#the most prominent and worst one being his first real friend shutting the door in his face | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

arcadialedger · 4 years

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Please note that I am most likely leaving this platform. I am done being abused. But first? We need to have a discussion. A discussion about hate and bullying in fandom.

All online-- I encourage you to read my story below. Reblog and spread awareness. The Dragon Prince fandom especially -- I implore you read my words, every single one of them. The short of it is that I am done.

This all began with losing and being blocked by a friend because I shared something they disagreed with. I don’t care what you feel about my initial reaction to this (which I’ll explain below) -- I’ve apologized for not handling the situation correctly. But I will not be shamed for speaking my mind and standing up for myself.

Because no human being deserves to go through what I have endured since last summer.

Following the “callout” post made about me by one of, if not the largest blogs in this fandom, I received hundreds of threats, harassment messages, and death threats. Messages and posts telling me to kill myself were also prominent, on a multiple times a week basis for awhile.

Messages from people who were well aware I have struggled with being suicidal. Due to one of their favorite Dragon Prince blogs speaking out against me, they thought it was okay to suicide bait me.

And it worked. I already struggle with hating myself, am already insecure, and being flooded with these comments which, while I made mistakes, did nothing to deserve, drove me to try and take my own life after years of progress in my mental health.

Mind you, this is like a 200 follower to 4k follower power dynamic. Which yes, plays a role-- because when you have a large following and influence, you have power. Yet the person behind this had the gall to claim Tumblr clout isn’t real.

People blocking and condemning others instantly at your word? Is power. If people read your words and are influenced, or have their minds changed, or buy or don’t buy something, etc.-- you are an influencer. You have power. And when you’re one of the largest blogs in a fandom, you have a LOT of power.

So take responsibility.

I was hurt because I lost a friend who I had chatted with for months, did a podcast with, and was generally not only one of my favorite blogs but the center of my experience in the Dragon Prince. I may not have been perfect in my words, but when I was asked why I was quiet/ inactive, I explained how I was hurting, anonymously. I was understandably in pain and upset. I had been cut off for just having a different opinion on a matter, for thinking differently. Even though it was within their rights to block and do so, it felt wrong and it weighed on me.

Is that such a crime?

The callout post and previously described abuse followed, lasting for months until later in the year (this began in June, or around then). It also included screenshots of tweets, when this user does not have Tumblr, and they have stated to have screenshots stored up on their computer of my various posts and interactions. This is creepy behavior, and freaked me out. I felt like I was being stalked, “evidence” being filed away for the very purpose of being used against me.

I eventually talked things out with the blog per recommendation of my therapist, and thought all would be fine. For a little while, it was. I largely stayed off of Tumblr to heal. Once in awhile I would have a rough, tearful night because something reminded me of what I lost, but I would make it through. Overall, I was making progress.

Then? My Twitter got hacked by one of the people sending me hate. For what had turned out to be much. And after they tweeted some purposefully incriminating and bigoted things to make me look bad, I came home from a weekend in the mountains to a shitstorm.

Twitter has a love hate relationship for me and I barely opened the app unless actively chatting with a friend. So when I saw 700+ notifications, I was surprised. It had never happened before.

I began to scroll through, and when I saw what had happened, I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

I had lost over half of my followers and a solid 60% of previous Twitter mutuals had blocked me. But worst of all, I had hundreds of hate tweets directed at me replying to the hackers tweets. Messages had been sent in DMs and accounts blocked, followed, and unfollowed as well.

If you have never felt that loss of agency-- that sickening feeling of words you never said next to your profile-- be glad. Because it is traumatic. I value my words. I value what I have to say. And having that taken from me was worse than anything I had been through here on Tumblr, outside of the suicide baiting (the most direct attack to me and my emotions/ insecurities throughout this entire ordeal). Further, this hacker had clearly stalked my tweets based on some of their comments.

Hundreds of tweets bashing me, calling me aphobic slurs (knowing I am asexual mind you, as it was in my bio), making fun of my appearance and targeting all of the insecurities which lead to my first suicide attempt in high school, and taking/ editing images of my face and mocking them. This all culminated in a doxing threat-- a doxing threat which made me feel unsafe on a campus I had already been sexually assaulted on. I was once again, after starting the healing process, thrusted back into the darkest time of my life and spiraled into anxiety and depression. I cried a lot overwhelmed by it all, had difficulty sleeping, and felt sick. I started fall semester and couldn’t concentrate on school. I was a mess.

I had once again been condemned, this time for something I had no part in. I tried to example what happened but nobody listened. I had been hung without trial. People were understandably confused, and my entire reputation on the platform, and my page, became a mess of lies, misunderstandings, and more.

If you don’t know the feeling of already hating yourself and being insecure, and having these beliefs reinforced and spread by hundreds publicly across the internet? Of already feeling lonely and unwanted and having the one space you thought you had taken from you? Consider yourself lucky.

I had a lot of voice actors and creators following me-- accounts I interacted and greatly cherished my mutual with. A handful of them unfollowed, understandably. This online hate mob was sending messages to people demanding they unfollow me, including some of these creators. They had no idea what to make of this mess or what was real and true and just didn’t want to deal with it. Most of the others just stopped interacting with me. @aaronwaltke (tagging so those who don’t follow already click and do so, because he is absolutely fantastic-- he’s a writer for ToA) who had followed me on the platform, graciously wished me peace with the entire situation after I checked to make sure he had not been subjected to messages or hate, either from my hacker or other accounts. His was the greatest compassion I got on Twitter, before I ultimately ended up just having to delete.

I lost podcast deals because of this with Adrian Petriw, Aaron Ehasz, and Justin Richmond. I do not blame them one bit and would have done the same in the confusion not wanting to get dragged into anything.

Only to have one of the friends I lost who helped start this interview these very people on their own podcasts. A slap in the face. A zine I had bought to support them came to my door, with the front page proclaiming to “spread a narrative of love.”

I was never granted that chance. That compassion. I had the vultures sent after me with no mercy. And anyone who has been through online abuse and systemic harassment knows just how much it feels like they’re slowly but surely picking at your flesh ( a metaphor I used in one of my old, since deleted posts discussing the situation, and still find accurate), wearing you down until you have no strength left.

Make no mistake, my story is not a one off situation. Many share the same tale of abuse and being driven off of platforms that once gave them great joy. These attacks are coordinated, systemic, and common hobby for these people-- who largely claim to be loving and accepting of all. They are a cyberbullying phenomenon which has risen with the presence of fandom on the internet. And I want to make clear, with current discussions of “cancel culture”, I mean nothing political in that statement. Some might call my experience cancel culture, but I don’t.

It’s just bullying. It’s just hate. These people get off on ruining people’s lives.

And my life was greatly set back and ruined. I had a stain on my past in fandom I could never be rid of. I had to shut down my podcast, took time off of all social media, and most of what I had built, most of my growth, was taken from me while those who incited and/ or spread hate thrived and continued to grow and find success. That was the greatest sting of all.

I asked the one previous friend who hadn’t blocked me, but had just stopped interacting with me (which I understood and respected, and also greatly respected her perspective, help, and support though this situation in which she largely unfortunately ended up in the middle) for help after explaining everything, and got nothing. They didn’t seem to care, and just blocked me on all platforms. Once in awhile, I would find I was cut off from yet another old friend, or a blog that I had never interacted with before but clicked into, interested. It hurt being cut off, unable to fully interact with the fandom, but I could move on.

That pain would never go away, but I made clear I did not blame them for the actions of those who abused, harassed, and threatened me. I also made it clear they did not owe me anything, including unblocking.

I just wanted to move on peacefully, but those with the power to enable that did not wish to help. I slowly, when I felt ready, began to be more active on Tumblr again, and once again the hate started up.

Sometimes when I was hurting, I expressed my pain and loss to my followers just to reach out, because I was sad. I had no idea how to rebuild from all that had happened. This got me more hate an accusations of emotional manipulation and gaslighting. I had no idea what to do, and got trapped in a cycle of needing to talk about it, and getting hate and backlash, but not knowing where else I could turn.

My doxer came back into my asks, ultimately making me switch schools, and refueled the drama. Speaking up about this got me more backlash-- mostly accounts reblogging (one with tags saying “fuck you”, despite not knowing the full story, and commenting and then blocking me so I could do nothing to respond or get it off of my page. I deleted all posts of the matter, as requested by these people (who validly pointed out they were in the main fandom tags, which I hadn’t thought of and understood), and hoped to move on.

But it hasn’t stopped. I have been beaten down and emotionally bruised for months. I have had my life and safety threatened, my education and by extension life path altered, and lost work (podcast) opportunities due to this-- alongside the irreversible emotional damage from trauma and abuse. My mental health issues and insecurities-- which I have been very open about to destigmatize the subjects and encourage conversation-- were actively targeted to inflict the most pain possible.

And I can’t even talk about it, without enduring more hate and accusations of “playing the victim”.

Death threats, suicide baiting, doxing, months of bullying and harassment to the most vile degree, which a lot of these people don’t know about because they don’t even bother to read my words. Yet I’m playing the victim.

And the accusations of bigotry and being hateful hurt, because it couldn’t be further from what is in my heart. I believing in love and acceptance of all. I don’t know how many are religious here, but I found God after my first suicide attempt and that is what his word has taught me.

I’ve been through too much in life to tolerate this, for lack of a more eloquent term, bullshit. I know what abuse and victim blaming looks like when I see it. And in my 20 years of life, I have gone through too much: constant ridicule and bullying, suicide attempts, sexual assault, major spinal surgery, to just be stomped over and not stand up for my right to basis human decency.

I refuse to put up with this, so unless I get an apology and some semblance of justice for everything I have been through, I am leaving. I will not participate in a space run by hate and toxicity. I will never claim to be perfect, and I have apologized for my mistakes and wrongdoings. Now, hold those who did this accountable. If you’re reading this you know very well who it was, and I am not naming them for those who don’t. Because at the end of the day I still send nothing but love and wish no ill will towards them.

But I’ll be damned if I don’t expect accountability of one of the greatest influencers in the fandom for their complacency in abuse, threats, suicide baiting, and and absolute ruining of my life and online experience. They enabled this and were well aware they had the power to stop it-- to ask their followers to stop-- and did nothing. They didn’t care-- about a human’s life and well being.

@dragonprinceofficial, are you aware that this is what many of the fans of your show, which preaches love and an end to the cycle of vengeance, do to others? That this is happening in your space? If you stand at all by the values you preach, condemn it. @staffTumblr/ @supportTumblr-- shame on you for allowing this abuse to happen and ignoring my reports. Shame on you for permitting these people to operate in your platform and for being okay with hosting hate. People have been driven to suicide on your website-- I am one of the lucky ones.

If you care at all about humanity and stand against this behavior, reblog and spread awareness. Share my story so I may not happen to anyone else. Tag @dragonprinceofficial until they notice and speak out.

This is my story, and so many others. Make sure it doesn’t happen ever again. No human being deserves to be treated how I was. Everyone deserves compassion, decency, and respect. And everyone deserves a place in fandom. Do better. If you want to reach out to me DMs are open, as well as my email, which is attached to my account. Until this change happens and I am given the support/ help needed to safely function on this platform, this blog will not be active outside of that.

Thank you all of the many accounts who have supported me, and I am working on getting back to all who have reached out! Your love means the world. You know who you are, and I don’t want to tag in case people come after you for showing me kindness. I am sorry if this is goodbye, to all that have enjoyed my blog. I enjoyed it for a long time too. I loved sharing my passion for stories, culture, having a space where I could analyze and discuss my favorite things. I loved getting to share what I had to offer with the world, having fun and posting jokes with my unique sense of humor. I loved interacting with intelligent people/ fellow fans and discussing my favorite stories, offering each other new insights and growing together. I loved the many, many kind and wonderful people who reached out to me in a variety of ways and provided support and friendship.

In the end, it just isn’t worth all of this pain and trauma, and I know when to put my foot down. I don’t want pity, I don’t want apologizes, and I’m not a martyr. I just want my story to make a difference-- to spur positive change in fandom culture/ spaces. I will be tagging all fandoms in which I have seen this kind of abuse present as well, to reach as many as possible.

Be safe, and be kind.

- The Arcadia Ledger/ Ryn/ Katie, signing off.

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gohyuck · 4 years

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5+9+23 ? With Jaemin.

originally requested by @heyyyun ! my tumblr kept glitching so i copy/pasted your ask into my askbox lol.

based on this post

this was a fun combo of requests lol... and the freaky friday things definitely threw me for a loop. it got lowkey nsfw really fast, too, so there’s that. outright female reader

ft. a horny jeno lmfao

5) roommates

9) freaky friday

23) i thought you hated me but i just accidentally sent you a booty text and you accepted and i am seriously considering it

you aren’t living with jaemin because you want to.

it’s something you make very clear to any and everyone you know - jaemin is your roommate out of your necessity, not out of your choice. he was the first and only person to answer the desperate ad you’d placed in the newspaper when you’d realized you wouldn’t make rent without a roommate, and, before you could find any other option, you were stuck with him.

now, you refuse to be gotten wrong: it isn’t like he’s the worst roommate ever. he can cook, and he cleans up well enough, and he’s never made a late payment. hell, he’s even courteous and about as well-mannered as any guy in his early twenties can get, so you can’t really complain on that front. he’s nice to your friends and always lets you know before having company over, and he doesn’t hesitate to ask if you need anything before he goes shopping for himself. he isn’t a bad guy, by any means.

what he is is an incorrigible and unstoppable flirt.

for his part, he isn’t too thrilled with you either - ‘my little prude’ seems to be his favorite go to nickname for you as of late, and you’d be lying if it didn’t bother you. still, you suppose, you aren’t too gentle in calling him a manwhore to his face. he only ever laughs, seemingly delighted to wear the title like a badge.

even now, you can hear the girl in your living room giggling at something your roommate has said, his own voice just a little too low for you to hear from the confines of your bedroom. he’d texted you during lunch to tell you he’d have a date over, and you’d sent him back four successive eyeroll emojis. he’d taken your annoyance as a ‘yes, please eyefuck your newest fling for two hours while sitting on the couch i paid for’ and now you’re stuck, crosslegged on your bed with your laptop at half mast and one earphone in, other ear listening to jaemin turn his charisma up to the highest it can go for what will culminate in, at most, yet another one night stand that’ll have you wishing for soundproof walls.

you sigh as she laughs again, followed by jaemin saying something along the lines of ‘let me pour you some more’. there’s a faint clink of glasses and a sudden lowering of their voices, and you decide it’s best if you put your other earphone in.

some things aren’t worth the mental scarring.

it’s almost two hours later when you finish with the essay you’re working on, pull your earphones out of your ears and place the case gingerly on your nightstand, and shut your laptop down for the night. you can’t hear anything from out in the living room, and, surprisingly, there’s no unsavory sounds coming in from jaemin’s room down the hall, either. maybe they’ve already had their fun, you ponder.

she’ll slink out of your apartment in the morning, you guess. maybe you’ll be nice and offer her pancakes on her way out.

you grab your phone from where you’d thrown it haphazardly onto your bed earlier. there’s plenty of text messages lighting up your screen, most of which you ignore. one catches your eye immediately, though.

from: jeno ;)

i’ve been thinking about you.

his text has you quirking an eyebrow, but as you scroll up to find the picture that accompanies it, you take a sharp breath, your teeth sinking into your lower lip on impulse.

you’ve been fucking jeno for weeks, but even now the sight of his prominent bulge covered only by thin gray sweatpants has your mouth watering. the two of you are good friends - surprising, considering he’s jaemin’s best friend - and you know what you have will never amount to a real relationship. it’s the healthiest you can imagine a friends-with-benefits relationship to be, and you’re grateful for it.

and for the sex. god, are you grateful for the sex.

you rush to change out of the ratty old band shirt and boy shorts you’re wearing, opting to switch them out for a lace set you’d bought recently that you’ve been dying to show off. you clasp the bra easily before you pull on the matching light pink underwear.

as you settle in front of the floor length mirror that leans against your closet door, you can’t help but let your thoughts wander to jaemin. his little prude, huh? you laugh to yourself, wondering how he’d react if he knew you got dicked down semi-regularly by jeno. just because you aren’t as obvious as he is doesn’t mean you aren’t getting any.

you switch positions until you find a pose that’s just right, capturing your bitten bottom lip, the swell of your breasts, and how the lace hugs your hips. before you can second guess yourself, you snap a picture.

if only jaemin could see you now.

you type out a short message - see something you like? maybe you should come over and look closer - and hit send, staring at your reflection for a bit longer before pushing yourself off the floor and back up onto your bed. it’s late, far too late for jeno to take you up on your offer, but it can’t hurt to ask. hell, maybe he’ll come over anyways. maybe you can make jaemin wish his walls were soundproof for once.

your phone vibrates in your hand, pulling you out of your thoughts of revenge against your roommate. you glance down, ready to respond cheekily to whatever jeno has said, and -

oh.

from: jaemin :/

fuck

yes

i wouldn’t mind, sweetheart. still, you could’ve asked in person. i’m only a door away, you know

your eyes widen in panic as you realize that, because you’d been thinking of jaemin earlier, you’d typed his name in and not jeno’s, resulting in you sending your honest-to-god nudes to your roommate. you rush to rectify your mistake, your fingers flying as you type a frantic response.

even as you hurry to tell him not to show up to your room naked, which you’re very afraid of him doing whether he has a girl over or not, a voice in the back of your mind can’t help but perk up.

i mean, jaemin is kind of hot, it says, actively laughing at your predicament. you wouldn’t mind being underneath him as he-

"shit!” you hiss out loud, acting as if swearing will distract you for your own thoughts. you press send, cursing the universe for causing your life to lead up to this moment as you do.

to: jaemin :/

FUCK they weren’t meant for you

please delete and pretend this never happened

+ don’t you have someone over????

his response comes quickly, and you brace yourself to read them.

from: jaemin

lol PLEASE as if you have someone to sends nudes to

but yes i’ll delete :(

she left like an hour ago, not really my type

for the sake of your sanity you choose not to respond, only liking his message about deleting the picture you’d sent. you switch out your lace set for the clothes you’d had on earlier, not even bothering to respond to jeno as you’d meant to earlier. as you put your phone on charge and turn out your light for the night, you do your best to force yourself to sleep.

hopefully, this whole ordeal will have blown over in the morning.

♕ ♕ ♕

the first thing you notice when you wake up is how insanely bright the sun is. the white curtains on your window do nothing to stop the light from pouring into the room, and you - wait.

white curtains?

you look around, taking in the beat up ryan plushie on top of the bookshelf in the corner of the room and the gaming chair at the desk. as you become more and more awake, your setting makes itself obvious.

once you realize it, you bolt upright, wondering what the hell you’re doing in jaemin’s room, especially when jaemin is nowhere to be found. you know you don’t sleepwalk, and you know for a fact that you’d fallen asleep in your own bed.

it’s only as you swing your legs out of bed and happen to glance down at them that you realize what has happened.

before you can say anything, however, you hear a voice - your own voice exclaim a loud ‘what the hell?’ from down the hall. you rush out of your - jaemin’s - room, only to immediately run into what looks to be your own body.

“(name)?” it says, and you gulp before nodding.

“jaemin?”

♕ ♕ ♕

“look,” you say, pinching your - jaemin’s - nose bridge. “we’ve been arguing for like an hour, now. it’s obvious that neither of us know why this happened, so we might as well try to figure out what we can do to make it un-happen!”

“it’s because you sent me that nude,” he says, running a hand through his - your - hair. “the universe reset itself out of shock at seeing you do something remotely sexual.”

“if i was in my own body, i’d kick your ass right now,” you swear, pushing yourself up off of the dining table which you’d been leaning against. you take a threatening step towards jaemin. he laughs.

“if i was in my own body, i’d... i’d probably be jerking off right now, to be honest. i miss my dick.”

you wince in disgust, staring down at his - your - face. “better not be to my picture.”

he shakes his - your - head at this, though not without raising his eyebrow at you. “i’m not a complete asshole - i deleted when you asked me to.”

“thank you,” you respond, not sure what else is to say. jaemin nods sagely before a grin starts spreading across his face.

“you know, maybe we have to recreate last night to fix it. do the same things, you know? who was the message meant for last night? maybe i’ll send them another one today.”

the thought of jaemin taking nudes of your body makes you feel dizzy in both bad and good ways. you realize he actually expects you to tell him, and you find yourself shaking your head no in response.

he quirks an eyebrow of yours.

“what, don’t want me to know? it’s not like i’ll tell anyone, you know. i mean-”

“it’s not that,” you hurry to tell him, and he smirks at you in return.

“no? then what is it?”

before you can respond, jaemin continues speaking, and you realize his question had been rhetorical. “oh, i know!” he says, sounding as if he’s had the realization of a lifetime. “you meant to send it to me, didn’t you? you just lied and got cold feet, after. i knew it! there’s no way you’re actually-”

in your haste to get jaemin to shut the hell up and your current inability to think straight, you cross the space between you two in one stride before pressing your mouth against his (or, you guess, his mouth against yours), desperate to get him to stop talking. your eyes are screwed shut anyways, so you don’t see his slide shut.

the two of you stay like that for what feels like an eternity before you pull away.

“i’m so sorry-” you start, opening your eyes to peer sheepishly up at jaemin.

wait.

up?

you blink once, twice, before bursting out into laughter. jaemin, after overcoming his own befuddlement does the same.

“oh my god, i can’t believe that fixed it,” you say once you get over the shock of being back in your own body. “holy shit.”

“i can’t believe any of that happened in the first place,” jaemin says, and you nod in agreement. a silence falls between the two of you almost immediately as you both try to figure out what to say to each other now.

you glance around the room, searching for something to fixate your gaze on. you know jaemin is doing the same beside you. before you can say something embarrassing - you’re seriously considering patting him on the back and going ‘good work out there’ - jaemin rests his hands lightly against your waist, forcing you to meet his eyes with yours.

“i kind of wish i’d experienced our kiss from inside my own body,” he says, and you search his face for an iota of a joke, something that says he’s messing with you.

there’s none to be found. you reach a hand up to rest against the back of his neck and, before you know it, you’re cupping the back of his head and pulling his lips to yours once again, though this one is much more passionate than the last. his hands tighten their grips on your waist as he pulls you flush against him, and you tangle your fingers in his hair.

once you pull away, you can’t bring yourself to leave his grasp. instead, you ask him the question that’s burning on your mind.

“do you want to see the lace set in person?”

your roommate nods, his excited actions directly contrasting his dark, hooded gaze. he lets you take his hand in yours, allowing you to drag him to your room. just as you shove open your bedroom door, however, jaemin speaks again.

“out of curiosity, who was the picture meant for?”

you stare at him for one, two beats before sighing, wincing right after. he gazes back at you both steadily and expectantly, and you figure you may as well say it.

“it ... it was meant for jeno.”

"what?”

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slothgiirl · 3 years

Text

the trash pile: alex turner x reader

The cybernetic augmentation juts out from her temple, leading down to her chin, the metal a dull grey. Nothing says belter more than slap job augmentations, Alex thinks as she smiles at him, reaching out with her hand to him.

