#the ambrose family

[queeniecook]

May 15

Jillian feels awful that she had to leave her getaway with Dakota but she had to. It isn’t like her Dad not to come home. He goes away on business trips due to his career from time time but doesn’t just take off. That is not Garrett Ambrose. Thankfully her boyfriend is a very understanding man, especially when it comes to family. She’ll have to find a way to make it up to him.

After taking a bus, renting a car and getting lost a few times, Jillian finally arrives at her families’ latest residence in San Sequoia. They have moved from Tartosa last month, due to a change in her Dad’s job. She is tired, she’s been up for hours but still fixes her appearance in the rearview mirror of her rental car before going to the front door.

“I’m so sorry I called you honey but I was so worried about your father! He finally showed up late last night, went to bed and got up this morning to go to work.” Denise explains. Jillian can tell her Mom does feel bad about worrying her but obviously, something is going on.

“It’s okay, Mom. Really.” Jillian assures her Mom, not wanting to tell her that she was moments away from finally making love with Dakota. That would be awkward. “Has this been happening a lot?”

“Not like this last time. Garrett has always shown up before bed time if he goes out after work.” Denise shares, she rarely calls her husband Garrett to their kids. That alone worries Jillian because it’s obvious her Mom is concerned. “He smelled like a bar. He’s been smelling like a bar a lot, Now I’m not one to be a prude but…”

“I’ll talk to him.” 

A few hours later, both Garrett and Andrew walk in the front door. It has began to pour down rain outside.

“Hey Jilly Bean!” Her Dad greets her, as always. He plops down beside her as her baby brother stalks into the room, cranky from high school.

“So Dad, where were you the other night?” She questions.

“Eh, I was just playing pool with a few guys from work.” Her Dad responds before being cut off by her brother. “He came in drunk. I didn’t tell Mom because I didn’t want to worry her. I made him drink some water before he went to their bedroom.” 

“I wasn’t drunk.” Garrett objects.

“You walked into my room and tried to climb into bed with me! You called me Denny!” Andrew exclaims. Garrett shakes his head as his teenage son marches off to his room, holding his homework in a deathgrip at his side.

Garrett stands up from the couch and Jillian follows him. “You thought he was Mom?”

“It was dark. I’m not used to the layout of this house yet. I wasn’t drunk.” Her Dad insists. Jillian doesn’t believe him. It’s becoming to clear to her that her Dad has developed a problem that he’s not ready to admit to.  “I’m going to go shower while your Mom makes dinner. Maybe go check on your brother?”

After helping Andrew with his history lesson, she challenges him to pillow fight in his barely decorated room. She’s a bit worried about not only her parents but her brother too. This has to be a lot for him to handle.

“DINNER!!” Denise hollars from the kitchen. It briefly made Jillian feel like she was sixteen again, living in Glimmerbrook and worrying about if she was going to get her hands on a copy of the latest Henry Puffer book. Then reality came slamming back down on her. 

Still, it was nice to set down with her parents and brother to eat a family dinner. She isn’t sure what to do about the current situation.

[timaeusterrored]

I accidentally made a parallel between Venus and Drystan that I didn’t mean to make but am happy I did

Drystan was cursed to never have a child because he pissed off the wrong people

Venus can’t have kids at all, despite desperately wanting them.

Link had one kid before his husband died.

[ambrosethedarling]

Meet the Todd’s <3

[petalsfordany]

Courtney Eaton unintentionally being a comedian and wonderful

[chaotic-orphan]

Intoxicating Fear (XIX)

The blood of the Covenant

Part one // Masterpost // continued from here

It's a day late but listen I just discovered jujutsu kaisen and wowza - I have never related more to a character than Satoru Gojo and the forced self-awareness I now have to endure bc all the other characters are just constantly criticising him - for good reasons ofc but like, I don't need the personal attack? Anyways! ENJOY

~*~*~*~*~*~

The moment Kit’s eyes lazily fluttered open he wanted to shut them again. There was no haziness to the morning, no brief reprieve of waking where there are no thoughts and you exist in a limbo state: halfway between dreaming and consciousness.

No. Not even the incredibly comfortable bed could provide a respite from his mind.

Kit didn’t get any of that.

The first thing that greeted him when he opened his eyes was Ambrose telling him that there was a telekinetic Villain in the city. And the only telekinetic hero Kit knew of was Mentor. There was Sawyer with his shadows too, but that Villain wasn’t Sawyer. Kit knew the coldness of his shadows.

Not to mention the strange thing happening with his own powers around Ambrose. It seemed like all fucking roads just lead back to Ambrose.

Kit had to get out of bed. He had to go downstairs and face Ambrose. He had to watch the news and see the scale of Ment— Villain’s— destruction. He had to call Superhero and try to ignore the feeling in his gut that told him this Villain — whoever he was — was actually Supervillain making an appearance for the first time.

His stomach turned as his mind linked Supervillain and Mentor together, but he couldn’t stop the thought from forming. He couldn’t seem to stop anything lately.

Kit clenched his teeth as he pushed himself up and out of bed. His socked feet touched soft carpet like a cloud and tension seemed to leave his body at the feeling. Ambrose may be a rich, entitled prick, but if Kit could wake up to these carpets every morning maybe he would be too.

He stretched, his limbs cracking as he woke them up. The exhaustion from yesterday’s overused powers had dissipated overnight, leaving Kit a bit more refreshed than usual. Actually, no. Not refreshed. He felt great! Normal. Aside from a mild headache but there was no bone deep tiredness in his limbs.

It felt strange, but in a good way. He clicked his fingers and a small blue bolt formed between them. Before he could be relieved, the bolt sparked violently, red tongues of lightning forked out of the blue until Kit dropped the charge.

Shit.

Kit walked out of the room, and opened a few doors before he found a bathroom. Ignoring the luxury of the room, Kit froze in the doorway. A mirror hung above the sink and reflected Kit’s bright red eyes back at him.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Kit muttered, half-running to the mirror and pulling his eyelids down. “Stop it. Stop it. Snap out of it!”

Kit slapped himself in the face and checked again but nothing. He turned the tap on, maybe he just needed to splash some water in his face. Yeah. That was it.

The water was cool over his fingertips and refreshing as it splashed his face, but when he looked up again all he saw was red. Kit slammed his hand down on the edge of the sink, glaring at his own face in the mirror.

This was all Ambrose’s fault! Before him Kit’s powers were under control! Always under control, but now… this thing with his eyes it made him sick. His electricity was supposed to be blue not red.

“Fuck!” Kit cried, smashing his fist against the edge of the sink again. “Stupid!” Punch. “Fucking.” Punch. “GAAH!” Punch. Punch. Punch.

Ambrose paused with his mug halfway to his lips in the kitchen, hearing a slight commotion upstairs. Mallory must be awake. Then slow, heavy footsteps not even an elephant would make down the stairs.

Kit got to the end of the staircase and looked right and left. The two halls looked identical, both grand and leading different directions. Kit just wanted a coffee… he trudged to the left, trusting his instincts.

From his right, he heard Ambrose: “in here, Mallory.”

Kit was about to throw a tantrum like a toddler, but instead he walked past the staircase and town the hall to the right. On his left he saw a kitchen from some ostentatious show house, like something you’d see on TV, but he ignored it and focused on the Villain sitting at the kitchen island.

His black eyes glinting with amusement as Kit stormed in, going straight for the kettle. Or well, he would’ve gone straight for the kettle had his knees not hit the floor with an echoing thud.

Kit hissed. “What the fuck?”

Ambrose frowned where he sat and stood, walking around the counter to see the hero on his knees in just his boxer shorts and t-shirt, staring up at Ambrose with wide red eyes glowing.

“Morning.” Ambrose said, then a smile came to his lips which bubbled into a laugh at the hero’s confusion. “Oh, I completely forgot.”

“Forgot what?” Kit snapped, trying to move his legs back and stand but he couldn’t. His knees were glued to the floor as if all gravity had amassed in his kneecaps that now seemed to weigh ten tonnes.

“God it seems so faraway now,” Ambrose murmured, being the cryptic fuck that he was.

Small streaks of electricity cackled from Kit’s eyes. “Forgot what?” He asked through clenched teeth. “In case you didn’t know, Rosey, I’m not exactly a morning person, so if you could undo whatever the fuck you’ve done, I’d appreciate it.”

“But you look so good on your knees,” Ambrose told him, reaching a hand out and ruffling Kit’s hair until Kit slapped his hand away. “Like a good puppy.”

“Oh fuck off, dickhead! Let me up.”

Ambrose’s black eyes danced with amusement. “Only if you ask nicely.”

Kit rolled his eyes. “Oh fuck off. I’m just going to fucking crawl I guess.”

“Ki—it,” Ambrose sing-songed, his voice moving like flute notes through his ears. He recognised the coldness of Ambrose’s powers pulling at his mind, the threat of what he could do.

Kit huffed out a breath. Crossing his arms over his chest. He didn’t look at Ambrose as he mumbled: “can I get up?”

“What was that?” Ambrose asked, putting his hand to his ear like a pre-school teacher. “I couldn’t hear you over the coffee brewing.”

Red eyes snapped to black. “Can I get up? Please?!”

