#the way bugs is rated worse than the disaster finale

[captainchilly]

unfortunately, i'm back on my spn spreadsheet bullshit and i added more data...

[avengerscompound]

Running to a Standstill - 9

Running to a Standstill: A Captain America Fanfic

Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers x F!Reader

Word Count:  1774

Rating:  E

Warnings: sex talk

Synopsis: While on the run from an unknown organization trying to take your son, you meet two super-soldiers.  While they try to help you get to the bottom of who is hunting you and your son, feelings come out and admissions are made that make your personal life even more tricky.

Chapter 9

When Steve left on a mission in the morning without coming to talk to you, the choice he had made seemed obvious to you.  He’d been in love with Bucky since he was a teenager.  He used Bucky as a baseline to judge every single person he was interested in.  Yes, the two of you had been growing something, and you were most definitely falling in love with him.  That wasn’t enough.  He had chosen Bucky.  It was obvious when you’d left them alone to talk.  Steve being gone in the morning was just confirmation of what had been obvious.

That didn’t make it hurt any less.  You had been falling in love with Steve.  The two of you had started talking about future plans.  What would happen after they got to the bottom of everything.  What you both really wanted with your lives.

Maybe it was meant to be?  At least that was what you were telling yourself as you moved your things back out of Steve’s room.  You’d been having feelings for Bucky too, and really if you were supposed to be falling in love with one guy, maybe it wasn’t totally real if you were also crushing on his best friend too.  You had to put it all aside.  This was just a false start at your first try at dating again after the death of your husband.  It was bound to happen.

You didn’t have time to cry.  If you broke down in front of Geo it would upset him and he needed you to be strong because your strength was the only stability he had.  You liked living with Steve.  You liked how you’d made a little family unit start to happen, and you definitely didn’t want to let it go.  There was always the possibility of trying to keep it.  You could stay in Steve’s spare room with Geo.  He’d offered it to you even before you were technically a couple.  He was a good man, it could work at least for a little while.  It would hurt seeing them move on together while you were just hanging onto scraps of affection.  And worse, eventually, you would have to leave and the longer you waited, the stronger the bonds Geo got, and the worse it would hurt him when he lost them.

You needed to move on now.  You’d wait until Steve got home, have the talk, and work out how you could move out.

The front door opened and closed, and you had a moment of panic.  There was no way Steve could be back already.  Your mind immediately went to someone coming to take Geo and you rushed out into the living room, to see Bucky and Geo rushing to him.

“Hey, bud,” Bucky said, picking Geo up.

“Hey, Buck,” you said.  “Steve’s not here.  He left first thing.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky said.  “Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy, but he has been pulling the ‘run headlong into danger rather than be emotionally weak’ shit since the day we met.  It’s gettin’ old.”

You snorted and shook your head. “Can I ask… how did the talk with him go last night?”

Bucky carried Geo into the kitchen.  He took a Yoo-Hoo out and gave it to Geo.  “You want a beer?”  He asked.

You sighed and collapsed onto the couch.  “You got anything harder?”

Bucky laughed and grabbed you both a beer and came and sat on the couch beside you, putting Geo on the ground, where he sat happily drinking his chocolate milk.  You took the beer and drained half of it in one go.

“Hey relax,” Bucky said, putting his arm around you.  “You asked me about it.”

“I know.  And the longer you don’t answer the worse my head gets, which is stupid because you guys have known each other since you were children and you deserve a happy ending,” you explained.  “But it still hurts.”

Bucky nodded and rubbed your arm.  “We talked about how long we both felt like that.  How dumb we were.  Then I went to kiss him and he said he was in love with you and he needed time.”

You blinked up at him, your insides frozen.  You had so expected him to tell you how they had admitted to each other how they’d been in love this whole time and to have been relieved they finally both knew.  You’d expected that they’d have kissed and he’d tell Bucky that he’d tell you it was over.  You hadn’t expected this at all.  “Oh.”

“Yeah,” he said.  “So he wasn’t just running away from dumping you.  I don’t even know what he wants.”

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” you said, wrapping your arms around his neck.  “You deserve better.”

He pressed his cheek against yours as his arms closed around you and took a deep breath.  “Yeah.  So do you.  You deserve a happy ending too, you know?  You’ve been through enough.”

You pulled back just a little.  Just enough to look up into his stormy blue eyes.  He returned your gaze and for a moment you forgot everything except how hurt you felt and how good Bucky was at alleviating that.  Your eyes flicked to his lips, watching as they parted ever so slightly.  He leaned in just a little and as you imagined what it would be like actually kissing him, everything came crashing home all at once.  You pulled back and shook your head, placing your hand on his chest.  “Sorry.”

Bucky shook his head too and ran his hand through his hair.  “No.  Right.  I’m sorry.  That was…”

“Yeah,” you agreed as you both moved to opposite ends of the couch.  “This is all such a mess.  Everything.  I am starting to wish you’d both never met me.”

Bucky nodded and went to stand and you realized how hurtful what you just said must have sounded.  You grabbed his metal hand and tugged it, coaxing him back into the seat. “Sorry.  I didn’t mean that how it sounded,” you said.  “I am glad I met you both.  But I’ve fucked up your lives.  And whoever it is hunting me found us.  If I hadn’t met you, we’d still be on the run, but at least I’d have that routine.  You guys wouldn’t have been dragged into my shit.  I wouldn’t be fucking up whatever you have with each other.”

“Don’t,” Bucky said softly.  “It’s not your fault and if it wasn’t for you, neither of us would have ever found out about each other.  We’ll figure this out.”

You sighed and sunk back into the couch.  It was nice to hear but you still couldn’t shake that feeling that it had you never met Bucky and Steve things wouldn’t be such a complete disaster right now.  Geo put his now empty bottle on the ground and climbed up on the couch between the two of you.

“Bug-key,” he said, patting Bucky’s metal arm.  “You wanna pway?”

“Okay, kiddo,” Bucky said.  “You get the tablet.”

Geo climbed back down and toddled away to find the tablet Tony had given him.

“I do like you, Bucky,” you said.

Bucky looked over at you with his brow furrowed.  “Why?”

You reached over and took his hand.  “I don’t know what they did to you to make you doubt yourself the way you do,” you said.  “But all I have seen is a guy who is sweet and gentle and with a killer sense of humor and who is a fantastic cook.”

“You just want me to make dinner,” Bucky said, picking up Geo when he returned.  “I’m on to you.”

You laughed and Bucky and Geo started playing with a game on the tablet.  You got up and went to the kitchen, Bucky’s little mention of dinner making you realize someone should get started on it.

“What is with two people saying they like me and then flinching when I try to kiss them?”  Bucky called out to you.  “That’s not great for the ego.”

“I gib you a kiss,” Geo said, standing up and kissing the ex-assassin on the cheek.

You and Bucky started laughing and Bucky cuddled the little boy.  “Thank you, buddy.  That makes me feel very special.”

“It’s a pity we can’t just all be together,” Bucky called out to you.  “Would save some heartbreak.”

“Yeah, right,” you chuckled, as you put a pot of water on to boil.  As you were cutting vegetables you started to wonder why you couldn’t all just be together.  Natasha and Clint were a couple but they saw other people.  They were one of the happiest couples you knew.  Why couldn’t you do that too?  If the three of all loved each other, then why couldn’t you just all be together.  Maybe it might be a little strange to begin with, and maybe they had a connection that you didn’t, but you had your own thing with each of them too, and going from friends to lovers was hard.  So regardless of what happened now, there would be hurdles to cross, you might as well try to make the most people happy while you were all crossing them.

You put down your knife and went back over to the couch, perching on the side of the chair.  Bucky looked up from the game and tilted his head.  “You get sick of cooking already?”

You shook your head.  “Why can’t we?”

Bucky blinked at you, not quite being able to keep up with where your head was right now. “Why can’t we, what?”

“Why can’t we all be together?”

Bucky stared at you and Geo began to tug on his hand trying to get Bucky to pay attention to him again.  “Bug-key…” hey whined.

“Hang on, bud,” Bucky said, pressing his chin on the top of Geo’s head and looking at you.  “I … don’t … know…” he said.  “Can we?”

“I mean… we couldn’t get married, but… yes? If we all agreed,” you replied, putting your hand on his.  “We could.”

“We should… we need to talk to Steve,” Bucky said, slowly.

“Yeah, we should,” you agreed.

“We could actually do this,” Bucky said looking at you.  “And I kinda want to kiss you right now.”

You smiled and pressed your forehead against his.  “Gotta talk to Steve.”

He grinned and pulled back.  You went to say something but realized you didn’t really know what.  So instead you ruffled Geo’s hair and let Bucky go back to playing with him, returning to the kitchen.  You couldn’t remember the last time you felt this nervous and excited.

// NEXT

[let-it-raines]

your wonder under summer skies (14/18)

Summer in Storybrooke, Maine means one thing for its residents: tourist season. This year, for Emma Swan and Killian Jones, it means relationships ending and friendships changing all the while they attempt to figure out just what their relationship is. It’s somewhere straddling the line between friends and lovers, and there’s no guarantee of a soft landing if they fall into new territory.

Rating: Mature

ao3: beginning | current

tumblr:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 

-/-

This place is decidedly more cabin in the woods than Killian was expecting. Well, if the cabin in the woods was a bloody large cabin made for groups of people in Maine looking for a weekend away from their regular lives. When he looked at the link Anna sent him when they were planning this trip, he didn’t look past the specifics of price and how many bedrooms there were.

So when he pulled up and saw the two-story cabin with its wraparound porch and large, floor-to-ceiling windows nestled near a lake, he was a little taken aback. Mostly, though, he doesn’t understand how the owners of this place decided to make every wall wood paneling and for each damn piece of furniture to be made out of a log or pine or something that looks like it’ll put a splinter in his ass when he sits down.

Hell, he’s pretty sure that he’s going to turn the corner and there’s going to be animal heads hanging from the walls.

At least there’s sunshine and clear water and all of the food and alcohol that a man could ask for.

Or, well, that could be asked for by a joint bachelor and bachelorette party that Elsa and Liam wanted, the both of them insisting that they needed a weekend away and that it should be nothing like the beach…so naturally they’re spending it on a lake.

Anna seemed to think it was all a brilliant idea, and since she is so keen on planning things, he figured he’d let her do it instead of getting into arguments over it. Or, well, he might have been distracted when she called to talk about the trip because Emma was on her knees in front of him, and he wasn’t paying attention to anything other than the feel of her.

“Why do I feel like every time I turn a corner, a deer’s antlers or something are going to poke me in the eye?”

Killian chuckles and turns to Emma next to him. She’s got a large duffle bag hanging over her shoulder, and he doesn’t know what she packed, but it must be all of the contents of her closet.

“Because you probably will.”

“Okay,” Anna shouts as everyone keeps walking through the front door, chatting and dragging in suitcases and looking around, “I have had all of the bedrooms labeled. Elsa and Liam get the master, obviously. Mary Margaret and David have bedroom one on the first floor, and Kris and I will take bedroom two, which shares that bathroom. Will and Belle, bedroom three, which is at the end of the hall just down that way. Ariel and Eric, you have bedroom four, which is right at the top of the stairs and will share a bathroom with Ruby and Mulan’s room, which is bedroom five. The final room is, like, basically the attic. Emma and Killian, you guys get that one. It may or may not be the kids’ room, so don’t be surprised if there are bunk beds up there.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Killian mutters. “Bunk beds? We’re twenty-eight. We don’t get our own regular beds?”

“Do any of the couples here want to give up their private rooms with big beds to go sleep in the attic in bunk beds so that Killian can have a queen mattress?” “For fuck’s sake,” Killian laughs, rolling his eyes at Anna, “the beds are fine. I simply wasn’t aware Emma and I were going to be punished for not having significant others.”

“Yeah,” Emma joins in, “we should get compensated in, like, first choice of food tonight.” “I think Elsa and I get that,” Liam says. “You two will be fine. I’m sure the beds will be comfortable, but Emma, lass, as someone who lives with Killian, you might want earplugs. He snores.”

“Liar.”

Liam shrugs, bright smile on his face. “Have some mercy on the poor girl, Killian. Try not to be too loud.”

Killian opens his mouth to keep protesting, but then he snaps it shut. There’s no point. He doesn’t snore, and Emma knows that. Why should he care if everyone else thinks he snores? He’s sure that half of the people in this room do anyways.

This is Liam’s weekend.

If he reminds himself that enough, maybe he won’t try to pick at everything Liam says and does, and they can all have a good time like they’re supposed to.

Even if he does have to sleep in a damn bunk bed.

Emma elbows his side. “I have ear plugs, but that was mostly because I was scared I’d have to sleep next to David and Mary Margaret.”

“Please don’t put that image in my head.”

“We’re in a cabin full of couples, KJ. How is the image not in your head?”

Killian groans and tilts his head back, and Emma laughs, nudging him again before adjusting her bag on her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go put our stuff up. My legs are stiff from the drive, and I’m ready to go hiking.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Anna squeals, “I have sunscreen and bug spray for everyone who forgot it. I’ll leave it in the kitchen. Let’s all meet up in half an hour, okay?”

“Anna is…very organized,” Emma sighs as everyone begins walking in different directions looking for their bedrooms. “I feel like she’s a very intense version of Mary Margaret.” “That’s exactly who she is,” Elsa laughs, walking next to Emma up the stairs, which leads them to a hallway with more wood paneling and more large, paneled windows. There are no animal heads yet, though, so Killian would count that as a win. “I think she wants everything to be so perfect for me that she’s taking it overboard. Plus, she’s used to working with all of these extravagant people, so this is kind of out of her wheelhouse. You’re just lucky my cousins couldn’t come this weekend, because that would make it even worse.”

“She’s doing a great job. With this and the wedding. I mean, the wood paneling here is a little much, but this is beautiful.” “Hey, I could have helped plan this,” Killian protests.

Liam, Elsa, and Emma all laugh at him.

“What?”

“If I was a betting man, I’d say the only thing you planned was the food and the alcohol.”

“And to that,” Killian laughs, “I’d say you were right. If I had gotten my say, I would have found a place with one more bedroom so that Emma and I weren’t sleeping in bunk beds while everyone else got normal rooms.”

“I mean, technically,” Elsa says, “I think there’s another bed in David and Mary Margaret’s room, but I think you two might be safer upstairs.”

They get to the end of the hallway where the master bedroom is, and Elsa and Liam tell them that they’ll see them in a few minutes before walking inside while he and Emma turn to find the spiral staircase that leads up to the attic. It’s beautiful, but it’s not exactly convenient when carrying luggage, but he and Emma manage to get their stuff upstairs without any kind of disaster.

“Those stairs would be horrible if you’re drunk. I feel dizzy just getting up here.”

“Aye,” he sighs, dropping his bag and looking around the room.

It’s small, just a set of chairs, a dresser with a television, and then, indeed, a set of bunk beds covered in red plaid bedding. In the center of the room is a round window, and when Killian looks out it, he has a direct view of the lake and all of the surrounding hills and trees.

He imagines none of the other rooms have a view like that.

“Wow,” Emma whistles, “a view like that will almost make you think the lake is better than the beach.”

“Never,” he laughs, looking at her to his side. “I like my salt water and my sand too much to ever give it up, but it is stunning.”

“I can’t wait to get to explore it. It’s so damn nice not to be working this weekend. I haven’t had an actual, multiple-day break in months, and I’m taking full advantage of it.”

Killian nods as he keeps looking out the window. He sees two people walk out onto the deck, and he believes it’s Ruby and Mulan. It’s hard to tell from here, but then one of them walks a little further out and he recognizes Ruby’s red shirt. They must be ready to go already. He needs to change into a different pair of shoes.

Turning around, Killian moves to grab his bag only to see the last seconds of Emma pulling down a sports bra. She’s in nothing but a pair of black shorts and a white sports bra, and dammit if she doesn’t drive him mad like this.

He’s grown to know the curves of her body more intimately than he ever thought he would, and that’s how he knows that she’s been running more this summer and that places where she was once soft are the slightest bit more firm and how he knows the way her skin has changed from a creamy white to a shade or two darker, all of her freckles showing up more and more.

It’s how he knows that if that’s all she’s wearing today, he’s going to struggle holding it together in front of all of their friends.

He doesn’t know what to do when it comes to Emma any longer.

He wants her all the damn time, but his traitorous mind keeps telling him that he wants her in a way that he hasn’t had her: where there are no rules or implications or anything even closely relating to the friends with benefits situation they’ve got going on.

Where Killian can get it out of his mind that Emma kisses him in greeting now, how she intertwines their fingers, how she finds a way to touch him even when they’re not alone. It’s subconscious, he thinks. She’s not doing it on purpose, not seeking him out like she would a boyfriend, but it’s still happening.

(It matters not he is also guilty of doing the same things.)

It’s messing with his mind, with his heart, with everything.

And all he knows is that he feels like he’s betraying her because what Killian feels for Emma is far more than friendship, and he has no idea how to deal with that without mucking it up.

Especially because he can’t seem to stop being with her.

Their first rule was to keep the friendship at the center of everything, to make sure that neither of them messed it up, and the more time that passes, the more time that he thinks he’s barreling them toward disaster.

But he can’t stop.

“You gonna just keep staring at me like that?” Emma teases as she ties a jacket around her hips.

“I don’t believe I was staring.”

She chuckles and saunters toward him until she’s standing toe to toe with him. Killian glances away from her face, but that only leads his gaze toward the top of her breasts and the freckle that seems to be calling him.

Not now, not now, not now.

“Oh, you definitely were.” Emma presses up on her toes and runs her lips across his jaw. God, this is another one of the things about her that drives him mad, and he has to focus all of his attention on his breathing to keep himself from becoming too aroused. “Later,” she whispers. “I really do want to go on this hike, and I’m not going to let you distract me, Jones.” “I thought you were the one distracting me.”

“Eh, it goes both ways.”

And then she’s pulling away with this bright, kind smile on her face, and he has no idea how she can go from seductive to friendly all within the span of five minutes.

“See you downstairs. I need to get Ruby to braid my hair, so I’m going to go ahead and go.”

“She’s out on the deck with Mulan.”

Emma nods, grabs her phone, and then walks out the door.

This weekend is going to be bloody torturous.

-/-

If Killian had to guess, he would say that David and Liam have gotten them lost somewhere in the middle of the woods despite the fact that they’re all following a trail.

Or, well, supposed to be following a trail.

At one point, Anna and Elsa got distracted by this flower bush, and once they veered off the path to look at it, wondering if they could get Elsa’s florist to change her bouquet arrangement, they all started veering on and off the path, especially since there are twelve of them out here on a trail that really only allows two people to walk side by side.

If someone had brought alcohol on the hike, he imagines at least half the group would be lying dead in a ditch by now.

Honestly, Will usually has a flask on him, but as far as Killian knows, he hasn’t pulled it out yet.

Damn.

Killian ignores David and Liam arguing and keeps looking ahead. Emma and Mary Margaret are directly in front of him, now leading the group, and he tries to focus on the ground instead of the way Emma’s ass is nearly on display from the way her shorts are riding up. She hasn’t paid him much attention since they started the hike, and he’s never been so thankful to be left alone, if only for a little while.

He hasn’t been able to run all week, and this is exactly what he needed, even if the quietness of nature is cancelled out by everyone talking.

“I’m not kidding,” Ruby chuckles. “It’s awful. I mean, I get it, these are teenagers who are getting away from their parents for a little while, but do they have to make out in booths that I have to clean? There are so many places they could go, places where I don’t have to look at them while I’m trying to do my job.”

“We’ve made out in those booths.”

“That’s different, and you know it.” “Why? Because you’re the one who is getting a little action?”

“Exactly.”

“Granny’s is a fucking popular make out spot,” Will adds in. “There’s the hallway that connects to the B and B, which has seen more action than Killian has all summer.”

“Oi,” Killian scoffs, turning around to stare Will down, “mind your own bloody business.”

“Sorry, mate. I couldn’t resist.”

“You know who I keep seeing there?” Will continues. “Neal Cassidy. I know he’s dating Tamara, but damn, you’d think they could go to one of their places every once in awhile.”

Killian cringes, nearly faltering in his step, and he finally looks up to Emma, who is simply continuing to walk.

Good. That’s good.

She told him that she was over Neal, that she’s letting it go, but you don’t love someone for that long and have them break your heart and not be affected when someone is talking about them.

“Will, shut up,” Belle hisses.

“Why do I need to – oh fuck,” he mutters. “I’m sorry, Emma. Please ignore me and that bloody wanker.”

“It’s fine,” Emma shouts back, not turning around. “Neal has nothing to do with me anymore. He can do what he wants as long as I don’t have to look at him while I’m eating my onion rings.”

“I’d never make you do that,” Ruby tells her. “I’ll kick him out.”

“Can you even do that?”

“Eh, I can try.”

“Look,” David interrupts, and they all stop to stare where he’s pointing. “There’s that damn split tree. That’s where we were supposed to be going.”

“How do you even know that?” Liam grumbles.

“Because I noticed it on the way up. We’ve been here before, so it we turn that way, it should take us back to the house.”

“Can’t we use our phones to check where we are?” Killian asks only to have both Liam and David glare at him. “Okay, okay,” he backtracks, holding his hands up, “I guess we’re not using technology to make our lives easier.”

By the time they’re back at the house, Killian’s skin has been kissed by the sun, his feet ache, and his stomach is growling with hunger. He could really go for a nap, but Kris offers to cook burgers for everyone down by the lake, so everyone grabs their swimsuits and some drinks and heads down to where the grill is.

Killian settles into one of the lounge chairs that’s set up down there, a bottle of water in hand, and leans back, wondering if napping outside would be possible, but then Liam starts blaring music over some speakers and he knows the nap is never going to happen.

“Hey,” Emma says as she plops down in the chair next to him, “why do you look like you’re about to fall asleep?”

“Because I desperately want to.”

“How are you tired?”

“Because, unlike someone, I drove us up here and could not nap in the car.”

Emma shrugs and curls her legs up in the chair before taking a long sip of her water.  “You make a good point, KJ. Do you think I’d get my hand slapped away if I went and got the bag of barbecue chips off the table before all the other food was ready?”

“Depends on if the picnic table guardian is looking over it or not.” Emma laughs and leans forward, looking over at the table. “David seems to be occupied staring at the grill being all macho man with Kris. I’ll be right back.”

And then she’s jogging over to the table, slowing down right before she gets there, and then grabbing the big bag of barbecue crisps before springing back over to him and sitting back down in her seat, dropping the crisps between them. David looks over at them, and Killian swears that he sees his eyes narrow, like he knows Emma took the crisps off the table.

“Sneaky, love.”

“I try. I don’t know why he does that at any event. It’s like he gets some weird high off of making sure no one gets too food, but the worst part is definitely the fact that he watches to see if people throw any uneaten food away.”

“It is rather odd, isn’t it?”

“It’s the worst is what it is.”

She leans over between them and opens the bag, grabbing a crisp and taking what he swears is the loudest bite in existence. David is likely about to look over at them and give them hell for it. The man is going to make a great father one day.

If only because he can monitor food better than anyone else in existence.

Killian leans back in his chair and settles down into it, closing his eyes. He stretches out his arm, his hand laying against the arm of the chair, and after a few moments of relative silence, he feels Emma’s fingers tracing over his forearm in soothing patterns that have a shiver running down his spin and settling in his stomach.

It feels so natural for her to do this, for him to let her do this, and he should stop it.

But he can’t, not now.

Soon. He’ll figure it out.

Soon.

“I’ve always liked this tattoo the best.”

“Hmm?”

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” She traces the words inked into his skin as she says them out loud. “I don’t know. I just feel like it’s so fitting to have them mixed in with your scars.”

Killian fights with himself to keep his eyes closed, to keep himself from looking into Emma’s eyes. Not a lot of people get such unfiltered access to his scars, and yet here she is in the open tracing them and talking about them and yet again making him feel like maybe they’re not too bad.

“I mean,” she continues, “I like all of your tattoos. They always make me want to get more than my buttercup, but I really like this one.”

“Aye,” he sighs, deciding that just for today, he can let everything be. This is a good moment, and he’s not going to let his mind ruin it. Instead he’ll let Emma run her fingers over his hand and let her hold onto him for a few moments. “I am fond of that one as well. I am also fond of yours, though it is rather small.”

“What? Do you want me to get a giant one?”

“You should get one that covers your entire back.” “Shut up,” Emma laughs, digging her nails into him. “I am obviously not doing that. I don’t know what I’ll do, or if I ever will. I think I’ll just stick to liking yours.”

“I like that plan. Do you think if I eat a crisp that David will hear it?”

“He hasn’t noticed me yet.” “Ah, but you have better luck than me.” “Guess you’ll have to try your luck to see.”

Killian slowly opens one eye, then the next, before moving his arm away to reach into the bag. He takes one bite, eyeing David who still has his back turned, before eating a few more. He thinks that maybe he’ll get away with it until David turns around.

“Jones, put the damn chips back on the table before I burn your food.”

“Sorry,” Emma says to him, shrugging, but he can tell that she’s not sorry at all.

“I think I’ll survive, love.”

When the food is finished cooking, everyone settles around tables and in chairs, eating and drinking and laughing. And it’s nice, a nicer time than Killian has had in awhile if he’s honest with himself. But then the night falls, crickets finding their places in the surrounding trees and a breeze wafting through the campground, causing a chill to travel down his spine as his skin pebbles with goosebumps.

There is a fire going, though, and plenty of alcohol being passed around to warm him, but really, the alcohol might not be the best idea right now, especially since Mary Margaret and Ruby tend to like to play games when they’re halfway to drunk.

Mary Margaret said something about how they needed to play a shower game. It was tradition, but Elsa and Liam hadn’t wanted that. Then Ruby stood up from the bench she was sitting on and declared that they would play Truth or Dare like the grown adults they are. They love their games, though, and, well, Ruby does know how to turn the game into something that is rather more adult than what he played when he was a lad. This is nothing new. They tend to do this at every party they have, but he never knows if it’s going to be tame or not.

So far Elsa has had to share some intimate details about the first time she slept with Liam, which Killian truly did not need to hear about, Liam has chugged down half a bottle of ketchup, Will has jumped into the lake, Mary Margaret has had to answer what the one thing she’d change about David would be, which resulted in a hushed argument, and Ruby has run to the neighboring house and asked them for condoms.

She came back with an entire box.

So, now it’s Ruby scanning the semi-circle they’re sitting in looking for her next victim, because, really, of all the people here, the last person he’d want to have pick out whatever form of torture this is would be Ruby Lucas.

His one glass of rum has not numbed him enough for this.

“Emma,” Ruby finally says, and Killian swears he hears half the group let out sighs of relief.

“I hate you,” Emma mutters, flipping Ruby off.

“Oh, no you don’t. You love me, and I’m going to be really nice to you by telling you that if you pick ‘truth,’ I’m going to ask you about the guy who gave you that hickey last week.”

Killian’s cheeks immediately heat, and he swallows, pushing the thought down. He hadn’t meant to do that. It had been an accident because they are not teenagers and don’t usually leave marks, and he didn’t even know it happened until Emma had sent him a picture the next day.

Shit.

At least Emma’s a damn good liar since it’s not like anyone is actually forcing them to do this.

It’s the spirit of it all.

“Dare, you asshole.”

There are a few whistles from around the group, and Killian already knows there are going to be a few follow-up questions to Ruby’s words later.

“I dare you to…kiss Jones. Killian, not Liam. And none of that on the cheek shit. You two have so much chemistry, and I need to see it. I feel like everyone here needs to see it.”

“Oh my God,” he hears Emma murmur next to him at the same time that he has that exact thought. The whistles increase, some hollering too, and he swears that everyone here but he, Emma, and David are drunk off their asses. “Ruby, no. Pick something else. Like, something normal that non-tipsy you would pick.” “You chose ‘dare.’”

“Because you were going to ask me something I didn’t want to talk about. I don’t want to kiss Killian.” She turns back to him and winces. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he mumbles, knowing she’s trying to save face.

“Why not? He’s super hot. I mean, I know you think he’s hot. You’ve said it before, and you guys kind of have that ‘will they, won’t they’ thing going on, which I have been saying all summer. We actually have all talked about getting a betting pool as to when you’ll finally get together, especially since you and the dumbass are no longer a thing. So, come on, it won’t be that bad. You’ve got to uphold the integrity of truth or dare.”

Emma’s lips part, and Killian knows she has a retort on her tongue. She always does.

But then she’s turning and leaning over her chair until she’s grabbing the collar of his t-shirt and pulling his mouth to hers.

Fuck.

Her lips press into his, soft and warm as they always are, but it takes him a minute to fully close his eyes and appreciate how she feels against him. Eyes are on them, whistles ringing out around the group, and Killian swears he sees flashes of camera lights as Emma sucks on his bottom lip and his hands thread into her hair, pulling her closer.

And for one, miniscule second, he forgets about the people around him and the warring thoughts he’s been fighting for weeks now, and he lets himself revel in how damn good it feels to kiss Emma Swan.

But then it’s over.

They part, gasping for breath, and Killian’s grip tightens on the back of Emma’s head as her forehead rests warmly against his.

Strangely, all he can focus on is the fact that she smells like sunscreen.

“Well, hot damn,” Ruby sighs, and Killian finally drops his hand from Emma’s hair, “I feel like I need a glass of water now. Anyone else?”

There’s a murmur of voices, but Killian ignores them, focusing on the way Emma is blinking at him with a smirk painted on her lips. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?” “No, that wasn’t bad at all.”

“Emma, it’s your turn,” Ruby reminds her. “Feel free to do your worst to me.”

“Trust me, I plan to.”

In the blink of an eye, things go back to normal. The attention is back on the game, not on him, not on Emma, and no one says anything else about the kiss.

Apparently everyone cares about it a lot less than he thought they would.

But it was all part of a game. It wasn’t real.

None of it has been.

And he has no idea how much longer he’s going to be okay with that. He also has no idea how he could make any of it real, even if Emma wanted that, because he’s got no fucking clue how to do this.

His brain doesn’t seem to be conjuring up any ideas either.

Shit.

Eventually, the game dies down, everyone quieting and forming their own circles and conversations, and while Killian tries to stay for a little while, when the opportunity to sneak out and go to bed presents itself, he takes it.