He takes it.

She's pretty from what he can see from the dim yellow lights in the club. The augmentation somehow complementing her already well formed cheekbones. A mess of bleached blonde hair falling down her shoulders.

And she's already offered, dragging him out onto the floor shamelessly. He'd rather dance with a beautiful woman than stand around drinking and having to listen to all his friends talk about people, things, he's unfamiliar with.

They've moved on.

The floor flashes bright blue to the beat of the music. Too loud to carry a conversation. Too loud to think. Alex can finally stop overthinking, what he's done since he landed on Tranquility base six hours ago.

Her touch is solid and confident, hands on his shoulders as she laughs, one hundred percent in the moment. He doesn't think he's ever been like that. Her ease is as natural as Alexa's charm.

His gaze flickers back to the table they'd been sharing, but they've dispersed into the club. He can't see a trace of any of his friends. Matt had long since left, having a ceremony to wake up for. "Tomorrow," he'd grinned, promising a night of debauchery.

"Hey," Taylor calls into his ear, bringing his attention back to her, blue eyes like the sky back on earth. None of the gaudy recreations of sky broadcasted through the colonies. Mars was said to not even bother, letting it's people grow up with an orange sky.

She smiles, tilting her head, before leaning in.

And wow, Alex really has been alone for too long, as her lips on his send his heart beat into a frenzy. Blood rushing in his ears like a teenage boy all over again. It isn't real, but he thinks in that second he loves her.

Alex always has been a romantic.

They leave the club together. The corridors are still red for the night. The one thing he hadn't missed. Even Ceres had better artificial lighting mods.

"I've got to go to work," Taylor tells him bluntly, "but you should give me your number. I think we could have a lot of fun together." She looks at him with hopeful eyes, biting her lower lip. He wants to kiss her again.

But, he'll be gone the day after tomorrow. The entire base holds too many ghosts for him to feel entirely comfortable. It makes him keep looking over his shoulder, expecting Josh or Julian. Two people he's long since lost touch with.

"I'm actually not staying that long," he admits as she leads them through the corridors. Alex can still recognize the alcoves he and Matt would take smoke breaks in. Which turn would lead them back to the lifts. Another life.

"That's a shame."

He chuckles. Before his mind catches up with his tongue, "wait, did you say you're going to work now?"

"Yeah. Its so fucking boring," Taylor says, stopping besides the lifts. "Coms graveyard shift." She rolls her eyes.

"I don't blame ya," he admits. Alexa had worked the coms. She'd always complained about having to go thirty seven floors below, bundled up in jackets. Since it was less populated, the government enacted more energy saving features.

"Maybe we'll see each other again in the drift," she grins suggestively, right as she steps into the lift.

Alex watches the doors closed, before he turns around, deciding to go find an open store. He could go for some more coffee while he's here. Maybe even stock up on it. It shouldn't be hard. The Base wasn't a residential area. Tourists were coming and going as well as SFN members.

There was the launchpad.

He lets himself wander. Too buzzed to be as tired despite the early call time he has in the morning. It would be just his luck to miss Matt's big promotion because he'd overslept after having traveled a month to be here.

It's not hard to find an open bodega. The open sign flashing green in the dim of the night.

Maybe he should've gotten the night vision implants after all. Miles never shut up about it. How easy it was to make his way about different colonies even during night cycles. And you could only tell if you were looking for the little silver ring around the iris.

Alex slips inside, making a bee line for the food. It's been hours since he last ate. At this point a cup of noodles and instant coffee sound like a dream. He gets the little powdered donuts as well. Then goes for the liquid milk creamer.

Who knows when he'll next have that option. No one had yet to figure out how to increase cows milk production in space. And powdered never tasted the same.

He looks at the fruit. Incredibly overpriced since it's a bodega. But apples and oranges. . .Alex could still remember the taste of fresh squeezed orange juice his mother would make. She'd cut them all open, let him squeeze the juice out before sucking on the pulp.

Alex grabs the smallest oranges.

There's no reason not to splurge. He has the money for it. And work is never hard to come by with his skill set. There's a large market for the skills SFN ensigns have, but most of those ensigns just stay with the navy.

He turns to go pay for his small haul, but the sight of a woman staring out of a faux porthole stops him in his tracks.

Her profile could not hide how beautiful she was, her gaze caught by the live feed of the earth on the other side of the moon. Romantic dark eyes gazing into the side of the bodega, her questionable egg salad sandwich forgotten in her hand. The bump in her prominent nose only served to make her profile more striking.

"That's not actually the earth," Alex starts gently, catching her attention. "Ya know." She turns to him, trying to hide the fact that she'd jumped, startled by his presence. And doing a damn good job at brushing off the surprise.

He was right. She's beautiful. Well formed full lips. Her dark hair tucked a braid, looking better in trousers and patched up hoodie than most people could dressed to the nines. Her shoes stick out from the casual ensemble, patent red leather with a split toe. There's the hint of dark circles under her eyes, probably from a missed nights sleep.

And a scattering of light scars like stars by her left cheekbone.

"I know," she responds, "I just never thought I'd ever be this close to the earth."

"You could take a trip to the other side and see the real thing," he muses, unable to hide the longing in his voice. Alex knew in his bones he'd never step foot on earth again. Never walk the streets in Sheffield or London again. But he couldn't help but wish for a miracle.

She shakes her head, the warmth in her eyes receding as she closes herself off. "Can't. Have to meet with a friend and then go back."

"Must be a good friend if you've come all this way."

She shrugs noncommittally, "He's more of an acquaintance of a friend. I've never actually met the man. But things being as they are," she explains, "it's best done in person."

Alex is now intrigued, a red flag raised in the back of his mind that still flies away information happening in the corner of his eye just in case. It makes him a damn good private investigator. "Mysterious."

"Forgive me for not spilling all my secrets to a stranger," she notes, arching a brow.

He can't help but chuckle. "Ya got me there love. Let's try something else."

"Like what," she asks, the corners of his lips turning up.

"How are you finding our moon?" The moon might not think it was the earth's, and the government sure wasn't, but the moon still spun around the earth the way it had for millions of years.

"Disappointing," she admits, frowning, "Ceres is livelier. And would it kill them to use brighter lighting?"

"Austerity measures," Alex shrugs. It had been the answer for as long as he'd been alive.

"From what," she asks, tilting her head, a smirk forming on her lips, "there's no war or reason for shortages."

"Just repeating the party line," he admits.

"Well," she raises her sandwich like a sad little white flag, "I've got to get going. It was nice meeting you."

"Can I get your number?"

Surprising him, she shakes her head, "No. I doubt we'll ever meet again. I don't plan to stay on the moon for long."

"Lucky for you," he counters, following her to the sales woman, built like a rugby player, "I'm not from the moon. So there's hope yet for our paths to cross."

She snorts, digging around her pockets for money, slowly building up a pile of change to pay with. "Let me guess," she says knowingly, as her eyes look him over, taking in his hair now curling past his ears, the navy blue sweater and white shirt combo that had felt smart earlier but had wrinkled in the course of the night. "you're from earth."

Alex answers bashfully, "born there." He always felt like apologizing for having been born on Earth. For having spent his childhood breathing in air without a care. For not knowing how precious an atmosphere was.

"Well I don't plan to go to earth," she trails off, waving her receipt away.

"Neither do I." He hands the lady a bill too large for what he's bought and follows her out the door, not bothering for his change. "But I take it there's no way I can convince you to give me a number?"

"None."

"How about a name," he offers. Alex had not seen one person that he'd bothered to chase in years. And here she was, indulging him as though he was a stray puppy she had fed once and now followed her around in hopes of more scraps.

"Yours first," she snipes back, not missing a beat.

"Alex." He doesn't ever bring up his last name. Too much weight. A famous family. And an infamous past. Being just Alex was a luxury.

"Tisiphone."

A name fitting for someone born in the jovian system. Maybe even Dione. But Dione, while a newer colony, wasn't bloody awful for someone to want to leave. It had to be-"Titian," he guesses. The wild west of space. SFN cadets hated getting assigned there. Johanna had said the worst part was the perpetual twilight.

Too many crevices to hide in.

"Yes," she responds, "and hopefully never again."

"If we ever meet again," the romantic in him already imagining them crossing paths in a Callisto settlement, planting trees for the rest of their lives and learning to work wood, "can I take you out for a cuppa?"

Tisiphone laughs, smiling tight lipped, "If it happens then I'll say yes earth boy."

** ** ch 2

The ceremony drags on.

They all sit, gathered around the Kennedy Hab, the first large permanent building on the dark side of the moon. The benches are as uncomfortable as ever, as Alex gazes down at a sea of navy uniforms all with various ranks on their right shoulders. He's seated right next to Alexa. The boys down there somewhere with Matt.

It's an SFN event so Alex's paranoia is right for once. The second glances the captains and commanders threw his way were knowing. They recognized him.

It sets his teeth on edge.

Alexa pats his knee, comfortable around him despite their shared history. Johanna besides him with her fiancé. They both keep glancing at each other, infinite in their whispering. He wants that.

"I'll throw hands at anyone who says anything," Alexa reassured him. Looking especially nice in a long red dress. She's not single. But it clearly isn't serious enough if she didn't bring him along to celebrate her friends.

"That would make it worse," Alex responds, keeping his gaze forward, careful to keep his face neutral. It usually wasn't a problem. That being his default expression. But this was bringing up events from his past he's long since buried.

"Derek was supposed to be here," Alexa says to try to distract him, "you would've liked him. Life of the party. Miles and him had a one night stand and now we're all friends."

"Well that's not saying much considering Miles will sleep with anything."

She laughs, "True. But even Nick gets jazzed to hang out with him and you know how hard it is to get close to Nick."

"He's just careful about who his friends are," Alex acknowledges. Unlike Nick, Alex was just terribly bad at opening up.

Nick was just picky. "That says something good about little old me." Alexa twirls her hands over her head. Sticking her nose in the air. "Not such a mess after all."

"You've never been a mess," he tells her, watching as they begin to call up all the newly minted commanders. Matt shouldn't take long. H being closer to the front of the alphabet.

"Yeah but I've never been particularly good at anything but charming my way into things," she shrugs shamelessly. Alexa wasn't the type to lose sleep over her insecurities.

The Admiral present at the ceremony, Marcus Kapoor, speaks clearly over the microphone, "Commander Matthew Helders."

Alexa and Johanna both stand up, yelling, "congrats!" Alex claps as loud as he can for a beat longer than the rest of the room as Matt shakes hands with the Admiral.

Alex remembers his own ceremony seven years ago now. It had been a smaller affair. His entire career accelerated by his talent.

He swallows back the bitter lump that forms in his throat. There's no reason to cry over spilled milk, his father had often told him back on earth.

Try telling that to anyone who doesn't live on earth: most milk is powdered in space.

He finally lets his eyes search through the crowd, trying to spy the man who'd once been his great mentor and friend. But if Julian is present, Alex doesn't see him among the uniforms. He's sure that he'd know Julian anywhere. His hair perpetually sticking out wildly like he'd just woken from a nap, streaks of color running through.

It was a welcome sight from the mandated navy and neutral colors the SFN preferred. Everything was done to keep the SFN neutral, trying to avoid any conflicts between the colonies. And especially between Mars and Earth.

Unable to wait, Alex asks Alexa, "did Julian come?" Julian and Matt had never been as close as Alex had been to the older man, one of the rare people to turn down a promotion. But Alex thinks Julian still would've come and cheered Matt on.

Drinking at bars until morning talking about life and chatting about their mutual obsession with vintage terran music cemented friendship like nothing else.

She frowns, lines forming between her brows. "Captain Casablancas?"

"Yeah," Alex nods, a nervousness creeping into the lining of his stomach. Julian had also been the only person present during the incident that had chosen not to testify. If he had, Alex had agonized long hours over that large IF, he'd probably have been given a far harsher sentence.

And it looked like the man had finally accepted the rank of Captain.

Alexa places her hand on his arm, doe eyes settling on his, before gently attempting to break the news, which given what she was saying, was impossible to break gently. "You haven't heard?"

"No."

"Julian's dead Alex," Alexa explains, her hand anchoring him to reality, even as his world lurches, "some accident with a faulty seal."

Fuck.

What the bloody hell!

Alex clenches his jaw. Julian deserved more than dying in a preventable accident. He was, and remained the only person to have jumped tracks at the SFN, going from maintenance to exploration.

"I'm sorry," she tries, patting his arm with her hand. "I know you two were close. This is sort of the worst way to hear the news isn't it?"

"How long ago," Alex asks in lieu of responding to her. Julian. Alex could hardly call him a friend anymore.

By the time he'd worked up the courage to message the man, Julian hadn't bothered responding at all. A cold message that Alex could understand.

He hadn't tried to contact him again.

"Three weeks."

Alex nods, fixing his gaze on the stage. The names being spoken, called up on stage, meaningless now that Matt had gone.

He'd been traveling to the Base.

No one had bothered to tell him.

They make their way down to Matt, navigating the crowd who are also here to celebrate their relatives and friends. Alexa led the way, cutting through the crowd like a knife through butter.

Jo and her fiancé hold hands. His eyes never leave her form as she leads on.

Alex frowns.

He'd thought. . .he'd thought, when Matt had first met him upon arrival at the base's landing pad, that he could slide back into his old life. Pick up where he'd left off. Maybe get a job here permanently.

Alex hadn't realized how lonely he'd been until he'd sat around and watched all his friends eat and drink. Easily communicating with each other they way only tightly knit groups of friends could. Finishing each other's sentences.

They had once been like that with Alex. But years in between meetings left him out of the loop. It didn't help that he had chosen to self isolate. Choosing to take jobs that left him without a permanent home, spending his free time tucked into various hotel rooms.

"Alexander Turner," a voice calls out.

He turns, faced with a black woman in a sleek khaki green suit, a moon police officer uniform. Her hair is as sleek as the press of her suit. Dark curls dusted with grey hairs.

"Yes," he asks, halting with great hesitation. The last time he'd dealt with the moon police, they were ensuring he was under house arrest during his trial. For his safety they'd told him over and over.

"I'm Major Gabriela Moss," she tells him, sticking her hand out with great formality. "If you'd please come with me," she continues, as he shakes her hand. "There's a job I'd like to discuss with you."

Swallowing any nervousness he has, he nods. How bad could it be? Probably some white collar crime that the police don't want to deal with. Alex could stock up on lots of coffee with the money. "Lead the way."

She takes him to the precinct, located next to the base. Tranquility Base fell under SFN jurisdiction. But the residential areas ringing the building were left to the MP 505 precinct.

Her office is just like every other police office. Bright disorienting lights. Cream walls, with no decor. A desk bolted down to the floor, in case the artificial gravity malfunctions. And a photo of her wife and kids tilted just out of his view.

"What's the job?" Alex wonders if some idiot tried to rob the casino that was right within the base’s building. Trying to steal from SFN was asking for it.

"A man was found murdered in residential bloc 571 this morning," she explains, lighting up her monitor. A photo of an older man with a walrus mustache came up on the screen.

"Isn't homicide your department," Alex asks, twisting his ring around his finger.

"Usually," Major Moss admits, back straight, hands on the desk. "But this man had a false identification bracelet. According to our records he was born on the Moon. But when my officers requested his file from the Bloc listed, nothing appeared."

"You think he was hiding?" Only criminals bothered to falsify ID bands. But why the moon? He could see why a fugitive from the law or a crime boss would come to the moon, but to stay here this long?

Even earth was easier to get lost in, among billions.

"Yes," she surmises, "and for quite a few months. How he's gone undetected this long is a mystery."

"So you'd like to save your skin and sweep this all under the cover." Alex can see a coverup as it happens. The MPs would be humiliated at having let a fugitive run wild for this long.

But, he probably wasn't a criminal if he spent this long without so much as a word. Probably fleeing loan sharks back on some asteroid. Maybe from Titan.

The murder must have landed yesterday. Within the week at most.

"Will you take the job on," Major Moss asks, "there's more information I have if you agree to take on the case."

Alex sighs. He's intrigued. But taking on this case would mean spending more time on the moon which is both a good and bad thing. He hasn't had a proper chat with any of the lads since he last saw Matt on Vesta nearly two years ago now.

But he isn't exactly at ease this close to SFN. At least in the belt, there's lots of stations with little to no navy presence. Callisto's base was generally isolated from the rest of the population due to the way in which the colony on Callisto had developed.

A man's dead.

And from what he can tell, Major Moss would be more than happy for the case to go cold and never have to explain to her superiors how a man went undetected for so long.

But why bother?

Alex can't understand why the man needed to falsify his identity only to sit around. Unless he wasn't a criminal but innocently caught up with the wrong crowd.

It happened easily enough.

"Why me," Alex asked, still considering how suspicious it looked that the MP were giving away a case just because of the implications the man's murder had. The IDB read Sidney Trojan which made Alex laugh a little inside. Whoever had made the ID had a certain sense of humor. "I'm sure you've read my record by now."

Major Moss nods, leaning back in her metal chair, "Mutiny and treason are certainly high charges. But Mr. Turner, If I am being frank, I am more concerned right now with keeping the peace in my precinct. The last thing I want is any belter extremist to start making baseless accusations about how someone who is more than likely one of their own was treated."

"I'm not a belter." Alex had spent enough time among belters to know, no matter how much time he spent on Vesta or Pallas, he'd never be one of them. Being born and raised there was what made you a belter for the rest of your life. Johanna never bothered to hide the augments along her spine, jutting out like filled out ports. Held her chin up proudly despite the harassment she got, and proceeded to destroy them all in combat training.

"But you have spent time among them," the woman argues, revealing how little she knows and understands about belters. Major Moss had probably never left the moon. Never spent time amongst people in the belt, in the places the SFN never went. "My men are mostly from here or earth. You're my best option."

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. It didn't seem like a trap to lock him up after all these years. Just a very ignorant MP major trying to do her job. "Alright," Alex nods. "Show me the surveillance tapes."

The older woman smiles, but no warmth reaches her eyes, a picture of cold professionalism, as she ignites the screen. The tapes start playing almost immediately. The night vision casting everything into grayscale in the corridors. The older residential buildings hadn't anticipated the amount of people that would live on the moon, the walkways connected the blocs only fitting three people at a time, a nightmare in an emergency. They were colorless concrete slabs, the metal having long gone dull.

Time stamped to 05:46 am.

A single figure appears, walking into bloc 571, looking like any person would after a long shift. In jeans and a loose hoodie, holding a very sad convenience store sandwich. A profile he wouldn't soon forget, complete with split toe boots.

Tisiphone.

Alex tries to justify her appearance. The death hadn't happened until 7 am. She must've been meeting her friend in one of the habs in the bloc. But he'd never been one to discount a coincidence.

It seemed that they would be having a chat sooner than anticipated under less than favorable circumstances. He just had to track her down.

His eyes watch the screen as the time ticks by, creeping closer to the time of death.

She claimed to be here to visit a friend which could very easily have been a lie to cover up meeting her potential victim. Tisiphone hadn't been here for very long, no one would willingly choose to eat convenience store sandwiches if they'd spent time here to get other food. Alex wasn't discounting the possibility of her commitment to looking inconspicuous at 5 in the morning, but then, if Sidney Trojan had feared for his life there would've been a struggle.

Someone would have heard in those older habs.

The time stamp reads 6:24am.

Tisiphone leaves the bloc, taking the passageway leading back to Tranquility. Mr Trojan would still be alive. Did she have an accomplice? Or is Alex making the wrong connection.

The time stamp reads 7:46 am. Mr Trojan would've been dead by now.

7 am was hardly the time for a murder to be committed. People going to work. So many witnesses. They must have been desperate. But the tapes proved useless to narrow down any suspects. Too many people, a perfect crowd to hide in. So there was that advantage. As well as, "I need all the records of the passenger manifests arriving for the last three days on the dark side of the moon and today's departures."

"Alright," she replies, holding out her hand.

Alex hands over his com. Letting her synch it up to her system and sending the files over.

"Good luck Mr. Turner."

This time, Alex does roll his eyes as he leaves her office.

Tisiphone had claimed to be from Titan, so that's the first thing he checks. Three days sound about right. He also highlights any belter arrivals. But apart from one family two days before, no one has come from the belt.

He finds the name he's looking for. Tisiphone Velazques, arriving from Hygiea the same night he had. Born on Titian twenty two years ago according to her IDB. It said a lot about how pathetic Alex was that he was currently finding a potential date on a suspect list.

She might still be innocent. But she was the only lead.

If she's a criminal, she'll be staying off grid, not wanting to leave her IDB just anywhere. But, being through, Alex checks Tranquility Hotel anyways, sending a message.

Want to surprise my girlfriend T. Velazques. It's our anniversary and I got back from a trip into Tethys four sols early. Has she checked in yet?

People were really stupid and easily fooled. Alex had learned that in the last few years.

Then he checks his messages. Twenty seven texts from his friends. Two missed calls from Matt. Shit. He'd forgotten all about Matt.

** *** ch 3

Matt clasps an arm over his shoulders, "I'm sorry I didn't say anything about Julian. I thought you knew and didn't want to talk about it."

Alex considers coming clean, but decides letting Matt think this is about Julian is easier. "No one tells me anything anymore."

The taller man sighs, "you must think I'm a wanker for not even telling you. Julian always asked me how you were doing you know."

Alex shakes his head. "I tried-It doesn't matter anymore. I just think it's bloody awful to have died so young in an accident of all things."

"The idiot engineers better have been court martialed," Matt comments, as they follow behind their friends to a bar in the casino. They've all been casting looks towards Alex when they think he's not looking, like he's a bomb about to go off.

Things can never go back to the way they were.

They get a few pitchers of beer. Singing Matts praises at every sip, taking the piss about how he's going to be the worst commander ever. Alexa's boyfriend, looking tall, dark and handsome, slips into the conversation with ease while Alex, drinks and checks his phone for a response.

"Alexa's boy toy," Johanna mutters under her breath to Alex. "Does the books for one of the gambling halls."

Alex nods. But finds he doesn't care. All that earlier anxiety about his leftover feelings for Alexa, his first love, gone when he realizes there's no sting as she turns to kiss her boyfriend.

He looks down at his com, refusing a refill of beer when he realizes the hotel's written him back. With a digital key and their congratulations. There goes the supposed privacy and protections hotels were supposed to offer their clients.

But this meant he was now leaning to Tisiphone being innocent. But he could tell she was connected to Mr. Trojan somehow. A gut feeling that t9ld him he was barking up the right tree. She might be able to tell him who would want the old man dead and why.

Alex excuses himself from the celebration, pointedly ignoring Nick's suspicious gaze as he leaves.

He stops and picks up a bottle of wine and a quart of strawberries, each the size of his smallest nail with a hint of red at the tip, just in case anyone in the hotel decides to verify any of his information. He can play the part.

Alex presses the elevator up to floor 10, brings up the key on his com, when the machine asks for verification.

The doors slide shut and Alex tries to formulate a plan.

He can't frighten his only suspect-link to the crime. A man was murdered and if he doesn't solve it, justice will never be served. It's his good conscience that's going to get him in trouble all over again.

