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thebiggerbear · 9 months

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Only Ever Holding Onto You Chapter 1

A/N: Hey all! I just want to let you know up front that this chapter is HUGE. When writing, I go more by what I feel needs to be in the chapter for setups and flow than I do the length. It's something I'm still working on as a writer so I apologize. The following chapters should not be nearly as long.

I began writing this back in July and at that time, I hadn't watched the rest of the 3rd season of Big Sky so I did a lot of guesswork based on gifs, clips, and posts I had seen on here. So that's why some things might not line up to the show, sorry about that. Also, I completely made up the name of the pharmaceutical company.

This story actually was the gateway to Ghosts so there might be some similar threads you might notice. ;) I hope you like it!

And a huge thank you to my beta Em! You rock, girl!

Warnings: mentions of animal cruelty, mentions of animal injuries seen by Reader, mentions of kidnapping of minor

Word Count: 13,543

Please do not do any of the above. Thank you for your understanding.

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Series Taglist: @deans-spinster-witch; @rieleatiel

Series Masterlist

“I didn’t do anything wrong!”

You rolled your eyes and made a left onto Washington. “Yeah, yeah. That’s what everyone who breaks into a chem lab says.”

“It’s true,” the man currently sitting handcuffed in your backseat insisted. “It’s the corporation that’s doing something wrong. They’re benefitting from those animals’ pain.”

“Doesn’t give you the right to enter the premises illegally,” you pointed out.

“What they’re doing is illegal,” he scoffed.

You couldn’t exactly argue with that one. When the call came in for a 10-62 and it was advised that the prowler was armed and dangerous, you had immediately rushed to the scene, beaten there by two officers from Helena PD and one deputy from your department. The perp had already been secured and in handcuffs, proclaiming loudly over and over that he was innocent as were the animals he had been trying to set free. Deputy Davis informed you that the only weapon that had been found on the man was a pair of bolt cutters, which had barely made a dent in the cages’ padlocks, never mind were they ever a real threat to anyone on the premises.

After contacting the higher-ups of her employer, an onsite supervisor insisted the company wanted to press any and all charges, maintaining that the animals in their possession had been obtained legally and the accusations against them were baseless. One glance past the woman’s shoulder at the cages of rabbits and cats being wheeled into another area showed that perhaps the man’s claims weren’t as baseless as she said they were. You had to keep yourself from hauling her down to the station on some trumped up charge once you noticed one cat in particular that had half of its fur missing and its side was littered with obvious injection sites. One rabbit even had sutures where an eye should be.

Unfortunately, you had a job to do and the law needed to be upheld. You insisted on taking the perp, one Martin Webb, into the station yourself. Since Davis had arrived on scene first, Helena PD couldn’t say a peep. That was one thing that hadn’t changed with your transfer here: the good ol’ jurisdiction issue between departments. Although, up in these parts, the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Department and Helena PD did play nicer together than most other places you’d been. As Webb continued to ramble on in the back of your car, you were thankful for that little fact.

When he mentioned for the fifth time that he was doing the right thing, your phone began to ring. One quick glance at the screen showed that it was Deputy Poppernak. Without saying a word, you picked up the call. “What’s shaking, Pepper Snaps?”

You smirked when you heard the slight huff he let out when you called him the cute little nickname you had come up for him. He knew you did it to tease him good-naturedly but it still exasperated him at times. Truth be told, you had a fondness for the guy even though he did prove to be a bit of a suck-up when you first stepped into the station about six months back. Still he had always been welcoming towards you, took your quirks in stride, and he was a decent cop. That put him under the good list in your book.

“Hey, Y/N. The boss asked for me to give you a call and see if you were on your way back to the station.”

Your eyes practically rolled out of your head. Apparently, the sheriff had forgotten how phones worked along with the knowledge that you were more than capable of doing your job. If Poppernak got exasperated with you at times, your patience could be worn thin by one Beau Arlen on a semi-often basis, and that hadn’t changed with both of you relocating to Big Sky Country.

“Pops, correct me if I’m wrong, but when I radioed in to Madge that I was transporting a suspect back to the station, did I say it in Portuguese? French maybe? Japanese? Or in Gaelic perhaps?” You quipped.

“Uh, no. No, of course not,” Poppernak let out in a nervous chuckle. “It’s just, uh…sorry, one second.” You could hear his muffled voice speaking to someone; it was obvious he had covered the mouthpiece with his hand. You nearly rolled your eyes again, knowing exactly who he was speaking to, and instead chose to glance in your rearview to check on the man in the back. He had still been talking when you picked up the call but he must have gotten the hint when the deputy’s voice filled the car. Now, he sat quietly, staring straight ahead.

“Okay, sorry about that. Madge was asking me—”

You’d had enough, especially when you heard him using a quieter tone than before. “Cut the crap, I know very well who was asking you something. What does he want and why is he not calling me to ask me himself?”

He laughed nervously again. “Uh, well, he was just—I mean I was just wondering, do you mind stopping by The 1889 and grabbing the usual order on your way in?”

Your jaw tensed. You had a sneaking suspicion of the reason why your boss wasn’t calling you directly and instead was asking his employee to do his dirty work, and it infuriated you.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Poppernak added meekly.

You forced yourself to remember that he wasn’t the one who your ire should be aimed at. You’d get to that soon enough after you booked your suspect down at the station. You made another quick turn to head in the direction of the coffee shop. “Call the order in. I’ll be there in fifteen to pick it up and they better run it out to me or no dice. In case anyone at that station is too thick-headed to remember, I’m currently transporting a suspect.”

You heard a relieved breath come down the line. “Thanks, Y/N. You’re the—”

You ended the call before the deputy could finish speaking. Pops knew you weren’t mad at him and knowing him, he’d get right on placing the order at the coffee house you all frequented so the order would be ready in the timeframe you’d given him.

“Amazing. Animals are being cruelly treated in your own backyard and all you cops can worry about is your coffee order. ‘To protect and serve’...yeah right.”

You shot Webb a glare in your rearview mirror. “You have the right to remain silent, you know. Wouldn’t hurt to exercise it every now and then. Like right now.”

“How can I be silent? Do you have any idea what they’re doing to those animals? Do you have any idea how much pain they’re in? God, you people are heartless!”

“Uh huh.” You brought the car to a stop at a traffic light and took a deep breath. Losing your temper on Webb or Pops or anyone at the station would not help anything, but damn did Beau get on your nerves sometimes with his desire to placate and diffuse things. Most of the time, it was something you heavily respected about him; it was a great quality for a leader to have. At the same time, some people needed to be stood up to, put in their place, and knocked down a few pegs — and that is where you and Beau never saw eye-to-eye. It drove you crazy but you told yourself you would play the long game on this one. Beau knew how you felt. You two had argued about it enough times when it was just you two — but he refused to budge an inch. He believed time would resolve things. Six months was plenty of time in your mind but apparently, he didn’t share that sentiment. So, you did as you always had: you had his back and you followed his lead. It didn’t mean you had to like it sometimes, though. Especially not when—no, you would put it out of your mind for now.

“I’m serious, you saw the animals yourself. Do you really think they’re well cared for like they said? If you only knew the half of it!”

Webb’s rantings broke you out of your reverie. You thought over what he said, remembered the cat with the missing fur, the rabbit with the missing eye, and bit your lip in contemplation. When the light turned green, your mind was made up. “I’m just doing my job, Mr. Webb. And that job doesn’t include looking into the history of this company or what they do with their animals when it comes to testing.”

The man scoffed and you knew your words had been chosen well. “Of course not. Why would you care? I suppose you don’t care that the animals are kept in cages night and day. Not only do they pump chemicals into them consistently but they cause them pain purposely to see if their products work. I guess you also don’t care that this is a common practice for this company, or that they purposely pick up strays from surrounding neighborhoods and have even broken into people’s properties to steal their pets when the shelters and pet stores start to get suspicious! And you’re charging me with breaking and entering? What about them? And I bet you don’t care that they purposely starve these animals for certain experiments and that’s not even…”

You made your way to The 1889, keeping your gaze ahead of you as you maneuvered down the streets, all the while quietly listening and at certain points, trying to remember why you’d chosen to become a cop when it seemed like the odds always remained against you and innocents, humans and animals alike, continued to get hurt by every semblance of heartless assholes on a daily basis.

Deputy Davis, who had beaten you back to the station and waited for you to arrive, led Webb into the station as you followed behind with a tray of coffees and a paper bag full of food.

Pops immediately hurried over to meet you, a huge grin on his face. “Thanks, Y/N. You really are the best.”

You handed him both the tray and bag, giving him a nod.

Webb watched the exchange carefully before yelling out, “Yeah, so glad you can sit and enjoy your coffee and donuts while innocent animals are suffering!” The busy hum in the station dimmed slightly as everyone turned to look, but then it resumed when they saw the man responsible for the noisy interruption was in handcuffs.

“I’ll book him,” the deputy next to you insisted.

“Thanks, Davis.” You smiled slightly at the younger man. “I’ll get on the paperwork.”

“Let’s go.” Davis pushed Webb in front of him who kept yelling as he was being moved away.

You and Pops watched them disappear around the corner and then turned back to one another. “So, where is he?”

Pops’ amiable smile dropped completely and he quickly glanced in the direction of the sheriff’s office. Bingo. “Uh, I think he’s interrogating a suspect right now…”

“Right.” You then moved past him and proceeded right to the location that Pops unintentionally gave away before outright lying to you. The door was shut but that didn’t deter you. Without knocking, you opened the door and barged right in.

Sure enough, there was Beau, sitting in his chair with the infamous Jenny Hoyt perched on the desk to his left, barely a foot of space between them. Of course. Was there ever a moment in the day the undersheriff wasn’t trying to get into the sheriff’s pants?

The blonde glared at your intrusion and you folded your arms across your chest. You offered a meaningful look to Beau, who at least had the decency to look sheepish.

“Did you always storm into your boss’ office without knocking like this back in Houston or is it only something you do here?” Hoyt snapped.

“Hoyt,” Beau warned.

Ignoring her sniping and ignoring her presence altogether — you leveled your eyes on Beau alone. “We need to talk.”

Beau glanced between you and his undersheriff, looking uncertain, before he gave a simple nod. “Give us the room for a minute,” he directed to the woman next to him. The corner of your lips lifted in the beginning of a smirk; wise choice on his part.

Hoyt transferred her glare to him but got to her feet all the same. She nearly stomped her way out the door, scowling at you the entire time. You stared her down, all too happy to close the door once she vacated the threshold. You seriously could not wait for that woman to take some vacation time; it’d be like your own vacation kicking in at the same time.

You turned around to find Beau watching you, exhaustion showing in the lines of his face a little more prominently than they had a moment ago. “Y/N, I—”

Holding up a hand, you interrupted him before he could plead with you for peace or make excuses like he had so many times before. “Aside from me thinking that it’s downright pathetic that you can’t even make a simple phone call to ask me to pick you up one of your favorite sandwiches because she’s within hearing distance, I have a bigger issue to discuss.”

Beau sat back in his chair, considering you for a moment. “Alright. Let’s hear it.”

You moved closer and took a seat. “The man I just brought in, Martin Webb, the one who’s being booked on a B&E charge from Avuna Pharmaceuticals? Turns out he was not armed like had been initially reported to emergency dispatch. He had a pair of bolt cutters on him that didn’t even work and he was not posing a threat to anybody. But the Avuna reps are insisting he was.”

“Who was first on scene?”

“Davis.”

“Any footage or eyewitness accounts that prove this guy threatened anyone before Davis got there?”

“Eyewitness accounts from paid employees and when we asked for footage after noticing cameras placed all around the lab, we were told that their legal counsel advised that unless we had a warrant, we were wasting our time and suggested we should be focusing on the arrest of the assailant in our custody.”

Beau snorted. “Not suspicious at all and damn ballsy.”

You couldn’t help but shrug. “Big corporation, big money. They’ll do whatever it takes to protect it all.”

He nodded in agreement. “Good point. Alright, let’s let the DA take it from here. For now, just book him and we’ll let the courts battle it out on what charges actually stick.”

You tilted your head at him expectantly.

“And,” he sighed. “I take it you already knew I’d say that and that’s not why you wanted to discuss it.”

“You know me so well,” you teased, giving him a smirk and sitting on the desk next to him on his right, keeping a polite distance between you. “Something doesn’t smell right with this case. If their response to our request to view their footage wasn’t enough of a red flag, then the fact that they’re looking to throw the book at this guy is. I ran him through the system. His record is relatively clean; he’s an activist, not an ecological terrorist.” You bit your lip. “I saw the animals while they were transporting them,” you said in a quieter tone. “I saw some things that... I think this guy, while a little misguided, is actually on the right track. Something’s off with this whole thing.”

Beau leaned over to place a hand over yours. “Darlin’, I know where you’re going with this and while it pains me to say it, I have to. It’s not our job. You said it yourself: big corporation, big money. This is for the courts. We can’t get involved.” You dropped your gaze to the floor and let out a disappointed breath. You knew as much, had said as much to Webb on the ride over, but it felt wrong for that to be the actual reality.

You felt Beau brushing his thumb over the back of your hand in tender strokes. It was his way of reassuring you and apologizing at the same time. You couldn’t help but give him a thin-lipped smile. You knew he would do something if he could, but he was right. Unless there was evidence to Webb’s claims of the company illegally obtaining those animals, this was not for you or for the department to get involved in. On the off-chance there was proof, that evidence would need to be transferred to the right agency who handled such cases. Your hands were tied and there was nothing you could do from your position, that fact wouldn’t help you sleep better at night or help you forget what you had seen.

“That being said, I will talk to the DA and see what he can do about the charges. I can’t promise anything but I’ll try,” Beau finished, after seeing your reaction.

You turned your hand over, grabbing onto his, and whispered, “Thank you.”

He returned your smile and squeezed your hand before gently letting go. “And thank you for picking up the order earlier. And for not letting Hoyt bait you into an argument.”

Rolling your eyes and getting to your feet, you made your way to the bulletin board on the far wall to study its contents. “Sometimes I wonder why you even asked me to come here.”

You heard a heavy sigh behind you but you didn’t turn around to look. “You know why I asked you to join me here, Y/N. I need someone who has my back.”

“You have plenty of people here who have your back.” You pulled the paper you were looking for off the board and folded it up. “Especially her. She’d have your back, front, and center if she had anything to say about it.” Slipping the paper into the back pocket of your jeans, you glanced back at Beau to find him glaring in your direction. “Am I wrong?” You challenged.

“I really wish you two would try to get along.”

You scoffed out a laugh. “I’m not the one who throws a temper tantrum every time I walk into a room. That would be the woman whose insufferable ass has been glued to yours for the past six months.”

Beau shook his head. “Why do I even try?”

“Why do you?” You agreed. “And why do you defend her at every given turn when you know she’s the one that has a chip the size of Texas on her shoulder?”

“I told you, she’s been through a lot. With her mom and everything…” Beau waved a hand to indicate there might be more to it than you knew. You didn’t think there was; you had heard about it from practically everyone around here, but you also knew Beau was a good man with a big heart. So while you didn’t excuse away the blatant hostility Hoyt had shown you from the moment you arrived, you knew that your best friend tried to be understanding and his patience was longer than the length of the building you were currently in.

“Right,” you muttered. When you first showed up here, Beau told you everything that went down in the amount of time it took you to be able to secure your transfer. You knew all about Jenny Hoyt, her mom, Cassie Dewell, their interesting history, Denise, Sunny, Buck, and everything that happened with Emily and Carla. As a matter of fact, as soon as Beau called you in a panic over Emily’s being taken, you had told your boss down in Houston, Burke Ellis, that you were done waiting for him to stop dragging his feet and you were out on the first red-eye you could book a seat on. As a matter of fact, that was how you and Cassie first met, and how you first came across Hoyt.

Beau had rushed over to you the minute he had spied you hurrying into the station, asking for Sheriff Beau Arlen and flustering Madge who had no idea who you were but that the man you said you were here to see was having a personal crisis and wasn’t up for seeing any visitors. You darted past her desk, which had further exasperated her, and you practically jumped into Beau’s open arms. You both hugged each other tightly and he nearly lifted you off the ground.

“Thank you,” he rasped out into your ear. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course.” You ran your fingers soothingly through the hair at the back of his neck. “Where do you need me?”

He had pulled back and it was then that you could see the toll this was taking on him; the fear, worry, and exhaustion were clearly pronounced on his handsome face. “Honestly?” He croaked out. He then grabbed your hand and quickly led you to an office in the back, both of you moving past many shocked onlookers, a 5’6” blonde woman among them who you would later come to know as the biggest pain in your ass in your career thus far.

You saw the gold lettering on the door stating this was Beau’s office and he slipped you inside before shutting the door and closing the blinds. He pulled you back into his arms, burying his face into your neck. He surprised you a moment later by picking you up and placing you on the corner of his desk, never once moving away from you. You could feel the wetness against your skin and you saw his shoulders shake as he let out a pitiful sob.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice breaking as he spoke. “I just… My baby girl has been taken by this murderous son of a bitch and I—” He couldn’t even get the rest out and you shushed him, holding him together as best you could while he fell apart, scared out of his mind at what could happen to his daughter. Emily was like a niece to you; you couldn’t even imagine how terrified she must be, let alone how her father must feel. You knew one thing, though: you and Beau would find her and bring her home. In order to do that, however, you needed to keep Beau from breaking completely and re-calibrate his focus.

You had started to press kisses to the side of his head, promising that you both would do everything to get Emily back safe and sound. “I’m here now,” you murmured into his ear. “We made one hell of a team once, this will be no different. We’ll get her back, Beau.” He sniffled and moved back to look at you, nodding. You gave him a tender smile and wiped underneath his eyes before running your hand through his wayward hair (it had grown slightly since the last time you saw him) and stroking his bearded cheek affectionately. “I’ve got you. Always.”

He stared into your eyes for so long as you comforted him that you didn’t notice that he was moving closer until his nose nearly bumped into yours. You didn’t realize that your breathing had picked up or that your heartbeat had accelerated until your lips parted to let out a small puff of air. His green gaze dropped down to your mouth at the action and then you noticed him wet his lips with his tongue. Your own tongue automatically mirrored his and you swore you felt your heart stop when you saw him take it as a green light and start to lean in, closing his eyes. Alarm bells went off in your mind: this was your best friend who was vulnerable due to the situation at hand, seeking comfort from someone familiar to him that he knew he could fully trust; there was an active investigation going on into his daughter’s abduction and you knew you were on a timeclock; every second counted and there was no time to waste. Yet you were frozen, unable to react and unwilling to stop him from taking the solace he needed in you.

You’d be lying if you said you never imagined your friendship with Beau possibly crossing the line into something more at one point. While he was married, you had never entertained it, but afterwards, there had been that one night… Nothing had ended up happening between you, of course, but it had definitely been a close call. You had attributed it to too much liquor and the need for consolation during a rough time in his life, being more than relieved when he didn’t appear to remember the next morning. So your friendship continued unmarred by any tension or awkwardness. Now…how could you not give him what he clearly needed from you at one of the worst times in his life?

You had just shut your eyes, making your decision and waiting for impact, when a knock sounded on his door and then it opened, a surprised gasp emitting from the doorway. You both turned to look, seeing a stunned woman standing there who you hadn’t passed by before. Beau let out a stuttered breath but pulled away from you all the same. It left a funny feeling inside your chest, but you told yourself he had made the right decision which prompted sweet relief to flood through your own veins. Nothing should occur between you and Beau right now, not when everything with Emily was going on and emotions were running high. And what if you had let him take comfort in you and it ultimately ruined your friendship? Not to mention he was now your boss. How complicated would that be? Your best friend meant more to you than one moment of throwing the rule book completely out the window.

The woman worriedly glanced behind her and seemed to relax when she didn’t see who or what she was looking for. She then gave Beau a small smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Beau cleared his throat and leaned against the desk, next to you, facing the door. You discreetly ran a hand across his back in reassurance. “It’s fine. What is it, Cass?”

Your eyes widened when you heard the nickname and quickly made the connection. This was Cassie Dewell, the local private investigator Beau had told you about. He had mentioned that they had become close friends since he took the job.

“I just came to tell you that I think I might be able to help with Sunny.”

Beau immediately got to his feet. “You think she’ll tell us where Buck’s taken Emily?”

Cassie shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. She’s been married to the man for years. She may not have known he was a serial killer but she knows everything else there is to know about him. She has to have an idea of some spots he might have gone to that we haven’t come up with yet. And we do have the update about Walter as leverage.”

Running a tired hand down his face, Beau sighed. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s give it a shot.” He glanced your way and you gave him a nod. Then he started, as if he just remembered something. “Sorry. Cassie, I’d like you to meet Y/N Y/L/N. Y/N, this is Cassie Dewell.”

Your head snapped in her direction. “Oh right, you’re the PI from the local agency in town that Em’s been working at.”

Cassie gave you a wave and you studied her, expecting judgment of some kind, yet there was no malice or hostility staring back at you. You had expected such a reaction from her walking in on you and Beau, yet all you could see was curiosity... As well as worry and guilt shadowing her eyes for a moment at the mention of Emily. “Yeah, that would be me. Hey.”

“Y/N’s from Houston.” Beau gestured towards you. “We worked quite a few cases together back in the day.”

Her eyes seemed to light up with recognition which surprised you. “Y/N Y/L/N…I was wondering why that name sounded familiar. You’re one of his former partners, right?”

You quickly exchanged a glance with Beau. “Sort of,” you confirmed.

“She’s transferring here but I asked her to come to help with…Emily…” Beau looked pained as he said the name.

You immediately laid a hand on his shoulder. “Whatever you need.”

He gave you a thin-lipped smile and you squeezed him in reassurance.

“Nice to meet you.” Cassie’s voice pulled you both from the moment.

Your gaze snapped to Cassie’s. “Likewise. So, this Sunny…she’s the owner of the campground, right? Close to where the body of the first victim was found some years ago? And she’s the wife of the suspect?” Beau had told you a little about the case before Avery’s death and Emily’s abduction.

Cassie nodded. “Yeah. I’m hoping she’ll feel up to talking. Beau, I wouldn't ask but…would you mind giving me a hand? It might help shake something loose if we both take a run at her. She’s more familiar with us, and Walter will give us more of a card to play.”

Beau thought it over for a moment. “Agreed. We’ve got to try anything and everything so let’s do it.” Cassie turned to leave when he called out to her, “I’ll be there in a second.”

She nodded and quietly closed the door behind her.

Beau let out a heavy breath and turned to you. “Y/N, I—”

You shot up, standing before him. “No need,” you spoke softly. You took his hand in yours and squeezed reassuringly when you saw his eyes tighten. “Let’s focus on saving your daughter.” You gave him a small smile and he nodded, pulling you into him to place his forehead up against yours.

“Thank you,” he murmured, closing his eyes. When you felt him relax slightly against you after taking a deep breath, out of instinct, you did something you had never done before, not when you were this close together and it was just the two of you. You pressed a tender kiss to his cheek, right above his beard line, forcing his eyes to snap open, staring right into yours, and he focused intently on you.

“Let’s go find her and bring her home,” you whispered, stepping back only when he nodded, and turned towards the door.

“Do you want me to watch the interrogation or do you need me elsewhere?” You asked.

He came to a halt, thinking about it for a moment. “Interrogation.”

You nodded and opened the door, stepping through to see several pairs of eyes land on you. It might have been intimidating to someone else, but to you, it was just par for the course. Beau had warned you about the small town atmosphere compared to the big city one you were accustomed to, so you weren’t surprised in the least when people started talking in hushed tones to one another as you both walked past without a word to anyone. It appeared you and Beau were on the same page: Emily was priority and introductions to your new coworkers would have to wait.

He led you to a closed door where Cassie stood, waiting. You glanced around to look for the room you would be led to in order to watch the interrogation but didn’t see it.

“And who’s this?”

You turned to see the blonde woman from earlier, a forced smile on her face and her blue eyes assessing you.

Beau seemed caught off guard for a moment, his focus on getting to Cassie and then taking on Sunny, but he quickly introduced you. “Y/N Y/L/N, Jenny Hoyt.” You gave her a nod and she returned it. “Cassie and I are going to take a run at Sunny, see if maybe she has an idea of a location where Buck may have taken Emily and Denise.”

The blonde’s gaze softened as it landed on Beau. “Of course. If you want, Cassie and I can do it.” You noticed Cassie’s eyes tighten but she stayed quiet as the woman then leaned into Beau a bit, saying softly, “You’ve been through a lot in the last few hours.” You watched as she squeezed Beau’s arm in support. Ah, so this was the infamous Jenny Hoyt you had heard about. The same Hoyt that had given Beau a run for his money when he first took this job and then continued to be a wildcard in the field. The same one who Beau felt the ridiculous need to babysit. Your eyes narrowed slightly as you watched her gazing up at your friend as if he had hung the moon in the night sky but you schooled your features into polite professional interest by the time Beau glanced over at you.

“I’m good. Actually, Y/N, I’d like you to join us.” Both Cassie and Hoyt turned gaping expressions on you. While this was certainly a twist, you knew Beau wouldn’t be asking if he didn’t have his reasons. Sure enough, he elaborated, “I think a new face might provide the perfect shakeup that we need.” He gave you a meaningful look and like always, you knew exactly what he was thinking.

You gave the group a curt nod. “Sure. Can I see the file real fast so I know what I’m working with?” You held out a hand to Hoyt, assuming that she had Sunny’s file in her hand in expectation of the interrogation, waiting for her to pass it to you.