-/-

-/-

tag list: @qualitycoffeethings​ @mrtinski​ @klynn-stormz​ @scarletslippers​ @jonirobinson64​ @snowbellewells​ @therealstartraveller776​ @thejollyroger-writer​ @sherifemma​ @galadriel26​ @galaxyzxstark​ @idristardis​ @karenfrommisthaven​ @teamhook​ @spartanguard​ @searchingwardrobes​ @jamif​ @shireness-says​ @ultimiflos​ @nikkiemms​ @resident-of-storybrooke​ @onepunintendid​ @bluewildcatfanatic​ @superchocovian​ @killianswannn​ @carpedzem​ @captainkillianswanjones​ @mayquita​ @mariakov81​ @jennjenn615​ @onceuponaprincessworld​ @a-faekindagirl​ @scientificapricot​ @xellewoods​ @ultraluckycatnd​ @stahlop​ @kmomof4​ @tiganasummertree​ @singersdd​ @tornadoamy​ @cluttermind​ @lfh1226-linda​ @andiirivera​ @elizabeethan​ @captain-emmajones​ @csalltheway​ @itsfabianadocarmo​

[gabriel-agreste-has-no-rights]

Summary:  Marinette had replayed the video enough times. She'd know Adrien's voice saying those three words anywhere. (Set the same day as the episode Felix.  Reveal Fic.  Rated T for kissing, ignores Chat Blanc mostly because my heart can’t take the angst right now.)

~~~

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I lo—”

Tikki’s tiny butt sat on the video’s pause button, freezing Adrien’s lips in a perfect o.  

“Marinette, you need to get ahold of yourself.”

Marinette was sure her complexion matched her kwami’s as she dropped her face onto her desk.  “I knoooooow.”

She was being ridiculous.  More ridiculous than usual, anyway.  But something about those words did more than just make her stomach flutter—it felt familiar, though it was probably just from her daydreams.  If he’d told her he loved her before, there was no way she’d forget it.

Her thumb instinctively moved to replay the last five seconds again.  Tikki flew into the small space between her and the phone screen, catching the digit between her arms.

“This is an intervention,” she said in her most authoritative voice.  Considering it was still two octaves higher than the average humans, it shouldn’t have had much effect, but Marinette hated disappointing Tikki.  She was her friend, the only one she could be completely honest with.

And Tikki was pretty good about being honest with her, too.  If the kwami thought Marinette needed an intervention, she was probably right.

“Fine.” Marinette spun in her desk chair, intending to pull out some butcher paper and start drafting a pattern in the few hours before patrol tonight.  It wasn’t likely that Hawkmoth would akumatize two people in one day—or four, considering it had been three for the price of one thanks to Felix’s stunt—but Chat had sounded a little desperate when he asked if they could still meet up.  She hoped he hadn’t planned another impromptu date.  She didn’t know if she could handle that after finding out that yet another one of her plans to confess to Adrien had fallen through, this time through no fault of her own.

Would he have said I love you back to her if it weren’t for his cousin’s interference?  They’d gotten so much closer lately, but…

“I’m not good with jokes.  The girl I’m in love with doesn’t like them, either.”

That she didn’t need a recording to replay.  It was embedded in her memory, like a deep splinter she couldn’t dig out.

He might say he loved her, as a friend.  But beyond that?  She was just setting herself up for disaster.

“Marinette?” Tikki asked.  “Do you need some help with the paper?”

She shook her head, almost whacking it on the desk leg as she scrambled for her supply box beneath.  “No, I got it. You can grab the measuring tape, though.”

She was finally going to mock up the pattern for an airy sundress she’d spent the last week sketching out. Nothing would take her mind off of her troubling love life like the single-minded focus of a personal project.

It worked a little too well, though.  Between drafting each piece, cutting the paper, pinning it to the cheap test fabric, cutting the fabric, pinning the pieces to each other—she barely managed to stop herself from starting the actual sewing when Tikki held up her phone.

On top of a group selfie of her, Adrien, Alya, and Nino, the clock showed 9:29.  Patrol started at 9:30

“Ack!  I’m going to be late!”  She jabbed herself at least ten times getting her pins all back in the pincushion.  Everything else could wait, but she didn’t want to swing in and catch one in her foot later.

“Tikki, spots on!”

By the time she swung across town to the Eiffel Tower, her bugphone read 9:35.  Record time, but still late. So where was…?

“Little kitty on a roof, all alone without his lady…”

The familiar tune was more downcast than Marinette was used to.  Sure enough, when she swung up a few crossbars to Chat Noir’s perch, she caught a flash of his forlorn expression before his usual grin took over.

“Hey there, Bugaboo,” his voice chirped as chipper as ever.  Had she been imagining his earlier mood?  Or maybe he’d just been worried she wouldn’t make it.  Silly kitty.  Regardless of whether or not she returned his feelings, she’d vowed to never stand him up again if she could help it.

“Any trouble on the way over?”  He asked.

“Only with myself,” she admitted, rubbing the still-stinging pads of her fingers.  She probably should’ve put some ointment on them before transforming; the suit irritated the little pricks further.  “Civilian me is still as much of a mess as ever.”

She’d hoped that by dropping non-identifying clues on how much she struggled in her daily life, Chat Noir would see through the perfect illusion he had of her and come to his senses.  Honestly, she should’ve known better.  It hadn’t worked the first ten times she’d tried, and now it only brought a wider smile to his face.

(That wasn’t why she did it, of course.  Even if it warmed her more than she wanted to admit, she only had feelings for one green-eyed blond.)

“The only mess you make is a mess of my heart, my lady,” he said with a wink that had her rolling her eyes.

“How do you even come up with those lines?” She asked with a stifled laugh—at how bad it was, not because he was actually funny. “The internet?”

“I’m paw-fended,” he gasped, claws spread in front of his mouth dramatically.  “I’ll have you know that everything I say is a one-hundred-percent Chat Noir original.”

“Of course.  I should’ve known.  Who else could drop that kind of cheese so seriously?”

“Only because I am serious, Bugaboo,” he reminded her.  As if she could forget.  Bantering back and forth with him was so easy; she hoped she wasn’t accidentally leading him on.  He deserved better than that.

He smiled as he bumped his shoulder against hers.  His voice bared his sincerity as he said, “Hate on my puns all you want.  It won’t change the fact that I love you.”

I love you.

Electricity shot up Marinette’s spine.  No.  No, it couldn’t be— 

I love you.

She’d replayed those words at least a hundred times (two hundred and fifty-three, but who was counting?) in the past day.  She’d memorized his exact inflection, the way he spoke from his heart, even if it was about all their friends and not her alone.  She would recognize his voice saying those three words anywhere.

Anywhere.  Including coming from her ridiculous, pun-loving partner.

“Ladybug?”  Chat scooted away from her, his fingertips digging into the backs of his hands.  “I’m sorry, I—I know you don’t feel the same way, you don’t have to—”

“Adrien?”

He nearly toppled off of the tower. Marinette caught him by the shoulder, holding him in place before he could lose his balance again, or run away, or—she didn’t know what he’d do.  She really should’ve thought this through.  They were supposed to keep their identities secret!  It wasn’t his fault, of course; she imagined if he’d called her Marinette while she was in the suit she would’ve had a much worse heart attack— 

“Who—who’s Adrien?”  Chat forced a grin.

“Oh, no.  You’re not getting out of this that easy.”  She fell deeper into Ladybug mode, still not letting her brain process that—that holy crap this was ADRIEN, Adrien who had just confessed his love to her—to her—!

“Ladybug, please, please don’t freak out, I’m sorry.” It was his turn to grip her shoulders as she tried to breathe.  His acidic green eyes were blown wide, the miraculous transformation hiding his normal soft chartreuse irises.  Still, how could she not have noticed?  It was him it was him it was him and she couldn’t unhear it, couldn’t separate his apologetic voice now from their time at the wax museum when she had almost kissed him and no, now that was even doubly embarrassing because it was CHAT, she’d almost kissed CHAT NOIR— 

“I’m not freaking out!  Why would you think I’m freaking out?”

Her eye twitched.  Her heart just about escaped her ribcage at the soft look of concern her partner was giving her.  Oh, this was bad.  This was very, very bad.

“I know you didn’t want to find out, and I… how did you find out?”  He asked hesitantly.  His hand left her shoulder to rub the back of his neck, and she barely restrained herself from tugging it back.  Or better yet, climbing into his lap and hoping he’d enfold her in his arms.

Bad.  Very, very bad.

“I… well, you see—haha look at the time!”  She sprang up and glanced at her obviously-watchless wrist.  “Looks like we’re too late to patrol tonight.  Oops!  Sorry Ad—Chat!  I’ll have to love you—SEE you later!  Bug out!”

“Ladybug!”  He scrambled to his feet, reaching for her arm before she could grab her yo-yo.  He was Chat and he was Adrien and he was touching her and even through both their suits she felt herself burning.  No, no, she could not be weird with her partner.  Not after she’d turned him down over and over and— 

Part of her wanted to cry.  But Chat—Adrien—had already beaten her to it.

“Please, LB.  Please, don’t go. if you have something against Adrien you can tell me, o-or you can not, but please just… don’t leave me.”  He swallowed hard, his voice thick with the tears already pooling around the lip of his mask.  “Not tonight.”

Tonight.  Today.  The anniversary of Adrien’s mother’s disappearance.

The anniversary of Chat’s mother’s disappearance.

“Oh,” she breathed, feeling like the worst partner—the worst friend in the whole world. She pulled him close, shoving all other traitorous feelings and desires aside, and focused on comforting him.  “I’m so sorry, kitty.  I’m not going anywhere, I just—panicked, that’s all.”

He laughed hollowly.  The sound curdled in her stomach, a sick parody of the cheery sound that usually rang from him.  But he had every right to sound that way, after what he’d been through. His mom was gone and she knew his home life was a wreck and he had so many of his father’s expectations dragging on him, and moonlighting as a superhero on top of that— 

How had he ended up being the carefree one out of their duo?

“You panicked because I broke the number one rule.  I gave myself away somehow.”

“No, chaton.  It’s not your fault.”  She rubbed soothing circles into the small of his back, trying to ignore how she could feel the toned muscles through the leather.  (His suit was much worse for her sanity knowing it was Adrien in it.)  “It’s my fault.  One hundred percent definitely my fault.”

He pulled back enough to stare at her, his head tilted sideways like he really was just an overgrown curious kitty, and her transformation from Ladybug into a puddle-bug seemed all too likely.

“I still don’t know how you did it.  Is this one of those ‘lucky charm’ connections only your brilliant mind can make?”

Marinette giggled into his shoulder, because maintaining eye contact was beyond her physical limit right now.  “Chat, the only brilliant thing about me is how brilliantly stupid I’ve been.”

“I’m still not following, my lady.”  His voice was still a little rough, but no longer dripping with desperation.

She kept up the soothing pattern on his back, just in case.

“I… er…”  There was no good way to say, oh, I recognized your voice because I’ve been listening to you tell me you love me all afternoon, only you weren’t even saying it to me and actually I’m a massive creep and you probably don’t want to be friends with me anymore, let alone be my partner and— 

“Shh, shh, breathe.”

—And now he was comforting her again.  It took her back to the first time they’d met—well, the first time Ladybug met Chat Noir.  She’d been so useless, and he’d been so ready to assure her that she could handle it.  From then on she’d somehow begun to take charge, but without that first push—without him—she’d never have gotten here.

And maybe… maybe leaning on him again wouldn’t be so bad.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her forehead resting against his chest.  He held her tight but refrained from any other soothing motions.  Of course he wouldn’t.  She’d brushed off too many of his physically affectionate gestures before.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”  It was a testament to how serious he was that he didn’t slip in a paw-pun there.  Honestly, she wished he had; she could’ve used the laugh right now.  “I trust you.  I always wanted you to be the first to know my identity, anyway.”

“Chat, I have everything to apologize for.”

She could hardly explain why without giving away her own identity, but she knew it was only a matter of time.  She’d rather have this conversation now than after she’d made a fool of herself—scratch that, she was already making a fool of herself, but it could be worse.  She could accidentally call him Chat in class.  She could boop his nose like she sometimes did as Ladybug.  Or someone could catch her doodling their wedding outfits in her notebook. She was really going to have to stop that, or Alya would wonder why she’d suddenly decided she wanted a “ladynoir” themed ensemble.

Great.  Five minutes into finding out Chat was Adrien, and she was still daydreaming about marrying him!  Get a grip, Marinette!  She hadn’t been this bad around Adrien in months, but connecting him with Chat had short-circuited her brain.  

“I’m not… I’m not like this, as myself.”  She pulled back and gestured down to all of her.  “And I don’t know that you’d still like me if you knew.  You never seemed to before.”

“Are you saying I know you?  Civilian you?”

He didn’t sound surprised.  Had she given herself away, too?  Her spastic reaction earlier did scream “Marinette.”  It wasn’t how she’d dreamed of revealing herself to her partner, but since when did her dreams regarding Adrien ever pan out?

“Yes.  You do.”  She hoped her voice sounded more confident than she felt.  Sure, she was thrilled (and confused and mortified) that Adrien was Chat Noir, but would he feel the same about her identity?

“Can I… can I guess who you are?”  Adrien-Noir asked, his voice fragile as glass.  His hands shook against her back. “If you don’t want me to, I get it, really.  But I… I think I know.  There’s no one else you could be.”

She pulled back, her eyebrows drawn in confusion beneath her mask.  “You’re that certain?  I was so—nevermind. I want to hear it.” Explaining how careful she was to mislead him would only confirm his suspicions, if he was even right.  For all she knew, he thought she was some stranger he knew from fencing or one of his other extracurricular activities.

One of his sly Chat-grins spread across his face.  Normally that would have her worried, but it was a relief to fall back into a familiar pattern.  

(Though how close he leaned in to her ear was new.  And was likely to make her burst like fireworks if she so much as breathed.)

“I love you, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Fire spread through every inch of her.  She jolted in Adrien’s arms, cracking her head against his jaw and making him yelp.

“Sorry!  Oh my—are you kayo—okay?”  She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming.  Adrien said he loved her!  Marinette her!  And then she probably broke his jaw or something—!

“I’m fine—a-at least I think I am, if I was right?  About you being Marinette?”  He rubbed his jaw and smiled hopefully at her.  Yep, she was definitely going to be a puddle-bug.  He’d be scooping her off the side of the Eiffel Tower in a bucket.

She swallowed the giddy laugh bubbling up in her.  “I bet it would be really embarrassing if you weren’t.”

He laughed and scooped her up in a hug that lifted her feet from the metal beam.  “Marinette!  I knew it!”

Pressed close to him, she barely resisted the urge to wrap her legs around his waist and kiss his lips.  He was Adrien and Chat and him, and he was holding her and he loved her!  

The laugh finally escaped, breathless and smitten, as she laced her fingers behind his neck.

“You did.  Somehow.  I was so careful too—you have no idea how hard it is to split yourself and use that many miraculouses at once.  The illusion was perfect though.”  She frowned as she thought back on their fight with Kwamibuster.  “How did you find out?”

“I asked you first.”  He smirked. It was a face he made all the time, it had no right to be so cute now.  It was a just a curve of his lips, of Adrien’s lips—

“If I kissed you, do you think you’d forget about it?”

She slapped her hands over her mouth.  Had she—had she really said that?  To Adrien!?  

“Actually if you could just forget I said that too—”

“Not a chance, Buginette.”

She hadn’t thought his grin could get any wider, but she’d been wrong.  He held her tight, her toes barely brushing the ground. Still, she could escape if she wanted to.   

(She didn’t want to.)

“Chaaaat…”

“Thanks to Oblivio, I forgot the last time you kissed me.  There’s no way I’m forgetting again.”

She flushed as she remembered the picture Alya had taken of them.  Of course, it made sense now—she must have somehow learned Chat’s identity while they were under Oblivio’s influence.  How long had that fight taken?  Did she have a shorter or longer reveal-to-kiss timeframe this time? 

And then the full force of it hit her.  He wanted to kiss her.

Adrien.  Wanted to kiss.  Her.

She lost what little coherent thought she had left as she dug her fingers into his hair and pulled him to her.  Their lips collided roughly, and she felt him gasp before he melted into her.  

From there, it was all a blur.  Some distant part of her mind might have registered how she ended up with her legs wrapped around his hips, how he stumbled back into a crossbeam, how he held her so tightly she might’ve been crushed outside of the suit.  But all of that was faded against the single-minded desire to drown him in the love and desire and everything that she’d kept bottled tight for the past year.

She had no idea how long it was before he pulled back and breathlessly said her name.  “Marinette.”  Those three syllables in that voice had her losing her mind.  She was about to claim his lips again when he turned his head, making her miss and kiss his cheek.  Well.  That wasn’t so bad, either.  She peppered the side of his face, up to the edge of his mask, and he laughed.

“Marinette.  LB.  You can’t hide behind kisses forever.”

“Watch me.”

A kiss to the shell of his ear.  His nose. The sliver of his neck that wasn’t covered by his suit— she felt his legs wobble a little at that one.

“...I stand corrected.”

She giggled at the completely smitten look on his face.  She’d put that there.  Of course, Chat had looked at Ladybug that way before, but the fact that it was also Adrien beaming at her, knowing she was Marinette… All the puzzle pieces finally fit together, grooves sliding into place just as perfectly as she fit in his arms.

“Two can play at that game, Bugaboo.”

Oh.  Oh.  Sure, they’d practically been making out seconds ago, but the soft kisses he now littered across her jaw somehow felt even more intimate.  Their first kiss had been desperate.  These were slower, like he had all the time in the world—and they did.

He wasn’t going anywhere.  He loved her.

She practically groaned in disappointment when he finally lowered her back to the ground.  

Adrien just laughed.  “I had no idea you were so clingy, Princess.”

“I’m not clingy,” she pouted, stepping back from him to prove it.  “But if you think I am, fine.  See if you get any more kisses.”

Three whole coherent sentences.  Wow. After kissing Adrien, she expected to be a stuttering mess, but she was actually finding it easier to channel her Ladybug confidence.  Maybe it was the fact that for the first time, she knew he was as crazy about her too.

“Hey, hey, I never said that was a bad thing.”  He squeezed her tight again, a slight purr rumbling in his chest before he coughed.  

“I think we all know who’s the clingy one, anyway.”  She said, scratching the spot behind his ear until she coaxed another purr from him.  Bad idea.  She couldn’t spend all her time with her lips locked to his.

“Whatever you say, Marinette.”  His tail curled around her.  “So… as mind-meltingly amazing as kissing you was, I think I still remember a certain question I had.”

How she found out his identity.  Right. This had to be the biggest whiplash for him—her literally turning him down last week just to turn around and practically jump him. (Not that he was complaining, obviously.)

She bit her lip.  Lying to him would be impossible, even if she wanted to.  She’d promised a long time ago that she would never lie to him… except for when she had to hide her identity, but that was because Master Fu would want to reclaim their miraculouses if they revealed themselves.

...Which they just had.  Her gut twisted at that realization, which had been lost in her earlier excitement.  But Fu couldn’t just take their miraculouses, right? He was training her to be the Guardian.  Plus, after their fight with Feast, Marinette hoped he would know better.  

She was Ladybug.  Adrien was Chat Noir.  No one else could replace them—not to Paris, and not each other.  

She could deal with Fu.  But dealing with Adrien knowing just how obsessed she was?  That was a different terror entirely.

“Fine,” she sighed.  “It’s really, really embarrassing though.  You’re… probably going to think I’m a creep, honestly.”

Adrien blinked when she glanced up at him through her eyelashes, not daring to watch him directly.  “I won’t judge you, I paw-mise.”

She dropped her head in her hands and stifled a giggle.  At least they were back to puns.  She never thought she’d be grateful for that, but it eased her nervousness.

“You know how you, uh, sent a video to our class today?  To reply to the videos you never saw?”

“Yeah?  What about it?”

“Well… err…”  She was sure her face was challenging the shade of her suit, but he just blinked innocently.  “I may have… singled out the part… where you said, um…”

He was still waiting patiently.

“I took the part where you said ‘I love you’ and replayed it two hundred and fifty-three times.”

She wanted to shove her fist in her mouth.  She wasn’t going to lie, but she didn’t have to be that honest!

Chat stared.  Blinked.

...And doubled over laughing.

Well, this was it.  At least she’d gotten to kiss him once, right?  Hopefully he could forget this enough for them to still work together, because she’d never forgive herself if she ruined their partnership and Hawkmoth got their miraculouses because of it— 

“You—I can’t believe it.”  His arms had fallen while he laughed, but now he pulled her in again, practically crushing her to his chest.  “And here I thought I was the crazy one.”

“Please kill me,” she groaned.

“Never.”  He said with a kiss to her temple that shot lightning across her skin.  “I’m keeping you forever, Bugaboo.  No takebacks.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense.” She paused, searched his eyes for any trace of hesitance.  If anything, he looked giddier than ever.  “You’re not mad?  Or… weirded out?”

“Marinette, I play with action figures of us.  Sometimes they kiss.  I really have no room to talk.”

She gaped up at him.  The image of Adrien making toy versions of themselves kiss—okay, she had to cackle too, because it was too insane to process otherwise. They really were made for each other.

“You do have to promise me one thing, though,” he said, his voice sobering.

“What?” She asked before her brain could start catastrophizing again.

“You have to let me say I love you at least two hundred fifty-four times.  I can’t be beat out by a video of myself.”

He—he was serious.  Right when she was thinking it was impossible to love him any more, he said things like that.

“That’s a lot of times.”

“I guess I’d better get started then, huh?”

She punched his arm lightly and ignored how much she really really wanted to let him do just that. (Maybe with a few more kisses sprinkled between.) 

“Not yet, chaton.  You still have to tell me how you recognized me.”

“Technically I don’t think you finished,” he pointed out, to which she rolled her eyes.

“I’d heard you say ‘I love you’ so many times, I recognized your voice.  That’s all.”

“I would’ve told you I loved you as Adrien a long time ago if it would’ve made you see it.”  He chuckled.  “I wish I had a story like that.  I didn’t know for sure, I just thought… well, Marinette and Ladybug are the two most amazing girls I know, and… I think I hoped it was you more than anything.”

The soft grin on his face threatened to send her melting again.  He’d wanted her to be the girl he loved.  Of course his epiphany had come over something so sweet, rather than her completely embarrassing story.  

“That still doesn’t explain how you saw through me being Multimouse and Ladybug,” she said.  “You really do think with your heart more than your head, don’t you?”

“One of us has to.”  He winked, and she hid a lovestruck smile.  She couldn’t give him the satisfaction of melting at everything he did.  He was still her silly kitty, after all.  “I know it looked impossible, but if anyone could pull off the impossible, it’s you.”

She could pull off the impossible, which right now included resisting the urge to kiss him senseless again.

“You’re the one who’s impossible,” she said with a flick to his bell.  

“And you can pull me off anytime,” he blurted before covering his mouth.  “Uh.”

“Adrien, that doesn’t even make sense,” she said for the second time in the past five minutes.

His face flushed.  “I can’t be at the top of my flirting game all the time.  I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything, to be honest.  The cheesy pick up lines are kind of a coping mechanism.  Not that I’m upset, I’m not!  I’m so, so happy—It’s just—it’s a lot.”

“It is a lot,” she agreed, slipping out of his embrace to sit on the cold metal of the tower.  “Come on, sit with me.  Paris can take care of itself for one night.”

He grinned and plopped down beside her, hesitating only a moment before enfolding her in his arms.

“Thank you.  This means the world to me.”  He kissed the top of her head.  “Today was… well, you know. A year ago today my mom disappeared. I’m doing alright, much better than Father is, but still...”  He slumped against her, his chin resting on her shoulder, their cheeks brushing.  “It’s why I wanted to be with you tonight.  And then everything else—well, it’s better than I could’ve imagined.”

She was afraid it had been too much for him, dealing with their identities at such a sensitive time, but he did look much more relaxed now.  Despite his cousin’s earlier interference, she had managed to help him anyway.  That was the most important thing.

“I’m glad I could help.  I actually tried to tell you in the video Felix deleted… but I love you, Adrien.  And I’ll always be here if you need me.” 

He turned his face so their foreheads rested against each other, filling her vision with his bright green eyes.  The hopeful glow in them could’ve put all of Paris’s lights to shame.

“You love me?”

His breath ghosted over her lips, mingled with her laugh.  She’d said it.  She’d finally said it.

“Of course, minou.  What, did you think I kissed you because we’re just friends?”

“That happened?”  He blinked in fake innocence.  “I don’t know, I think Oblivio might have hit me while you weren’t looking.  You might have to kiss me again.”

She rolled her eyes, but she could only do the impossible for so long.  Their noses bumped as she kissed him long and soft and slow.  Could she ever get used to this?  Each kiss left her soaring higher than the last.

They broke apart giggling and flushed before Chat shyly asked a question.

“Did you mean it when you said you’ll always be here if I need you?  I can be a very needy kitty.”  His voice was all Chat Noir, but his face was the soft, open expression she was used to seeing from Adrien.  

He was worried about that?  But then, there were so few other people in his life who were just there, she realized.  No wonder he had coveted attention from Ladybug for so long.

“Always, Adrien,” she said softly.  “I know I can’t fix everything. Especially about your mom.”  She cupped his face in her hands.  “But being here?  That’s easy.  Never feel bad about needing that.”

“That’s all I want,” he breathed.  “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

He wrapped her in his arms again, and she hugged him back just as tightly.

“Me too, kitty.  Me too.”

[yeoldontknow]

All Quiet

Author’s Note: wahooo! another chanvember event in the books! this is yet another personal journey for me. i call this: an ode to single living lmao. i hope you enjoy! Pairing: Chanyeol x Reader (oc; female) Genre: angst; romance; fluff; au Summary: After your breakup, Chanyeol moves out of the house you shared together. It’s fine, until it absolutely isn’t. Over time, you start to miss him - miss him in places and ways you never thought you would. Eventually, you realize you miss home, too - even though you never actually left. Rating: R (just being safe? there’s really nothing awful in here, but some pretty adult themes rear their head) Warnings: mentions of anxiety; dark thoughts in a depressive episode; brief mentions of death (no major characters); heavy angst; a bug in a room (if youre afraid of bugs i suppose); men in bars who dont know when to shut up lmao Word Count: 8K look mom i did it

It’s not like he would have helped in this situation.

You tell yourself this while you breathe, rather erratically, in the center of your kitchen attempting to ease yourself back to a state of calm. In one hand, you clutch the cold handle of your Swiffer while, in the other, you wield the can of raid as though it is a weapon. Chest tight and gaze unwavering, it’s hard to tell when small inconveniences such as this started to insight a deep, slow panic, paralyzing you with fear, leaving room for little else. 

A brief walk through your memory clearly reminds you that, months ago, you would not have responded quite so viscerally - truly, you probably would have laughed, an exasperated sound dripping with disdain for the season or the city or the poor construction of your apartment.

If a lightbulb burst, you would change it with little complaint, standing precariously on your step stool; when the fire alarm started beeping, even after you’d changed the battery, you constructed a tower of books to remove it, calling yourself resourceful; when the popcorn machine erupted into flames, an electric fire sparking in the center of its hot dome, you unplugged it and laughed and laughed, glad to be alive. 

And if you saw a bug, you would handle it - he liked to call it handling, as though it was difficult, as though it was painful, as though something like this could be considered a threat that required strategy and an iron will. You’d always laughed when he did that, all six feet of him cowering behind your small frame, desperately seeking shelter and shielded by the mystery of your majestic stoicism. 

No. Chanyeol would not have helped. In cases like this, he was worse than afraid, endearingly useless, but at least then, you think, you had someone to protect. Someone who was not you. Someone who needed you.

For a long while, you stand still, impassive and frozen, not because of the insect flying around your bedroom but because you think it odd that this is what makes you miss him. For the first time in a long time, you want him here, a thing you never thought you’d crave. Not after everything, and certainly not after...after.

The first time this happened, he was a mess, a disaster - a gentle description given the way he flailed himself off the couch and bumped bruises into his knees from the coffee table. It was the fastest you’d seen him move in ages, across the room in a flash and yelling, stressed beyond reason, before you even had a chance to lower the screen of your laptop.  

You laughed then, the sight of his flailing limbs a form of divine entertainment, endearing in its chaos, bemused and bewildered by the speed of his movements. Words left him, reduced him to vague wails of anguished contempt as he pointed, rather vaguely, in the direction of what he had seen. Even with his extended hand as a general marker of location, you struggled to see what he saw, expecting something more, something large and unwieldy, and something unspeakable. 

In the end, it was small, a tiny thing you would have missed if you had not been so carefully looking. A spider. A house spider. An insect you had grown to expect both within and beyond domestic spaces.

For him, you were brave. Would you have been brave for yourself? It does not matter, not really. You were comfortable, rolling your eyes as you went to grab the dust pan. It was nothing - you told him it was nothing as you walked past him, catching hold of his fingers as he latched onto your hand for support. Even then, you felt you’d never find this annoying, something about watching someone so imposing and so large crumble, so dramatically, was humorous, special. 

Now, you realize it was not humor. It was never humor. It was need.

In the end, the thing you relished most, always with him, was the way he made you feel needed. Wanted. Chanyeol needed you then, at least as badly as you felt, and knew, you needed him. In those moments - in that moment - your love for him finally felt fair, a balance to the improbable scale of need versus want.

Without him, the house is empty. In moments of fear, there is no yelling, no flailing - no display of panic to return to later and laugh about or through, your own expression of panic shock. Lately, you’re slow to react, calm and careful, gentle movements out of the room and a silent exclamation of disgust. More than anything, now, you are aware of the all encompassing quiet - the way you never really let anyone know you need help, not even yourself.

Now, standing in the kitchen, the silence envelopes you, enough to convince yourself there isn’t a problem at all. With the bedroom door shut, you can almost pretend the light isn’t actually on, that nothing is there, that you meant to cook a meal rather than fight a war, distracted and alarmed by something out of the corner of your eye. Now, you can almost pretend it was the quiet that scared you, and little else.

Now, without anyone to need you, you can almost pretend you don’t even need yourself. 

Almost. 

Closing your eyes, you take in a deep breath, existing within the feeling of lack and the feeling of loneliness, the realization that there is nothing here except you and this thing and only one can stay.

You open your eyes. You grip the handle. 

Your steps to the bedroom are quiet, but, at least they are steps. 

Even before you settle on the barstool, you can tell he will come talk to you.

Thursday night and you've been drawn out, head empty and focus dulled as you walk toward the bitter sting of cold gin. You're not really looking for conversation, mostly just looking for noise, the cacophonous hum of others, indistinguishable voices serving to remind you the world is peopled even, if they aren't your people. 

He sees you as you walk in, eyes catching your vacant scan of the room and demanding your attention. For a moment you’re grateful for the reminder that this is a place where you need to be aware and astute, ready to leave or ready to stay, and, conversely, aware that neither option is ideal. 

The point is that he sees you and makes sure that you see him, deftly reminding you that eclipses are always known even if they aren't truly witnessed.

He’s new to the bar, your regular haunt with a broken card reader on the jukebox and the barely there space between the tables. The brown liquor in his cup has put confidence in his spine and false hope in his roaming eyes, a smirk pulling at his lips as he looks and looks and looks, waiting for his voice to be heard. Helen slides you a Gin and Tonic, your usual, offering a welcoming smile before glancing sidelong with a grimace as the heat of his sudden proximity radiates into your shoulder. 

Even before you settle on the barstool, he's ready.

‘They make ‘em strong here,’ he says with a smile, regarding your glass with an expression of feigned interest.

The gravel in his voice is uncomfortable, an itch at the back of your throat that you swallow three times to alleviate, lips pulling into a sneer, scorning the upturned pretentiousness of his syllables. His shoulders roll back to puff out his chest and your thighs tighten around the seat, heels anchoring onto the support bar at the base of the stool, perched and ready to depart. Offering him a curt nod, you study the military edges of his short haircut, deciding, almost immediately, that you will not be here long. 

At this, you smile, aware that people on barstools rarely are. 

A smile he mistakes as an invitation.

Pride cascades over his features and settles in the dark corners beneath his cheek bones, cutting shapes into his expression you wish did not exist. As he settles on the stool next to yours, your stomach drops, the light putting a foreboding glimmer in his eyes, the kind that makes you want to scoff, and to mutter this fucking guy. 

Offering him a once over, a look he reads as interest, smiling wider and feeling encouraged, you confirm he is relatively harmless. Even standing, he’s slightly shorter than you, already balding, soft in all the ways Chanyeol was not, and different enough to make you think it would be might to forget, at least for a little while. 

But he rests his arms on the bar top, still smiling and still feeling like he's tasting the precipice of control, proud that it’s barely seven and celebrating like he’s already found his moment. The new position offers you a glimpse of the hidden strength nestling in the grooves of his knuckles, muscles in the forearm that disappear under his rolled sleeves, and you remember to be careful. Now, you remember that trust is earned, not worn, and so you lean back, pulling out of his orbit just enough to remember you aren't looking for a game tonight, and he cannot make you play.

Emboldened by your silence, he begins to tell you a story, the kind that meanders over ice cubes, breath and lies hot enough to put condensation on the glass. He talks about boxing, a topic you know next to nothing about but enough about men to know it's a tactic, a subject they know you can't argue with because you don't have enough details. But you can always hear it, the gaps in the spaces between the words - Russia, a boat, a large sum of money, the rehearsed pauses and the smile that doesn't seem to fade. Words and more words, demanding that you feel impressed and that you feel special. 

He chose to tell you this story. Aren't you so lucky?

It's when he talks about a scar on his arm that your mind wanders, rather your heart wanders. Thursday's gin was meant to be an escape, but instead you miss Chanyeol and the almost spectacular way he could talk shit - because that's what this is. Shit. Endless nonsense to make you feel interested or curious enough to give him a number, a blowjob, another drink, something that reminds him he's valid and not entirely worthless.

Chanyeol talked shit as a hobby, without any desire to receive and mostly as a means of satire. But even in jest, he was still entertaining, captivating, the best storyteller you ever knew.

On your first date with Chanyeol, he was nervous, shy. He smiled a lot and laughed in all the right places, kept his eyes on you like he was watching the dawn - but then, you never really thought of that night as your first date. 

The night you met, it wasn't that he saved you from a disastrous conversation with a man and his friends and their over eager hands. Rather, he enticed you away, a paradoxically nervous glint in his eye that said he was unsure you wanted his help while protective enough to remind you he was watching, and that you weren't alone. 

Someone, you can't remember who because immediately after Chanyeol spoke they stopped mattering, and, for years, no one else ever mattered again, had mentioned the time they went skydiving in Australia, their malfunctioning parachute, and the way they almost passed out, so close to the ground. 

