#she played so well and the only reason scott won last life and not her was coincidence. they're both great players

[minecraft-bee-go-buzzzz]

why consume and/or actually make content when you can just make sillly aus in your head mmmm?

(this gets REALLY long-)

anyway life series au idea with the winners not dying!

Not that they dont try. Grain still jumps off Monopoly Mountain believing that it’d end the game. Scott still suddenly falls to the ground clutching his chest. Pearl still gets blown away thanks to the explosion. Martyn still runs out of time.

But they dont die.

Grian falling backwards, landing on his wings, knocking himself out. hours later waking up with broken wings in so much pain and theres... a bit of blood. Not knowing what to do now he’s somehow lived he stays in whats left of the base. And one day, the border falls. Theres nothing left here for him, so he leaves.

Scott wakes up somewhere he does not recongise. He remembers passing out, ya know, outside. after killing people. And he thought he died- Now he’s in some house, a building style he doesn’t recognise. Somewhere that actually looks like they tried when building. And then a man he swore he recongised came upstairs, in some odd clothes, offering food and water and a place to stay.

Pearl met a brutal should be end. I mean yeah she died because Scott did, felt the pain scott did. but she also was right next to the explosion, and it hit her. felt his and her own pain, died from him both because he died and exploded her. So it was fair to say the last thing ever expected was to wake up to see him worrying over her half destroyed body.

Oh Martyn. Killing his ally and hunting Impulse down. The clock still ticks. Just so, so much louder. There’s no one else around, nothing going on. all that he hears is the wind in his ears and the ticking in his head. He doesn’t really leave where he killed them. Just waits. They aren’t getting some dramatic send off. They can wait around as long as they like ‘till he drops once his hard earned time is spent. Though once it’s gone, once he runs out of time... why doesnt he die? And why can he hear familiar voices in the distance?

Now im unsure how i want the winners living but still being in the games to work. I have 2 ideas but I this current one I vibe with more-

Current idea: the watchers created these doubles to play in the winner’s place, to keep around the same amount of players and to keep some fun dynamics. Once you win the double will continue to play in your place for the rest of the games.

The winners continue to live outside the games and once enough of them build a small community. they only remember the game they won, and are all very conflicted on how they feel about each other.

everyone else who didn’t win is doomed to play over and over again trapped in the watcher’s game never remembering the one before.

Also, the winners stay ‘red’. how much the red affects them depends on the person.

(idea i have atm is, funny enough, the order the games happen. Grian is the least affected, then scott, then pearl and Martyn the most)

How all the winners find each other?

So taking the Grian is a watcher idea and fucking sprinting with it-

Grian after spending a few days alone in the desert, the watchers have moved on. they are somewhere else feasting, no longer there to bother grian (he wasn’t doing anything anymore. just moping. so boring-) but also no longer there to hold him back.

so after those days he kinda comes back to his watcher powers, or well some of them. And why keep himself locked up in a border when he can just get rid of it and run away from his problems (dead friends, destroyed home-)

And the first time he comes across another game is an accident. He finds the border and having not set it up himself (he doesn’t know if he could. never had a reason to try) And stays around the area, sets up a tent and waits for the border to fall.

Once it does. he searches. The watchers dont know, they’ve left. nothing to stay for, time for a feast. But grian looks, finds ruins that remind him of home and it hurts. But he finds someone. someone that, yeah. yeah he knows him. Scott. but it’s not Scott. Not the Scott he knew atleast.

That Scott was sooner caught dead than missing his ring.

But, it’s still a survivor. A winner. And if the blood stained ground is to go by, he went down swinging.

but he’s not dead. he’s alive. he’s unconscious, but breathing.

And Grian’s already lost everyone. this is the first person he’s seen in months. call him selfish, but he doesn’t want to be alone again. so he decides to help this new Scott. Also, maybe he could learn what happened. Get a bit of an understanding on what these sick games really are.

He carries Scott to his home he’s built. Took a while, such long distances still sucked without flight, but the wait for him to wake up was even worse. The chance he wouldn’t? horrible. so Grian ignored it-

But Scott did wake up, and paniced he was to see Grian alive and well, even if his choice of outfit was off. The idea of some form of revenge for Scott being the one to win instead of him was the first thing to cross his mind. like, it’s still Grian. and Grian’s still red.

But he just asks questions, and provides food, and gives answers when Scott asks things himself. Neither seem to be a threat to each other, as there is no benefit in killing the only other person who seems to understand any of this mess. Plus, gaining the knowledge there were two Grian’s, and this one was not the one he personally knew, well, he had no reason to trust him but also none to not.

So Scott stays around. Builds his own house near by Grian’s after the first few weeks. And whenever one explores they make sure to keep an eye out for a border, and ready to alert the other should they find one.

And give it some time, find another they shall.

Double life had ended a bit ago at that point. Scott found the border when he over heard familiar voices near by it. He waited around for Grain to show up and by the time he did the game was over, and with ease he took the border down (yet again no other watchers there to stop him, to busy eating to care)

I doesnt take long to find Pearl but both are quite upset at the sight. Clearly not as somewhat peaceful they had been given. half her face blown to bits and an arm that looks like it wont work the way it use too even with serious help.

While Scott checks her over and Grain looks are their cords to figure how far they are from their little set up, she wakes up instantly panicked. Panicked but also in to much pain to acutally fight back.

And, like, Pearl had been torturing her soulmate for weeks by that point. She’d recognise him. And while the man looking at her certaintly LOOKED like Scott, it was NOT her Scott. It was not the soulmate that left her behind.

Her soulmate wouldn’t look so worried over her state considering he caused it.

Pearl doesn’t take the whole winners live on thing as well as the first too did. not that they took it well, but they kinda just accepted it mostly silently and got on with it. Pearl yells, she cries. That it was all for nothing.

That they could’ve seriously just lived and got along.

Did no one have to die?

Doesn’t help she’s in absolute agony. where her body is actually hurt is completely messed up, but the rest in pain from feeling like she blew up.

They stay around the double life set up untill they deem pearl stable enough both mentally and phyiscally to go back to what they’ve made home.

She’s fairly open about what happened in her game. atleast compered to Grian and Scott, which had both hardly talked about their personal teams or teams that involved the other from their games.

She told them about how she went with Martyn to the nether which was why Scott and Cleo left them to go be soulmates together instead, how she had tilly, and then Martyn killed her. How all the other players thought she was mad.

All she wanted was her dog and a friend.

She bonds pretty well with both Scott and Grian, Scott talking about his pearl and how they were allies, and that clearly this fake scott was a coward, and Grian makes a few jokes about pizza and what they went through for that llama.

Once she’s better they head back to their little safe place. Fairly early on Pearl decides to build another tower, a smaller tower, but she still has her tower. She even gets some new dogs! She was scared to at first. But this wasn’t a death game anymore, Scott and Grian gained nothing from killing her animals. it was safe to have them.

Now, after three times, chances are it’s happening again. They dont exactly look forward to it, but when pearl gives the heads up her dogs found another border and sends her cords over the other two are there within a day or two.

This time it takes a while for the game to end. They dont see much, dont get the notices on their communicators, dont really have a clue whats going on until Grian manages to get rid of the border. Execpt this time the Watchers left alot quicker, almost instantly.

Seems they were already bored.

The three spread out hoping to find the Winner quicker this way, each person having one of pearl’s dogs go with them for safety.

And when Scott found Martyn sat there with blood on his hands, staring at them in utter disbelief he wasn’t expecting to be attacked on sight by the man once noticed.

Something about “you ran out of time, how are you back we ran out of time we shouldn’t be here-”

Seems there was yet again a fun gimmick for the new game.

As Scott’s trying to tell Martyn to chill and keep him from killing Pearl’s dog, the other two both appear having met up running towards the yelling. Now, these people are mostly decked out in enchanted diamond gear, and they have dogs! Martyn’s not stupid. He wont win. he puts his sword away and hands in the air for surrender.

Now, if they thought Pearl took the winner’s living thing bad, boy did Martyn just snap.

Because every single other person in his game had died. They didn’t technically run out of time. two fell to their deaths, the others were murdered. So, for all Martyn knew, he just betrayed his closest ally for a win that ment nothing.

Because for all he knew, they could’ve all lived.

Martyn wasnt too willing to just go with these strangers. yeah, they may look like the people he knew. They might technically be the original versions of them- but what have they done to earn his trust! Show up and threaten him- well he did attack scott first bUT! His dead teammate he just killed showed up again when he should’ve been perma dead! it was a fair reaction.

So they had to spend a little time convincing him, no problem. And once the mention of watchers came up and the borders, grian’s ‘ability’ to take them down, suddenly the fourth winner was all for hanging around with them. (also very much hinting to grian he knew a watcher’s eyes when he saw them- even if scott and pearl didn’t seemed to know for sure yet)

Martyn does still come back with them and set up his own little hut next to a pond he decorated (tropical fish, pufferfish, coral and kelp). it’s further away than the others are but their all okay with that. His red tendencies can still get a little out of hand sometimes, best to keep a little distance when that happens.

This au either continues sad as shit with these lot slowly talking about things that happened and coming to terms about how they didn’t know what would happen at the end, maybe they could’ve all happly lived but thats not what happened and maybe they cant forget everything and everyone but its about time to move on.

OR

silly fun times where the winners all fuck around and have fun. ignore the trauma, enjoy life. have the friends you were never aloud to keep before. Build the amazing house you always wanted, having all the dogs you could ever need. Your alive! Live a little! Enjoy it! until the next border’s found

Or maybe a mix of both-

[townofcrosshollow]

Double Life ending got me feeling feelings

[stargod]

Ok ok im tired of seeing every mention of bigbs betrayal being all the same takes over and over about either cleo and/or that he could have asked, so here are some other thoughts:

- the point of boogeyman, and technically the game at large, is to get people to trust u so theyre less of a threat. Technically bigb did exactly what the role was intended for, he basically just played the long con. The fact that he caught feelings cause he didnt Realize he was playing a long con just makes it that much juicier

- also how many people can say they Actually gained Cleo's trust? Bdubs. And MAYBE tango. And even then was it her trust they got or just her affection? Technically i think that makes bigb one of the best boogeymen so far.

- After all what better way to gain someones trust than to genuinely deserve it. Up. Till. The very. Last. Moment. (Not great for cleo's future trust endeavors, but that kind of works seeing as thats the one thing she doesn't need anymore...) (also another great foil moment to ren, who also gains trust thru actually deserving it- imo)

- consider why the fairies ultimately decided to stick with him. Theyve all been boogeymen. They Know the itch. They kno, even tho they Started by trying to kill outside the alliance, if push came to shove, EXACTLY how it did for bigb (he didn't immediately decide to kill in-ranks, he struggled the whole episode to find Anyone), they wouldve done anything as well.

- yes, if he'd told them, if he'd ASKED for help, push might Not have come to shove for bigb, but consider why he didnt. He was Terrified. He isnt like Lizzie, he specifically mentioned he doesnt kno how to build traps and there were several moments he Could have pvped that Could have failed. And he's not ren either. He doesnt have the leverage ren has, he doesnt have the repor that would help him trust others to Trust him. And hes not cleo, shes never been the boogeyman, she has no idea what she'd do (or wouldve done) let alone anyone else knowing.

- remember bigb telling etho he wouldnt kill anyone? That he thought maybe he'd just go to red? He almost did. Do you think he thought of that in those final moments? Why do you think he changed his mind? Maybe being boogeyman made him realize how impossible winning on red might be for him. Maybe he realized he'd rather take the risk losing a friend on green than not having the option of friends on red...

- And can we talk about his main ally being cleo? Cleo who, even when she had absolutely 0 reasons not to trust ren, refused to trust him. Shes willing to drop people. Shes willing to drop Anyone. Even when she Swore she would Die for tango and bdubs, she said it because she Believed they might ask. Because when the name of the game is last life, the only person you can Trust is yourself.

- I do believe that, in the last 5 minutes, if bigb had told her, cleo would have let him kill her. But if he'd asked for their help from the start the way ren did? If he'd told her on that ladder, or on the bridge, or maybe even standing over the pond having listened to them all jump aboard to help ren. I dont think it would have been the same.

- And maybe, maybe bigb didnt want to ask. Maybe in spite of the curse, in spite of every instinct to survive. Bigb might hoped, believed even, that he might fail to kill Cleo.

- Lizzie didnt think to disavow bigb. I personally think it just genuinely didnt occur to her, because real time rping and what have u. But she could have condemned bigb. It wouldve made sense. Cleo was angry that she was betrayed, if Lizzie had simply said i am also angry you got betrayed (and she seemed like she honestly was) if she had said why would i want someone i kno will betray their closest allies on my team (and why would she) she might have won cleo back, and cleo wouldn't have gone over to scott and pearl's and she wouldnt have gone red...

- martyn trying to exile bigb from the fairies without being a part of them

- the way martyn is trying to use ren to control the fairies, but he crossed the line. He's never been boogeyman, he didnt think ren would side with a traitor, maybe he should wonder just how much he Does kno about ren. Just how much power he really has.. (also, just, ren being the one to stick up for bigb And against martyn one of the people actually like the most 🥺🥺) (also martyn overstepping- over estimating what he can get away with >:3 get lost stinky boy!!)

-the shadow fairies are now entirely composed of people who have been afflicted by the curse

- not only did the only person to not experience the curse end up being the one to abandon ship now shes a red name

- (listen, writing isnt my strong suit, but i feel like red names v boogeymen make for an interesting dichotomy, like red names are almost more "natural" and harder to come back from, where the boogeyman is practically a virus and people who have it are still green names, they still have the chance to "remove" the curse and being red is still the most terrifying threat)

- mix that with cleo's general self-riteousness (affectionate)- "i have the RIGHT to kill, now, youre all just TRAITORS"

- i think cleo pointing out to ren that she knew if push came to shove ren wouldve betrayed her or bigb was really important to ren sticking up for bigb afterward

- yes theyre perfect foils for what happened- the difference between being transparent with ur allies and having help v not and ending up being Forced to betray.

- But Cleo Was right and ren Does grant that if skizz hadnt worked he wouldve been short on time and even Lizzie may have requested he kill one of their allies rather than lose her guard dog

- even tho bigb was in 3rd life he was forced to make way less difficult decisions, mostly cause he was just less confrontational, he has less experience with that that than ren, he was SCARED

- he was Scared his allies didnt care enough about him to help. He was scared he had the one ally on the server most likely to drop him for even being remotely a threat. He was Scared that he didnt have what it took to pvp or trap or beguile!

- and if u just take even a moment to consider "why DIDN'T he tell anyone after they spent literally the whole episode Helping ren", u realise the answer couldve very well been.. "well, im not ren" maybe he felt like more of an outsider than ren, more expendable.

-bigb cast himself out of the alliance before they ever had the chance to. By staying on the outside, he never had to know if they would turn their backs on him. And the fact that they decided to stick with him after it all, when he thought they might really cast him out. Looked inside themselves and realized that bigb was Not an outsider- Not a Betrayer- that he was in fact, just like them- scared and afflicted and feeling completely alone. I think this could make their alliance way stronger than the others, and possibly even make ren more resilient to martyns whispers (although evidence points to no on that one)

- i do think, tho, bigb needs to find something more substantial to tie himself to them fast though. "We have all had to deal with the fear of betraying our friends now" is not exactly the most substantial post to tie your bonds to. But i think just making that idea stronger by Being more transparent moving forward could do the trick. Making it less "we all have almost betrayed our friends" and making it "we are not the curse that made us do that" maybe? Might could help? And by being honest- not vulnerable but honest- moving forward could have that desired effect, exactly...

[introvertguide]

The Road Movie

Most movies follow a general script type depending on genre, and this is used to tell a story that has a satisfying ending. It is interesting when a movie mixes up type and tone and goes against genre type. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it is terrible. Great directing and acting can make the subversion of expectations less jarring (or more depending on the end goal), but the end goal and tone allows us to attach a film to a genre. But what about films that aren't about the end goal? There are many films that are in a sub-genre that focus on the journey with little regard to the end goal. These are what are called "road movies" and can fall under many different genres since the end goal doesn't really matter. Let's address some famous road movies through the years that are also classified in a variety of other genres:

Huckleberry Finn (1931)

The OG of travel films, this was the sequel to Tom Sawyer (1930) and had the same child actors. This wasn't what you would call financially successful, but this was largely due to the Great Depression. The 1939 version of the movie did a lot better and was one of the well known films of child actor Mickey Rooney. This story of travel was an early role for many actors including Rooney, Ron Howard, and Elijah Wood. Although there were threats of death and portrayals of slavery, this film was considered a family adventure in the pre-code film era. I guess a boy escaping his abusive father in the company of an adult escaped slave where people are actively attempting to rob and kill them was considered a fun family romp in the early 30s. This was the same story that came from a book that was banned in schools during the 1980s. It is a great story and I love the works of Mark Twain; I am just surprised at the genre.

Stagecoach (1939)

This is a great movie that transcends the Western genre of which it is categorized. A group of people all have different reasons for traveling from an Arizona territory over to New Mexico. There is word of vengeful thieves and angry Apaches that threaten the small band of travelers. It is actually very intense because the threat feels very real throughout the film. The entire film focuses on the journey and the relationships forged (and broken) on the way. This was the breakout role for John Wayne and was part of an amazing string of films directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne.

Easy Rider (1969)

This is a film that really spoke to the hippie movement during the Vietnam Era. It is statement on how difficult it is to truly be free and how society fears that freedom and tries to destroy it. The film might very well have the worst dialogue of any movie I have ever seen. Actors Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper were actively using drugs throughout film production, so the real draw was the sweet rides and the moving soundtrack. This is a movie where I actually want more driving montages and less character development because I don't identify with the characters at all. Maybe it is a generational gap.

Paper Moon (1973)

This film is amazing. It is the story of a traveling grifter who takes a little girl on the road with him after her mother dies. He teaches her how to make a living cheating people and they form a father-daughter type of relationship. It is a comedy drama that won the girl an Oscar for best supporting actress when she was only 10. Some nice back story, the girl is Tatum O'Neal and is the actual daughter of the grifter, played by Ryan O'Neal. It is kind of strange, but this is a "coming of age" film on the road.

The Blues Brothers (1980)

Now this is what I am talking about. Two brothers go on a trip after being released from jail because they got a message from God. I am pretty sure that this film still holds the record for most crashed vehicles in a single movie. It is also interesting that the film is technically a musical. The brothers stop at different locations and songs break out. In between stops, they are chased by the police in an almost demolition derby style chase. I really enjoy this movie and believe that it really keeps a fast pace (literally and figuratively), but, like many road films, I can't say it is good because it is more of an experience than a story.

Thelma and Louise (1991)

This was an interesting twist on the "run from the law" type of film. Two women are friends and decide go on a weekend retreat. They get in trouble after killing a man who tries to assault them and have to run from the authorities. It has a reputation for being very feminist (despite being directed by accused mesogenist Ridley Scott) because of the negative portrayal of men. It obviously wasn't that bad since it was nominated for 6 Oscars including both leads for best actress. In fact, Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon were both nominated for best actress at the Academy Awards, the BAFTAs, and the Golden Globes. It is the quintessential road film since the end goal is constantly changing and best defined as "away from here."

Natural Bork Killers (1994)

This was kind of a strange film. It is a crime drama where the audience follows two killers with traumatic childhoods as they meet and go on a murder spree. Similar to Bonnie and Clyde, but with gory murders as the focus over bank robberies. It is directed by Oliver Stone, and criticizes the glorification of violence by the media. It is most definitely a road movie because the end goal for the two is simply to be together and enjoy the rush of breaking the law. Hm. It is actually quite a bit like Bonnie and Clyde. Interesting. I would like to make a note that my mom hates this film because of the shaky cam and Dutch angles. It made her feel sick at the theater.

Road Trip (2000)

OK. This is far and away my least favorite film on this list, but it is the most famous "boner road comedy" that I am familiar with. It is a high school/college coming-of-age film that focus on the sexual pursuits of a group of young men. These types of films are marked with gross out humor, gratuitous nudity, and boys trying to have sex. There was a bunch of films like this that came out around the early 2000s and they all had to do with boys traveling some place in search of idealized sex (the plot on this one is a little different, something to do with a sex tape) and generally they find that the best girl for them was there by them all along. It takes a nice idea of character development and throws raunchy jokes and boobs at it. I was not a fan, but it was definitely a thing.

Death Proof (2007)

This is much better shlock. It is the Tarantino version of exploitation grindhouse films of the seventies, but updated to be a women empowerment film. It was part of a double feature that was paired with a horrific zombie outbreak film directed by Rod Rodriguez, but this one is much better on its own. It is the story of an old stunt man who travels around looking for unsuspecting victims whom he can run down in his indestructible car. This is a great example of what a road movie can be because Tarantino took the concept of a slasher and put it completely on the road.

Mad Max Fury Road (2015)

Here is an action revenge film in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where most of the film is driving. The producers couldn't find a director who they trusted with remaking George Miller's Mad Max franchise so the 70 year old Miller said "hold my beer" and made this masterpiece that is arguably better than any of the first three (edit: I guess Miller always intended to direct but it took so long to go into production that he joked in interviews about giving up on it). The original trilogy with Mel Gibson presents an amazing world where most people are nomadic and traveling can be a life or death proposition. Fury Road is the further adventures of the character and his interaction with one Furiosa. The use of many practical effects on moving vehicles that was garnished with CG effects made for one of the best action films in the last decade. It was more than a simple movie about traveling; it was a land were the road was life and everything surrounded the ability to be mobile enough to get supplies in a dead world.

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This is by no means all of the road movies. The Wizard of Oz is technically a road movie. The Grapes of Wrath is a critically acclaimed road movie from around the same time. Comedies like The Cannonball Run, Smokey and the Bandit, and National Lampoon's Vacation can all be classified in the genre. Rain Man is one of the best films of all time and it can be classified as a road movie. What it comes down to is that, when considering characters, a writer should think about the journey itself and think of how the leads interact with this entity. The road might be the best character in the whole story.

[bamfdaddio]

X-Men Abridged: 1981

The X-Men, those back-to-the-future mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

(Uncanny X-Men 141 - 152) - by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Brent Anderson, Dave Cockrum, Jim Sherman, Bob McLeod and Josef Rubinstein

While I also committed various fashion atrocities at the age of 14 (tye-die and fauxhawks, oh my), even Liberace would find Kitty’s outfits too much. (Uncanny X-Men 149; Uncanny X-Men Annual ‘81)

We dial back from the v. epic scope of the last few arcs. Instead, 1981 is just a lot of fun! We get:

Storm and Emma doing a Freaky Friday!

the X-Men vs. Magneto (again!)

A surprisingly effective Alien rip-off

An dystopian future! (OoOoOoOo)

Last year was the year of the Dark Phoenix, this is the year of Kitty Pryde. That’s not to say Jean’s death is swept under the rug: all throughout, we see her friends mourning her loss or remembering her fondly. (Scott even gets to have a demonic adventure about it.) But in general, Claremont puts Kitty in the forefront, fleshing out his YA-addition to the team. And what would a YA heroine be without a grim dystopia? Roll out the iconic Days of Future Past!

To be fair, 2013 was a dark time for all of us: What Does the Fox Say somehow got to the top of the charts and I was still watching Glee. (Uncanny X-Men 141)

How cool would it have been to see a name like Jonothon Starsmore or Eva Bell on those tombstones?

Anyway, that’s Kate. Kate’s had it rough. Mutants are at the bottom of the foodchain, most X-Men are dead and only a small cadre of resistance fighters remain, Sentinels dominate, and while she is married to Piotr, her children have been murdered. Bleak. Luckily, the rebellion has concocted the plan to shunt Kate’s spirit back in time to prevent this awful future from happening. (You’ve seen Days of Future Past, the last passably good X-Men film, you know what’s up.)

Let’s do the time warp again! 1981!Kitty’s mind gets taken over by 2013!Kitty, who promptly tries to convince the X-Men that a new Brotherhood of v. Evil Mutants will try to kill Senator Kelly, a presidential candidate who tries to put the mutant menace on the agenda. (Mutants tend to blow stuff up when he’s around.) Since the X-Men recently took a literal trip to Dante’s Infero and also befriended a cosmic world-ending entity, they basically shrug and go: “Yeah, this checks out.”

Off to Washington they go (zoommm) and there, they happen upon the Baddest Bitches in Herstory:

“How dare you hate mutants, senator Kelly! We’ll fix that by killing you!” (Uncanny X-Men 141)

This All-New, All-Different Brotherhood consists out of:

Destiny, a blind woman who can see the future. Definitely the eeriest member of this group. Badass lesbian, though that won´t be canon for years.

Avalanche. Greek who makes things shake. Is a long-standing member of the X-Men Rogue’s gallery, but rarely features in the spotlight. I think he got more characterization in four years of X-Men Evolution than he ever did in the comics.

Mystique. Shapeshifter. Ruthless and unhinged, the Cersei Lannister of the X-Men universe. Absolute legend, secretly the wife of Destiny, currently not as unhinged as she’ll be later. Immediately implied to be related to Nightcrawler: it’s the yellow-eyes-blue-skin-combo.

Pyro. Can manipulate fire, not create it. Absolute pillock, in all the best ways of the word. Originally intended as gay, but they decided to make him Australian instead. (?!)

