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hyperion-moonbabe-art3mis · 4 years

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Virago 16. The Murder of Innocents

Summary: Y/N was sent to the ground after spending five years in the Skybox for stealing medical supplies and murder. How will she deal with her new environment and learn to survive on earth? Will she crack under the pressure of becoming a leader of the 100 or will she embrace it.

Post Date: 09.18.20

Word count: 2.1k

Pairing: Bellamy Blake x Reader

Based off: 02x05 “Human Trials”

Masterlist

100 Master List

You wake up to find yourself being dragged into the area the Ark was in.

“How many of you are there?” A woman in a guards uniform asks. But you and Clarke were to worn out to even answer. You watch as people quickly move away, clearly being afraid of you as they thought you two were grounders.

“Wait,” You hear a voice in the distance.

“Once the prisoners are secure,” The guard woman says.

“They’re not prisoners. That’s my daughter and that’s Y/N Y/L/N,” The woman says leading you to realize it was Abby Griffin. She quickly rushes over to make sure Clarke was alright and then you, before passing out again.

You wake up laying on some sort of cot, “I need two saline and two pressure dressings,” Abby says as you and Clarke both wake up.

“I’m on it,” A man’s voice says.

“I saw your ship crash,” Clarke states raspily to her mother.

“I wasn’t on it. I’m right here,” Abby responds.

Abby and her assistant, Jackson, work to tend your wounds as you notice the guard woman from earlier come in, “Are they alright?” She asks.

“They will be,” Abby answers.

“I’m sorry ma’am. We had no idea who they were. Where have you been?” She questions us.

“Byrne,” Abby says, clearly wanting us to get rest.

“Mount Weather,” You answer raspily.

“The grounders took you to Mount Weather?” She asks.

“No. The Mountain Men. We have to get them out,” Clarke answers sitting up.

“We’re not doing this right now,” Abby says again wanting us to rest.

“Yes, ma’am,” Byrne responds before leaving.

“Mom. Did anyone else make it here?” Clarke questions as you sit up as well.

“Yes. Six of you did,” Abby answers.

“Bellamy?” You quickly say.

“And Finn?” Clarke asks in quick succession. Abby softly nods and you feel like a weight lifted off your chest.

“I thought they were dead,” Clarke says. “I thought you were dead,” Clarke says as she starts to break down. You move as quickly as you can to comfort her.

“Not me,” Abby says before pulling Clarke into a small hug. She then puts her arm out to pull you in as well. As much as you still didn’t like her, you needed a good hug. “I’m right here,” Abby whispers.

After Abby had helped you and Clarke clean up she stayed until you two fell asleep. You woke up just a bit after Clarke as she and Abby were having a conversion.

“How long have we been asleep?” You ask groggily.

“About 10 hours,” Abby responds. Clarke then tries to quickly get up but Abby tries to stop her.

“Clarke, slow down. Hey, it’s too soon,” Abby tells her.

“Mom, we need to move against Mount Weather. How many guards are there here? Where are Finn and Bellamy?” Clarke asks.

“Clarke, please. You need to rest,” Abby pleads.

“I don’t need to rest. I’m fine. And I don’t need you to protect me,” Clarke says moving to get up.

“I’m sorry Miss Griffin. But Clarke’s right. We need to get our people out, we need to make a move,” You say sitting up as well.

“Yes and what we need is to save our friends,” Clarke says getting off the cot.

“Ma’am,” Byrne makes her way into the tent. “Movement in the North Woods,” She announces.

“Grounders?” Abby questions.

“I don’t think so,” Byrne responds with a slight smile. You and Clarke quickly get dressed and follow Abby out of the tent.

As soon as you’re out, you notice Raven sitting off to the side, “Hi,” Clarke says.

“I’ve been waiting out here all night,” Raven says using a cane to help her up. “Abby said you two needed sleep,” She says hugging Clarke and then you.

“Raven, I--” Clarke starts as you two notice the brace on her left leg.

“Sucks, but I’m dealing with it,” Raven states, still with a smile plastered on her face. The three of you then turn your attention once you hear the gate was opening.

“Bellamy,” You say to yourself noticing it was him and some other people.

“Go. I’ll catch up,” Raven smiles.

“Okay,” Clarke says quietly. You and Clarke head off and towards the front of the camp.

As soon as you got close enough you run right into Bellamy and embrace him. You clearly caught him off guard as he didn’t know what was happening but soon enough he wrapped his arms around you. You and Bellamy just stood there embracing eachother. You felt at peace for a moment knowing he was ok and that you got to see him again.

Once you pulled away Clarke quickly moved to take your place, “Now, there’s something I thought I’d never see,” Octavia comments as you pull her into a hug.

“I’m glad you’re ok,” Octavia whispers in your ear.

“You too,” I say as we pull away from eachother. Clarke quickly takes your place again to hug Octavia.

“How many are with you?” Bellamy asks.

“Just us,” You respond. You watch as their faces fall flat.

“Where’s Finn?” Clarke asks and Raven looks over to Bellamy for an answer.

“Looking for you,” Bellamy responds looking at Clarke.

You, Clarke and Bellamy, spend a few minutes catching up, “So what happened?” Bellamy asks.

“After we barbecued the grounders, the men inside of Mount Weather caught 48 of us. They seemed all happy go lucky, but Clarke and I knew it was too good to be true. So we invested and found out that they were using captured grounders to heal themselves,” You explain.

“One man had severe radiation burns and a few hours later. He was completely fine,” Clarke explains as well.

“Well I’m just glad you’re ok,” Bellamy says setting eyes on you. “Both of you,” He says shifting his eyes to Clarke. Before we could continue Abby makes our way to us and pulls Clarke aside.

“What? No. You can’t just cut them loose,” Clarke says after her mother explains the situation.

“Sweetheart, we don’t have the manpower to send out two rescue missions and protect our camp,” Abby explains. You and Bellamy exchange looks as you both clearly know how stupid the situation is.

“Mom, they’re in trouble. They’re either gonna get themselves killed or make things worse with the grounders...who wee need to get our people out of Mount Weather,” Clarke says.

“I know you feel this is unfair...but our priority has to be with Chancellor Kane...if there is any hope for peace,” Abby responds.

“If you wanted peace, you shouldn’t have killed the only grounder who was gonna help us,” You say getting annoyed at Abby.

“I’m sorry. The decisions been made,” Abby says.

“You’re sorry?” Bellamy speaks up. “Finn and Murphy are out there looking for your daughter with guns you gave us. And now she’s home, you’re just going to abandon them?” Bellamy questions, but Abby clearly has no response to that. “If you can’t spare the guards, we know the terrain. We have a map. We can do it ourselves,” Bellamy states.

“No, absolutely not,” Abby says sternly.

“Mom,” Clarke snaps.

“I just got you back,” Abby snaps back.

“Abby,” Jackson says running in. “I’m sorry. We need you in medical,” He says.

“You better go,” Clarke says quickly, clearly showing she’s done with the conversation.

“Byrne. No one leaves this camp,” Abby states not moving her gaze at Clarke.

“Yes, ma’am,” Byrne responds. Abby then heads off with Jackson, glaring at both you and Bellamy.

“We’re gonna need guns,” Clarke says moving back towards you and Bellamy.

Bellamy then heads off, knowing just who to talk to, as you and Clarke head to pack some supplies. “So you and Bellamy?” Clarke questions as you two pack some bags.

“What are you talking about?” You ask back.

“I’m not blind,” Clarke softly chuckles. “There’s something there isn’t there?” Clarke questions.

“I was happy to see him safe. That’s all there was to it,” You say as you finish packing a bag.

“Uh-huh,” Clarke says.

“Come on we gotta go,” You say quickly making your way out of the room.

You and Clarke then go to meet Bellamy and Raven behind a part of the Ark, “Scored you a couple extra clips,” Raven says as you two walk-up.

“Hey, my mom’s in surgery, and the team going after Kane just left. We should too,” Clarke says.

“Did you find Octavia?” Bellamy asks.

“No. I found you,” Octavia says making her way up to us.

“I’m not letting you two leave here without me,” She says looking between you and Bellamy.

“Octavia--,” Clarke tries to start.

“Finn and Murphy are headed for Lincoln’s village. I’ve been there. Have you? Have they?” Octavia asks.

“You done?” Bellamy asks back. You then hand Bellamy one of the bags you were holding and he holds it out to Octavia.

“What’s this?” She asks.

“Your pack. Lead the way,” Bellamy responds. You all then finish preparing to leave as you, Bellamy and Clarke grab guns.

“Whoa. Not so fast, Pocahontas,” Raven says noticing Octavia shift to the gate. Raven then taps her cane on a wire causing a large spark to appear, surprising you a bit.

“I thought you said it was handled,” Clarke whispers to Raven.

“It is,” Raven says pulling out a walkie talkie. “Shut her down, Wick,” She speaks into it. She taps her can once more on the wire and no spark appeared. “Handled,” Raven states.

The four of you sneak out of the gate and head into the forest. You spent hours on your way to Lincolns village and set up camp once it got dark. You all laid down to sleep, although being unable to sleep you shift and open your eyes to find Bellamy staring at you from the log he was sitting on.

“Last time I saw you, the dropship door was closing,” Bellamy says. You shift uncomfortably remembering how hard you fought for them to wait. “Had to be done,” He states back.

You pull yourself up, “Did you get any sleep?” You ask him as you see Clarke do the same.

“It’s okay. I’ll sleep when we find Finn. You two haven’t seen him. Losing you Clarke, the others, the war, it changed him. He executed the grounder that drew us the map. Pulled the trigger without even blinking and walked away,” Bellamy says.

“That doesn’t sound like Finn,” Clarke says shaking her head.

“No, it doesn’t,” Bellamy says softly. “I saw what he was capable of...and still, I let him go with Murphy and two automatic rifles,” Bellamy says upset.

“I’m sure that had to be done too,” Clarke responds.

“When we got back to the dropship and no one was there...we assumed it was the grounders,” Bellamy says.

“Makes sense. You couldn’t have known it was the Mountain men. No one could have,” You say.

“How long until chocolate cake turns into being hung upside down...and drained for their blood?” Bellamy asks.

“I don’t know. But we don’t have much time,” Clarke responds.

“Okay. First we find Finn, then our people in Mount Weather,” Bellamy says as you and Clarke nod in agreement.

“And Lincoln,” Octavia says from her makeshift bed. “I think we’ve slept long enough,” Octavia says getting up. You, Clarke and Bellamy then follow and get ready to make your way through the forest again.

You all continue to trek well into the morning. Soon enough you see the large statue in the distance representing Lincoln’s village, “Which way to the village?” Bellamy asks.

Octavia just stands there giving us no response, “O?” You ask.

“The reapers came from here,” She points with her machete from the ground to the statue. She starts to cry and turns towards us, “I couldn’t save him, Bell,” She says and falls into Bellamy’s arms. You move to hug her as well, hoping it would comfort her. “I couldn’t save him,” She says as you pull away.

“It’s okay,” You hear Bellamy barely say.

The four of you continue to make your way towards the village before you’re alerted by some gunfire. As soon as you heard it you all start to run towards the village hoping to get there as soon as possible. As you hear more and more gunfire you continue to make your way towards the village.

Once you make it to the village you find the villagers in a small coral with Finn and Murphy on the other side. The villagers are screaming and huddling together, scared for their lives. Octavia is the first to make it into the village and quickly makes her way over to a man looking at a body. As the rest of you make it in you notice the bodies lying motionless on the ground. Finn tries to move towards Clarke but she’s quick to move back, knowing what he’s done.

“I found you,” Finn says out of breath, but Clarke just shakes her head almost seeming scared of him.

A/N: Finally the reunion with Bellamy. And the truth of what Finn’s become. I hope you all enjoyed this part!

#The 100 #the 100 imagine #the 100 series #the 100 rewrite #bellamy blake #bellamy blake x reader #clarke griffin #octavia blake #raven reyes #abby griffin #Finn Collins #john murphy #100virago

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orangeoctopi7 · 4 years

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For Want of a Switch

... A Nintendo Switch, amirite?

No, JK I’ve actually started a new fic because plot bunny/fandom pet peeves wouldn’t let me work.

An AU where things go a little more smoothly at the UFO crash site, Dipper doesn’t make any life-changing decisions without sleeping on it first, and Ford clarifies some earlier statements made while under emotional duress.

Many metaphors have been made about how changing course by just a couple of degrees can lead to a very different destination. How flipping a simple switch can make a difference between a train ending up in Paris or Munich. In this case, the metaphorical switch was as simple as Ford and Dipper not pressing a real switch inside a derelict spaceship. Because of this, no security droids showed up when Dipper found the adhesive, and they were free to continue their conversation about apprenticeship uninterrupted.

“I-I dunno.” Dipper stammered when Ford insisted that Mabel would be fine on her own in California. “We’ve never really been apart before.”

“And isn’t that suffocating?” Ford asked.

“...What do you mean?” Dipper asked for clarification. He was pretty sure he knew where his great uncle was coming from, but he had to be sure. Because if not… well, the boy wouldn’t let anyone talk about his sister like that and not stand up for her, not even The Author.

“I mean always living with the expectations that you have to go everywhere together, to do everything together! I mean when people act as though you’ve done something wrong if you ever try to follow your own path, even your own twin!”

Dipper nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. The teacher over our Quiz Bowl team is always asking me when Mabel’s gonna join, no matter how many times I tell him she’s not into that sort of thing. And every time Mabel gets a part in the school play, everyone else pesters me so much for not auditioning that I end up joining the stage crew, even though rehearsals are the same time as Game Club. Mabel always says I don’t have to, but… I just get so tired of all the other teachers and students getting on my case.”

There were even more instances like this that Dipper could list. Heck, just earlier this summer, Mabel had been upset because he wouldn’t go trick-or-treating with her. But no, Mabel was more upset that Dipper had tried to ditch her without explaining that he wanted to go to the dance with Wendy, and Robbie had made him feel embarrassed about being too old for it. She wouldn’t have been so mad if he’d just talked to her in the first place. Right?

When he stopped to think about it, Dipper realized it was probably even worse for Ford and Stan when they were growing up. They may have been fraternal twins, but they definitely looked identical. And while Dipper had never met his great-grandfather, the few stories he’d heard about the guy didn’t make him sound like a very supportive parent.

“Dipper, can you honestly tell me you never felt like you were meant for something more?” Ford asked. “More than what people expect of you? More than just being half of an assumed pair?”

“I-I guess… maybe? I dunno. Staying here in Gravity Falls, working with you… it sounds like a dream come true, but I’m not sure I have what it takes. Bill tricked me, and I was wrong about Stan and the portal.…”

“Bill tricked me too, remember?” Ford assured him. “And you were right about Stan and the portal. It was too dangerous, and he shouldn’t have opened it.”

“But then you never would have--”

“I know. Believe me, I know. And I’m so glad I got to come back to Gravity Falls and meet you and Mabel, but… but it’s selfish of me to feel that way, because the event that brought me home put the rest of the universe in danger. Once we find the alien adhesive and seal the rift, maybe I can-- I can finally live without- well, with a little less guilt.” He sighed and muttered under his breath. “Sixty-three years old, and I’m still cleaning up after his messes.” Ford shifted through a few more containers, still looking for the adhesive. “What I’m trying to say is: I think you do have what it takes.”

“If you say so…” Dipper shrugged. “I mean, I can’t even work this magnet gun right!” He held it up to demonstrate and ended up zapping a hexagonal container right to him. It leaked a strange pink goop when he tried to pry it off.

“That’s it!” Ford cried. “You did it, my boy, you found the adhesive!”

“I did?”

“Yes! What did I tell you? You do have what it takes, kid, you’re brilliant!” Ford hugged him, and then carefully packed up the alien adhesive. “We can continue this discussion on the way back home. For now, we’ve got bigger things to worry about. I’ve been working on a specialized glue-gun back in the lab. We should be able to fill it with the alien adhesive and seal up the rift.”

Dipper got a few more tries with the magnet gun on their way back out of the crashed alien ship, and by the time he reached the ladder again, he’d actually gotten the hang of it.

“Great Uncle Ford?”

“Yes, my boy?”

“If… if I do become your apprentice, could we come back here some time?”

Ford grinned warmly. “Absolutely.”

As they ascended the ladder, Dipper paused to take a few more selfies before they left the UFO, and he even got Ford to pose with him in one, but it was clear the old researcher wanted to get back to the lab and seal off the rift as soon as possible. Their climb up was otherwise uneventful. But while Dipper was exiting the ship, his foot caught on the lip of the opening, and tripped over the rock that had been covering the access hatch before. Luckily, his backpack took the brunt of the fall. Unluckily, they heard the loud crunch of something breaking.

Dipper and Ford shared a moment of wide-eyed terror as the boy hurriedly opened up his bag and pulled out the rift. They shared a sigh of relief when they found the crack in the containment unit hadn't expanded more than a millimeter, and was still stable. Dipper rummaged around in his bag and found the offending culprit.

“Phew, it was just my walkie-talkie.” The boy sighed with relief. The speaker had popped out and the Talk button was stuck down. “Oh well, we weren’t getting a signal anyway.”

“I can fix it for you, once the rift is taken care of.” Ford assured him, “But we need to seal it fast, before that crack finally breaks.”

Dipper nodded and gingerly held out the containment unit to his uncle. “I think you’d better carry it from here on out.”

Ford solemnly took the rift and placed it in one of his many coat pockets. “That was close. We can’t afford to have any accidents with this.”

“I’m sorry…” Dipper murmured.

“You don’t need to be sorry, my boy. Just more careful.”

“See, this is what I’m talking about when I say I don’t think I have what it takes! I just almost ended the universe!”

“Almost being the operative word. You almost destabilized the rift, but you didn’t.” Ford reassured him. “Meanwhile, look at all the things you have done! Defeated a swarm of gnomes, faced off against a character from a fighting game brought to life, outsmarted a shapeshifter! How many other twelve-year-olds could do that? This town is a magnet for things that are special. For people who are special, like you and me!” Ford hugged him. “So what do you say, will you be my apprentice?”

“Well… I… it’s a really big decision.” Dipper said slowly. “I’m gonna need time to think about it.”

“You’re right. It is a big decision.” Ford agreed. “And you’ve got the rest of the week to consider it. Of course, I hope you say yes.”

* * *

The sun was just starting to dip towards the horizon when they got back to the shack, the sunlight filtering in long slanting beams between the trees. The beautiful scenery added to Dipper's good mood as he ran up the stairs to the attic, eager to share the day's events with his sister.

"Mabel! I just had the greatest day of my life! Aliens are real, and I got to explore their ship with Grunkle Ford, and-" he halted in his rambling when he saw his sister curled up in a ball on her bed, her back to him. "Mabel, what's wrong?"

She slowly sat up and turned around, revealing her walkie-talkie, still receiving transmissions from Dipper's busted one.

"Tell me I heard wrong, Dipper!" She cried, "Tell me you're not going to stay here and be Ford's apprentice!"

"Well, I… I haven't really made a decision yet." Dipper replied. "I've still got all week to think about it."

"You just had the best day of your life? Well I just had the worst day of my life!" Mabel informed her brother with tears in her eyes. "I found out that everything I was looking forward to in the future, highschool, a birthday party with my friends, even saying goodbye to them at the bus stop before we leave, it's all going wrong! And now I find out you, the one constant in my life, might not be coming home with me!?"

"I-I don't know, I haven't decided yet…" Dipper stammered. "Just give me a couple of days to think about it, we'll figure this out!"

"Why can't you figure out right now that it's a terrible idea!?"

Dipper tried to remember how Ford had put it. He made it sound so clear and logical. "Come on, Mabel, we can't always do the same thing! We have to choose our own path!"

"What does that even mean!?" She threw her hands up. "I'm your sister and your friend, Dipper, whatever you do it's gonna affect me, especially if it's you leaving me!"

“Well, always staying with you is going to affect me and the opportunities I have!”

“I’m not saying you always have to stay with me!” Mabel retorted. “But moving away from home for good? Staying cooped up in a lab with Grunkle Ford all the time? Is that really what you want?”

“I don’t know what I really want!” Dipper steamed. “So far today nobody has given me time to stop and really think about this! You think I don’t have misgivings about moving away from Mom and Dad? But it’s not like I’d never come back, I’d come to visit for holidays and stuff. And I wouldn’t be cooped up in the lab with Grunkle Ford all the time. We’d go out exploring, and I’d hang out with Wendy when she’s done with school for the day, and Grunkle Stan would still be around to make me do chores… probably…”

Come to think of it, Dipper wasn’t quite sure what Stan was going to do once tourist season was over. It was clear Ford didn’t approve of the Mystery Shack, even less than Dipper had when the boy first arrived. Would Stan stay in Gravity Falls after the Shack was shut down? Did he have anywhere else to go?

“Fine!” Mabel huffed as she stormed out of the room. “Take you time thinking about how much fun you’re gonna have chasing fairies with Grunkle Ford, while I’m stuck in Piedmont doing math homework!”

Dipper waited quietly in their bedroom as he listened to Mabel thunder down the stairs. He figured it was probably best to give her some space to cool down for now. They’d talk more about it when she wasn’t so upset, when they could both think clearly. Once the front door slammed shut, he knew it was safe for him to go downstairs. He headed down to the basement to see if Ford needed any help sealing the rift.

* * *

It was early in the evening, but the gift shop was completely empty. Of course, the fact that it was the second-to-last Friday of August didn’t help. Tourist season was coming to a close. Normally the Mystery Shack would cut back to only being open on the weekends once September rolled around, going until Halloween, when Stan would throw together a haunted house and go out with a bang before closing down until the holiday season, when he’d open up for a couple of weeks before shutting down again until Spring Break of next year.

Not this year, though.

This year, Stan would be closing up the Mystery Shack for good.

“Alright, I ain’t payin’ ya to stand around when we’re not pulling in any cash.” Stan barked at Wendy. “Go home!”

“You don’t need to tell me twice.” Wendy shrugged, pulling off her name tag and grabbing her jacket.

“You too, Soos!” Stan turned to the handyman, who was busy pulling boxes out of a closet.

“You sure, Mr. Pines?” Soos asked, “I thought you wanted me to clear out all our old inventory.”

“It can wait ‘til tomorrow. I get the feeling it’s gonna be another slow day.”

“Oh. Well, I could help you clean out the kitchen instead!”

“Soos.”

“You don’t gotta pay me. Oh, or I could vacuum the living room!”