Several pairs of eyes walked over your skin, waiting for your reaction, your gasp of shock and concern, the euphoria of a near death experience so similar to the ecstasy of orgasm bleeding into a hum of interest. With their eyes on you, you knew it was a trick, and you cocked an eyebrow of polite derision, looking past them for an exit. They did not move, just nodded and continued. You felt Chanyeol behind you, isolated from the circle that had formed but still at the bar, still a body that gave way to a malformed shape that meant he had to be included, regardless. 

'I once almost got a tattoo when I was in Australia.' 

He announced this information like he'd been asked, as though the attention had belonged to him the entire night, the deep thunder of his voice cutting through the deluge of unwanted contact. 

Brow furrowed in confusion, you turned to look at him, placed a protective hand over your drink, just in case, and cocked a wary eyebrow at him. He smiled, warm and inviting, but only at you. His eyes wandered over the thick gaits of the others, skeptical and cautious before the expression disappeared altogether, resting his head on his hand as he leaned casually against the bar.

'Yeah, it was wild,’ he explained, sounding bored. 'The tattoo gun was shaped like an alligator claw, but I think that's because I was under a boardwalk and I'd lost a bet while drunk.' 

Behind you, someone snorted, annoyed. 'That's not true.'

Chanyeol shrugged, nonchalant. 'It was a lucky thing I got sober. Always been kind of afraid of the sea, you know? Love the beach, hate the waves. Anyway, you know that feeling that you're being watched? Like something is lurking behind the corner, watching you, unfurling its claws and waiting for you to turn around, fixing its cold stare on your skin. And you know, right? You just know that if you turn, you'll see it - because you have to, even if you don't want to, just to prove. yourself correct? That you're not crazy?'

'What are you talking about, man?' came another voice, generic and empty of the music Chanyeol naturally carried.

Even as you watched him speak, you knew it was a lie, a jab at all the bullshit tossed around between men who felt like they had something to prove. Even as he spoke, tone dry and words quick, you knew he found the bravado of hyper-masculinity just as amusing as you.

'I'm talking about that space of time between knowing something is wrong and knowing something is fucked up,’ he continued, feigning a passion that made you press your lips together to keep from laughing. ‘That sliver of difference in between. It's fragile there - like, if you look at this napkin and you only look at the napkin, you can almost believe something is lurking behind it and it wants you. It wants to break you. That's the fucked up thing lurking in the distance, the kind of threat that feels good enough to see even if you don't want to.'

'Fuck you,’ someone spat. ‘You're drunk.'

'Anyway,’ he carried on, unaffected as though he hadn’t heard anyone at all. ‘That's why I was under the boardwalk and also why I left. Also, you really don't want to get a tattoo somewhere that smells like a cross between dry fish and burned butter. This guy on the boardwalk was making popcorn at his stall and all I could imagine was the yellow paint as the butter, just five too many pumps and it sticks on your arm long enough that you feel greasy forever.'

Everyone knew it was a lie, but that didn't matter. You really didn't care that it had been so obviously fake, fake enough that you laughed at the insanity of it. All that mattered was that he smiled through it, used words and details so obviously, ridiculously untrue that you believed he was naturally funny, and unafraid to be utterly silly, childlike and bold in all the ways you were not. 

The rest of the night, you watched him, watched him watch you, without any hope your expectation, simply glad that you were smiling. 

He was always like that, creating magic from nothing, holding the world in a story, his hands, his brown eyes and your brown liquor. Chanyeol was always like that, making the world spark just because he could.

'And I went down hard, you know?'

The guy is still talking, talking about boxing and Russia or maybe neither of those things anymore, but. your drink has melted down into cold water, the memory of gin only lingering on your teeth. He keeps talking like he means every word, like it's important that he survived whatever match he was in, no cushion on his fists and his hands still hurt. It's not fun, it's not creative, it's just angry. 

Glancing down at the wet rimmed paper of your napkin, you frown. Thursday brought you here to be alone, not to share another night and another story with Chanyeol, even if it's only in memory. Even if, more than anything, you want to share this with him - want to hear what he'd have to say about Russia and boxing, and how many boat jokes he could fill in between. 

‘Sorry,’ you interrupt abruptly. Hand in your pocket, you pull out your wallet and leave a ten dollar bill. ‘I forgot to change my tampon.’

Leaving the stool is a liberation, a relief that eases the tension in your shoulders. You don't bother another glance at the man whose gaze of disgust lingers at your back. Pushing through the door, you smile.

You were always good at talking shit, too. 

Hell, you learned from the best. 

Home is a lie society likes to sell to the lonely, the needy, and the unsuspecting. 

You tell yourself this - or rather, this thought grips you, holds tight and refuses to leave - as you sit on your couch, the couch you bought from someone else, just to be rid of him, anxious and alone and utterly, completely overwhelmed. The world sells the concept of home - a location, a place, a thing that delivers comfort as though it was never someone who held you, touched, loved you. Home, they will tell you, is a plaque on the wall where your heart should be, a picture frame of smiling faces and, most of all, shelter.

Society tells you home is a thing that does not leave. 

Your home left months ago, left you with a roof, some walls, and a TV too wide for the stand. Biting your lip, you watch as it teeters at the edges, secure but unstable, a memory of the fragility of the things people like to build together. Outside, a car honks. A bus passes. The noise of the world comes in through the loose seal of your closed window and you hear the way life exists, entirely separate from you.

Work was too much - too much and conversely not enough. All of you, down to the very base of your soul, craves the stimulation of a challenge or a conversation full of passion, words shared and knowledge exchanged, something new and something hard, something that fights back. You've been numbed into silence and acceptance, things that never sat well against your skin, leaving you drained of the all things that make you you.

Tonight, you miss the laughter, the way he'd always talk and make you laugh, even against your will. Tonight, you realize you miss him, miss the way he held you, nurtured you, comforted you, even against your will - even before you realize you miss him at all. Your dinner, a frozen pizza, usually so warm and inviting, sits on your coffee table, untouched and uneaten. 

He would have hated this. 

Years into your relationship, he adopted the habit of kissing at your fingers with an erotic smile as he pressed them against his lips, praising the way they smelled of garlic. With your fingers at his lips, he said you smelled of magic and creation, a kitchen witch that had possessed his heart. Always, he'd approach you from behind, wrap his arms around your waist and watch you cook - studying the care and the gentleness and the way you unfurl when surrounded by food, bringing it to life. 

Tonight, your meal is lonely. And Chanyeol always knew something was wrong when you didn't want to cook, having learned the aggression and the disheartened angst that came with putting something in the oven, a meal that existed without love. Nights like this, he would cook for you instead, making you laugh and making you smile - making something.

Without him, you wonder what you've made since. 

You certainly haven't made a home. When you keep still, while not altogether keeping calm, you let your mind wander to the empty expanse of the future, an extension of this moment that seems to bleed onward into eternity. Nothing is here. No one pays enough attention to your light footsteps, coming and going of you too erratic to truly form a pattern. When you are sick, it is just you. When you are hurt, it is just you. And when you die, likely, it will be just you - found only when the smell seems to linger.

Glancing around the walls, you remember the act of picking your apartment together, the eager way he suggested you move in - with fire on his lips and light in his eyes - and the unfathomable way the broker's fees seemed to unmake you, broken instead. Defeated, you told him you wanted him to do it, that one more call and one more unfulfilled wish would convince you to stay in your own apartment until time had healed the wounds of your pride. 

Sometimes, you think you made a home in the way he came alive with excitement, delighted to do something, to be in control and in command, not out of greed but out of the pleasure of being alive with you. In just under a week, he'd found the apartment, always so much more optimistic and prepared for the battle of negotiation than you ever had been. When he called, his words came fast, almost negotiating you into being convinced, announcing, victoriously, that he'd found it. 

By the time you arrived, he wasn't calling it home, he wasn't calling it good - he was calling it ours. 

Pushing through the door, one look at his face, at the jovial delight and the urge to make something igniting his soul, you decided quickly it would be, if only because he decided to share something with you, anything at all. The kitchen lacked a dishwasher, but with his hands at your hips and his lips at your neck, the enthusiasm he poured into your veins assured you that he'd help - you would not be alone. 

He'd do the dishes, he'd kiss your hands, wear the tight, yellow gloves to keep his skin soft, and let the smell of soap and passion replace the stoicism of mechanized convenience. 

Somehow, the tangibility of him felt better, more real. Special, because it was him. 

Neither of you wanted to admit it, but the first night in the space was uncomfortable, sharing a new bed rather than a bed, feeling lost and feeling unsure. You missed your apartment, the way it was yours, something that belonged to just you; he missed the freedom of coming home or not coming home at all, unattached and unfettered. Between the sheets, you were scared to let your skin touch, wondering if you had rushed into romance beyond rushing into real estate. 

Chanyeol was always more brave than you were - not confident, not assured, just courageous, curling over your body to pull you to his chest, demanding your closeness. He stole your lips the same way he stole your breath, kissing and kissing until you believed all that ever mattered was your complete and total possession of his heart.

'It will be okay,' he said, hope still lingering in his voice, turned then into a vice rather than a virtue. 'I promise it will be better in the morning.'

'Maybe it will be better when we paint,' you mused, unsure a morning could make anything really better, the sunlight only serving to remind you of all the ways you could never make a space feel full.

That morning, you woke to the smell of pancakes, sugar and butter and Chanyeol, fresh from a shower, the steam still lingering in the en suite bathroom.

You walked out into the kitchen and saw him, hair a mess and old boxers worn to a state of tattered, faded grey. He made one pancake at a time, the fry pan too small for such large circles, all your useful kitchen supplies still residing in unmarked boxes. Leaning on the frame, you watched him, the long line of his spine, the way the sun caught his skin, the gold of it making the universe shimmer, he your Midas, as he looked at you and smiled. The trust in his eyes taught you to believe - that it is not the lungs that breathe, but the soul; that you could float if you wanted to, but it was choice that kept you rooted to the earth, the choice to be next to him. 

That home was a place that smelled like him, always and forever.

When he looked away, the edge of it all turned, felt yourself hanging on the lack of words, the nausea that lingered in between, ready for this - that chilling moment when there was nothing left to say. You'd found home and found Chanyeol, a new space without anything that spoke of yours, and the emptiness learning to take hold.

But it never came, just shifted. Into his skin and his kisses, and the way he brought you pleasure even when he wasn't touching you. Always, you would hear him. 

You could always count on him for words.

Reaching over to the coffee table, you flip over your phone, pressing the home button to illuminate the screen. Some texts, a few emails, no sound. His name doesn’t show up - you weren’t expecting it to, but the lack of it hurts, years and years flashing through your mind when his name was the first on your screen, his picture the first you saw.

Now, it’s the moon. Now, you want to call him, to fill the gap with anything, even if it’s anger.

You could always count on him for words.

Now, alone, trapped in the marrow of absence, you find yourself wondering.

Can you count on yourself?

You start to sing. It sounds empty.

But, at least now, there is sound, even if it is hollow. 

Fifteen hours into your drive, with only thirty more from home, the flat tire defeats you. Something about this torn rubber breaks you in a way that harsh words and colds stares never could, a shame pressed upon your shoulders that makes you feel despondent and ignorant. 

Standing on the side of the road, you eye the flat with an empty stare, willing it to fix itself. Images run through your mind, the memory of greasy hands and sore backs from kneeling at such an odd angle - the rain, the mud, the cell phone light, and the way the sky opened up to gift you the stars. Once upon a time, you knew how to do this - someone taught you when you were sixteen; someone showed you when you were twenty-eight, and so you know the knowledge exists within you. You've done this before.

But then, the memories turn, and you realize those experiences weren't yours, they were shared. It was always him turning the jack, him pulling at the bolts, always Chanyeol. 

Tipping your head back, you close your eyes and release a hissed sigh through your clenched teeth. The road on either side is empty, unusual for a stretch so close to the city, your decision to go home on a weeknight nowhere close to a holiday leaving you abandoned. Above you, the bruising of the sky as it turns to night seems to haunt you, the moon taking on a gleam of deceit, one that says your failure is being watched with keen interest. Not an hour before, you had marveled at this purple and pink and golden shade, smiled to yourself at the luxury of witnessing the beauty that comes from simplicity. 

An hour ago, you were glad and finally learning how to feel it - learning how to feel okay with being alone.

Now, the world around you is quiet, empty of life apart from the crows that wander over the yellow lines, hungry and searching and waiting. Chanyeol's voice resonates in your ear, whispered words from a conversation long ago.

'The most difficult jobs are the most rewarding,' he said, showing you how to fix an air conditioning vent. 'We have to earn our independence.' 

You need him. 

The feeling of it hits you in the center of your chest, weighing you down as you turn and bring yourself to the ground, back resting against your car. This is no longer a missing, this is need. You're too dark, too serious, too frustrated, too proud to see the humor or the joy in this situation. Once, you thought maybe you were, that you could be, but that person left with him, the ghost of that shell holding his hand tightly as he walked out the door. 

His contact information looks strange without the heart and puppy emojis on either side, somehow off-center and wrong. For a while, you stare at his name until the letters start to become unrecognizable, until you think his name has been spelled wrong since the moment you changed it, unsure you know how to read it at all. Your finger hesitates over the call button as though it lingers over his skin, like he can feel you through the glass and choosing to let your souls touch means choosing to let yourself get hurt again. 

Looking up, you realize the sky has started to darken and, now, you don't really have the choice to be selfish. 

Chanyeol answers on what must be the first ring, his voice confused and sluggish in contrast to his quick response. ‘Hello?’

He still sounds like honey. He still sounds like power. He still sounds like yours.

The deep richness of his voice pulls the air from your lungs and puts wetness in your eyes, and you bite your lip to keep your voice stable. ‘Chanyeol.’

‘What’s wrong?’ He was always too aware, too observant, to hide from, seeing straight through to your heart like it was his to bare. ‘Are you okay?’

Six months into dating, your grandmother passed away and, for some reason, it was understood that he would go with you to the funeral. The bitterness of the news hurt, but the knowledge that he was the first person you chose to call, that he had become the thing you needed more than you needed silence and space to grieve, cut through the dull ache of loss and replaced it, just partially, with change. It was understood, then, that this was something more serious than dating, than exclusive interest, than sex and the morning, sometimes even the night, after. Calling him meant you were making space for him, allowing him the room and the opportunity to ache with you.

Even then, so early into your relationship, he heard your voice and he knew. 

Tonight, he uses the same tone, the same speed of recognition and care, and you exhale thickly, the heat of your tears lingering on your cheeks. How strange, you think, to feel truly seen.

‘I’m okay,' you lie.

‘No, you’re not,' he presses, stern and adamant. 'What happened?’

Releasing a bitter laugh, you look down between your legs, sheepish. This should not hurt as much as death and grief, but then that's precisely what this is. For months, you've been mourning the loss of him. 

‘I got a flat tire,' you murmur. 

Chanyeol releases a sigh of relief, and when he speaks you can hear the smirk that pulls at his lips. ‘Where are you?’

Picturing that smile puts the sun in your chest, and immediately you regret calling him. How stupid, you think, to just want to see him smile. ‘Don’t come. I can do it myself.’

‘Where are you,' he repeats, this time not as a question.

Raising your gaze, you stare at the mile marker, the last sliver of dying light illuminating the numbers. Still, you don't speak, waiting for this mistake to pass, finding you luxuriate in the sound of his even breathing.

But Chanyeol speaks first, voice soft and gentle, sweet in all the ways that made your heart learn to crave him. ‘Please let me help you.’

And without hesitation, you reply. ‘I’m at mile marker 67 on I-95 North.'

You hear him gathering his keys, the metallic jingle making your chest lurch, haunted by the sound of his keys at the apartment door. 

‘I’ll be there soon,' he says, hanging up before you can protest.

The white light of his Mercedes headlights put a halo around his head as he approaches, not twenty minutes later in a pair of sweatpants and your favourite hoodie. On sight, you grimace, wondering if he wore this on purpose, to remind or tease you, forcing you to recall all the times he ran his hands over your skin, hidden under the cloth, cupping your breasts and whispering into your neck I love it when when when you wear this. 

But then, you remember that this was his favourite hoodie, too, the one he wore when he needed comfort the most. 

In this light, all you can see are the tips of his ears, comically pronounced thanks to his backwards cap, and his smile, warm and affectionate and understanding. 

He says nothing as he takes the jack from your hand, your grip on the metal tight enough to be a lifeline, his own strong fingers easing it from your grasp with a tenderness he used to reserve for your spine. Your fingers touch as he does this, the electric current of contact running up your arm and making you shiver, still there, ever present, refusing to vanish no matter the distance of time or geography. Chanyeol keeps still, jaw set and arms tense, a sign he felt it too but refuses to give himself away, more obvious just from his concentrated effort. 

Nudging at your shoulder, he guides you closer to the hood as he settles on the ground, getting to work without complaint. You keep your eyes on him as he moves, on his hands and the barely there curve of his ass beneath his oversized sweats - two sizes too big for his lean frame and still not large enough for one of your thighs. With him in such close proximity, your heart starts to race again, like it always did, your brow furrowing in the recollection that this was always your heart rate. With Chanyeol, you always felt excited, enthralled, awake - hands warm and blood hot, teetering on the prospect of a fever that only his touch could keep at bay. 

With him so close, you remember the constant state of craving that seemed to consume you, the love in your spirit suddenly dusted off - not dead, just dormant - and reminding how it really feels to need someone. Crossing your arms over your chest, you swallow thickly, hoping to combat the lump that's settled in your throat.

To your chagrin, he changes it in less than five minutes, surely some kind of record, carrying the flat to your trunk as though it is weightless. 

Staring straight ahead, you look out at the field, the sparse trees, the new dark sky, and sigh. ‘Don’t you realize what a problem this is?’

‘What is?’ he questions, the slam of your trunk echoing over his words. He comes to stand beside you, leaning against your car with his hands in his pockets. 'That you can’t change a tire? Trust me, I’m deeply aware. What would you have done if I wasn’t here?’

‘No -' Shaking your head, your protest comes quickly, without thought, only to cut yourself off, realizing he's partially correct. ‘I mean, yeah true, but I meant that you’re still the first person I call in a crisis. When I need someone, I’m calling you.’ 

Your gaze lingers on the softness of his cheeks before you find the small freckle on the bridge of his nose, so trained to look for it even without the light to put it on display. Biting your lip, you sigh, refusing to let yourself get distracted. ‘You’re still my emergency contact.’

Dropping his chin to his chest, Chanyeol regards his feet for a moment, pensive as he takes in your words. With a hum, musical and rich, a sound that belongs solely to him, he looks at you once more, resolute. ‘I don’t see that as a problem. You should think about why you still want to call me. Really,' he presses, 'think about why you still trust me.’

‘Yes, exactly!’ you exclaim. ‘I still trust you even after you left me!’

A hollow laugh bursts from his chest as his eyes go wide, regarding you defiantly. ‘You were never careful with blame or accusations,' he mumbles, shaking his head as he looks everywhere but your face.

You scoff. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Turning his gaze back to you, the heat and ferocity of his expression makes you step back, just a bit, startled by the intensity. ‘You really want to talk about this here? Now?’

Refusing to back down, just like always, just like you always couldn't with him, you roll your shoulders back, standing tall. ‘We’re alone, aren’t we? I struggle to see the difference between here and home. The location and setting for our arguments was never an issue.' 

‘Fine,' he bites out, impassioned and embittered. 'Yes. I left, but you didn’t give me much of a choice.' Angling himself towards you, he pulls his hand from his pocket and presses his fingers to his chest, emphatic. 'I left, but I still love you.’

‘Jesus, Chanyeol,' you chuckle, looking past him into the shadows, feeling bereft. It hurts to see him so wounded, just as visceral and difficult as it always was, likely always will be.

‘What?' he snaps. 'Too uncomfortable for you? Too honest?’

Mimicking his pose, you turn to face him, matching his intensity. ‘No,' you sneer, aware that the sound is cruel. Immediately, you grimace, backpedaling from brutality of your tone, never really able to be hurtful with him. At least, not intentionally. ‘I just struggle to understand why you’d leave if you still love me. Why didn’t you try to make it work? I loved you with all of me.’

Chanyeol's expression morphs from one of combative disbelief to one of pained dejection, all at once appearing lost and small and so like the boy you promised to never let go of. 

‘You never let me love you,' he tries, an urgency tucked between his words that makes your heart sink. 'It always caused you pain to let me in, like loving me hurt you.’

Tears burn at your eyes in the wake of his words, the house of cards you'd constructed out of your memories together neither collapsing nor tearing, simply changing from red to blue, taking a new shape and a new colour, his perception casting shadows over the world you'd built. 

The words you said, when you were happy and in love and it was easy, collide with the words you yelled, when you were hurt and jealous and scared, and all you can remember, on either end, was a love you felt into your bones - a love that always made you feel like you were breaking. Loving Chanyeol, from the moment you met him until the moment you watched him leave felt like learning to love an earthquake, breaking yourself open to fit him inside. In love, the tectonic shift of your soul was merely collateral for way he made you feel - everything, all the beauty and the horror of it, everything more visceral than you'd ever experienced it before.

In love, he found you scared, aware that if it ever ended, there would be nothing left of you, all the good parts of your heart shattering to a raw, sharp edge of sorrow.

‘Because it always ends like this, Chanyeol!’ Even as you speak, you know you’re pleading with him, but for what you cannot be sure. Forgiveness? Maybe. Understanding? You never had to ask. Perhaps, you think, just for him to tell you he was scared, too. ‘It always ends in pain!’

Unable to stop himself, moved beyond any semblance of control, he steps closer to you with both hands outstretched, making to cup your face, to make you listen, before he remembers himself, dropping them awkwardly to your arms. He grips your biceps, touch gentle and eyes wide, searching your face, bold and, just like always, courageous. 

‘But it wasn’t hurting in the moment!’ he exclaims, his grip tightening on your arms before he loosens, eyes dropping to his hands hold you. ‘You rushed us here,’ he finishes, tone soft.

‘Every time…’ Your words drift into nothingness as your close your eyes, recalling every argument, the hours you spent awake or alone, afraid of losing him and afraid of losing yourself. Chest tight, your breath comes in shallow inhales, your hands coming to rest over his, the warmth in his skin helping you ground. ‘It felt like you were asking for my soul.’

‘Did you ever think maybe,’ he begins, gentle and kind, inching closer still as he pulls you to him, his affection a gravitational pull drawing you to him. ‘You already had mine? It would have balanced us out.’ 

Opening your eyes, you cast him a pained expression, knowing, down to his core, he was always too independent to love you the way he said he did. ‘That’s too much.’ You shake your head, weakly protesting his words. ‘What about you? Sometimes you wouldn’t come home until dawn, needing the space, and I got that -’

He cuts you off. ‘You are the only person who gets that, and you know it.’

‘Let me finish,’ you press, falling back into the ease of softness you always provided him, feeling like, finally, you are home. ‘We are both too independent to give one another our souls. That’s too much of your heart for one person to hold.’

Without hesitation, he pulls you directly to his chest, moving his hands away from yours and to your face, emphatic and devastatingly present. 

‘You aren’t listening, my love,’ he murmurs. ‘I found myself in you. I had myself and I had you,’ he explains, smiling as though he understands a secret you can only just touch, tangentially and at arm’s length.

He keeps smiling even as he finishes speaking, leaning down to rest his forehead against yours. The intimacy of it sends your hands to his chest, ready to push him away but halting upon contact, feeling his heart beat like thunder against his sternum. 

‘Chanyeol…’ you mumble, a protest that splinters on impact.

He lets one hand walk down your face, your neck, lowering to the small of your back as he tucks you against him, protective and nurturing. Forehead unmoved and nose touching yours, he smirks. ‘Stop me,’ he challenges, knowing, even now, even when you’re not really his, you will not.

Sliding your arms around his chest, you let yourself hold him, aware, even as your heart begins to adorn itself in feathers, that this is a bad idea. ‘Chemistry was never our problem. You know that.’

‘I know,’ he agrees, a million words living and dying between you both, all unspoken while still understood, his thumb gliding gingerly over your cheekbone. ‘And you know I’m a glutton.’

‘One day,’ you whisper, leaning up into the warm cascade of his breath over your lips, mouth and soul suddenly ravenous for him, ‘you’re going to love someone more than me.’

‘Don’t tell me what to do.’ This close, his words are embers of a dying breath, and your eyes flutter short, ready to kiss their ashes. ‘And I know,’ he continues, quieter still, ‘you will never love anyone as much as you love me.’

The familiar fog of his adoration clouds your mind, limbs heavy and skin tightening, parched and longing for his touch, your words jumbled together into a single breath. ‘Were bad at this, Chanyeol. You know it.’

‘You’re learning it.’ Chanyeol doesn’t need further explanation to know you mean love - learning to love and live and crumble beneath the wait of yearning for another person. ‘Me? I’m great at loving you, and shit at it with anyone else.’

Unable to hold back any longer, your mouths come together in a kiss that makes your hands fist into his hoodie, pulling at his shoulder blades. Chanyeol hums into your mouth, slanting over your lips with a possessive growl, hard and deep as he runs his tongue over your bottom lip. Whimpering, you open for him, never truly able to deny him access to the things he craves most, always offering him more and more, satisfied only when you have your fill of one another. 

It’s almost innocent the way he kisses you first with his soul and then with his mouth, tongue sliding against yours as a reminder that he means it - rough enough and powerful enough to make it clear he was not moving on, never wanting to move on, waiting for you three steps ahead. It’s not innocent, the way he moans into you, hands needy and fingers rough, pressing into your back to ground you, possess you, swallowing your breath and demanding you never leave again. 

When you separate, his pupils are dilated, lips pink and swollen as he struggles to come down. The tips of your fingers starting to tingle, head empty and heart full.

‘Where do we go from here?’ he manages, the delicate hopefulness of his words much like crystal in a storm. 

Closing your eyes, you let the burn of his optimism eclipse against your skin, illuminating the deep navy of the sky in a way the sun never could. It’s rare, you know, for people like you to have second chances - to kiss the sun twice and come away unharmed, wearing only your callous, self-inflicted wounds. It’s rare to be let in, and only now, watching Chanyeol breathe into the totality of his fear, do you realize you let him in long before you accepted that you did. 

And with a smile, you reach up, cupping his cheek and feeling your blood race at the way he nuzzles into your touch. Sometimes, you think, it’s easy. Other times, it’s a torment. And that, you realize, is the only way to make a life.

‘How about we start with home?’

[depressedkakashihatake-fics]

Payback

Kakashi Hatake/Shisui Uchiha/Tenzo Yamato

1266 words

Kiss: Ear Kiss

For: @uchihashisui-kun and @tenzoyamato

This was humiliating.

Not only had Tenzo somehow managed to break his leg during his mission without even getting into a fight with an enemy shinobi, but now he had Konoha’s two worst disasters standing on either side of his hospital bed with grins that took up their whole face.

He was never going to live this down, and what made it worse was that he had just given them both shit for being reckless during their own missions.

Whatever teasing they had in mind for him, he deserved it.

“So,” Kakashi spoke up fir4st. “Tell us Tenzo. How did you do it? How did you manage to break your leg in two places before even getting into a fight?”

Smug bastard. If they were living together he would be sleeping on the couch for a week.

Not wanting to give Kakashi the satisfaction, Tenzo lowered his eyes and muttered his response under his breath. 

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Shisui cupped his ear and leaned in a bit closer “Didn’t quite catch that.”

Both of them. They would both be sleeping on the couch. In fact, at this rate he might just make them sleep without him for a month.

See how they liked that.

“Hey,” a poke to the nose brought his attention back to the current conversation “You still haven’t answered the question kitty cat.”

There’s a smile on Kakashi’s face. He can tell by the way his senpai closes his eyes. It’s that distinct look that Kakashi gets whenever he is smiling.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Tenzo turned his eyes away from Kakashi and huffed. 

“What if I don't want to tell you two?” He asked “Maybe I don't want to be teased about it until the day that I die.”

“You should know better than that,” Shisui doesn’t even try to hide his laughter, allowing it to light up his face with a beautiful glow that Tenzo usually loves to see. One that can make his knees weak on any other day. “We’re going to tease you about this until the day you die no matter what.”

That was probably true. Out of all the people in Konoha he could have chosen to date, he just had to go with the duo that thrived off of poking fun at him every chance they got. 

His shoulders dropped in defeat. There was no point in keeping it a secret. If they didn’t get it out of him today they would keep poking and prodding at him until he finally caved. 

“I-i might have-gotten my foot stuck in a hole,” ya, he was definitely not living this down. “And because i didn’t realize i kept moving and then tripped and…” Kakashi was already laughing his ass off by his side, and Shisui had an arm wrapped around his stomach trying to hold himself together for the big reveal “I fell off a cliff because i tried to use my mokuton to get my foot free in a moment of panic and instead sent myself flying into the air via a wooden piller.”

A loud ‘Thud’ echoed through the room when Shisui finally fell over. 

“Y-you fell over a cliff?” Shisui wheezes, and Tenzo can’t help but wish there was a hole for him to crawl into and die. “The great Mokuton User Tenzo, fell over a cliff because he got his foot stuck in a hole?”

“I hate you,” He grumbled under his breath, focusing his eyes on the wall in front of him while his boyfriends died of laughter on either side of his bed. Why did he love these two? Why was this the life that he subjected himself to?

Oh right, because they were pretty and on a good day they were actually nice to him.

Today was not a good day.

“Ok…” Kakashi’s arm came down on the bed, allowing him to pull himself up so that he was kneeling. There’s still laughter in his voice, but it has died down a little “So you’re telling me that we’re reckless, and you’re just accident prone?”

Part of him wondered if it would be possible for him to murder Kakashi. Surely there was a way to accomplish such a feat.

Then of course, he’d miss the cuddles when Kakashi was gone. It wasn’t a worthwhile sacrifice to make in his opinion.

“Not only is he accident prone,” Shisui sat up on the other side. “He’s also reckless because he did this to himself. He injured himself with his own jutsu.”

Another bout of laughter erupted between the two, but this time they at least managed to keep themselves from falling back onto the floor. 

Tenzo just sat on his bed listening to them and silently plotting his revenge. There was no way there wouldn’t be a day when he was the one standing beside one of them injured and embarrassed, and he was going to rip into them endlessly because of today.

Not that he wouldn’t do it anyways.

“Awww i think we made him sad,” Glaring over at Kakashi, Tenzo huffed. “Come on Tenzo. You know we’re just having fun.”

“It’s so rare for you to be the one stuck in the hospital,” Shisui supported Kakashi’s words “we have to enjoy it when it happens.”

“You’re supposed to feel sorry for me,” he huffed “Bring me food and cuddle me. Make me feel better, not,” he waved his arms around the room wildly “whatever this is.”

“Aww kitty cat,” he didn’t even bother to look at Kakashi. He already knew there was a pathetic puppy dog eyed look waiting for him and he wasn’t interested in falling for that act today “You know we love you.”

“We’ll bring you all of the food you want,” Shisui offered “After we enjoy your suffering for a bit.”

Of course that was the condition they would have to be good boyfriends. They were never just kind to him because they could be. They had to get something out of it. Even if that something was cuddles, sex or kisses. 

“I know what will cheer you up.” he could see Kakashi’s hand moving towards his mask as he spoke, but he didn’t dare to turn his attention to him. There was a kiss waiting for him and he was not interested.

Not right now at least.

Except, apparently the kiss he thought Kakashi was going for wasn’t the intended target. Instead, Tenzo found himself smack in the middle of both of his boyfriends leaning in close to press a kiss to his ears.

Their lips lingered against his ears for a moment, cementing their kisses into place while he sat there trying desperately not to faint from an overload of cuteness.

“See, we do love you,” he narrowed his eyes at Kakashi when he started to move back “We just love bugging you too.”

“It’s part of the package,” Shisui continued, chuckling when Tenzo grumbled under his breath “you wouldn’t have us any other way.”

Tenzo’s hands settled on his knees, his face still a bright red hue after being surprised by such an intimate kiss from both of his boyfriends. “That might be true,” he grumbled under his breath “doesn’t mean i can’t wish you two were just a little nicer to me once in a while.”

Laughter erupted in the room once again, and as Tenzo looked between the two dorks he had decided to commit himself to he couldn’t help but smile. 

Ya, he really had gotten himself into this situation, and he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

[aquaquadrant]

Monster

Day 29: Monster Rating/Warnings: T (minor language, angst, manipulation) Timeline: Canon, between the end of S1 and the beginning of S3 Summary: When the guards throw the kid into Andrew’s cell, he thinks they’re kidding.

A/N: Got another Tangledtober 2018 oneshot for yall, this one finally gave me an opportunity to explore the dynamic between Varian and Andrew! I’ve always thought there was great potential for a compelling story there. (Please note that this isn’t shipping, Varian is just a bi disaster who gets crushes on attractive people) - Aqua

Click here to read on Archive of Our Own

~*~

Monster

When the guards throw the kid into Andrew’s cell, he thinks they’re kidding.

Short and lanky, with a mop of shaggy black hair and freckles framing his pointy nose. Can’t be more than thirteen. Dressed in poor-ish looking clothes; a baggy shirt with a patch on the sleeve, brown pants with frayed edges, and these weird foot wrappings that hardly count as shoes.

“Hey, what’s this about?” Andrew demands, putting his hands on his hips. “If babysitting is your idea of community service, I’m not interested.”

Andrew isn’t spared a glance or a word as the guards stalk back down the dungeon hallway, leaving them alone. The kid gathers himself up, dusting off his knees with an ugly look in his pale blue eyes.

“I’m not a child,” he hisses at Andrew, completely bypassing a hello.

Andrew raises his eyebrows. “They aren’t seriously locking you up here, are they? Isn’t there a junior’s dungeon in this kingdom? Maybe an orphanage with a correctional program?”