Blob. Big, strong, immovable. We’ve seen him before.

One of the details in this fight I enjoy is that Storm is still struggling with her leadership, although she has a better grip on things than Cyclops:

Wolverine then proceeds to use those iconic but deadly claws about twice per issue for the next, oh, forty years. (Uncanny X-Men 142)

While the X-Men fight the Brotherhood in the present, we cut back and forth to the future. There, the X-Men consist out of some familiar faces - Storm, Colossus, Wolverine - and some surprises: Magneto (in a wheelchair), Franklin Richards (son of) and an unfamiliar ginger girl called Rachel. (She’ll be important later.) We even learn (one of) Magneto’s names: this is the first time he’s canonically called Magnus.

One of the strengths of Days of Future Past lies in its brevity, the way it tantalizingly taunts us with a brutal but familiar future without giving away too much. It’s single-handedly responsible for all those dark future timelines the X-lines are so fond of which will eventually culminate in time-displaced grandsons from alternative dimensions and the impossibility of a succinct answer to the question: “Who’s Cable?” Too much of a good thing and all that.

Still, what Days of Future Past does so successfully is:

Put the idea of the mutant menace back at the forefront, hammering home the metaphor of mutants being a minority. Mutants being put in camps and being forbidden to breed should - regretfully - make us think of all too many real life equivalents. (Specifically, all of the imagery harkens back to the Holocaust.)

It starkly shows what happens should the X-Men lose, reminding everyone of the stakes. The X-Men are here for a reason: bridging the gap between mutants and humankind. If they fuck up, we end up with mutant concentration camps.

It helps that the X-Men in the future almost all die horribly: Franklin is incinerated, Storm is impaled… It's brutal stuff. The only one to survive is Rachel, who wonders if their plan actually changed the future or if they created an alternative timeline. (It did the latter, sorry ‘bout it, Rachel.)

In the present, Kate chases after Destiny, who trains a gun on senator Kelly. I always wondered how this works: if Destiny saw the future, she knew that killing Kelly would trigger a terrifying future. What in the current Marvel timeline made her decide that the Days of Future Past was better? Did she see her own death? Did she see the Onslaught-crossover coming? The Chuck Austen run? What was it?

In any case, time-anomalous Kate stops Destiny from killing Kelly and the future is safe! For now. Kate disappears, Kitty returns to her body and some of the Brotherhood are apprehended. All is well, for now.

After being a key figure in DoFP, Kitty is also the main character in the Christmas special, which is basically a straight up horror and a pastiche of the Alien-movie.

Seriously, John Byrne still isn’t sure why he wasn’t sued by Ridley Scott for this. (Uncanny X-Men 143)

If you love Kitty Pryde? Read this issue. If you’re not convinced you like 80’s Kitty? Read this issue. It’s not continuity relevant and it’s basically Kitty playing the part of a Final Girl in a horror where she’s being chased by a demon, but it’s so good. It showcases all her strengths and her foibles. Kitty’s intelligent, cute (sometimes preciously so) and brave, but she’s also young, self-conscious and hot-headed. And it's not as if the other X-Men automatically adore her: Storm berates her all the time, she’s afraid of Kurt because of the way he looks (though she grows out of that) and she fights with Professor Xavier a lot. Moreover, she has a clever power-set for a young superhero who faces menaces on a daily basis: a thirteen year old who can go intangible is far less likely to have reality ensue on her and be dramatically offed because she's better at protecting herself.

I’m sure there are people who thought Sprite was hogging the spotlight, but I, for one, say she brings more to the table than, say, Angel. She’s not the Dawn Summers of this franchise.

Scott also gets a side quest. Poor guy can’t catch a break: first the love of his life dies, so he quits the X-Men, then he realizes he can’t do much else than be a superhero. He becomes a sailor on the ship of spunky captain Lee Forrester, is drawn into the sadistic plans of a demon unironically named D’Spayre and then shipwrecks in Bermuda with Lee.

The X-Men, meanwhile, are tormented by a team-up of Doom (who’s currently Latverialess and working on a comeback) and Arcade, that annoying crony. Locke, Arcade’s dom, has kidnapped the loved ones of the X-Men (Moira MacTaggart, Jean Grey’s parents, Illyana Rasputin and Amanda Sefton) in order to blackmail them into getting Doom to free Arcade. Apparently, Arcade accidentally insulted Doom and DOOM DOES NOT FORGIVE THAT FOLLY.

While the B-Squad (Polaris, Havok, Banshee and Iceman) goes to save Arcade’s hostages, the X-Men sneak into Doom’s castle. Well, except for Storm, who doesn’t give a single fuck and simply flies up to Doom, demanding an audience. Doom likes the cut of her jib and invites her to have dinner. (This is pre-Tinder, so this is a legit way of scoring a date.)

If Storm has a flaw (I said if!), it’s got to be her atrocious taste in men. (Uncanny X-Men 145)

The X-Men find Arcade’s cell empty, while Arcade casually saunters up to Storm and says hi. Storm realizes too late that this is a trap: while the X-Men are all trapped in Saw-like traps, Storm is encased in ‘living chrome’.

If you remember she’s claustrophobic, you know why this is a bad move.

While the X-Men free themselves from their traps - Polaris hilariously has to deal with a murderous merry-go-round - Storm is slowly driven mad in her prison, triggering a worldwide tempest. (She causes Lee and Scott to shipwreck.) Under the threat of Wolverine’s claws, Doom releases Storm - or rather, unleashes her.

“Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and despair!” (Uncanny X-Men 147)

The memory of Jean brings Ororo back to herself and she starts undoing the superstorm she created. (If only climate change were reversed that easily.) Their confrontation ends by Storm easily forgiving Doom, because she apparently trespassed on his grounds without adequate cause.

Mkay.

All of Arcade’s hostages return to their homesteads, except for Illyana Rasputin, Piotr’s sister: she’s staying at the mansion for a while. Angel, who’s sort of been a part of the team since the Phoenix thing, has had it with Wolverine and his ‘tude, and decides to quit the X-Men : he doesn’t want to be a part of an outfit that has a killer like Wolverine on it. (Or maybe he’s just mad Claremont didn’t give him any storylines: his presence has been mostly pointless.) It’s too bad he left before Kitty started experimenting with her outfits: I bet he would have loved her ugly-ass costumes.

Equally inconsequential is the introduction of a brand new character, who then proceeds to disappear from the narrative for the rest of the year:

Black Tom has tried to kill you at least twice, but him sending you a long-lost daughter doesn’t give you pause? Ugh, Sean, you deserve Moira. (Uncanny X-Men 148)

Intrigued by Theresa? TOO BAD, WON’T SEE HER AGAIN ANYTIME SOON.

Another new character is the lonely, decidedly mutant looking Caliban, who can sense “people like him” and is on the lookout for companions. Like many lonely people who try and grasp at friendship, he decides to overshoot his shot and ruin the night of Storm, Kitty and Jessica Drew at a Dazzler concert. Because he tries to kidnap Kitty, the girls react a trifle aggressively. When they realize their mistake - the eerily pale Caliban is a simpleton rather than a menace - he’s already fled. No mention is made of the Morlocks yet!

There’s also another dull annual where the X-Men team up with the Fantastic Four to save Arkon’s dimension from the Badoon and yaaaaawn. Far more interesting is the landmark issue #150. Slowly, through the adventures of Scott and Lee Forrester, Claremont has been setting things up for the return of a favorite villain. While the X-Men investigate Magneto’s old base in Antarctica on a hunch of Professor X and tangle with Garruk, Scott and Lee survive Storm’s tempest, only to wake up next to a strange island that seems to have been raised from the ocean.

It’s apparently some ancient citadel from a long forgotten civilization with a fondness for squid statues. (I don’t know man, I’ve never been to the Bermuda Triangle, maybe this is just super-accurate.)The tentacles make Lee Forrester feel very amorous, but before Scott can tell her he is way too repressed to just have sex with an attractive someone he’s known intimately for a month or two, Magneto saves his ass by revealing he, in fact, raised this island from the seafloor.

Oh, Magneto. So extra.

My ambitious little mutant demagogue then proceeds to take the entire world hostage, showing how much he’s grown from the pompous, raving madman from the sixties. (Sure, Magneto is still a bit of a madman, but increasingly, he starts being on the right side of history.)

“I’m trying to make Magneto more sympathetic.”

“Just put him on a page with some bigger villains who are less noble, like the Vanisher, Count Nefaria, or…”

“Reagan, Thatcher and Brezhnov?”

“Er.” (Uncanny X-Men 150)

It’s obvious Magneto is being pivoted as a more noble villain, codified into the well-intentioned extremist we know and love today. Not only do we get the first hints at his past, fleshing out his motivations, he’s also not wrong. Humans are historically not great at taking care of the planet or each other.

When the Russians call his bluff and launch nukes at Magneto’s new island, he quickly disarms them. His retribution is swift and ferocious: the entire citadel is a machine that massively amplifies his powers. He sinks the submarine that launched the missiles, condemning the entire crew to death, and he casually erects a vulcano in a Russian city in Siberia.

Damn. Not messing around this time.

Despite his good intentions, Magneto is still definitely in the wrong: not only because of his methods, but as Scott points out: if Magneto unifies the world under his kind of benevolent dictatorship, all of that will simply fall apart as soon as Magnus dies.

In a way, Magneto is just as big a dreamer as Charles is: Charles believes in peace and integration, whereas Magneto believes his iron fist will be enough to make a perfect world happen. Both of them ignore the reality that acceptance is difficult and messy, because you’re trying to change essential human nature: the fear of the other. Magneto believes in big, sweeping gestures that will fix the world in move, while changing the world is also boring, hard work. One step forward, two steps back. Magneto just wants to leapfrog to his ultimate goal.

The X-Men fly over the citadel, returning from Antarctica, and their plane crashes into the ocean. (Magneto does not brook planes over his territory, humans!) The Professor is also nearby, looking for Scott with Moira, Peter Corbeau and Carol Danvers. The X-Men sneak onto the island, but to their horror, their powers are nullified by some machine of Magneto. They reunite with Scott, who formulates a plan to thwart the would-be ruler of the world.

While the rest of the X-Men go to trash the machine, Storm, Kitty and Lee infiltrate the control chamber where Storm finds a sleeping, shirtless Magneto. Once again showing her terrible taste in men, she is not weak in the knees at the sight of a sleeping Magnus: instead, she contemplates killing him.

Storm knows how dangerous he is, but she also knows that he’s a great man who’s fighting for ideals, no matter how misguided. She hesitates too long: Magneto stirs, suspects an attack and tosses her out of the window, to her death.

Magneto quickly undoes the sabotage the other X-Men have wrought to his machine. A fight erupts. Storm, meanwhile, has managed to grab hold of a ledge. She crawls back up and smashes an important-looking computer, restoring everyone’s powers.

The battle turns grim, but Scott sends Kitty away to wreck Magneto’s machinery. She sneaks off, following Scott’s orders and destroying both Magneto's power-up device and all of his plans by phasing though the computer circuitry. Magneto senses this and furiously gives chase. Overcome by rage, he attacks Kitty and disrupts her phasing power with a magnetic bolt, seemingly killing her?

Everything about this story beat is great: mama bear!Ororo, mournful Magnus and even the fact that Kitty’s godawful outfit serves a narrative function: highlighting to us (and Magneto) just how young she is. The fact that Kitty’s Jewish is just icing on the cake. (Uncanny X-Men 150)

And thus, the softening of Magneto commences. 1981 might be a year with wildly varying narratives, but it has given us at least three enduring legacies to the X-Mythos: a new kind of Magneto, a fondness for dystopian futures and the character of Kitty Pryde, who's really come into her own this year.

Ugliest Costume: Kitty! Purposefully, but still. Best costume, by the way, goes to Destiny, with her creepy, creepy golden mask. Just imagine this lady casually strolling across a battlefield, eerily calm and collected, dodging everything you throw at her. Awesome design.

Best new character: I usually pick one character - what good is having a shared award when declaring the best of anything? - but this year, it’s going to one of my favorite couples: Mystique and Destiny. Can’t wait to see more of them.

Most audacious retcon: Blob somehow retroactively becomes a member of the original Brotherhood, which is not what happened. Ever weirder is Xavier pondering that he never met Magneto before his attack in X-Men #1, while their cordially adversarial relationship rooted in a youthful friendship would soon become a cornerstone of the X-Men.

What to read: Uncanny X-Men 141 - 143 and 150 - 152

[just-dreaming-marvel]

Love and Medicine ~ 1

MASTERLIST

Word Count: 2,300ish

Summary: You begin your intern year at Avengers Medical Center

You let out a little groan as you turned around. You immediately knew you were naked as the cold wood floor sent chills down your bare body. Slowly opening your eyes, you took in your surroundings. You were home, in the house you had just inherited, boxes still pilled high around the living room you were laying in. Suddenly, someone else groaned beside you. You teased, clenching your eyes shut. The headache you had been ignoring since you woke finally broke free and you realized that your late night drunkenness must have caused you to bring a guy home.

You let out a long breath as you reopened your eyes and looked over at the hopefully-still-asleep man beside you. He wasn’t bad looking at all. You had really done well. He was blonde with a chiseled body. He had to have been at least six foot, which didn’t hurt. He was naked though, all out in the open on your living room floor. Cringing, you sat up, pulling one blanket from the couch to quickly cover yourself before standing and pulling one over him. You stood up silently, and began making your way out of the room. It was your first day of your intern year as a doctor, you couldn’t afford to be late.

You successfully made it to the doorway of the living room without a sound before the floorboard beneath you creaked. You should there, frozen, closing your eyes in hopes that the man sleeping behind you wouldn’t wake. You could hear him turn over, letting a small moan out of his mouth. Waiting a few more seconds, you started going again.

“You know…” the man started, clearly in his morning voice, “it’s usually rude to disappear on someone after spending a night with them.”

You quickly spun around to see him, still laying on his stomach, looking up at you with a sly grin.

“Well,” you cleared your throat, “it’s my house, so it’s not that rude.”

He stood up, not grabbing the blanket as quick as he should have, letting you have another look at him. When you met his eyes again, it was clear that you had been caught staring and that he was enjoying it.

“Why the rush to silently get out of here?” He asked, tucking the blanket around his waist. “Have a husband or a boyfriend you have to hurry and get ready for?”

“Neither,” you responded, tightening your hold on the blanket covering you. “I’m running late for my first day of work. So, if we’re done here, you should go.”

“We don’t have to be done here.”

“I think we do.” You kicked up his shirt, grabbing it, and throwing him at it. “You need to go.” He caught his shirt, slipping it on slowly over his clear cut abs. “So, um, goodbye… um…”

“Steve,” he reached his hand out.

“Steve. Right,” you shook his hand. “Y/N.”

“Y/N.” He smiled. It almost took your breath away, but you couldn’t let it show.

“Yeah.”

“Nice meeting you.”

“Yeah. Bye, Steve.”

You fled up the stairs, hoping that by the time you were done getting ready, Steve would be gone.

~~~

You made it to the Avengers Medical Center just in time to meet up with the other interns in your year. The Chief of Surgery, Dr. Nicholas J. Fury, was leading a small tour to the ORs. He started talking as the interns took in the OR.

“Each of you comes here hopeful. Wanting in on the game. A month ago you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors,” Fury stated. “The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play? That's up to you.”

He then told each of the interns which resident they were assigned to. You got Dr. Gamora. All of the interns were then taken to the locker room, where each of you were assigned a locker and given scrubs to change into and start your long day.

“Only ten women out of thirty,” you muttered as you slipped your scrubs on.

“Yeah,” the woman with fiery red hair next to you responded. “I heard that one of them was a model. Seriously, like that’s going to help with the respect thing?”

“You’re Natasha, right?”

She nodded. “You’re Y/N?”

“Mhm,” you hummed.

“Which resident did you get assigned to? I got Gamora.”

“Me too.”

“You got Gamora?” A male intern repeated beside you. “So did I. At least we’ll all be tortured together, right? I’m Clint Barton, uh, we met at the mixer. You had a dress with a slit up the side, those shiny heels…” You and Natasha exchanged looks. “Now you think I’m gay.”

“Uh-huh,” Natasha hummed, heading out the door.

“No, I’m not gay! It’s, ah, it’s just that, you know, you were, I mean… You were very unforgettable,” Clint rambled as you both followed after Natasha. You shot him a sympathetic smile before hurrying to catch up with Natasha. “And I’m totally forgettable.”

“Barton, L/N, Romanoff, Valkyrie, Lang,” a doctor called at the door way.

“Gamora?” Natasha questioned that doctor that called you.

“End of the hall.”

The five of you that were called began walking. At the end of the hall, you saw a pretty woman working on paperwork. She didn’t look as threatening as you had heard she was.

“That’s Dr. Gamora?” Natasha wondered.

“From what I heard, I thought she’d look scarier,” the other male in your group of five said. You guessed it was Scott Lang.

“Yeah,” Clint agreed. “I thought she’d be… well, bigger.”

“Same,” you added.

“Maybe it’s professional jealousy,” a woman in your group suggested, Valkyrie, you presumed. “Maybe she’s brilliant, and they say things about her because they’re jealous. Maybe she’s really nice.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re the model,” Natasha said.

“Wait…” Clint said, looking at Nat. “I thought you were the model.”

Valkyrie shot Natasha a look before turning to Dr. Gamora with an extended hand. “Hi, I’m Valkyrie, but everyone calls me Val.”

Gamora looked her up and down, not even moving to shake Val’s hand. “I have five rules,” Gamora stated, clearly unimpressed already. “Rule number one, don’t bother sucking up, I already hate all of you, that’s not gonna change.” She turned and pointed to things on the counter. “Trauma protocol, phone lists, pagers. Nurses will page you, you answer every page at a run. A run, that's rule number two. Your first shift starts now and lasts forty-eight hours.” 

Gamora began walking away with you and the others quickly following, after each of you have grabbed the things off the counter. 

“You’re interns, grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain, you run labs, write orders, work every second night till you drop and don’t complain!” She continued. Gamora led you to a door, opening it to reveal a room with bunk beds. “On call rooms. Attendings hog them, sleep when you can, where you can, which brings me to rule number three, if I'm sleeping, don't wake me, unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number four, the dying patient better not be dead when I get there, not only would you have killed someone, you would have also woke me for no good reason, we clear?” There was a brief pause before you nervously raised your hand. “Yes.”

“You said five rules,” you tried to hold back a cringe as you spoke up. “That was only four.”

Suddenly, Gamora’s pager beeped. “Rule number five. When I move, you move.” She ran down the corridor, followed by you and the other interns. “Get out of my way!” She yelled at a few doctor’s blocking the hallway.

You had the others followed Gamora to the ER. There was a bustling trauma room that the six of you entered. There was a young female on the stretcher, already being hooked to the machines.

“What’ve we got?” Gamora asked.

“Savannah Chase, fifteen year old female,” the paramedic still in the room stated. “New onset seizures, intermittent for the past week. ID lost en route. Started gran mal seizing when the ambulance pulled up.”

“Alright, get her on her side, Val, ten milligrams Diazepam.” Val started to do as she was directed while the rest of you watched. “No, no, the white lead is on the right, righty whitey, smoke over fire, a large bore IV. Don’t let the blood haemolyse, let’s go!”

Val injected the young woman with the diazepam and she stopped seizing. A new Doctor entered the room.

“So I heard we got a wet fish on dry land?” The man asked.

“Absolutely Dr. Banner,” Gamora responded.

“Dr. Gamora, I’m gonna shotgun her.”

“That means every test in the book, CT, CBC, chem seven, a tox screen,” Gamora clarified for the interns. “Natasha, you’re on labs, Clint, patient workups, Y/N, get Savannah for a CT, she’s your responsibility now.” Gamora began to walk away.

“Wait,” both Val and Lang called out. Gamora turned back around.

“What about us?” Val asked.

“You two—honey, you get to do rectal exams.”

~~~

You were currently in an elevator with Savannah, the patient, trying to find your way to CT. Since it was your first day at the medical center, you didn’t know where anything was and you were too stubborn to ask.

“You’re lost,” Savannah stated.

“I’m not lost,” you defended. “How are you feeling?”

“How do you think I’m feeling? I’m missing my pageant.”

“You’re missing your pageant.” You wheeled her out of the elevator and around a corner, still not knowing where you were headed.

“The Manhattan Teen Miss? I was in the top ten after the first two rounds. This is my year. I could’ve won.” Savannah sat up as she was wheeled back around the same way. “Hello? You’re so lost. What are you, like, new?”

“I’m— just tell me what happened.”

“I twisted my ankle. I do rhythmic gymnastics, which is like, really cool. Nobody else does it. And I tripped over my ribbon, and I didn't get stuck with someone this clueless. And that was like, a nurse.”

You gritted your teeth, trying not to be over-the-line rude to a patient on your first day. It took you almost another forty five minutes to find CT. You helped her with the scan before taking her back to a room. Before you knew it, it was lunch time. You grabbed some food from the cafeteria, finding your group of interns alone at a table.

“Savannah Chase is a pain in the ass,” you grumbled as you sat down with your tray. “If I hadn't taken the Hippocratic oath, I'd Kevorkian her with my bare hands.” The others around her just stared. “What?”

“Good afternoon interns,” a new doctor came up. “I’m Dr. Maria Hill. It’s posted, but I thought I’d share the good news personally. As you know, the honor of performing the first surgery is reserved for the intern that shows the most promise. As I’m running the OR today, I get to make that choice. I’ve been watching you all and I have to say, you’re all something. The intern I’ve chosen is, Scott Lang.”

Scott coughed up the drink he had been taking. “M-me?” He questioned.

“You’ll scrub in for an appendectomy this afternoon. Congratulations.” Then she left.

“Did she say me?”

“I can’t believe you were chosen over me,” Natasha grumbled. “It’s already clear that I’m a better surgeon that you.”

