#no hes not gonna get fuckin shot in the next panel

[nmtltlz]

A rearranging of one of the final scenes in ACiT, suited to fit my own personal future needs. Unfinished!! But its all i got done tonight :)! Like the top of the comic says, planning to write out a short little au that 10 year old me /really/ wanted.

Ive had this game since? Forever? One of my first games (my /first/ first being R&C:ToD) & its the first game i finished. I was 4-7! When i first played! And when i got a little older & knew how the game ended I always ended up…pitifully wandering around Torren IV wondering if there was a way to change the ending of the game. Like if I maybe found something out about alister, Ratchet could do something different & he wouldnt have to die, Clank wouldnt have to witness this, & Alister wouldnt have had to die. 10 yr old me thought she could save these characters from pain like it was Undertale or smth because she did not! Know! How games worked!!! She was always crushed when she couldnt find anything.

So here I am, half a decade later, planning smth to help her out. And maybe anyone else whod like a read :)

(This is also an excuse for me to draw dumb shitty drawings of alister with the usual R&C crew as though he doesnt die lmao!!! And if someone asks why or whats up i can point them at this!!!)

[irisintheafterglow]

uhh uhh uhh uhh meeting enemy frat!suguru at a greek life halloween party

cw: swearing, drinking and alcohol, creepy dude at beginning

"look, i'm not interested in whatever weird shit you concocted. so, get lost," you spit at the ugly, intoxicated, ogre-looking airhead trying to give you a shot of heavens know what. he'd been trying to get into your pants since you crossed the threshold and you were having none of it. your sorority sisters, unfortunately, were nowhere to be found and you were left to glare at the stumbling goliath slowly backing you into a musty corner. "i don't want you, asshole, so stop trying to get with me."

"c'mon, lighten up a little. it's a fuckin' halloween party; why are you here if you're not getting shitfaced?" your nose wrinkles at his sheer audacity. you attempt to make a break for the door when his overworked biceps suddenly block your eyeline, trapping you against the wall. body odor and whiskey leak into your nostrils and you swallow down the bile that rises in your throat. "where the hell are you going? do you even know who i am?"

"you're gonna be six feet under if you don't leave them the fuck alone," comes a dangerously low voice somewhere behind your harasser. "get back to whatever shithole you crawled out of."

"don't be such a downer, geto," the guy drawls over his shoulder and his casual nature makes you physically recoil. "i'm just tryna get them to take a shot or two with me, that's all." before you can process it, the shot glass is snatched from the asshole's hand and downed in a blink. the man, who you assume is geto, glares even sharper daggers than you, and your heart does an unwanted little flutter. the gesture seemingly didn't get through the other bro's thick skull as he whirls around, offended. "hey, what the fuck was that?"

"lay off of 'em. don't be more trouble than you're worth." the guy hesitates for the briefest second and is just as quickly shoved to the side, landing on the floor with a satisfying thud. he groans and you inhale a deep breath of stale party atmosphere, pushing off the wall and beelining to the nearest source of fresh air. you vaguely sense someone following behind you and don't bother looking until you're shivering against the chilly october air. "you alright?"

"sure," you deadpan, "if i ignore the fact that i almost got roofied a minute ago." you cross your arms and plop into the nearest deck chair, uncomfortably eyeing a nearby couple getting a little too intimate for being in public. the guy who helped you stands next to you at a respectful distance, following your gaze to the people practically eating each other's faces.

"oi, get a fucking room," he barks and they flinch, scurrying into the house to find some empty room to bang in. "better?"

"yeah," you mutter, still uneasy about why he followed you out in the first place. "thanks for helping me, in there."

"don't mention it. it's a wonder how many frats still let him come to parties considering how easily he scares sorority girls away," he says blankly and you take a second to shamelessly analyze his appearance. long, dark hair was tied back into a loose bun and stray strands framed a mesmerizingly sharp jawline. unlike most of the guys inside, he actually was wearing a shirt, a simple sweatshirt with his frat's letters embroidered across the front. you couldn't see what the letters were, but you guessed he was probably part of a related frat by how willingly he stepped in to help you. to combat the autumn air, you figured, he also wore a flannel that had a dragon printed on the back panel. "you sure you're okay?"

"yeah, i'm good. a little cold, is all," you admit, grimacing at the goosebumps running over your arms. without another word leaving your mouth, he shrugs off the flannel and tosses it into your lap. you wrap it around your shoulders and catch him watching you, the tiniest smirk painting his pretty mouth when you pull it tighter against you. it's warm and smells like expensive cologne. "you're a real gentleman, you know that?"

"so i've been told," he replies and you huff an exasperated breath. "i swiped this for you on my way out, too. it's sealed, but i can grab you another one if you're still skeptical." he hands you a lukewarm bottle of water and, true to his word, requires a little bit of effort to break the seal around the cap. you take a few sips and your mind finally starts to process what happened. "feel a little better?"

"definitely. thank you, is it geto?"

"call me suguru." fuck, that's hot. he's hot.

"thank you, then, suguru. can i ask why you're being so nice when you don't even know me?"

"just making sure everyone's having fun and being safe so no one calls the cops." your response falls from your lips faster than you can stop it.

"nothing else?" his attention flicks to you and he chuckles in amusement at your boldness.

"and, i think you look nice in your costume," he murmurs and you'd be lying if you said it didn't make your heartrate increase. "that what you wanted to hear?"

"mhmm, thank you." the giddy excitement wears off and you check the time on your phone. "i should probably be getting back home."

"you got a ride?"

"i'll go find one of my pledge sisters that are also partied out," you shrug, praying that someone was sober enough to get you back safely.

"you mind if i call you a cab? i don't feel comfortable sending you off in some rando's car."

"technically, you're a rando," you point out, and he raises his hands in surrender. "but, sure, as long as you walk me out."

"i was already planning on it," he affirms and extends a hand, helping you out of the cold metal chair. his palm is warm, safe, and strong, nothing like the grabby ones that were begging for your body all night. suguru waits with you on the lawn until the cab arrives and opens the door for you as you slip into the second row. before you can close the door, he reaches over you and hands the driver a stack of bills that has the old man's eyes widening to the size of tennis balls. "get them home safely, please."

"what are you doing?"

"doing the next best thing besides driving you home myself. i didn't think you'd be comfortable doing that, given the progression of the evening." you're stunned into silence by his genuine chivalry and nearly forget to give him his flannel back. when you go to pull it off, however, he stops you with a gentle hand on your shoulder. "keep it, for now. i'll get it back at some point."

"alright," you concede, wrapping it around you like a safety blanket. "thank you for everything."

"of course. get home safe, yeah?"

"i will. thank you, suguru."

you wake up in the morning on the couch in the sorority house's living room, still in the same clothes from the night prior. your head pounded like it was getting repeatedly slammed with a mallet, but you were barely able to remember the events leading up to crashing at home. you look down and the flannel around your body reaffirms that suguru was, in fact, real and not just a drunk hallucination. you're in the middle of smiling giddily to yourself when one of your sisters screeches to a halt in the hallway behind you.

"good morni-"

"what the fuck are you wearing?" she asks with all the seriousness as if someone had died.

"yeah, i know i look like shit. is anyone in the shower-"

"no, stupid. that flannel, where did you get it?"

"some guy helped me get home last night and he let me borrow it; why are you being so weird?" you stumble to the kitchen and pour yourself a glass of water. your sister watches you from over the counter like you'd grown four heads. "hello? why are you looking at me like that?"

"you do realize where that flannel is from, right?"

"no...?"

"your little buddy from last night is from those assholes at theta phi fuckhead, babe." you nearly drop your glass in shock. there's no way. he couldn't have been from those dipshits, could he? "there's a reason we're not supposed to talk with them, 'cause they're dangerous and unruly."

"but this one, he-"

"doesn't matter. don't let anyone else see you with that on, or they'll have a fit." she sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers. "shower is free, so go get dressed and change your clothes."

as you strip off the flannel, a small piece of paper drops from one of the pockets. the message written on it has you gripping the edge of the counter for support.

you look cute in my clothes. (XXX) XXX-XXX if you wanna wear 'em more often

-s. geto

if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi! you can also check out my full masterlist here :)

[elquacktism]

Haha what the fuck

I feel like this shit needs an explanation right uh basically -

Ok so basically the part where quackity is like fuckin dying??? And where he asks Wilbur to take down grian is when quackity had like not that much of a lead and where most people thought that he was gonna lose

But when Joe showed up and pulled a gun to Wilbur is when things started to pick up and it's basically like the final stretch right??(the last minutes of the poll) So Wilbur already got a grasp of the gun (if you're wondering what gun, it's on the ground next to quackity's hand in the first panel haha checkhovs gun haha) meaning that he was super close to winning but cause Joe was quick he got Wilbur

And Joe totally thinking that quackity is probably dead already, turns around to face grian his next opponent and as he turned grian gets shot by quackity!!! I think it's more obvious that this was when quackity was starting to rise up in the polls and won! Like no one thought he would cause grian had a pretty good lead right but JUST KIDDING! So i guess quackity is the one that has to avenge Wilbur lmao

[aizawasbrazybaby]

Giyuu x Reader (Nsfw)

Warnings: Modern AU, Dom Male, Sub Female, Knife Play, Blood Fetish, Bodily Harm, Cum Eating, Masturbation, Not edited bc don’t wanna┗|｀O´|┛

•

A/N: Hey my loves! Took last month for a mental break but I’m back :) N e ways enjoy this smutty messʕ-᷅ᴥ-᷄ʔ

~

~

~

Overtime

Light shed from a singular panel on the ceiling. Flickering and threatening to darken the small section it lit up. Keys fell flat under your heavy fingers-inputting numbers into the monitor.

“Your favorite grill spot with the rest of the crew you in or out?” your roommate asked.

“No thanks,” you didn’t bother taking your bored eyes off the screen.

“Y’know you can finish the analytics tomorrow. Reports aren’t due till Monday evening,” Shinobu shoved her elbow in your side, “andd Uzui’s going and knowing how much of a pussy you are this could be your last chance to see if he’s still on the market.”

You swung your head in different directions double checking that he wasn’t in ear shot range. Grabbing her shoulders she was yanked face level, only inches away.

“Gonna tell cooperate too? Keep your fuckin voice down,” you sighed, “not today okay. Next week absolutely I’ll go with you, Uz, and the rest of the background characters but I’m so far behind and super stressed as is.”

“Suit yourself but don’t ask for anything cause I’m not bringin leftovers home.”

Sitting a good distance in peaceful silence he did his task. Finishing last minute assignments. Things of that nature. Honest to god he didn’t mean to be bothersome or nosy.

But the gasp you let out paired with metal hitting wood who wouldn’t be curious. And the quickness in which you shuffled to the sink he followed hot on your trail.

“Is everything alrig-” his stomach fluttered. First a few crimson droplets then mini black puddles. His feet backtracked a few steps. Pupils inflating in the dimmer side of the office.

“Ah, I’m fine Tomioka just a little clumsy,” as much as you rinsed more blood clumped on the wound, “can you grab the first…aid.”

A slight burning emanated through your middle and ring fingers. Giyuu’s expression went unreadable with his mouth wrapped around your digits. Steaming saliva coating your broken skin.

The iron taste that bled on his tastebuds caused his slacks to tent. You were almost infatuated at the sight. Heat dancing from your face down your neck, “Tomioka.”

Your voice was a little more that a whisper. The life came back to his irises. Licking his red lips he wrapped a dry paper towel around your hand, squeezing a little harder than necessary.

“There, should be better,” he rushed back to his seat clenching the wet paper towelette.

Lowering his head behind the short cubical he undid his zipper playing with his pink cockhead. A silent sigh exhaled through his mouth.

“Fuck, so good,” he mumbled running his tongue over the blood marks. His subtle strokes only became more sloppy.

Fantasizing about all of your irony liquid spilling out of your body. Long drops extending down your arms and calf’s. Unable to suppress his urges any longer he locked eyes on you. The adorable yet almost terrified look you wore.

“Hey..sorry if I triggered you. P-phobia’s sometimes makes us do things out of the ordinary…Giyuu?”

Shuffling over like a timid little puppy you could see his chair reclined. His hand pumping his chubby dick. With his free one he tapped his thigh.

You’d get fired. You both would. Especially if the custodian that’s only two doors down so much as hears what activities were to transpire they’d surely report it.

Even with that knowledge, it didn’t stop you from plopping on his lap admiring his pretty cock. How hard it was for you. Curled fingers hesitated to reach for his body.

“ ‘s not a phobia,” he pulled out a pocket knife. Giyuu was engraved in gold on the sides of the handle. He dragged the jagged tip down your white button up.

A low hum passed your lips as he tapped the cold black handle on your erect clit. Your wetness coated the round end poking at your tight pussy.

“I like it. Look so pretty bleeding,” he pushed it further only stopping before the blade made contact with the skin. Cooing at the foreign object stuffing you full it hit the sensitive area connected to your clit.

Arousal dripping down the sharp edge onto his fingers made Giyuu’s cock twitch. Collecting the saliva from your tongue you went back to jerking him off.

Looking in eyes it wasn’t just you that turned him on. More so that you leaked from more places than one. He sat you on the desk replacing the knife with his dick.

Sucking the handle clean he shared the taste of you through a messy kiss. Stretching your cunt with his fleshy cock.

“Can I get more?” His sight flicked to the weapon, “promise I’ll be careful.”

Undoing a few buttons your shirt fell off your shoulders. The initial cut had you wincing and flinch with pain and pleasure. Giyuu lapped it up before it had a chance to touch your top.

His pace was sloppy and rapid. Your walls so willing to take him in. Knots bundled in both tummies so close to release.

“Gonna cum can’t hold out longer,” he pounded into you harder this time.

Your slick was mixed with a few drops of his semen the rest on your thighs. His tongue cleaned his mess but not before taking in your ounces of blood.

[pinkchanelbag]

apartment 6C. [e. jaeger]

the annoying guy in the apartment above you refuses to keep quiet, so it’s time to fight fire with fire.

cw: not proofread? idk like cussing also armin’s high lol

wc: 1k.

note: yes i got lazy in the end so what? idk this is just a funny idea i had it has potential but i am simply too tired to continue it rn enjoy lol.

“jesus christ i’m gonna fucking kill him!”

“is that—oh...okay,” jean doesn't get to finish his sentence before you get up from your place at the coffee table, round the couch, and yank open the tiny storage room in the kitchen.

“can’t you just file a complaint?” sasha asks. her eyes follow you curiously as she nestles an open box of pizza in her lap on the loveseat.

“you saying she should snitch?” connie pulls a face that’s meant for her, but his eyes are glued to the tv screen as his posture jerks left and right in accordance to the xbox controller in his hands.

you return with indistinct grumbles under your breath. jean snickers at you until he sees what you’ve brought back.

“fighting fire with fire?” he cranes his neck up from his seat on the floor to look at you standing. you give him a deadpan expression before stepping up onto the coffee table, taking the bright red broom in both your hands, and knocking the pointy end into the ceiling. one, two, three, four times, firm and fast.

“woah!” armin’s entire body jolts, the book in his one open palm getting tossed to the floor and the joint in between the fingers of his other hand dangerously close to being loosed. “what the hell was that!?”

“what?” eren calls to his friend from the other room. the kitchen door swings open as he steps through with two beers tucked between his long fingers and the other hand holding his phone to his line of vision.

“that scared the shit out of me,” armin breathes. “loud ass knocking from the floor below.”

eren’s eyes flick up from his phone. his hair sticks out of his small ponytail messily, a result of his frenzied reactions to watching the football game that has only just recently ended. the game was neck and neck the entire time, and it completely fried his nerves, not to mentions his friends’. at some point eren put armin in such an excited chokehold that mikasa had to chop him on the nape of his neck before the blond passed out. but it was still a win, topped off with panned shots of the stadium chanting we will rock you with deafening claps and stomps. armin and mikasa shared bemused looks at the way eren sang and percussed along like a little kid watching cartoons. yeah, he’d gotten a little rowdy.

“whatd’ya mean?” he asks to be sure.

“like, it sounded like if someone was pounding on a door except the door...was the floor,” armin leans back against the seat behind him and rests his head on the cushion, legs spread out across the floor and his joint-carrying arm raised high in the air, clearly already over the disturbance. he doesn’t catch the grin that rises slowly to eren’s face.

“she thinks she’s slick.”

“you’re gonna put a hole in your ceiling,” sasha tells you with curious eyes and no particular warning in her tone. her mouth works around the pizza as she talks.

“if it means it’ll fuck up his flooring, then i won’t mind as much,” you scoff, taking jean’s extended hand to help you down from the table.

“will somebody pleeease play mario kart with me,” connie hollers. any potential reply is cut short by a booming thud that has all four of you jumping out of your skin. sasha makes an eep sound chokes on her pizza, and connie—whose remote flew out of his hands at the sound— gets up to thump against her back as she coughs.

“what the fuck?” jean asks in genuine disbelief. it seems he’s finally catching on to the situation at hand. and then he’s looking at you, and you’re fuming.

“do you enjoy making people not like you?” armin asks his friend. there’s a confused frown etched onto his face as he watch eren drop a heavy dumbbell he’d retrieved from his room onto his hardwood floor.

“not especially, but with this girl it’s fun.”

“what girl?” armin asks, and he’s crawling onto the couch to lay on his back.

“lives under. she goes to trost too, but probably in a different school.” he lifts the dumbbell with one hand, veins protruding up his arm, and places it next to the tv stand before coming to sit on the floor in front of the couch. “annoying...as hell. like, gives me a dirty look if i take more than one of the complementary muffins in the lobby. complementary literally means free,” he says incredulously. his hand reached up to yank out his hairtie and re-pull his hair away from his face for a new bun. “plus, she’s friends with that guy jean.”

“from high school? didn’t he like mikasa?” armin asks. with eyes closed and his hands behind his head, he looks like the definition of unbothered. eren hums in confirmation.

“yeah, imagine my fuckin’ horror when i come home one day to see the hot girl who lives a floor down with horse face.” he pauses for a moment before continuing the one-sided conversation, though he doesn’t appear fazed. “they’re not together though. she comes home from dates or whatever sometimes.” armin makes an mhm sound as an act of attentiveness.

“ready?” connie asks. upon getting the okay, resounding crashes and clangs echo through the panels of wood beneath eren’s body. it’s not as startling as knocking, but tenfold more annoying.

“keep going!” jean yells over the crashing pots and pans. he begins alternating between banging his spatula into the casserole pan and onto the ceiling itself. connie hits the inside of his pot with a wooden spoon as if ringing a church bell, hand moving almost too fast to see. he pairs this with a sound akin to a turkey gobble, high and aggressive like a war cry. and finally, you and sasha each grip the handle of a large metal wok and smack its underside over and over again with your own tools of choice.

“eren,” armin says in part-groan part-whine. “why’d you provoke her? i’m tryna sleep.”

but the brunette’s attention is elsewhere. once again, that sly smile plastered to his face, he’s all too cheerful for a person whose ears are undergoing a violent assault.

“you know what this means, right...?” eren says. armin hmphs.

“you’re a child.”

“this means war, man.”

[fuckyeahscienceparty]

Fighter (Lover)

Call me fighter, I'll mop the floor with you

Call me lover, I'll take you for a drink or two

You'll get older, and maybe then you'll feel some control...

-

HOO longest thing i've ever written lads :V hope y'all enjoy! title/description based on fighter by jack stauber bc i thought it was very fitting lol

-

Engie let out a strangled yell as he finally managed to land a solid hit on RED's Spy with his wrench, the familiar sound of crunching bone and the squelches of blood that accompanied it filling the air and splattering his overalls in French flavored crimson.

Not a very pretty way to die, and he almost felt bad for the fella, knowing from.... rather painful experience how excruciating it was to go through respawn after having your skull caved in. But almost was the keyword here, especially considering the fact that the bastard had unfortunately managed to sap both his dispenser and his sentry in the process, leaving him not only vulnerable to his fellow REDs but without the resources to actually get things up and running again.

What was extra unfortunate was that before he could get to either of them, they'd both managed to practically destroy both affected buildings, causing his dispenser to spark and sputter to a halt and his sentry to explode, sending components and pieces of shrapnel flying everywhere and barely giving Engie a chance to shield himself while hanging on to less than half of his health points.

Great. Just great.

He let out an annoyed grumble, anger rising in himself as he began to at least attempt damage control by basically tearing the sapper off of his dispenser with his bare hand. He didn't even care about all the little metal bits in his skin that tore through his shirt and were starting to make blood ooze out, staining his already sullied uniform. What he cared about was making sure that RED didn't take their final point and not having sentry up, even if it was just a level 1, was going to make that exceedingly difficult.

That being said, if he made it out of this alive, he was gonna have a field day getting all these stains out he mused to himself as his pried open the side panel of his dispenser. He reached for his toolbox, rummaging around for his wire cutters, twist on connectors, and a new set of wires to replace the ones the sapper had fried as he heard a chorus of bullets being fired from somewhere around the next point over.

He frowned. Those were much closer than they were 15 minutes ago. Better pick up the pace.

With a deft hand, he pulled out the wires and snipped out all the unsalvageable ones, tossing them in his toolbox to properly dispose of later. Twist on connectors wasn't exactly a Good fix to all the problems he knew that damn shock box had caused, but it would be good enough to last him until the end of the round.

...He hoped, at least.

After making quick work of the internals and closing the panel back up, he flipped the switch back on, waiting a few agonizing moments before the dispenser beeped at him a few times and whirred back to life.

Engie let out a weary sigh of relief as it slowly started healing his wounds, giving it a couple whacks with his wrench to get it into somewhat working order. It may have been knocked back down to level 1, but hey, at least it actually started up again! Finally, he had one thing was working in his favor!...

...But only the one thing. Now was the issue of getting his sentry back up, and with his dispenser back at level 1, just waiting around for metal wasn't exactly going to be an option this time.

After scanning the battlefield a few times, a disgruntled noise escaped him. Pyro was nowhere to be found. Just his luck. He grumbled to himself more as he picked his dispenser up and moved it to where he thought it would be at least a little less visible so he could go search for an ammo kit himself, keeping a hand on his pistol and his wits about him as he ventured into a nearby building.

He hated to leave any of his buildings unattended without Pyro around to cover for him (usually in return for a joyride into town the following weekend along with the sugariest fruit flavored item they could get from the local candy store), but he really didn't have the time to sit around and hope for the Chance that they'd 1). be in his field of view and 2). not be too busy to play guard dog for 5 or so minutes (5 minutes they could very understandably use to set some REDs running for the hills. or a fire extinguisher).

And as much as he would love to just waltz into BLU's resupply and pick up all the things he needed with little to no effort, he was currently stationed at second to last and the time it would take him to get there and back would be more than enough time for the REDs to not only destroy BLU's hopes and dreams but also to give way for his teammates to complain about how he hadn't been there to defend them.

(As if he wasn't doing enough for this damn team already.)

So taking a gamble with getting an ammo box was objectively his best bet at the moment. Was he happy about it in any metric? Absolutely not. Sure, he knew his way around the place and he actually knew that the building he was currently in housed the largest ammo kit you could find out in the field, but he also knew that other people knew that too. And that meant that there was a very real chance of running into one of them and not only failing to defend BLU's points and having to put up with his teammates' negging but also dying and gettin sent through respawn in the process.

But that's as if anything was really going his way today.

He hopped up the wooden stairs two at a time, knowing that the ammo kit was somewhere up on the top floor. He'd actually passed by the Medkit on the first and as tempted as he was to heal himself up a little, he also knew that any more time he wasted in there was time that could be used getting a sentry back up.

When he'd reached the second floor, the ammo box was just where he expected it to be, sitting next to a window that looked out over the battlefield, giving him a front and center view of BLU's second to last point. He could just about see a sliver of his dispenser, silently relieved that it was still there. From what he could see, RED and BLU were still fighting it out over the mid point, both teams having captured and then recaptured it several times already, only for the other to take it back.

Currently, it was still BLU's but something told him that if he didn't hurry, that was going to change soon.

He quickly scooped up the ammo box, eyebrows furrowing when the top of it came off with relative ease. Odd. You usually need to do at least a little prying with these suckers to get the tops to pop off. He then rummaged around in it to make sure it had what he needed, confusion deepening when he realized that there weren't any syringe cartridges in the box.

And that's when he heard a slight rustling from somewhere just out of his peripheral vision.

He immediately dropped the box, bullets and miscellaneous parts spilling everywhere as he turned around and reached for his pistol.

However, he ended up getting a spray of syringes to the arm, letting out a strained cry as he instead grabbed his pistol with his other hand and randomly fired it in the direction of where the syringes had come from.

His guesswork was pleasantly met with a very loud "FUCK", his eyes finally focusing on a very irritated looking RED Medic who now sported a bullet wound in his non dominant shoulder.

"You wanna dance? Let's fuckin' tango, buddy," Engie muttered mainly to himself, only just about bearing the pain as he tore anywhere from 4-7 syringes out of his arm and dropped them to the floor.

He tried to shoot his newfound opponent again but his bullets made splinters rather than punctured flesh, Engie fully aware that his normally serviceable aim was probably off thanks to the searing pain in his... well, everything, cursing under his breath regardless.

However, before he could even process what to do next, the enemy Medic made a dive for him, the two of them tussling to the floor and struggling with each other for the right to end someone's life.

Engie was able to momentarily able to wiggle his arm out of the other's grasp, managing a solid hit on RED Medic's face that he was pretty sure ended up breaking his nose.

That really only seemed to make him angrier though, the two of them continuing to wrestle it out until Medic finally managed to come out on top, having practically straddled Engie's chest as he pinned down both of his arms to the ground. The both of them struggled to take in air, Engie still making feeble attempts to escape his captivity with little success.

If this weren't a life or death situation, he probably would've told RED Medic that he was rather handsome, even with a broken nose and blood dripping out his mouth and onto Engie's shirt. Truth be told, Engie had always thought him attractive and if the two of them weren't enemies by uniform color, he probably would've asked him if he wanted to go out for a drink some time.

But even if life or death prevented him from attempting to woo the man who he'd just shot, Engie couldn't help but be immensely frustrated with himself, eventually just letting out a wheeze of defeat as he gave out from exhaustion.

"Just- just fucking do it please, I'm really not goddamn having it right now," He growled out, causing RED Medic to squint and tilt his head at him. After all, it wasn't every day that your enemy practically begged you to off them after they (quite understandably) just tried to strangle you.

"Hey, Stitches, you hear me? Just cut my head off or steal my organs or whatever, make my godawful day into an even more godawful one," He reiterated, Medic unable to suppress a chuckle despite how tired he was.