That prompts the kid to shove his finger- swathed in a thick black glove- into Andrew’s face. “I’m not an orphan, either!” he insists. This time, there are tears shining in those blue eyes. Angry tears- no, furious. Interesting.

Andrew puts his hands up, taking a step back to lean against the wall. “Alright, alright.” He folds his arms, giving the kid another once over. “Why are you here? I mean, what could a nine-year-old possibly do to get thrown in prison?”

“I’m fourteen,” the kid retorts.

Well, there’s that question answered. Andrew shrugs. “Whatever. Just stay on your side of the cell and don’t bug me.”

Some of the kid’s anger extinguishes as the reality of his situation hits him. His arms slump by his sides, head craning around to look at the cell and its meagre furnishings. Then at Andrew, a wary and calculating gaze. He shifts in place for a moment, uncertain.

Andrew sighs. “Spit it out.”

“Did you murder someone?” the kid asks.

Andrew blinks at him. “What makes you ask that?”

The kid jerks his shoulder in a shrug. “I- I dunno, I mean, you’re a criminal so- so I just wanted to make sure.”

That gets Andrew to laugh. “Scared I’ll murder you in your sleep? Please, obviously they trust me enough, if they’re letting us room together.”

That, or they don’t care enough about the fate of this kid. Tsk, tsk, Corona. They really ought to be more careful.

Frowning, the kid folds his arms- almost mimicking Andrew’s stance. “I guess so.”

“And plus, if you’re here, that means you’re a criminal, too,�� Andrew points out- as difficult as it is to accept that notion. “Did you murder someone?”

The kid looks affronted at that. “No! No, no, n- no, I didn’t kill anyone! I didn’t. Even… even if I thought I wanted to, before.” The last part is mumbled as he looks away, rubbing his arm.

Huh. Even more interesting. “Then what’d you do?” Andrew asks, a little more forcefully this time.

The kid flinches. “I, uh. I kidnapped the queen. And attacked the princess. With automatons.”

Andrew doesn’t know what an automaton is, but he definitely recalls the queen’s kidnapping. “Wait, that attack a few days ago, that was you?” he asks incredulously. “The way the guards were running around like headless chickens, I figured it was an invasion from another kingdom! Not… well.” He gestures vaguely at the kid. “You.”

The kid glares at him, but it’s lacking fire. “Yeah, it was me, alright?”

Extremely interesting. But Andrew’s pushed enough for today. “Well, I’ll be damned. Nice job,” he praises. “Always great to see someone stick it to these pathetic Coronans.”

That makes the kid pause, several expressions conflicting across his face, before he settles for shrugging and turning away. “Whatever.”

Andrew backs off as well, stretching out on his bed. Though he’s not thrilled to suddenly be rooming with a teenager, he is quite curious about the little oddball. It’ll be interesting to learn more about how this unassuming kid almost brought Corona to its knees.

After all, the warriors of New Saporia are always recruiting.

~*~

Over the next few days, Andrew keeps his distance from Varian (whose name he only learns from the guards, who grit it out in frustration when they find another refused bowl of food sitting on the kid’s bed).

Varian’s having an incredibly hard time adjusting. He wakes up with nightmares most nights, incoherent crying that Andrew tries his best to ignore. His mood switches rapidly from venomous spite to hopeless sorrow, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. He jumps at everything and picks incessantly at his gloves and hair and clothes. Within days, the collar of his shirt is completely frayed.

Worse is the pacing. To be fair, Andrew’s engaged in a little pacing himself from time to time, to work off excess energy. But it’s almost like Varian’s been tasked with digging a ditch into the floor with nothing but his own feet, with how often he does it. And he’ll mutter sometimes, too. An endless stream of words too low for Andrew to hear other than the occasional snippet; “dad” and “fault” and “promise” are recurring words.

Tonight is one such occasion. It’s getting late, they should go to sleep soon. But Varian’s pacing relentlessly, and this time, he’s not quiet about it.

“I’m gonna go insane,” Varian chatters, raking his hands through his hair. “I’m- I’m- I’m going insane, I can feel it, how are you not insane yet?!”

Andrew’s given up on tuning him out at this point. “Who says I’m not?” he challenges, nonplussed.

Varian lets out a sharp laugh, tinged with hysteria. “You’re right! For all I know, you are insane, and- and you’re just biding your time to strike.”

Andrew hums, amused. “Oh, but then I’d be alone and bored again. Don’t worry, buddy, you’re safe with me.”

That seems to drain some of the manic energy out of Varian. He stops pacing, lowering his gaze to the floor. “I just- I just wish I had something to work on,” he confesses quietly. “Or- or just something to work with. Chalk, a pencil, anything. Thrown in here with nothing but four walls makes me feel like- like some kind of, uh-”

“Animal?” Andrew guesses with a raised eyebrow. He’s grown accustomed to the feeling, himself.

Varian swallows. “Monster,” he breathes shakily. “I- I feel like a monster.”

Andrew sits up. “Hey now, you’re not a monster.”

“Aren’t I?” Varian asks helplessly. “I tricked the princess into helping me commit treason. When that wasn’t enough, I attacked the town with a mutant raccoon and kidnapped the queen. I threatened her life to get what I wanted, and when it didn’t work, I almost killed them for no other reason than that I wanted to.” His voice breaks. “I wanted to hurt them.”

Andrew doesn’t have time to unpack all that. “You didn’t, though,” he says plainly.

“Not by choice,” Varian says, wiping at his eyes in frustration. His breathing hitches. “I was st- stopped. Sometimes I wonder if- if I hadn’t been, what might’ve…”

Andrew shushes him, crossing over to put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, no use in thinking about the what-if’s, okay? I’m sure you had every reason to do the things you did.” He says the words not unkindly, which is a feat on his part because he’s really getting tired of the kid’s moodiness.

Varian sniffles a little, brows furrowing as a hard look comes back into his eyes. “I did,” he murmurs. “I didn’t have any choice. It was their fault.”

“Of course,” Andrew soothes. “Don’t get all worked up, alright? Go lay down and get some rest, you’ll feel better.”

Blessedly, Varian nods and goes to lay down, tucking his legs to his chest with his back to Andrew. Thank god. Maybe he’ll finally get some peace and quiet tonight.

That settled, Andrew sits back down. He doesn’t really care about Varian’s wellbeing either way, but it’s sure a lot more inconvenient for him when the kid is ranting and pacing like a madman. He’ll have to do something to rectify that.

And he knows just the thing. Furnishings are scarce in this prison, but on occasion, inmates can be rewarded with personal items for good behavior. And, all things considered, Andrew’s been really damn good. So he mentally prepares his request, with the intent to pass it on the next time guards come to bring their food.

After sticking him with this gangly thorn in his side, it’s really the least they can do.

~*~

The package comes in a small cloth pouch, tucked under Andrew’s bowl.

He grins obligingly at the guard, who rolls his eyes and moves on. Andrew sneaks a look at Varian, who’s resolved to refuse dinner tonight for whatever reason and is facing the back wall. Andrew sits cross-legged on his bed, setting the food down in favor of opening the pouch.

Inside are a few sticks of white chalk. Nothing fancy, really, but they’ll do wonderfully.

“Hey, Varian, dinner’s here,” Andrew calls.

“Not hungry,” comes Varian’s stubborn reply.

Andrew allows himself to roll his eyes, fishing a piece of chalk out of the bag. “You sure? There’s something special with it tonight.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Varian turns around. “What is it?”

Andrew tosses the chalk at Varian. “Here.”

Varian catches it in surprise. “What?” He turns the chalk over in his hands, white powder smearing on black gloves as his brows furrow and then raise. “This- this is for me?”

“Yeah.” Andrew leans back against the wall, resting his arms behind his head. “Go ahead, draw me something.”

Varian stares at him for a moment with wide eyes, as if disbelieving. A faint blush colors his cheeks, softening the gaunt paleness that’s taken residence there in the past few weeks. He lets out a breath that might be a laugh, if only by the shy smile his mouth curls into as he does it. Then he turns around, hopping onto his bed to better reach the top of the wall as he touches chalk to stone.

Andrew’s not sure what he’s expecting. But blueprints for some kind of giant humanoid machine are not it. Even to Andrew’s untrained eye, it’s an incredibly complex machine, like nothing he’s ever seen before.

Varian steps back, a critical gaze sweeping over his creation before he takes a breath and turns to Andrew.

“These are the automatons I used,” he explains. “For uh, you know.” There’s only the faintest shadow in his eyes before he hastily moves on. “They were originally created to defend the underground tunnels of Corona. I scavenged the majority of them but was able to reverse engineer their construction and make my own upgraded model. The originals are powered by wind-up turnstiles, if you can believe it, but I made mine run off a prototype steam engine.” He catches his breath, looking at Andrew hopefully. “What- what do you think?”

Andrew has to give it to him; he’s seriously impressed. Not only did the kid learn how those machines work, he was able to successfully modify them and even memorize the schematics. Andrew feels like he’s seeing Varian for the first time. Seeing the true nature of this troubled kid, the brilliance that was hiding behind all his vitriol.

“What do I think? That’s awesome, pal!” Andrew lets amazement show clearly on his face. “What else did you use?”

As expected, Varian’s face lights up. There’s that small blush again as he quickly erases the blueprints and starts drawing up chemical formulas, rambling about goo traps and sleeping powder as he goes.

Andrew’s interest is only half faked; he’s suddenly quite invested in what Varian has to say, but not for the reason Varian thinks. Rather than an annoyance, Varian now presents quite the opportunity for Andrew. He has a lot of use for someone with skills like Varian’s. Dozens of plans are already running through his head, each more devious and clever than the last.

And it won’t be hard to win Varian over. Andrew doesn’t know the full story, but he knows Varian is a kid against the world, a kid who lost everything and everyone. As remorseful as he might seem at times, there’s still a fiery anger inside him. Andrew just needs to act quick enough, before it all burns out.

Is Varian a monster? No, not really. But he’s unbalanced, vengeful, and wicked smart. He’s also lost, hurting, and desperate to prove himself.

And Andrew doesn’t care if it makes him a monster to take advantage of it.

~*~

[vateacancameos]

I Won't Let You Let Me Down So Easily

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Fandom: The Locked Tomb Trilogy Pairing: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus Tags: Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Post-Gideon the Ninth, Post-Harrow the Ninth, Pre-Slash, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, they're working on the lovers part, POV Gideon Nav, Gideon watches Harrow Word Count: 1804 Part 2 of the Watching series (read Part 1 here)

For all of her short years of life, Gideon Nav has never wanted anything more than to ignore the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House. To pretend she doesn’t exist. Unfortunately for Gideon—and the entirety of the Ninth—Harrowhark Nonagesimus has made that impossible from day one. She’s always there, one step away from Gideon, not looking at her, but making her own presence known, making sure she’s seen. That shrill, commanding tone is there from the moment she says her first word. Bones follow her every command, and she’s a tiny tyrant in black and wearing a painted mask. Where she is, skeletons follow, and Gideon is left behind, bloodied and beaten on the floor.

She never asked for this. She’s never wanted to be the bane of everyone’s existence. In fact, she tries her hardest to get away, time and time and time and time again. But Harrow demands an audience, and with most of the House being blinded from old age, Gideon is the one forced to watch. So she watches. Mostly, she watches her back, but over time, she watches just to see. What she’s looking for, she’s not sure.

She’s never wanted this, so why does a part of her now ask for it?

*** 

 (read the rest under the cut)

***

Somehow Gideon isn’t surprised that even in the afterlife, she’s forced to watch Harrow. The Dark Mistress of Drearburh is a necromancer after all. If Gideon couldn’t get away from her during any of her eighty-seven escape attempts in life, it’s doubtful a little something like lacking a body would stop Harrow from forcing her to stay.

The really annoying part is that this time, Gideon actually does want to watch, but she’s got less a front-row seat and more like she’s using binoculars turned backwards so the thing she’s looking at is tiny and the lenses are smudged and she’s got cotton stuffed in her ears. She’s grateful for that when Ianthe tries her hand (haha, hand) at flirting with Harrow—she’s never felt such intense second-hand embarrassment in her life—but seeing what’s happening on The Mithraeum would be rather helpful right now.

Especially considering she isn’t allowed to do her job (protecting) thanks to one pointy-faced emo chick performing an at-home lobotomy with only a sociopathic princess to watch over her. Oh yeah, pre-surgery, Gideon could watch everything just fine. Why is it always that she’s forced to watch when she doesn’t want to, and she can’t watch when she does want to? She’s more than a little ticked by that.

No one ever asks her what she wants.

***

You know what’s really fucking annoying? Dying for your best frenemy so she can become the thing she’s wanted to become since she was four, then getting not only walled up in a tiny corner of Prissy McBitchFace’s brain, not only forced to see how awkward God is during tea time, not only stuck watching Harrow fumble her training and social interaction, but ALSO, unable to make her fucking necromancer work out or learn one single thing about a sword.

IT’S A FUCKING POMMEL, HARROWHARK. You can learn all the bones of the body by age two and a half, but you can’t learn the very few parts of a fucking sword? Sigh.

She’s being willfully ignorant on purpose. Gideon knows it.

***

You know what’s really fucking sad? Watching Harrowhark unable to function. Not just in her usual disconnected with reality and living in her special world where she’s the queen and everyone bows to her way. No, Harrow is … not Harrow. She’s barely human now (not that she was ever particularly human, more like a pointy, annoying bat), she’s paranoid (granted, someone is trying to kill her on the daily), she’s not sleeping, there are more wards in her tiny room than in all of the Ninth House, and she’s trying to … make soup?

It’s embarrassing to watch, and once again, Gideon is grateful her view is fuzzy and distant. Except that since she only gets a far-off snapshot of events a few times a day, she has lots of time to think and contemplate. And the more she thinks about it, the worse she feels. It’s sad, Harrow’s life is. And not in a oh she’s such a dork, how sad way, but more in a way that hurts Gideon’s heart, if Gideon had a heart still, which she guesses she doesn’t, not properly.

But still, she aches for Harrow. She wants to do her job, to be the big bad protector, but someone decided to be a selfish jerk and not let Gideon do the one thing she literally died to do.

Some people suck.

***

Swear to John (who’d’ve thought God’s name would be John), Gideon is really fucking tired of watching. At least when she was forced to watch Harrow in the past(life), she had a sword in her hands and a cocky smile on her face. Oh, what she’d give to go back to being able to watch and do, rather than watch and … watch, but not really watch, because time moves funny for her and it sounds like everyone is talking under water and faces are distorted (oh, no, wait, Ianthe’s face is always like that, nm).

She needs to be able to do again. She needs to force her dumb necromancer to get some sleep and then some exercise and then some brain surgery, in that order (what? squats are important). And then maybe learn the parts of the sword. SERIOUSLY, HARROW, HOW HARD IS POMMEL?

She wishes she had Harrow’s dumb army of constructs to fight. Even without a body, she has excess energy to get rid of and– HOLY SHIT. A CONSTRUCT JUST BURST OUT OF THE SKINNY/BUFF LYCTOR’S abdomen.

Okay, Harrow. You win this round.

***

Sleep does not help Harrowhark’s mood. She’s less of a zombie, sure, but she’s still a bit bananas. Watching her cut off Ianthe’s arm is pretty great, though (less great is watching her climb on top of Princess Bitch to do it). And the sex thing with God and two of the saints is … well, the jury is still out on that one. She actually got quite an eyeful of that scene. Perhaps all the wine allowed Gideon more freedom to move about in her necro’s brain.

None of that shocks her like watching Harrow save the lyctor whose been out to kill her for months. Gideon would definitely save him if she were in Harrow’s shoes (except she’d never be in those shoes because, one, they’re too small for her, and two, SHE KNOWS HOW TO USE A FUCKING SWORD). But even after everything that happened at Canaan House, and all that she’s seen of the disaster that is Harrow’s current life, watching Harrow save the man she’s absolutely bloody terrified of is … staggering.

Gideon’s not sure what to do with this information. Harrow with a normal human conscious is not something she thought she’d ever see. It’s not the Harrow she knew for seventeen years. It’s not the girl she fought tooth and nail with almost all of her life. It’s not the tiny mad genius who broke into the Tomb just to say she could. It’s not the tyrant who puppeteered her dead parents’ bodies for seven years for a power trip. It’s not the necromancer who longed for nothing more than to become a lyctor, even at every other person around hers expense.

It’s not the bone magician who performed possibly deadly surgery on her own brain rather than share soul space with the woman who died for her.

And if Harrow’s actions now say she’s not those things, then what else doesn’t Gideon know about her?

***

For once, Gideon is the watchee instead of the watcher.

Leave it to Sextus to be the one to see her.

***

Gideon takes it all back. She’d rather spend a myriad watching helplessly and foggily as her necromancer bumbles through life because she refuses to accept help in becoming a real lyctor. She’d love to go back to watching her make soup and avoid kisses with Tridentarius The Lesser and grimace at tea and cut her hair every three days and fuck up Gideon’s beloved two-hander by covering it in bone glue.

Because the alternative, of Harrow just up and leaving her body, which has just come to pass, is untenable. It’s wrong. Not just Gideon’s eyes and her WTF expression on Harrow’s face, but also the pure lack of Harrow in the room. For such a tiny little witch, she takes up a lot of space. She always has. It’s why Gideon had watched her their whole lives. Harrow would enter a room, and her presence would draw Gideon like a paperclip to a magnet. It was hateful, but it was comfortable, a known entity.

But Harrow being gone is so wrong.

Luckily, there are plenty of bug-human-acid-monster things that hold her attention for a time. That, and trying to figure out how to work Harrow’s limp noodle arms so that she can use a sword that weighs about the same as she currently does. As Gideon hacks and kicks and watches Harrow’s extremities regrow (trippy), she avoids thinking about why Harrow has left her. She fights Princess Peach and avoids thinking. She bickers (and maybe falls just a tiny bit in love) with Ianthe Tridentarius and avoids thinking. She listens to confessions twenty years in coming and avoids thinking. She finds her (very fucked up) family and avoids thinking. She (maybe?) befriends the lyctor who tried for nine months to kill her necromancer (except its actually not the lyctor anymore and she’s definitely going to have to learn more about that at some point when she’s no longer fighting for her [lyctor’s] life) and avoids thinking.

She’s going to have to think again at some point, but she’ll avoid it as long as she’s able.

***

When Gideon finally escapes and gets somewhere safe, she has time to watch again, and she hates it. She watches Harrow’s face in the mirror. She wills her necromancer to come back. She begs Harrow to come back. She paints the best skull she’s ever painted on Harrow’s face. She puts on the rust-black robes. She stares at the mirror and tries to find Harrow in the frown lines and pointy chin. But she’s not there, and it looks wrong. Gideon screams and punches the mirror. The broken flesh repairs instantly. She hates that. She needs the pain the last.

She has always associated pain with Harrow. The physical pain of their fights. The emotional pain of being unloved. If the pain is no longer there, does that mean Harrow is gone for good?

Gideon Nav’s eyes sting, and she watches the paint melt off Harrow’s face.

[spideypoolbigbang]

SPBB 2019 - Masterlist

Thank you everyone for another great year of Spideypool Big Bang 2019! For ease of reading, we’ve compiled a Masterlist of all our works below the cut. See you again for SPBB 2020! /End SPBB 2019

Title: The Bias of Judge, Jury, and Executioner

Author: IAmAllYetNotAtAll

Artist: Luce-xoxo

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: N/A

Word Count: 13K

Summary: Shield has tasked the Avengers with capturing and sending Deadpool to the Ice Box after a visiting diplomat is murdered. Peter has to disprove the allegations despite the substantial evidence against him, save his best friend, and also figure out why the thought of losing Wade terrifies him.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: A Full Guide On How To Adopt A Pet Spider

Author(s): noshallowend

Artist: thatbanananana

Rating: Mature

Warnings: N/A

Word Count: 8802

Summary: One, keep your Spider well-fed and hydrated. Eye-eating you in a questionable coffee shop will do. Two, your little pet needs a room, or is it you? Well, anyway, you have been warned, so don’t complain if you wake up pinned to your bed by a 5’ 10" love bug.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Choose Your Words Wisely

Author: TimidTurnip

Artist: Sofreakinmanyfandoms

Rating: E

Warnings:  Dubcon, sexpollen, mpreg

Word Count: 10k

Summary: Peter should know by now that you can’t just say the first thing that comes to mind. That words carry weight, especially when directed at someone like Loki. Peter doesn’t really understand how getting him to fuck Wade is a punishment, not until his stomach starts to swell.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Peter Parker and the Very Bad No Good Mercenary Fleet

Author: ChibisUnleashed

Artist: ask-spideypool-42069

Rating: M

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Temp Character Death

Word Count: 24,232

Summary: So what if Peter’s an enhanced human being? His everyday, average, utterly normal human being powers of very good lab work and drive to innovate have been far more useful to the universe. Peter Parker, owner and founder of Parker Tech, has been leading the cosmos in medical technology for years. Ever since he founded it, in fact.

Peter can’t leave a person in need without aid. It’s just not in him. So when he finds out a mercenary blockade has prevented the transport of vital medical supplies to a planet just outside of the United Front’s jurisdiction, he decides to go there and fix the situation by force (Because it’s mercenaries. Force will be necessary.)

Wade doesn’t really care either way, but if a hottie in a tight suit offered you a ridiculous amount of money to lend them a hand, would you say no?

Fic Masterpost  | Art Masterpost

Title: Parallel Horizons

Author(s): mokuyoubi

Artist: Meeps

Rating: E

Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence, Temporary Major Character Death, Deadpool being Deadpool

Word Count: 40,700

Summary:When Peter B Parker enters the collider again to return to his own dimension, he’s dumped out a week into the future, but still in Miles’ universe. Repeated attempts to return home only speed up the damage done to his body by the glitches, and leave him stranded 2 years in the future. Enter Deadpool, who’s seen a lot of versions of Spider-Man, but never one so in need of a friend. He vows to save Peter’s life, whether he likes it or not. Along with Miles and Gwen, they work to repair the damage, and find out what’s keeping Peter from being able to return home. And maybe Peter finds he has more in common with the strange Merc than he could have anticipated.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Shooting For Your Heart

Author: theultimatespidey-petey

Artist: Jay

Rating: Teen and Up Audience

Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence

Word Count: 43K+ words

Summary:

“In my defense, I didn’t expect you to get hurt.”

“And I didn’t expect to be run out of town, yet here we are.”

He went suddenly stiff, “Wait…you were run out of town?”

“As if you didn’t know,” Peter grumbled, but when he looked up he did a double-take at Wade’s confused expression. “Almighty, you really don’t know, do you?” he snapped the drawer shut, “Well, after that little fiasco by Two-Stone Canyon, a little rumor spread that me and you were in cahoots. The rumor got some ground and it turned the whole town against me. I was run out before I could defend my case. Why'dya think I was out there the other night to begin with?”

<><><><><><>

When Peter Parker, a deputy known as Webslinger, gets accused of working with the West’s deadliest outlaw he finds himself on the run from the people he once trusted. But in an effort to prove his innocence, he finds himself captured by the very outlaw tarnishing his name.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Rooftops

Author: Jo

Artist: AiralySwirls

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Wade-typical temporary death

Word Count: 11,800

Summary: Spider-man is a mercenary. He’s not proud of it, but a job is a job and he’s good at it. Things get more complicated when he does a job one night with a loud-mouthed and sharp-shooting Deadpool, and even more complicated when the two grow close. When Wade introduces some demons from his past into Peter’s life, things fall apart.

Fic Masterpost  | Art Masterpost

Title: The Order of the Silver Spider

Author(s): @mscaptainwinchester

Artist: @blondeulence

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Word Count: 34000

Summary: When Wade Wilson signed his loyalty to Queen Shiklah of Monstropolis, he did it for the money. That he’d thought he was in love with her was secondary. But as the years pass, and Wade begins to understand that Shiklah doesn’t return that love, his eyes begin to wander elsewhere. Prince Peter of Spider was supposed to be a distraction, a momentary dalliance to fill the time. But it’s difficult for someone to be a momentary distraction if you can’t get them out of your head. What was meant to last a night turns into something much deeper. Soon, Wade must question what’s more important to him: loyalty to his word or loyalty to his heart. Prince Peter of Spider is barely holding things together. With his wife murdered by a would-be usurper, his kingdom’s future was put into question for the first time in centuries. As the pressure mounts to find a new spouse and produce the heir that will assure his kingdom’s future and treaty negotiations between his tiny principality and King Anthony of Longueile heat up, Peter welcomes the distraction of Colonel Wilson of Monstropolis. But Peter finds himself still distracted even months later, and quickly must face the fact that he is in love. Can he find a way to secure happiness with another ruler’s consort, or will he be forced to marry out of duty and never truly know love again?

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Your Heart’s in the Right Place (And So are the Furnishings)

Author: Doctoring

Artist: Moemai

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Word Count: ~25,800

Summary: I mean, friends to lovers is one thing, but roommate to lovers has that whole efficiency appeal to it.

Peter is thinking about moving when his lease is up. Wade makes it his mission to convince Peter to move in with him. However, there’s a lot of home makeover (and flirting) he needs to do first before his crush will even consider it.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: You Can’t Spell Awesome Without Me

Author: Pineau_noir/ @pineau-noir

Artist: Dropthebeet/ @albeenocookie

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No major warnings apply

Word Count: 25k

Summary: On Peter’s 30th birthday, he finds a red and black mark over his heart. Then, on his way to his teaching job at Empire State University, a heavily scarred man dies in Peter’s arms. The two things don’t seem connected until Peter’s Spidey Sense goes haywire and his AI, Janet, tells Peter about soul marks.

But soulmates are just an urban legend, like Reagan killing all the birds in 1986 and replacing them with spies, right?

Meanwhile, Wade is stuck in the hospital, after losing his favorite kidney and briefly being dead. He flirts with his cute nurse (Anthony), gives a false name (Thom Cruz), and learns to live without his precious righty (his kidney).

Peter and the Avengers are on the hunt for the slightly shady man who may or may not be Peter’s one-and-only until something unexpected brings them together.

Spoiler— it’s really dumb and ordinary but Wade lives for the drama of it all: car chases! Illegal drug rings! Exotic animal smuggling! Or as Peter tells it, patrolling and seeing cars go by, accidentally stealing a bottle of ibuprofen from Tony Stark, and finding a stray kitten.

Either way it’s going to be all the fluff and domestic Spideypool the author can manage.

Fic Masterpost  | Art Masterpost

Title: Rock You Like a Hurricanrana Author: Jennicide Artist: Aredesification | @aredesification Rating: E Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Word Count: 111K Summary: Peter thinks he’s finally made it now that his masked persona, Spider-Man, has been offered a full-time contract with one of the largest wrestling companies in the United States. He’s spent years training for this moment but nothing could have ever prepared him for getting into the ring with Pileta de Muerto, the hottest heel in professional wrestling entertainment, on the night of his debut. And to make matters worse, their first meeting was a complete disaster. One of his biggest idols probably (definitely) hates him, but he’ll manage somehow because they’ve got a show to do and everything in wrestling is scripted anyway… until it isn’t.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Parker’s Monster

Author(s): Rainbow820

Artist: Alfie  

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Graphic Descriptions of Violence

Word Count: 30k+

Summary: In the early twentieth century, world tension is at an all time high. A young university student in New York, Peter Parker, meets Wade Wilson, a military officer from Canada on a chance encounter as Wade looks to find his professor Doctor Connors.

America needs Doctor Connor’s work and Wade needs him, and Peter Parker wants to protect his professor. Wade finds something captivating in the student who feels the need to save everyone around him.

War rips through Europe and Wade has to leave with Doctor Connors, but Peter is not one to be left behind. Falling in love at the worst of times Peter will do anything to keep Wade with him, anything.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Bettas are just P®etty Assholes

Author(s): DefendersofMCUniverse (GeekMom13)

Artist: SpiderKatana

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Major Archive Warnings. Minor Character Death, Mermaid anatomy,

Word Count: 8,644

Summary: Wade really loved his job- going around taking care of pointless mers and eating all the best food in the ocean. But he really, really hated Bettas. They were grumpy, conceited, and liked to get in his way far too much, even when they failed miserably. (They always failed, Wade just hated the superficial scars they left. Because, honestly, he already looked like Neptune’s left nutsack, did they need to make it worse?) Really, how hard was it to just… let him kill the worthless mers of the pod? It’s not like he took on contracts for the productive members of pod-ciety. It just figures that one assignment he meets a Betta-mer who changes everything. Why the fuck did he have to be so pretty?

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Cradle Author: macaronigrille Artist: nonexistenz Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Word Count: 8971

Summary: Peter’s encounters with Deadpool are initially only fleeting. He doesn’t know much about him, simply that he’s a trained mercenary for hire who’s nearly impossible to kill.

Impossible to kill, maybe. But as Peter spends more time with Wade, he realizes that Wade is not unbreakable. From broken fingers to head injuries, Peter teaches Wade how to be cared for, and Wade returns the favor when Peter needs him most.

(Or: 5 times that Peter helped Wade with his healing factor, and one time that Wade returned the favor.)

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title:  Odds Aren’t in Our Favor Author(s): NexusPhenomena/Nhrive Artist: Chez Rating: Explicit Warnings: Minor Character Death, Graphic Depiction of Violence Word Count: 75k Summary: What happens when the world is forced to sacrifice children in the name of order and justice? The Games are the result. Wade had never been lucky in life and as he made his way into District 12, fate showed him just how much they didn’t like him. Now scarred from his experiences, he must deal with helping the new tributes make their way through the games. Can he help keep one of them alive? Peter has suffered so much in life as it is and when it’s finally his turn for the games, will he be able to make it out alive? What will he lose along the way or is there possibly anything to gain? Fic Masterpost  | Art Masterpost

Title: Neighborly

Author: DramamineOnTopOfMe

Artist: DrunkRat

Rating: Mature

Warnings: None that apply

Word Count: 9k

Summary: Peter’s finally moving out! And Wade Wilson helps him move in? Peter knows that Spiderman and Deadpool are now neighbors, but he can’t let anybody else find out. Especially not Wade! But for just how long can Peter keep his secret when there’s crime in his city and a mercenary next door?

Fic Masterpost || Art Masterpost

Title: on a genderbender

Author(s): Devral

Artist: Art Wolf

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: none

Word Count: 40k

Summary: While checking out one of Doc Ock’s warehouses to try to figure out what Doc is up to, Wade and Peter accidentally activate a machine that changes someone’s gender. Peter is the unlucky recipient of the change. Wade does his best to take care of Peter by stuffing as much food into him as possible and sneaking in some leg ogling while Peter works to get himself back to normal!

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: a world away

Author(s): silvyri

Artist: Limeonik

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Mild Self-Harm (it’s Wade), Temporary Character Death (it’s Wade again), some violence

Word Count: 35k

Summary: Peter is saved by a mysterious scarred stranger when a extraterrestrial stowaway causes the Avenjet to break apart mid-flight over the Pacific Ocean. Stranded on a deserted tropical island with the man who can’t seem to get the hang of verbal communication, Peter struggles with not knowing how his friends and family are faring in an alien infested New York, his growing feelings for the man he names Wade, and how Wade came to be on their little island in the first place.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: My Heart’s A Little F*cked On You

Author(s): Spiderkatana and Dr.FumblesMcStupid

Artist: Chez

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Explicit Language, Very Brief Major Character Death

Word Count: 26,000+

Summary: When Peter was forced to leave his childhood best friend (and first crush) behind, he didn’t think he’d ever see him again. He definitely wasn’t expecting Deadpool, the first person he'd really felt safe with since then– to be the same boy who gave him an over-sized Captain America hoodie, threw rocks at Flash Thompson, and used to calm Peter down by softly singing La Vie En Rose.

AKA The One With The Silver Unicorn Charm Necklace.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Behind Closed Doors

Author(s): crookedswingset

Artist: babyshawk

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Temporary Character Death (Wade), Police Corruption, Angst, Bad Decision Making, Happy Ending

Word Count: 140K

Summary: When the Benefactor arranges a successful hit against a cop in a Spider-Man suit, Peter Parker has one shot to go undercover, infiltrate the criminal’s operations, and shut them down for good. But, to do that, he needs to let everyone in his life think he’s really dead. Even Wade.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: there’s a fire in your eyes

Author: bisexualbarry

Artist: luminspidey

Rating: mature

Warnings: graphic depictions of violence

Word Count: 36k

Summary: When Peter moved to a boring town in Maine, he thought his life would be normal. Instead, he’s now being stalked by a creepy man with a wicked plan. Even after escaping him once already, Peter can’t go anywhere without feeling eyes on him.

Cue Wade, a man who’s a mystery from the start who has weird injuries that seem to heal right before Peter’s eyes. Along with him comes a ragtag family that don’t quite seem to match. The biggest reality check, though? Vampires are real and they live amongst humans.

Now Peter has to try his best not to get kidnapped (again) by an evil vampire who’s trying to assemble his own group of elemental controlling vampires. And Peter happens to have a very fiery presence.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: In Which Peter is Not Okay

Author: ladyamante

Artist: Gensyz

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: PTSD, Past rape/non-con, Violence, Suicidal ideation

Word Count: 55k

Summary:  Peter has hit rock bottom. He is anxious all the time, he can’t get out of bed for days on end. He’s isolated himself from his friends and Aunt May. What happened with Skip was ages ago, and he’s Spider-Man now, so he should be fine, right?

One night, Peter finds himself at the top of a building, ready to jump, when an unlikely person steps in.

Fic Masterpost |   Art Masterpost

Title: Five Years Grown

Author: 343EnderSpark & thelonebamf

Artist: thelazydrawer

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Bullying, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Homophobic Language, cliffhanger ending

Word Count: 137,096

Summary: Growing up in a New York City that has seen the likes of superheroes and extraterrestrials was never going to be easy, but finding a friend was sure to make the journey more fun. A young Peter and Wade meet and bond over their shared hobby of dumpster diving and a fast friendship forms between them. While Wade’s home life is complicated and downright abusive, he slowly finds a place among the Parkers, learning to trust Ben and May as he grows closer to Peter. Yet no relationship stays the same forever, and Wade’s sprouting feelings for Peter are at odds with the expectations people have for the two of them. Things only grow more complicated when Peter develops his spider powers, and is unsure whether or not he should confide in his friend. Of course nothing could keep the two apart for long… or could it?

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: (life)lines

Author(s): Anhumblegoose

Artist: Cheermione

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Canon Typical Violence, Happy Ending

Word Count: 49k

Summary: When Wade takes home a callboy, he isn’t expecting to find his second chance at love. Now that it’s in front of him, he doesn’t want to let it go. He knows he can make his sweetie happy; that they can pull each other up. That is, if his baby boy’s insistence on keeping secrets doesn’t end up tearing them both down.