“Did she say… I’m sorry. What?”

~~~

After lunch, you went back to Savannah’s room to take care of her. As you did, a man and a woman, not doctors, came in.

“Savannah, honey, mom and dad are here,” the woman said, coming over to Savannah’s bedside.

“They gave her a sedative for the CT scan, so she’s a little groggy,” you informed them.

“Will she be alright?” The mother asked.

“Our doctor at home said she might need an operation, is that true?” The father wondered.

“What kind of operation?”

“She’s, um, well, you know what,” you tried your best to sound professional through your nervous stuttering, “I’m not, I’m not the doctor, uh. I am a doctor, but I’m not Savannah’s doctor, so I’ll go get him for you.”

You quickly left the room to go find Gamora. Thankfully, she was at the nurses desk just outside of the room. You hurried over but were too nervous to start speaking.

“What?” Gamora questioned, not looking up from the paperwork she was doing.

“Savannah’s parent’s have questions,” you responded. “Do you talk to them, or do I ask Banner?”

“No, Banner’s off of the case. Savannah belongs to the new attending now, Dr. Rogers, he’s over there.”

You follow in the direction that Gamora gestured to. You only made it a few steps before freezing. The man Gamora gestured to was talking to another doctor. But that wasn’t the reason you froze. Dr. Rogers was none other than your one night stand, Steve. Your eyes widened and you turned to go, but it was too late. Steve glanced your way, having to do a double take. You quickly left, feeling his eyes on the back of you.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

next chapter >

NOTES: Yes, this has been posted before, but I deleted it. I’m trying again. From now on the taglist when be added by a reblog. I will reblog it using my second account, @just-dreaming-marvel-2​. Just so that my main page doesn’t get too cluttered.

If you want to be added to the tag list, please dm me or send in an ask.

[riacte]

Unnecessary Hermit MCC Team Speculation

So according to Scott, teams are in the works, applications likely closed a few days ago, MCC 14 date is known to participants, MCC Twitter says they’re gonna steal CPK’s spotlight after wishing him a happy birthday. So we’re getting MCC 14 relatively soon. Hence I’m making my 284927391 hermit MCC team speculation.

Hermit duos:

Actually I think we’ll be seeing more duos in MCC S2.

1) Hermits and Scott have probably realized hermit duos perform way better than trios/ quartet (the only hermit duo team that didn’t get to DB is the first time False and Ren played)

2) They wanna meet new people, but they also want to play with friends. So 2+2 will be a good combo. You can meet new people while having a buddy you a stick to.

False + Cub

I don’t think any of the hermits are confirmed to join (Doc has shown interest) but I feel these two would most likely be in MCC 14?

1) False has been in every MCC since debut

2) Cub plays every other MCC, and he skipped MCC 13

3) Most important of all, they’ve both been polishing their skills through parkour and speedrunning etc. I think they’re currently the most competitive of the hermits, so I won’t be surprised at all if they pair up for a competitive team.

False + Grian

A surprisingly popular duo in post-MCC 13 team predictions. I like them as a duo, and I used to think we’ll have a bigger chance of getting False + Cub/Ren, but now I think about, the team predictions may be right.

1) False has been with Ren and Cub for their first victory, so according to ✨meta✨ she’ll be with Grian for his first victory and her third. The Hermit Winner enabler.

2) Grian is the only hermit regular who hasn’t won yet, and really really wants to win (he said he was gonna cry himself to sleep after he lost MCC 13 lol)

3) False is seen as the most competitive

So if Grian wants to win and go full competitive, and I feel Scott will likely pair him with False. Also Reddit loves this duo apparently. Another incentive.

False + Ren

Ah yes, the hermit team staple. Ex base-buddies my beloved. The duo that’s always been together. I miss them lmfao

I feel they’re gonna continue pairing up because False said she’s gonna collect all ranks with Ren? Also I feel Ren likely asks for False every time (Scott said someone asked for False back in MCC 9, we thought it was H, but apparently neither H or Fruit specified a person, so I guess it’s Ren. Makes sense because Ren’s with False literally every single time).

There’s not much to say except if they team up again, everyone saw it coming.

But also exactly because they’ve teamed up for so many times that they may decided to split for a MCC or two? That doesn’t seem to be what they’re doing though.

Ren + Cub

Honestly every time I think of this potential duo, I just see False sandwiched between them lmao. Because this a hermit trio. These two are probably False’s most frequent collaborators?? (Although there’s not much False and Ren collab this season)

Basically I somehow can’t see this happening without False. I’m sorry lmao

Grian + Cub

To a lot of people’s surprise, they haven’t teamed before. They’re probably the duo that collabs the least often on Hermitcraft so I kinda get why. Still wanna see this duo.

Grian + Ren

They’re close enough that they apparently visit each other irl. Which is very sweet. I can honestly see them as a duo, just chilling and having fun.

Hermit trios:

False + Ren + Grian/Cub. With the FRG trio happening more often in recent MCCs, FRC trio happening more often in the early, chill days. Hermit trio + S tier (aka. Lime Liches) is the most powerful version of hermit trios, and may even rival the strength of hermit duo + S tier teams.

FRG:

Honestly this seems like a feasible trio, especially when Cub skips a MCC/ plays with non hermits (MCC 7, 11, 12). There’s also the Lime Liches bias with this trio, so Scott might be more inclined to put them together?

Also if Cub skips, it means Scott will either have to make a hermit duo + solo hermit OR make a hermit trio. And Scott will probably put the solo hermit with hermit adjacent (eg. Grian with Pearl). Also pretty sure for this case, it’s gonna be False + Ren duo, Grian with hermit adjacent people just like MCC 9. That being said, MCC 9 was special because I think False and Ren specifically said they were gonna go competitive, while Grian not, so it makes sense for the split. For the current meta of competitive hermits, it might be easier for Scott to stuff the hermits together in a trio (eg. Lime Liches)??

FRC:

The last time this trio appeared was MCC 8. From that moment onwards, Cub has been in competitive teams either in a duo or solo, and had gotten to Dodgebolt in all his post-MCC 8 tourneys. So I honestly don’t know if we’ll see them together again. Maybe we’ll get something like Lime Liches.

New hermits:

I can see False-Ren-Doc as a trio for Doc’s first MCC.

1) This team appeared in CotC

2) To use Ren and Doc’s words: #ShipRendoc

3) Putting False here because I feel non hermits will be very ?!!???? at the Rendoc flirting

I can also see Iskall in a hermit trio. In particular Iskall-Grian-Ren

1) We got Team FRIC in MCC 5, so maybe something new?

2) Renskall. That’s it.

3) Everyone wants Grian-Iskall interaction, especially because they don’t collab that much this season compared to the last

But really I can see Iskall with every hermit regular. The reason I feel newcomers will be in trios not duos is that having two veterans to coach the newbie(s) is better than having one.

Hermit quartet

Genuinely don’t think this will happen if the hermits go competitive. Maybe we’ll get this for a chill MCC. Maybe not.

The hermit quartet in MCC 5 did pretty good though, but team standards have changed a lot since then. I kinda wanna see Iskall in another hermit quartet.

Others:

The famous Grian-False-Techno-Wilbur team, if you ignore the swearing thing and opposite Dodgebolt strategies. This team will have a fuckton of clout, probably comparable to MCC 13 Pink.

I actually feel this might happen because it’s highly popular and highly requested

But also 1) the swearing thing 2) Scott tends to put people who have similar attitudes (eg. hermits play with people who advocate arrow splitting) 3) they’re a powerful team. So maybe not.

Lime Liches. I seriously believe this might happen because of the very high demand and the Blue Bats bias. They got screwed over bc of parkour, many people think they deserve a redemption. They’re not too strong as a team either. It’ll be like MCC 8/9 Green.

Also the Fruit+Grian duo. I’m pretty sure this duo will happen at least once in S2. Grian famously commented he wants to team with Fruit, Fruit replied, even had an alt Twitch called “grianstanaccount”. Won’t be surprised at ALL if they ask for each other. Maybe this will happen along with LL redemption.

Hermits and H? This is to pacify the Blue Bats fandom. Also if we have hermit trio + Fruit, why not H lmao. But H said he wants to play with new people, and I think he said he wants to team with Puffy, sooo.... imagine we get sth like False Cub H Puffy. Lmao.

Hermits and Dream? I said I can’t see this happening, esp with Ren, but maybe Scott will do it for the Dreamslayer memes

Hermits and Quig? After Pete and Fruit, Quig is probably the most hermit friendly S tier. I think people said he would vibe well with the hermits. Quig is also involved in the X Life circle, which overlaps with the hermits’ circle.

Anyways. I’ve liked all Hermit teams so far, I’m sure Scott will make them fantastic as always. If you’ve reached this point, thank you for reading my pointless speculation. See you when MCC 14 teams are revealed :)

[imaginesmai]

Chris Evans - Banana’s worries

Since Bananas was so popular, I decided to write another fic about dad!Chris Evans! Hope you like it!

Plot: Banana the plushie is making another appearance in your life, and this time is bringing worries. 

Chris had always been a light sleeper.

Living with a brother that loved to make pranks on him made him be aware at night of whoever might enter into his room. Then, he had spent nights awake waiting to know if he had gotten the role he had fought so hard to win. The time difference between countries, and the fact that he was always late, made him grow used to the jet lag everywhere he went.

Claire’s first years weren’t easy, neither. When you first brought her from the hospital, the doctor told you that it was very important for you to take it easy, as you had suffered from some problems in the birth. That left Christ for the first two weeks of Claire being home to take care of her at night. She was a screamer, for sure. Not only she cried a lot, but screamed every time she wanted something. Christ spent two weeks without sleeping, and the only place he dozed off was in the shower.

Since becoming a parent, he had been a much more light sleeper than what he was at the beginning. Therefore, in the middle of the night, when the door to your bedroom opened with a creak, he was the first one to open an eye.

The sheets were, as always, thrown to the floor; so he had no mental protection from whoever was at the door. You were facing the window, and he was laying behind you with one hand placed over yours. It didn’t matter how you went to sleep, he always managed to touch you in anyway.

All the worries went away when, a moment later, he heard the recognizable soft pitter-patter of tiny feet, and he grinned softly. Chris couldn’t hear her crying or in any other kind of distress; besides, you had a sixth sense that woke you up when Claire was sick. It wasn’t a nightmare, neither, because Claire just cried for you from his bed.

So he kept his eyes closed until he felt her coming around to his side of the bed.

“ ‘Kay, Banana. You ‘ave to be quiet” Claire whispered as good as a three year-old could.

The stuffed fruit that Claire hadn’t let go since Chris brought it plopped down to Chris’ feet, and then the little blanket that was on the bed was tugged on so that Claire had a good grip to haul herself onto the bed.

Chris heard the small puffs of air that the little girl made every now and then. He fought the urge to help her, knowing she was in an independent phase encouraged by her cousins that made her think that she could do anything without her parents, because she was no baby.

He felt a small poke on his hand that let him know that you were awake too. Opening one eye slowly, he looked at you; you were already looking at him, with your hair spread all over the pillow and a sleepy smile on your face. You had no make-up, an old pyjamas and your eyes were swollen from sleep. Still, Chris got lost in you and almost forgot about the toddler trying to get in your bed.

“Yay!”

Claire seemed to have forgotten her own rule about being quiet, because she let an excited squeal when she finally plopped face first on the bed. She grabbed Banana and hugged her stuffed fruit close to her chest

“Tha’s fo’ nothin’, Banana” Claire scoffed, and you swallowed down a laugh. Chris bit his lip and closed his eyes tightly.

Both of you felt the bed dip as your little girl started to crawl in between towards the head of the bed. She was trying to be as careful as possible, every now and then shushing the toy when she made a loud noise, but both could feel the girl’s tiny knees and elbows digging into your bodies painfully.

She stepped over your linked hands as good as she could, and let her left feet prop up all of her weight on yours. Your eyes widened up comically and Chris emitted a silent laugh that your girl didn’t notice. With a murderous glance, you pretended to be asleep as the toddler walked-tottered.

Claire finally reached the head of the bed, plopping down in between her two parents with an exhausted sigh. She rested Banana on her chest, grinning at her stuffed animal; although a second later, she slammed her to the wall angrily.

“You did ve’y noise” she reprimanded the plushie. “I don’t wike it”

The last sentence finally got to Chris, who cracked down on a fit of loud laughs that made him choke with his own spit. He released your hand and laid on his back, half laughing and half coughing.

For months, Chris had been telling Claire in not-so-secret the ‘I don’t wike it’ thing. The second time he did so, you discovered them, and Claire understood it was something that her mommy didn’t like; so she didn’t do it. In front of everyone, she said the words correctly. But Chris heard her a few months ago in the solitude of her room; then, she denied saying so. It had been a bet on going for months now, that she said it only when no one was around.

And Chris had won.

“Daddy! You ‘wake!” Claire screamed, and turned on her belly to put herself on four.

“Yeah, baby. Daddy’s awake” you answered her, as Chris could barely breath between his laughing fit. “And a bad person”

Claire found the word funny, because the girl giggled quietly and scooted closer to you. She was quite small for her age, and her body fitted perfectly cuddled in your side, her small hand curling around the cloth around your growing stomach.

Chris finally calmed down, and turned to the side to see his two best girls curled around each other. If he had to say, in a way he preferred another girl, rather than a boy. His daughter had been begging to you that she wanted another sister to play with; and she didn’t get that it might not be a girl. Chris knew that the genre of the baby didn’t matter, as long as you were healthy and the baby was born fine, but he didn’t want to face the tantrum Claire would have if, in the end, the baby was a boy.

The man laid on his right shoulder and brought a hand up to play with Claire’s blonde hair. She was already closing her eyes, half awake half in the dreams world.

“You had a nightmare, baby?” you asked, your voice soft.

Claire was quiet for a second, before opening her eyes and alternating between looking at Chris and you.

“No. But Banana wanted to sleep ‘ere” she mumbled, and squeezed the plushie against her chest.

“And why did Banana want to sleep here?” Chris continued. He knew that the bond Claire had with the toy was normal, but sometimes it worried him that she only expressed herself through the toy. If she was hungry, she told you that Banana wanted food. If she did something, she always blamed it on the plushie. “Did he get scared of the dark?”

“No”

“Then?”

“Banana… Banana and I see some’in” she mumbled.

You frowned at her words. Since the moment she had learned to walk by herself, you had been very careful with the things she had access with. Babies love to play with the remotes, and Claire was no exception. She used to hide it, to chew on it and to change the channels every two minutes. A few times that month, she had turned on the TV without anyone knowing; sometimes on channels that weren’t that child-friendly.

So your first assumption was that she had seen part of a film that had made her scared. Chris seemed to think the same, as he frowned too.

“What did you see? Something scary?” he inquired. Claire shook her head again, and started playing with your pyjamas. She looked back to her father when she talked.

“Mean people we’ t’owin’ ol’ ‘ins” she said.

When Claire was scared, nervous or just excited, she messed up with her words, so you had a hard time knowing what she had said. You tried to think what she could have seen where ‘mean people were throwing old things’, but you couldn’t come across anything scary about that. It was true that when Scott came over, he loved to watch that type or program with garbage with Chris; but they weren’t traumatic.

You looked at Chris, but he was focused on your daughter. You didn’t have to ask anything else, as she kept talking. That she didn’t use Banana to talk showed that what she was talking about was something important.

“They – they t’ew ol’ ins an – an got new ones” her eyes filled with tears and, in a matter of a few words, her small face filled with desperation. “You – you t’ow me when baby is ‘ere?”

Claire broke into sobs when she finally expressed her thoughts and worries, and both of your hearts broke. You had thought she was handling well the news of her new sibling. It had only been two days since you told her, and she was pretty excited and happy to have someone to share her toys with.

Chris actually whispered a sad ‘oh, baby’ before pulling the two of you to his chest and creating a human sandwich with Claire in between. She clutched her other hand to his shirt, so hard that it actually tore a bit. Banana was left under her body, the toy making a small squeak noise but not breaking.

“That’s not true, Claire” you assured her. “We can love you both the same”

“But they t‘ow ol’ a’ay” she sobbed into your body, the words barely recognizable. “You ‘il get ti’ed of me!”

You looked up at Chris with desperation, and he looked exactly like you. His eyes were glossy and he was trying to come up with words that didn’t exist. He tried to think about something to say to a crying toddler; she couldn’t understand most of the reasons he could give her, but her mind had picked up on a problem that sounded too mature to her knowledge.

Finally, you sighed and tried to think of something the books you had bought about ‘being a good mother’ could hide.

“Look, baby” you started, and Claire looked at you through the tears. “There is a space, inside our bodies… where we keep the love for the people that matters to us. Do you remember how we love with the heart?”

Claire nodded, and hugged the plushie closer to her body.

“Well, right now, in my heart, there is love for daddy, for you and for a lot of people. Your cousins, your aunts and uncles. I didn’t stop loving daddy because you were born”

“But – t’at no s’me!” she cried out, and Chris made her look at him.

“It’s the same, baby” he used his deep, paternal voice that he only got when he was talking about something important or scolding her. The toddler focused all her attention on him, and swallowed down the tears. “When a new person appear for you to love, you don’t have to throw other away. There is enough space in our heart for al least one hundred people more”

“T’ats a lot” Claire mumbled. She looked at you for confirmation, and when you nodded, she looked down to the plushie and petted its head softly, as if it was a dog. “We don’ ‘ave to worry, Banana. I tell you”

The little girl grabbed his father’s t-shirt and pulled him close until a sandwich of the Evan’s family was made. Looking to the clock of your nightstand, Chris watched as the four o’clock rolled by, and that was another night where he couldn’t probably go back to sleep.

When he so many times had dreamt with having a family, he didn’t expect so many sleepless nights. He expected laughs, dirty diapers and trips to the toy store to have fun himself. And a lot of family reunions with his friends and family where he got to brag about a kid and his wife. He didn’t thought of the vomits on his favourite shirts, of having to fight with the other mothers about theirs kids and vaccines, or about tying so many shoes in a day.

Still, fatherhood was the best thing that he could think of. And he was sure of it when he looked at the two girls sleeping in his bed, tugged into his hide for the rest of his life.

Want to know more about me? Here is my Masterlist! Feedback is always appreciated!!

[pixie88]

A Shoulder to Cry on

Chapter 17 - Always the Bridesmaid.

A/N: This one is very Angsty I hope I haven’t over done it. Mentions of drug abuse. Sorry to be clogging up you tag notes with A&E - Alone chapter today and ATB today! I hope you like it.

Only tagging those who have asked. I hate to annoy people with tags.

Read previous chapters HERE!

Warnings: Fluff & Angst

Word Count: 2103

Pairings: Laila x Harry

Enjoy!

His house was the closest to Rem's but him bring the brother closest to her age, they had always gotten on better than the older two. Harry was at work with back to back sessions, she didn't want to bother him. He answers the door "Lai?" Her eyes are swollen and red "Lai, what's a matter?" He pulls her in for a hug "Nate, I thought I was doing the right thing!" She sobs.

"Hey! It's OK! Come on, let's get you off the doorstep. I'll make us a tea and you can tell me what is going on!" She follows him to the kitchen "Are the kids here?" She wipes the tears from her face, "No, Zeppy has gone to Vicky" he rolls his eyes at the mention of her name "And Jade has taken the boys swimming" he calls back as he makes his way to the kitchen.

A few minutes later he comes in with 2 cuppas "There you go! I can't remember if you take sugar or not"

"That'll do fine!" She smiles as he hands her the mug "So, what has upset ya?" She sighs not wanting to talk about it, but that's why she's here "It's Rem...he probably hates me. Alene has been in contact with Melissa and she wants to build bridges with Rem. I went round just now to have a word with him and he got angry and kicked me out" she sobs.

Nate rubs her back and hands her a tissue "Oh Lai! I'm sure he didn't mean it! It's just a sore subject for him, you know this more than anyone. Once he calms down, he'll realise he shouldn't have taken it out on you" Laila wipes her tears and takes a deep breath.

"I get why he is upset, I do...." Laila's phone starts to ring, she didn't want to speak to anyone right now other than Nate, so she ignored the call, a few seconds later her phone PINGS "You should get that maybe it's Rem?" she huffs pulling out her phone Harry's name appears across the screen.

"It's Harry, Alec has told him about what happened with Rem. Looks like he tried to call me too. I'll give him a call back in bit" she puts her phone away "I think Rems will be fine once he cools off. You've got to also think it's a big thing! Here he is building this new life with Alec and suddenly the past comes rolling in" She feels a little better after talking to Nate.

"So, Zeppy has gone to see her Mum?" Nate rolls his eyes "Yeah, not much I can do able that now she's 18" Nate just shook his head, he always worries when Zeppy is visiting Vic as she always comes home with an attitude.

15 Years ago

Zeppy and Vicky's mother and daughter relationship has always been up and down, but more downs than ups. When Zeppy was 3 Nate went to pick up Zeppy as usual, she would spend weekends with him, he knocked on the door and got no answer.

He knocked a few more times again, still no answer, as he opened the flap of the letter box he could see straight into the kitchen where Zeppy was turning the dials on the gas cooker hob.

That's when the smell of gas hit him, he calls out to Zeppy to stop and open the front door.

After Zeppy unlock the door he rushed his daughter out the house and into his car before going back inside to turn off the gas and in search of Vicky but there was no sign of her in the house. Zeppy's bag was packed near the front door, he picked it up and left the house.

30 minutes later a frantic Vicky calls him, after the 5th call he finally answers "PLEASE TELL ME, YOU HAVE HER NATHAN!!???" still angry she had left their 3 year old daughter in the house by herself, he decides to be cruel "Have who?" he calmly asks "WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHO?? OUR DAUGHTER!!?" she screams down the phone at him.

"No, I'm running late. I did call to tell you" this was a lie he had called her after he found she had left Zeppy at home alone. "NATHAN! SHE'S GONE!!" she's sobbing on the other end of the phone "How?" he asked, hoping she won't lie like she has on other occasions. Like when Zeppy had used Vicky's phone to call him because Vicky had collapsed. When he got there she lied saying she had the flu, but he knew better the reason why she collapsed was the same reason they split - Drugs. 

"She was in the shops with me....I turned away for a second and she was gone" this was the last straw for him. She had flat out lied to him, on the way to his, he asked Zeppy where Vicky was she told him that she had left with Scott (One of her druggie friends) and told her not to answer the door to  anyone leaving her there.

"Good job she's safe then! I have her, I was early, but thank fuck I was! Vic, she was playing with the gas cooker! What the earth possessed you to leave our 3 year old daughter by herself?"  Vicky knew she had been caught out "Nathan! You scared the shit outta me!" his blood boiled he couldn't even be bother to answer that she clearly couldn't see what she had done was wrong.

With the help of Terry and Liz, he won primary custody of Zeppy before she was 4. When Zeppy started school Nate was a single dad, so Liz would always pick up Zeppy from school as his job at his grandad's Garage was until 5PM. He met Jade on her first shift at the pub, he was covered in oil, but her smile won his heart the first time he saw her.

The next day he came to collect Zeppy he had gone home to change his clothes and shower. Liz looked a little confused when she saw Nate walk through the door clean and smart, but she soon realised why when her eyes followed the direction he was stupidly smiling in. He made the excuse that he and Zeppy would have dinner at the pub that night just so he could stay a little longer. By the end of the night he finally worked up the courage to ask her out....

2 years later.

Jade gave birth to their first son Blake by his first birthday they were married soon followed Isaac and Alfie.

When Jade had gone into labour with Blake, Vicky assumed she would automatically get Zeppy for a few days, but Nate had already planned for Liz and Terry to have her. This broke her heart, so she turned to her only friend and overdosed. Waking up in hospital, she was greeted by Nate stood at the bottom of her bed with a sad Zeppy. She smiled at her daughter as she opened her eyes, but Zeppy didn't return it "Zep? Baby, Aren't you happy to see Mummy?" she asked. Zeppy teared up, "NO!" she shouted back at her before storming off upset.

Vicky looked to Nate "I couldn't keep it a secret from her anymore Vic. She knows how you got here" the look of realizations spreads across her face, "You told her?!" she hissed, he leaned over the end of the bed "Believe it or not...she overheard the doctor. Vic this was supposed to be a happy time, but you went and shat all over it!" he walks off leaving her with nothing, but her tears.

Although Zeppy wasn't biologically Jade's daughter, she treated her exactly the same as the boys, Vicky hated this. Whenever Zeppy would call Jade Mum in front of Vicky on the supervised visits at the contact centres, she would always hiss "She's not your Mum!" Jade would ignore her.

Jade obviously knew what happened with Vicky, but she also understood she was a Mother and how much it must have hard her to hear her daughter call another woman Mum. Much to Nate's disapproval Jade always encouraged Vicky and Zeppy's relationship she even got him to change the fortnightly supervised visits to once a week. If it was left up to Nate, she wouldn't have any contact what so ever.

As far as Vicky was concerned, he thought Zeppy would be better off without her in her life. But Jade would always convince him as much as he doesn't, like her, it has to be Zeppy's decision on whether she kept in contact with her or not and if he took that away from her she would resent him for it. Zeppy kept contact in hope that one day she might have a normal Mum, one that might put her daughter and her health first.

So far that seems a long way off.

Present day

"Probably Vicky talking in her ear, but don't take it to heart, Nate" she smiles her phone rings again. She takes a look at the screen, it's Harry again "You better answer that he'll be worried about you" Nate gets up "I'll make us some lunch and you speak to your boyfriend" Laila answers the phone.

"Hey handsome!"

"Hi my love, Are you OK? Alec called me and told me about Rem's blowing up"

"Yeah, I'm OK! I'm at Nate's just talking about it with him"

"Are you sure you're OK? I can see if I can get Ollie to take on the rest of my PT sessions for today?"

She smiles at his sweetness "I'm fine now....what time do you finish? I'll pick you up in the car?"

"If you're sure? I finish at 4 today"

"Yeah, I'm sure and I'll see you at 4"

"OK 4...I love you!"

"I love you more"

Nate makes a gagging noise at his sister, she laughs as she hangs up "Things going well between you two then?" she rolls her eyes at him "Clearly!" he hands her a sandwich "Cucumber and lots of butter" she laughs, "You used to make me these for my packed lunches at school or if I was ill"

"You loved them, I remember someone telling mum not to make your lunch box because you wanted me to do it!"

"To be fair mum would normally chuck in some Jacobs crackers with butter and grated cheese, that stuff would always go everywhere! Do you make the kids these?"