"Sorry- steal your organs? Do you really think I'm going to do that?" He grinned incredulously.

"Dunno. You just seem like the type," Engie said dryly, Medic letting out a cackle.

"Well just because you made me laugh, I'll make this quick. You don't seem particularly happy right now," Medic vocalized, shifting so that he could pin both of Engie's arms down with one hand and reach for Engie's pistol that had gotten knocked out of his grasp in their scuffle with the other.

Stronger than he looks. Engie couldn't tell if his heart beating faster because he was literally about to die or because an item was added to the list of "reasons why I want to take my enemy out to dinner."

...Might be both.

"Golly gee, what gave that away?" Engie deadpanned, feeling the muzzle of his own pistol pushing against his forehead. RED Medic chuckled again.

"No hard feelings, right my friend?" he smiled at him, almost apologetically. At least Engie thinks it's apologetically. Kinda hard to tell with all the blood that wasn't in his body.

He closed his eyes, bracing himself.

"Nah. None at all."

...

BANG!

...And not even 20 seconds later, he suddenly materialized in BLU's main respawn room, immediately grimacing from the skull splitting headache he was saddled with; the unfortunate side effects of being shot in the head. Respawn could only do so much, after all.

He moved to open the resupply cabinet to just get what he needed and get the hell out of there before he was startled by the intercom crackling to life, Engie's stomach sinking when he heard the very familiar "YOU FAILED" accompanied by almost comically sad music.

Had he really been gone that long? He didn't even hear the Admin announcing that mid had been capped, let alone second to last, and surely he would've heard it even if he was being held up by RED's local handsome devil.

But his teammates slowly filing in with various injuries seemed to confirm their defeat, Engie sighing as he reached into the cabinet for a bottle of aspirin instead of a case of bullets.

"Hrr Mrnrph!" Pyro mumbled out as they made their way in, Scout with his arm around their shoulders for support as he hobbled in as well.

"Yo, Engie, where the hell were you?" Scout frowned, clearly peeved about losing that day's round.

"Yeah, maggot, we thought you were on second to last! Their damn Scout somehow slipped by us and ended up capping both of ours after RED capped mid again," Soldier added, Engie sighing. Of course this was going to be blamed on him.

"Sorry, fellas. Spy managed to sap both my sentry and my dispenser and their Medic got me when I was tryin' to get supplies. I was hoping y'all would be able to hold mid long enough for me to get back but that. Obviously did not happen."

"Oh, so it's our fault now?"

"Hey, I'm not sayin' it's anyone's fault, I'm just sayin' that they got the best of us today. We'll give it another go tomorrow, like we always do."

Scout obviously seemed unhappy by the notion but decided it best to shut his trap when Demo gave him A Look because even Scout knew that Demo was not one to fuck with. Engie knew he didn't actually intend real harm, he just tended to run his mouth with things he didn't necessarily mean. Didn't make his life any easier, though.

"Listen, I think we've all had a long day. Let's just get patched up an' relax before tomorrow," Demo interjected, the rest of the team making various sounds of agreement as the final members of their menagerie made their way in.

As he walked past, Medic gave him a conciliatory look that Engie could only give him a knowing smile in return for. They both knew what it was like for the entire team's failure to be blamed on their shoulders alone. Usually it was Medic who received the brunt of it, especially when he'd just been transferred in, but Engie was no stranger to complaints on his off days about how he should've been better or how could've done more.

It made him want to tear his own ears off. Not only because it was annoying as all hell because you didn't see him out here blaming the entire team's loss on one damn person's slip up, but because it was the kind of shit that he told himself when he was younger and it brought him back to times he didn't necessarily want to remember.

He was suddenly brought out of his brooding by Pyro walking up to him, Scout seemingly having limped his way back into base on his own.

"Mrr rrhrrh hrrph phr nrr rphmm hrr rr phrrhrrk phr rrr," They mumbled out sadly, holding their arms out to offer an apology hug and very much looking like a kicked puppy. Engie let off a soft "aw."

"Shucks, Firefly, it ain't your fault. Can't expect ya to baby me all the time, can I?" He joked, pulling them in anyways. Only a monster could refuse Pyro hugs, after all.

Pyro squeezed him tightly, nearly lifting him off the ground despite the fact that they were only a couple inches taller than he was as Engie was momentarily overwhelmed with the familiar scent of kerosene and singed rubber.

When they finally let go, Engie gave them a gentle pat on the head.l

"You go inside now, hey? I gotta check if my dispenser's still out there and you probably got your own injuries you should have Doc look at," He told them, Pyro nodding at him and giving him an affirmatory wheeze. They then gave him another quick squeeze before waddling their way inside, boots squeaking every so often.

Engie sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. Oh well. Nothing he could do now but prep for tomorrow.

He sat in respawn for a little while waiting for the aspirin to kick in and only decide it was time to get going when he finally felt like his brain wasn't trying to squeeze itself down his spinal cord.

After making the trek to second to last, he was pleasantly surprised to see that his dispenser was still on. And also there at all.

(To be fair, RED and BLU had been fighting over mid for so long that RED's Scout probably hadn't bothered to destroy what wasn't shooting at him in a desperate attempt to end the godforsaken match already. He couldn't say that he'd blame him.)

He was also surprised, though not as pleasantly, to see someone waiting for him. Specifically, someone in glasses and a tie that, even though it was covered in blood, had a face that was both painfully smug and oddly endearing.

Though they were technically now in ceasefire until battle tomorrow, he still instinctively reached for his pistol, blinking and looking down when he realized his holster was empty.

"I believe you're looking for this?" RED Medic asked as he picked said pistol up off of his dispenser, Engie nodding cautiously.

"Relax, dummkopf, I'm not going to shoot you. The bullet that was in your head was actually the last one in the magazine anyways," Medic snorted, demonstrating by pulling the trigger while pointing the weapon to the ground and coming up with nothing but empty clicks.

Regardless, he still offered it to Engie butt first, Engie himself still wary but a little less hesitant as he took a few more steps forward and took it in his hand.

"Apologies. I actually meant to put it back into your holster before you went through respawn but I didn't have adequate time. You pack quite a punch," Medic smirked lightly, Engie's attention suddenly being drawn to his still broken nose.

He grinned sheepishly.

"Heheh, yeah, mama taught me well... No hard feelin's though, yeah?" Engie sticking his pistol in its place and his hand out to the doctor, Medic letting out an amused huff at his own words being used against him.

"No hard feelings," He assured, shaking Engie's hand.

"I should probably be off now, I can practically hear my gaggle of idiots begging me to heal their boo boos from all the way out here," He then snorted, Engie letting out a chuckle.

"All good. I should prolly get the ol' girl back to the workshop. Damn sappers always do a number on the internals," He grimaced, thinking about all proper rewiring and circuit board replacement he was going to have to do, not to mention normal maintenance and cleanup.

"As I've heard. Our own Engineer has some particularly... colorful words on what he thinks of your Spy."

"Bit of a wily bastard, that one. Can't say I blame him," Engie shrugged, leaning against his dispenser for support and suddenly feeling face flush as Medic did the same, the two of them now so close that their elbows touched in the middle.

If Medic noticed, he didn't immediately let on, merely smiling at him.

"That we can all agree on, I think. What is it with Spies and deciding to be bastards? Is it a profession thing, does it just come naturally to them?" He said mirthfully, leaning in close enough that their noses were close to touching.

...Never mind, he absolutely noticed.

"'s gotta be, right? I mean, it's the only explanation for why they're all so dickish. That or the ones we've been in contact with just happen to be persnickety lil fucks," Engie grinned, Medic laughing loudly in response.

It only made him grin even wider. Medic's laugh had to be in a class of its own. Borderline obnoxious in nature but somehow brash and unapologetic while still being absolutely ridiculous.

Man, was it just something to die for (which he.. technically supposed he did).

"Ah, look at me, babbling about. I really should get going before I waste any more of your time," he said when giggles finally stoped threatening to rise out of his throat, Engie feeling a sudden pang of disappointment in his chest. He merely waved him off with a soft "shucks, weren't nothin'" as he tipped his hat, Medic giving him a firm pat on the shoulder.

"It was nice talking with you, Herr Engineer. Perhaps we can meet again some time," He smiled before turning to make his leave.

Engie closed his eyes. This was a bad idea, this was a bad idea, don't do it, don't do it Dell, don't FUCKING do it-

"Hey, uh. Stitches."

Medic paused before turning around again.

"Are you... free this weekend?"

An amused glint suddenly appeared in Medic's eyes.

"Well seeing as we all have weekends off, yes, I should be. Why do you ask?"

"You, uh. You wanna grab a drink with me, this Saturday, maybe? I know this pretty good place not too far out and uh. I dunno, 'd be fun to uh. See ya again outside of work, I guess," Engie stumbled out, putting a hand on the back of his neck.

"...I'd like that. I'd like that a lot," Medic smiled, Engie's face lighting up.

"Great! Uhm. I uh, I guess. Meet me on y'all's second to last at about 6? I know how to avoid all the cameras, so," Engie offered, Medic raising an eyebrow at him.

"...Hey, when you live out your days fighting people to the death for an old dinosaur who would skin you alive and turn you into the coat given the chance, finding out where her cameras and all their blindspots are isn't that much of a hassle. We're actually in one right now. Wouldn't've asked you out otherwise," He shrugged, Medic holding his hands up in response.

"I'm not one to judge. Whatever gets me out of playing team mama for the night. I'll just tell them I joined a book club or whatever. And if they don't believe me... well I think a saw to the skull might convince them," Medic said, suddenly pulling out his Ubersaw with a malicious grin.

Engie had to physically restrain himself from saying "hot" in response.

"Heheh, yeah, I bet it might. I'll uh. See you later then," He coughed out, moving to put his dispenser into compact mode and pack it back into his toolbox.

When he stood up with it resting on his shoulder, however, Medic was standing right in front of him, nearly causing it to slip out of his hands.

Medic barely stifled a laugh at his shock, gently removing his hardhat and leaning down to give him a kiss on the forehead.

"It's a date then," He hummed cheerily before putting Engie's hardhat back on his head and making his return to RED, leaving Engie with his hat slightly askew and his face moderately flushed.

And that's when if hit him. A date. He had just asked his actual, literal enemy who had shot him in the head about 30 minutes ago, on a date. And he said yes.

He didn't know if he wanted to scream, punch something, or throw himself off a bridge. Probably all three, if he was honest.

Despite all that, he practically forced himself to turn around and begin making his way back to BLU, readjusting his tool box every so often so it wouldn't slip out of his hands. What the hell was he doing, breaking contract like this? He means sure, he wasn't particularly one for rules anyhow, he's pretty sure he's committed more than a few atrocities against the heavens in his lifetime, and the Admin wasn't always on his case for every little infraction he'd ever made anyways. But between her and God, it was the Admin he feared more and he knew that if there was one rule that the she enforced, it was that cross faction relations were NOT tolerated and were more than a warrant for termination.

Termination of contract or termination of your life? Depended on how nice she was feeling that day.

Needless to say, he was very frustrated with himself.

But then he remembered how drop dead (haha) gorgeous Medic was even when he was bleeding all over Engie's shirt and the way hearing his laugh had made him felt and the way that glint made it look like he had stars in his eyes and...

...Aw hell, if he was going to get fired (or die! both was very possible) for this he might as well go down after having had a good time.

Now all he had to do was make it to Saturday. While also not giving anything away.

Piece of fucking cake.

[chryso0]

Theories about new Chapter;

Obviously we all have a lot of questions about the latest chapter and what this all means for the boys. This particular panel threw a lot of people off and for very obvious reasons as its going to change the course of the story quite a lot. 

This post is gonna be more focused on Akihito (sorry Asami 🥺), and what happened with him. We are gonna be asking. The WHO, the HOW, the WHY and the RESOLUTION

And we're gonna get to all of that in what will probably be a long post. These are just my personal theories, but this is probably the most cohesive and most convincing theory crafting for what’s to come after that very dramatic episode. 

We are gonna start off with the WHO;

SUDOH AND SAKAZAKI. Period. 

I know everyone has different theories about who is responsible for why Akihito is like this. But I think I'm gonna take the most obvious answer - its fuckin Sudoh. 

I am also inclined to believe chernobog is dead and not involved. It is rare for Sensei to kill people off so unequivocal. The fact that she killed off Yuri and Aaron (#1 and #2) - with no possibly way to return. Sorry I just think they’re organization is just dead. And even if some other faction of chernobog some how came together and regrouped. why in the hell would they work with Sudoh- AGAIN? after he screwed them over, and got all their leaders killed. 

Now there are other villains and suspicious characters, for which we don’t know there involvement. Maxim!? Alex?! Asami’s father?!!?

BUT I don’t think they’re directly involved in what happened to Akihito -and I say directly because they could have been secretly pulling all the strings. or purposely turning a blind eye. Or are otherwise working against Asami in other ways.

But to me I think its pretty clear cut that Sudoh is directly behind Akihito’s brainwashing and there are a ton of pretty explicit clues to that in that very last panel of the chapter where Akihito brandishes the knife. 

Now when that panel came out on the internet- I saw a lot of people saying crazy theories like. It’s not Akihito it’s Sudoh after facial reconstruction. Which is just- no! thats just to crazy. No!

BUT I do think the image is MEANT to invoke Sudoh. I don’t think its a coincidence that Akihito looks like Sudoh.

The way Akihito hair is just a little bit to straight! That evil look in his eyes. His face parallels with this panel below- half the face in darkness. His hair covering one eye, that looks out darkly.

But to me the most blatant and obvious connection, is the very knife Akihito wields. 

The black switch blade. It’s Sudoh’s signature weapon. He’s toting it here in the below images, when he visits Akihito’s dream right before Chernobog attacked the apartment, but he was also using it when he had Akihito captured in the warehouse.

In this other panel of Akihito’s dream, we see the exact same knife but we also see a pretty EXACT parallel to what's happened in the latest chapter. The knife. in the bedroom. cutting a defenseless Asami’s throat. (its like a game of clue)

It’s even a little eerie, in hindsight, that in this panel we coincidentally never see Sudoh face, only his hand. Almost like it could be anyone doing that- Even you Akihito!

But it made me think that Sensei really was doing some foreshadowing and really nothing is a coincidence with her.

Which now leads me to the question of HOW:

Something thats really bothered me about this newest chapter, and something I keep returning to is this- Akihito’s personality, this entire time has been built upon the fact that he is a journalist and truth seeker. 

So what throws me about this particular new direction - is even if Akihito’s memories are gone. Is that part of his personality really gonna go away? I just can’t believe that. Even when he was alone and out of touch - like when he was in the temple- he still couldn’t help but seek information and seek the truth. and even in the face with fear, he usually still seeks answers.

Obviously he might have been tortured for months, and it’s more then possible he did fight, but eventually they snuffed that out of him. And while this is totally possible - I don’t believe that sensei would go THAT dark.

So I'm more inclined to believe that they starve off his curiosity by feeding him lies, half truths, and maybe some partial memories of his life. 

Now imagine this. Tell Akihito basically everything about his life. At the very least, he seems to know they are ‘supposed to be’ lovers given his theatrics before he wields the knife. So tell him that his feelings for Asami where real. But then use all his insecurities about his relationship that we know  know where always there, and that haven’t magically disappeared after their ‘honeymoon’ period on the island. And use half truths and some lies to turn Asami in to the villain. 

When people were using that crazy theory about Sudoh getting facial reconstruction- all I could remember was this exact panel from volume 8. This panel is when Sudoh has Akihito kidnapped in the warehouse. Akihito is thinks about his relationship with Asami, and his fears and insecurities, he say  

“Will I turn out like Sudo?”

It’s not Sudoh magically turning into Akihito. It’s Akihito becoming more like Sudoh. And he’s already shown that he has had that fear. 

Now why does Sudoh hate Asami- The story is obviously a bit more complicated then how Sudoh probably sees himself. But Sudohs feels like he’s been abandoned. That he did everything that Asami ever wanted. That he crossed all the lines. But because he went too far,  and got mixed up with chernobog everything completely collapsed and Asami didn’t ever reward his loyalty with anything meaningful. 

Is it even that hard to convince Akihito that the SAME thing happened to him. Especially if his memories are messed up and he doesn’t have the full picture (hahaha photography puns). It would be pretty easy to convince him that Asami abandoned him to whatever horrible fate that befell him at the hands of Sudoh and Sakazaki.

Something that keeps running in my mind, is the very timely moment Akihito awakes in the hospital after his coma. It’s such a sad use of tragic timing. He is waking up at the same time that Asami is being safely evacuated and rescued by Alex on orders by Maxim. It’s like they’ve just missed each other. 

But I think you can see how it could easily be twisted and made to look as if Asami was leaving behind a comatosed Akihito. Abandoning Akihito when he was at his most vulnerable state. It could easily be twisted into Asami getting whisked away by his men, to some undisclosed location where he's getting top notch care and he never planned on taking Akihito with him. 

Then right when Akihito’s wake. its like they’ve just missed each other, and if Asami had just brought him along then he wouldn’t have fallen in to Sakazaki and Sudoh’s clutches.

And after everything Akihito had just been though. All the lines he had crossed. Shotting at Sudoh, his willingness to KILL for Asami. The lengths he would go to protect Asami. Literally TAKING THE FALL damage for Asami. and using his own body. Just for all those things to be manipulated and twisted into-  Asami never cared about you, you were just his play thing and he left you behind to rot- then yeah. hell yeah thats a Revenge Arch in the making!

Obviously the truth is being distorted, manipulated and twisted in some way by his captors. He doesn’t remember Asami’s confession, or how Asami used his own body to take bullets for him. Or all the other things that Asami has done, or the promises they made to each other on the island

This whole thing reminded me that during the naked truth arc Akihito had no assurances that Asami would rescuing him. He was constantly doubting himself thinking Asami wouldn’t go that far for him. And yet. we also know that some part of him was still holding out hope while he was in Hong Kong, thinking maybe Asami is coming.

Maybe at first he doesn’t believe everything. he fights it, as we know he is a fighter. But the naked truth arc kidnapping was Maybe a month of separation. We are talking about a whole half a year of no rescue, of no word from Asami. of enduring whatever hardships Sudoh and Sakazaki likely did to him. After a while, he might have given up hope entirely and believed that Asami had really left him. 

and y’know we all know Akihito has a bit of Stockholm syndrome. its not that much of a stretch to think after a while he started to agree with his captors and sympathize with them.

I can see that when somehow when word finally reaches that Asami is back and he’s looking for Akihito- I can see that being such salt in the wounds for him. Like he comes now? after all this time, to come in and pretend to be the knight and shining armor. It drives him even more into doing this.

NOW here comes the WHY: 

Well it seems pretty self explanatory why Sudoh would do this. 

I’v said this in other post but I'll say it again. To me what happen to Akihito wasn’t just about one thing- I think a lot of people want to make what happen to Akihito about Asami. That the goal was to assassinate Asami, that he was the intended target, and theres some wider underworld thing happening. When to me- this was very much a personal attack on both of them. 

and when I mean personal I mean personal. it’s not about who’s in charge of the underworld, or someone trying to usurp Asami. this was an attack on them. on their relation. this was an attack meant to hurt both of them in the worst way possible.

hell I dont even think Sudoh did this because he reasonably believed that Akihito could assassinate Asami- BUT y’know it was probably worth a try. And I’m guessing Akihito was eager to do it.

resolution:

I don’t have a real solution- I have no idea what's gonna happen next chapter. But I do have some theories. I think it would be real interesting to have Akihito use his photography and his journalist instincts, that seeking the truth personality of his to find out what really happened and to figure out what the truth is. 

We’ve gotten a lot of volumes recently that revolve around Asami’s world and what's going on in the underworld. So Idk it would be kinda nice to have Akihito getting back to his roots in some ways. 

BUT I’m also like we’re finally kinda getting all these Asami POV (which is nice) and we’ve just learned a bit about Asami’s past so it makes me think that the focus of the next volume is gonna be on Asami more then Akihito. 

But I think whatever the solution is it has to be Akihito getting/finding out the real truth, and probably getting all his memories back. And maybe Asami is the one thats going to give him that, or maybe Akihito has to do it himself and become the focus of his own investigation. 

Thanks for reading if you’ve read this far ❤️❤️ I think to much about finder obviously 😭 this was literally sitting in my drafts for weeks cause I was struggling with how to convey all of this.

[heartofsnark]

Can You Feel The Sun? (Chapter Three): Maybe God Is Just A Cop We Can Fast Talk

Notes: I’m trying to test out not stockpiling chapters and just post whatever I got when I got it. So, we’ll see how it goes. Additionally, apologies in advanced if my work is a bit more fucky on spelling and grammar from now on out. They use to have some degree of beta reading, but now it’s the wild west. It all depends on my brain, which is smooth. 

Word Count: 13,335

Chapter Warnings: Canon typical violence, death, entirely too on the nose foreshadowing, f/f sex scene, cunnilingus, vaginal fingering, masturbation, sex toy use, nipple sucking, dirty talk that may or may not be cringe (I had fun)

If you haven’t yet, you can read the previous chapter here!~

V takes a deep breath as they pull into the parking garage of a large apartment building complex, her nose wrinkles. August has settled into Night City, air humid and thick, the stink of trash filling her lungs at every breath. The smell of NC in summer and a landfill are only a few degrees removed from one another. Jackie is in the passenger seat, nearly pressed shoulder to shoulder. Wakako is paying them to rescue some corpo chick, a gig V would usually roll her eyes at, but the apartment is a known Scavenger hideout. Without someone stepping in, the woman will be ripped apart, organs and cyberware chopped out to be sold. Corpo or not; no one deserves that.

The merc covers her lips with chapstick and a little above, so she smells the balm and not Night City, then dabs some on the inside of her mask as well. The trick reminds her of when her mother would have her and Eira smear homemade balm under their noses before going to pick through landfills; telling them stories of old plague doctors who’d shove cloves into beaked masks to avoid the stench of death. The chapstick isn’t quite so strongly scented as the mash of camphor, menthol, and coconut oil her mother would use. But it strikes that nostalgia bone nonetheless.

“Still not used to the smell?” Jackie taunts her, grin pulling at his lips.

“God, no,” she quickly signs, her choker translator off as she pulls on her mask.

“It grows on you.”

“Six months in and the only thing that’s grown on me is you.”  Her mask takes over translating her signing, though she’ll have to shut it off when they get in.

“Was that almost a compliment?”

“A compliment? From me? Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Pff, real funny,” he rolls his eyes, “chick we're looking for's somewhere in this building. Probably crawlin' with the pendejos that kidnapped her. Eyes and ears open, all right?"

“Opening my ears isn’t gonna help much, but alright.”

“You’re real close to my last nerve, chica,” he says but he’s smiling.

“Love you too, Jack, now, the fixer give you any tips?”

“I’m not your mother,” he tries to mimic the older woman’s voice, “just do what I pay you for, it’s easy work. Sh, yeah.”

“Okay, let’s do this.”  

With that Jackie and V leave the car, stepping out into the garage. The taller of the two checks his two pistols, ensuring the gold emblazoned weapons are loaded and ready for the mess that surely awaits them. There’s no telling how many Scavvs are here, the body hacking gangers the equivalent of cockroaches. She checks her own .50 caliber pistol,  it’s loaded and she has a knife strapped in a holster on her thigh.

“Elevator. This way.” Jackie nods towards the elevator in the parking garage, leading the way as V follows behind. Dirty elevator doors open for them, the words NO FUTURE scratched across the stained metal. The two mercs step inside, V leaning against a graffiti covered wall, leg shaking with anxiety.

A digital interface, T-Bugs avatar appears at the elevator button panel, flashes of code as the runner quickly hacks through it without needing an apartment key. The doors close and the rusty elevator lurches into movement, heading up.

“Target's Sandra Dorsett. Target's biomon went mute a couple hours back. Suspected abduction. Target could've possibly flatlined already. Not sure you're in time,” Bug’s voice comes through V’s hearing aids, subtitles on her mask for good measure, as the runner delivers her warning. That’s always a risk with rescue jobs, but they have a decent track record for getting to people in time.

“We're in time, Bug,” Jackie corrects her, “ we. Sure, you're on phones, but… that don't make you any less a part of this squad.”

"Squad… Charming.” V can nearly hear the Bug rolling her eyes.

“Awww, c’mon Bug, you know we need you.”

“No arguments there, without me you gonkbrains probably be shot to death by turrets or sitting in jail by now. “

“And without us, you’d have to step foot outside your apartment.”

“A true horror,” Bug mocks, a scoff in her voice as the elevator stops, doors opening, “focus now, You’re lookin' for twelve thirty-seven.”  

V and Jackie step out of the elevators, greeted to trash strewn apartment halls, graffiti scratched across every inch. Hands on their iron, the mercs make their way down the hall. With a thought V mutes the translation tech in her mask, linked to her neuralware, that way a stray hand gesture won’t give them away.

“Han, is that you?” An older woman starts to step out of her apartment.

V quickly waves her hand, signaling the woman to make herself scarce and she nods before running back in. Between the Scavenger’s victims and the innocent residents; there’s a lot of room for potential casualties. Low profile is essential if they want to do a clean job.

“Target should be inside, but I got zero eyes on her biomon. Fingers crossed it's not too late. Ugh, hate this life or death shit,” T-Bug explains as they reach the door they need, “try hacking the door, think you can trip it on your own, V?”

V’s fingers itch to just pry the damn thing open or try to pick the lock, despite knowing the former would give them away and the latter is impossible with the electronic model of door. The young merc brings up the scanner of her mask, running a quick scan of the door and sending the quick hack through. It slides open, Jackie able to slip inside with her following close behind.

The doorway opens into a wider room and V’s heart sinks. The sticky cloying smell of blood claws its way through anything, so thick in the air that her efforts to block out the city smell are rendered useless.  There’s a steady but slightly muffled thrum of electronic music coming from the other room, not a Scavenger in sight, but their handiwork paints the room. Low grade medical equipment, a shitty old school heart monitor attached to a woman in a ripperdoc chair. The woman is dead, no monitor or scan needed to know that. Body ripped open, entrails spilling out, red spattering down the black leather of the chair. Blood paints the walls around her, her skin a sallow lifeless shade of gray. Her abdomen is a mess of bloody organs and half ripped out implants.

“Are we fuckin' late?! Is that her, is that our target, V?!” Jackie calls out, voice low and edged with worry in his voice as he tries to scream and whisper at once, gesturing with his gun as he points at the corpse.