“Of course you can get up Kit.”

This time when Kit moved his legs, his knees didn’t keep him rooted to the spot.

“Dick,” he muttered under his breath, forcing himself not to shoulder check the villain as he passed him on the way to the kettle. “Can you undo whatever that is?”

Ambrose hummed. “I’ll have to get back to you on that. It was a measure to teach you manners.”

Fuck off, Kit thought venomously. I just want a coffee. Kit didn’t answer as he zeroed in on the kettle, and plugged it in.

“Oh, I already made a pot of coffee,” Ambrose said. Kit glanced over his shoulder at Ambrose, stare hard. Ambrose gestured to the counter on the opposite side of the kitchen and Kit was about to throw a fit. He wanted to throw the kettle at the man’s head, but he knew he just needed a coffee and then he’d be fine. So he restrained himself and walked to the coffee pot.

The smell of the coffee went straight to his heart. “Is this… drip coffee?” He asked as he poured the black liquid into the cup that was set out for him.

Ambrose scoffed behind him. “I know you’re used to living in squalor, Mallory, but I don’t keep instant coffee in the house.”

“Wow. I’m not complaining,” Kit said, turning to the island and going to sit beside Ambrose. “I mean, I don’t live in squalor, but drip coffee would be nice every morning.”

Ambrose’s black eyes went to Kit’s face as he sat into the stool. Kit was too busy looking at his bare legs to notice. “I forgot my trousers,” he grumbled, feeling the tips of his ears going pink.

Ambrose waved the comment away. “I’m sure you had more pressing issues this morning?”

Kit raised his pained gaze to Ambrose. Black eyes searched Kit’s red ones with a mildly contained annoyance. “I was hoping there wouldn’t be any lingering effects of yesterday.”

“Lingering effects?” Kit repeated incredulously. “Lingering effects?! Oh I’m sorry if my overworked powers are inconveniencing you in any way, Ambrose. I’m so sorry—”

Ambrose waved him away. “Okay, you’re being dramatic.”

While Kit continued speaking over him, sarcasm dripping from every syllable: “so very, devastatingly, sorry that my powers are all out of whack because a fucking sadistic piece of shit just loves to push me until I can’t go further.”

“Apology accepted.”

Kit scoffed, shaking his head and took another gulp of his coffee. Fuck it tasted so good, it almost made him calm down. Almost.

“But the fact of the matter is we have more pressing issues.”

A sardonic smile slid its way onto Kit’s lips, resting his chin in the palm of his hand and gesturing between them. “What is this “we” you speak of?” He asked, red eyes alight with amusement.

“Mentor, Kit. I’m talking about Mentor.”

Kit’s face dropped as he straightened. “What is this we you speak of?” He repeated tightly.

“Mallory—”

“No,” Kit spat venomously, running a hand through his hair. “No, I am not talking about Mentor with the person who destroyed his mind for fun. No. We’re not doing this.”

“Kit— it’s important, we need—”

“STOP SAYING WE!” Kit roared, slamming his hands down on the table. Red sparks erupting around him as his anger grew. He wanted to smile at the look of fear that flashed across Ambrose’s face as the electricity spit and spewed around him, like a thousand hungry tongues hissing at the air around them.

“There is no we, Ambrose.” Kit continued, his voice echoing slightly with static as if he were speaking through an old radio. “There has never been a we. The only thing that joins you and me is Mentor, and that’s a very thin line because you didn’t know about our connection until what? This week?! You have no fucking right to speak to me about—”

“Mentor is my father.”

The silence would have been deafening if Kit’s electricity didn’t stutter and stop with a pathetic jolts like an old man’s fart. Kit’s mind screeched to a stop with a record scratch, before running ten miles a second because what the fuck did Ambrose just fucking say?!

Kit just stared as Ambrose clenched his hands into fists and loosened them again, repeating the gesture as if he were reaching for something he couldn’t quite touch. It felt as if Kit’s eyelids were torn with how wide they stared at the villain in front of him because this was some fucking sick joke, right?!

“It’s not a joke,” Ambrose said quietly, a wry smile on his face when Kit’s immediate thought was: get out of my head. “It’s not a joke, Kit. I wish it were.”

“You’re—” Kit began, but didn’t have enough breath in his lungs to finish the sentence, his eyes prickling with tears that he refused to let fall. “You… you’re lying. There’s no… you don’t even—”

Kit wasn’t making sense. They were all half formed thoughts spilling from lips as he wondered whether he should kill Ambrose where he stood now, or later.

“You don’t even share the same last name,” Kit settled on, his mind reeling. Ambrose met his eyes finally and Kit wished he hadn’t. He didn’t want to see the vulnerable humanity lingering in Ambrose’s black gaze, the hard tilt to his brows. The confession seemed to strip Ambrose of everything that him, well… Ambrose, and left a man, no a boy, not much older than Kit sitting before him. “You don’t even look alike! You’re not— you can’t be—”

Ambrose sucked in a breath through his nose, burying his face in his palms and rubbing his eyes. “I can show you my birth certificate if you’d like.”

Kit sprung to his feet because he didn’t know what else to do. His body was wired — no alive — with a restless energy that he couldn’t quell or control and the only way he could do something about it was somehow related to jumping off the stool.

“You— you! There’s— you can’t be Mentor’s son! Mentor didn’t— doesn’t have a family!”

Ambrose scoffed, running his hands down his face until they settled around his cup in front of him, his gaze distant. “He would say that.”

“You’re lying.”

Ambrose turned his head to face Kit, though he didn’t really look at him. More like through him. A wry smile pulled at the edges of his eyes.

“Believe it or not, Kit. The fact remains the same.” Ambrose took a sip of his coffee or tea or whatever, while Kit just stood uselessly staring at Ambrose and trying to logic a way to this being some joke, or ruse. “I wish it wasn’t true either.”

“You— you—” Kit stuttered, his hands balling into fists at his sides. Ambrose widened his eyes slightly, raising a placating hand towards Kit.

“Hey, Kit. Calm down.”

Don’t tell me to calm down, Kit wanted to say but he couldn’t get the words out. He couldn’t stop shaking, his entire body felt as if he just drank a vat full of caffeine and it wanted to go, go, go. It was as if someone had just jump-started every nerve in his body, every muscle contracting, every blood cell oxygenated and his body felt far too small as everything seemed to constrict inside of him and there wasn’t enough space and his veins felt ready to burst and—

“HEY! KIT!” Ambrose screamed from far, far below Kit. He wondered distantly what was happening, why Ambrose felt so far away. Why Kit felt like he couldn’t breathe and yet never felt more alive at the same time. “FUCK!”

KIT PLEASE! STOP! Ambrose cried in his mind, but there was no power behind his words. It wasn’t a command, which Kit recognised was strange. Ambrose wasn’t one for allowing free will and all.

Still, there was something wrong. Something very wrong with this picture and Kit couldn’t quite put his finger on what. Every time he tried to narrow it down, the thought ran like water through his fingers and he couldn’t really feel his own body anymore.

Kit crashed down to reality when his head cracked off the tile and he groaned. Ambrose was on the floor beside him, far enough away that the sparks didn’t reach him that were still spluttering from Kit’s body, but why was he on the floor?

“Kit? You with me?” Ambrose asked, black eyes wide with… that couldn’t be concern, not in Ambrose’s eyes. Kit must be hallucinating. Maybe this was all just a dream, a terrible bad dream and he would wake up and everything would be fine.

Instead, Kit groaned in pain, trying to push himself up. His muscles wouldn’t listen though and just shook uselessly beside him, not supporting his weight.

“Kit, talk to me, please.”

“Shut… up… dick.”

“You just thrashed my kitchen, Kit, I think I’m allowed to speak to you.”

Kit blinked, rolling onto his back. “I— what?”

Ambrose didn’t have to answer for Kit to see the scorch marks in the ceiling of his perfect kitchen, or the cracks in the shapes of lichtenberg figures in the walls. Kit winced, glancing at Ambrose who looked to be lost in concentration.

“Ambrose… I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“I know.”

“No,” Kit protested, raising his hands in front of his face. They sparked and hissed like Kit was in overdrive, hooked up to his own nuclear reactor, a steady stream of small bolts charging the air around his palms. “I’m not doing this.”

Ambrose nodded, tapping his temple with his index finger. “I know,” he said again, and got to his feet. “The best thing I can think to do is the power dampeners.”

Kit sat up with an effort, pressing his back against a counter in Ambrose’s ridiculously massive kitchen. “Did they work?”

“No, knocking you out, worked. Though I doubt you want to do that every time this happens.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Well, then. Power dampeners it is.” Ambrose said with a breath. “Does the circuit still close if you wear the two of them on one hand?”

Kit shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried it. Usually when you’re catching criminals you want their hands bound too.”

“Hmm, I assume it would work the same. Only one way to find out, right?”

Kit nodded, pushing himself to his feet. Only then did he see the real extent of the damage he did. The stools were scattered around the room, appliances ripped out of sockets. Half of the kettle was melded to the door of the microwave, the microwave itself looked like a crushed aluminium can.

Kit glanced down at his fingers, at the red lightning. Did he really do all this without realising?