"Yeah, Zeppy used to love them. Alf, Blake and Isaac still have them if they are having packed lunch"

They heard the front door slam "Jade? Zeppy?" Nate called out soon after he heard footsteps hammer up the stairs before another door slam "Zeppy?!" Laila said as she looked to Nate. He sighed and was about to get up from the sofa to deal with his daughter, but Laila grabbed his arm "Let me!"

He sat back down, leaving Laila to deal with one of Zeppy's mood swings. She knocks on the bedroom door to hear Zeppy yell "Dad, go away!" She knocks again "Zippy, it's me!" She heard her huff followed by footsteps coming closer.

The door swings open, Zeppy's eyes are swollen "Will you stop calling that Aunt Leia!" Laila laughs.

It was 3 months after Nate had found out about Zeppy that Laila first met Zeppy. She could never pronounce her name right, it always came out as Leia, it kinda stuck until she hit her teens and she started calling her Aunt Laila and she asked her to stop calling her Zippy.

"Are you going to let me in to have a chat?" she doesn't respond, she moves away from the door and wanders back into her room leaving the door open. Laila walks into the bedroom Zeppy is slumped on the side of her bed, head down looking at her feet. Laila saw her wiping her eyes, "Zep's, what's wrong?" she sits down next to her, Zeppy turns away from her "Come on, you can tell me!"

"She's using again!" she hisses towards Laila, she pulls Zeppy to her chest and she begins to sob "Am I not enough? I told her after the last time if she used again that's it...I'm cutting her out of my life"

It breaks Laila's heart to see her niece like this.

Why can't she see what an amazing daughter, she has!?

Continue reading this story here - Chapter 18.

@lem-20 @ridgy--didge @secretaryunpaid @irisofpurple​ @khoicesbyk @txemrn @tea-me-kah @casualpostqueen @gloriousalmondvoiddreamer @beautifuluknownvoid​

[valkyrieofsmut]

At Your Service, Alpha 1

Alpha!Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler) x omega!Reader

Descriptions:   Kurt is apartment sitting for his friend and the last thing he expected to find was his one true omega, but there she was. Except she can’t seem to tell they belong together. (Y/n) has dreamed about the day she would meet her one true alpha her whole life. A new, blue, alpha comes to see her every day, and she hates him! Until she starts thinking about him all the time. Her allergies make it so she can’t smell anything, but she knows that her alpha will let her know when he finds her. Won’t he?

A/n- I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, waiting for the right time to post it Guess now is as good a time as any! 

Masterlist

Story!

(Y/n) sighed as she pulled the still vibrating toy from herself, turning it off and laying it on the bed next to her. 

She was panting heavily, rolling over and grabbing a tissue from the box on her nightstand. The weird squeaking noises filled her head as her swollen sinuses let air back through them after blowing her nose. 

It sucked to be an omega in heat, but especially as she did it; she had always romanticised waiting, being with her one true alpha for her first time, so during her heat, she spent the days of the week in a tub of lukewarm water with her fully submersible, waterproof toy driving her mad, and the nights she’d tie herself to the bed so she couldn’t go crying into the hall of the apartment building for an alpha, except this time, which for some reason she’d been so needy that she’d played with the toy in her bed, despite her heat winding down. 

The toy did little to help, small, vibrating, and able to hit a few pleasant spots inside, but it wasn’t one of the fancy models with an inflatable knot that would fill you and make you feel content for a short while, as other omegas had told her. 

It also didn’t help that she was allergic to dust and pollen, making it impossible for her to ever breathe easily unless she took allergy pills. 

She had taken them for years, but they were expensive, and really, smells were nice, but it wasn’t necessary to have to be on guard for roaming alphas in today’s society, and, while she knew that she’d be able to tell her destined alpha by smell when she met him, she figured that he’d tell her, much as she’d seen the others do in her small town, thus making her very expensive allergy pills a redundant waste of money. 

(Y/n) sighed and put the toy back in her drawer, tying her ankles, then hands to the bed and laying back to sleep. 

.

She awoke in the morning, yawning and pulling on the tie holding her hands down. Her heat was over, so she had to go back to work. 

After a nice hot shower, which actually let her sinuses be open for a while when done after a heat, she dressed and headed to work. 

Her apartment was at the end of the hall on the second story of the building, so she had quite the way to go through the sinus swelling dust before she got outside to the sinus swelling pollen, and by the time she exited the building, she had sneezed about five times. 

The sun had risen before she left, but it was still gentle in the sky when she arrived at work about a half an hour later. 

(Y/n) went into the cafe where her friend was finishing up the baking for the day, helping put the filled trays into their shelves. 

She looked up at her, smiling cheekily. “Have a good heat? Or still denying yourself the pleasure?” 

“Alex,” (Y/n) chided. “I’ll feel it when I feel it.” 

“It’s just so much better!” She giggled. “I don’t know how you can stand not smelling anything, what if your alpha walked in here today and you couldn’t smell anything?” 

(Y/n) rolled her eyes as she took the tray she was handing her. “Then I’m sure he’ll come up to me and grab me by the scruff, tell me I’m his, and abscond with me. You’ll have to find another employee,” she teased back. 

(Y/n) bowed her head in respect as Jared, Alex’s alpha, entered the shop with a smile, walking to Alex and stopping. “On your knees, omega,” he told her, and she knelt in front of him, playing along with his game. 

(Y/n) pulled another tray from the rack and slid it onto the shelf, looking over at the two. 

Alex had been her friend since she’d moved here and started working in her shop, about four years ago. Jared had walked into the shop two years ago, intent on ordering some lunch to go, but he had stopped walking, standing stalk still as he sniffed the air, looking around until he found Alex, walking toward her where she’d stopped to stare at him, sniffing his scent. He’d pulled her close and kissed her, pulling back to declare; “I’m your alpha. You’re my omega.” She’d stared up at him longingly, knowing he was right, and happy to have found him at last. 

(Y/n) smiled fondly at the memory, glad for her as they stood close together now, her giggling and him smiling down at her. 

(Y/n) hoped that when she found her alpha it could be someone nice like Jared; he was strong over Alex when she needed him to be, but he was always sweet to her, as well, the kneeling thing was just something like a game they played, an “aren’t you glad I’m not like other alphas/ omegas” game. 

The door opened again, and she looked up to see a customer. “Good morning,” she greeted. 

Looks like the day was starting. 

.

Kurt stopped in front of the door, glancing down at his phone. This was the building, it was the right floor, the correct number. He knocked on the door and after a moment it opened. 

“Hallo,” he greeted his friend. 

“Hi,” Scott answered, standing aside so he could enter. 

Kurt paused, though, looking at the door at the end of the hall, his nose lifting to sniff. 

Scott looked back to him. “What's up, man?” 

Kurt shook his head and turned back to the apartment in front of him. “Nothing, just… That smell…” He said, his eyes drifting back to the door. 

“Oh, yeah. There's an omega that lives there, just, uh, just finished her heat…” Scott trailed off. 

“But, I don't smell an alpha,” Kurt commented. 

“Nah,” Scott answered as Kurt walked through the door. “She's a weirdo. Gets through it by herself. Says she's waiting for “the one”, or something. It hurts when they go into heat, you know? Like they're dying, and only a knot can cure them.” 

“Ja, that I know,” Kurt said with a smirk. He'd been with plenty of omegas, seeing how desperate they were for the feeling of his knot inside them. 

He'd always looked down at them with a bit of pity, and decided that when, if ever, he found his true omega, he hoped that he wouldn't see her as the same pitifully begging and writhing, desperate thing he saw in them, more so, hoping that she wouldn't immediately drop to her knees and bow before him, instead accepting him on her terms. 

When he'd gone drinking with a group of alphas from the X-Men before, they'd told him he was crazy, what he was asking for was more like an alpha. He didn’t care, though, he just knew what he wanted. 

Kurt spent the evening watching movies and things with Scott, getting ready to take over, apartment sitting for him. 

“I really appreciate you doing this,” Scott told him. 

“No problem,” Kurt answered. 

“It’s hard being tied to someone so powerful, sometimes,” Scott complained. 

Kurt didn’t answer, just took a swig of the beer in his hand. 

Scott was his friend, but he was a bit of a complainer, so the whining was nothing new to him. 

“At least you’ll get to see Jean when you go,” he commented. 

Scott made a noise in agreement, but didn’t mention it further. 

.

In the morning, Kurt held the door for Scott, waving to him as he carried his bag and walked down the hall. 

He was just turning to go back into the apartment, but caught a smell. He glanced back into the apartment quickly before stepping out and going down the hall to the door at the end. The scent there was not quite fresh, she must have just left less than an hour ago. 

Kurt’s nostrils flared a little as he sniffed, his body automatically getting closer to the ground and the crack under the door where the smell was concentrated. 

One strong whiff, and Kurt was done for. A feeling of need filled him, making space for itself in the pit of his stomach. His eyes snapped open and he inhaled again. 

It was amazing- groin tingling, saliva inducing… But it was more than delicious; it was inspiring. 

He felt a surge of energy, and didn’t know what to do. He paced back to Scott’s apartment, but couldn’t bear to be away from the scent that filled him with such emotions, so he turned back, starting to look like an animal pacing at the zoo as frustration filled him. 

His scent was starting to fill the hall, making it harder for him to smell the delicious scent coming from under the door. 

He stormed into Scott’s apartment and slammed the door. 

He wanted to meet her, this delicious smelling omega. He felt the need growing, and it was starting to worry him. He’d never wanted to be with any Omega this badly before. 

He turned to a source of information that he’d used sparingly in the past. 

Yes, he was a romantic, but he usually watched or read alpha romances, where the alpha suddenly found their omega, but had some sort of conflict separating them; clan war, society archetypes, things like that that made it so that they had to fight, his favorites were the ones where the omega had been promised to another alpha, but the protagonist fought the odds and won the omega, not only her heart, but the approval of her parents or the ones who had promised her away in the first place. He’d always thought omega romances to be unnecessarily sappy, so he watched them as little as possible. He hoped they’d come in handy now, though, with this weird new feeling he had. 

He searched through Scott’s movies, both physical and streaming, and found one, putting it on. A third of the way through it, though, he hit the square stop button. It was hard to watch, so sappy and cheesy with the normal, know nothing omega male winning the beautiful, full package alpha female by just being himself… 

His head perked up, though. He’d been watching male omega romance movies… Maybe the female ones would be better… 

He searched, and finally found one, hitting play. 

The female omega lead was cute, but not insanely beautiful, like an alpha would be, and she went through life, just like a normal woman would. It was shortly after getting her character set up that she met a man, an alpha who had started at the same company as her, and she had the spark. She immediately went to talk to him, but was brushed off by his entourage. That night she cried to herself, but tried to be strong. Later, she got to speak to him, and spend a little time with him, but he seemed disinterested in her. 

She cried and pined for him, knowing that he was her one true alpha, but that he wasn’t interested in her. It was his right as an alpha to refuse her, and she was trying to respect that, but it hurt her so much inside that she burst into tears in front of him and ran away. She didn’t return to work the rest of the week, and it suddenly turned to the alpha. He was asking about her. He started feeling loss at her absence. He felt an ache that wouldn’t go away, no matter how many omegas he was around, or with. He went to where she lived and told her all of these things, and they got together. 

Kurt’s brow crumpled. 

He wasn’t sure how to feel about the movie, on one hand, it was ridiculous, on the other, it was rather romantic… and a little addicting… 

He glanced around as though to make sure that no one was watching him, though he was alone, and put on another. 

.

The sun had set a while ago, now, and after watching so many female omega romances, he had to admit, that, while ridiculous, the feeling that the alpha characters had after meeting their one true omega and being away from them, not having them by their side, while dramatically overplayed in his opinion, did seem similar to how he felt. 

He laid back on the couch and stretched, freezing as he heard a noise in the hall. He shot up and cracked the door open. The delicious smell was fresh in the hall, meaning that she must have come home. 

He went to her door, but paused, his hand raised. 

She had just gotten home from work, she probably wanted to take a bath, or shower, and relax. 

He had planned to knock and meet her, but- he straightened and turned back to Scott’s apartment- he, as any romantic would, alpha or omega, had thought about this day for most of his life. He’d always planned to sweep his omega off their feet, and now would probably not be the right time in her eyes, but maybe that was just all the omega romance movies he’d been watching talking… 

Kurt sat back on the couch, turning on more- research material… 

Tag List!

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[vegetacide]

TaG: Bloodlines (Part 7.. )

Veg • notables: Any errors in this are strictly my own

Ty to @gumnut-logic and @scribbles97 for the brainstorming help and the encouragement.

Previous: Part 1 | Part 2 Bit 1 & Bit 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Rating and General warning: Mature content head. If you are not a fan of medical issues of a female nature in relation to pregnancy please proceed with caution.

Characters: Virgil, Kayo, (V/K)  Jeff, Scott and Grandma.

Location: TaG-verse AU | Tracy Island

E N J O Y

8-8-8

Part 7 Kesalahan

The quiet tinny sound of music and a steady bass beat were the first things Kayo noticed as she started to drift in the land between wakefulness and sleep.

Grogginess sat heavily on her achy body but the comforting scents of home;  a pleasant mix of the sea and her husband’s aftershave, greeted her waking mind.

Opening her eyes just enough to peer through her lashes she was surprised to find the room still heavily shadowed with the exception of the table lamp set on low across from the foot of the bed.   

Its soft light spilled gently into the room and played over the form of her husband.   Casting a juxtaposition of shadows and light across his stubbled jaw and the little dent in his chin she loved so much.  

She wondered briefly who their child would take after.  Her husband’s strong handsome features or her Malay curves and angles.  Either way, she thought as she shifted her hand to cup the swell of her belly,  she would love the child with all she was worth. 

There was no way she was going to let this little go through the beginning of its life like she had.   Running and hiding from a mad man bent on destruction. 

Pushing those thoughts aside she turned her mind back to Virgil.  

He’d pulled up one of the arm chairs from their small sitting room to the side of the bed.  His bare foot was perched up on the side of the bed while he tinkered on a data pad that was resting on an upraised knee.   

He was awake, for that she was certain as he’d dawned a pair of headphones and he’s head was bobbing to whatever musical composition he was generating.   

Intent on whatever it was he was doing, Kayo just watched him.  Enjoying the play of light through his tousled hair and the way he nibbled his lower lip when he was concentrating.  A trait he swore he didn’t do.

It was a good five minutes before he looked up,  his brow shooting up into his hairline when he noticed she was awake. 

Setting the data pad down,  he pulled the headphones from his head.  It was obvious he’d been doing whatever it was he was doing for some time but the banded, depression the headphones had left across the top of his head.  

He smiled at her,  checking the time on the bedside chronometer and dragged a hand over his face as he stretched his shoulders out with a pop.   

“Hey,”  There was a huskiness to his voice that had she been in better shape would have curled her toes.  

“Hey”  She whispered back.  “What are you working on?”  

Virgil shrugged, glancing down at the pad.  “Nothing much,  just passing the time.”  

“Can I hear it?”  

“It’s not done and really it’s just fiddling.”  

“You don’t have to sit vigil.”  She said, holding her hand to him and hoping he would take it. “Doctor Coxley said I would be fine in a couple weeks.”   

“Yes, I do.”  His reply was matter of fact. “And he did but had I been watching you better we wouldn’t be here now.” 

“Virgil…”  Kayo sighed in exasperation, pushing herself up with some effort  so she could see him better.  She wasn’t going to have this conversation lying down like an invalid

Virgil came to her aid,  sliding his arm across her back and holding her steady as he propped her pillows up.  

“Thanks.”  She said, laying her hand on his cheek before he could turn away.  She wanted him to kiss her but she wasn’t sure if they were there yet.   

He put his hand over hers,  turning into her palm but he pulled away a moment later and sat on the edge of the bed.  

“You need anything?”  It was asked as a distraction and Kayo knew it well.  She’d used this trick a few times herself over the years.  

“Virgil,  look at me.”  

He did, reluctantly.  The fidgeting of his fingers against his knees as if he was running through scales told her he was uncomfortable and wanted to be discussing anything but this.  

“You’re not to take it all on yourself.  I am just as much to blame, if not more so for this.”  Kayo pointed at herself,  circle her index finger around all of her and then some.   

“I was the one that messed up with my pill five months ago.  I was the one that was pushing myself to do too much.  I was the one that withheld things from you.”

“Which you apologized for.”  He stated. “And five months ago I messed up just as much as you did.  I’m the one with the medical training and I gave you those antibiotics.”  

Kayo nodded, and fiddled with the edge of the sheets at her waist. “You did but at the time,  neither one of us was thinking very straight. Other things seemed more … pressing.”

That comment got a chuckle out of Virgil.  “Ya,  was kind of reckless of us. If Scott ever found out…”  

She smiled and nudged his backside with her covered knee.  “Who said he doesn’t know. He might be just too embarrassed to say anything to us.”  

He peered back at her over his shoulder,  a thick brow arched in curiosity. “What makes you say that?”

She only had to say one thing.  “Biometrics.”  

Virgil groaned and dropped his face into his hands.  “That would actually explain a lot.” 

“How so?”

Virgil pursed his lips in thought.  “Odd little comments that seemed to say more than they did.  The odd awkward silence.”  he gave a shrug.  “Like something was on the tip of the tongue but then the words never came..”

They sat in companionable silence for a moment.  Kayo, languishing among her pillows and soft sheets.  Virgil’s warmth comforting and lolling her mind.  

She caught herself,  not wanting to fall back asleep just yet.   Enjoying this quiet moment as their bridge to each other healed.  

“What time is it?”

“Late or early.  Depends on which you prefer.”  He rolled his shoulders,  bracing his hands on his knees as if to get up. “Little after 4am. You’ve been asleep for about 5 hours.”  

“I’ve done nothing but sleep since we left Auckland.” 

“You needed it.”  He replied, scrubbing a hand down his face. 

“And so do you.”

“I’m okay.  Grandma will be up in a bit. She’s keeping taps on your vitals for the Doc.” 

She’d figured as much.  If not Grandma than her husband would be but considering how tired he looked it was probably a good idea that Sally was doing it.  

Stretching, he got to his feet.   Grimacing as his shoulder popped in the process, he rubbed at it absently. Obviously the way he had been sitting hadn’t agreed with the old injury and it was bothering him again. 

“Come to bed.”  Hand out, she reached for him.  “You need to get some sleep and by the way you keep massaging your shoulder it looks like your body agrees with me.” 

He hesitated a moment but ultimately the call to sleep won out.  

Grabbing the edge of his shirt,  he tugged it over his head.  Discording it lazily on the floor by the foot of their bed,  a mere four feet from the laundry shoot..Kayo resisted the urge to scold.   Men truly were lazy creatures, though Virgil for the most part picked up after himself there were times that she was reminded of that fact. 

His jeans followed and she rolled her eyes as they too ended up on the floor though the view more than made up for it.  She’d always been a sucker for abs and Virgil’s were … well, words could not describe or do them any justice. 

A thick brow arched at her as he came around to the other side of the bed.  “That is not going to help either of us.”  He pointed out, slipping under the covers and opening his arm to her.

She took the invitation with ease, snuggling into his embrace and settling her head on his broad chest.  “The next two weeks are going to suck.”

His chuckle rumbled through his chest and kissed her brow.  “You’re telling me..”

Scott read over the intel reports from security again and gave up three words in.  He’d already gone over it several times and each time he came up with the same conclusion.

It was quiet on all fronts.  Their unscheduled trip to the mainland had been completely unnoticed.  Not one word of sightings of the famed Tracy Clan in any of the usual media outlets.  Not even one captured image.... Nothing.  

He knew John and Eos cast a wide net when it came to protecting the family’s privacy but usually there was something out there.  A comment on one of the social media platforms,  a blip from the military junkies that loved to watch what sort of aircraft came in and out of various GDF bases despite the numerous no trespassing signs. And a personal jet with civilian tags would have garnered at least one comment somewhere… but there was nothing.  

Sighing, he dumped the reports on the desk and flopped into his seat.   He was being paranoid but when it came to the safety of his family what choice did he have. Looking for things in the shadows when it was a bright and cheery day had been a habit born out of necessity over the years.  And now that the Hood was at large… that habit had grown tenfold.  

The main reason for that was sitting in the lowered lounge going over stock reports and grumbling at some inventory issues at one of Tracy Industries aeronautical plants on the other side of the globe. 

The others were tucked away upstairs resting, he hoped.  Though knowing his brother’s penchant for worrying that was an unlikely case.   Kayo on the other hand had been sleeping on and off since returning to the island late last night so at least that was a blessing.  

Rubbing at his eyes again he contemplated tossing the whole lot at Penny and seeing what she could make of it.  

If he was being over the top,  she would let him know in her polite aristocratic way but he knew she had her hands full at the moment with Kayo being out of action and having to compensate for the deficiency in man power. 

Usually this sort of thing was Kayo’s domain. She was an expert at reading the nuances of what was between the lines.. Or in this case; wasn’t.  Seeing the patterns in the ebb and flow of people. Finding what was out of place or suspicious in a sea of normalcy.  

Being five months pregnant and now with complications put a wrench in that resource though and Scott didn’t dare take any of this to her,  she didn’t need the stress and he didn’t need Virgil coming for his head.  

When the Bear was in full on protective mode of his mate.. Well lets just say the ferociousness of it could even unnerved Scott.  

Most of the mundane day to day tasks Scott had redelegated out among the TI security team. A group of well trained ex-forces members that Kayo had personally hand picked and vetted.   

They were a trustworthy lot that had been with them for several years and had never let them down. Trained,  retrained,  drilled and put through their paces on a regular, they never complained and were well compensated for all their hard work.     

Kayo was a very hands on person,  taking on a lot of the nitty gritty daily duties that could easily be dispersed among the people at her disposal. It allowed her on one hand to get her finger on the pulse of what was going on around her and by extension her family.  On the other hand by doing so she freed up her staff to focus on the more important task of protection. 

Thinking about protection, he was probably going to have to call someone up from the ranks that they could bring to the island.  The security system’s here were in depth but there had to be someone they could use for the interim to maintain everything.. That was a job that he would have to prioritize over the next couple of days and another thing to add to his growing list. 

 His father cursing, roused Scott from his thoughts.  “Issues?”  He asked, in need of distraction as he came around the desk. 

“Just eye strain and stupidity.  I may need to make an appearance at the office to handle this personally.”

“Dad, I don’t think..” 

Jeff waved him off one handed. “I know.  I know but I may not have a choice.  The board is being unreasonably ornery with the current project projections and if the inventory issues aren’t sorted soon there is a real possibility of a delay on production…”

“This sounds rather familiar…”  Scott groused. “You could always have legal look into the contract, see what wiggle room we have.”

“I’ve got Tom working on that now.  It’s not something that is going to bankrupt us by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just a pain in the backside. “

“And the timing …”

“Exactly,”  His Father yawned, stretching out on the couch. “ It’s the  last thing we need at the moment.”

“What’s the last thing we need?”  Came a feminine voice from the other side of the room. 

Father and son turned as one and blinked.  

“Good Heavens,  Kayo you should be resting.” 

Kayo rolled her eyes and came further into the room.   She was dressed simply in a pair of yoga pants and a Denver Tech sweater obviously belonging to Virgil considering how it dwarfed her petite frame. 

She was pale but looked rested.  An air of calm surrounded her with no evidence of the fear that had been present the previous day.  She looked settled and the relief of it had some of the tension leaving Scott.  

Hair hair was down,  curling over and around her shoulders and by the whiff of jasmine he could pick up from where he was freshly from the shower. 

Scott looked past her expecting the large frame of his brother to be shadowing her.

“I convinced him to get some sleep.”  She said, catching the direction of Scott’s gaze.  “It was either that or I was going to sic Grandma on him. 

She toddled over to the lounge and Scott offered his hand to help her down the stairs. The look she shot him would have sent most people running for the hills but he wasn’t put off by it in the slightest.   

There was a silent war for but a moment until he arched a brow at her and she conceded.   Taking his proffered hand and alighting down the stairs with ease.   

“You shouldn’t be on your feet.”  Jeff spoke up, stepping to the side to offer her the closest couch. 

Her hand settled on the swell of her belly and she smiled with exasperation at Jeff. “I wanted to stretch my legs.  I’m not used to sitting around.“

Jeff smiled back in sympathy and took her elbow, urging her to take a seat.  

Kayo complied,  easing back in the soft leather with a mild wince of discomfort.  

Zeroing in on the flash of pain, Scott crouched before her.  “You alright?”

“Just a little round ligament pain. It will pass.”  

“You sure?”  His eyes darted up to his Father’s and Jeff reached for him comms.  

“Most definitely besides,” She held up her wrist, a band like that of a watch encircling it.  “Grandma has me wired up for monitoring. I am not to take it off even to shower so there is no hiding for me until this little stowaway decides it’s time to come out.” 

The hand cupped over her small rounded belly did a gentle sweep back and forth, Kayo seemingly unaware she was even doing it as she glanced at all the data pads on the table.  

So much love for the little one that hadn’t been planned. 

Scott was still in awe of the whole situation. So much had happened in the last eight months.  

They’d gotten their father back from the dead of space after eight long years. Whole and mostly healthy though there would be long term medical issues to contend with

The relationship that Kayo and Virgil had been trying to keep under wraps from the rest of them had been found out due to a nosy reporter when they’d been on scheduled leave. Luckily with the help of Eos and John the rumours had been smothered. 

They’d had a private wedding on the beach shortly after that.  Just the direct family,  and closest friends in attendance.