“Go home, Soos! If you’re so set on doin’ chores, do ‘em for your Abuelita!”

“Oh. Ok…”

Stan hadn’t told Soos about Ford’s mandate to close down the Mystery Shack after the kids left, and he worried the handyman would figure it out if he stuck around. Stan also hadn’t told the guy he’d be kicked out after the kids left. Maybe Stan was just trying to spare the kid’s feelings. Or maybe he was hoping Soos’ inevitable water works when he found out would persuade Ford to change his mind. Not likely, but hey, it was worth a shot, right?

The old conman was tallying up the day’s profits in the cash register (there weren’t any) when his hearing aide picked up the bang of the attic bedroom door slamming open, followed by the tromp-thump-clomp-thunk of someone stomping down the stairs, punctuated by the creeeeeeak-slam of the front door being thrown open and then kicked shut.

“Oh boy.” He sighed, locking the till. He’d had to cheer Mabel up just an hour ago, and he didn’t think it was a coincidence that someone had stormed out of the house just a few minutes after Dipper and Ford got back from their latest nerd escapade. What were those kids fighting about now?

Stan peeked out the window at the front porch, and sure enough, there was Mabel, sobbing on the couch, her head pulled into her sweater. Earlier she’d just been sad and unsure of the future, but now Stan could see her mood had shifted, and not for the better. These were tears of anger and frustration.

“Hey Pumpkin, you alright?” Stan asked as he peeked out the front door.

“No!”

Right, stupid question. “Well, wassamatter? I gotta punch some jerk for you?”

“No…” Mabel said more quietly this time. Stan figured that was all the invitation he needed to sit down next to her.

“You feelin’ up to tellin’ me what happened, or am I gonna have to play Ducktective?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it right now…” Mabel mumbled, her voice a bit muffled by the sweater over her face. “Can you just… can you just sit here with me for a little while?”

“Eh, sure, I got nothin’ better to do.” Stan played it off like he was indifferent, but he wrapped a gentle arm around her back. He could tell she appreciated it by the way she leaned into his side.

They sat there like that for maybe five minutes before Mabel finally began to talk on her own.

“You remember earlier, when you said at least whatever happens, I’ll still have Dipper with me?”

Yep, they were definitely fighting again. “Yeah?”

“I’m starting to worry I won’t always have him with me.”

“Alright, what’d that bundle of sweat and nerves do now?”

“It’s not something he did… not exactly.” Mabel was quiet for a moment, as if she wasn’t sure she should share the next bit. “Grunkle Ford asked Dipper if he wanted to stay here in Gravity Falls and be his apprentice.”

“...Did he now?” Stan asked icily. He didn’t want to make this about him and his brother’s issues. This was Mabel’s problem. But oh boy, he was going to have words with his brother as soon as he had the chance. “Sixty-three years old and I’m still cleanin’ up after his messes…” he muttered under his breath.

“I overheard them talking about it on the walkie-talkies.” Mabel nodded, apparently not hearing that last bit. “And when Dipper got back, he said he needed time to think about it! I guess I’m mad because if it were me, I wouldn’t have to think about it. If I had to choose between staying in Gravity Falls without Dipper, or going home with him, I’d choose to go home with him every time!”

Stan gave her a reassuring squeeze. “I know you would, sweetie. But you gotta remember, your brother’s one of those over-thinking types. He’s gotta over-think everything! That big head of his will figure out it’s a bad idea.”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll have to talk some sense into him.”

Mabel shifted inside her sweater and gave a little moan. She still wasn’t reassured.

Stan heaved a deep sigh. “Look, I’m gonna tell you somethin’ I wish I’d known when I was a kid. I don’t think this’ll happen, but… if Dipper does decide he wants to stay with Ford, or if when you two get older, he decides to do something you really don’t think he should do, you should try and talk some sense into him. But if he still won’t listen, all you can do is support him. Cuz if he ever feels like you’re tryin’ to hold him back, that’ll only push him away faster.”

Mabel finally poked her head out of her sweater and looked up at Stan with wide eyes. “I’m not trying to hold Dipper back… I just don’t want to be alone!”

He hugged her. “I know, sweetie. Nobody does.”

“And you weren’t trying to hold Grunkle Ford back when you two were teenagers! The thing with his science fair project was just an accident!”

Oh great. Here he’d been trying to not make this about himself and his issues with his brother. “Believe me, I know. But it doesn’t matter what I know. He still thinks it was sabotage.” The old conman shook his head. “But look, kid, you don’t gotta worry about my issues, even if they do seem pretty similar. I know right now with summer ending and your last year of middle school starting, it seems you’re growin’ up too fast, but the truth is, you’re still young. You an’ your brother’ve still got years an’ years to mess up and make up.”

Mabel squirmed the rest of the way out of her sweater and wrapped her arms around Stan’s waist. “Thanks Grunkle Stan. I guess I feel a little better now. I’m still worried about what Dipper will do, though.”

“Well, if he does decide to stay here with Ford, maybe I’ll come home with you.”

Mabel giggled and looked up at him again, but her smile faltered when she saw he wasn’t joking. “W-what are you talking about? You can’t just leave the Mystery Shack, this is your home!”

Yikes. Stan probably shouldn’t have said that out loud. He was pretty sure the whole reason Ford was letting him stay until the kids left was because the old nerd didn’t want them to know about it and make a fuss. Stan had just wanted to make Mabel feel better, but she’d just be more upset if she found out he’d been kicked out.

Luckily, something else caught their attention before that conversation could start. They heard something rustling through the underbrush. It was hard to see in the dimming light as the sun continued to sink towards the horizon, but a humanoid figure seemed to be making its way towards the clearing that housed the Mystery Shack. Stan reached behind the couch for his anti-creep bat, which he used to chase off Manotaurs, IRS agents, or the stray beautiful men that had started hanging around a couple of months ago. But an uneasy feeling he couldn’t place made him reach further down until his hand closed around the handle of a pistol. His thumb rested carefully against the safety switch, unsure if he should flip if off yet.

Before the figure came into full view, they heard its voice, high pitched and annoying, but probably male. “M-M-M-Mabel? M-Mable? Ugh, where is she? She should’ve come this way by now!”

Stan switched the safety off. He was about to order Mabel back inside when the stranger finally stumbled into the clearing. He was a tall, pudgy man with a hairstyle that looked straight out of the 1920’s, wearing weird little goggles and a gray jumpsuit. Wait, not gray, forest camo. Wait, no, brick pattern. No, a seascape. No, definitely gray. Wow, were Stan’s eyes really that bad?

“Wait, Blendin!?” Mabel exclaimed. She hopped up from the couch, but Stan immediately grabbed her shoulder and sat her back down. Every instinct in his body was telling him this was wrong.

This Blendin guy looked up with surprise when he heard her voice. “M-Mabel! I’ve been looking all over for you! I-I-I need your help!”

That just set off more alarm bells. Why would this creep be looking for Mabel in the woods instead of the home she’d been living in for the past two-and-a-half months?

“Mabel, who the heck is this weirdo?” Stan asked uneasily.

“That’s Blendin Blandin. He’s a time travel guy. Me and Dipper accidentally lost him his job, and then he challenged us to a time travelers’ gladitoral death match called Globnar, which we won, so we got him his job back, and now we’re cool!” She assured her uncle. “What’s wrong, Blendin?”

“S-something terrible is about to happen, and I-I-I need your help to stop it!”

Mabel tried to stand up again, but Stan kept a hand tightly clamped down on her shoulder.

“Whatever it is, you can tell her from where you’re at.” Stan growled.

“I-I-It’s top secret!” Blendin whined. “I-I-I could lose my job again i-if this gets out!”

“It’s OK Blendin! Grunkle Stan just wants to make sure I’m safe!” Mabel assured him. “But he’s really good at keeping secrets, you can trust him! Why don’t you just come up here and tell us what’s wrong?”

Blendin took a few steps forward, but stopped just a foot short of the porch. “Uuuuh… h-h-how about we meet h-half-way?”

That was it. Stan whipped out the pistol he’d been hiding behind the couch. “How’s about you start talkin’ now?”

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel gasped, scandalized.

“A-a-alright!” Blendin whimpered. “I-I-I need something from your brother’s lab! B-but you have to hurry!”

* * *

Ford noticed right away that Dipper’s mood had worsened in the ten minutes since they’d gotten home. His gaze was on the floor, and he shuffled his feet as he left the elevator.

“Let me guess, Mabel didn’t take it well?”

Dipper just shook his head in reply. “I still need to talk to her about it when she’s not so upset, but… I’m starting to think I shouldn’t take your offer…”

The old researcher felt himself deflate at the boy’s words, but he hoped Dipper hadn’t noticed. Instead he changed the subject. “For now, we need to focus on sealing the rift. Everything else can wait.” He pulled the rift out of his pocket. The crack reached almost completely across the protective dome now. “Dipper, would you please get me the glue gun sitting on the console desk?”

The glue gun in question looked like a cross between one of Mabel’s crafting glue guns and a Nyarf Mega Soaker, complete with an empty tank built into the back end. It was big enough that Dipper needed both hands to lift it. The boy carried it over to Ford, who inserted the tip into the alien adhesive container and began to fill it like a syringe.

“Alright, I need you to take that flathead screwdriver and very carefully unscrew the base of the containment unit.” Ford instructed.

Dipper did just that, holding his breath the whole time so his hands wouldn’t shake.

“OK, now turn it over, slow and steady, and detach one of the tubes from the dome.”

Dipper turned the dome in his hands, careful to keep the swirling blob of chaos energy inside from touching the glass, and then pulled one of the tiny tubes out. Ford knelt down beside him and inserted the tip of the glue gun into the little hole before the rift could leak out. He began to pump the alien adhesive into the rift, starting at the bottom and working his way up until what had once been a sparkling hole in space was now a glowing pink mass. He continued until the glue began to ooze out of the cracks in the dome.

“Alright, put it down. Careful not to get any of the adhesive on your hands. Step back.” Ford put himself between Dipper and the filled containment dome the moment the boy moved. The old researcher stared it down, as if daring it to do something, anything, to suggest it was destabilizing. He waited a minute. Two. Five. It just sat there, unmoving, unchanging.

Ford released a breath he hadn’t even noticed he’d been holding. Was that it? Was he… done?

The unmistakable sound of a gunshot went off from the vicinity of the porch above them.

Ford swore he jumped as high as the ceiling at the sound. Dipper screamed. The old researcher pressed himself and his nephew into the small space beneath the console desk, looking warilly up at the hole in the roof where Dipper had fallen through under the porch just a few weeks ago. If he concentrated, he could hear voices arguing up there. It sounded like Stan, and another voice he didn’t recognize, but it was hard to make out. He was going to have to go up there if he wanted to know what was happening.

“Stay down here where it’s safe. If Stan or your sister try to come in here without me, don’t trust them until you’ve checked their eyes. If anyone else tries to get in, barricade the door and hide.”

“W-what about the rift?”

Ford glanced down at the ball of glowing adhesive. It’d take at least another 24 hours for it to cure, but it seemed safe, for now. “Hide it, if you have to, but it should be fine.” With that, he darted to the elevator, checking his weapons as he waited for the lift to take him up.

He hoped everyone was ok. It would be the cruelest irony if after finally protecting the universe from the rift, he failed to protect his family.

* * *

“Grunkle Stan, don’t hurt him!” Mabel cried, trying to pull down his arm holding up the gun.

“Just a warning shot, sweetie.” Stan assured her through gritted teeth. “I don’t remember ever mentioning anything about havin’ a brother to you, much less anything about a lab.” He addressed the stranger standing in front of the porch.

“I-I-I’m from the future! I know these sorts of things!” Blendin insisted. Funny. He didn’t seem any more flustered than he had been before the gunshot.

“Sure.”

“Grunkle Stan, he’s telling the truth!”

“I don’t doubt that.” But Stan knew better than anyone that the best way to sell a big lie was with a bunch of technically true facts. And his instincts told him this joker was trying to pass a doozy of a lie. “Go wait inside, sweetie.”

“No, you’ll shoot him!”

“Only if he gives me a good reason to.”

“M-M-Mabel, wait!” Blendin implored pathetically.

“Go wait inside kid, or you’re grounded!”

“But Grunkle Stan--”

“Somethin’ about this is off, alright?” Stan muttered to her under his breath. “Pay attention to your instincts, you’ll feel it too. Just do me a favor and go inside where it’s safe, ok?”

After another moment of hesitation, Mabel finally listened to her Grunkle and went inside.

“So,” Stan turned his attention back to the stranger waiting just beyond the porch. “I got five more rounds. That gives you five more chances to tell me why you want something outta my brother’s lab.”

The guy’s posture shifted into something far more confident and inexplicably inhuman as he burst into a long, mocking fit of laughter. The creep’s voice had completely changed the next time he spoke.

“OH, I SHOULDA KNOWN I COULDN’T PULL ONE OVER ON YOU, STANLEY PINES!”

“What, am I supposed to be impressed you know my real name? We already established you’re from the future, and even if that wasn’t the case, I’m pretty sure Soos has spread that gossip through half the town by now.”

“WELL, WE BOTH KNOW YOU CAN’T KEEP ON GOING BY ‘STANFORD’ AFTER THE SUMMER ENDS. I’M JUST TRYING TO HELP YOU GET USED TO IT.”

“Yeah. Drop the small talk and cut to the chase, bucko. I really don’t wanna shoot you after my niece asked me not to.”

“OK, OK. IT’LL PROBABLY COME AS NO SURPRISE TO YOU THAT YOUR BROTHER’S IN OVER HIS HEAD WITH ONE OF HIS PROJECTS.” The creep pressed a button on his watch and a hologram of what Stan could only describe as massively over-designed snowglobe appeared. “IT’S A TEAR IN TIME AND SPACE. HE’S TRYING TO KEEP THE THING FROM GOING CRITICAL, BUT HE CAN’T DO IT ON HIS OWN. HE’S TRYING TO SEAL IT NOW, BUT IT’S GOING TO RUPTURE. HOWEVER, IF YOU CAN GET IT TO ME BEFORE HE SEALS IT…”

“Uh-huh. And what’re you gonna do with it?”

“TAKE IT TO THE FUTURE, WHERE WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY TO CONTAIN IT, OF COURSE!”

“So why don’t you just ask him for it yourself?”

“HAH! YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW HOW STUBBORN AND PARANOID HE IS! HE’D NEVER LET ANOTHER PERSON TOUCH IT, HE HAS TO BE THE HERO ALL ON HIS OWN!”

“Yeah, you got a good point there. But I meant why don’t you ask him for it yourself when he bursts out this door in about ten seconds.”

* * *

The elevator ascent took entirely too long. It had to be at least two minutes since he heard the gunshot go off, which, depending on whether or not anyone sustained an injury, and what kind of injury it was, was time he didn’t have to waste.

As Ford rushed through the house to the front porch door, he was relieved to note that Mabel was perfectly safe, just peeking anxiously out the front window. But the observation did nothing to slow him down. Through the window he could see Stan on the porch, holding what appeared to be the offending firearm. The gun was pointed at an unfamiliar figure. What was familiar was the figure’s voice. Ford pushed past Mabel and threw the door open, one hand already on his own blaster.

“Bill!!” He cried as he lept dramatically onto the porch, drawing his blaster with a flourish. Stan was looking at him with a smug grin, obviously he’d heard his brother running through the house. Bill, for once, looked surprised. But he quickly regained his composure.

“WELL, SPEAK OF THE DEVIL! I THINK YOU KNOW WHAT I’M HERE FOR, SIXER!”

“You’re too late, Bill, I already sealed the rift!”

Ford was satisfied to see that for the second time in under a minute, Bill looked shocked. “WHAT?!? WHAT--HOW DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING!? FIRST SHOOTING STAR DOESN’T SHOW IN THE WOODS WHEN SHE’S SUPPOSED TO, NOW THIS!? IS SOME LESSER TIME BEING MESSING WITH ME TODAY?”

Bill removed his goggles, revealing the tell-tale glowing yellow eyes, which he rubbed with frustration before continuing, back in his usual mocking tone. “SO WHAT, DID YOU STEAL THE FATES’ SEWING KIT AND STITCH IT BACK TOGETHER YOURSELF? OR, OH DON’T TELL ME, YOU AND PINETREE WERE AT THE UFO EARLIER. YOU FILLED IT IN WITH SPACE GLUE, DIDN’T YOU? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT TAKES THAT STUFF TO SET? OF COURSE YOU DON’T, YOU NEVER TOOK THE TIME TO TEST IT! TYPICAL SIXER.”

Stanford blanched. No, he hadn’t tested it first. There hadn’t been time! “I-I know it will work! And it doesn’t matter how long it takes to set, you can’t reach it if it’s within the protection spell!”

“I SURE CAN’T!” Bill agreed with a smirk. “BUT I KNOW SOMEONE WHO HATES YOU AS MUCH AS I DO WHO CAN!” He turned to Stan “WHADDAYA SAY, MAC? CARE TO HELP ME STICK IT TO YOUR UNGRATEFUL BROTHER?”

“Yeah, that’s not happening.” Stan growled. “And only I get to call him Sixer!”

Bill’s confident grin set into a forced grimace.

“HA.”

“WELL.”

“YOU PROBABLY THINK YOU’VE WON, DON’T YOU? WELL, GUESS AGAIN, LOSER! THIS ISN’T OVER! EVEN IF I CAN’T CROSS THAT BARRIER, I’VE STILL GOT PLENTY OF PAWNS IN THIS HICK TOWN! AND EVEN IF YOU SOMEHOW MANAGE TO KEEP THE RIFT LONG ENOUGH FOR THAT GLUE TO SET? I’VE BEEN WAITING BILLIONS OF YEARS FOR THIS! YOU THINK I CAN’T WAIT ANOTHER DECADE FOR SOME OTHER SCHMUCK TO COME ALONG AND BUILD A PORTAL!? YOU CAN’T STOP ME! AND I’LL MAKE SURE THE ENTIRE PINES FAMILY REGRETS EVER CROSSING BILL CIPHER!”

Bill pulled out a time tape and disappeared in a flash.

The elder Pines twins stood there in silence for a moment, staring at the empty space Bill had just left as if they could still see the anger and hatred radiating from it.

Stan, of course, was the first one to speak again. “We gotta talk.”

Ford just nodded solemnly, and followed him inside.

* * *

After Stan finally convinced Mabel to go inside, she’d waited silently, peeking out the nearest window. Stan had probably wanted her to go someplace where she couldn’t hear or see what was happening, but she just had to know everyone was going to be ok. She didn’t want her Grunkle or Blendin to get hurt, even if the time traveler was acting weirder than usual.

The air froze in her lungs when she heard Bill’s voice come out of Blendin’s mouth. She wanted to run back out there and warn Stan, but he’d asked her to go inside for her own safety, and Stan hadn’t trusted the time traveler from the beginning, so he would probably be fine… right?

Luckily she didn’t have to wait by the window worrying for long. Less than a minute later, Ford came crashing and banging down the hall. His serious glare lightened to relief for the split second he spared his niece a glance, but then snapped right back to blazing fury as he kicked the door open. Mabel heaved a sigh of relief. If anyone could handle Bill showing up at their front door, it was Grunkle Ford.

She peeked back out the window and watched as her Grunkles exchanged words with Bill. They both approached the problem very differently. Ford was yelling with a bravado that faltered the minute Bill pointed out a flaw in his plan. Stan was treating Bill much like he had Gideon. Outwardly, he seemed calm and unworried, but the fact that he’d sent Mabel inside and fired a gun showed he took the threat seriously.

Bill’s last threat before he time traveled away sent a chill down Mabel’s spine. She remembered the last time she’d crossed paths with the demon. The note he’d left for her in Grunkle Stan’s car. She couldn’t let Dipper down like that again, couldn’t let him get hurt like that again. They needed each other now more than ever.

Of course, it was some reassurance to know that the barrier spell Grunkle Ford had created was obviously working. That was probably the only reason Bill hadn’t marched right up the porch steps and taken her himself. Mabel was doubly glad she’d been able to get that unicorn hair now.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Stan and Ford came back inside. Ford stopped like he’d just remembered something when he saw Mabel still sitting there.

“I left Dipper hiding down in the lab! I need to go let him know what happened.”

Stan folded his arms impatiently. “Alright, but make it quick, and if you’re not back up here in ten minutes, I’m coming down after you. I’m serious about that talk.”

Mabel decided to follow Ford down to the secret lab. She was suddenly very concerned about Dipper and his whereabouts. Ford didn’t seem to mind; he just gave her a tired smile when they both stopped at the vending machine to input the code. As the two of them got into the elevator, Mabel wondered if this was a good time to confront her Grunkle about the apprenticeship he’d offered Dipper. But no, Mabel was pretty sure she’d just get mad again, and she didn’t want to feel mad right now. She just wanted to be sure her family was safe. So the elevator ride passed in an uncomfortable silence.

When they arrived in the lab, it appeared empty. Only after Ford stepped out of the elevator and past an oozing pink orb on the floor did Dipper emerge from his hiding spot. It was a pretty good hiding spot, behind what looked like a periscope designed to look like part of the totem pole outside.

“Mabel!” The boy rushed to hug her immediately. “What happened? Wh-where’s Grunkle Stan, is he alright?”

“Stan is fine, he’s just waiting upstairs.” Ford assured him. “Bill came possessing a time travel agent.”

“He was pretending to be Blendin!” Mabel elaborated. “He wanted me and Grunkle Stan to get something out of the lab for him to stop something terrible from happening in the future!”

“Luckily, Stan recognized him as a threat.” Ford continued. “That was the gunshot we heard earlier.”

Dipper paled and pulled at his hair. “Ohmigosh, did Grunkle Stan kill Blendin!?”

Ford actually chuckled as he got down on one knee and placed a comforting hand on Dipper’s shoulder. “It was just a warning shot. Don’t worry, nobody got hurt. But Bill was furious when I told him I’d sealed the rift. I’m afraid we’re not done protecting it yet.”

“What’s this rift you keep talking about?” Mabel asked. “And what’s that sparkly pink ball of glitter-glue in the middle of the floor?”

“I’ll explain once we get back upstairs. Stan has made it quite clear he wants to talk about what’s going on.” Ford assured her.

* * *

They found Stan waiting in the gift shop, leaning against the checkout counter and tapping his foot in an agitated rhythm.

“Finally. Now you two kids go to your room, the grown-ups have to have a talk.”

“Stanley, they deserve an explanation just as much as you do! Besides, Dipper already knows.”