V doesn’t bother to open her scanner, looking over the woman’s body, it's not hard to know this isn’t their target. No high up corpo would pack this crap. What implants remain are cheap and poorly installed, the ones around her eyes have left the skin creased and scarred. Worse quality than what someone would find in the poorest of Nomad clans. Likely, a joytoy, or perhaps a Maelstrommer as the shitty over the top implant installation is common among the gang.

“No,” V signs, looking up at Jackie, his eyes on her to subtitle the ASL, “our girl is protected under echelon II corpo immunity, this is back-alley black market crap, no corpo in their right mind would walk around with this shit.”

Jackie nods, his shoulders losing a little of their tension as he moves up to a door, the music louder as he just opens the door peeking through, trying to get a feel for the room before they go through. Judging by the music and the still fresh blood mingled with the older stains, the Scav haunt is still being used. Jackie pulls away from the door and presses against the wall next to it.

“V, mira, eyes up, pendejos ahead.” Jackie warns her as she puts her hands to the door, trying to peek through the crack, the music louder and less muffled with the door cracked. V can see plastic sheets, coolers, chop shop equipment as they butcher people. Through distorted bloodied plastic hung from the ceiling, the pendejo in question standing in front of a cooler, back turned.

“Drop him quiet, V.”

V takes a deep breath and counts the music beats, waiting for the tempo and volume to rise before she opens the door, hiding the creak of it behind the pumping club style music. The merc drops to a crouch as soon as she walks through, creeping up behind the Scavenger, pushing through plastic sheets, she unsheathes her tactical knife.

In one swift movement she stands and kicks out the man’s knee, bringing him down low enough to grab his face by his mask and pull him towards her. He has a mere moment to struggle in her grasp before she then sinks her knife into his skin, piercing the flesh and arteries where his neck meets his shoulder. He goes limp in her arms and she pulls her knife out with a twist, before she shoves him forward into the cooler. The lid shuts with a slight thud, drowned out by the music.

“Nice, couldn’t have done it better myself, chica,” Jackie praises as she wipes her knife off on her pants, red smearing across the black fabric.

“On your toes. More bodies incoming, they're almost on you,” Bug warns as the mercs move to the next room, creeping through the garbage strewn hall and going around a bend, an open doorway showing a group of Scavs.

Whether thanks to music or their own lack of intelligence, the gang members don’t hear them as they find a nook around the corner to hide. V pressing her body tight against a fridge, Jackie not far behind her.  The dark spot, appliances, and trash does well to hide the two from sight.

“Fistfuck these reapers. Oye, V! They're comin',” Jackie warns as two of the Scav start to come around the corner, “wait for your chance. Pick the prick off. “

Tucked away the two mercs aren’t noticed. She watches as the two men walk by, following a path down the hallway without noticing them. V tries to hear what they say, straining to hear over the music, something about scoring big, a chick with “preem ass chrome”.

“Cabrones… thick as locusts. Let's wait and plan a spree.”

V gives a nod, trying not to comment that they’ve already discussed this. Stealth has never been Jackie’s strongpoint, he talks too much, can’t stand the quiet. She watches as the two gang members turn their backs to the mercs. They stop at the end of the hallway to stand guard and V goes to move.

“Let's take 'em… Suerte.”

She tries not to shake her head, not to sign at him to stop talking. She’ll tease him for it later, the two stay in a crouch, creeping up behind the two Scavengers. The merc gets close enough to feel the warmth coming off the gang member's body, V and Jackie lunge at the same time. Jackie snaps the Scav on the left’s neck and V slices the throat of the one on the right; two men dead at their feet. She rummages through the freshly dead corpses pockets, adding a few eddies and a Max Doc to her own.

“All down, limp meat. But probably not the last of 'em,” Jackie says as they start back towards the corner, staying low and...mostly...quiet as they reach the open doorway, “Move on, move up. Right behind you, V.

Their hideaway corner has an open doorway in the room that leads to another larger room, windows at the far end and around  Shelves and cabinets of ammo and grenades fill the room, should be easy enough to stay out of sight. Three men that she can see, one closer to the doorway, easy grab. And if they time it right they can grab the other two in tandem.

V raises her knife to her chest, pressing the hilt to her skin, then pounces on the nearest ganger. She yanks his head back and onto the blade, the weapon piercing up through the base of his skull, as she drags his body back. He’s already dead by the moment she’s dragged him from the room, dropping his corpse where he won’t be seen.

“Careful, once you get the next two,” Bug warns, voice low, “goliath ass Scav the next room over.”

“Gotcha,” Jackie whispers as they start to make their way back into the room where the next two are.

V stays to the left side of the room and Jackie goes to the right, both staying low and close to cover. The younger takes a deep breath, the clutter and way the room curves means they’re out of sight range, making it harder to coordinate. Nonetheless, she mentally counts to three and jumps her target. She grabs the gang member by the chin, wrenching up his face as she slams her knife into the front of his throat,ripping it out with a spray of blood.

“What the fuck!?” A voice, deep and masculine yells out, just as Jackie snaps his target’s neck. A bulking mass of a man, around Jackie’s height has scrambled to his feet; a heavy machine gun in his hands.

“Fuck, eyes on you!!” T-Bug warns just as a bullet tears through V’s bicep, superficial, no pain as adrenaline spikes.

And the chaos starts as the bullets begin to fly, V grabs her pistol, takes aim into the room and starts fire while moving. Jackie doing the same, the pair scrambling behind a cabinet, crouched and facing one another. His sweaty forehead nearly smacking into her mask. The room around them tears and shatters with each bullet fired their way, none managing to hit them, she doesn’t think the ganger saw where they took cover.

Their pistols can’t cut through the rapid fire being shot their way.  Her heart is pounding, her fingers tight on the trigger, HMG’s need a cool off time. If they wait it out, his gun will overheat and they’ll have a window. And if he’s not coming to pick them off, playing the distance game, it means he’s dead set on protecting something; got to be Dorsett.

“Gun’s going to overheat, then we’ll get our chance,” V signs and speaks to Jackie at the same time, miscommunication not something that can afford right now. Her voice is rough and out of breath, her face wet with sweat behind her mask.

“Hijos de puta! Our target’s gotta be through there, V!”

“I know I know,” she squeezes his shoulder with one hand, the other still signing, “once the gun overheats , we’ll rush him and finish this up.”

“HMG should only have a few more rounds before then, but won’t be long before it cools back off. You got a tight window,” T-Bug informs them, able to keep better track of it when not in firing range.

And then the fire slows, lightening and nearly stopping, Jackie and V both jump over the cabinet, seeing their chance and not hesitating to take it. They rush towards the room, the man cursing when he sees them charging and the door begins to shut. V skids into the wall and Jackie slams against it just as the door fully closes, cutting off their access. The older merc digs his nails between the door and wall, trying to pry it open with a grunt, but it doesn’t budge. Crow bar, crow bar, something, there has to be something.

Then a gunfire blasts through the wall, narrowly avoiding V. They missed their window and he can shoot through the wall. This is great. This is fantastic, exactly what they fucking need!

“Head down, Jaina, take cover!” Jackie yells out, yanking V back behind a shelf with him.

“Fuck!”

“Need options Bug, you got eyes on this shithole!?”

“Uh, lemme see, room he’s in connects to a balcony, the window to get in is small. V might be able to slip through to him.”

“How do I get there?”

“Got a window on the left, gimme two secs to grease the lock.”

“If I get his attention elsewhere, could you break down that door?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jackie nods as they put together their new plan, “flank him and draw his fire! I’ll do the rest!”

V sees the window Bug is talking about, her interface over it as it slides open, she easily jumps through, a closed in balcony cluttered with equipment, more trash that nearly trips her as she reaches the next window. The industrial shutters are damaged and broken, allowing her to peek through, the goliath, as Bug put it, is inside. A shaved head and face of mottled cyberware. She grabs the lowest rung of the shutters and rips the already broken mess up; then fires three shots at the man. They hit but don’t bring him down, only streaking blood down his leather jacket, he swings the gun to face her.

A loud boom rings out, metal screeching, as Jackie busts the door down. His boots pound against the floor and he slams into the Scavenger, the gang member’s body hitting the wall with a thud. Jackie rips the HMG from the man’s hands, raising it high above his head and bashing the gang member’s head in with it. Blood streaking the wall behind him and the ganger falling limp on the carpet. V climbs through the window, giving the Scavenger

“That’s the last of them,” T-Bug tells them, “time to find our target.”

“Question is, where the hell is she?” Jackie asks as V makes a beeline for the one door she sees. They’ve gone through the rest of the area, it has to be it. It's the last damn room in the apartment or whatever.

“Look around, gotta be there somewhere.”

“Holy fuck.”

V’s breath catches in her throat when she swings that door open; the horror of the front room was just a taste of what these people are capable of. White linoleum stained ruddy with blood, a bathroom with fluorescent lights making the ghostly gray of the corpses stand out. The bathtub is jammed full, naked bodies bleeding the ice water red, hanging out to smear crimson over white porcelain.

“Jesus christ… ” Jackie breathes out as he steps in behind her.

V swallows the nerves and bile down, rushing to the bathtub.  The first body stacked on top is a man, skin cold to the touch and no pulse in his neck, she moves him aside. Can’t save them all, can’t save them all; she tells herself. As she checks and moves bodies, finding only one with some warmth still clinging to her body, top level chrome in etching her cheekbones and down her bare chest. Her nose and mouth barely above the ice water, it’s a miracle she wasn’t drowned under the weight of the others who weren’t as lucky.

“Think I got her. Got our target!” She yells out as she pulls the woman halfway from the tub, sitting on the edge of it. V’s fingers numb and sting all at ones from the ice, she delicately brings the woman’s shaved head to her lap. Ice water soaking through her jeans and chilling the skin beneath.

Sandra’s eyes are just slightly open, not alert, but V can pick up on some movement behind them. Pulse at her neck faint, albeit consistent. Bad shape, but not gone. The instinct to keep checking the bodies, the need to see if they can save anyone else, pulls at V. But she has to secure Sandra, has to attend the one she was sent after and at the very least she knows has a fighting chance.

Jackie stands at the door looking in and keeping guard, there's likely more Scavengers in the building, if they catch wind of what’s happened in their nest. They’ll storm in and they can risk the gang members opening fire into the room, snuffing out anyone's chance of living. Her stomach churns, once they secure Sandra they can check on the others.

“We make it, she alive?”

“She’s hanging in, I think,” V’s fingers twitch with the need to sign her words, but the need to support Sandra’s neck  and head wins out. She’s not sure if the poor woman can process or feel anything right now, looking nearly catatonic, but...maybe a touch that doesn’t hurt can be of some comfort through it all.

“V, jack into her biomon. Need to know what we're dealin' with.”

“Ooh, this does not look good…” Jackie breathes out, green eyes running frantically over the bathroom, taking in the sheer horror of what they’ve found.

“She’s not alone here, Bug, there’s bodies stacked up, crammed together, like slabs of fucking meat. I’m not sure if anyone else is alive, I- fuck.”

“We’ll do what we can for them after, keep it together. And if she survives, she won’t even remember, tiny scar on the subconscious in the long run.  Jack into her biomon.”

“Jacking in,” V slots her personal link into Sandra’s biomon port, information lighting up her mask's interface, “Sandra Dorsett. NC570442. Trauma Team Platinum.”

“Platinum? Shit, Trauma shoulda swooped in if she sneezed,” Jackie scratches the back of his head, the question clear, where the fuck is Trauma?

“Guessin' they jammed the transmitter sig. Lookin' at a hacked biomon, firmware reconfig or a neurovirus…”

“Carajo, T-Bug! You ain't seein' this place. This is tubs, ice, hooks and cleavers.” Jackie explains.  Scavengers are brutal, crude, rudimentary; anything too high tech isn’t coming from them.

“Hmm… Scopmuncher's hack, huh. Got an idea. Check her neuroport. Find a shard? Yeah, pull it - that'll be what's muting the biomon.”

V gently maneuvers the woman’s head, nails rubbing over her shaved hair, seeing the two standard neuroports behind her right ear. One with a shard placed inside. She’s heard stories of infected shards, where removing them ends up causing more harm than whatever’s on them. But, she trusts T-Bug.

“Shard found, removing it now.” She gently pulls the shard from Sandra’s neuroport, pocketing it for now, in case it’s needed later.

“Check the biomon. Anything change?”

“Greetings, Sandra,” an artificial voice explains,  “If you are conscious, assume recovery position now. An emergency evacuation unit has been dispatched and is due to arrive at your location in 180 seconds.”

“Trauma will be here in three.”

“Your premium plan will cover 90% of the projected costs of your rescue and treatment,” the biomonitor warns and V can’t help but roll her eyes, capitalism and healthcare, a match made in hell.

“Ay, pobrecita,” Jackie shakes his head, “let's get her off that ice.”

V nods, pulling her jack from the naked woman’s biomonitor and gently bringing Sandra’s body up and into her arms. She lifts the woman bridal style, water soaking her arms as she stands up. Sandra’s body starts to shake and convulse, leg unintentionally kicking at V’s arms.

“Shit!”  V curses out loud, hitting her knees as she brings Sandra to the ground. The woman’s body twitches and convulses, eyes rolling back into her head, as a ghastly choking sound comes from her mouth.

“She's flatlining!”

“V, need to know what's going' on!”

“Jackie, airhypo, now!”

“¡Ey, catch chica!”

Jackie throws the airhypo and the merc snatches the green first aid hypodermic out of the air. V quickly presses the tool to the center of Sandra’s chest and pushes the needle into her skin, shooting the compressed adrenaline into her system to stabilize her. Sandra’s body stills and relaxes, her chest still falling and rising steadily. V breathes a sigh of relief and pushes her mask onto the top of her head; sweat stinging her eyes and her lungs demanding she breathe freely. She swallows hard and blinks, Sandra still stable on the floor.

“Fuck..I, target seized but we got her stable,” V recounts to T-Bug and shakes her head, still in shock at just how close they came to this woman dying in her arms.

“You alright, jaina?”

“Yeah, yeah, I just, yeah. Uh, fuck...”

“I getcha, got a stomach of steel, but this is….��

The merc is used to death, seen it firsthand many a times and dealt it to many a people. But she’s always prided herself on not taking innocent lives, every target she’s ever killed, every person she’s put in the grave had a healthy share of blood on their hands.  She knows that doesn’t necessarily make it right, doesn’t many it doesn’t cause any harm, most monsters still have someone who loves them. And as a corpo, maybe Sandra isn’t truly innocent, V wouldn’t know for sure.  But she doesn’t deserve this, this horror, neither do any of the people stewing in ice water.

She’s always been surrounded by death but in this  bathroom, with her knees pressing against bloody tiles, she feels like she’s choking on it.

“We’re gonna get you out here, safe and sound, I promise,” she tells the woman in her lap, maybe more for her own benefit than for the woman who can’t hear her. She picks Sandra up again and turns towards Jackie, “Scavs will scatter the second they see Trauma, hate to ask this, but once they show up, we need to see if we can save anyone else, you mind checking out the bodies in the tub while I handle her?”

“Course, gotta save who we can.”

V nods, thankful that Jackie and her are on the same page. There’s a steady whirr of engines and the young merc takes Sandra out to the balcony, in the faint distance she can see the Trauma Team aircraft incoming. Wind picks up as they draw ever closer, sweeping up and blowing trash around from the area. It feels nice on V’s bare sweaty face, but she tries to tuck Sandra a little closer to her chest, trying to keep the unconscious woman warm, which seems almost ironic in the heat of the city. The aircraft pulls up beside the balcony with flashing lights and V cringes at the whirring of its turbines, turning the volume down on her hearing aids.

“Landing, stand clear. Initiating security protocol. Follow all instructions. Stop in the doorway!” The speakers on the aircraft boom and V would flip them off if she weren’t holding Sandra.

A little step extends out to the balcony and holograms mark out an area she isn’t supposed to step into. Then the Trauma Team members come out, four individuals in green uniform with white helmets, guns drawn, holsters of equipment hanging off of them.  Two of the workers lay a gurney down in front of V.

“Place the patient on the ground!” A man yells at her, gun drawn. She rolls her eyes and does as asked, gently placing Sandra on the gurney.

“Five steps back. Now,” one of the workers demands, then shoves V back and away from Sandra, gun still pointed at her as the others rush to take the woman into the aircraft.

“There are some other people...” she switches on the translator in her choker to sign, but they ignore her.

Of course, Sandra is the only person in that tub who means anything to them, because she has money. She can just hear them over the turbines as they start to assess the woman’s condition, loading her in the aircraft, the last worker following behind. The young merc sighs watching as the vehicle flies off, as much the Trauma Team system boils her blood, their doctors are well trained. Sandra is in good hands.  After a moment she turns back to the entrance to the apartment, Jackie waiting in the doorway. His hands empty.

“No one else…” She starts to sign then trails off, seeing the look in his eyes.

“All dead long before we got here.”

“Fuck…”

“Let's get outta here,” he claps a hand against her shoulder as they start to leave, “Elevator gets us to the garage direct.”

“Good work. Shitshow's over. Cuttin' my wires now. See ya in the near future,” T-Bug says her goodbyes, cutting off her connection to the mercs.

Good work, somehow those words ring hollow when there’s a tub of corpse not three feet away. There’s a heavy weight in V’s chest, they did what they were paid for, one person is safer now because of them. All things she should be proud of, but she can’t help but still feel hollow and bitter about this entire thing. Her head still hangs low as she follows Jackie out of the apartment.

“Listen, chica,” he gets her attention, “got this thing. Mind if I borrow your wheels?”

“A thing?”

“I got a date with Misty, but… heh, I can't take the metro! How's that gonna look for me?”

“Alright, alright, I’ll help you out, I guess,” she signs, feigning annoyance, though they both know she’s happy to help.

“Ah, savin' my ass, V, thank you. How about I drive you home, eh?”

“Please, I feel like I’m about to drop any minute,” she admits, body heavy with exhaustion and head starting to hurt from all the commotion. Even the translator tech’s voice is starting to make her head throb.

The elevator doors open, welcoming the two mercs as they scurry inside, V leaning all of her weight against a wall as Jackie hits the buttons. Doors closing, it starts to move, and V’s thankful for every second that gets her closer to her bed. It's an unusual feeling, she’s not typically this worn out after a job. Adrenaline is a hell of a thing, she’s learned, most jobs leaving her still riding that high and looking for ways to burn the excess energy. But, all she wants right now is to crawl in bed and pretend the world is a kinder place, 

“Oh, almost forgot. Should get Wakako on the halo - tell her the job's done.”

V gives a short nod before pulling Wakako up on her phone, it rings a few times before it projects the image of the older woman, V keeping it on speaker so Jackie can hear the call.

“Ahem! V? How did it go? Our client is alive and well?”

“Of course.”

“Splendid. Your payment awaits you - ready to come and grab whenever you like, even right away. But I guess home is the only place you wish to be now. The NCPD has surrounded Watson. The district is closed. If you are to make it past the cordon, you must move fast.”

“Shit, thanks for the warning, catch you another time,” V signs her goodbye as she hangs up and groans, thunking her head back against the wall. Of course, just her luck. The elevator doors open and Jackie leads the way out to the garage, V following closely behind.

“Gotta get going if I’m gonna make it home tonight,” V mentions as they reach her car, she doesn’t want to have to crash on his garage or his mom’s place if she can help it.

“Leave it to me, chica, I’m driving.” Jackie tells her with a little grin pulling at his lip as he climbs into the driver seat and she plops down into the passenger side.

Jackie revs the ignition and starts fiddling with the radio, while V cranks the air conditioner. She tosses her mask into the backseat for now, fiddling with her hair. The pull out of the parking garage as Jackie finds a song he likes, kind enough to keep it on low volume for V’s sake, she finds herself sinking into the seat, watching the city pass by from the window. Trying to focus on the neon lights that pass her by and not the negativity that’s threatening to overtake her mind.

“Can’t stop digging Night City,” Jackie tells her following a few moment of silence, save for the radio.

“Place definitely has an energy to it.” They drive past what she assumes is a joytoy arguing with a man, advertisements that flash so vividly in the night, street vendors peddling over the top food items. Noisy, smell, chaotic, and messy; the essence of Night City

“Nah, chica, it's more than that. Morgan Blackhand, Andrew Weyland, Adam Smasher. Legends are born here!”

“You and me, the next ones up?” She signs, playfully raising an eyebrow at him.

“You know it, jaina.”

“And we’re not gonna need a corp to do it.”

“Swear to god, V,” he shakes his head, grinning, “only merc I know who don’t get all tingly when I mention the greats.”

“Not saying they aren’t badasses, but being the best of the best is easy when you got a billion eddie corp in your corner. Blackhand was in Militech’s pocket, Weyland was on Petrochem’s payroll and Smasher is a certified Arasaka cocksucker,” she explains, fingers cramping from spelling the names as quickly as she can so her tech will translate it right, “but you and me are going to do this right, reach the top without the corp’s dick in our mouths.”

Being a legend may always be Jackie’s dream more than it’s hers… But she’s been growing into it more and more with each passing day.  She’s enjoyed the ride so far and wants to keep up the momentum. While by no means a perfect life, she’s happier than she’s been in a long time. Independent and doing a job she loves more often than not. Though, there’s still something missing… that she can’t quite define. As they keep working their way up that ladder, she’s only feeling more and more like she’s where she belongs. It only gets better from here, so long as her past stays there. V can’t help but think hitting the big leagues is what’s really going to put all the pieces in place, herself included.

“Damn right we will, V. Blackhand’s gonna wish he was us.”

“Blackhand is dead.”

“Psssh, you really believe that, chica?” He looks at her like she’s grown a third head.

“You don’t?”

“Hell no, Blackhand’s out there somewhere, sitting pretty after blowing Arasaka Tower off the map.”

“No one’s seen him since the tower fell, anyone in the tower when it came down is dead, you don’t survive that shit.”

“No one has ever found his body or Silverhand’s!”

“Because it was buried under rubble,” she’s signing frantically and grinning, the little stupid argument lifting some of the gloom off of her, “wait, who the fuck is Silverhand?”

“Silverhand, the ro-,” Jackie pauses, eyes going to the rearview window, she follows his eyeline, a van behind them, “hey is it just me or, argh, van’s on our ass, we got a tail, V!”

V gets a hand on her iron and turns in her seat to try to grab a better look, she can see the holographic mask glitching green and red on the driver. The van jerks into the left lane, speeding up to pass them, then in the very next moment pulling in front of them. V’s brows furrow, what are they doing? Then the double doors to the van open up, two masked gang members opening fire on the mercs.

“Scavs! ¡Hijos de puta!”

And V’s half out the window, sitting on the sill of it,  in the next instant, firing back at the Scavs. Bullets whirl by and V tries to maintain a steady hand as she shoots off shot after shot, aiming for the gangoons heads. Gunshots ring out through the night, bullets whiz past V and blow holes in her car, as she keeps blasting right back. People from the streetways scream, terrified of being caught in the shoot out.

“Come on, V, shoot!”

“Keep it steady,” he side mirror explodes as a bullet hits it, “fuck!”

With a thought, V shuts off her hearing aids, the world going quiet around her. Unable to hear the screaming and racket as she focuses only on shooting the Scavs. Blood sprays, a bullet ripping through a gang member’s head, their body going limp and spilling onto the road. The vehicles swing through a right turn, Jackie a thankfully empty chunk of sidewalk before swinging back out to the road. V reloads her gun as a bullet tears through her hip, not fatal but it hurts like a bitch. She fires off two more shots, catching the last member in the back of the van just as it takes a quick left turn.

But the curve comes back to meet the stretch of highway they’re on. She fires off a few shots as it goes, trying to tear through the tires before the gangers greet them again, but to no avail. The Scavenger van takes the short curve and comes back through the exit, taking the left lane to drive alongside them. V tries to fire a shot at the masked driver, but her aim is off, only blasting out the last of the van’s intact windows.

The van’s door opens, another masked gang member blasting at the mercs as the cars struggle to stay neck and neck. A sharp pain lodges in V’s shoulder and she blows the man’s brains out in her next shot. Only the driver remains and she starts blasting without hesitation, knowing they can’t easily shoot back and has no more friends covering his ass. One last bullet connects with his temple, his body going limp and the van going onto the street, crashing into a building.

She breathes, blinking, heart still pounding in her chest. There’s blood still coming from her wounds and wind whipping around her as Jackie drives. She pulls herself back into the vehicle, bending a knee and keeping one foot in her seat with the other back on the floorboard, because she can’t be bothered to sit properly. She catches Jackie’s lips moving and flips her hearing aids back on.

“Ears were off, mind saying it again,” she signs and can’t help but shrink when she sees the glimmer of annoyance on his face, the tension of the situation no doubt making what’s usually a minor request feel a bit more aggravating.

“Are you okay? You need me to take you to Vik’s?”

The mark on her hip and bicep from earlier are minor, just scratches where bullets skimmed the skin. It's her shoulder that could warrant some concern. She flips on a light in the vehicle, craning her neck to get a better look at the injury. The entry wound isn’t too bad, low caliber, just some blood steadily weeping from her shoulder. V rolls and shifts her shoulder, a tightness to the movement. She touches around her shoulder blades, no exit wound. V rubs around the wound, feeling the injury. Something solid within her flesh, not far from the entry wound.

She knows Vik says not to remove the bullets, that it can cause more harm digging around in the wound, but if she leaves it the thing will annoy her forever. With adrenaline still spiked, heart still pounding and these injuries still feeling like stings at most, it will hurt more later than it will now. So, V digs her fingers into her own wound.

“What are you-”

V finds the bullet beneath her skin and digs her nails into it, ripping it from her flesh, bloodied metal now exposed. She rolls her shoulder, it’s bleeding a bit more, but the movement feels better, more free.

“ Jesus christo, V! Fuckin’ hate when you do that shit!”

V laughs at his reaction, her pisspoor first aid never failing to make Jackie uncomfortable, she tosses the bullet out of the window. She rubs her bloody fingers off on her pants, before pulling at her shirt, a little hole where the bullet struck.

“More bummed about my shirt than anything, Vik doesn’t need to see my mug tonight,” she signs, as if she doesn’t have a hundred more black crop tops.

“Fine, but don’t call me bitching if you’re hurting later tonight.”

“Oh, ‘cause you’re one to talk.” She signs quickly, whipping around in her seat to face him.

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Hijo de la chingada, V, Misty, this is it for me, I’m done for ahhhhh,” she whines aloud, dropping her tone and trying to mimic Jackie, grinning when he scrunches his face in response.

“I was sick!”

“Well, yeah, that’s what happens when you eat your weight in cheap-ass sushi!”

“It was all you can eat!”