The hallway is empty.

A tacky red coat of paint that's made worse by the orange lighting. The crimson hue edging towards black. Hardly a happy atmosphere.

Alex runs his hand over the rail, a vestige from the days before antigravity, as he makes his way to room 1004.

Unlike the lobby, the floor is still metal plates welded together. Shiny compared to the rest of the place.

The casino had seen better days.

And more occupied days.

Hesitating outside the door, he places an ear near the seal, hoping that Tisiphone isn't there. It would give her the advantage if she turns out to be the murder.

Better for her to be out. Gives him a chance to look around.

He takes a deep breath and unlocks the door with the key. It slides open smoothly, revealing mustard walls and a plush navy carpet flecked with gold. There's a small bed on one side of the wall, a black backpack laying carelessly on it.

The small cabinet looks untouched, but Alex still goes through every drawer, making sure he misses nothing, peaking into the bathroom and combing the medicine cupboard.

There's a needle and dental floss. A complimentary bottle of toothbrush tabs laying in its side.

Needle and floss.

For an injury, Alex surmises. Perhaps a fresh one that Mr Trojan had managed to inflict while defending himself? It wasn't the easiest way to treat an injury, but it was the way to go if you didn't want to draw any attention.

He slips back into the small main room, and begins to go through the backpack. It looks standard issue, the fabric a vegetable leather nylon mixture that wouldn't be out of place in an SFN pack. But he doesn't recognize it from any planetary police force.

Inside there's a plasma gun with two full charges. Shrapnel in a jar. An extra shirt along with a lined jacket, also black. And a small copper data box.

He checks the jackets pockets, finding two extra IDBs. Both blank.

It's all very incriminating.

And he didn't think to bring a gun along himself.

Alex removes the charge from the plasma gun, using the pillowcase to ensure he doesn't wipe away any fingerprints, tossing both of the charges into the bottom drawer of the cabinet. And leaves the gun on top of the blanket.

Then he takes a seat and waits.

No one would leave a gun with no plans to come back and get it. Plasma guns were hard to come by. Especially for civilians on the right side of the law.

It was just his luck that the first woman he feels any connection with, ends up tied up in criminal activity.

The whoosh of a door sliding open jolts him out of his thoughts.

Alex sits up straight, deciding he looks less confrontational if he's sitting down. Besides, years of training haven't left. His body still remembers combat maneuvers. He still wakes up at 0600 and goes through basic training like clockwork.

Even when he goes back to sleep right after.

A red boot steps inside.

Tisiphone holds a brand new pair of ear pods, still in their case. The moment she spots him sitting casually in her bed, her almond eyes narrowing in suspicion. Her grip tightens on the case, before she schools her features carefully blank.

In better lighting, the scars marring her cheekbones are more prominent. Flecks of silver against honeyed skin.

"'ello again," Alex says, giving a small wave, strands of his hair falling into his eyes with the movement.

She frowns, crossing her arms defensively in front of her. "Why are you here? Who even let you in?"

"I asked nicely," he explains, "terrible hotel service if you ask me. But as for why I'm here, you wouldn't happen to know who Sidney Trojan is?"

Tisphones lips form a tight line, her stance edging dangerously close to someone expecting a fight. Weight distributed well between her legs. "He's dead isn't he. Someone killed him."

" 'fraid so," Alex nods.

"Who do you work for?" Her eyes scrutinize him, as if waiting for him to strike.

Alex raises both his hands up in the air. "No one. The MP of the precinct where Mr. Trojan lived asked me to take the case on."

She doesn't move. "Earth then? Or some secret division of the SFN?"

It was a popular belief that the SFN held a secret military division. Especially among belters and martians.

"You don't seem surprised to hear he's been murdered," Alex observes, not missing a thing, trying to steer the conversation back on track.

"Lots of people wanted him dead."

Tisiphone must have decided he wasn't a threat. She takes a step closer, waking into the bathroom and grabbing the meager supplies, tossing them into her bag, unbothered by Alex's presence right next to her. He's incredibly aware of the small distance between them as her hands make quick work of packing, ignoring the wine and fruit he'd brought: the small distance between her hands and his thigh.

But he doubts that there's a chance in hell she'll go out with him after today. She has the same determined look on her face Johanna had right as she'd punched him day 1 of hand to hand combat. A woman who doesn't take anyone's shit.

Alex snorts, "mind telling me who wanted him dead?"

"SFN. Earth. Mars. The Children of Prometheus. Park Vader's cronies back on Titan. Maybe even Park himself. Take your pick."

"Why," Alex can't help but ask, standing up as she slings her bag over her shoulder. If he lets her walk out now, he'll likely never set eyes on her again. And she has become his only connection to this man's murder.

He can't just let her go.

"He knew too much," Tisiphone shrugs.

"I can't just let you disappear," Alex tells her, sliding between her and the door. It was a dangerous position to be in. He keeps his hands up, trying to reassure her.

"Whoever killed Ivan is going to be after me too," she states, weighing her options.

"Let me help you."

She laughs humorlessly, "I'm long past help. I’ll only drag you down. And you seem like a nice enough man despite everything."

"Despite being born on earth," Alex guesses. War hadn't touched the system in a hundred years, yet there was a lot of bitterness from the colonies over earth. Over the imagined bountiful resources. The air, breathable unlike in so many other places.

He'd lived in enough places in the system to know that it was hard living in every corner of the solarium federation.

"Good bye Alex." Her dark eyes hold his gaze, waiting for Alex to step aside. He isn't sure how long her patience will last.

"If you leave the moon now," Alex threatens, "I'll have no choice but to find you suspect under the circumstances."

Tisiphone glares at him, "are you an officer? Am I under arrest?"

"No."

"Then you have no jurisdiction," she counters.

"But I was able to find you. I'm the only person who could've made that connection." Her shoes had given her away. Too distinctive for anyone trying to hide out, Alex notes. "Everyone else would've written you off. You played the part of a tired commuter perfectly. Your face isn't visible enough for facial recognition. And the timing is wrong."

"So you have to know I didn't kill him," Tisiphone observes.

"I do." Alex nods. "And I also know that you came here for a reason. I'm willing to bet it's why Ivan is dead now. Help me catch his killer and get some people off your back."

“Why do you care so much about him? He’s just another nameless belter to you people.”

He shakes his head, “because a man’s dead. He deserves justice.”

"How do I know I can trust you," Tisiphone asks, her knuckles relaxing their grip on her bag.

"I could've arrived here with the MP," Alex states, "but I'm here all on my own. Because I believe you're innocent."

She sighs. "Alright. I'll stay. But only for another twenty four hours. That's all I can give you."

He can work with that.

"Okay now let's get out of here. If I can waltz right in so can whoever killed Trojan."

"Ivan," Tisiphone corrects. "His name was Ivan Schlossberg."

"And is Tisiphone your real name," Alex asks.

She doesn't meet his eyes.

** ** ch 4

His hotel room is on the top floor. A half circle window looks out into the expanse. The grey panorama, flattened by robots, is broken up by the tops of other bloc, jutting out of the landscape like hills. The sun is the only recognizable feature in the sky. All the other stars and planets are too distant to be visible.

But Alex has the map of the system imprinted into the backs of his eyes. He could tell where earth and mars fall, navigating by stars like explorers of old, even with the slight changes that arise depending on where you were in the system.

Tisiphone looks out into space, eyes full of stars, as Alex interrogates her.

"Why would the UN or Mars be after Ivan?"

"I already told you," she responds evenly, her gaze still fixed on outer space, a melancholic quality that held none of the wonder people usually had when staring into the stars, "he knew too much."

"About what," Alex presses. Earlier she had named all the major players in politics. That which all SFN members despised because it made doing their job a nightmare of red tape.

Tisiphone looks over at him, turning her whole head towards him. "He was involved with the children of prometheus. Selling information. And Park doesn't like when his people decide to leave him."

It didn't take a genius to know what kind of information would be of value to the children of prometheus. "And your mutual friend."

She swallows thickly before answering. "Told me to find Ivan. That he could help me. I don't know anything more than that. Ivan was going to leave the moon with me and explain this later."

Alex doesn't believe that for a second. Tisiphone wouldn't have left so easily that morning if Ivan hadn't given her something. But he also knows when to let things go. "And why would they also be after you?" The usual targets for the children of prometheus were high ranking UN members or members of the Martian Presidium: the operating companies on the belt that treated their workers as expendable.

Tisiphone was none of those.

She takes a seat on Alex's current bed, her knuckles white as she grips the covers, studying the much more pleasant purple carpet. Not as matted or stained as the one in her room.

Her now shoeless feet revealing mismatched socks.

"I saw something I shouldn't have seen." She bites her lip as her eyes water. Alex forces himself not to look away, wanting to give her privacy. "Someone killed my friend and covered it up. And now they want to kill me."

He takes a step towards her, kneeling down in front of her seated figure, "I'm going to help you."

"You can't help me." Tisiphone shakes her head, looking straight at him, "you can only buy me time."

She flips through the stations as Alex combs through the flight records once more. He's isn't looking for random thugs. If this is a high profiled cover up the way she is alleging, then he needs to find a slicker cover.

He checks for any terrans that've landed here in the last few days. Any native mooners with no permanent address on record: the types of people that would easily fly under the recons. The least likely to be scrutinized.

Alex finds three profiles that fit the description. Two had arrived together under the IDBs Gemma and Nick Ryan. Siblings on vacation from earth.

They were passingly related, the same brown coloring. But Alex's searching gaze found no similar features. The bone structure was all wrong. Gemma's strong, squared. While Nick had a delicateness to his features that was absent in Gemma's.

They had the look of UN division operatives. A learned blankness that helped them slip from memory.

The third was on a flight from Ceres. An older asian man: Hugh Shen. There was no way he was born on the moon and had no records of living here. Alex knew most people born on the moon didn't chance leaving.

Opening for new immigrants were few and far between.

Then there was an oily quality that reminded him of many UN cogs that surrounded his mother like gnats.

In order to be sure that they are division members, Alex'll have to go to the scene of the crime. He knows the UN’s playbook. The methods that division uses. Growing up around his mother, he couldn't not have learned something.

Though Penelope Turner was an idealist, she was willing to do what was necessary to get the job done. It's why she was such an effective politician.

He coms Major Moss, letting her know he'll need access to Ivan's hab.

"Stay here," he tells Tisiphone. "Help yourself to anything I've got."

"Anything," she asks archly, "because I could run a bath. Never had one of those."

"Then by all means," he shrugs. The water bill was bound to burn a hole in his pocket, but going through life without knowing the laziness that baths inspired was no life at all.

She rolls her eyes, shamelessly combing through Alex's meager possessions As meager as hers really. Though he didn't have the excuse of being in hiding.

Alex takes the plasma charges with him.

Major Moss, along with another woman of medium build and asian descent, meets him at the entrance to bloc 571, the white paint having long since peeled off the metal walls. The orange lights flickered, needing replacement, as he walks beside her into bloc 571. He can hear the pressure seals around the door, as it slides open, letting them inside.

While the oldest blocs on this side of the moon, their shortcomings in cramped corridors were nothing compared to the space of the older habs.

Unlike Tranquility base, and the rest of the blocs on the moon, the lights inside bloc 571 were LED and white, the costliest to maintain. A knot of tension eased up in Alex's shoulders. His mind, despite the years in space, always unconsciously yearned for earth's natural light.

"This is officer Cong Xi," Major Moss says blandly, "she'll be taking you through all our available evidence. We're receiving pressure to wrap things up as quickly as possible. There are lots of people who want to move into a hub as spacious as this."

Alex snorts. That's what they cared about.

Cong nods, smiling warmly at him as she drinks coffee from her hot pink tumbler. "Nice to meet you Alex Turner."

Which meant she'd been briefed and knew all about him. There was probably a non-SFN version of his file on her com as they spoke.

Alex had never gotten the chance to read his file after the trail. His dishonorable discharge had left him without any credentials to ask for his file without heavy redaction if he got any response at all. He'd have asked his parents if he hadn't been a coward and taken the first ship to Vesta, hell bent on drinking himself to death.

"Likewise," he responds, realizing he's waited a beat too long to respond.

With that said, the Major turns on her heel, and leaves.

"Shall we," Cong asks him, waiting for him to follow. How did such a pleasant person end up working for the MP? Had to be an idealist. Or hadn't been working for long.

He nods.

Alex takes in the bloc.

The floors dull from nearly four centuries of feet walking over it. Not a scrap of white paint left. But the walls are covered with green plexiglass, an attempt to make up for the lack of actual greenery that hadn't been planned for in old models. Even Pallas had some weeds growing among the tangle of wires.

Each door is painted a different color, giving the neighborhood character. Ivan's hab is red, with a pattern of florals overlaid.

Officer Cong hands him shoe covers and a pair of gloves, "standard procedure," she tells him with a tinge of apologies interwoven in her voice, before she unlocks the door, letting them both inside.

Like most crime scenes, the place is covered with tape and plastic to preserve the integrity. But Alex can see the coziness that Ivan Schlossberg had built inside his hab. A glass top table with mismatched but colorful plastic chairs. Books covering a side table ranging from subjects like "Bloom: a guide to space plant maintenance," to "Catching Fire."

His desk is covered with bits of computer parts. Motherboards and processor chips. Different size screens, some with cracks.

This was the picture of a man who believed himself to be safe. He wasn't planning on running at the drop of a dime. So how had they found him?

Tisiphone had entered first.

Why not kill them both at once?

Or had they believed them both to be inside and cursed themselves when they realized the girl had gotten away?

As Alex looks about the room, noting no signs of struggle, Officer Cong studies him. Her gaze curious.

The mess of computer equipment makes Alex guess that Ivan tinkered with it to communicate with whatever group he was working with, likely using it to hack information from earth and mars. The rudimentary nature of his devices would have confused the much more advanced systems Earth relied on, massive data banks in the tundra chugging along. Ivan would've also had the flexibility of pulling the system apart and rebuilding it with different bits of code each time.

A waste of time, unless you were an old man with lots of time on your hands.

His collection of parts would've been written off as eccentricity.

"You can ask," Alex finally says, when he gets tired of the awkward silence.

"Are you really the mutineer?"

It was much better than being asked if he was that traitor. Particularly bitter belters had taken the liberty of making his days hell in the beginning, knowing he wasn't about to go get help from the SFN.

He nods, looking back at the door. Division wasn't above using chemical weapons. The seals on older habs built with the care of spaceships, no one outside this hab would've noticed. "The one and only," he finally says.

While there were lots of people who had problems with the SFN, it generally wasn't seen among rank and file members.

Cong hums, slurping her coffee.

Alex peels back the plastic over a particularly large pile of electronics, his eyes searching for something small, like a computer chip or drive that would be overlooked to the untrained eye. Toxic gases needn't be in large doses to pack a punch.

"I remember the trial on the net," she comments, "it was all my parents could talk about. My whole family really . . ."

A glint of copper catches his eye. Alex keeps his face neutral, letting Cong ramble on as he plays at looking at the body outline on the couch, as if he could magically find a guilty dust bunny, slipping the casing into his hand for later.

"-guess I was too young to care about that. Too caught up with boys and the latest hairstyles."

Alex nods, trying to pay attention. But with that casing, he's sure it was division. Certain mixtures created the same symptoms in the body as a heart attack. Given his age, it created the perfect cover.

But why come in and stab him after?

Who were they trying to frame-

They were after Tisiphone.

She had led them to Ivan, Alex's thoughts come together, each piece falling into place. They had watched her since she arrived. Which meant they knew she was headed to the moon, hence the two early dispatched division agents, purposely waiting for her to leave before killing Ivan, making sure she'd be the only suspect.

But their plan had gone to the pits.

They hadn't planned on Major Moss trying to burry the case. Or that Alex would be called on.

Instead of an easy frame job, it was a cold case waiting to happen. An MP officer would've just taken Tisiphone in. Assumed that the time of death was off due to some lab error and closed the case. But their plan had gone sideways.

"Find anything," Cong asks him suddenly, having given up trying to chat when it became obvious he wasn't listening. Though why he would make small talk about the event that had sliced his life into two distinct parts, he didn't have the foggiest idea.

Alex shakes his head, "thought the scene might hold a clue." He stands up straight, faking the appearance of disappointment channeling his mother's face when he'd come home with an F. "Whatever crime boss hired the hit must've hired a couple of top notch lads."

"Oh well them," Cong continues, holding up her com for him to read, "Major Moss needs us to come in. Apparently there's been a new development in the homicide."

Alex's chest tightens. God he hopes they haven't found Tisiphone dead. Or arrested her.

No. There's no way. He'd already be under arrest for harboring a criminal. No amount of goodwill would keep him out of prison this time.

Alex had to continue under the impression that she was fine. Because no one else had linked her to this case. No one had any reason to suspect her of anything at all. "Led the way then love."

Cong, like most girls (and some boys) since Alex had turned sixteen, blushes pink, before stepping around him and leading him back to the precinct--and to Major Moss's office.

The division agents who had landed on Tranquility base as siblings named Gemma and Nick, introduce themselves as, "Agents Barnes and Khan." They're already seated in front of Major Moss, only confirming Alex's conclusion.

The capsule in his pocket feels like a block of lead, weighing him down.

There's no way they know he knows.

Except they've been tailing Tisiphone since she landed. They might already know she's sitting in his room.

He needs to get off the moon. Alex had promised Tisiphone he'd keep her safe. And this case had just gotten much bigger than a homicide.

It was the type of cover up that required a neutral party to uncover. A High ranking SFN member that would do the right thing. Unfortunately Alex had learned the hard way that organizations were never as impartial and righteous as they claimed to be.

Bloody hell.

In between two impossible choices, giving Tisiphone up or calling his old mentor Vice Admiral Homme, he wasn't sure which was worse. Would Josh Homme even care?

Or was the UN's influence great enough to buy Homme's cooperation?

"I understand that Major Moss has made the mistake of handing a homicide to a private investigator," Agent Barnes says, smiling brightly as if she hadn't just flung shit at Major Moss, who to her credit, didn't even flinch.

"I'm the private investigator," Alex responds evenly.

"They've just finished informing me," Major Moss interrupts, smoothing down the lapels of her pants suit, "that they've identified the culprit."

Agent Barnes nods, then proceeds to do the very Earth thing of pulling out an actual paper file from a jacket and displaying it on the desk. "A career criminal from Titan named Tisiphone Velasquez. We believe her employer to be some drug lord that Mr Trojan was a long time customer of. When he got clean and moved to the moon, well. . ." Barnes trails off leaving a dramatic pause before clearing his throat, "Titian didn't forget his debts."

Ivan's hab was not the home of a drug user. Or a recovering drug user. He'd never been to Titan, to the city under the ocean, but he knew enough about drug lords to know that they had more to deal with than a customer with lots of debts on a colony as secure as the moon.

But Alex can see Major Moss eat up the story, her eyes gazing over as there's one less problem for her to deal with.

"Well Mr. Turner," Major Moss turns to him, "It looks like your services are no longer needed. I'll wire you the payment promptly. Meanwhile I'll circulate the perpetrators photo and have my officers be on the lookout."

"We will be taking custody of Miss Velasquez," Agent Barnes interrupts, "she has insider knowledge of a crime ring we have been monitoring for years."

"Of course," Major Moss responds, already typing out the paperwork.

He has to get off the base. He has to take Tisiphone far from here.

Alex turns to leave, reaching the door before he hears Agent Barnes mutter pointedly under her breath, "It's a wonder Ambassador Turner hasn't resigned out of shame. No clue how he can show his face in public."

Agent Khan coughs to hide a snigger.

A muscle in his jaw twitches. It's bait. And an obvious one at that. He has more than a few scars to prove how stupid responding to it would be, but they did just insult his mother.

"What did you just say," Alex asks through clenched teeth, not turning back to look at them, robbing them of the satisfaction. Mentally, he counts to ten.

He's not going to give them an excuse to place him under arrest.

Tisiphone is counting on him.

The fact that they're baiting him instead of just following him back to the hotel room is a good sign they don't know he's hiding Tisiphone. He tries to concentrate on the and not the sound of blood rushing in his ears.

Tisiphone.

Her petite figure sitting on his bed, scrutinizing everything with an arched brow. The look in her eyes as she'd stared with a refugee's longing for their ancestral home at the image of earth, the green returning to the land after hundreds of long reclamation projects initiated by the UN.

"Nothing to trouble yourself with Alexander Turner," Agent Barnes replies patronizingly, "There is no further use for your services here."

Alex clenches his jaw, and walks out the door.

He lights a cigarette as he makes his way through the dim corridors, the orange fading into scarlet, stopping only to pick up supplies he imagines needing as they travel to space together. Not all at the same store.

Alex will have to get everything out of her, if he's going to throw in his lot with her and hope they get to the bottom of the conspiracy before they're arrested and killed. Or just killed.

What could be bad enough that the UN felt it necessary to send division agents after a woman?

The problem is the IDB has been made.

He's going to have to hope she can get another one quickly. Tisiphone, whose name is more than likely not Tisiphone as all, wouldn't have survived this long is she was stupid.

Fuck.

He really should just turn her in. Or give her a heads up and be on his way. Alex could be on Pallas in four weeks, having the most questionable weed in the system, laced with the hell knows what. Take a case every now and then. Finally make his way out to Titan.

Logan had been his favorite western growing up. Right after The magnificent Seven. He'd made Matt have stand offs against him for days after seeing it, pretending he could manipulate metal. And Titan was the new wild west of space. And still people flocked out to carve their little piece of real estate.

Humanity is ever expanding.

Alex has to press the lift button twice, cursing and lighting another cigarette when the lift's lighting system dies as he ascends up, connecting with Tranquility's passageways.

More than once, he has to stop himself from glancing over his shoulder, sure he'll see an Agent following him. Hugh Shen had been absent from their little meeting. But that didn't mean he wasn't still skulking about.

Even the air changes from the corridors to the base. It's drastic compared to Ceres where the air quality is shit everywhere you go. The base has crisp clean air that didn't leave you all cotton mouthed for the wrong reasons.

From there it's easy enough to head to his room. Alex is already flicking through the net, looking for tickets to the belt. Or maybe they should go to Callisto. It was famous for being a no extradition zone: refusing to acknowledge any authority other than theirs and SFN's by extension. The relative safety was tempting, but he couldn't plan until Tisiphone told him everything she knew.

Alex wasn't stupid enough to think she wasn't holding something back. Her earlier explanation had been as vague as she could manage given the circumstances. He had no clue who her friend was. What she had seen other than a wrongful death.

There had to be a reason behind the coverup after all.

No government went around coverup murder for no reason. It just wasn't economical.

"You have to tell me everything you know," Alex tells Tisiphone in what he hopes is a commanding voice, as he tosses his bags on the bed, plopping down. His only shortcoming as a commander had been the complete and utter lack of confidence he had when giving orders. "Division has just shown up and thrown you under the bus."