“Of course he already knows, you asked the kid to stay here without ever botherin’ to talk to anybody else about it!”

“Who even told you… what does this have to do with the rift?”

“Rift? Wha-- I don’t care what you an’ pudgy out there were yellin’ about, I wanna know how come you’re askin’ your 12-year-old nephew to move in!”

Ford rolled his eyes and groaned with frustration. And here he thought they were finally on the same page for once. “That hardly matters right now! Stopping Bill and protecting the rift should be our top priority! Now, I’m sorry I kept this from the two of you up until now, but I honestly thought it would be safer if you knew as little as possible.Obviously, just the opposite was true.” He omitted the fact that he’d been reluctant to let Mabel know about the rift after seeing her break an entire shelf-full of snow globe souvenirs in the gift shop.

“Don’t try an’ change the subject, Sixer!” Stan pointed an accusing finger at his brother.

“Grunkle Stan, this is more important!” Dipper interjected exasperatedly.

Mabel tugged at the old conman’s sleeve. “They’re right.” Mabel agreed gently. “Besides, I want to know what’s going on and why Bill was here.”

“Fine.” Stan hissed through gritted teeth. “But we’re havin’ this conversation later, no gettin’ out of it!”

They all had a seat around the card table in the den, and Ford began his explanation. “Bill Cipher is an extradimensional being trying to break his way into our world. Dipper and Mabel have already encountered him--”

“I read all your Journals, genius, I know who Bill Cipher is.” Stan snapped. “But I thought he was some annoying triangle guy who showed up in your dreams, not some pushy time traveler.”

“If you read my Journals thoroughly” Ford said testily, “You’d know he’s capable of tricking people into allowing him to possess them.”

Stan grimaced, probably remembering a few particular passages from Journal 3. “Oh.”

“Not long after I first came to Gravity Falls, I was stupid enough to let Bill trick me. He convinced me that building a portal to another dimension would give me the answers I sought, but what he really wanted was to bring his dimension, the Nightmare Realm, into ours.”

“Yeah, but… then Grunkle Stan got you out of there and the portal was super broken, so we don’t have to worry about him anymore, right?” Mabel asked uncertainly, holding vainly onto hope.

“No.” Ford replied with an icy glare at his brother. “Stanley’s reckless operation of the portal created a rift: an unstable hole in space and time that Bill could use to enter our dimension and plunge the world into a bizarre doomsday I call ‘Weirdmaggedon’.”

Stan snorted. “Still got a flair for names, huh?”

“Stanley, would you take this seriously!?”

“What? I heard you say earlier you sealed the rift, and then that jerk exploded. He wouldn’t’ve gotten mad like that unless what you did really screwed with his plans. From what he was sayin’ I’d guess we’ve got another decade at least until we have to deal with that guy.”

“If the rift is sealed properly, then yes, we’ll have bought some time while Bill searches for another pawn to manipulate, but after what he said earlier, I’m afraid the alien adhesive I used to seal it won’t set as quickly as I had hoped, leaving the rift vulnerable.”

“Eh, he was just sayin’ that to psych you out.” Stan waved his hand dismissively.

“Wait, alien adhesive? Is that what that glass ball of glitter-glue was?” Mabel asked.

“That was the containment unit I was using to keep the rift stable. Once it started cracking, I began searching for something to close it up for good. Just earlier today, Dipper and I were able to retrieve the adhesive without any trouble. I sealed up the rift with glue, then filled the containment dome, just to be safe.”

Mabel slapped her forehead. “Grunkle Ford, haven’t you ever heard of ‘A Little Dab’ll Do Ya’?”

“What?” Ford asked in confusion.

“When you’re using glue, you only use just enough to get things to stick together!” Mabel explained. “If you use too much, it’ll take forever to dry! If I filled whole ball with Schmelmer’s glue like that, I don’t think it’d ever dry!”

“Can’t you just spray it with a setting agent?” Stan asked. Everyone stared at him in surprise. “What? I use a lot of crafting glue makin’ exhibits for the Shack!”

“I couldn’t use a two-part epoxy because the energy of the chemical reaction would destabilize the rift.” Ford shook his head. “It needs to crystalize naturally, or it will leave seams in time-space that Bill could use.”

“Well, how long will it take to crystalize naturally?” Dipper asked.

Ford hesitated. “I had hoped it would take a little over 24 hours, but…”

“Not if it’s trapped inside a ball like that.” Mabel shook her head. “Can you get it out?”

Ford pinched the bridge of his nose frustratedly. “I’d have to chip away the dome. It’s not just glass, it’s a special substance as strong as steel. But, it has already started cracking, I suppose if I can expand those cracks enough…”

“So, are we still in danger of the rift destabilizing?” Dipper asked.

“Not spontaneously, no.” Ford assured him. “I wouldn’t recommend using it as a football or anything, but even when wet, the adhesive will act as a binding agent and keep the hole in time-space closed. It would take a large burst of energy, or deliberately trying to pierce through the rift in order to open it.”

“And that’s probably what Bill’s gonna try to do.” Dipper said gravely.

“Well we’re not gonna let him!” Mabel declared, slamming her fist down on the table.

“That’s the spirit!” Ford allowed himself a small smile. He pulled out Journal 3 and turned to a blank page. “Bill said he still had pawns in Gravity Falls. We need to make a list of potential threats to be on the look-out for. Who would be most likely to work with Bill?”

“Gideon!” Mabel answered immediately. “Me and Soos saw him summon Bill earlier this summer!”

“Soos and I.” Ford corrected automatically. He’d only heard about this Gideon from a couple of entries Dipper had added to Journal 3. All he knew about the kid was that he’d apparently had romantic interests in Mabel, hired McGucket to build a giant mech-bot of himself, and was now in jail. It was also clear from the entries that Dipper did not have a high opinion of him.

“That little troll’s in jail, what’s he gonna do? Use his one phone call to prank us?” Stan rolled his eyes.

“With Bill’s help, there’s no telling what he could do from behind bars.” Ford warned. “But, Stanley does have a point. Are there any other possible pawns who would have easier access to the outside world?”

They all sat there thinking for a moment before Dipper offered his own answer. “I remember seeing a tapestry with Bill on it in the Northwest’s mansion. I don’t know if they realized what it is though, I think they just buy up any local Native American artefacts on principle. It makes them look like they care about the people, when really they’re just trying to keep how horrible Nathaniel Northwest was from getting out and ruining their image.”

“The Northwests have a lot of power over this town. If Bill is working with one of them, protecting the rift will be all the more difficult..” Ford said somberly.

“Luckily, we have an insider with the Northwests!” Mabel grinned. “I’ll call Pacifica tomorrow and ask her to come over and hang out! We can ask her if she’s noticed anything weird about her family then!”

“Good.” Ford nodded. “Anyone else?”

“Eh… pretty sure Toby Determined would sell his soul for a date with Shandra Jimenez.” Stan grunted.

“Noted.” Ford jotted down all their suggestions before continuing. “These are all people we should keep an eye on, but they’re also the most obvious answers… aside from this Toby fellow. Bill will undoubtedly know we suspect them. He doesn’t just work with dangerously unhinged people. Think, is there anyone you wouldn’t normally suspect, who Bill could trick into helping him? Someone with access to this house?”

The three other Pines around the tabel all shared a glance and shrugged.

“Soos is pretty impressionable, but he was there with us when we drove Bill out of Stan’s mind. He knows that triangle guy is bad news.” Mabel answered. “What about Wendy?”

“No way!” Dipper replied vehemently. “Wendy’s way too smart to fall for Bill’s tricks!”

“Unfortunately, being smart has very little to do with it.” Ford reminded him.

“Y-yeah, but…” Dipper stammered. “She’s a different kind of smart! She’s really skeptical and good at reading people. She could tell I had a crush on her, even though I never said anything!”

Mabel giggled. “That’s because you were really obvious, bro-bro.”

The boy blushed. “Well, what about your friends?”

“You mean Candy and Grenda?” Mabel asked. “I don’t think so. I told them about Bill when we went to get the unicorn hair.”

“Then you would have told Wendy about him too!”

“Oh yeah!” Mabel remembered. “I’m not sure she believed me though. She definitely didn’t believe in unicorns before we found one.”

“Well, that’s everyone who comes here on a regular basis.” Stan leaned back in his chair. “Besides, y’know, the dozens of tourists who come through the gift shop every day.”

Ford paled. “All he would have to do is convince one tourist… Stanley why on Earth did you think it was a good idea to build a gift shop in the same room as the lab entrance!?”

“The best hiding spots are always in plain sight, genius!” Stan retorted. “You don’t gotta worry, tourist season is wrappin’ up, traffic’s gone down a lot. Shouldn’t be too hard to keep an eye on things.”

“You’re out giving your so-called ‘tours’ half the time.”

“Then I’ll ask Soos to keep an eye on the entrance.”

“No, he’s far too easily distracted. I’ll stay in the gift shop and guard the entrance.” Ford insisted.

Stan rolled his eyes. “That’s just gonna draw attention to it, knucklehead! Look, I got security cameras. If you really gotta watch the vending machine every minute, you can watch the video feed from my office.”

“Fine.”

“Welp, would you look at that! We’ve discussed who the heck Bill Cipher is, what he wants, and what we’re gonna do about it!” Stan stood up from his chair abruptly. “Guess this conversation’s over. And would you look at the time! Time to get you kids up to bed!”

“But it’s still light out!” Dipper protested.

“The sun sets really late out here in the summer. You don’t know what time it is!” Stan began to push the kids out of the room.

“I have a watch! It’s only like 7:30!”

Stan quickly swiped the watch off his nephew’s wrist. “What watch? I dunno what you’re talkin’ about. It’s bedtime!”

The young twins, seeing that trying to reason with Stan at this point was an exercise in futility, reluctantly allowed themselves to be shepherded upstairs.

In the short amount of time while they were gone, Stanford found his mind wandering back to one particular thing Bill had said.

“I KNOW SOMEONE WHO HATES YOU AS MUCH AS I DO WHO CAN! WHADDAYA SAY, MAC? CARE TO HELP ME STICK IT TO YOUR UNGRATEFUL BROTHER?”

Bill was a liar. Of course this was a lie too, right? Stan didn’t hate him, right? Stan had immediately turned Bill down, after all. That might just be because he knew Bill was dangerous though… because he just wanted to protect the kids….

“Alright, you’d better have one heck of an explanation.” Stan returned and Ford was reminded of just why he was so mad at his brother.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware I needed your permission to invite someone to move into my own house!”

“It’s not my permission you need! Have you even talked to their parents yet?”

“Well, no…” Ford admitted. “But it’d be a waste of time to ask them if it turns out Dipper isn’t interested. And besides, I’m sure they’d be thrilled at the opportunity to accelerate their son’s education.”

Stan pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “You don’t know their mom, Poindexter. She expects a letter from her kids every week.”

“Well, I’m sure we could keep up that tradition.”

“And every time she calls lately, she’s been goin’ on and on about how excited she is to see her ‘little lamby’ again. She’s not gonna be thrilled her son isn’t coming home.”

Ford rolled his eyes. “You make it sound as if he’s going to die! We’ll make time to go visit the family between projects, and I know communications technology has made huge advancements in the last 30 years. I saw your handyman communicating via a two-way video stream just last night.”

“That’s not the same as him actually being there!” Stan shouted. “He’s still just a kid, Stanford! He still needs his parents!”

“Alright, alright, I’ll call their parents and talk to them about it!” Ford relented. “Is that all?”

“No that’s not all!” Stan fumed, “It’s bad enough you’re offering Dipper an apprenticeship without gettin’ an OK from their parents first, but where do you get off excluding Mabel?”

Ford was taken aback. “I’m not excluding her.”

“You gave Dipper an opportunity to stay here with you, but not her. That’s pretty much the definition of excluding! Earlier today she was almost in tears about having to leave Gravity Falls and bein’ scared of the future. I had to give her a big ol’ pep-talk about how growin’ old is mandatory, but growin’ up is optional, and that even if her future ain’t so bright, at least she’s got her brother. Then, not even an hour later, you two come back from your science shenanigans and she goes wailing out to the front porch! All ‘cuz you want Dipper but not her!”

“It’s not like that at all!” Ford bristled. “Mabel has vastly different interests than Dipper. I couldn’t provide her with the same kind of quality education I could give him! At best I could give her a few tips about detailed pen sketching and blueprint drafting. The most I know about knitting is that I feel comfortable in a soft sweater, and she’d have to be the one to teach me about social structure and modern culture.”

“Oh, so that makes it ok to take her brother away?”

“I’m not ‘taking him away’! Dipper would be free to visit his family in California whenever he’s not busy!” Ford flushed with anger. “And since I’ll be his only teacher, he’ll be able to request time off and breaks very easily. His schedule will be much more flexible than at a traditional university or college.”

“He’s freakin’ twelve Stanford! He hasn’t even finished Junior High yet! Why are you so eager to start him on grown-up school already?”

“Why wait? Dipper is intelligent, resourceful, and a fast learner. He’d already started following in my footsteps before we even met, I’m just helping him continue on that path. And it’s not ‘grown-up school’. We’d be studying and researching the weirdness of Gravity Falls together.”

“He’s not an adult, Ford, he still needs time to be a kid! He can’t be your new research assistant! Now answer my question: why can’t you just wait until he’s older?”

“Because I don’t want to be alone anymore!”

Ford’s last statement hung in the air, reverberating like a pin dropped in an empty theater. The old researcher couldn’t believe his emotions had gotten the better of him like that. Just like that, a statement he wasn’t even comfortable admitting to himself had slipped out. He couldn’t even begin to defend or explain what he’d just said.

Stan’s eyes widened at the unexpected outburst, but his face quickly morphed back into the scowl Stanford was all too familiar with.

“Oh, you don’t wanna be alone, huh? Well, maybe you shoulda thought of that before you kicked me out of the house come the end of Summer!”

“Wait, what?” Ford asked, perplexed.

“Oh, don’t play dumb!” Stan accused. “That first night after I brought you home, you said I could stay here the rest of the summer to watch the kids, then I gotta hit the road.”

“That’s not what I said!” Ford objected. “I said you could stay upstairs and take care of the kids and run your ‘Mystery Shack’ until the end of the summer, so you can continue bringing in enough money to take care of them. But once the summer is over, I want-- no, I need my home and my identity back. And I’m not going to allow you to continue running a glorified freak show that goes against everything I’ve worked for!”

“And why would I stay, if you’re gonna make me shut down my livelihood?”

Ford’s breath hitched as the memory of Bill’s words echoed in his head once again. I KNOW SOMEONE WHO HATES YOU AS MUCH AS I DO.

“Well, for one, I’m going to need your help undoing your identity theft.” The old researcher continued after pushing the thought to the back of his head. “And… I know you haven’t got anywhere else to go. I’m not going to just throw you out. I’m not Dad, Stanley.”

Stan stared at his brother with a mixture of surprise and some more complex emotions Ford couldn’t name.

“Y-yeah, well…” The old conman seemed, for once, to be at a loss for words.

Ford just wished he knew what his brother was thinking. The old researcher had never been good at reading people, but as a child, Stan, at least, was someone he always understood. But now, his brother was even more of an enigma than the average stranger. Ford found himself on the verge of asking… do you really hate me?

“Dang it, this isn’t about us!” Stan snapped, “Stop making this about us! It’s about the kids!”

“I’m making it about us? You’re the one who started complaining about something I didn’t even say!” Ford huffed a frustrated sigh. He was tired. Tired from a long day and tired of fighting. “Look, if this whole apprenticeship thing is bothering Mabel so much, I’ll talk to her about staying here too. I can’t give her the kind of education she needs, but perhaps I can find someone who can.”

Stan threw his hands up in disbelief. “Seriously!? Unbelievable! Have you even listened to a word I’ve said, this whole conversation!?”

“Obviously I have, otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed with your demands to call the kids’ parents and include Mabel in the apprenticeship offer. Nor would I have caught your erroneous assumption that you have the leave at the end of the summer.”

“The whole point I’ve been tryin’ to make to you this whole time is that ya can’t just take these kids away from their home!”.

“I’m not taking them away from their home. You said the two of them have been here for over two months.”

“Yeah, and then they’re goin’ back home next weekend. To their parents. To their real lives.”

“Life is just as real here.” Ford said with finality. “I told you, I’ll talk to their parents tomorrow. That should settle it.”

Stan’s scowl deepened. “Yeah, yeah I guess it will.”

#Gravity Falls #Fanfiction #Stanford Pines #Stanley Pines #Dipper Pines #Mabel Pines #Bill Cipher #My Writing

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ayamari-no-goshi · 4 years

Text

Verboten 1 | (T)

ff.net | AO3

Fandom: Danny Phantom (DP)

Summary: AU. When Danny was five years old, he went missing for 2 weeks. In the years that follow, his family tried to make sense of what happened, only for the truth to be discovered years later.

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, language. Be prepared for some very weird things

Parings: Danny/Sam

Notes: originally uploaded to Ff.net. Cross-posted to AO3 and tumblr. This fic is very heavily inspired by folklore surrounding mysterious wilderness disappearances

Chapter 1 Verboten (adjective of German origin. Meaning: forbidden, especially by an authority)

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When he was five years old, Danny went missing for two weeks.

Most of the time when a child goes missing, either they get lost or they are taking by something or someone. In Danny's case, those involved tended to believe it was the former, but there were a few details which caused the veteran searchers to scratch their heads.

All parties involved, Danny, his family, and the men and women who searched for him, agreed on the most basic details. Danny and his family were visiting his mother's sister Alicia at her home in Arkansas. The house sat on the outskirts of a small town in the Ozarks. While her five acres had been cleared of most of the trees to allow for some farming, an old forest surrounded most of the property.

That particular day in early August, his aunt took him and his older sister, Jasmine, out to pick some blackberries. Although Alicia was best known for her rhubarb pies and jams, she also made incredible blackberry pies, and according to her, the best blackberries were found about a mile away from the house inside the woods.

She was a tough woman who knew the dangers of the woods and would always carry protection with her. Before she took her niece and nephew with her, she clearly warned both of them they needed to stay within eye sight of her and listen to her. Her instructions were stated in front of both of their parents, who were able to collaborate it for the police report. In this instance, she also took a walkie-talkie with her as a precaution. When asked about the communication device, she reported it wasn't normal for her to bring one, but something in her gut told her she might need it that day.

The three of them left around nine in the morning and reached the patch of blackberries in about forty minutes or so. The three of them picked berries until their baskets were full. As they were getting ready to leave, Alicia caught sight of Danny looking up at a squirrel in a nearby tree. She glanced towards Jasmine to make sure she was good to go, but as she turned to call to Danny, he was no longer there.

A few choice curses escaped her as she began to look around and call out for her nephew. Jasmine assisted her but couldn't offer any information regarding her brother. She hadn't seen anything strange.

After several minutes of frantic searching, Alicia contacted her sister, Maddie, and her husband, Jack, through the walkie-talkie. Although she could hear Jack yell in the background, Maddie, while obviously shaken, was able to get in touch with the local sheriff. If Alicia had to guess, either her sister wasn't initially frantic due to shock, or she was able to remind herself she needed to keep calm until she could talk to the police.

Within the hour, Alicia and Jasmine were back at the house. About thirty minutes later, the police and a team of search and rescue folk had arrived. By this time, it had been almost three hours since Danny had gone missing.

After the officers took the statements from Alicia, Jazz, Maddie, and Jack, the men asked Alicia to lead them to the area where Danny was last seen, and she gladly agreed. Although Maddie and Jack wanted to go as well, they were told to stay at the house with their daughter. She hid it well, but Alicia was glad they stayed behind. Jack was bumbling and too loud for his own good, and Maddie, as brilliant as she was, could easily get sidetracked if something interested her scientific curiosity.

When the group arrived at the berry patch, Alicia pointed out the place where she last saw her nephew as the search and rescue team began their process of systematically combing the area. One of the officers led her back to her house before he returned to the search. The waiting began after that.

Hours passed, and no word was received. Maddie's shock wore off, and she picked a fight with her sister. Alicia couldn't blame her, and she was also angry at herself. She knew those woods could be dangerous, but her overconfidence in her own abilities might have caused her nephew to vanish.

Sometime during the search, one of the police offers asked Alicia about her ex-husband. The two had a very nasty divorce the previous year, but to her knowledge, he had left the state and moved to a city somewhere. Since the split had been volatile, the police wanted to get in touch with him as a precaution as there had been previous cases where an ex had abducted a family member. Although she gave him the information, she knew it wouldn't amount to anything. Although she had several choice words regarding her ex, she knew he didn't have the backbone to harm her nephew.

Day turned into night, and night turned into day. There were no signs of the boy. The search and rescue dogs could only follow his scent so far before they just laid down in defeat. Unnerved by their responses, the rescuers continued to search for other means. The police and searchers did make periodic updates with the family and were at least able to assure them that there did not seem to be signs of a bear or coyote attack.

Days continued to pass, and even with the searchers using infrared radar and overhead searches, there were still no signs of the boy. The press had somehow gotten word of the case and had swarmed the house and demanded interviews with the police, searchers, and family. Instead of being helpful, they were more akin to pests who just got in the way.

After a week, the search started to die down. The professionals had been called away for another case, but offered their sincerest apologies before they departed. The police also were forced to turn their attention elsewhere. There were still volunteers out searching for the boy, but with the amount of wilderness, it was unlikely they would find anything.

Maddie and Jack were crushed. Alicia couldn't imagine how they felt. The child was their own flesh and blood. Jack, who was usually boisterous and cheerful was now sullen and quiet. She found him tinkering with some of the spare junk parts she had. He said he was trying to make a radar of some sorts, but she thought he was just keeping himself busy to keep from breaking down. During the mornings, she sometimes found him wandering the perimeter obviously looking for Danny. Maddie turned most of her attention to her daughter to try to keep her calm.

Jasmine, on the other hand, knew full well something was wrong. The girl was bright and always seemed smarter than what was expected for a child of seven. She wanted to help with the searches, but she was wisely told she couldn't, and accepted the explanation that her parents would not be able to handle it if she vanished too.

…..

Nine days after Danny's disappearance, the Fentons were supposed to return to their home in a different state. The family was hesitant to leave without any sort of closure. Luckily, Maddie and Jack had a flexible job, and it would still be a few weeks before Jasmine needed to return to school. Alicia didn't argue with their decision, and just made sure to make a list for more provisions for them.