The blonde glared at you, a hint of suspicion in her eyes, before glancing back at the man. “Beau, maybe we should slow down and think about this for a second. We might only get one shot at this so maybe—”

“Hoyt, my daughter has been kidnapped by a serial killer. She fits his MO to a tee and we need to find her before…” He pressed his lips together tightly before blowing out a breath. “Look, Denise has been taken too, my ex-wife is a mess of tears, Avery is dead, and I’m barely holding it together. Just let me do what I have to do to save my little girl. So give Y/N the damn file.” He spoke the last part through gritted teeth, signifying the end of his patience, and that appeared to shock Hoyt and Cassie. You assumed that this was a new side of Beau that they hadn’t seen before but his daughter’s life was on the line. What did they expect? If he hadn’t said anything, you would have snatched the damn folder out of Hoyt’s hands yourself. Precious time was being wasted with the useless pissing match she seemed intent on engaging in.

Cassie recovered first. “Jenny.” She gave the blonde an encouraging nod.

Hoyt’s features tightened and her eyes were pure ice as she finally placed the folder into your waiting hand.

“Thanks.” You immediately started scanning the contents. After a minute or so, you felt you had a general understanding of Sunny and her history from the file in addition to things Beau had mentioned to you already. You had more than enough to be able to pull off what he needed you to do. You shut the folder and gave Beau and Cassie a nod. “Let’s do it.”

Cassie opened the door and led the way inside, followed by Beau and then you. Hoyt stared you down as you passed her but you couldn’t be bothered to care. Right now, your priority was the young girl whom you had watched grow up, who you had sat through a blistering hot, cheesy middle school graduation for — all to watch her walk across the stage in a cap and gown. Her life was on the line and you’d make sure she returned to Beau safely no matter what.

You weren’t in there long. You did exactly as Beau had intended for you to do. You teed him and Cassie up very nicely to get what they needed to. Not much time had passed before Sunny admitted she most likely knew where Buck went, especially when Cassie swooped in with the information that her son, Walter, was still alive despite Buck’s attempt to kill him.

Once you left the room, Cassie was intent on finding Sunny’s other son, Cormac, since Beau and Hoyt were going to drive Sunny to the location she had revealed. You were about to offer to do whatever was needed from you when you heard a loud cry erupt to your left. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw a woman with dark hair rushing towards you. You barely turned in time for impact when Carla threw herself at you.

You held her as she cried, thanked you for coming, asked you to help find her daughter, mentioned her recently murdered husband, and just overall sobbed. This woman had been through one hell of an ordeal in the last few days. You couldn’t even imagine how torn apart you’d be if this were you, not to mention Carla was one of the most level-headed and toughest women you had ever met in your life. She was definitely tougher than you, and that was saying something considering you had seen some shit in your time. Now, seeing her reduced to tears like this, begging you to help save her little girl, to do whatever you had to in order to bring her baby back home to her…it turned your stomach and only added to the urgency of finding Emily and getting to her before that sick son of a bitch could hurt her. You hoped to hell he hadn’t already. Your stomach turned further at the thought and you could feel an all-too familiar fire that you kept a tight lid on when working cases that involved children…

You forced yourself to let go of the thought. This was about Emily and her parents, not about you. Ignoring your experience that nagged at you and insisted that, due to the circumstances and the time already passed, there was a likelihood of a bad ending here, you swallowed past the lump forming in your throat and refocused your energy into trying to calm Carla down so you could help find her daughter.

It took Beau peeling her off of you and promising that you both were going to look for Emily right then to calm her slightly. She held onto Beau and you grabbed her hand, ignoring your training yelling at you in your head, and swore you would do everything you could to help bring her daughter back to her.

“Y/N, Beau, please, you have to save her,” she begged. “Save our daughter!” She threw at Beau before Madge was able to lead her away. Watching her go, your jaw tensed as that fire from earlier threatened to return. You had the desire to find Buck and take the sick bastard down yourself.

Beau turned to you, his green eyes even more haunted than when you had first seen him, and that dulled the fire inside. No matter the anger you felt, it was nothing compared to what he must be feeling. You could only imagine the rage and hopelessness mixed with desperation that was swirling inside of him right now, and you knew exactly what he was thinking because you were thinking it, too. What if you couldn’t keep your promise to Carla? You shook your head to get rid of the thoughts. You wouldn’t think like that; those types of thoughts were useless. You needed to be at your best for him, for Carla, and more importantly, for Emily. Instead, you focused on the positives: you all had a lead right now, two in fact, and that was all that mattered.

You instinctively reached out and cupped his face with your hands, anchoring him as best you could. “Beau, listen to me,” you murmured. “You and Hoyt take Sunny to the spot she told you about. I’ll go with Cassie to find Cormac. Alright?”

He nodded, staring at you, and the movement forced a single tear to shake loose. You wiped it away discreetly before it could be seen and hugged him to you. “Go. Keep your phone on and if you need me, you call me. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to find her,” you whispered into his ear.

You heard a sniffle in your ear. “Right, we’ll find her.”

“And we’ll take down this sick son of a bitch,” you promised, pulling back to look him meaningfully in the eye. Come hell or high water, you had his back.

Nodding again, he gave you a smile that was more of a grimace and placed a hand against your cheek. “Yeah, we will.” You reached up to give his wrist a squeeze.

“Beau.”

Both of you turned to see Hoyt and Cassie watching you curiously along with Madge and a deputy who you would come to find out to be Poppernak.

“We should go,” Hoyt insisted.

Beau glanced back over at you, quietly clearing his throat and removing his hand. “Yeah.” His gaze snapped over to the other man, as if he had suddenly just had a thought. “Poppernak, get Y/N here a vest before she leaves. Get one for Cassie, too.”

“You got it, boss.”

Poppernak walked away and Beau swung his head back to you. “You call me the second you get anything from Cormac.” At your nod, he laid a hand on your shoulder and lowered his head slightly to look you right in the eye. “Be careful.”

You couldn’t help but smile and say to him the thing you’d said to him every time he told you this in the past: “Always am.” His features softened the slightest bit at the familiar exchange between you. “Now, let’s go find your daughter and bring her home.”

“Yeah,” he breathed out and gave a sharp nod, what you had always called his game face filling his expression. Squeezing your shoulder, he released you and walked away. You watched him go and sure enough, the blonde’s glare entered your vision when she looked back over her shoulder while walking with him out the door. It was the same suspicious glare you’d been getting from her in the last hour, the same one you couldn’t help but notice when Carla had first launched herself at you. You knew then that whatever her reasons, she was going to be a problem for you.

“Ready to go?” Cassie asked kindly.

You gave her a small smile. “Yeah. Let’s go get Em back.”

“And Denise,” she added.

“Right. Her, too.”

The both of you grabbed the vests Poppernak held out to you on your way out.

Cormac had actually proven useful and he had thankfully led you to the correct location Emily was being held in. Beau had been practically inconsolable when he called you before that, thinking Emily had been killed in an explosion. Even though you had seen him at the worst times in his life, and had just seen him breaking down in front of you back at the station, you had never heard the pain that saturated his voice right then. You struggled not to break down in tears yourself. Laughter, football games in the Arlen yard, ice cream runs after particularly tough days at school, you teaching her how to make paella and her mom’s smile when Em proudly insisted she made it all on her own later at dinner that night, rides on the ferris wheel at the fair because her dad was too scared to take her but wouldn’t admit it — the memories of time spent with your favorite teenager assaulted you in rapid succession. You forced yourself to focus on Beau, to keep him from falling to pieces right then and there. You knew that’s why he had immediately called you, before he had to tell Carla.

You were beyond grateful when a minute or two later someone interrupted your conversation to inform Beau that there was no evidence that Emily was in the explosion. The body they’d found appeared to be male. No Denise and no Emily. You had nearly fallen to your knees in relief right then, and you could only imagine how Beau must have felt.

And soon enough, you, Cassie, and Cormac located both girls, very much alive, and freed them. Emily had held onto you, her young face streaked with dirt and tears, clearly traumatized from all that had taken place over the last week. It broke your heart to hear her terrified whimpers. When she first saw you, she had cried out your name and once you had her in your arms, she refused to let go of you, which was just fine by you. You were grateful she was alive and appeared to be unharmed, but you secretly wished you could have two minutes alone with Buck, that sick bastard who had done this to her. Hell, you wouldn’t have needed your gun at all.

Beau and Hoyt showed up just as you were all stepping out into the sun and a huge lump formed in your throat when Emily finally let go of you to run to her dad. Seeing them embracing each other forced tears to run down your cheeks which you quickly wiped away.

You were grateful to Cassie for that day. Her hunch about Cormac and her personal connection to him had helped get Emily back home safely. Not only had the two of you worked well together in that short span of time, but ever since then, you could see that she was good to Beau, and to Emily. Both Arlens had massive respect for her and you could see why Beau had spoken so highly of her before you came to Helena, and why he insisted on having her back professionally despite her being a private investigator. It was common knowledge that law enforcement didn’t always like having PI’s poking around cases, but Cassie had been given full access and assistance. You now saw why and you were thankful that Beau had such a good friend up here, someone who truly had his interests at heart as well as his daughter’s. And now you were also lucky enough to be able to call her your friend. There were many movie nights at Beau’s that were filled with light-hearted teasing and plenty of laughter since you’d settled into life in Montana.

As for Hoyt…well, things hadn’t really changed on that front. She certainly wasn’t a fan of yours, no two ways about it.

You had gotten to know Poppernak a bit after you arrived but he was still in suck-up mode, so you decided to turn that to your advantage. It really didn’t take much to get it out of him; Hoyt had a thing for Beau, nothing you already hadn’t caught onto. Hell, she was practically all over him at his movie nights as well as anytime there was a meetup arranged at the local bar; if she wasn’t present for one reason or another, she was calling him constantly, either saying she needed a friend to talk to or it was under the guise of discussing ongoing cases. Beau never got a day off and there wasn’t one day he spent with Emily that didn’t get interrupted by a phone call from Hoyt. There had even been times he’d had to call you and ask you to take Em to a movie or keep her entertained because Carla was out and he had to go help the blonde on what should have been a case that a rookie fresh out of the academy could have handled. The kicker was that this was after what Em had been through, Hoyt knowing full well that Beau needed some time with his daughter after that ordeal. Not even you interrupted them, though both father and daughter had invited you to join them quite a few times.

At one point, you remembered the other thing Poppernak informed you about: rumors were circulating around the department that Beau and Hoyt were involved and had been secretly seeing one another. You knew Beau would have told you if he was seeing anyone, but it was no secret that Hoyt had appointed you as her archnemesis and you didn’t care for her at all. What if the rumors were right and Beau was too embarrassed to tell you? Or what if he thought it might make a bad situation worse? What if he wanted to find what he considered to be the right time to tell you? And if he was indeed seeing her, it would explain the incessant calls, the moon eyes, the distaste she had for you — all of it. The doubt continued to gnaw away at you and you didn’t sleep so well the first few nights after the talk with Poppernak.

Finally, one day you asked Beau point-blank if anything was going on between him and Hoyt. Once he closed his gaping mouth and put his eyes back into his head, he assured you they were just friends and he was her boss. She had been through some ordeals herself and he was just trying to be there for her, to give her support when she needed it. Nothing more. You knew it was complete and utter bullshit or Beau wouldn’t have been so suddenly interested in the case file on his desk. A case file you knew had been sitting there for the past two days.

There was no way that Beau was ignorant of Hoyt's attraction to him. The woman practically had a flashing neon sign on her forehead every time she looked at him, not to mention she had pulled out all the stops to let him know she was very much interested. Beau was an affectionate person by nature so little touches here and there between you were par for the course with him if you were his best friend, as long as they were welcomed and didn’t cross any lines or make you feel uncomfortable. There wasn’t a single opportunity Hoyt didn’t take to get her hands on Beau or to get those little touches out of him. Of course he knew; he had to. All of this was so blatant, everyone else around them knew, too, hence the rumors swirling around the department. Even Carla knew, as she’d mentioned to you one afternoon, and if you thought you didn’t care for Hoyt, then the former Mrs. Arlen downright despised the woman. People who Beau and Hoyt didn’t know knew, as evidenced by a witness at a crime scene asking to speak to the sheriff’s girlfriend again. Yet, if he was willfully ignoring her consistently throwing herself at him, then there was nothing more you could say. To his credit, you had never seen him return any flirtation or interest, no matter how hard Hoyt was putting herself out there, before or after your conversation with him.

There were a couple of times you discreetly noticed the hurt in Hoyt’s face when Beau chose to accompany you on a case, if he and Cassie were laughing together, or if he was extra tender with Carla when she would drop by the station to talk about Emily. It quickly became clear that this was more than a crush or some simple attraction; the blonde had serious feelings for your best friend. Knowing Beau the way you did and everything he’d been through the past few years, it shouldn’t surprise you if he was purposely putting blinders on when it came to this topic. Beau had dated some since his divorce, but he wasn’t ready to get serious with anyone. At least that’s what he’d told you time and time again, back in Houston and now here. It had taken him some time to get over his ex-wife and now Emily and his job were his top priorities. While deep down you might have a very tiny trace amount of sympathy for the blonde, Beau was the one who mattered to you in this equation. If Hoyt wanted to keep chasing after her emotionally unavailable boss, then that decision was on her. It wasn’t like Cassie hadn’t warned her, something the PI had mentioned to you one night after a few drinks while you both sat at a table, watching Hoyt pulling Beau onto the dance floor despite his clear reluctance. So if your best friend lived more comfortably in the land of Hoyt-is-just-being-extra-friendly-because-she-appreciates-my-friendship, then who were you to burst that bubble?

It did bother you tremendously though to see Beau not putting up any kind of boundaries whatsoever with Hoyt even though they were sorely needed. So, in your own subtle way, from time to time, you tried to suggest he put one up… Maybe two. He would humor you and hear you out, but then he’d either pick up the phone the next time she called him on a day off or he’d refuse, saying she was in a fragile state right now and he couldn’t afford to put distance there when she needed his support. After a few instances of this craziness and Hoyt’s attitude with you grew, you stopped being subtle which resulted in arguments that turned into yelling matches, tense silences on the rare ride-along, slammed doors (usually at your place since a slammed door at Beau’s would most likely have knocked that thing over; Pedro’s door was a good replacement though—that thing may be old but it was strong like a tank), refusals to look at one another, crossed arms, and sometimes radio silence for a few days if the disagreement had reached a bad enough point. You were always professional when on the clock and you always resolved things eventually, but this was one sticking point neither of you budged from. You knew Beau was a good man and had a heart of gold, something you loved and respected about him, but he could sure be infuriatingly stubborn at times.

And while you could admit Hoyt was a decent, hardworking cop, she was also a decent-sized, hardworking pain in your ass. You knew she’d be a problem for you and boy had she been. Her whole thing with the sheriff aside, it was no surprise that the source of her hostility towards you was the man himself, namely your friendship with him. You both were close and even though nothing had ever happened between you, it became clear that the blonde detested any familiarity or affection shown by either of you to each other. You thought it was ridiculous and you refused to change your relationship or how you did things just because she was eager for your friend to look at her the way she had been looking at him. In fact, whenever you were around, she turned her obvious coyness and see-through flirting attempts up a notch. Presently, as of a few weeks ago, Hoyt had taken to physically marking her territory, or what she considered to be hers, like her sitting on Beau’s desk—right next to him. She’d slide in beside him in your usual booth at The Boot Heel or she’d take the chair next to him during movie nights which would force you and Cassie to sprawl on the deck with a blanket, struggling to get comfortable on the hard wooden planks underneath. You fully expected one of these days to walk in on her jumping Beau right there in his office chair, something you hoped to hell you never did because you would never get that sickening image out of your head.

Sure, you had talked with Beau plenty of times about her open hostility. He had begged you to try to make peace which always made you laugh because you were not the intentional catalyst of all of the contention in this situation.

“I have to make peace. Right,” you muttered, taking a sip of your beer that Beau had offered to you when you arrived at his place a couple of months back.

Beau threw his head back against his chair in disbelief. “I’m just asking you to maybe extend an olive branch. This thing between you two is killing me... And everyone else in the department.”

“Maybe you should tell your undersheriff to, I don’t know, act like an undersheriff?” You ignored Beau’s loud groan and continued. “Isn’t that what she’s supposed to do? Run the department while you’re out? My God, Beau, she can’t even go to the bathroom without your permission. You know that, right?”

“Y/N…”

“You and Em were supposed to go fishing last weekend with Cassie and Kai. I was going to take Carla out for the day to catch up and keep her mind off things while Em was gone. Remember that?”

You ignored Beau rolling his eyes. “Yes,” he begrudgingly admitted.

“And what happened?”

“Y/N, a case dropped. Alright? It happens. When a dead body pops up, I need to know about it.”

“Know about it, yes, not work it.” He turned to meet your unflinching gaze. “No more bullshit, Beau. You didn’t make it to Sheriff by being stupid. You’ve worked in a bigger department before, dealt with way more crime, and overseen a bigger force. All on your own. If this were anyone else, you’d have told them to do their goddamn job by now, or you’d get someone else to fill the spot. You’re making excuses for her and you’re holding her hand like she’s a damn 5 year old.”

Beau dug his teeth into his bottom lip, staring at you in thought. “I told you, she’s been through a lot these past two years.”

“And you haven’t? Cassie hasn’t? Your daughter and her mom? Really?”

He let out a deep breath and sipped from his bottle. “We all have. That’s why when one of us needs a hand, we give it without question. When one of us falls, no matter how often or how long it takes, we help them get back up, every single time.”

You swallowed the argument on the tip of your tongue and sat back in your chair, staring down at your bottle and playing with the edge of the label. “Okay, Dr. Phil.”

A laugh erupted from the man and out of the corner of your eye, you saw him shaking his head. “I’m just saying we all help each other as best we can. If that means she needs help on a few cases, I’ve got her back.”

“I think you and Hoyt have very different ideas of what the word few means.”

“Y/N, if it was you, if it was Cass, I’d do the same thing. You know that. Look, she was there for me when Em was taken.” You did your best to hide your flinch but it must not have been well enough because his hand suddenly covered both of yours. “You all were,” he clarified. “I’m just trying to return the favor.”

“Sounds like you two are a lot closer than either of you let on,” you mentioned quietly.

When he didn’t respond to that, you snuck a glance up at him. His eyes were glued to you but after a minute, he retracted his hand and dropped his gaze to the deck. “We’re friends.”

You felt a weird sensation in your chest, like something fell into the pit of your stomach with those two words. Beau was a very direct person. He looked you in the eye, he shook your hand, and he didn’t bullshit. That meant if he wasn’t looking at you, if he was feeding you this same line of bullshit, you knew that wasn’t the entire truth. You weren’t sure if it hurt because your best friend was lying to you yet again, possibly still not trusting you with the truth, or if it was due to what he’d said. Either way, you refused to look at it too closely, not wanting this feeling to consume you as it seemed intent on doing. It was easier to put distance there in your mind, to tell yourself that Beau Arlen was a grown man and he could make his own decisions. You just wished he’d get involved with someone better suited for him, like Cassie. Granted, Cassie was with Cormac and they seemed happy, but why couldn’t Beau find his own version of Cassie? Someone who wouldn’t interrupt his time with his daughter, who wouldn’t selfishly absorb all of his time off, who didn’t physically embody the definition of clingy, and who wouldn’t treat his best friend like shit day in and day out?

Honestly, you could care less about what Hoyt thought of you or how she acted towards you. For you, this was all a one-sided issue that Hoyt herself was making. You saw through her bullshit and you didn’t take her crap, and that infuriated the blonde. But what did she expect? After working a short stint in homicide in Manhattan and then with cartels, drug rings, and all sorts of other mess in Houston, very little had the power to intimidate you these days. Certainly not some little Miss Perfect whose work uniform appeared to consist of band t-shirts, leather jackets, and thick long heels as an undersheriff (how did that make for a successful running down of a suspect? seriously), who also batted her eyelashes at her boss and scowled at you from the moment Beau addressed your existence. You’d seen some things in your time and Helena’s runner-up for this Regina George wannabe was a mere speck on the windshield of shit on top of shit. You had no time for it. You just wished sometimes that Beau would stop trying to put it on your shoulders to do something about it, especially when he knew who the real culprit was.

And almost as if he had just heard your thoughts, he hit you with: “I’m asking you if you can be the one to reach out, Y/N, because I know I can rely on you. If I ask her… With Jenny, it’s complicated.”

“Not my problem,” you snapped out, taking another sip and refusing to look at him.

A very tense silence followed for the next few minutes as you both nursed your beers. You half-wondered if this night was going to end in yet another argument about a woman that wasn’t worth wasting a second over. This much disagreement was uncommon for both of you and you hated it. Oh, sure, you’d had your spats over the years but they were pretty minor and easily dissolved. And the silences… Usually, if a silence fell over the both of you, it was comfortable and felt overall peaceful. Not lately, which always seemed to follow a mention of Hoyt in some fashion.

You felt the all-too familiar burning in the corner of your eyes when you had the thought that had been getting louder and louder as more time passed: perhaps your transfer here had been a mistake. You didn’t regret being here to help when Emily was taken, but maybe once she was safely back home, you should have returned to yours. While Beau had made room for you in the department, there wasn’t really a place for you here; as much as you enjoyed spending time with your favorite family and new friends like Cassie, the person you had dropped everything and moved across state lines for was on the other side of a huge chasm that hadn’t been there before his move up north. It was growing every single day and you had no idea how to stop its progress or bridge the gap. You did your job well and deep down, you knew you would be more efficient elsewhere. You settled into the Montanan lifestyle as best you could but you had to admit to yourself that you knew it wasn’t a perfect fit. The more time passed, the more and more you believed your decision to be a mistake. The man you cared most about in this world had called you, told you he needed you, and you jumped without hesitation, not sparing a single thought or even looking to see where you’d land. Were you really that surprised that things were turning out this way? And every single time Hoyt threw hostility your way, it reinforced what you already knew to be true, the very message she had been sending you these past six months: you didn’t belong here. You turned your head to the side to discreetly wipe away a tear that had managed to escape and you took a breath to prevent any more, telling yourself to get it together.

You waited for your eyes to clear, to push back down the swell of emotions inside you, and took one last sip of your beer. Just as you were about to announce it was time for you to head home and thank him for the drinks, Beau spoke up. “See that?”

You glanced up to where he was pointing and caught the tail end of a shooting star. A small smile formed on your face as you took in the night sky. You had never seen anything like that before. That was one thing you’d give Montana. It was hard to believe but the sky was so different compared to Texas and definitely not the same as New York. Everything up here was so clear and beautiful. Big Sky Country indeed.

One night you, Beau, and Cassie had taken to trying to pick out as many constellations as you could find on Cassie’s smartphone. You were not completely successful but there were a lot of laughs as you all tried your best and then there had even been a very interesting conversation about UFOs and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. That had been a night for the books, especially when you and Cassie broke out into fits of drunken giggles when you grabbed Beau’s nose and made a weird mix of a boop and honking sound when you all discussed how you would greet aliens should they ever show up but were not hostile towards humanity. Beau had merely rolled his eyes in good humor and promptly cut you and Cassie off for the rest of the night, taking car keys from the both of you.

“A shooting star,” you whispered in amazement. “I think you’re supposed to make a wish on them, right? Did you make one?” You kept searching the sky, hoping to see another one so you could do just that. The other one was too fast and you desperately wanted to wish that things would get better and you could make your new home work like you had in Houston. The thought immediately saddened you when you remembered how a certain Texan and his family had helped in that department. You swallowed the lump back down and kept watching the sky, hoping like hell the universe would help you out just this once. Just one more. You weren’t wanting a meteor shower to suddenly happen of course, though that would be amazing to witness. You made a mental note to yourself to google it later to see when and where you could see one.

“Already did.”

Your brows furrowed at his response and you turned to find him watching you closely, almost as if he was waiting for you to realize what that wish had been. When you did, you scoffed and got to your feet, second shooting star and your wish be damned. “I’m not doing the olive branch thing so you can forget it. Not even some small rock from outer space is going to force me to do that one.” You stretched, feeling slightly more energetic than you had a moment ago, most likely due to the irritation you were currently experiencing. “Well, this has been fun but I should head home. Thanks for the beer.”

A hand pulled the nearly empty bottle out of yours and another dug into your jeans pocket, pulling your keys out before you could react. “Beau, what the— I’m fine.”

“Uh huh. Listen, you know the deal. You need to sober up before you leave.”

“I’m not drunk! I’m not even tipsy!”

Beau shot you a look. “It’s late. There’s a possible ice warning for later tonight. You’re staying.”

“I have work tomorrow!”

“Good thing you have such an understanding boss then, huh?” He gave you a wink which made you roll your eyes and fold your arms across your chest.

“If you’re so worried about my blood alcohol level, maybe don’t serve alcohol when I come over?”

“What, and miss great moments like…” He reached up and grabbed your nose, making the same boop-honking sound you had made weeks ago.

You pushed his hands away. “First of all, that is not what I sounded like. Secondly, I’m no lightweight. You know that. How many times have I drunk you under the table?”

He lifted a finger and opened his mouth to argue but then thought it over. “Good point.” You gave an approving nod. “But that was one time, in San Antonio.” He was referring to the day trip you had taken so you could visit the Alamo. You had never been and when you mentioned it, he insisted on being your guide. Carla and Emily were supposed to go as well but the latter had gotten sick so her mom stayed home with her. Beau didn’t want to leave Emily and you were willing to reschedule but Carla insisted you both still go. When you visited a bar later on, Beau issued a little friendly drinking competition between the two of you, as long as one of you was still sober enough to drive home. He had been convinced he would emerge victorious; he was wrong. That had been a long ride on the I-10. By the end of the night, Carla had her hands full with two sick people, each having their own trash baskets by their bedsides. It took some time but she eventually forgave you.