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Big Enough Umbrella

Author(s): fancastical, aka @fasterthanmybullets

Artist: @the-italian-pasta, aka romeyruu

Rating: T

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Child Abuse, Happy Ending

Word Count: 58k

Summary: Peter is high key miserable at the beginning of senior year. It takes everything he’s got to get out of bed sometimes, let alone go to school. It’s a problem, then, that the first person to make him laugh since Uncle Ben’s funeral is also the new school bully, a guy from Canada named Wade who steals money from freshmen and has no sense of propriety or, if the bruises he’s always showing up with mean anything, self preservation. Wade doesn’t expect to stay in New York City long. His dad never lets them stick around after people start asking questions. So it really shouldn’t matter what the nerdy guy in his Spanish class thinks of him, and yet he’s bending over backward for even half a smile from Peter, and making all kinds of promises he’s not sure he can keep. Wade knows it’s not gonna end well. But when has that ever stopped him before?

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Rebound

Author: @evansenpai13

Artist: @Ninja46464

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Self-Doubt, Alcohol, Sexual Intercourse, Mature Themes

Word Count: 9K

Summary: Peter needs to see Wade. At 3 am. And the ever Spider loving Merc has no reason to deny the man he loves. Of course, it’s not as expected, why would it? Peter B. Parker recently divorced his sweetheart Mary Jane and just as any distraught human being, needed someone to rely on. It just so happened that Wade was the one he confided on.

Matters become difficult when Peter believes Wade to behave oddly due to the loss of Vanessa. Though the present events are long after the incident, this belief clouds Peter’s judgment on what’s really happening.

Wade just couldn’t catch a break nor drop the feelings he had for the other. But Wade being Wade, did his best to get Peter out of the slump he was in. All while pushing aside the love Wade had for Pete. He would never be selfish enough to admit those feelings at such a sore time in Peter’s life. Or would he?

Give it time and a bit of alcohol, and what will happen once both men open up to one another? What’s Peter’s thoughts about the divorce? How will Wade help? Will Wade finally be honest? How will Pete react?

What will become of their relationship?

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Careful What You Wish For

Author: @xbloodrunsredx

Artist: @sillytheotter

Rating: Not rated

Warnings: Referenced Past Non/Con, Slavery Undertones, Depression

Word Count: 15k

Summary: Wade Wilson is a mercenary that has had a rough life, but meeting a strange, powerful genie certainly puts things in perspective; through trials and memories, they struggle to find common ground… and there are too many questions that need answering before they can even try. But they can work it out—Wade knows it more than he’s ever known anything, even if the genie refuses to give up his name, or the past that hangs over him like a dark cloud. After all: he can just wish for it, can’t he?

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

Title: Two Lies and a Truth

Author: @salios

Artist: @sofreakinmanyfandoms

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Mild stalking

Word Count: ~6K

Summary: Having a thing for your teacher seemed like a reasonable fetish back in highschool. Personally, Peter hadn’t ever found a teacher worth pining after, but then again he’d had the saltiest, most sour, dried out educator-jerky the world had ever produced. There had definitely been fresher fish to cast after.

So again, while he understood it was a respectable and somewhat common kink, it wasn’t for Peter. He also realised, within three months as a TA, that it was super uncomfortable to be on the receiving end. Especially when you were being actively chased not by one, but two over eager students with no concept of personal space.

Fic Masterpost  |  Art Masterpost

Title: Falling Backwards

Author(s): KiwiBerry

Artist: princessellie3

Rating: T

Warnings: Canon Typical Violence

Word Count: 7.4k

Summary: Peter loves being an Avenger. Or at least he thinks he does? It’s kind of hard to tell since he’s missing about four years of information after a run in with a mind-altering mutant. Luckily, he has two over protective, father-like figures to help him figure it all out. Oh, and a man in a red jumpsuit who keeps calling him “Spidey” with a fondness that almost rivals Aunt May. So, yeah, Peter loves being an Avenger (or at least he hopes he does. Mr. Stark would be so pissed if he didn’t.)

Fic Masterpost | Art Masterpost

[newstfionline]

Thursday, May 6, 2021

Nearly 20 million more people hit by food crises last year (Reuters) Nearly 20 million more people faced food crises last year amid armed conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic and weather extremes, and the outlook for this year is again grim, according to a report by the Global Network Against Food Crises. The humanitarian agency, set up in 2016 by the European Union and United Nations, also warned that acute food insecurity has continued to worsen since 2017, the first year of its annual report into food crises. “We must do everything we can to end this vicious cycle. There is no place for famine and starvation in the 21st century,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres. He added that conflict and hunger need to be tackled jointly, as they reinforce one another. Defined as any lack of food that threatens lives, livelihoods or both, acute food insecurity at crisis levels or worse impacted at least 155 million people last year, the highest number in the report’s five-year existence.

America’s new normal: A degree hotter than two decades ago (AP) America’s new normal temperature is a degree hotter than it was just two decades ago. Scientists have long talked about climate change—hotter temperatures, changes in rain and snowfall and more extreme weather—being the “new normal.” Data released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put hard figures on the cliché. The new United States normal is not just hotter, but wetter in the eastern and central parts of the nation and considerably drier in the West than just a decade earlier. “Almost every place in the U.S. has warmed from the 1981 to 2010 normal to the 1991 to 2020 normal,” said Michael Palecki, NOAA’s normals project manager.

Nature at its craziest: Trillions of cicadas about to emerge (AP) Sifting through a shovel load of dirt in a suburban backyard, Michael Raupp and Paula Shrewsbury find their quarry: a cicada nymph. And then another. And another. And four more. In maybe a third of a square foot of dirt, the University of Maryland entomologists find at least seven cicadas—a rate just shy of a million per acre. A nearby yard yielded a rate closer to 1.5 million. And there’s much more afoot. Trillions of the red-eyed black bugs are coming, scientists say. Within days, a couple weeks at most, the cicadas of Brood X (the X is the Roman numeral for 10) will emerge after 17 years underground. There are many broods of periodic cicadas that appear on rigid schedules in different years, but this is one of the largest and most noticeable. They’ll be in 15 states from Indiana to Georgia to New York; they’re coming out now in mass numbers in Tennessee and North Carolina. When the entire brood emerges, backyards can look like undulating waves, and the bug chorus is lawnmower loud.

Reuniting refugee families (Washington Post) President Biden began fulfilling a campaign promise Tuesday as U.S. authorities started to help to reunite a number of migrant families forcibly separated by the previous administration. President Donald Trump imposed a “zero tolerance” policy on those crossing the U.S. border illegally that led to myriad unauthorized migrants being rushed through criminal proceedings and deported while their children who had accompanied them remained in the United States. It was easier to track the children than their parents. In some instances, advocates had to post radio advertisements in Mexico and Central America. The reunions Tuesday would mark, Kevin Sieff wrote, “the start of a massive relocation of parents deported by one U.S. president and returned by another. In total, more than 1,000 families are expected to be reunited.”

The Little Nation That Could (Guardian) The island of Cuba is dealing with a pandemic while suffering its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US trade embargo restricts the medical equipment the island can import; even so, of the 27 coronavirus vaccines in final stage testing around the world, two are Cuban. The UN has called on the US to lift sanctions on the island during the pandemic, but the embargo has actually toughened since the outgoing Trump administration put Cuba on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. “The US is trying to starve Cuba into submission,” said one of the doctors on the coronavirus taskforce. “It’s not only that it’s difficult to buy things directly from the US. It’s also that all these sanctions that the Trump administration put in place have dried up many sources of revenue.” Nevertheless, Cuban scientists are confident that widespread vaccination will be attained this year. “When you have everything, you don’t have to think so much.” said another scientist. “But when you have difficulties, you have to think up new ways to innovate.”

Years of Unheeded Warnings. Then the Subway Crash Mexico City Had Feared. (NYT) The capital had been bracing for the disaster for years. Ever since it opened nearly a decade ago, the newest Mexico City subway line—a heralded expansion of the second largest subway system in the Americas—had been plagued with structural weaknesses that led engineers to warn of potential accidents. Yet other than a brief, partial shutdown of the line in 2014, the warnings went unheeded by successive governments. On Monday night, the mounting problems turned fatal: A subway train on the Golden Line plunged about 50 feet after an overpass collapsed underneath it, killing at least 24 people and injuring dozens more. The accident—and the government’s failure to act sooner to fix known problems with the line—immediately set off a political firestorm for three of the most powerful people in Mexico: the president and the two people widely believed to be front-runners to succeed him as leaders of the governing party and possibly, the country.

Brexit problems (Foreign Policy) France has threatened “retaliatory measures”—including cutting power to Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands—as tensions rise over fishing rights between Britain and France. Since the post-Brexit trade deal, French fishermen have been angered by delays in newly required licenses that have prevented them from accessing British waters—an area they say is necessary for their livelihoods.

Scottish independence 'front and center' in May 6 election (Washington Post) Scotland goes to the polls Thursday in a vote that could eventually lead to a truly historic event: the crackup of the United Kingdom. The independence movement has gained momentum in the wake of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit. And the pandemic has further encouraged the idea that Scotland might be better off going its own way, with policies determined in Edinburgh viewed more favorably by Scots than those pronounced at Westminster. As a result, the Scottish National Party, led by the popular First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, 50, is expected to perform well in Thursday’s vote for seats in the regional Parliament, with pro-independence parties winning a solid majority of the 129 seats in Holyrood. The talk shows, political magazines and news columns in Britain are full of speculation about a looming breakup. Since 2014, Scotland has voted overwhelmingly against Brexit, 62 percent to 38 percent. Many Scots then saw Johnson’s hard-split version of Brexit as an unnecessary affront. And since Britain left the European Union, Scotland has tallied more harms than benefits. The Scottish fishermen, for instance, say their industry is in crisis.

Belgian cyberattack (1440) Belgium was hit with a sweeping cyberattack yesterday, leaving its parliament, government agencies, universities, and other organizations without internet service for hours. The effort knocked out both websites and internal systems, including the country’s coronavirus vaccine registration portal. Hackers targeted the government’s service provider with a distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attack—a strategy that overwhelms networks with massive amounts of artificial internet traffic. Experts say such attacks are often meant to knock systems offline rather than steal information. It was unclear who was behind the attack. The incident highlights the growing ability of cybercriminals, either independent or state-affiliated, to strike unprepared governments and companies—some estimate cyberattacks will cost the global economy $6T in losses in 2021.

EU seeks rapid response military force, two decades after first try (Reuters) Fourteen European Union countries including Germany and France have proposed a rapid military response force that could intervene early in international crises, a senior EU official said on Wednesday, two decades after a previous attempt. The countries say the EU should create a brigade of 5,000 soldiers, possibly with ships and aircraft, to help democratic foreign governments needing urgent help, the official said. First discussed in 1999, the EU in 2007 set up a combat-ready system of battlegroups of 1,500 personnel to respond to crises, but they have never been used. Those battle groups could now form the basis of a so-called First Entry Force, part of a new momentum towards more EU defence capabilities. From this year, the bloc has a joint budget to develop weaponry together, is drawing up a military doctrine for 2022 and detailed its military weakness last year for the first time.

Staunch anti-India Kashmir politician dies in police custody (AP) A prominent politician in Kashmir who challenged India’s rule over the disputed region for decades died Wednesday while in police custody. Mohammed Ashraf Sehrai was 78. Sehrai’s son, Mujahid Sehrai, said his father was denied proper medical care while in jail. Sehrai was arrested last July under the Public Safety Act, which allows authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir to imprison anyone for up to two years without trial. All Parties Hurriyat Conference, the main separatist grouping in Kashmir, said authorities had left Sehrai unattended in jail until his condition worsened. In a statement, it said it “deeply regrets this inhuman attitude of the authorities and is pained by it.” It also expressed concern about the health of hundreds of other Kashmiri political detainees as India faces a massive health crisis because of an explosion of coronavirus cases. Last week, the grouping said the prisoners were being denied “even basic amenities,” leading to “serious health problems among the prisoners.”

India’s COVID-19 surge spreads to Nepal (Reuters) Nepal is being overwhelmed by a COVID-19 surge as India’s outbreak spreads across South Asia, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Wednesday. Nepal is now recording 57 times as many cases as a month ago, with 44% of tests now coming back positive. Nepalese towns near the Indian border could not cope with the growing number of people needing treatment, while only 1% of the country’s population was fully vaccinated.

Myanmar’s military disappearing young men to crush uprising (AP) Myanmar’s security forces moved in and the street lamps went black. In house after house, people shut off their lights. Darkness swallowed the block. When the military’s trucks finally rolled away, Shwe’s 15-year-old brother was missing. Across the country, Myanmar’s security forces are arresting and forcibly disappearing thousands of people, especially boys and young men, in a sweeping bid to break the back of a three-month uprising against a military takeover. In most cases, the families of those taken do not know where they are, according to an Associated Press analysis of more than 3,500 arrests since February. It is a technique the military has long used to instill fear and to crush pro-democracy movements. The boys and young men are taken from homes, businesses and streets, under the cover of night and sometimes in the brightness of day. Some end up dead. Many are imprisoned and sometimes tortured. Many more are missing.

Turkey and Egypt on the mend (Foreign Policy) Representatives from Turkey and Egypt meet in Cairo today for “exploratory” discussions “on the necessary steps that may lead towards the normalization of relations” according to a joint statement. Relations between the two countries have frayed due to maritime border disputes, Libya’s civil war, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s opposition to the 2013 coup which brought Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power. There were some signs of rapprochement in March, when the Turkish government directed Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated media channels in the country to refrain from criticizing the Egyptian president.

Why Nearsightedness Is on the Rise in Children (NYT) Look and you shall see: A generation of the real-life nearsighted Mr. Magoos is growing up before your eyes. A largely unrecognized epidemic of nearsightedness, or myopia, is afflicting the eyes of children. People with myopia can see close-up objects clearly, like the words on a page. But their distance vision is blurry, and correction with glasses or contact lenses is likely to be needed for activities like seeing the blackboard clearly, cycling, driving or recognizing faces down the block. The growing incidence of myopia is related to changes in children’s behavior, especially how little time they spend outdoors, often staring at screens indoors instead of enjoying activities illuminated by daylight. Gone are the days when most children played outside between the end of the school day and suppertime. And the devastating pandemic of the past year may be making matters worse. The prevalence of myopia in the United States increased from 25 percent in the early 1970s to nearly 42 percent just three decades later. And the rise in myopia is not limited to highly developed countries. The World Health Organization estimates that half the world’s population may be myopic by 2050.

[need-a-new-hobby]

Do You Love Him?

Derek had two missions. One: catching this serial killer. Two: making sure the two BAU geniuses got together. Part one of mission 2 was assessing external threats. In the ultimate non-creepiest of ways, Spencer had Piper’s routine memorised. Woke up before dawn. Got some paperwork done. Shower. Toast for breakfast. Coffee from the nearest shop. Arrived at the BAU no later than 8am. He’d convinced Reid to catch a later train and for these lovebirds, he was willing to get to work an hour early. But he didn’t know that Piper equally had all of their schedules memorised. So she was definitely surprised when Reid didn’t show up until 8:45 and Derek showed up at 7:30am.

“What are you doing here so early?”

“Woke up early to have a run but it was too cold out.”

“How early, like 8?”

“6:30”

“AM?” Piper was shocked. “Derek, the last time we shared a room, you smashed your alarm clock for waking you up at 7:30.”

“Yeah, well, people change. Speaking of change, a little birdie told me you’ve been up at night over Detective Lisbon. Really, Pipes? Florida?” Piper sighed.

“I’m going to kill Garcia.”

“Cmon, baby. Talk to me.”

“Shut up Derek. And for the record, he’s from Michigan but was stationed in Florida. He’s putting in for a transfer next week.”

“Interesting. Anywhere in particular? D.C. might be cozy.” Derek laughed.

“First of all, gross and second of all, he doesn’t get to pick.”

“Right, but you’d like him to move to DC, amirite?” She sighed.

“Believe it or not, Derek, you’re wrong.” Piper hastily straightened her pile of paperwork and headed to Hotch’s office.

“Hold it.” Piper groaned and twisted on her heel.

“Whaat?” She exasperated. “I thought things were good, what happened?” Piper slammed her files on the desk. 

“He can’t talk to me without putting his foot in his mouth.”

“Like literally or-”

“Of course not literally. He just always stammers and I used to think it was cute that he was kind of nervous, but we’ve talked over the phone 5 times now, and I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I don’t want to date a guy who’s too nervous to talk to me and if he’s never comfortable with me then I’m going to be uncomfortable the whole time.” she explained, clearly upset.

“So, what are you gonna do?”

“I dunno. The transfer has nothing to do with me. Florida just sucks.”

“Amen.” She scoffed.

“I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but what do you think?”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“Never mind, I’ll just ask Rossi.” Laughing, Derek pulled her back.

“Relax. Just trust your gut. If you don’t feel comfortable walk away.”

“Really?” Derek nodded, desperately controlling himself. “Thanks ma-”

“Don’t you have to get your files to Hotch?”

“Oh shrap. Thanks.” He double pumped the air at her retreating figure before pulling out his cell to tell Spence.

^-^

“We’re going to LA. These are victims 6 and 7, well parts of them anyway.” Piper shuddered.

“Clean cuts too. Like it’s a...”

“Machete?” Rossi offered.

“I was gonna say a samurai sword, but if you want to be boring,” Piper retorted.

“The first 5 were lone victims. He's getting bolder. And more vicious,” Reid noted.

“Tell LAPD we can be there by 9:30.”

On the jet, they took their usual spots after discussing victimology. Piper took the couch, reading her book on Feudal Japan. Reid took the back window reading his book on psycholinguistics. Rossi sat chatting with Hotch and Derek listened to music. Assessing the situation, Derek got up and moved over to Piper. “What’s wrong, Derek?”

“Nothing, I just needed um.. relationship advice.”

“From me?”

“Rossi had three wives, Hotch is a robot and Emily is in a loving relationship with a cat. And Reid’s only advice is that I don’t need advice.”

“Well, you are the woman-whisperer right?”

“Don’t mock me, just help please.” Groaning Piper put her book away. 

“What’s the problem?”

“I have this childhood friend.” Piper’s face wrinkled. “Hear me out, seriously.”

“’Kay what’s the deal?”

“We’re still really good friends but I see her as more than that. What do I do?”

“Well, do you see yourselves being together?”

“I mean, I’d like to.”

“Do you see her on a regular basis professionally?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the harm? Just tell her.”

“Wait, why’d you ask if we see each other professionally?”

“Because it’s like if you’re in a band and you decide to date your bandmate. It’s all well until something goes wrong. You lose focus on which strings you’re meant to be playing and if you break up, the band feels the same tension and eventually breaks up.”

“Huh. Thanks, though. For the advice.” Piper shot him a thumbs up and returned to her book.

^-^

Piper leaned against the FBI bike loaned to her outside the crime scene, glancing at her watch. The sooner this case was over, the sooner she could take her leave of absence. A few days vacation might be the cure to her throbbing shoulder which still hurt. Finally an SUV pulled up in front of her and Spencer and Derek came out bickering. “Should have listened to me.” 

“It wouldn't have saved that much time, Reid. Let it go.” 

“The interchange between the 405 and the 101 freeways is consistently rated the worst interchange in the entire world.” 

“Why do you know that?” 

“It's a government report.” 

“So what?” 

“So you work for the government. What, you don't read the reports?” 

“On traffic patterns in a city 2, 500 miles from where I live?” 

“2, 295 miles.” 

“Don't make me smack you in front of all these people.” Derek turned to see Piper with a raised eyebrow. “How long did you have to wait for us?”

“20 minutes Derek. Why’d you take the interchange between the 405 and the 101 freeways? It’d have been easier to take the-”

“Stop it, both of you.” They were interrupted by the lead detective from the LAPD.

“Detective Brady.”

“I’m Agent Morgan, this is Dr Reid and Dr Bishop.”

“Where’s the rest of your team?”

“In an SUV behind us,” Derek explained.

“Yeah, stuck in traffic.” Morgan stared at Reid, struggling to choose between smacking him or pushing him into oncoming traffic. 

“So, you had two more victims last night?” Piper asked, struggling to hide her laugh.

“They were discovered a little after 3:30 by a cleaning crew finishing up in the building.” 

“So that's 7 victims over the past 2 weeks,” Derek shook his head. 

“Bodies are in the alley. What's left of them.” 

“Same victimology? We don't have positive i.d.on either one of them yet, but the clothing fits. You really think this is only one guy, huh?”

“The level of overkill suggests an unsub in a psychotic break. Multiple unsubs in violent psychotic breaks operating in the exact same location is exceedingly unlikely.” The detective stared at him.

“Essentially it’s rare for two people to have the same psychosis. So you’re probably dealing with one guy.” Piper squeezed Spencer’s shoulder as she motioned for the detective to start showing them the crime scene. Derek couldn’t help smiling at the two of them. That smile faded as they saw the horrifying remnants of two people brutally murdered. After examining the scene, Morgan walked away to call Hotch.

“Do you know that a domestic cat loose in a normal neighbourhood is the equivalent of a small-scale ecological disaster?” Reid asked out of nowhere. 

“Excuse me?” The detective looked perplexed as did Piper.

“Where are you going with this?”

“They'll kill anything they can-- bugs, rodents, birds, other cats, small dogs if possible. Anything.” 

“That got something to do with this?” 

“An unsub in a violent psychotic break is worse.”

^-^

Spencer sat behind Hotch in the SUV, trying to reach Piper to update her on the geographical area. “Yeah, Spence.” Her voice always managed to calm his nerves.

“Hotch and Rossi figured out the geographical centre of the killings. It’s a building complex, a lot of them single room occupancy. High turnover rate.”

“So he’s transient?”

“Yeah. You got any theories?”

“Right now, my best guess is a traumatic event triggered the psychosis, probably violent in nature. But until we know who our victims are, no clue what it could be. Where are you guys headed?”

“To our next victim’s house.”

“House?”

“Yeah, the unsub visited the house of the 8th victim.”

“So he’s getting bolder.”

“Yeah, Derek’s trying to get a hold of the detective. Are you not at the precinct?”

“Nah, I got hungry. I’m getting churros. You need me?”

Always, he thought. “I’ll call you if we do.”

“Okay. Be safe.” Derek made a motion cutting his hand across his neck.

“Hey, Pipes, stay on the call, I’m gonna put you on speaker.”

“Okie doke.” Piper paid for the churro she was waiting for and stood by the bike. 

“So we finally found the link between victims,” Derek said, switching off his cell. “All gangbangers. Guy named Glen Hill. Street name is Reaper. No survivors. 6 dead, 4 inside, 2 outside. Hill’s still missing.”

“So he’s devolving,” Reid noted. “We should ask Garcia to look at recent gang violence in LA. This amount of overkill isn’t just for cleaning up the streets. 

“Like Batman?”

“Like who?” Derek’s voice went up an octave.

“You know. Batman. Gangbanger kills his dad. He becomes the Batman and starts putting away criminals using... does no-one here watch movies?”

“No, Pipes, we just generally call unsubs professional archetypes.”

“Please, Batman is a vigilante, same thing. Don’t ruin this for me, Derek. Bye. Be safe.”

^-^

Piper sat, perched on a desk next to Spencer as she watched Morgan and the officers bring in John McHale. “It’s funny how average they all look.”

“You were right though.” She scoffed.

“PTSD can be a bitch.” She carded a hand through her hair. 

“At least you get to go on leave once we get back.”

“It’s only 2 weeks and I’ll be in DC the whole time. Just please call me so I don’t go completely crazy.”

“Promise.” Piper held out her pinky and Spencer laughed. “Really?” He wrapped his pinky around hers. “Promise.”

“Good. If you break it, I have the right to take that pinky.”

“On whose authority, may I ask?”

“Garcia’s. You can fight with her over the solemnity of pinky promises all day. Just let me know beforehand so I can make popcorn.” She stopped laughing as Hotch, Rossi and Emily walked in with half a dozen boxes. “You guys find the weapon?”

“Didn’t need to. Mr McHale is a very sick young man.”

“I mean his girlfriend was raped by a gang in front of him. I wouldn’t want to survive that. Can’t even imagine what he’s going through,” Piper said softly, looking through the boxes to see detailed replications of the crime scenes in art.

“He killed 8 men,” Brady argued.

“While in psychosis,” Hotch defended. “It doesn’t forgive him, but it’s a mitigating factor.”

“He’s still in it. He probably doesn’t even know what he’s done,” Piper told Hotch, “You’re gonna have to shake him pretty hard right?”

“Yeah, Bishop, you’ve dealt with PTSD patients. Any input?”

“Nothing you probably don’t already know. It’ll probably turn ugly, but mounting pressure’s the way to go. Multiple people, surround him, suffocate him with questions until his mental block breaks. Only way to deal with the psychosis.”

“You’re suggesting we emotionally break him?” Emily asked, shocked at her response.

“No. I’m suggesting you emotionally overwhelm him. He will get violent though. Once he breaks, use the smoothest voice you’ve got, Rossi.”

“How smooth?”

“Elvis Presley smooth.”

“Don’t mention his name to me. Reminds me of my third wife,” he muttered, making Hotch smile as they went into the interrogation room.

“You have any idea what weapon he used?” JJ asked Reid.

“Well, to cut that cleanly, it’s thin but strong, not like a rapier,” Piper started. “Maybe a short sword but those are hard to find in LA and a straight blade isn’t any good. Straight blades are better used for sparring and rapiers can be flimsy, like fencing swords. The best choice would be something like a katana or a scimitar. Their slightly curved which gives a better angle. Plus, scimitars are often sold in pairs which is probably why the crimes were so brutal. Hard to fight against one, never mind both.”

“I don’t wanna know why you know that.” JJ patted Piper’s shoulder and walked off. Piper stared at the drawings. 

“He’s really talented, despite the whole gory part of it. I might’ve even read it if I found it in a library. Be a little horrified but then put it away. How do you put reality away?”

“I think Garcia reads his books.”

“Yeah, what’s it called?”

“Blue.”

“Maybe I’ll get a copy for my mantle.”

“Your what?”

“Hmm? I found his phone, look.” She passed it to Reid absentmindedly. “The more we delve, the badder I feel for this guy.” Spencer stared at her turning the phone over in his gloved hand. Only she would feel this bad for a guy that murdered over a dozen gangbangers. Smiling softly, Reid opened McHale’s phone.

“He’s called the same number 11 times in the past week.”

“Try it. Maybe they can tell us something.” He dialled the number and held it out between them. Piper’s head swivelled towards the ringtone blaring from another box. “This is Vickie’s phone. The girlfriend. Jesus. He doesn’t even know she’s-”

“It’s severer than we thought.”

“Yeah, well. This evidence is all catalogued and LAPD’s all over it so...” Piper paused, drumming her hands on a box. “There’s a comic-book store a block away. You in?” Spencer nodded, smiling.

^-^

Piper stared out the window, seated in front of Hotch who was trying to dial someone, probably Haley. She knew better than to ask. Spencer sat adjacent to her, flipping through the comic Piper’d bought. “That his comic book?”

“Yeah, it’s called Blue.” Piper turned her head at the sound of his voice. 

“It's about a girl who thinks she's a real human being, right? But it turns out she's a robot that was built by her uncle.”

“So it’s Pinocchio?” 

“Yeah, it is like Pinocchio, only, uh, set in a high school in outer space.” 

“Oh, by the way, what happened to vickie's phone?” 

“Phone?” 

“The one that Johnny kept calling, with her message on it?” 

“Oh, we gave them both back to him. You know, I couldn't imagine having nothing left of someone but a voice message. I think I'd never stop listening to it.” 

“Yeah, it's sad. Hey, did you know that Carlo Lorenzini, the guy that wrote Pinocchio, was said to be obsessed with the human nose? As a matter of fact, Pinocchio wasn't even the first character--”

“- interesting. Coffee?” 

“I'm all right. Thank you, though, for asking.” Piper moved into JJ’s original seat to talk to him.

“Do you think it’s weird I knew all that stuff about swords?”

“Nah, we read a lot. Those guys don’t. I’m not sure Derek know what a book is.”

“Oh, he’d read just as much as you if he thought it would help him get a girl.”

“Why’d you ask?”

“Something Drew did a while ago. Kinda stuck with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“He...he hung up on me when I was talking to him about samurais. I dunno, it’s probably nothing right?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Right.” Piper leaned back. “Derek said the weirdest thing yesterday. Asked me for advice about a girl. Said they were good friends but he wanted more. Did he mention anything to you?”

“Uhh... Yeah. No, yeah he did. A umm...childhood friend right?”

“Right. Well, if you know, then it’s cool. It just doesn’t seem like him.”

“What did you say?”

“I said so long as you don’t work with her professionally, what’s the harm? If anything, keeping it in might make the relationship worse.” Piper suddenly got up and returned to her seat, gazing out the window, knuckles resting on her chin.

[the-desolated-quill]

Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2019

Congratulations! You’ve made it through another year! You’ve faced many obstacles and overcome many adversaries to arrive here, at the dawn of a new decade. So as we prepare to leave the 2010s and make our way into the 2020s, lets take a look back at the challenges and hardships of 2019. And by challenges and hardships, I of course mean shitty fiction and media.

Yes, it’s time for yet another edition of Quill’s Swill, where we mark the absolute worst stories that the industry had to offer over the past year and proceed to tear them to shreds. Think of it as like voiding your bowels before the New Year.

As always remember that this is my personal, subjective opinion. If you happen to like any of the things on this list, that’s fine. More power to you. Go make your own list. Also bear in mind I haven’t seen everything 2019 has to offer due to various other commitments. So as much as I really, really want to, I can’t put Avengers Endgame on here. I know what happens. It sounds fucking terrible, but I haven’t seen the film, so it wouldn’t be fair of me to put it on the list, even though it would most definitely deserve it.

...

Seriously, read the synopsis of Endgame on Wikipedia some time. It’s like fanfic written by a nine year old. It’s truly shocking. And now it’s the highest grossing movie of all time? Give me strength.

All In A Row

Don’t you just hate it when you’re expected to parent your autistic child? Like actually show love and care and consideration to your offspring. Look at him, expecting you to treat him like a human being. Selfish bastard! If only there was a play that explored the horrors of having to be a decent person to your own flesh and blood and how objectively awful it is. If you’re one of those people, then the play All In A Row will be right up your street.

Premiering on the 14th February at Southwark Playhouse in London, All In A Row was a total shitshow to say the least. The playwright, Alex Oates, claimed to have ten years of experience working with autistic children, which you wouldn’t have believed if you saw the play as the autistic child at the centre of the play, Lawrence, seemed more like a wild animal than a person. In fact two of the main characters compare him to a dog. And if you thought this wasn’t dehumanising enough, Lawrence isn’t even a child. He’s a puppet. Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.

All In A Row seems to place all of the blame for the family’s predicament on the autistic child, who’s presented as barely functional, bordering on bestial. There’s no effort to really make an emotional connection with Lawrence (how can you? He’s a puppet!) as the play instead focuses on how this kid has effectively ruined this family’s life because of his autism and aggressive behaviour. Speaking as someone on the autism spectrum, I can say quite confidently that this play is fucking despicable. Badly written, badly conceived, insulting and downright mean spirited. I wouldn’t want Oates looking after my autistic children, that’s for damn sure.

Anthem

EA is back and this time they’re dragging the critical darling that is BioWare down with them.

Anthem was a desperate attempt to jump aboard the ‘live service’ bandwagon, trying to replicate the success of other video games like Overwatch, Destiny and Warframe. They failed spectacularly. The game itself had more bugs than A Bug’s Life, loot drops were often stingy and unrewarding, loading times were farcically long, and the story and worldbuilding was fucking pitiful. Oh yeah, and if you played it on PS4, there was a good chance it could permanently damage it. Thankfully I have a uni friend with an Xbox One and they allowed me to play the game on that. It was a crushing disappointment, especially coming fresh off the heels of Mass Effect Andromeda, which didn’t exactly set the world on fire back in 2017.

It didn’t help that EA’s reputation was in tatters thanks to the lootbox controversy of Star Wars Battlefront II and having to try and win back the trust of fans, but worse still reports began to service of what went on behind the scenes at BioWare during the game’s development. Apparently the game’s story and mechanics kept changing every other day as the creative directors and writers didn’t have the faintest idea what kind of game they wanted to make, and the developers were often forced to work obscenely long work hours in abusive crunch periods to get the game finished for launch. It got so bad that, according to an article on Kotaku, some members of the team had to leave for weeks or even months at a time to recover from ‘stress casualties.’ 

To think this was the same company that gave us Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Knights Of The Old Republic. Thank God that Obsidian Entertainment is there to pick up the slack on the RPG front because I think it’s safe to assume that BioWare won’t be around for much longer at this rate.

The Lion King (2019 remake)

Here we go. Yet another live action remake of a Disney classic. Excpet it’s not live action, is it? Well... it’s live action in the sense that Dinosaur was live action (remember that film? Don’t worry if you don’t. No one does). Real locations but CGI characters. Millions of dollars spent on cutting edge tech to create photo realistic animals... and the film ends up duller than a bowl of porridge that really likes trainspotting.

It’s not just the fact that The Lion King remake is yet another soulless cash grab from the House of Mouse, it’s also the fact that it’s done really badly that upsets me. The Lion King works as an animated film. Bright colourful images, over the top song and dance sequences and vibrant character designs. As a ‘live action’ film, it just looks awkward and stilted. None of the animals are very expressive, leaving it up to the poor voice actors to carry the film, and to cap it all off the CGI isn’t even all that convincing in my opinion. At no point did I look at Simba and go ‘oh yeah, he looks like a real lion.’ It’s so obviously fake. In fact it reminds me of those early 00s movies like Cats & Dogs or Stuart Little where you see the jaws of the talking animals moving up and down like some messed up ventriloquist act or something. And here’s me thinking cinema has evolved past this.

BBC’s The War Of The Worlds

Remember Peter Harness? That guy who wrote that Doctor Who episode about the moon being an egg? Yeah, he’s back and he’s doing an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds. And guess what! It’s fucking ghastly! :D