His mind went back to his Academy days, when he had first arrived and was only learning how emotions tied to his abilities. It was Superhero who sat down with him and taught him that in order to master his gift, he had to cut off the link between his emotions and his abilities, or he wouldn’t get anywhere as a hero.

This red lightning, it seemed, burrowed all the way down to Kit’s emotions — his negative emotions — anger, rage, hatred, confusion. How could he stop something he could barely recognise the warning signs of?

“Don’t think too much about it, Mallory. Let’s just do one thing at a time. The power dampeners.”

Kit nodded. “Right. The power dampeners.” He repeated, glancing down at his bare legs. “And trousers.”

Ambrose smiled. “Yeah. Might be a good idea.”

Kit walked back out of the kitchen, when by the door Ambrose stopped him again. “Kit, if you want fresh clothes, feel free.”

Kit stopped in the door, glancing over his shoulder at Ambrose who looked mildly embarrassed at the offer. It was a strange thing to see on him. He didn’t quite meet Kit’s eye, his hand wound tight around the back of a chair, while the other brought the mug to his lips.

Kit could tease the villain about it. Usually he would, but he felt gross and shit, so he just nodded. “Cheers.”

Ambrose raised his head, meeting Kit’s eyes and nodded slightly. Then Kit took off down the hall and up the ridiculous stairs and into the first room he found last night. He wanted a shower, he decided when he picked his jacket off the ground, taking the power dampeners from his pocket and tossing them on the bed.

Something to relax his muscles and clear his head. That would be heavenly right about now. Kit grabbed his jeans and threw them on the bed too. He bunched a fistful of his shirt and brought it to his nose, and winced at the smell. Yep, okay. He needed a shower.

He turned in the room, taking it in for the first time. It was huge, as was everything in this stupid house. He walked to the wardrobe that was tucked into the corner of the room, opening the doors. He expected suits and tailored trousers, but was pleasantly surprised when he saw a couple of old hoodies hung up. One of them an old Harvard sweatshirt that had the initials O. Ambrose embroidered into the chest.

It felt like important information, but Kit didn’t really care. His mind racing with the fact that Ambrose was somehow related to Mentor. His son? Why wouldn’t he tell Kit that he had a son? Why weren’t there any pictures or mentions of him ever?

It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

Kit sighed, closing the doors to the wardrobe and opening the long door beside it. Inside were shelves of t-shirts and sweatpants and jocks and socks.

Kit took what he needed and walked to the bathroom, searching for towels before he locked the door.

“Mallory,” Ambrose said from outside.

Kit walked over to the door to see Ambrose outside, two towels in his hand. “Oh. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Kit grabbed them and closed the door, locking it and turning on the shower. He ignored the flash of red he saw in the mirror. He stripped and stepped into the shower, and almost gasped at the pressure of the water drumming down on his shoulders and head.

It was so good. Better than a hotel’s pressure good, better than Kit’s shitty apartment shower anyways. He let out a long, soft sigh of relief as he felt the rushing hot water unwind the knots and pressure in his muscles. He could die under the water and he would die happy.

He washed the memories of the last day away. God was it only a day? The stress from work and Superhero’s babying treatment of him after his illness, mixing with the pains of being with Ambrose for any amount of time.

Kit rubbed his neck and collarbone where Ambrose had choked him yesterday, still feeling a phantom tie wrapped around his throat like a weighted shadow. His gaze trailed down to his arms where the cuts Ambrose had forced him to make were glaring up at him. They had scabbed over at this point, almost healing. The scabs turned yellowish-green under the water, then a purple red beneath it.

All this pain, all this… abuse Ambrose had subjected him too. Was this the price for meeting Mentor? He knew it was too good to be true when Mentor chose him, out of everyone in his year, to personally apprentice under.

The man who little by little, wore down his walled defences while building his strength and magic and confidence. Who made sure he ate everyday, who taught him the value of nutrition and how to make a proper cup of tea…

Kit slammed his fist against the tiles of the shower, hot tears mixing with the water on his face. Ambrose was a monster. He couldn’t be related to Mentor. Mentor… Mentor was a saint. He saved the entire city!

He trusted Kit!

Why wouldn’t he tell him that he had a son? Why keep it secret?! Especially someone as powerful as Ambrose, you’d think he would scream it from the rooftops.

But… but… Mentor was alone when he chose Kit. No trace of a family anywhere in his house, no other heroes mentioned it. He was alone, like Kit, and they made a family together. With each other.

Kit knew it was true, that it was real. It was the only thing he had ever been sure of in his life, so why! Kit banged his fist against the tiles again. Why was there an ache in his chest as if his heart was poisoned?! Why was there a voice in the back of his head that sadly told him that Ambrose wasn’t lying?!

Why!

Why!

Why!

Why!

Why?!

Maybe Mentor was the villain from last night. Maybe Kit never really knew him at all. Maybe Mentor only trusted him with a very small part of his life.

Either way Ambrose had the answers. Kit needed to face them, no matter how painful they would no doubt be, to hear him out.

He scoffed, sniffing. “Listen to yourself,” he muttered to the tiles, his voice uncharacteristically empty. “Hearing Ambrose out? What’s wrong with you?”

Kit sniffed, wiping the snot from his face. “Pathetic.”

He glanced to the shelf in the shower and grabbed the shower gel, staring at the bottle. It wasn’t a 3in1. Kit raised his eyes again to see other bottles in the shower. Kit stared. His brain buffering as his hand reached out to grab another bottle.

Shampoo.

Fancy looking shampoo.

Ambrose just wasted his money on fucking everything didn’t he? Was his toilet paper sheet gold?

Kit shrugged, putting the shower gel back and squeezed out some shampoo onto his hand. It smelled good. It smelled fancy.

Kit quickly showered and dried himself, wrapping the towel around his waist as he walked out to his room. Kit changed into a new t-shirt he borrowed from Ambrose and pulled on his jeans and jacket and runners.

The power dampeners he fastened around his right wrist, feeling his powers immediately diminish. When he locked the second one around the same wrist he snapped his fingers on his left hand. Nothing.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

One problem down.

He pocketed the key and left the room. Ambrose was standing in his kitchen, also dressed, his hair wet from a shower. Ambrose wore a loose sweatshirt that looked soft and black cargo pants that tucked into his boots.

Kit held up his hand triumphantly as he fell to his knees. “The power dampeners worked.”

Ambrose raised his head from an iPad, one eyebrow quirked in amusement. “And you have pants.”

“Mission successful!” Kit beamed, not caring that he was still compelled to kneel in front of Ambrose like some servant to a king.

“Good.” Ambrose said with a nod, sliding the iPad across the counter top. “You can stand, Kit. I have some bad news.”

Kit groaned, pulling himself to his feet. “What now?”

The frustration died in his throat when he saw the headlines: Water Hero kidnapped by new Supervillain, Superhero reports.

“What?” Kit asked with a breath, looking at Ambrose. “What is this?”

Ambrose stood with his arms across his chest, a hand on his mouth as he shrugged with one shoulder. “That villain last night—”

“But why would he take her?” He said “he” instead of Mentor because his brain didn’t equate the two. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

“I don’t know.”

“There has to be a reason?” Kit demanded, scrolling through the article.

“I already checked,” Ambrose said with a shake of his head. He waited patiently until Kit fact checked that there was no mention of why the villain took her. Kit turned his sad eyes to Ambrose again, putting the iPad on the counter. “I think we need to go see Mentor.”

Kit deflated at the suggestion. He knew that this was coming. That eventually they’d have to go and see Mentor and check to see if he really is — if he could be…

Fuck.

Kit didn’t want to think about it.

He steeled his expression and his resolve. “Fine. You can explain everything on the way.”

Ambrose nodded stiffly, not fond of sharing his past with the Hero, but maybe, it was time to share everything, especially if that new supervillain is Mentor.

*~*~*~*~*

Continued here

Orphanage roll-call (lmk if you wanna be added or removed): @beatenbruisedandbloody @404lunar1216 @whumpyworld @nameless-beanie @andithewhumper @annablogsposts @whumpasaurus101 @0eggdealer r @rejectedbytheempty @sleepy-pearl @n3rv0usn0v4 @whumpatize-me-captain @sunshiline-writes @burningkittypoet @honeyed-euphrates @sacredwrath @theonewithallthefixations @acer-gaysimpstuff @m3rakii @xxgalgurlxx @princess-bubble-blossom @blood-enthusiast @steh-lar-uh-nuhs @andtheysaidspeaknoww @dutifullykrispyland @mononeigbour @tippytappytyping @stefaniesblogs @shinokoro @bedtimescenarios @whatwhump

[codchrist]

There will be never be another Six man tag feud like The Wyatt Family vs The Shield

[ruvviks]

it's been a hot sec since i've talked about cyberpunk and i was initially working on a fic that would tell the story of this whole thing, but i've abandoned it many months ago and cannot say when i'll be picking it up again SO! i've decided to instead make this timeline. sorry in advance for how much information is in this thing the cyberpunk extended blorboverse essentially refers to the story parallel to the in-game events of cyberpunk 2077 that @mojaves and i came up with. we don't really have a better name for it but at this point the term has been used so many times that i feel like everyone here knows what it is by now, but at the same time we've never really explained the full scope of what the story is by now (it's a lot sorry). so in an attempt to get you guys a little bit more up to date with it all, here's a semi coherent timeline that describes the core events of the story and every branching story that came out of it! for additional background information, you can check out the following posts (timeline 1 / timeline 2 / timeline 3) to catch up with the continuation of the in-game storyline that's referenced in this timeline, but it's mostly irrelevant to everything here save for a couple of referenced events that cross over between the stories. it all ties together very intricately sorry about that. don't worry too much about it i've included my taglist down below to make sure people who are interested won't miss this post, but feel free to skip over this if it's not your thing! won't be doing a lot of this kind of stuff in the future but i'm trying to get back to the cyberpunk roots so this is kind of like, a good starting point and reference point for later posts!