“Pffft,” she sputters and squeals, laughing at his excuse, “Swear to god, Jack, only man I know who can take three bullets to the chest and keep going, but a tummy ache knocks you on your ass!”

“And you’re the only woman I-oh shit.”

Police lights cut across the bridge to Watson, a full police cordon blocking the way. At least four or five NCPD units standing between V and her bed. Because of fucking course they are. She groans and thunks her head  against the seat in frustration.

“Fuck me.”

“‘Preciate the offer, chica, but we gotta run that one by Misty first.” Jackie winks and she makes a gagging noise at him in return. But she’s unable to control the warmth the joke brings to her cheeks. That’s not a mental or emotional road she’s ready to venture down, she shuts the light off in the car, the last thing they need is pigs catching sight of the blood and deciding to give a shit.

Jackie slows the car down as they pull up to the blockade, he’s calmer than her, he’s been fast talking the NCPD his whole life. While no stranger to cops, they’ve been a more sporadic presence in the former nomad’s life, leaving her to fiddle with her choker. She turns off the translator tech, prepared to break out the puppy dog eyes and soft broken little voice if she has to.

A female officer saunters over to the driver’s side window, hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and silver cyberware etching her forehead and chin. Her eyes are hidden behind a pair of dark shades.

“Watson's on lockdown till further notice. Necessary security measure,” she explains to the mercs. V can’t help but eye the bulky security robots, ready to blast them to smithereens if the NCPD deem it ‘necessary’.

“Officer, ma'am! Damn are we ever lucky we ran into you,” Jackie greets the officer, turning up the charm.

“Really… What's it that makes me so special?”

“Uh, a heart of gold? 'Course only somebody with a heart of gold can understand just how much I need to get back to my girl.”

“Your… girl?”

“Hm… that's a shame.”

“C’mon, look at him,” V slings her forearm onto Jackie’s shoulder then rests her chin there, making puppy dog eyes at the officer, “no model citizen maybe, but he’s a good kid.” She pats his chest for added effect.  

There’s a grin pulling at Jackie’s lips and she struggles not to smile in return, wanting to laugh at the silliness of it all. The officer sighs and turns away from the pair, the two taking the moment to make faces at each other, trying to make the other break and laugh.

Let them through. But they're the last,” she turns back to the mercs and they try to force serious expressions, “OK, on your way.”

“You have a good evening, now, officer… ma'am,” Jackie nods and starts to drive through the blockade.

V pulls away from Jackie’s side, instantly feeling colder away from his warmth, she twists to look forward. Watching neon lights and city people walking by. Sometimes it feels surreal. Not minutes ago she was shooting gangoons in the back of a van. Not an hour or so ago, she was pulling a woman out of an ice filled tub. Yet, the world keeps spinning, couples and families walking down the same streets her and Jackie have nearly died in so many times. No, no storm clouds, if she digs that hole she’ll need an excavator to get back out.

“So, you can be nice when you feel like it,” she signs and talks, content to use her voice at the moment, just her and Jackie after all.

“When am I not nice?”

“Uhhh, always!”

“I'm always never not nice!”

“Puh-lease!”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Oh, Jackie, I can’t possibly talk around strangers, you, Misty, Mama Welles, and Vik are the only people I can talk with.  But the moment it’s time to pull out the wool over a pig’s eyes, suddenly, you’re real talkative!”

“Tone is an important tool in manipulation, my eyes can only do so much.”

“Keep that in mind when you beg me to order your food for you.”

“What? No!”

Jackie laughs, warm and deep in his chest at her offense at the mere notion of having to be in charge of ordering her own lunch from now on. It's just so much easier to have Jackie do it, waitresses are much more used to weirdness in Night City, but there’s still that odd little look when she starts signing and her translator tech does its thing. Jackie still laughs about the time he made her order the lunch over the phone and they hung up as soon as they heard the artificial voice, assuming it was some scam.

“Oh shit…” V says, soft and low as they pull up towards an intersection, two men holding guns aiming at  a driver’s side window, some poor bastard panicking behind the wheel.

“Outta the car! Now! C'mon! Ain't got all day!” The armed man screams at them and V’s fingers twitch to grab her iron. Then a large police aircraft vehicle comes flying in, lights flashing.

“Check it out, V. Shit's goin' down,” Jackie says, trying to hunch down behind the wheel, which does nothing to hide his six foot five form.

“Aa, shit, they're here!” One of the gang members yells and they’re screaming at each other to shoot. A small group of officers deploy from the aircraft vehicle, the led blue adornments to their uniform and odd helmets that cover their eyes tell her they’re MaxTac. The officers start firing back at the gangers.

“NCPD's apex predators at work, gonk out there nothing but a midday snack.”

“Wonder why they’re busting out MaxTac for this? Just looks like a regular carjacking to me.”

“Who knows, corpo behind the wheel? Got a quota to meet?”

“To put on a show of intimidation.”

“Might be onto something with that one,” the gangers are shot dead, bleeding out on the ground around the car they tried to jack, “welp, shows over.  Poor bastards… but they had it comin'.”

They pull away from the conflict, nothing but the hum of the radio playing as Jackie drives her home. Her leg is bounces softly in the floorboard, her fingers tapping at the window sill, occasionally catching the wind. The feeling she’s more accustomed to after gigs, a restlessness, adrenaline and energy boiling over. Maybe she won’t just drop once she gets home, no longer bone tired. Oddly enough, the shootout seems to have lifted her spirits. She’ll take a high stakes, high adrenaline car chase over the bone weariness ther rescue put her in.

Jake is in Heywood, so he won’t be able to get through the cordon. Cecelia is probably working at Tom’s Diner tonight. If she’s near the end of her shift, V might be able to score a lay and late night pancakes. Her mood is still a bit too sour to hit up a bar or club for a stranger, but still feeling the need to work through this energy and tension. She was dreaming of nothing more than hitting the pillow, seeing if she could sleep soundly tonight, but now she doesn’t think she’ll be able to sleep at all unless she gets some energy out.  She gets out her holophone and opens up Cecelia’s contact.

“Whatcha doing, jaina?”

“Texting Cecelia,” V shrugs, shoulder twinging in pain,  “y’know how it is.”

“Of course, shit gets the blood pumping, why you think I always got a date night planned after a big gig?”

“Thought that was so you could steal my car?” She teases, typing up her message to Cecelia but not sending it yet.

“That too, but after you nearly die, just gotta do something to feel alive.”

“I think we might just be perverts.”

“Eh, that too,” he laughs as they pull into her apartment complex’s parking garage, “we’re here.”

“What about you? Not likely to make it back to Heywood now…” She asks, holding her thumb over the send button, if Jackie can’t get back through he’ll be crashing at her place and she doubts he’s going to want to sleep on the couch listening to her and her fuckbuddy go at it.

“Chill, V. They'll let me through.”

“Sure about that?”

“Oh yeah. I'll play nice Jackie again,” he stops the car near the elevator doors, “go, have some fun, lord knows you need it.”

He sticks his hand out, V smacking her palm into his own, a quick shake then they bump their fists together. His hand practically engulfs her own, that foot and a half of size difference obvious even in the contrast of their hands. One of these days she’s going to strain her neck looking up to talk to him.

“Tell Misty I said ‘hi’.”

“I will. Ahí luego.”

Goodbyes said for the night, V grabs her mask from the backseat and steps out of the car, her joints and injury protesting the movement. Her combat boots stomp against the pavement as she calls up the elevator, giving a final wave to Jackie as he pulls out of the garage. She leans against the wall, on her good shoulder, sending the text to Cecelia.

V: you @ work???

The elevator dings and V steps inside, cringing at the sudden bright light of the elevator, a stark contrast to the dimness of the garage. Video screens play ads for energy drinks and cyberware; everything under the sun. Everything in neon bubblegum colors or horrific details, because shock value sells nearly as well as tits.  Her holo buzzes and V checks a text from T-Bug, the runner knows she’d rather text than call but the sudden message is strange nonetheless. Bug only reaches out when it has something to do with a job.

T-Bug: Forgot earlier,  a runner I know has something you could probably use. It's a runner shop outside of Kabuki.

For some reason she’s not shocked at all that Bug would text in full grammatically correct sentences. V can’t help but think the world would implode if T-Bug ever sent an emoji or emoticon.  But gifts are a little unusual for her, but for some reason the experienced netrunner is convinced she can teach V the craft.

V: thanx bug, thats sweet of ya~!

She’s promptly left on seen, no indication of Bug typing anything back,  and V can’t help but laugh. The more T-Bug acts skeeved out by her affection, the more she wants to tease her with it.

“Good evening, Night City!~”

The screens cut to Night After Night, the host Ziggy Q coming to sit at his desk, green hair and gold suit twinkling under his stage lights. V rarely watches this kind of thing or watches TV as a whole if she’s being honest, just more noise, but she finds herself unable to help watching as the elevator starts to move.

“My first guest for tonight is the president of The Church of El Yahu, The Last Emancipator and the bane of Arasaka’s PR department; one Reverend Colver.”

The camera cuts to an older man dressed in black and beige, seemingly lost among the neon pinks and yellows of the stage. He sits down on the plush magenta couch, nodding towards the host.

“Praise be to thee our Father in heaven.”

“And ouuur second guest is Karina Lee, host of the Chip In program, which promotes the use of cybernetic implants,” a woman with a thick dark afro of hair comes onto the stage, “ how’s life treating you beautiful?”

“Can’t complain, Ziggy,” Karina tells him, she looks much more in place than the Reverend as she sits down next to him,  bright clothes and heavy gold cyberward indented in her jaw, “thanks for having me.”

“Now, I’d like to have us talk about the most exclusive and highly sought after implant on the market today, Arasaka Corp’s Relic. But maybe we ought to make sure our fair audience is up to speed,” Ziggy says, waving a dramatic and manicured hand towards the camera before focusing back in on his guests, “Karina, what is the relic exactly? In a word, if you could?”

“In one word? I’d say, immortality.”

“Immortality? Really?”

V can’t help but roll her eyes at the dramatic wording and the over the top expressions the host makes. Nothing can make someone immortal, that's a pipe dream, even if it is possible it will never be feasible on a mass scale for anyone who isn’t rich. TV types always got to exaggerate, she figures.

“That’s right, the relic allows you to transfer the consciousness from a dying person, finding a new home for their soul on a transferrable chip. This person, they’ll never leave your side, a companion with you  forever in your own consciousness. Just imagine if-”

“Child, child-” the Reverend cuts her off, “think for a moment about what you’re saying! This relic is an abomination that feeds on human misery! It is an unnatural likeness, a golden calf born by false prophets! What’s more, this technology is just another tool of coercion and corruption, only the wealthy and powerful elite will have access. And they will pay any price in exchange for a chance at this so-called immortality. Arasaka speaks of preserving the soul but they can promise nothing more than a heartless, mindless, algorithm speaking with the voice of the departed.”

“Well, that is true that Arasaka Corp has specifically limited access to the relic in order to-”

“The promise is a lie,” the Reverend starts to stand, gesturing emphatically, “an evil lie, motivated by greed and lust for power-”

“HA, now that is rich,” Ziggy cuts off Colver’s ramblings with a laugh.

“Excuse me!?”

“False promises, greed, a lust for power,” Ziggy rolls his eyes, “well sounds an awful lot like a church to me!”

“Wha- how dare you?”

“Do you not promise a life after death? Do you not charge funeral fees to a family in mourning? Maybe the Reverend is just afraid of a little healthy competition, huh?”

“Competition,” the religious figure scoffs, “you believe everything in this world can be counted, measured, rationalized!”

“And wouldn’t we be right?” Karina interjects, “we can construct artificial brains, create new consciousnesses!”

“But I ask you why? What does that give us? Are we as a people on this earth any happier for it? You claim that this relic gives eternal life, but all I see is an eternity of suffering. Rather than say goodbye, we haunt ourselves with their voices, their presence, but-”

“What do you folks think? Who holds the truth, is it Ms. Lee or maybe Reverend Colver? That is up to you!” Ziggy gestures at a screen behind him, showing the two guests,  “Send Colver or Lee to 7892 to cast your vote and enter your name for a chance to win tickets to this year's playoffs! Until next time, Night City, toodles!~”

V sighs, as the program cuts out and more ads start to be blasted at her. The conversation a heavy one, now tinkering around in her skull. The idea of keeping a dead loved one around as an imaginary friend… she thinks of her mother instantly, the person whose death most gravely impacted her. If she had her mom still lingering around, sitting in her head, it sounds...strange. A part of her thinks she’d love it, to have her mother back, but eould she ever see it as her mother? Committing herself to a fantasy like that, it doesn’t sound healthy, at all. Death is natural, learning how to say goodbye is part of life, right? She can’t imagine her spending all her time talking to a ghost from the past.

Her holophone buzzes in her pocket and she realizes the elevator is on her floor, probably has been for a few minutes. She shakes her head, she doesn’t need anymore heavy shit in her skull. The relic has nothing to do with her, anyway. Wondering about what if’s and could be’s won’t get her anywhere. V gets her holophone from her pocket, a text from Cecelia, a much needed distraction and relief. She starts to text her regular hookup as she makes her way to her apartment.

Cecelia: Yeah, be off in an hour, why?

V: i have a proposition

Cecelia: ???

V: bring me pancakes and i make you cum ;)

V’s flirting skills continue to impress absolutely no one, but Cecelia is still into the merc,  so that’s really on her at this point.

Cecelia: Will you pay me back for the pancakes?

V: yee

Cecelia: Drop by your place around midnight, sound good?

V:  pls and thanx! :3

V slips the phone back into her pocket, opening her apartment door and slipping inside. She shuts the door behind and starts stripping off her clothes, she needs a shower before Cecelia gets here. The waitress probably wouldn’t be too excited to come in and see V covered in a layer of sweat and blood.  Clothes off she takes her hearing aids out and puts them on her desk before she makes the beeline for her shower.

She cranks the water up as hot as possible and steps under, her shoulder and scratches sting, but she focuses her energy on washing the blood and sweat away. V washes through her hair, muscles relaxing at the feeling of hot water pouring down on her, the smell of rose scented shampoo and conditioner lingering in the air as she washes.

She’s tempted to touch herself under the water, her soap slick thighs clenching together. It's tempting, still just riding that adrenaline high, it’d be nice to find some relief. But the bullet wound in her shoulder should be attended to first, she dug the bullet out in the car, but the injury still could use some first aid. She didn’t have anything to stitch it closed and she’s not sure it’d be the smartest idea to stitch herself in a moving car, not that she hasn’t done it before.

V shuts off her shower, ignoring her swollen clit and the tension in her core. She steps out of the water and stands in front of her bathroom sink, her reflection showing in the mirror. The merc grabs her first aid kit, getting out the stuff she needs to suture her shoulder.

Vik will bitch at her for it later, call her work shoddy, but she’s been taking care of her own injuries for years.  She doesn’t need to run to him for every little thing. She pats it dry first, leaving pink stains on her bathroom towel, then she pours some antiseptic peroxide on it. A curse on her lips at the sharp sting, she cringes and takes a deep breath, preparing the needle and suture. The needle pulls through her skin with a harsh pain, as she pulls her skin back together with a quick crude stitch.

Content with her oh so shoddy work, she finishes drying off and leaves the bathroom, dropping her dirty clothes in a laundry hamper to be mended and washed later. She checks the time on her holo, still thirty or so minutes before Cecelia said she’d drop in. V throws on an oversized black tee shirt and a pair of shorts it completely covers. Her skin feels warm, still smells like roses and honey, something about the warm cozy feeling makes that little fire inside come back.  She clenches her thighs together again, mentally cursing her sex drive, libido, hormones, whatever it is that makes it so she can put a needle through her bloodied skin and still want to cum immediately after.

There's a skip in her step as she rushes to scoop her phone and hearing aids off her desk, putting them on the little circular table next to her bed instead, so they’re easily in reach. Then she plops herself onto her bed, atop the covers and blankets, she sinks into them. She feels warm, skin soft and clean to the touch. When she stretches slightly in her bed, she feels a soft sound leaving her lips.

Her breasts feel soft under her shirt, squeezing and groping herself over her clothes. Sensitive pierced nipples stiffening under the fabric, she pinches them lightly, whimpering at the pressure. She presses her head back against her pillow, biting her lip as she puts a hand underneath her shirt, teasing her breast directly, playing with her piercings.  Each touch makes her slicker, makes her clit swell and beg to be touched.

V shoves a hand down into her shorts, pushing two fingers through the lips of her wet cunt. She presses them against her clit, groaning as she begins to rub, quick messy circles. Focused on just getting there, a harsh pressure and quick pace, squirming her hips against her own hand as she builds herself up. Pleasure pools in her center, building upon itself, growing higher and higher with each stroke of her clit.

A blue light goes off, strobing and bright enough to illuminate the room. Her phone buzzes on the side table with a notification. Someone knocking on her door, she wipes her slick fingers off on her thigh and quickly puts her hearing aids in.

“V!~ It’s Cece!” The older woman’s voice rings out and V jogs to the door, feeling like she’s about to combust.

She opens the door and Cecelia quickly steps inside. V hates the diner uniform, a yellow dress and apron. But Cecelia manages to be beautiful in anything, why on earth she wants anything to do with V is beyond the merc’s comprehension. She’s tall, though nearly everyone towers over V to some extent, with a cute shaggy pixie cut of dark hair. Olive skin with a dusting of freckles and amber eyes, far too beautiful to be rolling around in bed with some nomad turn street punk.

“I got extra honey and syrup for-”

She’s cut off by V’s lips in the middle of explaining what’s in the little white diner container. Her words dying on the merc’s tongue, V presses in deep, tasting all she can of Cecelia’s mouth, finding the taste of coffee and cigarettes awaiting her. A bitter taste, one she despises, but she ignores for the sake of her own lust. She presses the taller woman against the closed door, hands grabbing at the curve of Cecelia’s hips, pulling up on the dress of her uniform.

“V, V,” Cecelia breaks away from the kiss, panting, “you're gonna crush your pancakes.”

V rolls her eyes, taking the container from Cecelia’s hands and quickly placing it on her computer desk. Then she’s shoving a hand under the waitress uniform, Cecelia keening as V slips her hand into the older woman’s panties. The merc buries her face into her partner’s neck, licking, sucking and biting at her skin as she works her fingers against her clit. V braces her other hand against the door, sharply biting the expanse of skin against her lips. She gazes up at her fuckbuddy, the woman’s head thrown back against the door as she whimpers, V’s hand doesn’t stop working. She rubs the same two fingers she had on herself just moments before over Cecelia’s clit, the bundle of nerves swollen and slick. The merc’s hand is soaked in it already, she finds herself wondering if she’d find a puddle on her apartment floor if she looked down.

“You’re smoking again,” V whispers against Cecelia’s neck, marveling at the bruises her teeth have left behind. She knows the effect her voice has in these moments, so rarely heard by Cecelia, and when it is it’s husk with lust.

“So-” V twists her wrists and sinks those two fingers inside, “sorry, I fuck, V, stre-fuck-stressful day, I fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“That hardly seems fair, what did I taste like?” V pumps her fingers steadily, feeling slick run down her wrist.

“Li-aH, ah, uh, honey, you ta-taste like h-oney, al-always do~!” Her hips squirm to meet V’s thrusting fingers, trying to chase her own pleasure.

“So, you get honey and I get to lick the inside of an ashtray?”

“I sa-said,” V adds a third finger, speeding up her movement, “Fuck, I’m sorry!’

“Hmmm, I don’t think sorry cuts it here, Cece.” V starts to rub her thumb clumsily over Cecelia’s clit, watching the woman moan and squirm. Her thighs are vice tight around V’s wrist, teeth sinking into her lip. She’s close.

“V, fuck please, I, fu-uck!” She whines and pleads, V’s not even sure what for, if it’s too much or not enough.

“Fine, I’ll forgive ya, but I gotta get the taste out of my mouth first.”

V drops to her knees, yanking Cecelia’s underwear down to her ankles just to bury her face between the older woman’s thighs. The merc uses her hands to keep her partner’s legs spread and gives a heavy messy lick of Cecelia’s clit, ensuring her tongue piercing makes contact with the sensitive nerves. Already built up to near orgasm, Cecelia screams out, the lick sending her right over the edge. Slick gushes onto V’s mouth and chin, coating her tongue in a heavy layer that she swallows before she starts licking again. Pubic hair scratches at her nose as she laps and licks at Cecelia’s cunt. Licking her through orgasm and prolonging it into another, and another, drawing the high out with every lave of her tongue. Cecelia squirms and thrust her hips, sloppily humping against the merc’s face, she knots her fingers in V’s bleach blonde hair. It becomes too much, orgasms drawn out to long, tears forming at the corner of Cecelia’s eyes.

“St-stop!”

V pulls away instantly, face a flushed mess of slick and lust. She slowly pulls away from Cecelia, standing up, the taller woman’s knees are buckled and she’s leaning all her weight against the door. The two pant, each catching their breath and V looks down on the floor, her suspicions confirmed at the wet droplets, Cecelia managing to drip down onto the wood.

“I, uh, take it you’re a little worked up tonight?”

V makes a wiggly ‘kind of’ hand gesture, winking at Cecelia, smirking. She can’t help but feel a sense of pride looking at Cecelia; panting, neck marked, underwear around her ankles, and still dripping.

“That taste better than cigarettes?” Cecelia asks, smiling and still out of breath as she kicks off her heels and  steps out of her panties towards V. She cups V’s slick sodden chin, amber eyes soft as she brushes her thumb across the younger woman’s bottom lip.

“Much.”

Then their lips connect again, the sweetness of slick cutting down on the bitter taste of Cecelia’s bad habit. They lick into each other’s mouth, press into each other, pull away slightly; all to fall back into it. V starts pulling at the buttons of Cecelia’s uniform, revealing inch after inch of cleavage. She pushes it down off the older woman’s shoulders, leaving her in nothing but a bra. Heavy breasts surrounded by black lace, but only for a moment then V’s greedy hands unhook it, pulling the last bit of fabric from Cecelia’s body.

“On the bed,” V signs and speaks, words slurred with desire.

Cecelia gives a soft laugh and V discretely scratches at her hearing aid, the device starting to rub the inside of her ear raw, sex sweat irritating it. This type of tech became completely waterproof millennia ago, but they can still chafe. Refocusing her attention, she stares at Cecelia laying down in her bed. A beautiful face is no doubt what first drew her eye to the waitress, but Cecelia’s curvy soft figure was next. Large breasts that spill over most of her bras, a soft stomach, and thick thighs. A contrast to V’s own body, the merc more petite and curves more...subtle.

V doesn’t hesitate another moment, straddling Cecelia’s waist, the older woman’s hands instinctively reading for the merc’s hips. A twinge of pain when Cecelia’s unknowingly brushes against the small injury there, V ignores it in favor of pulling her shirt off over her head, throwing it onto the floor. She expects eyes raking over her small pert breasts, a look of desire in Cecelia’s eyes. But finds concern instead, fingers reach out to V’s shoulder, nearly brushing the crude stitches.

“What hap-”

V grabs Cecelia’s wrists and pins them to the bed, burying her lips into the older woman’s neck again. She sucks and bites, hoping the action gets her point across; don’t touch that, don’t ask that, don’t push. V likes fucking Cecelia. They are fuckbuddies, but Cecelia has a way of asking questions, wanting to know more beyond how skilled the merc is with her tongue. So, she has to steer it back on course, latching her mouth around one of Cecelia’s breasts, sucking and licking at her nipple. Cecelia moans and whimpers when V teases her chest, giving the other breast the same treatment and pulling off with a wet pop.

“Fuck, point made, V,” Cecelia swallows hard, “you still have any straps laying around?”

“Want me to fuck you with it?”

“No, uh, wanna watch you ride it”

V’s never scrambled so fast to get her toy box out from under her bed, a little chilled at leaving Cecelia’s warmth, she pulls her treasure trove out. She chooses a toy, essentially double sided and strap strap on. One end is a vibrating bulb likes shape and the other a dildo. V strips off her shorts before clambering back onto the bed. She lightly taps Cecelia’s thigh, licking her lips when the brunette spreads them for her.  The ribbed bulb slides easily inside of Cecelia and her high pitched whine lets V know it’s doing its job, pressing on the g-spot, when theyfuck it should grind against her clit too. Once inside, the rest of the toy sticks out, making it look like Cecelia has a slick black silicon cock.

Then V turns the vibration on, Cecelia screaming out as it buzzes and vibrates inside of her. V can’t help but laugh at her overstimulated and sensitive partner, she pins Cecelia’s hands back down to the mattress and straddles her. Her wet neglected cunt hovering just over the vibrating dildo, she kisses at Cecelia’s jaw. The brunette’s eyes are closed tightly, face contorted in pleasure as the toy works it’s magic.

“Thought you wanted to watch me?” V teases, smirking against Cecelia’s skin, then sinks down on top of the toy.

V whines and whimpers as the vibrating toy fills her, Cecelia grabbing her hips, amber eyes now firmly watching the blonde. Moans and squeals echo throughout the room. V fucks herself on the toy, Cecelia’s hips thrusting up to meet the movement, slamming the toy further into her each time. They’re both sensitive, Cecelia from being overstimulated since she walked in the room and V from neglecting her own needs until now.  Heavy squelching noises ring out where the toy plunges in and out of V’s cunt; mixing with the buzzing of the toy  and the clap of their flesh meeting on each thrust. There’s a tension in V’s center that grows tighter and tighter inside of her, pleasure building upon pleasure. Each slide of the toy inside of her brings her closer and closer to her end.

She lets go of Cecelia’s wrists, the hunched over position getting uncomfortable, V shifts her hands back onto the brunette’s legs, leaning back to support her weight that way. Then Cecelia thrusts, angle slightly changed and hitting impossibly deep, too much, too much. The tension snaps and V’s overwhelmed by pleasure, she bounces on the toy through her orgasms, yelling out as she rides out the waves of ecstasy.

A soft whine leaves V’s lips, when she starts to come down and the buzzing toy is too much, Cecelia looks about ready to pass out and V realizes there’s no way all the slick where they connect is from her.  The merc whimpers pulling off of the toy and turning off it’s vibrations, earning a sound from Cecelia who gasps when V gently pulls it out.

The toy is soaked; their thighs and the bed where their hips met too. Too tired to care about organization right now, V casually throws the toy to the side, she’ll clean and store it properly later. She instead collapses next to Cecelia, the two gathering their breath.

She’s not sure how much time passes, just laying next to Cecelia, but V’s heart rate and breathing calms down. Ther merc yawns, her ears hurt worse now. But, the orgasm was worth it. Her stomach is starting to hurt too.