The three part BBC mini-series was without a doubt some of the worst telly I think I’ve ever seen. It’s staggering how clueless Harness is as a writer. For starters he managed to achieve the impossible and somehow made a Martian invasion of Earth boring. I didn’t even think it was possible, but somehow he pulled it off. Then he sucks all tension out of the story by revealing the ultimate fate of the Martians at the beginning of the second episode, so now any threat or danger has been chucked out of the window because we know that the main female protagonist Amy at least would survive. And then finally he takes a massive dump over the source material by having humanity weaponise typhoid to kill the red weed rather than just having the Martians die of the common cold like in the book. Because God forbid us Brits should be presented as anything other than heroic and dignified.

So what we’re left with is a poorly realised allegory with ineffectual horror tropes full of OTT progressive posturing in a pathetic attempt to make Harness and the BBC look more liberal than they actually are. There’s no effort to really explore the themes of imperialism and colonialism outside of casual lip service, and we barely get a glimpse of the dark side of humanity. Everyone is presented as flawed, but basically awesome or, in the case of Rafe Spall’s character, utterly gormless. Our TV license fees help fund this shit, you know?!

And if you think this was bad, just wait till New Year’s Day where we’ll get to see Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ butcher Dracula. Can we stop giving these beloved literary icons to these hacks please?

Glass

I liked Split. It wasn’t an amazing movie, but it was entertaining with some good ideas, a great performance from James McAvoy and was a true return to form for M Night Shyamalan. That being said, I wasn’t keen on the idea of it taking place in the same universe as Unbreakable. I feared it would be a step too far and we’d end up having something like... well, something like Glass.

On paper, Glass isn’t a bad idea. The idea of superpowers being a delusion is legitimately intriguing and could have been a great post-modern deconstruction of the superhero genre. Except Shyamalan never actually does anything with it. The first act drags on and on with absolutely nothing happening, none of the characters really grow or change over the course of the film, Bruce Willis in particular is basically only here for an extended cameo as his character does pretty much nothing for the majority of the film, and then the entire film is undermined by that stupid Shyamalan twist. Turns out superhumans are real and there’s a big cover up. Oh great! So not only does it render the entire film pointless, it also undoes what made Unbreakable and Split so good. They’re no longer people capable of extraordinary feats via rational means. They’re just superhuman. They can do anything. Sigh.

Shyamalan... maybe it’s time to give up the director’s chair, yeah?

Cats

Oh come on! Don’t act surprised! Did you honestly think I wouldn’t put Cats on this list?!

Cats, without a doubt, is the worst film of the decade and, yes, the CGI is terrible. Not only are there these sub-human cat mutants running around, we also have mice and cockroaches with child faces, James Corden coughing up furballs, Taylor Swift trying to give the furries in the audience boners, Idris Elba looking disturbingly underdressed and Rebel Wilson being... well... Rebel Wilson. It’s a disaster of a film. And really, should we even be surprised? We all knew this was going to suck. And no it’s not because of the CGI. I thought the CGI in Pokemon: Detective Pikachu was creepy as well, but at least it had a decent script and good performances to back it up. No the reason why Cats sucked is because... it’s Cats. It’s always been that bad. No amount of ‘advanced fur technology’ was going to change that. It was still going to be a confused, plotless mess with one dimensional characters and bad songs.

The only consolation I had was that I didn’t waste money buying a ticket. A friend of mine snuck me into the premiere and we watched it in the projector room. The plan was to make fun of it and have a laugh, but we didn’t even do that because honestly there’s nothing to really make fun. There’s only so many times you can take the piss out of the CGI and honestly the film was just boring more than anything else. It doesn’t even have the distinction of being so bad it’s good like Sharknado or Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. It’s just bad, period.

I just hope we don’t see something similar happen to Starlight Express. Just think. Anthropomorphic, singing trains on roller skates. Shudder.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

Finally we have yet another cynical cash grab from Disney.

I confess I didn’t exactly go into The Rise Of Skywalker with an open mind. I was never all that keen on a sequel trilogy in the first place, and neither The Force Awakens nor The Last Jedi ever convinced me otherwise. Admittedly they weren’t bad movies. Just derivative and painfully uninspired, and I was expecting more of the same for Episode IX. What I got instead was quite possibly the worst Star Wars film since Attack Of The Clones. Yes, it’s that bad.

This film is very poorly made, filled with plot contrivances and logic holes galore. I lost count of the number of times the protagonists got into a dangerous situation because of Rey constantly wandering off like a confused toddler lost in a shopping mall. Oh and we finally find out who her parents were and it was quite a twist, but only because it was really stupid. Of course we didn’t see it coming because nobody would have guessed it would be something that moronic. I feel JJ Abrams’ stupid ‘mystery box’ philosophy is to blame for this. It’s derailed countless franchises before such as Lost and Cloverfield, and now Abrams has fucked up Star Wars because he’s obsessed with mystery for the sake of mystery and Disney are so lazy that they couldn’t be bothered to plan an actual trilogy out properly beforehand. Instead they just wing it, making it up as they go along, which led to Rian Johnson ‘subverting our expectations’ and left Abrams desperately trying to pick up the pieces. 

In fact a lot of The Rise Of Skywalker seemed designed specifically to appease people of both sides of the wide chasm The Last Jedi had created. The roles of characters of colour like Finn and Rose were significantly reduced, Poe and Finn don’t end up together because of homophobia, but we do see two women kiss in the background of one two second shot that could easily be cut out when they release the film in China, Kylo Ren gets his stupid redemption even though he hasn’t fucking earned it, Lando Calrissian shows up for no fucking reason, Rey is given ‘flaws’ relating to her parentage in order to combat those accusing her of being a Mary Sue, but they’re the boring kind of flaws that don’t have any real impact on her character, and that ghastly ship Reylo is made canon even though it makes no sodding sense in the context of this movie, let alone the whole trilogy. They even go to the trouble of baiting us with a FinnRey romance before pulling the rug out from under us. Then, just to add insult to injury, the film retroactively ends up making the entire original trilogy completely pointless. All because Disney wanted more dollars to put in their Scrooge McDuck money bin.

The Rise Of Skywalker, and indeed the entire sequel trilogy, should serve as a cautionary tale against the dangers of hype and nostalgia. The reason The Force Awakens was successful wasn’t because it was a good movie (because lets be brutally honest here, it really fucking wasn’t). It was because it gave gullible Star Wars fans warm fuzzies because it reminded them of A New Hope whilst tempting them with the vague promise that things might get more interesting later on. And when that didn’t materialise, quelle surprise, the fanbase didn’t take it very well. I would love to think that this will serve as an important lesson for the future when people go and see Disney movies, but who am I kidding? I guarantee at some point we’re going to get Episodes X, XI and XII and we’ll have to go through this sorry process all over again.

So there we have it. The worst of 2019. May they rot forever in Satan’s rectum or wherever it is stories go to die. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the other end of the spectrum. Yes it’s the Quill Seal Of Approval Awards! The best of the best! Who shall win? The suspense is killing me! Ooooh, I can’t wait! You’ll be there tomorrow, won’t you? Of course you will. How could you not?

[iihappydaysii]

title: eudaimonia 

rated: e (tags and warnings on ao3)

jamie/john

summary: To protect baby William, Jamie and Lord John run away with the child to raise him—in the year 2020. The more time they spend together in this new and unusual world, the harder it is for both of them to ignore their growing and changing feelings for one another.

chapter one 

. . .

Lord John Grey’s heart had gotten him into trouble more than once or twice in his life. It was, as both his mother and his brother, Hal, oft reminded him, his greatest weakness. Never had that notion been so self-evident as it were tonight with John on the run, having absconded with a Scottish prisoner and—what was legally speaking—the son of an Earl.

Despite it occurring in hushed tones under a shroud of darkness, it had all happened so fast. The scene had unfolded before him like the smoke, blood and gunshot of battle.

“I need your help, please,” Jamie had said, with an air of desperation John had yet to hear come from the man. Even at Ardsmuir, even under threat of torture... There is nothing you can do to me that has not already been done.

John wished he could say it took actually took Jamie’s additional explanation and plea. If he were honest, it had not. As soon as Jamie Fraser was stood on his doorstep, looking so much like he needed John, he was finished. He’d have cut the world down and laid it at the Scot’s feet had he’d asked for it.

Instead, Jamie had asked for this. Help hiding his son. His son, Jamie’s, not the Earl’s. Neither the family nor the Earl wanted the bastard son of a Jacobite. With the boy’s mother dead and now the Earl, there was nothing to stop the Lord and Lady. Jamie had overheard them whispering of a plan to drown the child and be done with it.

So, now, Jamie had once again found himself at odds with the law and with the crown. He’d be hunted not only for the child he’d taken, but for the Earl he’d murdered. Jamie must have grown accustomed to being a fugitive with all the experience he’d had in the field. Yet, this was all new to Lord John Grey.

“The bairn won’t stop crying.” Jamie stepped over a moss-grown boulder, bringing John from his thoughts back to their current predicament.

“I believe that’s what they do,” John replied, through heavy breaths. They’d been walking for miles now, in God knows what direction.

“He’s hungry. He’s never fed.”

John looked at Jamie, who was looking back at him, like maybe he had answers. He hadn’t. Well, at least, he hadn’t any grand plan to rescue them all from this disaster.

“We should a least give the baby water,” John said. “I think I heard a stream nearby.” Adults, at least, could last longer without food than water. A little water seemed better than nothing, though far from ideal.

With the baby still wailing, they slid down a muddy hill in their boots and stumbled forward toward a blue brook streaming its way over dull rocks washed in moonlight.

“How can we…?” Jamie voiced.

John dug his teeth into his bottom lip as he thought. He wasn’t sure what had prompted him, but he knelt down by the brook and dipped his finger into the cool water. “Bring the baby here, Jamie. Please.”

A few moments later, Jamie knelt down beside John. Now the moonlight was cascading over his reddish mane. In another time and place, it would’ve been serene, seeing Jamie looking like that, natural, as if he’d grown out of the ground like a tree root.

Unsure if it was even a good idea, John pressed a wet finger to the babe’s small lips. It took a moment, but then he started to suckle. Both he and Jamie remained silent, watching, as the boy went on. When the babe whimpered and pulled away, John returned his finger to the water and repeated the process.

“The water’s an improvement, but he will need to eat soon.”

“Aye. There may be a farm somewhere along the way. We could take some milk from one of the cows or goats.”

John stood from where he’d been crouched by the river. Every muscle in his body ached. He could barely remember ever being this tired, though he knew it always felt like that when you’d reached this point of exhaustion. “We keep walking then, until we find something.”

Jamie nodded, but then frowned. “It won’t sustain him for long. Back in Scotland, I’ve seen what happens to wee bairns when their mothers didn’t produce milk and there was no woman to take her place. Most didn’t last long on sheep’s milk.”

John wished there were words of comfort to give this man, who’d stirred up the parts of his heart he’d long believed dead. This man who’d lost too much, who did not deserve to lose anything else. John wanted to reach out and offer him the comfort of his touch, but it wouldn’t be a comfort to Jamie. It hurt to know that no matter how deep John’s feelings ran that his arms could not give Jamie even a taste of the peace he so richly deserved.

“I’m so sorry, Jamie. We can go back. Where Lady Dunsany can find him a suitable wet nurse. I know that will mean consequences for us both, but the child—”

“No! I’ll not take him back there where at best he’ll be unwanted and at worst, he’ll end up dead. I can’t. I…” Jamie’s voice trailed off and long pause followed before he spoke again. “Do you trust me?”

“I… yes. Of course.”

“Hold the bairn for me.”

Jamie carefully laid his child in John arms and the babe squirmed up against John’s chest as if to seek out his warmth. It made a small smile flicker across his face. This child was so impossibly small, with the tiniest fingers he’d ever seen.

Jamie pulled out a knife and stomped over to the nearest tree. Muttering strange words under his breath, Jamie began to carve runes of some kind into the bark of the tree.

“What are you doing?” John whispered, a sudden shiver rolling up his spine. It was unsettling enough out here in the dark woods, and Jamie’s sudden strange behavior only made it worse.

“Quiet,” Jamie demanded harshly, before returning to his whispered language that could’ve been mistaken for Gaelic, but John was somehow certain it wasn’t. At least, not exactly.

He kept on and on, then finally Jamie threw his knife down. “Goddammit. Of course... I was a fool to even try.”

It was unclear what Jamie had been intending to do, but whatever it was, it had not seemed to work.

John asked quietly, “Jamie… what were you—“

“Is the bairn asleep?” His voice was soft like goose-down but sad too.

John looked down at the bundle in his arms. The baby’s eyes were shut, his bottom lip fluttering from breaths. John nodded.

“Then, we sleep for a few hours and when he wakes, we go in search of a goat.”

“But Jamie—“

“If you want to leave…” There was a bite to his words, but then Jamie let out a breath and the softness in his voice returned, “I shouldn’t have asked for your help. It was unfair of me to put you in this position.”

John shut his eyes and swallowed. Maybe he should take Jamie up on his offer. Leave and try to salvage what little may be left of his reputation—he’d clawed his way tooth and nail back from exile before—but the baby was just sleeping so soundly, tucked into the turn of his elbow.

“You’re right. Let’s rest here,” John said.

Together, they worked to kick up a nest of leaves, dry and soft enough to lay down in. It was cold out, the temperature dropping steadily and the air was lapping up against their skin with a bitter mist. They could set a fire, for the warmth, but they were both wanted men. Those that were looking for them could be drawn in by the smoke.

Jamie laid down in their constructed nest and John stood there, cradling the babe and staring down at him.

“What’re ye waiting for’?” Jamie grumbled.

Those words broke John of his reverie and he nestled down on the ground beside Jamie. It wasn’t easy, with the baby in his arms, but he managed to lie on his back, with Jamie on his side, looking in his direction.

Taking in a shaky breath, John laid the baby comfortably against his chest. He looked so small and perfect, this minuscule fragment of Jamie Fraser, so helpless, but with no idea that all he had in the world were two troubled... criminals with only the faintest idea of how keep him alive.

“I can take him, if ye would like,” Jamie said.

“I don’t mind,” John replied. “It could wake him and it might be best not to.”

Jamie nodded, a small, tired smile growing on his face before sweeping away.

As they laid there in the dark with nothing to hear but the bugs and their soft breaths, John just held the babe closer, nestling his face against the top of the bundle, until the world winked out around him.

“Rise and shine, sleepyheads!”

The sound of a woman’s voice roused John from his sleep. It took him a bleary moment to realize again where he was. In the woods. With Jamie and his baby. On the run.

“Jamie.” It was the woman’s voice again, which he only now noticed was flat, a bit harsh. An accent unlike any he’d heard. And this woman was calling Jamie by his real name, not the false identity he’d been using at Helwater. “I swear to God.”

“What? What!” Jamie popped up beside John. “Zoe. You’re here” Jamie stood up. “I dinna think the summoning had worked.”

Summoning? That’s what Jamie had been doing last night. John sat up now too, eyes slowly clearing from sleep. The baby breathed warmly against his neck.

“Jesus Christ, Jamie. Did you kidnap a British officer?”

Kidnap?

“No. No, of course not.”

“What ‘of course not’?!” Zoe—odd name—replied. “That sounds exactly like something you would do.”

“Aye, but I dinna. He is here of his own free will.”

Zoe appraised John, like she was taking him in and asking him a question all at the same time. And it was only in this moment that John realized how she was dressed. Tight, blue trousers constructed of an unknown material and an odd, soft-looking black shirt with the words “Star Wars” somehow printed across them. John had never seen anything remotely like it in his life.

John nodded, though, because he was—somehow—here of his own free will.

“Is that a—?” Zoe’s eyes grew wide. “Holy shit. Where the hell did you get a baby?”

“He’s mine,” Jamie replied. “It’s a long story though, and we don’t have time. He hasn’t eaten.”

“Where’s his mom?”

Jamie looked down. “She’s dead. Her husband and parents, they don’t want the child. Her husband tried to kill the baby, so I… stopped him.”

“Stopped him?”

“He’s dead too.”

Zoe linked her fingers together and placed her hands atop her head as she let out a breath. “Christ, Fraser. You really do manage to fuck up your whole life a god-awful lot, you know that?”

It was not only this woman’s accent and her dress that left John confused. It was the way she spoke English, recognizable but with a host of incomprehensible words and phrases thrown in.

“Can ye help us?” Jamie asked.

Zoe dropped her hands. “How long ago was the baby born?”

“Twenty-four hours at least,” John finally spoke up.

Zoe nodded. “Shit. The poor thing.” She walked up to John and knelt down in front of him, looking down at the baby’s face. He’d just opened his bright blue eyes. “No need to worry now, sport. Aunt Zoe’s here to clean up of your daddy’s mess. She’s gotten very good at it.” She stood back up and pulled a bundle of twine out of her pocket.

“Stand up,” she ordered, then pointed at John. “Is this one coming? What’s your name, anyway?”

“Lord John Grey,” he replied.

“A Lord, Jamie? For Christsake.”

“Coming where?” John replied.

Jamie spoke up, “Zoe, you cannot honestly mean to—”

“I do,” she interrupted. “You two geniuses are on the run. Probably good candidates for a hanging, at least you Jamie. I’m not sure how complicit that extra from the off-broadway cast of Hamilton is in all your bullshit, but—”

“I don’t entirely ken your meaning,” Jamie said. “But John attacked and wounded several of the men trying to apprehend me.”

“I can’t go back,” John said, hit by a sudden sinking feeling.

“Well, alright then, buckle-up buttercup.” With that, Zoe took the string and tied it around her wrist with a knot, then she attached the string to Jamie’s wrist, placing a blue gemstone in his hand. Then, she ran the twine behind his back before tying it to the other. She took John’s wrist, placed a gemstone in his hand, and did the same with the twine, connecting Jamie to John.

“What’s the meaning of this?” John asked, his heart pounding unexpectedly.

Zoe ignored him, but Jamie replied, “You can stay here. You may be able to explain yourself.”

Explain that I attacked my fellow Englishmen for the sake of a Scottish prisoner and his illegitimate child? It wouldn’t do.

With a sigh, John adjusted the boy to be in his other hand, then held his untied wrist out to Zoe. She tied the twine on, then tucked another gemstone into the baby’s wrappings. She finished connecting the twine onto her own wrist, completing a circle.

Zoe looked at John. “Hold the baby tight, alright?”

He nodded and swallowed, looking to Jamie for reassurance. He felt he should’ve passed the child onto his father, but for some reason he didn’t want to let go. Jamie nodded back at him.

Zoe’s voice shifted, leaving English behind for the same strange dialect Jamie had been muttering last night, though the words were spoken with a strong assurance. It was clear whatever this language was she was fluent in it, where Jamie had simply memorized the tones.

A twig lifted from the earth untouched and begin to scratch runes into the circle of dirt between them. He was speechless. He was not the type to believe in magic, but how could he ignore the witness of his own eyes. As the scene carried on before him, the runes began to light as embers and the world started to fade like soot being washed off his hands. All he could do was cling tight to Jamie’s child and pray his loss of sense wouldn’t put the baby in jeopardy.

And, then, as if he’d never been in those cold woods at all, John was warm all over and he, and Zoe, and the child and Jamie—thank God— stood in a place unlike any he’d ever seen before.

[mackinmacki]

In My Neck of the Woods

Rating: K+

Word Count: 4886

Summary: Ruby thinks it's a good idea to take Weiss camping with herself, Yang, and Blake. She was mistaken.

Pairing: White Rose

Notes: This is day one of White Rose Week. First prompt: First.

Link: (FFN) | (AO3)

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"Aren't you excited?" Ruby bounced up and down in her seat, grinning from ear to ear. She was clearly excited. Weiss, who was sitting still with her arms crossed, didn't seem to be sharing her enthusiasm. "C'mon Weiss, it's your first time camping! You could at least be a little bit excited." Weiss sighed, slowly unfolding her arms. She loved Ruby to death, but sometimes she could really oversell the situation. This was a prime example.

"I've told you already that I've been camping before. My family took me several times when I was younger." Admittedly, it had been nearly a decade since she'd last gone camping, but that didn't mean she'd never gone. Saying she was a complete novice was certainly overreaching. Just because it had been awhile since her last venture into the woods didn't mean she needed to be as hyperactive about it as Ruby was. It wasn't even that fun for her back then, honestly. She had only agreed to go because it made Ruby happy. Ugh, she could hear Yang making a 'whipping' sound in her mind right now.

"Weiss, that was glamping, not camping." Blake spoke up from behind the wheel, a hand on Yang's knee as she drove the four of them to the campgrounds. "Your family took you to the woods, yes, but you were in a fully-stocked portable home with air conditioning and beds. That's like saying living in a house next to the woods is camping. You've never actually experienced the wilderness in your entire life." Between Ruby's high-pitched excitement and Weiss's stubborn attitude, she was already starting to get a headache. She'd known what she was getting into when she'd agreed to do this, though. There was no one to blame but herself.

"That's not a real word, Blake. Besides, that is camping! What else would you call sleeping out in the woods, staring at the stars through the visor in the ceiling? Don't be ridiculous." She paused when she heard Yang laughing, turning her indignant attention to the passenger seat. "And just what is so funny?" Now Ruby was laughing, and she couldn't figure out which of the two sisters she should be glaring at. How could they sit there and make fun of her camping experiences? She hadn't expected them to be so elitist.

"You can't be serious, Weiss. That's not camping!" Yang could barely get the words out because she was laughing so hard. Weiss puffed out her cheeks, which made Ruby poke them with a giggle. "Real camping involves staying in a tent with a sleeping bag, not a comfy bed. You sit around a fire and roast marshmallows, telling ghost stories and watching the stars from above the treetops. Sounds nothing like what your family did, right?" Hearing Yang's words made Weiss's face fall. Her eyes slowly widened as she stared at her in increasing horror.

"What... That's camping?" She gaped at Yang, then turned towards Ruby so fast her neck cracked. "Tell me she's lying." Ruby just shook her head, smiling sheepishly. "Are you serious?! We're going to be spending the weekend in a tiny tent like homeless people?!" Yang busted out laughing again while Blake glared at her through the rearview mirror. "Why didn't you tell me this was what you meant, Ruby?!"

"I thought you knew what I meant!" Ruby had known that Weiss's camping experience wasn't exactly typical, but that was why she'd been saying it was Weiss's first time camping. Her first real camping trip. She'd had no idea that Weiss didn't know that was atypical. It'd just seemed obvious. Everyone knew what camping was, right? Apparently not, as it turned out. "It's okay, though. It'll be fun! A weekend in the woods with your best friends!" She spread her arms as wide as she could in the car, smiling brightly. "What do you think about that?"

"I think I'm going to die." Weiss groaned and laid her head back against the seat. She should've known something was wrong when Ruby was packing sleeping bags for them. It should've raised some sort of an alarm, but she'd stopped questioning her partner's eccentricities awhile ago. That would turn out to be costly this time. She closed her eyes and tried to astral project herself somewhere with an actual roof. A weekend in the woods with all sorts of insects ready to take bites out of her skin, woodland creatures wanting to do more than that, and worse of all: Blake and Yang, who'd proven that they couldn't keep their hands off each other for more than five minutes. This was going to be hell.

When they got to the campsite, Blake parked the car and everyone started getting to work. Ruby and Yang pulled out the tents and started to nail them down to the ground. Blake got their supply of food and drinks out of the trunk and started hauling it over near where they were going to start a fire that night. As for Weiss, she hovered around Ruby and asked a variety of paranoid, ridiculous questions.

"What are we supposed to do if we get attacked by a bear? Did you bring enough bug spray for the entire weekend? What about sunscreen? Are there snakes in these woods? There's no Wi-Fi and I can't check which snakes are venomous. Where are we supposed to use the restroom? You don't expect me to go in the woods like some kind of a barbarian, do you?" Ruby exhaled deeply, hammering in a pike with a look of increased annoyance. Across from her, Yang was shaking so hard from keeping her laughter in, the tent kept threatening to come down when she held it. She loved her partner, though. She really, really did. That didn't make her any easier to deal with when she was like this, though. 'This' being so very... Weiss-like.

"There are no bears. We have enough bug spray. We have sunscreen too. There are no snakes either, so you don't have to check how poisonous they are-" "Venomous," Weiss quickly chipped in. Ruby chose to ignore that. "And no, I don't expect you to pee in the forest. There's an outhouse near here that we can use." For once, she didn't put any excitement into her answers. Normally she was happy to answer any questions Weiss had, but being bombarded by all those questions at once, along with her generally sour attitude for most of the ride there, had worn down Ruby's normally chipper mood. She figured that had answered everything properly, but she was incorrect.

"What did you say?" Ruby just turned and stared at her, unsure of what she'd said that Weiss was referring too. She'd answered what felt like a dozen questions without pause. "An outhouse? You expect me to go to the bathroom in an outhouse?" She was visibly shaking in distress. Weiss hated public restrooms. They were usually not taken care of well, and the thought of walking into one with coarse graffiti and shredded paper towels everywhere made her gag. An outhouse was even worse, though. It was the most public of public restrooms. Absolutely disgusting. She might as well use the woods for all the good it would do her!

"Sorry, I forgot to pack a toilet for us to use."

"The joke is not appreciated." Weiss huffed and stormed over to Blake, who had hoped that if she'd been quiet enough, she'd be able to avoid Hurricane Schnee. Nobody was safe from that unnatural disaster, though. "Blake, give me the keys. I'm driving home right now. This is ridiculous." Blake sighed and dropped down onto a large log that was next to their fire pit. She'd tried to tell Ruby that bringing Weiss outdoors was a bad idea. She'd even floated the idea of bringing Winter instead, since she was like a bigger Weiss. That kind of counted. Ruby was adamant that Weiss come with them, though, even after being warned that something like this would happen. She just had to go and fall in love with the ice queen, didn't she?

"Fine, fine." She put her hands in her pockets, feeling the keys in there. However, when her hands came out, they were empty. She knew this was probably going to bite her in the butt eventually, but the opportunity was too good to pass up. "Uh, they're not here."

"What?" Weiss stepped closer, hands on her hips as she glared at Blake. "This is no time for games, Blake. Give me the keys now."

"I don't have them, Weiss!" She did her best to sell the lie, looking a bit freaked out as she made a scene out of patting down her pants. "I must've dropped them somewhere." That did it. The annoyance on Weiss's face was quickly replaced by panic at the realization that their only way home was now lost somewhere. She whirled around and ran to the car, tugging on the handle of the front door. It was locked, though, and wouldn't give way to her. Not that she could do anything if it had. She didn't know how to hotwire a car.

"Get over here and help me!" She yelled at all three of them, dropping down to her knees in desperation to see if the keys had fallen beneath the car. Then she started crawling through the grass, trying to find a hint of silver or black that would reveal them to her. When she looked up, nobody had moved from their positions, which only frustrated her further. "Why are you just sitting there?! We're going to be stranded here forever! Girls!" Finally, after finishing setting up their first tent, Ruby stood up and headed over to her distressed snowflake.

"Please don't rile her up, Blake. I'm the one who has to calm her down," Ruby muttered as she passed by Blake, heading over to the car. She went down on her knees and started massaging Weiss's shoulders, whispering calming words in her ear. Eventually she was able to get Weiss back on her feet and over to the tent, an arm over her shoulder to keep her close. As they passed by Blake, Weiss stuck her tongue out at her. So Ruby told her the truth, then. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Ruby was actually able to corral Weiss into helping her set up the other tent, though she grumbled about it the entire time. It sort of made Ruby regret asking her to help, and that was compounded when she looked up and saw Blake and Yang making out by the fire pit. She really needed to remember to have those two separated whenever they were setting things up. Seeing Blake's tongue down her sister's throat wasn't her idea of a fun camping adventure.

When everything was finally set up, the four of them ventured into the woods for a nice, relaxing hike. They were going to appreciate nature, then bring back some firewood to light up that night. It was as relaxing a walk as possible when one of the participants was Weiss. She was as jittery as a caffeine addict, jumping backwards at any sudden movement. Whether it was something rustling in the bushes or an insect that had flown near her, Weiss clearly wasn't doing much appreciating of her surroundings. When she wasn't yelping like someone was attacking her, she spent a good deal of time complaining about anything and everything.

"I wish we had something to gag her with..." Blake muttered to Yang, getting close to ripping off her own ears. Weiss acted like they were keeping her there against her will. It wasn't their fault she had a warped view of what camping was.

"We could use my underwear-" Yang started, only to get cut off by Blake's 'It's time to stop' look. "Okay, okay, we can use your underwear." Blake just sighed. Sometimes...

Ruby, meanwhile, wasn't feeling so frustrated anymore. In fact, she felt a little guilty. She could tell that Weiss was struggling, and this was the only way she knew how to react to the situation. Instead of trying to force her to enjoy it like she did, or become extra chipper to try and drown out her pessimism, she just took Weiss's hand and held it tightly. She pulled Weiss close to her and walked in lockstep with her, falling a couple paces behind Blake and Yang so she could have Weiss to herself for a bit. Sort of.

"Hey, it's okay, Weiss. Nothing's going to happen to us out here." She made circles on the back of Weiss's hand with a finger, smiling reassuringly at her. "Dad took Yang and I camping plenty of times, and nothing bad ever happened to us. Besides, if there is any wildlife out here, I'll protect you from it." She giggled as Weiss rolled her eyes.

"I doubt you can do anything to protect me from bears, Ruby." Though she was still nervous about walking around in the forest like this, she felt a bit calmer with Ruby's warmth next to her. For whatever reason, Ruby had the ability to calm her down when nothing else could. It was one of the reasons she'd began to trust her when she refused to extend that courtesy to others. They weren't like Ruby: they couldn't even hope to get close. She was just special like that. "Are you sure we're not going to get lost in here?"

"Yup! Blake's got a compass and everything. She can point us back to camp." Blake gave a wave over her shoulder, acknowledging that she'd heard her name. That put Weiss further at ease, though she hadn't forgiven Blake yet for pulling that key prank on her. However, there wasn't too much to get mad about for the rest of their time in the forest. They were able to collect a good amount of firewood: mostly with Yang ripping branches off of trees with her bare hands. There was enough wood for everyone to carry a handful back, which Weiss made sure to grumble about. It was 'work for the help' and all that.

They set the wood down by the pit and relaxed for awhile while the sun was still up. Yang had brought a deck of cards, and the four of them sat in a tent to play poker. There wasn't any betting made: it was just for fun and to pass the time. Yang did suggest betting something, but the other three unanimously rejected playing strip poker. Things were pretty calm for the next couple of hours, all in all. There wasn't anything for even Weiss to complain about, which was a relief for all parties involved.

When the sun started to go down, Yang loaded the fire pit up with wood and put some lighter fluid on it. Then she struck a match and tossed it in, quickly getting a good flame going. "Alright girls, let's get this cookout started!" She went for the cooler and grabbed out a packet of hot dogs, opening the packaging while Blake grabbed four skewers. Then she put a hot dog on each skewer and handed them around so everyone could cook their own. While everyone else took theirs without complaint, Weiss stared at hers as if she'd been handed an alien device.

"You want me to put this in the fire?" Weiss stared at it some more, then turned her attention to the fire. It crackled and burned at degrees completely unsafe for human skin. A small ember popped out and landed near her feet, making her squeal and fall backwards off the log. Yang proceeded to laugh her ass off while Ruby hurried over to help her back up. Of course, she was laughing too, so the gallant gesture wasn't as appreciated. Weiss 'hmpf'ed and folded her arms. "I'll just eat it cold, then."

"I'm pretty sure you'll get salmonella or something." Ruby gently grabbed the skewer and pushed it away from Weiss's face. "Just put it in the fire for as long as I do, and take it out when I do. It'll be cooked to perfection." She gave Weiss a thumbs up, but only got a sour frown in return. Seeing her eyes glance towards the fire, she put two and two together. She leaned in and whispered, "The fire's not gonna hurt you, Weiss. You'll be okay."

"Hmpf." She didn't answer Ruby, but she did hold out her skewer and glanced over towards her partner. "Well?" Smiling, Ruby plopped down next to her and stuck her hot dog in the fire, with Weiss following suit. Both Blake and Yang sat down on the opposite log and did the same, and the four of them just waited for their food to be cooked. The entire time, Weiss had her eyes on Ruby, her hand twitching every time Ruby moved. Finally, she pulled out her hot dog, and Weiss yanked hers out right after her.

On the other side, Yang handed her skewer over to Blake so she could grab everyone drinks while the food cooled down. She and Blake had a beer, while Ruby had a soda and Weiss had water. Originally she'd asked for wine, but Yang claimed that it wasn't very 'camping friendly', whatever that meant. She would just stick with water, then. With their drinks, they also got buns for their hot dogs once they were cool enough to grab.

"Ooh, the sun's finally gone down!" Yang exclaimed happily, chomping down on the remainder of her hot dog. Well, her second hot dog, but who was counting? The four of them had been eating and chatting amicably as the sun set on them, but now the dark had finally spread into the woods. "It's time for ghost stories!" She clapped her hands together, excitedly looking around the campfire. Ruby was the only one who appeared to be excited. Blake usually didn't tip her hand when it came to her emotions, and Weiss just looked thoroughly uninterested. That just meant she needed to come up with something super scary to freak her out.

"Did you know this forest is actually haunted?" She grinned as she looked around the campfire, the fire casting her face in an eerie orange glow. "I chose this place exactly for that reason. They say that a group of guys drove by this campground in the winter time. It was cold, and the forest was blanketed in snow. Their car ran into a snowbank, but it would've been easy to push it out. They were more than capable." She halted her story, changing out her grin for a more somber, serious expression. "However, they didn't. Something compelled them to abandon their car and venture into the cold, unforgiving forest."

"They wandered in the woods for so long that two of them ended up falling to the ground from exhaustion and perished where they fell. The other three luckily found a cabin to stay in, and if we went deeper into the woods, we could even find it ourselves. This was only delaying the inevitable, though." Blake was already curled up next to Yang, taking in the spooky story pensively. Ruby actually appeared frightened by the story, leaning forward with her hands on her knees and taking in every word. Weiss found it hard to believe that anyone would actually be scared by something like this, but Ruby had helped her with her own forest troubles...