The story starts in early 2077 and is centered around Sebastian Vidal, gang leader of the Cobras and previous test subject of Arasaka Special Programs (the linked page is a lot of information but gives the most coherent overview of what the branch actually is). The current director of the SERPENT projects, Andrew Colton, and Dr. Alana Cartier, both want him dead, to tie up their last loose end before the rest of Arasaka can find out and shut down Special Programs once and for all.

Over the past months they’ve been hiring various assassins in secret, to try and get Seb killed; however, these assassins keep failing, and their latest attempt lies in the hands of Cassidy Shaffer, an ex-corpo turned assassin with a strong moral code and plenty of experience to his name. With little to work with, as his mysterious client doesn’t give out much information, Cassidy starts with what he thinks is gonna be a quick and easy job– but he ends up hunting after Seb for essentially a year.

During this year, the two men have a series of wild encounters that get more and more insane the longer it goes on; it includes, but is unfortunately not limited to, Cassidy biting off a chunk of Seb’s ear, the two of them running over the highway, the two of them getting handcuffed together and chased by the NCPD then hit by a car right in front of the hospital, and Seb sensually licking blood off Cassidy’s face after having stabbed him when Cassidy wanted to strike at a concert Seb is visiting.

All of it comes to a sudden stop when Cassidy learns his client has been lying to him the whole time, and since he does not appreciate lying clients he ends up jumping sides and teams up with the Cobras to do some cleanup duty in Arasaka Special Programs. He and Seb work together to go after a list of targets to get the still ongoing projects mostly to a halt, while remaining in the shadows themselves as to not draw too much attention their way; and during this collaboration they meet several people from their past, bringing back both good and bad memories.

One of these people is Hanan Chisaka, the Head of Security at Special Programs. She ends up becoming the next test subject of Project Cobra after the last successful subjects, Xavier and Gabriel Mason, end up escaping in the midst of the chaos of Hanako Arasaka’s capture in mid-2077. Once Seb’s best friend and Cassidy’s mentor, she’s now forced to hunt the both of them down; but in their final confrontation she snaps out of the controlled mode Arasaka keeps her in and runs away with them, effectively leaving Special Programs without any test subjects. Another one of these people is Reid Bennett, Cassidy’s ex and ex-coworker back at MaxTac. He still works for the corporation and has been on an ongoing investigation into Arasaka Special Programs; seeing Cassidy alive and well, working together with Seb no less, piques his interest and he continues to look further into the case, which will cause him to make a very big mistake later on in the timeline.

By September 2078, Seb and Cassidy have successfully taken down all their planned targets and retreat back into the shadows, leaving Special Programs with many losses and no test subjects. With the APEX program discontinued a month earlier (incident discussed in this fic, which is a continuation of the in-game events), and Hanako Arasaka recovered and ready to take the corporation back from the hands of her corrupt brother, Special Programs ends up having to retreat for the time being, and cook up a new plan in the background.

Special Programs by this point is run by Andrew Colton, Alana Cartier, and Kaida Akiyama, three players who have been in the game for a long time already in the SERPENT projects’ runtime. Colton and Cartier are married– Cartier used to be married to Seb and cheated on him for a good amount of time when he was still at Arasaka– but their marriage is starting to fall apart. Akiyama has had to watch over Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne for a while during his chase after the Mason twins, which ended up with the twins dead and Hawthorne going into early retirement (Arasaka doesn’t know the twins faked their death and Ambrose is now dating one of them lol), and xe is now determined to help Colton and Cartier get Seb back into Arasaka so the projects can continue.

Cassidy’s initial plan was to leave as soon as the collaboration would come to an end, but he has found his place with the Cobras and instead ends up officially joining them.The next chapter in the story is a more laid-back and easygoing chapter, in which Cassidy learns to be part of real life again, and in which Seb learns to let people get close to him again after spending years trying to convince himself he doesn’t need any help. Over the course of a little over a year (all the way to November 2079), the two grow even closer than they had already done, going on gigs together and, you guessed it, slowly but surely falling in love until they inevitably end up together at the end of it.

Not long after the two get together, Reid returns into Cassidy’s life. He wants to try and be friends again and Cassidy gives him a second chance, though this soon enough turns out to have been a mistake, with Reid trying to create distance between Seb and Cassidy and then going as far as trying to sell Cassidy to Kang Tao (one of the few corporations that have been hunting Cassidy down for a while now) in exchange for his own freedom from MaxTac (where he would have otherwise been stuck at for probably the rest of his life). Naturally, Reid can’t watch Cassidy get tortured for long and leaks his location to the Cobras, who find and free Cassidy and take Reid into captivity instead– he does not get killed, but instead has to sit out some time at a safehouse somewhere in solitude, where he gets to decide what kind of person he wants to be in the future.

This brings us to Elysium; a gorgeous spaceship which was supposed to be a relatively cheap escape from reality for everyone who wanted a refreshing break from Earth, but through Arasaka sponsorship has become just another cash-grab project to compete with the Crystal Palace– and considering the megacorporation has its greasy hands all over it, the secret labs in the spaceship are used for a series of very unethical experiments. Naturally so, it would be the perfect place for Colton to continue his SERPENT projects without the risk of Hanako Arasaka finding out and shutting the place down. He sends forces up to Elysium (obviously after his other attempts at relocating the project to space have failed tremendously, having lost contact with every single crew in the smaller Arasaka stations in orbit around the planet), but since he’s not there himself his cousin (one of the CEOs of Elysium), Maxwell Crane, unbeknownst to Colton, takes control of the SERPENT projects in space instead. From the earlier linked Special Programs page: “Project Eryx used the technology of previous projects, but took a completely new approach in the hosts it used; rather than focusing on the human psyche it attempted to create a new type of cyborg which would lack the humanity that caused previous projects to fail. The Cobra chips were no longer used and the software was instead installed directly onto the host’s mainframe. The flexibility of the new hosts– more robot than human, and in some cases the entire human aspect was lacking altogether– allowed for experimentation with highly advanced cybernetic enhancements and military grade tech and upgrades, turning the test subjects– dubbed ‘prototypes’– into dangerous, unstoppable killing machines.”

Things settle down for Seb and Cassidy, but this moment of peace does not last long. In January 2081 the two find themselves traveling to the spaceship Elysium, to investigate a curious situation in the laboratories– they’ve been hired by Arasaka without their knowledge and it’s a setup to get Cassidy killed and Seb back in Cartier’s control.

While in space, they learn that the secret labs have suffered an outbreak of the above mentioned prototypes. They quickly connect the dots and realize Special Programs is back in the game, and they work together with security guards Aubrey Valentine and Leon dello Russo to try and fix the situation before it gets out of hand. Obviously this fails tremendously and Elysium ends up on a complete lockdown after a ship-wide outbreak, which is eventually contained in late March of that year, with CEO Maxwell Crane dead, leaving only his wife Kinsley Osborn behind.

Elysium continues to exist and is rebuilt after the crisis, and Kinsley Osborn can now finally turn it into the retreat it was always meant to be. Previously, most Elysium employees were to be stuck in space for the rest of their lives; however, with Arasaka out of the picture they are free to leave as they please, which results in a gigantic cut in total employee count in the months that follow.

Seb and Cassidy return to Night City and take Aubrey and Leon with them. Aubrey reunites with his sisters; Becca, James, and Rikki, and soon after his return to the city he opens an LGBTQ+ nightclub called Bodytalk with them, found Downtown, City Center, in June 2081. Not only is it a fun place to hang out at, it’s also his main hub as a fixer, and he starts a collaboration with the Cobras to get business going between the gang and the club; and soon enough it grows into a large and powerful network of connections, which is the foundation on which the rest of the stories are built.