And not two months after that, they’d found out the couple was pregnant when the whole family thought the relationship was on the rocks. 

So much to process and Scott still had trouble wrapping his head around it. 

“So what’s this I heard when I came in?”

Crap,  Scott had hoped that had slipped her mind and he scrambled for an appropriate response.  One that wouldn’t raise her suspicions.  His father stepped in though before he could formulate a plan.

“It’s nothing to worry about.  Just some concerns with the board in the U.S.  I got it handled.”

“You sure?  I don’t mind looking into it if you need me too.”

Jeff shook his head.  “It’s alright.  I have legal doing the leg work already.  They can handle it.

“Really, it wouldn’t take me anytime at all if you need to go in person to set up a detail.”  She stated and shifted as  if to get back to her feet. 

“I beg your pardon” Came the voice of the family Matriarch that had off three of them freezing.  ‘Tanusha Kyrano Tracy, the last thing you should be doing at the moment is working. “

Sally Tracy whooshed into the room like a woman on a mission and beelined straight for Kayo.  “And secondly to that, you better not have been walking around the island unaccompanied, young lady.  You’ve barely been back on the island twenty four hours and you’re already getting into mischief. 

Kayo’s mouth snapped shut and she looked thoroughly chest fallen.   

“I know you hate not being able to help out but really right now you need to look after yourself and that baby. “  The retired doctor plucked a random tablet off the table, swiped whatever was on the screen away and pulled up the med-reader.  

Kayo’s bio-signs flickered across the screen,  Red lines blipping out a steady beat as O2 saturation levels and blood pressure blinked in the corner. 

Grandma didn’t need to say anymore on the subject as all the proof she needed was right there on the screen. Those blood pressure readings were far from Kayo’s normal levels and creeping towards preeclampsia just like they had been not even a day prior.

Grandma tutted and handed the data pad to her son.  There was a sternness in her gaze as she perched on the couch next to Kayo and patted her knee.  “I want both of you healthy and hearty,  you still have another twenty two more weeks before that little one should make an appearance.  The faster we get on top of this the better it will be in the long run.”

Their Grandmother softened when she saw that her message was getting through and she let up in the lecturing.   

“But since you’re up we might as well get you some food After which we can go for a little walk around the pool for some fresh air.” 

There was a mute nod in response and Kayo was assisted back to her feet. Grandma took her arm and smiled, looking rather pleased that she’d managed to wrangle the security specialist   

“Oh and luckily for you,  we are going to be having a visitor on the island soon.  Doctor Coxley suggested we consult a nutritionist that specializes in pregnancies so Lady Penelope is looking into some for us.”  

“Lucky for all of us.”  Jeff muttered and blinked when he realized he’d said that out loud.   

Grandma shot him a look while Scott coughed to hide his chuckle.    

8-8-8 

TBC

NEXT

[waitineedaname]

frame the halves and call them a whole

also on ao3

--

“Alright, I’ve got a bad one.”

“Oh, lord.”

“Brace yourself.”

“I’m bracing!” Sasha made a show of gripping the short carpet on her living room floor and Tim grinned, leaning back against her coffee table.

“Would you rather… date a spider with the head of a human, or a human with the head of a spider?”

“Jesus. I see someone has been reading the discredited statements.”

“Guilty.” Tim shrugged cheekily. 

The two of them were sitting on the floor in Sasha’s flat, and she’d long since lost track of what time it was. Ever since they’d been moved to the Archives, they’d made an agreement to go out and do something together once a week. Sometimes that meant getting sloshed and losing at pub trivia, sometimes that meant dragging each other to whatever new film had made it to theaters that week, and sometimes that meant playing sleepover games in the middle of the night, as if they were twelve year olds and not thirty-somethings with 9-to-5’s. Neither of them had the energy to go out drinking and there wasn’t anything good in the theaters that week, so the third option had won out. They’d ended up on the floor when Sasha made an ill-advised comment about not being ticklish and Tim called her bluff. She’d dissolved into hysterical giggles and he’d said something about how being an oldest sibling meant having a sixth sense for someone’s ticklish spots, and then he’d gone very still and quiet. She’d taken his hand and squeezed and initiated the game of would-you-rather they found themselves in now.

“Okay. Let me think about this.” She drummed her fingers on her lips contemplatively. Tim smiled in that fond way he did when he didn’t want to outright laugh at her. “Are the human and spider bits proportional?”

“Ooh, very good question, Sash. Let’s say they’re the normal sizes for your average spiders and humans.”

“So my options are a human head scuttling around on spider legs or a human with an absolutely microscopic spider head?”

“Yep!” Tim said, popping the ‘p.’

“I’m going to go with option A. I mean, if it’s a human head, I could still hold a conversation with it, right? And I don’t think spiders would make good kissers.”

“I think some of our statement givers would disagree with that judgment.”

“Please don’t tell me we have a statement about a human body with a spider head. I don’t think I could take it.”

“Sure do! Statement number 9170108, or something like that. Some freaked out old coot convinced his neighbor’s head was fake and he was keeping a tiny little spider underneath the fake head.”

“Christ. I’m glad Jon didn’t ask me to look into that one. I might have quit on the spot.” Sasha laughed.

“Aw, and then leave me and Martin to deal with Jon? You know how he gets with the spider ones.” 

“Hm, fair. The Archives need someone sensible around.”

“Hey, you’re not the sole voice of reason down there!”

“You’re right. Martin can be fairly practical when he wants.” She failed to bite back her smirk when Tim clutched his chest, feigning pain.

“Oh, how you wound me, Ms. James! Here I was, thinking it was Tim and Sasha versus the world, but you’ve betrayed me for Martin!”

“Is that your proposal for a Scott Pilgrim reboot? Am I Ramona in this scenario?”

“No, we’re both Scott Pilgrim because combined, we can equal the pure sexual energy of one Michael Cera.”

“Eugh! Gross!” She retched and kicked at him, making him laugh. 

“I’m kidding!”

“You better be! Any and all horniness for Michael Cera is banned in this flat!”

“That’s fair.” He caught her foot and shoved it back at her. “Knives and Ramona were both way too good for him, anyway. They should’ve ended up together at the end.”

“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said all night.”

“You’re really not pulling any punches tonight, huh?”

“Nope. My turn. Would you rather...” She crossed her arms and stared him down long enough to make him squirm, “get stoned with Jon or Elias?”

Tim groaned so loud she worried her neighbors would complain. “No. Absolutely not. You cannot make me choose that.”

“Hey, you asked about spider people!”

“Yeah, and I’d argue that dealing with my bosses while stoned is worse than a human head skittering around on the walls!”

“Oh, come on. Jon isn’t that bad.”

“Sasha. You were friends with him in Research. I was friends with him in Research. Last time we got drinks, he talked about South American moths for forty minutes. I’m getting a headache just thinking about listening to him while he’s stoned.”

“Maybe it’ll calm him down.”

“Maybe.” Tim pouted, and Sasha did her best not to giggle. “Alright fine. I choose Jon, but only because I cannot imagine Elias getting within eyesight of anything as fun as weed without shriveling up and acting like an affronted Victorian gentleman.”

“Okay, first of all, the Victorians loved drugs, they were high on opiates all the time-"

"Like hell am I doing opiates with Elias."

"Second of all, I may have looked into what Elias was like before he got promoted…” She trailed off and bit back a laugh when Tim's jaw dropped.

“No.” 

“And he was a major stoner.”

“You can’t just say these things. I refuse to accept it.”

“I’m serious!”

“Are we talking about the same Elias? The Elias Bouchard that uses words like grandiloquent and apropos? The Elias Bouchard that gets pissy if you round up on your time card?”

“You know what’s even worse?”

“Please don’t make it worse.”

“I’ve seen him wear those socks with weed patterns on them.”

“I told you not to make it worse.” Tim wailed and covered his face. “I swear, if I saw that, I would gouge my eyes out without hesitation.” Sasha patted his leg sympathetically. 

“Well, good thing you chose Jon, then.”

“I guess so! Fuck’s sake.” He sighed and flopped over onto his side to lie on the floor. Sasha laughed at him goodnaturedly, and then joined him on the floor. She expected him to be thinking of his next would-you-rather prompt, but after a long minute of him silently running his fingers through the carpet, he surprised her by asking, “Do you ever miss Jon?”

“Sorry?” She said, confused. “We see him every day, Tim.”

“No, I…” He huffed, “You know what I mean. Do you miss the Jon we knew in Research?”

“Oh…” Sasha caught onto his drift and fell silent, unsure what to say. Tim was clearly brimming with emotions that he was struggling to get out, so she let him take a minute.

“Not saying he’s a completely different person now, but… I don’t know. We used to get drinks with him. He used to laugh at our jokes. He used to make jokes. Weird, dark jokes, but still jokes, you know? But these days, it’s all business, all the time. I don’t think I’ve seen him smile in months. All… All snappish comments and ‘research this, call this statement giver, stop goofing off during work hours.’ Never mind that just a year ago, he was the one using work hours to show us cat videos because he got distracted during his lunch break.” The side of Tim’s face was smushed into the floor and his one free eye was focused on the whorls he was creating with his fingers in the carpet. Up close as they were, Sasha could see the light scar on his chin that he’d once told her was the result of an ill-advised dare as a child, when his brother had challenged him to see if they could jump off the back deck of their house. She touched it, and he leaned into her hand, eyes distant and sad. “I just…” He spoke softly, “I miss my friend.”

“I miss him too.” Sasha said honestly, though she knew Tim was taking it harder than she was. “You know it’s not your fault, right?”

“I know that.” Tim said, and she believed him. “It’s this stupid job. The stupid Archives. I miss being in Research, where I could make fun of the weirdos in the Archives, but now we’re the weirdos in the Archives.”

“We work at an institute that studies the supernatural. I think we’re the weirdos no matter which department we’re in.” She said, aiming for some levity and feeling relieved when Tim let out a soft huff of laughter.

“Fair. Still. The vibes in there are…”

“Bad.” She finished for him.

“You can say that again.” He finally shifted to look at her again. “If you were the Head Archivist-”

“Tim-” She warned, not wanting to dig up an old sore point. 

“I’m serious. If you were the Archivist, do you think you’d act like this?”

“Would I push you away, you mean.” She said. He shrugged and nodded. “I don’t know. I really don’t, Tim. I’d like to say I wouldn’t, but who knows what kind of pressure it involves. I can be just as intense as Jon when I feel pressured.”

“Yeah, but you’d be way nicer than him.”

“You don’t know that.” Sasha said, firm but gentle. 

“...Guess I don’t.” Tim sighed and shut his eyes. She reached down and squeezed his hand. He squeezed back.

“Next time you’re missing Jon, call me instead, okay? Or Martin, he’d love that.” She ran her thumb over his and gave him a small smile. “You can always count on me.”

His gaze is impossibly soft as he looks up at her, and he seems to almost forget to respond at first. “Yeah.” He finally says. “I can always count on you, Sash.” A cheeky grin spread across his face, breaking the tender moment. “The Pilgrim to my Scott.”

She laughed and let go of his hand to push his shoulder into the leg of the coffee table playfully. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense!” He protested despite his own laughter. “Okay, maybe it doesn’t make sense, but it’s the thought that counts. I’m poetic.”

“No, you’re sleep-deprived.” She sat up enough to eye the microwave from her vantage point in the kitchen. “Oh lord, it’s 2am, no wonder. You always get sappy at 2am.”

“I do not!”

“You do. Big sap.” She patted his cheek playfully and stood. “Want me to get you some extra blankets for the couch?”

“That’d be great.” He hauled himself to his feet, groaning all the way. She snickered.

“You sound like an old man.”

“I’ll have you know, I’m young and spry.” He complained, stretching.

“Mhm.” She rolled her eyes and went to the closet.

“At the prime of my life.”

“And yet you make dad noises getting out of a chair.”

“Hey, lying on the floor isn’t good for your back! Aren’t you older than me anyway?”

“Maybe, but I’m not the one complaining about my back.” She cut off whatever complaint he had prepared by throwing a quilt at him. He caught it and stuck his tongue out at her. She returned the gesture and grabbed another blanket. “Are two blankets good?”

“That’s perfect.” He took the blanket gratefully and settled on the couch. “Should I make breakfast as thanks?”

“You don’t have to,” Sasha immediately said out of politeness, but then added, “But if you want to make pancakes…”

“Understood. I’ll see you bright and early with some pancakes, then.” Tim smiled up at her and made himself comfortable on the couch.

“See you in the morning, Tim.” She turned to walk to her room, but stopped at the doorway when Tim piped up again.

“Sasha?”

“Hm?” She looked back at him and saw his best flirty grin on his face. He winked and blew a kiss at her. More than used to his nonsense, she gasped and pretended to catch the invisible kiss, then promptly put her hand to mouth and pretended to eat the kiss. Tim clutched his heart and fell back onto the couch, trying to act like he wasn’t holding back laughter. “No, you’re so cruel!”

“Good night, Tim.” She said, closing the door behind herself before her poker face could break.

“Good night, Sasha.” She heard through the door, full of fondness and amusement in equal parts. 

Sasha rolled out of bed the next morning to find Tim making pancakes, as promised. They sat at her kitchen table and bickered playfully about movies; Tim listened patiently as she infodumped about the history of science fiction as a genre, and she let him rant for the fiftieth time about Indiana Jones. Tim insisted on washing the dishes like a gentleman, and Sasha insisted on squirting bubbles out of the dish detergent bottle at him. They didn’t speak a word about work or their conversation from the night before, but she hugged him very tightly before he left, as if conveying all the emotion she could through touch alone. From the way he squished his face into her shoulder, it seemed the message came across. 

“I’ll make sure to get you the spider guy’s number.” He said when they finally pulled apart, and she snorted.

“You’re insufferable, you know that?” She said, shoving him out the door.

“So I’ve heard.” He winked and walked backwards down the hall outside her flat. She sighed and waved, a smile on her face as she shut the door.

If he bugged her and Martin more than usual after talking to Jon the following week, she didn’t mention it.

[kurtty-drabbles]

House of M au (redone) part 8

N/A: I´m happy with the reviews. Yes, Scott took Jean´s last name because he wants to be Mr. Grey-puns are welcome here- anyway, the story will continue. Now, more about my Witch Queen of my heart.

@dannybagpipesarecalling @tieflingteeth @muninandhugin 

The news channel has the liberty to express its concern ever since the fiasco on the Queen´s palace. This is an ironic spin, as the media, often label Wanda as being a totalitarian ruler who controls the media to say whatever she wants to further her own agenda.

Hard to think how allowing anyone any means of communication openly talk-sometimes even mock- the last incident in her home could help her in any way.

Wanda is pacing back and further as the anchor of channel 5 is re-telling the incident one last time. "As the royal advisory reported, the situation is under control and no one has gravely harmed thanks to the play of such illusions, according to some witness, many saw their worst fear come to life" the reporter points to the panel. "fire, snakes, zombies and much more to what was a peaceful night. No information regards who did such prank" and the TV was shut off by Quicksilver.

Pietro watches his sister pacing back and forth. Her twins- Tommy and Billy are sleeping, both ignorant of the fiasco that happened- and Lorna is waiting for her older sister to say something. This is an old dance between the siblings.

Finally, Pietro is the one to interrupt the dance, metaphorically speaking, as Wanda´s magic is flowing too freely. "Wanda? who do you suspect is behind this?"

And as for magic, again only metaphorically speaking, she halts her moves and bites her inner lips. Her red eyes slowly returning to her natural color-some would say, never to her face, that red is her natural color- and stares at her family.

"Lorna, you may not know this, but, father used to have a revolutionary group" Pietro snorts and Wanda promptly ignored him. "called the League of evil mutants, yes, it´s tacky name"

Lorna shakes her head. "I knew about that, and...the name is a bad attempt at irony, father wasn´t very good at this, wasn´t he?" Lorna asked trying to lift the mood. A rounding failure on her part.

"In that group, there´s a man called Mastermind" Wanda bites her inner lip and looks at Pietro. "Don´t go overprotective on me, but, the creepy old man used to make moves on me... 15 years old"

Pietro´s face turns a dangerous shade of vermillion. Wanda has to admire this face for a moment, they´re twins, connected in ways people can´t understand, she can feel his fury as she can feel it mellow out.

Pietro took a few low sighs. "If you didn´t tell me back then is because you could handle yourself...still, I´m pissed I never knew about that until now"

Wanda could mention how Janet Van Dyme used to hit on him, even with the age difference above them, however, Pietro is not as smooth and suave as people would like to believe. He never noticed and Wanda never let the older woman take advantage of her innocent twin.

"My point is, the man once tried to bribe me with promises of a better life and his illusions should have sealed the deal" Wanda´s tone is nonchalant. "I didn´t, of course, I´m Scarlet Witch...not a toy and I teach him the difference between magic and illusion" her grin is similar to Magneto.

(Few would say that to her face. Wanda has no white hair. Wanda has all the bad signs of Magneto if provoked)

Lorna looks back and forth to her older brothers. "ok, and you think he´s back? Retaliation for you told fuck yourself?" Lorna is a princess and she feels this is more than enough reason to use the F-bomb.

Wanda shakes her head. "The man didn´t seem heartbroken as he slept with Paula" Pietro shurgs and Wanda won´t elaborate how that was awkward or how their father could make some background check for his minions. "anyway, my point is...Mastermind has many daughters and Mastermind was killed 2 years ago."

"Great story sis, still not seeing the point here" Lorna states trying to imagine a younger Wanda and Pietro along with their father. Even in her mind, there´s zero chance of a positive and fatherly outlook for Magneto and his first kids. That really makes her look down at her ring. Magneto gave this ring to Lorna and to this day, she has no idea why.

"My point is...only someone of the Mastermind family could make those illusions and only one person in that family was powerful enough to pull that off" Wanda states composed.

Pietro answers for her. "Reagan!"

Wanda nods. "Lorna, when dad acquired this land...he didn´t get this by making legal and honest deals. He made a deal with Mastermind and well, I think he didn´t want to fulfill his part"

Lorna narrows her eyes for a moment. Allowing her body to slouched on the chair-completely breaking the princess image- as she tries to remember the "official version" as to how Genosha came to be.

"Dad told me...he buys this land...was that a lie?"

"Yes, he stole this land...but, it was a useless land that had no use for anyone...father is still a criminal, we can sympathize to the motives" Pietro offers magnanimously. "but we can´t forget he was willing to throw our lives away to achieve his noble goal"

Lorna now bites her lips. Yes, she can´t forget that.

"So, what we do? Go after this Reagan woman and tell her to stop?"

"Well, that would be a plan...if I knew where this woman is"

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Rogue Darkholme is used to many things. Having to wear a frilly dress in some events, sure, she can do that-she´ll look positively murderous, but, hey she can do that- having to coordinate a hasty exit as people are shouting in panic for snakes, fire and zombies are ready to kill them even though is an illusion? She can do that, however, she can´t do one thing.

"Kurt, NO!" Rogue uses all her big sister move to impose her denial on Kurt´s request. The azzure man is having none of this.

"Kurt, YES"

Rogue groans in response. "Kurt, she´s a civilian" Rogue has no inhibition to point at Kitty who is pretending to read her newspaper as if this is a common occurrence.

Rogue facepalm herself. "Kurt, she´s a civilian. She can´t be inside the intelligence of Genosha. She can´t participate in the mission"

"Uhm, excuse me! I was one of the few people who wasn´t affected by the illusions, just saying" her sing-song tone is noticed by Rogue who brown furrowed at such declaration.

"Kurt, you don´t have to drag your new girlfriend to missions! What mother will say"

Kurt pouts. "I´m more professional than that, plus, she could be an asset as you know, she´s immune to illusions...not everyone in our department has this luxury" the last part is chilling cold and it seems Kitty won´t be briefed about what Kurt is talking about.

Rogue mellows down. She nods. "Ok, fine, she can come with us....but mom will have a word with you, civilian"

"Kitty! My name is Kitty Pryde. Not civilian, you´re losing the cool aspect now...Kurt, you´re cooler than Rogue now"

Kurt's fist bumps the air.

Rogue is bemused.

[masterofmagnetism]

my head is the room, and the room's filled with broken glass (oh, the pieces i can't put back)

“She’d never seen him make a mistake, never seen even for a second Erik Lehnsherr lose a scrap of the control he always seemed to keep a tight leash on.”

WHO: Erik Lehnsherr, Jean Grey @jeaniegreysummers​, and Lorna Dane @mistressxfmagnetism​ References to Kara Danvers, Alex Danvers, Lena Luthor, Scott Summers, Maddie Pryor, & Charles Xavier WHEN: 14 days before [redacted] WHERE: Genosha WHAT: A father-daughter sparring session goes terribly wrong.  One slip of the tongue brings a two-decade-long deception crashing down, leaving no one unscarred. In which Erik royally fucks up many many times, Lorna discovers the truth of what happened to her mother and stepfather, and Jean questions whether her trust has been well-placed.  WORD COUNT: 13.1k WARNINGS: Strap in: violence, gaslighting, manipulation, brainwashing, plane crashes, murder, PTSD, death mentions, trauma, infidelity, abuse, and egregious acts of hypocrisy.

ERIK: Peace was a fragile thing.

Sure, they'd won their island; won independence, freedom, safety, a breath of fresh air (well, fresh-ish; one could only ask for so much when New York City sat just a fifteen minute ferry ride away).  Genosha was growing nicely, people were settling in, and everything seemed to be going well.

Erik should be happy, but instead he found himself agitated and on edge.  Complacency was dangerous.  Faith in humanity's ability to leave them alone had always been hard to come by, and a few signed pieces of paper did little to ease his worries; the Native Americans had gotten their treaties, too, for all the good it did them. With humans, danger was always lurking somewhere on the horizon, and he refused to lower his guard.

Which is where the training came in.  Mutants couldn't understand their powers better without using them, without pushing their limits and seeing how far they could go.  Ric had gone from quaking buildings to dragging an island out of the sea.  Jean had the Phoenix at her disposal, sure, but even outside of it she was classed as an Omega-level telekinetic.  No upper limit.  Here, where it was safe, she needed to push what she could already do.  ( He needed to know how far she could be pushed. )  And Lorna... well, he'd seen her do far more than she was doing now at a much younger age. She could do more, be so much more.

A good father, a good leader, would help them find out just how far they could go.

The last set of projectiles successfully deflected, Erik retaliated against their joint attack with one of his own, reversing the magnetic fields around his daughters' feet to off-balance them as he sent a return volley of his own.

JEAN: The war was won. That’s what Jean kept repeating to herself, in the brief moments she had in peace and relative quiet. The war was won, and yet she hadn’t stopped for even a second, barely an instant, to look around at what they had accomplished. Her days and nights blended together as she attended to training and patients at Sara Memorial Hospital, Genosha growing up around her as she built their new healthcare system from the ground up. She was desperately out of her depth and she knew it, but the level of education most mutants could hope to attain was slim to none. The people who arrived in her department wanted to better themselves, and she would do everything she could to pass on her knowledge, soon finding that her abilities could be used in new and unique ways to aid her mission.

The Phoenix would protect her. She would protect her family, her country, her people. Jean knew that now, without a shadow of a doubt (maybe a small shadow). The Phoenix would protect her, but the minutia of creating this new life? That was down to Jean, and she had been neglecting her training up to this point. Luckily, she had one of the best teachers in the world on hand, and a fellow student just as eager to refine her abilities.

“Are we playing dirty, Erik?” Jean called out, an exhilarated smile on her face as she pushed out her hands, focusing on the atoms in the air around her and forcing them to steady so she could float above the ground. “I thought we were going for a warm up round, first.” Of course, if he was going to play hardball -- as she knew he would -- Jean wasn’t going to hold back. She looked over at Lorna, winking at her as she formed a telepathic link between them.

Think of it as comms, she thought at Lorna. How are we getting around this?

LORNA: Winning Genosha had felt like a dream, and for the first few weeks Lorna was waiting to wake up from it. Waiting for their victory to be snatched out from under them. The war was won, but how long had they been at war? She didn't know how to be at peace any more. She didn't trust that it would last. Even in times when she felt unbreakable and untouchable, she was angry. Angry at the thought that they would try. Because she was sure someone would.

Training with Jean and Erik was a good distraction from that. She had seen Erik do things she could imagine having the power to do, but she was sure that anything he could do, she could too. He'd simply had longer to train, she reasoned. She could become stronger, especially with the right teacher. And now, she finally had the time to learn.

"Erik doesn't know how to play fair," Lorna countered, pushing straight back against his magnetic fields. She'd found that they seemed to reflect each other in that way; the polarity of her powers mirrored his, but perfectly opposite. She couldn't completely undo it, but it held her steady for now.

Hearing Jean in her mind, she glanced over with a grin of her own. Distract him. Break his concentration and I can try reversing it on him. Try being the operative word. This was unfamiliar to her, but hell if she wouldn't mimic what she felt. Unless you've got a better plan?

ERIK: He grinned across the field at the two of them as they stabilized themselves. "No such thing as playing dirty, Jeannie. You play to win or you play to lose." Erik tilted his head, felt his powers branch out and sink into the ground beneath them.

"Besides, you two don't need a warm-up round. Not my girls." Even now, he could see by their shared glances, the two of them were scheming. No doubt courtesy of Jean's telepathy. He'd expected that, though.

Lorna's magnetism pressed at his own, a tug that required actual work not to cede to.

An idea took shape, and Erik smirked before wrapping his powers around a piece of scrap metal in Lorna's side of the bubble, creeping up from the ground. He could resist her pull. It couldn't, not without direction, and he gave it none, letting it sail toward his daughter and pick up speed.

JEAN: Scott kept looking at her, lately. She couldn’t track his gaze from behind the shades, but she’d never had to in order to feel his eyes on her. He kept looking at her, reaching out over the kitchen table as they sat reading or eating dinner, leaning against her side when they walked. He wanted her to talk about it, she knew. He wanted her to let it go, wanted her to stop crawling back into that space where she bottled everything up, shoved it into cardboard boxes barely contained in the back of her mind and pretended desperately that they were never there in the first place.

(It was always Charles who told her to control it. Erik was the one extending a hand, that sharp smile on his face, suggesting that she was a little too tense for her own good, that letting off just a little steam would help. It was always Erik that had faith she wouldn’t crack the world in half when that happened.)

The problem with letting go, though, was she needed something to let go of. Jean’s family -- her biological family, at least -- were gone, dead, buried. All of them were dust with the exception of Maddie, and Jean felt nothing. Unless Scott, Erik or Maddie told their friends, Jean wasn’t going to be the one to divulge her latest failing (and tragedy). She had other things to focus on.