"They stayed in that cabin for months, but no matter how long they waited, nobody was coming to help. All the snow made it too difficult to get through the forest." Weiss reached over and took Ruby's hand, squeezing it tightly. Ruby looked over at her in surprise, then smiled and leaned against her side. It embarrassed Weiss somewhat, but she would allow it for tonight. "Eventually, one of them died on the lone bed, wrapped up in enough blankets that it was like he had turned into a cocoon."

"The other two set out on foot, but it wouldn't be long before one of them died. They found his bones just outside the cabin, along with an extra pair of shoes. The two who had died in the forest, and the dead guy in the cabin? They eventually found all their bones when the Spring thawed out the snow. The fifth guy, though? They never found him. No body, no bones, no nothing. He walked out of that cabin and disappeared, never to be seen again... except some campers still say they can hear his voice on the wind on some long, lonely nights. They even say they can hear his footsteps coming closer to their tents. Closer, closer... Until it vanishes into the dark. He still haunts these woods today, and he's not the only one..." She stopped talking, tilting her head as if listening for something. "Can you hear that? I think I hear something."

"No, I can't hear anything." Weiss bit down on her lip as Ruby clung onto her arm, squeezing the life out of it. "C'mon Ruby, let go! There's nothing out there!" She looked over at Yang with disapproval, then realized something was missing. Or rather, someone was missing. "Wait, where's Blake?" Yang just grinned at her, but said nothing more. "What the hell? Yang, where the hell is Blake-"

"Boo." A voice came from right next to her ear, making her scream and jump off of the log. She flew up and tripped over her own feet, screaming again as she fell backwards into the grass. Ruby, who had just been in the process of relinquishing Weiss's arm, squealed as she fell face-first into the grass. Groaning, Weiss jolted up, only to find that the 'ghostly presence' was none other than Blake. Yang, who had held back her laughter the entire time Blake had 'disappeared', couldn't contain herself anymore. She fell off the log and rolled around on the grass, laughing so hard that she could barely breathe.

"Oh man, you should've seen your face! I thought you were gonna jump right outta your skin!" She howled with laughter while a mortified Weiss glared poison-tipped daggers at her. Her words were garbled a bit with how hard she was laughing, but the intent was clear. "I think I'm gonna die! Oh man, I can't breathe! Blaaake, that was beautiful! Help me!" She laughed and laughed while Blake trotted over to save her girlfriend from a laughter-based paralysis. Weiss considered pushing her into the fire, but she wasn't sure she could get away with that one.

"That was a good one, Yang! You really got us!" Ruby pushed herself up from the grass, laughing as well. Weiss turned and gaped at her, unable to believe that she was laughing after that little stunt those two pulled. That didn't seem to matter to her, though. Her eyes shined with determination to one up Yang's ghost story with one of her own. That was... one way to look at it. When she was focused on something, you could either walk next to her or get out of the way. She decided her best course of action was to sit back down next to her and pretend that she hadn't been scared out of her wits.

Ruby sat there for five minutes trying to come up with the perfect ghost story while Weiss held her hand and wished she could use her phone with the other. Someone needed to get wi-fi out in the forest. This was the current year, after all. Eventually Ruby came up with a story that wasn't half bad. At least, Weiss thought so. She sat there impassive throughout, however, refusing to be spooked again. Blake then told her own, but Weiss refused to budge. She even kept her eyes on all three of them, in case they tried to get up and pull a fast one over her.

"Alright Weiss, it's your turn!" Ruby patted her knee and smiled brightly, excited for whatever story Weiss was going to come up with. If she was expecting something great, however, then she was going to end up disappointed. Coming up with scary stories wasn't Weiss's forte. She wasn't really big on horror in general, honestly. Especially not with a heavy reliance on jump scares, Blake.

"Once, there was a couple who were very mean to an innocent girl. The innocent girl then left them in the woods to be eaten by bears. The end."

"That wasn't very scary." Ruby pouted, poking Weiss's arm. "And it wasn't long either!"

"It was honestly more like a fairytale," Blake chimed in. "With the 'Once' start and all."

"Scary Story Time is canceled."

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After things had all wound down, Yang doused the fire and the four of them retired to their tents for the night. Blake and Yang were in one, while Ruby and Weiss were in the other. Weiss had considered bringing earplugs so she could sleep through any shenanigans those two were certainly going to get up to. However, impairing her hearing when there could be wildlife crawling through the forest to maul her alive made her want to have all her sensory faculties intact. She just had to hope that if a bear happened to find them, it would be attracted to the noise those two were making and she could make her escape.

Both her and Ruby had their own sleeping bags, but that wasn't acceptable to Ruby. She suggested they put them together and unzip them from opposite sides, so that it'd be like they had one big sleeping bag. Weiss acquiesced, because it was Ruby and she hadn't yet figured out how to follow through on 'no' most of the time when it came to her. She could say no all the live-long day, but when Ruby gave her those puppy-dog eyes, she'd crumble like a house of cards. She had a power over her that no one else could dare dream of.

"This was a nice day. Good food, good stories, good company." She rolled over to kiss Weiss's cheek, smiling at the blush she knew would be there, though it was too dark to see for sure. "I know you thought camping was something else, but I'm glad you stuck it out with us. Even though you did try to take the keys and drive off without us." She laughed and wrapped her arms around Weiss, pulling herself as close as she could beneath the dual sleeping bags.

"I would've come back for you. Once the trip was over." Weiss rolled her eyes, but she didn't try to push Ruby away. She'd gotten too used to her body warmth. Whenever she had to sleep alone, she could feel that something was missing. Now she found it unacceptable if she had to fall asleep without Ruby by her side. Not that she had admitted that in as many words. "It wasn't that bad, though. I mean, besides the bugs, and the scary stories, and having to be outside all the time."

"So the only thing bad about camping is camping, huh?"

"Yes, exactly." That sounded like Weiss, alright. Ruby giggled, continuing to snuggle up with Weiss. She could feel Weiss moving in her arms, which turned out to be so she could hold her as well. That made her smile brightly, happily squeezing her partner. Weiss's skin was always so cool to the touch, which was nice when they were out in the humidity of a spring forest. It was like having a bit of air conditioning she could always take with her. Feeling very content at the moment, she searched out Weiss's lips in the dark, pressing her own against them.

Weiss was more than happy to reciprocate that kiss. She held onto Ruby and closed her eyes, even if there wasn't much she could see with them open anyway. Maybe staying out in the wilderness wasn't where she thrived, but in that moment, it didn't matter. Because to her, wherever Ruby was was where she belonged. That was completely cheesy and undoubtedly cliche, which is why she wouldn't say it out loud. Well, that and it embarrassed her to even think of it. That didn't make it any less true, though. Maybe she'd put it in her vows if and when they got married. That'd be nice.

"I love you, Ruby." She could at least say that. It wasn't hard for her to express those particular feelings anymore. They weren't sleeping in a comfortable bed together, but they were together, and that was what mattered. Maybe not to her back when she would inevitably wake up with it all out of wack, but to her heart it would.

"I love you too! See, I knew this trip would be good, and now you can say you've gone camping for real for the first time!" She nestled her head against Weiss's chest and sighed contently. "The next two days are going to be just as good. I can feel it!" Oh yeah, they were going to be camping all weekend. Well, in that case...

"Pardon me, Ruby. I'm going to go get the keys from Blake."

[kmomof4]

Well, I did it again...

I wrote another fic... 

Well, here we are again. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever write another fic, and I still can’t believe I did it, but when I finally bought and downloaded one of my youngest’s favorite movies, the ending gave me massive CS feels. So after plenty of hand-holding, encouragement, cheerleading, and brilliantly executed beta duties from none other than @hollyethecurious, @winterbaby89, and @shireness-says, I present to you my second CS fic. I hope you all like it. There are two instances of strong language and the fic is rated T because of that. Many thanks to @winterbaby89 for the use of her original character from The Red Dress Affair. This is an unapologetically stupid disaster movie fic, based on the 1997 Tommy Lee Jones movie Volcano. I have taken a massive amount of liberties with LA geography, field trip protocol, and established scientific fact to fit the purposes of the fic. Apologies to anyone who lives in the area and/or cares.

Tagging some folks who might be interested in reading something else from me. @artistic-writer @ilovemesomekillianjones @doodlelolly0910 @let-it-raines @profdanglaisstuff @resident-of-storybrooke @seriouslyhooked @branlovestowrite @flslp87 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @searchingwardrobes @pocket-anon @donteattheappleshook @kymbersmith-90 @snowbellewells @sherlockianwhovian @teamhook

Read more line after the first scene unless Tumblr ate it. Part 2 will be up on Tuesday.

State of Emergency ao3 link

Thursday, February 7, 2019

Emma Swan stood at the stove listening to the morning news in the background while scrambling eggs for herself and her son, Henry, before she sent him off to school. He had a big day ahead of him with his Kindergarten Buddy Field Trip to the La Brea Tar Pits. As a “senior” at his school, the entire sixth grade class had been assigned an upcoming kindergartener as a “buddy” to help them adjust to full day elementary school. There had been many functions and events over the course of the school year to foster the relationships between the seniors and their buddies, but this was the first field trip away from the school. Henry and his buddy, Roland Loxley, were very excited because of their shared love of fossils and anything prehistoric. And the fact that Roland was going to be spending the weekend with them while his parents were out of town didn’t hurt either. Emma turned toward her son as he sat himself down at the table. “Nothing better than a good breakfast, kid.”

“Yeah, yeah Mom. I know.” The signature eye roll complete with shrugged shoulders made its way across the face of the twelve year old.

“Most of you probably didn’t even notice, but we had a small earthquake this morning. The US Geological Survey reported a 2.8 magnitude earthquake centered under Beverly Hills at 4:37am.”

“Why are they even talking about this? It didn’t even wake me up! Think fast Henry! What do you do in an earthquake?” Emma asked him, placing his plate in front of him.

“Get under a door frame, put my head between my legs, and kiss my ass goodbye.” Henry then dug in to his eggs and toast with all the gusto of a teen boy who hadn’t been fed in 8 hours or more. Emma rolled her eyes as she sat down to her own plate, deciding the argument over his language wasn’t worth having this morning. The eggs and the rest of his breakfast were soon gone and she wondered if the clothes she’d bought him for this spring would still fit him come the end of March.

“Gotta go Mom. I’ll call you when Roland and I get home from the field trip.” Henry grabbed his bookbag from where it was hung on his chair and made his way toward the door, opening it to find his friends waiting to walk to the bus with him.

“Bye, kid. Have fun and make sure to keep track of Roland!” she shouted as she heard him greet them before they headed down the hallway.

Gulping down the rest of her coffee, Emma got up from the table and thought about the day she had ahead of her at the Office of Emergency Management; the next-to-last day before a two week long vacation that she and Henry had been looking forward to for months. Putting the dirty dishes in the sink - They can wait to go in the dishwasher - Emma grabbed her purse and phone just as it started ringing. Emma’s best friend and assistant Ruby’s name flashed on the screen before she swiped across it.

“What’s up Rubes? Isn’t it a little early for you to be calling me?” Emma shut and locked the door behind her as she walked down the hall toward the elevator. “I’m getting in the elevator, so I’m gonna lose you here in a second. I’ll call you when I get in the car.” Emma hung up as Ruby sputtered. Once in her car and headed toward downtown, she dialed Ruby back.

“Emma,” Ruby didn’t even say hello, and the urgency in her voice was very apparent as Emma sped down the I-10. “There’s some kind of leak near the intersection of Wilshire and Fairfax. Where they’re working on the red line. Paramedics are on their way, but the supervisor of the work crew is saying that 2 men have very serious burns. He’s pretty shaken up Ems.”

Ruby’s words trailed off and Emma heard a disturbing sound coming from the other end of the line. “What’s that sound?”

“The supervisor,” Ruby replied with a tone of disgust. “Expelling what was left of his breakfast.”

Emma frowned. “I’ll be to the Fairfax exit in about 10 minutes. Load up WOLF and meet me there.”

“You got it boss,” Ruby replied before hanging up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What’s going on?” Emma shouted as she got out, slamming the door of her vintage yellow bug behind her.

Ruby pulled up right behind her in their equipment truck, affectionately nicknamed WOLF. Jumping out and taking long strides to catch up, Ruby commented, “Just before the call came in, the Geological Survey measured a 2.2 earthquake centered under the tar pits.”

Emma stopped, startled at what she had just said. “What? The tar pits?”

“Yeah,” Ruby replied. “Not enough to be felt, but close enough to here that maybe they’re connected?” Emma could feel the blood drain from her face, and based on the way Ruby was looking at her the she noticed it, too. Grabbing her arm, Ruby asked, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“What?” Emma shook her head. “Oh, Henry is going on his Kindergarten Buddy field trip to the pits today. An earthquake underneath them isn’t exactly what a mother wants to hear.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” her friend said. “I mean, after all, if we discover that there is any real danger to the public, we’ll shut down both the pits and museum. Come on. Let’s see if we can figure out what happened here.”

Emma and Ruby made their way to the crest of the hill where they saw orange work crew tape around the open maw of the entrance to the sewer and subway workstations down below. Off to the side they also saw emergency vehicles and paramedics working feverishly over a body that, from this distance, was unrecognizable as human. As they ran down the hill, they could already see a black body bag being zipped up. Just catching a glimpse of the charred body within was enough for Emma’s breakfast to roll in her stomach and for Ruby to lose hers completely. Swallowing down the bile, Emma asked, “What happened here?”

The white-as-a-sheet man wearing a supervisor’s vest turned toward her and seeing her department issued jacket, swallowed heavily before answering. “We’re doing routine maintenance on the red line. Munk, Ham, and Foster over there were down there with Ramirez and Franks.” If possible, the man before her went even more pale as he gestured toward the paramedics. “Kitchens and I were up here.” The man gulped again. “W-w-we could hear the screams from here.”

“I’m so sorry.” Emma laid her hand on the shaken man’s shoulder. “I truly am, but I have to figure out what happened here so I can direct city resources if need be.”

“You’d best talk to one of them then,” he replied, lifting his chin in the direction of the men he’d just mentioned. His wide, frightened eyes made their way back to where one of the paramedics was sitting back on her haunches.

“Time of death,” she said, glancing at her watch, “8:22 am.”

Emma made her way over to the men the supervisor had pointed out. “I’m Emma Swan from the Office of Emergency Management. Can you tell me what happened?”

The tall, sandy haired man pointed to himself then his companions, “Mark Munk, Hollis Ham, Sam Foster.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” She grimaced, looking away. “Wish it was under better circumstances. What happened down there?”

“We were heading toward to maintenance platform. Franks and Ramirez were in front, then Ham and Foster, then me. It was hot. So hot.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as if he was relishing the cool morning air. “We couldn’t see much. All we had were our flashlights and helmets,” he trailed away, turning toward his companions.

Foster picked up the story then. “It was hot, but once we felt the earthquake stop, the heat was much worse.”

“You felt the earthquake? It was only 2.2!” Emma exclaimed.

“Yeah, we could feel it. Nothing major, but enough. Once it stopped, the heat really intensified. Franks and Ramirez were really having a hard time with it. It sounded like they were having trouble breathing, gasping and stuff, then they were hollering and fell down. It looked like they were trying to rip their clothes off. Ham and I grabbed them under their arms and dragged them back toward the ladder. It was so hot by then, none of us could hardly breathe.”

“We got back up topside,” Ham continued, “Hernandez had already called the paramedics.” His eyes widened as he saw the second body bag being zipped up over his coworker. “I’ve… I’ve never seen…” He turned away, hunched over as a barking sob escaped him.

Ruby had returned from cleaning herself up by this time, just as Ham finished his part of the tale. Emma turned toward her. “Ok, we need PPE and the thermal radiation temperature gun. We’ve got to go down there and see what’s what.”

“On it,” Ruby replied turning back toward the truck.

“Thank you very much gentlemen. You’ve been a great help.” She looked at each of them in turn. “I’m very sorry for the loss of your coworkers.”

Turning away from them, Emma headed back toward Ruby and WOLF. Arriving at the truck, Emma climbed in after Ruby as she was getting down the Personal Protection Equipment they’d need before they went underground. “It sounds like the earthquake may have had something to do with it, but whether it did or not, what those men felt down there, and was enough to kill two of them, certainly needs to be looked at.”

“Oh, you’re not gonna get any argument out of me, Emma.” The fear that Emma was also feeling was well banked behind the determination in the brunette’s eyes. Determination that Emma felt as well. “We can’t let this happen to anybody else.” Ruby took down the thermal radiation gun as she spoke, turning toward her friend.

“Agreed,” she said, “let’s go.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Damn! They weren’t kidding! What’s the temperature down here?” Emma shouted at Ruby as she made it to the bottom of the ladder.

“117° according to the gun,” Ruby hollered back.

“Ok, let’s go. I don’t know how far we can go before we have to turn back. This is something else!”

“No kidding! 132° and climbing fast!” Ruby shouted. She took a few steps forward. “I’ve got a reading here!” Shaking her head while studying the screen intently, Ruby said, “There’s some sort of fissure here. Gas and… something… I can’t tell what exactly… 748°!” Ruby’s eyes went as round as saucers. Her mouth falling open in an ‘o’. “EMMA! Back! Get back!” Ruby screamed, “Your suit is melting!”

Upon hearing Ruby’s scream, she noticed the smoke rising from both suits. “So is yours! We’ve gotta get out of here!” They both took off running toward the ladder; neither of them had realized they had moved about 15 feet away from its rungs. Reaching it, they both clamored to the top, collapsing onto the grass around the workstation.

Gulping in huge gasps of air as they tore off their helmets and suits, both women stared at each other wide eyed as Hernandez ran up toward them. “What?! What did you find? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah we’re fine,” Emma answered, still breathing heavily. “There’s a fissure down there. Hot gas and something else coming up out of it.” Raising herself onto her elbows, she started pointing all around the park they were in. “This Park needs to be evacuated. The red line needs to be shut down from South La Brea Avenue to South Crescent Heights. And get me the Geological Survey on the line. A geologist. Someone who can tell me what the hell is going on down there!”

Ruby scrambled away down the hill as soon as she was recovered enough to move. “Yes ma'am!”

Emma collapsed back on to the grass, before making her way to her feet and down the hill herself. Emma shook her head. Well, my day just got about a hundred times more crazy. Henry and the group should be at the tar pits by now. Should we shut them down? No. We’re far enough away from them, there’s not a concern for their safety. Yet. I’ll wait until I talk to the Geological Survey. Then decide.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Good morning! My name is Killian Jones, and I’ll be the docent leading your tour of the La Brea tar pits today.” Killian looked out over the sea of about thirty faces, some bored, some looking anywhere except at him, and maybe five or six looking at him at least halfway interested.

He enjoyed volunteering at the tar pits on his day off from the US Geological Survey. Especially when the kids were already in love with the things he was going to be talking about. I mean, how can you not love a kid who can correctly pronounce Paramylodon Harlani? The two brown haired boys at the front of the group however, stared at him with rapt attention. Brothers maybe?

“We’ll be starting our tour in just a few minutes. As soon as the group ahead of us moves through. In the meantime, feel free to look over the masks from the PaleoIndian village in the display case on your right.”

The crowd moved over to the case, all except the two boys who did not seem eager to lose their places at the front of the group. “I’m Roland Loxley,” the little one said holding his hand out for Killian to shake.

“Well, hello there Roland,” Killian answered, a grin breaking out over his face as he reached out to grasp his hand. The kid had a surprisingly strong grip for one so small. “It’s nice to meet you. Is this your big brother?” he asked turning his attention to the older one.

Roland giggled and cut his eyes toward him as the older boy looked embarrassed. “No, he’s my buddy, Henry.”

“Oh, I see! It’s nice to meet you too, Henry,” Killian said, holding his hand out for him to shake as well. Henry looked a bit surprised as he took Killian’s hand in his own and shook.

“You too,” he replied. The glint he had noticed in the boy’s eye a few minutes earlier was back as he asked, “Do we get to go inside the fossil lab today?”

“Ah ha! Do we have a future paleontologist in our midst? Or a geologist maybe?” Killian’s delight at his speculation was hard to disguise as Roland looked to be prepping for takeoff, bouncing on the balls of his feet with his hand in the air like Horseshack from Welcome Back Kotter, Killian’s favorite late night binge show on Hulu.

“Ooo! Ooo! Me! Me! Me! I’m gonna be a paleontologist when I grow up! I have my very own Smilodon fatalis tooth at home! And a fossilized Venerupis philippinarum! And a Carcharocles megalodon tooth too!” Roland exclaimed. Poor Henry looked absolutely mortified at Roland’s excitement.

“Roland, can’t you please shut up?” the boy hissed, glancing back at Killian apologetically.

“Ahh! A saber tooth cat, clam, and giant shark tooth, huh? Well, it looks like you’re well on your way to a brilliant future in paleontology my boy,” he said, placing his hand on Roland’s shoulder. Turning back to Henry, Killian returned to his original question as most of the group started making their way back towards them. “Unfortunately, we will not be going inside the fossil lab today, but we will observe some of our scientists working in it. We will be on the observation deck outside. We will also be visiting the Lake Pit, Observation Pit, Project 23, and the Pleistocene Gardens. After lunch, we’ll enjoy the Ice Age Encounters and Titans of the Ice Age in the 3D theater. Is everybody ready?” he asked, getting everyone’s attention again, “Let’s go!” Killian swung his arm expansively as though to draw them all along and turned on his heel leading the way toward the first stop of their tour.

“Sorry about Roland’s enthusiasm earlier,” Henry halfway mumbled after he caught up with Killian. “He’s a cute kid, and he loves anything prehistoric, but he just doesn’t know when to turn it off.” Henry shrugged, while glancing over at his buddy chattering a mile a minute about how much he was looking forward to seeing the Columbian mammoth skeleton named Zed. “I mean, I love fossils and the Ice Age too and even have my own collection at home, much bigger than his,” he rolled his eyes, then glanced over at Killian obviously trying to gauge how his revelation was being received, “but I can at least control myself so I don’t look like an idiot.”

Killian chuckled, realizing that Henry was just as excited and enthusiastic about this field trip as Roland was, and was maybe a teeny bit jealous at being overshadowed by someone he saw as not as well versed in Ice Age history.

Killian looked down at the boy as they kept walking toward the Observation Pit. “Well, Henry, he’s young. And over-the-top enthusiasm is par for the course at that age. But I get it. I have an older brother that wanted to put a muzzle on me on a daily basis whenever I’d get wound up over something when we were kids. But keep in mind, that you have the same interest in what he is so enthusiastic about. You are in a very unique position to encourage that love or to quash it. He obviously idolizes you.”

“Really?” Henry asked, wide eyed. “How do you know?”

“Haven’t you noticed how almost every time he opens his mouth, he’s looking at you?” Killian replied.

“Oh… no, I guess I hadn’t. Well, all right. I’ll try not to let his enthusiasm get to me so much then.” The pensive look on Henry’s face evaporated as he looked up at him and smiled.

“That’s the spirit, lad!” Killian returned the smile and placed his hand on Henry’s shoulder and gave a light squeeze in support.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What do you mean ‘he’s not there’?” Ruby shouted into the phone at the unfortunate underling who was bearing the full weight of her wrath at Dr. Killian Jones’ absence. “Where is he? Isn’t this his full time job? We have something major happening underneath the tar pits today, and he needs to be here! Not galavanting around on his ‘day off’!” Ruby put air quotes around ‘day off’ as if the person on the other end of the line could see them. “There are two city workers who are dead this morning and my boss and I were nearly killed as well because of whatever is going on down there! Does he have an assistant? Anyone who might know where he is?” The other end of the phone went silent for a moment while Ruby huffed out her frustration.

The phone was picked back up again and a masculine Irish accented voice spoke. “This is Graham Humbert, Killian’s assistant. What can I do for you, ma’am?”

Ruby tried to roll back her irritation by taking a deep breath and beginning again. “This is Ruby Lucas, assistant to Emma Swan, director of the Office of Emergency Management. There is something going on under the tar pits. Something major. I’m sure you know about the earthquake a couple of hours ago. After it stopped, two city maintenance workers were killed because of leaking gas and something else, something burning that nearly melted Emma’s and my PPE suits off of our bodies. We need Dr. Jones down here to figure out what is coming up out of the fissure we found. Where can we find him?”

“He’s actually at the tar pits today,” Graham replied. “There was a huge school group coming today, and all docents were called up to work today. He normally volunteers on the weekend, but with the size of the group…” he trailed off.

“All right. Thank you very much for your help, Mr. Humbert.” Ruby was texting the information to Emma before she even hung up with the man.

“No problem, Ms. Lucas. Once you find him, I’m sure we’ll all be in touch.” The phone line went dead while Ruby continued to compose her message.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Emma had stayed at the park overseeing the evacuation and rerouting the red line to avoid as much disruption to the transit schedule as possible when Ruby’s text came in.

Dr. Killian Jones is at the tar pits today volunteering because of the field trip.

Glancing at her phone to see what Ruby had found out, Emma continued her litany. “This way. Thank you for your cooperation. Everything is perfectly safe, this is only a precaution. Thank you, this way please.” When she got to the end of the line, she jogged over to one of her coworkers. “The geologist we need is at the tar pits today. I’m going to head over there to find him.”

Taking off at a slight jog down the hill, Emma pondered what she would find at the tar pits when she got there. Will there be any sign of what’s going on over here? Or under there? Just how big was the tour group for the head geologist with the US Geological Survey to be called up to work when there’s this kind of activity going on?

When she arrived at the picnic area outside the museum it was filled to capacity with kids and adults enjoying lunch in the late winter sunshine. Scanning over the teeming area, she spotted Henry and Roland sitting with a very attractive dark haired man she didn’t recognize as another parent or their teacher. Henry spotted her and waved shouting, “Mom! Hey Mom! Over here!”

The man looked up at her and seemed to choke on his sandwich, turning bright red as he tried to bring the coughing fit under control. Henry turned surprised eyes on him as the man tried to wave aside his concern all while Roland stood up on the bench and was beating him, very enthusiastically, on the back.

“You okay, Killian?” Henry asked.

“Fine lad, just went down the wrong pipe,” he replied, still trying to get his breath back. The huskiness of the accented voice did something crazy to Emma’s insides, and she couldn’t help but wonder if the gorgeous man’s voice sounded similar in the throes of passion. Down girl, she thought as she approached the table. He had black hair that looked artfully mussed, or he may have just had a habit of running his hands through it. Dark scruff lined his jaw with just a hint of ginger that she could see from where she was. He looked tall and lean in dark jeans, brown boots, and a blue henley underneath a black leather jacket.

“Hi Henry. Who’s this?” And why are you having lunch with my son went unspoken as she turned her gaze upon him, sending him into another coughing fit, all while scratching behind his ear.

“This is Killian, our d-, do-...”

“Docent,” Killian rasped out. He had finally gotten his coughing and breathing under control enough to speak.

“Docent,” Henry echoed. “He’s leading our tour today. We saw the mammoth skeleton and the fossil lab, and Project 23, the actual working dig Mom! It was so cool! I’m gonna work there when I grow up!” he gushed.

“Aye,” Killian replied still clearing his throat, “it’s kids like them that make the volunteering so worthwhile. Bright, inquisitive, with enough knowledge already to really make it fun. And there’s been a lot of that today hasn’t there lads?” he asked. The grin that split Henry’s face told Emma all she needed to know about how his morning went.

Emma smiled at her son’s enthusiasm. “Well, it sounds like you’ve had a great time today, kid.” Emma turned toward Killian, who was also smiling widely at the boys before he turned his blue eyes upon her. Emma was stopped in her tracks as she recognized the joy and affection in their depths. Affection, she realized, that was directed toward the two boys next to him. She shook her head briefly to get her thoughts back on track. “Did he say your name was Killian? You wouldn’t by any chance be Dr. Killian Jones would you?” she asked.

“That’s me,” he replied. “Can I help you with something?” he asked, standing from the table and extending his hand toward her. His azure gaze ran up and down her form, leaving a pleasant tingle in its wake, but when his eyes met hers, she saw nothing but openness and appreciation in his gaze. Not the greedy lust that she was normally subject to when checked out like that. She appreciated the distinction.

Emma grasped his hand firmly in her own as she answered him. “Just the man I’m looking for.” Killian flushed bright red again at her statement as he glanced away from her. “Emma Swan with the Office of Emergency Management. I need you.” That last statement seemed to send him into yet another coughing fit before he was able to bring it back under control.

“You need me?” he squeaked, about an octave too high, his face still flushed red, eyes wide.

“Well, I need your expertise.” Emma was secretly delighted at his apparent attraction, but schooled her features as she prepared to drop a very serious problem in the handsome man’s lap. “There have been two small earthquakes today. The second of them was centered here at the tar pits and is most likely responsible for the deaths of two city workers this morning. My assistant and I found a fissure underground near MacArthur Park, and the heat coming out of it nearly melted the suits we had on. We need you to figure out what is coming out of that fissure and help us manage this.”

Killian blanched and sat back down at the table. “I can’t leave right now…” he trailed away, obviously trying to figure a way out of the dilemma. “The school group is too big. I can’t…” He shook his head. “I can’t hand my group off to another docent, and there’s no one to take my place. Let me get my assistant on the phone and see what he can do. I’ll be done here in about an hour and a half,” he said, glancing at his watch, “and I can join you… where, exactly?”

“At the Office of Emergency Management, across the street from City Hall,” Emma stated.

“Barring any mishaps along the way, I should be there about three,” Killian replied. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started dialing. “Graham, we have a situation down here at the tar pits. I need you to get to the Office of Emergency Management, across from City Hall and find-” he turned his eyes back toward Emma.

“Ruby Lucas, my assistant,” she whispered to him.

“Ruby Lucas… Right,” he said, after a pause to listen. “What’s her number,” he whispered back to her.

She wrote Ruby’s number on a napkin that he repeated back into the phone. “I’ll meet you all there as soon as I’m done here. Probably about three.” Killian paused again. “Okay, I’ll see you then.” Killian put the phone back in his pocket. “Graham will get down there and find your assistant. They can get preliminary data pulled up, and they’ll have a better idea of what we’re looking at by the time I get there.” Killian’s cerulean gaze met her own. The seriousness of the situation was not lost on either of them as Henry interrupted the unspoken moment.

“What’s happening, Mom? Did you say two workers died, and you nearly did because of what’s happening here?” Henry’s brown eyes were way too bright, Emma realized, for him to not have been affected by what he heard her say.

Damn… he always was too smart for his own good. I should have taken Killian aside before I talked to him. Well, there’s nothing for it... Emma placed her hands on his shoulders. Crouching before him and making sure he was looking in her eyes she answered, “Yes, but I’m fine, and Ruby is fine. We’re gonna do all we can to find out what’s going on here to make sure that no one else is hurt or killed. Okay?”

Henry nodded hesitantly. “O- okay, Mom. Be careful, alright?”

“Always, kid. I love you,” she said, pulling him into her arms and hugging him tight.

“I love you, too,” he murmured into her shoulder. “I’ll see you tonight?” he asked, looking at her again.

“I don’t know, kid. It depends on what we find here. When you get home, call me first then Uncle David. He can come stay with you until I get home.” Emma got back on her feet and turned toward Killian as Henry whined.

“Mooooom! I’m twelve years old! I can-” the petulant face of the pre-teen nearly made her laugh, but she smothered it under a light cough. The smirk and raised eyebrows from Killian, indicating that her cough didn’t fool him for a minute, was almost her undoing.

“Exactly, you’re twelve years old and you’re not staying home by yourself for who knows how long.” Emma turned back toward Killian and said, “I’ll head over to the office too, and see you there about three. Let me give you my number, in case something happens and we need to get in touch.” Emma held out her hand expectantly.

A glimmer of glee flashed in Killian’s eyes as he got his phone back out and handed it over to her to type in her number. “Sure, and I’ll only use it in case of an emergency. Although,” he lowered his voice and moved more into her personal space as she typed, "I do hope that when this is all concluded, you might let me keep your number to use in a more... personal fashion."

Emma looked up and handed his phone back to him with a smirk of her own. “We’ll see, Casanova. Take care of my kid. I’ll see you later. Bye Henry. Have fun.” Emma turned away from them and walked away. And if she injected just a slight swing to her hips for Killian’s benefit, then no one needed to know that but her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Killian watched as Emma walked away from him with a swing in her hips that made him grin from ear to ear as he enjoyed the view. Turning back to his group, he called, “Okay everyone. Time to clean up. Make sure all your trash is collected and thrown away. Let’s leave the picnic area better than when we found it.” After cleaning up, the group marched back in to the museum to continue their prehistoric adventure with Ice Age Encounters and Titans of the Ice Age, the 3D movie.

After the movie, Henry and Roland were chattering excitedly with Killian smiling down at them when the ground beneath them started to shake. Killian turned quickly toward the group and shouted to be heard above the din of the shaking building.

“Everyone come over here, follow me, cover your heads with your arms. Adults, cover your own heads and get kids underneath you as best you can.”

Killian led them all to the wall next to the glass case they had examined that morning containing the masks from the PaleoIndian village. As they reached the wall, a particularly violent tremble sent Roland careening forward into the display case. His forehead connected with the corner of the case as the trembling in the earth started to taper off. Roland’s cries were more than enough to compensate for the sudden lack of rumbling underneath them. Killian grabbed Roland up, cradling him in his arms as he looked for where all the blood was coming from.

“Is he okay Killian? Will Roland be okay?” Henry’s scared voice piped up from beside him.

“If his cries are any indication, he’ll be just fine, Henry. We need to get him cleaned up and get some ice on the cut. If he needs stitches, we’ll make sure he gets to the hospital.” Killian turned his back to the door of the bathroom and pushed his way through it, as Roland’s cries only increased in volume, maybe at the prospect of stitches. “Go to the main desk, Henry, and ask for Belle, tell her what happened and that she needs to enact emergency contact protocols for Roland, then ask for an ice pack.” Given his marching orders, Henry disappeared through the door as one of the parents in his group pushed his way in.

“The tour is over right, Killian?” the frightened man asked. “We’re done? Free to go?”