After this point in time, many many more things happen but it would take me another hour or ten to go into full detail of all of that, so instead here’s a quick rundown of some of the other things that Bodytalk gets involved in:

Reid Bennett is handed over to Aubrey and he starts working at the club, and he becomes a very valued employee as well as a good friend to many now that he’s no longer fucking insane

Kaida Akiyama returns from Elysium and shows up to Hanan’s doorstep, to ask for her help with getting out of Arasaka for good; much later on, xe starts working for Bodytalk as well, in an attempt to put xyr past behind xem and become a better person

Urban Dynamite starts performing at the club regularly, and it becomes their home base

Luna Serratos, Cassidy’s ripperdoc friend from all the way back to killing era, gets involved in the Harbinger case from Maelstrom (one of the gang’s most feared members); turns out the Harbinger is in fact Reuben de la Rosa, a by then 22-year-old kid who has ended up in Luna’s care with his friend Noah Telavera after the two got caught up in an explosion. She requests the Cobras’ help with getting Maelstrom to let Reuben go

Officer Michele Diaz from Militech (who used to be Cassidy’s boss) is demoted following the lawsuits after the Elysium incident, and her investigation into the incident in hopes to get her job back leads her to Bodytalk; she begins threatening them and sends the whole club and their allies into uncertain times

Many people get married. There’s so many fucking guys here we went a little insane with the numbers but there’s several weddings and there’s a whole polycule going on too feel free to send asks about this if you’re interested

Cobra Cybernetics releases a new line of cyberware, which is incredibly buggy and dangerous to the public; it’s brought to the club’s attention and it makes them realize that Luiza Vidal (Seb’s sister), who not that long ago asked them to kill her husband (William Colton (Andrew’s brother), CEO of Cobra Cybernetics), has gone missing; they now need to get involved without getting the news out that they actually didn’t kill William and that he is still alive somewhere, while also balancing out dynamics between Biotechnica (angry at Cobra Cybernetics for stealing their designs) and Arasaka (the actual reason why Cobra Cybernetics’ designs look like Biotechnica’s designs, because William stole designs from Special Programs after halting their partnership after the Elysium incident, but these designs had been stolen by Arthur Jenkins from Biotechnica even BEFORE that to be able to hijack the European Space Council’s cybernetics following the Frankfurt incident. Are you still with me)

Vitali Dobrynin (fixer and main character from the in-game events storyline and the continuation of it; Vincent “V” Mayer’s boyfriend) ends up visiting Bodytalk after meeting Aubrey at a Fixer Council meeting, which happens in late 2083; this essentially ties the two main storylines together, which means that yes, a lot of the characters from the two separate storylines end up meeting :]

Officer Ulysses Dimakos (used to work with Reid at MaxTac) is sent to investigate Bodytalk following the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and ends up teaming up with the club to get MaxTac on a dead trail in exchange for his freedom of the corporation

On top of the Bodytalk / Cobras centered storyline, there’s a couple of side stories that are still connected to the whole thing but are more of a standalone thing with only a few touching points to the rest of it all:

This obviously takes place a lot earlier because it’s already mentioned above, but Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne is tasked with chasing after the escaped Mason twins; naturally he lets them go and ends up going into retirement, and Xavier Mason later on ends up becoming Bodytalk’s part-time repair guy on account of knowing Kaida

Gabriel Mason ends up in a car crash with retired security specialist Ames Ortega, who was also in Elysium during the incidents there, and the two end up babysitting Ambrose and Xavier’s kids together while those two are helping Hanan with getting Kaida out of Arasaka (Are you still with me. Blink if you can hear me)

Mercenary Frankie Sayyad gets a promotion from his fixer, Vulture (real name Diana Crane, Maxwell Crane’s older sister and cousin of the Coltons), and becomes one of her Bloodhounds; he works together with Evelyn Harris, Nimue Nkuna, and Beckett Rydel, the latter being one of the very first test subjects of Arasaka Special Programs, and the four accidentally get themselves mixed into a mystery concerning their secretive fixer

Caleb Harris, ex-security at Biotechnica, ends up back at Club Bodytalk not long after the conclusion of the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and starts working for Aubrey; he is partnered up with Ramiel Al-Masri, a mercenary who has been working for Vitali Dobrynin for a while and has recently joined Aubrey’s mercenary roster too, and together they dive into a series of gigs neither of them had expected

Journalist Bodhi Shankar has finally found more evidence and information surrounding the mysterious cult gang Umbra and its so-called Prophet, Thiago Salazar; however, his antics have led to him accidentally becoming part of the gang himself, and he has to figure out a way to get Thiago to stop listening to the supposed deity that the gang worships known as Scintilla, before she makes him do things that will get many people killed

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @aemondtargeryen, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian;

@estevnys, @elgaravel, @aezyrraeshh, @carlosoliveiraa

[anxiously-sidequesting]

This is a weird useless post but if wizard101 was ever officially animated by experienced animators well versed in body language, symbolism, and design I would be dead. Impactful animation and movement and dynamics between characters and the plot itself IS my hyperfixation

[s-misaki]

Adrian’s Family + the people who love him ♥️

[incorrectmadamspellman]

Lilith: like it's MY fault my love language is acts of service and all i know how to do is kill

[luxthestrange]

TWST Incorrect quotes#235 DEEZ WHAT?!

Crowl*Holding Yuuken, Yuu, and Grim in his arms*Im a 'mother' now it really changed my perspective~

Ambrose: And do you find it difficult juggling kids and a career?-

Yuu*Whispers into Crowley's ear something and grins*

Crow*Smirks at The RSA Headmage*YOU CAN JUGGLE DEEZ NUTS

He may be a deadbeat dad...but he is our deadbeat dad

[cyellolemon]

Ambrose aunties!! :) they are the people who take care of him after his parents died, the shaved hair one is Flora and the other one is Marie they're both transfem butches (she/her for both)

With 14yo Ambrose on the first pic, and 14yo Ruby on the second!!

[emeraldties]

“We Were Sweet Once” Pt 1 / ?

Alternative Title: God’s Favorite Princesses

[ambrosethedarling]

Take a silly little doodle of the Gotham by Gaslight boys Cus I recently rewatched the movie and got unhealthy attached this time

[d-lanx]

The most adorable Dean Amborse fan I've ever seen

So I'm watching an ambulance show and the paramedics are in liverpool. They turned up to help a little 76 year-old Scouse lady who'd slid off her settee called Jean. She wasn't hurt, but she couldn't get herself off the floor. So they help her, and when they offer to make her a cup of tea afterwards, she asks for whiskey instead (icon) and then proceeds to talk about her love of wrestling. She had two draws FULL of DVDs of the PPVs (they mentioned she had quite a few going back to the WWF era), and from the looks of it, she'd been a fan for many many years.

And even better, she had a framed photo of Dean Ambrose (in his WWE era) on her living room wall. She was saying she was looking forward to going to see a live show, too. Great to see the wrestling derangement never leaves.

And for anyone wondering, this is Jean. The queen. The icon. The legend herself.

Also if you're curious, the show is simply called Ambulance, and its on bbc iplayer, this is from series 7 episode 4. It was first aired in 2021, so now I'm wondering if she still watches Dean Ambrose now that he's wrestling as Jon Moxley on AEW. I hope so. She was so sweet.

[chaotic-orphan]

Intoxicating Fear (XX)redraft*

Revealing the Monster

Read part one here // Masterpost // Continued from here

Here's the tea, I am redrafting PART XX of this series and uploading it here, this is the canon - but I WILL POST THE NEXT PART TOMORROW!

The new part starts about halfway down XD

I am sorry, I wasn't happy with part XX! SO part XXI tomorrow, thank you for your time. :)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Kit was wary about following Ambrose down a very dark, a very concrete set of stairs. “If this is the fucking torture basement I woke up in initially—”

Ambrose waved the accusation away, as if it was daft for Kit to be wary. “It’s to the garage,” he told him, keying a code into the pin-pad beside the metal door.

Ambrose walked through the door and held it open, rolling his eyes when he noticed Kit still lingering at the top of the stairs.

“Come on.”

“I’m not going to willingly follow you into your torture dungeon.”

Ambrose blinked, tilting his head. “The sex dungeon is two floors down, Mallory.”

Ambrose laughed at the face that Kit pulled. “Come on. I can always force you to come if I want, and we’re kind of a time crunch here.”

Kit glared daggers at the man and begrudgingly walked down the stairs. He stopped at the last step, trying to get a peak into the room. Ambrose walked away from the door letting it close before Kit could. Kit lunged forward to catch the heavy metal door, but relaxed immediately when he saw it was in fact a garage.

Kit let out a long low whistle after stepping into the garage. The door shut with a buzzer after him. Ambrose opened a lock box with keys hung up in a numbered order.

He grabbed the keys named ‘01’.

“You’re such a control freak,” Kit snorted. “Do you have OCD or something?”

Ambrose shrugged, taking off through the cars covered by different tarps. The only car that wasn’t covered was the one closest to the garage door. The same car that Ambrose kidnapped Kit in last night.

He hated that Ambrose had a good taste in cars. He hated that Ambrose had this many cars when Kit couldn’t even afford one, nevermind a garage full.

Ambrose grinned at Kit over the roof of the Wraith as he unlocked the door. “If you like, I can give you one of the ones I don’t like.”

Kit rolled his eyes. “I thought I told you to stay out of my head,” he said, opening the door and climbing into the passenger seat. The cream leather was so comfortable under him as he put his seatbelt on.

“Seriously,” Kit went on, anger curling around him the more comfortable he became with all of Ambrose’s luxury. “Don’t you have any thoughts of your own?! It’s fucking creepy, man. Just ask questions if you want to know my thoughts.”

Ambrose laughed as he opened the garage door with a remote and they rolled out of the house and onto the road again.

“I mean, don’t you have any friends?” Kit demanded hotly. In all honesty, he didn’t know why he was getting pissed all of a sudden, it’s not like Ambrose invading his mind was a new thing, but now? It pissed him off. “Don’t you know how to talk to people?!”