There was always another battle to focus on.

They’d fought so hard for this that Jean was content to focus all she had on the here and now, in this moment of relative peace. (A small part of her mind wondered how Erik could slip off Lorna’s tongue so easily when even as a child herself, it had been preceded by hesitation, always ... Erik, always on the brink of something else.) “There are different ways to win, though,” she called back, sending a telepathic confirmation to Lorna regarding her advice. “Alex Danvers seems a little irritated at you for throwing her friend down an elevator shaft.”

It was teasing, of course. Hurting people was never something Jean revelled in, at least not when she was in her right mind, but … well, she had to admit there was something appealing in it. “But if we are playing to win, you have to know my dirty is a little different to yours.” Only a little, and there was far less distance between them than Jean had once thought, but where Erik used a little more physical means of intimidation, Jean was all mental. “I might not be able to use telepathy, but there are other ways to get into your head. Everyone’s got secrets, right?”

LORNA: The last year had been a turbulent one for Lorna in more ways than she could count. But a prominent one stood before her. Erik. Magneto. Her father. Lorna had known for a long time that her dad wasn't her dad. That Magneto was her father. But for a long time she'd rejected it, rejected him, in the way she'd felt rejected by him. Abandoned even. Those letters, coming just once a year, was not enough to make him her dad. But these past months... Lorna had nearly slipped up more than once, even if Erik rolled off the tongue easier than anything else still. But after everything that had happened... He was finally feeling like her dad.

And they were more alike than Lorna had ever realised. Lorna had been told most of her life how much she looked like her mother. How she took after her. But she had seen this year that those things that no one could place came from her father. Her anger, her stubborn sense of justice. Her instabilities. She saw them mirrored in him more than she'd like to admit. But it gave her insight into him beyond what one ought to have in just a year.

"Definitely," she added to Jean. Although she was insanely curious about what Jean was saying, Lorna knew that she had no time to listen. Jean was giving her an opportunity, she had to use it. She wanted to know about these secrets, but she didn't have a chance right now. Not if she wanted to win this fight. She pushed hard, reversing the pull of their magnetic fields until he was thrown off. Feeling the scrap metal sailing into her own field, Lorna glanced over her shoulder and using the momentum it had already gained, flung it towards Erik, hard and fast.

ERIK: There were pieces of him in all of his children. Not just genetically, not in the literal sense--Jean and Scott were his as surely as any of them, blood ties or not.  Each bore some glimmer of his best and worst qualities.

Lorna had his powers, of course. She had his drive to protect what was theirs, to pull no punches against enemies that would see them hurt or killed, his ruthlessness. There were other things, too, things he'd caught glimpses of here and there over the last few months; hints of the waves of manic focus and the subsequent crashes. They didn't talk about it, just like they didn't talk about Erik's drinking or Lorna's risk-taking or the million other unhealthy coping mechanisms they'd both collected.

Scott had his strategic mind, the sort that could fine-tune plans until they were elegant pieces of art rather than a simple series of hopeful steps. He had that charisma that drew people to follow him, into peace and war alike. He had the same distrust of authority figures, even the ones he cared for, after years of being abused at their hands, that creeping paranoia that colored Erik's thoughts more often than he cared to admit.

Jean had his fire--and he had Jean's, now, in the most literal of senses.  Jean, who had known him longer than any of the others. Whose care for those she loved was enough to drag them back from the grave, who welcomed Erik back with open arms even after he'd left in a way that the others had taken longer to do.  She'd been in his head, after all, one of only two people he trusted enough to let his guard down with; at least until the Phoenix. (It didn't make sense, he knew, because it was hers more than his, but it shushed that there was no need to worry her, no need for her to know all his secrets, and so the guards stayed up more often than not, these days.)

It was easy to get into their heads, because they were so much like his own. But he'd overlooked the all-too-simple detail that that connection went both ways.

Jean was right--she didn't need the telepathy to get in his head. She mentioned Alex Danvers, mentioned secrets, and had he been prepared for that sort of conversation, he might have been able to keep the expression of shock-guilt-annoyance off his face. But he wasn't, so he didn't, knocked off-balance by the non-sequitur.

How much did she know? That was the important question, and even though he got his face back in order quickly, his mind was slow to follow, branching out into questions and hypotheticals and what-ifs.

"I don't know what you--" he started, only to be cut off by a sudden push from Lorna, followed shortly thereafter by the piece of scrap he'd tossed in her direction. He cursed, and managed to bring up a small shield. It wasn't enough to stop the impact, sending him flying off his feet.

Erik grunted as he hit the ground, mind moved on from the topic of Jean and Kara to the fight. Adrenaline sang in his veins, and Erik rolled to flash both of them a grin before reaching out with his powers as he'd experimented with a few times while the Sentinels were a threat, curving the light ( electromagnetism was his ) that should bounce from him to their eyes up and away.

A disappearing act.

"Time to think bigger."

JEAN: There was so much of the world that Charles and Erik respectively had prepared her for. Charles taught her empathy, compassion, built on an innate, natural desire to help people that Jean had been fostering since she was a child, that was threatened when Annie bled out on that pavement and when she spent her teenage years facing off against hatred and discrimination. Erik taught her something sharper, bringing out that other side, the side that was desperately angry at what her family was facing. Jean saw the way people glared at Hank on the street. She heard the thoughts that went through her parents’ minds when they looked at Scott. She knew what every single person thought about mutants within the city’s boundaries, and it was enough to drive her insane -- if she hadn’t had Erik.

It was Erik who taught her how to breathe, how to recentre herself, how to trust in her own instincts. Mutant abilities, he said, were their birthright, their culture, the only legacy they were allowed to keep. They were protective mechanisms and the way for them to propel their people into the future. Being mutant meant being powerful, and for so long Jean had been terrified of that power. Erik never was. He never faltered. He never thought to hide her away, never told her to dampen those flames.

In many ways, as ironic as it was to admit, the skills and qualities Erik had taught her were more likely to attract the Phoenix in the first place rather than anything else. He was a part of her, even if there were years when they both pretended they were nothing other than mutants on opposite sides of a civil rights movement, employing completely contradictory tactics to get what they deserved.

Now, Lorna got that opportunity to learn. She got the opportunity to teach. Jean knew Lorna long before the truth was revealed about her parenthood. The young girl was already leading mutants underground, navigating borders and laws, putting herself at risk to defend those most vulnerable. It wasn’t Erik who made her that way -- it was all Lorna. Spending time with two of the people she loved most was as close to paradise as she could get.

(Death, she told herself, was inevitable. It would happen to all. Her parents, her siblings, her nieces and nephews -- they would just come back. Sara hadn’t, not yet, but it was all a matter of time. The Phoenix wouldn’t let her suffer.)

Erik faded from view, and Jean closed her eyes immediately, focusing on a lesson he had taught her once more. The atoms in the structures around her -- the ground he was standing on, the air that moved around him, the breath leaving his lungs -- moved and interacted, painting a telekinetic picture of exactly where he was standing. Two metres to the left, three in front, she sent to Lorna, but he’s moving quickly.

Her focus maintained until a niggle in the back of her head made it waver ever so slightly. The look on his face when she mentioned secrets … it was likely to be a trick of the light (surely that would be his justification) but Jean and psychology always ran closely together.

“Are we hiding today, Erik?” she called out. “I thought we were all about transparency these days.” (Half teasing, half serious -- the perfect balance, Jean thought, even as she could feel in her chest something would come of it she wasn’t anticipating. She was telepathic, not psychic.)

LORNA: Lorna envied Jean in some respects. While Lorna had been left with almost nothing from Erik, no guidance or support to speak of, Jean had been half raised by him. Jean had had what Lorna had yearned for from her father, even when her longing turned to resentment. And it was evident now with how easily Jean could affect the usually stoic Magneto, with just a few words, knowing just how to distract him so that Lorna's attack would land. Lorna just hoped that Jean didn't feel that flash of jealousy in her. It wasn't Jean's fault after all. And now wasn't the time, she had to focus.

Especially as Erik disappeared. Lorna's eyes widened in surprise. I didn't know that was possible. Her thoughts immediately jumped to the possibilities; anything Erik did, surely she could do to some extent. Lorna took Jean's advice on Erik's location and reached out mentally, letting the world around her fade into one of magnetic fields. Looking for Erik's patterns, for the disturbances. She couldn't focus on what Jean was saying, letting the conversation happen around her for now. Instead, she picked up the scrap metal around them again and flung it at Erik.

ERIK: Appearances were often deceiving. It was a cliche for a reason--90 years of life had proven it true time and time again. People pretended to be things they weren't, situations were rarely so clean-cut as they appeared, and your senses could be made to betray you a million different ways. Most people focused on what they saw in front of them, plain as day, and let that control their actions. But there was so much more to focus on, especially in a fight. Neither Jean nor Lorna let his disappearing act throw them off-guard; Jean closed her eyes to focus on her telekinesis instead, near-instantly, and after a moment of visible surprise, Lorna was stretching her hands out and feeling at the world that thrummed around the two of them constantly, that web of magnetic fields and electricity that Erik hadn't properly seen until the Phoenix.

He was moving fast, trying to stay ahead of their senses as best he could, and so he didn't have a qualm about speaking when they were focused on so much more than the source of his voice. "I am transparent, Jean, or are you not paying attention?" he tossed back cheekily.

Another toss of scrap metal in his direction, and this time he was ready for it. His focus on keeping himself hidden dropped, energy instead directed toward freezing the projectiles in their path like he had on a beach in Cuba a lifetime ago. It had been harder, then, but this came as easily as breathing.

"Well done, Lorna," he praised, because controlling as many different things as she had been with any degree of accuracy was difficult and she'd done so beautifully. He waved a hand, and the scrap began to liquify into bands of silvery metal around him, falling into orbit around him at its center. "You're still thinking small, though. Scrap is easy for your opponent to see, easy to predict. We're surrounded by bigger metal, in buildings and the ground and the sky that you can use without anyone seeing it coming."

He'll regret his next words for the rest of his life. He'll regret them the heartbeat after they leave his lips, in fact, but they come out anyway. He'd try to blame it on the Phoenix, later, blame it for a looser tongue, for focusing him too much on the fight and not enough on the conversation.

But it was all him. Getting lost in the fight was easy, and he didn't realize how little focus was on his words rather than the metal swirling around him until the damage was already done.

"We're surrounded by buildings, and drowned ships in the bottom of the harbor, and drones and satellites and a hundred other things above our heads, anymore. In a fight, use them. What's buried, what's hidden, what's aloft. I've dragged a submarine out of the sea, you've pulled a plane out of the sky, I know you're capable of more than flinging scrap metal."

He realized a second later what he'd said, but it was far too late by then to suck the words back inside.

JEAN: This was what it was all for, Jean thought to herself as she looked over at Lorna, her sister, watching the exhilarated smile on her face and seeing how she moved and adjusted to the fight. It was so easy for them to think themselves invincible, at least when they first developed their powers. Jean was the only child in school who could rip the gym from its foundations, who could hear exactly what her crush thought about her, who could manipulate teachers’ opinions with the click of her fingers if she wanted. When she was among the others in the Institute, she realised how much technique came with being in the big leagues -- and Lorna was by far a major player. This was the purpose of Genosha: a place for them to grow and develop in their gene given abilities, somewhere they could learn and teach and feel the world around them in ways only mutants could.

“I pay attention to everything, Erik,” Jean called back. “It’s just what I comment on that you know of.” The lessons that he was giving Lorna now were the same ones as he had only started when Jean was so much younger. While others prophesied control, boxing her emotions, Erik always encouraged her to let go (perhaps if she listened to him more, she would be a different woman now. Maybe if he had stayed, she wouldn’t feel this way). “Feel the environment, Lorna,” she said. “You’re a part of it, it responds to you.” If there was anyone who could think outside the box it was Lorna, who was quick witted and sharp in a way few other people were.

Of course, it didn’t take a quick wit to catch onto the implications of what Erik said. Even Jean, who had no knowledge of what he was referring to (a fight they’d faced together, perhaps, without her -- an idea that pulled unnaturally towards jealousy, even as a grown woman) could read it all over Erik’s face. It was unintentional, a slip of the tongue.

She’d seen Erik on the opposite side of a battlefield, watched him as he lost soldiers and families alike. She felt his grief, his guilt, his pain -- heard him talk about it, counselled him through it, bonded with him because of it.

She’d never seen him trip up like this. She’d never seen him make a mistake, never seen even for a second Erik Lehnsherr lose a scrap of the control he always seemed to keep a tight leash on.

“Erik,” she said, her focus disappearing entirely, the world settling down around her, the fight cold and forgotten. “What are you talking about?”

LORNA: She needed to think bigger. To pull from everything around her. The world was made of metal, she could control it all. Part of Lorna wanted to snap at Erik that maybe she'd be better, more advanced, if she'd had a teacher. If she hadn't spent her entire childhood hiding her powers and her adolescence being self-taught. But she bit her tongue, nodding instead. Taking Jean's advice, her mind began to try and rework how it viewed the room, try to see another angle. Until Erik caused the fight to come crashing to a halt.

Lorna half stuttered to a stop, all focus on Erik's use of their shared powerset, and how she might use that, gone. Instead, his words echoed in her brain, louder and louder until it felt overwhelming. ...you've pulled a plane out of the sky...you've pulled a plane out of the sky...you've pulled a plane out of the sky... She went deathly still, eyes locked on her father, her hands glowing without her even meaning to. To say Lorna hadn't been on many planes was... both true and untrue. Her dad--her mother's husband--had been a pilot, and up until the age of three, Lorna commonly travelled by plane with her parents. After the engine malfunction sent his plane crashing to the ground, leaving her the only survivor thanks to her powers manifesting, Lorna had hardly stepped foot on a plane. She'd only been in one crash. Only seen one plane crash. No. No way. The engines had malfunctioned. Lorna's powers just protected her.

"What are you talking about?" There was no room for taking it back, no acceptance of excuses in her voice. Erik wasn't making a grand statement of what she could do, he said she had done it. "Erik." It occurred to her briefly that he might be making it up, but for one thing she didn't believe he was that callous or cruel. For another, his own shock spoke otherwise. (And lastly, though she wanted to ignore it, something niggled inside her. Deep within her mind, she knew he was telling the truth.)

Lorna turned on Jean. "Do you know what he's talking about?" she demanded, half accusing and half begging for answers. But Jean seemed as lost as she was.

ERIK: The moment seemed to stretch on forever, the three of them standing frozen in silence. His daughters staring at him in shock--and anger, judging by the slow green glow appearing at Lorna's fingertips. There would be no convincing either of them that he'd misspoken. No way to take the words back, to pretend like he'd said or meant anything other than precisely what he had. Maybe one of them, one-on-one, he would be able to sway. But not both.

Damn it all.

The moment stretched taut, and then they were demanding answers almost in unison, and Lorna was turning on Jean, and Erik sidestepped and cleared his throat, watching the two of them carefully. Erik was rarely on the defensive. Even more rarely with his own children.

"Jean doesn't know, Lorna," he said, snapping their attention back to him. "It was a long time ago. She was a child, still.” Erik looked between Lorna and Jean, took a half-step forward and then lingered there, unwilling or unable to coax himself closer. "You know what I'm talking about, Lorna," he said quietly. "You don't remember it. You were too young." He took another half-step closer. "It wasn't your fault. I need you to know that."

JEAN: There were parts of Jean that Erik would always understand more than almost anyone else. There were parts of Erik that Jean didn’t need telepathy to understand on a fundamental level, to empathise with and connect them together. Some of those parts were good -- their determination, their curiosity, their desperate pursuit of knowledge, their dedication to family and mutantkind. Other parts …

Well, other parts were this. Other parts involved Jean, mere minutes after seeing her parents’ blood soaking into the carpet, looking down at a traumatised teenager and deciding that the best course of action was to make her forget. Derry was dangerous. She was angry, she was desperate, she missed her father and her aunts and uncles and everyone she’d ever known. She was, arguably, better off not knowing what happened that day, better off passing all the trauma onto Jean and living her life as best she could with a family who always wanted kids, a family who Jean knew would treat her well --

But that didn’t mean what Jean did was the right thing. It was easiest, perhaps. It was the most simple solution. It was the best one for Jean, instead of being looked at as a murderer by one of the last blood relatives (no, not blood) she had left. That’s what it came down to, in the end. The decision she made along with Maddie, the decision she made to the sound of Scott’s silence, was to clean up one of her own mistakes, to make it easier to live with.

Is that what Erik did here? Was that the legacy she was doomed to repeat, and Lorna as well?

Erik corrected Lorna quickly, and Jean blinked. He protected her, she knew that. He protected all of them. His daughters were his life, and she’d long been considered in that group. Protecting your family meant doing what was right for them, didn’t it?

(Jean loved Scott more than life, and she dragged him from the grave after he died fighting for a cause he believed in. She adored Maddie, and she never put voice to the fact that she doubted her sister was even real, that she still believed even now she was someone else entirely, someone she lost long ago. Jean loved people. She protected them. But what she did to them … it wasn’t right.)

It wasn’t your fault. It was the same thing he said to her when she approached him about her family, when she told him of the massacre that had occurred. It was the same thing she would say to Rachel, if the roles were reversed -- taking the responsibility onto her own shoulders, even if it was a lie. It wasn’t a lie, Erik said, and this time, when it came to Lorna, Jean believed it without a doubt.

She was only a child. A plane from the sky. (Jean thought of the nightmares that haunted her husband, then, of a parachute strapped to his back and propellers in flames and his brother screaming, clutched to his chest as they tumbled through a field, their parents long gone above them.)

“I think we need more information, Erik,” Jean said quietly, finally, the inside of her cheek tasting of blood on her tongue. “Just … tell us what you mean. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, right?”

LORNA: Jean didn't know. Even before Erik said anything, Lorna could see that. She trusted Jean implicitly. More than she trusted Erik some days (although she'd never really know if it was just that part of her that had felt rejected talking or an actual gut feeling that led her to question him). But Jean didn't know, and Erik wanted to protect her from Lorna's potential misguided anger. Lorna wasn't angry yet. She was confused, wary, but not yet angry. Erik's hesitant walking towards them and beginnings of an explanation, however, were making her think that was about to change very quickly.

You know what I'm talking about. Lorna's mouth twisted slightly as she summoned the words. She so rarely spoke about it. "The crash that killed my parents. The engines malfunctioned. My powers protected me." Erik had found her before emergency crews, brought her to her aunt and uncle. Too traumatic for memories was what the doctors had told her, what they'd told her aunt and uncle when she hadn't remembered any of it. It was her mind protecting itself. She'd been so confused. But Erik didn't say that... "No. I didn't remember it even as a kid." She did remember the aftermath though, even now. The grief, the loneliness she felt. The funeral. But not the crash.

She had to know. Because if it wasn't an engine malfunction... If it had been her... Why? Most mutants powers didn't trigger until they were teenagers, unless they were needed. Lorna had assumed it was her powers saving her that triggered them early. But she couldn't have brought down the plane if that were true.

She had to know. Her eyes turned to her sister.

"Jean. Show me. Even if I don't remember, the memories are there somewhere, right? Can you show me? I need to know what happened." She looked back at Erik. "Maybe it will help me understand what I can do," she added, daring him to argue.

ERIK: It wasn't anyone's fault, right? Erik huffed, shaking his head and scrubbing a hand through his hair. "Oh, no, it was someone's fault. But certainly not Lorna's."

Erik nodded slowly as Lorna mentioned the crash, though what she was saying wasn't the truth. It's what she'd been told, what she'd been led to believe. She would know that was a lie, soon enough, but Erik could still do damage control. Keep her from getting the full story, because some things were better left buried.

Lorna asked Jean to pull out her memories, and Erik's response was near-immediate. "No. Teasing them out by force could be retraumatizing," he said, crossing to stand next to them. "I can tell you what happened. Show you my memories of that day. If it brings the memories forward on its own, that's one thing, but Jean should not have to go digging up things that were buried."

He turned to Jean, and let his mental walls come down a bit. He knew she'd feel the anxiety, the frustration, and hoped that she didn't care to follow it to its source as to why he didn't want her in Lorna's head. "Let me show her."

JEAN: It was far from the first -- or the last, undoubtedly -- time Jean had been caught in the middle of a family dispute. The X-Men were closer than anything Jean had experienced before, but they were still volatile kids who had no idea how to be a part of something, and that came with challenges. She spent the majority of her teenage years smoothing over disagreements between the boys, and it seemed as if that legacy was continuing now -- only this time, it wasn’t petty disputes over what girl they were dating or how long they took in the shower. This time, it was something ground shaking, something that made a pit drop in her stomach and had her mind fading into silence for the first time in as long as she could remember.

(It hadn’t been that long. Her mind had been silent since she found her parents bleeding out in the carpet. Try as she might to distract, she hadn’t found something yet. Maybe this was the universe answering her prayers in the most masochistic way it could. It seemed fitting, given her history.)

“Memories are never completely gone,” she agreed, but then Erik was speaking and he had a point too (he always had a point. He always had a fucking point. That was how he got out from under everything, wasn’t it? Their last conversation about Kara, that day on the Raft, the hundreds of missing days they hadn’t discussed since they happened). She turned to look at Erik, meeting his eyes for a long moment before letting out a sigh. “Fine,” she said. “But if either of you start to splinter in any way, I’m done, and I don’t care how angry you are at me. These memories are only being shown if they come naturally. I’m not messing with heads.” After all, Jean was more inclined to break than heal, these days.

She looked over at Lorna, gaining her consent silently once more, and then touched a hand to Erik and Lorna’s forehead, closing her eyes, focusing on allowing the memories to filter through from father to daughter, using her as the bridge.

ERIK: Erik will be happy if he never has to set foot in fucking Tennessee ever again. The music grates on his nerves more often than not, the accents grate worse, and while he doesn't have anything against a good mountain, he does have something against the idiots who built roads two steps from a 700-foot drop.

He's on one such road, in the middle of nowhere with the radio of his car crackling in and out despite his best maneuvering of the antenna, when he feels it. He's not sure what it is, but it may as well be a flare to his senses in a sea of nothing but trees and the muted thrum of iron and copper in the mountains beneath his tires. A sharp flash of energy that actually steals his attention away from the road for a moment, because it feels almost like a blast from himself. What the hell--? Not very much sleuthing is necessary, though, because in the next few moments, a plane that had been frittering at the edges of his sense in the clouds above comes quite literally crashing down into the forest perhaps two kilometers away.

A rescue team will take hours to get out here, at least. He can fly (or close enough), and he's not one to leave well enough alone, and a little niggling at his conscience sounds feels suspiciously like Charles’ expectant stare, so he lifts his car clean off the road and carries it across the sea of trees until he can navigate it down to settle in a small clearing a few hundred meters from the crash. He's out of the car and making his way toward the plane in moments, shirt pulled up over his nose against the smoke. He stumbles across the first body with the bulk of the scattered wreckage, a face that strikes him as familiar making him pause and stop to wipe the blood from her face. "Suzanna?" He reaches for a pulse, and nothing meets his fingers, so he moves on to where he sees the bottom of the plane and the seating on its side.

Then he hears the crying, and sees a young girl with hair greener than the trees around them sitting unharmed in the wreckage. He's drawn to her, almost like a--oh. She was the flash.

LORNA: Lorna didn't really want to accept Jean's terms, but there was no arguing. She nodded to Jean, closed her eyes, and let Jean connect her mind to Erik's memories.

Lorna watched Erik's memory, somehow both separate from him and in his mind and feeling what he felt. Was this what telepaths felt constantly? Maybe not so intensely for one person as this though. But still, she felt the irritation from Erik as he drove, then the shock to his senses that Lorna recognised. She'd felt that before, but in reverse; when Erik used his powers, especially if he was close. Then the plane fell, and Lorna's heart clenched in her chest. It was familiar but she still couldn't remember it. As if there was something preventing her from accessing that, like it was shouting from behind glass.

Lorna tensed as they got closer, and the unstable feeling she couldn't shake intensified. Part of her didn't want to see this. She'd hated planes for years, but she'd never had nightmares of this night. The doctors her aunt made her see had said it was her brain repressing the memory (just like Erik said). She had insisted on knowing, had to know if what Erik said was true about the plane. Had to know why she'd made it crash. But this wasn't those answers. This was just the destruction she'd caused.

