask for help when they need it. They may often be shy, at first, but they understand their limits and will openly communicate to you when situations call for it. Communication is the bedrock of any good relationship, and this Unraveled Lover will never keep you guessing.

“The Perfect Pokerap” is similar to the Sims, in the sense that they will at first strive for perfection in the honeymoon phase of your relationship but then understand that that isn’t possible and then set more reasonable and realistic goals. What sets this Unraveled Lover out from the crowd though is just how much they cherish you. How devoted they are to you. The love you will feel in this relationship will be transcendental, and, even if you do break up, this Unraveled Lover will never forget you.

And finally. Who---according to me, a mildly delirious 21 year old rando on the internet---is the most ideal Unraveled Lover?

It’s “Find your Kojima name with my simple 11 page form.” Why? Because this Unraveled Lover wants to know you. They want to know everything about you, the parts you like and the parts you don’t like. This is a lover who will not shy away from any aspect of yourself, but instead, embrace you for who you are as a full fledged person.

They’ll also give you a whack ass pet name, and boy, isn’t that romantic?

Well, there you have it. All (as of May, 2020) of the Unraveled Episodes as 23 Unraveled Lovers. What did I learn from this endeavor? That romantic love is complicated, but if you’re into it, it is definitely worth the trials and tribulations.

...As long as I’m not dating the Castlevania Unraveled. Seriously, when we’re making out, I don’t wanna hear about how sexy the Hyena With Gun is. Learn how to read the room, dude.

(Thanks for reading.)

[translightyagami]

Hello!

I love your fanfic “in your shoes”

(It was the first thing I read about your work and since then I have fallen in love with your writing)

For the fic prompt... Could you write a little more of that AU, please.

(Oh it was so fun to return to this AU! L is a professor at the university Light's attending and they've been together for a little while. You should read "in your shoes" first, but its not imperative. anyway! hope you enjoy!)

cross-posted on ao3!

It was spring break, and L sulked in Light’s apartment. He planned to host his boyfriend during the long academic holiday, but Light surprised his family with a last-minute visit back to Japan. L fiddled with his pockets, taking in the Light’s plastic apology while he laid out instructions on cat-sitting Ryuk.

“Look, I’m sorry, but my father’s been getting ill more often, you know, and you’re going to want to mix Ryuk’s wet food with some dry because he likes the texture, and my mom pretty much said he’s going to kill himself into retirement so I need to be there to convince him to slow down, I’m the only one he listens to about work matters, and this is Ryuk’s favorite toy, so use it with him for about, oh, an hour a day? My sister misses me. I have to go back. Here’s the litter you need to use, and the scoop for when you clean it.”

“I made plans,” L said and took the red scoop from Light. He held it in both hands, staring at the handle in the shape of three apples. Even to his own ears, his voice was pathetic. “I made a reservation at our favorite restaurant. I got really weird sex toys for us to try, because there’s all that recovery time.”

Light’s expression softened until his regret tasted genuine, if pitying. He stroked a hand through L’s hair.

“It’s only for the break,” Light said and kissed L on the forehead. “And then I’ll be back. Just switch the reservation, huh?”

While his soreness over the whole business still thumped under the skin, L liked snooping around Light’s place. He brought his grading work over and, after finishing up, wandered the square-ish space. Despite paying a deep-pocketed rent price, Light lived in a small, cramped studio – made all the tinier with the fat black Ryuk tottering around. His bed, a neat twin mattress with blue sheets that screamed department store boys youth section, had beneath it several plastic storage boxes. L flipped through them, pausing every so often to pet Ryuk or shake the cat’s feather toy.

Inside were stacks of birthday cards, letters from family, and, beneath all this communicative detritus, a pair of diaries. Or journals, as Light called them on the first page of each faux leather book. L flicked the pages of the journal dated the year before Light started at his university. Nothing interesting leapt out, save how Light’s kanji was cramped just like his handwriting in English. Some entries were readable only by squinting – although L didn’t care to read more than three or four since they all smelled of a closet Light didn’t occupy much anymore.

He did enjoy the entry about Light’s adoption of Ryuk. Apparently shelter cats with bad attitudes were Light’s favorite pets, and Ryuk marked the most recent addition. As L read the line, “He only likes when I feed him treats. We’re special to each other, because he chose me and I chose him,” Ryuk nipped him on the finger. L blew a raspberry at the awful little man but shook the feather toy to avoid another nip.

The next journal was more interesting, for it covered Light’s more recent goings-on: fitting in at a foreign university; cooking for himself for the first time; and L rubbed stubborn tears away reading about Light breaking down and calling his mom to ask her, please, how to make his favorite dessert. “I miss everything about home,” Light wrote in an entry marked a month before his first class with L. “There’s nothing for me here except school and Ryuk, and I’m tired of it. I can’t have made a mistake coming here, have I?”

And then The Entry: “I met the most interesting person today.” L knew the date – how could he forget the most important beginning he’d had lately? After that entry came others, more and more concerned with ethical boundaries, and whether this person (God, of course Light refused to acknowledge his crush on a professor, as though his journal judged him) felt the same as Light. One memorable paragraph fell on the day before Light first asked L on a date. Using the back of his hand, L tried to ward off more tears but nothing helped. Ryuk, no longer in a nipping mood, stamped himself a bed in L’s lap. His snore scored L’s reading.

“I wonder if it’s possible to know someone the way I know myself. Or is that too romantic? That’s another thing I sort of hate and love about him, how he’s romantic like me. We’re not moony or anything, but sometimes when he lectures I can feel how he feels – how his passion is a broad stroke. He loves concepts, ideas, the way that no one else I’ve ever met does … except for me. And then when I go to office hours and sit on the other side of his desk, all I can think about is how his mouth moves around words, makes them sound like they’re carved in stone. Even when they’re just so stupid! Because god, he says stupid shit sometimes. And I want to kiss him when he does, so he’ll shut up and hold me and tell me in that serious voice what a joy I am to have in class … maybe outside of class too, if I play my cards right.”

On Friday, a day before Light’s flight back, L woke up to his phone ringing. He was in Light’s apartment, snoozing on the twin bed with a Ryuk-shaped stone on his stomach and the last pages of the journal propped on his chest. His tone was mealy as he answered but perked as the sharp music of Light asking how Ryuk was played through the phone.

“Your little man is fine,” L said, stroking the little criminal in question. “Are you well? Is your trip giving you what you wanted?”

“Not really,” Light said. “I didn’t come on the trip to get something I wanted. My family is happy. Are you doing okay? I hope your bruised ego and our new reservation survived the week.”

L nodded before remembering Light couldn’t see him.

“Yes,” he said, laughing. “I’m okay. Actually, I wanted to ask you something, since you’re back home and everything.”

“Oh sure. Go ahead.”

“Are you happy you stayed?” L asked, licking his lower lip. “I mean, are you happy that you stayed at the university? You didn’t make a mistake?”

The pause was long, filled only by pen clicking on Light’s end as he kept quiet. As L geared up to wave away the question, Light sighed until his lung wheezed.

“I don’t make mistakes,” Light said. “Of course, I’m glad I stayed. Although if you read my diary again, I will make you wish I didn’t.”

[solomonish]

Hey! If you're up for it how about The Fool, The Hierophant, and The Tower for Solomon. And The Moon as a bonus for any character that strikes your fancy!

hell YES i am up for it! i would do the entire thing for Solomon in one go if asked (please don’t ask......let me pace myself lol)

major arcana headcanon requests!

SOLOMON

The Fool -  what are your muse’s thoughts on new beginnings? does it frighten them or excite them?

Well, I think Solomon has a different opinion on new beginnings for himself than he does others, first of all. Considering all he’s seen and been through and what role he has in the universe now, it makes sense that he’d hold himself to a different standard. 

I think for him, he doesn’t necessarily think there’s even the option? Like, he has stagnated. His power and knowledge grows, sure, but in terms of personal development he’s kind of stuck. (At least, that’s how I think he defaults to seeing himself. Can’t keep the realms under control if you’re distracted by trying to be a better person, you know?) He just has to move forward without any thought to “starting over.” Maybe there’s too many layers to get through to start from the top again. Maybe he can never have a new beginning because he cannot end. Maybe he just forgets to take a personal day and do some self reflection because he’s busy, haha. But I can kind of see him not really...thinking that’s an option for himself. The concept seems like wishful thinking, but if ever given the opportunity he’d definitely have some reservations about whether or not he could make it through the transition. Not scared per se, but...wary.

For others, though, I think Solomon definitely thinks it’s possible, especially for humans. Angels and demons have such a stiff role they have to fulfill, but humans? They can kinda do whatever they want. Even if he feels a bit detached from humanity, he still cares deeply for it (them? us?) and the ability to just decide you’re unhappy and completely reinvent yourself, especially with the little time we have, probably just adds to our charm, you know? It’s probably one of the things he’s jealous of or misses, if he thinks about it

The Hierophant -  what are your muse’s morals / ethics? do they follow their moral code strictly?

oh boy, solomon and ethics....

Solomon’s ethics are better off described rather than labeled. If you labeled them, you’d start with “gray” and then you’d get nowhere else. I definitely don’t think he’s amoral, and I don’t think he’s immoral either. It’s very easy to determine a person void of morals or ethics when judging them based on a life where there aren’t many choices that would be “immoral” but necessary. Like, in the average life, the most immoral thing is easy to not do. But considering he’s got, ahem, large responsibilities on his shoulders, there’s probably quite a few times where the best course of action would be horrifying for someone to hear of him doing.

Overall, he prioritizes humanity above all else, along with its longevity and preservation. He definitely has a different internal attitude (at least) when interacting with angels and demons as opposed to humans, a combination of not really feeling as directly responsible for them and also knowing that if he ever is, he would have few to no qualms about giving them the short end of the stick in a situation that would benefit “his team,” if he could manage to pass it by Diavolo or Michael. 

I don’t think his internal values change, things like autonomy and equality for all, free pursuit of knowledge, y’know, all the good stuff everybody wants. And in his day-to-day life, he doesn’t seem the type to pass quick judgement or have some inherent unwillingness to compromise. “Morals” and “ethics” seems to imply a more grand scenario, and as the “keeper of humanity” or however he sees himself, he wouldn’t exactly be hesitant or emotionally torn apart by having to hurt somebody if it meant he could protect and support humanity as a whole.

I feel like I spent however many paragraphs being extremely vague and I’m not sure if this makes sense or even says anything of importance, haha...

The Tower -  what event drastically changed your muse’s life? do they resent that event or are they glad of it?

Well, I mean, there’s a few obvious answers here. You have his fall from the graces of the heavens, the exchange program, any number of biblical events, his discovery of magic and the path he took to immortality, the fallout with his apprentice....and to be honest, with the exception of the exchange program, i think he is resentful but also glad? He’s the type to see the good and the bad outcomes of the situation. He’s probably made peace with the sentiment that “oh it made me who i am today” but he does have days where he grapples with all he’s lost and must now deal with for practically eternity. 

Though, and these aren’t drastic events that shatter him forever (but i think they can be mentioned here), I do think that he takes little pieces of the people he meets and cares about until he becomes a sort of mosiac of the people he loves. Not necessarily romantic love, either. He met a witch who he was close friends with who couldn’t put down cheesy teen romance novels from a specific author, so you can find a few copies of her favorites sandwiched between spellbooks and old archival texts in his room. He isn’t big on self care, but Asmo did teach him a quick and efficient way to wash his face and keep his skin clear. Simeon and Luke gave him an appreciation for finely crafted tea sets. Again, the event i guess would be “making a friend” (which for him very well may be a once in a lifetime kind of deal lol) and isn’t what the question meant, but idk. I think it was worth mentioning here because long-term, it does incorporate into him as a person.

LUCIFER (my other fave <3)

The Moon -  what does your muse long for? is it a realistic desire?

Not to be surface-level and cheesy, but I think he longs for him and his brothers to feel like a family. Not that they don’t already, but I think he longs for the way they used to be in the Celestial Realm, how complete they used to feel. In that way, it’s probably the most unrealistic desire. The hole in their family isn’t one that can or even should be filled, and your addition is just that - an addition, not a replacement.

Something that could give him (kind of) what he craves is if he and his brothers could heal. They’re already on the right path, but they’re still all kind of dysfunctional. The complicated part of this is that a lot of their strife is due to the nature of demons, and the wholesome unity is a brand that has never really been found in he Devildom. That’s not to say it’s impossible - the brothers still love each other, they still are loyal to each other, but Lucifer can feel that there is some sort of rift between them that has not yet been fixed that he yearns to solve.

(If you ask me, the “rift” is probably something caused by trying to heal in an environment that will never offer mercy or forgiveness. If the brothers can find solace in each other, maybe that’ll get them a step closer. But sometimes their interactions still feel like walking on eggshells, and...I don’t know. I really do think Lucifer longs for the type of relationship they had when they were angels, and he’s trying to deal with the realization that maybe that type of relationship just isn’t in the cards for a demon.)