“Your pancake are probably cold by now,” Cecelia tells her with a laugh and-

Oh fuck, V forgot her pancakes. She jumps out of bed, stumbling on her way to grab her food

“Did you just trip over a used dildo?”

“Not answering that.”

V brings the food back to the bedside table,  throwing her oversized shirt back on, before climbing into bed with her meal. She folds her legs and sits the meal in her lap, facing the side of the bed with Cecelia sitting next to her.

“You mind if I borrow some sleep clothes?”

V gives a thumbs up, opening her food container, her stomach growls and she realizes she hasn’t eaten since probably noon. Cecelia got her a stack of pancakes covered in honey, maple syrup, and whip cream. Even a little carton of milk packed tightly in with the food, probably her attempt to keep V from drinking too much Nicola.

“I assume that also means you’re okay with staying the night? Marlow’s at her dad’s this week, so the apartment’s kind of lonely…”

Another thumbs up, taking a big bite of food as Cecelia starts to look through her closet. Anything that fits V properly will be too tight on the brunette, but V’s collection of oversized sleep shirts should be fine. The merc watches half heartedly as Cecelia pokes through the old tees, already having devoured half of her pancake stack.

“Samurai?” Cecelia raises an eyebrow, looking at a bagging black and red shirt, the one she kept that originally belonged to Ava, “you listen to dad rock?”

“Not mine, don’t wear that one!”  V quickly signs with one hand, sometimes she wears it and can still convince herself it still  smells like her old love… She doesn’t want it smelling like anyone else and maybe that’s stupid, maybe that’s weird, she doesn’t know or care. It means something to her. She doesn’t know or give a fuck about the band on it, some shitty punk group no ones given a damn about in years, but it belonged to Ava. That’s what matters.

“Okay, no problem,” Cecelia seems to understand, not noticing or at the very least not mentioning V’s odd tension around it. She instead throws on an oversized white shirt before coming back to the bed.

The shirt on V reaches past her knees, but on Cecelia it hits around the mid thighs. V feels the brunette’s warmth as their sides touch, sitting close together. V shoves another chunk of pancakes in her mouth, nearly inhaling it.

“At least drink some milk, you and that friend of yours are the worst about chewing your food. I swear, I’ve seen you both choke five or six times in one meal.”

V nods and grabs the little carton of milk, her stomach dropping when she sees the back of it. A woman’s face stares back at her, a little different, more cleaned up and hair on her head,  but still bone chillingly familiar. Sandra Dorsett, a little message under her picture asking if anyone’s seen her.

“Something wrong, V?” Cecelia puts a hand on her back, rubbing gentle circles, then her eyes fall on the carton, “you know her?”

V shakes her head, because she doesn’t, not really. And even then, it's a moot point, the ad is old and Sandra is safe now… probably.  Not like V actually knows, she could have died in the Trauma Team vehicle, before they even made it to the hospital. And god only knows what the long term effects will be and she’s the lucky one.

“Well, they found her, from what I heard.”

V raises an eye at Cecelia, turning to face her a bit more.

“Caught it on the news just before I clocked out, they haven’t released the footage of the rescue yet, but apparently she was pulled out of some Scavenger hideout. Trauma Team got her and say she’s going to make a full recovery, so, good news…” She drags it out, like she’s testing V’s reaction trying to see if she can get anything from the merc.

“It’s good,” V signs, Cecelia’s eyes falling to the mercs hands, “but, you know Scavengers… there was probably twenty, thirty more bodies there, left to rot because they didn’t have enough money for Trauma to care.”

“Yeah, it's fucked but, hey, one person is better than none.”

“I guess… I hear even the people who get saved are fucked up afterwards. They don’t remember anything, until something triggers a flashback and next thing they know they feel like the worlds crashing in on them.”

“Won’t be easy, for sure, I can’t even imagine what that poor girl has gone through, but people are resilient.”

“Got to be,” V signs, chewing her lip, “the world’d eat them alive otherwise.”

“You got a good heart, V, you know that?” Cecelia tells her, tucking a strand of hair back behind the merc’s.

“Gross.”

“Yes, yes, I know, big bad merc can’t have feelings, fear her, blah blah blah,” Cecelia rolls her eyes and V blows a raspberry at her. Then stands to put what’s left of the food on the side table, the brief moment of vulnerability putting her off her pancakes. Cecelia always manages to pry something from her.

“Let's get to sleep, before I kill you,” she signs, then gestures to Cecelia to get to bed.

Cecelia curls up with V’s pillow, nestling into the sheets while V pulls out her hearing aids, rubbing at the raw skin. Putting her hearing aids back down, she sees the text notification on her phone. From Jackie, the message is short enough to display in the preview window.

Jackie: got big news, chica! B-I-G BIG!!! talk to you in the morning, hehehe!~

V lets out a huff of air, smiling and rolling her eyes all at once. He’s dramatic, always has been. His idea of big news is probably some new restaurant he found, maybe he won some eddies on a boxing match.  She shakes her head and puts the phone aside for now, crawling under the covers. Cecelia lifts an arm, allowing V to curl up close with her head on Cecelia’s chest as she drifts off to sleep.

[beelsnack]

Hi! I love your blog❣ Can I request a brother + undatables ( if you do that) reaction with a very obedient mc? Like they do everything they've been asking and stuff? Thank you in advance!❣❣

Aw, thanks a bunch, Nonnie! This will be a good test for me, since I usually end up writing snarky characters who fight authority. I hope you like it!

I’m going to stick this under a cut because it, uh, got away from me a little bit. I didn’t even do all of the undateables and I was over 3k. ^^”

Lucifer: “I’m sorry to keep piling tasks on you.”

With a grunt, the human set the heavy stack of books down on the table in Lucifer’s study. “It’s alright, I don’t mind.”

Lucifer let his professional mask slip for just a second to smile warmly at them. “If only my brothers were as agreeable as you.”

“At least they provide entertainment.” they laughed. “What are all these books, anyway?”

“Old spell books,” he removed the top book off of the stack, unleashing a cloud of dust that sent the human into a coughing fit. “In desperate need of some maintenance.”

“That sounds more like Satan’s territory.” they rasped as the couching subsided.

“It usually is, but I don’t need to give him any more ideas for his curses.” despite his words, there was a glint of fond humor is his eyes. “If you aren’t busy, could you give me a hand with these?”

“Sure!” they took a seat in the armchair across from Lucifer. “I’ve been studying all day, so I ind of need a break.”

“Oh? An dutiful helper and a diligent student?” he hummed, smoothing out the crease of a page that had been marked with a dog-ear. “I may just have to reward you.”

“What kind of reward?”

“Hm...” he pinned them with a heavily-lidded stare. “Anything you want. What kind of reward do you desire?”

“...Ice cream!”

Lucifer couldn’t hold back his surprised snort before he quickly devolved into laughter. “My, but you do know how to surprise me, my dear. Very well, a trip to Madam Scream’s as a reward, then.”

Mammon: They looked really tired.

“Come on, it’ll be fun! Promise!” Asmo was tugging insistently on their sleeve like a child begging for their parent’s attention. “You’ve never been to a club like the Fall, I guarantee it. It’s the perfect place to get up to something naughty ~”

Alright, that’s it.

“Oi, Asmo!” Mammon rounded on the other demon. “Quit trying to drag the human along with your gross BS!”

“Oh, but it’s fine when you do it?” Asmo shot back, amber eyes narrowing. “At least I’m not conning people out of cash.”

“Whatever!” Mammon grabbed onto the human’s upper arm, shaking Asmo’s hands off of their sleeve. “Come on, human, I need you to help me with somethin’.”

“Whoa, okay, um...maybe next time Asmo.” they managed to get out before Mammon dragged them into his room and slammed the door.

He was muttering under his breath so quickly and quietly that the human could just barely make out a few phrases. “...fuckin’ Asmo...advantage of...where does he get off...”

“Uh, Mammon?” they asked hesitantly. “You said you needed my help with something?”

“Huh?” he whipped around, looking slightly startled. “Oh. Nah, I was just sayin’ that so Asmo would let you go.”

They blinked, tilting their head like a puppy. “Why would you do that?”

“Come on, human, don’t lie to me,” he rolled his eyes, hands on hips. “You don’t want to go clubbing after spending the day running around like Lucifer’s little servant, do ya? You look like you’re about ready to pass out.”

Instinctively, their hand shot up to beneath their eyes, where there were some pretty prominent bags. “...Do I look that bad?”

Mammon flinched. “No! That’s not - I didn’t mean - ya look tired!” he scratched at the back of his neck. “It’ll look bad on me if you keel over from exhaustion, and since you can’t seem to say no to anyone, I’m gonna have to do it for you!”

For a moment, they just stared at him. Then, slowly, a big grin spread across their face and they stepped forward to wrap their arms around his middle. They only came up to his collarbone, and he was suddenly very aware of this fact.

“Thank you, Mammon.”

“F-For what?”

They laughed, squeezing him a little bit tighter. “For looking out for me.”

He stilled for a moment before resting his chin on top of their head and returning the hug. “’S my job, ain’t it?”

Leviathan: Knock-knock-knock.

“What’s the password?”

“I’ve got your Akuzon order.”

Levi practically ripped his door off of the hinges as he flung it open. “Yes! Thank you, thank you, omg!” he was already ripping the box open, leaving the door open in his excitement.

“What did you get?” the human asked, poking their head in the doorway.

“The anime adaptation for I’m A Human Who Accidentally Enrolled In A University For Monsters But They’re The Only School That Has My Major So I Guess I’ll Stick It Out! Anime based off of dating sims usually aren’t that great, but I loved the game so much!”

They laughed. “We played it together, remember? We had that big debate on the order we should do the routes.”

“Right, yeah, we did!” Levi paused for a moment, looking down at the cover, and then back up at the human with a slightly blush on his cheeks. “Hey, um…since you went and picked it up for me, and, like, you were just as into the game as I was, so…maybe, um, you would want to watch it with me?”

“Really?” they blinked. “You sure?”

“Yeah, marathons are always better with friends.” Levi was already popping the first disk in. “Hey, go get some snacks!”

Satan: “Oh, you’re still working?”

The human glanced down at him from their position at the top of the ladder, smiling sheepishly. “Yeah, it’s taking me a bit longer than I thought.”

Lucifer has asked them to clean the library earlier that day. Well, not just them - Mammon was supposed to help, but he had oh-so-conveniently remembered that he had something else very urgent that he needed to take care of. So, here they were, five hours later.

Honestly, the library wasn’t even that dirty. But it was quite a large room, far too large for a human to clean by themself.

Satan sighed, shaking his head. “Well, it’s a good thing I made a pit stop on the way home, then.” he set down the cardboard drink carrier in his hands. “Come down for a moment, will you?”

“Ah, yeah, just give me a sec.”

Satan heard the slight clattering of wood against wood, and looked up to the the ladder swaying slightly. The human was carefully picking their way down, seemingly painfully aware of the instability.

“Oh, here, I’ve got it.” one hand on the side of the ladder was enough to steady it, and he heard them let out a sigh of relief as they clambered down the rest of the way.

“Thanks, Satan.” they said as their feet touched the ground. “I didn’t realize it was shaking until I was already on it.”

“Mention it to Lucifer, he’ll do something about it.” Satan replied, brushing a bit of dust out of their hair. “Come on, I brought you some coffee.”

They followed him over to the table, and their eyes lit up when they saw the logo on the bag. “Starbats! Yes, thank you so much!”

“Did I get your order right?” he asked, plucking his own drink out of the carrier. “I was pretty sure, but…”

“Perfect, as always.” they beamed. “You’re the best, Satan.”

“Hey, come on, now,” there was a faint blush on his cheeks. “You’re the one who does everything around here. Buying you coffee is the least I can do.”

Asmodeus: “Well? How did it turn out?”

The human stared at their D.D.D, brow furrowed in concentration as they studied the picture they had just taken. Asmo had texted them frantically, telling them to hurry because the light in his room was just perfect for a photoshoot and he needed a full-body shot.

“I mean, it looks good to me, but you’ve nixed every shot I’ve taken so far…”

“Let me see it then,” he hopped up from the chaise lounge that he had elegantly draped himself over. His silk bathrobe just barely covered all of the essential parts, and the human had to make it a point not to stare. Not that Asmo would mind in the slightest, but still.

“This is it, darling, this is the one!” he pressed an affectionate kiss to the side of their head. “You’re a quick learner, I knew it. Text this to me, okay? I’ll tag you on Devilgram, promise!”

“Glad I could help.” they laughed as they began making their way out of Asmo’s room.

“Hm…wait a minute.”

The paused just in front of the door. Maybe there was an issue with the picture after all? They bit at their lip, ready to question Asmo, but he pressed his deceivingly strong hands against their shoulders and shoved gently.

“Go stand by the window for a second…mm, no, not quite, sit down for me…”

Confused, they obeyed his orders. They placed themself on the window seat, one of those fancy three paneled setups with a bench in the middle.

Out of habit, they turned to look out the window. Asmo was right, it was pretty out. The full moon cast a silvery glow over everything, but it was low enough in the lavender sky that it cast long, creepily elegant shadows all over the garden below. The whole landscape just screaming Gothic novel.

For just a moment, they forgot about Asmo and turned fully to gaze out at the scenery. The Devildom was always pretty in a morose sort of way, but very rarely did they get the chance to appreciate it. They shifted to get more comfortable on the window seat, pulling their knee to their chest and wrapping their arms around it while the other foot kept their balance on the floor.

“Perfect!”

When they whipped around in shock, Asmo was grinning victoriously. “Look, look, this is perfect!”

“Did…did you just take a picture of me?”

“Mhm!” Asmo bounded over to their side and handed them his D.D.D. When had he picked it up? His robe didn’t have pockets. Shaking their head, they looked down at the photo.

“...Oh wow…”

“Right?” Asmo cooed. “Don’t you look absolutely stunning? That longing stare, the way you smile, you look like the protagonist in a paranormal romance”

They blinked down at the picture. “Can…you text this to me?”

“Of course, darling.” he said. “Oh, but let me post it to Devilgram, okay? I want everyone to be jealous of me.”

He plucked his phone out of their hands, stealing a quick kiss from their lips.

“Well call this a reward for being good and obeying orders, okay?”

Beelzebub: “Where are we going?”

It was their lunch hour at RAD, but Beel was taking them in the opposite direction. He had asked the human to come with him, but hadn’t explained where they were going. He had just linked their hands together and smiled down at them, saying it was a surprise.

Finally, he pushed open a door that lead to one of the many internal courtyards. Rose bushes scented the air around them, and a stone path led to the middle of the courtyard where a gazebo stood. As they approached, they saw an amazing array of food spread out on a blanket.

“Beel…?”

“My brothers had you running around the whole weekend.” he said, running his thumb over the back of their knuckles. “You were so busy last night you didn’t get to make your lunch for today. So I asked Barbatos to make lunch for us.”

“Aw, Beel!” they wrapped their arms around his middle and squeezed. “You’re so sweet. Thank you for taking care of me.”

“I should be thanking you for taking care of us.” Beel hugged them bag, almost painfully gently so as not to squish them. “My brothers don’t appreciate you nearly as much as they should.”

“It’s fine, Beel, I don’t mind it.”

“I do, though.”

They backed away from the hug a little to look up at Beel, brows furrowed. They were about to say something, but, as usual, the moment was interrupted by a growl from his stomach. The confused expression broke into a grin, and they rejoined their hands, tugging him forward. “Come on, let’s eat.”

Belphegor: Finally, they were alone.

It was rare that Belphegor got to spend any alone time with the human. It almost made him miss being hidden away in the attic, if only for the privacy. But, today was apparently his lucky day, because when he had finally managed to drag himself out of bed, he stumbled - quite literally, he was struggling to keep both eyes open - into the human on their way back to their room.

“I mean, I’m going to be studying, but if you want to come over, you can.”

“You say that like I’m not going to be sleeping.”

They laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners. He really liked their laugh, especially when it was genuine.

He was almost home free. They had just made it up the stairs when -

“There you are!”

…Damn it.

“Oh, hey Asmo.” they greeted the other demon, smiling at him. “What’s up?”

“I left my makeup bag at RAD!” Asmo wailed like someone had just kicked his pet hell hound. “I have a date tonight, and I need to get in the bath, which you know is a solid two hour process. Do you think you could be a dear and run and grab it for me?”

The human was going to agree. Belphie could see it in their eyes. They didn’t want to, clearly, but that naturally agreeable disposition usually won out in these scenarios.

“Go get it yourself, Asmo.” he drawled, draping himself over their shoulder. “You’re a grown demon, aren’t you?”

“But - “

Belphegor straightened up from his perpetual slouch, one hand remaining on the human’s shoulder while he shouldered his way past Asmo. His shrieks of irritation were abruptly cut off when Belphie slammed the door to the human’s room behind him.

“What was that for, Belphie?” the human asked.

“You were going to do it.” he shrugged. “Even though you didn’t want to.”

“Well…”

Belphie made his way over to the bed, flopping down on his side with an oh-so-graceful thwump. “I don’t understand you sometimes.”

“I don’t understand me sometimes either.” they sighed, folding their arms. “It’s like, I feel guilty for saying no even if I’m perfectly within my rights. I don’t know why.”

“Eh…” Belphie hummed, sitting up a little bit. “Well, since you can’t seem to say no, I might as well take advantage of that.”

They recoiled a little bit at the wording, but he continued, opening his arms. “Let me cuddle you.”

For a moment, they were silent, and Belphie worried he might have put his foot in it. But, slowly, a smile tugged at their lips, and they clambered into bed with him. With a soft, contented sigh, they snuggled against his chest.

“It’s about time someone else took care of you, you know?”

Diavolo: “Lucifer needs to stop making you deliver his reports for him.”

The human laughed as they handed Diavolo they manila folder containing Lucifer’s paperwork. “I don’t mind it. The scenery at the castle is amazing to look at, it gives me an excuse to walk around a little bit.”

Diavolo grinned down at them. “Always so positive! You truly do brighten the room, my dear.” his molten gold eyes shined with a bit of mischief as he extended an arm to them. “Shall I make the trip worth your while? If you love the scenery near the entrance, you’ll be absolutely enchanted with everything else.”

“Oh,” their eyes widened slightly. “Is that alright?”

“Of course,” he beamed when they hesitantly linked their arm through his. “Honestly, you have enough on your plate without Lucifer using you as a mule.”

“I told you, Lord Diavolo, I don’t mind it.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” he replied, leading the two of them through a door that lead to a courtyard with a rose maze. “But I didn’t bring you here to be a servant. It’s unworthy of him to take advantage of your agreeable nature, even if he doesn’t realize he’s doing it.”

“I mean…” they glanced around the courtyard, avoiding Diavolo’s painfully earnest eyes. “The brothers let me stay at the House of Lamentation, so helping out wherever I can is the least I can do, isn’t it?”

“It’s not like you’re intruding.” there was a hint of laughter in Diavolo’s voice as he expertly guided the two of them through the maze. “You were deposited here with nothing but the clothes on your back, the fact that you’re thinking about paying them back is astonishing.”

He paused. They had reached the center of the maze, stopping just beneath a great stone statue of what the human assumed was a previous king, or maybe even the current one. Diavolo turned to face them and took their hand in his large one, bringing their knuckles to his lips while never breaking eye contact.

“It’s one of the many things I find so charming about you.”

[inkribbon796]

Dr. Strangelove and Ticking Timebombs Ch. 2: Slippery Fingers

Summary: A strange container, strange meet-ups and zero coincidences.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3

When the heroes got to the warehouse, they were stopped by the bomb squad and several individuals in full hazmat gear walking around. Abe was sitting on a bench and rubbing his temples, Oliver was standing next to him. His vape in his hand.

Which surprised Logan because Oliver usually didn’t travel this far from the base.

“What happened, did the situation get worse?” Logan asked.

“You could say that,” Abe rubbed his face and stood up. “I was planning on showing you what was in that container in person, but Bing was in some camera feed and he called Brighton’s Health and Safety, and they came with fucking hazmat suits. Then he came in and started clearing people out.”

“Why?” Logan asked in confusion.

“Lo,” Bing shot out of the closest electrical panel, “there you are. An’ Marvin, perfect, I was about ta call you.”[1]

“Yeh wanted me an’ Logic?”[2] Marvin asked in confusion.

“Yeah,” Bing answered. “So you can’t go inta the warehouse, they’re still sortin’ out the pitchblende an’ findin’ what else got contaminated.”[3]

“Excuse me, did you say “pitchblende” why is that here?” Logan demanded.

“What’s pitchblende?” Tommy asked

“It’s a radioactive ore,” Logan explained. “Uranium-235 and Uranium-238 can both be synthesized from the ore to build nuclear reactors, but why is it here?”

“Why are you guys here then?” Silver asked.

“Well the ship’s manifesto caused some red flags to get raised,” Abe answered. “Some good Samaritan called the cops and pulled the container to the side. But instead of there being people in the cargo, there were some crates. And one of them was a lead box full of what Bing identified as pitchblende. He was watching us through some camera because he was bored, or some shit. And I’m glad he did because he saw what was in the box when my partner lifted some of it out and he cleared all of us out instantly. He was looking out for us.”

“Do we know where this shipment was supposed to go after it reached port?” Logan asked.

“Apparently a truck was supposed ta[4] come fer[5] it last night,” Bing answered. “But they pulled the container an’[6] no one saw a truck pull up fer[5] it. So I bet it scared ‘em[7] off.”

“I believe you might be right,” Logan decided. Then he looked at Abe. “Was there a name orva destination?”

“Just a name, a Tuberculosis Gadget,” Abe read with the type of smile he usually had just before he hit someone . . . typically that someone was Wilford. “I’ve seen some bad fake names, but this one is pretty up there.”

“Tuberc—” Tommy repeated in recognition.

Which immediately got Abe and Logan’s attention.

“That name ring a bell, kid?” Abe asked.

“I’m not a kid,” Tommy shot back.

“Whatever big guy,” Abe rolled his eyes. “Do you know the name or not?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know why it would show up here,” Tommy shrugged. “Don’t know what Tubs would want with somethin[8] radioactive. He’s a lawyer, not some crazy maniac.”

“Does he have other aliases, do you know this individual’s name?” Logan demanded.

Tommy hesitated for a second before he opened his mouth, but Ghostbur had started glancing around, half bored and half unable to put his concentration on any one thing for too long.

As the other heroes were trying to get information from Tommy, Ghostbur spotted two people off in the distance, watching them. He was so excited he spoke without thinking. “Tubbo? Hey Big Man, look, it’s Tubbo and Jack.”

The heroes looked at the two people just inside the cordoned off area. One was a man with a shaved head and red and blue glasses, the other was a much shorter man with a fluffy vest and brown hair that covered his eyes and most of the burns on his face. The second figure had a set of curled goat horns coming from his forehead.

“Tubbo?” Logan repeated in surprise, recognizing the burns.

Abe startled a bit, “Excuse me, but this is an active crime scene investigation, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Ghostbur, what are you doin’[9] here?” Tubbo asked before his eyes scanned the crowd before he just stared at Tommy. “Tommy, why the fuck are you workin’[10] with these assholes?”

Tommy sputtered in surprise, as the other heroes braced to intervene, “I am not some common pleb named “Tommy” or some such shit.”

“Tommy, don’t be a fuckin’[11] idiot,” Tubbo shouted. “I know it’s you, I’ve known you fer[5] fuckin’[11] years. You’ve only covered half yer damn face, an’[6] you didn’t even try to even talk deeper at the very least. You’re shit at hidin’[12] yer[13] identity.”

Tommy paused for a second or two, then said in a deeper voice, “I am not Tommy.”

“That’s worse, mate,” Jack Manifold told him, rolling his eyes behind his 3D-colored glasses. “Please use yer[13] normal voice. That one’s just complete dogshit.”

“Well fuck you too,” Tommy scowled, his tone a touch quieter.

Logan’s head was spinning, unable to reconcile the young man at the bed and breakfast who loved bees, with this same young man arguing in front of him. His whole body felt on edge. “Did you order this shipment?”

“Yer[14] gonna half to be specific,” Tubbo asked with a smile. “I order a lot ‘a[15] things.”

Jack looked at the amount of heroes, “Maybe we should just—”

“Save it, you can go, but I’m not goin’[16] anywhere,” Tubbo warned with almost an angry growl to his voice.

“This is an investigation, you can’t just be here,” Silver warned.

“Were you here to pick up a shipment from dock 14?” Logan asked.

“The one with my new smoke detectors an’[6] lanterns?” Tubbo smiled.

The other heroes were confused, but Abe and the androids weren’t.

“That’s not the only thing in there you sick fuck,” Abe spat.

“So it is yours?” Logan reeled a bit, Tubbo’s smile didn’t drop. “I don’t understand, you own a bed and breakfast, what on Earth do you want with Uranitie?”

“Ehhh, science marches on, big guy,” Tubbo shrugged.

“This not just for the sake of science,” Logan rebutted, a desperate tone to his voice. “This is a potential ecological and natural disaster waiting to happen. What do you intend for these items?”

Tubbo’s answer was given with terrifying calm, “To prove a point, really.”

“Ta[4] us?” Marvin gestured to them. “We get it, yeh[17] wanna be some big scary threat. We’ve faced worse.”

“Nah,” Tubbo dismissed. “You’re still human. Don’t care what you think ‘a[15] me.”

Then he gestured to Logan, “I meant ta[4] them.”

“Me?” Logan scoffed in disbelief as the pads of his fingers tapped once to his chest. “I thought you proved your point more than effectively at your establishment. But clearly I was gravely misinformed about your character.”

“I meant demons in general,” Tubbo dismissed. “Don’t take it personally. Although speaking ‘a[15] you, how lifelike are yer[13] little arms because the one that liked spiders had a whole personality an’[6] everythin’[15]. Did you give him that or is he naturally that skiddish. Hope it’s the second one because that’s seriously fucked up, dude.”

“The—” Logan felt alarm pass through him, he hadn’t been aware that Virgil and Tubbo had done more than look at each other across the game room of the bed and breakfast. “When did you speak with him?”

Tubo’s entire demeanor seemed to change. “The purple one? Can you not see everythin’[18] the others do?”

The skin and hair on Logan’s body stood on end, as if one current was going through him, “I think you must have confused me with someone else.”

“That depends on if you’re still the one who said you liked my bees,” Tubbo asked.

“I don’t think it wise of me to give my identity to you,” Logan warned.

Tubbo nodded, “Then tell yer[13] boss that Dream wants to speak to him. Has fer[5] a while now, we just haven’t been able to get past his door guards.”