You held up two fingers. “Twice actually. You didn’t really think I’d let you forget Austin’s birthday party at that place in downtown Houston, did you?”

The man winced. “Alright, alright. Twice.” You nodded in approval. “Now, all the talk about drinking aside, you did just remind me how my time with people I care about has been interrupted quite a bit lately. Even if you’re set to drive, just stay. We can watch a movie and you can have the bed.”

A part of you wanted to accept but the other part wanted to retreat to your sanctuary, where you could break down in tears or mope around in peace. “I don’t really want to spend another night in the tin can,” you whined. “My bed is so much more comfortable and I feel it calling to me right now…” You glanced longingly in the direction of the road.

Beau’s jaw dropped. “Tin can? Between you and Em, I swear… Why can’t my girl get any respect around here?”

“Because you refer to it as a girl. You know how I feel about that.” Another eye-roll. “Beau Arlen, you keep rolling those eyes of yours at me, they’re going to fall out of your head. You just wait.”

“Sure they will.” He laid an arm around your shoulders, pulling you in closer and giving you a smirk. You couldn’t help but lean into him, hoping to feel that closeness between you again even if it was only physically. “What if I whip out some marshmallows? Whaddya say?”

“Are you really trying to bribe me to spend the night? With a gooey, sugary, yet very deliciously fluffy confectionery treat, no less?”

“Is it working?”

You shrugged though deep down you knew it was. Marshmallows over a fire were your kryptonite and the son of a bitch knew it. “Tell me you have graham crackers and some chocolate that’s not expired, and you’ve got a deal.”

He beamed at you like a kid seeing wrapped presents under the tree on Christmas morning, making your heart feel a little lighter. How could you say no to that?

A few s’mores and quite a few more beers later, you were snuggled into his side, rapidly falling asleep. He had insisted you sit with him in his chair so you could both huddle under his one blanket for warmth on the cold night. Your drunken giggles may have made a reappearance as he worked to adjust the both of you for maximum blanket coverage but you would never admit to it if ever questioned in open court. You swore you’d buy him a few more blankets, especially when the thought popped into your head that there was a possibility that he and Hoyt had cuddled and done God knew what else under that thing. You’d even tried to wiggle it off of you since the thought took root in your stomach and soured (or maybe that was the beer), but Beau kept tucking it around you and pulling you closer until you finally gave up and settled against him with a sigh. The sound of his heartbeat and his deep voice as he spoke to you lulled you into slumber almost immediately. You thought you felt his lips brush against your forehead and you could have sworn he said something akin to “Definitely came true” but you had practically drunk your weight in beer and you were exhausted from the late hour as well as all of the roiling emotions inside of you so you couldn’t be sure it wasn’t something you dreamt instead. When you woke up with a massive headache the next day, alone in Beau’s bed with the blanket completely wrapped around you while the man snored from the couch, a dream was definitely what you chalked it up to.

And now here you were, yet again, at another impasse over the insufferable pain in your ass named Jenny Hoyt. The woman barely interacted with you, preferring to act like you didn’t exist or to silently glare at you from across the room, and she wasn’t even here, but somehow there she was, always in between the two of you. It really made you miss the old days, back before things went to shit for Beau in Houston. Back when things were a lot less complicated.

“Davis is booking Webb so I’ll go finish up the paperwork.” You turned to head towards the door.

“Y/N,” Beau sighed, giving you a pleading look.

“Thanks for the talk. I’ll catch you later.” You sent a forced smile his way and slowly spun out the door, closing it behind you. Passing by Poppernak on your way to your desk, you snatched a muffin right out of his hand.

“Hey! That’s the only blueberry from the bag. Madge got the other.”

“That sucks,” you teased before breaking off a piece of the top and tossing it into your mouth. “I thought you liked chocolate chip, anyway.”

“Nah, not anymore. It gives me bad heartburn,” he confirmed sadly.

You couldn’t help but arch a brow at him. “And blueberry doesn’t?”

He shrugged. “Not as much.”

With a roll of your eyes, you tossed the muffin back at him and he caught it with a bright smile. You slipped the paper out of your back pocket and punched a familiar number into your phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“Your mother, Pepper Snaps.” Poppernak frowned over at you. You couldn’t blame him; you were being a total crankpot. It wasn’t just your recent conversation with Beau or Hoyt’s attitude or even your most recent case. You hated that you had to sit at a desk in the middle of a busy station while Beau and Hoyt got to have their own offices. Normally, you wouldn’t care, but when it came to phone calls or conversations best kept away from prying eyes and overeager ears, it was frustrating. You weren’t a deputy — you had as much authority as Hoyt, and Beau had made that perfectly clear to the department when you started (though you had a different title due to politics and budgetary reasons). Due to lack of room, however, you were forced to share a space with them, your deskmate being Poppernak. Not that you minded but damn the rest of the department could be so nosy sometimes. When you noticed a couple of other deputies watching you, you asked loudly, “Can’t a girl get some privacy around here?” All of them looked away, not willing to enter into yet another glaredown with you. They never emerged victorious in those encounters, even Miller who could be a real jerk when he wanted to be. They had all learned very quickly in your first week that you could hold your own and you could go endless rounds with the best of them. You could stand the heat and before long, it would be your kitchen and they’d be burnt to a goddamn crisp or running for the door.

“Mind your muffin,” you grumbled to Pops.

When the line connected and the operator asked you who you were trying to contact, you cupped your hand over the mouthpiece and asked for the department you needed. While you were being transferred, Pops arched his eyebrows at you in question since he had overheard you because no damn privacy.

You let out a sigh in resignation and shook your head. “I’m following up on a case. It’s nothing.”

“Sure sounds like something,” Pops said through a mouthful of muffin.

Giving him a look, you sat back in your chair and listened patiently to the public information that substituted what normally would be hold music. You thought back to your ride over to the station and what Webb had said while in the back of your car. You may have pushed the right buttons to get him to open up and say enough to help you make the decision you just made, but you didn’t have any evidence that anything he’d mentioned was the truth. Still, you knew what you saw and you knew what your instincts were telling you. Like Beau said, you couldn’t get involved but that didn’t mean you couldn’t do something.

A few minutes later, after consistently turning Webb’s words over and over in your mind and listening to the same public safety message for the twelfth time, someone finally answered.

“Agent Sanchez? It’s Y/N Y/L/N. Not sure if you remember me from the Carter case last year. How’ve you been?” Carter had been an escaped convict that a manhunt had been on for last year, and it had been an all hands on deck situation. You and your partner had been stuck with Sanchez and this other dickish agent whose name wasn’t even worth remembering, but you and Sanchez had gotten along well enough to help get the job done. In the end, Carter had been apprehended and dumped back in prison thanks to the cooperation and joint efforts of all of the agencies involved.

You made a little small talk and then you got right to the point. “Listen, do you happen to have any contacts in the branch office in Montana? You do? Do you think you could put me in touch? I have a case up here that I think one of their departments might want to take a look at.”

Sanchez gave you the name and number of his contact, told you to keep him updated, and let him know if you needed anything else. He also mentioned you should call him to go for a drink next time you were in town. Remembering the wedding ring he had been sporting, you gave him a vague but polite noncommittal, thanked him, and promptly hung up. You glanced up to find Pops staring at you wide-eyed.

“What?”

He glanced around, seeming unsure, and then leaned in closer. “Does the boss know you’re doing this? Because if Hoyt finds out you’re pulling the Feds into this, she’s going to—”

You held up a hand after you dialed the next number and unfolded the paper from your pocket, looking at the information you needed. “Pops, let me stop you right there. I spoke to the sheriff already about this case. What Hoyt does or doesn’t do, doesn’t concern me, and the same goes for her where I’m concerned. Understood?”

Poppernak shook his head and leaned back. “Okay but it’s your head if she finds out. Just warning you.”

You gave him a wide grin right before the line connected once again. “She can try.”

A/N: Please let me know what you think. 👉👈

#beau arlen x reader #beau arlen x you #beau arlen x y/n #big sky fanfiction #beau x reader #beau x y/n #beau x you #beau arlen x female reader #beau x female reader #only ever holding onto you #beau arlen #only ever holding onto you chapter 1

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the-owl-tree · 7 months

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regarding various ideas thatve been discussed here, my vision is like

After the whole “seriously considered murdering him” bit in sunset, Firestar demoted Brambleclaw and made Brackenfur deputy. Cardboard cutout of a man

Initially Jay is brightheart’s apprentice, Holly is Leafpool’s, lion is brackenfur’s

In a battle that makes Jay and Holly change their minds (for Jayfeather I feel like I would want him to have some kind of arc about internalised ableism,, like he has to learn a nuanced lesson about how he doesn’t need to be productive by the standards of clan culture and it’s okay for him to acknowledge his limits and choose a different path, but also his clanmates should allow him to define his limits and not treat him like he’s made of glass. I digress) - in the battle where Holly and Jay change their minds, Brackenfur Freaking Dies and only now is bramble deputy. I think I’d want firestar to die earlier too so we can get shitty bramblestar + the most depressed squilf you’ve ever seen

Now we’ve got Jay as Leafpool’s apprentice, Holly as ashfur’s, and lion as brightheart’s because man I always felt bad she never got an apprentice again

and with this setup I would want basically everything to be significantly more fucked up. Ashfur exacerbates Hollyleaf’s fixation on the code and power (foreshadowing tbc??), I’d want Lionblaze to like, accidentally hurt somebody really badly in training and have to grapple with feeling like a monster more. Maybe instead of Cinderheart falling out of a tree, Lionblaze accidentally injures her

Speaking of cinderheart I want her to do some of the stuff poppyfrost does I love poppyfrost but having cinderheart narrowly escape death and feel strangely drawn towards the moonpool would be a lot more fun - I think I’d frame her being cinderpelt as something that was either accidental, or intentional but StarClan was in the wrong for not letting cinderpelt rest because I really resent the idea that cinderpelt needed a second chance at life as if the life she lived after becoming disabled wasn’t a good and worthwhile one

So yeah cinderheart is possessed by a restless ghost, lionblaze can’t stop hurting people no matter how hard he tries, hollyleaf is just regular hollyleaf but more, jayfeather… I dunno maybe make StarClan genuinely scared of him because of how much his power allows him to defy them. Maybe he feels detached from himself and is almost constantly dissociating because he spends so much time walking in dreams and other peoples minds. I don’t know I don’t like jayfeather

ALL THIS. And then have your thing about dove and ivy being cinderholly kits also be true do you see my vision do you understand . I am so sorry about the length of this I got carried away

I AM EATING ALL OF THIS UP BIG YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i always wished jaypaw's first battle with shadowclan was what got him to change, like it's this big awakening to what clan culture is really like. he gets the shit kicked out of him and he's like "wow. this sucks. why is everyone making this sound so great"

and big big BIG yes with cinderheart, i feel she deserved some better meat than what po3 and oots was throwing her. these are lovely i am LOOKING

#warrior cats #deer rambles #the po3 au we need....#possession > reincarnation #you cannot introduce a prophecy which involves reincarnated cats #and then pick FIRESTAR over the ACTUAL REINCARNATED CAT

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is-the-snake-video-cute · 1 year

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hello! you very kindly answered an ask of mine recently, and now that i’ve gone through your ball python tag i have a few burning questions!!

1) i’m having a very hard time keeping humidity up for our BP. she’s been doing fine, but she shed recently and it didn’t go as smoothly as it has before. after reading a few of your tips, i think i’m going to try helping her with the last little bits of skin with some reptile shedding spray and a short soak. do you have any other tips here? i know i should keep the water shallow and not try to force off any skin with my fingers.

2) this wasn’t the worst shed ever, but i’d really like to get ahead of it next time and just go ahead and figure out how to get her humidity right. i’m already using coconut substrate, but misting with a sprayer doesn’t seem to be cutting it. i was planning on buying a fancy reptile humidifier, but i haven’t seen that discussed much here. i saw you say somewhere to add water to the substrate itself, but what exactly does that entail/how much should i use? and about how much substrate should actually be down in the tank?

3) for her enclosure itself we’re using exo terra’s 40 gallon tank, which comes with a screen top. we covered a lot of it with a towel (also serving as a privacy curtain) to keep in humidity but i wasn’t sure if that was a good idea or not?

sorry to ask so many questions!! thank you so much for your time!!

(oh, last note! i know 40 gallons isn’t the right size for an adult BP, but she is currently about the same length as the long side. i haven’t had her long enough to know quite how fast they grow, should i be scrambling for a bigger enclosure now?)

Hello hello - these are all good questions, and I really love the care and love you're putting into giving your snake the best!

A soak sounds like a great idea. Make sure the water is lukewarm but not hot - it should feel the tiniest bit chilly on your fingers. Giving your snake a washcloth during their soak is a great idea because that gives them something to hold onto and they'll often be able to rub stuck shed off themselves with it.

I recommend no less than an inch of substrate. How much water you add to rehydrate depends on how big your enclosure is, but a good general rule for a 40 gal is about a cup of water poured into the corners will do nicely. Especially since you've got a screen-top enclosure (which are very difficult to keep humidity in), if you want to spring for a humidifier, it might be a good idea. I don't personally use them (because I'm old and I prefer to limit the number of devices that could malfunction in my snake enclosures), but it might work well for you in this situation. Another trick for raising humidity levels is to make sure you're keeping a deep water dish on the warm side so it'll evaporate into the air (though, again, with screen-top enclosures that'll only do so much).

A towel can help to retain humidity in screen-top enclosures, but there are a few other tricks that might work better. A sheet of plywood or PVC cut to cover most of the enclosure is what I've found to work best; failing that, covering the top with tinfoil you've taped down securely is another good option. Screen-top enclosures can be a bit of a nightmare with humidity-loving snakes like bps, but there are workarounds!

How fast a snake reaches thier adult size depends on how much they eat and individual variation, but in general you can expect most snakes to reach their adult size between 3 and 5 years old. Some will be faster and some slower. If your snake is comfortable in a 40 gallon now, that's fine! I prefer to get snakes in their adult enclosures at around 2 years old, but there's no need to scramble. Just keep in mind what she'll eventually need (I recommend no smaller than a 4x2x2 enclosure), plan for that eventuality, and prepare to have it when she outgrows her current setup.

All the best!!

#not a rating #ball pythons #snake husbandry

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januaryembrs · 2 years

Text

AD ASTRA - CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHPT. XIV THE DRAGONS

Description: amidst an untrustworthy source, a scorching planet and flying, scaled demons, you’re forced to do something drastic to protect your family.

Length: 4.8k

main masterlist

AD ASTRA MASTERLIST

Din Djarin X Jedi!reader series. Friends to lovers, (Somewhat) slowburn, female!reader, JEDI!READER, possible smut, jealous!mando, reader has problematic childhood, fluff, saviour complex!mando, canon star wars characters mentioned, Obi wan x padawan!reader, dad!obi wan, general star wars bloodshed etc.

AD ASTRA PER ASPERA

“To the stars through hardships”

Your group had decided to ride the Blurgs seeing as the place the contact had requested to meet was in such a remote location, meaning you had a long day of walking ahead of you. Kuiil only owned three of the hulking, tadpole-shaped creatures, however, so Cara and you hopped on together seeing as you were both the unexpected and possibly unwelcome guests to this Greef Karga that Mando had been in contact with.

The leathery-skinned creatures plodded down the ramp of the crest and you immediately eyed up the four strangers of varying species waiting for Mando, noting the loaded blasters sitting at their hips.

"Sorry for the remote rendezvous, Mando. But things have gotten complicated since you were last here. It appears that introductions are in order. It seems we've both provided a security detail." The older human at the front, who you guessed was Karga judging by his leadership over the others, said. He eyed up the three newcomers that he had not been waiting for, yourself included, and pointed at Cara with interest, "I recommend the shock-trooper guards the ship, these lava fields are lousy with Jawas."

"She's coming with me," Mando said, and the tone in his voice clearly left no room for negotiation.

"But the town is now run by ex-Empire. If a rebel dropper is with us, they'll all get their hackles up." While what he said made sense, something about the way he was scrambling for an excuse to lessen your defence of the child made your nerves spark aflame of distrust. A terrible pit in your stomach only deepened with dread as your fears that this was a setup of sorts were satiated by his behaviour.

"She's coming," Mando repeated harshly, not moving from his statement.

Greef thought for a moment, looking at where you sat behind the rebel, staring holes into him viciously with cold eyes. "Fine. Fine. At least cover your tattoo. No need to flaunt it. And the beautiful specimen at the back, is she a rebel too?"

Din's jaw clenched at the man's words, the way he spoke about you as though you weren't there or was simply a porcelain object he had brought along for the ride.

"No, she's a friend. Best fighter I know. Anyone wishing to cross our path doesn’t stand a chance," Mando answered honestly, the compliment clearly being laced with a threat in case Greef had any ideas.

"Now, where is the little one?" The man asked, now wary of the two women sitting on top of one of the ugly beasts. Mando flicked some buttons on his vambrace, which you had rewired to link it to the controls on the new pram, and the sleek egg-shaped crib floated up towards Greef who looked down in awe. You felt your heart leap into your throat, hand jumping to your blaster in distrust of the man.

"So this little bogwing is what all the fuss was about." Greef said, holding the child up out of the crib as he stared up at him in wonder with soft black eyes, "What a precious little creature. I can see why you didn't wanna harm a hair on its wrinkled little head. Well, I'm glad this matter will be put to rest once and for all." He placed the child back down, making you and no doubt Mando sigh a breath of short-lived relief. Mando drew the crib back almost immediately, back to the protection of the four beings atop the blurgs. You watched the lid shut firmly with the child inside it, and turned your attention back to the contact, satisfied that the baby was safe.

"Relax, Mama bear. Kid's safe" Cara muttered, trying to soothe your nerves as she felt your arm wrapped around her middle for balance tense up. You nodded to yourself, trying to coax yourself into reassurance.

"The sun drops fast on Nevarro. We can walk for a spell and camp out on the river bank, then make our way into town at first light." Greef Karga said, turning on his foot and heading in the direction you guessed the river was. You would certainly be glad to see some water, the hot air of the volcanic planet already feeling like a scorching, heavy blanket over your shoulders.

The group followed on the blurgs, you wrapping your arms around the woman in front of you for stability.

"Someone feeling cuddly today?" Cara teased, though she got no sarcastic quip in return as she had expected. That told her all she needed to know, that you were deep in your head, no doubt about the child and what you were about to walk into. You had never thought that you would grow to care about the child so much in the past few months you and Mando had been playing happy family, but looking back on it you really saw him as your own foundling. You were by no means a natural at it, but you found comfort in the fact you and Mando learned and figured it out together, as you did with most things these days.

You had felt so alone for so long, and now you had them. When you lay in your tiny, uncomfortable bed at night, sometimes you daydreamed of calling them your family; of seeing Mando without his armour, being his beloved. Cyare, that was what they called them, you remembered Shenzi teaching you. Just to be his, and have him as yours lulled you to sleep, alone and cold as you may be.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

You had been walking for a few hours by the time they came to a stop and, all things considered, you were quite enjoying the ride as your role as passenger meant you could sightsee. It wasn't a lively planet, not the part you were walking through anyway and you quickly got used to the vermillion lava pools and the charcoal rocky plains nevertheless, you took it all in with wonder. Having to watch over your back for so long meant you never really had time to explore, so seeing this new land was exciting, even if you still were on high alert for danger the whole time.

The group had brought down a small mammal and cooked it on a spit over a fire they had started seeing as the night took a cold turn despite the fact they were on a volcanic planet. You stared into the loud, licking flames, one of Karga's men adding a shovel of screaming hot coals to stoke the fire that he sourced from a nearby lava pool. There seemed to be a tense silence over the group, not that you cared seeing as the Child sat in between you and Kuiil who tended to him gently, Mando laying out to the left of you. You chewed at your food slowly, the smokey flavoured meat being one of the best things you'd tasted in a while. You and Mando really tried your best, but with limited resources, you were still short for the symphony of taste that meat and an open fire allowed.

In your peripheral vision, you noticed the child squirming in his seat, hands pushing away the food that Kuiil offered him despite barely touching it. His eyes were locked on where Mando lay down, and it became clear to the child's protectors what he wanted.

"Here, I got him," You offered, placing your makeshift plate on the floor with your food still steaming with freshness. The Ugnaught lifted the child out of the crib, holding him out to your expecting hands who collected him and put him on the ground in between you and Mando. He almost immediately waddled over to your plate of food, getting his greedy little claws on your share of the meal with a mischievous giggle.

"Hey! That's not yours." Din scolded the boy who looked up at him guiltily, sharp teeth already sunk into the piece of meat, "Cuyir jate par gar cabur," [be good for your guardian]

The baby took not much notice, however, instead practically inhaling the food even faster in case one of them tried to take it away from him. You simply chuckled as the child shuffled away from the plate. "Don't worry, I already had enough anyway," You said, watching the little menace move towards the Mandalorian, plopping himself to the floor next to him, leaning against the man's chest plate. "adiika shi copaanir kaysh cabur" [the child just wants his protector] You replied fluently, smiling at the privacy you had been granted from the ears of the rest of the group as Mando'a was a very niche language nowadays. It was comforting to have the familiarity of something you could share just the two of you, reminding you of the quiet nights on the crest when it was just your little aliit [clan] together; no imps, no potential traitors, just the three of you.

"Well, look at you three, playing happy families. I didn't think you had it in you Mando," You almost sensed a hint of sincerity in Karga's voice, but the fact remained that the whole group had a bad feeling about this man's intentions and instead left the comment feeling like a bitter jab towards you. Mando straightened up, almost trying to block the child from the man's view the way he moved, and you couldn't help but wonder if that was because he felt like your moment of privacy was being tarnished, because you certainly did. That much was clear in the underlying glare you sent towards Karga for invading your moment as a family.

Family? It felt sinful nearly for thinking of them that way when that arrangement had never been agreed with Mando, but that was what had sprung to your mind nonetheless. Nothing had ever progressed past the stage of protectors towards the child, but something between you and Mando was there, the way a dying fire still flutters with hot embers. You both felt the heat of it, the sensation bringing you both warmth on a dark night, but it wasn't a roaring flame that demanded your vocalised attention, so it had gone unacknowledged, unspoken. Not to be thought of until the fire became so hot it burned welts into your skin.

Still, just as the tiny blaze was flickering to life with your game of secrecy, Karga had trampled over it, effectively killing the mood you had both been in.

"Let's go over the plan again," Mando cut in, trying to take the attention away from the child and the way you let him nibble gently at your finger. He hated how Karga had taken an interest in his interaction with you, even if it was his own fault for being so out of character around you, but he didn't think twice about it these days.

Your situation was unusual, to say the least. Two adults traversing the galaxy with a magical baby causing chaos every step of the way. You behaved like its parents naturally, as to be expected in a position like that, and it didn't help that the two of you felt something between you, a connection running far deeper and warmer than you’d admitted, but Din hadn't thought it would be that obvious to everyone else how he felt about you. How you could feel about him.

The world didn't get to see the side of him you did; he realised.

"We both enter the common house. We show the client the bait. We join him at the table, and you kill him." Karga said simply, the fire illuminating his oddly calm face as he spoke about a task that could land all involved in deep trouble considering the circumstances.

"Tell me about his reinforcements." Mando pressed, seemingly unconvinced it was as easy as he was making it out to seem.

"They're all ex-Empire. As soon as they lose their paycheck," Karga scoffed, finishing his last piece of meat and opening his canteen of water, "they'll all scatter."

"And if they don't?" Your mouth braved to ask. You didn't trust this contact one bit, something in the air between the lot of them was stagnant with the promise of lies. You were heading towards people who served the Empire, a fair few of them from what Karga was describing too. That only meant one thing; that trouble lay ahead for your little trio, though your life had been heading that way since the moment you saw that Beskar armour stroll into the cantina on Sorgan.

"They will." Karga replied after a beat, almost shocked to hear your voice through the twilight silence.

"That's not good enough," You said, a snappy tone in your voice at the secrets he was clearly keeping from you.

Greef sighed for a moment at your persistence. Din had to give it to you, considering he could tell how tense you were, you weren’t letting any bullshit slip past you, "If, for argument's sake, a few of them don't realise that I'm their best path to alternative employment, and they elect to react impulsively, then these three fine Guild hunters along with that battle-hardened shock-trooper and your Mandalorian will cut down anyone who bucks."

You dared a look at Mando when Greef referred to him in such a way, curious to see if he had any protest. If he did, he didn't voice it as he simply cut in where you left off.

"How many will there be?"

"No more than four," Karga replied, standing from the floor, but that sprung alarm bells in you almost immediately. Four? Certainly for such a highly sought-after prize, they would bring reinforcements. "He travels with, at most, a fire team. Trust me, nothing could go wrong."

Just as the devious man had reached over to the roasting animal skewered over the fire to collect a thick leg of meat, something moved in the shadows towards him. No sooner had a scream echoed loudly around the fire pit, two huge clawed feet lunged out of the darkness and snatched the food from his hands. Loud flapping sounds reverberated through the night, and they were big too.

You moved on impulse, grabbing the child from the floor and shoving him quickly into his new dome-shaped pram, shutting the lid on him to keep him safe from whatever the creatures swarming around you were. If they were interested in the meat in Karga's hands, a little boy like him would be a light snack to them.

The group scrambled to pull out their blasters, shooting blindly at any single noise they heard to no avail. The creature wailed once more, but for a moment after there was silence.