Tisiphone's hair hangs down, damp as she listlessly scrolls through the catalogue of music offered by the hotel. She flinches at his words. "I should've left when I had the chance," she tells him harshly, uncurling from the settee and moving to grab her things. She jams her feet into her boots in one swift motion, clearly having been ready to make a run for it at a moment's notice.

"You're right," Alex tries, taking out the gas casing, ensuring the glint of metal catches her eyes. "It's a coverup."

"Obviously," Tisiphone scowls.

"I'm sure they've circulated your IDB by now," he continues, "they wanted to frame you for Ivan's death. I want to know what you saw so I can help you."

"Why so they can kill you as well," Tisiphone shakes her head, "No. . .no."

"What's so important that Division would risk breaking the treaty of Schiaparelli for," Alex asks, rubbing his temples. He wasn't a politician. The inner workings of government fell to the wayside of his thoughts.

There had been no major battles fought in a hundred years but relations between colonies were always fraught with tension over resources. Those skirmishes were usually fought in the Solarium Federations regulatory body, but Alex wasn't naive enough to discount the darker talk of division--their tendency to enhanced interrogation.

"Why do you want to help me so badly," Tisiphone counters, hands on her hip, glaring down at him as if he was the reason that Division had found her at all.

"Someone should," Alex shrugs, peering up at her. The line of her body fell naturally into a defensive stance, something that could only be so natural if she'd started training when she was very young. Tisiphone wasn't an innocent civilian, but she still didn't deserve to be disposed of. "And if I don't, they'll probably kill you and throw your body in some incinerator."

"Or they'll kill us both," Tisiphone replies archly.

"I'm offering you my help if you want it."

She peers down her nose at him, her lips pressed into a flat line, the slim line of her jaw fitting in perfectly with her feline features: a cat deciding if batting the toy was worth it. Turning on her heel, stepping into the bathroom, Tisiphone orders him to, "strip."

Smart girl.

It doesn't keep the burn from making its way up his neck as she turns the refresher, the low static drowning out any background noise as she takes a seat inside the fogged glass.

Alex kicks off his boots, gratefully that he'd actually kept up with his fitness all these years as he pulls his shirt off. There's still bruising in the crook of his elbow. He doubts she misses it as she stares up at him. It's a rush of relief when he notices the scarlet on her cheeks. This is embarrassing for both of them then, as he unbuttons his trousers, before taking a seat in front of her.

"Division blew up my crew." She starts with, staring at a spot behind him, her eyes welling up with tears. "They launched a missile and it tore their ship apart." She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, shaking her head, "I'm sorry I just. . .let me start over."

"It's okay."

"Shut up Alex and let me tell this in a way that makes sense." She swallows thickly. Taking a deep breathe during which she closes her eyes before continuing. "My name is Vera Albaicin. I'm an agent of the Guoanbu. Sixty eight sols ago my crew was handpicked to participate in an interplanetary task force with the UN. It was supposed to be an easy retrieval mission. We met up with the other crew. Everything was normal."

T-Vera closes her eyes, her hands closed tightly by her sides, trying to suppress the shiver that runs down her spine. Alex wants to offer comfort, but he isn't sure there is anything he can do to make things better in this situation.

"I took an EMU suit to-it was a strange ship. More like a capsule or probe. I had just made contact when my ship was hit." She shakes her head, a desperation in her eyes at the helplessness she must keep on feeling. Not having been able to do anything to save her crew. "Space. They died in seconds. The thing is. . .the only people who would've known about the mission were the UN and MPC. Earth and mars."

Alex nods, trying to probe her as gently as possible because there is still one unanswered question, "how did you know to find Ivan."

The UN and MPC must have decided that the knowledge was better off lost after having sent a retrieval team. Something they didn't want anyone to know about it. That fact that mars and earth had cooperated at all was throwing Alex off. Weapons would make sense if it was just mars or earth. But together?

Vera shakes her head slowly, her gaze meeting his, an intense anger to their depth he had not seen before. She was digging because she was fucking mad. This was a woman seeking justice. "I can't."

"Vera," Alex utters, unable to look away, trying her real name out on his tongue. "My name is Alexander Turner. I'm kind of famous for breaking the law," he finished with a self deprecating smile.

Usually, the last thing he wanted a potential date to know was his past.

Her eyes widen, her whole body freezing up as she takes in the new information, pursing her lips in an attempt to suppress a telling gasp. But instead of recoiling in disgust as he expects her to, Vera reaches for her neck, revealing a necklace obscured by her hoodie. It's a cheap metal thing that must be of sentimental value.

She doesn't stop there, thumbing the ring at the end of the chain before meeting his gaze once more. This time there's no hard glint to her cognac eyes, but a woman at last having caught on to a life preserver. "Julian-Captain Casablancas told me to find Ivan. Trust no one-trust no one but Alex Turner," Vera admits, unable to hold his gaze. "He must have known what was coming."

It's a ring he recognizes well, a twin to his own commander ring. The classic exploration insignia: the atom. Every detail identical for Julian and Alex had received their rank at the same ceremony, only Julian had been eight years older. Already the man Alex wanted to be: wanted to be with. The man had inspired camaraderie the way a good leader should, and clearly he had managed it in a martian girl as well if she had come all this way on his word alone.

"Can I," he motions, aware of the closing distance between them. Between him and Vera. Vera. He had to get his head around that one. Same woman, different name.

No. Not the same woman.

This woman was a martian secret intelligence agent. Not some naive little girl.

She nods, closing her fist around the ring before yanking the chain in a quick motion. It snaps off. The sound like the hull of a ship nearing the end of its lifetime, creaking. Then drops the ring into his outstretched palm.

Without Alex having to prompt this time, still caught up in seeing Julian's ring, still warm from Vera's body heat, in his hand. Julian hadn't responded to Alex's messages. He'd assumed it was because of Alex's past, but now he was left to wonder if Julian had wanted to protect him by keeping away from him. Keeping whatever he'd gotten caught up in that had killed him away from Alex. Vera adds, "I was confused why he'd told me that, given me his ring as I got into the EMU suit but. . .Ivan told me that he was just the messenger. He'd worked for so many sides not asking questions. Earth, Solarium, Mars. They were all the same to him. So he decided that the children of prometheus had a point and got in contact with them. Relaid information. Ivan-he was going to tell me more."

But he'd died.

Vera looks at him meaningfully, "but he did manage to give me the coordinates that he was given by his CoP contact. In case he ever needed a safe house or extraction."

"He never-," Alex begins to ask, not taking his eyes off the ring. In his hand was proof that Julian had been killed.

"He never met his contact," Vera confirms. "But they're on Callisto. Some hippie hub." She rolls her eyes and what a martian thing to do. Look down on every colony not hell bent on terraforming.

Alex turns his gaze on her once more, seeing her in a different light for the first time. Trying to spot what made her a martian. As if he could spot in vitro augmentation just by looking her over.

But all he saw was a petite woman with a hollowness under her eyes. Her full lips pressed into a grim line. Hair slowly drying into waves, catching the light like oil on water. Despite Alex's new information about Vera, he was no less drawn to her.

There was no sadistic edge that spoke of oprichnik operatives who the Martian People's council refused to acknowledge existed despite all the mounting evidence about their methods.

His gut was telling him that Vera was telling the truth.

"One thing though," Alex points out, taking off his own ring for the first time since he'd first received command rank, a command long since stripped from him, and sliding Julian's ring on his finger in its place as he stands up. His mind was made up. He was going to help Vera uncover this conspiracy. Clear Julian and Vera's name. And maybe, just maybe, reclaim some respect on his name.

"What?"

"You said earth and mars sent you," he says gently, having encountered enough martians to know how loyal to their colony they were otherwise known as having bought into the propaganda, "but Division killed your crew.. ."

"Yes," Vera nods, tapping her foot on the floor.

"Then wouldn't both earth and mars have sent the missile that killed your crew? Or wouldn't have mars already used this as an excuse to advance their agenda?"

"No," she supplies, refusing to even contemplate the idea that Mars would've been complicit in such an act. "The Guoanbu wouldn't have killed their own. We're-they're not like that."

“Vera," he sighs, "there's nastiness under every corner, no matter how nice everything is on top you know."

She shakes her head again, averting her gaze, There wasn't much to look at on the walls, but she was making due.

"Let's just find ya another IDB and get to Callisto-"

There's a knock at the door.

Alex and Vera trade wide eyed looks, having taken the plunge off the same cliff with nothing but a string of brand new fucking trust between them. A dead man's word to go on.

Fucking hell.

Matt and Nick flank each side of the room's door. Nick's stone face offsets the mixture of parental concern Matt's features contain, sighing at Alex's appearance, sticking his head out the door. Vera hiding next to the door, alert to every word.

He has to wonder how good her hearing is. Martian's always messed with embryos biology, designing the next generation to be fitter. Could she hear down the hall? What the people in the next room were saying?

Matt steps forward, "jesus fuck mate," he shakes his head. "Can't respond to a bloody com now Alex."

"I told you I got a job," he protests, trying to remember if that was true. His friends had fallen to the bottom of his priorities quickly. Alex had a habit of self absorption with whatever obsession came his way. It had made him a terrific ensign, practicing the same maneuver for hours until he could do it with his eyes closed.

"No," Nick corrects, not bothering to move the curls out of his face, watching him carefully, "you didn't."

Alex sighs, but doesn't budge. They mustn't see Vera. Soon her face will be plastered all over the net as a manhunt begins. Her IDB must already be flagged for travel.

He had to make his rightfully concerned friends go away and quickly.

"Al," Matt levels with him, "I asked you to be here because you might as well be my brother. I knew when I did that it would mean coming back to the moon. That it would bring up a load of shit for you."

"We're worried about you mate," Nick explains. "You're still here. You won't talk to any of us."

" 'm fine," Alex mumbles, unable to hold eye contact with either of his friends. He looks at his shoes as he realizes how unfair he's been to them both in the last two days.

This trip was supposed to be about Matt.

He shouldn't be here worried that Alex finally went off the rails.

"Alex," Matt utters, placing his hand on the door frame, leaning in close to Alex. "You know you can talk to me. I don't care what you did or why."

"Really," Alex tries, because as much as he'd like to have this long overdue discussion, finally get to explain why--no one had ever asked him why, they'd just condemned his actions as w r o n g--he has to get Vera off the moon. "I'm fine. Just been in me head."

"That's what I'm worried about," Matt responds, eyes locked onto his, as if Alex could disappear at any moment. "You've always been in your head too much Al. And it didn't matter when I knew you were looking after yourself. Had me and the lads with you but-Alex you looked like utter shit back in Vesta last time I saw you, hopped up on who knows what."

Alex swears internally. They really knew when to pick the worst moments. He was actually doing good. "I know. . .," he tries to find the words that don't require him to have an emotional breakdown in Tranquility Hotel, aware Vera's listening in, "it's been rough. Some days worse than others but Matthew," he whines, "I really am good."

"For how long though," Nick counters, crossing his arms against his chest. It was a good point but Alex really hadn't been in the dark lonely place in months. Maybe closer to a year now. Progress.

Something about waking up missing shoes and jammed into the seediest by corners of an asteroid had lit a fire under his arse about moving on.

He hadn't even hit the agents earlier. They would've deserved it but who gives a shit. Alex will always be a mutineer but at least his hands were clean. His conscience is a white pearl like a meditating bodhisattva.

"Can we just go inside and talk man," Matt pleads, his shoulder resting against the door, clearly seconds away from shoving his way in.

Guilt wells up in his mouth. Despite having every reason to say no, Alex wants to say yes, the word making its way to the tip of his tongue at Matt's insistence.

It was Matt and he was Alex and he couldn't just deny him like this after everything.

Terrans were only allowed one child.

The law didn't keep Matt from being his brother any less.

"I can't," Alex sighs. "I just-you've given me a lot to think about."

Matt rolls his eyes, hurt flashing through his features as he takes a step back, "bullshit."

"Just open up the damn door Alexander," Nick tries, clearly having had it with trying to do things the nice way, realizing Alex wasn't going to budge on his own. "We're ya friends."

"It's been six years Alex," Matt added. "I thought you'd want to talk by now."

Alex shakes his head, "it's not always a straight line."

"Let's have this conversation inside," Nick insists, "who knows when you'll be around next Al. And now Matt has a command. . ."

Matt shoves his way in.

Alex had forgotten how hot headed he could be. The foil to his cool and calm temperament: translating Alex's lit to others. Not that Alex had much trouble verbalizing, necessity being the mother invention. He no longer took hours to get a sentence out of his mouth.

"Matt!"

"Don't Matt me Al," Matt retorts spying Vera in seconds, who's already fallen into a defensive stance.

Matt brings a hand to his face, pinching his nose bridge, before heavily sighing, "You've got to be kidding me Al. You're hiding a murderer now."

"She's no-"

"I didn't kill anyone," she tries, folding into herself, trying to appear smaller and innocent than she actually is. Vera tries to play at being Tisiphone once more. "It's all a misunderstanding!"

"Then turn yourself in," Nick challenges, closing the door behind him.

"Al," Matt says, placing his hands on Alex's shoulders, "what the hell are you thinking mate! They're going to lock you up for this and not even-"

"Matt," he interrupts, "trust me. I'd love to have a nice long chat but things have gotten. . .complicated and-it's safer if ya don't know. Just. . .trust me."

Matt stares back at him, mouth drawn. An entire childhood together on earth, their toes digging into the soil, tracking mud all over the floors. Later a shared adolescence, their accents charming the girls and boys at school, Matt doing all the talking and never leaving a painfully shy Alex behind.

He nods. "You better come back because we're having this talk even if I have to go visit you in prison."

"There are things far worse than prison," Vera unhelpfully points out, tugging on her jacket over her hoodie, the collar lined with actual animal fur. Given the martian rationing system, it was an untold luxury for Vera to own a leather jacket with fur at all. "I'd even take death over enhanced interrogation."

She pretends to tremble with fear, "anything but gravity."

Alex snorts in spite of the dark subject matter. "Not helping."

Ignoring the other two men in the room, Vera hands Alex one of the spare IDB's he'd seen in her bag earlier. Had it really been only hours ago? "Here's your IDB now. Alexander Collins. Born on Pallas. Married to Morgana Collins," she points at herself, already dispatching the old IDB off her wrist and throwing it in her bag. "Came to the moon to get married. Off to Callisto to make a living," she explains calmly.

"Short and sweet," Alex notes, looking down at his own wrist, the IDB a second skin. He hadn't taken it off since he'd left earth. Many colonies like Callisto chose to implant the ID chip.

It was the key to getting on any ship. His passport and last link to earth. His last hope at ever stepping foot on the big blue planet again, however slim.

Visas for foreigners pretty much nonexistent.

Nick hands him a swiss army laser, "I implanted mine." It's news to Alex who hadn't even noticed, Nick having always been a bit chilly, wearing long sleeves year round. " 's nice actually."

Matt dramatically covers his eyes.

Alex slices through the metal, leaving a band of unblemished creamy skin.

It doesn't last long, as Vera easily replaces it.

"You should keep it," she tells him, patting his arm like a parent half heartedly consoling their child after a pet fish dies. "We are planning on fixing things."

"Yeah," Alex answers, running his fingers over the band. He already felt less confident without it.

#trash pile #alex turner #alex turner x reader #alex turner fanfic #alex turner imagine #space opera fic i wont finish

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buckybeardreams · 3 years

Text

Unwanted

Chapters: 9/11

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

Characters: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Brock Rumlow, James "Bucky" Barnes, Clint Barton, Harley Keener

Additional Tags: Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alpha Steve Rogers, Omega Tony Stark, Service Top, Dominant Bottom, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Virgin Steve Rogers, Brock Rumlow is a Good Bro, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Romantic Soulmates, First Meetings, Angst with a Happy Ending, Sappy, Romantic Fluff, Awkwardness, Drinking to Cope, Self-Worth Issues, Insecure Tony Stark, Insecure Steve Rogers, Age Difference, Harley Keener is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Bonding, Claiming Bites, Claiming, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Non-Explicit Sex, Light Dom/sub, Mutual Masturbation, Coming Untouched, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, Knotting

Series: Part 1 of Second Chances

Summary:

Steve is a soft Alpha and Tony is an in charge kind of Omega with no desire to find a mate. He doesn't want to find his soulmate and when he does meet Steve he's determined to stay away from him.

That is until he realizes just how right they are for each other.

Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4 Ch 5 Ch 6 Ch 7 Ch 8 Ch 9 Ch 10 Ch 11

Can also be read here

Words: 1,612

"You're not unhappy that we bonded, right?"

Tony rolled his eyes.

"If I was I wouldn't be curled up in bed right now after letting you fuck my brains out."

Steve smirked.

"I think you were the one doing the fucking. I just laid there while you rode me."

"Yeah, but next time I'm gonna make you do all the work and I'm just gonna lay there and be the pillow princess. Let my Alpha take care of me," Tony said, his fingers trailing down Steve's chest and a sultry pout on his lips. "You'd do that for me, wouldn't you, Alpha?"

"You know I'd do anything to please you, baby."

"I know, because you're such a good boy," Tony murmured, kissing him. "Mm, as much as I'd love to stick around and let you fuck me on every surface in your apartment, I really have to get going or I'm gonna be late."

"I'll drive you," Steve offered.

"You're sweet, but no, I'm good. If I take you with me I'm just gonna end up fucking you in the break room and then the manager is gonna be an asshole about it."

Steve growled.

"I hate that guy more every time you talk about him."

Tony hummed, kissing him again.

"Yeah, well, I think most bosses disapprove of fucking in the employee's room. Even the not asshole ones.

"No, I don't mean that. We definitely can't do that, no matter how much I like the idea of you bossing me around at your work. I just think this Obie guy sounds like the worst and every time I've run into him just confirms that."

Tony didn't even try to disagree with that assessment.

"Like last week when he gave you shit for having to leave early because of your heat. There are laws in place to protect Omegas from being forced to work while in heat, but you practically had to beg him for the days off and then apologize for not being able to work and he still gave you shit about it. Then he had the audacity to act like he had done you some great favor and made you work extra shifts to make up for it. He didn't even pay you overtime, even though he made you work like sixty hours."

"Hey, hey, calm down. You're getting yourself all worked up about it and I don't want that. I appreciate your concern, I really do, and I love that you're so protective. Which is honestly something I never thought I'd say, but you need to take a deep breath. I've got it all under control."

Steve tried to take a deep breath, tried to calm down like his Omega told him to, but it didn't do much to alleviate his anger.

"I know, I'm sorry. I just wish you didn't have to deal with him."

"Well, I won't have to for much longer."

Steve frowned.

"What do you mean?"

Tony shifted on his lap, looking down at his lap nervously.

"Well, I was actually gonna tell you about this, but we've just been so caught up in our own little bubble and I didn't want to burst it by bringing up legal stuff. Besides, I almost forgot about it with all the newly mated hormones rushing through me," Tony rambled.

"Tony, love, just tell me."

"We tried to get Obie fired, but the owner, Alexander Pierce, was backing him, so we're taking him to court. They've been doing a whole bunch of shady stuff that's totally illegal, from paying people off to pass inspections and dealing drugs out back in the alley, to denying us health insurance, making us work overtime but not paying us overtime, and usually they make the Omegas work during heat. I think Obie only gave in this time, because he thought you might beat his ass if he called me in for work."

There was an amused smile on Tony's face, but he was looking at Steve, worried about his reaction. Steve was furious, but not at Tony. He knew that Obie was an asshole, but he had no idea just how bad it really was.

"Baby, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. I shouldn't have let you work for a guy like that. I'm your Alpha. I should have protected you, provided for you so you didn't have to work-"

"Hey, no, stop," Tony told him. "I love you so much, Alpha, but I don't want that. This was my battle to fight and I wasn't about to let you take that away from me. I've been dealing with this bullshit for years and now I'm finally changing things. You have to let me do this."

Steve felt awed by his little Omega. So much strength wrapped up in such a small little package it was unbelievable, and to think he was all Steve's. Steve kissed him, hard and lingering.

"I would never take that away from you, Tony. I wouldn't dream of doing something like that, pretty Omega."

A shy smile crept onto Tony's face and his cheeks turned pink.

"Thank you, Alpha. That means a lot, and I mean, there's no guarantee that the next person who buys the place will be any better than Pierce, or that they will hire us all on again. There's really no guarantee anybody will buy the place anytime soon. Realistically, it'll probably be bulldozed and turned into a parking lot for the diner next door or something like that. We all know that we're probably gonna lose our jobs, but it's worth it to do the right thing and put Pierce behind bars."

Steve nodded, licking his lips and considering how to say what he wanted to say in a way that wouldn't offend Tony.

"You know that I think you're so strong and I'm so proud of you for doing this, right?"

Tony bit his lip, nodding uncertainly.

He wasn't sure where Steve was going with this.

"I think it's amazing that you're gonna do this and that you want to do this and I'll support you in this in any way that I can," Steve told him earnestly. "I know that this is your fight, Tony, and I would never take that away from you, but if you'll let me, I'd love to fight alongside you."

Tony broke out in a grin, wrapping his arms around Steve's neck.

"Yes! Oh my God, yes!" Tony squealed. "Fuck, you scared me there. I thought you were gonna say something awful, but I should have known you'd just say something charming and perfect."

Steve blushed, but he was grinning too.

"Right, well, you see, the thing is Tony that I have a lot of money-"

Tony pulled back, raising a brow at him.

" You have a lot of money. You , the eighteen year old artist and former virgin until I seduced your ass Alpha, has a lot of money?" Tony asked him, clearly amused and not believing him one bit. "Tell me, pretty boy, what do you consider a lot of money? The twenty dollar allowance your mommy gives every Saturday?"

Steve glared at him, but there wasn't any heat in it. If anything he was just really embarrassed and really turned on.

"Sam helped me out a lot when I was a kid. He helped me turn my life around and he helped get my art into some galleries. He's got this friend, an ex of his, Pepper Potts. She's like a brilliant business woman and she runs her own company, but she also has a few major art galleries where she displays art from some of the most prominent artists in the states. I'm talking big shots, well known artists that make hundreds of thousands of dollars selling one painting."

Tony was just staring at him, like he was having a hard time figuring out if this was just some elaborate joke or not.

"Steve... what are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying that she saw some of my work, loved it, and put it up in her galleries. I've only sold a handful, but I've made a lot of money. Your bar is not that great, no offense, and I don't really spend much of my money other than for, like, rent and groceries, so there's a lot of it just sitting around. We could probably just buy the bar. That is if you want to be an owner of a bar."

Steve swallowed hard and fidgeted nervously with the bottom of Tony's shirt when he didn't respond. Tony was just shocked and pretty sure he was dreaming.

"I'm sorry, what? You're joking, right?" Tony said in disbelief. "Are you telling me that you have hundreds of thousands of dollars just lying around?"

Steve squirmed under Tony.

"I mean, not literally. It's all in the bank. Most of it's in my savings account since it earns more interest that way-"

"Shut up, I don't care about that," Tony said, cutting off his nervous rambling. "Are you for real? You have that kind of money and you'd be willing to let me buy a bar with it?"

Steve bit his lip.

"Yeah, I mean, Tony, I'd do anything for you. So if you want a bar then I'll buy you a bar. It's no big deal."