[fandom-pardes]

Christian normativity and Lovecraft Country

Reposted from my personal blog.

Here’s something you need to wrap your head around. If you were brought up in an environment dominated by Christian culture, Christian norms have shaped the way you conceptualize how the world works, human nature, ethics, religion (even the term religion is Christian-normative), and so on.

It doesn’t matter if you actively practice or believe. IMO, unless you deliberately and consistently expose yourself to different frameworks, you are generally operating from a Christian lens. That’s just how socialization works.

In the case of media and media criticism, the Christian framework shows up in a deeply puritanical streak where good and evil are not actions and choices, but states of being. When a character does something beneficial, it’s because they are good. If they do something harmful, it’s because they are bad.

It also shows up in the ways that fandom discourse seems preoccupied with whether a character’s thoughts, feelings, or actions are morally justified or not, as opposed to understanding where those thoughts, feelings, and actions come from.

Consider Montrose. He does some horrible stuff in this show, and many viewers were upset by the way the narrative went out of its way to explore where those horrific actions come from rather than condemn him for them. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here thinking, “Of course he does that, considering what his experiences have taught him.” But at the time the show was airing, if I’d expressed that openly, I’d have gotten a lot of, “Why are you trying to justify all the bad things Montrose has done?”

*smh*

In Lovecraft Country, the Christian normativity also shows up in the way it tries to shoehorn the plot (especially the finale) into a typical Good vs. Evil (or God vs. Satan—more on this in a bit) narrative even though the characters themselves are too complex for that. Then the show Goes There with the hamfisted way it links Tic with Jesus, all the way down to his martyred blood being the source of salvation, and Christina with Satan or the Antichrist, a morally corrupt enemy of goodness/God who tempts humans to embrace forbidden knowledge (magic) and forbidden pleasures (non-cishet sex).

(IMO, the show did Christina a disservice by making her the ultimate villain because she’s a lot more fun as a wild card. Also, her character is more akin to the tricksters of myth and folklore than the villains of contemporary media. /tangent)

Then there’s the way that, in the US, the legacy of slavery, and later Jim Crow, is seen as a kind of Original Sin, which the show reinforces rather than challenges. In very simplistic terms, Original Sin means that you are automatically morally corrupt from birth, and nothing you do can undo that except faith in Jesus. In other words, you are born bad and condemned to damnation unless you think, feel, and believe the right thing.

This insinuation of Original Sin is most pronounced with how the narrative frames Christina and how viewers respond to her. I’ve seen a lot of people judge her for having the “wrong” thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes, using that as an argument against her capacity to change and grow. Even the ways she helps and empowers others become automatically suspect because of this “taint.”

*siiiiigh*

Y’all, you have to understand how weird this looks to my Jewish self.

Imagine this rich heiress who kills a bunch of Nazis. She does it for her own reasons that aren’t the least bit altruistic. That’s still fewer Nazis for me to worry about. We can argue about her motives when there are no more Nazis. But for now: Thanks, lady!

But the way some viewers would have it, I’m supposed to be like…

Me: “I know you killed all these Nazis, but do you really care about my people?”

Her: “No.”

Me: “You horrible person! If you don’t care, don’t bother killing any Nazis at all!”

Haha. OK. Sure, Jan.

I’m not gonna go down the rabbit hole of Jewish ethics and moral development, but to summarize Jewish ethics while standing on one foot, the important thing is the Do The Thing. Even though it’s ideal to Do The Thing for the right reasons, whatever it takes to get you to Do The Thing is valid (some conditions about Doing The Other Things apply). Good intentions don’t absolve people of wrongdoing, nor do ulterior motives erase the good that people do.

Furthermore, sin is not a state of being in Jewish tradition. It’s an action or behavior akin to an arrow missing its target. Our job is to fix what we can and try again, failing better until we hit our target.

So Christina crashing her car into truckload of racists matters. Giving Leti enough money to pay for a house matters. Sharing magical secrets with Tic and Ruby matters. Keeping her promise not to harm Leti matters.

Now, if I really wanna get Jewish about this, I’d argue that Christina’s deep yearning for human connection, for family and for love, is what can give her the drive to learn better* and do better. This may strike some with deeply ingrained Christian norms as selfish, or at the very least, self-interested. However, Jewish tradition encourages us to perform mitzvot and other good deeds using both our yetzer hatov (our “good” impulse—think the Freudian** superego) and our yetzer hara (our “evil” impulse—think the Freudian id). Our job is not to suppress or deny the part that wants things for ourselves, but to refine it and channel it toward constructive purposes.

I think that’s about it.

Happy Hanukkah!

*Moral development through learning and study is a hallmark of Jewish ethics. No one is born knowing right from wrong. It has to be taught and cultivated.

**Freud was Jewish, BTW.

[poulpichou]

Government failures and fucked-upperies in France

Ok, so I recently wrote a bit about the situation with police brutality in France, but now I would like to tell you more about WHY the government needs the police so much. A lot of my sources will be in french (and marked (F) like this) because there are a lot of cases that didn’t make it to the international press. Many sources also come from the newspaper Mediapart and require a subscription.

I’ve had a lot of people telling me “BuT It’S nOt ChInA” and let me tell you, yes I know it’s way worse in other countries (Peru, Thailand, Nigeria and so on, a lot is happening right now in the world), but where the fuck do you draw the line? The kind of things I’m gonna tell you about is unacceptable, and so hypocritical when a country calls itself a democracy and the land of human rights, and we should be angry about that and try to make it change. Here I’m talking a lot about Macron but let’s not forget that many current problems began under Holland’s presidency, who was supposed to be from the left, and even before. Alright, here we go.

President of the wealthy

Soooo let’s begin with how Macron was elected by wealthy people: half of the 16 million euro collected for his campaign was financed(F) by 1200 people, mostly living in Paris, by banks, and also by rich french people living abroad. So of course the first thing he did when he could was to reward them for his victory and he cut their taxes in december 2018. He deleted the “taxe on fortune” that was in place for 40 years (minus 3 years under Chirac first presidency) and replaced it with another that taxes way less, in the name of trickle down economy (you know, the same way Thatcher and Reagan did) saying that rich people would invest more and thus creating more jobs. Of course that didn’t happen and rich people just got way richer without any effects on poor people.

At the same time, he cut down housing benefits for students and poor people (1/4 of people between 18 and 24 are under the poverty line) and cancelled housing helps for 50,000 people. In december 2018, he wanted to pass a law that would increase fuel prices in the name of ecology, but that would once again mainly affect working and middle classes. That’s how started the yellow vest movement, because people were becomming poorer and poorer and they felt like the government only gave to the rich and took from the poor.

In 2018, 14% of the french population was under the poverty line, and 21% suffer from food insecurity and it has only worsened since.

At the end of 2019, a student even set himself on fire at his university because he was in such financial distress he couldn’t go on anymore.

Yellow Vest movement

If you have to read one article about it, it’s this one.

In 2017, Macron said in one of his speeches about a train station that it was “a place where one encounters people who are succeeding and people who are nothing”. The yellow vest movement came from these “people who are nothing”. For the first time in decades, people who were not heard, people who didn’t have a place in the political landscape in France were on the front scene. A lot of protestors never demonstrated before, or even engaged in politics. Many of them now protested because “they had nothing else to lose” (F). People were angry from not being listened to and being used only to allow rich people to get richer, and oh boy they showed it in the street.

The first protests took the government by surprise. They were not expecting the numbers of protestors, nor their determination. The protest were also completely different from the demonstration the state was used to deal with: there were no official leaders, making it really difficult for the government to negotiate, demonstrations were often not declared beforhand in prefectures (F), and people were systematically targetting (F) banks, major brands like Apple or McDonalds and luxury shops, causing millions euro worth of damages.

On the 1st of december 2018, protestors in Paris took over the Arc de Triomphe and completely overfloaded the police.

One policeman said afterward that on this day, “the Elysée could have fallen” (F). Police forces were not prepared, the right orders were not given at the right times and some police company were surounded by furious protestors. The same policeman said that in that moment, “they forgot about their code of ethics”, that they were just shooting rubber bullet wherever they could and “trying protect their life”. The following weeks, police put on steel fences around the Elysée and members of the government and their collaborators were asked to lock down and put away all of their documents(F) before the weekly demonstrations, in case the protestors were able to take over the buildings.

It was a turning point in the protests, and from then the orders given to the police changed completely. From then they’ve been allowed to litterally do whatever it took to keep the country in order. The government understood that the last thing between them and the furious people they betrayed was the police, and that’s precisely why they are trying to give them even more power today with the law on global security (see my last post, and probably a next one I’m gonna write soon because it would be too much for this post).

Since December 2018, a journalist, David Dusfresne, documents and keeps count on the police brutality, first on twitter and then on the online newspaper Mediapart(F) (TW for really graphic pictures of wounds and blood). For now he counted 4 deaths, 30 people who lost an eye due mainly to rubber bullets, 6 who lost a hand due to detonative grenades (France is being the only european country to use them against its own population), 346 wounded to the head (fractured skull mainly, due to the rubber bullets and baton blow) and a total of 969 documented reports on police brutality (and that’s only for 3 years).

Since then, a total of 9 police officers have been judged guilty, 7 of them being only suspended temporarily and avoiding prison, with only 2 of them ending up in prison(F) and being expelled from police forces.

People began to record the police more and more to prevent any brutality or to have proofs in case it happened, and then the police began to target journalists and anyone who had a camera.

They began to lie to people, telling them it’s forbiden to record the police (for now it isn’t), they forced photographs to delete their photos in the middle of demonstrations. They covered their ID number on their uniform (F), they covered their licence plates.

The government also began to talk about legitimate protest, aka the peacefull one, and put the name of “casseur” (thug) on anyone who would be too angry. to their taste, saying that the latter were taking the former in hostage. Basically they were saying tht yes, protestors took aver the arc de Triomphe, but it was only hooligans who just wanted to burn things, nothing political behind that.

Here began the preventive arrests (F) before demonstrations (arresting people who had done nothing on the only presumption they will), the arrest of journalists, the arrest of people having masks and protection glasses on them. From now on the administration can ban someone from public demonstration without going through the justice system.

Between November 2018 and November 2019, around 3,000 person(F) from the yellow vest movement were senteced to community services, fees, suspended prison sentence, and for 1/3 of them prison sentences. Those numbers are underestimated because many cases have not been judged yet. Some protestors were sentenced for shouting slogans(F), for wearing protective masks(F) (F), other were sent to prison for damaging radars(F) on highways, or for filming riots while wearing a yellow vest(F). There has been a massive tendency(F) for the state to sue people for “participation to a gathering with the intent to commit violences against persons or goods”, allowing them to give fees, community services or even prison sentences to people based only on the intent they gave them. Many people found guilty of attacking police forces were judged with the only proof being the declaration of police officers, and even though a lot of them claimed to be innocent they were still sentenced because they couldn’t bring proof of their innocence.(F) Amnesty International talks about the criminalization of demonstrators(F) that’s happening in France and warns about the instrumentalisation of laws that goes against international law. (F)

The ban on masks (they can be considered as weapons) during demonstration allows police to take protestors(F) who have some on them or in their car to the police station for a maximum of 48h for the sole purpose of making them miss the demonstration. This law is not applied nowadays because of Covid, but it still exists.

With the yellow vest movement, the part of the population who wasn’t used to the police actually began to endure what POC have been living for decades.

Racisme

France is a fucked up racist country. It was born in colonisation and slavery, and still rely on its former colonies to prosper economically. Young men perceived as Black or Arab are 24 more times likely to be stopped in the streets. The overwhelming majority of people killed by the police are black or arabic(F). When the police kills POC, the judiciary system often refuses to do a full investigation, refuses to hear some of the witnesses, refuses to watch some of the video tapes from surveillance cameras (F). A lot of autopsies are proved to be ballant lies, founding heart diseases(F) or blood infections(F) when the victim was actually killed by suffocation due to ventral tackle, a police technique that got France sentenced by the European court of human rights (F).

BAC

Since the mid 90′s, France has special police forces for working-class neighborhoods, the Brigade Anti-Criminalité (BAC), that operate in suburbs (in France rich people live in the city center and poor people in the suburbs) where a majority of imigrants and people from black and arabic descent live. BAC agents are all volunteers, they act in unmarked cars and civilians clothes and can carry weapons(F).

Their purpose is to roam the streets and to catch misdemeanor in the act, and they’ve been known (as well as regular police) to harass population by proceeding to systematic identity cheks(F) (often outside of what’s allowed by law), by insulting people(F), provoking people with racist and homophobic insults(F), by beating them(F) and charging them for “outrage” or “rebellion”(F) when they protest (charges that always give reasons to police officers when there’s no recordings of the arrest and allow them to get money for the prejudice). There have been reports of torture on adults(F), tennagers(F) and children(F), and cases where the BAC agents took victims to quiet places so they could beat them up(F). There have also been reports of agents inventing charges when their provocations didn’t push the victim to confront them(F).