Killian was wetting a paper towel to clean off Roland’s face, as he turned to the man. “Yes, that’s correct. Thank you for your time and attention today. If you would spread the word to the rest of the group, I’d appreciate it,” he said, turning his attention back to the boy. As he got the blood wiped away from his charge’s face, he saw a long, jagged cut just above Roland’s left eyebrow. Henry made his way back into the bathroom with a bag full of ice just then and handed it to the boy. Killian noticed Belle hovering just outside the bathroom.

“Here, put this where it hurts Roland. You’ll be fine,” Henry said, reassuringly.

“Aye, lad. Just a cut. But it looks like it’ll need stitches. I’ll be right back after I talk to Belle.” Killian’s calm gaze was doing a lot to settle both boys down after the fright they’d had.

Killian stood in the bathroom doorway as Belle began, “I’ve contacted Roland’s parents, but after dropping him off at school this morning, they left town for the weekend. He’s staying with Henry and his mother until they get back on Sunday. They gave their consent to go to the hospital if he needs stitches, but I can’t find anyone from the school to take him in all the chaos.”

“Don’t worry about that, Belle. I’ll take him to Cedars Sinai. My mate’s wife works in the Emergency Room. She’s a doctor.”

“Really?” Henry, overhearing, turned wide eyes upon Killian. “My aunt works at the Cedars Sinai Emergency Room too. Maybe they know each other.”

Killian chuckled, “Aye lad. Maybe. Okay. Let’s go.”

Roland’s tears had been reduced to occasional hiccups as Killian hoisted him off the counter. Holding out his hand for the little boy to take, Killian led them out of the building toward the parking lot. He unlocked his classic SS Chevelle and ushered the boys inside, admonishing them to buckle their seat belts before heading toward the hospital.

About ten minutes later they were pulling up outside the Emergency Room bay. Henry and Roland, still with the ice pack pressed to his forehead, climbed out while Killian left to park the car. When he joined them a few minutes later, they made their way inside to the admit desk.

“We’re looking for Dr. Mary Margaret Nolan,” Killian informed the nurse at the desk. He didn’t notice Henry’s wide eyed stare as he spoke.

“She’s with a patient right now, sir. May I ask what this is in regards to?” the red haired nurse questioned him.

“She’s my friend’s wife and-”

“And she’s my aunt,” Henry exclaimed. Killian turned stunned eyes on the boy. The nurse turned her attention to him as well.

“Really?” he questioned.

“Yeah! I told you my aunt worked here in the ER,” he laughed as he realized how low the chances of this happening really were. Killian and the nurse joined in as well.

“Hi, Henry! Who’s this? And what do you need M’s for?” the nurse asked.

“Hi, Ariel!” Henry waved from where he stood. “This is Killian. He led our tour of the La Brea tar pits today. Roland, my buddy here, fell into a display case during the earthquake and Killian thinks the cut needs stitches. Did I say all that right, Killian?” His brown eyes turned upward, brimming with hope that he hadn’t left out anything important.

“Aye, lad. You sure did.” He turned back to the nurse. “Can we see Mary Margaret about those stitches? Or at least let her have a look at him?” he asked.

“Oh sure,” she replied. “Come on through here, and I’ll send her in as soon as she’s done with her patient.”

Just at that moment, a petite black haired woman came out of a door further down, making notations on her iPad.

“Oh, there she is now,” Ariel said to the man and boys behind her.

“Aunt M’s!” Henry shouted, startling the poor woman into nearly dropping the iPad. Henry took off down the corridor toward his aunt as she looked up and saw him running towards her.

“Henry! What are you doing here? And Killian, too,” she exclaimed as she saw them all making their way down the hall.

“A little accident during the earthquake, Mary Margaret,” Killian said amusedly as Henry tackled her, forcing an “oof” out of his target.

“Yeah, we had our buddy field trip to the tar pits today, Aunt M’s,” Henry enthused. “It was so cool, and Killian was our...” he trailed off, looking back at the man he was with.

“Docent, lad,” Killian filled in for him with an indulgent smile.

“Docent. Right. I won’t forget again, Killian.” Henry looked a little sheepish.

“I’m sure you won’t.” Killian chuckled along with Mary Margaret as she showed them into an empty room. “Roland here fell into a display case during the earthquake and sustained quite a nasty cut on his forehead that looked like it might need stitches,” he continued.

“Well, let’s have a looksee, shall we?” she asked, smiling down at the little boy, as she lifted him to the table. Directing her next words to Henry, she inquired, “Did you call your mom? Does she know you’re here?”

“Oh!” he exclaimed, snapping his fingers. “No, I haven’t.”

“Don’t worry about it, Henry. I’ll take care of it,” Killian assured him, “I was supposed to be heading to your mum’s office right now anyway. I’ll let her know what happened, and we’ll go from there.” Killian sent a reassuring smile his way.

“Okay, Killian. Thanks,” Henry replied. Killian slipped out and pulled out his phone dialing Emma’s number.

“Hello?” Emma’s beautiful voice came over the line, causing Killian’s breath to catch just the tiniest bit before he answered her back.

“Emma, it’s Killian Jones. We’ve had a bit of an accident during the earthquake,” he reported, trying to keep his voice as level as possible to keep her alarm to a minimum.

“What?!” she exclaimed. “Is Henry okay?”

“Henry is fine,” he assured the frightened woman. “It was Roland. He fell into a display case, causing a nasty cut to his forehead. We’re all at Cedars Sinai with Roland being seen by none other than your sister-in-law, Mary Margaret Nolan. Who is also my friend’s wife. And, who I gather, must be your brother.” Killian had remembered Emma telling Henry at lunch to call his Uncle David when he got home. When Henry’s relations had come to light, Killian had put two and two together to figure out exactly who belonged to who. Emma laughed delightedly.

“Oh my word! Who would have guessed? That’s hysterical!” Emma declared, trying to bring her laughter under control. Her laugh was infectious and Killian found himself joining in.

“It is. What are the odds, eh?” Killian said, sending her off into more laughter, as he chuckled. “Anyway, what do you want me to do with the boys? I still need to get down there to see what Graham and Ruby have discovered.” Just the mention of the reason behind their meeting and this phone call was enough to bring an end to their mutual mirth.

“Have David pick them up at the hospital and take them home. You or Henry can call him. I know he had meetings about the apartments today, but he should be done with them by now. Then you head down here,” Emma replied. “Ruby and Graham have a very interesting theory that I’m not sure what to think about, but would love your input on.” Killian could almost see the blonde shrug her shoulders through the phone line.

“Okay, love. Mary Margaret is probably about done. I’ll leave here as soon as she is and David gets here. I’ll text when I’m on my way.” Killian hung up and walked back into the room where Henry, Roland, and Mary Margaret were. Henry and Roland sounded like a tag team as they peppered the woman with stories about their day as she finished stitching Roland up. “Henry, I’m going to call your Uncle David to come pick you boys up and take you home. Then I’m going to go meet your mum and we’re going to figure out what’s going on and take care of it, aye?” Killian asked nodding at the boy.

“Sure, Killian. Thanks a lot, for everything,” the boy replied.

“Yeah, thanks Killian,” echoed Roland.

Turning to the boys, Mary Margaret told them, “Stay here. I’m going to go talk to Killian. Uncle David will be here in just a few minutes. He was just across the street at the apartments he’s been working on.” She followed him out into the hallway, forehead furrowed in concern. “What’s this about meeting Emma? What’s going on, Killian? Thank you, by the way though, for taking care of the boys through all this.”

“Oh, of course, M’s,” he answered, putting special emphasis on the syllable while raising his eyebrows at her and grinning.

“Oh, pfft,” she said waving him off, and looking away with a light blush coloring her cheeks. “Mary Margaret was too much for Henry to say when he was a toddler. So we shortened it to M’s and it stuck. Only for family and close friends though,” she said, side-eyeing him closely. “Ehh… I guess you count.” She smirked at him before reiterating her question.

“I’ll have to fill you in on the details later M’s.” Killian’s face fell. “Suffice it to say two men are dead, and Emma was nearly killed today too because of some seismic activity underneath the tar pits.”

The tender-hearted woman gasped, her hand covering her mouth and eyes filling with tears. “Oh, no!”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Killian replied. “So, I need to get down to her office to see what’s going on, and what we can do about it.”

“Of course,” Mary Margaret agreed. “You go ahead and go. I’ll take charge of the boys until David gets here. Tell Emma to keep us updated. I’m off in another hour, so I’ll probably go home with them.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he answered winking at her. “Do you want to call David or do you want me to?”

“I’ll call him. I need to let him know what’s going on anyway.” She pulled out her phone and started dialing. “Thank you, though. Really. It means a lot.” She made sure he was looking at her face so he could see how much she meant the words she was saying.

Killian looked at her, but had to look away from the tenderness and conviction behind her words. “Of course. They really are remarkable lads. They remind me very much of myself and Liam when we were young. I couldn’t do anything different. I’ll see you later.” Before he turned and walked away toward the entrance, he heard David pick up over Mary Margaret’s phone.

“Hey babe! What’s up?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Killian made his way into the Control Center of the Office of Emergency Management amid all the chaos that the day’s events engendered. Spying the long blonde hair that he desperately wanted to run his fingers through, he made his way over to where she, Graham, and the woman he assumed was Ruby Lucas were huddled over a computer monitor and a paper city map of the area around the tar pits. “What have we got?” he asked.

Emma turned startled eyes upon him, “Uh… oh! You’re here. Ruby,” she said, motioning to the tall brunette, “Dr. Killian Jones. Killian, Ruby Lucas, my assistant and right hand.”

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Jones.” Ruby grinned at him with a wolfish smile as she held out her hand toward him.

“Please, call me Killian. No one calls me Dr. Jones except members of the media,” Killian chuckled as he shook her hand.

“And me, if he’s being especially obnoxious,” Graham interjected, grinning at him, before it melted into more of a shy, sincere smile as he turned his eyes upon Ruby.

“And Graham, if I’m being especially obnoxious,” Killian repeated with humor dancing in his eyes. “So, what have you found out?”

“Okay,” Ruby began, “the last earthquake was a 4.9. That’s up significantly from the earthquakes this morning. Including the one that killed those workers. We may be building up to a catastrophic tremor.”

“Or,” Graham prompted, with a grim expression.

Emma looked at Killian with an expression that had him bracing himself. It was pensive and incredulous all at once. As if she had trouble believing what was about to be said herself, much less saying it out loud as a viable possibility. “What?” Killian asked, “Just tell me.”

Emma started rather haltingly, “The second earthquake this morning opened a fissure in the subway tunnel. Incredibly hot gas and something else, something… liquid… kinda, was coming up out of it by the time Ruby and I got there. After the workers were killed.” She cast dubious eyes toward Graham before continuing. “The temperature reading of the lake in MacArthur Park and underneath the tar pits has increased significantly in the last twelve hours. The lake 6°, the tar pits 10°. Graham says the only thing capable of producing the kind of heat that we saw under MacArthur Park and that could heat that much liquid by that amount in that short a time is…” she trailed off.

Killian and Graham’s eyes met over the ladies. “Magma,” they said together. “Magma would explain the extreme heat you both felt this morning,” Killian continued, “capable of killing two men with no protective gear, and raising the temperatures of the lake and tar pits to that extent that quickly.” He shook his head. “Damn. Have we got our work cut out for us,” he murmured, looking around the room.

“Can’t it be something else?” Emma asked, placing her hand on his arm. Killian tried to ignore the shiver her touch generated across his skin. “Anything else? Do we really need to declare a state of emergency and evacuate that entire sector? That’s a massive undertaking,” she exclaimed.

“The first thing we need to do is confirm. Get a first hand look at what is going on down there. From there, we make the call to evacuate or not and mobilize city resources,” Killian stated.

“You can’t go down there Killian.” The fear in her eyes was palpable. “Ruby and I have already been down there. We nearly died down there. We saw and felt it. I know magma makes the most sense given the facts, but…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “It’s… it’s MAGMA! As in, a VOLCANO! UNDER Los Angeles! It CAN’T be!”

“When the facts all point to a certain thing, even if that certain thing should be impossible, we have to go with the impossible,” Killian asserted. He shook his head. “We have to follow the facts. We can’t try to make the facts fit our preconceived notions.”

“But-”

“No, Emma. There is no ‘but’. This is the conclusion that the facts are leading us to. This is what we have to go with. There is no other possibility. Graham and I will go down to confirm what we’re seeing here. We’ll be in constant contact by radio. Our equipment is more suited to handle the kind of temperatures we may find down there. We’ll be fine,” he said, grasping her arms and looking into her eyes. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s surviving, love. We won’t do anything stupid.”

Emma snorted before looking up into his piercing blue gaze. “You know, the argument could be made that what you’re suggesting is stupid,” she said with a frown and a determined set to her shoulders. “But I’m not letting you go down there by yourself.”

“I won’t be by myself. Graham will be with me,” Killian replied.

“No, Graham needs to stay here to analyze the data in real time,” Emma argued, “Ruby can mobilize the city resources under my authority. But Graham is gonna be the one to pull the trigger on whether we need to or not.” Her flashing eyes and stubborn stance told Killian that he was likely to lose this battle, but he put up a fight anyway. He didn’t want her anywhere near what might be happening.

“It’s too dangerous, love. If Graham is right, I don’t want to put you in harm’s way.” He poured the concern he felt for her into his eyes, hoping that she would read it. He saw a flash of hesitation in hers before the stubbornness he had already witnessed settled back in place. “You said yourself that you saw and felt what was down there already-”

“And you said that your equipment is better suited for the temperatures you might find down there,” Emma retorted, “The thermal gun said 748° when we turned back.”

“Our equipment is rated up to 1000°.” Killian tried again.

“Well then, there you go.” Emma crossed her arms, her smug attitude telling him he had lost. “Graham has to stay here and you’re not going by yourself. I have training. I am the best choice.”

“Fine,” Killian acquiesced, after a long moment, his lips pressed in a thin line, “but you listen up and listen good,” he said, getting in her personal space and pointing his finger at her, “I am the boss down there. Not you. You do exactly as I say, when I say it.” While he felt successful in keeping the fear from tingeing his words, he was afraid that he was unable to keep it out of his eyes. She must have noticed because she tried to inject some levity into the situation.

“Aye aye, sir,” she said, with a smart salute and smirk. Killian rolled his eyes as he tried not to smile and turned back toward Graham and Ruby.

Just at that moment, the ground started to shake again. Killian and Graham grabbed the ladies as they all tried to cover their heads and dive under the desks. Emma clutched at Killian as he drew her into his embrace and tried to cover her with his body. Once the shaking stopped, they all came out from their cover and made their way quickly to where the readings for the earthquake were already coming up. “4.6,” Killian said, turning toward the others. “Not as bad as the one a little while ago, but significant all the same.” Emma and Ruby exchanged worried glances before looking back at Killian. “This changes nothing,” Killian asserted, “We still have to go underground and confirm what is happening. We’ll drop off more sensors at the tar pits on our way to MacArthur Park, then head underground where you found the fissure this morning. Graham’s computer will be connected remotely with my suit and equipment.”

“Right,” Ruby replied, looking at the man next to her with a tentative, but genuine smile. “And we’ll still be able to communicate?” she asked, turning back toward Killian.

“Yes,” he answered. “We have radios in the suit that will allow us to talk back and forth through the computer. Everything from the suit will show up right here in real time. Ready, Swan?” he asked.

“Ready,” she answered, nodding.

“Alright, let’s suit up.”

End of part 1

[crystallized-shadow]

Chapter: 1/1 Rating: Explicit Pairing: Madara/Tobirama Word Count: 3987 Warnings: Teacher/Student Roleplay, Dom/Sub elements, Office Sex, Hair Pulling, Rough Sex, and Collars Summary: An unfortunate situation leads to Tobirama discovering a side he never knew about his chemistry professor.

For @madatobiweek Day 7: Something Kinky

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

It wasn’t fair, Tobirama thought to himself as he watches the sleek black hair trail behind the immaculately dressed man stalking across the front of the room, no man should be allowed to be so visually captivating. The older man could have been explaining the meaning of life or the nuances of how paint dried; Tobirama wouldn’t have any idea, all he could think about was how perfect the other’s lips would look wrapped around his cock. Professor Madara Uchiha, head of the Chemistry department at Konoha University was not only very passionate about his subject but also drop-dead gorgeous to boot. If Tobirama was a man of lesser intellect he would be failing the class due to the constant distraction strutting across the front of the room everyday. Professor Uchiha had an air of confidence that was absolutely intoxicating to the Senju, he just wanted to bend the man over his desk and fuck him until he begged for mercy. Unfortunately the professor didn’t even know he existed; in fact he didn’t seem to realize the effect he had on his students.

After a particularly trying day, Professor Uchiha had worn his hair up in a high ponytail that Tobirama just wanted to wrap around his fist, he decides he needs to blow off some steam. Normally Tobirama would avoid the bars, drunk college kids were the absolute worse, but the one his brother ran was a bit classier and tended to cater to the dom/sub culture. With any luck he could find a sub looking for a rough fuck.

“Tobi! Thank god!” Of course the universe had other plans for him.

“What is it Anija?” Tobirama sighs, writing off his previous plans as he walks over to the bar where Hashirama is waving frantically at him.

“I need you to do me a huge favor!” Hashirama pleads, pressing his hands together and doing his best to look like Tobirama had kicked his favorite puppy again.

“Fine,” the younger Senju grumbles, knowing it’s pointless to argue with his brother.

“Thank you!” Hashirama grabs his brother and drags him back to the office before he can change his mind.

Figuring Hashirama messed up the bar’s books again, he really needed to stop trying to help Mito while she was away, Tobirama’s not prepared for the sight of his chemistry professor passed out on the couch Hashirama insisted on having in the office. “What happened?”

“Madara came here to have a celebratory drink with me,” Hashirama explains, making Tobirama’s brows furrow in confusion, “we are old friends and he just got a huge grant for the department. Anyway we got a bit wrapped up in reminiscing and someone spiked his drink.”

“What?”

“I dealt with it.” The serious expression coupled with the dark tone makes Tobirama pause. That was usually a telltale sign that he shouldn’t ask questions so he just nods.

“So what do you need me to do?”

“I need you to take him home with you.”

“Absolutely not,” Tobirama states with a frown, “I can’t take him anywhere he’s my teacher.”

“Oh…” Hashirama deflates for a second before he suddenly breaks into a grin. “Take him to my house then! It’s off campus and no one will know!”

“He probably shouldn’t be alone right now,” Tobirama points out as he glances at the unconscious man, “doesn’t he have a girlfriend or something?”

“Mads is single and his brother is out of town,” Hashirama says and Tobirama can’t stop the snort at the stupid nickname. “Can you just stay with him until I get home? I close tonight, but you can always spend the night and I’ll take you back to your dorm tomorrow morning.”

“Fine,” Tobirama sighs, knowing it would be quicker to just agree with his brother and get it over with.

“Thanks! Here are his keys, just go out the back door,” Hashirama shoves the keys into Tobirama’s hands and darts out the door. “I have to get back to work!”

“Idiot,” Tobirama mutters under his breath as he crosses the short distance to the couch. “Professor, are you awake?” Shaking the older man gets zero response so Tobirama carefully picks his professor up and takes him out to the car that flashes when he hits the unlock button on the key fob. Cars might not be his thing, Kawarama was the car nut of the family, but Tobirama has to admit Professor Uchiha’s ride is very nice.

When Tobirama gets to Hashirama’s house, he parks in the garage and carefully moves his professor to the couch.

“Professor?” Tobirama tries again as he places a waste basket next to the unconscious man. Getting no response the Senju sighs and flops into the loveseat across from the couch. This was not how he’d planned on going home with someone. He didn’t even have any classwork with him for something to do, but his brother did have a decent movie collection, so he resorts to that to avoid just staring at Professor Uchiha.

Tobirama manages to make it through two movies, more like one and a half as he wasn’t sure when his eyes had strayed back to his professor, before he can’t take it anymore. “Fuck it,” Tobirama grumbles as he crosses the room and shakes the older man again. “Professor!” Barely getting more than a groan, the Senju huffs in irritation as his eyes stray back to the ponytail that had taunted him throughout class today. Surely it would be more comfortable to rest with his hair down, Tobirama reasons, he only cared about his favorite professor’s comfort; it had nothing to do with how he was dying to know what those luscious black locks felt like. He wars with himself for another moment before he finally gives into the temptation and carefully removes the tie from the Uchiha’s hair.

As it turns out the older man’s hair is not only as soft as Tobirama had thought it would be, it is remarkably tangle free and felt like the finest silk between his fingers. Gods how he wished he could run his fingers through these locks again. Lightly digging his fingers into the professor’s scalp, Tobirama is surprised to hear the older man let out a content hum. Who would have guessed Professor Uchiha liked having his hair played with? Perhaps Tobirama could use that in the future to get what he wanted.

“Where...?” The groggy voice snaps Tobirama out of his pleasant daydream and he quickly, albeit carefully, pulls his hand back.

“Professor, are you awake now?” Tobirama asks, brushing the older man’s bangs out of his face so he can check how dilated the other’s pupils are.

“Senju?” Madara mutters, confusion clear in his tone as he struggles to remember what happened. “You...drugged me?”

“No!” Tobirama yelps, not wanting the gorgeous man to get the wrong impression, “I did a favor for my brother!”

“Hashirama drugged me?” Madara questions, carefully sitting up with his student’s help.

“No,” Tobirama sighs, running a hand through his hair, “someone else drugged you when you went to have a drink with my brother. Hashirama dealt with the person, but he was worried about you, so he asked me to bring you to his house and keep an eye on you until he got home. How are you feeling?”

“Confused,” Madara admits, running a hand through his hair, “didn’t I have my hair up?”

“The tie came loose when I got you here,” Tobirama lies, handing the strip of leather over to him, “I tried to tie it back but it has a mind of its own.”

“So you’ve been watching over me then?”

“Yes, is that okay?”

“Sure,” Madara shrugs, looking at his student thoughtfully, “you’re one of my more responsible students.”

“I didn’t realize you knew I existed,” Tobirama admits and the Uchiha chuckles, a grin lighting up his face.

“You’re Hashirama’s little brother, I recognized you the second you walked into my classroom,” Madara says, grin still fond, if not amused, “thankfully you’re nowhere near the disaster your brother was when we were in class together.”

“I’m insulted you thought I was,” Tobirama huffs, “Hashirama is an absolute buffoon. Though at least he knows when people are flirting with him, unlike a certain professor I have.”

“Oh I know when my students are flirting with me,” Madara snorts, rolling his eyes, “none of them are worth getting fired over.”

“Well there goes my shot of fucking you over your desk,” Tobirama jokes, flushing when he realizes what he’s just said. He’s about to quickly retract the statement, until he sees the blush dusting his professor’s cheeks and the considering look in his eyes.

“Does it have to be my desk?” Madara blurts and the Senju’s eyes widen, this night just kept getting better and better.

“You were drugged and unconscious for who knows how long,” Tobirama points out, “that would be taking advantage of you.”

“How noble of you, stupid, but noble,” Madara sighs, slumping back against the couch, “how about you come see me at the end of my office hours tomorrow? It’s Friday so no one will try and bug me and you can’t say I’m still being influenced.”

“You’re serious,” Tobirama mutters, and Professor Uchiha nods, making the Senju smirk, “as long as you wear your hair up.”

“Deal.”

Tobirama contemplates not showing up to Professor Uchiha’s office the next day, still not entirely convinced the professor had meant what he said, but decides it would be silly to pass up such a chance. Worst case scenario he’d pretend he was checking on his grade for the semester. As the Senju makes his way to his professor’s office he notes that the rest of the science department have either left for the weekend or are packing up. That wasn’t too surprising, Madara was one of the few that made his office hours Friday afternoon; most professors wanted to start the weekend as soon as they could.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d show up,” Madara comments as Tobirama shuts the door behind him, the Uchiha’s hair once more tied up in a high ponytail.

“I wasn’t sure if you were serious or not,” Tobirama admits with a shrug as he drops his backpack into the seat across from the older man, “for all I know this is a set up.”

“I hardly need you to come here to set you up, all I would need to do is tell Hashirama you took advantage of me inside his home.”

“I did no such thing!” Tobirama growls, slamming his hands down on the desk as he glares at the Uchiha, who just smirks.

“Who do you think Hashirama would believe?” Madara challenges with a raised eyebrow, “me, his best friend who was unconscious and drugged, or you, his brother with known morality issues?”

“The corpse thing was one time!” Tobirama snaps, grinding his teeth together to prevent anymore stupid confessions.

“My point stands,” Madara chuckles, “I have the advantage in this situation.”

“If you were just going to blackmail me why wait until today?” Tobirama forces out, the words bitter across his tongue.

“One, I didn’t want to jump you at Hashirama’s house, and two, you’re no longer one of my students now.”

“Wha-?” Tobirama’s eyes widen before he even finishes the question. Of course, this was a shortened course and the final project was due earlier in the week. Tobirama was willing to bet his final grade was already submitted to the university so, in the unlikely event they were caught, Madara wouldn’t lose his job. Suddenly all of Madara’s taunting made sense, he was waiting for his office hours to officially end. “So how are we going to do this Professor?”

“Fantasy for a fantasy?”

“The noble Professor Uchiha has a dirty fantasy about fucking one of his students?” Tobirama teases with a smirk, “I can’t wait to hear it.”

“You want to fuck me over my desk, I want you to blow me under it,” Madara mutters, pink dusting his cheeks.

Tobirama pretends to give the offer some thought, he would pretty much do anything to bend the Uchiha over his desk, so while blowjobs weren’t his favorite thing, it was definitely worth it. Not to the mention the thought of opening Madara up and fucking into a second orgasm was too good a treat to pass up. “I suppose that’s doable.”

“If only Hashirama could see his baby brother now.”

“First, I’m not his baby brother that’s Itama,” Tobirama states as he crawls under the large wooden desk, “and second if you bring Hashirama up again I’m going to bite you.”

“If you bite my dick you’re not going to fuck me,” Madara warns as he slides his chair back into place, trapping Tobirama between the back of the desk and his legs.

Tobirama rolls his eyes, Madara was leaving this room limping one way or another, only to frown when he realizes he doesn’t have the leverage to unzip Madara’s pants. “Are you going to whip your dick out or do I have to do everything?”

“So needy,” Madara chuckles even as he frees his already hard cock, revealing just how much he wants the Senju under his desk.

Instead of responding verbally Tobirama leans forward and takes Madara’s cock to the base, dragging a startled moan from the Uchiha. Just because this wasn’t Tobirama’s favorite technique, didn’t mean he wasn’t good at it thanks to his lack of a gag reflex.

“Oh fuck!” Madara snarls, thrusting forward as he grabs a fistful of white hair, “of course you’re good at this too.”

Tobirama chuckles at the comment, loving the whine he gets from Madara, before he slowly starts to bob his head. Just when Madara has a chance to adjust to the pace, Tobirama hums, curling his tongue around the underside as he pulls off with a wet pop. “So glad you approve of my skill,” Tobirama purrs, lightly nibbling on the older man’s length, “Professor.”

“Fucking tease,” Madara whimpers, trying to tug Tobirama back to where he wants him, but the former student just smirks as he continues his slow pace.

“I really need that A Professor,” Tobirama mutters, his lips brushing against Madara’s shaft as he speaks, “I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

“Goddamn,” Madara curses, tightening his grip on Tobirama’s hair; he hadn’t expected the Senju to play his part so well. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Pretty please Professor?” Tobirama pushes his lips out in an exaggerated pout, “I’ll lose my scholarship without it.” He slowly takes the Uchiha back into his mouth, hollowing out his cheeks obscenely as his lips meet Madara’s pelvis.

“Fuck!” Madara snarls, bucking his hips up without meaning to, Tobirama looked like he belonged on the set of one of those cheap pornos.

Tobirama hums in encouragement, picking up speed as he does. Madara barely lasts another minute before he yanks Tobirama down harshly and his release crashes over him. The Senju jerks slightly, but he quickly recovers and swallows the cum, wiping his chin on Madara’s pant leg once he can move.

“Goddamn Tobirama,” Madara pants, leaning back in his chair, “that mouth of yours shouldn’t be legal.”

“You better not make me wait for my turn old man,” Tobirama teases, nudging the chair back until he can crawl out from under the desk. His knees and back ache a little from holding that position so long, but the arousal coursing through his veins makes it easy to ignore.

“Fuck you,” Madara grumbles, waving a hand thoughtlessly in a ‘get on with it’ motion.

Tobirama smirks as he lets his eyes trail over them man he’s desired for half a semester. When Madara’s eyes slip closed for a moment, Tobirama strikes, one hand grabbing that damn ponytail. Before Madara can react, Tobirama yanks him out of his chair and pushes him down on his desk in one swift movement.

“Damn!” Madara hisses, tired body protesting the sudden movement, “what the hell Senju?!”

“You’ve been very naughty Professor,” Tobirama mutters, draping himself over the older man’s back so he can whisper directly into his ear. “Always looking so fuckable in class...I should punish you, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Tobirama-!” Madara’s words are cut off by a moan when his hair is yanked, hard.

“Hush now Professor, this isn’t one of your lectures,” Tobirama continues as he straightens up to look at the enticing sight before him. Madara looked even better spread across his own desk than Tobirama had thought he would. “You have no idea how distracting you are, do you? I think it’s about time someone fucked some sense into you.”

“This isn’t funny Senju” Madara states, getting his arms under him so he can push back against his former student. “You need to leave.”

“None of that now,” Tobirama tuts, yanking the Uchiha’s arms behind his back. Realizing Madara wants to play that kind of game, Tobirama smirks as he uses the man’s own hair to tie his wrists in place.

“Bastard,” Madara grumbles, tugging experimentally at his arms, only to moan at the burn in his scalp; his hair would hate him for this later, but at the moment Madara didn’t care.

“That’s better,” Tobirama purrs, leaning forward to suck a hickey on the back of Madara’s neck; it would be easily hidden by the man’s hair, but that wasn’t the point. “Now let’s get to the real reason you’re everyone’s favorite teacher,” Tobirama mutters, removing the older man’s belt and shoving his pants to the ground. “No underwear, how risque.”

“Fuck you,” Madara mutters, whimpering when his student’s hands roughly grope his ass, “I’ll fail you for this you brat.”

“Unlikely,” Tobirama chuckles, leaning over the professor to grab his backpack and drop it behind the desk. He lets Madara wonder what he’s doing for a moment before he slips a now lubed finger into the Uchiha. “I’m going to fuck you so hard Professor that you’ll be addicted to my cock.”

“You’ll be expelled for this,” Madara spits, even as he moans and thrusts back, impaling himself further on the invading finger. “You’ve just ruined your life, hope it’s worth it.”

“It’s so cute you think the university will take your side,” Tobirama chuckles, quickly working a second finger into Madara, “when the Senju family are their biggest donors. The only one that will get in trouble is you, Professor.”

“I’m not the one fucking his teacher over his desk,” Madara groans, biting back a whimper when a third finger slips in almost too soon, “the department head no less.”

“Titles mean nothing to the university as long as they get paid,” Tobirama chuckles, curling his fingers until the older man cries out, “you’re mine and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Bastard,” Madara whines as the pale fingers slip free.

“I’ll make it good for you,” Tobirama promises, freeing and coating his cock in lube before he roughly thrusts into the bound man under him. Madara practically howls, but the Senju knows it's more from pleasure than pain.

“Fuck!” Madara snarls, body jerking as Tobirama immediately sets a brutal pace. Instead of getting him away from the cock sawing him in two, all Madara manages to do is tighten the knot of hair around his wrists, forcing his head back at an awkward angle.

“You feel so good Professor,” Tobirama moans, digging his nails into Madara’s ass, wanting to leave behind as many marks as he can. “I think you missed your true calling in life.”

“I swear-ah!” A particularly hard jab to his prostate has Madara choking back a sob of pleasure, “I’m gonna kick your ass!”

“Are you threatening me Professor?” Tobirama chuckles, grabbing at the base of Madara’s ponytail and yanking until he’s sure the older man can’t breath, “I’m sure I misheard you.”

“Senju…!” Madara gasps, stars dancing behind his eyes as Tobirama pulls him back to meet his next thrust.

“Say my name Professor,” Tobirama growls, picking up the speed of his thrusts.

Madara tries to fight it, but between the abuse to his prostate and the lack of air, his brightest student’s name tumbles out. “T-Tobirama…”

“Such a good boy,” Tobirama purrs, returning both hands to Madara’s hips so he can yank the older man back to meet each increasingly brutal thrust.

Madara greedily sucks in air as his head lolls forward as far as it can. The chemistry professor knew he wouldn’t last much longer, no one had managed to play his body as well as Tobirama was in a long time. “Tobirama...please...I-I...need…”

“Is this what you need Professor?” Tobirama mutters, shifting one hand to grab Madara’s leaking cock in a firm grip. “Do you need to come again?”

“Please!” Madara begs, too far gone to care how pathetic he must look.

“Anything for my favorite professor,” Tobirama chuckles, stroking the hard flesh in time with his thrusts. Madara makes it half a dozen thrusts before he comes with a wordless cry, his release splattering the top of the desk. Tobirama moans as the muscles around his cock grip him like a vice, pressing in as deep as he can before his orgasm hits.

“Shit,” Madara pants, whining as he is pressed down harder into the desk, his own cum staining his shirt.

“Your ass is even better than I thought it would be,” Tobirama chuckles, using one hand to keep Madara pressed down while his other hand rummages through his backpack again. Finding what he’s looking for Tobirama smirks and carefully pulls out of Madara. “I brought you a present Professor.”

“Wha-?!” Madara has to bite back a sob of pained pleasure as he feels something hard stretch his entrance open farther.

“I would hate for you to make a mess in your office,” Tobirama continues like Madara hasn’t spoken, firmly pressing the glass plug the rest of the way in. The Senju hums as he admires his handing work, one finger lightly tracing the edge of the toy.

“Enough,” Madara whimpers as the sinful finger pushes inside, his over sensitized nerves burning at the new stretch, “please.”

Tobirama just hums in agreement as he retracts his hand and fixes Madara’s pants for him. Carefully freeing the older man’s wrists, Tobirama runs a soothing hand the tangled locks of hair. “Hush now Professor,” the Senju mutters, enjoying the whimper when he gently sets Madara into his office chair, “I’ll take care of you.”

Madara can only grumble in response, too tired to offer much of a complaint. He’s vaguely aware of Tobirama cleaning off his desk as he drifts in and out of consciousness. A sudden weight in his lab draws him back to his office with a pained grunt as the plug is forced deeper. “What are you doing?” Madara demands, glaring at the younger man straddling his lap, “our deal is done.”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said you were mine now,” Tobirama says, bringing a collar into view, “now the question is, will you accept it?”

Madara stares at the collar for a long moment, realizing that Tobirama wanted him for more than a one time fling. That thought shouldn’t warm his heart nearly as much as it did, but it had been so long since he’d had a good dom. Instead of responding verbally, Madara just tilts his chin up, offering Tobirama free access to his neck.

Tobirama grins as he carefully fastens his collar around Madara’s beautifully pale neck; he’d never given out his collar before. “Thank you,” he mutters, using the collar to pull Madara down into their first kiss.

“No, thank you,” Madara chuckles after Tobirama pulls back just enough that their lips brush as he speaks. When the Senju grins stupidly like his older brother, Madara rolls his eyes, tugging Tobirama back in for another kiss.