You stopped, waiting for any other sign of movement. They met you with a beat of stillness, and the small optimistic part of you hoped that that would be the end.

Of course, you never got that lucky. you had never been a lucky woman.

The creature dived at the small group like a demon from the sky, and you now had the chance to get a genuine look at them. From what your eyes briefly caught in between shooting at the monstrous things, was the fact they were covered in darkish scales and they indeed had huge wings that blew sand up from the floor with every flap.

You couldn't get a decent look at their face but you could bet all the credits you owned you would find a few rows of razor teeth you had no intention of getting close to. Your best guess; Dragons.

Then, as you felt your blaster running low on charges, one beast, you believed there were two at least, swooped down and grabbed one of the Blurgs between its long talons. As selfish as it were, you couldn't help but be relieved that they had something to satiate their hunger that wasn't yourself, Cara or the man you cared for more than almost anyone.

"No! Let go of her! Drop her now!" Kuiil yelled, and you couldn't help but feel guilty of the horribly greedy thought you had had not two seconds earlier amid the shooting. The Blurgs were like a family to the little Ugnaught from Avrila-7 with them being the last remaining company he had on his moisture farm. You guessed they were to him what the child was to you and Mando, and the remorse at the idea of him being dragged away squealing so painfully was a kick to the gut.

The group shot at the dragon in vain, already knowing the animal was a lost cause but just to show Kuiil you would at least try fighting for his oddly amphibian looking family. But it was too late.

At least you thought.

Another moment of silence gave you a false sense of security, leading you to believe the dragons indeed would be satisfied with only one Blurg to chow down on. But no.

Within seconds, one of Karga's men was snatched in the claws of another one of the dragons, lifted off into the night, screaming for help. As if that wasn't enough, another of the Blurg's got targeted next by the huge reptiles. Luckily, thanks to the fact Cara had chosen a high powered semi-automatic from Mando's collection when she had the choice that morning, and the ex-shock trooper managed to hit the beast and kill it before it could drag away the poor, unsuspecting Blurg.

While there were obvious signs of blood pooling down the puncture wounds, the amphibian creature would live to see another Blurg day.

You had just about reloaded your twin blasters when the dragons dove an ultimate time. You didn't know whether it was the glint of the fire in the beskar that had caught their attention, but your gut twisted horribly when you saw one of the colossal beasts spring at Mando.

Your Mandalorian, as Karga had so well articulated.

Mando grunted with the impact of being thrown to the ground, and for a moment you felt your breath miss your throat in panic at the situation unfolding before you.

A snap second is all it would take for the dragon to wrap its talons around Mando, and in even less time they could beat their colossal wings and be off into the unknown with the man you felt more about than almost anyone in your entire life.

Maybe that was what made you do what you did; sheer fucking panic at the idea of him being snatched away from you when there was still so much you had to tell him. The kid needed him; you needed him.

Just as it had done earlier that day, the barrier between you and the force came crumbling down with much more vigour than you expected. Your breath was knocked out of your lungs at the power that overcame your whole body, but you paid no attention to it. This was a dumb, snap decision that had been your last resort to stopping the man you felt something so stupidly deep for being taken away from you.

You screamed out a protesting '"No!" as the dragon wrapped one of its talons under Mando's cuirass, lifting him off the ground all of two feet. You thrust your hand out in front of you, luckily seeming to the others as though you were simply reaching out of reflex to the action, and felt the dragon's force energy meet you right there.

It felt as though you had stuck your hand out into a cool field of energy, and that your own body's warm force met it right at the point of your fingertips, making them tingle with the difference.

'Hello, old friend', you thought to the force, feeling a wave of warmth rip in your stomach as it responded with glee. The force, as any wielder quickly learns, is just as alive as a visible being, if not more.

You felt your energy reach out to the dragon and squeeze, mangling the dragon's force signature in between your grasp and likely making the scaled beast feel as though its lungs were being crushed in on itself.

It let out a wail of a roar, luckily for you making it appear it was simply releasing a battle cry to the man beneath its grasp. You had a split second to decide whether you wanted to take it further, but the creeping feeling of lethargy of using your powers on such an enormous creature after so many years of malpractice hit you. But you would have pushed past it if someone did not already decide for you.

The dragon's cry gave Din the distraction he needed to reach onto his vambrace and flick open his flame thrower. Long tendrils of fire poured out of the arm piece, scorching the side of the best in its path and making it drop Din down to the floor unceremoniously.

Din left the flames to ward off the creature for a moment longer, alongside the blaster shots from the remaining people in the group. It seemed to work and finally fend off the creatures for good as they watched the two dragons fly off into the distance, their one successful catch of the first Blurg in tow.

Dropping your hand, you felt your force manipulation slipping away. Tiredness overcame you, and strangely achy all over at the feeling of the force buzzing through you once more. You couldn't believe you'd done that, opened the floodgates and let in something you swore would die with you. And you'd done it willingly too. Not like earlier where the child forced it upon you; no this time you had chosen to do it if it meant you could save Mando.

There was very little, if anything, you wouldn't have done to keep him safe.

Mando grabbed you from where you stood not a few feet in front of him, yanking you behind him so that they could watch each other's six for any sign that the dragons were coming back for a second meal. But, after a pause of stillness, it seemed they weren't and group visibly relaxed.

Cara looked over to where her other two companions stood on the other side of the fireplace, taking it upon herself to check on the child from where he sat safely inside his cocoon, oblivious to the fact his father figure was almost lining a huge lizard's insides.

Din turned back to where he'd almost thrown the woman not two minutes earlier to protect your blind spot. "Are you alright?" he asked, his breathlessness clear in his tone.

You surprised even yourself with what you did next. You hugged him.

It was very brief, and awkward considering his chest armour pressed against your face, but you paid no attention to it. He let out a sound of shock at your movement and had barely thought to bring his hand down to rest on your back gently as you squeezed his midriff tightly before you let him go. Your face burned from what he could see through his heat sensor, and he put it down to the fact you hadn't meant to be so openly affectionate in front of so many other people when they hadn't ever hugged before. Din couldn't remember the last time someone had hugged him, in fact, let alone while in his beskar.

"Idiot! Scared me half to death," you whispered, head-turning to the floor in embarrassment of your brash action.

"I just wanted to see if you cared," Mando found it in him to joke, and it worked judging by the smile that tugged at your features.

"Of course I care, dikut. Next time just ask rather than trying to make yourself dragon food,"

"Noted." Was all he said as they walked together to join Cara's side watching over the baby.

And you did. He would never know how much it had meant to you to have opened yourself up to the force the way you had, which you had managed to somehow coral back into its tiny box in your mind in the time they had spent talking. He would never know what you had done, but you knew he would be grateful if he had. And, were the roles to have been reversed, you could say with a deal of confidence that he would have done the same for you.

At least, you thought he would.

It hadn't been until they'd returned to the child that they noticed Karga cradling his bloodied arm from where the creature snatched the food from his hands.

"He's hurt badly," Kuiil informed from his place beside the older man. They moved to inspect the injury which, judging by the black veins spiralling out of the wound, was infected, probably some sort of natural defence system the dragons had developed.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. Ow!" Karga tried to reassure, unconvincingly judging by the pained hiss he released when Cara grabbed his affected arm. You would have laughed in any other situation, trust Cara to not waste time pandering to him.

Hold still. They got you good." You had to admit, the three long deep serrated wounds looked as nasty as Karga was finding them to be, and even winced when you saw Cara unclip a shot of Bacta and plunge it into the sensitive tissue.

"How bad?" Mando asked from beside you.

"Bad. The poison is spreading fast."

"So this...this is how it happens," Karga said, almost resigning himself to the pain coursing through his arm.

"Don't be so dramatic. I need another med-pack. Got any other med-packs? Anyone?"

You noticed the child toddling over to you from where he must have hopped out of his crib. He looked at the man writhing in pain on the floor, before turning his tiny body to look up at you who watched him, a good idea of what was running through that devious little mind of his. He seemed to look at you asking for permission.

Judging by the silence that met the request for more medical supplies, they were running out of options too. He could help. He wanted to help, having learned you could not reveal your own abilities like that.

"I'm guessing that's a 'no'," Karga said sadly, as anyone would think that their time was ending. You looked at the child's big onyx eyes that you knew shared the same thought as you had, and nodded to him slightly.

"It's still spreading. This isn't working." Cara said, being much more gentle as she lifted Karga's arm to inspect the dark veins protruding from them and getting angrier. The child had taken your confirmation and shuffled towards the injured man with an almost cheeky look on his face, to Cara's annoyance. "Get this thing outta here."

"Wait," Kuiil said before you had the chance to. The baby gently put one of his clawed hands on the man's cuts, with a slow grasp.

"He's trying to eat me," Karga exclaimed, and you would have snorted if the situation wasn't so pressing. You kneeled down next to the child knowing it would take a lot of energy for such a tiny being to heal the man's large wounds.

"No. He wants to help you." You said, and as if the child understood you, he squeezed his tiny glass eyes shut in concentration.

The black veins began winding in on themselves first before the marred, open tissue wound almost seemed to sew itself shut with little trace it had been there in the first place.

Karga looked from the child to you, to Mando in amazement. His arm was completely healed not a minute later, leaving the baby to sink back down onto his behind, a drowsy look in his eye.

You felt almost the same, having exhorted yourself with your own use of the force, and swiftly grabbed him up off the ground to tuck back into his pram.

Karga watched you put away the child as the Mandalorian shadowed the two naturally, before the adults settled down with little more than a foot between your resting figures, both of you settling near the pod protectively. Greef had noticed how odd Mando's behaviour had been around you, and who could blame him. All he had seen was the big, hunk of beskar armour and a personality just as cold to match its exterior. So seeing him and you enamoured by a tiny bean of a creature somewhat warmed his ageing heart.

But that begged the bigger question in Karga's mind. He knew what he was leading you into, and Greef wasn't sure he had the heart to hand you all over to the Empire's clutches anymore.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・

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Pedro Pascal

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#pedro pascal x female!reader #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal imagine #pedro pascal x reader #the mandolarian #mando angst #mando fanfiction #mando x reader #the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin imagine #din djarin #mando x jedi!reader #din djarin x jedi!reader #dad!obi wan x reader

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havin-fun-imagining-twd · 2 years

Text

A cause for concern

Still alive y’all, pinky promise, here’s another chapter to prove it.

What - Your ears are ringing and you’re dizzy, Glenn just revealed he suddenly had sex with Maggie, and your brother Shane is...you don’t know, but you’re concerned. And our redneck doesn’t know what’s going on, he just wants to hang out with his friend.

When - right after Picking a flower = saving the day, when you and Daryl made it back to camp after another day of not finding Sophia.

Perspective - same old You/Him setup

Relationships - Daryl has your pragmatic beer waiting but you keep being busy and he feels bummed about it. Big bro Shane is becoming more and more unrecognizable to you. Otherwise, yo, Papa Hersh is in the house!

Pronouns - neutral they/them this time around, but something Shane voices concern for is usually applied to females in terms of males.

Length - average Slowpoke chapter

TWs - some language, discussion of sexual intercourse (nothing graphic), Daryl unlearning some more casual racism, and you took too many painkillers accidentally so are experiencing tinnitus and slight vertigo. Take OTCs responsibly, kids!

Referenced plot points - how you are messing up words a little; your and Shane’s fear of flash flooding; how you promised you’d tell Daryl your big secret but would need a beer; that you, Glenn, and Amy bonded via playing ‘I never’ back at the quarry; that you and Glenn once crushed on each other; T-Dog and Daryl’s growing friendship; Shane’s descent. I’d recommend reading Quarter!, but there are way more references. Easily solved: read all the stories to get in the know, slowpoke :P

You

“I can’t believe I did it, either. It’s just so — I just —” He exhales. “I could get killed or bitten tomorrow. Any one of us, so I wasn’t about to turn that down, especially with her! But, but I-I just don’t get why she’s acting like nothing happened.” He looks at you, nervous. “Did I do the wrong thing?”

Scolding yourself for being disappointed (and hurt for some reason), you imagine taking a tea kettle off the burner. He’s kicking himself enough, so you, his best friend, shouldn’t add to that.

“It took two,” you remind him gently. “Plus, based on what Maggie told me,” such as very simply offering to have sex with him…“It was definitely somethin’ she wanted, too.”

“Wanted? Past tense?”

Oh, Glenn. What to say, what to say…

“After moving quickly like that, it might would be a cause for concern, I guess, and encurdage —uh, encourage — anyone to step back and mull over things.” There, that was good enough.

“I get it, dude, I was the one who was a, um, well — who hadn’t ever...”

He stops talking and throws his arms up. Turning to the livestock fence, he tries to click and make kiss noises at one of the horses in the pasture. The mare ignores him.

That’s one of the reasons you’d been so dumbfounded when Maggie took you aside and confessed that they had sex. You get what Glenn’s saying, especially because he doesn’t didn’t have much experience before today.

Same as you, minus the ‘before today’ part.

That was another fun fact uncovered during ‘never have I ever’ around the campfire the first week at the quarry. Amy’s jaw had plummeted when she found out the both of you hadn’t. It’s simply statistically unusual for those in their early to mid-twenties and beyond.

And yes, she giggled when you told her that exact sentence. You miss her.

Joining Glenn by the fence, you lean with your good arm. And, with somehow zero awkwardness, you nudge him with your hip. “Just give it a night, give her the night to let it sink in.”

“What? We used a condom.”

“Oh Moses, that ain’t what I—” GLENN! Despite yourself, you’re snorting a little. Good God, dude.

“—Sorry, sorry, I don’t know why my mind went there! Ugh.” He takes off his baseball cap and runs his hands through his hair. “Just: did she say she wanted space or was it because it wasn’t good? Wait, do you think she could tell that I was a…?” He left the word unspoken.

“I, um, I’m n-not sure.” Shoot, that wasn’t convincing at all. But in your defense, you don’t actually know if she knows, all you know is that she implied that he seemed unfamiliar with some things and the act was, um, well…‘completed’ on the quicker side. For both of them, though. See? Nothing outright.

“She could tell?” he immediately whispers. “Did she ask you—dude, did you tell her?”

You twist your neck to face him, shoulder only hurting a little. Three cheers for painkillers. “Being one ain’t shameful and why would that make her not like you besides?” you start. “But you best tell me right now: do I go about airin’ other people’s laundry?” Hopefully he can guess you’re upset. “Now, what she and me dinsgussed,” great you messed up in the middle of your comeback, “Dis-cussed was private, just like what we’re discussing is private.”

“But—”

“—No, wait to speak with Margaret if you wanna know her thoughts.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to me about it!” he shouts. Actually shouts.

You think someone should give you a basket of fresh hushpuppies for not shouting back. You can’t help but feel for him, so are able to repeat with even and calm: “Not yet. Give it a night or a couple days, in the least.”

“But she enjoyed it — or, or at least I think she did, she seemed to!” He pushes off the fence and storms over to a nearby tree, sitting against it as he hides his eyes.

You turn around and lean backwards on the fencing so you are facing him again. Whoa, dizzy. Your ears are ringing louder than they were before while still out searching with Daryl.

“That was stupid to move that fast,” he groans yet again. “I like, like her, though, Y/N. She made sure over and over that you and me weren’t a thing, and, and I wanna make sure she’s okay, and, and…” He looks up for a moment. Oh no, is he…sniffling?

He let himself cry in front of you only three times, twice since Jacqui died, and one of those times was an accident because you’d walked in after he didn’t reply following you knocking and waiting twice on the RV bathroom door.

Voice close to breaking, he whispers, “It didn’t hurt her or anything, right? I didn’t think it did, I-I hoped the opposite because it sounded like the opposite, and I thought I felt her—sorry!, never mind—but the whole ride back was — and, and when she walked away after we got back like nothing happened and it wasn’t important—”

“No, Glenn, you didn’t hurt her.” Maggie’s privacy is important, but you need to assure Glenn of at least that much.

Yeah. A second reason you were so shocked at what happened between him and Maggie was that you’d learned a lot about his family. Glenn had sisters; he knows how important respecting a woman is, how important treating any romantic interest is.

And, well, not that he has the same sexual boundaries as you (you’re pretty much on your own there) but his parents gave him a really strong moral backbone. What happened today was a huge deal for him and he’s gonna care about it, a lot. Sex is serious.

To you, Maggie’s been nothing but kind and honest. You knew she felt very lonely. You even told her how much she’d like Glenn. And she expressed shame for having mentioned “there aren’t a lot of options,” to him. So, maybe in her mind was the whole ‘I could die tomorrow’ thing, too, but now she’s rethinking certain choices in hindsight.

“Are you really mad at me, Y/N?”

Oh, Glenn. “You ain’t done nothing wrong to me.”

“But we used to, y’know…like each other.”

You make a (pretend) pout face. “True, and we still do, just in a different way.” Part of you did feel a little hurt at first, but that doesn’t really apply. This isn’t about you.

There’s silence, only mildly uncomfortable.

“Dude, I’m really glad you’re my friend right now,” he then sighs, wiping his eyes and standing up. “There’s no one else I could tell about this.”

“Dale or T-Dog,” you remind him.

He shrugs. “But they’re not our age. Dale would tell me how stupid it was, and T-Dog’s, eh, he’s kinda churchy.”

Rude. “ …Yes.”

He shoots you a glare when he hears you agree, then realizes he low-key put down T-Dog for something you share in common with him. But when he sees your attempt at a good-humored grin, he offers you a sheepish smile in return. “Sorry.”

Now’s a good time to playfully tut, “Dale and him are the best of us. If one of them chides us, we’ve earned it.”

The two of you keep quiet for a few moments. You turn back around and try to get that mare’s attention, but no luck. Glenn comes back and joins you, trying to get her to come over by making more kissy noises like she’s a cat.

“You talk to Lori, Y/N?”

“Oh, Teddy told me she wanted to see me. I’ll find her later. She okay?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah, she seems cool,” comes out a little quick and forced to sound normal.

“Glenn, is she okay?”

In lieu of a reply, he tosses a pine cone at you and cracks up when it bounces off your forehead.

“I suppose…now I get to tease you about you-know-what,” Glenn pokes fun. “’Cause other than Carl, now you’re probably the only person here who’s still one.”

“Razz on this prude all you want, buttface, you won’t get nowhere,” you snark right back. “Okay, my ears are ringin’. I know it’s still daylight, but I really need to lay down awhile and eat. I gotta head to my tent.”

“Yeah, I might as well head back, too. The horse doesn’t want anything to do with me. Maybe that’s Maggie’s horse.”

“Glenn.”

Him

There they are, finally.

They’d walked off talking to the Chinese kid — shit, sorry, Glenn — about something. It looked like something serious. Whatever it was, Glenn was all red, he could see that all the way from his tent.

Now the two of them are marching back to the tents so slow it’s like they’re in a funeral procession.

He finishes up his cigarette and grabs the rest of the eight-pack so he can head over to the fire by the RV and the rest of the tents. A ‘pragmatic’ beer had been Y/N’s specific word for it, what they were gonna need if they were gonna tell him whatever lead to them asking for a cigarette and liquor yesterday night.

After how today went, with that storm pausing and fucking up their search efforts, a beer sounds good even if they don’t tell him the dirt.

It’s nice having an actual friend.

You

You two walk back slowly. Glenn asks if you’re okay, you mention you think you overdid it.

Shane is showing Andrea how to use the rifle again, you see them over by the picnic table.

Dale is inside the farmhouse with Rick and Lori, you’re pretty sure — never mind, Rick is by the far side of the house talking to Mr. Greene about something. But Carol’s not near the fire or the laundry spot like you’d expect. Oh right, you were gonna find Lori, she wanted to talk, right, right.

“Wait, first let me show you what I found for you today.” Glenn starts to lead you to the RV, then mutters to himself, “The one thing I didn’t mess up today.”

“Stop kickin’ yourself, man. You’re not a bad person.”

“You’ll forgive me once you see th — whoa,” he cuts off.

“Glenn, there ain’t nothing you need to apologize to me f — oh, wow,” you cut off just the same.

The RV is spotless. It’s like a whole different place! Homey, clean, organized, smells like Fabuloso. This had to have been—yep, there she is, mending something the back.

Carol.

Him

He notices Y/N goes to walk away but Glenn stops them and waves them over to the RV. Watches as Glenn jogs up the steps and suddenly freezes at the door.

That’s probably because Carol was in there and had cleaned up the RV so much it looked like a different place.

He next sees how Y/N follows and peeks over the Chine — Glenn’s — shoulder, probably to see why he paused. After less than a second, they quickly slide around him and rush inside, which was most likely them giving Carol a hug.

He feels his cheeks heat up; Y/N is gonna notice the flower he gave Carol in the dumb beer bottle vase (he’s regretting not waiting for Y/N to find him a nicer vase now, yeah).

They’d be happy he gave it to her and told her the story, even if he did kinda have to chug the beer in that bottle to calm his nerves and all that first. At the time, he’d figured the bottle was as good a vase as any.

Oh, right, the kid’s Korean, isn’t he? Not Chinese. Y/N tried to make that clear on one of their first hunts together back at the quarry.

“It would kinda be like sayin’ a French person was German, you feel?” they’d pointed out. Truth be told, he didn’t really care much about or know much about the major differences between Frenchies and Krauts, neither.

He could tell they were skeeved at first (maybe ‘concerned’ was a closer word for it) but then they’d given him this little smile that was almost playful, as if they figured Daryl simply hadn’t known or had just made a crappy joke. At any rate, there was no, uh, what’s the word? No ‘condemnation’ is what he’s getting at.

He’s pretty sure that moment when he decided Y/N was good people.

Either then or when the little fighter kid Luis scraped his knee and rolled his ankle. Y/N was with his older sister, soothing him and doing first aid stuff while Carl and Sophia got the parents.

He himself happened to have been taking a smoke break close to where the kid tripped, so heard Y/N hush, “Eliza, cover your ears with your pointer fingers. Okay Luis, buddy, you get to call the tree roots you tripped over one bad word of your choosing, just whisper it quietly so you won’t owe a quarter!”

He didn’t understand what the “won’t owe a quarter” part meant until he helped the kids learn to throw a punch a couple weeks later. He also couldn’t hear which bad word the little guy chose, but what he did know was that it had made Y/N crack up and start laughing.

“What word did he pick?” he grunted at them later in passing.

At first, Y/N looked surprised that he was talking to them, but then snorted and started to giggle again. “‘Ass-butt.’”

“I can’t get me in on that, can I?”

Back to the present, Daryl blinks out of that — what does he wanna call it, ‘cute’ memory? — and doesn’t reply to T-Dog in any way other than to crack open a beer with his skinning knife and hand it to him without looking. T-Dog shared those expensive brand cigarettes with him, so why not return the favor?

“Thank you. Gotta love a good SweetWater,” T-Dog sits down and sighs, rubbing the back of his forearm that got sliced open two days ago. “It’s nice you found glass bottles. Always preferred ’em to cans.”

Grunting back at T-Dog in agreement, he offers a flat “Cheers.”

“Yep. Cheers, man.”

He’d found and kept a glass bottle eight-pack he’d pilfered on the highway that day, right before Sophia got chased off. Figured he save them for when he wanted to get shitfaced a special occasion. And yeah, SweetWater was pretty good, Georgia pride and all that.

Glenn is on his way to the fire, now. Y/N isn’t with him, so they must still be in the RV with Carol.

The kid glances at Daryl, then looks at T-Dog and chooses to sit closer to T-Dog.

Daryl isn’t sure why it’s getting to him. Isn’t he used to it? Hell, he prefers it, right? Nobody was gonna care about him but his blood, his own. But now that Merle was gone…fuck it, he takes a gulp of his beer and stares into the flames.

T-Dog offers Glenn some of his beer and grins, surprising Daryl by extending the grin to him like he was in on a joke. (And yep, there go Daryl’s cheeks fucking with him and getting all red again).

“Or do you still want us to not ‘ever, ever, ever let you drink again,’ ain’t that right, Glenn?” T-Dog teases.

The corners of Daryl’s mouth peek up. As shit as the CDC ended up being, the stocked bar was rad and the way the kid acted when hungover was funny.

Glenn takes a gulp of the beer, hands it back to T-Dog and makes this awkward half-giggle thing. “That morning was still the sickest I’ve felt in my life.”

Across the way, the front door to the house opens up and the teenage boy walks out.

He’s got a pitcher of orange stuff and seems to be heading to the tents (?). Then, he walks to the fire. Sure enough, the teenage boy offers them the pitcher. Sounding nervous as hell, he first mentions to maybe not let the old farmer guy see the beer, and the second thing he asks is to sit down.

Turns out, he really wants to talk with T-Dog about college ball.

Huh, T-Dog used to play? Cool.

You

“He’s a good man.”

“Yeah.”

Carol sniffs and starts to well up again. “It was so unexpected from him.”

“A beer bottle vase, though, very on-brand,” you quietly remark, smiling. As heavy as is the dread and shame you feel that Sophia hasn’t been found yet, you’re so happy that Daryl followed through and gave Carol the flower and told her the story. Thinking about it is giving you a warmth in your chest.

“You didn’t put him up to it?” she wonders softly.

“He knows I was aiming to find you a present while we were out, if we, um, I thought it would be nice…” to bring you back something if we didn’t find your daughter. Biting your lip as you tug at your ears to try to fix the ringing, you figure you’ll mention, “All I found that I knew you’d get use from was an unopened box of—oh Moses, why am I spoilin’ the surprise? Carol, you’ll find out later.”

Just because it’s a simple box of peach tea doesn’t mean it can’t remain a surprise.

She smiles back. It’s pained and sad.

“But,” you add to make sure she knows, “The flower, that was all Daryl.”