They are basically above the law. There have been cases of massive corruption(F) where the agents returned to their unit(F) after the end of their suspension, and the person who leaked the info got fired.

As they are field agents, their role is also intelligence: they gather intells in the suburbs and they also infiltrate demonstration(F) and wear the attire of “casseurs”, to gather intells on violent individuals. Since the beginning of the Yellow Vest movement, they’ve participating in containing demonstrations as well even though they don’t have any training in that field.

Refugees

Police is being extremely violent against refugees, particularly in Northern France and what used to be the “Jungle” of Calais. Amnesty International reported that police had been beating refugees with baton, confiscating their clothes and tent daily during winter (it also happened in Paris(F)), urinating on their tents, spraying teargas directly in the face of sleeping men. A group of 4 associations also issued a report(F) on police harassment against volunteers who helped refugees, with as much as 646 instances of police harassment and abuse against volunteers between November 2017 and June 2018 in Calais. Human rights observers reported harrasment techniques such as body search of female volunteers by male officers, insults, pushing, threats of legal suits and threats of arrest. Volunteers who reported these behaviours were told by the police internal investigation body that the reports where defamatory and could constitute a crime.

At the beginning of the year, associations that were not approuved by the state were forbidden to distribute free meals to refugees(F).

Islamophobia

France has always been an islamophobic country but it has been more public and accepted since the 2015 terrorist attacks. Many laws promoting laicity are actually used to target Islam:

The ban of public display of religious items in public institutions (schools, libraries, government buildings) target mainly women wearing hijabs when many mayors keep on installing nativity scenes during Christmas(F). In 2016 some cities made wearing a burkini (full body covering bathing suit) on the beach illegal and we had some astonishing scenes of police officers asking a women (who wasn’t even wearing a burkini) to undress on the beach in the name of the law.

The law that says people have to uncover their face when being in a public space only target muslim women and is now completely useless as we have the obligation to wear a mask everywhere

The law that says street prayers have to be autorized in prefecture beforehand only target muslim community: when a muslim association organized a street prayer(F) in 2017 to protest their eviction from their place of cult in the city center they were charged 10,000€ (5,000€ from the association and 5,000€ from its president), whereas catholics students organized a street prayer(F) last month and didn’t face any charges. Legally, any autorization must be asked more than 3 days in advance and in both cases it was only asked on the day before.

Following the killing of Samuel Paty, a teacher who was attacked mid october for showing caricatures of the prophet Mohamed in class, four 10 years old children were arrested for “terrorism apology”(F), interrogated for 10 hours and their houses checked by police forces in full gears. The minister of interior also disolved the Collective against Islamophobia in France, saying that, since it was prottesting against anti-terrorist laws (that are super islamophobic) it was promoting radical islamism and terrorism. A minute of silence was imposed in schools and the names of people who didn’t follow the procedure were given to the minister of education, who said “none of them will be left unpunished”.(F)

To sum up: the government is being super islamophobic but muslims who voice their concerns are seen as radical islamists and are associated with terrorists.  Furthermore, it’s now easier for islamophobic people in government to ban associations or to pass shady laws thanks to the state of emergency.

State emergency

Following the 2 years of state emergency (2015-2017), France passed a law against terrorism(F) that normalized a lot of the state emergency’s characteristics: it took power away from the justice system to give it to administrations, directly under the control of the government.

The government, who previously had to be accountable in front of a judiciary judge, can now do many things under the only control of an administrative judge(F). The actions of administrative judges are controled by the council of state, and the president of the said council is the prime minister or the minister of justice, named by the president.

Here is what they can now do(F):

place people under house arrest with obligation to check in police stations every day for a maximum of a year

deny or restrict access to public events to some people, or proceed to body search

make someone wear an electronic bracelet when they didn’t commit any infractions

close places of worship for a maximum of 6 months when the ideas discuted there promote hate, discrimination, violence or terrorism

require people to give their login of any account on internet to the police

investigate on civil servants using secret services files

create a national centralized file with the names of people travelling in and out of the country by plane or boat

With the autorisation of a judge of freedom and detentions, they can also search houses and seize computers or phones to inspect the contents.

If people refuse to do any of the above when they are asked to, they risk 3 years of prison and a fee that can go up to 45,000€.

The offense “terrorism apology” was used against hundreds of people, with a large proportion of them being underaged (1/3 of them in 2015), sometimes for something as unsignificant as a non-violent facebook comment, a situation pointed out by Amnesty International(F). The NGO also highlights the fact that the fear of being considered as an extremist or the fear of facing judiciary consequences sets limit to freedom of speech.

Since 2015, the government has used the power given to them by the state of emergency to place 24 environmental activists under house arrest for the duration of the COP21(F) and to search the house of people who were protesting against the construction of an airport(F), construction potentialy linked to corruption(F), and also to close temporarly more than 30 mosques and install security cameras inside(F).

The consulting national commission on human rights pointed out a “highjack” of the state emergency, that was used to silence protestors, unions and refugees with abusive means, like unnecessary handcuffing, adults and children being aimed at with assault riffle during house searches and house being damaged during searches.

2015 was also the year of the Intelligence Act, a law that allows inteligence agencies to install scanning devices on the infrastructure of telecom operators so they can collect data on communications that are likely to reveal a terrorist threat.

Covid 19

When the epidemy started to be problematic in France in February 2020, hospital workers had been on strike for 11 months(F) and were asking for doctors and nurses jobs opening, and more beds in hospital. At the beginning of february, 600 administrative hospital workers had quit(F) so they were not “accomplices of the management of misery”. Healthcare workers had been saying for years that the deterioration of the working conditions in hospitals were gonna lead to patients death.

Since the beginning of the 2000′s, 100 000 beds have been removed(F) from hospital services and there has been a budget cut close to 12 bilions euros(F) for the health services.

Then comes Covid 19, and the government asks health workers to always do more with less, in the name of common good. We applaud them at our windows every night, and then they don’t get the bonus(F) the government promised, the healthcare system doesn’t get any budget increase and even worse, it still has to face a 800 milions cut in the middle of the pandemic(F).

The newspaper Mediapart issued a report(F) exposing the lies of the government:

They decided to get only small quantities of masks at the beginning of january against experts opinion, they said the virus wouldn’t reach France.

Government lied about the usefullness of masks to prevent people asking for them when they didn’t have some to distribute to the whole population. They said it was useless, and even dangerous because we didn’t know how to use them, they actively encouraged people not to wear them, and they lied about mask shortage. I really want to insist on that point, the instensity of communication on the subject was incredible. Every day we had many different high-ranked person in the government telling us on TV, on the radio or in newspaper that we shouldn’t wear masks. They only made wearing masks compulsory in public spaces mid July, 6 months after the first case in France(F).

Healthcare workers didn’t have enough masks and thus faced higher risks of contamination but the government still allowed non essential big companies like Airbus to use milions of the precious FFP2 masks. The government still refuses to give the number of healthcare workers who died from Covid19(F), the only count we have is made by journalists, and it’s believed to be underestimated.

To this day, healthcare workers are still on strike for better working conditions and better pay. I took this pic earlier this month from one of the firestations in my city, you can read written in white paint on the doors “understaffed, population in danger”, “18 months of strike and still NOTHING”, “Covid bonus ???” and “SOS”. Firefighters also write this on their trucks and their helmets, and hospitals have had banners deployed for more than a year now. All of these people are still working to ensure everyone’s access to health services but they refuse to transfer data to the state sickness insurance for example (and they are now facing administrative sanctions(F) and are threatened to not be given cancer drugs if they don’t end the strike(F)).

Regarding Covid, we are one of the only countries in europe to use self-filled certificates to be able to go outside. These certificates are controlled by the police, and like I said earlier, increased police controls harm a certain part of the population (young people and POC). Amnesty International issued a report(F) on the violences comited during french lockdown, pointing out repetitive and significant illegitimate actions from the police, such as beatings, use of tasers, illegal arrests, racists and homophobics insults and verbal threats. In April 2020, Mohamed Gabsi, a homeless person, was killed by the police after being arrested for being outside during the lockdown(F). The officers who killed him are still in service.

The covid crisis brought us in the worst recession we had since WW2, and the Secour Populaire (french association that helps poor people) had to help 45% more people than it helped in 2019(F). In my city, there are so many people coming for food distribution on certain days they had to install permanent fences in the street so people can queue in order.

Corruption and Other Stuff

In France (as in many other countries) it’s rare to have politicians who’ve never been prosecuted in any judiciary or administrative case.

Here I’m only gonna tell you who have been accused and who have been prosecuted for what in Macron’s government, and quite frankly it’s not exhaustive because one wikipedia page just brings me to 5 more.

The following tab is quite heavy so feel free to just check the left column with the legend.

(Now let me cry thinking about this Swedish minister who had to quit over a chocolate bar)

(All my sources are from french newspapers, I can give them if you ask me but I’m not gonna put them here because there are way too many)

People who had to quit the first government were still appointed deputy governor of the Bank of France (Sylvie Goulard), president of the national assembly (Richard Ferrand) and chief of foreign affaires commission at the national assembly (Marielle de Sarnez). They are being investigated for corruption and embezzlement and they still have a successfull political career, and more important they still heavily influence the laws of our country and of Europe. Sylvie Goulard was even chosen by Macron to seat at the European Commission but european deputies decided it was fucked up and rejected her appointment (F).

In this list I only talked about members of the government but there has been other scandals linked to people around Macron.

Benalla cases: It all began when we discovered Alexandre Benalla, chief of security and travels for the president, was participating in demonstration as a policeman (which he wasn’t) and used his position to beat up protestors and passerby. The rest of the case is filled with destruction and hiding of evidences(F), illegal sharing of public surveillance videotapes by the police, undeclared guns(F), illegal but unpunished use of data by the police(F) and the Elysée(F), breaking of the judiciary control by Benalla, illegal diplomatic passports and meeting with african’s leaders, russian contracts with an alleged mafia boss(F), office searchs for a newspaper ordered by the State, who tried to seize the proofs and the sources the newspaper had on the case(F) and so on. The case involves several members of the government and members of special forces, and some journalists who were writing on it were then auditionned for disclosure of state secret(F). The case in general highlighted the impunity members of the government and police officers have, as well as anyone who is close to the president, but also the dysfunction in the justice system and the impossibility for high ranked people to face justice. The fucker is still free, taunt people on twitter and still gives interviews to national television.

Kohler case: Alexis Kohler, general secretary of the Elysee and Macron right hand man during his campain, hid his personnal links to the sea transporters MSC and then attributed them huge state funds. He also lied in his involvement in the decision. We discovered Macron sent a letter to the national financial prosecutor's office to clear him, which they did, until an anti-corruption association relaunched legal proceedings. The guy is now being prosecuted for corruption and bribery. (F) (F)

Conclusion

Fuck the police, eat the rich, let’s forbid them from being elected, a next long post on the Law on Global Security the governement is trying to pass is gonna come soon if you’re interested.

Please tell me if you see any inconsistency in this post, I tried to source it as much as I could and to verify everything I wrote but like anyone else I have bias and sometimes I wrote things at 5am so I’m aware I might be incorrect  and I’m open to constructive criticism. Also sorry for my approximate english sometimes.

[vorish-musing]

Risky Business (IT Chapter Two)

Summary: Eddie is a monster hunter, he’s called back to his hometown, there's another man eating monster, he just never realized how fucked this job could be.

Warnings: this story contains soft, safe, G/t vore. if you do not like this, I suggest not reading. this is also not a story for the faint of heart, there is (not super graphic) moments of fatal/hard vore, digestion mention (does not occur), fearplay, and the usual cussing warning.  

Hi guys! its been so long! I’ll be honest, i was not planning on posting this, since this was a WIP discarded back in march, but while watching the movie again, I realized I needed to finish this, I really hope y’all like it!

NSFW DO NOT INTERACT

Risk analysis? Was that Job invented before fun?

Well, it Depends on what you call ‘fun’

For Eddie Kaspbrak, risk analysis is fun.

He couldn’t remember much of his past, all that he knew was that monsters existed, the ones that hid under your bed, the ones that prey in the night, he didn’t know how he discovered this for the longest time, he just... knew.

He knew he had to have encountered a monster at one point, but he just couldn't remember when.

His first instinct was to kill these monsters, though after further consideration of how the ethics of that worked, plus the morality of him being the judge, jury and executioner was pretty skewed. He decided to analyze these creatures, at least the ones he found. Witches, Vampires, werewolves, ghosts.

So yeah, he was a Risk Analysis, he analyzed creatures that we’re a risk to human kind.

And yes, it was Fun.

Being a part of a small group of people who knew these monster movie critters existed was something he wished he could brag about.

Though everything changed when he got that call from Mike Hanlon, Begging him to come back to Derry to fight that clown. That damned clown.