…

On the dawn of the fifteenth day, Alicia and the Fentons were awoken by frantic banging on her front door. Agitated, she opened it to find an excited yet somewhat perplexed police officer in front of her. Sirens could be heard in the background.

"Ma'am, are the Fenton's available?" he asked as he removed his hat.

"Yes. Should I brew some coffee? Or pour a shot?" Her eyes narrowed as she appraised the man's demeanor. With how long Danny had been missing, she knew he would most likely be found dead, but there was something about him which told her he may actually have good information.

"Coffee would be nice, but I'm not sure they'll wait long enough for it to finish."

Uncertain at what that meant, she let him into her living room and went to get her sister. Both Maddie and Jack were awake and stood at the top of her stairs. She beckoned them down, and the three sat on the old leather couch across from the arm chair the officer had claimed.

"Maddie, Jack, I can't believe I'm saying this, but we found Danny. He's alive."

There was a moment of stunned disbelief before everyone yelled. Alicia couldn't make heads or tails of what her sister or Jack said, but the man had scooped his wife up in an excited embrace. Once she was released, Maddie demanded to know where Danny was.

"One of our volunteers found him early this morning. We don't know how he got there, but he was only a few yards away from where you said he was last seen," the officer explained.

"How the heck is that possible?" Alicia demanded. She and several others had checked that area repeatedly.

"Ma'am, we honestly have no idea," he replied honestly. "He's been taken to the local hospital to check for injuries, but I've been told he's in good health."

It only took a few moments after that for Jack and Maddie to wake up their daughter and get ready before the four of them piled in the Fenton's vehicle and headed to the hospital. When they arrived and the woman at the front desk told them where they needed to go, they found Danny happily sitting on an examination table with a juice box in hand speaking with an officer.

The boy waved to his parents once he noticed them. Seconds later, he was safely wrapped in his mother's arms. She was crying in happiness.

Allowing the family their much needed reunion, the officer stepped outside and spoke to Alicia. "We're honestly at a loss for what happened to him," he explained. "Danny says someone asked to play with him, but he couldn't really explain who or what it might have been. He says the thing had red eyes and gave him food when he was got tired. He said his playmate wanted him to stay, but he wasn't strong enough yet. He said his playmate let him go with the promise of them meeting again in the future."

"That's very strange."

The officer looked her dead in the eye. "Ma'am, I'm sure you're aware of this, but weird things happen in these woods. We're lucky he turned up alive. In most of the cases I've heard like this, the child is never found. No trace of them what so ever. Or, if they are found, they're dead for reasons we don't understand." With that, he left her to her thoughts and went back into the room to finish up his interview with Danny.

…

A couple days later, Maddie and Jack had packed up their kids and began their journey back to their home. While she was glad everything had turned out alright in the end, she had concerns about her nephew.

Danny seemed off somehow. There didn't seem to be a change in personality, but she'd catch him sometimes stare off into the woods with a blank expression. His eyes also seemed somewhat different, but she was never exactly able to pinpoint why.

In the years that followed, she received word her family was doing fine. Danny seemed unaffected by the event and was growing up as a young boy should. Jasmine had begun taking an interest in psychology, most likely due to what she had witnessed when Danny disappeared. Maddie and Jack, however, had taken a personal interest in what happened to their boy. While they were already investigating what many would consider fringe sciences, they began looking into the tales of disappearances like their son's.

She was still unsettled by the entire event. Her gut told her whatever happened to Danny was only the beginning of something larger and stranger. If he disappeared again, she wouldn't be surprised.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #danny phantom au #dp au #my writing #fanfiction #fanfic #fantasy #supernatural #sam manson #tucker foley #vlad plasmius #maddie fenton #jack fenton #folklore #sooooooooo much folklore #Verboten

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evien-stark · 5 years

Text

✧I Need You✧ Chapter 45

You found yourself arm in arm with Tony at the beginning of October, on the main stage of the Stark Expo. It was a farewell speech. A big finale. A grand goodbye- until the next time, at least. While you thought you were going to promise everyone that come the following year you’d reopen again… no date was set, and no such expectation was given. A lot of wonderful things had come out of the Expo, and it had helped the company’s optics as well. Greatly at that. But as for another one in the near future… well, your future had to decide to allow it, first.

As of that moment on that stage, you just weren’t sure. But sometime again, the both of you promised.

Sleep was easy that night in your now perpetually reserved penthouse suite in the city. Until Stark Tower was up and running (and it had a marvelous personal floor, you’d seen to that), the best you could do was keep a hotel’s top floor for yourselves since you’d been in and out of the city constantly. Some days you even thought about just saying fuck it to everything and flying in every now and again with Tony as Iron Man and Lady, but that, too, was also not smart.

It was roughly around six in the morning when your phone started going off like a bomb had exploded somewhere. Ringing and ringing and ringing with no stopping in between. At first you’d just slept through it, then you’d hoped if you ignored it, whoever it was would get the hint and stop. And then immediately after that you realized it really had been going on for too long, so it must have been dire.

Slamming your hand over the nightstand, you pulled your phone closer. There was only one person it could be, “Pep, Stark Industries better literally be on fire right now.”

“Try again.” Fury’s voice on the other line woke you up fully, immediately. “Be ready in a half hour. Agent Barton is picking you up. I’m calling you in.”

“To do what?” Sitting up suddenly, trying to rub the sleep out of your eyes.

“To work. Stark is not invited.” And, completely expected of his character by now, he hung up without another word. Or waiting for anything you had to say.

This had all sorts of implications and every single one of them was bad. But you had just recently agreed to work full time for this Avengers nonsense for them. For him. There was no way you could ignore this. You just had no idea what you were walking into. Safe to say, you thought, if Fury wasn’t inviting Tony it wasn’t something that was under heavy fire. You weren’t the best fighter, that had been proven. And Tony had more tech to deal with anything aggressive.

But then…

“What’s up?” His groggy voice beside you broke your heart, almost as much as him reaching out to take your hand did. Already knowing you were about to leave, most likely, and wanting to prevent it.

“Fury called. He needs me for something. He specifically said you’re not allowed to come.”

“Like I wanna eat breakfast with him anyway.” But already he was waking up more. Preparing himself for what was likely a long day ahead. Because even though only twice now, it was starting to seem like a habit of him having to come clean up as soon as Fury made it clear you were going somewhere and Tony was not.

“LUNA will be on.” Trying to ease him, just a little.

“You’re capable.” Sitting aside you he leaned in, holding you close to press a kiss to your temple.

Your hand came up over the glow of his Arc Reactor, hushing the only light in the still dark room. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious.” As to who you were trying to convince…?

“Serious, no. Stupid? Most likely.”

You allowed yourself to be swallowed up by mutual knowing smiles, some soft intertwined laughter, a few kisses, and…

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The air in the car with Agent Barton was incredibly uncomfortable. You’d tried small pleasantries but he wasn’t having any of it. You supposed if the both of you were being called into work there was a reason to not be entirely chipper. And he knew more of this landscape than you did. Maybe you should take notes.

“Do you know what this is about?” But you couldn’t help but ask.

“We don’t make a habit of taking briefs over the phone. Anyone could be listening.” This made sense, too, and even though he said it entirely neutrally, you felt like a stupid child having to have it explained to you like that. When you kept your head down and let silence waft between the two of you, he eventually saw it in himself to take pity on you. “Coulson seems pretty excited for whatever it is.” Giving you a bare scrap of information.

And what a surprise that was. “Coulson? Excited?”

“Not something you see every day.”

The NYC SHIELD compound was alight with activity when you and Barton arrived. He was quick and efficient, leading you through all the buzz and crowded bodies moving to and fro. Knowing exactly where to go. You hadn’t thought much about mapping out the compound back in California, because it seemed like they could just pick up and go whenever they wanted. This one felt much the same, especially considering it wasn’t out of the way.

Putting in an office building in the heart of the city was just as smart as it was stupid. Hiding in plain sight but…

The worst was yet to come when Barton hung back outside the door, nodding for you to go in, and you realized it was just you and Fury in a small room. This already had bad news written all over it. And there, as you sat down, he slid to you one of those manila folders you were so fond of seeing.

Opening it made your stomach drop right into your feet.

Details of one Captain Steve Rogers. Captain America. The USA’s first known enhanced individual. Their first grand hero. And one you’d been trying to do research on behind SHIELD’s back. “Why are you showing me this?” But it wasn’t wise to give your own position up. Ever.

“Steve Rogers’ lost jet was found a few hours ago in the Arctic. With him still in it.” It was strange for him to be speaking so plainly, but you guessed you really were working- and if what he was saying was true, there was probably no time to waste. But a dead body? You knew as little as the general public did about Steve Rogers’ death. He was only said to have disappeared. Now you knew why. ...sort of.

“We’re extracting it?” Made sense, really. If anyone else got their hands on that corpse, maybe they could try and reverse engineer what was left of it?

“We have him already. He’s here. Two doors down.”

Good. Cool. Okay. So you were in a SHIELD compound with the dead body of Captain America just hanging out. What a crazy life you lived. “What- why am I here? What do you want me to do about it?”

Fury raised his wrist, taking a for-show look at his watch. “Well, he’ll be up probably in about ten minutes. And we need you to get a read on him while we debrief him.”

Your head snapped slightly down and to the side as if you’d been hit. Blinking was not far behind. Putting on your own show. “I’m sorry. What are you saying to me? You… you… you revived a dead body?”

“He wasn’t dead. Not completely. Funny thing about Super Soldier Serum. Turns you Super.”

His pretend dry wit was not really appreciated right now. “I- ...so- ...Captain America.”

“Mm.”

“Captain America- Steve Rogers- one of America’s greatest war heroes-”

“Yes.”

“-from the 1940s-”

“Mm hmm.”

“Is not only not dead. And not lost. But alive. Right now. Here. In this building.”

“Glad you’re all caught up. This is taking too long.” He’d come to sit on the corner of the desk closer to you, folding his arms.

You were still looking at him with wild, disbelieving eyes. This was utter nonsense. “And- so- Steve Rogers who isn’t dead because he’s a Super Soldier- you’re gonna wake him up and tell him he’s been dead for what like seventy years- and what part do I play in this?”

“You have talents uniquely designed to start doing reports on agents. Like Romanoff did while she was tasked with you and Stark. But you can get a better read.”

“Steve Rogers is not an agent. And I don’t think you should indoctrinate him right after he’s finished being dead.” This felt very off. And it was hard for your slow-chugging morning brain to keep up. Especially with the heightened level of nonsense you were being asked to comprehend.

“I have a feeling he’ll blend right in. All you have to do is stand in the room and take notes. Keep a track on what he’s feeling. Then we’re going to task you with staying with him at a place called The Retreat for a little while. While he’s readjusting.”

Your mouth had fallen slightly open. “You want me to emotionally spy on and lie to Captain America? That’s what you’re saying to me?”

“I’m saying-”

A voice broke out over the loudspeakers. “All Agents Code 13! I repeat! Code 13!”

Fury was quick to move, getting up and going to the door. “Shit. On your feet, let’s go.” While you resented this, you did as you were told because you had no idea what else to do. He grabbed a walkie talkie from a nearby agent running down the hall. “Captain Rogers has broken the perimiter. I want an all traffic stop five blocks all directions- we’re gonna cut him off at the pass.” He threw the radio down. “Keep up, Lady.”

“That’s not my name.” Growling as you ran aside him. “What’s going on?”

“Captain Rogers didn’t like our little presentation and he took off. We’re going to go retrieve him before he makes a scene.” Already the two of you were outside and you climbed into a car with him.

“Presentation?”

“We tried to ease him into things by putting together an old style room for him. He probably figured out it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”

“Oh- so you lied to him immediately? I’m sure that’ll make a good impression.” SHIELD was just full of bad decisions.

“How would you have done it?” He took a sharp left turn, sending you banging into the door. Probably on purpose.

You directed a look of ire his way. “Well you didn’t call me in for that so what does it matter? Got any other recently not-dead men we should be planning for?”

Fury allowed himself a grin. “You never know.”

Coming to a halt right in the middle of Times Square, you already felt the panic of not just the people around, but from the man himself. It was true. How? How in the world? Little time to think about how it was possible, or how you’d gotten roped into this mess.

Stepping out of the car you got an eyeful of a long dead man that America’s history books championed as maybe her only superhero. Someone you’d read about and done homework on- standing tall amongst all the other tourists and people just trying to get to work.

“At ease, soldier.” Fury stepped out and you locked step aside him as he move forward.

Steve was blatantly confused and just a touch terrified. Things you were trying to keep mental note of- since that’s apparently what you were here to do. He looked at Fury, then you, then back to Fury, panting. He’d run all the way here in the time it had taken you to drive.

Fury continued, “Look, I’m sorry about that little show back there but we thought it best to break it to you slowly.” You had to really hold an eye roll back here, considering. There had to have been better ways than to just try and fool this man into feeling better after being dead for so long. They needed a more human touch around here.

“Break what?” Steve asked, again looking at you.

You had absolutely no idea what to say to him, way out of your depths here. Thankful when Fury spoke again. “You’ve been asleep Cap. ...for almost 70 years.”

Steve turned away, looking around. Trying to really soak in his surroundings- the truth of what he was being told. You had to imagine things looked much different than he was used to. You had no idea how you would feel, if something like this had happened to you. How would anyone? There was no baseline for being dead for so long and coming back…

A quiet thrum of heartbreak hit the waves and you stepped closer. How to even start? “Are you gonna be alright?”

He looked out, like he was scanning the distance. “Yeah. I just...” Then his gaze fell to you again. “I had a date.”

Threads tangled. The world went dark for just a few seconds. Miles away you felt a connecting ripple. A shared sense of that bittersweet that you’d had in a small room in DC. With… “Will you come with us back to the building, please? We have a lot we need to talk about.” Asking. Not demanding.

You didn’t think there were a lot of people that could demand things out of Steve Rogers. But aside that, that more human touch you were just thinking about appeared. SHIELD may have just toted him away. You wanted to come on his own. It made things a lot easier that way. And a connection needed to be rebuilt after Fury had botched it.

He looked you over again. “Yeah. Yeah I imagine there is.”

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There was nothing for you to do as you stood there silently in an even smaller room, which would not have been your choice but Fury did not ask, as a poor confused man was told he’d been sort-of-but-not-really dead for a very long time and that the world had gone on without him. As it was apt to do. Lives had moved on. People had gone on. Time had moved forward. Society had advanced.

The war he’d been fighting in had been won, through the help of his efforts. He was remembered as a hero. He’d had a grand funeral at the time, even with his body not having been retrieved. And now he was asked what he wanted to do, and of course he had no answer. How does someone go on after that? What do they even do?

Which was exactly the point, you surmised, as after Steve sat in an uncomfortable deliberating silence, Fury offered to send him to The Retreat to ease into life. Catch up on his own terms. Relax and just slowly move into the process of being alive again in a time that no longer belonged to him.

Steve seemed hesitant, but agreed.

And after you and Fury stepped out, “You’ll see him there. Take one of our cars. And keep an eye on him for at least a week. This is top secret. Stark is not to know about it.”

“You know I have other things to do, right?”

“Nothing more important than this. What’s your read on him?”

You turned away. There wasn’t a lot of time to stay idle in this operation, and if you were going away for a week other personal things needed to happen first. “What do you think?” It didn’t take a genius- or an empath- to know Steve was not feeling well. It made your heart ache a little.

But nothing quite like the hurt you experienced seeing Tony still asleep in bed, stirring as you walked into the hotel room- and then getting up as he knew you were packing.

“Going away somewhere?” You didn’t believe he was putting on a show- the two of you were very tired all things considered, and if he’d wanted to sleep while you were doing who knew what at SHIELD, that was great. A confidence booster, too, knowing he thought you could handle it. But also knowing if something had gone wrong he would have been on his feet in moments.

But it made this that much harder to explain. You wished he’d been listening in, because there was no easy way to break this. “I have to go away for a week.”

He crossed his arms, leaning against the dresser. “Go away?”

This was not the usual way the two of you handled your lives. The way you’d agreed to run your relationship. No more secrets. No hiding things. It was why you stood, after shoving the last bit of clothing into your suitcase, and gave him your full attention. “I have to babysit Captain America.”

His reaction made you feel better about yours- almost the same, except his head reeled back instead of down, brows knitting tight. “I’m sorry. Run that by me again?”

“A search team in the Arctic found his plane. With his body in it. Still alive.” Giving a little pause, a little room to breathe between this sentence and the next. A different sort of ache was forming very suddenly. The disbelieving look Tony was giving you- not just because it was an incredible story to tell but… because he didn’t want to believe it. “SHIELD thawed him out. And… Fury wants me to shadow him while he recovers.”

He took a breath in. Then scoffed it out, waving his hand around. “This is a joke, right? A test? They’re trying to see how much nonsense you’ll believe?”

“I saw him, Tony.” Somber, as you answered, and stopped him in his tracks. “I talked to him. It’s… it’s him.”

Something different appeared between you. Something ugly. And dark. He crossed his arms. “Because you would know, right? How do you know they didn’t get- I don’t know- what’s a level SHIELD would stoop to- a party clown for fifty bucks and ask him to pretend to be Captain America?”

Resentment was coming to a boil just on his surface. And you didn’t know how to deal with it.

Reaching up you pressed the cuff on your ear, “LUNA, project an image of Captain America from archived newspapers- 1944- any headline will do-” And she did just that.

“Stop-” Tony didn’t want this.

“Put it aside a clip from twenty minutes ago, when I was in Times Square.”

So she did. Running that still image of Steve Rogers next to a man on a loop- the same man. Tony put his hands to your arms. “Stop.”

“LUNA stop projections.” When she dropped the holograms you turned fully to him. “It’s him.”

“Why you?” He didn’t want you to go. There was some lingering childhood something or other here that he had probably kept shoved deep down for some time. You knew Howard had had a hand in all this- and… all things considered, it probably had left some sort of mark on Tony. Not the kind he dealt with.

The one you were seeing now. He didn’t want you to go run to Steve’s aid, whether in SHIELD’s stead or not. “They think I’ll get a better read and I… he needs help, Tony. It’s been a long time since he was… alive.”

The two of you looked at each other for a very long time. Until finally he relented, shoulders drooping, but reluctant to let go of you. “Where are you going?”

“Some place called the Retreat. It’s upstate.”

“And then what. When you’re done, what happens to him?”

“I don’t know. SHIELD isn’t that great at making plans, you know that.” Trying on a smile and some sarcasm just to try and lighten his mood.

It didn’t help a lot, but the weak smile you got back was at least something. “Yeah. In that case, no wonder they need you. I’ll start writing up a bill for your services.”

Stepping in closer, you rested your head against his chest and snuggled up, delighting in the feel of his arms closing tight around you. “No less than ten grand.”

“Ten? I was thinking fifty. Don’t sell yourself short.” Another much calmer silence laid around you. And as he rested his head atop yours, quietly, “Bring the Reactor.”

“He’s a war hero, Tony. For our side. I don’t think I have a lot to be worried about.”

“A smart woman told me once that things like this invite trouble. I just don’t want you in a hole upstate you can’t get out of.”

He was connecting dots you hadn’t gotten to yet. It made sense. SHIELD was no doubt looking to add Rogers to their Avengers roster. And you didn’t know how the world at large was going to handle the news that Captain America was alive and well. If they were going to even announce it at all. You couldn’t imagine how one would do that presser. ...and you really hoped they weren’t thinking about making you do it.

But- as usual, Tony was right. It was better to be safe and smart.

Shifting back you leaned up, kissing him carefully. Softly. Palming his cheek in your hand. Just holding him. “I love you.”

There was something in the air. It had been building for a while now. There was almost no way this Avengers stuff wasn’t leading somewhere terrible. Tony was right- that you were right. You were continually inviting the universe to challenge you.

Which was why it was all the more important to make peace with your team. Both old members and very new.

“I love you, too.”

In this instance alone, you’d love to be proven wrong.

#Tony Stark #Tony Stark x Reader #INY Chapter Forty Five

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jaydcstories · 5 years

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Read this and other stories on my blog: JOHN DEE COOPER'S ALL-MALE SLAVERY STORIES

Chapter 7 Incredible to believe, but only the day before this I’d been free. OK, I was a runaway hiding in the woods, but at least I had choices. I could have chosen to turn around and go back to the orphanage. I could have chosen to find work somewhere and build a new life. But instead I chose to stow away on a truck, and because of that one stupid decision I had lost everything and become a slave — although it was still a struggle to get my head round what that really meant.

The road away from the Slave Processing Centre was long and winding. It seemed to go on forever, and although the buggy Señor Boronda was driving wasn’t travelling very fast there was no let up. I wasn’t used to running, and it isn’t easy keeping your balance when your thumbs are tied behind your back. I was terrified of tripping up and getting strangled by the rope that linked our collars together.

The tarmac bruised our feet and although it was a chilly night our bodies were dripping with sweat. Luis seemed to be coping alright. He was more athletic than me and was striding along bravely. But poor little Tomas was having difficulty keeping up.

I kept going over in my head what the Señor had said about his special English clients and their Brothels. I knew what a brothel was of course. But what made the English ones so different? And by now of course I realised he was talking about me as well as Luis and Tomas. We were the three items of cargo he was so desperate to get on to the English ship. But what exactly was going to happen to us after that?

I was truly scared now. I was running towards a terrible unknown fate. Everything about me, my nakedness, my shaved head, the leather strap around my balls (which was stinging like hell), the metal tag sewn into my ear, each of these was a curse. I wanted to shout out for help, but I couldn’t. I was too frightened. And anyway I was out of breath.

When we finally got to the dockside, the Señor stopped the buggy which meant with our thumbs tied we all stumbled blindly into the back of it, giving Miguel an opportunity to give us one final wallop with his riding crop.

I was in agony. I had a stitch in my side. I was panting so hard that my throat was on fire and I felt sick. I was angry too. It was as if I was being punished for something I hadn’t done. Even running away from the orphanage didn’t deserve being forced to run stark naked through the open street. And anyway I was sure they couldn’t make you a slave without giving you some kind of warning. How did I know if it was official? How did I know they hadn’t just made it up? I wanted to shout at the old man and tell him to stuff all that shit about service and sacrifice — but instead my knees buckled under me and I threw up.

Señor Boronda, who obviously didn’t give a fig about me being sick, grabbed my collar and hauled me onto my feet.