"No big deal? It's a huge deal!"

Steve wasn't sure if he was upset or excited, but then Tony was wrapping his arms around his neck and kissing him.

"Fuck, I love you so much. You know that, right?" Tony groaned against his lips.

Steve nodded, whimpering into his mouth when Tony kissed him again.

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whumpeeblog · 4 years

Text

TW CHILD SLAVERY MENTION OF TORTURE MENTION OF DEATH PAIN WHUMP

“Don’t you touch her.”

S scrambled through the castle halls, K sprinting behind her.

“Come here you little wretch!” He grumbled as he gained on her. Nearly tripping, S rounded the corner into the throne room, where D stood, talking to a neighboring ambassador. In frantic panic, the girl ran to her master.

D’s blue eyes widened as he watched his prisoner throwing herself towards him. Shock struck him when K came trailing behind her.

S ducked behind D, squatting in a fetal position behind his tall legs, afraid to look towards the disaster she knew was on its way.

K slowed to a walk, his sword drawn.

“Come here, girl. I swear when I get my hands on you, your little body will burn with pain.”

D spoke up in order to protect his captive.

“Don’t you touch her.”

D’s deep command stopped K. However, hatred darkened in his eyes as he glared at the figure hiding behind his cousin and friend. He took a step closer, the thump of his boot causing the marred child to flinch in fear.

“K. Don’t. You. Dare. Touch. Her.” D repeated. “Now tell me what’s going on and maybe we can sort this out.” The ambassador beside him watched the scene unfold, the amusement on his face revealing his attempt not to laugh.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened, and D was accustomed to bringing K’s temper down while protecting S.

“She stole several items from me and it’s time the little thief learn to pay. In Galway, thieves lose their hands at best and their lives at worst,” K snarled.

“Put the sword away and I’ll deal with this.”

K placed the blade back in its sheath, yet the child still cowered in fear. She may have escaped K’s wrath, but now she needed to face the decision of her master.

“S,” Damian stated confidently. S scurried around to face Master D, as she called him, dropping to her knees and lowering her head. She knew she would be punished, but a small bit of relief crashed through her, acknowledging that D was usually much more merciful than K and wouldn’t torture her like K would. If K had caught her, he would have skinned her alive, literally. He’d done it to many others, and knew how to keep them alive as long as possible. He was the executioner, after all. He, as well as D, N, and almost every other prominent being in the small kingdom, knew how to push a victim to the brink of death, putting them in the most agonizing pain possible, yet keeping their heart beating.

“Look at me,” D commanded. S’s gaze reluctantly met his eyes, and she trembled. She searched his face for mercy; for any chance that he might not let K torture her.

She knew the rules. If a slave, prisoner, or other commoner was caught stealing from a lord, prince, or other high placed official, the king had the right to do whatever he pleased. This usually included severe torture and beheading. If a commoner was stolen from, they could take that person prisoner or slave, and do what they wished. If they were feeling generous, they could send the criminal to a local sheriff, and they would be given a “kind” death: hanging.

A chilly waterfall of horror flushed through S’s body as she searched her master’s eyes.

“Are these accusations true?” D asked sternly, concern and dominance hinted in his eyes. The girl’s face lowered as she nodded softly. She lifted her gaze, but was unable to read Damian’s face. “And may I ask as to what you stole and why you did?”

“I- it was just some food and a few weathered blankets, Master.”

“And why did you take these things when I provide you with what you need? Are you planning an escape attempt perhaps?” D interrogated the girl. Just as it wasn’t the first time she had stolen, he wouldn’t be surprised if she were plotting to run... again. She had been tormented mercilessly for many of her attempts, although there were several times he had allowed her to get away with it. S trembled and her eyes pleaded desperately for Damian to believe her.

“No, Master! I swear it wasn’t an escape attempt, Sir! Please! I was just hungry and cold...”

D questioned the child further, but he was already aware exactly why she had done it.

“If you were hungry or cold, you could have come to me or N and we would have provided you with warmth and a meal. You know this, so why didn’t you ask?” D raised an eyebrow and lifted his hand to his chin, almost as if he were deeply pondering the situation.

“I- I was afraid to ask, Master. I feared that if I became too much of a burden to you, you would take my head.” Her eyes lowered to stare at the cold, golden floor she kneeled upon. She trembled even more, one of the first signs of the panic attack she could feel rising into her heart. A tear slipped, and landed on the ground like the first raindrop of a terrifying storm.

“So you thought that by stealing from my executioner, you could get away with it. You didn’t think he would notice. After all, the less you eat, the smaller of a burden you are to me, correct?” D questioned. S nodded, still afraid to meet his eyes. “And even if you were caught, you hoped I would put you out of your misery quickly, rather than make you suffer as K here would.” D pitied the slave. She was just a teenager, and a traumatized one at that. He recognized the need to correct her habit, however.

“Let me have her, D,” K cut in. S glared at him, a cocktail of hatred and horror drowning her tears. D put up a hand to stop K as he lunged forward, fangs bared.

“Now,” D shifted his eyes to the girl between him and K, “It seems we have a problem, don’t we?”

“Yes, Master D.”

“Leave us,” D glanced at K and his ambassador. K growled resentfully, but walked toward the door. The ambassador followed, understanding that the meeting would be over for the next few hours.

It was now between the prisoner and her captor. She knew what she deserved, and she grimaced as visions of her possible punishments overcame her.

“Please have mercy, Master,” she pleaded tearfully, whimpering with tiny gasps. Thirty seconds of silence went by as D stared at S, deep in thought.

“Why were you so afraid to ask?”

S spoke up nasally, still trying to hide her sobs.

“If- if I eat too much you’ll kill me.”

D knew better. She was the spitting image of his deceased sister, and his last plan was to execute the child. Of course, if it came to the point where his only option were the sword, he’d do it, but not for a little nourishment. He still tortured her as needed. She wasn’t his sister after all. He often needed to be reminded that she was a slave, a prisoner of war and ally of the enemy.

D didn’t respond to S’s statement, proving in her mind that her fears would soon come to life. He decided that instead of severely punishing her as he had done many times before, he’d use a harmless fear tactic.

“On your feet.” His sunken tone struck fear and earned a flinch from S. She did as was told, and rose, staring up into his icy glare. “Against the wall.” Once again, S responded submissively, walking to face the wall. D sauntered to his throne, prolonging the process in order to teach a lesson of obedience. He reached for a strand of rope which hung on the wall behind the throne, part of a daunting collection of restraints and weapons.

S’s body jolted as she was forcefully shoved into the gold plated wall. Her arms were yanked behind her back. Her wrists over crossed each other, palms out. The rope brushed against soft skin, leaving a burning trail of red rash as it slithered its way around her wrists.

Fingers sliding over S’s shoulder, D turned her body and guided her forward.

Oh God he’s gonna kill me... no. worse. He’s gonna torture me.

Hyperventilation shook S’s frail body, but instead dragging her to one of the torture chambers, D pushed her towards the opposite side of the throne room. The door on that side led to a stone spiral staircase. These stairs went up to a winding maze of hallways with different suites belonging to each individual royal in the small kingdom. Each suite was like an apartment, and contained its own prison cells for the men’s prisoners. Few ever left the private dungeons. To the surprise of the child, however, D didn’t chain her to a wall in his dungeon. He didn’t beat her to a pulp with the agonizing cracks of a nine stranded whip. A harsh necklace of rope wasn't strung around her neck, nor her tendons cut to allow her to choke to death.

Instead he led her in the opposite direction and down the stairs to the section of the castle that was used as a public hangout. The lower floor was set up with a kitchen, living space, dining hall, music and entertainment room, and had a porch leading outside.

D unsheathed a knife. S only knew this thanks to the familiar metallic scrape of the object leaving its home. A shudder wracked through her, and she expected the worst. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she braced herself, but the pain never came. Instead, D’s knife sliced its way through the rope, and the broken bonds fluttered to the floor.

D walked towards the couch, and picked up a heavy wool blanket. He draped it around his terrified slave. Her body shuddered when the scratchy warm fabric danced on her skin, the only touch she was used to being some form of excruciating torture.

“Sit,” D pointed towards the couch. S timidly waddled over. She was still skeptical that he would hurt her, but D was often merciful to her too. There was no real way of knowing whether he would hurt her or not. When he did, she knew he tried to be lenient, and he only punished her when he felt he had to. Now was one of the times that he may have to, she thought.

Frightened eyes examined every detail of her master making his way about the kitchen at the other side of the room. D heated something in a pot on the stove, occasionally glancing over to assure that his prisoner hadn’t made another escape attempt. The figure huddled in the corner of the couch, afraid to move or make a sound. Even under the shadows of the blanket wrapped over her head and body, dark circles of sleep deprivation made themselves visible.

D walked over to the girl, carrying with him a tray of soup, bread, and water. He set it on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“Eat,” he instructed. S didn’t budge. D stared with concern. He cared about her, even if she was his slave. He genuinely didn’t want to hurt her, but she had been his enemy, and a prisoner. Either she was afraid that he poisoned the food, or she was trying to kill herself with starvation.

S cowered away when a steamy spoon of tomato broth met her lips.

“Open.” She did as told, but tears began to fall as she took the liquid in. Whimpers and shivering came with each spoonful.

After several spoonfuls, D seemed to have convinced the child that he hadn’t poisoned her meal. He slowly slid his way up the couch to sit behind her. Drowsiness conquered S’s frail body and she began sleep softly, laying her head across her master’s lap. D combed her brown hair with his fingers, not daring to move. The sedative had finally set in, and he didn’t need to change that.

#whump prompts #emotional whump #whumpblr #whump community #whump scenario #whump prompt #whump trope #whumper #slave #prisoner

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nationofimaginations · 4 years

Text

Safe and Sound // Scott McCall

Prompt: Hey could you make a one shot where Scott tells you not to do something, but you do it anyway and it almost gets you killed, and that’s when he tells you that he is in love with you? Thanks!

Thank you so much of the request! Sorry it took so long, but I hope you enjoy :)

Warnings: mentions of death, a bit of blood, heavy feels, hospital stay

Those damn Hunters. Scott was leading the pack into yet another suicide mission. You were no supernatural creature, but in your gut, you could sense that someone was going to get hurt. It was not part of your nature to stand back while your dearest friends risked their lives. Scott’s brown eyes peered into yours with a glare of stern concern and something else you could not put your finger on. “I know you want to help, but this isn’t the place for you. It’s too dangerous for you. It would be better for everyone if you just stayed back this time.”

“I get it. I’m just a fragile human to you. It’s not like anyone else here is exactly invincible,” you seethe through your teeth. This was true. Supernatural did not always equal invincibility as all of you had seen almost on the daily. It was frustrating that Scott never could accept that you were more than capable of holding your own, even after you proving your strength and intelligence time and time again. Yet, he continued to treat you like a burden.

“This is my fight. I decide who fights with me. You will stay here. End of discussion.” Fighting him was useless. There are other methods of getting your way.

“Fine.” Scott’s tense broad shoulders relax upon your apparent surrender. His lips curve into an appreciative smile, a grateful glint sparkles in his eyes — or was that something else? Something that delves beyond being a protective friend.

“Thank you,” he says your name softly as if he didn’t want it to float out of his reach and into anyone else’s grasp. Against his better judgement, he wanted you to be his and his alone. Still, your safety was of the utmost importance to him and he was more than willing to sacrifice his selfish desires to keep you from getting yet another target on your back. “Go home. I will come back to check on you after this is all over. I promise.”

You give him one last look before you turn to retreat to your home. You felt pathetic and useless running away from the fight. It was not your fault that you could not shapeshift or predict the future or whatever. Determination ran through your blood. You were going to prove yourself no matter what it takes. Jumping in your car, you quietly recite the directions to the abandoned warehouse the pack was heading toward. It wasn’t a long journey before you got close enough to sneak the rest of the way on first.

Just beyond the trees, in a decent sized clearing a dinghy building stood. The overcast in the sky passed rapidly, making the moonlight dance against the rotting property. Shadows could be seen through the cracked glass of the windows on the bottom floor. It was the perfect place for an evil mastermind to operate. You crept up to the entrance, hearing familiar voices talking inside. The Hunters backs’ were facing you while the pack stood their ground on the opposite side of the large space. This was the perfect time for you to make your attack. Just run in and knock one of them out, giving Scott the perfect opportunity to join in to overpower them. Absolutely flawless plan of a sneak attack. Nothing could go wrong.

You lean against the wall and clutch your heart, trying to calm its incessant pounding against your chest. You had never done anything like this but it had to be done. Slowly, you rise bracing yourself to run at your victim. Sprinting at the fastest rate your legs could carry you, you jump on the nearest figures back, hitting his head with closed fists. Scott calls out your name, furrowing his eyebrows. Your punches land but do nothing to bring the figure to the ground. If anything, you were a pitiful koala clinging on his back. An extra weight, nothing more.

Another one of the hunters grabs you by your waist, pulling you back to your feet. Your back presses up against a heavy chest as your hands are restricted behind you and a hand squeezes your neck. “It’s so nice to see that your girlfriend decided to join us, Scott. I am truly looking forward to showing her what a real man looks like later tonight,” the lead Hunter smirks, resting the barrel of his gun against his shoulder. He runs a hand over your cheek, looking back over his shoulder at Scott. The minion’s hand tightens against your windpipe, nausea fills your stomach. A rumble emits from Scott’s chest, his face burning with raw rage. It was one thing to mess with the pack, but to hear that monster mention you made his skin boil.

There were only a few moments before you would blackout, this was your time to do something, anything to save yourself. Scott and the Hunter exchange a few more words while you brace yourself. You shift your body weight forward, gathering enough momentum to swing your head back and make contact with your captors nose. A sick crack echoes through the room. He releases you from his constrictive grip and you begin running to safety by Scott’s side. Adrenaline makes you feel powerful as you lunge to safety.

“Watch out!” a voice shouted. Your head whips to the origin of the sound. Shadows of countless arrows and bullets fly in your direction. Metal grazes your skin, knocking you to the ground. Your head bounces off the rocky ground and you can feel a warm liquid trickle down your side

A scream tries to leave your mouth but it comes out in a garbled cry. Face down. Paralyzed. Unable to make out any words. Bleeding out in a secluded warehouse with the worst pain you could imagine. This is it, you think.

“I told you not to follow us. How could you be so stupid? Why couldn’t you stop trying to be the hero for once in your life?” He flips you onto your back and cold regret crawls through his veins. His throat dries as he notices the life drained from your face. Your lips turning blue under the moonlight. Your eyes no longer possessing that special shine he would be more than willing to spend the rest of his life looking at.

“Stay with me,” he cries, holding your cold hand up to his cheek. “There’s so much we still have to do. Just you and me. Please give me another chance. I’ll do things right this time. Please don’t leave me like this. Not before I — ” He chokes on his words. He blames himself for all of this happening. Maybe if he had let you come along in the first place, he would have been able to better shield you from harm. Maybe he should have left someone behind to watch you. Maybe he should have never introduced you to his world in the first place. His thoughts come to a rapid halt as you gasp for air. Your eyes flutter shut, leaving black holes in their place. This is it, he thinks.

“This isn’t fair! Bring her back!” He whimpers your name, punching the bloody concrete next to your body. His knuckles burst with blood, adding to the gruesome mix. Derek roughly grabbed his arm, heaving Scott to his feet. But gravity reunited him back to your side, where he belonged.

“We have to get her to the hospital. Screaming at the sky isn’t helping anyone.” Derek’s voice of reason gives Scott a rush of hope over his body. He gingerly cradles your head in his arm while the others move under your thighs to lift you into the air. His heart sinks as he remembers fantasizing being in this position at a later date under much happier circumstances.

Everything feels heavy including the strong smell of antiseptic. A faint beeping from the machines to the side of the bed and the wires entangling your lifeless limbs let you know that you are in a medical facility of some sort. Breathing alone prompts a stabbing pain in your abdomen. You reflexively reach to hold the pain but a weight on your hand prevents you from doing so. Your eyes open, adjusting to the blinding light as you try to see what is touching you. A strong bruised hand engulfs yours, making it seem much smaller than usual. Small scratches litter the surface, highlighting the prominent veins ever so slightly. The thumb traces soft patterns into the back of your hand making you sigh in comfort. Your eyes travel up the mysterious figure’s muscular arms to a familiar face. Scott was hunched over in the small visiting chair that was most likely not intended to be a place for napping. His head fell to one side and you noticed a small glimmer of drool rolling down his cheek. The sight made you smile. How long has he been like that?

A soft voice makes you turn your attention to the otherside of the room. “You know, he hasn’t left the room since we first got here. Not even to take a leak, according to my professional opinion, a UTI is in the works.” Stiles stood near, leaning against the door. He spoke in a hushed and uncharacteristically serious tone. “He made me promise to watch you while he slept, I swear I’m not a creep.”

You tried to say something, anything, but your throat was so dry that nothing would come out. Stiles held up a reassuring hand, signaling that you can relax. “He really cares about you. He always has. He just has a hard time showing it. Don’t be too hard on him.”

A wave of shivers run over your body. Was that true? Soft snores recapture your attention. Scott looks so peaceful and innocent as he sleeps. It is so unlike anything you had seen before. You wished to run your fingers through his silky hair but he was too far away.

“I’ll go let the doctor know you are awake.” Stiles turns to leave. The door clicks behind him and Scott jumps to his feet. Teeth bared, ready to kill anyone who dares to threaten his sleeping beauty.

“It’s okay Scott. Everything is fine. We are safe now,” you struggle to say. Your voice comes out hoarse but you try your best to sound comforting.

Scott’s face almost instantly brightens. He takes your hand in both of his hands, squeezing tightly as he drops to his knees at your bedside. His lips connect with the back of your hand, leaving several quick pecks. His eyes gloss over as he smiles so widely for you. He very suddenly leaned over to embrace you in his arms. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he chants over and over again with his lips pressed against your ear. Who he is talking to is unclear but you don’t mind. His smell is intoxicating. You wish you could live in it like a permanent comfy sweatshirt. Shortly, he pulls away looking back into your eyes.

“I was so worried, I could not live with myself if you would have died.”

“I know, I’m sorry Scott. I just wanted to be more than your useless wimpy friend for once.” Your eyes don’t meet his piercing gaze.

“You have never been useless or wimpy to me,” his hand gently pushes your chin to look back at him. “You are everything I have ever wanted and more. You are strong, smart, capable, independent. You never needed to prove yourself to me. I have been in love with you since the day I first laid eyes on you. I love you, (Y/N).”

The EKG on the other side of the bed picked up on your accelerated heart beat, increasing its steady beat rapidly though you could have sworn in that moment your heart exploded from pure joy. “I love you too, Scott.”

You both exchanged a smile before locking lips passionately. Your lips molded together and moved in a perfect pattern as if you had done this a million times before. This is where you are meant to be. Safe and sound in his arms.

(A/N)

Well, that was a trip. It is kind of rushed. I just wanted to get something out. I have been getting back into writing again lately, however, Teen Wolf has not been as inspiring to me as it once was. As you could probably tell this was a little bit all over the place. I think I might write a few Star Wars one shots (specifically Anakin or Kylo bc I love an emotional bad boy) to get back in the mood. So if you are into that, stay tuned and maybe send me some inspiration.

#scott mccall #scott mccall x reader #scott mccall fanfiction #scott mccall one shot #teen wolf #teen wolf x reader #teen wolf scott #teen wolf one shot #teen wolf fanfiction #teen wolf fanfic #teen wolf fandom #scott mccall angst #scott mccall request #request #taking request #fanfiction #tw fanfiction

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firemblem-fics · 4 years

Text

Smitten Kitten [4]

one | two | three | four | finale

-> Pairing: Felix x Female!Reader | Hybrid!AU (mostly platonic idk)

-> Word Count: 1.2k

-> Genre: Mostly Angst

-> Warnings: HUGE TW - this chapter contains scenes of animal/human abuse. Do not read this chapter if you are easily triggered by these themes. Also cursing

-> Summary: You never wanted to be involved with hybrids. They were risky and had too many rules for you. But what will you do when a little black and white cat that you take in turns out to be the very thing you steered clear of?

-> A/N: I do apologize for this chapter being short and violent and whatever. It’s kind of just a filler chapter because I would like to have the resolution as a chapter itself lol

Hell.

Life without Felix was practically Hell.

In the two months that Felix had lived with you, you had become completely used to having another body in your house. Without him, it was extremely lonely. You often believed that you could revel in the quietness of your apartment, needing nobody but yourself to keep you company.

How wrong you were.

The silence was practically unbearable now. Even if Felix wasn't the most talkative of the bunch, simply having a roommate was enough for you. You learned to never take things for granted- especially someone like Felix.

The tuxedo cat hybrid messaged you as much as he could, compiling stories of activities that Doug and Karen made him partake in. They spanned from 14 hour work days practicing for different Hybrid Shows (Karen was quite the fanatic for Fodlan's Finest Pets) to up to three days locked in his room because he was rude to them.

The days where he had to hide his phone and refrain from messaging you were the worst. Like today.

You paced around Ashe's living room, practically burning a path into his rug as you trudged for hours, checking your phone in case.

"Y/N, I'm begging you. Sit the hell down."

This was the third time Ashe tried to ask you to sit. Your nervousness was definitely affecting everyone else, as seen by Sylvain, whose tail hadn't wagged during the entire hour that you were over.

"I can't Ashe, what if I get distracted and he messages and needs me? If it's an emergency-"

"Please, dear God, he's been gone for a week and a half. He's a big boy, too. Definitely capable of taking care of himself."

"But did you see him when they left! How he looked? It- it was awful. Sad. Whatever they did to Felix isn't just something to brush off. He didn't even try to argue with them- Felix always argues!" You spat. You felt a little bad for being so angry, but this was your friend, goddamnit.

Suddenly, your phone screen lit up and a notification sound rang through the apartment. You practically launched the phone out of your hands with how quickly you lifted it up, checking your messages.

"He sent a video."

"What does it say?"

"There's no other message. Just the video."

The screen was black. Your fingers shook as you pressed the play button. The first thing you heard was Karen's voice, the shrill soprano of her tone nearly breaking your eardrums.

"Felix, this is the third time today. Get the fuck out of the bathroom."

The camera then showed a bathroom and shakily pointed to the door, where the knob was wiggling violently.

"Fuck off!" Felix exclaimed just as loudly. Your heart lurched at the sound of his voice. He sounded okay.

"Felix, I'm not doing this anymore. Come out before I have to force my way in."

The camera flipped, now showing Felix. You gasped.

His hair was down from its usual ponytail, the strands framing his face messily. He always wore a frown, but this one seemed to etch deeper into his face. The real eyesore of it all was... well, the literal eye sore.

A giant bruise was blossoming beneath his eye, spreading down quite a ways away from the eye itself and onto his prominent cheekbone. He didn't seem to fret over it, of course, but you certainly were.

"If you're not doing this anymore, I should just go back to Y/N's-"

"Don't you EVER talk about her again, do you hear me Felix Hugo?" The door rattled again. "She's not getting you back. You belong to us and it's about time you act like it."