His memories flooded back, the childhood trauma of that summer, 1989, when everyone they knew started turning up missing, really they were dead, nothing more than food to the demon living in the sewers

It was then, fighting that demon, when he realized that analyzing these monsters wasn’t enough anymore.

They were not a risk, they were a threat.

Once he got back to his home in new york, he began his own business, he tried finding his way into different circles, ones he never thought existed, multiple people with stories of slaying beasts of all shapes and sizes, and he was now one of them.

He got a second phone, one he could use for his side job, he went under an alias, Richie Marsh. Not creative, a little embarrassing,  but it worked.

He would get calls almost daily, he made pretty good money, but he had one rule, only kill if it had harmed first. He always turned the monsters who had done no wrong away, allowed him to get some sleep at night, knowing that he was saving others lives while doing this.

Hell, the first time he met a vampire, the dude just chilled alone in a cabin in the woods. Not bothering anybody.

He began making a name for himself in the business and it had only been a year, it was impressive to all about his knowledge, how much he knew about these creatures, how fearless he could be.

Up to this day, he scribbled down notes about the varying creatures he saw and met. Sitting in his living room, the constant scritch of his pencil was interrupted by a ringing from his pocket.

He took his ‘work’ phone out of his jeans, putting the device to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Is this Richie Marsh?” A familiar voice was heard on the other end, but he couldn’t quite place it.

Eddie ran a hand through his hair, thankful his phone had a voice modifier, just in case he actually knew the person on the other line.. Even though chances of that were slim to none. “Depends who’s asking”

with one hand, he took a sip of water in a glass, while with the other he opened a new page in his notebook, ready to write down this stranger's name.

“My name is Mike Hanlon, I was given this number by a friend, he told me you could help me”

Slim to none huh?

Eddie coughed up the drink back into his cup,“M-Mike Hanlon?”

“Uh...yes, I...I need your help”

Eddie scribbled down the name very quickly, though nothing in the world could make him forget it. “with what? What's going on?” he felt his heart racing, he didn’t want any of his friends to know what kind of danger he was putting himself into, he didn’t want them to know, or even try it themselves.

“Well… I live in Derry, Maine. There was a curse in this town...right? A monster, it killed a lot of people, but me and my friends… we stopped it.” Mike's voice sounded nervous.

“I...see…” Eddie’s voice wavered, hoping that this wouldn’t be another call back to defeat a killer clown “if you stopped it, why are you calling?”

“Because people are going missing again, but I know it's not what we fought, it's something else, nothing is being left behind, they’re just...vanishing.”

Eddie scribbled a few words down, his throat getting dry as he began to sweat nervously “okay...what's the age range of the missing persons?”

Please don't be kids….please don’t be kids.

“All adults, the other creature went for children, and those killings lasted for a year at least. This happens every few weeks, from my calculations, it's once every 3 weeks, and if I'm right, they're supposed to be here by Friday, they start hunting at night.”

Eddie couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief as he wrote what mike was saying down, opening his laptop and began booking a flight for Friday afternoon “okay, got it. have you seen this creature.”

There was an awkward pause, before Mike answered, almost embarrassed, “No.”

“Then how do you know all of this?” He wanted to believe Mike was reading too much into things, that Derry wasn’t being terrorized with another monster.

“Because one of the missing people has come back, and she came to me-- I’m somewhat of a Private eye in this town” Eddie smiled--good for him, making a name for himself in Derry.

“I talked with this one lady, she told me that she didn’t remember much, but whatever was out there, her two friends were killed, she didn’t tell me how they died, or even how she escaped...she just woke up..”

Eddie scribbled some more “do you know how many there are?”

“No. but I believe there's more than one, if you come in the next few days we can meet up and-”

Eddie shot up out of his seat “NO!” he heard mike go silent, before adding “uh...no...i’d rather uh...keep my face a secret”

Mike let out a laugh “of course, of course. We will have to talk more though, I have many notes and things that I’ve observed-”

‘Text me them, I have to go”

“But-”

Eddie hung up before he could hear the rest of that sentence, falling back into his seat. He put both hands on his face and sighed loudly.

He had to go back to Derry, and he had to avoid seeing Mike there too. He let out a groan, sitting up and finishing the booking process, it was only two days away, but that gave him enough time to pack everything he needed.

Those two days went by very fast. Mike tried to pay, but Eddie insisted it be free, not wanting to take money from his friend. Next thing he knew, he was on a plane to Derry, a rental car waiting for him and another traumatic nostalgia trip was in his future.

Once the plane landed, he quickly made his way through the airport, wearing a baseball cap in a poor attempt to hide his face. He got into his rental car, driving as fast as he (legally) could on the roads to his hotel room, texting Mike that he had landed, and was going to scope out the locations where Mike had claimed the creatures were.

As he drove through the streets, he began noticing the missing persons signs, it reminded him of when he was young, and there were people he knew going missing. He shook his head. Whatever those creatures were, He was sure he would stop it.

He parked his car in front of the hotel, getting a room key and making his way up with his bags. He used to be very particular where he stayed, but as the months went on with this job, he would just take what he could get.

As he settled in, he got another call from Mike.

“If you need any help, I’m no stranger to killing monsters, just give me a call” Mike sounded worried, but it also sounded like he wanted Eddie to say yes to him coming along, but the man couldn’t bring himself to ask.

“I’m fine Mr. Hanlon. Thank you.”

“Okay, most of the missing persons were last seen around the woods, be careful, the trees go on and on, outside of the town and basically into the next, which is an hour away when Driving” Mike explained a few more things about the town, which of course, Eddie already knew about.

After speaking for a few more minutes about the plan, Eddie hung up the phone, it felt so awkward to be speaking to him under his alias, it was the most disconnected he had ever felt while on the job.

Once he gets all of his hunting gear in order, he puts it under the bed, just in case housekeeping decides to come in, and promptly leaves the room.

If he had to be here for the next day or so, he could at least go out and get some food.

As he walked down the streets of Derry, he made sure wherever he would go, nobody was following, and that nobody who knew him could recognize him.

He soon settled on a cafe near the hotel, walking into the establishment and ordering coffee with a BUNCH of espresso shots inside, after all, he needed all the energy he could get. He was usually much more healthy, but on jobs, he needed as much caffeine as humanly possible.

Sitting at an empty booth in the cafe, he took his journal out, scribbling a few notes down, his plan, he never really needed a plan, but it was nice to have one. He was sure this was a simple case that would be solved in less than an hour, so he didn’t pay much mind to it.

The barista comes to his table, setting his cup of pure caffeine down. Before she could leave, Eddie pulled out a $20 bill out of his wallet, giving it to her

“Save up every cent, get out of this town, it’ll be good for you” she gave him a confused look, like she was expecting him to pull it away as a joke, but with a look in his eyes, she took the money.

The barista smiled, her eyes bright and much more charismatic than his, “thank you sir.” she pocketed the money in her apron “ and that's the plan, as soon as I have enough money, I’m leaving this hell hole--just me and my shitty van. all the way to broadway”

He nodded as she walked away. He took a sip of his bitter drink, going over his notes a few more times--now should I ambush or wait--

“Eddie?”

His heart stopped dead as he snapped his head up, hearing his name, slamming the book closed.

His eyes met Richie's, who seemed equally as shocked to see him there. They stared at each other for a few moments.

W...why is he here?! He...he can’t be here now...what the fuck?

There was something off in Richie's overall appearance, he looked very sick, malnourished, hunched over and wearing clothes that looked like they hadn’t been washed in weeks, his eyes looked like he was coming straight from the morgue.

Though his face was one of shock and confusion as to why Eddie was in Derry that night, Eddie was almost disappointed Richie was not happy to see him there.

“Holy shit trashmouth” Eddie sat up straight “What the hell are you doing here?” He motioned for Richie to sit down, which the man obliged to very quickly.

“Just passing through, I have to get down to uh… Ludlow, Maine.” to this, Eddie was confused, it sounded like Richie was making things up on the spot “I uh...got a show down there, w-what are you doing in Derry?”

He knew when Richie was lying, he always knew, he never told Richie this, but since they grew up together, he watched the mannerisms he had when lying, and could always tell ever since.

But that's because he didn’t want to look stupid, believing what Richie said. Definitely not because he liked to watch the man, and DEFINITELY not because he admired him for lying with so much ease.

Definitely not.

Eddie nodded, taking a sip of coffee “Just uh…” he quickly thought of a lie, “Visiting Mike, I wanted to surprise him, plus, wanted to get away from New York for a while”

“Interesting.” Richie’s eyes fell to the journal Eddie was desperately trying to keep hidden “Aw, does Eddie have a diary?”

Eddie let his face falter a bit, showing off his worry, pulling his journal “its it’s for work, asshat” he narrowed his eyes.

Richie, one who usually would keep poking at Eddie, slumped back a bit “Well, I gotta get going, Nice seeing you around.” he stood up, ready to walk away.

“Wait, come on.” Eddie looked up at the man, extremely confused “are you okay, man? If I'm honest, you look like shit.”

“Yeah i'm...fine.I just gotta get some...thing to eat” Richie eyed him up and down slowly, before exiting the building without another word.

Eddie just stared at the door as Richie walked away, well, not really walking, he was pretty much stumbling away.

Though as he left, the two men from before waved at Richie, like they knew him...probably just fans, Eddie couldn’t afford to read too much into things.

He shook his head, taking another sip of his coffee and reopening his book once again, Richie was probably drunk, and there was no surprise there. Eddie noticed how much Richie would drink last time they met, and this behavior didn’t surprise him.

But it was strange.

He quickly finished up his cup of coffee, placing his cup at the edge of the table, another waitress quickly coming to pick it up as he left the coffee shop, holding onto his journal tightly as he walked through Derry.

He checked his phone, a few missed messages from Mike, sharing a few more of his findings, but Eddie couldn’t bother to read them, his mind was only on Richie.

Why was he lying? What was he doing here? Questions whizzed around his head. Did Richie know something? Did Mike call him too?

Eddie sighed, he better get back to his hotel room, no use thinking about it now. He had a task at hand, and he had to get ready in the next few hours.

And that he did.

He was prepared for everything, he had a few guesses to what the monster was, a werewolf, a demon? but nothing really fit perfectly. demons kill people, but it's not like they would let people escape. Werewolves fit better, you could escape one, but they were not very...cleanly with their kills.

Whatever it was, it was going to be killed, no matter how many there were.

An alarm went off in his phone, letting the man know it was time to leave, get to the woods and start investigating.

He grabbed his bag, filled to the brim with gear, and headed out the door, texting Mike that he was headed out, and that the man needed to refrain from further messages, until Eddie had texted first of course.

He placed his phone back into his pocket, swiftly leaving the building. It was only a twenty minute walk to the forest, but if it felt like forever, his body felt shaky, like he should just turn around.

He never felt like this before, he chalked it up to nerves, with being back in Derry. Something in him still believed it could be IT, but he knew that wasn’t the case. If it was, ‘Richie Marsh’ wouldn’t be out, it would be the losers.

Before he even knew it, he was in the woods, walking down a manmade concrete pathway, exactly where Mike told him to go, trees making it seem like he was walking through a hedge maze.

As he walked down the path, it seemed to get more and more confusing, like he couldn’t even remember where he was going, but thinking it was nerves, he kept going.

His heart stopped as he heard a woman's scream break the cold silence of the night, the sound of heels clicking on the concrete coming closer and closer.

As quick as he could, he bolted towards the sound of the woman, following her voice. He carefully took out a  gun from his bag as he ran down the pathway, his finger on the trigger.

Soon enough, a woman came into his field of vision, she was wearing a black apron, a dirty white shirt caked in blood, and a tattered pair of shorts.

it was the Barista from the coffee shop, She waved her arms wildly as she ran towards him, stumbling around like an animal.

“Please! Please help me! He’s gonna kill me!”

Eddie placed the gun back into his bag, putting it on his back and grabbing onto her as she ran into him.

Her makeup was running down her face, blood all over her skin, her hair was a mess, what once was a perfect simple bun, was now tangled with branches and all kinds of dirt in it.

“Ma’am calm down its okay we just-”

“No you don't understand! We can’t stay here we have to run!” She whisper-yelled at him, grabbing his arm and pulling him into the trees, straying from the pathway. “If they find us they’ll kill us!” she pulled him into a ditch, her breath shaky and tears flooding down her face.

“Okay… Okay take a deep breath, what the hell happened?” Eddie reached into his bag, grabbing his first-aid kit, ready to seal up any wound on her.

She took deep breaths, holding onto her arms as she shivered “these two guys, he… came into the cafe I work in, He was so nice” she let out a laugh, sniffling a sob. “I was so stupid, he asked me and my coworker out, and we said yes, it was supposed to be a walk in the woods, a nice walk… “

“Where’s your coworker now?” Eddie pulled out a cloth to wipe her off with, before he could give it to her, she began sobbing.