Even in memory, the smoke irritates her lungs and her eyes. She followed Erik's memory, right beside him until they both saw her. No. No no no. Lorna didn't want to see this. This wasn't what she was looking for. Her mother, injured and bloody. More than injured. Dead. Lorna felt it like a stab through the heart, and she's sure it's strong enough for Jean and Erik to feel through their shared connection too. Lorna knew she'd lost her mother that night, but looking at this wreckage and knowing what Erik felt... she knew she'd done this. She'd killed her mom. And her dad. Where was he?

Before Lorna could look for him, she heard the crying. Her crying. Unharmed, she looked dazed and frightened. Confused. And she can feel it in Erik's memories, as well as in all the metal around her--calling out like only metal she'd manipulated did-- that she'd done this.

"That's enough," she snapped, easier to indulge her anger than any of the other feelings. Some of which she didn't know if she could name. They were feelings she'd had in her mind for years, but brought to the front. "This doesn't show me how I did anything or why. I want to see my memory."

ERIK: Just like that, they were snapped out of the memories, Erik's focus landing squarely back in the present just in time to hear Lorna's frustrated demands.

His own remembered grief from finding Suzanna melded with Lorna's response to seeing her mother dead; her anger was nudging at his own, her concern.

Her questions.

Erik shook his head immediately. "No. Lorna, those memories got buried for a reason. Your powers manifested early, you brought the plane down on accident, I found you. There's no need to go combing back through buried memories for something that will only make you more upset. It's for your own good, Lorna."

He looked to Jean, and there was something like fear edging into his mind, and he knew she could probably feel it if she was paying attention. "You said you wouldn't force out any memories. If that didn't bring them out for her, you'd have to dig them out yourself. Tell her you won't."

LORNA: They might have been buried, but they were closer than they'd ever been. Lorna knew she knew those woods, knew that that smell was familiar, even if she couldn't place it with a memory. And it would never leave her alone if she gave up now. Even as it was, she was upset and on edge (she killed them. She downed the plane and killed them) but not knowing wasn't going to help.

"I wasn't asking your permission," she snapped at Erik. He'd been there, he'd known this entire time what she did. Had he taken her straight from there to her aunt and uncle? Left her like she was a stranger he didn't care about? He'd known she had powers, that they were out of her control and he left her. Was she even angry right now? If she was, it felt hollow and that scared her too. What she felt more than anything was cracked. Twisted. And muted, like something was trying to get out but it was stuck.

She turned to Jean. "Please. I need to know." The tremor in her voice was slight, but there, as was the one in her hands. She didn't want to say what she said next, but she had to convince Jean somehow. "I'll find someone else to do it if you won't."

JEAN: History repeated itself. Jean knew that all too well. Every battle she faced, every loss she suffered, it didn’t come by itself. No experience was ever truly unique, and she used that to relate to the people around her, used it to come closer to them even when she was underground for years before, used it to remind them that she was human too (even if she wasn’t so certain of that fact, these days). History repeated itself, and she almost knew what would happen long before she acted as the conduit for this memory, for emotions that were as turbulent as they were intense.

They were the same, Lorna and Erik. They felt things more strongly than most, felt them in a way Jean could scarcely put into words, and she adored them for it. Her family were dead, and a part of her died with them, but standing here between Erik and Lorna, two people she loved desperately, she could almost forget all of that. She could almost convince herself she was still breathing, that her lungs weren’t made of lead.

They were the same as each other, and they were the same as someone else, too. The memory uncurled, the recognition settling deep in her gut. They were the same as Jean and Charles.

(This is for the best, Jean. The last thing you want is to hurt someone. Trust me. Let me in.)

That’s how she knew what it looked like. That’s how she knew.

For years, she’d focused on telekinesis. She’d locked the part of her mind off that could traverse through neurones, could pull apart memories and traumas, the part that could hurt and heal in equal measure. She used the power that could wound physically, but not in a way that would last (sometimes death was better than the alternative). For years, Jean pretended she wasn’t an Omega level telepath, denied her training, and Charles … well, he’d never fought back against it. He’d focused his efforts instead on Betsy, or Emma, because playing with an atom bomb never ended well.

Maybe she would’ve missed the signature if she didn’t know how it felt to have that block in her mind, that empty spot -- maybe she would’ve missed it if she didn’t love a man whose consciousness was a patchwork quilt. Maybe she would’ve missed it if she didn’t know it all along.

No. No, she didn’t know it all along. She would’ve told Lorna if she did. She would’ve--

Would you? a voice asked. Did you talk to Kara Zor-El, Jean Grey? Did you ask her?

Jean swallowed thickly, lowering her hands from Erik and Lorna’s temples. Erik was looking at her, she could feel his gaze on her side of her face, but she was focused on Lorna.

Dangerous. Volatile. Better off not knowing. They’d both been told the same things -- and Jean found hot tears pricking at the corners of her eyes that she managed to blink away just in time.

“She’ll find someone else,” Jean said, turning only half to Erik. Someone like Sinister -- someone like Emma. “It’s deep,” she explained to Lorna. “Trauma must--”

She reached for her again, focusing her abilities, and that’s when her gut feeling was confirmed. That’s when she knew.

The block was intentional. The block was familiar, calculated -- exactly the same as what she had performed on Derry, Maddie’s hand clutched in hers, sweat pooling in their palms.

Jean stepped back, gaze shooting between father and daughter. “Someone altered the memory,” she said.

You could fix that.

No. No she couldn’t.

You’re powerful enough. Why do you hold yourself back?

She was a battering ram in a china shop. She would rip Lorna’s mind apart.

Is that the reason?

“I can’t get it,” Jean said. “I won’t risk you by trying any more.”

ERIK: Lorna was insistent, but right now, it wasn't her that he needed to convince. It was Jean.

Jean, who was avoiding looking at him straight on. Whose jaw was working, whose eyes were glimmering with unshed tears that she blinked away before they could fall, whose sentences came hesitant and incomplete.

Jean knew about the block, and he knew that she knew even before she finally said that the memory had been altered.

And she still couldn't look him in the eye.

But she said no. Erik tasted bitter relief on his tongue, and turned to look at Lorna. "Let it go, Lorna, please. Everything there is in the past. Leave it there."

LORNA: Lorna implored Jean with her eyes as she seemed to consider it, needing to know why these memories were so buried. Why she felt like they were clamouring to get out but slipping backwards? What had her mind pushed away? Was she so broken? Perhaps she didn't need to stand at the gates of hell to be twisted. She'd been called unstable before--even had it used to defend her once--and she hated it. She didn't like feeling like the ground underneath her was unsteady, like she was falling with no way to slow herself.

Jean seemed to understand, finally. And Lorna wasn't making an idle threat; she'd find someone. Someone would help her. She'd just much rather it was Jean. She trusted Jean, implicitly and unwaveringly, with her life and with her mind. With her memories and everything that she'd kept private or hidden from the world. Jean would leave that alone, just dive to this moment. Find out what was banging inside her to be released.

Someone altered the memory.

No. Lorna frowned. No way. There was no one who could have done that. She'd never remembered this moment. Ever. Her aunt and uncle had always said so, her medical records from the aftermath had always said so. She had no memory of it, no nightmares, no nothing. She asked for her mommy and daddy because she didn't understand where they'd gone, so genuinely and consistently that they'd surmised that she wasn't faking either. No one could have had a chance to tamper with her memories between when the crash had happened and when Erik had found her and left her with her remaining family.

No one.

Except.

Unless.

No.

Lorna's eyes narrowed.

He wouldn't. Not the man who had famously worn a metal helmet that kept out telepaths, who Lorna knew did not permit them in his head without his knowledge and consent. He wouldn't mess with her head as a child like this. Would he?

Lorna stared at the face of her father, inspecting his reaction to Jean's statement. She watched the relief when Jean refused to dig past this block.

There was the anger she'd expected to feel before. Igniting in her chest, twisting in her heart like the dagger she'd felt seeing her mother dead (killed).

"Jean. You can." She ripped her eyes away from Erik, letting the anger stay on him. "Please. I trust you. Whatever happens is on me. But I need to know." She looked to Erik. "Someone altered my memories. Shouldn't I know why?"

ERIK: Lorna always was expressive. Erik watched her face twist from pleading and doubtful, to confused, and then her gaze landed on him and something hardened between her eyebrows and in the set of her jaw and he knew she was putting pieces together.

And she was getting angry.

Nowhere near as angry as she would be if she saw the memories, though, and he was still certain that he'd done the right thing in burying them--not just for himself, but for her. Seeing her mother's body had triggered a strong enough response. Seeing the whole event? Out of the question.

But Jean was considering it, under Lorna's pleading gaze, and Erik's expression hardened. "Jean," he said, and his voice and expression went from desperate, pleading father to the sort of hyper-calm that settled right before a fight. "Do not drag those memories out. I'm not asking, I'm telling you. Do not. I forbid it."

That didn't sound like father Erik, but general Erik. King Erik.

JEAN: Whatever happens is on me. Her sister said that, a lifetime ago — long before Jean was a married woman, long before she was even part of the X-Men, back when her mutation had only just come to the surface and their parents worried themselves into a black hole trying to prevent their daughter from ripping the city apart. Jean had one of her migraines, and the house was shaking. Tears were streaming down her face, her parents were praying in the basement, her brothers were screaming, and Sara just walked into Jean’s bedroom, sat down beside her, and said, whatever happens, that’s on me. I’m choosing to be here.

Sara died for that choice. Jean didn’t kill her, at least not directly, but it was her fault that she was dead. People claimed to want to take the risk, but that was only until the adverse effects came around, only when things turned tragic, and with Jean ... well, tragedy was something of a given.

“You say that now,” Jean said, keeping hold of Lorna’s hands, “but if something goes wrong here, now, you won’t be around anymore. It’s not a physical harm I cause, Lorna, it’s so much worse than that. You’d never come back. You might want to take that risk now, but you’ll thank me for stopping you later.”

(She sounded like Charles. She sounded like Charles and for the first time, for a reason she couldn’t exactly pinpoint, the concept of that familiarity made her sick to her stomach.)

Erik said her name, and it stopped Jean from saying anymore. It stopped her dead in her tracks, because the icy level headedness he was demonstrating now … well, she had seen it before. The U.N. Those memories from Cuba. Every time she faced him as a teenager, and he pushed her to be the best she could be.

Or the worst.

Jean’s hair began to stand on end. She felt a flicker in her mind, knew instinctively her eyes must have flashed with fire. He thinks he can forbid us, came a curling whisper.

“No one tells me to stop anymore, Erik,” she said, calmly, even as her arms cracked with glowing amber. “Especially not you.”

And with the force of the Phoenix behind her, Jean reached for Lorna and cracked the memory apart.

LORNA: Lorna was about to open her mouth to argue, to insist against what Jean had said. But before she could, Erik stepped in. In a voice she had rarely heard from him, but one she knew instinctively. And one she immediately hated in this context. In a fight, a war, that voice was important. Someone needed to take charge. But here? The war was meant to be over, and her memories should not be a battlefield. And it seemed Jean reacted just as negatively to his command. Lorna barely had a chance to close her eyes as Jean reached for her and broke the seal on the memory.

Lorna was sleeping, curled up across two seats in main cabin of the small passenger plane. They were flying home after one of her daddy's jobs, and Lorna was more than used to falling asleep anywhere like this. But tonight, she was woken up by shouting. Fierce arguing, coming from the front of the plane.

Lorna hated the shouting. Just as she woke up, she felt the plane dip and her mom screaming something about killing them before it righted again. "Stop!" she cried. "STOP!" She started sobbing, hating when they fought. They fought all the time, and her mommy was always so quiet after. Her daddy got so angry.

In the cockpit, Arnold Dane had decided that right now was the time to confront his wife about what he had learnt; she had cheated on him. Here, where she couldn't run away from the conversation. It had quickly turned to a screaming match that had now woken the brat he now knew wasn't actually his daughter.

"Now you've woken Lorna!"

"Go make the brat shut up then!"

Her mommy came down to the back, looking both frightened and angry. "Be quiet, Lorna!" she hissed. But Lorna shook her head.

"Stop fighting! STOP. STOP!" With the last cry, there was a creaking noise and green light. Lorna, too upset to notice, kept shouting to stop. But her mother could only look on in horror and terror as her daughter lit up green. Lorna squeezed her eyes shut and screamed one last STOP.

Then there was an incredible sound. A tearing, creaking, scream of a noise, like the world was coming apart around her. And it was. The metal of the plane ripped itself apart in the air, the engines cutting off mid flight and the wings beginning to detach as the now flightless plane dropped like a stone. Lorna screamed again, terrified this time, but when she opened her eyes, she was on the ground. Hiccupping from the crying, but unharmed.

And now lost. She couldn't see her mommy or her daddy, only wreckage that she knew was the plane. Smoke filled the air, hurting her eyes and lungs, making seeing and breathing harder. Lorna began to cry again, but this time it was far quieter. No longer the screaming of a child, howling to be listened to, but the unstoppable tears of one who was lost and afraid with no one to help her.

She tried to stand up, to go find her mommy or daddy, but her legs wouldn’t move. Not because they were hurt, but her whole body seemed to not want to go anywhere. Too afraid, too shocked, too overwhelmed by everything. All she could do was cry and wait. She didn’t have to wait long. The sound of a car approaching reached her, and then soon after that, a man appeared. She watched as he found her mom, bending down and then standing up. Lorna knew then, though she didn’t know how, that her mom wasn’t coming back. She let out a quiet wail of despair, wanting nothing more than her mommy to comfort her.

The man turned to her, and Lorna was startled by the pull she felt. It was like the feeling she felt when the green lights started, like how magnets attracted each other. He came towards her and Lorna let him pick her up, clinging to him. She didn’t know why, but he made her feel safe. Safer than she’d felt on the plane when her parents were arguing. Than when her daddy shouted and raised his fists.

As if summoned by her thoughts, there was movement from the rubble. Bleeding and dazed, but still alive and mostly uninjured, Arnold Dane pushed himself from the wreckage he’d landed in. Lorna, seeing him and knowing how angry he'd be, clung tighter to the stranger. She always hated when her dad was angry. He was scary when he was angry. The stranger felt safer.

ERIK: Arnold Dane stood, looking dazed until his eyes settle on Lorna and Erik, and then his expression turned hateful. "So you're the freak bastard my wife fucked." Erik's arm tightened around Lorna, and he cupped a hand over one of her ears, pressing the other against his chest. Her arms tightened around him, too, and he knew she was afraid not of a stranger like she should be, but the man she thought was her father. Had he ever hurt her?

"That would be me," he confirmed coldly. "Which must make you the abusive swine she was trying to get away from."

Arnold sneered. "She wasn't trying to get away from anything. She knew I was the best she was gonna get. Came back every time I called, like a good bitch. She wouldn't have been able to take care of the brat without me and she knew it."

Erik shifted Lorna on his hip, glanced at Suzanna in the rubble, and then back at Arnold, expression frigid. "I should've killed you for her as a parting gift three years ago. She was insistent that you were doing better. I knew better, but she was so sure. The things love does to you. G-d knows you didn't deserve it from her." The metal of the rubble around them was buzzing, his anger charging the air. Erik tucked his head down against the girl's--his daughter's--and told her to keep her eyes closed.

And then, with a wave of his hand, pieces of shrapnel sharpened into needles. A clench of his fist sent them through the man's limbs and drove them into the ground, like a butterfly pinned under a microscope. Erik ignored the screaming, silencing it with a piece of metal over the man's mouth a moment later, and set Lorna carefully on a flat part of the rubble. He offered her a warm smile. "You stay right here, hm? I'll be right back. I promise."

Three minutes later, Erik was scooping Lorna back up into his arms, that same warm smile on his lips and a new splotch of blood on his jeans. "Come here, darling. Let's get you somewhere safe."

LORNA: She didn't understand a lot of the words her dad was using. But she recognised them as ones he'd hurled at her mom before. Ones that made her mommy flinch and shout back. Ones that Lorna didn't like. And clearly the stranger didn't like it either, because he covered her ears, pressing her head against his chest until the words became muffled and all she could hear was the beating of his heart in his chest. Rhythmic and steady, nothing like the racing of her own as she sniffled and tried to stop crying.

From where she was held, she could see her mother laying lifeless, and rather than calming down, soon Lorna was shaking. Trembling against the stranger. She didn't hear what he said to her dad, nor what her dad was sneering back. Nothing until the stranger urged her to shut her eyes. But even with her eyes closed and her ears covered, she heard the screaming. She felt the metal moving, like a sixth sense now blown open wide and sensitive, and felt it pierce something that screamed.

She was sat down, and Lorna kept her eyes closed at first. But she was curious. Too curious. She opened them just a bit, peering through her eyelashes, and watching as the man made sure her daddy was never going to yell at her or hurt her again. When he turned back, Lorna squeezed her eyes shut quickly, pretending she hadn't seen the images that burned into her retina. Nor heard the sounds that echoed in her ears. She didn't know why, but even still she trusted this man. Maybe it was the pulling in her to him. Or maybe it was that he protected her. He scared her too, but he protected her. But she let him pick her up, nodding as he promised to take her to safety.

Somewhere safe, apparently turned out to be what looked to Lorna like a doctor's office the next day. "Where are we?" she asked the man--Erik, she knew now. "Am I going home?"

ERIK: Erik had been plagued with the guilt of killing his own mother since he was 14. He wouldn't allow Lorna to live with that guilt. To know that she'd downed the plane and killed her mother, that her powers had saved her life but not Suzanna. And he didn't want her to remember Arnold, either--better to let her think there was just an accident. Nothing she could've done. It was for her own protection. And he didn't want to introduce himself to his daughter as the murderer of her stepfather. The memories needed to be wiped, buried, deleted.

Charles could do it. Whether he would was a different consideration, and Erik couldn't be sure the answer was yes. He didn't need the weight of Charles' disappointment on him for asking, or worse yet for seeing what Erik had done in the first place. Jean was too young. Emma Frost was absolutely out of the question. So Erik had reached out to some of the old network and heard of this man. Discreet and damn good at what he did, as far as his reputation went, and that was enough. Needed to be enough.

"Soon. We're just stopping for a quick check-up, alright?"

The telepath walked in, and Erik shook his hand, introduced himself, and explained the situation in quiet terms to the man, smiling over at Lorna every so often. Erik laid out very clearly defined limits on what he wanted wiped, the man agreed, money changed hands, and then the telepath was pulling up a chair to sit in front of Lorna, Erik standing off to the side between them, watching closely. Protective.

"Hello, Lorna," the man said with a smile, and something in his gaze  was shimmering. Soothing. "Erik here was just telling me all you went through yesterday. How stressful that must have been, far too stressful for a young girl like you. I want you to relax for me--there's a dear. Just listen to me..."

The telepath pressed forward into her mind, and the last thing she saw was Erik watching over his shoulder, brow knit with concern.

LORNA: The memories ended there, with them being wiped from her mind, buried deep inside. As Lorna came back to the present, stumbling back away from Erik, she realised absently that that clawing feeling was gone. These memories were released from their box, and they were no longer crying to get out. But now she had to deal with it.

Her cheeks were wet, tears fallen when she wasn't aware. The metal around her creaked--much as it done in her memories--responding to her anger, her shock, her horror. She'd killed her own mother. She remembered more things more clearly now than just the crash too. Her 'father'--Arnold--had scared her more than she'd ever remembered before now. It was as though when certain memories were blocked, her mind allowed others, connected to them, to fade too. Lorna shook like a leaf, her mind running a thousand miles an hour. "You. You took my memories!" With barely a thought in her head, or a twitch of her hand, metal hurtled towards Erik to pin him to the wall. It was the easiest thing to grab onto, her anger at what Erik had done to her, rather than face what she had done to her own family. What he had hidden from her.

JEAN: You need to learn how to cast the thoughts out, Jean. Charles’ voice came back to her now, smooth and comforting and always so deeply in control, even when Jean felt as if she was going to scream as the world shook around them. Anything that isn’t yours, just let it pass by. Take some of the feeling, but you can’t take it all. No one person can hold the world’s pain alone.

No one person could hold all the pain. No one person could hold that much grief, or that much suffering, or that many secrets. No one person could hold all the cards, and yet here they were, once again, Erik pulling the rug out from someone he claimed to love.

(No. He loved Lorna. He loved her so desperately he built a country for her, protected him from himself in the most painful way a parent could. His absence had never been for his own benefit, Jean knew that, she’d seen the aching before Lorna came into their lives. She knew Erik, knew him better than almost anyone else. She was his daughter.)

But he just kept surprising her. He kept surprising her, and it was never with anything good. The memories of what happened with Kara, those flames in her eyes, her demanding that Jean stayed out, were still fresh and burning in her mind. The memories of the tears streaming down Lorna’s face, her shaking hands, they wouldn’t leave anytime soon. They wouldn’t vanish as quickly as Erik wanted them to.

He wouldn’t be able to talk her out of this one -- and yet, when Lorna reacted, Jean stepped in just as quickly. She waved her hands, forming a telekinetic shield that prevented the metal from wrapping around Erik’s arms, from escalating the situation further than she knew her sister would want, when she was calmer (they always ran so hot). “Lorna, that’s enough,” she said. “Erik, just--”

Shut up? What the hell did she say to someone who made fire burn in her chest and a cold pit drop into her stomach at the same damn time? What Erik had done, what he had altered, wasn’t all that different from what Jean and Maddie had done with Derry, the decision that she made for the greater good in spite of the grey it caused on her husband’s face. Who was Jean to judge, when faced with a similar situation she made the same decision?

“We have fought and died for this home,” Jean said instead, her voice strong and confident and not wavering nearly as much as her resolve (or her mind, which jumped from place to place). “If you think I’m going to let father and daughter tear each other to shreds on its soil you have another thing coming. Erik made a choice. It was a choice that you may not agree with -- God knows I’m not sure if I do -- but the decisions we make aren’t always the best. Sometimes we make mistakes. I am not going to let you do this, Lorna. You don’t want to do this.”

ERIK: The memories slipped away, leaving in their wake exactly what Erik had known would happen. Exactly what he'd warned against. Exactly the reason he'd buried them in the first place, and exactly why he'd forbidden Jean to try setting them loose.

Lorna's face was wet with tears, shivers of shock wracking through her body, and every parental instinct Erik made him want to wrap his arms around her shoulders and let her sob into his chest until she settled. But he didn't need to be a telepath to know that would be absolutely unwelcome; Lorna's emotions had the metal around them trembling, the same way it did when Erik's temper was at a breaking point, and he knew what was coming in the moment before it happened.

Except that the metal never quite touched him, because Jean threw up the defense that he himself wasn't going to raise. But she still wasn't looking at him. Whatever she had to say to him was aborted quickly, redirected to Lorna, and Erik felt a lash of anger curl through him. What would she have had him do? Had Arnold walked away from that plane crash alive, Lorna would have ended up in his hands again, or Erik would've been forced to reveal himself to the courts to fight it. And how was he to let her live with the guilt that had lived in his mind for over 70 years if he had a way to stop it?

A way that had been perfectly effective until Jean cracked it open. Anger sang at his fingertips, but for once, for once, Erik held his tongue, watching his daughters in deceptively stoic silence.

LORNA: She wasn't going to kill him. Not really. Probably not. She just wanted him immobile, stuck where she wanted him, so he couldn't get away. So he couldn't avoid this. Later, she'd almost certainly be more grateful to Jean, once she realised how out of control her powers were at that time. It had been a long time since she'd lost control like this, but it was to be expected. Her mind was trying to deal with a traumatic event it had never fully processed. It was no longer equipped for those memories, perhaps never was. So Jean was right to stop her. That didn't mean Lorna liked it right now.

"Enough? I haven't even done anything to him yet."

Damn Jean and her words. She had never needed her powers to get in Lorna's head, to convince her. She knew Lorna too well for that, and right now she knew what to say to get Lorna to back off. We fought and died for this home. It struck a nerve, but it worked. And she was right. Lorna didn't want to kill Erik. Especially not after learning what happened with her mother.

You killed her. You killed her. Youkilledheryoukilledheryoukilledher.

Lorna let out a cry of frustration, far more directed inward than at either of the people in the room. She couldn't get her mind to stop racing, tumbling over itself as it spun in circles and tore her apart. With a flick of her hand, she pulled the metal from Erik, throwing it to the floor and letting it spin away to the far wall. She wanted to break, to cry, to try and figure out how to even begin to process all the things she had seen. She wanted someone to hold her and tell her it would be okay, even if they didn't know if it was true. But she was so angry too. So angry that all of this had been taken away from her. Angry at herself for losing control. Angry that Erik had fought her trying to see this. Scared that she could hurt him and Jean.

"I..." She had no words. Nothing came to her. She swallowed hard, stepping back, away from them both.

JEAN: She wanted to be on Lorna’s side. More than anything, Jean knew the pain that came with being alone -- with feeling as if there was no one who understood the turmoil that was ravaging through your mind, that was changing things so irreparably you could never go back to who you were before. She knew what that felt like, and she always promised that she’d try to prevent other people from suffering the same emotions if she could, that she would prove to them they weren’t alone, that they had a friend, that they could work together. After all, Erik could stand up for himself -- was stronger than even Jean gave him credit for so many years ago -- and he would want her to defend his daughter, if she could.