An official in uniform, the dockyard foreman or something, appeared and took a note of what was written on our ear tags. Then he started talking to the Señor in a language I didn’t understand. It might have been German, but thinking about it now, it was probably English. Whatever it was, it ended up with us being led away to another part of the dockyard by a couple of workers. I call them workers but judging from their pierced ear-lobes and shaved heads they must have been slaves as well. But because they wore shorts, tee-shirts and sandals, they were way above us and could boss us around as much as they liked — which they did.

Once we were out of earshot of the Señor, we started firing questions at these workers. It turned out they were all foreigners, though they could speak Spanish pretty well. They were armed with canes and used them to bully us back into silence — but not before dropping a few hints about us having to be “cleaned out” before we could be loaded onto the slave ship. I had no idea what they were talking about but I think Luis did, because he pulled a face and swore.

They took us to a secluded spot behind a low wall. This, we were told, was the “cleaning area” though it just looked to me like an open drain. There were three steps leading down to a narrow stream of running water and we had to stand on the top step with our backs to the stream. Our thumbs were still tied and the rope linking our collars had been tethered securely to the wall so we couldn’t move. And then we had to bend over while the workers went along inserting the ends of thick rubber hoses into our arseholes.

It was quite a job as we were all virgins in that area and it took a lot of poking around with their fingers before they could ease the hose-pipes in. And we weren’t exactly co-operating. They had to gag Tomas to stop him howling, and I kept trying to kick them away — which ended with me getting a nasty caning on the back of my thigh.

I still hadn’t got over my attack of nausea so it was quite a struggle when they started to pump the water in and my bowels began to swell up. What made it worse, they kept poking our stomachs to see how full we were. Any sign of leakage and we got whacked with the cane.

Soon the pressure was so intense there was no way of disguising the agony. But they kept pumping the water in until I thought my stomach was going to explode. Even after they’d taken the hose-pipes out, we still had to hold it in, and to make things worse, they made us run on the spot — they said it was to make sure the water worked its way through our systems, but thinking back on it now it was probably just so they could have a good laugh at our expense. They were giggling a lot as we begged them to let us empty our cramped bowels.

But what a glorious relief it was when they finally gave the word and the contents of our aching bowels cascaded down the concrete steps. We’d only had a mouthful of porridge to eat all day so it was mainly just liquid, but we squeezed out every last drop until our overseers were satisfied that our bowels were completely empty.

I felt surprisingly alive, as if the whole inside of my body had been cleaned out. The night air was sharp but pleasant and I began to feel a little more confident about coping with the challenges ahead.

It must have been around midnight now and the floodlit dockyard had a strange, unearthly quality about it, with the shadow of the cliffs looming up behind us and the open sea ahead, stretching out into unfathomable darkness.

Two ships towered over the dockside like sleeping giants. It seems that most of the cargo had already been loaded onboard, but there were still a few crates and barrels standing around in neat piles along the quay’s edge.

One small area in particular, on the side furthest from the waterfront, caught my attention. Penned in by a crude wooden fence, and under the watchful eye of several armed guards, were about fifty or sixty slaves — men, women and children of all ages and races. They were close enough for me to see them quite distinctly. Like us they all had metal tags hanging from their ears and were completely naked, with their heads shaved and their hands bound behind them — even the children, of which there were more than a dozen. They looked as if they had been waiting a long time. They had probably been off-loaded during the previous day and were waiting either to be taken inland for sale, or to be put aboard another ship to continue their journey. Some of them were lounging around, some appeared to be asleep, others were just standing there staring at the dockyard. But what struck me most was how quiet they were. One or two were humming dolefully, some were whispering to one another, but most of them were simply waiting silently, wondering what unknown destination awaited them.

I’d just started to ask myself the same question, when I was knocked off my feet by a jet of cold water. The workers were giving us a final hose down before taking us back to the quayside, where the foreman was waiting for us. The ship’s cargo officer had joined him, but there was no sign of Señor Boronda. He’d finished his business here and gone back to deal with Rico and Adolpho, I suppose, leaving us in the hands of total strangers who spoke a language we couldn’t understand. Tomas pressed up close to me, but I was just as frightened as him and if my thumbs hadn’t been tied I would have put my arms round him. Luis was the bravest of us, and I wondered how much he already knew about what was going on.

The cargo officer looped a chain through our collars and pulled us over to one of the big ships. We stood shivering in the shadow of its huge metal hull while he made a call on his walkie-talkie. We heard the distant rattle of a crane and watched as a small wooden crate was lowered over the side of the ship to a spot a few feet away from us. The cargo officer pulled open one of its sides and told us to get in. It was made of rough wooden slats bound together with rope and didn’t look very sturdy. It wasn’t very big either. There was just enough room for the three of us to squeeze in. We huddled together convinced it was going to fall apart as soon as it left the ground.

The signal was about to be given to haul us up when there was a shout from the other side of the quay. The cargo officer made some hurried calls on his walkie-talkie, opened the crate and pulled us out again.

It seems there was more last minute cargo to be loaded aboard.

Running towards us were two naked slaves. One was Caucasian, the other a Negro, and both had herculean bodies. The Caucasian was leaner and more athletic in build and his head was partly shaved, leaving a streak of hair down the middle, Mohican style. But the Negro was all muscle. His skin was as black as ebony and there was not a hair on his head or his body. As they got nearer I could see that there were pieces of metal attached to every part of him, including his nose, ears and cock. Both slaves were heavily endowed and they had steel rings round their balls, which made their loose genitalia bang against their thighs as they ran.

I remember noting at the time that there was no-one attending them. They had been sent over on their own, and when they arrived they stood quietly to attention awaiting orders. These were serious, fully trained slaves. Not scared and bewildered rookies like us. And they were a lot older and way, way bigger than us. Was this what we were meant to grow up to be?

The cargo officer and the foreman discussed what to do and came out in favour of jamming us all in the same crate. How they managed it I couldn’t say because I was in a state of shock. I’d never seen such muscular men before, let alone been squashed up naked in a wooden box with them. These two giants were put inside first and we had to squeeze in around them, so that our backs were jammed against the wooden slats and our noses pressed against their sweaty bodies. With my thumbs still tied behind me I had to bury my face in the Negro’s massive chest to steady myself. He was still heaving from his run. The heat coming from his body was overpowering and I could actually feel his sweat dribbling down my chest. His pulse was thumping and his enormous cock was pushing its way between my legs — almost lifting me off my feet!

I managed to twist my head round enough to see that Luis was jammed up against the white slave and poor Tomas was stuck somewhere in the middle.

It was a living nightmare. Luis, Tomas and I shrieked like babies when the crane started to lift us off the ground, the wooden slats bending and creaking under our combined weight. We pressed ourselves tightly against the two older slaves, who were completely nonplussed by the whole business. They’d probably been through this a hundred times before. I could hear the white slave chuckle quietly, but the Negro was as silent and as steady as a rock, even though I was sticking to him like glue.

As we swung high above the dock I was convinced that the crate was going to snap into pieces and send us hurtling to our deaths. If my hands had been free I would have clung to the Negro, as it was, all I could do was cushion myself as best I could against his thick leathery muscles and take comfort in the hot musky smell of his black flesh.

Daring myself to peer down through the cracks in the wooden crate, I watched as we swung up over the ship’s side and then, after hovering for a moment above the deck, dropped down towards a giant black hole.

I couldn’t bear to watch anymore. I looked up at the Negro’s face and just as our eyes met, I detected the flicker of a smile as we were plunged into total darkness.

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twdmusicboxmystery · 5 years

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5x09: Analysis

How did everyone like last night's episode of FTWD? I really enjoyed watching. As expected, it was very much a set up for the B half of the season, but I also found some really great symbols and some very promising possibilities. Let's dive right in.

***As always, spoilers abound for this episode below. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***

Also, let me say that, yes, I did watch the TWD S10 Preview show and yes, I will do an analysis of it. Look for it tomorrow. I wanted to get my analysis for this episode up today first. ;D

This episode was a slightly different format than we’re used to. They did in the style of a found-footage documentary. This has become a popular style for films in recent years, and I suppose it was a natural thing to do given how Al records everything.

We start out with all the main characters in the group being interviewed on camera. I won’t go over everything they said, as not all of it jumped out at me as super important. But one thing did. Alicia said it felt like, "everything else was training for this." She meant driving around helping people and rounding up survivors to put together a community. But it also feels like a foreshadow of something big coming. Everything prior to this is been training for what lies ahead of them.

Al said they raided a Big Stop and took every camera, battery, and tape they could find. It caught my attention, mostly because Big Stop sounds a whole lot like Big Spot from 4x01. The point was that they now have several cameras traveling around with various groups when they split up to do different things. But of course, Battery Theory.

It's a little unclear what happened with Logan. He showed them where a gas tanker was (though he still hasn’t found the “oil fields”) but they left him behind. All we saw was he running after Sarah’s truck.

Sarah was quite gleeful about it. And it's a little odd because obviously stuff happened that we haven’t seen yet. Last we saw in 5x08, while they obviously didn't entirely trust Logan, they seemed to be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I got the feeling they would keep a watchful eye on him, but they weren't planning on kicking them out of the group either.

So they’ve obviously skipped over some things and I'm sure they’ll go back and show us what happened and why the decision was made to leave him behind at some point.

We saw them utilizing red and yellow gas cans. Very significant colors. Red = death, yellow = escape. I didn’t notice any green gas cans, so this particular color sequence is, as yet, incomplete.

Dwight said, "I got lucky." (Luck Theory.) He’s also still wheedling and he created a chess set.

That’s significant and we’ve seen chess sets in the past, both around him and the Gov (X). I also think it's interesting that Dwight doesn't want a haircut. He said in 5x08 that he might take Daniel up on the offer. Now suddenly he's decided against it. I feel like that could be symbolic, and there's a specific reason for it, but I'm not sure what it is. We know that him and Daryl are heavily paralleled and they’re not going to cut Daryl’s hair short anytime soon, so maybe that's it.

We saw a lot of food symbols in this episode. Grace mentioned rice noodles and then they ate them at the end. Anyone who follows @frangipanilove’s theories knows about her noodle theories. It's a symbol we’ve seen a lot, specifically in FTWD, and she has tied it to resurrection and return symbolism. Grace also mentioned being low on powdered eggs. In general, eggs = Easter eggs = resurrection symbol. Tptb also often talk about leaving Easter eggs for us to find. It's kind of interesting to hear that.

They went out of their way to mention that Grace is listening to an audiobook. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this, but it’s such a random detail that they focused on, I'm sure it significant. We didn’t hear the title or author of the audio book, so we can’t read into that. Perhaps it's just a way of showing that book titles we see are significant.

We heard Sarah sing a trucker song about hunting a bear. Obviously, that's a big deal because bear symbolism is part of the Sirisu/Dogstar/return symbolism. Here, it was associated with music. They had a whole discussion about music and Sarah even called it an anthem. Look at lyrics again.

This was one of my favorite symbols in this episode. Let's assume for a minute that bear = Sirius/return symbolism, which means bear = Beth’s return. The song is specifically about hunting a bear. Which suggests looking for a return. The group is actively looking for people to help. So, the way I interpret this is that perhaps the people they’re looking for will eventually lead to Beth’s return.

The main story, aside from having the characters talk about how they feel and where they're at mentally, was about helping a woman named Tess and her son leave their home. She contacted Morgan via walkie-talkie, telling him her husband left to get an inhaler for their son. He never returned.

The husband put landmines all over the front yard and Tess was afraid to leave because she hadn't left in years, since before the apocalypse happened. The group splits up to try and help her. June and Strand find the drugstore but the inhaler isn't there. They figure he must've already gotten it and headed home. Then, when Alicia is by one of the painted trees (which I'll talk about in a minute) a blond male walker comes up behind her and Strand kills it. Turns out, this walker is Tess's husband. He’s dead.

Morgan's group crosses the yard to help Tess and Morgan steps on landline. It's pressurized, which means it won’t go off until he lifts his foot. Al tries to help him disarm it and Tess leaves her house to help as well. Thankfully, everyone gets out alive and Morgan does not lose his foot.

(Although, the way they focused on his foot on the landmine did make me think of Lost Shoe/Foot symbolism. I can't help but wonder if this is a foreshadowing for something down the road and if Morgan might lose his foot at some point. Or perhaps this is jut a way to tie this situation to other symbolism we’ve seen before. Not sure yet.

John says the Tess situation hit home for each of them in a particular way. Morgan was very invested because of what happened to his wife and son. He very much wanted to save Tess and her son because he couldn't save his own family. Because her husband didn’t come back, June and John, who looked for each other, sympathized with her insistence that her husband would return. I thought this was an interesting way to examine where each of the characters are mentally at this point.

At one point, John talked about being partners with Morgan. He said Morgan doesn't talk much. He then talked about being a cop and how you could not say more than two words to your partner all day, but you know them inside and out, and what makes them tick. You have each other's back know how to work and survive together. He basically said that's what Morgan was like. Morgan said the same thing about John, that the neither of them talk very much, but they still work well together.

I sat and thought for a bit about why they included this little snippet. It was a little strange. Morgan and John did work together in this episode, but Al and Luciana with them, as well as others. It wasn’t just the two of them, or anything. It might be a foreshadowing of some arc the two of them will have together in coming episodes, but it also made me think a little bit of other relationships we’ve seen on the show. Naturally, my head went to Beth and Daryl. While Beth definitely talked more than Daryl, there were parts (such as the beginning of Still) where the two of them just stared at one another and didn't say much. It's really about getting to know people not having to fill the silence. Whether it's a romantic relationship or platonic, I really like this theme.

John mentions ugly mustard situations. It’s just a way of saying the situation was very bad. But here’s the thing, guys. In biblical symbolism, the mustard seed is very obviously entwined with the concept of faith. And who talked a lot about faith? That would be Beth. In terms of this situation, “ugly mustard” may specifically apply to a scene where there’s a lack of faith being demonstrated.

Oh, one other really fun reference John made: he was talking about how money is useless now in the apocalypse and the true currency is survival skills. He said something about people who used to sit on piles of money. The kind of people who ate “caviar from ladles.” Yeah, that’s an ocean reference and a Little Dipper reference all rolled into one, y’all. ;D

There were several mentions of something that was needed or something they all needed. It reminded me of the S7 TWD title "Something They Need." I think they said this about Tess needing the inhaler. I know Morgan talked about having planned the campfire dinner at the end and saying it was something, "we all need." This was a definite theme in this episode.

The other theme that I saw was actually very powerful and I feel like it reaches through both shows. They talked about how they didn't blame Tess for not believing her husband was dead. Morgan said that sometimes you can know someone's dead, you can see they’re dead, you still just don't believe it. Basically, it's because you can't bring yourself to say goodbye.

Tess was that way. She couldn't bring herself to say goodbye. At the end, she did and then she was able to leave her house, go with Morgan's group, and start to live and move forward again. This is something very specific to Morgan because he said that the same thing happened with him and his wife and son. He never said goodbye to them, and he needs to, he just doesn't know how.

I think we could apply this to Daryl. He’s sad because he's never really said goodbye to Beth. In a way, this is actually sort of the opposite of her arc. Here, Tess was told her husband was dead. People saw him as a walker, but she just couldn't make herself believe it. The opposite was true of Beth. We never saw her as a walker, we never saw her get stabbed in the head, but everyone still believes she's dead, when she’s not. So, there’s an anti-parallel going on here. Meanwhile, Daryl has never said goodbye to her.

This is also the key to what's happening whenever any character loses someone and can’t move on from them. They have to find a way to say goodbye, but often they don't know how.

(@wdway often says that FTWD is teaching us HOW to read TWD symbolism. They’re much more obvious in how it should be interpreted, but that just give us a map of how to read TWD symbolism. I think she’s right and this is a good example of it.)

At the end, the group eats rice noodles, carrots, and nuts. I already talked about the rice noodles, but the carrots are big as well. Those were big Beth symbol.

I said I’d return to the painted tree. I'm not going to say too much about it here because I'm going to do a post later in the week that touches on it as well, but this is the other thing that made me super-excited about this episode. Alicia says that she wants to find out who painted the trees. She wants to find them.

Before, I just thought the trees would be used as symbolism in the show. I didn't think they’d be part of the plot beyond that. But Alicia saying this is a foreshadow. Eventually, they will find whoever is painting the trees.

Of course, my first thought was, could it be Beth painting these trees? I'm about 50/50 on that. The wording and the faith inherent in the message (mustard mentioned in the same episode as this tree) definitely sounds like her. But to be fair, we also never saw her doing visual art this way. She was all about the music. The person we did see doing visual art was Jadis, who is also now tied to the helicopter group. I'm not saying Jadis painted the trees. That actually wouldn't make sense given that currently, FTWD is six years behind TWD. Jadis and the Heapsters are still at the junkyard. I’m just saying we can tie it to Rick’s departure and the helicopter group.

You could argue that these are little notes left on the trees for people to find after the person who painted them had already left. It just feels a lot like Beth wanting to leave the thank you note at the funeral home in case the owners ever came back.

I don't know where this will lead, of course, and it may have nothing to do with her in the plot, but it still made me super excited.

At the end, we see a young man watching the group’s video. They’ve set it up at a gas station along with a walkie for people to watch and contact them. The TV and walkie are hooked up to a generator in a locked room. The man doesn’t use the walkie to call them but rather breaks into the generator room and steals some gas. He uses it to fill up his motorcycle. (He and Daryl would be biker buds.)

Then Logan and his group arrive. Logan first assumes he’s with Morgan’s group, but of course he’s not. He looks a little like Heath, but this is a new character. Logan says he likes this guy, but he still steals his stuff and shoots his bike, basically stranding him. He even encourages the guy to call Morgan’s group on the radio and convey a message. No way to know yet if this guy will contact them or not.

Obviously this is a set up for the rest of the season (which will probably consist of Morgan’s group looking for and finding more people, and having run-ins with Logan) but I also saw some interesting symbols in this final sequence.

Inside the gas station (a symbol by itself) was a large sign for hot dogs. It was the “dogs” more than the food that caught my attention, but still. There’s also a money orders sign. I haven’t talked about this, but let’s just say @frangipanilove is working on a money/currency theme in the show. So just tuck this away for now.

The gas station has Grady lighting inside and signs for hot dogs. The gas can he carried out was also blue.

I also noticed that when Logan got out of the car, he was wearing cowboy boots and the camera focused on them for a second. Not sure what to make of that, but I think it’s significant. Lost Shoe symbolism? Beth’s boots? Even reminded me a little bit of Boots (Tauriel) from 7x08, because it showed the boots before it revealed the face (Logan). So we’ll have to keep an eye on that moving forward.

Actually, there was a lot of shoe symbolism in this episode. There’s what I’ve already mentioned with Morgan and Logan, and then Logan throws a torn up pair of cowboy boots at this guy at the end, saying this is what happens to your shoes and feet when you walk 200 miles. That has to be symbolic--especially as they use cowboy boots--but I’m not sure exactly what it points to yet.

Also, there an RV (time symbol) in the background as they talk.

So, we definitely have a lot of potential for this coming season and where it will lead. They set up Logan as a villain in the first episode of the season, but we didn't deal with him very much in the A half. I’m sure he'll be in the B half a lot more. Also, meeting new people to help gives us the potential to run into the helicopter group some more and perhaps find the person who is painting the trees. (Yay!) What did everyone else think of this episode?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusio #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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themoonandotherslikeit · 5 years

Text

The Hand That Reaches for God -Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

“We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.” - D.H. Lawrence

-18 Days After-

Dean grabbed the hand without question and allowed himself to be pulled into the Jeep, before reaching for Emerson’s hand. What was his choice? Stranger in a Jeep or a bunch of fleshy monsters that were trying to bite their faces. It was an easy decision, if he thought at all about it.

“We have two more. My brother and her sister. They’re just ahead.” Dean pointed to where Sam and Pheli were when he and Emerson got settled in the Jeep.

“Thank you.” Emerson said softly. “We were dead out there.”

The person, who’s build lead them to believe was male, gave them a big thumbs up. Nothing else could be made up behind the mask. It was all too eerie, but so much better than the alternative.

The Jeep pulled forward, over more bodies, easily crunching over their bones. Sam and Pheliwere behind the glass door of the building, curled together. Sam’s eyes lit up when the Jeep door flew open and Dean waved them in.

“I thought we lost you, man.” Sam said as he helped Pheli in. they were hurrying, the groans of the creatures were too close for comfort.

“You almost did.” Emerson said, wrapping her arms around Pheli’s waist.

“Whose this?” She asked, eyeing the driver.

“We don’t know.” Her sister whispered.

The man turned toward them and after what seemed like some careful consideration before removing his gas mask. He revealed messy dark hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a perfectly straight white smile.

“Holy fuck.” Dean whispered. “Holy fuck.”

“Hello, Dean.”

A grin grew on Dean Winchester’s tired, pained face. A real one, not the kind that he had become so familiar with that was painted with regret and fear. “Cas.” The two men pulled into a tight hug. “Holy shit it’s good to see you.”

“Likewise.” Cas said into Dean’s shoulder. He pulled out of the hug and looked Dean over. “You’re not hurt, are you? Any injuries? Bites? They didn’t bleed on in you, or gas you, did they?”

“What?” Dean asked, alarmed. “No, uh, we are good. Fucked up my knee, and Phel over there got grabbed and hurt her ankle.”

“But they didn’t bleed into you? Your mouth? A wound?”

The group all looked at each other and shook their heads. “No.” Emerson said quietly. “Why?”

“You don’t know, do you?” The dark haired man asked. His chin was tight as he put the Jeep in gear. “We need to go.”

“What do we not know?”

“I thought it was why you were here.” Cas licked his bottom lip. “We will talk more when we get to the base.”

Emerson reached for Dean’s hand and he laced his fingers with hers. He trusted Cas. “It’s okay.” He whispered against Emerson’s ear. If someone was going to pick them up he couldn’t have picked a better person. She nodded back at him, her other hand on Pheli’s knee.

He drove quickly, taking unconventional turns to lose the creatures on their trail. The Jeep crunched easily over bodies and the trash in the street. Before they knew it, they’d lost the creatures on their tail, and were back on the road to the base.

It was right outside of town, just like Dean had mentioned. The perimeter of the base was a tall fence made of different items that seemed to be procured from the city, and then lined again by barbed wire. Cas leaned in and grabbed his walkie talkie and pressed the button. “Castiel Novak reporting in. I have four recruits with me. There are no level red injuries that I can see.”

“I hear ya loud and clear Hot Wings.” A gravely Southern drawl met Castiel’s through the walkietalkie.