Felix rolled his eyes. "Really now? We'll see about that soon." He murmured. He stood up and turned the camera back towards the door, slowly walking up to it and unlocking it.

As he finally began to open the door himself, it swung open with the force of at least a hundred Karens. The video got a good view of her face before she noticed, screamed at him to turn it off, and lifted her hand. A loud smack resounded through the speakers before you saw the phone clatter to the floor and the recording shut off.

You finally looked up at Ashe, who was already looking at you. "Do you think this is evidence enough to get him back?"

He looked even more troubled than you, glancing over to Sylvain. You couldn't imagine how Sylvain may be feeling at the moment- he came from a similar situation, except with breeding instead of pageants.

"It's got her face in it and Felix has a visible wound. I think it's good."

You nodded and grabbed your bag, wordlessly leaving to Madame's. Ashe and Sylvain scurried behind you, not that you noticed. You were too focused on getting your Felix back.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

"We'll see about that soon."

You turned away from your phone at the next part, not wanting to rewatch your beloved hybrid get hit.

Nancy held onto your phone, watching the screen rather intently for someone who didn't give two shits about Felix. Ashe held his hand on the small of your back, giving it a few comforting rubs to calm your nerves. Finally, the video ended and she handed you back your phone.

"I just wanted to show you this and the other messages and videos as evidence that Felix is being abused by his owners. I know you hate him but he deserves a good life and-"

Nancy held up a hand. "Felix is the biggest asshole I have ever met. I may not like him, but animal abuse is still abuse."

"He's not an animal."

"Hybrids are animals, sweetie. Get over it." She smacked her gum and picked up a phone. "I'm going to call them down to the facility and while we wait, you are going to show Hybrid Protection Services those videos. They will deal with the rest and hopefully by tomorrow you will have complete custody over Felix."

You could only smile at Nancy. Yeah, she was a wack-ass bitch, but at least she was helping you. You just prayed that you would never see her again after this all was over.

After a few minutes, two HPS officers came through the front doors of the Facility, making a small bell ring to signal their entrance. Nancy kindly tells the officers of the situation and twirls her hair, batting her eyelashes at one man you could only describe as long, tan, and handsome. Too bad that wasn't your type.

Your type was average height, pale, red eyes, asshole- wait. No. They were talking to you. Oh, they wanted to see the phone. Oopsies.

Once more, you distracted yourself by picking at the sleeves of your sweater to avoid listening to the videos again. The HPS officers nodded and stepped off to the side with your phone and a notepad, figuring out what to do.

Soon, the bell rang once more and you turned your head, finally making eye contact with those red eyes that you'd been longing to see for weeks.

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13-reasons-ideas · 4 years

Text

Undercover Part 1

A/N: I decided to try a different fandom to branch out a bit. Let me know if you guys want me to continue on with this one. This is a Riverdale story. Please note that I stopped watching the show at the end of season two so I have no clue what is happening now on it. I will still be writing for 13RW, so don’t worry. I am just writing my idea of how an undercover FBI operation works. It may not be accurate. I got this idea from a TikTok. If you like it, it will be a multi chapter work.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and any mention of real people is purely coincidental.

My assignment was supposed to be simple. Go to Riverdale, find the Serpents, become friendly, infiltrate, provide evidence of illegal activities, make arrests, get out. I knew what my role was. I was good at my job. They didn’t put me in organized crime undercover for no reason after Quantico. I had done this many times before over the years. I was prepared for the job, spending hours upon hours researching and learning as much as I could about this small-town biker gang. I knew their patterns, their MO, their hangouts, hell, I knew what they liked to eat for breakfast. I was prepared. Correction, I thought I was prepared. I hadn’t, however, prepared for him.

After a relaxing weekend, I arrived at the office Monday morning at seven. There was a manila folder on my desk and my boss, Special Agent Edward Williams, was waving me towards his office. Oh no. What did I do this weekend that would get me in trouble? I wracked my brain as I took the envelope and confidently walked to his office. He indicated for me to sit. “Good morning Edward.”

“Good morning Catherine.” He greeted before cutting right to the chase, “We have an assignment for you.” I shifted my body to sit up straighter, immediately appearing more professional as he continued. “What do you know about a group known as the Southside Serpents?”

“Just that they’re some small-time biker gang out of Riverdale. They occasionally cause a blip on the radar for something in a neighbouring town. Why?”

“Their leader recently stepped down and appointed someone else to take the reins. He seems to want them to be less small-time biker gang and more of a reaching organization. We aren’t sure exactly how far or deep this goes or what they want to do exactly.”

“So, you want me to go in and find out. See what they want to do, where they want to expand, and if I happen to find anything else I can use, that’s just gravy?”

“Essentially yes. You know how this works usually, but it’s a small town. Your handler won’t be in town with you. You call every night to check in and if something goes wrong, we will get you out of there.”

“Yes, Sir. When do I leave?”

“Two weeks. The basics are in that folder. Memorize it.” I nodded and opened the file, skimming it quickly.

“I see mention of Jones and Jones, but I don’t see a mention of who took over for them?”

“That’s part of the problem. We don’t have an actual name for him. Just that he goes by Sweetpea. Seems like he’s run with them since he was a kid.”

“Great.” I muttered, “I’ll get started now, unless there’s anything else?”

“Yeah one more thing. Due to it being so small, you’ll be in a rental house in lieu of a hotel. It’s quaint little house on the north side of town.”

“Sounds good. What about my alias?”

“You’ll keep your first name and your last name is going to be changed. It’s all in your file.”

“Thank you, Sir.” I nodded, before walking back to my desk and beginning my research.

That was two weeks ago. Today, I was standing in front of a little red house on a quiet street in the town of Riverdale. To most people, it looked like a nice little place where nothing bad ever happened and there was no danger. And for the most part, it was. So long as you stayed on the right side of the tracks. I looked around me as other agents, my partner/handler Jason included, helped to unload boxes of “personal” belongings into the home. It was already furnished, so a small U-Haul was sufficient. I was able to use a few personal photos, non-descript childhood pictures mostly. Most of the others were taken and provided by the bureau. “Drinking” with the girls in one, another agent posing as a family member at a faux family reunion, a picture of a dog. It looked like I had lived some kind of life before today. This way, it wouldn’t look like I had just appeared out of thin air. Or, at least, Catherine Adams hadn’t appeared out of thin air.

While work in the house continued, outfitting the house with internet-and surveillance cameras, Jason pulled me aside.

“Here’s your phone. You keep in contact, got it? I don’t hear something for more than two days, I’m sending people in. I don’t care what Williams wants. Your safety comes first.”

“I know Jace. This isn’t my first time in the field, you know.” I took the phone, saw that he programed his number in as worst nightmare, and laughed. “I might have to change that. I was thinking, Mom and dad’s oops?”

“Ha ha funny. Change it if you want, but if that’s what you pick, the Serpents aren’t who you’ll be tracking next.”

“You mean like at Quantico? I found you in, what? Twenty minutes? It took me longer to write up the mock report afterwards.”

“Shut up.” He grumbled, “but seriously. You’re in trouble, I drop everything and get you out of there.”

“Got it. Now help me unpack so I can go explore and establish myself as a member of the community.”

“Reading the handbook again?” I handed him a photo and he stuck it to the wall with a command strip.

“No, photographic memory, remember? I was trying to be professional. There are strangers in my home after all.”

“I remember all right.” He grumbled back. We worked in silence for a while until one of the other agents came in to say they had everything hooked up and it was time to go. Jason and I hugged goodbye and the group left me alone in the house.

Deciding it would be a good idea to actually do what the handbook said for a bit, I looked in the fridge for some food. Finding it empty, I grabbed my keys and left for the store. The local grocery chain was packed thankfully. It gave me a chance to try to blend in. After an hour or so, I had my cart loaded and checked out. At home, I put things away, made a sandwich, and looked at my files some more. There were pages and pages of notes that I scanned through. Maps of town I had marked up, tracking suspected movements were mixed in with notes about education and background. My mind was becoming overwhelmed slowly. A walk might help clear my head. Calling it a night for notes, I grabbed my sweater and house keys, making sure to set the alarm and lock the door. The crisp autumn air bit at my cheeks and neck. My worn-out combat boots clomped on the ground firmly. I had to be conscious of my steps and make them seem less official. You’re just out for a stroll Catherine. I took my phone out to snap a few photos of the trees turning colour and the sun setting. I must have lost track of how long I stood there or where I was walking because the roar of a motorcycle engine startled me. Rule one is never let your guard down. “Jesus.” I gasped, turning my head.

“Not quite but who knows.” His smooth drawl rang in my ears. My gaze drooped to his bike. Nice. The dirt on his boots seemed dried on. As my gaze traveled upwards, I had to control the look on my face. The tattoo on his neck prominently and proudly peeking out from the collar of his worn-out leather jacket. “You aren’t from around here, are you pretty girl?”

“No. I just moved here from the city.”

“Huh. Well, you ever need someone to show you around, let me know.” He smirked.

“Ask you hmm? I don’t even know your name.” I prompted.

“My friends call me Sweetpea. But you can call me whatever you want. What do yours call you?”

“Catherine.”

“Catherine.” He repeated, his voice dropping an octave as he sounded it out. Almost like he was testing the way it tasted on his tongue. He nodded at me, revving the engine, “my offer still stands, Catherine.” He said before speeding off. I let out a breath after he was out of view and shook my head. Shit.

#riverdale fanfiction #Riverdale #Sweetpea #Sweetpea x OC #Sweetpea x reader #FBI #FEEDBACK PLEASE

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theartisticintrovert · 4 years

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Case #0130403

Statement of Jason Gale, regarding the strange occurrences surrounding Daniel Fenton. Original statement given 3rd April, 2013. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.

I wanna start this by saying that I barely knew Danny. I don’t know how he became what he is, but what I did see, well...I still have nightmares. I guess I should start at the beginning, though I’m not really sure how much of a beginning there is.

I never had the greatest home life. Pretty textbook, really. Shitty dad, dead mom, bad friends, the works. I ran away when I was fourteen, fell in with a real bad crowd. I’d been in and out of juvie every few months, but I didn’t meet Danny until I was sixteen. I’d been picked up at the scene of a robbery, don’t even remember where, and sent off to Amity Youth Detention Center. I’d been there for about three months when my old cellmate got released, so I was on my own for a bit. I didn’t mind, D Block wasn’t exactly the worst it could get.

Danny transferred in a few weeks later. At first, I didn’t think much of him. He was tiny, barely 5’4 I think, and he looked like a twig. His eyes, though.....his eyes were what scared me the most. They looked dead, like someone sucked all the life outta him, just leaving his corpse walkin’ around like some kinda zombie. They sent him in and he just.....stared, watching Officer McCarthy leave like he was already planning the poor bastard’s funeral. I freaked out a little. I’m not ashamed, kid was fuckin’ scary.

That’s when it happened. It’s like something snapped in him. The room got all cold, and the lights started flickering. He shoved me up against the wall and I dunno how but it felt like this.....predator staring at me. I don’t even remember what he said, but I just agreed to whatever it was so he’d stop staring at me. I swear his eyes were green, but it had to just be a trick of the light. It had to be, because I remember they were blue. I remember, because I remember thinking how weird it was for an Asian kid to have blue eyes.

Still, when he got mad......I swear to you, they were green.

Sorry, I got a little.....off track there. There were a few more weird things about him, but just little things. He never ate, and I know it wasn’t that he was eating when I couldn’t see him. AYDC has scheduled meal times for every block, and every single time it was D’s turn he just....stayed in bed. There’s no getting in or out once the door’s locked, so he wasn’t sneaking around. And yet, even after about a week and a half of this, he was fine. No complaining, no hunger pains, not even a little bit of nausea. Like.....like he didn’t need food. I asked him about it, but the answer, well.....I think he was a bit nutty. Everyone was in there.

I managed to get him into the cafeteria one time, though not for very long. I think Emily, that is, Emily Grey, scared him off, but I can’t be sure. I do remember though, that the others felt it too. Danny was.....he had this like, aura of despair. Like you get near him, and nothing you do will make you feel again. Owen Coulter said he “felt like depression, if depression was a person”. I only remember that because it was so strange to hear a twelve year old say that with the knowledge that only an old man has, but there it was anyway.

He got transferred a few days later, or....I assume he was transferred, anyway. I heard he’d finally gotten his trial, but he didn’t come back after. I can only assume they sent him to F, because I didn’t see him for several months after that. I’d honestly just been starting to feel okay again when he came back to D. I only really noticed him because we were in the yard at the same time, and something in me wanted to turn around and bolt the second I spotted him. Still, he seemed.....different. Less angry, less......snappish. I noticed a few new scars on him too, which was strange just because the inmates at AYDC aren’t allowed any electronics, so how the hell did he get electrocution scars?

The next big one happened after he was released. He’d been out for about a week when I got a visitor. This was news to me, since my old man doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me and my friends wouldn’t be caught dead in a juvie visitation room. Only visitors I really got were my lawyer and sometimes my stepmom, but she didn’t come often. She doesn’t like me much, but that’s beside the point. When I saw Danny on the other side of that glass window, I about turned around right there. Unfortunately for me, the door was already shut and I couldn’t get anyone to open it, not from my side. Fuckin’ bastards probably stepped out for a donut break, who knows. The point is, Danny was....different.

His scars curled up both of his cheeks now, pale and prominent against his sickly brown skin. His eyes seemed a little sharper now, a little more aware. I wasn’t entirely sure this was a good thing. We argued a bit, but....I think he was genuinely trying to help. I didn’t trust him a damn bit, but at least he was trying.

I’ve been dancing around the point long enough, I think. Sure, the kid’s weird, you’re thinking. He’s got scars, so what? He makes you miserable just being around him? Probably some emo bastard. The whole predator gaze? Well, he was in for assault. No, the thing I’ve been avoiding, the thing that I’ll never forget....it was his ghost.

Way back when we were still bunkmates, he’d told me about how he died. How his parents were some kind of Ghostbuster freaks, and they built a portal to Hell in his basement. Okay, well, he called it the “Ghost Zone”, but who gives a fuck, honestly. Then he told me he was stupid enough to go in the damn thing, and got zapped six ways to Sunday. He said he’d died in that portal, and I didn’t want to believe him. I couldn’t. When you die, you die. That’s it. Game over. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. The idea that he could be some sort of.....half-alive, half-dead.....thing, well....I didn’t want to think about it. I’d already come to terms with my own mortality, and I did not need it shoved back in my face by some freaky-ass kid.

But then he showed me. God, it was horrible. I was expecting him to fail, just the delusions of his poor fucked up scrambled brains, some side effect of getting zapped to hell and back. Maybe, if it were true, to just go a bit translucent. I didn’t expect the monster.

It came in a flash of light. Two sparking rings of bright white electricity, so bright they burned to look at. When I managed to blink the spots outta my eyes, I almost thought I’d hit my head. Where Danny had been standing, a floating, glowing thing stood in his place. It was pale, washed out, with only its acid green eyes and tongue giving it any color at all. It wore a jumpsuit of some sort, with thick gloves and attached boots, like the biohazard guys on TV. It still had the scars though, even if they were glowing an ominous neon green. It hissed at me, like it was trying to speak, but I didn’t understand a word it said. When it turned that empty, hungry gaze on me, I panicked. I shoved it back against the wall, where it connected with a sickening splat. Blood oozed on the concrete, or at least, I assume it was blood. It was red and green and sizzled, like it was eating away at the stone. I think there’s still marks there, where the acid ate away at the concrete.

The thing wanted to eat me, I’m sure of it, but it seemed too dizzy. I think shoving it only made it more angry, but at that point the light came back. I looked away just in time, and when the light died down Danny was back. Still scrawny, still fleshy, still alive. Only now, I wasn’t so sure.

I haven’t seen another ghost since, and I think it’s for the best. I’ve done my research, I’ve heard about these....mediums. I know I can’t see them, not on this plane. Honestly, I’m better off for it I think. I don’t want to see them, or hear them, or even think about them again.

I didn’t give you this statement to have you do something about it. I don’t even know if you have the ability to do anything, since all this happened in Illinois. I didn’t come all the way to some dingy spooky library in fucking London for a solution. I’ve made my peace. I just.....I needed to tell somebody. Not the cops, I don’t trust them as far as I could throw them. And not anyone else either, they’d think I’m a schizo freak, like that Weston kid. No, I’m perfectly happy laying low, and never thinking about Daniel Fenton again. And now that I have this off my chest and stored away in your freaky little library, I finally can.

Statement ends. Although he said he didn’t want us to do anything about his experience, we did reach out to Mr. Gale. He replied in no uncertain terms for us to leave him alone, and that he absolutely would not be giving a follow-up statement. I....can’t say I blame him, but really, half-dead? A teenager that could turn into some paranormal entity? It all seems rather....far fetched.

Still, we did do some basic follow-up research on what we could. The Fentons do exist, as well as the town of Amity Park. I’d like to take everything about said town with a hefty dose of salt however, as it claims to be “The Most Haunted Place in America”. Tourist trap nonsense, if you ask me. Daniel Fenton was arrested in late summer of 2010, though those records are obviously sealed. Emily Grey declined to give a follow-up statement as well, and Owen Coulter seems to have unfortunately passed away in the intervening years.

Still, I can’t help but think that Mr. Gale’s statement is....unusually detailed, especially as it concerns a boy he himself claims to have no close connection to.

End recording.

#the magnus archives #tma #danny phantom #pavii #ty writes #i had to get this out of my brain

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wonjaekook · 5 years

Text

Blank Keys

A/N: I started this one right after I finished the last one and worked on it in a couple of large chunks and a few small ones… and it still took forever. This really did not go where I initially expected it to, but I guess these tropes never do ^^

21 Tropes: 6. Bad Boy AU + ivory w/Hendery

Description: A chance encounter with the school “bad boy” sends your life spiraling in a new direction.

Word Count: 7.9k

Genre: fluff, angst

Warnings: swearing

School sucks. Life sucks. Music sucks. But, here you are, walking to the music rooms once again so you can practice and hate it for the ninth time this month. It’s not that you hate music itself - you love music. You’ve loved music for as long as you can remember, it’s your minor for God’s sake, but, right now, you can’t stand to write a single note.

Your steps slow as you hear the sound of someone playing piano drift towards you from down the hall. It’s… it’s kind of bad. Not the worst, but it’s certainly no masterful playing. But, the passion that the person beats on the keys with makes it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard. The more you hear it, the more your fingertips itch and the more you feel like your voice is being constricted in your throat. Hurriedly, you sit down outside the door of the practice room where the music is coming from, you dig around in your backpack until you find your music notebook, and you begin to write. Quietly, so the person playing in the room doesn’t hear you and stop, you hum to yourself, seeing music come to life in the air around you. As the person’s piece comes to a halt, your own hand begins to slow, finally stopping.

Every feeling you’ve ever been able to put into words and every feeling you haven’t been able to put into words sits on the paper in front of you and you find yourself really smiling at your work for the first time in a long while. Putting away your notebook, you get up, intending to just glance into the room as you pass by as to not reveal that you were weirdly listening to them play, but the person who sits at the piano bench shocks you. There, starting a new song, a more familiar tune, is Wong Kunhang or, as most people know him, Hendery. Hendery, who is always causing trouble in class when he isn’t skipping it, Hendery who brings the beer to parties, Hendery who’s always getting into some sort of trouble, just inspired you to write a new song when you’d been in a dry spell for more than a month. You’re so shocked that you find yourself pushing open the door, approaching him on the bench.

“So, the school bad boy plays piano?” The sound of your voice over his shoulder has his fingers skittering to a halt on the ivory and black keys. The noise that results from the incident is a mix of the crashing of several notes that certainly do not belong together and his incoherent stuttering at being caught.

“I-I-!”

You don’t know where your boldness comes from - you would usually be terrified of him - but you plop down next to him on the bench. “Where did you even learn how to play piano?”

“Kun-ge is really good at it…” He refuses to meet your eyes, cheeks flushed and gaze glued to the piano.

“You’re friends with Kun? Qian Kun? Straight-A, Honor-Roll, Mister Perfect Qian Kun?”

“Family friends…” He mumbles before he looks over to glare at you. “What are you even doing here?”

“I have a music minor,” you say, eyeing the keys of the piano, “I was never good at piano though.”

“Well, get out of here, good girl. I’m busy.” He turns back to the piano, trying to play off his embarrassment at having been caught.

“I’m not a good girl!”

“Compared to me, you are.” He turns his nose at you, a completely strange action on him. You break the serious air by laughing at him and he’s taken aback. “What are you-”

“Okay, Mr. Bad Boy, play me something.”

“Why should I play anything for you?” His face is entirely unamused and you smile brightly at him.

“Play something for me and I won’t tell anyone that you sneak in here to play piano.”

“You think people would believe that shit?” He glares at you.

“Well, with this handy little tool,” you muse, pulling out your phone and waving it around, “I could make anyone believe anything.”

His glare sharpens further before he sighs and visibly deflates. “Fine.” He sets his fingers down on the keys before starting the beginning of a very, very familiar piece.

“Hey,” you say, realizing what he’s doing, “are you just playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?”

He finishes abruptly. “Yeah, and you got your song. Now, leave me alone.”

“No,” you whine, bumping his shoulder with your own, “I want you to play me a real song.”

He puts a hand to his heart, pretending to be offended. “Are you calling the work of our great lord Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ‘not a real song?’ How could you?”

“Come on,” you insist, “play me something longer.”

While most of him resists your desires, a part of him wants to make you happy. He had never played for anyone but Kun, not even his parents. It’s kind of nice to have a willing audience for once. Silently, he places his fingers back on the keys and begins to play.

As he plays, you watch him and you listen. After he gave you your inspiration back, you desperately want to keep feeling it again - ‘it’ being whatever it was that he made you feel with that first song you heard. You quickly realize that he’s playing Clair De Lune, slowly and a little clumsily, but better than however he had been playing before. You’re disappointed to find that you don’t feel quite the same spark, but his playing is enjoyable nonetheless. Your eyes rake over his features. He’s concentrating hard - you can tell that from his expression - and you notice for the first time that his face is surprisingly well-structured and handsome. He’s not what you would expect out of a bad boy, that’s for sure. You had never seen him up close before, only from a distance in class or on campus as he was messing around with his band of trouble-making friends. When he finishes playing, it almost feels as if no time at all had passed. You blink and feel as though you have to say something. “That was… good.”

He snorts. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know. I’m not a master pianist and I don’t plan to be. I just do it to relieve stress.”

You smile. “That in itself is enough to be good.”

He rolls his eyes. “Whatever. I’m heading out, Y/N. I got stuff to do.”

You nod along, watching as he gets up and shoulders his bag. “Thanks for playing for me.” He gives you a look, his eyebrow raised, and shrugs.

“It’s whatever.”

It takes you a moment to process what he had said before. “Wait, how do you know my name?”

He opens the door. “Freshmen year Chem class.” The door clicks shut behind him.

That class had almost a hundred people in it. You’d only known him because he had become infamous even by that point, but he remembered your name in a crowd of quiet faces that never made any trouble. You smile, looking down at the piano. Wong Kunhang remembered your name.