She look down at her lap, then look back at you, head tilting. “Where did those clothes come from, Y/N? Never saw you wear those. I would remember those jeans, I miss higher-rise pants.”

“Found them on the search today. What I was wearin’ got filthy and sopping. And I don’t even wanna see the state of my eyebrows.”

Her smile warms into something less pained and more warm. “They look like ordinary eyebrows to me.”

You shift in your seat on the bench trying to get comfortable. Your stupid ears are ringing so loudly. “He, um, he told me something I think you need to hear, if he hasn’t told you already. It, oh, it might could’ve been private, actually, I ain’t sure,” you mumble to yourself before stating, “So it’s just for you, Carol, okay?”

She shakes her head, though. In her hesitant, soft voice, she says, “Keep it private, in that case.”

Your cheeks heat up and shame pokes you in the forehead, but you ignore your conscience because you still think she should hear about when he got lost for nine days.

“It changed my outlook,” you start to press — but she doesn’t budge.

“Y/N. He trusted you enough to share it. Don’t betray that.”

Oh, man. Posture hunching in earned embarrassment, you nod. You offer her an apology and a thank you. Where did your sticking-to-privacy thing from fifteen minutes ago run off to?

Carol’s hand clasps yours, then she appears to remember something.

“Lori was looking for you earlier, wanted to talk. Oh, and Glenn, right…” With a kiss on your head, she gets up and heads to a cupboard. You, feeling self-conscious, pop over to the RV mirror and see with great (AH!) horror that you look…like you’re woozy, haven’t slept enough in a few days, and recently got caught in a rainstorm. Makes sense.

Meanwhile, Carol opens one of the locking cupboards and asks, “Are you feeling okay?”

“A tad spinny,” you explain. “My ears are ringin’.”

“‘Spinny?’”

You shrug.

“Dizziness is usually a cause for concern, maybe you need to eat.” She pulls out a paper bag from the cupboard. “Glenn was probably coming into the RV to give you this, he found these for you on the run today.” She hands it to you. “What is the name of the short-haired girl he went with, Y/N? She must be around yours and Glenn’s age.”

“Margaret. She goes by Maggie,” you fill her in and start to unfold the paper bag. “And yeah, she’s only two-ish years younger. I’m excited to see what’s in the mystery b—oh, thank God!”

Him

Following that happy little screech that all four of them heard from the fire, Y/N came jogging out of the RV, hand on their side while holding a brown paper bag, and zipped straight to Glenn. From there, Y/N began babbling in that twang of theirs, all excited about said paper bag full of: (wait for it) pill bottles.

Carol came out after, slower, and choose her seat near Daryl’s (?) side.

Surprised, he offered her a beer. She shook her head at first, then a minute or so later shyly asked if it was okay that she changed her mind; he gave her the bottle and half-listened to Glenn and Y/N.

“Dude, 500mg pills, these are perfect! I took four in the RV, to hell with what that much magnesium will do to my digestives, I think I’m in the prodrome phase of another…”

Apparently, Glenn brought them back eight bottles of something that helps with migraines, plus a prescription, though he didn’t know if it was the right type or dose. While them and Glenn jabbered on, Carol started working on dinner (it’s oatmeal). Y/N and Glenn helped with whatever she directed, still chattering like chipmunks.

Suddenly, Y/N is walking over on their knees to tell him, “I got me all the fixings to kick a migraine’s butt, so guess who can help with the search tomorrow? They also found batteries for the third walkie!”

He keeps his cool and ignores how his cheeks warmed yet again. Like, is he really that starved for attention or whatever? “Can’t wait,” he drones back.

“We’ll do our sweep of the road off the trail?”

He nods. “Then there’s this high ridge I wanna check out. We get up there, should be a bird’s eye view of a lot of the grid.”

“Deal.”

He grabs the beer he’s been keeping for them. Offers it.

“Maybe later. I took a bunch of painkillers earlier and now I feel weird. Best to wait.”

He tries to make a funny by using that word from yesterday by replying, “How pragmatic.” He feels dumb after.

You

Ha, a ‘pragmatic beer.’ Ignoring that you told him you’d need one in order to tell him what was bothering you the other night (because it meant telling him about the guy you’d shot), you instead think about what you and Carol discussed.

It’s nice to see someone blossoming the way he is.

There’s Shane coming back with Andrea, he was teaching her gun safety over at the picnic table. Your brother sees you and sits next to you.

After telling you he’s glad you’re back in one piece, he starts to ask about the day. “Hey, where’d those… ” His gaze hardens as he stares at your new clothes and then at Daryl for a split second before he changes his expression to a casual one. “Check out the horses with me?”

He helps you up, briefly voices worry about why you’re dizzy and have ringing ears, then as soon as you’re out of earshot murmurs, “Did somethin’ happen while you were out with him?”

“No.”

Shane speeds along. “He hurt you?” he stresses under his breath. You aren’t surprised he’s concerned about that specifically.

“I promise, no. We ran too hard, my stitches started bleedin’ a little, it stained what I had on.”

“Are you sure?”

“Slow down,” you pant. You can’t keep up with his pace right now.

He stops walking and rests his hands on his hips. “Sorry.”

You don’t feel so good. Cupping your head in your hand to try and steady the spinny feeling, you answer, “C’mon, you know I would’ve made him bleed if he tried, Shaney.”

“Good.” He inhales. Smiles to conceal his seriousness. “Just glad you didn’t get swept off in no flash flood.” And when he goes to fluff his hair like he usually does — he’s met with his freshly buzzed head instead.

At first, he appears as if he’d forgotten it was gone. His gaze turns into that 1000 yard stare. Shaking his head slightly, he grabs the chain around his neck and fiddles with the ‘22’ pendant.

“Let me in on that, looks fuzzy,” you lilt. He bends to let you try. It does feel nice and fuzzy. The way his eyes warm helps him look more like himself.

“More self-defense practice tomorrow, okay? Dependin’ on when or if you get that migraine. That you’re injured is good; you need to know how to fight back either way.”

“Glenn found me migraine stuff at the pharmacy today,” you hesitate. His little nod indicates he understands that this news means you intend to go out and search again. “After we get back, though?”

His appearance changes. A different man is standing there than your brother.

The man opens his mouth. “We shouldn’t still be out looking for her.” And the man keeps talking about “After 72 hours, I hate to say, it ain’t fair, but it’s over,” and “the good of the group,” but you stop listening. He notices.

You don’t understand this new side of him. He’s been revealing this calculating, inhumane coldness. It doesn’t look or sound like your brother, but it’s becoming more and more what you can see of him.

That is to say, you feel like you can’t see him. Not that he’s gonna do something bad or get worse, but it’s a cause for concern and you don’t know how to help him.

You start to walk away, the vertigo worsens. Close to you is…oh.

Otis’ cairn. Bowing your head, you swerve to it and try to pray for a bit, mull things over.

After a while, you stand up from your crouched position. Shane’s hand softly touches your back, stopping you from wavering when you stand up.

His voice sounds more familiar when he quietly says, “Let’s go inside and see the doc, Y/N, get you checked out.”

Him

Now they’re inside the farmhouse with their brother, visiting with Carl.

And Daryl’s just out here…

He really wants a third beer.

He *grumble* gave a beer to Andrea after she sat down by the fire. He’s got three left.

The sun is still out, low by the horizon. Whatever, it feels like damned 2am.

The door to the house clicks, he blinks and looks over (in excitement? Why was he all excited, is he eight?) but sees Dale come over from wherever he was. Not Y/N.

Daryl gets up and plops onto the ground; he’d been in Dale’s chair.

He then *grumble* offers the old man a beer. Dale declines (phew), thanks him, and settles in his chair.

Looking around, he then…hides the remaining beers behind Dale’s chair. The old man sees. He smiles to himself and gives Daryl a gesture of “I didn’t see anything.”

Dinner’s ready. Carol, Andrea, Dale, and Glenn leave to eat in the RV.

T-Dog eats with him outside by the fire, but not five minutes passes until a moth lands in his oatmeal. Tossing the glob that the moth touched into the fire, he then stands to go into the RV and waves for Daryl to join.

Daryl doesn’t want to, it’s too close in there and he has nothing to say and they won’t want him in there.

You know, he’s still got three left from his eight-pack. One was for Y/N, which means he could have a third if he wants. They’re his damn beers, after all.

Ugh, he probably shouldn’t have a third beer of his own.

… …

He really wants a third.

Maybe he can go inside and see the kid, too? Tell him all about the search today?

Nah, fuck it.

Nobody wants him in there. Nobody wants him out here, neither, probably. Nobody ever does. Plus, he failed at bringing the little girl back again, he ain’t got shit to talk to people about, he’s…

He really wants that third beer. Maybe a fourth.

Or maybe something stronger.

But when exactly he started heading toward the house after hiding the remaining beers in his tent, he can’t pinpoint.

You

“You’d be fine without, but it won’t hurt to have you take this down. I’d prefer if you did,” Mr. Greene states, mixing the black powder into the glass of water with a straw.

Once he deems it sufficiently combined, he clunks it down onto the table, adds a touch of powdered Tang and stirs more. “Activated charcoal does not taste pleasant, it will cause your bowel movements to temporarily turn black, you may have a stomachache, and it may either make your stools loose or potentially constipate you.”

…lovely, thank you.

Your brother doesn’t snicker, to his credit.

How did this evening turn into this? All you wanted to do when you got back from the search was see your Carl and crash.

After Shane brought you inside the house to see the doc, you’d willfully stumbled your way to Carl’s room, waved hi to Dale, and complimented Carl on his new, massive (read: Rick’s old, well-fitting) hat. Your nephew commented about how him, his father, and you all have relatively matching scars.

“Now we don’t have to get matching tattoos when I turn eighteen, the scars are way cooler.”

“What, you’re reneging on the tattoos, punk?”

As you started to tell him all about the search that day, the dread and upset you felt last night and today fizzled away. That’s just what being around him does for you.

Though you personally don’t think it was a sign of Sophia, you told them all about the little bed made in the pantry and the freshly opened and eaten can, “of sardines, who would’ve guessed our Soph liked those?”

Carl made the sweetest little “bleh!” in response.

Your brother leaned against the wall in silence.

That’s when Lori came in with Patricia and some supper for him.

Dale left the room, citing his stomach was growling so he was gonna head back to the tents for some dinner, too.

Shane also slipped out after giving Carl a quick wink, but soon came back with Hershel, who asked you to join him in the dining room.

A blood pressure test (A-okay), quick questioning about how many ibuprofen you took, if you “consumed any alcohol with your friends out there by the campfire? And what about Jimmy?’ and what your symptoms were followed.

You adjusted your accent and used standard grammar in an attempt to feel less like an idiot on trial.

You didn’t think you’d taken too many, but when you guesstimated after thinking back on how many you shook from the bottle…not that it was dangerous, you hadn’t taken enough to be in serious physical danger, but it was enough that your body is telling you you done bad.

It was irresponsible, and you could feel Shane’s disappointment. That shit can mess up your kidneys and stuff down the road, not to mention the faster toll on the stomach lining.

And now you’ve got a glass with muddy black liquid (you can pretend it’s coffee?) and the stern gaze of a veterinarian who’s likely physically exhausting himself trying not to roll his eyes.

You blink down at the glass.

Looks...foamy. Like something that came from an oil refinery or a coal mine.

The doctor continues to, um ‘counsel’ you, his patience seeming on the thin side. “Take it all down. The straw will help.”

“Thank you. S-sorry.” You’re grateful the straw pipes all the grittiness directly to your throat.

“Long-term, even something as unassuming as over-the-counter pain management can adversely affect you. Surely you are aware of that and are aware of how serious those effects can be.”

“Is that tone really—”

You hush your brother and put your hand on his wrist as if to say it’s cool.

He licks his teeth, nods once to you, gives a terse “Hershel,” to Mr. Greene, and goes outside.

“Left my thinking cap in the tent this morning, I think,” you play it off with the doctor, feeling as if your 2 decades plus a few years on this earth were more akin to 2 years and a few months. This is made worse when you awkwardly add, “I also lost my baseball cap out there today.”

Patricia quietly exits Carl’s room and rubs your arm in passing. “Make sure Lori sleeps in tomorrow, okay?” she whispers.

Mr. Greene is still peering at you. “You were crouched by Otis’ memorial not twenty-five minutes ago. Were you in prayer?”

You nod and shrug.

Maybe your chair will melt with you into the floor? Please?

He’s still sitting rigid as a board, but his brows get less angry-looking. “I have known you for barely two days. But I have always been truthful with you, even when it meant saying something that I knew might be difficult for you to hear.”

True. You recall well how he was delicate but honest during Carl’s emergency.

His tone is somehow gentle and scolding at the same time. “I sincerely hope you will do likewise for me.”

“I don’t like dishonesty,” you mumble. You’d be a little offended if the situation for him wasn’t that a group of armed individuals were now camped on his front lawn and had lead to the death of someone he considered family.

“My first questions is: are you dating the Asian boy?”

Okay, not what you were expecting. You start to giggle until you realize, oh shoot, did Maggie tell him about what they did? Oh my God, oh my God, nooo, don’t ask, don’t ask me, Mr. Greene!

“Maggie assumed the same thing,” you have the brain to say, and it’s true. “Glenn is my friend only, no romance.”

Praying he won’t ask about Glenn and Maggie next, you take another few gulps of the charcoal mixture to and can’t help but make a face.

His expression is still curious and stern. “Did you consume any alcohol this evening with your friends?”

You shake your head. “I felt too strange.”

“Did Jimmy?”

“I don’t think so? I only saw him drinkin’ Tang.”

He nods. Seems to soften maybe a pinch. “Certain supply chain changes mean I won’t bother asking you about any drug abuse in your group. Not including your oversight with the pain management today.”

Point taken, sir. Then, you realize he was making a wry comment. The corners of his mouth raise and his eyes crinkle just so.

Relaxing, you offer an embarrassed shrug.

“The most important thing I want to know is,” he begins. Pauses. He’s maintaining very direct eye contact with you.

What the heck does he want to know? The muscles in your neck tense back up, uncertain.

“Can I trust Rick?”

Well, that was so easy the reply jumps out of your mouth. “Yes.” Ha, that was weirdly stressful for a s—

“And Y/N, is your other brother a cause for concern?”

...

Shane?

A tiny seed of dread starts to take root in your gut.

Why would, why is—wait, why haven’t I answered? What the heck is—why aren’t I answering? Hello?

There’s a clock someplace close. It’s louder than you remembered.

Answer something. Y/N. Y/N, go on.

A door opens, shuts, and what sounds like Lori’s footfall tiptoes down the hallway.

‘Is your other brother a cause for concern?’

She brushes her hand across your shoulders as she passes.

He’s your brother. He loves you, you love him.

Y/N, what are you doing? Please answer. You know him.

Why isn’t it working when you try to answer? Y/N!

The clock keeps ticking. The front door opens and closes as Lori exits the house.

“Please continue to finish that solution,” is how Mr. Greene, his tone kinder than it was before, breaks the silence.

...............................................

Wave hi to the Morales kids! Just don’t tell Eliza that Luis said “ass-butt.”

Taglist (inbox me if you want in)

@spenciepoo338 @its-freaking-bats

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gwyns · 2 months

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“i don't think it'll be announced as a "gwynriel" or "elucien" book or whatever. it'll be announced like acosf was, as the mc's book.”

I didn’t mean Sarah would announce it like that! I should’ve clarified more, I’m sorry! I think when she does release the book title it should give us a good gauge as to who the mc of the book is. I think the novella will be Mor’s and the full length books will definitely be Azriel’s and Elain’s. The ship wars definitely won’t end, they might get more hostile, but I want to hope maybe things will improve and become more positive. I would like the next book to be Azriel’s, and after Silver Flames and HOFAS, I think it’s more than likely his, but who knows. It could very well be the novella (I would actually laugh in amusement & I think I saw somewhere that said Sarah talking about how she wouldn’t mind the releasing a novella after SF I could be wrong tho but I thought I saw it) or Elain’s book.

oh no need to apologize! i wasn't talking about you specifically, more so the fandom as a whole because some seem to think she'll announce the couple with the book and i'm sorry but that's not going to happen lol. it wasn't directed towards you at all <3

but i agree! i do think the title will help us figure it out, honestly i'm scared for the announcement, i just know it'll be chaos no matter what and it makes me anxious just thinking about it 😭

agreed again! i've thought az was next since a couple of weeks after acosf and hofas only reinforced this for me. like yeah elain does have some setup but i find it odd she was hardly present in acosf and not there at all in hofas if she's next. i find sjm shining a spotlight on az and his struggles similar to what she did with nesta in acofas. we know elain isn't well either but she's hiding it for now whereas az is letting it directly affect him. he's getting worse and acting out

of course, i could be totally wrong and elain is next but... idk it just doesn't make sense to me narratively. like why would koschei be killed halfway through the spinoffs when he's seemingly meant to be the big baddie? it makes much more sense to me if gwynriel dealt with the illyrians, ramiel and maybe the remaining queens first. throw in an autumn court subplot and boom, bam! we got a way to setup the elucien book

nobody better get upset at me putting gwynriel in the autumn court or i will go full bitch mode, gwyn has autumn court heritage too, it's not me taking from elucien so shush

honestly her releasing a novella would be the biggest troll ever and i'd laugh so hard. many are frustrated and i get it but acotar is my favorite series so i don't mind waiting since i don't want it to end just yet 😢

#acotar #asks #anonymous

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riggedbones · 6 months

Text

sorry to be someone who watches ten million reviews of animated movies i havent seen on youtube occasionally but. on one of said ten million reviews of wish someone commented, in response to the fact that people are disappointed that they were considering 2d animating wish and then decided against it, that disney no longer has the infrastructure for feature length 2d animation. and while i do think they have a point with that...

technology has progressed far enough that like, when considering things like them no longer having animation tables? no longer especially relevant tbh. like they probably have all of the tools they need to do 2d animation in terms of just raw materials digitally based on the fact that like. there are still 2d disney cartoons being made. so

i could see the argument being made that they dont have enough 2d animators anymore esp like, seasoned animators who have worked on multiple feature length films (idk maybe they actually have a lot still) but... man if they really wanted to i do not think it'd be especially hard to get experienced animators in. for a large variety of reasons. like as long as you have a good animation director who has experience with 2d i dont think it'd be that big of a challenge to go back if they just shuffled things around.

a lot of the basic animated movie process even in 3d does still start with 2d storyboards etc. etc. so if people are especially worried about like the more pre production work i really doubt it'd be significantly different from a 3d film. it was mentioned by some representative that they didnt go with 2d because it would limit camera movement (valid limitation of the medium but like idk how many drone shots do you need) and expression (no fucking idea what they meant by this one lmao 2d is way more naturally expressive) and like i think that is the only sort of thing they'd have to really make sure they were working around in pre production. I Guess.

so yea basically i think it was something that disney could've absolutely done but like... it would've been a huge risk that would've taken a lot of rearrangement and setup (less than ppl may think, but still a fair bit) so like ofc they aren't doing that. its disney. a decade into live action remakes.

#lucky.pdf

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icyspicy4u · 10 months

Text

take their love and make it burn for you instead (chapter three)

heyyyy. chapters one and two up on ao3. ao3 link!

[REVIEW: How La La Land Fails to Make ‘Contact’ With Reality] Posted 12/14/16 by admin katiehomophobia.

Comments: Viewing 1-100 of 3.6k

pinkthingsoterrify: I cannot Jodie Foster this kind of behavior.

katiehomophobia [admin]: @pinkthingsoterrify HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.

Katya invites Trixie motherfucking Mattel into her home and turns her back on her. This is mainly due to the fact that she fears she’ll pop a blood vessel in her eye if she has to feign disinterest directly to the other woman’s face any longer.

“Sorry to interrupt your night,” Trixie says cautiously, followed by the creak of the door opening further—she must have accepted the invitation, then, stepped over the threshold. If Trixie is a vampire, Katya muses idly, she’s fucked.

“Not interrupting much,” Katya replies, still not facing her, electing to stub her cigarette out instead. Trixie Mattel is in Katya’s home. There’s still a fucking movie review with her name peppered throughout it pulled up on Katya’s computer. It occurs to her that she should rectify that, actually. “How can I help you?” she asks as she closes the tab of her broken website.

“Well, my name’s Trixie.” I know. “I’m subletting Kasha Davis’ place for a couple of months. She’s out for the night, so I can’t call her, and, um—” she gives a hissing exhale through her teeth, and Katya finally turns to face her, biting the inside of her cheek to keep herself from saying anything stupid — “my shower is broken, and I really need to fucking shower. She left your number, but I figured I’d just—” She makes a big, sweeping gesture that Katya can only assume is meant to convey come downstairs and knock on your door and absolutely turn your evening upside down because I’m Trixie motherfucking Mattel.

“Oh, the shower’s giving you trouble?” Katya asks, in a voice that sounds completely foreign to her own ears. She doesn’t fucking talk like this, like some extra from Grease. She clears her throat, adjusts her posture. “Sorry. There’s something wrong with your shower?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I know this sounds like an awful porn setup—I just figured I should consult somebody who lives here before I blow a thousand dollars on a plumber or something.” Trixie shrugs, and by god she’s beautiful, standing there in a floor-length gown like it’s nothing.

“I can come up and take a look at it, if you want,” Katya’s mouth says with absolutely no input from her brain. “The pipes can be kind of a bitch in this apartment. I assume that it’s the same story in Kasha’s.”

Trixie’s shoulders sink in relief. “Jesus, really? Thank you, I’ll owe you a meal or something—your name is Yekaterina, right?”

The full name makes Katya blink rapidly like she’s been struck across the face. The butchered pronunciation falling from Trixie’s mouth doesn’t carry quite the same weight as it did when her father yelled it in gruff, fluent Russian at her across the house, but even watered down, it has the same immobilizing effect.

“Katya,” she manages. “It’s Katya.”

Trixie nods, and although the twist of her lips tells Katya that she wants to interrogate that reaction, she doesn’t say a word about it. “Okay,” she says instead. It’s far too gentle for her to handle right now. “Katya.”

Instead of standing there dumbly for one second longer, Katya decides to grab her toolbox. It’s an old gift from her parents that she has never touched before, but by God, she will fake being butch for Trixie Mattel. She shimmies into some gym shorts and tightens her bird’s nest bun into something approximating secure, appraising herself in the mirror.

“Passable,” she says aloud.

When she strides back into the room, trying to project confidence and an intricate knowledge of shoddy California plumbing, Trixie’s standing where she left her in the living room. Her eyes are glued to the John Waters movie that’s still playing.

Katya allows herself a brief second to take it all in: there’s a gorgeous woman in a perfectly-fitted blush-pink gown standing at ease on Katya’s area rug, her mouth moving along absentmindedly to the filthy lines that Divine is spouting up on the screen, and she’s likely going to be nominated for a Golden Globe in a few hours.

“You a John Waters fan?” Katya asks loudly, startling Trixie and effectively shattering the beautiful, pink-edged peace of the moment.

“Oh, he’s my president,” Trixie says emphatically, to her credit seeming unbothered in the wake of Katya’s outburst. “I met him once at a film festival a couple of years ago and lost my mind about it.”

“Oh my god, shut up, oh my god. Shut the hell up. Really?” Katya asks, giddy and disbelieving.

Trixie grins, swipes her phone unlocked, and after a few navigational taps on the screen pulls up a photo of herself and motherfucking John Waters. Trixie looks young, wide-eyed and stunned by the flash but clearly over the moon to be standing next to her hero.

“I’ll be damned,” Katya says, shaking her head, and then grins toothily up at Trixie. “Nice peace sign.”

“Okay, whatever, I was nervous and—”

“You were a very entrepreneurial young woman making her way up in the world through the power of peace and excellent snuff film,” Katya says sagely, shifting the toolbox to the other hand.

Trixie rolls her eyes, which delights Katya to no end. She’s easy to needle, but is just as quick to give it right back, a relatively novel and exciting concept.

A lot of the time, Katya feels like she has to tone herself down when she first meets someone. Ease them in slowly to all of the barbs and the references and the flailing. Trixie is right there with her already—there is something wildly intoxicating about it.

“You got the tools,” Trixie notes, cutting a glance down to the rickety toolbox. “Instead of commenting on who I was meeting five years ago, did you perhaps want to actually do something with them?”

Katya snickers, but turns and lets Trixie lead her up to Kasha’s place, swinging the toolbox casually in her grip as they walk and trying not to objectify the next great star of America’s silver screen.

Because, well, wow. Mathematically speaking, Trixie is all curves. Bhaskara would go nuts if he saw the pink-clothed goddess his theories of sines and cosines had conspired to create. Her ass is at eye level as Katya follows her up the stairs, and she forces her gaze to her feet as her mouth goes dry.

She’s just here to fix a fucking shower (that she doesn’t know how to fix). She will put her metaphorical dick away for five minutes and muddle through this, so help her God, her unintentional months of celibacy and resulting pent-up arousal be damned.

Trixie swings the door open easily, having left it unlocked in her journey down to Katya’s place, and she holds it ajar so that Katya can follow her in.

Katya’s only met Mrs. Davis—Kasha, apparently—once or twice, but the interior decor of the apartment immediately makes sense with the personality she garnered from those brief meetings. It’s all extremely dated, gaudy pieces, once saturated with color but now more muted with age. The aesthetic of Kasha’s space seems like a hand-me-down sweater for Trixie—it doesn’t not fit her, with the blush pinks and ‘60s prints, but you can tell that it doesn’t belong to her.