Tubbo and Jack then looked up at something.

“Well, I think you’ve all made yer[13] point clear so you win an’[6] get to keep my stuff,” Tubbo shrugged. “G.G, we’ll just be off then.”

“No wait a second,” Abe ordered as Jack and Tubbo pulled out some green eye orbs and were already turning.

“Give me those!” Marvin yelled as the heroes raced forward. The orbs went sailing as Silver and Marvin raced for the two of them. Marvin grabbed onto Tubbo’s arm. “Yer not goin’ anywhere yeh—”[19]

The eyes opened and Silver flew back in surprise but Marvin didn’t and felt something rip Tubbo right out of his grasp.

Marvin screamed in pain as all of his fingers broke and the two people were gone.

“Fook!”[20] Marvin shouted in pain, holding his hand. “Motherfooker!”[21]

“Marv,” Silver began. “I’ll call the docs.”

Marvin screamed as he tried to keep his fingers still. “No, I’ll go after, we need ta[4] find these guys.”

“****!”[22] Bing cursed. “When did someone ****[20] with the cameras?”

“What?” Abe shouted and raced back into the warehouse. Logan was already on the phone with Henrik for Marvin.

Tommy and Ethan were a bit torn on who to go with for a bit but he shouted for Tommy to start getting into communication with Jackie and the other heroes.

Bing and Oliver were faster into the warehouse, keeping Abe out until they were sure it was clear. When the two androids got inside they saw several agents and hazmat workers lying dead around the facility. Arrows sticking out of some of them, bullet holes in others, and one or two of them had three lined up puncture wounds like they’d been stabbed with a trident or a multiple-pronged weapon like it.

Besides the dead people, the boxes were all missing. There were a few stray smoke detectors and a lantern or two that had been thrown by the wayside and were probably broken. But the lead boxes were gone, as were the box of magical crate

Bing tested the radioactive signature on the air and still found it slightly contaminated and therefore unsafe.

“Hey Bing,” Oliver messaged the other android.

“Yeah?” Bing replied as he was messaging Abe and giving him pictures and a report of the situation.

“Found something,” Oliver held up a small box that had come from the crate of magical supplies. Bing took a few pictures of it before opening the box and found that someone from the investigation team had already started labeling it. It was full of chunks of raw coconut.

“Weird,” Bing commented, taking more pictures and then placing the box in a radioactive-leak proof container so they could decontaminate it later.

They had missing radioactive material to find.

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

Accessibility Translations:

1. there you are. And Marvin, perfect, I was about to call you.

2. You wanted me and Logic?

3. So you can’t go into the warehouse, they’re still sorting out the pitchblende and finding what else got contaminated

4. to

5. for

6. and

7. them

8. something

9. doing

10. working

11. fucking

12. hiding

13. your

14. You’re

15. of

16. going

17. you

18. everything

19. You’re not going anywhere you—

20. Fuck!

21. Motherfucker!

22. Shit!

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 29

and continuing on!

the cover w/megatron and tailgate....tg so tiny...ooough

omg I forgot abt swerves long ass recap lol

the fact that they lowkey lampshade the fact that as mtmte was really hitting its stride, ending s1 fantastically, they got sucked into the whole dark cybertron thing...Ls

TG AND CYCLONUS HHHHH

tg as a lil car...and cyclonus smiling when he hears him coming...HHHH

also I love that cyclonus kept the great sword that he like, found amongst the belongings of all the dead circle of light members lmao 

or maybe the dude it belonged to didn't die, but he was too intimidated to ask cyclonus for his sword back. understandable 

tgs reaction to megatron...omg. I love him

I love ‘star sabered’ as a way of saying ‘drunk’ lmao

OUGHBHGGBHGJIHHIUHGHH and then when tailgate is like ‘ok, but HAVE I been missed?’ and cyclonus smiles and says ‘very much’ IM GONNA FUCKING DIE. this is only the BEGINNING of the tender gay pain for these two, how am I gonna survive this

the fact that tailgate’s criteria for ‘best day ever’ includes ‘people knowing who I am’ and ‘people being nice to me’...my boy 😭😭 

ah, trial time. I'm not really one for court/procedural stuff, and the gay space robots edition of judge judy is about as much as I can handle 

OOOOOF the list. the liiiiiiist

AUGHHHHH rodimus....rodimus....please make good decisions my boy

TEN!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love him

the little swerve icon on the ‘no guns no swords no briefcases’ sign omg

the panel of megatron like, smirking and reclining while ultra magnus yells at him is wild...I always forget that those two like, actively didn't get along at the beginning, mostly bc we only see that for a few issues, but still, it’s pretty ironic considering how things end up w/them later

lost light insider...I SO wish we could've gotten that one-shot issue about the guy who writes it, that's ridiculously up my alley 

skids saying ‘I don't think you’re fit to drive’ to trailcutter is like, bending my brain, bc like...is it a DUI if a transformer drives around in alt mode while drunk...you're not driving a car, you're driving YOURSELF, but still...bruh

oh god starscream is here hvbakjhfbjksdbfj he’s such a bitch I love him

starscream putting on his theater kid crown, ready to make the fuck-up-the-plot-of-a-series-I'm-not-even-in speech of a lifetime

magnus and optimus: ok enough drama you gay idiot get to the point

that panel of starscream raising his hands up like ‘ok ok sheesh lol’ is so fucking funny

ok oh man, that is an epic speech. like, ooof. ‘he deserves pity.’ WOW

I feel like it also does such a good job showing how much bad blood is between starscream and megatron, and goes to show how megatron fucked Absolutely Everything up, including his dynamic w/his subordinates 

anyways, I cant believe starscream roasted megatron so hard that megatron ended up become a main cast member in mtmte bc of spite lmao

meanwhile nightbeat is contemplating the Mystery Stick™

nightbeat yet again pulling his bbc sherlock bs on somebody, this time...chromedome, certified grieving widow. never change nightbeat hvbhjakdsfbsakjdf

AUHGHHHHHH DATA GHOST REWIND IM HHHHHHHHHH

HIM 😭😭😭

I'M SO FUCKING SAD

REWINDDDDDDDDD

meanwhile, trailcutter is wearing a gopro to pull some sick illegal pranks for his youtube channel

there was probably a content creator power vacuum in the lost light youtuber community after rewind died and now everyone is scrambling to be the next big vlogger/editor

megatron: we should play this by the book

magnus: I have no choice but to simp

nautica is that Straightedge Square who gets caught up in sketchy shit and just dips vbhsjdkbfdjaskdf. the cops get called on a party and she's already gone, she drove you there but she left w/the car, whoops. I love her

oh I adore the panel with all the stuff labelled. tho ‘ambulons stuff (untouched)’ is making me really sad

ah, the premiere of the panic bubble, which will indeed be showing up again later

meanwhile starscream is doing lowkey anime poses and waxing poetic about how hard he dunked on megatron in front of everyone. I get the feeling he’s been waiting a long time for that one

oiguhahgudaf I forgot about chromedomes weird looking alt mode. cooked turkey lookinnnnn

don't knock ‘the power of love,’ nightbeat. You'll See™

the fact the cd is still looking for dominus even tho rewind is dead and also they haven't like, had any leads in millions of years...oof it hurts

gotta be honest, my first readthru I didn't understand the (really cool looking) panel of the lost light from the outside w/half of nightbeats hab suite missing, bc I just was like ‘oh its a visual framing technique for Cool Comic Panel’ lmao

ok I need the backstory of megatron being able to karate-chop people into permanent sobriety

megatron hiring trailcutter but in the most threatening way possible

oh, good, the coffin’s bleeding!

OHHH and the reveal that RODIMUS IS IN THE COFFIN and OH HEY we STILL haven't seen rodimus in the flash forwards have we??? hmmm

optimus: ok back to judge prime: luna 2 trials, magnus you got anything to add?

magnus: ಠ_ಠ(•_•)

and then we have megatron being the pettiest mfer in the known universe and changing his plea bc starscream pwned him ONCE 

hhhh and rodimus looking at the list...It Fuckin Hurts. my boy please make a good decision

thinkin abt how if optimus was like, supportive and understanding when rodimus tried to open up to him about his struggles w/leadership, all this might've gone differently...AUGH

anyways, cool issue! we’re doing lots of setup for the new status quo for s2, and there’s a mystery afoot! 

I don’t have much to say here tbh lol, this is a good issue and all but I don’t really have anything to add, soooo til next time!

[headoverhiddles]

Matrimony - Pope x Reader (Let Me Make You A Martyr) [Part II]

Synopsis: Tensions rise with Pope, but you both have a common goal. Or, you believe it to be common. 

Notes: Second part of three! Enjoy loves. 

Tagging: (ask to be added) @peachynun​ @elrosew​ @livelifewondering​

PART I 

PART III

You wake to the sound of your alarm. 5:30 am.

You get out of bed, and pull on your jogging clothes. A run should clear your head. On the way down, you sneak one more look into Pope's bedroom. You can't see much through the dark, but the bed looks empty. He must be downstairs skulking around somewhere, unless he enjoys a nice refreshing jog before the sun comes up... which you doubt. 

Out on the path, the sun starts to rise through the pine trees. You jog along the road that you arrived on, smart enough not to jog in the direction of Pierce's cabin alone. Slipping your earbuds in, you listen to Marilyn Manson's Odds of Even, the thunk of the beat in time with your steps.  

You’re not thinking about Pope that way. You’re just interested in him. Interested in the idea of him. He’s an interesting man! Who... you’re interested in. 

So, you've got feelings for Pope.

Not feelings, per say, but... an intrigue. And there's definitely a physical attraction there, though you can't tell if he returns it. Probably not. Sex and romance probably weren't even blips on his radar. All he probably thinks about is killing people, disposing of their corpses swiftly and without hassle, and jacking off when and if he feels lonely.

You bite your lip. Damn, that's hot to imagine. Why do you always fall for people who either hate you, want to kill you, or just plain aren't nice? 

If you even mess up a little on this hit though, he'll kill you. Literally. He will not hesitate to take you out as well if you fuck up. But you're not going to fuck up. You may not be a hitman, but you deal with creeps like Daegland Pierce all the time in your job. You know how they think, and that's an advantage Pope doesn't have.

You return to the cabin, breathing heavily. A thin sheen of sweat covers you, and you look around. Isn't there a river somewhere near here?

You approach the rushing brook, grateful for the already cool mist rising from it. You peel off your top and bra, and do the same for your shorts and panties. There's no one out here in the brush, so you don't have to worry about that.

You toss your stuff on a nearby log, and get into the stream. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's nice. You float for a moment, staring up at the sky and listening to the birds. Then you hear another noise. A much closer noise.

You get your ears out of the water, and listen... then you nearly drown in fear as you hear a loud thwack right behind you. Whipping around, you turn to see--

"Holy shit!" you scream.

"Morning," Pope says. He brings an axe down on another piece of wood.

"I'm...! Oh my god, you didn't say anything, you--"

"Well," he pushes up his glasses, "I figured I wouldn't bother you in your morning activities, and you won't bother me in mine." He gestures to you with the handle of his axe. "You do have some pretty tits, though."

"Jesus fuck," you whisper, covering your chest. "Don't... look!" Pope shrugs, and goes back to splitting wood. "Why are you even out here?!" you demand, trying to swim back to the shore inconspicuously. 

"I'm sorry, is this restricted land? Do I require a fuckin’ permit?"

"You-- just, what are you doing?!"

"It's cold at night here," he mutters, "And any sensible person would seek warmth during the dark hours."

"Excuse me?!"

"You're excused, you know I don't mean whoring around with you."

"Right. If I came into your bedroom at night, opened up my bra and sat on the edge of your bed, you'd tell me to fuck off?"

Pope smirks. "Aww. Princess doesn't like the thought of that, does she?" You gasp, crossing your arms. You stop crossing your arms when it's apparent that just makes your boobs look even better. "Look, kid. Unlike you, I didn't come out here to screw around. I came here to kill a motherfucker, and get paid. That's what I do, that's what I intend to do."

It's futile arguing with him, and any headway you made tolerating each other last night at dinner (however small) had now been wiped clean. You'd show your worth on your own-- and you've got nothing to prove. Not much, anyway. There is zero part of you that wants any validation from Pope at all. Or praise. Or a... a "good girl." A "good... good little girl... yeah, babygirl, just like that..."

Shit.

---

"Do not make one wrong step. He can't know we're here."

You follow closely behind Pope, trying to get his attention.

"Hey. Hey! Why are we doing this now? Why don't we wait until--?"

"You have to get to know everything about a person's environment before you kill them. You need to know any possible traps they've set up, any kind of security or backup they've hid up their ass."

"B--"

"Stop speaking, no speaking. Shh. For once, shhh." He holds up a hand, then when he's sure the coast is clear, he beckons. "Follow me."

You do. He points to the other side of the house, but you're already ahead of him, back to the painted wooden panels. It's a better looking cabin than yours, obviously furnished and newly renovated with millions of dollars in dope cash that should've gone to home growers like the business you work for.

You snake around the back of the house, and check the window. It's cracked open an inch. Looking around, you push it open a bit farther, and carefully, ever so silently, you climb in. Pope is already in the house, in the living room. He's got his back pressed to the wall, and his head tilted to look up the stairs.

You're about to turn to check the kitchen, when you feel something in your back. You turn slowly, preparing to meet the barrel of a gun and your untimely demise, but you just find the end of a dirty wooden spoon in a soapy pot.

"Oh," you breathe, putting a hand on your chest. You hear a gun cock at the back of your head.

"What the fuck you doing in my house?" You look behind you, and maneuver around. It's him. It's Daeg. And he's in his bathrobe.

"Hi!" you suddenly say, the first thing popping into your head the option you're going with. "You must be the neighbor!"

"What?" Pierce growls.

You wave to Pope, who's staring at you with some mix of contempt and confusion. "Honey, come here!"

"What the...?" Pierce mutters, and points the gun at Pope as he reluctantly walks over to join you. "Who are you people?!" 

"We just moved into the cabin next to yours! We're Mr. and Mrs... Warner!" You pick a name off the top of your head. You grab Pope's hand, and the death grip you get back tells you he's not in support of this tactic. But, there's no going back now.

"Yeah," he grumbles, "This is my wife. Ain’t she a sweet little piece of ass?"

You give a giggle for good measure, tightening your grip on his hand in warning, and this guy looks so utterly dumbfounded, it's hard not to laugh.

"I'm gonna ask you this again, you stupid shits. What the FUCK are you doing in my HOUSE?!"

"Looking for sugar," you say.

Pope falls into his role. "Yeah. My wife here was... baking."

"I tried to tell him he gets enough sugar at home, but he wouldn't listen, the scoundrel!" You slap him lightly on the arm.

"Well. Just can't get enough of the girl. But that river flows both ways, don't it?"

You shudder slightly, but keep your smile up. Then it hits you. Ingredients... baking! You know just how you can get put of here without an ass full of this guy’s buckshot!

"Now, the reason we found your place, was..." you move in a little closer to Pierce, "I was looking for a certain kind of ingredient. If you know what I mean."

The man's demeanor changes. He looks around, tucks his gun. "How do y'all know about that?"

You wink. "I know lots of things."

"Now, sweetheart." Pope tugs you back, a little too roughly. "Remember to be modest. At least for my sake." His hand travels down to your ass, and you bite your lip.

"Of course, honey. Of course."

Is he getting a little too into his role?

---

You both can't believe you were able to make nice with Pierce long enough to get out of his house. It was a life-saving idea, but it also posed a problem. The two of you had been invited back for dinner the next night, to supposedly buy some of his ‘stock’.

"It's perfect! That's when we kill him!" you hiss, as Pope walks ahead of you through the bramble.

"The tone of this whole thing is fucked up. It’s not right. This isn't how things work."

"What, not used to having a fake wife along for the hit? A little imagination can save your life."

"Don't talk to me about life," he mutters, "I'm ready to end yours."

"Yeah. Fine. Threaten to kill me."

"Oh, I'm not just threatening."

"At least we didn't get shot to bits by the most notorious drug dealer in the American midwest."

"I do things my way," he replies calmly, "I don't need a little brat like you telling me how it's gonna be." You ball your fists and beat against a tree. He's infuriating!

"Will you at least show me how to cut the wood you were chopping this morning? You're right, we should stock up." He looks back at you, that same indifferent expression back on his face.

"You chose to come out here and bother me. Make yourself scarce, or I swear to God or whatever the fuck, I'll drive you out to the middle of the woods and leave you for the wolves."

With that, he walks inside, screen door banging.

You sit down on a log by the car. After a minute, you get up, start the car with the keys on the seat, and turn the radio up.

More honkey tonk wailing. Whatever. Maybe country was good for the soul, and all that.

You lay down on the log, and watch the forest flora sway around you as Hank Williams croons through the open air.

 ---

You open your eyes. It's dark out.

The car radio is still going, and you're not sure quite what time it is.

You hear footsteps behind you, and look up to see Pope walking over to the car. You sigh, rubbing your eyes and waiting for his complaints. "Sorry," you murmur, "I should've turned it off before I--"

"It's fine," he cuts you off curtly, and you give up trying to explain yourself, waiting for him to disappear again. This was such a mistake. Coming out here with him, wanting to be a part of this. You wanted to see the job done, sure, but maybe you are out of your depth. Christ, the guy is an expert sharpshooter, with the lack of mercy of a navy seal and the personality of a hermit. It's time to give up.

You look up again when you don't hear the door close. He pauses, walks over to you, and sits down. He takes his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, puts one in his mouth, and lights it. He tilts his head up to look at the stars, and takes his glasses off, setting them down beside him.

"C'mere," he whispers. You sit up, frowning, and follow his line of sight. You inch closer to him in confusion, and settle in next to him to watch the sky too. He takes another drag of his cigarette, the embers glowing in the low light. You find the scent of him, along with his presence out here, comforting.

The night bugs grow in volume around you, and soon, you begin to hear coyotes in the distance.

"They're beautiful," you murmur. He hums.

"They’re dangerous."

"Like someone else I know," you whisper. If he hears you, he doesn't let on. He just exhales smoke toward the sky, and listens to the noises of the night. His voice, low and gravelly, rises above the sounds.

"You ever heard of a Wendigo, kid?"

"No," you tell him.

"It's an old legend my grandfather told me. He says there are skinwalkers out here in the forest. They can shapeshift, take the form of whatever they want. Animals, people. Strangely odd. Just a little too odd to be considered human."

"You think those coyotes are skinwalkers?" you ask softly. 

"Nah. The only things here pretending to be something they're not are you, and me."  

---

You wake up in bed, not quite certain how you got there. It's still nighttime... you don't know exactly what time it is, but you don't want to reach for your phone. You stare out the window for a minute, and frown. The scenery outside doesn't look quite right, like it’s too foggy to see. 

There's a slight creak in one of the floorboards, and you see a shadow eclipse the dim lantern light from the hallway.

You roll over in bed, and see Pope standing by the door. He hasn't got his glasses on, and his hair looks a little messed up, as if he's been sleeping.

"What is it?" you mumble, trying to sit up, "Something with Pierce? Did he... is everything okay?" Confusion fills you as he walks toward you, but it's replaced by desire with every step closer he takes. He looks like he's been kept awake by something. "Pope?"

"Shh." He sits down, making an indent in the comforter. "I want you, sweetheart."

You breathe out, and after a second, you lean forward slowly. He meets you halfway, reinforcing the kiss, and you moan softly against his lips. His hand comes up to cup your cheek, and he lays you down, resuming the kissing once he's got you against the pillows. "Couldn't get you outta my mind," he whispers, "Couldn't get this... outta my head."

"This feels strange," you murmur, "You hate me."

He doesn't respond, just moves a hand down beneath the covers to stroke between your legs. An exhaled prayer of his name falls from your lips, and he presses a kiss to your chest, tongue swiping out every so slightly. You look down at him again, and reach out, starting to unbutton his shirt, all the way down. With each button, more tattoos are revealed, even though they appear blurry to you, as if your mind is trying to fill them in for you. Must be the dark.

"You're so fucking sexy," he whispers, and pushes your panties aside.

"Please," you beg.

"Let me give you what you need, baby girl. That's it." He looks into your eyes with his own dark orbs. "Trust me now?"

Your chest rises and falls quicker as he adds another finger, rolling your clit with his thumb as he pumps in and out. He's making soft noises as he does, grinding his erection into your thigh on the bed. You start to gasp as you feel your orgasm coming on.

"I'm... P... Pope, oh god, I'm... c-c--"

He strokes you just right with those rough fingers, and just as you come undone, your eyes open.

Pope is gone. You're alone, in bed. You stare at the headboard, realizing you're on your stomach. Shit, you've been grinding into the mattress. You regain a little more consciousness, the events of your dream all fresh in your mind.

 Giving a disoriented moan, you flip over, lying on your back. Your hips wiggle, and you tug down your panties, dipping your own fingers into your soaking wet heat. You didn't think he had this kind of effect on you.

You moan to yourself softly as you quickly curl your fingers in a hurried motion, hips arching slightly. Yeah... yeah, like that. You gasp, and finally cum hard thinking of Pope on top of you like that, kissing you, touching your body, sending you over the edge.

You come down to earth, head spinning in the cold, dark bedroom. You can hear soft snores from the other room. He must have brought you upstairs and put you in your bed before turning in. If any of that outside was real. What if that was part of the dream?

No. You can still smell the faint scent of Pope's lingering cigarette smoke on your jacket, which is still on. You shake your head, taking it off and tossing it on a chair across the room. All you need is a good night's rest.

[boshaw-manor]

‘This is gonna be so much fun!’

Rook’s attempts at joining Faith, Jacob and John up with her other guns for hire weren’t exactly going to plan. She’d tried a potluck but John ended up ruining it by insisting on cooking and giving everyone food poisioning. She’d organised a karaoke night that ended with Faith and Adelaide arguing over who got to sing Car Wash by Rose Royce. Hell, even the baseball game she put together ended up with Jacob throwing hissy fit because he lost by one point. It was getting impossible to get them to all get along but Rook was determined. This time, it’d work.

She’d decked out the attic in the Spread Eagle with beanbags and beers, telling them to arrive at 6pm on the dot for a very important meeting. Sure enough, they all arrived and gave her a quizzicle eye, standing in a semi-circle around the room.

‘So what’s goin’ on chica?’ Sharky asked, arms folded across his chest.

‘Yeah, I got stuff to do this evening.’ John groused, scratching at his beard.

‘No you don’t.’ Jacob stated loudly, John throwing him a glare. Rook crouched down and shut the trap door, locking it tight.

‘Woah woah woah, what is this?!’ Jess growled, her eyes darting around the room.

‘Games night. We’re going to play until all of you bond. I can’t trust you guys to have my back until you trust one another.’

‘I mean we could just take the key from you.’ Nick reached for it but Rook ducked, dipping a finger beneath the collar of her shirt and pulling it forward. She plunged her hand down and thrust the key into her bra before flashing her empty palms.

‘Nice try but no.’

‘That’s why she’s my best friend.’ Sharky grinned, elbowing Hurk who chuckled. There was a small silence as everyone looked at each other, unsure of where to start. Rook eyed them all, her gaze landing on Faith who straightened up.

‘I think,’ She began, smiling at Rook fondly. ‘This is gonna be so much fun!’

‘At least someone appreciates my hard work.’ Rook sighed. She walked over to the table and pulled out the Monopoly box, shaking it enthusiastically. ‘Pick your teams and let’s get going!’

Hurk and Sharky immediately linked arms, Jess and Grace doing the same. Adelaide made a bee-line for John who urgently took refuge behind Jacob.

‘What’sa matter sugar? I can show ya what it feels like to win.’ She batted her eyelashes and John’s blue eyes grew wide with either digust or genuine fear, maybe a bit of both.

‘You come with me Addie, we’ll be team wings.’ Nick took her shoulder and pulled her away from John who looked relieved.

‘Guess that puts us together Faith.’ Rook smiled, pulling the lid of the box off and unfolding the board.

‘We wanna be the puppy!’ Sharky screeched, flinging himself and grabbing the silver dog counter into his hand.

‘Oh hell yeah man! He’s so cute! What should be name him?’ Hurk cooed, petting the scrap of metal with a finger.

‘Uhhh... Barkzilla!’ Sharky grinned, fist bumping his cousin. Jacob rolled his eyes, hunkering down onto a blue beanbag and cracking open a beer.

‘We’ll take the car.’ Grace opened her palm begrudingly and Rook placed it in her hand.

‘What’cha thinkin’ Addie? The hat?’ Nick asked but she shook her head.

‘The cat more like.’ She grinned, eyeing John again. ‘Who doesn’t love a good pussy?’ The baptists’ cheeks flared up as he sat on the floor beside his brother and Jacob visibly choked on his beer. His cheeks puffed out like he was chipmunk as he struggled to swallow it down without snorting.

‘Boys?’ Rook asked and John leant forward peering at the leftovers.

‘Give us the thimble.’ He muttered but Jacob slammed his beer bottle down before she could hand it over.

‘The fucking thimble? Why?’

‘It’s the nearest one!’ John cried, still leaning over the board on his hands and knees.

‘Fuck that. I wanna be the boot.’

‘Fine, we’ll be the stupid boot okay?’ The youngest brother growled. Rook handed the silver shoe to him and John scurried backwards, slamming it into Jacob’s hand with a scowl. ‘Happy?’

‘Delighted.’ The solider grinned patronisingly, spinning it between his forefinger and thumb. Jostling the final counters, Rook showed them to Faith.

‘We’ve got the wheelbarrow, thimble, boat and the hat left. You decide.’ Rook knew Faith didn’t really care which counter they used. She’d be happy with any of them. But after spending most of her life being dictated to by Joseph, Pastor Jerome had suggested that Rook let Faith make more decisions for herself even if they were only small. It was all part of her recovery and reintegration into society.

‘I like the wheelbarrow.’ The siren smiled, picking it up and running a dainty finger over the handlebars. ‘It’s cute.’

‘Okie dokie.’ Rook divvied out everyone’s starting money as they all placed their counters on the board. At the first throw of the dice, all hell broke loose.

‘Hell yeah! Community chest baby!’ Sharky picked up one of the cards and squinted as he read. ‘Everybody has to give us fifty bucks.’

‘You’re shitting me? What the hell!’ Rook groaned, taking a fifty and handing it over.

***

‘This game is stupid.’ Jacob groused, arms folded in annoyance.

‘You’re only sulking because you keep getting us put in jail!’ John exclaimed, pointing at the lonely boot solemnly sitting behind bars.

‘S’okay, look we’re coming to visit!’ Nick exclaimed, as he counted up the amount of squares him and Addie needed to move.