“Relax, Mallory. You’re the only person I relay their thoughts to. It might shock you, but generally, people love when you know what they’re thinking. It’s why humans seek connection. To feel understood.”

“Okay, Socrates,” Kit grumbled. “It’s just fucking weird. I don’t like it when you do it.”

“All of a sudden.”

“Yes!” Kit snapped, glaring at the villain beside him as the forest zoomed past them. “All of a sudden!”

What had Ambrose seen? What parts of him did he know? Could he see everything or was it selective?

“After you found out I’m Mentor’s son,” Ambrose said pointedly. Kit scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring out the passenger window. They drove in a terse silence for a while, cause Ambrose was a psychopath and didn’t have the radio on.

“We have to talk about it, Kit.”

“Well, you already know my thoughts on it all, so enjoy having a conversation by yourself.”

“Mallory,” Ambrose said with a tired sigh, flicking on the indicator as they pulled to a stop. “I know it must seem like a weird coincidence to you, but I swear I didn’t know you were Mentor’s s—”

Kit’s hands tightened into fists. Son. He was about to say son.

“Prodigy,” he settled on, taking a right and messing with the gears until they were coasting again. The air seemed tighter. “I didn’t know that he meant anything to you. I swear— I just assumed that when you were scared of me turning you into him, that you had heard the horror stories in the academy, or Superhero told you. Not that you… not that you were personally affected.”

Kit’s eyes burned as he stared out the window, the forest growing sparser the closer they got to the city. “I didn’t know. You have to believe me.”

“And if you did?”

Ambrose hesitated.

Kit turned his head to look at him, studying the villain’s reactions.

“And if you knew that he was like a father to me.” Like a father, not an actual one. “If you knew how much it hurt to see a man who plucked me out of nothing be destroyed. Would it have been any different?! Or would you have laughed and rubbed it in like salt in a wound?”

“Kit—”

“Oh, come off it. There’s no one here, Rosey. It’s only me and you,” Kit said, his voice dripping with a horrible hysterical knowing. “You can be your usual sadistic, unfeeling, monstrous self and I can tell nobody about it—”

“Mallory—” Ambrose tried to interject but Kit spoke over him again.

“But you know the funniest part in all this? You already took away the one person who would have given a shit about this! About me, not the Hero. Me. And you made him a monster!” Kit roared, something wet hitting his cheeks and flowing like a stream down his face. “And now, because clearly God hates me, I have to team up with you of all people, to go and stop — the one man who ever treated me like a person — from becoming a monster like you.”

The silence was deafening. In some strange way, it was comforting. No electricity crackles or malfunctioning lights accompanied his breakdown with the power dampeners locked around his wrist.

It was cathartic.

They had just pulled into the main road that brought them to the outskirts of the city, the skyline visible over the horizon when Ambrose spoke.

“He wasn’t a hero to me,” said Ambrose quietly, almost imperceptibly. Kit glanced at him, but his eyes settled on the white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

“Don’t fucking tell me you have daddy issues.” When Ambrose didn’t answer Kit let out a strangled laugh. Blinking in bewilderment, Kit raised his brows. “Are you telling me you have daddy issues? Mr Big Bad villain?”

“Oh fuck off, Mallory. At least I had parents.”

The words stung. They cut deeper than Kit would have ever admitted out loud or shown physically, but Kit knew that Ambrose was in his head after the villain winced.

Shifting in his seat, he said: “I’m— I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come off snarky. I just—” Ambrose let out a groan. “You just rub me up the wrong way.”

“Well who’s fucking fault is that, dickhead?!”

“Do you want me to explain, or are you just going to argue with me the entire drive to the hospital?” Ambrose snapped. “I can only do one of those things in our limited time, so choose.”

Kit clenched his teeth, glaring forwards at the car in front of them. “Fine. Tell me.”

“Mentor is my father. As you know, he only rose to prominence within our lifetimes, though you may be too young to remember. Before him, heroes and villains weren’t really a thing. There were a couple dotted here and there, but mostly they were vigilantes. The good guys and the bad guys.”

“Yeah. I remember learning about that in the academy.”

“Right. So after my father rose in public opinion and word of mouth, well the government started stepping in and trying to regulate it. Which they did and the rest is history, but he wasn’t the same heroic good man when he came home.”

Kit swallowed, tightening his fingers into fists. He didn’t want to hear this, he realised. He really wanted Ambrose to shut up and not tell him anymore, but he asked for this, didn’t he? To know the side of Mentor that Ambrose knew?

“He wasn’t abusive,” Ambrose said softly and Kit released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Not physically, anyway. When he discovered that I was born with powers he sought to train me, to make me in his image. A family of Superheroes. My Mom, she didn’t want that for me. She saw the toll it took on him to be the city’s saviour everyday, and that’s when they started fighting.”

Kit sat rigid in his seat, staring forward. He couldn’t imagine Mentor fig— well, no. He could, actually. How many times had Kit walked in on Mentor and Mr Silver arguing? Or Superhero trying to tell Mentor that the next step was a bad idea, that it was too risky.

“I trained hard. When he wanted me to push myself, I pushed myself. When he wanted me to commit 100%, I did 200%. It was never enough for him. None of it was. He wanted a son and a wife who adored him, who worshipped the ground he walked on, and instead he had a family. His ego was a problem.”

Kit cringed at that. Even he knew that Mentor wanted people to adore him, no matter who or why. He wanted to be the city’s saviour, the man on everyone’s tongue and in their thoughts.

Kit let out a breath of a laugh, running a hand through his hair.

“I guess… that’s why he adopted me, isn’t it?” Kit asked, his voice hollow. Ambrose didn’t answer, and that was answer enough. God, how could he be so stupid? How could he not have seen that to Mentor, Kit was just some charity project he knew would always support him. Worship the ground he walked on, defend him even when Kit knew he was in the wrong.

Ambrose opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again, setting his lips into a thin line.

“Mallory…”

“No. It’s okay,” Kit replied, letting out a long breath. “It’s fine, go on.”

Ambrose hesitated, fingers lifting from the steering wheel, before curling around them again. They passed the memorial garden in silence, taking the diversion around the square towards the hospital. They weren’t far away now.

“He started the Hero academy when I was twelve. A school for children with powers to develop their abilities to become heroes. I saw it for what it was though, incentive and resentment. He failed to teach me to control my abilities, and found a fault in me that I couldn’t rectify. My ability wasn’t flashy enough, or showy enough for him, for the great Mentor.”

“He wanted a child who would make the world stop and look at them. Someone who was as fast as him, as strong, but not stronger. In his eyes, I may as well have been born with strong charisma because you couldn’t see the effect of what I could do, only experience it.”

Kit looked down at his wrist, at the power dampeners locked around it. Lightning was flashy. Lightning gave Kit strength and strong reflexes, he was fast, he was flashy. He trained hard, to the point of exhaustion everyday in the Hero Academy. Not caring if he had no friends. Not caring if he passed out from pushing himself too hard. He just had to be the best. It was all he had. It was all he could do.

It wasn’t until he was beating people three years above him that Mentor started to pay him any attention. It felt good at the time. It felt like somebody finally recognised him for what he was.

Mentor made him feel seen. He saw that Kit had put his everything into training, because everything in him was all he had to give.

He didn’t have a family to worry about him getting hurt.

He didn’t have friends that would mourn him if he died in action.

All he had was being a hero.

Of course Mentor would latch onto that. Of course he would pick up on the fact that Kit was desperately trying to prove himself. Of course he would take pity on the orphan and bring him home like a trophy. Show him off to the world.

But that… that wasn’t the Mentor that Kit knew.

He brought him home, but it was after Kit denied him so many times. Told him to piss off, and asked if he was a pervert that prayed on boys his age. Kit had grown up on the streets, he knew what happened to skinny kids like him. One day they’re there, and the next, you never see them again.

Mentor was patient, and kind. He didn’t push Kit after Kit said no, told him he had everything he needed in the academy.

“Then my Mother got sick, and well…” Ambrose said, trailing off, pulling Kit from his memory and back into the car. “After she died it was like he… he didn’t even care. All he cared about was building the city up, saving everyone from possible Villains that lurked in the night. He didn’t sit with her in the hospital because he knew he couldn’t rescue her. He wasn’t there when she—”

Kit was quiet beside Ambrose, head tilted down. He knew what loss was like. He knew the absence a parent can leave behind, but losing someone who meant that? Kit didn’t know how to relate to that. When Omen destroyed Mentor’s mind, it wasn’t the same as if he died because Kit could still go and see him. Still talk to him, even if the Mentor he remembered was dead.

“I’m sorry,” Kit said softly. Ambrose cleared his throat, turning his head so Kit couldn’t see his face.

“Yeah,” he agreed, going rigid. “Me too.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence. It wasn’t far. Five minutes in the car, and two minutes to park.

“Are you…?” Kit began, then cut himself off when he met Ambrose’s black eyes. What was he going to say? Are you Okay? Alright with going into see the unfeeling man who wasn’t a good father? The man you cursed for being…

Ambrose shook his head, no. “Of course I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Kit said with an awkward shrug. They got out of the car, closing the door in unison. Kit thought nothing of it.