You find it a lot easier to write and sing again after that. When you return at the same time, a few days later, to practice and test out some of your new songs, you’re not as surprised as you should be to see him there again. As you open the door, he also seems unsurprised to see you. At least, he’s not nearly as startled when you walk in this time.

“Should I be expecting you from now on?” He says, taking his hands off of the keys. You glance at the unlabeled sheet music in front of him.

“What are you practicing?”

He shrugs and reaches forward, flipping the page to Moonlight Sonata. “Not much.”

“Can I listen?” You ask, proceeding to sit yourself down on the end of the piano bench anyways. He sighs and puts his fingers back on the keys.

“I guess I can’t stop you.”

That time, and every time after, you join him and, to your surprise, he becomes more and more receptive to you as an audience member. The way his fingers move across the piano remind you that he’s a person, not just some trouble-maker, not just the bad boy. You also realize that you may have misjudged him. He’s no idiot - not even close. In conversation between his playing, you find out that his final grade in the chemistry class you two had together was actually higher than yours had been. There’s something deeper to crack about him, but you just can’t place it. At least, not yet. What is it about him, what had he done that time to make you feel the way you did that makes him so special?

You think that you’re making progress with figuring him out. Then, you’re walking with your friend Mark on campus one day when you see him with his group, consisting most prominently of some guys you know as Ten, Lucas, and Yangyang. If the same thing had happened last semester, you would have put your head down and walked past as to not draw attention from him, but, now, you look at him head-on. He meets you with a look that lacks the usual calm and hesitant friendliness that you see in it. Mark nudges you, trying to get you to stop staring. “Don’t draw attention!” He whisper-yells to you.

“What?” You break eye contact with Hendery to look at your friend. “I’m not doing anything.”

“They’ll start shit with anyone, so just keep walking and-” You look away from Mark again to turn back at him.

“See something you like?” You hear him say, meeting you with a smirk. You frown at his tone. He would usually never talk to you like that.

“Not particularly,” you say, trying to see if he’ll play along with you like he usually does when he’s in the practice room with you.

“Is there a problem, then?” Hendery raises an eyebrow, keeping the same confrontational tone, and your heart sinks. So, that’s how it’s going to be.

“Yeah, there’s a bunch of idiots being loud and annoying in the middle of campus.”

You regret saying it almost immediately. Mark groans quietly next to you.

“Huh, shy puppy finally has something to say, does she? Don’t think I’ve ever seen you open your mouth before.” Hendery lies through his teeth and he does it easily, dismissing every single thing you’ve said to each other over the last few weeks.

You roll your eyes. “Maybe next time you’ll open your ears and listen.”

The boys around Hendery snicker and you can tell you’re gaining the attention of some of the other students wandering around campus. Mark grabs at your arm, trying to get you moving. “Y/N, let’s just go.” You start to let him move you, but Ten speaks up this time.

“Hey, you think you can start shit and just-”

Hendery stops him, lowering his voice, but you can still hear it. “I’ll deal with her later.”

“Oh my god, you’re dead. You’re so dead.” You let Mark tug you along, absentmindedly hearing him ramble and lecture you as you continue on to the music rooms. You can practically feel Hendery’s eyes on you until you leave his field of vision. In the practice room, you try to do some homework while Mark plays guitar, but your mind keeps wandering back to Hendery. Even with his personality swap, you can’t make yourself hate him. You’re more confused than anything. You’ve never felt so conflicted before, not even after you found him playing piano for the first time. Why is he a completely different person when you’re alone?

Mark eventually leaves, heading to meet someone else for a group project, and you find that your thoughts are even louder when you’re alone and without the relaxing strumming of your friend playing guitar. You shove your chair away from the side table that you had been working at and make your way to the piano. With a huff, you sit down in front of it, realizing that the instrument itself now just reminds you of Hendery. Opening the lid, you set your fingers down.

You had only ever played piano for a class in your first semester of college. You had been atrocious - you had basically only passed with a decent grade because your teacher saw how hard you were trying. With your vocal focus, you always found it more natural to find notes within yourself, unlike piano, where you have to know where notes are and make sure you press down on the right keys. You think that, maybe, this time, you’ll be able to sound at least semi-okay. You try your hand at playing Hot Cross Buns, surprised that you remember the notes. Trying something a little harder, you go for Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and you hit a wrong note not even two measures in. On that first night, when you had demanded Hendery play a song for you, you hate to admit it, but his rendition of the classic was miles beyond yours. Without realizing, you begin to hum along, using your voice to find the notes on the keys. With many wrong presses and lots of backtracking, you finally play the whole song and you sit back, pleased with yourself.

From behind you, someone starts clapping and you whip around to see Hendery himself. You sigh and shake your head. You hadn’t noticed when he had entered. “Why are you here?” You ask. “This isn’t your normal day.”

“I said I would deal with you later. It’s not like you’re that hard to find,” he says, walking over to the bench and standing next to you. “That was pretty bad.”

“You play it, then,” you say, some of your previous irritation leaking into your voice, but you shift over to make room for him anyways. He sits down next to you, sets his fingers on the keys, and begins to play. The song sounds similar to yours at first, in the same key, with the same notes, but, then, it takes a turn. It changes into a different song, but it’s still Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and you find yourself entranced, watching him play. In those moments, you forget the separate person he had become earlier and just pay attention to the music flowing in the room. Before you know it, the song is back to what the original is and he’s done, looking at you expectantly.

“Have you ever tried writing? I think you’d be good at it.” It’s the first thing you can think to say. You don’t know if he had actually written the strange rendition that you had just heard, but he certainly played it like he owns it.

“No.” As expected, he refuses immediately.

“Well, just consider it! You’ve done it before. I’ve heard you. Plus, you owe me for today.”

“When the hell did you hear me play something original? And, no, I don’t, you’re the one who started shit.” You can tell from the slight red making its way onto his face that you’re right, what you had heard that day was something he made himself.

“Says you, the King of Starting Shit. But, that first day, I came over here because I heard you playing.” His brows furrow at the comment, so you continue. “It was really nice, by the way.”

He rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to lie to me. I know it didn’t sound good.”

“But, it did!” He gives you a look, so you insist further. “It really did.”

He scans your face, looking for a sign that you’re lying to him somehow, and sighs when he finds none. You really had thought it was good. The technique hadn’t been exactly right, but whatever he made up that day had brought your inspiration back so, to you, it was the most precious piece you’d heard in a long time. Finally, he speaks again, his voice quiet. “I’ll give it a try if you show me how.”

You brighten up instantly. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he says, “and if you sing for me.”

“Wait, that’s not part of the-”

“I heard you singing when you were playing earlier, so I assume that’s what your focus is for your minor. Tell me I’m wrong.” Just like how you could tell from his embarrassment earlier that you were right, he can tell from you silence and bashfulness that he’s right. It surprises you that he would ask you to sing - that might be the closest to a compliment that you’ll get from him.

“Fine,” you say bitterly, “but only because you owe me.”

He stands up suddenly, surprisingly you. “Are you free right now?”

“Yeah, I guess, I only really have homework to do, so-”

“Come with me.” You’re more than surprised at his invitation, but you get up and grab your stuff, following him nonetheless. He leads you out of the room, out of the building, off campus, and he keeps walking. It’s getting dark outside now, but he keeps going, glancing back every so often and keeping idle conversation, like he’s making sure that you’re still following him. Finally, he stops, opening the door to a restaurant that you had never been to before. It’s pretty dimly lit and there are one or two customers inside.

“Where are we?” You whisper, not wanting to disturb the air.

“The owners are family friends,” he says, walking towards the back. He calls out something in Cantonese and an older lady pops her out from behind the curtain separating the kitchen and the dining area. When she sees him, she smiles, displaying the laugh lines around her mouth, and greets him. Her eyes shift over to you quickly after and you hurriedly bow to her, trying to be respectful. She seems surprised, saying something to him in Cantonese. He shakes his head, laughing slightly, and says something else to her that you don’t understand. Nodding, she looks back at you and smiles again.

“Hello,” she says in slightly accented Korean, “I’m Mrs. Chan. It’s nice to see Kunhang-ah bring a friend by. If you need anything, I’ll be back here.”

“It’s nice to meet you, I’m Y/N. Thank you for having me.” You bow to her again and she smiles once more before disappearing back into what you assume is the kitchen. You look to Hendery, smirking at him. “Kunhang-ah?”

He flushes ever so slightly. “You know Hendery isn’t my real name. And the ‘ah’ is just a Canto thing.” He turns back towards the main restaurant. “Come on.”

You follow him and see, nestled in a small, hidden corner of the restaurant, is a piano. It’s old and painted a chipping yellow, but seems to be in relatively good shape otherwise. The bench is small, but he sits down, leaving just enough room for you to squeeze next to him. “I used to come here all the time as a kid,” he says, running his fingers lightly over the worn-down keys. “While the adults talked, I would just sit here and mess around. It sounded awful, but it was fun. Kun heard me one day and offered to teach me.” He takes his hand away and gestures towards the keys. Tentatively, like you’re afraid to disturb some of his childhood memories, you lift your hand and press down on what you hope is a C. The sound is deep and resonant, the timbre speaking of old wood and comfort. You can’t help but think that you’re sharing a part of Hendery right now, but the part of him that’s more like Kunhang and less like the guy you had a back-and-forth with on campus today.

“It sounds beautiful,” you say quietly, slowly taking your hand back. You can feel him staring at you, but when you look back, he’s looking at the piano again. You feel like you can barely breathe. Suddenly, you hear a call of his name from Mrs. Chan and you both turn to look. She emerges from around the corner and smiles after seeing the two of you at the bench together. She has a plate in her hands with what you recognize as egg tarts.

“These are for you two. No charge, of course.” Instinctually, you bow again and thank her, accepting one of the tarts. Hendery takes one as well, thanking her in Cantonese. With one last smile, she disappears again.

“This smells really good,” you say, observing the treat in your hand.

“She makes them herself. They’re her specialty. Before I started messing around on the piano, the only reason I didn’t throw a fit coming here was for these.” The smile he has on his face as he looks at his is sweet and innocent, almost enough to rival the egg tart you’re holding. The desserts in both of your hands disappear pretty quickly and you find yourself smiling widely after you finish it. It’s not very often that you get real Chinese cuisine.

“I’ll have to thank her again before we leave. That was delicious.” Somewhere at the back of your mind, you recognize that this is the first time that you had eaten with Hendery, but you don’t let the implications sink in too much. The two of you brush the crumbs off of your hands and look at the piano again. “When you write something, do you know where to start?” He shakes his head, so you continue. “Think of something important to you. A memory, a feeling, anything. Something that’s strong enough that you’re inspired by it.” You watch as he thinks, his eyebrows scrunching.

“I… think I know something.” You’ve never heard him so timid.

“Okay,” you say, watching his expression shift again, “I guess for an instrumentalist, you’ll choose a key. And, then, you just kind of… go.”

“You just go?” He says, quirking an eyebrow at you. “I thought you were supposed to be helping me.”

“Music is supposed to come from here,” you say, poking at his chest, right above where his heart should be. “So, just play from there. Take that emotion or memory or whatever and turn it into music.”

When he had previously started to lift his hands to the keys, he stops, setting them down. “Sing for me first.” “What? Here?” Though you’re normally not that shy about your singing and the restaurant is practically empty, you can’t help but be hesitant. He nods, no duh, and waits for you. You sigh, trying to think of something that you know and that he might enjoy. You might as well go basic - You Are My Sunshine. Slowly, the words and notes begin to flow from your lips, filling this corner of the restaurant. He watches you, as you have figured out that he does a lot, and, when the song is over, he turns back to the piano. Without saying anything, he begins to play.

That night, in that dim restaurant in the corner that hardly anybody sees, he plays a new song for you. You sit next to him, your side pressed to his, and you listen. There is no blank space between you anymore, but all you want is to move closer so that you could somehow hear and feel his song even better. You can almost feel his heartbeat in the song and, as he plays, yours begins to sync with it. When his fingers finally stop moving, he doesn’t look at you. His face is warm in a way he hadn’t really felt before and, though he spends so much time just staring at you these days, he feels like he’ll change everything if he looks at you. When he finally looks over, you’re already gazing at him. Without thinking, but having put too much thought into it for so long, he leans down and presses his lips to yours.

His lips are warm with the feelings he had just shared with you and sweet with the egg tart that he had eaten so many times before. This time, somehow, it tasted even sweeter than usual, and now he thinks he knows why.

The two of you leave quietly, thanking Mrs. Chan again. She simply observes the glow that the two you have about yourselves and smiles when she sees you tug on his hand as you’re walking out.

As you walk, you don’t say much, just hold his hand in yours. As the pair of you get closer to campus, he speaks softly, not wanting to disturb the air between you. “Do you want to come back to my apartment with me?” You’re about to accept - though you’re not really talking right now, you don’t quite want to leave him just yet - but then you think of the implications and flush. He sees your reaction and his eyes widen. “No, no, no, not like that!” He pauses and then smirks, squeezing your hand. “Unless you want to.”

With your free hand, you jokingly hit him and he laughs, showing you a full-toothed smile. You can’t help but smile back. “I’ll come, but just so I can do some work.”

“Mhm,” he hums and you smack him lightly again. “Work. That’s what you want.”

With a bit more playful bickering, you walk with him to his apartment, finding that he lives on the second floor of a building right next to campus. As you kick off your shoes, you note that his apartment is surprisingly clean. Peering farther in, you see two closed doors in the hallway. “Do you have a roommate?”

“Yeah, it’s Ten.” Instantly, unpleasant memories of your experience with Ten from earlier come to mind and you grimace, which Hendery notices. “He isn’t here right now, but he’s not that bad. He’s actually pretty smart, he can just be kind of a dick sometimes.”

“Sometimes? All I’ve seen from him is dick dehavior.”

He just shrugs and walks to his room with you following him and, when you get there, you set down your stuff and begin to pull out your work, setting up shop at his desk at his prompting. You don’t know what time it is when you drift off and you only half wake up when you feel him pick you up and move you to his bed. You fall back asleep, nestled in his blankets and pillows. You wake up again, seeing dim lamplight through your eyelids, and open your eyes, turning to see the clock on his nightstand read 4:32 a.m. Next, you look for him, confused, and spot him hunched over his desk, a textbook in front of him, where you were sure you had fallen asleep earlier.

“Hendery?” You say, causing him to turn his head in surprise. “Why are you awake? It’s so late.”

“I can never sleep this early,” he replies, giving you a soft smile. “Go back to sleep, I’ll wake you up in time for class.”

“I have a 9 a.m.,” you say, suddenly realizing where you are and what’s happening. “I’m terrible, I’m taking up your bed.”

You start to get up, but he stops you, putting a hand on the edge of the bed. “It’s fine. I’ll sleep later. I told you I can never sleep this early.”

“It’s not early,” you say, pushing a hand through your hair, “Do you have a test tomorrow or something?”

He shakes his head, glancing back at the textbook. “I just can’t sleep most nights. When I can’t sleep, I just study.”

Your eyes widen as you make the connection. “That’s why you got a better score in chemistry than me…”

He smiles bitterly. “Yup. Now, go back to sleep.”

“I’ll only sleep if you come sleep with me.” You’re too tired to care about the implications of what you just said, instead making grabby-hands at him.

Frowning at you, he shakes his head. “I really-”

“I’m staying awake, then.” You pout at him and he sighs, giving in and shutting his textbook. The lamplight gets flicked off and he slips under the covers, facing towards you. He can’t see the smile on your face in the dark, but he’s sure it’s there. Carefully, he wraps his arms around you and pulls you to his chest.

“Is this okay?” You hum in response and, before you know it, you’re asleep in his arms. He sleeps more soundly that night that he had in a long time.

The next evening, you find yourself in that same practice room, listening to him play again. This time, it’s a piece you’ve heard before but can’t quite name - you’ve never been very well-versed in classical piano pieces, but you can at least recognize the melody. Suddenly, he stops playing and looks at you. You think that his gaze has been softer recently and you think you like it. You hold that eye contact with him as he speaks.

“I’ve been thinking about it and… why did you even come in here that day? Why did you want me to play for you so bad?” His voice is expectant, as if he had been trying to find answers about you just like you had been trying to find answers about him. After everything that happened last night, you figure that it’s time to come clean.

You swallow your feelings, your pride, your everything. “I heard you playing and I just…” You trail off. “I can’t really describe how I felt. You just played beautifully.” To try to explain what made you follow the music you heard, you dig around in your backpack, pulling out a notebook. The cover is beaten up, worn down from many years of usage, with only a few blank pages left towards the end of the notebook. You run a hand over the cover. You don’t know why you trust him so much already, but you suppose that hearing him play just now makes you feel as if he had opened his heart to you as well, in a way. You hand him the notebook. He takes it with gentle hands, his gaze not leaving your face. “This is my music notebook. Every song I’ve ever worked on is in here. For a while, it was hard to make anything. Anything at all. But, when you played that day, it made me feel like writing again. I…” You pause, feeling the confession scratch at your throat and turn your face pink with embarrassment. A moment before, he had opened your notebook, flipping through some of the pages, but he stops and looks back up at you when you stop talking. “...I actually sat outside the door and wrote something for a little while I listened to you play.”

His eyes are wide and curious, another look you don’t really see on him that often, as you talk. “What did you write?”

“It’s… it’s in there somewhere.” You know by heart where that song is, but you don’t want to admit that to him just yet. He gave you your inspiration back, whether he did it on purpose or not, and that means everything to you - how could you not remember where that song is? “Anyway, yesterday you played like you did that day again.”

He nods slowly, his dark hair swaying above his handsome face. “I think I get it.” You think he really means it and you can’t help but smile. “You love music, right?” He asks, keeping his gaze on you as he hands your notebook back to you.

“More than anything.” From somewhere deep down, he feels a flutter of emotion at your genuine, heartwarming smile.

“Why are you just a music minor, then? Why not make it your major?” He almost falters as he sees the look on your face fade into something more mournful, something much sadder. You clutch your notebook to your chest.

“My parents would never let me. I have to do chemistry. I don’t hate it, but… it’s not something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life.” A few weeks ago, you never would have guessed that you’d be confessing your deepest sadness and insecurity to Hendery Wong of all people, but here you are. Your voice lowers as you whisper your previously unspoken thoughts. “I don’t think I’ll be happy doing it.”

“Just quit.” He suggests it so quickly, so easily that you don’t know how to comprehend what he said or how to respond to him.

“Quit? It’s not that easy,” you scoff at him.

“Do what you want with your life. Stop all of that following your parents’ wishes and just quit. Major in music.” You stare at him, dumbfounded.

“I- I can’t-”

“Can’t you?” He says, raising an eyebrow at you. “Who’s paying your tuition?”

“I’m on scholarship, but-”

“Who’s paying your living expenses?” “I mean, I have a job over breaks and I make some side money here when I can…”

“So, just switch majors. Quit doing the thing you hate and living only to satisfy your parents. Live for yourself for once.” Your eyes are wide and you can’t help but continue to stare at him, your mouth agape. Could you really…?

“I… I don’t know if I could have a career in music…” You trail off, stumbling for all of the excuses you gave yourself over the past few years.

He rolls his eyes dramatically. “You know you can find something in the field. Just do your research. You’re smart and hardworking. You can find something.”

For the third time in the short while you’ve known him, he’s opening your eyes. Your heart lifts from where it had been weighed down in your chest for so long and you suddenly feel like soaring. You’d looked into more doable careers in music in the past and you’d found so many opportunities, but you had crossed them off in your head because of everything your parents burned into your head. You throw yourself against him, hugging him tightly. All of your emotions well up at once again and you feel like crying. “Thank you,” you say to him, “thank you.”

He hugs you back and doesn’t say much else.

Y/N: are you home?

Hendery: ya, why?

Y/N: look outside!!

A couple evenings later, you find yourself craving his company outside of your time in the practice rooms, but it’s late enough that you know he’ll probably be home. So, your feet take you outside of his apartment building. For the sake of ease and the little risk that comes with it, you peek up at his window - he’s only on the second floor after all. His shadow soon appears in the window, the light blinding you to his actual appearance because of the darkness outside. He opens the window and peers down at you. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you,” you announce before studying the side of his building. There are quite a few uneven bricks and pipes, so if you just…

He watches as you climb up to his second floor apartment, sticking out a hand to grab yours when you get close enough and smirking as he pulls you the rest of the way in. “If I’m the bad boy, why are you the one climbing in my window at night?”

“Honestly, it was kind of fun,” you say, jokingly dusting your clothes off. “You should try it some- mm.”

He interrupts you by planting a kiss on your lips, to your pleasant surprise. When he pulls away, he seems proud of the blush that you can feel spreading across your face. “The front door would be much easier.”

“I guess…” You respond, still flustered. You’ll really have to get used to that. You also don’t want to tell him that you were avoiding Ten, as his roommate doesn’t know anything about your relationship with Hendery yet and you don’t have the greatest impression of the guy. Shaking your head to clear your inhibitions, you smile at him as he closes the window again. “Anyways, I have good news!” At his hum, affirming that he’s listening to you, you continue. “I talked to my advisor today and she said I’m good to change majors! I just have to wait until next semester for my major-related classes start up. I’ll probably still graduate on time, too, given the way things are going.”

“I’m happy for you, babe.” He brushes your hair back and kisses your forehead, making warmth bubble up in your chest. His arms wrap around you in a hug a moment later.

“Thank you again,” you mumble against his chest as he hugs you, “I really owe you everything.”

“Nah,” he says, “I’m just doing what a good boyfriend would do.”

“Boyfriend?” You say, pulling back ever so slightly to look at him. The two of you hadn’t put your relationship into terms like that yet, so the word surprises you before the feeling of excited butterflies swarms in your chest again.

“You don’t like it?” He says, quirking an eyebrow at you.

“I like it a lot, actually. My boyfriend, Hendery Wong, the bad boy.” The somewhat squeaky laugh he lets out is cute, so different from the persona you had associated him with for so long.

As usual, you find yourself lounging around his room, idly studying and doing the homework that you brought with you. It’s almost midnight when you hear a door slam nearby. There’s a brief pause and some shuffling noises before Hendery’s door flies open, revealing Ten. Hendery rolls his eyes. “Dude, what did I tell you about just coming in here when the door is closed? I could be doing stuff you don’t want to see.”

“Yeah, whatever. I needed to tell you-” He stops suddenly as he sees you sitting in the middle of the room with a textbook in front of you. “What is the puppy doing here?”

“Puppy?” You fire back. “Is that really the nickname you’re giving me?”

“We’re in a class together,” Hendery says, ignoring you and lying as easily as if he was just breathing. “We have a project to work on.”

“Uh-huh. No open space in the library?” Ten questions, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning on the doorframe.

“There’s a huge gen chem test tomorrow,” he says, “all the freshmen are in there. It was easier to just come here.” It’s not a lie - you know from your younger friends that he’s telling the truth, but his refusal to admit that there’s something more between the two of you makes you knit your brows together in displeasure.