‘You can always buy your way out.’ Rook pointed out, gesturing to their wad of cash organised by neatly by colour at John’s feet.

‘No ‘cause next time I’m gonna roll fuckin’ doubles.’ Jacob grunted indignantly.

‘You’ve said that for the past five turns.’ Reeling backwards, the youngest Seed feel onto his spine and splayed across the floor.

***

‘We wanna buy this one.’ Jess stated, about to hand Rook some of the fake paper money.

‘No no no! We wanna buy that one!’ Hurk shouted drunkenly, swaying a little even though he was sat down.

‘You’re not even on the panel!’ Grace protested only to receive a handful of blue plastic houses thrown in her face.

‘Are too! See!’ Hurk pointed at the silver car aggressively.

‘You’re the fucking dog you moron!’ Jess exclaimed, moving his elbow with her hand to point at the silve terrier that was a few paces behind.

‘Barkzilla!’ He screamed happily and Sharky whoozily cheered, though he didn’t know exactly what for.

***

Alcohol fuelled the game until nobody was truly certain who they were playing as anymore. Confusion settling across the group, Sharky got up and sauntered over to the cardboard box in the corner. He dipped his hands in a rooted around until he found something worthwhile.

‘Hungry Hungry Hippos!’ He screamed, waving the box in the air wildly.

‘I love rhinos!’ Hurk squealed and John crinkled his nose.

‘Hurk they’re hippos? That’s why it’s called Hungry Hungry Hippos.’ The baptist could not get over the stupidity of this man. Who confuses a hippo and a rhino?

‘I thought hippos and rhinos where the same thing?’ He bumbled, scratching at his head. Adelaide got up too and moved over to the box, peering inside.

‘Ha. Jenga.’ She laughed heartly, pulling it out.

‘I’m amazing at Jenga.’ Jess boasted, puffing her chest out. Grace pushed her, making the archer roll back.

‘Not as good as me.’

‘Oh you’re so on.’ Jess’ eyes narrowed as she stood up, swaying a little on the spot. She started to set up the game with Adelaide and Grace. Rook smirked at them and then noticed Faith watching longingly beside her.

‘Why don’t you join in?’ She said quietly, touching Faith’s arm in encouragement.

‘Oh no. They won’t want me to.’ She muttered quietly, picking at the fabric of her white jumper. Rook furrowed her brow, looking at Faith and then up to her friends who had nearly completed the tower.

‘Hey guys, can Faith join in?’ The Deputy asked. Grace and Jess exchanged an uncertain look so she shifted her attention to Adelaide, giving her a pleading smile.

‘Course. C’mon over.’ The helicopter pilot sympathised. Faith looked to Rook nervously who simply bobbed her head with a lop-sided smile.

‘O-okay. Thanks.’ Hopping to her feet gracefully, Faith tip-toed over to join in. Sharky came and took her place beside Rook.

‘Will you play this with me?’ He asked, shoving the box under her nose and pulling his best puppy dog eyes out of the bag. How could Rook say no?

‘Sure but it’s four players and Hurk looks busy.’ She stated, pointing at his cousin. Sharky turned and saw Hurk in a fervent arm wrestle with Nick over the table.

‘Damn.’ He grunted, staring at the hippos sadly. Rook turned her gaze to John and Jacob, both sitting on beanbags with beer bottles in their hands.

‘Yo Seeds, you playing?’ She called to them, blue eyes swivelling her way.

‘What your little kids game? Nah.’ Jacob sniffed, taking a swig of drink.

‘Oh yeah right, s’cause you’re scared.’ She shrugged, opening the box and setting up the game.

‘Psh.’ He grunted, leaning back into the beanbag. John crawled over, sitting behind the blue hippo and Jacob narrowed his eyes. ‘You fuckin’ kiddin’ me?’

‘Well there’s nothing better to do.’ His little brother retorted, pressing down on the lever and watching the plastic hippo snap forward.

‘Hell yeah Johnny boy!’ Sharky clapped him on the shoulder and sat cross legged behind the green hippo. Rook took the yellow one and shot a look at Jacob.

‘Ah look, you can be the orange one!’

‘I said I ain’t playin’.’ He sniffed but his eyes lingered on the board.

‘You sure? Or are you too chicken?’ She grinned, starting to cluck under her breath. Sharky joined in, bobbing his neck backwards and forwards. Even John started, making wings with his tattooed arms and batting them up and down.

‘For fuck’s sake, fine.’ Jacob slid off the beanbag and took his spot behind the orange hippo. Rook unleashed a handful of balls into the centre of the board and the four of them watched them roll until they settled against one another.

‘Ready, set, go!’ She hollered and the snapping began. Hands battered the levers as the hippos lurched forward and back, snatching balls into their mouths and depositing them in their individual racks. As the game ended, each player counted their balls and Jacob looked up with a smirk.

‘Nine.’ He grinned, already certain from counting the others’ marbles that he’d won.

‘Four.’ John frowned.

‘I got four too.’ Sharky stated.

‘Three.’ Rook sighed. ‘I demand a rematch.’

**

As the night wandered on, Rook’s friends started to go out for the count. Nick and Hurk were asleep over the table, hands still bound from arm wrestling. Grace, Jess, Adelaide and Faith lay snuggled around the fallen Jenga pieces. Yawning heavily, she slumped back into a sleeping Sharky’s chest. John’s head rested on her shoulder and Jacob’s boots were propped up on her knee. She’d done it. She’d finally united them.

[onepunchmiss]

OPM s2e5 Live blog

“The Martial Arts Tournament”

Alright I’m back to the regular live blog schedule and theres 2 things before we get started. 1) OH MY GOD DO-S IS THE EPISODE THUMBNAIL WE GET TO SEE ALL THE MONSTERS POPPING UP and 2) DOES THAT MEAN WE’LL SEE ZOMBIEMAN TRAILING MARTIAL GORILLA BECAUSE IF SO I sincerely apologize in advance yall must be aware by now how that’s going to go down on this blog. Anyway, as always I’m watching this from the perspective of someone who is caught up on both the manga and web comic. Los geht’s!

Yup the centipede movement is still creepy as hell. I saw people saying it was cgi last week which I didn’t catch right away, but regardless it’s done so well because it looks unnatural.

EYYYYY ok actually I kind don’t care about Metal Knight. What this episode is actually going to be is me screaming about all the monsters liKE RHINO WRESTLER AND PHOENIX MAN GUYS I LOVE THIS STUPID BIRD SO MUCH HECKING HECK. I’m gonna vomit like him and Do-S PLUS Garou vs Bat PLUS the other S Class heroes (Tatsumaki and Flashy Flash??) I am not physically mentally or emotionally prepared.

Yo this seems to be a trend with the monsters and me, I am evidently never prepared for the garish color schemes they get. Not mad just surprised every time?

hhhhhhhhhhhhh Ok the fight! I’m… I’m gonna try really hard to not pause every 2 seconds because I will inevitably have many words to say and screen grabs to take but that would be more than excessive sooooo ok here I go

Lol I failed immediately. I love that they’re going shot for shot with the fight. I’ve said it before, but I really think Murata captures movement and action sequences so well in the manga that if the anime were to try and deviate, it just wouldn’t be as good (especially with all the flack JC staff has been catching). Also I ADORE Metal Bat’s theme music when his fighting spirit comes out??? It’s so corny and triumphant and bad ass at once it fits him so well?? Ok wait a second I thought that after metal bat hit the manhole cover it ricocheted and came back at Garou what the heck??? That was such a cool move on Bat’s part and demonstrates he’s not just brute force, but tactical too. Why’d they leave that out??OH COME ON THEY DID WHAT THE HELL WHERE IS THIS??

This is actually my least favorite thing about season 2 biggest complaint what the fuck they did my boy dirty here. Oh thank god Zenko is here to quell my anger. Also Bat’s glowing eyes of murderous intent. Look at her. A legend.

Garou: “...haa?” Yup still love his voice actor. Perfection. Also Zenko. Just. Metal Bat and Zenko. Moshi moooshi? Just. This whole thing was almost perfect. So close. The fight felt so short, and it was because they cut out some good stuff. So close to perfection uhg

AH MY STUPID BIRD MAN he sounds exactly like what I wanted him to I’m so glad and HAH the fuckin hand I forgot about that. Side note, Anyone else play Arkham Asylum? The monster association logo looks like Scarecrow’s symbol in that game…. ANYWAY I need to take a moment to appreciate that little Phoenixman chuckle it was hella cute ok

Rh-Rhino Wrestler basically just said “Then Perish”

Oh Fuck

Oh God

Martial Gorilla  

Oh fuck

O H F UK

oh false alarm im ok my heart rate skyrocketed for nix Oh Maiko Plasma!! I love her voice wtf its cute? Phew ok the tournament. Wait that’s not giving me a break either because MAX AND SNEK M A X AND SN EK

I love him and his stupid hair omg. I’m REALLY hoping that the anime branching out and giving other characters more spotlight will help them grow in popularity a bit. Every single character in this series is underrated imo. Even the popular ones like geNOS LOOKIT HIM clapping for his sensei. Genos is baby boy I lov

“Dark Corporeal Fist?” Isn’t Void Fist just easier to say? really now. Oh My God Sourface chanting “I’m ok I’m ok I’m ok” is literally my daily Mood™. Damn look at Bang taking out some frustration I’d hate to be that monster. Me too my dude Smile Man.

WHOA I was NOT expecting that transition!! Heart! Hard! HIT! It’s the Monster Wife!! And She definitely looks more monstrous in color oof those eyes ❤❤

OH FUCK OH GOD WAIT MARTIAL GORILLA AGAIN DAMN IT I WISH I REMEMBERED EXACTLY WHEN Z SHOWS UP MY BLOOD PRESSURE CANT TAKE THIS ofuck ok false alarm again but I’m low key freaking out as they pan through all the monsters because the S Class is so close like we’re about to get Child Emperor, Flashy Flash, Pig God, Drive Knight, Darkshine and so on who got next to no screen time in season 1 its giving me anxiety im so pumped??

OH FUCK GUYS PUREBLOOD OH SHIT FUCK I FORGOT WE SEE HIM THIS EARLY CAUSE HIS DESIGN KEPT CHANGING he looks stupid with his hair behind his ears and his voice is NOT what I imagined and that manga panel redraw I did was way off with the color scheme but I don’t care I have read and re-read that fight countless times this monster just grew on me by default oh no UHG and look at Super S again it looks like they’re going panel for panel here with her and I’m not complaining

They keep hopping to the tournament but I don’t have much to say about it until the shit starts going down….. and like I’m so excited for that Snek and Max moment (you know the one) but until then I’m just so overwhelmed by all the other plotlines happening I don’t have much in the way of comments for it

I lied ok that eye twitch got me. But see then it cuts away too quickly and the episode is over. I get that there’s a lot happening at once but the tournament feels dragged out a bit. It’s different when you read the manga at your own pace but cmonnnnnnnnnnnnn gimme moreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

HAH THANK YOU POST CREDIT STINGER YOU DELIVERED MY WISHES AND ZAKKOS IS SOME WEAK SAUCE.

NEXT WEEK GUYS ITS HAPPENING

Final thoughts. Um. I wish the Garou vs. Metal Bat was a tad longer just for that ONE moment. I’m still heartbroken over it. But otherwise? I’m so excited for next week, I can’t convey my excitement without being excessively obnoxious? this episode was pure hype. There are no buts about it- we are getting the S Class next week. I… think I’m going to leave work at noon to catch the episode right when it airs. I was saving that for an episode with Z but I don’t think I’ll be able to function at work if I stay. At this point every character is a fave and now we’re getting all of them, I feel so overloaded and we haven’t even seen anything yet. I don’t know what to even say about the future of these crap ass live blogs- they have no structure as it stands right now, but like they are going to devolve into just me screaming. Not even real words. just something like keyboard smashing and tears, probably. I’m so sorry, but anyway, as always thanks for reading, see yall next week assuming I survive

[velshie]

First Meetings - Kingfield

A/N: It’s a long one boi’s. forgive me because it has been a long damn time since I have written anything, so I’m rusty in my writing, grammar, and all that jazz. It’s not perfect but I did want to contribute to the Kingfield fandom too. Welp, enjoy!

The first time David met Dwight was around the campfire when he was so kindly chosen by the entity to join the trials. He never took notice of the man, not really, he gave off the first impression that he was quite the weak, sniveling kind that David would go after when he was just a lad in uniform before he was kicked out and sent to a new school just to repeat. He had grown out of such things, he preferred to pick on someone his own size or bigger to feel the adrenaline thrum through his bones and to help blow his ego up a little more if he won. The rest of the people that he has met around the fire seemed to have a respect for him. Not even the grudging kind of respect that came with being around someone to long but the kind that made it seem that they looked at this scrawny man almost for guidance, how absolutely bloody ridiculous is that? This man, a leader? Stupid if you ask him.

Dwight had come to say hello, but David wasn’t going to have it. He glanced away from the campfire to look him in the eye before leaning towards him “Piss off mate before I throw ya in the campfire and we ‘ave cooked weasel.” The thinner man looked surprised and more than a little offended at the threat but was smart enough to walk to the opposite side and avoid eye contact looking from surprised to dejected. Not that David gave a rat's ass but the ladies were outraged at the treatment and the quiet Asian man sent him a nasty little look that David caught in the corner of his eye. Bigger than Dwight, but smaller than him, doesn’t seem like he would be much fun in a brawl but if he was challenged, who was he to say no? However, it seems the entity had a different idea as he was chosen for a trial along with Nia, Meg, and of course Dwight.

Great. Ain’t this going to be a successful trial.

They appeared in what seemed to be a large plot of land with long, thick patches of cornstalks. From what David could see, there seemed to be only one, large tractor and he couldn’t help but pray that they were broken and he would not be running from a giant hunk of machinery. It seems that the girls may be in the trials together while he was stuck with Dwight. David rolled his eyes, of course he would be stuck with him, now he was going to have to be the big dog as this wimp probably cowers behind him.

“I can tell you aren’t my biggest fan, but I need you to listen to me for just a sec here.” David looked down at Dwight, startled that he had said anything. “I have done these trials for god knows how long and trust me, they aren’t pretty. As long as you don’t go in blind and we work together, you may get out with just a gash or two.” David scoffed, before walking away. Work together? Is this guy completely out of his gourd?

“I don’ fuckin’ think so mate. What, ya think I’m going to sit and hide in the cornfield? Ya maybe a bloody coward, but I sure as ‘ell ain’t.” He heard Dwight blow a bunch of air out of his mouth in frustration.

“I’m not asking you to hide in a cornfield. I’m asking you to be smart.” David could almost feel the insult on the tip of Dwight's tongue that he was smart enough to keep to himself if he didn’t want a fist to his face. “Stick to the generators, I’ll be there to help. We do five of those and we are out the door with as little bodily harm possible. If you have to hide, then I strongly recommend it to keep you alive.” David shot Dwight a look as if he told him a stupid joke.

“Do I look like a bloody mechanic to you? Generators? Get fuckin’ real. I’m going to make that fucker cry for ‘is mum.” David cracked his knuckles and grinned if everyone was so afraid of this bloke then he must be a good time for a fight. However, Dwight didn’t look very impressed, actually, he was looking at him like he was quite stupid.

“David. Do you see those hooks over there?” He said as he pointed to the hanging meat hook swaying in the slight breeze. David felt suddenly unsettled, he had to admit he had not seen those when he took a quick look. “If you’re caught, your body is going to be swinging on that like uncut deli meat. Personally, I’d like to see it not happen to you but if you want to go playing fisties with a killer, be my guest. But I would like to survive, so you can come and do a generator with me or you can be the liability. The choice is yours, friend.” With that Dwight, walked off behind a corner of a wooden fence, not even looking behind him as he went out of sight behind a large wooden panel. David casually followed suit, seeing Dwight working on a red, fairly rusted up, generator without even glancing at his direction as David came to his line of sight. ‘Well slap my ass and call me sally, the guy actually ‘as a spine.’ David thought with a smirk, sinking down to a crouch as he fiddled with the generator. Davids smirk, dwindled down to a frustrated grimace, as he fumbled his way through the cluster of wires. ‘I have no idea what the fuck I’m even doing.’ He made a frustrated hum as he grabbed the green and blue wire, fusing it together only to cause the generator to blow in his face loudly, making him cover his face to make sure nothing got him in the eye.

“Shit, we gotta hide!” Dwight said urgently as he tugged on Davids' bicep firmly before he let go heading into the large cornfield patch near them. David followed in suit, wanting to see first hand what he was up against. The scrapper felt his hair stand, his heartbeat growing louder in his ears and the feeling of an overwhelming presence coming near. He swallowed nervously as he and the small leader stayed crouched within the thick stalks trying to keep his breath steady as his heartbeat became louder. Then he saw him and for the first time in years, David actually felt fear settle in his belly at the sight of the behemoth of a man with an off white mask caked in dirt and dried blood, bits of metal embedded in the skin of his arms. He glanced at Dwight, who looked him in the eye and put a finger to his mouth, signaling to keep quiet. ‘Oh yeah, like I’m gonna go ask ‘im over fer tea.’ He thought deadpanned. Dwight put his hand on his arm, David was unsure if it was for his benefit or Dwight’s, but it grounded him enough to focus on his breathing. The large man glanced around briefly before kicking the ever-loving shit out of the generator they were working on, causing it to spark. He suddenly turned to the locker, ripping it open, then slamming it closed when no one was in it. He walked towards them and David felt himself freeze in place and stop breathing altogether. He felt Dwight sweaty hand slide down and clasp at his wrist and squeezing it firmly. The man hunting them all down walked past them briskly, neither of them moving as they heard his footsteps getting quieter and quieter, then no sound at all except for the wind and the mechanical sound of the broken generator.

They both let out a loud breath in relief, Dwight letting go of his wrist to rub at his face, his glasses moving up to his forehead as his fingers went beneath his glasses then perched messily onto the tip of his nose. “Okay, let's try and fix this before he comes back or worse, finds one of the girls.” He said, fixing his glasses and hurrying himself to the generator. David quickly followed his lead, hauling ass to try and finish the hunk of junk, Dwight instructing and encouraging him to finish. They heard a pop of the generator coming to life, and both sprinting away from it as fast as they could, they heard two more generators going off in sync, making Dwight laugh merrily as they are all rushing, only having two more generators to go before they can get the hell out of here. David couldn’t help but look in awe at how lovely he looked when he laughed.

As the two started another generator, they saw Nea come sneaking by, hiding in the cornfield while keeping a hurried pace. Dwight had always admired that trait of hers, he always wished he could be that quick, but alas he was a slow walker no matter if he was crouched or not.

“Hello boys, I would love to ask if you need help but I already know that you do.” She said with a smirk as she put down her toolbox and went at it. Dwight snorted at the comment, but said nothing to dispute it, he knew that when it came to generators it was a case if ‘The more the merrier.’ and with two tool boxes? They’ll get this generator back in no time.

“Where did Meg go?” Dwight said keeping his eyes out for the Trapper and their redheaded track star. Nea shrugged, not once looking up from the generator. Dwight was always on the lookout and would always give them the warning if he even caught wind if the killer. He was always the better multitasker anyways. “Don’t know. I’d put my money on giving the killer the runaround though. Trapper was heading in her direction when she finished off her generator.”  Dwight's mouth settled into a thin line, concerned of the younger girls well being, but he knew better. No one could catch up to the track star unless they duped her, if it was the Pig or Legion, he would be a little more worried. But with the Trapper, he had no doubt that she would run him around until they were done.

“Okay. Then we can’t let her down, am I right?” Nea smirked and continued working. When they were finished they hopped on to the next and then to the next to finish the last generator. They heard Meg cry as the Trapper cleaved her in the shoulder, making Dwight stop. David glanced up at the brunette, then to where he heard the woman cry, only to hear another not so long after.

“Shit, girl down! I repeat girl down!” Nea hissed. She didn’t turn to where the girl was knocked down. She just gritted her teeth, closed her eyes and-

A blood-curdling screaming traveled through the area Dwight face turned grim and David who looked horrified.

“I’ll be back. You two do the generator and I’m getting her off the hook.” Dwight nearly took off, until a large hand grabbed his, dwarfing it in size.

“I think it’s m’ turn ta be useful now, don’ ya think?” David said, given the leader a lopsided grin before getting up and tugging him near the halfway done generator. Dwight frowned, grabbing David’s wrist to keep him from letting go of his hands.

“You're new! You need to learn the ropes first, I can’t just stick you out into danger with no issue! It’s my responsibility to make sure you get out of this trial alive and informed, You could be next on that hook!” David snorted, no way. The guy might be good but David has never backed from any challenge or fight.

“Listen, m’ faster, bigger an’ stronger than ya, so have some faith. Also, you're faster than me on those stupid things, so you should stay. ‘S no mither, mate.” He said as he grabbed Dwight’s wrist and gently pried his hand off him, but didn’t let him go.

“Look, ya proved to be not a bad guy ta follow. I see now that yer nervous but not cowardly and I can fuckin’ respect that. But ya know that it would be better to send me in.” Dwight looked like he was going to protest that statement until Nea stopped working and let out a frustrated groan.

“Let the big guy get her Dwight! Or else she’s going to get gutted by the entity before you guys wanna finish you dick measuring contest.” Dwight’s face went as red as a beet and David couldn’t help the thought of ‘cute’ cross his mind before Dwight took his hand back. He looked unsure and he hesitates with his movements, but in the end, he agreed.

“Just...Just be careful. When you grab Meg run to the North side and we should have that open for you to go.”

Nea also popped her head up to look at him “Meg might be hobbling and in pain but she’ll know where to go. She might also curse you for your stupidity, but don’t worry, she’ll forgive you back at camp.”

“Gotcha.”

“Fly you fool.” She said urgently before David looked at Dwight, saluted and took off in the direction where Meg is hanging. Nea looked at Dwight with a raised eyebrow and smirked “I think that’s the closest thing you’ll get to an apology from earlier. I still think he’s a giant dick but hey, you managed to charm him like the rest of us.” Dwight looked at her confused, looking like he was going to respond but decided to drop it. He wanted to get this trial over with as soon as possible.

David ran as fast as he could to where the girl hooked, only slowing down to a crouch when he heard the heartbeat indicating that the killer was near. As he hid behind the giant roll of hay, he could hear the girls strangled sounds of pain as she swung of the hook, the curved end protruding out of her grotesquely, blood staining her clothes and clotting around the wound. David gritted his teeth and looked up in time to see the giant go off in the opposite direction. When he was out of sight David rushed forward, grabbing her from the armpits and hauling her off with a slick noise from the open wound.

She looked at the ground, seemingly trying to catch her breath before she looked up at him with a pained glare. “Are you gonna just sit there or are you going to patch me up you- Oh. It’s you.” She said, voice absolutely deadpanned before she started healing herself with the medkit she had brought into the trial with her.

“You’re new, and I’ll forgive you for not knowing what you're doing In term of taking care of your teammates but I don’t care for you much after what happened at camp.” She said as she finished up healing, looking like she had never even been hooked in the first place. ‘What in the fu- never mind not important, I’ll ask later.’

“I know, not m’ shining moment, but right now I’m followin ‘is lead. Dwight told me ta go fer the north side of the exit once I’ve grabbed ya.” Meg looked a little astonished for a brief moment, blinking at him like he had grown a second head.

“Huh. Listening to him now after being-”

“Such a major cock, yes I know.” David finished, making Meg smirk.

“Well, since you’ve admitted it, I guess we can head there until they’ve-” all the generator lights went on and an alarm sounded through the area. The two athletes looked at each other and Meg bolted in the direction of the door. As they reached it, she didn’t hesitate to crank the handle down with all her strength. It went by slowly, almost too slowly.

As the second light came on they heard their heartbeats pound in their ears, looking at each other in panic, they looked towards the third red light flickering before it became fully red and three loud alarms went off as the door opened.

They saw Dwight and Nea running like a bat out of hell with the killer quickly descending on them. Nea and Meg rushed out of there but David just couldn’t leave Dwight on his own.

“David, move your fucking ass!” Dwight shrieked, grabbing the rugby players had and dragging him into the fog. They heard the cleaver swing down behind them, only to hear it connect with something sharply. David looked behind him to see the killer being blocked of by black branches. Standing there menacingly.

“Have you not watched a horror movie before? First rule, don’t look back!” With that Dwight tugged on his hand harder as they kept running into the fog until they saw the light of the campfire where they started.

“Wot th’ fuck was that,” David said breathlessly, looking at Dwight who was bent over trying to catch his breath still.

“That...Was...A trial.” He said, gasping for air. David frowned as he straightened the thinner man up, lifting his arms above his head.

“You won’ get any air in ya if yer all crumpled up like that luv.” David chortled, putting a finger underneath Dwight’s chin and tilting it up to looking him in the eye. “Tilt yer ‘ead up, so ya can actually ge’ some air.” Their eyes met and there was a delay in reaction as Dwight stared at him, mouth agape before turning completely red.

“A l-little close don’t you t-think.” The shorter man stuttered, choking on his words as he averted his eyes. David grinned leaning in closer to the flustered man.

“Mhm, an’ what a treat. Can’ believe a called ya a bloody weasel, I was either daft or blind.”

If Dwight got any redder, his head would probably pop off. Putting his hands down to cover his face, dislodging David’s fingers from his chin.

“A-are you flirting with me? It feels like your flirting..” his voice was muffled and barely clear, but David heard him.

“Guess ya can say I am, yeah.” David teased, grabbing Dwight’s wrist to pry it away from his face.

“B-but why?” David could help but find it cute how Dwight couldn’t look him in the. Such a contrast from the anxious but brave leader he met in the trial.

“Ya proved yerself. Ya were a great leader and ya showed bravery in a situation tha’ woulda made grown men piss ‘emselves. Can’ say many ‘ave my respect but you? You blew me outta th’ water mate.” David’s tone dropped low and Dwight looked at him in awe. “I also ‘ave a thing for bossy men.”

It was adorable how absolutely flustered and outraged the leader looked at the same time. “I-I am not Bossy!” They both heard a snort, looking to the side where Nea grinned cheekily at the display she was exposed to.

“Oh no, you're definitely bossy. C’mon love birds, you guys can continue your mating ritual near the fire. She patted David hard on the back making him grunt. “Glad to see you saw the light, but if you fuck this up like you did at your arrival, I’m leaving you on the hook newbie. If your gonna fuck something, make sure it’s his juicy twink a-”

“Nea please for the love of god!” Dwight cried out as he fell to a crouch in embarrassment, hands above his head still being held by David who was in tears with how hard he was laughing.