“The man…the thing! It ate her!” she said through her sobs. “While we were walking, they… they began saying weird things, like ‘dinner is ready' we didnt know what they meant! They meant us! This man came out of the woods, i called out to him, he just looked away, I think he was one of them.”

As she spoke, he watered down the cloth, giving it to her. “he...ate her?”

She sighed, wiping her face with the cloth, “this is going to sound crazy…”  she hesitated, sniffling again as she looked at him.

“I deal with crazy almost 3 times a week, this is why I’m here, you’re gonna be okay, this is my job.”

She nodded nervously “there was another man there, he was in the trees, before we could even say anything, all three of them...grew..into giants...and… my coworkers date...he picked her up and…”

She suddenly fell into a crying fit once more, falling into eddies lap, he rubbed her back, trying to console her.

“He… he bit her in half!” she screamed through sobs. “I got away, the one in the trees just watched me, who knows how close he is.”

He felt sick as she cried, and Eddie looked away from her… this wasn’t what he expected, no wonder nothing was making sense, there was nobody, because they would eat it.

He was about to say something, as they heard the sound of leaves crunching and branches breaking. “It's not my fault you lost the bitch”

The girl froze, her cries stopping out of fear, she covered her mouth. She shared a terrified look with Eddie, who shared the same look.

“Well it's not mine either, I was in the middle of eating!” the man sounded so nonchalant when talking about murder, but then again, most monsters weren’t remorseful.

“Will both of you shut the fuck up and just get on with it?” the voice sounded eerily familiar, but he couldn’t concentrate on it now.

The three men kept bickering, and the barista nodded to eddie, pointing to the other side of the ditch, mouthing the word “run”

He shook his head wildly, mouthing the word “no” over and over, if she did this, she would be dead.

Either she thought it would work, or she didn’t care if she died, but she ran up the side of the ditch, then began dashing through the woods once again, ignoring Eddie's silent pleas not to.

Instantly two out of the three men yelled, and began running as well, though their footsteps began getting louder and louder, Eddie shrunk back, trying to hide as best as he could.

He watched in horror as one of the giants walked over the ditch, which took them only one step, right above him, then another, then another, it was too dark to get a good look at any of them from his disadvantaged point.

But luckily, with all the noise they were making, he was able to run to the other side of the ditch, running up and hiding behind a large tree, digging through his bag, the best luck he would’ve had with killing these things, was his machete, thanking god that he actually brought it.

Eddie held it tightly to his chest, slowly turning to see what was happening.

“Let me go!” the Barista screamed as she was picked up by the giant, flailing around in his grip.

“Oh I’ll let you go alright,”

She gave him a strange look, before returning to her screams as he lifted her up over his head, his mouth agape.

“I’ll let you go now”

Eddie turned back behind the tree, hearing her screams as she was dropped into the giant's mouth, he wasn’t looking, but his mind pictured it. He felt sick to his stomach, anger bubbling up inside of him

He heard the screams of the woman suddenly stop, and a silence filled the air. Eddie knew what this meant, he felt like he was ready to vomit, his stomach twisting in knots

“Y’know you don't have to drag it out.”

“What? You’re just mad because you got jack shit, maybe you shouldn’t be so picky”

Eddie listened to the three bickers, waiting for the right time to move from tree to tree, making sure they couldn’t see him as he got closer.

In his head he knew this was a bad idea, that he was going to get caught, but this was the first time he had ever actually met a victim, he talked with her, even if it was brief, it pushed him more than anything else did, this wasn’t about money, for the sake of the town, no…

It was for Her.

He took a deep breath as he prepared to move to another tree, planning to climb it and attack in a much better position.

“Ah! I thought I heard something!” Eddie froze, hearing a booming voice behind him.

He. was. Fucked.

He instantly spun around, waving the machete up, he heard the giant let out a yell as the blade bit into its hand, which was about to grab eddie.

shitshitshit

Eddie backed up a bit, before taking off in a run, but it didn’t help, another came barreling in.. barrelling in Eddie's eyes, it was pretty much just a few steps for the giant, the last one just hung out in the back, basically ignoring the interaction.

Eddie prepared to swing again, but the giant in front of him didn’t move, just smirked, catching Eddie off guard, allowing the one behind him to snatch him up.

“Shit!” Eddie yelled as the sneak attack made him drop the machete on the ground.

“You little fucker…” the giant lifted him off the ground at a speed that made Eddie sick, never in his life had he wanted to be on the ground more than he was now, the cold wind made him cringe as he was face to face with the Giant.

Surprisingly, the man looked fairly normal, he wore a plain blue shirt with some black jeans, nothing like any fairy tale would describe it.

His eyes were damn near murderous, he held up his other hand ‘look what you fucking did.” Eddie struggled in the giant's grip, which only made the man laugh, “what? Little hunter doesn’t know what to say?”

Eddie sputtered a bit, how did they know he was a hunter?

“Looks like you got dinner after all, huh Rich?”

“Don’t fucking call me that.”

Rich...Rich...that voice...is that...NO….NONONO

Eddie's head whipped around as the third giant came closer to the other two...those glasses, those clothes...those eyes.

When those eyes met him, they shared the same look, the exact same look that they shared at the coffee shop. Eddie wanted to yell, but it seemed all the sound had left his body.

That's why Richie was in Derry...

“What's the matter?” the giant holding him pulled him closer, “don’t like knowing that you’re dinner?” he chuckled devilishly, Eddie didn’t respond, too horrified at richie to even register what the giant was saying “hey fucko! You listening?”

The giant shook Eddie a bit, still nothing, he gave a look to the other stranger, who just nodded, the same devilish smile pasted onto his face.

Without another word, he let Eddie go, plummeting towards the earth.

Eddie let out a loud yelp, it was almost in slow motion for him, falling through the air, hitting the cold, hard ground, he was sure a rib or two were fractured just by the pain he felt in his chest, but the pounding in his head was much...much worse. He couldn’t move, he could only listen to what they had to say.

“Why the fuck did you do that?” Richie pushed the giant who was holding Eddie, not even caring to remember his name “you could’ve just given him to me.”

Richie's heart sank as he saw the hunter in the giant hand, Eddie, he knew Eddie was lying about why he was in Derry, Eddie was just simply, a bad liar. But he had never expected something like this, he never wanted any of the losers to find out about this. It was bad enough he was hunting in Derry, only a mere half hour from Mike.

“Why not? The little fucker wouldn’t listen, so I gave it what it deserved.”

He felt anger overflow him as the giant talked about Eddie in this way, but he stayed silent, bending down, and picking up Eddie by the collar of his jacket, his body dangling at it rose up.

Eddie could barely move, everything hurt, he knew he was being lifted up once again, but he couldn’t do anything about it, what was he to do, his ribs were broken, he was winded and he was basically a doll to these guys.

He could hear Richie talking to the two, but he couldn’t really understand it, until one sentence was asked.

“So, You gonna chew ‘im?”

This sent Eddie back into his fit of panic, adrenaline coursing through his veins, he began cursing, kicking, wildly flailing. The two giants just laughed.

“Come on richie, you can chew this once, trust me, so much better experience.” Eddie couldn’t tell which of the two giants spoke, but he begged to whatever was out there, that Richie wouldn’t go through with it.

“I’m not a fan of blood, you should know that by now.” Richie rolled his eyes, his gaze back to Eddie, his heart breaking as he watched the man flail around, knowing he was in pain by the look on his face.

“The bitch thought he was going to kill us, he cut my fucking finger! Let him have it!” the giant pushed richie slightly, Richie giving him a glare.

“He's going to die anyways, why can’t I let myself enjoy him squirm?” Richie spoke, monotone. “I like how it feels when they go down.”

It was enough to make Eddie sick.

“It's your last hunt with us, go out with a bang! You got a fucking hunter after all…treat it like it treats our kind!”

“Fuck off, let me do it.'' His tone seemed almost protective, but with Eddie hearing a low gurgle of the man's stomach, Eddie knew it was like an animal protective of its prey.

The two just sighed, watching Richie...just...waiting.

Eddie paused as the giants fell into silence, staring up at Richie with tears in his eyes, his vision was blurry, and his head kept feeling worse and worse. “Please...don’t do this…” he found his voice, only to say that.

What else was he supposed to say? It was rich! The man he grew up with, the man he fought a killer clown demon with….the man...who was about to eat him.

Richie just sighed, lifting Eddie up carefully, much more carefully than the others would even dare, tilting his head up and placing Eddie right on his tongue. Letting go of the man and shutting his mouth.

Eddie's heart dropped at the quick action, Richie not even hesitating before putting Eddie into his mouth.

The heat inside richies mouth was enough to make Eddie let out a yell, going from chilly weather and a biting wind to a human sauna was not the best transition. The sensation of the wet, squishy muscle underneath him giving him a dose of reality-- He pushed against the roof of the mouth, hoping to re-open the mouth, but from the angle he was at, the throat was just becoming him.

He attempted to climb up the tongue, but no matter how close he would get to almost getting out, the saliva around him beckoned him down the tight, hot throat.

“Let me out!” Eddie yelled, but he knew it was no use, that Richie wouldn’t let him go, not after this. “Let me out you...fucking bastard!”

This was it? This is how he would go, he fought almost every dangerous creature in the book and won but he HAD to be eaten by someone he called a friend?

He felt himself getting weaker and weaker, his breath becoming more and more shortened with each breath. He found himself almost allowing his body to be pulled and squished around by the tongue, which happily licked at him.

He yelled as richie rolled him around, coating him in thick saliva in the process, but he really couldn’t do anything about it, the fear and fatigue getting to his head.

As the throat beckoned him down, he clawed at the tongue to keep himself out of the hot, wet esophagus “don’t do this!”

His words were met with no answer, but with a swallow.

Eddie yelled as his lower half was pulled into richies throat, he couldn’t move, which made him flail around even more, this was met with another swallow, thick muscles pulling the rest of him into the hungry throat and down the man's gullet, it was almost second nature to the man.

It must’ve been only a few seconds, but it felt like hours as he slid down the esophagus, unable to move and his Eddies head spinning with anxiety.

The one word spilling into Eddie's mind was only ....”Why?”

He pushed against the esophagus in an attempt to stop himself from sliding down any further, but all the saliva clinging to him and his clothes wouldn’t let him.

Suddenly, Eddie felt his legs slip into the stomach below him, gurgles and growls heard below him. As the rest of him slipped inside the belly, the whole experience became very...very real.

His head was dizzy from the lack of oxygen in the throat, and he couldn’t stop shaking at the thought of this being the final place he would be alive, nobody would know Richie had done it.

And that's the last thing Eddie Kaspbrack remembered, before passing out completely.

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

Richie paused as he felt eddie go limp on his tongue for a few moments, he was scared this was too much for the little guy and his heart gave out, but the small man began to thrash around once more, which in a dark way, got him relieved, so he could continue.

This was a disaster, he hated how he had to eat people already, but the fact that it was Eddie made everything so much worse.

Richie should’ve known something was up when he saw Eddie in that cafe, he just couldn’t focus with the hunger eating him up inside.

Now it wasn’t only hunger eating him up...it was guilt.

He rolled Eddie around on his tongue a few more times, capturing the taste of the man.

he hated to admit it, but people tasted so good. It was almost like a drug for him, nothing really could sustain him for long, except for this. The longest he could go without eating a person was three weeks, he would move town to town with his tour, every few weeks swallowing a person to keep his energy up.

He carefully swallowed a few times, his Adam's apple bobbing as he brought his head back down, he could feel Eddie sliding slowly down his gullet, esophagus stretching as he did so it felt so...normal for him, like it was second nature.

One thing he was grateful for, was that he was the only guy that night who didn’t have a meal already lined up.

The past few weeks, meeting up with these guys got worse and worse, they were cruel, but for some reason they liked him, and would not leave him alone no matter how much he demanded them to, but tonight they agreed that tonight could be their last night

They always wanted it to be Derry, maybe because they lived there, maybe because the people tasted better. Richie didn't know, all he did was agree, since he didn't want one of their victims to become someone that he cared about. .

He felt guilty knowing the fates of the other two girls, but he knew he couldn’t stop it, they chose to kill those girls, they could’ve safely eaten them, but they chose to kill, which they thought he chose as well. He couldn’t change this, and it made him sick just to think about it.

As the two other giants shrank back down to their normal height, RIchie didn’t even bother to remember the jackasses names, they looked up at him.

“Sad to see ya go! Maybe we’ll meet up again!” one of them spoke, the other just nodded, before they both walked away.

sickos...

Richie stayed silent and still until they got out of sight, before letting out a deep breath, holding onto his stomach as he felt eddies body slip inside of it, it felt so...good to have someone in there again

But all according to plan,  he felt Eddie pass out, feeling his shallow breaths as he lay unconscious in his belly.

He was going to be okay...

----

It's too hot, It feels like I’m melting...I can’t move...I have to get out of here...I have to…

Eddie's eyes snapped open at the sound of a car horn, and a familiar yell, his head throbbing and he almost jumped out of his seat, he would’ve if he didn’t have his seatbelt on…

Seatbelt?!