She looks just a little out of place as she walks in ahead of Katya, sticking herself firmly by the pile of pink suitcases that must be hers. She points a finger over at a door with a big, garish LADIES sign on it, quintessentially middle-aged woman couture.

“That’s the bathroom,” she directs, shrugging. “I don’t know. You can give it your best shot.”

“I surely will,” Katya says, and turns her best, most winning grin on Trixie, just to see what she’ll do. She blushes a very pretty shade of pink and turns around, mumbling something about needing to find something in the myriad of suitcases.

Well. That’s an interesting response Katya doesn’t have the time to address right now.

She salutes and pushes through the door with the terrible sign, setting her toolbox down in the tub and flopping down to take a seat alongside it. She stares up at the showerhead. It doesn’t look like anything’s wrong with it, so that’s Katya’s first plan of action foiled, and when she stands up and taps it with her hand nothing magically starts working, so her second one is shot, too.

After about fifteen minutes of Katya engaging in a one-sided staring match with the faucet, Trixie shows up in the doorway sipping from a glass of wine.

“How’s it going?” she asks, her tone a little too amused for Katya’s comfort.

Fearing the jig is up, Katya purses her lips and decides to sell it even harder. Blaze of glory, and all that. “I’m going to be frank, this is worse than I thought,” she says seriously, pushing her glasses up her nose.

“Really?” Trixie asks, the teasing dropped from her voice as it’s replaced with real concern. “Fuck, did I do something to it?”

She looks genuinely worried, her brown eyes wide and fearful, so Katya gives herself a nice pat on the back for her own theatricality, which is rarely serviceable, and then drops the act to avoid fraying Trixie’s psyche further. “No, not really,” she says. “It’s just not working.”

“Jesus, don’t scare me like that,” Trixie says, grinning. Her tensed shoulders have gone slack in relief, but then she starts working her lip between her teeth as she realizes something. “I’m kind of fucked, then, aren’t I?”

“My shower’s open,” Katya offers, and then cringes a little bit at how that sounds. “I mean, you can borrow my shower tonight and I will make myself scarce when you do. If you want.”

“If I want?” Trixie parrots, mocking her with a wonderful, sly tilt to her mouth.

“I just figured you might want a chance to rinse off this cotton-candy coating,” Katya tells her, grinning at the banter, gesturing to the pink gown and pink earrings and pink detailing in her hair. She looks rosy and sugary-sweet in the lamplight of Kasha’s place. Delectable.

“Mm. You would not be wrong,” Trixie says dryly, cracking her neck to one side. “I… okay. If you’re serious, and you’re sure you don’t mind.”

Katya nods. “Wouldn’t have offered if I did,” she says cheerfully, because it’s true. “I’ll head out to the courtyard while you’re indecent, give you some space. Just stick your head out the window and shout when you’re done. Should be open.”

“I should ask you if you’re a serial killer, but you clearly are,” Trixie says carefully, and sure, Katya’s only known her for a little while, but she likes to think she can hear the edge of a smile in her voice.

She smiles back, the one that shows all her teeth, and cranes her head at a disturbing angle. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Tritzie,” she coos, and Trixie’s face scrunches up in disgust before she barks out a real laugh.

Katya hasn’t heard it before in any of the interviews she’s watched—this laugh is screechy and grating to the ears as it rises and falls like a wave. It’s such a perfectly distilled sound of human joy that all Katya can do is break right along with her, her awful smoker’s wheeze of a laugh folding in to Trixie’s scream.

“You’re a psychopath,” Trixie pants, catching her breath, holding her index fingers under her eyes to catch her tears from laughing. “Jesus Christ, oh my God.”

Katya, a little out of breath from laughing herself, just grins at her before hopping up out of the shower. “Come on, I feel like you might calcify to the floor if you stay in one place too long,” she tells her. “What’s all this for, anyway?” She gestures to the pink opulence Trixie appears to be draped in from head to toe—except her face, which is mysteriously bare.

Trixie was leading the way back out the front door, so when she stops in her tracks at the question it means she bumps into Katya. “Sorry,” she says automatically, reaching out a hand to steady her. It’s unthinkingly sweet. “Um. It was for a photoshoot.”

The walls that Katya could instantly sense when she opened the door and saw Trixie have clearly been thrown back up. She’s disappointed at first, but then a shiver of self-revulsion creeps up and down her spine at the uneven dynamic at work here, one that Trixie isn’t even aware of. Katya spent the whole day researching Trixie Mattel for her article—Trixie met Katya minutes ago, and has no idea who she is.

“Oh, cool,” she says simply, hoping the enthusiasm in her tone doesn’t come across as desperate, and drops it immediately, resuming the walk back to her apartment. Trixie will tell her if she wants to. If she doesn’t, that is none of Katya’s goddamn business. Katya already knows too much.

“Hold on,” Trixie says strongly, and it’s Katya’s turn to pause, keeping her feet rooted where they are as she turns her head around slowly like she’s in a screwball comedy. Her heart pounds. Does Trixie know too much? Did she see Katya’s computer? Does she know who she is? “Slow down. I need to find my shower stuff in these bags.”

“Oh,” Katya replies, more than a little stupidly. “Yeah, duh. Sorry.”

Trixie digs out no less than five different hair care products from one bag, then yanks a towel out from another, and then stands there working her lip between her teeth again until Katya figures out she’s probably trying to remember where her pajamas are.

“I have shirts,” she volunteers easily. “And pants, too, if you ask really nicely.”

Trixie snaps her gaze up, like she’d forgotten Katya was there. She laughs (not the same full-throttle cackle as before, which is extremely disappointing) and then releases a big sigh.

“Yeah, that would probably be easiest,” she says, pressing the heel of her free hand into her eye. “Thanks. I fucking hate moving.”

Katya almost decides to regale her with the tale of the time her mom had to move a sex doll out of her old Boston apartment, but then just as quickly decides against it. Probably not the time.

“Okay, here’s the shower,” she tells Trixie once they’re back in Katya’s apartment, the John Waters movie in the living room paused on a truly excellent expression on Edith Massey’s face. She points to the faucet, points to the showerhead. “It’s exactly like Kasha’s, but it works.”

“Mm,” Trixie says dryly, nods. She’s running out of humor, but so would Katya, if she had come out of a photoshoot of the caliber Trixie’s gown suggests and had to contend with herself to be able to take a shower.

“I’ll leave you be,” she promises, brandishing the pajamas she agonized over selecting for just a few minutes too long in her room.

Trixie snorts at the illustration of the Pan’s Labyrinth hand-eye monster over the front of the shirt Katya chose.

“Comfy,” she snarks, shakes her head, but a smile tugs at her mouth. “Thanks again, Katya. For all of this.”

“Oh, of course,” Katya says, waving a hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be in the courtyard.” She jerks a thumb over her shoulder towards the window that looks out onto the pitiful little square of dehydrated grass. “Give a shout out the window when you’re done.”

Trixie nods again, then closes the bathroom door behind her. As Katya heads for the courtyard with her keys and a fresh pack of cigarettes, she hears the water start up, then the screech of Trixie’s voice: “Are you kidding me? It’s that easy?”

Katya smirks, shakes her head, then jogs down the stairs out to the front courtyard.

Sitting in the lone chair out here, lighting up a cigarette in the still of the night, makes it finally set in how fucking bizarre this all is. Katya feels like a witch. A soothsayer. She called out into the universe for Trixie, and now here she is.

She drafts a text to Willow.

So, a newly A-list Hollywood celebrity is using my shower, she types, then deletes it.

Trixie Mattel is in my home. Delete.

My pussy’s summoning powers are getting stronger, Mother… delete. She kind of stares at that one for a while, though.

She shuts off her phone without sending anything and takes an especially long drag on her cigarette. Telling anyone else about this moment feels like it’ll break it, somehow. This feels like a story to be savored, one that she should bring up on her deathbed at the last possible moment, having held it to her chest for decades but needing it to be spoken out into the universe. Once, oh, marvelous once… Trixie Mattel knocked on my door, and I lied about having plumbing expertise because I didn’t know what else to do…

Her first cigarette is dead, so she throws it to the ground, extinguishes it under her heel, and then lights another one.

The strangest part of all of this, really, after her obvious initial shock, is that it honestly doesn’t feel weird having Trixie in the apartment. She fits somehow, an impossibly tall Barbie that wound up among Katya’s матрёшка dolls and carved out a space for herself. She strikes Katya as someone who is used to that. She seems like she’s had a lot of practice carving out space for herself, in this world that doesn’t quite deserve her.

Everyone else in Katya’s life, when she first meets them, always feels a little bit like an invader. She spends so much time in her own head that real people take some adjusting to. But Trixie hopped over that hurdle easily, as if it didn’t exist, and now she’s occupying space in Katya’s head like she’s never not been there.

Is this comfort something to be concerned about? She pulls her legs up to her chest and crosses them at the ankles, puffs around her cigarette.

Addictive personalities are no joke, Mary. It’s something she has to be constantly careful of, lest she pull someone into her orbit and be unable to let them go. To extend the metaphor, it would only end in cosmic disaster—planets colliding, black holes being created, blah blah blah.

There’s a banging sound behind her that interrupts her thoughts, and when she turns instinctively she sees her window fly open to reveal Trixie. She’s lit from behind by the lamps in the living room, so Katya can’t make out her facial expression when she shouts, “Your water pressure sucks.”

“Yeah,” Katya yells back, not arguing. “Sorry.” It seems like the right thing to say, but she sees Trixie’s posture flinch.

“No, you don’t need to—that wasn’t a real complaint,” Trixie says hastily. “I—Jesus. Come up here, I hate yelling like this.”

Obediently, Katya stubs out the cigarette, wasting a couple hundredths of ounces of tobacco, and jogs back up the stairs.

“I was trying to be funny,” Trixie says petulantly as soon as Katya comes in the back door.

If seeing her in the gown, a red carpet glamoured vision, was a mindfuck for Katya, seeing Trixie Mattel in Katya’s Pale Man t-shirt that’s just a little too small and Katya’s flannel pants that are just a little too short is something else entirely. Something that hits her more squarely in the chest.

“Oh,” Katya says, intelligently. “I should’ve laughed.”

Trixie snorts, then. “You’re weird,” she says, uncrosses her arms and then starts to move before pausing where she stands.

Katya would like to kiss her, she thinks. Or ask her if that would be something she would want. She’s old, now, or older, and her methods of beguiling have dwindled to just point-blank requests.

Miss Mattel, care for a fucking?

That’s too much to say to Trixie, though, even for Katya, so instead they both just stand there, each seemingly biting something back.

“Do you like Pink Flamingos? I didn’t, really, the first time I saw it,” Trixie volunteers, still not having moved from where she’s standing by the kitchen table. “Too gross. I think I’ve only seen it the once.”

“Yeah?” Katya says. She feels stuck in a low gear, only able to supply simple one-syllable words. She clears her throat. “Wanna stay till it’s over?”

Trixie’s eyes widen. She smiles a little bit.

“Yeah, all right,” she says.

It goes back to being easy, after that one charged moment in the kitchen. Trixie sits on one end of the couch, both legs tucked under her primly, and Katya sits all splayed out on the other end. Divine stands disgusting and beautiful on the TV and bathes them in a blue-screen glow.

“Kill everyone now. Condone first-degree murder. Advocate cannibalism. Eat shit!”

Trixie mumbles the lines along with Divine from the other end of the couch, her eyes locked and unblinking on the screen. Katya giggles.

“So you said you don’t like this movie?”

“It’s fucking abhorrent,” Trixie tells her, shaking her head. “But you can’t deny that Divine kills.”

“Well, yeah, she condones first-degree murder. I know the line too,” Katya says with a smirk, dodging out of reach of the kick Trixie attempts to land on her. “How did you even find this movie? Film class?”

“No, no, there’s this film critic I love—”

Trixie sits up eagerly, her eyes alight, and hives instantly begin to prickle over Katya’s chest.

“She writes these reviews every week. Sometimes they’re for blockbusters, sometimes they’re completely off-the-wall hidey-hole flicks, and sometimes she just goes on a multi-day rampage where she watches movies by the same director for days at a time. Sometimes even the same movie.”

“What’s her name?” Katya asks, hoping her voice comes out right. She can’t really tell.

“Oh, the site’s called I Like To Watch, but she posts under Katie Homophobia—” Katya’s hives instantly get worse, she can feel it, and her cheeks flame. “Nobody knows her real name, though. It’s crazy. She’s bigger than the New York Times some weeks, and she’s completely anonymous.”

“So she’s, um. She likes John Waters, then?” Katya asks, nodding at the screen.

“Yeah, she loves the original Hairspray. She watched Pink Flamingos, too, but that one she branded as disgusting. Good, too, she gave it a good review, but disgusting—I was intrigued, so I watched it, and I agree with her. Still do,” she adds, flicking a look back up to the screen.

“So do you borrow all your film opinions from, um. From Miss Homophobia?”

Trixie scoffs. “No.” She smiles then, pleased with herself. “Just most of them.”

“I don’t really watch many movies,” Katya says abruptly, some dumbass part of her trying to push herself as far away from I Like To Watch as possible with maybe the stupidest excuse ever fathomed.

“Oh?” Trixie asks, amused, and Katya realizes that she’s looking around at all the vintage theater display posters, the original film reel of Silence of the Lambs, the tall stack of film books on the coffee table.

“New movies,” Katya amends, sort of desperately. “I don’t go to the theater much.”

“Mm,” Trixie replies, apparently satisfied with that. She opens her mouth, but then closes it immediately—something shifts in her expression, and she says nothing.

They settle back into mutual silence for the rest of the movie, Trixie occasionally making retching noises at the dog shit scene and Katya staring blankly at one part of the screen without really blinking.

Trixie Mattel is an avid reader of I Like To Watch. Well. That’s certainly something.

It’s obviously kind of terrible, another card on top of the rapidly growing stack of Things Katya Knows That Trixie Doesn’t Know and Maybe Should Share With Her, but all Katya can find herself thinking of is if Trixie has ever commented on any of her posts. If they’ve ever interacted before today.

I would’ve known, she thinks vehemently to herself. I would have felt—something.

Pink Flamingos ends, and the TV segues right into Hairspray on autoplay after the credits roll. Katya looks over at Trixie, who looks right back and shrugs before settling back into the couch cushions to watch the movie.

After Hairspray’s over, of course it’s Female Trouble up next, and then at some point while Divine is strangling her daughter onscreen over dressing like a nun Katya falls asleep.

When she wakes up, her wall clock reads seven in the morning, barely legible in the low light of dawn, and Trixie’s snoring on the other end of the couch. She looks sweet, Katya thinks drowsily.

A noise is blaring from somewhere. It’s loud enough that it makes Katya clap her hands over her ears once she gains enough consciousness to hear it and figure out where it’s coming from: the pink phone on the coffee table, presumably Trixie’s.

Trixie’s phone is doing that thing that phones do when you get so many texts that your phone can’t possibly make enough noises to notify you of them all. It’s ringing, it’s buzzing, it’s chiming, all at once, and Trixie is sleeping through the whole thing.

Katya glances over at Trixie, snoring like a train, and then it hits her.

The woman sleeping on Katya’s couch has just been nominated for a Golden Globe.

Nominations started just before six, the Best Actress category would be happening around now, it all makes sense.

Katya should wake her up, she should hold the phone to her ear, she should at least plug the phone in before it dies.

All she can get herself to do at this moment, though, is just kind of sit there in the knowledge that everything is about to change. The feeling of standing on a precipice that she had last night when Trixie looked her right in the eyes and told Katya about her own film site returns full force. It makes her dizzy.

She shakes her head in an attempt to physically rid herself of the feeling. It doesn’t work, but it loosens something enough that she reaches over to the other side of the couch and shakes Trixie awake, hard.

“Trix,” she whispers as Trixie’s eyes peel open, the nickname coming far too easy, “Trixie. Your phone’s been ringing.”

Trixie’s eyes fly wide as she scrambles to sit up, and Katya knows she figured it out, too.

“Oh, shit,” says Golden Globe nominee Trixie Mattel.

#zig writes #take their love #trixya #trixie x katya #rpdr fanfiction #rpdr

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crystalninjaphoenix · 1 year

Text

To Be a Hero

A JSE Fanfic

SepticHeroes AU: Part 12

Big news in this part :D Also a lot of setup for future events. Also a lot of dialogue. I’m gonna keep this author’s note short and spoiler-free. Jackie has a talk with Leapfrog, who delivers said big news ;) Then later, he and Chase hang out with Schneep and have an interesting conversation. And while that’s happening, JJ gets a familiar visit at his shop. Happy reading!

===============

It was only a matter of time before the peace in the city was broken with another big crime. Jackie just considered himself lucky that it had been one he could take care of while his leg was still healing.

He’d woken up that morning ready to go to work, only to hear on the police radio that there was a bank robbery downtown with super activity. Once he’d heard that, he’d jumped right out the window without even bothering to shower or tell Chase he was leaving, only pausing in his flight to call his day job and tell them he was calling in sick. Once he’d done all that, it only took about thirty minutes to deal with everything.

Now he was standing outside the First Bank of Daindover, watching as the police were pushing the villain known as Titanium into a squad car. “Mark this day, Windstorm!” Titanium shouted. “You’ll rue it!”

“I’ll rue it like I rue’d all the other days you got arrested!” Jackie shouted back. “Maybe next time, you should try robbing somewhere more creative!” Seriously, this bank was robbed by super villains at least once a month. He couldn’t believe they hadn’t upgraded their security.

Titanium shouted some very generic villain insults at Jackie, which got cut off when the car door slammed shut with her inside. “Good work, kid,” a voice said.

Jackie turned around. “Hey, Ace. Thanks. She’s no problem, really. But this is the third time. How does she keep getting out?”

Ace shrugged. “Hard to keep someone who’s invulnerable inside a normal jail. First time she escaped she just ran right through the concrete wall. I hear they’re going to put her in Byrthon Vault for security. I don’t envy her.”

“Finally graduated to the big-boy prison,” Jackie muttered. He was trying to make a joke, but it just sounded grim when he said it out loud.

“Hey, how’re you doing on this case you’re working on?” Ace asked. “Were those files I lent you any help?”

“Some, yeah. Thanks. Oh! I ran into the villain behind all the string nonsense. The Puppeteer.”

Ace raised an eyebrow. “Fitting. Anything the department can use? Identifying traits, powers to look out for?”

“Nothing identifying, no.” Jackie shook his head. He recalled his and Spitfire’s run-in with the Puppeteer last week. That costume had covered everything, and the synthetic voice hadn’t been any help. “But, uh, weird thing. His powers aren’t actually mind control.” He paused for Ace’s reaction, but the detective just gestured for him to continue. “While I was there, he controlled a bunch of these crash test dummies to attack. It was crazy. There were so many of them.”

“Huh.” Ace thought about it. “So, the Puppeteer can control anything that’s human-shaped, then?”

“Yeah. Yeah!” Jackie nodded. “That’s exactly it! I hadn’t put it together. I guess I was too hung up on the type classification. Though... it really shouldn’t be possible for him to control both living and non-living things.”

“Look, kid. The Super Types are useful, but they’re used for people, and people can’t be sorted into boxes so easily. There’ll be exceptions and overlaps with any labels.”

“True,” said another voice. “But sometimes we need shortcuts.”

Jackie spun around in the other direction. “Leapfrog!” he gasped.

Leapfrog smiled at him. He hadn’t seen her in person since she first recruited him, but she looked exactly like he remembered. Same waist-length blond hair. Same yellow suit, green tie, and green mask. Same copper shield-shaped badge, this time pinned on her lapel instead of in her pocket. “Sorry for eavesdropping,” she said. “Couldn’t help it. How have you been, Windstorm?”

“I’ve been good.” His leg, while still slightly injured, had healed to the point where he could stand on it for long periods instead of hovering all the time. “Uh, nothing new since I talked to you on the phone last week.”

“I heard you filling this man in on those events.” Leapfrog nodded at Ace. “Hello. You’re part of the police’s villain division, I assume?”

Ace nodded, and held out his hand. “Detective Alan Ainsworth. Call me Ace, everyone does.”

“Jenna Croakes. Call me Leapfrog, it’s my secret identity.” Leapfrog shook Ace’s hand. “Do you mind if I talk to Windstorm for a bit?”

“Not at all. I need to wrap things up over here, anyway.” Ace jerked his head back towards the various police officers still milling around the bank. “Good luck, kid.” And he turned to go.

Jackie watched him for a moment, then looked at Leapfrog. “Alright, what, uh...what’s up?”

“Let’s talk somewhere a bit more private.” Leapfrog glanced around, then pointed up at a nearby three-story building. “Meet me on the roof.”

“Meet you—? Uh, okay.” Jackie nodded. He backed up a bit, gave a little jump, and flew upwards. The wind carried him over to the building, where he carefully landed. He turned around, looking for a roof entrance that Leapfrog could possibly use, only to see her landing right behind him, legs bending as if catching herself after a fall. “Whatdafuck?!”

“Not a flier, if you’re wondering.” Leapfrog adjusted her suit jacket. “I jumped.”

“Jumped?! Oh.” Jackie hit his forehead. “Leapfrog. Jump. Duh.”

“It’s not all that useful for fighting crime,” Leapfrog said. “Which is why I’m a recruitment liaison and not a Hero. Anyway. How is the search coming? I know you reported your Puppeteer encounter last week, anything new since then? With him or the Specter?”

Jackie shook his head. “Sorry. But I’m keeping an eye out for any potential targets for either of them.”

Leapfrog gestured off the roof towards the ground. “Was that villain down there involved?”

“Titanium? No. I checked her wrists for strings, nothing there. She just wanted to rob a bank, I guess.” Jackie paused. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be, these investigations take time,” Leapfrog reassured him. “I just wanted to check. Now, as to why I’m here. I was going to stop by your flat, but I heard the police call and figured you’d rush to the bank. I have an update for you.”

“Alright.” Jackie nodded. “Thanks for not going to the apartment, my roommate would have lots of questions. What’s, uh...what’s up?” Didn’t he just say that earlier? God, the nerves jumping around his stomach were messing with his words.

“It’s about the neutrinalin,” Leapfrog said.

Jackie’s attention sharpened even further. “Yeah?”

“It turns out, they refuse to give it to anyone who’s not an official Hero, or who doesn’t work in one of the super prisons,” Leapfrog said.

“Oh.” Jackie slumped.

“So, I have a question for you.” Leapfrog paused. “Do you have any plans on Halloween?”

“Huh? Uh, not as of right now.”

“Good. Because the League scheduled your official welcoming ceremony for that day, and it would be really hard to change that.”

“...wait.” Jackie blinked. The nerves in his stomach began leaping around in anticipation. “You mean...the ceremony that would make me...an official Hero?”

“Well, technically, the ceremony is just a formality. What really matters is this.” She reached into her pocket and took out a silver shield-shaped badge with a stylized LoH on it. And as she handed it out to him, she smiled. “Congratulations, Windstorm. You’ve passed the probation period.”

Jackie stared down at the badge in her hand. He could see the word ‘HERO’ on it, along with his super name, ‘Windstorm.’ Slowly, he took it, half-afraid the badge would break at any moment. He stared at it, running a finger along the engravings, then after what was probably too long a moment, he looked back up at Leapfrog. “You’re... serious?”

“Very serious,” Leapfrog confirmed, chuckling a little bit.

He looked back down at the badge. “ I-I’ve only been doing this for about three months.”

“And you’ve been exceptional.”

Jackie laughed. “I haven’t even done that much...”

“Well, you’ve done enough. Honestly, I’ve been recruiting Heroes for ten years now, and you’re among the brightest. You remind me of a Hero I recruited in my early days, name of Light Phoenix. Both so enthusiastic, so dedicated. Both making Hero status in record time.” Leapfrog grinned. “You deserve it, Jackie.”

He lifted his head. And in that moment, he realized that he’d been slowly lifting into the air, as Leapfrog was a lot shorter than she was a few seconds ago. He lowered himself back down. “I...” He started, then stopped, and shook his head with a smile on his face. “I don’t know what to say. This... this is my dream. I-I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” Leapfrog said. “The League doesn’t want the press to know about it until the 17th, but everything on our end has been completed.”

“Can I...can I wear the badge?” Jackie asked tentatively.

Leapfrog nodded. “Whenever you want. I do suggest wearing it out while patrolling and stopping crime. Preferably over your heart, either outside your suit or inside. The metal is a lot more bulletproof than the suit fabric, and we’ve had cases of badges saving Heroes’ lives. Oh, and you will have to wear it to League gatherings and stuff.”

“Right. I can...I can go to League gatherings now.” He was half tempted to slap himself, to see if he would wake up. This was so surreal, and yet it was real. The badge was in his hand. It was heavier than he expected, a solid weight in his hand.

He was surprised that becoming a Hero was so...easy. Not that fighting crime and saving people was easy. But the entire process, from him putting in his application to this moment right now, had taken a little less than four months. It was a little strange, but he wasn’t about to question it. After all, he had been doing hero work for two years now. The League probably just saw his track record and decided he had enough experience.

“There are some you’ll have to go to,” Leapfrog said. “Mostly boring things. Part of being a Hero involves communicating with government officials and police and stuff. A lot of meetings. Occasionally a fun ball or something. I’ve seen people get asked to do commercials for products, that sort of stuff is up to you.”

Jackie laughed. “I’ve always wondered how people got Heroes for stuff like that! Wow. Wow.” He turned the badge over, examining the pin. It was designed vaguely like a button’s, but a lot more solid and secure. It would probably puncture a noticeable hole in his super suit, regardless of how tough the material was supposed to be. He started to put it on, then thought better of it and slipped it into his pocket. “Thank you. Thank you so much, I...” He laughed breathlessly. “This is incredible.”