“Alright alright. Come on let’s go homo’s.” She said as she lifted Dwight back up and pushed both the boys back to the campfire.

[crashdevlin]

Something More: Part Nine

Author’s Note: *THERE IS NO WIFE-HATE HERE! I <3 Danneel Ackles. (it’s completely understandable how she acts)* This is a sequel to Open. READ THAT FIRST!  Something More Masterlist

Summary: Reader is a no-name actor who has been lucky enough to land a role on her favorite show and a part in an anthology of Marvel Cinematic Shorts. Her star is on the rise, but the man who’s made her his mistress isn’t the only one noticing it.

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader, Tom Hiddleston x Reader

Story Warnings: Open Marriage, mistress, breakups, angst, anger, jealousy, things get REALLY bad between Jensen and y/n…

Chapter Warnings: obsession, harassment, (Tom is worse than an asshole in this, A REMINDER THAT THIS IS FICTION!!!! I KNOW THAT TOM IS NOT REALLY LIKE THIS AND I WISH HIM NO HARM)

I woke up with Jay holding me close, peppering kisses on my neck and shoulder. “Mornin’,” I greeted, turning in his arms. “Time is it?”

“Twenty minutes past my alarm goin’ off. I’m supposed to be getting ready for the Gold Panel, but… I’m so comfy and happy… I don’t wanna leave this bed.” He pressed his lips to mine and both of our eyes fluttered closed. “Think anybody’d notice if I just didn’t show up?” He said it with a smirk, already knowing the answer, of course.

“Only every single person at the con and across the interwebs.”

“Damn. Should probably get dressed, then, huh?”

I nodded. “You’ve got a con to open and I’ve gotta find a pharmacy ‘cause somebody got overeager last night.”

“Hey, you didn’t tell me to stop and wrap it up, either, Baby Girl, so hush.”

“After how you ate me, my brain was not functional, Jay. I can’t be held accountable.”

“Well, I couldn’t think past you wrappin’ your hand around my dick, so… guess I’m not accountable, either.” He shrugged, rolling out of bed.

I stared at his ass for a minute before getting out of bed and beginning the search for my clothes. “Well, until I get on birth control, I’m gonna need you to start carrying condoms again.”

A foil square soared across the room and hit my stomach. “I had one, y/n/n. Just forgot to get it on.”

I shook my head. “Ridiculous man. You planned this and still didn’t put the damn thing on?” I stepped into my skirt. “Holding you accountable.” I pulled my tank top over my head and looked around. “Where are my underwear?”

“Dunno.” He shrugged.

“If I check and they’re in your pocket, I’m gonna scream. ‘Cause that’d be the most Dean Winchester-ish shit you could do.”

He smirked as he reached into his back pocket and presented me with my panties, hanging from the tip of his finger. “You love it when I’m like Dean. Fuckin’ fangirl.”

“Yeah… I do like when you act like Dean, most of the time. Can you get rid of the ‘crawl into a bottle to deal with hard times’ part of Dean Winchester’s personality, please?” I snatched my underwear from him and sat on the edge of the bed to slip them on under my skirt.

Jay turned to grab a comb and pull it through his hair. “Don’t break up with me again and we’ll be good.”

“Oh, that’s not a lot of pressure and a completely asshole thing to say.”

“You said you liked when I’m like Dean.” He turned around and smiled at me. “I’m not gonna drink like that anymore. Haven’t since you’ve been back. But, still, don’t break up with me.”

I slipped my feet into my sandals and bent down to do the straps. Jay was suddenly on his knees on the floor in front of me, fingers working across the buckles to secure the heel to my foot. I smiled at him as he started working on the second one. “Are we dating now, Jensen? Like, for realsies?”

He gave a scoffing chuckle, shaking his head, slightly. “For realsies. You can tell your friends about it and everything, Baby Girl.” He ran his hands up my calf as he stood. “I wanna tell all of our friends about us.” A tight feeling took up in my chest at the thought. “Hey. What’s wrong?” he asked, softly.

“I don’t know. Just… what if they think I’m the reason… what if everybody thinks I’m the reason your marriage-”

“Hey, no, no, no. I’m gonna make sure everybody knows that isn’t what happened. And hey, they like you more than they like Dee, anyway, so they’d probably take your side, either way.”

“But…”

He shook his head, leaning down to press his lips to mine. “It’s a mess, right? But we can get through the mess together. Long as you’re with me.” I nodded, standing and wrapping my arms around his neck. He smiled softly down at me. “I called you an Uber while you were sleeping. Clif’s gotta drive me and Jared to the con, so you’ll have to ride back to your hotel by yourself.”

I nodded. “I’m okay with that.”

“And we'll wait to tell everyone about us until you're ready, but… they all know how close we are, how poorly I took you, uh, dating Douchebag. I think most of ‘em know we're not just buddies.” He chuckled. “Actually, back in June last year, Richard straight up asked if you were my con cooch.”

I rolled my eyes. “Con cooch. How disgusting.”

“It's not his term, you know. It's probably old as you are.”

I scoffed. “And the N word is older than anybody alive, doesn't mean I gotta like people using it.”

He nodded. “You're right. I won’t use it ever again, and I will tell Richard not to use it, either.”

“Don’t tell Richard what to do. I’ll tell him it’s offensive if I ever hear him say it, but until then…” I sighed, looking up into his eyes. “Fuck. What was I saying?”

He smiled. “You were going downstairs to get in the back of some sedan driven by some hipster trying to make some money for pot.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s right.”

“I’ll see you at the con hotel, Baby Girl.”

I nodded and pulled him down for a kiss, before turning and heading out of the hotel room. Jared was in the hallway, walking toward Jay’s room. He grinned when he saw me. “That is not a Sunday morning outfit.”

“Yeah, fuck you, J-pad.” I chuckled, maneuvering around him.

“Yeah, I think Jensen and Genevieve might have a problem with that, kid,” he teased, grabbing my hand to stop me. “Everything’s good, though?”

“With me and Jay? Yeah. For the first time in months, I think… I think everything’s actually really good all around.”

“Good. I’m glad.” He nodded. “Gonna be fuckin’ funny if someone sees you takin’ the Walk of Shame from our hotel.”

“You’re hilarious. There’s already an Uber waiting for me downstairs. I’m sure I can get to it before anyone notices me.” I smiled, squeezing his hand and stepping backward. “See you at the Hyatt.”

It was uneventful going from Jay’s hotel to mine. Nobody seemed to notice my Walk of Honor and I was able to get a shower, get dressed, put makeup on and get checked out without incident. I called another Uber and had him take me to the closest Walmart. I stood in line a few minutes before getting in front of the counter. The woman in the white lab coat smiled brightly at me. “You’re y/f/n y/l/n, aren’t you?”

I cringed. This was the absolute last place I wanted to be recognized. “Uh, yeah. That’s me.”

“Are you here for that convention? You know your character on Supernatural is my favorite witch of the series. I had such high hopes for Rowena, but Tara is infinitely more relatable. I mean, Rowena was glamorous but Tara is so down-to-Earth.” I nodded, smiling politely. “Oh, and you know, I had a feeling that Tom Hiddleston’s nice guy thing was just an act. The way he grabbed you in that video, oh and I know you can’t say anything about it, Marvel’s probably got their lawyers just ready to pounce on you if they hear you say anything bad about… oh, I’m rambling, aren’t I? What can I get for you, sweetie?”

I cleared my throat and leaned forward, slightly. “I need a Plan B.”

“Oh!” Her eyes lit up. “Had a good night at the convention, did you? I’m glad you’re getting back up on that horse again!”

“Ma’am, please keep your voice down. Remember your HIPAA regs.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’ll get that for you.”

As she went into the back of the pharmacy to find what I needed, twitter gave me a notification. ‘Hey, maybe now @y/l/n_y/f/n has a shot’ with a video attached. I pressed play on a clip of the Gold Panel.

“Is there any truth in the report that Danneel filed for divorce?” the fan asked.

Jensen’s eyes went wide with shock. “Are you kidding me?! I just got served Friday. How do you people already know?” Jared reached out and patted Jensen’s shoulder. Jay sighed, his voice was resolute when he spoke. “This is the only question I’m taking about this. All right, I will walk if I get another one. So, here’s my piece on it. Yes, Dee filed for divorce. No, I was not surprised. No, I’m not happy about it, but I understand. If it were up to me, I’d keep fighting for us, but I guess Danneel just got too tired of my bullshit. She’s not gonna keep Birdie and the twins from me, we’re going to stay as much a family as possible. I love Danneel, always will… but sometimes… things don’t work out.”

Jensen ran his hand across his mouth and Jared stood to wrap his arms around him. The video ended when their embrace did.

I retweeted it with an added, ‘Thats really fn insensitive. Thats my FRIEND and hes obvi upset about this. Check urself for basic empathy before you send me shit. Thx’. I paid for the Plan B, along with a bottle of water to take it with, and tossed the packaging in the trash can outside the entrance. I took the pill while I waited for the car to show up. When I showed up at the Hyatt, Jensen was in the op room, Jared was doing his meet and greet, so I dropped my bags in the green room and waited for them. They’d come by the green room before heading back to the auditorium for the regular Sunday panel.

“Hey, Baby Girl.” Jensen dropped into the chair next to me, looking not at all as upset as he had in the video.

“Somebody sent me video of the Gold Panel.” I said, taking his hand in mine and entwining our fingers. “They already know about the divorce, huh?”

“Yeah, must have someone on the inside at the Travis County Courthouse.” He looked down at our hands, then looked across the room to our friends. “Take it you don’t mind our friends knowing, then?” he asked quietly.

“If they judge us, they judge, but we never did anything wrong.”

Jensen smiled and licked his lips. “I’d totally kiss you right now, but Kim an’ them just got done telling me how sorry they were about my divorce, so I’ll hold off on it.” He bit his lip. “Did'ya get that thing you needed?”

“That thing I needed ‘cause of you? Yeah, I got it.” I leaned my head against his shoulder. “The pharmacy tech recognized me, but it's okay. I made it pretty clear that I know my rights and if it ends up in the tabloids, I'm getting her fired.”

“Oh? When did you go diva?”

“Not diva, but I’m not gonna let someone violate my rights, rights they have a duty to uphold, so that they can gossip. I’m with Jared. Just ‘cause I’m famous-adjacent, that doesn’t mean people can walk on me.”

“‘Famous-adjacent’. You’re adorable.”

“Uh, Jensen, it’s time.” Stefani walked up, clipboard in hand. “I’ve already made the announcement that no one is to ask about… about Danneel. Um, they’ve pretty much acknowledged that they’ll be chasing you away if they don’t adhere to the pre-approved questions. Adam wanted me to let you know that, if you do have to walk out of the panel, he understands and he won’t make a big ruckus about your obligations, but he’d really like you to finish your ops if you choose to leave early.”

Jay smiled and stood, releasing my hand. “I’m not going anywhere. Even the tin hats don’t want me to leave, so they won’t ask about Danneel.”

“I can totally see the fan sites, though. ‘Danneel left Jensen because he’s gay for Jared. Genevieve is just holding out for show’,” Jared announced, smiling broadly.

“Ya know… that’s not funny.” Jensen smirked, though.

“Yeah, it is. It’s funny ‘cause it’s true. You know they’re already saying it. I bet if I pull up the tweet I got sent, there’s retweets under it saying that exact thing.” I pulled out my phone, but didn’t go to twitter. I didn’t need to. An unopened text message greeted me from a string of numbers my phone and brain didn’t recognize. I tried to delete it without reading it, just as I’d done the other ten to twenty texts I’d been getting every day. This one, though, was more involved than just ‘ungrateful whore’. This one read ‘Are you proud you’ve destroyed a family with your whore cunt?’

I bit my tongue, keeping my face blank to keep J2 from worrying about me, blocked the number and deleted the message. It wouldn’t matter. Tom would text from another number later. The man’s a bit of a Luddite, but given the right motivation he could obviously figure out how to text from random numbers online. Or he’d bought hundreds of disposable cell phones just to torture me. Honestly, I really couldn’t tell you which.

I watched J2’s panel from the side of the auditorium. Jay kept his surly and unhappy act up throughout but every once in a while he’d look at me and smile, just for a second. It made me happier than was acceptable. But my mind kept going back to that text message. ‘Are you proud-’ I could hear it in Tom’s voice. I could imagine his ice blue eyes stabbing me as he placed blame on me for Danneel leaving Jensen.

God, but he was right. It was on me, wasn’t it? If he’d never met me, his marriage… I shook my head. This is exactly what he was trying to accomplish with his bullying texts.

Jay noticed. Of course Jay noticed I was stuck in my head. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing, Jay.”

“You’re doin’ that thing, that deep thinking, worrying thing.” Jensen pulled me behind the curtain behind the stage and ran his fingers through my hair. “What’s wrong?”

“I prom-”

“Don’t lie to me, Baby Girl. You know I can’t let you go back to Florida with this sad sack shit in your head. Come on.”

My phone went off in my pocket as I opened my mouth to claim innocence, but when my body stiffened, Jensen just raised an eyebrow. I pulled out my phone and looked at it. A different string of numbers, back to a shorter message. ‘Homewrecking bitch’. I flipped the phone so Jay could see. “Just been getting some…”

“Tom. I’m gonna kill him.”

I shook my head. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll just get rid of it.”

“Will blocking the number work?”

I hesitated, then shook my head. “No, he's just gonna send it from another number. I've blocked every number he's texted from.”

“This is harassment, y/n. You need to report him.”

“I have no proof it's him, Jay. I can't accuse him with nothing to show for it. I’m just gonna get a new number when I get home. That’ll solve it.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I know. It’s fine, though. I promise I’m okay.”

“Fine.” He looked around, then leaned down to press his lips to mine. I pulled away, smiling up at him. “You get a new number as soon as you get back to Florida. Like, on the way home from the airport, get a new number, okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Go do your meet and greet.”

Jay kissed my forehead. “Don’t leave for the airport without sayin’ goodbye, huh?”

“Okay. Love you, Jay.”

“Love you, too, y/n.”

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

Changing my number worked. The texts stopped. Jay was the first person I texted from my new number, Jared second, my parents and nephew were a group text that was third, Connie was fourth. I started updating my contact information with everyone before I’d even made it back to my parents’ house… except Marvel. I emailed Marvel to tell them that my phone was out of commission and if they needed to get a hold of me, they would have to do it via snail or electronic mail. I didn’t want to risk someone at Marvel giving my new number to Tom.

The email that followed was one that made my stomach twist. ‘Miss y/l/n, please let us know when you have a new contact number. We need to set up accommodations for you for the People's Choice Awards, as you have been requested to present the award for best new series along with Sebastian Stan, Elizabeth Olson, and Tom Hiddleston. You can, of course, deny the request, if you want. Please respond as soon as possible.’

“So, Marvel has, uh, pretty much volunteered me to present at the People's Choice Awards… with Elizabeth and Sebastian and Tom.” I kept my voice steady as I looked down at my computer, where Jensen was in a Skype screen, but my legs were shaking with nerves. “I could tell them ‘no’, but this is a test. This is them seeing if I can handle being around him and I really thought I could do it, but now, I’m not so sure, but if I refuse they’re gonna get rid of me.”

Jay nodded, eyes soft. “What do you need, y/n/n?”

“I need you with me. I mean, I know you don’t usually go to the PCA, but the show is up for two and I just-”

“I’ll get Andy to give me the day off, fly to L.A., walk the red carpet with the most beautiful woman in the world.”

I scoffed, smiling. “No way is she available, but I’m free.” I took a deep breath. “Thank you, Jay.”

“Anything for you, Baby Girl.”

Jay couldn’t save me from rehearsal, though. I tried to stay away from Tom until I had to but he sought me out. “Please, go away.” I didn’t look up when he approached.

“You look good. How have you been?”

“Better now that you can’t text me all the time.”

“Will you look at me? You aren’t having this conversation with your shoes.”

“I’d rather be having this conversation with my shoes.” Tom tucked his fingertips under my chin and forced me to look at him and I flinched away, grinding my teeth together. “Don’t touch me.”

He smiled, softly, eyes soft. I shook my head, crossing my arms over my head. “Y/n, I think you misunderstand my intentions, my Dear, you-”

“I don’t misunderstand anything, Tom. And don’t call me that.”

“What? ‘Dear’?” He emphasized it on purpose. “Look, I've come to apologize and I think you owe me an opportunity to do such.”

I scoffed at the idea that I owe him anything. “Apologize? For what? Our relationship, or how you've acted since I ended it?”

“You mean since Jensen ended it, don't you?” He leaned closer to me. “You think I don't know what happened? You went to Vancouver and he told you his wife was leaving him so you got down on your knees for him like the whore you are and then you broke it off with me.”

“If you think that's what happened, then you don't know me, at all.” I took a deep, shaky breath. “And I'm not a whore. I never have been. You just treated me like one.”

Tom sighed, running his hand through his hair. Here comes the flip. “I’m sorry. Truly. I just… losing you has been a terrible experience. I know you aren’t. You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. And you’d never be unfaithful, not after what Nathan did to you. I’m so sorry.”

The thing about men like Tom is they’re very good at what they do. They get what they want. Either through charm and manipulation or through violence and threats of such. The thing about women like me? We expect the darkness once we’ve seen it in a person. Once we know the potential is there, we are more than a little cynical in our dealings with them.

So, when Tom very politely and calmly suggested he take me to dinner so that the paparazzi could get pictures of us getting along, that that was the best way to show the execs we were okay to be around each other, it threw a big red flag, but I agreed. He was right, it was a great way to prove to everyone, myself included, that I could handle being around him, and if he kept up the charm instead of the obsession, it would be fine.

Jay wasn’t happy about it, but I promised him that I would be in public, with cameras on me, the entire time. “It’s the best way to deal with this. I will be completely on guard, Tom will be on his best behavior. I have to do this,” I said into Skype.

“You really don’t. If you want to, you know, face him, I get it. But you don’t have to do this.” He bit his lip. “You still want me to be there tomorrow?”

“Of course! Please, Jay.”

He nodded. “I’ll be there.”

“I love you, Jensen.”

“I love you, too, Baby Girl. My flight’s in at 11:35. You gonna pick me up?”

“Definitely.”

He smiled. “All right. You be careful. I wish I was there, I’d-”

“I know what you’d do to him. That’s part of why I’m doing this alone. I do love that you wanna defend me, though.”

“Cover your own ass, right?”

“Yes, sir.” I smiled at him and he blew me a kiss before signing off.

I didn’t dress up to go to dinner. I didn’t want to send any sort of romantic signals toward Tom. He did dress up. I looked like a bum sitting at the table with Tom in a clean pressed suit. I didn’t really care, though. The point was for us to seem like we didn’t hate each other, not that we were on a date.

When the waiter came up, Tom ordered me a tequila sunrise before I’d even had a chance to open my mouth. Flag. As the server walked away, I excused myself to the restroom and tracked down the waiter. “Hi. Uh, you know that guy I’m with?”

“Oh, honey, I know all about you and Tom Hiddleston,” he said, looking over my shoulder. “I run a gossip blog in my free time. Didn’t think you’d run back to an abusive relationship so quick, but who am I to judge?”

I scoffed. “I’m not going back to him. This is purely for the Marvel execs to see us together so they don’t take Sin away from me.” I sighed. “But he’s trying to get me drunk, and that needs to not happen. Okay? So, can you do me a huge favor and not put any tequila in the sunrises? Just orange juice and grenadine, swipe the rim with tequila so that it smells like liquor but don’t mix any in?”

He gave me a thoughtful look and pursed his lips. “When you finally decide to come clean about Tom’s abuse, I want an exclusive interview.”

“Deal.”

“Virgin sunrises with a tequila rim, it is. Here’s my card.” He pulled out a business card and handed it over. I tucked it in the back of my jeans and winked before heading back to the table.

Tom put the charm on for about an hour and a half, ordering me new drinks before I’d finished my old ones, smiling as we spoke, and it was easy to see why I’d fallen for him in the first place. If I weren’t on my guard, I might have fallen back into it. If he hadn’t tried to get me drunk, I might’ve fallen for it… If he hadn’t hurt me…

The server, Steph according to his card, brought me another drink and Tom looked at me, curiously. “That’s your fourth one, isn’t it?”

“Well you keep ordering me more!” I laughed, loudly, and I could almost hear the camera shutters going.

“But you don’t seem even slightly tipsy.” He chuckled, obviously confused.

“Oh, that’s ‘cause there’s no tequila in these.” I gestured to the glass in my hand.

His face fell. “What?” he whispered.

I nodded, excitedly, putting down the drink and picking up a breadstick. “Yeah! See, I, uh, I got a pretty good memory, Tom, and I remember telling you on our first date to Lava that if you wanted to get me drunk, tequila sunrises were the way to go. You ordering me a sunrise was a big red flag. Texas-sized once you started ordering more and more of them.” I bit into the bread and leaned forward, smiling. “You wanted me to get drunk, defenses down, get pictures of us getting cozy in the mags again, and, hey, maybe you’d get me in bed, right? ‘Cause it was so easy last time. And then I’d have to take you back or I’d look like the whore you think I am.”

I kept the smile, but my eyes and voice went cold. “This is the part where you’re supposed to apologize, tell me I’m misunderstanding. But I’m not, am I?” I shook my head. “I’m done with this, Tom. This is it. Look me in my eyes and hear what I’m saying. I am not afraid of you. I am not in love with you. You are not going to manipulate me or hurt me, ever again. I will continue to work with you, as needed, but beyond that… you don’t talk to me, understand?”

I stood when he didn’t respond, patting his shoulder as I walked toward the door. I threw a peace sign at the paparazzi and pulled my phone out as I walked down the sidewalk. “Hey, just wanted to let you know I’m out of dinner with Tom. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, but suffice it to say… I think I win. I think the game’s over and I win. Call me when you get done shooting. Love you, Jay.”

It was like a weight being lifted when I turned back toward the restaurant and saw Tom walk out. He looked at me, but walked forward to hail a cab, not coming after me. I win.

~~~~~~~~~~

I had never been so excited to put on a dress as I was to put on the cobalt blue metallic Theia gown. Like, not even my wedding dress made me as excited as the gown I put on to walk the red carpet with Jensen… in his light blue suit with his thin grey tie. He actually fucking stared when I walked out of the bathroom. I spent hours on my hair and makeup and locked myself in the hotel bathroom for the last half hour before finishing. His eyes went wide and his jaw dropped a little and, honestly, I have never felt more beautiful. “Wow. You look amazing.”

“It’s not too much? I mean, when I did the premieres, Tom always made me go less. He didn’t want me to ‘look like a harlot’.”

Jensen rolled his eyes. “If he so much as speaks to you without needing to, I’m gonna kill him.”

“No, you’re not. Don’t wanna get your suit dirty.”

“Fine… but if he touches you…”

“I can take care of it. Calm your protective side, honey. I handled him yesterday, I can handle him today.”

“‘Honey’?” He smirked. “Since when am I ‘Honey’?”

“Since calling you ‘daddy’ is weird for both of us if it’s not a joke and Jay is a nickname, not a pet name and you, my wonderful boyfriend, deserve a pet name.”

His smirk became a genuine smile. “I fuckin’ love you. I’ll take ‘Honey’.���

We rode to the awards show in the back of a Towncar. Jensen helped me out and we walked down the carpet, taking questions from reporters as we went. A few asked why we were there together and Jensen let me answer them. “See, this guy here, this is my best friend. I told him I had to present an award and asked if he’d come with for emotional support and he was here, man. Like, how many folks would move their whole schedules around to take their friend to an award show that she’s not even getting an award at?”

“She didn’t even have to ask. Soon as I found out her ex was gonna be here, I wanted to be here.” Jay bit his lip and looked around, almost like he was trying to find Tom.

“And we’re not causing any trouble, right, Jensen?” I said, pointedly.

He pursed his lips and nodded. “Right. We don’t start trouble.”

“Do you end it?” The reporter asked with a smile.

I grabbed Jensen’s arm and tugged on it. “We’re not ending anything except this interview, okay? Come on, we gotta get inside.”

I had to go to the restroom, so I left Jensen at our seats and walked away. When I got back to my seat, Jay held out his phone. “You’re welcome.”

“What’s this?”

“Some of the proof you keep sayin’ you don’t have.”

I pressed play on the video, which was taken with the selfie cam of the phone that was obviously sitting in Jensen’s lap as it recorded. “How did I know she would show up here on your arm?” Tom’s voice came out of the phone.

“Probably the same way she knew Marvel would protect you and I know that she’s gonna destroy you as soon as she decides Marvel isn’t worth her effort if they’re gonna cover for a predator.”

“But Marvel hasn’t been protecting me. The only one protecting me is y/n. She’s said repeatedly that I did no wrong. Why do you think that is, I wonder?”

“Ah, is this the part where you tell me that, despite the fact that you were horrible and abusive and controlling and forced her into a S&M relationship she didn’t want, despite the fact that when she left you you grabbed her so hard she had bruises for weeks and then started harassing her through text messages until she changed her number and tried to get her drunk last night so that you could take advantage of her... despite all that, she’s still in love with you?”

“Of course she is, even if she doesn’t realize it. Love doesn’t die so quickly… and she is mine.”

“No, jackass, she’s not. She’s not yours. She’s not mine. She is her own woman and she doesn’t want anything to do with you.” The picture jostled as he stood and the camera settled on the bottom half of Tom’s face. “She doesn’t want me to cause a scene, so walk away before she gets back.”

Tom gave a slight smile. “I never should have let her go back to your little show.”

“She’d still be under your thumb if you hadn’t.”

“She’ll be under my thumb again, don’t worry. And when she returns, I’ll show her exactly what happens to a slave that runs away from her master.”

“Walk… away… now.”

“There are far too many cameras upon us, Jensen. You wouldn’t want to embarass y/n publicly, would you? I can say from experience, she hates the media speculating about her life.” Tom chuckled. “Enjoy her while you can. She’ll come back to me, eventually.”

I swallowed and handed the phone back to Jay. “He didn’t… he didn’t even try to deny any of it. He’s so… He really thinks I’m gonna go back to him?” I shook my head.

“Dude’s delusional.” Jay smirked as he tucked his phone into his jacket pocket. “You really know how to pick ‘em, don’t’cha?”

“Well, one outta three ain’t bad.”

“Yeah, it is. That’s 33%,” he said with a smirk.

“Well, I only need one to work out, right? One good guy.” Jay reached out and grabbed my hand. “In case you were wondering, you’re the good guy.”

“Oh, good. I was worried.” He chuckled, bringing the back of my hand to his lips.

OPEN/SOMETHING MORE

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