Eddie's head snapped in every direction as he looked around, he was in a car, a blanket covering him...not where he thought he was...did...did he actually...no...he wasn’t...he couldn’t be… he wasn’t inside of a...

Richie let out a yell as Eddie popped up, making him swerve the car violently into the left lane, then back into the right lane, causing a chorus of more car horns to indicate that what he just did was an asshole move.

“Jesus fucking christ Eddie!” Richie yelled, “you scared the shit out of me!” he kept his eyes on the road, but the shock poured off of him like sweat.

Eddie just stared at richie as he drove, he could feel his body shaking at the sight of the man… he stammered for a moment, but he was only able to get out one word.

“Y-you…” his voice cracked a bit.

He didn’t want to believe it was true, but his clothes and hair being damp pointed out that might be the case, he felt his eyes sting with the threat of tears, never before had he felt this much Terror.

“I what eddie? I saved your life, what the fuck were you doing there?! If I wasn’t there you’d be fucking dead!” Richie turned to Eddie, giving him an angry look.

Richie was angry… at him?!

As Eddie got a good glypse at Richie, he noticed the man's face was red, his eyes a bit puffy, and he was shaking profusely, not to mention the cracks in his voice and the tears rolling down his face.

Richie was crying...Richie never cries…

“You actually...you fucking ate me?!’” Eddie finally worked up the courage to yell “What the fuck man?! I thought we were friends?!” his hand fell to his side, instinctively grabbing his knife holster, though only grabbing nothing, his knife lost in the fight earlier.

Richie didn’t respond, he just kept staring at the road. This just made Eddie angrier.

“You fucking piece of shit!” Eddie pulled the blanket off of him, shivering as his damp clothes absorbed the cold air around him. “You didn’t even tell any of us, you are a fucking m-monster!”

Again, silence, but he could see richie white knuckling the steering wheel.

Eddie could feel hot tears coming down from his eyes, “what's your plan now?” he couldn’t see himself leaving this vehicle alive, unless he hopped out the car door right now, even then he had a higher chance of ending up dead. “you should’ve made it quick like those other two fuckers did” he mumbled quietly.

Suddenly, Richie swerved across a few lanes, making Eddie slam into the car door instantly, which caused another abundance of yelling and anger from the man.

Richie didn’t say a word as he moved off of the highway, onto a local road, close to the treeline of the woods, slamming on the breaks at the closest place he could pull over at.

Eddie couldn’t help but be afraid of Richies silence, his slight shakiness as he held the wheel and the fact that Richie refused to make eye contact as he cried.

“I could’ve killed you.”  Richies voice cracked a slight bit.

Eddies heart sunk hearing those words, he could feel every bit of fear he had felt before hit him once again “R-Richie...I-I-”

“I could have done everything I said I would out there, and you could imagine what they would do if I wasn’t there…”

“Richie...p-please-”

“But I wouldn’t...I...I can’t Ed’s!” Richie lost all of his composure, and began yelling “I couldn’t let anything happen to you! What the hell were you thinking going after us? You could’ve died, Killing IT was one thing, but you’re alone!”

Eddie stared at him with a shocked expression, he felt his face flush, even if he was angry and scared, he was almost embarrassed, he felt like a child being berated by a parent, he frowned.

“You. ate. Me.”  Eddie spoke, emphasizing each word. “You ate me and you’re giving me shit?”

“But you’re still alive, hm?” Richie gestured up and down to Eddie, “nothing Hurt huh? You’re welcome.”

Those words actually got through to Eddie, “how am I...not dead…”

Richie sighed, hearing Eddie's tone, not angry, just...scared. “I’m not like them, Eddie. It's safe, because I’m safe…” Richie pinched the bridge of his nose “fuck that didn’t make sense, I..Its just something I can do.”

Eddie got a good look at Richie at this point, the man was no longer disheveled, he looked like he was good as new, no bags under his eyes, he didn’t look like he was going to pass out anymore...he looked healthy.

Eddie, felt tired, nauseous, and felt like he was about to pass out, they practically switched places. t

“What did you do to me…?” Eddie asked, which richie let out a small chuckle.

“Unlike Them”  he spoke of the two like it was bad luck to even think of them “I can’t digest living things, i uh… do have to eat living creatures though” he looked at Eddie, answering before the man could ask the question “I take energy, that's why you passed out, you came on the right day honestly, i usually wait a while before eating.”

“That's why there were survivors, that's how Mike knew--”

“Mike knows?” it sounded like a stupid question, but it had never crossed his mind. “How much does Mike know?” his voice was desperate, almost terrified.

“Not much… one girl that you...let go...talked to him about what she remembered…”

Richie shook his head “Fuck!” he yelled, slamming his hands on the wheels. “I left her on the pathway, watched her wake up, she shouldn’t have known about what happened.”

Eddie jumped at the slam “She didn’t remember anything, she thought escaped on her own, Mike has no idea what's going on, he...doesn’t even know he sent me here.”

“How the fuck doesnt he know?”

This is where Eddie began to feel nervous again-- what to say?

“A simple alias and a voice modifier did the trick.” Eddie rolled his eyes “and this isn’t my first time doing this.”

The shifter's heart sank.

Richie began piecing it all together, “You’re actually a hunter…?” he asked, “Tell me your joking Ed’s, you’re fucking with me…”

The thought of Eddie being an actual hunter was almost as absurd as knowing richie was a giant. Eddie was pretty fearless, but he didn’t act like the other hunters he’d met, if Eddie was actually a hunter, Richie was most likely a dead man.

“I uh… did tell you that I’m a Risk analyzer, I just didn’t tell you what kind of risks I worked with…” Eddie looked away, almost embarrassed. “I didn’t think I’d even run into you...or any of the losers on the job… Especially if the job is on one of you.”

Richie just stayed silent, Eddie. Eddie fucking Kaspbrack, kills monsters, just like him...all the time? He just silently turned on the car, driving back onto the main road. He felt this...intimidation now, and Richie did not like it at all.

“Richie?” Eddie asked, staring at the man, who just kept his eyes on the road. “Richie what's going on…?”

“I’m going to drop you off at your hotel, and guessing that there’s only one hotel that's not a total shithole, I’m guessing that's where you’re staying.” he spoke fast, like he didn’t want to talk to Eddie, which made the other man frown.

“You’re right...but...you seem...off.”

“Finding out my best friend is a killer isn’t something I really enjoy knowing.”

Holy shit…”Richie, are you...scared of me?” Eddie asked, utterly confused. He got no answer except for Richies face turning a slight red colour.

Eddie turned a bit red, but quickly changed the subject when Richie pulled into the driveway of the hotel, parking. “Are you going to answer me, dickwad” he only added the last part to get a reaction out of the man.

Richie snapped his head over to Eddie,  “we’ll finish this talk in the hotel room, I’m not staying in this car the entire night.”

“In the hotel room? What makes you think I’m letting you up there?”

“Because you can’t fucking walk.” Richie snapped once more, pointing to Eddie's legs, “Just try.”

Eddie just nodded, giving Richie a snarky look, then getting out of the vehicle.

“See!” Eddie spoke as Richie started, just waiting.  “What was that about---!”

Eddie couldn’t finish the sentence of glory as his legs wobbled. Making him fall to the concrete of the parking lot with a painful groan.

Richie got out of the car, a smug look on his face “what was what about?” He stood, hands in his hoodie pockets, holding back a bit of laughter.

Eddie just looked up, about to yell once more, but his own fear silenced him as he had to look up at Richie again, towering over him as he was on the pavement.

Richie frowned, seeing the fear in the hunters eyes, sighing

“Fuck--Here” Richie bent down, grabbing onto eddie, pulling the mans arm over his shoulder as to stablize him and help him move.

At first Eddie pushed back, not wanting Richie to even touch him at the moment, but something made him turn red as he got so close to him.

‘Do. not. Even. think. About. It.’

The walk up to the hotel room was silent, only minor grunts or breaths from either of the men.

Richie was practically going nuts with Eddie so close again--He would never admit it, but having eddie so close to his nose, he couldn’t help but smell him once again, and he smelled so...delicious, and the fact that he was able to taste him once meant that he knew that eddie was delicious.

‘Stop it….fucking stop.’

As they reached Eddie's door, the man tried to get the keys out of his pocket, only for Richie to just grab it out of his pocket himself, unlocking the door.

“T...thanks”

“Get in.”

Eddie sighed as they both walked in, the door shutting behind them. Eddie turned red as his luggage bag was sprawled on the bed, knives visible.

Richie groaned, seeing the blades, setting Eddie onto the bed, “Have enough fucking Knives man?”

“What? Scared?”

Richie said nothing, but looked away.

“The man who Eats people alive, is afraid of me?” Eddie couldn’t help but laugh, dry and sarcastic, “and I’m not a killer…”

Richie gave him a disbelieving look, eddies laugh faded

“Well I am a killer, but it's not like that...I researched creatures like you for a while, I made like four journals just observing you guys…”

“Wow, a nerd in literally everything. Even murder” richie rolled his eyes, but it was very noticeable when his shoulders relaxed slightly, though still seemed on guard as Eddie spoke, his eyes narrow and hesitant.

“After IT,” Eddie turned away. “I realized that some of these creatures, they just want to Hurt people… and...I just can’t let that happen. So I became a hunter… it was tough at first, but i’ve gotten better.” Eddie rubbed the back of his neck nervously “B-but I don’t kill people who are just trying to live their lives, only the ones who are killing people...which doesn’t make me that popular.”

Richie gave Eddie a look, not disproving, but just...intrigued, “Damn, a hunter with a moral backbone? Where have you been all my life”

Eddie paused, “I’ve been in your fucking life” He almost felt offended “suddenly I haven’t been with you because of my fucking career choice? Newsflash fuckface, I’m still fucking eddie kaspbrack”

Richie’s eyes widened “I didn't mean it--”

“You fucking EAT people. And I still see you as my...friend” Eddies voice lowered, looking away, “trust me, if I didn’t you’d be dead.”

Richie fell silent, somehow the word ‘friend’ still hurt him. Eddie could see the hurt on his face, looking away as well.

“All the other hunters i’ve known never gave me a chance to explain” Richie finally spoke after a few minutes, “They just see me as a monster.”

“i-I’m sorry.” Eddie responded “I didn’t mean--”

“Oh shut up.” Richie flashed a smile “You get a pass, I fucking ate you. I didn’t get a chance with any others.”

Eddie couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at the comment, something so absurd about the situation allowed him to. He was a hunter, who had been eaten, and is now talking to the person who had eaten him.

“So...the other losers?” Eddie fake coughed, trying to change the subject “Do any of them know”

“FUCK no.” Richie shook his head loudly, “If they knew that I’ve wanted--” Richie paused mid sentence, sputtering, clearly not wanting that to come out.

Eddie's eyes widened, “No no no, you don't get to say that shit and NOT finish the sentence, dickweed.”

“I-I..er--” Richie couldn’t form a coherent sentence, too busy turning redder than a tomato.

“Richie...Have you thought about...Eating us...like all of us? The losers?”

At first, Richie resisted, sputtering out a shaky ‘no!’, but Eddie just stared at the man, his expression not changing, it was a trick he would use when they were kids, Richie would always break.

“Fuck you Kaspbrak!” Richie finally broke, throwing his hands in the air “what do you want me to say? There's not one goddamn day that goes by since the reunion where i don’t think about it! There! Judge me all you fucking want! It's not gonna change the fact that I wanted to Eat you!”

Richie turned red again as eddie just stared “forget it”

“Did you ever try?”

It was richie's turn to look offended “you think im fucking stupid? If I tried anything on that trip, you’d think i was IT, I wasn’t about to be killed by my friends!”

Eddie put his hands up defensively “Okay okay! Don’t get your panties in a twist! It was a fucking question!”

Richie slumped back, defeated “I’ve thought about it sure---I never planned to though!” Richie almost sounded like he was trying to promise Eddie this, rather than convince him “I never planned on telling you guys, not that you’d believe me if I did.”

“Well you didn’t exactly tell me...so you kept your plan?”

Richie gave him a ‘are you kidding me’ expression

“I will eat you again”

“Don’t make me pull out the Knives, Tozier.”

Before Richie could even say another word, a loud ringing came from the luggage bag. It was his backup phone, Eddie reached for it, Richie first shook his head not to answer, but Eddie did anyway.

“Mr Marsh? Oh thank god you answered, it's been so long I thought the worst? What happened?” Richie tensed up, hearing Mike's voice on the other end of the phone, Eddie looked at the frightened predator and shook his head, mouthing the words ‘voice modifier’ which made Richie calm down slightly, still uncomfortable to hear Mike's voice.

Though on the other hand, Richie couldn’t help but laugh at the ‘Mr. Marsh’ mouthing to Eddie ‘are you fucking serious?’

Eddie shook his head, trying to wave the man off “Sorry Mr Hanlon, I understand your concern, everything is--”

“Ed’s?”