“Well, super Heroes do the incredible every day.” Leapfrog gave him a little salute. “Call me if you need anything. I’ll probably be calling and texting you a lot, since your Red Line now has permission to access more League databases and such. You need to install some things and do some training.”

“Got it.” Jackie nodded. “So, uh...” Another smile crept over his face, this one a bit more impish than the others. “Am I the best recruit you’ve ever recruited?”

Leapfrog blinked, then laughed. “You’re up there. Definitely the best in this city.”

“I’m the only Hero that’s ever been in this city.” Jackie paused. “Oh. Right. I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while. I noticed Timekeeper wasn’t in the League database of Heroes. Did you guys never recruit him?”

Leapfrog shook her head. “No. Once the higher-ups heard about him, they certainly wanted him to join. But he never applied. We were discussing me going over to ask him to join in person, but he disappeared after that battle with Earth Shaker two and a half years ago.” She sighed. “Always wonder what happened to him. If he’s still out there somewhere.”

“Yeah.” Jackie stood there for a moment, wondering the same thing. Then he raised into a hover. “Well. I’ll see you, then.”

“See you, Windstorm. Good luck.”

He smiled, and flew off, heading no direction in particular.

A Hero.

An official Hero.

Today was the best fucking day of his life.

===============

There was a knock on his bedroom door. Jackie, slouching in his desk chair, quickly sat up straight and closed the notebook he was looking at: the one with all the information about the Specter and the Puppeteer. His eyes darted around the room, making sure nothing super was out in plain view. Suit was in the wardrobe and badge was in the desk drawer... and there was nothing else. Good. “Yeah, come in,” he called.

Chase pulled open the door, glancing around. Frosty stuck his head into the new gap, also looking around. “How do you keep this place so clean?” he muttered.

“Clean? I’m clean? Please tell my mom that, she’s complained about my messiness since I was old enough to do chores.”

Chase laughed. “I’m just saying. At least you have your dirty clothes in a basket. Anyway. Uhhh...” He paused, momentarily forgetting what he was going to say. Quickly, he checked his phone. “Oh yeah! Have you been to Schneep’s place yet?”

Jackie blinked. “No. Why?”

“Well I was thinking about going over and hanging out. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him. Do you want to come?”

“Now?”

“Well, whenever you want.”

“Umm... sure.” Jackie spun his chair around to fully face Chase. “We could go over for dinner or something. It would prevent us from ordering pizza again.”

“I swear, we don’t do that as often as you think we do,” Chase insisted.

“Heh.” Jackie grinned. “What’s Schneep’s place like?”

“Nicer than this,” Chase says. “But not, like, for rich people. Just above average. You’ll see. Oh! Wait, yeah, I should tell you. His apartment building isn’t near a train station. Are you gonna be okay with walking, or should we get a cab or Uber or something?”

“I’ll be fine, thanks. You?”

“Yeah, I know I’m fine. Walked there a lot.” Chase glanced down back at his phone, switching from the notes to the messages. “I’ll tell him we’re coming over around...six? Is that good?”

“Maybe six-thirty,” Jackie suggested.

“Good idea. We’ll need more time for the walk.” Chase typed something out, sending a text. About thirty seconds later, he got a reply. “Great. He says he’ll make food.”

“Great.” Jackie gave a thumbs-up. “I’ll remember. Anything else you need?”

“Thanks for editing my video again,” Chase said. He gave a little laugh. “I don’t know how you had time to do that, since you seem to be working or at the gym all the time.”

“I’m good at multitasking,” Jackie said. “Also, it’s no problem. It’s fun.” He liked seeing Chase’s process for video-making. It was like they were hanging out together, filming something.

Chase raised an eyebrow. “You and I have very different definitions of fun. But alright. We’ll have to catch the green train at around 5:45 to get to Schneep’s place.” He chuckled when he saw Jackie’s surprise. “Yeah, it’s pretty far out on the edge of town. Gotta be an inconvenient commute to the hospital.”

“Got it.” Jackie nodded. “I’ll set an alarm.”

“I will too.” And with that, Chase closed the bedroom door—slowly, so Frosty had time to get his face out of the way.

Jackie picked up his phone and started setting the alarm as promised. He was planning on more patrolling tonight, but it had been slow for crime. Nothing the police couldn’t handle. And Spitfire Cat didn’t have any new leads to follow up on. So time for a free night.

===============

Chase wasn’t kidding when he said Schneep lived on the edge of town. They caught the train at 5:45 like planned, and still barely reached the building by the time 6:30 rolled around. This area was practically a different city. Or, it would be, if Daindover wasn’t a massive urban and suburban area.

These apartment buildings were new. They’d only been built about three or four years ago, which was a hell of a lot newer than the rest of the city. Each building was only three floors high, their outsides painted vivid colors: red, yellow, green, blue. Jackie wondered if it was weird to be surprised that Schneep lived in a place like this. But he did live there. In Building A, Flat 2D, to be specific. Chase and Jackie took the elevator up to the second floor, where Chase knocked on the appropriate door.

“Just one moment!” Schneep’s voice called from inside. Some dishes clinked, and then the door opened, revealing Schneep in a dark blue sweater. “Ah, you two are on time,” he said. “Thank you for not inviting yourselves to dinner and then being late. To the dinner you invited yourselves to.”

“You didn’t have to let us come by, bro,” Chase said. “Don’t be salty.”

“I am not salty, I am the sweetest person I know,” Schneep said, face deadpan.

Jackie couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“Well, come in.” Schneep stood to the side. “Ah, Chase, I actually bought a bed for Frosty, since you kept coming over.”

“Aw, really? That is sweet. I’m touched.” Chase put his hand over his heart. “But, well, Frosty’s working right now.”

“I know, I thought just in case.”

The two of them walked into the apartment, and Jackie looked around. Chase wasn’t kidding. It was nicer than their place. The front door opened into a combination living room and dining room, with an archway on the left leading to a full kitchen that smelled of something cooking. To the right were two doors, one of which was ajar to show a bedroom. Right by the front door, to the left, was another closed door. A curtained window overlooked the street below. The whole thing was probably as big as Jackie and Chase’s apartment, but with one less bedroom, resulting in a lot more space. “You have a lovely place,” Jackie said.

Chase laughed. “Wow, so formal all of a sudden.”

“Well it is!” Jackie said defensively.

Schneep smiled. “Thank you.”

Jackie glanced around. “Um, sorry to ask this, but...I need to use your bathroom.” He reached for the door to the left.

“Do not go there, then!” Schneep braced his arm over the doorway just as Jackie grabbed the doorknob.

“Whoa, okay, sorry!” Jackie backed up. “Why? What’s in there?”

“My closet,” Schneep said. “And nothing. Sorry for being loud.”

Chase chuckled. “The doc is hiding his secret identity from us. He’s been Windstorm this whole time!”

Schneep rolled his eyes. “I am not.”

“Well has anyone ever seen you and him in the same place?” Jackie asked, a smile twitching at his mouth.

“Yeah, you seem to be the right height and build, too.” Chase squinted his eyes, stroking his beard. “Hmmm...”

Schneep reached over and gently shoved him.

“Whoa, be careful!” Chase laughed. “Alright, bit over.”

“Let’s just go in and eat dinner,” Schneep said. “I went to the trouble of making it when you two invited yourselves over. We should not let it go to waste.”

A couple minutes later, the three of them were sitting at the dinner table with plates of food. “You didn’t have to make something so fancy,” Jackie said.

“I worry about your diet if chicken and mashed potatoes are fancy to you,” Schneep said.

“Well you have like...broccoli and shit, too. Green stuff.” Jackie glanced at Chase. “The only time we eat anything green is when Chase asks for pepper on the pizza.”

“That’s twice you’ve mentioned pizza today, I think you have the problem, not me.” Chase cut off a piece of the chicken and held it out to Frosty, sitting on the floor beside him. Frosty sniffed it, seemed to hesitate, then licked it up. “Attaboy.” Chase smiled. “I know I’m not supposed to do that, but you deserve a treat sometimes.” He returned his attention to the others. “Okay, but seriously. You ever notice how all of us kinda have the same look as Windstorm?”

“Uhhh no,” Jackie said carefully. “Why? Do you have something to tell us, Chase?”

Chase laughed. “Bro, I couldn’t be a superhero. Especially him. Have you seen the acrobatics he pulls off in the air? I can’t even stand up. Nah, if he would be any of us, I bet it would be Schneep.”

“Ah, you choose the better of two options, I see,” Schneep said.

“Wha—” Jackie couldn’t help but be a little offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I am sure Windstorm would not make the mistake of wearing a binder during heavy exercise like he does.” Schneep’s bright blue eyes seemed to bore into Jackie.

“I stopped doing that,” Jackie muttered, shoving a spoon of potatoes in his mouth to avoid continuing this conversation.

“In any case, I am no hero,” Schneep said. “So it is both bad options.”

“Of course you’re a hero, doc,” Chase said sincerely. “You save people, and that’s all a hero does, right? You know, the other day, someone at work thought I was you. She realized I wasn’t the moment I said anything, of course, but I told her I knew you. Her name was, uhh...” He checked the notes on his phone. “Kira Heath. She said you helped cover the fees for her and her kid.”

“Heath? Yes, I remember.” Schneep nodded gravely, and looked down towards the table. “They were both too close to that fight between Windstorm and Hyper Charge in December last year.”

“But they’re okay now, right?!” Jackie blurted out.

Schneep looked up at him. “Yes, they are fine. I made sure. The child, Ben, he almost lost an eye from one of Hyper Charge’s blasts. But he did not.”

Jackie slumped. He remembered that. Hyper Charge was one crazy villain, never caring about how many people were around, only how impressive the explosions looked when he blew things up. There were so many people around that day. Jackie hadn’t been able to check on them all. He let the sense of relief fade away. What was left was a strange, niggling feeling about something Chase said. “What do you mean, ‘cover the fees’?”

“You know,” Chase said. “The fees.”

“No, I don’t.” Jackie slowly shook his head.

Schneep’s grip on his fork tightened. “Every hospital is required, by the Super Laws, to have a SDER Department, to respond to super-related emergencies, and treat power-created injuries. You would think that would mean going there is covered by the government, as healthcare is supposed to be in this country. And, on paper, yes. However, in reality, that is not the case.” He sat up straight. “You see, the League supplies hospitals with the special medicine and equipment sometimes needed to treat super injuries. But not for free. The hospital must pay for it. Even for use of the database. They must pay the League for it all. The government does not give hospitals the money for this, so many of them have fees. When you go in for a super-related injury, you will get a high bill.” Schneep looked at Jackie. “I did not charge you for that time you got hit by Spitfire Cat’s beam. But only because you did not make it an official appointment. If you had, I would be required to do so. Though I would not, anyway.”

“...oh.” Jackie had no idea what to say for this. “I...didn’t know there was special medicine and equipment for super stuff.”

“Oh, very much so.” Schneep nodded. “Super powers are so diverse, sometimes they require specialized solutions. These are created by the League. I am not sure how, but they are. So they can only be...acquired from the League.”

“Well... I guess that makes sense,” Jackie said. “It probably costs a lot to make stuff like that, so the League has to sell it for a lot.” He looked at Chase. “Wait, did you have to pay fees after your whole thing?”

“Uhhh...I don’t remember,” Chase said.

“You did,” Schneep confirmed.

“But he had amnesia!” Jackie protested.

“He still had his ID. And because of that, they were able to link him to an identity, and a bank account.” Schneep reached over and patted Chase’s hand. “Don’t worry, my friend. I helped cover it.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Chase looked baffled, but grateful anyway. He then shook his head. “Well, this has all been very serious. I just wanted to know if you were Windstorm, Schneep.”

Schneep laughed. “No, no. I could never handle being at the center of action. I never could. Not even when I was a child. Could you be a superhero, Chase? If you had the powers?”

Chase shrugged. “I dunno. I’ve never really thought about it. Jackie?”

“Uh...” Jackie cleared his throat. “I think it’d be cool. I’d like to help people.”

“I see,” Schneep said, eyes locked on Jackie’s face.

Again, Jackie had that suspicion. But Schneep couldn’t possibly know. How would he have figured it out? But he couldn’t shake the feeling that Schneep suspected something. Whether or not that something was right, he had no idea.

Eventually, slowly, the previous conversation was forgotten and they moved on to different topics, as people did when they talked. Stuff like work, and books, and video games. After dinner was finished, Jackie took his plate, cup, and utensils back into the kitchen.

“You don’t need to do that, Jackie,” Schneep called after him.

“No, it’s fine,” Jackie called back. “Is just by the sink fine?”

“Alright. While you’re in there, you can help yourself to anything in the fridge, if you are still full.”

Jackie wasn’t, but he checked the fridge anyway. Nothing seemed appealing, but something did catch his eye. He went back to the living room/dining room with it in his hands. “Hey, nice bottle,” he said, holding it up. “Planning for after-dinner drinks? I thought you said this wasn’t fancy.”

“That was a gift,” Schneep said. He was standing now, piling his own utensils onto his plate.

“Whoa, hey.” Chase grinned. “I wouldn’t mind—”

“Stop.” Schneep pointed at him, almost poking him in the chest. “Do not.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You know the problem. Do not.”

“Uh, I don’t know the problem,” Jackie said.

Chase sighed. “It’s nothing, Schneep is just a—”

“Chase cannot have alcohol,” Schneep interrupted, causing Chase to shoot him a dirty look.

“Oh shit, really?” Jackie asked, concerned. “Why? Is it a medical thing?”

“It’s because of my balance problems,” Chase said reluctantly. “You know how they call being buzzed ‘tipsy’? Well, Schneep is concerned that if I get tipsy, I’ll tip over.”

“Chase, as your doctor, I know you will.” Schneep folded his arms.

“Ah.” Jackie slowly backed into the kitchen, putting the wine bottle onto the counter before walking back out. “Soo...if I was to tell you that he’s bought whiskey before—”

“You fucking snitch!” Chase hissed.

“Chase!” Schneep gasped. “You dumb motherfucker!”

Chase put his head on the dining room table. “This is your fault, Jackie,” he said, voice muffled.

“No, it is your fault! It is entirely your fault! I know we are friends, but I started as your doctor! Friendship now gives no excuse to ignore medical orders in the past!” Schneep scolded.

“I don’t even drink that much of it,” Chase protested weakly. “Like...once a month. And not even that much in that one time. Like, one shot glass. I’m not getting drunk. There’s just... something about the taste that’s familiar.”

“That is no excuse!” Schneep leaned over Chase. “You should at the very least be telling me!”

Jackie went and sat down on the sofa. “I can’t believe these are the people I look like,” he muttered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Chase asked, turning his head to look at Jackie.

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Oh!” Schneep snapped his fingers. “Jackie. That reminds me. Do you know anyone else who looks like you? Besides us two and Jameson, I mean.”

“Uh...no.” Actually, the answer was ‘yes,’ but Jackie knew that if he said that, the other two would ask follow-up questions. And he wasn’t about to tell them that he immediately thought of Spitfire Cat.

“Ah,” Schneep said. “Strange. I think Jamie and I found our fifth clone last week, then.”

“Really?” Chase asked, interested.

“Yes, he came into Jameson’s shop,” Schneep explained. “Said he was lost, despite living in the city for a long time. I thought he was Jackie, at first. But he was not. I don’t remember his name, it started with...an N, I think.”

“...huh.” Jackie wondered what that was all about. It could be just another strange man who shared a resemblance with the others of the group. Or maybe... “What was he wearing?”

Schneep shrugged. “A jacket. Jeans. Sort of dark colors. I remember he had on gloves, even though it was fairly warm that day.”

“Huh,” Jackie repeated. “Weird.”

Gloves...

Spitfire had good reason to wear gloves even as his secret identity...

No, it couldn’t be. Could it?

===============

JJ usually liked to do repairs during business hours. It gave him something to do during the long stretches of time where nothing was happening in the shop. Which there were a lot of. Business was steady, but it was always slow. Right now, the only customer was a neighbor, an older woman named Madeline. She came in every Friday to look at things, and occasionally buy them.

So JJ had enough time to sew up some broken seams in some cloth dolls and fix the joints on some wooden marionettes. Then, since it still wasn’t busy, he went upstairs to take care of some business, and then came back down. He assumed that nothing would change. And nothing much did. Except that now Madeline was talking with a familiar-looking man. He kept glancing towards the shop’s front door, like he wanted to leave this conversation and was regretting coming inside at all.

Well, the two of them were right by the display where he had to put the repaired dolls, anyway. He picked them up and headed on over, listening in on what Madeline was saying. “—the city had Moonstone as its hero at the time, before she joined the League and got promoted to National Threat Team. But she couldn’t be in multiple places at once! And that night, the police were just swamped. I called as soon as I heard the scream, and it still took them ten minutes to get over there! I timed it! Well, not literally, but you get the point.”

Ah. JJ knew what she was talking about. He stopped walking when he was right next to the pair and coughed.

Madeline and the man turned to look at him. “Oh speak of the devil!” Madeline said cheerfully. The man’s expression was a mix of alarm and embarrassment. “How have you been, Jameson?”

His hands were full, so he couldn’t reply, but he smiled and nodded. Then started putting the cloth dolls on the nearest shelf.

“It’s lovely to see you, as always,” Madeline said. “Well, I’d better get going. I’ll see you next week.”

JJ nodded at her again, and she waved as she turned around to leave, causing the bell by the door to chime. The man looked over at him, frozen into inaction. Most likely by the potential awkwardness of the situation. Jameson gave him a small smile, then said, That was Madeline. She owns the cafe next door. Sorry if she was bothering you.

“You’re sorry? It’s not on you,” the man said, confused.

What was she talking about? Jameson asked, despite knowing full well what the answer would be.

“Um...I think she was talking about your tragic backstory.” The man’s eyes unconsciously flicked downwards to JJ’s neck, then immediately flicked up again, not wanting to stare.

She must have thought you were a relative or something, JJ said. Anyway, I don’t mind people knowing. I just would’ve preferred to be the one to explain it. He tilted his head. You were in here last week. What was your name again? Did it start with S?

“An S? No, uh, not at all.” The man gave a little laugh. “Um, call me Ned.”

Right, that was it. Sorry, I must have been thinking of someone else. Jameson paused for a moment to unload the last of the cloth dolls, leaving him with a pair of marionettes. You don’t look like a Ned.

“Yeah.” The man nodded. “I’ve been told that. I don’t know what a Ned is supposed to look like. But it doesn’t matter. That’s just...what I’m called.”

I’m Jameson. Friends call me JJ. Nice to meet you.

“Yeah, I remember your name. Nice to meet you, too.” The man glanced around. “So...this is your store.”

If you see anything you like, and want to see more, I can give you the name of the artist who made it, JJ said Though, some of the older pieces were made by my family members. The clocks, mostly. And I make some things. Like these. He held up the marionettes, which he’d been holding in the crook of his arm while he signed.

The man took a step back. “O-oh. Uh...they’re nice.”

Jameson laughed silently. He walked over to a spot on the wall with some hooks, hanging the marionettes on them by the handles so they dangled from the strings. Not a fan of dolls?

“Most dolls are fine, it’s just, uh...” The man gestured at the marionettes. “Puppets. It’s kind of a new thing for me. These really are nice, just...”

Don’t worry, I understand. They’re not for everyone. JJ made sure that the strings were all free and untangled. Can I help you with anything?

“Oh, uh, no. I just remembered this place and thought I’d check it out.” Again, the man glanced around the shop. “Maybe meet the other people I saw here who sort of looked like me. Guess I’ve done that. Nice Timekeeper poster.”

Jameson glanced back at it, hanging behind the counter. He felt a lump in his chest. Thank you, he signed simply.

“Are all those other pictures your family?”

JJ nodded. My parents, and such. They’re not around anymore.

The man looked at him. “I’m sorry,” he said gently.

Thank you, Jameson signed again, softer this time. He took a deep breath, and then a step back. Wel, if you need anything, let me know. I’d be happy to help.

“Right. No problem.” The man nodded. “I’ll be honest, I’m not going to buy anything. I don’t carry any cash or cards when I’m not intending to shop, and I don’t have any of those money apps or anything.”

Oh, we don’t take any apps, just cash and card, JJ said. So no worries there. And no worries about not buying anything. Sometimes you just need to look around. You can come back any time.

The man stared at him, then nodded. “Yeah. I’ll probably do that.”

The shop was quiet for the next while, as the man browsed and JJ sat at the counter and read a book. Eventually, though, the bell at the door rang again, and the familiar man was gone.

But Jameson knew he would be back again.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye fanfiction #jacksepticegos #septic egos #septic egos au #jacksepticeye au #jackieboy man #chase brody #dr schneeplestein #marvin the magnificent #jameson jackson #brigid writes fanfiction #septicheroesau

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planeoftheeclectic · 11 months

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Oh, do tell more about "Columbo: Turnabout's Fair Play".

oh geez ok I don't know how much I can say because I have been trying so hard not to spoil the mystery but let's go.

There are a few people who know how it will end/what the twist is, most of whom don't care much about Ace Attorney and were unlikely to ever read it in the first place and one of whom cares negatively about spoilers. This is because I was very anxious that the twist leading to the break in the case was too contrived and I wanted an outside opinion.

This was because I began writing TFP before I finished playing Bridge to the Turnabout. All subsequent worries about "realism" and "physics" and "the laws of science" have since been summarily dismissed.

I am currently working on some things that are very close to what will go in the epilogue and I really can't say more than that or I'm worried you'll figure it out immediately. Suffice to say: I like mirroring.

In the past 24 hours I have discovered two musical themes from AA4 that I will absolutely be using as writing ambiance because they are exactly what I've been looking for. One is Phoenix's theme, one is ostensibly the Gramarye's theme but honestly might as well work for Phoenix, both are embedded below for your convenience.

youtube

Honestly, the name of that second one is perfect for Phoenix. Man I can't wait until we get there.

Hmmm...I think the only reason I can get away with writing this fic is because I am very good at mimicking other people's vocal patterns - to the point where I have come home from Shakespeare plays speaking in iambic pentameter. (In fairness, that's less hard than it sounds - English is made for that kind of thing.) But Peter Falk is so integral to the concept of Columbo that if you can't nail his patter, your work is just going to be missing something, imo.

Hmm, what else...I think you in particular will be delighted by the ending, which is why I had to stop talking about it with you the moment I realized what it was going to be lol. Which is infuriating because I love our talks and value your contributions so much but I can't and it's driving me insane ahhhhhhhh!! That said! I relish the look on your face when you finally get there, and that expression (multiplied by the other people who read it, which is way more than I expected when I first posted it tbh) is what keeps me going. It's going to be so good. I can't wait. Why isn't it done yet. What do you mean I have to write it first.

I'm still desperately tempted to write the alternative setup I initially proposed, aka "Maya Fey hires her friend the retired detective to get those idiots together it's been like 20 years guys, geez." I probably will write it as totally separate from TFP but man can you imagine.

If I ever write the jokingly hypothetical Klapollo sequel it will be after we've finished at least aa4 and possibly the whole sequel trilogy. Which is probably for the best, given I have palutena trap to work on. That said, I've grown exceptionally fond of Klavier. Possibly because I keep murdering his brother and making horrible things happen to him. ...Sorry about that, buddy.

I somewhat doubt that Phoenix has an official breakdown sprite (excluding the head-on-desk and nervous sweating varieties) but I need to start picturing it, because that scene is coming up sooner than I can imagine. And also farther away. But at least there's only one more Edgeworth chapter forecast. That should help contain their combined loquacious verbosity to a manageable length.

I may have said this before, but I am trying very hard to write everything from the narrative point of view of the TV camera. That's defining chapter breaks, POV's. information delivered, and general tone. It's very fun, and an excellent writing exercise. I get whiplash whenever I go back to palutena trap, which has a much more standard 3rd person limited view (the character's). I would definitely recommend this sort of thing if you want to experiment with your writing style!

Hmm, now for a fun fact to end it on...well, this isn't TFP specific, but I'd like to imagine that Gumshoe is on vacation at a beach somewhere and brought one of his metal detectors and finds a buried treasure chest that is for once not connected to a murder and so he strikes it rich and can finally retire to live a life of luxury eating slightly fancier instant ramen and that's why we never see him after the 7-year gap.

#though knowing that he actually did appear in the first gramarye trial...hoo boy now i'm having thoughts #did he resign? he can't have he's mentioned by those two later #might have just gotten promoted #police chief gumshoe supremacy all in favor say ok pal!#tfp #stonemaskedtaliesin #my writing #video #music #ace attorney

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cerealmonster15 · 5 months

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hii! alone and nightmare for the oc asks :]

[oc questions]

HIIIIII yay tyty

hmm so the easy thing would be to talk about yale bc he is my most fleshed out and i do have more or less ready answers for him lol. HOWEVER. i reblogged that post when i got up to pee at 2am with the notion of needing to flesh out less developed characters 🤔

so i'll talk about yale AND another character :D sorry in advance i kept getting distracted explaining overall setup lore ;-;

alone: How does your OC deal with loneliness? Have they ever been completely alone before? How do they act when there's no one around to see them?

yale - my pirate elf guy! he generally likes to stay around people if he can help it. part of his backstory was that he had crews come and go over the years, and i'm realizing i'm a little fuzzy on the specifics i had @-@ BUT i THINK the story was before he made his debut into the main universe's plotlines, he had been without a crew for a long while. i wanna say it was like 10 years? and he's an elf, nbd, but still, 10 years is 10 years, and being more or less alone for that long on a boat, save for stopping into docks now and then... ya get a little weird. yale was initially made to be like, a cartoonish villain, and from a lore standpoint, part of that was just his lack of being around people for so long. he was strange and dramatic [and still kinda is tbh lol] but he kinda kept people at arm's length. he was used to being on his own, and had initially started off his pirate days alone, so SURELY he was FINE!!!

but, now that he's found himself a home in the docks of kronneby amongst the others he's bonded to, he really doesn't like being alone. he had a 2week offscreen timeskip where he went off to fight a seamonster alone, and while he was alone on the boat, he was stuck with his thoughts of his new friends, family, lovers... the danger they'd been put in since meeting him, his mistakes that led to problems, the struggles of anxiety that come along with caring for someone... yale really prefers to be with people and keeping his mind and body active, if he can help it. he likes to play little sea shanties to himself to fill the silence when he can.