It was borderline awkward in the lift. Ambrose kind of just, stood there like a totem pole. His hands behind his back, standing straight up like a serial killer.

“Would you relax?” Kit said, rolling his neck. “You’re making me nervous.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m fine,” Ambrose said slowly, voice cold. Kit shrugged and said: “fine.”

He ahead and almost cried in joy when the doors opened to the ground floor. He stopped at the reception desk. Ambrose was walking and stopped when Kit stopped, two steps ahead and glancing back to see what Kit was doing.

He joined him a moment later, standing beside him and glowering at Heather when she turned and beamed at Kit.

“Hi Heather.”

“Hey, Kit. You goin’ up to—” her big blue eyes trailed to Ambrose beside him, who looked as if he was under a storm cloud, or extremely constipated. “Oh. Hi. Is this your brother?”

Kit’s eyes blew wide, but Ambrose didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Older. We’d like to see—”

“I didn’t know you had a brother, Kit. Of course, darlin’s, go ahead. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

Ambrose nodded stiffly and stepped back. Kit blinked, shaking his head, and smiled at Heather. “Oh, actually. Was there anything strange with him? Any new visitors or—”

“I’m sorry, hun. I’m just the receptionist for the main desk. You’ll have to ask the nurses up there.”

Kit nodded, standing up. “Thank you, Heather.”

“Anytime. And nice meeting you.”

Ambrose nodded at her. “You too.”

Kit clapped him on the back, a wide grin on his face. “Let’s go, bro.”

Ambrose made a noise and Kit had to stifle a laugh until they were in the stairwell. “What was that!” He barked, laughter bubbling up his throat.

“I— panicked.” [***RE-DRAFT STARTS HERE***]

“I thought you weren’t nervous,” Kit teased. He was turning to walk up the next set of stairs when Ambrose slammed his forearm against Kit’s throat, shoving him back into the corner of the stairwell, pinning him there.

Ambrose’s nostrils flared, his eyes blazing with cold fury down at Kit. “Of course I’m nervous, you fucking child. Tch. Don’t you ever switch off?”

Kit pushed Ambrose’s arm off him, and to his surprise, Ambrose let him, running a hand through his hair and letting out a breath.

The realisation only dawned on Kit, his mouth opening into a small ‘o’.

“You’ve never been to see him.”

Ambrose straightened. The villain returning as he stared down his nose at Kit, a sardonic smile on his lips. “And why should I? He didn’t give my mother that courtesy.”

Kit put his hands up, showing Ambrose he meant nothing by it. “Hey. It’s your decision. Not mine. He’s your dad, not—” the words choked up before he could say them. Ambrose didn’t pry. He knew what Kit was going to say.

Ambrose stared for a moment longer before glancing up the stairs and nodding stiffly.

“Yes. Well.” He cleared his throat and started walking up again. “What floor is it?”

“The fifth,” he replied, starting up the stairs beside Ambrose. “Top floor. They don’t want anyone stumbling amongst the crazies.”

“Probably for the best,” Ambrose muttered. Kit had meant it as a joke, but, he didn’t disagree with Ambrose as they climbed the stairs. Thankful that their footsteps filled the silence he couldn’t in the lift. They knew something had happened when they got to the fifth floor.

Kit stepped in first, Ambrose craning his neck around the door into the hall. Kit breathed a sigh of relief. No police tape, no police, no anything. That meant there was nothing to worry about.

Kit smiled at Ambrose and slapped him on the back, walking towards the door to the locked ward. “See! You were irrational. Overthinking everything. Nothing’s insidious about Mentor. He was here the whole time.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because if he did somehow magically vanish, there would be police and Superheroes and politicians here to interrogate him about what happened.”

“And if they just moved him down to the station to do that?” Ambrose asked, raising his brows. Kit’s smile dimmed a little, but it remained on his face.

“Too much risk. Trust me. Everything will be fine.”

The door buzzed open after Kit waved to the camera and the pair stepped through. Kit walked his usual path to Mentor’s room, and only realised halfway there that Ambrose wasn’t following him anymore. He paused, looking over his shoulder for the villain, before turning after laying eyes on him.

Ambrose stood in the middle of the hall, his eyes blazing and his little finger twitching by his side. A muscle in his jaw clenched and tightened when he met Kit’s questioning eyes.

He swallowed. “This was a mistake.”

“No,” Kit said, coming to stand beside the Villain. “It wasn’t. He’s out of it most of the time anyways, Rosey. He probably won’t even recognise you.”

Black eyes flashed like two burning coals. “He’ll recognise me.”

Kit didn’t tell him that Mentor didn’t recognise Kit for months after his accident. Then again, he didn’t have to. Something smoothed out in Ambrose’s face as Kit remembered his first meeting with a stark raving mad Mentor, who screamed at Kit to get out and leave him be. Kit thought for a minute that Ambrose could see the memory, but quickly remembered that the ward was built of the same power dampening material as the supers-prison and power dampeners.

Ambrose swallowed. “Let’s get this over with,” he said through clenched teeth. This time Kit led the way beside Ambrose, and let Ambrose walk into the room first. Ambrose didn’t falter as he stepped through the door, black eyes settling on his father for the first time since he drove him insane.

Kit followed him in, leaning against the wall beside the door. Mentor was sitting in an armchair, gazing out the window when they arrived. He turned his head and locked eyes with Ambrose and didn’t even glance over at Kit.

The tension was palpable in the air, tied like a three-way noose over their throats as nobody dared breathe in the room.

“Oskar,” Mentor said softly. Kit’s eyes blew wide, glancing at Ambrose who stiffened at the mention of his name. Mentor recognised him? He— remembered Ambrose?

“Hello Father.”

Mentor grunted a huff of a laugh. Almost like a derisive scoff, but Kit had never heard Mentor make a sound like that. A sound so like— well, Ambrose. Kit didn’t dare move, but he had the sneaking suspicion that Mentor didn’t notice, or if he did, didn’t care, that was Kit was in the room too.

“Is that all you can say to me, boy?” Mentor demanded, his voice hard, like gravel grating against gravel.

Ambrose shrugged, but Kit noticed the tightness to his usual casual gesture. “I can say a whole lot more, but word on the street is you have trouble remembering things lately, old man.”

Mentor’s eyes were cutting. “I remember the important stuff.”

The words came like a sharp slap to Kit’s face, almost staggering him out of the room, but Kit didn’t move. He just stared, eyes burning at the man that helped shape him into who he was today. But this man he was staring at may as well have been an alien. This wasn’t Mentor. This was the cold father that Ambrose told Kit about. The man who looked like Mentor, but was a monster beneath skin.

“What are you doing here?” Mentor spat. “Have you come to take more from me, hmm? The breath from my lungs.”

“Well it would be a wasted trip if I didn’t take something from you,” Ambrose replied with the cold smile that Kit was so used to seeing.

What he wasn’t used to seeing was Ambrose flinching. Kit pressed off the wall, eyes wide as a cold, dark chuckle filled the room. An empty laugh that caused shivers to run down his spine and freeze him in place.

“You’re still good at talking, Oskar.” Black eyes met Kit’s across the room, aware that Kit had just seen him flinch at Mentor’s raised hand and it was like the world slowed down around him, his heartbeat rushing in his ears.

Then it was as if a switch flipped of indifference. Ambrose straightened, black eyes smiling as he faced his father again. He slipped one hand into his trouser pocket, shifting his weight to lean on one leg and shot Mentor a cold smile.

“You’re still good at being a piece of shit, only, now you’ve exposed yourself to a witness.”

Mentor’s eyes narrowed and he got to his feet, turning his body to face Ambrose. He had only just turned when his eyes found Kit’s frozen blue ones staring as if he were a deer in headlights.

Mentor’s expression shifted into something softer, something kind. “Kit my boy—”

Kit’s eyes burned, his nostrils flaring. “Don’t.”

“This is-” Mentor began, gesturing between himself and Ambrose. “Family issues. They go back a long while.”

“I don’t care about your explanation,” Kit told him, shaking his head.

Mentor’s hard eyes looked between Kit and Ambrose, scrutinising. “What are you even doing together? Aren’t you a strange pair.”

“Not at all,” Kit said before Ambrose could even open his mouth. Kit stood talk, feeling Ambrose’s black eyes slide over to him as he commanded the space. “He’s helping me on a case. A new Supervillain.”

Mentor scoffed, folding his arms over his toned chest. “Have you considered him?” He asked, nodding his head to Ambrose.

“I have,” Kit ground out through clenched teeth. “But it turns out this new Supervillain has telekinesis. You wouldn’t happen to have an alibi for last night, would you?”

Mentor’s mouth fell open. Even Ambrose raised a brow at the accusation in Kit’s hard voice. He had never seen him so angry. It was very entertaining to watch, especially when it was directed at his father.

“I was here,” Mentor said, spreading his hands in a helpless shrugging gesture. “Obviously.”

“Can anyone corroborate that story?” Kit demanded, spitting venom at his old Hero and Mentor. Mentor glanced between Ambrose and Kit, his expression tightening as some understanding flashed across his face.