“You won’t believe who I found.”

“Lookin forward to it, Brother.” The voice said as the gates in front of them were pushed open by men in military uniforms.

Dean felt his chest tighten at the sight of the men in their ACU’s. He unconsciously tugged at his dog tags around his neck. Castiel pulled the Jeep forward. “Alright, first we will get you to Medical to get checked out. Have you eaten?”

“Not in a while.” Pheli squeaked, suddenly hyper aware of her empty stomach.

“We will get some rations for you and set you up with a place to rest.” He put the Jeep in park. The area seemed to be sectioned around an old strip mall. There were units that had new spray painted signs of their uses. They stopped in front of a shop that had a big sign that was painted Medical in dripping red spray paint. “The guys will be happy to see you, Dean.”

“Me too.” He grunted.

Castiel swung his door open and got out of the car, the rest of the group followed his lead. Pheli leaned on Sam for support. Emerson jumped out before Dean, and held out a hand. He winced as his bag leg touched the ground, but he didn’t lean on Emerson. “You good?” She asked him softly. He shrugged in response.

Cas waved for them to follow him into Medical. The door chimed, perhaps the bell was left over from when it was a shop. It looked like the shop used to be a clothing store, the walls were still lined with garments, but the rest of the racks were taken out and moved. There were folding tables scattered intermittently that were covered with sheets to be used as exam tables and beds for the injured.

“You’re back!” A small woman said, looking up from her table. She was organizing medical supplies. “Hello Clarence.” She almost purred, moving from behind the table toward Cas.

“Meg.” He said, his blue eyes studying her. “I have some patients for you to look over. New residents. No level red injuries.”

“Have they come into contact with any Rogues?” Meg asked, pulling her dark waves into a ponytail.

“Swarm of them in the city. My timing was impeccable.”

“Rogues?” Dean asked with a frown.

“Not your turn to talk, tall dark and handsome.” Meg snapped, before turning back to Castiel. “You’re okay, Clarence? No close calls?”

“I’m fine.” He assured her.

“Good.” She exhaled before turning toward the rest of the group. “Name’s Meg Masters. I’m the resident doc around here. Just got lucky I guess. Take a seat. We will do physicals first, and then assess injuries. I know you told Clarence over there that you haven’t been bitten, but I’m still going to need to do a once over. Not worth the risk, ya hear me? Whose first?”

“Can you look over my girlfriend first? She hurt her ankle...” Sam asked, gesturing to Pheli.

“Sure.” Meg shrugged. “Bring Princess over here.”

“Cas,” Dean began, grabbing his arm before he could leave. “What do you know?”

“I don’t know if this is the right place, Dean.”

“I think anywhere is the right place. Rouges?”

He sighed in response, and pulled Dean away from Emerson so they could talk a little more privately. “It’s what we call the creatures that you encountered.”

“We came from out East, Cas. We saw the explosion. How were there effects way out here?”

“You really don’t know. Didn’t you go report when things went down?”

“I’m out, Cas. I’m a civilian. Not exactly anywhere for me to report to.”

“There were explosions everywhere. All over the US. A lot of bases were attacked. From what I understand the Capital is completely down. We haven’t received any communication or orders so we came here. Just like we all discussed.”

“It’s all dark?”

“That is how it appears.”

“Why are you so concerned about bites?” Dean frowned, his head spinning, but being back there across from his former brother in arms was bringing back old habits as he stood practically at attention.

“From what we can gather the Rogue’s were created from the blast and the red rain.”

“You had that here, too?”

“Haven’t in a while, but yes.” Castiel said with a sigh. He crossed his arms. “Things are bad, Dean. Our resources are good, but they won’t last forever. The Rogues are multiplying faster than we can pick them off.”

“Multiplying? I thought they happened from the blast.”

“That’s one way. From the intel that we’ve gathered, there are two levels. First level are the ones you saw. Nasty mother fuckers. They have the bubbled and burned flesh, and they are unbelievably hot to the touch. They’ll burn your skin right off if they grab ahold of you, and then there’s level two. These are the ones that have been infected.”

“Infected.” Dean repeated. “You’re saying this can be caught? Like a damn disease?”

“Exactly like a disease. Without a scientist or a real doctor it’s hard to be sure, but we think it is spread through bodily fluids. Saliva and blood are the big ones. Some of the Rogues also deplete a gas that is toxic. It’s unsure if this will cause an outbreak of the disease or not. No one has escaped the gas yet.” Castiel explained grimly.

“Christ.”

“You’re telling me.” He forced a smile. “It’s good to see you, Dean. It really is.”

“You too, Buddy.”

-2 Years Before-

“Winchester, do you need something?”

“Captain Novak, permission to enter?” Dean asked, standing at attention in the entryway to Castiel’s tent.

“Granted. What can I help you with?” Castiel scribbled at his paperwork on his desk, not looking up at Dean.

“Can I speak freely, sir?”

“Personal or business?”

“Personal.”

“Granted.” He finally looked up at Dean and smiled widely. “What can I do for you, Dean?”

“Morale is shit, Cas.” He said casually. “I was wondering if we could take some of the guys into town? You know, to have some fun.”

“I’m not sure if that would be wise. You do know these people want us dead, right?”

“I’m aware.” Dean said smoothly. “Or maybe a movie night? The guys are in a shit mood, sir.”

“Don’t sir with me right now.” Castiel waved Dean off. He’d been recently promoted, and there was no hiding that the two men were close friends. It still felt weird pulling rank. “But you’re right. I heard Garth crying in his bunk again. He’s a sensitive one.”

“He is.” Dean agreed. “Benny is down, too, Cas. He’s worried about his niece. I just think a distraction is in order.”

He pursed his lips in thought. “Okay, fine. We will arrange something. You’re due some fun, too, Winchester.” Castiel promised. “You head out tomorrow to work on those Humvee’s right?”

“Yup. Headed that way at oh-four-hundred.”

Cas grinned at him. “Up before the sun, I’m sure you’re thrilled.”

“Yup, jumping for joy over here.”

“Alright, Winchester, get out of my fucking face so I can get some work done. Dismissed.”

Dean gave his friend a loose salute and turned on his heels before exiting the tent.

“What’s the news, Brother?” Benny asked, a cigarette hanging out of his lips.

“He’s going to work something out.”

“Strip club?” Charlie asked, wiggling her eyebrows. She was a tiny thing, pale with red curls that always fell out of her tight bun at the base of her head.

“Aw, you wish.” Dean caught her around the shoulder and rubbed the top of her head.

“Get off, you ass.” She laughed. She always looked at Dean as a brother and he felt the same. She was brilliant and nobody could deny her computer skills. She was a fucking genius, and why she was out in the dirt with a bunch of men was beyond him. “So what, a football tournament again?” She complained.

“He didn’t really say.” Dean shrugged. “But you know Novak, he’s good for his word. Now get back to work, you lazy assholes.”

He moved forward, back to the tank he was supposed to be tinkering with, his mind far away. “Dean, hey you got a second?”

“Hm?” He turned back to Charlie.

“Don’t leave without me in the morning, I’ll be heading out with you. They’re having some technical difficulties, and I’m going to see what I can do to help.”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “We leave at oh-four-hundred sharp, don’t be late. It’d be a long ass walk.”

“Heard.”

-18 Days After-

They wrapped Pheli’s ankle and applied burn cream from where the Rogue got a little grabby. She would be good to go in a few days, she just needed to stay off of it. Dean’s knee was out of place, before Meg popped it back in. She warned him that it could happen again, since she didn’t have the resources to fix it permanently.

The sun was going down on the camp, the orange sky causing the tents and people to seemingly glow. Some were washing clothes, hanging them up on a line; others cooked over a fire in the center of camp.

“No fucking way.” A deep drawl came from behind them. Dean turned, recognizing the sound immediately.

“Benny?!”

“Hey, Brother.” The man said, pulling Dean into a hug. He wore a dirty Henley, and a gray hat over his dark peppered hair.

“Damn, it’s good to see you.” Dean grinned. “Oh, uh, guys this is Benny he was a buddy of mine from Afghanistan. He was in my unit. Benny this is my brother Sam.”

“So good to finally meet you.” Benny said, offering him a hand.

“This is his girlfriend Ophelia.”

“Call me Pheli, everyone does.”

“And her sister, Emerson.”

“Nice to meet you.” Benny said, kissing both girls hands. “Not very often we get pretty girls in here.” He grinned widely before turning back to Dean. “We are going to play some music by the fire tonight, like old times. We have to keep it low because of the Rogues, but one of our own is back. That’s cause for celebration.’

“Aw, man I don’t know. We are kind of tired, I think.”

“It’s okay.” Emerson said softly, touching his arm. “Benny is right. We almost died today, we should celebrate.”

Dean looked at her for a moment before nodding. “If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

“Alright. Fuck, I guess we’re in.”

“Great!” Benny said, slapping Dean’s shoulder. “I’ll see you at the fire after dinner.”

“You got it.”

“Dean!” Castiel called, waving at the group. “We have your quarters set up for the night. We don’t have an extra tent at the moment. We can do some shuffling tomorrow, but it’s a nice night so we got you and Sam set up under the stars.” He gestured to the set up that was under a tree. “The ladies can follow me. We have some extra space with Meg and me.”

Emerson replaced Sam on Pheli’s side. “We will go get settled and meet you.” She promised the boys before following Castiel to the tent.

Dean leaned on the makeshift crutch that Meg made him. “Fuck, man.”

“You’re popular here.” Sam said once they were alone. He grinned widely. “Want to go sit for a bit? You look beat.”

“I feel beat.” Dean said, before scanning the camp. “I think I saw a sign for coffee on our way over here.”

“Sounds good.” Sam agreed.

“Why don’t you go settle our stuff, and I’ll grab a cup of joe.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I want to get a lay of the land before we get too comfortable.” Dean said with a nod before hobbling toward the coffee counter. It was a small stand, set up with just a table and a crudely painted sign. She had a small fire behind her in a metal ring that kept the coffee heated. His stomach ached for food, but his head throbbed from exhaustion. Caffeine would have to do. He didn’t want to know the kind of nightmares he would have if he closed his eyes.

“Heard you’ve got the caffeine.” He said as he approached the brunette behind the table. She was turned away, fiddling with the fire. “We will be seeing a lot of each other.” He laughed dryly. He knew it was smart to befriend the person supplying him with coffee or booze. He was always very chatty with his bartender.

The woman laughed and turned to him. “That’s me. I must say, ever since I took over this position I’ve been very popular.” Her dark eyes caught his as she turned; her pink lips opened in shock. “Dean.” She murmured.

“Lisa.”

—————

Chapter Thirteen

Get caught up!

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storytimefromthecreed · 6 years

Text

Vigilante AU: Sonny Carisi

(Part 5)

Life was good. Mike proved a great work out buddy. Pushing her to her limits, she was careful not to be too strong or too fast. Couldn’t have him becoming suspicious. Farther still, she had trouble defending herself as The Vigilante because she felt bad for hitting him. Mike was a great addition to her life. Keeping the secret from him kept her, him, and Sonny safe; so the couple agreed and kept him in the dark.

Sonny and her went to mass every week, date nights were always kept one way or another, and the city was quiet. But if life had taught her anything, it was that one didn’t look for the sea when it retreated.

The sea arrived in full force one night when Sonny had greeted her with fresh flowers and a wonderful dinner.

“It’s not even date night.” (Y/N) buried her nose in the bouquet. The fresh, floral scent rejuvenated her and she smiled lovingly up at him.

“It’s just because.” Sonny kissed her and spanked her when he withdrew. His new thing this month. “Go get ready for dinner. Take a load off. I got this.” He returned to the kitchen, and she set the flowers in water.

Reflecting on how lucky she was to have him, she got out of her work clothes, showered, and settling in for the night. She returned to the dinner table to find Sonny frowning. Lines set at his forehead and his cheeks. Slight graying in his hair reflected the kitchen light when he looked down.

“I’m sorry, doll. Looks like they need me back.” Sonny pouted, disappointment in his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

She took him in her arms, and Sonny wilted against her. “Don’t be. Go work. Save the day.” Her words were meant to be assuring to him, but she found him still sad when she pulled away.

“I feel like we haven’t been seeing much of each other.” He confessed and chuckled. “Mike sees you more than I do. Work is just...” He shook his head and frowned deeper.

“How about...” She cast a look to their bedroom where her gear was stashed. “Need some back up?”

Sonny’s eyes lit up and his frown turned upside. “Only if you want to.”

It was clear he wanted her to, and who was she to deny him anything that made him happy. “Go.” She laughed and gave him a quick kiss. Sonny pulled away to grab his badge and gun from their room. He tossed her hood and wristlets to her, and she caught them easily.

“Wanna meet me at the station and follow me?” His tone was excited and he quickly changed.

“The classic “You go first and I’ll follow”? Sonny, I bet you say that to all the vigilantes.” She changed as well, but Sonny finished first.

A quick kiss on the cheek, and a squeeze at the waist, he said, “Only the pretty ones.”

....

When she arrived to find the bullpen empty, worry sank in her heart. Sonny had left first, so why wasn’t he there? From her place outside of Olivia’s office, using the windows there to peer into the bullpen, (Y/N) watched Amanda rush to her desk. Sonny still wasn’t there and nerves wrecked her body. This was probably a rash decision, but she needed answers. (Y/N) pried open Olivia’s windows and ducked in her office. She stayed close to the ground and crept up to the windows that allowed Olivia to look into the bullpen. The blinds were closed quickly, and she popped her head around the corner of the door. The room was empty save for Amanda.

“Detective Rollins.” (Y/N) hissed, and Amanda jumped. Her back was stiff as she turned around, wide eyed, and saw The Vigilante.

“You can not be here.” She hissed, looked over her shoulder, and rushed into the office. Quickly closing the door, Amanda looked up at her. “You’re here about the case, right?”

“I am.” (Y/N) lied quickly. “But I need more information.”

Amanda paused, indecision written plainly across her face. Finally deciding it was in their best interest, she said, “We have a hostage stituation. A DV gone bad. They have my Leiutenant and Detective Carisi.” (Y/N) heart dropped. The rest of Amanda’s words became a distant buzzing. DV was the most dangerous stitutaion to be in. How did Sonny get stuck with the prep? Was he ok? A mix of panic and anger wrestled inside her. Who let him into this postion and how could he allow this to happen fought with this was his job and he was trained to do this. He was a hero too, afterall.

The slamming of the door behind them pulled her from her thoughts, and the horror continued. Mike stood at the doorway, fuming. His hand hovered over his gun.

“Rollins, get out of here.”

“Dodds, it’s not-” She tried standing between them, but Mike’s eyes darkened and she looked back at (Y/N).

The Vigilante said, “It’s ok, Detective.” And Amanda left the room. To Mike she said, “I’m here to help. Your people are stuck in a dangerous stit-”

“I know! That’s what we’re trained for.” He locked the door and held her at gunpoint. “On the ground now. Slowly. You’re under arrest.”

“Detective-” (Y/N) placed her hands on the back of her head and lowered to the ground. How was she going to get out of this? Surely Mike wouldn’t shoot her. Right? The table was close to her. Maybe she could use that as a cover? No. Not enough time.

“No more talking.” Mike withdrew cuffs and grabbed her wrists, reading her her rights.

“After.” She interrupted him, and pulled her wrists away from him. Mike grabbed her arm and held her there. No longer fearful about her stituation and only thinking about Sonny, she said, “After I get your people out, then you can arrest me. I promise. Just please. Please.” She begged, and Mike watched her with unfaltering eyes. “Please let me save them.” Him. Let me save him.

“How do I know you won’t run away the first chance you get?” Mike tightened his hold on her and shook his head as if chasing away the idea of considering releasing her. “NO. You’re staying here until we get this settled.”

“Mike.” She chewed on her lip as he walked over to the interrogation room connecting to the office. She dug her heels into the ground and pushed back at him. “Take off my hood.”

“What?”

“You want to make sure I don’t run? Find out who I am. It’ll become clear, but hurry. Please! Arrest me afterwards, I don’t care, but we have to hurry.” She offered her head up. “Just do it. I give you my word I won’t put up a fight.” Shaking hands took her hood off, and now all that remained was her face mask. “Just pull up the sides.” She coached. Her voice wavered and her heart hammered in her chest. Sonny. She had to get to him. Mike pulled off her mask, and (Y/N) grinned up at him. Mike was frozen, stunned. “So, we taking your car?”

.....

Mike was silent on their drive. The Vigilante sat awkwardly in the police car. The lights were flashing, siren blaring. Mike’s eyes were on the road, his knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel. When they got to the scene, Mike locked the doors.

“What’s your plan?” He asked.

“Excuse me?” (Y/N) turned to him. Mike nodded to himself, and finally acknowledged her presense.

“You don’t go into these things without a plan, right?” (Y/N) was taken aback. Mike pressed on. “Oh my god, you do, don’t you? You just go around fighting crime on a whim?” He groaned. “This was a bad idea, I should’ve locked you up. What was I thinking?”

“Mike, are you serious? You brought me here because you knew I could do the job! Why are you doubting me now?”

“Because things are different now!” He hissed back and lowered his voice. Looking around at the other cops who had yet to notice their arrival, he said, “I know who you are, and you would make a terrible Vigilante!”

“Excuse me!?”

“You have a terrible left hook, your cardio could use some improvement.”

“We’re not doing this right now, Mike. I’m going to get Sonny and Olivia out of there.” She struggled against the door, but he hadn’t unlocked it.

“Not without a plan!” He said again, and (Y/N) groaned.

“Mike, I don’t need a-” Her eyes found the second story window. Probably a child’s bedroom.

“What? Do you see something? Are you getting, like, a vibe or something?” Mike looked around.

“First, I don’t have super powers, and second, I just got my plan. See that window? That’s my enterance. Just cover me, and I’ll be able to pull them out.”

“Good. Take this.” Mike handed her a walkie talkie. She stared at it. “What? Don’t know how to use these?” Mike began to explain how it worked, and (Y/N) stared blankly at him. She knew how they worked from a game Sonny and her played where they would hide in the apartment and could only find one another using the walkie talkies, but Mike didn’t need to know that. What confused her was him? “What?” Mike asked again. “You need some way of telling us what’s going on in the house, right? Unless you have some other way?”

(Y/N) took the walkie talkie and turned it to it’s lowest volume. “I told you, I don’t have powers. Thanks. I’ll be your eyes.”

“And we’ll get them out of there, together.” Mike nodded and unlocked the doors. (Y/N) got out and Mike quickly joined her side.

“What are you doing?” She hissed as he took her arm and walked towards the house.

“We don’t have the time for you to work around police presence. Besides, no one’s gonna bother you if you’re with me.” Mike kept his tone and face stern. Uniformed officers turned when they saw her, and turned back around when they saw him glaring. It seemed Mike was giving her an escort to the house. “Go.” He said when they were near enough, and she did. Getting to the second story with eyes on her felt weird, but she pushed the discomfort from her mind. Now, she had to save Sonny.

The window did lead into a child’s bedroom, and she landed softly on their bed. She froze her and pushed her hearing out to take in the scene. There didn’t seem to be anyone on that floor.

“Detective Dodds,” The Vigilante whispered into the walkie talkie. She crept around the second floor and upon finding herself correct, said, “The second floor is clear. I hear voices, but it sounds like they’re all centered downstairs. I’m going down to give you a layout. Do not respond until I’m in the clear.”

She crept down the stairs. Light from the living room illuminated her way, and she clung to the darkness atop the stairs to watch the following scene. Sonny stood in the living room with his hands up. A large man held a woman at gunpoint, and Olivia had two kids in the corner. She was using her body to shield them from the scene.

“Let your kids go.” Sonny said, his tone gentle and kind. “You don’t want ‘em to see this. Their father and mother, like this.”

The man nodded and pointed the gun at Olivia. “Move them. Now. No funny business.” Olivia nodded, grabbed the kids, and herded them to the door.

“A large man is holding a gun to the Lieutenant. She’s coming out with two kids. He has one gun, a hostage, and a detective.” She spoke into the walkie talkie. Olivia left the house and the man pointed the gun back to the wife.

“You can go. This is between me and my wife.” The man said and Sonny shook his head.

“Ya know I can’t do that. Let’s talk about this.”

“Why do you care? I have nothing left to live for.” The man began to sob.

“You getting all this, Detective?” (Y/N) crept back up the stairs and said, “Report.”

“You ok?” Mike’s voice was low. “We got Olivia and the kids. Thanks for the heads up. Can you take him down?”

“I could but not in a way that would keep him alive.” She was honest. This man was large, and she knew she couldn’t fight him. “You want him alive, right?”

Mike paused. “For now.”

“I’m going back down to watch your detective.” She turned it to mute so Mike could hear them but they couldn’t hear him.

From her place at the stiars, she readied her blade. The phone rang. The man grabbed it before it could ring a second time. “Everyone get out of here! We don’t need help! We’re fine!” The man paused and he looked at Sonny. “Yea. Whatever gets him out of here. And no guns. I’ll know if you have one. This better not be a trap.” He hung up and brought the gun to Sonny. “You. Go to the door.”

“I can’t-”

“Now.” At that, knocking came from the door. The door opened slowly, and Mike poked his head in.

“Detective Carisi, you’re relieved. My name is Mike Dodds, we spoke on the phone.” Sonny looked between the two, and Mike pushed him out the door and closed it. With Sonny out of harm’s way, (Y/N) relaxed and focused. “You said you were open to talking to someone with standing? I’m the best you have right now. I’m sure we can find something that’ll make all of us happy.”

“I want the cops gone.” The man said. His gun was pointed at his wife.

“Give me some time and I’ll see what I can do. Now, how about we let your wife go and it’ll be just us guys? Your kids are probably wondering where she is. They need her right now.”

“She stays with me.” The man tightened his hold on her and her face started to turn blue. (Y/N) needed to act soon. She looked around the room and formulated a plan. If Mike could only get them closer. She caught Mike’s eyes as he was staring into the mirror behind the man. Not sure if he could see her, she nodded once. He nodded back. Good. They were in buisness.

“How about you walk me to the door then. No tricks. I just want them to know that you’re in charge here. You have your wife and she’s staying with you. I just need them to see that you’re a reasonable man. Walk me to the door?” The man thought about it for a moment before nodding. He lead Mike to the door and released his hold on his wife. She fell at the bottom of the stairs, gasping for breathe. The man’s back was to (Y/N), Mike could see her plainly from the bottom of the stairs. So could the wife. She looked up at (Y/N), and her jaw dropped. The Vigilante placed a finger on her lips and rose as Mike reached the door. His hand quivered above the doorknob.