Eddie's sentence came to a full stop as Mike said his name, and so did his heart “w-what?”

“i-I” Mike stammered on the phone for a second “Eddie is that you?”

Richie, in an act of pure instinct, snatched the phone away from Eddie, who yelled out a quick “wait!” Before Richie hung up, turning the phone off.

There were a few moments of silence, you could practically hear the two’s hearts pumping loudly and full of anxiety.

“Shit.” they both said in unison.

---------

its good to be back...again!

[misssophiachase]

Can’t Fight the Moonlight

For @klarolinefallbingo “Harvest Moon”

He’s her professor and she’s his student but can they resist each other on a university field trip unsupervised?

September 24 - University of Texas, Austin TX

“Is it wrong to want to inspect the professor more than the actual event?” 

“That’s not appropriate,” Caroline swatted away her best friend while attempting to keep her attention trained on his lecture. 

But it was incredibly hard to concentrate. 

Katherine was right. He was infinitely explorable given his crimson lips, sexy stubble and crisp accent that made her tingle in all the right places but she was madly trying to focus on the assignment at hand. 

Camping in rural Texas to see the harvest moon with her class was manageable. But sleeping so close to the hottie, astronomy professor in question was a whole other problem.

“Caroline?” She looked up distractedly into the gaze of their professor. She could only manage a robotic nod by way of response. “I was hoping you’d be our student representative for the excursion to Somerville next week?” 

His blue eyes were equally imposing and imploring and his gentle tone hypnotising. Caroline didn’t have much choice but to nod stupidly again. He sent her a brief smile with those extremely kissable-looking lips then effortlessly continued his lecture. Caroline could hear her friend chuckling by her side. 

“What’s appropriate again?”  

October 1 - Somerville, TX

“You’re no slacker in the tent department,” he whistled appreciatively. They had arrived a few hours earlier and she’d gotten straight to work as the student representative making sure their sleeping arrangements were in order. 

Until he decided to come over and distract her. Caroline felt her temperature rise just from being in such close proximity to her professor. 

She knew it was wrong. 

Very wrong. 

But it was difficult not to react when his heady scent, a mixture of sandalwood and vanilla, was so enticing not to mention that navy henley he wore like a second skin over a rather fitted pair of dark, denim jeans.    

Caroline closed her eyes momentarily, silently repeating the same mantra. 

“He’s your professor and it’s not appropriate to drool over him. Repeat.” 

“I, uh, meant that as a compliment,” he added, Caroline realising she hadn’t responded because she was too  busy trying to regain some semblance of composure. 

“Thank you, professor,” she managed to get out, but only just. 

“I assume this isn’t your first rodeo then?” Caroline felt a blush creep across her cheeks wishing he hadn’t made a riding reference when all she could think about was doing that very thing to him. 

Caroline was ashamed. It was as if Katherine had entered her mind and was walking around while subsequently making herself at home.  

“Caroline, are you okay?” He asked, his concerned look not lost on her. She really needed to calm down. 

“Yes, uh, fine,” she replied quickly. “No, I’ve been camping with my parents since I could walk. My father would be absolutely mortified with me if I couldn’t pitch a tent after all that practice.”

“And your mother?” He asked curiously. 

“She, uh, died seven years ago,” Caroline stumbled, not expecting him to ask such a personal question. He was her professor, after all. His expression changed, sympathy she was used to, although there was something else intermingled with it she couldn’t quite identify.  

“But I’m sure she’d be just as proud,” he smiled, making her stomach flip. “Given your vast, outdoor experience, I’m hoping you can teach me how to make a s’more this trip? My younger brother tells me there’s nothing better.”

“Your brother has good taste.”

“Well, don’t get too excited. Kol has taste but I think the jury is still out on how good it is,” he drawled. “My brother is a bit of a nomad. He’s been travelling the globe ever since he turned eighteen. You name any country and he’s probably already been there and made himself at home.”

“But yet you live here full-time and haven’t sampled our finest campfire cuisine yet?”

“Unlike my brother, whose work ethic is virtually non-existent, I tend to burn the candle at both ends.”

“Well, you know what they say,” Caroline teased. “All work and no play…” He held her gaze as the words tumbled from her mouth. It was not like her at all but her professor brought it out in her, or it was Katherine still playing with her mind? 

It was his turn not to respond, his blue eyes reflecting exactly how she felt. 

Needy.  

Intense. 

Imploring. 

“Are you saying I’m a dull boy?” She couldn’t miss the husky tone in his voice. 

“Well…”

“Professor Mikaelson, can you help me with my tent?” Hayley Marshall was batting her long eyelashes and brown, doe eyes in his direction. 

She’d forgotten they were standing in a campful of other people. Caroline knew he had a fan club but she hated that her nemesis was one of them. Hayley had flirted with her ex boyfriend for months before dating him straight after their break-up. 

“Uh, of course, Hayley,” he responded officially, finally tearing his eyes away from hers.  “I’ll be right there.”

Caroline should have been pleased given whatever just happened between them was against the rules but all she felt was a dull ache of disappointment. 

“So, all that eye sex was for naught I see,” Katherine offered, breaking Caroline from her professor-induced trance. 

“There was no eye sex and, even if there was, I don’t think rolling around in a tent with our entire class present is the best look.”

“I’m sure our sexy professor would see it a different way,” she insisted. “He was ready to devour you whole and I, for one, wouldn’t have cared as long as you finally got laid after that poor excuse for an ex-boyfriend.”

“Shhhh,” Caroline growled. “Talk about indiscreet, Kat, I think they heard you in Australia.”

“You know how much I hate learning so please give me something good to bring back from this trip,” Katherine pleaded. “Someone has to get laid if I can’t.”

8 hours later...

A hush had settled over the camp as they succumbed to sleep in the early hours of the morning. 

Caroline was wide awake. Her mind taking her back to his vivid description of the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox. Not that he needed words given the view. 

Katherine was MIA as she attempted to get some sleep but was failing miserably. Caroline figured it was due partially to the gorgeous, French exchange student and her hopes of hot professor-student sex. 

Caroline was so not going there. 

She had an impressive GPA and no one was going to meddle with her grades. Or her plans for the future. 

She took astronomy as an elective to compliment her medicine degree. Caroline had always been interested in space and the solar system so couldn’t resist.

Now, it seemed she couldn’t resist her professor either. 

She pushed off the covers impatiently, deciding that some fresh air might help settle her insomnia. She was dressed in her plaid, flannel pyjamas but figured no one was around to care. 

The first thing she noticed was the brilliant, harvest moon that they’d been studying earlier. It was something Caroline couldn’t deny given just how impressive it looked from this vantage point. 

She made her way towards the fire, the embers glowing in the distance. 

“And here I took you for stripes, not plaid.” She recognised his voice straight away and it unnerved her completely. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“You clearly shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,” she shot back, trying to ignore how good he looked in sweats and a black, Beatles t-shirt in the glow emanating from the fire. ”Much like I shouldn’t judge you for that Beatles shirt.”

“And what exactly is wrong with the Beatles?”

“They weren’t the Rolling Stones,” she offered, shrugging her shoulders. “But it’s okay if you want to hold onto that.”

“Here I was thinking that I needed to teach you about astronomy but clearly popular culture is lacking too.”

It was at that point that the playful banter ceased and they were just two people who shouldn’t be standing so close together.

“I should go to bed,” he insisted, his expression telling her anything but that. 

“Me too,” she agreed but her feet felt cemented to the ground.  They continued their stand off in the firelight, every fiber of their being saying they needed to part ways.   

“We can’t do this.” He bit out but it was barely a strangled whisper. 

“I know,” she murmured, glad that he held the same view about their untoward connection. “But I finish this subject in a month and then we won’t need to coexist in the same lecture hall anymore.”

“I could be persuaded,” he replied, eyeing her closely. “But, just so you know, I won’t be seen in the company of a Beatles hater. Although, there is something you could help me with.”

“Which is?”

“How about that s’more lesson?”

“Fine. As long as you don’t insult my Rolling Stones.”

She taught him how to make the perfect campfire snack that night. But after she finished his class they experimented much more than that. Their musical tastes never changed but their feelings and sexual appetite changed for the better.

Dr Forbes and Dr Mikaelson married five years later but the playlist was still a contentious issue. 

[libermachinae]

Fault Lines Under the Living Room

Part III: Watch - Chapter 9: Smog Layer Rolling In

Available on AO3 Chapter Summary: The trio compare notes. Chapter Word Count: 3578

---

Beyond the city, Vitrious was a patchwork of barren plateaus with deep crags of lush valleys between, dense vegetation knotting together until only those adapted for such environments would have any hope of navigating them. Drift set his shuttle down on the flat plain, well within sight of the parked Decepticon craft, and took a moment to vent before he rose from the pilot’s seat and made for the hatch. He checked the cell was secure, catching Grit’s optic as he passed; there was a glare, but no sharp remarks as Drift turned his back on them.

The soil was a hard-packed conglomeration of quartz, granite, and limestone that sparkled even under Vitrious’s perpetually overcast weather, but Drift’s gaze was up as he approached the too-familiar vessel. The hatch was open and Rodimus was sitting on the ramp, Ratchet standing at his left shoulder. They waved but put up their hands, stop, when he started coming closer.

“Sorry,” Rodimus said over comms.

“We don’t know how far the effects extend,” Ratchet explained.

Drift stopped where he was, stance wide and swords glinting.

“Do you really have the Enigma?” he asked.

“It’s not the kind of thing we could make up,” Ratchet said.

“Where did you find it?”

“Another Autobot left it on the Lost Light,” Rodimus said. “Arcee. Don’t know where she got it from, but she hid it on this shuttle and took off. We tried to follow her, but some things—I got us hit with a satellite.”

“A satellite,” Drift repeated.

Rodimus nodded.

Drift raised his two fists and bounced them together.

“Hit you.”

“We’re not going to get very far if that’s where your suspension of disbelief ends,” Ratchet said. “And anyway, we both played a part getting into that mess. I wasn’t the most communicative pilot.”

Rodimus shifted, looking down at his pedes, then grinned. Without making optic contact, Ratchet matched it.

“A lot of things were said, but that’s beside the point.” Rodimus waved his hand. “We lost control of the shuttle and by the time we got it back, Arcee was gone.”

“Why would she do that?” Drift asked. An object that dangerous needed to stay far away from Cybertronian hands, especially anyone aligned with the civil war factions. To abandon it like that was either negligence or malicious, and he found himself glancing at the sky, wondering whether someone else was on their way to retrieve it.

“Didn’t tell us,” Ratchet said. “Didn’t even tell us it was here. Had to find it ourselves.”

“Both of you?”

Ratchet and Rodimus glanced at each other.

“Who else?” Drift pressed.

“What?” Rodimus asked, both their gazes snapping back to him.

“Who else was with you? You can’t form a combiner with just two people.”

“That’s where it gets complicated,” Ratchet said. Unlike Rodimus, who had taken to glancing at the ground again, spoiler twitching to give the illusion his whole frame was in motion, Ratchet’s optics and posture were steady.

“It was just us,” Rodimus said. “I didn’t know what to do. Ratchet had just said he was—“ He froze, looked up at Ratchet, then went on. “He was leaving, and the glowy thing in the wall seemed like a good distraction from that.”

“We were both under immense stress,” Ratchet said, laying a hand on Rodimus’ spoiler. The twitching stopped. “Maybe the Enigma picked up on that. It decided we were a good enough match that it could link us together while it looked for someone else.”

“A holding pattern,” Drift said. The word came up automatically; in reality, his attention was being yanked between Rodimus’ slight smile, Ratchet’s hand, and the fact that the latter had apparently been in the process of deserting. That didn’t sound like the Ratchet he knew.

“Yeah, exactly, that’s what Cyclonus called it,” Rodimus said, oblivious to his internal struggle.

“You’ve heard of it?” Ratchet asked.

“Only briefly, and my sources weren’t that trustworthy.”

“Tell us what they said anyway,” Ratchet said, his hand moving into soothing strokes along Rodimus’ spoiler. Drift found himself looking at the ground. “We still know next to nothing about this thing, beyond that it’s a pain in the aft and poor judge of character.”

Drift shook out his hand and unsheathed his sword, twirling it in front of him in basic patterns. Better to be frank with his restlessness than let it distract him from the matter at hand.

“It’s rare, and terrible,” he said. “Bonded sparks without a physical connection to stabilize them try to overpower each other.” He thrust his sword forward, grimacing at the blunt movement. “The case studies all described once-friends trying to rip each other apart, just for a few minutes’ peace.” There must have been instances of final components being introduced, but he hadn’t bothered to log them to his memory. He’d been looking for horror stories to break up the boredom. Shockwave’s archives had been an indulgence.

“Hasn’t been easy,” Ratchet said, “but it was never that bad.” Even from this far away, his gaze was like a physical touch on Drift’s plating. He tried to ignore it as he moved into his next step in the pattern.