Scorpius - scorpius is a newer character who's like... a lobster merman in the water, and a scorpion person [like a centaur lol] on land, usually. he's part of the same ~multiverses~ that yale is, though theyre less directly connected. scorpius is much less fleshed out and i'm still constructing a lot of what his deal is. BUT, scorpius is definitely more of a loner. in most universe storyplots he's in, he spends a lot of time by himself and can get a bit cranky and abrasive with people that irritate him. he's not heartless, but he just doesn't like to be bothered.

the initial universe is based loosely off dnd fantasy, which kinda spiraled away from it the more we progressed, but sometimes i steal from there for ideas lol. in the base verse, scorpius lives alone in a cave with the only company being his scorpion army that helps keep out intruders, and his giant space hamster patron. don't worry about it, there's not a lot of lore there yet LOL. he spends a lot of his time researching other planes of existence - he is originally from Mechanus [a lawful neutral dnd plane that's like made of clockwork stuff] but i think i said he was some sort of space pilot that crash landed where he is now and got amnesia 🤷‍♂️ so he spends a lot of time studying interplanar travel and i guess trying to figure out his BACKSTORY LORE. help me out scorp. i'd like to know too.

he's more prominently featured in our ~modern fantasy~ au. he works a lot of part time jobs, so he's around people more, but he's still really moody. he has a roommate and a coworker that he would quietly consider friends, though he still likes to complain about their antics. he doesn't really feel the need for many companions, and likes to practice drink mixing in his spare loner time. being alone gives him time to think and decompress, especially after long days of irritating customers...

nightmare: What does your OC have nightmares about? How do they deal with their nightmares? Do they tell people, or keep it to themself?

yale - with his newest crew and companions, he sometimes has nightmares about them being put in danger. they've been through a lot together, and quite a few times something bad has happened when yale briefly wasn't around to help. it's hard for him not to feel responsible anytime something bad happens, as he's the captain, and it's HIS job to look after the ship and everyone one it. i don't think he always talks about the nightmares, but if one of his partners is around, he likes to sleep with them for that immediate reassurance that they're alright and safe in his arms ;w; it kind of couples with the above alone feeling - he's worried if he leaves people on their own, something bad might happen again. he is perhaps developing a very minor case of separation anxiety, i think.

Scorpius - hmm... DOES he have nightmares...? HMM.... well, in the THIRD of the multiverses lol, he's a demon hunter. don't worry about it. i suppose it would make sense if he has nightmares sometimes of the demons he's hunted, or perhaps ones that got away. regardless of which universe it's in, though, i don't think he'd be one to talk much about nightmares. he's more of a logical practical thinker, so i think he'd just wake up from a nightmare, recognize it was a dream, maybe pace around the room a little, and go back to sleep.

#asks #apricior #ocs #oc: yale #oc: scorpius #SOWWY i got lost in the sauce #i always feel like i gotta explain everything even tho i cant even begin to cover all the context of these guys lol #they came from the og story of like hypothetical dnd turned roleplay w/borrowed dnd things for flavor #it's a shared thing i do w/ a friend lol just for funsies #and new characters now just get dropped into the multiverse soup

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pesterloglog · 7 months

Text

Jade Harley, Karkat Vantas

Act 5, page 2851

-- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] --

GG: ok, my robot exploded

GG: now what smart guy!

CG: HOLY SHIT, IT'S HARLEY

CG: COMMUNICATING WITH ME OUT OF NOWHERE OF HER OWN VOLITION

CG: HOLD THAT THOUGHT WHILE I GO INFORM MY DISGRACE OF A CLOWN FRIEND ABOUT THIS TRUE REAL LIFE MIRACLE, IT MIGHT LIFT HIS SPIRITS

CG: I HAVE TO SPREAD THE WICKED WORD LIKE I'M MASSAGING SHITTY SPARKLEDUST AROUND MY NETHER REGIONS TO ASSUAGE A VICIOUS RASH

CG: IT'S LIKE I'M SEASONING A FUCKING STEAK HERE.

GG: i knew i would regret this

GG: talking to you is so terrible

GG: its making my headache worse

CG: OH YEAH, BECAUSE TALKING TO YOU HAS JUST BEEN ABSOLUTE EUPHORIA.

CG: DON'T EVEN TALK TO ME ABOUT HEADACHES.

CG: RIGHT NOW THERE'S A LUMBERJACK SPLITTING WOOD ON MY THINK PAN.

CG: HE'S GOT THE FOREARMS OF A CHOLERBEAR, A MOUNTAIN OF LOGS, AND NOTHING BUT FUCKING TIME.

GG: uuuugh shut uuuuup!

GG: will you just tell me what you wanted?

CG: I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

CG: I DIDN'T TELL YOU TO CONTACT ME, NOT THAT I'M NOT TICKLED BY THE SURPRISE.

CG: LET'S CATCH UP. HOW IS EVERYTHING? HOW WAS YOUR DEATHNAP?? I CAN ONLY HOPE IT WAS AS REFRESHING AS MINE.

CG: WHAT'S THAT? HOW AM I? I'M GREAT, FEEL LIKE A MILLION BOONBANKS EVER SINCE MY LITTLE POWER SNOOZE.

CG: STILL PRETTY TIRED THOUGH. YOU LOOK A LITTLE DROWSY YOURSELF. BUT WE WON'T BE GOING BACK TO SLEEP ANY TIME SOON, WILL WE JADE?

CG: NO WAY. A PAIR OF FEISTY GOGETTERS LIKE YOU AND ME, WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR DREAMS OF HORRORTERRORS FONDLING EVERY RECESS OF OUR NAKED PSYCHES, PLEASANT THOUGH THEY ARE.

CG: YOU HAVE A LOT OF IMPORTANT USELESS SCAMPERING AND GIGGLING TO DO. WHEREAS I HAVE A CRUCIAL DATE WITH A PNEUMATIC DRILL, TO BORE A HOLE IN THE CENTER OF MY FOREHEAD, DEEP INTO THE PLUMP ANGUISH BLADDER WHICH STORES MY ALIEN DISMAY FLUID. THAT'S A REAL THING WE HAVE, FYI.

CG: I WILL THEN PERFORM A LITTLE SOFT SHOE NUMBER IN THE PUDDLE OF FLUID THAT ACCUMULATES ON THE FLOOR, WHILE MAKING THE BIGGEST SMILE EVER ATTEMPTED BY SOMEONE NOT CLINICALLY RETARDED.

CG: I WILL DO THIS FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT, JADE. TO SAY THANKS FOR EVERYTHING.

GG: i cant believe i fell for this

GG: it was just a setup to troll me some more

GG: why do you go to such lengths to troll me? i just dont understand it

CG: TRY TO BE CULTURALLY SENSITIVE

CG: TROLLING IS AN ACTIVITY THAT SHARES A NAME WITH MY ENTIRE SPECIES

CG: DO I GET ON YOUR CASE FOR ALL THE TERRIBLE HUMANNING YOU DO?

GG: thats ridiculous, humanning isnt a word

GG: and if it was, it would be a nicer thing to do than trolling!

GG: you know what i mean, stop pretending you dont

CG: TELL ME JADE

CG: WHY ARE YOU SUCH A RACIST?

GG: aaaaaaa that is something a troll would say!

CG: YES, EXACTLY.

CG: I AM A TROLL. IT SEEMS WE ARE ON THE SAME PAGE.

GG: i mean you are being patronizing and disingenuous to get a rise out of me

GG: and that is really really shitty!!!!!!

GG: i am so tired of it, and i am done talking to you forever

GG: bye karkat, it was awful knowing you!

CG: WAIT

CG: OK LOOK

CG: I SERIOUSLY, HONESTLY DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

CG: YOU SAY YOUR ROBOT BLEW UP, AND THAT WAS SOME SORT OF SIGNAL TO MESSAGE ME?

GG: yes

GG: as if my day needed another reason to get worse

CG: YOU PROBABLY DIDN'T CONTACT THE RIGHT ME.

GG: what does that mean!

CG: I MEAN FUTURE ME IS PROBABLY THE ONE TO TALK TO ABOUT THIS.

CG: SINCE IT'S ALL NEWS TO ME.

GG: is this another prank

GG: you are seriously the worst at pranks

CG: I DON'T PLAY PRANKS, THAT'S JUVENILE NONSENSE.

CG: I DO TWO THINGS AND TWO THINGS ONLY, I DEVASTATE SORRY MOTHERFUCKERS, AND GET SHIT DONE AS AN AWESOME LEADER.

CG: IN THIS CASE, I AM ACCOMPLISHING THE LATTER.

CG: HERE, CLICK THIS AND WE WILL SOLVE THE MYSTERY TOGETHER.

CG:

GG: :|

#homestuck #jade harley #karkat vantas #homestuck act 5 #page 2851 #homestuck act 5 act 2

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horriblegaming44 · 1 year

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Vancel E-Sports Gaming Chair

Hello! Are you alright? Gloria McCann here, and today I wanted to blog about this Vancel gaming chair that I bought from Amazon and why I think it's the best value that Amazon has ever offered. After delivery, the best price was $122. I understand that's excessive for a chair. However, if you're searching for a gaming chair or racing chair with extra features, seek elsewhere.

You won't find a nicer chair for this money, in my opinion. I produced this video for that reason. Enjoy. This box showed up. a sturdy box. There were no concerns because everything was packed in bubble wrap and plastic. I skipped recording the installation. Nobody was interested in seeing me spin an Allen wrench for fifteen minutes. I'll talk about setup. It's a significant upgrade from my previous chair.

This is a list of all the contents in the box. hardly. 15. All you need is the included Allen wrench. It features two Phillips-head screws. Base is sound. It's powerful. While I would have preferred racing-style wheels to match the tyres, they function just fine. This is the user guide. Quite few steps. 6-steps. It's actually stage five because the sixth step is completing a chair. Just a brief glimpse to demonstrate how simple it is to assemble

Install the plastic covers, gas lift, and casters first. Install the armrest and mechanism next. I'll show you shortly. The screws for the chair are preinstalled but aligned. Simply align the armrest, remove the screws, then reinstall the screws. Attach the gas lift mechanism third. Easy-peasy.

Connecting the backrest to the seat connection is the fourth step. There are only two screws there. It's simple to screw in. Finally, fasten the covers. Sixth step is the last. such as. When put together, it looks good. I preferred all-black. Simply said, in my opinion, that appeared to be rather lovely.

Installation

I'll show you the chair's installation and operation sections below. Gaslift. Covers. Slide. These two screws were among the ones that were installed. back mechanism Insert after aligning. Armrest fasteners. Simply remove the screws, align it, and insert it. Let me demonstrate what you see on the chair. It's easy. What holds the footrest poles is the footrest. The only difficulty with the footrest is slipping as they were already on the chair. To prevent it from falling off, you must attach these little black washers at the end. Reposition it. The chair may be raised and lowered with this lever, which is also used to lock and unlock the locking mechanism. The COVID is located to the side. The lower piece was put in place. Therefore, fasten the upper section there. That side is that. On the opposite side, a lever for adjusting the backrest. That is installed once more. Simply fasten the top here.

Features

Now let's talk about armrest features. The armrest does, however, move very slightly. Nothing major. They change up, out, and inside. My fat finger is sorry. The one motion they don't do, unlike some other armrest features I've seen, is back and forth movement. Whatever, you are free to change them however you choose. Position. Nice.

lateral button You raise them and lower them in this manner. Adjustable. different pole lengths not simply up or down, but also in any direction. The chair includes lower lumbar support cushions and an upper headrest. The USB massager on the lower pillow was nice. Actually, it feels very wonderful. It has two settings, but as far as I can tell, neither one seems really different. But they are comfortable.

flexible pillows rear clips So, if you don't like them, you may remove them, get rid of them, or anything. The bottom cushion is moved rearward by these straps. But I don't want to change them too much since I like them as they are. But I believe they provide the chair's back with a great level of support. They don't occupy much room. They're beautiful.

Check the front again. I'll quickly demonstrate the footrest for you. slips away. The footrest is inaccessible to the feet. calf get more. I'll soon give you a backrest demonstration. I believe that if you remove this and turn it over, the charming tiny feature will remain. Examine the backrest's ability to be adjusted. It may be fully adjusted between 90 and 180 degrees.

The rocking system has more depth. Let me show you how the footrest travels through the calf. Not quite. All went in that direction. the whole 180°. If you want to go more than 180 degrees, you may tilt the rocking mechanism here. Verify that tip past 180. Now, this chair can support $300. I'm close to £200.

If you're closer to £300 or more, I won't recommend this tactic. Footrest once again Put it in. A different angle of the armrest. Move that. Additions. You raise and lower the chair in this manner. lower lever The one lever moves quite a bit. I'm done now. your seat. Very nice. I have a Linman desk from Ikea. It is affordable so that you may own it. A few others might have it, in my opinion. You'll be relieved to learn that you can adjust this chair so that the clearance is accurate under the chair within a few centimetres if you have that desk, though.

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melodylnoelle · 2 years

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Apartment 302

The Cards Have Spoken - Week 3 (My cards) (A week late, my baaaaaaad)

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Characters: Steve Rogers, OC Category: Smut - Pregnancy/Breeding Kink Timeline: Post-Avengers 1 Setting: Unspecified safehouse WHOOPS I forgot that while I was writing this so.... uh.... . NYC Apartment Warnings/Notes: NSFW, Sexual content, Excessive drinking, depression // Smut is not my usual shtick so sorry if this sucks! // We are trying to keep these all to a minimum of 500 words. You can use these same cards for your own story if you like, but please tag me and @brightsun-and-darkmidnight so that we can see what you do! Please enjoy Words: 2677 sorry I can’t do things with no setup I guess Summary: Steve tries to get his mind off the 1940s in an unexpected way. Masterlist

It had been a long month for Steve. He had put a plane in the water, and woken up in a whole other time. Sure, there were seventy years that passed in that time, but to him, no time at all had passed between falling asleep in the cockpit and waking up in the fake SHIELD hospital. Then, with barely any time to process that, he was informed of aliens and auperheroes, flying aircraft carriers and other technology, Norse gods and magic. And then he had to fight side-by-side with a rag-tag group of people – including one of those gods – to fight another god and a race of flying aliens, all while the United States government he served was trying to blow up the city he called home. In so many ways, being with them had reminded him of the Howling Commandos, and that was an additional sting to the slap in the face this whole new life was.

He didn’t have his friends, or Peggy. He didn’t even have Bucky anymore to talk about this with. To tell him that he would be okay. He had fallen to his death in Germany not long ago for him, and that absence felt like a void he would never be able to fill.

As he walked around the streets of New York for the third time that day, he decided he needed to get his mind onto something else, even if it was just for a little while.

He found a small bar on the end of the street he was walking down. Shrugging to himself, he made for the door and yanked it open.

It was dimly-lit on the inside. The bar stretched the entire length along the back wall, and there were tables of various sizes scattered over the rest of the room. There was memorabilia covering the walls from different times – some that looked familiar to him, and some that must have been from the time he was asleep. There were barely any customers here at the moment, and the few that were there turned to look at him when he entered.

It was the type of bar that, back in the 40s, would have been filled with military personnel, retired or not. He remembered never having fit in to those places, at least until he took the serum. And then he would spend nights with Bucky and the other Commandos In places like that all the time.

Now, it felt like this would be one of the only places where he might belong.

Shaking off the wave of homesickness for the bar where the Commandos were formed in the first place, he made his way to the far end of the bar.

The bartender walked over almost immediately. “What’re ya havin’?” Her alto voice was surprisingly soft compared to the music, but he heard her just fine.

“Jameson on the rocks, please.”

“Strong choice.”

“Not strong enough, I’m afraid,” he said with a sigh.

She poured the drink and slid it across the counter to him. “You payin’ now or openin’ a tab?”

“Tab, please.”

“You got it.” She left him alone for a moment to tend to another customer at the other end of the bar. She watched as the customer paid and got up to leave, making him the last one left in the bar besides her.

By the time she returned to offer him food, he had already downed the last of his drink.

“Someone’s a little troubled.” She held up his glass and the bottle in question. He nodded, and she poured him another glass. “I guess saving the world will do that to you, though.”

He felt a spike of unease as he took the glass. “You know me?”

“Well, yea,” she said. Her tone was colored with as much surprise as her expression. “Your face was all over the news.”

Oh, right. Live television was easier to access now And there was that ‘internet’ thing that people kept talking about. Add that to the list of things he needed to get used to. Word travelled very fast nowadays.

“Right, of course.” He willed himself to relax.

Focusing on that brought up all the negative things he was trying to get past right to the forefront. He shook his head. That wouldn’t do.

He chose to focus on her instead. She was pretty – beautiful, even. Her brunette hair wastied back, the slightest of curls to it. She wore a skin-tight black t-shirt and black pants that offset her very fair skin.

Her little makeup seemed to somehow highlight the most striking feature of her face – her piercing green eyes, that were still looking him over as he took another drink of his whiskey.

Whatever she saw there gave her pause, but then something flickered across her face, replaced quickly by a smile. “Hold on, I got somethin’ way stronger than that.” She turned to the other side of the bar, reaching up so that her shirt came up a little. His eyes travelled down beyond that to her very nice ass that her tight pants showed off so well.

He was discreet about it, at least, raising his eyes as she turned around. He was embarrassed of himself – he was not acting very much like a gentleman in this moment – but he had enough of that left in him to not let her know he was staring. And as long as he focused on her, he could keep the other thoughts out of his head.

“Here,” she said, pouring a glass of a clear liquid and pulling him from his thoughts again. “151. Strongest stuff we got. You could start a fire with that, easy.” She teased as she leaned against the counter, handing it to him. “But I think you can handle it.”

She was right, of course. The world may know his face now, but that doesn’t mean they knew everything. About him, including his inability to get drunk at all. Erskine had told him that, and he had tried when he lost Bucky…

Right, not focused on that. “Thanks,” he said instead, focusing on the bright red of her nails, and the small section of her hair that came loose from her ponytail and fell in a perfect curl on the side of her face.

He downed the drink. It burned its way down. But just as he knew it could, he could already feel that this was not going to do anything to him. By the time he was done with three - which, in fairness, was not long – it had become apparent to him that just being at a bar drinking without even getting frunk was not going to do enough to quell the dark, lonely thoughts in his mind. He sighed, giving up. He would just have to think of something else.

“I think I’ll cash out my tab now, thank you.” He said as he handed her the glass before she could pour more.

Her head cocked sideways as she looked at him. “You don’t even look like that stuff touched you.”

He shrugged. “Can’t get drunk, unfortunately. I could use that right about now.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “That so?” She leaned in closer to him, having to bend most of her torso over the table to do so. Steve would have been able to see down her shirt if he allowed himself to look, but he absolutely was not going to look, even though she was the only thing so far to take him mind off things. He didn’t want to get slapped in the dace, and she looked the type to take care of herself.

Instead, he stared into her eyes as she spoke. Hers were inquisitive, and she wore a wicked grin. “You know, technically the bar closed half an hour ago, so we could just get outta here. If you’re trying to get your mind off somethin’, I have another solution.”

He had seen that look from a woman before, back in his own time, right before the woman on the base kissed him. Right before Peggy walked up at the wrong moment and saw. He was caught off guard then, but this time he understood.

He didn’t need the next thing she said to help him see her train of thought, but it confirmed it for him. “My apartment is literally right behind here. If you want.”

This wasn’t his thing – one night stands, that is. Hell, he’d never had sex before. But he had been staring at her all night, using her as his ticket to keeping a clear mind…

Maybe this would work. Just a one-time thing. Then he could go back to his normal way of things.

Problem was, he was awkward with these things. Really awkward. He wouldn’t be surprised if he said the wrong thing, and she laughed and rescinded the invitation. He tried not to think of it.

Channelling every ounce of charm that Bucky would have been proud of – don’t think about Bucky – he replied. “Is that so?” Mocking her head tilt along with her words. “Then what are we waiting for, doll? Lead the way.”

She did just that. Having already locked the door, she took him through the kitchen and to the back door. She wasn’t kidding – her apartment was in the next building over, right across the large alleyway. She brought him up three flights of stairs and to a door labelled 302, The entire time, she kept looking back at him, as if she thought he might not follow.

He still wasn’t completely sure why he was.

She turned to look at him while she slid the key into the lock. “Well, here we are.” She winked as she turned the key and pushed the door open. “There’s more alcohol if you want to try again, by the way.”

The thought of endlessly trying that amused him, and he chuckled. “I think I’m good there.” He walked through the doorway as she held it for him.

She closed the door and turned to face him, slightly leaning on it. “Somethin’ else you’re thirsty for instead?” She took her hair down from its ponytail, letting it fall well past her shoulders.

He eyed her, allowing her to see his eyes lingering over her body this time. “Well, you could say that.” He was teasing her again. Her voice was deep when she laughed. Was that not the right thing to say?

She moved quickly toward him then, though, taking his shirt and pulling him closed to her. Her lips crashed against his. He froze for a moment, but let himself give into it. He let his fingers tangle in her hair. His other hand moved down to her waist, pulling her closer.

Her hands moved down his shirt, undoing the buttons one at a time. He move his mouth down at the same time, kissing along her jawline, down her neck.

She moaned deliciously in his ear. The whispered, her lips brushing against it as she did. “Bedroom’s this way.”

She pulled on his now-open shirt, dragging him along as she walked backwards down the short hallway. She returned her lips to his, slipping her tongue into his mouth and letting it tangle with his. At the first door on the right, she turned, pulling him with her.

She tugged his shirt out from where it was tucked in and slid it off his shoulders, staring down at his bare chest. “Fuck you’re so hot.” She started planting kisses along his chest, moving up to his throat.

He busied his hands with removing her pants. He grabbed her ass, squeezing it. Another moan passed her lips, making her lift her lips from his neck.

She responded by undoing his pants. He jumped a little at the unfamiliar feeling of her hand on his cock. Fuck that felt better than he thought it would.

“Hm, someone is really worked up, huh?” She spun him around and shoved his shoulders, forcing him to sit on the bed. She straddled him, grinding into him through what remained of their clothing. He pulled her face to his, kissing her wildly as they removed the last of their clothing.

He picked her up then, turning to toss her onto the bed. She let out a gasp and he froze again, half hovered over her. Did I hurt her?

But she let out a high-pitched giggle, and that eased his mind. He hadn’t had to think about that before – being strong enough to hurt anyone like that. He had never actually considered that with-

No, he was not going to think about Peggy while he was in bed with someone else. He let his hand roam over her body, He cupped her breast in one hand, playing with it.

She smiled at him, reaching forward to take his dick in her hand, stroking it. “What are we waitin’ for?” She was teasing him again, a quirked eyebrow over her lust-blown eyes. “I want you inside me.”

He let out a low moan, almost like a growl. He moved over her, lining himself up with her entrance. She kept her hand there, stroking it and guiding him to where he needed to be. He almost didn’t want her to stop, until he slid inside her wet folds, sheathing himself inside her.

He lost it then, letting instinct completely take over. He found a rhythm, thrusting in and out of her. She was a mess beneath him, moaning so loudly that he thought someone in the next apartment over ought to have heard that. He realized he couldn’t bring himself to care for politeness in that moment. He just wanted to hear it more.

He brought his lips to her neck, kissing it furiously. He got what he wanted.

She had hooked her legs and arms around him, bringing him as close as possible. He let out a moan as that allowed him to get deeper inside of her. His head was swimming with this overwhelming feeling.

“Please, please come inside me.” She moaned out. “I want you to fuck me like you’re tryin’ to knock me up.”

Fuck, did he like that. It stirred something in him, which he never would have expected. It made him pump harder, wanting to give her what she wanted. What he wanted. He stared into her eyes as he did, watched her parted mouth as she breathed in heavy breaths.

Soon after, he was there. “Oh, god, I’m gonna-“ He couldn’t even finish the sentence as he hit his release. He felt himself spill inside her. Her moans rose higher in pitch, until she was coming undone as well.

She rested her head against the pillows as he pulled himself from her. He allowed himself to lay beside her a moment, staring up at the ceiling. His heart was hammering in his chest.

“I’ll be right back,” she said after a few moments. “Don’t go anywhere just yet, ‘kay?” She waited for him to nod before she rose, leaving the room. He heard the bathroom door close behind her.

But alone there, in this unfamiliar place, all the thoughts that he had been avoiding came back. He started thinking of Peggy, if it would have been like this with her. Of how Bucky would be proud that he finally “got some tail,” as he would have said. How the other Commandos would have probably dragged him to a bar and bought a round, cheering to him about it.

He got his clothes together before really thinking about it, and was dressed and out of the room before she returned.

He took to walking the streets of New York City for the second time that day. But this time, he tried to think of the girl, about how her face looked when he fucked her. It occurred to him then that he had just had sex with someone and he had never even asked her name.

#writing #the cards have spoken #mcu #smut

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