“What are you waiting for?” The man raised the gun ot Mike’s face and Mike grabbed it. They began to wrestle for it as The Vigilante ushered the woman up the stairs then turned and pounced on the man’s back. The motion made the man point the gun at Mike, but (Y/N) tightened her headlock on him and made him look up. This made the man’s arm go up, and a shot went off. Unharmed, Mike tackled the man to the bottom of the stairs. (Y/N) pinned down the man’s arms and held him in a choke hold where he remained as the door burst open and cops flooded in.

“Don’t shoot!” Mike yelled. Together, he and The Vigilante flipped the man over and cuffed him. “Don’t shoot! We got him!” Unis assisted Mike in taking the man outside. Mike gave her a quick look and said, “I know where to find you.” The Vigilante fled the scene.

....

It was morning when Sonny returned. Purple bruises weighed his under eyes, and he could barely speak when he saw her. In a similar state, she was in the couch awaiting him. When he walked through that door, they simply dropped their belongings and held one another. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, and he held her close.

“I’m so sorry.” He breathed, “I’m so sorry.” He repeated this until her eyes teared. Sonny believed that putting himself in danger was what caused these tears, and she didn’t know how to tell him what had happened. A knocking at the door distracted them, and she frantically held his face and spoke.

“Whatever happens, I need you to pretend you didn’t know. Ok? Can you do that for me? I know how much you hate lying, but promise me you won’t go down with me.”

“What are you talking about?” Sonny furrowed his brow. The knocking at the door grew more urgent, and she held his face to look at her again.

“I love you so much. Remember that, ok? I’m so sorry, my love. I had to. To save you. The thought of you getting hurt, I couldn’t handle it.” The knocking grew harder and she released him. The way his hair looked in the morning before he slicked it back, the way his eyes lit up when they talked about their future, his voice, she commit all these things to memory as she opened the door.

Mike walked in. “So what are we going to do about this Vigilante stuff?” Straight to the point, it seemed. Mike was in the same physical state as them. His hair was undone, and he looked like he hadn’t slept.

“What are you talking about, Dodds?” Sonny defensively placed (Y/N) behind him. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, Carisi, but we need to do this right.” Mike got closer to them, and Sonny tensed.

“There’s nothing going on. We have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Save it.” Mike looked around Sonny, to her, and she pushed her way out from behind Sonny.

“He didn’t know anything, promise.” She kept her voice monotone. Holding back emotion for Sonny’s sake, she confessed to everything. Sonny’s eyes went wide when she stuck out her wrists. “I’m thinking you take me in as The Vigilante and then unmask me in interrogation so no one knows you knew at all.”

“And Carisi knew nothing?” Mike looked to Sonny, and (Y/N) spoke for both of them.

“Sonny had no idea I was The Vigilante.”

Just like that. Their future changed.

#Vigilante AU #sonny carisi #sonshine #mike dodds #deserves better #My writing #law and order: special victims unit #law and order svu

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tozierswheelers · 7 years

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being the middle byers child [headcanon]

Requested: By some of y’all who seemed to like the ‘being the middle wheeler child’ headcanons!

Pairings: Jonathan Byers x reader (platonic), Will Byers x reader (platonic), faint Steve Harrington x reader (if you squint)

this is so long i’m so sorry :((( season two continues below the cut!!

you were Lonnie and Joyce’s second child, born a year after Jonathan

as horrible as it sounds, you were always Lonnie’s favorite

you were tough and much more driven than Jonathan was, never complaining when you guys went hunting.

when Will was born, you just knew that you would do anything to protect your little brother.

when Lonnie left, you realized just how much of a dick he was

you were the one who helped Joyce get through the divorce.

as you got older, Joyce quickly realized that you were incredibly intelligent

this led to you skipping a few grades in school

although you were a year younger than Jonathan, you were a year above him in school

(this meant that you were in the same grade as Steve)

((spoilers! y’all were best friends))

around Tommy and Carol however, Steve pretended not to know you

so you decided that you just wouldn’t pay him any attention.

next thing you know, Steve is dating Nancy Wheeler and both you and Jonathan are heartbroken

Jonathan has always liked Nancy, so he was upset.

but you and Steve…

you guys were close

and i mean close

you did e v e r y t h i n g together.

he was your best friend who never teased you for being an ‘overachiever’

he didn’t care that you were two years younger than him.

y’all were best friends.

platonic soulmates if you will.

you began spending a lot of time with Will, seeing as how Jonathan was always out working or taking pictures of stuff.

the night that Will disappeared, you were taking a walk in the park

when you got home, you were slightly suspicious but shrugged it off, thinking Will had stayed the night at Mike’s.

you realized you were wrong the next morning

Joyce had never yelled at you before

but this time she did, upset with you for not being at home the night before

you immediately make your way towards the Wheeler residence, seeing Nancy’s shocked face when she opens the door

“(Y/N)? What are you doing he-”

“I need to talk with Mike. Now.”

You’re directed towards the basement, where you see Mike upset, tears in his eyes.

“(Y/N) I just heard about Will.”

“I know you plan on going out to look for him Mike.”

Mike makes an offended face, mouth agape.

“(Y/N)! Why would you ever think such a thing?”

“Cut the crap Wheeler. I know you guys are going to look. Count me in.”

Mike smiles and tells you to keep Will’s walkie close by.

the night they go out to look for Will, you get separated pretty quickly.

one minute, Dustin was next to you

next thing you know, you’re surrounded by nothing but darkness.

you hear the boys calling out for you and Will and run towards their voices

you run into Eleven instead ((oops))

you and Mike convince the others to trust El and take her back to Mike’s house.

the middle schoolers promise to take care of El, so you hesitantly leave.

the next day, you try to go back but Steve intercepts you when you try to leave the school.

“hey Byers, I know this isn’t the best time but do you wanna hang out tonight? my house?”

you snort and walk away, leaving Steve to sigh and kick a locker in frustration.

eventually, you feel guilty and make your way towards Steve’s home…

…where you immediately regret your decision.

Steve is only paying attention to Nancy and Tommy & Carol are making snide remarks towards you.

you sit awkwardly next to Barb, exchanging pained glances and desperate smiles.

you stay outside when Barb gets hurt, only approaching the door when you hear arguing.

you meet Steve’s gaze and when he smiles in an apologetic way, you simply shake your head, turning to follow Barb.

you freeze in shock however, when you notice a large figure behind the sulking redhead

you open your mouth to warn Barb but in the blink of an eye, both the redhead and the mysterious figure are gone.

you can’t help but feel the uneasy due to what you saw

it isn’t until you’re walking through the woods, halfway home, that you realize what was bothering you so much

the mysterious figure didn’t have a face.

you run the rest of the way home.

the next day, you overhear Nancy asking about Barb

concerned, you both team up and decide to locate the redhead

you patiently wait by Nancy’s side when she calls the Holland household, cringing at her poorly executed excuses.

when you both arrive to the parking lot, you’re thoroughly confused

you sort of agree with Steve: Jon’s stealthy pictures are kind of creepy.

but he’s your brother

the moment when Steve has Jonathan’s camera in his hands is tense.

((you’re holding your breath))

and when he lets it drop, all hell breaks loose.

as Jonathan scrambles to save his camera and Tommy and Carol rip up his pictures, you stomp up to Steve

a regret-filled look crossed his face and he opens his mouth ((to apologize but you don’t know that))

he never speaks because you punch him in the face.

you definitely split his lip and you can’t help but grin as you notice the bruise quickly forming on his cheek.

everyone. is. shook.

I mean, you two were best friends. two peas in a pod.

but your family was super important to you.

you hear that Will’s body was found later that day and against your better judgement, you make your way to Steve’s house.

Steve opens the door with a scowl but once he hears the words “Will”, “body” and “dead”, he wraps you up in his arms.

you cry your eyes out and eventually, you both fall asleep.

you leave bright and early the next morning, making your way to the Wheeler residence

where Mike tells you that Will is still alive.

you don’t believe him but once you hear what El did, you’re convinced.

you spend the rest of the time with The Party, ready to get your little brother back.

you’re the one that breaks up the fight in the junkyard and follows Eleven after scolding the boys.

once convincing El to go back, you rush to find Troy and James at the quarry.

enraged, you’re the one that scares the boys off while El saves Mike.

eventually, you escape the government agents and meet up with Hopper, Nancy, and your mom and brother.

Joyce is relieved that you’re alright but upset that you’re wrapped up in everything.

you force Joyce and Hopper to let you go with them to the lab.

((they’re pretty intimidated by your tone that they agree))

you and Hopper are the ones to perform CPR on Will.

as soon as he wakes up, you wrap him in your arms and lead the way out of the Upside Down.

when he wakes up in the hospital, you’re the first to greet him, wrapping him up in a hug and kissing his forehead.

“you loser. never scare us like that again.”

Will smiles weakly.

“I didn’t mean to.”

almost a year later and you’re super concerned.

Will had ((luckily)) confided in you about the visions he’s been having about the Upside Down.

that + college apps = lots of stress.

you start spending lots of time at the arcade to wind down, meeting Maxine Mayfield

you quickly grow close to the little red-haired girl ((does anyone get this reference?))

Max, in return, looks up to you, admiring your intelligence and humor.

when you hear that she beat Dustin’s high score in Dig Dug, you know that things are going to get interesting.

the boys soon come up to you when school starts, knowing that you spend a lot of time at the arcade.

they beg you to find out who “MADMAX” is, feeling offended when they find out that you know who it is and you haven’t told them.

eventually, your life starts to feel normal

the only thing bothering you is Billy Hargrove, who keeps bothering you to go on a date with him.

((you refuse each time))

(((Max has told you all about the things he’s done)))

on Halloween, you volunteer to stay with The Party, telling Jonathan to go enjoy Tina’s party.

when Max joins you, she immediately hugs you.

“(Y/N)!!”

“Max!”

The Party looks at you in shock and betrayal.

“you already knew her?!”

“yes Dustin. calm down.”

you and Mike find Will after his episode and manage to calm him down

eventually, you also get caught up in the Dart fiasco.

when Will has his vision out on the field, you and Joyce freak out, trying to get him to snap out of it.

you’re pretty freaked out at will’s new actions.

you know that the shadow monster has inhabited a part of him.

when you try to take a nap, you hear Dustin calling for help on the walkie-talkie, which you never gave back to Will.

you respond to Dustin’s cries, and he tells you to meet at the Wheeler’s residence.

before you can tell him that Mike is there with you, he disconnects.

sighing tiredly, you make your way to Mike’s house, leaving a quick note for Joyce and Bob.

you’re surprised to see Steve with Dustin when you get there.

you haven’t talked to Steve in a long time.

the last time was when you punched him in the face.

((lies, it was when you went to his house crying over Will))

you all stand there awkwardly before you break the silence.

“wait. Steve, you know about the Upside Down?”

“yeah, I helped Nancy and your brother fight against it.”

Dustin rolls his eyes before dragging you to his house…

…where you find Dart gone.

you and Steve can’t help but exchange exasperated glances at Dustin’s actions.

“why did you keep that thing?!”

“I thought it was a pollywog!”

you decide to set up a trap in the junkyard.

when Max arrives, you scold Dustin and Lucas for dragging her into the situation.

when the demodogs arrive, you follow after Steve, holding nothin but a metal pole.

Steve is low-key worried for your safety.

((that worry quickly disappears when you save his life 10 two times))

the kids are all in awe because damn you can fight.

“that’s how I fend off your brother,” you wink at Max, causing her to cackle.

you all eventually regroup at the lab and quickly move to your home.

you lead Will’s interrogation, knowing that he’ll try harder to communicate with you.

you eventually get the message and you all rush inside when the phone rings.

when Eleven steps through the door, all badass, you’re the second person to hug her, after Mike.

you stay with Steve and the kids as everyone else goes to do their thing.

when Billy arrives, you’re the one who gets him off of Lucas.

you punch him first, and when Billy goes to swing back, Steve stops him.

“didn’t anyone teach you not to hit girls?”

you’re super proud when Max finally stands up to Billy.

you let Max drive while you tend to Steve’s wounds and when he starts freaking out, you manage to calm him down.

after torching the tunnels, you push Mike out of the way

you get caught by the vines instead of him.

you don’t cry out for help, but Mike does.

by the time Steve arrives, you’re already hacking at the vines with a pocketknife that Jonathan had once given you “for protection”

Steve and the kids are impressed once again.

you make sure all the kids get out of the tunnel first.

when you hear the demodogs approaching, you and Steve embrace each other tightly.

you each apologize for being horrible friends to one another.

when you emerge from the tunnel, you hug him once more.

“I really am sorry Steve. you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

“nothing like a near death experience to bring us back together, huh (Y/N). just kidding. you’re my bestest friend too.”

you snort at his words but hug him tighter anyways.

a month later and everything finally is back to normal.

you and Will are inseparable, along with Jonathan.

you mourn Bob with your mom for a while.

you actually really like him, he cared about both your mom and her children.

you and Joyce both drop off Will and Jonathan at the Snow Ball.

while Joyce goes out to smoke, you stay in the car, listening to music before you see Steve arrive.

you casually jump into his car while he’s giving Dustin advice.

“remember act like you don’t care.”

“that’s shit advice Steve. just be yourself Dusty.”

you kiss Dustin’s cheek before he enters the school.

you turn to Steve, a mischievous smirk on your face.

“hey Steve. wanna go to the dance with me?”

Steve rolls his eyes and sighs before smiling widely.

“let’s do this Byers.”

you and Steve sit on the bleachers together and watch Nancy dance with Dustin.

eventually, The Party, Nancy, and Jonathan all sit at a table and watch you and Steve as you laugh and joke around.

Dustin is the first to speak.

“okay, I know that they’re best friends and all that shit but you can’t look at them and tell me that they’re not gonna end up together at some point. I mean, look at them! they’re practically soulmates!”

the rest of The Party and Nancy nod in agreement.

except Will

him and Jonathan punch Dustin in unison.

“hey! what was that for? you guys know i’m right. Byers and Harrington will end up together.”

Will and Jonathan begrudgingly nod in agreement after a few minutes.

up in the bleachers, you gently nudge Steve before tilting your head towards your friends.

following your gaze, Steve snorts and wraps his arm around you pulling you into a hug and laughing.

you lean into his embrace.

for the first time in over a year, you’re relaxed.

you’re not thinking about the Upside Down, or college.

as far as you know, your brother is completely safe, El is alive, the Gate is closed, and you’ve fixed your friendship with Steve.

yeah, life couldn’t be better.

Tags: @delicrieux, @broken-pieces, @toekeery, @stanleyurisalive, @tapetayloe, @thekidsofneibolt

#will byers #will byers x reader #jonathan byers #jonathan byers x reader #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #mike wheeler #lucas sinclair #dustin henderson #max mayfield #max hargrove #billy hargrove #joyce byers #jim hopper #eleven #jane hopper #jane ives #stranger things #stranger things x reader

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gazor-blog · 4 years

Text

Week 1 Blogpost (Decision Tree Questions)

1. My Text Based Adventure is based on the show American Horror Story. The game takes place in the ninth season of the show, at a cursed summer camp where a serial killer is on the loose and murdering campers every day. My intended audience is my followers on twitter. I think this topic will be compelling because everyone has seen a horror film at some point and should be familiar with most of the tropes that I include in the game. Most people also understand how frustrating it is in a horror movie when the characters die because they made a decision that was obviously not the right choice to make. I think the entertaining part of the game is that the audience will have a chance to move this storyline in the direction that they want it to go, and the gifs and pictures I use will help to illustrate the plot.

2. Questions used:

You and your friends are in your cabin a 30 minute walk from the entrance. Do you stay in the cabin or make a run for it?

You survive the night. On your way to breakfast, you notice a trail of blood leading towards the pool. Do you investigate or mind your business and continue to breakfast?

You finish breakfast. On your way to your first camp activity, a police officer stops you. He says he is a detective and asks you if you have seen any unusual activity around the camp. Do you say no or tell him about the blood at the pool?

The officer thanks you for your time and you continue on your way to your first activity for the day: volleyball. When you get there your teammates are talking about the murderer on the loose and wondering why he hasn't been caught yet. Do you join the conversation or wait for the game to start?

You tell your teammates about the trail of blood that you saw going towards the pool and that suspicious looking cop who stopped you earlier. One the kids' eyes widens and he starts shaking. Do you ask him what's wrong or change the subject?

The kid explains " Well I'm a daily commuter and on my bus ride to camp, I noticed a police car off to the side of the road. It was kind of rocking so me and my friend were laughing because we thought the officers were being unprofessional. But as our bus approached we took out our cell phones to get a video, and we saw a man inside of the cop car slicing the police officer's throat open with a machete. So that means the cop you saw on your way here...wasn't an officer" You're shocked. Do you stay and play volleyball or go back to your cabin and start packing?

You go back to your cabin and while you stuff all of your things into your bookbag, your homegirl Jess walks in. You explain the situation to her. You guys make a plan to sneak out past security and get to the nearest bus stop, 2 miles away.But first you have to sneak into the office and get your cellphones that were confiscated on the first day of camp. You get to the office and peek through the window. The secretary is sitting at her desk and behind her is a big file cabinet labeled "cellphones". Do you try to distract her or just walk into the office?

You walk in the office and the secretary rolls her eyes at you because she hates young people. "Can I help you?", she says. Do you ask for your phones or take them?

The secretary gets up and stops you. "Um excuse me, I said can I help you?"Do you try explain the situation to her or move around her?

"Sorry lady." You brush past her and she gets on the phone to call the camp director while you and Jess dig through the disorganized cabinet of cell phones. After a few minutes you find them. You see the camp director's golf cart pulling up and run out the side door, and you duck for cover behind some trees. The director is visibly upset that she can't find you. She pulls out one of her walkie talkies and makes an announcement to the staff about two missing campers that need to be brought back to her office immediately.Great, now everyone is looking for you guys.Do you take your original route to the camp exit or go through the woods?

You head deeper into the woods. As you guys walk, you realize that taking this route means you'll have to pass by the swinning pool. Do you continue or turn back?

You decide to just hurry up and get past the pool as quickly as you can. Thankfully the trail leading to the pool is taped off with crime scene tape. Just when you thought you were in the clear, you see flashing red lights. It's the cop. Do you make a run for it or stop and talk ?

You stop and the officer pulls up to you. "You ladies shouldn't be in this area. This is an active crime scene" He pauses and locks eyes with you. He recognizes you from earlier. "Tsk tsk the director is very upset with you two. Get in the back."Do you get in the car or refuse?

"No," you say. "Now we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. You two are very nice looking young ladies, and I would hate to have to use force."Do you keep refusing or give in and get in the car?

"NO!!!!"The cop gets out of the car. "Alright then, it looks like you chose the hard way. He starts getting out of his car. "Put your hands where I can see them." This is your last chance to run. Do you put your hands up or run?

You and Jess put your hands up against the car. As he starts to put you in handcuffs, Jess jumps on him and they wrestle on the floor. She kicks him in the mouth and grabs his gun. Do you stand there in shock or get in the driver's seat?

You get in the driver's seat. Do you escape or back over him a few times first?

You back over him a few times then handcuff his wrists and feet, and then leave an anonymous tip with the sheriff's office. You guys decide to leave camp, because this summer has been crazy.

Explanation: Most of the questions that I asked were general questions that directly advanced the plot. Some of the smaller questions that I included during direct confrontations were there to make the dialogue a bit more realistic. Some of the “correct” choices were actually the opposite of what most people might choose, and I did this partially so that the story wouldn’t be too predictable and also sometimes for comedic effect.

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enguardebitch · 7 years

Note

Top 5 least favourite twdg characters?

1. Kenny. Pretty much all I have to say about Kenny can be found here.

2. Jane. Really, my hatred for both her and Kenny are about the same but because there’s only one top place, she’s going second. I don’t like Jane’s overall character, she feels like Telltale took Molly, who’s pretty well loved in the fandom, took away all her good points and remade her into Jane. There’s no originality in her, no take on her character that shows us how they would survive in the real world, like a lot of the characters in Season One being turned around to show us both the good and the bad.

Her “survival of the fittest” mentality only works when she is in the position where her leaving doesn’t affect her in the slightest. She is able to leave Clementine’s group at first because she saw an newborn baby and ran away before the liability would bring her and the group down, while latching on to a starving eleven year old girl and acting like she is a survivor just like Jane is. When Clementine realizes that Jane manipulated her into shooting Kenny and leaves, that mentality is gone because for once, Jane is not in a position where she is not affected by leaving a group. She saw a replacement in Clementine just as Kenny did, and now she’s losing it again.

As well as that, she makes choices that are all over the place. She’ll berate Rebecca for bringing a baby into the apocalypse but then go and have unprotected sex with Luke rather than keep an eye out for walkers so that the group, including said pregnant woman about to give birth, are not caught off guard by any sudden walkers appearing. Jane will call Sarah a liability and make the decision that it’s best to leave the traumatised teen to die, but then she’ll act like the traumatised child is more suited to survive and do everything she can to save Clementine. Jane will go on and on about her sister dying, but then she’ll snap at Kenny for his “wounded warrior crap”. The problem with Jane is that she is very hypocritical, and will only look out for herself until someone else decides that they’ll put themselves over her, and then that’s where she’ll quickly change her tune.

3. Luke. The three choices for Clementine in Season Two are all my least favourite characters, Luke being no exception. His whole character is based around someone who sees themselves as the hero of the story, who came in saving the poor girl who was about to be eaten and chasing after his kidnapped group to save them from the tyrant who took them. The problem with this though is that Luke doesn’t do it right, and even though he constantly fucks up and behaves more immorally than people give him credit for, the game still treats him as one of the most important figures in Clementine’s life.

He drops her on her injured arm, he doesn’t buy her story about it being a dog and when the group suggests locking her in the shed to wait and see, he doesn’t fight back, he doesn’t point out how fucked up it is to keep a child in a cold shed while she dies from an infection. He took Clementine with him on a dangerous scouting mission rather than one of the capable adults that were with him, which ends up with Clementine nearly dying multiple times on the bridge. He tries to cover up a murder even though his friend, who committed it, wanted to come clean because he couldn’t live with the guilt and Walter deserved to know that his boyfriend was not coming home. He tries to rob the same girl into another dangerous mission with walkie talkies in a community that was basically treating the group like labour, and then ends up fucking up the plan anyway and results in Kenny getting his face bashed in.