“We did organize an entire shuttle to keep me from frying Ratchet’s circuits,” Rodimus said. “Oh, and meditated!” His spoiler flicked, briefly dislodging Ratchet’s hand before he put it back. Their disturbed looks switched to matching grins again, and Drift now recognized it for what it was: a private joke.

Drift paused to regard them, their easy postures combined with the gentle way they moved around each other. Nothing like what he had filled his head with all those years ago.

“Why did you come?” he asked, sheathing his sword. “You said you need my help.”

Rodimus stood up, creating a gap between them.

“Like Ratchet said, it hasn’t been as bad as what you heard,” he said, “but we can’t live like this forever. Ratchet’s—”

He stopped, optics flashing, and Ratchet closed the distance again, pressing a hand to the back of his neck.

“It’s been a challenge,” Ratchet said. “We can function, but neither of us can fulfill our responsibilities while we’re like this, especially if we’re at risk of pulling someone into it. We need some way to minimize the effects or, ideally, cut it off. Unfortunately, that falls outside my area of expertise.” He dropped his hand.

“But we were thinking: weird spark stuff, bonds between people. That’s kind of what you’re all about, right?” Rodimus stood, the corner of his lips quirked up in a hopeful grin.

Drift stared at it. His hand was frozen, still wrapped around the hilt of his sword.

“Cyclonus suggested Spectralist meditation practices might influences the effects of the Enigma,” Ratchet said with a resigned acceptance that, in another situation, Drift might have prodded at. Ratchet was handing him a free turn in their old game, only it wasn’t a game anymore and Drift found himself with a miserable hand.

“And you want me to…”

They looked at each other, more than a glance this time.

“Well, was he right?” Rodimus asked. “Is there anything you can do?”

Unlike most answers in Drift’s life, this one came with little inner turmoil.

“No. There isn’t.”

Spectralism was a war religion. A subset of Alchemists had felt their belief system had become too tied up in the politics of the war, especially after the Acuity had announced a passive alliance with the Autobots. The Alchemic apostates believed that, by focusing on the body, one could transcend the factional gulfs that divided their species, and named their new movement Spectralism, in reference to the standard spectrum of light emitted by their photonic cores. It was a modern religion designed around the issues of its time. Not ancient long-lost artifacts of questionable ethics.

Rodimus’ spoiler drooped and Ratchet’s optics dimmed. Rodimus straightened up a moment later, brave smile on, but the way Ratchet sunk into his own plating told Drift far more about their shared headspace.

“That’s okay!” Rodimus said. “We can figure something else out. Or not! Ratchet’s been warming up to me. Bet we could make it a few years at least before we—”

His words choked off and Drift had to look away, anger roiling beneath his plating. He hated that he couldn’t just feel sympathy for their situation; wrapped up in it was the knowledge that they had come, not for him, but for something he might provide. He had always been a tool for other mechanisms, from his days on the streets up through his rise in the Decepticons, and hoping for any different after he defected, after the war ended, after he joined Rodimus’ side kept demanding a steeper price.

He was still trying to figure out what he could say that Deadlock would not have when the plasma bolt caught him.

It hit his right shoulder from behind and sent him sprawling. He landed on the hard ground and gasped as pain, numbness, and the tingle of backup sensors raced up his armor in rapid succession. Calibration had not finished before he was trying to get up again.

“Drift!” Ratchet and Rodimus yelled.

He grunted and tried to see who shot him but had to roll away to dodge a second bullet aimed for his helm. He heard a second, quiet shuttle landing beside his own and realized his mistake.

The third shot went wide, expecting him to keep rolling in the same direction, and he took advantage of the lost second to leap to his feet and lunge at Grit’s crewmate, frozen at the edge of the hatch. His left sword came up to block another volley and then he was on the Decepticon, spinning and shoving him to the floor of the hatch with his gun arm pinned behind his back. There was nothing he could do to stop the remote-piloted shuttle, though, already taking off while the other two scrambled aboard. He shoved the Decepticon into the ground, then jumped over him. Someone was shouting, but he didn’t hear the words. If he could catch the underside of the ship—

He missed. The thrusters fired just as he leapt and sent him hurtling, skidding across the plateau. He tumbled end over end, plating banging against the solid ground, until at last he came to a stop on his back, staring at the open sky.

He struggled to sit up. The pain wasn’t bad, but vertigo had him misjudging the weight of his frame. He heard the shuttle flying away before he could see it, followed by gunshots. He started to roll over, a delayed evasive maneuver, before he realized that the blasterfire was coming from the ground. Rodimus and Ratchet had retrieved weapons and were shooting at the retreating shuttle while their own sat idle.

“Go!” Drift shouted. He hoped that was what he’d said. “Don’t let them break atmosphere.” He swayed onto his feet, looking around for the sword that had flown from his grasp.

A pulse flew by his helm, singing the air itself, and he turned around to see the Decepticon crumple to the ground, gun falling out of his hand.

“Not leaving you behind,” Rodimus said.

“Not like we’ve had great luck chasing people off world anyway,” Ratchet added.

Above their heads, the shuttle’s thrusters pulsed as it prepared for the final push to break atmosphere. Already it was receding from view, the planet’s smog layer rolling in to cover its retreat, and Drift knew it would be off his own ship’s sensor range long before he got it airborne. He tried to gauge how far a ship like that could travel before it needed to stop for fuel.

“You okay, Drift?” Rodimus asked.

Drift shut off his comms.

He picked up his sword on his way back to the shuttle. The Decepticon was lying on the ground, clutching his hip; warm energon seeped from between his fingers. Drift doubted he would die from the wound, but the bleeding was enough to make anyone panic, which was exactly what he needed right now. He pointed his blunted weapon at the Decepticon’s throat, allowing the curve of the blade to cut a hair-thin line in the plating housing his central energon line.

“What’s your name?” he asked. “How important are you to Grit?” Voice trembling slightly; good. Most Cybertronians knew the difference between shivers of fear and barely-concealed anger.

“Spur,” the Decepticon squeaked, trying to back away from the sword while keeping both hands on his hip. Drift noted the dent in his helm where Rodimus had shot him earlier. “We were stationed on the same moon. We’re business partners.”

“Are they coming back for you?”

“Yes!” Spur nodded his head, optics bright and wide. “They’re coming back with reinforcements, and they’re going to be mad if something happens to me.”

Drift would have groaned, had he the energy. Even if Spur was lying (most likely) the possibility of Grit reaching out to other rogues put Vitrious in a much riskier situation than it had been in before. Suddenly, it was no longer a matter of stopping a single slave trade operation: now there was information on the line, harder to predict and much more complicated to contain. Once he had the immediate threats neutralized, he was going to have to determine whether the Galactic Council should be tipped off to the vulnerability of this sector, a question of whether safety from Decepticons was worth the Council’s brand of planetary defense.

That was a problem for the future, though, one he was able to brush aside as he sheathed his sword and leaned down, hoisting Spur with his good arm while he used his bad one for balance.

“What? Hey, wh—”

“You know where they’re going,” Drift said. “Give me the coordinates.”

“N-no! What would I—”

“You want to get back together with your crew, right?” Drift asked, dropping Spur back into the ruined cell. “Give me the coordinates and I’ll make sure you’re still online when we drop you off.” It was a bluff, of course, but Drift had always had a talent for making bots think the worst of him.

He received the packet over a broadband comm frequency. After scanning it for viruses, he diverted it to the ship’s navigation system, then popped open one of the panels in the wall and retrieved a pile of stained rags. He crouched beside Spur and dropped the rags so he could catch one of the Con’s desperate hands and pry it away from his wound.

“Wait—”

“Relax,” he commanded, deftly retrieving his cuffs so he could clip one end around Spur’s wrist and the other to the lower frame of the cell where it extended slightly from the floor. It would make for a less comfortable trip, but that was what he got for breaking Drift’s things: Grit had shorted the locking mechanism and brute forced the failsafe. It would be a time-consuming fix, both whatever patch job he could throw together and the eventual repair stop he would have to make at a legitimate mechanic.

Satisfied Spur was secure, he pulled away Spur’s other hand and started to mop up the spilled energon with one of the rags. Already, the flow had slowed, but he wanted to see the damage for himself before he trusted self-repair.

“Here,” he said, pushing the pile to Spur. “Pack the wound with that to slow the bleeding. I’ll take a closer look once we’re airborne.”

Spur stared at the rags like he had no idea what to do with them, which Drift doubted. One did not make it through a war like theirs without learning the tricks to keep a body from dying.

“Why?” he asked.

Drift received a ping from the navicomp and waved off Spur’s question, retreating to the pilot’s console to confirm the flight path. As he had suspected, the destination was not far. Even doubling the computer’s estimated travel time, which had become necessary since the last time he’d wormed his was into the engine, it would still barely be enough time to prepare for a conflict. He hit a button to raise the hatch and input the commands to prepare for takeoff. Faint voices were buzzing through the ship’s comm system, and he entertained the idea of shutting that off, too.

“Gonna get that?” Spur asked, optics angling to the speaker.

“Don’t know,” Drift said, playing with the volume control. The sound dipped so low he might have mistaken it for a piece of his thoughts, too indistinct to even be called nonsense.

“It’s your team, right?”

“No, not really.” He shut it off, the sound of the engine filling the space so immediately he didn’t have time to miss it.

“I would’ve killed you, if it hadn’t been for them.”

Drift glanced back. Spur had taken his suggestion and was packing the wound, and there was defiance in his posture now that he was not stooping to keep himself from bleeding out.

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Drift said. “You were aiming for my helm, right? The finials make me look taller than I really am. Your shot would have missed my cranial casing by less than an inch. A blow like that would knock me down, make it look like you had hit, but I would have received more damage from the fall itself than the gunshot. Provided I landed with my palm down, I would have retaliated before you got your finger back around the trigger.” He turned back to the viewshield. Ratchet and Rodimus had disappeared, the Decepticraft’s hatch was shut, and the engines were coming online.

Spur huffed.

“Autobots are weird.”

“I’m not an Autobot.”

“Nah, but they are.” There was a clink of metal, as though Spur had tried to gesture with his bound hand. “Never seen them give a scrap about a bot like you.”

A notification came up: shuttle primed and ready.

“Listen,” Spur said. “You’ve clearly got some sort of history. I don’t care what. But in my experience, there’s no bigger nuisance in the universe than an Autobot who decides to care about something, especially if it happens to be none of his business and all of yours. So, in the interest of not getting shot again, can you at least make sure you have those two under control?”

Drift leaned his head back to look at the ceiling. He wasn’t an Autobot. Not anymore, Rodimus had seen to that, and he’d never really wanted to be one, anyway. Did he care about things in a fundamentally different way from how Ratchet and Rodimus did? Had the divides in their species been driven down that far? Or had they been the reason for the war in the first place? He didn’t have an answer for that. But maybe Spur had a point. Without looking, he turned the comms back on.

“—on’t go yet, just listen, we—”

“What.”

“Drift!” Rodimus said.

“What’s your fuel pump pressure?” Ratchet asked. “Feel anything loose or out of alignment?”

Drift shook his head. There was a twinge in his shoulder and the usual weight of his body, but those were manageable.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Grit’s collecting reinforcements. I’m going to intercept. You two should head for the nearest Council-aligned planet and wait there; if you hear even a rumor that Cybertronians have started moving in, let the local enforcement division know.” They would alert the Galactic Council security forces, and then Vitrious would be out of their hands.

“We’re coming with you,” Rodimus said, though the tone was all wrong. He sounded like Ratchet.

“No.” Commands had never suited Drift’s voice; even now, it came out sounding like a demand. “I can’t help you, and I sure as slag can’t protect you. What happens if the Decepticons find you? Or worse, get onto the ship and find the—” he glanced back at Spur, “—the you-know-what? Then it’s not just Vitrious: everyone’s problems get so much worse.” His fingers were drumming the console, an anxious non-beat. “I’m sorry that you wasted so much time coming out here and that you’re having to live through this. Really, I am. But I need you to let me do this.” Once Grit was taken care of, he would regroup with them and do what he could to help their situation, what little it was. But his list of debts was long and this one came first.

“We don’t need your help or your protection,” Ratchet said. “Believe it or not, we’re more than capable of taking care of ourselves, and we can recognize when someone else’s problems are more pressing than our own. We’re coming to help you, Drift.”

His hands wrapped around the yoke.

“I’m not going to—”

“We’ve still got a tracker on that shuttle,” Ratchet went on. “So, you can either ping us the coordinates now and let us strategize on the way there, or you can wait for us to catch up in the middle of—of whatever this is. Your call.”

Drift’s engine growled. He heard a hiccup from behind and turned his glare on Spur, who looked inappropriately unrepentant for a mech cuffed to the floor.

“I hope you know I hate you both.”

“Hey!” Rodimus yelped, but Ratchet laughed, and a moment later Rodimus’ nervous chuckle floated through as well.