He rubbed his temple with the palm of his hand, kneading it into the soft flesh, letting out a disbelieving huff. “I can’t believe this. You’re seriously trusting this man over me, Kit? You're like a son to me.”

“Clearly I wasn’t,” Kit practically yelled, but he didn’t shout. His voice was surprisingly level despite everything. “Or you would have told me you had an actual son.”

Mentor’s gaze was cutting. “Surely you know what he did to me,” Mentor said, his voice a quiet fury. “What he did to our family, to this city! He—”

“Is Omen,” Kit finished, his eyes flashing. Mentor took a step back as if he’d been hit. Kit didn’t stop there though. “Yeah. I know. And I know he’s not a liar. So do you have an alibi or not?”

Ambrose was quite happy to let Kit take lead on this interrogation. It was true, Ambrose wasn’t a liar. If he said he’d torture you, he would. If he told you he liked you, he did. If he said he was Omen, he was. Something Ambrose didn’t think Kit picked up on, but was happy by the turn of events all the same.

Mentor was halfway through stuttering out a reply when a Doctor walked into the room, a clipboard in hand and already speaking. “Mentor, how are we tod—” Doctor, sensing the tension looked up and smiled at his obvious intrusion. He put the clipboard under his arm and stood taller. “Ah. Sorry, Mentor. I didn’t know you had visitors. Ah, hello Kit.”

“Doctor,” Kit replied not taking his eyes off of Mentor. “Can you confirm Mentor was here last night?”

Doctor’s eyes went around the room before bouncing back to Kit. “Uh, yes. I mean, CCTV and the hospital logs can probably. I wasn’t on personally, but as Mentor’s doctor today I can tell you there was no anomalies last night.”

“Great. Thank you,” Kit said, nodding at Ambrose. “That’s all we needed to know, we’re leaving.”

“No, wait—” Mentor protested, but Ambrose was already talking to the Doctor and walking back out the door. Kit turned to do the same when a hand was on his wrist, stopping him from leaving. Kit glanced back over his shoulder to see Mentor clinging to him like a desperate, old man.

“Kit…” he said with shining eyes. “M’boy. Please, let me explain.”

“You lied to me,” Kit hissed, finally letting the hurt shine through his features. “You told me, you— you made me feel special.”

“You are special, Kit, and not just to me.”

“Was I only special to you because I was strong?” Kit asked. Mentor hesitated. Kit pulled his arm from Mentor’s grasp. “You never saw me as a son. You saw me as a tool that you could mould and use to further your great image. Superhero. Saviour. Good charitable man,” Kit spat, tears springing suddenly to his eyes. “He even rescues orphans, the übermensch. Mentor: The great man.”

“Kit—”

“You were everything to me,” Kit said, his bottom lip trembling. “My only normal in the world. My family. My father. I worshipped you, and you used me!”

“Kit, please. Let me explain.” Mentor said again, pawing at Kit’s jacket. Kit recoiled, shrugging his hands from his shoulders.

“You have two minutes before I’m walking out that door.”

“In the beginning, yes, I wanted to be close to you because I saw your potential. Nobody else in that academy ever came close to you. You were extraordinary. I wanted a sidekick when I walked through those doors on the day of your exams, and instead I found a second chance.”

Tears streamed continuously from Kit’s red rimmed eyes as he listened, occasionally wiping them on the cuff of his sleeve.

“I found a son in you, and from that day onwards I decided that I wanted to help you. To give you the start in life that you deserved, not the one you were given. I patrolled the Rookery looking for you every night because one of the other kids told me you slept rough on the streets. I wanted to offer you kindness, and you had such hard eyes. It was weeks before I ever saw you smile, and when I did, m’boy, I swear the heavens themselves opened.”

Kit sniffed, his breath catching in his throat, taking in fretful breaths once he saw the glisten in Mentor’s eyes, and the tears welling up behind them.

“I never wanted to use you as some piece of equipment to further my image. I wanted to make sure you had bread, and safe water to drink. I wanted to give you a home.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me you had a son?” Kit asked, barely above a whisper. “Why… why- why didn’t you tell me you had a family? I would’ve understood.”

Mentor shook his head. “I had already left them at that time, Kit, and I was too ashamed to tell you. To tell you that I fucked up my last family. How could I tell you that? A child yourself when I was trying to gain your trust so I could help you, and the way you looked at me…”

The pair of them stared at each other, tears streaming down their faces the longer they spoke. “You saw something in me that I hadn’t seen in years, and it made me feel special, Kit. It made me want to be the better man you thought I was. To change, for the better, for you. For us. I thought it was my second chance when I met you, and I can tell you now for certain, it was.”

Kit looked away, afraid he might collapse if had to listen to any more of this. Mentor touched a hand to his cheek, thumbing away the tears, drawing Kit’s attention back to Mentor.

“Just please,” he blubbered. “Please say you don’t hate me. I will fall to my knees and beg for your forgiveness, Kit. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please.”

Kit didn’t say anything. He just stepped in and hugged his old man, wrapping his arms tight around him and holding him up when Mentor sobbed harder into Kit’s jumper.

“I’m sorry,” Mentor cried into Kit’s jumper, muffling the sound. “I’m so sorry. I love you, I’m so sorry.”

Kit held him tighter, trying to compose himself but there was nothing to be done except wait it out. Ambrose stood outside the door, leaning against the wall to his father’s room, downcast eyes staring unseeing at the clinically clean floor in front of him.

Kit stepped out after a few minutes, his tears dried but the red rimmed eyes gave him away. Ambrose stood, face impassive as he took a deep breath. “You good to go?” He asked.

Kit nodded dumbly. They walked to the exit of the ward, but Doctor shouted from down the hall and the pair turned. “Oh good, I caught you before you left. Here. I’ll walk you out.”

Doctor quickly caught up to them, half-jogging towards them with a self-deprecating smile. “Sorry. Shall we talk outside?”

Kit glanced at Ambrose before nodding. Doctor fell into step with them, flashing his keycard on the control panel and the doors to the locked ward opened with a beep. He pushed through them and held it open for Kit and Ambrose to walk out. They stood just outside the ward, Kit tilting his head at Doctor.

Doctor smiled at the pair, a handsome smile. He was a little older than Ambrose, his eyes crinkled at the edges when his smiled. His tan skin contrasted against Ambrose’s paleness to a stark degree that Kit would’ve laughed if he didn’t feel so drained.

Kind green eyes found Kit’s. “I double-checked the log’s after you asked about Mentor’s whereabouts last night,” he said. “He was here all night, I can confirm with 100% certainty.”

“Okay, thank you Doctor.” Kit said nodding.

A copycat? Ambrose said in Kit’s mind. Kit glanced at him, but Ambrose was still looking at Doctor.

Maybe. Or maybe another telekinetic… Kit thought, pushing it towards Ambrose.

“Well,” Doctor said, clapping his hands together. “I hope that is everything you need?”

“Yes, Doctor, thank you for confirming the alibi,” Kit said. Kit reached his hand out which Doctor took and shook it. Doctor turned to Ambrose as well, offering his hand which Doctor took with a smile.

“Nice meeting you.”

“Thank you Doctor,” Ambrose said coolly before withdrawing his hand and stepping away. The pair walked down the stairs, hearing the buzzer of the ward door open and close again.

“What now?” Ambrose asked. Kit ran his hands through his hair, letting out a sigh.

“I don’t know. I need to get my phone from my apartment, just to see if anyone’s been trying to call.”

“Right. Of course.” Ambrose said as they walked to the car. Sensing the stiffness in Ambrose’s body language, Kit kept quiet, not wanting to poke the bear, but feeling too bad to just remain silent and not say anything.

They got into the Wraith in silence. It was only when Ambrose turned the key in the ignition that he broke the silence. “It’s not your fault, Kit.”

“I’m still sorry.”

Ambrose turned his head to look Kit head on. The expression on his face would’ve floored Kit had he been standing up.

Ambrose’s eyes were like two rainbows, his eyebrows drawn low over them, his lips were curled up on his face, exposing his smile lines that usually looked so annoyed.

Was Ambrose smiling?

When Kit wasn’t even covered in blood or bruises or struggling to breathe?

“Really, Kit. It’s okay. I don’t have any ill will towards you. Just think of it like, we both had one good parent and leave it there. Okay?”

Kit nodded, not trusting his voice to speak. Ambrose’s face went back to neutral and Kit felt like he could breathe.

Then his eyes narrowed as they pulled out of the parking lot. “What?”

“I just—”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I don’t think you should smile, Rosey. It doesn’t suit you.”

Ambrose almost hit the roof. “What?! My smile is charming.”

“I feared for my life. It is mortally terrifying. Do you smile at babies like that?”

“Babies love me,” Ambrose hissed.

Kit laughed, running a hand through his hair. “Actually can you drop me off at a therapist before we go back to my—”

“Oh yeah yeah,” Ambrose grumbled, turning the indicator on and taking off onto the main road. “Laugh it up.”

Kit did, and he felt good after it. The laugh smoothed everything out in his chest, unwinding the tension that weighed heavy on it and for a little, fleeting moment, he felt lighter than he had in a while. Ambrose turned the radio on.

*~*~*~*~*

Continued here

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