“Whatever. I’ll tell you what happened with the boys later.” Ten eyes you once more before turning around, closing the door as he leaves. You nearly laugh out loud. At least he’s polite in that respect.

“We’re just classmates, huh?” You say, turning to the boy who had just proclaimed himself your boyfriend not two hours earlier. You get up from the floor, packing away your things. “I’m heading home.”

“You won’t stay the night?” He says, sitting up straighter.

“It’s getting kinda late for your ‘classmate’ to be here.” He watches helplessly as you finish gathering your things and step towards his bedroom door.

“No window this time?” He jokes, trying to lift your spirits back up.

“Like you said, the front door is much easier. Goodnight, Kunhang.” The coldness with which you say it keeps him frozen in place as you let yourself out. Neither of you sleep particularly well that night.

A few days later, as an apology, he plays a new song for you. When you listen to him, the feeling that his compositions bring you comes back like it always does, but it feels heavier, more melancholy this time. Half of your heart wants to forgive him and half of it wants to never speak to him again. You suppose the split is partially your fault - you shouldn’t have thought a relationship with Hendery, the self-proclaimed bad boy of the school, would be normal in any way. But, now that it has progressed this far, you just want it to work out. You like the honest side he shows you a lot more than you ever liked his troublemaking side. You wish he would just be more honest with everyone else, too.

As he plays, you find yourself moving closer until your head rests against his shoulder. Slowly, his song turns into something softer and sadder, his fingers dancing across the ivory and black keys more slowly. “What song is that?” You ask.

“Dunno.” He shrugs, stopping a few notes later. It seems unfinished somehow. He just stares down at the keys for a long moment. Finally, he takes a deep breath. “Listen… I’m sorry.”

“I want to say it’s okay, but it’s not.” Your response makes him frown more deeply, which makes you frown, too. You reach out, cupping his face in your hands so that he looks you in the eye and stops avoiding your gaze. His eyes, you notice, have a lot of warmth and emotion when he lets himself show it. “Kunhang. I like you. I really, really like you. But, if you want us to be together, you can’t keep treating me like this, like I’m your girlfriend here and you don’t know me at all when your friends are around. Listen.” You drop your hands from his face and place them on the piano. You pray that the chord you’re about to play is right and press down. Pleasant notes resonate through the room, into your bones, intertwining with your heartbeat as you sing. “I want to tell the whole world how I feel. I wish I could sing a song that shows them everything I see in you.” Your voice falls into a low, sad tone and the notes of your song turn into spoken resignation. “But, right now, you won’t let me.”

The silence between you is something that you know will make or break your relationship. You want him to choose you, to choose the good thing that you’ve found together, but, for a moment, you’re afraid he won’t. Then, he meets your eyes and smiles.

“Let’s show them, then.”

You peak out from behind the curtains of the stage. You can see some of your friends, including Mark, sitting in the audience. The house doors shut and you sigh, but a moment later, the doors open again, much to the annoyance of the ushers who had just closed them, and in walk Hendery, Ten, Lucas, and Yangyang. After seeing them, you duck backstage again and wait. Not too long into the start of the recital, Hendery joins you, wearing a slightly different outfit than he had walked in wearing. It’s his usual black, but slightly more formal and matching your own outfit well. A small feeling of pride wells up in your chest at the sight, pushing back the nerves that had begun to rise.

“Couple outfit,” you simply say. He rolls his eyes, but you can see the hint of a smile on his face. You know your performance is coming up soon, so you take his hands in yours. “Are you ready?”

“I should be asking you that,” he says, eyeing you, “you look like you’re about to run away any second.”

“I do not!” You whisper-yell back. “I’m-”

“You guys are up next,” a crew member interrupts, “two minutes.”

You thank her and turn back to your boyfriend. The air becomes more somber between the two of you. “Thank you,” you say, “for doing this with me.”

“Thanks for not giving up on me,” he responds. He leans down, about to plant a quick kiss on your lips, but the light on stage goes out and the crew member from before ushers the two of you forward and on stage. You don’t really hear as the emcees introduce you, but you can imagine the looks on Mark, Ten, Lucas, and Yangyang’s faces as your name and Hendery’s name are announced together.

When the light comes on, the only thing you can see is him sitting on the bench with the piano in front of him. You look at each other one more time before he looks away, taking a breath before he begins to play. The notes from the piano hold the beat in them and, when it’s your turn, you raise your microphone and start to sing along.

“As sweet as honey

Your smile is as sweet as honey…”

As you sing, you forget about all of the eyes on you, all of your friends and his friends watching the two of you in shock. You’re singing to him, so you think only of him. You know this is his first time in front of an audience like this, but he looks entirely at peace, the stage lights illuminating his features well and making him look even more handsome than usual. Then again, maybe it’s not the lights. Maybe the way your heart is soaring is changing the way that you see him yet again. A bright, warm smile makes its way onto your face as you sing. Before you can fully comprehend the situation, the song is ending and you’re singing your final lines.

“Your smile is so familiar to me

But I still can’t remember where

Ah… in my dreams.”

You lower the microphone from its position by your lips, finally looking out into the ground. Everyone’s eyes are round and wide as Hendery plays the last measures of the song. The last note seems to reverberate throughout the theater. As if they were waiting for that note to finally fade away, it takes a moment before the audience bursts into applause. While you stare out at them, microphone still clasped in your hand, Hendery gets up, moving to stand by your side. He takes your free hand, bringing you back to the real world, and leads you in a bow. A smile blossoms on your face again after you rise from your bow and you turn to him, prepared to smile at him, but, to your immense surprise, he takes your face in his hands and kisses you, full and fast in front of everyone. At the back of your mind, you register that people are cheering and gasping and giving you all sorts of reactions, but you just enjoy the feeling of his lips on yours.

After the show, you vaguely recall Mark coming up to you, completely in shock but congratulating you nonetheless, and Ten threatening you, saying, “you’d better not take him completely away from us,” but you can tell from the half-smile on his face that he’s fine with whatever is happening as long as he can see the glow of happiness in Hendery’s face. You suppose that Ten isn’t too bad of a guy.

Ten leaves and you turn to your, now proudly public, boyfriend. “Not so scary, right?” “I guess not.”

One by one, you find that the last blank pages of your notebook are being filled and, as he takes your hand, the very different spaces between the two of you close until all that’s left is the music that you made together.

#wayv fluff #wayv angst #neowritingsnet #nct fluff #nct angst #hendery fluff #hendery angst #nct bad boy au #wayv bad boy au #wonjaekook #thanks for waiting again folks!!!!

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gav-san · 5 years

Text

White as the Driven Snow

-Wash-

1/7

------

You wondered how long it had been since you had seen the sky. Or breathed fresh air (and not the sharp ventilated afterbite of it). It was too long since you held felt the prickly blades grass between your toes or the wind fluttering your hair. Too long since you had seen the sun.

Your skin had once held a rosy glow but now was reduced to a sickly shade. This seemed supremely ironic as being locked away underground was supposed to prevent the grime and grit that the world above offered. But like a child picking up a dirty lollipop of the street, some things couldn't be prevented by you alone. Not that you would scream. No one would hear you, and at this point, you wondered if anyone good was even looking.

Your mother never exactly revealed why you weren’t allowed to meet her side of the family (totally understandable in retrospect), and your dad had been remarried after your mother’s death. Now all of that growing apart and not calling much was going to get you killed.

But even if your life had been truly unfair in many respects, there were a lot of good things going on. You were in your second year of college, part of your college’s cheer squad, famous for performing at the UA sports festival, and had lots of friends.

This was not the slightest bit fair.

The slightest uncareful sound from your lips could cause these monsters to descend again, but not for any rational sort of torture. These masked creatures with false beaks were a special sort of savage. Clean wasn’t good enough for the plague doctors.

You needed to be spotless. Pure.

Ever since they had invaded the safety of your home, kidnapping you, all they murmured about was making you pure enough.

You hated that word.

You weren’t sure what the correct definition of Pure meant, but you soon got a dark idea of what it entailed.

Stolen, you had imagined many horrors. Human trafficking was not common in Japan, but it did happen. Girl shackled to beds, placed on drugs so they could neither escape mentally or physically. The plush doctor’s office didn't entirely fulfill that morbid fantasy. And upon waking, it took hours to connect the dots. Not until the female doctor with a large wart on her cheek gave you the worst surprise appointment of your life, did you fully realize how twisted the situation was. You didn't speak, trying to pick up on any fragment of conversation.

But all you heard were mutters of Overhaul, requests, Hassaikai, and those meant nothing to you.

Strapped up by one of the ‘expendables’ as they called themselves, you were subjected to several cosmetic procedures, some dangerous, teetering between being vaguely awake and unconscious. You finally break, begging for an explanation, and receive none, just a gag accompanied by a breathing mask. The woman examined you from head to toe, removing moles, and just so much touching. Lasik, teeth whitening, minor surgery, freckle removal, chemical peels, and microdermabrasion. She probably had some sort of medical quirk, because you should not have been able to do so much so quickly. Any hair specifically not on your head was lasered off, and your skin scrubbed and polished with creams that removed any hint of spots or blemishes.

The last memory in that awful office was of a large needle, and finally, through the cloth in your mouth, did you screech.

You awoke out of the drugged stupor with breathing mask strapped on you. No longer strapped down you quickly sat up, but didn't tear it off. You could feel the heaviness in your chest, and waited a long while, trying to take in your surroundings before doing anything rash. Your mother, long paranoid of some monster sweeping you away, had taught you to remain calm in an emergency. The long white dress you are in is light, and cool air pierces it easily from the air conditioning in the ceiling. The bed is screwed to the ground, and so you can't even adjust it away from the airflow.

The whitewashed room was small, featureless save for a large TV embedded behind glass in the far wall. The bare outline of a door was next to it, and it looked so much like a mental ward that panic did fill you. What had happened? Surely you had never done anything to warrant this! You tried to think of what had happened... Your last memory wasn't so clear, just you sitting at the dorm room kitchen counter, eating cereal. There was a knock on the door, strange as most people are on spring break. Perhaps a roommate got locked out? You opened the door, and then it was nothing... just black.

Clarity and an explanation don't come quickly.

Your only link to the outside world is the instructions that occasionally flash on the TV.

EAT. Meals appear on cue, painfully scanty and light.

SLEEP. The bare light on the ceiling goes out.

EXERCISE. You are not a lazy person. You had been on the Mustafar University Cheer team, taking tumbles, dancing and flirting riotously at events. But they don't care about your muscles and refusals. They want you thin, not fit. With a diet that rivaled celebrities and daily exercise routines, your body became slender and lean.

The day SHOWER appeared on the screen, you were perplexed. They had left you to sit in your filth and sweat for days, so the change in routine was sharp.

You didn’t have a shower in the room, and so the moment the door opened you got a real look at the monsters who moonlighted your nightmares.

It's another woman, with ugly, bulbous eyes and arms that twisted into tentacles as the elbow. Someone who would be bullied. Some quirks were worse than none. An ugly retort was on your tongue but as she lumbered forward, something black and viscous dripping from her body, you zipped your lips shut. A large, bird mask lay on her features, the beak twisted and unfriendly, like a toucan with a disease.

Down flat empty halls with no windows, she led you to a bathroom contained the most high-powered torture device spray possible. Brutal water pressure and you discovered one of the guards was female, as she was the one who forced you in, sprayed you down, and stuck soap all over you, all while telling you how fortunate you were. Apparently, your mother happened to be the second child of a prominent mobster, and the current head was looking for someone in the family to marry and continue the bloodline. You earned a slap when you suggested that your dog was still single. She told you since you were quirkless, you might as well be a dog.

You didn’t know how much more you could take. Any more showers and ritualistic cleanings by people with gruesome quirks who refused to look at you for long, only scrubbing when you have been insufficiently rubbed raw.

The smell of disinfectant and whatever was in the awful shampoo was all you smelled anymore, and they used something similar for laundry, done daily, if not more often. Was there a thing as too clean? You had never been dirty but this was an obsession. They were a cult of cleaning fanatics, and your body was their fixation. The mere white dress was your only article of clothing.

Even if you still had the strength to fight, the red reminder on your skin still stung from the decontamination chamber (what as you had named it). The tips of your fingers were still shriveled and pruned from grabbing the bottom of the shower. There was no more fight on you tonight, just the little desire to sleep.

Which is why you almost broke into sobs when the door opened again. She was back.

“The boss is coming tonight for final evaluation. We need to finish making you presentable.”

“How thoughtful.”

“Watch your mouth. Overhaul has little patience, and even if you share blood with the old boss, he will finish you himself.” She didn’t slap you. Instead, she just gazed at you with dark, hateful eyes.

“Is that his name then? Overhaul?” This earned a smack.

“You will treat Master Overhaul as a god. For all intents and purposes, he is one.” She carefully wrapped you in one of her clean tentacles. You didn’t get the heavy bath treatment, and you realized that she was being unusually considerate as she ushered your down endless long hallways. At the end of one, she opened a door and your eyes widened.

Did it look like... a beauty parlor? In a mafia hideout?

Not totally new, but spotless, and utterly white like everything else. There was a nervous-looking woman there to transform you was in all white as well. You looked at her, and she turned away, unable to look you in the eye. You turned to a mirror and didn't question why.

“Make her pretty. Try not to use much makeup. The boss has no patience for unclean things, so nothing with a heavy scent either.”

The technician went to work. There was the first hint of color as she opened her bag, glorious colors of tan, orange, brown and off white. The fierce smell of a beauty salon escaped and for a moment you were outside again. It made the next bit bearable, the part where she painted you, fixed your hair, and made your look alive. Unwilling to drag the terrified looking technician further into the delusion, you didn’t fight her.

As she finished curling your hair, you glanced at the mirror, to see how she had done. What you had seen in the mirror for twenty years was gone, replaced by an almost photoshopped version of you. Real people didn’t look so strange. It wasn’t you.

A huge wave of nostalgia and misery hit you, bringing tears to your eyes. You desperately wanted your couch, sitting and watching some reruns of CSI or something normal. You just wanted to be normal again, eat ramen and wear your hair in a ponytail and enjoy the sun. Now pretty, clean and polished, you were given another white dress, this one much more fitted than the smock you had been in. Forced into the snug creation you were dragged to the last room.

You weren’t this woman in the mirror. You didn’t diet to be this thin or have hair this color or have eyelashes this long. This was a lie. And after the tears subsided, your only slim comfort was that it would be over soon. It was coming, the moment you couldn't do it anymore.

Mob blood withstanding, you were a bit mouthy, and that never boded well for you around people who had large egos. You had already lost several jobs and were barely funding your college tenure with your latest one at a bookstore. Well... had. It was just so unfair.

A bitter thought kept coming to you, over and over.

Where were the heroes?

The tentacle around you tightened.

“Don’t cry. I’ll get angry if you mess it up.” You sniffed, anger coursing through you. Who did these people think they were? If you were going down, you decided that they were all coming with you.

The end of the line was one last room, generously sized, but filled. Rushed in by the tentacle woman, you still had time to see the final set-up. There were several other women here, all dressed the same as you. Each with their own handlers, each looking upset and panicked as the situation rightfully called for, each sitting tied to a chair, hands tied behind them. They looked to you, eyes wide and fearful, and you gazed back, understanding and upset.

You were led to the end, the last seat available, and forced into the same position. And then the entire group waited, and not a single soul uttered a word. Their handlers had beaten obedience into them. Well, for the moment.

The slowly growing dread that was starting to eat away at your nerves, and it was only a matter of time. Someone finally broke down, the girl with pink hair at the other end, a sob erupting. It was followed by a hard slap, and the sounds of a rag being stuffed in her mouth. She choked on the vile cloth, but finally managed to calm down, her 'handler' swearing viciously at the mess.

Ten minutes passed.

Twenty minutes. Two more girls broke. They both received a rag in their mouths.

Thirty minutes.

Fourt-

The door opened.

In a world rife with quirks that deform and mutate it isn’t unusual to see people who are suffering from the backlash of horrendous deformation and downright disability. It was almost as common as not for someone to be born with pink or green hair, then just brown or blonde. You hadn't given much thought to who are the monsters behind this desecration of women is, but you are sure he is no catch. How could someone who is so merciless to a potential wife be anything but ugly?

The other girls are curious as well, and you see eyes struggling to stay down. But caution is hardly going to help at this point, so you glance up. And before your head is shoved down, into your knees, you catch a glimpse of a pale face, delicate shaped, and exquisite amber eyes pointed away in disgust. Your chest feels an uncomfortable weight as you realize that not only ugly men are monsters. Even handsome men with glossy, golden eyes can be them, and the color sticks in your eyes, burning them. It’s not even an uncommon color, yet paired with black lashes and a narrowed expression, they appeared to be glowing. All of this is topped off with a bird mask.

No, you tell yourself, this must be the son of the man.

After a moment your thoughts return, enough to hear the sound of the man's measured steps, hurried and impatient. They come near, examining each downturned head, and you wonder if he can even see your faces. You can only see the faint image of your plucked face in his shiny leather shoes that appear in your downturned vision. You faintly register a second pair of shoes that follow, light as a child, but don’t see anyone.

“Repulsive. They’re all filthy.” He says, and you realized that this is the boss. There's no mistaking it. This was the guy with the phobia. It shocks you, as mob bosses were never this young, handsome or disgusting... right?

You don’t know his age, but his voice can’t be over thirty. It's something from a well to do accountant, not firm and deep like an evil All Might, but almost cracking and boyish. But such a mild voice wasn’t running off numbers. Just contemplating just how unworthy you all were. Obviously, the group hasn’t made a good showing. You can’t bring yourself to care anymore. All rational emotion has left you discontent, and needing a drink of water.

A high voice answers the boss, some lacky, probably with a crap quirk.

“These are the best we could find. Each is from an aligned mafia family, and most are quirkless. If not, well, that’s always fixable.”

One of the girls sobs through the napkin in her mouth, and you can imagine the anger in his glowing topaz eyes.

“You think any of these creatures are worthy of being next to me. Look at them. They are shaking. A disobedient woman is just as bad as a being unclean.” The boss says flatly. "Where's Chronostasis-"

A monster with a cleaning disorder, and a bigot. He's talking like it's your fault, that you were here by choice, and your chest fills with a disdainful, mocking swearword. Unable to contain your utter vitriol as the absurd conversation, you wheeze out a laugh. Well, at least it wasn’t the swearword, you think fatefully.

The room goes deathly quiet.

The other women are quiet, knowing you have just signed your death warrant, the first of the day. The leather shoes had retreated out of sight, but the sound of them returning is ominous. Not only that but the hand on the back of your head has twisted you forward painfully. She's very upset, you guess. The position is bad, and your lungs struggle to function properly. Tears pool in your eyes, and the makeup in coming off. Your hands strain, trying to escape the bounds. Your accompanying cough does nothing to improve your case. If there was ever a sign of uncleanliness, you’ve displayed it. Perhaps all those freezing cold showers had, ironically, gotten you sick.

One moment you are coughing to death, the next you are on the ground, the chair under you cracking into a million pieces. The surprise takes the air out of your lungs, and you manage to stop coughing. Your hands are freed, though still tied together, and wood in poking your back. Your dress rides up dangerously to your thighs.

None of this matters as much as the hands that are firmly around your throat. Small ones. For on top of you is what looks like a stuffed puppet come to life, a bird mask attached to his front. The top of the beak is dangerously positioned over your throat, weirdly strong for being a puppet. You laugh again, hysterical, and he drags your throat up.

“How dare you insult Overhaul!” He says, and you slowly blink the mascara away, senseless.

The puppet turns up, glowering. The tentacle woman is in trouble.

“Who is this creature who you have brought?!?!” The masked woman is pressed against the wall, sweat pooling around her face. Her tentacle hands are gripping the wall. “We instructed you to only bring the best!” His hand is getting tighter, and your already strained breathing is getting even harder.

“She’s the old bosses granddaughter, from his estranged second daughter.” The woman whispers, frightened to death.

There's an audible pause.

“Mimic. Don’t kill her just yet.” The voice of the boss says, breaking the silence. The hand around your throat loosens, just a touch.

“She’s..." The words seem to fail the creature named Mimic. "Her? His granddaughter? The one?”

The handler nodded, and Mimic's hand is suddenly gone from your throat. You breathe in that overly sterile air, unsure of what had just happened. Had you been saved from death? You slowly sit up, coughing violently in your sleeve, and once the attack is over, you look around you.

The other girls and their handlers are gone.

Before you is a pair of black slacks, and you can see the expensive fabric he's wearing, though his ankles are bare between his white shoes and the pants. Your eyes trail up, slowly taking in the man before you, hitting the thick brown belt, hands in white gloves, a green parka with a purple color, until you see a mask that belongs 1656 and resolutely look down. You don't want to see his eyes again.

You have the undivided attention of Overhaul, who is giving you a similar appraisal, taking in the softness of your mouth, a slender tilt of your shoulders, the curve of your waist under the dress.

You wondered if he would lift his foot and crush your skull in himself, or if he saved that sort of thing for his cronies.

A hand reaches out and not aware enough, you don't flinch. The plastic glove encasing his hand brushes your cheek, coming away with black and tan makeup. He brings it up to examine it himself, putting two fingers together to rub the colors together.

"My apologies. I didn't realize that you had come." You aren't sure what to say to such unhinged civility he provided. "It looks as though your stay here has been less than what is demanded."

You aren't looking up, so you don't see that his gaze has turned away from you, twisting to the woman on the wall behind you. You don't even realize it's happened until it's over. One moment the mob boss is standing before you, the next he has moved beside you, hand clutching the handler who had done little to gain your favor. But you don't realize that your silence is enough to sentence her.

You look over just in time to see him holding her.

As his hand squeezes the trainer’s face the woman just... explodes.

Blood, organs, and sick flesh litter the room behind him, and your eyes widen in disbelief and disgust. Red drops hit your white dress and your feet move before you can think. Fear floods you, the ache in your back fades to a thrum as you scramble up, standing next to the door, trying to open it. It is shut like it never was meant to be opened in the first place. You glance back to him as he is straitening his stance, looking furiously animalistic at the mess he has made.

But upon hearing your cry of fear, the sound of your nails against the door he seems to regain sense.

He straightens, walking forward to the door, his one, plastic-covered hand placed on it. He's boxed you in, and you are forced to stare at his mask, refusing to look in his eyes. Never look into the eyes of a wild animal.

"It seems as though you will need some adjustments. Your mother has done you a disfavor." He doesn't explain himself, just raising a bloody hand to raise your chin. You don’t break into tears, just close your jaw so your teeth stop chattering, refusing to look him in his eyes. You can see that perhaps it's not just a mental disorder, as his skin has broken out into hives where the blood has touched, red angry boils that marr his pretty face.

He puts a plastic-encased finger to your lips. Nothing happens.

“Acceptable. If just barely .” It’s a threat and a promise rolled into a proposal you couldn’t refuse.

Read more at https://archiveofourown.org/works/21353212/chapters/50860795

#bnha #bnha fanfiction #fanfiction #overhaul #overhaul x reader #kai #Chisaki #kai chisaki

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