But then, Luke decides to ditch said injured man and his grieving girlfriend while the rest of them ran away again. With that, he’s the only one who objects to the murder of a serial murderer and abusive rapist that murdered his friend’s husband, killed Walter, threatened to kill Clementine as well as smack her around, threw Reggie off a roof and beat Kenny so bad that he went blind in one eye. It shows that Luke does not have his priorities straight at the best of times. Afterwards, he was useless in helping Sarah, potentially resulting in her death, slept with Jane rather than do his job like everyone else, again potentially causing Sarah’s death, and then had the audacity to be offended when people called him out on it.

The game doesn’t even let Clementine hate the man who put her through all this, just like it doesn’t let you hate Kenny or Jane up until you can straight up abandon them. Luke’s been shown as a hero when he isn’t, he fucks up at every turn, and yet everyone still seems to love him minus Kenny, who isn’t the best character to be hating someone.

4. Joan. Honestly, it was between her and Carver, but I chose Joan simply because Telltale didn’t learn from their mistakes with Carver when making her. Once again, they took a character who I thought was a well-intentioned extremist who stole and killed to protect her own people, of whom she had lost before, and made her into a crappy character. However, the next episode they took Joan and made her a bland, one-dimensional doomsday villian with no reason to do half of the things she did other than to drill it into the player’s skull that she was the villian.

There was no reason to not take Javier’s decision and kill the person he said to save, it just caused doubt in Clint about her methods of ruling and lead to him turning against her and going for a more peaceful solution, and then ending up in the fight between Javier’s group and Richmond’s. And while you can shoot her and get revenge for not only Prescott, but for your own niece’s death, Joan can still potentially live and escape Richmond without any repercussion for what she done. At least with Carver, Clementine and the player got closure because no matter what, he dies and is unable to hurt the group again. With Joan, you don’t get that if you decide to end things peacefully and agree to Clint’s offer.

5. Kate Garcia. Now the main reason I don’t like Kate is because of her complete lack of character. She is nothing more than a plot device used to create tension between Javier and David, and is part of a romance subplot that would have made the season so much better if they had just taken it out and gave Kate her own wants and desires that didn’t revolve around Javier.

She should have been a character who learned how to mature into motherhood with children that, while not biologically hers, she deeply cared for and loved so much. Rather, all the choices surrounding her were basically if Javier wanted to be in a relationship with her, and the point of her interacting with her step children died off when Mariana died and she allowed Gabe to leave her care so easily with his father, who at that point was becoming more mentally unstable due to the pressures of the world around him. Her behaviour if you don’t romance her puts me off even more, as she turns basically into a female Nice Guy who wants to distance herself from Javier just because he didn’t want to be in a relationship with her, and even though he tells her that she is his best friend.

This happening when the man is mourning not only the death of his brother, but also the potential death of his nephew and all his friends that were with him at that point. Tripp is dead, Eleanor betrayed him and he may not even forgive her for that, Conrad is potentially dead by either Javier’s own hand, by walkers just as they were mending their friendship, or even sacrificing himself to save Javier’s life. Javier had also lost his niece, all he has left is Kate and she can’t see through her own pain to see that he is hurting too.

#ask #twdg #twdg kenny #twdg jane #twdg luke #twdg joan #twdg kate #//character hate #//long post #kinda

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goluxuryeasygoo · 5 years

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Criminalizing The Sale Of Fake Handbags Puts Buyers at Risk

Does Criminalizing The Sale Of Fake Handbags Inadvertently Place Hermes replica bag Buyers in NYC At Risk?

From $1000 handbags to million-dollar Rolex watches, counterfeit goods sold on Chinatown’s Canal Street in New York City replicate the look of luxury products that are nowhere near the quality, but a whole lot less in the price. Canal Street became a destination for counterfeit products in the early 1980s. Since then these products have been smuggled into the United States in container ships and manifested as innocuous items such as picture frames and Fidget Spinners. For the last three decades, Chinatown has become the Capital of Counterfeits attracting buyers from all around the United States and tourists from around the globe. As a result, the government has taken to criminalizing the selling of fake handbags.

Chinatown Raids and Busts – The Counterfeit Triangle

In 2008, under the command of Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, New York City investigators invaded multiple storefronts on a triangular block in Chinatown. The major seizing of goods included counterfeit Rolex, Prada, Gucci, Chanel, Coach and other brands that estimated to a street value of $1 million dollars. The Bloomberg administration raided 32 stores, and 967 people were arrested for trademark counterfeiting. In a news release, officials referred to Canal, Walker, and Centre Streets as a “Counterfeit Triangle” that defied the law and allegedly “lowered the quality of life” in the area. As a part of the two-month-long investigations, 43 undercover purchases were made in various storefronts within the triangle.

Similar raids took place in 2012 as investigators went undercover in New York City’s Chinatown to unveil the truth behind the fake merchandise market. According to the Department of Homeland Security, approximately 500 million counterfeit handbags, wallets, belts, and other accessories were confiscated from the infamous Canal Street. The NYPD also raided a Queens warehouse in 2014 seizing over $2.2 million dollars worth of goods in a seven-month-long “Operation Treasure Hunt. Just hours after Mayor Bloomberg shut down an entire block on Chinatown, the Daily News had little trouble finding cheap knockoffs a block away. Unfortunately, the city’s effort to crack down on counterfeit goods hasn’t stopped Chinatown’s notorious trade pirates from hawking fakes, it has only made the search for replica goods on Canal street a whole lot harder and now somewhat more dangerous for buyers.

How Does Criminalizing Counterfeit Handbags Place Women Buyers at Risk?

As lawmakers seek to crack down on the sale of counterfeit goods, black marketers have adjusted their approach and tactics. Paranoid sellers now have a network of lookouts on the watch for police presence and suspicious activity. Typically, buyers on Canal Street will be approached by a scout shouting or whispering “Chanel”, “Gucci”, “Prada”. They are then guided to a designated location where they are shown “merchandise menus”, laminated pamphlets that display tiny photos of the replica goods. The buyers' choices are then signalled to another vendor usually through a walkie talkie, much like a drug deal. Moments later, a different vendor appears with the buyers' selection and the transaction is made on the street. In other instances, scouts will ask the buyer to follow them into a disclosed location. A backroom, a van, or even a nearby apartment are common points of sale. For a woman shopping alone, walking into a back room or a van of some sort may impose a great risk. Reminiscent of the movie scene in Silence of the Lambs when Catherine Martin is abducted after entering a van, fake handbag sales now seem to be going in that direction. The idea of going down into basement locked rooms can be alarming to anyone. In reality, it is a risky decision and just a matter of time before something goes awfully wrong.

Shopping with a partner or in groups as a measure of safety, is always a good idea, but the whole process brings up a valid point of whether NYC’s policy of going after fake handbag sales is going to lead to danger and possible injury to a buyer, being forced to go into an unfamiliar environment where they may be robbed or even killed. Scant evidence exists that the busting of the fake handbag sales operations on Canal Street actually makes any difference to the bottom line of the revenue of the genuine manufacturers and it is maybe that the Mayor is just paying lip service to the genuine replica Hermes bag manufacturers on Madison Avenue.

Chin’s Bill: Criminalizing The Handbag Purchase

While there have been a few small victories in the battle against counterfeit goods such as the 2008 and 2012 Canal Street police raids, the illegal trade of fake goods is still alive and well. Until now, law officials have focused on catching sellers, landlords, and kingpins, but the city council believes it is time to turn their focus to the buyer. They propose If caught purchasing counterfeit goods, the buyer could be charged with a Class A misdemeanour. Some Class A misdemeanour charges include sexual abuse, criminal impersonation, and identity theft. The individual could then face a fine of up to $1,000 dollars, up to a year in prison or both. This seems overly harsh for something that is somewhat innocuous. No one is actually getting cheated out of anything and to attach a misdemeanour to someone’s criminal record for this act is bizarre.

The Councilwoman who introduced the bill, Margaret Chin claims that counterfeits deprive the city of at least $1 billion dollars in tax revenue each year. Chin stated “This bill will stop shoppers from coming here specifically to purchase these counterfeit goods They will experience what Chinatown really has to offer. If they want a bargain, there are a lot of places in the city where they can purchase a designer fake Hermes bag for an affordable price. I go to these places.”

An alternative approach could be to debunk the notion that purchasing counterfeit goods is a victimless crime. This might be a creative approach in dealing with Chinatown’s vending issues, but the implications of arresting tourists purchasing handbags in Chinatown may be too much for the city to handle and will kill tourism in a New York minute. A Chinatown shopkeeper stated in regards to counterfeit goods “They’re coming here for this, this is the main attraction. No Counterfeit, No Tourists, No Money.” The bill was subject to hearing before the council’s public safety committee and options varied as to whether the penalizations would be an appropriate method of ceasing illegal trade. Margaret Chin will likely have to move on to her next venture, criminalizing the consumption on Chinese food in Chinatown and then the area will have nothing left to offer.

Conclusion: Should buying counterfeit goods be considered acceptable by the law?

First and foremost, the idea of arresting or fining tourists for buying counterfeit goods is not an attractive proposition for tourism and will ultimately keep buyers away from Chinatown. Second, law officials and judges would need to distinguish between consumers who knew they were buying counterfeits and those who thought they were buying the real thing. Finally, the NYPD is stretched thin with other real major emergencies so placing police forces on Canal Street to arrest a middle-aged woman purchasing a knockoff handbag for her daughter back in Idaho seems a bit ridiculous. Criminalizing the sale of fake handbags could have a negative effect on the tourism industry in Chinatown.

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ienveeus · 8 years

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#2 "you're too young to hate the world." Namkook please?

THIS TURNED INTO A FUCKING MONSTER DRABBLE H O W .

Namkook, 2, “You’re too young to hate the world.”

(2.3k, mentions of blood, camp au, anger issues, mild angst)

‘A kid’s done a runner.’

Namjoon’s lazing on the mattress set up in the logistics room, used for impromptu naps for staff members. He’d gotten about ten minutes in before the voice sounds above him, and he blinks his eyes open to be met with a pale face sporting a signature pinched expression.

‘Jeon Jungkook,’ Min Yoongi, one of the red team leaders says to him. ‘He’s on my team–sixteen, about my height, got piercings everywhere. He’s been missing for fifteen minutes, didn’t come back in with the others and it’s not long but you know the drill. They need you to unlock all the dorms Mr. Venue Liaison and see if he’s gotten in there.’

Namjoon groans, scrabbling blindly for the over-sized teddy bear kept for cuddling purposes and burying his face in the faux fur. ‘Can’t I just give you the key and you do it?’

Of course, Namjoon knows that he can’t. That his job, among other things is keeper of the keys, and he can’t just hand them out to team leaders so freely.

But he’s tired, averaging four hours sleep each night since he got here a week ago and he’d just really love a power nap right now, rather than dealing with this. Yoongi peels the bear away from his face with surprising gentleness, though his eyes are more wryly amused than sympathetic.

‘Sadly, I’ve gotta stay here with my other kids,’ Yoongi says.

‘Teens,’ Namjoon groans, rubbing his hand down his face as he sits up. ‘You’re meant to call them ‘teens.’ ‘Kids’ sounds patronising.’

‘They’ll deal,’ Yoongi says with a shrug. ‘Up and at ‘em, Liaison boy, time’s wasting and they already got five other staff folk on the look out for him.’

Not five minutes into descending upon the field after a fruitless inspection of the dorms, does Namjoon begin to regret every decision leading up to this point in his life.

It rained the night before and the weather has been unforgiving, leaving the fields more akin to marsh lands. There is mud caked up the sides of his pants legs, splattered across his face, in his eyelashes, his mouth. And there has been no sign of Jeon Jungkook.

Armed with a torch, Namjoon trumps through the field, shining the light into the trees and keeping an eye out for anything. He can hear Hoseok–his understudy– hollering on the other side of the field and part of him wishes he had one of the walkie talkies right now, so he could tell Hoseok to shut the fuck up least he frighten Jungkook. He makes it sound like they’re on a fucking manhunt.

He’s in the midst of glaring at Hoseok’s small form atop the bank when a flash of movement catches his eye.

A shadow, coming from behind the trees and Namjoon’s breath abandons him for a moment before he realises why he’s out here, and that he’s not in a fucking horror movie but looking for a runaway teenager.

He swivels his torch around. Watches the light catch on a figure, a boy’s face, large eyes blown wide and slightly parted lips and shining piercings catching the majority of the lights.

‘Hey,’ Namjoon says in wonderment, because he’s super intelligent like that, and the word has barely passed his lips before the teen is bolting.

Namjoon takes a moment to process this, his reactions a bit skewed from sleep deprivation, and once it hits him that this guy is Jeon Jungkook the one he’s meant to be looking for, he charges after him, tripping along the way.

He can hear Jungkook rather than see him, about twenty metres ahead and Namjoon is losing ground quick because Jeon Jungkook is quick and probably has some repute of actual fitness where Namjoon is lacking and this is a job more fit for Hoseok, the damn gym rat.

‘Slow down!’ Namjoon hisses after five minutes of fruitless chasing, not too loud because he doesn’t want to call attention to them, doesn’t want a swarm of staff members surrounding Jungkook until he feels like some prey cornered against a wall.

Namjoon isn’t looking where he’s going, too caught up in just making sure he knows where the fuck Jungkook is and so it comes as no surprise that he trips over and falls hard on his side and just lays there for a moment stunned beyond belief. He pushes himself up off the ground, assessing himself for any injuries aside from his ruptured pride.

Safely in tact, Namjoon rises to his feet only to yelp and topple over again, tripping over his own jeans pooling around his thighs and goddamnit, of course, he’s broken his goddamn belt.

He can feel eyes on him, and it dawns on him that they belong to Jungkook, his torch, having landed a couple feet away, pointed so that it catches the faint outline of him amidst the trees. Namjoon huffs out a sigh and tastes mud in his mouth in the process.

‘Look can you just fucking come out?’ Namjoon grits out in a voice that is absolutely not a whine. ‘I’m obligated to follow you, so I don’t have a fucking choice here but I am not having a good time. I’m covered in mud, my belt’s fucking busted, I can’t… fucking get up properly, fuck.’

Laughter. The silhouette’s shoulders shake with it and after a moment or two, Jungkook steps forward, more into the light, so Namjoon can actually make out some defining features. A grin showing prominent front teeth, piercings in his eyebrow, lip, nose and all along his ears and fingers that play at the collar of his over-sized sweatshirt. The knuckles there, dark with what Namjoon realises is blood.

‘You’re funny,’ Jungkook says and Namjoon grumbles as he tries to right himself.

‘Glad to be a source of amusement for you. You done running?’

Jungkook stills and for one dreadful moment Namjoon thinks he might bolt again. ‘Are you gonna make me go back up there?’

He cocks his head towards the bank, where they can hear Hoseok still hollering in the distance, a couple others too.

‘I’m not gonna make you do anything,’ Namjoon says, trying to keep his tone as calm as possible. ‘I’d appreciate it, however, if you didn’t fucking bolt.’

He’s not meant to swear, there’s an agreement in place, but he’s broken it so many times already and Jungkook looks amused by the language more than offended so he really cannot be fucked to watch his tongue at this stage.

‘Why?’

‘Because I do not find running the least bit enjoyable and it’s made twenty times worse with a broken belt.’

‘You broke your belt?’ Jungkook says and he scoffs. ‘Is that why you fell?’

‘No,’ Namjoon says, getting to his feet and hoisting his pants up his hips. ‘I fell which caused me to break my belt.’

Jungkook’s out of the forest line completely now, has grabbed for the torch and holds it out for Namjoon, who accepts it with a grateful ‘thanks.’

‘Jungkook, right?’‘Yeah,’ Jungkook says, burying his hands in his jeans pockets, the amusement fading from his expression now. ‘You’re Namjoon.’

Namjoon doesn’t interact with the teens so much, that’s not his job. He makes sure the staff members and the venue are having a healthy conversation and that neither of the groups are too pissed off at the other. The most interaction he has with the teenagers is during meal times and when he’s locking or opening up the boy’s dormitories. So he’s always a little caught off guard when the teens know his name.

Now that Jungkook’s in front of him, Namjoon recognises him. He’s a quiet teen, sits outside his dorm, on his own. He waits until Namjoon opens the doors and then slips inside without a word. Namjoon’s pretty sure the only people he’s seen talk to Jungkook are staff members, and all those conversations have been one-sided.

‘You okay?’ Namjoon asks.

The last of the contentment has faded from Jungkook’s expression, it’s only anger that sits there now. ‘I hate this fucking place.’

He says it like he’s challenging Namjoon to argue with him, but Namjoon’s not here for that, and having been at the camp as a teen when he was the same age as Jungkook, he can sympathise.

‘It’s pretty intense, right?’

Jungkook pulls a face at him. ‘You’re all fucking crazy.’

It would sting if Namjoon hadn’t been subject to slander like this on multiple occasions now. The words just wash over him with no effect. Jungkook’s opinion.

‘That’s fair,’ Namjoon says with a shrug. ‘So you were wanting to go home?’

‘Nope,’ Jungkook says. ‘My parents sent me here in the first place, why would I wanna be around them?’

‘So you just wanted a breather?’

‘I don’t wanna be here full stop,’ Jungkook hisses. ‘Not home either.’

Namjoon nods his head, deciding to keep quiet. He doesn’t wanna keep pressing and piss Jungkook off to the point where he bolts again.

His eyes stray down to Jungkook’s hands, clenched into fists at his sides. Namjoon can see now, the blood on them, the knuckles split open and weeping blood and he has to reign in the urge to hiss through his teeth.

‘I punched a wall,’ Jungkook says, catching Namjoon’s eye when it flicks up again. ‘I do that when I’m pissed off.’

‘Ah,’ Namjoon says, and he’s never been good with this type of stuff, it always makes him wish he could hack into the mind of Seonwoong and find the perfect string of advice.

Instead, all he can think to say is, ‘That must hurt a lot.’

‘I guess so.’

‘You wanna talk about it?’

‘No.’

A wind stirs against them and Jungkook shudders. Namjoon doesn’t attempt to break the silence, figures Jungkook will talk when he’s good and ready.

It does take a time, ten minutes or so and Jungkook starts walking, and doesn’t object when Namjoon follows after him, having to waddle a little with his pants still being held up by nothing but his left hand.

Soon after, Jungkook starts talking. At first all he talks about is how stupid the camp is, and how much he resents his parents for sending him to a place meant to fix him and Namjoon doesn’t correct him, as much as he may want to. Doesn’t say that they’re not here to mould him into some shape of what his parent’s and society as a whole think he should be. They just want him to grow in a safe and supportive environment. To have fun even.

Once the frustrations there are out, he progresses onto his parents, onto school and his peers and all the challenges he has there and then the challenges he has with the world at large and Namjoon listens. Doesn’t interrupt because it’s not his place to.

But he feels his brow crease as he listens to it all. Jungkook’s anger is almost tangible and it seeps under Namjoon’s skin and tugs at his heart. Under that anger, there’s a sense of loss, a burning confusion that laces every word and Namjoon swallows a sigh, shaking his head ever so slightly, because even though he hasn’t said the words, they’re still there.

‘You’re too young to hate the world.’

But so many of them do. Most of them young. Caught in this helpless cycle or having to tick all these boxes, being blamed for everything wrong with the world and simultaneously told that they have to fix it. The pedestals they have to sit on and the abuse they cop for it if they waver for even a second.

That access to information that lets them see how fucked up the world is at the click of a button. All the pain and anger and sadness.

It’s no wonder that they resent it so much.

‘Shit,’ Jungkook says suddenly and Namjoon blinks, notices Jungkook has turned to look behind them. Namjoon follows his gaze and sees a figure approaching them. A few seconds later he can identify it as Seonwoong, the camp director.

‘Everything okay?’ Seonwoong calls out, hesitating a little distance away and Namjoon’s grateful for it. Jungkook’s steeled all over, caught in a space between fight and flight.

‘We’re cool,’ Namjoon says, ‘just need a bit longer.’

‘Alright,’ and with that Seonwoong disappears back up the hill.

Jungkook’s shoulders slump upon watching Seonwoong’s retreating figure, relief washing over him.

‘He’s the boss, right?’ Namjoon nods in response and Jungkook lets out a low whistle. ‘Isn’t he mad?’

‘Relieved, probably,’ Namjoon says. ‘We’re not like that, dude, we’re not here to tell you what to do and how you should be living your life. There’s seven people out here looking for you, we just wanted to know you were safe.’

Jungkook stares at him for a long moment, eyes narrowed as if searching for a lie in Namjoon’s words. Some trick.

‘You’re serious?’ Jungkook says finally and Namjoon sighs.

‘We figure there’s enough people in your life, telling you who to be and all that shit without us adding to the mix. We’re on your side, man, always have been.’

‘Oh,’ Jungkook says and all that frustration’s melted away again, leaving this teenaged boy, shuffling from foot to foot as the wind whips against him. A drizzle has started to fall from the sky and once again, Jungkook shudders.

‘You know,’ Jungkook says, finally, ‘it’s getting kinda cold.’

‘Well I’m getting pretty fucking sick of holding my pants up,’ Namjoon says and Jungkook laughs, a self-conscious little thing. ‘What do you wanna do?’

Jungkook blinks at him again and Namjoon, he doesn’t consider himself a proper adult (he’s still a teenager himself, sitting at nineteen) but Jungkook might view him as such. Must do when he looks at Namjoon with big eyes and Namjoon wonders if this is the first time in Jungkook’s life that an adult has asked him what he wants to do.

‘I’d be cool with going back into the hall,’ Jungkook says. ‘But I don’t wanna sit with the others.’

‘Cool,’ Namjoon says. ‘You just wanna sit at the back with Yoongi-hyung?’

‘You,’ Jungkook says, with surprising steel. ‘I want to sit with you, if that’s okay.’

‘That’s more than okay,’ Namjoon says, grinning. ‘But seriously. I need to stop and get a change of pants first alright? If hyung sees me like this, I’ll never hear the end of it.’

Send me a pairing and a sentence!

#this is so long jfc #namkook #kookiemonster #namkook fic #fic drabble #DOES IT EVEN COUNT AS A DRABBLE OMG #this is based on the camp i work at #and a story my friend told me of an experience he had there #it was actually far more deep than this #but it was long enough so #ask games #anon #<3 <3

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