But she couldn’t. Not entirely, at least. She could understand where she was coming from, could empathise, but condemning Erik’s actions were impossible when she had made the same decision less than a few weeks before -- a decision that had the last remaining member of her family outside of Genosha struggling to remember where she came from, no idea of who she truly was.

“Lorna,” Jean said. She couldn’t be on Lorna’s side completely, and she could feel their bond stretching. She could see her physically step back, could hear the pain in her thoughts. “Don’t do this.” Don’t leave. That was the worst thing a person could do when they were in pain, but it was what they defaulted to every damn time. “We’re here for you. Don’t walk away now, please.”

ERIK: Erik knew anger better than he knew anything else. Better than love, better than pain, better than fear, he knew anger. Like a shadow that never left his side. Charles had told him all those years ago on the lawn of the Institute that there was more to him than pain and anger, that he could be good.

But Charles had been wrong about a lot of things. Shaw, for all that Erik hated the man, had been right. About humans, about the world, about Erik. He'd won the day, won the safety he'd always said he wanted for his family and his people, and yet the anger, the fire in his veins hadn't cooled. It'd gotten worse.

( All his children fell to fire, eventually. It was only a matter of time. )

Lorna's anger was electric, ozone on the tongue, but she was crying out and backing away, and Erik wasn't holding his tongue, anymore--now it was lead. He wanted to reach out and stop her. To echo Jean, to tell her everything would be alright and tell her to stay.

Magda had looked horrified, just like this. Had backed away, just like this, one foot behind the other until she ran, and Erik could see how this was going to end already. Nothing new under the sun. He could beg her to stay, but he would beg and she would leave like she had, and the thought of begging and failing yet again made him sick.

Maybe it'd be better, if she left. Erik had a way of destroying the lives of all of his family, one way or another, eventually, a one-man wrecking ball despite all his love. Despite trying. She'd reappeared in his life and he'd dragged her straight into a war, put her on the frontlines and watched her plunge her hands into the mess with pride. She'd been better off with her aunt and uncle, that much was increasingly clear, and Erik wasn't sorry for what he'd done in the memories.

He was sorry he'd been selfish enough to let her come to him.

So he didn't reach out for her, despite the itch to wrap her in his arms and protect her (she needed protection from him, not from him). He didn't apologize, because it would've rang hollow. And he didn't ask her to stay, like Jean did, because he'd stopped asking people to stay by his side after Cuba. Because he was not a good man, he was a dangerous one.

Lorna backed away, one foot behind the other until she ran, and Erik stood there with a blank expression and watched her go.

[asterekmess]

S3A - E3

Hiya, back with another episode of the rewatch. I am...not looking forward to this episode. *deep breath* here we go.

Read More’s save sanity

Hey, so I know this is a really heavy first bullet point...but isn’t anybody else uncomfortable with the image of a black boy running around out of his mind with fury and bloodlust and going after little...white kids? Am I reading too much into this? I know Cora’s running around too. I just...whatever, I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut.

Straight from way too heavy to way too light. So that girl dropped a big jar of fireflies, but they say that fireflies that actually glow aren’t native to California, which would mean these are part of the whole magic thing going on, and at the end of the whole firefly thing they get rid of all the fireflies. So...what if someone finds that jar and opens it?

...nevermind the jar opened up somehow...

Okay, listen, I have a petty and biased hatred for this moment with Scott. Like...is it so hard to say, “I had to get the kids he was chasing away from him?” It’s not like they don’t have time..they just stand there in silence for a while. I also hate the savior pose he strikes there with the kids clinging to him. Like, I get that it’s a very common trope. I still hate it. I use the anti-scott tag for a reason, let me be salty.

why te fuck does Scott FLOAT in the intro?

Lydia has seriously emptied an entire bottle of ibuprofen? She should be dead. Or at least at a hospital. She’s too smart not to know how dangerous it is to take ibuprofen (even the recommended dosage) for too long at a time.

Lydia...Lydia knows about werewolves now. Did no one tell her about this whole escape plan for the betas? She could’ve helped.

Cue the shitty SFX running. Y’all look ridiculous.

Man, come on. Are you seriously telling me that Derek never played hide and seek with his siblings? Like, they’re werewolves for fuck’s sake. Derek never did fake chases through the woods? He tracked PETER for christ’s sake, all the way across town. He was like yards behind him before he got shot that one time.

This show relies a lot on character’s losing time and just finding themselves places. Jackson losing time, Lydia losing time. Lydia losing time again, but in a new way. Later, it’ll be Stiles losing time. I’m just saying, it happens a lot.

It’s fucking august in California. Does it actually get that cold? Poor Lydia’s nose is always red cus she gets forced to wander around in the dark and freezing. I can see her goosebumps when she kneels next to the pool.

I know it’s gotta be hell on her voice, but I think it’s so interesting the way Lydia screams and how it has to jump around the chords before hitting that one note. I don’t know why I find that so interesting. Guess it just reminds me of a wolf howl. Seriously, look ‘em up. Weirdly similar. GO  Holland!

What do you mean the last memory that she had of her mother, Scott? You should’ve told her RIGHT THEN. Right off the bat. There was TONS of time between her getting bit and when she died. You should’ve told Allison right away. Fuck you, you had all of spring break!

god fucking damn it now I’m crying again. Erica, sweetie...Derek honey...

I’m trying to get past the tears to enjoy this romancey stuff, with the candles and the lil lamps, and the LOTR references. I’m really trying.

This is totally not what I should be thinking about while watching the two of them make out, but like, so does Caitlin not go to their school? She just sort of appears a couple times, but Stiles doesn’t seem to know her. Maybe she went to the same school as Heather?

don’t like bugs don’t like bugs ew ew ew ew

Hi cora!

Isaac! You’re somehow feeling better, even though you were apparently out of commission like an hour or two ago...wait huh?

I gotta say, okay, listen I just can’t help it. I know this is serious, but that lil smirk on Isaac’s face? I don’t think he looks smug, personally, I think he looks like he’s about to go play, go rolling around in the grass and leaves, playing with a pack member. He’s been alone for so long this summer, what with Jackson leaving. he’s had no wolves to play with (cus’ we know Derek’s a grump). As worried as he’s gotta be, I bet he’s having funnnnnn.

I..uh..Cora what sound is coming out of your mouth? That..that does not sound like a wolf. That sounds like a wild cat of some kind. Wolves don’t make that screechy noise. They bark and growl, like the sound that came just before. That doesn’t even sound like a roar. Who gave you cheetah sounds?? You’re canine, not feline. Come on they did SO WELL with Derek’s sounds-- No. NO Do not tell me they gave Cora cat sounds cus she’s a chick. I’m gonna fight someone. (For those of you interested, if you scroll to the bottom of this webpage, you can listen to wolf growl snippets and they’re such good quality (I think the bark snippet is broken tho). Listen to those whimpers and whines too, fucking fascinating. I love wolves. Such beautiful animals.)

Cora with Isaac and Scott attacking her and growling at her: “Fuck you, I’ll bite you!” Cora with Derek just growling at her: “BYE bro!”

Stiles, honey! I missed you! Literally, just the sound of your voice makes me feel better.

Scott, Seriously, Derek just said you haven’t tracked either of them anywhere near the pool. You’ve both been following them all night! Yeah, they’re dangerous, but they couldn’t get to the pool and back in time to fight you! I”M GONNA SMACK YOU. DOn’t use that fucking patronizing tone of voice when Derek is TELLING YOU FACTS.

OUR fault? OUR FAULT? I’m gonna fucking *kicks a chair and storms off, grumbling* *Spins around, cus fuck it i’m gonna yell. it’s my post.* NONE OF THIS is DEREK”S FAULT. NOne of this is ISAAC’S FAULT. Fuck dude, I’ll even say that it’s not Scott’s fault! If it’s anyone other than the Alphas’ fault, it’s Allison’s, but tbf she thought she was helping.

DEREK SHUT YOUR PRETTY MOUTH. I swear to god.

ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING? DEREK WOULD NEVER SUGGEST MURDERING BOYD AND CORA. NEVER. He thought Cora was fucking dead and he just found out she’s alive! HE WOULD NEVER. NEVER. FUCK YOU. FUCK EVERYTHING. *Throws a plate* YOU KNOW YOU ONLY FUCKING WROTE IT SO THAT YOU COULD SHOW OFF SCOOT MCFUCKFACE’S SUDDEN FLIP IN MORALITY BY HAVING HIM SAY THAT “KILLING ISN’T THE RIGHT THING TO DO” OH REALLY Scott? REALLY? Killing is bad? YOU DIDN’T THINK SO WHEN YOU SPENT MONTHS attempting to commit PREMEDITATED MURDER of a GUY WHO WAS ALREADY DYING. MONTHS. Scott. FUCK YOU. FUCK THIS SHOW. 13 minutes in and I’m already about to chuck my laptop across the room. MY CAT WON’T EVEN CUDDLE ME ANYMORE I’M SO ANGRY.

And now I’m really fucking sad, cus’ I hate watching this poor girl get told she’s just hallucinating.

WHY does everyone go shopping at fucking 8 pm in Beacon Hills? What...Chris you don’t even have a day job.

I don’t...I don’t understand this scene with Isaac. Like..what exactly are they trying to imply? That he thinks she’s hot? All he’s seen is her raging around with fangs free and glowing eyes. And yeah, some people definitely think that’s hot. But like...that’s just so...what? I choose to read this scene as him just wondering about Derek’s home life. Like, “Since when do you have siblings? Why don’t you tell me these things? I have an aunt?”

WHAT DO YOU mean “Your world?” CHRIS YOU GREW UP AS A HUNTER. THIS IS YOUR WORLD TOO. He was YOUR dad. You’ve been a part of this WAY longer than Scott! Don’t blame the werewolves for ruining your life! THAT WAS YOUR DAD and YOUR STUPID HUNTER CODE’S FAULT.

OKay, listen, I have so many issues with this I need a therapist to mediate my conversations with it. FUCK YOU TW for bringing in Chris. I dont’ give a fuck if he’s experienced or trying to redeem himself. He is a HUNTER he has Slaughtered Derek’s kind for his entire life. He may want to do the right thing, but the right thing definitely doesn’t involved him Standing in front of Derek and forcing him to listen to hunter PROPAGANDA BULLSHIT. I’M SO FUCKING MAD. This was so inappropriate, holy shit. SO far beyond okay. Even the CONCEPT that werewolves wouldn’t be as good at tracking other werewolves as hunters are is fucking stupid. You said it yourself, Chris they can follow scent up to TWO MILES AWAY. Wolves can track their prey for weeks without losing the scent. Just because Isaac stepped on some footprints doesn’t mean he’s incapable of finding them. And what’s all this shit about them “Being able to rely on their human half”? NO? First off, minor detail. Werewolves aren’t half wolf, half human, dumbass. They’re all werewolf. AND The show has said like Ten TIMES that they can’t access their human form/the thought processes they would normally have during a full moon without an anchor, and Boyd and Cora are effectively anchorless on this moon. This is just utter bullshit and I’m so goddamn angry I don’t even know how to process it. “If you’re not trained like me you have no idea this print is Boyd’s” YEAH THEY DO. THEY CAN LITERALLY SMELL IT.  DEREK ALREADY IDENTIFIED THE TRACKS. FUCK you.

ALSO. Getting REAL SICk of people slicing their wrists every time they need a little blood for a ritual or for bait. YOU CUT THE MEAT of the arm. ON THE BACK. WHERE YOU WON”T HIT a VEIN. DUMBASSES.

WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK DO YOU MEAN NINE YEARS DEREK? YOU’D BETTER MEAN CORA WAS NINE YEARS OLD, CUS’ THE FIRE WAS SIX YEARS AGO. and what do you mean you don’t have a lock on her scent? you’ve been following it just fine all night! Wolves remember human scents decades later.

Booooo, i hate the entire concept of wolves going mad on a full moon. It’s lazy and boring. Wolves are not vicious animals, they’re shy as fuck. THey don’t attack without reason. Werewolves should be the same. Full moon’s enhance their wolfishness, so it should make them MORE SHY. The moon should enhance whatever they feel, rather than just making them mindlessly aggressive.

“Primal apex Predatory satisfaction”? seriously? Shut the FUCK up Chris, I’m really fucking sick of your hunter bedtime stories.

....i hate this woman.

Casual reminder that Isaac wouldn’t suggest Killing boyd. Ever. I fucking hate these writers.

yeah yeah, running scene. blah blah blah.

See, I never really understood those fics where Peter just refuses to give anyone any info. He tells Derek what’s up constantly. He didn’t lie or hold anything back when he helped Derek figure out what was up with Jackson or how Jackson needed Lydia to be cured. He walks right up to Derek and says “Hey, so those Alphas clearly want you to join them and that means they’re trying to make you kill your own pack” Peter helps Derek all the time. He’s just a dick while he does it.

Look, I love this moment with Peter, his “Let Scott be the hero of his morally black and white world. You and I, we live in shades of gray” lines are so good, and they speak so much to his character and personality. And he’s right. But I hate that they built the scene around Derek planning to kill his own pack, and following Scott around doing as he asks. I just hate what they do to Derek here.

The dog whistles suddenly have no effect on their hearing? Love it.

Take a second to bring up a plotline you won’t explain for ages. I vibe with that, so long as it is eventually explained.

OOh, suddenly BHHS has a football field?

Not gonna cry, not gonna cry. FUCK I’m crying again.

I just...dude I’m over here trying not to completely lose my shit and cry like a baby, and Stiles is in the middle of panicking and losing his oldest friend and he still puts the dots together. Like. Jesus christ this boy.

NOW Derek? You choose NOW to take Every Single Step down the stairs? JUMP.

...what is this a cartoon? Glowing eyes in the dark? one too many sets? Yeah, yeah, I get it, they’re supposed to look like fireflies.

Why did you stop to look at each other after blasting them? Just go.

OH, yeah, of course Scott has to be the one to hear the extra heartbeat. Scott. Not Derek. Not the ALpha who’s senses are heightened above the a Beta’s. Not DEREK the ALPHA who has a PACK, which makes his senses even stronger that that. No. Scott. The omega. Because he’s like an inch closer to the door. Yah. Sure. That makes sense. SUre.

Dude I wish my high school had that much backup supplies free for the teacher’s to grab. Also, I hate this woman.

WHy were the lights off in the boiler room if she was in the back grabbing stuff? That..what?

OH. I forgot, so Caitlin’s out of high school? She’s...what, 18? 19? Okay, fine, I’ll take that.

Oh stop faking Jennifer, fuck you.

Crying again. dont’ mind me. This is Derek. Not choosing to kill his beta or his long lost sister. Choosing to die himself instead. THAT is Derek (it’s self-sacrificing and it’s because he gives his own life no worth, but it’s still him.)

HOW IS IT DAWN? THAT WOULD BE like 6 HOURS of standing around! Or did the sun not set until like 10 pm? Hm? This show has no concept of time, and werewolves are very time oriented. Someone take away the show from the writers. They’ve lost their privileges.

I hate this. I hate that Isaac shouts for Scott. Not Derek. That’s just so fucking dumb. I’m so tired of it. I’m just so fucking sick of it.

I don’t even wanna look at this. I hate this woman so much.

YOU REALIZE that the third Virgin was Taken. The third virgin is DEAD. the sacrifices have been made, and now Jennifer has control over people. This is where she starts controlling Derek. Right Fucking Here. He loses his agency the moment they touch, if not the moment they make eye contact or he gets in range. I hate it. I HATE IT.

BOOM. Episode three, and Stiles already has the villain after next figured out. He’s past the Alphas now. 

Final Thoughts: I’m angry, I’m tired, and I honestly got very little joy or interest out of this whole episode. I hate what this show did to werewolves and how much insane Scott glorification there is and how every little thing HAS to be about Scott. Scott’s relationship with Chris. Scott saving the kids. Scott’s the one Isaac calls for. Scott’s the one who hears the heartbeats. I get that he’s the main character. I also hate that he’s the main character. It’s just so sad and pathetic and boring and just....ugh. I’m going to bed. I will try for another episode or two tomorrow.

(I promise I’m okay. Just go listen to the wolf howls for me in that link, huh? Listen to those beauties and imagine how amazing a wolf show could have been.)

[writingsbyari]

Sidereal | Ch. 1

Summary : Y/N Finstock never expected that her teenage years would be one that filmmakers would push towards an audience, but she expected it to be completely different than how they turned out. Being livelong friends with Stiles Stilinski and Scott McCall, and having a somewhat insane, loud lacrosse coach of a father, she had come to expect the unexpected. However, she truly did not expect for her friend to soon grow fur and howl at the moon, or the way her entire being was seeming to change with every passing day.                 

        She truly hated Beacon Hills.

Pairing : Multi Ship (Stiles Stilinski x Finstock!Reader, Derek Hale x Finstock!Reader)

Word Count : 2237

CHAPTER ONE : STUPID ADVENTURES MAY CAUSE BODILY HARM

sidereal : of, relating to, or expressed in relation to stars or constellations

  Highschool movies always were one of Y/N’s guilty pleasures. 

No matter how many times Stiles would complain or beg to watch something else while Scott just rolled his eyes and listened to the argument between his two friends, she couldn’t help but love them. Maybe she had already known she wouldn’t get the stereotypical teenage years, be stuck with something she had to settle for, so she tried to live through the movie.

She wouldn’t get the big glow-up the summer before freshman year started, wouldn’t be able to strut in with her chin held high, wearing stylish clothes and confidence oozing off of her. She wasn’t going to be able to somehow juggle almost all AP classes and a personal life full of parties and boys. God, boys.

There was truly only one boy she actually wanted, but it was far-fetched and a thought that shouldn’t pass through her head because every time it did, it left a pain in her heart and a slight queasy feeling. 

She knew she’d for sure only get one thing that the movies had, and that was game nights. And it wouldn’t be in the bleachers with a practice jersey and face paint, cheering one of the last names darting around the field against red mesh. No, instead she’d be right by the bench, a playbook in hand and having her father yell right into her ear, sharing bored looks with the bench warmers and frustration with the boys on the field. 

Now, however, she was sprawled across the couch in her living room, her father doing god knows what in his office down the hall. They had spaghetti a bit ago, the dishes still sitting on the coffee table. Her bowl had half-eaten seconds still in it, and the TV was playing the ID Channel, something that she only watched when she was absolutely bored, seeing as Stiles crammed the same things into her head almost daily. 

Y/N sighed, moving her eyes away from the screen to the dishes on the coffee table, debating internally if she really wanted to clean them now. It was undoubtedly the last home cooked meal for a while, seeing as school starting the next day also meant lacrosse started. On most nights, Y/N either stayed with her father during practices and they got something from the few fast-food and takeout places Beacon Hills had to offer, or she ate at Scott or Stiles’, which normally meant pizza of leftover Mama McCall dishes.

However, before she could fully come to the decision of whether she actually wanted to be a functioning human being, a sound outside her front door grabbed her attention. Her eyes snapped to the door, and then to her phone that was lying on the arm of the couch. The noise sounded again, causing her to jump. Craning her head to look down the hall, she could see the closed door of her father's office.

Knowing he was probably too engrossed in old lacrosse films, she stood up, grabbing her phone. She was quick in pulling up Sheriff Stilinski’s contact info, knowing he’d answer just as quickly as the operator if she were to call this late at night without prior warning. 

Y/N gulped as she walked to the door. Opening it slightly didn’t reveal a serial killer or kidnapper, and she pushed the door open more, taking a hesitant step onto her porch. The street lamps lit up the empty street, her brows furrowing. Her thumb was just over the call button. She stopped her steps just before her porch turned into steps, and she let her eyes dance around her yard and the sidewalk. 

After finding nothing, she lets out a relieved sigh, shutting her phone and turning on her heel, planning on going back inside to actually do the dishes again.

However, once she turned around she was met with two taller figures practically crowding around her. Her eyes widened and she let out a scream, throwing her fist out to hopefully catch one of them in the nose before they grabbed her. The two figures let out almost equally as high-pitched screams, and one flailed while the other took a step back.

Y/N’s heart rate slowed as she realized who the two people standing in front of her were, and she huffed, her brain only yelling the word “idiots’.

“Oh my fucking god! What the hell are you two doing? Trying to kill me?!” She screeched, now aiming for Stiles' shoulder with her fist. He flinched when it connected, whining out. Scott stared at her with his puppy eyes, and she lowered her hand to her side.

“We were trying not to bring attention to us! We know your dad is probably awake and-”

“Y/N! Where’s the thre-” your father yelled, pushing the door wide open and wielding a lacrosse stick. His entire posture relaxed when he noticed the two boys and the annoyed look on his daughters face, his shoulders drooping. “Oh, just you two. Dear god, can’t you just knock or something?”

You looked over your idiotic friends shoulders, nodding at her dad. “We’re good here, Pops. No threat for you to beat to death. I’ll be in soon.”

Finstock twirled the lacrosse stick, pointing it at the three teens in front of him. “School tomorrow. No stupid adventures that can cause too much bodily harm, and for all that is good no drugs. I don’t have time to deal with a daughter who has substance issues.”

Stiles smiled crookedly, giving a half-hearted salute as Scott nodded, his eyes wide at the prospect of Finstock getting mad at them for doing anything. “Yes Coach, we’ll make sure there are no drugs!”

Y/N raised a brow, not bringing up the fact Stiles didn’t agree on the whole “no stupid adventures” part. Her father seemed to notice too, and narrowed his eyes. He stared at them for a moment and then rolled his eyes, turning to go back in the house. “I don’t even want to deal with it. Be home by 2am.”

Once the door closed, Scott and Stiles turned to her. Crossing her arms, Y/N already knew where this was going. Almost a decade of friendship would do that to someone, she supposed. She also knew she was probably already growing grey hairs from the stress the two caused her, mainly the spastic one.

“My dad left about 45 minutes ago on a call.” Stiles stated excitedly, turning the girl around by her shoulders. Y/N sighed, slipping on the old boots that laid on her steps, letting Stiles lead her to the jeep. 

“He’s a cop, Stiles. That is not surprising.” She stated calmly, looking over at Scott with a raised brow. He gave her a knowing look, and she stifled a giggle.

The Stilinski boy sighed, looking over at her. “I don’t like that I’m rubbing off on you two, you know. But it's not the fact he left I’m interested in, it’s the reason why.” Y/N opened the door to the death trap her friend had started driving, humming to indicate to him to continue as she climbed into the back.

“They found a body. Well, only half of one, I guess. Stiles wants us to find the other half.” Scott rushed out, hopping up front. Stiles groaned, getting into the driver's seat as he smacked at his friends shoulder. 

“Dude, you totally stole my thunder there! My dad’s case, my epic reveal moment!” Y/N sighed as Scott began arguing with Stiles, leaning her head between the two seats, a small smile forming on her lips as she listened to the two.

                                            ⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴

“I’m not actually walking through the woods to find a dead body, Stiles!”

“Half of a dead body, Y/N! And why?!”

She rolled her eyes, not escaping the comfort that the jeep gave her. “Because if there's half a body, then something had to rip it in half. And not to mention your father and the entirety of the Beacon Hills Police Force are out there looking too! We have school in a couple hours, and I don’t have time to be detained!”

Scott took out his inhaler, shaking it up, looking between the two with a slightly concerned look. “If Y/N doesn’t go, maybe we shou-”

Stiles pointed at Scott, eyes wide. “No! We are going to find that body! And anyways, you wouldn’t actually be detained! Dad would never detain you!”

Y/N crossed her arms, raising a brow. Her and Stiles stared at each other in silence and Scott sighed, putting his inhaler to his mouth. He hated when they did that. 

Stiles threw his arms in the air, with a small yell, and Y/N’s face broke out into a victory smile. Knowing she won, she held her hand out, Stiles griping as he dropped the keys to the jeep in her open palm. “Just...call Scott or I if you see something or if you get attacked, okay?” 

“And you or Scott call me when the Sheriff drags your asses back here so I can prepare my ‘told you so’ pose.” Stiles rolled his eyes, and with one last look over the girl, he turned to Scott. 

“Lets go, Scotty boy.” Stiles started off to the trees, and Scott gave Y/N one last look to make sure she was okay, and with a nod of hers followed behind him. 

Y/N sighed, leaning back in the passenger seat. She hummed, closing her eyes as she decided to sit back and wait for her idiotic best friends to show back up.

                                             ⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴⟴

It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes from when Stiles and Scott disappeared to when Y/N heard it.

Her head snapped up, looking around in the dark. Pulling her phone out and turning on the flashlight app, she hopped out of the car, huffing. She could feel the cold hit her, and with a quick look into the back of the jeep she found one of Stiles’s flannels. She quickly put it on, relaxing slightly at the warmth and the familiar scent of her friend.

Paying attention again to the noise she heard, she stepped away from the jeep, her voice annoyed. “Seriously boys, this isn’t funny. You already scared the shit out of me once tonight, let's not do it a second time.”

Silence.

Y/N’s brows furrowed and she gripped her phone tighter, holding it out farther as to see more into the seemingly never-ending darkness. “Stiles? Scott? Come on, idiots. It’s cold.”

A twig snapped behind her, causing her to spin around. Her heart was beating faster, and her eyes looked through the window of the jeep.

On the other side of the jeep, a little ways off of the side of the road was a pair of glowing red eyes. Y/N felt panic settle over her, her hand shaking. A growl emitted from the same direction of the eyes, and she felt a scream bubble up in her throat.

Backing up, Y/N had a plan to run. One that after thinking it over during her ride home she’d come to yell at herself for. Before she could set off, though, the eyes disappeared and she heard the loud voices of the Stilinski men. Shaking in fear, Y/N turned to face the sound, seeing the Sheriff dragging Stiles along. 

“Ah, there she is. I knew you had to bring one of them with you.” Sheriff grumbled, tossing Stiles towards the jeep. Y/N’s panicked eyes turned to her friend, and he shook his head slightly. 

“I had to have one of them, Dad. Scotty was boring and didn’t want to come, so I took the fun friend.” Y/N gulped, craning her head to look through the window in the jeep, slightly calm now that she wasn’t alone and the Sheriff (who had a gun) was there.

“I assume I don’t have to explain how idiotic and dangerous this was to you, Y/N?” The Sheriff stated, causing her attention to snap towards him. She gave a shaky smile and a small thumbs up. “Good. So, now that I know at least one of you two have common sense, you both need to get home and get to sleep. School in the morning.”

Stiles sighed, turning to head towards the jeep. Y/N tossed him the keys, getting in the jeep. It was only once they were already half-way to town did she take a breath, leaning her head on the back of the headrest.

“Scott will be fine, right? He undoubtedly is getting caught, or he called his mom. He’d call his mom, right?” Stiles rambled. 

Tilting her head towards him, Y/N nodded. “Scott knows not to be in the cold woods all night long. He called his mom or found a deputy. He may be a little naive, but he isn’t dumb.”

With Stiles now slightly more calm, Y/N let her eyes drift to the side mirror on her side, terrified that the red eyes would be following behind them. Curling into the flannel over her body, she felt the calm wash over her again. She didn’t notice Stiles’ eyes and slightly blushed face.

Neither of them knew just what trouble their friend was actually in.